About Last Night [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

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

About Last Night [2014] (directed by Steve Pink, screenplay by Leslye Headland, based on screenplay of  the 1986 original screen version by Tim Kazurinsky and Denice DeClue in turn based on the 1974 stage play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" by David Mamet [IMDb]) is definitely an R-rated movie intended for 20-something young adults and above. (Doubting Parents please just take a look again at _the name of stage play_ on which the film based).

The purpose of the original 1974 stage play, the original 1986 film version and now the 2014 remake has always been _in good part_ to shock.  (And yes, "shock" can make for "good comedy," one laughs as one thinks: "I can't believe what I'm seeing/hearing..." ;-).

And so it is, the opening scene of this remake (moved from Chicago to L.A.) has Bernie (played by Kevin Hart) recalling to his more staid best friend / coworker Danny (played by Michael Ealy) in vivid, blow-by-blow, YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY NOT "be there" detail the sexual encounter with a woman named Joan (played by Regina Hall), who he had picked-up in the bar in which they were sitting the night before (the film's called "About Last Night" after all ...).  And even as we hear Bernie recalling that (last) night, we see Joan walking toward said bar with _her more sensible room-mate_ Debbie (played by Joy Bryant) in almost exactly the same detail.  Indeed, as the film is cut, the two are _completing each other's sentences_.

No matter what one may think of Bernie and Joan ... it would seem that they were truly "made for each other" ;-).  And so it should not to all that be surprising that they made a second date, and indeed, invited their two best friends to join them perhaps to validate their experience and to "share their joy."

Well, honestly Bernie and Joan continue to be "made for each other." After introductions between Danny and Debbie are made, Bernie and Joan (each talking a mile a minute) proceed to get absolutely plastered while their more sensible best friends, both somewhat exasperated and somewhat embarrassed, look on.  Eventually, the two drunks "excuse themselves."  We all know what they probably want to do (go somewhere to have ...) but we have a pretty good idea of what they're gonna do (pass out ,,,).

And so it goes ... finally having a chance to talk, Danny and Debbie find that they kinda find each other interesting ... and, well, Debbie ends up spending the night Danny's place.

The next day, Danny and Bernie meet back at work, Danny begins to recall that, to his surprise after Bernie and Joan had left them to themselves, he and Debbie kinda hit it off.  Bernie interrupts him and says, "I know."  "How??" "Joan and Debbie are roommates!"  But, though cutting-off Danny with his story, it's clear that Bernie's happy that his best friend.coworker and his emerging girl-friend's roommate hit it off.

The rest of the movie, up-down-and-all-around, follows....

Now someone in my position, Catholic priest after all, could certainly lament that THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE COURSE OF THE FILM, THROUGHOUT ALL OF THE SEXUAL ACTIVITY (actually relatively discreetly shot, for all the sexual _talk_ very little is actually shown) NOWHERE, NOWHERE, NOWHERE is there ANY DISCUSSION OF MARRIAGE AMONG ANY OF THEM.

ON THE OTHER HAND, ALL FOUR OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS (paired up in basically two on-again / off-again couples throughout the whole of the story) ARE ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED THAT THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL (and indeed, during the course of the film, both couples experience extended periods of breakup).  So I suppose the four would respond "Why talk of marriage, when we're absolutely convinced that somehow / someway it's gonna fail anyway?"  Honestly, FOR SOMEONE LIKE ME, THAT'S INTERESTING.

ALSO INTERESTING TO ME is how the story deals with IMHO the inevitable: The possibility of pregnancy (with all that sex after all...).  Yes, it's clear that they are all practicing birth-control.  Yet despite this, BOTH COUPLES find themselves facing the possibility (in the case of Danny-and-Debbie) or at least talking about the possibility (Bernie-and-Joan).  INTERESTINGLY while ALL FOUR SEEMED CONFLICTED about the possibility of creating (or having created) a child it seemed that ALL FOUR OF THEM WOULD HAVE ACCEPTED THE RESPONSIBILITY OF HAVING THE CHILD (abortion as an option was never considered by any of them).

So for someone like me, this is actually a very interesting movie about: (1) four young people, paired up in two couples, drawn in such a way that WE VIEWERS REALLY DO BELIEVE that each of the two couples "were made for each other", yet THEY THEMSELVES ARE CONVINCED THAT SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY THEY THEMSELVES ARE GOING TO SCREW IT UP and (2) four young people who despite using birth-control and thus CERTAINLY NOT LOOKING to create a kid NEVERTHELESS STILL BEING OPEN IT, IF THEY ENDED UP CREATING A KID ANYWAY.

So certainly, this movie is NOT FOR MINORS.  The R-rating is richly deserved.  And certainly as far as CHURCH TEACHING GOES, the four people in the story DEFINITELY PUT THE CART WAY, WAY, WAY AHEAD OF THE HORSE (having all kinds of sex with each other before even beginning to articulate whether there was a future to their already existent relationship...).

Still, the film is not without value even for a Pastoral worker: How to convince skeptical, fearful, perhaps previously burned young people that serious relationships between two people who really do have a lot in common, who their families / friends see as "made for each other" NEED NOT END IN FAILURE? 

Anyway, while this film wouldn't necessarily make any top-ten list of mine, like the 1986 version (WHICH I SAW as a young adult in my 20s), THIS IS NOT A BAD FILM for _young adults_ (20 somethings) to see.


