Viewing Journal for Sept. 2005

9-1-05 - The Greatest Game Ever Played
9-4-05 - The Memory of a Killer
9-5-05 - 21 Up
9-6-05 - Since Otar Left
9-7-05 - Oasis
9-8-05 - The Constant Gardener
9-10-05 - Touch the Sound
9-11-05 - Mondays in the Sun
9-14-05 - The Brothers Grimm
9-18-05 - Intermission
9-21-05 - Lord of War
9-22-05 - Koyaanisqatsi
9-23-05 - The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
9-24-05 - Nico and Dani
9-24-05 - Elizabethtown
9-28-05 - Jerry Maguire
9-28-05 - Thumbsucker
9-29-05 - Snow Falling on Cedars
9-29-05 - Dear Wendy
9-30-05 - A History of Violence favorite of the month

List of all the films I've seen in 2005

Thumbsucker

—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
Poor Justin -- seventeen years old and still sucking his thumb. He’s tried lots of things, but he just can’t stop. His father is frustrated that Justin still sucks his thumb, but then he’s somewhat frustrated with his life as well. His mother tries to be supportive in general, but she wants something more in her life, something fun. His younger brother is embarrassed by Justin’s overall weirdness.

It’s embarrassing for Justin as well. He goes into a stall in the school restroom to have a bit of privacy to suck. When his potential girlfriend wants to know about something written on his thumb that is meant to discourage him from sucking it, he would rather tell her it stands for an obscenity than to tell her why it’s there.

Finally his New Age touchy-feely orthodontist hypnotizes him and makes the experience of thumb sucking unpleasant. He stops, but now how can he find any comfort from the stresses of life? Soon he’s diagnosed as having ADHD and put on Ritalin. He becomes more focused, more confident and begins to show signs of great promise. He quickly rises to the top of the debate team at school. But soon that too grows out of control and he stops his meds to turn to pot and sex instead.

He is always going from one thing to the next hoping to find what it is that will make him normal. But perhaps he already is normal – just a bit flawed like everyone else.

Although Justin is the focal point of the film, we see that everyone around him has their own flaws that they try to cover up as best they can, just as he has tried to cover up his thumb sucking. As a patient as the drug rehab facility his mother works at put it, “everybody’s addicted to something.� For many that addiction may be socially acceptable, even encouraged – something that we see as good character such as seeking success. But for many of us it is something we just have to have to feel a little better. It may or may not be harmful. Maybe it’s just embarrassing. But it is there, hidden from the world, maybe even from ourselves.

The point of the film is that many of these flaws that we perceive as making us abnormal really are what make us normal – what make us individual – what make us human. Medically, there is nothing wrong with Justin sucking his thumb. It may mess up his teeth, but is it any worse than finding “normal� in stimulants or other drugs or other thrills?

This is the kind of film that in many ways is hard to categorize. It has some good humor, but overall, the tone is heavily morose. It’s not as though Justin (or anyone) finds any liberation from their fears and stresses. They just continue on with their struggles. A brief glimmer of hope at the end really isn’t enough to bring much light to the gloom.

Is Justin really that weird? He is certainly at a time of life that many find awkward. He has difficulty with coping with the stresses of everyday life. But we all have ways we try to deal with those stresses. Many of us have fears that we don’t want uncovered. Perhaps it is more normal to have a bit of weirdness than not to have it. It is when we discover that we can be loved in spite of our flaws – maybe even because of our flaws – that we are able to move on to live more fully.
—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections

"A love letter to America"

In the production notes for his film Elizabethtown, Cameron Crowe is quoted, “When I was a lot younger and writing for Rolling Stone, I’d be in a place like Arkansas or Oklahoma or Texas and fans would come up to me and say, ‘Why doesn’t your magazine write about people here?’� Now that he makes films, he has made a film that captures the people of America’s heartland.

Producer Paula Wagner says, “It seems really like almost a love letter to America.� It is the story of a man who has to go to Kentucky after his father died suddenly. There he meets the extended family that he’s really never known. The people of his family and the wider community of Elizabethtown are real people: people with faults, people who care, people who hurt, people with dreams (or who have lost dreams) -- people who live day by day.

It’s interesting that on the day I was taking part in interviews with actors and filmmakers, the New York Times published a piece by film critic A. O. Scott discussing the conservative slant of a couple of recent films. Certainly there are films with progressive biases as well. Film is a method of communication and is used by people with a variety of convictions to try to reach people with what they consider to be an important message. Scott’s article is a sign of the divisions that seem to be so prevalent in America. We are divided over the war in Iraq. We are divided into red and blue states. We are divided into pro-life or pro-choice camps.

