Movies We Love..."Moneyball" (2011)

                                                 "Moneyball"  (2011)

‎"How can you not be romantic about baseball?" And how can you not love "Moneyball?"... the smart new film from director Bennet Miller which contains that line of truth-drenched dialog? We predict it will one day take it's place in the pantheon of great baseball movies, alongside "Bull Durham," "Field of Dreams," and "The Natural." Based on a book by Michael Lewis, a true story (we are told), the movie tells the saga of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), Oakland A's general manager, who was perceptive enough to realize that the only way small baseball franchises could compete with the "big money teams," Yankees, Red Sox, et al., was to devise a system in which affordable players, with some problems, could be acquired cheaply and utilized for their strengths in a unique way to assemble a winning team. It's all about getting on base, you see, and working within your limitations. Billy finds in Ivy League graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) a man with a computer and a graph devised to take some of the guesswork out of finding those hidden, budget-priced, overlooked baseball phenoms. Snatching up the decidedly un-athletic numbers whiz from another team, he takes him back to Oakland, where the two proceed to revolutionize the business end of the sport, confident that the dividends will show up on the scoreboard. Their scenes together are superbly played, and with a great deal of humor, as their contrasting personalities provide perfect foils to the strengths and weaknesses of each.

But how can a film about the business end of a sport make good cinema, you ask? By filling the screen with iconic sports images, a field of major league actors, and dialog so real and lively that is seems not scripted but spontaneous. (The screenwriters are Steven Zaillian, and Aaron Sorkin.) A meeting of team scouts, for example, plays out so authentically, we were sure that we were watching not actors, but the real Oakland scouting staff. Besides the afore-mentioned players, Pitt and Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman is on hand, looking authentic in uniform and crew-cut, portraying the field manager of the struggling team. His obstinate refusal at first to see what Beane is trying to accomplish provides some real drama, but this film is not about sports drama, or the humor which is plentiful, but about the human spirit, inventiveness, and the secret goal of all sports enthusiasts which is to beat the odds. In that degree, it becomes a universal fable with a broad appeal.

Billy Beane's back story, told in flashback, provides a point-counterpoint to the main action. Drafted fresh out of high school because of his great promise as a player, Billy's career stalled, and we witness the tragedy and frustration that is the dark shadow of the American dream. Billy made a decision based solely on money once, and he has promised himself that it would never happen again. Billy's scene with his ex-wife (the dependable Robin Wright) and her second husband is a classic in how to supply information through what is observed rather than stated, and a series of scenes with his young daughter, Casey (winning newcomer Kerris Dorsey), are the heart of the movie. She is his guiding angel and the role is played with innocence and charm. We clearly see Billy's basic decency expressed in his role as a father, and there too we learn how he has remained an idealist in what might have been a cynical business.

Let us close by asking: Isn't it about time we recognized that Brad Pitt has become a great screen actor? Here he achieves an authenticity and nuance that seem so natural, we're ready to compare him with the historic screen giants who always seemed to inhabit their characters rather than portray them... men like Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster. With recent performances in films like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Inglourious Basterds, The Tree of Life, and now Moneyball, it's obvious  Brad is "batting a thousand," and we're looking forward to watching him mature into any number of future roles.

See "Moneyball." This gem may be crowded out when the Oscar bait arrives in early winter, but it deserves to be remembered. We know we won't forget it. How can you not be romantic about a baseball movie this good?

Movies We Love... "White Material" (2009)

"White Material" (2009)  directed by Claire Denis

Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) is trying to get home, to a coffee plantation that she runs in an unnamed, French speaking, African country.  Wandering the dusty African countryside in sandals and a pink dress, she hitches a ride on a bus packed with people who look disturbed, frightened, furtive.  Are they refugees?  This is the opening of a haunting film by director Claire Denis.  With mounting tension and suspense, the story of how Maria came to be wandering far from home is told in obscure, elliptical flashbacks that seem almost like remnants of a disturbing dream.

The country where she has lived and worked, and raised her son, for over twenty years is in turmoil.  An army of rebels, many of them children wielding rudimentary weapons, wanders the countryside, and the Vial plantation and it's "white material," food, gasoline, money, etc. is the magnet that draws them.  At the same time, uniformed government troops, looking no less fierce and unorganized seem to threaten from another front.  A fugitive we know only as "the Boxer" (Isaach de Bankolé), is hiding out, wounded, in the Vial house.  In short, the country is coming apart, and Madame Vial, having ignored numerous exhortations to get out while she can, has now become trapped in a descending spiral of disruption and violence.

