Ladrones [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IDDb listing
FA.es listing*

Telemundo.com artículo*
Univision.com artículo
Vivelohoy.com artículo*

Variety (A.M. de la Fuente) article

Austin Chronicle (M. Baumgarten) review


Ladrones [2015] [IMDb] [FA.es]* (directed by Joe Menendez [Wikip] [IMDb] [FA.es]*, screenplay by Jon Molerio [IMDb]) is a (North) American-made completely bilingual (mostly in Spanish but fully subtitled in both English / Spanish) Oceans-11 / Robin Hood / Zorro-like sequel to the similar caper-comedy Ladrón que roba otro Ladrón [2007].

Former conman turned polite / sneaky avenger Alejandro Toledo (played by Fernando Colunga [IMDb] [FA.es]*) is asked by a long suffering Tejana mother-daughter pair, Josefa and Jackie Rodriguez (played by Carmen Beato [IMDb] [FA.es]* and Cristina Rodlo [IMDb] [FA.es]* respectively), to help them recover the recently discovered deed to their family's long-lost Texas "ranchito" which was quickly stolen back by the henchman Rex (played by Frank Perozo [IMDb] [FA.es]*) of the Evil "gringa heiress" Miranda Kilroy (played by Jessica Lindsey [IMDb] [FA.es]*) whose family had stolen the Rodriguez family's ranchito along with those of the other Mexican families' nearby after Texas had become part of the United States following first the Texas War for Independence and then the Mexican American War.

Under terms of the peace that following that decade of chaos, the new (North) American administration of Texas was willing to recognize the land titles of the previous Mexican administration, ASSUMING THAT THE ORIGINAL TITLES COULD BE PRODUCED.  The Rodriguez' great-great-great grandfather had tried to protect their land title along with those of the other Mexican rancheros by burying the deeds secretly in a box _somewhere_ on their land.  However, during the ensuing land dispute, he was shot by the Kilroy family's patriarch, so the location of the original deeds died with him.

Fast forward to the present day... 40-y/o widowed Josefa Rodriguez, a gardener, accidentally found the box with the original deeds, while randomly planting something quite random on her family's since very diminished property.  The discovery of the old deeds called into question the Kilroy family's ownership of all its lands in the area, hence why they sent their trusted "Evil henchman" Rex "to fetch" (steal back) the deeds in question.  And he quickly succeeds in retrieving the inconvenient deeds, which Miranda inexplicably RATHER THAN JUST BURNING THEM ... placed under "under lock and key" in her Bond Villain-lite worthy Penthouse suite at the top of her family's swanky beachfront hotel on "North Padre Island" on the Texas coast.

Hearing of Alejandro Toledo's Robin Hood / Zorro like exploits "on Univision" ;-),  the Rodriguez' turn to him to recover their deed ... and the rest of the story ensues ...

It is a generally quite funny movie:  A fair number of the characters are well drawn.  Toledo tries first to hook-up with his former partner, Emilio Sánchez (played by Miguel Veroni [IMDb] [FA.es]*), from the first movie.  But Sánchez is now working for the FBI, so he can't do this kind of work anymore.  BUT he _refers him_ to "someone who can" ;-) a Santiago Guzman (played by Eduardo Yáñez [IMDb] [FA.es]*).  But Santiago's now married and also doesn't want to take on more than a "consulting job" in this matter.

So what to do?  So Toledo and Guzman hold a Three Amigos [1986]-like "audition" in Rodriguez' hometown to see who they could recruit in organizing their planned Oceans 11 [2001] like heist to steal the deeds back from the "Evil Gringa Miranda" (who actually comports herself quite "normally" enjoying her yoga, her view from her beachside penthouse, etc, etc.  It's good to be "on top of the heap" ;-).

