Whale Rider

Posted on June 1, 2003 at 10:26 am

A
Lowest Recommended Age: 4th - 6th Grades
Profanity: Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Brief drug reference
Violence/ Scariness: Training in traditional fight techniques
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: 2003

This lovely, lyrical fable of a movie is set in the Maori community of New Zealand. According to legend, the Maori came to Whangara when their great leader Paikea led them by riding on a whale.

Ever since, the Maori have been led by the descendants of that leader. The movie begins with the birth of twins, the latest in that line. But the boy twin and his mother die. Over the objection of the current leader, Koro (Rawiri Paratene), the girl twin is named Paikaea. Her heartbroken father leaves New Zealand, and Pai is left to be raised by her grandparents.

Koro loves Pai deeply, but he is still bitter about not having a male heir. When she is 12 (an exquisite performance by Keisha Castle-Hughes), Koro assembles the local boys to begin to train them in the traditions of their culture and test them to see which has the courage, skill, wisdom, and leadership. It is clear to her grandmother (Vicki Houghton), to us, and to Pai herself that she has all of those qualities, but Koro, struggling fiercely to maintain the Maori pride and identity against the assaults of the modern world, cannot allow himself to consider such a change.

Writer-director Niki Coro perfectly suits the style to the story. The modest buildings in the midst of the starkly beautiful setting conveys the contrast between the timeless culture of the Maori and the ephemeral artifacts of the modern age. Pai’s perceptiveness and quiet persistence are always evident, but when she finally speaks from her heart, standing on stage in a school production, wearing traditional garb, she is purely luminous. The movie is not just genuinely lyrical, but, even harder to manage, it is lyrically genuine.

Parents should know that the movie has some tense family confrontations. The death of a mother and baby in childbirth is very sad. A character is injured, but ultimately recovers. There is brief strong language. Characters drink and smoke and there is a and a brief drug reference. A character refers to an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The movie presents a minority culture with great dignity and respect, and the theme of equality is exceptionally well handled.

Families who see this movie should talk about the traditions of their own cultures. How do we decide which traditions to hold on to and which to change to adapt to changing times?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “The Secret of Roan Inish,” “Into the West,” and “Island of the Blue Dolphins.” They should also find out more about the Maori culture. This site is a good place to start and this one has information about Maori carvings.

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The Italian Job

Posted on May 26, 2003 at 6:08 am

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
Profanity: Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Tense scenes, characters killed, main characters are crooks but non-violent
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters strong and loyal
Date Released to Theaters: 2003

I plead guilty to being a sucker for heist films. It’s such a reliable plot structure — we see the problem (usually an elaborate security system, as in Mission Impossible), we see how they plan to solve it, and then we see how they respond when things don’t go according to plan. I am happy to have my heart stolen as long the characters are charming and clever. They also have to meet at least one of the three key requirements for movie thieves: they have to be stealing for a good reason (How to Steal a Million), stealing from someone genuinely hateful (see The Sting), or — I’d better keep that last category a secret, to avoid spoiling the ending of some wonderful movies.*

This movie fits into the second category. It begins with the theft of $35 million in gold bars (not just tricky to steal, but almost impossible to transport). But then there is a second theft as one of the team double-crosses the others and, thinking he has killed them all, he takes the gold for himself. The rest of the movie is about how the team gets back the gold.

The team is led by Charlie (Mark Wahlberg), and includes genius tech whiz Lyle (Seth Green), genius demolition whiz Left Ear (Mos Def), genius getaway driver Handsome Rob (Jason Statham, essentially reprising his role from the underrated The Transporter), and the latest addition to the group, genius safecracker Stella (Charlize Theron), the daughter of Charlie’s great mentor — and genius safecracker John (Donald Sutherland). They want to get the gold back from colleague-turned-enemy Steve (Edward Norton), who killed John. Stella just wants revenge. And if a little romance enters into the picture, no one should be too surprised.

Charlie keeps telling Steve that he has no imagination, an unfortunate reminder that the movie, a remake of a Michael Caine caper film (also featuring both Noel Coward and Benny Hill!) doesn’t have much, either. But it has enough panache and charm to make it an enjoyable genre film. Def, Green, Statham, and Sutherland deliver their usual top-notch performances, even when the script gets formulaic. Norton, who reportedly was not happy about being contractually obligated to do the film, at least acts as if he was not happy about being contractually obligated to do the film. The film’s biggest waste of time is a running Napster joke that is two years out of date and tired the first time it is used, excruciating by the 10th. Apparently, they were stuck with it because of the appearance in the film of real-life Napter creator Shawn Fanning in the film, a joke maybe one percent of the audience will get and one tenth of one percent will care about.

Parents should know that the movie has a lot of tense scenes. Characters are shot and killed and there are implications of other painful murders. Characters punch someone as a way to satisfy feelings of betrayal and revenge. The main characters are all thieves, charming or not, and while they show loyalty and are committed to crime without violence, they are hardly role models. There is some strong language and characters drink alcohol.

