AWCH Film Reviews -- December 2006

(Becky T) Opening December 14, 2006

Carlo Carlei gives us an overview of the life of Ferrari (played by Sergio Castellito), whose love of automobiles led to the production of the successful Ferrari race cars. Born 1898, Ferrari worked for his father in his metal working shop. He loved automobiles and raced old timers on the back roads of his home in northern Italy. He worked for FIAT and then Alfa Romero, for which he developed the race car division. He then established his own company, noted for the bright red cars with the horse emblem. He was involved with Formal One racing from its beginning in 1950, and hired the best race drivers, such as Tazio Nuvolari (Giampiero Judica), (and, more recently, Michael Schumacher, who does not appear in the film). Needless to say, Ferrari was tremendously successful. Privately, he was married to Laura; their son Dino died of muscular dystrophy at age 24. They adopted his illegitimate son, Piero, whose mother Lina was a long-term mistress. He died in 1988 at the age of 90.

As much as Ferrari’s life deserves a film, this one is exaggerated to the point of being Bollywood without the dancing. It began as a TV series and was so successful that Carlei developed it for the cinema. I can well imagine that Berlusconi would love to be lauded in such a sentimental way. In his old age, this film Ferrari resembles very much Karl Lagerfeld, with white hair and dark glasses, except for being a chain smoker. Like the film Citizen Kane, Ferrari also has his Rosebud, in the form of a homemade orange crate car, a relic from his childhood. My two stars are for the classic beauty of Ed Stoppard who plays a fictitious journalist, the Italian landscapes and houses, the interesting old cars, and Puccini’s arias which are played beautifully throughout.

(Rosella V) Opening December 14, 2006

Directed by Stefen Fangmeier and based on the best-selling book by Christopher Paolini, Eragon stars Ed Speleers, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Guillory and John Malkovich. The voice of the dragon Saphira is performed by Rachel Weisz, and the screenplay is written by Peter Buchman.

The movie tells the story of Eragon (Speleers), a young boy who finds a dragon's egg and is destined to become dragon rider to Saphira (Weisz). This event changes his whole life and, together with the old warrior and traveller, Brom (Irons), sets him on a journey to shape the future of the whole world of Alagaesia, ruled by the evil tyrant, Galbatorix (Malkovich). Along the way, he rescues the beautiful Elven* princess Arya (Guillory), who joins the fight for freedom.

It is a classic fantasy tale, excellently told by Christopher Paolini, but sadly gone to waste on this movie production. Typically for movie versions of adventure books – though in some cases more successfully than others – the focus lies in the action, in this case failing to grasp the core and development of the characters, relationships and, most importantly, the main theme of the book: Eragon's transformation from farm boy to dragon-rider. In the movie the whole journey from his isolated home town, Carvahall, to the strongholds of the resistance fighting an evil empire, is vague to non existent. He effortlessly jumps from knowing nothing of magic to being something of a genius, from being a farm boy to a war hero, which is by no means implied in the book. As a fan of the "Inheritance" series, of which "Eragon" is the first part, I can only say I was deeply disappointed. The acting was poor, even though we see famous faces which should have been able to save something. The musical support is weak, even disturbing.

It is hard to look at this movie from the objective point of view of those who have not read book, but even there I doubt it would find a higher rating. It was more than disappointing to find that Elves, though an essential part of the books, are not mentioned as such in the movie. Nor does Arya have pointed ears!!!

(Karen P) Opening December 14, 2006

Two young professionals, Iris (Kate Winslet) and Amanda (Cameron Diaz), live worlds apart: Iris in a countryside village outside of London and Amanda in Beverly Hills, California. Their lives connect while surfing the internet for possible vacation spots over the Christmas and New Year holiday. Iris and Amanda do not know one another but find the internet pictures of each other’s houses the perfect get-away spot for their needs. The need they share is to escape their environment in order to do a personal reality check on their male relationships (played by Jude Law and Jack Black). They have one common denominator: their love life is in shambles. They agree to swap houses for two weeks and within 24 hours they arrive at their destinations. The surprise discovery which both women make about themselves, while transformed into different worlds, is the perfect material which director Nancy Meyers uses for The Holiday.

Meyers’ happy-end holiday film captures the essence of what is important for a love relationship to last over the long haul. Meyers’ attempt to tantalize our emotions by using a good script, fabulous cinematography and a cast that gels perfectly to create a classic romance movie works. Most impressive was her usage of smaller character roles to bring subtle truths to support the value of building solid relationships which question the art of romance: The picture of romance for Iris and Amanda takes a paradigm shift which enchants the audience.

