Eva's 2008 Movies Most Worthy of Mention, in Chronological order * means Herman saw it too.
Atonement A faithful adaptation of the wonderful novel by Ian McEwan. Dir. Joe Wright. Saoirse Ronan plays 13 yr old (in 1935) Briony, Keira Knightly her older sister Cecilia, Harriet Walter their mother, James McAvoy Cecilia's lover Robbie, and Brenda Blethyn his mother. Vanessa Redgrave plays Briony 70 years later in the epilogue. We go from a country estate to Dunkirk. Harriet Walter is ex-colleague Liz Langdon's step sister.
Juno Dir. Jason Reitman. Screenwriter Diablo Cody deservedly won an academy award. The dialog between bright 16 yr old Juno (Ellen Page) and her parents (Allison Janney plays her step-mother) and the prospective adoptive mother (Jennifer Garner), and Juno's boyfriend Paulie (Michael Cera) was refreshing.
The Savages Dir. Tamara Jenkins. Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman cope with their dementia-afflicted parent (Philip Bosco), who had abandoned them in their childhood. Linney says, “I'm not married but my boyfriend is.” I actually knew 60% of this movie just from the trailers. Still I considered it 3 hrs well spent to cycle to the cinema to see this. Both siblings change their lives for the better. Enjoyable though not cheerful.
*The Great Debaters Dir. Denzel Washington, who also has a starring role as the Wiley College debate team's coach. Forrest Whitaker plays the clergyman father of 14 yr old James Farmer (the James Farmer later of the Civil Rights movement, played by Denzel Whittaker, no relation). A 1930's period piece, based on a true story. Like a sports movie, only with debating. And the movie looked good. Two thumbs up!
*The Kite Runner Dir. Marc Forster succeeded in adapting Khaled Hosseini's 2003 novel set largely in 1970's Kabul. After emigration to California there's a harrowing rescue decades later in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
The Witnesses Dir. André Téchiné. (Fr, 2007). Set in France in 1984. Manu, who gets AIDS in the course of the movie, is the focal point, but the other characters absorbed me too. I especially liked the doctor. I like watching attractive people who have jobs and friends and loves and problems, w/o special effects or violence.
Quantum Hoops. Dir Rick Greenwald. A documentary about the Caltech basketball team that had not won a conference game since 1987. It was as much a Caltech recruitment movie as anything else. I like sports movies, and these kids were really trying, and getting better—they measured their progress by narrowing the average point margin from the previous year. The team had only two players who had played h.s. varsity basketball, but it had eight valedictorians. We see the players in labs and dorms and learn what they did after graduation.
Surfwise Dir. Doug Pray. Documentary about the Paskowitz family. The 8 sons & 1 daughter were born between 1959 & 1969. They were raised in a 22 ft. rig. They did not go to school. They were never in one community long enough to be noticed by the truant officer. Their father, Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, was a Stanford-educated M.D. who got occasional medical gigs in the most remote places listed in some catalog of communities that need doctors. The rest of the time they all surfed. Their mother, Julia, was the daughter of Mexican immigrants. We see photos of their childhood. They won surfing contests. Eventually they founded a surfing school. We see them today having a reunion in Hawaii with their parents. All are attractive, well-spoken and literate. One has an autistic son. That Paskowitz runs a surfing program for autistic children.
The Visitor Writer-dir. Tom McCarthy is 2 for 2: The Station Master was also his. 62 yr old widower and economics professor Walter wakes up to life when a squatter in his only occasionally used NY apt. introduces him to drumming. Walter gets involved in that illegal Syrian immigrant's deportation case, and feels attracted to his mother. She learns about her jailed son's life in NY and gets acquainted with his Senegalese girlfriend.
*Brick Lane Dir. Sarah Gavron, based on Monica Ali's novel which was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Set in London before and after 9/11 among Bangaladeshi immigrants. I felt like a fly on the wall of their lives.. Nanzeen is married to overweight self-important Chanu (Satish Kaushik). She corresponds w/ her sister and for years misses the subtext, but during the movie catches on and is devastated. She's smitten w/ militant Karim (Christopher Simpson), her delivery man. There are 2 school-age anglicized daughters. Score by Jocelyn Pook.
Chris and Don Dir. Tina Mascara & Guido Santi. Docudrama, talking heads and archival footage about Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy who started living together in 1951 when they were 51 and 19. They remained together modulo a few affairs on Don's part trying to catch up, until Isherwood's death in 1984. Bachardy developed into a portrait artist during the first decade of their relationship. Don did drawings of Chris every day during Chris's final illness—he died of prostate cancer. We see those drawings and many other Bachardys. Today Don is a slim, centered, bicycling, senior citizen, and still painting.
Sixty Six. Family drama with humor set in London in 1966, the year the British won the World Cup. Seen with Londoner George Keilbach. Bernie's (Gregg Sulkin) Bar Mitzvah has long been scheduled for the afternoon that he realizes with dismay is going to coincide with the big game. Furthermore, the family business is dying because a chain store has moved next to it, so the party is scaled down for that reason as well. Bernie's parents are played by Helen Bonham Carter and Eddie Marsan. A voiceover technique succeeds at conveying Bernie's attitude toward his father. Director Paul Weiland calls it “A truish story based on my own life.”
*Mama Mia Dir Phyllida Lloyd, w/ Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth & Stellan Skarsgård. A musical about a wedding on a Greek island. The hook is Meryl Streep's daughter does not know who her father is so she invites all the candidates. Meryl's two middle-aged friends were fun.
Elegy of Life. Rostropovich. Visnenskaya. Russian TV documentary by Aleksandr Sokurov. Opens with the 50th anniversary party of the cellist conductor and his opera star wife. Then shows them at home and working.
