The White Ribbon (Austria)
This was a rather disturbing film that gets it title from a minister’s wife who ties a white ribbon around her children’s sleeves so they will be reminded to be pure. Things start going “wrong” in their small village and there seem to be no end of fingers pointed, and each family seems to deal with the events in their own cruel ways. One of the actresses playing a minor role in this movie was one of the central characters in the film “Everyone Else”.
An Education (United Kingdom)
A schoolgirl (16 or so) is preparing for exams so that she can get into Oxford to study English. She meets a much older and experienced man who is able to take her to concerts, restaurants, and even Paris. Predictably they soon become lovers. The tricks used to gain the confidence of the girl’s parents are great. Shortly after their engagement is announced, the girl leaves school and then finds out that the man is already married. Not entirely fiction, the film is based on a memoir. The role of the father was particularly well cast and acted.
Nora’s Will (Mexico)
This story of an older woman who kills herself with an overdose brings together a variety of characters and laughs at some of the religious rites surrounding death. The ex-husband finds his wife and notifies their son. The son advises their rabbi and the Jewish customs seem about to take over. Because it is Passover the woman can’t be buried right away so the ex buys a funeral package from a Catholic cemetery, which adds strange complications to the family. Eventually the news is out that the death was a suicide so no one seems to want to perform the burial. The issue is eventually solved and the family and friends appear to come together, just as Nora wanted.
Can Go Through Skin (Netherlands)
A young woman survives a rape and retreats into herself in a rundown farmhouse in the country. Interaction with her neighbours at times helps her come out of her shell and at other times frighten her back in. At no time though does she seem a “well” character. At the end of the film we suspect that she has had a hand in the murder of a taxi driver who may have been the rapist, although it was the pizza deliveryman who was on trial. My fellow moviegoers were as confused as I was. Was she raped twice? Was her boyfriend involved in the murder? Was he in some way responsible for the rape?
Broken Embraces (Spain)
We have loved every film we’ve seen by the director (Pedro Almodovar) and this was no exception. The film begins as the story of a successful scriptwriter, but we soon learn that the scriptwriter was once a successful filmmaker. During the shooting of his last film, he falls in love with the mistress of the wealthy and powerful man who is producing the film. Through an arranged “accident” the mistress is killed and the filmmaker loses his sight. The producer goes ahead with the film, using the poorest takes. The film is a flop and the filmmaker’s name is in ruins. This is when he begins writing very successful scripts using a pseudonym. At the end of the film the filmmaker has found the negatives from his last film and is working on a remake.
My Year without Sex (Australia)
A very humorous look at the way the lives of a woman and her family change in the year following her near-death experience. There are some great characters - I particularly liked the ex-rock star minister.
Everyone Else (Germany)
The movie started out OK but before it was over it had just become boring. A couple is spending a vacation at his parents’ home on the island of Sardinia. As their time there passes we learn that he is a failing architect who now has plans to redo a villa on the island. His girlfriend works for a Public Relations firm and they seem to be headed in different directions as a couple. The movie ends suddenly without any real resolution so I guess we can make up our own minds about how it ends. Sad part is that I really don’t care, and there weren’t even any beautiful scenery shots.
Camino (Spain)
Camino, a young girl is diagnosed with cancer and we follow her and her family through to her death. Her mother is a devout Catholic and considers every tragedy that has befallen the family to be an act of God (although she had her scheming hands in some of it). Her father is less devout but seldom stands up to his wife. Her sister lives in near seclusion, on her way to becoming a nun. In her final hours Camino is dreaming of a childhood sweetheart and the theatre company she longed to be part of. But to her mother and the group of priests gathered around her bedside, every word she mutters is taken to be that of a devout child meeting her God.
Backyard (Mexico)
This very powerful drama has its roots in the story of thousands of women who have been murdered in Mexico in sex-related crimes. According to the statistics at the end of the movie, there are thousands more women missing. The story takes you through the efforts of a female police officer fighting to solve the crimes, as well as the fight she has with a corrupt legal system, including a corrupt police force. Her support comes from the head of a women’s group and a radio announcer. And a familiar face popped up in the movie (Jimmy Smits) but I won’t tell you which side he was on.
