TV on DVD Review: China Beach - Season 1 & 2

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“Reflections of the way life used to be…” may have been the pitch-perfect Supremes tune that led viewers back into the world of Vietnam via TV’s China Beach from 1988 to 1992 but upon watching the series today on DVD, I realized these reflections have inherited a second meaning with time.

More precisely, for this viewer who was just seven years old when the show began (but distinctly remembers watching with her parents anyway), taking in China Beach today from the point of view of an adult offered up “Reflections of the way” television used to be.

Simply put, in an era of Full House and Knight Rider, when you look back on China Beach, you realize that – much like Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks – it’s a miracle that it ever found its way onto the air.

While basic and premium cable are the exception, even in today’s TV Renaissance dubbed the Golden Age of Television, you still have to wonder if network executives would still make the same decision to order a series run given their overreliance on singing competitions and police procedurals.

Needless to say the fact that it was on network air over twenty-five years ago is proof that this Golden Age Renaissance television hyperbole is nothing new. Exceptional television series come around once in a blue moon but in the era of China Beach we were in the midst of a creative high that was all the more admirable because (unlike the otherwise brilliant Northern and Peaks) China Beach was steeped in truth as the wounds of Vietnam hadn’t yet healed and probably never would to the fullest degree but certainly not a mere decade after the remaining troops were brought back home.

Honestly, the most daring thing about China Beach wasn’t that it focused on Vietnam as in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Hollywood had given us countless cinematic narratives about the war from Coming Home to Platoon and in fact just one year earlier, CBS had kicked off their own visceral, emotionally charged Vietnam based series Tour of Duty in 1987.

But instead of cashing in the recent Best Picture winner Platoon with a male dominated combat plotline, China Beach gave us something we had yet to see thoroughly explored onscreen about any war. Namely co-creators John Sacret Young and William Broyles Jr. served up a series which primarily focused on the role of women during wartime with the action set at an Evacuation Hospital on Da Nang’s My Khe beach that was nicknamed China Beach in Vietnam.

While women had definitely played a part in earlier battles, the fact that Vietnam coincided with Women’s Lib made this all the riper for exploration in a democratic yet largely female-centric narrative that brought some previously unknown points-of-view and realities of the war to American living rooms like never before.

Centered around a conflicted, hard-working Army nurse named Colleen McMurphy (Dana Delany) who spent her days and nights dodging mortar attacks and patching up wounded soldiers, civilians and locals, China Beach is steeped in authenticity.

Stemming from the real-life remembrance of Broyles Jr. who recalled the calm professionalism of the brave angelic nurse he remembered swiftly going about her job (that would go onto help inspire the beautiful, brainy McMurphy along with a nurse’s eye-opening autobiography of her service), everything about China Beach feels right.

Likewise, as music played such an important role in the war – whether it was in helping vets get through the day, offering them the words they can’t come up with on their own or as just a welcome distraction from the sound of gunfire, China Beach is filled with wall-to-wall music.

Released as a complete series collection in the fall of 2013 and in individual seasonal sets starting with the first two complete seasons kicking off the 2014 new release calendar in the first week of January, StarVista Entertainment and Time Life’s China Beach discs offer multiple special features including cast interviews, episode commentary, behind-the-scenes footage and featurettes and more.

And thankfully by transferring the same memorable musical cuts that elevated some of the show’s most epic scenes, StarVista and Time Life helped preserve the magical quality of the series in its long-awaited DVD release decades later to bring Beach to life once again.

But more than just the music, it’s the people who have stayed with us thanks to an incredible cast that embodied their fully realized, human portrayals of individuals enduring highs and lows go along with their life during wartime.

And once again, whether it was in setting events during the highly publicized Tet Offensive of '68 or when a race riot almost escalates into a mini war following the death of Martin Luther King Jr. that the show really flourished by rooting the action in as much reality as possible to keep it grounded even when the events depicted are anything but.

This attention to detail was chronicled in an unprecedented way when in the powerful season two episode “Vets,” the editors intercut series footage with the onscreen recollections of the women and men who were there.

While sharing their stories, we realize that some of Beach’s most unforgettable moments were based in fact including the pilot episode’s heartbreaking, against-all-odds coincidence where a bomb-blinded victim tells the woman holding his hand about the beautiful USO singer whose photo he keeps in his pocket, not realizing the two individuals are one and the same.

Yet far from just heartbreaking, the richly layered China Beach defied its genre and subject matter multiple times per episode with some unexpectedly funny moments. Celebrating the gift of friendship, China Beach's other main interest was in applauding the ingenuity of those in 'Nam who had to think fast on their feet.