Among the people they recruit was a hairdresser named Magda (played by Michelle González [IMDb]) who could predict the weather by the "frizziness" of her hair, a espiritista named Mirabel (played by Evelyna Rodriguez [IMDb] [FA.es]*) and a heart-of-gold but awful Cuban immigrant "method actor" named Miguelito (played by Oscar Torre [IMDb] [FA.es]*).  And then Jackie's heart-throb but dumb-as-a-doornail boyfriend / novio Ray (played by Vadhir Derbez [IMDb] [FA.es]*) really wants "to help" as well.  The story plays out from there ...

Again, it's a generally funny film, and ... can you guess "who wins"?  ;-)


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

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Pan [2015]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (1 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (1 Star)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (1/2 Star)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


I found Pan [2015] (directed by Joe Wright [wikip] [IMDb], screenplay by Jason Fuchs [wikip] [IMDb] based on the characters from the Peter Pan [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] books of J.M. Barrie [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) to be one awful -- misguided, misrated, poorly cast, needlessly / gratuitously / stupidly anti-Catholic (say what? yup...) -- prequel to a beloved children's story.  Indeed it appears that the story of Peter Pan [wikip] [IMDb] (played in the film Levi Miller) itself was abducted in this film by contemporary corporate pirates ;-).

Oh, there are _so many_ things wrong with this film.  Let's begin by noting that though the film seeks to tell the "origin story" of  Peter Pan [wikip] [IMDb].  Yet the 10 y.o. Peter Pan of the story is placed in a London based Catholic run orphanage (more on this below ... ;-) during the 1940 London Blitz (during WW II), some 30 years after J.M. Barrie first published his book (1911) and three years after he died (1937).  Huh?  Why?

As best as I can see, it's to place him in a Catholic orphanage (run by a congregation the film-makers sarcastically named "The Sisters of Eternal Prudence").  Now Readers mind you, the English haven't exactly been stellar in the "kind, gentle orphanage department" -- think JANE EYRE (placed in an orphanage run by Protestant sadists, and OLIVER TWIST (placed in a work house run by "old school" Capitalist ones ...).  But it seemed important to the film makers here, EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF WARPING THE PETER PAN STORY'S TIMELINE, to place the 10 y.o. Peter Pan into the hands of Irish accented daughters and granddaughters of the Irish Potato Famine (where the "Enlightened" / Protestant Brits watched and waited while the lowly / Catholic Irish starved ... "If only they had converted ... then we would have given them the bowl of soup...").

IMHO, the British simply have no right at all that make Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, look Evil after what the Brits did (and mostly DID NOT DO...) during that Famine.   None.  It's akin to American film makers insisting on _continuing_ to portray Native Americans as "savages" (after having largely wiped them out and stolen their land ...).  Decency requires at least respect for the killed.  It's a whole other matter for the Irish (or really anyone) criticize themselves.  But the historically powerful have _no right_ to continue to lampoon the people they let die / arguably murdered.

Further even the image of the "sadistic nun" (popular nowadays in many, often non/anti-Catholic circles) is at best an awful and generally unfair stereotype:

I myself knew a woman from our Servite parish in Denver (interestingly enough called "Our Lady of Mount Carmel"  There's "another story" there ;-) whose mother and two aunts grew-up in a Catholic orphanage run by SAINT Frances Cabrini in Denver and she / her whole family were proud as punch of this noting that the two aunts were even present at a relatively famous miracle that took place at what became the Cabrini Shrine outside of Denver noting that Mother Cabrini had gone out to this then rather desert location ("gifts" given to the Church aren't often "the best" ...).  But "Mother Cabrini took her cane, hit it against the ground, and a spring came up" (which gushes to this day).

Then, many of our younger women parishioners at Annunciata Parish here in Chicago, would be amused to be told that Sr. Catherine McAuley, foundress of the Mercy Sisters that founded MOTHER McCAULEY HIGH SCHOOL here in Chicago, a high school that has produced GENERATIONS OF WOMEN who've held ALL KINDS OF POWERFUL POSITIONS (as doctors, lawyers, judges, teachers and nurses) throughout this fair city, COULD HAVE BEEN "ONE OF THOSE EVIL NUNS" like the ones portrayed in the film ... Hmmm... Are powerful, competent women especially when they are CATHOLIC ... "EVIL" ... ?

