A MOVIE REVIEW – “A SEPARATION”
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“A Separation.” This movie comes to us from Iran and so you’ll need to spend time reading subtitles if you go to see it, but if you do you won’t regret it. The film opens with Simin (Leila Hatami) making copies of travel documents. The next scene has Simin and her husband, Nader (Peyman Moadi), in front of a judge. Simin wants a divorce. Why? She wants to leave Iran. Nader refuses. He is the caregiver for his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) who has Alzheimer’s. Simin insists that the father no longer recognizes them and that they must take this opportunity to leave the country. Since Nader refuses to leave, Simin wants a divorce. The judge grants the divorce and Simin moves out of the house. Their child, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), stays with her father. Interestingly, Simin does not leave the country, but instead moves in with her mother – perhaps hoping that her now ex-husband will change his mind or maybe her airplane ticket isn’t for another few weeks.
With his wife moved out of the house, Nader needs a caregiver for his father. He hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a very religious woman, who is conflicted regarding the job (working for a now single man). She needs the job to help out with family expenses as her husband, Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), has lost his job and has enormous debts. She brings her child, Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini), with her. The job is difficult for her as she is pregnant. (more…)
The Movies I’d Like to See Nominated for a Best Picture Oscar…
If I was able to cast an Oscar ballot for this year’s Best Picture nominees, I 
would go with:
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I was blown away by this movie. You have the emotionally scarred Lisbeth Salande alongside a defeated Mikael Blomkvist, joining forces to solve a mystery that is set in the harsh wintry weather of Sweden. I love how director David Fincher goes with two different movie styles during the first half of the movie as he switches between the darkness of Lisbeth and the professional world of Mikael Blomkvist and then blends them perfectly together when they finally join forces in the second half. This movie isn’t for the weak of heart. There are scenes that will make you squirm, but the movie doesn’t back down from those moments. And one has to mention Trent Reznor, because his music drives the movie forward.
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.“ I am a Harry Potter fan. This movie ends the series in wonderful style. Wizards. Battles. Good vs. Evil. There aren’t any stupid Quidditch-moments. We get to finally say “goodbye” to evil Voldemort. Sometimes life isn’t about having fun, sometimes it is about life and death and this movie takes us on that journey.
“Hugo“. A love story to the beginning of movie making. And along the way we get to watch a story where adults and children learn from each other.
“Bridesmaids.” The funniest movie of the year. (more…)
FILM REVIEW: ‘YOUNG ADULT’
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It could be my imagination, but Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron are starting to look like sisters.
Okay, “Young Adult” is about Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), an author of a young adult book series (a book series that is coming to an end). That is her job, but as a person, she is a self-absorbed narcissist, and partially delusional. We see this within minutes when she goes on a date. The guy talks about how he spent time in Asia, teaching. Not all of us are meant to leave the US and take a job in some foreign country, teaching underprivileged youth; however, Mavis’ response is to show pity that he was exiled away from the big city of Minneapolis. Of course, this doesn’t stop her from sleeping with the guy. Her inability to grow out of her high school queen attitude is perhaps driven by her career choice. Due to her young adult writing, she is constantly watching teenage reality television and eating out at teen hangouts.
She gets a baby party invite from Beth Slade (Elizabeth Reaser). Beth is now married to Mavis’ high school boyfriend, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson). Mavis initially interprets this as a slight by Beth. She hasn’t been back to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota in years and doesn’t consider them to be close friends. To her, this is just Beth sending a reminder that she is married to Buddy. With her teacher-one-night-stand still sleeping in her bedroom, Mavis decides she’s off to Mercury. Somewhere between getting the invitation and her one-night stand, she decides that she is going to win Bubby Slade back and show folks that she is still the prom queen.
As she drives through Mercury, you can almost see her distain for her hometown. To one side, she sees a Staples. On her other side, she sees a KenTacoHut. (Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut). Never mind that she had just shopped at a Staples store in Minneapolis. And never mind the fact that (more…)
OUT TO SEE: ‘THE HELP’
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Upfront: I LOVED IT.
