Serious illness good for laugh

50/50


Summit Entertainment
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT and Bryce Dallas in "50/50."


Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen play typical 20-somethings in the film “50/50.”
Rogen, of course, is once again the best friend. He plays Kyle and his work and bar buddy is Adam, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Now Adam is a bit more low-key, less flamboyant. Rogen’s character is obsessed with going to bars and picking up chicks.
It looks like another grossout movie and to some extent, it is.
But very quickly it takes a different turn. The Gordon-Levitt character has a routine doctor’s appointment where he learns from a mumbling, stumbling doctor that he has cancer.
Bryce Dallas Howard plays his girlfriend, who takes him to chemo but chooses to wait four hours in the car because she doesn’t like the whole hospital experience.
You can quickly tell the relationship is in trouble and comes to an abrupt end.  Meanwhile, Adam finds true friendship in some older men having chemo at the same time, played by the gruff but great Phillip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer.
These 60s-somethings get along well with Adam, even coaxing him into enjoying some of their pot-laced cookies. A priceless scene in the film is Adam leaving the hospital in an out-of-focus fog, high as a kite, smiling and happy as he views the misery that cancer can cause.
Anjelica Huston plays his “it’s all about me” mother and Serge Houde plays his dementia-driven dad. It’s a thankless role but Houde gives it as much dimension as it can be given.
The Rogen character truly cares for his friend, but also won’t miss a chance of scoring with a chick by taking him to a bar, getting some girls to feel sorry for him and then taking one of the girls home.
Rogen is also jealous of Adam’s doomed love affair and takes great joy in getting a picture with his camera phone of the girl kissing a Jesus-like artist at an art gallery.
A backdrop through all of this is Adam’s relationship to his soon-to-be-a-doctor therapist, played by the perky Anna Kendrick. When Adam makes a joke about “Doogie Houser,” the old TV show about a teenage doctor, she doesn’t understand. She’s too young.
But that is the relationship to watch.
The film does a nice job of doing some grossout comedy while giving us a somewhat realistic view of dealing with cancer.
The title comes from Adam looking up his particular cancer on the Internet and learning most patients have a 50-50 chance of survival.
There are many nice moments. Adam is about to have an operation that could cure or kill him. His clueless father tells him about his new sports jacket. But to Adam, he is saying his father does have an idea of what is going on and loves him.
It might be the most mature grossout film ever. Yeah, Rogen’s character goes overboard and after awhile you just want him to shut up.
And yes, Huston becomes too motherly. But you know, people can be annoying in real life.
“50 /50” works on many levels. It is worth your time.


50/50
• Directed by Jonathan Levine
• Written by Will Reiser
• Rated R for language and sexual situations
• Runtime: 100 minutes
• 3 stars out of 4

As It Is In Heaven

‘As It Is In Heaven’ sweet, uplifting film

Lorber

PEOPLE REFLECT their love of singing in “As It Is in Heaven.”

There’s a bit of heaven in “As It Is in Heaven,” a sweet, wonderful film that does a nice job of avoiding movie cliches.
Released in 2004, it was directed by Kay Pollak.
Michael Nyqvist plays a successful conductor, Daniel Dareus, who has a bad heart that can’t take the strain of conducting.
Early on, we see him conducting the orchestra with blood from an apparent nosebleed flowing down his face.
So he retires to the little Swedish village call Norrland, where he was born but left at a young age. The villagers don’t really remember him but the town had a profound impact on his life.
So he buys the old elementary school to live in, staying warm by feeding hunks of wood in a tiny stove.
The local minister, played by Niklas Falk, invites him to dinner, but he declines, stating he plans to stay alone.
Ah, but not for long. The minister asks him to stop by the church and listen to the choir. Eventually, he takes over as direct when the minister asks him to be cantor.
Now he isn’t your traditional choir director. He spends the first several lessons allowing the choir members to gain a joy of music and movement before ever trying to sing. It’s the musical equivalent of people falling into other peoples’ arms.
The film is less about music and has virtually nothing to do about religion.
Daniel becomes entwined in the lives of the various members.
There’s the beautiful girl who has her eye on Daniel. There is the woman whose husband regularly beats her and the pastor’s wife who finds solace in choir and discovers she can’t stand her sanctimonious husband.
The choir also has a mentally retarded young man who gets so into the music he forgets bathroom breaks and a heavyset individual who has put up with being called “fatso” all of his life.
The choir is accepted to perform in the annual “Let the Peoples Sing” competition in Innsbruck, Austria.
The minister, angry at his wife’s infatuation with Daniel and her love of the choir, fires him as cantor. So everyone wordlessly leaves the church choir and goes to Daniel’s schoolhouse home to continue practicing.
In Austria, the tensions Daniel hoped would be behind him come back because of the competition. He has another heart attack.
It is haunting, it is magical, this film is truly wonderful. At 132 minutes, it is not too long. It really could have gone on longer.
“As It Is in Heaven” is well worth a couple hours of your life. It is inspirational and you will care deeply about the people.

