Movies – Films

Superb  ****    Very Good   ***     Good **       Mediocre  *      Forget it   –

Worth your While

Alice in Wonderland ***  The fantabulous team of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter is back to enchant us once again, after such delights as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd. It’s of course the classic tale of Alice, who is somewhat older this time, with a wonderfully dazed and touching Mad Hatter, as only Johnny Depp could portray.

How to Train your Dragon ***  Dreamworks is inching in on the brilliance of Pixar animation with exuberant tales like this one about a Viking village that is constantly attacked by dragons. But the son of the village chief just doesn’t feel like killing them, to his father’s shame. In fact he ends up befriending one of them …This is an invigorating and humorous tale of understanding those whom we have mistakenly come to fear and hate. Wonderful!

Men Who Stare at Goats (Les chèvres du Pentagone) ***  Don’t take this film seriously and just enjoy a super team of actors including George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey. You’ll laugh yourself silly at the antics of an “anti-war” unit in the U.S. Army. Weird, goofy and a hoot!

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang ***  Set in the English countryside, this is a magical, feel-good film for the whole family, with a disguised Emma Thompson (who also wrote the screenplay) as an amazing nanny who is transformed with each good deed she teaches her young brood. The kids are great, as is the versatile Maggie Gyllenhaal as their mother, along with a woozy Maggie Smith. It’s a moving, funny and adventurous story of a family waiting for Dad to come home from war.

Les Invités de mon Père (vo French)   ***  With a super cast that includes Fabrice Luchini and Karin Viard as his sister, this is a film    about a close-knit family that wonders what’s up with their father when he takes in a dubious mother/daughter duo from an Eastern-bloc country. Anne Le Ny’s refreshing French comedy manages both to amuse and dissect a multitude of family quirks and prejudices.

Shutter Island ***  If this is not an homage to Hitchcock, I don’t know what is. There’s the twisted plot, the heightened colors and fake backdrops (especially at sea), the winding staircase in a lighthouse (Vertigo) and even a cliff-hanging scene (North by North West). Scorsese and DiCaprio give us the shivers until the brilliant ending, better than any of Hitchcock’s. I didn’t want to see the film, as it seemed so creepy, but it was finally well worth the chills.

The Ghostwriter **1/2  Here is Roman Polanski’s take on a Tony Blair-like British leader’s memoirs and intrigues – an interesting, austere political thriller with Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan.

Tetro **1/2  A young sailor from Europe arrives in Argentina to find his long-lost older brother. Francis Ford Coppola has turned to dramatic black & white to tell this tale of a family torn apart by an overbearing, illustrious father with some deep secrets. Intense and esthetically sumptuous, it’s a grand old melodrama set in Buenos Aires.

Precious **1/2  Highly acclaimed and Oscarized, this downer of a film is about a terribly abused black girl who gradually comes out of her shell through a caring teacher. Fine acting all around, especially by the abusive mother, but the whole tragic process leaves you feeling queasy.  Can any of this relentless scrutiny help somehow, somewhere?

Chloe **1/2  There are films that grab you from the outset and don’t let go. This is one of them, though it leaves you with a disturbing sense of guilt for having watched it. This slick psychodrama, about a wife who hires a call girl to get at the truth about her husband, is an intense observation of the twists of life by the renowned Canadian/Armenian director Atom Egoyan (Exotica). Julianne Moore is especially effective in this remake of the original French film, Nathalie, which starred Fanny Ardant and Emmanuelle Béart.

Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec (vo French)  **1/2  Luc Besson (Le Grand Bleu,Subway, Angel) knows how to make films, even if critics regularly drub him – jealousy? This one is pure action/fun entertainment (in the genre of Indiana Jones or Romancing the Stone) based on a well-known comic-book series set in the Paris of the early 1900s. A feisty journalist, Adèle, goes off to Egypt and its pyramids to find a way to cure her comatose sister. It has great characters, exotic locations and cinematography, but it could have been shortened for better effect.

