Divergent

Posted on March 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense violence and action, thematic elements and some sensuality
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Mind-altering drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and graphic peril and violence with many characters injured and killed, some disturbing images, guns, fighting, suicide, deaths of parents, sexual assault
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	March 21, 2014
Date Released to DVD:	August 4, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00GQQ75QO

Another day, another movie based on darkly dystopic book trilogy with a brave and beautiful teenaged girl who is the only one who can save the world. This time it is Tris (Shailene Woodley), who lives in a post-apocalyptic Chicago, where the ravages of a barely-remembered but devastating war have resulted in a totalitarian society that appears benign but is brutal and corrupt.

What is left of civilization has evolved or devolved into a rigidly divided society. There are five factions each named for its sole defining characteristic. Annoyingly, some of those names are nouns and some adjectives, because none of the factions have grammar as a specialty, but they are descriptive. There is Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). The tasks of the society are assigned appropriately. Amity are the farmers. Dauntless are a combination of law enforcement and military. Abnegation care for everyone, even the factionless, and due to their tradition, culture, and ethos of putting the good of others before themselves, they are the governing body.

Each year, all the 16-year-olds are tested to determine whether they will stay in their faction of origin or are better suited for another. If they leave, they never go home again. The slogan is “Faction over blood.”

Beatrice Prior’s test shows that she is a rare “divergent,” combining the qualities of three of the factions: Abnegation, Erudite, and Dauntless. This means that she has a unique ability to solve problems and understand issues more deeply in a way that threatens the ruling and would-be ruling powers. She does not tell anyone and chooses Dauntless while her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort, who will be Woodley’s romantic interest in the highly anticipated upcoming “Fault in Our Stars”), chooses Erudite.

Beatrice choses a new name for herself: Tris. She and the other inductees are subjected to an intensive boot camp to learn to fight and prove their courage. The top performers will stay with Dauntless. The ones who do not make it will be factionless, which means homeless and shunned. Part of the training includes sessions in a fear room, where the subject’s worst and most disturbing fears are revealed to themselves and to the people conducting the tests. Tris’s test is overseen by Dauntless leader Four (hunky-but-sensitive-for-a-Dauntless Theo James). There is a strong connection between them for reasons they do not yet understand.

Kate Winslet plays Jeanine, the calm but steely Erudite who acts as a sort of Chief Operating Officer of the entire community. She is convinced that human nature is something to triumph over, even eliminate entirely, in order to preserve the peace, and if preserving the peace means chaos and murder, she will not hesitate because she believes it is for the greater good. Not being Candors, the Erudites have been spreading rumors about the Abnegations to try to take over as rulers. They cannot do it without the support of the faction with physical courage. What is the best way to get that support?

Much of the storyline involves the series of physical and psychological tests that Tris and her fellow inductees must take, knowing that anyone who does not excel in every category will be kicked out and shunned. It is fun to see Tris come into her own, making the most of all she has to draw from and to give to others. She knows you do not have to be harsh to be strong, or weak to be kind. And her divergent thinking ability enables her to evaluate options, assess probabilities, and plan strategically. Woodley carries the most improbable of the story’s twists with sincerity and sweetness that keeps us on her side. And it is a relief, for once, to have a YA female-led trilogy that does not depend on a love triangle to hold our interest.

Parents should know that this film includes intense and graphic peril and violence with many characters injured and killed, some disturbing images, guns, fighting, suicide, loss of parents, mind-altering drugs, some strong language, sexual assault, romantic kissing and brief discussion of waiting to have sex.

Family discussion: Which group would you pick and why? What is the significance of Four’s name? What compromises of freedom are necessary for peace?

If you like this, try: the books by Veronica Roth

New Sci-Fi Coming to Television: American Gods and Redshirts

Posted on February 11, 2014 at 3:24 pm

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods has taken a step toward becoming a television show. For a long time it was in development at HBO, where it bogged down. But now it is in the hands of FremantleMedia, the producers of “The Tomorrow People.” I’m hoping this time it will make it to air.

And John Scalzi’s Hug0 Award-winning Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas is going into production at FX. This is kind of meta because the novel is about a spaceship that finds itself being taken over by a television show. Here are some of Scalzi’s thoughts about it. I’m looking forward to it.

