Love, loss and hope

On a recent gray and dreary day, the lovely Miss Wendy and I thought it a perfect time to visit our neighborhood multiplex cinema. We ended up seeing a horror flick that still has me rattled.

That's all a bit surprising, since I was raised on a jarring mix of films featuring werewolves and vampires; stumbling and bumbling mummies and fantastical blobs; the Frankenstein monster and a wide assortment of aliens. In recent years, I've even sat through some really frightening misadventures featuring flying superheroes, massive explosions and ubiquitous car chases.

Of course all these Hollywood creatures and creations were ephemeral, mostly filled with special effects and comic bogeymen hiding about in the dark.

"Still Alice", meanwhile, is a film that has little to do with make believe monsters and demons. The spooky stuff it offers up is scarily grounded in reality. It tells the story of Alice Howland, a middle-aged professor of linguistics at Columbia University, who is bright and beautiful and, unfortunately, slowly losing her mind to early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

Julianne Moore won the Best Actress Oscar earlier this year for her quietly moving and point-on portrayal of Alice, capturing her intelligence and lust for life that is achingly lost as her mind and memories wither away like a flower wilting in the noon-day sun.

The first hint of something gone terribly wrong in Alice's perfect life -- she's smart and lovely, has a wonderful job and a beautiful family -- is when she ever so slightly stumbles about in search of a word while giving a lecture. Only days later she's losing her way when out on a daily jog, soon enough forgetting the names of friends and family and misplacing her cell phone in the fridge.

In a world turned upside down, Alice finds herself taking baby steps in reverse, losing all the special qualities and unique experiences that had once defined her charmed and special life. Her family watches in quiet horror, trying to figure out how best to continue living in a world now frighteningly askew.

Their choices and decisions, both good and bad, are the stuff of life, an aching reality captured in Alice's slow descent into a mindless hell. Ever so quickly, the third act is upon us, and even quicker yet, it all dissolves to white.

Lydia, Alice's youngest daughter (Kristen Stewart, a jarring blend of anger and defiance, mixed with  love and strength) takes center stage, speaking a jumble of words that, after a time, morph into a lyrical monologue of hope.

I was so taken with the moment that I spent a few minutes on the web and discovered the scene was borrowed from Tony Kushner's "Angels in America": "And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles and formed a web, a great net of souls ... Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead."

Lydia asks Alice if she understands and Alice, staring off in dazed befuddlement, becomes reanimated -- if only for a moment -- and manages to say "love ... it's about love."

It's a somewhat satisfying, if melancholy ending to a sad and melancholy film. It also, at least for me, had the ring of truth.

Five years ago my mother was lost and stumbling along the road that "Still Alice" explores. After a couple of years of steady decline, her last days were spent in a kind of suspended animation -- gone, but still here; mute, dazed and befuddled.

I often stopped by the nursing home where she was living and helped feed her if I was around for lunch or dinner. On one particular day, I managed to get her to eat several spoonfuls of some sort of pureed goo, then handed off the chore to a nearby aide.

As I stood to leave, my mother glanced up at me and, after weeks of silence, managed to say, "I love you."  They were the last words I ever heard her speak.

So I'm thinking Alice had it right; it's about love. I'm also thinking that Lydia got it right when she shared the words of Tony Kushner: "Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead."

Code Black: Scary look into our broken healthcare system

The always lovely Miss Wendy and I stumbled onto an interesting film recently in our little corner of the world that was entertaining in a scary and informative sort of way.

Code Black isn't a summer blockbuster, features no caped crusaders, car chases, or scantily clad vixens; and the good guys -- a hearty and wholesome band of emergency room doctors-in-training --  definitely don't always win. After all, the movie is a documentary, not a fantasy.

The film moves along at warp speed, an adrenalin rush of activity focusing on the daily grind inside the emergency room at Los Angeles County Hospital. It's a bustling and happening place, as often as not laboring under a "Code Black," the designation offered up when waiting rooms and treatment bays are spilling over with patients.

It's been said of "C Booth", the hospital's legendary trauma bay, that more people have died and been saved there than any other square footage in the country; death hangs heavily in the air. But, thankfully, so does hope.

Given all the guts and gore splashed across the screen, it would seem likely that the dramatic tension of the film would have to do with the doctoring at the heart of the action. But, no, the documentary gains traction as the filmmakers explore the impact of our anemic economy on healthcare today and the growing bureaucracy that is slowing down the works.

As the needs of the community grow exponentially, one harassed administrator is forced to shutdown a wing of the emergency room for lack of operating funds and the loss of nurses to higher paying jobs at for-profit hospitals.

Meanwhile, patients wait patiently for care while doctors are kept busy filling out paperwork -- requisition slips, medical records, privacy forms and such. It's all a little maddening. One frustrated resident, clearly upset by the misplaced priorities that rule her life, explains she often has only a few minutes to spend with patients, then must spend precious time documenting visits.

During breaks in the action, the soon-to-be physicians share their back stories, hopes and dreams, and worry about the future of medicine.

It would have been easy for the film's producers to take a political stand, weighing in on Obamacare, questioning the high-cost of care and insurance, wagging a metaphorical finger at the senseless and infuriating gridlock that's taken hold in Washington.

But to their credit, the production team steers clear of partisan politics and focuses their energy on examining the day-to-day problems that have become emblematic of a healthcare system in turmoil and the wannabe physicians struggling to hold onto their humanity and youthful idealism.

I'm thinking it's a battle worth paying attention to in a world just slightly out of whack -- and growing whackier by the day!

“42” manages to cover all the bases

Those of you who’ve spent time with me on these digital pages already know my cosmic belief that all things in life come in three flavors: good, bad and okay. Everything, and I mean absolutely everything – movies, books, food, vacations, jobs, lawn services, back rubs – fall into one of these groups.

And, truth to tell, so far it seems that as often as not the “okay” bin is where most of life can be found; and that, well, is okay. So it’s really nice when I can report that I recently had a “good” experience at the neighborhood multiplex, thoroughly enjoying a film that falls just short of great.

