Cantinflas [2014]

MPAA (PG)  RE.com (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune/LA Times (B. Sharkey) review
RE.com (A. Aradillas) review

LaOpinion-LosAngeles coverage*
Hoy-Chicago coverage*


Cantinflas [2014] (directed and cowritten by Sebastian del Amo along with Edui Tijerina) is a Hispanic family oriented film (the PG rating is absolutely appropriate) about the life of beloved Mexican comic Cantinflas ("Mexico's Charlie Chaplin") [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* [IMDb]. 

Fully bilingual (the parts of story that are in English are presented with Spanish subtitles, the parts in Spanish are with English ones), the film's box-office success (despite having almost NO COVERAGE in the English language press in the U.S. and hence relying almost entirely on Spanish language media for publicity in the U.S.) on the heals of the even more financially successful Instructions Not Included [2013] which utilized the same bilingual formula and also relied on the Spanish media for outreach suggests that Lionsgate Films have found a way of replicating Tyler Perry's [IMDb] success in reaching African American audiences to reach Hispanic audiences here.

While clearly directed to Hispanic families, non-Hispanic audiences could benefit in taking-in this film because it can serve to introduce (or reintroduce) Cantinflas [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* [IMDb] (played in the film by Óscar Jaenada) to them.  For he really was, IMHO, a comic genius.

My first exposure to him was 6 days after arriving in Guadalajara to take an intensive Spanish language course some 15-20 years ago.  Part of taking such a course is not simply learning the language but also to learn about the culture.  Well that day, the instructor brought in a few clips from Cantiflas' circa 1940s films.  The scene that I remember from that day was Cantinflas (who almost always played a "simple Mexican everyman") arriving at a Mexico City pool-hall, late, explaining to his friend what had happened to him: "Well I was walking along the street, making good time, when this lady came running out of a shop, screaming POLICE! POLICE! ..." Well when good old, simple Continflas, calls out "Police! Police!" (while calmly adjusting his pool cue ...) recounting the story, THE CROWDED POOL HALL'S PATRONS just start RUNNING (AWAY) IN EVERY DIRECTION, OUT DOORS, THROUGH WINDOWS, TRYING TO HIDE UNDER / BEHIND POOL TABLES AND CHAIRS, while Continflas, unphased, continues his story, to the horror of his (perhaps also shaking in his boots) friend!

I LAUGH TO THIS DAY recalling of that scene ;-) ... and, thinking of his diminutive posture and manner of motion, remember IMMEDIATELY THINKING "My gosh, THIS GUY'S MEXICO'S CHARLIE CHAPLIN" (which is, in fact, _exactly_ how he is remembered all across the Spanish speaking world).

So I'm happy that this film was made, and I'm also happy that, _more or less_, Cantinflas's [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* personal life was worth remembering _positively_:

Though the film does indicate that when his success did come, he was certainly tempted, and probably (indeed almost certainly) fell in his personal life, he did remain "till death did they part" with his wife, a Russian immigrant to Mexico named Valentina Ivanova (played in the film by Ilse Salas) WHO HE DID LOVE and WHO HE MET VERY EARLY IN HIS CAREER when both were still dirt poor and were (both) working as CIRCUS ACTS.

Indeed, to (North) American audiences perhaps the most controversial scene in the film comes from that early period in his life, when the film shows that Cantinflas BEGINNING his acting career (before that, he tried his hand at both BOXING and BULL FIGHTING ;-) doing a BLACK-FACE ROUTINE (he liked to dance ...) BUT ... (and this is true) HE CAME TO REALIZE VERY QUICKLY THAT HE GOT A LOT MORE LAUGHS FROM HIS MEXICO CITY AUDIENCES WHEN HE SIMPLY PLAYED HIMSELF: A POOR YOUNG STREETWISE MEXICAN MAN WHO WAS "FAST ON HIS FEET" AND EVEN FASTER WITH HIS TONGUE ;-).

To bring the Continflas' story to the States, the current film recalls his participation in the 50's era United Artists (notably the studio CO-FOUNDED BY CHAPLIN) film Around the World in Eighty Days [1956] which won various Academy Awards including Writing and Best Picture and for which Continflas received a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical.

The film recalls the difficulty that producer Michael Todd [IMDb] (played in the film by Michael Imperioli) had in putting together "international cast" to make his film based on Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, including getting Cantinflas to do the film.  Indeed, Todd needed Charlie Chaplin's (played in the film by Julian Sedgwick) help to get Cantinflas to accept.

