War Horse (2011)

I'm told the play is amazing. Spielberg should have honoured it by leaving it as a play instead of turning it into a sappy flick. While there is some genuinely beautiful images in the movie, I had a hard time focusing on the story, themes and characters with all the sweeping, epic, emotional music backing the whole thing - not to mention the slow motion sequences and drawn out telling.

Hanna (2011)

A rather forgettable action movie trying to capitalize on a teen female lead. It is a long chase a la Bourne Identity to find ones identity and a trail of carnage follows this young lady.

Un prophète (2009)

One of the greatest films I have ever seen.

The opening scene is a young offender being transferred to an adult prison - no family, we don't really know where he comes from at all. Shortly, he is seconded into the service of the organized crime ring where he climbs the ranks.

A Prophet is powerful and raw with simple though energizing dialogue.

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A Dangerous Method (2011)

A peek into the lives of 19th century psychologists Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud through the lens of one of their patients. The film centres on Jung's desire for professionalism and moral integrity as it is challenged by a masochistic patient who occasionally has psychotic episodes.

The film is a product of Canadian director David Cronenberg whose previous work also focuses on the the mentally disturbed or abnormal. This one seems more grounded in reality and easier to follow than say, Naked Lunch. I'm not sure I agree with his bent on pushing for us to follow our passion so that we can be released (it seems he leaned much more on Freud's side of the debate in the film).

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Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy (2011)

No movies adapted from John Le Carré novels come to mind when I recall bad film experiences. The complexity of the characters, the extreme circumstances, and the very personal look at the decisions and consequences they face make a film like Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy well worth a look.

Oh, and the grand performances must be mentioned.

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The Age of Stupid (2009)

This documentary is told from a future perspective of the last man living on earth, so it's a bit hyperbolic. It extrapolates our environmental damage to the planet to the point where all the polar ice caps have melted and all humanity (except one Brit) is lost to drought, storm, etc.

The man scans documentary footage of what is our present day of people trying to fight the trend towards obliteration. Some good stuff in terms of alternative energy, but discouraging in how very little traction their efforts make.

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Tickets (2005)

Three master directors give us a collection of short films all set on the same train. The stories are all very unique and give us a flavour of humanity and Europe that we don't often get in film - or as isolated passengers on a train. Very lovely!

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Revanche (2008)

This Austrian film takes a look at entitlement through the lenses of a thief and a childless mother. The two stories converge on one event where a police officer kills the theif's girlfriend as they flee a crime; the officer's wife has no kids. The thief retreats to the country to help his grandfather with preparations for the winter. While he's there, he plots his revenge on the officer.

I had trouble empathizing with any of the characters except the officer and the grandfather as they seemed to exhibit the most natural types of emotions. The others thought they deserved more than what life had dealt them. The film has a wonderful ending though and the pace is enjoyable.

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The Christians (1977)

 One of my recent interests has been church history. A long standing passion of mine is Christian theology, which is illuminated by church history. Documentarian Bamber Gascoigne produced this 13-part made-for-TV series on the history of Christians. Stylistically, it is marked by the era in which it is made (the 1970s), but the era also impacts the approach that Gascoigne takes in presenting the Christians. In recent decades we have seen the emergence of a rather vocal Christian right in the United States, a steep decline in the practice of Christianity in Europe, and the renewed popularity of atheism and interest in other world religions. This has led to Christianity being looked down upon by the popular culture (I just heard a man singing on the radio about how Christianity makes no sense to him, so he's picking hell - yes, it is ironic). When Gascoigne makes this 11 hour documentary, Christianity is still has a strong western presence and it is treated with respect.

The series begins in first century Jerusalem and follows the gradual geographic, cultural, political, and theological iterations over the next 20 centuries. Mr. Gascoigne narrates throughout and does a remarkable job presenting each major change in Christian culture by highlighting both the remnant architectural and artistic features from each era and the denominational representations from those changes (ie. the Amish are portrayed when speaking about Anabaptist history or Guatemalan Catholics are portrayed to show the colonial missions in Central and South America).

Because of its length, the series ensures that adequate depth is allocated since the breadth of the story is so great.

I highly rate this intricate telling of Christians' story. I would gladly watch the series several more times.

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Blaise Pascal (1972)

As my son is named after this theologian/philosopher/scientist, a work buddy lent me this made for TV bio-pic, now a part of the Criterion Collection. The production is both elaborate in its sets and costumes, and yet quite simple in its script. The film essentially follows Blaise Pascal from his late teens through to his death giving him opportunity to speak some of his writings out loud and with props. There is little story or character development. In fact the setting draws the viewer in most as we are exposed to Catholic politics, scientific rivalries, provincial taxation, and superstitions.

The movie is slow, but full of Pascal's genius, so it's well worth the 2+ hours of view time.

