Reduced Blog: Movies 29-40

Time is running out! The reduced blog is becoming shorter and shorter! Reduced movies are:

29: Enchanted. Kate gives it a thumbs up.

30: Smart People. Maybe the dumbest movie we saw this year. No chemistry between Sarah Jessica Parker and Dennis Quaid, but is that surprising?

31: And Then She Found Me. Awful, humorless adaption of Elinor Lipman's wonderful book.

32: Wall - E. Touted as a masterpiece by stuffy NYT reviewer.

33: Wanted. Anglina Jolie at her adventure movie best. Said to harken back to Pulp Fiction by stuffy New Yorker reviewer.

34-37: LAFS (Lesbian Association of FilmS) classic viewings: My Life as a Dog; Racing with the Moon, Fast Times at Ridgmont High, Say Anything.

38: Iron Jawed Angels. Made for HBO rendition of the movement for women's right to vote.

39: Dick. Is there a better version of Watergate than this satirical take starring Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Phillips before they were famous? The second viewing of this 1999 film did not disappoint.

40: Girls Rock. A documentary about summer girls rock camps. Girls really do rock.

The Counterfeiters - Movie 28

This intriguing German-made film is about a world class counterfeiter who is arrested by the Nazis. He survives in the camps by heading up a unit of Jews who are charged with creating convincing copies of the British pound and the U.S. dollar, to support a Nazi plot to undermine their respective economies. This quiet but powerful film offers a facinating mediatation on the complexities of power and the difficulty of knowing what exactly is the right thing to do in difficult circumstances. One of the best films we've seen this year - we highly recommend it!

Fixx Coffee house - Place 36; The Year My Parents Went on Vacation - Movie 27

Weekend before last ushered in some beautiful weather and we decided to spend all day Saturday outside our apartment. We started off by walking over the the Fixx Coffee House, a locally owned coffee shop in our neighborhood. There were few people there that early on Saturday morning, so it turned out to be a great space for some peaceful reading. At about 11:30 a lot more people started showing up so we headed off to Penny's Noodle Shop for lunch, probably our favorite Thai restaurant here in Chicago, just a few blocks further down on Diversey and Sheffield. From there we went shopping down on Clark Street, hanging out in various bookstores and picking up a new pair of gym shoes for the triathlon training. In the late afternoon we stopped in at the Landmark Theatres to see a very quiet but compelling movie, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation. This is a Brazilian film set in the dictatorship period in 1970, the year that Brazil also won the World Cup (in soccer) led by the great Pele. This film chronicles a boy's coming of age during that time when his secular leftist parents are forced underground ("on vacation") and he must find his place the jewish community of his grandfather, who passes away upon his arrival. After the movie, we walked up to Mama Desta's Red Sea Ethiopian Restaurant (blogged here earlier) for an excellent dinner, and then finally made our way home, exhausted but happy with our day trip around the neighborhood.

Girls Rock! Movie 26

Last summer I visited Girls Rock! Chicago, a week long camp for girls teaching them how to be in a rock band and culminating in a concert at a local bar. Now comes Girls Rock: The Movie, focussed on a similiar camp located in Portland, Oregon, the first of its kind. The movie does a great job of showing how the camp gives girls an alternative to the standard skinny, quiet, withdrawn girl often promoted in the media, but most of all it's just great fun to see the kids figuring out who they are and how to translate that into performance. Can't wait to show it in my Women and Rock class next year!

The Power of Forgiveness - Movie 25; Siskel Film Center - Place 34

Last week we saw "The Power of Forgiveness" at the Gene Siskel Film Center, located in downtown Chicago. The Siskel Center is associated with the School of the Art Institute named after the popular movie critic of Siskel and Ebert fame who died of cancer some years back. The Center shows tons of arty movies in fabulously comfortable theatres. The director of this film, Martin Doblmeir, directed one of our favorite docs of all time, "Bonhoeffer," an account of this Lutheran ministers complex coming to terms with what it means to live in Germany during the Nazi reign.

