Black Nativity

Posted on November 26, 2013 at 5:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic material, language, and a menacing situation
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	References to substance abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Teenager threatens someone with a gun, references to violence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	November 27, 2013

The poet Langston Hughes wrote a play called “Black Nativity,” a joyous African-American retelling of the story of the birth of Jesus with gospel music, and it has become a holiday perennial. Now it has been adapted by writer/director Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) with a framing present-day story of a prodigal daughter, estranged from her parents for 16 years, brought back home at Christmas as “Black Nativity” is being performed in her father’s church.

Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson plays Naima, a single mother in Baltimore who has lost her job and is trying everything she can think of to keep her home. But even with two jobs, she and her 15-year-old son Langston (17-year-old Jacob Latimore), named for the poet, are about to be evicted. Niama has no other options left. She puts Langston on a bus to New York to see the grandparents he has never met, knowing nothing about them or the cause of their estrangement.

Langston is hurt, lost, and angry. He is frustrated that he cannot do more to help his mother and determined to find a way to get her the money she needs to keep their home. Things go badly when his bag is taken by a kid as soon as he gets off the bus and he is arrested trying to return a man’s wallet because the police think he is trying to steal it. In jail, he meets Loot (Tyrese Gibson), who jeeringly calls him “Lunch Money” and makes Langston feel powerless and disrespected.

His grandfather, Reverend Cornell Cobbs (Forest Whitaker), is formal and reserved. His grandmother, Aretha (Angela Bassett) is affectionate but clearly in pain over the past and afraid of being hurt again. Langston will do anything to feel that he is taking control of what is happening to him so he can return home.

Impressionistically told, with songs that serve as monologues, the movie becomes more powerful when Cornell’s church stages a gorgeous production of “Black Nativity” and Langston nods off to have a gospel-inspired dream that features Nas and, as an angel with white hair sticking up like a dandelion ready to make a wish, Mary J. Blige. When Langston sneaks out of the service in a desperate attempt to get the money, it leads to a confrontation revealing in ways he could not anticipate. The concluding scenes of redemption and reunion are tender and transcendent.

Parents should know that the storyline concerns foreclosure and eviction, family estrangement, law-breaking, teen pregnancy, and abandonment. A teenager uses a gun.

Family discussion: Why didn’t Langston’s family want to tell him the truth? What did the watch symbolize to Cornell? What did we learn from Langston’s dream?

If you like this, try: the poetry of Langston Hughes

Philomena

Posted on November 24, 2013 at 8:40 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 on appeal for some strong language, thematic elements and sexual references
Profanity:	Very strong, frank, and explicit language for a PG-13
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad deaths and abuse
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, issue of anti-gay bigotry is discussed
Date Released to Theaters:	November 22, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	April 14, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00GSBMNOQ

Dame Judi Dench has played many strong-minded, determined characters, from Queens (Victoria and Elizabeth I) to the even more imperious head of the MI6 who can take on James Bond with an air of crisp authority. As the title character in “Philomena,” she shows us the radiance and inner core of strength in a woman we might otherwise find easy to overlook.

Martin Sixsmith (co-screenwriter Steve Coogan) underestimates her at first, too. Sixsmith is a journalist-turned politician smarting from a public humiliation after he was fired for something he did not do. He gets little sympathy from those around him and it seems clear that being aggrieved has only fed his sense of superiority, isolation, and entitlement. He mutters something about writing a book on Russian history, though he realizes no one is very interested in reading it. When he meets a young Irish woman who offers him her mother’s story of a half-century search for the son she was forced to give up for adoption, his first reaction is a haughty, “I don’t do human interest stories.” The truth is, he is not really interested in humans, in part because they have not done a very good job of being interested in him.

Sixsmith did eventually write some books about Russia. But first he decided to give human interest a try. The result was Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search.

