'Troll Hunter' is scary, funny spoof of horror movies

by Cate Marquis

“Trollhunter” begins with a disclaimer that “everything in this film really happened.” This bombastic statement is followed by video footage by student filmmakers stalking what they believe is a poacher hunting down an enormous bear. In fact, the faux documentary “Trollhunter” is a delicious, relentless parody of horror films like “Blair Witch Project.” If that kind of “this really happened!!” horror film, with its hand-held video and breathless commentary, makes you roll your eyes, then prepare for a treat.

Entertaining and spectacular, “Trollhunter” is by turns hilarious and genuinely terrifying. Shot in a wild, beautiful Scandinavian landscape, the film is visually impressive as well, with nice special effects. It opened Friday, July 1, at the Tivoli Theater.

“Trollhunter” has one aspect that may deter a few horror/comedy fans: you have to read subtitles. This fabulous horror film/parody is from Norway. But fortunately, not much dialog is needed to get the point across in this action-heavy horror delight.

The film starts out like any zombie/vampire/monster movie, with reasonable people denying such things exist. The government says bears are behind a series of disturbing incidents in the mountains and forests of Norway. For their film school project, three students, Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) and Johanna (Johanna Morck) decide to track a hunter (Otto Jespersen) who they believe is illegally hunting a giant bear. The elusive hunter, who has an odd, armored trailer and beat-up four wheel drive truck, tries to chase the students off. Unlike the licensed hunters, who accuse him of rule-breaking, he seems to only hunt at night. When they catch a glimpse of his real prey, he lets them in on some secrets. The film goes much further down this dryly funny path, with its unlikely Van Helsing trying to control the mythic monsters and chase them back to their remote wildernesses.

While “Trollhunter” spoofs video-footage horror films, it is also truly scary. It embraces the horror potential in Norse fairy tales while slyly mocking government secrecy that places preventing panic above preventing deaths. The trolls become a metaphor for hidden dangers and the hazards of secrecy and cover-ups.

Some of the comedy plays with the myths. One comic line has the troll hunter asking if any of the students is Christian because trolls can smell the blood of Christians. It is less clear how they react if you are Muslim. The dead-pan humor is typical and the straight-faced actors carry it all off well.

The monster hunt is set against some stunning Scandinavian scenery, of breath-taking fjords, looming mountains and wild, deep northern woods. The locales get wilder and eerier as the film unfolds, which adds to the unsettling tone, which mounts as we encounter an array of beings from Nordic mythology. The dialog is funny but the effects are spectacular and scary.

“Trollhunter” is a tongue-in-cheek delight of absurdity and really scary stuff too. With wonderful visuals and impressive effects, it is well worth reading subtitles for fans of the off-beat and scary.

© Cate Marquis

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'Bride Flight' transports audiences back in time for crowd-pleasing romantic drama

by Cate Marquis

The historic romantic drama “Bride Flight” takes us along on the journey of four attractive young people, three women and a man, leaving post-WWII Holland to restart their lives in New Zealand. The film features an appealing cast and lush photography in a romantic tale against a historic backdrop. The Dutch film won several audience favorite awards at several film festivals, including the Audience Choice award at the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival.

The four meet aboard a Dutch plane, racing to set a 1946 speed record to New Zealand. The KLM Airlines flight has been dubbed “the bride flight” for its passenger list, which is heavy with young Dutch women escaping war-ravaged Europe to meet fiances or husbands who have emigrated already.

Esther (Anna Drijver), Marjorie (Elise Schaap), Ada (Karina Smulders) and Frank (Waldemar Torenstra) form a life-long bond on the flight, on their way to pursue their dreams in a new land. Ambitious, gifted and beautiful Esther, a Shoah survivor who lost her family in the Nazi concentration camps, dreams of starting her own fashion design company. She is meeting her fiance, another Shoah survivor, in New Zealand. Traditional Marjorie plans a big family and is thrilled when Esther quickly improves her wedding gown mid-flight. Outgoing, handsome Frank strikes up a friendship with all three women but is especially drawn to shy, curvaceous blonde farm girl Ada. Frank, who lost his colonist family in a Japanese concentration camp, has big agri-business ambitions for his new homeland. Although the new friends part ways shortly after arriving, charismatic Frank becomes the link that keeps them connected throughout their lives.

Set in 1946, this film is like an old-fashioned Hollywood woman's picture of that era - polished, pretty and romantic - but its pretty female cast and some steamy love scenes offer appeal for guys as well. The cast are attractive and so it the New Zealand landscape, all brought to the fore by lovely cinematography by Piotr Kukla. That visual attractiveness plus appealing performances go a long way in selling this melodramatic tale.

Read more at the Jewish Light by clicking on this link:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/entertainment/article_70c70926-9ce2-11e0-986a-001cc4c03286.html

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'Winter in Wartime' is compelling coming-of-age tale set in snowy Nazi-occupied Holland


by Cate Marquis

“Winter in Wartime” is a moving, suspenseful and well-crafted coming-of-age drama set in a snowy 1945 Nazi-occupied Holland. Beautifully photographed and based on Dutch author Jan Terlouw's award-winning semi-autobiographical novel “Oorlogswinter,” this thrilling drama has been an international hit.

Thirteen-year-old Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier) chafes under the German occupation of his tiny rural village and dreams of helping the underground. He sees the war, and the people, around him in black and white.

When a British plane crashes in the nearby woods, it is an irresistible draw to Michiel and his best friend Theo (Jesse van Driel) go to explore. They are surprised by the arrival of German soldiers, who capture Michiel, although his friend escapes. But they release him with only a scolding, since he is the son of the village's mayor Johan (Raymond Thiry).

Michiel harbors some disdain of his father, whom he sees as too cooperative with the occupying Nazis, while he adores his Uncle Ben (Yorick van Wageningen), who is hiding out with them. Ben has ties to the underground but Ben warns his nephew not to become involved.

A secret let slip by Theo's older brother Dirk (Mees Peijnenburg) leads to Michiel helping a injured British flyer, Jack (Jamie Campbell Bower), who survived the crash and is hiding in the woods.

Read more at the St. Louis Jewish Light by clicking on this link:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/entertainment/article_68d5bcbe-70e9-11e0-a438-001cc4c002e0.html

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'Water for Elephants' is respectful if tame adaptation of bestseller

Released on DVD/BluRay on Nov. 1, 2011

Review by Cate Marquis

Grade: B

Movie adaptations of bestselling novels are always problematic. The film has to be faithful enough to the book to satisfy fans yet create a film experience that works for those who have not read it.

“Water for Elephants” succeeds in the first half of that challenge but less so in the second. This Hollywood adaption of the bestseller is faithful enough to the novel to please fans. It is visually vibrant, color-drenched and boasts an attractive cast. But director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter Richard LaGravenese seem to have polished off too many of the novel's rough edges and drained it of some of its passion.

To be clear, this is a review of the film, not the beloved book. The book's fans will be able to draw on its splendid prose and evocative sense of time and place to subconsciously fill in details of characters and storyline missing in the pared-down script. Those who have not read the book simply lack that advantage. The movie “Water for Elephants” is entertaining but lacks emotional fire or gritty Depression-era realism that could have made it a more compelling drama.

The story unfolds in flashback, as an older man (Hal Holbrook) tells a circus worker (Paul Schneider) the tale of a 1930s circus and the legendary disaster that brought it down. It begins with a college student, Jacob (Robert Pattinson), studying at Cornell to become a veterinarian. As he is on the verge of graduation, the sudden deaths of his parents reveals a secret, that they mortgaged everything to send him to college. Now bereaved, penniless and homeless, Jacob hops a train which turns out to belong to a small circus.

Jacob's story takes place very specifically in 1931, when the Great Depression was well underway yet Prohibition still held sway. His skills find him work as the circus' veterinarian. The circus is run with an iron hand by its ringmaster August (Christoph Waltz). August is known for his cruelty but his harsh methods have kept the circus alive in hard times. Jacob finds himself drawn to the show's star Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), a bare-back rider who is also August's wife.

A love triangle set against in a 1930s circus, peopled with a colorful mix of characters and sprinkled with animals including a beautiful elephant, sounds irresistible. The film gives a fleeting taste of life with a traveling circus yet nearly everything in the film, including the romance, is a little too cleaned-up. No one looks hungry or shabby in this Depression.

The book's fans know where all this is leading but, unfortunately, so does everyone else. The book's magic is in the way its words create its circus world, filled with complicated animals, people and relationships. The film rarely gets beyond the surface. The flaw is in pedestrian direction, an uninspired screen adaptation and presenting the story too plainly. It transforms what is magically told in the novel into melodrama, a romance with an over-the-top villain.

Still, the cast is good overall, with Waltz again chilling audiences as he did in “Inglourious Basterds.” Witherspoon is a nice mix of delicate beauty and resignation to her fate, grateful to her husband who rescued her from small-town life, although she lacks a certain hardness. She generates most of the romantic chemistry with Pattinson, who is adequate but hardly impressive.

Overall, the movie “Water for Elephants” is a mixed bag, best enjoyed by those who read the magical novel, whose memories of the novel can fill in some missing details.

© The Current (http://thecurrent-online.com/)

Reprinted with permission

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Redford's 'The Conspirator' stars McAvoy, Wright in fascinating Civil War trial of woman accused in Lincoln assassination

Released on DVD on August 16, 2011

Review by Cate Marquis

April 2011 is 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, making it the perfect time for a Civil War historical film. “The Conspirator” is a gripping, thought-provoking drama about the only woman accused in the assassination of President Lincoln.

Director Robert Redford skillfully crafted this fact-based film into an absorbing courtroom drama, using the events surrounding the trial of Mary Surratt. Seven men and one woman were arrested as part of the conspiracy to kill not only Lincoln but other high-ranking members of his administration. Scholars have long speculated that Surratt's only crime may have been running the boarding house where the conspirators, including John Wilkes Booth, met.

Scottish actor James McAvoy stars as Frederick Aiken, a 28-year-old ex-Union officer and new lawyer pressed into service as the defense attorney for the accused woman, a Southern sympathizer. At first, Aiken is adamantly opposed serving as Surratt's lawyer but is persuaded by his mentor and fellow attorney Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), a Southern Senator, with the argument that no else is willing.

Robin Wright plays Mary Surratt, a 42-year-old Southern widow who has turned her Washington, D.C. home into a boarding house, to support herself and her grown children, John (Johnny Simmons) and Anna (Evan Rachel Wood). Her son has been linked to John Wilkes Booth (Toby Kebbell) and the conspirators were know to meet in her home but Mrs. Surratt's role is less clear. With the son missing, authorities seize on Mrs. Surratt and accuse her, perhaps hoping to luring him out.

Aiken is the central character in this story. The film explores the facts of the trial, the political climate around it and shades of ethical and moral issues, as well as ambiguities about Surratt's degree of guilt.

“The Conspirator” is a delight for history buffs, highlighting little-known events, but it offers plenty for anyone with some interest in history. Scriptwriter James D. Solomon, an ex-journalist, did extensive research for the film.

The film looks handsome and features a top-notch cast but is not typical Hollywood stuff. Given its emphasis on historical detail, if you napped in history class, this may not be for you.

Director Redford gives us a quick recap of the assassination but most of the film's time is devoted to the trial and its aftermath. The real focus is the courtroom drama and surrounding politics. A trial by military tribunal following a national tragedy has echoes today but Redford's cool, deliberate storytelling also does not let that overwhelm the story.

McAvoy's Aikens is passionate and energetic, a sharp contrast to his reserved client. McAvoy provides most of the dramatic and emotional fire, showing us the character's inner struggles along his relentless pursuit of truth and commitment to justice. Wright plays the devoutly Catholic Surratt as a stoic woman. Surratt's unconcealed Southern sympathies do not help her but neither does her motherly efforts to protect her son.

There are many wonderful supporting performances, with Kevin Kline as a steely Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Danny Huston as prosecutor Joseph Holt and Colm Meaney as General David Hunter, president of the military commission. The always-wonderful Tom Wilkinson and Evan Rachel Wood are excellent in their small roles.

The photography is often half-lit and shadowed, reflecting the fog of war still pervading the nation. Colors are bright and primary at the start of the film, as the nation's capital celebrates victory but after the assassination, all fades to muted tones, growing darker as the story progresses.

“The Conspirator” is a worthy film, a thoughtful drama that is an excellent way to mark the Civil War anniversary.

© The Current

Reprinted with permission from the Current http://thecurrent-online.com/

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'Hanna' delivers first rate drama and girl assassin Saoirse Ronan

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A

“Fairy-tale story” usually conjures up images of princesses in pink and romance. In director Joe Wright's involving contemporary thriller “Hanna,” the fairy-tale is of the darker Brothers Grimm folk tale sort.

Director Wright re-teams with his young actress from “Atonement,” Saoirse Ronan, for a tale of girl raised by her father in an isolated cabin and trained to be the perfect assassin.

Erik Heller (Eric Bana) has raised his daughter Hanna (Ronan) in complete isolation in a tiny wooden cabin hidden deep in the Finnish woods. Living completely self-sufficiently, he tirelessly trains her to be the perfect assassin, preparing her to defeat an enemy waiting for her in the outside world. Sixteen-year-old Hanna has never met another person but she has been schooled by her father using a Bible, a book of Brothers Grimm fairy-tales and her father's own knowledge as a former CIA operative.

Every parent worries about sending their child out into the wider world but a child raised in isolation and venturing out to conquer an adversary is very Brothers Grimm. A coming-of-age tale about a young girl raised as an assassin has the elements of both epic and fantasy. There are both feminist and fairy-tale themes but overall it is just good drama.

