Safe Haven

Posted on February 13, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Now that best-selling author Nicholas Sparks has rung every possible variation out of his core formula: damaged hearts, pretty people, syrupy pop-song montages, buttery, sunlit cinematography, the healing powers of a body of water (and rain), the healing powers of a small town community, a sad death, and a letter of great import, he has officially run out of new ideas and even thoughts about how to keep re-arranging the old ideas. An unnecessary twist at the end feels desperate and it feels like a cheat.

Damaged heart number one: Julianne Hough plays Katie, who is on the run from the Boston police for what looks like a violent assault. She has cut and dyed her hair (so efficiently that it never grows out or needs to be retouched), stops in small town on the North Carolina Coast (body of water is the Atlantic Ocean), takes a job as a waitress in a local cafe and somehow has the money to move into a dilapidated but picturesque little cabin out in a remote area of the woods.

Damaged heart number two: Josh Duhamel, as usual far better than his script, plays Alex, the extremely handsome widower with two children (one adorable and affectionate, one mini-me damaged heart who misses his mom) who owns the local store. At first, Katie just wants to keep to herself and resists making friends with Alex and with Jo (“How I Met Your Mother’s” Cobie Smulders), another single woman living alone in the woods. But soon Katie and Alex are out on the healing water and then, when it rains, getting drenched by the powerful healing effects of even more water. A not-very-surprising mystery about Katie’s past is revealed and pretty soon there will be a very significant letter.

Hough is not an actress of great range, but she looks very pretty and wears a bikini well. Duhamel has a natural ease on screen that makes it easy to overlook what a committed and subtle performer he is. Even when he is called upon to make Alex to have some improbable reactions, he manages to find a smidgen of honesty that elevates the material. Director Lasse Hallstrom (“Chocolat,” “The Cider House Rules,” “My Life as a Dog”) puts so much gloss on the images that it feels like a perfume commercial but never elevates the story above the Lifetime movie level.

Parents should know that this movie includes themes of domestic abuse with some graphic and disturbing images, fire with child and adults in peril, references to sad death of parent, sexual situation, some strong language, and alcohol abuse

Family discussion: What does Katie learn from Jo that she cannot learn any other way? What changed Alex’s mind?

If you like this, try: the book by Nicholas Sparks and some of his other movies like “The Notebook,” “The Lucky One,” and “Dear John”

Happy New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2012 at 8:00 am

Ring in the new year with this classic romance!

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Anna Karenina

Posted on November 15, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Director Joe Wright and his favorite star, Kiera Knightley (“Pride and Prejudice,” “Atonement”) have produced a ravishing, highly theatrical version of Leo Tolstoy’s classic “Anna Karenina.” It is deeply romantic but has more focus on the social and political context than many of the previous versions of the story. It literally opens with the rise of a curtain over a grand proscenium stage, and throughout the film the story flickers from movie-style reality — not documentary but an integrated dramatic narrative — to something resembling a live production of a play or ballet. At one intensely dramatic moment, the story literally and metaphorically spills over the edge of the stage for a shocking denouement.

Anna (Knightley) is a young mother married to the stiff but not unfeeling husband Karanin (Jude Law). He cares for her but is very caught up in legislative and governance issues. When we first see her, Anna is preparing to leave her home in St. Petersburg to go to the aid of her brother, Stiva (Knightley’s “Pride and Prejudice” co-star Matthew MacFadyen) and his pregnant wife, Dolly (“Boardwalk Empire’s” Kelly Macdonald), who is devastated when she learns he has been having an affair with the governess. Anna hopes she can help the couple reconcile. And she is not unhappy about spending time in Moscow, going to parties and concerts and mingling with members of society.

There she meets the dashing officer Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson of “Kick-Ass” and “Savages”). Vronsky is a bit spoiled by a life in which everything has come easily to him — good looks, money, women. He is flirting with Dolly’s sister, an innocent young princess named Kitty (an excellent Alicia Vikander). Stiva’s close friend Levin (Domhnall Gleeson), a shy but true-hearted landowner, loves Kitty. He proposes, but, believing Vronsky will ask her to marry him, Kitty turns down Levin’s proposal. Vronsky has just been flirting with Kitty. He is drawn to Anna. She is drawn to him, and returns home to put some distance between them. He pursues her, and finally, she is overcome. Besotted by him, she is overcome in every way, breaking every rule, ignoring every convention, the freedom as heady as the romance.