Why would that be?  Well, the film shows quite well that Cantiflas was an authentic superstar in Mexico by then, and indeed, the head of Mexico's version of the Screen Actors' Guild.  He didn't need to go up the States to play a bit role in some Hollywood film ;-).

All in all, this is honestly a very nice film, again deserving of its family friendly PG rating and one that honestly will put a smile on everybody in the audience's faces (and probably many times ;-)

So good job folks, honestly good job!  And it serves me right.  I have to read the Spanish papers here more often ;-)


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

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The Drop [2014]

MPAA (R)  Chicago Tribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


The Drop [2014] (directed by Michaël R. Roskam, screenplay by Dennis Lehane based on an earlier short story of his) is IMHO an excellent, well written / well acted, starting out low key but steadily building (until an inevitable climax) crime drama set around a neighborhood bar in Brooklyn, New York.

The central (certainly at least partly "mythic") device around which the story is built is that of "The Drop" (which, of course, is the film's title). We're told in a voice-over by "Bob" the film's central protagonist / seeming "mild-mannered everyman" bartender (played with near perfectly calibrated precision throughout the whole of the film by Tom Hardy) at a neighborhood tavern nominally owned by his once (and still?) ambitious older cousin Marv (played by James Gandolfini) that:

"(In Brooklyn) every night, a lot of money changes hands, the kind of money that can't be reported but must go somewhere, and where it goes is to a 'Drop Bar,'"

The Drop Bar is where the neighborhood's questionably acquired money is collected, stored and eventually picked up the neighborhood's (mob) powers-that-be.  We're also told that "the drop" location changes from night to night.  So no bar would always be "the drop bar" but once one's bar becomes designated as such (presumably without the bar's owner necessarily even knowing about his/her establishment's designation beforehand) the bar owner would DEFINITELY MAKE SURE THAT THE "DROPPED" MONEY WAS "KEPT SAFE" for "pick-up" by the local mob's representative later on.  And, of course, it goes without saying that the money had better "all be there" when the mob's rep comes calling.

Well, early in the story, Bob's tending bar at his cousin Marv's place and the bar gets "hit" by two masked, somewhat amateurish, thugs on exactly the night that the bar was the neighborhood's "drop bar."  Marv even asks them: "Do you know what you're doing?  Do you know whose money you're stealing?"  They don't seem to care.  Not wanting to die for other people's money, Marv hands over to them the "evening's drop."

Okay ... but neither NYPD who Marv has to call to report the robbery (after-all the robbery was nominally witnessed by numerous bar patrons) nor the Chechen immigrant gangsters who actually run the neighborhood believe that the robbery was an accident.  When NYPD Detective Torres (played by John Ortiz) comes by to take statements, none of the "witnesses" except actually Bob "saw anything."  Yes, there they all saw a robbery take place, but NONE except Bob could offer ANYTHING descriptive of the perpetrators.  And actually, all that Bob notes to the detective was that ONE of the two assailants wore a watch that apparently didn't work.  He tells the detective that "his watch was stuck at 6:15."  That little detail would seem utterly trivial, but his older cousin Marv was irritated that Bob told the detective anything at all.  When Mob collector Chovka (played by Michael Aronov) comes by the next day, watch-or-no-watch, robbery-or-no-robbery, he tells Marv (and Bob standing by) simply that they owe the mob the $5,000 lost in the drop.

... a few days later the $5,000 shows up, along with the broken watch, and ... bit more than just said broken watch ... all nicely packed ... in a blood soaked bag.  A "crime" was "solved," "justice" was (almost to the letter) "restored" BUT ... what the heck happened?

These are the questions that fly-out-at those living in the neighborhood, but NO ONE in his / her right mind would want to publicly ask them (even in a whisper) ... TO ANYONE.

Now it turns out that there's SOMEONE in the neighborhood who's NOTORIOUSLY NOT "IN HIS RIGHT MIND" ... An Eric Deeds (played by Matthias Schoenaerts) KNOWN to have been institutionalized in a psycho-ward for a period of time "in his youth" AND WHISPERED ABOUT as the probable perpetrator of a NOTORIOUS "UNSOLVED" MURDER of another wayward youth some years back.  Did he do it?  Everybody thought he did.  BUT NOBODY WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT SEEMED AGAIN POSSIBLY "MOB CONNECTED" AND THEY WERE SCARED OF HIM.

