Posted on April 4, 2014 at 8:00 am
Can the man behind “Once” have the same luck twice? Writer/director John Carney returns with another bittersweet musical romance, this time starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwLuDO_Cxfc
Posted on April 3, 2014 at 6:02 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Kindergarten - 3rd Grade |
| MPAA Rating: | G |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Discussion of possible extinction |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | April 4, 2014 |
The people behind the marvelous 3D IMAx Born to be Wild have made another awwww-inspiring story of some of the world’s least-known and most adorable and intriguing creatures, the more than a hundred species of lemurs, found only on the island of Madagascar, off the coast of Africa. Around the time of the dinosaurs, lemurs arrived on Madagascar as castaways. For millions of years it was a paradise for them with no predators. Fascinatingly, due to the isolation, evolution and natural selection resulted in unique species found nowhere else on earth.
http://www.si.edu/Imax/Movie/130/2014-04-04/#showtimesThis fascinating 40-minute film takes us inside the world of these glorious creatures, their brilliant eyes and leaping dances, and the efforts led by American professor Patricia Wright to create spaces that will keep them safe. Lemurs die in captivity. They can only be kept alive in their own environment. We see scientists search to find mates for the last two known of one species of lemur living in a preserve, playing matchmaker by hunting down two more from the wild and introducing them to each other. The Lemurs and Wright are exceptionally engaging protagonists, and by the time we get to the schoolchildren dressing up as indigenous animals at the end, you will understand how they feel.
Parents should know that there are references to the risk of extinction and environmental despoliation.
Family discussion: Which lemur was your favorite? How are lemurs like other primates: chimps, apes, and humans? How are they different? What can you do to help lemurs?
If you like this, try: “Born to Be Wild”
Posted on April 3, 2014 at 6:00 pm
This is how you make a superhero movie. Director brothers Joe and Anthony Russo are best known for sitcoms with few but passionate fans (“Community,” “Happy Endings,” “Arrested Development”) and the underrated crime comedy “Welcome to Collinwood.” That is not the kind of credential that usually leads to a big budget comic book movie. But they prove to be just what the doctor ordered, funny where it should be, exciting where it should be, smarter than it needs to be, and just plain fun. Plus, I may be late to the party, but now I totally get the shield thing now as offensive and defensive weapons and it is very cool.
This is the sequel to the WWII-era origin story, where Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) a 98-pound weakling, volunteered for a government experiment that turned him into a super-strong super-soldier. But he got frozen in a block of ice and was thawed out more than sixty years later in time to join “The Avengers.” the storyline continues Captain America’s adjustment to the 21st century. We first see him running around Washington D.C.’s monuments neighborhood, repeatedly lapping vet Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie). Pretty soon, they’re talking some mild smack and Wilson is telling Rogers what he has to add to his catch-up list of cultural touchstones: Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man
But then Captain is called into action again. Alongside the Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson, tough, smart, funny, and just a touch flirtatious, as she chats with Rogers about girls he might want to ask out while they trade blows with the bad guys. There’s a mission, a hijacked cargo ship (I kept looking for a captain-esque crossover from Captain Phillips). Straight-ahead Captain America, used to fighting Nazis and other incontrovertibly bad guys who dress the part, expects that the people on his side will treat him with the same trust and respect and integrity he gives them in return. But this is the 21st century, and it’s complicated.
Rogers knows how to follow orders and he knows how to fight. Now he must learn to understand who he is fighting and what he is fighting for. It’s one thing when the bad guy has a Red Skull and wants total world domination because he is a fascist. It is another when both the good guys and the bad guys wear suits and speak in tempered, diplomatic tones, and want total world domination because it is best for everyone. “Don’t trust anyone,” Nick Fury tells Rogers. And Rogers, used to trusting everyone (how many people today would allow the government to inject them with an experimental serum?), has to learn what that means.
And it is one thing to take on a dozen bad guys at a time, knowing none of them have superpowers. But here Rogers must face an assassin called The Winter Soldier, someone as strong as he is, someone without any of the second-guessing that comes from understanding the complexities of the situation, someone who cannot be reasoned with or argued with or appealed to. And someone Rogers knew and trusted in the past.
