Words and Pictures [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars w. Expl.)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (B. Scharkey) review
RE.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (J. Hassanger) review

Words and Pictures [2013] (directed by Fred Schepisi, screenplay by Gerald Di Pago) is a film that perhaps was doomed from the start.  After all, what's a film but an interplay of "words" and "pictures."  So from the get-go, the makers of this film were inviting every artist, writer, film-lover and critic to their show, all of whom arriving with fairly "high expectations."

On the plus side, the film-makers got the right setting: a random upscale prep-school somewhere in Maine (evoking cultural shared memories of the Robin Williams classic Dead Poets Society [1989]).  IMHO, the film-makers  also assembled the right cast, from the leads Clive Owen (as the once and still trying to be passionate/engaging but becoming increasingly bored/troubled/lonely "honors lit" teacher Jack Marcus who's finding himself leaning-more-and-more on his vodka ...) and Juliette Binoche (as the perhaps always somewhat aloof, more introverted/brooding artist / "honors art teacher" Dina Delsanto but becoming more so as her body slowly fails her as a result of rheumatoid arthritis), to some of the actors playing a number of the key student roles including Valerie Tian playing a quite talented student in both art and lit named Emily but honestly not knowing what to do with an increasingly annoying classmate/suitor named Swint (played also quite well as a teen locked in a seeming "death spiral" toward significant-consequence-resulting a-holehood by Adam DiMarco).

The above description of some of the key characters and setting would indicate that there was a clear dynamism present in the story's setup allowing for "many things" to happen in the story as it progressed.  So why then did the film ultimately fail for so many viewers (read the other critics view above) in "meeting expectations?"  Tragically, IMHO on account of both its "words" and "pictures."

To be sure, the dialogue does have its moments.  For instance, there's a scene where Marcus quite convincingly argues to his class (and to viewers of the film) that Words CAN inspire in a way that no other form of expression can: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [human beings] are created equal, and endowed with their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them including, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness..."  And there's another one where after having his class express by manner of grunt/gesture, attraction, hunger, anger, drowsiness, etc, Marcus asks his class to express: "Okay, let's meet after dinner to discuss tomorrow's hunt." (At some point language -- words -- had to be invented to convey even such relatively "simple" complex messages).  However, there are other times in film that the dialogue falls tragically flat.  Perhaps a co-writer could have been invited to improve some of the more "mundane" sections of the film. 

Similarly, the art in the film _ended-up_ being disappointingly flat:

Now much of the work shown in the film was actually made by Juliette Binoche made both before the film (when not acting, Binoche does apparently enjoy making quite serious works of contemporary art) and then during / for the film.  And truth be told, I found _some_ her work quite evocative/good. BUT then _the key painting_ that she then submits for school's battle between Art and Literature (that Marcus organizes in part to inspire the students, and in part to keep his job / not sink completely into boredom/despair) seemed UTTERLY RANDOM to me.

Other works of Binoche's (all generally "abstract expressionist" in style) seemed for more evocative.  Yet the students / audience are asked by the film to be somehow "impressed" in this all but random painting at the end.  Why?  When a _random painting_ with random color / markings is presented to us WITHOUT EXPLANATION or serious context.  Again, some of the other works at least appeared to use more evocative colors and the lines, 'splotches" (for lack of a better word), etc seemed more evocative of emotion. 

Further, there was a self-portrait being made by the student, Emily, that Delsanto keeps pushing her to improve that frankly remains "hanging" (We're _not_ told what happens to the picture).  And that's a shame because in the last (still "unfinished") version that we do see, it seems already to be quite evocative of SOMETHING: unsuredness (which would have been _perfect_ for the character).  However, one's left to guess that "something must have happened to that painting" that the film-makers decided to not make _it_ the center of the film's climax at the end.

So the film comes across to me as a GREAT IDEA ... and one that, even now, certainly could provide plenty of fodder for discussion after the film.  But the film's execution came across to me as flat.  And that's a shame.  The film could have become more -- a classic -- than IMHO it did.


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The Fault in Our Stars [2014]

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

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

The Fault in Our Stars [2014] (directed by Josh Boone, screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, quite faithful to the YA novel by John Green) tells the story of a group of Indianapolis teenagers facing terminal cancer together. 

The basic thrust of the story is that childhood / teenage cancer is so terrible that basically no one except other teenagers and possibly cancer teens' own immediate families could hope to understand.

A rather hapless 30-something Episcopalian youth minister named Patrick (played by Mike Birbiglia) who actually organized the support group through which the teens suffering through their cancer got to know each other is portrayed, both in the book and in the film, as at best sincere but otherwise certainly an idiot.  To perhaps "even things out" the writer of a somewhat edgy book entitled "The Imperial Affliction" about childhood cancer who the lead character here, 16 year old Hazel (played actually very well by Shailene Woodley) initially adored, turns out to be an embittered drunken fool himself (the drunken embittered writter played again quite well by William DaFoe)

To be honest, it doesn't surprise me at all that teens, both healthy and non, have flocked to both the book and now the movie that does in fact exploit teens' natural tendency toward narcissism.

Don't get me wrong, these is plenty of truth in the story.  No teen (or anybody else) deserves to lose one's limbs, eyes, breasts or (like poor hapless 30-something Patrick lost as a teen) one's balls to cancer.  No teen (or anybody else) deserves to lose one's hair, lose control of one's bodily functions, to have one's skin color turn a zombie-like brownish-yellow or orange, or to go into seizures.  Yes, cancer sucks, terribly, BUT ... (and most readers by now would be expecting an inevitable "BUT"):

(1) Honestly folks, no matter how bad it is, it CAN STILL ALWAYS ACTUALLY BE WORSE:

Recently I read another excellent/well-written if also at times biting book by a Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid entitled "How to Make it Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: A Novel" in which describing the childhood and young adulthood of his central protagonist (when he was still living "in the village" before he slowly "made his fortune") he writes about the central protagonist's mother's bout with cancer IN WHICH THE FAMILY HAD TO GO AND BUY _HEROIN_ FROM "THE LOCAL STREET CORNER DRUG DEALER" SO THAT SHE'D AT LEAST HAVE SOMETHING FOR THE PAIN.  And the street heroin (self-evidently not-FDA approved ...) had to be administered by the family ...