“Hanna” has far more “Bourne Identity” than “Kiss Ass's” Hit Girl in it. Basically, Wright takes a story that could have been an ordinary actioner and imbues it with a more complex layer of meaning and atmosphere, aided greatly by the sixteen-year-old Ronan's spooky-good acting.

The action is terrific but, better yet, believable and the story is engrossing and well-acted.

Once Hanna steps out of the shadows, it does not take long for her adversary to find her. Marissa (Cate Blanchette) is a CIA operative with a Texas accent and a cool air of self assurance. With her red hair and green-tinged wardrobe, she is an iconic symbol of powerful forces.

Excellent work in supporting roles deserves credit, although this is largely Ronan's film. Cate Blanchette and Eric Bana both contribute complex characters. Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng add a little comic touch as free-spirited parents Rachel and Sebastian who cluelessly take in Hanna along her travels. The couple's more typically teen daughter Sophie (Jessica Barden) offers a contrast to the otherworldly Hanna, but also a emotional connection to humanize her. Tom Hollander is simply terrifying as Isaacs, a quirky, bloodthirsty assassin who pursues her.

The story takes us across two continents. Location shooting in Finland, Germany and Morocco add a layer of undeniable authenticity that cannot be achieves with CGI effects. The action is edge-of-the-seat but there is also a realness to it that action films often lack, thanks to the degree of stunt work done by Ronan and the rest of the cast.

Lush photography is a signature of Wright's films. “Hanna's” striking visuals lend an air of mystery with a touch of David Lynch. Unusual locations create an eerie feeling and add to the scary fairy-tale aspect of the modern-day story. A chase through a “Dr. Strangelove”-inspired CIA facility and tension-filled scenes shot in an abandoned East Germany amusement park, filled with decaying fairy-tale figures and gingerbread cottages, are haunting. Just as there is little scarier than a clown turned sinister, the dark side of fairy tales are classically creepy, and the perfect setting for contemporary thriller action.

Overall, “Hanna” gives audience' their money's worth. Creative direction, outstanding acting and unexpected locations all add up to fresh twist that transforms this thriller into a haunting drama.

© The Current (http://thecurrent-online.com)
Reprinted with permission

Read an interview with 'Hanna' star Saoirse Ronan by clicking here

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Israeli 'Human Resources Manager' takes darkly-comic road to finding one's own humanity

by Cate Marquis

The excellent Israeli film “The Human Resources Manager” is a tragicomic tale that takes a stressed-out human resources manager at a large, Israel-based baking company forced to deal with a public relations mess on an unexpected journey, physically and philosophically.

A dark humor and irony suffuse this tale of one man finding his humanity while wrestling with bureaucratic red tape. “The Human Resources Manager” won 5 Israeli Academy Awards and played at last fall's Toronto Film Festival.

Director Eran Riklis, whose films include “Lemon Tree” and “Syrian Bride,” takes us on this trip from the ordinary to the contemplative, seeking a final resting place for a dead woman and asking if where that is really matters. It is a cross-cultural, very human tale told in a darkly comic, moving and surprising way.

The story begins simply enough, with what seems to be an extra task dumped on the human resources manager (Mark Ivanir) by his boss (Gila Almagor), as he tries to leave the office to hurry home to his daughter. An embarrassing newspaper article about the company is set to hit the streets in the morning. The boss wants answers to what happened and a written response to the situation before the paper comes out in the morning.

A paycheck from the baking company was found on the body of a woman killed in a suicide bombing a few days earlier. The body has been unclaimed in the morgue but the paycheck implies she was an employee. The newspaper is accusing the big international bakery of inhuman indifference for letting the body of an employee lay neglected.

Who she was and even whether she really was an employee have to be determined. The task seems straight-forward but new wrinkles and complications keep arising. The human resources manager discovers she was an ex-employee named Julia, a low-wage immigrant, an Eastern Orthodox Christian from Romania living alone in Jerusalem. But answering one question and dealing with one problem just seems to lead him further down a rabbit hole. Meanwhile, human resources manager has trouble at home, and is hoping to patch things up with his pre-teen daughter (Roni Koren) by promising to help chaperone a school trip.

Read more at the St. Louis Jewish Light by clicking on link below:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/entertainment/article_25b324fa-6c2d-11e0-82d4-001cc4c002e0.html

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Giamatti, Hoffman, Rosamund Pike charm in bittersweet comic, sentimental 'Barney's Version'

by Cate Marquis
Grade: B +

Paul Giamatti won a Golden Globe for his performance as Barney Panofsky, a wise-cracking, flawed yet loveable Jewish TV producer in Toronto, whose wide-ranging life and loves are the subject of “Barney's Version.” This tale of a man's three loves is a mix of absurd comedy and bittersweet drama.

Based on Mordecai Richler's prize-winning novel, the film is always very smart and starts out comic. But it slowly evolves into something warmer, an even sentimental drama, as we work our way through Barney's checkered life, a mix of romantic history, ordinary life and oddball happenings.

Fans of the book may be disappointed in what is left out in the translation from book to film, but the film stands well on its own. What remains is a surprisingly warm, warts-and-all, real life tale of a man who has his heart in the right place but may be his own worst enemy. It is less the conventional movie coming-of-age tale than a more complex path through life's stages, reflecting back on choosing paths, making mistakes and learning what really matters.

Giamatti's winning performance really makes this film, a quirky yet everyman character who is both irascible and irresistibly likeable, but he is mightily aided by a supporting cast that includes Dustin Hoffman, Minnie Driver, Rosamund Pike, Rachel Leferve and Scott Speedman.

The story starts with a 65 year old Barney, comfortably successful as the producer of a long-running Toronto soap opera. Despite his material success, Barney retains some working-class tastes, an avid hockey fan who loves hanging out in a neighborhood bar named Grumpy's.

Barney is still resentful of his ex-wife's second husband, and is not above late-night prank phone calls to their house, much to the dismay of his grown daughter. But the film soon flashes back to Barney's youth, as a twenty-something hanging out in Rome with his college buddies in the '70s.

The story recaps Barney's romantic history, with three women, but also serves to trace his life story. At times, Barney's ordinary man story will trigger recognition, reflecting one's own life in romantic disappointments, changing friendships and family bonds, while other parts are uniquely his.

Read more in the St. Louis Jewish Light:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/entertainment/article_404001e2-3467-11e0-a95d-001cc4c002e0.html

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Damon and Blunt generate heat in romantic science fiction thriller 'The Adjustment Bureau'

by Cate Marquis

Grade: B +

Fate, or some grand plan, can throw lovers together, or so it can seem. In the romantic science fiction thriller “The Adjustment Bureau,” a grand plan instead seems works to thwart to the romantic attraction pulling two people together.

Do we control our fate or is there something else that directs our lives? That metaphysical question plays a role central in this engrossing thriller romance. This is a surprisingly gripping, entertaining film. The reality-questioning theme is reminiscent of “Inception” but at heart, “The Adjustment Bureau” is a romance. Thanks to the chemistry between its stars, it is a deeply effective one.

Matt Damon plays rising-star politician David Norris who has a reputation for both straight talk and an impulsive streak. A chance encounter brings him together with Elise (Emily Blunt), a rising-star ballerina with the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Sparks fly immediately but after that forces seem to keep them apart.

The fate that keeps these two apart is enforced by a mysterious host of button-down bureaucrats. When Damon's Norris stumbles across them in the midst of an “adjustment,” things become very complicated for him.

The film is loosely based on “The Adjustment Team” a short story by Philip K. Dick, whose speculative fiction works also formed the basis for “Blade Runner” and several other films. Questioning reality is a common theme in the author's fiction, the portion of the film's plot taken from his short story, but while the star-crossed lovers are entirely new, real people with real lives dealing with a philosophical conundrum also is typical of the author's work. The film is the directorial debut of “Bourne Ultimatum” co-writer George Nolfi, who also wrote the script, re-pairing with that franchise's star Matt Damon.

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet is a real dance troupe, which recently performed here at the Touhill Performing Arts Center under the auspices of Dance St. Louis. The success of “Black Swan” has made ballet at hot topic for film audiences right now. Cedar Lake's artistic director, French-born choreographer Benoit-Swan Pouffer, prepared Blunt for her role as a dancer although, in truth, there is relatively little dance in the film.

Blunt and Damon have real on-screen chemistry, which adds immensely to the emotional appeal of the story, while the thought-provoking premise helps fire up the thriller's intellectual excitement level. The film is filled with “what-if” twists, another signature of Dick's work, with the primary one centered on whether we control our own destiny. Anthony Mackie and Terrence Stamp are among the highlights in a strong supporting cast.

Good non-predictable romantic stories are a too rare thing in movies. Blunt and Damon make one sexy pairing, and their scenes together entice the audience to fall in love with them both and hope for their love to survive.

The characters are likeable and the story involving but the film is visually dynamic as well. It has terrific visual style, with some fine noir-ish touches. Racing across a New York cityscape, Damon and Blunt, alluring in her sexy dress, are pursued by men in gray suits and hats, images evoking another era of film. The action sequences are brisk and exciting, with some “Inception”- like visual effects.

“The Adjustment Bureau” offers a terrific entertainment break from the changeable weather. Damon and Blunt create sparks and the story is a winner for fans of thrillers or romance, which makes it an excellent date movie. The doldrums of March often have little good to offer in terms of movie entertainment, so “The Adjustment Bureau” is a welcome exception.

© The Current

Reprinted with permission

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'Unknown' pairs Liam Neeson, interesting premise for thriller fun


by Cate Marquis

Grade: B

Liam Neeson scored a surprise hit with last year's sleeper “Taken.” He seems to be hoping for a second lightning strike with his new film, “Unknown.”

This well-crafted thriller about a man who awakes from a coma to find no one knows him, not even his wife, is not quite up to that level but “Unknown” still provides good popcorn-munching entertainment. Despite recombining ideas from other films, it keeps the audience guessing enough to be surprised by its intriguing premise and well-honed twists.

Research scientist Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) is visiting Berlin with this wife Elizabeth (January Jones) to speak at a scientific conference. Shortly after arriving, they get separated and the scientist is in a car accident that leaves him in a coma for several days. When he awakens, he remembers who he is but no one else, not even his wife, recognizes him. In fact, he finds another man (Aiden Quinn) has assumed his identity.

Having lost all his identification and stranded in an unfamiliar country, Harris is faced with puzzling out what is going on. He gets help from a taxi driver named Gina (Diane Kruger) and Ernst Jurgen (Swiss actor Bruno Ganz), a former member of the East German secret police, the STASI. Frank Langella appears as Harris' colleague back in America, Rodney Cole, the man Harris is hoping can confirm his identity.

This is a suspenseful film with an interesting premise. It reveals its secrets slowly and carefully, which keeps us hooked until late in the film.

Neeson's presence raises the profile for “Unknown.” Overall, it has a better cast than one might expected. The film's premise is intriguing but there is a lack of originality in what is done with it. "Unknown" is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who also directed the odd thriller "Orphan." This one is a far better film, entertaining and able to keep one guessing, although that it is sampling other films eventually becomes apparent.

But ultimately, it is Neeson's film. He adds a depth to his role, bringing considerable emotional weight and drawing us into the story, although the plot sometime stretches beyond the believable. The wintery Berlin location adds to the mood and sense of isolation.

Diane Kruger may be familiar from her role as a spy/actress in "Inglorious Basterds." She is strong overall, particularly in scenes with Neeson. January Jones from TV's "Mad Men," on the other hand, is disappointingly flat as Neeson's wife. As a younger actor, Bruno Ganz set hearts afire in “Wings of Desire” and later chilled audiences as Hitler in “Downfall.” Not surprisingly, both Ganz and Langella are memorable in their too-limited screen time. Certainly, more could have been done with Ganz's character.

Even if it misses out on being something more, this is a serviceable, entertaining thriller. The photography is good, and there are a few visual striking moments. The pace is satisfyingly quick and there is enough chase action to keep the blood pumping, while the audience picks apart the mystery along with the protagonist. Harris never wavers in his confidence in his wife or his convictions, no matter how bizarre things get.

“Unknown” is not original high-art like “Inception” or blockbuster material like “Bourne Identity.” It is, however, entertaining, a rare enough thing in the movie wasteland that exists between the late Oscar-hopeful releases and the start of summer blockbusters. If you like mystery thrillers or just have to get out to beat winter blahs, “Unknown” is worth the time and money. No small feat in late winter.

© The Current

Reprinted with permission

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Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell bring swords and sandals to Scotland in Roman-era adventure 'The Eagle'

by Cate Marquis

Grade: B -

“The Eagle” is an entertaining adventure tale, a sort of buddy picture in a historic landscape. Starring hunky Channing Tatum and talented Jamie Bell, it is based on Rosemary Sutcliff's young adult novel “The Eagle of the Ninth.”

With a premise that sounds vaguely like last year's “Centurion,” this swords and sandals action-adventure tale is set in 2nd century Roman-ruled northern Britain, where a Roman legionnaire and his Celtic slave venture into the wilds of Scotland beyond Hadrian's Wall. The Roman is on a quest to discover what happened when his father's Ninth Legion mysteriously vanished without a trace, along with their military standard, the Eagle.

Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) arrives in Roman Britain to take over a remote outpost near Hadrian's Wall, which marks to end of the Roman world and the beginning of unconquered Scotland. Twenty years earlier, Marcus' father (Aladar Lakloth) led his storied legion into Scotland and never returned. Marcus bears a sense of shame, and doubts about his father, but is determined to redeem the family honor.

