Secret Agent Gal Movie Reviews

Our Idiot Brother: Paul Rudd loves mayhem in smart comedy 4/5 stars

 

Ned (Paul Rudd) tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth in Jesse Peretz’s sweet comedy Our Idiot Brother. Rudd’s good-hearted, biodynamic farmer is beset by bad luck in this warm, funny film.

Ned loves others to a fault. Is he really an idiot? Yes and no.

Rudd plays a genial hippie lacking in social judgment. He’s so naïve that he sells pot to a uniformed police officer at the Farmer’s Market one day.

After he is thrown out by his girlfriend Janet (Kathryn Hahn), Ned travels to Brooklyn to crash with each of his three sisters.

Elizabeth Banks (Avery Jessup in 30 Rock) plays Miranda, an ambitious reporter at Vanity Fair. Miranda insists that being an adult means lying and taking advantage of others. The innocent brother can’t relate.

 

Liz (Emily Mortimer) is a mousy, tired wife and mom. She’s unaware of the shenanigans of her film director husband Dylan (Steve Coogan). Ned puts two and two together and spills the beans.

Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) is a club performer who reaches a turning point. Natalie withholds information from her lover Cindy (pep-talking Rashida Jones), and this threatens their relationship. Meanwhile Cindy, who’s a lawyer, helps Ned with his legal problems.

Ned drives his sisters nuts by spilling their personal secrets. This turns their lives upside down. It’s not that he wants to hurt anyone. He just can’t conceive of a world where people hide things from one another.

 

Unfortunately, neither Peretz nor the script coax much depth from the sisters. Pushy Miranda, overwhelmed Liz and flighty Natalie remain one-dimensional.

Finally, Ned’s mom (Shirley Knight, wonderful here) is the one who opens her home to him unconditionally. Mournfully, he accepts.  

Janet’s breakup with Ned is tough love. Living a back-to-the-land lifestyle, she’s a sermonizing spitfire. Ned is heart-broken when she insists on keeping Willie Nelson, his golden retriever and best friend.

The born-again optimist is unable to match any cynical, mean vibes. Ned loses it during a game of charades with his disillusioned siblings. The scene shows how hard it is for him to be in the world.

Trying a new age solution, Ned meets a know-it-all teacher and passes out in a sweat lodge called “The Win Tent.” Although he often seems to fail, the idiot brother occasionally enchants those he meets.

Ned is happiest playing with his 7-year-old nephew River (Matthew Mindler). Liz and Dylan enroll River in dance classes, hell-bent on grooming him for admission to an elite school. What the boy really loves is learning Tae Kwon Do from his uncle and watching Pink Panther past his bed time.

Like Ed Helms in Cedar Rapids, Rudd gives a standout performance as an oddball character for our time. What would the world look like if more people were like Ned? As he shakes things up, lives are transformed and healed.  

Rudd’s raunchiest moment is when Ned tentatively accepts a three-way with an amorous couple. He can’t go through with it. British comedian Coogan is brilliant as Liz’s wayward hubby. His arse-backwards nude scene is terrific.

The smart, funny script was written by Evgenia Peretz (the director’s sister) and her partner Anthony Bregman. Do you like happy endings? Dog lovers will appreciate this silly but positive conclusion.

If you like Our Idiot Brother, you might enjoy: The Trip; Barney’s Version; Cedar Rapids.

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Our Idiot Brother     2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 30 min

Cast Overview:  Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Steve Coogan, Hugh Dancy, Kathryn Hahn, Rashida Jones, Shirley Knight, T.J. Miller, Matthew Mindler

Director: Jesse Peretz

Genre:  Comedy

 

 

The Debt: Mirren, Chastain star in classy spy thriller - 5 stars

 

Classy and exciting, The Debt draws you in until the very last scene. John Madden’s film about an Israeli secret service mission is 2011’s best thriller to date. Excellent acting, screenplay and cinematography combine in this remake of the thriller Hahov (2007).

The arc of story is deepened with both mature and young versions of Mossad agents Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain), David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds and Sam Worthington), and Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson and Marton Csokas).

The story first unfolds in 1997 Tel Aviv. Rachel and Stephan’s daughter Sarah has written a book about her parents’ role in a heroic mission. Concern marks Rachel’s face at a book party and later during a television appearance.

