Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild *10*
Benh Zeitlin, 2012
Sundance Award

This is a mesmerizing and powerful film by debut director Benh Zeitlin, from a play by Lucy Alibar, a fellow writer that Zeitlin met in a writers workshop as a teen. The unlikely star of the film is six year old Quvenzhané Wallis, who had to pretend to be six when she was five to beat out 4,000 others for this part in auditions.

The basic story is that of a motherless girl called Hushpuppy in a bayou region of an island in the Mississippi River delta area of Louisiana, the part past land's end. As you will see early in the film, this is a much more responsible child than we were at age six, her survival depends on it.

This quote from Hushpuppy's narration tells the situation succinctly:
"If my daddy doesn't get back soon, I'll have to start eating my pets." 

Her father, Wink, is brilliantly played by a New Orleans 7th ward cafè owner, Dwight Young, also with no previous acting experience, and already two awards for best supporting actor. He plays dad Wink, who has heart trouble, and knows he won't be around while Hushpuppy grows up, so he is raising her to be the man. He demand of her "who's the man?" and she flexes her biceps and says "I'm the man!" This is probably going to be repeated often by fans of this film.

Her name is Hushpuppy likely because she feeds all the animals, their only source of food other than the river, where they catch catfish, crawfish, and other local bounty. Wink even shows her how to catch a catfish by hand in the bayou, by grabbing him when you feel him on the bottom. These people are living in danger like everyone in low coastal areas, here in a makeshift village known as The Bathtub. Without any connection to the mainland, they are constantly endangered by storms, flooding, and global melting, which will easily inundate these low lying areas.

This is the best made coming-of-age story since To Kill a Mockingbird, and Wallis' performance is much tougher and more demanding than Mary Badham's, and seems more natural - you get the feeling that Nazie is not far out of her element in boats and mud in the delta.

Rather than ruin this film by too much story or analysis, as its a magical journey of myth-making proportions, I'll let you see through these links the impact of this film, which Barack Obama called "a spectacular film - even my 4 year old niece was captivated".

Awards and Nominations
Currently Beasts leads with 35 (six so far for Nazie Wallis), including wins at Sundance, and four at Cannes (next high film is Zero Dark Thirty at 21, The Master with 20, and Argo with 19):

http://www.beastsofthesouthernwild.com/news/beasts-awards-and-nominations/

Film Trailer
The film's trailer from Cannes

The film page at Facebook, where people are telling their stories of this film's impact on their families or children, as well as many other links.

Unfortunately for the Academy Awards,  Beasts debuted at Sundance last January, and often an early release in a film season loses Oscar® attention to films timed to attain academy recognition, which this year would be Life of Pi, The Hobbitt, and Lincoln. That would be a shame for Nazie Wallis, as she has given the child performance of cinema history - she deserves the lead actress Oscar®.

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Downton Abbey

Jim Carter as the butler leads the servant staff (L), while

Hugh Bonneville as the Earl heads the family (R)

Brian Percival and Brian Kelly, directed four episodes each; several others directed two episodes.

Season One: 2010 (10*)
Golden Globe and Emmy Awards, best tv mini-series or movie
During the reign of England’s King Edward, estates of the wealthy aristocrats grew to their ultimate in wealth and power. By the first decade of the 20th century, there were 100 estates that owned over half the land in England. Their wealth came from owning huge amounts of land, then collecting rents from all those who lived on, farmed, or hunted on their land. The patriarch of the estate was usually given the title of Duke, Earl, or Marquis, and the property was always passed on to eldest male heirs, and by law, never to women. If there was no male son, the nearest other male relative became the heir, often cousins.

However, as all things pass over time, this class structure was about to change forever. Cheaper shipping allowed the importation of less costly agricultural products from India and the Americas, and the great estates were in decline, along with the manors or castles of the aristocratic families. The upper class still tried to maintain their lifestyles for as long as possible, or at least the appearance of luxury, which required large staffs of servants. The head cook had her assistant and kitchen maids; the head housekeeper had a staff of housekeeping maids; while the butler was the overall head of the staff, and there were also valets, and the lowest of the male order inside the house, the footmen. Outside the manor were also the gamekeepers and wardens, garden staff, and stables of horses to maintain.

All this cost a lot of money, and without the income from the land, many aristocrats sought new wealth from America. The generally accepted practice was to get a wealthy American heiress, usually the daughter of industrialists or bankers, to marry a titled estate owner, and thus gain a title to provide some hitherto unavailable social status in America, while providing the money to keep the estate going.

This is the setting of the story of one such manor, called Downton Abbey, headed by Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, in this work of fiction beginning in the year 1910, created and written by Julian Fellowes. Other works before have explored this system, notably the PBS series Upstairs, Downstairs and Brideshead Revisited, which actually starts after the era is past but whose story is told as a flashback to a time decades before. Upstairs failed to involve me, I found it boring and passionless.

Brideshead, from the novel by Evelyn Waugh, easily hooked me, largely with it’s terrific cast, which made an international star out of lead actor Jeremy Irons, and included Laurence Olivier, who won an Emmy for his performance as the patriarch, and Clare Bloom as his estranged wife, as well as excellent supporting performances from Julian Glover and the two actors who played the children of Olivier, Anthony Andrews and Diana Quick. This is a 'must-see' epic for fans of literature brought to the screen, and runs eleven hours overall.