I resisted seeing this movie for a few weeks, but when the long Labor Day weekend approached I decided to catch this movie (saw this movie before heading off to a wedding, so perhaps that skews everything I’m about to write). What else was I supposed to see:”Apollo 18″, “Shark Night 3D”? Why my resistance? All you have to do is take one glance at the poster and it tells you: chick flick combined with, as one friend put it, the “white savior genre” (or as the WSJ critic put it, the white guilt genre). As for the chick flick comment, the male actors in “The Help” are almost an after thought– a handful of boyfriends/husbands, a waiter, a boss, a pastor and all of them playing two-bit roles. Nelsan Ellis(playing “Henry the Waiter” or better known to many of us as Lafayette Reynolds from “True Blood”) has a somewhat pivotal role, but let’s just say the movie would have done just fine without his character. As for the white savior comment, it follows that glorious (infamous) line of movies starting with “Dancing with Wolves” and moving on to “The Last Samurai,” “Gran Torino” and “The Blind Side” – I’m sure I could find similar movies that date before “Dancing with Wolves”, but I am under the impression that “Dancing with Wolves” is seen as the godfather of this genre. I’m not saying that all of those movies are awful and unintentionally racist. I loved “Gran Torino.” I was insulted by “The Last Samurai.” It is just that when you combine “chick flick” with “white savior”, in my mind, a film immediately starts out with two strikes. (For a deeper dive into the “white savior” comment, read Patricia A. Turner’s op-ed in the New York Times.)
Now that I’ve shown my willingness to attack a movie just based on the poster, let’s move on to a movie summary. Skeeter (Emma Stone) has returned to Jackson, Mississippi after graduating from Ole Miss. She finds a job working at a local newspaper answering questions from stay at home moms, but she is soon inspired to write a book about the African-American maids that work in Jackson. This inspiration comes when she finds out that her family maid, Constantine (Cicely Tyson), no longer works for the family and she is given an explanation that feels like a lie from the start. She gets further inspiration when she sees how her hometown friends treat two maids in particular, Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (OctaviaSpencer).
If the above summary isn’t the definition of a “chick flick” combined with the “white savior” genre, I’m not sure what is. On the other hand, I walked out of that movie surprised that two hours and twenty-six minutes had gone by. I LOVED IT. I love it even after thinking about some of the movie flaws such as whether or not Missus Walters (Sissy Spacek) is suffering from dementia or not – seriously, one single moment she can’t even remember what town she lives in while during the rest of the film she seems as sharp as a wacky university professor.
One has to say that this is one of those films that might have a few strikes against it, but it is pushed into the I LOVED IT column by the actresses. Emma Stone lights up the screen (one perhaps can understand Jim Carrey’s video if you see this movie along with “Crazy, Stupid, Love” and “Easy A”). Jessica Chastain (Celia Foote, the woman born on the wrong side of the tracks – and if you’re into thrillers/international intrigue, check out her other film that is currently in the theaters called “The Debt”) brings a bubbly personality that will result in proclamations of love as her last scene ends. Viola Davis portrays perfectly a character that has suffered an enormous loss and yet uses it to develop inner strength. Octavia Spencer plays to comedic perfection that untrusting personality who once she finds you trustworthy will talk your head off (or if you play her wrong will take sweet revenge). Bryce Dallas Howard(Hilly Holbrook), Ahna O’Reilly (Elizabeth Leefolt) and Anna Camp (Jolene French – Anna Camp also is from that “True Blood” cast of characters) are delicious as the “mean girls” of Jackson.
All-in-all, one of the top 5 films of the summer.
OUT OF ORDER AND FROM THE ARCHIVES: Movie Ideas That Will Make Me Rich
originally published April 28, 2009
I’m really, really tired of Hollywood constantly poking the nostalgia part of my brain in an effort to make me watch their shitty movies and TV shows.