The real action begins in 1965. The agents plan to capture Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen) and bring him to justice. With all the urgency of young patriots seeking to make history, they prepare every detail.

 

Mirren and Chastain provide The Debt’s moral center. Both are stellar and memorable. It is a real treat to see their work in tandem as the film explores truth and honor.

Mirren is precise and soulful as Rachel faces a crisis of conscience. When a shameful secret emerges, she is forced to return to service.

Fear and mourning don’t stop the mother and grandmother Rachel. She’s smart, gutsy and angry. Finally, she has a change of heart. Mirren fascinated me until the very last scene.

Prolific Chastain (excellent in recent notables The Tree of Life and The Help) is intense, passionate and athletic. Soon a love triangle develops as she lives in close quarters with David and Stephan.

Each agent has been damaged by the Holocaust in some way. David lost his entire family.

The team confirms that Vogel has changed his name and is a practicing gynecologist in East Berlin. Young Rachel’s visit to his office is sure to become a classic scene. Later, a huge scar on Rachel’s right cheek seems to symbolize Israel’s search for justice and healing.  

Capturing Vogel in broad daylight is suspenseful, but moving him to Israel proves difficult. With Nazi soldiers on high alert, the team hijacks a truck near a train station. Complications arise.

Young Stephan wants to save face after the botched mission. David goes along. Rachel objects and finally relents. Years later she tells Stephan, “I knew we’d be punished. I knew we’d have to pay.”

Award winners Mirren and Wilkinson set the bar high. Hinds makes the most of his tragic, brief appearance. Csokas brings young Stephan to life with swagger and sex appeal. Worthington (Avatar) sensitively portrays the deeply wounded David.

Called the “surgeon of Birkenau,” Vogel’s character seems to be based on Dr. Josef Mengele. Mengele conducted human experiments during World War II, including changing childrens’ eye color. This caused blindness in many, a fact mentioned in the film.  

The Debt was adapted from the original movie by screenwriters Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan.

Madden (Shakespeare in Love; Proof) does a superb job with sustained suspense and riveting action. His film is intellectually satisfying and heartfelt.

If you like The Debt, you might enjoy:  Hanna; SALT; Incendies.

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The Debt     2010  /  R  /  1 hour, 51 min 

Cast Overview:  Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain, Jesper Christenson, Marton Csokas, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Romi Aboulafia

Director:  John Madden

Genre:  Thriller, Drama

 

 

The Help: women speak out, cross color lines in Deep South drama ****1/2

 

Women unite when a black maid (Viola Davis) tells her story to a young, white journalist (Emma Stone) in The Help, a drama set in 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi. Based on Kathryn Stockett’s novel of the same name, Tate Taylor’s film is made vivid by an impressive, diverse female ensemble cast.

The Help looks selectively at the segregation era in the Deep South, stepping gingerly around the land mines of racial hatred and violence. While wife beating is mentioned, and the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers is reported on television, this film is about women: boss ladies and maids, saints and sinners, competitors and collaborators. Among them are quiet leaders.   

Oscar-worthy performances abound. These movie legends and young talents clearly cared about the project and shared a rapport that is evident on-screen. Taylor, who adapted the screenplay, employs a lively pace and an upbeat tone even as anger ferments. He takes a big risk by using humor to upend fear and separation.

The maids earn 95 cents per hour with no Social Security benefits. The boss ladies live in beautiful mansions, play cards and gossip as the help raise their children and do the housework.  

Aibileen Clark (Davis) first agrees to help Skeeter Phelan (Stone) with her housekeeping column for the Jackson Journal. When Skeeter tells her she’s writing a book from the perspective of black women, Aibileen is speechless. Stone (Easy A) is outstanding as an earnest young reporter who remains true to herself. Allison Janney plays Skeeter’s anxious mother. Mary Steenburgen plays a profit-minded publisher.

 
 
 
Aibileen’s wisdom has been honed by indignity and tragedy. A writer at heart, she journals every night. Skeeter travels secretly to Aibileen’s kitchen to interview her for the controversial book. Aibileen can barely speak about her own son, who died after he was denied prompt medical attention following a work accident.