For his part, Deeds DIDN'T MIND HIS SCARY REPUTATION and spends much of the film terrorizing the people in the neighborhood that he wanted to terrorize, notably an "ex-girlfriend" named Nadia (played by Noomi Rapace) and later Bob.  Bob actually "meets" (starts talking to / befriending) Nadia when one evening coming home from work he hears a puppy whimpering inside a garbage can outside Nadia's house.  Apparently to terrorize both the puppy ... and Nadia..., Deeds had bashed the puppies head with something and then had left it, whimpering, in her trash can for her to find.  Why would he do that?  WELL, BECAUSE HE'S A PSYCHO who ENJOYS inflicting pain on the weak and terrorizing them.  Then when Deeds starts seeing Bob, Nadia, and the brought-to-better-health puppy (a baby pit-bull actually) together, he actually decides to EXTORT BOB telling him to give him $10,000 or he'd "capture the dog one day" and kill him (the dog, that is ... but ... ...).

WELL all comes to a head, when "Superbowl Sunday" (the "ugliness" of the previously missing $5000 at Marv's place having been "satisfactorily" resolved) the Chechens having designated Marv's place to be THE PERFECT PLACE FOR "THE DROP" ON THE BIGGEST (CASH) NIGHT OF THEIR YEAR (they'd presumably be REALLY CAREFUL WITH THE MONEY...), Deeds comes to the bar, with Nadia all dolled up "as his date", Marv's not around, asking Bob for the $10,000 (to "leave the dog alone...") and THEN ... Deeds stays around apparently with the intention of holding-up the place for the rest (the Mob's "drop").

At this point, if you were "Bob" what would you do? 

I found the film very well crafted and very well acted.  I _hope_ that its portrayal of "neighborhood life" was _exaggerated_ at least somewhat "for dramatic effect" as there are any number of establishments in my own neighborhood where I currently serve that could very well have been the bar portrayed in this film ;-). 

Indeed, the Church does have a role in the story.  Its role is not an overpowering one _but it is there_ and its role is not a bad one.  It is there for those who would but notice it / come to realize that they need it.

Very good film!


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Life After Beth [2014]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review


Life After Beth [2014] (written and directed by Jeff Baena) is IMHO a fun and amusingly subversive "small indie piece" about early 20-something Beth Slocum (played by Aubrey Plaza) who dies, hiking, in the first 30 seconds of the film (of a snake bite) and then about her boyfriend Zach (played by Dane DeHaan) and their two sets of parents, hers (played by John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon), his (played by Paul Reiser and Cheryl Hines) trying to get over (and trying to help Zach get over) her loss.

First, it needs to be realized that both Beth and Zach were "quite young" and truth be told already "not all that much into each other" when she ... died.  Indeed, one got the sense that they probably would have definitively broken-up shortly afterward, if she had not, well, again ... so suddenly died.

But die, she did.  And so Zach, as well as obviously her parents, was/were crushed.  So ... to "cope," Zach starts hanging-out, perhaps even more so than before, at Beth's house (with Beth's parents...) while they themselves are trying to deal with her sudden loss.  All this drives Zach's older and far more straightforward brother Kyle (played by Matthew Gray Gubler), who works as a neighborhood watch / security guard, nuts.  Watching Zach mope around about the loss of a girlfriend that he presumably had already (if not in death) lost anyway, Kyle just shakes his head and calls Zach what every older brother in America would call his younger brother acting in a similar way: "a p..." ;-).

Okay, Zach's kinda a loser ... but perhaps a sincere one. 

Well, one afternoon, he comes over to mope around at Beth's parents' house again, when he spots through the window ... Beth.  But wait, wasn't she DEAD?  He knocks on the door, then POUNDS on the door.  No answer.  Security guard Kyle comes around.  He asks Kyle, his brother, to do something.  Kyle, complicatedly explains that though he is a security guard, since HE IS A SECURITY GUARD he CAN'T JUST BREAK DOWN THE DOOR OF A HOUSE IN A NEIGHBORHOOD THAT HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTING ;-) ... and tells Kyle that he's going to have to "be patient" and come back when Beth's parents come back (or feel ready) to open the door.

