A Liar’s Autobiography

Posted on November 10, 2012 at 10:50 pm

C
Lowest Recommended Age: Adult
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong and crude sexual content including graphic animated sequences, strong language and some violent images
Profanity: Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and alcoholism
Violence/ Scariness: Violent images including severed limbs, sad death
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: November 9, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN: B00A3A3SRE

Graham Chapman was the Monty Python troupe member most often referred to by the others as “the dead one.”  This affectionate tribute, narrated by Chapman himself in excerpts from the audio version of the memoir he wrote before he died of throat cancer in 1989.  Like the Python movies, it is is made up of skit-like segments, but it only briefly reaches anywhere near their level of sublime comic anarchy.  Even with a quick moment of lunacy with Cameron Diaz providing the voice of Sigmund Freud.

The segments are animated by a widely varied group of  artists, occasionally recalling Terry Gilliam’s inspired paper cut-out interstitials but more often just needlessly crude and sometimes downright dull.   But the real problem is that Chapman may have been an interesting person and certainly led an interesting live but he clearly had neither the interest nor the ability to share very much with anyone.  Instead we get a tedious litany of too much sex, too much alcohol, and the emptiness of the life of a celebrity.  He comes across as superficial, bitter, selfish, and dull.

Chapman tells us he was born during a German bombing attack and we see a possibly fictitious incident where he was traumatized by the severed limbs of the people who were injured and killed.  Then he goes to school and his parents don’t understand or fully appreciate him and he has sex with women but really wants to have sex with men, and then he has sex with men, and then some sex with women again but mostly with men.  In one of the segments we get to see from his perspective as he continues to smoke his pipe through some joyless sexual encounters.  He has contempt for just about everyone, especially those who are overly impressed with celebrities (including himself).

The movie comes to life only at the very end, when we see footage from Chapman’s funeral, with the eulogy from John Cleese.  As the other Pythonites look on, Cleese says, “I guess that we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only 48, before he’d achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say: nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries. And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn’t, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him, but mindless good taste.”  I’d add, anything for him but this dull and sour tribute.  Much better to watch the parrot sketch again.

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Animation Biography Movies -- format

Lincoln

Posted on November 8, 2012 at 6:00 pm

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage, and brief strong language
Profanity: Some strong language, one f-word
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Battle violence with some graphic images, sad deaths, assassination
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: November 9, 2012
Date Released to DVD: March 25, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN: B009AMANH4

The first question about big, prestige films like “Lincoln” is always where it falls on what I call the spinach scale.  Will I tell people to see it because it is entertaining or because it is good for them.  For all its meticulous attention to historical verisimilitude and its extended depiction of people in rooms talking about a Constitutional amendment, “Lincoln” is not an eat-your-spinach-because-it’s-good-for-you movie.  It is a robust, engrossing story that illuminates our own time as well as the era of the 16th and arguably greatest President.

Task number one for director Steven Spielberg, screenwriter Tony Kushner (Angels in America), and star Daniel Day-Lewis is to make the icon into a human being, to show us his greatness but also his humanity.  In our hearts, this almost-literally larger than life man sounds like James Earl Jones — we can almost hear that deep voice reciting the Gettysburg address.  But those who actually heard Lincoln speak described his voice as high, thin, and reedy-sounding.  It may be jarring at first, but in an exceptionally well-designed introductory scene Day-Lewis deploys that timbre with such gentleness and modesty that it quickly becomes an asset not just to his performance but to our understanding of this man.

Lincoln is sitting quietly, talking to a small group of Union soldiers, two black and two white.  We see immediately that the soldiers respect him greatly — they can recite the Gettysburg address from memory — but that they feel completely comfortable being honest with him about their experiences and their recommendations.  What we feel immediately is that he is both respected and trusted, and that he has a rare ability to listen.  He may not be a modest man — at one point he thunders, “I am the President of the United States and clothed in immense power!”  But he is a humble man, who understands that he can best lead by allowing others to move forward with him.  He loves to share stories, more than others love to hear them.  But like a great preacher, he knows that it is the stories that persuade people.  Everyone softens a little for a story, especially one with a punchline.  And a story helps the listener toward the conclusion without feeling pushed.