Then, there's Blessed Maria Magdalena della Passione (Constanza Starace), OSM*, who founded the Compassionist Servite Sisters (related to us as I'm a Servite Friar) out in Castellamare outside of Naples, Italy in the late 1800s.  Now granted, part of her story was that she "may have been possessed" for something like 30 years ;-).  But she was known for also running lovely orphanages "for the bambini" and at least in Italy, everyone's hearts continue to melt when one thinks of the "nuns who took care of the orphans."

Finally, I even knew a "Madre Flora"* who ran a small congregation founded in Pesaro, Italy that still ran orphanages in Peru.  (We used to go out to her facility for our annual "programation retreat" while I was in the Seminary at the Servite Int'l College in Rome).   A lot of those kids would be brought back to Italy where they'd be adopted by Italian parents, who'd again cut themselves up to have "a bambino" of their own.

And I'd add one story more actually.  Each week I say Mass, early in the morning for a smiling community of Mexican "Hijas de Maria Inmaculada de Guadalupe" who help run a school at Immaculate Conception Church in South Chicago, IL which without them WOULD NOT HAVE ONE because the neighborhood is so poor.  It's simply IMPOSSIBLE for me to see those lovely, ever smiling nuns as "EVIL..."

So the portrayal of "nuns as Evil" is really awful / unfair (Evil in itself...) especially when it comes to the British who themselves (1) have a historically TERRIBLE REPUTATION of dealing with orphans (again think Jane Eyre / Oliver Twist), and then even worse reputation with dealing with Catholics (again think the Irish Potato Famine).

But ...

... STUPIDLY ADDED, anachronous "Evil" London Residing / Irish Accented Catholic Nuns ASIDE ;-) ... how was the rest of the film? ;-) ;-)

Well ... IMHO it wasn't much better ;-)

... In the film after the EVIL Irish Accented Nuns hoisted a large "Jolly Roger" Pirate Flag on top of their Convent (DURING A NAZI AIR RAID...) an airborne pirate ship arrives.  Its pirates PROCEED TO ABDUCT the 10 y/o Peter Pan along with most of his other orphan friends, taking them upward, beyond the clouds, indeed beyond the solar system, to "Neverland."

Now DESPITE this film being rated for kids ("PG"), much of the rest of the story plays out in a Hellish mine resembling the one featured recently in the very R-rated Mad Max: Fury Road [2015].  Said mine is run by Captain Blackbeard [wikip] [IMDb] (played by Hugh Jackman) who has his slaves, including the 10 y/o Peter Pan and a young future Captain Hook [wikip] [IMDb] (played by a terribly miscast Garrett Hedlund. Don't get me wrong, he's a talented actor - Country Strong [2010] / On the Road [2012] - but this was NOT the role for him.  It'd be akin to having John Wayne play the role ...) mining for "Pixum" (pixie dust) which, Blackbeard thought could "keep him young."

Blackbeard and his pirates believe that the fairies who had previously produced said "Pixum" are extinct.  Instead, we find that are being protected by an aboriginal (part Native American, part Native Australian, part Avatar [2009]-like) tribe of which Tiger Lily [wikip] [IMDb] (played by a much better cast Rooney Mara) was a princess.
  
Anyway, if the nuns were cut, and the film was rated PG-13 and perhaps Garett Hedlund was not cast in this film as Captain Hook, the film would have been okay.  As it is ... what a mess.