When she was a teenager, Philomena (Dench) became pregnant and her parents sent her to the now-notorious Magdalene Sisters workhouse. The girls were forced to work for years to pay (financially and spiritually) for their sins. The abused and underage girls also signed away all of their rights to their babies, including access to information about where they were placed. Philomena (Sophie Kennedy Clark as a young woman) was working in the laundry when her son was taken from her and adopted by an American family. For half a century, as she became a nurse, married, and had more children, she missed him and worried about him. Sixsmith found an editor to pay him to write the story, covering expenses for a trip to America to see if they could track him down. She hopes the story will have some lurid details. “Evil is good — story-wise, I mean….It’s got to be really happy or really sad.”

Coogan knows he is at his best playing slightly high-strung, slightly self-involved guys who are too smart for the room and usually end up outsmarting themselves (see “The Trip”). It is especially satisfying to watch his character go from irritation to respect and then affection. There’s a reason the movie is named for her. Philomena is a surprise. If she has awful taste in books and movies, it is because she has the gift of being able to be pleased. When it comes to the big things, she is refreshingly clear-eyed and open-minded. And she understands what it takes to not let anyone make you a victim.

More improbable than any fictional story would dare to be, the journey taken by Philomena and Sixsmith is bittersweet and ultimately transcendent. Performances by Dench and Coogan of great sensitivity illuminate this story of a quiet heroine and the man who was lucky enough to learn from her.

Parents should know that this movie was initially rated R and then given a PG-13 on appeal. It concerns young teenagers put in a home for out-of-wedlock pregnancies and forced to give up their babies for adoption and there is frank discussion of sex and a childbirth scene, the abuse of the young women by the nuns who ran the home, and the life of a character as a closeted gay man. Characters use very strong and explicit language and there is some drinking.

Family discussion: Why did Martin and Philomena feel differently about forgiveness? Did she find what she was looking for?

If you like this, try: “The Magdalene Sisters” and “The Trip”

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Posted on November 20, 2013 at 11:35 am

In the second chapter of the three-book, four-movie series, Katniss Everdeen has gone from being a shy unknown with extraordinary skills to being an acclaimed superstar. The same could be said for the actress who plays the part. When Jennifer Lawrence was selected to play the heroine of the blockbuster novels by Suzanne Collins, she was barely out of her teens. She had scored an Oscar nomination for a small, independent film called Winter’s Bone that was seen by about the number of people listed in the credits of this film. And in between the first and second in the “Hunger Games” series, she won a leading actress Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook.

In this deeper, smarter, politically sharper, and more emotionally resonant follow-up, she returns to the dystopian world of Panem as Katniss prepares for her victory tour, following an unprecedented triumph at the titular competition. Once a year, two teenagers are selected from each of the twelve districts to compete to the death in televised combat that the totalitarian government imposes in a gruesome simulacrum of an athletic contest that promotes dedication, talent, and integrity. As the previous film ended, Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) defied the authorities to come up with a way that they could both come out alive — by pretending to be in love and be willing to sacrifice themselves to be together. This has made them very popular, and the dictator, “President” Snow (a nicely corrupt Donald Sutherland) wants to make sure that this popularity is extended on behalf of his regime and will not inspire any rebellious uprisings. When his own granddaughter begins to braid her hair to be like Katniss, he knows that if he cannot control the young archer, he will have to destroy her. However, as the new Head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) reminds him, he must be careful to get rid of her in a way that will discredit her, to make sure she does not become a martyr and inspire the rebels even more in memory than she already does.

Snow tells Katniss she has to persuade not just the fans but him that she is truly in love with Peeta or he will destroy her and her family. She does her best, and cares for Peeta deeply, but her heart is still with Gale (Liam Hemsworth), who is hurt and jealous.

Plutarch decides to mount an all-star game, pitting previous champions of the Hunger Games against each other in a ramped-up competition. And no skirting the rules with a romance this time. Katniss and Peeta go back to the Capital for another dress-up extravaganza (costume designer Trish Summerville ramps things up with costumes that are a mash-up between “Project Runway’s” unconventional materials and fashion forward challenges and an acid trip. Elizabeth Banks carries off the wildest of the attire better than anyone else could (with the exception of Barbie), and manages to give the outrageous Effie Trinket a little bit of compassion under the Kabuki-like makeup. And Katniss, known as the “girl on fire” thanks to the costumes designed by the stylist Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) gets a wedding gown extravaganza with an unexpected political overlay.