Oscar nominated for her supporting role in Doubt, Davis captures the soul of understatement. Aibileen is stoic and polite, a churchgoer who genuinely lives by Christian principles. Her best friend Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) speaks out loudly. “We livin’ in hell,” she tells Skeeter. “Trapped.” Spencer delivers a breakout performance.

Minny’s boss Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard, bracing and relentless here) is crusading for a Home Health Sanitation Initiative. Blacks are ordered to use separate, outdoor bathrooms where they work. When Minny dares break the rule out of necessity, she’s promptly fired. She has no choice but to work for the town’s social outcast Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain, marvelously batty in this role). Chastain and Spencer forge a fascinating dynamic of respect and momentary equality. Sissy Spacek plays Miss Hilly’s senile, defiant mother. Cicely Tyson is regal as Skeeter’s mammy Constantine.

There’s a “Real Housewives of Jackson” feel to The Help that’s soon transcended. Aibileen’s voice is central. “No one ever asked me what it feeled like to be me. Once I told the truth about that I felt free.” When Elizabeth (Ahna O’Reilly) scolds her daughter harshly, Aibileen has the girl repeat a positive message that just might sustain her: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”

"I know those women,” Viola Davis told ComingSoon.net. “Those women are very specific in my history. My aunt Joyce, my mom May Alice, my grandmother . . . . I didn't even have to search. I could just have emotional recall."

The Help ends on several feel-good notes. When a crisis rocks the community, a host of women step forward to share their stories. This is the film’s transformative moment. Social change begins where it always must: within each of us.

 If you like The Help, you might enjoy:  Precious; The Blind Side.

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The Help     2011  /  PG-13 /  2 hours, 17 min

Cast Overview:  Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Chris Lowell, Sissy Spacek, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Cicely Tyson, Mike Vogel, Anna Camp, Aunjanue Ellis, Mary Steenburgen, Ahna O’Reilly, Eleanor Henry, Emma Henry

Director:  Tate Taylor

Genre:  Drama, Period Piece

 

Another Earth: Brit Marling seeks cosmic redo in Sundance award winner ****1/2

 

What if we could start over, erase our most painful mistakes and move forward? Another Earth explores guilt and grace as its signature image, a blue-green planet, hovers above. The sci-fi indie won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize (for films with a science or technology theme) and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2011.

Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling), who has just won a scholarship to MIT’s astrophysics program, parties herself into a stupor and decides to drive home. Speeding along, she gapes at a turquoise disc in the night sky, a newly discovered duplicate planet earth. With sickening inevitability, she crashes head on into another car, killing a mother and son and leaving a father comatose. Dazed, she wanders the scene.

Another Earth blends science fiction, art and emotional truth. Mike Cahill’s feature debut is stark and understated, a contemplation of regret and human possibility. Cahill co-wrote the mesmerizing, imaginative script with Marling, drawing upon the theoretical physics of parallel worlds.

Released from prison four years later, Rhoda is a shell of herself. She moves back in with her upbeat parents and wisecracking brother. In an attic room, she gazes lovingly at a poster of the Horsehead nebula. Rhoda ponders distant Earth 2. She is that far from forgiving herself.

Newcomer Marling is a talent to watch. She embodies desolation with other-worldly poise and willowy beauty. A felon, Rhoda takes a school janitorial job because she doesn’t want to talk to people. She trudges to and from work, hunched, her face hidden under a hood. Eventually she befriends an elderly janitor Purdeep (Kumar Pallana).

 
                            

William Mapother (In the Bedroom and TV’s Lost) plays John Burroughs, a Yale professor and composer who is the other survivor of the tragedy. Rhoda rehearses her confession and knocks on his door one day. When he answers, she loses her nerve. She pretends to be a maid, asking if he would like a free trial house cleaning. Drunk and depressed, he accepts.

The characters of Another Earth don’t interact so much as they revolve slowly through each other’s orbits. There’s a sense of vast eternity, a lonely hum. Mapother and Marling are remarkable alone and together. Dazed and tentative, they become animated, then withdrawn. In time, they grow more fluent with each other.

John confronts Rhoda. He knows she is lying. She has never cashed his checks. The Maid in Haven cleaning service has never heard of her. Still he’s drawn to her. Their romantic pull, while unlikely, is mysterious and certain as a law of physics.

