John H Armstrong

Goodbye Solo: A Stunning Film

Goodbye Solo is a work of deep feeling and human inspiration. Two men meet. One is a refugee from Sudan who drives a cab in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The other is an older white man who is despairing of life and has plotted out the day of his own death by suicide. Their crossroads is in a Deep South context where race is transcended by hope and love.

One man, the African named Solo, is filled with hope. He sees a better future and studies hard to make that come about. The other, William, is angry, defeated and hopeless. The problem is that Solo loves William and begins to do everything that he can to stop him from ending his life. (I will not give away the ending so you will have to search elsewhere, or better yet see the film, to find out!) This odd couple embarks on a journey, over the course of about three weeks, that will change them both in ways neither could have imagined before they met, by what is sheer chance.

The newly acclaimed filmmaker, Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart and Chop Shop), tells a powerful story that has received high praise from international critics. Roger Ebert calls Bahrani, "The new great American director." I concur.

Like so many human interest films that tell a really moving story well, sadly you would never find such a film on the big screens in our multiplex theaters. If you are moved by great stories of friendship, and by the struggle of hopeless people to deal with their own life and death, then you will be moved by this magnificent film. It surprises in ways that will delight those who love good film.

Children of Heaven: A Wonderful Children's Story

Rarely do movies touch my heart. At the best they produce emotions for a few moments but not of the variety that inspires and teaches in any lasting way. Such was not the case when I discovered the 1997 movie, Children of Heaven. I was not quite ready for the beauty and humaneness of such a children’s film. I guess I should know better by now. A children's movie can, and often does, tell a very adult story in a humble way. Roger Ebert says that this film is “a nearly perfect movie for children, and of course that means adults will like it too.” He is right on. Amazingly Children of Heaven accomplishes this with only two major characters, both Iranian children!

The writer and producer of Children of Heaven is Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi. Majidi began acting at the age of twelve. He enjoyed theater and later was afforded the opportunity to direct films. Children of Heaven prompts me to see more of his films as time allows. (I went to the Web, of course, to learn about other Majidi films. You will discover all you may desire to know about him in the same way.)

Children of Heaven is a beautiful story about Ali, an Iranian boy. This boy takes his sister’s shoes to be repaired and loses them on the way home when he stops in the market to buy vegetables. (A blind trash collector accidentally takes them, a point that comes out marvelously in a later scene.) Ali’s sister, Zhara, wants to know how she is supposed to go to school without her shoes. Ali begs her to not tell their parents and then promises to share his sneakers with her each day if she runs home in time to allow him to wear these same sneakers to school at a later time of day. The problem is that Zhara is often late and Ali, a good student and motivated boy, is in trouble with the principal.

There is a wonderful scene in the film where Ali and his father ride an old bicycle to the luxury homes where the rich live. The father has set out to find work as a gardener. When he arrives he is too shy to ring the buzzers at the security gates to ask for work. Ali comes to his rescue and the result is a great day for the whole family.

The movie ends with a marvelous foot race. Ali learns of this race and, through persistence with his teacher, gains the opportunity to qualify. When he finally runs the big race his goal is not to win but to finish third. Why? The third prize winner gets a new pair of shoes. Ali promises his sister he will win third place and give her the shoes. If I tell more at this point I will spoil the ending so. The story ends with a few visual twists that the viewer must carefully observe or you will easily miss the point.

Roger Ebert says that Children of Heaven “is about a home without unhappiness. About a brother and sister who love one another, instead of fighting. About a situation any child can identify with. In this film about Iran, I found a sweetness and innocence that shames the land of Mutant Turtles, Power Rangers and violent video games.” Ebert also said this film “lacks the cynicism and smart-mouthed attitudes of so much American entertainment for kids and glows with a kind of good-hearted purity.” Well said.

This film would have never been made in Hollywood. If it was it would cost several million dollars. It was filmed for an estimated $180,000 in Iran, subject to government censorship and involvement. The film includes subscripts, obviously. This is not a problem, even for children. Even non-reading children could watch it with older siblings or friends and listen to translation, which would prepare them to enjoy other foreign films as they grow older. To miss foreign films is to miss the beauty of some of the greatest film art in the world. Foreign films almost always develop character in ways that are rarely seen in Holly wood films that play in our theaters. Children of Heaven was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1998. It also won a number of prestigious awards in other film festivals and several different countries.