Oh, right, there is a fourth classification. But I hold it way out on the spectrum of cosmic happenings, the place reserved for only the most memorable events of life that linger sweetly in my mind. But I digress.

The point of all this rambling is that the lovely Miss Wendy and I went to see “42” over the weekend and I’m thinking the filmmakers managed to hit a grand slam with this movie about Jackie Robinson. Most of the highs and lows that Robinson experienced – and there were many – as he went about integrating major league baseball is the stuff of legend.

So the power of “42” isn’t the story itself. The drama – the move from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro leagues to the Brooklyn Dodgers via its Montreal affiliate – has been fleshed out for years in newspaper articles and TV interviews, books, films and plays. No, it’s all the little details that defined the man and the sordid times that the movie’s director, Brian Helgeland, captures and wraps in mythic tones that set the film apart. Mark Isham’s soaring score adds both and exclamation point to the effort an occasional goose bumps.

There’s also Harrison Ford. He’s been around forever and forever it seems he’s been mostly playing himself – anyone recall Cowboys & Aliens? This time around, he’s been handed a bigger-than-life character, Branch Rickey, and manages to get most everything right.

Rickey is a complicated mixture of capitalism, religion, decency, and courage, all gussied up in a curmudgeonly façade. Ford plays him with gusto, balanced out with that crooked smile he’s polished and perfected over the years.

Meanwhile, Chadwick Boseman offers up a Robinson that is quietly heroic, a man able to bend and not break in a country filled with racists. The truth is often troubling and, in hindsight for a certain generation, it makes little sense today that America and the world had managed to destroy fascism while racism remained a way of life from sea to shining sea.

If nothing else, “42” puts the lie to “I remember when,” the melancholy ode offered up by aging Americans – many of them the heart and soul of that group of folks now fondly recalled as “The Greatest Generation”. And yet, even as the country was changing, lunging painfully forward, there was something splendid and grand taking place.

That’s the feeling that lingers about as the music swells and the credits begin to roll. It’s a feeling that, even for the cynics among us, comes with a lump in your throat and the notion that “42” is definitely lots better than just okay.

It’s Rocky by a knockout in Stallone’s new flick

After glancing at our schedules and realizing college football is really done and over for the year, the lovely Miss Wendy and I were hunting about for something to do. We were both too lazy to head out to the gym and too bored to spend time in front of our TV.

Fortunately, Rocky offered up a fun and amusing way to spend a few hours just a hop, skip and jump away at our neighborhood multiplex.

Sylvester Stallone’s latest flick, “Bullet to the Head”, opened over the weekend and I managed to talk Wendy into joining me in a little mindless fun. That pretty much is the kicker to anything else I might write about this film.

The story – okay, it’s really much too lame to be anything more than a plot outline – has Stallone, a New Orleans hit man, teaming up with a DC cop to bring down a batch of really bad guys. So “Bullet to the Head” – hey, you really gotta love that title, right? – is sort of a buddy flick, mashed up with a police procedural, wrapped together with a fish-out-of-water subplot.

The bottom line, at least for me, is it mostly works because Stallone mostly gets everything right. This time around he’s playing that oh-so strong, silent guy, who, when he talks, says something pretty funny. He can also still throw a punch and, let’s be clear here, there are lots of punches thrown.

There are also lots of fights, shootings, knifings, explosions and one smashing car chase. The really good news is that director Walter Hill does a nice job of making it all come together while tossing in a few surprises along the way.

So, if you have a little free time and are looking for some mindless fun – I did mention that already, right? – there are cosmically worst ways to spend an afternoon.

A Jewish film festival for the ganze mishpacha!

It’s that time of year again and the lovely Miss Wendy and I are well positioned to set personal records for most films attended at next month’s Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. There are still a few weeks before the annual fest airs its first movie, but we’ve studied the schedule and already purchased tickets for a bunch of stuff – that’s official movie talk for narratives and documentaries.

The really good news is film fest officials have decided that there’s apparently an audience for what they’re offering in the northern suburbs, significantly increasing the number of films to be aired this year in my little corner of the world. The even better news is that one of the selected theaters is only a hop, skip and a short jump from my house.

The movie marathon, at least for Wendy and me, begins with “Wunderkinder”, a German film that focuses on the friendship of three musical prodigies; their passion for music and efforts to remain connected – and alive – after the Nazis invade their homeland.

Over several weeks – the festival begins on Feb. 8 and runs through the end of the month – we’ll be sitting back and enjoying entries from Israel, France, Germany and the U.S.; comedies, dramas and a few documentaries.

One of the highlights worth mentioning is “This Is Sodom”, a bit of comedy fluff from Israel that has attracted huge audiences in the Jewish homeland. It’s being touted as a raucous and bawdy flick in the best tradition of Monty Python and Mel Brooks.

I’m thinking I’ll be bumping into several of my neighbors and oh-so many Members of the Tribe during the run of the festival, all out and about for a little fun and distraction. That’s because event officials have found a magic formula.

The secret? Festival organizers manage each year to offer up a way for Jews of all stripes – those who believe absolutely in the laws of Moses and those who mostly believe in lox and bagels – to come together as a community; a cultural happening that taps into our collective souls.

But if you’re hoping to be part of this happening, you best hurry. Tickets are selling out fast. For additional information and to purchase tickets, just Google Atlanta Jewish Film Festival or click right HERE! No need to thank me. As another blogging friend often says, I’m just a sharing kind of person.

A boy, his horse and the war to end all wars

As an editor, back when I worked for that place with a printing press, I occasionally would piece together a story by writing an expansive first paragraph, then tack on vignettes – often from other reporters working on the same project – that fleshed out the article.

That’s pretty much the approach Steven Spielberg has taken with his latest film, War Horse. Instead of taking the time and effort to develop characters and background stories for context and to create a sense of time, place and drama, Spielberg has us dash along with Joey as the horse gallops across one little vignette after another.

