The Last Station

The Last Station (Germany/Russia/UK, 2009) directed by Michael Hoffman, 112 minutes

Even if this love story between the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sofia were purely fanciful and not based somewhat on fact, it would still be vastly entertaining. The film was derived from Jay Parini's novel The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year.

Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is tired of living with his wife Sofia (Helen Mirren) who, although still beautiful after a married life of almost fifty years, is volatile and wilful (and quite possibly mad).

Even if Sofia is uncontrollable and petulant (she breaks dishes in a rage, insults Tolstoy and his Tolstoyan colleagues, refuses to countenance Tolstoy's own wishes to bequeath the copyright of his work to the Russian people), our sympathy still resides with her rather than his insipid followers - the dimwitted Tolstoyans, their scheming daughter Alexandra Tolsoy and the obsequious doctor who trails him, writing down all his words as if he were a religious prophet (which many of them believe him to be).

The Tolstoyans are lead by Vladimir Chertkov (the approrpriately slithery Paul Giamatti) whom Tolstoy embraces and praises like a son. The Tolsotyans are described as such:

Tolstoy's views were formed by rigorous study of the Gospel teachings of Jesus Christ, particularly, The Sermon on the Mount. They self-identify as Christians ... They do not participate in, or concern themselves with, governmental and worldly affairs, which the Tolstoyans considered as immoral and corrupt. Thus, they may be technically described as anarchists, though not all of them claimed that title. Many now regard them as Christian anarchists because they recognize God as their only authority.

Oh yes, and they are avowed celibates.
 
In counterpoint to the severity of the Tolsoyans we have two young lovers Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy - who happily resides in my memory as the much maligned working class hero in Atonement), Tolstoy's personal secretary - and Masha (Kerry Condon), a worker in the compound, who are enmeshed in the movement, living in the same rarefied community but with strong, hitherto unvoiced doubts about whether they are embracing the right course.

They are all, in a way, fighting for Tolstoy's soul and for control of his legacy.

Eventually Tolstoy wearies of Sofia and of the inability to find peace to work and under cover of the night he escapes with daughter Alexandra (Anne Marie Duff), his doctor and Chertkov only to be stranded at a railway station when he falls ill. Sofia pursues him (Orthodox priest in tow) but she is not permitted to see her husband as the Russian media gathers around the station waiting for the grand denouement. It will be the final time the couple meets.

For me it seems a metaphor for the power of love versus the power of inflexible absolutes of doctrinaire politics. Not even the saintly Tolstoy can resist Sofia and all her considerable charms. Mirren is wonderful - even at her most impetuous, annoying moments - when we compare her to the austere sycophants that follow Tolstoy about. "You all think he's Christ, don't you?" she taunts his followers. She appears to be the only one who does not and treats him accordingly.

And the long-time marraige rings true due to the artistry of Plummer and Mirren - petty fights, sexual passion, intellectual compatibility, arguments about money and friends and ideas - all the hallmarks of a strong if tumultuous marriage. Except Leo feels he cannot abide her any longer. He is old and sick and beleaguered with the desire to leave something lasting even if it means destroying a financial legacy for his children which is what Sofia objects to.

Sofia, over the top, impetuous and sometimes cruel, we are on your side.

Oscars 2010

Can't miss the cheesy pre-show red carpet ... the fashion winners: Helen Mirren in a beaded, lavender Badgley Mischka gown; Jennifer Lopez in sparkly pink, looking like a lovely flower blooming; Nine's Penelope Cruz in ruby red satin; Cameron Diaz in a strapless gold Oscar De La Renta gown and flowing blonde locks; Kate Winslet in a silvery, strapless Yves Saint Laurent dress; Up in the Air's Anna Kendricks in rose pink; Taylor Lautner with a dazzling smile and a classic tux; Sandra Bullock, from The Blind Side, in a silver mermaid style dress; and, Meryl Streep looking very much the classic 40s Hollywood star in white.

Misses: Morgan Freeman chewing something on the red carpet (whattup with that?); Miley Cyrus slouching in a silvery, too-much-cleavage-for-her-age dress and looking very unhappy for some unknown reason; Kathy Ireland - too lean, too tanned, too chirpy as one of the interviewers on the red carpet; Sarah Jessica Parker, again too lean, too tanned in a toga-like Chanel gown ala 1969 with her slightly frazzled blonde up do; Carey Mulligan in what looked like a classic black ball gown which up close was decorated with ... small utensils?? Charlize Theron always looks beautiful and elegant but tonight ... the large rosettes positioned along the bust line? Not so much ... although I loved the beautful lavender purple of the dress. Maggie Gyllenhaal in a ... tropical sarong? Zoe Saldana ... beautiful girl, I just don't know how to start about this Givenchy dress which one wagging tongue on slate.com described as an "intergalactic cancan skirt".

Neal Patrick Harris and the bejeweled, be-feathered showgirls in the opening number including the line (referring to himself) "What is he doing here?" - what a beginning. Lots of fun, very old Hollywood. And I loved the Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin combo as hosts. They were bitchy, impolitic and self-deprecating, taking shots (mostly funny) at the big names: George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, Matt Damon, Helen Mirren ...

The best line was introducing Christoph Walz in the audience: "In Inglorious Basterds, Christoph Walz was a Nazi looking for Jews ... well, Christoph, look around you, you have hit the motherlode!" and teasing George Clooney (obviously in on the joke) by bringing up his name a few times, saying nothing nice about him and cutting to his sour face as they did so. Or the joke that Matt Damon was going to take Jennifer Garner to Tahiti if he wins.

Some highlights:
Nice dynamic between Tina Fey and Robert Downey introducing "Best Original Screenplay" about what actors want in writers versus what writers want in actors which eventually devolves into sniping at each other and her snapping at Downey, "Just read your lines!"

Alec Baldwin spoke of the film Precious, "In Precious, Gabourey Sidibe is told she's worthless, nobody likes her, that she has no future. Hey, I'm with CAA too!"

Loved the homage/montage to now deceased director John Hughes with a reunion of the Breakfast Club actors (and others) on stage inclduing Jon Cryer, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Macaulay Culkin, and Matthew Broderick. Seeing those snippets of all those great films that R and I grew up with was fun.

The always funny Ben Stiller in blue Avatar makeup and an out of control blue tail announcing the "Best Makeup" winner.

Writer Geoffrey S. Fletcher for "Best Adapted Screenplay" for a heartfelt, emotional acceptance speech ... and Steve Martin saying afterward, "I wrote that speech for him!"

Mo'Nique thanking Hattie McDaniel (the first black actress to win an Oscar for a role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind) after winning "Best Supporting Actress" and her husband for pushing her to do "what is right rather than what is popular".