(Becky T) Opening December 21, 2006

The film’s title refers to the biblical tower of Babel and the inability to communicate. Like other recent films, e.g., Crash, here many lives intertwine, this time globally. A Japanese man goes hunting in Morocco. He gives a rifle to his Moroccan guide. The guide, in turn, sells it to another man who gives it to his sons to protect the goats from jackals. The young boys shoot at a tourist bus and injure an American woman. She and her husband are forced to take shelter in a friendly but primitive Moroccan village to wait for an ambulance. Therefore, their return to San Diego is delayed and their Mexican babysitter fears to miss her son’s wedding in Mexico. She takes the two blond children over the border. Their return to California is complicated by the behaviour of her nephew who is drunk and driving, so that she and the children are suddenly out of the car and hiding in no-man’s borderland. In the end, two lives are changed irreversibly, one might be slightly improved, and the others miss permanent misfortune by sheer luck.

The film shows that communication is difficult in English, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese and sign language. Even those who speak the same language cannot communicate, while at the same time TV newsreels communicate too much. The Americans (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchette) come across as arrogant in their helplessness. Rinko Kukuchi as the Japanese teenager is a wonderful new face in Western cinema and Adriana Barraza gives an especially good performance as the Mexican woman, the character who most deserves our sympathy. Not to forget Gael García Bernal as the nephew. The story goes forwards and backwards, which can be confusing and it is too long. However, the message that no man is an island, and we are all on this planet together, comes across very well. This is part three of a trilogy by director Alejandro González Iñárritu who gave us Amores Perros and 21 Grams and for Babel he won first prize for best direction in Cannes 2006.

(Becky T) Opening December 21, 2006

Hamburgers met Finnish Director Aki Kaurismäki when he came to the city in 2002 to accept the Hamburg Filmfest’s Douglas Sirk prize. His newest film, Lights in the Dusk was finished just in time for the Cannes film festival. It is the third in a trilogy and features a working class man who aids in a robbery. After jail, he moves into a room for the homeless and takes a job, which he soon loses. He seems so utterly unable to protect himself from the vicissitudes of life that you wonder how he survived so long. He arouses motherly instincts, but doesn’t recognize a true friend when she attempts to help. This is a slow, calm film with appropriate background music (not always a given).

(Vicki FM) Opening December 21, 2006

As I looked through the press materials given to journalists, I noticed that this so-called children’s film had a start of August 24 here in Germany. So, why were we invited to another screening in December? Maybe because of bad attendance? Well, I do not know but I do know that I cannot recommend this film to families, especially with small children. I took my five-year-old twin boys. They gave it a thumbs up (which made me dislike the film even more) but then again, give them popcorn and let them watch a big-screen TV and they will like anything!

Based on the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, the message in the end is rather sweet. The methods of getting there is what disturbs me for a children’s film. The twist on the original fairy tale is a rat that finds the ugly duckling and needs this duckling to escape from the bad rats. Ratso (the rat) uses the duckling to make him look good and to earn money. His dastardly deeds and conniving ways are not understood by small children. Lots of fighting between rat packs ensue and my boys were excited about all the fighting and hitting. Not good for a couple of cute young ‘uns who are already at that wild age. After a long journey, Ratso’s enemies finally catch up to him and then you see why the bad guys were after him: he had run away from their very bossy sister at the alter. The expected “shot-gun” wedding occurs. Is this not the 21 st century?! I believe filmmakers have to be aware of the message they are sending out to children, just as in other media. The short of it: a boring film with lackluster animation and poor message. Shame on Warner Brothers!

(Becky T) Opening December 21, 2006

This is one of the best children’s films I have seen in many years. Vitus is the precocious son of a Swiss father who is an inventor and a British mother, who is overly ambitious for her only child. He plays the piano, has an extraordinary sense of hearing, and reads encyclopaedias in kindergarten. His mother has high hopes for him and proudly encourages the little Wunderkind to perform for the dinner guests. His grandfather (Bruno Ganz) is a kind of modern grandfather out of a Heidi fairy tale; he lives in an old chalet and works with wood. He takes time for the boy and encourages him in his wish to fly. Vitus’ babysitter allows him to be normal, but she is soon fired for being a bad influence. Vitus takes his fate into his own hands, jumps from the balcony, suffers a head injury and the doctors declare that he has lost more than a few IQ points, dashing his mother’s hopes. Little does she know that he has developed a secret life, a twist in the plot which requires a stretch of your imagination, but this is a fantasy after all, a kind of Billy Elliott story in reverse. Contrary to Billy Elliot who must fight to achieve his grand goal, Vitus must fight to become like other children. Still, there is a tremendous finale worthy of any Billy Elliot. Most amazing is the star, Teo Gheorghiu, who in real life is a young and successful concert pianist.