Recovering from battle wounds at the home of his uncle Aquila (Donald Sutherland) in a more civilized portion of Roman Britain, Marcus determines to travel beyond Hadrian's Wall to recover the Eagle. He takes along a slave as a guide, a Celt named Esca (Jamie Bell) whose bravery so impressed him that Aquila rescued him from a death sentence. Beyond the wall, the Roman is in the slave's country.

The title is a bit of word play, as Aquila is Latin for eagle. Director Kevin Macdonald, who also helmed “Last King of Scotland,” made the right choice to shoot mostly on location in Scotland, eschewing a lot of CGI scenery. The sweeping photography of the wild Scottish landscape is breath-taking and does wonderful things for setting an epic tone of this story.

The director brought back much of his “Last King of Scotland” team for this project, including screenwriter Jeremy Brock and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, whose films also include “Slumdog Millionaire,” “127 Hours” and “28 Days Later.”

The story of a young soldier in a far off land, of a proud empire now facing intractable opposition by a technologically-inferior opponent in a distant and harsh landscape has echoes to today but no overt parallels are drawn. The film presents a mixed view of the Roman empire, admirable for their organization but arrogant as a conquering power. Nonetheless, it takes a soldier's eye view.

But this is not a history lesson, nor even a particularly serious film, despite the book's historical underpinnings. This is just entertainment. After all, we are talking Channing Tatum.

Jamie Bell does to the heavy lifting in acting, while Tatum is mostly called on to look noble and hunky, which he does splendidly. Yet the partnership and scenes between them work.

Still, the strong supporting cast and Scottish scenery help a great deal. Besides Donald Sutherland in a small but meaty role as Marcus' uncle, striking performances include Mark Strong as a former Roman soldier and Tahar Rahim as a fearsome warrior of the blue-painted Seal people.

While the film might do good things for Tatum's career, there is enough to this film that one has to wonder how much better it might have been with a stronger actor, such as Briton Tom Hardy, in the role.

There is action, although not so much that it overwhelms the story. There is magnificent scenery and enough character, plot and atmosphere to keep us interested. Overall, “The Eagle” offers plenty of old-fashioned adventure, if not much history.

© The Current

Reprinted with permission

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Coens' take on 'True Grit' is grittier, and truer to original novel

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A

Who knows what the Hollywood Foreign Press critics were smoking when they failed to nominate “True Grit” for best film. The Coen brothers' film is one of the year's best, topping most critics' top ten lists for 2010. One thing is certain: The Oscars will not make that same mistake.

Ethan and Joel Coen's “True Grit” is less a remake of the John Wayne movie than a fresh adaptation of the original novel. It is much closer to the novel, a far darker, grittier film. At the same time, the film is part comedy, part adventure, in true Coen brothers style. It is a great example of the Coens' best work.

Jeff Bridges plays Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, a drunken U.S. Marshall who reluctantly signs up as bounty hunter for a tart-tongued, brainy 14 year old girl named Matty Ross (an amazing Hailee Steinfeld), who seeks her father's murderer, an man named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). But another bounty hunter, A Texas Ranger name LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), is on the trail of the same man for another bounty. Cogburn believes the hunted man has fled to the lawless Indian territory, to join the gang led by outlaw Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper).

The film's sharp, witty dialog is immensely entertaining, as the various characters trade verbal jabs. Spoken in the precise, formal style of the 19th century Old West, it provides both comedy and period authenticity, combining the formality of letters from Ken Burns' Civil War documentary with a salty, brassy, brainy sparring of wits and wills. In one scene, the young Matty goes to negotiate with Col. Stonehill (Dakins Matthews), the owner of the stable from which her father's horse was taken by the murderer, and leaves the seasoned businessman shaking with fear of any future deals after her legal-based verbal assault.

Coen brothers' films commonly combine dark comedy and violence with an off-beat sensibility but individual films tend to lean one way or the other, from the comic “Big Lewbowski” to the grim “No Country for Old Men.” “True Grit” is closer to the center of this continuum but leans more dramatic, with plenty of comic elements, often thanks to rambling talker Jeff Bridges, who provided comic magic in their “Big Lewbowski.”

Young Hailee Steinfeld, as Matty, is astounding, a sure thing for a nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a likely a win. She does not play the sweeter character of the John Wayne movie but a hard-nosed, relentlessly strong-willed girl who has earned the nickname “the accountant” among hired hands on her family farm. She is bringing people to account for deeds as well as debts, with a steely will. At some point, drunken Rooster Cogburn, a man with a reputation for ruthless determination and independence, recognizes a kindred soul.

Jeff Bridges as Cogburn is brilliant as well, playing a more comic, more garrulous Rooster. Once Rooster starts to talk, he rambles non-stop to a mostly silent Matty, who listens faithfully while always evaluating the righteousness of his actions.

Roger Deakin's photography is breathtakingly beautiful, adding a dark looming quality to their travels, while capturing the lonely majesty of the landscape. Many scenes take place under falling snow, in half-light, with everything in muted tones of gray and brown.

The Coens are masters to building tensions, and are in top form here. The film's big-sky scope means this is one to see on a big screen, at a theater. A Western fan or not, “True Grit” is a must-see film, one of the best of 2010

© The Current

Reprinted with permission

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Warm-hearted, comic 'The Concert' strikes sweet chord, with twist

by Cate Marquis

“The Concert” (“Le Concert”) is a French-language film, based on a true story, about an aging Russian orchestra conductor, whose career was ruined under the old Soviet Union over its anti-Semitic policies, now trying to make a surprise come-back, under somewhat shady circumstances.

What makes this history-based film different is that it is a comedy - a sweet, charming, uplifting one with a dramatic surprise at its end. This crowd-pleaser is warm and witty as it both amuses and informs.

Although the English title is similar, this is not the controversial 2005 documentary about a concert in Israel. The French “The Concert” played several Jewish film festivals, including the Boston Jewish Film Festival and the London Jewish Film Festival in 2010. It won two “Cesars,” the French equivalent of the Oscars, including for best music, and was nominated for four more, including for best picture and director. Here, it was a 2011 Golden Globe nominee for best foreign-language film. The film was number one at the French box office in 2009.

Musician Andrei Simoniovich Filipov (Alexei Guskov) now works as a janitor at the famous Russian Bolshoi orchestra. Thirty years earlier, he had been its conductor. However, Filipov was fired for defiantly hiring Jewish musicians, violating the policies of the Breshnev administration. Soviet officials shut down a concert midway and leave the conductor's career in ruins.

Intercepting an after-hours call from a famous Paris concert venue, frantically looking for worthy replacement for a last-minute cancellation by another renowned orchestra, Filipov seizes the opportunity. Posing as the Bolshoi's artistic director, he promises to be there despite the short notice. Topping it off, the Russian demands that the venue, the Chatelet Theater, hire a beautiful young French violin virtuoso (Melanie Laurent) to star as the soloist.

Read more at the Jewish Light by clicking on this link:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/entertainment/article_776557ae-6c29-11e0-9c8c-001cc4c002e0.html

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Javier Bardem's haunting performance makes Inarritu's 'Biutiful' compelling

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A

Spanish actor Jarvier Bardem weaves a haunting portrayal of a devoted single father struggling on society's edge in modern Barcelona. Mexican director/writer Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, who grabbed audiences' attention with his remarkable three-part tale “Amores Perros” (“Life's a Bitch”), again creates intersecting stories but squarely puts the focus on Bardem, as a father dying of cancer while trying to do right by his kids.

Bardem took best actor honors at Cannes for his moving performance and “Biutiful” has garnered an Oscar nomination. The striking, gifted actor stunned audiences in his portrayal of a real-life quadriplegic fighting for the right to die in the Oscar-winning “The Sea Inside” but many know him best for his relentless killer with the bowl haircut in “No Country for Old Men.”

The film opens with a beautiful, dream-like scene in a snowy forest, the meaning of which does not become clear until the film's end. It abruptly switches to a doctor's office, where the single father is stunned by his terminal diagnosis. Confiding in no one, Uxbal (Bardem) stoically goes about his life, sweetly caring for his growing daughter Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) and young son Mateo (Guillermo Estrella) in his tiny apartment. The film's odd title comes from a misspelled word scrawled on a child's drawing.

Uxbal eeks out a living using his unique gift, the ability to communicate with the newly-dead, supplemented by fees for providing services to the city's illegal immigrants.

Bardem plays a man seeking a kind of redemption in life's twilight. Uxbal has no time to be sick, juggling various money-making schemes and coping with his mentally-unstable, unreliable ex-wife Marambra (Maricel Alvarez). It is clear he has a checkered past but now Uxbal is just devoted to creating some kind of stable life for his kids.

Unlike the director's “Amores Perros,” which was peppered with dark humor, “Biutiful” is a heartbreaking drama, even grim at times. Yet the story becomes inspiring in the hands of the incomparable Bardem, aided by the director's occasional visual excursions into the fantastical, like vivid blue butterflies unexpectedly clustered on a ceiling. 

Read more at the Current:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/javier-bardems-haunting-performance-lifts-biutiful/

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Ed Harris, Colin Farrell escape Siberian gulag in Peter Weir's 'The Way Back'

by Cate Marquis

Grade: B +

The phrase “exiled to Siberia” still resonates as a severe sentence from which one does not return. For decades, Russia, and then the Soviet Union, exiled criminals and political prisoners, anyone deemed undesirable, to the remote, cold region of Siberia.

“The Way Back” is an epic adventure about such an escape from Siberia - cross-country on foot. The Oscar-nominated film is directed by the award-winning Peter Weir, who is no stranger to epics, having directed "Master And Commander" and “Gallipolli.”

Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong and Jim Sturgess play members of an international band of prisoners escaping from a gulag during World War II, in one impressive tale of survival.

Based on Slavomir Rawicz's acclaimed book "The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom" and on other real-life experiences, this is indeed a long walk, thousands of miles.

The reason Siberia was such a harsh sentence is not just its coldness but its remote isolation. As one character notes, the prison walls in Siberia do not need to be strong because the whole countryside is the prison. In a sparsely-populated land with a harsh climate, hundreds of miles from anywhere, the few local people easily recognize outsiders. Bounties for escapees ensure they are reported.

Life is harsh in the ramshackle, overcrowded gulag. Prisoners starve on the meager rations, develop night-blindness and other illnesses from nutritional deficiencies. They wear filthy rags, infested with lice and fights break out over the warmer rags. Criminal gangs dominate the rickety barracks. New arrival Janusz (Jim Sturgess), a Pole from a wooded region of the newly-occupied Poland, thinks only of return to Poland. A flinty older American prisoner, who only gives his name as Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), offers to help organize an escape, noting the Pole's backwoods skills and one “weakness” - kindness - might be useful for the older man's survival.

Read more at the Current:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/the-way-back-is-epic-adventure-set-against-awe-inspiring-landscape/

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In 'The King's Speech,' Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter sparkle

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A

Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter sparkle in the amusing yet uplifting history-based “The King's Speech,” one of 2010's best films and a heavy Oscar contender.

In the 1920s, radio is a new medium. The younger son of Britain's King George, the Duke of York (Colin Firth), is called on to give a speech at the closing of a grand exposition in London. But the speech reveals, in humiliatingly public fashion, what the royal family had known although the public had not - the prince stutters.

“The King's Speech” is based on a lesser-known side of famous historical events. King George VI, father of the present Queen, ascended the throne on the verge of World War II, when his brother Edward VIII gave up the throne to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. This film explores the personal journey of the man who never expected to be king.

As the younger prince, Bertie, as his family called him, had eluded the public spotlight, amply filled by his aging father King George V (Michael Gambon) and playboy brother Crown Prince Edward (Guy Pearce). Bertie quietly had carved out a career as a naval officer and was raising his two daughters, Elizabeth (Freya Wilson) and Margaret (Ramona Marquez), with his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter).

(Read more...)

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© Cate Marquis

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Skarsgard is more than charming in bone-dry Norwegian crime comedy 'A Somewhat Gentle Man'

by Cate Marquis

Grade: B +

A ex-gangster fresh from prison and trying to rebuild a life does not sound like the premise of a comedy but in the hands of actor Stellen Skarsgard, the Norwegian “A Somewhat Gentle Man” is indeed funny stuff, although the humor is of the bone-dry variety.

“A Somewhat Gentle Man” is building a following as an art-house favorite. Scandinavian comedies trend towards the “how could it get worse but it does” variety, revealing an absurdist, sarcastic comic bent. “A Somewhat Gentle Man” has this sly, tongue-in-cheek trait but this crime comedy also has heart and an unlikely charm.

Ulrik is an ex-gangster newly released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. In truth, the sad-faced, middle-aged Ulrik hardly looks a killer. When a kindly prison guard hands him a beer as he as Ulrik is about to exit the gate, he also adds a recommendation not to come back. “Don't look back,” the guard say, and the ex-con looks likely to take that advice.

Yet the first thing Ulrik does is head for the hangout of his old crime boss Jensen (Bjorn Floberg), a coffee shop where the small-time gangster holds court. No one is there to meet him, just as no one waited at the prison gate. When his boss shows up, he says he was expecting him tomorrow. It becomes a running theme, everyone is expecting him the next day, the next month.

Jensen wants Ulrik to take revenge on the guy whose testimony sent him to prison. Meanwhile, he has found Ulrik a job as a mechanic and a place to stay. Ulrik is less keen on the idea of revenge, and is more interested in meeting his now-grown son Geir (Jan Gunnar Roise). But he quietly goes along with Jensen's plan.