Elizabethtown is a film that doesn’t fit into a red or blue vision of America – or perhaps it fits into both. It is designed to celebrate the America that isn’t busy thinking about being red or blue – but just being the kind of people we are. Orlando Bloom, who plays Drew, the film’s central character, says “It’s… the America that I think the whole world needs to see right now, this heartland of America….�

It’s not just the people that that are the focus of the film, but the land itself. Crowe was adamant about filming in Kentucky. He wanted to share the beauty of landscape and of towns that aren’t someplace in Pasadena that looks like Kentucky. In the production notes Wagner says, “Cameron’s screenplay is infused with the references to a specific place: it eloquently describes the bluegrass, the cicadas, and otherworldly heat.� The place almost becomes a character in the film.

Even more, the whole of America is a part of the film. An important part of the film is a road trip Drew takes with his father’s ashes after the memorial service. The trip takes him to a variety of places – important and unimportant. Bloom reflected on some of the places filming took him. “As a Brit, I felt privileged to go to these locations around America, whether it’s to stand in front of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis [site of Martin Luther King’s assassination] or to stand in front of the Survivor Tree in Oklahoma City or just to walk across a bridge in Arkansas that’s just the most amazing thing you’ve seen.

“…I’ve experienced New York, L.A., those big cities around the world, but I haven’t experienced the heartland of America, and that’s what’s portrayed in this movie, and that’s what’s so important.�

It’s worth noting that when filming was complete, Bloom chose to take a road trip from Nebraska back to L.A. accompanied by his dog and tunes that Crowe picked for him to enjoy along the way. He wanted to see even more of this country.

So if this is a “love letter to America� can it also be a universal story? Wagner says, “And really, when you think about it, isn’t there an Elizabethtown in every state and in every country? It actually kind of transcends America. Yes, it is very much an American love letter, but it also – when we screened it in Venice we got standing ovations…. People loved it. We had Italian and Spanish people coming up saying, ‘Oh, we identify with this movie so much….’�

Perhaps what starts out seeming like a love letter to America, is actually a love letter to the kind of life that is common in many places – the Elizabethtown that is our home. Wagner went on to say, “I think people are ready – let’s talk about this country – to have a film that gives them some love and embraces them and says ‘let’s talk about what’s human in all of us.’�

Lord of War

—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections

As Lord of War opens, Yuri Orlov tells us that there are enough guns in the world to arm one out of every twelve people on the planet. He wants to get guns to the other eleven.

That is because Orlov is a gunrunner. He supplies weapons to armies and rebels, to despots and freedom fighters, drug lords and war lords. He doesn’t care who he sells them to. He knows if he doesn’t sell them, someone else will. He’s good at what he does. He knows who to bribe. He knows how to falsify documents so that everything seems legal.

The film is a rather preachy look at the level of armaments in the world and at the geopolitics that drive the gun trade. Munitions are indeed big business, both legal and illegal (and often somewhere in between). Governments are the largest suppliers of weapons. (The film notes that the five members of the UN Security Council are the largest dealers.) There are private dealers such as is portrayed in Orlov to fill in the gaps where governments don’t want to be involved or be seen as being involved.

The film follows the life of a fictional gun trafficker through twenty years – beginning when there was still a Cold War. Seeing a gang shoot out in a New York restaurant, he has an epiphany that providing weapons is an unending business. He also figures that the margins on supplying street guns are too small. So he starts making surreptitious deals to obtain tons of weapons left behind by the military because it is cheaper to order new ordinance than to ship it all home. His business grows and he becomes a purveyor of every kind of weapon.

When the Cold War ends he immediately goes to the Ukraine to buy up the vast stores of weapons of the former Soviet Union that are now without supervision. He even buys attack helicopters. He is the middle man that manages to get all these weapons from countries all over the world to those places where death is dealt daily by those in power or seeking power. In the film, we see this happening especially in West Africa. The gun trade certainly is an important factor in the genocides that have taken place in Africa, as it was in Eastern Europe earlier.

For the most part, Orlov is utterly amoral. He doesn’t think about what the weapons will be used for. To think of such things might compromise him. In stead, he focuses only on the deal. He has built an emotional wall that keeps the obvious use of these weapons at bay. He doesn’t necessarily like the people he deals with, but if they are going to be getting weapons anyway, he should get his share out of the deal. He also doesn’t think about where the money comes from. Much of the arms trade in Africa is financed by conflict diamonds, which Orlov readily takes as payment.

Yet, there is a bit of morality that creeps into his life. He doesn’t tell his wife (in many ways bought by the money he’s made in weapons trafficking) what he does, and she doesn’t ask – nor does she ask how he can buy her 18 carat diamond earrings. There are times when he’s confronted with what the weapons are used for. He doesn’t really want to be part of the death and killing, but he can’t quite keep himself blood-free. But in the end, even though it has cost him everyone who matters to him, he stays at it.

