SUGAR

Sports drama
Some Spanish with English subtitles

F.Y.I.
US baseball teams recruit many of their most promising talent at training camps in the Dominican Republic, where boys start practicing at a very early age, seeing the sport (with encouragement from their families) as one of the few tickets available to them for upward mobility.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Algenis Perez Soto: 19-year-old Miguel Santos (a.k.a Azúcar)
Rayniel Rufino: Jorge Ramirez, a longtime friend
Andre Holland: Brad Johnson, 2nd baseman with the Kansas City Knights
Ann Whitney: Helen Higgens, a big fan of the Bridgeton Swing baseball team
Richard Bull: her husband Earl
Ellary Porterfield: their teenage granddaughter Anne

REVIEW
One thing should be made clear right off the bat (sorry about that) is that this is not a baseball movie. Sure there are baseball scenes (frequently encapsulated by the play-by-play commentator) but it is more about a person playing baseball.

His name is Sugar (the English translation of his native nickname “because he’s so sweet”) a baseball pitcher starting off in San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. And then he moves on.

This character study is beautifully shot with excellent acting, crisp editing, some humorous moments and a strong storyline. It is well worth viewing, even for the non-sports fan.

CLASSIFICATION
for language, some sexuality and brief drug use. (Not justified in my view: PG would be more appropriate)

SIN NOMBRE

Drama
In Spanish with English subtitles

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Paulina Gaitan: Honduran teenager Sayra
Edgar Flores: Casper (a.k.a. Willy) a teenager living in Tapachula, Mexico
Diana Garcia: his girlfriend Martha Marlene
Kristyan Ferrer: 12-year-old Smiley, a new recruit in the Mara Salvatrucha gang
Tenoch Huerta Mejia: gang leader Lil' Mago

REVIEW
Although they don’t go into any detail, the one thing certain is the strong desire by some people to improve their lives and get away from the poverty and gang violence where they reside. For those living in Central America there is but one place to go: the United States of America.

What sets this movie apart is the pervasive element of danger: from gangs, from the authorities and yes, from fellow-travellers. But there is also love and friendship along the way.

With excellent editing, things move along at a good clip. Which is a good thing especially for some of the gang violence as it’s not pretty to watch. The acting for the most part is believable and some of the scenery quite stunning. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is a fun movie: far from it.

CLASSIFICATION
for violence, language and some sexual content

P.S.
Sin Nombre translates as “without a name.”

THE SOLOIST

Drama
Based on a true story

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Robert Downey Jr.: Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez
Catherine Keener: Mary Weston, the newspaper’s Editior
Jamie Foxx: Nathaniel Ayers Junior, a homeless street musician
Tom Hollander: Graham Claydon, the first chair of the LA Philharmonic
LisaGay Hamilton: Nathaniel’s sister Jennifer Ayers-Moore

REVIEW
Although the film does not turn over any new leaf, it doesn’t have to. Stories about friendships have many variations, this one between two radically different people. Rather than spend a lot of time filling in the character of both, the director has wisely decided to concentrate on Ayers. Good call.

Nicely shot and well-acted, it feels completely real. I can only imagine how much effort it took for Foxx to memorize his lines: the torrent of words is amazing. Trying to catch everything being said is impossible. But there is no need to do so.

It’s almost two hours long and doesn’t have to be since there are more than a few scenes that are either repetitive or simply too long. The film editor should have exercised his prerogative to do something about that.

CLASSIFICATION
for thematic elements, some drug use, and language.

EARTH

Documentary

REVIEW
I had such high expectations: a nature film produced by Disney with the support of the BBC and the Discovery channel. What could go wrong? Plenty.

To start with there is no real story, just a haphazard series of pictures showing wildlife around the globe with an emphasis on three “families”.

The monotone vapid narration doesn’t provide any life to what little is being said, most of pretty insipid anyway. And perhaps worse still, too often there is no narration at all so we have no idea where the falls are located or the name of the animal, things like that.

However all this pales with the many scenes of animal violence which to my mind are not suitable for anyone who cares about animals.
Some examples:
• A wolf chases down and catches a young caribou that’s been separated from the migrating herd
• A cheetah outruns a baby antelope half its size then bites down on its neck until it slowly dies
• A lion pounces on a fleeing baby elephant, hanging on with his claws imbedded in the elephant’s hide until the calf stumbles and is attacked by the rest of the pride
• A starving polar bear attacks a walrus pup and then its mother with his teeth firmly in her neck before laying down to die
• A great white whale feasting on a seal (in slow motion no less) and for good measure it’s shown twice

And if that’s not enough we see the dire straits of a baby elephant who is following his mother’s scent along a path, but going in the opposite direction to her and directly to its ultimate demise by predators.

The only thing the movie has going for it is the glorious photography, especially the time-lapse and aerial shots.

CLASSIFICATION
how they managed to get this rating is beyond me.

STATE OF PLAY

Conspiracy thriller

F.Y.I.
Definition of quid pro quo:
Latin for "something for something" indicates a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or services.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Russell Crowe: Cal McAffrey, investigative reporter for The Washington Globe
Rachel McAdams: Della Frye, the paper’s blog-reporter
Helen Mirren: its Editor Cameron Lynne
Ben Affleck: U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins
Robin Wright Penn: his wife Anne
Jason Bateman: P.R. man Dominic Foy
Jeff Daniels: U.S. Congressman George Fergus

REVIEW
It used to be that you left the theatre after seeing a conspiracy thriller pleased that you had figured it out before all is revealed in the third reel. Not today you don’t.

