One example of poor reputation management…
Is leaving my web presence out-of-date for weeks, while I worked on and pondered a strategic improvement, and let my blog sit.
While I often enjoyed writing film reviews and critiques, I missed reporting stories. And, so, I stepped away from writing about and appraising movies, but not my passion for them.
I need to unveil Wright’s Words’ new site, but it’s not yet ready for primetime. If you want to know about my work or background, please go here.
“Failure is not a option!”
This is a familiar phrase. We hear it in war movies, such as “G.I. Jane.” In fact for some, it’s banal and shallow. Why: how much do we learn from our success? And how much more from our screw-ups?
There’s a book about “Celebrating Failure: The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big.”
This prevailing question about the good, which comes from failure, bubbled up in my brain because of a piece in the “Wall Street Journal:” The Art of Failing Successfully.
Which experience teaches us, or impels us to grow the most? It ain’t that wonderful triumph!
While awards and handshakes are splendid, and affirm each of us, our mistakes and wrong-headed decisions, or judgment calls teach us in ways success cannot.
Ask anyone who’s tried the untried; ask Steve Jobs.
Ask the folks behind the Apollo 13 mission; in the movie, mission chief Jim Lovell’s colleagues described it as a successful failure.
Hello readers,
I plan to diversify my writing, and make a strategic revision to WrightsWords.com. While writing about movies can be fun and satisfying, I miss other forms of journalism. A variety of diverse and divergent topics and themes interest me. I miss reporting stories. This may disappoint some of you. But I need to mix up my writing.
“Toast” is a peculiar “family” story where a father (played by Ken Stott) and son Nigel (Oscar Kennedy, when young; Freddie Highmore, when older) in 1960s England clash before and after the his mother (played by Victoria Hamilton) has passed on.
The family is used to simple, banal suppers: mom has the opposite of the Midas touch in the kitchen. When Nigel asks his mum to bake a cake with him, she concedes “if we have to.” Nigel daydreams about being either a grocer or cook, with grateful customers. Frustrated, the middle school age Nigel is ambitious: he wants to cook for his family, show them that dinner can be something better than buttered toast – seriously!
Mum and son struggle to bake a cake in "Toast" (Courtesy: W2 media)
When Mrs. Potter, their housekeeper (Helena Bonham Carter) arrives, she excites the dad in ways he’d forgotten, and pushes Nigel’s buttons as she seems inclined to take his mom’s place.
As happens in some misguided movies, this one is vague and meanders without purpose, with the most interesting plotting waiting the final act! By then, an older Nigel begins to compete with the new woman of the house, Mrs. Potter, to satisfy his dad’s stomach. She won’t play nice.
And, then it’s fun. This opens at the Edina Cinema on Oct. 14th.
This might be splendid inside baseball for foodies. Until the final act, others’ll feel they’ve been plunged into the deep end.
Lust blinds. Love confounds. “Happy, Happy” is the feature-length debut of Anne Sewitsky. Each of us has faced the questions of whether someone is the one for us. Sometimes the answer to that question is easy; it’d be great to know that life. What happens when you have to face the fact that you chose the wrong partner and lover?
This not quite love story opens at the Uptown Theatre on October 7th.
“Happy, Happy,” a Norwegian film, confronts that question in sensitive and sloppy ways. There are two very different couples, neither of which is happy. One man is fleeing from the memories of his wife’s infidelity. One woman isn’t sure why her man feels nothing for and in fact belittles her. And why he’s fine with ignoring his reasons why.
A happy marriage – each to someone else. (Courtesy: Magnolia Pictures)
Love is often a compromise, but how much do you give or give up for happiness? In this story of love, which might not be a love story, an educated couple Sivge (Henrik Rafaelsen) and Elisabeth (Maibrett Saerens) rents a house from and is greeted by a provincial and friendly couple, Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen) and Kaja (Agnes Kittelsen). Elisabeth and Sivge are professionals, while Kaja and Eirik do…we don’t know what. Each couple has a son. Elisabeth and Sivge is adopted from Ethiopia. Why they are in this story is a mystery – neither helps the story. Mysteriously Kaja no longer interests Eirik. Some months ago Elisabeth cheated on Sivge.
