Life or Something Like It

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

It’s been months since we have had a good old-fashioned date movie and that makes this one particularly welcome.

Angelina Jolie plays Lanie, a television news reporter in Seattle who thinks her life is just about perfect. For her, that means a great apartment, great friends, a great fiance, and a shot at her dream job on the network. And perfection is what she strives for, from the tip of her cotton candy hair helmet to the calves that show the effect of thousands of hours on a stairclimber. She never questions what she wants or what she has to do to get there.

But she is sent to do a story on a homeless man who predicts the future, and he tells her what the score will be in the football game to be played later that day. He tells her that it will hail the next morning. And he tells her that she will not get the job she wants, and has only a week to live. When the first two predictions come true, she begins to think that she might just have a week to live, and that her life is not so perfect after all.

Where did Lanie get her ideas about what constiituted perfection? There is some nonsense about sibling rivalry with a sister who has a rich husband and a fancy house. What makes more sense is that Lanie gets her idea of perfection from the very place she seeks it, television. With an indestructible platinum helmet hairdo, flawless muscle tone, and a baseball player fiance, she is a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Barbara Walters. Her idol is Deborah Connors (Stockard Channing), the queen of interviewers, who always gets her subjects to cry.

The prospect of having no more time makes Lainie think about what she was postponing. The first surprise is who she asks for advice. She turns for help to a man she thought she hated, Pete (Edward Burns), her cameraman. He tells her to talk to the people she cares about most.

The script has no surprises, but Jolie and Burns have a nice rythym as they constantly ask each other to define their words. It is easy to believe that they would both be attracted to someone who doesn’t let them get away with easy charm. The biggest surprise is Jolie in a role clearly designed for someone like Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock. She doesn’t let Lanie get too cute and shows us Lanie’s vulnerability, inescurity, and her capacity for giddy joy.

Parents should know that the movie has some strong language. An unmarried couple lives together and there are references to a drunken sexual encounter and an out of wedlock pregnancy. Getting drunk is portrayed as freeing. There is non-graphic violence. Some viewers may be upset by the seer’s prediction. And some younger viewers may be disturbed by the reference to divorced parents, even though it is amicable.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we decide what “perfection” means to each of us and whose approval matters most to us. How do we live in a way that balances planning for the future with recognizing what is important in the present. How do our family dynamics transfer over into our work relationships? Why didn’t Lanie understand how important she was to her father?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the black and white classic “Theodora Goes Wild.” They will also enjoy Martha Beck’s book “Following Your North Star.”

Related Tags:

Date movie Drama

The Chocolate War

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: While Jerry Renault (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) a freshman at Trinity Prep boy’s school, is belittled by the football coach, two boys, Archie (Wally Ward) and Orbie (Dough Hutchison) sit high up in the stands watching them. Archie determines the “assignments” to be given to those boys selected for the school’s elite club, the Vigils, and Orbie is the club secretary. Jerry, whose mother has recently died, is selected for an assignment.

At home, Jerry’s father is remote, still overcome by grief. In school, teacher Brother Leon (John Glover) is tough and imperious. He brutally berates an outstanding student, then tells him, “You passed the toughest test of all — you were true to yourself.”

Brother Leon tells Archie the boys have to sell 20,000 boxes of chocolates for their annual fund-raiser, twice the number from previous years, and at twice the price, to help ensure that he will become headmaster. He won’t refer to the Vigils by name, but acknowledges Archie’s “influence.” Each boy must sell 50 boxes. All of the other boys agree, but Jerry refuses. Brother Leon says that selling is voluntary (“that is the glory of Trinity”), but tells the class that “the true sons of Trinity can pick up your chocolates in the gym. The rest — I pity you.”

It turns out that refusing to sell the chocolate was the “assignment” given to Jerry to prove his worth to the Vigils. But after the time period of the assignment expires, he continues to refuse to participate, despite harassment by the other boys. It gives him a feeling of strength and independence, not just from Brother Leon, but from the Vigils as well. Brother Leon says that sales are poor because the boys have become “infected” by Jerry. Brother Leon tells Archie that “if the sale goes down the drain, you and the Vigils go down the drain. We all go down the drain together.”

The Vigils decide to make the chocolate sale a success by making it popular. “We make it cool to sell the things.” The head of the Vigils tells Archie his position depends on his making his plan work.

