Entourage [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (D)  Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

Entourage [2015] (story, screenplay and directed by Doug Ellin based on the television series by the same name [2004-2011] [IMDb]) continues basically where said series left-off.  As such the film continues to simultaneously satirize and glamorize Hollywood excess.

The gang of four -- the ever wildly lucky / successful actor Vinny Chase (played by Adrian Granier) along with his decidedly less lucky / less talented older 1/2 brother Johnny "Drama" (played by Kevin Dillon) and buddies Eric (played by Kevin Connolly) and "Turtle" (played by Jerry Ferrara) all of once humble Brooklyn neighborhood roots -- is back.

And, well, Hollywood's been "very, very good to ALL of them" ;-).  Vinny's become a wildly successful movie star deciding here to take a stab at directing as well.  Eric's become his wildly successful manager (bagging / bedding two models, one blonde, one brunette, in a twelve hour period, fulfilling the Beach Boys' California promise of "Two girls for every boy...").   And even "Turtle" (formerly Vinny's driver) has become an independently successful "Tequila tycoon." Okay maybe it hasn't been so good to Johnny Drama, but at least his younger 1/2 brother Vinny still looks after him and continues to believe in him.   And in as much as there's any plot development in this film at all, given that everybody else's arrows seem to be going (wildly) up ... guess what happens to "Drama's" fortunes in this film?

Yes, the film may irritate some as basically a "pile it on" teenage-BOY's / teenage-BOY(at-heart)'s wish-fulfillment fantasy answering the "burning" question: "What would it be like IF EVERY CONCEIVABLE DREAM / FANTASY that one _ever had_ actually came _wildly_ true?" (Hint: It'd probably be PRETTY DAMN AWESOME ... ;-).  Yet, the film continues the series' charm of being SO GOOD NATURED (even as it certainly would NOT win any feminist film awards ... I don't think there's a single woman character in the film that was more than (again) some teenage boy's fantasy ...) THAT IT'S REALLY HARD TO HATE THIS FILM.

"Wouldn't it be nice?"  Well, YEAH, I return to the reality that for most men/boys (and I'm one of them ...) it'd be "pretty damn awesome" ;-).  I mean, this is a film that could have had even Osama Bin Laden humming "California Dreamin..." (with again about as much consideration given to the women in the story as an radical Islamicist would give ... And, well, bikinis, "birthday suits" and burkas do actually all start with the letter "b" ...).

I would just end that in Dante's Inferno, the ring for those who stripped the world bare in this life (the rapists, the sodomites and the usurers) was that of a scorching desert waste with a steady firey rain in the next.   For if one so thoroughly strip-mined this world for _all_ its potential for happiness, what would be left to experience in the next?

Still, it's hard to not like these guys or suspect that a fair number of the younger male Hollywood movie stars (Mark Wahlberg, Leonardo di Caprio, James Franco ...) are living pretty much exactly this dream... and one wonders, what if Osama Bin Laden had simply been "a better-looking / less awkward-looking guy" ...


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Aloha [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (2 stars)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

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

Aloha [2015] (written and directed by Cameron Crowe) is perhaps an odd concoction -- a "military romcom" -- but I do think that 20-somethings to whom "romcoms" are generally directed would "get it," especially 20-somethings from a neighborhood such as mine in "ethnic" (Slavic/Hispanic) Chicago where stories of past inform the present ("back in the day" is real here) and a spirit of SERVICE thankfully still trumps caring only / above-all for "number one."

And so it is, this is a story about Brian Gilcrest (played by Bradley Cooper) from middle if perhaps already suburban America who joined the Air Force when he was young ("back in the day...") with sincere dreams of "Going to Space" and who somewhere in the course of the 15-20 years that followed "lost" or even "was pushed" (by trends/circumstances off) "his way."  By the time we meet Brian in the story, he's become a "military contract specialist" working for a private defense contractor headed by an oddish/flamboyant "billionaire entrepreneur" Carson Welch (played by Bill Murray) along the lines of the similarly oddball/flamboyant (fictional / Marvel Comics character) Tony Stark [IMDb] and the (actual) Howard Hughes / Sir Richard Branson (of Virgin Atlantic fame).