Given the way many of us in the West think about Iran these days one way we might gain a perspective on the way people actually live there would be to see a film like Children of Heaven. Children are clearly our greatest human treasure. We easily forget that Iran, a mortal enemy of the West politically is made up of millions of children that are not that unlike our children in the West. In this case “a little child may lead them” could be proved again to be a powerful truth.

District 9: The Sci-Fi Blockbuster

Rarely do I try to see a film on the weekend it opens. The reviews of the hugely District 9 prompted me to see it yesterday so I will offer a short review. Blockbusters with big explosions and thrilling scenes are all too rarely include the development of a real story with interesting characters. It seems Hollywood settled for spending its money on thrills and not storyline. But last year Batman: The Dark Knight and Iron Man both proved producers can tell a good story and produce a blockbuster at the same time. So far this year it has not been done but District 9 changes all of that in a pretty significant way.

The story here is interesting. The Chicago Tribune calls this "the world's first autobiographical alien apartheid film." That is a pretty good description. District 9 begins much like a modern documentary. A refugee aid camp built for aliens, who appear to have been stranded over Johannesburg nearly thirty year before, is not a problem. A massive resettlement program is underway and the effort is overseen by MNU (Multi-National Union). Unlike any alien invasion film I have ever seen this film looks at the prospect of aliens from the standpoint of how humans reacted to their appearance and tried to control them in the process. Humans looked for a surprise attack but none ever came. Now, decades later, District 9 is a terrible slum. Riots and violence reign and Johannesburg, and the world, are fearful.

The central person in the documentary is an MNU agent named Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlito Copley). He lands a big job and now must lead the effort to move 1.8 million aliens further away from the center of the city. Van De Merwe is a decent man and acts with compassion. He is a happily married man who loves his wife and wants to act with justice and mercy.

District 9 explores subjects like apartheid and race with some measure of care. Todd Hertz, a reviewer for Christianity Today, rightly says, "District 9 is not preachy. . . . instead, Blomkamp (director) simply takes the reality he knows, having grown up in the apartheid of Johannesburg, and places it within the absurd."

The big theme in District 9 is human depravity and evil. If we exploit humans what would we do to non-human aliens? The answer is graphic and sad. Rarely does a film present a case for believing in total depravity quite like District 9. There are moments when good rises to the occasion but more times than not people act like, well, people who are filled with fear and rage.

Though at first the aliens are a bit disgusting to watch they soon become believable in a surprising way. Like humans they have a dark side but they also have a tender side that lead them to simply want to go home. I kept thinking, "E. T. phone home" but that cute line doesn't quite work in District 9, though there is a small boy alien who wants to join his dad and jet back to where they came from.

This movie filled with intense action and incredible violence. It is not rated R for no reason. No children should see it. It has received almost all positive reviews from both the critics and ordinary viewers. I felt it was the first really good big-budget action thriller of the year. It is not in the same class as Batman: Dark Knight but it is well worth seeing.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker is as full of passionate suspense as any movie I have seen in years. It is an edge-of-your seat portrait of real military courage under fire. No horror film, or apocalyptic thriller, will grip you the way The Hurt Locker does. The heroes in this extraordinary film are the technicians of an Army bomb squad. These men volunteer to challenge the odds, which are clearly life and death, in order to save lives. They just happened to do this in Iraq in 2004, which at the time was one of the world’s most dangerous places.

The story revolves around James, a new sergeant, and two guys named Sanborn and Eldridge, his subordinates. These three men are members of the Army’s elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad. They have been trained to fight insurgents while they seek out and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad. Their mission is clear—protect civilians and American troops from the bombs which are detonated by various devices, including cell phones. The margin of error for these three men, and the rest of their team, is zero. This is especially true for the daredevil James, who seems to relish the dramatic.

How does combat impact relationships and what are the dangers on the human psyche? The Hurt Locker explores these, and other very difficult questions. This makes it the finest war movie that I may have ever seen. Yes, I really mean it. This film is amazing. It grips, moves and squeezes you more powerfully than Saving Private Ryan. Amazingly it features no big no name stars and a great number of hand held camera shots. Mix in a great deal of amazingly real dialog. I am told that the story is based on the first-hand observations of journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal, who was embedded with a special bomb unit in Iraq. The end result is fiction but it is fiction that the viewer soon realizes tells a very true story.