I liked Twilight's Kristen Stewart's nervousness and sweetness (introducing an homage to horror films with fellow Twilight star Taylor Lautner); she has a genuine quality that is very appealing in a young person. I find Lautner sweet but sometimes he is so polished he seems robotic.

Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin in slankets supposedly backstage ... or in bed together the night before the awards ...

This relatively new way of introducing the "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" is very appealing - actors praising their fellow actors: Tim Robbins (Morgan Freeman), Colin Farrell (Jeremy Renner), Julianne Moore (Colin Firth), Michelle Pfeiffer (Jeff Bridges) and Vera Farmiga (George Clooney). And then in the Best Actress section: Forest Whitaker (Sandra Bullock), Michael Sheen (Helen Mirren), Oprah Winfrey (Gabourey Sidibe), Stanley Tucci (Meryl Streep) and Peter Saarsgard (Carey Mulligan).

Jeff Bridges' heartfelt tribute to his parents after winning "Best Actor" in Crazy Heart as well as Sandra Bullock acknowledging her mom after winning "Best Actress" in The Blind Side.

Looking gorgeous, sounding completely overwhelmed, can I get a whoop whoop for Kathyrn Bigelow for being the first woman to win "Best Director"? I think I scared my family when I yelled for joy after this and after The Hurt Locker won "Best Film". Loved the three male leads hanging on to each other and hugging in the back row behind the director and the producers after the big win.

And the concluding line spoken by Steve Martin: "The show went so long that Avatar now takes place in the past ..."

Some embarrassing misses:
Steve Martin introducing director/former fashion designer Tom Ford and fashion icon Sarah Jessica Parker as "clothes whores" fell flat.

James Taylor's off key rendition of the Beatles' "In My Life" for the In Memoriam section.

The cheesy dance number and gymnastics highlighting the "Best Score" nominees ... it's like my better half said to me, "How can you respectfully portray a film like The Hurt Locker with these sorts of dance numbers?"

Playing "I am Woman" after Bigelow won ... good lord, is it the 70s again?

I don't care what the haters say, I always enjoy the show and I think the two hosts were great this year!

Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia (U.S., 2009) written and directed by Nora Ephron, 123 minutes

Nominated for one Oscar: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.

But the first meal I ever cooked for Paul was a bit more ambitious: brains simmered in red wine! ... But the results, alas, were messy to look at and not very good to eat. In fact, the dinner was a disaster. Paul laughed it off, and we scrounged up something else that night.
My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme

I wanted to end these Oscar nominated reviews on a joyous note (this will be the last review before the Oscars on Sunday). I had another review in mind but it was bleak and mean-spirited and it's too beautiful a day to do that.

This film combines many of my favourite things: cooking, Paris, New York, intriguing women and .. blogging! Although I read one or two reviews which felt that the combination of the two women's stories was jarring and did not fit well, I disagree.

Ephron has written a script combining cooking diva Julia Child's autobiography My Life in France with Julie Powell's blog-turned-memoir where she described how she decided to cook all of the 524 recipes in Child's seminal Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Meryl Streep is enchanting as the young(ish) Julia who spends her early years as a bride in 1950s Paris with her husband Paul Child. She feels lost, useless in the kitchen and a bit overwhelmed by the French and their veneration of food and cooking.

I loved the way Streep forced us to see Child in a new way: sexy, fun, quirky and innovative. It was a pleasure to see an amicable, loving marriage on screen with Paul Child (the very sexy Stanley Tucci) who displays genuine lust and admiration for his voluptuous, charming wife.

Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a dispirited and aspiring writer with a difficult job (she works for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. answering calls from 911 victims), imagines that her New York girlfriends all have more fabulous lives than she does and she may be right. She lives in a modest apartment and struggles to determine what she is good at. She decides to start a blog, mining her obsession with Julia Child and Child's masterpiece on French cooking. The recipes sometimes confound or puzzle her; at times, they are daunting or she is tired and frustrated and she is not particularly successful in the execution.

It is obvious that we are meant to see Julie's travails as a smaller version of Julia's as both try to learn to cook and attempt to get published. They both endure discouraging environments and the ever present fear of failure as well as experiencing the aid of loving, supportive husbands. Julia faces the snobbery of the French who assume an American can never learn the technique required for French cooking and the sexism of the male-dominated chef profession. Julie has low self esteem, little money and a sense of life rapidly passing her by.

And while Streep, as Julia, always appears charmingly ditzy and appealing, Adams gives off a different vibe here: snappish, irritated and a bit rude. It takes the sparkle off Adams' image too for me. I still remember her as the ditzy but lovable princess in Enchanted and the timorous, sweet-tempered nun in Doubt. Here she is frumpy and anxious and sometimes not pleasant to watch and, based on Powell's latest book, Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, she may be channeling the real Julie Powell.

Ephron's writing is funny and energetic and both characters have enough bite in them that they enliven fairly dull non-visual activities like: writing, cooking, reading, pouting. Yet it works here.

In real life, Julie does achieve success even though she does not garner the admiration of the real Julia Child who is displeased with her book. Both women have found their way and even though their journey to success is separated by almost half a century, their travails are not so very different.

Star Trek

Star Trek (U.S., 2009) directed by J.J. Abrams, 127 minutes

Nominated for four Oscars: Best Makeup, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects.

Reader, I fought it, I fought it in vain, possibly the only person on earth who did not want to see this film … I said I would accompany R and J to see it. Even J was surprised that I went as I was pretty vehement about not seeing it. I was curious as the reviews were ecstatic (the reviewers couldn’t all be Trekkies could they? I thought to myself).

But they nailed it … they truly nailed it from the casting to the convoluted pseudo scientific plot to the costumes, alien creatures and incredible cinematography and special effects.

Twenty eight year old Chris Pine (James T. Kirk) has the appropriate swagger, sex appeal and bravado to play the aspiring commander of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Pine looks like a slightly beefier version of James Dean that the filmmaker reinforces with the use of Kirk’s motorcycle and his rebellious, often dangerous antics as a boy (clue: it involves a boy, a vintage car, a highway cop and a cliff – I’ll say no more but the scene is among the best in the film). I realized with a jolt afterwards that this was the same kid who played Nicholas the male lead in Princess Diaries 2 and Just my Luck … quite the transformation.

Zach Quinto, a nice Italian boy, plays the young Spock with a frosty but commanding presence that it is surprisingly dead on and his performance is warmed up considerably by a budding love interest with the sexy and brainy Uhuru (Zoe Saldana). The film is equally weighted between Kirk and Spock with a role for Leonard Nimoy as an older Spock and a key element in the alternative universe plot.

Everyone is near perfectly cast: Bones (Karl Urban), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Sulu (John Cho), and a feisty, humorous Scotty (Simon Pegg).