Though Maria seems at times to be heroic, we get hints that she may be part of the problem  that has led the country to such an unsettled state.  The workers and foremen have fled. Maria's ex-husband (Christophe Lambert) is selling the farm out from under her.  Her  father-in-law (Michel Subor) wanders the corridors of the plantation house in a bathrobe, and seems to survive on pills and oxygen.  

Maria's own son (Nicholas Duvauchelle) is a tattooed slacker who can't summon the energy to get out of bed.  While allowing no criticism of him, she seems to admit in one scene that she "botched" raising him.  He in turn seems detached from life until he begins to display a growing fascination with the swirling anarchy that surrounds them.  Something is very wrong here, and by the time the movie wends it way to its disturbing conclusion, we are left devastated by the emptiness of the moral landscape and the haphazardness of the understated violence.  Hell has come to earth, and we wonder, can any of us be saved?

This amazing film is an unsettling masterpiece and does now allow the viewer to make easy judgments.

Movies We Love... "Another Earth" (2011)

Another Earth  (2011)

What if another earth, identical to our own, suddenly, inexplicably appeared in the sky? What if it offered the possibility of meeting another you, of having another chance, of correcting a terrible mistake? This film, which we were recently privileged to see, is like an incredibly deep and extended episode of the Twilight Zone. We were unprepared for the emotional depth and philosophic "stretch" it offers. The star, Brit Marling, is a woman with an amazing future in cinema.  The film also features William Mopather as a Yale music instructor whose life becomes linked with our young protagonist in surprising ways. 

This is director Mike Cahill's first feature and was co-authored by Miss Marling who plays the role of Rhoda Williams, a talented high school student who plans to go to MIT and seems to have a bright future.   Driving home after a night of celebration, she hears a radio report of the approach of a planet similar to earth that has just become visible as a tiny blue dot in the night sky.  Distractedly looking through her sun roof, Rhoda causes a fatal accident, irreparably altering her destiny.  

Released after a period of time from juvenile detention, Rhoda changes the course of her life, taking a job as a school custodian because she wants an occupation that will allow her to clean things and not do too much thinking.  Her life becomes almost purgatorial in its simplicity and self-effacement.  In an attempt to repair the damage she has done she stumbles into a relationship with the music instructor whose family and life she has destroyed.  At the same time she learns of an essay contest that will allow the winner a civilian ticket, via commercial spacecraft, to the second earth which has now come to loom like an astral echo in the sky.  Is it possible that traveling to another earth would allow her a chance to erase or repair her tragic past?  Who inhabits the planet?  Is it truly a second earth?  Are there other versions of ourselves living alternative lives on its surface?

There is no way we could adequately prepare you for the emotional impact that this modest project manages to convey.  It seems note perfect in every aspect and will leave you haunted by questions of identity, destiny, and possibility. 

Movies We Love... "Cowboys and Aliens" (2011)

Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

 "Cowboys and Aliens" is the perfect conflation of disparate genres. We went to this movie thinking it would be silly, and wondering why such big names would consent to be part of what seemed to be pure gimmick. We can now report that not only does the picture take its ideas seriously, but it actually makes them work. This is far from a silly film, and it is satisfactory on many levels... it's both good science fiction, and one of the purest westerns we've see in some time. 

The story is essentially an amalgam of the best Hollywood western traditions. Think "The Magnificent Seven," "The Searchers," and any number of Clint Eastwood movies. Remember those films where the isolated town is threatened by an overwhelming band of bloodthirsty marauders, only to find themselves banding together behind the courage and leadership of one lone hero with the grit, brains, and marksmanship to make a stand and unite opposing elements of the population against a common enemy. Only in this case, the cruel oppressors are from outer space, and they ride the range in fast flying spaceships with a distinctly insect-like appearance. 