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Endless Love [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (1 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAlleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

The first thing that a parent ought to know of  Endless Love [2014]  (directed and screenplay by Shana Feste [IMDb] along with Joshua Safran based on the novel by Scott Spencer [IMDb]) its actually a toned-down remake of Franco Zeffirelli's 1981 screen adaptaion of Spencer's love story between a previously quiet 15-year old girl and her troubled 16-year old pyromaniac beau with the tagline "A Love Every Parent Fears" ;-).   So the story's intended to push parents' and other authority figures' (like a blog-writing Catholic priest's ...) buttons ;-).  

In the current version, the ages of the characters are a little higher.  The film begins at the high school graduation of both the beautiful and rich but previously quiet Jade (played by Gabriela Wilde) and the poorer and generally more outgoing, but as it happened ever tongue-tied around her David (played by Alex Pettyfer).  So they are both 17-18 years old and out of high school rather than the 15-16 in the original and right in the middle of it.

So why was Jade so quiet?  Well, we find that the daughter of a generally very successful Atlanta based surgeon named Hugh Butterfield (played by Bruce Greenwood) BUT when Jade was only a freshman or sophomore in high school, Jade's oldest brother and previously the apple of Dr. Butterfield's eye had tragically come down precisely with cancer, a very aggressive kind, and despite Dr. Hugh's BEST EFFORTS died soon afterwards.  The death of a young family member is always hard, but the reader here would certainly appreciate that the circumstances of Jade's older brother to cancer when Jade's father was actually supposed to be a cancer specialist would have to be particularly hard for the surviving family and especially the father to cope with.  And so, though this all took place some three years before, it would not be surprising that it's had its effects -- on Jade, on her father (Dr) Hugh, as well as mom/wife Anne (played by Joely Richardson) and middle son/brother Kieth (played by Rhys Wakefield).  And it does.  Jade's previous response to this tragedy was to close in on herself and her immediate family, not really talk to anybody through most of high school and try to be a really good girl at home. 

David (played by Alex Pettyfer), of course, has his own story.   He's son of an amiable / salt-of-the-earth auto-mechanic named Harry Elliott (played by Robert Patrick) who when David was about 9-10 was dumped by his high-school sweetheart wife who apparently "traded up" / "found a better deal."  Coming home from school one day and finding his mother in bed with another guy, did apparently cause David some trauma in those early-to-middle school years.  He's grown out of that, but it's also part of his past.

Jade and David _finally_ have a chance to talk when some days after graduation, Jade's family goes out to a relatively swanky Atlanta-suburban restaurant (to celebrate Jade's recent graduation) where David and his best friend Mace (played magnificently by Dayo Okeniyi), African-American, work as valets.  As David comes to open her door and kinda stumbles when he sees whose door, Jade's, he's opening, she in turn trips and drops, of all things, her largely empty high school yearbook.  He picks it up for her.  She says, "Thanks."  He responds, "Sure, anything."  She turns then to follow her family to the restaurant, AND THEN STOPS, turns around, and says to David, "Sure, there is one thing.  Could you please sign my yearbook."  he says sure, flips the yearbook to the page of the "Auto-Shop (mechanics') club" and writes something witty along the lines of "I never had the courage to talk to you in high school, but I'd really not want to wait another four years to talk to you again."  When she reads his note while sitting in the restaurant with her folks and middle brother, she smiles.  And he gets another chance to talk to her when they come out.  Obviously they hit it off, and the rest of the movie follows ...

Now most of the drama in the film is one of class difference.  Jade's father, Dr Hugh Butterfield after all, had staked a good part of his aspirations for his children in Jade after his oldest son's (Jade's oldest brother's death).  Keith, the middle son (Jade's middle brother) he had dismissed as something of a "loser."  And in these past years, Jade had been nothing (...) if a "good girl."  Now as she's about to go off to college (pre-Med, of course...) and he's already pulled strings to get her an internship BEFORE THAT (during most of the latter part of the summer), she's fallen in love with David who until finally striking up a conversation with Jade (and finding that she LIKES him) was PERFECTLY HAPPY TO JUST STAY IN TOWN AND EVENTUALLY TAKE OVER HIS FATHER'S AUTO REPAIR BUSINESS.

So the central conflict is Jade's father's head (and perhaps a bunch of PARENTS' watching this film's heads): Could he see his pre-Med (on track to become a surgeon in her own right) daughter married to an auto-mechanic?

And yet, they're soon head-over heals in love ... and though it's kept just, just, just off the screen, they're almost certainly soon sleeping with each other.

THIS ACTUALLY BECOMES A FASCINATING CHALLENGE TO TODAY'S SOCIETY:  Why are we pushing contraceptives on young people?  Are we really concerned about their freedom / choices?  Or do we just want them to remain childless until 10-15 years after their hormones have NATURALLY kicked-in when they are finally finished with Med or Law School?