The apartment actually is a utility room in the basement of the boss's rude, slovenly sister (Jorunn Kjellsby). She is not nice to Ulrik but she expects sexual benefits as part of the deal. The mechanic job is slightly better, but he works with the garage's oddball owner Sven (Bjorn Sundquist) and pretty but distant secretary Merete (Jannike Kruse). The garage has little business. Everyone warns him to stay away from the secretary.

The whole dryly comic, twisting tale unfolds through city streets dotted with huge piles of half-melted snow, the dregs of winter's end.

The film is packed with off-beat comic bits, like the Polish “Dancing with the Stars” that Ulrik's tiny TV picks up. The dry comedy runs throughout but the story is also engaging and often touching, as Ulrik discovers his own way.

Skarsgard's deadpan comic presence is perfect. He creates a more than somewhat appealing character in the quiet Ulrik, giving him an unexpected charm. Skarsgard milks every comic and dramatic moment.

Ulrik passively goes along but sometimes he tries to connect with his grown son, who lives in an apartment nearby with his girlfriend. Meanwhile his boss keeps arranging for Ulrik's unwanted revenge, all the while complaining about how things are not like the old days. All his underlings are dead or middle-aged wrecks tottering on walkers, young criminals show no respect, he grumbles. “Once crime was all Norwegian, now the Lapps run the gun trade,” he mutters.

The story constantly surprises, never going where one expects. There are twists around every corner, both for Ulrik's personal life and in the unfolding crime tale.

“A Somewhat Gentle Man” is a completely enjoyable film. The film, in Norwegian with English subtitles, played at the Tivoli Theater.

© Cate Marquis

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Portman astounds in Aronofsky's ballet-themed psychological thriller 'Black Swan'

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A

Director Darren Aronofsky, whose first film was the Kaballah-themed thriller “Pi,” appears to have an Oscar contender on his hands with his latest, the ballet-themed psychological thriller “Black Swan.”

Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman heads up a mostly Jewish American cast that includes Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey and Ukrainian-born Mila Kunis. Portman plays a repressed perfectionist ballerina, Nina Sayers, who has been tapped for her first prima ballerina role in “Swan Lake” for a New York ballet troupe, replacing the troupe's aging star Beth MacIntyre, played by Ryder.

Hershey plays the new star's chillingly controlling stage mother Erica. Portman's character Nina is only tentatively given the lead by the troupe's artistic director Thomas Leroy (French actor Vincent Cassel). He feels she is perfect for the innocent White Swan role but she must prove she is capable of playing the role of her evil twin, the Black Swan, as well. Meanwhile, Nina's replacement, bold newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis) is in the wings, a dancer well-suited for the Black Swan role.

“Black Swan” is a mad, terrifying thriller, a visually astounding tour-de-force of startling images and remarkable scenes, as much horror movie as ballet film. It has electrified audiences at Sundance and other film festivals, including the recently concluded St. Louis International Film Festival here. The film's emotional power and creative artistry has been the spark that generated that Oscar buzz.

Anyone expecting a sweet, pretty story with lots of gorgeous dance sequences is in for a shock.

Read more by following this link to the St. Louis Jewish Light:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/entertainment/article_3c976574-02fa-11e0-b6e9-001cc4c002e0.html

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Sean Penn, Naomi Watts shine in Doug Limon's tale of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame 'Fair Game'

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A

Doug Liman, who directed “The Bourne Identity,” certainly knows how to craft a spy thriller. The director assembled a sterling cast, headed by Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, for his excellent new political thriller “Fair Game.”

The film is based on the 2003 outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by a member of the Bush administration after her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, was publicly critical of faulty intelligence being used to win public support for invading Iraq. Several CIA operations were comprised and people died after Plame's true identity was leaked to a newspaper. Although Bush official Scooter Libby was convicted and served time, many thought that other higher-ups in the Bush administration were involved.

But “Fair Game” is less about all that than the enormous pressure applied by the government to silence one man, in the discussion in the run-up to war. Although the focus is on the personal story, the subject may deter film-goers who remain Bush supporters.

To neighbors and friends, Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) and his wife Valerie Plame Wilson (Naomi Watts) are ordinary people in affluent Georgetown, although Valerie travels a lot for her work. Valerie's family, of course, knows she works for the CIA but little else about her work.

Read more at the Current by following this link:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/fair-game-drama-of-cia-agent-outed-under-bush

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Sophia Coppola's 'Somewhere' paints surprisingly poignant portrait of empty Hollywood life

by Cate Marquis

Grade: B +

Sophia Coppola created an indelible impression with “Lost in Translation,” which featured a fading Hollywood star and a photographer's young wife, at loose ends in Tokyo. There is a bit of that film's sense of being alone in a crowd, although without the romantic undertones, in Coppola's new film “Somewhere.” The film won the Golden Lion at the 2010 Venice film festival.

But this poignant drama of emotional longing, with dark comic touches, centers not on a fading star but a Hollywood action movie star at his peak fame.

In the opening scene, movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) drives his expensive sports car around a circular track, driving in and out of frame, literally driving in circles. Early on, he falls and breaks his arm in the company of a party of drunken hangers-on, something he takes with a strangely passive acceptance.

Johnny has wealth, fame and every creature comfort, including an endless stream of beautiful blondes to occupy his bed, yet there is a sense of emptiness about him. He seems to be drifting directionless through life, with no real home, cycling through a series of posh hotels where he seems to be a regular. The blondes who pass in and out his bed look so much alike, they almost seem like the same person. He is surrounded by hangers-on, partying in his room, but his connections to them seem tenuous and he seems to have nothing to say. His routine is broken only by calls from his agent, sending him on rounds of media junkets to promote his recent film, publicity he dutifully shows up for when his agent sends a car.

Yet Johnny is awakened from this comfortable but sleepwalking life by an unexpected arrival, a hint of family life in the form of his sweet, unassuming eleven-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning).

Read more at the Current by clicking on link below:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/sophia-coppolas-somewhere-paints-surprisingly-poignant-portrait-of-empty-hollywood-life

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‘Restrepo’ gives gripping immediacy of soldiers’ war


by Cate Marquis

The documentary “Restrepo” uses the hand-held camera technique we so often see in fictional war films, but here the soldiers we follow are real and so is the danger they face, terrifyingly so.

Writer/journalist Sebastian Junger, who penned the non-fiction bestseller “The Perfect Storm,” and cameraman/photojournalist Tim Hetherington are embedded with a unit on its way to Afghanistan. When plans were made, the Second Platoon’s destination was expected to be a safe, backwater location far from action. Instead, the Korengal valley became one of the war’s hottest spots.

The Second Platoon is tasked with building an outpost on high ground, a spot with a commanding view of the valley, despite constant enemy fire. They name the outpost for a charismatic platoon medic who was killed in the first days in country.

A documentary with searing emotional immediacy, “Restrepo” takes us into the Afghanistan war through the eyes of soldiers on the ground. The film is non-political, has no structuring view, just events unfolding as they do for these soldiers. “Restrepo” was a winner at the Sundance Film Festival and a hotly sought-after ticket when it played the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Mo., earlier this year.

Through the documentary, the audience lives with these young men. Viewers see them at their best and their worst, happy and silly as they kid around, scared or enraged in the heat of a fire fight. Junger and Hetherington lived side by side with the unit for a year, as the soldiers built an outpost and defended it, endured boredom and lost comrades, and waited for their time to be up.

The strength of “Restrepo” is that it has no agenda and no filter. It is only the soldiers’ experiences. The soldiers talk frankly in studio interviews sprinkled in with the immediate war footage. No experts offer analysis and no generals are interviewed. What we get is the inescapable, day-by-day reality of the soldiers’ war. The point is to give the viewer the feeling of being there, bored or terrified.

Read more at the Current by clicking on link below:
 http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/restrepo-gives-gripping-immediacy-of-soldiers-war/)

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'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' is worthy start for two-part final installment

by Cate Marquis

Grade: B

The cast has remained largely the same but the series of “Harry Potter” films have had its ups-and-downs, as directors have come and gone. Fortunately, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” is one of the better installments, in the hands of director David Yates. The film is the first of two films covering the final book in the movie adaptations of J.K. Rowling's bestselling books.

Despite its two and a half hour length, the fact that “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” is the first of two is inescapable. Yet the movie is exciting and satisfying. The film's tone overall is quite dark, although there are a few moments of comic relief. The story of being on the run allows a dazzling array of breathtaking landscapes and visually dynamic effects, making the visual side of the film especially enjoyable.

The film's tone is also more grown-up, as the characters themselves have grown into young adults. Gone are the scenes of the old school, as now, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) send their families into hiding before escaping under cover themselves. They and their supporters are forced into hiding by the rising power of those linked to the shadowy Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). Arrayed against them are an army of darkness that includes that vision of evil in pink, Dolores Umbridge (the wonderful Imelda Stanton).

With Harry, Hermione and Ron on the run, the overwhelming feeling is foreboding, scenes are dark and music is eerie, as the heroes relentlessly seek the magical evil Horcruxes they must destroy to break the grip of evil.

Read more by clicking on this link to The Current:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/dark-eerie-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-begins-wind-up-of-series

© The Current

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Oscar-winner 'Inside Job' has the inside scoop on why no bailed-out Wall Street bankers went to jail

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A


Many are outraged that following Wall Street meltdown that crashed our economy, no financial executives went to jail. Many have wondered “why?”

“Inside Job” has the answer. This well-researched, clearly-presented documentary won this year's Oscar for Best Documentary and is now playing at the Tivoli Theater. “Inside Job” presents a thorough examination of the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression.

When filmmaker Charles Ferguson accepted his Oscar for “Inside Job,” he began his acceptance speech by reminding everyone that “not a single financial executive has gone to jail.”

“Inside Job” is a documentary every American should see, although it is likely to leave one outraged.

This is a highly-watchable, even entertaining film despite the subject. It is the first complete analysis of the Wall Street debacle that led to the worst depression since the 1930s. What happened on Wall Street led to the collapse of the housing market, caused millions to lose their jobs, foreclosure rates to soar, slashed retirement funds and caused the global economy to teeter on the brink of collapse.

Ferguson has done exemplary research and presents a fact-filled, thorough investigation. The writer/director lets the facts, and the people involved, speak for themselves. The audience can draw their own conclusions. Some of the most damning words come from the mouths of those involved directly in the mess. There is plenty of blame for both political parties.

Despite its mountain of facts, Ferguson's film is emotionally involving as well as intellectually engrossing, thanks to skillful use of visuals, interviews and unobtrusive narration by Matt Damon.

Ferguson casts a wide net in unraveling this puzzle. Like historical investigator, Ferguson follows the paper trail to uncover the causes. The film features interviews with a number of significant figures, including financial insiders, politicians, journalists and academics, and presents telling documents that reveals the wild-west nature of the big money financial world. The in-depth research reveals a pile of corruption and collusion stretching through the society.

The film opens by using Iceland as example, a foreshadowing of what happened on a larger scale here. Before 2000, Iceland was stable, low debt country with high per capita income and plentiful natural resources. In 2000, Iceland was persuaded that deregulation would boost their economy even further.

Deregulation led to a flood of multinationals in the country but more significantly, banks that had been just Icelandic-based suddenly began borrowing huge amounts of money. At the same time, they started paying financial executives enormous compensation, creating instant millionaires.

As some got astoundingly rich on the banking changes and multinational accounting firms raised these banks' ratings to the highest level, leading to more investor money. When it all collapsed, ordinary Icelanders lost pensions and savings, as their economy collapsed. But banks were bailed out and bankers' wealth remained intact.

Basically, it is like a Ponzi scheme - the thing that sent Bernie Madoff to jail. But because this money purchased investments, albeit shaky ones with overrated value, technically it is not a Ponzi scheme - therefore not illegal. Just gaming the system.

One of the most disturbing facts revealed in “Inside Job” is that not only did many of those responsible for this financial debacle emerge with their own fortunes intact but they are still in positions of power. Little has been done to prevent a repeat disaster.

This may seem like unpleasant medicine but people should want to know when they are being robbed. Ignorance is not bliss but an invitation to more looting. “Inside Job”is the one film every American should see this year.

© Cate Marquis

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Kevin Spacey in Hickenlooper's 'Casino Jack' presents Abramoff story as comedy

by Cate Marquis

Maybe director George Hickenlooper was thinking that if we didn't laugh, we'd cry.

Hickenlooper's film about convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, “Casino Jack,” is essentially a comedy, rather than the outraged drama one would typically expect for a re-telling of a big Washington corruption scandal. By focusing on the whole climate of too-cozy lobbyist-Congressional dealings and presenting Abramoff, played with sly, winking style by Kevin Spacey, as both self-deluded and arrogantly self-confident, Hickenlooper makes the most sympathetic movie one could make about the convicted lobbyist.

Likely you will remember Abramoff, the high-rolling Bush era lobbyist with links to Tom DeLay who, together with Michael Scanlon, took millions from Native American tribes on behalf of their casinos, while playing the tribes off each other and describing them in offensive terms behind their backs. A darling of the Republican Christian Right, the Ivy-league educated and Jewish Abramoff was someone who could fit right in with prayer breakfasts yet was at home with old-money Republicans like the Bushes. Getting embroiled in a scheme to buy into floating casinos led ultimately to the super-lobbyist's downfall.

Abramoff's fellow masters of the universe were his lobbying partner Mike Scanlon (played by Barry Pepper) and House Majority Whip Tom Delay (a splendid Spencer Garrett). Grover Norquist (Jeffrey R. Smith), Ralph Reed (Christian Campbell) and Congressman Bob Ney (Jeff Pustil) round out the power players, while Graham Greene plays one of the tribal leaders who sees through Abramoff's lobbying spin. Over-the-top Jon Lovitz is perfectly cast as a sleazy business partner Abramoff takes on as the floating casino front. Kelly Preston and Rachelle Lefevre play Abramoff's wife Pam and Scanlon's girlfriend, respectively.

