***

The Kings of Summer –sp  We know that adolescents have the tasks of  asserting their independence from their parents.  In this comedic yet poignant film, we see how the parents can more or less “call the question” and bring about a unique method of trying to do this. Frank Toy ( Nick Offerman) is a widower who seems quite self centered and has no empathy for his 15 year old son Joe  (Nick Robinson). Mr. and Mrs. Keenan(Mark Evan Jackson and Megan Mullally) on the other hand were so well-meaning but intrusive to their son Patrick (Gabriel Basso) that we could easily see how life was unbearable for him. So during the summer Joe and Patrick agree to disappear from their everyday life and are joined by Biaggio (Moises Arias) another kid their age who is quirky and weird but very loyal. They go deep in the woods near their homes and find a clearing  where they cobble together a hidden sort of two story house in which they plan to live. They forage for food, even kill a rabbit and occasionally sneak out to a nearby Boston Market where they pick up the left over food. But they are really gone, out of sight and even the police can’t find them although they did figure out that they must have run away. Their house in the woods is of course an allegory for their burning desire to develop and build their freedom. This screenplay is by Chris Galletta and the direction by Jordan Vogt-Roberts who is spreading his own wings  on his first feature film. While they skillfully capture the essence of this time of life, it is the chemistry between the three adolescents which holds our interest and tells the universal story of young people who yearn to be free but ultimately must wait their turn and hopefully find the best vehicle to express themselves. This movie would seem to appeal to at least mid teenagers and everyone who remembers what it was like to be one. Interestingly though , the filmmakers chose to make an R rated movie just because of a few F words spoken quite naturally. This means that they can’t advertise the film to teens but will have to hope that they will end up in theatre along with the all the post teens who get the message that this is not just a kid’s movie. (2013)  

***

Love Is All You Need- sp  This is a mostly romantic and somewhat comedic film. It is mostly a Danish film with  English subtitles when needed, but a somewhat English film with Pierce Brosnan. The Screenwriter and director is two time Oscar nominee  Susanne Bier who directed the  2011 Academy Award winning Best Foreign Film In a Better World . This current film opens with Ida  (Trine Dyrholm) having just completed her course of cancer treatment hoping that she is cured. She is about to travel to Italy for her daughter’s wedding in a beautiful mansion on the Italian Mediterranean where the two families will get together for the ceremony. On the way she bumps into Philip (Pierce Brosnan) the father of the groom. Everyone but Ida seems to be dysfunctional in some way or have some interpersonal and personal conflicts. As family and friends prepare  for the wedding their interactions reveal their  conflicted lives and relationships. The storyline is engrossing despite the fact that most of the characters are cardboard stereotypes which does allow for some good comedic moments. Nevertheless, you cannot help but be drawn to the heroine Ida whose inner and outer beauty shows through despite the results of her treatment for cancer, personal affronts suffered and even losing her suitcase on her trip to Italy. There are easily predicted outcomes, some surprises and an unanswered question. The photography of the beautiful setting is magnificent by Morten Soborg which compliments Ms Biers very fine directing. Dean Martin provides the familiar musical themes of Italy. (2013)

***

Midnight’s Children-sp This is a film adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s award winning 1981 novel which he himself slimmed down to a 130 page screenplay from his 600 page tome. Director Deepta Mehta then squeezed it into a 2 hour and 20 minute movie. The film follows children born on August 15, 1947 when colonial India was bifurcated into India and Pakistan. The main character is one of these children, Saleem, who is played as an adult by Satya Bhabba. Most of the other children are apparitions in his head which keep reappearing throughout the film. These children have all kinds of special powers and appear to be an allegory for the wishful thinking of the people who experienced terrible conflicts that have happened between India and Pakistan, East Pakistan and West Pakistan, Kashmir, and probably many other horrific wars that dominated the sub-continent during the past century. The story also uses the fascinating gambit of two children being switched at birth and challenges us with the idea of what would have happened if a child of privileged parents was raised by a poor family and vice versa. When you think of this part of the world you probably envision beautiful unsurpassed countryside, large mansions, women in flowing dresses as well as people living in close quarters in teaming slums. This film is filled with all these images and the cinematography was magnificent and creative. Most of it was handheld with credit going to Director of Photography Giles Nuttgens. Despite it’s unusual length, we found that we stayed engaged with the film. As much as we enjoyed the images, the action and the character interaction, we felt at a disadvantage as we struggled with trying to recall and place in historical context what we were seeing on the screen. This became heightened by the fact that we were periodically introduced to the “magical realism” going on in the head of the main character. We do imagine that the film will do very well in India and Pakistan. It was interesting to learn that there were concerns about threatened protests from the fundamentalist Hindus in India and the fundamentalist Moslems in Pakistan for the depiction of their people or from political supporters of the legacy of Indira Ghandi for the violent destruction of slum areas that were shown. All never materialized. What did appear is a unique epic film that may very well have captured the essence of this time and place.(2013)      

