Notable Movies Seen in 2004. Commentary by Eva. Order is not significant.

• *Shattered Glass. Written and directed by Billy Ray, w/ Hayden Christensen as Stephen Glass and Peter Sarsgaard as Charles Lane, the New Republic editor on whose watch Glass was caught fabricating an article on computer hackers, though the fake articles trail included a substantial number on the previous editor’s watch. Steve Zahn plays Adam Penenberg, a tech writer at Forbes.com whose own editor had chastised him for not covering the hacker story himself. He starts to work on a follow-up story only to find nothing in the New Republic story checks out. I almost missed this movie because a very strange review in The Nyer panned it as being holier than thou. MaryDan, Herman and I saw this together Thanksgiving weekend 2003 (My 2003 list had already gone to press). It passed MaryDan’s "was this movie’s subject matter worth making a movie about" test. On the level of workplace dynamics alone it was good. 3 thumbs up.
• *Touching the Void Dir. Kevin McDonald. A thrilling re-enactment of a true story that happened to Brits Joe Simpson and Simon Yates in 1985 in Peru. Even though I knew the two mountain climbers were going to live through their perilous climb of Siula Grande because they were narrating the movie, I was on the edge of my seat. This movie does justice to a story worth telling. The epilogue tells us Joe and Simon are climbing again! That seems medically incredible.
• My Architect by Nathaniel Kahn (2003, 116 min) Dorothy and I went to a screening at the Coolidge Corner that was followed by two architects and a psychologist commenting and fielding responses from the audience. Some of the audience had known some of the people in the movie, which was interesting. I know from hearsay that a lot of people have a big void where their father ought to be. Nathaniel Kahn is one of them. He had his father once a week until he was six, when Louis Kahn died of a heart attack in NYC and was not identified for 3 days. This movie represents Nathaniel’s personal odyssey to fill in the blanks about who his father was. We travel the world to see Louis Kahn’s architectural legacy. We get interviews with Nathaniel’s mother, and with his half sisters on his father’s side. Kahn maintained three little families within 4 blocks of each other in Philadelphia! And he was at his office late a lot of nights. No one at work or in any of the families had the whole picture, or hardly any picture at all, as Louis Kahn never talked about his private life. I like works by filmmakers or authors with a deep and abiding love/obsession for another person who satisfy their own curiosity and honor the beloved by re-creating what they can of the other’s life.
• Racing Against Time Documentary about Masters Track and Field/Senior Olympics focusing on 5 women. The director Bill Haney and two of the women, Phil Ratzinger and Pat Peterson, were present at the Boston Film Festival screening. Sport is open to us all and it can be exhilerating and a source of friendships. These older amateur athletes participate at their own expense for the love of it. G.K mused, "I wonder if they get tested for performance-enhancing drugs?"
• Zellary Czech Dir. Ondrej Trojan. 2.5 hrs. and I was not restless for a minute. Story of a WW II urban resistance worker on the lam in a rural village. She marries a peasant for cover and grows to appreciate her new life. Seen w/ G. Keilbach.
• Les Triplettes de Belleville Animated film by Sylvain Chomet. This should have won the best song Oscar. The image of those 3 old ladies bursting often into a vaudeville routine will stick with me. The movie is like a feature-length silent film in that it succeeds in creating characters with only a little music and virtually no dialogue. None of the promotional materials did justice to the drawings. The story, unfortunately, is a weak point. Belleville is an amalgam of Paris & NYC.
• The Company Dir. Robert Altman. Almost a documentary, but there were actors to sketch out the student-like lifestyle of the company after work. You see the dance company in rehearsal. You see performances. You see lighting design. The set for The Blue Snake in the finale was not unlike the Tufts set for Dr. Faustus. The costumes were worthy of Bakst. I was interested in the office politics, the 42 year old ballerina’s issues, the budget, and how the all-powerful company director, A.Antonelli, handled a dancer who talked back. There were bruised feelings when a dancer was passed over for a role. The show must go on even when a star is sick, or when poured upon in a performance in Grant Park, Chicago.
