Category Archives: Poetry

United 93 (2006)

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Another day, another morning, not unlike the ones before,
The sun was shining without warning of the tragedy in store.
Another day of normal business, little slated to befall,
The kind to sink into the past without a reason to recall.

Some went about their own routines and kissed their families goodbye,
No knowledge of the future scenes to note suspicion in the sky.
Some woke to smoke and disbelief at holes in buildings unforeseen,
And average folk observed in grief the horrors on their TV screen.

A few of those who woke that day believing they’d have many more,
Above the fields of Pennsylvania, heard the early sins of war.
They perished there as victims of a sudden sorrow we regret,
But challenged it as selfless heroes whom we never will forget.
________________

MPAA rating: R

After hearing so many positive reviews of United 93, I decided I ought to watch it myself, and though I had hoped to see it around the anniversary of 9/11, its power doesn’t rely on when it is seen. Many films based on history try to recreate events accurately, but even if they avoid anachronisms and errors, they rarely transcend their status as a re-creation. Even with historical films I love like Titanic and Chariots of Fire, the presence of recognizable stars, artistic license, and that Hollywood polish belie the fact that I am watching a movie. United 93 is one of the few films that suspended that understanding and temporarily convinced me that I could be watching real events.

Obviously this was the goal for director Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips), who purposely employed hand-held cameras for their realism and chose unknown actors or, in the case of the ground crews, many of the actual flight controllers who were working on September 11, 2001. The events of 9/11 are widely known, and by focusing on one plane’s story, the film never lets us forget that the viewer is watching a tragedy in progress. Because United Airlines Flight 93 was the only plane where the passengers fought back, its story is clearly the most dramatic in nature, yet its narrative is as convincing as a documentary and never feels theatrical.

From the time of the plane’s takeoff, events play out in real time. Normal people go about their business, making phone calls, taking pills, ordering breakfast, chatting about their kids, and ignoring the four overly silent Arabs who board Flight 93 out of Newark. Because we all know what will happen, the tension builds naturally, as reports come in of American 11 and United 175, which targeted the World Trade Center before Flight 93 had even been hijacked. Realistic interchanges between the air traffic controllers in different cities and the military reflect the confusion of that day, along with all the fear and uncertainty. When the awaited hijacking actually does happen, the tension and anticipation reset as the hostages, like the terrorists before, wait for the right moment to make their move. Difficult decisions and teary phone calls and desperate prayers are made, and even though I knew the outcome, the film made me hope and believe that the passengers might be successful.

Perhaps the most affecting scene is the glimpse we get of the field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the plane crashed. On one of our vacations, my mom and I visited the Flight 93 National Memorial there and walked along the wall of names and saw the boulder that marks the impact point. It was cold and nearly deserted at that time of day, but I got a sense of the importance and grief behind the memorial. Though the film doesn’t even attempt to name the passengers, I felt United 93 only deepened my admiration and sorrow for these fallen heroes who never planned to be heroes.

Best line: (flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw, making a heartbreaking phone call) “But, baby, I promise you, if I get out of this, I’m quitting tomorrow. I’ll quit tomorrow. I promise, I’ll quit tomorrow.”

Rank: List-Worthy

© 2015 S. G. Liput

340 Followers and Counting

Source Code (2011)

20 Sunday Sep 2015

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Time moves forward, onward toward
A future none can change or guess,
A train that all must get aboard
And some debark with suddenness.

But what if one could board again
To pick up pieces not yet broke,
To change the now before it’s then,
To douse the fire before the smoke?
____________

Rating: PG-13

 

Have you ever noticed a movie that you immediately wanted to see because you could tell solely from the trailer or the premise that you would like it but for some reason or other you just never got around to seeing it even years after it came out? That never happens, right? Well, that’s what happened with me and Source Code, but finally I saw it and found it to be exactly the kind of film I was hoping for and expecting: fast-paced, compelling, and mind-challenging.

When Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of random commuter Sean Fentress on his way to Chicago, he is shocked at having no memory of how he got there and even more shocked when the train explodes and kills him. Next, he wakes up somewhere else and is told he is part of a secret government experiment for “time reassignment,” which can repeatedly give him the last eight minutes of Fentress’ life in order to figure out the identity of the bomber. Instructed by a sympathetic adviser (Vera Farmiga) and the demanding creator of this Source Code technology (Jeffrey Wright), Stevens returns to the train, where every passenger is a suspect and every repeat reveals something new.

