I had many reasons to be unhappy with this film, yet I ended by being reasonably satisfied with my action movie selection. So what makes The Next Three Days work? It starts as a happy_family_meets_hell film (when the beautiful wife of an English teacher is accused and condemned for urder), flirts shortly with the court drama, then it turns into a reversed version of Convinction, with Russell Crowe playing the role of Hilary Swank . Then the last third is pure action, with very little credibility, as the way the hero tries get his innocent (maybe) wife out of prison is traditional escape and not decades of fight within the legal system.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1458175/
Sure, Russell Crowe is a good actor, Elizabeth Banks is not bad either, and director Paul Haggis already proofed in a couple of (better) films that he knows how to build characters and a compelling story around them. Yet, this film has all the chances to run into routine, there is nothing new or unexpected in its story line.
I believe that what saves The Next Three Days from failing is that the script and the director left in the story and the way it is told some ambiguity. We never know whether the woman is really innocent, the flashbacks are there not to clarify but to murk what really happened the night of the crime that triggered the events. Even if we assume (as the husband does) that the woman is innocent the act of escaping justice (and so many good cops chasing the couple and their kid) leaves viewers with a sense of morality in quite an uncomfortable solution. Director Haggis did not have a brilliant script at hand from screenplay writer Haggis. So he put into the direction a grain of uncertainty that is more realistic than all the rest of the story and saves the film. Because life itself has a grain of uncertainty.
Director Giorgio Lantimos‘ film Dogtooth (Kynodontas) is an anti-utopia. It imagines a world that does not exist, with rules and conventions so different from the ones of the society we live in that some of its aspects are shocking. A world governed by an order that kills emotions. A world separated from the real world by physical walls but also by a precipice which is deeper and wider than any physical wall. The material this precipice is made of is money and education.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379182/
The family which is in the center of this film is rich. So rich that they can afford that only the father (owner of some manufacturing factory) goes to work, while the wife and the three children – twin girls and a boy, all just out of their teens – stay permanently at home. They seem to have never gone out of the villa they inhabit, they actually believe that the outer world is full of dangers, wild people and animals that just wait beyond the corner to bloodily kill them. Any intruder is considered a mortal danger (be it only a cat) with the exception of one woman brought by the father to satisfy the sexual needs of the growing boy. No contact with the world outside is allowed and in the absence of any information emotions cannot develop, or when they develop they are completely distorted.
It’s no wonder that this film shocked a lot of people, intrigued other and marveled a few. I am in-between the two last categories. There are many cruel and explicit scenes in this film, as the characters develop a set of reactions that is a function of their misreading of the world whenever an intrusion happens, under the form of a forbidden VCR tape (only family tapes are allowed) or of an unlucky animal. The antiseptic atmosphere created inside the perimeter of the villa reminded me Michael Haneke‘s two versions of Funny Games. There are two levels of possible readings of the world created by Lantimos in Dogtooth. One is the social commentary which talks about the extremes of the isolation brought up by money. The other is about the dangers and the spiritual emptiness created by an extreme education that tries to isolate the young souls from the realities of the world. To grow as a full man one needs to have the eyes open to reality.
One of the latest films I saw before ‘Limitless’ was ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. The two share at least one line in which the supernatural capabilities of the hero are explained by his making used of 100% of his brain capabilities, while us, the rest of the mortals scarcely use 10% or 20%. In this movie the explanation is a memory enhancement drug, in the other one magic but is there a difference? Let us not forget that the best film director Neil Burger has on record (better than this one) was ‘The Illusionist’. This director probably does believe in magic.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/
What are the effects of the drug on our hero which seems to be doomed to be an eternal loser? They turn him into a super-smart analyzer and winner into the stock market, a heart-breaker speaking all languages immigrant waiters speak, but they also put him in trouble with the Mafia and maybe – we just never know – turn him into a murderer. Bradley Cooper with the help of some special effects that make his eyes more blue than deep sea when under influence does a fairly good job which is not pushed into the corner even by Robert De Niro in another of these roles that do not do too much good to his filmography but may round corners to his bank account.