Daniel Craig is the iconic lone hero who wakes up lying half-dazed on the floor of a desert canyon.  He is barefoot, confused, totally lacking any recent memory, and with a strange wound in his side (bullet or laser? - the first of many mysteries). For instance, what is that weird high-tech piece of hardware fitted like a shackle to his wrist, that he can't seem to remove? In a scintillating opening scene, his quick reflexes and fighting skills supply him with a horse, a pair of boots, some clothes, and a dog... and off he rides to the nearby town of Absolution. There he encounters a number of stock western characters, all of them a played with a new edge by an amazing cast: Harrison Ford is the rich man who seems to have the town in a grip, Paul Dano is his troublemaking son and Adam Beach, the Indian sidekick, whose job it is to keep an eye on the rabble-rousing son.   Keith Carradine is superb as the beleaguered sheriff, Sam Rockwell is the saloon-keeper... throw in a group of outlaws, a band of Indians, a wise preacher, a boy,  the afore-mentioned dog and a mysterious lady with a six-shooter hung around her waist. A great plot develops when the Craig character, in a confrontation with the town bully, seems to emerge a hero.   But soon the local sheriff sees the mysterious stranger's face on a wanted poster in his office, so he prepares to ship the "hero" and the "bully" off to Santa Fe in a prison coach for justice.  Suddenly the plot is kicked into hyper-drive by the nighttime arrival of a trio of small spaceships that wreak havoc on the isolated village with ray guns, pulsating lights, and explosions. As they zoom and soar, several of the townspeople are yanked right up into the air.  What are we witnessing here, alien abductions?

After our hero brings down one of the ships with a blast from the strange metal wristband he's wearing, we get our first glimpse of the frightening extraterrestrial invaders (they prove to be a gruesome lot) and they bound and and pounce with unearthly speed.  We soon learn that our hero has an obvious hidden connection to them. Quickly a posse is formed to pursue the other flying spacecraft into the desert, to find and retrieve the kidnapped loved ones.  Meanwhile the mysterious lady who also seems to have some knowledge of the invaders invites herself along.  

Out among the badlands and mesas, the story explodes into the epic confrontation promised in the film's title, and a grand saga it is...  the good, the bad and the alien ugly!  Director Jon Favreau had fashioned an entertaining and epic tale that is fantastic, yet told in realistic terms. The bizarre concept is sold with masterful special effects, great acting, and enough action to fill two movies. There's also humor to temper the mix, but the movie is never silly or campy. In fact some of the dramatic story elements are surprisingly touching, and the suspense equally effective. "Cowboys and Aliens" is great entertainment and manages to link flawlessly two of the greatest strands of film history. Actually this has been done before as fans of Joss Whedon's "Firefly" TV series can attest. Don't be afraid of this one; it's not meant to insult you, and it just might be the one to unexpectedly delight you  -   one of the best among this summer's crop of fine films.

Movies we love... Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

"Captain America" is a wonderful film based on the comic book hero who originated in the 1940's. That's why it was the perfect decision to set this origin story in that time period. The costumes, art direction, and music bring the World War II setting to life, as we follow the story of Steve Rogers, a 90 lb. asthmatic (thanks to the magic of CGI and some cinematic trickery), who desperately wants to enlist to fight Hitler and the Axis powers, because as he puts it, "I don't like bullies." 

Chris Evans is perfectly cast as the stalwart Rogers who, when turned down as being physically unfit for service, persists in trying until he's spotted by a the head of a secret government program whose goal is to grow the perfect soldier through the injection of a secret formula. This being comic book land, it works with amazing results, and Steve emerges from the lab twice his size, heavily muscled and ready to take on the enemies of his country and the forces of evil. 

Dubbed "Captain America" and fitted out with a patriotic uniform by a government notorious for misusing its greatest assets, he is at first sent on tour with a chorus of Rockette type singers and dancers for the purpose of selling War Bonds, but our hero's real opportunity soon arrives with the rise of Red Skull and the Hydra Organization which, being born out of Hitler's occult-obsessed elite, quickly becomes a greater threat than Hitler himself. We knew with the casting of Hugo Weaving and Toby Jones as Red Skull and his dastardly henchman that we were in good hands, and director Joe Johnston seems to have a firm hand on the reins as he goes on to deliver a rousing good adventure yarn full of action, humor, and even some heartache. 

Tommy Lee Jones gives superb support as the Army officer in charge of Captain America and his small band of multi-cultural bravehearts, and Hayley Atwell as the British liasson who shepherds "Cap" along and becomes his staunchest defender is jaw-droppingly good in her role, while also providing visual assets and romantic interest. We know from the moment she coyly touches the super-hero's bulging pecs that true love cannot be stifled.  

This is a movie highly anticipated, and we deem it well worth the wait. The visual style is amazing, the dialog snappy with just the right amount of humor, and a delightful adherence to the old-style virtues that have always given Captain America his appeal. Ranking right alongside "Thor" and "X Men: First Class" in quality, we're glad to see Hollywood is finally getting this genre just right. There is hope for the future.

