Concussion [2015]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

Concussion [2015] (screenplay and directed by Peter Landesman by based on the GQ article "Game Brain" [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Jeanne Marie Laskas [wikip] [GR] [GQ.com] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) tells the story of Nigerian-born Dr. Bennet Omalu (played with Oscar Nomination worthy sobriety in the film by Will Smith) who while working as a coroner for the Allegheny County, PA Medical Examiner's office performed autopsies on several former National Football League Players including Pittsburgh Steelers greats Mike Webster (played in the film by David Morse) and Justin_Strzelczyk (played in the film by Matthew Willig) who "died young" often by suicide in the years following their retirement from the NFL and discovered that they were suffering from early onset dementia, which he came to believe was the result of Chronic Traumatic Encelopathy (CTE), caused by "repetitive brain trauma" caused by concussions, and subconcussive hits to the head during the course of their decades long (from childhood, into their 30s) football careers.

Needless to say, Dr. Omalu's findings, which he published though the University of Pittsburgh in the medical journal Neurosurgery, 2005 July; 57(1):128-34, produced a good deal of blowback, as watching football is a beloved American pasttime, and he was finding this condition in retired, though still quite young (in their late 30s-40s) athletes in Pittsburgh (!) where Football has arguably been all-but a religion. 

His boss, then Allegheny County Medical Examiner Dr. Cyril Wecht (played in the film by Albert Brooks) though portrayed as supportive of Dr. Omalu throughout, noted to the puzzled-by-the-reaction Nigerian immigrant that: "You've found yourself taking on a national institution that owns a day of the week, the same day that the Church used to own, but now it [the NFL] does."   Still, as Dr. Omalu (presented as a practicing Catholic, incidentally) noted: "The truth is the truth," and while "Football Management" was certainly "running scared," preferring to just deny or at least minimize everything, Dr. Omalu was shown as getting increasing support from the players families, the players themselves, and even some of their trainers.  Notably former Pittsburgh Steelers' sports doctor / trainer Dr. Julian Bailes (played by Alec Baldwin) who had worked with the former players while they played for the Steelers is shown to take Dr. Omalu's side.

It all makes for a quite sobering film, and just as in the case of the story behind Spotlight [2015], which was largely about how it took a new editor, Jewish, from Miami, to expose the cover-up of pedophilia among Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Boston, the current film also reminds Viewers of the value of "the Outsider," who can perhaps see more clearly (and act more courageously) than those closer to the situation / problem.

Again, a quite excellent and sobering story and one that one hopes that the NFL will be able to effectively deal with.  American Football is a beautiful game, but it should not have to kill its stars / heroes.


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Point Break [2015]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jenson) review
ChiTrib / WashPost  (S. Merry) review
RogerEbert.com (P. Sobczynski) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

Point Break [2015] (directed by Ericson Core, screenplay by Kurt Wimmer, story by Rick King, W. Peter Iliff and Kurt Wimmer) is INSPIRED BY / A REMAKE OF of the CULT (SURFER) CLASSIC Point Break [1991] (directed by Kathryn Bigelow, screenplay by Peter Iliff, story by Rick King and W. Peter Iliff) only EXPANDED to take into account developments (an arguably AN EXPLOSION OF DEVELOPMENTS) in the realm of EXTREME SPORTS since the making of the original.

AND it is ALSO IMPORTANT / IMPERATIVE TO NOTE that Ericson Core the director of the current film was DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY for the first Fast and Furious [2001] movie.  Otherwise, one simply won't understand the nature / purpose of the current film.

AS IN THE 1991-ORIGINAL, THE PLOT _QUITE NOMINALLY_ FOLLOWS Johnny Utah (played in the original by Keanu Reeves, and in the current film by Luke Bracey) a (former "star college football athlete" in the original, and a former "extreme athlete" in the current film) who's since joined the FBI. He's tasked with infiltrating a group of ["surfers" in the original film, and "extreme athletes" in the current one] whose enjoyment of Nature (or of the "Rush" that comes from participating in Extreme Sports) _may have_ turned them into a particularly dangerous / nihilistic Band of Criminals -- living for the thrill, they appear utterly unafraid of death, hence the (folks at the Bureau) fear that they could become capable of anything...

