****

Made in Dagenham- nf- If you are one of those people who care about the important equal rights and social justice moments, especially those of the last 50 years, you will not want to miss this movie. It is a dramatization of a true story that took place in 1968 when the women in a Ford manufacturing plant in London who sewed the upholstery for the car seats demanded the same pay as men for their work. The movie shows the coming together of three unlikely allies in the cause of justice for women. Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins) a young factory worker becomes incensed when she realizes the inequalities towards women and takes a leadership role in organizing the strike of the 187 women of a factory which also employs thousands of men. She by chance meets Lisa (Rosamund Pike), wife of one of the company executives who despite being wealthy feels treated as a second class citizen even in her marriage and lends encouragement to the beleaguered strikers. Ultimately a meeting with the British Secretary of Labor Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson), who also identifies with the strikers who by this time are quite determined although holding on by their finger tips. Despite facing the serious threat of Ford pulling out from England Carson  then institutes the deal which promises near parity with men and a plan to put forth equal rights legislation. The dramatic victory at the conclusion will send a chill up your spine and a tear to your eye. The acting is excellent and it was well directed by Nigel Cole . There are no big surprises but the movie will grab your emotions. In a sense, it  channels the 1979 classic film Norma Rae which told the true story of one woman’s battle to organize the minimum wage workers in a cotton mill and which earned Sally Fields an Academy Award. We need films like this to remind us what determined people can do and how some things are worth fighting for. (2010)

****

The First Grader-sp We take for granted that everyone in this country is entitled to an education. We especially can appreciate it when we see it through the eyes of eager children trying to learn the their ABCs in a dusty one room class room in Kenya where the government has decreed, for the first time, the right of everyone to be educated. We are taken to a new level of appreciation when we see it from the point of view of an 85 year old man Kimani Ng’ang’a Maruge (Oliver Musila Litondo) who is determined to join this class and get the education he never had and learn to read. This is based a true story of a   man who became a national hero in Kenya and a symbol of the universal desire for education as his quest ultimately brought the real Maruge from his country village to address the United Nations. However important this theme may be, there also was another story going on here. This proud man had been part of Kikuyu tribe, which produced the Mau-Mau rebellion, which ultimately led to the Kenyan independence from British colonial rule. He demands and gets the respect as others realize that he had been one of freedom fighters who took a sacred oath to return the land controlled by the British back to the native people. As a young man he endured torture and witnessed the death of his wife and children at the hands of the British who demanded that he give up his oath of resistance. The movie flashes back from the present day of this old man trying to learn to read to when he was resisting the powerful British. This is a poignant and dramatic story about a piece of history that most of us do not know much about. It is based on screenplay by Ann Peacock but carried forth and molded by director Justin Chadwick. It is all the more remarkable because it paints an extremely negative picture of colonial Britain by this British Director with the initial support of the BBC, which took the project into development. The school children and most of the characters were not professional actors but all real life Kenyan people. This included the children and their school, which was quite genuine. The exception was Naomie Harris an outstanding English screen actress who had a major role-playing Jane Obinchu the schoolteacher who believed Maruge deserved the opportunity to learn to read. The performance by Litondo as Maruge is totally believable, as he seems to embody this “Mandelaisk” persona. Litondo is a native Kenyan who used to be a news anchor with no previous acting experience.  Harris, Chadwick and their entire crew spent several weeks in Kenya working with locals and preparing to shoot this movie there. The result is an extremely, sensitive effective and emotional film. A middle school teacher in our audience mentioned how she was inspired to go back into her classroom and we all could feel the awe and the thirst for learning that young people and a deprived older man might feel. We also have had our interest peaked to learn more about this very interesting and complicated piece of African history about which this story only scratched the surface. It is a movie that should not be missed. (2011)

*****

The Conspirator- sp You may think you know the story about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln but you don’t know Jack ! You probably most certainly don’t know the story of one of the so called conspirators Mary Surratt who ran the boarding house where John  Wilkes Booth met with his friends one of whom was her son. Producer Brian Falk is part of a new production company called the American Film Company, which has a mission to make films about American history. When he came across this 18 year old screenplay by James D. Solomon  about this story, the company decided it should be their debut movie. They took a chance and showed the script  to producer Bill Holderman who is a partner in Robert Redford’s company and the next thing they know they have Redford directing it and they were able to put  together an all star  cast. It then seems that they became obsessed about the authenticity and had a team of historians not only vet the script but were on speed dial for every detail of the film from the courtroom trial transcripts to the exact buttons on the soldier’s uniforms. The story starts off focusing on Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) a young wounded Union officer on the battlefield. It turns out that he is a lawyer in civilian life and shortly after he leaves the military he is being pressured by his senior law associate (Tom Wilkerson) to defend Mary Surratt (Robin Wright). The trial is being conducted by a military court ( think Guantanamo) with judge and jury being Union soldiers and an ace prosecutor Joseph Holt  (Danny Huston ) with Secretary of  War Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline) trying to call the shots from behind the scenes. Besides being a  fascinating piece of little known history, the film is beautifully photographed, with near perfect period costumes but yet it draws the viewer in and makes you feel that you are watching a very real life high stakes drama. Of course this is also a thinking person’s movie and you have to come away appreciating how the strength of our constitution gets tested from time to time and you wonder if it passed the test after Lincoln got shot as we sometimes wonder how it is doing today. Speaking of Lincoln, this movie opens April 15^th on the day of his death. We highly recommend it as one of the best films we have seen this year.(2011)

