Annabelle [2014]

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

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


Annabelle [2014] (directed by John R. Lionetti, screenplay by Gary Dauberman) was probably inevitable, viewers / fans of The Conjuring [2013] would agree.  The opening sequence of that previous film, inspired by the real life exploits of lay-Catholic demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, featured a really creepy apparently demonically animated doll that just SCREAMED (pun kinda intended) for a movie of her own ;-).

Further, a note to parents: The current film, like the arguably scarier one that preceded it, while giving little kids an appropriate level of fright that they probably won't be pestering you to be allowed to watch properly R-rated horror films any time soon, at least won't render your kids "brain damaged" at a result.  The current film just scare them into being more "careful in what they wish for" next time ;-).

So this is really a rather straight-forward horror movie about a doll that nobody in his/her right mind would ever want to buy.  As the Chicago Tribune's movie critic Mike Phillips notes (review above) one look at the creepy looking doll would be sufficient to convince most people that it wreaks of Evil.

But alas, where would modern horror movies be if they didn't feature people making REALLY, REALLY BAD DECISIONS?  So evidently really, really smart but also quite clueless when it comes to gift-buying soon-to-be-M.D. John (played by Ward Horton) buys his expecting wife Mia (played by Annabelle Willis) the really, really creepy-looking "vintage doll" because ... he thinks that she'd like it.  And because Mia's nice and/or clueless herself (the doll looks like something that could have been used as "Exhibit A" at the Salem Witch Trials to hang somebody), she tells him that she does ("like it") and puts it in a place of honor among her collection of other often creepy-looking "vintage dolls."  (As an aside, I shake my head, thinking about this, even as I'm typing it.  Once as a grad-student, looking for a place to live near campus, I walked into a house where the owner, renting a room "upstairs," had an ENORMOUS COLLECTION of really weird-looking dolls, all "dressed-up" and starring in the direction the doorway.  I took one look at strange collection of dolls and told the landlady that I honestly needed "to look elsewhere" ;-).  I left, happy that (I think, I hope :-) that she didn't get a lock of hair of mine or something ... ;-) 

But back to the story ... :-)  All would have continued to be "fine" (sort of) in the lives of John / Mia and their soon to arrive daughter, if not for their neighbors' crazy 20-something daughter Annabelle (played by Keira Daniels) who after joining a Charles Manson-like "cult of the Ram" ("PC" for Satan ...) who came home one evening to murder her parents and then headed over to John and Mia's to kill a pregnant woman to boot ... The police came just in time shoot Annabelle before she could finish-off stabbing Mia in the stomach (both mother and child survive to be okay ...).  BUT a drop of blood from the Satan-worshipping Annabelle fell into and behind the eye of the already really creepy-looking doll and ... the rest of the movie follows ;-).

Again, it's a pretty straight-forward story ... with a fair number of rather conventional (if surprisingly effective) misdirections and frights: Another "hobby" that Mia enjoyed was sewing ... and one just waits _through the whole movie_ for her to become "suddenly distracted" with her fingers be run through the sewing machine ... Good, suspenseful, if rather conventionally "scary" stuff ;-)

The story's set in the early 1970s, about  Rosemary's Baby [1968] / The Exorcist [1973]  time.  So there is a Catholic priest, Fr. Perez (played by Tony Amendola) in the story.  He's not particularly effective -- speaks mostly in cliches and aphorisms -- but at least he's not portrayed as Evil as well.  There's also a mysterious darker-skinned (African American) woman named Evelyn (played by Alfre Woodard) who thankfully ALSO doesn't come out as Evil.  Who are portrayed as Evil are the crazed cultists who apparently kill people _that they should love_ "for Satan," and then the doll, which comes to be tinged with the blood of one of these deranged cultists.  (Let us remember that in these months, we've all, of course, witnessed the emergence of the ghastly (AND APPARENTLY PROUD OF IT) Islamic cult "ISIS" out there in Iraq and Syria who seem to "find value" in beheading innocents and putting videos of their actions on YouTube.  Yes, Virginia, there is Evil in the world ...).

