Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

The film about the making of Bruce Springsteen's album "Nebraska" was just released this week. As we are big fans and have actually attended a concert in Leipzig, we of course had to see this film! Jeremy Allen White does a very great job of portraying a troubled Springsteen who is coming to terms with being over 30 and on the cusp between where he comes from (Freehold, NJ) and where he is headed (Los Angeles, CA).

My folks lived in New Jersey for a few years and my mom taught math at Freehold High School (a school very proud of its former pupil). Yes, that's what that town and many small towns in the US look like. The diner was just like the diner in my home town in Pennsylvania.

The film was sad and super at the same time. It was very slowly paced and White did a good job of letting us see that he was thinking deep (and painful) thoughts without saying anything. The music, of course, was great (although White actually learned the guitar and sang many of the songs himself). The studio production of "Born in the U.S.A." was really a highlight!

I'm afraid the film won't last long, there were three of us in the showing in English. It is well worth the time (and sitting through the horrible ads for films I would never in my life want to watch)! 

WonderWoman

As WiseWoman, I recently purchased a WonderWoman T-Shirt because I liked the WW. I knew nothing about the comic book character, but was given a DVD with the WonderWoman film. It's been on one of my get-to-someday piles for a while until today WiseGrandchild found it.

She immediately wanted to watch it, although she is just shy of 6 and the film is rated 12+. I decided we would watch a bit of it and see if we want to watch more.

She was enthralled with the first scenes of women training to be fighters. She jumped up and down on the couch "That's what I want to be when I'm big!!!". I found it strangely comfortable to have so many active women in major and minor roles, and so many strong women around. And of course, Robin Wright :)

We broke for dinner, but WiseGrandchild insisted that we continue. I was a bit worried about all the violence scenes, but she assured me she watches stuff like that at home all the time. Every time WonderWoman (who is actually never called that, but Diana) would deflect a bullet or cross her arms, or use her sword, or jump high in the air, WiseGrandchild imitated her and insisted many times more that she wants to be like Diana when she grows up.

Hello, Hollywood? Could we have some more movies starring women in strong roles? Real quick? I have this young woman who needs a lot of good, strong role models, now.

Ocean's Eight

So there were lots of bad reviews about "Ocean's Eight", but I assumed that this was because all of the leads were played by women and anyway, Sandra Bullock was playing in it and I need to see all of her films. So the usual suspects gathered and we managed to find a theater showing the film in English (and German and a few other languages I couldn't identify) with German subtitles.

My expectations were exactly zero, I was tired and afraid I would fall asleep if it was boring. It wasn't. I only looked at my watch once towards the end of the film! There were, of course, some tired references to the Ocean's 11/12/13 films, but there were lots of interesting quirks to the film. I really loved the guerilla scene in which they place a female version of "Washington Crossing the Delaware" at the Met (the Germans didn't understand this reference).

It was a lively film (nothing to ponder, just summer fun) with some great acting. And fascinating to see so many women in major roles, including Rhianna as the superb hacker Nine Ball. A couple of things didn't quite ring true, but it was a nice night out on a hot summer day.

The Shape of Water

As a reward for finishing our taxes today we went to see the Oscar-winning "Shape of Water" film.

I probably would have left after 20 minutes, if it had not won all those Oscars. I mean, best film and all, surely something wourd turn for the better.

In my opinion: not. It was trite. Lots of clichés that I didn't find amusing. Woo-hoo 60s science fiction. Continuity errors (light outside while Elisa bathes, but when she is on the bus it is dark). Unnecessary sexual content and violence. The profanity got lost in the German translation, which was very wooden. And come on, in the 60s a starving artist has money for a color TV set?

I was wondering about the sign language, if it was American Sign Language or an adaptation.

One commenter at IMDB has it right: Guillermo Del Toro does "Amelie" meets "Creature from the Black Lagoon."  Octavia Spencer was, as always, stellar, and the cinematography and costuming were well done. But I could have made better use of my time.

The Post

WiseMan saw that "The Post" was being shown in English for the last time this evening at the nearby Odeon Theater, so we gathered the usual suspects for a nice film evening.

This is a must-see movie for the current "post-truth" times.

It is the story of the publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and also about the Post metamorphosing from a local newspaper to a national one. The Pentagon Papers demonstrated that the government lied, not only to the people, but to Congress, about the situation in Vietnam. And they lied under many different presidents, Democrats and Republicans, just to save the embarrassment of having to admit that they were in over their heads.

The film by Steven Spielberg quite admirably shows Meryl Streep portraying Katherine Graham as she moves from being Daddy's daughter and her husband's socialite wife to being the publisher of the paper. She is torn between her social friends, her grandchildren, and what she feels needs to be published.