To be sure, the Church would always be counseling self-control to young people BUT DEFINITELY NOT FOR THE SAME REASONS (The Church _doesn't care_ if Johnny ever gets enough money together to buy a BMW or if Molly ever gets her CPA or Law Degree).  The Church would always tell young people: "Hey, control yourselves, BUT if you can't THEN JUST GET MARRIED."  And the church has ALWAYS defended young people against one or another (or both) set(s) of parents: Witness in Romeo and Juliet, the Friar Lawrence marries them even though it'd be obviously against the wishes of both the families (and in the nearly 800 year old history of my Servite Order, we have countless other examples of this over the centuries).  It just means that the approach to life is different and getting a good house and a good car _isn't_ considered necessary.

So while a fair amount of parents could indeed cringe (even viewing THIS PG-13 version of the story), the Church would simply say "Hey folks, just please don't go all the way unless you get married.  But honestly, otherwise we have your back.  YOU SHOULD MARRY SOMEONE YOU LOVE."

Anyway ... Parents be assured that unless your daughter is going out with someone who's really, really in love with them THIS IS A WEEPY CHICK FLICK (I can't imagine ANY TEENAGE BOY unless he's truly "head over heals" going to see this film ... EVEN IF IT'S "VALENTINES DAY" ;-).

On the other hand, for reasons above, it might not be a bad movie for PARENTS and their TEENAGE / YOUNG ADULT KIDS seeing (in some form) together.

Finally, it has been asked whether there was any _plot-serving point_ of moving the remake of this story to Atlanta (in "The South").

Now the film's screenwriter/director Shana Feste [IMDb] appears to have been born and lived most of her life in Southern California.  However, she did get her Masters' Degree in Creative and Screenwriting at the UT in Austin (Texas also being in "The South") and she was the writer/director of the film Country Strong [2010] also set in "The South" (Nashville, TN and then Texas).  So at minimum, she appears to have an affinity to the South.

But IMHO there is _an_ interesting plot-point made by setting the film in the South: Blue-collar David's best friend is black and, indeed, the (Atlanta) suburban high school that David and Jade attended appears to have been QUITE DIVERSE both racially and economically.  ALL THE YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE FILM ARE FINE WITH THAT (contrast that with the LILY WHITE setting of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid [2011] [2012] franchise) while Jade's dad is clearly not.

So in a way, this film is pretty subversive:  It places the human values of love and inclusion over economic status / success and a winking acceptance to continued racism.  And IMHO that's pretty cool and certainly QUITE CATHOLIC (it's hard to be doctrinally consistent and yet racist in a UNIVERSAL Church ;-).

So despite my initial "eye rolling" doubts about this film, I have to say that the actors/film-makers did a pretty good job! ;-)


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The Great Beauty (orig. La Grande Bellezza) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmTV.it listing*

La Repubblica (N. Aspesi) review* 

Avvenire (A. D'Avenia) review*

CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. Abrams) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review

The Great Beauty (orig. La Grande Bellezza) [2013] [IMDb] [FT.it]* (directed and screenplay cowrtten by Paolo Sorrentino [IMDb] [FT.it]* along with Umberto Contrarello [IMDb] [FT.it]*) is a critically acclaimed Italian film and making the five finalists for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this year (2014).

Made in a grand style that immediately reminds the viewer of the great Federico Felini's [IMDb] [FT.it]* films especially La Dulce Vita [1960], the film's about "celebrity," specifically about a particular (fictional) "celebrity" named Giuseppe (Jep) Gambardella (played with magnificent utterly unflappable gentile "worldliness" by Toni Servillo [IMDb] [FT.it]*).  The reason for his celebrity?  He wrote _a single book_ some 30-40 years before that was a smash, and he's been hanging out at parties, INDEED PRESIDING OVER THEM (or EVEN MORE CORRECTLY GIVING THEM THEIR "IMPRIMATUR") EVER SINCE.

In a key voice-over as his character in a still almost impeccable white-to-beige suit strolls along the bank of the Tiber early one morning (joggers running by BEGINNING THEIR DAY while HIS IS ONLY NOW GENTLY COMING TO AN END) he serenely explains to viewers: "I always wanted to be a mondano (lit. 'a man of the world', IMHO more clearly translated here as 'celebrity'), indeed the KING of the mondanos, ONE who could bring down a party with a single (dismissive/disapproving) glance."  And indeed, ever white/beige suited with martini in hand, he's reigned over Rome's celebrity party scene with the "soft power" gentile despotism of a ("thumbs up / thumbs down") glance that would make both Nero and the Borgias proud ;-).

Indeed, as I watched this film, I was saying to myself THIS IS ROME.  This is what it has been since the time of the Emperors, through the time of those randy (and if also artistically productive) Renaissance Popes through to today.   

As in any great Fellini inspired film, there are some really great, well-drawn/well-acted characters.

There's Jep's friend from childhood probably more productive than Jep ever was, even though NEVER nearly as successful in either work or as we find out ... in love.  His wife Elisa (di Santis) had recently died, and he confesses to Jep: "I can't believe it.  Going through her things, I found her (locked) diary.  Since she's passed now,  I jimmied it open.  You know in 35 years of marriage, she wrote TWO LINES about ME -- that I'm a 'good provider.'  And ... HALF THE DIARY'S ABOUT YOU."  Jep, kinda surprised and yet certainly kinda flattered, replies trying to be comforting to his LIFE-LONG FRIEND, "Well as a writer (mind you Jeb, famous as he was, had ACTUALLY ONLY WRITTEN/PUBLISHED ONE BOOK IN HIS ENTIRE "CAREER" ...) I  can assure you that once one starts writing, what one puts down on paper is really, above all, fantasy.  So what she wrote in her (private) diary doesn't really have much to do with reality" (and yet, we know, of course, THAT IT DOES ... Jeb's kinda right. People do write all sorts of things in a diary that they'd NEVER want/expect to be read "outside," BUT that diary almost certainly reflected the private truths of her life, no matter what her outward, public actions of her life may have said otherwise).  So WHY would the wife of Jeb's best friend from youth spend "1/2 her diary" writing about Jeb?  Of course there's a story to that ... BUT since this IS an elegant Italian film, the story's actually far more subtle (and arguably poignant) than one could initially (with "eyes rolling") believe ...