A century and a half later, audiences may be surprised to see how little has changed.  Indeed, even the vilest insults of the Twitterverse and the shrillest complaints of Super-PAC ads do not touch the comments made by Members of Congress, who do not hesitate to question each other’s integrity or sanity.  “Fatuous nincompoop,” for example.

Audiences may be more surprised to find that “Democrat” and “Republican” seem to have switched places.  What has not changed is the way that politics attracts people of great cowardice and even greater courage, of people who hold on and people who reach forward, of people who want to help themselves and people who want to help others at great cost to themselves, including those who can never thank them.

When Lincoln decides that his most important priority is eradicating slavery through approval of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, his team brings in a trio of lobbyists (John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a wonderfully puckish James Spader) who are as cheerfully cynical as anyone on K Street today.  Through a combination of bribes and threats, they work to get the votes they need.  It is clear the Civil War is about to end, and if the South is readmitted to the Union, it will never pass.  Lincoln understood that the only way to keep the country together was to take its most divisive issue off the table.  He also understood that doing so would have its own terrible costs.  Even those who supported the Amendment had to make compromises, including its most ardent defender (a scene-stealing performance by Tommy Lee Jones as Pennsylvania’s Thaddeus Stevens).

Kushner and Spielberg, like their main character, recognize the power of story-telling, and this illuminating tale would make its subject proud and perhaps to inspire all of us to aspire to that as well.

Parents should know that this film has some battle scenes, graphic images in hospital including amputated limbs, some strong language including one f-word, sad losses, drinking, and smoking.

Family discussion: There are a lot of compromises in this movie and a lot of shading of the truth – which were the most difficult?  Why was the passage of the 13th amendment so important?  What moments in the film reminded you of today’s political debates and strategies?

If you like this, try: some of the other portrayals of Lincoln on film, including “Young Mr. Lincoln” and “Abe Lincoln of Illinois” and the musical about the Declaration of Independence, “1776”

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Based on a true story Biography Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Epic/Historical Politics War

Watch “The Jackie Robinson Story” on the Anniversary of His First Major League Game

Posted on April 15, 2012 at 3:06 pm

Today Major League Baseball celebrates the 65th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first game as a Brooklyn Dodger.  Continuing a tradition begun in 2007, all uniformed personnel in the league wear Robinson’s number 42.  Branch Rickey (soon to be played by Harrison Ford in an upcoming movie) was the Dodgers’ General Manager who broke the color barrier in place since the 1880’s by offering Robinson a place on the team.  Robinson was a star player who helped take the team to six World Series and one championship.  He won the first Rookie of the Year award and was the first African-American to win MVP.  While many of his teammates were supportive, others on the team and in the stands were not, and Robinson was subjected to bigotry and racism.  He handled an unimaginably difficult situation with grace and courage and after his baseball career continued to be a pioneer in business.

Robinson starred in the movie version of his own story, with Ruby Dee as his wife, and it is well worth watching, as is the made for television film The Court Martial of Jackie Robinson, about his experiences in the segregated military, where he refused to sit in the back of a bus.  This time, Ruby Dee played his mother.

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Biography Neglected gem Sports
Celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday

Celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday

Posted on February 12, 2012 at 8:00 am

Celebrate the birthday of our 16th President with some of the classic movies about his life. Ahead of us this are are the Steven Spielberg epic, based on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, with Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field, which will be out in December, and possibly “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter,” based on the best-seller and scheduled for June.

Young Mr. Lincoln Directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda, this is an appealing look at Lincoln’s early law practice and his tragic romance with Ann Rutledge. Particularly exciting and moving are the scenes in the courtroom as Lincoln defends two brothers charged with murder. Both have refused to talk about what happened, each thinking he is protecting the other, and Lincoln has to find a way to prove their innocence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcuUvtenx6w&feature=related

Abe Lincoln in Illinois Raymond Massey in his signature role plays Lincoln from his days as a rail-splitter to his law practice and his debates with Stephen Douglas. Ruth Gordon plays his wife, Mary.

Gore Vidal’s Lincoln Sam Waterston and Mary Tyler Moore star in this miniseries that focuses on Lincoln’s political strategies and personal struggles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxrbIcXBYyY

Sandburg’s Lincoln Hal Holbrook plays Lincoln in this miniseries based on the biography by poet Carl Sandberg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_669ER2Gt34

 

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