The DVD includes gently animated and beautifully narrated versions of four books about important figures in black history.
Duke Ellington Forest Whitaker reads this tribute to one of the 20th century’s most celebrated and influential musicians.
Ellington Was Not a Street Phylicia Rashad reads Ntozake Shange’s story about growing up amidst many of the great figures of African-American history.
Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa She had an exquisite voice and unsurpassed musicianship to use it like a jazz instrument. Billy Dee Williams tells the story of how she got her sound.
John Henry Samuel L. Jackson reads the story based on the famous legend and folk ballad about the hammer-driving man who could beat anyone, even the machine.
Human and animal characters in peril, references to hunting and eating whales, sad animal death
Diversity Issues:
Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:
February 3, 2012
Date Released to DVD:
June 18, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:
B005LAIGQ4
“You’re not as easy to hate as I thought,” an oil man tells an environmental activist in “Big Miracle,” the heartwarming true story of a 1987 effort to rescue three Alaskan whales. It could just as well have been said by any of the more than a dozen lead characters who find themselves part of a “cockeyed coalition.” People who viewed each other with suspicion, if not downright animosity, are brought together to save a family of whales affectionately named after Flintstones characters.
The obstacle for the whales was five miles of ice that had to be cut away in sub-zero temperatures so the whales could get to the ocean. The bigger obstacle was the struggle for the humans to try to find a way to work together.
“Big Miracle” is the story of a rescue operation put together by people who each wanted something different. Native Inupiat whale hunters wanted to “harvest” (kill and eat) the whales. Environmentalists wanted to protect them. The US military did not want to ask for help from a Soviet ice cutting ship. An oil developer wanted to improve his reputation. Two Minnesota entrepreneurs wanted to show off their ice melting machine. Politicians wanted to look good or look innocent. And journalists wanted a story.
Director Ken Kwapis and screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler deftly keep the multi-character story from getting too cluttered with the help of appealing performances that give us an instant connection to the humans who are literally trying to save the whales. Standouts in the cast include John Krasinski as a television reporter who is tired of being stuck in a backwater where nothing exciting happens, Kathy Baker as an unexpected supporter with inside information, Dermot Mulroney as a frustrated military officer, and John Pingayeck on his first movie role as a grandfather trying to teach his grandson to listen to the world outside his earphones.
When the reporter’s story is picked up for a national broadcast, the first to arrive is Rachel (an earnest and believably bedraggled Drew Barrymore). She is an environmental activist with no resources but a good story. One by one, those who resist getting involved revise their positions when they are in the spotlight. No one wants to risk bad publicity–or pass up the chance to look heroic.
Even as the people come together, the logistical challenge becomes overwhelming and — parent alert — the ultimate rescue is bittersweet, not entirely triumphant.
The people stories, especially a trumped-up romantic triangle, are not as intriguing as the portrayal of pre-Internet news media. With only three network news broadcasts just half an hour each evening, everyone from school children to White House staffers watched the same stories. The archival footage is like the hub that holds all the parts of the story together, and there are some pointed jabs at media focus on the sensational over the significant.
A turning point comes when White House aide Kelly Meyers (based on Bonnie Carroll) persuades President Ronald Reagan, at the end of his term, to call on his counterpart in the USSR for help from a Soviet ice cutting ship. (Be sure to watch for photos of Carroll’s real life wedding to the military officer she met at the rescue over the closing credits.).
Meyers sets up a “Hello Gorby, this is Ronnie” phone call that serves as a literal ice breaker for the whales and a metaphorical one for two nations in the very earliest stages of post-Evil Empire relations. The people saved the whales, but the real miracle was that they learned their differences were small compared to what they had in common with each other and with the giant mammals who needed their help.
Parents should know that this movie includes animal and human peril and references to hunting and eating whales. One of the whales dies (off-screen).
Family discussion: How many different reasons did the characters have for helping the whales? How did the risk of bad publicity or the benefits of good publicity change their behavior? What is different now from the era when this took place?