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
• Directed by Kay Pollak, written by Pollak, Anders Nyberg, Ola Olsson, Carin Pollak and Margaretha Pollak
• Stars Michael Nyqvist, Frida Hallgren and Helen Sjoholm,
• In Swedish with English subtitles
• Runtime 132 minutes
• 4 stars out of 5
• Not rated

Song of Sparrows

 ‘Song of Sparrows’ grabs
ahold of you, won’t let go

  Regent Releases
Reza Najie in "Song of the Sparrows."

“The Song of Sparrows” is a bit like the TV comedy “Senfeld.”
It isn’t really about anything. There isn’t a plot that grabs you and holds you.
It’s more watching the hapless life of a poor Iranian man, Karim, played by Reza Najie. Najie looks like a cross between Hershel Bernardi and William Bendix.
In some ways, he’s a marshmallow as he tries to assert his authority.
This is well illustrated at the beginning of the film. His daughter is deaf and will soon be taking exams. But for some inexplicable reason she is playing near an abandoned sewage pond and her hearing aide falls in.
All of the kids in the neighborhood are in the septic system, looking for it. Karim takes off his trousers and plunges in to supervise.
One child asks if there are snakes in the pond. Karim says no, after which we see a snake come straight at them and Karim moves faster than the children to get out of its way.
It’s the beginning of Karim’s problems. The hearing aide is ruined. Also, he works on an ostrich farm which provides for some fascinating footage. When one of the birds gets loose, Karim goes after the valuable creature. He wears ostrich feathers and holds an ostrich head on a stick to flush the bird out.
But it doesn’t work and Karim returns to his employer, afraid he will be fired. Yeah, he’s fired.
A poor man, he’s now faced with replacing his daughter’s hearing aide and finding work. Also, he’s not so tough. We see him on the roof of his house (the part that has a roof) holding an antennae. His kids tell him how to move until they get a good picture to watch “Tom and Jerry” cartoons. So there he sits in the same spot for the span of the program. No Dish Network for this family.
So Karim goes to Tehran to get the bad news about the hearing aide. If he wants a new hearing aide through a welfare program, he must wait four months. Otherwise, he must pay for a new one himself.
Leaving the hearing aide center, he’s surprised when a businessman jumps on the small motorcycle he is operating. Turns out having a motorcycle in Tehran is pretty lucrative as a taxi service.
This is a different world for Karim from what he is used to in rural Iran. But not only does he get plenty of taxi business, he picks up junk around town he takes home to be used at his house or the homes of neighbors.
Karim is enraged on his way home when he sees family members selling flowers to passing drivers. He screams, he hits, he kicks. But that’s after stopping his cycle and running across something like eight lanes of traffic to get to them. They shame him by making it look like he can’t provide.
It’s a different but fascinating culture. Where else can a man stop traffic by bowing down and praying? (He places his forehead on what looks like a checker while meditating.) The driver waits.
And when there’s a traffic tie up, we see kids selling newspapers and one little girl  dispensing incense to drivers, hoping for a tip. Try to find a scene like that in an American film.
There are some real unforgettable moments. Karim’s son and friends pool their money to buy fish they plan to raise and sell and become “millionaires.” But it was not to be. I won’t say what happens. See the movie to find out. But it is beautifully filmed.
There is an exploding film industry in Iran and Majid Majidi, the director of this film, is considered one of the best.
I was well impressed with this film, the beauty of the filmmaking, the mix of life, humanity, tragedy and comedy.
It is a real treasure and on so many levels.

