Bolt

Byron Howard, Chris Williams, 2008 (7.8*)
Another enjoyable Pixar-Disney animated film, with some incredibly realistic graphics, at least the landscape portions (the humans look a little stiff and plastic). Bolt is a small Swiss shepherd who is rescued from an animal shelter in the beginning, when he is being appropriately cute with a rubber carrot toy. His person, as he calls her, is a little girl named Penny.

The story inexplicably then skips forward five years, at a point when Bolt and Penny are the stars of a kids tv show, in which Bolt rescues Penny from various perilous situation, most involving a green-eyed man (voiced by veteran actor Malcolm MacDowell).

The only problem with Bolt is that in order to make the show work, he has been fooled into thinking that Penny is really in danger, he has no idea that it's all a TV show, and everything is make believe. Mistaking Penny to be really in danger while he's trapped in his studio trailer, he manages to escape and immediately gets packed up and shipped away.

He runs into an alley cat named Mittens (Susie Essman, perhaps the weakest cast member - I'd have rather heard a pro comedienne like Joan Cusask in this role), and a hilarious hamster in a running ball, named Rhino.

Perhaps the lead roles could have been better cast. John Travolta is just ok as Bolt, he was actually funnier in real action comedies like Get Shorty. Miley Cyrus was just ok as Penny, no doubt selected for her young fan base.

Filmed just after The Incredibles, this has a lot of similar action, but the screenplay isn't quite as good, but it was certainly more entertaining to me than Up, which was Pixar's worst film to date to me, losing their best character in the first 10 minutes, and sticking us with two unlikeable characters for the rest of the film.

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Lost Horizon

Frank Capra, 1937 (8.2*)
Exotic, unspoiled locales around the world have always appealed to the more daring individuals of more populous regions, such as Europe; just look at the nationalities of all the famous explorers. In 1923, Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel was the first known westerner to enter the forbidden Tibetan city of Lhasa. She then published her accounts in her 1932 book Magic and Mystery in Tibet.

Shortly thereafter, novelist James Hilton wrote a short novel about a flight of western travelers that crashes in the Himilayas, and the survivors are rescued and taken to a fictitious hidden city in a mountain valley, called Shangri-La. Basically, this is a story of an exotic utopia untouched by civilization and the ills of modern society. The westerners are treated like welcome guests, and their’s is an adventure of a lifetime.

Frank Capra went out of character for this film of adventure and fantasy, starring Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, and Edward Everett Horton as the crash survivors, and Sam Jaffe miscast as a Tibetan spiritual master. It's contains none of Capra's homespun humor, nor is it a glimpse at classic Americana. A newer partially restored version has the entire soundtrack, but some scenes are filled in with only still images. It looks like the Hays Commission deleted scenes where people were simply talking, but within their bedrooms - innocent enough unless you're under the cloud of censorship.

The story may also be taken as a metaphor of a spiritual quest to find one’s center within, away from the distractions of the material world. Often we get a peek at this realm, and find it difficult to return due to life circumstances. Like the beautiful Australian film Walkabout, this utopia may exist in one’s past, and you can either remember it nostalgically, or make the physical effort to return to the same location where you once found bliss.

Since the late 1800’s, there have been many accounts by westerners of this little-explored region of earth and it’s philosophies, until during the 60’s it blossumed into an international cultural movement, generally called The New Age. The allure of the Himilayas and it’s mountain people have had a profound effect on western civilization, whether intentional or not. This story was an early entry that added fuel to that fire.

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards for 1937, including picture (a year when there were 10 nominations, the winner being The Life of Emile Zola), it won two, for film editing and art direction.

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The Adventures of Robin Hood

Michael Curtiz, 1938 (8.2*)
This version of Robin Hood remains one of the most lively and colorful; it playfully captures the feel of the original legendary myth – after all, it’s a band of merry men cavorting in the woods in tights! These are the people who invented the phrase ‘derring-do’, that pretty well sums it up.

It’s a film of fluff and derring-do, all with gusto and tongue-in-cheek, starring the energetic Errol Flynn as the nobleman turned highway robber with his band of thieves. Olivia de Havilland provides the romance, as a damsel trapped inside the castle with those in control, but whose heart is stirred by this roqueish rascal, who, of course, risks capture just to face Olivia and make with some serious flirtation from a distance, which is all it takes for this bored lady.