Collectively, the film manages to capture the absurd and grisly nature of war, the capriciousness of death and the anguish of loss. At times it even manages to do all this in a grand and entertaining fashion. But ultimately, War Horse comes off feeling like a collection of short stories that is attempting to play out like an epic novel.

It all begins when Joey is purchased, ah, cute and comes to live with the Narracotts. Son Albert quickly takes charge of the animal, forming a special bond that will have you laughing, cheering and reaching for your hankie before the final credits roll.

The opening scenes – the warp and woof of life of a poor farming family in rural England, struggling financially in a world that is on the brink of a world war – end abruptly when Joey is sold off to the British Army. We had just settled in with the Narracotts and their problems, met up with one of the film’s villains – the local landlord – and started to lose ourselves in the lovely English countryside. Suddenly we are off with Joey, charging into battle.

Over the next two hours or so, Joey becomes the focus of all those little vignettes I mentioned above – facing off against the Bosch, an army that has gone high-tech, taking part in the end of a quaint bit of warfare played out with sabers and swords; running away with a couple of deserters, then finding a moment of peace with a young French girl and her grandfather.

Each story brings with it new characters and new problems. The pieces are much greater then the whole, small bits that push along the story and pull at our emotions.

Spielberg raises questions but spends most of the film grazing the surface. Then he snaps his fingers and works his magic, capturing the absolute absurdity of war in a harrowing scene that has Joey wrapped tightly in bands of barbed wire, lost, frightened and wailing on a muddy battlefield before two soldiers – one German, the other British – come to his aid.

Albert, of course, becomes part of the fight eventually. All the emotion created in the opening scenes between boy and horse has to land somewhere, right? The landing offers few surprises, which is not to say it’s not satisfying. Go figure and grab a hankie!

Despite its problems, the beautiful scenery, rich cinematography and John William’s soaring score make War Horse a film worth spending a few hours with this holiday season. After all, Spielberg firing only on one or two cylinders generally manages to produce films that are entertaining and emotionally compelling – a trick many other Hollywood directors have yet to discover with all their special effects, car chases and explosions.

A footnote: Spielberg paints with heavy and broad strokes in the closing moments of the film, pulling together the musical score and cinematography in a nifty homage to another war movie – Gone with the Wind. Sounds weird, but it works.

Toe-tapping, feel good flick for the holidays

The lovely Miss Wendy and I were channel surfing earlier this week, in search of something – anything – to distract us for a few hours before calling it quits for the day. The major networks are mostly featuring holiday cartoons and reruns; so it was that we ended up reaching way back into TMC’s vault of golden oldies and spent the evening watching White Christmas.

Just as I clicked onto the movie channel, the opening credits of the holiday classic were playing out and we were once again back on a battlefield in Europe, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye performing for weary troops thinking of home and a “White Christmas”.

The unit's commanding general – a hard but very lovable Dean Jagger – is being replaced by a hard and not so lovable officer; and in these final moments of his command he’s sent off into retirement by his men wishing him well in a teary and musical sort of way.

A decade later, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis – that would be the Crosby and Kaye characters – have become a hugely successful song and dance team. They meet up with the Haynes sisters – Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen – in that oh-so cute way that only happens in Hollywood.

In just about the same sort of cute way, the guys and gals end up stumbling into Bob’s and Phil’s former Army commander who is now the owner of a picturesque – if financially failing – inn in Vermont. Song, dance and hi-jinks ensue.

The film, directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Paramount Pictures, offers up a toe-tapping, upbeat story that had audiences in 1954 laughing, crying and cheering. It would probably be universally panned and ignored today – no car chases, explosions, shaky camera work or moral ambiguity. Go figure!

What White Christmas does have is the music of Irving Berlin. The film is built around a play that Wallace and Davis hope will save their general’s inn and provides the foundation for a dozen or so classic Berlin tunes – “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep”, “Snow”, “Heat Wave”, “Love, You Didn’t Do right By Me”, and of course, “White Christmas”.

I know exactly what’s going to happen when watching the movie, but still I tear up when the general is escorted into his inn’s dining area and is greeted by the men who had served under him a decade earlier in World War II.

It all gets a little – well, actually, hugely – sentimental and gushy when snow begins falling and the final number has Wallace and Davis, the Haynes sisters and a cast of hundreds singing “White Christmas”. In some fashion, I’m thinking the melancholy yearning for family and home; the holiday spirit, love and friendship that’s captured in the movie’s closing moments are exactly what people needed a decade or so after World War II ended.

White Christmas creatively offered up the idea that life had been tough, but that it was getting better. I’m thinking it’s a message – at least for me – that still seems valid and important today.

Feel-good flick all about the human spirit

I was surfing the web, hidden away in my little office at home when the lovely Miss Wendy yelled something from across the hall. Little did I know that we’d be crying just a few moments later.

“What’s that movie about the guy who wants to play football at Notre Dame,” Wendy asked. She was sitting in our upstairs den, apparently stuck on a movie channel that was stuck on playing a film from the early ’90s.

Truth to tell, the moment the missus mentioned movie, football and Notre Dame my throat began tightening up. When I made it across the hall, Rudy was all suited up, standing on the sidelines of Notre Dame Stadium, waiting for a bit of magic to come his way.

There was only five minutes remaining in the film and only 30 seconds or so left before Rudy’s chance faded away to ever take the field as a member of the Fighting Irish, a dream he had cherished and nurtured for years. Despite not having the grades to get into Notre Dame, nor the size or talent to win an athletic scholarship, Rudy was about to grab hold of the golden ring.

All it took was grit, determination and a heart the size of Texas. Cue the music and grab hold of your box of Kleenex!

It was the last game of the season; Notre Dame was ahead by two scores, time was running out and the coach, Dan Devine, decided to send in all the seniors who had yet to play. Well, what about Rudy?

