****

The Perks of Being a Wallflower-nf.  Stephen  Chobosky wrote  the book in 1999 and it became #1 New York Times Best Seller for Children’s Paperback Books. 3 years later in September 2012 this PG- 13 movie was released with Chobsky as Director and Screenwriter with ensemble of young actors including Logan Lerman, Emma Watson (fresh out of Harry Potter ), Mae Whitman (from the TV hit Parenthood), Ezra Miller, Johnny Simmons along with some veteran grownups such as Paul Rudd, Dylan McDermott and Joan Cussick. They all seem to hit it out of the ballpark and come through with a very successful movie. It certainly is a film that appeals to teens and beyond. In fact, anyone who can remember his or her high school life or even more important appreciates the serious struggles, and at times traumas that young people may go through, will relate to this film on many levels. It would   be over simplifying to describe this as a coming of age film which of course it is . However, it captures the ability of young people to connect with each other, understand, empathize and help each other through the  normal traumas of life as well as the some real bad ones that nobody should have to experience. The storyline on one hand is not typical. Charlie (Logan Lerman), a high school freshman with more baggage than most, is dreading the four years in front of him. He befriends  two high school seniors  Pat and Sam ( Ezra Miller and Emma Watson, who completely loses her British accent for this movie) and hangs around mostly with them and their friends. The setting is a high school in Pittsburgh (the author, screenwriter and Director’s town) and the time would seem to be early or mid 1980s as judged by the music, type of telephone and cars and even the typewriter on which the main character writes his story. There is the requisite lonely time in the lunch room, going to your first party, getting high on a marijuana brownie, truth or dare game, first kiss, the struggle of a gay friend, a lunchroom fight, applications to college etc,. But at the same time these milestones of high school are shown, there is a painful plot and character development with meaningful relationships, which you know, are never forgotten no matter how and where we grow up. Chobosky is writing and directing a film about the 1980s and the music will help bring those of that generation back to their high school days. However, the themes are universal enough to attract today’s youth ( as indicated by the success of the book and movie today) Even us old timers give it a “thumbs up” (with a nod to the movie critic Roger Ebert who died last week.) It would not surprise us if the movie moves towards a cult status and as these young actors make names for themselves, it will be especially interesting to look back at these youthful performances. Any such retrospective should include the Netflix commentary special feature where the actors comment on how it felt making this film about typical teenagers when they admit their teenage life was far from typical. (2012)

***

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)

**

Flight- nf  When an actor who is on the screen all the time, holds your attention and clearly shows the problem which his character is suffering, that actor deserves kudos for that performance. In this case it is Denzel Washington who plays Whit Whitaker, an airline pilot who is an alcoholic and cocaine user who on a routine flight finds himself on plane with a mechanical failure. He does an unbelievably tricky maneuver where he flies the  plane upside down to slow it down and make an emergency landing on a open field saving all “souls onboard” except 2  crew and a few passengers. You probably know all this from the coming attractions. Will he be found out to have been drinking or will  he ever admit his alcohol and drug problem which we all know is necessary to get over it?  That is just about the essence of this movie. There is a lot of drinking and some drugs with small supporting roles by John Goodman as your happy, friendly cocaine dealer, Don Cheadle as the lawyer who is supposed to defend Whit and Melissa Leo as the opposing lawyer. There really aren’t any dramatic unpredictable courtroom scenes. There is no fascinating back-story or a plot that got pulled together in a fantastic ending. If anything, the conclusion is one of a few that you would have predicted. It isn’t very believable but I am sure that the star’s name and all the hype that the movie has received will probably make it a box office success. (2012)

