Flying solo isn't easy...

Two men... Seemingly worlds apart. Nothing in common. They come from such different backgrounds. One is a young man who has recently come of age, he probably could be doing better with his life. The other an older man with expressions and lines on his face that seem so deep, with eyes that have probably seen everything. Peering into the face of William (Red West) there are a million stories, including one that he refuses to speak about that disturbs him greatly. Shortly after the film Goodbye Solo begins, Will is picked up in a cab by a young Senegalese man named Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane), and with few words hands him several dollars. He also asks that Solo pick him up 2 weeks later, where he will be given several more dollars, then to be driven to the mountains, and left there.

It is quickly apparent that Will (affectionately referred to as "Big Guy" by Solo) wants to end it all, but Solo with his boyish and extroverted charm demands an explanation without letting him get away with it. Solo the extrovert-optimist remarks, "hey man come on put that $100 back mon tomorrow's another day!".

The two actors end up in a sort of tit for tat exchange throughout the movie. Solo slowly tries to get through to Will, desperately trying to break in to his secluded world. However, with the few glimpses that we witness there is more to these two characters than we imagined.

They appear worlds apart but in reality are very much the same. It's only after following them through their lives to be better people that we understand their flaws and failed aspirations.

This isn't a film so much about life or death, but about important journeys. Director Ramin Bahrani borrows a lot from other Iranian films particularly ideas of Kiarostami such as the film "10". Ironically those both take place within the confines of a cab and the driver. However, Ramin has been able to take characters in America (set in the Winston-Salem North Carolina area) to tell us something about ourselves and the paths in life we have to take.

Will's life and his presence in Solo's seem so far removed from each other, yet this is the wake up call Solo needs even though it makes NO sense whatsoever. Before they know it they are sharing a motel room with Will acting like the senior father figure, "SIT OVER THERE AND KEEP YOUR SHIT OUT OF MY SPACE!" he yells after finally succumbing to Solo's constant demands to hang out with him. But Will isn't the biggest jerk on the planet either. In one of the most memorable scenes of the film he gives away one of his last pieces of clothing for free to a Sudanese motel worker. The perception and the context it takes place is one of those things about film that is so simple but something that most film-makers are oblivious to reproduce.

Witty, farcical, brilliantly acted, extremely poignant is how I would describe it. Everything comes full circle between these two men in stories and pasts relived that I dare not describe. Two people worlds apart but in reality far from it. This is a fantastic perception into the lives of people who you thought you could have nothing in common with indeed, and says more about America's dreams than anything I've ever seen since. A must see.

Lessons learned in life, witchcraft or not

Grandparents are interesting people. Looking up to them as youngsters we seem to think they are embodied with a large amount of experience and great sense of understanding of the world. You would think that somehow they have special powers from all their collected wisdom. After witnessing the Grandmother (Sachi Parker) in The Wicked Witch of the West is Dead (西の魔女が死んだ, Nishi no Majo ga Shinda), you start to wonder if she seems almost supernatural.

Mai is a 13 year old girl, who we learn shortly in to the film seems to have trouble fitting in with others at school. Perhaps she's a social misfit, depressed... it's not really known if her condition is an act of rebellion or something she can't control herself. Her family decide that she needs to spend some time with her grandmother, a British lady who in the past came to Japan after marrying a Japanese man. Grandfather has passed on sometime ago, but Grandma has remained to work in her secluded rural home, decked with flowers, perfectly teeming gardens, and working her nearby open fields with such tender care as if they were her grandchildren themselves.

Mai however asks her grandmother an intriguing question. She has always heard stories from her mother that her grandmother is a witch. Peaking her curiosity Mai asks Grandmother to teach her witch lessons, and asks if she has special powers herself. With a sly smile Grandma really doesn't go into details about her past, but in order to help Mai learn some important life lessons, she plays along.

The Wicked Witch of the West is Dead has to be one of the best coming of age stories for young girls that I have seen. It ironically bears strong similarities in look and feel to another Japanese film (brilliant in it own right) called Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. I say ironically because Miyazaki is a brilliant director who makes animated movies. The Witch of the West is of course.. not animated or cartoonish in any way, but both films feel more real than anything that could be imagined. Their subject matter is also identical (young girls coming of age and finding themselves).

The other fantastic quality of this film, is it gives a window into a world that no longer seems to exist in Japan due to rapid industrialization, and global influence. There is a quiet serene pastoral quality of life, a return to the land, and of spending time with friends and neighbors. A neighbor even remarks to the Grandmother that she's more Japanese than anyone of true ethnic origin. Probably because she always has the best sake around and refills his glass when he stops on by, but even more so because Sachi Parker embodies a calm sense of purpose and moral grounding that commands attention whenever she is on screen. It is a remarkable performance, where small words uttered by Grandma's perfect Japanese, can make mountains move.

I wouldn't dare give away the ending to this film, the viewer is tempted and teased by their desire to wonder if Grandma really does have special powers. Nevertheless, it has been one of the most memorable films I have seen in a long time.

Trailer can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6LTU9dgQwM

How I made time for Carole... code or no code...

During one fine lazy afternoon, I went back to an era that doesn't exist anymore. And met the woman of my dreams...

During the late 20's early 30's Carole Lombard was one of the biggest stars to ever grace the movies. I went to see two of her films, "Virtue" (1932) and "White Woman" (1933), which are films that came out of a so called "pre-code" era.