(Mary W) Opening December 27, 2006

A ferry explodes as it leaves the dock on the Mississippi River in New Orleans. It’s raining men and women and vehicles and ferryboat parts. Heart-rending. Tragic. A spectacular scene that has that uneasy feeling of déjà vu. On the scene is ATF Agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) with required dark glasses. He thinks he recognizes a car (déjà vu?) in the wreckage. A partially burned, dead body is pulled from the muddy waters of the Mississippi but she was dead before the ferry exploded. Carlin senses a connection (déjà vu?). His fingerprints are found all over the dead girl’s apartment (déjà vu?). While reviewing what is alleged to be satellite surveillance tapes of the girl’s last days alive, Carlin detects something amiss. The girl feels like she is being watched. She is being watched! Pulling out his standard ATF pocket laser pointer, Carlin aims at the screen. He catches the girl’s attention – before she is murdered! They are watching the past from the present.

Many plot twists are wrong turns, resulting in this disappointment from director Jerry Bruckheimer. And, Denzel Washington must have left the real actor in a parallel time warp during filming, since the corpse (Paula Patton) has more personality than he does. Seems like we’ve been there, done that before. The two stars are for the city of New Orleans, emerging from the waters of Katrina as a vigorous, lively city (déjà vu?).

(Osanna V) Opening December 27, 2006

This delightful, independent 3-D animation is written and directed by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards and Tony Leech; the characters are given voices by Anne Hathaway, Glen Close and Jim Belushi, among others.

The scene of the crime: grandmother's cottage in the wood. The suspects: Little Red Riding Hood (looking very innocent), her grandmother (trussed up from head to toe), a wolf (looking very questionable) and an axe-wielding woodsman (looking rather confused).

Our four protagonists are accused of breaking and entry, disturbing the peace, assault, swinging an axe without a licence and, above all, of the mysterious disappearance of all the goodies recipes in the forest. For police chief Grizzly, they all look very suspicious, but ace detective Nicky Flippers doesn't want to jump to any quick conclusions. He interrogates them one after the other and soon discovers that little is as it first seems. The stories that are revealed become increasingly ludicrous... yet they might just be true. Are any of the suspects really the malicious goodies thief, or is a more devious mind at work behind the scenes?

Hoodwinked is an original take on a classic fairy tale. Though the animation is not up to the standard reached by Pixar, it will probably charm any animation fan with a child-like heart and sense of fun. Good family viewing for the holidays.

(Osanna V) Opening December 27, 2006

Shawn Levy (The Pink Panther 2006) directs Ben Stiller, Robin Williams and Owen Wilson in an entertaining movie caper for the whole family, written by Thomas Lennon.

Larry Daley (Stiller) is desperate for a job, but night watchman at the Natural History Museum in New York is not exactly what he had in mind. His elderly predecessors (Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney), however, convince him to give it a go. Armed with an instructions manual and a bunch of mysterious hints, Larry settles down for his first night alone in the silent, empty halls. Silent and empty they do not remain for long. Gradually all the exhibits come to life, from the wax statue of Roosevelt (Williams) and the tiny figures (including Wilson) from the various miniature displays, to the wild African animals and the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. Roosevelt is Larry's guide through the ensuing chaos, explaining that for the past fifty years, since a magical, gold tablet from Egypt was brought to the museum, the same incredible event happens every night. There's nothing to worry about, the president explains – though Larry would beg to disagree –, as long as none of the museum inhabitants are outside the building at sunrise. If they are, they turn to dust.

Larry is totally freaked by the experience and plans to resign immediately; but his young son's expectations that he will, at last, hold down some sort of a job, make him change his mind. For his second night he plans a careful strategy to keep one step ahead of the mischievous and, at times, dangerous exhibits. In the meantime, he little suspects that the former night watchmen are hatching a plan to steal the golden tablet (its magical power fills the aged men with great vitality) and leave Larry to take the blame. Night at the Museum may well capture the imagination of the child within each of us. A fun adventure that will provide good entertainment for the whole family.

(Becky T) Opening December 28, 2006

One war photo from World War II told a thousand words, each different depending upon the viewer. It depicted six brave soldiers raising an American flag over a pile of rocks and looks as if they are risking death under the rockets’ red glare, the bombs busting in air. Not true. The film tells the real story.

