The Eagle

A new commander has arrived in Roman-occupied Britain to defend his empire's holdings and reaffirm his family's honour. His father disappeared in Northern Britain while commanding the 9th Legion's 5,000 men and he is determined to discover what happened. His father's legion was also guarding Rome's Eagle Standard, the golden symbol of its imperial might. After having been injured in battle and relieved of his command, he sets out on a quest North of Hadrian's Wall to recover the Eagle and learn of his father's last stand. With only a British slave to guide him, his fate rests in enemy hands.

Ironically lacking in symbolism, the talons of Kevin MacDonald's The Eagle are not incredibly sharp. Championing individualism and suggesting that if one is resolute and brave they can forge themselves a cultural identity, the forces against which Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum) and Esca (Jamie Bell) contend aren't exactly formidable. They make their way through hostile territory with relative ease and somehow win a poorly choreographed tussle to escape with Eagle intact. The film's examination of loyalty is bizarre as Esca betrays his people and aligns himself with Marcus even though the Romans conquered his land and murdered his family. Esca owes his life to Marcus after having been rescued from a blood-thirsty gladiator, and it's the solemnity of this debt that makes him honour his bond. If he didn't honour his father's code and consequently betrayed Marcus, even though Marcus's people were responsible for killing his father, it would be as if he had betrayed his father. Perhaps this isn't so bizarre, however, for it points out that groups are composed of individuals and individuals shouldn't be held accountable for the crimes of a group, ala the Good Samaritan, although the noble individual in question is setting out to recover a symbol of his group's domination, although the pursuit is more familial than cultural, as is Esca's fidelity to Marcus. Still, while The Eagle makes some thoughtful suggestions, the execution is stark (which isn't to say Anthony Dod Mantle's cinematography isn't bold) and many of the serious scenes are more comic than audacious. I can still cheerfully hear Brian Blessed screaming "Where are my Eagles!" in the 1976 BBC miniseries I, Claudius. Where are your Eagles Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, where are they?

Toy Story 3

College. Suburbia. Daycare. Coming of age. Andy (John Morris) is all grown up and preparing for college near the beginning of Toy Story 3, and his favourite toys are worried about their resulting fate. Happy to live out their days in the attic, they suffer a crisis of conscience after having been accidentally thrown in the trash. Narrowly escaping their curbside predicament, they then stow themselves away within a box of donations travelling to Sunnyside Daycare. Accepting that Andy has outgrown them and happy to be living within an environment populated by energetic toy-loving kids again, Buzz (Tim Allen) etc. embrace their new surroundings and approach the transition enthusiastically. But Woody (Tom Hanks) knows that they were supposed to be sent to the attic and refuses to play any other role than that of one of Andy's toys. He therefore sets out to return home while his friends discover that Sunnyside is actually a maximum security prison run by a despotic toy named Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear (Ned Beatty). Will Woody be able to convince his friends that they should return home to their rightful owner, and if so, will he be able to help them escape?

Sigh. So the toys leave the private comforts of suburbia to live within the public domain only to discover that it's being run by a tyrant. They try and grow up, move on, adapt, change, only to be ruthlessly beat down and outrageously abused. The tyrant is defeated and replaced by Ken and Barbie (who live in Sunnyside's most suburban residence) who turn Sunnyside into a warm and friendly place. Which I guess just points out that as you move around working you'll probably find autocratic and hospitable environments, many of which are hospitably autocratic and autocratically hospitable, depending on their socio-political dynamics and how well your personality fits within, and while living within the autocratic, you may spend time wishing you were still at home. But the film's predominant focus vilifies the world outside that within which servants cater to the well-to-do, suggesting that it's better to grow up and live in suburbia than try and develop a more gregarious public sphere. Meaning thumbs down to Toy Story 3.

Winter's Bone

Reminding me of Five Easy Pieces in terms of form, Debra Granik's Winter's Bone envelopes a grizzled resurgent incarcerated aesthetic within a young girl's desperate search for her dad. Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) has been raising her younger brother and sister for some time as her drug-dealing and manufacturing father simply has no interest and her mother has lost her mind. It becomes necessary to find her father who is out on bail after the police inform her that his bond includes their house and land. If he doesn't show up for court, her family loses everything. The people who know where he might be live in a cold violent culture saturated with extremely distinct gender roles and physical consequences for stepping out of line. Ree must enter this world and ask tough questions in order to ensure her family's survival.