If it seems like a mix of Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day, well, it is, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. I love the concepts of both, and fusing the two was what initially attracted me. Yet as easy as it might be to write the film off as unoriginal, Source Code takes some unexpected turns that not only question the morality of Stevens’s situation but bend its sci-fi idea to turn a no-win scenario into an oddly satisfying ending. (My VC was of a different mind and felt the ending was too unbelievable to be fulfilling.)

Throughout it all, Gyllenhaal provides a surprisingly emotional performance through his eight-minute missions, and the mystery was both enjoyable and urgent. (It was cool how the filmmakers incorporated Quantum Leap’s Scott Bakula for a brief but significant unseen role.) There are certainly unanswered questions, such as the overcomplicated details of how the Source Code actually works and what happens to the real Sean Fentress every time Stevens jumps into him. Nevertheless, like Groundhog Day, Source Code overcomes all its repetition and deserves multiple viewings; just remember, “everything is going to be okay.” Here’s a funny parody from MAD that made me want to see it even more:

 

Best line: (Stevens) “Christina, what would you do if you knew you had less than one minute to live?” (Christina, a fellow passenger) “I’d make those seconds count.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2015 S. G. Liput

340 Followers and Counting

 

Ordinary People (1980) / Colorful (2010)

13 Sunday Sep 2015

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So many reasons to throw in the towel,
To give up the ghost or abandon all hope.
Most are ignored with a tear or a scowl,
But some pile up on the few who can’t cope.
Life can be cruel, like the people who fill it,
But there are more ways to improve it than death.
Life can be bright for the people who will it,
Who see all the reasons to take their next breath.
_______________

Ordinary People’s Rating: R (for language)
Colorful’s Rating: PG-13 (for thematic material)

I haven’t done a double review since my comparison of I Am Legend and World War Z, and I thought it was about time for another, especially because I’ve found two similar films of late. It may seem odd to compare an Oscar-winner from 1980 with a recent anime film that few outside of Japan have heard of, but both movies share a particularly moving brand of family drama, depicted through the experiences of a suicidal boy.

Ordinary People marked the directorial debut of Robert Redford and also confirmed that Mary Tyler Moore could handle much more dramatic roles than her comedic TV persona. A favorite of my VC’s and what I term a AAA movie (because it’s All About the Acting), the Best Picture winner of 1980 features Timothy Hutton as Conrad Jarrett, a troubled boy who seems perfectly ordinary on the outside, as does his encouraging father (Donald Sutherland) and distant mother (Moore). He’s part of the choir, he’s on the swim team, and his parents go to dinner parties. Yet behind this ordinary façade lie demons that led him to try to take his own life. Through the insight of a psychiatrist (Oscar nominee Judd Hirsch), feelings of guilt and love are exposed like a raw nerve, and his relationships are both strengthened and strained by his coming to terms with the past. The powerful scenes between Conrad and Dr. Berger won Hutton a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and foreshadowed similar psychiatric purging in films like Good Will Hunting. In addition, the tension between Conrad and his glacial mother is both pitiable and realistic, especially for those who have endured similar indifference from a parent. While trauma endures and relationships are not all wrapped up cleanly with a bow by the end, there is hope that happiness and recovery are attainable for those who can let go of the past. (It was also interesting seeing early roles for Adam Baldwin and [Lost alert] Fredric Lehne.)

Colorful, which was nominated as an Excellent Animation of the Year at the 2010 Japanese Academy Awards, begins with an unnamed sinful soul in the afterlife being given a second chance. He is to be placed in the body of a boy named Makoto who committed suicide and will be given a limited time to make amends for his own past sins while learning why Makoto killed himself. This Quantum Leap-inspired premise is consistently intriguing as the new Makoto struggles to adapt to his new environment while being somewhat guided by an invisible “angel” of sorts (similar to the hologram Al). He learns that his mother had an affair and that his middle school crush is no better morally, and bullying played a role as well. Whereas Ordinary People pits the mother against the son, here it is “Makoto” who will not forgive his mother, always believing the worst of her and of most people, until he begins to look past himself.