At last, all of the chocolates are sold, except for Jerry’s quota. Archie arranges an assembly, with a raffle, the prizes the chance to select the punches in a boxing match between Jerry and a tough boy named Janza. But Archie has to take Janza’s place, and Jerry beats him. Jerry says, “I should have just sold the chocolates, played their game anyway.” Archie is now secretary, and Orbie has taken over assignments for the Vigils.

Discussion: Mature teenagers, especially fans of the popular book by Robert Cormier, will appreciate this dark story, a kind of “Dangerous Liaisons” for teenagers. Archie says that “people are two things, greedy and cruel,” and devises his plans to take advantage of those qualities.

Although the story is exaggerated for satiric effect, much of it will seem true to teenagers, who often feel a heightened sense of proportion. The movie shows us some of Jerry’s dreams or fantasies, which add to the surreal and claustrophobic feeling of the movie.

The movie provides a good basis for a discussion of the different ways that people get other people to do what they want, the exercise of power, and the ways that power is maintained — and lost. The interaction between Brother Leon and Archie is especially interesting, because of their uneasy interdependence. As powerful as both of them seem, they ultimately lose their power without much of a struggle.

Questions for Kids:

· What are the tools that Archie uses to maintain and exercise power? What tools does Brother Leon use?

· How can anyone or any group decide to make something “popular” and “cool” as Archie does with the chocolate sale?

· Why does Archie tell Janza to “use the queer pitch” on Jerry?

· Why does the screenplay have Archie holding an impaled butterfly when he talks to Janza on the phone? Why does Jerry tell the girl she was right?

· What is the significance of the Vigil’s marble test for the person who gives the assignments?

Connections: Read the book by Robert Cormier, and his other popular novel, “I Am the Cheese” (filmed in 1983, and remade in Canada as “Lapse of Memory,” (also known as “Memoire Tranquee”) in 1992. Compare this story to other books and movies about power struggles in a school context, including “Perfect Harmony,” “Lord of the Flies,” “School Ties,” and, for mature high school and college students, “The Lords of Discipline” (rated R), the surrealistic “If…” (1968, rated R) and one of its inspirations, the French film “Zero for Conduct” (1933).

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Based on a book Drama High School

Lili

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: Lili (Leslie Caron), a French orphan, is dazzled by a handsome carnival magician named Marcus (Jean Pierre Aumont) when he speaks kindly to her, and she follows him back to the carnival. She gets a job as a waitress there, but is fired for spending too much time watching his act. Lonely and sad, she thinks of suicide, but a puppet called Carrot Top calls out to her kindly, and she starts to talk to him and the other puppets: Golo, the simple giant who is shy with girls; Margurite, the vain beauty; and Renaldo, the sly, crafty fox.

Paul (Mel Ferrar) the puppeteer, a bitter, angry man, offers her a job in the act. His assistant, Yacov (Kurt Kaszner) explains that he had once been a great dancer but was wounded in the war. Paul, drunk, refers to himself as “half man, half mountebank.”

Audiences love Lili’s conversations with the puppets because she is so sincere, and the show is very successful. She spends the money she makes on foolish games and knicknacks, and Paul angrily asks if there isn’t something she really wants. At the show, the puppets gently ask the same thing, and we see Paul’s face as he has the puppets tell Lili that what she wants is to be loved, and that he cares for her.

Marcus gets an offer from a hotel, and leaves the carnival. It turns out he was secretly married to his assistant (Zsa Zsa Gabor). When Lili runs after Marcus to give him the ring he dropped in her trailer, Paul thinks she is running after him because she loves him, and he slaps her.

Paul is offered a wonderful opportunity to take his act to Paris. When asked if Lili is a superb actress or if he is a Svengali, he says, “She’s like a little bell that gives off a pure sound no matter how you strike it, because she is in herself so good and true and pure.” When he finds that the men did not know he had been crippled, he is deeply moved. He has succeeded in transcending his disability and no longer sees himself as less than a complete man.<p.

But Lili has decided to leave. She tells Marcus, “I’ve been living in a dream like a little girl, not seeing what I didn’t want to see,” and that sometimes a person outgrows dreams like a girl outgrows her dresses.

As she leaves, Carrot Top calls her back again, and asks to go with her. As each of the puppets tells her how much they care, we see Paul speaking through them. At first very touched, she thrusts back the curtain to see Paul. All he can do is speak harshly to her about the new offer, and she thinks he has been pretending to be nice to her just to get her to stay with the show.

