Past seven days

Getting ready for the Chicago International Film Festival which begins next month!  I'm perusing the schedule now and planning my very long days.

The Dwarf Magician
Forever Enthralled
The Master of Ballantrae
Shaun the Sheep:  A Woolly Good Time
Waking Sleeping Beauty
Young Victoria

Won't Back Down

This is a based-on-real-events movie about a Pittsburgh bartender/office worker and a local teacher working together to force their school board to allow them to change their shoddy school.

The bartender Jamie is played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, a working class type who is very passionate about getting the necessary education for her dyslexic daughter. Although her daughter was in a private school once, Jamie could no longer get scholarships so had to revert to going to the bad public school.  Jamie is frustrated she cannot afford to move to a better school district, nor afford a better school on her working class wages, as well as the fact that her daughter’s teacher is an uncaring monster.

Viola Davis is Nonah, a teacher at that school. She too is slipping into apathy with her class, although she has a son who is developmentally challenged, so she can see the parental side of this issue.  She pushes him perhaps too hard in his schoolwork, believing he is smart, but frustrated he just cannot do better. This divides her and her husband and they separate.

Jamie challenges Nonah to do what is best for her son, as well as convince the cute music teacher Michael (Oscar Isaacs) to join and help her rally parents and teachers alike to break from this school to form their own non-unionized school.  It seems there is a law that any parent can create a new school with the proper amount of backers and the right plan. But the school board and teachers' union both do not want this, nor do teachers who fear losing union jobs or jobs altogether if the new school fails. The two women have a lot of people fighting them both passively and aggressively, and work very hard to get people to have the faith in their plan, which is ultimately "for the children."

The Little Fugitive

I think there has been a remake or two, but this original black and white feature was made back in the day where kids played ball in the street while their parents were at work, and a long distance call was important.  This apparently simple film has been noted by filmmakers such as Francois Truffaut as an influence on his work, neo-realism before it was categorized as such.

12-ish-year old Lennie is tired of looking after his 7-year old brother Joey, who loves to play cowboy. When Lennie gets some money for his birthday, he plans on going to Coney Island with his friends. But their mother needs to leave town to visit a sick relative, leaving Lennie to look after Joey and cancelling his plans of birthday.

One of the friends has a rifle which they play around with in an empty lot, and they trick Joey into thinking he shot Lennie, with the evidence of ketchup blood, but don't think beyond the joke they are playing. One friend tells Joey he should go on the lam and gives him Lennie's harmonica, further convincing him that Lennie is indeed dead. 

Plague Dogs

Plague Dogs is, like Watership Down, an animated film based on a book by Richard Adams. Also like Watership Down it takes a pro-animal stance, in this case, against animal testing and confinement.

This story focuses on two dogs at a testing lab--Snitter (voiced by John Hurt), a fox terrier who has had some sort of brain surgery, and Rowf (Christopher Benjamin), a labrador who has been drowned several times to test his fear reactions, to the point that he fears the water now. One night one of their cages is accidentally left open and the two dogs escape from the facility, which is located in a remote hilly area of England. They traverse the countryside as Snitter tries to convince Rowf that they need to find a “master” who will care for them. They cross paths with “the tod,” a crafty fox (James Bolam) who alternately tries to trick them or help them. They run across several possibilities of a master but time and again it is a failure, whether due to cruel humans, marauding animals, or the hardships of travelling cross country. The story sometimes shows us news stories or discussions by human characters who voice concern about the escaped animals and the fear that they might carry the bubonic plague, which was being tested at the facility Snitter and Rowf escaped from.

Past seven days

More tv this week, another short-lived tv series called Andy Barker P.I., starring comedian and talk show sidekick Andy Richter as an accountant turned private investigator.  Also checked out some TedTalks on Netflix.

Double Indemnity
The Golden Goose
Here Comes the Boom
The Little Fugitive
Scarecrow
This Film is Not Yet Rated
Trouble With the Curve
Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers

One From the Heart

This unusual musical drama was directed and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola.  The lore is this initially low-budget film ended up costing FFC $25 million, and many of his films in the next decade or two were used to pay off debts incurred in the making of this film.

Frederic Forrest and Teri Garr are an unmarried couple who are feeling the dullness of their relationship creeping up on them. The setting is Las Vegas, where Frannie works at a travel office. We see she fantasizes about the tropical locales she advertises, wanting a romantic holiday and a man to match. Although Hank works as a mechanic, he too has a dreamy side as he collects discarded casino decorations, his latest acquisition is a big ruby ring.

