Secret Agent Gal Movie Reviews

Hugo: Scorsese salutes cinema, childhood in rich adventure

 

“Come and dream with me,” invites Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s first children’s fantasy and tribute to the cinema. Now playing, it’s also the director’s first foray into 3-D.

An adventure filled with wonder and victory over adversity, Hugo stars Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) as an orphan who lives above a Paris train station in the 1930s. The boy faithfully keeps every clock running since the death of his father (Jude Law) and the disappearance of his drunken Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone).

The Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) spies the 12-year-old who lifts croissants and toys. There’s nothing the Inspector likes less than orphans disrupting the bustling terminal. He and his Dalmatian give chase. In one scene, Hugo dangles from the hand of a huge clock to escape capture.

Like a Charles Dickens novel, Hugo is rich with detail, sound and color. Flywheels, gears and gizmos fill the boy’s world. The maze above the station allures and fascinates. From the tower, Hugo can see and hear the grown-ups below. He can go almost anywhere. Alone, he gazes out over Paris rooftops and sees the Eiffel Tower.

Hugo’s heart beats for a steel man called the Automaton. It was his father’s prized possession. If Hugo can find the heart-shaped key to wind it up, the device will spring to life. He’s sure that one last message from his father lies within the gleaming contraption.

Hugo’s adventure really begins when he tries to pinch spare parts from a stern toymaker Pappa Georges (Ben Kingsley). Pappa is so unhappy that you’ll wonder about his secret grief, and want to help. Furious, he seizes Hugo’s precious notebook filled with drawings.

Pappa’s goddaughter Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz of Diary of a Wimpy Kid) befriends Hugo. Warmth grows as they explore the station and visit a bookshop. One day they talk about movies. Hugo’s father took him to the cinema every week. Isabelle has never seen a movie, she says. Pappa forbids it.

Ambition is good in movies, as is story and fully realized characters. Just when I began to care about Hugo and Isabelle, the focus shifted. The tone changed from drama to slapstick.

Hugo is really two films. A tale of adversity and hope turns into an homage to the cinema. The boy’s story fades into the background. The movie is still magical, but turns too complex for young children.

Impeccable cinematography by Robert Richardson (Inglourious Basterds; Shutter Island) and fabulous sets from Dante Ferretti (Shutter Island; Gangs of New York) create an intricate world of wonder.

The script by The Aviator’s John Logan tries to cover too much. It’s adapted from Brian Selznick’s novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Characters come alive just briefly. A flower girl Lisette (Emily Mortimer) captures the heart of the Inspector. An elderly café patron (Richard Griffiths) woos a woman (Frances de la Tour) with a flighty pet dog. A bookseller Monsieur Labisse (Christopher Lee) gives Hugo a gift.

Mama Jeanne (Helen McCrory) sternly forbids Hugo and Isabelle to speak of Pappa’s past, or to investigate it. This is a clue that his secret must be wonderful indeed.

A film historian (Michael Stuhlbarg of A Serious Man) meets the children. Finally, Pappa Georges and Mama Jeanne can no longer hide the truth.

You’ll see anew pioneering films like the Lumiere Brothers’ 1895 short The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station. Also featured is Georges Melies’ 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon, where a rocket pierces the eye of the Man in the Moon.

CGI is used with whimsy and restraint to enhance these classics. The making of these movies is reenacted. I felt deep appreciation for early films and filmmakers.

Kingsley is masterful as brooding, heartbroken Pappa Georges. Moretz is especially engaging as Isabelle. Butterfield seems lost at times but lives up to his resourceful character. Cohen fascinates as the driven, precise Inspector who becomes a hero.

Scorsese promotes film preservation, a cause he deeply cherishes, in the movie’s second half. As important as this effort is, I’m not sure it belongs in Hugo. I felt startled at one point by a line straight out of a public service announcement: “Time hasn’t been kind to old movies.”

While the 3-D effects are lovely, you’ll need to wear those dark glasses to see them. For some, the darker screen diminishes the joy of watching a kids’ film.

For all its spectacle, the film never shakes a mechanical chill. The story steams along and jumps the track. Like the Automaton, Hugo needed a bit more tinkering. (4 out of 5 stars)

If you like Hugo, you might enjoy:  Super 8; X-Men: First Class; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

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Hugo     2011  /  PG  /  2 hours, 6 min

Cast Overview:  Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer, Helen McCrory, Christopher Lee, Michael Stuhlbarg, Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, Jude Law 

Director:  Martin Scorsese

Genre:  Adventure, Drama, Family, Fantasy

 

The Descendants: Clooney braves hell in paradise - 5 stars

Crisis breaks George Clooney’s heart open in The Descendants, a family movie where deepening tragedy is touched by gentle humor and grace.

