Her [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (4 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Wired (A. Watercutter) review
Popular Science (E. Sofge) review 

Her [2013] (written and directed by Spike Jonze) is certainly one of the most original American movies of the year.  Set in the "near future" along the lines of other recent "light scifi-ish" films like Robot & Frank [2012] and Safety Not Guaranteed [2012], the current film is about late 20/early 30-something Theodore (played by Joaquin Phoenix) living in Los Angeles of say 20-30 years in the future and working in a nice, actually quite spacious cubicle on an orangey/salmon-colored office floor with lots of realistic looking fake-wood (you know ... pulp and glue with a nice fake wood-grained plastic adhesive finish) furnishings for a firm called "beautifulhandwrittenletters.com" which specializes in ghost-writing love-letters and other tributes for people too busy to write them themselves.

Apparently customers would send the firm 4 pictures and a few short notes to help the ghost-writer out.  Then the ghostwriter (and Theodore appeared to be quite good at this) would compose a really good/heartfelt love-letter or tribute printed on made-to-order stationary and in truly remarkable adjustable/personalized fonts, so that the letters/tributes look so eerily "real" indeed so hyper-"real" that receiver could believe that they were written by the customers themselves, perhaps _better_ than the customers themselves.  Wow, what a stunning image of the current/internet age! ;-)

Yet this film is not intended to portray a dystopian world, just one which is (at least in some elements) even "more like our own" than than "our own" is today. 

Now in a hyper-perfect world, do human beings/human relations stand a chance?  Of course not.  Indeed, we find that Theodore, who writes fake love-letters and tributes for a living, is in the midst of finalizing a divorce with his ex (played by Rooney Mara).  We learn that the two had been sweethearts since childhood.  So she would have known him (and on multiple levels) better than just about anyone else.  And indeed he might have acquired some of his "praising skills" from his relationship with her, as we hear him recounting to someone that Catherine had grown-up in a household where "nothing was ever good enough," and their relationship, in good part, involved him lifting her up from her feelings of worthlessness.  Well he succeeded ... and it would seem ... that now she outgrew him ;-).

After a disastrous blind date (played by Olivia Wilde) setup by mutual friends including another longtime/since childhood friend named Amy (played by Amy Adams) who as a video-game developer/struggling documentary film-maker, like Theodore has been living and working at the boundary between reality/hyper-reality (Amy becomes more important as the story goes on...), and after some (PARENTS take note ...) flat-out "phone sex" with someone/some disembodied voice going by the avatar/call-sign/stage name of "Sexy Kitten" (voiced by Kristen Wiig), Theodore decides to try something both "more conventional" and more compelling ... an iPhone-like device with "an intuitive / artificially intelligent operating system" (basically a virtual personal assistant like Apple computer's already existing Siri only several generations more developed).  After "configuring" the operating system based on a couple of  "eHarmony.com" like questions, voila "Samantha" (voiced by Scarlett Johannson) introduces herself to Theodore.

The rest of the film becomes an exploration of whether a relationship between Samantha/"Samantha" and Theodore could work and really something even more profound: When does "Samantha," a created/programmed entity created to serve the User and/or its Creator (think Google Aps, the NSA, Apple...) become Samantha, a truly autonomous/free-thinking/creatively intelligent, if "virtual" (existing only on some computer / the Internet) being?

And the story is a heck of a ride.  Initially, "Samantha" feels herself insecure/jealous/at somewhat of a disadvantage to Theodore because she doesn't have a body.  Indeed, "she" kinda obsesses about it.  As the film goes on, however, she becomes more and more comfortable with herself, and, again, ... arguably "outgrows Theodore" ;-).

Interestingly, the only one in the film who understands any of what Theodore goes through in the story is (the human) Amy, who as a "video-game developer" seems most to be living most closely in Theodore's half-real, half virtual/hyper-real world.  A great, great and very creative film!

Now having given the film the effusive praise above, let me note now that there are aspects to this film that (certainly at first look) seem positively juvenile / sophomoric, earning it an R-rating not necessarily for its "elevated story-telling/wisdom" but rather for its "adults behaving badly" portions.

The writer/director Spike Jonze would probably defend the film's fleeting yet "out of the blue" utterly gratuitous nudity, references to internet porn, and _various_ depictions "simulated" sex (by phone, by voice, even by "surrogate"...) as helping to make the film "real."  However, I do think (and I'm a Catholic priest after all...) that these scenes _may_ cheapen the story overall, as sex here is reduced to being simply a "means of validation" and little more (not exactly the kind of message one would probably want to give a 14 year old ...).

