It's Educational

 

When our kids were little we encouraged them to watch children's shows on PBS. Though they liked most of them, there were times when the kids would grow tired of always watching PBS and disparage a particular show with a pejorative, "It's educational." To this day the content on PBS is stellar. With no little ones in the household, there is plenty worthwhile for adults to watch in the evenings. One PBS genre that is quite educational and very well done is science, particularly shows like Nova. Most of these can be watched on line without cable TV or over the air with an aerial. Technically these are movies that could be rated on this blog, but my sense is to not include them. Suffice it to say, every one of them is educational and also very entertaining. As for the usually excellent PBS historical and biographical shows, they seem a little less like classroom fare, so while they are also quite educational, I am inclined to rate them here.

 

Home Fires (SeasonOne) – 2015 (3.3). As Britain enters WWII, the women in a rural community ramp up the efforts of the Women's Institute in support of the war in this well-crafted series. The characters are diverse and all afford opportunities to explore various aspects of the effect of the war on women and their families. There is a lot going on but it seems to fit together realistically and with good intertwining story arcs which hold attention and make one look forward to several more seasons.

 

The Theory of Everything – 2014 (3.2). Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar and other awards for his portrayal of Steven Hawking; Felicity Jones as wife Jane was nominated for an Oscar and other awards but won none. This somewhat mirrors the lives of the real people portrayed in this moving biopic of the challenging love relationship of a brilliant and healthy woman and a genius man with ALS, based on her book later updated with him. A nicely paced script, quite effective cinematography and competent directing complement the excellent acting.

 

Game of Thrones (Season Five) – 2015 (3.0). With this season the series has now caught up with the books and is ready to enter new ground with a sixth season o be based on author notes of where the books are expected to go. HBO is making tons of money on this lavish production with an enormous fan base and good critical reception. While it is still hard to follow everything going on, this fifth season seemed to stay on the track of the story arc a bit better. The excessive blood, gore and nudity continue even as sometimes the show gets a little too talky. Maybe it is the effect of the looming US Presidential election and tumult in international affairs, but the applicability of the series to contemporary politics and battles for power seems to be getting more apparent.

 

Indian Summers (Season One) – 2015 (2.9). It is 1932 and the colonial upper crust in India has moved to the cooler foothills for the summer in this Brit series. Colonialism is winding down but the country is in political turmoil. The Secretary to the Viceroy is central to the series. He is mentored by an older female family friend who runs the social club and his sister returns from a long stay in England bringing her child and a story of being widowed. An Indian family headed by a war veteran includes an upwardly mobile son who make it to the staff of the Secretary and a daughter who is a law student working with progressive reformists. Mystery and personal romantic tension seems to surround everyone, perhaps a bit too much, taking away from time that could have been spent delving into the evolving politics of the time and place. Maybe that will come more with the second season of this stylish production.

 

India's Daughter – 2015 (2.8). The brutal gang rape and murder of a medical student in India, the underlying cultural attitudes toward women and the galvanizing effect this crime had on university students throughout India to demand changes in the cultural attitudes and the judicial system are documented in this film. The parents of the victim present an enlightened counter to the backward perversion of the assailants which their attorneys attempt to justify. The police official seems oblivious to reality but the popular uprising of revulsion did lead to a blue ribbon commission recommending sweeping changes in Indian law. But the Indian government is not as open as it could be as the movie has reportedly been banned in the country.

 

Copenhagen – 2014 (2.8). A jerky American 28 year old man travels with a buddy and the buddy's girl to Copenhagen where the jerk is going to look for his paternal grandfather to deliver a letter from the jerk's dad who died a year ago in this indie drama. After breaking with the buddy the jerk struggles to find his way around town and cannot read the letter because it is written in Danish. His father walked out on the family when the jerk was 14 and before that the man was just a grump. A 14 year old girl starts helping the jerk with his mission, partly because she herself had a no show father. What the man finds out about the paternal roots and what he learns from the girl about relationships with women is the substance of this promising first feature.

 

Mimi and Dona – 2014 (2.8). Autistic Dona is in her sixties and has always lived with her mother Mimi in Texas, but the time has come to move Dona into a group home living arrangement. A niece of Dona made this touching documentary about the painful process of separating mother and daughter. The movie concentrates on the two women and close family members through the time of discussing the move and then making it and monitoring the effect over the next couple years. The family seems to have an unusual number of autistic members, but the film does not explore analysis of data or seek expert opinions. The story is kept very personal.

 

My Week with Marilyn – 2011 (2.8). When Marilyn Monroe went to England to film the Prince and the Showgirl, she drove Laurence Olivier nuts. A young upper crust man got his first job in the movie business as a flunky for Olivier and provided a much needed buffer between the two stars. This stylishly produced though somewhat superficial film is based on the young man's memoir. Typically good Brit acting, including Eddie Redmayne as the young man, and a very good Monroe by American Michelle Williams make up some for script deficiencies.

 

American Comandante – 2015 (2.7).  Archival footage, home movies, newspaper articles and an interview with his widow are the bricks of this documentary about an American boy from Ohio who wanted to be a soldier but was dishonorably discharged from the US Army, drifted into life as a gangster and then abandoned his wife and child to go to Cuba in the 1950s to fight in the revolution. Taken lightly at first the man soon earned fame as a fighter but was disillusioned when Castro embraced Russia and communist ways. His participation in the counter revolution turned out about as well as the Bay of Pigs invasion.

 

The One I Love – 2014 (2.7). The script for this indie drama about a couple whose marriage counselor sends them to a secluded getaway is clever. As we expect to learn more about their problems and watch them work on the issues, we quickly learn there is something quirky about the guest house on the property and the doppelgangers that are staying there. Revealing they are alter egos of a sort, the script then gets a little muddled between solving the mystery and saving the marriage. At the end, it is not clear enough what the couple actually learned and whether both members of the original couple in fact returned home.  The doppelganger technology works well and the two actors, who we realizer at the end carried the entire movie, give good performances.

 

Second Best ExoticMarigold Hotel – 2015 (2.6). Proof again that sequels are usually not as good as the original, this remake suffers from a muddled script bouncing around between story lines and never congealing. There are the acting greats and some funny lines, but it is a quite forgettable movie.

 

Swingers – 1996 (2.5). Sometimes it is hard to know whether we are laughing with this indie movie or laughing at it. Young guys trying to make it in the movies and related arts in LA are hopping around to parties and bars with a concentration on trying to find a hookup for the guy who has been spending six months moping over the breakup of a six year relationship. This is the kind of film that gets made by the kind of guys who are the characters.

 

Three Kings – 1999 (2.3).  In the aftermath of the Gulf War, four American soldiers discover a map leading to gold Saddam stole from the Kuwaitis and they set out to get some for themselves in this predictably formulaic action caper movie. In the course of dealing with remnants of Saddam's repressive forces, the soldiers become involved with rescuing innocent civilians.

 

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

Copenhagen

The One I Love

Swingers

Three Kings