Wait Until Spring, Bandini

A typically scripted story of an immigrant Italian family, headed by Joe Mantegna, just prior to the Depression. The film is told mostly from the view of the eldest son, young Arturo.

Bandini (Mantegna) is not taking care of his wife and three boys very well. They're behind in rent and running a tab at the grocery store. Bandini's best bet is betting, in poker games, although he doesn't do very well in that either.

A friend gets him a temporary job fixing the fireplace of a rich widow (Faye Dunaway) and her loneliness compels her to make moves on Bandini and eventually make an offer of marriage, which he refuses out of "honor." But stress in providing for his family brings him back to her. Although he remains faithful, he is tempted by the widow's wealthy lifestyle and beauty.

Meanwhile Bandini's wife (Ornella Muti) is trying to keep the boys in line: Arturo who doesn't take the church confessional seriously, August who has aspirations to become a man of religion and thus often admonishing what is a sin, and the innocent little Frederico.

Things become more stressful when Bandini stays even longer at the widow's, which Arturo, being the eldest,  begins to understand is a problem, but his mother is naively hopeful for his quick return.

Bless Me, Ultima

This Mexican-themed coming-of-age film, which also touches on religion and mysticism, is based on a book of the same name by Rudolfo Anaya, apparently banned in some schools for its pagan depictions. The story is told from the point of view of its young protagonist, Antonio (Luke Ganalon). It tells of the year or two when Ultima, an old woman and friend of the family, comes to spend her final years in New Mexico with them. The story stars an all-Hispanic cast of mostly unfamiliar (to me) actors. I believe Alfred Molina narrates as the adult Antonio.

The story takes place in 1944. Antonio and his sisters have it in their heads that Ultima is a bruja, a witch. But she says she is only a curandera, a healer, and this is borne out a few times during the film when she uses her knowledge of plant lore to save the sick and dying. But, Ultima also uses voodoo-like rituals and this witchlike behavior makes her a bit feared among the Catholic-religious Mexicans who live here.

Antonio’s father has dreams of moving from New Mexico to California where he hopes for a better life. Antonio’s mother comes from a family of farmers and is content to stay here where her father and brothers are close. Since it is in the era of World War 2, Antonio also has several older brothers, barely men themselves, who are fighting in the war, soon to return home.

We see Ultima teaching Antonio plant lore, and he witnesses both tragic and happy incidents involving his family and community. An uncle was unlucky to chance upon some local sisters in the night, who are suspected to be witches, and falls ill because of it, but Ultima cures him. This angers the sisters’ father Tenorio, a powerful man who vows vengeance on Ultima when one of his daughters dies, he believes from Ultima’s curse.

Antonio grows up and starts school, has scrapes with friends. His young uncles have wanderlust and want to migrate elsewhere to start their own lives. Summers are spent harvesting on the mother's family's farm. Antonio's father makes a stand to protect his family and Ultima, but her last days are spent with Antonio’s family as she vowed.

Escape From Planet Earth

This new animated film has a pretty substandard script.  It's about two alien brothers--one brawny, one brainy--who have to work together when the brawny brother (voiced by Brendan Fraser) is stranded on Earth, believing he doesn’t need his brainy brother’s (Rob Corddry) assistance to fly his spaceship and other help. Unfortunately parents will bring their kids to this and think they come out with a “cooperation” moral, but there is rampant commercialism in the first part of the film.

The brawny brother, Scorch, is beloved by all due to his heroic deeds. His brother, Gary, is a mission control technician who operates Scorch’s spaceship by remote control. I thought this in itself was a stupid premise because it just seems nonsensical to have someone else fly your spaceship for you. But then I saw it needed to be part of the plot so that when Gary refuses to help Scorch, Scorch ultimately gets stranded on an alien planet since he doesn't know how to fly his own ship. Anyway, Gary’s son even admires Scorch over Gary, emanating his braggadocious behavior. Gary gets fed up with being unappreciated, and just when Scorch gets a new mysterious assignment to the “Dark Planet” aka Earth, Gary quits and refuses to help.

What Scorch and everyone else doesn’t know is that instead of saving someone on a secret mission, Scorch has been duped to deliver some priceless energy component to an evil Earth military officer (William Shatner) who intends to use the energy to travel to other worlds to dominate alien races. Scorch and other stranded aliens are forced to work for the military, and once Gary finds out, he gives in to save his brother.

The Moon-Spinners

This is one of Hayley Mills' Disney era pictures she did as a teenager. When I watched this as a kid she was the only actress I knew, despite Joan Greenwood as her aunt, Eli Wallach as the villain, Irene Papas as the inn owner, and Pola Negri as a rich woman that Mills meets late in the picture.

Mills is Nikki, who travels with her aunt (Greenwood) to the Mediterranean island of Crete. They take in the local color while her aunt records folk songs for her anthropological studies. Nikki spies an attractive young man, Mark (Peter McEnery) whom she later discovers has some kind of secret. It involves the menacing/friendly Stratos (Wallach, playing Greek) and stolen jewels. The young couple have to find proof that Stratos is a thief while also evade being kidnapped and shot.

Return engagement: Tales of the Night

Tales of the Night returns to Chicago. 

This animation film of several short folk tales is a French language film, although the tales take place in different parts of the world.  See my review here.  There are a couple more days to catch this at the Gene Siskel Film Center.  This would be great to watch with kids, obviously, but adults can also appreciate the artistry of the shadow puppet/cut paper animation style and bold colors.

Free event: ParaNorman

One for the kids, a pretty new movie that maybe they haven't seen yet. Paranorman is an animated film about a boy who is able to talk to ghosts. He helps saves his town from a curse.