The director Kathryn Bigelow brings together groundbreaking realistic action and intimate human drama in what is a gripping film. One reviewer writes: “With a visual and emotional intensity that makes audiences feel like they have been transported to Iraq's dizzying, 24-hour turmoil, The Hurt Locker is both a tense portrayal of real-life sacrifice and heroism, and a probing look at the soul-numbing rigors and potent allure of the modern battlefield.”

I saw no evidence in this movie of a political perspective. The viewer is not pushed to decide how you must feel about Iraq. This story would work in any combat setting regardless of the war. There is no America bashing here nor are there full scale displays of patriotism. What you see is a moving human portrait of men doing some amazing work in a war zone that few of us understand. Another reviewer wrote: “The film doesn’t really have a conventional plot. Instead, the story is built around the last 38 days the three men in the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad have remaining in their Iraq rotation.”

The Hurt Locker is truly one of the most intense films I have seen in years. I was transfixed. I left the megaplex theater deeply moved by what I just experienced. This is not for children or the squeamish. If you can handle intensity then I recommend you see The Hurt Locker as soon as possible. If this movie does not win Academy Award then something is positively wrong with the process. The Hurt Locker is rated “R” for war violence and language.

Les Choristes: A Tender French Film

Foreign films are generally produced on small budgets. They also succeed in frequently telling great stories. Every year I watch for the five nominees for best foreign films from the Golden Globe Awards and Academy Awards. Most of these five films prove to be rich in texture and character acting. This is the case with a lovely little 2004 French film called Les Choristes (The Chorus). Les Choristes is a post-World War II film of nostalgia, optimism and authenticity. This gentle drama, nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, is from first-time French director Christophe Barratier. It features a music teacher named Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot) who lands a job at a boys' boarding school populated by delinquents and orphans. The performance by leading actor Barratier is nuanced and very properly low-key. The school, run by a martinet headmaster (Francois Berleand), is a place for misfits and losers.  Sensing potential in these rambunctious ruffians Mathieu forms a choir to rein in his charges through the transforming power of song. He knows his actions will likely end his career but he presses on courageously.

Clement Mathieu demonstrates some of the greatest virtues: love, patience and self-discipline. The boys initially attack him mocking his efforts and demeanor. He refuses to attack the boys back but applies large doses of tender love joined with justice when rightly needed. The result is radical change in most of the boys. The story is told from the perspective of two boys who are reunited many years after their time at the dreary boarding school. The opportunity to reflect on how their lives were changed by this one great teacher leads them to consider how powerful Mathieu’s influence really was in shaping their lives.

Les Choistes fits the category of American film like Mr. Holland’s Opus and Music of the Heart. It is simple, powerful and very fun film to watch. I recommend it to you if you like a great story and enjoy films that show the power of love in shaping children into productive and happy adults.

The Taking of Pelham 123: Denzel vs. John

The Taking of Pelham 123, so named because of a subway train in New York city, is a summer action film that stars two of the biggest names in the business: Denzel Washington and John Travolta. Many reviewers, besides not liking the plot all that much, have made a great deal out of Denzel and John starring in the same film.

The plot is basic. It revolves around the taking of a New York subway train, with hostages, in an elaborate scheme in which the hostage taker (Travolta) meets a subway supervisor (Washington). The hostage taker negotiates with the supervisor and then they end up meeting him face-to-face in the last half hour or so of the film. (I will not spoil the plot entirely but it is predictable, very predictable!)

Every single hostage movie cliché seems to have made its way into this script. (There was an earlier version of this film in 1974, which I admit I have not seen but many think is much better than this version.) Here we have a brave passenger, who gives up his life to save another passenger, as well as the worried wife of an unlikely hero (Denzel). Then there are the bad guys with the usual bad guy motives. The whole story seems to plod along and end up exactly where you “know” it will go.

The director, Tony Scott, uses quick and unusual camera shots. Some were very off-putting to me. I have not seen a lot of Tony Scott’s work but I find his style visually distracting. One weekend review said of Tony Scott’s style: “It is also possible that since the story was so weak, the camera effects did nothing but emphasize it even more.”