Unfortunately, Alex Gibney's documentary, “Casino Jack and the United States of Money” never made it here to give us the rest of the story to compare to this fictionalized version.

Rather than presenting Abramoff and his cronies as masterminds, the director portrays them more as clueless boobs caught up in a corrupt and corrupting system. The film's tone is mostly humorous but it also obliquely condemns a system that includes corrupt Congressmen, a method for financing elections that is inherently corrupting and the way in which the constitutional guarantee of voter access to elected officials has been morphed into a restrictive pay-to-play.

Making this true story into a fictionalized comedy is a rather odd choice and frankly does not entirely work. Still, the film features some memorable performances, notably by Spacey, as well as strong turns by Barry Pepper and Spencer Garrett's chillingly effective Tom DeLay. “Casino Jack” is likely George Hickenlooper's best film, as well as his last, since the St. Louis-born director tragically died suddenly, just before he was scheduled to attend the debut his new film in his home town.

The director continually contrasts Abramoff's efforts to cast himself as a good family man with his deceitful behavior in business. Spacey's Abramoff tries to do right by his family and community, an observant Jew who dreams of building a Hebrew school and opening a kosher restaurant. But Hickenlooper also establishes Abramoff's arrogant sense of entitlement and his capacity for self-delusion in the opening scene, where Abramoff gives himself a strange, defiant pep talk while brushing his teeth.

Abramoff and Scanlon have supreme confidence in their ability to talk their way out of anything and fool everyone yet fail to see the flashing warning signs. As Abramoff takes his wife on a tour of the building that he hope to turn into a school, a Zamboni machine is delivered for a yet-to-be-built hockey rink, prompting her to ask if that is why they are late on the mortgage, a little foreshadowing of the country's future woes.

Hickenlooper not only finds the absurdly comic side to Abramoff's unlikely combination of good family man goals and his ruthless, unethical business methods but also makes the point that Abramoff's pay-to-play schemes were the norm for lobbying rather than one greedy guy's style. The whole story is suffused with the greedy hyper-consumerism and get- rich-no-matter-what smugness that dominated the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, until the economic crash made overspending less fashionable.

Ultimately, “Casino Jack” is strangely entertaining, although most worth seeing for Kevin Spacey's outstanding performance. While it is not the year's best, the film is worthwhile for its acting and almost bizarre approach to its subject, although one might want to follow that up with the documentary “Casino Jack and the United States of Money” for a balancing dose of reality.

© Cate Marquis

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James Franco's astounding acting, Danny Boyle's visual fireworks transform '127 Hours' into exhilarating, inspiring adventure

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A

A tale about a man trapped in a canyon might not sound like a promising film premise but in the hands of “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle and actor James Franco, it becomes a soaring, visual wilderness adventure.

“127 Hours” is both terrifying and inspiring, thanks to creative direction by Oscar-winner Boyle and riveting acting by Franco. The film is based on hiker Aron Ralston's real-life ordeal with his arm pinned by a boulder in a narrow canyon near Moab, Utah in 2003. Those who remember Ralston's story know that ending but “127 Hours” is so gripping one feels exhilarated and uplifted anyway.

The real key is the combination of James Franco's tour-de-force acting and Boyle's highly-visual approach, which opens up the experience. Trapped in a narrow canyon, Aron (James Franco) tries various tactics to escape but also dreams, daydreams, fantasizes and hallucinates. This inner life is presented in soaring visuals, a vivid, color-drenched kaleidoscope of experience.

Opening scenes give a sense of who Aron is. There is an montage as he prepares for a weekend adventure in the canyon lands. The young engineer who aspires to be a wilderness guide has all the self-confidence and top-notch equipment of a skilled outdoors man. In a boisterous sequence, where he meets a two young women hikers (Kate Burton and Amber Tamblyn), there is a glimpse of his charm and playful sense of humor, as well as his tendency to take risks.

Unlike the minimally-skilled, ill-equipped character in “Into the Wild,” Aron has the gear and the skills. He is serious about what he is doing and knows the terrain. He just overlooked two things: letting someone know where he was going and taking a sharp knife.

A freak accident traps the practical-minded Aron. With his hand between a fallen rock and the hard place of the canyon wall, the engineer outdoorsman coolly assesses his situation by laying out all his tools and equipment. He is frustrated but does not blame the world for his situation.

Aron turns his video camera on himself, to leave a record in case he does not survive, then sets out to ensure he does. His own resourcefulness and cool-headedness are the keys to his survival but the film gives us both his ingenuity and his humanity.

Aron's narration for his camera, sometimes with bursts of humor, provides a dialog of his thoughts and feelings, and the energetic music on his headphones adds a musical score.

READ MORE AT THE CURRENT BY FOLLOWING THE LINK BELOW:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/danny-boyles-127-hours/

© The Current

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'Blue Valentine' packs plenty of blues but little valentine for Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams

by Cate Marquis

Grade: B

The Sundance hit “Blue Valentine” features two of today's hottest young actors, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. This emotional drama earns kudos for being a serious effort although the story about a disintegrating marriage is familiar, from previous films like “Scenes from a Marriage.”

“Blue Valentine's” casting has generated a great deal of interest but anyone hoping for a more romantic tale may be disappointed by this sorrowful tale. While the sequences about their unraveling relationship are more slice-of-life, and even pedestrian at points, the film's flashbacks to their young love has some truly magical moments, so much so that you wish more of the footage lingered on that time.

This is not a happy movie and often not easy to watch. This is definitely not a date movie.

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, play Cindy and Dean, a young working-class couple raising a young daughter outside a small rural town. Dean is a hard-drinking house painter whose childishly goofy behavior with their little girl (Faith Wladyka) irritates his wife, a nurse who feels forced to always play the grown-up. Yet Dean clearly dotes on the little girl and is settled in his life.

READ MORE AT THE CURRENT:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/blue-valentine-packs-romantic-blues

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Facebook movie 'Social Network' exceeds all expectations in hands of Fincher,  Sorkin and Eisenberg

by Cate Marquis

Grade: A

Some films are so talked about and hyped yet when finally released, they are big let-downs. The Facebook movie “The Social Network” is not one of those. In fact, it exceeds expectations.

Whether one cares about Facebook or not, this is a film not to miss.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg refused to cooperate with director David Fincher and, in fact, threatened legal action. Yet this actually worked in Fincher's favor, as this is not a documentary but a fictional film inspired by real events.

Working only with the public facts freed Fincher to go beyond the facts of one story to build a universal tale of ambition and ruthlessness. Fincher and scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin (“West Wing”) invent rich characters and create revealing scenes to craft an astounding film. “The Social Network” is almost Shakespearean and a flawless piece of film-making.

“The Social Network” seizes immediately on the irony of a socializing website created by an unsociable character. The film opens with Harvard computer science major Mark Zuckerberg is being dumped by his girlfriend. It brilliantly sets the tone for the story and outlines Mark's complex character, as he bounces back and forth between sarcastically picking her apart and needy clinging.

READ MORE AT THE CURRENT:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/facebook-movie-impresses

© The Current

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‘Inception’ breaks through with innovation, originality

By Cate Marquis

Grade: A


Summer had settled into its movie doldrums of sequels, remakes and rehashed ideas, while the intelligent speculative fiction thriller “Inception” has blown in a fresh breeze of innovation.

The clever, original thriller about industrial espionage through invading dreams, “Inception,” is a revelation, and a promise fulfilled.

Christopher Nolan, director of “The Dark Knight” and “Memento,” offers a film that is not the technical marvel like the 3D “Avatar” and is not in fact a 3D movie at all, but is a fresh, imaginative film, something increasingly rare from Hollywood.

Both brainy and entertaining, “Inception” is speculative fiction, “what-if” science fiction, in the manner of author Philip K. Dick, who penned such mind-twisters as the basis for cult-favorite “Blade Runner.” Nolan co-wrote this screenplay but it shares Dick’s tendency to explore philosophical and humanly emotional issues within a science fiction setting.

(Read more at the Current by clicking on this link:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/inception-breaks-through-summer-doldrums-with-innovation-originality/)

© The Current

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Sam Rockwell, Hilary Swank are unwavering in true-story 'Conviction'

by Cate Marquis

After some less-than-stellar roles, Oscar-winner Hilary Swank has a winner in the fact-based drama “Conviction.” With help from under-rated actor Sam Rockwell, Swank plays a woman so devoted to her older brother and so convinced of his innocence that she goes to remarkable heights to free him from an unjust conviction.

The title refers not just to her brother's situation but her unshakable belief in his innocence. To free him, this working class high school drop-out goes back to school, then college and law school, although she sacrifices nearly everything along the way.

Being fact-based can give a film extra energy and it is a remarkable and uplifting human story. But “Conviction's” realism and emotional restraint help it avoid the pitfalls of pat emotionality that seems to sink so many movies of this type. As a result, “Conviction” is one of those films that is better than expected.

Growing up poor in rural Massachusetts, the children of a neglectful mother, Betty Ann and Kenny had only each other. Older brother Kenny is Betty Ann's indefatigable protector, doing everything he can to keep them together when the state occasionally intervenes. But Kenny is a born trouble-maker, a person given to happy impulsiveness. As an adult, Betty Ann can see her brother's self-destructive rebel tendencies for what they are, but nothing can break the bond between them. Meanwhile, Betty Ann marries and has two sons, escaping their messy childhood into a modest, stable life.

But all is derailed when an accusation from an ex-girlfriend and a resentful cop help convict Kenny for the murder of a neighbor. At trial, Kenny can hardly take things seriously, since he is innocent. Years of juvenile run-ins with the law has left Kenny suspicious and defiant of local law enforcement, which is no help either.

The surprise of Kenny's conviction and life sentence brings out a fierce need to help. Betty Ann is propelled into the unlikely plan of getting a law degree, all to free Kenny. She never questions Kenny's innocence.

Tony Goldwyn's directing is sure but never showy. The acting is what really makes the film. Not only the gifted Swank, who is as good as ever as the warm-hearted Betty Ann but Sam Rockwell, whose flexible skill as an actor and on-screen charm brings out Kenny's playful bad-boy and protective big brother in equal measure. Rockwell adds layers to the brother a lesser actor would never find. As the years drag on, Kenny starts wearing away, sometimes lifted by hope but slowly sinking further into depression with each setback.

Goldwyn assembled a remarkable supporting cast for this inspiring true story. Minnie Driver plays Abra, Betty Ann's law school friend and major support. Melissa Leo, who garnered an Oscar nomination for her role in 2008's “Frozen River,” plays a resentful small town cop and Karen Young plays their irresponsible mother.

The landscape is bleak but absolutely real, as are the characters. The beauty of the film is in its human emotion, and grim settings help better showcase the actors.

The story is a gripping hero quest as well as a tale of familial love and determination. In the hands of these skilled actors, it never rings false. While Hollywood films often use false sentiment, this film's careful restraint lets the story speak for itself. The realism of the characters and their lives is far more moving and involving than emotional grandstanding.

“Conviction” is a powerful but simple film about commitment and love, refreshingly real. It is likely to be one of the first contenders in the year-end awards season race.

© Cate Marquis

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'Girl Who Played With Fire' proves great thrillers aren't all Hollywood

by Cate Marquis

Grade: B+

“The Girl Who Played With Fire” is an edgy, riveting crime thriller with a unique brainy and tough female lead character, a tattooed computer expert with a shady past, a film that puts most other entertainment films in theaters this summer to shame. This top-quality crime tale has enough mystery and surprises to please any movie fan. It is the kind of production Hollywood used to do so well yet delightful entertainment treat is no Hollywood movie - it is Swedish.

“The Girl Who Played With Fire” is the next film in the series based on the bestsellers by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. Like the first film, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which is now playing locally at the Hi Pointe Theater, it is an international hit. As a gritty crime thriller, it is not dialog-heavy, so reading subtitles is less of an issue, but the well-crafted, unpredictable plot certainly gives those who like to tackle a puzzle more to work on than the average thriller. Seeing the first film is a plus but this new one stands on its own.

Read the full review in the Current:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/%E2%80%98girl-who-played-with-fire%E2%80%99-proves-fast-paced-thriller/

© The Current

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Sundance hit 'Winter's Bone,' shot in Missouri Ozarks, reveals hidden world

by Cate Marquis

Authenticity and strong acting are the lynch pins of “Winter's Bone,” the audience favorite at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

“Winter's Bone” is based on the novel by Ozark-based author Daniel Woodrell, a story of courage and determination by a 17 year old Ozark girl. The story was inspired by real events and the hard lives of the traditional old families of rural western Arkansas-Missouri Ozarks, an area of early settlers among the hills and hollows, sharing cultural links with Appalachia in a line of migration stretching back through Kentucky and Tennessee. It is traditional world suspicious of outsiders, oppressed by poverty, but also one that preserves folk ways and music, values self-sufficiency and the bonds of blood relations. Now that old way of life is being ravaged by methamphetamine.

Filmed on location, in the Ozarks bordering Missouri and Arkansas, by director/co-writer Debra Granik after two years' immersion in the culture, “Winter's Bone” takes us inside a little-known world, not as outsiders but through the eyes of one of their own. Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence, in a star-making performance) is 17-year old girl from an old Ozark family who forced by circumstances to navigate through her own insular community, now breaking down under the sway of drugs, in search of her missing meth-cooking father. Ree cares for her 12 year old brother, 6 year old sister and nearly catatonic mother, possibly brain-damaged from the meth trade. Her father Jessup Dolly has built a reputation as a skillful cooker of meth but since his last arrest has now gone missing, after putting up the family farmstead for bond.