Downton Abbey is worthy of all the praise and awards it’s receiving. Unlike the two previously mentioned mini-series, Downton is infused with a warmth unseen in previous stories. Fellowes has managed to capture the feel of Charles Dickens literature, with the wit and humor of Jane Austen. When the first telephone is being installed in the manor, the Dowager Countess (the granny of the family), brilliantly played by Oscar-winner Maggie Smith, remarks, “first electricity, now telephones; I feel as if I’m living in an H.G. Wells novel”.

The story begins with the news of the sinking of the Titanic, and the loss of the hand-picked heirs of Downton, both cousins of the Earl, who has only three daughters and thus no rightful heir of his own. Next in line is a third cousin, who is presently a lawyer in a mid-level corporate legal firm in Manchester – hardly an aristocrat, and someone not especially thrilled at the prospect of changing his lifestyle.

Veteran actor Hugh Bonneville, with

96 titles to his credit, has the role of

a lifetime as the Earl, Robert Crawley

We are swept into the life of the manor in the first five minutes, by following servants awakening and rushing off to their stations with some excellent camerawork that follows people from in front in unbroken shots until the camera turns to follow a different person. From then on you should be hooked on the story.

We see the arrival in the beginning of the new valet, Mr. Bates (brilliant, understated performance by Brendan Coyle) a man crippled from the Boer War, but who has been placed in his new position for being a friend of the earl from the war days, thus bypassing those inside the house who wanted to move up in rank. We are also introduced to the new heir, who meets a different form of disdain, seen as an outsider by the more traditional aristocrats, yet welcome by the younger set, represented by the earl’s three daughters, each single, with the elder two (Mary and Edith) competing as the first across the marriage line. The youngest (Sybil) is more political than social, interested in women getting the vote and finding careers, and uninterested in the traditional woman’s role of wife and socialite.

You know as you watch the dates progress toward 1914 that a world war is coming, so that adds an element of tension to the entire story, which is light on action, but deep in psychological complexity and subtle currents of social change.

British drama doesn’t get any better than this, it’s the ultimate Masterpiece Theater production, expertly filmed and acted. The cast is led by Brendan Coyle as the valet, Mr. Bates. The earl, Robert Crawley is played by Hugh Bonneville, who has a dignified sense of justice. His wife is an American, Elizabeth McGovern (one of the weaker actors), married for her money, needed to keep the estate going. Her money must remain with the estate, else Downton Abbey will not be able to continue.

The eldest daughter Mary, is played by a stern, almost cold-hearted Michelle Dockery. Her conniving, backstabbing younger sister Edith is portrayed as an envious wretch by Laura Carmichael. The youngest daughter, my favorite character, is played by the stunning Jessica Browne Findlay, a former ballerina, and the character with the most spunk.

The Earl's daughters, Ladies Edith, Mary, and Sybil

However, the acting kudos are being stolen by the veteran Maggie Smith, as the traditional and snobbish Dowager Countess, Violet Crawley, who is given the lion’s share of great lines. Dan Stevens is passable as the selected heir-to-be, Matthew Crawley, who has trouble fitting into the role of an aristocrat, largely because he’s never been trained to be an elitist, and would rather fend for himself and fulfill some useful career. Veteran actor Jim Carter also shines as the resolute and dignified butler, Mr. Carson, who feels responsible for maintaining a professional staff that can perpetuate this way of life as perhaps Britains contribution to civilization for as long as possible.

The first season has everyone’s appetite whetted for season two, currently airing on PBS, but I wait for the dvd release so I can view the entire season in one sitting. Season one is seven episodes, just shy of seven hours and worth every minute.

This has won 13 awards to date out of 45 nominations, including six Emmys and a Golden Globe, with seven of those awards going to creator and author Julian Fellowes. This has an extremely high rating of 9.0 by just 11,000 fans at IMDB; if it were a film, it would be tied with The Godfather at #2 there, only bettered by Shawshank Redemption's rating of 9.1. It is now one of just 40 perfect 10's I've given on this blog.

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2001: A Space Odyssey

Dir: Stanley Kubrick, 1968 (10*)

AFI Top 100

[Updated: 12.31.11]

This groundbreaking SciFi epic was the first to feature totally realistic space effects, and changed forever the way SF films looked. The story, by Arthur C. Clarke, was written for this film because Kubrick wanted to film his incredible novel A Childhood's End, which could not be filmed at the time with existing technology. That book, and this film, are about the next step in the evolution of mankind, from a material to a spiritual being. The previous step, from animal intelligence to human intelligence, is shown in the beginning to give us a major clue, so its surprising that so many people are still baffled by this movie, which has only 20 minutes of dialogue and encourages us to think - what a concept!

Kubrick's film would have been even better had he been able to get phenomena filmmaker Jordan Belson to work on it, but he refused to ever work on commercial films. Belson makes short animated films about things like the birth of a star, or motion through space. All his short films are in the permanent archives at the Museum of Modern Art, and are much better than anything put into commercial SF films. At film festivals, these short films of 3-8 minutes always get standing ovations. Kubrick did make planets and spaceships finally look realistic together, and forever changed the way science fiction films looked going forward. It would be another 10 yrs before Star Wars, but all the action adventure space films that followed looked the way they did because of 2001, so in that regard it was highly influential on the entire industry. Not exactly an exciting film, it was nevertheless a visionary film, and for its time, like nothing else that had ever been filmed.

The sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, attempts to explain the story further, a story which really needed no filmed postscript. That became more of an action film, with much more human interaction between Americans and Russian in a joint venture to activate the spaceship Discovery, and also check out Jupiter from closer range. Worth seeing, and well-done. Clarke himself wrote a third novel in the series as well, 2040, that has not yet been filmed, real SF fans should read the entire trilogy.

Ranked #1 at the Criterion networking film site, The Auteurs, with over 100,000 members.

Note: it's very similar to the parable of Jesus - it's about the birth of a spiritual being, not a corporal one. The awakening of one's spiritual self is a 'virgin birth' that doesn't involve procreation. In 2001, this is symbolized by the floating embryo at the end, a metaphor for the astronaut now being a spiritual being. In Clarke's novel Childhood's End, this happened to the entire race beginning with the current generation of children, so the adults were living out the last physical lives on earth, or the end of the childhood of mankind.

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Departures

Yôjirô Takita, 2008, Japan (10.0*)
Best Foreign Film (AA)
This is quite simply one of the most graceful, elegant, and lyrical films I've ever seen, and one of the most beautiful to watch. It's also one of the most emotionally moving and poignant ever made.

A young married cellist, Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) plays for a small orchestra that is not making enough money to survive, so its owner dissolves the group. Daigo and his wife (Ryôko Hirosue) decide to go back to the small town he grew up in because they can live in his mother's small house that he inherited.

When he arrives, he needs work, and he sees an ad that simply says immediate help needed, with no further information. It turns out that a corpse preparer, Ikuei Sasaki, needs an assistant, and has trouble keeping people. Apprehensive at first, he quickly adapts to the ritualistic and graceful tasks, and the respect shown for the departed as his own mother is dead, and his father left the family when he was six.

The screenplay is full of metaphors. Water is constantly in use, both in a ritual purification before burial, and as a healing cleanser for the living; a local public bathhouse and its proprietor are used prominently, for spiritual as well as physical healing. Snow is also used, for the pristine cleanliness and beauty of the natural world. Swans are shown landing and swimming on lakes. Along with snow, in the springtime there are flurries of cherry blossums. Both the interiors and exteriors are shown for the beauty inherent in each.

Stones are another metaphor - they are used to send messages to another by the type of stone given from person-to-person, something done in ancient times before letters. A rough stone meant the giver was worried about the recipient; a small, smooth one just the opposite. They also imply a permanence seldom found in the world of the living.

Food is also used to symbolize life; as the director (in a dvd interview) and a character says, "to eat is to live, life is impossible without eating". Also that most food is something dead, so the dead provide nourishment for the living. This is one of the more literary screenplays you will ever see.

This was a 15-year project for director Yôjirô Takita, after the idea was brought to him by one of the actors, Masahiro Motoki. Though screenplay credit goes solely to Kundô Koyama, in an interview Takita said that he did the first rough draft, then it was completed by himself and the actors together.

Overall, the film won 33 awards (out of just 39 nominations), including 10 of 13 Japanese academy awards for film, director, actor, cinematography, editing, screenplay, sound, lighting, supporting actor, and supporting actress. The only 3 it lost were actress, art direction, and score.

Departures won many other best films awards: Oscar® for foreign language film, Hawaii Int'l Film fest, Hochi film awards, Kinema Junpo awards, Mainichi Film Concours, Montreal World Film fest, Nikkon Sports Film awards, Palm Springs Int'l Film fest, Udine Far East film fest, Wisconsin film fest, Yokohama Film fest. The only awards missing seem to be BAFTA, Cannes, and Sundance. Masahiro Motoki won 5 best actors awards for his lead performance.

Awards (15) for director Takita, who said he was most pleased that such a personal and such a Japanese film meant something to viewers in other nations around the world.

Director Yôjirô Takita,

accepting his Oscar®

This is an instant classic, one of the best Japanese films of all time, and one of the best films about life and death ever made. Easily an all-time top 100 film for me, and I think for many others as well. This film more than any other captures the solemn, respectful Japanese ritualistic culture like no other.

Departures joins these other four Oscar winners from Japan:
1951: Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)
1954: Gate of Hell (Teinosuke Kinugasa)
1955: Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto (Hiroshi Inagaki)
1975: Dersu Uzala (Soviet Union/Japan - Akira Kurosawa)

Note: I apologize for such a long review, I normally write capsule reviews that can be read quickly, but I was obviously very much impressed with this film, as was the film-viewing world. This  is only the 40th perfect 10 rating I've given out.

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Whale Rider

Niki Caro, 2003, New Zealand (10*)
Sundance Audience Award, World Cinema
One of those amazing films that comes along all too rarely in life, one that blends myth into reality, and one that exposes a unique culture, the Maoris of New Zealand, being swallowed up by modern society. Lovingly directed by Niki Caro, from a novel by Maori author Witi Ihimaera, with beautiful music from Dead Can Dance singer Lisa Gerrard, who also scored Gladiator and The Insider.

This film is the story of Paikea, a young girl searching for self-identity in a tribal culture dominated by males for centuries, and whose grandad is intent on finding the next male tribal chief to lead his people back to their ancestral heritage and maintain time-honored ritual as a connection to their identity.

