Reviews
Shame (2011)
A snapshot of a painfully empty life
In Shame, Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan play brother and sister who share a disturbing past that they only hint at, leaving film-goers to guess what happened to them as children and teenagers as their emotionally-crippled adult years unfold.
Fassbender's Brandon Sullivan is a thirty-something businessman who is relationally disabled. He seems incapable of connecting with anyone except through random, fleeting and sometimes dangerous sexual encounters. Mulligan's Sissy Sullivan, a lounge singer, craves a connection with her brother, a caring relationship. However, he is incapable of connecting with her except for fleeting moments of affection.
One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Brandon and his smarmy married boss, played by James Badge Dale, go to the club where Sissy is performing. Her rendition of Frank Sinatra's New York, New York is spellbinding, as is her brother's unfolding reaction to it.
Shame is rated NC17. There are a number of graphic scenes of full frontal nudity, threesomes, prostitutes, explicit language and more. None of it is gratuitous or particularly titillating because, what always comes through above all else is the emptiness and desperation in Brandon. He seems to wish to find a way out, but always to no avail.
As someone else wrote, this is not a good "first-date movie." Shame is not for everyone. It is compelling, disturbing and well-acted and directed. If you have a stomach for a disturbing film and a slice of the times we live in, check it out.
Knuckle (2011)
They never went for the body
Knuckle is a sad story about various factions of one family of Irish Travelers who settle decades-long animosity toward one another through bare-knuckle battles that take place in obscure areas across the Irish landscape. Modern technology plays a big role in their feud. The fights, that pit the toughest men in each of the families against one another, are filmed for immediate viewing by all competing families.
Although the battles, billed as "fair fights" with impartial referees from non-combatant families, show the fighters giving their all, win or lose, it is the insulting and disparaging commentary, captured on film after the fights by the victors' clan members that fuel the feud for years to come. There are isolated shots of women and children. One woman, in particular, spoke at length about the need for all of this to come to an end. The greatest sadness in the film is the legacy that the feuding and fighting brings to the children who are doomed to follow in their dads and uncles footsteps, if not as fighters certainly as haters. One might conclude that these feuding families found a safer way of dealing with their hostility toward one another than shooting or stabbing.
Filmed over a decade-long period from the mid-1990's to mid-2000's, viewers are offered only a glimmer of hope that things could change. But even this is marred by the reality that all it takes is a slight, an insult or a "dis" that could change things in a moment. As for the fighting itself, film-goers will see quite a few bloody battles, one with two out-of-shape grandfathers. But there is nothing to compare with professional boxing or mixed martial arts. These were pure street fights with some grabbing, gouging and biting (although all of that was cause for disqualification). As someone one who knows just enough about boxing I kept wondering, throughout all of the fights, why none of the combatants went for the body.
The Help (2011)
Voice
The Help is a very good movie about institutional racism in the deep south in the early 1960's (in Jackson, Mississippi around the time that Medgar Evers was murdered). If you read the earlier reviews you will already know that the help are the black housemaids that handled white folks' housekeeping and child care.
There are many fine performances all the way around. The actresses who play the help are excellent. Two of them deserve consideration when award season comes around again. The actresses who play the seething, detestable, racist oppressors of the help are portrayed as one-dimensional cartoonish characters. One exception is a ditsy, white- trash-blonde-sexpot with a heart of gold who married up. It turns out that she is also on the receiving end the wrath of the southern belles. To conjure an image of the belles, imagine a race-baiting June Cleaver, pearls and all, with a deep-south accent and nasty disposition added to her sweet side. For the ditsy blond, gather up and image of Ellie May Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies.
The only multi-dimensional white woman in the film is the southern girl who is hell-bent on breaking the mold. She returns from college and decides to write an expose of the help; with the help of the help. She enlists the maids to be her confederates in her clandestine operation.
Although somewhat predictable, the film is engaging, moving, sad, enraging, funny and well staged and performed by all of the actors. I enjoyed The Help and I think you will too.
Rebirth (2011)
See Rebirth! You won't regret it and you won't forget it.
Rebirth follows the transformation of five people, over the past 10 years, whose lives were forever altered on September 11, 2001. Aside from some brief footage depicting the day that the towers fell, to set the stage, the focus of the film is almost exclusively on the life trajectory of these five people.
The filmmakers, led by director Jim Whitaker, introduce us to Tanya, a young woman who lost her fiancé; Nick, a teenaged boy who lost his mother; Tim, a firefighter who lost all of his friends; Brian, a construction worker who lost his brother; and Ling, a woman who was badly burned in the attack.
