The Wave

The Wave is a German film that will knock your socks off!

What's it about?  This reviewer will never be a spoiler, so I think it best to focus only on the opening scene of the movie:

The film begins in a high school class in Germany.  Germany...pertinent fact!  The teacher is obviously a real favorite with the kids.  They actually call him by his first name!  Quite a marvel in the stodgy environment of the typical European classroom.

Mr Popular Teacher works his magic (the way we used to, Valerie) to settle the students down.  Once he gets their attention, he says that they will spend the next week studying a fascinating topic: autocracy!

Fascinating? the kids ask.  Who cares? they shout out.  The teacher of course tries to get them interested...the old teacher hook, so to speak.

The students say, "Oh no, not that German-guilt trip again!"  The kids are referring, of course, to the Holocaust, about which they have already learned.  They naturally declare, "That was another generation.  We weren't even born.  Germany is different.  We're different."

OH REALLY?  the clever professor asks.

What follows is an extraordinary experiment.  The teacher does not tip his hand.  But he will try to show the kids, over the course of the week, how he can turn them into good little Nazis!

Well, readers, the teacher has the kids' attention.  Do I have yours????

Enjoy this wonder of a film.  You'll get insight into authoritarianism like you've never had before.  You'll think Lord of the Flies is a walk in the park.

You may have your first real insight into how groups can turn evil.

Winter's Bone

OK, better late than never.  This amazing film came out more than a year ago, and Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for Best Actress at a disgustingly young age!  Jennifer is the star of The Hunger Games, which releases on DVD soon.  I lauded her work in the scifi dazzler a while back in this blog.

The Winter's Bone is so great, in my mind, that it defies superlatives.  The plot is threadbare, so I can reveal it without being a spoiler: a seventeen year old living in poverty (probably in the Appalachias) must find her father, who fled after he posted bond for a crime, putting up his house as collateral.

Not very interesting?  Wait!  This film is not at all about a plot. It's about flavor!  Not since Deliverance has a film taken us so convincingly into the backwoods, where disgruntled, coarse, illiterate folks struggle to make ends meet and interact with cold detachment.

With the "twang" of the midwest hills, and a vernacular replete with the word "ain't" and double negatives, the hillbillies (yes, the perfect use of the word) engage in dialogs that sear deeply into the viewer's psyche.

The destitute heroine, who valiantly steps into the role of mother to her two very young sibs, goes out in search of her father.  In doing so, she meets the inhumanity of neighbors and eventually experiences the brutality of life in a world where there's little food on the dining room table and everyone is desperate.

As in The Odyssey, the burdened teen ventures out and faces obstacles wherever she goes.  She's skilled at survival.  She's a tough, empowered girl who lives in a dog-eat-dog place where only the strong and thick-skinned can make it.

Oh, don't miss the very woodsy bluegrass scenes too.  As a banjo player, I loved those film moments.  BUT:  Please do not get the wrong view of bluegrass.  Between the music in Deliverance and this flick, folks might visit one of my banjo jams and deem me a "good ol' boy!"

Yes, this flick is a marvel.  It's one of a kind.  You will never, ever forget a backwoods world that exists right here in this rich country of ours.

If you see one film this year, this is it!

Ruby Sparks

If you've ever written a piece of fiction, even a short story, where you've created a character, this film is for you!  Think of the wonder of forming a person out of the written word:  in a sense, you give birth to a human being who becomes so real in your/our minds, that he/she seems to be real!

Isn't Emma real?  How about Jean Valjean?  Or Mme Bovary?  We actually SEE these characters.  They are real, in our minds.  So real, in fact, that we wonder if we might meet them in the street some day!

Ruby Sparks focuses on this wonder.  No spoiler, as usual, but the film centers on a writer who describes a character, Ruby, in his latest book.  Suddenly, the girl is in his dreams.   OK, no big suspension of disbelief so far.

Now imagine if the girl suddenly shows up in his kitchen!   She seems real enough.  But is she?

Cute idea.

The film takes us into a very deep realm.  To what extent do we, as humans, have the ability, or perhaps the right, to be promethean?  Can we truly "create" another person?  If so, do we have the right to control them?   Zola grappled with this concept.  He described forming characters who, once formed, became independent of the author and acted according to nature and nurture.  He tried to create personalities who moved about in the fictitious world of their own volition.

Is this possible?

The film abounds in humor, and it is lighthearted in spirit.  But do not for one second think you can see this flick and not ponder its very deep messages for a long time to come!