So while I would NOT recommend this film to children (I do believe the R-rating is definitely appropriate) ... I do think that the film is straight-forward enough that aside from scaring kids who "didn't want to listen to their parents" _this time_ from wanting see another movie like this for a while ... the film could also serve as an opportunity for parents to discuss with their kids the reality of evil in our world.  Today those crazy cultists out there in Iraq / Syria are doing terrible things to innocent people ... in the late 1960s there were crazy cultists doing similarly ghastly deeds in the States.

Evil does, in fact, seem exist in this world my friends ...


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Left Behind [2014]

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

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

It may surprise many otherwise interested and even initially enthusiastic Catholic viewers of Left Behind [2014] (directed by Vic Armstrong, screenplay by Paul Lalonde and John Patus) that the wildly popular  Left Behind book series [Wikip] [Amzn] by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins proved unable to rise above "old-time" fundamentalist Protestant anti-Catholicism of the "Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon" variety...  Perhaps most amusing to a Catholic priest like me is the realization that this condemnation comes by way of using a New Testament, whose Canon was in fact decided upon by the (Catholic/Orthodox) Church that these "the Reformation was yesterday" Protestants condemn.  (I've actually wondered how surprised St. Augustine must have been after sitting up there in Heaven for over a millennium, to realize by way of "new comers" that in life as _Catholic Bishop_ and perhaps the greatest of the "Church Fathers" of the West, he had actually been a leading spokesman / functionary of the "Church of the Damned" ;-)

So whatever else could be written about the current film and the book series that it's based on -- the story is basically a Christian rapture driven Airport [1970] / Airplane [1980] style "disaster movie" -- I've found it nearly impossible overcoming the reality that if these Fundamentalist Protestant spiritual brothers to Islam's current Taliban were right, then I'd be among the damned.  No thanks then.  Zero stars ;-).   



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Gone Girl [2014]

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

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

Gone Girl [2014] (directed by David Fincher, screenplay by Gillian Flynn [IMDb] based on her novel [GR] by the same name) is an appropriately R-rated film (for SOME measured, calibrated nudity and SOME measured, calibrated graphic violence) that SCREAMS a "Best Adapted Screen Play" Oscar nomination for Flynn.  And though it's still early in "Oscar Worthy" season, it's difficult for me to imagine ANY North American film still coming out this year to beat it for that award.   Other Oscar nomination possibilities would include (1) Fincher for Best Direction through this story of many twists and turns, (2) Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike for Best Actor and Actress Leading Roles as the film's formerly "on top of their world" lead couple Nick and Amy Dunne and (3) Carnie Coon for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Nick's far more grounded (if also "underachieving") fraternal twin-sister Margo. 


The film begins with Nick, still strapping, good-looking 30-something Nick, coming into a bar, calling itself "The Bar", midday, that HE and HIS SISTER run in (say what?) "suburban Missouri" (??).  He sits down at the bar and asks "the bartender" (HIS SISTER again, mind you) for a Bourbon.  Why?  It's his and his wife's (Amy's) 5th wedding anniversary and it's clear that he's not looking forward to it.  It's clear, that as famous B.B. King "Mississsippi Blues" song goes "The Thrill is Gone..." THIS WHOLE SCENE, which remarkably telegraphs the central question explored in the film, is simultaneously PRETENTIOUS and BORING (RUN-OF-THE-MILL, AVERAGE, MUNDANE, FORGETTABLE (!)).

From voice-overs and flashbacks we're informed it wasn't always that way ...  Previously graced / lucky / even spoiled, we're told that Nick and Amy met in their mid to late-20s in New York as starting if already somewhat "limited" / "compromised" writers.  He was working at the time for a flashy (presumably) GQ style "Men's Magazine", she was writing "personality quiz" columns for another New York based commercial rag.  As the film unfolds, we come to realize that THIS was truly the high-point of both of their lives.  He was a strapping, good-looking, 20-something Midwesterner from "boring surburban Missouri" who had landed a job for a flashy GQ-style "Men's Magazine."  She, the daughter of doting, but "helicopter parents from Hell" also (kinda) made good.  Her parents, Rand and Marybeth Elliott (magnificently captured/played by and David Clennon and Lisa Banes), also writers, had MADE A FORTUNE off of a "Pippi Longstocking" [wikip] [GR] series of books called "Amazing Amy" BASED ON THEIR DAUGHTER'S LIFE (only BETTER than Amy's ACTUAL LIFE ... ;-) ... again "helicopter parents from HELL.").  So, for a while, she, writing those "personality test" columns for some New York magazine had (kinda) "succeeded" as well ...