Welch is still in the aerospace business (hence why Brian is working for his firm) and is still even something of a patriot.  However, Welch would clearly feel more at home with the likes of Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie of the first Gilded Age and with Donald Trump, Steve Jobs and some of the other Silicon Valley hot-shots of the current one, than with Genenal (later President) Dwight D. Eisenhower to say nothing of the "grunts on the ground."  (Indeed, Alec Baldwin plays a somewhat endearing if also somewhat anachronistic character named General Dixon who probably would like to be "Eisenhower-like" at a time when truly the "military-industrial complex" is (certainly portrayed as) "ruling the roost").  So a good part of the subtext of this film is a tension competing between "visions / narratives of America": the one of the "high flying" entrepreneurial "billionaires" and the one of the still inspired, still hard working (still actually doing the work...), (military) service people "below."

And of these hard-working, still inspired, still believing "grunts" / "little people" there are quite a few in this film:

There's Brian Gilcrest's _adorably "complex"_ 20-something  "military liaison" Allison Ng (played in INSPIRED FASHION by Emma Stone).  She's a thoroughly professional, tough as nails, even if _ever_ (and _sincerely_) smiling "Hillary Clinton golden girl" F-22 Fighter pilot who EVERYONE there at Hickem (of "back in the day" / WW II fame...) Joint Air Force Base outside of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii believes has a GREAT FUTURE ahead of her.  Yet, 1/4 Hawaiian, 1/4 Chinese (that's where the Ng comes from), 1/2 Swedish, she's a _blonde Hawaiian_ who knows her culture, its dances, its traditions, its stories and most of all its values.  And she's a hotshot, again ever smiling, FIGHTER PILOT, who's still VERY UNCOMFORTABLE with the "militarization of the sky."  I LOVE HER CHARACTER.   I can think of at least a 1/2 dozen to a dozen young people (and mostly young women) at my parish who exhibit similar earnest / wonderful 20-something complexity ;-). 

Then there's Brian's 13-years past "ex" girlfriend Tracy Woodside (played again remarkably insightfully by Rachel McAdams), wife now to Air Force C-17 (cargo plane) pilot John "Woody" Woodside (played by John Krasinski) and mother to two children, TWELVE YEAR OLD Grace (played by Danielle Rose Russell) and 8-10 year old Mitchell (played by Jaeden Lieberher).  It's clear that "Woody" would not have been her first choice as life-partner/soul-mate/HUSBAND (that would have been Brian ... "back in the day") but Brian CHOSE to "be busy" / pursuing "high flying career" and so she did "settle with" (in more ways clearly than one...) / make an earnest go of it with not particularly talkative BUT (again) EARNEST / HONEST / RELIABLE "Woody."

There is then of course Woody, already described above, who actually Brian understands AND RESPECTS if perhaps only with the knowledge / wisdom that comes with (life) experience.  Woody, may be kinda "woody", hence kinda boring ... but he is the kind of guy one can build a life around.  Brian, perhaps more "fun" ... and PERHAPS even in his own way sincere ... is just too busy "chasing dreams" (even as the "dreams" shape-shift / change around him ...) to be particularly reliable for a _serious_ LTR.

All these characters converge / come together, there at Hickam Joint Airforce Base in the "Aloha" State of Hawaii, when Brian, at Carson Welsh's behest comes there to "smooth over" a potential problem with a group of native Hawai'ians led by Dennis Bumpy Kanahele [IMDb] (played by himself), the titular head of Hawaii'an independence movement, the Nation of Hawai'i, and descendant of the last Hawai'ian king Kamehameha, over the expansion of the Base to include a Carson Welsh-run (privatized) space-port. 

While Brian's ability to "schmooze" over anybody, including "problematic natives" (even all the way "out there in Afghanistan"), has become the stuff of legend in-and-about the military (and why Carson Welsh put him on his payroll ...), his quite smooth "veneer"  has "begun to wear."  "Out there in Afghanistan," he apparently "ran into problems."  Here, his also quite "political" / "rising star" ever smiling (and 1/4 Hawaiian / Hawai'ian when she has to be) Air Force liaison Ng proved quite useful (Without her, he wouldn't have been able to get anywhere Kanahele's group ...).  And then there's the awkward reckoning that he faces with Tracy, her "second choice" husband Woody, and their two adorable (and growing) kids.

What's he to do?  How's a talented (and notorious) "fixer" to "fix" this (with his old "ex", her husband and (their) adorable kids)?  Can it be "fixed"?  And what (additional) help is he gonna need?

