Picks from Chip: Another Earth

Film: Another Earth
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the twelfth in a series of twelve films selected by Chip Lary.

In the best science fiction stories, the science fiction is used as a backdrop for the characters. There are some exceptions to that, of course, but a great deal of the best science fiction is an exploration of humanity, not aliens and laser guns. Films like Gattaca and The Man from Earth demonstrate that we don’t need to have expensive special effects or weird technology to make an interesting film. Another Earth, Chip’s final pick for me this year, promises to be a film in that vein, where the premise relies heavily on ideas of science fiction, but the story is about the characters more than anything.

In fact, aside from The Man from Earth (one of Chip’s selections for me last year), this might be the least science fiction-y science fiction film I’ve ever seen. The departure from the real world is literally in the background for a great deal of the movie, and while it more or less starts the story and drives an undercurrent of the plot, this is a film that could just about be told with no changes if the science fiction elements were removed completely.

Picks from Chip: Ondine

Film: Ondine
Format: DVD from Peotone Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

This is the eleventh in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary.

I try to go into movies as neutrally as possible. That said, there are times when you can’t help but have a preconceived notion. Ondine had two strikes against it before it even made it into the spinner. The first is that at the top of the box is Colin Farrell. I like Colin Farrell in In Bruges and that’s about it. He’s okay in Minority Report. Otherwise, I don’t have a lot of use for him. Second, the movie’s tagline is, “The truth is not what you know. It’s what you believe.” That’s the kind of bullshit that makes people think that the Earth is flat and only 6,000 years old. Screw that noise.

An Irish fisherman with the unlikely name of Syracuse (Farrell) is out on his boat one day. When he pulls up his net, he finds a young woman (Alicja Bachleda) inside. The woman claims to not remember her name or anything else and also says that she doesn’t want to be seen by anyone. Syracuse, nicknamed “Circus” from his drinking days, takes her to his late mother’s house, a place where she can live without anyone seeing her.

Picks from Chip: Departures (Okuribito)

Film: Departures (Okuribito)
Format: DVD from Moline Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

This is the tenth in a series of twelve movies suggested by Chip Lary.

I’m not the sort of person who thinks that everything happens for a reason, or that there is some sort of guiding force behind everything that happens in our lives. No, events just happen, and this means that sometimes we get wonderful little coincidences or confluences that give us insight or that allow us to project meaning on the events that we experience. When Chip and I exchanged movie lists about nine or ten months ago, I had no idea that 2016 would be a year that ended without Chip in it. I also had no idea that he would give me Departures (Okuribito) to watch. It feels appropriate, because Departures is about death and about saying goodbye.

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a cellist living and working in Tokyo with his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue). Then, one day the man who funds the orchestra pulls the plug and Daigo is without a job and owing about 18 million yen on his cello. With no prospects and keenly aware that he probably isn’t good enough to land in another orchestra, Daigo and Mika move to his home town where he has a house that he inherited from his mother when she died several years previously.

Picks from Chip: Ruby Sparks

Films: Ruby Sparks
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the ninth in a series of twelve movies suggested by Chip Lary.

Chip and I had different tastes in movies, as is evidenced by the fact that we sometimes didn’t like a movie that the other person selected. This year has had a few close calls for me on Chip’s films, but nothing that slid below the “3 stars = like” criterion I use on Letterboxd. Well, there’s a first time for everything, and Ruby Sparks is that first time. I went into this expecting something very different than I got, because what I got was a clunky, mean-spirited version of the rather charming Stranger than Fiction.

Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) was a writing phenom who took the book world by storm at the tender age of 19. Since that time, and after great acclaim and endless groupies, Calvin’s output has been a few short stories and a long chunk of writer’s block. Calvin also struggles on the personal front. His introverted nature keeps him from developing new relationships and his relationships with women tend to be more about sex with fans, who see him as an idealized version of himself instead of as the person he really is.

Picks from Chip: House of Flying Daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu)

Films: House of Flying Daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the seventh in a series of twelve movies suggested by Chip Lary.