The cast is amazing, the adult Maori actors are excellent, especially Rawiri Paratene as the grandad, Koro, but the entire film is stolen by newcomer Keisha Castle-Hughes, a schoolgirl with no prior experience who was discovered in a classroom by the same casting director that found young Anna Pacquin for Jane Campion's The Piano.

Keisha Castle-Huges, a Maori who relocated from Australia to New Zealand at age 5, was nominated for 13 international awards for this role, including an Oscar for Best Actress, and was a winner of five awards: Broadcast Film Critics: Best Young Actor/Actress, Chicago Film Critics: Most Promising Performer, New Zealand Film and Tv Awards: Best Actress, Online Film Critics: Best Breakthrough Performance, Young Artist Awards: Best Actress in an International Film. In my opinion, this is one of the best performances I've ever seen by either a woman or a child, she definitely deserved some type of Oscar®.

Awards Page for Keisha at IMDB

Awards Page for Whale Rider, with 28 wins and 29 other nominations, including 9 New Zealand Film and TV awards, winning picture, director, screenplay, music, and four for acting

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Jeff Beck: Live at Ronnie Scott's (2007)

Stuart Watts, 2008 (10*)
..audio by Alan Branch..
Jeff Beck is an amazing guitarist, the best of the three from the Yardbirds (Clapton and Jimmy Page were the other two). He eventually moved into rock-jazz fusion, which this set from Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London in 2007 ably demonstrates. Even though there's not a lot of rock here, fans of Beck or rock history will still be surprised at the melodic virtuosity he displays here, now in his mid-60's! There are guest vocals from Eric Clapton, who kills the mood somewhat with some more of his wimpy blues vocals, Joss Stone, who does her best Aretha impression on "People Get Ready", and Imogen Heap, who mixes best of the three with Beck, especially on a rock-hard version of "Rollin and Tumblin", done ironically after Clapton leaves the stage, perhaps as if to show how much more rockin Jeff is than Eric, as this song was a famous Cream cover of Clapton's.

Adding more virtuosity are amazing 22-yr old Aussie bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, whose solo on "Cause We've Ended as Lovers"(perhaps Beck's best composition) dazzles both the crowd and Jeff - by this time she had already played with the Allman Bros, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea, after just three years of playing bass, switching over from lead guitar. Former Zappa and Sting alum Vinnie Colauita is perfect and complex on drums, and another Sting alum Jason Rebello is intricate and dazzing on keyboards. This will more resemble a Zappa show musically, being mostly jazz-rock fusion, than Beck's first group, the Yardbirds, but will amaze fans, guitarists, and rock historians alike. Look for Beck's Grammy-winning cover of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life".

This is a "must-see" music concert dvd, shot in an intimate club setting. Look for many rock luminaries in the crowd, including Jimmy Page, Steve Perry, and I believe Ian Anderson.

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Walkabout

Dir: Nicholas Roeg, 1971,
Australia (10*)

This beautiful nature story starts when a father abandons his two children (Jenny Agutter's first film?) in the Australian outback and kills himself. The children are found by an Aboriginal youth (David Gulpilil) on his rite of manhood, a walkabout, where one must survive six months alone in the wilderness. The story follows the three as they all fight for survival in the outback, while the white children learn the ancient wisdom that has allowed the aborigines to survive in this environment for at least 50 thousand years.

This adventure film, by British cinematographer Roeg (Performance), is simply beautiful and not like any other, a parable of urban man in the wilderness. The closing poem is one of the most beautiful in film history.

This beautiful film set a precedent for Aussie films to follow using Aborigines as a subject. Two more that make an excellent trilogy with this adventure are Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), and Australia (2007), which both deal with the "Stolen Generations" of mixed-blood children taken from their parents in the interest of "racial protection" of the Aborigines.

This poem was read as an epilogue at the end of the film. It is the complete Poem 40 from A Shropshire Lad by Alfred Edward Housman.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

Complete text of the sixty-three poem cycle at Project Gutenberg

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The Namesake

[This is our 500th dvd reviewed, and it's a great one ..]
Mira Nair, 2006, India-US (10*)
In English, so don't fear the subtitles

I was moved and inspired by this film, pretty much left speechless, and haven't wanted to watch another movie since! This amazing film is perhaps the best yet from famed Indian director Mira Nair, now working in the U.S. It's really just the simple story of a married Bengali couple from India living in the U.S., maintaining their cultural heritage while their children largely reject Indian culture to remain more "American", but it's such a rich and complex story that it's hard to describe, also so full that it's hard to believe it's only two hours and not four. The ensemble cast here is simply perfect and a revelation in subtlety. I was especially moved by Irfan Khan as the father who relocates to New York, and Tabu, who plays his arranged wife, who misses her native homeland but remains loyal to her family.
Kal Penn (Kumar in the Harold and Kumar comedies) has his best serious acting role as Khan's son Gogol, named for the famous Russian author, the subject of the film's title. [On the dvd, Penn said he actually uses the name "Gogol Ganguli" at hotels when on the road - before making this!] We only really find out the importance of his name near the film's end, in a superbly edited flashback that Nair moved from the beginning of the film in a decidedly brilliant artistic stroke.