SONG OF SPARROWS
• Directed by Majid Mamidi
• Written by Majid Majidi, Mehran Kashani
• In Persian with English subtitles
• Rated PG for brief, mild language
• Runtime: 96 minutes
• 4 stars out of 5

The Secret in Their Eyes

Mystery, romance in one great film

SOLEDAD VILLAMIL and Ricardo Darin in “The Secret in Their Eyes.”

“The Secret in Their Eyes” is an absorbing, enthralling drama, mystery, thriller and romance.
Released in 2009 from Argentina, the story relies heavily on flashbacks as it chronicles retired Argentinean federal justice agent Benjamin Esposito.
Ricardo Darin plays Esposito, who decides to write a novel based on his most unforgettable case, that of a woman who is raped and murdered.
Now when I say “write,” I mean “write.” He scrawls his prose across lined paper, trying to fictionalize this great story.
Despite it being fiction, Esposito seeks a truth and accuracy, if not downright closure on the case.
He decides to revisit his old boss, Irene Menendez-Hastings, played by Soledad Villamil, to discuss the case and gain her insight.
From there we slip from 1999 back to the mid 1970s, when Darin’s character has no gray in his beard and the Villamil character is new on the job.
Darin is moved, probably more than he expected, when he sees the body of the young victim at a murder scene.
He and his partner, Pablo Sandoval, played by Guillermo Francella, work tirelessly to solve the crime. How indeed do they determine who the killer is?
We watch as they pore through old albums of the victim in her younger years. In many pictures, there is a young man who can’t take his eyes off of her. The look is so intense and all-consuming, the investigators just know from that this must be the killer.
Javier Godino plays Isidoro Gomez, a soccer fan and possible cold-blooded killer and rapist.
At the time his identity is discovered, Gomez is out of the country.
The victim’s husband, Ricardo Morales, played by Pablo Rago, is a soft spoken individual who spends his afternoons after his bank job staking out train, plane and bus stations, hoping to find the individual who killed his wife.
Eventually, the suspect is caught, is tricked into confessing and goes to jail for life, at least that’s what Esposito has promised.
So it is an even bigger surprise when the convicted killer is released early because he helped authorities in even bigger cases.
What’s even more of a surprise is when Sandoval is brutally gun down.
The characters are well-drawn and multifaceted. Every move, every sentence brings new light to the situation. This is a well written and complete story with an excellent cast to go with it.
Nothing predictable here. The costumes, makeup and sets are to perfection as well. They add to the atmosphere.
At the autumn of the film, we see these characters nearing the end of their lives. The Morales character especially appears to have evolved and accepted his life and the death of his beloved wife years earlier.
Or so we assume.
Take nothing for granted in this film. If you think the movie is about to end with a Hollywood-type conclusion, think again. It continues to evolve.
“The Secret in their Eyes” is Argentina’s most viewed cinema since 1983. An American version is apparently in production.
Besides DVD and Blu-ray, it is available through Amazon Instant Video. It is more than worth its 129-minute runtime.

SECRET IN THEIR EYES • Directed by Juan Jose Campenella •Written by Eduardo Sacheri and Campenella •Runtime: 129 minutes •Rated R for a rape scene, violent images, some graphic nudity and language •In Spanish with subtitles •4 stars out of 5

Game Change

History comes alive in ‘Game Change’

HBO
ED HARRIS as John McCain and Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin in “Game Change.”