Angry, anxious, Zach finally gives up and goes home to come back later in the evening to Beth's parents' house to ask WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON.

Initially, Beth's parents deny everything ... but eventually they cave and say that "Beth's come back."  "BUT HOW, ISN'T SHE DEAD???"  "Yes, she was dead," Beth's mother answers, but one day "earlier in the week she came back."  "HOW?"  "Well, it's as if she was raised from the dead"  "Like JESUS??" (part of the schtick in this movie is BOTH FAMILIES ARE VERY JEWISH")  "Maybe."

But Beth's dad already suspects that Beth probably didn't come back "like Jesus."  HOW she came back, he didn't know, but (1) probably NOT _that_ way, and (2) "who cares HOW she came back (as a vampire, or a zombie, or whatever else ...) she's MY DAUGHTER and SHE CAME BACK" and so HE becomes a WILDLY "over-protective" father for the rest of the film ;-).

The rest of the film follows, and truth be told, I really enjoyed it.

Yes, it's kinda subversive ... Could one possibly think of "The Risen Jesus" as "a zombie"?   The film DID raise that question up for me ... Though OBVIOUSLY JESUS WAS NOT THAT as JESUS' BODY AS DESCRIBED IN THE BIBLE WAS NOT FALLING APART AS A RESULT OF HIS RESURRECTION BUT WAS ARGUABLY _BETTER_ / MORE CAPABLE (capable of passing through walls, etc) THAN BEFORE.

Still, I really enjoyed this film and yes, teens / young adults "break-ups" are hard ... but LIKE (MOURNING) THE DEAD ... one must eventually move on ;-)

Great / amusing young adult film ;-)

One last note, parents, the R is appropriate for both language and the 20-something nature of the film.  Yes, Zach tries to have ... at one point with his once dead now, kinda back to life, girlfriend... Anyway, the R is deserved, but the film remains IMHO surprisingly "fresh" and funny ;-)


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Belle and Sebastian (orig. Belle et Sébastien) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG)  LaCroix (3 Stars)  LeMonde (2 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allociné.fr listing*

LaCroix.fr (F.  Lebreton) review*
LeMonde.fr (N, Luciani) review*
Filmreporter.de (T. Niezel) review*
Filmovie.it (F. Mangiò) review*
CervenyKoberec.cz (E. Bartlová) review*
Variety review

Belle and Sebastian (orig. Belle et Sébastien) [2013] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Nicholas Vanier [IMDb] [AC.fr]*, along with Fabien Suarez [IMDb] [AC.fr]* and Juliette Sales [IMDb] [AC.fr]*, based on the children's book [en.wikip] [fr.wikip]* by Cécile Aubry [en.wikip] [fr.wikip]* [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) is a lovely, beautifully-shot children's-oriented film about a 6-10 year old boy named Sébastien (played by Félix Bossuet [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) growing-up as an orphan and being raised by a "step-grandfather" named César (played by Tchéky Karyo [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) and his family in a small village in the French Alps near the Swiss border during Nazi Occupation.  During the course of the film, Sébastien befriends a previously abused wild sheepdog that he names Belle.  Together, of course, they eventully "help take on the Nazis" ;-)  The film played recently at the 2014 Chicago French Film Festival held at Chicago's Music Box Theater, a festival cosponsored by the French Diplomatic Mission to the United States.

It's a lovely film.  The scenery is absolutely beautiful.  And even the Germans in the film are played with texture (they're not all portrayed as uniformly evil...).  The film even _lightly confronts_ one of the biggest post-War shames of not just the French, but of _all_ the European nations that were occupied by the Nazis: the way the populations of these countries dealt, after liberation, with their young women who did (often only after some time...) fraternize with the young German soldiers of the previous occupying force.

Indeed, one of the subplots of the film involves late teen, early 20-something Angélina (played by Margaux Chatelier [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) presumably the daughter or granddaughter of César who still lives in the home of César and Sébastien but has a boyfriend Guillaume (played by Dimitri Storoge [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) in the resistance.  Throughout the film, she is repeatedly hit-upon / arguably at times harassed by a young German lieutenant named Peter (played by Andreas Pietschmann  [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) who turns out to be actually a pretty good guy.  His interest in Angélina involved more than just that she was an attractive young french woman living in the same town where he, a German soldier, far from home, found himself stationed in. 