A main through-line of the series centers of creative, quick-thinking solutions that are employed to counter the unlikeliest problems from building a Virginia Woolfian “Room of One’s Own” for the women to just hang out alone without being ogled or bothered to creating a prom night in honor of so many troops that had missed their own.

Not only about the hospital, the show (which matured and grew into its own in Beach’s masterful second season), developed a signature style of laughter with tears and shocking moments melded with something bittersweet that would become the show’s trademark of an ever-changing tone that series scribe John Wells would eventually springboard off of once again when he created ER a half-decade later.

Although it was anchored by Delany’s wondrous turn, the show is augmented by a gifted ensemble of talented actors that can still be seen on television today in everything from The Good Wife to Sons of Anarchy.

Robert Picardo is an undeniable standout as the boyishly funny, sardonic drafted OB-GYN Dr. Dick Richard whose full name sums up his maturity level in the first season until the husband and father back in the United States grows up and becomes a surrogate father and “work husband” overseas.

Looking after McMurphy when she’d rather work a full week without sleep to avoid thinking about her missing pilot boyfriend whose disappearance nearly sends her to the brink of insanity, we see Dr. Richard’s priorities shift from golf and good times to fighting for his patients (including those not even wearing a uniform) and as his character deepens, so does the show.

Marg Helgenberger’s enterprising hooker/businesswoman whose tough façade covers up a painful past remains one of the show’s most enigmatic creations and her ever-changing dynamic with the rest of the characters sums up a truism about  both life in wartime (and life for an expatriate far away from home), which is that you find yourself becoming bonded to people you’d probably have nothing to do with back in the states.

Constantly challenged and constantly judged, K.C. is just one of many China Beach outsiders and one who learns that loyal friendships shouldn’t be dependent upon what someone can do for you after the sudden, devastating loss of one of Beach’s sweetest first season characters shortly into the second season.

While it takes awhile to adapt to a few of the newer cast members including Megan Gallagher’s annoyingly energetic politician’s daughter and Saigon weathergirl turned ambitious journalist Wayloo Marie Holmes and Nancy Giles’s Army DJ Frankie Bunsen, the expansion of female points-of-view from the first season is important as the amount of plot potential for season one’s aspiring singer Laurette (the amazing Chloe Webb) was minimal at best.

Still far from just centering on women including World War II no-nonsense veteran Lila Garreau (Concetta Tomei) and Elizabeth Lindsay’s hardworking Vietnamese beauty Mai, Beach is a war show after all and never lets us forget how many men served in Vietnam.

While this is best exemplified in the haunting stare of Dodger, Jeff Kober’s diehard soldier who’s been out in the bush staring death in the face one too many times to ever go home again physically or psychologically, we also see through the easygoing, practical joking façade of the likable Boonie (Brian Wimmer) who uses his smile to cover up anything he doesn’t want to talk about.

But perhaps Beach's most fascinating or at least the most certainly unsettling, memorable male character is in the form of Michael Boatman’s death registrar Beckett, who takes care of and inventories the patients that can’t be saved by Dr. Dick Richard and Colleen McMurphy.

The son of a preacher man, Beckett has let his Christian devotion take over his life and provide him with meaning in the madness. As such, he not only talks to the men who temporarily reside in his facility as though they are his buddies alive and having a Happy Hour drink in Boonie’s bar but also plays cards, asks their advice and does his best to show respect and ensure they have not died in vain.

Just one in a long line of coping mechanisms evident on the show that the vets use to try and prevent themselves from giving into the insanity of war that surrounds them, China Beach is one of the most thoroughly engrossing, ever-changing network series on broadcast television.

So arresting that in this – my first viewing of the show on its long-awaited, newly available DVD release since I originally saw it broadcast in my childhood, I was amazed by how much I was still able to remember more than twenty-five years later from memorable musical juxtapositions to character revelations.

Though the visuals are indeed dated as warned by StarVista via an onscreen notation revealing that the age of the materials might explain the flaws (and I only hope someone takes the time to restore it down the road in 1080p high definition), the impact of the series more than makes up for any photographic issue bar none.

Obviously, it goes without saying that I can’t possibly fathom what it was like for Vietnam veterans who’d been so poorly treated on their arrival home to now find their sacrifices and experiences honored on two television series on the small screen at the same time.

However as revealed in the first season DVD booklet essays, the fact that Delany was sent a soldier’s purple heart in thanks for her fiercely moving portrayal goes a long way towards summing up what having this series on the air meant to them.

