Interview: Jean-Michel Cousteau of “Secret Ocean 3D”

Posted on April 2, 2015 at 3:51 pm

Jean-Michel Cousteau has carried on the legacy of his famous father, Jacques Cousteau, who first allowed the world to see the creatures that live in the water, through deep-sea diving and his pioneering underwater photography. Now his son has used the latest technology to show us another world previously unseen, with tiny animals and colors as bright as any garden in full flower.

I spoke to Cousteau about his latest film, Secret Ocean 3D.

He wanted to work with IMAX 3D, in order “see the behavior of things that I’m flying or swimming over all the time since I started diving when I was seven years old, fifty nine years ago. And I would be very frustrated not to be able to see the behavior of tiny little things. So they put together the prototype cameras which are allowing us now to focus in slow motion on the behavior of small creatures and see what they are doing to feed themselves, protect themselves and be of course in relationship with other creatures. So for me I am now for the first time in my life able to see things on the big screen which I cannot see when I’m under water.”

I was especially fascinated with the tiny animals who look like flowers and the squid who could instantly change color to match the environment. “The flower-like creatures are found mostly in the tropical environment. The beautiful one that you see in the show are in the tropics in the Caribbean and in Fiji. Then there were these beautiful worms which are called Christmas tree worms. The squids were in Southern California. Squids and octopus can change their color, their texture. They have no bones so they are very bendable. They can hide. They are really amazing creatures. The bad news as you probably have heard on the show is that they die every year. After they reproduce they are gone. I am totally convinced that if they didn’t die they probably would run the planet today because they have real brains and are very clever creatures.”

There is a creature that looks like a pile of sticks. In the film, we learn that it has no head or brain but can regenerate its limbs. “We have seen those creatures but usually we don’t see the same one during the day and then come back and see the same one at night. Thanks to science and scientists we are able to learn about these creatures because they capture them and they analyze them. So the instinct that they have to capture food and bring into their mouth when you realize they have no brain is just for me it’s fascinating. I’m just like a kid every time I see them. So we were very patient, we saw it. As a matter of fact we saw two of them during the daytime and we decided, okay we have to wait and come back at night and we did and they were still there. And we were able to film them.”

What surprised me most in the film was the information about the tiniest creatures, plankton, and the part they play in keeping the rest of the world breathing. “Plankton are really the foundation of life in the ocean. And you have two kinds of planktons, the big which you see which are very spectacular, many different types of species and then the tiny little ones which drift. And the big ones are animals. They are called zooplankton. And then the tiny little ones which are plants, they are phytoplankton. Now the zooplankton is feeding on the phytoplankton. They need that to feed themselves and to grow and they are what you call the foundation of all life in the ocean. Without them there would be no life. So being absorbed within the food chain, they migrate towards the surface every day. And they are very very active at night and of course there are a lot of creatures that are coming by and feeding on them, both the plants and animals. And it goes all the way up the food chain all the way to the big creatures whether they are fish or mammals, whales or sea lions or tuna. Totally every creature is dependent on these unbelievable plants and animals which are the foundation of all life in the ocean. As a result of all that about half of the oxygen that is being produced comes from the ocean. And every other breath of air that you take you are getting it thanks to the ocean. So we are totally connected and dependent on the quality of life in the ocean. Unfortunately we didn’t know that before. Now we are learning and we are learning very fast thanks to what I call communication evolution. There are people all over the planet now who are asking questions now about these creatures. We need to learn very quickly and pass on the information to the decision-makers and the future decisions makers which are the children, the young people. They need to understand that we need to stop using the ocean as a garbage can. Because all of that decomposes and it affects the food chain, it affects the plankton, it affects the creatures which are concentrating those chemicals in their system and accumulates them, and concentrates as the creatures are getting bigger and bigger up the food chain. So we are hurting that environment which means we are hurting ourselves. At the end of the day it is not just the fact that we fishing or we catching more than nature can produce. We have learned that a long time ago, we are not hunters and gatherers we are farmers. So we need to do something with the ocean but we cannot farm creatures that are disappearing and you cannot farm in the ocean where you have the storms, hurricanes and so on.”

Jean-Michel told me that his father pushed him into the water with a tank on his back when he was seven and the water is home to him. “He kept telling me, ‘People protect what they love,’ and I kept telling him, ‘How can you protect what you don’t understand?’ So thanks to my dad I have this thirst for discoveries and wanting to protect what we don’t understand.”

