11/16/09 2:28 PM
A Subtly Embedded (Anti) War Message
An extraordinary anti-war film that does not engage in polemics. The Messenger's extreme effectiveness is due to the brilliant acting of the two principal characters played by Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson.
Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), who demonstrated great courage under fire in Iraq, is sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey, and given an interim assignment while waiting discharge from the service. He is paired with Capt. Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), a career Army man. They are assigned to visit fallen soldiers' next of kin to deliver the sad news of the soldier's death.
Tony instructs Will on how it is to be done. They are to read from a script, offering the condolences of the Secretary of the Army, and never to physically touch the next of kin unless the individual appears to be in need of assistance, like having a heart attack, after hearing the news. Their encounters with family members have enormous impact on them and the movie audience.
In one case, Dale Martin (Steve Buscemi), the father of a fallen soldier, can't accept the news and begins to strike Will, the messenger. On another occasion, a mother and a pregnant girlfriend receive the news and engage in withering screams. On a third call, the news is delivered to a young, white woman, Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton), whose fallen husband is African American. This encounter leads to a relationship between Samantha and Will. The conversations and arguments between Will and Tony ring true to life and are brilliantly acted.
All in all, the message of this low-keyed film that doesn't lecture is very clear. If you go to war, it better be for a good cause and one that makes acceptable the deaths and assaults that inevitably will follow. For millions, including me, that does not now exist in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It is time to bring our troops home. Those in Iraq are scheduled to return early next year and at the latest by December 31, 2011. That is not true for our troops in Afghanistan where our shoring up a corrupt government is still open-ended unless President Obama reverses our policy.
The anti-war movies are getting better in delivering their messages. I recommend "The Messenger," with the same fervor that I recommended "The Hurt Locker." Be sure to see both of them.
HS said: "This was a first-rate film which sends a powerful message about the consequences of war without trashing America. It is also a male-bonding film which shows two men who develop powerful emotional ties but are not gay. I had a similar job when I was 16 years old and a Western Union messenger delivering telegrams in Washington Heights. When a telegram contained a death message, I learned to deliver the closed envelope, get the recipient's signature, and walk downstairs quickly without waiting for a tip. The movie is neither morbid nor judgmental; it is worth seeing."
11/16/09 2:09 PM
Absent Emotion Dims Bright Star
This movie, about the romance between the poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, has been playing for some time and still draws large audiences. The main characters are John Keats (Ben Whishaw), Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), and Keats' best friend, Charles Brown (Paul Schneider). The film was written and directed by Jane Campion.
Keats, who is too poor to marry Fanny, ultimately becomes ill, probably dying of tuberculosis although the illness is not named. He eventually travels to Rome - shortly before his death - in the hope that the warmer climate will improve his health.
The New York Times critic A.O. Scott, who loved this period piece, wrote: "That Fanny and Keats must sublimate their longings in letters, poems and conversations seems cruel, but they make the best of it. As does Ms. Campion: a sequence in which, fully clothed, the couple trades stanzas of 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' in a half-darkened bedroom must surely count as one of the hottest sex scenes in recent cinema."
I was in no way moved by this scene and found the film to be bland and boring. Wonderful attention is paid to detail, however, including clothing, furniture and highly-stylized behavior. What is missing is emotion.
I am sure many moviegoers will be attracted to this film, because of the "period" aspects and the poetry. PT told me that she and two female friends saw it together and loved it, but she knew I would not. She was right. I did not feel the poetic creation and amatory passion that so beguiled A. O. Scott.
11/10/09 1:38 PM
Painfully Precious
This is an extraordinary story with an exceptional cast. The painful life burdens of the movie's main character, a teenager named Precious, will cause you to weep.
In the beginning of the film, an extremely obese teenager, Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), is caring for her Down Syndrome baby whom she has named Mongol. She is soon to deliver birth to a boy who will be named Abdul. The horror is that both children were fathered by Precious's own father who is the boyfriend of her mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), with whom she lives.
Mary, who has stood by and allowed the raping of her child, has only ill-will approaching hatred towards her daughter. One of the most poignant and dramatic scenes in the film depicts a meeting at the office of a social worker, Ms. Weiss (Maria Carey), where the mother states why she resents her daughter. I was pained by the plight of both mother and daughter and wept for both of them.
Precious is shown in a classroom with a half-dozen other girls who become her substitute family. Without the positive interaction of her social worker, Ms. Weiss, her teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), and her classmates, I have no doubt she would have been living on the streets.