Hawaii’s no paradise for Matt King (Clooney), a real estate lawyer whose wife Liz (Patricia Hastie) lies in a coma after a waterskiing accident. “Hell, I haven’t been on a surfboard for 15 years,” he gripes.

Matt has been busy earning a living. He also serves as trustee of his family’s 25,000 pristine acres on Kauai’s South Shore.

Clooney is intelligent, vulnerable and charming as “the back-up parent, the understudy” who now must step up for his daughters. Alex (Shailene Woodley) is an angry 17-year-old who finds compassion. Scottie (Amara Miller) is a tender, volatile 10-year-old eager to grow up.

Director Alexander Payne weaves the trouble in paradise theme into a personal journey that embraces family and community. With satisfying plot twists, the story shows Matt, Alex and Scottie begin to live more from the heart, and less from the mind.

When Alex tells her dad that Liz was cheating on him, horror and disbelief are accompanied by upbeat ukulele music. He dons his flip-flops and runs to a neighbor’s house to find out “who my wife was … seeing.”

Elizabeth is never going to wake up, Matt learns. He must transform his own pain and sorrow, and guide his daughters through their impending loss. Sometimes falling flat as a parent, he perseveres. He genuinely loves his girls.

Urging extended family and friends to say goodbye to Liz, Matt hatches a plan. He and Alex track down Elizabeth’s lover, realtor Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard). They discover the unexpected. Matt confronts Brian.

Clooney’s fully dimensional character is wounded but spunky. He reveals our own foibles and makes us laugh at them. It’s an impressive progression for the actor, who played a “termination specialist” in Up in the Air; a repentant assassin in The American, and an escaped con in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Matt presides over motley relatives who vote to sell the family land. Hippie cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges) urges him on. Among the bidders are a ritzy condo chain and a Hawaiian developer. A local mother asks Matt not to move forward with the sale.

Hawaii is a land of natives and newcomers, of privilege and struggle. Matt’s ancestors were among the islands’ first white settlers. Surveying the family photos on his office wall, you realize that his actions reflect on all of them, including a Hawaiian princess by marriage.

Woodley (The Secret Life of the American Teenager) is memorable as rebellious Alex. Slowly she begins to accept her dad and take better care of herself. Nick Krause is engaging as Alex’s dude friend Sid. Matt must come to terms with Sid and see him as more than a loser. It’s one way he learns to grow as a father.

The excellent cast includes Judy Greer, heart-tugging as Brian’s wronged wife Julie. Robert Forster plays Elizabeth’s belligerent father.

Payne last directed the film Sideways (2004). He’s also known for Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt. His next project is a father-son drama Nebraska.

Payne, along with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, wrote the first-rate script based on Kaui Hart Hemmings’ novel. Cinematography by Phedon Papamichael and editing by Kevin Tent marry drama and comedy. Voiceovers, so easy to overdo, are well executed as Clooney delivers choice observations.

“My family seems exactly like an archipelago, always drifting apart,” Matt observes. By the end of The Descendants, Matt, Alex and Scottie achieve wholeness.

If you like The Descendants, you might enjoy:  Win Win; The American; Up in the Air.

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The Descendants    2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 55 min

Cast Overview:  George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Nick Krause, Amara Miller, Mary Birdsong, Rob Huebel, Patricia Hastie 

Director:  Alexander Payne

Genre:  Dramedy, Drama, Family

 

Janie Jones: Abigail Breslin sings, uplifts band drama - 3 stars

Abigail Breslin can sing. In Janie Jones, Breslin’s voice and fresh, unaffected performance add soul to the road indie. David M. Rosenthal writes and directs the semiautobiographical drama.

Breslin (Oscar nominated for her supporting role in Little Miss Sunshine) is remarkable as Janie, the 13-year-old no one wants. She gets dropped off with her rock singer dad Ethan Brand (Alessandro Nivola) while her mom Mary Ann Jones (Elisabeth Shue), a former groupie, begins meth rehab.

Ethan didn’t even know he had a daughter. The sensitive chemistry between Breslin and Nivola (an accomplished musician who starred in Junebug) grows as Ethan’s career declines. He drinks heavily. The group begins to break up.

Ethan hears Janie playing and singing a folk-y ballad one day. Cautious at first, he warms to fatherhood.