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

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Little Voices from Fukushima (orig: Chiisaki koe no kanon: sentakusuru hitobito) [2015]

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

IMDb listing

Director's website*

Kyoto Journal - interview w. director
WBEZ.org Worldview - radio interview w. director
 
Motion-Gallery.net - article about making of the film*

cinema.pia.co.jp viewer review*

Coco.to Japanese viewer comments* 

Little Voices from Fukushima (orig: Chiisaki koe no kanon: sentakusuru hitobito) [2015] (directed by Hitomi Kamanaka [IMDb]) is a locally (Japanese) made documentary about the residents of the Fukushima prefecture in these years following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster [wikip] [Green Peace] as well the grassroots, often women's / mothers', organizations that have sprung-up in the area to provide support / practical assistance to families with young children who need it.   These grassroots mothers' organizations now often press (as yet not particularly successfully) Japanese authorities, both local / national, for information regarding the continuing health effects of the nuclear disaster which was by far the worst since the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl and arguably EVEN WORSE than that one (as only one reactor melted down / exploded in Chrenobyl while ALL FOUR did so at Fukushima...).

The documentary recently screened here at the University of Chicago.

Indeed, the middle third of the documentary featured an extended visit to Belarus to recall both the  emergency and long-term (to this day) responses of Belarus / Ukraine to the Chernobyl Disaster : Hundreds of towns / villages in the zone(s) most contaminated by the disaster were evacuated and remain so to this day.  Further the State, along with a world-wide network of NGOs, continue to provide annual all-expense-paid "recuperative vacations" for children/teens living in less but still contaminated areas designed to (in as much as possible) cleanse their bodies of the radioactive materials that accumulate inside them through diet / exposure during the rest of the year (tt apparently works: after a month living outside of the "radioactive zones" the radioactive content in the kids' urine decreases by as much as 80%...).

It was noted that following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Japan('s government) sent medical advisers to Belarus/Ukraine promoting these measures (and that there were Japanese NGOs housing "Chernobyl Kids" each summer to allow them "to get away" / from the zone of _that_ disaster).  Yet, since the 2011 Fukushima Disaster, Japan's government, both locally and nationally, has tried very hard to discourage evacuation (unless absolutely necessary), actively promoted (through financial incentives) _return_ to previously evacuated areas, and as yet offered NOTHING with regards to giving kids/teens the opportunity to at least get away from the effected zones.  (The director, present at the screening, laughed noting that "this is because Japan is a 'democracy' and hence Japan's big corporations can pressure government officials to minimize the disaster's effects / dangers).

So what are the dangers?  Well, the incidence of thyroid cancer in children growing-up near the Fukushima site has gone up 20-50 FOLD since the disaster, even as government officials have (somewhat absurdly) argued that "it can't be proven" that the Fukushima nuclear disaster was the cause.  Further, at least one Japanese pediatrician, Dr. Shigeru Mita, has begged parents to move their kids out of Tokyo (!) noting that since the 2011 disaster, city-wide, the white blood cell count in children in Tokyo has decreased below the lower limit of what used to be considered its normal range.  (Note that the documentary clearly shows at the radioactive plume from the Fukushima Plant did go over Tokyo in the days following the disaster).  There have also been local public health officials working on the effects of the radioactive fallout who have died (committed suicide) in the years following the disaster. 

It all makes for a story worth following and with some urgency.  Further in the discussion following the screening, it was noted that the perspective -- that of women and children, filmed by a woman director -- was fascinating from a Japanese perspective (where men, usually powerful men, are the only ones whose opinions are generally considered as mattering). 

At minimum, the documentary, currently making the rounds in the U.S., keeps the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster [wikip] [Green Peace] and its aftereffects in our consciousness, which I do believe that this is a good thing.  The effects of radioactive release like that one are going to play-out over a long, long time.

Good job!


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

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Let’s Dance to the Rhythm (orig. Nachom-ia Kumpasar) [2015]

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

IMDb listing
Official Website

Mumbai Mirror (A. Khan) review
Navhind Times (F. Noronha) review
Times of India (N. Britto) review

Round Table: India (J.K. Fernandes) review

Goa Streets [J. Jose] review
GoanWorld.com (O. Rebelo) review
O Heraldo (P. D'Costa) review
TheGoan.net (G. Sattarkar) review

Telegraph: India Interview w. Lorna Cordeiro

Let’s Dance to the Rhythm (orig. Nachom-ia Kumpasar) [2015] (directed and screenplay co-written by Bardroy Barretto along with Mridul Toolsidass) played recently at the 2015 (6th Annual) Chicago South Asian Film Festival.  The film plays-out in the largely Goan populated Jazz scene of Bombay, India of the 1950s-60s.  A lot of Americans could be asking themselves, "What the...?"

From the early 1500s through to 1961 (hence pretty much during the entire course of the European colonial era), Goa was a small Hong Kong / Macao-like, Portuguese administered, trading enclave on the west (Arabian Sea) coast of India.  This history has given Goa, now territorially India's smallest state, a cultural distinctiveness, not unlike that of New Orleans (a former French possession) in the United States or Gibraltar, Singapore / Hong Kong (all former British strategic possessions / trading enclaves).  

In my 20s, I came to learn a fair amount about Goa while going to grad school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and then specifically during my time of involvement at the USC Catholic Center (run at the time by the Servite Friars, who I later joined) because many/most Goans, though Indian were Catholic / often with Portuguese surnames (as a result of the region having been a Portuguese administered trading enclave, colony, for over 400 years) and there was a surprising number of young Goans both going to USC at the time and/or living in the Los Angeles area.  As a bright-eyed USC / USC Catholic Center attending 20-something year old, I had found Goa (and the Indian but Catholic Goans) fascinating -- the body of the famous Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier is at the Basilica do Bom Jesus in Goa -- and had a fair amount of Goan friends at the time.  So ... when I came across this film about Goa's jazz musicians of the 1950s-60s I "simply had to" see it ;-)

The film here is built around an "impossible romance" between a mid-30/40 something Goan-born Jazz trumpeter named Lawrence 'Lawry' Vaz (loosely based on the actual Goa-born Jazz trumpeter Chris Perry [wikip] and played in the film by Vijay Maurya) and an initially 17/18 y.o. Goa-born and initially wide-eyed / smiling singer named Dona Pereira (inspired by the actual 1960s era Goan superstar star Lorna Cordeiro [wikip] and played in the film by Palomi Ghosh). 

When Lawry and fellow band-mate nicknamed "Chic Chocolate" (played in the film by Blasco Andrade) discover Dona singing with radiant smile, at, of course, a Goan (Catholic) wedding, they immediately want to sign her up.  But alas, her quite realistically portrayed (remember it was the late 1950s/early 1960s) / quite conservative Catholic parents (played by Felizardo Goes and Meenaschi Martins) didn't want her to just quit school / run-off with a couple of, okay Goan-born but now city-slicker musicians "promising [her] the world."  So bright-eyed, enthusiastic and still "just wanted to sing" Dona had to find a way, to get away ... and (or course) she does. 

The rest of the story follows ... and is accentuated by a sound track of 20 actual (Konkani language) hits of Chris Perry / Lorna Cordeiro of the time.  As a result, many Indian reviewers (cited above) have affectionately called the film an Indian / Goan Mamma Mia! [2008]. 

But there is an edge to the film:  The movie notes that many of the Goan musicians of Bombay's Jazz scene of the 1950s-60s were instrumental in making the Bollywood film industry as vibrant as it is today, and yet, they were often unsung, credited in the films with Indian pseudonyms because their Goan names were deemed "too western" at the time.

Alas, one does understand ... India at the time was trying to put aside its colonial past / forge a new indigenous identity.  Still honesty thank God for places like Goa, Hong Kong and New Orleans all places where cultures _did mix_ and clearly made things that were vibrant and new. 

A great (and fun) film!