On the July 4th weekend, Frannie wants something romantic, but Hank can’t offer her much. They argue, and she goes off in a huff to commiserate with her friend (Lanie Kazan). Hank’s coworker (Harry Dean Stanton) also commiserates with him and they visit a casino where Hank sees a beautiful circus performer, Leila (Nastassja Kinski) who wants to escape the drudgery of her job. Frannie is swept up by an attractive man, Ray, whom she finds out later is a waiter with dreams of being a lounge singer (Raul Julia). Both Frannie and Hank have found an exotic and temporary lover, who might run away with them.

Liberal Arts

The synopsis of this movie, 35-year old returns to his alma mater and falls for a 19-year old, would probably draw in the wrong sort of audience. At its base, this story is about the fear of growing old, as well as also about connecting with people and experiencing life instead of sequestering oneself in books or nostalgia.

A New York college advisor Jesse (actor, director and writer Josh Radnor) is invited by an old professor (Richard Jenkins) to speak at his farewell dinner. This gives Jesse the opportunity to visit the campus of his alma mater in Ohio, where he feels nostalgic for what he considers were good times there—where once he could allow his thinking to be free and not be shackled by what he now sees are adult cares and worries and closemindedness. He meets a young woman, Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen) who is the daughter of his professor’s friends. They get to talking about books, and Zibby’s studies in improvisation and music theory shows she has an open mind to these liberal discussions about literature. The two begin to bond through discussion of books. At first everything seems innocent, but soon Jesse feels a little out of touch and even a little old as he observes Zibby with her friends and her casual and friendly manner toward him, despite their age difference. She makes an honest play for him romantically which unnerves him and he escapes back to NYC.

At the same time, Jesse sees another old professor (Allison Janney), whom he also admired as someone who opened his mind to classic romantic novelists. But she is now jaded. Jenkins’ character also feels as if he made a mistake in choosing to retire, and wants to return to his job. Jesse also meets another student, Dean, an outsider genius type who suffered a breakdown the previous year. Jesse can understand Dean’s standoffishness with other “normal” students, in his own attitude about being a bit snobby about literature, which is tested when he finds Zibby reads trashy vampire novels. Zac Efron also has a role as a non-student, an atypical character who offers weird but sage advice that Jesse takes.

Past seven days

I've been checking out some TV shows on Netflix. Some older ones, like Beauty and the Beast, have not aged well.  My tastes tend to those that get cancelled within a year or two.  Better Off Ted, Communityj (currently in its fourth season).  And this one I never heard of but is quite quirky, The Middleman, an action/fantasy where a fixer known as The Middleman recruits a young artist to be his sidekick as he investigates strange crimes.

Otherwise, the movies this week were all foreign.

Breaker Morant
Burros (Donkeys)
Strigoi
Uzumaki

Past seven days

Watched some tv and lots of DVDs!

Criminal
Duplicity
Liberal Arts
Little Shop of Horrors
La Matinee
One From the Heart
Personal Services
Shallow Grave
Today's Special
You Kill Me

Celeste & Jesse Forever

Although the title is "Celeste & Jesse," the story is mostly told from Celeste's point of view. As the title suggests, this is a young relationship, perhaps started from high school or college years with a "never grow old" attitude, and perhaps it is this relationship formed in a time of their lives when the couple has barely dipped their toes into the adult world, that causes the disintegration of the marriage.  When the film begins Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) are driving home and sharing an inside joke, one apparently they have shared many times before, showing to us how attuned and comfortable they are to each other. When they arrive home though, Celeste goes into the house, while Jesse goes into a studio/garage in the back--they've already been separated yet we see they have a still amicable relationship.  She works at a marketing firm and he is some sort of graphic artist.

At first the story shows that Jesse is the one having a hard time moving on, with Celeste gently trying to encourage him to be active with his life and with women, yet also annoyed at him for not doing so. Jesse dates someone just to get it over with, then later re-meets a woman he had a one night stand with (while he was married, which Celeste claims to be okay with it). Celeste herself is not open to dating really, claiming she is emotionally healthy enough not to have to start something long-term again, but all the dates with supposedly normal men end up being a bit weird. The one normal guy she does date can see she still has some issues and suggests she take some time to work them out.  Conversely she ends up with an annoying guy at her yoga class (Chris Messina) despite her initial cynical reservations.