Strict, stark, and sharp, Winter's Bone directly interrogates what it means to have consequences. Characters within aren't spending an inordinate amount of time considering options, there's simply a predicament and a potential solution tethered to an unforgiving social scale. Family can be relied upon if and only if this scale is balanced. Inquisitiveness will be tolerated to a point.

Demonstrating resourcefulness, ingenuity, and perseverance, Ree does everything within her power to broker a solution while taking care of her struggling family. The film's uniform statically resilient being is delicately nurtured even if its subject matter is harsh. Presence is effectively cultivated and sustained and agency delegated and retained. Number 3 closely behind The King's Speech and Inception in my pick for the upcoming Best Picture Oscar.

With a cameo from Sheryl Lee.

127 Hours

I've never really liked survival movies with small casts set in dire circumstances. Cast Away, Open Water, Frozen, none of these films were for me. Hence, I wasn't exactly looking forward to Danny Boyle's 127 Hours even though I've loved most of his films and one day hope to purchase a related box-set. The question is: why was 127 Hours nominated for best picture at this year's Academy Awards when everyone knows precisely what is going to happen before it starts? I think the answer lies somewhere in the following. Boyle is faced with the challenge of remaining loyal to the facts while composing a thoughtful piece of entertainment. Peaks and valleys must be employed subtly to satisfy unconscious expectations and avoid sensational solicitations. This has been done. We have to have a reason to stay awake even though we know what's going to happen, thus, new material must consistently be introduced that not only holds our attention but also produces a minimal degree of curiosity. This has also been done and the scene where James Franco (Aron Ralston) pretends to be on the radio was enough to guarantee that I would watch the entire film. A symbol is also required and Ralston represents the iconic adventurous individual, working in the city throughout the week and benignly conquering nature on weekends, bold and resourceful, cheerful and helpful, working within the system but playing by his own rules whenever provided with the opportunity. What happens when nature refuses to be conquered and decides to introduce a diabolical obstacle of its own, thereby reminding the iconic individual that bold activity can also be considered rash? As time passes, the survivor's psyche must be realistically shown to be duelling with the elements while holding onto enough sanity to continue persevering, and Boyle's camera work and stoic script provocatively insulate such outcomes (script co-written by Simon Beaufoy). As these elements synthesize, we must develop genuine affection for the character to the point where his ingenuity and corresponding _______ produce an unconditioned joyful response, a cathartic release, unalloyed happiness. 127 Hours coaxed such a response from me and I don't even like these kinds of films so I can understand why it was nominated for best picture. Excellent performance from Franco as well and I thought his performances lacked depth in Sam Raimi's Spider Man films.

Incendies

A notary public is tasked with delivering two cryptic letters from his former administrative assistant's will to her adult twin children, one mentioning the father they thought dead, the other, the brother they never knew they had. The children receive the letters with opposite reactions, Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) setting out to the Middle-East in search of her father, Simon (Maxim Gaudette) refusing to take them seriously. With hardly any corresponding information and no working knowledge of Arabic, Jeanne resiliently makes her way from cryptic clue to startling fact while encountering the cold face of historical prejudice. When Simon and the notary public (Rémy Girard as Jean Lebel) finally arrive, everyone comes closer to discovering the truth.

The narrative travels back and forth through time, presenting Jeanne and Simon's mother (Lubna Azabal as Nawal Marwan) as she struggles to survive, and her children as they try to piece her life together. At first I found this device frustrating, wanting to spend more time focusing on Jeanne and Simon and theorize my own version of Nawal's past through their discoveries. But as the stories blend together, the delicate pacing, intergenerational tracings, and temporal effacings stoically reinvest the concept of adventure with a spiritual intellectual assiduity that rarely vouchsafes its resplendent presence (editing by Monique Dartonne).

Not bad.

Delivering serendipitous facts and inevitable allusions which hauntingly dispossess the eternal return of the same, Denis Villeneuve's Incendies interrogates time by historically condensing its contemporary space. The definition of sacred is re-calibrated and dematerialized within, its semantic distinction fluidly overflowing.

And what is all this worth if not for a chance to pursue something distant and arcane?

Heatstroke and heartache and lambastes and pulsates.

Deep down.

Talk to Her (Hable con ella)

Love is a strange emotion, awakening oceanic depths of creativity, thought, and malevolence, to be deconstructed, refurnished, and psycho-analyzed, as maelstroms, typhoons, and sunsets qualify particular epochs and re-materialize evocative conjectures.

Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her (Hable con ella) examines love's destructively revitalizing spirit by introducing two men both in love with women in comas. Benigno Martín (Javier Cámara) loves Alicia (Leonor Watling), a dancer whose been in his care for 4 years. He talks to her constantly and treats her as if she's cognizant in the hopes of one day awakening her from her slumber. Marco Zuluaga (Darío Grandinetti) loves Lydia González (Rosario Flores), a volatile matador whose managed to successfully compete in bull fighting's chauvinistic domain. After having been gorged by a bull, little hope is predicted for her survival. Benigno and Marco strike up a related friendship and contrast one another productively. While Benigno possesses the fantastic self-taught grit and determination of a confident yet fragile artistic tragedy, Marco is a journalist and thoroughly educated in the 'realistic traditions of rationality.' Benigno's passionate and devoted approach has a resounding affect on the broken Marco, whose objectivity is eventually remodelled by the clearcut desires of his sensitivities.

One of the most affective investigations of friendship I've seen, Talk to Her presents a subjective ideal tempered by practice whose theoretical forecasts are realistically detonated. In the aftermath a friend awaits, patiently supporting his fallen compatriot, through thick and thin.

The Osterman Weekend

Definitely the worst Sam Peckinpah film I've seen, The Osterman Weekend pretentiously delivers a straightforward thriller in a tawdry fashion. Many of the lines possess merit but it's hard to believe they weren't rewritten to improve upon their catchy yet stark foundation.

Yeah yeah.

So a CIA agent's wife is murdered and afterwards he seeks revenge. He's eventually tasked with convincing television host John Tanner (Rutger Hauer) that three of his closest friends are working for the KGB. The plan: gain Tanner's trust and help him to persuade one of his friends to return to team America and recast himself as a double agent. The setting: a weekend vacation at Tanner's house. The giveaway: the CIA agent (John Hurt as Lawrence Fassett) has actually fabricated the story because he suspects that CIA director Maxwell Danforth (Burt Lancaster) is responsible for murdering his wife. He hopes to expose Danforth's murderous ways on national television in an interview conducted by Tanner. Danforth agrees to the interview after Tanner agrees to betray his friends. Tanner agrees to set Danforth up after Fassett kidnaps his wife and son and murders four of his friends. There's one of the worst car chase scenes I've ever scene. And does shattering glass really need several slow moving close-ups?

The smooth jazz soundtrack doesn't help things. Innovative directors use the ways in which their credits are presented to express meaning. I was fearful that The Osterman Weekend's opening credits were forecasting a predictable bourgeois sickly sentimental swan song, and unfortunately they were. If you're ever wondering where Trey Parker and Matt Stone find a lot of their material, The Osterman Weekend is worth checking out. Otherwise, unless you're a devoted Peckinpah fan or like watching bad movies with exceptional casts, steer clear of The Osterman Weekend ad nauseam.

The Rite

Mikael Håfström's The Rite succinctly examines a doubting would-be Catholic priest's confrontation with theological proof. After having decided not to take his vows, Michael Kovak (Colin O'Donoghue) is 'convinced' to spend two months studying exorcism in Rome. He ardently believes that the possessed are simply suffering from mental illness and doesn't respond to his studies enthusiastically. In order to challenge his beliefs, Father Xavier (Ciarán Hinds) introduces him to an exorcist, Father Lucas Travant (Anthony Hopkins), who allows him to witness his sessions. The sessions are neither mundane nor theatrical and Kovak is initially disquieted by their quotidian mysticism. A beautiful reporter (Alice Braga as Angeline) writing a piece about the legitimacy of demonic possession is hoping to exercise his scoop, thereby serving to further destabilize his conscience. Then, as his father (Rutger Hauer) dies and Travant loses his mind, Kovak must decide where his belief truly lies.

The Rite is a modest sharp-witted calling card for the Catholic faith. The troubles facing Roman Catholicism in Western countries are resignedly referred to and the arguments contradicting its dogma given free room to play. The film is modest insofar as it doesn't bombard you with passionate pleas for legitimacy and showcases several characters, many of them of the faith, possessing the same doubts as the typical disbeliever. The film's modesty generates its sharp-wit because underlying its form is the awareness that intense elevations of Catholic principles don't receive much Western airtime these days, leaving proponents in check, requiring a subtle next move. The Rite is subtle and psychological and presented in the agnostic tradition while still remaining firmly devoted to Catholicism. On a spiritual intellectual contemporary level the film works. Structurally, however, it's somewhat condensed. The film is about Kovak but the most compelling character is Travant. If more screen time had been devoted to Travant's character, examining his history and conscience more zealously, his sudden decent into 'madness' would have seemed less like a gimmick and more like a tragedy.