If you like this, try: “Free Willy” and “Whale Rider” and the book about the real-life rescue by Tom Rose
Someday to be used in film schools as a textbook example of how not to adapt a best-selling novel for the screen, “One for the Money” is mis-cast, mis-scripted, and mis-directed in every category. Janet Evanovich’s popular series of series of books about lingerie saleswoman-turned bounty hunter Stephanie Plum seemed like a sure bet. But what’s not a sure bet is an actress who signs on as producer so she can cast herself in what turns out to be a misbegotten vanity project.
Katherine Heigl is a beautiful actress whose greatest attribute is an imperishable freshness. In the right movie, like “Knocked Up,” that works in her favor. Surrounded by the crudest possible material the contrast she provided gave warmth and romance to the film. But her range is limited and she is way beyond her capacity as a gritty Jersey girl who once ran over the guy who never called after they had sex on the floor of the bakery where she was working. Stephanie Plum is not supposed to be perky and adorable. She’s supposed to be sadder but wiser, determined, and, above all, game. Director Julie Ann Robinson has more experience with television (“Two Broke Girls,” Heigl’s “Grey’s Anatomy”) and never finds the right rhythm for the material. It is lumpen and awkward and it telegraphs its surprises. And just because it is written, directed, and produced by women does not keep it from being sexist, with some unfortunate stereotyped sassy black hookers thrown in for added discomfort.
It is hard to work up the energy to be offended by the stereotypes, though, when one is suffocating from the lethargy induced by the movie’s sluggish pacing and the fog induced by Heigl’s attempts at snappy dialog and a New Jersey accent.
Stephanie is a divorcee (“I had a husband. I didn’t like it. I don’t want another one.”) who lost her job selling lingerie and is about to lose her car for failure to keep up the payments. Her cousin is a bail bondsman who needs someone to help with filing. She blackmails him into giving it to her and then realizes that the real money is in bounty hunting and that the number one fugitive is Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara), a cop charged with murder who in one of the movie’s most tiresome contrivances, has a past connection with Stephanie. Everyone in Trenton has a past connection with Stephanie.
We are then treated to a series of scenes in which Stephanie gets some guidance on bounty hunting from the hunky Ranger (Daniel Sunjata, another “Grey’s Anatomy” transplant) and has a series of cat-and-mouse encounters with Joe (the hunky Jason O’Mara of “Life on Mars”), trading painful quips that are supposed to be flirtatious but thud with a squish like overripe grapefruit. The mixed messages (Joe may be on the lam and handcuff her, naked, to the shower rod but he brings her coffee in bed) would be annoying if the whole movie was not too lethargic to merit that much attention.
Jonathan Safran Foer’s acclaimed novel about a boy whose father was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 has been brought to the screen with great sensitivity and heart. Newcomer Thomas Horn plays Oskar, whose ferocious intellect overwhelms his social skills and may be on the autism spectrum. His father (Tom Hanks) understands him best and it is in their time together that Oskar feels most alive and most at home. Oskar’s happiest moments are solving the puzzles set by his father, whether oxymoron contests or treasure hunts. After his father’s death, Oskar searches for the final challenge he is sure his father must have left behind for him, some way to make sense his loss. He finds a blue vase in his father’s closet and when he breaks it, he finds a key in an envelope that says “Black.” He decides to visit everyone in the phone book named Black to see if he can solve at least one mystery in the midst of the senseless tragedy that has devastated his family, his city, and the world.
Oskar’s mother (Sandra Bullock) is withdrawn, scared, and angry. She never had her husband’s gift for reaching Oskar and making him feel safe. As Oskar goes off in search of his father, in a way he seems to be searching for his mother, too. The different people named Black that he tracks down feel like pieces of a puzzle, each unidentifiable and indistinct but somehow, put together, a picture of a piece of something whole begins to emerge. One of the people who opens the door to Oskar is played by Viola Davis in a performance of exquisite beauty. In her brief moments on screen she creates a character of such depth and complexity and humanity that she illuminates the entire film.
