Movie Review: The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret in Their Eyes *** ½
Directed By: Juan Jose Campanella.
Written By: Juan Jose Campanella & Eduardo Sacheri based on the novel by Sacheri.
Starring: Ricardo Darín (Benjamín Esposito), Soledad Villamil (Irene Menéndez Hastings), Pablo Rago (Ricardo Morales), Javier Godino (Isidoro Gómez), Guillermo Francella (Pablo Sandoval), José Luis Gioia (Inspector Báez), Carla Quevedo (Liliana Coloto).

It’s 1974 in Buenos Aires. A beautiful young woman is raped and murdered in her apartment. The DA assigned to the case is Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) who is disgusted by the crime scene. When the police bring in a suspect, who has even confessed, Esposito throws them out. It’s clear to him that the police strong armed a mentally unstable man into confessing to a crime he did not commit. He has a suspect in mind. This is Isidoro Gomez (Javier Godino), who he has seen in old photographs looking at the victim in a way that makes him uncomfortable. To raise his suspicions even more, Gomez has taken off – leaving his apartment, his mother and his job behind. A year goes by and everyone else moves unto other cases. But Esposito cannot let this one go. It’s not because the crime itself was so brutal, or even that the killer remains free. It’s because the husband of the dead woman, Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago) had a look in his eyes of pure love for his wife. It’s the kind of love that Esposito had never seen before, or felt himself, and it haunts him.

This is the setup for Juan Jose Campanula’s The Secret in Their Eyes, an uncommonly intelligent thriller from Argentina. The movie flashes back and forth through time – from the mid-70s when the original investigation took place, and 1999, when Esposito, now retired, plans to write a book on the case that has haunted him for the last quarter century.

The first hour of the movie is quite good – involving, intelligently written and performed, and quite well directed by Campanella. Even the inevitable romantic subplot, between Esposito and his new boss Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil), is handled well. Darin and Villamil have great chemistry together, and you can feel the sexual tension between them, that neither really act on. She is young, beautiful and the daughter of a man with connections. He is older, more broken down, and has a solid career – but nothing spectacular. They want each other, but both wait for the other one to make a move.

What I admired in this part of the film is the subtlety of the filmmaking. The movie is called The Secret in Their Eyes, and that’s an apt title, as Campanella likes to give us close-ups of the actors eyes, which tell us more than pages of dialogue would have. The first half of the movie was very good in the way that foreign language films that are popular in North America are – that is, the film doesn’t really feel like a foreign film, just a Hollywood movie with subtitles.

But the second half of the movie kicks things up a notch, and this is really where the film goes from a good thriller, into a near great one. It starts with a breathless chase through a soccer stadium – shot in seemingly one, unbroken shot which I’m still trying to figure out how they did it. It is followed by a great interrogation sequence that would have fit right in among the best scenes on Homicide: Life on the Street, which contains the best interrogation sequences I have ever seen. And then the movie keeps twisting, yet it never feels like something out of a screenwriter’s playbook, but rather it comes naturally from the story and the characters. The one moment that is a little too much overkill, is easily explained by the fact that the movie is a loving look back by a man who was infatuated at the time. The movie remains intelligent and well made right up until the shocking conclusion.

Note: I saw this movie at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, before it was nominated and ended up winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year. While I do not think it comes close to matching fellow nominees The White Ribbon (which ranked very highly on my top 10 list last year) or A Prophet (which will undoubtedly rank very highly on this year’s list) – it is a fine winner. Or at the very least a hell of a lot better than last year’s winner, Departures, from Japan, or many recent winners. I would say in the past decade only The Lives the Others, The Barbarian Invasions and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were better.

Movie Review: A Prophet

A Prophet ****
Directed By: Jacques Audiard.

Written By: Jacques Audiard & Thomas Bidegain and Abdel Raouf Dafri & Nicolas Paufaillit.

Starring: Tahar Rahim (Malik El Djebena), Niels Arestrup (César Luciani), Adel Bencherif (Ryad), Hichem Yacoubi (Reyeb), Reda Kateb (Jordi), Jean-Philippe Ricci (Vettori), Gilles Cohen (Prof), Antoine Basler (Pilicci), Leïla Bekhti (Djamila), Pierre Leccia (Sampierro), Foued Nassah (Antaro), Jean-Emmanuel Pagni (Santi).

No matter what the political implications of Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet are (and there are a lot of them), what haunts me about the movie is the difference between the opening and closing scenes in the film. When Malik (Tahar Rahim) walks into prison in the film’s opening scene, he is 19 year old kid, given six years for punching a cop, with no family and no friends either in prison, or outside. Two and half hours later (approximately 4 years in movie time) he walks out of jail having become a murderer, drug dealer and major crime figure. In a very real way, Malik had to go to prison to become a criminal.

When Malik arrives at the prison, he is completely alone. He is a Muslim, but not a devout one, so he is stuck into the cell block populated by the Muslims. Any chance he has of befriending anyone there goes away almost immediately when two inmates beat him up for his shoes. From then on, he doesn’t trust the other Muslims.

Then something happens. A new Muslim comes into the prison, for only a few weeks until he has a chance to testify at some big trial. He approaches Malik about selling him some hash, and when Malik says he has no money, the other inmate, Reyab (Hichem Yacoubi) says he can arrange it with the guard so Malik can come into his cell and suck him off. Malik refuses, but there are no secrets in the jail. Word gets back to the Corsicans, who essentially run the prison, of Reyab’s offer. They want Malik to kill him for them, and tell him that if he doesn’t they’ll kill him instead. When Malik slashes Reyab’s throat with a razor blade, his fate is sealed. He no longer has to worry about anyone messing with him, because he is under the protection of the Corsicans, led by Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup), but he still doesn’t really have any friends. The Corsicans treat him as their servant, making him clean up and make them coffee. Malik doesn’t mind so much. He is always listening, always learning.

Eventually Cesar will need more and more from Malik. Most of the rest of the Corsicans are either released or transferred to a prison closer to their home, meaning that Cesar has no one else he can trust. His grasp on the prison is slipping, as the Muslims, who have always out numbered the Coriscans, now wield some influence with the guards as well. When Malik gets the chance for work release, Cesar starts sending him on errands for him – meeting and negotiating with his associates on the outside. What Cesar doesn’t realize is that Malik is no longer just working for him. He has made contacts with Jordi (Reda Kateb), the prison drug dealer, and another inmate who has since been released Ryab (Adel Bencherif), and he has his own thing going now. He is turning himself into quite the little drug kingpin. We realize long before Cesar does that eventually Malik will turn on him – having learned all he could from him, sooner or later, Malik will have to make his move.

I have mentioned the Corsicans several times in this review now, and if you’re like me, you probably have no idea who they are, as I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them on the news. Apparently, some Corsicans (from Corsica an island governed by France that is between France and Italy, that have their own language), believe they should have independence from France, and some committed terrorist acts to try and further this aim. The Corsicans in this movie say they are political prisoners, but really operate much more like the Mafia then the IRA.

Writer/director Audiard draws parallels between the Muslims and the Corsicans. Both are angry with the French government, and feel marginalized and have lashed out in violence against what they believe are their oppressors.

A Prophet looks at this fascinating, rarely seen subculture with his eyes wide open. Audiard is meticulous in his view, but his characters never become ciphers – never just mere stand-ins for his larger political issues. A Prophet is a fascinating, violent look at these men. This is a key movie in Audiard’s career – the moment he goes from the promising director of such films as The Beat My Heart Skipped, into a master filmmaker. His movie is an epic crime drama, the likes of which we rarely see. The pace is dizzying, the scope huge, and yet intimate. He never loses sight of Malik in the grander scheme of things. Newcomer Tahar Rahim delivers one of the best performances of the year as Malik – his confidence slowly building, as he transforms from the naïve kid we see at the beginning of the film, into the hardened criminal at the end. Malik’s transformation is almost tragic, but Rahim makes it feel real and genuine. Malik may be happy with himself by the end of the movie, he doesn’t realize that he has sold his soul.

Movie Review: 1981

1981 ***
Directed By: Ricardo Trogi.
Written By: Ricardo Trogi.
Starring: Jean-Carl Boucher (Ricardo), Claudio Colangelo (Benito), Sandrine Bisson (Claudette), Gabriel Maillé (Jérôme), Dany Bouchard (Marchand), Léo Caron (Plante), Marjolaine Lemieux (Aline), Élizabeth Adam (Anne Tremblay).