The prerequisite villains, represented by the ever treacherous Romulans lead by Eric Bana (Nero), elicit a well-deserved shudder as they resemble, to my mind, Nazis or skin heads with their bald heads, facial tattoos, quasi military garb and warrior-like posturing. Bana is near unrecognizable, his handsome looks hidden beneath fierce tattoos and a sneer.

It strikes the right note with a tiny bit of campiness in homage to the original TV series, action, braininess and sexiness.

The “realism” of the fight scenes is a welcome note – when the characters are fighting hand to hand combat, or being jet-propelled through the air in an amazing scene with Pine and John Cho, they look dirty and sweating and bloodily cut up as they should.

Minor quibbles … I guess there is a shortage of actresses older than 50 in Hollywood seeing that they needed to cast Winona Ryder as Spock’s mother?? Trekkies likely had no trouble following the plot but I found myself like the proverbial old lady sitting mystified in the cinema and had to restrain myself from whispering to R: How did “older” Spock end up on that wintery planet? How did Kirk cheat on his test to become an officer? What did Nero mean his planet had been destroyed?? Mercifully I saved my questions for after the film.

A TV set with no picture

Don't nobody want me. Don't nobody need me. I know who I am. I know what they say I am.

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (U.S., 2009) directed by Lee Daniels, 110 minutes
Push by Sapphire (Random House, 1996) 175 pages
~MAJOR SPOILER ALERT~

Nominated for Six Oscars: Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Directing, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Despite the hype surrounding the film (renamed Precious because of a 2009 sci-fi film similarly named), I wanted to read the book too. I wanted to hear the voice of this writer. I wanted to see if Sapphire could create, and sustain, the voice of an illiterate sixteen year who seems to hold little promise based on how she looks and what she has experienced at the hands of her parents and the world.

Is it a grotesque carnival of negative stereotypes about black people or a message of hope and a realistic portrayal of a troubled young black girl with few hopes? When dealing with disturbing material in art - here there is incest, rape, sexual abuse, violence, what might be perceived as negative stereotyping of black people - when is it too much to include? I think it is when its artistic value becomes less important than the sensationalism of the material. Sapphire walks a fine line but she does not cross it I feel.

I would have to say that in the book Sapphire largely succeeds in this attempt to create a voice for Precious. This is a brutal, unrelenting portrayal of Precious' life: sexually abused by her father and impregnated by him twice; mentally and physically abused by her mother; despised by the world, vilified and ignored. I don't think I am telling you anything that the movie trailers have not.

The film is ... how can I describe it? Gentler? Less graphic? I'm not sure my words adequately explain this. The book is raw and painful and it works on that level. I did not want to see, in the film, all the things I read about in the book. A mere suggestion of this horror was enough for me. For instance, we see but a brief glimpse of Precious' father raping her (and it is only shown once), shot in a hazy sort of dream-like state with the mother Mary (the terrifyingly convincing Mo'Nique) standing in the background doing nothing.

The comedian Mo'Nique is a revelation here: mean, ugly, vicious, violent, completely unafraid as an actress to display all the evil that this character embodies.

Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) is deemed too fat, too ugly, disposable and useless. But the real Precious is a girl of intense emotions and vulnerability with aspirations beneath a forbidding exterior. Both mother and daughter are morbidly obese. Of her mother Precious says in the book, "She ain' circus size yet but she getting there."

Even Precious' dreams in the book are haunted by abuse - too disturbing to detail here - where she pictures herself a tiny child at the mercy of her mother. A memory? A dream? In it, the tiny baby trills the alphabet - is that Precious as she might have been if she had had the proper care and upbringing? If she had been taught to read properly?

Precious escapes into a fantasy world where she is the star. In moments of stress in the book (is this scene real or imagined?) Precious also cuts herself:

Get Daddy's razor out cabinet. Cut cut cut arm wrist, not trying to die, trying to plug myself back in. I am a TV set wif no picture. I am broke wif no mind. No past or present time. Only the movies of being someone else. Someone not fat, dark skin, short hair, someone not fucked. A pink virgin girl ...

Her fantasy self has light skin and long hair that she can swing back and forth alluringly, small breasts, a thin physique - an image created and sustained by the media and racism.

Here the film is better able to encapsulate the fantasy ... we see the beautiful light-skinned boyfriend, the pretty clothes, Precious in the spotlight - adored, loved and the object of desire. The fantasy is vivid and disarming. And, honestly, a brief visual respite from the horror of the girl's life.

When Precious is suspended for getting pregnant a second time, an alternative school is recommended for her despite her mother's objections. Her mother Mary prefers Precious to remain as she is: abject, cooking for her, caring for her mother's needs, and devoid of self esteem which Mary seems dedicated to destroying every last ounce of.

Precious finally learns to read with the assistance of a savvy teacher at the alternative school with a pretty but unlikely name, Blue Rain (Paula Patton), who grows to love the seemingly unlovable Precious. This is Precious' journey to becoming a writer, to literally learning to write.

Precious steals a file from the social worker (played with frumpy deadpan seriousness by the pop singer Mariah Carey who is a personal friend of the director Daniels) that she is forced to go to. She reads the file with the assistance of a schoolmate. Precious is appalled when she sees in the report that it would be difficult for her to get her GED, that she should get employment instead, possibly as a home attendant. Here Sapphire tackles the logic of workfare, of forcing the impoverished to deserve what they get from the government. 

Precious gives birth to her son Abdul and debates whether she can return to school. The dishy Lenny Kravitz has a small role as a sympathetic nurse - talk about eye candy. When she returns from the hospital, a vicious surprise lies in wait for her as her mother tries to kill her. Precious flees with nothing but the baby and seeks the help of an overburdened but sympathetic nurse at Harlem hospital. She ends up in an armory for shelter that night - with addicts and homeless people - and is robbed during the course of the night.

Blue Rain, perhaps expressing all our anger and sense of futility as a reader, is outraged at Precious' situation and manages to find a place for her at a home called Advancement House so that Precious may continue her education and still have childcare for Abdul.

At times the plot feels like the plagues of Egypt upon the Israelites with one catastrophe following another for Precious. When we learn that Precious' father has died of AIDS it feels as if the reader can bear no more tragedy. She has contracted AIDS but, blessedly, her baby is safe.

At times her despair is so overwhelming that it is difficult to keep reading:

I always thought I was someone different on the inside. That I was just fat and black and ugly to people on the OUTSIDE. And if they could see inside me they would see something lovely and not keep laughing at me ...

But it ends with some sense of hope. She will continue her education. She joins an incest survivors' group (humorously referred to as an insect group initially by Precious). She learns to read and write. She loves and cares for her child. She will not return to her mother. She has hope and we all need a little bit of that.