In The Power of Forgiveness, Doblmeir addresses the concept of forgiveness, in part by visiting several locales / events that seem to many to defy forgiveness -- 9/11 families, folks in Northern Ireland who have had family members killed by the British army, an Amish community in which schoolchildren were shot, Holocaust survivors, and a number of other. Though the film raises some interesting issues, it is sometimes facile in its conclusions and has some weird production values which include an unfortunate reenactment scene reminiscent of a show one might see on the Discovery Channel. If Gene were still around, we think he would say thumbs down on this one -- but check out Bonhoeffer (2003) which is on netflix if you are a subscriber ("two thumbs up, way up" - Kate and Susan)

Animation Shorts Nominated for the Oscars - Movie 24

In preparation for the Oscars we checked out the animated shorts that were nominated this year, playing at the nearby Landmark Theatre. These included shorts from France, Russia, Canada, and the United States. Our favorite was Peter and the Wolf, claymation and interesting story line to accompany music written by Prokofiev in the 30's. Each of characters is associated with a different instrument. There have been many recordings of it, and at least one animated version, but this one certainly lived up to that long legacy. We'll see whether the academy agrees tonight (or not).

There Will Be Blood - Movie 23

Last weekend we ventured out in the below zero weather to see There Will Be Blood. Good movie, but pretty darned intense. It's based on a book by Upton Sinclair and you can't beat ol' Upton for a class A critique of the excesses of capitalism (and in this movie faith healing religion too). While we like a good rant as well as the next guy we have to admit being pretty worn out by the end of the movie! And would it have killed them to throw in a female character or two?

Persepolis - Movie 22, Duke of Perth - Place 30; Fuller's - Beer 37

Last weekend we went with our friend Ellen to see Persepolis, a feature film adaption of a graphic novel about about a young girl's coming of age during the Iranian revolution. The story is largely the same as the book, but its visual representation on the screen is much more layered and complicated than was the case with the frames on the page. This allows Satrapi to meet the complicated layers of the narrative with a visual match. Two thumbs up - we both liked it a lot. Afterward, we went to a local bar, the Duke of Perth for refreshment, imbibing in a Fuller or two. The Duke features a fine UK based beer list, along with an extensive list of Scotch, including several flights. This will be a great place to take our friends Wayne and Helena if they visit later this year -- Wayne is a wee bit of a fan of the scotch!

Atonement - Movie 21, Lake Theatre - Place 29

Susan went to see Atonement this weekend with Patti and Teri, friends from golf and bowling. We met at the Lake Theatre in Oak Park, just west of downtown Chicago. This is a great old theatre that has been somewhat cut up, while still retaining much of its original art deco stylings. The resulting theatres are still enormous by any standard. It is pictured on the right in all its glory in the 30's.

What to say about Atonement? Set on the verge of Britain's entry into World War II, it explores the question of forgiveness for the act of a young girl that has severe consequences for the two people she seems to love best in the world. It deals with such an interesting question in a compelling fashion, but it is really quite sober when all is said and done. In addition, the movie seemed to move along pretty slowly at certain points, really trudging to get to the initial exposition of the plot and then again to get to Normandy. Despite all of that, there is a kind of satisfying feeling that comes at the end of a story that is really looking hard at a very complicated and interesting moral dilemma. I'd recommend it, but if you're looking for emotional uplift, this may not be the right movie for you.

Juno - Movie 20 and CD 18; Maudite - Beer 34;

Friday night was a weird night. We had planned to see the movie Persepolis, only to find that it had sold out right before we got to the head of the enormously long line (probably due to everyone going out on a really cold night to avoid the horrifically cold night to follow on Saturday). So we decided to see Juno instead. We had read some mixed reviews, so were not sure what to expect but this movie and its central character are both winners. The movie tracks Juno's alternatively sardonic and sweet chronicle of her year as a pregnant teen still in high school. We liked it so well that we went out and bought the soundtrack which features pared down acoustic rock from The Moldy Peaches and others, as well as covers from Cat Power and others and some classics by the Velvet Underground and others. Then we headed off to Uncommon Ground to meet up with our friend Andrea to see a friend of hers play in a guitar and cello combo, and once again we were closed out! However, we were able to sample a really excellent beer called Maudite brewed at a Quebec brewery called Unibroue. This amber beer has some interesting spices in it that made the beer quite tasty and satisfying - especially on a cold winter's night. While we are not normally fans of the spiced beer, this one did work -- really well, in fact, for without knowing it we stumbled home to find that it had an 8% alcohol content. Fun fact: the label on Maudite protrays a flying canoe, provided by the devil, to whom these gents had sold their soul to get home for Christmas. Based on our experience of Maudite, we don't think you need the devil to fly home after drinking this beer! Or perhaps that's what ocassioned the story in the first place!