Then there's another long-time  friend of Jep who he seemed to meet in the writing/artistic circles when he first came out to Rome who has an interesting problem.  Presumably in his early 70s, he's still taking care of his very well kept, still on an allowance, 50 year old (!) daughter Ramona (IMHO played magnificently by Sabrina Ferilli [IMDb] [FT.it]*  Note here that I have something of a soft-spot for Sabrina Ferilli as she was the (voluptuous)/glamorous not-quite Sophia Loren [IMDb] [FT.it]*-like actress (but honestly oh, so close...;-) in Italy during my seminary days back in the mid 1990s) who he laments is trying, at 50 (!), to "breaking into" the "showgirl" business as a "sophisticated stripper."  Now SHE sounds like Jep's kind of woman ;-) and so the two have something of a fling during the middle portion of the film.  And Ramona (as well as Sabrina Ferilli [IMDb] [FT.it]* playing her) certainly shows (quite discretely filmed actually) what _really good_ (and _really expensive_) skin care can achieve these days ;-).

Then, what's a really good Federico Fellini style film without presence of the Church?  It's represented in this film (about the celebrity life of Rome) by two REALLY WELL DRAWN/ACTED (though, of course, exaggerated) characters.

The first is the ever "in his uniform" (black-cassock/pectoral cross/red-hat) "celebrity cardinal" named Cardinale Belluci (played magnificently and ever with a smile by Roberto Herlizka [IMDb] [FT.it]*) who's also a jovial fixture in Rome's celebrity circuit having made it "in" through apparently writing a series of "cooking books" (though I smile, I also wince as the Cardinal's "cooking book schtick" is not  altogether "a planet away..." from "a priest writing a (hopefully somewhat insightful) BLOG ABOUT MOVIES" ;-) ;-)).  Both smiling, both holding martinis, it's clear that "writer Jep" and "the cooking cardinal" don't much like each other ;-). 

And then there is AN ANCIENT (104 year old) Mother Teresa-like Missionary Nun already dubbed "Santa" (played fantastically and largely in pantomime as, for goodness' sake, she's supposed to be 104 years old, by Giusi Merli [IMDb] [FT.it]*) who's arrived in Rome after DECADES of MISSIONARY WORK / RUNNING ORPHANAGES IN AFRICA on PILGRIMAGE to climb ON HER HANDS AND KNEES the "Scala Sancta (Holy Steps)."

Now Scala Sancta (Holy Steps) is an actual and IMHO quite poignant shrine (that I've visited / seen with my own eyes) located just outside the Lateran Basilica in Rome  By ancient tradition, the "Scala Sancta" is said to be the stone staircase in Pontius Pilate's Praetorium in Jerusalem on which Jesus would have walked on Good Friday during his trial by Pontius Pilate after his arrest.  Of all the relics that Emperor Constantine's mother Saint Helen brought back from Jerusalem and the Holy Land, I've always thought that THIS ONE (a fairly large, 30-40 step stone staircase) was among those most authentic.  (It would be too big for the Romans to completely destroy during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and it'd be again TOO BIG to bother "faking" for Saint Helen afterwards (after all, she had it packed-up and shipped from Jerusalem to Rome in 326 AD).

So at 104, after many decades "in the field," Sour Santa comes to Rome on pilgrimage to climb the steps of the Scala Sancta on her hands and knees.  Well, when she comes to Rome, OLD as she is, she does come as "something of a celebrity" AND "the celebrity circle" of Rome (both INSIDE and OUTSIDE of the Church ...) certainly want to welcome her.  So the Church organizes solemn audiences and the "mondani" parties.  And though she is 104, she's there (or at least wheeled/delivered there ...) for all these "festivities."

NOW IT TURNS OUT, that Suor Santa "knows" good ole Jep.  Why?  Well SHE READ HIS (ONE) BOOK "back in the day" 35 some years ago (when she was last in Rome).  SO he's actually ONE OF THE FEW PEOPLE SHE ACTUALLY HAS SOMETHING TO SAY TO.

What does she say?  She asks him: "Why didn't you ever write another book?" ;-) ;-).  Telling him that she liked the first one ;-).

Still holding his martini, still kinda smiling, but certainly a little shaken, Jep answers, "Dear Sister, I guess it had something to do with _climbing another set of stairs_."

The last sequence of the film, which follows shortly, juxtaposes the 104 year old nun making her way on her hands and knees up the Scala Sancta with "the stairs" that Jep was talking about.