In fact, the release of this monumental series to DVD at the very time that once again far too many young people are losing life and limb in faraway lands overseas during wartime makes China Beach’s debut on DVD timelier than ever, with its tales of bravery serving as a living testament to those who’ve served our country in the past and continue to do so today.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Film Movement DVD Review: In Love We Trust (2007)

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A.K.A. Left Right

With the international success of his Berlin Film Festival award-winning film Beijing Bicycle which was inspired by Vittorio De Sica's 1948 Italian neorealist classic The Bicycle Thieves-- writer/director Xiaoshuai Wang (or Wang Xiaoshuai) became an exciting filmmaker to watch as his next two follow-up features Drifters and Shanghai Dreams screened competitively at the Cannes Film Festival where the latter received the festival's Prix du Jury award.

With Drifters having already been selected for inclusion in America's prestigious DVD-of-the-Month Club Film Movement, the decision to bring another one of the director's works to viewers around the globe not only spoke highly of the organization's confidence in the filmmaker but also further proof that Wang Xiaoshuai is committed to developing quality works that speak to a universal audience.



In fact, while some consider the filmmaker more "European" than his fellow Chinese and Asian directors, in the production notes, Wang Xiaoshuai reveals that his goal was simply to tell a story of "a normal, ordinary life that could have taken place in any country" and one that is "above all [about] men and women."



It's an important humanistic goal and one he more than achieves with this incredibly timely and intimate story about a group of four adults who must test the limits of their relationships and address their moral and ethical commitments to themselves and each other in order to try and prevent the death of a five year old girl from Leukemia (which the director noted in the press release is a disease that's becoming "increasingly frequent" in his homeland).

Admittedly to American filmgoers, the release of the film to own on DVD seems to dovetail nicely into the similarly medically themed big screen adaptation of Jodi Picoult's novel My Sister's Keeper from director Nick Cassavetes starring Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin. However while even the preview for that film makes you start involuntarily digging around for tissues, Wang Xiaoshuai said he wanted to "avoid the dramatic side of the situation-- the child's illness and possible death" since he dislikes "tears [and instead prefers] profound and hidden emotions" which he made his primary concern with his opus In Love We Trust.

And sure enough, this is exactly what he does in lieu of what would've normally been a two hour tearjerker by introducing us to the five year old Hehe and--confident that her storyline carried with it enough emotional significance-- intriguingly and refreshingly he leaves the medical side out of it in regards to gratuitous scenes of anguish and treatment by instead concentrating on her parents' attempts to give their daughter a fighting chance.

When neither Hehe's mother Mei Zhu (the incredible Liu Weiwei) or her ex-husband Xiao Lu (Zhang Jiayi) prove to be a positive match for bone marrow treatment-- the estranged and happily remarried couple risk the limits of their respective spouses including Mei's incredibly supportive, sweet-natured husband (Cheng Taisheng) who's in fact the only real father that Hehe's ever known as well as Xiao Lu's younger flight attendant wife (Yu Nan).



Unwilling to continue feeling powerless, Mei makes the decision to create a new child so that the umbilical cord of a new baby can-- if not cure Hehe-- then give her at least two to five to ten or more years of life since the combination of her blood and her ex-husband's would be the safest match for Hehe.

Yet in order to accomplish this, all four adults must address just what this will mean in terms of their relationships as questions of lies, trust, right, wrong, loyalty, and even infidelity enter the equation as just underneath the surface, they try to avoid the realization that despite whatever is decided, the future for all of them is as fragile and unpredictable as ever.



All in all, it's a wondrously complex tale about human dynamics, parental love and just how far one will be willing to go even for the most remote chance to save a life (at least for awhile). Still while nothing is clear-cut in Wang Xiaoshuai's film and his predictable unwillingness to offer a traditional uplifting or resolute conclusion may bother some viewers, it's a brilliant piece of work that hearkens back to the movies made by My Sister's Keeper director Nick Cassavetes' father John Cassavetes and one that similarly plays like a chamber piece.

In his unique refusal to film specific Chinese landmarks and make the surroundings as unremarkable as ever to show the march towards modernity (yet at the same time the idea that with progress comes a lack of real human connection with one another as we become more and more cut off and isolated in our own dramas), Wang Xiaoshuai manages to tell a story that could in fact take place in any area around the globe.

Abandoning the temptation to turn it into a melodrama, a medical crisis picture, or one that serves as a commentary on any social issue in particular (as again he's extremely vague about everything from health care to economics etc.)-- it's the film's simplicity that makes it all the more compelling. Furthermore, it emphasizes the performances of the main quartet of actors (who were deliberately chosen since they weren't "stars" but more reminiscent of "ordinary people") and therefore the results are additionally remarkable.