A MUST for an English teacher, Valerie!  A MUST for anyone who thinks creatively.

Grade:  A.    This one is a winner.

The Intouchables

See these two men?  They will make you glad you sat down in a cool theatre to watch them.  And, after all, as our temps. in Phoenix soar to 115* this week (pray for us), why would you need any incentive to go to the movies, hmmm?

This is a wonderful, wonderful French film.  Just overlook the lame title. Based on a true story, one of these men is an aristocratic quadriplegic, one is an urban soul going nowhere.  Guess which is which.  From there, all cliche and predictability end.  Masterful performances tell a story we should all hear.

I enjoyed every minute of this film.  Go see it and we'll talk more.


P.S. The fact that it takes place in Paris, including two scenes in the very cafe in which hubby and I recently had breakfast, leaves me positively giggling, but in no way influences my endorsement.  -smile-

Moonrise Kingdom

Beginning at the end, as the closing credits rolled, I turned to hubby and asked,  "Did you like it?"  "Yea, I did.  I thought it was..." "Enchanting?"  "Yea, enchanting."

If you like a camera the way Wes Anderson does, if you like quirky characters, bizarre plot twists, and a wink that says, "Don't take this too soberly," this film is for you.  Every scene is treated as an artist's palette.  Anderson uses color schemes and set design and positively PERFECT scoring to float us through a different time and place.  The strong, supporting cast of Anderson usual suspects along with a few casting surprises - Francis McDormand, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis (as a nerd!), Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Bob Balaban - and a cast of hundreds of boy scouts - do nothing to upstage two talented adolescents, Kara Heyward and Jared Gilman.

Won't tell you much more, except this:  to say this is a Lord of the Flies meets Blue Lagoon meets The Royal Tannebaums meets Rushmore would be unfair.  It is its own charming, engaging, entertaining, loving nod to an age of innocence, not just chronologically, but historically (c.1963).

I really liked this movie!  It's different.

Colombiana

Hollywood is offering so many "vengeance" films that we could say films based on the revenge motif form their own genre.  If so, Colombiana is high on the list of get-em-back flicks!

I won't say much about the plot so as not to give it away, but a little girl in Colombia grows up in a criminal environment.  When she witnesses the murder of her parents, she flees.  The baddies chase her to no avail.  Fast-forward about fifteen years.  The girl is now a young adult.  She is none other than Zoe Saldana!  And Zoe's character is out for revenge!

The fun of the movie is watching Zoe in action.  She has many ways of slaying the baddies, and while she's at it, she mopes and pouts like a truly troubled, out-for-revenge young woman.  Strange twist: her adopted father is the one who trained her to be a killer.

Zoe's fine acting makes the movie.  She's a toughie.  She's gritty.  She's distant.  She's a truly empowered assassin!

Wait!  There's more!  My own cousin, Julien Muller, who lives in Paris and has been a character actor for some thirty years, landed a small part in the movie.  He's the cop at the station with the bent nose (a la Depardieu) who mutters only a few words in English so you can't hear his French accent.  Julien told me he met Zoe Saldana during the shoot and found her quite affable.

So go and see my French cousin.  See Zoe!  Revel in a good revenge flick!  Enjoy!

Celeste Holm, brave actress of the 40's

Back in the 40's, anti-semitism was identified with Hitler, Nazis, and other fanatics who espoused racial hatred.

After the war, Americans who claimed they were not racists often joined country clubs where no Jewish folks were allowed.  They also made sure their sons or daughters did not marry Jews.  Many used the well known derogatory slur, "He jewed me down," to refer to a negotiation.

So when Gentleman's Agreement, a film about American anti-semitism, was proposed, not every actor was quick to jump on the bandwagon.  Gregory Peck did, and more power to him.  He was of course an upright man in both personal and public persona, later playing the lawyer who defends a black man  in the very race-sensitive To Kill a Mockingbird.

Celeste Holms, not an A lister of the 40's but well up there in rank, bravely joined Peck and Dorothy McGuire to act in the controversial Gentleman's Agreement.  Here's her most famous line from the movie, where she plays the liberal-minded Anne Dettrey:

Bert McAnny:  What?  Now, Green, don't get me wrong.  Why, some of my best friends are Jews.
Anne Dettrey:  And some of your other best friends are Methodists, but you never bother to say that.

We lost Celeste this week.  She was 95.  Hats off to a courageous actress who played in a film that opened many Americans' eyes.