... 'Cept it's more complicated than that.  The Band of Extreme Surfers (1991) / Extreme Athletes (2015) led by Bodhi (played in the original by Patrick Swayze and in the current film by Édgar Ramírez) are motivated _at least partly_ by an Eastern tinged / radical environmentalist ideology.  Hence they don't really commit random crimes.  Instead, they appear to commit "actions" (remaining at least partly _crimes_ ...) aimed, at least in part, to "restore balance to Nature" / "the Earth" / even "Society."   Hence, they rob Banks (in the first movie), Diamond Dealers, Gold Miners, etc (in the current one) and "restore" the ill-gotten goods of (evil) Corporate Interests "to the Earth" (or "to the Poor") "to whom they belong."

In both films, the young Johnny Utah, who is at least in part seduced by Bodhi's Eastern / "Zen" tinged radical environmentalist idealism, is partnered with an older, no nonsense, curmudgeon of an FBI agent named Pappas (played in the original by Gary Busey and in the current film by Ray Winstone) who finds the aspirational ideology supposedly behind Bodhi's band of criminals' crimes a bunch of nonsense -- "They (criminals) always have an explanation / an excuse for what they are doing" he tells the partly/largely "starry eyed" entranced Utah at one point in the current story.

And so much ensues ... Is Bodhi and his group just a bunch of adrenaline crazed nihilistic criminals?  Or are they actually on a (perhaps quite crazy / stupidly dangerous) path to Nirvana / Enlightenment?   Where will Johnny Utah's (and even the film-makers') loyalties finally go?

BUT HONESTLY FOLKS, ALL OF THIS IS REALLY BESIDE THE POINT.  The story, in as much as it exists, does so to allow the film-makers to offer Viewers of the film one truly spectacular sequence after another of death defying "extreme sports" stunts that could honestly serve as a "Stress Test" for us "mere mortals."  AND IT IS EXHILIRATING ;-).

MY CONCERN -- as a Catholic Priest -- is that it ALL becomes, at times, truly Nihilistic:

EARLY / UNNECESSARILY STUPID Death is shrugged off by Bodhi's band of extreme athletes as perhaps an inevitable passage to "Enlightenment."  Each time one of the group's members die, the others salute him with the phrase: "See you soon..."

I do think I understand "the thrill" of doing something that NO ONE (or VERY FEW) have done -- like SNOWBOARDING down a random rock-strewn cliff-face somewhere in the Alps (after being dropped off there by a helicopter), or WING-SUIT FLYING through a winding, narrow / deep canyon at speeds aproaching 160 mpg, or SURFING insanely high 100 foot waves that appear from time to time in random parts of the globe, or ROCK-CLIMBING (with no rope or gear) 3200 feet up the shear face of a cliff _beside a spectacular waterfall_, that also _randomly spews mist about_ (dampening everything around...).

It's all spectacular.  But then, if someone dies as a result, it just seems so hollow to respond by essentially saying: "Oops..." 

We're more than "Oops."  Our lives are more than "Oops." 

Something to remember.

Still, the film _is_ ONE HECK OF A RIDE ... ;-) ... and definitely worthy of lively discussion afterwards.

ADDENDUM -

A good part of the current film has the extreme athletes seeking to complete a list of challenges called "The Ozaki 8" after a supposed extreme athlete / Zen-ish mystic from Japan named, well..., Ozaki ;-).  The eight challenges were all in some way supposed to highlight one-or-another of the "forces of nature."  In the film, after completing each of these challenges, Bodhi's gang committed one or another of their "actions" (arguably crimes) to "give back to nature" something of what they / humanity was taking from it.

It turns out that there was no renowned extreme athlete named Ozaki, nor (then) his eight challenges until the making of this film (article by Michael R. Powell on the matter).  However, one gets a sense that the Eight Challenges (hopefully minus the crimes ...) will be with us from now on. 