That all noted and said, IMHO the greatest difficulty in marketing this film in the United States would be that the film is that it is clearly intended for children -- the story's central protagonists are a 6-10 year old boy and his dog -- Yet, of course, it is filmed in French.  There's no real tradition in the United States to dub such films (and if it was dubbed, the film would probably look awkward to American audiences).  Yet, obviously, a six-year old is not going to be "reading subtitles" ;-).

My sense is that the film would be best utilized (in the English speaking world) as a film shown in French language courses from the secondary school level (7th/8th grade) upward.  Again, the French Alpine scenery is absolutely beautiful and would probably encourage students to "keep with their studies" ("Yes, kids learning French is worth it ...").

So... this is a lovely film, it's just one that very few Americans are probably ever going to see, and IMHO, that is a shame.


ADDENDUM:

It turns out that this film is available in bilingual (French w English subtitles) format IN CANADA.  North Americans can purchase it through Amazon.ca at a (more or less...) reasonable price and it can be shipped anywhere (including the United States).


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

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Films that I did not see in August (in support of our Archdiocesan campaign)

August was a month of travel, weddings / quinces for me as well as of our annual Annunciata Fest.  So there were actually a lot of movies that I missed both intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.  

As I've written before, as part of my contribution in our parish's participation in the Archdiocese of Chicago's Campaign "To Teach Who Christ Is," I've decided to forgo seeing (and therefore not reviewing here) one or two movies a weekend and instead contribute the money I would have spent to the campaign.  Here the list would seem longer than normal and admittedly some of the films I probably would not have seen anyway.  However, others I probably would have seen if not for time constraints and the campaign.

In any case as per my custom, I'm providing a list along with links to the usual line-up of reviews that I also consider as I write my own.

So in the past several weeks, these are the films that I did not see in support of the parish / Archdiocesan campaign:
 
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [2014] - MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+) - I was already "not a kid" when the original toys / series came out.  To be truthful, I never understood the appeal except that one would never imagine "turtles" to be "like ninjas," so perhaps the appeal is "don't judge a book by its cover" - even someone "nerdy" / "slow" could actually be "quick" / "really cool."

Into the Storm [2014] - MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (1 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+) - This summer's Hollywood disaster movie

Let's Be Cops [2014] - MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-) - This summer's (wannabe) cop "buddy movie"

The Expendables 3 [2014] - MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+) - Silvester Stallone is actually a very talented screenwriter (the original Rocky [1976] and Rambo [1982] were both his creations) and he can honestly make just about anything work.  However, I've never particularly liked this "merceraries can be regular folk / good guys" story line.  His talents could be better used elsewhere.

When The Game Stands Tall [2014] - MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+) - This summer's pretty good inspirational high school sports film.

Land Ho! [2014] - MPAA (R) ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  - Two older guys go on a "road trip" to Iceland.  Kinda like this year's The Bucket List [2007].

To be Tokei [2014] - MPAA (UR)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 stars)  AVClub (C+) - Documentary about the life of George Tokei, the Japanese American actor who played Sulu in the original Startrek Series.  He spent a good amount of his childhood growing-up in one of the Japanese-American internment camps set-up by the U.S. government during WW II.  That would have been a compelling enough story as it is, but it turns out that he's also gay.  So he was playing his role in the series / subsequent films as a gay man from the 1960s through the 1980s as a gay man without the public realizing this.

Love is Strange [2014] - MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B+) - Story of a gay couple that after many years together finally get married, only to have one of them fired by the Catholic Archdiocese for which he worked for not complying with / living according to Church Teaching.

As Above-So Below [2014] - MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+) - Another "found footage" horror film, this time set in the catacombs under Paris, France

The Identical [2014] - MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  ChicagoTribune (1 Star)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C) - A faith-based film about the identical twin to a Elvis Presley-like superstar from the South of the 1950s.


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The Trip to Italy [2014]

MPAA (NR would be PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review


The Trip to Italy [2014] (screenplay and directed by Michael Winterbottom) played this past spring at Chicago's 17th EU Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chciago.  More recently (late-August/early-Sept 2014), it has been released/playing through the "Landmark Century" theater chain in the United States and is also available for streaming on iTunes.

What to say of the film? 

