Liberal Arts

Posted on September 13, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Unrated
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Suicide attempt (off-screen)
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 14, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0090SI3HU

It is true. At heart, everyone is 19, except for the people who actually are. “How I Met Your Mother” star Josh Radnor has followed his promising debut as a writer/director with the uneven but intriguing “Liberal Arts,” a throwback to the neglected tradition of the college-based story that has almost nothing to do with getting wasted or pranks. Radnor also stars as Jesse, a New York City-based college admissions officer who (like the characters he plays in his television series and his previous film) seems stuck in that stage between being in school and being a grown-up.

He is delighted when one of his favorite professors from his own college days calls to invite him back to the campus in Ohio. (The never-named small but prestigious liberal arts school is played in the film by Kenyon College.) The professor (Richard Jenkins as lefty Peter Hoberg) is retiring, and he invites Jesse to come to his farewell dinner and say a few words. Also on campus for the dinner are a couple whose daughter is a sophomore at the school (Elizabeth Olson as Elizabeth, nicknamed Zibby). Jesse and Zibby hit it off, quickly developing a nice rapport. She makes a mix CD for him and he promises to write her a real letter with his reactions. Jesse also meets the morose Dean (John Magaro), a brilliant but troubled student, and a non-student named Nat who is just hanging around campus being all adorably whimsical played as winningly as is humanly possible by Zac Efron, despite the considerable handicaps of an impossibly fey character and one of those knit ski caps with the strings and the tassel that has never done anyone any favors.

Jesse and Zibby have a refreshingly retro epistolary conversation and in one of the movie’s sweetest sequences he writes to her about the way her classical music mix CD has transformed his interaction with the world around him. Not knowing what kind of relationship she has in mind but tantalized by her, he returns to the campus and again encounters not just Zibby, Dean and Nat but also Peter and his other favorite professor, the icy Judith Fairfield (Alison Janney). Peter is already regretting his retirement. Dean is struggling and feels isolated. Zibby is the only one who seems comfortable with where she is, a large part of what draws him. “I just can’t figure out whether it’s because you’re advanced or because I’m stunted,” he says, making her the adult.

But as he shows quite literally with calculations on a legal pad, the numbers do not add up. Zibby, too, is trying to be a different age. The only one who is completely comfortable with who and what he is is the guy in the ski hat, who is at this point in the movie further burdened with an excruciating speech about, oh, dear, caterpillars turning into butterflies. I’m pretty sure Professors Hoberg and Fairfield would take out their red pens and write “TRITE” over that one.

The Dean character does not work well, either, even if you give Radnor the benefit of the doubt and think of Dean, Nat, and even Zibby and Peter as ways for Jesse to confront versions of himself rather than genuine characters. Lovely moments like the classical music discussion, a genuinely moving passion for the written word, and nuanced performances (Radnor is tops in casting and directing actors) may make you smile mistily about being 19, no matter which side of it you’re on.

Parents should know that this film has strong language, a suicide attempt, sexual references and situations, drinking and drunkenness.

Family discussion: How many different ways does this story present the struggle people have to act their age? What does Jesse miss about his time at Kenyon? What does he learn from Zibby, Nat, and Dean?

If you like this, try: “Happythankyoumoreplease” by the same writer/director and “Garden State”

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Touchback

Posted on September 3, 2012 at 5:00 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some mature thematic elements
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some tense emotional confrontations
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 13, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	September 3, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005TCL1P2

Haven’t we all wished for a chance to live that one moment over again?

Scott (Brian Presley, who also produced) has that opportunity in “Touchback,” the story of a man who wants to go back to his days as a star high school football player, before a career-ending knee injury on a game-winning goal ended his days as a player. He gets that chance to see what could have happened in this touching story reminiscent of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” But will he choose his knee over the win? Will winning the game keep him taking his success for granted and overlooking the girl who isn’t the popular cheerleader but who understands integrity and loyalty? And would she notice him if he was still the arrogant jock?

(Cue Garth Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers.”)

Kurt Russell, Marc Blucas, Christine Lahti, and Melanie Lynskey co-star in the film, which is sure to lead to some good family conversations.