What are The Ozaki Eight Challenges?  Well their names are:

1.Emerging Force
2.Birth of Sky
3.Awakening Earth
4.Life of Water
5.Life of Wind
6.Life of Ice
7.Master of Six Lives
8.Act of Ultimate Trust.


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Carol [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (4 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars w. parental advisement / warning)

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

Perhaps the most important thing to know about Carol [2015] (directed by Todd Haynes, screenplay by Phyllis Nagy), aside from (1) it being an appropriately R-rated film (there is some nudity in the film and it is a lesbian love story after all, if by now a _quite classic_ even _somewhat dated_ one, so parents of teens would want to know that and have some discretion / control over whether or not / how to let their older teens to see it) and (2) the film being quite good / excellent, is that (3) it is based on a novel, The Price of Salt (1952) [GR] [WCat] [Amzn], by Patricia Highsmith [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb].

Now why should it be significant that the film is based on a novel by this particular novelist?  Well, Patricia Highsmith [wikip] was (1) a fairly significant / compelling American writer of the 1950s with _many_ of her works adapted for the screen, including two iconic films Strangers on a Train [1951] the classic suspense thriller by Alfred Hitchock, and the already homosexually themed The Talented Mr. Ripley [1999] starring Matt Damon in the title role, and (2) while briefly (and quite unhappily) married (to a man), Patricia Highsmith was a Lesbian.

To some extent, that brief and unhappy marriage (to a man) was the inspiration for the story recounted in her novel, The Price of Salt (1952) [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] adapted for the screen here under the title Carol [2015] who was the story's central character.  Basically fair is fair.  Various works by Highsmith have been previously adapted to the screen, SO _why not_ the work which MOST CLOSELY EXPRESSED who SHE ACTUALLY WAS?  A Lesbian.

And so it is, set in the early 1950s, this film is about a divorcing late-30 / early 40-something socialite named Carol Aird (played in the film excellently / quite credibly for the time by Cate Blanchett) living in upper middle-class suburban New Jersey, who after a chance exchange in a Manhattan department store with a much younger, still starry-eyed / learning-to-make-her-way-in-the-world early 20-something clerk at the cash register named Therese Belive(t / k) (played quite wonderfully / credibly by Rooney Mara) have an affair together.

Why?  /  How?  Well ... Carol's marriage to Harge Aird (played in the film again quite well by Kyle Chandler) was falling apart _precisely_ because SHE WAS NOT INTERESTED IN HIM.  It was _not_ as if she HASN'T TRIED (they had a young daughter played in the film by Seidy and Kk Heim) But SHE'S A LESBIAN.  And Therese (the confusion about the last letter of her last name stemming from the fact that she was of Czech descent where her last name would have ended with a "k" but American immigration officials presumably first heard it as if the last name were French and thus ended name with a "t" -- Readers note here that _I'm_ of Czech descent ;-) ALSO had a boyfriend, Richard (played by Jack Lacy).  BUT THERESE WAS _ALSO_ FINDING that SHE WAS NOT PARTICULARLY ATTRACTED TO HIM EITHER.  She still didn't really understand WHY she was not particularly attracted to him (or to other men for that matter) but she did find Carol to be interesting / increasingly attractive.

And so there it is, and it so happens that the two Carol and Therese take together one of the _saddest_ roadtrips in American cinematic / folk history -- from New York "west" toward Chicago, ending up in Iowa, "in the winter" / "during Christmas time," during which, obviously "much ensues."

A couple of observations to make here:

(1) No matter what one may think of homosexuality / lesbianism (and let's face it, I'm writing this as a Catholic blog, so a fair number of Readers here will be doing so continuing to believe that as per continuing Church Teaching homosexuality is "an intrinsically disordered condition") THE STORY HERE, originally written by a woman, Patricia Highsmith, who was a lesbian who _even tried to become straight_ (and _failed_ / _gave up_) is about TWO WOMEN WHO JUST _WEREN'T_ INTO MEN.  IT IS WHAT IT IS ... data / experience _do count_ even in theological reflection ...

