Rudy

Posted on January 17, 2008 at 4:59 pm

In this true story of determination and courage, a young man from a blue collar family wants to play football for Notre Dame, despite the fact he has neither the athletic nor the academic skills. Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger (Sean Astin) is told by his family and his teachers college of any kind is out of the question for him, and he should be content with the good, steady work with his family at a steel mill. Only his best friend, Pete, believes in him, and when Pete is killed in an accident at the mill four years after their high school graduation, Rudy puts on the Notre Dame jacket Pete gave him and takes the bus to South Bend. A sympathetic priest helps him get into nearby Holy Cross Junior College, where, with the help of a shy tutor named D-Bob (John Favreau), he is able to make the grades necessary to be accepted as a transfer to Notre Dame.
The coaches make it clear he will never be good enough to play, but they accept him on the team to act as an opposing team player in practice sessions. His determination and commitment endear him to the team, and he is finally permitted to play for seven seconds of his last game, assuring him a place in the record books as having made it to the Fighting Irish.
With some reservations about the language, this is a good family movie for a discussion of dreams – the importance of having them and the possibility of achieving them through persistence and commitment. Rudy is contrasted not only with the athletes who have far more ability but none of the “heart,” but also with his friend Fortune (Charles S. Dutton), who reveals near the end that he was once a member of the team but quit, and has regretted it every day since.
Rudy’s father is afraid of dreams; his own father lost everything in the Depression by risking all he had to have a dairy farm. He insists Notre Dame is not for people “like us.” Rudy’s older brother, Frank, does not want Rudy to succeed, because then he will have to confront his own failure to try for something more. Rudy’s teammates want him to “tone it down a notch,” not to “play every practice like it was the Super Bowl.” But ultimately, his spirit and his insistence on giving everything he can every single time inspires them. Rudy becomes an indispensable part of the team, and each of his teammates goes to the coach to insist Rudy play in his place.
Parents should know that this movie has very strong language for a PG movie. A man calls another a “pussy,” and there is a reference to “busting your balls.” D-Bob’s girlfriend tells him not to swear anymore. Characters drink beer. Rudy gets a little drunk, with consequences – he makes the mistake of telling the secret he had been trying to keep: he was not enrolled at Notre Dame. There is a scuffle in a bar and a subtext of class issues.
Family discussion: What are some of the things Rudy has to do to be able to be on the team? Which are the hardest? What are some of the things he had to give up? Which do the people who made the movie think is more important, ability or determination? How can you tell? Why didn’t Fortune admit he left Rudy the key? How did Fortune change Rudy’s mind? Why didn’t the quarterback do what the coach said at the end of Rudy’s last game? Why did Pete’s death make Rudy decide not to wait any longer? Do you think determination is a talent you have to have, or can you learn it? Have you ever been determined to make something happen? What did happen?
If you like this, try: Ideally, this movie should be seen as a double feature with Knute Rockne, All-American, that other great movie about Notre Dame football. Pat O’Brien appears in the title role, and Ronald Reagan plays “the Gipper,” whose deathbed request inspired the most famous motivational speech of all time, memorialized on a plaque in the Fighting Irish’s locker room and read aloud by Rudy.
Rudy is played by Sean Astin, son of Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker) and John Astin (West Side Story). In real life, Rudy (who appears in a photo at the end of the movie and as a fan in the stands) had a second dream: to make a movie about his time at Notre Dame. Like the first dream, it seemed impossible, and like the first dream, he made it come true.

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Into the Wild

Posted on August 23, 2007 at 12:19 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and some nudity.
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence, character beat up, guns used to shoot animals, graphic scenes of gutting and cooking animals, starvation
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

Every one of us at times hears the call of the wild, to match the wild of the outdoors to the wild that is inside us, to leave behind all of the petty complications of civilization and test ourselves down to the deepest essence, to test our nature, in both senses of the word.

