Marching through More Movies

Here is what I have watched on DVD since I posted my last list. They are listed in declining order as I rated them. The ratings I give are on my own number system as explained previously in this blog.

Each week I pick up a batch of movies the library is holding for me, and when I get home I consider slowing down and not putting more holds on for next week. But then I figure I have to go to the library to return this week's, so I might as well have more waiting for me then. Not watching movies would free up some time, but I don't want to leave too much time for chores and I don't quite feel like the movie watching is interfering much with other leisure pursuits.

How about letting us know if you have any comments regarding any of these films and about what you have been watching at home or in the theater?

The Way We Get By - 2009.  This PBS POV documentary about the senior citizens in Bangor, Maine who for six years have greeted over 900,00o troops coming and going to Iraq and Afghanistan via the Bangor airport is quite moving. Without taking a position on the politics of the wars, this 3.5 film showed three particular volunteers and their personal lives and what the service as troop greeters means to them. Regardless of one's attitude on war in general or these wars in particular, the humanity on display between the troops and the greeters and the appreciation for the dangers the troops face is bound to bring tears.

The Hurt Locker - 2008. The Oscar winner was an exciting action thriller movie about three members of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. Kathryn Bigelow directed the film with a documentary feel that made us feel we were actually with this unit facing the perils. The interaction and character exploration of the three soldiers was a bit more limited than I like in a drama and interaction with others, especially Iraqis, was practically non-existent, except for one boy. Not my favorite genre, but still a 3.2 rating from me.

The Holiday - 2006.  I watched this movie because Nancy Meyers, the writer director is supposed to be very good at presenting the woman's point of view, yet she has not made that many films.  The only other film of hers I have seen in Something's Got to Give, which I liked a lot. Netflix predicted only a 2.8 for me, but I give it a 3.2. After the obligatory and uninspiring set up at the start, where an L. A. woman and an English one, both on the rebound from two-timers, agree to a two week house swap getaway for the Holidays, the movie has a sweet, yet smart, charm. You cannot help but like the two women and root for them. Cameron Diaz is a natural movie comedienne, and I agree with the Kate Winslet character when she says, "I like corny. I'm looking for corny in my life."

Up in the Air - 2009.  Corporate hatchet man George Clooney gets challenged by high tech firing and is given reason to question his own career status in this topical 3.1 film. Maybe having a fired worker as an equal character would have raised the rating. Susan did a better job than me of figuring where George's love life was heading.

La Vida Que Te Espera [Your Next Life] - 2004. This Spanish film about the killing of a dairy farmer and the involvement of a neighboring farmer and his daughters is beautifully filmed in the Cantabria area of Spain where these Pasiegos, who run small farms in scenic mountain valleys, are seeing government farming policies end their historic subculture. The relationship between the father and his daughters at first looks like they are his unpaid help, then like he is just a mean father and finally evolves into more nuance as the plot thickens. Meanwhile, the son of the decedent reluctantly returns and gets involved with the oldest daughter, to complicate things. Unfortunately, then ending, after finally getting us to feel the turmoil inside the oldest daughter, was a disappointment to me. I think the movie took too seriously it's ambiguous dialogue line, "What goes unsaid gets undone." But with the beauty of the cinematography and of the lead actress, efficient direction that holds attention, and good acting all around, especially from the young leading lady (Marta Etura) the film still earns a 3 rating from me.

The Southerner - 1945. The favorite of Renoir's films made in America during his WWII displacement from France, set in the depression era in the American south, this 3 rated film captures the grit of sharecropping and trying to resurrect a derelict farm as well as any documentary, while still having some of the Renoir poetic artistry. Beulah Bondi as Grandma is like the bedraggled old woman in a family heirloom photograph come to life. Except for a few black hands in a picking scene, the American Negro of the time and place is unfortunately left out of the movie.

