"Unbroken" Trailer

I was able to read this book last year.  Louis Zamperini just died last week after a long life of joy, struggle, and in the end, a life lived to God's glory.  I look forward to how his life is handled in this film, especially as Joel and Ethan Coen share screenwriting credit.

Her

This is a movie about intimacy.  I cannot think of too many movies wherein that is the theme.  Because of that, I found this movie to be both brilliant and uncomfortable.  When a movie is depicting the most raw of human emotions, I think that movie wants the viewer to be uncomfortable.  This movie plumbs the depth of human emotion, and finds all of the messiness and hope that is to be found in opening oneself up to other people.

The movies of Spike Jonze have a tendency toward the unusual.  This is only the fourth movie he has directed, and all four movies are striking in their originality.  For instance, his first film follows a puppeteer who stumbles into a portal which takes the entrant into the mind of actor John Malkovich.  With that film as his debut, a viewer knows that any Spike Jonze movie is going to have its own perspective.  The movie here begins with a bizarre (but perhaps too close to reality) premise, but plays out the premise so skillfully that I found myself feeling that I was almost watching real life.  Joaquin Phoenix plays Theo, a man whose marriage is just coming to an end.  He works for a company which composes authentic, emotional notes for people.  Theo is hired by people who want to send a special thought to someone they love, he composes the note for them (in their handwriting, using modern computer technology to reproduce a genuine handwritten note).  Theo spends his days in other peoples' thoughts.  Their thoughts are deeply personal and heart wrenching, but it is just every day business for him.  Theo makes the rounds on social networks.  Since this movie is set somewhere in the future, the technology of social networks has advanced significantly, and Theo is able to hook up with people in ways that are still a ways a way for us today.  However, when a social network sexual encounter goes awry, Theo looks for another alternative.

Theo ends up buying an OS with artificial intelligence.  He begins to develop a relationship with the OS (whose name is Samantha, and is voiced by Scarlett Johansson), and he is surprised at how well Samantha relates to him, and how responsive she is to his feelings.  The only other significant relationship Theo seems to have is with his friends Amy and Charles (Amy Adams and Charles Letscher), and when their marriage falls apart, Amy also begins a relationship with an OS.  Amy and Theo have different relationships with their OS friends.  While Amy sees the OS as almost a girlfriend with whom she can gossip and joke, Theo begins to have what he sees as a deep and intimate relationship with Samantha.  This is seen in many different ways which I will not here relate, but the deep longing Theo has for intimacy is mirrored only by his complete inability to actually have such intimacy.  This sets the stage for unpredictable developments which have a lot to say about what we yearn for as humans.

As the OS hits the market and more and more people begin to buy them, the movie depicts nearly everyone interacting with their OS as they walk down the street.  Therefore, we see an entire city of people (the movie is set mainly in a future but very familiar downtown Los Angeles) talking to their hand held devices rather than to each other.  As someone who owns an iphone, I know how captivating these little devices can be.  This movie does a good job of making a point through taking the technology to an extreme.  What would happen if each of us had a companion that not only was tailored to us, but who we could continue to tailor to our needs?  Would we be happier?  Is part of what makes relationships so captivating is the fact that other people are never in our control?  This movie asks these questions are many others.  But, I think what makes it so timely and powerful is how normal the lives depicted in the movie are.  While the movie is set in the future and the technology is so exotic, the lives in the movie itself could not be more ordinary, and that is part of what is kind of terrifying about the movie.  This is by no means one for the kids.  It deals with intimacy and sexuality in a raw and uncomfortable way.  Having said that, since relationships are the one thing which we never master as humans, how fascinating it is to see a movie which shows humans attempting to master that, and what happens in that case.  It takes me back to Spike Jonze's last movie, "Where the Wild Things Are," wherein Max seeks to make a world where people don't hurt and things aren't broken.  The harder he tries, the worse things get for Max.  We cannot control others, and both of these movies show that heartbreaking but important truth very well.

Belle

One of the things my wife Stephanie and I love to do when we get away is go to see a movie.  Last week, we had the opportunity to spend most of a week in Montréal, and we ended up seeing this movie.  This is one of those movies that sneaks up on the viewer.  The first half of the movie, while good, was not terribly engrossing to me.  However, as I got to know the characters better and story began to evolve, I found myself quite moved by both the story and the struggle of the title character.

Belle refers to the main character in this story.  She is a mixed race girl who comes into the care of a prominent justice in the English court, Lord William Murray (Tom Wilkenson).  She is brought to Lord Murray by his nephew, an officer in the Navy who cannot care for her.  Her full name is Dido Elizabeth Belle, and Lord Murray and his wife and family (they have a daughter as well) end up raising her as their own child.  As she grows older, many things happen at once which end up causing great intrigue.

