The Letters

Posted on December 3, 2015 at 5:46 pm

Mother Teresa, the Albanian nun who devoted her life to “the poorest of the poor” in India, is one of the foremost figures of the 20th century, and on the way to being recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. Some people are disturbed by discovering through her published letters that at times she felt doubts about herself, her work, and even about God. But it was that same resolute honesty that compelled her to follow her calling and it would be more disturbing if she never doubted or if she doubted and did not feel she could express it. Her accomplishments are even more impressive once we learn how fiercely she wrestled with God.

In “The Letters,” Juliet Stevenson plays Mother Teresa, from her early days as a nun to establishing her own order. At first, in the convent in India, she is teaching young girls in starched uniforms who sit quietly and are eager to learn. But she receives “a calling within a calling” and believes she has been called on by God to work with “the poorest of the poor.” Reconciling this determination with her vow of obedience and her dedication to humility is not easy. Persuading the people that she hopes to help that all she wants is to help them, not convert them, is not easy.

The tall actress Juliet Stevenson does a fine job as the tiny nun. Some people may object that the movie caters to those who are already believers. It does not question Mother Teresa’s greatness or her tactics and it elides over some of the controversies concerning the expansion of her operations and whether her faith-based approach was always best for the people she was helping. Some viewers will find the film slow, though for me that was one of its strengths. Writer/director Bill Riead makes sure that its quiet power is more like a prayer than a biographical portrait, a calling inside a calling inside a calling and one that its subject would find most suitable.

Parents should know that this movie’s themes concern work with the “poorest of the poor,” with extreme deprivation and illness.

Family discussion: What is the best way to help the “poorest of the poor?” Why did Mother Teresa want to help people who were not Catholic?

If you like this, try: “The Life Journey of Mother Teresa,” a documentary

Chi-Raq

Posted on December 3, 2015 at 3:37 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong sexual content including dialogue, nudity, language, some violence and drug use
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	A theme of the film is gang-related violence, guns, shooting, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Race and gender issues are the theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	December 4, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	January 25, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B017W1P79I

“WAKE UP!” Laurence Fishburne pleads at the end of Spike Lee’s incendiary movie, “School Daze,” not just one of Lee’s best films but one of the most important films of the 1980’s. He was not talking to his fellow students. He was not talking to the camera. He was talking to us in the audience. He was telling all of us to rise above fear and petty differences — and fear of petty differences and stop hurting each other.

That message is even more urgent now, and so “Chi-Raq” is an even more powerful call for all of us to wake up, and it is Lee’s best non-documentary film in many years. It is more than a film; it is an anguished wail of grief and fury and the most important film of 2015.

We call the great Illinois city on the shores of Lake Michigan Chicago, but as the opening lines of the movie explain, for the residents of a South Side community with more violent deaths than the US military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is Chi-Raq. In the film a little girl is killed by a stray bullet in a gang-related shooting. She is collateral damage. The week I saw the film, there was a funeral in the very community where it is set for a nine-year-old boy who was a deliberate murder target as an act of reprisal against his father. Even the ultimate symbol of Chicago gangster violence, Al Capone, never went that far. This is not a documentary and the mode of storytelling here is heightened, but there can be no credible claims that what it portrays is unfair or exaggerated.

They feel completely isolated from any kind of help from the outside. Businesses are afraid to come into their community, so there are not jobs or services. The government does not help. The newspapers do not tell their story. Their news is reported by rappers, and in a sensationally dynamic scene in a club a rapper known as Chi-Raq (a fierce Nick Cannon) tells the truth about what they see all around them.

Lee, working with co-screenwriter Kevin Willmott, brilliantly positions this vitally contemporary story as an updated version of a play written in 411 BC, “Lysistrata,” by Aristophanes. Just as the savvy strategist of almost 25 centuries ago plotted with the other women of her community to bring an end to the Peloponnesian War by withholding sexual favors from all of the men, “Chi-Raq’s” Lysistrata (a sizzling performance by “Mad Men’s” Teyonah Parris) sits down with the women from the opposing gang (to continue the classical themes, the gangs are the Trojans and the Spartans) to get them to pledge that there will be no loving until there is no more shooting. The heightened classical overtones include a narrator/chorus who has a Greek-sounding name Dolmedes — inspired by the Blaxploitation hero Dolemite and played by Samuel L. Jackson in a series of natty, brightly colored suits. And then there is the dialog, all in verse, somewhere between rap and iambic pentameter, which actually have a pretty broad overlap.

Lee makes it clear that this is a widespread, even universal problem as women around the world join forces with Lysistrata. And no one escapes responsibility for the carnage, with a searing climax of tragedy and redemption. We see a mother (Jennifer Hudson) scrubbing her little girl’s blood off the street. We see people tweeting the details of a shooting as it happens. Lysistrata is inspired not just by her namesake but by the real-life Nobel Prize winner Leymah Gbowee, who brought the Christian and Moslem women of Liberia together to stop the fighting in their country. Lee is very clear about who is to blame and who is responsible for making it better: all of us.

