The Rocket (***1/4)

Superficially, this charmer seems like it could be a Laotian variation on Whale Rider, the decade-old surprise hit about a Maori girl who triumphs despite her grandfather’s efforts to discourage her. It’s also a story about people from a traditional culture colliding with modern ways, and also features a not-so-loving grandparent. In this case, Ahlo (Sitthiphon Disamoe) is a small boy, and his grandmother is the discouraging one, believing that Ahlo, as the only survivor of twins, brings bad luck.

A forced relocation (to make way for a dam project) brings tragedy to Ahlo and his family, but this movie is not a lamentation about the loss of traditional culture, and not a melodrama, but basically, in the end, a feel-good film about Ahlo’s spirited attempt to break his supposed curse via a contest. Along the way he befriends a little girl being taken care of, or maybe taking care of, what must be Laos’s number one James Brown disciple (he even looks like the Godfather of Soul). The ending to the story feels a bit too easy, but a lot of charm and originality should overcome most such objections. If the subtitles are not a bar, this may even appeal to kids, who should appreciate the independence of its young hero.

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viewed 10/22/13 7:10 pm at Ritz East [Philadelphia Film Festival screening] and posted 10/22/13

Wadjda (***1/2)

Purportedly the first feature filmed in Saudi Arabia as well as the first by a female Saudi director (Haifaa Al-Mansour), Wadjda would be an accomplishment even if it sucked. But it doesn’t. Not only that, where you might expect a political drama, it’s kind of a feel-good film. The social commentary is secondary to story-telling.

True, no one will miss the implicit critique of the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia. Watching this, I had the thought that if I were a female in Saudi Arabia, I might want to remain 10 or 11 forever. I would be too young to worry, like Wadjda’s mother does, about having to rely on a male driver to get to a job, about a husband possibly acquiring a second wife. I could go about without a veil covering my face. I could pal around with a boy.

Wadjda is a girl of such an age. She’s not so good in school, but clever outside of it, earning money by selling bracelets to classmates, cadging discounts from a local storekeeper. The Converse sneakers she wears to school and the T-shirt she wears at home (saying, in English, “I’m a Great Catch”) suggest a rebel. But really, she just wants to do her own thing.  Her only two problems are the disapproval of her school’s headmistress and her inability to afford the bike she wants to ride. That she doesn’t know how to ride a bike, and that everyone tells her girls don’t ride them, is less of concern. Meanwhile, a school contest presents a potential solution to both problems.

Some of the particulars of the story, like the strict religiosity of the headmistress, and the need to avoid being seen by men, are particular to the Saudi context, but mean teachers, coveted objects, and conflicts between one’s parents are universal childhood experiences. The combination of these familiar experiences with the novel context is the most striking aspect of the movie, along with its young lead actress. Possessing a wide smile and camera presence, Waad Mohammed gives the most appealing performance by a child since Onata Aprile in What Maisie Knew. The personality she breathes into the character should make this film irresistibly winsome for anyone old enough to be able to read the subtitles.



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viewed 10/10/13 7:40 pm, at Ritz 5; posted 10/11/13 and updated 10/12/13

Populaire (***)

For those who thought that the erotic possibilities of the manual typewriter had not been sufficiently explored in Secretary comes this tamer French film, set in 1959. Defying her father’s wishes for her to marry the son of the local mechanic, small-town Rose (Déborah François) comes to the slightly bigger town not for love, but to be a secretary. She proves to be a kind of a savant with the typewriter, but not so savvy at other office skills. But instead of firing her, the boss (Romain Duris) presents her with a flyer for a typing competition. When her four-fingered technique proves an impediment to achieving her greatest potential, he becomes her personal trainer, coaching her on the techniques of touch typing. (She types, he touches. Or wants to, anyway.) And so Rose blooms.

Thus this is as much a sports film as a romantic comedy. Director Régis Roinsard swirls the camera around like Martin Scorcese filming a boxing match. The tone is earnest, not satirical. It’s more amusing than funny. I’d have thought that the plot and setting would lend itself to screwball comedy, perhaps something like Down with Love, the Renée Zellweger/Ewan McGregor comedy that tipped its hat to comedies like Pillow Talk, also set in 1959. But François, while very good in the role, is a little too much of a nice girl, though espousing modern feminist sensibilities. And Duris, whose name suggests a French Cary Grant, actually plays a someone brooding character whose reticence supplies the requisite, though not altogether convincing, plot that allows the romantic and competitive portions of the plot to come together at once. The novelty of a typewriting contest and a general likeability counter the lack of originality of the last half hour.