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Movies – Films

Superb  ****    Very Good   ***     Good **       Mediocre  *      Forget it   –

It’s been almost three months since I’ve written about films! I was away in balmy Florida, but have been keeping up with the movies and have stored them in my head and some in my heart. A few I’ve almost forgotten, they were so inconsequential. Now I’m back, with a backlog of reviews. I know some of the films may be gone and others have not yet arrived, but I hope these inevitably brief reviews will get us up-to-date. And there’s always DVD and Amazon.com.    Neptune Ingwersen

Unmissables

An Education ****  Here’s an intelligent, engrossing and brilliantly acted ensemble piece from England. It’s about a bright young girl who gets waylaid on her mission to attend Oxford, by a seductive older man played by a smooth Peter Sarsgaard. By Danish director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners), it’s set in the early 60s and has it all – a whirlwind romance, misguided parenthood, ambition and folly. Sweet Carey Mulligan was nominated for a best actress Oscar, but lost to Sandra Bullock.

The Last Station ****  This beautifully-acted and atmospheric jewel of a film by Michael Hoffman recounts the turbulent love between Leo Tolstoy and his tempestuous wife, as they spar over his literary legacy to the Russian people, in the last months of his life. Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer are wonderful as the fiery couple (both nominated for Academy Awards), as are their cohorts, James McAvoy and Paul Giamatti. An illuminating work, both emotionally and historically. (I would have given this or An Education the best film Oscar).

Green Zone ***1/2  Matt Damon is getting better with each film and his partnership here with director Paul Greengrass, with whom he’s done the Bourne series, doesn’t hurt. With his clear blue eyes and cute pug nose, Damon is the embodiment of the “good” American in Iraq at the beginning of the invasion, when the troops were frantically searching for WMDs. This smart action yarn tells it how it was – the deliberate deceptions, the Iraqi side (brilliantly done), the different layers of command. Brains and brawn together, what more would you want on a movie night?!

Soul Kitchen (vo German) ***1/2  Fatih Akin, the German/Turkish director of Gegen die Wand and Auf der anderen Seite, is a fan of Jim Jarmusch, and it shows in his eccentric, meaningful films full of color and passion. This one, about the troubles of two close-knit brothers and a funky restaurant in Hamburg (where Akin was born), is joyous, energetic and great fun, showing  marginals in a little-known side of Germany.

Les Chats Persans (No one knows about Persian Cats) (vo Farsi)  ***1/2  This is a surprising, multi-awarded (Cannes, Miami, Sao Paulo) Iranian film about one of the thousands of underground rock bands that exist today in Tehran. Since they can’t perform there as freely as they wish, the lead boy and girl of a band are trying to go to England to give a concert. To help them recruit new band members and get the necessary papers, they turn to a riotous wheeler-dealer (Hamed Behdad)who can charm anyone into anything. By the Kurdish/Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi of A Time for Drunken Horses and Turtles Can Fly, this is a breath of fresh air and a true picture of the suppressed vitality that is Iran today – a must-see for a better understanding of a burgeoning, multifaceted, misunderstood country.

The Hurt Locker (Démineurs) ***1/2  Winning the Oscar for best film and best director, this film by Kathryn Bigelow is a tense study of a bomb squad in Iraq, and one of them in particular (Jeremy Renner, Oscar nominee), who is as fearless and cool under fire as a Steve McQueen character. Filmed in almost documentary style, the story does not delve into the politics or ethics of war, but just observes the raw fear and almost drunken high experienced by those who face instant death at any moment. Powerful – but was it the best of the year? And is it universal enough for the honor?

Crazy Heart ***  Here’s a slow, lazy look at an aging country singer who once was somebody and is now playing in sleazy joints and slowly drinking himself to death. It’s all downhill until he’s interviewed by a lovely young thing and they begin to fall in love. Jeff Bridges mightily deserved his Oscar for this role of a lifetime (one of many for him), which completely carries the film. But Maggie Gyllenhaal isn’t far behind, with her tender portrayal of a lover and a mother. And then there’s Colin Farrell in a surprising cameo role. This is one fine coup for first-time writer/director, Scott Cooper.

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Going to the movies is a wonderful exercise for our age-esteem.   Why not take a look at our critic’s choices over the next three days and treat yourself to a theater outing or rent one to watch at home?