And when we see mothers holding pictures of their children killed by guns, we are seeing real mothers, holding pictures of their real children. All of the flash, music, sex, and spectacle are balanced with moments of intimacy, connection, and poignancy, and all are anchored in Lee’s passion for his community. That reality makes this a rare movie that can change the conversation.

Parents should know that this film features gang-related and other violence with tragic outcomes including characters injured and killed, explicit sexual references and situations with nudity, smoking, drinking, and drug use.

Family discussion: What is the best way for the community, the government, and business to stop gang-related violence? How can a movie like this make a difference?

If you like this, try: “School Days,” “Do the Right Thing,” and “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” and read “Lysistrata”

Brooklyn

Posted on November 25, 2015 at 5:22 pm

“Brooklyn,” based on the book by Colm Tóibín, is exquisitely lyrical, the story of a young woman who immigrates from Ireland to New York in 1952. She is sad, homesick, and lonely at first, then just as she begins to feel at home she is called back to Ireland.

Movies can show us monsters and aliens and explosions but none of that will ever have the quiet power of Saoirse Ronan in close-up. The breathtaking intimacy of being so close to her face, her sky-blue eyes, the lift of her chin, is a story in itself. For once, the Irish-raised actress is using her own accent, and the lilt of it is pure and poetic.

She plays Eilis (pronounced EYE-lish), who lives with her mother and sister Rose in a small town. Rose has helped her make arrangements with a priest in New York (Jim Broadbent) for an apartment and a job. Eilis loves her family. But she is stuck in a part-time job working for a shrew in a grocery store. Ireland in the post-WWII years has little to offer her by way of love or work. And so she takes a voyage. The reason she is the only one at dinner the first night out is revealed when she gets very, very sick. But a sympathetic roommate helps her through and advises her about how to pass muster at Ellis Island — to act like an American, which means looking confident.

Eilis moves into an all-Irish boarding house, owned by the formidable Mrs. Keough (Julie Walters), a sharp-eyed but not unkind woman who can tell the difference between the simpering giggles of the other girls and the shy but steady Eilis. Soon Eilis is working at a department store, where the complexities of the transactions (payment sent to a central location via vacuum tube) and inventory are not as challenging as learning to chat pleasantly with the customers. It is an amusing change from the store in Ireland, where the owner barked at someone for wanting shoe polish on a Sunday, and “Mad Men’s” Jessica Paré is excellent as the manager.

Eilis slowly begins to feel at home. Ronan’s performance is precise and sensitive. She shows, not tells us how Eilis begins to bloom through taking some bookkeeping classes and meeting a nice guy, an Italian boy named Tony (the piercingly sweet Emory Cohen). There is believable magic in their sweetly developing relationship.

And then, there is a tragedy at home and Eilis has to go back to Ireland. But is that her home anymore? Can she fit into her old place? Does she want to?

Director John Crowley is a careful observer, and every moment rewards careful observation from us. A yawn in church. The faces of the people at the dock saying goodbye to their emigrating family members. The look on Eilis’ face as she struggles to tell Tony how she feels — it is a wonder, and one of the year’s best films.

Parents should know that this film includes a non-explicit sexual situation, sexual references, some strong language, and a sad death.

Family discussion: Did Eilis make the right choice? Why or why not? Who was most helpful to her?

If you like this, try: “In America,” another story of Irish immigrants in New York

Creed

Posted on November 24, 2015 at 5:18 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence, language and some sensuality
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense sports violence (boxing), illness and disability
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	November 25, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	March 7, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B019EEK7ZA

Rocky had to find the eye of the tiger. When we first met him back in 1976, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) was an amiable, good-hearted lug who loved his pet turtles, Cuff and Link, and if he ever saw himself getting into the ring with champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), he could only imagine it would be as a sparring partner. His aspiration was not to get his nose broken and go the distance. Over the course of six films, he took on ever-more daunting opponents, so we could always think of him as the underdog. In the first film, he had the advantage of surprise. Creed assumed he could easily defeat the unknown fighter. Rocky did go the distance (and did get his nose broken), and lost in a split decision. In the second film, Creed knew what to expect and his pride was on the line. This time, it was Rocky who got soft after his fame and success. He had to get hungry and learn to be a fighter again. Rocky faced — and defeated — a champion at the top of his game.

Rocky went on to fight ever-more terrifying foes: Clubber Lang (Mr. T) who was not the decent, honorable guy that Creed was, and then the steroid Soviet man-machine Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). In the last two films, Rocky struggled with the killer knock-out punch that we all face — old age. His trainer Mickey and his wife Adrian have died. He still wants to go the distance, but now it does not seem so distant any more.

And now here is another fighter looking for a title shot. We first meet young Adonis Johnson (called Donny) in juvie, where we learn that he just can’t stop fighting. Eye of the tiger is not his problem. It is taming the tiger he has to work on.