Oskar’s grandmother lives across the street and he can see her apartment from his window and communicate with her by walkie-talkie. She takes in a new, mysterious tenant known only as “the renter” (Max von Sydow) and Oskar goes to investigate. The renter is mute. He has “yes” and “no” tattooed on his palms and writes what he wants to say in a notebook. He agrees to accompany Oskar on his visits to Blacks.
Oskar finds an answer that is not what he was looking for or hoping for. But looking for something so far from home makes it possible for him to see what was in front of him all along that he could not face. He is able to tell his own story, finally. He is able to hear the stories of the renter and his mother. And it is only then that he can find the real message his father left behind.
Without speaking a word, Sydow conveys a sense of gravity and compassion, more eloquent than all of Oskar’s words. “The renter” balances Oskar — old and young, silence and constant talking, hiding and seeking. Both are damaged by the trauma of world events with the most personal impact and each expands the other’s spirit with a sense of possibility. The final revelation from Oskar’s mother proves the old saying that only a broken heart can hold the world.
“Beauty and the Beast” is one of Disney’s most beloved fairy tales and the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. This week Disney celebrates its 25th anniversary with a splendid new DVD release that includes some special extras.
Ultimately, what makes “Beauty and the Beast” so winning, though, is its story, characters, and songs, which need no restoration. They are as fresh as ever. Clever lyrics by the late Howard Ashman are a delight, with a brute singing about how he decorates with antlers or the stirring Oscar-winning theme song played as the couple dances alone in an enormous ballroom. And it is a joy to revisit the timeless pleasures of traditional Disney storytelling, with no attempts to add sizzle from celebrity voice talent or radio-friendly pop songs. The movie’s roots are in Broadway, with performances from Tony-winners Angela Lansbury and Jerry Orbach and tuneful ballads from composer Alan Menken, including the rousing “Be Our Guest” and the joyous introductory “Belle.” Notice the way that only Belle wears blue in the opening scenes, helping to set her apart from the people in her village. We know before she does that she and the Beast have something in common when we see that he also wears blue.
Belle (voice of Broadway star Paige O’Hara) is the book-loving daughter of an absent-minded inventor. She wants “more than this provincial life” and the boorish hunter Gaston, who hopes to marry her.
Lost in the woods, Belle’s father stumbles into what appears to be a deserted castle. But the castle is inhabited by the angry Beast, once a prince, now under a spell that will last forever unless he finds love before he turns 21. The same spell turned all of the human staff of the castle into objects — a clock, a candelabra, a teapot, a mop.
The Beast, furious at being seen by an intruder, locks Belle’s father in the dungeon. Belle comes after her father and offers to take his place. The Beast accepts, lets her father go, and tells Belle she must stay with him forever.
At first antagonistic, she begins to find the Beast appealingly gentle and kind, wounded in spirit, rather than cruel. He shares her love of books. Back in Belle’s village, Gaston tries to get Belle’s father committed, saying that his talk of the Beast shows he is delusional. Belle, home on a visit to care for her father, proves that the Beast exists to show that her father is telling the truth. The townspeople are terrified and form a mob to kill the Beast.
In a fight with Gaston, the Beast is badly wounded. Belle tells him she loves him, which ends the spell. He becomes once again the handsome prince, and they live happily ever after.
Parents should know that this movie has some scary moments when Belle is chased by wolves and when Gaston and the townspeople storm the Beast’s castle. It appears briefly that the Beast has been killed. Characters drink beer and there are scenes in a bar.
Family discussion: Gaston and the Beast both wanted to marry Belle — how were their reasons different? Why did the prince became the beast and what did he have to learn before he could return to his handsome exterior? What did Belle have to learn? What made her decide she liked the Beast?
If you like this, try: Some of the other movie adaptations of this story. One of the most lyrically beautiful of all films ever made is Jean Cocteau’s version of this story, “Belle et Bete.” The Faerie Tale Theatre version stars Susan Sarandon and Klaus Kinski, and is very well done.
seemed like a sure bet. But what’s not a sure bet is an actress who signs on as producer so she can cast herself in what turns out to be a misbegotten vanity project.