Academy Awards

Omar: a heartbreaking love story inside a West Bank thriller

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omarThe gripping and thought-provoking Palestinian drama Omar, which opens tomorrow, is a fundamentally a love story that drives an action thriller.  It seems to be about a college-age Palestinian guy named Omar and his two buddies.  They live in a West Bank Arab community that is repressed by apparently omniscient and omnipotent Israeli security forces.  It’s an environment where one bad choice can spiral one’s life completely out of control – and one that is toxic with betrayals.

There are thrills aplenty when the Israeli security teams are chasing our hero.  We’ve never seen more riveting chase scenes through the alleys and rooftops of West Bank cities.  Shot in Nazareth and Nablus, Omar gives us a novel look at these Arab communities and the Israeli security wall.

But it is basically a love story, albeit a heartbreaking one, because most of the plot is motivated by Omar’s love for his sweetheart Nadia.  The first action by the three young guys stems from politics, testosterone and the foolhardiness of youth.  But everything that happens after is because of Omar’s yearning for Nadia.  We also see the chaste Palestinian courtship rituals; the kids are burning with passion for each other as they exchange letters and discreet glances.

Omar is not for everyone.  For one thing, it doesn’t try to be even-handed about the Israeli Occupation – everything is seen through the Palestinian lens.  It’s realistic – one Israeli character in particular is humanized and it’s easy for the audience to disapprove of the boneheaded behavior by the young Palestinians.  But if you aren’t open to that Palestinian perspective, you’re not going to like this movie.  And the ending is unusually jarring – my fellow audience members sat in shocked silence for a few seconds.

Omar won a jury prize at Cannes and is nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Movies to See Right Now

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LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION at Cinequest

We’re now in the final two days of San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival.  It’s been a good year for thrillers at Cinequest, and you can still see Lead Us Not Into Temptation, Dose of Reality and Chaos, as well as the German dark comedy gem Oh Boy.  Check out my CINEQUEST 2013 page for comments on these films, plus another 20 or so that I’ve seen.

In the theaters, I recommend The Gatekeepers, a documentary centered around interviews with all six surviving former chiefs of Shin Bet, Israel’s super-secret internal security force; these are hard ass guys who share a surprising perspective on the efficacy of Israel’s war on terror.  The Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) documentary
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is now playing on HBO; it explores the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of priest abuse from a Wisconsin parish to the top of the Vatican (and I mean the top).  I admire Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects, starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances. The charmingly funny Warm Bodies has made my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies. The drama Lore is about the innocent children of monstrous people, but its intensity is so unrelenting that it wearies the audience.

I haven’t yet seen the Chilean historical drama No (with Gael Garcia Bernal), which was nominated for the 2013 Foreign Language Oscar and opens widely today. Nor have I seen Emperor, with Tommy Lee Jones as Gen. Douglas MacArthur leading the American occupation of Japan. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

You can still catch the Academy Award winning Argo, as well as Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook. To ride the momentum of director Ang Lee’s surprise Oscar win, Life of Pi is now out again in 3D, which I recommend. The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Picture, Amour, is brilliantly made and almost unbearable to watch.

My DVD of the week is still Undefeated, last year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary.

Movies to See Right Now

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THE GATEKEEPERS

Three documentaries are dominating this week’s cinematic landscape:

  • The Gatekeepers is a documentary centered around interviews with all six surviving former chiefs of Shin Bet, Israel’s super-secret internal security force.  These are hard ass guys who share a surprising perspective on the efficacy of Israel’s war on terror.
  • Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, now playing on HBO, explores the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of priest abuse from a Wisconsin parish to the top of the Vatican (and I mean the top).
  • 56 Up is the surprisingly mellow next chapter in the greatest documentary series ever.  Starting with Seven Up! in 1964, director Michael Apted has followed the same fourteen British children, filming snapshots of their lives at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 – and now at 56.

We’re now in the third day of San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival.  I’ve updated my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which includes comments on The Sapphires, In the Shadows, Lead Us Not Into Temptation, The Almost Man, Panahida, Dose of Reality, White Lie, Aftermath and The Hunt.

Opening this week, the drama Lore is about the innocent children of monstrous people, but its intensity is so unrelenting that it wearies the audience. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

I admire Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects, starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances. The charmingly funny Warm Bodies has made my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies.

You can still catch the Academy Award winning Argo, as well as Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook.  To ride the momentum of director Ang Lee’s surprise Oscar win, Life of Pi is now out again in 3D, which I recommend.  The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Picture,  Amour, is brilliantly made and almost unbearable to watch.

My DVD of the week is another documentary, Undefeated, last year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary.

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films. This week, the lineup includes Inherit the Wind and Elmer Gantry.