Like too many lovers before her, she believes that love is enough, that the world will support her, that nothing else matters. She once counseled Dolly to rise above Stiva’s infidelity. But she does not have any sympathy for Karanin’s humiliation or any gratitude for his willingness to stand by her, even when she is pregnant with Vronsky’s child. Vronsky genuinely cares for her and does his best but he is out of his league. When Anna realizes that society has no place for her anymore, she is devastated. Tolstoy’s focus on the reunited Levin and Kitty, far from the glittering parties and gossip, contrasts the hypocrisy, artificiality, and sterility of the upper class with the authenticity and humanity of the people who work the earth and care for the sick.

Wright has a magnificent gift for images and a remarkable fluidity of camera movement (remember that bravura sustained shot on the beach in “Atonement”), all used in service of the story and characters. The camera circles as the story does, with rings of parallel but contrasting stories. Watch Anna’s costumes, elaborate, constricting at first and then simpler. In the midst of her passion for Vronsky, they both wear white, as though they are removed from the rest of the world. Later, she’s swathed in black. Watch for images of omens, and images that compare or contrast the human world and the animal world, the fake and the real. By embracing the artificiality of the form, Wright illuminates not just Anna’s anguish but Tolstoy’s vision.

Parents should know that this film includes sexual references and situations with some explicit images and suicide and a brief shot of a mutilated body. Characters drink and abuse alcohol and drugs and there are tense and unhappy confrontations.

Recommendation: Mature teens-Adults

Family discussion: Tolstoy famously begins this book by saying that all happy families are alike but each unhappy family is different in its own way. Do you agree? How does the theatricality of the setting affect the story?

If you like this, try: the other versions of the story, especially the movies with Greta Garbo and Jacqueline Bisset, and the book by Tolstoy

Disney’s Cinderella — New Diamond Edition

Posted on October 3, 2012 at 3:57 pm

This week, Disney’s animated classic Cinderella is being released with a glorious new Three-Disc Diamond Edition: Blu-ray/DVD + Digital Copy, and that glass slipper really sparkles!

The classic fairy tale by Charles Perrault is lovingly and imaginatively brought to life in this animated Disney version, also a classic. Cinderella, a sweet, docile, and beautiful girl forced to act as a servant for her mean stepmother and stepsisters, goes to the ball with the help of her fairy godmother. But her godmother warns that the beautiful coach and gown will only last until midnight. Cinderella meets the Prince at the ball, and they share a romantic dance. But when the clock begins to strike midnight, she runs away, leaving behind one of her glass slippers. The Prince declares he will marry the girl whose foot fits that slipper. He finds her, and they live happily ever after.

Disney expanded the simple story with vivid and endearing characters and memorable songs. The animation is gorgeously detailed and inventive. In one musical number, as the stepsisters squawk their way through their singing lesson in another room, Cinderella sings sweetly as she scrubs the floor, reflected in dozens of soap bubbles.

When Cinderella asks if she can go to the ball, her stepmother tells her she can, if she can make an appropriate dress. She then keeps Cinderella much too busy to have time to make the dress. But Cinderella’s friends, the mice and birds, make one for her in another delightful musical number. As the fairy godmother sings “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo,” she transforms a pumpkin into a coach, the mice into horses, the horse into a coachman, and finally, Cinderella’s rags into a magnificent ball gown. The scene when the Duke comes looking for the girl whose foot will fit the glass slipper is very suspenseful and highly satisfying.

While the story has enduring appeal, many people are troubled by the passive heroine, who meekly accepts her abusive situation and waits to be rescued, first by her godmother and then by the Prince. It is worth discussing, with both boys and girls, what some of her alternatives could have been (“If you were Cinderella, would you do what that mean lady told you?”), and making sure that they have some exposure to stories with heroines who save themselves. A Ella Enchanted, based on the book by Gail Carson Levine, and Ever After, starring Drew Barrymore, have ingenious explanations for the heroine’s obedience and spirited heroines who can rescue themselves.

In today’s world of blended families, it might also be worth discussing that not all step-parents and siblings are mean. Even children who are living with intact families of origin may need to hear this so that they will not worry about their friends.