• Going to the movies is a social event, especially when we watch with friends and discuss the film afterward.
• Films spark our imagination.
• Movies stimulate our thinking; they take us to other parts of the world and into unusual settings.
• Watching foreign films in their original language forces us to concentrate on vocabulary.  If you study a foreign language, this will help connect words and images, phrases and scenarios.
• Many films keep us up to date and help us converse with our grandchildren.
• It’s fun to watch good movies!

Easter offers an enjoyable opportunity for inter-generational fun.  Why not gather the grandchildren or neighbors for an egg painting party?  Even a two year old can dye and color eggs.  All ages can participate – toddlers, teens, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents.   You may begin an annual tradition!

• Make baskets to offer to friends.  The baskets that berries and fruit or potatoes come in can be decorated with ribbon and grass and filled with eggs.
• Decorate a branch or small tree with eggs.
• Organize an Easter egg hunt in a yard or the neighborhood park.
• Run races where each person must run with an egg in a spoon.
• Have an egg roll, where you are on all fours and push the egg with your nose.

Most important is to enjoy!  This is a wonderful way to share your age-esteem.

It’s easy to distinguish that the rugby player on the right is Matt Damon, but who is he shaking hands with?  Is that Nelson Mandela or Morgan Freeman?

Don’t  miss the film Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood.  Morgan Freeman is exceptional in the role of Nelson Mandela.  Freeman had known for a long time that he would some day play the role of Mandela.   When Nelson Mandela’s autobiography was published in 1995, Mandela was asked who he thought could play him on screen.  He cited the name of Morgan Freeman.

In a recent interview in Switzerland published in Migros Magazine, his interviewer said, “Mandela is a wise man; he’s 91 years old.  You are also getting older and therefore also becoming wise?”   Freeman’s response was, “Careful.  I am getting older, but I am not becoming old.”

Age is an attitude.  Nelson Mandela, Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood share the fact that they are getting older – as are we!  They also share age-esteem with a positive attitude toward age that will keep them from ever becoming “old”.

Bonnie Fatio, AgeEsteem

Movies – Films

Superb  ****     Very Good  ***      Good **     Mediocre  *     Forget It   –

WHY NOT ?

I Love You Phillip Morris *1/2     Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor play two men who fall in love in prison, when Carrey’s character is incarcerated for all sorts of embezzlements to keep up his high lifestyle. Based on a true story, the film loses us when it can’t decide if it’s a love story, a comic/thriller or an argument for a gay lifestyle. It’s neither fish nor fowl…

A Serious Man *1/2      The Coen brothers have perfected quirky, intelligent comedy with a twist of irreverence and violence in such films as Fargo, The Big Lebowski or O Brother, Where Art Thou? Here they seem to have gone back to the grim days of Barton Fink. This film should actually have been called A Stupid Man. For that is what their hero is, a simpleton who is not only bamboozled by his wife and children, but also by his colleagues, students, his synagogue and its rabbis. This looks like a bitter satire of the Cohn brothers’ own mid-American/Jewish background. It’s certainly frustrating and claustrophobic in its negativity.

AT YOUR OWN RISK

Verso *1/2   (vo French)     Seeing this Swiss film noir will have you believing that Geneva is a den of drug addicts, prostitutes and rampant crime. Dark, harsh and relentless, what is its raison d’être?

Whip It – Bliss *     Cute Drew Barrymore should stick to acting rather than directing. This roller derby flick is not worthy of your time or money.

Did you Hear about the Morgans? –     Hugh Grant announced a while ago that he wanted to give up acting; could be after he saw the end result of this film. It’s painful watching him as a caricature of himself – fawning, too obliging, with a constant frown and shoulders so scrunched, as though he’s trying to disappear into himself. Probably one of the worst films of any year. Make sure you don’t get sucked in by the ads and the fact that he and Sarah Jessica Parker (who has never looked so meager and charmless) make up the silly couple transplanted from Manhattan to Wyoming. It really all boils down to an embarrassing, formulaic script and hopeless direction. Just run the other way.