In the mid-70s, Daniel Eugene "Rudy" Ruettiger really did attend Notre Dame and actually did manage to talk his way onto the university’s “scout” team. Basically that meant he was used as cannon fodder during practices, essentially a human tackling dummy. He was only 5’6’’ tall and weighed about 165 pounds. There were 300-pound linemen on the team who crapped turds bigger than Rudy.

He took whatever punishment came his way. There was no quit about Rudy and, bit by bit, he became part of the team, the feisty little guy with the really big heart. His dream remained to actually suit up with the squad and, just maybe, be allowed to play in a real game.

Still got the tissue handy? Coach Devine, in real life, was planning to get Rudy into the game if possible. Filmmakers, however, have never let facts get in the way of a good story. A little dramatic tension was needed, so in the movie Rudy is left standing on the sidelines, his dream slowly fading away.

That’s where I picked up the film over the weekend. Of course I already knew what was about to happen; I saw the film when it was released years ago and have caught bits and pieces of it dozens of times on the tube. One of those ginormous linemen quietly begins to chant Rudy’s name. Another player joins in, then yet another. A moment later the crowd picks up the chant and soon the entire stadium is calling Rudy’s name.

The coach finds himself between a rock and 70,000 chanting fans. Rudy is sent into the game with only seconds remaining. The crowd cheers. His family cheers. The chief grounds keeper, a gruff and cynical guy, smiles and raises his arm slowly in solidarity. The game ends and Rudy is carried off the field on the shoulders of his teammates, his name still ringing around the stadium.

I’m pretty sure if you look up “feel good movie” on the web, Rudy will pop up high on the list. The film, btw, was named one of the best 25 sports movies in two polls by ESPN in 2005 and was ranked the 54th most inspiring film of all time by the American Film Institute.

So, the next time you spot Rudy on TV and you need a little lift, take a few moments and enjoy the drama. Just make sure you’ve got a tissue nearby.

'One Day' okay way to spend an afternoon

It turns out that One Day is an okay way to spend a hot afternoon in the Land of Cotton. The film, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, is a meditation on friendship, love and loss; the stuff – big and small – that defines that thing we call life.

The film plays out around one day each year over two decades or so, introducing us early on to Emma and Dexter meeting cute on the night of their college graduation. They stumble into bed only to decide to cuddle and sleep. They become buddies and a special friendship is kindled.

The relationship grows and wanes over the years, at times awkward and confusing, filled with laughter, tears, loneliness and fear. Em and Dex, as often as not, are headed off on different paths, but their love for one another has a way of tossing them together – such is life.

What makes all this minutiae palatable – even quietly serene and enjoyable at times – is, in the words of A.O. Scott of the New York Times, a lush, swooning, deliciously anachronistic orchestral score by Rachel Portman. I concur. I’d also add that the film’s evocative and richly colorful settings in London, Scotland and France offer up a pleasing cosmopolitan vibe.

All of this, in a fashion, has been done before. The movie, at its best, often seems a euphonic blend of Two for the Road; Same Time, Next Year and When Harry Met Sally. I’m certain there are others. In fact, the 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill plays around with much the same themes. Worth noting, Hathaway and Sturgess are younger versions of Notting Hill stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant; a long and winding way simply to say there is very little new under the celluloid sun these days.

There is much to like about One Day. Its third act, however, takes the effort off into a dark and dangerous direction for a film that’s built on fluff. Not wishing to give too much away, I’ll simply finish by suggesting you might want to bring along a box of Kleenex and a friend with an available shoulder to cry upon.

At least the popcorn was fresh and tasty

There are some things that just aren’t meant to go together – oil and water, Tech and Georgia, cowboys and aliens. Hollywood apparently thought the cowboy/alien thing was a good idea; but despite the heroic efforts of Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, the film is a dud!

That’s not to say it’s a complete disaster. Much of the western vibe found in the cowboy story is entertaining. There’s the quiet stranger, a loner who manages to be both fierce and lovable; the really bad kid whose daddy runs the town; a brave sheriff, God-fearing minister and seedy bar filled with a mix of cliché characters.

The aliens remain in the shadows for much of the film, something sinister in the background; thingies that are a cross between really big roaches and really big spiders. Despite their bug-eyed ugliness, they apparently are really smart. After all, they’ve built a ginormous space ship and an entire fleet of fighters, traveled light years across space and hold the copyright on some sort of bluish death ray!

If I could just time warp my way back to when I was a kid, I can imagine Cowboys and Aliens working really well as a Saturday morning double feature at the old Bradley Theater in downtown Columbus. All that would need to be done is zap the movie into two separate parts – a western and a sci-fi flick.

The whole blending thing might have worked if the filmmakers hadn’t lost touch with their sense of humor. The film takes itself a little too seriously. Even when the quiet stranger manages to race along on horseback next to one of the alien fighters, then jumps from horse to fighter and cripples the craft, no one is winking at the camera.

The final big battle – despite the good guys essentially tossing rocks against a force of bad guys with hi-tech howitzers – ends predictably. Worse, it was pretty clear before the fighting began who would be walking away from the battlefield and who was going to be zapped.

My greatest fear is that Cowboys and Aliens will do well enough at the box office that a few years down the road we’ll be hearing about a sequel – Cowboys and Aliens: The Musical! Now that’s a flick I’d pay not to see.

Mob movie cool on a warm summer night

One sure way to beat the heat here in the land of cotton is to spend a cool evening inside watching a mobster movie. That’s exactly what I did earlier this week, managing once again to sit through Godfather: Part II.

I first saw the film back when I still had hair, Richard Nixon was in the White House and Elvis was starting to wear spandex. I’ve seen bits and pieces now and again, but haven’t watched the entire film in decades.

It remains one of the top movies ever produced, featuring a killer cast – Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, John Cazale and Talia Shire. It also has a pitch-perfect screenplay, beautiful cinematography, and a wistful, melancholy soundtrack that won the Oscar for Best Original Score in 1974.

