Category: 8. Patricia Ducey

It’s Safe to Visit The South Again: LFM Reviews Footloose

Southern belle (Julianne Hough) and a GT.

By Patricia Ducey. Director Craig Brewer of Black Snake Moan and Hustle and Flow has proven he can rock a Southern stereotype, but in his remake of Footloose, to my astonishment, he dumps every one of them into the Georgia red clay—and proves his bona fides as a skilled director. Several times in the movie theater I braced myself for that bucket of ice cold cliché to be dumped over my head, but it never happened—and that’s this movie’s triumph.

Bible-thumping preacher? No, good man laid low by grief.

Stupid Southern redneck? Nope, man-to-be who carries his self-esteem lightly, with charm to burn.

Well, surely then, Woody, the African American football captain faces racist teammates? Um, no again. We all get along just fine here in Bomont, Georgia, thank you very much.

The story opens as Boston kid Ren MacCormack (Kenny Wormald) arrives in Bomont, Georgia, taken in by his Aunt Lulu and Uncle Wes (Ray McKinnon and Kim Dickens) after his father abandons the family and his mother passes away. He soon discovers the ban on dancing and music, all due to a horrific fatal car accident three years prior when five teens went joyriding after a kegger, all explained to him by new friend Willard (Miles Teller) . . . wait, Willard? So he must be the big dumb hick then? Au contraire, Teller is the breakout star of the movie and probable new teen heartthrob. His Willard, Pitchford and Brewer’s charming and witty creation, is a delight.

On his first day at the new school, Ren locks eyes with the preacher’s daughter Ariel (Julianne Hough), who is carrying on with a race car driver bad boy, reacting against her own sorrow after brother Bobby’s death in the car crash. Complications, love triangles and spirited dancing ensue; lessons are learned. And Brewer delivers without pandering or disdain for his subject—or audience.

Yes, this movie understands and respects its audience. Brewer deepens the original’s broad caricatures into characters; we come to care about and root for even the grownups. He edits out the derisive edge exhibited in the first. Notably, Ren respects Ariel before she respects herself, like a true man would—and he learned that from his family. Footloose understands that to its teen audience a single kiss can hold greater import in their lives, as in Ren and Ariel’s, than the cynical hooking up in most other Hollywood movies aimed at their demographic.

Big dance numbers.

The supporting characters are well developed as well. Uncle Wes (only a bit less scruffy as his character in Sons of Anarchy), and his wife own and work at a used car dealership, take care of their own kids and even manage to send money to Ren’s mother after his father left. They’re good people, smart and fairly successful; their business is holding fast in the recession. The parents and kids enjoy and care for each other. They take Ren in when the need arises. In short, they are not cartoons. Instead, they embody the best of the American family ethic. The townsfolk are real people: they reluctantly support the curfew and ban on dancing because they fear another horrific accident, like the one that killed the preacher’s son and four other kids. There’s no bannin’ of books or firin’ of uppity teachers as in the earlier version. Ren protests the dancing ban with respect and through proper channels (take note, Occupy Wall Street) because he respects where the town and the reverend are coming from. And yet there is no sugary aftertaste; Ren doesn’t smoke dope, because he’s a gymnast—not because he’s holier than thou. The kids chafe under the restrictions of their elders, and they demand a little freedom— along with the risk. Safety versus security—timely questions. Continue reading It’s Safe to Visit The South Again: LFM Reviews Footloose

The Legacy of The Holocaust in France: LFM Reviews Sarah’s Key

By Patricia Ducey. The year is 1942; the place, a temporary camp for French Jews just outside Paris. As French gendarmes tear infants away from their hysterical mothers, the children and mothers panic and stampede the police. The officer in charge perceives that the rioting will soon spiral out control. “Cooperate,” he bellows soothingly to the distraught families, “and all will be well.” The crowd calms and a tense order is restored; the women and able-bodied children file away to the waiting train and disappear inside, never again to see the toddlers they left behind.

As I watch this heartbreaking sequence another image comes to mind, perhaps because the ten-year anniversary approaches: the passport image of a 9/11 suicide hijacker. I am struck by the memory of his similar, chilling admonition to “stay quiet and you’ll be okay” as he steered the plane towards the Towers. I now understand why the lies of tyrants and murderers are so simple and so timeless – because they play upon a human nature that rejects the terrible knowledge of such evil. Those simple lies work. This vulnerability resonates throughout the new film Sarah’s Key into the present day, elevating the film from Lifetime bathos to must-see drama.