The Woman in Gold

Posted on March 31, 2015 at 5:58 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and brief strong language
Profanity:	Brief strong language including anti-Semitic epithets
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	WWII-era peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	April 1, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	July 6, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00VU4YO7K

The very title is a form of theft. When Gustav Klimt painted the portrait that gives this film its name, he called it “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.” She was a warm, vibrant young woman who was a vital part of the extraordinary period of intellectual and cultural life in Vienna known as the Sacred Spring era. Adele Bloch-Bauer died in 1925, and the portrait hung in a place of honor in the apartment her husband shared with his brother, sister-in-law, and two young nieces.

And then the Nazis invaded Germany, their atrocities included stealing the valuables of the Jews they were sending to concentration camps. They took the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer and hung it in a place of honor, after they renamed it to remove identity of the subject and the Jewish association of her name. “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer” became the anonymous “The Woman in Gold.” The beautiful choker necklace she wore in the painting was also stolen and given to the wife of Nazi officer Hermann Goering.

More than half a century later, Maria Altmann, the niece of Adele Bloch-Bauer, asked the grandson of her old friend from Vienna if he could help her get the painting back. This film is the story of the painting, the lawsuit, and Maria’s indomitable spirit.

Dame Helen Mirren is radiant as Maria, witty, spirited, an irresistible force who cannot give up. While we never doubt for a moment that she will prevail, Mirren makes us want to watch it all unfold. It is an extremely difficult case, with many arcane legal details, and the real-life story, like all real-life stories, is more complicated and controversial than any movie can convey. Director Simon Curtis (“My Week with Marilyn”) and first-time screenwriter Alexi Kaye Campbell keep the focus on the odd-couple relationship between Maria and the young lawyer (Ryan Reynolds), with flashbacks to show us Maria’s relationship with her Aunt Adele, and then her wedding to a handsome opera singer, just as the Germans are about to invade. Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”) is lovely as the young Maria, and makes us believe she could grow up to become Helen Mirren.

The portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer now hangs in the Neue Galerie. And now this movie is a part of its story, putting Adele back into the picture and giving us a portrait of the niece who insisted that her story be told.

Parents should know that this film includes WWII-era peril and violence, with references to concentration camps and genocide. There is brief strong language including anti-Semitic epithets.

Family discussion: Why did Maria refuse Ronald Lauder’s offer to get her more experienced lawyers? What was the most important discovery in winning the case?

If you like this, try: the documentary about Nazi art theft, “The Rape of Europa” and learn more about the lawsuit and read up on the real story

Faith-Based Movie Picks — The Today Show

Posted on March 31, 2015 at 3:13 pm

In honor of Easter and Passover, the Today Show has some good suggestions for faith-based movies, from the very serious and respectful to the light-hearted.

Related Tags:

For Your Netflix Queue Spiritual films

Exclusive Clip and Contest: What Would Jesus Do — The Journey Continues

Posted on March 30, 2015 at 3:40 pm

We are honored to present an exclusive clip from “WWJD (What Would Jesus Do): The Journey Continues,” inspired by the best-selling classic book In His Steps. WWJD: The Journey Continues is available on DVD and Digital HD March 31, 2015.

In this film, the drifter (John Schneider) once again arrives in a new town – inspiring a group of people to live as Jesus would. From a troubled teen heading down the wrong path and dragging his brother along with him to a young woman struggling with the pressures of being in a romantic relationship to a family hoping to reunite with their estranged father. And, when the local pastor Joseph loses his faith in the lord, the Drifter leads the pastor and the community on an improbable journey back to faith and redemption.

I have five copies of the DVD to give away! To enter, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with WWJD in the subject line and tell me your favorite spring memory. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only). I will pick a winner on April 5, 2015. Good luck!

Interview: Amy S. Weber of the Bullying Movie “A Girl Like Her”

Posted on March 29, 2015 at 4:55 pm

Writer/director Amy S. Weber first became interested in the problem of bullying when she was producing educational films for young people in 1996, over about a 10 year period. “I was working with mostly teenagers on real life stories documenting what those experiences were for them. We covered social issues, everything from violence in school to eating disorders, teen suicide, child abuse, family life, and unhealthy relationships, the list goes on and on. And it was through the hundreds of kids that I worked with through today actually, any of the young people that I work with and mentor, there is always this common theme to every one of the issues that plague them. And it came down to low self-esteem. It came down to identifying a lot of the issues that they were having, feeling like they couldn’t be themselves, they didn’t fit, they were afraid to be a target. And as we dove in a little bit deeper it was a common theme that being picked on and bullied, being really a target of someone or possibly just that fear overall, kind of stopped them from being who they were and living as their true selves. So this is definitely been a project in the making for many, many years to bring this, what’s going on in today’s world into the spotlight through this perspective. I really wanted “A Girl Like Her” to stem from their beliefs. They were the inspiration and hopefully it will offer some help.”