WeiWei's fierce tenacity in her portrayal (akin last month's similarly themed film Under the Bombs about a mother who will do anything to find her son in war torn surroundings) earned her a well-deserved Best Actress Award. Likewise the film itself earned Wang Xiaoshuai another Silver Bear from the Berlin Film Festival for his screenplay as well as a Special Mention Prize of the Ecumenical Jury-- however, overall it's a film that doesn't hit a false note and seems to be enhanced by the collaborative effort of everyone involved as throughout you're invited to view the same situation from four distinctly different points-of-view.

Although the subject matter and the fact that it's arriving only weeks before the similarly themed big budget Hollywood effort My Sister's Keeper may hinder traditional viewer interest, for fans of foreign film and especially those who appreciate intellectually, ethically, and morally stimulating pieces you won't do any better than the superlative In Love We Trust.

Noise

Director: Matthew Saville

Although less claustrophobic than the insanity tinged genius of Aronofsky’s Pi and far more accessible to daring art-house audiences than that experimentally trippy classic, I was initially reminded of Aronofsky’s fascination with visual and aural experimentation within the first few brilliant moments of writer/director Matthew Saville’s Noise. With an overwhelming emphasis on auditory trickery, the film begins on confident cinematic footing with the audacity of launching right into the psychologically loud yet eerily quiet mayhem as-- typically lost in her headphones-- young McDonald’s employee Lavinia (Maia Thomas), boards an Australian train only to discover after a moment of nonchalantly getting lost in the post-work fatigue and rhythm of her music that all of the other passengers have been massacred by gunfire.

Following this shocking discovery, we’re introduced to a parallel story, also set at the train station as police officer Graham McGahan (Brendan Cowell), who has privately suffered for quiet months with ringing in his ears, experiences a blackout while boarding an escalator at a stop down the line, only to awaken later at a hospital where he’s diagnosed with tinnitus and learns he may eventually lose his hearing.

The two stories link up quickly as McGahan’s medical note is ridiculed by his bullying hyper-masculine superiors and he’s assigned night duty, babysitting a caravan at a crime scene adjacent to not only the train but also the mysterious death of a local woman in the community. These two tragic occurrences sound an alarm in their sleepy, suburban community that they may be somehow related as the justifiably frightened sole witness Lavinia tries to grapple with what had happened the night she boarded the train and McGahan must deal with random locals who visit him to complain, jeer, fight, gossip, slander, fill with misinformation, and genuinely make his shift all the more complicated.

With a phenomenally gripping beginning that braces audiences for a typical police procedural thriller, Saville ignores the limitations of the genre and like a magician from the school of experimental Aronofsky, uses sound in peculiar ways throughout, heightening the tension. Ultimately Noise’s narrative approach is less a traditional whodunit as a character driven, moodily atmospheric piece where eccentric locals abound and things are never as they appear in the spirit of John Sayles where the setting is both a clue and a character and it will undoubtedly play differently to audiences who live in other countries who—although admittedly entranced by its spell—may not fully understand the nuances that helped earn the film a remarkable twelve awards in its native Australia.

While the awards aren’t hard to imagine given the high quality of the film, this is especially apparent in the pitch perfect performances of both Brendan Cowell as he tries to resign himself to living with his disability and fight the wedge it threatens to divide in his relationship and work as well as young Maia Thomas’s emotionally wrought Lavinia, whom we learn in well placed flashbacks, may actually know more than she initially wanted to share for fear of her life from simply being in the wrong place at most decidedly the wrong time.

Although Noise will infuriate those hoping for a strict cop paradigm who will grow weary with the film’s continuous exercises in sound manipulation in creating an unforgettable dramatic effect and the end of the film is maddeningly vague-- inspiring viewer discussion long into the night-- perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the entire impressive film is that it only marks the second filmmaking and first feature length effort from its gifted and imaginative helmer Matthew Saville.

Exclusively available through Film Movement, Saville’s Noise is one sure to cause lots of conversational noise once you hit eject, however filmmaking students will want to hijack the disc, in order to study that opening, experimentally bravura sequence of tone establishment many times over, discovering what happens when all the post-production elemental tricks work together in nearly symphonic unison at the highest level to engage the audience.

The Fall

Director:
Tarsem Singh
(aka Tarsem)

Those who have spent any significant amount of time convalescing will tell you that nothing speeds recovery along like a worthwhile diversion in the form of an epic tale. When you add thrills, romance, and laughter to the narrative, you create a powerful, side effect free unparalleled prescription for health without the need of co-pays, waiting rooms or HMO red tape where there aren’t any deductions for preexisting conditions and you never have to deal with a clipboard full of paperwork. Imagine your doctors in residence weren’t the test-happy first year medical students still trying to master the right way to hook up a catheter or IV most of us face at our local hospitals but rather Being John Malkovich filmmaker Spike Joze, Zodiac helmer David Fincher and the innovative fellow music video director turned feature filmmaker Tarsem Singh and you’ll begin to get a better sense of their cinematically experimental procedure where reels of film and not dangerous drugs replace mood altering anesthesia. And comparable to the wonderful program Doctors Without Borders, imagine sending this cinematic dream team of Filmmakers Without Borders to expertly stitch together twenty-six locations over four years in more than eighteen countries (IMDb) in Tarsem Singh’s highly anticipated sophomore follow up to his critically acclaimed first feature, The Cell.