Kaja, made vulnerable by Eirik’s chronic disinterest in and belittling of her, finds a role model in Sivge and Elisabeth, and a distraction in Sivge. He finds a refreshing and welcome warmth and sweetness in Kaja. But Eirik faces a different, confusing problem: why’d he choose Kaja? What does he want?
This is a competent film with problems, which make you scratch your head: there’s a bizarre, awkward subplot concentrating on Elisabeth and Sivge’s adopted Ethiopian son. For an inexplicable reason, after having found a children’s book on slavery, Kaja and Eirik’s son decides to play “slave” games with the boy. He somewhat playfully treats him as one.
How does love look when you want the other's partner? (Courtesy: Magnolia Picture)
These distractions work like a musical segment from a circa mid-20th-Century movie: a Negro band plays a song, which is irrelevant to the movie, and, which when played in the South, could be removed so that it wouldn’t offend that region’s sensibilities.
There’s a palate-cleansing devise bombs: a choral group, which sings between acts. While the songs suit the story sometimes, they don’t serve it. The subplots don’t support or propel the main story – they give nothing to it. If the director had omitted either of these problems, she could’ve also omitted at least 15-minutes from the film.
This is a competent film with a nice, quiet and smart story. But doesn’t need to run for much longer than an hour.
“Mr Nice” is a great autobiographical story about Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans), a shy young Welsh boy who finds himself going to Oxford, and on his accidental way to being a British hash king pin. It’s based on his book of the same name, or title.
It starts in a surprising way: before he gives a speech, he asks “are there any plain clothes officers here?”
The poster (from images.google.com)
The story’s era and Mr. Marks’ temperament reminds me of “In the Name of the Father,” although it has not a thing to do with this film. Mr. Nice/Marks is a smart, funny slacker as king pin, upturning many stereotypes. This backwoods Welshman tests well, and ends up at Oxford, discovering the pleasure of drugs, and more, that his innocent look serves his need for stealth.
If that core of the story wasn’t enough, it turns out that the British secret service turn to him to turn up information that eludes them. Both of these twists on the typical are welcome and refreshing!
This smart, amusing and atypical true-crime yarn opens at the Lagoon Cinema on September 30th.
This story feels a lot like 2001′s “Blow,” but without that one’s morose ending or dramatic peaks and valleys in the plot. He’s no Scarface or Daniel Craig’s no-name character in 2004′s “Layer Cake.” (In fact the actor, Rhys Ifans, is the “masterbating Irishman” from Notting Hill.) This is less of a paint-by-numbers film than other drug lord ones. Some drug dramas emphasize trauma and upturned lives. This one, without any hard-boiled East Coast-style shows Mr. Marks’ slippery slope of involvement.
“Mr. Nice” is a crazy, funny story that’s very smart, but doesn’t take itself too seriously.
“Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame” is a fun yarn, where the digital and martial arts spectacle are the priorities. This story, centering on China’s lone empress, Wu Zetian, is great to look at, especially for children, and the young at heart – except for the scenes where vital characters combust spontaneously.
Stunning image (Courtesy: Indomina Releasing)
The first time you see it is a shock. But after a few more, it’s merely strange and creepy.
This opens at the Uptown Theater on Sept. 23.
It indulges in vast digital imagery and special effects with casts of 1000s. The story has a lot of twists, which, in the end, are moot. Ditch your thinking cap, and enjoy the ride. (If the empress’ legacy interests you, and if you can find it, maybe you should watch a“Wu Ze Tian,” from 1963?)
When one restaurant, El Bulli, stands above all others with its adventurous and experimental food, and becomes world renowned, why not document its story?
“El Bulli: Cooking in Progress” is a pure documentary in a sense; that’s no praise. While most documentaries are edited to create a story structure and reveal memorable characters, this film avoids that.