Unlike Ordinary People, though, Colorful has some very apparent flaws, mainly in the character interactions. While the rotoscoped backgrounds are quite realistic, many conversations are strangely stilted in ways that go beyond the average English dub, particularly in scenes with an awkward girl who won’t leave Makoto alone. Yet, while I was considering writing the film off for its weaknesses, its poignant strength sneaked up on me. The pacing is slow and sometimes dragged out, but tension often emerges in quiet ways, in contrast to the emotional fireworks of Ordinary People. Characters that initially seem odd or distant turn out to have much more depth, and the eventual familial catharsis was disarmingly powerful. Despite its faults, Colorful boasts the kind of emotions that would probably earn acting Oscars if adapted properly to live action.

While these two films may seem very different visually, both Ordinary People and Colorful feature ultimately life-affirming messages in the wake of attempted suicide. While the former explores survivor guilt and loveless parents, the latter depicts the difficulty of forgiveness and the cost of infidelity. Both are beautiful films in their own way as they highlight how ordinary families cope with tragedy and how a single friend can make an enormous difference in one’s life.

Best line (from Ordinary People): (Dr. Berger) “A little advice about feelings, kiddo: don’t expect it always to tickle.”

Rank for Ordinary People: List-Worthy
Rank for Colorful: List Runner-Up

© 2015 S. G. Liput

338 Followers and Counting

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

03 Thursday Sep 2015

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In the heat of the night, there is murder;
In the heat of the night, there is crime.
There is prejudice pointing the critical finger
And a murderer biding his time.

One must see where his biases blind him;
One must see where his aptitudes end.
If another can help, shouldn’t one get behind him,
Even if he’s more ally than friend?

There are many who won’t understand it;
There are many who’ll say it’s not right,
But stretching convention may help to expand it,
And pay off in the heat of the night.
__________________

Rating: G (perhaps PG would be better)

Here’s another Oscar winner I can cross off my list of classics yet unseen. In a strong year with films like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Cool Hand Luke, I was interested to see what made this mystery drama so much more worthy of Best Picture and Best Actor (for Rod Steiger). While the film itself is an excellent police drama, it’s clear that it was the right film released at the right time, and even if it ruffled some contemporaries’ feathers, it made history by doing so.

For starters, a police patrol car winds through the small Southern town of Sparta, passing some of the key players, only to stumble upon the dead body of the richest man in town. While Steiger’s Chief Bill Gillespie chews his bubblegum vehemently, a black man waiting for a train is arrested on a groundless suspicion and reveals himself to be Officer Virgil Tibbs from Philadelphia (Sidney Poitier). Now Tibbs and Gillespie must collaborate to solve the crime.

While the setup seems simple enough and many films since have forced black and white characters to work together, not many carry the tension of these two men who clearly hate their present situation. Gillespie wants only to get Tibbs out of town, but he knows this case is beyond him and that he needs the other’s expertise as a forensics specialist. Tibbs likewise cooperates only under orders, but eventually his sense of pride and responsibility drives him to uncover the truth. Gillespie would gladly condemn the first suspect, and Tibbs isn’t infallible either, but the two of them complement each other in ways they don’t fully recognize at the time.

The period and place turn out to be the most challenging aspects, since Tibbs’s race angers nearly everyone in town as he pokes around for the truth. He earns some respect for his deductions, but whenever someone acts hostile or refuses to cooperate, we’re never sure if they’re acting guilty or simply expressing their racism. The film’s greatest and most famous scene is the infamous slap, in which Tibbs gives as well as he gets and leaves everyone shocked. To be honest, I wasn’t aware of the scene and was equally surprised, considering the when and where the film is set. Considering this was the time of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed less than a year after its release, this scene really is a brilliant microcosm of the civil rights movement; Tibbs remains calm as he questions the suspect, but when he is struck, he returns in kind, as any equal man would. I doubt anyone could have pulled it off as effectively as Sidney Poitier, and I thought he deserved the Oscar more than Steiger. (Seriously, Poitier had this role, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and To Sir, with Love [my favorite of the three] all in the same year, but didn’t get one Oscar nomination?)

As a mystery, In the Heat of the Night takes its time with the reveal, employing subtle foreshadowing, though the timeline of events on the fateful night could have been better explained. Ultimately, this is a film about respect, hard-won respect between two outsiders who shouldn’t have judged each other too quickly. For a film tackling difficult issues like race and abortion, In the Heat of the Night is both a hard-hitting product of its time and a dual character study that is still relevant today.

Best line: (Virgil) “They call me MISTER Tibbs!”