First, Lord Murray has a case set before him which is very much about the nature of slavery and its place in England at that time.  It concerns the Zong Massacre, about which I have cited a wikipedia article here.  Briefly, the case involved a slave ship which had been forced (according to the ship owners) to throw a cargo of slaves into the water, and now they sought insurance compensation for the slaves.  Murray is given this case, and he has to weigh the merits of it, all the while having a slave's descendant as an adopted daughter.

Second, Belle herself is becoming more and more aware of the injustice of her situation.  She is unable to sit with the rest of her family in society, and she feels awkward when she is in the company of slaves.  She feels completely without a home.  She is not a slave, but a free woman.  She is not totally a free woman, because she is still subject to certain indignities due to her skin color.  Finally, she is also a woman, and that by itself takes away from her many of the rights that women have come to gain in our modern society.  All of this, coupled with Dido's awareness of the case that is before her adopted father, cause quite a mental crisis for Dido.

Third, Dido unexpectedly becomes a target for young men.  While beautiful, she is still not an equal, and her prospects for marriage are not good.  However, as she finds herself with a generous dowry, she suddenly merits the attention of young men seeking financial security.  Oliver Ashford becomes "interested" in Dido, and things look as though Dido may find a husband after all.  Ironically, Dido's adopted sister Elizabeth has no such prowess in the dowry department, and she is left to watch while Dido entertains suitors.  Into this mix comes John Davinier, a vicar's son who is a passionate opponent of the slave trade.  His idealism is a breath of fresh air for Dido, but her father thinks the match beneath her.

These three elements combine for a story with many layers.  The story has a lot to say about racism, but it also reminds one of a Jane Austen tale, as women (and men) are forced to marry for reasons other than their wishes.  Oliver Ashford, who becomes engaged to Dido in the movie, is an interesting character.  While his scheming mother and lecherous brother barely tolerate Dido, Oliver seems to be caught in the crossfire.  He might care for Dido, but is influenced by his family, who sees the match as profitable, despite the fact that his match is a black woman.  As the film works toward its climax, all of the different layers of the movie come together skillfully, and the movie delivers a satisfying conclusion.  This movie is a very satisfying piece of drama.  As we continue to struggle with race and all its implications, the ideals of this movie give us something to strive toward, even though it takes place in a world where slavery is still legal in the US and Britain.

ESPN's 30 for 30

A couple of months ago, I noticed a great deal on Groupon.  If I spent $30, I could get the entire 30 film collection of the original ESPN 30 for 30.  For those who don't know, ESPN decided (on the occasion of their 30th anniversary) to make 30 films about various sports stories that have taken place over the last 30 years.  So far, I have watched 18 of the original films, and I have been very impressed by their quality.  ESPN has gone on to make other films in this vein, but these 30 are the originals.  There are a lot of things about which to comment on, but one thing is certain.  Sports are incredibly important not only to Americans, but to all people.  Sometimes, as some of these films show, they are far too important, but that is part of what makes sports so captivating.  They can be a reflection of the triumph of the human spirit.  They can speak of the longing we have as a race for something deeper that connects us to others.  They can also show how deeply sick and depraved we are as a race.  All of these things come together in the different films, which are expertly directed and realized by some renowned film makers.  The films also cover many different sports, so there is much to learn and also much that can be familiar to a casual sports fan.

As a baseball fan, I am drawn, of course, to the films which focus on my favorite sport.  One film that proved very close to my heart was "Fernando Nation", an hour long film tracing the rise of Fernando Valenzuela in Los Angeles.  I saw Fernando pitch at Dodger Stadium for the first time in 1980, with my dad, at the age of 5.  The film does a great job of showing how important to it was to the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles to have a wonderful ball player to cheer.  The sad history of the Chavez Ravine property (the sight upon which Dodger Stadium was built) is brought to light, complete with footage of poor families being forcibly evicted for their shanties in order to make way for the new ballpark.  With this bitter past, the Hispanic community in LA was not too keen on the Dodgers.  When a Mexican who spoke no English shut out the Houston Astros on Opening Day in 1981, the Hispanic community in LA had a new hero.  This film does an outstanding job of tracing that deep history, but also of showing the triumphs of Fernando's early career, as he led to Dodgers to a World Series victory in 1981.

Another baseball film that is great is a film entitled "Four Days in October".  This film recounts the dramatic rebound made by the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series.  The Boston Red Sox found themselves down to the three games to none to the New York Yankees, their hated rivals.  As it was a best of seven game series, the Red Sox found themselves in a situation where they had to win four games in a row against the Yankees, or their season would be over.  Through footage of the games and interviews with players and Red Sox fans, the dramatic reversal of fortune is recounted, and it makes for an enthralling story.  As someone who watched these games and was caught up in the drama at the time, living through it again in this movie was a great experience.