This is a film of delicate subtlety, not at all what western audiences will be accustomed to seeing, but the overall effect is a story that grows on you until you suddenly realize that you are watching a literary masterpiece, from a novel by young Indian author Jhumpa Lahiri. This story is about transitions in life, as the only real constant is change. The narrative deftly covers about three decades in the lives of the main characters, yet somehow Nair's skill never makes us feel that we're getting a synoposis or skipping past events.

The music here is simply beautiful (as well as the cinematography by Frederick Elmes), and also diverse. No matter what the musical selection or even style of the music, it seems to perfectly fit the visuals without distraction. Be sure to watch the special features on the dvd, especially the class discussions held by Nair with graduate film students at Columbia University about the making of this small indie film, made for less than 10m dollars. She proves that a great director can make great cinematic art with almost no budget at all. In her words, one just needs a great cast, thanks to casting director Cindy Tolan (seen in one class on the dvd) for this one, who found all the Bengali extras that played other emmigrants to the U.S. at parties of Indian-Americans in the U.S., and all were perfect.


It also helps to have a great story, and an artist's touch like Nair's. She makes it seem so easy, why aren't there more films like this?

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Finding Neverland

Dir: Marc Forster, 2004 (10*)

A beautiful and inspiring story, based on the life of author and playright J.M. Barrie, played by Johnny Depp in perhaps his best part, and his inspiration for Peter Pan and Neverland. Unfulfilled in a childless marriage (to Rahda Mitchell), Barrie meets some kids in a nearby park which he frequents, and their widowed mother, Kate Winslet (in her own personal favorite part and film). They begin a platonic friendship, in which Barrie becomes the surrogate father for her boys, and they in turn become the inspiration for his writing. Julie Christie also has a nice supporting part. A small but very touching film, wonderfully done. Nominated for 7 Oscars, but sadly only one Oscar for Music.

Note: as of Dec 8th, 2009, this film remains in the Netflix top 100, at #63 currently

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The Memory Loss Tapes

Shari Cookson and Nick Doob, 2009, HBO (10*)

[Update: This just won an EMMY for "Exceptional Merit in Non-Fiction Programming" - congrats to all involved! updated 9.14.09]

The Memory Loss Tapes is the first part of the HBO series The Alzheimer’s Project, and it’s an extremely powerful documentary that touches on the most basic human emotions, those that flow naturally from love, caring, and mortality. The film was brilliantly constructed by producer-directors Shari Cookson and Nick Doob to slowly reveal the progressive stages of Alzheimer’s in seven different patients, and just as importantly, to show how the families of each have to cope with different aspects of the disease.

The first patient, Bessie, has only mild symptoms, so we get to see her as a lively, outgoing, and funny person. She knows what’s coming eventually but is still enjoying every day to its fullest. Another patient, Fannie, is losing her ability to drive her car, and with it her independence. Joe keeps a blog of his decline and can feel his mind slipping away. Yolanda thinks her reflection is a new best friend. Woody can’t remember his wife but can still remember song lyrics and sing with his old group.
Josephine’s daughter has had to fence in her property to keep her mom from wandering away. The patients shown exemplify the progression of the disease by revealing their everyday reality.

The most gripping part of this film deals with someone in the final stages of life, and the devastating effect it has on his family. In a heart wrenching revelation, the man’s wife admits feeling selfish for wanting to keep her husband with her as long as she can, despite the fact that he has "no life."

I don’t think I’ve ever seen mortality treated so realistically or with as much impact in any film. For parents, I would warn you to either pre-screen this for your children, especially those under ten, or counsel them before viewing. It’s something we’ll all face, but it may be distressing for young viewers to actually see in reality.

The saddest part of this illness to me is that it robs its victims of their memories at a stage in life when these are likely their most cherished possession. As a child, we would visit my great-grandmother in her nursing home, but she never remembered who we were, and she lived to be ninety-nine. I would have loved to have heard her stories that began around 1870, and just imagine the century she was able to witness.

Hopefully this film will instill a desire in many to become healers or medical researchers, and bring an understanding of the heavy cost of all terminal illnesses on the families and friends of the patients. We should all be aware now that new biotech research is necessary to cure this and similarly debilitating illnesses, and that money wasted on destructive goals is being diverted from these more humane purposes.

Many elderly patients don’t have any remaining family, as I found out when my mom was in a nursing home with Parkinson’s. Many eat alone and never have visitors, something we should never allow to happen. Visit as many of these people as you can, their smiles will be the best reward you’ll ever receive.

The Memory Loss Tapes should receive a handful of well-deserved Emmy nominations, and some awards. It's technically superb, emotionally powerful, and for me is one of the best TV documentaries ever made.

Producer-director Shari Cookson at IMDB
Producer-director Nick Doob at IMDB

[Though not yet on DVD, I'm reviewing this here in the hope that people will watch it on HBO or from their website: Click here for the HBO Link, and all episodes can be streamed from here as well.]

The Alzheimer's Organization is at http://www.alz.org/

Patients and families affected by Alzheimer’s can visit Icara Study to see if they might be eligible to enroll. [Thanks to Tracy for this]

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Salaam Bombay!

Mira Nair, 1988, India (10*)
This is one of the great Asian films. One a few films I'd call a masterpiece, and probably my favorite film by a female director, replacing Lina Wertmuller's Seven Beauties.