Families who see this movie should talk about these questions: Why does Cinderella do what her stepmother says? What could she have done instead? Why is the King so worried about whether the Prince will get married? If you had a fairy godmother, what would you like her to do for you? Or would you like to be a fairy godmother? Whose wish would you grant?

This story has been told many times, and families might enjoy seeing some of the other versions, including Cinderfella, with Jerry Lewis as the title character and Ed Wynn as his fairy godfather. The made-for- television musical version Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, starring Leslie Ann Warren and the remake with Brandi and Whitney Houston are well worth watching.

Children might be amused to hear the rumor that Cinderella’s most famous accessory is the result of a mistake. It is often reported that in the original French story, her slipper was made of fur. But a mistranslation in the first English version described it as glass, and it has stayed that way ever since. But in reality, while there have been many versions of the story over the years, the best-known early written version, by Charles Perrault, did describe her slippers as glass. Other versions have her wearing gold slippers or a ring that fits only the true Cinderella.

Step Up Revolution

Posted on July 27, 2012 at 11:06 pm

A girl. A guy. A ragtag but devoted and immensely talented group of dancers with varied styles and talents. Impressively toned bodies. Breathtakingly athletic moves. Even more breathtakingly sensuous moves. A conflict. A misunderstanding. A pep talk. “We’re going to need a lot more people.” More people. Confrontation. Apology. More dancing!

There isn’t much new in this fourth entry in the “Step Up” series beyond the Miami setting and slightly older characters. What began as a series about teenagers and with #3 took the characters to college is now about people in their 20’s. The performers are different but pretty much interchangeable with the equally bland stars of the previous entry. But why waste any energy on the script and performances when we’re really there to see the dancing? Each new episode wisely devotes less attention to the story and more attention to the dancing.

And the dancing just gets better with every entry. This one leads off with a cheeky flash mob on a busy Miami street that is so joyously kinetic even the cars leap up to get into the act. Sean (Ryan Guzman) is a waiter at an upscale resort whose “Mob” is competing for the most views on YouTube. If they can just beat out the cute cat video, they can win the $100,000 prize. So they stage elaborate surprise dance numbers in hopes of attracting attention. Another is a truly spectacular event staged at a swanky museum gala with dancers camouflaged as parts of the paintings and sculpture so that they seem to bloom out of some magical garden of art.

With a nod to “Dirty Dancing,” Sean meets Emily (Kathryn McCormick) at a bar on the beach that is off-limits for the hotel staff. He thinks she is on the staff, too, and he asks her to dance. With a nod to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and just about every movie about dancers, they challenge each other, show off a little, recognize how beautifully their rhythms synch, and are vastly more eloquent with their bodies than they are when they are talking. One major departure from “Step Up 3:” in that one, the guy does not discover that the girl is from a rich, snooty family until 3/4 of the way through the movie. In this one, he discovers it right away but does not let his friends find out until 3/4 of the way through.

When Emily’s father announces that he is going to build a fancy new resort that would displace Sean and everyone he cares about, Sean and his best friend Eddy (Misha Gabriel) decide “It’s not okay to make art for fun anymore. Enough with performance art; it’s time to make protest art.” Protest art turns out to look a lot like fun art and both apparently require equally determined facial expressions, pretty much the only facial expressions anyone seems to be able to muster. But the dance numbers are brilliantly staged and filmed. A protest dance with gas masks and faux tear gas inadvertently but eerily echoing last week’s “Dark Knight” shooting in Colorado. It is thrilling to see Director of Photography Crash (yes, that’s his name) take full advantage of the 3D technology to amp up the energy and, yes, wit — especially the museum dance, a number with suits, fedoras, newspapers and coffee to mock the developers and politicians, and a rousing finale that brings back #3 star Adam G. Sevani (“Moose”) and Mari Koda of #2 and #3. We sorely miss Alyson Stoner and the Lombard twins, perhaps one more reason to look forward to Chapter 5.

Parents should know that this film includes some sensual dance movies and brief strong and crude language (b-word, etc.)

Family discussion: Who was right, Sean or Eddy? Why? What is the best way for the residents and the corporation to work together?

If you like this, try: the other “Step Up” movies and the documentary about competitive dancers, Rize