Already, the work, entitled The Fall has divided the critics into largely two factions of those who feel his film is a masterpiece and those who call the mad-scientist’s resulting epic an infuriatingly self-important vanity project. However, for my money, Tarsem succeeds where others like Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly failed with his atrocious second feature Southland Tales, in admirably taking risks but like a good doctor, Tarsem contemplates each move with stealth like precision, making sure that the benefits outweigh the negatives for his unforgettably dark, brilliant grown up fairy tale, The Fall.

From the breathtakingly bizarre black and white opening montage set to music and staged as though it were a silent film to its overwhelming eye candy that seems to pour off the screen in each daring frame as it continues, Tarsem’s Fall combines the scope and ambition of a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster with the artistic risk taking of experimental cinema. Admittedly as one who has never been overly keen on fantasy, I worried that it was going to be as bloated and pretentious as some of the critics described but I was quickly taken in by the riveting tale, which was inspired by the 1981 Bulgarian film Yo Ho Ho.

Set in a Los Angeles hospital, we first meet our precocious five year old heroine Alexandria (Romanian newcomer Catinca Untaru) who, still recovering from a broken arm after picking oranges in a grove along with her impoverished family, forms an unlikely attachment with Roy Walker (Lee Pace) a heartbroken, suicidal film stuntman whose legs were damaged after he attempted a ridiculous sequence jumping from a train bridge onto a horse.

Unable to move on with his life because he’s lost the woman he loved, Roy distracts himself along with Alexandria by first sharing with her a story of her namesake Alexander the Great and afterwards, telling her a fictitious epic tale of five heroic men (including Charles Darwin) who aspire to kill the horrible Governor Odious. As the story continually builds from one exciting adventure to the next, Roy begins to subtly blackmail his young friend into procuring enough medicine for himself so that he may end his life, only to have some of his plans backfire in unexpected ways.

Although the bleak nature of Roy’s outlook on life might have been unbearably sad in another’s hands, Singh fills his film with surprising amounts of black comedy, near-misses as the story Roy begins to tell suspiciously morphs into a catharsis when reality and fantasy are blurred as Roy, Alexandria and others they know in the hospital and in their lives begin to make appearances in the emotionally intoxicating and artistically dazzling saga. However, I must warn that it becomes extraordinarily brutal near the end causing us to shift uncomfortably in our seats in trying to anticipate just how Tarsem will conclude the film.

Despite this, admirably The Fall rises from the obvious label of a spectacle picture due to the sheer amazement to be found in the magical sequences that will haunt your dreams after the viewing, by providing a satisfying emotional payoff as well for both of the characters we’ve come to know and love, and both of whom we realize could not have healed without each other nor the unforgettable tale.

And that’s better than an allergic reaction to a prescription medication your insurance won’t cover but the doctor insists you need any day of the week. In other words, go to the cinema and call me in the morning.

Numb

Director:
Harris Goldberg

Have you ever had one of those days where you remember getting in your car and driving home from work but have absolutely no memory of what happened on the drive? You know you’ve obeyed the traffic lights and gone the same route you always do yet you’re so used to going through the motions that it’s impossible to distinguish one trip from the next… that is until something major changes. We take comfort in knowing that our detachment is only temporary but for Hudson (Matthew Perry), living in a “horrific perpetual dreamstate” becomes permanent after the anxiety ridden, high-strung screenwriter triggers his preexisting tendency for disassociation in a bong binge after smoking too much dope too fast while trying to pause his penchant for panic.

Soon diagnosed with “depersonalization” disorder or feeling entirely outside his body as he goes about his day, Hudson fights his condition in the quest for the perfect psychiatrist, experimenting with both talk and drug therapies while attempting his own remedies from an unsuccessful venture to reconnect with reality by visiting his parents to spending far too much time in front of his television zoning out to The Golf Channel. Nearly resigned to a life spent indoors watching the longest films ever made on DVD, Hudson is faced with an optimistic jolt when he becomes attracted to the beguiling, lovely, carefree, and refreshingly weird studio development girl Sara (Lynn Collins) after meeting her in a pitch meeting with his long suffering writing partner Tom (Kevin Pollak).