The duo sings well. Irish singer-songwriter Gemma Hayes wrote the songs performed by Breslin. One of the ballads, Fight For Me, has been released. Eef Barzelay of the band Clem Snide wrote Nivola’s tunes.

The two develop camaraderie. “You look like sh-t,” she tells him. “You tell the truth, I like that,” he replies. Ethan decides to go solo. He invites Janie to join him on stage.

As Ethan takes more responsibility for his life, he slowly heals. When he acknowledges Janie as his daughter on stage, it’s a great film moment.

The band drama is a long cliché of swearing, drinking, drugs and one night stands. The first half is especially trite as the action lags. Finesse and originality were needed.

Ethan is arrested one night when he beats up an audience member flirting with Janie. His daughter hocks his guitar to bail him out. Ethan’s manager Sloan (Peter Stormare) remains a trusted friend even after he leaves the singer.

Finally Ethan must visit his mother Lily to ask for a loan. Frances Fisher is great as the Chicago socialite meeting her granddaughter for the first time.

Breslin, now 15, performs with a friend in the pop-rock/retro band CABB. In her next movie, New Year’s Eve, she plays Sarah Jessica Parker’s troubled daughter.

If you like Janie Jones, you might enjoy:  Crazy Heart; Somewhere.

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Janie Jones    2010  /  NR  /  1 hour, 46 min

 

Cast Overview: Abigail Breslin, Elisabeth Shue, Alessandro Nivola, Brittany Snow, Peter Stormare, Frank Whaley, Frances Fisher

Director:  David M. Rosenthal

Genre:  Indie, Drama, Music

 

 

Footloose: good date flick falls short of classic - 3 stars

 

See it for the dancing. Footloose (2011) updates the story of teen dance revolt in a small town. Craig Brewer’s faithful remake falls short of the original. Here’s how the two movies compare.

Ren MacCormack (now Kenny Wormald, who danced backup for Justin Timberlake; then Kevin Bacon in a breakout role) arrives in rural Bomont, where public dancing has been banned.

The preacher’s wild daughter Ariel (Dancing With the Stars’ Julianne Hough now; Lori Singer then) has a boyfriend. Handsome, smart and outspoken Ren catches her eye.

Exploding with energy and angst, the high school crowd rocks at the Hi-Spot. There they avoid cops and parents.

Dancing was outlawed after a car crash killed five teens, including the Rev. Shaw Moore’s son. As a result, he overprotects his daughter and sternly supervises the townsfolk. Rev. Shaw decries “this obscene rock-and-roll music, with its gospel of easy sexuality and relaxed morality.''

Pros and Cons:

The dance choreography is very similar in both movies. The remake is updated and features more dancing. Wormald performs the solo angry dance in a warehouse. Bacon did most of his own dancing, but had a double perform flips and complex moves.

Musically, updates of original songs like Kenny Loggins’ Footloose don’t always recapture burning passion.

Acting. Bacon aches as a high school senior desperate to break out and celebrate. He’s more understated and convincing than Wormald overall. Both deliver a great speech to the Town Council as Ren argues for the right to dance.

Hough and Singer are both moving. Miles Teller is great as Ren’s loyal friend Willard, an earnest dance clutz. The late Chris Penn played Willard in 1984. Ariel’s belligerent boyfriend Chuck Cranston (Patrick John Flueger now, Jim Youngs then) remains a jerk.

As preacher, Lithgow is passionate and moving, while Dennis Quaid overacts. Both capture well the reverend’s late change of heart.

Check out talented Sarah Jessica Parker as Ariel’s friend Rusty in the classic Footloose. Ziah Colon plays the new Rusty admirably. While no Flashdance, the original Footloose is better acted.

Strong female characters. Mourning the loss of her brother, Ariel’s daring road stunt shouts, “I matter too!” Ariel’s feat remains one of the great scenes in teen drama. It’s on par with Thelma and Louise’s final airborne journey, in my opinion. When Singer faces an oncoming train, she screams from the depths of her soul.

Both actors excel in a memorable scene where Ariel tells her father that she’s no longer a virgin.

Strangely, Andie MacDowell barely registers as the preacher’s wife. Dianne Wiest created much more interest as wife and mother in the original role.

The Accident vs. Ariel’s stunt. Footloose (2011) reprises the fatal crash that stuns the town. Footloose (1984) doesn’t show the past. It’s more dramatic when it shows crazy risk taking now. Ariel straddles two speeding cars in the face of an oncoming truck.