Now what was that "other staircase" that Jeb refers to?  Well, as I've already noted above, this is ultimately an _elegant_ (and as it comes to its end approaching _poignant_) Italian film.  Hence, it's not necessarily what you'd expect.  Even if "writer / mondano Jep" spent much of his life living an UTTERLY SUPERFICIAL LIFE it does seem that (as it has across the whole arc of the story) there's "more to his story" just that.

It may all add-up to a rather extravagant (and perhaps still "rather lame...") apology for superficiality but nevertheless IT IS A VERY, VERY WELL MADE ONE ;-).  And it _leaves one_ with "a fair amount" to think about.  Great film!


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Gloria [2013]

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

IMDb listing
CineChile.cl listing*

ChicagoTribune (B. Sharkey) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review

Gloria [2013] [IMDb] [CCh.cl]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Sebastián Lelio [Wkp-EN] [Wkp-ES]* [IMDb] [CCh.cl]* along with Gonzalo Maza [IMDb] [CCh.cl]*) is a remarkable film that I would recommend TO ADULTS belonging to various groups and for various reasons.  The film's R rating FOR THEME and then for occasional, if very honestly portrayed middle-aged / beyond middle-aged sexuality is definitely appropriate.

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I would recommend the film to MIDDLE-AGED HISPANICS.  Many, many of you will see yourselves and/or your friends in this film.

NEXT, I would recommend this film to all ADULTS "of a certain age" everywhere, perhaps especially from the United States and/or parts of Western Europe.   This is because the film comes from Santiago, Chile (South America) and yet many American and even Western European viewers will probably find 50 something year old Gloria (played magnificently by Paulina Garcia [IMDb] [CCh.cl]*) both IMMEDIATELY RELATABLE  and (PERHAPS) UTTERLY SURPRISING:

She and all her family and friends are (obviously...) CHILEAN, living educated middle-to-professional class existences in Chile, generally "happy as pie," though at least one or two of Gloria's friends make passing reference to the dark days of dictatorship, in Chile's case, that of the Pinochet years.  In Spain where a cousin of mine married a Spaniard and has lived there happily ever since, the reference would have been to Franco.  In the Czech Republic where my family is originally from the references would have been to the Communist Era.  In Belfast, Ireland where I've met people again basically "just like Gloria" back in the 1990s (and hence their 'dark days' were not yet over) the reference would have been to 'the Troubles.'  Thanks to the Servites, I've also gotten a chance to meet a fair number of young people attending our parishes in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Mexico City, Mexico who come from families and and living lives very much similar to those portrayed in this film.   Finally, having seen (and reviewed here) over the past years, some excellent recent films coming from Russia, Egypt and Iran (Elena (orig. Елена) [2011], Scheherazade Tell Me a Story (aka Women of Cairo) [2009] and A Separation [2011] / Meeting Leila (orig. Ashnaee ba Leila) [2011], I have no doubt that similar circles of "Gloria and her friends/relatives" live there and lament these days of Putin, the apparent slide back to military dictatorship in Egypt, and the excessive indeed pervasive "paternalism" of the Islamic regime in Iran.  I would add this film to the others and remind readers here that one of the great joys of "going to the movies" (and especially to periodic film festivals or to see foreign films) is that for the price of admission (and a few hours of time spent) one CAN TRAVEL ALL OVER THE WORLD and find that there are a lot people AGAIN FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD who are actually "just like us" (or close enough so that it doesn't make all that much difference anymore ;-).

FINALLY, I would recommend the film to the introspective, metaphysical lot because how the world relates to Gloria in good part is how WE often relate to others and even to God.

To the film then ... We meet Gloria (played by Paulina Garcia [IMDb] [CCh.cl]*), early 50 something, divorced now for some 12-13 years, at a Santiago "singles gathering."  She's "spruced up" on the off-chance that she may actually meet somebody.  But she's been there before, knows already that she's probably _not_ going to meet anyone who catches her eye.  "So why do you go?" asks one of the men, her age, again someone who's both been 'around the block a few times,' and, as a result, like Gloria, already a 'bit worn by the years.'   "To dance." she replies.  "Alone?" "Yes, at times."  He asks her to dance.  She accepts.  To neither one's surprise, no real sparks are ignited between them.

BUT ... Out there on the dance floor, THIS TIME, she does catch the eye of ANOTHER SOMEWHAT OLDER (so that would make him in his early 60s) and somewhat distinguished gentleman who Gloria/we come to know is named Rodolfo (played by Sergio Hernández [IMDb] [CCh.cl]*) and even if in a regular sports coat and tie (like the other men at the soiree) still looks somewhat more "distinguished" than the rest because he was a former naval officer (That he was in the Chilean Navy rather than Army proves rather important in a later scene when questioned lightly but pointedly by one of Gloria's friends at a different soiree because of the politics/history of the Pinochet years.  MY GUESS is that the Navy wasn't as directly involved in the repression during those years as the Army ...).  Anyway, both come to strike each other as interesting and thus after some flirtation, and some dancing ... they end up (PARENTS TAKE NOTE ... this is an R rated movie) spending the night together.

Now much could be said at this point about that.  The first thing that one could say about the love-making scene and others that do follow is that these scenes feel ABSOLUTELY "REAL."  This is a 50+ year old woman and a 60+ year old man, who we learn sometime later had "lost a lot of weight" in the last year-and-a-half after having undertaken gastrointestinal surgery.  So their love-making is not exactly of the "stud athlete" / "supermodel" quality.  It's very, very honest, with all kinds of lumps where there wouldn't have been lumps when they were younger.