In my own young adult years (after my own mother died of cancer...) I would go occasionally to Mass at a Catholic Worker Community (I was going to grad school in Los Angeles at the time) and one of the families they had living with them in that Community at the time was a Salvadoran mother and her 6-8 year old son who was missing an arm up to his shoulder.  For some months, I thought that he lost his arm to grenade or a land-mine or something (this would have been the late 1980s / early 90s and there was terrible Cold War Era civil war going on in El Salvador at the time).  INSTEAD, I LEARNED THAT THE POOR 6-8 YEAR OLD WHO WOULD HUG US _WITH HIS ONE ARM_ AT THE "KISS OF PEACE" DURING THE MASS "MERELY LOST HIS ARM" TO _BONE CANCER_.

That image of the 6-8 year old kid hugging me with his one arm has stuck with me and has served to remind me that PART OF THE AWFULNESS OF WAR is that ALL THE OTHER AWFUL TRAGEDIES OF LIFE _STILL HAPPEN_ but ON TOP OF THAT "ORDINARY AWFULNESS" WE ADD A NEW LAYER OF VICTIMS FROM THE ADDED WAR.

I also remembered as a result of this poor 6-8 year old that though 3,000 people died truly awful deaths in 9/11 ... 3,000 people die in the United States every day or two "merely of cancer."

So in some sense I do appreciate this current film as a "revenge of the 'merely Cancer' victims" reminding us plenty of people die each day in homes and hospitals across this country (and indeed across the world) with no memorials built for any of them, except by their own loved ones in cemeteries ... next to other loved ones who died similarly "mundane" if ever tragic deaths before them.

(2) Given the tragedies that exist in this world, I SIMPLY CAN NOT IMAGINE FACING THEM WITHOUT GOD, PERHAPS EVEN BEING PISSED OFF AT GOD (asking why the heck GOD lets these things happen) but to bear this WITHOUT GOD seems to me utterly impossible.

Karl Marx did famously call "Religion the opiate of the people IN A HEARTLESS WORLD."  BUT LOOK, I'M NOT KIDDING ... HAND ME THEN THE OPIUM.  I simply can not imagine facing the disasters of life without feeling God SOMEHOW "at my side" (Psalm 23).  9/11 did teach me that Life is at least at times a "Valley of Tears" (as per the Hail Holy Queen).

Like all of us, I do know plenty of people including close friends who do get through life without believing in God, BUT IT JUST SEEMS SO MUCH HARDER.  The same problems still remain, whether one believes in God or not, but at least if one believes, one has someone to lean on, EVEN IF THERE'S NO ONE PHYSICALLY AVAILABLE TO LEAN ON.


But to the story ... ;-)

The Fault in Our Stars [2014] is principally about two teenagers, Hazel (played again exquisitely by Shailene Woodley) and Gus (played just was well by Ansel Elgort) who face oblivion as a result of their cancer.  Already by the beginning of the story, both have suffered a lot:

Hazel nearly died two years previous, before an experimental drug, but a fluke, she herself calls it a miracle, kicked in.  But her lungs are trashed and so she has to lug around an oxygen tank to help her breath.  And NO ONE KNOWS when the experimental drug will cease to work, or begin to cause side-effects that will eventually kill her anyway.  Yet despite her own suffering, she also carries on with guilt:  As her parents' only child, she fears what will happen to her parents (played again remarkably well by Laura Dern and Sam Tramwell).

Gus, a former, pretty good high school basketball player, with a few trophies to prove it, lost his leg to bone cancer the year before.  He also had a friend Isaac (played by Nat Wolff) who lost one eye to ocular (eye) cancer some years back, and was about to lose the other one well.  Both had enjoyed playing "stupid" "zombie invasion" video-games before ...

All these folks (as well as their parents) find themselves having to deal with suffering that, NO ONE OUGHT TO.  But there they are ...

In perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of the story, Hazel and Gus do find themselves remembering the case of Anne Frank the famous Dutch teenager who also had to face oblivion (along with her family) during the Holocaust.  Again, no one should have had to suffer like that either...

But there they all found themselves, facing enormous suffering ... but also with opportunities to find hope, love even joy.

While I didn't appreciate the story's somewhat gratuitous potshots at religion ... certainly one can not but applaud all the characters' decision to seek to make the most of their lives (their "infinities") that they were given (even if their "infinities" were "smaller" than perhaps some other people's "infinities").

We're all honestly asked to do the same.  We are all given this life, all with gifts and with limitations.  And all we're all asked to the best that we can with what we've been given.

Even Hazel remembers at one point that even Mozart will one day be forgotten (if only after "the sun swallows the only earth that we will have ever known").  So the goal isn't to be "Great" ... it's simply to be able to say that one lived, and hopefully to have used one's choices well.  That is, to have been, fundamentally "Good."

Pot-shots at religion aside ... good story.


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Edge of Tomorrow [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Edge of Tomorrow [2014] (directed by Doug Liman, screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth based on the graphic novel "All You Need is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka) makes for an interesting D-Day tribute movie, released indeed on the day of the 70th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion.  It's basically Saving Private Ryan [1998], meets Starship Troopers [1997], meets Ground Hog Day [1993] / The Source Code [2011] (reviewed here) all making for the film's lead character (played by Tom Cruise), a truly very, very long, indeed arguably, The Longest Day [1962].