The easy chemistry between Cap, Sam, and Natasha/Black Widow adds depth and heart to the story. Natasha needs to learn to trust as Cap needs to learn when not to trust. “How do we know who the bad guys are?” Sam asks as they race into battle. “The ones who are shooting at us,” Cap tells him.
There is just enough depth and gloss and humor and heart to set off the action, gorgeously staged in and around Washington, D.C. The elevated Whitehurst Freeway along the Potomac River gets the super-fight it was built for and it is a beaut. Wait until you see what’s been going on under the Potomac. It was a whole other level of pleasure to see a movie that gets Washington’s geography right. Most important, this is a film that respects the genre and the audience. Captain America and his fans get the movie they deserve.
Parents should know that this film includes constant comic book, action-style, superhero violence with many characters injured and killed, guns, bombs, chases, crashes, explosions, weapons of mass destruction, discussion of genocide, torture, fights, and brief strong language.
Family discussion: If you were advising Captain America on cultural developments while he was gone, what would you suggest? What is the biggest problem he faces in trying to adjust to modern times? How do the plans under consideration here relate to current discussions on world affairs?
If you like this, try: “The Avengers” and the other Marvel superhero movies
Posted on April 3, 2014 at 5:59 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for some disturbing images and brief nudity |
| Profanity: | Mild language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Wartime violence, terrorism, |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Date Released to Theaters: | April 3, 2014 |
Errol Morris turns his famous “interrotron” camera on two-time Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for something between a bookend and a counterpoint to his Oscar-winning The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
He says, in the movie’s final exchange, that he is not sure why he agreed to submit to more than 30 hours of what must have felt more like the cross-examination in “A Few Good Men” or even a detainee interrogation than the back-and-forth press briefings Rumsfeld conducted during the early days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We see many clips from those celebrated exchanges, at the time referred to as the best show in Washington, and still undeniably entertaining. Rumsfeld’s good humor and confidence were bracing and reassuring at a time when everything seemed to be what he would call an unknown unknown. Like Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men” he does not think we can handle the truth. He may be right.
He’s not here to explain. What he is here to do is to repeat the same version of the story, despite the fact that the audience has had the benefit of making some of those unknowns more known.
Rumsfeld’s constant memos, perhaps 20,000 by his count over his final term at Defense, were called “snowflakes” by the staff, based on their color and frequency. It must have seemed like an avalanche. Morris shows us long shelves of folders filled with snowflakes. He has Rumsfeld read some portions aloud, beginning with his famous taxonomy of information. There were known knowns, things we know and know to be true. There were known unknowns, things we do not know and wish we did. There were unknown knowns, things we do not realize that we know. And unknown unknowns, things we don’t know and don’t know that we need to know. Yes.
But what we do with those categories is the tough part, especially when assigning facts. The boxes and labels are nice and neat. The things we do and do not know are not. Rumsfeld often seems Wittgensteinian when he calls for dictionary definitions or makes a distinction between a Pentagon term and standard English. But definitions are not answers.
“Pearl Harbor was a failure of imagination,” Rumsfeld says. So, we gather, was 9/11. Vietnam was “the inevitable ugly ending of an unsuccessful effort.” How do we not make that mistake again? How do we destroy terrorists without a Hydra effect, creating two more for every one we cut down? We might think those answers are known unknowns. But Rumsfeld does not have the luxury of waiting to be sure.
He tells us he found out the US was going to invade Iraq when he was called into a meeting with then-Vice President Dick Cheney (Rumsfeld’s former assistant in the Nixon White House), along with Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar. And that he never read the Justice Department legal memos about “enhanced interrogation.” He insists that he never said and the American people never thought there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. Cut to tape of the press conference where he called Saddam a liar for denying there was a connection.
Rumsfeld is aware of the inherent conflicts. He cheerfully acknowledges the inconsistency between two principles: Belief in the inevitability of conflict can be one of its causes. And if you wish for peace, prepare for war. Plus: all generalizations are false, including this one. He sounds like a zen master, but a jolly one. His good humor can be disconcerting, but not chilling. At the time, it was reassuring to us and undeniably disconcerting to our enemies. Rumsfeld often seems exceptionally forthright, as when he calmly discusses his two offers to resign following the revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib. Would you rather have someone in that job who is grim?