• *Monster directed by Patty Jenkins, based on a real serial murderer, Aileen Wuornos. I agree with Marie Drumm that Charlize Theron’s performance is in a league with Hilary Swank’s in Boys Don’t Cry. The Academy agreed: Theron won Best Actress. Christina Ricci has a big role as Wournos’s girlfriend, Selby. Bruce Dern has a small Viet Nam vet role
• Latter Day Dir. C. Jay Cox. I saw this right on the heels of reading the book Under the Banner of Heaven about Mormons. I would imagine Mormons would hate both the movie and the book, which are related only in that they are both about Mormons. The movie is described favorably by The Phoenix as a "gay romantic comedy." The dialogue was so fleet I missed some of the lines others laughed at, but here’s one: Lila (Jacqueline Bisset), the eponymous owner of the restaurant where some of the characters are on the wait staff, whispers "He’s a very good tipper" to a nonplussed diner when he witnesses a waiter and his long lost love, a patron, rush into each others arms and remain in a long clinch. Steve Sandvoss plays Aaron, a young Mormon from Idaho living in an apartment in LA with two fellow elders. They were young men but that’s what they were called. It was news to me that they are not allowed to use each other’s first names. The movie reinforced some Mormon vocabulary I had just learned in the book. For example a stake is like a parish, and has a president. I did not know before that Mormon missionaries are not allowed to go home or contact their families at all during their 2 year missionary service. Aaron wrestles with reconciling his religion and his sexuality, and flamboyant neighbor Christian (Wesley S. Ramsey) overcomes his stereotype of believers. Aaron is banned by his stake in Idaho.
• Goodbye Lenin!. Dir. Wolfgang Becker. Germany, 2003. An amusingly cut and perfectly cast social satire but not devoid of emotion. Fresh even though I’d read a rather good summary before I went. Set in East Berlin mostly in 1989 and 1990.
• *Fahrenheit 9/11 directed by Michael Moore. Agit-doc, which Wired defines as "one-sided documentaries that favor an agenda over objectivity." Herman dismissed this movie as "snippets." Example: A sequence of clips from Bush speeches saying "Al Qaeda" and "Iraq." Obviously Moore took the single words out of some contexts and put them in his own collage. Do I recognize this as a technique that could be abused? Yes. Do I feel abused? No, because Bush did try to sell us on a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and this was a shorthand amusing way of making that point.
• The Door in the Floor Writer/director Tod Williams, based on the first third of John Irving’s A Widow for One Year. Jeff Bridges plays Ted Cole, a womanizing children’s book author who’s lost his driver’s license and needs an assistant. Jon Foster plays Eddie, a prep school student and aspiring writer who signs on as Ted’s summer intern. Ted and his wife Marion (Kim Bassinger) tragically lost their two teenaged sons in a car wreck 7 or so years earlier. They have a 5 year old daughter, Ruth (Elle Fanning). The 3 main actors are all terrific. I also enjoyed the bit appearance of the manager of the frame shop (Bijou ??). I liked the way Ted’s M.O. with women and stock lines were seen through and sent up.
• Open Water By husband and wife team Chris Kentis (dir) and Laura Lau (camera). Described as "The Blair Witch Project meets Jaws." I thought it was an extremely realistic dramatization of a life threatening plight that could happen to ordinary people. Same genre as Touching the Void, but without the extreme heroism and happy ending. Thumbs up.
• *The Story of the Weeping Camel. Made in Germany by Mongolia’s Byambasuren Davaa & Italy’s Luigi Falorni. A privileged look at another culture. Same genre as Zacharias Kanuk’s Atanarjuat and Eric Valli’s Himalaya. It’s nice to know it’s not a homogeneous world. I’d never seen the inside of a yurt before. I loved watching the people. I loved watching the animals. I was fascinated by the co-existence of tradition with satellite dishes and solar panels.