My only concern regarding the structure of the published work is the short essays appended to the novel, written by the other members of Precious' literacy class. I wish Sapphire had found a way to include their back stories in another fashion. As it is it feels tacked on and somewhat superfluous.

But the film surpassed my expectations ... again the hype tended to keep me away. I shouldn't have waited.

Be Italian ...

Nine (U.S., 2009) directed by Rob Marshall, 119 minutes

Nominated for four Oscars: Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Music (Original Song).

You may have seen me griping on fb about the use of non-Italians in principal roles in this film. The film is an adaption of a 1980s musical about Federico Fellini and a loosely based reincarnation of the Fellini film 8 1/2. It is a homage to the popular myth of a certain type of modern Italy in the 1950s and 1960s created by Fellini on film: sensuous, hedonistic, sexy and fun. Even as the scoundrel Guido Contini exploits and uses the females in his life, with the exception of his revered mother, he charms his way into your psyche as a viewer and lover of Fellini's films. As one character says, "This is your Rome Guido. The world sees Rome as you invented it".

One lady behind me sighed, "Make you want to be be Italian doesn't it?" I totally understood that sigh of envy ... the images were so powerful, the women, costumes and sets exquisite. It's a beautiful fantasy that glorifies the Fellini films of that era.

Well, further to my initial salvo, at least Penelope Cruz (Carla) is Spanish and Marion Cotillard (Luisa) is French. Nicole Kidman had the good sense to request that her character Claudia be Swedish which makes more sense for her in terms of her physical attributes and in that she is meant to represent the Anita Ekberg muse in Fellini's films (vide the over the top voluptuousness and sensuality of Ekberg as Sylvia in La Dolce Vita). Nine reproduces that joyous scene in a much more subdued way here.

Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a famous Italian film director ala Federico Fellini. He is working on a new film, tentatively titled Italia, but has no script, no new ideas and plenty of women trouble. In a panic, he escapes to a hotel outside of Rome to pull himself together, invites his mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), a delightfully silly feminine caricature, rather than his long suffering and more demure wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard) to join him.

Day-Lewis plays the tormented, philandering Italian artist very well. For me, Day-Lewis has a curiously non-sexual vibe on screen but not so here. Here, he is believable as the oversexed, appetite-driven filmmaker juggling wife, mistress, muse, fantasy sex object (Fergie as the feral la Saraghina from a pivotal scene in 8 1/2) and the admonitions of female close friend Lilli (Judi Dench) and mother (Sophia Loren). See the original portrayal of la Saraghina here.

Like the original Guido Anselmi in 8 1/2, things go awry very quickly. The producer is after him to stay on schedule. His wife Luisa unexpectedly pops into the hotel to join him and discovers Carla to be in the same hotel. Carla, feeling ignored and unhappy, tries to kill herself with pills. Claudia, the muse of his most famous films, declines to play the role any longer.

This really is a film about the women in Guido's life and in a feminist twist the key female figures in his life all take turns walking away from him and his obsessions.

Penelope Cruz plays the ditzy and sexy Carla to perfection. Kidman is the right combination of icy beauty and sex kittenish charm as the Swedish film star/muse Claudia; Loren is looking a bit leathery nowadays but still has a lovely, regal bearing as Guido's venerable mother. Marion Cotillard, who is much prettier than the real-life wife of Fellini, Giulia Massina, still conveys the sweetness and innocence of that actress. Fergie is stunning as Saraghina: feral, all overt sexuality and aggression. Hudson has just the right amount of American swagger and aggressiveness to play the predatory reporter who is after Guido. Judi Dench is sexy and charming and wise as Lilli the costume designer and confidante to Guido.

They each get show-stopping musical numbers the most riveting being "Be Italian" by Fergie using both elements of traditional Italian music and a more traditional Broadway score. Fergie practically blows you out of the theatre with that voice of hers.

But they are all wonderful: Penelope Cruz as a burlesque dancer in the opening song "A Call From the Vatican" is delectable. Even Kate Hudson as the smarmy reporter in love with Guido's movies and all things Italian has a sensational number in "Cinema Italiano". Judi Dench does a memorable turn in "Folies Bergere" with a sort of Marlene Dietrich campy accent and a bevy of gorgeous jewel encrusted girls with feathers in the background. They all have their star turns including Cotillard in "Take it All", Loren in "Guarda la luna" and Kidman in "Unusual Way".

When Luisa sees a screen test with Guido making the same moves on a beautiful young actress that he used on her at their first meeting, she finally leaves him to re-pursue a career in acting. Claudia refuses to play the muse. Carla goes back to her husband after a failed suicide attempt. The film "Italia" falls apart. Only the ghost of Mama remains to help him nurse his wounds. He walks away from the film and goes into a kind of hiding.

But in the end, the creative impulse cannot be dimmed and we see a fabulous coming together of the real and fantastic when all the characters in his life gather on a sound stage at the end.

Wonderful. I would happily see it again and again. It inspires me to see all of Fellini's films again, but especially 8 1/2.

Inglorious Basterds

Inglorious Basterds (U.S., 2009) directed by Quentin Tarantino, 153 minutes

Eight nominations including Christoph Waltz for Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Cinematography, Best Directing, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Original Screenplay
~MAJOR SPOILER ALERT~

Tarantino has said that the title of the film was inspired by Italian director Enzo Castellari's 1978 war film, The Inglorious Bastards. This was a surprising film for me - there was far less gore and profanity and quick-witted but silly repartee larded with pop cultural references between the characters - all trademarks of his cinema making starting with Reservoir Dogs.

R and I first saw Reservoir Dogs at TIFF back in the 90s and it was truly a revolutionary piece of work: smart, profane, violent. I felt agitated and excited throughout the film. We knew we were seeing something truly different. Tarantino has spawned a host of minor league imitators, almost a sub-genre of film within Hollywood. But the fame and the acclaim, the knives have been drawn and there was much speculation regarding whether this long awaited film would live up to the hype.

SS Colonel Hans Landa (the miraculous German actor Christoph Waltz) arrives at a dairy farm in France to interrogate a farmer about rumors he is hiding a Jewish family in 1941. Landa gently coerces the farmer to confess then orders the SS to shoot the floorboards under which they are hiding. Waltz smoothly moves from charm to menace in seconds, terrifying the farmer's family and the hiding Jews. One teenage girl, Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), escapes. The tension is unbearable - drawn out and exquisitely acted between the colonel and the farmer and mercifully much less graphic than I anticipated.

The tone of the film is quite different here from most films produced today - slowed down and patient, more like a classic Hollywood film which did not feel the need to fill all the silences or move quickly to the next action-packed scene.