**

Lovely, Still  nf- We find it very difficult to discuss this movie without revealing the entire story which we will warn you when we do. We are presented with Robert Malone, an old lonely man (Martin Landau ) who lives alone but still is working everyday in a supermarket. (This Oscar winning veteran actor was about 80 at the time he made the film  but he was made to look on the older side of  his age.) It is Christmas season and we see him place a present under his  tree for himself. Mary, an  equally older woman (Ellen Burstyn) who looks much more attractive for her age moves next door with her daughter (Elizabeth Banks). The moving truck has barely pulled away when she presents herself to his door (actually, she walks in  since it was open) and within a few minutes has asked him out for a “date”  He is smitten  with her and she seemingly with him. He doesn’t know what he should do for a date and his store manager (Adam Scott) arranges a great place to dine and his co-workers give him advice how to act. We got the feeling that the writers Tim Kasher and writer /director Nicholas Facker were giving us their version of  how they imagine older folks would respond when they fall in love. They declare their love for each other after knowing each other for two days  They  go sled riding down a hill together and take a ride through the city streets in a horse drawn carriage. They are shown to be totally preoccupied with each other . They call each other as soon as they wake up and in a few days they are sleeping in the same bed. When they exchanged Christmas presents she accidentally opened the present that he was planning to give himself and it was gun. He tearfully acknowledged he was going to kill himself because he was so lonely , but of course not any more.  All we can say is that despite the skill of these actors it certainly didn’t look real to us ! Spoiler Alert !! Don’t read further if you plan to see this movie which we don’t really recommend. There was a clue. In between scenes there was this spidery, fluffy, stringy material  of a reddish color that would occupy the screen –with “strange music“ in the background when it was shown. There were some confusing incidents where Mary  accidentally spilled her own medicine down the drain and couldn’t get her prescription filled right away because her doctor was out of town (this was to mislead us) We then see her fill her prescription and sneak in and  put it  in Robert’s  medicine cabinet. He never takes the pills but gets to Mary’s house. We see the pictures on the wall are of him as the store owner/manager, his wife and his children. He collapses and goes to the hospital. There it becomes clear that his girl friend is his wife, the present store manager is his son and Mary’s daughter is his daughter. The spidery fluffy stuff must have been the interweaving cells of the brain that were in trouble with this man. We figure that  it must be some weird brain disease (we were never told) where he can’t remember his past but yet his short  term memory is o.k.  We can appreciate that this movie worked for some people and it received some decent reviews. It used this storyline to show a love that had been lost by a ravishing brain  disease was able to be rekindled and experienced as a first love. This is tender, touching and is a wonderful thought. We never heard of such a case  but anything can happen in the movies! ( 2010)

****

No- sp

This Chilean movie was one of 90 foreign films  submitted by various countries as an entry for an Academy Award. It is the first film from Chile to become one of the five  finalist for an Oscar in this category which will be awarded in about one month from the date that this review is being written. This is the second film directed by Pablo Larrain to be entered by Chile for an Academy Award. The other film was Tony Mannero in 2008.  No is a dramatization of a very important event that happened Chile 1988 , about which we would guess most Americans might only have the vaguest notion. That was the plebiscite in which the Chilean people were given the opportunity, because of international pressure put on long term President and dictator Augusto Pinochet, to vote whether they wanted him to continue for another 8 years. Pinochet had been an army general who was part of the coup d’etat that had overthrown the government of Salvadore Allende in 1973 and subsequently ruled the country as an appointed dictator President. His government was known for killing, interning and torturing thousands of Chilean citizens who resisted his rule. Therefore it was a big event when this election, which was under international scrutiny, was scheduled to take place where a yes or no vote would determine whether Pinochet would stay in place. The story line follows Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal) who is a skilled advertising executive who becomes one of the masterminds behind the “ No “ campaign. Each side is given 15 minutes per day on television to make its case  and the actual 1980s commercials  from each side which were shown in that  election were used in the film. In fact 1/3 of the movie is actual archival tapes which is weaved into the scripted segments. This probably included some of the brutal street scenes where Pinochet’s thugs and police were roughing up protesters. 1980 cameras were used to shoot the movie to capture the texture of the times. The movie showed  the anxiety, drama and fear of the NO adverting team as they made their decision to emphasize what they thought would be a new day for Chile (with song and dance) as compared to all out attack on the existing government (although they did some of that also). On one hand this was an exciting battle with a dramatic ending but it also highlighted the subtle emotions with which these people struggled. We learned that many of the small but powerful  roles of the characters on both sides of this struggle were played by the actual people who had been part of the No supporters  25 years ago . This gave our movie experience an added touch of authenticity. (2012)

****

Moonrise Kingdom-nf

This PG-13 film would seem to be the perfect movie for a 12 year old boy or girl who feels misunderstood by most of the world, still enjoys child adventure stories and is interested how it might feel to be in love for the first time. Perhaps there is a little bit of this still left in everyone which gives this movie great universal appeal.  The setting is an island off the coast of New England in 1965  where a kid (Jared Gilman) attending scouting camp meets a local girl (Kara Wayward) his age . He is “picked on” at camp and unbeknownst to the camp is about to be rejected by his latest foster parents. She, lives on the big house at the end of the island with her sibs and parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand)  who clearly don’t  understand her or each other. These two peas in a pod make a plan to meet and run away together. He is the skilled little scout with his all purpose backpack and a trusty map . She has her suitcase filled with her favorite books and her kitten. They romp across beautiful fields, climb steep, curvy mountains and overlook beautiful water which they forge. They even allow themselves to have an experimental romantic kiss.  We then see the slightly nerdy but loveable scout leader (Ed Norton) realize one of his charges is missing and he mobilizes his scouts to find them Of course the parents of the missing girl are frantic and get after the island police chief (Bruce Willis) with whom mom previously has had a little hanky panky, to track them down. The chase on the island is somewhat like the keystone cops with ups and downs and back and forth. It is definitely a comedy but is also a young person’s romantic adventure but at the same time it  is a painful satire of how grownups make life painful for children. The screenplay by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola is outstanding and extra credit has to be given to Mr. Anderson not only for pulling together his unlikely story but for directing a band of kids throughout most the film. We can’t quite describe the original music background by Alexandre Desplat which helped carry the film mixed in with an exposition about the meaning of the instruments of the orchestra which we are sure had symbolism which we may have unconsciously appreciated. We did understand the meaning of a brewing of a big storm which was known to be on it’s way to threaten this island and it’s inhabitants. (2012)