Honestly a very, very good, FUN and even QUITE INSIGHTFUL contemporary romcom!  Yes, I know that a lot of critics didn't like (or understand ...) this film.  But I honestly thought that the characters and the (quite contemporary) situation (on multiple levels) was (quite) brilliant.  So, honestly good job folks / good job!  And certainly Emma Stone's performance in this film deserves notice!   (Again, I can think of at least a 1/2 dozen young women in my Parish who are very much like her ;-)  So good and again insightful job in capturing a _today_ that _has shifted_ but is still recognizable to those of us who remember "back in the day." ;-)


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Tomorrowland [2015]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (C. Borrelli) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

Tomorrowland [2015] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Brad Bird, along with Damon Lindelof story by the two along with Jeff Jensen) like Disney's previously surprisingly even WILDLY successful Pirates of the Caribbean [2003-] [IMDb] film franchise, is inspired by one of its theme park attractions -- here Tomorrowland.   So can "lightning strike twice?"   Can a theme park attraction be turned into another successful movie franchise?  Well that's for viewers to decide.

And though most of us (including myself initially) may begin by assuming "no," I do have to admit that Disney does do a surprisingly good job here.  Indeed, Disney does so by raising the stakes in this film and in a very interesting way.  For its film here isn't really about its Tomorrowland attraction.  Instead, it's about The Future itself.  Do we imagine a HOPEFUL Future?  Or do we prefer to see one of Decline, Catastrophe even Apocalypse and Despair?

Disney Corp's founder Walt Disney [IMDb] was fundamentally an optimist and the Tomorrowland of his theme parks reflected an OPTIMISM about the Future that certainly _he_ held, and THAT WAS PREVALENT IN _HIS_ TIME (from the 1920s through to the mid-1960s).  At that time, EVERYTHING still seemed possible.  One thinks of the can-do spirit of the American war effort during World War II: "The difficult we do today, the impossible will take just a little bit longer."

That kind of optimism does seem to be largely GONE in the United States, both in Film (one need only think of the recent REBOOT of the previously WILDLY SUCCESSFUL post-Apocalyptic "Mad Max" film franchise as well as countless "Zombie Apocalypse" film / tv scenarios) and in the larger Culture.  It's not as if the threats of Climate Change or Nuclear Terrorism are not real.  But the world of Walt Disney got through TWO World Wars and the Great Depression and seemed more optimistic about the future than we are today ...

The overwhelming theme of this very interesting DISNEY film is to remind its Viewers AND INDEED THE WHOLE CULTURE that HOPE / DESPAIR ARE CHOICES.  To use the analogy of the film the battle for a future of Promise or Despair is like that of "two wolves" WHICH WOLF DO WE PREFER TO FEED?  The one of Hope or the one of Despair?

The film then is about two individuals Frank Walker (played as a wide-eyed-still-optimistic child who came to the New York World's Fair with enormous enthusiasm by Thomas Robinson and then as much more skeptical/resigned recluse of an adult today by George Clooney) and Casey Newton (played by Britt Robertson) a still optimistic high schooler of today who, yes, accepts the reality of the problems that we face in the world today, but pointedly asks her teachers: "But what are we doing about it then?"

Great question.  And again THIS IS A QUESTION TO THE WHOLE CULTURE: What are we doing about these very big challenges that we face?

The answer of the film is that we must START by BEGINNING TO IMAGINE A HOPEFUL FUTURE AGAIN WHERE _ANYTHING_ CAN BE SOLVED.

This hopeful future is symbolized in the film by a pin that both young Frank and Casey surreptitiously receive  from a young girl named Athena (played by Raffey Cassidy) who turns out to be a very convincingly anthropomorphic looking robot (compare that to The Terminator [1984] - and yes I began my writing about movies in the Seminary ANALYZING the first Terminator movie comparing Schwarzenegger's "Terminator" character to the Dragon in the Book of Revelation, a machine born of human arrogance, that is sin, designed to find and destroy the woman who will give to the future savior of the world, in that film, John Conner, initials J.C.) which is PROGRAMMED also, like the Terminator, AND SENT BACK FROM THE FUTURE to identify YOUNG PEOPLE WITH HOPE.  When the receivers of the pin touch it, they are INSTANTLY transported into ANOTHER DIMENSION where they see a marvelous CITY OF HOPE, TOMORROW-LAND, where all the world's problems have been resolved, and its citizenry lives in a world of unbounded possibility.  Arguably, they see ... (I'm a Catholic priest, I can say it) ... a kind of HEAVEN.