The film does work eventually especially if concerns about morality and credibility are pushed aside. If at some point in time one may suspect that the story will make the case about drugs not really improving life or eventually asking the payback for their effect some disappointment may be in the waiting. Limitless is fair entertainment based on an interesting premises, the kind of movies we remember the idea but not the details soon after we finished the viewing.
If the goal of The Iron Lady was to get another statuette for Meryl Streep, the mission was accomplished. Streep receives a generous part which takes former British PM Margaret Thatcher from her early days in the Commons to the peak of her career and then to the sunset of her life, ruined by the Alzheimer disease and devastated by the loss of her husband. She does the best of this wonderful opportunity and the Oscar is fully deserved. She is so good that for a while many people who saw this film will have her image in mind when the name Margaret Thatcher is pronounced rather than the one of the real life character.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007029/
From any other point of view this film is a failure. Director Phyllida Lloyd is at her second feature film and the first non-musical one, and her rich experience in theater and opera was of little help here. There are two principal threads and none of them makes it to the viewer.
the Real Ms. Thatcher - source http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
The first theme is about the fight of an old woman with the Alzheimer disease, the loneliness of the old age and the feeling of loss she is encountering having lost her partner of a life, a partner she most of the time neglected as she was engaging on the most thrilling career a woman could engage in the late 20th century. This could have been a very interesting movie, but in order to make it the director and script writers should have diminished the other theme, and avoid repetitions and trivial situations. They have done none of these, so the treatment of this theme is seldom moving, but seems quite disrespectful on the other hand (after all Ms. Thatcher is still alive, and fighting the disease so detailed described in the film).
The political career of the only PM elected three times in a row in the history of England in the 20th century is obviously the second theme. This one is however treated with such a respectful superficiality that it looks not even like a biopics but at some moments as a Conservative propaganda collection of clips and dramatized dialogs, with Streep instructed to declaim all possible slogans in the Little Tory Book, and the background of the events never even scratched beyond its surface. 50 years from now nobody will understand watching this film why the British Prime Minister decided to enter war with Argentina over the Falklands or why protesters were furiously surrounding her car.
The Iron Lady brought Meryl Streep a(nother) well deserved Oscar. It will find its place in the Meryl Streep retrospectives. Mission Accomplished. Nothing more.
I had the privilege to hear last night a musician that I knew nothing before. I actually came to listen to Israeli percussionist Chen Zimbalista in a program of Gypsy Music, part of a series of World Music which runs in parallel with the Hot Jazz music series at the Museum of Art in Tel Aviv. The great surprise of the evening was to discover Emil Aybinder, one of the best accordionists I have ever listened to.
source http://www.youtube.com/user/cant0naa
Emil Aybinder is born in Bassarabia (the ‘Republic of Moldova’) in 1949, and lives in Israel since 1990. He founded the accordion section at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and created the the Ensemble for Folklore Music at the Academy. His repertory is broad, the focus is on Balkans (and especially Romanian) music, but the two records I bought show him approaching beautifully the French and Latino-American sounds as well. He is playing with virtuosity and passion, his stature on stage is remarkable, while his eyes search permanently the reaction, the sparks and the joy from the audience, from which he seems to extract the energy to do more and more music.
I like detective or spy stories, but only those with soul and brains, and unfortunately there are not too many. I do not like conspiracy theories but I recognize that they make great thriller and action movies stuff – X-Files (arguably the best science-fiction series in the history of television) included. Rubicon is a combination of the two themes in the right ratio and is the best TV show I have seen in Israel this year. Unfortunately it was produced by a smaller American TV network, and did not enjoy the rating success that would allow it to survive more than one season. It happens unfortunately too often lately with shows I like – definitely my taste is not in tune with the one of the American mainstream viewers.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1389371/
The detective theme of ‘Rubicon’ centers within a Manhattan based spy agency, one of the many which seem to divide in pieces of puzzle the American spying and counter-terrorism system. It’s employees are not supermen or action people, but smart bureaucrats or analysts as they call them nowadays, they do not call the president on daily (or weekly episode basis) as in ’24’ and if and when they carry a gun they do it with the same tremor as you and me would do it. They are usual people who deal however with the same global terrorism threats as 24’s Jack Bauer did, and they are pray to the same pressures as the CTU, or even larger, fighting not only the enemy out there but also a malefic conspiracy of riches trying to manipulate the whole world. Their position is much worse however, as the corruption seems to have infiltrated to the higher echelons of the reporting line. As in the best novels and movies of the spy genre (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes immediately to mind) nobody can trust anybody in the organization, and the corridors of the building as well as its outskirts are permanently infested with surveillance cameras, electronic bugs and suspicious eyes.