As I watched the film, I wondered if I should recommend (yes, in good part lightheartedly) it to my 82 year old dad (who has actually donned 3D glasses with me to see such recent films as Life of Pi [2012] and The Great Gatsby [2013] ;-), who was 12 at the time of D-Day growing-up then in the Nazi-occupied Czech half of Czechoslovakia, er the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" and first heard of the invasion back home listening to the BBC on (illegal but commonplace throughout occupied Europe) shortwave radio (called affectionately by the Czechs a "Churchillovka").  Yes, the pace of the current film's battle scenes is kinda crazy -- I don't think the film would be particularly good for "folks with heart conditions" -- but in a way the film comes across as a remarkably sincere tribute BY A GENERATION that's "parachuted into" / "landed in" Normandy time-and-again via "Brothers in Arms" / "Call of Duty" video games TO THEIR PARENTS' / GRANDPARENTS' GENERATION that HAD TO DO THIS _FOR REAL_.

There's also a interesting "PC" (politically correct) aspect to the film.  In this story, Europe had been over-run, not by Nazis but by metallic hive-minded bug-like space aliens -- so all Europeans including Germans can go to the film and presumably play the inevitable video game that will certainly follow.  As the film begins, England and the Americas are about to launch a D-Day like invasion codenamed "Operation Downfall" to relieve the Russians and Chinese fighting the metallic hive-minded bug-like space aliens "on the Eastern front" (so the Russians and the Chinese can also go to the movie and play the inevitable video-game as well).  

Then there's another amusing swipe at (or "nod to") the today's young "social media savvy" generation: WHILE "Downfall" KINDA SOUNDS LIKE "Overlord" (the actual codename for the 1944 Normandy Invasion) IT ALSO EVOKES the German film Downfall [2004] about the last days of Hitler (which has subsequently become YouTube "meme" cult classic with countless parodies of the crest-fallen/crushed Adolf Hitler yelling at his generals but now for all kinds of more contemporary concerns: he couldn't get his Vista update to work, he broke his tv playing wii video-bowling, he couldn't believe that Kayne West dissed Taylor Swift so badly at the VMA's one year, etc, etc ;-).

Finally, there's even a potential nod to a contemporary conspiracy theory that has suggested that the Nazi's ultimate secret weapon that they were trying to develop in the closing years-months-days of the war was some sort of a time-machine called "Die Glocke."  (In the film, the hive-minded bug-like space aliens have the ability to time travel into the near future to reconnoiter / discern their enemy's (humanity's) intentions.  Thus humanity's frustration that the aliens seem _always ready_ for anything that humanity throws at them).

It all makes for an interesting mishmash giving tribute to the Normandy invasion while recognizing that the bravery and horror it entailed is getting (in part, THANKFULLY) clouded over by more contemporary concerns.  After all, our parents and grandparents landed on those beaches so that we (their children and grandchildren) would be able to LIVE FREE and thus HAVE THE LUXURY TO-BE-ABLE-TO-HAVE more care-free, even at times GOOFY "more contemporary concerns." 

Indeed, I even wonder if Franz Kafka (a Czech-Jewish German-writing expressionist writer who Hitler absolutely hated) would appreciate a film that reduced the Nazis to "metallic hive-minded bug-like space aliens." After all, Kafka's most famous book was Metamorphosis (wikip) which was about "Gregor Samsa" discovering one day that he had "turned into a cockroach." ;-)  (And while he even he himself would have never guessed it at the time, he was _dead-on correct_ as to guessing what was going to happen with fast-arriving Nazi rule: The Jews as a people, HIS PEOPLE, were going to be QUITE SUDDENLY considered little more than "cockroaches" during Nazi occupation, until the Nazis themselves were finally crushed).


So then, to the film ... the story's about Major (soon to be Private) Cage (played spot-on throughout by Tom Cruise) an "ad-man" arriving in London on the eve of the long-expected re-invasion of Europe to take back the continent from a race of metallic insect-like space aliens that had crashed into Central Europe (Germany?) some years before and had conquered / laid waste to most of the Continent ever since.  The Russians and Chinese had contained them "to the East" (presumably after horrific losses), but in the West they these metallic bug-like monsters had long since reached the Atlantic coast.  Only England remained free.

The only bright spot in the West, up to this point, was a victory, temporary it turned out, some years before at Verdun (a name recalling French heroics during WW I) led by a woman named Rita Wratkowski (played by Emily Blunt).  Despite having had only 1 day of training (apparently, the French/Allies were desperate) she somehow over-came metallic bug-like space aliens there at Verdun, and her legend (sort of like a modern-day Joan of Arc) was then used by recruiters (including the above mentioned "ad-man" Major Cage) to assemble a million+ army to face said metallic bug-like space aliens: "See they are not invincible."  (But no one really knew _why_ Rita had been so successful back then at Verdun ...)

So the film then begins on the eve of "Operation Downfall" where the joint allied plan appeared to be simply drop said, assembled, 1,000,000+ army on the beaches of Normandy and beyond and ... apparently _hope_ that at least a number of them would become as successful as Rita had been at Verdun.  (Again, nobody really knew _why_ she had been so successful, and yet, all the other training that they were giving their soldiers didn't really matter either.  The battle was going to be simply a no holds barred / anything goes / total war slugfest).

So ... given that training to fight these vicious, metallic, bug-like aliens didn't really matter but bodies (and at least some degree of bravery or at least instinct for self-preservation did) Major Cage finds himself, to his horror ORDERED by the invasion's commanding officer General Brigham (played by Brendan Gleeson).  "But I'm an ad-man."  "So what?"  "I helped recruit for you this 1,000,000 strong army."  "So what?"  "But I'm not even trained for combat."  "So what?  "This is WAR, a DESPERATE WAR, and WE NEED EVERY SINGLE SOUL TO FIGHT."  So Major Cage, now stripped in rank down to PRIVATE is dropped-off, "boots" still not "on the ground" but IN HIS HANDS, at the "Forward Operating Base" of Heathrow Airport outside of London to join a squad of not necessarily better trained but at least more psychologically prepared soldiers set to "drop down into Normandy" THE NEXT DAY for the Invasion.