Man on Wire. Dir. James Marsh (2008). Documentary about Philippe Petit, high wire artist, culminating in his 45 minutes on a wire between the two World Trade Center towers in 1974. Seeing this movie was like attending a happening or an art installation. There's footage of earlier Petit events, like walking a wire between the two towers of Notre Dame. And we see home-movies of his team preparing for the happenings. I liked the current interviews with Petit and his friends and ex-girlfriend, especially having seen them all 30 years earlier.
American Teen. Dir. Nanette Burnstein (2008) A documentary that follows 5 seniors of the class of 2006 of Warsaw Indiana's public high school. There's no more drama than is in ordinary life, but that's enough for me. High school hasn't changed that much! We get a 1½-years-later follow-up. Hannah had headed for San Francisco to establish residency and then start film school in a year. But she found it expensive and she had “a sucky job” so after 8 months left. She's now in film school in NY and loving it. Two of the kids are in pre-med.
Frozen River Dir. Courtney Hunt. This would be a good one to rent around Christmas, because that's when it's set, there are children in it, people with sub-par shelter, and eventually goodwill (But it's not A Wonderful Life). Melissa Leo (Ray), Misty Upham (Lila, the Mohawk), and Charlie McDermott (Ray's oldest son T.J.) are such good actors I felt I was watching real life. The film is about illegal Chinese and Pakistani immigration across the frozen St. Lawrence in upstate NY on a Mohawk reservation. The pedal-pumped merry-go-round was nifty.
Religulous Dir Larry Charles. Bill Maher's (A well-known comedian I somehow missed until now) Michael-Moore-like movie interviewing people about religion. Maher's own attitude is agnostic. His mother, who is interviewed, is Jewish, his late father, Catholic. Bill and his sister were raised Catholic. In his standup routine Bill used to say, “but my Jewish streak came through—I'd bring a lawyer along to confession.” Religion, like war, has been described as “boredom punctuated by moments of terror.” Maher interviews ex-Mormons, Jews for Jesus, gay Muslims, and an ex-gay evangelical. The two Catholic priests interviewed in Rome came off OK.
The Pool Dir.Chris Smith made the indie documentary American Movie, which is so different from this film. This is a colorful people-watching movie set in the Indian state of Goa. Watching it is akin to travelling in the attentive but brief way we just did in Guatemala. The pool belongs to a rich Mubai family. The ending is lovely.
The Express Dir. Gary Fleder. Screenwriter Charles Leavitt. Based on Robert Gallagher's book The Elmira Express about Ernie Davis, the first black Heisman trophy winner (1961). He signed with the Cleveland Browns, but died of leukemia at 23, before ever playing a pro game. Rob Brown plays Davis, Dennis Quaid plays Syracuse's coach. Syracuse won the national championship for the first time. The country club where the Cotton Bowl awards were to be given was whites-only. Syracuse had beaten Texas there and Ernie was MVP.
The Secret Life of Bees Writer-dir. Gina Prince-Blythewood, based on Sue Monk Kidd's 2002 novel. It's 1964, the summer of the Civil Rights Act, but Jim Crow still thrives in South Carolina. Motherless Lily (Dakota Fanning, 14) and family maid Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) flee Lily's brutal father (Paul Bettany). They wind up at the home of August (Queen Latifah), June (Alicia Keyes) and May (Sophie Okonedo) Boatwright. August raises bees. June teaches music, registers voters and resists her attractive suitor. Lily gets info about her Mom.
Happy Go Lucky. Dir. Mike Leigh. Set in London. Poppy is a primary school teacher. We see her at work, where I admired her. In the rest of her life her constant laugh grated. But the character that actress Sally Hawkins created has stayed with me. But Poppy is coping fine with adult life, despite the laugh. Her driving instructor (Eddie Marsan) is another who makes an impression. He's pathologically angry and a bit of a stalker. Poppy handles him pretty well. Poppy talks over her challenges at work and with the instructor with roommate Zoe. All the boring bits of life are included in “kitchen sink realism,” but detail I am interested in is also.
Boogie Man, the Lee Atwater Story. Dir Stefan Forbes. (2008). Muckraking documentary about the Republican operative who died in 1991 at age 40 of cancer. Karl Rove was Atwater's protegé. Enough said.
Nobody Loves Me. Dir. Doris Dörrie. (1994, Ger.). This was more enjoyable than Happy Go Lucky, which was also about a 30 yr old single woman. Both women were shown interacting at work and with relatives & dates. Fanny (Maria Schrader) is in airport security. Neither Fanny nor Poppy shrank from encounters with homeless people. But Dörrie's movie had a whimsical, magical quality (How long does Fasching last in Cologne, anyway?), whereas I squirmed in Leigh's. Fanny and her neighbor, dying black fortune-telling transvestite Orfeo (Pierre Sanaussi-Bliss), bond. With a few deft strokes such as Fanny sitting in the bathroom with Orfeo, baring her soul, we see the quality of the intimacy that has grown between them. I also saw Kirschblütten (Cherry Blossoms) by Dörrie, with the director present! Some beautiful, but quirky and unlikely, relationships also develop in that movie. A recent widower goes to visit his son, a German working in Tokyo.
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 Documentary by Kevin Rafferty. About the fabled final game of 1968, played at Harvard. Both teams were undefeated but Yale was the heavy favorite. Yale was winning 29-13 w/ 3 minutes to go. They were still ahead 29-21 with 3 seconds to go. Actual footage. Players from both sides interviewed 40 yrs later. One dated Meryl Streep in '68 (We see photos of them together). Another had been Al Gore's roommate. Another, W's. Plus they reminisced about other stuff going on in '68. It was a bonus to see this at the Brattle in Harvard Square with an audience of partisans. One of the '68 team present was in the audience!
Last revised: December 30, 2013