To hold out to the only thing they have, Ree must find him. Ree learns of the situation when Sherrif Baskin (Garret Dillahunt) comes to their backwoods cabin. But admitting anything to outsiders or enlisting their help is out of the question. To find answers, Ree must work within her own community.

The story unfolds like a mystery but at heart it is a hero's quest, with a relentless protagonist who must meet every challenge with courage and resourcefulness. In this case, the quest falls on the thin shoulders of a girl, tramping through the woods to knock on doors seeking answers while still juggling to responsibilities of caring for her family.

This is a chilly winter's tale, with bare trees and gray-brown earth. Anyone who has driven the back roads of the Ozarks will recognize that the film was shot on location and that care was taken to preserve its authentic look. The filmmaker had to work hard to avoid showing how pretty to area actually is, as too much natural beauty would have broken to film's dark tone. The practical clothes, the well-worn toys and ramshackle homes crowded with accumulated possessions like crocheted shawls and old photos add to the convincing feel of the film.

As she asks questions no one wants to answer, Ree's strength is revealed. In a traditional culture that discourages both intrusion and boldness in women, Ree must brings her questions to ruthless, violent people involved in the drug trade, although nearly everyone of them is also related to her.

Among the scariest people in this tale are her Uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes), her father's older brother, whom she first asks for help before setting out on her own. Ree often invokes kinship as she seeks answers but her position as a woman is embodied in the response of Merab (Dale Dickey), wife of the local kingpin: “don't you have no men folk can do this?” Her pleas for help always start with women, including her married half-sister Gail (Lauren Sweetser), but their ability to help is restricted by their place in society.

Many times she is reminded that by asking too many questions, that she may wind up “et by hogs,” a favorite way of drug lord Thump Milton (Ronnie Hall) to dispose of unwanted people.

Ree also confronts her father's drug-cooking partner Little Arthur (Kevin Breznahan) and eventually Thump, a man dressed on cowboy boots and Western finery, attending cattle auctions with an entourage of country toughs to rival any intercity gang. In fact, the parallels of this drug world to 1980s movies about drug-ravaged urban communities is striking.

Strong acting performances and a respect for the culture helps give this story gravitas. Jennifer Lawrence is remarkable but is greatly aided by John Hawkes, as Ree's hard, threatening Uncle Teardrop. The cast's mix of locals and actors boosts its authenticity.

But Ree's quest also explores her Ozark world, we she teaches her young siblings to hunt and where kindly neighbor Sonya (Shelley Waggoner) helps her out, taking in her beloved horse so it will not starve and bringing the family the making of a deer stew. Social exchanges take place in a polite, formal but dryly matter-of-fact manner, because this is a proud world, one where Ree cautions her younger brother “never ask for what ought be offered.”

The film captures the cadence and quirks of local speech, which sometimes makes the dialog difficult to follow but the director avoids cartoonish hillbilly accents. But most appealing is the traditional folk music at gatherings, where family and friends becomes singers, banjo players and fiddlers.

"Winter's Bone" is a movie that stands up to multiple viewings, for the little-seen world it explores and for the well-acted story of determination. It is an early favorite among critics for awards this year.

© Cate Marquis

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Israeli documentary 'A Film Unfinished' is striking re-examination of a Nazi propaganda film

 
by Cate Marquis

Earlier this year, a powerful Israeli documentary about an unfinished Nazi propaganda film about the Warsaw ghetto was grabbing widespread attention in the media and at Jewish film festivals around the country. It garnered awards at Sundance and other film festivals.

Now this remarkable examination of the making of a propaganda film, “A Film Unfinished,” is making its way here, opening November 24 at the Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

The key to Israeli director Yael Hersonski's striking new film is a reel of new footage recently discovered, which reveals the hand of the Nazi propagandists in manipulating what we see on screen.

As the filmmaker tells us, the Nazis were inordinately obsessed with film and with record-keeping of their evil acts. The footage first found for the incomplete propaganda film was discovered in a bunker of film stock in East Germany after the war. The hour-long black and white rough cut, simply labeled “The Ghetto,” has no sound and no opening or closing credits. The footage was shot in the Warsaw ghetto in May 1942, two years after the ghetto was established and three months before it was closed and its inhabitants sent to the camps. At the time, about half a million Jews were crammed into about 3 square miles, as yet unaware of the future.

What was intended to tell the Nazi's version of events became source material for historians. Since its discovery, the footage had been regarded as a record of life in the Warsaw ghetto. Many scenes have appeared as archival footage in various contexts.

Yet the recent discovery of a reel of outtakes, of multiple takes of scenes, reveals that far more of the footage was staged than had previous been believed. As awful as things appear, in many cases they were worse.

The resulting film is a remarkable combination of artistic presentation and a thoughtful exploration of a historical record once thought fully examined.

It uses excerpts from the propaganda film and its outtakes, including some color footage, along with actors' readings from historical documents and contemporary commentary from survivors of the ghetto.

The visual presentation of this powerful documentary is striking.

TO READ MORE, FOLLOW LINK TO THE ST. LOUIS JEWISH LIGHT:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/entertainment/article_9a31e708-e83e-11df-a9d4-001cc4c03286.html

© St. Louis Jewish Light

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'Girl with Dragon Tattoo' mixes tattooed hacker, murder, Nazis and 40 year-old mystery to craft taut thriller

by Cate Marquis

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is an entertaining crime thriller, based on a bestselling novel, with an engrossing plot built around a 40-year old mystery, computer hacking and a wealthy family with a Nazi past.

The book is an international bestseller, so it was inevitable that someone would make this intriguing mystery into a movie. However, the Swedes beat Hollywood to it, so be prepared to read subtitles. However, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” now playing at Plaza Frontenac, is well worth the extra effort.

There is a bit of “La Femme Nikita” and gender role-reversal in this off-beat crime tale, pairing a tattooed computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander (the striking Noomi Rapace), a researcher with a shady past working for a private security company, and Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a journalist framed in a libel case against a powerful businessman. With six months of freedom before he starts serving his sentence, Blomkvist is hired by an elderly wealthy Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Vanger's 16-year-old niece Harriet (Ewa Frohling) in 1966.

To read more, follow link to the Current:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/bestseller-%E2%80%98girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo%E2%80%99-makes-taut-thriller/

© The Current

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'50s stylish 'A Single Man' explores grief in closeted world

by Cate Marquis

In “A Single Man,” actor Colin Firth turns in a remarkable performance as a middle-aged college professor, George Falconer, secretly grappling with his grief over the lost of the love of his life, in a film that also features breathtakingly beautiful visual images. The grief is secret because his lost love is another man, and the story is set in homophobic 1962. The script is based on a story by writer Christopher Isherwood, who also wrote “Berlin Stories,” the basis for “Cabaret.”

“A Single Man” is set in the earlier time when even a hint of being gay could mean a lost job and exclusion from society. The film opens with the death of the professor's long-time companion Jim (Matthew Goode), as George (Colin Firth) comes to grips with the anguish he is not permitted to openly express. The professor is a bespectacled, reserved British ex-pat living a quiet closeted life in the suburbs, where he keeps his private life discretely hidden. He and his long-time companion shared a house but nothing in public called attention to the idea they might be more than just roommates.

For the most part, George is alone in facing his grief but he does have one friend nearby who knows the truth. Flamboyant, artistic Charley (Julianne Moore), another British ex-pat, is his closest friend and with her, he can share some of his pain. But their shared history is complicated and strained further by her own self-absorption.

Although the story is about a gay man, and has some social commentary on that, the larger focus is on the human experience. Along with Firth's Oscar worthy work, Julianne Moore delivers a striking performance as the fiery, needy Charley, a mix of affection and selfishness.

One of the most stunning things about this excellent, heart-rending drama is the remarkable dream-like and lovely photography. Beginning with an opening sequence underwater, images that capture the emotion of a person drowning in a sorrow that must be kept hidden, the cinematography both skillfully conveys the plot and the feelings of the moment while adding sheer visual beauty. Director/writer Tom Ford, better known for costume design and his business turnaround of Gucci, does an amazing job in his directorial debut.

The emotionally-moving story is told through one day of the professor's struggle to keep going, with flashbacks to memories, including meeting his lost love and their life together. Although his day starts grimly but small events throughout the day, an encounter with a little girl at a bank, kindness from a student, an evening with a old friend, add a more reflective, philosophical and even hopeful layers to his experiences in the bittersweet day. We are left to ponder our common humanity, no matter who different we seem, and our common mortality but also the power of small kindnesses.

Strong acting from both Julianne Moore and Colin Firth, coupled with the lovely photography and skillful, thought-provoking direction, “A Single Man” is moving drama well worth seeing. It is now playing at Plaza Frontenac.

Reprinted with permission from The Current.  © The Current

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'An Education' offers seduction, education in 'Mad Men' early '60s

by Cate Marquis

There are many ways to get an education, through schooling or life experience. That is a major theme in the excellent film “An Education,” which stars former St. Louisan Peter Saarsgaard and gifted newcomer Carey Mulligan.

If you are a fan of “Mad Men,” this early '60s set British film will seduce you as well. In fact, “An Education” is one of the best films this year. Starting with a screenplay by Nick Hornby, director Lone Scherfig has crafted a visually beautiful, intelligent film around a coming-of-age story that garnered prizes and won over audiences at Sundance.

In early '60s London, bright but sheltered teenager Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is dazzled by a smooth, cultured thirty-year old man. Handsome, worldly David (Peter Sarsgaard) is so very different than anyone in Jenny's world, like an enticing open door to cultural riches and an exciting adult life. Gifted and precocious, and on her way to Oxford, Jenny lives a restricted life attending an exclusive girls school that is just within reach of her modestly middle-class, culturally-narrow parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour). David seems exciting and exotic, a Jewish man in her Church of England life, with a knowledge of art, travel and fine wine, someone who drives a sports car and spends weekends in Paris.

While we in the audience see the sly craft that young Jenny misses in David's smooth seduction, his casual use of apparent chance meetings and even manipulation her unsophisticated parents by playing on their wish not to appear anti-Semitic when the thirty-year old seeks to date their under-age daughter, his smooth maneuvers open a door to a new kind of education.

There are equal parts Lolita and Svengali, and maybe a dash of “Breakfast at Tiffany's,” in the starting premise of “An Education” but this outstanding film plumbs unexpected depths. It explores issues of coming of age and arrested development, different kinds of education and the getting of wisdom, but the story turns in unexpected directions and offers real, fully developed characters. Like “Mad Men,” it is set in a pre-feminist era but change is close enough to see it on the horizon, provoking reflection on experiences that shape one's life, and offers real meat for post-film discussions.

This compelling story is greatly aided by nuanced acting. Newcomer Carey Mulligan is a scene-stealer, with a mix of naivety and beyond-her-years intelligence. Peter Sarsgaard, an area native, turns in one of this most subtle and powerful performances as complex David.

Alfred Molina is wonderful as Jenny's father, whose narrow view of life means he can seem to see nothing but plans for his daughter to go to Oxford. His cluelessness and her mother's, played by Cara Seymour, betray their own limited experiences. Olivia Williams is unrecognizably dowdy as Miss Stubbs, one of Jenny's teachers, while Emma Thompson is the brisk headmistress at her private school. On the other side, Dominic Cooper plays the charming Danny and Rosamund Pike plays polished blonde Helen, David's sophisticated friends whose presence add to his magic. The whole ensemble works beautifully together.

The visual appeal of the film is great, capturing perfectly the stylish, Audrey Hepburn-fashionable look of the early '60s. But the film has remarkable photography throughout, focusing in on faces at emotionally crucial moments and in visually contrasting her parents middle class world and apartment with David's spacious digs and sports car, and apparently posh lifestyle.

"An Education" is one of the must-see films of 2009.

(Reprinted with permission from The Current www.current-online.com)

© The Current

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Ups and downs in Depression-era tale 'Get Low'

by Cate Marquis

Robert Duvall portrays a crusty, gun-toting backwoods hermit named Felix Bush in the dryly funny, sometimes touching Depression-era tale “Get Low.” The independent film's quirky premise, about the old hermit throwing himself a “funeral party” while still alive, provides both dramatic and comic fodder for Duvall, Bill Murray, Lucas Black and Sissy Spacek, who turn in well-crafted performances. The film has its bright spots but does somewhat unravel towards the end, when it backs down from its early promise.

One certainly cannot fault the excellent cast, who milk the story for every drop of character and period atmosphere, with wry humor and touching emotion. The story is based on a real person, Felix “Bush” Breazeale, who in 1938 rural Tennessee, decided to throw himself a living funeral, making him the focus of the national spotlight. Felix is presented as the ultimate country curmudgeon, who never appears in town and is apt to shoot at visitors to his log cabin deep in the woods.

When the old man finally comes to town, in a mule-drawn cart, the town people greet him with a mix of fear and disgust. Whispers allude to stories of violence and immoral behavior, tales they have heard about his unfitness for “decent” company, whispers Felix sullenly ignores.

The white-haired Felix figures it is almost time for him to “get low” - get buried. After Felix's request for a pre-death funeral is turned down by the local preacher, local undertaker Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) steps in. An outsider who was once a used car salesman before moving to the town to start a new life, Quinn is more drawn to Felix's wad of cash than repelled by his fearsome reputation. Yet Quinn sends in his young assistant Buddy Robinson (Lucas Black), a decent, kind-hearted young man working hard to support his wife and new baby, who has to overcome his own misgivings about the old man.

