12 Years a Slave on DVD

My interest in the Oscar nominees has grown over the past few years. I believe I watched nearly all the Best Picture nominees from last year. This year, however, I wasn't so excited about the options. There were only a couple I was really interested in seeing, and even then, I'm taking my time to get around to them.

I just watched 12 Years a Slave, and I'm not sure I can say that I liked it. It was certainly well-done and deserving of its Best Picture award. My husband did some research and found it was mostly pretty accurate, horrifically enough. I wasn't necessarily surprised by what I saw, being familiar with some of the details of slavery, but it was pretty amazing (and not in a good way, as Brad Pitt's character says) that it all happened to one man. It's based on the true story of Solomon Northup, an educated, free black man who was kidnapped and enslaved in the mid-1800's. He wrote a memoir about his experiences, and the movie is based on that.

I can't say I like the movie because, well...it's brutal stuff, vividly depicted in a visual medium. It's rated R for obvious reasons, among which are violence, nudity (not sexual), and some sex scenes (they are not too graphic, but they are disturbing). Just because something is hard to watch doesn't mean you shouldn't, but each person must take into account what they can handle. In some ways, I'm glad I've seen this movie, but at the same time, I don't think it was necessary. I'm not changed because of it. It disturbed me but didn't impact me. I'm not sure I would really recommend it to anyone. I keep wondering what the purpose of this movie was. Is our culture still so racist that we need this reminder? Will anyone who is racist actually see this movie, and if they do, will it change them? Slavery is awful. What was done shouldn't have been done. But I wonder if we dwell on the past too much when the present has enough injustices of its own. The past is "safe." What's that saying: "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"? It's easy to say "I'm sorry" for something that's over. It's harder to stand up for our beliefs and put them into practice right now.

I'm not saying it's the movie industry's job to speak out on modern-day issues (though I'm sure they could certainly figure out a way to do so to great effect, as can be seen with the way they've pushed gay rights). It's not the movie industry's job to fight injustice, but if that was not the purpose of this movie, what was? Surely not entertainment. Perhaps it was to acknowledge an astounding true tale. I can accept that. But if we as a culture are trying to fight injustice, we need to start in the present with the sex trade or abortion, for example. It seems to me that we applaud recognition of our past failures (if I recognize it, I must be better), but we, myself included, merely gasp in horror at the news feed and then silently move on.

In addition to the movie's murky agenda, I didn't think all the nudity was tactfully depicted. You can get the sense of nudity from a person's back. Even bum shots (we all look the same from the back) are better than full frontal nudity which, to warn you, this movie contains. I didn't see the point of it.

One thing, neither bad nor good, that I thought was interesting in the cinematography is that the scenes are long. They are much longer than in most movies, long to the point of being uncomfortable, which I think was the point (and which makes me think there was some moral agenda behind this movie). The beatings are horrifically long. At one point, the main character hangs from his neck, his feet barely touching the ground, for an extended time, not just in terms of hours the man actually hung there in the story but in terms of seconds on the screen. The creators of this movie took time to tell the story well and to make the viewer pay attention. It is only a little over 2 hours long (134 minutes). In terms of how much suffering you can handle, it might feel long, but it is not too long in the sense that it was dragged out.

The music, by Hans Zimmer, is also very dramatic at times, more in keeping with something from Inception (which he also did) than with a period piece, but similarly to the purpose of the longer scenes, I think the purpose was to arouse a sense of foreboding in the viewer.

The acting is superb. Chiwetel Ejiofor (whom I previously knew as the villain from Serenity) is Solomon. And of course, Lupita Nyong'o won Best Actress for her role as Patsey. Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt, among other known actors, make small appearances. And the despicable (and way insane) slaver villain is played by Michael Fassbender.

I obviously have mixed feelings about this movie. While I agree that it has all the makings of an Oscar winner and deserves what it got, I don't think it's for the masses. Honestly, I'm not sure whom it's for. Obviously, not someone like me. The critics out there might call me racist or too prudish, but I can only give my opinion, regardless of how people may misconstrue it. I may be the last one to see this, but if you were considering it still, hopefully my review can help you make a better-educated decision about whether or not to see it.

Looper in Theaters Now

I was so excited to see this movie that I even let my husband fork out the extra cash to see it in a nice theater in a big city on my birthday getaway. But what a disappointment!

Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in a science fiction flick about time travel and murderers-for-hire. I guess I missed the part about them being hired guns and was more excited about the time travel aspect and the actors. My mistake.

Joe is one of these Loopers. He takes care of criminals who are sent to him from the future, where time traveling is illegal. Killing people in the past leaves no trail to follow. When a Looper has served enough time, he is sent his own future self to dispose of, along with enough gold to set him up for the next (and last) 30 years of his life. Loopers close the "loop" by killing their future selves and then get to live in peace until it's time to be on the other end of that gun. Neat and clean (the process, that is; not the movie).