Unbelievably, this is director Mira Nair's first feature film - "fiction" that is. (Most wil recognize Monsoon Wedding as hers). After making 5 documentaries, she wanted to show the indominable spirit of these kids and their everyday struggle for survival. She used only 3 pro actors (the Madame, Aneeta Kanwar as Rakah the prostitute, Ragubir Yaday as Chillum the street addict), and 24 children of the streets of Bombay (almost none of whom could read the script!), selected from over 150 she had put into her special acting workshop she set up to cast this movie. Shafiq Syed is the amazing lead actor, as Chiapau/Krishna, and 11-yr old kicked out of his home and told not to come back until he could repay 500 rupees; he now delivers tea daily in the brothel district.

Nair based this on her experiences filming India Cabaret, a documentary about strippers, and meeting a lovable "chai wallah", or tea delivery boy (like in Slumdog Millionaire, which owes a lot to this film and Fernando Mierelles' City of God), who personally brought tea to the strippers daily at 4pm. She got financial assistance from the government in making this, giving her access to harsh prison/orphanages, closed to private filmmakers. She then used the profits from the film to set up 3 homes for street kids, which has grown now to 17. KUDOS all-around for making a social film that actually brought change to Indian society in the way they treat and educate orphans, and showed the world a terrific story, beautifully composed by Nair and shot by cinematographer Sandi Sissel, who, along with Nair, provides commentary for the film.

Great movie, DVD, overall experience. If you like Slumdog, this is even better; more real, harder hitting. I would watch both commentaries as well. Deservedly won Nair the best new director award at Cannes in 1988.

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Wall-E

Andrew Stanton, 2008 (10*)
This terrific science fiction comedy is Pixar's best so far. It's rare that an animated film combines both a great story with terrific and imaginative artwork. You would think that after the Toy Story films, Cars, and Monsters Inc that the creativity there would slow down, but Wall-E tops them all. It's basically about a garbage compacting mobile robot living on an unpopulated earth. However, drones are being sent to try to find a return of life on earth, and naturally Wall-E comes into contact with life again (or there'd be no story), as we now know it, and with hilarious results. This film has a lot humor, as well as a lot of heart, making us all somehow care for what happens to a mechanical garbage man! Another rarity: a children's film that adults should enjoy just as much. Winner of over 35 awards already this year, for some odd reason it's not nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and will have to settle for Animated Feature as a consolation prize.

Link to Wall-E's awards page at IMDB: Wall-E Awards

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Requiem for a Dream

Darren Anorofsky, 2000 (10*)

This film is without doubt the most intense movie I've ever seen – in fact, I had to take a break halfway and finish it later, one advantage of dvd over the theater. It’s a total work of art, but one that will leave you emotionally drained. It’s a story of addiction of all kinds: drugs, tv, food, hope. Ellen Burstyn, who is mind-blowing in this (and spent 4 hrs a day in makeup), her greatest performance (Oscar-nominated, it should have been her 2nd after Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore), plays Sarah Goldfarb in Brooklyn, whose only son, played by Jared Leto, routinely pawns her tv to buy drugs, and Sarah buys it back each time. She dreams of being on tv, and may get her chance on a motivational program where huckster Tappy Tibbons sells optimism that he calls "juice" for one easy payment (a thinly disguised variation of Tony Robbins?), well-played by Chrisopher MacDonald. Before that she wants to lose weight, so she finds a doctor to give her diet pills.

Her story begins to parallel her son’s, who spends time with girlfriend Jennifer Connelly, in her most demanding and best performance (I now believe her Oscar for A Beautiful Mind was due to her snub for this), and friend Marlon Wayans, who is surprisingly effective in a rare dramatic part. Anorofsky uses machine-gun fire editing, odd camera angles, blurred fast-motion sequences, and a special actor-mounted camera to create a nightmare world of dreams blurring reality for all involved. For some this was distracting, for me it totally involved the audience in a world where reality is a vaporous vision, constantly shifting until you don’t know what’s real and what is imaginary.

This film may be too shocking to watch; it likely deserves an X-rating for emotional trauma. I’m sure it scared the heck out of Hollywood; it was made with the assistance of Sundance. Traditional movigoers and filmmakers wouldn’t go near this subject, based on major American author Hubert Selby’s novel from 1978. Selby is best known for this 1964 classic Last Exit to Brooklyn, which shocked the nation, but wowed book critics, and caused an obscenity trial in England. (see below for some Selby quotes from an interview on the dvd). Director Anorofsky’s only previous film was the engrossing intellectual drama in black and white, Pi (review upcoming), about obsessed numerologists hunting for the “key to the universe” hidden in the Bible in the numeric values of Hebrew letters (!) This is major art for a second film effort, for anyone’s film effort actually. This is more intense than Tarantino, Scorsese, or Cuckoo’s Nest, and likely too intense for the average movigoer - if you enjoy Adam Sandler, or Lethal Weapon movies, you probably won’t like this. But a film this visually stunning will be studied by cinema students for decades, and is a treat for the serious film connoisseur.

Here's Roger Ebert's longer and more descriptive review in the Chicago Sun Times, he agrees that it's "adults only", unless you know a kid doing drugs:
Roger Ebert's Requiem Review

[Note: I’m giving it a 10 for its mind-blowing visuals, overcoming any story faults. The scene they’ll discuss for years is Burstyn cleaning her apt from end to end in 25 seconds of film, in super-high speed, while the camera slowly tracks past each room. This took 40 minutes and was one take; when done, Ellen was disappointed with herself and wanted to do another take. The dvd will show you how it was done. I’ll have to admit that when the film was over, I needed a drink and a walk outside, I was shaking for half an hour.]