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Movies – Films

Superb  ****     Very Good  ***      Good **     Mediocre  *     Forget It  –

WORTH YOUR WHILE

Mr. Nobody ***     This poetic, complex film by the Belgian Jaco Van Dormael is about the infinite possibilities of choices and consequences. It’s about a little boy having to decide between his divorcing parents and then having to choose between future partners. It’s about the certainty of love and the illusion of existence, about growing terribly old and about a surrealistic future where everything is planned for you. It is so full of imagination, sadness and humor that you are entranced while watching it, but might not recall its many wonders because of their very multitude… It’s simply a singular, almost hallucinatory experience.

Le Refuge ***  (vo French)     If you know François Ozon’s work, you wait for his next film like you wait for the latest Woody Allen. From his earliest success, Gouttes d’eau sur Pierres Brûlantes with Bernard Giraudeau to Sous le Sable (with Charlotte Rampling) or the joyous and quirky 8 Femmes (with most of France’s grandes dames) or the melancholy 5×2 and the naïve and surrealistic Ricky, they are all unique yet similar in their aesthetic quality, their intelligent scenarios and a certain thread of elegance. This latest does not disappoint. It’s an interlaced story of an addicted couple, an overdose death, a pregnant survivor and the gay brother who comes to stay with her in her idyllic refuge. But it’s also about possibilities that do not seem obvious. Ozon is a great actor’s director, studying their faces with fascination. Be on the lookout for his work.

Gainsbourg (vie Héroique) ***   (vo French)     The French have a knack for successful biopics, like La Môme, the two Chanel films and now this one about France’s bad boy, pre-grunge songwriter and musician, who had women falling all over him despite his less-than-attractive physique. Starting with his childhood, the film follows the precocious Lucien (he later changed his name to Serge) through his confrontation with anti-semeticism under German occupation, his early connection to women and his struggle to remain true to his artistic strain. All along, he is followed by a cartoonish alter-ego, who warns, guides and taunts him throughout his life. Eric Elmosnino is an amazing Gainsbourg look-alike, while Laetitia Casta becomes Brigitte Bardot, one of his many conquests, along with such lovelies as Juliette Gréco and his great love, Jane Birkin. A fascinating window into a controversial, bohemian character.

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky ***  (vo French)     This is the third recent work about the life of Gabrielle Chanel, after a decent telefilm, with Shirley MacLaine as the older Chanel, then Coco avant Chanel by Anne Fontaine with Audrey Tautou and now this one about her little-known relationship with the avant-garde Russian composer. All are well done, showing different facets of her intense, productive life. This one by Jan Kounen, and starring Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen, zeroes in on her time as a successful designer, wealthy enough to be able to invite the proud Stravinsky and his family to stay at her grand home outside Paris when he was struggling to make ends meet in the early 20s among fashionable Russian artists and émigrés such as Diaghilev, Nijinsky and others of the Art Deco era. It’s a peek into a moment of high artistic energy and the meeting (both sensual and creative) of two giants in their respective fields. It shows Chanel as an independent soul and a forerunner of women’s liberation, in her clothing designs as well as her daring choices and lifestyle.

Tales from the Golden Age **1/2     Strange how one can get such warm-hearted humor from repressed societies, but then that must be their release-valve. Here are small vignettes of life in Romania under the dictator Ceaucescu, illustrating the survival tactics of ordinary citizens versus the tragicomic hypocrisy of the regime. Touching, human and intelligent, but it goes on a bit too long.

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Clint Eastwood

Isn’t it refreshing to see that this month’s top films include veteran actresses and actors? – And that they are starring in roles featuring their mature ages?

In these “Must See Films” we find Meryll Streep (60), Morgan Freeman (73),  Alec Baldwin (52), Steve Martin (65), with Colin Firth (50), and George Clooney who at 49 is bringing maturity to his charm.   Will he manage to cultivate the same charm that Clint Eastwood oozes at 80?

It takes AgeEsteem on the part of these icons of cinema to “act their age” on the screen, and to become real role models for us.  Thank you!