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viewed 10/2/13 7:00 at Ritz Bourse and posted 10/2/13

The Goods: Live Hard * Sell Hard (**)

An awkwardly titled comedy with the grating Jeremy Piven as the leader of a guns-for-hire team of sales folks who aim to rescue a family-owned car dealership in a no-holds-barred weekend sale. I have no idea if such folks exist, but I’m pretty sure no one c0nnected with the script knows anything more about selling cars than a couple of Google searches would turn up. No, the main idea is to present a bunch of people acting outrageous. The lone female, for example, lusts after the dealership owner’s son, who is supposedly ten years old but trapped in the body of a thirty-year-old. Heee-larious?

Some of this is fairly funny for a bit, depending on your taste for the tasteless, but when the old salesman makes his fifth or sixth racist/sexist comment it ceases to be daring or outrageous and becomes merely tiresome. Then you start to notice that all of the characters, even Piven’s, are pretty one-dimensional and the plotting is out of a Comedy Movie 101 course.

IMDB link

viewed at screening [Bridge] and reviewed 8/15/09

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (***1/4)

This was practically a must-see for me, as Donkey Kong was my first video game crush as a senior in high school. Virtual celebrity plumber Mario, who had no brother yet, got his start in the arcade classic back in 1981. Yet, maybe surprisingly, this isn’t just about nostalgia. Besides centering on the quest of Arizona teacher Steve Wiebe to take the Kong crown away from longtime holder Billy Mitchell, the documentary uncovers a whole subculture of old-school gamers, nearly all men, for whom high scores in Centipede, or Q-Bert, are like 100-meter records for runners. Neither mild-mannered Wiebe nor hot-sauce mogul Mitchell is a stereotypical geek, though you can see some of those on the fringes, and their clash of personalities gives the movie some of its interest. Allegations of cheating, high-pressure tournaments, and factional infighting are all part of the story here. Director Seth Gordon compresses some of these events into a highly watchable (even for non-gamers) 79 minutes.

IMDB link

reviewed 9/25/07

Deep Water (**1/2)

This documentary chronicles the efforts of an amateur to win an around-the-world boating race in the late 1960s. In the wake of Francis Chichester’s successful circumnavigation in 1966–1967, the Sunday Times of London had organized, to great fanfare, a nonstop race with a prize of 5000 pounds. Donald Crowhurst, an electrical engineer with unfulfilled ambitions of grandeur, was one of nine competitors. Under financial pressure, and struggling to live up to the weight of heavy expectations that he had helped to create with his confident air, Chowhurst had a great task from the start, being the only one to design and build his boat from scratch. Practical details are scarce in the movie, but the novel design was intended to help the boat go faster. The movie is hampered by its fusty BBC-style approach as well as the lack of compelling footage, despite the use of recordings by Crowhurst and Bernard Moitessier, the Frenchman who was expected to be a prime competitor. Moitessier, who died in 1994, seems a compelling figure on his own who might have warranted a lengthier profile. He is represented by his widow (as is Crowhurst), and the other competitors are hardly mentioned. It’s not a bad story, but the psychological angle the movie emphasizes would seem better explored in a lengthy article with a few illustrations. The latter-day interviews and re-creations of Crowhurst’s radio transmissions add little visually.

IMDB link

reviewed 9/21/07

Akeelah and the Bee (***1/2)

A crowd-pleasing (in a good way) underdog story about a South Central LA girl who enters the National Spelling Bee.

This was the movie chosen to open this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival. It’s also the second movie in the space of six months to feature the National Spelling Bee as its pivotal event. But where Bee Season used the contest to examine a family in crisis, the contestant herself is squarely the focus of this sometimes funny, frequently charming drama. Twelve-year-old Keke Palmer gives a standout performance as a girl from South Central Los Angeles whose desire to excel conflicts with an equal desire not to seem like the school nerd, or to aggravate her widowed mother (Angela Bassett). Laurence Fishburne is her demanding coach. Spellbound, the superb 2002 documentary, has a lot more genuine suspense than this. And how is that so many top spellers come from near Hollywood? A couple of the supporting characters (e.g., Bassett’s) are a little too flip-floppy also, but Akeelah effectively tugs at the heartstrings and plays out as an underdog story without undue sappiness.

IMDb link

posted 9/1/13