Ricardo Trogi’s 1981 is a nostalgic look back at his own childhood. It’s kind of like a Quebecois version of the Wonder Years, that great show of the late 1980s when Fred Savage told us all about his formative years in the 1960s.

The movie stars young Jean-Carl Boucher in a marvelous comic, yet natural performance, as the young Ricardo. He is 11 years old, and his working class parents – Benito (Claudio Colangelo) and Claudette (Sandrine Bisson) have just packed up Ricardo and his younger sister and moved them to a new, more expensive house. With that means, of course, a new school and Ricardo enters a world where cliques have already formed, and he is on the outside looking in. Not only that, but while at his old school, he was just about to start learning handwriting instead of printing, here he is already expected to know it by heart. This isn’t all bad news though, as one day the teacher asks her star pupil Anne Tremblay (Elizabeth Adam) to help Ricardo with his cursive. She brushes elbows with him, which he takes as a sign that she loves him as much as he loves her. The fact that she virtually ignores him for the rest of the school year doesn’t diminish this belief.

Trogi gets the details right as to what it is like to be 11 years old. The way the teacher towers over you, and makes you feel small by comparison. How you do and say things you normally wouldn’t just to make friends. How you obsess over the smallest of details over the girl you are “in love” with. How it seems that everything your parents do is designed to specifically ruin your life. The most brilliant, unforgettable scene in the film involves Ricardo once again complaining that his parents never buy him anything and accusing his mother of “living beyond their means”, and she just goes off on him. Who hasn’t had a moment like this with their parents, where they just push things a little too far, and end up touching a nerve that sets off their parents? Like the scene I remember from my childhood, the incident is never brought up again – by either the parent or the child.

1981 doesn’t really break any new ground. There really is nothing here that you haven’t seen in other movies – or the Wonder Years for that matter. But what it does, it does with skill, style and wit. It is a highly enjoyable little film.

Movie Review: Before Tomorrow

Before Tomorrow **
Directed By: Marie-Hélène Cousineau & Madeline Ivalu.
Written By: Susan Avingaq & Marie-Hélène Cousineau & Madeline Ivalu based on the novel by Jørn Riel.
Starring: Madeline Ivalu (Ninioq), Paul-Dylan Ivalu (Maniq), Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq (Apak), Mary Qulitalik (Kuutujuk), Tumasie Sivuarapik (Kukik).

Before Tomorrow is said to be the third part in a trilogy following Atanjuarat and The Journals of Knud Rasmussen. Although not directed by Zacharias Kunuk as the other two films were, he is on hand as a producer, and his star – Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq has a supporting role in the film. I know that The Journals of Knud Rasmussen was largely seen as a disappointment following the groundbreaking and brilliant Atanjuarat, but I found it to be a fascinating story about the moment in time when the Inuit’s “lost their way”. Both of those films were enthralling because they were a glimpse into a culture that has largely been ignored by cinema – or at least since Nanook of the North in 1922. But they succeeded beyond the level of a mere ethnographic film because they both had strong narrative threads that pulled us through the movie. Atanjuarat is a tale of lust, revenge and violence. The Journals of Knud Rasmussen a story of choosing between what you believe is right, and your own survival. The problem with Before Tomorrow is that no such narrative exists. It takes nearly half of its running time setting things up before the main thrust of the narrative begins. And when it does, it is hardly enthralling or engrossing. The filmmakers seem much more interested in taking gorgeous shots of the Canadian North – which it must be said it does brilliantly well – then in actually telling a story. As a result, I found Before Tomorrow to be an incredibly boring film.

The movie is about an old Inuit woman named Ninoq (Madeline Ivalu – who also co-wrote and co-directed the movie), who for years has gone to an island with her friend to dry out the fish in able to store it for the winter. Both women are getting old and closer to death (the friend more than Ninoq), and her son Apak (Arnatsiaq), wants her to let a younger woman go instead, but she will hear none of it. It is her job, and she’s going to go. Her grandson Maniq (Paul-Dylan Ivalu) volunteers to go with the two old women so he can look after them if something goes wrong. Soon, the old woman’s friend is dead, and when the family does not come back for Ninioq and Maniq, they head back to the camp themselves – to discover their entire family has died from a mysterious illness brought their by outsiders. Now the old lady and her grandson are left to fend for themselves for the winter.

I know what the movie is trying to say – that Inuit women are strong, and without them the tribes would not be able to survive. Early on in the movie, an old man tells a sexist story, and while the women laugh along with everyone else, when they retire and are alone, they mock the old man. When the rest of the family has died, it falls to Ninioq to raise her only grandson – and protect him from the elements. They help each other to survive.

But for me, the narrative never really took hold. For far too long in the movie, there is not much happening at all. There are long shots of the two of them walking in the snow covered landscapes, or trapped in their cave dwelling with only a small fire going. Not much is said, except for the occasional story that the old woman tells her grandson. Far more often however, they two just sit there, trying to survive. If the filmmakers were trying to show the monotony and boredom that comes along with this sort of life, then they succeeded brilliantly. It’s just not something I really felt the need to watch.

The film is directed by Madeline-Helene Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu. They do not have the same sort of cinematic eye that Kunuk showed in his two films. Too often when stories are being told, they place the camera directly in front of the people doing the talking. It is almost like one of those Andy Warhol screen-tests. They favor long, unbroken, steady shots for most of the rest of the movie, and while it makes for some breathtaking vistas, it is not very exciting to watch – and after a while, when they are simply capturing the same vistas again and again and again, it grows tiresome. When something exciting – like the wolf attack – actually does happen, the directors do not find an interesting way to shoot it, and it comes across as incredibly fake and staged.

I’m sure there are some who will like – perhaps even love – Before Tomorrow. Judging on its 10 Genie Nominations in fact, I would wager a lot of people will. It is a specific type of film for a specific type of audience. I have to admit, that in this case, I am not that audience. After the triumphs of Atanjuarat and The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, this just felt like an afterthought.

Movie Review: The Most Dangerous Man in America

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers *** ½
Directed By: Judith Ehrich & Rick Goldsmith.

Daniel Ellsberg believed that the Pentagon Papers would end the war in Vietnam. He saw thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands Vietnamese, dying in the war, and he could no longer look the other way. He had worked with the Pentagon for years, gathering the intelligence they needed to conduct their war in Vietnam. He had once been pro-war. But then as part of his job, he got access to this huge report that had been produced by the Pentagon, which detailed decades of lying on behalf of the Presidents – from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon – where it became clear that each and every one of them lied to the American people about the reasons, and necessity, for invading Vietnam. Ellsberg at first tried to convince some of the war’s most outspoken critics to review the documents, and while they did, none of them were prepared to go public with the information. So instead, Ellsberg took the papers to the New York Times, and the rest is history. All the government’s dirty little secrets came out, and while it did not have the impact Ellsberg expected to have, it remains an important moment in American history.

The new documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (the title comes from what Richard Nixon called Ellsberg in the White House tapes), tells Ellsberg’s story from the time when he was a pro-war guy who helped to draft the plans for the war in Vietnam in the first place, to his slow dawning of what the real story was – and his move to try and end the war by leaking the highly classified papers. It is a fascinating documentary about that time.

The story is probably already well known to the people who lived through the Vietnam war. After all, Ellsberg was front page news for a few years, first when the papers themselves leaked, and then when he finally came to trial (the case was dismissed, because the government had so badly handled it). But since then, this chapter in history had faded into the background. After all, the war did not end when the papers were leaked. In fact, a year after they were, Nixon won a landslide reelection. It is not the Pentagon papers scandal that doomed the Nixon administration, but rather Watergate – although according to John Dean, the roots of Nixon’s downfall began during the Pentagon papers scandal.

But the story is still relevant for a number of reasons. As one of the many talking heads says, the last legacy of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers maybe the landmark Supreme Court case it inspired. The Nixon administration tried to stop the papers from being published altogether – they got an injunction against the New York Times, and when other papers took up the cause, they got injunctions against them as well. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not do that – and that is one of the key First Amendment cases in American history.