Grey Gardens - 2009. Jackie Kennedy's kooky aunt and her daughter fell from high society to impoverished living in a dilapidated mansion in the late sixties, and were the subject of a 1976 documentary film of the same title as this 2.9  movie. Maltin's movie guide says the documentary would mean more if we knew the back story. This movie tries to give us some of that as well as revisit the territory covered by the documentary, but still could have told us more of the first part, so we could better develop sympathy for the women. Jessica Lange does a super job as usual and Drew Barrymore is surprising as a fifty something. I was wondering about the phoney sound of Drew's accent, util I watched the special feature excerpts of the real women. It might be helpful to watch the short special features first.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - 2007. I haven't read the book, but in the DVD special feature interview with the script writer, he points out that he only took a portion of the book and expanded that, concentrating on Sitting Bull and a Sioux boy who went to Dartmouth and became a medical doctor, with U.S. Senator Dawes being the paternalistic mentor of the boy and advocate for the Indians. Filmed in Canada, this 2.9 picture was well made, but even with the narrowing of the script and over two hours of movie, it still tried to cover too much and was not able to go as deep into the central characters as I would have liked. Won an Emmy for TV film, but could have done better expanded to mini series.

Little Children - 2006.  This movie started with some interesting characters that we started to get to know a little, and then it concentrated on how two of them got involved in an affair and went off on a few tangents, some with a little relevance and some with much less. Trimming some of the unnecessary and filling in some of the plot gaps, while overall shortening the length would have improved on my 2.9 score. The adults are sexually like the Little Children of the title and it is hard to care that much for any of them, but curiosity for what was going to happen to them kept me arounf until the end.

I Am David - 2004. An apparently faithful adaptation of Anne Holm's novel "North to Freedom", about an 11 year old boy who escapes from a gulag prison camp in Bulgaria in 1952, with a sealed envelope and instructions to make his way to Denmark by way of Italy and to trust no one on the journey. The boy has been raised in the camp and has no experience of the free world, so is almost like an alien. In spite of some hokey aspects to the story and execution of it, the performance of the young actor raises the film to a 2.9.

Sweet and Lowdown - 1999. Sean Penn's performance as a very eccentric depression era guitarist (the second best in the world), along with the musical score and the cute mute role of Samantha Morton are the reasons to check out this 2.9 Woody Allen picture. Not much plot or character development, just a bit of a tall tale caricature.

Young Girls of Wilko - 1979. This Polish Oscar nominee tells the story of a man who returns for some doctor ordered rest to the village he left fifteen years earlier and looks up the family of six young women and girls with whom he was involved but whom he has not seen since he left. The story is all told through dialogue, mainly between the man and the women, individually and in combination. As they reminisce, ruminate, reflect and regret we learn that the one of whom he was most fond has died and that the others all have their different stories and views on life. I may have given the film more than 2.9 if the dialogue was in English and could be followed better than with the sometimes awkward subtitles. Also, this is one movie where some flashbacks would have helped to let us know more about the relationships before he left.

Ride with the Devil - 1999. The start of the Civil War as played out along the Kansas Missouri border between the Jayhawkers and the Bushwackers is an interesting time in American history, but this Ang Lee film about those days, though stylish as expected, didn't seem to have a point of view beyond that the conflict, on an individual basis, was pointless. But it must have meant something beyond the thrill of violence and the call of revenge to those who lived it, and this movie would have been worth more than 2.8 if it had tried to show us that.

Coup De Grace -1976. I have seen almost a dozen German film by director Volker Schlondorff, but this may be my last. I enjoy the interviews with him on the special features where he explains much about the films. For this film he told about the movie and the book on which it was based, in much detail, but I still found the movie, which I rate 2.8, somewhat confusing and only vaguely interesting.

The Rising Place -2001. This tale set in Mississippi, told mostly in flashbacks tot he WWII era, looks to have been a TV movie, with mediocre production values, some anachronisms and a mostly unknown cast. The script had lots of holes, which I suspect were not in the source from which it was adapted, and the lead young white woman was quite self-centered and naive, though somehow still appealing. The characters all had an initial appeal that never seemed to progress, but still kept me watching. I could not say I disliked it enough to only give it 2 stars at Netflix, but at 2.6, it is hard to recommend it.