Rank: List-Worthy

© 2015 S. G. Liput

337 Followers and Counting

A Shine of Rainbows (2009)

29 Saturday Aug 2015

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Where’er a rainbow touches earth or dives into the sea,
There our share of pain we bear in love most happily.
For as the bow that spans the sky but briefly holds earth’s hand,
So our connections slip away and often end unplanned.
Yet we don’t mourn the rainbow when its brilliant colors fade;
We find those colors elsewhere and remember them arrayed.
When grief and love remind us how the rainbow calmed our fears,
We wait through heaven’s tears for when another one appears.
__________________

Rating: PG

Based on Lillian Beckwith’s novel, A Shine of Rainbows may seem on the same level as a predictable Hallmark film, but it’s endearing enough to give you that warm satisfaction that only a good Hallmark film can.

Early on, young Tomas (John Bell) is adopted by the kindhearted Maire (Connie Nielsen), who ushers him out of the drab, unfriendly orphanage to her Irish island home. While the technique isn’t used again, this beginning mirrors other films like Pleasantville or The Wizard of Oz in emphasizing the contrast of Tomas’s near-black-and-white dejection thus far with the bright and happy colors of his new parent. The rest of the film is full of lush greens and reds and blues that carry an intentional magical quality, making the setting of this Celtic paradise the film’s greatest strength.

I was surprised to learn that John Bell, the little boy who plays Tomas, went on to play Bain, the son of Bard the Bowman in the latter two Hobbit films. Here, he is a shy and sensitive lad, coaxed to happiness by Maire and scared to silence by her husband Alec (Aidan Quinn). Tomas’s intimidation every time he sees Alec grows tiresome after a while, but Maire makes up for Alec’s coldness with warm lessons and stories. After Tomas’s initial introduction to this new family life, there’s the familiar storyline of an indifferent father figure needing to open his heart, and while I could see where the plot was going, it still carried enough heartbreak and warm fuzzies to be engaging.

To be honest, what this film most reminded me of was 2014’s animated Song of the Sea, another Irish family film with Gaelic myths of a stone giant, a distant father, and a climax involving helpful seals. Song of the Sea is much more fanciful, but the Irish accents and some of the themes kept bringing it to mind. Winsome subplots fill out the story, such as Tomas’s friendships with local kids and his care for a cute, obviously animatronic seal. While I enjoyed Song of the Sea more, A Shine of Rainbows is an appealing family drama that should please any lover of Irish scenery.

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2015 S. G. Liput

337 Followers and Counting

VC Pick: My Bodyguard (1980)

21 Friday Aug 2015

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Schools have plenty, I suppose,
Of classmates easy to befriend,
The kind that never give you cause to fret,
But schools are also home to those
Who like to bully and pretend
That they’re the toughest kids they ever met.

If you are having troubled days
With greedy bullies on the prowl,
Get yourself a bodyguard to sturdily defend,
But difficulties still can faze
The biggest bodyguards that scowl,
And even they could use a caring friend.
___________________

Rating: PG

My VC has a habit of recommending films from the 70s and 80s I’ve never heard of, and this is only the most recent. My Bodyguard is a respectable high school film, sometimes cute and sometimes hard to watch.

After starting at a new school and antagonizing the local bully Moody (Matt Dillon), young Clifford (Chris Makepeace) sees a way out of this abuse by enlisting the local scary kid Ricky Linderman (Adam Baldwin) as his bodyguard. While Linderman is the subject of murderous gossip and does the least he possibly can for Cliff, Cliff recognizes him as a boy deeply in need of a friend and reaches out when no one will. Throughout the film, I kept thinking how much this reminded me of a feature length episode of Hey, Arnold!, the Nickelodeon show about a good city-dwelling kid who helps people. The movie shares certain similarities with the show such as the boy’s eccentric grandmother (Ruth Gordon in the film), his family’s business (a hotel in the film vs. a boarding house in the show), and a plot about bullies and misunderstood potential friends that easily could have been shortened to episode length. This comparison isn’t a complaint since I’ve always liked Hey, Arnold!, and it’s interesting to think how films like this might have influenced it.

Having had a little experience with them in the past, I personally can’t stand bullies, the kind who lord their toughness over the weak and ambush the helpless. My Bodyguard doesn’t show bullying at its worst, but there are still several scenes that made me angry at cruel intimidators whom no one will stop. Of course, this is meant to make their just desserts sweet for everyone else, and though the comeuppance was slow in coming, it was realistic enough to be satisfying and encourage viewers to fight their own battles.