Movies we love... "Still Walking" (2008)

Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo) (2008)

In a small coastal town, the Yokoyama family has gathered to commemorate the death of their oldest son, Junpei, who drowned in an act of heroism several years earlier. In the events of a twenty-four hour period, we are shown what seem at first to be just mundane family activities and rituals... the things any family does... cooking, eating, talking, walking, staying the night with grandparents... but something is afoot here. Old tensions and resentments are simmering, and it becomes clear to us as we gradually get to know them well, that the Yokoyamas are a deeply wounded family, with intense heartache never far from the surface of the things they do and say. 

Dr. Yokoyama, the patriarch, is a retired doctor whose sense of worth seems to have been tied to his profession, so much so that he resents that his surviving son, Ryota, has not chosen the same line of work. Ryota, feeling little love from his autocratic father, has grown to hate these family gatherings and tries to limit them to once a year. But he dutifully comes a good distance to stay over, bringing along his new bride, a widow, and her young son whose love for his own deceased father causes him to be reticent in fully embracing his new one. Trying to hide the fact too that he's currently unemployed doesn't allow Ryota to feel any more at ease, while his new wife senses that she is very much "on view" as she struggles to make a good impression. The Yokoyama daughter, Chinami, has also come with her two youngsters and her affable husband who, while showing an apparent ease of relationship in his dealings with his in-laws, is secretly viewed as a bit of a slacker... perhaps not worthy of having married their only girl. Mrs. Yokoyama, the doctor's wife presides over the gathering from her kitchen, and it is there that we experience how much food and eating together bonds a family. In some of the loveliest scenes, the director lingers over the preparation and sharing of simple meals - the communal chore of chopping vegetables together, cooking corn tempura, snacking on carry-in sushi, busting open a watermelon ( a task left to the children)... and it is often in these scenes when the family is shown most at ease that we become aware of the tense dynamic that rules and sometimes separates them. 

In a visit to the missing son's grave, high above the town, we experience through the actions of common rituals, placing flowers, the Japanese custom of cooling the stone with water, brief prayer, how much the little things we retain and cherish through repeated action define us and give our lives meaning. The simple act of a family walking together, the mysterious appearance of a yellow butterfly after the family returns home, the visit of the boy, now a young man, whom the missing son saved from drowning that day, so long ago... all are presented with an unusual delicacy and we find ourselves deeply moved at odd moments. Elements of hope and longing and loss resonate within each of us, as this small masterpiece so touchingly illustrates. 

A film of unusual beauty, well-acted by all the principals, "Still Walking" is poetic in it's depictions of the love and missed opportunity for love that can make our lives tragic and yet transcendently heroic, full of lost dreams and secret desires and a hope that motivates us to keep on. The title refers to an old pop song that Grandma listens to in her private moments. At one point she asks her son to play it on the phonograph. Someone points out that we all have a secret song that we remember at odd moments and play when we're alone. Nostalgia for remembered days, the lost past, can be a strong emotion, one that can be as binding as a silk rope, one that keeps us perhaps from moving forward, a weight we must carry, or perhaps the hidden light that keeps away the encompassing darkness and allows us to hold on. We are after all still alive, still chasing butterflies, still walking...

Movies we love... "The Tree of Life" (2011)

Terence Malick's new epic motion picture, "The Tree of Life," is a mind blower, and perhaps the most intriguing and puzzling film since Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey." The scale is both grand in scope and intimate in its perception of family relationships. Virtually indescribable, it speaks with a pure cinematic language. Images and sound overlap and are juxtaposed in free flowing compositions, so that the meaning of what we see at any one moment may not become clear until later, if at all. We distill a thought or idea, or perhaps an emotion, only after a series of competing and contrasting images have passed before our eyes. Echoes and reflections contrast with, yet complement each other. 

There is not a clear narrative, but the film is centered on several incidents in the life of a family living in Waco, Texas in the 1950's. Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are the O'Briens, a couple with three young sons, living what is in many ways an idyllic small town life. They love their children deeply, although the father's authoritarian attitude toward raising the boys creates conflict, especially with the oldest boy, Jack. We are also shown scenes of Jack as a middle aged man (Sean Penn) who seems to be haunted by a tragedy that struck the family years ago, and by the oedipal conflict with his father. Is the movie taking place in his mind? Are the images and sounds we experience his memories and thoughts? This is not clear, and perhaps is not meant to be so simply interpreted. 