There was a time around the turn of the last century when wire fu and wuxia films were a thing. The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon probably started the trend, which seems to have ended with House of Flying Daggers (or Shi Mian Mai Fu). There’s something dreamy about wire fu films and the way the characters move. I like everything about the style—I like the action, I like the way they are filmed, and I particularly like the kick-ass fight scenes that are filmed in a way that the audience can actually follow the action.

What I was expecting was something that looked a great deal like Crouching Tiger both in terms of visual style and plot. I kind of got that, but kind of didn’t. House of Flying Daggers posits a world closer to Hero in terms of the plot, but gives us a love story closer to Crouching Tiger. There’s a veneer of political intrigue here, a sort of social McGuffin that causes the rest of the plot to happen without really being that critical to the plot that we care about.

Picks from Chip: Incendies

Films: Incendies
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the eighth in a series of twelve movies suggested by Chip Lary.

We all classify films in a bunch of different ways. I’m not talking about genre, but about personal classifications. There are movies that we love, ones we love more than we should because we saw them as kids, guilty pleasures, films we hate that everyone else loves, and more. For me, one of the most interesting personal categories is films that I respect but never want to see again. That’s precisely where we are going with Incendies, a film that takes us to some dark places and concludes on some very dark territory.

Truthfully, though, Incendies falls into a few personal categories for me. It is an impressive film that I plan to never watch again, but it’s also a movie that I think I like a little less than other people do. I’m about on average on Letterboxd, but the way that people talk about this film, it would seem that I’m damning it with faint praise giving it a four out of five on that site. This isn’t a film that people seem to be tepid about, and I get that. There’s a lot here to unpack.

Picks from Chip: Iron Sky

Films: Iron Sky
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the sixth in a series of twelve movies suggested by Chip Lary.

When we created our lists for 2016, Chip warned me that he was specifically giving me a movie that was really dumb. That movie was Iron Sky, a film in which the central conceit is that in 1945, a group of Nazis escaped to the dark side of the moon, built a gigantic base, and have continued to teach their ideology to those who made the trip. This Fourth Reich is building weapons with the intent of, naturally, returning to Earth and conquering it. Yeah, it’s one of those premises that is simultaneously ridiculous and makes you wonder why it took someone until 2012 to think of it (and yes, I’m aware that there might be earlier movies with the same basic premise).

Anyway, we learn about the swastika-shaped base when a new American mission to the moon lands on the dark side, coincidentally close to the base. The two astronauts, one killed immediately, are on the moon as essentially a publicity stunt/public relations move/re-election stunt by the American president, who is clearly intended to be Sarah Palin (Stephanie Paul). The second astronaut is captured, and much to the shock of the moon Nazis, astronaut James Washington (Christopher Kirby) is black.

Picks from Chip: Scotland, Pa

Films: Scotland, Pa
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

This is the fifth in a series of twelve movies suggested by Chip Lary.

I’ve decided to keep doing Chip’s list of suggested films. I think he’d want me to and I think it’s just one way to honor the man. I’ll continue to review one of his suggestions on the second Monday of each month until the end of the year. This month, I had some interesting issues with NetFlix and decided that I’d better do something that I could get via another route. Scotland, Pa was available at a local library, so that made the choice an easy one. Chip knew I like Macbeth and since this is basically Macbeth focused around a fast-food restaurant, it seems like a natural fit.

I’m not kidding when I say that this is more or less Macbeth but modernized. Joe McBeth (James Le Gros) is in his 30s and married to Pat (Maura Tierney). The two are classic slackers in that early-70s post-hippie style. They both work at a slowly-failing fast-food place called Duncan’s owned by Norm Duncan (James Rebhorn). Joe gets skipped for a promotion in favor of Douglas McKenna (Josh Pais), who has been stealing money from the restaurant. When Joe points this out to Norm, Douglas is fired and Joe is promoted to assistant manager. Pat, who is suddenly ambitious, wants more for the two of them. This coincides with a meeting joe has with a trio of hippies who tell him that he’ll be working in a restaurant that serves food similar to a drive-up bank.