... And then the Great Recession hit.  Soon both Nick and Amy, recently married (after a ridiculously pretentious/corny "proposal scene ...") ... lose their jobs.  Then Amy's parents turn out to not have been the best of financial managers either and come asking AMY for money -- MONEY THAT THEY MADE WRITING ABOUT HER, or ACTUALLY ABOUT A "BETTER THAN LIFE" RENDITION OF HER ... Amy as precocious girl scout explorer type, Amy as a "Doogie Houser" High School science prodigy, Amy as a Volleyball star, Amy as Homecoming Queen ... Amy as everything that _Amy_ NEVER WAS ABLE TO ACTUALLY ACHIEVE IN HER OWN LIFE -- that they had put in her "trust fund," basically all but emptying it.  Then when Nick and Amy find out that Nick's mother was diagnosed with (already) STAGE-4 Breast Cancer, they, jobless, decide to come back to Nick's hometown (in suburban Missouri) to (somehow) try to save her.  Of course she dies soon afterwards.  But by then, they had spent the remainder of (AMY's) parent-given (and parent-largely-taken-away) "nest egg" on buying a house and opening-up the above mentioned "bar" with the idiotic, utterly un-evocative name "The Bar."

And so, it's Nick and Amy's fifth anniversary ... "the thrill," long, long gone ... Nick comes back home, mid-afternoon (again, a stupidly odd, BORING time ...) to find "his wife missing" ... What the heck happened?   The cops get involved (led by small-suburban town PD detective Rhonda Boney played by Kim Dickens), then (inevitably) so does the tabloid TV press (led by a dead-on Nancy Grace like personality played by Missy Pyle)... and later even a celebrity ever-smiling criminal attorney (played in truly inspired fashion by Tyler Perry). 

It all becomes one heck of a twisting tale, all (IMHO) ultimately driven by the "great horror of our (narcissistic) time": What to do when one's EXPECTED (and EXPECTING...) TO BE EXCEPTIONAL and one starts to realize that one's probably GONNA END UP PRETTY DARN AVERAGE.

GREAT, GREAT STORY, and a VERY SLICKLY EXECUTED FILM!  KUDOS ALL AROUND!



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The Song [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RE.com (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review


The Song [2014] (written and directed by Richard Ramsey) IMHO continues the LOVELY, OFTEN VERY CREATIVE RENAISSANCE in Christian / Bible-based (North)-American film-making that (I do believe) began or certainly caught notice and traction with the release of Terrence Malick's film The Tree of Life [2011] to both public and critical acclaim.

Films that I'd include in this Christian Cinematic Renaissance would be such diverse projects as (1) the lovely catechetical and happily racially inclusive The Bible [2013] / Son of Man [2014] project; (2) the Baptist based Courageous [2011], et al, series; (3) the simultaneously more artistic, more blockbuster-like "the LOTR films meet the Bible," Noah [2014]; (4) more pedestrian but always lovely family-friendly testimonials like Heaven is For Real [2014]; to even (5) the more adult oriented "let's talk frankly IN LANGUAGE AND IMAGES THAT ONE WOULD UNDERSTAND TODAY about the 'Wages of Sin' in the realm of personal morality" films like Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor [2013] and the post-Spring Breakers [2012], pro-Life story Gimme Shelter [2014].

Viewers of the current film will find obvious stylistic influences of Malick's Tree of Life [2011] / To the Wonder [2012], a thematics that most closely resembles that of Tyler Perry's Temptation [2013] mentioned above, and finally a willingness to experiment with the presentation of a biblical text as in the manner made by the makers of the The Bible [2013] / Son of Man [2014] project.  I simply can not but applaud the willingness of film-makers here to "look around," learn-form and build-on the experiences (and I'd stress SUCCESSES) of previous Christian / faith based projects of recent memory!