He tells her that the puppets are the parts of him he cannot show any other way. But she runs away. On the road, she dreams of dancing with the puppets, each one transforming itself into Paul. Understanding that all of the characters she loves are really him, she runs back to him.

Discussion: This is a charming story with a lovely theme song, simply told but with a great deal of psychological insight. Lili believes what she sees on the surface. She believes the shopkeeper who offers her a job, but it turns out that he is just making a pass at her. She believes Marcus’ easy charm and small tricks. She believes Paul is unfeeling. But that same naiveté is what makes her interaction with the puppets so endearingly believable. As she says, she always forgets that they are not real. Just as Paul can only open up through them, she only opens up to them.

Paul is attracted to Lili because she is such a contrast to him — she is direct, completely clear about her feelings. His leg is not as crippled as his heart. He has closed himself off, and yet his spirit needs to express itself; he needs to relate to people. So he does it through the puppets, and through them he has a freedom he could not otherwise have. When the act becomes successful, he can for the first time since his injury begin to develop the self-confidence he needs to be able to open himself up to a relationship without going through the puppets as his intermediaries. Questions for Kids:

· Why is it easier for Paul to say what he is thinking through the puppets?

· What does he mean when he says, “I am the puppets?”

· What does Lili mean when she says that people outgrow dreams?

· Why is it so important to Paul that the men who made him the offer didn’t know he had a limp?

Connections: The story for this movie was by Paul Gallico, who was inspired by Burr Tillstrom and his television show, “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.” Gallico was a prolific writer who enjoyed writing in a variety of genres, and films made from his work include, “Pride of the Yankees,” “The Three Lives of Thomasina,” and “The Poseidon Adventure.”

Activities: Put on a puppet show. Let the kids try to make puppets that express different parts of themselves or behave in ways they cannot.

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Drama For the Whole Family Romance

The Great Escape

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Very tense moments, characters in peril and many killed
Diversity Issues:	People from a variety of backgrounds and countries work together toward a common goal
Date Released to Theaters:	1963
Date Released to DVD:	May 7, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00BN3DUVE

In honor of the Blu-Ray release of this classic film, it is the Pick of the Week – and I am delighted that I have one Blu-Ray to give away. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Escape in the subject line. I will pick a winner at random on May 15. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only.)

Towards the end of WWII, the Germans built a special high-security prison camp for Allied prisoners with a record of escape attempts. This is the true story of the extraordinary courage and ingenuity of the men imprisoned there, and of their plans for the greatest escape ever. As the British ranking officer explains, when the camp commandant urges him to relax and “sit out the war as comfortably as possible,” his duty is to escape, or, if escape is impossible, to force the enemy to use as many resources as possible to contain them.

Each man contributes his expertise. There are “tunnel kings” to dig the three tunnels, a “forger king” (Donald Pleasence) to forge the papers the soldiers will need when they escape, a “scrounger” (James Garner) to beg, borrow, steal, or obtain through blackmail the materials they need, and others who work as tailors and manufacturers. An American who is something of a loner, Hilts (Steve McQueen) becomes the “cooler king” for his long stints in solitary confinement, as a result of his independent escape attempts. When “Big X” (Richard Attenborough), the British officer who supervises the escape, asks Hilts to go through the tunnel to get information about the area surrounding the camp, and then allow himself to be recaptured, so he can let them know what he has found, he refuses. But when his friend is killed trying to escape, his spirit broken by the camp, Hilts changes his mind.

Seventy-five of the prisoners are able to escape before the tunnel is discovered. The Germans track almost all of them down, and fifty are killed, including Big X. It is to “the fifty” that the film is dedicated.

As in “Stalag 17” and many other films about prison camp, the prisoners in this story must adapt to the direst of circumstances, and they choose differing approaches. Hilts adapts by working on his own, or with one partner, while others work on a massive group escape. Ives and Danny begin to unravel under the stress, not so much a “choice” as an involuntary response.

Unlike other prison camp movies, this one does not dwell on disputes between prisoners or on the deprivations of the prison camp, which seems almost comfortable. It is about the professionalism, courage, resourcefulness, teamwork, and loyalty of every one of the prisoners.

