Smile Politely. Speak Directly. A Champaign-Urbana Culture Blog

If you like Jack Black’s School of Rock or happened to catch the indie documentary Rock School, chances are you’ll love Young@Heart. While it focuses on the other end of the age spectrum, Stephen Walker’s documentary is a real charmer as it recounts how a chorus composed of senior citizens from New Hampshire, overcome various setbacks to get ready for a concert in their hometown of Northampton. Oh, did I mention they sing nothing but rock classics? This premise may sound like a cheap gimmick that panders for good-natured chuckles, but the singers, whose average age is 81, win us over with their tenacity, good-humor and the vigor with which they perform these songs, some of which take on different shades having been sung by these spry seniors.

Filmgoers probably first became aware of English actor Chiwetel Ejiofor in Love Actually. While his scenes as Keira Knightley’s husband were few, the actor made a definite impression on viewers and filmmakers alike as he has appeared in a series of high-profile films. Lending solid support in Four Brothers, Inside Man, and American Gangster, Ejiofor is now stepping into the spotlight with David Mamet’s Redbelt, a character study in which he portrays Mike Terry, a jujitsu master who’s forced evaluate his moral code when he finds himself plunged into the corrupt worlds of Hollywood and Mixed Martial Arts fighting. While in Chicago, the actor graciously sat down to talk about the film, his career and what is was like to work with playwright David Mamet. After breaking the ice with a discussion about the recent Edward Hopper exhibit at the Art Institute he had seen, Ejiofor gamely answered a question that had been on my mind since I had seen Redbelt.

What does it profit a man to be the last honorable person in a corrupt world? That’s the question at the heart of David Mamet’s Redbelt, a meditation on honor and loyalty set against the backdrop of the world of Mixed Martial Arts and Hollywood. That there’s more than meets the eye comes as no surprise to those who have been following the filmmaker’s work. So often, his plays and movie have dealt with deception and misdirection and while these elements are at play in Redbelt, they don’t take center stage. Instead, Mamet and his star, Chiwetel Ejiofor, concentrate creating an in-depth character study rarely seen in movies today: that of a man who understands and maintains his own moral code while those around him regard him as a fool for doing so.

There is that old maxim that you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Apparently Harry Allen (Chris Cooper) has never heard this or he discounts it out of hand thinking that this saying pertains to others, not him. You see, his situation is unique. He has a lovely wife, Pat (Patricia Clarkson), who helps him run their tidy suburban home and plays the role of faithful wife at every turn. Problem is she’s a bit too sexual for Harry. While she equates the act with the feeling of love, he would like a deeper, emotional connection she simply can’t provide. Harry, however, thinks he’s found just that with Kay (Rachel McAdams). Though much younger than him, he thinks he’s found true love with this wonderful woman with the only hurdle between them being his pesky wife. Harry’s solution to this is quite simple – he decides to kill Pat, knowing that there is no way she’ll survive the ordeal of a divorce and reasoning that “I can’t stand to see anyone suffer.”

Director Patricia Riggen sets out moving you to tears from the very first moment in her Under the Same Moon, an independent film that has become something of a hot button issue for paranoid conservatives with too much time on their hands. Given the relatively slow and limited release this film has had (at its height it’s played on 450 screens and has grossed a little over $10 million), it’s likely that this movie could have come and gone with little notice. Pundits, however, have gone out of their way on slow news days to point out that Riggen’s movie gives a decidedly one-sided view of the illegal immigration debate and that she should be ashamed of herself for not dealing with the greater social complexities of this issue.

Roger Ebert is set to host his 10th annual film festival and among the subjects to be viewed at Champaign’s Virginia Theatre will be a big green monster, a serial killer, underworld thugs and a mad housewife. At first glance, one might think that the Central Illinoisan critic is focusing on B-Movies or pulp-fiction fodder. Upon closer inspection, however, the slate of films to be shown is, as usual, an eclectic collection that casts a wide net over the world of cinema, covering a variety of genres and formats that are often neglected by the average filmgoer and movie exhibitors.

When someone says that there is a new film based on the Holocaust that you just have to see, most potential viewers equate this with their reaction to having to eat their broccoli as a kid — yeah, it might be good for me, but it’s far from pleasant. Stefan Ruzowitzky’s The Counterfeiters contains all of the troupes we’ve come to expect from films of this sort. It does focus on a group of persecuted Jews in a concentration camp, it does effectively recreate the inhumane treatment inflicted upon these prisoners and it does remind us of the dehumanizing effect this had on both the prisoners and its captives. And at the center of it all, is a charismatic anti-hero and contains a compelling human story that poses intriguing moral questions regarding personal safety versus sacrificing oneself for a larger cause.