The Race. Ren and Chuck race tractors toward each other head on in the original. It’s simple, direct and scary. In Footloose (2011), a bunch of boys pilot old school buses. Multiple crashes and rollovers just don’t fit. Wasn’t this a contest between Ren and Chuck?

Sex: Powerful or Exploited? Hough is dressed like a porn star in some scenes. Singer’s outfits convey that she’s sexy and proud. Hough’s skimpy costumes distract from her excellent dancing.

For more about women and sexuality on screen, check out my review of Miss Representation.

Brewer also directed Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan. The late Herbert Ross (Steel Magnolias; Boys on the Side) directed the original. Which Footloose is your favorite?

If you like Footloose, you might enjoy: Black Swan; Water for Elephants.

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Footloose   2011  /  PG-13  /  1 hour, 53 min

 

Cast Overview: Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Patrick John Flueger, Andie MacDowell, Dennis Quaid, Miles Teller, Ziah Colon

Director:  Craig Brewer

Genre:  Drama, Teen Drama, Dance, Music, Romance

 

Martha Marcy May Marlene: Elizabeth Olsen flees cult trauma - 4 stars

Elizabeth Olsen bursts into stardom in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Her dynamic and restrained performance marks writer-director Sean Durkin’s astounding feature debut.

This indie psychological thriller disturbed and fascinated me as much as The Exorcist, where evil ensnares a privileged and morally vulnerable victim.

After her daring escape from a creepy cult in upstate New York, Martha (Olsen) is rescued by her sister. She struggles to recover herself and become whole. Her progress is tortuous.

Zombie-like Martha looks serene. Inwardly, she’s falling off a cliff. She hides what happened to her, not asking for help. When confronted she screams, “I’m a teacher and a leader,” parroting the words of a cult leader Patrick (John Hawkes) who she can’t forget.

Martha’s confusion deepens as she stays at the Connecticut lake house of her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law Ted (Hugh Dancy). The sisters grew apart after their mother died, and Lucy now feels responsible for Martha.

How could someone disappear for two years without a word? Lucy and Ted are stunned when Martha strips at the public lake. She even creeps into their bed one night while they make love.

Through flashbacks that blur place and time, we glimpse Martha’s life at a ramshackle farmstead. She confuses memory with the present, and so do we. In the cult she befriends Zoe (Louisa Krause) and Watts (Brady Corbet).

Revering their leader, the residents follow bizarre rules. They do chores but eat only once a day, at supper. The men finish eating before the women can begin. Wearing tattered hand-me-downs, they believe they will prosper someday.

Hawkes (Uncle Teardrop in Winter’s Bone) plays Patrick with skeevy menace. Slowly, his deranged beliefs emerge. He rapes the women by turns in the night. New women are dressed, drugged and coached before their first rape.

"You're my favorite," Patrick tells her. Martha struggles, then submits. Later, she coaches newcomer Sarah (Julia Garner) before her “first night.” Patrick plays Marcy’s Song on the guitar for the group. “Well she, she’s just a picture that lives on my wall / Just a picture, that’s all” he croons.

The isolated community must surrender body, mind and spirit. Fatherly and quiet, Patrick suddenly threatens individuals. They must be willing to kill for him.

Jody Lee Lipes’ cinematography and Zac Stuart-Pontier’s editing enhance the introspective drama.

Durkin told Filmmaker Magazine that his early years in a religious school inspired an interest in cults. He won a Directing Award for this film at Sundance 2011.

Olsen will appear in several films in 2012, including Peace, Love and Misunderstanding with Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener; Silent House with Adam Trese; Red Lights with Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver; and Liberal Arts with Josh Radnor. Olsen studies theater full time at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

A Silkwood-like ending is deeply unsettling. Oscar nominations are likely for Olsen and this film.

If you like Martha Marcy May Marlene, you might enjoy:  Take Shelter; Somewhere; Winter’s Bone.

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Martha Marcy May Marlene    2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 41 min

Cast Overview: Elizabeth Olsen, Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbet, Hugh Dancy, Maria Dizzia, Julia Garner, John Hawkes, Louisa Krause, Sarah Paulson

Director:  Sean Durkin

Genre:  Indie, Drama, Psychological Thriller

 

Take Shelter: Michael Shannon digs deep to save family - 5 stars

Take Shelter is a fever dream of a thriller. It plunges you into anxiety and hope, victory and defeat. With humanity in trouble, sensitive everyman Curtis LaForche (brilliantly played by Michael Shannon) is plagued by hallucinations and nightmares.

Director Jeff Nichols lets you decide what this film is about. In an age of uncertainty, Curtis’ dark night of the soul feels universal.