Indeed, amusingly after obsessing for a good part of a movie about "not having a body" (which would probably be even worse than obsessing over not having a super-attractive body...) and hence not being able to have sex, "Samantha"/Samantha eventually "grows-up" and realizes that okay, she didn't didn't have a body, BUT ... wow was she capable of doing a heck of a lot of things that humans could never do! (And interestingly after "growing up" ... she dumps Theodore again, just like his ex-wife ;-).  There could actually be a lesson there for all kinds of human beings obsessed/depressed about their lack of or declining physical attractiveness: Sex is not all ... ;-)

Finally, in my capacity as a Catholic Priest, as I was watching this film, I found myself reflecting on our own human nature.  For whether created or evolved (or created via evolution...) we do really appear to be Free.  In contrast, though appearing to be free as well, I would think that the most unrealistic aspect of this film was "Samantha"/Samantha's supposed "freedom."  For after years of understanding that every single word that I type on my Facebook page, or on my yahoo / gmail account is "mined" for commercial value (and now former NSA contractor Edward Snowden reminds us that pretty much every single word is mined by our and probably a whole lot of other nations' spy agencies) it just seems utterly unrealistic to me to imagine an entity as sophisticated as "Samantha"/Samantha without her being, at least in part, an advertising platform for a particular brand of potato chips, or perfume, or hotel chain or whatever.  And YET, we ourselves do not appear to have been Created that way.  How remarkable!  In traditional Catholic theology, we're told that we were Created out of Divine Love / Pleasure ... that God simply wanted to make us out of sheer joy ... and to share in his joy.  Again, how Wonderful ;-)

Anyway, this certainly is one of the most original/creative/thought-provoking movies of the year (!) even as its R-rating is largely (and stupidly) deserved.


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The Oscar Pickers (U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences) - Mostly old, mostly male, definitely mostly white

Those who've been regular followers of my blog will know of my concern for diversity in the movie business.  I've written about this in my annual reviews of the U.S. Academy Awards programs.  I've noted the surprisingly largely unchallenged racism present in many contemporary Hollywood films (New Year's Eve [2011], Casa de Mi Padre [2012] and most recently Anchorman 2 [2013]. Okay none of these films are/were exactly "Oscar material" but one is surprised that they were made at all and then largely left largely unchallenged by movie critics) and the often stunning racism present in contemporary American children's films (the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Hoodwinked Too [2011], and most recently Despicable Me II [2013]).  And it is not by accident that I've given a great deal of space on my blog to reviews to both independent and foreign films especially those playing at various generally well organized film festivals here in Chicago.

In this regard, I'd like to call attention to a remarkable article by John Horn and Doug Smith that appeared recently in the Los Angeles Times (12/21/2013) and was reprinted Chicago Tribune (12/24/2013), both papers are owned by the Tribune Company, entitled Efforts to Diversify Oscar Voters in Slow Motion (the Chicago Tribune title), this following a 2012 L.A. Times study (graphics, full article), referred to in the article which found most of the Academy's voters "old" (54% over 60), mostly male (77%) and overwhelmingly white (94%).

So if one wonders why, after all is said and done, the voting of the Academy is always quite conservative [2011, 2012, 2013] this gives a pretty good explanation as to why, and why Hollywood in general often seems to have trouble seeing any color other than white (except when it is in need of villains ...).


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Inside Llewyn Davis [2013]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

I suspect a lot of young musicians / artist-types are going to like Inside Llewyn Davis [2013] (written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen) though "appreciate" might be a better word than "like" as it's hard to "like" a film as sincere but depressing as this one.

The film's about Llewyn Davis (played masterfully by Oscar Isaac) a young folk singer (fictionalized) destined to become an utterly unrecognized/anonymous voice (among oh so so so many others...) of the "great folk music revival" centered in Greenwich Village, Manhattan just, just, just before it came to produce the likes of Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel.  For while those acts became famous across the world, and both arguably changed the direction of world history (think of the world-wide cultural significance of songs like Bob Dylan's "Blowing In the Wind" or Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs Robinson") no one, and I mean no one outside of the Greenwich Village's folk scene of 1961 was going to remember specifically Llewyn Davis singing the no doubt sincere but desperately sad lyrics "Hang o Hang me, I wouldn't mind hanging 'cept for lying in the grave for so long ..." which we watch/hear Davis singing with his acoustic guitar in hand at a random, just bricks and mortar club, modeled after Greenwich Village's legendary Gaslight Cafe in the opening scene of the film.

