Eva's 2010 Movies Most Worthy of Mention, in no special order * means Herman saw it too.
*Invictus (2009) Dir Clint Eastwood, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as captain of the 1995 South African rugby team, the Springboks. This was superior to most sports movies because it portrayed Mandela’s leadership and burdens, as well as being a dramatization of a game uniting a nation.
In Search of Memory 2008 Documentary by Petra Seeger about Nobel prize winner (2000, Medicine) Eric Kandel, who studies memory. We are introduced to his grad students at Columbia. They describe their research projects. We see Kandel playing tennis, swimming, and at a seder with his family. A good portion of the film is about a trip he took back to Europe with his wife of 50 years, Denise, their children and grandchildren. Denise, as a Jewish child in Poland, had been hidden in a Catholic orphanage. They visit the premises and she remembers and finds a secret door. Eric’s family had abandoned their toy shop when they fled Vienna when he was 9 in 1938. They revisit his family’s old address and shop. Eric recalls a crisis in their marriage. Denise (also a prof) accused him of being such a workaholic he ignored his family. Kandel majored in History at Harvard.
The White Ribbon Written and directed by Michael Haneke. Dark underside of a German village 1913-1914. The mood, and the re-creation of a world from which the leaders of 20-30 years hence emerged was fascinating and held my interest. But then I felt so cheated by the ending, where none of the loose ends were tied up. But months later the impressions of that town remain and I no longer remember the mysteries that went unsolved.
Rescue Dawn (2006) Werner Herzog’s dramatization of a true story, with Christian Bale as Dieter Dengler, a US Navy pilot shot down in 1966 over Laos. I don’t enjoy war stores but I like escape stories. The prisoners ate maggots, repeating to themselves, “It’s a protein.” The family of the prisoner who came off as a wet blanket has challenged his portrayal, arguing he was actually a hero because he would not leave a sick fellow prisoner.
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997, Ger.) documentary of the same story by Werner Herzog. 74 min. I loved it.
*White Diamond Documentary by Werner Herzog. Library DVD. 90 min. Dr Graham Dorrington is an Aeronautical Engineer at the U. of London. We see him in his lab, but most of this movie takes place in British Guyana. Dorrington’s goal is to float silently in a helium-filled airship just above the canopy. Dieter Plage, a filmogrpher, died in 1993 in Sumatra in one of his airships, which very much weighs on Dr. Dorrington. He has added a lot of safety features. The film’s music is unusual and just right. A million swifts live behind a waterfall. There are a few moments of terrific dancing. We get blimp history (The Hindenberg, graf zeppelins).
Lbs. The ending needs re-work, but then so did the ending of The White Ribbon, and it was acclaimed. 29 year old Neil from NYC who weighs 300 lbs. is disgusted with his lack of self control, so he moves to the Catskills. He only tells his best friend Sacco his address. He sells his car to buy a derelict trailer on cheap land, gets a second hand bicycle, chops wood, and walks to the grocery store. He drops 100 lbs in 10 months. He meets a woman up there who ultimately disappoints. Sacco, who’s slim and handsome, is an addict. Unlike Neil, Sacco does not come from a loving family. Back in NYC Neil dares approach a woman who’d been out of his league before, but she turns out to be disdainful towards fat folks, now that she thinks he isn’t one.
A Matter of Size. Israel. (2009) Directed by Sharon Maymon & Erez Tadmore. A comedy, but I liked the realism with which the romance was handled, and the mother-son relationship. A group of fat Israeli men take up sumo wrestling to develop a more positive self-image. I like to see movies in languages I’ve studied.
*Disfigured-a movie about women and weight. Dir. Glen Gers. Library DVD. A drama about an overweight woman, Lydia (Deidre Edwarda), and a recovering anorexic, Darcy (Staci Lawrence), who become friends when Darcy tries to join Lydia’s fat acceptance group because she thinks she’s fat, but they won’t let her in.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers I like a movie that takes history from my own lifetime that I didn’t pay enough attention to at the time and pulls it all together for me.
Inside Job. (2010) Documentary by Charles Ferguson. Interviews with people in finance on whose watch the global financial meltdown of 2008 occurred. Names names. Like a feature-length 60 Minutes segment.
Please Give. Dir. Nicole Holofcener, with Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt as proprietors of a vintage furniture business and parents of a teen-aged girl. They live in Manhattan. They become acquainted with the two granddaughters (Rebecca Hall & Amanda Peet) of the old woman in the neighboring apartment. Etcetera.
The Kids Are All Right. (2010) Dir. Lisa Cholodenko, with Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska & Josh Hutcherson. 106 min. Same genre as Please Give. Parents of teens have a good but imperfect marriage. In both movies one of the parents has an affair and the kids cotton on and are upset, but the affair blows over, as it should. But neither movie is primarily about that. These movies are about how people behave and relate. Particulars of this movie: Nic and Jules are lesbians. Nic is a physician, Jules is trying to start a landscape gardening business. Each woman birthed one of their children, both by the same sperm donor.
*The Social Network (2010) Dir David Fincher. Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, based on a book by Ben Mezrich, with Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Garfield as his former friend Eduardo Saverin, Rooney Mara as his BU student ex-girlfriend, and Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, the founder of Napster. Armie Hammer plays both Tyler & Cameron Winklevoss. Starts at Harvard in 2003. Then on to California where Mark was easily led by Sean Parker. My take? Billionaires don’t have more fun.
Mao’s Last Dancer (2009) Dir. Bruce Beresford, with Chi Cao, & Bruce Greenwood as Houston Ballet artistic director Ben Stevenson. Dramatization of dancer Li Cunxin’s defection in the early 1980’s. I like biography. I like immigrant stories. I’m interested in the training, dedication and inspiration behind a life in the arts.