(2) By today's standards, A BIGGER ISSUE with regards to the relationship between Carol and Therese would not be its homosexual/lesbian nature BUT THE AGE DIFFERENCE.  Let's face it, a story about a significantly older man (in his 40s) "awakening the sexual desires" of a "naive 20 year old woman" WOULD BE ROUNDLY CONDEMNED AS BEING _VERY CREEPY_.  So why would it be somehow "okay" for a 40-ish woman to arguably _groom_ a naivish 20-something woman into a lesbian affair?  Again, I'd think "fair is fair" and if one kind of relationship is to be taken as INHERENTLY CREEPY and arguably ABUSIVE that the other kind would be considered inherently creepy / arguably abusive as well.

And (3) an observation about the "very sad road trip" from New York, past Chicago toward Iowa IN THE WINTER.  This is the THIRD TIME in almost as many years, that I've seen a similar 50s-era road trip being made -- On The Road [2012] (the film adaptation of Jack Karouak's 1950s-era classic); Inside Llewyn Davis [2013] (by today's Coen Brothers) and now the current film (based on a novel written by a Karouak contemporary...).  I would have TO ASK the question, WHY?

In part, no doubt, there's a dramatic consideration, certainly in the case of Inside Llewyn Davis [2013] and the current film, where in both cases, the "road trip" is _intentionally_ presented as "a sad one" (taking place in a _cold, seemingly uncaring / hostile world_).

HOWEVER, I'd also suggest that THIS WAS SIMPLY THE REALITY BEFORE THE 1960s CIVIL RIGHTS ERA.  Northerners, generally DIDN'T LIKE "GOING SOUTH" (or if they went, they went STRAIGHT TO FLORIDA - Miami / Key West and on to Havana) PRECISELY BECAUSE of a NORTHERN DISCOMFORT WITH THE DEEP SOUTH'S THEN ENTRENCHED _RACISM_ / GENERALIZED CLOSED-MINDED BIGOTRY.  Indeed, in the case of the story here, one would suppose that NOTHING (but pain...) _could possibly await_ a 1950s era lesbian couple "heading South" ... so AS (physically and even emotionally) COLD AS IT WAS IN THE NORTH, it was arguably BETTER than "down south." 

Anyway, I found the film fascinating and challenging throughout and one that certainly college aged and above audiences would appreciate and find much, much to talk about afterwards.  Good job!


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Joy [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  


Joy [2015] (directed and screenplay by David O. Russell, story in part by Annie Mumolo) continues a remarkable run of generally quite _excellent_ blue collar-ish / "regular people" oriented films by the writer / director - The Fighter [2010] (4 Stars), Silver Linings Playbook [2012] (2 1/2 Stars), American Hustle [2013] (3 1/2 Stars).  Indeed, I'd put this film as his best yet.

Why do I prefer this one over the others?  I believe that this is still _the least_ "exotic" of Russell's "studies" of the the trials / tribulations of regular people.  The Fighter [2010] was still about boxing and though life is often a fight / challenge, very few people actually box for a living.  The Silver Linings Playbook [2012] may have been about some quite ordinary people but several in the film were struggling with some rather particular (and certainly as presented, rather exotic) psychological conditions.  American Hustle [2013] was about a couple of fairly low key "con artists," and while most people may occasionally "flirt in their minds with the darkside," very few are actual "con artists."

The current film, Joy [2015], is about Joy Mongano (played beautifully by Jennifer Lawrence) a woman from suburban Long Island, who while certainly quite smart (she was the valedictorian of her high school class, but then there are many high schools, all over the country, each with a valedictorian, best student, each year) would have appeared to any of us as an otherwise utterly unremarkable person ... 'CEPT ... she made her mark on the world by ... reinventing _the mop_  ;-).  More precisely, she invented a simple self-wringing "miracle mop" with a "when you're done, just throw it in the wash" mop-head ;-).

Many of the reviewers that I list above expressed the concern: Can a movie about a quite average young woman from a quite unremarkable family who "reinvented _the mop_" POSSIBLY be "compelling"?