Families who see this movie should talk about why we are able to identify with characters in a movie that in real life we probably would not want to cheer for. Why are these people theives? Will they stop?

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy some of the other classics of the genre, including Topkapi, The Thomas Crown Affair, To Catch a Thief, The First Great Train Robbery and How to Steal a Million.

* Say, for example, The Lavender Hill Mob or Topkapi.

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Down with Love

Posted on May 13, 2003 at 4:45 pm

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
Profanity: Brief strong language, many double entendres
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and smoking as emblems of sophistication
Violence/ Scariness: None
Diversity Issues: Equality of women a comic theme of the movie, no minority characters
Date Released to Theaters: 2003

“Down With Love” can’t make up its mind whether it is a salute to the Doris Day-Rock Hudson/James Garner/Cary Grant movies of the 1960’s or a parody of them. Perhaps surprisingly, it works better as a salute, and never quite reaches the heights of the movies that inspired it.

The original movies were glossy fantasies that seemed to exist in that same 1960’s ring-a-ding-ding fantasyland Steven Spielberg brought us in Catch Me if You Can. They may have seemed instantly irrelevant in the era of Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and the sexual revolution, and yet they were as indispensible and — surprisingly — as inimitable and enduringly appealing as some of that decade’s other cultural touchstones.

We think of them as irretrievably retro and sometimes they were (as, for example, in The Thrill of it All, when Day’s doctor husband is profoundly threatened because she gets a job, which she quits after seeing him deliver a baby, reminding her what a woman’s true purpose is supposed to be). But most often, Day played supremely capable and confident working women, and it was the plot contrivances, not prudishness, that kept her characters from sexual encounters outside of marriage. Those movies also had some genuinely wicked commentary on the same conformist consumer culture that was the trigger for a lot of the political protest. Feminist critics like Molly Haskell now recognize that in their own way, these movies were very much a reflection and a part of the revolutions of the 1960’s.

In this movie, Barbara Novak (Renee Zellwegger) is the author of a book called Down With Love, that tells women to be strong and independent, to find fulfillment in work and to use men for sex but not become emotionally attached. Magazine writer and man-about-town Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) decides to expose her as a hypcrite by making her fall in love with him. He pretends to be a shy astronaut who does not want to have sex unless he is in love. But Barbara — and Cupid — have a few surprises in store for him.

The movie begins by saying that “the time is now — 1962” and the period details are, well, swell, including flip hairdos, Tang, martinis, the twist, “Camelot” and clothes and furniture that are the kickiest! Catch is wearing a dinner jacket when he returns from a luau with the astronauts at Cocoa Beach. When Barbara’s book becomes a worldwide sensation, she receives the ultimate badge of fame — an Alfred E. Newman parody on the cover of Mad Magazine. But the best of the movie’s in-jokes is Tony Randall, who often played Hudson’s best friend, a neurotic rich guy who hopelessly envied Hudson’s confidence and success with the ladies in the original series of movies. In “Down With Love,” that role is exquisitely played by David Hyde Pierce, but Randall appears as the head of the publishing firm, demonstrating his impeccable timing and delivery. Indeed, the supporting players, sets, and costumes are so vivid that they make the main characters seem a little bland.

Parents should know that this movie has a good deal of sexual innuendo and double entendres, including an extended split-screen sequence that makes it appear that the characters are engaging in a number of sexual acts. There is brief strong language. Characters drink and smoke as evidence of sophistication. Equality of women is a humorous theme of the movie. As in the 1960’s movies it salutes, all characters are white.

Families who see this movie should talk about whether a similar plot could work in a movie set in 2003.

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy the movies that inspired it, especially Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back (both about a battle of the sexes in which the man pretends to be someone else to romance the woman) with Day and Hudson, The Thrill of it All with Day and Garner, That Touch of Mink with Day and Grant, Sex and the Single Girl (about a woman who writes a book promoting women’s sexual freedom) with Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis, If a Man Answers with then-married Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin, Come September with Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida, and Man’s Favorite Sport with Hudson and Paula Prentiss. They might also enjoy similar themes in earlier movies like Theodora Goes Wild (another story about a woman author of a notorious book) and Take a Letter Darling (man gets a job as secretary to a woman executive). And they might like to see more of the pre-“Odd Couple” Tony Randall in the fantasy The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao and the wild satire Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

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The Matrix Reloaded

Posted on May 12, 2003 at 2:39 pm

A-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
Profanity: Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Extreme peril and violence, characters killed, some gross effects
Diversity Issues: Brave, strong, intelligent women and minority characters
Date Released to Theaters: 2003

And the answer is — Yes! This is the movie the fans of the original “Matrix” were hoping it would be. This movie has electrifying fight scenes, an audaciously dystopic vision, zillions of explosions and car crashes, a steamy love scene, and visual effects that raise the bar from the first one as much as the first one raised it from everything that had gone before. And yes, this is the movie that will rock the box office for the forseeable future.