Of course, there has to be a reason for all this, so the story is that while King Richard is away fighting in one of the Crusades, the Norman lords, led by Basil Rathbone, are abusing the Saxon masses, so Robin of Loxley stands up for the people by basically becoming a small-time warlord with a tiny guerrilla army hiding in the forests, so he's a medieval Che Guevara fighting the politicians in cahoots with the wealthy capitalists who together are stealing land from the people with inpunity.

For it’s time, this was some of the best technicolor ever put on film, it’s a beautiful palette to behold, one of my favorites (I’m a painter and a photographer, with a degree in Painting and Drawing). They truly 'don't make em like this anymore', though Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy (2003-07) is an attempt to recapture the unbridled, mindless joy of cinematic mayhem in the name of good.

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Outcast of the Islands

Carol Reed, 1951, bw (9.0*)
One of the best adaptations of any Joseph Conrad novel, this is from his Almayer series, about a British merchant (Robert Morley) on a Malayan island paradise. In this tale, an unscrupulous white trader, Trevor Howard, falls in love with a beautiful native islander and basically sells his soul for money so he can entire her away. I and many others think that Howard gave his best performance here, as a weak anti-hero, but really as a typical, self-serving individual.

A terrific cast of veteran British actors includes (along with Morley and Howard), Ralph Richardson, Wilfred Hyde-White, and Wendy Hiller. Conrad had a way of using real action to explore and reveal the depths of one’s character (or a group), such as in this, Heart of Darkness, and The Nigger of the Narcissus. This was one of my favorite novels of his and Reed has done it justice.

There are some haunting images in this that one will never forget, especially some shot in a torrential tropical rainstorm. I would say this is a a must-see, overlooked classic, perhaps Reed’s best film. It received two BAFTA nominations, for best film and best British film.

This is an unjustly overlooked film, and has only been rated by 300 people at IMDB, while dumb, sophmoric comedies have over a hundred thousand. It's due to be released on DVD in 2012. Look for it.

Mostly noted for the noirish The Third man (1949, bw), Reed also directed the Oscar®-winning best picture Oliver! (1967), the musical based on Dickens’ novel, which was a birarre concept but it worked, except for a lead actor who couldn’t sing a lick, but Oscar-nominee Jack Wild was super as Artful Dodger, which led to his own tv show for kids, appropriately named H. R. Puff-n-Stuff. I recently reviewed Reed’s suspense thriller Odd Man Out (1947), with IRA gunman James Mason on the lam.

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Vanishing Point

Richard Sarafian, 1971 (8.2*)
This homage to anarchy should have better known, it was pure action adrenaline from the start. Barry Newman plays a man named Kowalski who delivers cars and must drive a car from Colorado to the west coast in about 24 hours. Soon after starting, he makes a bet to bring it the car in less than 15 hours.

Having to obviously break the speed limit, he arouses the interest of law enforcement along the way, beginning with some motorcycle cops. Eventually, there’s a multi-state effort coordinated to bring him under arrest for flagrantly flouting the law. He becomes a folk hero along the way, being given help on the radio by a DJ named Supersoul, who is blind but has police scanner. Other than a minor diversion with his family, there’s not much character development or interest here, it’s all about the action.

This entire film has a Thunder Road and NASCAR feel to it, as if you can outdrive the law on open highways, as if they don’t really have radios or telephones and can’t simply deploy other units ahead of you. It’s not like a straight car race across the desert, once you get ahead just stay ahead and you’re clear.

The appeal of this film is that it brings existential statements into a car chase thriller, which is admittedly a bit thin but there nonetheless. This film predated the Australian Mad Max series, but seems to have directly influenced The Road Warrior (1981), easily best of the series - and many more modern copycat films, where speed did make you king of at least one stretch of road, that to the box office.

There’s a mediocre remake of this from 97 with Viggo Mortenson as the driver, who has a diversion in the desert with Pita Wilson of Nikita fame, but it just doesn’t have the anarchistic feel of the original.