 Well folks, IMHO what she went through _in her family_ with her initial business contacts, etc, MADE FOR A SURPRISING yet CERTAINLY COMPELLING STORY ;-)

For honestly, HOW does one "make a mop" -- even a prototype -- and then proceed to make them on a larger, approaching "industrial scale"?  Even the simplest mop would need 3-4 parts -- a pole, a mophead, a means to attach the mop-head to the pole.  Those parts have to be bought / made and assembled. Then Joy's "miracle mop" was a bit more complicated than the "simplest mop."   For this basic mop to become "self wringable" would require additional parts -- at least some kind of spring, some kind of lever as well as attachment devices / fasteners to them (so maybe 10 or as many as 15 parts, some needing to be specially molded / made).  How does one go about getting those parts made / assembled?  Finally, while a "self-wringable miracle mop" may seem like a great idea, "somebody, somewhere" could have come up with the idea already and if not then if the product proved a success, "somebody, somewhere" or perhaps a fair amount of "somebodies, somewhere" would want to steal the idea to make "knockoffs."

Okay Readers, you're a quite average person like Joy from a quite average family with its inevitable "assortment of characters" --  Joy's (divorced) parents Rudy and Terry (played by Robert De Niro and Virginia Madsen); Rudy's new-to-the-scene (and surprisingly moneyed) widowed girlfriend Trudy (played marvelously by Isabella Rossellini); Joy's grandmother Mimi (played by Diane Ladd) who actually narrates good parts of the story; Joy's own ex-husband Tony (played by Édgar Ramírez); her best friend since childhood Jackie (played by Dascha Polanco) and Joy's half-sister Peggy (played by Elizabeth Röhm) -- all trying to be (kinda) helpful, while (some) being naturally _kinda jealous_, and very few actually having a clue, with certainly no one being able to easily articulate what to do.

So the story involves _a lot_ of blind "flailing around" even after Joy gets a "shot in the dark" meeting (thanks to a quite random lead from her still nice guy ex-husband Tony) with QVC cable channel executive Neil Walker (played by Bradley Cooper) who gives her product a shot on his Home Shopping(like) Network.  And even with the moderate success that follows, it becomes clear that almost _everybody_ (and I mean everybody from family (naturally), to seemingly random but both well-hidden / well-placed mob-like characters) wanted a piece of her and her newly earned / hard earned money.

Indeed, Joy becomes the Ulysses of "entrepreneur fables."  It becomes a _compelling_ (you're right there beside her, cheering her on) story about HER and ... _her mop_ ;-)

And one's left honestly wondering: Oh my! if it's THIS HARD to (1) come up with, (2) manufacture, (3) sell and finally (4) DEFEND something as _simple_ as a "self-wringing mop" HOW DOES ANYTHING GET MADE?? ;-)

Beyond that, what makes the story remarkable for a blog like this is that DESPITE "the cast of characters at home" and DESPITE A LOT OF FRUSTRATION / FLAILING AROUND and even SHAKE-DOWNS and (arguably) BETRAYALS Joy _remains_ NICE, yes TOUGH at times but still fundamentally NICE to that "cast of characters at home."

So this is just a LOVELY, LOVELY STORY ... DESERVING _A LOT_ OF PRAISE.

So good job folks!  Very, very good job!


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Bajirao Mastani [2015]

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

IMDb listing
FilmiBeat.com listing

FilmiBeat.com (S. Srivastava) review
Hindustan Times (S. Kaushal) review
India Today (A. Bhattacharya) review
Indian Express (S. Gupta) review
The Hindu (N. Joshi) review
Times of India (S.M. Das) review

Bajirao Mastani [2015] [IMDb] [FBt] (story and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali [IMDb] [FBt], screenplay by Prakash Kapadia [IMDb]) is a super-crisp / visually SPECTACULAR (both indoors and out) Indian Historical Epic based on the life and TWO GREAT LOVES of the 18th century Indian general Bajirao I (played in the film with appropriate serious awesomeness by Ranveer Singh [IMDb] [FBt]).