The performances of Sidibe and Mo'Nique are extraordinary and spellbinding. In fact, the entire cast, including Lenny Kravitz in the role of Nurse John, does a wonderful job.
I believe everyone in the audience must have felt the way I did: how could God allow this to go on and what can our schools and society do to address the problem? The obvious answer is to provide more educational and training programs as well as money for programs to care for those in need who may never work, notwithstanding the prodding of their social worker. Clearly, however, we are not doing enough. The ending of this film, while conveying the possibility of change and a better outcome down the road, does not leave the audience with an unrealistic expectation and happy ending.
According to The National Center for Victims of Crime:
"Incest has been cited as the most common form of child abuse. Studies conclude that 43 percent of the children who are abused are abused by family members, 33 percent are abused by someone they know, and the remaining 24 percent are sexually abused by strangers (Hayes, 1990). Other research indicates that over 10 million Americans have been victims of incest.I saw the picture at the Regal Union Square Stadium Theater on 13th Street and Broadway which I like very much because of its stadium seating. The audience was made up largely of young black women. This film concerns problems affecting both blacks and whites and should be seen by every racial group in our country. It took enormous courage to make and participate in this film. Those who did should be rewarded with the honors of the industry and the applause of the nation.
One of the nation's leading researches on child sexual abuse, David Finkelhor, estimates that 1,000,000 Americans are victims of father-daughter incest, and 16,000 new cases occur annually (Finkelhor, 1983). However, Finkelhor's statistics may be significantly low because they are based primarily on accounts of white, middle-class women and may not adequately represent low-income and minority women (Matsakis, 1991).
Victims of incest are often extremely reluctant to reveal that they are being abused because their abuser is a person in a position of trust and authority for the victim. Often the incest victim does not understand - or they deny - that anything is wrong with the behavior they are encountering (Vanderbilt, 1992). Many young incest victims accept and believe the perpetrator's explanation that this is a learning experience that happens in every family by an older family member. Incest victims may fear they will be disbelieved, blamed or punished if they report their abuse."
11/09/09 2:45 PM
Staring at Absurdity
This absurd film, in my opinion, illustrates the contempt that Hollywood writers and producers have for the intelligence of their audiences.
It is difficult to set forth a bare-bones outline of this picture, but I'll try. Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), an Army man who specializes in parapsychology, is trained to kill using his evil eye. He demonstrates this ability by staring at a goat which has a heart attack and drops dead. Cassady meets a young reporter, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), and both enter Iraq surreptitiously. Flashbacks occur involving Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) the guru who teaches the new army psychic techniques. Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) is the serpent in the Garden of Evil.
These four actors are usually excellent in their roles but not in this film. Their characters are contrived and the film, masquerading as a highbrow Hollywood production, is simply awful.
When I left the theater a young man in his thirties asked me what I thought of the film and whether I would review it. I said, "It stunk." He called over a friend and said, "He said it stunk. That's what I love about this guy." Apparently my telling the truth about films that I review is viewed as unusual and surely to be encouraged. Save your money and, more important, your precious time.
On behalf of the movie-going public, I appeal to Dionysus, lord of the theater in Greek-Roman mythology, to chastise the Hollywood punks who bring us such terrible flicks and are so contemptuous of their public. Then he should punish those in Hollywood, e.g., Woody Allen, Harvey Weinstein and Martin Scorsese, who jumped to the defense of Roman Polanski who raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl. And, of course, there is Jane Fonda to be properly dealt with.
"The Men Who Stare at Goats" is playing at several theaters. I saw it at the Regal Union Square Stadium Theater on 13th & Broadway, a quite comfortable theater.
HS said: Manohla Dargis called this film an absurdist comedy and said she liked it. I thought it was absurdly unfunny; a waste of the actors' talents and the audience's time. It is not amusing to see soldiers do goofy and dangerous things under the influence of LSD. George Clooney is famous enough to make any movie he wants; his only film worse than "Goats" was his anti-American "Syriana."
11/02/09 5:21 PM
"The Storm" Lingers
This
interesting movie could have been much better; nevertheless, it is worth
seeing. Its plot centers on the war
crime trial of a Bosnian Serb general who allegedly committed acts of ethnic cleansing against the Bosnian
Muslims during the civil war in Bosnia (part
of the old Yugoslav Tito-run Balkan state which was settled during the Clinton
presidency). General Goran Duric (Drazen Kuhn) appears at the outset of the film, three years before the trial that the film focuses on, in hiding in Spain with his wife and children. He is soon captured and sent to the Hague for trial before an International War Crimes Court which is delayed for three years. His prosecutor, Hannah Maynard (Kerry Fox), is dedicated to seeing justice served. Her major witness is a young Muslim man, Alen Hajdarevic (Kresimir Mikic), whose credibility is destroyed on the witness stand when he is shown to be lying about his placement of the defendant at the scene of the alleged war crime.