In the time she has been working with teenagers, Weber has seen enormous changes in the way that technology and social media add to the pressure. “The days of the schoolyard bully and escaping their wrath once you walk in your front door at home and now you are safe, those days are over. The Internet offers quite the tool for an abuser to also collect an army of people who can anonymously pursue a person’s spirit and that’s kind of how I see it.” She quoted the father of real-life bullying victim Phoebe Prince. “He said that bullying is a word that used to exist when you would run away through the fields or down the street from the guy that was going to beat you up. Now it’s a completely different story. And he described what happened to his daughter. It was basically a relentless pursuit of her spirit, the destruction of a human spirit. Social media and the social applications that young people can use have changed this game in epidemic proportions.”

She sees another problem in the increasingly hostile exchanges teenagers see in the media, celebrities, even politicians making harsh accusations. “If were to really just put denial aside and put our busy lives aside to see all the stress that goes on in our lives as adults in this world in which we have created, we would take a very honest look at what’s happening to our youth today. They are simply holding up a mirror reflecting back to us what we have created in terms of a world. What we show them each and every day, everything they see in the media from so-called leaders, from politicians to church leaders, the people who are in the spotlight, the messages that they share, the violent types of programs that teenagers are exposed to, video games, an overall sense of negativity.”

She said, “If you’re lucky enough that you live among people who are very positive and joyful people, you get to feel that and take that in every day. I have a group of people like that and it is wonderful being around them. But how many people can you can say are truly happy? People who find joy every day and see the silver lining in every situation. But how many people are what you would consider lost, miserable, unhappy? Perhaps we believe that children are supposed to rise above what they are learning on a daily basis, and expect them to be better than us; we expect them to know more than us. That is the thing I think has shocked me the most in all of the work that I’ve done with kids.

Weber worked very closely with the teenagers in the movie to develop the story. And it was very important to her that the bully, a “mean girl” named Avery, would not be demonized. “I wouldn’t call her monster. I would say her behavior is very much like a monster who is so unconscious of what she’s doing to Jessica’s spirit, she doesn’t seem to care. She is so unconscious of it that a daily pursuit of Jessica has become quite entertaining to her and her friends. And there’s this desensitizing that has happened, almost this numbing effect that takes place in Avery where she is, even when confronted, unable to see what she was doing, denial at its finest. She’s a good student, she believes she’s a good daughter, and a good friend. Jessica just bugs her and she’s unapologetic about it. This is just the way she feels and she would like to express herself. Then you start to peel back the layers. We get to know Avery and we created a safe space for Avery to explore herself, take a look at life through a different lens and literally gave her a camera that allows her to look at life through a different lens, and it’s not as it appears. The outer shell of perfection, the popularity, the beautiful girl, the friendships, the status in her school, it’s meaningless because of what she is away from that, the true Avery comes out, the unhappy Avery, the insecure Avery, the scared Avery, the one who isn’t proud of what’s going on in her family life, the broken Avery that we begin to see. So we humanize a monster and when you do that we can’t as an audience be in denial of the fact that she’s in pain. Something is going on inside of her that is creating this projection, a coping mechanism, a mental health component, all of these play a role in this character. It is shocking to the audience that when the transformation begins the audience transforms along with it. That’s what’s so powerful about Avery Keller and the dynamic of her character.”

All of the dialog was improvised by the young performers. She gave them the overview of the scene and then let them create their lines based on “the emotion of what was happening in this moment in their lives. And then we would draw from real life to bring that out into their characters. I wanted them to bring their own experiences and their own emotions and their own words because I wanted it as genuine and as authentic, as real and raw as possible and whatever happens in that scene we would just keep going. I think we captured some of the most powerful moments I’ve ever experienced as a film viewer all my life. But to be on the other side of that camera and to be involved in the scene with these actors as it unfolded was incredible. It was just incredible the raw emotion especially because of the topic and how it has affects so many people.”