And then, the games begin, as before, with the same race to get supplies and weapons while avoiding attack and assessing possible alliances that by definition will be short-term. Plutarch has some challenges of his own to keep the contestants off-balance and on the run. With each “tribute” a previous winner, the odds are not in anyone’s favor.

Director Francis Lawrence (“I am Legend,” no relation to his star), taking over from Gary Ross, manages the large cast and complicated action well and screenwriters Simon Beaufoy (“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”) and Michael Arndt (“Toy Story III,” “Little Miss Sunshine”) adapted the book deftly. They balance the small, intimate moments, brief humor, and intense emotion with the grand sweep of the games, acknowledging the over-arching themes of honor, freedom, and courage but keeping the focus on the relationships. It tells us everything that in the short training/assessment/sponsorship-seeking period before the Games begin, Katniss reaches out to the weakest and most vulnerable of the other contestants, helping them with no agenda for her own protection.

The other additions to the series are exceptionally well-chosen, too, especially Hoffman, as a man who knows more about “counter-moves” than we may suspect at first, Sam Claflin as the high-spirited, faun-like Finnick Odair, Jeffrey Wright and Amanda Plummer as the wonkiest participants, and Jena Malone, a fiery delight as the furious Johanna Mason. But it is Lawrence who steals the show again as Katniss. Be sure to keep your eyes on her face in that last scene; it’s a lulu that will have you counting the moments until the next episode (now in production).

Parents should know that the theme of these books concerns a totalitarian dictatorship that forces teenagers to battle to the death in a very intense and disturbing “game.” Many characters are injured and killed and there are scary surprises, graphic images, and disturbing threats. Many teenage and adult characters are beaten, injured, and killed, with knives, guns, whips, arrows, spears, poison fog, animal attacks, psychological abuse, and more. Characters abuse alcohol, there are drug references, and characters use some strong language. There is kissing and some implied nudity in public — nothing shown.

Family discussion: What did Plutarch mean by “moves and countermoves?” Why did the tributes hold hands? Why wouldn’t Gale leave?

If you like this, try: the first movie and the books by Suzanne Collins

Paradise

Posted on November 14, 2013 at 11:06 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sexual material, substance abuse, some language, and thematic elements
Profanity:	Very strong and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril, references to a tragic accident.
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	November 15, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00FJVCERC

Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (“Juno”) tries directing for the first time with “Paradise,” based on her own script about a girl from a very conservative religious background whose faith is challenged after a terrible accident. Even she acknowledges that she is better as a writer than a director — she has already said she does not plan to direct again. It isn’t that it is poorly directed. It is more like barely directed. She met the first task of a director exceptionally well, picking an excellent cast and giving them roles that allow them to make some surprising choices. It would be nice to see a version of this story where the director made some surprising choices, too.

Julianne Hough plays Lamb (as in “lamb of God”), a sheltered young woman from a devout Christian community. After a devastating plane crash that left her with burn and skin graft scars over much of her body she feels that everything she thought she understood about the world no longer applies. So, instead of donating the money she received in compensation for her injuries to her church, she decides to go as far in the opposite direction as possible. She goes to Las Vegas.

Some people do not have the gift for sin. There is a lot of charm in some of the film’s early scenes, as Lamb checks transgressions off her list that include rhythmic moving to music and getting a microscopic tattoo. Lamb meets a British bartender (Russell Brand, raffishly engaging) and a singer (Octavia Spencer) who take her out in part to enjoy seeing her reaction to the debaucheries of Las Vegas and in part to protect her from them.

