Movies We Love... "The Arbor" (2010)

                                                    The Arbor  (2010)


On a street called "the Arbor" in a British housing development named Bradford Estates, Yorkshire, a young girl named Andrea Dunbar grew up in the 1970's and 80's, amid a life of poverty, family drunkenness, promiscuity, racism and abuse. At the age of fifteen she wrote a play called "The Arbor" which truthfully depicted what she knew firsthand. It was successfully staged - a couple of more were written - all in the local vernacular and touching on the same topics; one of the plays (Rita, Sue and Bob Too) was made into a film, and then, a few years later, the young playwright was dead - probably of a brain aneurism. She left behind three children, from three different fathers, the oldest of whom, Lorraine, was half Pakistani, which in the Dunbar neighborhood was a scandal.

Lorraine herself was a lovely girl, but her young life was a descending spiral of abuse, drug addiction, prostitution, and finally conviction for manslaughter for the death of her two year old son, Harris, who consumed a lethal dose of methadone one night and never woke up from a very deep sleep in the arms of his mother.

Now documentary filmmaker Clio Barnard has taken this material and produced a film of great impact, employing a controversial and innovative technique. Using hours of recorded interviews with members of the families of Lorraine and her late mother, she has actors portraying them in various stages of their lives, and in some of the original locales, but rather than speaking, the actors lip-synch to the actual voices of the interviewees. The effect is haunting, because the voices provide an intimate connection to the people involved, yet the various scenes look formally staged and sometimes theatrical. The lower-class accents are in some cases indecipherable and the manner of speaking is a kind of devolved English - for instance articles are frequently dropped and there is some slang and common profanity. But subtitles are provided and the words are never too difficult to follow.

Solemnly paced and at first seeming very disjointed, it doesn't take long to figure out the various family members and their relationships. We take their truthfulness for granted, even though, as happens in the case of multiple eyewitnesses, the facts don't always match up. With the accumulated detail of lives that seem destined for either chaos or disintegration, what results is very much like the pathos of Greek tragedy. Speaking from our personal viewpoint, the principal truth that we receive from "The Arbor" is this: that the sins of the father (or in this case, the mother) inevitably impact the lives of their children, and that sadness and hopelessness is pervasive in a milieu of poverty, lack of self-respect, free sex and frequent abortion, alcohol and drug abuse, and lack of consideration for human worth. Some might say it's insignificant that God, or religion, are never mentioned by any of the people involved, but for us, the absence of that spirituality is glaring. Indeed, in a society so terribly off-kilter, one has to wonder why?

Movies We Love... WAR HORSE (2011)

     
                         "War Horse"  (2011)  -  directed by Steven Spielberg


   While some may find War Horse old fashioned and sentimental, we believe that it exhibits Steven Spielberg's greatest strengths - a sure directorial eye (with standout cinematography from Janusz Kaminski), good story telling, and fine work with a large cast. "War Horse" which is based on a poplular novel (and a play!) tells the story of how a thoroughbred stallion, gentled to the plow by a Devon lad named Albert, is then sold by the boy's father to the British Army at the outbreak of World War I. Albert wants to go with his prize horse but is too young. He vows he will find the animal when the war is over.

We follow the horse, Joey, through a series of misadventures: first as a British Cavalry officer's horse, then captured by the Germans, adopted into the care of two German soldiers (a pair of unfortunate doomed brothers), lost, then saved and befriended by an innocent French peasant girl, again conscripted by the Germans to haul artillery, a job of such hardship that horses can endure it for only days or weeks before dying of exhaustion, thrown into the chaos of trench warfare, and enduring a night of horror when, in a panic, Joey races through No-Mans Land and becomes entangled in a mass of razor sharp barbed wire. A scene in which a soldier from each side meet on the killing field in an attempt to free the proud animal is sure to be a classic.

Paralleling Joey's story, we follow Albert who has reached the age when he may enlist. When he too travels to the front, we know his path and that of his beloved horse are fated to cross, but will it be a sad and final farewell, or a return to the idyllic Devon countryside and a time of peace?

We have nothing but admiration for what Spielberg has achieved here. Working with a novice lead as well as seasoned veterans like Peter Mullen, Emily Watson and David Thewlis;  handling the action scenes with clarity and sureness (one battle scene in the trenches will remind you of the shock and horror of the Normandy Invasion scene in Saving Private Ryan) "War Horse" seems almost epic in its proportions, yet it remains an intimate story too, of the devotion a man and horse may share for one another, and the courage and endurance that try them both in time of war. Heart-wrenching yet inspiring, "War Horse" will remind you of some of the classic adventure films of Hollywood's past.

Movies We Love... "Take Shelter" (2011)

"Take Shelter" (2011)  -  Directed by Jeff Nichols,  starring Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain

Michael Shannon is, simply put, an acting god, and this is his picture start to finish, although Jessica Chastain playing another version of the loving wife she gave us in "The Tree of Life," certainly matches him scene for scene, especially in the second half of the film. In "Take Shelter," Mr. Shannon plays Curtis, a blue-collar worker who starts to have an increasingly bizarre series of disturbing dreams that to him seem real. Visions of approaching storms, destructive winds and viscous yellow rain like motor oil. Swarming clouds (murmurations) of starlings. Visions of attacks by unseen assailants who have apparently come to steal his little deaf-mute daughter. Dreams that his wife and dog have turned on him with homicidal intent. To him they seem real and with their cumulative effect, he loses sleep, his health deteriorates, and his life begins to unravel. He decides to renovate a old storm cellar, expanding it with plumbing and lighting and laying in supplies and survival gear. The cost of this in time and money begins to send both him and his wife over the edge. But he feels a compulsion to build a place of safety... it becomes an obsession.

The film is a puzzle because we are never sure if Curtis's dreams are prophetic. Is this film meant to be a reflection of our own uncertain times? Is Curtis a prophet? Or is he simply mad? Perhaps something terrible IS coming. We learn that schizophrenia runs in the family (his mother is institutionalized) and that alone could explain what is happening to him. His knowledge of that condition adds to his stress.

The visual look of this film is amazing. Anyone who has ever stared in awe at an approaching storm will find that element of hypnotic fascination in this disturbing film. Then there is the claustrophobic dimly lighted interior of the bunker in scenes that give us a feeling of being closed in and shut off. The carefully plotted build-up in tension is like a screw tightening slowly. And the ending of the film might leave you staring at the screen with a lingering unease. Did a movie ever give you nightmares? Did you ever have an ineffable feeling that things are about to get much, much worse. After viewing this little mind-blower, you may want to "take shelter" yourself.

Highly recommended for those who love the mysterious and the offbeat.

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.