But the documentary is not just fascinating because of all the politics involved in it. Don’t get me wrong, it is fascinating because of them, but only so. The film is also a fascinating portrait of both Ellsberg, and his wife, and how the scandal almost destroyed their marriage, but ended up bringing them closer together.

The Most Dangerous Man in America is not a groundbreaking documentary in any sense. All the information in it could be found somewhere else – including the book it’s based on. But it is a fascinating documentary all the same. For those interested in that time period – and it is one of the periods in American history that most interests me – it is a must see.

Movie Review: Paris 36

Paris 36 **
Directed by: Christophe Barratier.
Written By: Christophe Barratier & Julien Rappeneau.
Starring: Gérard Jugnot (Pigoil), Clovis Cornillac (Milou), Kad Merad (Jacky), Nora Arnezeder (Douce), Pierre Richard (Monsieur TSF), Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu (Galapiat), Maxence Perrin (Jojo), François Morel (Célestin), Élisabeth Vitali (Viviane), Christophe Kourotchkine (Lebeaupin), Eric Naggar (Grevoul), Eric Prat (Commissaire Tortil), Julien Courbey (Mondain), Philippe du Janerand (Triquet).

Paris 36 is an erratic little musical comedy set in Paris in 1936. For the most part, Paris 36 is content to be a nostalgic look back at the cabaret clubs of yesteryear. All the different stereotypical characters you would expect in a movie like this are there. The father whose wife first left him and now has taken his son away. The communist agitator. The new girl who dazzles with her talent and beauty. The mean, lecherous landlord. The talentless impersonator. Etc, etc. If this sounds like your type of movie, then I’m sure you’ll love it. I enjoyed part of it, but got bored after about an hour, as I had to wait for the movie to catch up to me.

The film is about the employees of an old theater who are all put out on the street when the owner loses it to the mean money lender Galapait (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu). They spend a few months looking for other work, but there is none. They then decide to overtake the theater and run it themselves. Galapait doesn’t really like the idea, but he goes along with it anyway for a short while. He thinks it will help his image. Also he has just met the beautiful Douce (Nora Arnezeder), and wants to be able to help her get a job on stage – which is her dream – so she will be grateful and do things for him.

The other major characters are Pigoil (Gerard Jugnot), the stage manager who discovers that his dancing girl wife is having an affair, and ends up running off with one of the other performers. He is mired in depression, and starts drinking too much, so his son Jojo (Maxence Perrin) earns money by playing his accordion in the street. When the mother returns, now married to a respected business, she takes Jojo away from Pigoil, and doesn’t allow him to see his son. Then there is Milou (Clovis Cornilliac), the young communist agitator who drones on about his principals, but is also in love with Douce. Despite the fact that Galapait has money, and can give Douce what she wants, she falls for Milou anyway.

The movie does address the changing political times in France during the time, but only in the most superficial of ways. The communists are rabble rousing, and Hitler has gotten the juices of the right wing flowing, and the conflict between these two forces are told between the conflict between the Milou and Galapait.

But the movies storytelling is creaky, and lacks any real surprise. Roger Ebert said in his review that if the movie had been made years ago, it might today be considered a classic. And to a certain extent, I think that’s true. Had this film been made in 1936, it would have seemed a little more original, a little more daring. But this is 2009, and to me Paris 36 plays everything too safe. Yes, the musical numbers are enjoyable (especially the Oscar nominated one Loin de Paname), and just like her character, Nora Arnezeder is a star in the making. But Paris 36 just felt like a movie I had seen before – and I enjoyed it more the first time.

DVD Views: Passing Strange

Passing Strange ****
Directed by: Spike Lee
Written By: Stew.
Starring: Stew (Narrator), Daniel Breaker (Youth), Eisa Davis (Mother), De'Adre Aziza (Edwina / Marianna / Sudabey), Colman Domingo (Mr.Franklin / Joop / Mr. Venus), Chad Goodridge (Rev. Jones / Terry / Christophe / Hugo), Rebecca Naomi Jones (Sherry / Renata / Desi).

I’m not quite sure how Spike Lee managed it, but his movie Passing Strange is perhaps the only time I have ever seen a Broadway show recorded for a movie that feels genuinely cinematic. Most times when direct make a movie out of a stage show – placing cameras around the theater to capture the actors as they perform, the result feels very much stage bound. But Lee’s film soars. Part of that is the terrific energy of the cast, and the fact that Stew’s Passing Strange is one of the best rock musicals in history. But Lee found a way to capture that energy, that passion and take it from the stage and put it on screen. It is one of the greatest achievements of his career.

The Broadway was show was written by Stew, who based the story on his own life, and shows up in the play as the narrator who provides context, and insight into the action (he often mocks his younger self). The young Stew at the center is played by Daniel Breaker who was born and raised in Los Angeles by his single mother, who like all mothers annoys her son with requests to accompany her to church and other requests. As a teenager, all he wants to do is get out. He joins the church choir, where the man in charge gets him high, and talks all about “the real”. The real life, instead of all the fake stuff they are living in. As soon as he can, he flees LA for Europe. In Amsterdam, he stays with a group of free love type hippies, and lives in sexual bliss for a while, until he realizes that it is boring. He then moves onto Berlin, and falls in with a group of radical anti-capitalists. All the while, his mother stays in LA and occasionally calls him to try and get him to come home. But he is too busy looking for “the real” to listen to his mother.

The play is fast paced, hilarious, insightful and contains some of the best music I have ever heard in a Broadway show. Aside for Stew, Breaker and Eisa Davis, who plays the mother, the rest of the cast consists of four people – De’Adre Aziza, Colman Domingo, Chad Goodridge and Rebecca Naomi Jones, who all play multiple roles to perfection, and of course the band who occasionally provide some commentary on the proceeding (the most memorable of which happens when the keyboard player speaks up in defense of The Clash, only to be shouted down by one of the German extremists).

The energy of the cast is infectious. They pore themselves into every role, and come up with interesting, distinct characters. The music is even better – strong, hard rock songs with an underlying message of hope and forgiveness. Lee and his cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, do a marvelous job of capturing this show at its peak.

But the movie is more than just energy and music. Often musicals are just enjoyable pieces of fluff – sound and fury signifying nothing. But Passing Strange has emotional depth and insight. The Youth passes himself as more “black” then he actually is in Berlin, to make him seem hipper and edgier. When he is confronted by his cohorts about what makes him so dangerous, he goes on a long tirade of being kept down by “the man” in LA and how he had to hustle for dimes in the hard streets of South Central LA (making Stew observe – “No one in this play knows what it’s like to hustle dimes on the streets of South Central LA”). The scenes in Amsterdam and Berlin (especially Berlin) poke fun at the stereotypes of the era (including a radical feminist who makes porno films in which “fully clothed men make business deals”), but they have a point. Stew’s show actually means something – it’s not just a group of songs.

Lee is a gifted visual filmmaker. I remember reading an interview he did with Roger Ebert where he said he hated movies that were just photographed conversations. In Passing Strange, he set himself a big challenge – filming a Broadway show, and making it a genuine cinematic experience. With the help of his cinematographer and editor, Lee accomplished it. Passing Strange ranks among the very best films of Lee’s career.

Movie Review: Which Way Home

Which Way Home ***
Directed By: Rebecca Cammisa.

Every year, thousands of people try to illegally cross the border from Mexico into the United States, where they hope to find a better life for themselves and their families. It isn’t just Mexicans trying to cross, but people from all South American countries, who feel that there is no hope for them where they live, and want to start again. Among these thousands of people are many children – often who come alone with no adults to look out for them. They make the journey of thousands of miles on top of trains, and have to try and fight off corrupt police as well as smugglers, just in an attempt to get to border in the first place. When they get there, they have to try and dodge the border patrol as they make their way through the desert. Many of these people die out there in the middle of nowhere – all alone in the world.

Which Way Home is a fascinating documentary that follows some of these children as they make this long, perilous journey. They talk of home lives that are not good – stepfathers who hate them and beat them, dead parents, no jobs, no money, no hope. Yet, in many ways these are typical kids and teenagers. When the filmmakers track down they kids families back in their home countries, we can hardly believe what they say about their own kids. How they are lazy deadbeats, who do little but drag them down. These kids are 13 years old – of course they’re lazy! In North America, this is par for the course, but down there, these kids are essentially unwanted by a lot of their families. It makes you wonder why they didn’t use birth control. Parents hope that if their kids make to America, they will be adopted, and then be able to send them money. Who is out there adopting teenagers for South America?