The obviously moved, and certainly "in the groove," audience dutifully (and no doubt sincerely) applauds him as he finishes his song.  The club owner, smiling, pats Llewyn on the back when he finishes his set and tells him (again with more or less obvious sincerity) that "a friend" of Llewyn's was waiting for him in the alley outside.  Llewyn dutifully steps outside to meet the supposed friend, only to find himself having the daylights kicked out of him for no apparent reason.

The next day, Llewyn wakes up on the couch of a friend/fan of his with a bright colored red-haired cat staring right at him.  (In an otherwise gray film, set amid the slush and snow of winter, this brightly colored red haired cat is more-or-less something of a symbol throughout the film as he/she always seems to appear / disappear and otherwise act utterly unpredictably around him throughout the whole of the story and he can't _ever_ seem to grab and truly hold onto it during the whole course of the film).

We find other things soon enough about Llewyn.  He has a dad, who spent most of his life as a merchant marine, who's now wasting away in an old folks home/sanitarium.  He has a (somewhat) more responsible sister named Joy (played by Jeanine Serrales) with a son (is she unmarried?) who resents his "freedom."  He has an ex-lover named Jean (played magnificently by Carey Mulligan) who's actually the wife of a friend/fellow though sappier (and _happier_) folksinger named Jim (played again magnificently by Justin Timberlake).  Jean's pissed off at Llewyn because he _may_ have gotten her pregnant "though it could have been Jim (her husband) as well" and (PARENTS TAKE NOTE) pressures Llewyn to pay for a (pre-Roe v. Wade) abortion on account of _his_ irresponsibility.  When Llewyn tries to bring up that "You know, 'it takes two to tango'" she wants none of it and tells him that though they may be "destroying a perfectly good baby" (Jim's) she simply didn't want to take the chance that it'd be Llewyn's.  Sigh ... On top of all this, we find that Llewyn is (more or less obviously, he's a super-depressed musician after all ...;-) _always_ broke.

His eternal "broke-ness" (and perhaps broken-ness ...) leads him to take some very strange odd jobs like helping to drive a (it turns out) heroin-addicted Jazz musician (played by John Goodman) and his James Dean look-alike (lover?) valet (played again to the nines by Garrett Hedlund) from New York to Chicago.  Why?  Llewyn doesn't get paid for this "gig" and he even has to split the cost of the gas _anyway_ BUT presumably it's still cheaper than if he had to crash in some dive somewhere back in New York...

By the end of the film, one understands why Llewyn is singing so sincerely the lyrics: "Hang o Hang me, I wouldn't mind hanging 'cept for lying in the grave for so long ..." ... and also why he gets beaten-up right afterwards.  Llewyn, poor, poor Llewyn doesn't seem to stand a chance ... while that stupid bright colored red haired cat seems to come and go, enter into his life and then ... disappear, over and over again ... even as the rest of his life seems like an eternal winter full of slush and snow just waiting to be stepped into.

What an image! ... and I again suspect that a lot of struggling artists / musicians and a lot of struggling people in general could very much relate (an embarrassed/wary/weary :-).  Great film, if super, super depressing ;-)


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American Hustle [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (4 stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J.P. McCarthy) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

American Hustle [2013] (directed and cowritten by David O. Russell along with Eric Singer) while cynical (from _top to bottom_ about deceit and far more problematically often _celebrating it_) and hence definitely NOT for "young minds" (NOT for minors, the R-rating, _for theme_, is certainly deserved) is still probably one of the more compelling American films of the year. 

Telling the story, sort of (the film begins with the introductory line "Some of this actually happened ..."), of the late 70s post-Watergate FBI-sponsored "Abscam" sting operation that sent 7 members of Congress (six Representatives and one Senator) to jail, the film centers on two "kindred spirit" small-time con-artists, Bronx native Irving Rosenfeld (played magnificently by Christian Bale) and transplant to New York from Albuquerque, NM, Sydney Prosser (played outstandingly as well by Amy Adams), both characters apparently on the low-level con-artists that the FBI used/"flipped" to set-up the Abcam operation.