Okay, so what is this film about?  Well, it's a REMARKABLE adaptation of the story of the Biblical King Solomon (1 Kings 1-11) to contemporary middle/rural "red state" America (Readers note here, that this film was NOT made "by Hollywood" but rather "by Nashville":

The "Solomon" figure in this story is Jed King (played by Allen Powell [IMDb] of the Nashville originating Christian music group Anthem Lights).  Jed is introduced to us in the story as the son of a veritable if at times morally-flawed (at times hard-drinking, at times womanizing) "country music superstar" named (both tellingly and amusingly ;-) DAVID KING (played briefly by Aaron Benward).   Indeed, Jed is the son of David and David's SECOND WIFE (who pop had stolen from a band member / until that point best friend of his).

Readers note here, of course, that while the Biblical David (1 Sam 13 - 2 Sam 24) was certainly beloved by both God and the People of Israel, he was portrayed in the Bible as something like "Israel's 'Good ole Boy' King" (In years past, I've honestly called him "The Bill Clinton of the Bible" ;-).  David was remembered (1) as the youngest son of an insignificant shepherd from "a little town" called Bethlehem, (2) as a musician (traditionally, he's remembered as the author of most of the SONGS found in the Bible's Book of Psalms), and  (3) as NOT being too proud to "dance before the Ark" to the consternation of his first wife (who had been, after all, the daughter of Israel's first king, Saul).  The Biblical David was ALSO (in)famously remembered as having stolen the wife, Bethsheba, of an officer of his, and the BIBLICAL SOLOMON was David's and Bethsheba's child...

Well, the beginning of the current film has "sonny boy," also a musician, Jed, trying to get past the LONG SHADOW (both good and bad) cast by his "Legendary" father DAVID (KING ;-).

To do so, in the beginning of his story, Jed tries really hard TO BE BETTER than his "old horn dog" father.  That is, HE TRIES REALLY HARD TO BE _WISE_.  (And folks, what is the Biblical King Solomon famous for? ... OF COURSE, HIS _WISDOM_).  The rest of the story unspools from here ...

Now, as the Biblical David has been traditionally taken to be the one responsible for most of the Psalms, the Biblical Solomon has been traditionally taken to be the author / the one responsible for the first three Wisdom books of the Bible that is, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (also known as Qoeleth) and The Song of Songs (the title of the last being the inspiration for the title of the film here).

Readers of these three Biblical books would certainly note that though they traditionally have the same authorship -- the Biblical King Solomon -- they each have a very different tone.  No matter, BY TRADITION, they were understood to have been written / commissioned by the Biblical King Solomon in different stages of his life: 

(1) The quite lovely / romantic Song of Songs is said to have been written by King Solomon when he was still "young and dashing" full of romance, 

(2) the pragmatic Book of Proverbs was to have been written / compiled during King Solomon's "high time as King" (during his middle age), and

(3) the far more despondent Ecclesiastes/Qoeleth is said to have been written/commissioned by Solomon in the latter part of his life, when reflecting on his life and HIS MISTAKES IN LIFE -- 1 Kings is NOT kind to Solomon in the latter stages of his life -- he asks "what was it all worth?" and comes to the somber, somewhat depressing conclusion: "Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity" (Eccl 1:2).

Parts of all three of these books play out in the course of the film:

The Song of Songs plays out near the beginning when Jed meets a good, virtuous, dare one say WISE, woman named Rose (played by Ali Faulkner) who had been mistreated before and Jed comes to her defense.  For HER he writes "their Song."

BUT ... with this "Song" he becomes very popular and his career takes off.  On tour, he is teamed up by his veritable SNAKE of a manager (played by Gary Jenkins) with a raven-haired, tatoo covered, "mean violin playing" Shelby Bale (played by Caitlin Nicol-Thomas).  She begins as Jed's tour's "opening band" but soon she makes her way onstage during Jed's performance, violin pressed against her chin, playing, you guessed it "Jed and Rose's Song."  Well, this can't possibly go well ...

