Movies

Can a movie taking place in the grim council estates of South London, where aliens have landed and are viciously attacking hapless residents—can such a movie be called “light-hearted”? The answer is “yes” if the movie is Attack the Block, a sci-fi flick by Joe Cornish. Noting that the movie was one of the New York Times’ Don’t Miss Movies You Probably Missed, I sat down to watch and was soon alternately screaming and laughing—how fun is that?

The premise is that a gang headed by a brooding youth named Moses is faced with aliens who have invaded on Bonfire Night, an annual celebration in Britain with fireworks. In all the hubbub, the police don’t notice the meteor-like balls of fire that land in the projects, so the kids are faced with fighting the aliens themselves. Part of the humor of the situation is that the kids have grown up in such grim environment, and are so used to be harassed by cops and other gangs, that the aliens are just another bad-a… thing to deal with. Gathering clubs, knives, and guns, they go after the aliens, who have glow-in-the dark fangs. There are some sub-plots involving another gang, and some mellow drug dealers, but basically the film is a fast-paced, exciting fight between the kids and the aliens. There is an unexpected sweetness to this movie, as we see the kids transformed from a seemingly hardened street gang, to being revealed as vulnerable human beings who are discovering that they are capable of something better. And the aliens, who have been described as “gorilla-wolf things,” look more like Newfoundland dogs to me, albeit with glowing eyes and fangs—but not slimy or scary. So this isn’t “Alien” with its relentless alien horror, but rather has a “Ghostbusters” vibe.

One quibble: the speech of the gang members was sometimes really hard to understand—not only was it a South London accent, but it was gang lingo. But the story is straightforward enough to understand even if you miss a few lines.

Is it possible that another film about Truman Capote, that appeared after
the Oscar winning Capote is worth seeing?  The answer is a resounding
Yes!

If you enjoyed the 2006 Oscar winning film Capote, you might want to consider complementing your experience by viewing Toby Jones’ portrayal of Capote in Infamous. Because the films were released just months apart, and Capote was
the first on the scene, it grabbed the lion’s share of box office receipts and garnered rave reviews due to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s clone-like performance Infamous was unjustly overlooked.

In Infamous Toby Jones camps Capote’s outrageous mannerisms, and outspoken commentaries which made him the darling of sophisticated  social circles, and everyone’s pet.  Cut to scenes of Truman, surrounded by captivated socialites and movie stars, as he quips one liners.  Infamous provides us with a view of the humorous side of Capote, a man who was never afraid to
be a larger than life caricature  of  himself, and lends a comedic air to an otherwise serious film.

In deciding to write his true crime blockbuster In Cold Blood, Capote was
drawn inextricably into the lives of the assailants.  The soulful relationship between writer and murderer, the  shared childhood abandonment, the need for each to make a lasting  impression, one as famous and the other as infamous,
is exquisitely probed and explored in Infamous.

Capote’s subsequent lapse into alcoholism and depression, exacerbated by  the fact that he never wrote another critically acclaimed book, is now understood in light of the devastation  he suffered in losing his soulmate to the hangman’s noose. Because of Toby Jones’ sensitive portrayal in  Infamous, it becomes apparent  that, because he exploited Perry’s confidences to underscore the realism of In Cold Blood,  and profited from his lover’s demise,   Capote was haunted for the rest of his life.

Infamous leads us to a greater understanding of the unique genius that was Truman Capote.

Infamous. [DVD videorecording]. Widescreen version. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, [2007].

I had always meant to watch Au revoir les enfants, by Louis Malle, but it seemed like one of those “art” movies that might be a bit pretentious or tedious. So
it was a revelation to watch it the other evening, as it is a great,
great movie, one that leaves you changed after you’ve seen it. It’s based on Malle’s memories of an event at a Catholic boys school where he was a student, in France in 1943. Three new students had been enrolled, and Malle’s alter ego, Julien, made friends with one of them, a boy named Jean. As it turns out, the school’s headmaster Pere Jacques de Jesus, was providing refuge for the three boys, who were Jewish. A disgruntled kitchen helper named Joseph, who is resentful of the boys at the school because they are well-to-do, informs on the three boys, and the Gestapo raids the school. By a mere glance, Julien unintentionally reveals that Jean is one of
the Jewish students. The three students and Pere de Jesus are taken away and killed in death camps. As Pere de Jesus leaves, he bids farewell to the students: “Goodbye, children. See you soon.”

No matter how much you know about the Holocaust, at a certain level it is still hard to fathom how it happened. This film shows you one of the mechanisms. French society was rife with anti-semitism. The particular Germans shown in this film are pretty decent; it’s the French who are the “heavies.” The resentment of the kitchen helper, who had been disciplined by Pere de Jesus for petty theft, was enough to turn him against the three boys and to take malicious pleasure in sending them to their terrible fate.

This is a memory told with crystalline clarity and beauty. It removes any distance we may feel from a long past historic event, and replaces it with palpable reality. Perhaps Louis Malle made it to atone for what had to be a terrible, shocking moment in his young life. In the movie, as the narrator, he
says “More than 40 years have passed, but I’ll remember every second of that
January morning until the day I die.”

In French, with subtitles.

I hesitated as to whether to review The Mill & the Cross,
because while it is one of the most beautiful and unique movies I have ever
seen, it asks a lot of the viewer. It has a slow and meditative pace, and
sometimes I found myself wondering what was going on, and towards the very end, to
be honest, I was yawning. But it also gives a lot to the viewer, and I found
myself thinking about it for days afterwards. Director Lech Majewski takes us into a painting by Flemish master Pieter
Bruegel the Elder, called “The Way to Calvary.” It was painted in
1564 during a time of turmoil when the King of Spain was sending mercenaries
into Flanders to persecute Protestants. The
canvas is populated with 500 figures, most of whom are peasants simply going
about their ordinary lives. But, meanwhile, Christ is being crucified, and
Bruegel conflates the sufferings of Christ with the sufferings of the peasants.

There is little dialogue in the movie, and most of the
characters are nameless, with only Rutger Hauer, as Bruegel, Michael York, as Nicholas Johnhelinck, a
collector of paintings, and Charlotte Rampling, as Bruegel’s wife, who posed
for his portraits of Mother Mary, emerging as identifiable characters. But this isn’t a narrative–it’s a world we are being drawn into, and it is
the extraordinary visuals that transfix us. It’s to see the most beautiful late Renaissance painting come to life–suddenly, the donkeys start plodding, the
children start playing, and the mercenaries begin erecting the cross. We are drawn into the lives of these people, and learn that the red-coated men on horseback are the Spanish mercenaries. Up on the rock, is the windmill, where God, in the form of the miller, surveys all and “grinds the bread of life.” At any rate, it’s like watching a vivid dream, and if you are up for something completely different . . . here it is!