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Happy Leap Day!

Posted on February 29, 2012 at 7:00 am

Celebrate the day we observe just once every four years with The Pirates of Penzance, the delightful Gilbert and Sullivan musical about a man who thinks he is turning 21 but, because he was born on leap day, has had only five birthdays.  He has been indentured to pirates (his nurse misunderstood when his parents told her to apprentice him to a pilot) and looks forward to coming of age so that he can leave them.  But since he will not have his 21st birthday for decades, he is not legally an adult!

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Based on a play Classic Comedy For the Whole Family Musical Romance Satire

Carnage

Posted on January 12, 2012 at 6:23 pm

Some boys are arguing in a park but we are too far away to hear what it is about.  One of them whacks another in the face with a stick.

And then we are in a spacious apartment as the parents of the two boys are at the computer, finishing up a joint statement about what happened.  The parents of the boy with the stick are Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz), who have come to the home of the boy who was hit, Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) for a civilized conversation about what happened.  Everyone is polite, even gracious.  The Longstreets have decorated for guests with a vase of tulips and offer homemade cobbler.  The Cowans compliment their hosts.  There ar social smiles and reassuring comments all around.  The Cowans walk toward the elevator to go home.

And then — they don’t whack each other in the face with sticks.  It’s much worse than that.

Based on the Tony award-winning play by French playwright Yasmina Reza and scripted by Reza and director Roman Polanski, this is a sly and ultimately devastating story about the thin veneer of civilization and its uneasy co-existence with the savage spirit within us all.  If things had gone well, the Cowans might have made it to the elevator and as soon as its doors closed both couples would have immediately started talking about how impossible the other couple was and how superior their own child was.  But the Cowans just can not let that last statement go, so they march back into the Longstreets’ apartment to begin to attack, first with thinly veiled digs, then with stark, direct statements, then with insults, then with chaos.

This is not just about the social hypocrisy of privileged New Yorkers.  The play was originally French and the director is originally Polish and famously living outside the United States to avoid imprisonment for statutory rape.  Its treatment of its characters is as brutal as their treatment of each other.  Every shred of pretense is stripped away — the pretense of a loving relationship, of being good parents, of concern for the injured child, of concern for each other and for the world at large.  Everything politely overlooked in the first half hour (Alan’s constant interruptions to answer his cell phone to defend a drug in litigation over the adverse side effects, a cherished item, the tulips, the merits of the cobbler) comes back up (literally and graphically, in the case of the cobbler).  The Longstreets bring out the hard liquor and cigars and alliances shift from couples-based to gender-based to everyone for his and her self.  Reza makes it about more than the fatuous insularity of upper-class New Yorkers but does not go overboard.  When Michael trashes Penelope’s concern for the deprivations and injustice in Africa, both are portrayed as insular and unhelpful.  And a hopeful note in a coda shows her to be gentler with her characters than they are with each other.

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Based on a play Comedy Drama

The War Horse

Posted on December 23, 2011 at 12:30 pm

The second Steven Spielberg movie of the week opens on Christmas Day, a grand epic, is big, long, ambitious, and showy.  It is a work by a master, but it is not a masterpiece.  Every detail is carefully considered.  Every leaf on every tree is perfectly aligned so that every sunbeam and shadow fall perfectly across them.  Every equine muscle, every country cottage, every blade of grass, every puff of smoke from a discharged weapon is exquisitely framed and lit, but the visuals outweigh the story.  The result is serviceable but stodgy, stuffy, and static.  The poetry and symbolism of the stage play (with a multi-operator puppet as Joey) is replaced by postcard-picturesque images that are visually rapturous but feel thin in comparison to the movie’s aspirations.

It’s “Black Beauty Goes to War,” the story of a magnificent horse named Joey and Albert (a dull Jeremy Irvine), the boy who loves him.  When World War I begins, Albert’s father sells Joey to a gallant young officer (Tom Hiddleston), who promises Albert he will do everything he can to keep Joey safe and get him back home after the war.  But war has a way of changing everyone’s plans and soon Joey is on his own journey that will take him back and forth between the British and the German forces and, for a short idyllic time, a respite with a frail but brave little French girl and her affectionate Grandfather.  The horse can switch sides in a way that a human cannot, and the movie makes clear the difference between the soldiers who are taken prisoner and shot and the animals who are inherently neutral and thus commoditized.  The brutality of war affects the human characters differently as we see in their responses to the animal.