The initial surge onto the Japanese island of Iwo Jima by 33,000, and later 73,000, American soldiers was temporarily over. There was a lull in the fighting when soldiers leisurely raised a flag. It was so peaceful that a politician visited the battle field. Seeing Old Glory flapping from the highest point called Mount Suribachi, he desired it for a souvenir. The soldiers agreed to keep it themselves (who knows where it is today) and raised a second flag to fly “for the politician’s den back home.” This event was photographed by Joe Rosenthal for Associated Press. The fighting continued 30 more days and three of the six died. The remaining three were sent back to the U.S. to sell war bonds to supplement the American treasury which had a 14 billion dollar deficit. People cheered the heroes in huge football stadiums, heroes who became more and more uncomfortable in the role forced upon them.

The story, told in flashbacks, is too long and confusing. Perhaps readers of the bestseller of the same name by James Bradley will find it easier to follow. It is filmed in grey, white, and black to look like an old 50s film, with endless scenes of yet one more soldier’s eyelids fluttering to a close as he sinks into merciful death, his intestines oozing onto the ground. In spite of the weaknesses, director Clint Eastwood is to be admired for slaving away at yet another blockbuster (the scenes of thousands of ships is impressive; an old-fashioned war is a relief from the current conflicts on TV). He’ll probably be up for some more Oscars for this one, after MillionDollar Baby, as it declares “a hero is somebody we create, who acts not for his country but for his buddies.” Europeans will decide it is rah-rah Americanism, but you can’t please everyone. Ryan Phillippe is a sight for sore gay eyes in his little sailor suit, looking like he came straight off the stage with the Village People; at least you can differentiate him from the other soldiers, who, Japanese as well as American, all look alike.

(Mary W) Opening December 28, 2006

Many documentaries have captured animals in the wilderness but none have managed to anthropomorphize wild beasts quite like this one. As seen from cameras placed under the snow into a polar bear maternity den, Momma Bear happily gives birth to twins, each weighing about a pound. The babies contentedly nurse until spring when they emerge to search for food. Momma Bear hunts down baby seals: Cut to Momma Bear sniffing the snow and pounding the ice with her powerful front paws; cut to the baby seal below, whimpering and breathing heavily in an ice cocoon, fearfully holding its breathe for a critical moment; now cut back to Momma Bear pounding the ice; baby seal breathing heavier lets out a frightened whine. Now Momma Bear triumphantly cracks through the ice, dragging the screaming seal with her sharp teeth. Intimate animal sounds such as sniffs, grunts and exhalations are expertly edited to achieve the most human characteristics. Underwater, music is used such as a high pitched voice set to the fluttering fins of deep, dark ocean fish.

Filmed over a three-year period mainly in North America by several crews working at the same time, this documentary follows many inhabitants of the Artic as they struggle for survival against nature. Nature, however, is not the only predator. As a polar bear desperately searches for ice in an endless ocean, the narrator speaks of global warming and the need to protect the earth’s artic regions before such animals become extinct. The French narration (with German subtitles) is superfluous; the animals speak quite eloquently for themselves. Be sure to grab on to this animal tale directed with empathy by Stéphane Millière and Thierry Piantanida with Jean Lemire.

(Adele R) Opening December 28, 2006

The title of this moving film by Ken Loach about the background of the Irish “Troubles” is from a song, haunting and beautiful, written in the 1800s, sung by an Irish woman at the funeral of a 17-year-old youth who was beaten to death by the British soldiers, “the Black and Tans”. The Irish had fought bravely and fiercely, side by side, with the English in the Great War. But they were determined to gain independence from England and revolted against the Crown in the famous Easter Uprising of 1916. The British government was just as determined to cling to its colonial possessions, of which Ireland was one, even if it meant controlling the population with vast hordes of soldiers more than willing to kill.

Loach’s film is concerned with the years 1920-22. Two brothers, Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Pádraic Delaney) are leaders of the movement for independence in the South of Ireland. Damien, forced by circumstances he found impossible to overlook, has given up his brilliant future as a doctor at a hospital in London to join Teddy in the passionate but undermanned and under armed guerrilla war. The escalating violence and the success of the guerrilla effort seemingly bring the British to their knees. But the controversial peace agreement struck in London in 1921 divides not only Ireland but the brothers and the Cause. Irish turn against Irish and the clever division of the country into North and South set up by the British is ratified by many of the revolutionary leaders, including Teddy, in an earnest effort to end the misery. Of course what develops is just the opposite as we know -- years of murderous violence and hatred with the IRA and Sinn Fein at the helm. Only in the last few years has Ireland known an uneasy peace.

Teddy and Damien’s story, Damien’s deep love for Sinaed (Orla Fitzgerald), the sister of the murdered youth, and the conflict for which neither side can win over the other, does not go well. And this conflict is the story of the movie. The film won the Golden Palm in Cannes over Almòdavar’s Volver, a decision I would not have concurred with. It is a good film, well-shot and well-acted, gripping and occasionally surprising, but one we have seen before.