There is a minor hiccup that bothered me the first time I saw the film and continues to irritate decades later. Lee Strasberg, the legendary actor, director and acting teacher, plays Hyman Roth in the film. It’s worth noting that he was nominated for a best-supporting Oscar for his performance – he lost to Robert De Niro, playing the young Vito Corleone.

Take a moment and recall the scene when Michael meets with Roth at his home in Miami. Michael is ushered into a smallish den where Roth is relaxing before lunch, sitting in some sort of lounge chair, watching TV. Roth initially seems oblivious of Michael coming into the room. His right leg is awkwardly resting on the arm of the chair and he seems to be lost in his head.

The first thought I had as Strasberg turns toward Michael and the camera is that he’s acting. That, I’d argue, is a thought you never want to have when watching a flick. The entire scene – at least the Strasberg half of it – feels phony, unnatural and awkward. The leg thing comes across like some sort of artistic affectation.

None of this is particularly surprising. Strasberg, after all, is considered the father of method acting. It’s a concept that Dustin Hoffman captured hilariously in the film Tootsie when his character is trying to figure out how best to portray a tomato by understanding what motivates the veggie. Sometimes the best thing to do is just act!

The Godfather franchise is filled with memorable characters and solid actors who bring them to life. Strasberg eventually finds the heart of Hyman Roth and quietly builds the character throughout the film. In their last scene together, Strasberg and Pacino face off; Roth ranting about the nature of the mob and the work they have chosen, Michael seething in quiet rage.

All four hours were grandly entertaining and very, ah, chilling. That would be a good thing on these oh-so hot and humid nights. Up next? The Untouchables and Sean Connery’s over-the-top Irish brogue!

Jerusalem sparkles at heart of new documentary

It’s Friday, time for another posting of Interesting Jewish Stories & Facts. So let’s go to the movies.

Israel is often viewed through a fractured lens, a public relations mess of conflict, religion, politics and gloom. Add to this dark stew the misinformed belief that the Jewish homeland is a desert wasteland, fit only for scorpions, camels and the heartiest of Bedouin tribesmen, and you have the makings of a cosmic nightmare.

It seems each time a bit of light reveals the delights of this ancient land that dark forces conspire to hide the truths of the place. Trepidation often hangs heavily on the horizon, tossing a bleak shadow across the beauty of the country and its people.

I mention all this to capture the importance of a new documentary about Jerusalem, an IMAX film that has the potential to push aside the clouds – if only for a moment. The movie, produced by Arcane/Cosmic Picture Film, is scheduled for release in 2013.

I stumbled across the opening minutes of the production recently. It’s a euphonic blend of music, narration and splendid aerial shots focusing on the beauty of the land and its rich and ancient mysteries. You can find it right HERE! Take a few minutes; you won’t be disappointed!

I’ve been lucky enough to visit much that is featured – the ancient port cities of Jaffa and Caesarea; the lush and fertile Jordan Valley and spiritually rich area of the Galilee; Masada and the Dead Sea. These iconic locations serve only as preamble, picturesque settings all leading in the same direction.

Jerusalem, the City of David, springs to life in the heart of Israel, a magnet for pilgrims and tourists, the faithful and doubters. Its sun-bleached buildings, cobblestone streets and serpentine alleys are filled with spiritual energy and ancient secrets.

The film, even on the smallish screen of my computer, offers up a colorful and epic portrait. All the noise and chatter from ill-informed and misguided protesters, weak-kneed politicians and venomous religious leaders is quieted. For a moment, Jerusalem stands and speaks for itself. It’s a glorious site.

So, Nor, what’s all this talk about a scooter?

The always lovely Miss Wendy and I caught the new Tom Hanks flick, Larry Crowne, a few weeks ago. It was a bit of summer fluff – quietly entertaining and imminently forgettable.

Larry – that would, of course, be the Tom Hanks’ character – after years of grand service as a worker bee with one of those mega-discount stores, is downsized and finds himself struggling to stay afloat. He starts selling off or dumping anything he can do without, including his comfy home in a comfy neighborhood and, eventually, bumps into Julia Roberts in that oh-so cute way that only happens in romantic comedies. I believe it's called "meeting cute".

But I digress. Larry has a ginormous SUV and while pumping it full of fuel spots a dude filling up a sweet little scooter. Larry forks over $75 to fill his gas guzzler; the dude tops off his tank for, ah, $3.75. In the next scene Larry is spotted haggling for a used scooter from his always-holding-a yard-sale neighbor. I think he ends up swapping a flat-screen TV for it.

I've quickly forgotten all the fuzzy and mildly funny stuff that goes on between Tom and Julia in Larry Crowne, but the cute little scooter has lingered in my mind. After all, if Larry is able to save a few bucks by hopping aboard a scooter, shouldn’t I be able to realize the same benefit here in the Land of Cotton?

After some detailed number crunching and cost-benefit analysis, buying a scooter seems a logical thing to do – at least that’s how I think Mr. Spock might view the situation. Unable to reach the Vulcan with the pointy ears, I asked for some feedback from my Facebook friends instead. Big mistake.

The first response, from Bill – my smartass friend, former colleague and occasional traveling companion – was to suggest I check out Dressler’s Funeral Home for additional information. This was followed by a comment from my brother Larry wondering if he was in my will. Okay, I get it. There’s a safety issue to consider.

So here’s the current vote tally. All those in favor of my getting a sweet new ride, fire-engine red with a cute little rearview mirror and lunch box-sized trunk: 0. All those filled with negative energy, suggesting perhaps that I’m out of my friggin’ mind: 1,474. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Let’s just say that the nays far outweigh the yeas.

Meanwhile, I’m holding out until the vote is tallied in the outlying counties and, ah, Miss Wendy casts her ballot. Stay tuned!

Film offers unique look at newspaper industry

The lovely Miss Wendy and I spent the afternoon at the movies over the weekend, watching a documentary that was informative, entertaining and, at least for me, a bit melancholy.