Bajirao was the Peshwa (prime minister) to Shahu (played in the film by Mahesh Manjrekar [IMDb]) the fourth Chhatrapati (Emperor) of the Hindu Maratha Empire in central India which existed at the time (from the mid-17th century to the early 19th century) as a rival to the Muslim dominated Mughal Empire to the north.  He was noted / celebrated as having fought _and won_ 40 consecutive battles (!), mostly against the Mughal Empire and its allies.

However, while there are a couple of truly spectacular, LOTR-worthy, battle scenes portrayed in the film, the story is really about Bajirao's complicated (and for a Westerner / Christian outsider like me) INHERENTLY _fascinating_ relationship with his two wives Kashibai (played by Priyanka Chopra [IMDb] [FBt]) and Mastani (played by Deepika Padukone [IMDb] [FBt]).

Now in the East, regardless of religion (Hindu/Buddhist, Parsi/Zoroastran, Muslim even Biblical Jewish) it was never deemed a problem for a powerful man to have multiple wives (assuming that the he could afford to keep them).  However, as becomes Epic Romance/Story-worth(li)y obvious, a "multiple wives" arrangement would almost certainly be "complicated."  And so it was here ...

Kashi(bai) was Bajirao's FIRST wife.  Further, Bajirao was NOT "royalty."   So Kashi was in a sense a "hometown girl" and Bajirao's "first love."  BUT after Bajirao becomes Peshwa (and top general) to his Emperor, _he meets_ Mastani a _warrior-princess_ from a neighboring state, and well, ... SHE WAS AWESOME.  So "out there," "AT WAR," he takes her as his second wife.  And it _even seemed_ "like a good deal" (to him...) for his kingdom, as it helped seal an alliance between Mastani's father's other/lesser state and Maratha Empire. So what could go wrong...?

And, of course, THAT's the rest of the movie... ;-)

Let's just say that even in the best of circumstances, "coming home with a second wife," EVEN IF "she was AWESOME" (and perhaps _particularly_ if SHE WAS AWESOME ;-) would be a rather "delicate" affair.  Add to this (and something that Bajirao may not have been initially fully aware of) Mastani was half Muslim (by her mother's side) AND the Maratha Empire was a _radically_ ANTI-Muslim Hindu state.  Bajirao was nominally Hindu, his whole family was Hindu, Kashi his first wife was Hindu, THE EMPEROR was Hindu, and WHO WERE THEY MOSTLY FIGHTING? ... the Mughal Empire which was RULED BY MUSLIMS.

And yet, here was Mastani who was both AWESOME, _and_ as the story plays out, proving herself to be KIND.

What a remarkable, and thoroughly complicated story and a SPECTACULARLY WELL MADE FILM, _certainly_ one of the best I've seen this year.


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Casa Grande [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Adorocinema.com listing*

A Folha de São Paulo (A. Agabiti Fernandez) review*
Gazeta do Povo (R. Rodrigues Costa) review*
O Globo (S. Rizzo) review*

AdoroCinema.com (R. Hermsdorff) review*
aVoir-aLire.fr (J. Zimmer) review*
eKran.si (S. Popek) review*

Slant Magazine (D. Semereme) review
The Hollywood Reporter (N. Young) review
Variety (J. Weissberg) review

Casa Grande [2015] [IMDb] [AC.br]*(directed and cowritten by Fellipe Barbosa [IMDb] [AC.br]* along with Karen Sztajnberg [IMDb]) is a Brazilian "coming of age" story that played here this Spring at the 2015 Chicago Latino Film Festival.  I was unable to see it then but was happy to see it return for a week-long run (Dec 19-23, 2015) recently at Chicago's Facets Multimedia.

Indeed, the film is one of several teenage "coming of age" films to have come-out of Brazil in the past year and made it to the United States (for me, Chicago).  These included After the Rain (orig. Depois da Chuva) [2013] that also played at the 2015 Chicago Latino Film Festival in the spring, and Hopefuls (orig. Aspirantes) [2015] that played at the 2015 Chicago Int'l Film Festival in the fall.