Conviction. Dir. Tony Goldwyn. Writer Pamela Gray, with Hilary Swank, Melssa Leo (who was so good in Frozen River), Minnie Driver, and Sam Rockwell. A docudrama about the wrongful conviction of Kenny Waters in western MA in 1983 that got vacated 18 years later because of DNA evidence together with the incredible persistence of the convict’s sister, Betty Anne, who became a lawyer to prove her brother innocent.
Fair Game Dir. Doug Liman, based on books by Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts playing that couple. Did I say I like movies that present history I’ve lived through in a coherent story form? I’m wondering why Robert Novak (RIP) exposed CIA agent Plame in print. Did he believe that fact relevant to the reliability of Joe Wilson’s testimony about yellowcake? Was he an unwitting participant in Karl Rove’s revenge, agents in the field be damned? (Scooter Libby took the fall, but G.W. Bush pardoned him.)
127 Hours (2010) Dir. Danny Boyle, with James Franco. The story of Aron Ralston, who cut off his own arm in Utah in 2003 after being pinned under a boulder while canyoneering alone. Epilogue: Aron’s now married, and a new father. He’s back to canyoneering, but he always leaves a note now about where he’s going. I recognized the Canyonlands terrain. Did I say I like survival stories, and problem solving under any circumstances? Same genre as Touching the Void, Into the Wild, and Open Water. (See my movie lists past).
*Thank You for Smoking Based on a novel by Christopher Buckley. A polished movie about an amoral spin master for big tobacco (Aaron Eckhart), in the same genre as Up in the Air (where George Clooney plays a guy who fires people for hire, and loves his job), also directed by Jason Reitman. We enjoyed the DVD extra: Charlie Rose moderating a group interview with Eckhart, Reitman, Buckley and producer David O. Sacks.
*The Insider. Dramatization of a true story, with Russell Crowe as a whistle-blowing chemist and ex-big-tobacco executive violating his corporate non-disclosure agreement. Even Mike Wallace (played by Christopher Plummer) caved in to the threat of a lawsuit. But the intrepid journalist Lowell Bergman persevered and eventually got the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal to print the story. Eventually 60 Minutes did air it.
Cairo Time (2009) Dir. Rubba Nada was present at the screening I attended at the Somerville Cinema. Her mother’s Palestinian, her father’s Syrian. She’s Canadian. Patricia Clarkson plays Juliette, a Canadian magazine editor whose husband, a UN official, is delayed in Gaza from the R&R he planned with his wife in Cairo. It’s Juliette’s first time in the Middle East, and she’s the most receptive kind of tourist. She’s squired around by her husband’s Egyptian colleague, Tareq. He takes her to a wedding. There’s a diplomatic reception with a backdrop of Pyramids. This movie is a paen to Cairo. An attraction develops between Juliette and Tareq, but this movie does not cut to bed. It savors the emotional foreplay. I approve of the ending. Small but good film.
The Eclipse. (Ireland), with Ciarán Hinds as Michael, the nice suitor, and Aiden Quinn as Nicholas, the slick suitor. I handled the ghost stuff by chalking it up to nightmares. Since the ghost stuff totaled maybe 5 minutes, I could have, alternatively, ignored it. Having said that, I bet the director, Conor McPhereson, thought it crucial. Lena (Iben Hjejle) is a mystery writer in Cobh for the literary festival. Widower Michael, a festival volunteer, is haunted by apparitions of his wife. Lena is the only person to whom he can talk about these dreams.
*American Farm. Documentary by James Spione. Lanny Ames (b. 1938) is the 5th generation to farm the land in Richfield Falls, NY. The director is a relative. Lanny & Donna married at 19 and had 6 kids. none of whom wanted to take over the farm. In one of the (library) DVD extras the herd is being sold.The movie confronts religion, sex, hard work, discipline, and relationships. Old photographs of previous generations are shown. One of the DVD extras explores how the family was affected by having a movie made about them. On the whole it was a catalyst for good. There was communication in the movie itself and further communication afterwards.
*Milking the Rhino Documentary by David E. Simpson about getting local people to buy into conservation that they will control. One Masai village in Kenya already has a tourist lodge. We see town meetings elsewhere trying to achieve consensus. We see the pressure brought to bear on “reserved” nature land when there’s a shortage of grazing land due to drought. No way can nature be conserved just in National Parks. Library DVD.
*Escape from Auschwitz. 1 hour Library DVD from PBS. Dramatization of an escape in early Spring 1944 by Slovak Jews Rudolph Vrba, 19 and Alfred Wetzler. They were on a mission to warn the world, and Hungary in particular where deportations were about to begint, about Auschwitz. Vrba became a professor of Pharmacology in Vancouver. He died in 2006. Wetzler stayed in Slovakia. He was a journalist. He died in the 1990’s. And I have not even mentioned yet the daring, luck and problem-solving entailed by the escape itself.
*Army of Shadows Dir. Jean-Perre Melville’s 1969 French Resistance masterpiece released in the US in 2006. w. Simone Signoret. DVD loaned by Kathy McGaffigan. Ezra vouched for Melville at Herman’s birthday dinner party. This was high def. It would have been visually stunning anyway, on the basis of frame composition. I liked the ‘40’s dancing scene. I got the men mixed up. What did the submarine contribute?
*Standard Operating Procedure, a documentary by Errol Morris about Abu Ghraib. This was not the first documentary I’d seen on the subject-I saw Taxi to the Dark Side-but I was shocked & appalled all over again.
Mathcounts Webcast (2009) Danica McKellor is just the sort of role model Ken Fan seeks for Girls Angle.
Last updated Dec. 30, 2013