Purdeep acts as a kind of shaman for Rhoda. He’s the first one who is able to evoke real feeling from her. In an exquisite scene, he coaxes her back to life from what may be his deathbed.

Cahill’s cinematography is observant and reverent. His use of a hand-held camera helps build delicious anticipation. John and Rhoda emerge as she clears the clutter of his rural farmhouse. Dust motes float like disembodied souls.

Contact is made with Earth 2. Rhoda enters an essay contest to win a space shuttle trip to the planet. John fears for her safety, but she has nothing to lose. Throughout the film, an astrophysicist muses reassuringly over the radio. “There’s another you out there. . . . Therein lies the opportunity and the mystery.”

The film’s startling end could be seen as inspiring and hopeful. It all depends on how we look at it.

If you like Another Earth, you might enjoy:  Hereafter; The Ledge.

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Another Earth     2011  /  PG-13 /  1 hour, 32 min

Cast Overview:  William Mapother, Brit Marling, Kumar Pallana, DJ Flava

Director:  Mike Cahill

Genre:  Sci-Fi, Indie, Drama

 

Missing Pieces: Mark Boone Junior kidnaps his way to love ****

 

Kidnapping meets romance in the indie psychological drama Missing Pieces. Director Kenton Bartlett’s feature debut asks big questions and answers them with mind-bending originality. I want to feel something real. I want to feel happy. Why is this happening? It's now streaming online.

Missing Pieces investigates the brink of wholeness. Impressively crafted on a low budget, it’s a tale of dissolution and survival, a sly mix of Criminal Minds and the spiritual genre.

Mark Boone Junior (Memento; Batman Begins; Sons of Anarchy) is fascinating as David Lindale, a man whose life implodes after a head injury. With his mind and emotions fractured, he poignantly struggles to win back his exasperated ex-girlfriend Delia Greenly (Melora Walters). Soon his actions take a disturbing turn.

David seems gentle, but we don’t know what he’s capable of. Recovering from an accident, he has stopped taking his medication. While making his rounds as a delivery man, David meets Maggie Anderson (Taylor Engel) and Daylen Gordon (Daniel Hassel). With the sure insight of a damaged human being, he immediately recognizes that the two are missing pieces of their lives, too.

Using sparse, strong dialogue, Bartlett (who also wrote and produced the film) weaves in excerpts from a self-help tape. These represent David’s efforts to heal and to reclaim his life. The effect succeeds with preachy truisms like, “The only way to be happy is right here in this moment.” Loneliness becomes tangible.

David devises a plan: observe love. The world becomes his laboratory. If he can isolate two people and provide them with the right questions and instructions, can he reproduce the formula for happiness and love? Boone Junior reveals the monster within all of us.

Constant cuts to different lives and characters obscure the narrative. The logistics behind David’s grand experiment stretch belief. The harrowing journey runs a bit too long. Still this is a film worth seeing for its rich storytelling, challenging and original premise, and compassionate vision.

 

A turning point is reached when David realizes, “I need to give more.” He approaches Delia again.

Boone Junior creates an arresting portrait of despair and hope that anchors the film. Walters (Boogie Nights; Magnolia; Big Love) convinces as an aggravated woman who knows when it’s time to give up. Engel and Hassel debut with fine performances as Maggie and Daylen discover themselves and each other under extreme conditions.

Cinematographer Jonathan Arturo uses the camera in a full, free way that captures small, personal worlds in the context of sweeping, natural landscapes. Longing, fear and anger are evoked with a beautiful, understated color palette. Several scenes come to life like Andrew Wyeth paintings. Filmed primarily in Birmingham, Alabama, Missing Pieces was also shot in Colorado, South Dakota and Utah.                 

Richey Rynkowski (orchestrator assistant on Black Swan) creates original music that resonates and adds dimensionality.

Missing Pieces is a cry from the depths, a demand for answers from a seemingly indifferent Universe, a creepy trek towards self-actualization and love.

 If you like Missing Pieces, you might enjoy:  The Ledge; The Perfect Host; The Tree of Life.

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Missing Pieces     2011  /  NR /  1 hour, 57 min.