At the emotional core of the film is Tanya, a young woman who lost her fiancé Sergio, a New York City firefighter. Tanya bares her grief with such authenticity that viewers were riveted to her every word and expression.
Nick was about 15 years old when his mother died. A few years after the tragedy he became estranged from his father who remarried, adding a complication to Nick's grieving. The openness with which Nick expresses his sadness and anger, offers us a rare window into an adolescent boy's grieving.
Tim and Brian, offer the perspective of two men who lost, respectively, a best friend and a brother. Complicating Tim's grief are his forthright feelings of survivor's guilt, reminiscent of a soldier at war struggling with the loss of his fallen comrades. Brian offers another angle, with his touching reflection on how heartbreaking it is for him when he sees other brothers doing simple things together, like shopping at Home Depot.
Last but not least is Ling, who experienced a different kind of loss. She was badly burned over her right arm and right side of her face and endured 40 surgeries over the intervening years. Ling offers us a multi-layered perspective of her pain, despair, resignation, hope and resilience. I found Ling to be a quietly heroic figure who handled herself with grace, dignity and humor throughout her ordeal.
The sixth "character" in the film is Ground Zero itself. The filmmakers, via multi-camera time lapse photography, artfully tracked the evolution of the space where the Twin Towers once ascended over lower Manhattan. Filmgoers will be treated to this visual marvel and sign of rebirth and growth in segments that are interspersed throughout the interviews.
Rebirth is not a political movie, although some reviewers criticized the absence of a political voice in the film. I strongly disagree. The film was made to tell the story of loss, healing, hope, growth and resiliency in the context of one of the most horrifying chapters in American history. The film does that and much more. The lessons about complicated grief taught to us by Tim, Tanya, Brian, Ling and Nick transcend 9/11.
The film has an afterlife – it stays with you for days and weeks and you want to talk about it. Rebirth is a film best viewed with others. I would not recommend it for children under 13 years of age. If you have older adolescents in your life, watch it together and talk about it with them.
See Rebirth! You won't regret it and you won't forget it.
Andrew Malekoff - Long Beach, New York
Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009)
Haunting Prequel to the Third Reich
Filmed beautifully in black and white with subtitles, The White Ribbon is a movie that will leave viewers with a lasting residue long after it ends. The film portrays the residents of a northern German village, dominated by a baron, sometime before World War I.
Inhabitants of this village, young and old, are sliding down the slippery slope of moral decline. The men in leadership positions - a doctor and clergyman, for example - are detestable, especially in their treatment of women and children. The most brutal scene in the movie, perhaps, was not one that portrayed physical violence, but verbal abuse towards a woman that served faithfully as caretaker, and more, for the town's widowed physician. As for the some of the children, although it is only suggested, it appears that they are budding sociopaths that perpetrate despicable acts against others.
Weeks after seeing this film, I started thinking more deeply about the children in this town. I realized that they would become young adults during the time Hitler would rise in power. They live an incubator in which the cruelty that they experience they, in turn, perpetrate against unsuspecting victims. Their circumstances are such that they are being unwittingly primed for carrying out the atrocities that will come to characterize their future in Nazi Germany. The White Ribbon is a prequel for the rise of the Third Reich.
Seeing this film led me to wonder about what present times are a prequel for.
A Serious Man (2009)
Tsuris
This movie could have been titled "Tsuris" or, if you are not an insider, "Life sucks and then you die." Another masterpiece by the Coen Brothers who, on the strength of this film, have moved up on my directors depth chart to the number one spot, edging out Martin Scorcese. Serious Man takes place in 1967 and is about a nebbish (not to be confused with a schlub or schlemiel) physics professor whose life turns to garbage. There is a great cast of characters and classic scenes with neighbors, family members, rabbis, attorneys, doctors, colleagues and even a voice on the phone inquiring about overdue payments to a record club.
In the midst of his worst and most shattering moments, our hero's 13-year-old son, who is anticipating his bar mitzvah, is most concerned with his dad adjusting the antennae on the roof so that the son can get better reception to watch F-Troop on his black-and-white TV. Among the scenes that I loved in this movie is one with a rabbi with whom our hero seeks counsel. The rabbi tells him a story that a dentist told him. I won't say more about that, except to say that the story itself and the telling of the story are mesmerizing and hilariously brilliant. And there are many, many more unforgettable scenes.