***

Renoir- rm  - This movie becomes an enjoyable stroll through a museum filled with the paintings of French Impressionist Pierre- Auguste Renoir. However, instead of looking at the beautiful colorful paintings of this master you are watching a film about him and the people around him living on his picturesque farm on the French Riveria. The photography and the lighting , so often during the magic hours preceding sunset along with the delicate colors and the characters gracefully moving through the French countryside or  in the period living quarters, transport the viewer into so many of Renior’s paintings. The screenplay is written by writer/director Gilles Bourdos and is based on the writing of the painter’s great grandson Jacques Renoir. The movie takes place in 1915 during World War I and opens as Andree (Christa Theret) a young beautiful girl with red hair comes to work as a model for the aging Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet). His wife having recently died, he is surrounded by women of various ages who act as his housekeeper, cook and assistant with the suggestion that some may have been previously his models or even more than that. Shortly thereafter his oldest son Jean Renoir (Vincent Rottiers) returns from the WW I battlefield to recuperate from a leg injury. We also meet young Coco Renoir (Thomas Dorot) the sulking youngest son of Renoir and learn of another older son who is also in the military. The story revolves around the role of Andree becoming the inspiration of the elder Renoir and his appreciation of her beauty and velvety skin, which is amply framed in the movie. At the same time there is her connection to son Jean and we get glimpses of them planning their possible future together. But alas, while Andree has aspirations to be an actress and plants the seed that Jean should become a filmmaker (which of course he did but beyond the time frame of the film), this young man is determined to return to fighting in the Great War. Whether you did or did not know the reality not exactly shown in the film that Andree was actually the muse for both father and son, will not influence your appreciation of this film. The almost 2 hour movie was easy to digest and the storyline mattered very little as the true effect of this movie was a visceral sense of this old master mixing colors, putting down his whirling brush strokes  and capturing the beauty of the people and the countryside surrounding him. (2013)

***

Reality sp –  To fully appreciate this film, you have to suspend any tendency that you might have to diagnose significant mental illness, which is somewhat difficult for us to do. This Italian Fellinisque film is directed and co written by Matteo Garrone and it won second prize behind Amour at the Cannes Film Festival. It supposedly is based on a true story which happened to a relative of the Director who became obsessed with the Italian version of the TV reality show Big Brother . He is initially urged by his friends and family to try out to audition for the show where participants become avidly followed as heros  by the mass viewing audience as they live in a beautiful luxurious house and frolic with the others on the show. The main character Luciano (Aniello Arena) is married with two children and has a fish store in Napoli. He becomes convinced that he is on the verge of being chosen for this show and is being checked out by the producers who may be secretly observing him.  In what appears to be a paranoid delusion he begins to give away many of his possessions to people who are down and out,  to the consternation of his loving wife (Loredana Simioli) and other family members.  As he spirals deeper and deeper into this fantasy, if we can put aside our desire to put him into a psychiatric hospital, we perhaps can understand that we are being presented with a satiric  social commentary on the power of mass media, in particular, reality TV, on contemporary life. The background score by veteran movie composer Alexandre Desplat helps to create the mood which may help you lose your reality and appreciate the message of this film. (2013)