Is anybody concerned that Cage doesn't have a clue what he's doing?  NO.  But the squad's commander Master Sgt. Farell (played by Bill Paxton) seems convinced that "the true crucible for the soldier is the battlefield" and whatever he needs to learn, he'll learn there.

So ... the next day, there's Private Cage, strapped in a ridiculously cumbersome futuristic sci-fi looking exo-skeleton suit, armed to the teeth with weapons that he doesn't know how to operate (he spends most of his flight from England to "the drop zone" in Normandy scrolling through the 100 or so language-choices on the small 3x5" video screen attached to one his arms TO TRY TO FIND ENGLISH AMONG THEM.  And then, he finds himself, helicopter transport already hit and burning JUST DROPPED (FREE-FALL) ONTO THE BEACH IN NORMANDY (the exo-skeleton apparently good for something as he didn't just die with the drop ...) with couple of his squad-mates getting wiped-out by the helicopter crashing on top of them.

Utterly terrified, Cage, is only able to successfully duck debris from other transports (and pieces of other soldiers' exo-skeletons) crashing all around him.  Then he and the others first see these hellish, multi-tentacled metallic insect-like aliens swarming over, on top of, as well as from under the sand toward them.  Again, Private Cage is just trying to scroll through the @#$ video screen settings on his monitor to finally set the @#$ thing toEnglish.  FINALLY, he manages to do so ... and gets off exactly one shot ... before he himself is killed ... by the hot molten orangish ooze coming out of the alien that he had BY TOTAL LUCK SHOT ... and ...

... TO HIS UTTER SHOCK, HE WAKES UP AGAIN, on the tarmac at Heathrow, boots in his hand, like the day before.  WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?

Now, I would suspect that many surviving World War II veterans could be appalled by the presentation of the battle so far.  "WE WERE TRAINED FOR NORMANDY, D**MIT.  WE SPENT TWO YEARS (!!) PREPARING FOR THAT DAY." 

And you're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.  BUT ... today's kid who buys a "Code of Honor" video game and plops it into an X-box to "play" NORMANDY INVASION ... "ENTERS THE BATTLE" FOR THE FIRST TIME with ABOUT AS MUCH "EXPERIENCE" as good old Major / Private Cage had ;-) ;-).  And it's actually a good reminder to the kids that Normandy (UNLIKE A VIDEO GAME) was A ONE TIME DEAL (and REQUIRED PRECISELY A LOT MORE _TRAINING_ and a _LOT MORE BRAVERY_ than playing a video game.

However, given the scenario that Cage finds himself in, the story's "Master Sgt Farrell" is actually right: All that "Private Cage" needs to know, _he will learn_ "on the battlefield" as he plays this day OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN ;-)

And that's what happens.  Each time Private Cage dies, he finds himself waking up on the tarmac at Heathrow and the scenario resets itself and as time goes on, Private Cage gets better and better at what he's doing.

Now, of course, Private Cage IS VERY CONFUSED as to why he's waking-up EVERYTIME "after dying" on the tarmac at Heathrow (and _nobody else_ believes him when he tells them that "he's been there before.") but ... he does notice in the battle on the beach the above mentioned "angel of Verdun" Rita among the combatants ... and since, she, if nothing else, was by legend a very good soldier, he asks her to help him.  She replies: "The next time you die, LOOK FOR ME..." (SHE SEEMS TO KNOW THAT THERE'S SOMETHING STRANGE GOING ON IN THIS SCENARIO).

So ... after he dies on the beach there ... the next time he finds himself again on the tarmac there in Heathrow, he sets about "looking for her."  It takes him a few more iterations to find her ...

When he does, she explains to him, that the SAME THING that is happening to him, HAPPENED TO HER "at Verdun" (THAT'S WHY even though she was a raw recruit, with only one day of training was able to win the battle there BECAUSE ... she spent a VAST NUMBER OF CYCLES THERE repeating THAT SAME ONE DAY OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  Now the same thing appears to be happening to Private Cage, when he dies, he seems to be going back to the beginning of his own "one day cycle."

She also explains that the bug-like aliens were winning this war because _they_ do the same thing.   Each time they lose a battle, they just go back to the previous day and adapt.  Key in this short term time travel were relatively rare bugs called "alpha aliens."  When _they die_ they are the ones who teleport back a short time in time (about a day...) to start over.  HOWEVER, since these aliens have a hive-like mind, whatever they learn, gets transported back to basically the "mother beetle" named an "omega alien" who then instructs all the other bug-like aliens as to what to do defeat the humans the next time.

The key then to defeat the aliens is to find and kill the mother (omega) alien.  Kill it (presumably without killing any of the alpha aliens) and the bug like aliens can't reset and therefore will be defeated.

Good ... but why can Private Cage (and before that Private Rita Wratkowski) "reset" as well ... It seems that Private Cage (and Private Rita Wratkowski before him) had killed one of the "alpha" bug-like aliens and the molten orangish blood that had spilled on him gave him the ability to also bounce back in time (one day) following his apparent death.  She had lost her ability to do so:  To reset you have to truly DIE (and one time she had been merely wounded, and the blood transfusion that she received killed her ability to go back in time any more ...).