Hubert Selby Quotes (Selby has a brief part in this as a prison guard)
“About age 8, I discovered that the world was full of pain and suffering, and I decided I had to try to end that suffering.”

“I had tb after world war two; a doctor looked me and said, ‘there’s nothing we can do for you’, walked away and sent me a bill. Man, do I love the AMA.”
(This almost killed Selby, he had a lung and 10 ribs removed, but survived. He also had brain damage during childbirth, yet has become one of the most important American authors, compared to Dostoevsky)

“The Sanskrit and Hebrew word for eye is ‘fountain’, they say we project our souls onto the world through the eye, not perceive the world outside projected inward.”

“Suffering comes from the fact that life is pain, and we refuse to accept the pain that all must experience; the worst pain will be losing one’s mother, hence ‘I feel like a motherless child.’”

“I had a spiritual experience once; during that I knew that as I’m dying I’ll think two things: first that I wasted my life, then that I’d like to live it all over – and then I’ll die.”

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Band of Brothers

2001, 10 Hours (10*)
Dirs: Tom Hanks, Philip Alden Robinson, Mikael Salomon, David Nutter, David Leyland, David Frankel, Tony To

Best Miniseries (Emmy, GG)

Based on the book by historian Stephen Ambrose, who worked with Ken Burns on The Civil War for PBS and who also co-produced, this immense achievement follows Easy Company from training in England, to their parachute drop the night before D-Day until the end of the war, and is interspersed with interviews of surviving participants.

Reportedly this cost producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg over 100 million, followed their collaboration on Saving Pvt Ryan, and is now perhaps the best docudrama of all-time. The D-Day parachute drop sequence alone is probably the best war footage yet produced - it combines the best CGI special effects with historical accuracy and exciting editing to create a nightmarish vision of war never seen before. This is no battle in space with imaginary deaths of aliens, this is the real thing and exactly what happened to thousands of allied soldiers.

Worthy of its length, each part is a different film with a different director, hence the overall consistency may appear uneven to the most discerning, but that's a triviality. I also think having an unknown cast was a stroke of genius, because it makes it seem like we're watching real soldiers, not some star pretending he is a real wartime participant.

This is an all-time top 10! 6 Emmys for 19 nominations

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Lawrence of Arabia

David Lean, 1962 (10*)

Best Picture (AA, BAA, GG)

AFI and Time Mag Top 100

This lengthy and epic biopic of T.E. Lawrence, the man who liberated Arabia, inspired many modern filmmakers to become directors, notably Martin Scorsese, who said "it was the first film in which the hero was not a role model to be emulated." Indeed, it presents a complex and non-judgmental portrait of one of the most important figures in history, largely due to the intense performance of Peter O'Toole in his first starring role, at age 26.

The story and pace may start a little slow, but it expertly reveals a personal side to a major part of 20th century history. The panoramic cinematography and music are among the best in film, the entire project defines the word epic. It's easy to get lost in the vast landscape here, just as the desert swallows up individual lives.

If you want a man's film, this one has not a single woman in it! Some of the film may have some excessive masochistic violence, yet I'm sure it's even toned down relative to real war; much of the combat at that time was hand to hand.

The film deservedly won 7 Oscars® overall, including picture, director, screenplay, cinematography, editing, sound, music. Unfortunately, Peter O'Toole, in the role of a lifetime, lost to Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.

O'toole, who spent two years in the desert making this film, said that he hoped he never saw the desert again in his lifetime. Ironically, after leaving after the war, neither did T.E. Lawrence.

Quote: Thank Allah that when he made you a fool he gave you a fool's face. (Anthony Quinn)
Quote: I have nothing; I am a river to my people. (Anthony Quinn)
Quote: War is for young men of courage and valor; keeping the peace is for old men with nothing else to do. (Alec Guinness)

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Babe

Chris Noonan, 1995 (10*)
Babe (from an award-winning children's novel) is my favorite children's film and animal film both. It qualifies as real action, but uses animation to make the animals mouths move so they can talk, and it works superbly. Oscar®-nominated actor James Cromwell is terrific as the farmer who buys piglet Babe for a Christmas dinner but finds something special in the pig, whose voice was Christine Cavanaugh's. The film was nominated for Best Picture, losing to the inferior Titanic. This riotous comedy from Australia actually hurt pork sales nationwide after its release.
Quote: I hear that if you don't do something useful, the humans eat you! (The Duck, who wants to be a rooster)

Awards Won (17)

U.S. Oscar – Special Effects
Best Fantasy Film - Acad. Of SF – Fantasy Films
Best Film Score – Australasian Perf. Rights Assoc.
Cinematography of the Year – Australian Cinematographers Soc.
Best Comedy Film – British Comedy Awards
Best Family Film – Critics Choice Award (Broadcast Film Critics)
Best Director, Original Music – Film Critics Circle of Australia
Best Feature Film – Genesis Awards
Best Comedy/Musical Picture – Golden Globes
Golden Screen, Germany
Studio Crystal Heart Award – Heartland Film Festival
Film of the Year – London Critics Circle Film Awards
Newcomer of the Year (Chris Noonan) – London Critics
Best Sound Editing, Golden Reel – Motion Pic. Sound Editors, USA
Best Film – Nat. Society of Film Critics Awards
Best New Director (Noonan) – New York Film Critics Circle Awards

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Dr. Strangelove

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Dir: Stanley Kubrick, 1964, bw (10*)

Best Picture (BAA)

AFI Top 100

A perfect black comedy, even in black and white like a documentary, a satire of the cold war and nuclear paranoia.