Page One: Inside The New York Times, focuses on the Times’ Media Desk and offers a unique look into the inner workings of big-city Journalism and the challenges newspapers are facing in a digitalized world moving at warp speed.

Much of the narrative is seen through the world-weary eyes of David Carr, a recovering addict who remains gritty around the edges. He’s the mirror image of all you’d expect to find inside the inner sanctum of one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world. But his no nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is attitude – considerable talent and obvious smarts – offers up just the sort of character needed to build a film around.

The documentary does a good job of capturing the yin and yang of daily journalism and the ugly business of figuring out what’s happening around the world; the conference room meetings where office politics are part of the equation and hallway chats between editors and reporters where all the heavy lifting is accomplished.

If you ever worked for a place that buys paper by the ton and ink by the gallon then you’ll appreciate the nitty-gritty details of the film. You’ll also have a unique understanding of the dark clouds of anxiety that hang heavily over the newsroom.

Newspapers, you’ll recall, aren’t doing all that well these days. Page One opens with the closing of several papers across the country, then details the financial struggles and, inevitably, the cutbacks at the Times – bureaus are closed, sections folded, buyouts offered. Sound familiar?

Meanwhile, Carr and his colleagues go about the business of covering the news. Mixed in with their work – interviews, conferences, writing, editing – are panel discussions and debates about the future of journalism, the ascendancy of the web and the digitalized media. The filmmakers do a good job of exploring their topic, staying focused and, ah, cutting away the fat. Trust me on this, it’s an editing thing!

Ultimately, what plays out is an engrossing look at an industry in flux. At the Times, reporters and editors are still trying to figure out how best to attack the future while holding on to all the important stuff that defines exceptional journalism – accuracy and objectivity, euphonically blended with passion and sweat.

In a world where anyone can call them self a journalist, steal news reports and post lame and vapid opinions, it’s clear that such excellence is needed. Sadly, what’s needed isn’t always what we get.

Toy Story 3: Spooky, funny and full of life

The lovely Miss Wendy and I recently spent a delightful evening with pals Susan and John watching Toy Story 3. John’s man cave it turns out is really a mega-entertainment center, the perfect place to watch Sheriff Woody and his animated friends.

This time around the folks at Pixar and Walt Disney Studios have yet again managed to produce a film that offers up a few lessons about life in a fun and totally entertaining fashion. The story has Andy, that would be Woody’s, ah, human, heading off to college and all the toys anxious about their future.

Everything seems light and bright and moving in the right direction when Andy decides to take Woody along with him to college and save all the other toys from the trash bin by storing them in the family’s attic. Of course all doesn’t go according to plan and the toys end up in daycare hell!

Sunnyside, at least the toy side of things, is run by Lots-o’-huggin’ bear. His fuzzy heart was broken years earlier by his, ah, human kid and now he’s oh-so spooky in a cuddly sort of way.

“Lotso” and his band of thugs turn life into the proverbial living hell for Andy’s toys until Woody figures out how to save the day. My guess is most of you have already seen the film and know how the heroics play out. I’ve got only one word for the rest of you. Netflix!

A thousand years ago when I was a kid, animated films were aimed directly at youngsters. They were mostly sweet little cartoons with just enough dark energy to keep things interesting. So there was the witch in Snow White and the hunters in Bambi, Captain Hook in Peter Pan and Cruella de Vil in One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The villains were mostly hidden away in the shadows, laughably evil and bigger than life.

The bad guys in Toy Story 3 are much spookier, often funny but also creepy. Their spooky mojo isn’t linked just to things that go bump in the dark and fill our sleep with nightmares. Okay, there is a clown and a lumbering big baby with a drooping eyelid. But the characters are also saddled with a boatload of human frailties and psychological scars, acting out their fears and causing problems. That’s scary stuff.

I imagine youngsters find the movie fun. There’s lots of color and plenty of noise, enough sensory stimulation to keep them focused and entertained. And I guess they can follow the plot, at least on the surface.

But Toy Story 3, and much of the animated work coming out of Hollywood these days, is being produced for a much larger and older audience. It’s not just the high-tech animation that’s pure genius and pulling in crowds.

Like all good films, Toy Story 3 offers up a pitch-perfect script. So it’s the words, I’d argue, that ultimately hold together the fine work of the film’s actors, animators, producers and directors. Those words, interestingly, focus on the human condition – aging and change; friendship and love.

Films are all about the suspension of disbelief and once upon a time that just didn’t happen for me when watching cartoons. Woody and his talented team of creators have changed all that. Now, apparently, all I need is a dark room, bag of popcorn and something special from the folks at Disney.

Lincoln Lawyer has twists, turns; a few surprises

Matthew McConaughey has jumped just a bit outside his comfort zone in The Lincoln Lawyer, returning to the courtroom for the first time since he hit gold with A Time to Kill. For years McConaughey has been phoning in performances, playing lovable, likable characters in forgettable romantic comedies.

This time around he remains likable as a street-smart lawyer who mostly works out of the back of his car. The movie has lots going for it; interesting story and well-written screenplay with more twists and turns than the Pacific Coast Highway. It also has just enough action to keep things real and moving along, and a killer cast – Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe and the always delightful William H. Macy.

Mick Haller – that would be the McConaughey character – stumbles into a case that, at first blush, seems to provide some easy money for just a little work. A young, good-looking rich guy has been arrested for beating up a hooker and he claims he’s being framed. With just a little effort Mick seems to have won the case before opposing attorneys even have a chance to chat.

What Mick and all of us munching away on our popcorn in the dark don't know is that the rich kid is a sociopath and Mick’s being setup in a most canny and sinister fashion. Just as things start turning sour, I realized The Lincoln Lawyer was actually making me think and pay attention to what was happening on the big screen. I love when that happens.

There’s little violence and absolutely no car chases in the film. The pop of the two gunshots in the movie play out much bigger than all the automatic gunfire on display in most action adventures because the story unfolds in such a plausible fashion.