Movies – Films

Superb  ****     Very Good  ***      Good **     Mediocre  *     Forget It   –

UNMISSABLES

Up In The Air ****     Suave, gliding through airports as though they were his home with his myriad privileged credit cards, George Clooney’s character flies around the country firing people for firms which don’t want to deal with the mess. He’s great at his job  and loves his unattached lifestyle.  Seamlessly directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking and Juno), this deceptively subtle film is a metaphor for today’s modern, empty world – from a charged beginning to an uncertain end. Clooney is excellent, once again proving he’s not just a gorgeous guy. This is Oscar material all the way…

Brothers ****     Brodre, the gripping 2004 Danish film by Suzanne Bier has been transformed here into an American work and quite fittingly, as it concerns family tensions and the war in Afghanistan. With a strong cast including Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire and Sam Shepard, directed by the Irish/American Jim Sheridan (of Oscar winners such as My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father), this has proven one fine import. The “good” brother goes off to war, while the bad-boy brother stays home and becomes close to the former’s wife and children. It’s austerely modern; it’s Greek tragedy and also Shakespearean. Won’t tell you more, just go see it. And rent the Danish film too.

A Single Man ***1/2     We’re terribly lucky this season – deluged with one fine film after the other. Here’s another one, amazingly polished by first-time director, Tom Ford, who is the highly successful men’s fashion designer. Being gay and stunning-looking himself, he has made a film about a teacher mourning the loss of his lover, set in the early 60s when homosexuality was still under wraps. The mood and look of the era are impeccably captured and Colin Firth, who has perfected the art of being contained and reserved, has never been so moving. And he’s never been so trim and well attired either, all due to Ford, of course. This is quite an aesthetic work of art by a newcomer to the field. But then the painter Julian Schnabel also traversed careers brilliantly, directing Basquiat, Before Night Falls and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Once an artist, always an artist.

Invictus ***1/2     “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul”. This quotation exemplifies the grandeur of Nelson Mandela’s life and his legacy for Africa (and in a smaller sense, the trajectory of director Clint Eastwood’s career). The film dwells mainly on Mandela’s efforts to unite his country behind its rugby team during the World Cup in 1994 and his strength and wisdom in going against the current. Morgan Freeman becomes Mandela and Eastwood does them both honor. From White Hunter, Black Heart and Bird to Bridges of Madison County and Letters from Iwo Jima, and now this tribute, Eastwood keeps proving his mastery of many genres, his understanding of diverse worlds and the control of his audience.

2 Brothers ***1/2  (vo Hebrew and English)  I’ve written this up before, but now it is finally being released in our area after garnering quite a few prizes in various festivals. It’s about two opposing brothers, this time in Israel. One is a peace activist living there and the other is a fanatic Orthodox Jew, who has moved back from New York. Their differences and struggles highlight the grave threat posed by the Orthodox community to peace in that region. Powerful and important, it is directed by Geneva-based Igaal Nidam.

It’s Complicated ***     Ah, to have a bit of fun in this sad and serious world! So here’s a film not to miss. First because it’s a love story about mature adults, second because it’s got such super actors as Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin and third, because a good romantic comedy is a rare thing. But director Nancy Meyers is an expert at the entertaining ones – such as What Women Want and Something’s Gotta’ Give. It’s a delight for the eyes and for many a belly laugh and it all makes giddy sense until the ending, which I personally did not like. But that’s only me – you and others may well think it should end in such a modern, egalitarian way….

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Meryl Streep

It’s so refreshing to have an actress who is not afraid to act her age.   Meryl Streep is an icon of AgeEsteem.  She glows from the inside, plays roles that make her seem real rather than beautiful (though beautiful she is!), appears in public looking like someone we would like to meet and sit down for coffee and laugh with rather than Ms Perfection Celebrity.   Her laughter alone captures your heart.

In the film It’s Complicated, she plays the role of a woman who has been left for a younger woman only to have her former husband fall in love with her once again ten years later.   She doesn’t try to dress or act younger, but flaunts her mature femininity and sexuality that is so attractive and appealing.  Somehow we almost feel sorry for her old husband who is unable to keep up with his younger wife and her son.

Great AgeEsteem lessons come out of It’s Complicated :

• If life is complicated, it is because we make it so.
• When we are blind sided by circumstances we gather our own internal forces and move forward.
• You are not the same person today that you were yesterday.
• Social life with friends and family is important.
• We are responsible for our own actions.
• Humor is delicious and healing.
• Having a purpose and loving what we do keeps us focused on positives.
• Values need to be taken seriously.
• Love is real at all ages.