No refreshers to bring us back into the world of the original “Matrix” — this movie literally starts with a bang as a woman in black breaks into some sort of secured facility and fights off the guards. We are back in the world where the machines use humans for fuel, lulling the humans into thinking that they are living mundane lives so that they will not realize that they are merely an energy source. Only a few humans know the truth, and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) believe that one of them, Neo (Keanu Reeves) is “the one” who will defeat the machines. The scenes shift back and forth between Zion, the city where the humans who resist the machines live and the illusory “city” maintained by the computers called The Matrix.

It has been four years since the first movie was released. This second chapter is like the “Empire Strikes Back” with very, very cool sunglasses — it is a transition to the big finish in the third movie, which was filmed at the same time as this one and which will be released in November 2003. This is the bridge between the chapter that sets up the conflict and the chapter that resolves it.

As in the first one, the great strength of the movie is the visuals, which are brilliantly imaginative and at the same time essentially right. They exist in a fully-realized world we can believe in completely. Every detail is perfect — the bug-like spaceships, the grubby equipment, the pile-up of GM cars on a freeway, a decadent nightclub, an urban courtyard, Neo’s fabulously cool frock coat and sunglasses — every rivet is exactly what it should be, with the exception of the cutesy/earthy Ewok-ish clothing in Zion.

The action sequences will knock your socks off. Episode One’s Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) has learned how to multiply, and Neo has to fight a hundred Smiths, each with its own version of Weaving’s magnificently cocked eyebrow. Real-life twins (and black belt karate instructors) Adrien and Neil Rayment play dredlocked albinos who can turn themselves into ghost-like wraiths out to destroy our heroes. And then there is a heart-stopping 14-minute chase and crash scene on a freeway. Still, just as with the first one, the most powerful scene doesn’t have fancy special effects or explosions. It’s the conversation between Neo and the Oracle, played with endless warmth, wit, and spirit by the late Gloria Foster.

The movie also taps into epic questions of destiny, causality, identity, and choice. So if the dialogue is not spectacular and there is more attitude than acting and the adoring devotion of Morpheus and Trinity to Neo gets a little dreary, who am I to quibble? I am sure there are viewers out there who will find a way to make sense of it all and who will be happy to explain when the laws of physics are suspended and when they are not. I could not, but by then I was enjoying the movie too much to care.

Parents should know that the movie has intense and prolonged violence and peril including guns and martial arts. Characters are killed (sometimes more than once). There are a few four-letter words. There is a deeply romantic sexual encounter (briefly graphic, both nude), brief nudity in a secene with group dancing, and a crude oral sex joke. Minority and women characters are strong, brave, loyal, and intelligent.

Families who see this movie should talk about some of the character’s comments about destiny and choice. Is choice “an illusion created by those with power?” Humans, who created the machines, are now trying to wrest back control from the machines. Whose choices led to that conflict? Is Neo “the one” (hint: both words have the same three letters) and what does that mean? Who or what is the Oracle?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the original and some of the movies that inspired it, including the classic silent film “Metropolis” and the brilliant “Blade Runner.” Note: stay through the endless technical credits to get a glimpse of some of the scenes in the upcoming “Matrix: Revolutions.”

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The In-Laws

Posted on May 10, 2003 at 6:01 pm

C
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
Profanity: Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Action violence and peril; no one hurt
Diversity Issues: All major characters white, homophobic humor
Date Released to Theaters: 2003

It’s hard to blow a premise like this one — color-in-the-lines, belt-and-suspenders risk averse man meets his daughter’s prospective free spirit father-in-law just before the wedding. It worked pretty well in the 1973 original starring Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. But this retread with Albert Brooks and Michael Douglas has more misfires than hits.

Brooks plays Jerry, a worrywart of a podiatrist who is obsessively planning every detail of the wedding. Douglas is Steve, some sort of secret agent who may be getting a little old for the job — in the first scene he has to squint a little bit to try to read the confirmation he has just been shown by his contact.

Steve’s case involving an arms dealer and a stolen submarine is concluding just as the wedding approaches, and Jerry gets mixed up in a series of wild adventures that include Barbra Streisand’s jet, parachuting off a skyscraper, and a dip in a hot tub with a high strung international criminal who is having something of a sexual preference meltdown.

It’s always fun to watch Brooks unravel, Douglas gives an appealingly loose performance, and there are a couple of genuinely funny moments. But the film lacks the energy and zaniness of the original.

Parents should know that this movie has some very strong material for a PG-13. This includes crude jokes about the criminal’s homosexual attraction to Jerry and Steve’s ex-wife (Candace Bergan) explaining that she and Steve used to have great “angry sex.” A bridesmaid gets drunk and confesses that she and the groom had sex before he met the bride. There is comic peril and violence and characters are killed.

Families who see this movie might like to recall some of the stories of bringing their own in-laws together for the first time.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the original and a classic in this genre, the magnificent “Midnight Run” with Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin.

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