For those very same reasons, the film only managed to pull in an estimated $13.4 million during its opening weekend. That’s not necessarily bad news for McConaughey. Those tepid receipts actually represent the top-grossing start for a McConaughey non-comedy-or-action movie since his breakout in A Time to Kill. Go figure!

More importantly, at least for me, Miss Wendy and the 100 or so others in the theater, The Lincoln Lawyer offered up an entertaining way to spend the first day of spring. Of course, give me a dark room and a bag of popcorn and I’ll watch just about anything.

Jewish film fest offers up mixed bag of goodies

The Atlanta Jewish Film Fest continues for another week or so here in the Land of Cotton, but the lovely Miss Wendy and I won’t be attending any more movies. We finished up our ambitious effort over the weekend and managed to see a dozen or so films this year.

As usual it was a mixed bag of cinema – documentaries and features; comedies and dramas; Israeli, French and Polish productions. Most were good, at least two were excellent. As some of you might recall, I was taken with The Matchmaker, an Israeli film that managed to seamlessly blend both a coming-of-age comedy and Holocaust drama. It offered few surprises, but the characters were memorable, the story compelling, and the cinematography lovely.

Another Holocaust film, The Round Up, also captured my attention. Unlike The Matchmaker, there was nothing subtle about this heartbreaking movie. The feature is based on the very real stories of two Holocaust survivors who were part of a massive roundup of Jews in Paris and its suburbs.

For a year or so after the Nazis invaded and occupied much of France in 1940, Jews were forced to comply with a series of draconian measures limiting their rights and freedoms. They were forced out of certain professions and schools, denied access to parks and other public places and ordered to wear a Jewish Star on their shirts and coats.

Much of this was accepted by both the Jews of France and their gentile neighbors with a shrug of their collective shoulders and the hope that sanity would be restored once allied troops managed to regroup and liberate the country. Unfortunately, the Nazis and their French collaborators had other plans.

On July 16, 1942, French police began the roundup of Jews in and around Paris. There were about 25,000 Jews in the region and before the day was out more than 13,000 were detained and arrested, some transported to an internment center in the northern suburb of Drancy, others taken to the Vélodrome d'hiver. The velodrome is at the heart of the bestselling novel, “Sarah’s Key”, that covers much of the same ground as The Round Up.

The movie, meanwhile, takes us inside the Vel' d'Hiv, the camera pulling back slowly and dramatically to reveal the massive velodrome. It’s a stunning sight. The sports palace had been transformed into hell, the sick and dying shunted aside into smallish tents; children dashing about, families attempting to hold onto one another and their dignity.

After five days with little to eat or drink, the lack of basic sanitation and soaring temperatures that hovered around the century mark, the detainees are shipped off to three nearby internment camps – Drancy, Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers. In the film, we follow the struggles of several characters at Drancy – Jo Weisman and his family; Annette Monod, a Protestant nurse; and David Sheinbaum, a Jewish doctor memorably portrayed by the well-known French actor Jean Reno.

By focusing on the dreams and nightmares of a few central characters and the thuggish and psychopathic behavior of their Nazi and French tormentors, Director Roselyne Bosch manages to poignantly humanize the Holocaust. We feel Jo’s pain, Annette’s outrage, the doctor’s frustration and anger. The Holocaust is no longer just an incomprehensible number. For a moment, it has all become very personal.

Life at Drancy doesn’t get better or worse. The venue has changed but survival remains a daily struggle. Meanwhile, the Nazis and their French puppets are struggling with a logistical problem. The Germans have become so efficient at rounding up Jews across Europe that they’re unable to murder and cremate them fast enough and the “Final Solution” is falling behind schedule.

The solution is to separate all the children from their parents, a heartbreaking scene in the movie that, unfortunately, really happened. The youngsters, many of them only toddlers, remained at Drancy while the adults were transported to Auschwitz and murdered. The children followed a few weeks later.

After allied troops crushed the axis powers and the dust had cleared, the utter madness of the Nazis and the Final Solution became clear. Six million Jews had been slaughtered in death camps and killing fields across Eastern Europe, including over 40,000 who had been rounded up in France during the summer of 1942. Of those detained and deported that summer, only 800 or so made it back to France when the war ended.

It was a stunned and somber audience that sat quietly in the theater as the final credits rolled. I know that all about me were others trying to make sense of what we had just witnessed; a reminder yet again of the darkness that swept across the world just seven decades ago.

The world, of course, has moved on and the darkness long ago pushed aside. Today we live in a golden, enlightened age. I’m pretty certain those last words were also written by some poor soul in Germany in the late 1930s. I'm just saying ...

My special afternoon with Winston Churchill

It’s nice to watch a movie and be entertained. It’s even nicer to walk away from a film feeling that you’ve experienced something important. Winston Churchill: Walking with Destiny is fun to watch, packed with detail and emotionally compelling.

I saw the documentary earlier this week, part of my mission to see just as many films as possible during the 20-day run of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival here in the Land of Cotton. It was produced by Moriah Films, an arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; directed by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Richard Trank and narrated by Ben Kingsley.

Winston Churchill was a bigger-than-life personality, a charismatic politician who by sheer force of will lifted up the British people during the very dark days of World War II. As the Nazi war machine rolled across Europe, leaving death and destruction it its wake, it was Churchill who rallied the troops and the masses, offering words of comfort and hope while metaphorically thumbing his nose at Hitler and his generals.

We forget in this age of 15-second commercials and political sound bites, Facebook and Twitter, that words can actually be strung together coherently in such a way that they touch the heart and soul. Churchill, like all good speakers, had the ability to write for the ages and speak with authority. His was often the voice of a lone prophet – quiet and reflective, powerful and pugnacious, compassionate and caring. He talked and the people listened.

Over the course of his life, this remarkable man said much worth remembering – bits of wit and whimsy, truths about the human condition, sorrow and joy. Much of what he thought and believed has been saved, words of wisdom that remain as true today as when they were first put to paper.