The IMDB Trivia page notes that the real Pentagon Papers were strewn about in the scenes dealing with them, and that the voice of "Tricky Dick" Nixon was taken from the tapes made public after the Watergate scandal. That's a nice touch.

I did rather wax nostalgic at the scenes showing the Linotype machines and the printing presses. As school children we were taken to see the printing shop of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and as a professor at the TFH Berlin I loved going on field trips with the students of the print and media technology program to see modern digital presses.

The scene at the Supreme Court (New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713) I found to be so realistic - everyone is nervous, but the brash lawyer for the Post, who had argued privately just days before not to publish, gives a burning defense of the freedom of speech. The court decided in favor of the Times 6-3 with Justice Hugo Black noting:

"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell."

I do remember getting into a fight or three with my father about the Pentagon Papers. He felt strongly that Daniel Ellsberg was a traitor. I was beginning to have an own opinion on the topic, and I didn't like being lied to. A cousin was up for the draft (there was a lottery held to determine who was to go) and I remember questioning why the country was waging this war so far away.

This is an important film about a very important turning point in American History. And it shows why it is important to have investigative journalists able to expose the mis-deeds of the nation. I'm happy to pay the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian a regular support amount so that they are there when we need them.

Three Billboards

Even though it was the middle of the week, we gathered the usual suspects to see "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri," mainly because this was the only night one of the crowd had time. And then he got sick and thus missed a glorious film!

You have to see it in the original, German dubbing just will not work here. The subtitles are nicely translated according the the slang meaning, not just a word-for-word translation. The southern drawl is absolutely necessary to be very clear about where this is supposed to be taking place.

The first thing I noticed was that, although I have never been in Missouri, it really looked like my birthplace near the rolling hills of the Appalachian Mountains. Turns out it was actually filmed in Western North Carolina (because they gave the film company tax credit) - along the Appalachian Mountains. Okay, and they made up the name "Ebbing" so that there would be no town that gets too many tourists showing up.

Mildred - like pretty much everyone else in town - is angry. It's been 7 months since her daughter was raped and murdered, and the perp has not been identified. She rents 3 billboards to ask

"Raped While Dying",
"And Still No Arrests?", and
"How Come, Chief Willoughby?"

Chief Willoughby is the police chief of Ebbing and is dying of cancer. There are a number of intertwining stories about hate and love and more hate and lots of misunderstandings. The humor is black-black-black, and especially well done. Frances McDormand (as Mildred) just radiates hate and revenge and softens at the end. Sandy Martin (as Jason Dixon's red-neck Mama) is soooooo in-character, I really enjoyed her brief performances.

This is a must-see film (Wikipedia has more details, apparently many protest groups have adopted the "Three billboards" form of protest). It's been nominated for a number of Oscars, I really hope they get at least one. The film deserves it.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E

The only night we found time to see a movie with our friend in Lund was tonight, so we couldn't see Jag är Ingrid, which starts tomorrow, drat. As WiseMan or I have seen this or that movie (Woman in Gold is fabulous, didn't manage to write about that one, it's a must-see), the only thing left was The Man from U.N.C.L.E. I wanted to see it because I loved the series as a kid (boy, that dates me, doesn't it?) and WiseMan has vague memories. Our friend was curious as there were so wildly different reviews of the movie, from crap to fantastic.

So we, and 12 others, found ourselves in the 120-seat theater in the early evening to see what was up. And hey, it was fun! Okay, maybe because we got lots of the references (we really raised the average age in that room....), but the dialogue was downright witty at times. Of course everything was implausible spy stuff, but hey, that's what the TV series was like, too! The only real bitch I have is them calling the computer tape a "disk", but whatever, can't have everything. I don't want to give away the twists and turns of the plot, but there is English, German, Russian, and Italian spoken, much was shot on location, and there's a bit of silly World War II footage in there that doesn't really make sense, it's the Cuban Missile Crisis, for crying out loud!

The film is entertaining, you get some laughs, and not too much blood-and-gore. And some smashing dresses the women are wearing! Go for it!

Hobbit: Part 2

We went to see Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in Lund this evening with a friend. We had seen each of the Lord of the Rings films together as they came out over Christmas/New Year's, but had not seen the first Hobbit film together for some reason. Watching it in 3D we had decided that the 3D wasn't worth it and that we weren't going to go see part 2, it was far too boring.

But the critics said it was better, so we decided to give it a try. We managed to get 3 of the last 4 seats for the non-3d version left among scores of sugar-high kids excited to go see all the kiddie films and headed inside. The advertising was great - some interesting films, and then the University of Uppsala advertising for students with a really great short film.