Cast Overview:  Mark Boone Jr., Melora Walters, Daniel Hassel, Taylor Engel

Director:  Kenton Bartlett

Genre:  Indie, Psychological Drama, Suspense

Snow Flower never blooms in women's friendship tale 2.5/5

 

A woman’s bound foot is a knarled mass of black and blue. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan reveals this metaphor for women’s suffering. Bound feet were called “golden lilies” in ancient China. The soft bones of young feet were broken, making girls highly prized as wives. “Only through pain will you find beauty,” Snow Flower is told. Misery is just beginning for two pairs of friends in this uneven drama.

Snow Flower reveals Chinese tradition and modernity with respect. It’s filled with beautiful scenery and costuming. Still it never captures the depth that women’s friendships must have had then and now. The laotong – “old sames” who enter an arranged friendship and vow eternal devotion – hobble on impossibly tiny, misshapen feet. They communicate in a secret language called nu shu, writing messages in the folds of silk fans.

Unnecessarily complicating Amy See’s novel of the same name, director Wayne Wang (Chan Is Missing; The Joy Luck Club; Maid in Manhattan) adds a second set of friends in modern day Shanghai. He then forces a comparison between modern and ancient friends. Attempting to cover too much ground, the movie jumps back and forth in time. Finally the historic tale is more developed and intriguing.

 

Bingbing Li plays Lily, a bank executive. Gianna Jun stars as Sophia, a writer. As soon as we meet the two best friends forever, we are transported to 19^th century Hunan province. There, Li and Jun play Nina and Snow Flower respectively. The film cuts quickly back and forth to various points in the parallel stories.

Nina and Snow Flower enter arranged marriages and have children. Snow Flower’s husband (Jiang Wu) beats her, but she will not leave him. Typhus wipes out family members. Bands of rebels invade villages.

Under Shanghai’s modern, dim cityscape, Sophia rides her bike in traffic. She collides with a taxi. As Sophia clings to life in a hospital bed, Lily investigates her friend, hoping to find why they have drifted apart. Lily visits a modern art exhibit about foot binding. Images of disfigured feet line a wall. A pop art sign declares: (N)EVER BIND.

When Wang experiments with different cameras for the two eras, this adds to the unevenness. The comparison between past and present is strained.

Good acting by all cannot overcome the film’s awkward structure. In a distracting thread, Hugh Jackman appears briefly as Arthur, Sophia’s Australian lover and club owner. It isn’t the best role for talented Jackman, although he does sing in Mandarin.  

The eroticism of two women deeply devoted to each other is only hinted at in long looks and a near-kiss. Perhaps Wang believed it was not necessary to include lesbian love here. Acknowledging the characters’ desires more openly would have helped illumine these relationships.

Snow Flower ends too neatly with a message that misses the point. These suffering women don’t yet love themselves. True empowerment comes from within.

If you like Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, you might enjoy:  Queen to Play; Incendies; Mother and Child.

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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan     2011  /  PG-13  /  1 hour, 40 min

Cast Overview:  Gianna Jun, Bingbing Li, Vivian Wu, Jiang Wu, Russell Wong, Archie Kao and Hugh Jackman

Director:  Wayne Wang

Genre:  Drama, Foreign Film, Movies Based on the Book

Languages:  Chinese and English with English subtitles

 

 

Terri: John C. Reilly feeds teen's big, hungry heart ****

 

Terri stands apart from The Art of Getting By and Submarine for one reason: John C. Reilly. The coming-of-age dramedy hinges on Reilly’s Mr. Fitzgerald, a vice principal who cares about kids in trouble. Jacob Wysocki stars as Terri, a huge oddball with a confused, hungry heart.

Reilly’s straightforward, unforgettable character walks his talk. He owns his own disappointments and shortcomings. Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t pretend to have it all together, but he knows enough to share his homespun philosophy. When obese Terri lands in his office for daily tardiness, he sets up a weekly meeting to mentor the pajama-clad, good-hearted teen.

Terri’s inner monster is big, odd and misunderstood. He lives in a messy old house with Uncle James (The Office’s Creed Bratton, very good here) who’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Terri takes care of his uncle tenderly.

Trapping mice in the attic is necessary and gives Terri something to do. Glum and bored, he loiters in the woods each morning, watching his offering of dead mice on a log. When a raptor arrives, Terri yelps with excitement. It’s the first revelation of the big boy’s spirit.

