Movie Reviews – February 2007

Here are the movies we saw this month:

Here are my reviews:

Sweet Land

Inge is a mail order bride from Germany who comes to Minnesota just after World War I. We see her life at three different points; at her arrival (1920?), at the death of her husband (1967?), and at the time of her own death (now?). The scene jumps back and forth among those times but it is easy to keep track because the characters have aged the right amount in the various scenes. The townspeople don’t like her much. Presumably because she is German but more likely because she is different, an outsider. Everywhere she turns, roadblocks to her marriage are thrown up to thwart her. The early part of her life as shown in the movie is pretty much spent trying to get permission to marry Olaf. She hardly speaks any English but is learning it as hard as she can. The only other person who speaks German is the minister and he is one of her biggest opponents. After all, she makes her coffee too black and they have it for breakfast. The movie is touching and is not at all fast paced. The best part for us was when her husband had just died and the minister of that time is struggling through the eulogy, trying to get everything right. Maybe that doesn’t sound all that exciting but when the minister turns out to be portrayed by Jim Cada, my best friend from high school and the best man at our wedding it adds a certain something.
Theater – 3 stars

Little Miss Sunshine

A disfunctional family, forced into each other’s company, makes a cross-country road trip so the daughter can compete in a child’s beauty pageant. Nobody really wants to go and they have all manner of complications getting there. They arrive at the pageant, the little girl competes, and they are all a better, closer family for it. The movie has been fairly highly rated, but I saw little reason for it. Most of what happens is heartbreaking. There are funny moments, but they are fairly few and far between. Most of the characters are forgettable at best, or usually unlikeable. The exceptions are the little girl and her grandpa. Some of the action is outrageous and that’s the only thing that redeems this movie in my opinion.
Netflix – 3 stars

Inherit the Wind

Inherit the Wind was a fictionalization of the Scopes Monkey Trial pitting Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. The names have all been changed. A school teacher is arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution. The Big Gun lawyers are brought in. The defendent was eventually found guilty but vowed to appeal. This was the classic b&w movie from 1960 starring Spenser Tracy. He got an Oscar nomination for his role, but I think Frederic March as Matthew Harrison Brady did a much better job. The show left me seething at the Fundamentalism and the attack on free speech.
Turner Classic Movies – 3 stars

The Good Shepherd

Set during the time of the Cuban missile crisis, our hero’s life unfolds showing his lost opportunities. He is in counter espionage and everyone he meets through the years advises him to get out while he still can. Of course, he doesn’t. The plot is developed with a series of flashbacks. Back and forth between the early 60’s and his college days at Yale and his membership in Skull and Bones. There is even a flashback within a flashback where we see his father commit suicide. The people around him are constantly being hurt, physically or emotionally. The movie, though well produced, depicts how dismal the spy game is.
Theater – 3 stars

Microcosmos

This is a beautifully filmed documentary of insect life. The photography is stunning. There is no plot in this documentary, just a series of scenes showing one kind of bug or another. Before many of the segments there is a lead in showing the environment this set of insects lives in. It is some of the most beautiful footage in the film; foggy moors, ponds, rain forests. You need to be prepared for a documentary’s slower pace, but if you like this sort of thing, this is a pretty good film.
Netflix – 3 stars

Deep Blue

Two documentaries in a row. That’s what happens when you follow up on the picks Netflix suggests to you. This one is in the ocean. It also has beautiful footage and you often wonder how the film team could have been there at just that particular moment. This movie also uses special effects. It looks like the colors have been saturated or the underwater blue cast has been removed somehow. Maybe they just used really bright lights. Anyway, the reds and yellows are much more vivid than we are used to seeing in underwater footage.
Netflix – 3 stars

Shadows and Fog

This movie got by us in 1992, another of Woody Allen’s black and white endeavors. It’s pretty strange. Allen stars as nebbish Max Kleinman. There is a mass strangler on the loose at night in some dark, foggy, indeterminate city, maybe set in the 1920’s. It looks more like the London of Sherlock Holmes. For some reason that even he can’t figure out, Max is out looking for the killer with other vigilantes. He runs into all sorts of oddball characters at a circus, a brothel, and the rest of the neighborhood. When the movie is over, you ask yourself, “What was that all about?”
Netflix – 3 stars

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Robert Downey Jr plays a petty thief who stumbles into a casting call while he’s fleeing a crime scene. His partner has just been killed. He happens to read a part that is about someone who causes his friends death. Downey is full of emotion and is cast for the part. He gets sent to Los Angeles, is apprenticed to a real life private eye to expand his background, and finds himself in a murder investigation. This movie is so bizarre it’s hard to believe. The plot threads weave back and forth on each other so much it is a challenge to follow. Outrageous things happen, like the girlfriend slamming the door on Downey’s hand and cutting his finger off. It gets sewn back on, pulled off again, and is finally eaten by a dog at another murder scene. If you liked “Pulp Fiction”, you will probably like this too.
Netflix – 3 stars

The Point

Oblio, the only round headed kid in a pointy land is banished to the Pointless Forest when he out performs the Count’s son at triangle toss. He has a series of quasi-psychedelic adventures and returns a hero. I’m not sure what the point of this movie was. There are certainly some moral lessons to be learned, but while they have a positive feel, their exact meaning is murky at best. At about 1 ½ hours, this animated movie is about an hour too long. Much of the animation only seems to be there to provide room for Harry Nillsson’s music. In a lot of ways it reminded of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. One of my favorite characters was Rock Man. Unknown to me till now, the boy that did the voice of Oblio was one of the Brady Bunch. Previous comments notwithstanding, I still liked this bit of nostalgia.
Netflix – 3 stars

Artemisia

Artemisia Gentileschi had a lot of artistic talent, more so perhaps than her father or her teacher. But it was hard to find outlets for that talent in Italy of the 1600s. Her father, Orazio Gentileschi apprentices her to rival artist, Agostino Tassi. Only to have him seduce her. The father is furious and has Tassi charged with rape. Later they torture, get this, her, and Tassi confesses to keep her from being hurt. There is a lot of nudity in this movie. Also, while being set in Italy, it is performed in French with subtitles. This movie reminded me a lot of Girl with the Pearl Earring and The Governess which I reviewed last month.
Netflix – 3 stars