So now "the rules of the game"  are known by at least Rita, Private Cage and one other scientist, a Dr. Carter (played by Noah Taylor) who had somehow suspected that this was what the aliens were doing to win.  When Rita (during her near infinite number of reboots) ran into him, he the only one who believed her when she told him that she was not dying when she "died" but instead finding herself one day in the past to relive that day anew.  Together the three then set-about finding a way to (1) "get off the beach" during that invasion and (2) "find and kill the omega beatle."

The rest of the film follows ...

It's a fascinating movie, isn't it? ;-) Strange yes, but in its own way it _can_ lead the younger generations of TODAY to appreciate the total-war stakes that were involved during World War II as well as the reality that UNLIKE Private Cage and Private Wratkowski, the allied soldiers fighting the war DIDN'T have any chance at a do-over.  NORMANDY WAS FOR REAL where there wasn't the luxury to "learn from one's mistakes."  IT SIMPLY HAD TO WORK.

And thanks be to God that, after YEARS OF PLANNING AND TRAINING, THE "GREAT CRUSADE" OF NORMANDY DID, IN FACT, SUCCEED.

So God bless you WW II Allied War Veterans!  YOU REALLY DID SAVE OUR WORLD!


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The Constant Factor (orig. Constans) [1980]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article
en.wikipedia.org article*

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]


The Constant Factor (orig. Constans) [1980] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*(written and directed by Krzysztof Zanussi [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) is a "small" yet thought provoking / challenging film about a young man, an "every man," named Witold (played by Tadeusz Bradecki [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who just wanted to lead an honest/meaningful life in a world of both randomness/uncertainty and seemingly endemic petty corruption.  The film won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival [IMDb] and played recently at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.

Like the other films of Martin Scorsese's series on Polish Cinema, this film was made during the Communist Era in Poland, hence in the context of a more-or-less obvious censoring authority that would cause film makers trouble if they strayed too far into subject matters considered problematic or even "verbotten."

So how then to make a film that "pushes the envelope" without getting oneself into too much trouble?

Well what censoring authority could possibly object to a film about a young man, portrayed as a patriot -- in the beginning sequences of this film, we see the film's central protagonist, Witold (despite height / "small in stature" issues), pushing to serve his time in the military (at the time compulsory for all young men in Poland) as a PARATROOPER (voluntary, far beyond that required of the average young man) -- who just wanted to lead an honest life especially if the character is also portrayed as taking the requisite pot-shots against, that is largely rejecting, the primary competing ideologies of the time (western democracy/capitalism and the Catholic Church)?  How could a censoring authority object to such a film, even if the film _repeatedly_ exposed the contradictions in the system between its ideal and its lived out reality, when the film's hero presented as the system's ideal "young, proletarian every man" studiously puts himself squarely _against_ each-and-every-one of the failures / contradictions that the film presents?   Basically, how can a censoring authority oppose a film about someone who's "just trying to be honest?"  (Yes, these are the games that an artist has to play to get challenging/meaningful works made in a society dominated by a simultaneously insecure yet pretentious, totalitarian ideology). 

Yet, then, having jumped through the requisite "ideological hoops" to be made at all, a film about a young man simply seeking to lead an honest / meaningful life becomes a story about universal aspirations, hence this film's well deserved acclamations coming from outside of its original context.  (I suppose I'm expressing here a frustration with the whole of Scorsese's project.  Yes, almost every one of the films in this Poland under Communism film series is _great_ BUT I can't help but feel that they are "great" IN SPITE OF THE OPPRESSIVE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH THEY WERE MADE.  And there have been plenty of excellent / great Polish films (and films from other former Soviet bloc lands) including Avé [2012] from Bulgaria, Chrzest [2010] from Poland, and Klauni [2013] from the Czech Republic, that I've reviewed here, that all tread similar ground as the current film but didn't require the ideological "hoop jumping" that so characterized Communist era film-making).

HOWEVER, then be all this as it may, young Witold found himself in this film confronting the same questions / challenges that would confront anyone seeking to make sense of the world and then seeking to make one's way through it honestly, whether one was born in Sparta or Athens, Babylon, Beijing, Mecca or Jerusalem of the ancient past, or Poland, India, the Netherlands or the United States of today: Life seems random / capricious at times.  Witold is haunted by the fact that his father, a mountain climber, had died of a seemingly random mountain climbing accident (on a Polish expedition to the Himilayas) when Witold was a child.  Then during the film Witold's mother comes down, again seemingly randomly, with cancer.

The caprciousness (random awfulness) of life however seems to be made worse, rather than better, by the petty corruption of people.  Witold lived in a socialist country.  It was supposed to be "All for One and One for All," right?  So when Witold's mother (played in the film by Zofia Mrozowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) lay in a bed in a drafty corridor of a hospital awaiting cancer treatment, it should not have required a bribe to get her into a decent room, right?  BUT APPARENTLY IT DID.  Realizing this, after getting nowhere with the doctor on duty, Witold, exasperated, becomes TOO BLUNT asking "Okay, how much do you want?  Just name a price."  The doctor, of course, leaves 'offended.'  The nurse on hand, Grażyna (played by Małgorzata Zajączkowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who comes to be impressed by the surprisingly honest Witold, tells him "Look, you went about it the wrong way.  There's no talking. You just come with an envelope, preferably with dollars inside ..."  "But I don't have any dollars ..." Witold responds (that would clearly be a problem ...).  But then Witold recovers and askes tellingly if rhetorically, "Is the doctor short on money?  Does he really need it?"   Grażyna's expression says it all ("of course not..."), but she adds "He just expects it, because he can."  (ISN'T THAT THE TRUTH?  Right there is the origin of almost every abuse of power ... People are tempted to wield power _badly_ BECAUSE THEY CAN.  Indeed, the Latin root for the word power, potens, means EXACTLY THAT: "CAPACITY, TO BE ABLE TO").  So in a society where doctors, already in positions of power/prestige, use their power/prestige to shake down the loved ones of their patients, we can pretty much guess what eventually happens to Witold's mother... 