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The Way Back

Peter Weir, 2010 (8.2*)
This incredible story begins with "In 1945, three men came out of the wilderness after a 4,000 mile walk from Siberia - this film is dedicated to the memory of these men."

Based on a memoir by Slavomir Rawicz called "The Long Walk", which depicted his escape from a Siberian gulag and subsequent 4000-mile walk to freedom in India. This popular adventure became a bestseller, selling over 500,000 copies. Credited with inspiring explorers, one survival expert recreated the same hike himself and served as a technical advisor on this film. However, the BBC unearthed records in 2006 (including some written by Rawicz himself) that showed he had been released by the USSR in 1942, while another former Polish soldier, Witold Glinski, claimed in 2009 that the book was really an account of his own escape. ("I walked 4000 miles!" - "No, I did!")

Whatever the facts, the film depicts a tribute to the survival instinct of man, a harrowing wilderness adventure trek across Siberia, Lake Baikal, Mongolia, Tibet, and finally emerging in the Indian Himilayas.

The story follows seven men who escape from a Siberian gulag consisting of foreign workers who were jailed by Stalin while working in Russia, and the typical assortment of lifetime criminals, led by Colin Farrell, who carries a knife, and a tattoo of Lenin and Stalin on his chest. He escapes with an international group led by American Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), Pole Janusz (Jim Sturgess), a Swede, Russian, and a Hungarian (or was it Romanian?) They are followed by a young Polish teen, who eventually joins the group, played by Saorise Ronan (who celebrated her 16th birthday on the set). Of her talents, Weir said "She was born with a particular acting talent that can't be learned".

The film perhaps loses it's emotional intensity along the way and becomes a slow walk to inevitability, so in that regard it's not as artistic as most of Weir's better efforts, such as Fearless, Witness, and Picnic at Hanging Rock. In spite of that, it's an adventure that needs to be told, and if true, one of the most amazing feats in human history. Similar stories have been documented as many prisoners spend years returning home after wars, many walking as far at 8-10,000 miles, so this story is not that unbelievable.

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127 Hours

Danny Boyle, 2010 (8.8*)
This is a true story of hiker-climber-biker-canyoneer Aron Ralston's solo trek into the Blue John Canyon section of Canyonlands in southeastern Utah, some of the most remote canyon terrain in the U.S., not made a national park until 1964, when re-discovered in modern times by Secretary of State Stu Udall during a helicopter flight.

Ralston is excellently played by Oscar-nominee James Franco, who captures the youthful exhuberance of a child at heart, mixed with an older man's previous wilderness experience - he was actually a volunteer wilderness rescue expert and part-time canyon guide and knows this area well.

I've been in this exact part of the country (and Joshua Tree outside L.A.), and we did a lot of what we called bouldering, or climbing rocks without any equipment, but we never took the chances that Ralston did. About half an hour into the film, Ralston meets some lost ladies (one of whom is one of film goddess Kate Mara, Transsiberian) and shows them both their intended trail, and a hidden underground pool by dropping about 30 feet through a crevice from above (which is shot with some excellent cinematography).

After saying goodbye to his new friends, Ralston is climbing alone when he dislodges a loose boulder at the top of a crevice, which causes him to fall into it and the boulder lands just the right way to pin his right hand and arm to the side of the narrow crevice.

He's now trapped in the bottom, about fifty feet below sky, but he does have his video camera, and his daypack with water and a little food. Of course, the title of the films implies how many hours he remains trapped, you should know that much. But since he has a video recorder, we would know his story whether he survived or not. He certainly thinks he's doomed, and records final goodbyes for his mom and friends.

I went into this with some trepidation about the film's pace and creativity, but the on location terrain in southeast Utah that I've been in myself (Arches Nat Park and Canyonlands are two of my favorite in the U.S.) was the hook for me. I've been there many times, at various ages - it's a desert paradise on earth, one all climbers and hikers should visit, and re-visit.

Boyle has a way to make any film engrossing - I enjoyed Shallow Grave, Millions, Trainspotting, and Slumdog Millionaire, the latter a best picture winner and all definitely worth seeing. I thought Shallow Grave was a perfect parody of Hitchcock suspense thrillers, with three robbers trying to both hide the unspent loot and live together, two guys and a girl, a formula that you know spells disaster.