***

War Witch sp – We saw this  Oscar nominated movie for best foreign film a few days before the Academy Award ceremony. It is the Canadian entry since that is the home country of Director Kim Nguyen who also wrote the screenplay which he told our screening audience in a post film interview that he has been writing on and off for 10 years. It is set somewhere in the African Congo where a rebel army abducts children and makes them soldiers. The movie, which was primarily filmed in the  Democratic Republic of the Congo, appears to be quite authentic. It  follows Komono, a  12 year old girl, for two years, starting with the point where she is captured, made to shoot her parents and become a soldier. Circumstances lead her captors to believe that she has special powers, can see things that are going to happen and therefore protect them. She is played by a first time local actress Rachel Mwanza, who actually grew up in the streets without a family and was chosen by Kim Nguyen after auditioning over 2000 young girls.  She is on the screen just about all the time and expresses clearly her inner pain and emotions  well as her  own thoughts and images with a little help from the visual effects of the film and the voiceover  in French by another actress (with English subtitles of course). It also has a great soundtrack of  what appeared to be African folk music which captured the atmosphere and mood  of the film. Mwanza for her first film has already won the the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this month and also won the award for the Best Actress in the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. In the film she is accompanied most of the time by another child soldier who is an Albino known as the Magician, also very well  played by a local actor Serge Kanyinda. This movie presents us with a glimpse at a lesser known atrocity  which has occurred in modern times. It is also a simple and beautiful, if not,  sad love story . It well deserves the recognition which it is receiving. (2012)

***

The Gatekeepers-rm

This film by Director Dror Moreh is one of five films featured documentaries  nominated for an Oscar in 2012.  It is mostly talking heads interviews with the last 6 Directors of the Shin Bet which is the secret Israeli security agency and has a motto, Defender that shall not be seen. This is a highly secret agency in which only the names of the leaders are known. As we initially watched this film unfold it seemed that it might be a propaganda piece to support Israel’s actions in regard to the Palestinians. To the contrary, it turned out to be a serious but insightful  discussion of the seemingly endless and at times hopeless conflict between the Israel government and the discontented Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. Each of the subjects of the film were past Directors of Shin Bet and had the responsibility for the internal security of Israel. They made life and death decisions, developed highly sophisticated and intricate data gathering operations through human resources and high tech equipment. Once it became clear the Palestinians were conducting deadly terrorists activities heralded by blowing up a bus and killing numerous innocent people, Shin Bet conducted thousands of heavy duty interrogations and carried out assassinations of known Arab terrorists. The film showed via a camera in the sky, following a vehicle known to contain a confirmed important terrorist leader and possibly some other people. The decision process and ultimately the dropping of a bomb on that vehicle was shown from the aerial view. Another story that was told was the successful murder of a notorious terrorist by the use of a cell phone with an explosive device in it. Footage was also shown of the incident where Shin Bet captured Israeli right wing fanatics who were intent on blowing up the Temple on the Mount (the main point of Arab worship in Jerusalem) after being encouraged by some orthodox rabbis. The complicated Israeli politics were demonstrated as many of these people were ultimately released without punishment. On the other hand, the persistent desire of the Palestinians to make Israel suffer was clearly shown and the absence of any desire by them to accept the existence of Israel is well known. The one man who might have stood a chance of somehow forging a solution to this seemingly unsolvable dilemma, Yitzak Rabin, was himself assassinated by a right wing Israeli much to the dismay of Shin Bet who had the responsibility of protecting Rabin. The most surprising message that we gleamed from this fascinating film is that just about each of these patriotic leaders of Shin Bet seemed to feel that no matter what the terrorists continue to do, the Israeli government should continue to try to talk to their leaders. They seem to say this at the same time, as it is clear that the next series of Shin Bet leaders will carry out their tasks with dedication and at time deadly precision. We have no idea how director Dror Moreh convinced these men of secrets to share their experience and views but the result is an unusual and revealing documentary film. (2012)