But the petty corruption of society isn't simply present in the hospitals (even if perhaps there, the consequences are most determinant), it occurs elsewhere.  Witold, who after leaving military service becomes an electrician, with a friend's help lands a job that actually offers him some outside/international travel ("WHAT A DEAL!" for someone from a Communist country where travel was often terribly restricted).  BUT ... Witold, good honest person that he was, actually didn't care much about the possibility of travel.  True, he didn't necessarily mind that his job gave him the opportunity to travel to India (where, in the Himilayas his father, had died previously).  HOWEVER, WHAT DID OFFEND HIS HONEST SENSIBILITY WAS THAT ALMOST EVERY OTHER WORKER IN HIS GROUP, INCLUDING HIS BOSS ROUTINELY OVERSTATED THEIR EXPENSES (pocketing the extra cash they'd receive on return for themselves).  So he asked his boss (played by Witold Pyrkosz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*): "DON'T YOU CARE that our tax-payers are paying for our travel overseas and when you _routinely_ overstate our expenses, THEY have to fork-up the money for that?"  (Of course he didn't, and neither did the other workers in the crew.  They did this, again ... BECAUSE THEY COULD).  So needless to say, Witold eventually had to get in trouble with his boss / co-workers ... and this couldn't end well for him in that regard ...

The society, nominally "socialist" mind you, was thus portrayed as one made-up of people mostly just gaming the system for themselves.

BUT EVEN BEYOND THIS, LIFE ITSELF SEEMS SO RANDOM, _INCONSTANT_, for Witold.  His father died in a fluke accident, his mother was dying of a random but uncompromising illness (cancer) AND NO ONE / NOTHING SEEMED TO HELP.  Near the end of her life, Witold, went to a priest -- the Catholic Church was portrayed in this film as something of a "relic of the past," inconvenient perhaps even embarrassing but still an unavoidable reality in Poland -- to ask if he could come to his mother to give her "Last Rites."  The priest corrected him, "The Sacrament is now called 'Announting of the Sick'" to which Witold responds: "Oh my, even the Church seems now to downplay the (One) Certainty of Dying." (It's actually an interesting criticism ...).

So where does Witold come to look for CONSTANCY in this world of capriciousness (randomness) and corruption?  Not in people (they are corrupt), not in religion (it's superstitious and even it changes with time), but in ... mathematics (where laws can be discerned but presumably remain constant).  He has some interesting discussions with a mathematics professor (played by Edward Żebrowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*).  Together they discuss the possibility of being able to prove statistically (mathematically) that it is better to live an honest life -- less lies, less stress, less heart attacks, etc.

But the world with its capriciousness and corruption also has its say: The professor asks Witold if he ever considered getting a degree in mathematics to pursue such a study.  Witold, by then reduced to being a window washer on high rises, because he had gotten fired from his electrician job for refusing to go along with "cooking the books" with his boss and coworkers tells him that at this point he doubts he'd ever be allowed to enter the university.  And then even a job as a window-washer on high rises carries its own (random) hazards ...

This is, indeed, a story that would "make the Buddha proud."  An excellent, indeed haunting, visual reflection on impermanence, the central preoccupation of Buddhism, can be found in the film Samsara [2012] previously reviewed here).   My irritation with the current film is that it arrives at this place arguably by accident.

Finally, like several other films in Martin Scorsese's film series, the Polish film studio, TOV, that has the rights to the film has made it available (with English subtitles - click the "cc" option) FOR FREE ON YOUTUBE.  Despite my quite _many_ irritations with this film, only _some_ of which I list above (others include aesthetics -- Western viewers, please understand that the film-makers CHOSE to make this film "under grey skies and in incessant snow" FOR THE SAKE OF MOOD, Poland, certainly TODAY, is much prettier than shown in this film) the film's well _worth the view_.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Pharaoh (orig. Faraon) [1966]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13 / R)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article
pl.wikipedia.org article*

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]


Pharaoh (orig. Faraon) [1966] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Jerzy Kawalerowicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*, along with Tadeusz Konwicki [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*, based on the novel [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* by Bolesław Prus [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) is an 1966 Oscar nominated (for Best Foreign Language Film) Polish "Speculative Fiction" / "Sword and Sandal" Epic that played recently here at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.

American / Western viewers will find similarities between this film and BOTH Hollywood "sword and sandal" epics being made at the time like the Charlton Heston starring Ten Commandments [1956] (directed still by Cecil B. DeMille [IMDb]) and Ben Hur [1963], the Kirk Douglas / Lawrence Olivier starring (Stanley Kubrick [IMDb] directed) Spartacus [1960], and especially the Elizabeth Taylor / Richard Burton starring Cleopatra [1963] AS WELL AS the later much beloved and becoming enormously influential Sci-Fi ("speculative fiction" / "space opera") projects like Gene Roddenberry's original StarTrek [1966-] [IMDb] television series and George Lucas' Star Wars [1977-] [IMDb] film franchise.

I write this because whereas the Hollywood "Sword and Sandal" epics listed above tended to be based on historical and/or bibilical texts, Kawalerowicz' / Konwicki's film, based on Prus' original novel (written in the latter part of the 19th century), was far more speculative / allegorical in nature, having at least as much in common with Gene Roddenberry's Star-Trek series as R. Burton / E. Taylor's Cleopatra [1963].  Set at the time of a fictional Ramses XIII (played in the film by Jerzy Zelnik [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), sometime in the 11th century BCE, the story is a study of the power politics of the time (and a more or less obvious allegory to the late-19th century / 1960s European present): There were two regional super-powers Egypt and Assyria.  There were smaller states in between, notably Phoenicia and Israel (which the two "super-powers" sought to divide up among themselves), a state to the west already in Egypt's orbit (Libya) and "a distant realm over the horizon" (Greece) to which one of the characters during the course of the story actually defects.  The Pharoah, who seeks to lead a modern and militarily powerful state, is also held back by a powerful (and wealthy as well as educated) inherently far more cautious / conservative Ra-worshiping Priesthood. 