French director Gilles Paquet-Brenner adapts the best selling novel by Tatiana de Rosnay and brings it successfully to life. His Sarah’s Key whittles down the story to an effective through-line, eliminating some of the novel’s distracting twists and turns – and at the same time fleshing out the characters through a smart and economical script, expert actors and rich cinematography. We feel in the end that this novel had to be a movie, this very movie.

The film begins as Julia Jarmond, an American journalist married and living in Paris, takes on a story assignment about the 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris. She soon discovers a paucity of information: the site of the roundup was torn down years before and only one photograph remains of the incident, buses waiting outside the velodrome. The government has no written records or photos of what went on inside.

The Parisian government willingly collaborated with the Nazis, and prepared well for the morning when they knocked on the doors of thousands of apartments and herded the Jews inside into transports that delivered them to the famous indoor bicycle stadium. These French Jews remained at the Velodrome d’Hiver for days in stifling heat with no sanitary facilities or adequate water; many died there. The rest were eventually transported to camps outside Paris and then to the trains to take them to camps they were told, as usual, were work camps.

Kristin Scott Thomas as Julia Jarmond.

As Julia interviews private individuals still searching for survivors and records, she discovers that her in-laws may have taken over an apartment in the Marais left empty by one such deported Jewish family. The concurrent story of that Jewish family, especially of the daughter Sarah – who hides her little brother in a secret closet in the apartment – intercuts with the present day events until the strands finally come together.

Kristin Scott-Thomas plays Julia, the American living in Paris with her French husband, and handles both the investigative journalist role and her domestic currents with equal skill and heart. The script by Serge Joncour concentrates on her persistence and emotional openness so that we simply cannot imagine anyone else playing her. But young French actress Melusine Mayance as Sarah Starzynski simply amazes; she fills the screen in a pitch perfect performance, full of love and sorrow, courage and intelligence. Wisely, the director allows Sarah’s tragic 1942 story to emerge as the foreground story, while Julia’s present day difficulties provide an echo of the past and a reminder of some eternal truths. Continue reading The Legacy of The Holocaust in France: LFM Reviews Sarah’s Key

LFM Review: The Whistleblower

The Whistleblower, which stars Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave, David Strathairn and Monica Bellucci and deals with UN corruption in Bosnia, opens in select theaters today. We wanted Libertas readers to know that our own Patricia Ducey reviewed the film during the Newport Beach Film Festival back in May, so be sure to check her review out!

Posted on August 5th, 2011 at 10:09am.

LFM Review: Horrible Bosses

By Patricia Ducey. Horrible Bosses, is not, well, horrible – it’s what I call a Friday Night Movie, one best seen, if at all, after Happy Hour with your work chums in a theater filled with other people who have done the same. Laughter is infectious, and a slight buzz often helps that along. A way-too-serious and gross first half gives way to some real laughs in the second half, and the ingenious script does at times truly surprise and delight. But Bosses never does rise above a grade of ‘C,’ due to its 3-4 rating on the Apatow Scale (zero being no F-bombs or raunchiness; 5 being F-bombs/raunchiness equal to an Apatow movie). Most of the time, the raunchiness here is just a distraction from dumb writing, as becomes apparent.

Hapless, harried office workers Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) work in their own private hells, victims of their unbearable bosses: Kevin Spacey as Nick’s manipulative, Machiavellian boss at a financial firm, Colin Farrell (whose physical transformation from sexy Irishman to cheeseball cokehead is astounding) as Kurt’s bete noir manager at a chemical company, and Jennifer Aniston as Dale’s sex-obsessed, harassing boss/dentist.

After a few beers one night, the trio decides that a well planned murder of these three villains is the answer to their problems, so they head downtown to the nastiest bar they can find to hire a hit man. There they find Jamie Foxx, a “murder consultant” who gives them a general outline of a plan (cribbed from movie plots) in exchange for five grand. Later, after discussion and soul searching, they hit upon a variation of the consultant’s plan and decide to forge ahead. After all, they have watched enough movies and Law & Order episodes to guarantee they can concoct a foolproof crime … or crimes! In other words, they are idiots – and with reasoning like theirs, you can guess that all does not proceed smoothly. Soon the guys are running into and from cops, killers, and overly amorous women. Hilarity occasionally ensues. Continue reading LFM Review: Horrible Bosses

LFM Review: Midnight in Paris

By Patricia Ducey. Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s latest film, is a frothy romantic comedy topped with a healthy soupcon of wisdom, a welcome turn from the now 75-year-old filmmaker.

