Staff Picks: Movies
Staff-recommended viewing from the KPL catalog.
The recent “balloon boy” hoax that had citizens across the country glued to news outlets late last week brings Billy Wilder’s 1951 film classic Ace in the Hole back to my mind, in a big way. Ignored in its time, the film predicted the modern-day “media circus” that persists around human interest stories - true or otherwise.
Scenery-chewing (and I mean that as a compliment) Kirk Douglas plays a shady reporter who unexpectedly comes across a man trapped in a cave before any local help has been summoned. Sensing that he’s on to a big scoop, he decides to make it bigger by manipulating the rescue effort for maximum dramatic effect – bringing as much media attention to him as that paid to the hapless victim biding his ever-lengthening, nail-biting time at the bottom of the cave-in. Though the noirish theatrics push the boundaries of credibility, if you’re familiar with the film Wilder made just prior to this - the sublime Sunset Boulevard - you know that OTT can be a good thing in the right hands.
Due to its unavailability in any video format until Criterion’s 2007 DVD release, the film has been something of a rarity in Wilder’s oeuvre, hardly as well-known as Some Like it Hot, Double Indemnity, or The Apartment. It didn’t do well in its theatrical release (the studio changing the film’s title to The Big Carnival without Wilder’s approval), and many contemporary critics found it far too cynical to be believable – but it’s that very cynicism that makes the film very of-the-moment, even six decades after its first screening. Ace in the Hole is no second-string Wilder production – it’s a first-rate film that's simply ahead of its time.
Movie
Ace in the Hole
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Being the parent of two small children I am forced to watch a fair share of bad movies aimed at younger viewers. Many are just blatant attempts to cash in on a family's need for entertainment or to sell toys. One of the most pleasant surprises this year was DreamWorks Monsters vs.. Aliens. The movies is about a bride turned mutant giant "Ginormica" (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) who is enlisted by the government along with other "monsters" to fend off an alien invasion. These monsters have been kept in hiding in secret by the government for years but are promised to be freed if they can defeat the aliens. Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, and Will Arnett voice the other monsters and Rainn Wilson is the leader of the invasion, Gallaxhar. The film has enough inside jokes to keep adults laughing and enough action to keep the kids enthralled.
Movie
Monsters vs. Aliens
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The animated film Waltz With Bashir is a magnificent film that reminded me of the recently adapted graphic novel Persepolis, especially the way in which memoir, history and social turmoil are woven together not only as a compelling narrative form but also because in both works, the primary characters struggle for certainty, meaning and peace in a world of war, conflict and confusion.
The main plot takes place in contemporary Israel, where a man who was an Israeli soldier during the Lebanon/Israel War of the early 1980's sets out on a journey to rediscover his lost memories of the war and to determine what role, if any, he played in the Sabra and Shatila massacres. The film's director and protagonist Ari Folman depicts the war as a horrorific act against humanity, where neither side was innocent of committing atrocities. Winner of many awards in 2008 and nominated for a Best Foreign Film Academy Award, Waltz With Bashir is a haunting and visually rich meditation on memory, war and healing.
Learn more about this piece of history by accessing the library's information databases. They can put you in touch with the information you need to understand today's vital issues.
Movie
Waltz with Bashir [videorecording]
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Ken Burns’ latest film “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” premieres on PBS Sept. 27, and I'm looking forward to watching the series. (Check the schedule on WGVU.)
Burns’ approach to documentary filmmaking completely revitalized the art form. It wasn’t just the techniques of camera work, narration and writing, but the drama and emotional weight given to the subject matter, the placement of people and events into history’s long view. Offering more than the facts of events, his documentaries give us the how and why. The result is beautiful and riveting. The films have generated a host of companion books and CDs.
Ken Burns came to the fore with “The Civil War,” a monumental achievement, and continued with other works (among them “Lewis & Clark: The Corps of Discovery,” “Baseball,” “Jazz,” “Mark Twain,” “Thomas Jefferson”), all of which have explored facets of the American experience. It’s fitting, then, that Burns and long-time collaborator Dayton Duncan tackle the subject of our magnificent national parks.
And the parks themselves is the other reason I’m excited to see the series. The summer before my senior year in college, I worked as an interpretive naturalist at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. There, in the Badlands of western North Dakota, I gave tours of TR’s Maltese Cross Cabin, roamed the Park’s 30-some mile loop on a moped (being fully warned that a moped cannot outrun a bison), and worked the desk at two visitor centers. I occasionally had to explain to visitors that this was not the park to “see the faces” for Mount Rushmore National Memorial was in another state, South Dakota.