Add then that at the time of the filming, Egypt then under Gamal Abner Nasser was arguably a Soviet-bloc aligned client state (making filming there by a Polish film crew far easier than in years either before or after, though apparently most of the film was "filmed on location" in then Soviet Uzbekistan anyway, something that could be fascinating to American/Western viewers/readers in its own right).  It all makes for fascinating consideration by Cold War / 1960s (as well as ancient) history buffs.

Finally, LIKE MANY OF THE FILMS BEING SHOWN IN MARTIN SCORCESE'S SERIES ON POLISH CINEMA, the Polish film studio, KADR, that has the rights to the film has made it available (with English subtitles - click the "cc" option) FOR FREE on YouTube.  Honestly, WHAT A DEAL! 

I do hope that soon enough there will come to be way for the film studio to make at least some money off of making its films available in this way (the Amazon Instant Video service generally charges $2.99 for rental of equivalent American movies like this).  However, I'm VERY HAPPY that the film is available, LEGITIMATELY, for people to see, because IMHO it's well worth the viewing!


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Cold in July [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (B. Sharkey) review
RE.com (S. Abrams) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Cold in July [2014] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Jim Mackle along with Nick Damici based on the novel by Joe R. Lansdale [IMDb]) is a hard-R “Texas Noir” tale that’s not for the squeamish.   Then again, “Noir” films have never been exactly “light” in nature.  Indeed, the French didn’t coin them “Noir” (dark) for nothing.  Even in their golden age, in the 1940s-50s, these films tended to be descents into "black holes" of dysfunction and Evil that approached the unpresentable.  And at the center of a classic film noir story would always be some "unspeakable secret" that only upon its discovery would render the behavior those effected by it ("caught in its orbit") explicable.  Mores may change, but even today the 1950s films would leave most viewers with a shudder.

Okay, what's this story about?  The story set in 1989 begins with a random / regular East Texas couple, Richard and Ann Dane (played by Michael C. Hall and Vinessa Shaw), being woken-up in the middle of the night with the sound of an intruder inside their house.  Being (East) Texan, upon realizing that his house is probably being broken into, Richard jumps out of bed and heads quickly to the closet where he has his revolver.  Being a good, salt-of-the-earth East Texan, who follows good fire-arms safety practices, Richard keeps the revolver unloaded, with a small box of bullets nearby.  Most of us could probably relate to him as we watch him nervously, hands-shaking load his six-shooter with the requisite bullets before heading out the couple's bedroom to face whatever awaits him downstairs.  As he heads down the hall to the stairs, he stops to check on his young, 8-10 year old son in the bedroom next door (he's safe asleep) and then continues down the stairs ...

Below in the living room, he encounters an intruder, who, startled turns to face him.  Identifying him as someone he clearly did not know, Richard fires and shoots him in the head, dead.  Blood and pieces of bone/brains splatter on the wall behind the intruder and the intruder, becoming a bloody mess even as he drops, crumples onto a couch that the Danes had there against the wall.

The Danes call the police, who soon arrive.  Much of the night is taken-up with the police writing-up the crime scene.  The body's eventually taken away.  Richard is asked by the police to come to the station to give a statement, assured by the small town's chief of police (played by Nick Damici), a friend, that he didn't do anything but act in self-defense.  So he goes down to the station, the chief of police himself takes his statement.  And finally, near dawn, Richard returns home.

The film documents then quite well the next day's small town chaos.  Richard and Ann again are "regular people" living in a "regular town."  So the story of a local resident / neighbor / friend, shooting a burglar in his house quickly becomes news all across town.  Richard goes into a diner and everyone wants to buy him breakfast.  Ann, a middle-school teacher, is rather irritated that all her 7th graders want her to talk about is about how her husband "blew-away the burglar."  And then they have a kid in 3rd or 4th grade and a house with blood and bits of the burglar's head sill splattered on back wall of the living room, a couch and possibly a carpet ruined by said burglar's blood and various photos and other keepsakes splattered by blood as well.  Taking care of all that awaits them when they get home.

I found the film's documentation of this unwanted yet necessary if also rather distasteful "chore" of "cleaning up the mess" remarkably well done.  And it's another invitation to the audience to identify with this "regular family."  It clearly had to "suck" to have to clean-up the house after this terrible, violent and thankfully _brief_ incident (that could have actually ended worse) that took place in their home: Richard comes home with a new couch in the bed of his truck.  Ann rolls her eyes because he's, of course, bought the wrong couch (with a rather ugly gold and black checkered motif) when "they had decided" that the new couch should have had the same, more cheerful, pastel colored "flowery motiff" as the old one had (the one now covered in blood...).   While Richard was out quickly buying the wrong couch, Ann's also called over workmen to repaint the famous 'blood-splattered wall," behind the once flowery, now blood drenched couch that they have to get rid of.  As Richard enters with the poorly considered new couch, we see one of the workmen dutifully "plastering over the bullet hole" left in the wall ...

Admitedly, I've gone to town here describing the first part of the movie, because, truth be told, if the story had happened to us or to a neighbor and just ended here, it'd still be remembered "as an event" to be recalled in family and neighborhood lore for years to come AND YET, THIS WAS JUST THE PROLOGUE TO THE PROLOGUE TO THE STORY TO COME.

The story descends to a new, "Cape Fearish" level when Richard stops by the police station a day or two later and told by his friend, the chief of police, that (1) some church chipped in to buy a casket for the burglar that Richard had shot dead in his living room and the burial was to take place at some cemetery outside of town later that day, and (2) that the crook that Richard shot dead was the son of some felon recently released after serving many, many years in jail: "The s*&t doesn't fall far from the tree" the chief of police adds.

