|
Ron, Harry and Hermoine confer in the Hogwarts’ dining hall. © 2009 Warner Brothers
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Rated R. Director David Yates. Warner Brothers. Running Time: 2 :30
David Yates, director of the previous Harry Potter film, and the talented cast return to bring us a rousing cinematic version of the sixth of J.K. Rowling’s books.
This episode begins as a series of deadly attacks by Voldemort’s death eaters spill over into the Muggle world, resulting in the destruction of London’s Millennium Bridge (one of many exciting special effects scenes). Headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) enlists the help of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) to help lure Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), a former Hogwarts professor, back to the school. Then he commissions the reluctant Harry to find out about Slughorn’s decades-earlier relationship with Tom Riddle, the disturbed, orphaned student who became Lord Voldemort.
With students under attack by Voldemort’s forces, Hogwarts is no longer a colorful, cheerful place. The private lives of our now mid-adolescent trio becomes more complicated as their hormones rage. Harry seems interested in several girls, and vice versa, but confesses his true feelings in a time of crisis. Ron (Rupert Grint), his ego inflated by his great success in defending Gryffindor’s goal during the quiddich matches, easily succumbs to the wiles of the pursuing Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave), which fuels Hermoine’s (Emma Watson) jealousy.
After a series of rousing adventures (some of them tragic), the film ends on a much quieter note than the sixth book with climactic elements omitted, apparently to be part of the next film. (The producers have announced that there will be two more Harry Potter films, which should do justice to the series’ lengthy final book.)
The film’s muted photography matches the book’s dark mood. The most colorful scenes are the action-packed quiddich matches in which the Gryffindor team’s red robes seem especially bright when compared to the stark blacks and blues prevalent in most other scenes. Some say that the darkness and violent action overshadow the humor found in previous films, but it’s still there. One just has to listen.
As with previous films in the series, this one imparts to viewers, young and old, lessons of the power of love, courage, and faithful friendship — not bad for a film bound to lure millions of fans to the theaters this summer. Children and youth leaders should have a great time discussing it with their groups, as well as parents and grandparents.
Public Enemies
Rated R. Director Michael Mann. Universal Pictures. Running Time: 2:30
Dillinger's gang uses bank customers as human shields. © 2009 Universal PicturesDirector Michael Mann’s well-made crime thriller affords an opportunity to reflect upon our celebrity-obsessed culture and the role the media plays in our lives. The film gives a romanticized take on Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and the FBI agent in pursuit of him, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). The emphasis, however, is upon the criminal, as we see nothing of the lawman’s personal life.
Both Dillinger and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover gain from media coverage. Dillinger becomes a folk hero because of the public’s disdain for banks. Many regard greedy bankers as a major cause of the loss of their life savings. Hoover, on the other hand, seeks to build up his federal police force against formidable congressional opposition. He designates Dillinger “Public Enemy No. 1,” attempting not only to elicit the public’s help to catch the robber, but also to establish public support to strengthen the bureau. To lead the pursuit, Hoover selects photogenic agent Melvin Purvis, who becomes quite a public figure in his own right.
Dillinger, taking advantage of the relatively new “Tommy gun” and the mobility of the automobile, seems unstoppable. He and his gang strike fast and hard, brutally bashing or shooting bank guards, then speeding out of town to strike again in another location. Even when captured, no jail seems capable of holding them.
On the other hand Purvis’s team come off as tragic Keystone Cops. Thinking they have Dillinger’s gang cornered, they instead shoot two Civilian Conservation Corps workers out for an evening of relaxation. The real gang members, alerted by the commotion, escape. Only after Purvis improves his team by importing some gun-savvy Western lawmen does the tide begin to change.
For the most part the script stays close to the facts, although it does not include Dillinger’s second girlfriend, whom he met after the capture and imprisonment of his first love, Billie Frechette.
Public Enemies’ release comes as our society again shows contempt for greedy bankers and financiers, and as the media lionizes the life of the late Michael Jackson while minimalizing the charges of pedophilia and drug abuse, the latter of which sadly may have caused the talented performer’s untimely end. The words of the preacher in Ecclesiastes 2:9–11 might well apply to both Dillinger and Jackson:
So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
UP
Rated PG. Directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson. Walt Disney/Pixar. Running Time: 1 hour 29 min.