Her

Posted on December 24, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language, sexual content, and brief graphic nudity
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense emotional confrontations and loss
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 25, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	May 12, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00HEKSZVK

“Transition objects” are usually thought of as the stuffed toys toddlers hold onto so as a way of feeling more secure as they begin to separate from their parents and navigate the bigger world. But we all have them. We all carry real or virtual talismans to keep us from feeling adrift or abandoned.

And we all understand the bliss and torment of the Rorschach test stage of love, as what we project onto the objects of our physical and emotional desire has to give way to the reality of who they are. If we’re lucky, it’s even better than we imagined and they feel that way about us, too.

Director Spike Jonze (“Being John Malcovich,” “Where the Wild Things Are”), working from his own screenplay, combines these two ideas in a wistful love story set slightly in the future simply called, in a reflection of its longing, “Her.” Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore and his job as a ghost writer of analog letters makes a kind of sense as the logical next step in a world where communication by text and Skype might make the idea of an old-school correspondence more valuable just as the ability to create them is barely vestigial.

Theodore spends his days writing letters of great tenderness and affection but there is none in his own life. Recently divorced from Catherine (Rooney Mara) for reasons we never learn, he is withdrawn, isolated, alone. When he is not working, he stays in his spare, generic apartment and plays a video game. And then a new operating system comes on the market that is so responsive it virtually (in both senses of the word) achieves consciousness. (Apparently, no one there has seen “Terminator,” because this sounds a lot like Skynet to me, but perhaps that is the weaponized version.) Theodore decides to give it a try.

The new operating system calls herself “Samantha” and she has two enormously appealing qualities. First, she has the throaty, intimate voice and delicious laugh of Scarlett Johansson (a performance of magnificent warmth and wit). Second, she is utterly devoted to Theodore and utterly formed by him. It is that most gratifying of relationships because he is everything to her and she is content for him to be so. Plus, she is wonderfully competent, sorting through thousands of emails in a fraction of a second to organize them and, along the way, learn everything about him.

Theodore is not ready for a real relationship with a woman who might want something from him or be different from what he visualizes or idealizes. But Samantha seems perfect, both in her innocence and in her progress. He has the pleasure of explaining the world to her and his spirit opens up as he sees her curiosity, appreciation, and engagement. He is reassured that the people around him (his boss, played by Chris Pratt, his neighbor and college friend, played by Amy Adams) seem to think it is perfectly normal to have a virtual girlfriend. Samantha seems happy about it, too.

But as we have seen in “Lars and the Real Girl,” “Ruby Sparks,” George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” (which became the musical “My Fair Lady’), there’s no happily ever after in a relationship with a creation. Samantha’s growth trajectory is astronomical. No single human can really have her. And the human qualities she lacks turn out to be important for a relationship, too.

Jonze’s story may be set in the future but it is an ancient one, going back to the original Greek myth about the sculptor who fell in love with the statue he made and whose name became the title of Shaw’s play. It is an eternal story because it is a more extreme version and thus a powerful metaphor about the risks and pleasures of intimacy. Jonze tells that story here with great sensitivity and lyricism, the kind of artistry that machinery can never replace.

Parents should know that this movie includes strong language, sexual references and situations and nudity, and tense and sad experiences.

Family discussion: Would you like to have an e-friend like Samantha? What makes those relationships easier than interacting in real life? What makes them harder?

If you like this, try: “Lars and the Real Girl,” “Ruby Sparks,” “Pygmalion,” “Catfish,” and “You’ve Got Mail”

Ender’s Game

Posted on November 1, 2013 at 6:35 pm

Director Gavin Hood (“Tsotsi”) has skillfully adapted the Nebula and Hugo award-winning novel about a boy who leads an interplanetary battle against insect-like aliens, doing justice both to the fun of the sci-fi action and to the seriousness of the book’s themes. The story has been adapted for film — Ender is several years older in the film than in the book and an extended and astonishingly prescient subplot about his siblings writing something resembling blogs and becoming highly influential political commentators has been dropped. But it is very true to the spirit of the book and its characters and with special effects technology vastly beyond what was possible when the book was written, spectacularly realizes some of the book’s most thrillingly imaginative passages.

