Finding Altamira

Posted on September 15, 2016 at 5:18 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 16, 2016

One of the most deeply moving, inspiring, and just plain thrilling experiences of my life was visiting the legendary Altamira cave, where the earliest humans created art that is stunningly beautiful. It is the earliest work we have that tells us something about the spirit, sophistication, understanding, and aesthetics of our ancestors who lived four or five times as long before ancient Egypt as ancient Egypt is from us. The paintings are every bit as beautiful and sophisticated as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel or Rembrandt’s Last Supper.

Imagine being the first modern person to see them, to wander into a cave and find perfectly preserved paintings of animals extinct for thousands of years. This is the story of Marcelino Sanz de Sautola (Antonio Banderas), a nobleman scholar who first identified the cave paintings prehistoric in the 1870’s. The focus of the film is the rejection of his conclusions by the church, which considered them heretical and a threat to their power, and by the scientists of the time, who considered them a secular form of heresy as well. Like the cinematic portrayals of Darwin (“Creation”) and Stephen Hawking (“The Theory of Everything”), it is also the story of a scientist married to a woman of faith, and the conflicts that creates for their relationship.

Director Hugh Hudson (“Chariots of Fire”) has a feel for period drama, but some striking shots cannot make up for static storytelling and a clunky script. There is too much focus on Marcelino’s relationship with his science-minded young daughter (one scene of her gazing at the paintings as they come to life would be more than enough) and the conflicts with his wife. The dialogue is clunky and over-explanatory, more suitable for an educational film to be shown in middle school than a theatrical release. Frustratingly, the movie never really conveys the astonishing splendor and the vibrant colors of the paintings themselves, the way the artists used the surface of the cave for perspective and shaping of the images. For that see Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” about the cave paintings at Chauvet, a movie that comes much closer to living up to the art to which it pays tribute.

Parents should know that this film has some peril and confrontations and a clash between religion and science.

Family discussion: Why do some people see a conflict between religion and science? Who is most like Marcelino today?

If you like this, try: “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”

The Vessel

Posted on September 13, 2016 at 7:07 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some partial nudity/sensuality and thematic elements
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Devastating tragedy (off-screen), some peril
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 16, 2016

Many people have asked why bad things happen to good people, and many theories have been proposed. Fewer people have explored the more important question: when devastating tragedy happens, how do we find a way to go on? That is the question in “The Vessel,” produced by Terrence Malick and written and directed, in both Spanish and English versions, by Julio Quintana. Malick’s influence or inspiration is felt throughout, from the exquisitely composed images and impressionistic storytelling to the spiritual symbols.

Like Malick, Quintana lets the story unfold slowly, with a dreamy quality, allowing the audience to discover the story rather than serving it to us. There is a narrative voiceover from Leo (Lucas Quintana), a man who lives with his mother, a woman closed off in a deep silence. He cares for her tenderly, patiently. Leo tells us that all of the women in his community wear black in a sort of contest. Whoever puts aside mourning clothes first will lose some unspoken contest. And so we begin to discover she is not the only person in this Spanish-speaking town on the ocean who has had a tragic loss. The entire community has been devastated. They can barely speak. They seem stuck in grief, with no way to return to any part of their lives.

An American-born priest (Martin Sheen, a performance of deep grace and generosity) tries to help. He does everything he can. He listens. He counsels and commiserates. He gently urges. He prays. But nothing changes.

And then, Leo does something. What is a vessel, after all? The word can mean a ship or a container for liquids or a biological or botanical term for a physical delivery system. And poetically it can be used for a human body as the container for a soul. All of the above applies here, with images of water to underscore the metaphor. Leo begins to build something, not sure why or what he will do when it is finished. The priest opposes it; for him it is a distraction, a rival to the church, a golden calf. And yet, the community begins to see it as a portal to a return to themselves. They will never forget. They will never be free from pain. But for the first time, they begin to see the possibility that they might not be numb anymore.

This is a gentle, poetic, touching film, itself a vessel with a message of hope. It does not pretend to answer the question of why bad things happen to good people, but it reminds us that when they do, there are other good people paying attention.

Parents should know that this movie includes themes of devastating loss, some peril, and a brief sexual situation with some nudity

Family discussion: What do we learn from the different ways of grieving? Why did the boat make a difference?

If you like this, try: “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Tree of Life”

Related Tags:

Drama Movies -- format Spiritual films

Max Rose

Posted on September 1, 2016 at 5:51 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, prescription drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 2, 2016

Jerry Lewis is back, playing the title character in “Max Rose,” a longtime jazz musician rocked to discover that his late wife might have been unfaithful. This 2013 film arrives in theaters in 2016, with Lewis giving a performance that is best described with a word not usually thought of for him: subdued. Lewis, then age 86, has learned to trust himself and the audience. He does not have to be big, loud, and needy. He can be quiet, subtle, and patient. The script is under-written, but it is a pleasure to watch Lewis in this mode, along with a bunch of other familiar octogenarian co-stars who bring their decades of experience to the under-written script.

Writer/director Daniel Noah locates us very quickly: some hospital paperwork, a clock ticking, a sympathetic voice asking, “Grandpa, can I get you anything?”

Max was married to Eva (Claire Bloom, lovely and warm in flashbacks), and he believed they were the great loves of each other’s lives. After a lifetime together, he does not know how to begin to live without her. Max has a tense relationship with his son, Christopher (Kevin Pollak). But he is very close to his granddaughter Annie (Kerry Bishé), who is spending much of her time with him, making sure that he eats and trying to make sure he takes his medicine. We see Max outsmarting her on that one. Max hands Annie Eva’s compact, and she smiles in recognition of one of her grandmother’s favorite treasures. But then Max shows Annie the inscription, and while she tries to reassure him that it might not be evidence that she had another relationship, they both know that is its implication.

Max is badly shaken. He questions everything he thought he knew about Eva, their relationship, and the choices he made. How can he reconcile the relationship he thought he had with the idea that Eva’s favorite compact reminded her of someone else every time she looked in the mirror to check her make-up? “I failed my wife, I failed my family, I failed myself.” And yet, he cannot forgive Christopher, now in the midst of his second divorce, for what Max considers Christopher’s own failures as a husband and father.

The story is thin and unconvincing, but it is a pleasure to see Lewis in the role. And in brief appearances, veterans Rance Howard, Dean Stockwell, and Fred Willard make us wish the whole movie was these guys sitting around talking.

Parents should know that the movie has mature material including strong language and sexual references.

Family discussion: What did Max want from his confrontation with the man who gave Eva the compact? Why was he so hard on Christopher?

If you like this, try: “The King of Comedy” and “45 Years”

Related Tags:

Drama Family Issues Movies -- format

Floyd Norman: An Animated Life

Posted on August 25, 2016 at 12:37 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	A bleeped word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Reference to alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to divorce
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	August 26, 2016

Disney foolishly forced legendary animator Floyd Norman to retire at age 65, but he was not foolish enough to stop coming to work. Every day, he brings his wife Adrienne to her job at Disney, and then he spends the day wandering around, asking questions, talking to people, and generally, to use the portmanteau word Adrienne came up with, “floitering.” “The whole Disney campus is Floyd’s office,” says one colleague. Eventually, Disney realized they could not do without him and they gave up and just hired him again.

This delightful documentary about the very “animated life” of Floyd Norman is a must-see for fans of animation, movie history, and stories of lives filled with creativity, courage, and a sense of adventure. His career extends from the classic “nine old men” era at Disney, where he worked for Walt Disney himself animating the prince, the horse, and the three fairy godmothers in “Cinderella” and Kaa the snake in “The Jungle Book” and the “Jolly Holiday” musical number in “Mary Poppins” to animating, writing, and directing for Hanna-Barbera, Pixar, and for his own company. He used Roy Disney’s camera to go into Watts and shoot footage of the riots that was broadcast on the NBC news, and he worked on iconic Saturday morning cartoon shows like “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” “Johnny Quest,” and “Scooby-Doo.” (The only negative comment the sunny-tempered Norman makes in the whole documentary is a good-natured aside on Scooby — “I hate that dog!”) He even animated the opening logo for “Soul Train.”

More characteristic is his description of his childhood in Santa Barbara as “incredibly pleasant.” It was there he saw his first Disney animated film — “Dumbo” and knew that making cartoons would be his life’s work. It didn’t matter that Disney had no black animators. He was “just another kid who wanted to work for Disney,” and when they saw what he could do, they hired him as an “assistant in-betweener” on “Sleeping Beauty,” where he was expected to turn out eight “dead-on precise” completed drawings a day.

One of the highlights of the film is seeing Floyd Norman at San Diego Comic-Con’s Quick Draw, with MAD Magazine artist Sergio Aragonés. But every moment is pure pleasure, as we see the man who is still “in touch with his inner 20-year-old” demonstrate the skill, imagination, and dedication that has been central to much of the most creative entertainment of the past 60 years.

Parents should know that this movie has a bleeped bad word, a sexual reference, and references to drinking and divorce.

Family discussion: Which is your favorite Floyd Norman animation and why? How did he show flexibility and “shape-shifting?”

If you like this, try: “Waking Sleeping Beauty,” “Walt and El Groupo,” and, of course, “The Jungle Book,” and Norman’s other animated classics

Ben-Hur

Posted on August 18, 2016 at 5:25 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and disturbing images
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and sometimes graphic peril and violence including battle scenes, crucifixions, abuse, and accidents, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	August 19, 2016

Lew Wallace’s 1880 book, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, had a revolutionary idea in a spiritual setting. The story of a minor, fictional character at the time of the crucifixion was the first to try to illuminate epic themes through the depiction of a character who was not a participant. Indeed, the title character was hardly aware of the monumental events going on around him. He was too busy dealing with his own personal crises like being enslaved and having his mother and sister contract leprosy. Wallace’s book became the top seller of the century. And then it became a play, two silent films, a Best Picture Oscar winner tied for first place for the most Academy Awards, plus two animated versions and a television miniseries.

Now Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, following the enormous success of their “Bible,” “A.D” and “Son of God” know the genre well and have remade the grand but dated three hour and thirty-seven minute epic. Their version is brisker, not just in the overall running time of just over two hours but in the more contemporary quick cuts and trimmed storyline. It is also more explicitly religious. While earlier versions suggested the presence of Jesus but did not include his face or voice, he is more explicitly involved in the storyline here, portrayed by Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro.

As in all of the earlier versions, it is the story of Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston), a Jewish prince who is wrongly accused of a hostile act against the Roman invaders and sold into slavery. In this version the Roman Messala (Toby Kebbell) is more than a close friend; he is Judah’s adopted brother. They are devoted to one another but also deeply competitive.

Messala, in love with Judah’s sister, joins the Roman army in hopes of achieving enough wealth and status to be considered worthy of her. When he returns to Jerusalem, Judah is married to Esther (Nazanin Boniadi). Messala and Judah agree to find a way for the local population to live peacefully under Roman occupation. But a rebel hiding in Judah’s house kills one of the Roman officers and Judah is blamed. Messala refuses to protect him or his family. Judah becomes a galley slave, spending five years chained to an oar on a Roman naval ship.

When the ship is sunk, he escapes. An African named Ilderim (Morgan Freeman) gives him a chance to win back his freedom by competing in a chariot race. And that, after all, is what everyone remembers about “Ben-Hur.” Director Timur Bekmambetov is known for action scenes with tremendous vitality and he more than delivers with the chariot race, which is thrillingly dynamic. The naval battle scenes are also exciting. The screenplay has some clunky dialog and awkward transitions, but Huston is always engaged and engaging and balances the intensity of the action scenes with an inspiring message of forgiveness. The movie is true to the story that has endured in its various versions for more than a century.

Parents should know that this film includes intense and sometimes graphic peril and violence with many characters injured and killed, battle scenes, whipping, abuse, crucifixions, some disturbing images, brief non-explicit sexual situation and mild sexual references.

Family discussion: What changed Ben-Hur’s mind about Messala? Was Ben-Hur right to try to make peace with the Romans? What did Pilate mean when he said, “They’re Romans now?”

If you like this, try; “Risen” and the 1959 version of “Ben-Hur”