In 1992 Christopher McCandless left behind everything — family, friends, jobs, money, even his name, and went on a journey to find something that felt authentic to him. Actor Sean Penn has written and directed a superb film based on the best-selling book about his journey and its tragic conclusion.

Emile Hirsch plays McCandless, who whimsically renames himself Alexander Supertramp. He walks away from the expectations that felt smothering to him after graduation with honors. He walks away from possessions, donating all of his money to charity and cutting up his credit cards and ID. He walks away from a family that felt disconnected from its outward appearance.

And he walks toward…he is not sure. Something different. Something else. He says he is an “aesthetic voyager whose home is the road” and goes off in search of “ecstatic freedom” to on a “dramatic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual resolution.” His sister says, “It was inevitable he would walk away and do it with characteristic immoderation.” He says, “I don’t need money; it makes people cautious.”

His encounters along the way are in the great tradition of odysseys from Jack London to Jack Kerouac. He meets up with warm-hearted hippies (Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker) and a lonely retired military man (Hal Holbrook, in a performance sure to win him an Oscar nomination). For a while, he works for a grain dealer (Vince Vaughn). Every encounter, even a brief conversation with an intake clerk at a homeless shelter, is meticulous and thoughtful. Penn’s sensitive screenplay and Hirsch’s engaging performance show us McCandless’s combination of longing for the biggest emotions and his ability to appreciate the smallest moments, his ability to connect to the subtlest signals from the widest range of people and to the grandest scope of nature.

He is a listener of extraordinary empathy and compassion. After the character played by Keener tells him her story, he says, “We could go eat. Or, I could sit here all night and listen to you.” When a beautiful young girl (Kristen Stewart) offers herself to him, he gently declines. It would not be right for her. Also, like money, love makes people cautious, too, and he is not ready to be cautious yet.

At times, the film comes close to romanticizing McCandless and his quest. But it is anything but romantic in its harrowing final weeks, when he is alone in the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless, whether from hubris, foolishness, immaturity, self-destructiveness, or some combination of the three, makes poor choices that lead to his death from starvation and eating toxic berries. The images of Hirsch, scared and skeletal, are harrowing. Penn, whose previous films as director and screenwriter also focused on lost children and the devastated families, makes us wish up to the last minute for a happier ending.

McCandless liked to quote Thoreau: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” But Thoreau also said that there was a time to go to Walden and a time to leave. It is a tragedy that McCandless was not able to return to tell his own story. But Penn, Hirsch, and cinematographer Eric Gautier (who also filmed another real-life story of a young man’s journey, The Motorcycle Diaries) have brought his story to the screen with honor and grace.

Parents should know that this is a sad movie with graphic depiction of death by starvation and ingestion of poisonous berries. There are bloody scenes of animals being shot, gutted, and cooked. A character is brutally beaten. There is male and female non-sexual nudity and there are sexual references and situations, including references to adultery. When a young girl offers to have sex with Christopher/Alex, he declines for honorable reasons. Characters use strong language and drink, smoke, and use drugs.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Chris/Alex was looking for and whether he found it.

Families who appreciate this movie will also appreciate the book and an article by the same author. They will also appreciate two outstanding documentaries about men who went out into the wild, Touching the Void and Grizzly Man. They should also read the poem Chris quotes to his sister, I Go Back to May 1937 by Sharon Olds. And they will enjoy my interview with star Emile Hirsch.

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Biography Drama Movies -- format

Miss Potter

Posted on December 13, 2006 at 11:56 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG brief mild language
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Mild reference to abusing alcohol, social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death, emotional confrontations
Diversity Issues:	Class and gender equality is a theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000N4SHOE

As delicate as the title character’s watercolors, this gentle story about the author and illustrator of The Tale of Peter Rabbit very winning.