Again folks, this is a very interesting film.  And please compare the optimism of this film to the awfulness of the world of the recent Mad Max [2015] reboot (which in my review of that film, I did compare to the inner ring of the 7th Circle of Dante's Inferno, reserved for rapists and usurers, who sucked everything out of this life and thus were condemned to a hot desert waste in the next), the upcoming San Andreas [2015] disaster film and the like.

What world, what future would you prefer to see?


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Poltergeist [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChiTrib/Variety (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune / Variety (A. Barker) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Talerico) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

Poltergeist [2015] (directed by Gil Kenan, screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire story by Steven Spielberg) is, all things considered, a pretty good updated reboot of the "scary movie / horror" Poltergeist franchise [1982-] that was popular in the 1980s. 

As has often been noted by those who've studied / written about "genre films" a good part of what makes such movies "work" is the film's subtext:

The subtext to the original Poltergeist [1982] movie was the renewed "can do" / "it's morning (again) in America" of the 1980s / Reagan Era in the United States.  So film as about Steve Freeling (played then by Craig T. Nelson) a successful "real estate broker" who moved his family into a "big new house" in a subdivision that was built by the firm he worked for and whose homes he was largely responsible in selling.  Yet unbeknownst to him (he hadn't been part of the firm initially), it turns out that his new home along with the neighboring ones was built upon a cemetery.  Needless to say, the ghosts of the dead in that cemetery proved rather unhappy about being disturbed / disrespected in this way ... and much "scary stuff" ensued ...

The subtext to the current Poltergeist [2015] is the much less confident / much poorer current state of affairs in "middle America."  So the film is about Sam and Amy Bowen (played by Sam Rockwell and Rosemary Dewitt respectively) who, because Sam's lost his manufacturing job at lawn mower / tractor manufacturer "John Deere," needed to scale down.  The house that they buy is in a clearly not exactly "perfect" indeed "sub-prime" residential district with giant high-voltage power lines running right through the middle of it.  Indeed, the only reason why they were able buy this house at all was because the previous owner lost the house (or "walked away" from the house ...) due to foreclosure.  Teenage daughter Kendra (played by Saxon Sharbino) immediately hated the place, in good part because those power lines, which she immediately believed would make them all sick, messed with reception on her treasured iPhone ;-).  Soon enough the parents learn that the house had also been built upon a cemetery, though at least initially they're assured that the "good builders" moved the cemetery "to a better location" nearby.  But their 8-10 year old, impressionable, already "scaredy cat," son Griffin (played by Kyle Catlett) digs-up a human bone in their garden ... And then youngest daughter, 3-5 yo, Maddy / Madison (played by Kennedi Clemens), who's already been known to have an "active imagination," starts talking to strange invisible people through the family's "flat screen" TV in the living room ... Needless to say, much ensues ... ;-)

There are many reviewers (above) who clearly preferred the original to the new one.  But I must say that I liked the new one better.  (1) The original is so obviously dated "to another time" long since gone -- the Reagan Era, (2) the characters are much better developed in the new version than in the old, in the old version the only character who really mattered was the father (and then of course his youngest daughter, who also starts talking to ghosts through their, then, much smaller family TV set) while in the newer version, _all the characters_ in the family added to the story, and (3) the special effects in the new version are certainly much better than in the old.  

So I can't "hate" the new version here.  And I do believe that once the newer version becomes a rental most families will prefer the new version to the old one because the new version really does speak to current realities much better than the older version. 

So sometimes the "new" version really is better than the old ...


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Far from the Madding Crowd [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

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

EyeForFilm.co.uk (A.W. Murray) review
Sight&Sound (T. Wakefield) review
The Guardian (P. Bradshaw) review

Far from the Madding Crowd [2015] (directed by Thomas Vinterberg, screenplay by David Nichols based on the classic novel [Wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] by Thomas Hardy [wikip] [GR] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is IMHO an excellent if still at times uneven adaptation of Hardy's work.  I do believe that both the film's strengths as well as its weaknesses result from film-makers' attempt to make the film both relateable and a pleasant viewing experience to today's younger viewers.

The story's relatability to contemporary concerns proves actually to be not much of a problem.  For this is a story of a young Victorian woman, Bathsheba Everdene (played by Carey Mulligan) who, while she did not dislike men, found that she also prized her independence.  I do believe that quite a few young women today could immediately appreciate Bathsheba's "dilemma" / "good fortune." 