My Bodyguard isn’t quite a high school classic, but it incorporates some realistic darker elements to make the friendship between Clifford and Linderman difficult but rewarding. It also serves as one of those before-they-were-famous films, with recognizable young faces like Dillon and Joan Cusack, as well as the debut for Jennifer Beals (in a very small role) and Adam Baldwin (known as Jayne Cobb to us Firefly fans). Baldwin is perhaps the best here, turning in a quietly damaged performance that anticipated good things to come.

Best line: (Moody) “You broke my nose!”   (Linderman) “It looks better that way!”

Ranking: List Runner-Up

© 2015 S. G. Liput

337 Followers and Counting

The Neverending Story (1984)

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

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You think this story’s like the rest,
Like all the books you’ve read before?
It holds a secret none have guessed,
Real quests and dangers to explore.

Can any book draw you inside,
Where wonders wait on every page?
Can characters that there reside
Become dear friends at any age?

Perhaps, yes, any good book can,
But this is no mere written tale.
Just read wherever it began
And lift the word-begotten veil.
______________

Rating: PG

Anyone who’s looked closely at my Gravatar might have noticed that I’m holding Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story, one of my favorite books. I’ve loved this German-to-English fantasy since the first time I read it. I love how each of the twenty-six chapters begins with a different letter of the alphabet, how Uyulala the Oracle speaks only in rhyme, how the lines of fantasy and reality are blurred to draw Bastian and the reader into the land of Fantastica, how it questions the little things of adventure epics like why bathroom breaks are never mentioned, how extraordinary creatures and characters come and go, friends and foes. And of course, I adore how every minor character is given his own untold tale and dismissed with one of my favorite lines of this or any book: “But that is another story and shall be told another time.” No doubt, you’ll be seeing that line elsewhere on this blog.

So then, if I love the book so much, why has it taken me so long to write about the film adaptation from 1984? It’s hard to say; I grew up watching the movie version long before I had read the book, but once I’d been introduced to the novel, the film simply paled by comparison and dropped off my favorites list. It’s not that I dislike it; it captures some of the magic of the book and generally follows the book’s plot, though only the first half of it. Bastian (Barrett Oliver) is a dreamer, a lover of books who is compelled to steal a very special book and follow the adventures of Atreyu the warrior (Noah Hathaway) and Falkor the luckdragon and the Childlike Empress, even as he himself is drawn into the story to battle the Nothing. As a child’s film, it’s a bit darker than the usual fare, akin to Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal. Like those films, it utilizes detailed puppetry to bring many of the book’s characters to life, such as Falkor and Gmork the fearsome wolf and Morla the Aged One. I also like to think the gnomes Engywook and Urgl might have influenced the characters of Miracle Max and his wife in 1987’s The Princess Bride.

Yet while the similarities to the source material are recognizable, there are so many details that are changed. Some are understandable due to the limits of special effects at the time, such as leaving out Ygramul the spider or not making Cairon (Moses Gunn) a centaur, but others just beg the question “Why?” Why did the filmmakers change the name of the magical land from Fantastica to Fantasia (and why did Disney allow it)? Why did they call Atreyu’s necklace the AURYN when the book specifically leaves out the the? Why did they not let the Southern Oracle speak in rhyme? Why did they throw in nudity with the Sphinx gate, knowing this is supposed to be a kid’s tale? Why did they so poorly dub Deep Roy’s voice in the early scene and call him Teeny Weeny as opposed to a “tiny”? They even left out part of that favorite line of mine! All these differences do add up, making for a very inconsistent adaptation, one which displeased the author and prompted him to file an unsuccessful lawsuit.

The visual effects, like the adaptation, are hit-and-miss; while I’m sure they were astounding for the time, some hold up better than others. The Rock Biter (rock chewer in the book), Morla, and the destruction at the end are incredibly well-realized, considering the lack of computer assistance, but many of the puppets and blue-screen shots are very obvious by today’s standards. Likewise, the acting is satisfactory, even though some of it carries a hefty amount of 1980s/child actor cheesiness.

All in all, The Neverending Story is a film I’d recommend to any child who loves books and anyone who loves fantasy. It’s a childhood darling that halfway holds up with its message of imagination and hope, and I do still admire the score for the American version by Klaus Doldinger and Giorgio Moroder. Even so, to anyone who likes this film, I recommend you read the book and see the full scope of The Neverending Story (and ignore the film sequels). The novel is a classic that may someday get a more faithful adaptation, though I ought to check out the HBO miniseries, “but that is another story and shall be told [hopefully] another time.”