The best part lies however in the characters building. If the spy intrigue remains sometimes cloudy and murky we do not care as much because we have real human that build themselves beautifully on the screen. The series starts as the Israeli ‘Special Team’ with a new boss nominated to the team Will Travers (James Badge Dale) who replaces the former team leader who apparently committed suicide, deals with all the conflicts and will pay the price of trying to do the right thing. His boss Kale Ingram (Arlis Howard) happens to be gay, so he may be the good guy (one of the more recent stereotypes in American cinema and TV scripts) but who knows in this suspicion filled atmosphere. Assistant Maggie (Jessica Collins) and smart but drugs addicted analyst Tanya (Lauren Hodges) fight each their own daemons. There are more characters, and each of them is clearly and carefully designed and by the time the series end we care for all and understand their motivations. More than a spy drama ‘Rubicon’ is a psychological thriller and maybe exactly the qualities that I appreciate in the series are not the ones that broader audiences attracted by the more immediate striking emotions in action series are used to. I feel to be in complete divorce with the mainstream taste that dictated ‘Rubicon’ to be terminated.
‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ is designed on a very clear and often used formula of the Disney family movie with special effects, and it holds no surprises – in any case neither too bad, nor too good ones. A murky magicians legend told in a rather confuse manner sets the action some 13 centuries ago, then another prologue ten years before the action introduces the second set of characters who meet in contemporary Manhattan for a less than plausible magician film, with dragons and iron hawks fighting to save mankind. If it sounds kind of stupid this is because so it is. You do not expect too much logic in these scripts nowadays.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963966/
One does expect however magic to come from different sources in such movies, and I mean cinematographic magic. Special effects maybe, and here the film delivers at least in part with some nice ideas with a slight retro nuance. Sympathizing with the characters, here the success is partial, Cage is OK but the main young lead (Jay Baruchel) is as awful as a young nerd can be in real life and he could not convince me how the girl (Teresa Palmer, OK as well) fell for him with all his magic powers. We are thus left wondering why talents like Cage or Monica Bellucci sign for such films, and the answer is that they need to make a living while waiting for the next better script.
And yet, towards the final I started to care. This is not little thing taking into account the artificial characters and story. The final action scene was well done also. The other really good moment is the reference to the other apprentice, the one from the classical animated ‘Fantasia’ of Disney. If this film brought that superb classic to the attention of some young generation movie goers, than it had met at least one good purpose.
Pentru cinefilul din mine volumul de schite al lui Alexandru Petria ‘Denia neagra’ aparut la editura Herg Benet in 2011 se asociaza imediat cu cele doua colectii de filme scurte adunate de Cristian Mungiu sub titlul ‘Amintiri din epoca de aur’. Ca si acolo este vorba despre episoade disparate legate de trecutul apropriat dar ne-asumat inca in intregime al Romaniei – epoca zisa de aur la Mungiu, perioada zisa a tranzitiei la Petria. In ambele lucrari stilul este eclectic, sau altfel spus diferite episoade sunt abordate stilistic si narativ in mod diferit, dar asta contribuie in mod paradoxal la coeziunea fiecareia dintre colectii in parte dand senzatia de episoade culese din realitate. Episoadele daca ar fi luate in sine ar putea fi considerate ca lucrari umoristice unele, fantastice sau grotesti altele. Impreuna si combinate ele prezinta tabloul paradoxalei Romanii, cu oamenii ei si cu sistemele ei, comice daca nu ar fi tragice, tragice daca nu ar fi grotesti, tara la rascruce de imperii si permanent bantuita de spectrele celor doi Caragiale – Ion Luca si Matei.