First, I pointedly didn't see the film when it played at Chicago's EU Film Festival because I was wondering "Why see a British film about two Brits going down to Italy when there are several very good Italian films made by Italians about Italy playing at the same said festival..."  I also remember that Brits haven't had necessarily a good reputation in Italy (at least among older Italians), because they have had a reputation of approaching Italy with a certain "The sun still doesn't set on Our Empire" arrogance (think Tea With Mussolini [1999]...).  (Seriously, during my three years as an American seminarian in Italy, I heard from countless Italian Servites and parishioners: "Well at least you Americans are not British."  Italy and Britain were, of course, on opposite sides of a war (WW II...).  And Britain and the various states of Italy were also on opposite sides of centuries of religious wars.  The British would pride themselves for being honest, if also admit that their food was generally lousy and that they themselves were traditionally often quite cold as people.  The Italians would pride themselves on their food, warmth and style, even as they would admit that "financial clarity" was never exactly "a strength" in Italy (and especially "in the South..." ;-) ).   So seeing a British film about a "trip to Italy" ... in 2014 ... seemed to me somewhat "retro-imperialistic."  Again, why not just let Italians present themselves ...

That said, the film could really be entitled "A Trip to simply Somewhere..." (and Italy seemed to be a nice/worthy place to go) as the film was intended as a sequel to the film The Trip [2010], both films (The Trip [2010] and The Trip to Italy [2014]) actually condensed versions of a British sitcom television series featuring two British actors Steve Coogan and Rob Bryden playing lightly fictionalized versions of themselves doing in the first case a restaurant tour of Northern England and in the current case a similar restaurant tour of largely (Mediterranean) coastal Italy.   In both cases, the locations and even the food, as beautiful/tasty/picturesque as they were, were largely irrelevant to the often hilarious conversations between them.

For these are two _very talented_ and THANKFULLY SELF-EFFACING actors, who let loose, spend two nearly hours, poking fun at themselves, their profession and other actors, even as they eat REALLY GOOD FOOD and STAY AT SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACES IMAGINABLE.  That they do poke, laugh-out-loud, fun at themselves (and the "perks" that come with being "rich and famous" ...) makes the film not only bearable but honestly worthy of a thumbs-up (or two ;-). 

Honestly, watching them eat splendidly prepared calamari and linguini (and many other dishes that I'd honestly not have the vocabulary for, even if I did spend three years out there in Italy...) while going through rapid-fire impressions of Dark Knight Rises [2012] characters played by Michael Caine, Tom Hardy and Christian Bale or through everyone of the Bond actors (Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, etc ...) is priceless. 

So despite my initial reservations (back in March), I honestly have to say that this film was a blast.  And the scenery was beautiful as well.  Good job ;-).


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Frank [2014]

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

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

TheGuardian.co.uk Article by writer Jon Ronson

Frank [2014]  (directed by Lenny Abrahamson, screenplay by Jon Ronson [IMDb] and Peter Straughan based on British writer/journalist Jon Ronson's experiences with Frank Sidebottom and his band) is a surprisingly poignant movie about a simultaneously shy and arrogant "alternative rock" musician going by the stage name of "Frank" (played magnificently throughout by Machael Fassbender, even as for 95% of the movie he wore, and spoke through..., a giant, goofily "Bob's Big Boy" expressioned papier-mache mask over his head).

Frank and his band who were so completely "out there" that one really couldn't really call them "avant-garde" (out-in-front) as that would suggest that they were actually interested in pursuing direction.   Instead, they purposefully _chose_ to "follow their bliss" to the point of repeatedly facing being kicked-out onto the street (for having run out of money) while _not_ recording (they were too busy re-inventing every constituent component of music -- from their instruments to their instruments' sounds, to rhythm and to notation..., to bother with actually finally producing something ...) and _not_ touring (they proved too depressed or otherwise immobile for that either).

Yet they were utterly sincere, convinced of their genius, especially of Frank's, and absolutely unwilling to "sell-out" by conforming in _any_ (even practical / even self-preserving) way to the world outside their group.  This is post-modern / contemporary artistic narcissism at its grandest / goofiest.  And yet, one can't but feel for this group, so utterly unwilling to step-out of its self-imposed / fake? (papier-mache-like) "shell." ;-)

The film is told through Jon Burroughs (played by Dumhnall Gleeson) whose character is loosely based on writer Jon Ronson [IMDb] himself.  Working a clerical job, but fancying himself a song-writer and keyboardist, he accidentally runs into Frank's band one morning while walking along the beach somewhere in Southern England.  The band's keyboardist had run out of the band's van and was trying to drown himself, quite unsuccessfully, in the sea while the police were trying to grab a hold of him, pull him back from the water and eventually take him in for a psychiatric-evaluation.