Yet if After the Rain (orig. Depois da Chuva) [2013] had definite John Hughes-like tones -- that film was about a student election held at a thoroughly random (if still private) high school in the (still somewhat random) northestern Brazilian city of Salvador (if also set in the late 1980s in the context a Brazil which was then just coming-out of two decades of military dictatorship...) -- the current film, Casa Grande [2015] [IMDb] [AC.br]*, could perhaps be best approached by (North) American viewers as a play-on / "riffing-off of" the (North) American (and Tom Cruise starring) "coming of age" classic Risky Business [1983]:  For both films - Casa and Risky - were about somewhat oafish, still a little-bit "chubby," definitely still quite insecure 17-year olds from privileged backgrounds trying to navigate their last year before maturity and proceeding to (the parents hope "a good") College.  Tom Cruise's Joel in Risky Business [1983] was growing-up in the upscale suburban "North Shore" region of Chicago and going to New Trier High School (yes, a "public school" but, as it is supported by local (wealthy) tax payer money, it is _always_ among the best college prep schools in the entire country), while in the current film Jean (played by Thales Cavalcanti [IMDb] [AC.br]*) was growing-up in a definitely upscale (gated) suburb of Rio de Janeiro and attending an attending an upscale Catholic prep school, São Bento's (St. Benedict's), in the city.

Yet, despite growing-up with privilege, 17 is an awkward age: Neither Tom Cruise's Joel in Risky, Cavalcanti's Jean in Casa were necessarily "top students," and academics aside, both were trying to figure-out how to "make it" with the opposite sex: Privilege _isn't_ an automatic "in" as Joel's family's housekeeper Rita (played IMHO magnificently throughout by Clarissa Pinheiro [IMDb] [AC.br]*) keeps reminding him: "You have to become a man," she tells him.

But what _is_ "becoming a man"?  That's in good part, what the rest of the film is about, and it becomes increasingly clear that it does _not_ involve necessarily "owning a BIG HOUSE" (a Casa Grande, which, of course, is the name of the film).  Indeed, it becomes evident that owning / maintaining said "Big House" has become a rather precarious business for Jean's once super-wealthy parents (played by Marcello Novaes [IMDb] [AC.br]* and Suzana Pires [IMDb] [AC.br]* respectively) who because of "fluctuations in the markets" have become increasingly less so.  So how / where does one "find ground" / "find one's footing"?  Jean does find an answer (and arguably a better, more sustainable one than Tom Cruise's Joel) and one which has parallels with another, now Argentinian film, La Paz [2013], which touches again on many of the same "coming of age" / "making sense of it all" themes.

A quite excellent / thought-provoking and even challenging film.


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

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The Big Short [2015]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review

Wall Street Journal (J. Morgenstern) review
Wired (A. Watercutter) review


The Big Short [2015] (directed and screenplay co-written by Adam McCay along with Charles Randolph based on the book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Michael Lewis [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a film that both entertained me and made me (at least for the moment) quite angry.   So I guess it accomplished its mission ;-/ -- at least with me.

I've long believed that there are things can be said only with a smile, otherwise they'd just too nasty to bear.  And then there are crimes that are so nasty that short of jail -- and by now we all know that NO ONE is going to jail for crashing the world's economy eight years ago -- the next best option (the _only_ real option...) is to at least publicly ridicule the perpetrators.  And so it is here in this film.  The role of the powerless if at least funny "Court Jester" lives in our time ;-).

So then, this film is about the six "oddballs" in the investor class (hence ALL themselves _quite rich_ to begin with) who _saw_ the housing / mortgage crash coming BET ON IT and ... "WON" while the Rest (indeed, the rest of us ...) lost. 

The principal narrator of the story is the fictionalized Jared Vennett (played in the film by Ryan Gosling) of Deutsche Bank (the character being based on the real-life Deutsche Bank trader Georg Lippmann), who explained that up to the late 1970s "banking was boring."  Yes, it made bankers enough money to "belong to the country club."  But it took the invention of the "mortgage bond" in which blocks of said mortgages came to be "sellable" between banks / investors, for bankers to "make it from the country club to the strip club" (and when banking profits began to get obscene).