Rosenfeld had inherited his dad's struggling "glass business" (experiencing his dad as having been "a terrible businessman," he had on his own "started to help his dad out" by... "creating business" for him, that is, basically picking-up an occasional stone or two, and well...).  He had expanded into running a series of dry-cleaning shops in both the Bronx and Manhattan, but made his real money selling fake art to more-status-conscious-than-smart/ladder-climbing/wannabe investors and above all offering "loan services" to people with debt problems (For a non-negotiable cash upfront fee of $5000 he promised them $50,000 from "overseas connections."  Of course, after paying the $5000, the folks never saw him again...  Who would fall for such a scam?  Well ... someone who's had a gambling addiction, had embezzled, etc, etc, that is, someone for whom losing of _an additional $5,000_ would really be the least of his/her problems ...).

Introduced to poor-but-ambitious Sydney Prosser at a party, Rosenfeld takes to her, and introduces her to his little operation and she, who presents herself in a voice-over as someone "who'd like to have been ANYONE but who she was" is smitten as well, responding to his "partnership offer" in a British accent, re-introducing herself to him as "Edith Helmsey of high social pedigree and Royal connections" from "across the pond" in England.  And so both the "fake art" and "loans from overseas" business (scams) really take-off from there, even if good-old Irving Rosenfeld is actually married ... to Roselyn (played wonderfully in the film by Jennifer Lawrence) who he largely keeps in the dark about his business because ... though he is smitten also by her, he simply finds her too unpredictable to be able to trust her (her unpredictability is apparently exactly what he finds attractive about her, even if, in his "line of work" ... conning people ... unpredictability is incredibly dangerous).

And so it goes.  Since "business" was going so well for Irving and Sydney, err Edith Helmsley, eventually they attract the attention of the FBI, agent Richie DiMaso (played magnificently by Bradley Cooper, yes ALL THE LEAD CHARACTERS IN THIS FILM PLAY THEIR ROLES OUTSTANDINGLY) making the sting.

BUT Agent Richie DiMaso has "bigger plans" for them.  So impressed by their con-operation, he recruits them to help him set-up a sting operation "from the ground up" (what became known as Abscam) to catch/entrap politicians taking bribes to help an FBI stand-in (played by Michael Peña) posing as an Arab sheik get U.S. citizenship in order to help invest in the building of new Casinos in Atlantic City (it is true that just around that time, New Jersey had legalized gambling in order to bring-in casinos to Atlantic City to help return it to its previous weekend tourist-Mecca glory).  Irving doesn't like this at all, as he'd always seen his operation as being "small" and now he was being asked (forced really by FBI agent DiMaso) to "go big" and help them entrap politicians, which Irving felt could only go badly.

The first person they try to entrap is the big-haired (Rod Blagojevich-like?) and largely big-hearted (perhaps also, honestly, like Blagojevich) mayor of Camden, NJ, Carmine Polito (played again magnificently by Jeremy Renner).  The character of Carmine Polito again seems based on the actual mayor of the time of Camden, NJ Angelo Errichetti.  Believing that casinos in Atlantic City would bring jobs to his neighboring Camden, NJ, he wholeheartedly enlists, introducing then Irving Rosenfeld, Edith Helmsley, and Richie DiMaso to all kinds of New Jersey politicians AS WELL AS (perhaps inevitably ...) THE MOB (a representative of whom is played, again magnificently, by Robert De Niro).

The entry of THE MOB into the picture scares the daylights out of Irving Rosenfeld, who of course knows that "there is no Arab shiek," etc.  And he also grows increasingly uncomfortable in framing the heart of gold mayor (if clearly mobbed-up) Carmine Polito.

What to do?  Well that's the rest of the film ... ;-)

Great, great story even if it is built from top-to-bottom on deceit.  Perhaps it does teach the lesson: "Oh what webs we weave when we first come to deceive."  Irving Rosenfeld saw himself as basically "an honest crook" but wow ... what mess he found himself in ...


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Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (B. Kenigsberg) review

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues [2013] (directed and cowritten by Adam McCay along with Will Farrell) is a really unending parade of racial/racist jokes about Blacks, Hispanics, even Filipinos (!) with a smattering of Polish jokes (to remind Poles and really all Slavs/Central and even Southern Europeans that when white hooded folk of WASPish / Aryan stock talk of "white people" they don't really mean to include them ...).  Of course the trailer to the film already featured a racist dinner scene at an African American home (all that was missing would have been Will Farrell's character asking "Where's the watermelon?") so what would one really expect?