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The Railway Children

Lionel Jefferies, 1970 (9.0*)
Catherine Morshead, 2000 (miniseries) (9.2*)

Edith Nesbit's wonderful 1906 novel about one English family's children thankfully has two wonderful film adaptations to recommend. They are both faithful to the novel and provide lovable cinematic tributes to her popular work, which is touching and humane without pretension or sentimentality. [see note below about Nesbit herself]

The original is the 1970 film from character actor turned director Lionel Jefferies. A happy family in Victorian London has everything change one night when some strange men come to their home, argue with the father, then leave with him. As a result these new financial hardships, the mother takes the kids and relocates in the countryside, where she barely earns enough for food by writing stories for magazines.

There's not a lot of activity in their new neighborhood, so they take daily walks down the railroad tracks, waving to the train's passengers from a nearby hillside. This somehow seems like a appropriate method of maintaining contact with the outside world, now relegated to nothing but newspaper stories.Some of the passengers always wave back, and include one important railroad man. This unique method of friendly conversation stirs his interest in the children, and the relationship proves mutually beneficial.

Jenny Agutter is wonderful as the oldest child, Bobbie, a young teen, almost a surrogate parent to the other two, Sally and Gary being pre-teens; all are surprisingly independent and risilient. Dinah Sheridan plays the mother, not onscreen nearly as much as the children.

The trains and station are as alive here as human characters, and provide a valuable literary metaphor. In fact, everyone in town gets to know the children through the railroad itself, which is a lifeline to their village. For me, this novel and film said a lot about the passage of time sadly removing our relationships to trains and a gentler, more leisurely time, one without the modern rush of autos and planes, which has removed the social interaction of the bygone era of steam, when most travel was on trains and ships.

The second version is a tv miniseries from 2000, directed by Catherine Morshead. In this version, Richard Attenborough plays the railroad man, Mr. Perk, and Jenny Agutter (Bobbie in the original), plays the childrens' mother, while Jemima Rooper has her original role. I think I may prefer the length of this longer version more, but both are excellent adaptations and make wonderful G-rated family films.


Note: Edith Nesbit's was a British socialist who wanted conditions improved for the impoverished workers of her country, and wrote over 60 books, mostly for or about children (over 40), the ultimate victims of poverty, as due to malnourishment many don't reach adulthood. She and her husband co-founded the socialst organization The Fabian Society, the precursor to the modern Labour Party.

Nesbit wrote about children without writing down to them. They are treated as intelligent, caring, and almost adult in maturity when having to deal with harsh life circumstances. This is likely why her writings are still popular today. In fact, she's considered the first author for children in dealing with the real world and it's problems rather than a fantasy world.

her page at Wikipedia

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The Bird People in China

Takashi Miike, Japan, 1998 (8.3*)
A young Japanese salaryman, played by Masahiro Mitoki (Departures) is sent by his company to China to evaluate a local find of a natural jade vein. Little does he know that he is shadowed by a yakuza who loaned his company money and is out to protect his interests.

The two are taken by train, bus, auto, then on foot, past the last road, to a really remote Chinese village. Along the way they meet another Japanese man there looking for mysterious "bird people", who are said to be the tribal ancestors of the Japanese from the Chinese mainland; he has a prehistoric rock with a bird symbol that he shows them, found in Japan, and he's hunting for similar stones in China.

When the men finally arrive their mission runs into various obstacles, not the least of which is their guide's amnesia, caused by a blow to the head. They are also more interested to discover a mysterious young village girl and a school she has for teaching flying, her haunting English language song and other mysteries that border on folk tales.

Winner of 4 awards, including two acting awards for Mitoki, who won several for Departures.

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The Last of the Mohicans

Michael Mann, 1992 (8.2*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #20
Based on the James Fenimoore Cooper novel, this is the definitive version of this American classic.

Daniel-Day Lewis has the title role as Nathanial Poe, known as Hawkeye, who was adopted and raised as a Mohican. Native American Russell Means plays Chingachgook, the title character. Means was an Indian activist who was at the last clash with the FBI at Wounded Knee. Lewis does a pretty good job, but it seems they could have found a real Native American actor for this part as well.