For reasons known only to screenwriters, nowadays movies of this sort have to be really convoluted with unexpected twists not even hinted at so that the viewer has to struggle to understand what is going on only to be left wondering “who dunnit?”

And it’s not like they ran out of time: it’s already more than two hours long so another five minutes wouldn’t make a big difference.

Apart from that there are several fine performances (apart from Affleck as usual), the cinemaphotography is excellent, the editing and musical score are both well done. And the scary part is that the conspiracy plot is plausible.

CLASSIFICATION
for some violence, language including sexual references, and brief drug content.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
1. Ms. Lynne calls a meeting. The office clock shows it to be 9:05 but by Cal’s wristwatch it is 2:45 and 10:30 on the clock behind them.
2. His nameplate should have read Sen. Collins not Mr. Collins and as the head of a U.S. Senate Congressional hearing into PointCorp his title as Chairman is missing.
3. Dominic drives a 2009 Cadillac CTS-V. This high performance version of the standard CTS was introduced to the market in the 4th quarter of 2008 some 8 months after these events took place.
4. Cal rattles off some of the car’s specifications but gets the horsepower all wrong: he says it has 320 whereas the car actually produces a whopping 550 horsepower
5. While taking notes in the hotel room the top of Della’s pen moves by itself about the table.
6. Dominic takes a swig of his beer and sets it down with the brand label towards the window. But the recorded image shows the beer label to be pointing the other direction.
7. When Cal rushes out of her office, Della immediately runs after him. When she catches up to him, the necklace he had just put on her has disappeared.

P.S.
Haven’t yet figured out what the title is all about, what it has to do with this film.

HUNGER

Drama
Based on actual events

F.Y.I.
On December 6, 1922 the entire island of Ireland became the Irish Free State. As such Ireland was granted dominion status within the British Empire equal to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Two days later Northern Ireland opted out of the Irish Free State in order to establish a republican form of government completely independent from Britain.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army took up the struggle to end British rule in Ireland and according to its constitution, "to establish an Irish Socialist Republic, based on the Proclamation of 1916”. By this they sought to end the status of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom and bring about a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion. As such the IRA is classified as a terrorist group in the United Kingdom and as an illegal organization in what is today the Republic of Ireland, better known simply as Ireland.

In July 1972 all prisoners convicted of terrorist crimes were granted Special Category status, effectively treating them as a prisoner of war having some of the privileges for POW’s as specified in the Geneva Convention. This meant prisoners did not have to wear prison uniforms nor do prison work, were housed together with their comrades, were allowed extra visits and food parcels. Four years later the British Government rescinded this special status.

The immediate response of the Republican prisoners was the so-called “blanket protest” whereby they refused to wear prison-issue clothing and wore blankets instead. Two years later this escalated into the “dirty protest” with the prisoners refusing to wash themselves and smeared the walls of their cells with their own excrement and spilled their chamber pots under the cell door into the hallway. All uneaten food was dumped into a rotting pile of refuse.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Stuart Graham: Ray Lohan, guard at the Maze Prison
Brian Milligan: IRA member, Davey Gillen
Liam McMahon: his cellmate Gerry Campbell
Michael Fassbender: 27-year-old Bobby Sands
Liam Cunningham: Father Dominic Moran

REVIEW
A well crafted movie has a beginning, a middle and an end. This film has no beginning as such. So unless you are a scholar familiar with the Irish “troubles” (or take the time to read the F.Y.I. above) for quite some while you will be totally lost trying to figure out just what is going on. The absence of any real dialogue for the first half of the movie doesn’t help either so for 45 minutes or so you can only guess at what it is all about.

About mid-way though there is a riveting 20-minute, single-camera, single-take conversation between Sands and a priest during which time he explains that the protests so far have not resulted in bringing attention to the extraordinarily harsh conditions in which he and his fellow prisoners are subject to nor to regain their status as political prisoners. Finally we find out what the movie is all about.

Relying on the visual element more than the spoken word there are extremely long takes of a jail guard methodically brushing away urine from a hallway or watching a fly crawling across a prisoner’s hand. Not having the patience to sit for minutes on end through these episodes several times I was about to leave. Some people did.

CLASSIFICATION
for disturbing images, explicit portrayals of violence, full frontal nudity, and language.

ONE WEEK

Road trip

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Joshua Jackson: school teacher Ben Tyler
Fiona Reid: his mother Mary
Chuck Shamata: his father Gerald
Liane Balaban: his fiancée Samantha (aka Sam)
Gord Downie: a stoned biker
Emm Gryner: Tracey, a songwriter-singer

REVIEW
For any road trip movie I use the film In the Wild as the benchmark for this genre of film. In it the main subject meets interesting characters, undertakes some new and different things and the fabulous camerawork (unusual camera angles, sweeping vistas) shows off the countryside to its best advantage.

One Week has none of the above: the people Ben meets are just ordinary folks, he doesn’t do anything more than ride his motorcycle and having personally seen much of the scenery in the movie I can honestly say most of the places shown look better in real life than they do in the movie; somehow these spectacular settings come across as bland and most of them are not.

CLASSIFICATION