In a day and age in which so many films are as disposable as yesterday’s newspaper, Cristian Mungui’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a work that haunts you long after its final credits roll on the shattered lives of its two young protagonists. Set in Romania in the late 1980s, it examines the crushing effect of living under a Communist regime, focusing on two women who finds themselves gradually sucked into a situation, in over their heads and compromising their values in ways they never contemplated. While Mungui puts the issue of abortion front and center, the movie also speaks to the oppression of being forced to live with antiquated notions and the inability to free yourself from a society in which opportunities to start a new life are nothing more than a sham.

Revisiting movies genres from yesteryear is harder than it looks. Sometimes you cast the film just right, get the look of the period down to a tee and even manage to recreate the story elements as well. And yet, it all falls flat. (See this week’s Leatherheads for an example…on second thought, don’t.) Other times, all the pieces fall together, in a seemingly effortless manner, and filmgoers are transported back in time and treated to a dose of movie magic from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day is such a film, a light-hearted romp that could have easily been a vehicle for Carole Lombard, Greer Garson, and Ronald Coleman had it been made in the ‘30s, when the film is set. Fortunately, three modern actors capture the nuances needed to pull off a film of this sort, never winking at the camera over the script’s dated notions, yet injecting the material with a sense of sincerity that makes it worthwhile.

One wrong bus ride and there you have it – an awkward culture clash that will surely lead to a widening of the gap between the Egyptians and Israelis. That the Alexandria Police Ceremonial Band has traveled to Israel to play at the opening of a new cultural center seems of little importance once they’ve been cast as fish out of water in the small town of Bet Hatikvah. Their main concern is getting out of the village and back home with as little fuss as possible. As for the citizens of this tiny burg – they could care less what nationality their new visitors are, they’re just happy to have something new in their mundane lives.

One of the great injustices in modern cinema is that visionary filmmaker George A. Romero lacks a larger forum from which to deliver his vital movies. Of course, the fact that he uses flesh-eating zombies as his messengers makes his work a hard sell to mainstream audiences. Granted, Romero has always been a cult director, having changed the face of the horror film with his 1968 masterpiece Night of the Living Dead, an allegory of the social unrest that was raging across the country at the time. The movie’s message isn’t what initially caused viewers to flock to it, rather it's ground-breaking, in-your-face violence that put butts in seats and the gore that marked a radical change in the way horror would be presented from there on out.

From a financial point of view, it makes sense that Lionsgate Films is promoting its latest, The Bank Job, as another hyperkinetic, seizure-inducing, Jason Statham actioner. After all, the actor has amassed a loyal fanbase with such B-movie favorites as The Transporter, Crank and The War. So, touting this feature as just more of the same is a no-brainer. Too bad this strategy will only end up disappointing most of Statham’s fans and do a disservice to a fine heist film in the process.

It’s the phone call we all dread. The one that begins with, “I’m afraid we have a problem. Your father has been found writing in the bathroom with pieces of his own shit.” Yep, it’s all down hill from there.

Yet that’s the message that’s dropped into the laps of Jon and Wendy Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman & Laura Linney) one day and these estranged siblings are forced to not only deal with one another, but come to terms with Lenny (Philip Bosco), their father who abandoned them years earlier.

It comes as no surprise that Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis has been nominated for an Oscar in the Best Animated Feature category and has won a bevy of other awards as well. Though rendered almost completely in black and white, the images that the film’s animation crew produces are as vibrant and striking in their own way as anything created by the Technicolor masters of a bygone era. More akin to the German expressionistic films from the 1920s than any overproduced Disney affair, the monochromatic palette accurately conveys the emotional turmoil and despair that the film’s protagonist, Satrapi, a young teen, endures while growing up in Iran during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Having had to endure massive social and emotional upheaval due to the violent revolutions and wars that plagued the region during that era, it’s no wonder that the young woman’s life should be recounted in such stark terms.

The Asian Educational Media Service continues its impressive series of screenings with The Blood of the Yingzhou District tonight at 7 p.m. This Oscar-winning documentary chronicles the lives of various orphans in the rural Chinese region of the title, their parents killed by AIDS or other diseases picked up from contaminated blood. That these children have been abandoned by fate is hard enough to bear but the fact that many of them are HIV-positive as well, makes their plight too much to bear.

On seeing the trailer for the new romantic comedy Definitely, Maybe, my initial reaction was that it was too bad that a film with so many actresses whose work I enjoy would be ruined by the presence of resident screwball Ryan Reynolds. Imagine my surprise when Reynolds proved an engaging presence in this delightful romantic comedy. He easily rises to the challenge presented by writer/director Adam Brooks and co-stars Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher, and Elizabeth Banks.

When life gets so busy that you don’t know which way is up, it’s a good idea to stop and appreciate the little things that make life worth living. For me, one of those things is what I believe to be the greatest channel in the history of television, Turner Classic Movies.