Suspenseful and exciting from start to finish, Take Shelter portends the end. Depending on how you see, it will sweep you away with dread or faith. References to “the economy” and “fresh motor oil” lend timely foreboding.

A construction foreman in northern Ohio, tormented Curtis hides his condition from his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain). He seeks help from a doctor and a counselor, trying to quash his visions.

Shannon (Revolutionary Road; Bug) surrenders onscreen. Gangly, enigmatic and tortured, he remains a loving husband and devoted father to a hearing impaired child Hannah (Tova Stewart, sweetly perceptive).

Curtis wants to save his family at any cost. After visiting his mother (Kathy Baker), who’s institutionalized with paranoid schizophrenia, the quiet man understands that his curse is a gift.

March in step, Curtis’ best friend Dewart (Shea Whigham) and his brother Kyle (Ray McKinnon) tell him. Instead, he secures a home improvement loan to build an elaborate storm shelter. Curtis risks everything – home, family, and the health insurance needed for Hannah’s cochlear implant surgery.

Samantha (Jessica Chastain) takes refuge in family, friends and community. Love grounds and guides her. She sells her embroidery at tag sales to finance the family’s annual vacation.

Prolific Chastain (The Debt; The Tree of Life; The Help) creates yet another excellent character here in a spree of recent big screen roles. Samantha struggles to understand and stay with Curtis.

Natural disaster never looked so breathtaking. Adam Stone uses widescreen photography to see beauty in menace. Flocks of starlings, clouds and twin tornadoes loom. Real and impending catastrophes are colored by mystery and mental illness.

Nichols (Shotgun Stories) captures inner and outer worlds with authority and immediacy. His work is reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan’s, but with more ambiguity. It’s impressive that this is only Nichols’ second feature.

Tight, flawless editing by Parke Gregg enhances drama. David Wingo contrasts darkness and normalcy with his music.

End or beginning? The perspective of nature as a benevolent force ready to help humanity is missing here. It’s a worthy premise for another film.

If you like Take Shelter, you might enjoy:  The Tree of Life; Insidious; The Debt.

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Take Shelter    2011  /  R  /  2 hours

Cast Overview: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon, Ray McKinnon, LisaGay Hamilton, Rogert Longstreet, Kathy Baker, Tova Stewart

Director:  Jeff Nichols

Genre:  Drama, Thriller, Suspense, Horror

 

The Way: Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez heal heartbreak - 5 stars

Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez heal a father’s heart and find wholeness in the sensitive drama The Way. Set along the Way of St. James (Camino de Santiago) from France to Spain, the film is directed by Sheen’s son Estevez, who appears as a ghostly muse.

The most powerful movie is sometimes the simplest. Sheen’s deep, rousing performance and Estevez’s minimalist, mood-centered direction fill The Way with meaning. Cinematographer Juanmi Azpiroz captures action along the breathtaking pilgrimage route.

Daniel (Estevez) has died in a freak accident in the Pyrenees, known for unpredictable weather. He was nearly 40 when he decided to postpone doctoral studies and walk the 500-mile-long trek.

Tom Avery (Sheen) just lost his wife a year ago, so losing his son is devastating. The conservative ophthalmologist travels from Ventura, California to identify Daniel and have him cremated.

The Way is the best father-son drama I've seen in years. It's nothing less than a healing for the male heart.

With Daniel’s backpack and provisions, Tom decides to complete his son’s journey. He will walk to the cathedral where the Apostle James is said to be buried. Local police warn him about the dangers. Tom is stoic. He has nothing to lose.

Sheen’s intensity and talent are mesmerizing. A winner of Emmy and Golden Globe awards, he’s played presidents and generals, fathers and coaches. Sheen evokes manhood with strength and sensitivity.

Tom scatters Daniel’s ashes at especially beautiful vistas. He remembers how his son pissed him off. “You don’t choose a life, Dad. You live one,” Daniel once told him. Tom speaks little, but you can feel his brokenness.

Tom sees Daniel wherever he goes. The son becomes father to the man. Tom appreciates the wordless visits. Still peace eludes him.

Empty but determined, Tom surrenders. Three travelers gravitate around the angry American. Numbness gives way to fury for the grieving dad.

Deborah Kara Unger plays Sarah, a sharp-tongued Canadian who wants to quit smoking. Yorick von Wageningen plays Joost, a friendly Dutchman who’s desperate to lose weight but loves regional cuisine. James Nesbitt is engaging as Jack, a bombastic Irishman with writer’s block who begins to chronicle Tom’s story.