The story is about British and French troops warring in colonial America, with various Native American tribes helping on either side. Hawkeye seems to have his own agenda, which largely involves a British officer's daughter, played by Madeleine Stowe. Hawkeye, Chingachgook and his son rescue Stowe and some others from renegade Hurons and return them safely to a fort.

Unfortunately the film is more about this romance than the actual nation-shaping war. Michael Mann always seems to have more of a 'tv look' to his films (he created Miami Vice), everything is a little too clean, too pretty, but he escapes that for the most part here with a feature film that looks like a big budget adventure. The cinematography and the music are superb.

This finally brought color to Cooper's work, the previous best versions were all in black and white. Some say this was the first chase story in literature. The climactic scenes on a mountain were shot in the beautiful area of Chimney Rock, North Carolina, one of the nicest parts of Appalachia.

An Oscar® winner for sound, a BAFTA for cinematography, two for actor Daniel-Day Lewis. Winner of 6 awards out of 16 nominations

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Kingdom of Heaven

Ridley Scott, 2005 (7.9*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #15
This is the time of the Crusades in the Middle Ages, a 200-yr period of clashes between Europe and the Middle East (ie, Islam) basically for control of Jerusalem, central to what both sides claim to be Holy Lands.

A blacksmith named Balian (Oliver Bloom) has lost his family and almost his faith as well, yet he still is somehow pulled by destiny. A great knight, Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson), a Crusader home from fighting, reveals himself as Balian's father, and takes him to the Holy Land to fight for Christianity there.

This is highlighted by some incredible special effects, never has medieval war looked so realistic, as huge balls of flaming oil [see below] are hurled by catapults that explode into airborn fire when they hit. Ridley Scott has used his technical expertise to create another real vision of an ancient world, like he did with Gladiator.

The positive here is there are no good vs evil people, just principled soldiers fighting honorably. Even though Bilian's story of personal journey seems to be sacrificed for the historical battle story, it's still a worthy film for giving us a look at what medieval war must have been.

© 20th Century Fox, for promotional purposes only

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The English Patient

Anthony Minghella, 1996 (8.8*)
Best Picture (AA)
Best Picture (BAA)
Memorial Day War-a-thon Film #8
A man is badly burned in a military hospital, and being taken care of by a beautiful young nurse, Juliette Binoche in an Oscar®-winning performance. We are told the story of Count Almásy in flashbacks from the present, a Hungarian mapmaker for the Royal Geographical Society, in their employ to chart the vast Saharan desert. He becomes involved in a tale of romance and intrigue, as he gets involved in an adulterous affair with Kirsten Scott Thomas with the backdrop of war looming, which leads to his present situation in the hospital. Colin Firth ably plays her cheated husband.

One of the more celebrated romances ever, it's in the awards realm of Gone With the Wind, twice as many as Casablanca. However, the two leads in this film, Ralph Fiennes and Kirsten Scott-Thomas, aren't quite superstar caliber yet nevertheless turn in career-best performances. The film is capably carried by the superb craftmanship of all the other arts, cinematography, sound, and editing in particular.

Some may find this a little soapy, because it is ultimately two romances, the Count's tale, and Binoche's nurse and a handsome, young Indian bomb squad officer, played by Naveen Andrews, which actually seems more real than the Count's romance, which may be fable. It's heavier on character and relationship development, so it will be slow for some wanting an action war film; it's not one of those, but it does have all the elements of classic war adventure as well. It's a bit reminiscent of David Lean, which is a good thing.

50 awards, including 9 Oscars® (picture, director), and 5 Baftas (best film) - out of 87 nominations.

Interesting that it's Oscar® losses were lead actor (Fiennes, lost to Geoffrey Rush for Shine), actress (Thomas, who lost to Frances McDormand for Fargo), and screenplay.

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Steven Spielberg, 1989 (8.5*)
After the critical flop of the second in the series, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, not very many people were likely waiting for the third. Perhaps in order to boost interest, Spielberg added Sean Connery to the cast as the father of Harrison Ford, which seems a bit of an age stretch to me, Connery's not that old is he?