This entrance of "Shelby" into the story is actually fascinating because HER introduction moves the story from its initial "Song of Songs" innocence to the competition between "Lady Wisdom" (personified by Rose) and "Lady Folly" (personified by Shelby) present in the first ten chapters of Proverbs.

Of course, perhaps like most people (and perhaps like the Biblical King Solomon who in the Bible becomes, if for a while, something of a Superstar in his own right, with even the Queen of Sheba arriving "from the end of the Earth" to meet him), Jed, suddenly "at the top-of-the-charts," does not manage things particularly well ...

... and like the Biblical King Solomon, Jed stands to lose much if not ALL of what he previously had and attained.  And so the voice of Ecclesiastes/Qoeleth starts to enter with that searingly depressing conclusion: Vanity, vanity all things are vanity ... like chasing after the wind. (Eccl 1:2, 14)

I HONESTLY STAND IN AWE OF THE CREATIVITY OF THIS FILM.  And I would honestly recommend to my readers here to go and flip through the pages of Song of Songs, Proverbs 1-10 and Ecclesiastes.  None of these books are particularly long (only about 10-12 pages) and beyond helping one to appreciate better this film, their wisdom can help one through the whole of one's life ;-)

Great job folks!  Great job!


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Miss Christina (orig. Domnisoara Christina) [2013]

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

IMDb listing
Cinemagia.ro listing*

CineEuropa (S. Dobroiu) review
NextProjection.com (D. Deskins) review

RomaniaLibera.ro (R. Filipescu) review*
ZiarulMetropolis.ro (I Mares) review*

Miss Christina (orig. Domnisoara Christina) [2013] [IMDb] [CM.ro]* (screenplay and directed by Alexandru Maftei [IMDb] [CM.ro]* based on the novella [Eng] [Esp] [Fr] [Rom] by Mircea Eliade [en.wikip] [ro.wikip]* [IMDb]) is an _elegant_  ROMANIAN HORROR MOVIE that played recently as part of the 6th Annual Romanian Cultural Marathon organized by the Chicago based Romanian Cultural Exchange (ROCX) at Facet's Multimedia in Chicago.

Along with most of the American Servites of my generation, I knew of Mircea Eliade [en.wikip] [ro.wikip]* [IMDb] for his scholarly work at the University of Chicago as a true giant in the field of Comparative Religion [Amazon].  I honestly did not know prior to my coming to the above-mentioned Romanian cultural event that in his younger years, back in Romania, Eliade was actually well-respected in Romania as a novelist.  Indeed until hearing the introduction of to this film presented by Dr. Thomas Pavel PhD [en.wikip] [ro.wikip]* another Romanian born professor who's made his home at the University of Chicago, it did not even occur to me that Romania's _very rich_ supernatural / folkloric tradition could have actually served to inspire an intellectual like Eliade to pursue a scholarly career in "comparative religion" ;-).

Dr. Pavel informed those of us present for the screening who were "non-Romanian" ;-) that the supernatural entity in the current film would be called a moroi [en.wikip] [ro.wikip]*.  Tapping the shoulder of the Romanian 20-year-old sitting next to me, I asked him how one would spell it, and then I happily looked-up moroi on wikipedia with my smartphone and found out that:  

A moroi  is a type of vampire or ghost in Romanian folklore.  Moroi are often associated with other figures in Romanian folklore, such as strigoi (another type of vampire), vârcolac (werewolf), or pricolici (werewolf). Moroi are also known as mortal vampires, whereas strigoi are immortal vampires. 

The wikipedia article continued that it was thought that the etymology of moroi came from the Old Slavonic word "moro" meaning nightmare.  It occurred to me then that the Romanian moroi is actually similar to a nočni můra [cz.wikip]* which is both Czech for a nightmare and envisioned as a ghost / undead creature (that I always thought was "like a Czech vampire") that my uncle Zdeněk (after whom I'm named ;-) USED TO SCARE US WITH when he would tell us ghost stories when I was young. (A Czech "nočni můra," is envisioned in the Czech conception as a giant ugly moth, that would come at night, settle on one's chest, paralyze one and, yes, at times suck one's blood).