The story begins when renegade Gen. Jack D. Ripper, Sterling Hayden in his best role, decides to attack the Soviet Union ("they're messing with our precious bodily fluids") with his nuclear bomber group. Peter Sellers (robbed of an Oscar for this!) has a field day playing three parts: Mandrake, the nervous British assistant to Ripper, the baffled President of the U.S. inside the war room, as well as the title character, a Nazi scientist confined to a wheel chair who's an expert on the "doomsday" weapon, and who can't control his hand, which both gives the Nazi salute and attempts to strangle himself!

In fact, Kubrick also wanted Sellers to play the bomber pilot that Slim Pickens made famous, and that character wouldn't be the same without the Texas persona; Sellers said "I can't play everybody". George C. Scott is hilarious as a gung-ho general in the war room, a character seemingly based on Gen. George Patton ("we can catch the Russkies with their pants down!") . A classic in every sense, probably Kubrick's tightest film, beginning to end, terrific pace.

Quote: Gentlemen, there's no fighting in here - this is the war room! (Sellers as President)

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Hero (China)

Zhang Yimou, 2002, China (10*)

This astounding film is quite simply one of the greatest films ever made in my opinion; it's also the highest grossing film in Chinese history which gives you some indication. Jet Li said it was the best script he has ever read, and left him in tears. The film's visual lyricism is sheer poetry, and the sound is so good that Bose used it for a tv ad for their surround system. The plot is full of twists and turns, as an assassin is telling the film's narrative to the King of Qin of how he defeated three assassins, one of them Ziyi Zhang, long-time enemies of the king from neighboring kingdoms, and the story changes as he tells it.

Director Zhang Yimou's (director of 2008 Olympic opening) masterpiece, at least two years in the making, and Yimou had to employ another director for the martial arts sequences - this was a major epic undertaking, which also used thousands of extras from the Chinese army. This is a film you'll watch over and over, and likely in Mandarin without subtitles once you know the story, so that the awesome visual compositions have no distractions.

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Raising Arizona

Joel Coen, 1987 (10*)
This is one the funniest and fastest-paced comedies ever made, and my favorite film of the Coen Brothers. The story starts at breakneck speed, as we get robberies and chases involving lead character Nicholas Cage before the opening titles even roll, about 15 minutes into the film.

During his prison photo shoots he meets a weepy guard played by Holly Hunter, who informs him that "my fi-ants done left me"; what ensues is a whirlwind romance, marriage, then another weepy Hunter disclosure "I'm barn" (meaning barren or infertile). Cage then gets the line of the film: "The doc said her insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase". Roger Ebert said that "people just don't talk this way", but here in Georgia they sure do, and remember the Coen Brothers are from Texas.

The couple reads about quintuplets born to local unpainted furniture tycoon Nathan Arizona, brilliantly played by scene stealing Trey Wilson (who died shortly after filming, causing the film to be dedicated to him), and Hunter convinces Cage to "go get me a toddler! they got too many, we ain't got any".

The rest of the film is a riotous post-crime spree involving a bounty-hunting biker played by ex-boxer Randall "Tex" Cobb, two escaped former inmates of Cages who drop by (John Goodman is surprisingly unfunny in his part), several chases with baby in tow, and everyone else chasing the baby stealers. The dialogue is ripe with great lines, the visual style is as exciting as any action adventure, even the baby is funny, and the result is perhaps the funniest comedy of all time.

Quote: Down at my store we got one motto: "Do it my way or watch your butt!" (-Nathan Arizona, talking to the FBI)
Quote2: Boy, did you know you got a panty on yer head? (a local pickup driver who picks up Nick Cage hitchin a ride just after an armed robbery)

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Into the West

Dir: Robert Dornhelm, Simon Wincer, 2005 (10*)
This 12-hr tv miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg is now my favorite western. It's really six different 2 hour films, each taking a different era or event in the history of the west.

The story starts with a Lakota Souix sunwheel, where shaman receive visions of the future. It then blends into a wagon wheel being forged in Ohio, by a family named Wheeler, for pioneers heading west. The entire series will be held together by the symbolism of the wheel. which the author said came to him 'in a dream', just as the Wheeler family breaks up when some of the younger ones decide to head west themselves.

The Wheelers then interact with the Souix in their individual stories. The major Souix character we follow throughout is named Loved by the Buffalo after surviving a stampede, and he becomes a shaman who has visions of the Wheelers heading west. One troubling vision argued over by the tribe is one of the disappearance of the buffalo, followed by the Souix.

Various historical events are used as backdrops for the personal stories, such as the railroad, the gold rush, the Indian wars. The writers managed to keep it all connected by the individual lives and their offspring, plus there were hundreds of historical technicians on the crew, including over 25 experts in Native American linguistics alone. There's one beaded dress that took one woman six months to make. Only Spielberg could have the financial clout to pull this off and do the subject justice from all sides of the story. A not to be missed event.

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