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”

The Campaign

Posted on August 9, 2012 at 6:05 pm

“Freedom.” “Jesus.” “America.” And whoever you are, you are “the backbone of this country.” This attempted political satire feels as empty as the platitudes spouted by the candidates in this R-rated comedy that, like the political system it portrays, goes for the easy and expedient and the trashy instead of the substantive or constructive. Bill Maher, “The Daily Show,” and “The Colbert Report” have raised the bar on political comedy, so we expect more bite than this lackluster film, as generic as its title.

Will Ferrell plays four-term Congressman Cam Brady, a Democrat from North Carolina, expecting to run unopposed in the upcoming election. But he all of a sudden becomes vulnerable when leaves a raunchy voicemail for his mistress on the wrong answering machine. The mega-wealthy Motch brothers (played by John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd and inspired by the real-life Koch brothers, who fund many right-wing causes and politicians) decide they would be better off with another candidate. So, even though he is “weird” and has no experience in politics, they pick Marty Huggins (co-producer Zach Galifianakis). He is the son of a wealthy man (Brian Cox) who has strong connections to business and government. The Motches send in Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott), their best political operative to run the campaign, and he crisply cuts right to the point: “I’m here to make you suck less.”

Immediately, Marty’s life is turned upside down as his beloved pug dogs are replaced with a golden retriever and a black lab — both in bandanas — because those breeds have the highest approval ratings. He and his wife and their home get extreme makeovers and Tim keeps Marty on talking points. Meanwhile, Cam’s overconfidence and poor judgment help Marty rise in the polls. The Motches have been using a loophole to sell goods produced in China labeled as “made in America” (based on convicted felon Jack Abramoff’s deal in the Mariana Islands). They plot to create an enterprise zone in the district, waiving environmental, safety, and wage regulations so they can create American sweatshops with imported Chinese workers (“insourcing”). They just need a Congressman who will do what they tell him. And their control goes even deeper than money.

It is briefly intriguing to see Dan Aykroyd taking over the kind of “Trading Places” rich bad guy brother role Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy played when he and Eddie Murphy were the leads, but the contrast just shows how little energy and bite this film in comparison. McDermott picks things up with some dark wit and Katherine LaNasa is a highlight as Cam’s steel magnolia of a wife. But Ferrell is deprived of his greatest asset as a performer. He is at his best when he plays flawed men who are immature and self-centered but still likable because they really want to be liked and struggle to do the right thing. Cam just does not care. And Galifiniakis’ mincing affect and Southern drawl are not as witty as he intends them to be. This is one of those campaigns when you wish the ballot had an option for “none of the above.”

Parents should know that this movie includes extremely crude humor with very explicit sexual references and situations and very strong and vulgar language, brief female nudity, drinking, drunkenness and drunk driving, smoking, comic peril and violence including snake bite and shooting injury, a lot of corruption and overall bad behavior played for comedy.

Family discussion: What elements of the story seemed most true about our current political system? What is the impact of “Citizens United” on elections?

If you like this, try: “In the Loop” and documentaries like “The War Room” and “Unprecedented”

Related Tags:

Comedy Politics Satire

The Bourne Legacy

Posted on August 9, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence and action sequences
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended spy-type violence with hand-to-hand combat, guns, chases, explosions, many characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 10, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	December 10, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIIPS

Different spy. Different program. Same evil conspiracy still trying to justify the nastiest of means with the most unprovable ends. This is “The Bourne Legacy,” the fourth in the Bourne series and the first not to star Matt Damon. Tony Gilroy, who wrote the first three films, wrote and directed this latest installment, with “Hurt Locker’s” Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, like Jason Bourne an inconvenient reminder of an ambitious spy program that at least some people believe needs to be shut down with extreme prejudice. Those of us who felt there was not enough Renner in the crowded Avengers movie (he was the guy with the bow and arrow) are glad to see him take the lead here. He handles it gracefully.

The way he walks, runs, and punches is as important to defining the character as what he says, and Renner moves with an athlete’s economy, precision, and confidence. We first see Cross in an isolated, frozen location (the settings, even more than usual, really tell the story) and we immediately learn that he is brave, resourceful, and very capable. And that he takes some sort of pills. Soon he meets up with another guy (the always-outstanding Oscar Isaac) and even though they have never met, they communicate with the kind of shorthand that lets us know they recognize they share the same training and perhaps more and yet do not entirely trust one another. Soon we find that the same people who wanted to shut down any record of Jason Bourne’s Treadstone project are trying to erase any evidence of Cross’s project, Outcome and they will do anything to make that happen.