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Goodnight Mommy (orig. Ich Seh, Ich Seh) [2015]

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star)

IMDb listing
Film-Zeit.de listing*

Critic.de (U. Lupelmeier) review*


Goodnight Mommy (orig. Ich Seh, Ich Seh) [2015] [IMDb] [FZ.de]* (cowritten and codirected by Severin Fiala [IMDb] [FZ.de]* and Veronika Franz [IMDb] [FZ.de]*) is an Austrian horror film that apparently will be Austria's submission to the 88th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.  It's currently making the "art house" circuit in the United States, playing here in Chicago at the Music Box Theatre.  I found the film become all but unwatchable and left it with still 20-30 minutes to go...

The plot is simple enough: In the story, Lukas and Elias (played by Lukas [IMDb] [FZ.de]* and Elias Schwarz [IMDb] [FZ.de]*) twin boys, about 10 years old, living with their mother (played by Susanne Wuest [IMDb] [FZ.de]*) in a secluded rather modern / somewhat impersonal looking house somewhere in the Austrian countryside get it into their heads that their mother, recently divorced and recently having undergone some rather significant cosmetic surgery was not really their mother: She was being rather irritable, and for the first third of the film her face was covered by bandages.  Looking through an old photo album, they find a picture of their mother when she was in her 20s with another woman, who looked a lot like her, but wasn't her, a woman who they never knew, and they become convinced that this "other woman" had now come into their lives and was pretending to be their mother.

All right, according to Ulf Lupelmeier of Critic.de (link above),* the film was at least partly inspired by a recent (presumably German language) "reality TV" series in which mothers were separated from their families for about 8 weeks to undergo radical beautifying cosmetic surgery and apparently _young children_ were often confused when reintroduced to their suddenly different (if perhaps "more beautiful") looking mothers.

Well "good ole" 10-12 year old Lukas and Elias decide to tie-up the woman who they believe is posing as their mother (with unused gauze bandages left-over from her cosmetic surgery) in her bed as she as was sleeping one night, and then PROCEED TO TORTURE HER into confessing that she's not really their mother.

I left after the two had burned a hole into her cheek with a large magnifying glass, and then _superglued_ her mouth shut so that she would stop screaming.  They were going to open her mouth again to feed her, using a box cutter, as I was heading out the door ...

What the ...?

It obviously becomes BESIDE THE POINT whether this poor woman was their mother or not.  I left wondering if the two children had become almost "poster children" for a re-institution of a CHILD DEATH PENALTY as part of me would say that even _death_ was probably _not good enough_ for these "little monsters."

But then, it was also obvious that these "little monsters" as AWFUL as they were honestly didn't know the full implications of what they were doing that NO ONE deserved to be tortured the way they were tormenting that poor woman who honestly was still most likely their own mother.

I also began to wonder if part of the subtext of the film was still a residual search for understanding of how THE NAZIS came about:

In this film, these two kids simply "got it into their heads" THE CRAZY IDEA that their mother was "not really their mother" and proceeded to _torture her_ until she "confessed" that she was not (whether that was the case or not).

Similarly, the NAZIS "got into their heads" THE CRAZY IDEA that Germans were somehow qualitatively "racially superior" to the other people / peoples around them and SIMILARLY went onto TORTURE / MURDER / INDUSTRIALLY LIQUIDATE BY GAS (!!) MILLIONS of people, JEWS (6 MILLION) in particular, IN "SERVICE" of that CRAZY IDEA.

Anyway, I found the film to be WILDLY DISTURBING and by midway through the story UTTERLY UNWATCHABLE.  If one "has to" watch this film at all, I'd suggest renting it, so that if by the end, one "just wants to turn it off" one could do so without wasting a great deal of time or money ...


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

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99 Homes [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  


99 Homes [2014] (directed and cowritten by Ramin Bahrani [wikip] [IMDb] along with Amir Naderi [wikip] [IMDb]) plays like a "Horror movie of Another / neo-Realist (think Bicycle Thieves [1948]) Kind."  Monsters and Victims, they're _all_ completely, utterly _human_ [TM] and sadly, awfully, horrifically, the adult viewer will understand them all.  