****

Jews and Baseball rm-  An American Love Story- You don’t have to be Jewish or a baseball fan to get something out of this well done documentary. However, the more you fit into these categories, the more you will want to be sure that you catch up with this film. Every Jewish kid should get a DVD of this film for his or her 13^th birthday. It is written by Ira Berkow, Pulitzer Prize winniing author and directed by Peter Miller. There are interviews with baseball greats and people who knew them. There are also personal comments by people such as Larry King, Ron Howard and Dustin Hoffman The emergence of Jewish baseball stars, mirrors the story of the Jewish immigrants being able to partake in the American dream. The difficulties that these baseball heroes encountered spotlight the anti-Semitism that festered in the United States. The film also makes a point of showing that the problems that these Jews had in taking their rightful place on the baseball diamond were not very different than the next group had in challenging the discrimination barrier in this game. This latter point was illustrated in an incident that happened at the tail end of Jewish icon Hank Greenberg’s baseball career during the rookie year of Jackie Robinson. Robinson was trying to beat a base hit when he collided with Greenberg who was playing first base. As the two highly competitive players brushed themselves off, Greenberg gently offered Robinson good luck in dealing with the resistances, which he knew Robinson, would experience as the first black baseball player. The film tells the stories with interviews of the pioneer Jewish ball players in the major leagues. One such player is the legendary Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodger Sandy Koufax, who will be known forever for pitching four no hitters and also skipping a crucial World Series game in order to attend Jewish high Holiday services. This movie also profiled a budding Jewish baseball player whose name we sadly don’t recall because he only had one major leagues at bat during which time on the first pitch he was hit in the head and suffered a severe concussion. After months of recovery he is still struggling in the minor leagues hoping to come back to major-league baseball with the hope of living his dream. This movie is about the baseball dream that many Jewish kids have had and a select few have realized but it is a dream that every kid understands.

****

The King’s Speech–rm Whenever a new insight into history is provided by a film, it has the potential to be of great interest. If it is done well such a movie is usually a winner. This is the case with The King’s Speech where two great actors  turn in a near perfect performances with director Tom Hooper and the production staff pulling together an authentic period piece which captures pre World War II Great Britain and the royal family. Just about anyone in our generation or any student of this piece of history knows that when King George V of Great Britain died his oldest son became King Edward VIII but shortly thereafter abdicated the throne “to marry the woman I love” who was Wallis Simpson  twice divorced American, making his younger brother next in line to become the new King George VI ( Colin Firth)  just as the World War II was starting.  What you probably did not know was that the new king had a terrible stammer, which presented him with an enormous problem since he was expected to address his people and spur them on in their upcoming battle with Germany led by Adolph Hitler. His wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) even before he ascended to the throne located a somewhat unconventional speech therapist, an Australian by the name of Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).  Logue insists on a first name basis with his royal highness and includes some exploration of the king’s childhood and his emotional conflicts as part of his speech therapy. Needless to say after some twists and turns, dramatic moments, a great musical background, meeting the king’s young children (now Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret), the new king  triumphs while Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall), many others including the whole British Empire cheer him on. Knowing the ending (which you probably knew already ) will not spoil the enjoyment of this superb movie. It may have been a tad repetitious and we would have liked a little more of a psychological explanation or exposition of how  the interaction between the speech therapist and the king led to his improvement ( perhaps there was a father transference) However, it is doubtful that most viewers will find very much lacking from this movie. (2010)

****

Fair Game-rm– This movie retells the well known story of Valerie Plame and how she was exposed as a CIA agent by the Vice President’s office because her husband Joe Wilson decided to write an op-ed piece in the N.Y. Times and tell the story how during his fact finding mission for the U.S. government he found absolutely no evidence of the sale of uranium to build nuclear weapons being sold by Niger to Iraq.  The Bush administration was motivated to do this because they had decided to attack Iraq on the basis that they believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and this supposed sale was an important part of the case, which they built for the US entry into this war. They tried to discredit Wilson by claiming his wife really sent him there on a boondoggle mission, that he was unreliable and that she was just a middling CIA agent. The opposite was the truth and the criminal act of exposing her as a undercover CIA agent actually endangered many lives who were part of the overseas operations that she was conducting and ruined her career as well as nearly destroying her marriage. Naomi Watts plays Plame who on one hand lives the life of the housewife next door, taking care of young kids, having evening get-togethers with other couples and discussing current events. However, instead of going to work at her cover job with a financial management firm and taking occasional overnight trips, she is at a fairly high level in the CIA going on overnight dangerous missions. Her husband Joe Wilson, former ambassador to Niger as well as having had other State Department jobs now has his own struggling company and doubles as the housedad when his wife is out of town. He is very well played by Sean Penn, who must have especially relished the role of the guy trying to expose government lies.  Director Doug Liman achieved just the right balance in  showing us the everyday life of this housewife spy, mixed with the frightening missions which she undertook. Watts and Penn brought intensity to the outrage and the despair, which their characters experienced. The location shots were very realistic as were the all too familiar cast of characters including the politicians and the media. The film captured an important piece of history mixed with the drama and the human emotions, which were part of this story. It is not a part of history that we should be proud of but what is encouraging is that this film can be made in this country and this story can be told and talked about as much as we choose to do so.(2010)