Cody tweaks or avoids the usual Vegas tropes. She gets nicely meta, with Spencer explaining why she is not going to be the “magical Negro” stereotype minority character whose purpose in the story is to bring a greater humanity to a white person. And Brand gets to add a bit more depth to his usual persona. Lamb is an endearing character. It is fun to see her get a little wild and satisfying when all three characters and some unexpected others show that they already have the greater humanity they need.

Parents should know that this movie is about a young woman who wants to explore sin and it is set in Las Vegas. There is more discussion of sin than portrayal of it, however. The movie includes some strong language and risky behavior and discussion of tragedy and a sad death. A character is a prostitute and characters drink to deal with stress.

Family discussion: Which character changes the most? If you had Lamb’s money, what would you do with it?

If you like this, try: Hough’s remake of “Footloose”

Related Tags:

Comedy Drama Movies -- format

The Book Thief

Posted on November 14, 2013 at 6:00 pm

The title character in “The Book Thief” is Liesel (Sophie Nélisse), a little girl in pre-WWII Germany. We first see her on a train with her mother and dying younger brother. The children were both going to be delivered to foster parents but Liesel and her mother stop along the way to bury her brother. As the gravedigger leans over, a book falls out of his pocket. Liesel picks it up.

Her new parents are the frosty Rosa (Emily Watson) and the gentle Hans (Geoffrey Rush). At first, Liesel is so traumatized she cannot speak. But Hans hears her softly singing Brahms’ lullabye to herself at night and coaxes her into talking to him by playing the song on his accordion. When he finds that she cannot read, he uses her book to teach her. She tells him it is hers, but “it didn’t used to be.” That was not hard to guess; it is a book about digging graves.

Liesel is befriended by a friendly classmate named Rudy (Nico Liersch), an athletic kid who wants to race like Olympic champion Jesse Owens. Around them, the rise of the Nazi party is evident in omnipresent banners and badges. A school choir sweetly sings an anti-Semitic song. Hans’ skills as a house and sign painter prove useful when someone has to remove the insults painted on his Jewish neighbor’s store. Liesel becomes a book thief again when Hitler’s birthday is celebrated with a huge book burning. It is less a theft than a rescue, the book smouldering under her coat as she hides it from Hans. The book is The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells.

The impact of the Nazi regime literally hits home when Max (Ben Schnetzer) arrives. Max’s father sacrificed himself to save Hans’ life in the first World War. It is his accordion that Hans cherishes so dearly. Hans and Rosa talk about whether they are prepared to take the risk of hiding Max, but they know they have no choice. Max becomes very ill and as Liesel helps to nurse him back to health, they become very devoted to one another. She “borrows” books (without asking) from the home of the wealthiest man in town to read to him.

The young Australian author Markus Zusak was inspired to write The Book Thief by a story he heard from his mother, who emigrated from Germany following World War II. A teenage boy in her village ran to give bread to a starving man who was being herded with other Jews by Nazis delivering them to a concentration camp. Both the man and the boy who tried to help him were whipped by the Nazis. This story of the very best and worst of humanity gave him the idea of a story set in Germany during the Holocaust.

Addressing the Holocaust through fiction is a daunting challenge and this film does not always master it. An uncertain sense of its audience makes it feel off at times, too simplistic for adults and too disturbing for young audiences. An episodic structure seems meandering and unfocused. Most problematically, the choice of Death as a narrator works better on paper than on film. But Rush’s performance and some touching moments make this what is perhaps the best we can hope for in grappling with the incomprehensible — a part of a conversation, even a conversation about what does not work, that keeps us striving to honor the memory of those who suffered and to strengthen our resolve once again to conquor the fear and ignorance that caused it.

Parents should know that this film is set during the Nazi atrocities of WWII Germany. There are many sad deaths and references to the Holocaust, racist and anti-Semitic comments, fighting, and some war-time violence.

Family discussion: Is Liesel a thief? Why did she read to Max when he was ill?

If you like this, try: the book, “The Story of Anne Frank,” and “The Devil’s Arithmetic”

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Based on a book Drama