Flash forward three years ...
In Italy, Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt with an excruciating accent that they claim is from Tennessee and a twitchy little black mustache which reminds me of Hitler) recruits a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers for a mission hoping to terrorize and demoralize German soldiers. They come to be known as the 'Basterds'. Their tactics involved scalping, slicing the shape of swastikas on to the soldiers' foreheads and generally showing no mercy. One individual, Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) known as "The Bear Jew", beats his victims to death with a baseball bat. His name is whispered amongst the Germans as if he is some terrifying, mythical creature.

By1944, Shosanna has a new identity as 'Emmanuelle Mimieux',  the owner of a Parisian cinema.
A smitten German soldier named Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), whose adventures fending off the Allies are to be celebrated in a propaganda film created by Joseph Goebbels much to Shosanna's horror, has fallen for her. Brühl has the right amount of charm and finesse which quickly elides into viciousness when he doesn't get his way. Zoller convinces Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to hold the premiere at Shosanna's cinema.

So Shosanna plots to assassinate the highest ranking Nazi officers by burning down the cinema which contains highly flammable film, with the aid of her love, the projectionist. But before the Nazis face a death by chicken fricassee, we see the now mandatory Mexican standoff, vintage Tarantino, between some allied officers posing as Nazis, a German double agent named Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Krüger) and some German soldiers in a Parisian tavern. This, too, is long drawn out scene, excellently played and with no certainty that the good guys will prevail.

Aldo Raine learns that Hitler will be attending the premiere at Shosanna's theatre and devises a plan where he, Donny and Omar (Omar Doom), will pose as Italian escorts at the premiere and blow up the cinema.

Landa soon connects von Hammersmark with the shooting in the tavern and strangles her at the premiere. He also uncovers the three Americans posing as Italians, Aldo, Danny and Omar. Landa then makes a deal with Raine's commanding officer for full immunity if he permits the assassination of Hitler and the other high ranking officers to proceed.

I won't reveal the rest of the plot ... it might not go as you would have foreseen. The "good" are  not necessarily saved, nor all the "evil" punished. And I think Tarantino's boasting that this is his best film is not overstated. It displays a new maturity and despite Pitt's curious mugging (I think he is trying to impersonate Clark Gable) the acting is uniformly strong, the costumes and settings picture perfect.

It has been accused of being a Holocaust revenge fantasy but I think it is very much more than that.

Bright Star

Here lies one whose name was writ on water.

John Keats' epitaph

Bright Star (Australia, 2009) directed by Jane Campion, 119 minutes

Nominated for Achievement in Costume Design - but it has so much more to offer!!

I first saw this at TIFF last September, 2009. John Keats died at 25 a few years after my beloved Jane Austen in 1817 thinking that he was a failure as a poet. Today he is seen as one of the greatest Romantic poets of our time. Bright Star tells the story of the love between Keats and Fanny Brawne, a young girl of fairly modest means whom he courted for three years and was engaged to before his death. "Bright Star" refers to the name of a poem that he wrote for her.

When Australian director Jane Campion (An Angel at My Table (1990), The Piano (1993), A Portrait of the Lady (1996)) introduced the film during the festival (looking like a gracefully aging hippie with her long blondish grey hair worn loosely and her simple clothes) she said the film was like "a door that opens slowly". It is a slow, quiet film but I like Campion's style. She understands desire, and passion, and can allow for quiet moments of great emotional power in her films.

Keats (Ben Whishaw last seen as Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited in 2008) is depicted here as a serious minded and struggling poet, physically frail, and deeply involved in the care of a younger brother who eventually dies of tuberculosis (as did their mother). Whishaw, usually thin, appears like a gaunt shadow of hisself with a pale complexion and long shaggy hair, looking quite the Romantic ideal.

Fanny (the lovely Abbie Cornish) is portrayed as a frivolous, flirtatious girl obsessed with fashion who makes her own clothes. There is a sly joke here because Fanny's clothes, at least at the start of the film, appear garish and a bit loud for the Regency fashions of the early 19th c. At the beginning she is dressed in bright poppy reds with big ostentatious collars and big ruffles. As she evolves as a woman, so does her style. Later, she appears more graceful and subdued in rich reds and blues and purples.

Keats described her thus to his brother George in his letters: "She is not seventeen - but she is ignorant - monstrous in her behavior flying out in all directions, calling people such names that I was forced lately to make use of the term Minx - this I think not from any innate vice but from a penchant she has for acting stylishly. I am however tired of such style and shall decline any more of it."

Despite his initial antipathy they fall in love - they are thrown together a in a series of circumstances when they share a portion of the same rented house - she, with her widowed mother, brother and sister and, he, with fellow poet Charles Brown (Paul Schneider), a rude, acerbic fellow who, one suspects, is half in love with Keats himself based on the stridency with which he attempts to separate the two lovers.

Gossip and Keats' illness push the couple into an engagement despite her mother's reservations because Keats has no means of making a living. But he is too ill to remain in England for another winter. His friends arrange for him to travel to, and live, in Italy. Unfortunately, their romance ends there as Keats dies in Italy of TB.

Beautifully done, quiet and subtle and intensely romantic.

Later I read that Fanny married but always concealed her relationship with Keats, which appeared to be largely chaste, a secret from her husband, and only revealing the truth to her three children. After she and her husband died, her children sold Keats' letters in the 1870s. You may read more of their story here.

TIFF of the day: At the press screening for this film in Toronto "the technical staff loaded the last reel of the film backwards. With less than 20 minutes left, suddenly Fanny and John were dancing on the ceiling while their carefully cultivated English accents turned into something that sounded like mangled Danish. TIFF staff apologized as the room filled with sighs."

Schrödinger's cat or ... a serious man

A Serious Man (U.S., 2009) directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, 1 hour, 42 minutes

Nominated for Best Motion Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

I have to admit that, sometimes, the artistry of the Coens eludes me. I see that there is intelligence and craft in the creation of the films but they don’t always work for me. I read a review once that offered a theory that they produced great films only alternately. For example, the critic offered the following examples: Blood Simple (yes), Hudsucker Proxy (no), Fargo (yes), Intolerable Cruelty (no), No Country for Old Men (yes), Burn After Reading (no)... you get the picture.

They do have an unerring instinct for selecting faces and characters that fit seamlessly in a particular and very specific world that they create. Here Larry Gopnik (Tony Award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg), is a sweet-tempered, slightly melancholic professor of physics beset by a host of maladies that would rival the plagues of Egypt in the midwest America of 1967.

I like the following description by Rotten Tomatoes. The film explores “questions of faith, familial responsibility, delinquent behavior, dental phenomena, academia, mortality, and Judaism - and intersections thereof”.