Deania este liantul comun al schitelor lui Petria, orasel fara identitate intr-un Ardeal depersonalizat, evitand orice urma de ‘culoare locala’. 27 de schite, din care niciuna nu depaseste cateva pagini creaza imaginea unui mozaic parca incomplet, daca ni l-am imagina ca incadrat in spatiul unei picturi atunci aceasta ar trebui sa aiba multe pete albe. Adjectivul adaugat in titlu sugereaza poate singura nuanta comuna de atmosfera, reprezentata de oroarea tragediei care pare sa se ascunda in randurile urmatoare ale povestirilor indiferent cum incep acestea. Insuportabila apropiere a tragediei si a mortii de viata de zi cu zi, precaritatea acesteia intr-o lume in care regulile sociale si plasele de protectie nu par sa ajute cu nimic in desenarea destinelor umane este o trasatura pronuntata a lumii descrise de Alexandru Petria.
Cateva dintre povestiri apartin universului copilariei confruntat cu cruzimea vietii, si cu experientele dureroase ale cresterii. ‘Prima zapada’ il confrunta pe eroul adolescent cu sinuciderea unuia dintre profesori si cu o initiere in furtisaguri care se dovedeste a fi frustranta. ‘Initierea’ se ocupa de un alt fel de prima experienta, cea sexuala, care se suprapune relatiei adolescentului cu o profesoara tirana. Un tip similar de initiere este descris in ‘Moartea pornoromancierului’ in care figura bunicului apare nu atat ca o legatura cu o alta lume mai veche si poate mai buna, ci mai degraba ca o lansare initiatica venita dintr-o directie neasteptata. ‘Casablanca’ este singura alta povestire in care legatura cu trecutul este explicita, dar aici apare spre final alunecarea in tragic.
Tragicul din schitele lui Petria are de multe ori o nuanta naturalista. Toporul de pe ilustratia copertei apare ca o aluzie de final intr-una dintre povestiri. In alta parte un accident se intampla ca o surpriza in mijlocul relatarii unei zile banal de fericita, taind rasuflarea cititorului si curmand destinul personajelor.
Cateva cuvinte despre stil. In schitele sale cele mai bine slefuite Alexandru Petria mi s-a parut a fi un prozator remarcabil, prin plasticitatea relatarii, prin concizie si economie de mijloace. Iata descriind un accident petrecut in armata in ‘Nu numai despre Liviu’ o schita de mai putin de doua pagini: ‘Glontul a ricosat din gard si i-a atins jugulara. Sangele a tasnit din gat pe peretele cazarmii, a simtit cum pamantul urca spre el pana cand si-a sprijinit capul pe ceva tare.‘ (pag. 17).
Relatiile in cuplu nu sunt niciodata nevinovate in schitele lui Petria. Am mentionat cele doua schite de initiere adolescentina care deschid volumul, ele sunt o initiere spre o lume violenta si depravata. Piesa mea preferata din acest volum se numeste ‘La masa’ si ea descrie in mod alternat gandurile unui barbat adulter, servit cu devotament de sclava culinara care ii este sotie si visand la nurii amantei. Fiecare rand aproape apartine unui alt plan relational, pana acolo incat in final nu reusim sa identificam cui ii este adresata ultima replica. Genial!
Critica sociala este extrem de acuta si cine a citit ziaristica sau blogul lui Alexandru Petria stie ca ea are adrese precise. In volum el reuseste sa abstractizeze adresele si cred ca este o alegere inteleapta, dand sansa acestor povestiri sa supravietuiasca mult dupa trecerea in uitare a vremelnicelor guverne si regimuri. Au sansa insa sa ramana intiparite in mintea cititorilor figura de Dandanache internetic a senatorului Dan Precup din ‘Alegerea’, farsa caragialeasca din ‘Trei oameni onesti’, experienta atat de tipica ‘tranzitiei’ din ‘Si garoafele au viermi’, si mai ales personajul din ‘Corul vanatorilor’ si destinul sau.
‘Deania neagra’ are multe pagini demne de orice antologie care vrea sa surprinda momentul literar romanesc de dupa 1990. Surprinzator insa, autorul ei a scris foarte putin si ramane de vazut daca va reusi in cele din urma sa creeze si o opera consistenta. Eu voi urmari cu interes.