His companions irk him, but Tom discovers himself by being around the others. Each traveler has wounds to heal. Finally Tom empathizes. He begins to understand why the journey was so important to Daniel.

Each must resolve personal issues and find truth. Gently insistent spiritual undertones never become overbearing. An encounter with a young gypsy thief (Omar Munoz) and his father (Antonio Gil) is especially moving.

A sense of community grows among the four and extends to others who walk. With references to cell phones, The Way also meditates on how disconnected we have become in the information age.

The Way allowed Sheen and Estevez to explore their Spanish culture and Catholic religion together. Charlie Sheen, the star’s other son, battled publicly with drug addiction as this film was made. The mystical bond between fathers and sons is tempered by real life frustration in this vision quest. 

Estevez has directed a dozen television shows and films. He starred in The Breakfast Club and Young Guns. Estevez and Sheen have made other movies together, including The War at Home and Bobby. 

The Way is a memorable exploration of manhood, heart and healing. Nature’s fearsome beauty unleashes a majestic resolution.

If you like The Way, you might enjoy:  The Music Never Stopped; In a Better World; Beginners; Thor.

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The Way    2010  /  NR  /  1 hour, 55 min

Cast Overview: Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, Yorick van Wageningen, James Nesbitt

Director:  Emilio Estevez

Genre:  Drama, Independent

Mighty Macs: future Hall of Fame coach inspires women champs - 3 stars

A coach with drive and vision sees national champions in her diamond-in-the-rough women’s basketball team in The Mighty Macs. It’s a true life drama about the pioneering 1971-72 team from Immaculata College in Pennsylvania.

Tim Chambers’ heartfelt directorial debut stars Carla Gugino as Coach Cathy Rush and Ellen Burstyn as Mother St. John.

Before Title IX passed, funding for girls’ and women’s athletics was scarce. At all-girl schools like Immaculata, a fervent belief in strong, empowered women thrived.

The film conjures Catholic school life during the exciting and chaotic 1970s. Chambers succeeds at capturing history with just a few embellishments.

When a fire destroys their own gymnasium, the Macs are forced to practice at area schools. Chambers first saw the team in the basement gym of his elementary school, Saint Anastasia.

“The way they came in, the way they practiced, their movement and cohesiveness, was so cutting edge for the time,” Chambers told The Philly Post. “Cathy Rush’s swagger and style and leadership were etched in my mind forever.”

Despite a season of wins and losses, the team receives an at-large bid to compete in the first national women’s basketball tournament.

Gugino (Night at the Museum; Entourage) plays the feisty new coach who tests mother superior’s patience with new ideas and approaches. Rush’s own basketball career was cut short when, after an outstanding freshman season at Oakcrest High School in New Jersey, her team was terminated. In those days, women’s sports were considered a frill.

Dauntless Rush accepts a salary of $450 for her first season (“I would’ve worked for free,” she tells Mother St. John). The resourceful coach is given one beat-up basketball and homespun team uniforms made by Sister Sunday (Marley Shelton).  

Rush toughens the team mentally and physically. A newlywed who loyally attended N.B.A. games officiated by her husband, she is determined to see women excel. At the start of the season, Rush asks each player to toss all she knows about basketball into a trash bin. Let the real training begin.

Rush foreshadows what we’ve come to expect in women’s college athletics. Demanding training, ever-evolving strategy and a fierce determination to win are common today.

Oscar winner Burstyn plays the tough, plain-spoken mother superior desperate to save the financially strapped college. As the only female on the college’s board of directors, she becomes sympathetic.

“Jesus likes to dance” embodies Sister Sunday’s philosophy. Shelton (Pleasantville) is fascinating as a young nun who has second thoughts about her vocation. The actor brings emptiness, yearning and energy to an unprecedented film character.

As Rush’s assistant coach, Sister Sunday helps guide and encourage the players. She reveals a zesty spirit – and her past – in a bar scene with Rush. In real life, there was no Sister Sunday.

Unfortunately there is scant development of the movie’s remaining characters. This is where The Mighty Macs falls short of films like Hoosiers and Coach Carter. Corny dialogue doesn’t help.

Dashing David Boreanaz (of television’s Bones) can’t overcome his weakly scripted role. Ed Rush resents his wife’s new career, and then suddenly changes his mind. The players’ roles are thinly written. Biographical sketches at the films’ end reveal more about them.