Best line: (since my line wasn’t included in its entirety, this is a decent runner-up) (Falkor) “Never give up, and good luck will find you.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2015 S. G. Liput

336 Followers and Counting

The Hours (2002)

14 Friday Aug 2015

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As the hours tick away,
Can you find
A peace of mind?
Ere the debt that all men pay,
Will you stress
For happiness?

Will you leave this earth too soon,
Slack to strive
And stay alive?
From life’s grief, none are immune,
And some begin
To give in.

I, for one, refuse, however,
To relent
To discontent.
Ties weren’t made for me to sever;
Life will grow,
Despite the woe.
_______________

Rating: PG-13

The Hours profoundly embodies that famous quote from Henry David Thoreau, asserting that “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” In the case of this film, that quiet desperation is the realm of women, whether it be an unstable author in 1923, a depressed housewife in 1951, or an overwhelmed hostess in 2001. There is little relief from this oppressive despair, yet the film has artistry to spare, with a superb score from Philip Glass, vivid cinematography from Seamus McGarvey, and poignant performances from three Oscar-winning actresses and Ed Harris.

On a purely superficial level, The Hours has a haunting allure as it eloquently jumps between timelines and slowly reveals their connections, but as I delve deeper into its messages, I find them more and more dubious, even appalling. Let’s start with the three storylines. In Plot 1, Virginia Woolf (Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in a false, uglifying nose) begins her novel Mrs. Dalloway, preparing for visitors and mourning her unsatisfying country existence. In Plot 2, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) stumbles through the simplest activities and mourns her unsatisfying suburban existence. In Plot 3, bisexual Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) plans a party for her dying writer friend Richard (Ed Harris) and buckles under the weight of her unsatisfying urban existence. Obviously this is not a “happy” film, but even tearjerkers can offer some hope or peace or gratification in the midst of trials. Based on its three paragons of sorrow, The Hours seems to imply that life and society are inherently unsatisfying and can only be improved by abandonment of society, of responsibility, of life itself.

Setting aside moral qualms about the characters, I find Meryl Streep’s Plot 3 to be the only one that doesn’t deeply vex me, since it at least captures the sorrow and emptiness that this abandonment causes. Plots 1 and 2 are a different story. Both feature their heroines in clear social anguish, yet I find it hard to sympathize with either one since both of them share a galling selfishness. Mrs. Woolf goes out of her way to annoy the servants and complains about protective measures her husband did out of love, though her history of mental illness at least explains her behavior. Mrs. Brown of Plot 2 is the most perplexing of the three, since she acts as if daily life is an unbearable torture when there’s nothing particularly torturous going on. She doesn’t have a mental illness; she doesn’t have a friend dying. I kept asking, “What is your problem?” and as she decided on different forms of “escape,” I wanted her to just look at her little son and recognize that he alone, a gift of God and the envy of her neighbors, ought to be reason enough for her to bear whatever emotional constipation she was enduring.

I see why The Hours was so acclaimed. Between the acting, the haunting music, and the overall artistry, it’s a film to be studied rather than enjoyed. In particular, I liked the writer details, such as how Virginia Woolf decides to write her book based on the first sentence she develops or how she explains why a character must die. There is good, but as the film nears its end, there is an intellectual, venomous bad as well. The abandonment I mentioned earlier takes center-stage, and instead of being rebuked, it is sympathized and even admired. This mirrors the novel Mrs. Dalloway as well, and Woolf’s ideas in it have clearly affected the scholastic view of her own life and suicide. In watching a behind-the-scenes feature on the DVD, I was shocked at how critics and academics used words like “bold” and “courageous” in describing how she took her own life. I’m sorry, but I find nothing courageous or admirable about the tragedy of suicide nor the actions of several sufferers in The Hours. When one character attempts to explain those actions and comments that she had “no choice,” my feelings toward the movie were clinched. Woolf in the film mentions how we should “love [life] for what it is” but then “put it away”; I disagree. One doesn’t put life away; I could counter with one of the film’s own quotes: “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”

Best line: (Woolf’s sister Vanessa, to her own daughter) “Your aunt is a very lucky woman, Angelica. She has two lives: the life she is living, and the book she is writing.”