• My Brother’s Wedding 2003, 36 minutes. Dir. Dan Akiba and his parents, of Brookline, were present at the MFA screening. As a young man, Jonah Akiba travelled to Israel where, to his family’s dismay, he embraced Orthodox Judaism. And it got worse. He became a Lebivitcher Hassid. This movie is about that, but centers on Jonah’s wedding in Israel. I was interested to hear that Jonah lives in Safat, near where I lived in 1971. This was in a double bill with the Australian documentary Welcome to the Waks Family (2002, 52min.) directed by Barbara Chobocky. 17 children were born in 21 years to the same two parents, Lebivatcher Hassids. The husband was an assimilated Australian who took up Hassidism in his 20’s when he felt an emptiness about the pursuit of materialism. The parents and all the kids seem to be getting along fine. In this movie we see a few weddings and bar mitzvahs, the first in 1996. Just the logistics of running this household was an eye-opener. I felt like I was seeing Jonah Akiba 25 years hence. To his parents dismay the oldest Waks son fell away from Hassidism. But to please his parents he had a Hassidic wedding. I’m surprised that’s allowed.
• *Miracle dir. Gavin O’Connor. Story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. Patricia Clarkson plays the coach’s wife.
• The Galapagos IMAX with 3D glasses. In celebration of Mathcad 12 getting out the door R&D was treated by management to lunch at Durgin Park followed by this fantastically 3D movie at the Aquarium. It was a real treat.
• Flower and Garnet Canadian director Keith Behrman was present at the screening at the Somerville Theater. This family relationship drama won the prize for best narrative film at the Boston Independent Film Festival. Flower is about 8 when her mother dies giving birth to her brother Garnet. Most of the drama takes place about 8 years later when Flower rebels against her father's’neglect of Garnet and dumping of the parenting onto her. It’s a gem of a movie. 103 minutes.
• Thunder in Guyana The director, Suzanne Wasserman, a cousin of the documentary’s subject, was present at the screening at the Boston Public Library. In 1943, Janet Rosenberg, a 23 yr old from Chicago, newly wed to her Wayne State University sweetheart Dr. Cheddi Jagar of Guyana, moved to Guyana. Together they founded the People’s Progressive Party. Sixty-one years later widow Janet Jagar is still there. In 1997 she was elected president and served for 20 months, stepping down when she suffered a heart attack. Many Guyanese with get up and go, including Janet and Cheddi’s two children, and all Cheddi’s nine siblings, have emigrated. But Janet and Cheddi committed for life.
• The Puppeteer A delightful documentary Dorothy recorded from PBS about Igor Fottin, a street artist who performed in Harvard square. Kids, adults, and indeed video viewers like me, reacted to Igor’s puppets as if they were alive. The sound track was perfect. Igor hand-made the puppets. Igor, who looked so healthy and vital, died of heart failure at age 36 after a performance! I did not know until the end that he was going to die. At least there is this record on film of this Russian immigrant who graced our shores with 1000 street performances.
• A program of student movies at Tufts. The 7 minute dark melodrama The Castle Spectre with the operatic soundtrack was by Poppy’s son George Rausch, introduced by the poised director. The other short, Chicken of the Sea by Jeff Zachowski, was an animation about a fisherman and a mermaid with great drawings. The third, Gameplay by Adrian Pellereau, 55 min., was about a gaming club at Tufts. The members were all arresting "types" some of whom I recognized in person in the audience. The movie did not give me an appreciation of the allure of role-playing games, however.
• *Sideways dir. Alexander Payne, with Paul Giametti, Thomas Haden Church, Sandra Oh (now I know who she is) and Virginia Madsen. Seen in Rochester Thanksgiving weekend 2004 with MaryDan and Bob. Herman’s thumb is sideways. Herman said, "Both of those guys were rotten." I defended Miles. Then Herman reminded me that Miles stole from his mother. It was well-written and well-acted, though farcical. Sample line: "Did you drink and dial?"

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