One caveat; this is not a movie for everyone. However, if you don't get turned off by ethnic movies, Jewish in this case, and if you have a taste for the Coens (with a touch of David Lynch) then this is a must see. If you cannot deal with weird stuff and offbeat films, then stay home.
Gomorra (2008)
No Frills Film by Andrew Malekoff
Gomorra is an Italian subtitled mob flick that has the feel of a documentary without narration. Several stories play out over the course of this grim, almost two and half hour movie. I especially liked the scenes with the teenagers. One is with a younger teen who has just been initiated into one of the local gangs. The other depicts two older teenagers, close friends, that think that they can operate independently. In both cases and throughout, the oppressive grip of organized crime is the overriding theme. There is lots of violence, mostly murder, and a pervasive sense of dread and hopelessness. The "business" end of the mob goes beyond drugs and reaches into high fashion and dumping toxic waste. In those scenes we see more of the urbane mobsters versus the street thugs. When I left the movie, the first thought that popped into my mind was that Bernard Madoff would fit well in this culture.
The Wrestler (2008)
Sweet Child of Mine by Andrew Malekoff
The Wrestler is a heart wrenching tale of a professional wrester - Randy "The Ram" Robinson - who thrives on the adulation of the masses and at the great expense of having any intimate relationships in his life. "The Ram's" body gradually betrays him, one organ at a time, after years of battering, abuse and reliance on chemical enhancements and pain killers. Bypass surgery is one consequence. But this physical repair that reminds him of his mortality cannot mend his broken and lonely heart. Mickey Rourke plays a tragic figure who does not exhibit even one drop of self pity, despite his deep and openly expressed sadness. He makes one futile attempt after another to establish an intimate connection in his life. Ultimately though, he goes back to the nonsustaining well of wrestling fans who love only the persona and not the person. Although in a few fleeting scenes with children we see that there is an intuitive connection that reaches beyond empty action figure idealization. Kids really love him and he loves them back. Rourke and Marissa Tomei as an aging stripper are captivating. And, they are touching in all of their scenes together, as are Rourke and Evan Rachel Wood who plays his abandoned daughter. The supporting cast of fellow wrestlers and children that adore "The Ram" all help to bring forth the humanity and sweetness inside of the gladiator. A few of the scenes with Randy working in a deli, wearing a hairnet and interacting with customers from behind the counter, are classic. Guns and Roses' Sweet Child of Mine is the perfect song for "The Ram's" entrance into the squared circle for his grand finale against his nemesis, the Ayatollah. I highly recommend this film. It stays with you and gets under your skin long after the credits role to Bruce Springstein crooning.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Top Movie of the Year by Andrew Malekoff
This is the best movie of the year. And, there were a number of movies that I really loved this year. Slumdog was a clear and unambiguous cut above everything else in what I consider to be a good year for movies. How do I determine that it was a good year? I saw more movies that I loved or really liked than in a long time.
At first I was put off by the pacing that I thought was a bit slow with the movie shifting from present to past. But patience paid off as I gradually got in sync with the pacing and structure of the film. And, it was a big payoff that provided me with an intimate view of an orphaned child's harrowing journey to meet his destiny. The nine actors that played the three key characters during childhood, preadolescence and young adulthood were excellent and believable. The were perfectly cast and played their parts wonderfully.
Interestingly, when I saw the trailer weeks before, I thought that Slumdog was an Indian comedy about a poor kid who wins the game show I Want to Be a Millionaire. I immediately had an association to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And, although I loved that movie, Slumdog is a sprawling epic compared to the hilarious sit-com-Greek-Wedding. Slumdog is much more than I expected. A young man, played flawlessly by Dev Patel, is trying his hand at the Indian version of the game show I Want to be a Millionaire. His motives are fuzzy at first. He is not a typical contestant. We learn that it was his destiny that brought him to compete.
We discover how he came to know the answers to the questions (did he cheat?, is he a genius? or, did fate have a hand in his knowledge?). We learn about how close bonds and loyalty among three childhood friends are stretched to painful extremes over time despite dramatically different means that each must use to adapt to the cruel circumstances that they must overcome to survive. Slumdog is a hopeful movie, that underscores the value of resilience, and highlights the many faces and means of loyalty, against the overwhelming odds of poverty and evil; this movie deserves to be honored for its achievement.