Early in "The Tree of Life" we are shown a wordless sequence of about twenty minutes, which seems to be a visual history of the universe. Stars and galaxies swirl across the screen; boiling volcanoes and turbulent oceans disturb the surface of a planet (our own?) as ages and aeons pass before our eyes; strange life forms move through primordial seas, dinosaurs make an appearance, but even this is not gratuitous as it gives added meaning to the themes of struggle and release, dominance and subjection that play heavily in the later family scenes. This chronicle of life culminates in scenes of the O'Brien courtship and the births of their children... we have come from the universal to the personal in a smooth and flawless panorama. 

A Malick trademark is present throughout... the whispered voiceovers... Whose voice do we hear? Are they speaking to themselves, to us, or to God? Early on we are given a theme which may be the key to understanding "Tree of LIfe." We are told that each of us must follow one of two paths - the way of nature or the way of grace. Religion is part of the O'Briens story, and the presence of God is ever apparent in tumbling patterns of images and music. Jack's struggle is the human story. Do his shortcomings and his father's flaws represent the fallen state of man? Is his mother with the face of an angel meant to represent the innocence of Eden? She is shown in one remarkable scene in apparent levitation. Time and again the viewer may be moved to tears by the beauty presented on the screen: a flock of starlings dipping and swirling in the twilight, the simple act of a father and son planting and watering a tree, a field of surreal sunflowers standing in rapt attention, as if they were contemplating the face of God, a mother tracing the contours of her child's body. 

Some may say this mystical film is too long, yet we cannot think of a single image or sound we would have wanted to miss. A memorable scene toward the end of the film finds all our characters transported to what could be interpreted as the shores of eternity. All of time seems telescoped into a single moment. Have we reached the portals of heaven? We think this movie will speak differently to different people. But in any case we promise you will be deeply moved. Malick's embrace is broad. It takes in all of life. Somewhere in this movie, each of us will find himself, and after all one feels as though, no matter what course of nature we may follow, none of us will be left untouched by grace.

Movies we love... The Illusionist (2011)

                                                The Illusionist (2010)


Sylvain Chomet is the genius behind "The Triplets of Belleville" and he has returned to delight us, this time working from a script by Jacques Tati. Chomet's films are animation for adults, and we can report that with "The Illusionist" (L'Illusionniste) he may have topped his previous effort. "Triplets" was a delight... kinky, surprising and humorous, and much of that remains, but this film, perhaps because of the superb script, has a depth of emotion that will take you off guard. It a wise little story that will leave you feeling enlightened, and more perceptive of the complexities of the human heart.

The illusionist of the title, M. Tatischeff, is a magician, working on the continent to dwindling audiences. The time is perhaps the 1950's. His type of entertainment has seen its day, so he crosses the English Channel to take a gig at a coastal Scottish inn. The innkeeper is coincidentally installing electricity the same night the magician performs. Alice, an immigrant servant girl working there, is so poor she doesn't have a decent pair of shoes. She is delighted by the magician's tricks, and he is taken by her innocence and kindness. He "conjures" up a pair of red shoes for her and they become friends. When he takes a train to look for work in Edinburgh, she follows him, expecting him to magically produce a ticket for her. He accepts Alice as his companion although they don't speak a common language. In the city, they take a room, living as father and daughter. Their adventures in Edinburgh make up the bulk of the film. These episodes involve his growing economic struggle, including the need to take a series of odd jobs; her desire to experience the fullness of life, her growing sophistication and the attentions of a young suitor; and their humorous interaction with many characters one of which is an unruly pet, the magician's "magic" white rabbit. The hotel they inhabit is full of colorful vaudeville types... bizarrely energetic acrobats, a ventriloquist and his dummy, and the saddest clown you could imagine. Every one of these is wonderfully written and drawn.

All is shown with the gentlest and most nostalgic of animation palettes. Sound and music are masterfully edited to match every mood. The movie is told cinematically, frequently cutting to long shots of the city, the sky, passersby... we literally "see" the passage of time with changing light and shadow, weather and scenery. Amazing angles and points of view! There is one unforgettable shot, for example, of Alice at the window, in the glass of which we see the reflections of passing birds. People wander into and out of a frame, all with the naturalness of a live action shot. Nothing is rushed or hurried, but neither does anything linger too long.

We hope we have not overwritten this review, but the experience of watching "The Illusionist" is a bit overwhelming. We hope to experience that pleasure again and again through the years. Nominated for an Academy award as best animation feature, this is a movie we would recommend without reservation. Enjoy it soon.