Felix's sudden foray into town brings another unexpected encounter, with Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), who knew him years ago but has only recently returned to her old hometown.

Felix wants the biggest turnout he can get, offering folks a chance to tell all the stories they have heard about him over the years with no threat of retaliation and capped by Felix's revealing the truth, a secret he has kept.

The film does a nice job of building the mystery and exploiting both comedic and dramatic possibilities. There are a few very nice scenes between Spacek as Mattie and Duvall as Felix, and Bill Murray is in fine comic form as the slightly sad-sack, slightly tipsy, always silver-tongued Quinn. Bill Cobb does nice work as an out-of-state preacher, who knows things about Felix no one else does.

“Get Low's” cinematography is appealing, creating a warm period feel. The locations are perfect - moody late-fall woods, Felix's ramshackle homestead, the old-fashioned small town - as are the appealingly period sets and costumes, all shot in loving sepia-tones.

But no matter how perfect the visuals nor how gifted the cast, the film falls apart in the end. Having built up expectations, the climatic funeral scene is a bit of a let-down, failing to deliver all that had been promised. It is as if director Aaron Schneider loses his nerve about showing all the sides of the main character.

The film is still worthwhile, with funny or touching scenes and nice work by Murray and Duvall especially, but it could have been more.

© Cate Marquis

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'Everybody's Fine' is not a comedy but true-to-life family drama

by Cate Marquis

Even when you are all grown up, the desire to please your parents and make them proud often remains.

The ads and movie trailer make “Everybody's Fine” look like a family comedy with a Christmas theme, Robert DeNiro and Drew Barrymore in a too-familiar, heart-warming family comedy, a role that seems to be becoming a DeNiro staple.

But that image is false. Although “Everybody's Fine” has comic moments and a final scene at Christmas, this film is actually a well-crafted drama, well-acted and surprisingly true-to-life, about a far-flung modern family.

“Everybody's Fine's” story of grown children still trying to please their widowed father reverses director Kirk Jones' previous film equation, yielding a drama with comic touches. Jones' successful, previous films were the comedies “Waking Ned Devine” and “Nanny McPhee,” but both comedies featured dramatic messages and warmth under the laughs. Jones wrote those two scripts but he adapted the screenplay for this one from the original Italian 1990 film, “Stanno Tutti Bene” (“Everybody's Fine”), directed by Giuseppe Tornatore (“Cinema Paradiso”).

(to read more, go to The Current (www.thecurrentonline.com) or (www.thecurrent-online.com)

© The Current

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Absurdist French comedy 'OSS 117: Lost in Rio' lampoons '60s spy flicks, Bond films

by Cate Marquis

The silly but fun French spy spoof “OSS 117: Lost in Rio” teams a bumbling French James Bond with a beautiful female Mossad agent to hunt Nazis in '67 Brazil.

The sequel to 2006's “OSS 177: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” this new spy parody is set in 1967 and brings back its super spy OSS 117, a smarmy, obnoxiously French womanizer, with toothy smile and arched eyebrow, a mix of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau.

If you ever found 1960s James Bond-type spy movies laughably cheesy, this is the film for you.

The film parodies perfectly American spy thrillers of the period. The film not only recreates the characters, fashions, sets and locales but recreates the whole 1960s movie experience, using the same camera and editing techniques, like multiple split screens, right down to the cheesy soundtrack music. The comedy is peppered with ridiculous dialog and references to Bond films, along with other American thrillers of the era, even Hitchcock films.

Smooth secret agent OSS 117, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (Jean Dujardin), is sent to Rio when French intelligence headquarters are instructed to send their “best agent” to ransom a microfilm from a Nazi officer, Von Zimmel (Rudiger Vogler), hiding out Brazil. The microfilm has a list of WWII French collaborators, and headquarters is desperate to get it back, although agent OSS 117 is sure the list cannot be very long. Von Zimmel is now posing as a manager for a pair of wrestlers in masks - lucadores - so he can still wear his uniform. Silly, no? It gets worse.

To read, follow link to St. Louis Jewish Light:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/article_5533a266-73ec-11df-b489-001cc4c03286.html

© St. Louis Jewish Light

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'Holy Rollers' tells unlikely but true tale of NY Hasidic drug smuggler


by Cate Marquis

Jesse Eisenberg stars in “Holy Rollers” as an ambitious young New York Hasidic man, about to be engaged to be married, who is drawn into a drug smuggling ring. As unlikely as it sounds, this striking drama is based on true events from the 1990s.

It is a startling, fact-based story, a sincere film focused on a young man's frustrations within his circumscribed community and his religious conflicts outside it. Although the story's premise has potential as another tale about the rise and fall of a drug kingpin, “Holy Rollers” is a more restrained and thoughtful drama, more about religion, identity and temptation. Anyone expecting “Scarface” will be disappointed.

Jesse Eisenberg, the young actor who was so affecting in the indie film hit “The Squid and the Whale,” plays Sam Gold, a twenty-year old young man from a poor Hasidic family in Brooklyn, hoping to become engaged to a young woman he spotted at his temple.

His family and his rabbi (Bern Cohen) approve of the match but her family seems reluctant. Sam is a good son who wants to comply with his father Mendel's (Mark Ivanir) plan for him to become a rabbi. But Sam struggles in his studies, unlike his close friend and next-door neighbor Leon Zimmerman (Jason Fuchs).

While Sam does not have a gift for scholarship, he has a knack for business that his father lacks. Mendel Gold is more interested in being well-liked in his community than making enough money for his impoverished family, much to Sam's frustration.

Sam attributes the reluctance of his would-be fiancee's family to the engagement to his family's poverty, and Sam is desperate to show them he can make money.

But how would this nice Jewish boy get involved with drugs? Next door neighbor Leon's older brother Yosef (Justin Bartha), who has a strained relationship with his family, asks Sam if he would like to make some extra money. Sam is interested if wary but Josef assures him it is a simple job, he just brings back a package from Europe for an Israeli importer. Smoothly, Josef tells him it is legal but he would be carrying “medicine” from Europe which cannot be bought here, “to help people.”

The medicine is actually Estacsy and Yosef's employer Jackie Solomon (Danny A. Abeckaser) is an Israeli-born drug dealer.

To read more, follow link to St. Louis Jewish Light:

http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/article_99aa05c4-791a-11df-b432-001cc4c002e0.html

© St. Louis Jewish Light

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Coens' 'A Serious Man' is seriously funny dark comedy

by Cate Marquis

The Coen brothers' newest film, “A Serious Man,” is seriously funny but it is the darkest of comedy. A throwback to darkly comic works like “Fargo” and “Barton Fink,” it also has a bit more humor in the style of “The Big Lebowski.”

Set in Minneapolis in 1967, it draws more on the Coens' childhood growing up in a Midwestern Jewish community. “F Troop” is on TV but Jefferson Airplane's song “Somebody to Love” is on the transistor radio, marking the cultural pivot point that 1967 is in this Midwestern city.

The screenwriting, directing and editing brothers, Joel and Ethan Coen, set the dark tone from the start, opening with two quotes: “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you,” from medieval French Rabbi Rashi, and “When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies,” from the Jefferson Airplane song “Somebody to Love,” followed by an unsettling little scene in Yiddish, set in a nineteenth century Polish shtetl, what appears to be a Jewish folk tale but is not.

At the center of everything in “A Serious Man” is Larry Gopnik (Tony-nominee Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a local college. Larry is an ordinary man, a good guy trying to do all the right things but blissfully drifting through life. Until everything seems to fall apart, starting when his wife Judith (Minneapolis-based actress Sari Lennick) suddenly announces she wants a divorce and plans to marry a widower friend of theirs, the supremely confident, even smug Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), whom she considers a more “serious man” than the passive Larry.

Larry is certainly a more successful man than his older brother Uncle Arthur (Richard Kind), who sleeps on their couch and tends to a cyst on the back of his neck that requires repeated suctioning and hours in the bathroom, much to the frustration of their appearance-obsessed teenaged daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus). Their son Danny (Aaron Wolff) is supposed to be preparing for his upcoming bar mitzvah but seems more focused on listening to Jefferson Airplane on the radio, smoking pot in the boy's room at Hebrew school and watching “F Troop” on TV.

Although he is upset by events in turn, Larry seems to try to do what is asked on him, to do the right thing, just as everyone around him expects, no matter how absurd things get. And things keep piling on. He is up for tenure when a Korean student tries to bribe him. His wife asks him to move out and he does, taking Uncle Arthur with him. He worries about his brother - will he find a job, a wife, is he mentally ill? As things deteriorate, Larry becomes increasingly obsessed with finding the meaning behind all these awful things. Is G-d trying to tell him something?

Yet the worse things get for poor Larry, the funnier the movie gets. Things mount up into an absurd mountain of grief and insults, curiouser and curiouser, for beleaguered good-guy Larry. As Larry walks this knife edge, he starts to dream strange dreams, comic gems the clever Coens lob at us. The comedy is like a huge, awful joke with an enormous punchline at the end.

The script is a tour-de-force, aided by outstanding acting from the gifted Michael Stuhlbarg, who has to walk a fine line to make Larry a likeable, sympathetic character instead of simply a luckless victim. Other performance from the lesser-known cast are sparkling as well. There are two more familiar faces: Richard Kind plays the pathetic yet vaguely sinister Uncle Arthur and Fred Melamed is smooth, even sexy as Sy Ableman, offering to counsel befuddled Larry even as he steals his wife. The film also includes fine work from local Minneapolis actors such as Sari Lennick, Aaron Wolff and Jessica McManus.

As always, Roger Deakins' vivid, dream-like photography is stunning, functioning like another character in the story, deepening every scene and imbuing it with a palpable sense of meaning or foreboding.

The Coen brothers have a crafted a brilliant film in “A Serious Man,” a masterpiece of blackest absurd comedy. It is among their funniest and best works.

(Reprinted with permission from The Current http://thecurrent-online.com/)

© The Current

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'Splice' slices and dices biotech in laughable horror film updating of Frankenstein

by Cate Marquis

What if you updated “Frankenstein” with modern bioscience?

The new science-fiction horror flick “Splice” is essentially that, a modern version of Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein” with mad scientists making a monster not from dead bodies but from bits of DNA from various species, including man.

This supposedly-scary film is truly dreadful nonsense, far more fiction than science. But beyond that, scenes clearly intended to frighten instead provoked bursts of laughter from the preview screening audience.

"Splice" does have a certain queasy-creepy factor and one fresh idea. Rather than cloning, which means making identical copies, “Splice” uses genetic modification, inserting genes from one organism into another unrelated one, basically the technique used to create genetically-modified foods, ironically called “Frankenfoods” by Europeans.

Regardless, “Splice” is far more fiction than science, mostly a mash-up of scary flicks including “Species,” “Alien” and “Damien,” thrown into a cinematic blender. The result is supposed to be scary but is more a laugh-provoking mess.

Although “Splice” is often unintentionally laughable, it has a certain “ick” factor, thanks to a pair of modern mad scientists with an unhealthy attachment to their bizarre offspring.

Two ambitious, ethically-challenged biotech hot shots, power couple named Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) head up a research lab, funded by a private company on a quest to create a novel lifeform to manufacture drugs to cure all the ills of humanity, although what exactly this magic-bullet substance may be is vague. Pressured by their funders to lay aside their costly research and move on to the profitable drug production phase, they ignore legal and ethical considerations to secretly continue their experiments to create the next level of lab-created life, mixing in human DNA this time.

No need for invaders from space when you can make your own monster right here.

When the experiment results in a violent but fast-growing organism. Surmising fast-growth means a short-life span, they decide to keep the creature hidden. As scientists, they clearly feel the rules do not apply to them but as a couple, they have some complex emotional baggage and inner demons. But as one of them says “what's the worst that could happen?”

Yeah. The first time you see the little experiment in a dress and being held like a toddler balanced on a hip, you know this cannot end well.

But the film deteriorated quickly from there. Scenes clearly intended to be fraught with tension were more likely to leave audiences gasping with laughter than from fright, with one predictable horror bit after another trotted out.

The film starts out in a world that screams both money and cutting-edge biotech where these hip, successful scientists, who proudly call themselves nerds, have a convincingly state-of-the-art biotech lab, although this scientific team has some amazing fictional lab equipment, and live in a quirky apartment full of high-tech toys. But glass-walled conference rooms give way to old abandoned barns, half-lit woods with swampy pools and other familiar horror film trappings.

What exactly the gifted Adrien Brody is doing in this dumb, bizarre mess is anyone's guess. He and Sarah Polley do their best as actors but it is hard to drag much out of this absurd plot. French model and singer Delphine Chaneac plays the adolescent version of the creature, named Dren, who like Frankenstein's creation starts out mute, communicating through clicks and purrs. Her eerie part-human CGI creature is one of the few genuinely scary things in the film.

Not having enough of catastrophe, the story's characters even set up for a sequel, using that same line “what's the worst that can happen.” If you were hoping “Splice” would be a scary movie rather than an unintentionally laughable one, the answer is “plenty.”

(Reprinted with permission from The Current)

© The Current

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Floating down Nile more than pleasant trip in 'Cairo Time'

by Cate Marquis

“Cairo Time” takes us on a lovely stroll through a lushly romantic Cairo but frames that tour around an honest cross-cultural discussion, between an American woman tourist and a Syrian man who calls the city home. The film delights with its beautiful setting and poignantly romantic story but also because their discussions are so frank and real, gently exploring about myths and realities on both sides, and their own lives, as they idle away time waiting for her husband to arrive.