A memorable scene in Kevin Smith’s “Clerks” has its two slacker heroes arguing about one of the most rousing moments in the history of film, the destruction of the planet-destroying Death Star in the original “Star Wars.” Randall points out that while the Jedi and the audience are cheering the explosion, they are overlooking the fact that the Death Star, still under construction, was not staffed with military but with independent contractors, who are at least arguably innocent bystanders in the conflict and unarmed. In the middle of a raunchy comedy there is suddenly a more nuanced moral sensibility than is exhibited in the the usual big-budget sci-fi extravaganzas.

That is what makes the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card so compelling. The original book has been a worldwide best-seller for more than 20 years. Like “Star Wars,” “The Matrix,” and other YA favorites, it is the story of a “chosen one” of extraordinary skill who takes on the oppressive and vastly powerful but corrupt enemy, and it is filled with exciting action. But it also engages directly, thoughtfully, and sometimes provocatively with profound questions that are even more apt today than they were in the 1980’s: Should we sacrifice the interests of one person to benefit the rest of the world? Should we stage a pre-emptive attack by an enemy that is not currently demonstrating aggressive behavior? What is more important, the ability to win a battle or the ability to feel compassion or empathy?

The setting is at a time in the future when earth has successfully defended itself against an attack by an insect-like race of aliens called Formics and disparagingly referred to by humans as Buggers. The effects of the war against the Formic were devastating, and the entire resources of the world have been turned to just one goal — seeing out the Formics and destroying them to make sure that they can never return to attack the humans. They have determined that only a child has the reflexes, flexibility, and singleness of purpose to lead that attack.

All children are fitted to monitoring devices so that the military can see how they behave and find the likeliest candidates for military training. Couples are strictly limited to no more than two children. The Wiggins family is permitted a rare third because their son and daughter, while not suitable for training, show extraordinary ability. The third is Ender Wiggins (“Hugo’s” Asa Butterfield in a considered performance of great dignity and focus), whose deliberate but savage attack on a school bully brings him to the attention of the commander in charge of training, Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford, returning to space for the first time since the “Star Wars” trilogy). Ender is brought to a space station for a series of training exercises called “games.”

A disagreement between Graff and Major Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis, once again speaking on behalf of humanity) is one of the film’s clearest statements of the moral conflict it lays out. Anderson wants the training to do what is best for Ender. Graff wants it to do what is best for humanity, and if that means inflicting the kind of trauma and encouraging the kind of brutality that will make Ender a better commander, he is willing to make that trade-off. Of course it is out of the question to consult Ender or his parents. Card wisely makes it clear that there are two questions here. One is whether the ends ever justify the means. The other is who should decide what ends or means to consider.

The games are fascinatingly constructed and the battles in the weightless chamber with freeze-ray weapons are absorbing and immersive. It gets more exciting when a new teacher with a fabled history and an impressive Maori face tattoo (Ben Kingsley) takes over. The climactic battle is as dramatic as we hope, but it is a remarkable twist and a surprising coda that bring depth and meaning to the story.

NOTE: In real life, author Card has demonstrated hateful homophobic bigotry that has led some people to call for a boycott of the film. Here is my view: I believe that the principles of courage, integrity, compassion, empathy, and service to others that “Ender’s Game” promotes are essential values. While I regret that the author’s ugly and bigoted statements show that he himself is still struggling to learn the lessons of his book, I agree with the poet Don Marquis that “an idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.” The best of his vision should be shared with young people in the hopes that the next generation will transcend some of the biases of the previous ones.

Parents should know that this film includes extended sci-fi violence and peril with characters injured and killed, themes of interplanetary genocide, brief mild language, theme of child soldiers and moral conflicts, and bullies.

Family discussion: What does it mean to win “the right way”? Was Graff or Anderson right about the best way to treat Ender?

If you like this try: The book and its sequels by Orson Scott Card and the “Star Wars” movies starring Harrison Ford.

Gravity

Posted on October 3, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense perilous sequences, some disturbing images, and brief strong language
Profanity:	Many s-words, one f-word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and prolonged peril, characters killed, disturbing images of dead bodies
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 4, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	February 24, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00H83EUL2

In space, there is no oxygen and no sound. There is no up or down. Everything is weightless. When you cry, the tears float away instead of running down your cheeks.

“Gravity” is one of the once-to-a-generation films that transform our sense of the immensity of space and the potential of film. Like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Avatar,” it makes use of technology to create unprecedented visual splendor that recalibrates our notions — literal and metaphorical — of our place in the universe. I have two recommendations: see it on Imax 3D to get the full effect. And see it soon, before you are exposed to spoilers that give away too much of the story.

I’ll do my best to omit comments that give too much away but you may wish to skip the rest of the review until you’ve had a chance to experience the movie’s suprises fully.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a doctor who is up in space to get data, “a new set of eyes to scan the edge of the universe.” It is her first time in space and she has had just six months of training. She is nervous and, if the word applies where there is no air — airsick, or, if the word applies where there is no gravity — motionsick. “Keeping your lunch down in zero gravity is harder than it looks,” she says a little grimly. And it is a challenge to use tools that float away while wearing a spacesuit with thick gloves. “I’m used to a basement lab in a hospital where things fall to the floor.” But she is intent on completing her work. And she likes one thing about space: “The silence. I could get used to it.” In charge of the mission is Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney), a genial, experienced astronaut who enjoys annoying mission control in Houston (Ed Harris) with corny jokes, shaggy dog stories, and Hank Williams, Jr.

And then Houston warns them that debris is headed their way and that it may knock out communications and destroy the spacecraft. And then it arrives. The damage is devastating. Stone and Kowalsky are stranded somewhere between earth and the moon. “I am off structure and I am drifting. Do you copy? Anyone?”

Bullock gives an extraordinary performance in a role that calls on her to spend most of the movie by herself, with only her voice and eyes to convey the shifting emotions: terror, resolve, submission, transcendence. While her visceral first response is an adrenaline-fueled elevated heart-beat and rapid breathing, Kowalsky reminds her that she has to slow down to conserve her limited oxygen. He chats with her to help her calm down and we learn that nothing that can happen to her in space can make her feel as lost, isolated, and devastated as what she has already experienced on earth. She has walled off every part of herself outside of the narrow scope of her mission. Her biggest challenge in space will not be technical or physical but finding in herself the courage and the spiritual bandwidth to take in what is happening to her. “You’re going to have to learn to let go,” Kowalski tells her.

There is something both reassuring and chilling in the understated vocabulary the astronauts learn to use to describe catastrophic failure in place of the more obvious”OMG! We’re going to die!” “It’s not rocket science,”Kowalski says reassuringly, if inaccurately.

Alfonso Cuarón, who directed and c0-wrote “Gravity” with his son, Jonás, is a master of storytelling through camera movement and striking images. There are brilliantly choreographed near-misses and almost-failures. Watch how the literally breathtaking continuous shot that begins the film breaks only when Stone’s connection to the spacecraft is severed. Watch again as our understanding of the crucial importance of the lifeline that is attached to something or someone is upended and turned inside out when Stone is tangled in strings that hold her back when she needs release. In another scene, Stone gets some literal breathing room when she is able to remove her spacesuit and float in her underwear as though she is protected by amniotic fluid, a moment of profoundly tactile, ecstatic, sensuality. Every reflection in every shiny surface helps to set the scene and tell the story of her spiritual rebirth and reconnection. A weightless Marvin Martian doll, a family photo, the earth, seen from almost 700 km above — each image is telling, moving, meaningful. The script, especially the last half hour, is not up to the level of the visuals, but the setting (I hereby predict Oscars for visual effects and sound editing) for the of inner and outer exploration implied by the title is exquisitely conveyed.

Parents should know that this film has very intense and scary peril and some disturbing images of injuries and dead bodies. There are some mild sexual references, and characters use some strong language and drink alcohol.

Family discussion: What makes Ryan change her mind? Which was the most difficult moment for her and why?

If you like this, try: other outer space classics like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Silent Running,” and “Apollo 13” and the television miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon”