Earth

Posted on May 5, 2009 at 9:24 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Low-key and mostly off-camera references to predators and life cycles
Diversity Issues:	Diverse species
Date Released to Theaters:	April 22, 2009

This stunning valentine to our planet’s plants and animals re-purposes some of the footage from the stunning documentary Planet Earth into a more narrative storyline, taking us through the seasons and across the globe to see nature’s eternal themes of renewal and connection. We see cooperation and nurture by parents across species. And we see the perils of the animal world as well.
The narration drags at times, mostly avoiding getting too cute but sometimes, even with the voice of James Earl Jones, sounding too much like an educational film for Social Studies classrooms. It alternates between almanac-worthy facts and figures and cozy folkish narratives about the animal families, never matching the grandeur of the visuals.
Parents should know that there are some discreet references to the life cycle and survival issues, some G-rated footage of predators (no blood), and not all of the animals make it to the end of the movie. There are also references to the consequences of climate change on the habitats of the animals.
Topics for discussion: Which of the animals are most like humans? Why?
If you like this, try: Planet Earth, Microcosmos, and Winged Migration.

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Documentary Movies -- format

Is Anybody There?

Posted on April 30, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
Profanity:	Some crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Elderly characters are disabled, characters die, accidents with some graphic wounds, some macabre images
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	May 1, 2009

A boy whose parents turn their house into a nursing home can be expected to develop an interest in death. Ten year old Edward (“Son of Rambow’s” Bill Milner) is more than interested. He is fascinated. And that is in part because he is terrified. He hides his tape recorder under the bed of a dying resident to see if he can actually hear the sound of the spirit escaping the body and he avidly watches a television show about ghosts to see how he can communicate with the souls of the departed. He is more interested in the dead than he is in the living.

The same can be said for the home’s newest resident, Clarence (Michael Caine), a former magician, who moves into the room previously occupied by the most recent departed, and previously before that by Edward himself. Clarence is reluctant to stay but Edward’s mother (Anne-Marie Duff), out of her kind nature and her desperation to get the 50 quid a week, persuades him to give them a try. Clarence is bitter and bereft and has no interest in making new friends.

These two lonely guys are clearly move-made for each other, but to its credit, this film allows them to be more complicated and less cuddly than the usual feel-good comfort movie. Milner continues to be one of the movie’s most appealing young actors and Caine delivers capably. Their scenes together are nicely acerbic. Director John Crowley allows the story to take its time for most of the film and then seems to speed everything up for the last few scenes, which seem hurried and cluttered and for the first time falls into formulaic patterns. But like Clarence, the movie still has a few tricks up its sleeve.

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Fighting

Posted on April 23, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense fight sequences, some sexuality and brief strong language
Profanity:	Brief stong language including a racial epithet
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Very intense, brutal, and graphic street-fighting scenes with bare-knuckle, no-rules brawls
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	April 27, 2009

Terrence Howard’s performance in “Fighting” is so bizarrely strange and awful that it occurred to me he might be hoping we didn’t realize it was him. Howard plays Harvey, a street hustler who discovers Shawn, a gifted young boxer (Channing Tatum) and sets up a series of underground, all-or-nothing, no-rules street fights. All Tatum has to do is punch, take punches, and mumble inarticulately whenever he sees the lovely Zulay (Zulay Valez). Howard has to pontificate, hide his money, confess to having been badly treated by his former partners, and ask Shawn to take a dive. Neither one manages to pull it off.

The film does have two things going for it. First is its conceit of multi-million dollar underground organizations that promote illegal street boxing (and the betting thereon) from behind hidden doors under the baseball hat racks in tiny little souvenir stores. That is the only logical explanation I have ever seen for the persistence of those shops, which never seem to have any customers. The second is the marvelous Altagracia Guzman as Zulay’s grandmother. As she did in the superb “Raising Victor Vargas,” Guzman is at once hilarious, endearing, and completely authentic. She provides moments of pure poetry. A small nod to the Foley artist, as well. The sound effects for all the whams and bashes may be cartoony — you almost expect Wile E. Coyote to show up with a package from Acme — but they are entertaining.

But the rest of the film is just dumb and dull. I think the screenplay is punchdrunk. Shawn needs money. He likes to fight. So, fight #1 he surprises everyone. Shawn is hiding something. Fight #2 is against a really big guy. He surprises everyone again, except for the audience. Then there are a few more fights, some old scores to settle, some revelations, some reactions to the revelations (I understand and sympathize! I am disappointed and betrayed! Both!) and everyone goes home. Kidding! The big, big fight is yet to come and as they like to say in movie tag lines, this time it’s personal.

It takes some serious effort to de-star and de-actor Howard and Tatum, but director-co-author Dito Montiel manages. This fight film needs to stay down for the count.

Spinning Into Butter

Posted on March 26, 2009 at 2:45 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language
Profanity:	Very strong language including racial epithets
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some violence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 27, 2009

The best of intentions and a welcome willingness to engage on the touchiest issues is not enough to keep this movie from feeling more like a seminar than a story. It betrays its origins as a play, still talky and static. But its ideas are so provocative and its approach so sincere and constructive that it is worth a look.

Sarah Jessica Parker, far away from designer duds and trying to look serious and a little mousy, plays Sarah Daniels, the dean of a small liberal arts college with a genteel, Vermont campus. Some anonymous racist attacks are leveled at a new black student and there is disagreement within the faculty and administration about how to handle it. They schedules a campus-wide meeting, but the students are not invited to speak. A local news reporter (Mykelti Williamson) wants to cover the story but the administration is furious. In the middle of all of this is Sarah, who wants to explore the issue in a substantive and constructive way and acknowledges that she has some internal conflicts she is not proud of.

The title comes from the classic children’s story Little Black Sambo, now considered unacceptably racist. In that story, the tigers chase each other so fast that they spin into butter. Here, the way that the issue is addressed — or sidestepped — leads to a similar result, with everyone racing to avoid responsibility. Out of the best of intentions, at the beginning of the film, Sarah asks a student (the always-superb Victor Rasuk) to change his racial classification from NYrican to Puerto Rican to qualify for a scholarship. It is a good lead-in to a series of discussions, confrontations, and missed communications about America’s most sensitive and least-often honestly discussed issue. The best thing about this movie will be the conversations it inspires on the way home.

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Based on a play Drama Movies -- format

Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead

Posted on March 22, 2009 at 4:35 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not Rated
Profanity:	Some graphic language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	References to substance abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Discussion of terrible violent crimes and the death penalty
Diversity Issues:	A topic in the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 20, 2009

Robert Blecker is one of the most outspoken — and unexpected — proponents of the death penalty. He does not try to base his argument on the death penalty as deterrent or to prevent the opportunity for further crimes. The self-described “retributivist advocate of the death penalty has managed to alienate both sides of the debate on the politically divisive and morally complex issue of capital punishment….e makes a powerful case for the death penalty as retribution, but only for the ‘worst of the worst’ offenders.”

Defining what ‘worst of the worst’ means is a constant and sometimes painful struggle for Blecker, and as a part of his continuing effort to define that category he first came into contact with someone who appears to qualify according to anyone’s standard. That man is Daryl Holton, who shot his three children and their half-sibling to death in 1997 because, he said, he thought it was better for them to be dead than to live with their mother.

This documentary about the relationship between the two men does not take sides. It simply documents their conversations, which are vivid, engrossing, and surprising. As Blecker gets to know Holton, he finds it difficult to maintain the sense of outrage that is an essential part of his justification for the death penalty, even in light of the unspeakable nature of the crime. The deepest questions of what we are as humans echo throughout the film. Is Holton’s crime so inhuman that he must be insane and therefore less culpable? Is it inevitable that interviewing him will establish a connection that makes it more difficult to advocate for his being put to death?

This is less a film about the death penalty than it is about more fundamental issues of purpose and meaning. It is a provocative film about deeply troubling issues. No matter what your perspective, it will be challenged. And no matter how you come out, it is that very engagement and need for understanding that ultimately reaches the deepest part of the human experience and responsibility.

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Documentary Movies -- format