Screenwriter Gil (Owen Wilson) and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) accompany her well-heeled parents to Paris for a little pre-wedding vacation/shopping trip. Gil adores Paris and longs to leave L.A. behind to write novels there, a la Hemingway and Fitzgerald, in the heady Paris of his imagination; Inez, however, is quite content with the good life in a Malibu manse, financed by Gil’s steady income from what he derides as his B-movie success. (Mon dieu, what present day scribe would complain of steady sales of any scripts?!)

But Gil is an incurable romantic, and his longings create a pebble in the shoe of their relationship. He stalks off one night after a squabble to ponder his future, both literary and romantic. As the bell tower chimes midnight, an antique auto pulls up and the revelers inside drag him inside. As the night and the champagne flow, Gil comes to believe his hosts really are Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, as they insist, and that he has landed somewhere inside his most cherished dream. And so his adventure ensues, with Gil concocting ever greater ruses to escape Inez to return to the ‘20s, where all his literary and artistic idols—and one particularly lovely woman—await him. But I will not spoil the fun by explaining; the story is very clever and surprising.

Some of Allen’s arch improv-style patter falls flat, but more of it produces smiles or laughter. And Paris is a character here, too; Allen and his cinematographer, Darius Khondji, weave a Paris of amber glowing streetlamps, sumptuous five-star restaurants and earthy flea markets for our delight. The city (at least the part in frame) looks perfectly lovely. He sets the action against a soundtrack of lively Cole Porter and many of his other jazz favorites perfect for the time. If you can’t afford a plane ticket, Midnight in Paris will do. Continue reading LFM Review: Midnight in Paris

Venture Capital & The Origins of Silicon Valley: LFM Reviews Something Ventured

By Patricia Ducey. In 1957, a group of eight California engineers, unhappy at their jobs at Shockley Semiconductors, decided to leave en masse for more compatible environs and wrote to a Wall Street banker for help in finding just the right employer. That banker, Arthur Rock, saw other possibilities and flew out West to convince them to start their own company. He would provide the capital, they would provide the scientific know-how. Later dubbed “The Traitorous Eight” by Shockley, they had to ask Rock what venture capital was and why they would want to start their own company, but they acceded. Rock and his investor and engineers then formed their entirely new company, Fairchild Semiconductors—and Silicon Valley was born.

The new documentary Something Ventured tells their story and numerous others; and it’s as sparkling, sweet—and potent—as a champagne cocktail.  Something Ventured is also an unapologetic paean to capitalism, dispensing a much needed corrective to the current cries of “Tax the Rich,” “At some point you’ve made enough money” or “Off with their heads!” All right, I made up that last one, but you get my point.

Producers Paul Holland (a partner himself at a venture firm) and Molly Davis chose Emmy-award winning filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine to helm the film. The able duo mix pop music, priceless old footage and facts and figures with interviews of the now octogenarian money men who funded the future. Holland, and many of the people in the film, aim to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs—and, perhaps, to gently encourage our government and media to consider the upside of capitalism for once.

But the filmmakers include the downside of the high risk atmosphere of startups, too. The investors note that about half of the original founders of startups are replaced within 18 months of a new corporate structure. Sandy Lerner, a founder of Cisco, recalls painfully how she was fired from the company she loved by the new owner/managers (and how many times has Steve Jobs been fired?), while Tom Perkins and Pitch Johnson recall a few of the inventions that turned out to be duds and companies (termed “the living dead”) that never took off.

If at times the film feels like a storytelling session with the boys at the coffee shop, that’s because it started out that way. Linda Yates, Holland’s wife, introduced him to the semi-retired investors, and he enjoyed their stories so much he decided to share them. These are men of good humor, optimism and ambition and clearly relish their role as facilitators to the innovators they met along the way. They insist that the entrepreneurs of Apple and Genentech, Cisco and numerous others of their startups, are the real heroes. Their own passion is to create and grow businesses where no business existed before, and they still are spreading the good news today – in their typically larger-than-life fashion. (Pitch Johnson, for one, jumped in his private plane one day in 1970 and flew to Cuba to convince Fidel Castro of the superior benefits of capitalism. No word yet on Castro’s response.) Continue reading Venture Capital & The Origins of Silicon Valley: LFM Reviews Something Ventured