Lord of the Dance

Films: Billy Elliot
Format: DVD from Somonauk Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

I’ve almost certainly mentioned on this blog before that both of my daughters are dancers. When you tell someone that your daughter does ballet, they tend to assume that your daughter is about six and can do a clumsy plie while wearing a little tutu. My older daughter is 19 and graduated with a four-year degree in dance performance at 18. My younger daughter is 14 and spent last summer at the Joffrey in Chicago. I’m not fucking around when I say that they are serious dancers, and neither are they. Because of this, I’m not really sure I can be objective about Billy Elliot.

This is a story you’ve seen even if you haven’t seen this version of it. Our title character, Billy (Jamie Bell) is about 11 and lives in coal mining country in England. His mother has died unexpectedly, leaving him to be raised by his father Jackie (Gary Lewis) and his aggressive brother Tony (Jamie Draven), both of whom are miners and both of whom are on strike. He also lives with his grandmother (Jean Heywood), who is suffering from either Alzheimer’s or dementia. Money is tight, but Billy’s dad scrapes together 50p for Billy to take boxing lessons once per week.

Book Learnin'

Films: The Reader
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

In the past, I’ve taken a stand on what I think about Holocaust dramas. I get why they are made and I get why this is a period in history that needs to be continually brought up and discussed, but I find it harder and harder to get worked up these days after seeing so many of them. It’s an interesting moral position to be in. I don’t want to say that I don’t care, because that’s not the case. I just wonder how much real-world horror I can handle. So, naturally, it seems like every other movie still on my Oscar lists to watch is a Holocaust drama. Enter The Reader.

At the very least, The Reader gives us a story that, while it certainly involves the terrible events in Europe, does so only tangentially. In truth, we’re not even aware that this is a film that touches on this period in history until we are a good way through it. It starts more as a romance than anything else, although it might be the least romantic romance of the last ten years.

Oskar Bait

Film: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

I’d like to say that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is the movie most likely to be forgotten as a Best Picture nominee, or the one that will seen as most unworthy of a nomination from 2011, but I’m not sure either claim would stick. After all, both Hugo and War Horse were Best Picture nominees from the same year. To my knowledge, though, it’s the only film in the Internet age to have a negative Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic score (46 on both sites) to be nominated for Best Picture. Make of that what you will, but I have to say that I agree with Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a post-9/11 film. Admittedly, everything that was produced after September 11, 2001 is a post-9/11 film, but in this case, it’s relevant to the day in question. Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) is a kid who lives in New York. Oskar’s particular quirks are never officially diagnosed for us. He’s right in that middle space between Asperger’s stereotype and home-schooled kid stereotype. Anyway, he has a close relationship with his father, Thomas (Tom Hanks). Thomas likes to propose strange questions and quests for Oskar that force the boy to talk to people, something he allegedly has a problem doing. Much of their conversation revolves around a mythical sixth borough of New York.

The Hours

Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

With a film like The Hours, I’m not sure where to start. I’m honestly lost for a good way to even start writing about this. Do I discuss the interwoven story that carefully builds up connections between three different women in three different times, each life being shaped by the lives that came before? Do I go with the incredibly performances? The magnificent screenplay that not only makes these stories easy to follow but also produces some of the most powerful and best female roles of the last 20 years? There are so many places I could go that I’m lost on where to start. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

The Hours tells three stories at the same time. The first concerns author Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) as she attempts to write her novel Mrs. Dalloway in the 1920s. The second story takes place in the 1950s as a housewife named Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) deals with thoughts of suicide while reading Woolf’s novel. In the third story, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) has a day that mirrors that of the protagonist of Woolf’s novel as she plans a party for a friend and former lover who has been given a prestigious award.