A Cleaner Last Tango and a Decent Dirty Movie

Seven Flix streamers, three from PBS TV and two from the library make up the dozen on this list. Last Tango from the BBC is set in contemporary Canada so it pulls off quality without invoking an earlier period and without getting the aristocracy involved. The Dirt movie tops a decent batch of documentaries from Netflix. Homeland season one from the library is good enough to prompt putting the second season on hold. Silver Linings Playbook was a disappointment and I should have known anything from the WWE would be a bomb.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar.

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were:

Dirt! The Movie [stream availability expired 10/6/2013]

Tent City, USA

Don’t Stop Believin’

Becoming Chaz

Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon

His Secret Life [stream availability expired 10/6/2013]

WWE for All Mankind

Last Tango in Halifax (Season One) – 2012 (3.6). Though the story of widowed people in their seventies who had become disconnected way back in their school days hooking up over the Internet and committing to love has some appeal, this BBC series adds other elements which raise the show to a much higher level. They each have a daughter who is going through her own midlife crisis. One daughter with a philandering husband struggles with her own sexual preferences, and the other, also widowed, struggles with guilt and her own erotic desires. The younger women each have sons, making for even more issues of communication between the generations. The acting is top notch and the writing is sharp. These people all have their good points and bad, making them more real and appealing. Season two filming is already underway.

Dirt! The Movie – 2009 (3.3). This surprisingly moving documentary uses entertaining animation and interviews with environmental activists combined with footage of children and adults worldwide to explain how wonderfully intricate the soil of the earth is and how much we are interconnected with it. The earth is alive and soil is fundamental to all life, something which we too often seem to forget as we neglect the soil and let multinational corporations kill it with chemically toxic monoculture. The movie does a very effective job of imparting scientific information in an entertaining way making it watchable by parents and young children together. Seeing children, urbanites, convicts and people of diverse circumstances all experiencing a profound sense of connection when they get involved with healthy soil is inspiring.

Best Kept Secret – 2013 (3.0). Closely following three young men with severe autism as they are about to turn 21 and graduate from a special needs public school in Newark, this documentary shown on PBS POV does an effective job of presenting the challenges they face and showing their unique individuality. We also meet their genuinely upbeat, charismatic and dedicated teacher as she spends all her time trying to find a program to work with her students after they graduate. We also meet some of the family members and surrogates who are struggling to do what they can to help in the lives of these young men. There are lots of films about autism, many with informative interviews with experts, but this movie defers on those and instead offers a more personal and engaging experience.

Homeland (Season One) – 2011 (3.0). A US Marine Sergeant who was captured in Iraq and thought to be dead suddenly turns up alive after eight years. His wife has in the last year started a serious affair with his best friend, who helped her and her children through their ordeal. A female CIA agent in Iraq is told by a trusted Iraqi informer that an American soldier has been “turned” by Al Qaeda, so she suspects the Marine and on her return to the US targets him for investigation. Unable to get official CIA sanction she goes rogue and gets too personally embroiled, which is not unusual for this brilliant but deeply flawed agent. The continuity of the main story arc and the plausibility of the plot twists are more than enough to overcome some holes in the back story of the possible “turning” and some apparent lapses in security practices in this well-acted Showtime series.

Tent City, USA – 2012 (2.9). Homeless people run their own tent city in Nashville with guidance from a local church and this documentary follows several inhabitants as they tell some of their personal stories and go about their lives. A flood brings the need to relocate the camp and the homeless are met either by community antipathy or inaction as four homeless people decide to seek a seat on the feckless Nashville Homeless Commission. Effectively putting a personal face on homelessness, this movie saves time by not including interviews on the subject with so-called experts who have never been homeless themselves.

Foyle’s War (Season Seven) -2013 (2.8). This season consists of three TV movies set right after WWII with Foyle being recruited by the MI-5 intelligence agency to work as a sort of ombudsman to keep the agency from getting too far of the righteous path in its zeal to kep ahead of the Russians in the new cold war. Foyle recruits his driver assistant Samantha, now married to a sincere young politician. Other than the presence of Sam there is no story arc in this season beyond Foyle taking on his new job and bumping into the MI5 mentality of the end justifying the means and at season end leaving open the likelihood he will not remain in this job.

Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey – 2011 (2.8). When long time rock band Journey lost its celebrated lead singer, they went to You Tube to look for a possible replacement and found a very promising candidate in Manila. This documentary shows the process of testing the man and the resulting tour to try him out. Arnel Pineda is one of those singers whose voice is surprisingly robust for his size. He also has an inspiring tale of overcoming obstacles and exudes a charismatic positive attitude. The movie is a little too long, but it does contain lots of music for fans and a hopeful message for musical aspirants.

Becoming Chaz – 2010 (2.8). Chastity Bono never felt like a girl and her mother Cher says she knew early on her daughter was a lesbian. Only four when her dad Sonny died, Chaz went through a very troubled adolescence and early adulthood. As this documentary begins, Chastity has started the process of trans-gendering into a man. She lives with her girlfriend, who has problems of her own, but who sticks with Chaz as the hormone therapy and breast removal surgery lead her to a second puberty, this time as a testosterone loaded male. Chaz has the support and many friends and family members, except for her mother who seems befuddled and too busy nursing her own celebrity to fully tune into what is going on. Chaz has a good attitude and is courageous about what she is doing, even getting involved with families who have young children who will probably be making a similar sex change.

Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon – 2010 (2.8). Using old home movies taken by his grandfather and father and interviews with his mother and siblings, the filmmaker who made this documentary tells the story of how his father was not loved by the grandfather, how the father was never able to comprehend the fact that one of his own son’s was autistic and how the life of the father took a serious downhill turn. The autistic brother, who is now a successful artist, is a central interview subject and is very likeable. His autism was helped in his early years through therapy his mother insisted he get, and he has been able to live independently as an adult.

His Secret Life – 2001 (2.8).  Fortyish Antonia was a devoted wife but when her husband was killed in a traffic accident she was challenged to examine his life and hers upon discovering that he was involved in a long term gay relationship at the time of his death. This Italian drama does not indulge in cheap comic relief but rather shows a woman struggling to understand first her husband and their life together, then her relationship with her mother and the man who loved her husband and the members of the LGBT community to which he belongs. Without blatantly spelling out the questions, this Italian movie manages to get us to think about the answers.

Silver Linings Playbook – 2012 (2.7). This is one of those movies we are supposed to like, because it is a sincere attempt to address mental illness in a newly personal way and the young leading actress won the Oscar for her performance. Unfortunately, too much time is spent at the beginning of the film showing the young bi-polar man acting out his illness, much to our discomfort. Though we see him in a mental institution, we learn nothing about his illness or how they are trying to help him, though we do see him faking taking his pill, a la Nicholson in Cuckoo’s Nest. After his release, we see the man interfacing with his parents, friends, brother, shrink, police officer, former fellow patient and most importantly, the girl with mental issues herself, who leads him on the path to recovery. Her performance was good, but not memorably Oscar worthy. The rest of the roles are written as caricatures, though the father, played by DeNiro, has a little more depth. There did not seem to be much to learn about mental illness here, other than to be sure to take your medicine and have lots of people who patiently love you, especially a very good looking person of the opposite sex who also happens to have mental issues.

WWE for All Mankind: The Life & Career of Mick Foley – 2013 (2.2). This overlong documentary about a college educated pro wrestler was made by the WWE and is largely a commercial for that business with Foley eagerly narrating his seemingly endless career of entertaining people with increasing amounts of shtick and orchestrated violence without regard to the cost to his body. Somehow the man comes across as not brain damaged, though his body otherwise seems fairly ravaged. Apparently he does some philanthropic work, which is mentioned in the film promos but barely shown in the movie. His personal life is also hardly touched on, except for a bit at the beginning about how he was an early fan of entertainment wrestling. People who actually paid to watch such entertainment may like this film, but the only thing it has to offer for the rest of us is confirmation that we are glad we did not waste our time and money.