Surprisingly accepting of his predilection for evenings in front of the television, one night when faced with viewing the entire Star Wars trilogy complete with the filmmaker’s commentary, Sara urges Hudson out of the house and serious sparks begin to fly during some completely unexpected adventures. Now given a true reason to cure his depersonalization due to the fear that revealing his condition will alienate his new love, Hudson fights even harder to try and find the right course of treatment but when playing “musical drugs” begins failing, his tendency towards self-sabotage kicks in as writer/director Harris Goldberg’s impressive, autobiographical, and wholly original romantic comedy continues.

Featuring a pitch perfect performance by Matthew Perry in a role that seems completely tailor-made for the star given his incredible talent for dialogue and self-deprecation, Goldberg admirably fills in the rest of the script with equally involving characters, even when they begin bordering on caricature such as in a fine if slightly artificial subplot featuring Mary Steenburgen as an unstable cognitive behavior specialist who breaks the boundaries of a traditional doctor/patient relationship when she gives into temptation with Hudson.

Far better than one would assume given Goldberg’s other credits as a screenwriter contributing to the awful Dana Carvey vehicle The Master of Disguise and the downright despicable Deuce Bigalow series, we realize that the talented filmmaker has much more to offer than lowbrow credits. Given the maturity and well-earned laughs from this completely human script, it's safe to say that we can look forward to other movies from Goldberg that-- if he manages to stay as close to his heart as he did with this deeply personal tale-- are sure to garner him more fans in the world of independent film. Co-produced by its star Matthew Perry, Numb, which earned the Audience Award from the Gen Art Film Festival, has been recently released on DVD.

Fraulein

Director: Andrea Staka

We all have the instinctive urge to escape. Whether it’s to travel to exotic locations for vacation or start over in a brand new place, there’s something undeniably irresistible and inherently human about wanting to get away to try something new, not only to see how life is lived elsewhere but to see who we become in another setting. Although we can neither escape our problems nor our true nature, the desire to hit “reset” is one that exists at all levels, ranging from just wanting to clear your head from the daily grind and lie in the sun or at its most urgent, needing to relocate permanently due to work, hardship or in the case of the main characters in writer/director Andrea Staka’s award winning feature film debut Fraulein, to leave political turmoil and war behind.

As the film begins, we meet the young, attractive, free-spirited Ana (Marja Skaricic) who arrives in Zurich from Bosnia. Although she’s survived the war, the tragedies of the past seem to dance precariously in her eyes, never to be forgotten, even as she dances as quickly as she can to pulse-pounding electronica blasting over the speakers in the city’s clubs, distracting herself with one-night stands until her secrets start to unravel like a piece of yarn from her beaten old sweater.

Everything about Ana seems temporary and transient but after she impulsively accepts a job working in a local cafeteria, her life becomes intertwined by two elder coworkers, including Jovic, an intelligent Croatian immigrant (Mila Ljubica) still trying to decide in which country she hopes to spend her remaining years, and Ruza (Mirjana Karanovic), the strict cafeteria owner who, like Ana, had twenty-five years earlier abandoned her native Yugoslavia when she was just twenty-two.

Initially resistant to Ana’s overtures of friendship, most likely because she reminds her of the homeland she’d prefer to forget, the indifferent Ruza experiences a change of heart as she starts to recognize the woman she once had been, most notably in a gorgeous metaphorical scene where she, much like Ana, begins to dance when surprised by an impromptu birthday celebration.

Although a solemn air hangs over Staka’s picture from the start especially considering the revelation of one particularly heartrending shock early on, Fraulein manages to challenge both a typical cross-generational female bonding structure as well as resist, much like the determined Ruza, any urge to journey into false nostalgia or fall in step with what very well could have been a tearjerker paradigm. However, this emphasis on authenticity throughout no doubt owes much to the care of first time feature director and award winning short Swiss filmmaker Andrea Staka, a former photographer and visual arts student, who drew from her own background as the daughter of two exiled Yugoslavian parents.

With remarkable performances that seem all the more riveting when one realizes that neither lead actress spoke German and instead had to learn their dialogue phonetically as explained by Jay Weissberg in Variety, this award winning foreign favorite which played as an Official Selection at both the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festival, has since been released to discerning film lovers via Film Movement’s prestigious DVD-of-the-month club.