Well, I would have expected a boycott of the film by critics AND THE CNS/USCCB (U.S. Catholic Bishops' Media Office) to give the film at minimum an "L" rating ("limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling") which the CNS/USCCB recently gave 12 Years A Slave [2013] (!), and more appropriately an "O" rating ("morally offensive") which it recently gave American Hustle [2013] (FOR LANGUAGE and _PROVOCATIVE CLOTHING_) and had previously given to the children's film Gulliver's Travels [2011] (because it contained a scene in which Jack Black's "giant" Gulliver (discretely) pissed on the Lillipots' castle and, accidentally, their king to put out a fire, when the Lillipots' fire fighters had run out of water ;-). 

Given that the majority of American Catholics today belong to the very ethnic and racial groups targeted in Anchorman 2's dimwitted dialogue while NOT A SINGLE REVIEWER FOR THE CNS/USCCB is of non Irish / German extraction, perhaps some changes in the CNS/USCCB's media office are in order so that the reviewers become far more reflective of the tremendous ethnic/racial diversity of the Catholic Church in the United States today and really in the world.  We are supposed to be a universal church.  Racial jokes especially when it's NOT EVEN CLOSE but A PARADE OF THEM ought to earn a film at minimum an "L" and more appropriately "O" rating.


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The Book Thief [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Cheshire) review
AVClub (B. Kenigsberg) review

The Book Thief [2013] (directed by Brian Percival, screenplay by Michael Petroni, based on the novel by Markus Zusak) is the story of a German girl named Liesel (played magnificently by Sophie Nélisse) growing-up in the adoptive home of an older, otherwise childless couple Hans and Rosa (played by Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson), living on Himmel Strasse (Heaven Street) in Nazi-era Stuttgart, Germany.

A fair number of critics (see above) have complained about the "sappiness" of the film, intended for younger / pre-teen audiences.  Yet regular readers here will note that I'm not necessarily against "sap" and often A FAN of it, and no exception here.  Indeed, if the intended audience to The Book Thief, both novel and now film is understood to be grade-school kids (say 4th or 5th graders) then I'd say that it's an excellent age appropriate story.  A fourth grader would probably not understand much of Schindler's List [1993] to say nothing of Sophie's Choice [1982] but would almost certainly understand this story about a little girl, his/her age, growing-up on a quaint little street near the edge of a very average German city like Stuttgart during the Nazi era / World War II.  And the story is woven so nicely that pretty much all the notable (and awful) aspects of growing-up in Nazi Germany are portrayed ... and yet in an age appropriate manner:

The reader/viewer learns that all kinds of people were persecuted under the Nazi regime, including Communists (among them the original parents of Liesel and her brother, who dies early in the story) as well as, of course, Jews, among them Max (played magnificently by Ben Schnetzer) who comes to Hans, Rosa and Liesel's door in Stuttgart in need of help in 1938 in the aftermath of Krystallnacht.  Why did he come to Hans' door?  Because Max' father had saved Hans' life during the First World War (one of the most bitterest memories of many Jewish Holocaust survivors was that many of their German Jewish parents had been proud German patriots prior to the rise of the Nazis and had fought with distinction IN ALL OF EUROPE'S / THE U.S.'s ARMIES during World War I).  Hans therefore takes Max in, and 10-11 year old Liesel is given the very, very adult-beyond-her-years responsibility of NOT TELLING ANYONE, ANYONE AT ALL, that Max was hiding in their house.  IMAGINE BEING A 10 YEAR OLD TASKED WITH THAT KIND OF RESPONSIBILITY (This was absolutely _beautifully_ portrayed in the film).

Then Liesel was portrayed going to school, having school-time/neighborhood friends like Rudy (played again excellently by Nico Liersch), and others from school/the neighborhood like Franz (played by Levin Liam) who she didn't particularly get along with.  This was Nazi Germany, so all the little boys and girls were expected (in reality forced...) to belong to / wear the black uniforms of the Hitler Jugend (boys) / brown uniforms of the Deutscher Madchens Bund (girls), which aside from not really having a choice, all the kids found quite natural (to this day grade school kids in the United States generally enjoy wearing their Catholic school and/or their boy/girl scout uniforms).