Movies 18 & 19: Weekend of the Coens

It was a Coen Brothers weekend. On Friday we went to see No Country for Old Men. Great story, but the last 1/4 of it seemed somewhat disconnected from the first 3/4 of it. Tommy Lee Jones is fantastic. As many have noted, there is quite a lot of violence, but so much so that it almost begins to seem cartoon-like at a certain point. You really can't go wrong with the Coen Brothers. On Saturday we went to see Romance and Cigarettes starring James Galdofini, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Winslet, with the Coen Brothers serving as executive producers. Kind of a post-modern musicial about a middle aged couple and their discontents. It was a bit uneven, but there were a number of really funny moments spread throughout the movie. It was worth the price of admission alone to hear Susan Sarandon singing Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart." The singing and dancing New York cops that flounced across the screen throughout the film were also pretty good. To complete the Coen fest, we're planning a reviewing of The Big Lebowski and O Brother right after Christmas.

For The Bible Tells Me So - Movie 17

Today we braved the beginning of a winter storm and slogged over to one of our favorite theatres, The Music Box, to see a documentary called For the Bible Tells Me So. This film focusses on five families that have gay children, as well as strong, fundamentalist Christian belief. How do they reconcile, or fail to reconcile the two? Two of the families include very public personas (Gene Robinson, Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire pictured above and Chrissy Gephardt, daughter of Congressman Dick Gephardt) and the other three families are everyday folks. This interesting and sometimes moving film shows the real and often very damaging human consequences of the anti-gay rhetoric of the religious right. It also offers an interesting and more complicated interpretation of what one interviewee calls the fifth grade level fundamentalist interpretation of the bible verses from Levitcus and Romans that are invariably trotted out to justify such beliefs. In one of the most powerful scenes a family tries to get in to see Rev. James Dobson at Focus on the Family in Colorado and is arrested for their efforts. Great way to portray a literal refusal to engage a challenging viewpoint. The movie is playing at least through this Thursday here in Chicago. Two thumbs up, way up!

Gay and Lesbian Film Fest - Movies 14, 15 & 16

We've been absent from the blog for a while, but now we're back again. It's a hard to maintain the balance between doing 10 x 40 and documenting 10 x 40. I'm afraid we're better at doing than documenting ;^)

The GLBT film fest was running over the last couple of weeks. It is a huge film fest featuring over 70 films across 11 days. We saw three films, Vivere, a German film about unlikely relationships across generations. It was pretty pretententious and slim on plot. We also saw a film called The Gendercator, a science fiction dystopia that sends a 70's lesbian 40 years into the future where those outside traditional gender roles are compelled to have sex change operations. This film has engendered (pun intended) a good deal of controversy due to its alleged treatment of transgender folks as (however inadvertantly) aligned with the religious right to reestablish firmer gender lines through surgery. Rather than avoiding the controversy as some other cities have, it was screened in Chicago at the LGBT Center on Halsted and was followed by a panel discussion. The film was not very good and the discussion quickly slid into identity politics of various sorts. The last film we saw was the best of the lot, it was called Between the Lines and it focused on hjira, the so-called third gender in India. The picture above is a still from this film. It consisted almost entirely of interviews with various hjira which was quite interesting, but there was almost no critical commentary outside of the personal experience presented.

Control - Movie 13; Fun Fact 21

Last night we saw the movie, Contol, about Ian Curtis the lead singer of Joy Division, a leading post-punk band that was big in the very late 70's. Curtis wound up killing himself, crushed by the demands of celebrity, increasingly severe epileptic seizures, and the problems that ensue due to an ongoing affair that his wife threatens to leave him over. (Other accounts discuss severe mental illness, which seems to make more sense - the movie leaves you wondering what led him to feel so utterly trapped and without hope.) Shot in black and white, the movie does a good job of capturing the bleakness of his homelife from adolescence to the end. Great music throughout. I think that "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is one of the best songs of this genre. Joy Division reformulated under the apt name New Order after Curtis' death and went on to produce some interesting early electronica / dance music.

Fun Fact: The name Joy Division is taken from a brothel frequented by German soldiers during WW II.

International Film Fest: Movies 10, 11, and 12

Because we're still playing catch-up from our brief hiatus due to moving, we need to mention that the annual Chicago International Film Fest was held a few weeks ago and we attended several movies, including Jellyfish (an Israeli movie about the joy and despair and magic in the lives of several women), and a grouping of some very interesting Animated Shorts. But our hands down favorite was "Jump" a documentary about several teams of teens from across the country competing in the national jumprope competition. Wierd interaction of athletic competition with zealous Christianity for many of the teams. Talk about extreme behavior! This film doesn't have a distribution deal yet, but if it comes to a theatre near you, we highly recommend it.