The movie is rated R. I think it should be rated higher, like NC-17 or something (I don't even know what the next level is). Looper is brutally violent, and there is far too much (any is too much) upper female nudity, which I wasn't expecting at all. And when children are murdered for the "greater good," that crosses the line for me in the violence department.

Besides the time travel thing, there is one other science fiction aspect, involving telekinesis. This barely affects the plot except where it has to do with the main bad guy. Otherwise, it's poorly integrated and feels like a superfluous plot device to make the bad guy simultaneously more evil and cool.

After such a depressing story, it's rather amazing that the movie pulls off some redemptive value. Looper is not worth paying the money to see, but if you did, by accident, you won't leave in utter despair. In the end, love wins, and not just any love...a mother's love. That's pretty powerful. It's just buried by a load of images that are powerfully harmful.

Sure, Willis and Gordon-Levitt do a great job acting like the younger and older versions of the same person. Emily Blunt also has a great role as a protective, tortured single mom. The acting is fine. Even the story could have been acceptable with little improvements here and there. There's just no moral center to it.

I heard this movie compared to Inception as far as its capability to blow your mind. In no way does it stand a chance against Inception. The time travel leaves questions that are mind-blowing, certainly, but that's because they just don't make sense. Time travel always seems to have a hole somewhere. Dr. Who has a name for this: it's timey-wimey. That's okay for Dr. Who. Dr. Who blows my mind with its goodness. What does Looper have going for it if not a tightly woven time travel history? Sex and gore, and those don't fly on this blog.

The Descendants on DVD

I promise I am not on a mission (yet) to watch all the 2012 Oscar Best Picture nominees, as I was last year. Nonetheless, several of them sparked my interest before they were on that list, The Descendants being one of them. It just looked like one of those tear-jerker, heartfelt dramas I occasionally go for. And it was, painfully so.

George Clooney plays a man in the midst of a family crisis as his cheating wife lies dying in a hospital bed while his two daughters seem determined to live destructive lives. Complicating an already hectic week, as he attempts to tell family and friends of his wife's wish to be taken off life support, he must also decide whether or not to sell some virgin Hawaiian land entrusted to his family.

Did I mention it was painful?

I cried so much watching this movie, and at the end, I couldn't decide whether it was a cathartic experience or just unnecessary torture. There's a LOT of heartache. This isn't a movie about a woman who miraculously recovers from a coma. It's about a family saying good-bye to Mom and dealing with anger over her betrayal with another man. But it's also about that family turning from a splintered wreck into a self-comforting unit, and for that alone, it is beautiful.

Emotion, however, isn't the only thing making or breaking this movie. Clooney and the two actresses who play his 10-year-old and 17-year-old are brilliant. And care was taken to make the minor characters multi-dimensional, too. The setting is Hawaii, but as Clooney's character makes clear in the opening lines, that doesn't mean they get to be on a constant vacation from life.

The movie is rated R, mostly for being sporadically peppered with uses of the F-word. I don't normally go for that type of thing, but if any situation might call for it (and I'm not sure any situation does), it's this one. I can take it in this setting, as an adult viewer. I'll even admit, the language provides some much-needed humor in the story, for example when Clooney's character keeps ineffectually telling his daughters to stop the bad language when the audience knows it's right on the tip of his tongue, too.

The Descendants is not a family movie, despite the family message at the end...unless you have this type of family yourself. But it's more hopeful than it could have been, and for that I can give it a higher rating than I might have otherwise. Three stars.

Never Let Me Go on DVD

Lately, I've picked some really depressing movies to watch. Never Let Me Go is definitely that, but it also has a certain tragic beauty to it that appeals to me. The book club I take sporadic participation in read the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro and then saw the movie together. (Kazuo Ishiguro was an executive producer on the movie as well.) I did not read the book and, therefore, did not go see the movie with them. But I was interested in it, so after many months, I decided to watch the movie on my own. I have mixed feelings about it.

First of all, I might have enjoyed it better had I read the book, but maybe not. A movie should stand on its own, and I had too many questions watching this one. Let me get into the plot, and then I'll explain (but be prepared for spoilers, which I will try to keep vague and at a minimum).

The story starts in the 1970's, which I found odd, considering that it has a somewhat futuristic, science fiction aspect to it. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy grow up on a glorified organ donation farm. Together with other children, they attend classes and live as though at any other "normal" boarding school. The exception is that they are being carefully monitored health-wise so that when they are of the appropriate age, they can begin a process that will let them donate up to four vital organs, one at a time, after which they will die. The only way to defer their donations is by becoming Carers. For a few years, Carers care for Donors, and then it's their turn to donate before they get too old. That's the background story, but the main story focuses on these three children as they grow into teenagers (played by Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley), fall in love, fall apart, and try to live normal lives within the confines of their very abnormal existence.