But the two's comedic chemistry helped add a little spark to this entry, which also brought back more religious mysticism, in this case the "Holy Grail". Often speculated about, and if it's even a real object or a metaphysical analogy, this film defines it as the cup Jesus drank from at the last supper, which supposedly gave it immortal powers, similar to a fountain of youth concept.

Dad joins Junior in a search for the cup before the Nazis can find it; after all, we don't want Der Fuehrer to have everlasting immortality on earth, do we? Joining the search is a blond Germanic beauty, Alison Doody [photo below] who may or may not be a double agent, who of course dazzles Indiana as well.

There are some nice twists to the legend, and also some intellectual puzzles involved, but this adventure maintains the high standard of pace and action set by the original entry, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), which single-handedly revived the "Saturday matinee" style of adventure films for kids. They mind-blowing climax was actually filmed in the hidden ancient ruins of Petra, Jordan, which is a canyon cleft in the desert, almost invisible from above.

Currently ranked No. 107 on the IMDB 250. Winner of one Oscar®, for sound effects, 5 awards total.

Quote: "We named the dog Indiana"

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The Company

Mikhael Salomon, 2007 (8.6*)
A rare miniseries from TNT, and one almost well done enough to be from the BBC. The title of course refers to the CIA, and attempts to weave some fictional characters within the framework of about 40 years of CIA history and a few real life characters as well. That's the backdrop anyway, the actual story is about the search for an elusive double agent, codenamed Sasha, an American version of Britisher Adrian Kim Philby, also a character here and portrayed by Tom Hollander.

The period covered is from the start of the Cold War to the fall of the Soviet Union primarily follows three fictional Yale graduates from out of college (class of '54), to their recruitment and years within the CIA. Jack McCauliffe (Chris O'Donnell) and Leo Kritzky (Alessandro Nivola) are rowing partners, and their Russian friend is Yevgeny Tsipin (Rory Cochrane).

This is a very absorbing miniseries, with unfortunately uneven acting. Michael Keaton steals the kudos here (with some of his best dramatic work ever) as real life humanoind James Angleton, the chief of the CIA's counterintelligence unit, and was awarded with an acting nomination from the Screen Actors Guild. Usually excellent Alfred Molina is a little over the top here (as operations mgr Harvey Torriti), Chris O'Donnell is his traditionally bland self (and is in nearly every scene), while Alessandro Nivola as his rowing partner and friend Leo came off a little better. Rory Cochrane is pretty believable, thanks to excellent accent work, as the Russian emigre Yevgeny Tsipin. I always like Natascha McElhone (she's a beauty), but she's not as riveting here as in John Frankenheimer's Ronin (1998), where she was mysterious, intriguing, and militaristic as a possible IRA terrorist.

Those who like this should definitely watch Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006), starring Matt Damon, based on true CIA events. It's realistic and riveting and proves that De Niro can direct also. And, of course, the excellent mini-series Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983) from the BBC, starring Sam Neill as the real life model for James Bond, Sydney Reilly, a Russian defector to Ireland who created his name and his persona.

This series, even though on TNT, did not go unnoticed - it won 6 awards out of 19 nominations, many for it's excellent cinematography by Ben Nott. Director Mikael Salomon was also given a directing nomination from the Directors Guild of America, while Jeff Beal's music won an Emmy.

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She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

John Ford, 1949 (8.4*)
Despite the terrible title, this is one of the best of the John Ford westerns, my favorite of his 'cavalry' films with John Wayne. In this more believable story, Wayne plays a retiring colonel, who is sucked into one last Indian war, something he hoped was all in his past by this point.

The title comes from a young lady, Joanne Dru, at the local fort who's playing one young lieutenant vs another (John Agar and Harry Carey Jr.), and doesn't appear to care which one wins the game. This provides an unnecessary distraction to the real story; unfortunately they chose this particular plotline for the film's title.

I think what I liked about this film vs. the other Ford-Wayne collaberations is that Wayne is finally human, he's simply old and worn out from decades of warring with no end in sight. He's no longer the superhuman ass-kicking American, he's ready to retire in his armchair in front of the tv or radio or perhaps drowsily fishing on a lake somewhere with his dog.