The film was, indeed, better than part 1, although it could have easily been 20 minutes shorter. There was some beautiful landscape stuff, a great female character Tauriel (who was not in the book, and of course got involved in a love story, but was still an interesting character), and some weird stuff such as Beorn who turned out to be the Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt! I swore that one of the actors looked like Johnny Depp and another like John Cleese, but I was mistaken.

If you are an arachnophobe, I would suggest giving this film a miss. There are lot of fighting scenes, and the usual continuity errors with weapons coming and going and the dwarfs suddenly having having their hair washed and braided and such. There were some scenes that were clearly only there for the 3D crowd: butterflies coming out of nowhere, large bees buzzing around, lots of spider and dragon in-your-face stuff. I suppose the forests and villages and castles looked good, but is that worth having to buy extra glasses? Of course, it stops in the middle, so we have to go see part 3, I guess.

Skyfall

Sorry about all those posts I've written in my head and forgotten to post ;)

The usual gang of suspects managed to get their calendars in order to meet up for James Bond and Skyfall in English. It was an enjoyable evening, even though there is far too much in the way of gunfighting and fires and stunts. The motorcycle chase along the roof of the Turkish bazaar was voted best scene.

To put it in a nutshell, an older Bond and a very grey M are caught in between a fight of old school spying vs. fancy new electronic spying. There are lots of computers around, and many cryptography buzz words are thrown in, if not always correctly used. Cute that one of the Bond girls is named Eve and the new boss Mallory, these are usually the two "bad guys" in cryptography protocols. They didn't get elliptic curves thrown in, however, more's the pity.

It was nice to see some strong women -- M, the minister -- not decked out in sexy clothes. And Ola Rapace is just sooooo good-looking, don't know why Noomi divorced him.

Even if the film was long (and there were 35 minutes of ads and trailers to bear before the film started) it was worth seeing.

The Virgin Suicides

I was sure that I had blogged about the book by Jeffery Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides, after I read it, especially since this small town story reminded me of so many tiny, unpleasant things about growing up in the US. 

The film, directed by Sofia Coppola in 1999, was on TV this evening. Set in the 70s in an affluent neighborhood, a religious family with five girls tries to keep a tight reign on them. The girls have other ideas. 

For me, having attended high school in the early 70s, there are sooooo many things in the film that trigger memories long forgotten. Eighth grade homecoming party. The football jocks (although the quarterbacks were never that thin or cute). The white dress with pastel flowers on it my Mom made for some dance - and I sat at a table all evening, vowing never to subject myself to a school dance again. And I didn't. Didn't go to the prom.

There is no happy end to this story. But the book is a good read and the movie wasn't bad. 

Mission Impossible 4

WiseYoungMan wanted to see Mission Impossible 4 (called Ghost Protocol in the US), so we managed to find a theater showing it at a time that the ancient parent and godparents found convienient. The film is a little over 2 1/4 hours, so with all the commercials and the break you are looking at a solid 3 hours.

I was not expecting to really enjoy it, I'm not much for the car-chase and senseless violence genre of films. But oh, my, the toys they had! It was fun seeing all the cool stuff a secret agent can do with an iPad and some intelligent textiles! There were some bits that were waaaay too far-out (the cutting of the window high up on the tower and then climbing up on the outside), but by far I found most of the stuff believable.

And isn't Tom Cruise good looking? What a shame he's on that Scientology trip.

Margin Call

The German press is panning it, but we gathered the usual gang of suspects and headed out to the Hackische Höfe to see Margin Call in English with subtitles. Or rather, it was in Financialese with a lot of f-words thrown in and some really outstanding German titles that transported the essence of what was being said, not just a word-for-word translation.

Okay, the movie theater is on the top floor and there is no elevator, but I just love the restored Art nouveau style. 

It is a day in the life of some bankers, the ones who rather tried to ruin the world. As the tweet went yesterday, there were no bankers arrested for wrecking the financial system, but 700 people in New York for protesting against them. And we can figure out which bank is meant, even if everything is of course fictious.

There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat.

Ya. I guess that kind of sums it up. It was supposedly shot in a Wall St. high-rise, but when I visited my brother a few years ago in his Wall St. office, all the chairs had fanny packs attached to them with water bottles, masks and band-aids, in case another airplane decides to mow the high-rise down.

Anyway - I really liked the movie, Kevin Spacey is really great, and since Mark Chu-Carroll explained how the banks cheated us (What is tranching - Credit Default Swaps - Shocking Fraud from the Financial Scum), I did actually understand what they were saying, and it seemed correct.