Well, in Romanian folklore, or certainly in THIS story, the moroi in question was certainly NOT "a giant ugly moth" ;-) but rather the very beautiful Miss Christina (played by Anastasia Dumitrescu [IMDb] [CM.ro]*) who "died young" in somewhat mysterious circumstances at the turn of the century.

At the time of the story then, some 20-years later, she comes back, always at night, to try to seduce her niece Sanda's (played by Ioana Anastasia Anton [IMDb] [CM.ro]*) fiancé Egor (played by Tudor Istodor [IMDb] [CM.ro]*) who, a dashing young artist/professor from Bucharest, Sanda had brought home to the country manner house, where she and her family was from, to meet her mother (played by Maia Morgenstern [IMDb] [CM.ro]*). 

Sanda's mother and Cristina had been sisters.  Christina had died just before Sanda had been born.  So Sanda did not even know her except for a very beautiful portrait of her, made just before her untimely death, a portait that hung quite prominently if sadly in a place of honor in the manor house's main hall.

Well, Cristina's life had been cut short just as it was about to (really) begin.  Sanda's bringing Egor, perhaps the first very eligible bachelor to pass through the halls of the house since her untimely death, proved to disturb the still somewhat somber setting in the house.  And Christina, "still around," certainly "in memory" but as it becomes ever more apparent, also "otherwise" ... who had died 20 years before just as she was going to "enter into society" ... apparently, sees Egor and ... well, "wants" him ;-).  Much ensues ...

When the Eliade first penned this story in the 1930s, it was apparently denounced by the Romania's more conservative voices of the time as "porn."  I don't think that the story is exactly appropriate for young viewers/readers.  But film itself, which features but one very elegant topless scene showing the actress playing Christina's right or left breast (the other is covered by her hair) feels like it's played-out inside a belle-époque turn-of-the-20th-century Renoir painting.   

So this is a dramatization of a very elegant Romanian romance novel with yes a touch of the supernatural at its edges.  As such, Eliade's novella presented here (translated into all kinds of languages and into two films, this one actually being the second, the first being made almost immediately after the fall of the Communists in Romania) is IMHO well worth looking-up.   It could come to "raise the bar" again for this "Gothic horror" genre.


"SMALL" ADDENDUM ;-)

Skyping to check with my uncle back in Prague, a Czech noční můra [cz.wikip]* (related etymologically to the Romanian moroi [en.wikip] [ro.wikip]* discussed above) is not in the Czech conception a vampire.  Yes, in the (local South-Central Bohemian) conception, it's a big ugly moth that lands on one's chest, immobilizing (and hence terrorizing) one, but a blood-sucking vampire in Czech is an upír [cz.wikip].*  Just to keep things "on the level." ;-) 


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

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I'm an Old Communist Hag (orig. Sunt o babă comunistă) [2013]

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

IMDb listing
Cinemagia.ro listing*

CineEuropa (S. Dobroiu) review
NextProjection.com (R. Doyle) review

RomaniaLibera.ro (G. Lupu) review*

I'm an Old Communist Hag (orig. Sunt o babă comunistă) [2013] [IMDb] [CM.ro]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Stere Gulea [IMDb] [CM.ro]* along with Lucian Dan Teodorovici [IMDb] [CM.ro]* and Vera Ion [IMDb] [CM.ro]* based on the novel* [review]* by Dan Lungu [en.wikip] [ro.wikip]*) is Romanian comedy that gleefully played recently as part of the 6th Annual Romanian Cultural Marathon organized by the Chicago based Romanian Cultural Exchange (ROCX) at Facet's Multimedia in Chicago. 

Don't let the title fool you.  Though a comedy with a title that could seem on one hand to be dismissive and on the other perhaps rather provocative, this is a very intelligent film.  And I being of Czech parentage (the Czech Republic as part of Czechoslovakia having been, like Romania, part of the old Soviet Communist Bloc), I can assure readers here that the situations / dialogues in this film are very current / real.  