As in a traditional “heist” film, the story focuses on defining a problem and then solving it. They examine the restrictions imposed by their conditions, change the ones they can, and adapt to the ones they cannot. They must also adapt quickly and calmly when the plan does not go as they expected.

The story gives us an exceptional example of teamwork and loyalty. Note the way that the prisoners protect each other. When Danny (Charles Bronson) cannot take it any more and wants to escape on his own, his friend talks him out of it. When the Forger goes blind, Big X wants to leave him behind, for his own protection. But the Scrounger promises to take care of him.

Point out to kids what factors do — and do not — go into the prisoners’ calculations and strategy. Big X is cautioned not to allow his personal wish for revenge determine their strategy. But pride (in the sense of morale) is permitted to be considered. When asked “Have you thought of what it might cost?” he answers, “I’ve thought of the humiliation if we just tamely submit — knuckle under and crawl.” They also consider the risk of failure, to the extent they can. At the end, when the Scrounger asks whether the escape was worth the price, the best the British Commander can do is answer truthfully, “It depends on your point of view.”

Note: The screenplay was co-written by blockbuster novelist James Clavell (Tai-Pei, Shogun). His own experiences as a prisoner of war in a Japanese prison camp are the subject of “King Rat.” The outstanding musical score is by Elmer Bernstein (“The Magnificent Seven” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”). Richard Attenborough, who played Big X, became a director in the late 1960s of films such as “Gandhi” and “Shadowlands.” He continues to appear as a performer, and played Dr. Hammond in “Jurassic Park” and Kris Kringle in the 1994 version of “Miracle on 34th Street.”

Family discussion: Why are the experts called “kings”? What makes Hilts change his mind about getting the information they want? Who was right about taking the Forger out through the tunnel, Big X or the Scrounger? Given the results of their action in this story, should officers who have been taken prisoner feel duty-bound to try to escape?

If you like this, try: “Stalag 17” and “King Rat”

Major Barbara

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: Major Barbara (Wendy Hiller) is a member of a mission devoted to saving souls, and she promotes temperance, non-violence, and socialism. Adolphus Cusins (Rex Harrison), a classics professor, falls in love with her, but before she accepts his proposal, she insists that he must meet her family. He is surprised to find out that she is the daughter of a wealthy industrialist.

Her father, Andrew Undershaft (Robert Morley), a munitions manufacturer, returns to the family after an absence of many years. He tries to convert Barbara to his views by presenting her with an ethical dilemma. Will she accept large contributions to her mission from the makers of munitions and liquor, the very things she opposes? She cannot, and is disillusioned but understanding when her superior accepts the funds, reasoning that despite their source, the money will do some good.

Barbara visits the munitions factory and sees that her father is right about capitalism. It does not mean much when someone accepts her views in order to get food and shelter. But if she can persuade people simply by the force of her ideas, those are converts worth having. Furthermore, she can aid the poor by providing good jobs, good wages, and good benefits. Her father says that being a millionaire is his religion. Christianity is Barbara’s religion, but she will pursue it through capitalism.

Discussion: More directly political than “Pygmalion,” this provides a good opportunity for a discussion of what is now termed “corporate social responsibility,” and the role of the government, the church, and the corporation in meeting society’s needs.

Questions for Kids:

· How socially responsible should corporations be? How should they balance the interests of employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, and the community?

· Who is in a better position to help society, government, religion, or business? Which kinds of help are each uniquely able to provide?

Connections: Robert Morley, age 32 when this movie was made, was only four years older than the actress who played his daughter. A very young Deborah Kerr appears as Jenny Hill, and Emelyn Williams, author of the autobiographical “The Corn is Green,” appears as Snobby Price. Wendy Hiller, picked by Shaw himself to appear in this movie and “Pygmalion,” also appears in “A Man for All Seasons” and “Murder on the Orient Express.”

Playwright and co-screenwriter Shaw was one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant writers, well known as a dramatist, essayist, critic, and social reformer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. His play, “Pygmalion” (also filmed with Wendy Hiller) became the musical “My Fair Lady.” Among the many pleasures of his work are the superb female characters — strong, intelligent, and principled.

Activities: Teenagers may want to read or even act out some of Shaw’s other plays, including “The Man of Destiny,” “Misalliance,” “Caesar and Cleopatra,” and “Arms and the Man,” and will also enjoy his essays and criticism.

Related Tags:

Drama Romance