Renee Zellwegger plays the quiet daughter of conventional parents who don’t quite know how to respond to a young woman who calls the animals in her paintings her friends. These friends help give her the courage to oppose her parents and conventional society. Originally taken on by a family-run publisher as a sure-fire failure to keep an inept brother tied up so that he couldn’t meddle in anything important, it turns out that the brother (Ewan McGregor as Norman Warne) is just the right partner for Miss Potter, a kindred spirit in every way.

Beatrix and Norman fall in love, sweetly and tenderly. But her parents object, and insist on delay that turns into disaster. Still, Norman’s love and the support of his sister, who became Beatrix’s lifelong friend, give Beatrix the strength to think about what she really wants. In a lovely scene, she shyly asks a banker whether she might possibly have enough money from book sales to buy a farm. It turns out she has no idea that she has become a wealthy woman due to the popularity of Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Benjamin Bunny, and her other friends.

Some may dismiss the film as too twee and “Masterpiece Theatre”-ish. But those who come with a little patience and an open heart will find themselves moved by seeing Beatrix discover her strength and embrace the world. And those who think of her as just a painter of pretty pictures and a teller of pretty stories will find themselves inspired by her pioneering work on behalf of the environment.

Parents should know that the movie has some very mild references to propriety concerns of the era and a mild reference to alcohol abuse. There is a sad death. A strength of the movie is its portrayal of early concerns about class and gender equality and the environment.

Families who see this movie should talk about how some ideas about families and class and gender distinctions have changed since Beatrix Potter’s time. They should also talk about why Potter’s mother and father had different reactions to her work and why her work was so important to her.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy reading Beatrix Potter’s books. Potter’s characters are so popular they even appear in a ballet. Families will also enjoy the book and movie versions of “Alice in Wonderland.” In You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown the Peanuts characters sing a wonderful song about a book report on Potter’s most famous book, “Peter Rabbit.”

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Biography Drama Movies -- format

The Pursuit of Happyness

Posted on December 11, 2006 at 12:20 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some language.
Profanity:	Some mild language, f-word visible in graffiti
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad and disturbing situations, character hit by car
Diversity Issues:	An unstated theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	May 27, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000N6U0E2

This week’s release of “After Earth,” starring Will Smith and his son Jaden, is a good time to take another look at their first co-starring film, based on a real-life father and son:

If a man goes from homeless single dad to multi-millionaire stockbroker, you know there has to be a movie. This one has the good sense to star Will Smith and his real-life son Jaden.
Their natural chemistry and Smith’s natural charisma help this story work.
The story does not have the usual feel-good arc. Even though it omits some of the real-life obstacles and setbacks faced by its main character, it is still more grounded in what happened than in the established beats of narrative and the conventions of story. So even the considerable charms of both Smith and the personable character he plays may not be enough to keep audiences from growing impatient to get to the good stuff.

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

Chris Gardner (Smith) is a Navy vet, first in his high school class and good with numbers. But his decision to invest everything he had in a portable bone density scanner “that takes a slightly better picture for twice the money” has left his family in a financial position that teeters between precarious and dire. His wife (Thandie Newton) is tired of pulling double shifts and bitter about the way their dream of the future seems to be impossible. She loves their son, but feels overwhelmed. Gardner has to sell two of the heavy machines a month to be able to pay the rent. He is determined to sell them all, but for both of them, the machines he lugs around are like anchors or leg irons.
Chris has one dream that is even more important to him than selling the scanners. He wants to be the father he never had. And he is devoted to his son, endlessly patient and involved. But when his wife leaves, everything begins to slip away. He loses his apartment. And there’s no panic as deep as the fear of not being able to care for your children.
Chris sees a man with a great car and asks what he does. When the man says he is a stockbroker, Chris decides to apply for an internship at Dean Witter.
There are a few obstacles. Chris does not have a college degree. He has no background in the stock market. The internship is six months of intense, demanding, and unpaid work, competing with dozens of others who have more time and better educations. And at the end, only one may be offered a job. Oh, and Chris shows up for the interview covered with paint, in a t-shirt and battered pants. Why? Because he spent the night in jail due to unpaid parking tickets and didn’t have time to change.
His unpretentious charm — and mastery of the then-brand new Rubik’s Cube — gets him the job. And then things get really tough as Chris and his son become homeless and have to spend nights in a shelter or riding public transportation. Chris is handed two near-impossible tasks — to master the fine points of securities analysis and to make cold calls to a list of prospects and turn them into clients. He has a supervisor who keeps sending him for coffee. And while the other interns work late, he has to be at the shelter by 5:00 to make sure he gets in.
Smith has the courage to turn the pilot light down on his powerful movie star charisma and let us see that despite Chris’ intelligence, optimism, and drive, he is vulnerable and scared.