Now how could a young woman of her time have the luxury of being so free?  Well, though like so many of Thomas Hardy's characters Bathsheba experienced fair number of rather radical reversals of fortune during her lifetime, she is introduced to the Reader/Viewer as having been born to a relatively well-to-do family (before being orphaned), hence having had the opportunity to become relatively educated early in life.  That early education stayed with her even after the death of her parents and her having been shunted-off to a poor spinster aunt in the countryside as a result.  Then early in the story, by sheer luck, Bathsheba inherited a large farm from a rich uncle who had no other heirs (American Viewers/Readers would recognize the "large farm" as more of a "plantation" complete with many dozens of "field hands").  So Bathsheba found herself both relatively educated and (so long as she could manage the farm reasonably well ... her basic education came in handy) with a secure means of income.  So _unlike_ most women of her time, she found that she didn't really _need_ a man to support her. 

Today, of course, a lot more women are finding themselves with a similar degree of freedom as Bathsheba enjoyed in this tale, hence WHY I believe this story works so well for our time.

Now during the course of Hardy's tale, there are three men of different ages, stations and circumstances -- the born poorer but hardworking / enterprising small-time farmer/field hand Gabriel Oak [IMDb] (played here by Matthias Schoenaerts), the wealthier but significantly older and socially insecure William Baldwood [IMDb] (played in this adaptation by Michael Sheen) and the confident to cocky, but with issues Sergeant Francis Troy [IMDb] (played by here Tom Sturridge) -- who enter into the life of Bathsheba.  All three, at least initially, don't understand WHY Bathsheba would not be romantically, that is, matrimonially interested in them.  The Viewer, of course, immediately understands, but THEY don't ;-).  And again how many times THE SAME STORY plays out in contemporary times with young, even quite successful, men not understanding WHY a young woman of their desire would not necessarily find them as romantically / commitment / matrimonially worthy.

So it makes for a great story.

Now the greatest shortcoming of this film adaptation stems from another contemporary concern: Fear that an audience today (and particularly a young one) would not be able to stay focused long enough to tell the story right.  So the film length stays just under two hours at the cost of keeping the level of character development of a number of the key persons in this story to an almost "cartoon" level.  This is particularly unfortunate as the cinematography in this film is often so stunning -- think of the beautiful cinematography of the recent period piece Mr. Turner [2014] about the British master artist J.M.W. Turner without having to deal with Turner's rather annoying / cankerous personality --  that many / most Viewers probably would not mind lingering in the "world" painted this story for a far longer time.  I do believe that this film could have gone easily for another half hour without encountering any "attention span" problems at all and could have gone to three hours (like the 1967 version) without much difficulty.  Each of the LOTR movies went for three or more hours.  Why not have let this movie go longer, especially since cutting it to two hour significantly diminished the story's character development?

As such, while the film, such as it was, was quite good to excellent, it still could have been much better.  Perhaps a "director's cut" will come-out with the DVD / Blu-Ray ...


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Pitch Perfect 2 [2015]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

Pitch Perfect 2 [2015] (directed by Elizabeth Banks, screenplay by Kay Cannon characters by Mickey Rapkin) brings back much of the cast and flavor of the "Glee" TV-series [2009-2015] inspired Pitch Perfect [2012] (reviewed here previously).

As with the original Pitch Perfect, the film's cruder at times than it needed to be.  I do hope that some day, "Soon and Very Soon..." this somewhat pointless fad will come to an end. (Yes, I and the whole world get it, "women can be just as crude as men," but then WHY? ... especially when the added crudity doesn't have much of a point to it, doesn't really further the plot, etc).

However, there are, IMHO, more positive developments as well.  Yes, the film's overall tone remains rather snarky in its often LOL humor.  However, the central acapella group in the film, The Bellas of Barden U., proves to be a remarkably diverse group of young women.  The group includes not simply "cute sorority girl" types but weight challenged "Fat Amy" (played by Rebel Wilson) and a rather intimidating looking African American lesbian Cynthia Rose (played by Ester Dean) as well as "Guatemalan refugee" Flo (played by Chrissee Fit) with her own often LOL hilarious (in their "welcome to my world ... if you dare" starkness) concerns, and the even more inscrutable Asian student Lilly (played by Hana Mae Lee).  If there is a Pitch Perfect 3, I do hope that as much is done with Lilly's character as is done with Flo's in this film.  But I certainly got the point.  EVERYBODY comes to college (or otherwise enters our lives) with their own story.  And if this isn't yet clear when one considers simply the "white women" in this film -- again there's Rebel Wilson's weight challenged character Amy, but there's also Anna Kendrick's very professional (20 going on 35) character Beca and even newcomer Hailee Steinfeld's (I am a legacy, my mother just loved being a Bella) character Emily, none of which fit the stereotypical and frankly demeaning "Coed" label for young college women -- it becomes patently clear as one considers the non-white characters Cynthia Rose, Lily and Flo. 