The next question that one could ask: Well, regardless of them being 50 or 60 years old, what are they having sex for outside of marriage?  Well probably _in some part_ "for pleasure," but my guess is that it would be for more than just that.  My guess is that it'd be primarily for the same reason that MOST PEOPLE would enter into a sexual relationship before marriage (or in the aftermath of a failed marriage before getting married again) that is, for validation (that there is someone or more problematically that there are _someones_ who find them exciting/attractive enough to go to bed with).

Now is that what the Church teaches that sex ought to be about?  Of course not.  Especially when one starts to talk of multiple partners, one does ever increase the chance that _normally_ children would be created (and be largely unwanted) by such sexual activity.  So yes, sleeping with someone outside of marriage (EVEN AMONG "old/middle aged people") is a SIN.  That said, it's also _generally_ about _more_ than just "getting high."  That doesn't "not make it a sin."  But it should make it more understandable than dismissing such behavior as being simply "hedonistic" or even outright evil. 

And it's absolutely clear that Gloria _is searching_.  Beyond entering into this complicated on again, off again relationship with Rodolfo (who we find has some issues in his former family), she tries bungi-jumping, yoga (her 20-something daughter is a yoga instructor), "laugh therapy" and even truly "getting high" (when some marijuana actually ends up (mistakenly) on her doorstep.

Now I would suspect that a fair number of the readers of my blog would find much of her behavior described above problematic to sinful/offensive.  But what's fascinating is that we're really given a "God's Eye" view of her life.  THE PEOPLE IN HER LIFE (or who should be in her life) GENERALLY DON'T SEE HER DOING ANY OF THIS because THEY GENERALLY DON'T SEE HER AT ALL.  She lives alone.  The drugs that show up on her doorstep belong actually to the guy who lives the floor above her, who she _never sees_ (but hears a lot, because he does a lot of screaming).  Gloria's kids including her yoga instructor daughter and (some kind of) engineer son, are "nice enough people" but THEY JUST SEE HER AS _OLD_ (as one WITHOUT a LIFE OF CONSEQUENCE).

So HONESTLY, the ONLY LIFE OF MEANING that Gloria has ... is with this on-again, off-again Rodolfo, the circle of friends that she occasionally meets with AND _POSSIBLY_ WITH GOD, who LIKE US VIEWERS, would/could be watching her life and PERHAPS be INTERESTED in her BUT ALSO LIKE US _unable_ to do more (unable to give her encouragement, give her a hug, etc).  

Now we can't do more because we're watching her very human, very sympathetic life played out on a screen.  But God wouldn't be able to enter into her life for a different reason ... she doesn't seem to talk to God.  She lives her life perhaps sympathetically but ... as if God does not exist.

Interestingly enough, Gloria's children live very much the same way in relationship to her ... as if she doesn't really exist either.  And yet she does ...

Interesting huh? ;-)

In any case, this is a quite lovely and interesting movie about a 50+ year old woman who most people would probably not even notice if we met her on the street one day.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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The Lego Movie [2014]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  ChicagoTribune (4 Stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (K. McFarland) review

The Lego Movie [2014] (screenplay and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, story by Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller) is probably one of the most surprising and original (largely) children's oriented animated movies made by Hollywood in a long, long time, this even as one could be tempted to dismiss it out of hand as a gigantic full-length feature advertisement for Lego-products.

Yet, if the film is to be understood/dismissed as an "ad," it'd be a strange one because the film's epic battle is precisely about what one would imagine has been the central (and never really resolved) "dilemma" faced by Lego's marketing gurus: Are Legos to be understood as fundamentally "block sets for kids" out of which said kids would be free to build just about _anything_ (even often "stupid things" that would only make sense to them) OR precisely because Legos could be used to BUILD ANYTHING should Lego design and market "building sets" for (older) enthusiasts out of which they could build truly marvelously complicated projects ranging from temples to skyscrapers to starships to tropical islands with volcanoes to bats, dragons and dolphins to formula one race cars, to WHATEVER Lego's designers would be asked (by their marketing people) to design?   In other words, who actually gets to be creative?  Kids (little people) or "Lego Corp" itself?                   

The story's central protagonist is Emmet Brickowski (voiced by Chris Pratt) who's a "regular yellow skinned" Lego figure (a construction worker) living in a city built entirely out of Legos called "Bricksburg."  And he's basically happy.  He has a home, he has a job, he's learned to fit in.  He watches "Bricksburg's favorite television program" called "Where are my pants?" (about a similarly yellow skinned lego figure, who, for some reason had been designed without pants... and who spends the show asking repeatedly, but with apparently sufficiently varied tonal variations to "keep things interesting" the obvious: "Where're my pants?" to viewers' everlasting amusement).  Emmet even enjoys going to "an over-priced" Lego Starbuck-style coffee shop and smiles as he pays $37 for a cup of Lego coffee).   Indeed, he HAPPILY sings Bricksville's cotton-candy-like national anthem: "Everything is AWESOME" (Honestly folks, when you hear this jingle, you won't be able to get it out of your heads ... it's like "lyrical heroin" ;-).

