It's always a good week when 3 of the 8 films viewed rate an A- or better, and this past week was pretty good.
The first scene from the SOCIAL NETWORK, a new film by David Fincher (FIGHT CLUB) and writer Adam Sorkin (WEST WING), features the future creator of Facebook being dumped by his angry girl friend, mostly because he is inconsiderate, clueless and arrogant, and when she is done he angrily runs back to his dorm room and blogs lots of lies about her and vents his anger at women in general by creating a "vote for the most beautiful student" by comparing two different coeds and having each (mostly) male vote between the two on what becomes a very quickly popular web site. Subject matter aside, the scene is quite startling for several reasons. The first is that the characters talk incredibly fast--double time or maybe even triple time--and you must struggle to keep up to the college jargon and the ideas that are being tossed back and forth. Second is that you know exactly why this young man is being dumped even though he is unaware--you'd dump him yourself if you were in her position. And thirdly, the scene packs in more humor, wit, sarcasm, and drama than many films have in their whole 90 minute screenplay. The good news for the viewer is that this energy and sparkling dialogue keeps right on going, with ups, downs, double-crosses, sarcasms, genius outbursts, crazy parties, betrayal, sex--well, it may not be your college life or mine, but it makes you feel that it should have been. This is an amazingly smart, funny-tragic film, and even if you can't always follow the comupter-eze lingo, it is wonderfully intelligent and entertaining. It could be the movie of the computer-age decade. GRADE----- A-
One of the top films of this year's SIFF, and winner of the Best Actor award, CELL 211 from Spain, starts off with a bang, as a new prison guard, on his first day, is left behind on his prison tour just as the prison inmates begin a violent riot to protest conditions. He must convince the inmates that he is indeed a violent criminal, because if they suspect that he is a prison guard, he will be tortured, used for ransom, and/or killed. As you can imagine, things become very intense very quickly, and the film is very high on sustained tension and drama, with some horrific plot twists and ironic plot resolutions. GRADE-------- A-
I saw two films from the Spanish Film Festival last weekend, and both were well made. The first was RABIA, about a young couple who fall in love. She works for a rich couple as a maid in a huge mansion on the outskirts of town, and he is a short tempered construction worker. When he accidentally kills his foreman, he hides out, unbeknownst to his girl friend, in the attic of the mansion where she works, using the second phone line to call her at work, and stealing food from the kitchen when no one is around. She is pregnant, and lots of tension develops from this scenario---will he make himself know to her, will she be fired for being pregnant, will he be discovered by the couple or their family....?????? As tragic love stories go, this one kept me involved until the melodramatic ending. The second film, called AFTER was about 3 young forty-somethings who have been friends for a while and get together for a night of drinking, drugging, dancing, sex and talking, and then more drugging. The story is told three times from the three different points of view to include their lives outside of this one particular night. I kept thinking that these broken characters should really be over this type of careless behavior by now, and it was rather disturbing watching them self-destruct. GRADE for RABIA------B and for AFTER----B-
The new documentary WAITING FOR SUPERMAN tries to take on the exhaustive subject matter of EDUCATION in general, and ends up focusing on quality "charter schools" --in particular, how sad and frustrating it is for the small amount of kids to get accepted by them. The final 30 minutes is especially grim, as it shows the humiliating lotteries that will pick the small 5% of qualifying kids that can attend these special schools. The first 60 minutes are all over the map with charts and graphs that try to indite principles, teachers, the government, parents, racism and other issues as the reason kids are failing so much. These are ambitious topics to be crammed into 120 minutes--and there is a lot of information here, but the final effect for me was depressing and chaotic exhaustion. GRADE------- B-
Hot young actor Ryan Reynolds stars as an American working in Iran who is kidnapped and BURIED alive in a coffin, and has air and phone service for just 90 minutes to try to negotiate a ransom of a million dollars for his life. The whole film is set in the coffin, using light from his cell phone and a cigarette lighter only, and I kept wondering what cell phone company he was using because it had excellent, clear, multi-functioning, WORLD WIDE service that took forever to wear out, and where does one get a cigarette lighter that will last for an hour and a half with a giant flame like that?!?
Otherwise, the film is a gimmick and a rather tiresome one at that, but Reynolds gives it his all and the film does create some tense, claustrophobic moments. GRADE-------C+
Top pick for the DVD's this week was an excellent British film THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943) from directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger who co-directed an impressive list of films including I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, THE RED SHOES, STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN, and PEEPING TOM among others. This one covers the period from the Boar War through WWII, and during this 50 year period, charts the career and life and marriage and politics of Colonel Blimp, played with amazing skill and great humor by the remarkable Roger Livesey. Deborah Kerr delightfully plays three different women during his life, and Anton Walbrook charmingly portrays his faithful German friend. At times sentimental, funny, witty and dramatic, this three hour film is a magnificent character study of a staunch British soldier who has a hard time adjusting to "modern" times, and is the perfect example of the type of film that "they just don't make them like this anymore." GRADE------- A
Apparently one of Robert (AMC) Osborne's favorite films of the forties, ROADHOUSE (1948) left me feeling rather non-plussed. Ida Lupino plays the "singer" brought in by the psychotic Richard Widmark to draw in the crowds, but she falls for Widmark's best friend Cornel Wilde. Celeste Holm rounds out the foursome. The plotting was unconvincing, especially when Widmark frames Wilde for stealing the ROADHOUSE receipts. Lupino has a sexy, gravely singing voice and introduces the standard song "AGAIN"---and the cast is definitely the reason for seeing this film, but by the end I was rolling my eyes. GRADE-------C
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Even with the motivation and competition, charter school don't fare all that well. Maybe one charter school in five does better that public schools. Perhaps two in five do worse. Yes, it's depressing.
ReplyDeleteTeachers are blamed, and unions, as if the reason teachers aren't better is because the unions support bad teaching. Really.
I think too often the people criticizing education know about as much about it as I do about surgery. I've watched surgery, experienced it. Does that mean I am qualified to tell surgeons what they're doing right and wrong? Affluent people who attended private schools and do not send their kids to public schools (Obama, how could you let me down like that?) have no credibility. If they cared about public education, they'd send their kids to public schools and then do whatever they had to in order to guarantee that every American child had a quality education. Instead they buy a private education and complain about what they pay in taxes to support public schools.
I blogged about this in "What can't they eat cake?" http://janpriddyoregon.blogspot.com