60-year-old Emilia (played magnificently throughout by Luminiţa Gheorghiu [IMDb] [CM.ro]*) is the film's (somewhat reluctantly) self-professed "old Communist hag."  I write that she's "somewhat reluctant" in professing herself as such because she's actually somewhat forced into the declaration at a family get-together following her 30-something daughter Alice's (played by Ana Ularu [IMDb] [CM.ro]*) return with her blond, somewhat boyish-looking American fiancé Alan (played by Collin Blair [IMDb] [CM.ro]*).  Emilia knew from her daughter that she's come back to Romania with her American boyfriend with some financial troubles.  So during the get-together with this in the back of her mind, when the conversation turns to "the bad old days of Communism," she does note that ALL THINGS CONSIDERED there were SOME good things back then as well.  She declares: "Look folks, I / we all had a job, we all had roofs over our heads, and we all had friends (at the factory and at home)." "Come on, you can't be saying that it was all good back then?"  "No I'm not, but IT WAS MY YOUTH and it WASN'T ALL BAD EITHER."  "Oh mom, you've not become an 'old Communist hag.'?"  "Well maybe that's what I've become, but I'M TELLING YOU, IT WASN'T ALL BAD EITHER."

Now AFTERWARDS, we hear Emilia herself reflect on this description: "So THAT'S WHAT I'VE BECOME?  An old Communist hag?  (READERS NOTE HERE, SHE HAD BEEN A PARTY MEMBER...), that's what WE ALL used to call the old Party Apparatchiks." (She herself did not consider herself as such ... though she does explain in the film that yes, she did "join the Party" at some point, but "that's what you did when you were offered a promotion to foreman at the plant."  To get the position, ONE HAD TO join the Party...).

The rest of the film is EXCELLENT, precisely because it DOES NOT portray the Communist Era in "bright shining colors."  In fact, it points out REPEATEDLY HOW CRAZY Romania's Communist Era dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu [en.wikip] [ro.wikip]* was.  For instance in the film, Emilia was repeatedly remembered as "The woman who NEARLY shook the hand of Ceausescu."  Why?  Well, it gets explained: Along with several others at the plant, she was picked by the Plant Manager for this "honor."  HOWEVER, because Ceausescu was absolutely insane, HE was ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED that he'd catch some disease from the people he was put in contact with.  SO good old Emilia and the 4 or 5 others selected from the plant to "shake the hand" of the soon-to-be-visiting Ceausescu WERE PUT INTO ISOLATION (QUARANTINED) FOR 30 DAYS PRIOR to Ceausescu's visit TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY WEREN'T INFECTED WITH ANYTHING.  Then, of course Ceausescu's PLANS CHANGED ... ;-) ... so after 30 days of being in isolation (AS IF THEY WERE ASTRONAUTS OR SOMETHING ...) they didn't get to "shake his hand" ANYWAY ;-)

So this is NOT a pro-Communist film at all.  But I do believe that it articulates the experiences of QUITE A FEW of AVERAGE / RUN-OF-THE-MILL people ALL ACROSS THE FORMER COMMUNIST BLOC (Again, I've heard similar sentiments among SOME Czech family members of my own).  And it's NOT that ANYONE (!!) wants to go back to "Ceausescu" (or ANY the Old Soviet Bloc) but the FREE-MARKET SLOGANEERING OF TODAY SOUNDS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE THE "PROGRESSIVE / SOCIALIST" SLOGANEERING OF THE SOVIET ERA.  Slogans don't employ people, people employ people.

Anyway, "Old Communist" Emilia and her level-headed husband Tocu (played by Marian Râlea [IMDb] [CM.ro]*) has to deal with her unemployed and financially in trouble daughter and her fish-out-of-water American boyfriend ... much ensues ... ;-)


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

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The Maze Runner [2014]

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

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

At first glance, The Maze Runner [2014]  (directed by Wes Ball, screenplay by Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers and T.S. Nowlin based on the novel [GR] by James Dashner [IMDb]) would appear to be the most "spartan" (in setup...) of the recent teen-oriented standup-and-fight against one-or-another dystopian future that (can) await us (think The Hunger Games [2012], Ender's Game [2013], Divergent [2014] and The Giver [2014] franchises):