And yet, somehow, these kids have not given up on themselves. They talk about going to America, getting back in school, becoming doctors, making money and sending it home to the very families that do not want them. They do not give up on themselves, but instead fight to make it for weeks at a time. There are some groups out there to help, but mainly the people they meet along the way only want to exploit them.

The filmmakers do not either hinder or help them on their journey. Instead, they just sit back and observe them, and what they go through. Are they just another group exploiting these kids? Not really. The kids would be doing this regardless of whether or not the filmmakers were there. And in America, where there is so much posturing and grandstanding about illegal immigrants (right Lou Dobbs), it is valuable to see the people try to get across not as criminals, but as real people with hopes and dreams of a better life.

The movie suffers a little bit because of Cary Fukunaga’s excellent fiction film, Sin Nombre, which came out earlier in 2009, which told a similar story. Sin Nombre had the advantage of being able to better tell the story, because the filmmakers could get the characters to do whatever they wanted. That film was more dramatic and powerful. But Which Way Home is more true to life – it’s messier, less predictable and just as heartbreaking. This is a good little documentary.

Movie Review: The Yes Men Fix the World

The Yes Men Fix the World **
Directed By: Andy Bichlbaum & Michael Bonnaro.

Although it seems easy, no one else has ever really been able to pull off the liberal muck raking ways of Michael Moore. Moore is fearless is his confrontations with corporate America, and the government, accusing them of greed, criminal activity and over all just being poor citizens that are ruining his country. You may not agree with him, but he is excellent at what he does. And based on the evidence supplied in The Yes Men Fix the World, it isn’t easy. These two bozos don’t have a clue in what they’re doing.

What the Yes Men do is set up phony websites for big corporations they want to humiliate, and then wait to be invited somewhere to speak. When they do so, they say things that the corporation would not want them to say. For example, they pose as representatives for Dow Chemical, whose subsidiary Union Carbide, was responsible for the largest industrial accident in history. In 1985, their plant in Bhopal, India had a spill that killed 8,000 people, and has adversely affected the area ever since – causing deformities and birth defects that last to this day. So what do these guys do? They go on BBC and announce that Dow Chemical is going to pay $12 billion to fix Bhopal – to finally clean up the mess they made properly, and then provide medical care for the people affected. The result is that Down’s Stock drops in value by almost $2 billion almost immediately, but regains that value when Dow announces that it was a hoax. The only thing this stunt accomplished was to temporarily embarrass Dow Chemical and temporarily affect its stock price. No lasting impact was felt, no changes actually made. Nothing really accomplished.

Most of their other stunts don’t even accomplish that much. They like going to trade shows and posing as big companies to announce a new product or service. For instance, they go to one trade show and announce that they have created a new risk calculator – what it will do is calculate the risk that a corporations action will cause people’s deaths, and then compares it to how much money they are going to make off of the idea. Or, they pose as executives from Exxon and say they have found a new energy source – dead humans. Or, they pose as representatives from Halliburton to promote their new protective suit, that looks like one of those sumo wrestler costume, that are apparently built to withstand any natural or manmade disaster. Or they pose as representatives from HUD and announce at a press conference that they are reopening some of the public housing in New Orleans. Or, they put together some money to print off 100,000 copies of a fake issue of the New York Times, that tells people what the future could be like if they work at it (the headlines include “Iraq War Ends”, “Bush Charged with War Crimes” and “Maximum Wage Law Passed”.

Some of these ideas are clever – others not so much. But they all have one thing in common – they accomplish nothing. They don’t even seem to be able to piss people off as much as Moore does, perhaps because everyone knows when their hoax ends, that no one will actually hear about what they did. What these guys are essentially doing is a corporate version of Punk’d and I have to wonder – what the hell is the point?

Movie Review: Under Our Skin

Under Our Skin ***
Directed By: Andy Abrahams Wilson.

I have to admit that I knew very little about lyme disease before I watched this movie. What I did know, I learned from that one episode of The Simpsons when Miss Hoover thinks she has it and the movie Lymelife from earlier in 2009, where Timothy Hutton plays a man with the disease whose life spirals downward. I knew that if left untreated, it could cause neurological side effects. What I didn’t know was the massive controversy that the disease has caused in the medical community. Under Our Skin is a documentary that looks at the effect of lyme disease on the people inflicted with the illness.

There is a lot of ignorance when it comes to lyme disease. Many doctors believe that most people who think they suffer with the disease are just after attention or are hypochrondriacs. This is worsen by the fact that the standard test for lyme disease only gives positive results for about 50% of the people who actually have the disease. Patients have to fight for years to get a doctor to finally admit that they even have the disease. And when they do, there are few treatment options available to them. A new treatment, which requires long term use of antibiotics have helped many people with the disease. The problem is that the treatment has not been medically verified by the experts, and insurance companies do not want to pay for the expensive treatment. They go as far as lodging complaints against the doctors who prescribe this treatment to try and get their licenses suspended or revoked.

The movie is one sided, of that there can be no doubt. I looked into this disease after watching the movie, and found out that there have been studies into the effectiveness of prolonged antibiotic use in the treatment of “chronic lyme disease”, a diagnosis that many doctors insist is not real, and that the results have been inconclusive. And apparently, not all of the advocates of the chronic lyme disease diagnosis are as peaceful as the movie makes them out to be.

And yet, you cannot argue with the results that you see in the movie. One sided though it maybe, you can see a change in some of the patients in the film that have undergone this treatment. What the movie makes clear is that the disease needs further study, and more effective treatments need to be recognized and delivered to the patients. Whatever the situation is now, it isn’t really working.

Movie Review: Burma VJ

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country *** ½
Directed By: Anders Østergaard.

Myanmar, known as Burma to most of the rest of the outside world, has been ruled by a military government for most of its recent history. Protests in the late 1980s, led to calls for democracy, which were carried out in 1990 when the political party led by Aung San Suu Kyi roundly won the election in a landslide. Instead of being the dawning of a new age of democracy for the embattled Asian country, the military regime, known as SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) cracked down even harder – placing Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, and continuing on as if nothing had changed. And for a while nothing did. But in 2007, the protests started again.

Burma VJ (VJ stand for video journalists) documents those protests in the months of August and September 2007 through the eyes of the journalists who work for the illegal television station known as the Democratic Voice of Burma, who were on the ground for the whole things. The movie is essentially the footage they captured – grainy, sometimes blurry, always handheld and shaky images of the protests and the eventual crackdown that came from the government. In Burma, these reporters are risking their lives to take these images. The reason they are so shaky and handheld is because if the police find them shooting the images at all they will at the very least be arrested, if not shot (like what happened to one Japanese journalist during these protests). The government has issued a ban on all foreign journalists, and control what the media outlets in Burma can show on television. But in this age of technology, they cannot stop the images taken by the Democratic Voice of Burma reporters from reaching the outside world, and in fact the people of Burma themselves. These cameras can easily export these images via the internet to everyone who wants to see them. These protests got worldwide attention in 2007, and while nothing has really changed in the almost three years since, things are in motion. The government cannot suppress the truth forever.

The film is directed by Anders Ostergaard, a Danish filmmaker, and narrated by “Joshua”, who works for the Democratic Voice of Burma, but whose real name and identity are shielded from the camera for his own safety. During the protests, he reluctantly fled Burma for Thailand, but received all the images his reporters shot, and received constant updates by phone. Although he would have preferred to be on the ground shooting, he played a vital role – getting the images out to the world, and back inside Burma. The protests start out small, but word spreads. Soon the normally neutral Buddhist monks have taken the lead the protests. The government tries to crackdown on these protests, making it illegal for more than five people to gather in one place, and imposing a curfew on the people. But it doesn’t work. When they finally send out soldiers, the VJs capture the horrific footage of soldiers firing into crowds of their own people. As Joshua says, they need the soldiers to turn against their leaders if the revolution is actually going to work. So far, they haven’t.