***

This is Forty-rm.No doubt you have to be just on the other side of 40 or know some people who are there to fully appreciate this movie. We obviously fit the later category. This is vintage Judd Apatow who wrote the screen play, directed and co- produced the movie. It is a sequel to his 2007 hit “Knocked Up” which introduced us to Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie ( Leslie Mann) also known as Judd Apatow’s wife ) We see them now several years later in the house that they can’t quite afford with two kids ( who happened to be the Apatow’s real kids Maude & Iris who play the bickering siblings perfectly because they are real sibs or perhaps because they are two excellent budding actresses  ). The setting is west-coast suburban but the story is the conflict, anger and yet wonderful familiarity that characterizes this marital relationship. It zings and satirizes  modern sexual relationships, the challenges of raising kids  and even visits to the doctor. Only the father’s of Peter and Debbie are shown. Pete’s father (Albert Brooks)  remarried with three young sons who needs to constantly borrow money from Pete is not a stereotype that we know but the duo captures the warmth of their relationship. Debbie’s father (John Lithgow) is also remarried with children and visits his daughter only once  every several years. The pain that she feels in this neglect is communicated quite well. Both of these relationships may play out in somewhat extreme manner but there will be something in them with which most of the audience will be able to identify. In the midst of the exploration of how school impacts the modern preteen there is a great performance by Melissa McCarthy as a mother of one of the kid’s friends who has occasion to sound off and really does quite a job of doing so. Lest you think that this is a serious drama, let me allay your concerns as it is mostly a comedy even if you are laughing at yourself or someone you have been or someone  who you know quite well. (2012).

***

Arbitrage -nf

The wonderful thing about watching a movie on Netflix that has a good reputation but never made the awards, is   that all you need is an interesting subject, a good storyline and some excellent actors. In this case we start with Robert Miller (Richard Gere) hedge fund tycoon who is  about to sell his company. Unbeknown to the buyer and to his daughter Brooke ( Brit Marling) who is one of his closest executives in his  company, he has been cooking the books.. Would you believe he is doing this because Mr Genius business man invested most of his money in a copper mining scheme in Russia that didn’t work out. His wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon) is mainly preoccupied with her husband’s promised 2 million dollar gift to her favorite charity but that will change. Mr. Miller is of course interested in his mistress (Laetitia Casta) But this is not half the story. Soon we meet a “Colombo like” NYPD homicide detective (Tim Roth) working a case which might make a good CSI plot. On top of this we bring forth Jimmy (Nate Parker) a black young man  who is the son  of the deceased loyal chauffer of Mr. Miller and is asked to keep quiet about what he did on a certain evening but possibly take a rap of 10-15 years. You may not like the character Gere portrays but you will feel his pain.  This is 25 year old screenwriter and director Nicloas Jarecki’s first feature film. (2012)

***

Any Day Now- rm   This film clearly highlights the homophobia.and the discrimination against  gays in the 1970s which unfortunately still lingers in our modern society. The story which supposedly is inspired from a real life situation tells of a gay couple that wants to adopt an abandoned child with Downs Syndrome. The reaction of the legal system , specifically the judges interpretation of the law reflects the cruel bias of much of society which in this case deprived a child, who nobody else wanted from being cared for by a loving responsible couple. The film was a tour  de force for Alan Cumming, currently well known for his role as a political consultant  in the television series The Good Wife. He plays Rudy Donatello a flamboyant female impersonator who displays great sensitivity, anger, a great sense of humor and also shows that he is a talented singer. The film is directed by Travis Fine who co wrote the script with Arthur Bloom. Garrett Dillahunt plays Paul Fleiger, a quiet laid back recently divorced lawyer who works in the DA’s office and falls in love with Rudy during his first outing and their first meeting. Isaac Leyva realistically portrays Marco,   the child with Down’s Syndrome, who says few words and is usually happy except when he realizes he is being abandoned. While the film makes the social and political points that are certainly worth making, there is something to be desired in the contrived story line even if based on reality. We see the unlikely couple falling in love although we don’t really get a glimpse at their chemistry. We also don’t initially see what draws them to this child other than our inference that he is misunderstood and treated unfairly as they are also being treated by society. The film is good enough to stir people up about the injustice portrayed and the variations on it that are still around us. (2012)