Yes, Flo like the other characters is exaggerated, BUT I FOUND HER CHARACTER TO BE A JOY.  This is because I've known "Flos" both at University of Southern California while I was in grad school back in the late 1980s as well as here in Chicago during my past 10 years at Annunciata Parish where I've been stationed.  Again, her character is exaggerated but I can personally attest that young Hispanic women come to college or otherwise enter into our lives with concerns that are often much starker than most "gringos" (like myself) would at first imagine.   For instance, how many first generation Americans of European immigrants (like myself actually) would seriously worry that returning back to the old country to visit relatives could result in them being _abducted_ and then held for ransom?  (This is a concern that Flo matter-of-factly brings up in the course of the film). Yet in these years of high violence in Mexico, this has been _more than_ "just an idle concern" for many Mexican American families contemplating "visiting the folks" back in Zacatecas, Guerrero, etc.  True and THANKS BE TO GOD, I have not heard of any of our parishioners being abducted while going back, but I do know that it is a concern.  And when I proposed a number of years back a Mission trip to visit our Mexican Servites at their mission in the mountains of Guerrero, a number of my parishioners from Mexico responded smiling: "Padre, we love you and we love the Servites, but do you know where you're going?" and continuing "When we go back to our country, we go back to basically the parts that we know (basically to our family and back)."  The proposed trip would have been led by the Mexican Servites, who know what they are doing, BUT I UNDERSTOOD THE CONCERN.  Mexico today is not exactly a safe place to travel to IF ONE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT ONE IS DOING or where one is going.

Lilly's Asian character is less developed in this film than Flo's but hers is also a reminder that Asian students that one runs into at college (or otherwise in one's life) will once again have their own stories and concerns that will not be of "Leave it to Beaver" "White Toast" America.  And again, I had experiences with this while I was in grad-school down at USC in Los Angeles.

So, wonderful, the film presents us with a fairly diverse group of young women, all belonging to the acapella group "The Bellas" from Barden U.  But what actually happens then in the film? 

Well, as I noted in reviewing the first film, Pitch Perfect [2012], plot in a film like this is really beside the point.  In as much as there is a plot, it exists to give The Bellas and other (nominally competing) acapella groups presented in the film excuses to perform / sing.  And so ...

... After embarrassing themselves before the President of the United States at the Kennedy Center, The Bellas, seek to "redeem themselves" competing in a World Acapella Championship set in the film in Copenhagen, Denmark.  This gives the film-makers an excuse to take the film to Denmark as well as (perhaps) to give a salute to the annual EuroVision Song Contest that has been a phenomenon in Europe now for many years.  The Bellas' chief competitor was a German group calling itself Das Sound Machine led by Die Kommisar(in) (played by Birgitte Hjort Sørensen) and Peter Krämer (played by Flula Borg) that could have quite easily been in the EuroVision competition. 

There's also a subplot involving Anna Kendrick's quite professional character Beca getting an internship at a local recording studio under a wildly off-the-wall yet perfectionistic boss (played by Keegan-Michael Key) as well as another one involving Hailee Steinfeld's character Emily whose mother had been "a Bella" back when she was in college -- a reminder here of the value of extra-curricular groups like The Bellas in fostering life-long friendships and even inter-generational ones as a result of participating in them. 

All this makes for a generally good ride.  Again, the crudity, while not awful, awful, is still needlessly detracting / distracting.  Still it's still a nice fun movie about the college years of a nice and quite diverse group of young women.  So over all, a pretty good job!