Perhaps the world, like his wife, should ask what’s going on. Perhaps that is what this film is trying to do. It certainly wants us to see all the death that plagues many nations because so many weapons are readily available. It isn’t the guns alone that bring all this death. We see a woman and child hacked to death with machetes – the people who are going to kill will do so with or without the guns. But the wide open arms trade certainly facilitates the killing that takes place on such a broad scale.

One of the problems with the film is that it is so preachy. To be sure, the issues raised are important and need to be addressed. This film seeks to shame us for allowing such things to go on, but without offering any alternative or action that we can do to bring about change. It is cynical in the sense of offering no hope. It seems to have given up on a world where there is so much killing and so few people who seem to care.

—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections

The Greatest Game Ever Played

There was a time before Tiger Woods, before Arnold Palmer, even before Ben Hogan, when professionals were the lower class of golfers. Golf was supposed to be a game of gentlemen – those who wouldn’t sully the game with money. Professional golfers had their place, but they weren’t really accepted into the golfing community.

It is this world in which The Greatest Game Ever Played is set. Early in the Twentieth Century, golf was still deemed a gentlemen’s game. Working class youth were welcome to serve the upper class as caddies, but not to play the game. Professionals were welcome to teach the upper class how to play better, but not to play with them. Those of inferior birth may find a livelihood in the game, but they didn’t really belong.

That dichotomy of class and sport makes the background for The Greatest Game Ever Played. Francis Ouimet is a young man in Brookline, Massachusetts who has a great gift for the game, but as a caddy, isn’t allowed to play on the course. His father thinks his fascination with golf is distracting him from the more important need of finding a place in the world. After all, the rich who monopolize the game will not let him in.

Harry Vardon was the great British professional who was something of the Tiger Woods of his day. He wasn’t from the upper class either. He began as a gardener, trimming the bushes of golf courses and caddying. Even at the height of his career, he wasn’t invited to be part of the club, only to be hired by the club.

In 1913, these two golfers from outside the world of gentleman’s golf met in the U.S. Open. To put a bit of pressure on the situation, Vardon was sponsored by the British press in order to prove British superiority in the game. When Ouimet played well enough to force a playoff round, it becomes a game of national honor.

The film is Ouimet’s story as he tries to realize his dream of being a golfer. As a younger man, he was invited to play in a tournament. His father objected, but Francis promised that if he lost, he would quit golf and take up a trade.

It becomes obvious at that earlier tournament that Francis had entered a world way over his social level – and there are plenty of people who keep reminding him of that fact. It all adds pressure to his task, which is just too much and he comes up short of winning. True to his word, he takes a job in a store.

A few years later, they are looking for someone local to play in the Open. Against his word to his father, he enters the tournament and plays superbly.

The film battles the idea of classism. In a key scene, Vardon speaking to his patron says (and I’m quoting from memory), “If Mr. Ouimet wins tomorrow it will be because of who he is - not who his father is - not how much money he has - but who he is.� Of course, since Vardon is also excluded from the classist inner circle of the golf world, the comment is as much about his own success.

One of the short comings of the film is that it didn’t quite give us a firm connection between the similar situations of the two golfers. In some ways they are rivals, but they also have more in common with each other than they have with most of the others in the film. That connection could have brought a bit more depth to the story.

The battle of classism really doesn’t seem applicable to our day. It still exists, but at least we’ve managed to hide it better. There are many other –isms that we can readily translate the lessons to: such as racism or sexism. The film can help us to think of the prejudices we carry with us or that we are victims of.

This is a good story of following dreams and proving oneself. It is the newest in a line of Disney sports movies (such as The Rookie, and Miracle) which offer uplifting entertainment. They are all good family films that leave us feeling good and may even encourage us to strive to follow our dreams. But it definitely has Disney’s fingerprints all over it. For some that may be a positive thing – clearly a family-friendly film made to be enjoyed by all ages. Others may find some of the Disneyfying a bit over the top (such as a scene with a ladybug landing on the ball just before the club strikes it – and then flying away into the crowd.)

To me the story was good enough to find the film worth seeing. The execution of the film, with all of Disney’s cuteness added in, may have take a bit away from the story, but it’s still an enjoyable film that can touch our lives.

Touch the Sound

—Overview
—About this Film pdf

A few years ago, Thomas Riedelsheimer shared with us the visual beauty of artist Andy Goldsworthy in one of the best documentaries of recent years, Rivers and Tides. That film was a wonder to behold as we watched Goldsworthy’s creative process and how in his art nature and time come together in new and moving ways.