Hannah must find a new witness in a week, and so she flies to Bosnia. She interviews Alen's sister, Mira Arendt (Anamaria Marinca), who was raped with other Muslim women in a hotel prison the general kept for a gang-rape operation. Mira, though initially reluctant, becomes the new witness.
In the meantime, the politics of the Balkans have changed. The powers that be do not want to enlarge the charges against the general, because Bosnia is now seeking membership in the European Union. The less controversy the better.
The acting is excellent, but the story could have used more action as well as flashbacks to the scenes of ethnic cleansing. While watching the film, I thought back to the Serbian massacre of the 6,000 young Muslim men at Srebrenica when the UN troops failed to protect the Muslims, who had been told they would be protected by the UN forces. This is not a docudrama involving real people, but the fiction is reminiscent of real war crimes and crimes against humanity committed throughout the world. In this case it is Bosnia, but similar atrocities occurred in Rwanda, Burundi and elsewhere. Keeping the depravity that humans are capable of in our consciousness--remember the Holocaust in
HS said: "Seeing this film was a valuable experience.I learned about the trials in the Hague, and the political influences to which they are subject. You don't know exactly how much of the movie is true and how much is made up. But you get the feeling that it mostly happened closely enough to the way it was depicted.
The examples of cruelty and brutality toward the innocent shows what can happen, in Europe as well as Africa, when people are led into hostilities. The technology improves, with new weapons and cell phones, but the combination of power and evil remains the same. Sadly, evil and nuclear weapons are coming closer together."
Photo Credit: Flickr User armigeress
11/02/09 2:34 PM
"The Maid" Could Easily Be Swept Under the Bed
I wanted to see a movie that had been around for a while, since the
week's new openings did not read very well in the reviews. The
New York Daily News gave this film four stars so I thought to myself that it would be a safe bet, after all, what have I got
to lose? Regrettably, plenty in terms of time. And at the
age of 85, time is very precious.
While I stood in line at the Angelika Film Center waiting for the earlier performance to end, I decided to ask people exiting what they had thought of the film. One couple said they liked it, while inside the theater, a late-middle-aged-guy recognized me and said, "Only a masochist could enjoy this film. It took so, so long to come to an end. I wish I could spare you the agony." After his comment, I spoke with three other people leaving the earlier show, all of whom said they enjoyed the picture. The guy who referred to masochism was right. This is a boring and much too long movie.
Lucy bring Raquel to her home on Christmas where her uncle, Eric, seduces Raquel. Raquel, who looks to be in her 40s or 50s, is both gratified and horrified. She tells Eric that it was her first sexual experience.
Though the film's highlights include a cute scenes with children, all in all, if you give any thought to how you spend your discretionary hours this, in my opinion, "The Maid" is not the movie for you. However, there was more than a smattering of applause at the end of the picture. Why, I don't know. (In Spanish, with English subtitles.)
While I stood in line at the Angelika Film Center waiting for the earlier performance to end, I decided to ask people exiting what they had thought of the film. One couple said they liked it, while inside the theater, a late-middle-aged-guy recognized me and said, "Only a masochist could enjoy this film. It took so, so long to come to an end. I wish I could spare you the agony." After his comment, I spoke with three other people leaving the earlier show, all of whom said they enjoyed the picture. The guy who referred to masochism was right. This is a boring and much too long movie.
The plot is simple: Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), a maid in the home of a Chilean couple with four kids, is on the brink of a nervous breakdown. The lady of the house, Pilar (Claudia Celedon), is a patrician and kind woman who wants to hire a second maid to assist Raquel. Raquel is distressed by the thought.
When a young Peruvian maid arrives, Raquel makes her life miserable, and the girl quickly leaves the house. Pilar's mother states that she knows someone who could get along with Raquel, and Sonia (Anita Reeves) is hired. Yet, Sonia is a tough old biddy who, before she leaves, beats up Raquel. Then comes Lucy (Mariana Loyola) who is competent, mature, and a darling who gets Raquel to accept her.Lucy bring Raquel to her home on Christmas where her uncle, Eric, seduces Raquel. Raquel, who looks to be in her 40s or 50s, is both gratified and horrified. She tells Eric that it was her first sexual experience.