Carl says Goodbye to the old neighborhood, unaware that a boy is marooned on his porch.
© 2009 Walt Disney/Pixar This delightful fantasy, the 10th film from Pixar, is a blessing to young and old looking for film fare that stirs the imagination and thrills the spirit. Pixar does not seem capable of producing a mediocre film, not to mention a bad one, as witnessed by last year's WALL-E.
Like that film there is a sequence near the beginning of UP that provides us with the backstory of why the elderly Carl is so sad and grumpy. He lives alone in the house once shared with his wife, Ellie. They had wanted to go to Paradise Falls in South America for an adventure, but put it off until it was too late. Ellie fell ill and died, leaving Carl alone with his memories and an empty scrapbook meant to contain mementos of their trip.
When chubby Russell, a Boy Explorer out to earn a “Help the Elderly badge,” comes to his door, Carl orders him to get lost. His rickety old house is surrounded by high rises, the builder of which is eager to have Carl sent to a retirement home so that he can buy up his property. However, Carl, once a balloon salesman, has other plans.
Tying thousands of large, helium-inflated balloons to his house, Carl lifts off, and floats high above the city toward South America. Then comes a surprising knock on his door. It is the persistent Russell, who will not take “no” for an answer, but is scared out of his wits as he gazes toward the receding ground far below from the porch where he is now marooned.
Thus begins a series of wild adventures and, eventually, a friendship between the old man and the boy. Each learns what is most important to them in life. Russell helps the old man discern that his house is not his real treasure (a lesson familiar to Sermon on the Mount readers), and Carl bestows upon the neglected boy the care denied him at home. Each also discovers that the mundane things of daily life are more important than thrilling adventures, something too easily overlooked.
A truly great film that should be shared by young and old!
—Ed McNulty
Easy Virtue
Rated PG-13. Directed by Stephan Elliott. Sony Pictures Classics. Running Time: 1 hour 35 min.
Brash American Larita is in love with John, scion of an aristocratic British family.
© 2009 Sony Picture Classics Although it starts out like a drawing-room comedy from the 1920s or 30s, this film, based on an early Noel Coward play, turns out to be a poignant tale of love and honesty versus class snobbery and hypocrisy.
It begins with a young couple enjoying each other’s company as they motor toward one of those huge British country homes out of a host of Merchant-Ivory films.
The woman is Larita (Jessica Biel), a famous American racing car driver. Her new husband, John Whittaker (Ben Barnes), is heir-apparent to the family title and estate. Slightly older than John, Larita had been intent on her sports career, but was smitten by the handsome, young Englishman, and rashly accepted his marriage proposal.
Waiting apprehensively for their arrival are John’s mother, Veronica (Kristin Scott Thomas), his father, Jim (Colin Firth), and his two sisters. Veronica, certain that the American snagged her son just for his wealth (which is in jeopardy anyway) and title, is determined to bring the marriage to an end. She would prefer that John marry into money and help solve the family’s financial woes.
What follows includes a battle of wills between the two strong women and a series of humorous mishaps. In one of the latter, Larita, alone in the library, sits down on Veronica’s lap dog, and then, with the help of sympathetic servants, tries to hide the pooch’s body in the garden. Vernonica’s opinion of Larita as a woman of “easy virtue” is not helped when the family comes upon John and Larita making love in the hay shed.
Jim, on the other hand, thinks Larita is a breath of fresh air, bringing sparkle to their dull lives. In a poignant moment he reveals the source of his deep depression: all the men he commanded in World War I died on the battlefield.
The film is filled with zingy lines that sometimes mask the pain and envy. The best one, however, is Jim quoting Voltaire: “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.” Now that's something worth thinking about.
This engaging tale of human folly and love is showing mainly at art house theaters. You might have to await its release on DVD before you can see it, but it is well worth the wait!
—Ed McNulty
|