(Note to film buffs: At one point, one of the characters wanders into a movie theater in the city, and we are shown a snippet of Jacques Tati's classic, "Mon Oncle.")

Movies we love... Thor (2011)

We're all flushed with excitement from having just seen "Thor" in 3D this evening. We had heard good things about it, but we can't get over how impressed we were by the quality of the production, and Kenneth Branagh's direction. This is a movie that should not have worked... because if you think about the plot it might seem to be a lot of silliness; but we can report that everything about it is well done. 

Not sure if we should bother to relate the story since anyone familiar with the Thor comic books will know about the big blond Norse god, with red cape and mighty hammer. Through some foolishness involving Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his fighting buddies taking on the Frost Giants, a hideous and frightening race, Thor's father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), banishes him to earth. Thor's adventures on earth are the most entertaining part of the movie. They take place in a small town in New Mexico, where Thor and his mystical hammer have fallen like meteors in the midst of what look like magnetic storms. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her team of scientific investigators have been investigating these phenomena in an outfitted camper, and they literally run into the the fallen god. Through their subsequent adventures together, his reactions to them and theirs to him are cleverly written and very entertaining. 

The story is intercut with scenes set back in Asgard where Thor's brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), seeks to usurp the throne since the All-Father Odin has fallen into a deep sleep, and brother Thor, the real heir is trapped on earth. Loki's treachery seems to have the upper hand, but we know all is building to a final cosmic confrontation. 

As we said, this should not have worked, but work it does. The script is well-written, the acting all around is superb, music and special effects top level, and we thought the 3D was better than average, since it's done to serve the story, rather than try to be "in your face" impressive. We think "Thor" does for the "comic book to movie genre," what "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" did for martial arts films, raising the standard to a whole new level. Hemsworth is quite a find. He fits the role physically (Wow!) and his acting chops are there too, especially in his scenes with Hopkins, and the growing tenderness he exhibits for Jane and her friends. 

If the rest of the crop of "summer films" are as good as "Thor," or even close, we're in for a mighty fine season.

Movies We love... Hanna (2011)

                                    "Hanna" a film by Joe Wright  (2011)


Hanna" is a movie that may end up on our list of best films of 2011. The director Joe Wright is a film maker we're beginning to respect more and more. Other films of his you may know are "Atonement" (also with Saoirse Ronan) and the Keira Knightly version of "Pride and Prejudice."

Here he's crafted a first-rate action/adventure film about a young girl, Hanna (Ronan), who has been raised somewhere just south of the Arctic Circle by her father (Eric Bana), with no other human contact, no electricity, in almost a "survivalist" environment. We first see her tracking a reindeer/caribou(?) with a bow and arrow. She kills the majestic animal (almost a clean shot), guts it, and hauls the carcass back to their shelter on a travois. Meanwhile Dad sneaks up and attacks her, because periodic assaults are his way of honing her hand to hand defensive techniques. He also teaches her fluency in several languages, all sorts of survival skills, and fighting techniques that are obviously more than defensive. Why are they there? For what is he preparing her?

One day he retrieves a mysterious electronic radio beacon from a hiding place in the frozen tundra, and tells her she's just about ready. For what? If she flips the switch on top, he tells her, "Marissa Wiegler" will come find her, and it is Hanna's job then to assassinate her. It doesn't take long for Hanna to flip that switch since she's a youth grown restless in her limited world, although Dad seems regretful of finally sending his daughter off on the task for which he has obviously been raising her. As mysterious unmarked planes, and armed commandos descend on the snowy forest retreat, Dad takes off, saying they will reunite at a specific place in Berlin. Hanna is soon picked up by the organization so interested in finding her, not without her taking a few of the men down first.

We next see her waking up in an underground holding cell in a vast bunker under the Moroccan desert, where she is being monitored on multiple video screens by the afore-mentioned Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), looking suave and icy, with something of the attitude of "bitch-woman in charge." Hanna acts vulnerable and lost and asks for Marissa, who wisely sends in a surrogate, and that's when all hell breaks loose. Hanna employs her deadly skills, then makes a break for it, with the real Marissa and her minions in hot pursuit.

This is the set-up for a great mystery-adventure, with echoes of a Bourne-type conspiracy film. The plotting is intricate but can be easily followed, due to Wright's masterful direction.
It's a chase film, a conspiracy film, a mystery with a little sci-fi thrown in, and a bit of a road comedy too when Hanna hooks up with a eccentric and colorful British family traveling through the desert on family vacation.