The real buzz here is Denzel Washington vs. John Travolta. Some loved seeing the two side-by-side and some hated it. Many critics find Travolta less than convincing in his role. I personally like both men as actors but Denzel, for my money, is maybe the most gifted male actor of our time. He wears well and still seems to be able to play almost any role in a convincing and appealing way. I think he nails this role, which is why I enjoyed a movie that I found filled with major flaws. Travolta is not as dynamic but I think he does a better than average job as the bad guy, especially in the last twenty minutes or so.

Denzel has that rare ability to make you really get into his character. And his speaking skills, diction and delivery are superb, line-for-line, in almost every instance. Denzel really gets the hero role in this movie. I enjoy him in such a role. (I even like him when he is a bad guy.)

Actors who play the bad guy role clearly have a tougher sell. They must not only convince us that their character is credible but they must prompt us to identify with them at some emotional level. I felt nothing for Travolta’s character, not even contempt. This may be the result of a bad script but the actor didn’t add a lot to make himself reach the audience at any human level.

The Taking of Pelham 123 is not a great movie! It is another “summer flick” for fun, thus I enjoyed it. I did not expect a great movie going in but I hoped I would still enjoy it. I did and thus found it completely entertaining, something that has its own value now and then.

Terminator Salvation

The Terminator trilogy fulfilled the role of good action flicks wonderfully, at least the first two. Who could ever forget the famous Arnold line: “I’ll be back!” And the first two movies had some pretty compelling human drama woven into intense, fun action. When Arnold gave a scorched thumbs up sign to his friend John Connor as he sacrificed himself for humanity I was moved like many others I know. These films employed science fiction in a way that demonstrated the clear difference between humans and robots: human’s have a heart. As Christianity Today’s reviewer put it: “What makes humans different from terminators? What makes them similar? Are humans' fates as programmed as the actions of their robot enemies? Terminators are trained to kill, but why do humans kill?”

Terminator Salvation does not deliver at all. It will not inspire or move you. That’s too bad because the action and special effects are drop dead great! The robots do rock. They even make a 1991-era Arnold appear in this movie, along with an amazingly huge robot that blows you away. If you want to enjoy what the critics  call a “popcorn flick” then you might enjoy Terminator Salvation. The specials effects do deliver the big blow in this summer screen event.

But Terminator Salvation disappoints when it comes to narration and the human story it could have developed. (I mean, the human race is under attack and might not survive.) The movie just falls flat, and almost from the beginning. It never recovers, even by the end. John Connor may save the human race but who will save John Connor? Even the Fox TV series, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I watched for the past two seasons, had a great deal more human emotion and feeling in it than this new movie.

Unless you just want an evening out, and the chance to see a big new sci-fi fun film, without a great deal of feeling or real plot, you can afford to miss Terminator Salvation. I didn’t expect a lot going in thus I wasn’t too disappointed.

The Wisdom of Doc Holliday

Readers know that I love film and visual art. One of my favorite Westerns is Tombstone (with Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday). Tombstone tells the story of only one segment of Wyatt's illustrious life (a span of only a few years) but it includes the role of his two brothers and the infamous Doc Holliday, Wyatt's true-blue friend.

Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) was an honest-to-goodness law man. He was also a farmer, buffalo-hunter, gambler, miner, saloon keeper and boxing referee. The Earp legend appears to be mostly real, at least in the broad strokes. Maybe this is why so many books and movies have been made about Wyatt.

He is best known for the famous shoot-out at the O.K. Corral, where Doc Holliday and his brothers, Virgil and Morgan Earp, were also involved. To put it mildly his status in the American West is iconic, especially because of the incident(s) surrounding Tombstone, Arizona, and the O. K. Corral.

Tombstone (1993) is a superb movie, as I noted. In many ways it is the best Earp movie. The other modern film on Wyatt Earp, stars Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp and Dennis Quaid as Doc Holliday It is simply titled: Wyatt Earp (1994). I recently watched them both. (I had seen Tombstone back in the 1990s when it came out.) There are so many lines in the script of both films that are memorable that one could go on and on citing good ones. But in Wyatt Earp (1994) Doc Holliday has a line that I remember to this day. He says, when the guys face a real dilemma and a situation that has put them what appears to be a hook (dilemma): "There is no hook my friend, only what we do."

Too often people appeal to the difficulty of a situation and try to "get off the hook" in the process. Doc Holliday, at least as the script put it, got it right when he said there "is no hook, only what we do." We will be measured, and someday judged, for what we do, not for the hooks we get on or off in this life. Just remember, Doc Holliday said so!