Beautifully photographed, winner of a cinematography Oscar® for Winton C. Hoch

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A Boy Ten Feet Tall

Alexander Mackendrick, 1963 (8.6*)

aka Sammy Going South (the novel and original film title)
A young British boy living in Port Said, Egypt, played by Fergus McClelland, narrowly escapes a bomb from an air raid during the 56 Suez crisis that destroys his apartment block, killing both his parents. With little alternative, he decides he has to travel (on foot and any other way he can) to Durban, South Africa, to be his only remaining living relative, an aunt. During his 4500 mile journey from north to south africa, which mirrors his transition from boy to man, he experiences firsthand the varied cultures of the dark continent, such as the slave trading, animal poaching, and criminal smugglers.

One smugller he meets along the way is Edward G. Robinson, in one of his last film roles (Cincinatti Kid followed in 65) as a man who takes the kid under his wing, saves his life, and adds to his self-confidence as he makes his way down the continent. This was a perfect chance for the academy to give Robinson his first Oscar® nomination and first win; it's hard to believe he was never even nominated.

This was very inspirational to me as a kid of 12 when it came out, and features some stunning views of colonial Africa. It's hard to believe that it's not on dvd in the U.S. (just a PAL version in England under it's original title), and that only 213 people (now 214) have voted for it at IMDB, with an average rating of 6.9 - this is a much better children's film than 95% of the G-rated animated pablum being produced nowdays.

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The Mosquito Coast

Peter Weir, 1986 (8.2*)
Harrison Ford is an American inventor who has finally had it with civilization and all its debris. Against the wish of wife Helen Mirren, he decides to move his entire family to the jungles of Belize in Central America, and establish a family farm commune there that he hopes will become self-sustaining. His lifetime dream is to bring ice cream to primitives in the jungle.

There he finds a new chance but once again religion in the form of a fundamentalist missionary with his own brand of God's wrath crosses his path and becomes a metaphor for facing spiritual issues head on. This is another of master director Peter Weir's good films; nearly all of his are worth viewing and this is no exception, as it concerns man's basic instinct for survival vs. personal ideals.

Look for Butterfly McQueen from Gone With the Wind and her squeaky voice as a follower of the primitive missionary in a religious commune, in one of her last roles. The late River Phoenix plays one of Ford's kids.

Quote: Are we still going upriver?
Quote 2: Man's biggest mistake - walking upright and exposing all his vital organs.

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Inception

Christopher Nolan, 2010 (9.2*)
If you take the paradoxical spacial anomalies of artist M.C. Escher and use that structure to construct a film narrative, you'll get an approximation of the complexity of the plot of Christopher Nolan's amazing science fiction film. Most of the action takes place in a dream state, which means that you get something based in reality, yet one which seems to have some small anomalies that trigger the uneasy feeling that something is not quite right.

Using the idea that the subconscious may be manipulated from this state, an idea they call 'inception', scientist Leonardo Dicaprio has built a small company that attempts corporate espionage for huge fees. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays his assistant, always there to help monitor the dream state, while ex-wife Marion Cotillard, who steals the acting kudos in this, usually shows up in Dicaprio’s sub-conscious state.

In a new assignment, he is hired by Ken Watanabe who has a business agenda involving the late Pete Postlethwaite (who recently died of cancer), plays a dying business tycoon who built a huge congomerate that he’s passing on to son Cillian Murphy. He enlists the aid of an architect, in this case student Ellen Page, to build a false world but one based on the reality of the particular subject's.

There are elements injected by Nolan that the non-scientist wouldn't consider, so this is a well-researched idea that gives reality to the subconscious world through some mind and space-bending special effects. Nolan has managed to create an imaginary world so close to reality that the subject is fooled into thinking he's in a real situation and responds to the manipulation.

The man who gave us the complex backward chronology of the murder mystery Memento has once again used a brain-scrambling narrative that will both intrigue and baffle many viewers. Nolan, who also gave us Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and the Sci-fi magic tale The Prestige, is proving to be able to stand apart from a legion of formulaic filmmakers in making us think while he keeps us riveted with action that threatens to propel his main character over the edge of a cliff at any moment.