Though the film's highlights include a cute scenes with children, all in all, if you give any thought to how you spend your discretionary hours this, in my opinion, "The Maid" is not the movie for you. However, there was more than a smattering of applause at the end of the picture. Why, I don't know. (In Spanish, with English subtitles.)
10/26/09 2:58 PM
"Kasztner" Makes an Impact Once Again
This brilliant documentary seeks to establish the hero status of Rudolf Kasztner. Kasztner successfully bargained with Adolf Eichmann to save the lives of approximately 1,600 Jews, who were transported out of Hungary to Switzerland, and an additional 19,000 Jews who were sent to work camps instead of death camps. Shortly before the end of World War II, Eichmann masterminded the killing of near 600,000 Hungarian Jews.
Kasztner ends up in living in Palestine under the British mandate, and eventually becomes a member of the Ben-Gurion government in the new state of Israel. Another Israeli calls him a Holocaust collaborator, who is then sued by the Israeli government for libel. The judge overseeing the case believes Kasztner lied about certain documents and acquits Kasztner's alleged slanderer. Ultimately the Israeli Supreme Court reverses the judgment, but Kasztner's reputation is never fully restored.
The documentary spectacularly sets forth what occurred and establishes, to my satisfaction, that Kasztner was a hero. Kasztner is killed shortly after the first trial finding him to be a collaborator. His assassin, who is presented in the film, comes to the conclusion that he was wrong. He now believes that Kasztner was a hero bargaining with the Nazis to release Jews in exchange for money - $1000 for each Jew.
The movie contains a number of enthralling vignettes. One of those is about the Satmar's founding rabbi, Joseph Teitelbaum, who was saved by Kasztner by being placed on the train to Switzerland. When asked to appear at the Israeli Court on behalf of Kasztner, he refused, saying that Kasztner did not save him, God did. The Satmar, one of the largest Hasidic groups in New York City, is centered in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
"Killing Kasztner" will cause you to weep, even without displaying heartrending concentration camps scenes where six million Jews died. As far as the world is concerned, the Holocaust appears to be slipping into ancient history, like the days of Rome and Athens.
I urge everyone, Jew and Gentile, to see this film and meet the surviving family members of Rudolf Kasztner, particularly his wife and daughter. It is playing at the Cinema Village on East 12th Street, between Fifth Avenue and University Place. The theater was near full when I went, and the audience appeared to consist of elderly Jews, some of whom may have been survivors.
10/26/09 2:33 PM
Not Wild About "Where the Wild Things Are"
The minus I give this children's
story pains me. As I have written many
times, I don't enjoy movies that can in any way be described as a cartoon/fable,
which surely this film is. So I went to
this movie somewhat prejudiced against it.
The picture is based on a book by Maurice Sendak whom I know and admire. I once asked him to illustrate a children's book that I was writing with my sister about my brother who was a great athlete, unlike myself as I was terrible at sports. He declined saying that his style and type of art would not be appropriate for our book.
The story is about a young boy, Max (Max Records), who lives with his loving mother (Catherine Keener) and his sister, a minor character in the film. Max runs away one night, crosses a body of water, and lands on a island where he meets a half-dozen creatures who accept him as their king. Max doesn't know that they have had other kings, all of whom they have eaten.
The animal characters--hybrids and scary in appearance--look like they had been on "The Island of Dr. Moreau." The lead animal, Carol (voice of James Gandolfini), is really frightening. He constantly threatens to eat Max, but is sorry when Max leaves the island. KW (voice of Lauren Ambrose) is a female of the same species. She saves Max from Carol by taking him into her mouth for a short while and then releases him.
If I had seen this film when I was eight, I would have been terrified. That did not seem to be the case with the youngsters in the theater when I saw the picture. I did not hear one child cry during the movie.
I saw the film with PA, who did not enjoy it, and with PB who did. I was advised by PT, who has not seen the film, that I would look and sound like a jerk if I criticized it. So, while I won't disparage it, I must state that I did not enjoy it. After seeing the picture, my friends and I questioned what the moral was. No one could come up with one except for PT who said it was that a little boy could master his own savage emotions.
HG said he disliked the ending most of all. After Max gets home safe and sound, his mother falls to her knees, hugs him, and gives him chocolate cake and milk. I said that was the only scene I loved. HG said, "She was too forgiving, and the kid will run away again." So, Maurice, while I didn't enjoy the film, you did something quite brilliant: you got us all thinking and arguing about the movie which is no small feat.