The sweep and grandeur and tragedy of the film pay homage to majestic WWII-era filmmakers like John Ford, with gorgeous cinematography by  Janusz Kaminski.  One quiet scene of breathtaking power recalling the real-life Christmas truce reminds us of our better angels.  But it also reminds us of Spielberg’s better films.

 

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Action/Adventure Based on a book Based on a play Drama Epic/Historical War

West Side Story

Posted on November 15, 2011 at 8:00 am

A+
Lowest Recommended Age: Preschool
Profanity: Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Reference to drugs, smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Gang violence, characters killed
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: January 1, 1970
Date Released to DVD: November 15, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN: B005BDZN62
Actress Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer in a scene from the movie “West Side Story” (Photo by Donaldson Collection/Getty Images)

In honor of the 50th anniversary of this American classic there is a new Blu-Ray release of West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Edition.  Modeled on “Romeo and Juliet,” this movie puts the star-crossed lovers in two warring gangs in the slums of New York.  The opening dance number brings us up to date. The Sharks (Puerto Ricans) and and the Jets (Anglos) have blown up a series of petty insults and turf disputes into a war over who will rule the territory.   The leader of the Jets, Riff (Russ Tamblyn), goes to see his best friend Tony (Richard Beymer), the former leader of the gang.  Riff asks Tony to come to the dance that night to support him as he negotiates fight terms with Bernardo (George Chakiris), the leader of the Jets.  Tony has outgrown the gang, and wants more from life, but he and Riff are friends “womb to tomb,” so he agrees to go.  Moreno and Chakiris both won Oscars for their performances, two of the ten won by this movie, including Best Picture.  The brilliant music and lyrics are by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

Bernardo’s sister Maria, just arrived in the US, is getting ready for the dance, begging to have her dress cut just a little lower.  Bernardo’s girlfriend, Anita (Rita Moreno), watches over her protectively.  At the dance, well-meaning Mr. Hand tries to get the teenagers to mix with each other, but tensions are high.  As each side dances furiously, everything seems to stop for Tony and Maria, who see each other and are transformed.

Bernardo is furious when he sees them together, and he takes Maria home.  But that night, Tony visits her, and they declare their love for each other.  She asks him to make sure there is no fighting, and he agrees.  At the “war council” he persuades them to make it a fist fight only, and he feels successful.  But Maria wants him to make sure there is no fighting of any kind, so he agrees to try to stop them.  Things get out of control, and Bernardo kills Riff with a knife.  Tony, overcome with grief and guilt, grabs the knife and kills Bernardo.

Running from the police and the Jets, Tony finds Maria.  They dream of a place where they could always be safe and together.  Anita agrees to take a message to Tony, but when she is harassed by the Jets, she angrily tells them that Maria is dead.  Blinded by grief, he stumbles out into the night, and is shot by one of the Sharks.  Maria holds him as he dies, and together, the Sharks and Jets carry him away.

The story retains its power, but the gangs are endearingly tame to us now.  Can it be that once there were gangs who fought with fists and knives?  This is a good opportunity to explore the reasons that people fight.  Anita says that the boys fight like they dance, “Like they have to get rid of something, quick.”  According to her, they are getting rid of “too much feeling.”  Kids understand that idea and may like to talk about what “too much feeling” feels like to them.  The music and dances in this movie do as much to tell the story as the dialogue and plot, and they illustrate this idea especially well.

One important difference between this movie and “Romeo and Juliet,” is that in Shakespeare’s play, the older generation plays an important role.  In “West Side Story,” the few adults who appear are ineffectual and tangential, like Mr. Hand (John Astin), who thinks he can get the kids to be friends by having them dance together.  Listen to the lopsided music-box song he plays for them, and see what a good job it does of expressing both what he is trying to accomplish and how hopeless it is.