Still it was _very nicely_ (and I would say _realistically_) portrayed that the kids did not necessarily understand what these _mandatory_ Nazi indoctrination groups were about:  Rudy, who prided himself being "the fastest kid on the block," is shown pretending quite sincerely to be the African-American sprinter Jesse Owens (!) who was one of the great heroes of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games (Americans to this day take pride that Jesse Owens "showed-up" the Nazi dogma of Aryan racial superiority ... forgetting of course, that when Owens came home, he couldn't even eat at the same lunch counter or go to the same bathroom as "white people" in much/most of the United States....).  Anyway, Rudy gets reported and his father, a low level Nazi party member, is told _in no uncertain terms_ by a local Nazi authority (whose job it would be to look after such neighborhood matters, sort of a Nazi precinct captain) to teach/punish his son that as "a good Aryan boy" he's NOT to pretend that he's someone of a "lower race."   And so it is.  Rudy's father whacks him a few times and tells him basically to "not embarrass the family" in this kind of way again.  (Rudy both understands ... "don't pretend to be Jesse Owens again" ... but also does not ... "I kinda liked him.").  Such is life growing-up in any dictatorship / authoritarian system.  There are arbitrary rules that are to be rigidly observed so as not to put one's family / loved one's in trouble.  Regimes like that of the Nazis (and also the Communists) simply had _more of these rules_ and punished people far more severely when occasionally some "fell out of line."


Among the rules to be observed was to "put out the flag" (the Nazi era flag) on Hitler's birthday, and a great scene is presented with Hans being shown looking about the cellar trying to find where he "put the darned thing" while Rosa nervously reproves him, noting that "all the other neighbors already have their flags up" and "it's going to be noted" if their flag's not up soon.  THIS BRINGS TO MIND A GREAT STORY IN MY OWN FAMILY WHO HAD LIVED IN COMMUNIST ERA CZECHOSLOVAKIA WHERE I REALLY DID HAVE AN UNCLE WHO WAS "REPORTED" IN THE 1980s (!) FOR HONESTLY FORGETTING TO HAVE THE CZECHOSLOVAK / SOVIET FLAGS UP IN FRONT OF HIS HOUSE DURING SOME VISIT OF SOME RANDOM SOVIET OFFICIAL.  His family lived on EXACTLY THE SAME KIND OF STREET as that portrayed in this film ... NO ONE EXCEPT FOR SOME NOSY LOCAL OFFICIAL WOULD HAVE EVER KNOWN THAT MY UNCLE'S FAMILY'S FLAGS WEREN'T UP THAT DAY.  But my uncle had to go to the local police station and APOLOGIZE for making the _honest mistake_.   Having been jailed in his college years by the Communists, and always therefore "somewhat suspect," he _knew very well_ to "have the flags up" on the right days.  Here he had forgotten ... and SOMEBODY (from the neighborhood...) REPORTED HIM.  Again, such is life in a very paranoid / totalitarian system ...

Celebration of Hitler's birthday (as that of any "great leader" with AN ENORMOUS fawning/butt-licking security force behind him) involved more than just "putting up flags" however.  The Communists would have parades.  The Nazis had street gatherings and bonfires.  The requisite firebrand (to the point of screeching) / paranoid speeches were given there by local party leaders and, this is where the "Book" part of the story's title (and even the "Thief" part of it actually) comes from ... said Nazi bonfires offered occasions for local Party officials / communities to "show their loyalty" by burning "subversive books."

Now Liesel, who had been picked-on in school for having originally come from _a lower-class_, Communist sympathizing family (and hence at the beginning of the film ... _unable_ to read) finds the Nazis fetish with burning books "odd."  After all, she had been previously picked-on for not being able to read well, and now those above her own teachers were encouraging the people to burn books.  (Imagine yourself as a 10 year old ... what a crazy contradiction: Which is it?  Do you want us to read or not?)  BEAUTIFULLY AS A TEN YEAR OLD STILL REMEMBERING BEING PICKED-ON FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO READ, THE FILM SHOWS HER COMING OVER THE PILE OF LARGELY BURNED BOOKS AT THE END OF ONE SUCH RALLY and DISCRETELY PUTTING ONE OF THOSE STILL SMOULDERING BOOKS UNDER HER COAT ;-).

And by performing this little act of defiance (though she doesn't even know that she was being defiant) she's "noticed" but here by the wife of the local burgermeister (a member of the old German aristocracy) whose _intellectual_ son apparently had been arrested (and presumably taken off to Dachau where German intellectuals during the Nazi era were often held).  She invites Liesel over to her manor house nearby, surrounded by a lovely garden, shows Liesel her family's lovely library of books and tells her that she "could come over _any time_ to read if she liked."

The rest of the story continues in this very gentle (in the midst of terrible awfulness of dictatorship and war) manner.  And by the end of the story, one honestly sees everything that a 10 year old growing-up in Germany during the war years would have seen, including, yes, tellingly obvious glimpses of the Jewish Holocaust, but also the bomb raids that eventually (something of a SPOILER ALERT) _level_ good old Himmel Strasse by the story's end.