Whether you love or hate Sarah Palin, after you watch the HBO movie “Game Change,” about the 2008 McCain-Palin GOP ticket, you will discover you both love and hate her.
The film, with the uncanny Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin, is based on a book plus articles and interviews with people involved in that celebrated campaign to pull an upset and defeat then Sen. Barack Obama.
The Republicans saw Sen. John McCain as a great statesman and war hero. Obama, meanwhile, was a newcomer with little to show when it comes to accomplishments. Yet Obama stirred up crowds and gained in the polls.
So the McCain staff started looking at vice presidential possibilities to help get another aging white guy into the White House.
Woody Harrelson plays Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign coordinator, who decided instead of finding another aging, boring white guy for the ticket, it needs a game changer.
And how do you find a game changer? Why, by Googling various Republican female politicians. Some weren’t chosen because of ideological differences with McCain.
Then we switched to Palin, then the Alaskan governor, with her kids, looking like everyone's soccer mom, hauling her children about at a fair, talking to constituents by first name.
Then she got a telephone call and is whisked to Arizona and instantly we all like her. She's charming, she's humble, she is anxious to advance the Republican ticket. But she also has principles as she learns she is the top choice as vice presidential candidate .
At an event at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton she was unveiled as McCain's running mate and knocked one out of the park. It seems everyone can relate to her on multiple levels.
She is a smash at the Republican convention. McCain finds himself even with Obama. Life is good. For awhile.
Then the media starts digging up dirt, but even then we side with Palin. Questions are asked if the new baby is hers or her daughter's child. Yeah, it’s Palin’s because daughter is pregnant herself.
Then we discover Palin is ignorant of the political makeup of the world as well as history and geography. She gets a crash course on who our enemies were during World Wars I and II. She learns Queen Elizabeth is not the head of British government. She learns Iraq did not cause 9-11 and Korea isn't one country.
After she refused to prep for an interview on "The Today Show," she looks like a fool and blames others. Palin is suddenly less likable. She is hurt by “Saturday Night Live” parodies. She wants to do interviews with small Alaskan newspapers and demands to know how she is faring in her home state.
She is not above memorizing a series of facts to get through a debate with Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate who is considered a foreign policy expert.
But Palin, a terrific actress, ekes out good debate reviews by repeating those facts she memorized and dodging questions she doesn't have an answer for, then repeating those facts she memorized again.
Moore is dead-on as Palin and the real Schmidt describes the film as "an out of body experience" because it is so accurate.
The real Palin slammed the film, but then, she hadn't seen it.
It rivals "Apollo 13" in how real it feels relating to real events. We see Palin as a many-sided person, sometimes ready to crack up, other times feeling in total control.
Ed Harris plays McCain as a decent guy who wants to win with his ethics intact. After their loss, the McCain character realizes Palin will be a force to reckon with and warns her not to follow the Limbaughs and their ilk in the years ahead, a kind of foreshadowing of what has happened during this year’s campaign.
Moore especially becomes Palin and anyone who followed the 2008 race can feel the authenticity. This is a great, compelling film. It continues to be played on HBO and HBO On Demand will later be released to DVD.
If you enjoy politics, you will like this film. It is not a hatchet job on McCain or Palin or the Republican party by any means.
It is entertainment and education and excellence.

GAME CHANGE • Directed by Jay Roach • Written by Mark Haperin and Danny Strong • Not for young children because of language • Runtime: 2 hours • 5 stars out of 5

A Texas Funeral

A bit bizarre, ‘A Texas Funeral’ worth seeing

QUINTON JONES and Martin Sheen in "A Texas Funeral."