Ever since they figured out that it’s mostly males in their 30s who spend money on entertainment, we’ve been barraged with retreads of ’80s intellectual properties: Freddy vs. Jason, Aliens vs. Predator, a new Battlestar Galactica series, the Transformers movie, the GI Joe movie, new Terminator and Knight Rider on TV, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Fraggle Rock on the big manipulative screen…the list keeps going.
Goddamn! Leave my nostalgia receptors alone!
But I think I’m gonna cash in on this nostalgia-porn craze with my own shitty re-imagining. This is solid gold. Check this out:
Coming next summer…
To a theater (theatre?) near you…
From producer Eric Summer…
Lego Airwolf vs. Karate Kid!
It’s gonna be awesome. Lego Jan-Michael Vincent and his neo-retro helicopter made entirely out of Legos, shooting little Lego bits at a middle-aged Ralph Macchio and the Weekend at Bernie’s II-style reanimated corpse of academy award nominee Noriyuki “Pat” Morita. I’m gonna make so much damn money. Everybody might as well start emailing me with suggestions on how to spend my guaranteed fortune.
OUT TO SEE: SUPER 8
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On the rare occasion, I find myself writing out my thoughts/review of a movie while I’m watching the movie. This was one of those movies. This movie sends you back to a childhood where imagination can turn into reality and CGI takes a step back.
Summary. As is well documented, this movie is a J.J. Abrams tribute to Steven Spielberg. Within minutes, you recognize elements of “The Goonies”, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Jurassic Park.”
It is 1979. The last day of middle school is in the rear view mirror. A group of friends are putting the finishing touches on a “zombie movie” that Charles (Riley Griffiths) wishes to submit for competition. His best friend, Joe (Joel Courtney), is his right hand man. Charles and Joe, along with a group of friends, sneak out of their homes at the all important hour of midnight and head out to a train station to film a pivotal scene. As luck would have it (or not), they see a train approaching in the distance and scramble to start filming. A truck collides with the train and the train derails. It isn’t long until the military shows up at the scene. Instead of sticking around, the kids jump into their car and head home. Soon afterwards, weird events happen in the town like the disappearance of car engines and even a few humans, and the dogs decide it is time to abandon their owners. Why? I’m not exactly spoiling anything here: the US Air Force was transporting a monster.
Elle Fanning. The leads in this film are Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, and Kyle Chandler (Jack Lamb – Joe’s father and a town deputy). Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning); however, steals the movie. (Charles convinces Alice to play the role of the “wife” in his zombie movie.) There are two distinct pieces that highlight her acting chops. One is at the train station. As she does a run through of the scene, the boys are in awe and I do believe that those of us watching in the theater are, as well. If that scene doesn’t leave you breathless, you’ve got to be brain dead. I’m betting that certain scenes were re-written just so that Fanning could shine. And here’s another bet: ten to fifteen years from now Elle and Dakota Fanning will battle it out for an Oscar (similar Oscar battles happened in 1942 and 1966).
Innocence. As I left the theater, I did have one major complaint about this movie. Why did they make the summer of 1979 seem so, dare I say, innocent? The history side of me felt this was a major disconnect. There was Three Mile Island (a news clip is shown and one can’t help but also think about Japan’s current nuclear disaster). Iran was going to the fundamentalists and the Iran hostage crisis was just around the corner. As I drove home, I started to have a change of heart. For anyone trying to make a living, recent years are all about economic chaos and terrorism, but what about for a twelve year-old? What’s happening now is all background noise – just like Three Mile Island is televised but largely ignored by our hero Joe – right? Thirty years from now someone might look back and remember listening to music on an Ipod (versus a 1979 walkman), creating a virtual world (model train) and filming a movie on a 5D Canon camera (8mm). And there will always be that memory of Joe’s “Alice” and Alice’s “Joe.”
Image originally published here