Burma VJ is an important movie, as it shows what happened in Burma to the world – something that the government tried to stop at all costs. It is also a movie about the power of technology, and how difficult it is now to suppress the truth. Governments the world over, even in democracies, tries to suppress some footage from getting out to their own people in the hopes of “protecting them”. (Remember, that no footage is allowed of any soldiers casket coming home from Iraq to air on network television – unless of course it fits the government’s needs). While the protests failed to effect real change in Burma, they were a necessary first step. It’s up to the Burmese people now to take to the next level – and they are. Sooner or later, the regime will fall. And the reporters in Burma VJ will be one of the major reasons when they do.

Movie Review: The Last Station

The Last Station ** ½
Directed By: Michael Hoffman.
Written By: Michael Hoffman based on the novel by Jay Paraini.
Starring: James McAvoy (Valentin Bulgakov), Christopher Plummer (Leo Tolstoy), Helen Mirren (Sofya Tolstoy), Paul Giamatti (Vladimir Chertkov), Anne-Marie Duff (Sasha Tolstoy), Kerry Condon (Masha).

We seem to get a movie like The Last Station every year. The film opens quietly without a lot of critical acclaim of box office, yet somehow manages to get right in the middle of the Oscar race. These films tend skewer towards older audiences, and have performances that get nominated for Oscars by aging stars that everyone loves. Mrs. Henderson Presents was one of those movies. So was Venus. Now, there is The Last Station.

The movie takes place in Russian in the early 20th century. Writer Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is on his last legs, but is still writing, still trying to get his ideas out to “the people”. He is being pulled by all sides by people who want to manipulate him. His wife Sofya (Helen Mirren) is justifiably worried about her well being, and the well being of her many children by Tolstoy after he passes, but she goes so far over the top in her grief that its madness. Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), is the head of the “Tolstoyian movement”, which is new religion based on Tolstoy’s writing, although it seems more like a precursor to the hippie movement (without the sex) and a cash grab by Chertkov than anything else. Chertkov and Sofya hate each other, and are pulling Tolstoy in opposite directions – she wants his estate, writing and everything to go to the family, he wants it all to go to the “movement”. To ensure Chertkov gets his way, he installs Valentin Bulogakov (James McAvoy) as Tolstoy’s personal secretary – but Valentin isn’t quite the man for the job. Not only does he come to feel sympathy for Sofya, but like all young men, he is horny. Yes, it’s easy to maintain your virginity and purity when no one wants it. Much harder when someone like Masha (Kerry Condon) tries to seduce you.

So Valentin enters this house of madness, and is quickly pulled in many different directions. He admires, idolizes Tolstoy and his writings, and is honored that his idol takes such a personal interest in his own life. He tries to live the life of a good Tolstoyian, but he finds that even Tolstoy doesn’t adhere to many of the rules – after all how can a man who fathered 13 children preach about abstinence? He falls in love with Masha, despite the ire it draws for the other, more strict members of the movement, like Chertkov. And perhaps most importantly, he comes to sympathize with Sofya, who he had been led to believe was a monster. She is wildly over the top yes, but people are trying to come between her and her husband of 40-plus years, and steal the writing that she helped him work on. Who wouldn’t be upset?

The reason to watch this movie is clearly the performances, which for the most part keep the movie entertaining. McAvoy is good as the nervous young man torn apart by what he is expected to believe in, and his own personal morals. He provides a calm center for all the madness around him. Mirren goes wildly over the top, thrashing on the floor, yelling, screaming and hollering throughout most of her performance – but hell, I like over the top sometimes, so I enjoyed her theatrics. Giamatti has a one note role in Chertkov, but he plays that role to the hilt, and has a lot of fun, literally twirling his mustache. Plummer has less to do as Tolstoy, and I must say, he never quite sold it for me. He seems slightly schizophrenic, and I could never tell what one was going to show up from scene to scene – the man who loves his wife, or the one who is running away from her. This is the fault of the screenplay, not really Plummer’s, as he does what is supposed to do, but I never really believed in his character. His performance is also undermined by the fact that he spends seemingly the last act of the movie motionless in bed as he slowly dies.

In fact, it was this last act that finally undid the movie for me. For two thirds of the movie, I was entertained by the movie, even if I never quite believed it. It was fun in the old school kind of way of people being stuck in a remote farmhouse type of way. The performances kept it interesting. But when Tolstoy flees, and then is immediately taken ill and slowly dies, the movie fell apart for me. The last act is a lot of sound and fury, meaning nothing. I’m sure there will be some who love the movie – who else can you explain the fact that both Mirren and Plummer will likely be nominated for Oscars next week – but for me, it never quite gelled into anything substantive.

Movie Review: Coco Avant Chanel

Coco Avant Chanel ***
Directed By: Anne Fontaine.
Written By: Anne Fontaine & Camille Fontaine based on the book by Edmonde Charles-Roux.
Starring: Audrey Tautou (Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel), Benoît Poelvoorde (Etienne Balsan), Alessandro Nivola (Arthur 'Boy' Capel), Marie Gillain (Adrienne Chanel), Emmanuelle Devos (Emilienne d'Alençon).

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was a fascinating woman. Long before the sexual revolution, she wasn’t hung up on sexual morals (it helped that she was French), and she always had her own style. She didn’t care what people thought of her, she just went ahead and did her own thing. A poor orphan, she made her living as a seamstress and a bar singer, before falling in with a rich crowd of people, and not letting go, no matter what. She eventually became one of the biggest fashion icons of the 20th Century.

Anne Fontaine’s Coco Avant Chanel smartly concentrates on the years before Chanel was famous. After people become famous, their stories are all the same really. Its how they got there that is interesting, and Coco’s story is more fascinating than most.

We first see Coco as at an orphanage at the age of 10. Her mother has died, and her father has left her and her older sister Adrienne at the orphanage. Coco never gave up hope that he would back, but he never did. Flash forward 15 years, and now Coco (played by the radiant Audrey Tautou) is struggling to make ends meet with her sister. Adrienne has fallen in love with a Baron, who promises to marry her, so he whisks her away to his country estate, leaving Coco by herself. Through the baron, Coco has meet Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde), another rich man with a country estate, so Coco just arrives at his door one day. Since he is attracted to her, he allows her to stay – for two days no more, but that turns into months. She slowly starts to meet his friends, who are fascinated by this woman. She is gorgeous, but she doesn’t follow the fashion trends of the day. She refuses to wear a corset, and most of her outfits look rather boyish. She says the less you show, the more you excite the men, who have to use their imagination to figure out what you are hiding.

The reason to see the movie is Audrey Tautou, who is as charming and beautiful as ever in the lead role. She has enormous, gorgeous dark eyes that are constantly showing us what is going on behind them. Coco Chanel was first and foremost a businesswoman, and she shows how he became the success she was – she used her assets to move up the ranks, slowly but surely. This really is not a romantic movie – they try to sell the notion that Chanel was actually in love with Arthur Capel (Alessandro Nivola), but I never quite bought it. She used Capel, just like she used Balsan before him. It may appear like Chanel is sleeping her way to the top, or that the men in her life were exploiting her, but I don’t think that was really the case. She used them as much as they used her – and no one ever really had any complaints as to what happened.

Written and directed by Anne Fontaine, who also made the underrated The Girl from Monaco this year, Coco Avant Chanel is a gorgeous movie. The art direction of the country estate is wonderful, but it’s really the costumes – mere copies of Chanel some will say – that are truly eye catching. Coco was right – our eyes are always drawn to Tautou in the movie, even when she is surrounded by gorgeous women wearing far less clothing. There is an enigma about Coco Chanel that we will probably never understand – which is what makes her so fascinating (this is only one of three movie made about her to debut in 2009!). Coco Avant Chanel is not your typical costume drama – and Audrey Tautou’s Coco is not your typical movie heroine.

Movie Review: Tokyo Sonata

Tokyo Sonata ****
Directed By: Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Written By: Kiyoshi Kurosawa & Max Mannix & Sachiko Tanaka.
Starring: Teruyuki Kagawa (Ryûhei Sasaki), Kyôko Koizumi (Megumi Sasaki), Yû Koyanagi (Takashi Sasaki), Inowaki Kai (Kenji Sasaki), Haruka Igawa (Miss Kaneko), Kanji Tsuda (Kurosu), Kôji Yakusho (The Robber), Kazuya Kojima (Mr. Kobayashi).

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is mainly known for his horror films. He has made great examples of Japanese horror like Cure, Pulse, Charisma and Séance – some of which have been ruined by American remakes, and some are still waiting to be ruined. So in a way, his latest and best film, Tokyo Sonata, is a departure for him as it is not a horror movie in the traditional sense of the word. And yet, there is certainly a degree of mounting dread, and a certain amount of terror and uncertainty in the film. It couldn’t possibly be a more timely film, as it deals with the effects of the economic downtown in a global economy. And yet, Tokyo Sonata resonates for more reasons than that.

Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) was the director of administration for a large Japanese firm, until they realized they could cut costs by two-thirds simply by outsourcing this function to China, and he is let go. Humiliated at being a middle aged business man now unemployed, he doesn’t tell his wife Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi) about his firing, but instead heads off to “work” every morning. He tries going to employment agencies and to other job interviews, but is dealt one humiliation after another. The employment agency says he has zero chance at getting a job at the rate of his last one, and in interviews they want him to demonstrate his skills right in front of them during the interview. How do you demonstrate that you’re good at administration work? Simple, he doesn’t.

So he spends most of his time in libraries and in large concrete squares where they give out free food. He is surrounded by other men in his situation, as well as the homeless – the line between them getting thinner and thinner by the day. He meets a friend from school, Kurosu (Kanji Tsuda), who is in the same boat and has been for months. He offers advice on how best to fool his wife, but not on how to get another job. Eventually, Kurosu takes the easy way out. But Ryuhei cannot do that. When he finally lands another job, it is as a janitor at a shopping mall – the happy employed people going about their business all around him as if he isn’t even there.

But the fact that Ryuhei loses his job doesn’t cause the problems in his family – they just bring them to the forefront. The other three members of the family are all dealing with their own problems, and cannot share them with the other members of the family. Megumi goes about her routine as the dutiful housewife, but now that one child is over 18, and the other about to enter high school, she really doesn’t have anything to do, and is getting bored. When she discovers that Ryuhei is out of work, why doesn’t she offer to get a job? Because that’s not what she does.

Their oldest son, Takashi (Yû Koyanagi), is now out of school and sees no prospects for him in the modern Japan. When the law changes, and allows Japanese citizens to join the American army, he jumps at the opportunity. Their younger son Kenji (Inowaki Kai), accidentally starts a “revolution” in his class, and instantly regrets it. He wants to take piano lessons, but his father refuses to allow him. He does so anyway, stealing his own lunch money to pay for them. This is a family who hasn’t communicated with each other in years.

For two thirds of its running time, Kurosawa’s film plays like an updated version of an Ozu film – using the family as a microcosm through which we can view all of Japanese society – in this case one that is crumbling all around them, and heading uneasily off into a modern, globalized world. But just when we think we know where Tokyo Sonata is going, Kurosawa throws one curveball after another at us – a robbery turned hostage taking, an envelope full of money that is found, and people chasing children through their neighborhoods. For some, this is when Kurosawa loses his way in this film. But I find the last act absolutely necessary to the fabric of the movie. It wakes the characters up out of their daze, and moves them off into the future. The future is not bright (a reference to another Kurosawa film), but it’s there in front of them – and for the first time it appears that this family maybe willing to face it with their eyes wide open.

Movie Review: Revanche

Revanche *** ½
Directed By: Gotz Spielman.
Written By: Gotz Spielman.
Starring: Johannes Krish (Alex), Irina Potapenko (Tamara), Andreas Lust (Robert), Ursula Strauss (Susanne), Hannes Thanheiser (Hausner), Hanno Poschl (Kentecky).

Revanche is such a carefully constructed character study, that we almost forget that it is also a wonderfully tense thriller. Here is a movie that concentrates on its characters much more than its plot, where every move the characters make, every line they speak, seems perfectly in tune with their character. The film only gradually ratchets up the tension until by the end, it is almost unbearable.

Alex (Johannes Krish) has recently been released from jail, and the only job he can find is cleaning up at a brothel. There he meets Tamara (Irina Potapenko), a Russian prostitute who has just recently moved to Austria. They are in love, but for obvious reasons, hide their affair from the other people at the brothel – including the creepy boss Kentecky (Hanno Poschl), who wants to move Tamara to an apartment to be a higher class call girl. Alex has a crazy dream of buying into a friend’s bar in Ibiza, and paying off Tamara’s debts, and just living the rest of their lives out in peace. In order to finance this dream, he decides to rob a rural bank near his grandfather’s house. The robbery goes fine, but when he returns to his getaway car, with Tamara inside, he is confronted by a police officer, Robert (Andreas Lust), who fires on them as they speed away. At first it appears like a clean getaway, but one of the bullets hit Tamara and kills her. Alex gets away with the money, and decides to hide out for a while chopping wood for his grandfather. And wouldn’t you know it, but Robert and his wife Susanne (Ursula Strauss), live in the same small town, and Susanne has taken to visiting Hausner (Hannes Thanhesier), Alex’s lonely old grandfather.

I’m sure this sounds like a typical setup for a thriller, with unlikely coincidences piled onto one another, and admittedly, that is the way a film like this would normally play out. But writer/director Gotz Spielman is more intelligent that most filmmakers. Revanche stays focused on its characters throughout the movie, and not on the needs of the plot. By the time the robbery has even taken place, Spielman has gotten us inside the different worlds inhabited by Alex, Tamara, Robert, Susanne and Hausner. As such, throughout the movie, they remain people, and not just pawns in his game.

There are no good guys or bad guys in Revanche. To a certain extent, we like or at least feel sympathy for all of the characters. Alex never wanted anyone to get hurt – he doesn’t even load the gun before going into the bank. He just looks at his options, and realizes that he has two choices – a lifetime of menial jobs where he gets little money and no respect, or pulling off one bank robbery and having his dreams come true. It’s true that these are the dreams of someone much younger than Alex, but he doesn’t see it that way. Tamara is not your typical movie prostitute. Yes, she is exploited, but she has a hand in her own exploitation. Kentecky is creepy, but he never even tries to sleep with her. This is a business to him, and also for her. Perhaps she was drawn to Alex because he is the first man to treat her with any real kindness – not just leer at her in a sexual way, or see a way for him to make money. She is the tragic figure in the movie, as she is caught in a world she doesn’t really understand, and pays the price. In the early scenes of the movie, Robert complains that he sees no action in his small town police force, but when something “exciting” finally does happen, and he gets to draw his gun and shoot someone, the guilt eats him away on the inside.

But the most interesting, most complex character in the movie is certainly Ursula Strauss’ Susanne. She has recently suffered through a miscarriage, so she and Robert are depressed to begin with. After the shooting, he spirals further down, and she thinks that having a baby would pull him out of it. The problem is that there are some issues with Robert’s sperm. The fact that they got pregnant once was a miracle, and twice seems impossible. But what about this brooding stranger over at Hausner’s place, who says he isn’t going to be hanging around for very long. Her final scene, when the truth is finally revealed, is heartbreaking. She, more than any other character, is going to be effected by the events of the movie for the rest of her life.

Revanche means Revenge in German, and in a way that is what the movie is about. Alex wants revenge on Robert for killing Tamara, and perhaps in a way he gets it. But it is a hollow victory for Alex. Tamara is still gone, and although it looks like he could get away with the robbery, he didn’t actually make enough to do what he wanted to do. Spielman has been making movies in Austria for 25 years now, but has never really broken through in North America until this film got nominated for an Oscar last year for best foreign language film. True, The Class or Waltz with Bashir still should have won that Oscar, but Revanche is certainly better then the film that did win – Departures. It is a brilliant little character study and thriller all rolled into one.

DVD Views: Facing Ali

Facing Ali ***
Directed By: Pete McCormack.
Featuring: George Foreman, George Chuvalo, Leon Spinks, Larry Holmes, Sir Henry Cooper, Ernie Terrell, Ron Lyle, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers.

Muhammad Ali has left an indelible mark on the world of boxing – and in fact on 20th Century History itself. He was a man who was unafraid to stand up for what he believed in, and was able to back up his tremendous boasts in the boxing ring, taking on all comers with style and speed. There have been so many movies made about Ali that is hardly seems like there is anything left to cover. But Pete McCormack’s Facing Ali does in fact break some new ground. It does so by concentrating on a side of Ali that few people ever saw up close and personal. The movie is essentially a collection of interviews with the boxers who took on Ali during his professional career – from close to the beginning when he fought British champ Henry Cooper to his final fights two decades later, when it was clear to everyone except maybe Ali that he was washed up. The result is an interesting portrait of an icon.

What is revealing about the movie is how almost no one in the film has anything bad to say about Ali. Joe Frazier doesn’t seem to like him very much – and seems to have been hurt by some of the things Ali said about him – but even he has a respect for Ali that transcends just the admiration of his boxing talent. Almost everyone else thinks that Ali really was the greatest – and that their careers were better for having faced him than they otherwise would have been.

For fans interested in boxing, than Facing Ali provides a lot of what you would want to see. The fighters analyze their own fights, as well as fights that didn’t involve them, against Ali in a way that you rarely get to hear about. But what made Facing Ali so enlightening, and fascinating, to me were the stories that these boxers told about their own lives.

Everyone knows that Ali is struggling with Parkinson’s disease, and that he is now a mere shadow of his former self. And he is not the only one it seems to have suffered permanent damage. George Foreman, Henry Cooper and Larry Holmes appear to be the healthiest, both in terms of physical and mental health, out of all the boxers. They seem to have suffered no ill effects from their days in the rings. Canadian George Chuvalo also appears unscarred by his time in the ring, but his emotional scars – from 3 of his four sons and his wife dying – are certainly still there. Leon Spinks has been ravaged by drug use. Ken Norton got into a horrific car accident. The rest seem to be a step slower mentally then the rest of us, but still recall with pride their days in the ring.

Facing Ali doesn’t break any new ground. But it is still a fascinating little movie, that gives us a fascinating portrait of Ali, along with many of the boxers who faced him. It doesn’t usurp When We Were Kings as the best documentary made about Ali, but it is worthy to be mentioned alongside it.

Movie Review: The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones *** ½
Directed by: Peter Jackson.
Written By: Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson based on the novel by Alice Sebold.
Starring: Saoirse Ronan (Susie Salmon), Mark Wahlberg (Jack Salmon), Rachel Weisz (Abigail Salmon), Stanley Tucci (George Harvey), Susan Sarandon (Grandma Lynn), Rose McIver (Lindsey Salmon), Nikki SooHoo (Holly), Michael Imperioli (Len Fenerman), Reece Ritchie (Ray Singh), Carolyn Dando (Ruth).

To viewers who have only become familiar with director Peter Jackson in the last decade, The Lovely Bones will seem like a departure. This was the man after all who directed The Lord of the Rings movies and King Kong, and this movie is the story of a 14 year old girl who is murdered, and then watches her family and her killer from her perch somewhere between earth and heaven. The world she inhabits can be a dream world, but it can also be a nightmare. But for viewers who have followed Jackson’s career for a long time, they will know that this is a return of sorts to the same type of material as his 1994 breakthrough film Heavenly Creatures (which also introduced the world to the talents of Melanie Lynsky and Kate Winslet). That film was about the abnormally close relationship between two teenage girls that veered off into fantasy, and eventually lead them to murder. Jackson’s new film has the same sort of feeling as that one did.

The Lovely Bones take place in a suburb town in 1970s Pennsylvania. The first 20 minutes or so sets up the Salmon family. Father Jack (Mark Wahlberg) is a loving man, and an accountant, and his wife Abigail is a stay at home mother who worries about her kids. The eldest daughter is Susie (Saorise Ronan), who has a crush on a boy, and is going through the early stages of adolescence. She has two siblings, most notably younger sister Lindsay (Rose McIver). Things seem to be going well in their family. Then one day walking home from school through the corn field, Susie is approached my Mr. Harvey (Stanley Tucci), her neighbor from down the street. He has something he wants to show her, and although initially reluctant, she follows him down into an underground bunker. She is never seen alive again. The days turn into weeks, turn into months, turn into years, and Susie’s body is never found. Jack throws himself into the investigation, bugging the police constantly with his new theories. Abigail is a wreck who eventually cannot take the pressure anymore. Grandma Lynn (Susan Sarandon) comes to help out, but she has spent her life avoiding this kind of responsibility. Lindsay is also drawn into the case, and starts to notice the creepy Mr. Harvey looking at her.

Jackson has crafted the film with the same sort of attention to detail that has marked all of his work. The cinematography by Andrew Lesnie is colorful and brilliant – whether it’s evoking a dream, a nightmare or reality, the film is amazing to look at. This is aided by the pitch perfect art direction and costume design that let you know you are in the 1970s without drilling it into your dead or mocking. The sound design, highlighted by Brian Eno’s emotional, evocative score, and some incredibly tense moments (that floorboard creaking is one of the most memorable sounds of the year) is also top notch. The special effects are used to enhance the story, not replace it. In short, this is another great directorial achievement for Jackson.

The film is anchored – given a real heart – by two of the best performances of the year. Saorise Ronan has a nearly impossible role, and plays it brilliantly. Surrounded by special effects for most of her performance, she is still able to make a complete, realistic character out of Susie. In the two years since her Oscar nominated turn in Atonement, Ronan has simply gotten better. The other great performance is by Tucci as the child murderer Harvey. A lot of credit has to go to the make-up and costume department, who make Tucci look creepier than I have ever seen him, but this is just the surface of his performance. He transforms his voice into a lower, guttural sounding one, where you can tell something is not quite right about this guy, but cannot place your finger on it.

The problem with the film is in the other characters and performances – mainly because their roles are underwritten (just as they were in the Alice Sebold novel upon which the film is based). Mark Wahlberg is probably most successful – making his obsession equal parts grief, love, anger and frustration. Newcomer Rose McIver is also wonderful as Lindsay – with her wide open, innocent face; she does precisely what is required of her. Less successful is Rachel Weisz, who once again is given little to do other than cry her way through the movie. She’s a good crier to be sure, but she needed something else to give her performance weight. Susan Sarandon is a hoot as Grandma Lynn, but it’s a one note performance, and the type of role that Sarandon seems to play all too often lately – someone give her a great role again already!

This is a problem for the movie as a whole. It is not as strongly written as it should have been. Alice Sebold’s novel, despite being a huge bestseller, had some major flaws in it, and the film does little to correct these. The story takes some weird turns that don’t feel genuine, and many characters are simply glossed over. It keeps the film from becoming the true great film it should be. But overall, The Lovely Bones is one of the more interesting films of the year – gorgeous and involving in equal measure. It deserves a lot more praise that it has been receiving so far.

Movie Review: Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart *** ½
Directed By: Scott Cooper.
Written By: Scott Cooper based on the book by Thomas Cobb.
Starring: Jeff Bridges (Bad Blake), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Jean Craddock), Robert Duvall (Wayne), Colin Farrell (Tommy Sweet), Paul Herman (Jack Greene).

One of Hollywood’s favorite stories is about the washed up superstar who has been destroyed by his own demons, who tries – either successfully or unsuccessfully – to make his way back to the top. We see multiple version of this story every year. If we’re lucky, you get a movie as honest and brilliant as The Wrestler out of the formula. But more often than not, filmmakers telling this type of story are lazy, and don’t even try. But Crazy Heart, which tells the same old story, is a very moving, very honest exploration of a former country music star, now spending most of his days drinking, and playing dives where few people care who he is. What makes Crazy Heart special is two things – the performance by Jeff Bridges, and the music, both of which are damned near perfect.

Bridges plays Bad Blake. He had some hits back in the day, but he has spent much of the last decade drinking, and not really writing any new material. He drives around in his pickup truck to one loser gig after another, with no money in his pockets, and just the remnants of fame with him. He cannot even afford his own band anymore – and has to play with a series of pickup band. One of the guys who used to be in his band, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), has become a big star, and this makes Blake bitter. Not because Tommy has forgotten about him – he hasn’t – but because someone who used to play behind him, is now out in front, and no one cares about Blake anymore.

He cruises into Santa Fe for a two night stand at a seedy bar, not looking for much of anything accept to make a little money to buy more booze. A local reporter, Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) wants to interview him for the paper. She’s beautiful, so he agrees. The conversation quickly steps away from the interview itself and becomes flirtatious. Blake still has charm, and he uses it on Jean. Jean has her own demons – an ex-husband no longer in the picture, and a son she adores – and slowly, reluctantly, she allows Blake into her life, knowing the risks.

Crazy Heart gets the details just about right. The lousy clubs that all look the same, the aging audience members looking for a bit of nostalgia, how one day drifts into the next, one gig is the same as another, and how you start drinking early in the day to get over the previous day’s hangover. This is Blake’s life, and while he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t know what else to do.

Bridges is great as Blake. He has the look of an aging country music star perfectly – the beard that hasn’t been trimmed in god knows how long, the cowboy hat, the sunglasses that are always slightly askew. Not only that, but he sounds like one to. Bridges does his own singing in this movie, and he does a great job. Full credit must go to T-Bone Burnett who wrote all the music for the film, because the songs sound authentic, and Bridges delivers them with force and emotion (the great song, The Weary Kind which Burnett co-wrote with Ryan Bingham is easily the best song written for a movie this year). No matter how strung out he appears to be, when he goes on stage, he really does try his best – not even having to leave momentarily to puke can keep him off the stage for very long.

Bridges does a great job off stage as well. He wants to be a nice guy, a reliable guy, especially after he falls for Jean, not to mention her son Buddy. But he just cannot help himself. He is who he is, and the alcohol has a hold on him that he cannot fight off for very long. There have been many great performances of movie drunks, and Bridges performance stands with the best of them. After more than four decades in the movies, Bridges continues to evolve as an actor. What other actor of his generation could have played The Big Lebowski, the President in The Contender and Bad Blake? Not many.

The presence of Robert Duvall in a supporting role as perhaps Blake’s one remaining true friend, brings to mind Tender Mercies, the 1983 film that Duvall won his only Oscar for (Duvall also produced Crazy Heart). In that film, Duvall plays a washed up country music singer looking for redemption, and finding it with a young widow and her son. So yes, the two movies are similar, but they aren’t the same. I think I even liked Crazy Heart more. These characters feel real, even amidst all the clichés that the movie surrounds them with. As Roger Ebert never tires of saying, and I never tire of quoting, a movie is not about what it’s about, but how it’s about it. The acting here – not just by Bridges although he towers over everyone in the movie – but by Gyllenhaal, Duvall and even Colin Farrell (who, I must admit, it took me a while to get used to as a Southern country music singer), finds just the right notes. The direction and screenplay by newcomer Scott Cooper is subtle, but wonderful. And the music is great. I don’t like country music very much (unless it’s Johnny Cash), but the music here hits just the right notes. Crazy Heart is a movie that rises above its clichés, and becomes something truly special.

Movie Review: In a Dream

In a Dream ***
Directed By: Jeremiah Zagar.

There have been a lot of documentaries in the past few years that focus on one person’s family. A family member with a movie camera documents the trials and tribulations that his family is going through at the time, the movie gets into a few film festivals, a limited theatrical release and then straight to DVD where no one ever picks it up again. The whole thing reminds of that episode of The Simpsons when Lisa goes to Sundance. While In a Dream follows that same formula, it is more fascinating than most of those documentaries. For one, director Jeremiah Zagar seems to have a natural eye for moviemaking, but more importantly, his family is actually interesting enough to sustain a documentary that people other than his family would want to what.

Jeremiah’s father is Isaiah Zagar, who for the past four decades has been covers his Philadelphia neighborhood with his huge mosaic murals – over 50,000 square feet of mosaics have been done (apparently, the city of Philadelphia allows him to do this, although the movie never really explains it). He pours his life into his art – which is very personal – and centers around his family. He has had a history of mental problems, including a suicide attempt years ago, but doing his art seems to keep him grounded and sane. His wife, Julia, helps in this regard as well, as does his two sons – Zeke and Jeremiah.

The first act of the movie seems to find Isaiah and Julia in happy times. They have made it through more than 40 years together, they have two sons – one is married and has a song of his own and is making a success for himself in real estate, and the other went off to college and is now making this documentary.

But then things fall apart. Zeke, who they was happy married and successful, gets divorced and moves back in with his parents. Worse, he is “self medicating”, and will probably need help at some point to get over his addiction. Isaiah’s mosaics seem to start changing as well. Usually focusing on his family, and his wife who he adores, they seem to have turned inward and are becoming more and more about himself and his troubled psyche. When Zeke finally asks for help with his addiction, and wants to be driven to a rehab centre, Isaiah blurts out that he has been having an affair with his assistant. Things immediately get much worse.

When I watch documentaries like this, I often wonder if the process of making the film made things better or worse. Does having the camera there make people more honest than they otherwise would be, or do they feel like puppets being used by the documentarian – in this case a member of their own family. In this case, it seems to be the former. This family does not seem to hold back much, and you get the impression that without the camera there, perhaps they would not be talking about these things at all. At least with the camera, things are being said.

In a Dream is not a great documentary, but it is a good one. It finds interesting subjects to document, and the film is about more than just a family in crisis. It is about the line between art and reality, sanity and insanity, and how art can save or destroy you – as can a marriage. In short, In a Dream is better than most documentaries about a family, because it is about more than just the family. A lot more.

Movie Review: Trucker

Trucker ***
Directed By: James Mattern.
Written By: James Mattern.
Starring: Michelle Monaghan (Diane), Nathan Fillion (Runner), Jimmy Bennett (Leonard), Joey Lauren Adams (Jenny), Benjamin Bratt (Leonard).

I have seen a lot of movies about dead beat dads over the years, but only a few about dead beat moms. Trucker, the debut film from James Mattern, is a film about a woman named Diane (Michelle Monaghan) who left her husband and infant son ten years ago. Since then, she has made her living as a long haul truck driver with few connections. She is in love with her neighbor Runner (Nathan Fillion), and he with her, but he’s married, and cannot or will not leave his wife, and she won’t cross that line between their close friendship and having an affair. Instead, she picks up guys she meets on the road, and takes them back to a hotel for some quick sex, before she runs off again. Essentially, she is acting like a man.

But then one day, her ex’s new wife shows up on her doorstep with the son Diane abandoned 10 years ago in tow. Diane’s ex, Leonard (Benjamin Bratt) is in the hospital dying of cancer, and his new wife has to go to her mother’s funeral, and there is no one else who can watch the kid. Diane is stuck with the kid she never wanted in the first place. Her son, Leonard Jr. (Jimmy Bennett) doesn’t want to be with Diane either. He is 11, no longer a naïve kid, and knows precisely what his mother is. But they’re stuck with each other.

You can probably see where this movie is going, and for the most part you’d be right. The plot of the movie plays out precisely how we expect it to, hitting all the notes that indie dramas of this sort are expected to hit. The mother and son not liking each other at first, but slowly letting their guards down and opening up to each other. Diane and Runner moving closer to a relationship that will probably never be reality. The visits to the hospital to see the dying father. You get the picture.

But the movie really isn’t about the story anyway. Yes, it would have nice to have something a little bit different happening in the movie, but Mattern is more concerned about this characters then the story they are involved in. And in Diane, he has created a great one.

Michelle Monaghan has been doing great work for a few years now, but with the exception of Ben Affleck’s Gone, Baby, Gone she has not really gotten the type of roles that really allow her to shine. But in Trucker, she gets that role. Diane is not an instantly likable character – in fact, we don’t really like her at all at the beginning of the movie. She gradually gains our sympathy and understanding, but is always on the verge of losing it again – just like she is with her own son. But Monaghan dives in fearlessly, and creates an interesting, well rounded character who although we may not love, we are fascinated by. She is the reason to see the movie.

Everything that goes on around Monaghan is fine. Fillion is playing the type of role he seems to always play in movies, and he does a fine job. Bratt has only a couple of scenes, and seems too good to be human, but I suppose he’s fine. Joey Lauren Adams, who seems to have never been able to land a role like hers in Chasing Amy since, is pretty much wasted.

Trucker is not a great movie, but it is a solid debut for Mattern. Many first time directors seem to be overly ambitious, and need to get a few films under their belt before they realize that sometimes less is more. Mattern already knows that. Let’s hope that next time out, he pushes himself a little harder.