These are maybe the most Israeli two days in the year. Memorial Day – the day we remember the soldiers fallen in the wars of Israel and the victims of the terror attacks against Israel precedes the celebration of Independence Day – the day of re-birth of the Jewish state.
source http://www.offshore-radio.de/one.htm
On all holidays I search the Internet for information connected one way or another with the holiday. For Independence Day this year I researched a little the history Israeli rock bands and I picked a few relevant names, sounds and images. The search itself was interesting, as I found out that while building again the country and the nation, young Israelis had time to listen to what happened on the musical scene in the world and created a local musical scene that was for the last few decades challenging and interesting, searching for the ways of expressing the problems and the emotions of the young and not so young generations here. I hope that you will enjoy what I found.
The Curchills were one of the first Israeli bands to play psychedelic and hard rock in the 60s and 70s, they played in English most of their songs and worked with local star Arik Einstein.
Sipurei Pogy (Pogy’s Stories) is a collection of songs by Kaveret a band which became popular in the 70s, combining catchy songs and humorist texts. It is said that one of their concerts was attended by half a million people at the time the whole population of Israel was three million. I am not sure where these half a million people gathered, but even as a story this is record-breaking.
Tamouz founded in 1976 were short-lived, but they had a huge hit Sof Onat HaTapuzim (End of the Oranges Season) and launched the solo careers of two popular singers Shalom Hanoch and Ariel Zilber.
This recording of Mashina dates back from 1992, at the Arad festival, which used to gather the best Israeli bands and singers until a tragic accident in which several young people died led to its interruption.
Formed in the 90s HaDag Nahash (The Fish-Snake) is one of the most influential bands today, combining rock and hip-hop, and bringing in their recordings and concerts a strong social and political message.
‘HaMeyuheded’ (The Special, or The Special Unit) is a half-baked tentative of the Israeli TV industry to create a high quality crime drama, a genre which is extremely popular in Israel on the cable and satellite TV thanks to imports from the US and from the UK.
source http://reshet.tv/Shows/hameyuhedet/
It is certainly not easy to compete in a genre which brought to the small screen series like The Wire or Prime Suspect which are fine pieces of TV and cinema work on any scale of values, making of the police section an universe populated by heroes which are hard to forget, and of the permanent was between the good guys and the bad guys much more than simple entertainment, action or detective riddles. This is not because the Israeli reality would miss a large number of themes and subjects that could provide material for such successful endeavors. On the contrary, the mix of people and religions, social and political conflicts in the area , and the human mosaic of people who have roots here for centuries or even millenniums and other who came here from the four cardinal points of the world is explosive and fascinating. It is rather the limits of the Israeli TV productions, the real economic lack of means and the limits imposed by the creators themselves that prevent this series to realize its full potential.
As in Rubicon, the American series that I watched almost in parallel and about which I will write soon in The Catcher, at the start of HaMeyuheded a new and young policeman is put as a head of a team following the sudden death of his predecessor. Also here we have a permanent mix of two story planes, the immediate cases that need to be solved in the day-to-day life of the unit and the longer thread which is impacted by the personal involvement of the head of the unit. The relations between the members of the team, each one with his own personality, all interesting and complex catch much of the attention of the viewers.
Here we can find the strength and the most interesting parts of HaMeyuhedet. Wonderful acting by Ofer Schechter, Shmil Ben-Ari, Gal Toren, Yael Sharoni, and Ester Rada make of each of the members of the team individual characters which are strong and difficult to forget. Sasson Gabai and Nathan Dantner borrow some of their time and talent for well conceived characters, and the rest of the distribution allows for episodic characters to show up in interesting supporting roles. All this micro-universe is nice to follow, sometimes even moving and beautiful but cannot sustain a detective series. The weak point is in the thin fabric of most of the one episode series, and in the lack of consistency in the following of the longer threads, some of which are left aside for many episodes of the season, some other left suspended with no resolution. This may be the preparation of the ground for a second season which I will certainly like to follow because the first season contained many promises, and also the last episode succeeded to bring up for once the short and long lived threads in one intrigue that was well written and contained also the so much needed percentage of suspense.