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Mad Max: Fury Road [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars, perhaps, for "technical merit", 1/2 Star for vision / content)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (C. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

aVoir-aLire.com (A Jordan) review*
CervenyKoberec.cz (Suri) review*
Critic.de (D. Gronmaier) review*
EyeForfilm.co.uk (S. Crawford) review
Slant Magazine (E. Henderson) review

VIEWER COMMENTS:
Brazil (adorocinema.com) viewer comments*
Czech Rep (CSFD.cz) viewer comments*
France (allocine.fr) viewer comments*
Italy (FilmTV.it) viewer comments*
Japan (Coco.to) viewer comments*
Russia (KinoNews.ru) viewer comments*
USA (AVClub.com) viewer comments*
USA (RottenTomatoes.com) viewer comments*


Mad Max: Fury Road [2015] (directed and screenplay cowritten by George Miller [en.wikip] [IMDb] along with Brendan McCarthy and Nick Lathuris) will, unsurprisingly, be problematic for a lot of people reading my Blog.

Readers here need to remember the basic premise of the Mad Max series of films [1979, 1981, 1985, 2015]: Playing-out in the "Outback" desert wilds of Australia, this series is set in a post-Apocalyptic world after all social order as we would know / remember it has collapsed.  And it needs to be underlined that writer director George Miller [en.wikip] [IMDb] has always taken this basic premise very seriously.

As such, viewing this film NUMEROUS comparisons to various post-Apocalyptic, indeed INFERNAL visions come to mind:

(1) One could honestly imagine the world portrayed as playing out in the Inner Ring of the Seventh Circle of Dante's Inferno (Canto 14 and following, for the Violent, and specifically for the Violent against God and Nature [EP] [ELF]).  Why?  Because that ring is described as being for Rapists, Sodomites and Usurers (for those who raped others and raped the land).  Further, in Dante's vision, these souls were condemned to live IN A SCORCHING DESERT (they extracted _all that there is_ out of life while they lived, hence there was nothing left for them in the afterlife) WITH A FIREY RAIN FAILING UPON THEM FOR ALL ETERNITY.    Consider the aesthetics of the Mad Max series ... PLAYING OUT in the SCORCHING DESERT of AUSTRALIA in the midst of CONSTANT MAYHEM / BATTLES between COMPETING BANDS OF VIOLENT THUGS / CRIMINALS. 

(2) One could imagine this series to be "The Left Behind" series [2014-film] told truly from the perspective of the Thugs / Condemned.  For most of us, it would honestly be better to be dead, to have "moved on" to the next life, rather than live in that INFERNAL "post-Apocalyptic" world of violence.

(3) Fascinatingly, an African Academy Award Winning Congolese film, Viva Riva! [2010], took the post-apocalyptic premise of the Mad Max films and applied it to CONTEMPORARY KINSHASA, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire).  The film's hero, Riva, arrives in chaotic / endemically resource starved Kinshasa with a single stolen tank-truck of gasoline and becomes the toast of the town ...

IMHO, a valid question could be asked about the redeeming value of the Mad Max films.

Indeed, the chief protagonists of the current film -- the once "back in the day" (before the cataclysm that effectively destroyed the world) run-of-the-mill/average police officer, now tormented because he couldn't "save" his family, Max Rockatansky (played by Tom Hardy) and "hardened" [TM] though arguably "born after the Apocalypse" truck-diver Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) -- BOTH appear to seek "redemption."

Yet, what does "redemption" in a purely secular sense mean?  My sense is that in this film it meant "to give one's life MEANING once more."

But how does life have meaning "after the Apocalypse" even, again, after a SECULAR "Apocalypse", where all previous social institutions were thoroughly destroyed and all that remains is CHAOS in a HOT ARID WASTELAND?

To me, the vision of this film is a vision of a SECULAR post-Apocalyptic HELL, again, the Inner Ring of the Seventh Circle of Dante's Inferno.  One could perhaps "go on fighting" but honestly WHY?

The situation portrayed is SO UTTERLY AWFUL.  The current film focuses on a depraved self-styled "Cult Leader" / "God King" named Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne) himself horribly disfigured apparently by radiation, wildly trying to reproduce offspring of himself that were not similarly mutated / disfigured as he.  Since he had some "power" -- he found an underground reservoir of water in the midst of the post-Apocalyptic Australian desert -- he was "free" to try (and actually his "women breeders" were, well, remarkably beautiful).  YET TO NO AVAIL.  No matter how healthy / physically beautiful the pampered women of his harem were ... THEY STILL PRODUCED MUTANTS as his offspring.

But then, what did the sign at the Gate to Dante's Inferno say? "Abandon all Hope, Those Who Enter Here."

Abandon all hope indeed ... Again, the Mad Max series is basically the "Left Behind" series without the hope of God. 


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