“A Texas Funeral” is not your average movie.
Some call it a comedy. Others a drama. Maybe. But it is definitely a fantasy.
The year is 1968. Lyndon Johnson is in the White House. There’s civil unrest throughout the country. Vietnam is raging.
And young Lil Sparta is coming face to face with the corpse of his grandfather, Sparta, in a sticky Texas funeral home. Lil Sparta is played by Quinon A. Jones. Grandpa is Martin Sheen.
Now Lil Sparta may live in Texas, but he doesn’t like death and guns at all. He isn’t happy when his parents urge him to go up and get close to granddaddy’s corpse.
But later, when everyone else leaves the room with the body, we see something a tad unusual. Sparta’s widow, played by Gracie Zabriskie of “Big Love” fame, goes up to the casket, pulls out a knife and hacks off her deceased mate’s ear. Then she licks it. Yes, this is a strange movie.
Lil Sparta observes this with the door ajar. In fact, Lil Sparta sees a lot with various doors ajar.
The family’s name is Whit and we later learn all of the men have ears that drive women wild.
Lil Sparta, after witnessing this, stops talking. Whether that is the reason he stops talking, I’m not sure. But he stops talking.
Now Quinton Jones, the Lil Sparta actor, was only 8 when he played this role and a part in an episode of “Texas Ranger” besides this. So if his acting ability is in question, not having to memorize many lines is probably a plus.
From the calling hours, the clan is off to the mental hospital to pick up Aunt Miranda, played by Joanne Whalley. She doesn’t seem too much zanier than the rest of the zany family.
So what else would your normal, Texas-living, ear-licking family have? Why a camel, of course. It’s Big Sparta’s camel. He comes from a long line of camel keepers. Their heads are posted about the barn.
How do we know about the family’s affinity for camels, dating back to the Civil War?
Why from the ghosts of Lil Sparta’s ancestors, whom he visits on the second floor of the barn.
The colorful characters all have stories to tell. And somehow, Grandpa the ghost still has his ear attached as a ghost.
This strange set of characters have dinner, build a coffin for the dying camel and square off over money issues.
A young, African-American who joins the family, learns his daddy was murdered by the Sheen character. Oh, you may think you know the circumstances behind the shooting, but you don’t. The answer to the mystery of the shooting decades earlier is more bizarre. Everything about this movie is bizarre.
Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.
Is that bad? Mmmm, not necessarily. You just sit wondering what will happen next. It’s sort of mesmerizing in its lunacy.
It’s definitely something different.
The least of the zaniness is the African-American character, played by Isaiah Washington, who has a romantic fling with crazy Aunt Miranda. OK, it’s 1960s, redneck Texas, but nobody objects. He kisses her in front of the whole clan, nobody cares.
There’s also another cousin, who also has a delicious ear, who can’t shoot, can’t fight. Heck, he can’t pound a nail. He adds to the craziness.
“A Texas Funeral” was released in 1999 and might be better viewed a big tipsy or after partaking in some other mind-altering substances.
Or not. I enjoyed it after imbibing in nothing stronger than Diet Vanilla Coke.

A TEXAS FUNERAL

• Directed and written by W. Blake Herron.
• Rated R for sexual content and some violence
• Runtime: 98 minutes
• 3 stars out of 5

Imaging Argentina

EMMA THOMPSON sits in her cell in “Imagining Argentina.”

‘Imagining Argentina’ needed concentration more on people

It’s a story about life in violent Argentina in the mid 1970s, where people often just “go missing.”
“Imagining Argentina” stars Antonio Banderas as a theater owner. His plays often include younger people. How they make money, I’m not sure.
Emma Thompson is his wife, Cecilia, a journalist whose writings include some criticism of the government.
As happens with many people during that time, she goes “missing.”
Her husband prints up flyers. He takes to the streets showing people her photo. He even goes to the government for help.
Now the Banderas character’s problems are not unique. Many people have missing relatives. Heck, during a public meeting to discuss the problem, government henchmen kidnap some of the people in attendance.
When Carlos’ play gets political, soldiers in attendance machine gun the front facade. Then they kidnap the meek, largely blameless theater manager.
Carlos also develops a gift, he can hold someone’s hand and describe the fate of a loved one.
One person escaped the bad guys and would soon reunite with family. Another doesn’t have such luck.
The plot is interesting enough, what with the political intrigue and all, so why are there long stretches of, well, boredom?
The Banderas character and his daughter, played by Irene Escolar, try to live as normal of a life as possible.
Meanwhile, we see the Thompson character being raped by soldiers, with the exception of one soldier who just doesn’t think it is right. But he stays, because he needs the job.
After the political theater, the government bullies don’t stop with the theater manager. Daughter stays with friends but decides to stay home with Daddy for just one night.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The bad guys go in and grab her and whisk her off to be reunited with her mother.
It isn’t that the captors have soft hearts. They now have a fresh, younger female to rape and torture.
One young, sadistic guard even decides Mom should decide who should rape daughter next. She’s not keen on the idea.
After long passages where little happens, it suddenly gets exciting.
But the ESP angle, the introduction of fantasy, sort of softens the impact of the story.
Then, after all of this brutality, we suddenly get a nice ending. Well, yes, it is a fantasy.
Somewhere in here is a good, thought-provoking movie about a brutal, nasty government and what it does to its citizens and how it impacts people.
The writers and producers apparently thought that wasn’t enough of a story line so they added more. Maybe they should have concentrated more on the people and who they were and what they were like and the end result.
Yes, I’m imaging a better movie.

IMAGINING ARGENTINA
• Directed by Christopher Hampton
• Written by Lawrence Thornton and Christopher Hampton
• Rated R for violence, torture and brief language
• Runtime: 107 minutes
• 2 1/2 stars out of 4