The experience was one of those defining moments that helped me figure out the next direction of my life. It was a privilege to work with career, seasonal and volunteer park staff, most of whom forfeited job security and domestic stability in return for transitory service at one seasonal post or another, year after year. (One National Park Service employee set her mystery novels in national parks. The Anna Pigeon series of novels by Nevada Barr take place in such locations as Isle Royale and Mesa Verde.)
I hope you’ll watch the series, check out KPL’s many resources about national parks, and plan your next visit to a national treasure.
Book
The National Parks: America's Best Idea
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http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/
Two of the best films from the 1990’s, both of which were adapted from well known literary sources, present very different views of the City of Angels yet both explore the often sinister contradictions between image and reality that simmer under Los Angeles’ landscape of broken dreams and superficial glamour. Robert Altman’s loosely adapted Short Cuts threads together several of Raymond Carver’s short fiction into a dynamic tableau of everyday people behaving like…well…everyday people. With a star studded cast that includes Tim Robbins, Jack Lemon, Tom Waits, Robert Downey Jr., Lilly Tomlin, and Jennifer Jason Leigh but to name a few, Short Cuts effortlessly weaves together the lives of these wonderfully drawn characters in ways both surprisingly humane and hilariously blemished. For those new to Altman’s classic, do not expect a linear or simulated rendering of Carver’s stories. Altman draws from Carver’s tones and themes of people living on the social edges to masterfully depict modern life in all its garish comedy rather than replicate the stories verbatim. Carver’s vision is still there, albeit mashed up and re-imagined through the optics of a gifted auteur.
The beautifully detailed and soundly acted crime thriller L.A. Confidential also looks toward Los Angeles for its backdrop. A stylish and taut take on James Ellroy’s noir classic, director Curtis Hanson, unlike the mundane city of ineffectual Angelinos portrayed by Altman, delivers a cool Hollywood with a 1950’s sheen and Chandleresque heart. Like Short Cuts, a great deal of L.A. Confidential’s strength as a film stems from a strong cast including Aussies Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe as well as Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell and Kim Basinger. This a wonderfully paced detective thriller with strong performances from everyone involved. Hanson’s subsequent work has never quite lived up to the expectations that L.A. Confidential brought with it.
Movie
Short Cuts
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“Hamlet” has been called the most celebrated drama in the English language and some say it is William Shakespeare’s greatest play. The DVD introduction to director Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet” (1996) asserts that in the 400 years since it was written, there’s rarely been a time when it hasn’t been performed. Perhaps the play’s attraction is what Branagh says is its “panoramic view” of human nature. This special edition DVD features commentary by the director.
A number of screen adaptations have been presented over the years, but only Kenneth Branagh’s version features the play in its entirety. In bringing it to screen, Branagh said he wanted to create “an experience, an event.” This wide-angle view of human nature was shot in 70 mm, a wide-angle high-resolution film that lends itself well to the many sweeping shots used in the movie, whether of soldiers mustered outside a snowy Elsinore Castle, or a grieving Ophelia wandering along a hall of mirrors. The most amazing, and memorable, shot is a pan to behind the king and queen on their thrones to Hamlet lurking behind the wall, looking at the camera. We and the camera are shocked to find him there. Visually this is a stunning achievement.
But more than the beautifully composed scenes and elegant Victorian set design, this “Hamlet” succeeds with superb acting and direction. Brash, ambitious and talented, Kenneth Branagh was likened as the next Orson Welles or Laurence Olivier when he came on the scene in the late 1980s. A heavy mantle. Starring as Hamlet, he’s joined by Derek Jacobi, John Gielgud, Richard Briers, Julie Christie and others.
I think Kenneth Branagh’s real gift to audiences in his understanding of the text. One cannot appreciate the humor and wisdom in Shakespeare’s writings when actors don’t understand what they’re saying. In “Hamlet,” Branagh’s goal was to have the lines “spoken as clearly as possible, as naturally as possible,” and he succeeded. (This natural presentation is seen in his other film adaptations of Shakespeare, too: “Henry V,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Othello,” “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”)
I encourage you to experience this “Hamlet”: beautiful scenes, impeccable acting and brilliant delivery.