Picks from Chip: The Way We Get By

Film: The Way We Get By
Format: Streaming video from Hoopla Digital on The Nook.

This is the fourth in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

Chip Lary, who picked this film for me, lives in Maine. I’m certain that this is part of the reason that Chip found this film in the first place, since it takes place in large part at the Bangor International Airport. That airport is a joint civilian/military airport, and as one of the easternmost airports in the United States, it serves both as a departure point and an arrival point for U.S. military troops heading to and from combat areas in the Middle East. It also features a woman named Joan Gaudet, the mother of Aron Gaudet, the film’s director.

Like many documentaries, The Way We Get By doesn’t so much have a story as it has a topic. The film follows the lives of three elderly people, the aforementioned Joan Gaudet, William Knight, and Gerald Mundy. What makes these folks and a number of others who appear in the film interesting is that they are on call 24/7 to head out to Bangor International whenever a flight comes in bringing in troops from combat. They are there to welcome people back from war, to let them know that they are appreciated, and as it comes out late in the film, to give themselves a sense of purpose and meaning.

Picks from Chip: Widows' Peak

Film: Widows’ Peak
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

This is the third in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

With Widows’ Peak, Chip has offered me something of a poser. I like to focus on narrative with these reviews. Widows’ Peak has a clear narrative; in fact, it could be argued that it’s close to all story. However, discussing too much of that narrative spoils the entire film. This starts as a bit of social dealing, moves into petty rivalry, and quickly devolves into full blown mystery.

So let’s start with the basics. In the 1920s, the Irish town of Kilshannon gets into a bit of a tizzy thanks to the arrival of Edwina Broome (Natasha Richardson), a young woman widowed in the war. The only place for her in Kilshannon is what the locals refer to as Widows’ Peak, an area of the town on which virtually all of the residents are widows. Edwina does cause a stir for several reasons. First, she is British, and not all of Ireland views the Brits very favorably. Second, she’s still quite young, and unlike the other women of the Peak, she doesn’t dress in mourning black. Third, because she was raised as the daughter of an ambassador, she speaks with an American accent.

Picks from Chip: Stoker

Film: Stoker
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the second in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary.

Plenty of movies explore the idea of insanity and evil. It seems like a natural place for movies to go, at least in the genres of horror and thriller. Stoker is a film that is exploring that same idea and seems to also want to look into the possibility that not just insanity but evil may be genetically linked. It’s an intriguing idea, and in the case of Stoker, it’s an idea that is played out in a way reminiscent of Shadow of a Doubt.

India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) loses her father (played in flashbacks by Dermot Mulroney) in a car accident the day she turns 18. Her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) is naturally upset, but her level of anguish seems greatly tamped down by the sudden appearance of her late husband’s brother Charles (Matthew Goode). Charles claims to have been traveling around the world, mainly Europe for years, but upon his brother’s death has come to stay with the family.

Picks from Chip: Brick

Film: Brick
Format: DVD from personal collection on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the twelfth in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

A few years ago when I had a podcast with Nick Jobe at YourFace, we ran the show in a series of seasons. The idea was that our guest would pick a genre of film, Nick would pick a film in the genre he knew that I hadn’t seen, and I would pick a film in the genre he hadn’t seen. At least that was how it worked in theory. We did film noir every season, and every time we did, Nick toyed with the idea of having me watch Brick. When a Half Price Books had a massive movie sale last year (I got more than 50 movies for $30), I bought Brick figuring that I’d get to it eventually.

That eventually turned out to be sometime this year, since Chip put it on my list of 12 movies. Since I owned it, Brick was my insurance—if there was a planned film I couldn’t get, I could always fall back on watching this. Fortunately, that was never necessary, so Brick turns out to be movie #12. It’s a movie I’ve heard about from a lot of people, which means that, essentially sight unseen, I’m going into this with some expectations.