In the late spring and summer of 1940, when dark and evil forces seemed on the move about the planet, he stepped forward and offered a beacon of light to the people of Great Britain. His words were simple and direct, strong and valiant, a call to arms.

Churchill talked with passion and power of victory, victory at all cost, victory in spite of all terror. He talked of fighting in France, fighting on the seas and the oceans with growing confidence and growing strength. But he also shared the truth, that for the moment Western Europe was lost and the British people stood alone.

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands … Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, "This was their finest hour."

History tells us that the British people did rise to the occasion and so, too, the people of the United States – eventually. It would take several years, but the tide of war turned and the axis powers were defeated.

Some 50 million people died in World War II and for a moment – a long and frightening moment – the world stood tottering on the brink of a new age of darkness. Winston Churchill, a man of destiny, made sure that would never happen.

In that long ago summer when he was out and about, sounding the alarm and comforting the troubled, Churchill paid tribute to the men of the Royal Air Force. He praised them for their gallant efforts in besting the might of the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. I think it only fitting to paraphrase his own words in praise of his efforts – and life!

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by
so many … to one man.

AJFF: So many films, so little time

Five down and only a dozen or so more movies to watch. That’s the plan for me and the lovely Miss Wendy now that the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival has begun here in the Land of Cotton. We managed to attend three films on Sunday, a marathon that began mid-morning, continued through the afternoon and finished up well after the sun had called it quits for the day.

On Monday, we pulled back a bit. I spent the afternoon in a packed multiplex enjoying a documentary on Winston Churchill, his rise to power and handling of the early years of World War II. Wendy met me later for dinner, then we celebrated Valentine’s Day with a romantic Comedy, The Names of Love, a French film that manages to be funny while exploring a wide range of issues – politics and war; the meaning of love and causes of hate; nationalism, colonialism and a bunch of other isms, childhood angst and the Holocaust. Did I mention there was nudity?

As you might imagine, much great and grand cinema is floating about in my noggin at the moment. But if asked to pick “Best of Show” right now, I’d cast my vote for The Matchmaker, an Israeli film featuring fine acting, glorious cinematography and a multi-layered story that manages to be both funny and heartbreaking.

The film takes place in 1968 and is set in Haifa. It plays out in flashback, a coming-of-age drama centered around one very special summer in the life of Arik Burstein. Arik becomes the go-to spy for Yankele Bride, a matchmaker extraordinaire and small-time smuggler still struggling with a hefty load of emotional baggage and physical problems picked up as a victim of the Holocaust.

There are no Nazi stormtroopers parading about in The Matchmaker, no graphic scenes of atrocities and death. The Holocaust, however, is at the heart of the film, nibbling around the edges, informing the lives and actions of almost all the characters in one fashion or another.

Yankele spends his days at the foot of Mt. Carmel, in a commercial section of Haifa filled with a stunning cast of misfits, a colorful assortment of laborers and losers. They go about their lives, pushing aside their demons, wary and struggling to make sense of a world that had once gone completely mad. Clara Epstein, lovely and broken, is hanging on by her fingertips.

She and Yankele have formed an uneasy partnership, working together to make a living; soul mates living in a bright, new world that for them remains dark and melancholy. After all, they survived. The Matchmaker dares to ask “how?”

It’s a sensitive and morally complex issue, the suggestion being that on some level everyone who survived did something reprehensible to live through the hell that captured so many others. Ultimately, it’s a question that leads to tragedy in the film.

Pretty heavy stuff, right? Fortunately, the filmmaker balances it all out with Arik, focusing on his work for Yankele – your basic fish-out-of-water shenanigans – and sexual awakening. Did I mention there was nudity?

The Matchmaker stars Adir Miller, a well-known standup comic and TV personality in Israel; Maya Dagan and Tuval Shafir. It’s one of those films that’s fun to watch and, just maybe, important to see. Interested? There’s a good chance you can find it on Netflix.

True Grit: Life, death, time and snakes

While the rest of the world was out getting drunk and celebrating New Year’s Eve, the lovely Miss Wendy and I were hidden away in a dark room, holding hands and playing out one of our annual traditions.

Yep, that’s right; we were at our neighborhood multiplex, enjoying a movie. We spent the evening with 50 or so strangers and a couple of strange brothers by the name of Coen who have made a few classic flicks in recent years – Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men.

This time around they decided to remake a classic, True Grit. It’s fun, entertaining and filled with violence and nastiness – hangings, shootings, knifings and such. The original, starring John Wayne and directed by Henry Hathaway, was also violent and, well, gritty around the edges.

The Coen brothers have smoothed out some of the rough edges and added a few iconic touches – weird characters, situations and dialogue, all nicely filmed against expansive vistas and beautiful landscapes. There’s also much to ponder about good, bad and the role of grace.

Both in the novel and the film, Mattie, the young girl seeking revenge for her father’s murder, offers up a universe that is tightly controlled by divine forces when she details her worldview in two simple sentences. “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.”

Stanley Fish, a professor of humanities with a resume much too long to detail, explores the theological implications of Mattie’s words and world for the New York Times. I offer this link for those of you who’d like to go deeper into what I mean when I say Mattie ends up paying a very high price for her focused and relentless pursuit of revenge.

The full impact of her choices smacked me in the face when we met up with Mattie at the end of the Coen brothers’ little morality play. The precocious young girl has grown old, a spinster darkly dressed in a world with little light.

“Time just gets away from us,” she says as the music swells and the credits roll. My guess is the median age of the New Year’s Eve revelers at the multiplex was something like 84. So Mattie’s words hung coldly in the darkened theater – and around my heart.

Of course Mattie is right. Time does have a way of getting away from us. Oh, did I mention there was a pit with snakes in it? Unfortunately, like the time thing, that part is also true.

ROOSTER AND MATTIE: Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld (photo above) star in Coen Brothers remake of True Grit.