In Touch the Sound, Riedelsheimer is back, this time showing us a world of sound and rhythm. His focus is Grammy winning percussionist Evelyn Glennie. The opening lines of the film are Glennie’s comment that her whole life is about sound. Riedelsheimer helps us to focus on sound by emphasizing the ambient sounds and rhythms of everyday life – people walking through an airport, the different sound of a dog walking along, the sound of suitcases being rolled along rough floors, the fluttering of a bird’s wings – sounds that usually blend together in the amalgam of noise around us. But they all have their rhythm; they all are a bit of music in themselves.

Next, we get to see Glennie do a drum solo on a single snare drum as she stands in the middle of Grand Central Station in New York. It is amazing the variety of sounds and rhythms that she can make with only one drum.

Through the film, Riedelsheimer follows Glennie around the world – to Japan to play alongside and complimenting taiko drummers, to Germany as she and musician Fred Firth make a CD of improvised music, to her childhood home in Scotland. All the while, we hear the various rhythms of the world – both natural and intentionally created. All the while we get to wonder at the varieties of noises all around us and the way Glennie builds her own set of rhythms and noises to make music where there was none before.

I should probably mention before I go too far, that Glennie is deaf. She doesn’t hear the music around her. She doesn’t hear the music she makes. She doesn’t hear the music her fellow musicians are making. Well, at least not the same way most of the world hears them. She hears through the vibrations.

But this is not a film that exalts the way people with handicaps compensate for missing abilities. It is a film that exalts in the music that this person makes. And indeed, there is wonderful music to be experienced in the film.

As in Rivers and Tides, this film is paced to allow us to savor the art that is being shared with us. It would be wrong to rush through either film. In both films the real central character is not so much the person the film is about as it is the art produced.

Riedelsheimer also uses the visual nature of film in ways that enhance the music we are hearing, whether Glennie’s or nature’s. The result is a very pleasant blend of aural and visual beauty. Just as the score added to the experience of Rivers and Tides, the visuals add to the experience in Touch the Sound.

Between the two, I think Rivers and Tides is the better film, but to say that in no way diminishes this film. In both we get a chance to experience the spiritual nature of the world around us and the art people make with the gifts around us.

—Overview
—About this Film pdf

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

—Overview

Words and ideas can change lives. Each time we open a book or watch a film, the stories have the power to alter us. So it is understandable that China has banned Sijie Dai’s semi-autobiographical book and film, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. The story deals exactly with the way ideas can transform lives.

The story tells of Luo and Ma, two young men from middle class families in Beijing who are sent to a distant rural village during the Cultural Revolution for reeducation. There they work in the fields and mines. They also have to submit to the rule of the town chief whose job it is to teach them that their bourgeois lifestyle was inappropriate for China under Mao. When they first get to the village, they have to have all their belongings judged for their appropriateness. They have a cookbook that is trashed (the village didn’t need bourgeois chicken). Luo’s alarm clock survived (it’s the first the villagers have seen), as does Ma’s violin after Luo tell the chief that Ma plays “Mozart is Thinking About Chairman Mao� so beautifully.

In time, they steal a set of forbidden books from another youth being reeducated in the village. These books (translations of classic Western literature) become their world. They pour through the stories.

They also meet the granddaughter of the tailor in a nearby village and both fall in love with her. The two city boys take it upon themselves to educate her so she won’t be like the country people they loathe being with. They read her the books. Those books do far more to teach her about the world and herself than all the other things they teach her. In time, she is set free from the restraints of her society through the stories that she has heard. In setting her free, it also takes her away from both Luo and Ma. Their attempt to make her “worthy� of them comes back in their face.

Perhaps it might be appropriate at this point for us to consider the words and ideas that have changed each of us. Our lists will vary. What are yours? John Steinbeck? C. S. Lewis? Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Bono? Bob Dylan? e. e. cummings? Martin Scorsese? Lars von Trier? The Gospel?

In The Gospel According to John, Jesus is called “the Logos.� Often translated “word,� logos is the root from which we get the word logic. Christ is seen in John as the kind of word or idea that changes not only lives, but the world.

Of course the whole Cultural Revolution was designed to remove ideas and words from society to allow Maoist ideas to be inculcated without competing concepts. The Communists knew that words mattered, so they sought to eliminated words and ideas that would undermine their own ideas. But as is often the case, those words and ideas continue to find their way into people’s minds. It isn’t easy to stop words from creeping in.

As I said, even though China allowed the film to be shot there, the film and the book it’s based on are banned. But I understand that the extensive bootleg video industry in China has copies of the film circulating. It really is hard to stop words from creeping in – into a country or into our lives.

—Overview