Some of the stories I have seen involve sports about which I know very little.  For instance, in "The Birth of Big Air", filmmakers take a look at the life and career of Mat Hoffman.  Hoffman is a BMX daredevil who brought his sport to prominence.  His influence is seen in the ascendancy of the X Games and BMX riding in general.  I had never heard this man's name before I watched this film, but I found his story to be very engaging.  Through interviews with other riders, his wife, and Evel Knievel, his bravery (some would say insanity) is chronicled.  Also chronicled is his claim to have been the first BMX rider to achieve 20 feet of air off a jump.  This is a great story, with all of what makes sports stories great, but in a different sport than I am used to watching.

Finally, one film truly show the hold the sports have on humanity.  In "The Two Escobars", the tragic story of Andres Escobar is told.  Andres Escobar was a member of the 1994 Columbian World Cup team.  This team had been funded in large part through drug money, especially from the wealth of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.  The film, though about soccer in many ways, spends just as much time showing the political situation in Columbia in the 80's and 90's.  Pablo Escobar offered help to the poor, and through the soccer team that Columbia put together, a sort of national unity.  The team went into the '94 World Cup in the USA as heavily favored.  However, when they lost their first game, everything rode on the next game that they had against the host American team.  The Columbians lost that game the the USA, in part due to a goal that Andres Escobar accidentally kicked into his own goal.  My late father and I happened to be spectators in the crowd that scorching day in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl, and all I knew to do was go nuts that my home country had pulled off such an upset.  Only days after this loss did the tragic news come that Andres Escobar had been murdered back in Columbia due to his mistake.  All people tend to get judgmental after something like that.  Truly this was a case of fanaticism.  But, don't many of us take sports too seriously?

For someone like myself, sports are a wonderful past time, but they also are something deeper.  For me, as my dad has been gone a couple of years, sports are a connection that I had with him, and that I have now with my kids.  He was with me at Dodger Stadium when I was 5 years old and I saw Fernando confound the Astro hitters.  He was going nuts in the crowd with me at the 1994 USA/Columbia match.  These stories (and, as the title suggests, there are many others), are a great way to study our devotion to sports and what they mean.  They do mean too much to us at times.  We all need to monitor how much time, energy and money we devote to them.  At the same time, just like other forms of entertainment (art, music, film), they offer a human connection.  They give us camaraderie.  They give us a drama that whose ending is a surprise not only to those who watch them, but also to those who participate.  This is a great series of films.

Philomena

This is a simple movie about a person dealing with complex emotions and crises.  The two principle characters are very different people, and their journey together is both unlikely and moving.  This is a moving piece of work that concerns itself with faith, doubt, maternal love and friendship.  It features two wonderful performances by Steve Coogan and Judi Dench, and I think it was only right for it to be included in the running for Best Picture last month.

Judi Dench stars in the title role as a woman with a daughter and a secret.  She has held on to this secret for some 50 years.  One day, as Philomena's daughter comes upon her in an emotional state, she finally lets the secret out to her daughter.  When Philomena was a young woman, she had a baby boy out of wedlock.  Philomena's daughter has found her in this emotional state holding a wallet sized picture of the boy, who would be 50 years old now.  As a young, unmarried woman, Philomena had sought shelter at a convent, where she was taken in by a group of nuns.  There, she gives birth to the boy, and begins working for penance.  The nuns end up exploiting her and the other moms, and it turns out that they are "adopting" out the babies that the young unwed mothers are bringing to them.  This story comes to the notice of writer Martin Sixsmith(Steve Coogan) whose career is in a lull.  He had worked for the British government, but his career has hit a dead end, and he sees this human interest story as a fascinating little  anecdote that will make for a good story.  Together, Philomena and Martin begin a quest to find Philomena's long lost son, and see what has become of him.

The movie works on two different levels.  First, the search the Philomena is on is itself quite captivating.  Her son was taken from her when he was no more than 2 or 3 years old, and she has wondered ever since what has become of him.  Because she was emotionally abused by members of a church order, it would be very easy for this movie to fall into knee jerk anti religious sentiments.  Instead, it confronts the evils head on, but still gives us a character in Philomena who hangs on to her faith, in spite of the difficult experiences she has had.  For Philomena, the representatives of the church have deeply disappointed her, but that does not take away her faith in something higher.  The second way that this movie works so well is how it depicts the relationship between Philomena and Martin.  Martin is a confirmed, worldly skeptic who doesn't buy into Philomena's faith.  He is also much younger than Philomena, and at times he seems to think that he is humoring the poor old woman.  In the end, Philomena, while no spring chicken, is sharper than he first thinks, and her depth of feeling and faith somehow captivates him.  While he seethes at the moral failings of the church, Philomena is forced to take a tough look inside and find out what she thinks about forgiveness and grace.  While Martin doesn't seem to come around to Philomena's way of thinking, he does seem to be a bit wiser by the end of the film, and he might be forced to think about the nature of forgiveness, and what we do when people (especially those in the church) turn out to be moral failures.