The opening shot seizes our attention: the chief chef, Ferran Adrià, is in the dark sucking on a piece of glow-in-the-dark fish on a stick. That’s cool. Sadly, it’s also the just about the best part of this documentary. The film-maker, Gereon Wetzel, omits any sense of artistic direction, or style or purpose. Maybe you should call it observational movie-making? He seems to have left the cameras on-location and merely edited the project for time and comprehensibility. Maybe this is one of those films where a critic outside of the film’s target audience, oughtn’t write about it?
Yep. Cooking in progress (Courtesy: creative commons/flickr)
In a conversation with a different documentary film-maker, Morgan Spurlock, he mentioned someone that Werner Herzog said, “every cut is a lie.” Well, none of the cuts used here are made in the interests of a story. It ignores elementary rules of storytelling, which every working film-maker knows and uses to win an audience.
This opens at the Film Society of Mpls/St. Paul on Sept. 23. The film-making should not be the focus. It should be Spanish molecular gastronomy, which can transform a diner’s experience, and lift their dining standards.
After Mr. Adrià, the trio of co-executive chefs, Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casanas, are emphasized, but we only get shallow gists of any of them, who they are or why they do their work.
Divided roughly in two, the film shows the testing and experimentation process and then how the chef foursome, and the restaurant team make the successful experiments work for diners. Their serving process must abide by military precision; their diners consume 30 courses within three hours.
Another obstacle for you: their work is not just technical, but highly technical. Too much so for those who aren’t either intensely curious, or foodies, or cooks themselves.
The chefs’ challenges might lose most other viewers. It’s a shame because in a “60-Minutes” segment, from April 2010, one of Adrià’s protégés, José Andrés, who, according to renowned food critics, Ruth Reichl, is the pioneer in America of Molecular gastronomy, shows how exciting molecular gastronomy is!
If food excites you, but on a more common level, I urge you to watch a different, equally esoteric, but amusing story: PBS’ documentary, “Kings of Pastry,” about ambitious, competitive French pastry chefs. It’s a superior example of a culinary documentary. It’s exciting: it delivers drama, suspense and personal stories.
“Amigo” is a historical drama from John Sayles, who made the fantastic “Honey Dripper” and “Lone Star.” It’s too bad this take on a 1900s episode in U.S. war and foreign policy is one of Sayles’ weaker pieces, falling well short of those prior titles.
Around 1900, and during the Philippine-American war, a Philippino baryo (or barrio, as spelled in the U.S.) chief Rafael Dacanay (Joel Torre), faces a dilemma after U.S. Army troops come and occupy his community: either support his community, and family and quash that armed presence or support those troops, while his people doubt his allegiance, in order to survive?
(courtesy: images.google.com)
“Amigo” is boring for the most part, and slow. This film lacks that intangible and inexplicable “oomph,” which a potent, memorable movie needs. It comes off as a well-financed, but earnest high school or college production. Some of the actors, while skilled and well known to indie movie houses, merely walk through this.
This movie opens at the Film Society of Mpls./St. Paul on Friday Sept. 16th. They’ve booked better movies. But John Sayles has also made ‘em.
You remember how often you say, “hey, I always love so-an-so’s movies?” Just like your friend adore “everything” that Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, or Spike Lee does, or which Oliver Stone used to do. When you look closely, as extraordinary as their talent is, each of them has also put out a few clunkers. Have you considered that, while you love three or four of their works, you only really love 1/3 or 1/2 of what they’ve put out? This one shouldn’t make that list.
Each of us searches for personal meaning in life, a purpose. Some use a holy book in that search. “Higher Ground” tells a story of a woman, Corinne’s, walk with her faith, from elementary age into middle age. Hers is a stuck in coming-of-faith story. When you finally feel a firm grip on how life works, your place in the world and how you’ll work that, that’s one definition of coming-of-age. Coming-of-faith is when you feel that with your faith. To be stuck in coming-of-faith is when you’ve not yet found a firm ground or steady conviction when it comes to your faith or god.