Pre code era films were produced around Carole's hey day, and featured a set of relaxed and free expressed ideas of the time before the motion picture industry decided to step in and become the moral equivalent of "Stern Father" and purveyor of good public decency. Many of the pre-code era films of the 30's featured stories about characters that you weren't suppose to talk about such as prostitutes and gangsters. Surprisingly, the films stayed away from happy go lucky paint by number formulaic goodness, and had the nerve to discuss sex (all be it by 30's talk and innuendo, hey someone had to tell Scarlet he didn't give a damn), drugs, or anything considered taboo.

In this climate of ignoring stuffy repressed criticism, emerged the opportunity for directors, actors and script writers to buck convention. Life we discovered on screen, didn't always have happy and perfectly dressed wrapped up endings (put sometimes they could...).

In the first film I witnessed "Virtue", Carole Lombard is a criminal who ignores a court order and tries to go straight by escaping the judge's actions. At one point she's up, at one point she's down, but through it all she has her pride, her wise cracks and straight forward gumption that appears to be the hallmarks of what would be the godmother of fierce determination for woman everywhere. It seems in sharp contrast to the prostitute in Elmer Gantry of 1960, a film whose book had much more racy subject matter that the movie code of that time would even allow.

For 1930 this seems astonishing, almost as much as witnessing the handpainted signs in the restaurant walls that Carole and her love interest drop into from time to time that read phrases such as: "spagetti dinner... 15 cents".

The basic plot is straightforward, the notion of someone who is trying to escape their "scandalous" past (as much as we don't get to know the specific details in the film). However, it's the marvelous presence that Carole has over every actor in this film that makes everyone pale in comparison when she is on screen. Her love interest Jimmy Doyle played by Pat O'Brien is a good fit and great on screen also, but when Carole is walking, or she's talking, or sitting seductively there's no contest. They both make the film pleasing to the audience. She even makes pumping gas and getting grimmy look sexy. Do you think you'd see a film in the 50's of a woman working in a gas station??????

I thought my infatuation would stop there, but it didn't. It just got worse...

The next film that followed after was "White Woman", a so called "jungle picture". Carole plays a down and out widow who sings at a dive restaurant in some foreign jungle colonial country. It's all she can do to support herself... oh woe is me.... One day arrives what could only be described as the biggest Australian piece of buffoonery that ever existed in the form of Charles Laughton as Horace Prin. This vegemite sandwich just has more cheese than you can handle.

Laughton immediately becomes a scene stealer with his over acting, outrageous movements, rotund girth, and impish voice, that he suddenly becomes a different character in almost another film. In short it's over the top, loud, and so off kilter that it destroys any sense of continuity and chemistry the picture would have had. The good side of it is that from time to time it becomes entertaining up to a point in a strange way.

Carole fights the good fight, and never looks bad, but is overshadowed by Laughton in what literally seems to be a sense of scene stealing, when everyone probably knows they are in one hell of a turkey movie anyway. So let him have his fun. Prin convinces Carole's character Judith to shack up with him and marry, and lo behold they are stuck in the jungle with Prin being the demented grandfather to Col Kurtz, and Judith trying to find a way to escape.

Even in this turkey Carole looks and still has everything to eye at on screen. It's still amazing how some stars even in bad pictures can capture awe, and wonder the viewer. Prin tries to demonstrate that he's no Olivier, but that's okay, since the script also places in a B rated Clarke Gable (whose real name I can't recall), and a B rated John Wayne for good measure also (Charles Bickford).

In short though, it's Carole I'll always remember. Even in this dud she looks unbelievable when we first see her in a black long V neck cut dress. It's enough to forget the flash and dash of today's movie starlets.

However, Laughton goes for broke and the picture has nowhere to go but down, and by then we have seen enough. But for me I haven't seen enough of Carole and want more.

I will desire and find her soon just as quickly as I can get those cheap 15 cent spagetti dinners or precious diamonds from so long ago.

It is written the meek shall find true love

It is written - Anonymous

If there is one film that is filled with incredible creativity, the joy of luck, eye popping colors, all in a modern love story, Slumdog Millionaire is it. Films such as this come out of a time and place for countries that have come into their own through what seems like miraculous change.

Director Danny Boyle who is the English director of such works as Trainspotting, gives voice to not only memorable characters, but a country that appears to be going through it's own renaissance. It reminded me so much of another great film from a foreign country, "City Of God", that within 7 minutes I knew I was watching something very special.

The basic plot is told in flashbacks of the main character Jamal (Dev Patal), who appears on a game show set to win 20 million rupees. When we first meet Jamal he is being interrogated by the police for cheating, demanding how a slum kid with nearly no education could know the answers to the game show's questions. From there we are taken back to his young childhood and the life he and his older brother lived, and eventually the climax of the game show.

There are 3 sets of actors who play Jamal at different stages (child years, teenager, and then the present young adult). What transpires is a fascinating history, country, people, places and adventure where the most abject poverty and hopeless conditions can still bring joy and a sense of purpose.

While the main cast is brilliant, and there is a who's who of Bollywood stars, the youngest actors were hands down the biggest scene "stealers" and gave the giant bearing the film deserves. We are thrown through their lives at a breakneck pace with Danny Boyle's fierce direction. Chases through slums, a POUNDING soundtrack, and gorgeous cinematograhpy that shows the beauty and powerful colors of even India's most brutish living conditions.

The climax I can not give away, or bother to tell the main twists and turns of this stories principal character. This isn't just a brilliantly well put together film with a great cast. This is a film that does something I haven't seen from cinema in a long time. A foreign director who gives a country it's true voice to the world. More importantly, Slumdog Millionaire makes you "believe". It is a ride that you'll want to get on as soon as possible.