An encounter with the bird of prey also sets this movie apart. The raptor is said to symbolize vision, power and guardianship. Connecting with nature is another way the boy heals. Mr. Fitzgerald suggests a new life perspective: “I like this person. I look forward to these days.”

Wysocki is extraordinary, an actor of imagination and warmth. Terri makes slow and painful progress. He aches, stumbles and has wise insights. He wants to fit in as he struggles to be himself. Patrick Dewitt’s understated dialogue rings perfectly. “The feeling is no feeling,” Terri tells his mentor.

 

Terri hangs out with two other outcasts, publicly shamed Heather (Olivia Crocicchia) and hair-pulling misanthrope Chad (Bridger Zadina). The trio reveals risky delight, a weird foray into friendship and experimentation. All three succeed with plain-spoken honesty. Director Azazel Jacobs captures odd beauty in this and other scenes.

Mr. Fitzgerald talks about life and possibilities from his heart and his gut. Reilly makes the character unique as a caring, competent man who admits his own shortcomings. The unapologetically odd vice principal grows on us throughout the film.

Terri finds Mr. Fitzgerald passed out in his car one Sunday morning in the school parking lot. He’s had another fight with his wife. The two share quality time, raiding aspirin from the nurse’s office and shooting hoops. The school’s motto towers above them in the gym: Pride. Tradition. Excellence.

In The Art of Getting By and Submarine, mentors are marginal and never fully developed. Here youth and age are both honored. Mr. Fitzgerald throws Terri a lifeline, and the teen gives him the opportunity to practice his life’s calling. There’s a boy within the man, and a man within the boy.

When Fitzgerald betrays the boy’s trust it’s devastating. He transforms the moment by apologizing. “Life’s a mess, dude, but we’re all just doing the best we can.”

In an imperfect world, Terri ends with a quiet, transcendent moment. This is not a feel-good movie, but one that celebrates flawed humanity and hope.

If you like Terri, you might enjoy:  The Art of Getting By; Submarine; Cedar Rapids.

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Terri     2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 27 min

Cast Overview:  Jacob Wysocki, Creed Bratton, Olivia Crocicchia, Bridger Zadina, John C. Reilly

Director:  Azazel Jacobs

Genre:  Drama, Dramedy

 

Buck ***

 

The real Horse Whisperer recovers from an abusive childhood as he trains horses and their owners in the documentary Buck.

Buck Brannaman consulted on Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer (1998). Nicholas Evans’ 1995 novel of the same name is based on the sensitive, gifted horse trainer. Buck won the Audience Award at Sundance 2011.

An excerpt from Redford’s film is shown. Buck’s guidance was instrumental in helping to calm a jittery horse for an important scene. In that scene Grace (Scarlett Johansson), who lost part of her leg in an accident while riding her horse Pilgrim, approaches the traumatized animal. Pilgrim shudders and jolts. Gradually, he calms down and allows Grace to touch him.

Redford was impressed with the horse trainer’s politeness and humanity when they first met. Interviewed here, Redford calls Buck “no nonsense” and “authentic.” Nevertheless, Cindy Meehl’s documentary about this extraordinary individual falls flat.

Buck travels 40 weeks out of each year to give four-day horse clinics. He misses his wife and daughter, he says. Meanwhile he restores calmness and serenity to the horses. Buck is known for his keen insights into the animals.

Brannaman schools horse owners, advising them how to approach and treat the animals with respect. “There’s a difference between firm and hard,” he notes. His approach is “90 percent mental and 10 percent physical.” As a young man, Buck attended a clinic given by Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt. The two were promoting a gentle approach called “natural horsemanship.” Buck had found his calling.

Yet this movie never captures a warm connection between Brannaman and the horses he trains. Where is the magic? First-time director Meehl is so intent on covering the breadth and scope of Buck’s work that she neglects its all-important depth.

Buck appears at event after event. He rides a jittery horse. The horse quiets and trots obediently. Owners comment on the miraculous transformations. They praise Buck’s special gift. What we don’t learn: Who are these horses? What are their stories? How does Buck calm them? What happens after they return home? Have they truly healed?