But Emmet's not bad, evil or stupid.  He's basically like a kid, joyfully embracing the happy (if perhaps limited by his experience) wonders around him.

Yet all's _not_ AWESOME in "Bricksburg" ... Even as Emmett lives in a happy seemingly limitless wonderland (if built out of some very basic and hence very limited "building blocks") there's "a force" afoot that would like to FREEZE things in place so that they would forever remain the way they are.

The prophet Vitruvius (voiced by Morgan Freeman) rails against this tide of conformity spreading across the land personified by President, er Lord Business (voied by Will Farrell) prophesying that out of the "yellow complected" residents of Bricksburg rise "a Special" who will find the "Piece of Resistance" that will bring an end to this scurge that freezes things in its tracks.

Well, completely by accident Emmet runs into this potent "Piece of Resistance" that oddly "sticks to him" henceforth.

Now all kinds of far more interesting, original and potent denizens of "Bricksburg" -- from the hip Wildstyle (voiced by Elizabeth Banks) whose yellow-skinned lego-character wears a plastic multicolored wig, to Legoland superheroes like Lego-Batman (Wildstyle's cool if somewhat arrogant "boyfriend" voiced by Will Arnett), Lego-Wonderwoman (voiced by Cobie Smulders), Lego-Han Solo (voiced by Keith Furguson) and Lego-Superman (voiced by Channing Tatum) to even Lego-Shaq (voiced by former NBA star Shaquille O'Neill) to even a super-cute Lego-unikitty (a kitten with a unicorn horn voiced Alison Brie) -- scratch their heads, wondering what's so "special" about Emmett Brickowski who seems SO AVERAGE and his IDEAS SO BORING.

Yet, Emmett does prove to be "special" by being so UTTERLY "UNDER THE RADAR" that Lord Business, his chief of security Lego-Cop (voiced by Liam Neeson) and their army of Lego-Drones COMPLETELY IGNORE HIM and his only (and arguably REALLY STUPID) "invention": a LEGO-"double decker couch" ("Really?  What's the point?  And who gets to sit on top and who on the bottom?" asks the far cooler but kind of an a-hole Lego-Batman).  BUT SAID DOUBLE DECKER COUCH "SAVES" THEM ALL because while these characters sit on that "stupid double decker couch," ALL THE LEGO-FIENDS SEEM TO IGNORE THEM. 

And thus, after many "out of the box" adventures, the "really average / quite boring" yet "special" precisely because he's so seemingly "average" Emmett is able to _save_ his world.  And that "piece of resistance" that he just randomly ran into, and since simply "stuck to him," proves key.

The final third of the film morphs arguably into an interesting metaphysical conflict: After all, Emmett (and the rest of his Lego-companions) ARE ALL MADE OF OUT LEGOS.  So who's actually animating all those Legos? ;-).  Well we find out.  And we come to understand a little more about the "central conflict" of the story, and why some of the Lego-characters in the story seemed really "kinda limited/boring" (and yet surprisingly creative in their own way) while there seems to be ONE character who seemed to want to FREEZE EVERYTHING (PERFECTLY) IN PLACE. 

 It's all surprisingly BRILLIANT, THOUGHT-PROVOKING and IMHO, REALLY, REALLY FUNNY :-). Over the years, there haven't been many films that I'd want to see (MANY TIMES?) OVER AGAIN.  This is honestly one of them.  It's SURPRISINGLY ... "AWESOME" ;-) ;-)


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The Monuments Men [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (M. Zoller-Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

The Monuments Men [2014] (starring, directed and screenplay cowritten by George Clooney along with Grant Heslov, based on the book by Robert M. Edsel [IMDb] and Bret Witter [IMDb]) is a reasonably well made, _intentionally lighter_ than it could have been, film about a group of people (largely "egg-headed" architects / art historians) who most would not necessarily immediately consider "heroes" who did, in fact, do much to _save the world_ as we know it during World War II.

And my guess is that EVERYONE associated with this film understood how tough the calls being made were: Landing on the beaches of Normandy ONE MONTH AFTER THE INVASION... (some beach obstacles still present both as a reminder to the arriving soldiers back then and for viewers here for cinematic effect), Col. Frank Stokes (played by George Clooney) has a tough time convincing a(n actually) lower-ranking field commander of the validity of his "Monuments Men's" mission.  The captain tells the colonel: "Look, you're telling me to save a (1000 year old) church (in the approaching town).  But if the Nazis decide to use its bell tower (as a sniper's nest), we're going to blow it up.  Understand?"  We all do ...

BUT as Frank Stokes explained to President Roosevelt in the months before this field encounter in Normandy: "Mr President, (God willing) in the coming months our troops are going to be liberating Florence, Italy and Paris, France, and who's going to assure the world that when we do, Michaelangelo's David is still going to be standing and Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is still going to be smiling?"  And _most of us_ can understand the stakes involved here as well... WHAT AN ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS WAR WW II WAS ...

And so it was, despite being a unit of OLD, mostly OUT-OF-SHAPE, "EGG HEADS" (played among others by Bill Murray and John Goodman at their character actor best) with FDR's reluctant and Churchill's presumed blessings, this multinational unit of architects / art historians was sent out to Europe to try to bring some semblance of order and decency to a "gun fight in a china shop."