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Festen (1998)

The Celebration is a cross between Monsoon Wedding and Gosford Park with some Noah Baumbach and Lars Von Trier thrown in. The setting is a Danish country mansion where family and friends have gathered to celebrate the 60th birthday of Helge - a successful restauranteur and freemason. We learn quickly of the family's disfunction and several sparks have already flown by the time the real fuse is lit at supper.

Perhaps the most remarkable touch of the film makers is their ability to infuse such brilliant humour in such a dark film. Humour and resilient humanity.

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Edvard Munch (1974)

A great skill was used to develop the film I just watched. It paints the portrait of celebrated and groundbreaking 19th century Norwegian artist Edvard Munch - famous for "The Scream." For three hours and forty minutes we survey scenes from Munch's life filmed as though it were a documentary where the characters are aware of the camera. Some characters are interviewed. Munch's diary is read as it was written, in the third person. And a narrator pronounces the chronology.

Beginning in a Protestant Christian home as a part of the middle class in Norway's capital city, Munch is surrounded by death, illness, and a social order that extorts and mistreats the lowest classes and their children. After losing his mother, he emerges into manhood and begins his rebellion with a group of bohemians who challenge every aspect of their culture. It is here that conflict arises between he and his father, but more strikingly it is where the great theme of his life's work begins: the threads that bond men and women together.

The series of failed relationships cast the learning and altogether rejected artist into a class all his own. He depicts the world in swirling colours, faces with pale and sickly complexions, and fades the sensory organs of his subjects where they meet their lovers.

Edvard Munch gains enormous popularity during his life while being lambasted by nearly all art critics across Europe. Pressing through all of this, Munch advances his new art form: visual psychology.

This is a masterpiece, unlike anything I have ever seen.

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Summer Love (2006)

Definitely the worst film I've watched all year. Incoherent. Unintelligible (a bunch of polish actors pretending to be in the wild west). Ridiculous.

Beware. The film goes by two names: Summer Love and Dead Man's Bounty.

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The Day of the Jackal (1973)

We get a fascinating historical look at the early 1970s in this cat and mouse thriller. A detective uses all means possible to thwart an elaborate plot to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. There is a bit of melodrama, but essentially the film is saved by the sleepless detective who has an army of people in several countries combing through paper files as they try to identify the hit man hired by a terrorist organization (it wouldn't have been nearly as engaging if they had the internet and electronic databases at their disposal).

Kind of a cool film with some intriguing characters.

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The Seventh Continent (1989)

Yet another bleak contemplation on violence, hopelessness, and the inexplicable nature of what causes people to give up and how it must be linked to our increasingly secluded society from Michael Haneke.

The Seventh Continent - literally Australia, but symbolically it is death - follows the unceremonious daily routine of a family of three, then it shows their deliberate march into oblivion.

Not a picker upper. About as haunting as they come.

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Benny's Video (1992)

"I wanted to know what it [reality] was like." Benny watches or makes movies in every spare moment and can't seem to come to grips with his own culpability or any kind of empathy.

Michael Haneke delivers another haunting picture about guilt, the media, violence, and society's broken connections with each other.

The film is set in Austria and Egypt. The acting is outstanding considering the minimal dialogue. Truly horrifying and provoking.

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The American (2010)

George Clooney plays a professional hit man who has to hide out for a while in Italy. It's ofttold story, one questioning if even the most hardened man can be redeemed. What makes this one unique? It's an American set in Europe. That and the director is an established European photographer: Anton Corbijn and that makes the film far more poetic than what we have seen in the past.

All considered, this is quite a remarkable film.

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Congorama (2006)

I was really pleased with this funny collaboration between Belgium and Canada. A Belgian man discovers that he was adopted from Québec and as he faces joblessness and irrelevance, he seeks out his origin in the farmlands of eastern Canada. Belgian Congo works its way into the story too.

While taking a break from pitching an invention, Michel has a providential encounter with people in a town where he was apparently given up to some nuns and then given away at Expo '67 in Montreal. He is given the key to success, but not without compromise.

One scene in the film impressed me in particular because I had lower expectations for a Canadian film.

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Before Sunset (2004)

After a 9 year hiatus, Jesse and Celine reunite in Paris to pick up the conversation they left off in Before Sunrise. The film is much the same, but the topics they bring up are for thirty-somethings rather than university grads. They have lived life and have learned to settle for mediocrity.

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Before Sunrise (1995)

This Richard Linklater film is a cross between an essay, a play, and a romantic drama. It distills the essence of what a connection between two people is: trust, mutual interest, and sexual attraction.

A rather bold American tourist comes on strong to a French woman traveler on a train in Vienna. The two strangers decide to spend 24 hours together in the historic city on a whim and fall in love only to leave each other at dawn.

The two converse and self-correct and wander through the night as they explore each other and metaphysical reality.

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