Contest: The First Olympics

Posted on August 7, 2008 at 10:00 am

I am thrilled to have FIVE copies of this week’s DVD pick of the week, The First Olympics, one of my all-time favorites. This two-part television miniseries an outstanding family film about the first modern-day Olympics in 1896, exciting, touching, funny, and inspiring. The first five people who send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Olympics” in the subject line will get this very special DVD. This one is for those who have not yet won anything only, please. And stay tuned, more giveaways ahead.

Mandela

Posted on July 14, 2008 at 8:00 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Disturbing material about apartheid
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movies
Date Released to Theaters:	March 21, 1997

Celebrate the 90th birthday this week of one of history’s greatest leaders, Nelson Mandela, with one of the fine films about his extraordinary perseverance, vision, courage, and leadership. The story of the massive social change he achieved without violence is profoundly moving and inspiring and one that all families should understand and discuss. Perhaps his greatest contribution is the notion of reconciliation and forgiveness rather than retribution and punishment, a lesson the world will need to recover from its current conflicts.

The documentary, Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation follows Mandela from his early years as one of nine children of a polygamist father assigned the name “Nelson” by a teacher instead of his tribal name to his 27 years in prison, his election to the Presidency of South Africa and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. The made-for-television Mandela & De Klerk (PG-13 for disturbing images of political violence) has Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine as Mandela and his co-Nobel awardee F.W. de Klerk. Both are outstanding.

The Other Boleyn Girl

Posted on June 9, 2008 at 8:00 am

Other%20Boleyn%20Girl.jpg Take away the sumptuous settings and Hollywood glamour and what you have here is like Henry VIII for Dummies enacted by the cast of the OC.
Natalie Portman plays Anne Boleyn, who became the second of Henry VIII’s six wives and the mother of Queen Elizabeth I. When Anne arrived at court, Henry was married to a much-older Spanish princess who had been the wife of his late brother. She was unable to produce a male heir, and the impetuous king was vulnerable to the plotting of courtiers who deployed their female family members for power and money. The Boleyn family had two daughters. Mary (Scarlett Johansson), the quiet one who married young and wanted a simple life in the country, caught the king’s eye and became his mistress. Anne, the headstrong one who wanted to be more than a mistress, ended up sundering not only a marriage but Britain’s ties to the Catholic church. She became queen, but like her predecessor (and three of the four wives who followed) she did not produce a male heir. She was beheaded on charges of treason, adultery, and incest.

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Charlie Wilson’s War

Posted on April 22, 2008 at 6:00 pm

charlie%20wilson.jpg It is not easy to take a wealthy socialite, a powerful Congressman, and a CIA agent, have them played by three Oscar-winners, two who are genuine box office gold, and make them look like the underdogs, but in this “extraordinary story of how the wildest man in Congress and a rogue CIA agent changed the history of our times” (as put in the unusually accurate book subtitle), that is what they are.

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Beaufort

Posted on March 28, 2008 at 8:01 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Unrated
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Graphic and intense battle violence, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 28, 2008

‘Beaufort,” the first Israeli movie nominated for the best foreign film Oscar in 24 years, is a meditation on the tragic ironies that soldiers face while ending an 18-year occupation of a medieval fortress in Lebanon. Despite their valor, the soldiers’ mission increasingly seems like an exercise in futility. They might as well be waiting for Godot.
Even though the Israelis are leaving, Hezbollah forces are becoming more aggressive and trying to make the evacuation look like a retreat. Meanwhile, far away, generals and politicians issue orders that seem clueless or callous or both, when they even remember Beaufort at all.
Built during the Crusades of the 12th century, Beaufort (“Beautiful Fort”) has been fought over off and on ever since. We are told in opening text that raising the Israeli flag over Beaufort in 1982 had enormous political and cultural symbolism. But 18 years later, as the movie begins, it is not at all clear what leaving the fortress will symbolize. Are the Israelis leaving in triumph, having accomplished their goals? Or is it surrender? The soldiers are trying simultaneously to protect themselves, fight the enemy and leave with dignity, with some sense that the time they spent and the lives they lost meant something and made a difference.

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