Set in the Orlando, Florida area (think Disney "Happiest Place on Earth...") in 2010 (!) in the wake of 2008 Financial Crisis / Housing Collapse (which hit places like central Florida especially hard), Rick Carver (played to archetypical / certainly Oscar nomination deserving heights by Michael Shannon) is Real Estate Agent turned Mephistopheles / the Angel of Death: After years of "making a Living" (by his own admission) _happily_ "putting people into homes," he's now MADE A KILLING dragging people out of them, buying-up their shattered dreams for a pittance and "flipping" them to out-of-state / transnational Monsters greater than he.  What the heck happened to him?  Exactly.   And yet, again, AWFULLY, "one understands."

"Don't get personal about real estate," Carver tells former / hit-on-hard-times construction worker Dennis Nash (played again with magnificent moral disorientation / confusion by Andrew Garfield) who he hires as his henchman "Igor" figure (after taking away his house in the opening 20 minutes of the film), "There are big boxes and small boxes, but they are just boxes."  Yet, of course, to most people, most VIEWERS, those "boxes" are HOMES ... and taking away those "boxes" from PEOPLE proves as soul draining as any bite by a "Dracula" figure in a classic b-level horror film.

This is honestly a brilliant "look at what we've become" sort of a film.  And yet, one is left with the awful question "You may be right, but what the heck to do...?"


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The Martian [2015]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller-Seitz) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review  


The Martian [2015] (directed by Ridley Scott, screenplay by Drew Goddard based on the novel [GW] [WCat] [Amzn] by Andy Weir [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn]) is an uneven, if generally inclusive (though I don't think the Russians will be particularly happy with the film...) near-future sci-fi epic about a largely U.S. led, with some European involvement (there's a German astronaut as part of the crew), manned mission to Mars, where after 18 days on Mars' surface something goes terribly wrong:

A martian sandstorm brews-up suddenly and the crew has to quickly evacuate the planet.

In the chaos of getting to the craft that would take them back into orbit, one of the astronauts, Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon), is knocked down by debris (which turns out to be a piece from their base's dish antenna...) and his "smart space suit" reports to the others that his space suit had been breached.  Unable to see / locate where he'd be lying and with dust and debris flying about everywhere, putting their return vehicle increasingly in peril, the mission commander on the ground, astronaut Melissa Lewis (played by Jessica Chastain) makes the call to launch without him.

Of course, Watney turns out not to be dead.  Yes, he had been partly impaled by a rod from the back of said "dish antenna" but between his own blood and the piece of the debris that had impaled him, the two actually sealed the hole in his suit.  So, he did not die ... but ...

... now he found himself alive on the planet and apparently with no means of communicating with either earth or his crew-mates still presumably orbiting (for a while anyway) above him.  

What to do?

Well, first and foremost with basic medical supplies left at the living / working quarters of the small base (still more or less intact) where he and the other five astronauts -- the previously mentioned commander Lewis along with pilot Rick Martinez (played by Michael Peña), German mission specialist Alex Vogel (played by Aksel Hennie), computer specialist Beth Johanssen (played by Kate Mara) and Chris Beck (played by Sebastian Stan) -- had largely residing during their sojourn on surface of the red planet, he quickly stitches himself back together.

He then had two problems, (1) he had to figure-out how to re-establish contact with ... ANYBODY (his crew-mates / EARTH) ... and (2) realizing that this was probably not going to be easy, he has to figure out how to first stretch and then even grow his own food.