Maybe I missed the point of this alleged parody or perhaps there is no point to it. I thought the film was simply drivel, and I found it hard to stay awake as it rolled on.
Why did I choose to see it? None of the newly-released movies appealed to me. I decided to see this picture, which has been out for several weeks, after reading a description of it in the Daily News. The reviewer, who gave it 3 ½ stars, wrote: "Ricky Gervais co-wrote, co-directed and stars in this Groundhog Day-like satire about a man who tells the first fib in a world where everyone only speaks the truth. Though the high-concept plot really only works in fists and starts, Gervais is always fun, the supporting cast is in the right groove and there's a gusty religious parody at the heart of it that's admirable." The Times critic Manohla Dargis described the film as "the makings of a classic." Ridiculous.
Following my Friday night Bloomberg radio program, from 6-7 p.m., 1130 on the a.m. dial., I rushed to the City Cinemas Village East theater on Second Avenue at 12th Street to make the 7:25 p.m. show. This old theater, where I have seen many good films, was long ago converted into a multiplex. You might rightfully ask why I'm spending so much time on matters unrelated to the film. The answer is that there is very little to say about this one-trick pony.
The movie displays a world where everyone tells the unvarnished truth no matter how painful. The main character, screenwriter Mark (Ricky Gervais), takes out for the first time a young, attractive woman, Anna (Jennifer Garner), who tells him that he is fat, unattractive, and doesn't have the genes to father desirable children. She also announces, when she opens her apartment door, that she's been masturbating. This candid remark seems to appeal to the critics. Brad (Rob Lowe) is Mark's competitor for Anna's attention. Halfway through the film Mark, for unknown reasons, begins to tell several lies to advance his own fortunes. He speaks to his dying mother about the man in the sky - God - who will give her great joy in the next world where she will live in her own house.
I kid you not when I say I sat there wondering is there nothing more to this film? Am I overlooking something? I don't think so, and I couldn't wait for the lights to go up. Sitting in the theater were no more than a dozen other people who were probably suffering along with me. The performances of the cast were very good insofar as the script allowed them to exhibit their acting abilities.
HS said: "This is one on which I completely disagree with the senior critic. I found the film quite entertaining; that is the reason I go to the movies except when I am looking for moral uplift. Of course the plot is preposterous, that is artistic license. You pay your money and go into an unreal world. Basically, the film is a parody of religion and dating rituals, an unusual combination. What can I say, except that I thought the movie was funny. Not a great film, but you leave the theater smiling. The acting was good, the pace was fast, the characters were interesting, although the protagonist's drunken stooge jumped the shark. Clearly, either you like the picture or you don't. Neither is right or wrong, it is a matter of taste. As my father told his children often, de gustibus non est disputandum."
10/13/09 11:45 AM
Nick Hornby Works Magic With Education
On a Sunday afternoon attending a 2:30 p.m. screening at the Regal Cinemas Union Square Stadium at 13th Street and Broadway, I found a near packed house that was sold out when the lights went down. The reviews of the film were excellent, but for a sold-out performance on a Sunday afternoon, the public drums voicing the movie's praises had to be working overtime. They were right to do so. This is a lovely, delicious film with fine acting and a unique plot.
Sixteen-year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan), who lives in a London suburb, attends a private school and expects to go to Oxford the following year. She meets David (Peter Sarsgaard) in a torrential downpour who offers her and her viola a ride home. Thus begins a romance between a young girl and an older man in his 30s who, no matter how sweet and dazzling in personality, appears to be a grifter.
Jenny's middle-class parents, Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour) play their roles beautifully. They are devoted to her and very protective, particularly her father. Two friends of David, one a fellow grifter, Danny (Dominic Cooper), and his wife, Helen (Rosamund Pike), add a sophistication to every scene in which they appear. Danny looks his role of grifter with a touch of degeneracy, but the latter aspect only in appearance, not in any action. The film ends in a surprising way, totally unexpected after Jenny accepts David's marriage proposal, giving up her expected career which requires her attendance at Oxford.
The movie has a PG-13 rating, signaling a picture without sex or violence, which undoubtedly will keep some people away. I would say this is a unique film well worth your attendance, notwithstanding the several anti-Semitic reflections. An extra bonus is the presence of Emma Thompson playing the Headmistress at Jenny's school.