Rush was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008. She served as Head Coach at Immaculata from 1972-77. The Macs won national titles in 1972, 1973 and 1974. The college went co-ed in 2005, and now has women’s and men’s Division III basketball teams.

If you went to Catholic school, you’ll enjoy The Mighty Macs’ goodness and warmth. If you follow women’s sports, you’ll appreciate this portrayal of a pioneering, underdog team.

If you like The Mighty Macs, you might enjoy:  Hoop Dreams; Hoosiers.

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The Mighty Macs    2009  /  G  /  1 hour, 38 min

Cast Overview: Carla Gugino, Marley Shelton, David Boreanaz, Ellen Burstyn

Director:  Tim Chambers

Genre:  Drama, Sports

Miss Representation: as media disses women, women speak out - 5 stars

The media trivializes and sexualizes women for profit according to Miss Representation, this year’s most important documentary by far. The disturbing eye-opener from Jennifer Siebel Newsom was featured at Sundance 2011, and recently premiered on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

The film is filled with in-depth interviews and interspersed with images from print, television, the internet, rock, rap and hip hop videos. Women are seen in cat fights, vying for a man, and doing combat while barely dressed. They are portrayed as decorative, stupid, gold diggers, catty, manipulative, vindictive, and not to be trusted especially by other women, according to Jennifer Pozner, Executive Director of Women in Media & News.

“This notion that women are natural enemies vying for the prize of being most beautiful or the love of whoever is so counter to women in real life,” says Pozner.

“Not only are girls seen as objects by other people, they learn to see themselves as objects,” says Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. (Killing Us Softly). “Self-objectification has become a national epidemic,” according to Caroline Heldman, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Political Science at Occidental College.

Depression, eating disorders, lower ambition, and lower cognitive function results from self-objectification, Heldman says. Girls are less likely to run for office or to vote, she adds. Self-mutilation (hacking or cutting) among female teens is cited as a growing problem.

Digitally altered photos of women create a “more extreme and impossible” image of beauty, according to Kilbourne. Girls “end up measuring themselves against an impossible standard.”

Media content powerfully shapes society, say experts. It influences brains, lives and emotions, especially in children. Profit-hungry media outlets are seen as disregarding social responsibility.

Oscar winning director and producer Paul Haggis (Crash), believes women become “cartoons” as male studio chiefs and filmmakers “see the world in a certain way and so we often replicate the world that we grew up in.”

“We are a nation of teenage boys,” according to Carol Jenkins, Founding President of the Women’s Media Center. Advertisers target men aged 18 - 34 who are less likely to watch television. Thus hyper-sexualized female images abound in advertising and programming.

Deregulation has enabled a few powerful conglomerates to control the U.S. media. The boards of directors of these conglomerates are overwhelmingly male. In an internal memo, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner wrote, “To make money is our only objective.”

Anything goes in television programming at all hours thanks to relaxation of FCC restrictions on adult content.

Electing more women to public office will allow them to shape public policy with their perspectives, insights and experiences. “Women make up 51% of the U.S. population yet comprise only 17% of Congress. Female presidents have been elected in 67 countries, but not in the U.S.” The film is filled with such alarming statistics.

“We’re shortchanging voices that are urgently needed in public forums,” says Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ. Devanshi Patel, a student who ran for Youth Governor of California, offers a refreshing perspective. “Leaders are just servants to people,” she told her mother.

Aren’t sexy women strong? Madonna, Angelina Jolie and Emily Browning (Sucker Punch) portray women who exploit their sexuality in order to be empowered, says M. Gigi Durham, Ph.D., author of The Lolita Effect. Such a heroine is “very much objectified and exists for the male viewer.”

Meanwhile the series Commander in Chief, which starred Geena Davis as the first woman president of the United States, was cancelled after one season. Oscar winner Davis says that “only 16% of protagonists in films are female.” Davis, the founder of See Jane, disputes the myth that “things are getting better” for women in film.

The media ignores older women, Miss Representation asserts. “Women in their teens, 20’s and 30’s are 39% of the population, yet are 71% of women on TV. Women 40 and older are 47% of the population, yet are 26% of women on TV.” Feminist organizer and activist Gloria Steinem explains, “A patriarchal system values women as child bearers. Period.”

“Only 7% of directors and 10% of writers in film are women,” according to the film. “The average number of news stories about women and girls is less than 20%.”

