Moneyball

Deb 10 Me 9

This one wasn’t on the list of things to see, but the timing was right and, after all, it’s a baseball movie. Actually it’s a big movie about individual people that uses baseball as a vehicle. It’s written by Aaron Sorkin who always does a lot of homework for his scripts. There are three main people, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman and a handful of support people who move the story along. Hoffman is a reliable actor and this Jonah Hill guy seems to have gone to the same school of getting a lot across with the least amount of outward effort. Pitt did a great job. You could almost forget he’s Brad Pitt, but he’s kinda like Clark Gable in that no matter how well he acts you never overlook that he’s a famous actor, and it keeps you (me) from being totally immersed in the film. There are all the ingredients I like, trying to be a better person, trying to improve situations against all odds and a solid human interest story. Add to this some baseball and you got yourself a pretty neat movie. The only real slight against the movie was too much involvement with the ex and the kid. I felt like they were included to create a wider appeal and get a little music in there.

And then there’s baseball. This beautiful game is a perfect allegory for so many facets of life and they give us a bunch of them here, some subtle, some overt, but all on target. Deb is not a baseball fan and she loved it. I am a fan and loved it. I guess it’s just a loveable movie.

Circumstance (Sharayet)

Deb 1 Me 1

This is an over ambitious film that proves to be very boring. As is often the case, there weren’t a lot of people in the theater, but each of them indulged in yawns and fidgeting distractions after the first hour of eternity. It’s an Iranian film, sub-titled poorly and punctuated with indigenous music. We follow the adventures of two young ladies through events that are seldom revisited and somewhat pointless. In their adolescent quest for liberation from the strict cultural confines of Iran they encounter a never ending series of deviants, ignorant authorities, despicable spies and generally un-likeable people.

I was able to identify with some of the girls methods of “breaking out” but it wasn’t enough to justify watching the whole movie. Another thing I came away with was why so many eastern cultures hate America. The whole society, with its primitive roots, has taken the worst of western culture and tried to assimilate it into their lives. The clothes and cars of opulence, the films and music that glorify indulgence are celebrated in nightclubs and backrooms throughout the land. These decadent social ingredients are all interpreted by people who have few social rights and no historical training in self-indulgence. So many elements were presented in the movie that it was hard to digest. After thinking about it for a couple days, parts of it seem palpable, but the fact is that this was WAY too boring and not really worth a second thought.

Hedgehog

Deb 9 Dave 9

Here’s a delightful little French number with sub-titles. There’s not an overwhelming amount of dialog here, so keeping up isn’t an issue. The movie is just so interesting to watch that a lot of yakking isn’t necessary. There’s a little girl and her family and the janitor lady who keeps up the upper crust apartment building in Paris. There’s a trend in movies of having some sort of vehicle for moving from plot to plot, or just recurring and used as a symbol of some sort or another. Think of the paper blowing around in American Beauty or the Feather in Forrest Gump. This one has a good one but is ultimately unresolved and left me a bit hollow.

It’s a slow movie, but it’s the right pace here. The people in it, especially the main lady, are just good to watch, the stuff in the rooms is good to look at and there’s enough story to keep you going throughout. We both really liked the movie and caught some friends on the way out who REALLY liked it. It’s just good old fashioned human interest with a bit of a moral to the story and was a valid chunk of film making.

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

Deb 7 Me 3

This is a biopic of a fellow called Serge Gainsbourg. We follow him from pretentious youth through his adulthood rise to prominence as a songwriter and performer of controversial French pop tunes. We are introduced to him as a young man in the pre-war period. At this point in the movie we are introduced to some recurring thematic vehicles that are quite interesting. The parts about his youth are the best parts of the movie because there is a story progression you can follow. From there on out it is merely a list of reenactments of this guys life, which may be well presented and true to form, but without any context or story. It’s like reading random notes in a stranger’s diary. All the ingredients for a good movie are here, but they need to be defrosted before putting them together as this film left me cold.

After the movie Deb “Googled” him and found that he had indeed done a lot of neat things with some prominent people over a long span of time. These interesting things weren’t in the movie. Nor was there a time reference, didn’t know if we were in the 60s, 80s, current or what. And really didn’t care after a point, it is just heartless.