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Red Cliff – sp- If Steven Spiegelberg were to decide to make a blockbuster movie about the US North-South Civil war and the Battle of Gettysburg most Americans would probably be quite familiar with the various leaders and generals. Even more so apparently are the Chinese and the people of other Asian countries knowledgeable about the cast of characters who took part in the great battles as the armies of the north tried to conquer those of the southern China, leading to the battle at Red Cliff, which took place about eighteen hundred years ago. Director John Woo felt that this was so much the case that he needed to make two versions of this movie, one for non Asian world with more background material and a two part film with even more details of the actual events for the Chinese and others who are familiar with the historical events.

The 2 ½ hour movie which we saw has a brief English narration at the beginning and then is in Mandarin with English subtitles which you soon forget are present. It shows the personal and political decision of the northern dynasty to send it’s huge army which probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the south to squash the smaller southern coalition. A great deal of the movie consists of battle scenes on the ground and between naval forces. At first we had the impression we were watching a Chuck Norris or Jackie Chen movie that we would only have seen in coming attractions, with bodies whirling through air, swords and spears impaling soldiers, blood squirting out of the period armor, catching spears in mid-flight, horses rearing up, thousand of arrows flying through sky and all sorts of acrobatics. People are being killed everywhere except the main characters who seem to be able to leap between thrusts of opposing soldiers. Then after awhile we realized that in fact we were watching a classic operatic story and ballet in a beautiful setting. John Woo told our film course that he used 1500 hundred Chinese soldiers in the movie and made them look like many times that number of warriors by computer generated editing techniques that he also used to enhance the magnificent appearing background. The movie also vividly shows the brilliant military strategies that were used by the outnumbered army including clever troop formations, innovative weaponry and an exquisite understanding of the forces of nature. Woo also chose to create a story line that was not in the known history of these events that involves the role of some very brave, strong and attractive women.
In the end it is a beautiful, poetic epic movie with an antiwar theme but yet pays homage to the value of people working together for a just cause even against daunting odds. This film has a cast of thousands, used 24 cameras and took 4 1/2 years to make. It obviously cost multi millions of dollars to produce which came from many countries including the Chinese government. We can’t see how it will miss being a tremendous hit in the Asian world and is bound to have a great following in the US. Anyone seeing this movie should be sure to not miss the closing credits, which includes some very moving verse. (2009)

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Capitalism: A Love Story – rm – Michael Moore set out to make a movie to show how things have changed in this country so now maybe 99% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the people. The post World War II development of a healthy middle class which he experienced in his youth in Flint Michigan, no longer exists there and not in too many other places in the USA. There are lots of rich people still around but tons of hard pressed people losing their jobs and their homes. He is contending that because we have capitalism, doesn’t mean that we have true democracy. He makes his point by documenting the well-known stories of the changing economic conditions and by using very personal vignettes, which he poignantly captures on film. Is he being completely fair to all the Wall Street bankers and CEOs some of whom have taken major government positions whom he now depicts as only trying to make more money for their old firms and their own portfolios? Is he being fair to Senator Chris Dodd whom he shows was given a mortgage on favorable terms because he was considered a friend of the CEO of AIG when so many others were defaulting on sub prime mortgages? Was the government bailout all-bad, as he seems to be saying? Moore certainly knows how to push our emotional buttons as he shows the faces of the children as their parents try to resist foreclosures of their homes. How can we not be stirred up by the valiant attempt of workers who refuse to leave their now closed factory because they weren’t given wages they were owed? ? Moore’s parting shot is a piece of an obscure video of FDR calling for a new Bill of Rights where everyone is entitled to a job, a descent living, a home and healthcare. Moore shows how the United States helped our defeated enemies achieve these goals after WWII but have not accomplished them ourselves. If you leaned towards his point of view at the beginning, you will be moved towards some kind of action. If you have been on the other side of the philosophical spectrum, you most probably will soften some of your resistance. If the film has a weakness, it is it’s inconsistent form, which veers between being a documentary, a polemic and a comedy. Whatever it is, it is worth seeing and should not be missed. (2009)