Currently ranked #6 all-time on the IMDB 250, it's obvious that Inception has enough action to satisfy that lowest common-denominator of film fans, cloaked in an intellectual puzzle sophisticated enough to intrigue and pique the interest of those of us tired of the standard action formula film of good vs. evil with a fight to the death as a predictable climax. The film is up for four upcoming Golden Globe awards, and 11 Satellite awards, and will certainly be a contender for some Oscars® as well.

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Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy

Gore Verbinski, 2003-2007
The first pirate films in history to actually make money are based on the tame kid's ride at Disneyland, another first. The three films grossed over 2 billion dollars, and actually cost over 600 million to make. They succeeded by being unabashed mindless adventure films with plenty of violence, special effects, and no sex, the perfect PG combination allowing them to provide daycare for parents hoping to raise kids typically immune to violence to prepare them for the adult world, where, as Tarentino said, "if you kiss a breast, it's a R rating, but if you slice it off, it's only PG."

(1) The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003 (7.7*)
[#233 in the IMDB top 250, rated 8.0 by 244k viewers]
The first film is named for the ship that is skippered by Johnny Depp in a drunken performance as Capt. Jack Sparrow, an engaging ne'er do well pirate with more makeup than an aging Keith Richards, who looks more like Cher than Depp. Ironically, he received a baffling Oscar® nomination for best actor. How cutthroat pirates are willing to follow a fairly effeminate buffoon of a pirate is never explained.

Olivier Bloom is only slightly more hetero as Will Turner, in love with Elizabeth Swann, played with vigorous anger by Keira Knightly, who somehow manages to keep from being mauled by shiploads of men as all battle the evil Dutch East India Trading Co, the first stock-based corporation in the world, which later went bankrupt in 1800. Here it replaces the British Empire, though seemingly run by British sailors, as the resident evil that has people cheering for the pirates. Geoffrey Rush shines as the former Black Pearl captain, intent on getting his ship back from Sparrow; to me, he actually steals the acting kudos for all three films.

26 awards, 73 nominations

(2) Dead Man's Chest, 2006 (8.2*)
[rated 7.3 by 155k viewers at IMDB]
Since these are really nothing but CGI based adventures for kids, I prefer the 2nd film due to two eye-popping sequences. Best in all the films is a swordfight with Depp and a company rep that begins on a water wheel, which rolls down the island hills and to the sea, while the two battle the entire time. Another involves the pirates being caught and bound in a giant net cage handing off a mountain cliff. The pirates rock it back and forth in order to grab land and pull themselves up. This also introduces us to Bill Nighy as Davy Jones, complete with a live beard of moving octopus tentacles, and a barnacle-encrusted crew.

30 awards (66 noms), 13 for special effects, including a special effects Oscar®. Two awards were for best film from MTV and People's Choice


(3) At Worlds End, 2007 (6.7*)
[rated 7.0 by 138k viewers]
The last film is the most disappointing, in spite of an eye-popping sequence at world's end where the ocean spills over into space, and two ships swirl downward into a giant vortex. This was a disappointing 'conclusion' to a story that had a promising beginning, a dreary slow-moving voyage to nowhere.
16 awards, 29 nominations

The three films totaled 72 awards out of 168 nominations, the lion's share for special effects and popular fan awards. In a hilarious dig at the series, on Family Guy, Peter Griffin wakes up and tells his family "I had the weirdest dream that I was on a pirate ship and the only one who wasn't gay was Oliver Bloom."

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The Black Stallion

Carroll Ballard, 1979 (8.5*)

One of the best horse stories ever, from the children's novel by Walter Farley. A young boy, played by Kelly Reno, on an ocean voyage is intrigued by a black stallion on board, when a sudden shipwreck strands them both on a deserted island. The boy and the horse become inseparable friends out of loneliness and mutual need.

After rescue, the two are returned home, and an aging Mickey Rooney, a former race horse trainer, gives a wonderful and Oscar®-nominated performance for supporting actor as he persuades the boy to race the almost wild stallion. Beautiful cinematography and an inspiring G-rated story make this one of the best family films. A classic in the Disney tradition established in the 1950's, this is my favorite Rooney performance on film; he's not so over-energetic and obnoxious in his older age.

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