I just had a hard time buying the story or the characters' reactions, mainly because of one question. How do you grow up knowing you are going to die young and not realize at some point that people can't do that to you? The characters attempt to defer their donations in whatever way is presented for them, but it's like they can't think for themselves. And maybe they can't. Maybe they are so brainwashed that this is the realistic outcome. But they never once try to escape. The whole movie shows them scanning their bracelets every time they leave or enter a building all their lives, and they don't question it once. I felt like they should, but maybe that's where I'm missing what the book has to offer. I wanted to know why these farms existed, why the author felt he had to put something futuristic in the past, why the kids accepted it without question. It didn't sit right with me at all, and I don't believe it was supposed to. But I don't like the unsettled feeling, and I wanted a little more explanation about the logistics.

I'm very curious now to hear what my fellow book club members who actually read the book have to say. I want to know if the book did the story more justice.

Aside from the intriguing but confusing premise, the storyline is somewhat unsatisfactory as well. There's a love triangle, and it's annoying because on top of their crappy lives, these characters can't even enjoy a simple love. I like when they get it right, but that enjoyment is short-lived as the story ends predictably and realistically (for the type of plot). Maybe that's why I can't enjoy this story; it's too realistic. I like happy, or at least hopeful, endings. Stories should be a form of healthy escapism from the realities of life. I can appreciate a more realistic ending, but I get true enjoyment only from something that's bigger and grander than the real world.

And yet another strike against the movie: it's rated R for some nudity and sexuality. It's done much more tastefully than some movies I've seen. The only real frontal nudity is the tops of women in a magazine. There are a couple sex scenes, which are fairly careful not to show parts (you might catch a glimpse if you look closely, but I don't, so I can't tell you for sure). The sex scenes are all about lust, and the one time there is a closer connection between the people, they don't show the sex scene. That's fine by me, but why do that? Did the movie makers think that it was more sacred, or something, because it was true love? News flash: sex is sacred. Period. They understand only the half of it.

My final take. I thought the movie was mostly well-done, emotional, and heart-wrenching. From a cinematography viewpoint, it's beautiful. It has a historical feel, while being weirdly futuristic, an odd and interesting mix, to be sure. But I can't say I enjoyed the movie. It's hard to enjoy something so hopeless.

I'm really quite torn about what star rating to give this movie. I didn't hate it, but I'm not sure whom to recommend it to either. Probably best to start with the book, unlike me, and go from there. Let's just draw the line down the middle at two and a half stars.


ADDENDUM: Above, I stated that my book club read the book and then saw the movie together. I was wrong. They did read the book, but as of this post, they had not seen the movie together yet. I apologize for the error.

Winter's Bone on DVD

Winter's Bone was one of the ten Best Picture Nominees for this year's Academy Awards. I don't normally care about the Oscars because they usually celebrate movies that are sort of obscure or ultra-artsy, but this year had a lot of good nominations, movies I was actually interested in, regardless of their Hollywood popularity. With Winter's Bone, I've now managed to see all but one of the Best Picture Nominees, that one being The Kids Are All Right, which I wouldn't be opposed to seeing, though it's not high on my list.

Winter's Bone is, in my opinion, one of the weaker titles to be nominated. Something about its completely depressing nature and the grayness of the story and cinematography must have appealed to the Hollywood populace, but there's not even that much of a storyline. It's dark, oppressive, sometimes morbid, and will leave you feeling like you've glimpsed Hell. So, no, I don't recommend it.

The basic plot is this: 17-year-old Ree takes care of her two younger siblings and mentally-detached mom. Her dad, extended family, and neighbors are all country bums who cook drugs, abuse their wives, and intimidate the law. When the law comes looking for Ree's dad to meet his court date or lose his land, it's up to Ree to find out what became of him and save her home. But no one's talking, and when Ree pries deeper, she gets into big trouble with her dad's rivals. But Ree is tough, "Bread and Butter" as she calls herself, loyal to her people. She won't go to the law for help they can't give anyway, and she'll find her dad, even if she's beaten bloody along the way. SPOILERS follow. In the end, her dad is dead, she takes the bones of his hands back to the police as proof so that she doesn't lose her land, and she goes on living the way she always has, taking care of her family in a miserable hell of a world.

I think the movie tried to put a positive spin on the end. Throughout, you see these two young kids making the best of their life, playing even. Perhaps the movie was trying to suggest that hope exists in the midst of all this, but I think it was just trying to be depressing.

The movie is rated R for good reason: language, mature themes, drugs, violence (though Ree's beating is skipped over in the film). I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone. I didn't love The Fighter, another Oscar nomination, but it was, by far, better than Winter's Bone though it carried similar themes. Black Swan was a more put-together movie, but I still give it last place for inappropriate onscreen sexuality. However, I have a hard time saying which I disliked more: Black Swan or Winter's Bone. Skip them both.