Rank: Dishonorable Mention

© 2015 S. G. Liput

334 Followers and Counting

Predestination (2014)

07 Friday Aug 2015

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Destiny knocks
On paradox
And grants the wise
A big surprise.
______________

Rating: R (for frequent obscenities and two scenes of nudity, which are easily anticipated)

Predestination is an Australian film that is hard to describe without spoilers, but I’ll do my best. It revolves completely around the secrets and connections of its characters, creating one of the most paradoxical stories imaginable, courtesy of Robert Heinlein’s short story “’—All You Zombies—.’”

Stating the early facts, there’s a mysterious time-traveling agent intent on stopping a mysterious bomber, which then segues into a conversation between said agent as a Bartender (Ethan Hawke) and a confession writer who writes under the pen name “The Unmarried Mother” (Sarah Snook). (I thought Loretta Modern might have been a good pseudonym too.) From this intriguing start, there are flashbacks and quantum leaps and some fascinatingly subtle time-jumping effects, which all lead to a conclusion that I sadly already knew going in. I’m sorry; I just usually like to know what I’m getting into instead of going into a film cold, but in this case, I wish I hadn’t known, if only to see how much I would have guessed as the story progressed.

Sarah Snook earned the most acclaim for her versatility in playing a highly malleable role, and both she and Ethan Hawke carry the film almost by themselves. As I said, the twists are everything. Whereas most films use them to progress the story, here they are the story, which makes for a compelling puzzle but not so much a satisfying conclusion. Even I who knew what would generally happen still had trouble wrapping my head around everything, and it’s a film that would certainly reward a second viewing. Compared with many blockbusters, Predestination is high science fiction, with an ambitious story that goes a bit too high for my middlebrow tastes.

Best line: (the Bartender) “Preparation is the key to successful, inconspicuous time travel. Luck is the residue of design.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2015 S. G. Liput

329 Followers and Counting

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002)

05 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Movies, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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How provincial is the province where no one has heard the name
Of Dumas or Dostoyevsky or the books that earned them fame!
Why are some so sadly eager to commit the page to flame?

Do not heed the narrow tyrant quick to outlaw and condemn.
Read the words or listen close, and you may find a worthy gem,
But beware that written words have ravished many, changing them.
_______________

Rating: G (should be PG for light language and a few mature themes)

Language: Chinese and French w/ English subtitles

Born in China and now settled in France, director Dai Sijie obviously has deep ties to the story of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, which he adapted himself from his first novel of the same name. Set during China’s Communist Cultural Revolution, it follows his own personal experience of spending three years in a rural re-education camp from 1971 to 1974.

From the very start, the film’s tone is clear. While the village’s devoted Communist Chief promptly burns a cookbook for mentioning chicken because it is too bourgeois, the new arrivals Ma and Luo convince him to preserve Ma’s violin by insisting that Mozart wrote music with Chairman Mao in mind. Like the film overall, the scene is a little pitiful and a little funny, but it clinches the role that music and Western civilization play in helping the oppressed feel human again. Love can do the same thing, and when a tailor visits with his beautiful granddaughter, this “Little Seamstress” wins the hearts of both young men. She, like most of these country folk, is sadly ignorant, and they commit themselves to transform her with their “reactionary” Western ideas.

Based on the mention of re-education camps, I might have thought that this was some dark, murderous picture of persecution like The Killing Fields, but it’s not. In fact, there’s a notable lack of life-or-death danger here. With their forbidden books, the three friends are always in danger of being found out by the semi-vigilant Chief. As an authority figure, though, he’s less like a severe commandant and more like an inattentive parent, who barely notices when his charges sneak behind him with banned ideas and hidden abortions and fibs that prey on his ignorance.

At the same time, these work camps are rather effective, forcing many into a mindset of fear and submission. Yet the stories and concepts that Ma and Luo and the Seamstress keep and slowly spread to others also disseminate a starry-eyed freedom. Can you imagine such a beautiful, exotic name as Ursule Mirouet? Can you imagine a poor man becoming a wealthy count like Edmond Dantes? It’s ironic that, at a time when burning a bra was seen as liberating to women in the U.S., its introduction had an empowering effect on the Little Seamstress, leading to a bittersweet choice.

There’s a “Hitler Reacts” YouTube video (parodying a famous scene from Downfall), in which he decries Balzac’s ending and questions the point of the entire story. However, the film overall has that romantic quality of someone reminiscing, perhaps not of the best years of their life but the most memorable. Like all memories, they are swallowed by the floods of time but not forgotten.

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2015 S. G. Liput

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