Apollo Creed’s widow Mary Anne (dignified but warm-hearted Phylicia Rashad) is willing to give him a home. Donny’s father was Apollo Creed. His mother is dead. Mary Anne has decided to raise him. And she has no intention of letting him become a fighter.

Donny (charismatic Michael B. Jordan) is doing well in his office job, but there is something in him that just needs to punch people. So he leaves Mary Anne working in an office and he seeks out Rocky as a trainer. Rocky does not want to train anyone (see Tommy Morrison in #5). He just wants to miss Adrian in the restaurant he named for her. But this would not be a Rocky movie if Rocky didn’t go back to the gym, and pretty soon that training montage starts up. Gosh darn if it doesn’t still work, especially when that Rocky theme starts filtering through.

Pretty soon there’s a pretty girl, of course, Bianca, played by Tessa Thompson (“Dear White People” and if you haven’t seen it, please do so now). I loved this character for many reasons, primarily because she never took the “oh, don’t fight, you’ll get hurt” role (that is left to Rashad), and because she plays a character who embraces life so fully that she responds to a progressive hearing loss by devoting herself to her passion for creating music while she can. It is genuinely moving to see a disabled character in a film who is not defined by disability. Bianca is a strong, confident, passionate woman and Thompson plays the role beautifully in every sense of the word. Plus, she and Jordan have some sizzling chemistry.

This next chapter (apparently the beginning of a new series) goes the distance. Jordan, thankfully far from the catastrophically awful “Fantastic Four,” is back with writer/director Ryan Coogler. Their last film together, “Fruitvale Station,” was one of the best movies of 2013. As they did in that film, they have created a character who is complex, layered, trying to understand his past and not sure whether he can move on from it. Jordan can hold the screen with as much star power as any young actor in Hollywood today. He and Coogler are true to the Rocky tradition without being trapped by history. Yes, they go back to the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And yes, you will tear up when they do.

Parents should know that this film includes intense scenes of boxing with graphic injuries, strong language, sexual references and a sexual situation.

Family discussion: Why didn’t Adonis want to use his father’s name? What changed his mind? What would you do if you had Bianca’s health challenges?

If you like this, try: the “Rocky” movies and “Southpaw”

Secret in Their Eyes

Posted on November 19, 2015 at 5:28 pm

A girl is murdered. That girl, that crime and the man who did it are seen very differently by different people, all of whom are in law enforcement and all who have sworn to devote their professional lives to justice in this dark thriller based on an Oscar-winning Argentinian film (“The Secret in Their Eyes“). Just as that film used a long-unsolved murder to explore the shifts of politics and culture over the decades, this version, from writer-director Billy Ray, sets the murder in the frantic realigning of priorities following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. For those who loved her, justice for the death of the girl is all that matters. For those working on anti-terrorism, though, the suspect may be of more use out in the world as an informant than in prison as a murderer.

The story takes us back and forth between the present day and the time of the murder, in 2001. Claire (Nicole Kidman) is a District Attorney and Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an investigator newly assigned to the FBI’s anti-terrorism division. There is an immediate charged connection between them, though Claire is more reserved. Ray works with Jess (Julia Roberts), who teases him about his evident interest in Claire.

Then there is the report of a death, a body in a dumpster. Ray and Jess arrive, alert, professional, but detached, snapping on their blue latex gloves and talking about a possible connection to their work because the body was found near the mosque they are investigating.

And then Ray sees the girl and has to tell Jess that everything she cared about in the world has been destroyed. The shot of Roberts’ face as she has to go from thinking she has been called to see a body to understanding that it, that she is the one particular individual who means the most to her, “the thing,” she says, “that made me me,” is shattering to see. For the rest of the film, the radiant presence we know so well is haggard, numb, broken.

In the present day, the murder has not been solved. Because the suspect was an informant from a mosque that could have been harboring terrorists, the case against him was not pursued, and he has disappeared. But Ray has never stopped looking for him. He went through 1906 photos a night, searching every white male in the FBI’s system, for 13 years. He thinks he has found him.

More successful in mood than plot, Ray uses this story to meditate on loss, hopelessness, and the gulf between law and justice. Each of the characters wants something different from this investigation. Jess wants what she thinks of as justice but what looks more like revenge. “Death penalty would be too good for him,” she says. Ray feels somehow responsible, because he could have been with Jess’ daughter the morning she was killed. Claire wants the law to be enforced. And she still feels a connection to Ray. As for the suspect — in his own way, he is as controlled by his obsessions as the others.

Parents should know that this film includes a brutal rape and murder (off-screen) and some violence, with some peril and some injuries and abuse. There is some strong language.

Family discussion: Do you agree with Morales’ decision on how to treat Marzin? Should Ray have told Claire how he felt?

If you like this, try: the original film, “The Secret in Their Eyes” and Ray’s earlier films, “Shattered Glass” and “Breach”

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