At first glance, “Cairo Time” seems a simple romance but it is much more. It is a little film but a little gem both gently thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable. Two people adrift in a city and its cross-cultural theme evoke “Lost in Translation” but its setting means it explores a more challenging culture clash. This Canadian-made film is an excellent example of what is best in independent films - the courage to explore the nuances and the human side of cultural differences and clashes.

Patricia Clarkson plays Juliette, an American who is meeting her husband in Cairo for a vacation, planned as a romantic get-away for the new empty-nesters following their son's recent marriage. But her husband Mark (Tom McCamus), who works for the U.N., is delayed due to a crisis in Gaza. He sends his recently-retired assistant Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to meet her and get her settled at the hotel. Expecting someone older, Juliette is a bit surprised to meet a handsome, courtly man her own age. As her husband's arrival is postponed repeatedly, the restless Juliette finds herself exploring the city in the company of Tareq, and its culture through their talks.

Juliette is both curious and clueless about Cairo.

(to read more, click on link: http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/cairo-time-offers-romantic-tour-but-thoughtful-too)

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'Amelia' looks pretty but fails to fly

by Cate Marquis

“Amelia,” the biopic about early aviator Amelia Earhart starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor, is a very pretty film, with lovely aerial photography, dreamy stylish 1920s and 1930s  period fashions, and elegant period decor and architecture. But as gorgeous as “Amelia” looks, the film itself is a bit bland.

Director Mira Nair (“Monsoon Wedding”) certainly nailed the casting for her film “Amelia.” Hilary Swank looks enough like the blonde, tom-boyish pretty Earhart, a tall thin young woman who had a striking resemblance to Charles Lindbergh, the then wildly-popular aviator who had been the first man to cross the Atlantic solo in 1927. The film does start with the contest to find a woman to duplicate Charles Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic feat, begun as a sort of stunt in this era of early feminism that followed women getting the vote in 1920. What the film fails to note, however, is the role Earhart's physical resemblance to Lindbergh played in her being picked for the mission and the media's fascination with her. The film does note Earhart was actually a passenger on that flight, although technically in charge as captain, and that her experience as a pilot was limited at that time.

(to read more, go to The Current (www.thecurrentonline.com) or (www.thecurrent-online.com)

© The Current

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'Nightmare on Elm Street' updated remake more dull than cutting

by Cate Marquis

After countless sequels, a remake about a making a movie about a remake from the original director, and a combined effort with another '80s horror franchise, it is hard to see what more filmmakers could get out of “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

Even so, the 1984 horror movie hit has been remade and updated to the present, in a new version just released. The new “A Nightmare on Elm Street” retains the general outlines of the original but is not a shot-by-shot remake. And the original's director, Wes Craven, was not even involved.

The cast is all new and the story re-set in the present, which required a few plot adjustments. But the basic boogey man in your dreams idea remains, with teens in a peaceful suburb dying from attacks during nightmares about an evil man with a burned face, wearing a striped sweater and sporting a glove with razor-sharp knives. Several teens try to stay awake to escape the killer and find a way to stop him.

The cast has come and gone in the various sequels but this is the first “Nightmare” without Robert Englund as Freddie Kruegger. Yet, Jackie Earle Haley is well-cast as the murderous, wise-cracking Freddie.

To read more, follow link review in The Current:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/%E2%80%98nightmare-on-elm-street%E2%80%99-update-more-dull-than-cutting/

© The Current

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Keeping up with 'The Joneses' on road to financial ruin

by Cate Marquis

Heard of “viral marketing”? It is the concept of a company selling things by identifying “trend-makers” on campuses or among the young and affluent, and paying them to promote the company’s products by using them and talking them up without letting on that they are paid salespeople.

The ambitious satire, “The Joneses”, takes viral marketing to a new level, creating an entire family of perfect style-setters. The company sets them up in a McMansion in a high-income gated community, with all the goodies—furnishings, cars, clothes and high-tech toys—needed to drive their neighbors wild with envy and straight into the nearest high-end store.

Of course, Jones is not their real name. In fact, they are a bunch of strangers, carefully selected salespeople hired to pose as a family and covertly sell, sell, sell.

“The Joneses” is a satire of consumerism gone wild, especially pointed now, and a brilliant idea for a film. But “The Joneses” falls short in execution, losing its nerve to bite the commercial hand that feeds it.

David Duchovny and Demi Moore star as Steve and Kate Jones, who have just moved into a huge new house along with their teenagers Jenn (Amber Heard) and Mick (Ben Hollingsworth). Although their furniture has just arrived straight from an Ethan Allan showroom, the Jones family eagerly welcomes neighbors Larry (Gary Cole) and Summer (Glenne Headly). Although Larry and Summer do not have children for Jenn and Mick to befriend, they do seem impressed with all the Jones’ stuff. Score one for the sales team.

To read more, follow link review in The Current:

http://thecurrent-online.com/ae/keeping-up-with-%E2%80%98the-joneses%E2%80%99-on-way-to-financial-trouble/

© The Current

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French “The Girl On The Train” uses real event to explore identity and society's concerns

by Cate Marquis

Renowned French director/writer Andre Techine draws on an actual incident that divided his country for "The Girl On The Train." The film follows the life of a young French woman who makes an accusation of anti-Semitism, which ignites a chain of events. The film's narrative is divided into two parts, first setting up the circumstances of the accusation and then its consequences. The story takes place in 2004 France, when a series of anti-Semitic incidents had the country on edge.

Jeanne (Emilie Dequenne) is an immature young woman living in a modest home in the Parisian suburbs with her single mother Louise (Catherine Deneuve). Jeanne travels by train to the affluent center of Paris, seeking secretarial work in the office of Samuel Bleistein (Michel Blanc), a successful attorney and out-spoken Jewish activist. With the recent incidents, Bleistein is a frequent media commentator on anti-Semitism and seems omnipresent on French TV.

It is Jeanne's mother who urged her daughter to apply for the job the lawyer advertised, despite Jeanne's own doubts about her qualifications.

To read more, follow link to review in St. Louis Jewish Light:

http://archives.stljewishlight.com/archive_detail.php?archiveFile=2010/April/30/1LocalNews/6346.xml&start=0&numPer=20&keyword=Girl+On+The+Train&sectionSearch=&begindate=1%2F1%2F2003&enddate=5%2F6%2F2010&authorSearch=&IncludeStories=1&pubsection=&page=&IncludePages=1&IncludeImages=1&mode=allwords&archive_pubname=None%0A%09%09%09

© St. Louis Jewish Light

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Don't expect comedy from Ben Stiller in drama 'Greenberg'

by Cate Marquis

When the affluent Phillip Greenberg (Chris Messina) plans to take his wife and kids on a family vacation, he knows he is leaving their Los Angeles home in the

Anyone who expects Ben Stiller's newest film “Greenberg” to be a comedy is in for a shock. This drama is the mirror opposite of Hollywood romantic comedy, from writer/director Noah Baumbach, whose first film was “The Squid and the Whale.”

Ben Stiller plays an emotionally-wounded, middle-aged man, who is drifting through a life that peaked too early. The set-up sounds like a comedy, about a mismatched couple with a touch of Annie Hall, where a nebbish Jewish New Yorker meets a laid-back, blonde non-Jewish California girl. “Greenberg” uses comedy's familiar characters and plot elements but allows things to play out as they would in real life. The standard elements of Hollywood comedy are stripped bare to create a realistic, very un-Hollywood dramatic story.

A couple in California go on vacation leaving their home in the capable hands of their assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig). Florence's only responsibility in their absence is to care for their dog Mahler and check up on Phillip's brother Roger (Ben Stiller) who is flying in from New York to "house sit." Phillip is less comfortable about leaving his under-achieving brother, recently released from a mental hospital following a breakdown, in charge of his house.

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Once a rock musician on the verge of fame but now working as a carpenter, Roger Greenberg's life has become a series of uncompleted projects and unfulfilled potential, who now spends most of his time writing letters of consumer complaint to companies. Florence expects a sensitive, fragile person but Roger is cocky, even arrogant and self-absorbed, a 40-year-old single man stubbornly still living life as if he were in his mid-twenties.

Back in his L.A. hometown after decades in New York, Roger immediately sets out to re-connect with his former bandmates and an ex-girlfriend, expecting nothing to have changed. Roger wheedles his old friends to get together to party like the old days, inviting them for a pool party at his brother's house but is dismayed when they show up with wives and kids. When they chat about everyday family life, like a child's upcoming Bar Mitzvah and how one pal throws the best Seder, Greenberg snarls at them viciously, decrying religion and asserting that he was only half-Jewish anyway. Tellingly, they shrug this off as typical Roger Greenberg behavior.

It sets a repeated pattern in the film, with Roger begging his old friends to socialize but then heaping abuse on them when they do. He seems outraged at being surrounded by ordinary life, shifting uncomfortably in his seat at a neighborhood sidewalk cafe, as clusters of Orthodox men and other people from his brother's neighborhood walk by on a sunny California day.

The much younger Florence, who seems to suffer from low self-esteem as well as lack of ambition, seems inexplicably drawn to him. Roger treats her as a convenience - he does not drive and quickly expects her to be his chauffeur - while she admiringly sees him as a superior being and is willing to accommodate him in anyway.

Artistically, it is a brilliant move, to take what is cute in comedy and show how obnoxious and toxic it would be in the real world. The film also unblinking presents issues of class divisions and other realities and challenges of modern life.

But the character at the center of this dramatic spiral is completely distasteful, an arrogant, angry mess much like the father in the director's “The Squid and the Whale.” In that film, audience sympathy was with the children caught between their parents but this film lacks a sympathetic character for audiences to care about. What audience sympathy there is goes to the misguided, low self-esteem-girl Florence, although the ending leaves one just dismayed for her.

The story settles into a spiraling pattern, with Roger wheedling attention, only to revert to nastiness. His former bandmate Ivan (Rhys Ifans) offers Roger true friendship and tolerates a great deal of this, despite that Greenberg cut short their band's shot at fame by turning down a record label contract without even asking the rest of the band.

Ben Stiller does a great job, taking the kind of character he has often played in comedies and stripping it of comic elements. But he leaves no drop of charm, no loveable - or at least likeable - trait, to give us any reason to care about this person. What is left is just a raw being, a self-destructive, self-absorbed, passive-aggressive person who keeps everyone at arm's length. While the character is fully-developed and believable, he lacks any hint of charisma to explain why his long-time friends would stick with him despite his abusive behavior.

It is a brave and polished performance but building a film around such as unlikeable character is difficult. As real and fully-developed as the characters are, it is hard to see Greenberg reaching much beyond admiring critics and acting-aficionados to connect with a broader general audience.

© Cate Marquis

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Avatar

by Cate Marquis

From a technical viewpoint, “Avatar” is the most astounding film of the year. The futurist fantasy's 3D CGI visual effects are as realistic and amazing as you have heard, a true leap forward in movie visual effects. Even for those indifferent to technical effects, the seamless realism of “Avatar's” futuristic adventure are astounding.

But what is even more amazing is that “Avatar” is also a really good film, entertaining and even thought-provoking, something too rare in special-effects films. Game-changing visual effects added to a well-plotted hero tale adds up to a film worth seeing.

The story is classic heroics but effective. Paraplegic ex-Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is offered a chance to earn enough for a medical procedure to restore his ability to walk, by taking the place of his recently-deceased twin brother, a research scientist in an experiment on the distant planet Pandora.

The experiment involves using a human mind-controlled “avatar,” a biological human-Pandoran hybrid, created by fusing DNA from two specific individuals. The avatars look like the 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned humanoid natives, called Na'vi, and when controlled remotely by humans attached to a computer in pods in the lab, the avatars interact with the native non-technological Pandorans, in order to study them and gain their trust.

Since Jake is an identical twin, his DNA matches his brother's, so he can replace him, if he can catch on to the training fast enough. Naturally, the researchers are skeptical of the Marine taking the place of a scientist who had trained for years for his task. There is even some resentment among the other researchers, including project leader Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver).

The reason all of them are on the planet is to assist a company hoping to mine a valuable mineral. The scientists are supposed to help the company reach an agreement with the Na'vi to extract it, with ex-Marines hired to provide security.

Eye-popping visual effects are reason enough to see “Avatar.” The integration of the CGI animation and the live action work is seamless, and coupled with 3D makes for a powerful cinematic ride.

But unlike special-effects-laden “2012,” “Avatar” is an entertaining and engrossing adventure story with some real human meaning, not just fast-paced but meaningless action. “Avatar” also gives respectful treatment to classic science fiction, while mining what is appealing about hero tales throughout human history.

The story is more classic than original. But it earns points for fearlessly tackling greed and the hubris of a technically-developed power seeking to exploit the resources of a less-technologically advanced one. In some ways, Avatar's story is “Dances With Wolves” in outer space but the hero tale is skilfully handled and introduces modern touches like private military contractors and science co-opted for profit. The futuristic story parallels modern multinational corporate exploitation of resources in poorer, developing nations, often with the help of military operations, although the practice of this kind of exploitation really goes back to the East India Company.

However, the story of an unscrupulous corporation claiming resources under someone else's soil has some people on the political right claiming that the film attacks capitalism, a characterization to which responsible, ethical businesses might take exception. Likewise, people seeing something anti-military in the film might note these are ex-military private contractors, which would make the story more anti-Blackwater than anti-Marine.

“Avatar” may not become a classic but it is highly-entertaining, technically ground-breaking movie that reminds us of the kind of adventure epics Hollywood once did so very well. With its the 3D effects and the epic scope, “Avatar” is one movie that absolutely should be seen on a big screen.

© Cate Marquis

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