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The Damned United – sp – Imagine a storyline in which Joe Torres iconic manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers steps aside and some younger hot shot guy who did well with a second rate team is given the job. Picture that this new guy thinks he is the greatest and is out to prove that he is even better than Torres whom he dislikes. He doesn’t even feel he needs his beloved assistant manager on whom he was very dependent on his previous teams. Add great action, inside locker room scenes and baseball talk that you really appreciate having grown up as a baseball fan. Now transform the whole story to Great Britain and make it about soccer instead of baseball and you have the essence of this movie. We were very impressed with Michael Sheen whom we met at our film course and who plays Brian Clough, the well-known real life soccer coach, who might be called the tragic figure of this movie. Sheen who played David Frost on the screen and in the theatre in Frost-Nixon described his preparation to inhabit the characters he plays. He takes over the screen and brilliantly conveys the depth of personality and emotion. Although the movie is not just about soccer, there is something lost in the translation to more familiar life situations. We don’t think that the journey taken in this film will be worth the 98 minutes to most people we know. (2009)

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Waltz with Bashir – nf – We had never seen an animated documentary before but that is the essence of this movie. It won many film festival awards as well as a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and an Academy Award nomination in this category. Israeli Director Ari Folman set out to fill in the gaps in his memory concerning his experience in the Israeli army during the first war in Lebanon in the 1980s. He does this by interviewing soldiers who served with him at that time, some of whom he hasn’t seen in more than twenty years, plus others who went through this experience, whom he recruits by newspaper advertisements. In most cases he uses their recorded voices in the film but his team has a done a brilliant job developing techniques for depicting the story in cartoon animation which is based mostly on scenes recreated in a studio. The result is a realistic dramatic account of what was a very traumatic experience as this 19-year-old man went through the war and witnessed frightening horrible things. This presumably is why he has these memory gaps and why some of the narrators up until now have had difficulty in saying what they had seen. The key event is the massacre at Sabria and Shatila where the Christian Phalangists murdered Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. This group was a Lebanese political faction allied with the Israeli army who are shown stationed on the periphery of this area but voicing objections once they realized what was happening. The more you understand the history and the politics of this time the better you can appreciate the movie. However, the anti war theme is loud and clear and is punctuated by the massacre scene transitioning into actual newsreel footage of the aftermath of this horrific event. (2008)

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District Nine – rm – If you like alien movies where the alien looks like a 10 foot lumbering ant like object with human qualities, this movie may be for you. It has some familiar themes of a gigantic spacecraft arriving at earth and this time it ends up hovering over Johannesburg South Africa. Over a million refugees from it live in shacks in an area called District Nine and are about to be moved to a more rural area by a non-governmental para- military agency. The main character of the movie is in charge of carrying out this move but he gets accidentally sprayed by an alien chemical, which begins to slowly turn him into an alien. Since the alien’s weapons, most of which have been confiscated can only be fired by the aliens (a bioconnectviity link) and since this man now has an alien arm, he is a rare individual who can fire these weapons. The plot thickens and includes a cute child alien, the wish of the aliens to go home, some battle scenes with conventional and state of the alien weaponry. The special effects are as expected and the movie generates a reasonable amount of suspense. It touches on some issues of discrimination but not in any depth. This is not for everyone. (2009)

Although we have not seen all the possible contenders we decided to draw up our abbreviated list for Academy Nominations with our projected winners. We have combined best picture and best director awards since we are not quite sure how to make that distinction. Our choices are listed in order of our preferences with 1st choice in bold.
(Published day before Golden Globe Awards)

Best Movie and Director

The Hurt Locker- Katherine Bigeloe
Precious –Lee Daniels
Inglorious Basterds – Quentin Tarentino
Julie and Julia – Nora Ephrom
Invictus – Clint Eastwood

We found this was an easy winner although all great films

Best Actress

Merly Streep ( Julie and Julia)
Gaborney Sidibe (Precious)
Carey Mulligan (An Education )
Helen Miren ( Last Station )

The Pro takes it from newcomer but it is close call

Best Actor

Morgan Freeman ( Invictus )
George Clooney ( Up In the Air )
Ben Foster ( The Messenger)
Jeremy Remney ( Hurt Locker)

Almost too close to choose winner

Best Supporting Actress

Mo’Nique (Precious)

Easy winner

Best Supporting Actor

Christopher Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) – Michael’s choice
Woody Harrelson ( The Messenger ) Susan’s choice