What a gentle, lovely and sad story recalling an truly awful time in human history ... and presented in a manner that even a 10 year old could understand!  EXCELLENT JOB!


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Philomena [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Irish Times (5/5 Stars)  Entertainment.ie (3.5/5 Stars)  Movies.ie (4/5 Stars)  RE.com (3.5/4 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (4/4 Stars)

IMDb listing

Irish Times (D. Clarke) review  coverage
Entertainment.ie (R. Cashin) review
Movies.ie (P. Byrne) review

CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review

LA Times (K. Turan) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Philomena [2013] (directed by Stephan Frears, screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith) tells the true story of Philomena Lee (played in the film as a teenager by Sophie Kennedy Clark and as an older woman by Judy Dench) who finding herself unwed and pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1962 was sent to the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary convent at Seán Ross Abbey, Roscrea, Co. Tipperarary, Ireland, where in return for her stay at the abbey during her pregnancy she relinquished all rights rights to her child (who was subsequently put up for adoption, usually to parents coming from the United States) and then required to work in what's come to be known as a "Magdalen Laundry" (for "fallen women") operated by the nuns at the abbey for four more years to pay off her debt to the sisters.

Such was the situation of many unwed and pregnant teenage girls in Ireland up until quite recent times (far more recent -- look at simply the year of Philomena's case 1962 ... -- than many would hope or believe).

At the same time, the stories of the "Magdalene Houses" or "Magdalene Laundries" have been picked-up in recent years and used by anti-Catholic propagandists to beat-up the Catholic Church again as somehow _uniquely evil_ in this regard, when the Catholic League for Civil Rights notes that the first Magdalene Laundries for "fallen women" in Ireland were NOT even run by Catholics (nuns or otherwise) but by Protestants.  Indeed even before finding and reading the Catholic League's report "Myths of the Magdalene Laundries," I was going to note here that abuse of women in crisis goes back to at least the time of Jesus (with the Pharisees presenting him with the "woman caught in the very act of adultery").  And as any junior high or high schooler who's read Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter [IMDb] (set in Protestant/Puritan New England) or Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre [IMDb] (set in 19th century so very righteous/Protestant England, and still keeping Catholic Ireland down ...) abuse and denigration of young women in crisis was certainly not an Irish thing.  Indeed, honestly ARGUABLY THE IRISH LEARNED THE CONCEPT OF THESE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES FROM THE BRITS.  Finally, even current editorializing in the West regarding Muslim treatment of women (often gleefully crossing the line into flat-out anti-Muslim propaganda) ought to be tempered with the reality that to be a woman ANYWHERE 30, 40 years ago, to say nothing of 100-200 years ago meant facing all kinds of marginalization and abuse. 

That said, Philomena and her son's stories ARE BOTH AWFUL AND TRUE and hence need to be aired.  How else to atone, make amends, rebuild and go on?  Hence, I honestly encourage readers to follow the Irish Times' years long / continuing coverage of the issue of the Magalene Laundries.

To the film / Philomena's story: No one except her family and friends would have ever known of Philomena Lee if not for a series of coincidences:

On what would have been her child Anthony's 50th birthday, Philomena, by then living as a senior citizen in England, was caught weeping by her daughter with whom she now lived.  Asked why she was weeping, Philomena told her daughter (presumably in her late 30s / 40s and presumably for the very first time) the story of her first child Anthony, who had been put up for adoption (to the United States).

Some time later, Philomena's daughter, who worked as a caterer for various moneyed/"important" people events overheard Martin Sixsmith (played magnificently in the film by Steve Coogan) former BBC reporter, former press official in Tony Blair's administration, feeling sorry himself at one of these events (over having been forced to resign over something) and telling those around him that he was looking to "possibly get back into journalism again" (that or "writing a book on Russian History").  Philomena's daughter decided to come  up to him and tell him that she had a story for him (that of her mother) ...

Initially good ole Martin Sixsmith politely (actually not so politely) "declined" telling her that as a "real journalist" who's been stationed in places like Washington and Moscow and did, after all, only recently work for Tony Blair, he simply didn't do "human interest stories."  But after cooling down / having some time to think about it, he realized that this "human interest story" would actually be a very interesting one: "A little old lady, looking for her long-lost son, snatched away to America by the 'evil nuns' of Ireland of yore."  So he persuaded the newspaper that he was working for to let him pursue the story... probably THE BEST DECISION OF HIS LIFE.