Across the Universe - Movie 9; Fun Fact 17

I went and saw "Across the Universe" at the afternoon show today at the Landmark Theatre on Diversey, Clark, and Halsted. Yes, I know that it had been playing to mixed reviews, but I liked it. (Plus it was fun to see a movie for the bargain matinee price of $7.00.) In order to enjoy it you have to be ok with musicals and all of the hokiness that can go along with them on film, really like Beatles songs, and be interested in the ambience of the 60s. If that appeals, this is the movie for you. If not, take a pass. I think this might account for the wildly uneven reviews. Fun fact: Bono has a great cameo as a Californian who is way ahead of the New York LSD learning curve.

Blame it on Fidel - Movie 8; Fun Fact 16

We thought we'd warm up for the upcoming International Film Fest with this interesting movie directed by Anna Costa-Gavras. This film is great story told through the eyes of a 9 year old trying to figure out the world as constructed for her through the eyes of her lefty parents who are busy with their friends battling facism in Spain and Argentina in the 70s on the one hand and through the eyes of the nuns who are her elementary school teachers on the other. What in the world is a kid to make of all this? This film offers quite a compelling portrayal of family life and this young girl's maturation in a complicated world and home. Although it had some pacing problems, particularly in the first hour, we both really liked it and thought that it was worth staying with throughout.

Fun Fact: Several reviewers have speculated that the movie is loosely based on Anna Costa-Gavras' life with her very famous and very politically left father, Constantino Costa-Gavras, who is perhaps most well known for his gripping movie portraying the plight of the disappeared in 70's Argentina, entitled "Missing" starring Carrie Fisher.

The Brave One - Movie 7

Jodie Foster. Enough said.

For those who need more: Jodie Foster's new movie, The Brave One, is an interesting meditation on the anger and fear that follow after a woman's fiancee is killed in the park by some violent strangers in the park. Apart from the rather implausible ending and the fact that Foster seems incapable of playing a love scene in a convincing manner, there is much to admire in the rest of this movie, which skillfully blends revenge and humor into a coherent whole. There is a lot of violence in this film, but so much so that it comes to seem comic book-like after a while.

Jodie Foster. Enough said.

The Bourne Ultimatum - Movie 6; The Grind - Place 21; Fun Fact 6

Today we went to see The Bourne Ultimatum which was a perfect choice for a slow Labor Day Monday. If you've seen any of the other Bournes then you know the pace and plot of this one two, but knowing that doesn't take anything away from this enjoyable movie. Afterwards, we met our friend Ellen for smoothies, etc. across the street at a little spot called The Grind. After we noted that there are no more Ludlum's for the Bourne franchise to exploit, Ellen said she heard an interview with Matt Damon in which he said that if there had been another one the next film in the series would have been called The Bourne Redundancy. Great fun fact. It'll be interesting to see whether they really are able to stop at the triology given the continued success of these movies.

Becoming Jane - Movie #5 and Cousins Middle Eastern - Restaurant # 15 - Fun Fact #4

On Wednesday Kate and I went to see Becoming Jane at an arty theatre on Diversey and Clark called the Landmark. It was blistering hot out and by the time we walked over there we were drenched. Earlier in the day we had been swimming laps, so we were ready for a big meal. We met our friend in front and went to dinner across the street on Broadway at Cousin's Middle Eastern restaurant. Kate had very good baba ganouj and I had falafel that was a little less firm than I'd prefer. Karen's shepherd's salad looked great.

Becoming Jane is a visually beautiful (but not too beautiful) movie that spins out an elaborate story based on the fact of Jane Austen's romance (as discussed briefly, for example, in Carol Shield's short and wonderful bio of Jane). There are certainly objectionable moments -- such as when we learn that the idea for Jane's famous "it is a truth universally acknowledged" line comes from a scorned suitor (although the film does suggest that the line was substantially reworked and made more clever by Jane). And of course, the entire premise of the film is that the central ill-fated romance is what made Jane become the Jane we all know and love through her books. Still, it was entertaining to see a movie all about Jane. It held our attention throughout and provided several wry chuckles along the way. And, despite our collective skepticism, Anne Hathaway was truly excellent

Here's a great Chicago-based fun fact for blogreaders with a political theory background: Did you know that Jane Austen was University of Chicago political theory professor Leo Strauss' favorite author? Do you think it's Jane's trademark irony that attracted him?