His demeanor comes across today as oddly disengaged. He tears up once, telling about a visit to a gravely injured soldier who was not expected to live, but who did. There are no stories about those who did not.
Morris sometimes overdoes it, with a celestial choir and a snow globe of the Washington Monument as repeated commentary/symbols. Repeated sped-up shots of traffic in Washington, obviously far after the events being discussed, add little.
One can’t help thinking that part of what draws Morris to this story is his own belief in the capacity for absolute truth, in its way as limited as Rumsfeld’s belief that he can tie down the unknown unknowns tightly enough to support a military strategy. Or disinfect a morally compromised decision. But then, how many decisions in wartime or in time of terrorism are not morally compromised? There are unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns, and there are also political and historical quagmires.
Parents should know that this film has disturbing subject matter and some graphic images of the victims of “enhanced interrogation” and abuse.
Family discussion: Once you have created the categories of “known knowns” and “known unknowns,” how do you know when you have enough information to decide? What qualities should one have to serve as Secretary of Defense? What surprised you about this version of the story and why?
If you like this, try: The Fog of War
Posted on April 3, 2014 at 5:31 pm
It was a galvanizing moment. A divisive moment. An iconic moment.
President George H.W. Bush had just nominated Clarence Thomas to be the second black man and the first black Republican Supreme Court justice. The Senate Judiciary Committee was conducting a confirmation hearing. It was spirited and at times partisan, but nothing out of the ordinary.
And then a law professor from Oklahoma named Anita Hill appeared before the committee to testify that when she worked for Thomas he frequently made crude, offensive, and humiliating comments to her. While she had never filed a formal complaint and had indeed accepted a second job working for him, she said that she had to answer the committee’s investigators truthfully to allow them to make an informed decision about a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
This was in 1991. Most Americans were not familiar with the rules on sexual harassment. The all-white, all-male, all-old members of the committee clearly had no clue on how to evaluate Hill’s testimony, or even how to treat her. This documentary, more than twenty years later, looks at what happened and what has and has not changed.
It begins with a 2010 phone message from Thomas’ wife, Ginni, left on Hill’s voicemail, asking her to apologize, and ending with a chirpy “Okay?” Hill is not apologizing. As she appeared 23 years ago, she is still utterly dignified and unruffled, though understandably less formal and more relaxed.
Hill is the youngest of 13 siblings, born on a farm in Oklahoma. Her parents moved there to escape a lynching. Her older siblings attended segregated schools and six of her seven brothers went into the military. Her parents told her she would have to be twice as good to get half as much as her white classmates. She was willing to be twice as good. She was class valedictorian.
The film takes us through the hearing, with the Senators’outrageous questions (“Are you a scorned woman? Are you a martyr?” asked Howell Heflin) and insulting comments (Alan K. Simpson refers to “sexual harassment crap”). She took and passed a polygraph test. Witnesses recalled her telling them about Thomas’ behavior at the time, but no corroborating witnesses with similar stores were permitted. Issues of race and gender are forthrightly explored. Law professor Charles Ogletree, who represented Hill, talks about how no other black man stood up for her. “You don’t do that to a brother,” he quotes. Implied in his decision: “You don’t do that to a sister.” Hill says, “People had a tendency to think that he had a race and I had a gender.”
“There was no way we were going to win,” Ogletree says. “It was a charade.” And yet, with much still left to do, this movie shows how much has been accomplished. Hill did not want to be a public figure and hoped to go back to her work on commercial law. She promised herself to talk about it for just two years. But “If I am not public, there will be a sense of victory over me.” She understood that sexual harassment was not about flirting or seduction but about power and control and humiliation. And it was just one part of the larger issue of gender inequality. The film shows us her work, especially with young women, to teach them what is “okay and not okay.”
It will itself serve as a teaching document to carry the story forward, not just the story of a woman objecting to demeaning treatment from her employer, but the story of a woman who told the truth with “honesty, dignity, and courage.”
Parents should know that this film includes very explicit sexual terms and references including pornography.
Family discussion: What has changed most since 1991? What has changed least? What is the best way to educate young men and women about sexual harassment?
If you like this, try: “Not For Ourselves Alone”