Juno

You know that you are seriously behind in film-watching when you find a film you were planning to see on the El Cheapo racks at the supermarket. Especially when it even got an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

So we popped in Juno after starting in on Mel Brookes' "History of the World" and deciding after 10 minutes that a better use of the DVD that film is on would be as a coaster. Or in the cherry tree to ward off birds. I had no recollection of why we wanted to see the film, or what it was about, so there were no great expectations.

They speak American, dude. American slang. Modern American slang. I was soooo happy there were Swedish subtitles so I could pick up on the meaning of some of the sentences for which I had understanding of the individual words, but not of the sentence.

A young girl who does not really fit in an American High School (man, I can relate to that) but is a very talented, funny, sharp girl, ends up pregnant. She decides on a rather unconventional way to deal with the pregnancy. And the film teases us, we are expecting a typical ending, and it does not happen that way.

Ellen Page as Juno is just amazing - she is just so totally a 16-year-old pregnant girl who doesn't give a shit about fingernail polish or cheerleading. I thought I recognized her from somewhere, she played the daughter of the main character in ReGenesis, a Canadian series that we watched every single episode.

Look up the quotes section at the IMDB - they have tons of great stuff there. But the best - and truest - is this short exchange when Vanessa gets the baby:

Vanessa Loring: How do I look?
Bren: Like a new mom. Scared shitless.

It's a very good film, but don't take little kids to it if they understand English, unless they already speak like this. 

Inception

Must. See. This. Film.

Avatar - 3D edition

The past two weeks have been hellish. I've just barely had time to eat and sleep a few hours, I'm shocked that Christmas is next week and the end of the fiscal year is looming.

I dragged home Friday night to find a note from WiseMan - I'm off to see Avatar (Wikipedia entry) with the UsualSuspects. Just then the doorbell rang, and WiseKid was there with CurrentGirlfriend. I asked if they wanted to go to the movies, they said "Sure!", so we wolfed down a slice of bread and high-tailed it to the theater. They always show half an hour of advertising at the start anyway so that you get all your popcorn eaten before the show starts.

We got tickets (expensive, you have to purchase 3D glasses) and found the UsualSuspects, and settled it.

It is wonderful.

Really. I didn't notice that an hour and a half had passed when they cruelly interrupted us during the wonderful love scene to have a break (meaning we could get more beer and popcorn). It went on for another hour, and I was truly enchanted.

Sure, it's a rip-off of a gazillion other films. There are traces of Lord of the Rings, Terminator, Alien, Mulan, Lion King, and who knows what else in there. Who cares. This strange world with bizarre (but logical) physics, fantastical creatures and pointy-eared humanoids (Star Trek?) was fascinating to get to know. The women were also warriors, and the religious elements were nicely woven into the story, contrapointed by the Marine's disdain for this all. The Marines seemed to have had their biceps Photoshopped, but it was very fitting.

I wasn't sure for a while how it was going to end, as I couldn't find a way to twist out of the avatar world, but something corny was indeed found.

I don't know why Grace had to smoke, but I do want one of those transparent mobile boards that you can just grab data off another screen and put on your mobile one for Christmas. Okay, I'll wait until next year if I have to. And if we can figure out how they produced all the electricity needed for all of their toys, we really, really need to start using it now (unless it is plutonium or some such).

The 3D stuff was interesting, polaroid filters are much superior to red/green. I jumped in shock quite a number of times as stuff flew out of the screen at me. This seems to finally be a new way to get people back into the theater - can't easily recreate this sensation at home (yet). And it really thwarts the secret filmers, as you need two projections for this to work, but they are only filming the composite picture.

The motion capture used to produce the film seems fascinating, according to the description on the Wikipedia. We just opened our own motions capture studio a year or so ago, wonder where we can get funding to have one of these toys.

The Na'vi language was designed by a linguist, Paul Frommer. There is already quite a body of information available on it online - from the hyperlinguistic treatment on the Wikipedia to a guest column by Frommer on a blog. I wonder how long it will be before there is a doctoral thesis comparing Na'vi, Klingon, and Elvish.

Update: Avatar won two Golden Globes!

Inglorious Basterds

We managed to see Inglorious Basterds tonight. Wikipedia corrects the spelling, which is ridiculous.

Don't want to give it away, so here are a few bullet points:

• There is far too much unnecessary blood and brutality.
• The film must be seen in the original in order to savor the language mix. And trying to dub Brad Pitt while preserving the character would seem to me to be an exercise in futility.
• There is so much suspense built in, it hurts some times.
• Crazy Americans writing for the Wikipedia seem to think this is in some way non-fictional.
• There is a typo on the last word shown in the credits: uinintentional.
• The camera work is great.
• I really liked the French actress playing the movie theater owner.
  