The performances are great.  The actors are given material that is highly complicated and emotional, and both of the lead actors are believable in their roles.  Judi Dench has become a highly respected actress in America, an honor she has had in her homeland for decades.  Here, she plays her role with great care, as she depicts an older woman who has her quirks, but is sharp as a tack.  Steve Coogan is with her every step of the way.  He plays a role where is isn't quite sure "with it" Philomena is, but ends up being constantly surprised by her insight and her intelligence.  This is a movie about real people, and it comes across as a very true and genuine work.  I still haven't seen the Best Picture winner yet (12 Years A Slave), but this is another film that was very good, and I look forward to seeing the film that beat it out.

Cool Star Wars Pic

The cast for the 7th Star Wars movie was announced today-here's a link with a cool picture of the cast and crew all seated together...excited to see what comes of this...

http://starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-7-cast-announced.html

Gravity

I did myself a great disservice when I sat down in my living room to watch this movie.  Namely, I sat down in my living room and watched this film, and did not see it in a movie theater.  With that in mind, this is still a startling piece of work.  What makes it stand out to me is its simplicity.  This is a work of cinematic minimalism (if that is a category that actually exists).  Alfonso Cuaron brings us a movie with a singular title and a singular purpose.  Few times have I watched a movie that is so well summed up by its title.  The only other title I can think of for this movie would be "survival".  It is a simple story, told remarkably well.

Sandra Bullock stars as Ryan Stone, a scientist in space for the first time.  She is accompanied by two other astronauts.  One of them is Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney.  Kowalski is a seasoned astronaut, and his experience is vital to Ryan Stone.  Within minutes of the film's beginning, the principal characters are told of a shower of debris that is headed straight for their space shuttle.  The debris completely destroys their spacecraft, and Kowalski and Stone are forced into survival mode.  This is the set up for the movie, and the rest of the movie really is about what happens next.

The movie is very short.  In this case, that actually helps it to be a cohesive work of art.  This is a simple movie, brilliantly realized.  In some ways it reminds me of a student film with a big budget.  We only see two living faces in this whole movie, and we hear only a couple more voices.  Part of the theme of this movie is survival in the face of being alone as well as being in danger, and the presence of so few actors assists us in seeing that theme.  Any discussion of this movie would also be incomplete without a thorough regard for its visual imagination.  Though I know that I am seeing unreal images, the images in this movie made me believe I was watching something quite real.  At the same time, paradoxically, the movie's images were just fanciful enough that I still was able to see great visual imagination rather than simple documentary style film making.

This movie received great accolades upon its release, and it actually went on to win more Oscars (7) than any other movie in 2014.  I have not yet seen "12 Years A Slave", so I will have to withhold judgement as to which of these movies "deserve" the award more.  It certainly becomes an interesting thing to debate when two movies with such different content are up for awards.  This movie certainly has a universal theme.  While it is set in space, the universal will of humans to survive (and the despair that can come when hope for survival seems lost) is a theme in many great works of art.  It also is worth noting that so many great works of suspense never fully receive their due (Alfred Hitchcock, after all, never won a best director Oscar).  This movie is a cinematic wonder, but I failed to be as wrapped up in it as I am with a Hitchcock film or other works of suspense.  As I mentioned above, I do think I lost something significant by seeing this at home (though I do have a sporty flat screen TV).  As my children continue to mature, I am sure I will begin to be able to be less selective of which movies I can get out to see.  However, there is a fine line between something which is artistically minimal and something which is predictable.  I knew before it was mentioned in the movie that the mission in question was probably Kowalski's last, because that seemed to fit with the genre I was watching.  Fortunately, the movie more than makes up for some of the predictability by many surprises, and by a basic humanity.  It gives every viewer a way to identify with its principle character.  I have not seen such effective uses of silence in a movie in quite some time (possibly since "2001: A Space Odyssey).  The silence serves a dual purpose.  It's awkwardness creates more tension, but it also reminds us of where the movie is set.  Space is silent, and the use of the lack of noise helps us feel Stone's danger all the more.  It may be that the Oscars got it right this year by giving the technical award to Cuaron and the grand prize to Steve McQueen (the director and producer of "12 Years A Slave).  When I see McQueen's work, it will let you all know what I think.