Now to be honest, I don't quite understand why reestablishing communication was going to be such a problem.   We are told in the film that that the Mars base itself was constructed by means of MULTIPLE (unmanned) mission sending down supplies that would be needed by the astronauts when they arrived.  This would mean that there would be MULTIPLE sets of communications gear leftover from those previous unmanned missions that he could cannibalize, if need be, to get a signal out to his crew-mates / earth.  And then I'd find IT HARD TO BELIEVE that a MANNED NASA MISSION (AND THEN TO MARS !!!) WOULD SOMEHOW DEPEND ON A _SINGLE_ "DISH ANTENNA" for communications.  Even NASAs unmanned probes flying to the outer planets were ALWAYS designed with MULTIPLE communications devices.  Perhaps one would be "preferred" but there were always back-ups (and sometimes, as with the Galileo / Cassini missions, the backups ended up being the communications means primarily used).

But we're being asked to accept here that Watney found himself alive / alone on Mars and (and at least initially) with _no means_ to communicate with Earth and his crew-mates.  Of course, he eventually finds a (rather ingenious) way ... re-establish contact.

Now what was happening on Earth?  Initially, NASA assumes that Watney is dead and NASA chief Teddy Sanders (played by Jeff Daniels), flanked by his "Mars Missions" head Vincent Kapoor (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Press Secretary Annie Montrose (played by Kristen Wiig) announces this to the world.

But, after about twenty days, comparing martian satellite photos of the area around the base, NASA image analyst Mindy Park (played by Mackenzie Davis) discovers clear indication that Watney is still alive -- as someone seems to be moving around the base's rover/truck.  What now?  The rest of Watney's crew is already on its way back to earth.  Over the next several days / weeks, NASA officials mission specialists observe Watney apparently methodically working out a plan that they discover _could_ actually help him re-establish contact with them.  Without getting into details (spoilers) here, he succeeds ...

Okay, they've re-established contact, and soon, of course, the whole of NASA and especially the JPL, including a team led by NASA engineer Bruce Ng (played by Benedict Wong) are helping him "with the day-to-day."  They are absolutely amazed that Watney's figured out a way to grow food (make soil, MAKE WATER to WATER SAID SOIL) on Mars.  And in a similar spirit, they help him improve his day-to-day life even more.  But ...

... none of this would help much in the end, if they couldn't assemble some kind of a plan to rescue him.  That then becomes the rest of the movie.  The Chinese provide assistance as well (and pointedly NOT the Russians ... not because the Russians would be hostile, but presumably because they'd be for some reason "irrelevant"...).  [Apparently in Hollywood's calculations, China's movie market would larger than Russia's and, well, presently we find ourselves in something of a "mini Cold War II" with Russia ...].

Much still has to happen, and ... recognizing that this is a Hollywood movie and one that involves NASA "can do" spirit (even if we don't seem to fund NASA to do much of anything anymore ...) ... So without too much of a spoiler, let's just say that the story ... (has to) ... end well.

Now clearly there are many positive even salutary aspects to the film.  The CGI is spectacular (!)  and NASA's (previously) famous "can do" ethic / ingenuity certainly shines through.  But ...

Still, I found the scenario flawed at time even incredible on multiple levels:

(1) even the "initial emergency" seems exaggerated to me, a martian sand storm that would be so strong that the crew would have to evacuate (LAUNCH DURING A SAND STORM ...) immediately,

(2) I find it next to impossible to believe that Watney would really find himself initially _completely_ out of contact with NASA (again, one would assume that there'd be all kinds of redundant communications (!) systems built into the mission planning,

(3) If a martian storm could really knock-out ALL of Watney's communications gear, then it could certainly do even more damage than that (Watney would have almost certainly found his living quarters breached or otherwise destroyed),

(4) Where was Watney's family in the picture?  Or really any of the other families? ... There are some references to the other families, but NOT NEARLY ENOUGH to be realistic.  Portrayed in the film was a NASA mission which had a lot go wrong with with it.  There would be family members from all the astronauts' families who would have become REGULAR FIXTURES on all kinds of Cable TV / Cable News networks before the story completely played itself out.

So while there are good aspects to the film, I'm disappointed by the final result.  Yes, the film tries to be optimistic, and that's good / great.  But there are just too many things, technical, human, even geopolitical, that just don't seem right ... sigh.


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