To explain HOW banking profits became obscene through the trading of "mortgage bonds" (soon to be chopped-up / rearranged into Collateralized Debt Obligations or CDOs), the film-makers then have Jared invite various iconic (and quite funny) celebrities explain the financial jargon involved utilizing imagery that truly everybody could understand.

So actress Margot Robbie of Wolf of Wallstreet [2013] fame (sitting sipping champagne in a bubble bath) explains the inevitable bubble which resulted from increasingly greedy bankers giving increasingly unqualified people mortgages -- "When you hear 'subprime', think 'shit'" the beautiful actress tells Viewers as she sips said champagne in said bubble bath -- which the bankers would unload to "investors" in "mortgage bonds."

Now why would "investors" BUY increasingly precarious (subprime / shitty) mortgages from the bankers that wrote them?  Well enter world famous chef Anthony Bourdain of CNN - Parts Unknown [2012-15] fame ;-) who explains, while CHOPPING (smelly...) FISH, the cooking trick of "taking LEFTOVER 3 day old Halibut, chopping it up and ... MAKING STEW" saying wryly "It's not THREE DAY OLD HALIBUT, it's A WHOLE NEW THING..." ;-).  Basically those Collateralized Debt Obligations which involved BLOCKS of mortgages were INCREASINGLY MADE UP of A LOT OF "shitty" / "smelly" / "subprime" BLOCKS.

Now even if this were the case -- that these CDOs were increasingly "filled with 'smelly shit'" --  shouldn't have Wall Street's venerable Rating Agencies like Standard & Poor's or Moody's "sounded the alarm" (and give increasingly poor ratings to increasingly poor products, PARTICULARLY when a lot of those "subprime mortgages" started going into default ...)?

Well, it turned out that the Ratings Agencies were _under financial pressure_ to give high (AAA) ratings to the financial products presented them "or else they'd go to the other guys..." as a (fictionalized) Standard & Poors analyst explained (in the film) to two of the "odd balls," Jamie Shipley and Charlie Geller (played by Finn Wittrock and John Magaro) of an upstart Boulder, CO based Hedge Fund, who came to see the crash coming (and staked their financial fortunes on it coming..) and who were becoming _increasingly frustrated_ that obviously deteriorating CDOs (due to the increasing number of defaults existing among the mortgages that they contained) were STILL BEING TRADED as if they were "AAA" (the _safest_ rating for an investment product).  Those two hedge-fund investors came to believe that THE WHOLE RATING SYSTEM HAD BECOME ROTTEN TO THE CORE and came to bet against even the highest rated CDOs in the months before the crash and ... came away making the most money of all the "odd balls" in this story.

Now, what's all this talk of "betting" on financial products collapsing?  Well to explain that, the film makers enlisted Selena Gomez once of Disney but more recently of Spring Breakers [2012] fame in an appropriately glamorous / slinky "black dress" seated besides Behavioral Economics Professor Richard Thaler at a blackjack table in Las Vegas, explaining "Credit Default Swaps" / Synthetic CDOs.   Basically Credit Default Swaps were financial products that served as "insurance" in case a CDO failed, which of course, since they were so highly rated, were assumed to be basically FAIL SAFE.  So Credit Default Swaps ("insurance against failure") were CHEAP (yet the payoff if failure came WAS GREAT, since it was assumed that "this would never happen").  Then since CDOs, despite the increasing default rates within their parts, remained so highly rated, financial institutions became increasingly greedy / careless AND started CHOPPING UP various CDOs already composed of blocks of mortgages of various ratings, into "Frankenstonian" (and increasingly unrate-able) "Synthetic CDOs" or "CDOs-squared."  This practice made the rating of the quality of these financial products akin to gambling, hence the "blackjack" (gambling) metaphor.

Well a small group of disparate "odd ball" investors, six portrayed in this film, saw the Crash coming, bet on it, and ... made a fortune while everybody else (including most of us, who may not have even known that we were involved in such increasingly risky investments -- through pension funds, etc) lost.

It's all very funny, and infuriating.  And remember NOBODY (or NEXT TO NOBODY) ever went to jail for ANY of this.  A great if infuriating presentation!



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