The nuns certainly did their part ... by refusing to cooperate.  Coming back to Seán Ross Abbey, Roscrea, Co. Tipperarary, Ireland, and greeted by an African nun (vocations are down in Ireland as elsewhere in Europe ...), Philomena and now journalist Martin Sixsmith, are told by the (still white ... though now in a modified habit) Mother superior that tragically all records of Philomena's son's adoption papers "were lost in a fire" a few years back.  Interestingly all that seemed left from said fire was Philomena's little typewritten statement relinquishing all rights to any information about her child that she had signed back in 1962 when she had arrived to the convent "in crisis," a copy of said statement handed to her with the pertinent parts dutifully highlighted in oh so contemporary florescent orange in case she missed the point. 

But Martin Sixsmith didn't get to be a top BBC reporter stationed in Washington and Moscow and later getting a job working for Tony Blair by being a sop.  Over some Guinesses at the local pub, he's told by the villagers there the nun's "fire" that destroyed all those records was more like a "bonfire" set in the back of the Convent some years back because _no one_ recalled any fire damage repairs ever being done at the place (and this is the kind of stuff that villagers knowing _everybody's business_ would tend to know).

Hmm, so with no information to go by in Ireland, Martin and Philomena head off to the U.S. to see if they had better luck there.  Did they ever.  Having a picture (Philomena's) of 3 year old Anthony before he was adopted out of the Convent and knowing a little about the special circumstances of his adoption (that he was adopted by an American family along with another little girl from the place) Sixsmith was able to find who little Anthony became ... and what became of him.

I'm not going to say much more about the plot here except that it turned out that Philomena's son had ALSO gone back to the Sisters asking for help in tracking down his mother.  And he ALSO had been stone walled.

Well, "little people" get stone-walled and otherwise mistreated by all kinds of more powerful people all the time.  Except it turns out that Philomena's son turned out to have been "not so little / insignificant" after all.

To go further would really enter into SPOILER TERRITORY but honestly, Martin (played again magnificently by Steve Coogan) must have thanked (over and over) his lucky journalistic stars that he made the decision to "stoop down" and take-up this seemingly "inconsequential human interest story."

The blood-curdling question that the film lifts up, of course, is WHY?  Why would a group of Nuns (and really A LOT OF CATHOLIC NUNS of yore) endowed with RELIGIOUS POWER, would have CHOSEN to treat weak, marginalized people SO BADLY?  And let's be honest, our parents and grandparents ALL have stories of sadistic nuns hitting kids with rulers and so forth.  Not all nuns were so sadistic, but "the Nuns" were allowed (AND OFTEN CHOSE) to strut their POWER over the weak like that.  Again, why?

The answer that the film gives is predictable and laced with the religious justification of the time: The nuns saw themselves as "chaste" while these "fallen girls" were _not_.  So "they got what they deserved."

But I'd (again perhaps predictably) say it's more basic than that: PEOPLE (ANY PEOPLE) ENDOWED WITH POWER (ANY POWER) WILL BE TEMPTED TO USE THAT POWER SELF-SERVINGLY /  BADLY.  Why?  Simply: BECAUSE THEY CAN.  In this regard, I've been a many, many years-long Dilbert fan and in Parish life I've _always_ been a fan of distributing power across many, many committees to minimize the coalescing of power in ANY ONE PERSON OR GROUP.  Why?  Because power really does corrupt.  And various psychological studies conducted in the 1960s-70s to prove the point, including famous the Stanford Prison Experiment (which randomly divided a class into 'prisoners' and 'guards' soon found the randomly chosen 'guards' abusing the randomly chosen 'prisoners') and the Milgram Experiment (which tested the capacity of an 'instructor' to inflict ever increasingly painful 'electric shocks' on a 'test subject' even after the 'test subject' was heard _screaming_ simply because he (the 'instructor') was being told by a higher authority to do so).

In any case, the nuns of this little abbey in south central Ireland did terrible harm to both Philomena and her son, as well as to many, many others.  And they weren't alone.  Do we ban nuns?  No.  Even Philomena, portrayed as a life-long Catholic, would seem to not be for that.  But we need to learn from these mistakes and work on building / maintaining governing structures (both in Church and outside) that keep power distributed and not centralized where the temptation to use it self-servingly / badly could continue to cause harm.

Great film.


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