P.S. I Love You

Director:
Richard LaGravenese

In the late 1990’s and most likely to compete with Gap’s aggressively cool “jump, jive, an’ wail” and “Kerouac wore khakis,” advertising campaign, Dockers launched their own line of commercials which featured handsome men on subways and street corners catching the eyes of flirtatious female passersby who replaced the tired wolf whistle with the sexy, succinct line, “Nice pants.” As my favorite creative writing professor jokingly told us, “If a woman told me I had nice pants, I would MARRY her.” Now admittedly, unlike my professor who was on—I believe-- wife number four at the time, I’m not one for marriage. However—and no pun intended-- if pressed, my “nice pants” weakness would be men who write letters. Sketches are flattering and songs entertain but creative men who pour their hearts out on paper with wit, passion, and ease are few and far between. Indeed, unfortunately, it seems as though they only exist in syrupy tearjerker novels, movies about death, or in foreign countries. In the latest outing from director Richard LaGravenese, he confirms this suspicion by mixing up a cocktail of all three as we have a film adaptation of Cecilia Ahern’s novel about death in which our male letter writer hails from Ireland.

Inaccurately billed, advertised and even critiqued as a traditional romantic comedy which raised enough eyebrows when one realized that Hilary Swank-- Oscar’s queen of doom and gloom-- was starring in something funny, P.S. I Love You crashed and burned at the box office, with audiences preferring to see Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman’s awkwardly characterized “feel-good” movie about death, The Bucket List. Think of this film as The Bucket List in reverse as it opens with Holly (Hilary Swank in as my dad described “Jennifer Garner mode”) and Gerry Kennedy (dishy Gerard Butler) returning home from a disastrous evening as they wait until they get to their apartment to argue to avoid making a scene.

Unfortunately, while the Kennedy’s neighbors are spared the scene, we watch the loud, chaotic confrontation escalate as the two begin with one issue, and predictably although authentically, proceed to use that as a springboard to attack each and every problem existing in their marriage. Faster than you can say, “show us, don’t tell us,” in a scene perhaps best suited for the stage as exposition literally comes spewing from the mouths of our talented leads making them grate on our nerves fairly quickly, we learn moments later that Gerry has died from a tragic illness, leaving his young, devoted wife reeling.

Cutting herself off from the world, Holly proceeds to grieve in her own way, avoiding hygiene and cleanliness, ignoring work, and instead sublimating her loss in fantasy as she imagines still speaking, holding and sleeping with Gerry as well as watching every woman’s weepie classic one can imagine starring Bette Davis and Judy Garland on her bedroom television. Things change on her thirtieth birthday, when Holly's mother Patricia (Kathy Bates) and two best friends (Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon) stage an intervention that nearly fails until a surprise letter arrives from the deceased Gerry who reveals that he has left Holly ten messages which will appear in mysterious ways over the course of one year.

Signing each letter with—you guessed it-- “P.S. I Love You,” Holly begins to come out of both her apartment and shell as Gerry's assignments challenge her to take part in everything from karaoke to a trip to Ireland where she meets Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Billy Gallagher, another sensitive and gorgeous lad who-- wouldn’t you know?-- was one of Gerry’s old mates.

Meanwhile, in New York, Harry Connick Jr.’s bartending Daniel hopes to become more to Holly than just a friendly shoulder to cry on, as Holly realizes that as much as she wants to move on, it’s hard to let go, especially when Gerry keeps reminding her of their love with each successive letter.

While Swank’s character never feels entirely authentic and too much back-story is crammed in awkwardly throughout the narrative, despite its contrivances and predictable plot points, P.S. I Love You isn’t quite the disaster that one would have expected going in. However with obvious parallels to The Notebook and Ghost, it’s important to note to prospective renters hoping for a romantic comedy that the film is much sadder and far more devastating than the lighthearted trailers would have one believe, which tests the patience of viewers considering its overly long running time of 126 minutes.

In addition and quite surprisingly for a chick flick that was originally penned in novel form by a woman, I was amazed by the fact that the most fascinating and rewarding characters in Love weren't predictably Holly or her friends but rather the men in their lives including Gerry, Billy and Daniel. But then again, it's easy to forgive the author's understandable indulgence; as I said before, men like these only exist in the movies… or maybe just in Ireland.

Her Name Is Sabine

Director:
Sandrine Bonnaire

In school, cruel kids nicked her “Crazy Sabine.” However, to Sandrine Bonnaire, the Cesar winning French actress turned documentarian, the brainy, beautiful girl with an infectious smile who motored around independently on a scooter before misdiagnoses and failed treatments found her institutionalized for five years, was always her sister first.

In the passionate, understated documentary Her Name Is Sabine, Sandrine Bonnaire, her fellow camerawoman and collaborator Catherine Cabrol, and editor Svetlana Vaynblat create a moving tapestry of more than twenty-five years of footage of the life of now thirty-eight year old Sabine Bonnaire.