Strong women are described in news reports according to how they look or how emotional they are. What they say or do is virtually ignored, as seen in media portrayals of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Many prominent women detail their experiences. Powerful images of women in entertainment flash by. These include Oprah Winfrey; Judi Dench; Jada Pinkett Smith; Ellen De Generes; Glenn Close; Sandra Oh; Mariska Hargitay; Julianna Margulies; Tina Fey; Edie Falco; Meryl Streep; Annette Bening; Julianne Moore; Naomi Watts; Gabourey Sidibey; Salma Hayek and Charlize Theron.

Newsom ends Miss Representation with a call to action and a vision of a better world for our daughters and sons.

If you like Miss Representation, you might enjoy: The Whistleblower; The Kids Are All Right; Fair Game.

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Miss Representation    2011  /  NR  /  1 hour, 25 min

Cast Overview: Corey Booker, Margaret Cho, Katie Couric, Geena Davis, Rosario Dawson, Dianne Feinstein, Jane Fonda, Paul Haggis, Lisa Ling, Rachel Maddow, Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, Gloria Steinem, Daphne Zuniga

Director:  Jennifer Siebel Newsom

Genre:  Documentary

Beautiful Boy: mass murderer reaches feuding parents - 4.5 stars

After a campus murder-suicide spree, Kate and Bill Carroll call their son Sammy to make sure he’s all right. Suddenly there’s a knock on the door. Not only has Sammy died. He was the shooter. Director Shawn Ku’s searing emotional drama Beautiful Boy is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Produced after the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, Beautiful Boy captures what films so rarely do: a change of heart. Maria Bello and Michael Sheen fascinate as agonized parents forced to open their hearts to each other just to survive.

As the film opens, Kate and Bill sleep in separate beds. Bill wants to move to his own apartment and start over. Kate tries to reunite the family one last time by proposing a Miami vacation.

They stayed together for Sammy’s sake. When he calls them for the last time, Sammy sounds distant and withdrawn. Bill hangs up and goes to bed. Kate persists, asking the 18-year-old how he is. As he rambles on about snowflakes, she listens. Freshman year is hard for everyone, Kate reassures him. The boy has always been different, quiet and sensitive.

Bello (A History of Violence, and now Detective Jane Timoney in television’s Prime Suspect) is stunning. Her evolution as an actor is clear as she balances rage, honesty and heartbreak. She unleashes a firestorm of denial, grief and coping.

Sheen (the London stage veteran who played David Frost in Frost/Nixon) is excellent as a man of long-suppressed emotions who hardly knows himself. Bill moves like a robot each day between home and office. Already an emotional fugitive, he flees further within after the massacre.

Kyle Gallner (CSI: NY; A Nightmare on Elm Street) perfectly captures depressed, troubled Sammy. His eyes say so much more than he does. Television news reports reveal that he slayed 21 before killing himself.

Besieged by reporters, the devastated couple hides in their own home before taking refuge with Kate’s brother Eric (Alan Tudyk) and his wife Trish (Moon Bloodgood). Trish’s alarmed, well-meaning questions only intensify their pain.

Healing begins. As each moment passes, even mundane chores become accomplishments. Michael Fimognari creates intimacy and a dream-like aesthetic with a hand-held camera. Ku wrote the screenplay with Michael Armbruster.

Beautiful Boy is an autopsy of a marriage. Kate and Bill grow closer and careen apart. They lash out at themselves and each other. They collapse in exhaustion.

Perfectionist Kate is a proofreader. She edits the couple’s media statement, allowing Bill to face a horde of reporters himself. Kate also inspires an opportunistic young novelist Cooper (Austin Nichols).

Kate is relentless with herself and everyone around her. Trish gets upset when her house guest begins “fixing” their home and reading bedtime stories to their little boy. The Carrolls move to a motel.

Bill’s pain is primal. He tells his boss (Bruce French) that he has no friends. Meanwhile Kate rifles through Sammy’s bedroom. She reads his school papers. Grasping for answers, Kate and Bill are left with uncertainty.

Everyone is touched in some way by the incident. Even a motel clerk (Meat Loaf Aday) learns compassion when the vilified mother and father seek refuge. They become real to him.

“I don’t believe in monsters,” Ku says on the film’s website. Beautiful Boy not only made me empathize with the parents. It reminded me that I am my brother’s keeper.

If you like Beautiful Boy, you might enjoy:  Rabbit Hole; Blue Valentine.  

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Beautiful Boy    2010  /  R (language, sexual situation)  /  1 hour, 40 min

Cast Overview:  Michael Sheen, Maria Bello, Alan Tudyk, Moon Bloodgood, Kyle Gallner, Austin Nichols, Meat Loaf Aday

Director:  Shawn Ku

Genre:  Drama