The film starts with Larry presenting the following problem to his physics students which is often referred to as “the paradox of Schrödinger's cat”:

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, often described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event … This means that there can be two different universes depending on the action taken which in this case is opening the box to see if the cat is dead or not. You cannot say the cat is alive or dead until you open the box.

Hmm … so …

A student is trying to bribe Larry into giving him a passing grade; his wife is leaving him for a pretentious friend and is pushing him to obtain a “get” so they can divorce (there is an on-going joke that most of the liberal Jews he mentions this to have no idea what he’s talking about); his children, self-absorbed teenagers with nasty tongues, are more concerned with stealing money from Larry to save up for a nose job (daughter Sarah) or having Larry fix the aerial so he can watch F-Troop (son Danny); his brother Arthur has a gambling problem and has been accused of displaying homosexual behavior in public; his attractive neighbor torments him by sunbathing nude in her backyard; someone is sending malicious letters to the university undermining Larry who is up for tenure. And … someone from the Columbia Record Club is harassing him over the telephone for unpaid bills.

So in the context of the film using the framework of the paradox Schrödinger's cat are we meant to think that, perhaps, there is an up side to Larry’s dilemmas?

Larry is puzzled and alarmed by events and seems at a loss as to how to respond (as are we the viewers). There is a sly, mocking tone to the film as if the filmmakers find the elements of modern liberal Jewish life laughable: young Danny practicing parts of the Torah for his bar mitzvah while listening to an l.p. record, the getting of the illusive "get"; the cliche of the Jewish girl saving up for a nose job; nonsensical advice from three different rabbis – each more bizarre than the last.

But it is only during Danny’s bar mitzvah (where he shows up stoned and barely able to communicate or recite the Torah as is required) that we have a sense that Larry has reached a state of inner peace. I think the message is that as absurd as the old traditions seem, they give us a sense of continuity and of belonging to something bigger than ourselves and that’s how we persevere.

Despite the absurdity of the Coen brothers’ cinematic scenarios, the intent is not frivolous – how to be a serious man, a mensch, in an absurd world? I don’t know if they succeed in providing an answer … the ending is cryptic and odd as you might expect from the Coens. The film almost requires that you understand these concepts (basic physics and concepts of masculinity in the Jewish faith) before one can begin to comprehend the film. Should I need to run to a dictionary or the Internet to understand what they are talking about here… then again, what’s so bad about that?

For war is a drug

The Hurt Locker (U.S., 2009) directed by Kathryn Bigelow, 131 minutes

Nominated for Nine Oscars: Actor in a Leading Role, Cinematography, Directing, Film Editing, Music (Original Score), Best Picture, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Writing (Original Screenplay)
~ MAJOR SPOILER ALERT~

"The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug." from War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Chris Hedges

Kathryn Bigelow is an amazing director. I can't quite fathom her, she is such an anomaly in a male-dominated sphere and genre (big-time Hollywood directors and action films to be specific). Movie star good looks, brains and guts - a real triple threat.

The film is set in Iraq in 2004. We see an aspect of the war that I would vouch not many of us have exposure to or knowledge of.

Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) is the team leader of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit replacing a Staff Sergeant very recently blown apart by a remote-controlled improvised explosive device (IED) in Baghdad. James is a bit of wild card with a fearless, unorthodox approach which rattles his team members Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). Their jobs are to communicate with James via radio and provide him with cover while he examines the IEDs and disarms them. On his very first mission, he approaches a suspected IED without first sending in the bomb disposal robot.

Renner exhibits such a strange quality here as an actor ... I can't quite put my finger on it but it is very effective in this role. The self absorption of the mentally ill? Someone who is estranged from his true feelings? For some it might be construed as heroic, here it strikes the viewer as illness. It's as if he is not quite wholly with us.

Back at his home base, James befriends a local Iraqi boy nicknamed "Beckham" who sells bootlegged DVDs to James. The dynamic between the entrepreneurial boy with the cocky attitude and name and the lonely soldier is tender and believable. James, married and with a young child back home, seems to be lacking in human companionship and connection with his fellow officers. He is oddly disassociated from his team who must be thinking he is either insanely brave or has a death wish. Either way, he must be perceived as a dangerous liability for young soldiers just trying to finish their tour of duty without getting blown up. Subsequent missions with similar antics unnerve his team and the tension mounts between the three.

When Eldridge is subsequently hurt due to what is perceived as an error in judgment by James, the men accuse him of needing an "adrenaline fix" and putting them all in danger.

During one mission, James happens upon the corpse of a young boy who, though disfigured by the carnage, he suspects is Beckham but this is unclear. An unexploded bomb had been implanted in the boy. James furiously confronts the merchant that Beckham worked for demanding that the man drive him to Beckham's house so that he can confront whomever had done this. It is unclear if James has been deliberately mislead or tricked as he encounters an Iraqi professor in the house who may or may not know who Beckham is or what happened to him. Pathetically, James is chased out of the house by the man's wife, and he gets back into his home base with the aid of a sympathetic guard by lying and saying that he was at a bordello.

This encounter rings with meaning ... the good-hearted American, self righteous and brave, stumbling into a situation without information and then confronted with the complex and bizarre truth of being unable to hold anybody accountable in this strange and troubling environment. What a perfect metaphor for US involvement in Iraq. Who does he vent his fury on - an educated man who likely has nothing to do with the carnage and violence around him.

Sometime shortly afterwards, James is shocked to be approached by the very much alive Beckham. The boy tries to interact normally with James (having no idea that James thought him dead) but James appears furious and refuses to speak to the boy.

Mark Boal, the screenwriter and journalist, was embedded with the EOD in Iraq in 2004. The script is, as they say "inspired by real events". The pace of the film seems to reflect real life in war: long patches of boredom and loneliness punctuated by horrific circumstances and events. One can almost understand the desire to court danger if only to relieve the tedium of waiting for something to happen. Boal had also written an article called "Death and Dishonour", upon which the Paul Haggis film In the Valley of Elah was based (also reviewed here).

Shortly before the end of their tour of duty, James and Sanborn are called to intervene in a situation where an Iraqi has been forced to enter a military checkpoint wearing a time-bomb strapped to his chest. Despite his best efforts James can do nothing and the bomb explodes, nearly killing James as well. Sanborn soon breaks down and confesses that he can't take much more of this and is anxious to go home. James exhibits no such reservations.

When James returns home to his wife and child two days later, civilian life brings new challenges, new forms of tedium. Shopping for cereal, caring for one's son, living a life of normalcy. But apparently that is no longer enough. James soon tires of civilian life.

In the last scene, we see James back in Iraq, serving another year as part of an EOD team with Delta Company. And he looks mighty happy to be there too.

A Singular Single Man

A Single Man (U.S., 2009) directed by Tom Ford, 101 minutes

Colin Firth was nominated for "Best Actor in a Leading Role".