Richard, good decent Southern Man that he is (Lynyrd Skynyrd honestly could have made a song about him), decides to go out to the cemetery to see the poor guy that he had shot dead being buried.  A pastor's there, the grave diggers are there, and ... well, so is the dead burglar's "dad" (played to a truly well-calibrated level of "troubled-ness" by Sam Shepard).  "Dad" might not have been there for his son since, "oh, about the age of your's there Richard" (A picture of Richard, Ann and their eight year old son had made the local paper in the hoopla of the recent days' past..) but ... he kinda felt he need to "set things right" for him now that he (dad) was out (and his son's now tragically dead).

Now what the heck would "setting things right" mean in this context to this poor, quite scary-looking recently released felon?  Was he threatening Richard?  Kinda looked like it.  The poor dead burglar's dad (named actually Russell) starts hanging out by Richard's son's school, breaks into their house again (but as a former time-serving felon, he seemed to be "more professional" and certainly "less noisy" about it ...).  Eventually, Richard heads over to the police station "for protection," which the chief of police, again a friend, is quick to offer / provide. 

HOWEVER ... when Richard's there in the police station, filing the requisite paperwork for an Order of Protection he notices on the board the "Wanted Poster" still with the name of the burglar that he supposedly shot in his house.  And he quickly tells his friend, the town's chief of police, "Hey is this the guy who I supposedly shot?  He doesn't look ANYTHING like the burglar that I killed in my house." "Well, it's an old, poorly made mug-shot." "Nah, the shot's not that poor.  He's a totally different guy."  "Richard, no, you shot this guy."

Okay, you get the picture ... the rest of the story follows.  During the rest of the story that follows, Richard's able to convince the rather scary, disturbed, but mostly old, Russell (the "dad" of the "son" that he supposedly shot dead in his living room) that he really didn't kill his son.  And that, of course, would take some convincing since both Richard and Russell saw someone being buried in that pine box in that cemetery that fateful aftertoon when they met.  So (1) who did Richard actually kill? And (2) if Russell's son wasn't in that box, where was he? 

To help them out, Russell calls an old friend, perhaps his only remaining friend, a buddy he served with in the Korean War named Jim Bob (played again quite well by aging Miami Vice alum Don Johnson).  He "arrives in style," driving a big "Texas sized" red cadilac convertible with Texas Long Horn" horns on the front of it, and well, works as a "private eye."

What does Jim Bob dig up?  A story, that's IMHO still worthy of the lengthy set-up.  For yes folks, THIS STORY IS STILL NOT NEARLY YET OVER.  There are still a number of levels more to descend in this tale of increasing corruption and, as the levels go deeper, increasing depravity.

And I write this because a truly noirish story worthy of the genre could not end with simply at the doorstep of an incompetent and perhaps somewhat corrupt "small town police department."  That's small potatoes.  For the secret to descent into truly UNSPEAKABLE territory, to be truly depraved, it has to go deeper than that.  And ... it does.  And IMHO the film does leave the viewer new, rather visceral insight into how "the Law" could be co-opted into the service of Crime (and why Southerners are often SO SKEPTICAL of Government / "the Law")  And then if the Criminals are protected by "the Law" how far their Crimes can go?   Well ... purty far ...

Again, this film is certainly not for the li'l ones nor for the squeamish (by the end, the film is certainly  a hard-R) but it's also not without its point.


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A Million Ways to Die In the West [2014] / Malificient [2014]

As part of my contribution to our parish's participation in the Archdiocese of Chicago's Campaign "To Teach Who Christ Is," I've decided to forgo seeing (and therefore reviewing here) one or two movies a weekend and instead contribute the money I would have spent to the campaign.

I'm trying to be strategic about this, picking movies that would "hurt somewhat" to miss, that is, films that are not "so bad" that I wouldn't see them anyway nor movies that I really would need to see/review or else my blogging effort would cease to be worthwhile.

As per my custom, I will try to provide links to usual line-up of reviews that I also consider as I write my own.

This week, the films I chose not to see / review here are:

A Million Ways to Die in the West [2014] - MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (1/2 Star)  Chicago SunTimes (B-)  RE.com (1 Star)  AVClub (C-)

Maleficient [2014] - MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)


While I considered seeing A Million Ways to Die in the West [2014] in some solidarity with a fair number of parishioners that I know will probably go see the film (and I have seen / reviewed some fairly raunchy films here in the past, notably Bad Teacher [2011] (in solidarity with our school teachers), Seth McFarland's previous film Ted [2012] and Movie 43 [2013] a almost total gross-out fest) I honestly could not bring myself to shell out the money to see this one, especially since I'd give the money to the campaign.

But since I was going to forgo A Million Ways ..., I couldn't bring myself to see Maleficient [2014] either, as the film seemed to me to be something of a second-tier Disney venture of doubtful purpose.  Question: When, if ever, is the musical Wicked going to be made into a film?  In the past couple of years, Disney has produced not one but two Wizard of Oz [1939] [IMDb] based films (Oz the Great and Powerful [2013] and Dorothy's Return [2013] both reviewed here) and it would seem that the concept behind Maleficient [2014] is basically the concept behind the story of Wicked only that the back-story being told is that of the "wicked queen" from the Sleeping Beauty [1959] [IMDb] story instead of that of the "Wicked Witch of the West" of the "Oz" universe.

However, I'm pretty certain that a number of our younger school / CCD kids are going to see Maleficient [2014] this weekend.  So I'll be asking them what they thought of the film and depending on what they say, perhaps put up a few of their comments about it here ;-).

Anyway, these are the the two films that I'm forgoing this weekend in support of our parish's campaign ;-)