            And, of course, this is an important movie to use in talking about prejudice.  See if you can get kids to watch carefully enough to figure out why the Sharks and Jets resent and mistrust each other.

Family discussion: If you were going to adapt the story of “Romeo and Juliet” today, what groups would the boy and girl come from? Where do you see the most prejudice today?  Listen to the song about “America,” with the Sharks and their girlfriends disagreeing about whether America has been good or bad to them. Which side do you agree with?  Are they both right?  Why? In the song “Tonight,” both sides sing, “Well they began it!”  Have you ever seen people act that way? One of the boys tells Doc “You was never my age.”  What does he mean?  Do all teenagers feel like that at times?  Have you ever dreamed of a special place where you could always be safe?  What would it be like? Tony has to decide how he can be loyal to his friend and loyal to Maria.  Why is that hard?  Who else in the movie has to make a decision about loyalty? If you could talk to Tony and Maria, what would you tell them to do?

Connections:  This is a great double-feature with “Romeo and Juliet” or the 1997 version, “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet.”  It is fun to see how much of the movie’s structure is taken from the play.  In both, the lovers see each other at a party, and are immediately overcome.  In both, the boy comes to see the girl later that night.  Juliet speaks to Romeo from a balcony.  Maria speaks to Tony from a fire escape.  Romeo and Tony are both pulled back into the fight due to the deaths of their friends.  In both movies, tragedy results from missed messages.  There are some important differences, too.  Juliet dies, but Maria does not.

 

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Based on a play Classic Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Musical Romance Tragedy

Ides of March

Posted on October 6, 2011 at 6:03 pm

Beau Willimon took his experience on the Howard Dean campaign and turned it into a play called “Farragut North,” for the Metro stop near the fancy Washington D.C. offices occupied by political consultants.  Working with George Clooney and Grant Heslov, it has become “The Ides of March,” named for the ominous date when Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by his political rivals in 44 B.C.  The reference is that while the blood may be more metaphorical than literal, it still gets spilled.

Ryan Gosling plays Stephen, an ambitious but idealistic young campaign worker who is responsible for media in the midst of the Democratic primaries.  His candidate, Mike Morris (Clooney) is a progressive governor.  In Ohio, a key state, they are ahead but their toughest competitor is close enough to make them nervous, especially since a New York Times reporter named Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei) is trying to get a story out of it.  Even if they win, she will spin them as losing if they win by less than they are predicting.  So Stephen and his boss, Paul (Philip Seymour Hoffman) have to come across as confident and — most of all — sincere.  They have to be friendly and open with Ida but they have to be careful with her, too, and careful about letting her know just how careful they are being.  Not that she is fooled by it.  A lot of faux charm is deployed in both directions.

And there is a young, beautiful campaign worker named Molly (Evan Rachel Wood) who is, as they used to say in the theater, the second-act complication.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McCt-_yYLpo

Co-writer/director Clooney as assembled a powerhouse cast and it is worth seeing the movie just to watch the way Hoffman and Paul Giamatti eye each other as opposing campaign managers.  But in adapting the play he made some poor choices.  In the original version, the candidate himself did not appear.  Making the Governor an important part of the story and having the character played by Clooney throws the film off-balance, especially when he finds it necessary to give himself a chance to spout some political promises that are just a distraction.  It was much more powerful when everyone in the audience could project onto the candidate whatever positions they wished (or feared) he would take.

And Clooney ramps up the scandal from the original so that it becomes melodramatic and less realistic.  By the time he brings out the big, big flag (ironically), with the idealistic speech in front of the audience and the angry exchange backstage, and the people having sex while watching the news on television, it has gone past heavy-handed to preachy.  Did I really hear someone say, “This is the big leagues?”

Poor Wood has to struggle with a character whose behavior is so bizarrely unrealistic that she seems to be playing two different people.  But Clooney evocatively captures the combination of cynicism about the system, optimism that something can be done to improve it, and grim ends/means practicality about arbitraging the gap.  You can almost smell the stale coffee and put on five pounds from campaign trail stress eating.  He knows the snap and rhythm of political talk, the constant temperature-taking and ceaseless spinning, so much spinning that the words go 360 degrees and then go around again.

 

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Based on a play Drama
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