Soul Birds (Germany)
This documentary follows the lives of three children diagnosed with life threatening illnesses. The story of a young woman, who eventually loses her battle, is told in her own voice and through the messages she has written in her journal. A young Down’s syndrome boy fighting leukemia defies the odds and goes into remission long enough to see his baby brother. A third child, also fighting leukemia, is in remission. The filmmaker, who was at the screening, pointed out that the film was meant to show the way the children lived, as opposed to the fact that they died. A sad documentary for sure, but it did seem a story of life.
Cooking With Stella (Canada)
A huge lineup for this film and the theatre was full. Although the film is Canadian, it takes place in India. Stella is the cook at the Canadian Embassy in New Delhi. The diplomat couple (where the wife is the diplomat) move into the compound. The husband is a chef and wants to learn how to cook authentic Indian dishes, with Stella as his teacher. The moneymaking schemes of the cook and the nanny make for a fun story, but it didn’t seem to be a very good characterization of the Indian people.
Splinters (Poland)
This story was told, as the title suggests, in splinters. You meet the three main characters and get a bit of each of their stories but it isn’t until the end that all the bits and pieces are sewn together.
Jermal (Indonesia)
A young boy is taken by boat to a jermal (a fishing platform in the middle of the sea). The boy’s father is on the jermal but he refuses to acknowledge his son. During the course of the movie the man’s past (and the links to his son) is revealed. The son endures the bullying of the other boys on the jermal and eventually wins a few friends, mainly because he is able to write. The father eventually acknowledges the boy and the two make their way off the jermal.
The Eclipse (Ireland)
A man and his children are getting over the death of their mother/wife. During a local writer’s festival in the man’s hometown, his job is to ferry around an author who is well known for her belief in ghosts. Not long into the film, the man begins to see the ghost of his father-in-law, although the father-in-law isn’t dead. Just as you settled in for a nice romantic moment you were ripped out of your seat with another apparition.
My Daughter (Malaysia)
This was a short film (73 minutes), but it seemed much longer. Not much dialogue between the two main characters – a mother and daughter. The mother appears to be in an abusive relationship, although we never see the man, and the daughter seems to have no purpose to her life other than to pick up her mother when she “falls”.
Excited (Canada)
This is story about a youngish man who has an over-bearing mother who can’t wait for grandchildren. The main character is divorced and looking for someone, but his “sexual problem” just may derail any plans he has of forming a lasting relationship with the woman he falls for. When it appears as if the problem can be resolved, he learns that his girlfriend is unable to have children. It is an interesting and well-acted movie, and it is always nice to recognize Vancouver in the shots.
My Tehran for Sale (Iran)
This is the story of a young woman growing up under the strict rules of a Muslin country. Her lover, an Australian citizen, emigrated from Iran as a child but has since returned. As the movie opens she is trying to get a visa to move with him to Australia, but her medical exams reveal she is HIV positive. With that news, her boyfriend is gone, as well as her hopes for a visa. She sells all her possessions and manages to buy her way out of the country in the back of a truck. The film closes in Australia, where she has been detained for 2 years. She is having difficulty proving her refugee status, and her choices appear to stay in detention or be deported back to Iran.
Antichrist (Denmark)
The title, and knowing Willem Dafoe was one of the stars, led me to correctly assume I was in for an intense movie. The opening scene is beautifully shot and gives a hint of the drama that will unfold. In the first hour the story unfolds as a young mother and her husband/therapist work through the grief of losing a child. The movie gets a bit darker after that point and sort of turns into horror.