TCM was the brainchild of media magnate Ted Turner and while his reputation may have taken a hit for releasing colorized versions of It’s a Wonderful Life and Yankee Doodle Dandy, his heart has always been in the right place where film preservation is concerned.

I went to see Rambo over the weekend and I’m not embarrassed to say so. (My admitting that I’m a Barry Manilow fan will have to wait for another day…baby steps and all that…) There are a variety of reasons why I was eager to go, even though the folks at Lionsgate Entertainment refused to screen the film in advance for critics. The First Blood movies have always been guilty pleasures for me, though I would argue that the initial entry in the series is a moving social statement on the plight of Vietnam vets as well as a fine action film. There was also the nostalgia factor, as I simply had to find out how the years had treated John Rambo and see if he could still blow up stuff real good. (He can, and did, a lot!) But the overriding reason was the Stallone factor. I have a soft spot in my cinematic heart for the oft ridiculed actor and while he has made more than a few movie missteps, he’s a far better actor than most people give him credit for because of one simple reason: he’s sincere even when the material is not.

There Will Be Blood
Rated R
Opening at Boardman’s Art Theater on Friday

The most impressive thing about writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson is that he continues to challenge himself with every feature film he makes. While each of his movies (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love) have been successful to varying degrees, they’ve all been flawed as well.

There are some who will dislike Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and it’s easy to see why. It’s an abrasive work with an unsavory protagonist, its structure is anachronistic and it does lose its way during its final act. Be that as it may, this is a film that should be embraced fully for its wild ambition, its emotional and physical scope, its sheer audacity and the performance from Daniel Day-Lewis who delivers a haunting portrait of a man who allows himself to be consumed by greed, forsaking love, community and his soul for a hollow existence that leads to insanity.

As busy as we are, it’s easy to take things for granted. For instance, take those blue jeans you’re wearing. You go to the mall, find a pair that makes your ass look good and pay for them with your credit card. It never crosses your mind that they might have been made by a 15-year-old Chinese girl who works 20-hour shifts and earns six cents an hour, that is, if she ever gets a paycheck.

If, as some critics have suggested, Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1954) was a collective catharsis for Japanese filmgoers regarding the atomic bomb disasters that befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, then Cloverfield can be seen as a similar cinematic exorcism for Americans still reeling from the 9/11 disaster.

Using lightweight recording devices and a high-definition digital format, director Matt Reeves has created what appears to be nothing more than a modern take on a hoary movie cliché as he gives us a victim’s eye view of what it would be like if a monster, 50 stories tall, came to your town and had it for lunch. Utilizing camcorders and all of the positives and negatives inherent to that format, the director is able to create an immediacy in the action that’s exhilarating and frightening. The whipsaw camera movements, jittery hand-held shots and the visual confusion created while filming on the move is effective in underscoring the chaos of the premise. Many have referred to this as The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla and while that is an oversimplification, it is an apt description of Reeves’ aesthetic. Yes, there will be those who bitch about only getting occasional glimpses of the monster in question, but in taking this approach, Reeves generates a sense of terror by keeping the military-engineered baddie under-wraps.

More importantly, he’s emphasizing that the creature is not the focus of this endeavor but the plight of the victims is, as they find themselves in the middle of an inexplicable urban disaster that quickly changes and spreads, tearing their lives asunder at a moment’s notice. Sound familiar?

With all the hype surrounding Joe Wright’s Atonement and the pedigree involved in its making, I had no doubt that I would like the film. After all, the director and his muse, Keira Knightly, breathed new life into Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice two years ago, turning that old chestnut into an unabashedly romantic and genuinely moving film. As a film lover, I was also eager to witness Wright’s “stunning,” unbroken five-minute tracking shot that showcases the carnage of war, which has already been heralded as a milestone in cinema.

Imagine my surprise when after seeing this film I was thinking of Gertrude Stein’s famous statement about Oakland, Calif. (“There is no there, there.”) instead of wracking my brain for accolades of my own.

“I don’t really know what kind of girl I am.”

Truer words were never spoken by Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page). At 16 years of age, she’s straddling that line between the fancies of a little girl and the concerns of a mature woman. One minute, she's talking on a phone shaped like a hamburger about complex emotions; the next, she's surprising her best friend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) by moving some discarded furniture to the front of his home. Yep, she’s all over the place emotionally and mentally, yet this intelligent teen knows she’s going to have to make some important decisions real soon. She’s pregnant and telling her parents is the least of her worries as she has to decide whether to keep her child, a decision she knows deep down she’s not ready to make.

Yep, we’ve got a Big Ten school and a county-wide population of about 185,000. We are home to an internationally recognized film festival presented and curated by one Roger Ebert and we even have an independent cinema that regularly shows art house films throughout the year. But damned if there weren’t some films with major talent behind them that were never screened in town over the past year.