DVD/Stream of the Week: Undefeated – an Oscar winner you haven’t seen

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The extraordinary documentary Undefeated begins with a high school football coach addressing his team:

Let’s see now. Starting right guard shot and no longer in school.  Starting middle linebacker shot and no longer in school. Two players fighting right in front of the coach. Starting center arrested.  Most coaches – that would be pretty much a career’s worth of crap to deal with.  Well, I think that sums up the last two weeks for me.

Undefeated is the story of this coach, Bill Courtney, leading his team through a season.  The kids live in crushing poverty and attend a haplessly under-resourced high school in North Memphis.

Undefeated may be about a football team, but isn’t that much about football.  Instead of the Xs and Os, it shows the emotional energy required of Courtney to keep each kid coming to school, coming to practice and on task.  He gets many of the kids to think about goals for the first time in their lives.  He is tireless, dogged and often frustrated and emotionally spent.

The film wisely focuses on three players, and we get to know them.  Like the rest of the team, all three are from extremely disadvantaged homes.  One is an overachiever both on the field and in the classroom, but surprisingly emotionally vulnerable.   Another has college-level football talent but very little academic preparation.   The third,  recently back from youth prison, is impulsive, immature, selfish and extremely volatile.

Undefeated won the 2012 Oscar for Best Documentary for filmmakers Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin – but it didn’t get a wide theatrical release.  It’s available now to stream from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.

Movies to See Right Now

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56 UP

I haven’t yet seen 56 Up, the next chapter in the greatest documentary series ever. Starting with Seven Up! in 1964, director Michael Apted has followed the same fourteen British children, filming snapshots of their lives at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49. Choosing kids from different backgrounds, the series started as a critique of the British class system, but has since evolved into a broader exploration of what factors can lead to success and happiness at different stages of human life. The ultimate reality show. I’ve included the 7 Up series in my list of Greatest Movies of All Time. It opens today, as does The Gatekeepers, a documentary centered around interviews with all six surviving former chiefs of Shin Bet, Israel’s super-secret internal security force. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

It’s you last chance to catch the Oscar-nominated movies before the Academy Awards: Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained and Life of Pi.  The French language drama Amour is a brilliantly made and almost unbearable to watch.  If you really like musicals, you will probably like the lavish but stupefying Les Miserables (I didn’t).

The best new movie is Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects with Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones. In Stand Up Guys, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin play old mobsters gearing up for one last surge of adrenaline. Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances. The charmingly funny Warm Bodies has made my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies. The pretty good horror movie Mama (with Jessica Chastain) can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering.

Skip the unoriginal mob movie Gangster Squad, which wastes its fine cast. The FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson is a bore. The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril. I have not seen Movie 43 – it is the most critically reviled movie in a looooong time.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the Oscar winning Gosford Park, a fitting companion to the just completed third season of Downton Abbey.

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films. This week, the lineup includes one of the funniest movies ever, Mel Brook’s glorious The Producers.

Oscar Dinner 2013

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Every year, we watch the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees.  For example, we had sushi for Lost in Translation, cowboy campfire beans for Brokeback Mountain and Grandma Ethel’s Brisket for A Serious Man –  you get the idea.  You can see our past Oscar Dinners on this page (including our Severed Hands Ice Sculpture in 2011 for 127 Hours and Winter’s Bone).

This year The Wife did the heavy lifting in organizing our feast.

 

STARTERS

Hummus for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty – as you will see, it’s a big year for Middle Eastern food at the Oscar Diner.

Philly Cream Cheese Cocktail Sauce Dip for Silver Linings Playbook – a perfect accompaniment to an Eagles game.

Crackers from Life of Pi (not many food choices on that lifeboat).

Baguette from Amour and Les Miserables (I did NOT steal the bread, Javert).

The Wife vetoed the peach yogurt from Amour.

 

DINNER

Kabob Koubideh for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty.

Roast Chicken from Beasts of the Southern Wild (we could have done crab, too, but Quvenzhané Wallis won’t be here to rip them up for us).

Khoresh Ghormeh (a Persian veggie stew) for Argo.

 

DESSERT

Mary Todd Lincoln’s Almond Cake for Lincoln.  Understanding the political junkie that I am, my daughter gave me the Capitol Hill Cookbook and this is an authentic recipe from the Lincoln family.

 

BEVERAGES

Whiskey from Django Unchained (from the bar scene with Jamie Foxx and Franco Nero).

Vodka (Jennifer Lawrence ordered it at the bar) from Silver Linings Playbook.

Water from Life of Pi (again – not many choices in that lifeboat).

Enjoy!

 

Movies to See Right Now

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AMOUR

Try to catch the Oscar Nominated Short Films – in theaters only for this coming week.  The pretty good horror movie Mama, with Jessica Chastain, can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering. Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances.

Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 and all are nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.  The French language drama Amour, also nominated for Best Picture, is a brilliantly made film about the end of life – it’s also an almost unbearable viewing experience.