Watching the police chase the very much "gone" keyboardist down the beach, the band's apparent manager Don (played by Scoot McNairy) laments, "Well that's just great!  We actually have a gig tonight and now we have no keyboardist."  Jon standing next to Don and hearing his lament, responds: "Well ..., I'm actually a keyboardist ... but ... I wouldn't know any of your songs."  Taking a look at Jon, Don answers "Can you play C, F and G?"  "Well, yes."  "Okay, you're in!  The gig's at ... come by around 5, we'll teach you what you need to play."

Jon comes by the club at 5, meets the rest of the band, and of course, Frank, with his giant papier-mache mask covering his head and quickly realizes that this was both "a real band" and a _really odd_ one.  The gig didn't go well.  Half-way into the first song, an amplifier caught fire and über- volatile band-member Clara (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) stormed off in disgust.  A brawl broke-out as patrons at the bar, where they were playing, realized that the band was walking off the stage 30-seconds into their first already admittedly strangely-techno-sounding song.

It would have made for one heck of a "one strange night" story for Jon, if he did not get a call a few days later from manager Don asking him if he'd like to join them for a gig in Ireland that weekend.  "Sure!" he answers, thinking he'd be back home in England by Monday.  Only when the band arrives at a very out to the way "retreat" somewhere by a lake in rural Ireland does he realize that "the gig" was actually an extended (and really open-ended) one ... the group was going to record a "new album."

Okay, Jon's going to have to walk-away from his job back in England, BUT this was always "his dream" to be part of "a real band." And he could be part of their recording of an album.  However, as time progresses, it becomes clear that the band's "creative process" was a rather _long one_.  They arrived with nothing prepared, and spent the next period of time, "reinventing themselves," reinventing EVERYTHING (except apparently Frank's mask...) ABOUT THEMSELVES and their music, up to reinventing their instruments, their musical notation, etc, etc.  That period only ended, 11 months into the project, when they ran-out of money ;-).

... Or so they thought that they ran out of money.  Here, Jon actually stepped up, offering the "nest egg" that his grandfather had left him.  And though nobody in the band except for Don and Frank particularly liked Jon -- Clara, paranoid and generally angry throughout, thought Jon was a loser who actually had sought to insinuate himself into this band, and their French base-player Baraque (played by François Civil) and his girlfriend Nana (played by Carla Azar) the band's drummer, pointedly refused to speak English to him for those 11 months (even though Jon spoke no French ;-) -- they happily took his money, blissfully spending another year or so "on the creative process."  And at the end of said "process," Jon with some growing resentment, noted that not a single new song that they had recorded was "his" and none of them featured any more of him than him banging-out a few notes in it.

No matter, Jon _still_ felt that he was "living the dream" ... AND he was tweeting about it, and quietly posting videos on YouTube about the band's progress.  The result was that though the band largely hated Jon, it had actually gained something of a following as a result of him, enough so that the band got invited to the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, TX to play there.

But was a band that took two years to produce an album that they weren't particularly concerned about anybody hearing, much less liking ..., really interested in playing (or able to play...) for a real audience no matter how "avant garde" that audience would perhaps be?

The rest of the movie follows ... ;-)

I found the film to be a kick and I've enjoyed Jon Ronson's work in the past.  And I do think that the story does touch on a concern that we should perhaps have in our society today: If people really do all just drift-off to "follow their bliss" (with total unconcern for "The Other") does this really mark the end of society?

The band's stuff, no matter what THEY THEMSELVES THOUGHT OF IT, in this film was pretty awful.  And yes, they were free to do it for a while ... until (repeatedly) their money ran out.  But honestly, what then?  Is there still a place in society for "common sense" or will the bounds of society be determined in the future PRIMARILY (or even SOLELY) by economics?   You can do anything you want, but once your money runs out, you're dead?

Hmm, that actually was the theme of a recent sci-fi-ish thriller starring the musician-turned-actor Justin Timberlake called In Time [2011] ;-).

Anyway, a good / thought provoking if also often anguished film ;-) and though playing only "in select theaters" it's also already available for a reasonable price on Amazon Instant Video.


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