Lawless

Posted on August 30, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Musician Nick Cave and director John Hillcoat are Australians who are drawn to bleak internal and external landscapes. They worked together on “The Proposition,” a western-style and very violent crime story about brothers. “Lawless” is another crime story about brothers, again very violent and, like “The Proposition,” with a bleak setting and compromised characters. This one is a true story, based on Matt Bondurant‘s book about his Prohibition-era grandfather and great uncles, who were ran illegal hooch in Franklin County, Virginia, described by writer Sherwood Anderson as “the wettest county in the world.”

“There’s a feeling around these parts that these Bondurants is indestructible,” one character says. Forrest Bondurant (a quietly powerful Tom Hardy) came back from WWI without injury and the community almost believes the legend that he cannot be stopped. That’s good for business; you might even say it is their brand. But just as in legitimate enterprise, the success of a local operation selling moonshine in mason jars attracts the interest of the competition. The big bootlegging organization out of Chicago is thinking about what one might call a very hostile takeover. The Bondurants have a good relationship with the local sheriff, who is happy looking the other way for a small piece of the action. But a federal agent named Charlie Rakes (an oily and twisted Guy Pearce) arrives and for him it is not about law, morality, or directions from his superiors. It is about power. The Bondurants are not afraid of him and that is why he wants to destroy them. Pearce, in gloves and slicked-down hair parted in the middle, is one of the best villains of the year.

Forrest is the leader and he has an unspoken understanding with his brother Howard (Jason Clarke). Indeed, a lot that goes on here is unspoken. The youngest brother, Jack (Shia LeBoeuf) wants to prove himself to his older brothers. And he wants to prove something to a pretty churchgoing girl named Bertha (Mia Wasikowska). Brash and flashier than his brothers, he has the nerve to try to make a deal with machine gun-toting Chicago hood Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman) and the entrepreneurial instinct to improve and expand production and delivery. When he sees a brutal gangland slaying, his only thought is to grab a souvenir shell case. He will have a Michael Corleone moment when the violence gets closer to home. “It is not the violence that sets men apart,” Forrest says. “It is the distance he is prepared to go.” The Bondurants do not give up. It is not about the money. It is about defending their home and their right to make their own choices.

Maggie (Jessica Chastain) shows up out of the blue one day, offering her manicured hand to Forrest’s rough one and offering to work for the brothers. “The city can grind a girl down,” she tells Forrest. “Gets to a point where you start looking for somewhere quiet.”

Franklin County is far from quiet. But the noise Maggie wanted to escape was the cacophony of heartlessness she was surrounded by in the city. Everyone in this story is breaking the de jure law, but Maggie knows that the Bondurants have a core of integrity and loyalty that she can count on. And she will show that she can be counted on as well.

Strong performances and an evocative sense of time and place anchor the film and the unexpected tenderness of the romantic interludes balances the brutality. A coda provides perspective that just because someone is willing to go the distance does not mean he cannot come back home.

Parents should know that this is the true story of moonshiners during Prohibition, so the good guys are law-breakers and the police are corrupt. The movie includes extremely graphic violence with characters tortured, injured, sexually abused, and killed, strong language including a racial slur and segregation, sexual situations including prostitution, female nudity, and alcohol and smoking.

Family discussion: How were the brothers alike and how were they different? The script was written by musician Nick Cave – how does the music help tell the story?

If you like this, try: Lawless: A Novel Based on a True Story by the real-life grandson of the youngest Bondurant brother

Sparkle

Posted on August 16, 2012 at 10:28 pm

You can’t help wondering what Whitney Houston was thinking when she decided to co-produce and star in the remake of a flawed but beloved 1976 musical melodrama about a singer who becomes involved with an abusive performer and becomes addicted to drugs. Was this a cautionary tale? A reflection on her own choices? In this movie she plays Emma, the very strict mother of three musical daughters, living in 1968 Detroit. She is determined that her daughters will adhere only to the three priorities she drills into them: respect, education, and having a relationship with the Lord.

Emma once tried to make it as a singer herself and is determined that her girls will not suffer the heartbreak she experienced. But her youngest daughter, Sparkle (“American Idol’s” youngest-ever champion Jordin Sparks) wants to writes songs, and she wants to be a star. She does not have the stage presence of her sultry oldest sister, Tammy, known to everyone as Sister (an electrifying Carmen Ejogo) and is too timid to tell the truth about her feelings in her lyrics. The third sister, Dolores (Tika Sumpter), just wants to go to medical school. She agrees to sing Sparkle’s songs so she can get money for school and Sister agrees because she likes the money and excitement.