Northless (Mexico)
A young man, Andres, is attempting to illegally cross the border into the US from Mexico. When he is caught, he is sent back to Tijuana. He begins work in a small grocery store and becomes friends with the owner and her assistant. Both of their husbands had made more than one attempt to cross, and when they finally did make it across their families never heard from them again. On the advice of a friend of the owner, he makes a second attempt at a spot that he has been told is safe. He is recaptured again and ends up back in Tijuana. Now he must decide whether to attempt another crossing on his own, a crossing with the help of a “coyote” (a human smuggler), or forget the whole idea and stay in Mexico.
Tibet in Song (Tibet)
This documentary filmmaker escaped out of Tibet to India with his mother when he was 2 years old. He grew up listening to the elders in the refugee camp singing the traditional Tibetan folk songs. After earning a degree in music in the US he returned to Tibet (against the advice of his family) to record and document the folk songs of the Tibetan people. He found that under the Chinese occupation the traditional folk songs were being lost because the people were not allowed to sing any of their traditional songs or perform any of their traditional dances. While crossing through a security point he was arrested as a spy and sentenced to 18 years in prison. After a number of high profile pleas on his behalf he was released after 6 years. The film deals with the politics surrounding the Tibetan situation, and he speaks to many people who were imprisoned due to their revolutionary beliefs.
A Cargo to Africa (Canada)
This is a great story about an aging and ill Canadian aid worker who has been evacuated from Africa but desperately wants to get back. As he is trying to buy his passage onto a ship his path crosses that of a child whose only goal in life seems to be to torment him. With a small exotic money added into the mix, the movie is delightful and another highlight of the weekend.
This Way of Life (New Zealand)
This documentary follows the lives of a young family for a period of four years. The family is living as much as possible off the land, hunting their food and raising horses. A quarrel with his stepfather has forced the family (with their six children) to move from their century-old home. They live in a shed for a short while and then are able to move into a larger home, which has both advantages and disadvantages from the mother’s perspective. The children are delightful and the scenery is spectacular.
Morphia (Russia)
A young doctor begins practice in a small town in a remote province in Russia. After performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on his first patient (who dies of diphtheria) the doctor has an allergic reaction to the anti-diphtheria vaccine and calls for one of the nurses to give him an injection of morphine. That begins his downfall, as he soon becomes addicted. He becomes lovers with the nurse who, in her attempt to understand his addiction, begins injecting herself. As the supply of morphine dwindles, and the need to hide his pilfering, the doctor fills the empty morphine bottles with other drugs so that it will appear as though there is still morphine on the pharmacy shelves. When patients die because they were given a fatal drug (that was supposed to be morphine) the doctors goes into treatment. Not unexpectedly, this does not have a happy ending.
Heliopolis (Egypt)
The story is a day in the life of several characters that, at some point during their day, all cross paths in some way. In the evening they all appear to be headed for Heliopolis (a suburb of ancient Cairo) and I expected the worst – maybe a bomb. But apparently the worst (or the bomb) was the poor quality of the storytelling. I wanted to see this film because the cast and crew were all volunteers. The acting and filming was fine, but the script wasn’t very good. For me, this was the worst of the weekend.
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru)
A young woman has grown up steeped in the fears of her mother who was raped during the war of terrorism in Peru. The young woman and her mother live with her uncle, but as the film opens the mother dies. The daughter must leave the house and find work so that she can make enough money to take her mother’s body back to her village for burial. As she manages this task, she has overcome much of her fear of the world around her.
Bakal Boys (Philippines)
Bakal means metal. The movie focuses on the young boys who dive for scrap metal in Manila Bay in the Philippines. The boys shown in the film are not actors, but true metal divers, although the film itself is a work of fiction. I didn’t get much sense of the actual difficulties of making the dives, although you are aware of the dangers from the constant warnings against diving given by the mothers and Grandmothers, and through the loss of one of the divers. Being able to supplement the family income has merit and the director says that all the boys have continued to dive after the movie was completed.