Perhaps you recognize Tom Ford as the former head designer for Gucci or perhaps as the guest editor of a particularly heinous issue of Vanity Fair in February 2006 just prior to the Oscars.

Ford seemed to have a particularly retro images of sexuality to present in that issue: a plethora of nude and semi-nude females and boring 1980s s&m iconography. He succeeded in being both boring and insulting to women at the same time. Not to mention he managed to repulse the actress Rachel McAdams who fled the photo shoot rather than appear nude on its cover with Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson.

So it is with mild surprise that I report that A Single Man is a film sensitively conceived and delivered. Described as homoerotic, that seemed an odd designation for me. Because it is more about love and genuine passion than eroticism.

Based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, George Falconer (Colin Firth) is a 52 year old British college professor living in L.A. who struggles emotionally after the death of his longtime partner Jim (played with a convincing American accent by the British actor Matthew Goode) in the early 1960s. He appears lonely and unfulfilled with only his closest friend Charley (Julianne Moore), a fading, philandering beauty with whom he once had an brief affair, to comfort him.

The most affecting moments are George’s reactions to those things that remind him of Jim or of the beauty of life: a glimpse of a small dog which resembles one that they owned together and which disappeared with Jim’s death; George’s clandestine observation of the 50s perfect family next door which seems to be struggling with its own issues; George's clandestine observation of a beautiful student in one of his literature classes; the prettily made up eye of a modishly attired young woman at the university.

George lives in a sort of pristine, gorgeously appointed prison in his home which once provided a happy, romantic refuge but now houses only memories of his past happiness with Jim. But George has a plan. As methodical and careful as he has been in life he plans to be in death and he plots to end his life by the end of a certain day: the perfect outfit to be found in, detailed notes to be followed after his death, rehearsing how he will be found in his bed upon completion of the dreaded task. He goes about it with a grim precision.

But George is sidetracked by an attractive and persistent student who appears to have fallen in love with him. Perhaps the message is not new here but it is still emotionally very effective. It reminded me of a Fellini character, the older man who is jaded and cynical, but becomes reinvigorated by youth and beauty (such as the character of Marcello and the pretty young waitress in the final scene of La Dolce Vita). Here, that ideal is represented by one of George’s students Kenny (Nicholas Hoult).

Frankly, I was tiring of Firth's bumbling British heartthrob routine which represented a complete reversal from the icily sexy Darcy of the Pride and Prejudice TV serial where Firth shot to fame in 1995.

Perhaps the pressure to maintain this sexy image was too much or too boring for Firth for we began to see him in semi-mediocre roles where he seemed half-heartedly engaged in the film and the process of acting: a less dashing stand-in for Darcy named Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones' Diary (2001); an uptight, aristocratic father with political ambitions in What a Girl Wants (2003); the hapless, lonely writer in Love Actually (2003); a widowed father of many in Nanny McPhee (2005); a bumbling divorcee in Then She Found Me (2007); a closeted homosexual in Mamma Mia (2008). All very disappointingly un-Darcy like and perhaps that was the point.

But here George Falconer is dry, cerebral, cold, withholding and unhappy. It doesn't make for a pleasant human being but it makes for a more complex, emotionally engaging character on film. And it is unclear what happens to George in the end which is my favourite kind of ending.

District Earth

District 9 (USA / New Zealand, 2009) directed by Neill Blomkamp, 1 hour, 52 minutes

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Achievement in Editing, Best Achievement in Visual Effects and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
~ MAJOR SPOILER ALERT~

I was completely thrown by this film expecting some goofy sci-fi flick. Instead I found an astute political thriller which utilizes the fear of aliens as a metaphor for race relations in Africa. The previews did no justice to the film which was superb. The feature film is based on a short film called Alive in Joburg (2005), also directed by Blomkamp, which you can view here.

I was trying to think how to describe it here … it’s like the book Black Like Me meets the blockbuster film The Transformers (like seriously).

As the film opens a large spacecraft hovers above Johannesburg, South Africa, stranded. When an exploratory team enters the ship they discover a group of over a million ailing extraterrestrial beings. They are an unnerving looking mix of anthropod and robot imbued with superhuman strength. They are brought to Earth and given shelter. Some prove to be destructive and behave in a criminal fashion. They are derogatorily labeled “prawns” (which they do resemble a bit) and the populace, both black and white citizens, start to turn against them. You get a nasty jolt listening to South Africans, of all races, complaining about the dirty, nasty criminal aliens who must be removed and/or destroyed.

Twenty years later, the government begins isolating the aliens in a camp called District 9. As I suspected while I was watching this it mirrors the not so distant events of 1966 when the South African government declared a certain region “whites only” and forcibly evacuated 60,000 black South Africans to an area labeled District Six (in Cape Flats). The viewer begins to realize with a sickening clarity that this is exactly how the white-led South African government saw the black South Africans – as aliens that had to be removed at any cost.

But we need not look so far away for historical metaphors – think of the herding of Indians into reservations in Canada and the U.S., the destruction of Africville in Nova Scotia or the internment of the Japanese-Canadians, including children born in Canada, during WWII. All these historical situations flash through your mind as you watch the aliens being beaten, arrested and dispersed. Brilliantly, Blomkamp visually evokes so many historical injustices that one immediately sides with the aliens.

The camp is heavily policed under the jurisdiction of the Multinational United (MNU) and soon turns into a slum. Another decision is made to relocate the almost two million aliens to District 10, 200km outside of Johannesburg. A private military outfit of whites and blacks is hired to do this. The realization that this “specieism” is universal amongst different races sinks in. We seem to need very little provocation to turn on “outsiders”.

Wikus van de Merwe (played effectively by Sharlto Copley), son-in-law of the head of the MNU, is appointed to lead the relocation with the serving of eviction notices to the aliens. At first, Wikus comes off as a mild-mannerd fool just following orders and not fully understanding the implications of what he is doing. He even resembles (intentionally?) a young Hitler with his silly haircut and goofy little black mustache.

The process is brutal and violent with threats made to take away children and jail those who refuse to evacuate. Aliens are beaten, killed, threatened, anything to make them move.

In the shack of one of the aliens, known as Christopher Johnson, who has a small child and is resisting evacuation, Wikus seizes a container of mysterious fluid, stored in a small canister, with which he accidentally sprays himself. Wikus quickly sickens and when his arm is injured during an altercation he begins to notice a series of frightening symptoms: his nose starts to ooze out a black substance, he starts to lose his fingernails, and his arm appears to be rotting and transforming into something inhuman.