If, like me, you worship the spaghetti Western, the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained is gloriously pedal-to-the-metal, splattering exploitation. The intelligent drama Rust and Bone is the singular tale of a complicated woman and an uncomplicated man.

Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling. Denzel Washington stars in Flight, a thriller about the miraculous crash landing of an airliner and the even more dangerous battle against alcoholism. Skyfall updates the James Bond franchise with thrilling action and a more shopworn 007 from Daniel Craig.

Skip the unoriginal mob movie Gangster Squad, which wastes its fine cast. Also pass on the lavish but stupefying all star Les Miserables, with its multiple endings, each more miserable than the last. The FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson is a bore. The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril.  I have not seen Movie 43 –  it is the most critically reviled movie in a looooong time.

I haven’t seen the Pacino/Walken/Arkin geezer mob film Stand Up Guys or the inventive zombie movie Warm Bodies, which open this weekend. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD of the week is the deliciously pulpy neo-noir The Paperboy.

Today Turner Classic Movies begins its annual 31 Days of Oscars, celebrating the Oscars by filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films.

the Oscar-nominated shorts

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GOD OF LOVE

The short films nominated for this year’s Oscars are opening in theaters this weekend for a one-week run as Oscar Nominated Short Films: Animated and Live Action. All five animated shorts are shown in one bundle and all five live action shorts in another bundle. Each bundle is about the length of a regular 90-minute movie. I usually see them as a double feature on a week night.  (Some theaters are also showing a bundle of the Oscar-nominated documentaries.)

The great thing about sampling the shorts is that, even if one short film isn’t your cup of tea, another one is coming along in 15 minutes and  you might like it a lot more.  I’ve never forgotten the touching and funny God of Love, which earned the 2011 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.  God of Love won that year’s Oscar over Na Wewe, one of the best films about violence in Africa that I’ve seen.  Similar discoveries could be waiting for you this week.

Movies to See Right Now

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Jessica Chastain in MAMA

The pretty good horror movie Mama, with Jessica Chastain, can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering.  Quartet, which opens this weekend, is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances.

Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 and all are nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

The French language drama Amour, also nominated for Best Picture, is a brilliantly made film about the end of life. It’s a lead pipe cinch to win the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It’s also an almost unbearable viewing experience.

If, like me, you worship the spaghetti Western, the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained is gloriously pedal-to-the-metal, splattering exploitation. The intelligent drama Rust and Bone is the singular tale of a complicated woman and an uncomplicated man.

Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling. Denzel Washington stars in Flight, a thriller about the miraculous crash landing of an airliner and the even more dangerous battle against alcoholism. Skyfall updates the James Bond franchise with thrilling action and a more shopworn 007 from Daniel Craig.

Skip the unoriginal mob movie Gangster Squad, which wastes its fine cast. Also pass on the lavish but stupefying all star Les Miserables, with its multiple endings, each more miserable than the last. The FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson is a bore. The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril.

I haven’t yet seen the raunchy all-star comedy Movie 43, which opens today.  You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD of the week is the gripping cop thriller End of Watch.

Amour: we face heartbreak

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If you’re lucky, you get old.  When you get old, you eventually get infirm and then you die.  I generally do not focus on this grim truth, but no one can argue it isn’t part of the human condition, and director Michael Haneke explores it with his film Amour.

We meet a delightful elderly couple played by French film icons Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.  They live a comfortable and independent life, engaged in culture and current events, until she suffers a stroke.  He steps up to become her sensible and compassionate caregiver.  However, the decline of her health brings humiliating dependence is  for her and frustration and weariness for him.  It finally becomes unbearable for both of them (and for the audience).

Amour is heartbreaking, made so by its utter authenticity.  I have been plunged by circumstance into the caregiving role at times, and I recognized every moment of fear, frustration, resentment and exhaustion that the husband experiences.

I tend to despise Haneke because he is a sadistic filmmaker. I hated his critically praised The White Ribbon because the audience has to sit through 144 minutes of child abuse for the underwhelming payoff that parents of Germany’s Nazi generation were mean to them.  In Funny Games, where a gang of sadistic psychos invade a home, Haneke toys with the audience’s expectation that the victimized family will be rescued in a thriller or avenged – but they are simply slaughtered.  However, he doesn’t manufacture cruelty in Amour, the cruelty is in the truth of the subject.

Haneke’s brilliant skill in framing a scene, his patience in letting a scene develop in real-time and his severe, unsparing style are well-suited to Amour’s story.  He is able to explore his story of love, illness and death with complete authenticity.  That, and the amazing performances by Trintignant and Riva, make the film worthwhile.  That being said, it is a painful and not enjoyable viewing experience.

Amour is an undeniably excellent film.  Whether you want to watch it is a different story.