Parents should know that the movie has some tense and unhappy moments that may be disturbing for some audience members, including the break-up of a marriage. A character gets hit by a car.
Families who see this movie should talk about why the word “happiness” is misspelled in the title, when spelling it correctly was so imporant to Chris. What do you learn about him from the way he pursued the stolen scanners? From his decision to sell the scanners in the first place? From the way he handled the job interview? Why did he tell his son not to dream of playing basketball? What was the most important factor in his success? They should talk about how Chris was constantly teaching his son. And they should talk about the insensitivity people showed Chris because they had no idea of his situation; one of the movie’s most important lessons is that we should always remember that we do not know what anyone else is dealing with when we form our expectations.
Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Erin Brockovich (some mature material) and Rudy (some strong language).

Marie Antoinette

Posted on October 15, 2006 at 12:31 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and innuendo.
Profanity:	Some crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, snuff
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril, offscreen violence, offscreen deaths, including a child
Diversity Issues:	Class issues a theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000M06KJ8

With this third film, we can begin to see the themes emerging in the work of writer/director Sofia Coppola. Again, she has given us the story of a sensitive, vulnerable young woman trying to find a place and some meaning in an incomprehensible environment. In her last film, Lost in Translation, Scarlett Johansson was a dislocated young American wife and former philosophy major drifting in Tokyo. In the first, The Virgin Suicides, Kirsten Dunst was one of five young sisters lost in the scary world outside their home. In this one, Coppola returns to Dunst as the title character, the Austrian princess married to a French prince at age 14 and executed by guillotine along with her husband and children.

On her first morning in France, she is informed that she will be dressed and attended to every morning by the titled ladies in waiting. As she stands, naked and shivering while they sort out whose rank entitles her to bring her clothes, she laughs nervously, but acquiesces. She has been raised to do as she is told. Everyone stands around and watches as she eats her dinner. There is a constant crowd around her like that cell phone commercial with the enormous network.

As Marie Antoinette is urged, with increasingly less diplomacy, to make sure her shy husband consummates the marriage, she tries to do her best for Austria, for her mother, for everyone. She finds some diversion in what today would be called retail therapy. But she finds her greatest happiness in the smallish Petit Trianon, pretending to be an ordinary mother.

Coppola’s characteristically impeccable sense of detail ensures that every bow on every shoe, every dot of frosting on every bon-bon, every shot of Dunst’s creamy dimples, just right. She courts controversy with glimpses of modernity and a contemporary soundtrack, but it works well — a sort of John Hughes movie, The Breakfast Club Part 2: A Semester at Versailles.

But that’s not a bad take on this story of two teenagers whose response to the death of the king was “We are too young to reign.”

Parents should know that the film has some mature material, including non-sexual nudity, discussions of impotence and (non-explicit) portrayal of an affair. A child dies (off-camera). The executions are not depicted, but it is clear what is going to happen.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Marie Antoinette wanted and why. Given the extensive traditions of the court, what could she and Louis have done to prevent the revolution? Did this film make you sympathetic to them? How?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the book and Amadeus, as well as a more light-hearted mix of historical epic and modern music, A Knight’s Tale.