Movie
Hamlet
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http://www.catalog.kpl.gov/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/5?searchdata1=Hamlet{TI}+AND+Branagh&library=CENTRAL&language=ANY&format=ANY&item_type=ANY&location=ANY&match_on=KEYWORD&item_1cat=DRAMA&item_2cat=ANY&sort_by=-PBYR
Gregory Nava’s masterpiece El Norte, often cited as an updated and re-imagined “Grapes of Wrath”, is one of the most hailed and accomplished films of the 1980’s, yet has largely gone unnoticed by the film-viewing public since it was first produced in 1983. Now, a distinguished addition to the must-see Criterion Collection, I hope that this groundbreaking film will find its way into the hands of more viewers and be recognized for its rich and powerful depiction of two young Guatemalan teenagers journeying northward to escape injustice while encountering both personal triumph and heart wrenching tragedy along the way.
Movie
El norte [videorecording] = The north
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I love films that often appear at first glance to be very simple in form or plot yet possess a profound range of emotional depth and suggestive weight that when perfectly pitched with gorgeous cinematography and credible acting, lays bare the lyricism of the human condition even as characters struggle with loss and grief. In short, the film Cherry Blossoms conjures such a description. One of the best films I’ve seen all year.
What happens when a wife discovers that her husband is dying of a terminal illness but who then dies herself before telling him or their family? Subtle and yet packing an emotional punch, this film is a modern day love story that is heartbreaking yet poetic in its life affirming tone.
Movie
Cherry blossoms - Hanami [videorecording]
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"He was a wonderful man, a genius, a poet. I don't think anyone has come close to him as being the poet of the youth of America in the postwar period. He was to them what Shakespeare was to the Elizabethan Age." – actor-economist Ben Stein
That is what the great Ben Stein said of director, producer, and writer John Hughes who died suddenly of a heart attack yesterday at the age of 59. Hughes' iconic films, including The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Uncle Buck, and many more, touched millions and helped to define suburban teen culture in the 1980's. His movies were funny and poignant and rang true, especially to those of us who happened to be living in that 1980's suburban teen culture. Their are very few people who are within ten years of my own age who when they read the name Ben Stein above didn't think - "Bueller...Bueller...Bueller".
Movie
The Breakfast Club
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For weeks after watching The Cave of the Yellow Dog, my daughter and I would play “Cave of the Yellow Dog”, our own make-believe game based on the movie. She would pretend to be Nansal, the plucky young protagonist of the Mongolian/German film who, against her father’s wishes, really wants to keep a stray puppy. “But Papa,” she would say, “I really want to keep the dog. “Sorry Nansal,” I would play along. “Where there are dogs, there are wolves. Wolves will eat the sheep.”
This quietly beautiful film by Byambasuren Davaa portrays daily life for Nansal, her younger siblings, and their parents - also a family in real life. Nansal finds a black and white dog in a cave and names it Zochor (Spot). Her father forbids Nansal from keeping the dog, warning that wolves may follow and attack the family’s livestock. In an effort to find Zochor after he has run away, Nansal becomes lost and takes refuge with an old woman who tells her the story of the Cave of the Yellow Dog.
Many elements of this film on the edge of documentary work together to make it special. There is the realistic representation of kids being kids. Real life siblings Nansal, Nansalmaa, and Babbayar Batchuluun and their parents are shown, well, being a normal family. Then there's the sheer pluck of Nansal who, accompanied only by her dog Zochor, heads off on horseback to graze the sheep. Yet when Zochor runs off and Nansal herself becomes lost trying to find the dog, the movie never loses its calm feel. Finally, a subtle yet important theme of the film is contemporary Mongolia's creep towards consumer culture. Davaa explores this theme more overtly in The Story of the Weeping Camel.
Set under blue skies with a backdrop of mountains and windblown steppes, The Cave of the Yellow Dog is captivating for adults and children. The dialogue is Mongolian with a variety of languages available as subtitles if you and your kids don’t understand Mongolian. The great thing about foreign language films with subtitles is that they allow you - force you, really - to read the movie aloud to your pre-reading children when you choose to watch with them. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids under two years old not watch any TV and that those older than two watch no more than one to two hours a day of quality programming. This programming would be a great choice. I think reading the film aloud to my own pre-reading daughter may be what opened the movie up for make-believe games long after viewing.
Movie
The Cave of the Yellow Dog
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