Jason Bourne could not remember who he was or how he came to be injured and floating in the water, and we shared his discovery of his own history and growing realization of the corruption and betrayal around him. So it seems logical that Gilroy would go in the opposite direction with Aaron Cross. His problem is not a loss of memory. In a way, he has too much memory. Slight spoiler alert here, though it is revealed in the trailer — the operatives in the Outcome project have been physically and intellectually enhanced with medication monitored by scientists, including Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz, who can carry off the brainy beauty role). Cross does not need to find out who he is. He needs to stay who he has become. When he runs out of the medication, he has to have her help to get him more.

One of the highlights of the film takes place in Marta’s home, a huge house in the country with beautiful lines and a great deal of potential but a shabbiness that tells us she is a person of taste and vision who never created the home she hoped to have. The confrontation that takes place there binds her to Carter and sets the rest of the story in motion. They end up in the Philippines, and Gilroy makes great use of the city for neatly-staged chase scenes.

Renner is a superb choice for an action hero, with easy charisma, intelligence, and mad fighting skills. He holds the screen effortlessly and is quickly becoming one of the most appealing leading men in Hollywood. The problem with the film is the decision to give him chemically enhanced capacities. It’s the Batman/Superman divide. The first three Bourne movies gave us a damaged hero we could identify with because he was so human. But with Cross, it is hard to identify with him or gauge his level of danger because we don’t really know what he can do or whether another hit of the meds could ramp him up further. We’re rooting for Renner all the way. Cross, not quite as much.

Parents should know that this film has extensive spy-style action violence with chases, explosions, fights, shoot outs, some strong language, drugs, drinking, and a non-explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: How is Aaron Cross different from Jason Bourne? What do we learn from the scene with the other Outcome agent? Who is in the best position to stop Byer?

If you like this, try: the other “Bourne” movies and the novels by Robert Ludlum and “Hanna”

Side by Side — Documentary About Film-Making

Posted on August 5, 2012 at 3:55 pm

This looks fabulous!

Is “Vertigo” the Greatest Movie of All Time?

Posted on August 4, 2012 at 3:48 pm

Every ten years, the prestigious film journal Sight & Sound polls critics and film-makers on the greatest films of all time. Citizen Kane has led the list for decades, but this year it was toppled by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. While I would vote for “Citizen Kane” if they offered me a ballot, I think it is a good idea to take a fresh look. The point of polls and lists is to start a discussion, not to end one. And the changing perceptions of the films on the list say more about our times than they do about the inherent, absolute merits of the film.

“Vertigo” stars James Stewart as a former cop impaired by a paralyzing fear of heights who is unable to save a woman he was hired to protect when she commits suicide by jumping from a bell tower. When he later meets another woman who strongly resembles the first (both played by Kim Novak), he becomes obsessed with making her over to re-create the woman who died.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0bV2gh4E7Y

These results were released the same week that Tippi Hedren, who starred in Hitchcock’s “Marnie” and “The Birds,” said that he ruined her career but not her life, with obsessive, creepy, sexual harassment. A forthcoming HBO film, “The Girl” stars Toby Jones and Sienna Miller as Hitchcock and Hedren. These claims/revelations about what may have inspired or influenced the themes of obsession and fixation and repression in “Vertigo” and other Hitchcock films recontextualize the films as well.

Roger Ebert has some important insights about the list and the inherent limits of any reductionist attempt at ranking works of art.

What surprised me this year is–how little I was surprised. I believed a generational shift was taking place, and that as the critics I grew up with faded away, young blood would add new names to the list. Kieslowski, perhaps. Herzog. Fassbinder. Scorsese. Lynch. Wong Kar-Wai.

What has happened is the opposite. This year’s 846 voters looked further into the past. The most recent film in the critics’ top ten, as it has been for years, is Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968). The two new films are silent: Vertov’s “Man With a Movie Camera” (1929), and Dreyer’s “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928). Murnau’s great silent “Sunrise” (1927) is also on the list–three silents out of ten, and no Chaplin, Keaton or Eisenstein.

Why not more recent directors? To make the list, a director is punished if too many of his films are voted for. He needs an “official masterpiece.” With Buster Keaton that film used to be “The General,” but after the restoration of all of his films his votes have become scattered, I suspect, among “Sherlock Jr.,” “Steamboat Bill Jr.” and other treasures.

But his most important point is this: “let’s remember that all movie lists, even this most-respected one, are ultimately meaningless. Their tangible value is to provide movie lovers with viewing ideas.” So, for your Netflix queue, here are the new Sight & Sound lists:

The Critics’ Top Ten Greatest Films of All Time:

Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
10. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)

The Directors’ Top Ten Greatest Films of All Time:

1. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
2. (tie) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
2. (tie) Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
5. Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
6. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
7. (tie) The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
7. (tie) Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
9. Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1974)
10 Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)