Picks from Chip: Mary and Max

Film: Mary and Max
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the eleventh in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

Mary and Max is a film I’d heard a lot about, almost all of it positive. I went in with great hopes for the story, in no small part because it is surprisingly drab and ugly visually. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its charms, but Mary and Max is almost shockingly ugly. It’s also almost exclusively in shades of brown and black with a few spots of red. It’s also the darkest movie I’ve seen in a long time.

Based on that paragraph, I’m guessing that Chip is worried, so I’ll quell his fears now. There’s a lot to like with Mary and Max, even if the darkness is almost oppressive at times. Our characters are the ultimate outcasts of their respective societies and when anything good happens to either of them, save at the conclusion, it’s only a temporary reprieve for something worse about to happen. Many of the events feel like the worst of all possible worlds.

Picks from Chip: 3 Idiots

Film: 3 Idiots
Format: Internet video on laptop.

This is the tenth in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

Twice this year, Chip Lary has given me tasks of epic length coupled with subtitles. The first was the Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources double-feature from a few months ago; the second is 3 Idiots, today’s film. If I’m honest, in both cases, my lizard brain recoiled from these choices, this one more than the double-feature. It’s a big commitment. On the other hand, 3 Idiots was on my NetFlix queue for more than a year before Chip suggested it to me, so I can’t really complain too much that he finally made me watch it.

The bulk of 3 Idiots is told in flashback. Two former college friends, Farhan (R. Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi) are contacted by a third former classmate named Chatur Ramalingam (Omi Vaidya). Chatur tells them he has located their friend Rancho (Aamir Khan). Farhan, who is on a plane taking off, fakes a seizure to be returned to the ground. Raju is so excited that he runs out of the house without his pants. What they find is Chatur, their old nemesis, gloating about his success in the 10 years since college. Rancho is nowhere to be found, but Chatur claims he knows where he is. As it happens, Chatur and Rancho had a bet—to return in 10 years to see who had become more successful, and Rancho hasn’t shown up.

Picks from Chip: The Man from Earth

Film: The Man from Earth
Format: DVD from personal collection on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the ninth in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

I’m not allowed to take gifts from my students because it creates a conflict of interest. However, after said student graduates, I don’t see much of an issue with it. I was given a copy of The Man from Earth by a student a number of years ago and was told that I should really watch it. I just never got around to it. So when Chip put it on my list, I figured that I’d get to it this year.

Here’s the elevator pitch: A man named John Oldman (David Lee Smith) is leaving his position as a professor at a small university. A few of his friends show up to see him off and to question why he’s suddenly decided to leave. John spins a tale about his life, claiming to have lived for more than 14,000 years. John claims that he began life as a Paleolithic cave dweller, lived nomadically from tribe to tribe for centuries, spent millennia as a Sumerian, and influenced history in a number of significant ways. Meanwhile, his audience decides whether or not he is believable or has gone completely insane.

Picks from Chip: POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Film: POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the eighth in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

I like Morgan Spurlock. He’s sort of that smart ass friend who makes fun of everything including you and himself, but he’s funny enough to make it work. I like him because he takes on difficult topics and does so with a sense of fun. I especially like him because he’s a more palatable and personal version of Michael Moore without all of the baggage. So of all of the movies Chip picked for me, one of the ones that was already on my list of movies I wanted to watch was POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (which, thanks to the length of that title will be called PWP: TGMES from this point forward).

With PWP: TGMES, Spurlock is taking on the advertising industry. I feel like I have a minor connection to this. One of my brothers is in advertising and has been for years. He runs his own agency. And I don’t think it’s bragging on my part to suggest that he runs a pretty above-board advertising firm. He’s rejected clients because he doesn’t like their business practices or their products. So, despite what this film might suggest, it is evidently possible to work in the advertising industry and maintain a soul.

Picks from Chip: Jean de Florette; Manon des Sources (Manon of the Spring)

Film: Jean de Florette; Manon des Sources (Manon of the Spring)
Format: DVD from Reddick Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

This is the seventh in a series of twelve films suggested by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

Okay, so technically, Chip gave me 13 films to watch, not 12. Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (also known as Manon of the Spring) are technically two films, but they’re a single story. I understand completely why both films are necessary; the first film alone is incomplete and the second film doesn’t make sense without the first. So, while these are technically the seventh and eighth films that Chip selected for me, I’m going to consider them as a single film.

That makes sense in another way, too. There was a real issue for me in that there is no way to talk about Manon des Sources without including the end of Jean de Florette. Looking at this as a single story of three distinct acts rather than two stories of three acts each makes much more sense in the narrative as well. Additionally, the two films were released in the same year, and I imagine that they were frequently shown together in theaters. Jean de Florette even ends with the words “End of Part 1.” And so, I’m looking at these as two halves of a whole.

Picks from Chip: Ong-Bak

Film: Ong-Bak (Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior; Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

This is the sixth in a series of twelve films suggested by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

With Ong-Bak (also called Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior and Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior), Chip has given me something of a poser. For my Letterboxd page, Ong-Bak is right on the border beween 2 ½ and 3 stars. That might not sound like a dilemma, but for me, 3 stars is the cut-off for “liking” a film on that site. Ong-Bak has one major plus and a lot of negatives. That one plus cures a lot of ills, but not all of them.

After we watch a fairly brutal contest to achieve a red pennant from the top of a tree in a small Thai village, the film really starts. Some guys, led by Don (Wannakit Sirioput), attempt to buy a necklace from a village elder. He refuses, so the gang instead steals the head of Ong-Bak, the village Buddha statue. The winner of the tree/pennant contest, Ting (Tony Jaa) volunteers to retrieve Ong-Bak’s head. He’s given money, Don’s address, and instructions to look for his cousin, and off Ting goes.

Picks from Chip: And Then There Were None

Film: And Then There Were None
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the fifth in a series of twelve films suggested by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

The vast majority of my pleasure reading is non-fiction. I tend to read a lot of science and similar topics—cosmology, evolutionary biology, sociology, and the like. So it’s rare that I come across a movie where I’ve actually read the source material. In the case of And Then There Were None, I actually have read the source material. A couple of years ago I went on a mystery novel kick and read a bunch of Agatha Christie for a month or two. While most of that was Hercule Poirot stories, I did read the novel that this film is based on. It’s widely considered Christie’s masterpiece, and I’m not confident that I could disagree with that assessment.

In fact, this is such a classic story that it’s been spoofed quite a bit. Murder by Death is straight out of this movie’s playbook, and there’s a great deal of this in Clue as well. There’s even a connection to a film like House on Haunted Hill. But that’s all beside the point. The premise is one you’ll be familiar with even if you aren’t familiar with this particular story. A group of eight people and a couple of servants are invited to an island where they are to spend the weekend at the behest of their host, a Mr. Owen.

Picks from Chip: Safety Not Guaranteed

Film: Safety Not Guaranteed
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

This is the fourth in a series of twelve films suggested by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

Sometimes, the person in the movie can make a huge difference in my reaction to it. I’m going to just come out and say it: I don’t have an exceptionally high opinion of Aubrey Plaza, and this has nothing to do with the fact that her name sounds like a destination. Aubrey Plaza always looks to me like she’s just smelled something unpleasant. There’s something off-putting about her, which means that Safety Not Guaranteed had a strike against it going in.

Fortunately, Aubrey Plaza’s consistent impression of Daria from the MTV cartoon show of the same name is the only major strike against this film. Well, that and the fact that her character has a male name disturbingly reminiscent of that very character. Darius (Plaza) works as an intern for Seattle Magazine, an unpaid position where she takes a great deal of abuse from her boss Bridget (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and just about anyone else who isn’t an intern. At a staff meeting Jeff (Jake Johnson) proposes a story based on a classified ad asking for a volunteer to accompany the man who placed the ad to travel back in time with him. That partner is responsible for his or her own weapons, safety is not guaranteed (hence the title), and most interestingly, the person placing the ad claims to have done this once before.