When he is taken to a hospital, they find that his left forearm has mutated into an alien appendage simialr to the "prawns". He is immediately seized by MNU and experimented on. They determine that Wikus can now operate alien weaponry due to his “mutating DNA” and their intention is to vivisect Wikus before he fully transforms into an alien. Wilkus is shocked to see the experimentation on aliens (eerily reminiscent of the Nazis’ medical experimentation with Jews during WWII).

Wikus escapes and the MNU spreads lies to the media claiming Wikus has had sexual contact with aliens, causing him to be infected and start to become an alien (thus disguising the true source of his contamination). His wife deserts him and he becomes a fugitive. The sorrow on Wikus' face when he realizes what he has become: a dreaded alien, despised by all, with no hope of aid or sympathy from other humans!

Rumors spread in the black community that consuming alien flesh will invest them with the superior physical properties of the aliens so dead aliens become a valuable commodity.

Seeking refuge Wikus returns to Christopher's shack and Christopher reveals that the fluid which contaminated Wilkus would have allowed Christopher to reactivate the now dormant mothership which still hovers above Johannesburg. Christopher has been secretly developing an aircraft that will deliver him to the mothership. He also says that he would then be able to transform Wikus back to his human form. They decide to try and steal back the canister together.

Wikus tries to buy weapons from a local Nigerian gang to aid their effort. Their warlord, a paralyzed and filthy tyrant named Obesandjo (Eugene Khumbanyiwa), tries to seize Wikus and plans to severe his alien arm and eat it to enhance his own physical powers (and the ability to operate alien weaponry). Wikus narrowly escapes with a cache of weapons. (Note: Last September 2009, the Nigerian government banned District 9 for its "poor portrayal" of  Nigerians.)

Against all odds, they retrieve the canister (of course they do - this is an action film!) and head back to District 9. Sickened by the experimentation he has seen at MNU, Christopher tells Wikus that he wants to assist other aliens before curing Wilkus which would take three years. In a panic, Wikus knocks Christopher unconscious (so much for species solidarity) and starts up the command module that will take him to the mothership with the fluid. Hit by a MNU missile, it crashes.

MNU forces take Wikus and Christopher prisoners, but the warlord Obesandjo's gang ambushes the MNU forces and the gang seizes Wikus. From inside the downed command module, Johnson's son activates the mothership and an alien mechanized battle suit which Wikus takes control of and tries to flee, battling the MNU forces. Wikus, seeing Venter (played at top veliocity by David James like an evil, racist skinhead on rampage), the head of the police unit, trying to kill Christopher Wikus then rescues Christopher rather than escaping himself.

Promising Wikus that he will return, Christopher activates the command module towards the mothership while Wikus fends off MNU forces. This being an action movie, he manages to kill them all off except for Venter but the other aliens, in a surge of brotherly alien cooperation, manage to finish Venter off too in a satsifying, if bloody, denouement.

The transformation from human to alien is almost complete and Wilkus disappears … Speculation flares about his whereabouts. Did he leave Earth? Is he plotting his revenge against the government? Did he die? MNU's illegal experiments are exposed and the aliens are successfully moved to District 10 without incident where they begin to flourish.

In the last few shots, Wikus's wife, a melancholic Tania, finds a metal flower on her doorstep, which she hopes is proof that Wikus is still alive. An alien is pictured seen creating a flower out of metal in a scrapyard. Fade to black …

An Education of sorts

An Education (U.K., 2009) directed by Lone Scherfig, 95 minutes

Nominated for Best Picture,  Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) and Carey Mulligan was nominated as an "Best Actress in a Leading Role"

I was wondering what I could do to acknowledge Oscar season, having seen a few of the nominated films. I dared myself to print a review a day until the Oscars on Sunday March 7th. I will cheat a bit and include some previous reviews I have written. I will not be doing Avatar or The Blind Side. Sorry I cannot go there ...

These are the films I want to tackle in alphabetical order: An Education, A Serious Man, A Single Man, Bright Star, District Nine, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Julie and Julia, Nine, Precious and Star Trek. Eleven films in eleven days. These reviews will be short and sweet I hope.

An Education is quiet and surprisingly affective little film based on the memoir by Lynn Barber. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is on the cusp of her 17th birthday and finds herself charmed and eventually seduced by the much older David (Peter Sarsgaard), a somewhat glamorous and mysterious figure who just pops into her life one day as she is walking home from school. Obviously he has had his beady little eyes on her for some time.

Jenny's goal (preordained by her parents) is getting into Oxford University. But she is sidetracked by the slightly seedy glamour of David's lifestyle: weekend trips to Paris, attractive if somewhat morally dubious friends, an appreciation of literature and art, his real estate dealings. Her normally conservative parents played by Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour are easily taken in by David who does his utmost to charm them.

She soon learns the insidious truth (wife and child just around the corner, real estate dealings involving moving in black families into a neighborhood to force out the racist old biddies then buying up their property, stealing art from posh houses on sale). But by then Jenny has sacrificed a year and the opportunity to go to Oxford.

She recovers, thankfully, but only just and no thanks to her bedazzled parents who willing lead their lamb to slaughter. Reading an article written by Lynn Barber, I was relieved to learn that in real life, she wasn't quite so taken in as the Jenny character. She seemed to understand better what she was getting into and seemed to be going along for the ride, that is until she found out about little wifey wherein she bailed. It makes her seem more morally culpable but also less stupid.

Carey Mulligan has an entrancing face - one that slips easily from schoolgirl innocent in a private school to sophisticated young lady with an Audrey Hepburn up do, a convincing French accent and a knowledge of Camus. She enchants. The intelligence and emotion radiates out of her.

Saarsgard, although not a particularly dashing figure appears to fit the bill. The real David was short, a little pudgy but immensely charming. And his British accent here ain't bad either. We see several leading British actors in roles we have not seen them in before: Alfred Molina as the blustery dad; Rosamund Pike as the beautiful but ditzy party girl Helen and Emma Thompson as the brittle head mistress of the school who blithely reprimands Jenny for pointing out that Jesus was Jewish after the headmistress objects to David's ethnicity. 

You may remember Lone Scherfig as the screen writer of the little 2000 Danish film Italian for Beginners. Surprisingly for me, the script here was written by Nick Hornsby and he registers a very light touch and captures the snotty/vulnerable tone of a teenager soon to be young adult in Jenny's voice.

But I actually enjoyed reading Lynn Barber's account of what really happened as she details it in a recent Guardian article more than the film because her real life experience is more complex and she is more culpable than it is played here in the film.

But then again, with the film, we get the feeling of claustrophobia of Jenny's life in her cloistered, prescribed little world where every step is planned and worked out in advance by her parents which, I think, explains this streak of rebellion and obtuseness towards David. And ... we get the great 50s clothes!

An Education won the Audience Choice award and the Cinematography award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.