Star Trek: A Popular Movie That Actually Lives Up to the Reviews

I saw Star Trek last evening. It was pure fun. I would not call it a "great" movie but I did enjoy it. I am not a "Trekkie" and yet I had some sense of the old series and the basic characters and story line. Who can ever forget the pop cultural line: "Beam me up Scottie." And the Starship Enterprise is truly cool. I love the battles, action and "future oriented" stuff.

Rotten Tomatoes almost never gives a film a plus-90% rating that gets a hundred-plus reviews or more on opening weekend. Well, Star Trek had 96% when I last checked it last night. It doesn't have a great storyline, or even great acting for that matter, but it was well worth the time to relax and see a very good science fiction film. The language is a bit offensive but by today's cultural standards quite tame. I would not take small children (I saw a few and they were bored anyway) but most who are twelve or older would enjoy it unless they simply do not like this kind of film.

Something the Lord Made

The finest made-for-television film that I have seen in 2009 has to be the HBO production Something the Lord Made (2004). It is the dramatic story of two men—one a wealthy white chief surgeon, the other a poor black lab technician from Tennessee. Together, as a remarkable and inseparable team, they achieved a monumental medical breakthrough. One, the white surgeon, received international accolade when he became the first surgeon to operate on the human heart. (The title comes from the response of some clergy, who argued that the heart should never be operated on since it had an unusual place as the seat of the soul.) The second man in the story, an African-American with nothing but a high school diploma and apprentice type training as a carpenter, excelled all expectations to become the vital assistant to the famous Dr. Blalock. (Thomas and Blalock met in Nashville when Blalock began his career at Vanderbilt University Medical School.) But Vivien Thomas learned again and again the painful lessons of racism and unequal opportunity that existed in the 1940s and 50s. 

Working in 1940s Baltimore at the prestigious John Hopkins University Medical School on an unprecedented technique for performing heart surgery on "blue babies," Dr. Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman) and lab tech Vivien Thomas (Mos Def) formed a truly impressive team. When Thomas walked out, realizing he would never gain the respect that he so wanted (and the income he needed for his young family), Blalock was never the same. After searching for a place to gain respect and opportunity Thomas returned to Johns Hopkins to work with Blalock for the rest of his life. (Blalock died in 1964.) Thomas learned surgical techniques by instinct and sheer ability, through working on lab animals as a research technician. In time he actually became a contributing surgeon, without title, degree or license.

The medical advance these two men worked on was astounding as they sought to solve problems that are now seen as easily solved in most major hospitals in America. In fact, over 1.75 million heart surgeries are performed in America every year. Some of you who read this blog have experienced longevity, and even new quality of life, precisely because of these two amazing pioneers. My Webmaster, Sean McCallum, received a new heart nearly two decades ago (as a young teen) and is, thankfully, very well to this day. When most of us think of heart surgery and the pioneers we think of Dr. Michael DeBakey (1908–2008) or Dr. Denton Cooley (b. 1920). I always knew them as the great pioneers of modern heart procedures. (Cooley was actually a student in the operating theater when Blalock performed his first "blue baby" surgery.)

The real history is different and much more interesting than we know. It was really Blalock and Thomas who were the pioneers in this very recent field of medicine—saving thousands of lives in the process. But social pressures threatened continually to undermine their collaboration and to tear their friendship apart. In the end they both made history and, finally, both got the credit they deserved, with Thomas’ respect and honor coming late in his life. This film tells their truly amazing story. I highly recommend it. You can get it through a library loan or on NetFlix if you are a subscriber. (Most film lovers are NetFlix users.)

Besides Alan Rickman and Mos Def the movie features Mary Stuart Masterson, Gabrielle Union, Charles Dutton and Kyra Sedgwick. It is directed by Joseph Sargent and was written by Peter Silverman and Todd Philips. It runs 110 minutes. Though a low-budget film Something the Lord Made is a superb story, again proving that great stories can be told on film without huge cash investment. Someone should learn this but I guess the all-American blockbuster is now the gold standard since it is these films that gross huge sums of money when they make it big in the popular culture.

Don’t kid yourself. Culture is not what ultimately matters in Hollywood, left or right. “Show me the money,”  might be written over every production company president’s desk somewhere. Thankfully there are companies like HBO, and independent film companies that abound, that will produce such films.