AND IT WASN'T EASY.  The Nazis were first out to plunder occupied Europe and then out LARGELY "to burn it all" (while squirreling away bits and pieces of Art for themselves and to help finance their escapes).  And the Soviets marching on Nazi Germany from the East had their own agenda: Having lost 20+ million people in this conflict, they felt that they had the "moral right" to simply CART AWAY EVERYTHING THAT THEY COULD as "Reparations."  Finally, AND IMHO MOST INTERESTINGLY, THE FRENCH, weren't necessarily all that trustful of the Americans / Brits either.  Parisian curator Claire Simone (played by Cate Blanchett) initially did not trust American James Granger (played by Matt Damon) who prior to being recruited for this unit had worked as a curator for New York's own Metropolitan Museum of Art: "Oh, you're here SIMPLY to 'save our art' and NOT to take it back to YOUR 'MET'" she said in a disbelieving French puff. 

AND yet the crime, indeed CRIMES, was/were SO LARGE. 

This film will frustrate purists, who'd perhaps wish that the film was _more eggheady_ (that is MORE like a documentary).  But there's the book for that.  Instead, George Clooney, et al, seemed _to choose_ to make a _lighter film_ that acknowledged that on a superficial level most viewers really "wouldn't care" about the sacrifices made by this unit -- and two of its members, Brit Donald Jeffries (played by Hugh Bonneville) and Frenchman Jean Claude Clermont (played by Jean Dujardin), did DIE in the war -- BUT ON THE OTHER HAND MOST VIEWERS WOULD ALSO APPRECIATE THE LOSS TO THE WORLD IF THE ONLY "Mona Lisa" image that we would have today would be the caricature drawn of it by SIMPSONS' creator Matt Groenig.  IT IS GOOD THAT THE REAL THING STILL EXISTS.  And this film celebrates the folks -- of the Bridge on the River Kwai [1957] / "Greatest Generation" -- who helped keep it so.


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Labor Day [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

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

Labor Day [2013] (screenplay and directed by Jason Reitman, based on the novel by Joyce Maynard [IMDb]) is a lazy / sappy, "don't really try this at home" romance for (my guess is) 30-something and above women.  Throughout the film, I kept thinking of The Bridges of Madison County [1995] another lazy / sappy romance directed at (again my guess ...) the same basic target audience.

That said, those who've read my blog would know that I don't necessarily find "sap" to be a bad thing (in a movie anyway ...).  But picking up a wounded, indeed, still bleeding, escaped convict (even if played in appropriately studly / sweat-covered muscle, yet also circumspect / gentleman-like fashion by Josh Brolin) on a lazy late summer afternoon somewhere in the New Hampshire countryside is almost certainly not a particularly wise thing to do. 

But then, this is a story (and stories do often have a "wouldn't it be nice..." quality to them).  So what the heck ...

Henry (voiced as an adult by Tobie Maguire, played as a 12-year old by Gattlin Griffith) recounts the story of how one lazy Labor Day weekend (just before school is supposed to start again), he and his worn-down by life, basket-case mom, Adele (played actually IMHO remarkably well by Kate Winslet) encountered said escaped convict named Frank (played again in appropriately studly yet circumspect fashion by Josh Brolin) in a super-market in their small New Hampshire hometown.

Now why was Henry's mom, Adele, a basket case?  Well she was left a number of years back by her somewhat a-holish husband / Henry's dad, Gerald (played by Clarke Gregg) for his (as they always are) younger, also divorced with her own son, 1980s-era big haired/big-glassed secretary who wasn't necessarily outright "evil" but didn't mind that (after her own home/marriage was smashed) was able to "win" (by smashing the home/marriage of Adele).  Ah, the "games" of the early decades of "no fault divorce ..." back here in the States.

Of course, the situation was actually a bit more complicated than that, as we learn later in the story.  Adele had already become worn-down by life and a basket-case BEFORE Gerald left her.  And Gerald (as well as his big-glassed/big-haired second wife) weren't completely a-holes either.

Nevertheless, we learn that Adele's life had really been quite awful until this encounter with the still bleeding, wounded, escaped convict, in the random supermarket somewhere in their small town in rural New Hampshire.  And so ... "what's she got to lose?"  (AGAIN, PLEASE FOLKS, DON'T DO THIS IN REAL LIFE...)

It turns out (in the story) that 'scaped-con Frank "wasn't that bad of a guy."  He too "had a story."  And for the sake of the film ... it's probably worth buying this (BUT AGAIN, PLEASE DON'T DO THIS AT HOME ... AT LEAST NOT UNTIL HE'S "DONE HIS TIME"...).

Anyway, much eminently circumspect (mostly off-screen) but "sweaty muscled" romance ensues...

Again, this is a LAZY, "WOULDN'T IT BE NICE" ROMANCE ...

Would it be a "good idea" to take home a still bleeding escaped convict with your 12 year old kid?  Most would PROBABLY say "no."  BUT THEN THIS IS A MOVIE. 

And what approaching middle-aged woman, worn down by life, feeling worthless and abandoned, would not want to hear a buff, sweaty t-shirted man, who hasn't been with a woman for a LONG, LONG TIME tell her: "I'd gladly serve another 20 years for 3 more days with you?" (Oh, Iah dew declare, let mah heart stop palpahtaytin dear Sir ... ;-)


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