A young, critically thoughtful Corinne (Courtesy: Sony Classics)
This interesting, profound drama, adapted from the memoir, “This Dark World,” by Carolyn S. Briggs, opens at the Edina Cinema on September 9th.
“Higher Ground” is a feature-length film, directed by and starring Vera Farmiga, about how a girl, raised in a verbally abusive household, sticks with a choice after having committed herself to a conviction, Christ, without being convicted. She’s hungry for a church to guide her; maybe jumping the gun will be the catalyst?
Corinne wants to write fiction and live immersed in a world of art and critical thought. A man and a moment of sexual hunger overtake that: she clicks with Ethan (Joshua Leonard), a like-minded, sensitive musician, concedes her virginity, clings to and finally marries him, in time for her pregnancy to show. He’s provincial, with a level of curiosity that leaves him content with family and without questions that challenge or test him.
Another sign and symbol of their disconnection: shortly after marrying, they commiserate about opportunities lost in having a child: he wants to perform with a band. She, a resolute, practical dreamer admits that she’d love to write novels, but hasn’t the time. And kisses her baby with adoration.
Ethan flails in one last gesture of rebellion. He takes his band, and Corinne and their daughter on a music gig – ill-fated. His band mates are sophomoric, and want neither Corinne nor a baby sharing the band bus. Straining to be a diplomat, and good sport, she’s at her wit’s end. Their daughter needs a play or nap space in this Animal House setting. Ethan screams for her to use a cooler! Soon after stowing the baby, Ethan is distracted and crashes their bus. They all bolt from the bus, Ethan dragging Corinne along with him. She alone remembers that their daughter’s in the cooler – on the bus! Once safe, Ethan declares “God saved her.” A hasty conclusion?
A happy young marriage? (Courtesy: Sony Classics)
Corinne poses questions, which no one around her is ready for, or leave them comfortable. As her children grow, Corinne becomes increasingly chafed by her husband, Ethan, and the church’s disinterest in her questions and spurning of her obstinacy. Neither of them considers pursuing an examined life, as Aristotle extolled, and which she wants. This clashes with who she wants to be, but at the same time, she tries to focus on what God wants from her. She still wonders: how to submit to God when vital, incisive questions nag her?
“Higher Ground” is a quiet, patient story about a girl-come-young-woman’s spiritual search and yearning. It resembles a chronic, persistent chafe similar to many of those in Martin Scorsese’s stories. “The Last Temptation of Christ” is the obvious one. There Jesus is offered the option to simply live a human, mortal life, with a family, instead of living with the sacrifice and selfless service. Corrine has already sacrificed her idea of a happy life in order to appease her church. And she’s losing herself.
At the end of a scene Ethan sees, written on the wall, how far she has drifted from him, and how impotent he is in the face of that. He finally sees a chasm between them. He just doesn’t get her. While talking about their children, and a petty complaint about her, she runs to their station wagon and away from him.
A man, different from Ethan, makes her glow? (Courtesy: Sony Classics)
She’s fed up with him, or how far he has drifted from her. She locks the driver’s side door. He takes the seat behind her, and tries to convince her to stay docile, to be Godly, but doesn’t know how to fight that without hitting her – he seizes her throat from behind, and squeezes, more to vent than to hurt her. But that’s it!
She needs to try life independent of Ethan, and maybe find God again that way.
Later, after leaving Ethan, she has just testified to her church about not yet having found home within God, after more than 20 years. The final shot is potent and subtle: Corrine looks back at the congregation with hope and uncertainty.
Religious movies can be difficult when they paint outside of the lines, whether those are bound by belief, outright doubt or vice. The zealous Christian probably wants a movie that’ll affirm their convictions and submission to God’s will. Those on the other, secular, side want something that’ll confirm theirs; they’re tired of hearing dramatic, dogma of their imminent damnation.
“Higher Ground” is a good film. If you demand a fast-paced, metropolitan take on religious life, this might refresh you. If you sympathize or are comfortable with tough questions left dangling for Corrine or with the way she pursues her faith, then this’ll suit you. If not, still try it. Thoughtful, even-handed stories about religious or spiritual life are rare.
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