• It is a must-see film. You can close your eyes for the horrible bits, they are announced, so to say.

Update: And the SS-boss won a Golden Globe for his efforts!

Vertigo

I'm dizzy. I was going to read, but then the film seemed so different. In color, and the film I thought was Vertigo was in black and white. So maybe I had always heard tell of the film and never really saw it.

Strange. The year is given as 1996. I thought Hitchcock died in the early 80s. I let the book lie and got drawn in to the swirling story, getting crazier and crazier as it goes along. Here and there there are somehow familiar bits. And then Madeline enters the church. The film is now black and white on the stairs - and yes, this scene I know very well, as well as many that follow.

I see: this is a restauration! The film rights were bought back by Hitchcock, who was disappointed that the film wasn't a winner, and given to his daughter. She sat on this one and 4 others for 30 (!) years, finally permitting it to be restored. Apparently, it was filmed in Technicolor, so it is just me not remembering anything but those stairs.

Ah, the stair shots - apparently done sideways with a miniature using a "trombone" shot, zooming out and tracking in to give everyone watching a dose of vertigo. Apparently invented by Irmin Roberts.

Midge's face haunts me - where do I know that from? Ahh, the wise IMDB knows all. In later years she was Miss Ellie in Dallas!

Now, I watched it in Sweden, so after the last credits, we have a figure, dressed modernly all in white. Next to her are words in gold - the 7 deadly sins, in Swedish. She says: Sin. Deadly sin. And some more stuff. And then there is an email address for you to write to with what you think is a sin. I looked for it on the program, I can't find it. Maybe I dreamt it.

Glen or Glenda

A student mentioned Ed Wood as being the worst director of all times. A short bit of research turned up the wonderfully horrible B movies that he made, such as Glen and Glenda. The usual suspects brought some friends and after a nice dinner we put the DVD on that WiseMan had happily ordered for us.

The "acting" is just so atrocious, they have managed to learn their lines, and are saying them. It is a pretend-documentary, with so many absolutely crazy lines such as hats causing baldness. The dialogues are so trite, so repetitive at times, it causes much mirth. The devil at his wedding in a dream is so amusing, the way he assists the priest. And Béla Lugosi (better known as Count Dracula) as the Scientist trying to be scary is just hilarious.

And the "special effects" are rather like something the kids did when they were nine. Now you see him, now you don't (duh, stop the camera, everyone freeze, the disappearer goes away, the camera starts again: magic!). The scene in which Glen/da's girlfriend gives him her angora sweater is just plain thigh-slapping.

We had a marvelous time. "Beware, take care, of the big green dragon that sits on your doorstep." Whatever that means.

Duplicity

adapted from Websters.com:

du⋅plic⋅i⋅ty

 /duˈplɪsɪti, dyu-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [doo-plis-i-tee, dyoo-] –noun, plural -ties for

1. deceitfulness in speech or conduct; speaking or acting in two different ways concerning the same matter with intent to deceive; double-dealing;
2. a twofold or double state or quality;
3. a film released in 2009.
   

Twofold indeed. WiseMan liked it. I was bored. He loved the plot twists and retwists. I needed a timeline to follow because even if it said "3 months earlier" I was never sure if this was 3 months earlier than the first scene, or the scene we just saw which was 2 months earlier or 5 days later or 2 years ago or in Rome or in Cleveland or in San Diego.

Bright point: visit to the deserted Dunwoody Science Park. A name from my past, when I lived in Atlanta, Georgia.

I think I could have had more fun sorting out the clothes closet this evenin.

Identity

We tried with the usual suspects to attend the Swedish Midsummer festival today, but were dumped in the middle of Berlin by a bus that could not continue because of a demonstration. Since there was no way there from where we were set out (other than non-running busses), we went to a cafe and then headed home.

We made dinner and broke out a DVD we had had lying around, Identity. I can't explain the film, but after the film was over, it sort of went like this:

• So Ed killed them?
• No, it was Timmy.
• Can't be, how could he kill the guy in the freezer?
• He wasn't dead, that was just imagined.
• No one died, that was all just in his head.
• Someone must have died, or else there would not have been the hearing!
• It was the first cop!
• No, the second cop.
• But they weren't cops!!!!
• Right.
  
• Did anyone understand this?
• But it was a great film - suspense from frame one!
• But who did it?
• Was there anything to do?
• What about the girl?
• Which girl?
• And the mother?
• Didn't you see that frame?
• Does it rain in Nevada like that?
  
• It's all in your imagination.

I don't really want to go to bed after this....