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.