Best Foreign Film

Red Cliff- John Wo

We haven’t seen that many but this was good

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Dear Frankie – nf – This is one of those British films that takes about five minutes for us to get used to the accents and understand what they are saying. Although, it turns out that Frankie one of the main characters in the movie, a charming 9 or 10-year-old boy doesn’t say any words as he is deaf. We learn that this was the result of his father beating him as a small child. Mother and child along with grandmother have kept on the move in Scotland so father will never find them. Mother played by Emily Mortimer has a touching, loving, very close relationship with Frankie and has created a story for him that his father is away at sea. She secretly writes letters to him and intercepts her son’s outgoing mail so she really is also hearing his “voice” about his feeling and observations of life. Frankie although very bright in school is chided by his schoolmates. When the boat on which the father is supposed to be sailing is noted to be coming into port, the mother, who is quite lonely herself decides that she needs to present a man as Frankie’s father for him to briefly meet. She arranges for a stranger, sensitively played by Gerald Butler, to be the father for one day before he goes off to sea again. Needless to say, intertwined with lovely scenes of “father and son” and sometimes mother, especially at the stark but beautiful Scottish seaside, there are some complications. First time director Shona Auerbach has cast her characters very well and captured the emotional relationships between them. The story is somewhat drawn out and simplistic but the acting was excellent. (2004)

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It’s Complicated – rm – Nancy Meyers , the writer and director of this film lives up to her reputation as the person who can connect with women over 40 and all those that know and care about her. Meryl Streep continues her streak as one of the most prolific and talented big name actresses on today’s screen , as she nails the role of a 50 something women who after 10 years of divorce has an affair with her ex-husband. She is appealing, sexy, intelligent, funny and poignant. The chemistry with her three children ( high school, graduating college and engaged to a great guy) is perfect. It is best described, as at one point she doesn’t take the suggestion to not answer her cell phone by saying, “ I have to answer the phone, I have three children.” Alec Baldwin, as the ex-husband, is a self centered successful attorney who married a young women half his age and now regrets it. His rekindled attraction to his ex-wife seems very real although he does over do it as the lout who wants one more chance. He can be funny and comedy is an important part of the film. Steve Martin who is a great comedian takes the low key role as the potential new boy friend for Streep and is much more sweet and kind than funny. The bottom line is that this movie is a great couples film especially for the over 40 crowd and deserves to be seen. (2009)

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Four Seasons Lodge – rm – We were drawn to the subject matter and sought out the one theatre showing this movie. It is a documentary about a  group of elderly Holocaust survivors in their 80s and 90s who come together each summer for a vacation in bungalow colony in the Catskills .They greet their old friends with such warmth as they are so glad to see each other once again. They dance to a small live band playing their kind of music. They feel a special kinship for each other for good reason as they share the special experience as survivors. There aren’t many details described about their experience in the camp but the men seem more willing to bring up the subject. One man mentions that the infamous Joseph Mengale experimented on him when he was a child. Another notes how he could never get sick when he was in the camp because that would mean he was sent off to the ovens. He then adds he has continued never to be sick a day of his rather long life, almost as if he is still afraid of the fate that would await him if he slows down. One man became a very accomplished professional soccer player in Germany after the war but felt that his achievements were underplayed in the press because he was Jewish. Two women note that after the war they had no family but each other. They continued to be soul mates during their marriages and now into their old age as widows are dear friends. The aging bungalow colony is facing extinction as the people in charge are planning to sell it but there is a protest from the lodgers. Their determination to see their reunion home be there for whatever additional summers they may have is a metaphor for their ability to survive. The Holocaust and Jewish museums will deliver much more in depth stories and information then was presented here about the Holocaust experience. The people here will probably remind you of relatives you have known. It is important and worthwhile that this slice of the latter part of their lives has been captured. It would be most likely cherished by their families. It is something that the rest of us are glad we have in the closet but probably would not feel a need to recommend that others watch it. (2009)

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Election – nf – We recently had a Netflix viewing of this 1999 movie which is a period piece set to take place 20-25 years earlier. It starred Reese Witherspoon as an ambitious determined high school student bound for the student council presidency and Matthew Broderick as her high school teacher who thinks he is a happy dedicated person doing just what he was meant to do. The story based on a novel by Tom Perotta with an Oscar winning screen play by the director Alexander Payne is seen mostly through the eyes of the teacher although pieces of narration are shown through the view of some of the other characters. The main plot deals with the high school election when two other students are drawn into a very contentious race with the preexisting favorite, each having their own motivation. However, in a somewhat comedic and satiric way the film shows how this teacher makes a complete mess of his life and ultimately has to try and reinvent himself. The movie was shot in the Omaha area of Nebraska near where the director grew up. A typical high school was used for most of the scenes with real students playing the extras and some parts including the male student lead who ran for president. Witherspoon and Broderick captured their characters quite well and Witherspoon actually won the Teen Choice Award for the best “hissy hit”. It was fun to watch and done well but at this point in time we can’t recommend that you put it very high in your Netflix queue, as there are much better films available out there. (1999)