They sneak out at night to perform so their mother does not know. Their manager is the poor but ambitious Stix (Derek Luke), whose cousin Levi is in love with Sister. But Sister wants money and excitement. She agrees to marry Satin (Mike Epps), a comedian who specializes in the kind of racial humor that makes white audiences feel comfortable. Emma throws them out. The trio becomes more and more successful, but Sister’s life with Satin is filled with domestic abuse and cocaine and she resists her sisters’ efforts to help her.

Some intriguing themes about the racial conflicts of the era are raised almost in passing and never developed while the soapy parts of the story drag on and the storyline loses any pretense of believability. Sparks is not an actress, and Houston spends most of the movie giving that “Hell to the no” look we saw too often in her reality show. Ejogo is a sensation and Luke continues to be one of Hollywood’s overlooked treasures, bringing a dignity and sweetness to the role. Epps is excellent, showing us Satin’s volatility and magnetism. The musical numbers raise the roof, especially the cover of the earlier film’s biggest hit, “Giving Him Something He Can Feel” (later covered by En Vogue) and Sparks’ rousing finale. But the highlight is Houston’s passionate “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” a powerful spirit-lifter and a sad reminder of her once-to-a-century gifts.

Parents should know that this film includes a scuffle, domestic abuse, characters who are injured and one killed, tense emotional confrontations, sexual references including teen pregnancy and non-explicit situations, some strong language including ugly racial epithets, smoking, drinking, and drug use.

Family discussion: Why did the three girls have such different ideas about what they wanted? Why was their mother so strict? Why did Sister tell the other two they had to leave her house?

If you like this, try: the original Sparkle with Lonette McKee and Irene Cara, “Dreamgirls,” and “Grace of My Heart”

The Odd Life of Timothy Green

Posted on August 14, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief language
Profanity:	Brief mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some sad losses and references to loss of parents
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 20, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	December 3, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIIKS

I have one copy to give away to the first person who sends me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Timothy” in the subject line! Don’t forget your address!

One of the biggest surprises — and greatest pleasures — of being a parent is learning how different your child is from the one you dreamed of, and finding out that the reality is so much better than you could have imagined. That is the theme of the endearing fable, “The Odd Life of Timothy Green.” Jim (Joel Edgerton) and Cindy (Jennifer Garner) meet with an official from an adoption agency to explain why they are fit parents, and it turns out to be the story of Timothy, who came to be their son after they had given up.

“You couldn’t have tried harder or done more,” they are told as the movie begins. All of their time, money, and energy has been focused on trying to become pregnant, but nothing has worked and they are devastated. They decide to mourn their loss by writing down a list of qualities and talents they would have wanted in a child. Honesty, of course. Musical and artistic talent would be good and he should have a good sense of humor. He does not have to be a star athlete, but it would be nice if just once he made the winning goal. They bury the list in the garden and prepare to move on.

But then, he is there, a 10 year old boy covered with dirt. He says his name is Timothy (CJ Adams). He calls them by the words they had hungered for: “Mom” and “Dad.” And he has leaves growing out of his legs, leaves that can’t be snipped off, even with gardening shears. They decide not to question it, just to enroll him in school and be a family. They agree that it puts him under too much pressure to say, “Have a great day!” before school, so Jim just says encouragingly, “Have the day that you have.”

Jim works in the town’s struggling pencil factory. Cindy works for the pencil company’s imperious owner (Dianne Weist) at the local museum devoted to the company’s founder. As they cope with problems at work and with their extended families (an ailing relative, a competitive sibling, a distant and judgmental father), Timothy inspires many people because he seems to understand and appreciate the world around him. He forms a friendship with an artistic older girl. And he manages to fit every item on the buried list, but in his own way.

As someone once said, “I used to have four theories about children. Now I have four children and no theories.” And as someone else once said, “Adults don’t make children. Children make adults.” The great gift of parenthood is the way it makes you jettison so many assumptions — about who you are and who your children are. When you meet your children, you begin to meet yourself as well. This whimsical, bittersweet tale is one of the summer’s nicest surprises.

Parents should know that this film deals with infertility issues, sad losses and references to death of parents, bullies, and includes some brief schoolyard language.

Family discussion: Where do you think Timothy came from? What would have been different if he turned out the way Jim and Cindy expected? How did they learn to be better parents?

If you like this, try: “The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao”