Thirteen Lives

Posted on August 4, 2022 at 5:17 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some strong language and unsettling images
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and tense rescue operations, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Race and economic/nationality status issues
Date Released to Theaters:	August 5, 2022

Twelve young boys. One coach. Seventeen days trapped. More than 5000 rescue workers from many countries. The eyes of the world were on Thailand’s Tham Luang cave in June and July of 2018 as a soccer team exploring a cave they knew well were trapped by a sudden early monsoon that flooded it before they could get out. One more number: two and a half miles. That is how far they were from the entrance, and for almost two weeks the cave was so impenetrable that no one knew if any of them were still alive.

“Rescue” is a fine documentary about the courage and dedication of the rescuers, especially the British and Australian volunteer race rescue divers who came up with an idea so dangerous and crazy it could only become an option when every other possibility was out of the question. Ron Howard’s feature film has excellent performances from Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen, and Joel Edgerton as the divers and skillful use of the camera to put us inside the narrow, claustrophobic passages of the cave with no visibility and terrifyingly swift currents. Like his best film which also plays into triskaidekaphobian fears, “Apollo 13,” this is a tick-tock tension movie, with smart people trying to solve dire, unprecedented problems under excruciating time pressure.

It is June 2018. The boys are playing soccer and talking about a SpongeBob birthday cake at an upcoming party. They ride their bicycles to the cave, with the “Sleeping Princess” shrine at the entrance. There should be plenty of time before monsoon season closes the cave until the fall. But there is not. A drenching rainstorm cuts off the exit and slowly, as the parents come looking for the boys, it is clear they are trapped inside.

The Thai Navy SEALS arrive, well-trained and courageous. But rescuing people from an ocean is very different from the highly specialized rescues of the volunteer cave divers. It turns out there is a small, dedicated, endlessly skillful and endlessly courageous group of people who are cave diving rescuers, including Rick Stanton (Viggo Mortensen), John Volanthen (Colin Farrell), and joining later, Richard “Harry” Harris (Joel Edgerton).

Given how much of the story is under murky water in a dark cavern filled with sharp points and tiny, twisty passages, Howard does a very good job of keeping us on top what is going on, how much time has passed, and how far we are from the tiny, precarious shelf where the boys and their coach are perched. For those who are not familiar with the details (though likely everyone is aware of the miraculous outcome) there are some dramatic twists and surprises to accompany the understated but immensely powerful story of the rescue divers. Americans will enjoy the classically British understatement that only underscores the breathtaking heroics of the story and the modesty and gratitude of the boys, the coach, and their families. The unquenchable hope, the remarkable resilience, and the cooperation of all involved, including the farmers who agreed to have their year’s crops wiped out so that water could be diverted from the cave are a story of uplift and the best that humanity has to offer.

Parents should know that this is a tense depiction of a dire real-life rescue involving children with some very high-risk choices. Characters are injured and killed and there is some strong language.

Family discussion: How did the group make the decision to take such a high-risk option? What were the biggest obstacles to the rescue other than the physical challenge of the water in the cave? What circumstances would make you fly halfway around the world to help people you’ve never met?

If you like this, try: the National Geographic documentary “The Rescue” and Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13”

Green Book

Posted on November 15, 2018 at 5:50 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic content, language including racial epithets, smoking, some violence and suggestive material
Profanity:	Strong language including racist epithets
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	November 16, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	March 11, 2019

Before I tell you how good the Oscar-winning Green Book is, let me tell you how many ways it could have gone wrong. First, it is based on the true story of a trip through the deep South in 1962, before the Civil Rights Act, taken by two men who were opposites in every way. One was Don Shirley, an elegant, sophisticated black musician with two PhDs who lived in an apartment filled with exquisite works of art above Carnegie Hall. The other was a crude, provincial Italian bouncer from Queens known as Tony Lips. It is almost impossible to make a story like that without falling into the White Savior trap or the Magical Negro trap.

Next, the movie is co-written by the real-life son of Tony Lips (real name, Tony Vallelonga), so there was a high risk of a lack of perspective, and probably a lack of experience. And the director, Peter Farrelly, is known for working with his brother, Bobby, on movies known for often-shockingly crude humor like “There’s Something About Mary,” “Dumb and Dumber,” and “Movie 43.”

And yet, they pulled it off. “Green Book” is wonderfully entertaining and guaranteed to warm even the hardest of hearts. The music is sublime, and the performances by Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley and Viggo Mortensen as Tony Lips are superb. Yes, lessons will be learned and racial harmony will be kumbaya-ed, but resistance is futile. This movie will win you over.

Tony needs a job, but not badly enough to accept an offer from some mob-connected friends. When he hears that a doctor needs a driver, he goes to the address for the interview and it is not a home but the legendary Carnegie Hall. It turns out that Don Shirley lives above the performance space, in an apartment filled with antiques and objects d’art. He is (twice) a doctor of music. He appears in a gold and white caftan and conducts the interview from an actual throne. He is sophisticated and a little effete. He is, as is usually the case in road and buddy movies and especially in buddy/road movies, the id to Tony’s unrestrained ego. He immediately knows that Tony is not the right guy and turns him down. But later, he offers him the job, even though when he tells Tony he is going South, Tony thinks he means Atlantic City.

It is 1962. The Civil Rights Act has not yet passed, meaning that the Jim Crow segregation laws are still in effect throughout the South, and there are very few hotels and restaurants that allow black customers. Don will be traveling with two other musicians (the group is called the Don Shirley Trio), and they are white and driving a separate car. The record label guy gives Tony a copy of the Green Book, a travel guide for black Americans who wish to “vacation without aggravation.” And he tells Tony that if Don does not make every single performance on the schedule, he will not get paid.

Tony, in an early scene put a glass in the garbage because a black plumber working in his kitchen drank some water from it, has lived a life as insular as Don’s has been urbane. Tony is expansive and chatty. Don is reserved and cerebral. Tony is devoted to his wife and family. Don is a loner. Tony loves food. Don loves music. Ahead are plenty of conflicts with each other and plenty of conflicts that will put them on the same side against pretty much everyone.

It teeters toward overly cutesy at times, as when Tony teaches Don the joys of fried chicken. But we see Tony’s spirit enlarge as he sees for the first time the beauty and brutality of America outside of New York, as he is touched by the music and Don’s artistry and horrified by the bigotry he faces. And we see Don open up a little to someone outside his world. Watching that opens our hearts a little, too.

Parents should know that this film includes depiction of Civil Rights Era racism with some peril and violence, strong and racist language, drinking, smoking, some sexual references and non-explicit situation.

Family discussion: Why did Don Shirley pick Tony? If you wrote a movie about your parents, what would it be?

If you like this, try: listen to the music of the Don Shirley Trio and watch “In the Heat of the Night”

Trailer: The Green Book

Posted on August 21, 2018 at 5:09 am

Viggo Mortensen and Oscar winner Mahershala Ali star in “The Green Book,” based on the true story of black musician Don Shirley and the white driver/bodyguard who took him on tour through the America South of the early Civil Rights era. Before Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, public accommodations like hotels and buses were allowed to discriminate on the basis of race. The Negro Motorist Green Book was a guide to the places that black people could stay in the South without problems. (About Comics has re-published the original 1954 edition.) The movie is directed and co-written by actor Peter Farrelly (“Twilight,” “The Big Kahuna”), and it will be in theaters this November.

The Road

Posted on May 25, 2010 at 8:00 am

The most terrifying moment we ever experience is the realization that we are responsible for the life of the perfect being who has turned us from people into parents. We want more than anything to keep them safe and teach them everything they need to survive, even though we know how impossible it is to do both at once. “The Road,” based on the acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) takes that conflict to the extreme with an archetypal father and son (just known as “Man” and “Boy”) and on a post-apocalyptic journey.

We do not know what the cataclysmic event was. We do not know if it was a natural disaster or the result of some kind of attack. But the world as we know it has ended. Sometimes the Man (Viggo Mortensen) goes back to the before in his dreams, of the night before his son was born, the last night when life still held possibilities. Since that day, everything is wiped out, including plants and animals. It is always cold. There is nothing to eat. Almost everyone has died or committed suicide. Those that are left are either predators or prey.

Stripped down to essentials, the Man has just one occupation — protecting the Boy, physically and psychically. As all parents must, he tries to help his son make sense of the world around him, teaching him enough about treachery and danger to be safe but teaching him enough about hope and honor to be “the good guys.” The Man tells his son that he must always carry the fire and by that he means both the literal fire that keeps them alive in the eternal winter and the spirit of optimism and humanity that is as important to the fate of the world as their ability to find something to eat.

As they go toward the coast, for no other reason than that it might be better than where they are and because it gives them a goal, they have encounters that are sad, strange, and scary. They find a somehow-overlooked relic of the past, a can of Coke, as exotic and inexplicable for the Boy as a shard of Sumerian pottery might be to us. When they find the house the Man grew up in, the markings his parents made to measure his growth are still there, a symbol of stability and care. When he tells the Boy that this is the fireplace mantel where they used to hang their stockings, he realizes that memory has any no connection to the Boy’s entire lifetime of scrounging, moving, and staying away from desperate packs of people who might as well be zombies for all of the humanity they have retained.

Wrenching, elegiac, but ultimately inspiring, this is a film that knows how to hold onto its own fire. By stripping away everything but the essentials, it makes us ask ourselves about the compromises we make, the consequences of our choices, and the value of the things that we so often think are worth striving for.

Related Tags:

Based on a book Drama

Interview: John Hillcoat of ‘The Road’

Posted on November 23, 2009 at 3:56 pm

I spoke to John Hillcoat, director of the apocalyptic new film, “The Road,” based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. We do not know what caused the cataclysmic damage that has wiped out most forms of life on earth and left everything covered in ash. All we know is that there is a father (Viggo Mortensen) trying to protect his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) from the physical and spiritual consequences of the devastation.

NM: Do you see this as a spiritual film?

JH: It can definitely be read that way. Yes, absolutely. I never wanted to be heavy-handed about the approach. I wanted it to be open to interpretation according to your own belief systems. It’s certainly got a kind of ancient, Biblical parable feeling to it. There’s a morality tale there. But in terms of essence of humanity, that’s really brought to the fore because everything’s stripped bare. There’s nowhere to hide. So it definitely has those dimensions to it. There are many spiritual aspects, but the whole idea of carrying the fire is an ancient one.

NM: I do not diminish the power of the film at all when I say that it seems like an exaggerated version of what every parent goes through in trying to both protect the children and give them the survival skills they will need when we are not here to protect them.

JH: Yes, absolutely. Knowing Cormac and his son, he calls him “Papa,” like the boy in the story. It’s obviously a personal work and that personal relationship is definitely embedded into the text and that’s also why it strikes such a deep cord, even thought it is set into such an extreme scenario. There’s a truth to it.

NM: For me, one of the most wrenching scenes in the film is when they return to the house the father grew up in, and it is only there that the father truly realizes that his son has no frame of reference to understand what life was like.

JH: Where does he learn? How does he become this amazing being? It’s like a scientific experiment. That drive to keep going and the hope they create in this idea of going to the coast. Every parent starts from scratch, but this story just makes that more stark. Ultimately, the boy becomes the teacher. That is something all parents see.

NM: I was very surprised to find Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall in the film. I did not recognize them at first.

JH: We tried to quite change their appearance quite a lot.

NM: The New York Times said that Kodi Smit-McPhee, the now-twelve-year-old who plays the boy, was so shocked by the cold water he was dunked in that he began to sob for real, but that he kept acting and you did not know how distressed he was until the scene was over. Is that true?

JH: Yes. It was actually a real turning point, early on in the shoot. My job was also to protect the boy. But Kodi was such a consummate professional. He didn’t tell anyone how cold he was. And afterward, we had an understanding that if there was any time that he felt real uncomfort that he’s got to tell us. He was so determined to get the best for everyone and the best from him as a performance. The most incredible thing was his maturity; he really understood what the story was about, what each scene was about. His instincts were razor-sharp. And yet, as soon as we stopped filming, he became this kid, joking around, playing. And we really encouraged that.

With that scene, I was about to call cut, and then I heard the dialogue, and everyone’s glancing around at each other, and we see that Viggo is actually responding totally. It’s this incredible thing of being real, Viggo’s concern for Kodi, and playing their parts. That was a great gift and I wouldn’t mess with that. Luckily, we shot it on two cameras, so that was it. And when we were done, Viggo kept holding Kodi. None of us had put two and two together to realize why he was so upset. I had spoke to him about coming out of shock. Kodi’s father was there; he played one of the cannibals. Viggo started to hand Kodi over to them but he stepped away. Kodi knew he was there but he and Viggo from that day had this incredible bond.

NM: Tell me how you achieved the look of the film. It is so bleak and stark and powerful.

JH: The spark for that came when I read the book. I was always trying to be true to the spirit of the book. Usually the post-apocalyptic films are about the big event and they feel so much like a spectacle and there’s no real human dimension or spiritual dimension or any other dimension really other than the roller coaster ride. So it was that feeling of authenticity, really simple things like pushing the shopping trolley with all your possessions in it. That’s the homeless in every city. And the dirty ski jackets. So it felt familiar. It’s almost like I’ve seen this before, not as a vision or a premonition, but we’ve actually witnessed these elements, just not on a local scale. That is what led us to those locations, and the locations were the key to the look. The bulk of what we got was in camera. We filmed in the winter in places like Pennsylvania like where all the mining leftovers are, the ash piles in the winter time. Where are the trees are bare of leaves. We had the aging and the muted colors of the wardrobe. There’s a strange beauty in these desolate locations. Then it also gave a real poignancy to working in a place like New Orleans, where the post-Katrina clean-up was still happening. When half your crew has lived through that, it really added focus. It also became something that the actors could really react off of, so it was like there was a third character working with Kodi and Viggo the whole time. We went to Mount St. Helens. We went to Oregon, the gray beaches. It was a patchwork tapestry of man-made and natural disasters that have already occurred. We added physical effects like spraying biodegradable ash and paper, but whatever we couldn’t get in the camera, CGI took over to eliminate signs of life, green pine needles, birds, jet streams. It was more to take out or put in. The challenge was when it was beautiful blue skies and sunshine, because we had to block the sun. There’s a shot of two ships sitting on a freeway. That’s 70 mil. IMAX footage from two days after Katrina. We had to replace the blue sky and green grass in that shot, but everything else is real. Even the smoke billowing in the background we took from was from 9/11. We deliberately used images we have all seen to make it more real and to give more poignancy and a warning sign and to surround it, because that’s what the book is about, grace under pressure. When you’re surrounded by your real fears, things that you know are possible in some way, it makes hope all the more special. The light shines brightest when it is surrounded by dark.

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Directors Interview