Close escapes, misadventures, Hanna's budding awareness of human relationships... all follow, while we witness Hanna's rapid adaptation to the real world. Meanwhile Dad is shown moving ever closer to their German rendezvous. And through it all we begin to assemble, bit by bit, Hanna's remarkable history and the reason for all that we're seeing. You won't regret following this exciting tale to it's perfectly balanced conclusion.

We loved very minute of it. The acting all around is superb, the locals are exotic and intriguing, some of the final scenes take place, for instance, In a deserted Berlin amusement park full of menace. The pacing is fluid, and the action more than satisfying. And always there is Saoirse Ronan's blue-eyed, expressively open face, which the camera seems to love.  Our only misgiving is with the electronic score by The Chemical Brothers, but who knows... you may like that too.

When it was over, a friend of ours turned to us and said, "Well that was good, but what was the point?" It took a while, but we think we have it figured out.  And yes, we already want to see this one again. And we consider that to be the sign of a really good movie.

                                  

Movies we love... Blindsight (2006)

Inspired by the exploits of blind mountain climber, Eric Weihenmayer, six students from the Tibetan School for the Blind undertake an expedition to the Lhakpa-Ri summit of Mt. Everest. One of the most engaging documentaries of recent years, this film is beautiful and awe-inspiring. Filmed against the backdrop of the world' tallest mountain, you will find the prerequisite thrills of a mountain climbing saga, but this wise little film is really about something more awe-inspiring... the human spirit. 

Since reading "Into Thin Air," we've watched a lot of films about Everest and read the books too, but here's something different. An expedition organized to get six blind Tibetan teenagers to the Lhakpa-Ri peak of the mountain, becomes the backstory to some even greater challenges for these brave youngsters. One by one, their life stories are revealed to be as inspirational as anything they encounter on the windswept glaciers of the world's tallest mountain. In a country where blindness is considered a curse, we find these young men and women to be closer to greatness in their courage and humility, than any fainter glory that reaching a mountain summit could bring them. 

Interesting interplay among the adult sponsors of the trip, rugged mountain guides who see things in the western spirit of individual achievement, and the teachers from the school, one of them blind herself, who simply want their young friends to experience the joy and comradeship of which they have had so little in their lives. Time and again, while watching, we were overwhelmed by emotion, but this is not a film of cheap sentimentality. It's about the darkness that surrounds anyone who feels cut off and outcast, and the light that suddenly penetrates to the heart of those who experience something resembling family and acceptance for the first time in their lives.

And then we watched... More (1969)

                                  More (1969)  - director Barbet Schroeder


Continuing our fascination with European films of the 60's, we recently watched Barbet Schoeder's "More" (1969). Starring Mimsy Farmer and featuring a classic soundtrack by Pink Floyd, the film is one part Icarus myth, one part sixties "free love" sexploitation film, and one part cautionary drug tale.   A young German graduate travels to England and finds free -spirited friends.  Attracted to a girl who may be the freest spirit of all, he follows her to sunny Ibiza where they begin an idyllic relationship which turns obsessional and perverse when drugs begin to rule their lives.  Filmed mostly on the island of Ibiza, the cinematographer was Nestor Almendros, who would later film such classics as "The Story of Adèle H," "Days of Heaven," and "Sophie's Choice."

Movies we love... julien donkey-boy (1999)

                                           "julien donkey-boy"  (1999)

Harmony Korine followed up his remarkable films "Kids" (as screenwriter) and "Gummo" with 1999's "Julien Donkey-Boy" which is just as ground-breaking on many levels. Filmed according to the Dogma 95 principles which require location shooting with natural lighting, the film is grainy and distorted, and includes scenes with people who didn't even know they were in a motion picture. Tiny hidden cameras were worn by some of the actor-characters out into the real world and those scenes, edited into the narrative, illuminate the motivations of our central players. The music comes mostly from the characters playing or singing themselves, although there is a recurring musical theme, the familiar and emotional aria from Gianni Schicchi, "O Mio Babbino Caro" which is lifted from a televised ice-skating performance that two of the characters are watching at one point during the film. This music and the beautiful but dysmorphic images of the figure skater interrupt the narrative at several points, and offer stark contrast to this basically disturbing tale of a very dysfunctional family.

Julien it turns out is schizophrenic. His mother died, giving birth to the youngest child of three, Chris (Evan Neumann), now a teenager who though slight in build, desires to be a wrestler. The middle child, daughter Pearl (the director's muse, Chloë Sevigny), is the quiet heart of the family, almost a madonna-like figure who has assumed the role of the mother at family gatherings. She is in fact several months pregnant. She never mentions the father, and during the course of the film, we began to suspect that the child was a product of incest. She is particularly idolized by Julien (Ewen Bremner), the oldest child who bears an uncanny resemblance to the television actor Michael Richards... imagine Kramer (of Seinfeld) with false gold-plated teeth. Julien is plainly unbalanced. You might find him walking down the middle of a street talking to his "voices." The director modeled this title character after his own uncle, now in an institution. An early scene even leaves us with the impression that he may be harmful to small children.

And then there is the father, a piece of work himself, who sometimes dances in his room wearing only red flowered boxer shorts and a gas mask. He is a tyrant to his children, offering no love, but only abusive "motivational" tirades. He is played to perfection by the German director/actor Werner Herzog, whose voice we recognized instantly from the narrative work he has done in several of his own films. No wonder Julien has slipped "the surly bonds of earth" with very little chance that he will ever touch the face of God.

The chop-cut editing, episodic narrative, and irrational behavior may so be off-putting that you might give up on this film early... it's no more pleasant to watch than was Gummo and only slightly less outrageous: several blind characters, an armless magician, an apparently senile grandmama, family wrestling matches, and the old man, who would just love for one of his sons to put on their dead mother's wedding dress and dance with him, but if you stay with it, letting the apparently random incidents form connections in your mind, you will be lead into realms of insight and emotion that will shake you like lightning bolts.

There is a spiritual core at the heart of "Julien Donkey-Boy." The family attends an animated prayer service at a black church, frequent references are made to heaven... Julien even thinks he went there once to visit his mother, and the iconic image of this strange film is Pearl, wandering through a field of tall waving grain, singing the Agnus Dei softly to herself. There are moments when, well, there are moments when...

If this movie doesn't give you new insight into the sad, troubled world of societal refugees and reduce you at least once to tears, perhaps you're listening to the wrong voices in your own head.

Movies we love... Dogtooth (2009)

Dogtooth (Kynodontas) (2009) is a film unlike any other we have ever seen; provocative and disturbing, yet oddly comical. There is no way to describe the plot, nor should we, since part of the experience of Dogtooth is trying to decipher exactly what one is watching. We will volunteer only, since you'll find this on the DVD case or film synopsis, that it involves a family living mostly apart from the outside world, within a walled compound. The film is in Greek and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. It won Best Film in the "Un Certain Regard" category at Cannes, and was nominated for an Academy Award in the best foreign language film category.

Filmed mostly with static camera shots, naturalistic, with no screen music except what comes from radios, phonographs, or the characters themselves. Frequently the actors are partly outside the frame, their heads or the tops of heads cut off. It is, in a sense, an anti-film. Nothing you will see is predictable. The flow of the narrative is punctuated sometimes by disturbing outbreaks of violence, and the few sex scenes are completely matter of fact, realistic, yet bizarre and unsettling.

If you take this one on, be prepared for a stretch and a challenge. You may feel, at the end,
as shut off from meaning as if you had just spent an hour and a half on another planet.
We have our ideas of what the movie is trying to say, but it probably will have a different meaning for others. For references in tone, we might suggest the films of Michael Haneke, or "Gummo" by Harmony Korine. For some reason, while watching, we were reminded of an equally strange Todd Haynes film called "Safe," perhaps by the growing sense of isolation that the film imparts. But these are just cinematic echoes, and useless in preparing you for the dramatic puzzle, the cinematic challenge that Dogtooth presents.

See this one if you think there is nothing new in the world.

Movies we love... Hide (2008)

"Hide" (2008)  A modern day Bonnie and Clyde - with a twist - that follows two lovers down a path of destruction, mayhem, and murder as they live in a world where it is acceptable to take whatever they want with murderous consequences.

Director: K.C. Bascombe

Writer: Greg Rosati

Stars: Rachel Miner, Christian Kane and Polly Shannon

An amazing find... what starts out like an update of "Bonnie and Clyde" turns into something far more bizarre. Top-rate acting from Christian Kane and Rachel Miner, dialogue like a strange dark music, and a storyline we wouldn't even begin to summarize. Just go there and be amazed and then tuck this thing into your shelf of hidden treasures. We wondered at first why we had found this obscure film in the horror racks at the store... only later did we discover that it probably belonged there. Reminiscent of "Bug" in it's intensity, but occupying a totally different hemisphere of weirdness. Won't say any more because we don't want to spoil the experience for you.