*****

Django Unchained – rm

This is another  Quentin Tarantino revenge movie but yet it is like nothing that we have ever seen before. The brilliance of Tarantino ,who wrote the screenplay and directed the film, is that the movie is not what it seems to be.  It begins looking  like  fanciful story that is a “shoot em up western” – maybe the so called spaghetti western (because they were made also by filmmakers of Italian background,) where some guys come to town on some mission and all sorts of things happen. The movie is initially set in Texas two years before the Civil War. A German-American dentist turned bounty hunter  (Christopher Waltz) ambushes a transport of a few slaves because there is this one slave, Django (Jamie Foxx)  who can recognize three criminal  brothers who he is trying to track down dead or alive  to collect a bounty on their head put there by  the federal government.  The next thing you know, we are being drawn into the world of plantation slavery and the vicious, cruel, sadistic manner  in which white people in the South were treating the blacks (a word by the way was never used since the “n word” prevailed.) Because the viewer can only take so much of this painful inhuman treatment, the film is laced with clear satire and if you can believe it , humor. Then, when the revenge factor kicks in there are endless shootings of mainly white guys with gushes of blood all over the place to the background of what seemed to be haunting western music. The story has it’s twists and turns and didn’t resolve itself for  2 ¾  hours. In the end we are left with an indelible view of the horrors of this period of our history served up to us in satire. In addition this film was a magnificent showcase for outstanding acting performances. Christopher Waltz may very well get himself a second Oscar as the conniving but sensitive dentist bounty hunter. Jamie Foxx evolved from captured slave to an unforgettable John Wayne type hero wearing a pair of shades. Kerry Washington did a great job as Brunhilda the German speaking slave who didn’t say much but her eyes told her story.  Samuel L. Jackson was not recognizable at first by us but he nailed his role as a true “Uncle Tom” at the plantation who ultimately identified with his masters. Finally, Leonardo Di Caprio as the mean rich  Mississippi plantation slave owner really got into his part and must have done a great job since we hated his character.  We didn’t feel that way about the film. In fact, we felt quite the opposite. (2012)

****

Zero Dark Thirty

The last time Director Katherine Bigelow and Screenwriter Mark Boal collaborated they made the Hurt Locker which was one of the finest war  films we have ever seen. Since the subject matter this time was the story of the tracking down and killing of Osama ben Laden, it seemed like a natural for them to duplicate their great work.  They ended up doing a very good  job but in our opinion it wasn’t a “repeat”. They initially tug on our emotions by starting the film with frantic phone calls coming from the doomed World Trade Center on 9/11. We then are exposed to the United States  waterboarding suspects who might lead us to Osama ben Laden. This element while uncomfortable to watch, may not be telling the complete story in regard to how key this was to what was to come. The film centers around Maya (Jessica Chastain) a CIA agent who doggedly persists when all the other CIA honchos have their doubts including Leon Panetta CIA director (James Gandelfini)  We are told in the credits that she is a real person who can’t be identified since she is still an active agent. It is too bad that we couldn’t know anything substantial about her other than to watch her determination  despite no one believing her. Nevertheless Ms Chastain carries the film with her riveting portrayal of this American heroine. There also was a great deal of mumbo jumbo on the radio, agents talking back and forth, numerous Arab names mentioned as suspects or people who might have known people. You were never really given enough information to appreciate who they were and what role they played. We also never really get to know the numerous CIA agents, Bureau Chiefs, operatives or whatever. Even the Navy Seal team stays a team and they all blend together in their military fatigues and being viewed through night vision goggles. We will admit that the 2 hours and 40 minutes did go by quite quickly and it was exciting to watch the attack on the compound. It was quite authentic and you felt and thought you were there.  If the real Maya ever writes a memoir, we will be sure to read it and get to know what she was really like and how she brought about the slaying of this dragon. (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)