*****

Conviction sp- This is  a true story of a man convicted of a bloody murder in a Boston suburb in the 1980s .  There are witnesses who say that he told him he did it and there is blood typing evidence (this is before DNA analysis) which strongly suggests it was him. The only thing going for him is his sister who is sure that he didn’t do it. You have seen this relatively simple plot play out many times on television on Dateline, 20/20 or on similar programs. The only difference here is that you have another magnificent performance by Hillary Swank playing Betty Anne Waters who is going to take the next 18 years of her life completing High School, going to college and then law school in order to see if there is way to get her brother his freedom. You also have Sam Rockwell, playing the  brother Kenny,  in a performance that should earn him an Academy Award nomination. The screen play by Pamela Gray and  the direction by Tony Goldwyn gives us pieces of their childhood which clarifies their great devotion to each other. The struggle of Betty Ann to become a lawyer and her determination to find the evidence that would be the key to saving her brother allows us to understand this person. Her interaction with Kenny similarly provides insight into his pain and bravado.  The difficult lives of the people in the community where this happened and the very questionable actions of the police and district attorney Martha Coakley (who subsequently was defeated in the recent  US Senate race in Massachusetts to replace Kennedy)  was brought out by a stunning performance of Juliette Lewis who played one of the witnesses who recounts what really happened to make her testify against Kenny. We had the good fortune to meet at our preview screening Swank, Rockwell, Lewis, the real life Betty Anne Waters and her good friend and fellow law student Abra Rice who was well played in the movie by Minnie Driver. They confirmed that truth is stranger and at times more unbelievable than fiction. I recall reading about the well known lawyer Barry Scheck, who was depicted in this movie, and wondering about his decision to devote his career to  the Innocence Project where the new science of DNA matching is applied to old crimes. It turns out that over 250 innocent people have been freed from prison due to his efforts. There is one particular line in this film stands out in this regard as Swank as Betty Ann remarks that if Massachusetts had the death penalty her brother would have been killed before she had chance to make a case for his innocence. Swank, speaking for herself at our screening told how making this movie allowed her to understand the unique life affirming experience that these people went through. Watching this film also gave the audience the opportunity to share this journey.(2010)

*****

The Social Network-rm – Every aspect of this story and film is handled just about as well as it could be done. The subject matter has to be of interest to the 500 million people who are on Facebook or the millions who are not and are wondering how did all of this ever get started. The captivating story comes from a book titled Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich but the brilliant dialogue comes from the screenplay of  Aaron Sorkin who also wrote the great TV series West Wing. We get a very realistic trip back a few years to the Harvard campus where the very contemporary version of the great American dream is being hatched in a college dormitory. Mark Zuckerberg somewhat of a social misfit himself, is developing this idea for what will ironically become the greatest social networking concept of all time. He is played extremely well by  Jesse Eisenberg whom we remember as the older son in The Squid and The Whale, plays Zuckerberg. The fascinating part of the story is that a bunch of other guys  at Harvard also had some roles in stimulating and developing what was to become a world wide phenomena. While Zuckerberg clearly is the genius here, the Winklevoss brothers and Divya Naregra provided some of the nuclei of the ideas and Eduardo Saverin one of Zuckerberg’s friends actually started off as the business manager and then CFO of the fledgling enterprise. Saverin initially invested the $1000 to start it and then another $18,000 before several the big venture capitalists found it.  In contrast, this movie, about their story cost $50 million. But we digress here because the essence of the story, which will suck you in, is how all these Harvard students plus Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake), a Stanford dropout who himself invented Napster, became entangled ultimately in a multimillion lawsuit at the time that Facebook was worth billions of dollars. The film is directed by  David Fincher, who knows how to transition episodes of time, having directed The Strange Case of Benjamin Button. He cleverly moves back in forth from the high stakes deposition of a law suit being waged about who owns Facebook and how much do they own, back to the events of their college days a few years previously. Zuckerberg is the center of attention here. This film is successful in giving us a good glimpse under the hood of this determined person who is one of those 21^st century people who is changing the world as we know it.  (2010)