Focusing on Brannaman and paying scant attention to horses is a curious misstep. The creatures of great dignity, power and freedom are given only cursory treatment. For example, when Buck and his daughter compete in a lasso competition, their horses perform perfectly but look unhappy.

Had Meehl highlighted and developed several encounters between Buck and the horses, this film would truly satisfy. There’s a heartfelt connection between animals and people in movies like Born to be Wild and Water for Elephants. That connection is missing here.

 

Only at the end of Buck is one horse featured. Brain-damaged at birth and raised incorrectly, he has become violent. The horse maims a rider on screen. He has become “a predator,” Buck warns. Finally the owner decides to put him down.

Buck’s painful early years are slowly revealed. At age three, Buckshot (originally named Dan) began performing rope tricks with his older brother Smokie (Bill) under the management of their father Ace. The youngest stars on the circuit, the boys often performed blindfolded. They became famous, appearing in a Sugar Pops commercial.

The two were driven hard and often whipped by their alcoholic dad. Their mother had passed away. One day a coach noticed the bruising. The boys were removed from their home and adopted by a loving couple, the Shirleys. Brannaman still visits with his adoptive mother to this day.

Many horse lovers will enjoy this film, while others will yearn for more. Buck tells the story of a quiet, gentle man, but doesn’t reveal too much. Buck’s brother never appears in the film. His absence is not explained.

If you like Buck, you might enjoy:  Born to be Wild; Water for Elephants; Secretariat.

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Buck    2011  /  PG  /  1 hour, 28 min

Cast Overview:  Buck Brannaman, Robert Redford

Director:  Cindy Meehl

Genre:  Documentary, Animals

 

Beginners *****

 

He may be late for the party, but Hal celebrates like it’s 1955. Smart and bittersweet, Beginners stars Christopher Plummer as a 75-year-old gay man who has just come out to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor). Two parallel love stories are told. 

Beginners is masterfully directed and written by Mike Mills, whose own father came out late in life. Explored are the connections between father and son, father and new friends, son and father’s boyfriend, and son and girlfriend. This is a film of visual grace with a sensitive, vulnerable and thoughtful quality.

Plummer gives a vintage performance as Hal, a man who married for love in the hope that he could smother other desires within him. Fun-loving yet dignified, he’s diagnosed with cancer. The last few months of Hal’s life are reenacted with whimsy and directness, accompanied by Vaudeville tunes. “I don’t want to just be theoretically gay. I want to do something about it,” Hal says. As friends visit his sunny sickroom, he claims he’s getting better.

 

Patterns, shapes and forms represent life and love. After Hal’s death, Oliver adopts Arthur, a Jack Russell terrier who is more philosophical than most people. As Oliver talks with the dog, Arthur replies in subtitles. Their true friendship weaves low-key humor throughout the film.

Sex. Nature. Images of the sun, the sky and presidents past and present fill the screen. Oliver sketches faces of old girlfriends with captions. When he creates a sketch book for a rock band The Sads, they’re not taken with his images. All they wanted was an album cover. Sadness is unique for everyone. Oliver needs to savor and learn from it.

As Oliver begins seeing French actress Anna (Melanie Laurent, the theater owner in Inglourious Basterds), McGregor reveals insecurity and wisdom. The two meet at a costume party not long after Hal’s death. He’s Sigmund Freud. She’s Charlie Chaplin. He’s depressed. She has laryngitis. Playful and tentative, they explore each other and the world. He tells her about his father. “For the first time I saw him really in love.” 

Goran Visnjic is dark, intense and boyish as Hal’s young lover Andy. Hal must learn some new customs when Andy goes out on a date. “At least I’m the Number One boyfriend,” Hal tells his son wistfully. A scene between Oliver and Andy after Hal’s death is particularly moving.

Simple yet deep, Beginners discovers despair, emptiness and happiness. Deep, reflective characters live in a sweet, sincere film that will merit attention during Oscar season.

If you like Beginners, you might enjoy:  Barney’s Version; The Kids Are All Right.

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Beginners     2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 44 min

Cast Overview:  Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Melanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic, Kai Lennox, Mary Page Keller

Director:  Mike Mills

Genre:  Drama, Indie, Romance

 

Forks Over Knives ****

 

More energy, weight loss, longer lifespan and lower risk factors for heart attack, stroke and cancer are the benefits of a vegetarian diet according to Forks Over Knives.