ParaNorman
Saturday, November 24, 2012
2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Northbrook Public Library
1201 Cedar Lane
Northbrook, IL 60062

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. 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

As many kids movies are these days, this one is based on a series of books as well as the third of a series of films.  The main character is a put-upon boy comically fighting the growing pains of, well, growing up.

In this installment, the main set of characters are still being played by the same actors, giving continuity to the series. Pre-teen Greg (Zachary Gordon) is now looking forward to summer break between 7th and 8th grades, where he plans to zone out by playing video games all summer. His dad (Steve Zahn) though wants him doing something more constructive, such as joining the local scouting troup, or doing some reading of classic novels as his mother (Rachael Harris) suggests. Dad even thinks a new dog might help get Greg to doing outdoor things instead of vegetating indoors.

When Greg sees that his secret crush Holly (Peyton List) belongs to the country club, he enlists his best friend, the goofy and conservative Rowley (Robert Capron) to bring him as his +1 guest, and lies to his dad that he has a job there, to prevent his dad from bothering him further about getting a summer job (as well as avoid military school). Complicating his lie is that his older bullying brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick) lusts after Holly's vain sister and threatens in his big brother way to expose Greg's lie if he doesn't help him get near her.

Olympic Dreams--Shodo Girls

I don't think "shodo" is going to be an Olympic sport anytime soon, but it was interesting to see a local cultural art framed as a competitive sport, while also showing how these old manual arts are disappearing from the youth culture of many countries.  Perhaps Olympics host countries can showcase a lost art like this one instead of always looking into what is up and coming.

Based on real events, shodo is a Japanese calligraphic art, where calligraphers write mottoes or poetry in beautiful brush script. This craft is on the decline. A high school girl, Satoko, who belongs to the school's calligraphy club, tries to generate interest in this ancient art as she can see for herself that the town needs a boost due to the poor economy. They are assigned a new school advisor, but he is flashy, which doesn't equate with her sense of what the classical art should be.

Other club members and their families are shown. This is a paper mill town, and many families' livelihoods are dependent upon the trade. One boy's grandfather is despondent that his handcrafted high-quality paper is passed over for the mass produced products one can find in an office supply store. Another girl's father owns an arts supplies store that no one shops in anymore. Many other shops are closed due to the economy and the results of global trade. Another girl, a former friend of Satoko whose single mother is ill, hides that fact and tries not to let on that she can't attend college and must find work instead.

Satoko, desperate, forms a contest where school calligraphy clubs can compete in a flashy competition involving dancing and splashy motifs. (Similar to those big cheerleading competitions we have here in America.)

Olympic Dreams--The Winning Season

This is a typical underdog sports story starring Sam Rockwell in a type of role he is good at, the loveable loser. It's a sort of a comedy version of Hoosiers (that movie is referenced in The Winning Season, which also takes place in Indiana). The writer of this movie (also from Indiana) wrote Lonesome Jim and Grace is Gone and so you can see the "sad loser" feeling seems to be a theme.

Rockwell is Bill, a divorced, alcoholic, middle-aged dad working as a busboy. He seems to have had some promise as a high school basketball player, but that dream didn't evolve. The principal of a local school who was a friend of Bill's asks Bill to coach the team. Bill is excited--until he finds out it is the girl's team. While Bill and the girls learn about each other, both don't think the other can do the job.

Bill seems too laid back but his training is smart, although it depends on the girls working hard, which is something he has trouble motivating them to do. Like his own first reaction, many think the girls are not worth very much.  Most of the players (one is Rooney Mara, the new Lisbeth Salander) have some kind of trait or storyline so you can tell them apart. Bill also has trouble relating to girl problems, so hires the female schoolbus driver (Margo Martindale) as assistant coach to help him in this aspect. She becomes both a mother hen as well as a pretty good legitmate assistant coach.

Olympic Dreams--Whip It!

A Texas teen (Ellen Page) discovers roller derby, but her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) would prefer her to be a beauty queen. Bliss sneaks out of the house to attend a match, meeting a cute musician (Landon Pigg). She has found her true calling and is encouraged by one of the pros (Kristen Wiig) to get a spot on the team. Bliss becomes "Babe Ruthless," and soon becomes very good despite her amateur status. This helps the team because they've never won a championship.

Bliss continues to sneak out, juggling her waitress job, pageant duties, lying to her family, as well her budding romance. Rival skater "Iron Maven" (Juliette Lewis) later finds out a fact about Bliss that jeopardizes her place on the team as well as the success of the team.  Also, her family finds out about her extracurricular activity, which also forces Bliss to choose between the loves of her life--her family or her sport.

Daniel Stern is Bliss' dad; Drew Barrymore plays another teammate (she also directed and co-produced); Jimmy Fallon gives additional humor as the play-by-play announcer; Andrew Wilson is Bliss' team coach; Alia Shawkat plays Bliss' loyal friend.

CICFF 2011: Tales of the Night

Not to be confused with the recent Chicago International Film Festival, Tales of the Night was one of the programs in the Chicago International CHILDREN'S Film Festival this weekend. This French movie is a compilation of television shorts made into a film through connecting segments of a theatre troupe thinking up story ideas. There are three characters in the troupe, a young man and young woman, who take on the roles of lovers in the folk tales they spin; the other character, an older man, help them form their basic story plots of six folk/fairy tales. The characters are shown in silhouette in front of vividly colored backgrounds. The film was created by Michel Ocelot, whose previous films have similar folk tale themes and visual presence.