Wendy and Lucy (2008)
A Sleeper Worth Waking Up For by Andrew Malekoff
To say that this film is spare is to be generous; and, to whatever extent actors become their characters, Michelle Williams becomes Wendy, a young woman that is hanging by a thread. Wendy is doing her best, with little support and money, to survive day to day and to maintain her dignity. Along the way she loses her dog Lucy, the only stable and loving relationship in her life. Ultimately, she is faced with making a heartbreaking decision that their mutual welfare will depend upon. As her car (and bed) breaks down and resources dwindle, she collects cans and bottles and shoplifts dog food. She encounters a group of homeless people making a fire, a self-righteous store clerk, a smug auto mechanic, a sympathetic security guard, and a psychotic drifter, among others. We see each of them from the perspective of a young woman on the verge of economic collapse and who is gradually being transformed into someone facing the possibility of homeless destitution. Wendy offers a lens through which we can see such a transformation evolve. All homeless people, unless born into this condition, were something and somewhere else first. Wendy is such a person. As the economy declines and more and more people retreat into survival mode, it will be harder for them, for us, to empathize with the Wendys of the world, young people with once bright futures now facing desperate and maybe devastating times. I have heard it said that empathy is the first hostage of survival. Wendy and Lucy is an important little film, a slice of life, that not enough people will see and that offers us a window on what more and more young people will be facing for some time to come. This film pleads with us not to close our eyes or turn our backs on them.
Låt den rätte komma in (2008)
A Most Unconventional and Satisfying Film by Andrew Malekoff
Let the Right One In is a most unique film about early adolescent puppy love between a sweet and oft bullied boy and his new neighbor, a 100-plus year old vampire that has occupied a 12 year old girl's body. They are kindred spirits, both lonely, misunderstood and seemingly adrift, searching for meaning and, in their own ways - blood. I really liked the pacing of the film - some that are used to bang-bang-shoot-em-up flicks might say plodding, but for the patient film-goer I say - just right. The boy, living in a single parent family with his mom and with periodic contact with this dad, is the target of a cruel group of classmates led by one particularly vile and sadistic punk, whose even more brutal older brother gradually emerges from the shadows as the drama unfolds. The girl lives in squalor with an old guy who she probably has more years on despite the contrast between his aging body and her youthful shell. He is charged with getting fresh blood for her. But, he is a clod and blunderer (there is a sort of slapstick to his shtick) and he cannot consistently deliver, leaving her to seek her own sustenance in very dramatic fashion. As the two protagonists become great pals and a little more, their secrets are revealed to one another and the story builds to most imaginative and satisfying conclusion. I won't give it away by saying more. If you are adventurous, see this movie that you won't soon forget...PS. I just learned that they are already planning a remake of this fine Swedish film, for the audience that cannot be bothered with subtitles I presume. What's that old cliché?: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Understudy (2008)
The Power of Positive (?) Thinking
The Understudy is an allegory that we can all relate to, albeit somewhat uncomfortably; a black comedy that seamlessly transforms wishful thinking into a sort of telekinetic mayhem and turns Norman Vincent Peale's "power of positive thinking" on its head. Marin Ireland as Rebecca is a revelation. Her supporting cast is stellar. With the certain critical success of The Understudy, I hope we hear from co-directors Connolly and Davis again and again. One only hopes that the more established and perhaps undeserving directors in their path don't suffer the same fate as those unfortunates that Rebecca sought to supplant and that stood in the way of her ambitions. But, then again, some do deserve such a fate, if only in one's imagination.
Andrew Malekoff, Long Beach, New York
The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
Superbly acted and filmed, haunting portrayal of hell on earth.
Magdalene Sisters is one of the finest movies I have ever seen. The acting is superb. There are many strong, memorable, haunting, and grim scenes...and a few uplifting ones as well. It would not surprise me to discover that viewers will be overwhelmed by the disturbing content and the suggestion that this story is reality-based. The film portrays several pregnant teenage girls that, in heart wrenching scenes, are turned over by their families to a sadistic group of sweatshop mistresses masquerading as nuns. Their rehabilitation program? Working their fingers and souls to the bone in order to wash away their "sins," in a combination convent-laundry-concentration camp. We see glimpses of local people that look the other way and are complicit in their silence, perhaps to remind us of the worse sin of "good people doing nothing." Although this film depicts a specific theme and time not that long ago, it reminded me that in every era, despite our so called more evolved state, there continue to be untold numbers of exploited children and youth at the hands of grown ups, and always bystanders that look the other way.