In the current film's beginning sequence, we watch Thomas (played by Dylan O'Brian) a teenager, groggy, half-conscious, confused, remembering nothing (at this point) not even his own name, being taken by some kind of an industrial supply elevator up from some kind of subterranean compound "to the surface" (where? neither he, nor we the viewers, know).  He is greeted "at the surface" by a group of some 30 or so other teenage boys, better adjusted to their circumstances, indeed (as we find out) surprisingly organized, yet with some pretty fundamental questions: (1) Again they have no idea where they really are.  Yes, they find themselves in a relatively green and fertile "Garden" of sorts that they call "The Glade," but one which is enclosed by a giant and apparently impenetrable Maze made-up of enormous (and shifting-at-a-whim) concrete blocks, and (2) WHY are they there?  Most believe it's some sort of an (unjust) PUNISHMENT.  However, the outer boundary of their compound being A MAZE rather than a strict WALL suggests some sort of a (rather sick...) TEST. 

The small society of teenage boys has made the best of it.  Again, they've organized themselves, turned part of the Glade into a farm, made shelters (to protect against rain / some cold), and have made some increasingly halfhearted attempts at penetrating the Maze.  Why "increasingly halfhearted"?  Well the entrances into the Maze from the Glade would close at nightfall and anyone trapped still within the Maze faced certain death at the hands of ugly/vicious "Alien/spider-like" creatures called "The Grievers."  So after apparently a number of attempts at finding a way out past the Maze (and losing a number of friends to said "Grievers") the group had largely given-up.

Enter Thomas, who, once he recovered from his initial shock of arriving in this strange "new world" (though he didn't remember next to anything at all of his previous one -- except for some occasional dream imagery that does not make sense to him), immediately seemed "different" to the others who had already been (trapped) in the Glade for some time.  For one, though his recollections of "the Past" were clouded in "dream imagery" at least he had SOME memories at all.  Then two, he seemed far braver / far more "gung-ho" about "finding a way out" than most of the Others who seemed resigned to their relatively comfortable / stable if ultimately rather meaningless Fate of living-out their lives in the Glade.

Enter then, to everyone's surprise, one month after Thomas' arrival to the surface, arrives a teenage GIRL who again comes with little to no memory of her previous life.  However, she comes holding a note in her hand which declares: "She is the last one."  Last one of what?  Is she THE LAST GIRL?  She's actually THE FIRST GIRL in this community of 30 or so teenage boys.  Is she THE LAST PERSON who'll ever arrive in the Glade by way of the supply elevator?  A palpable dread sets in among the thirty or so teenage boys present in the Glade, who had come to expect the arrival every month or so of a newcomer (up to this point, always another teenage boy) along with at least some "hard to grow" supplies.  Now presumably that would end.  Again, why?  No one had a clue.

But Thomas (without ever really knowing why, except perhaps sensing a little bit more the intentions of the unseen Powers who appear to be running this strange world) urges the others to redouble their attempts at getting out of the prison-like if still somewhat comfortable Glade.  Much then ensues ...


I hope that, if nothing else, the above description of the setup of the story is EVOCATIVE of ... a number of things: (1) of the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, and of the Biblical themes of The Fall and (taking Thomas to be something of a "Jesus figure") perhaps even of the Christian-postulated need on the part of humanity of "assisted Salvation," (2) of William Golding's 1940s-era teenage (boy) oriented novel The Lord of the Flies (about a post-apocalyptic society of teenage boys that disintegrates into savagery and confusion), and perhaps even (3) of Franz Kafka's 1920s-era novel The Castle (where the protagonist was not necessarily trying to flee confinement, but was definitely trying to "reach" said "Castle" where he hoped to talk to "the King"/whoever is "in Charge" to find out why his often admittedly pedestrian questions were not being answered (though his quest progressively became more more urgent / profound as he sought the answer to the most fundamental question: Why was he (the protagonist) "in the Town" at all  Was there a purpose to his presence in the Town or was it all an accident ...). 

In any case, the Maze Runner which plays with A LOT OF THESE THEMES sets up a very interesting allegory that yes, I'd like to see explored further..  and since it is based on the first of a series of books by James Dashner, I fully expect the continuation of this story to unfold on the silver screen in the years to come as well.


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