It's Complicated
Meryl Streep plays Jane, a woman who has finally gained her sense of balance in life after being divorced for ten years. Her ex-husband, Alec Baldwin, who married the mistress that was the reason for the divorce, is now less than happy in his relationship. While on a trip to New York for their son’s graduation the two spend an evening together and end up sleeping together. In spite of Jane’s misgivings, the affair continues after the couple returns home to Santa Barbara. Steve Martin plays Jane’s new love interest. There are some hilarious moments in the film, and the son-in-law (played by John Krasinski from The Office) is perfectly cast.
Ewan McGregor plays a small town reporter who heads off to the Middle East in hopes of making a name for himself as a reporter during the Iraq war. While waiting in Kuwait for travel documents he meets Lyn Cassady (played by George Clooney) who is a retired Jedi warrior from the New Earth Army, an elite force whose goal is to fight (and win) wars using physic and paranormal powers. Jeff Bridges plays the role of the leader of the New Earth Army, and Kevin Spacey rounds out the cast as the man who had reactivated the battalion. They all meet in the desert where Lyn is able to right a wrong that he feels has cursed him all his life – he stared a goat to death for no good reason.
This is listed as a black comedy, but if you picture the main character with a black cloud over his head and rain pouring down you will get the same picture. The movie is written and directed by the Coen brothers, who are particular favorites of ours. Larry Gopnik is a university professor that just can't seem to get anything right. But it probably runs in the family because his brother, who sleeps on a cot in his living room, doesn't seem to have any better luck. Larry's wife has decided to leave him and his relationship with his children is unlikely to improve when he and his brother must move to a motel down the street. Things go from bad to worse, even when his wife's lover is killed in a car accident.
Matt Damon never disappoints, and even though I didn't love the movie I did like his performance. His character starts out by calling in the authorities regarding a blackmailing scheme against his company. As the FBI begins to investigate it turns out there is a much larger crime of price-fixing going on. And at every step of the story new evidence is revealed until you arrive at the end where you aren't quite sure just who is lying and who is telling the truth, and whether or not the whole truth has even come out. The movie, which is based on a true story, is part drama with a lot of humour thrown in.
Julie and Julia
I was afraid from the trailers that Meryl Streep might be a little "over the top", but she played the role perfectly. There are really two stories overlapping each other and both were well acted. I would have loved to have known what it was that Julia Childs said abut Julie Powell when it appeared that their paths might cross - perhaps I'll have to read the book to find that out.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
I've never read the books, but I have seen a couple of the movies. After seeing this movie I am considering picking up the series and seeing what all the fuss is about. I'm not sure if the hype has worn me down, or if now that "the kids" are older I'm finding the story more interesting.
Public Enemies
Even though I am a huge Johnny Depp I had no interest in seeing this movie. We went to the theatre hoping to see Harry Potter only to find that it didn't open for another few days. This was the second choice. It was violent, but at the same time it seemed to me that with the number of rounds fired throughout the movie that everyone should have been dead sooner. I came out feeling that I didn't like the "good guys" any better than the "bad guys".
My Sister’s Keeper
I saw this movie just as quickly as I could after finishing the book. Although it wasn't strictly true to the book, I did enjoy it, if by enjoying it you mean starting to cry about a half-hour in and not stopping until the end. Cameron Diaz was great - probably the best role I've seen her play. I won't be surprised if more of Jodi Picoult's books are made into movies.
Review to follow
Review to follow
Review to follow
Review to follow
Review to follow
Star Trek
I had heard good things about the movie from some dedicated Trekies so thought it would be fun - and it was. I didn't know it was a prequel, so it filled in the backgrounds for all the key Star Trek crew you will remember. The characters were well cast, and it was like seeing the original actors in a younger version of themselves. When one of the original actors shows up it is quite a surprise. See it on the big screen - the effects are great.
State of Play
I'm not a Russell Crowe fan, but it had been so long since we'd seen a "new" movie that this seemed the best on offer. I was able to keep one step ahead of the storyline, but I think the screenplay was written that way. You knew who the bad guy was, or what was going to happen, but the plot line filled in the details. The ending was a surprise though. I loved Helen Mirren and Jason Bateman in their roles.
Review to follow