Lee Fulkerson writes and directs the film which advocates empowering ourselves by taking a preventative dietary approach to health.  Skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes, heart attack, stroke and cancer in the U.S., despite a huge investment in healthcare, point to the effectiveness of dietary change.

Nutritional scientist and former dairy farmer T. Colin Campbell believes that health care costs in the United States could be cut by billions if Americans switched to a whole foods, plant-based diet.

 

Campbell authored The China Study, where comprehensive research reveals that “degenerative diseases like heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and even several forms of cancer, could almost always be prevented — and in many cases reversed — by adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet.”

A renowned surgeon who heads the Breast Cancer Task Force at the Cleveland Clinic, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., found that “many of the diseases he routinely treated were virtually unknown in parts of the world where animal-based foods were rarely consumed.”

Fulkerson plays guinea pig as he consults the team of Matthew Ledderman M.D. and Alona Pulde M.D.  After just a few months on their whole foods, plant-based diet, Fulkerson saw tremendous improvement in his test measures of good and bad cholesterol, blood vessel inflammation (associated with heart attack and stroke risk), and blood pressure.

Several inspiring case studies are featured. Ruth Heidrich (then in her 40’s) successfully reversed her breast cancer (which had metastasized) by joining John McDougall, M.D.’s clinical study and going on a low-fat vegan diet.  She continued aerobic and weight-bearing exercise. Today the 70-something athlete competes, writes and teaches.

San’Dera Brantley-Nation, a mother diagnosed with diabetes, works with Esselstyn and his wife to change her diet. Keeping a journal, Nation achieves impressive weight loss and reverses her diabetes.  Ironically, she works in an endocrinology office and faces the skepticism of her own medication-centered physician.

Processed foods, touted in the U.S. since the 1950’s, act as a “pleasure trap” that only partly fills one’s stomach. Triggering the body’s sensors with natural and artificial stimulants, they induce a low-grade addiction, according to Terry Mason M.D., a Chicago urologist and, until recently, Chief Medical Officer of the Cook County Health and Hospital System. Eating natural foods which are much higher in bulk would alleviate these effects, he added.

An added benefit of the vegetarian way is a significantly lighter footprint on the earth’s environment.  The clearing of much of the Amazon forest to make way for cattle grazing is shown as a case in point.

While some criticize such plant-based diets as too extreme, Forks Over Knives can be seen as too conservative.  For instance, the differences between organic and conventional food supplies are not detailed. If one is eating pesticide-treated vegetables in abundance, wouldn’t that increase one’s risk for cancer?

The widely reported tainting of U.S. wheat, corn, soybeans and canola with pesticides and genetic modification are not mentioned at all here. One eye-opening claim that is offered: erectile dysfunction signals the “first early warning sign” of vascular disease.

Future films in this genre could address the social pressures facing healthy eaters. How does one gracefully bow out while most indulge in the pizzas, birthday cakes and drinks after work that are so integral to our social traditions?

First Lady Michelle Obama is shown speaking about the childhood obesity epidemic. More of a “wow” factor could have been achieved by including cameos of the many movie stars who espouse vegetarian, vegan and/or whole foods diets. For instance, Russell Brand, President Bill Clinton, Steve-O and Anne Hathaway are now finalists for  PETA’s Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrities List of 2011. Demi Moore, Madonna, Clint Eastwood and The Beach Boys all drink an organic apple cider vinegar (ACV) drink, according to the website of author and educator Patricia Bragg, N.D., Ph.D.

Forks Over Knives can inspire viewers to renew their commitment to a healthy diet, and even begin the shift to vegetarianism. This documentary joins a number of recent films on whole foods and diet, including Food, Inc.; Food Matters and The Beautiful Truth.

If you like Forks Over Knives, you might enjoy:  The Beautiful Truth; Happy; I Am.

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Forks Over Knives     2011  /  PG  /  1 hour, 30 min

Cast Overview:  Lee Fulkerson, T. Colin Campbell, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr.

Director:  Lee Fulkerson

Genre:  Documentary, Health, Mind and Body