As the film opens, we catch up with Sabine who is currently living in a loving, supportive environment in France’s Charente region following her release from the institution and shockingly late diagnosis of autism in 2001. Quickly Sandrine discovers that the charming, vivacious and inquisitive girl from her youth is now forever changed with diminished motor and comprehension skills that were no doubt exacerbated by the confinement.

Rather than interjecting herself in the film especially in certain heartbreaking scenes which would have been understandable for a relative more than a documentary filmmaker, Sandrine Bonnaire admirably remains an objective witness, participating in events only when she is spoken to directly by Sabine or others as she captures the life of not only her sister but the caring small facility where she resides and the likes of which there are very few in France.

While Sandrine Bonnaire’s thesis of analyzing and contrasting Sabine’s diminished faculties following the confinement is illustrated early on, it’s never an argumentative piece and one that in fact could have been far more damning of the system that failed Sandrine’s younger sister.

However, instead the Cannes Film Festival Director’s Fortnight winner Her Name Is Sabine unfolds methodically while raising awareness in “a society that still does not know how to properly take care of its citizens with physical and psychological disabilities,” (Film Movement).

With its painstaking attention to detail evidenced early on by Vaynblat’s sharp editing, Sandrine Bonnaire’s critically acclaimed film festival favorite manages to effectively slow dance back and forth through the twenty-five years of Sabine’s life similar to the way that it’s earliest footage depicts Sandrine dancing with her younger sister Sabine. Despite the fact that this time around, Sandrine must consistently lead, with patience, empathy and understanding, she manages to ensure that Sabine enjoys keeping the beat, even when the tune of the music-- much like life-- changes unpredictably.

Canvas

Director:
Joseph Greco

I’ll never look at “Joey Pants” the same way again. From answering phones with the phrase “Moscone Bail Bonds” in Midnight Run to terrifying Jennifer Tilly in Bound all the way up through his intense turn on The Sopranos, Joe Pantoliano has become the go-to guy for mafia roles with his ability to dominate every scene he’s in with his vicious dialogue and despicable actions. Yet, as Pantoliano himself noted in a Tufts University Q&A for his latest film Canvas, (which he also produced), he didn’t want to be defined by his Sopranos character. After only a few scenes of writer/director Joseph Greco’s emotionally moving feature film debut, "Joey Pants" the mobster tough guy is long forgotten.

Based on a true story and inspired by Greco’s own childhood living with a mentally ill mother, the filmmaker decided to sublimate not only what he’d gone through artistically (thereby following in the footsteps of both of his creative parents) but also to address the issue of mental illness compassionately and accurately to “combat stigma.” Wholeheartedly embraced by the mental health community as Greco shares in the Tufts Q&A featured on the Canvas DVD, the film stars talented young actor Devon Gearhart as Chris who, as the movie opens, is returning to Florida from Alaska where he’d stayed with his Aunt Joanne. His hopes that his mother Mary (Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden), who’d begun showing signs of mental illness eighteen months earlier, would have improved are dashed when he realizes that her schizophrenia is slowing taking over as her loyally loving construction worker husband John (Pantoliano) looks on helplessly.

After a domestic disturbance ensues when Mary fails to take the always changing medications prescribed by her doctors, she is forcibly institutionalized by the police, leaving John and Chris angrily frustrated and trying to figure out how to get back the woman they both love. While Chris must contend with ridicule from classmates and begins skipping school to head for the beach his aspiring artist mother loved to paint, John sublimates his feelings in constructing the perfect sailboat in the backyard, leading neighbors and other community members to question whether or not both of Chris’s parents are mentally ill.

Beautiful, sensitive, and earnest, Canvas draws strength in its authenticity and it’s an understated, truly independent work sure to get audiences talking, if they’re fortunate enough to track it down. A film festival favorite, having earned the Best Feature Film Award at Sedona, an Audience Award at Ft. Lauderdale, Sarasota and Natucket, Canvas, which has recently been released on DVD, was also chosen by legendary film critic Roger Ebert for inclusion in his 2008 Ebertfest.

Romulus, My Father

Director:

Richard Roxburgh

Shortly after young Rai (Kodi Smit-McPhee) begins noticing that women in his desolate town seem to be so struck by his exceedingly handsome father Romulus (Eric Bana) that they stare openly with smiles as bright as the Australian sun, a woman returns who had smiled at him decades earlier in World War II.

With the arrival of his restless mother Christina (Franka Potente) who-- as Romulus phrases it-- seems to come and go as if their home is a hotel, young Raimond Gaita begins to become acquainted with the indescribably intense and complicated relationship shared by his passionate, quiet Romanian father and beguiling German mother who’s always had more than just a wandering smile for masculine passersby.

Unable to be content in the hot desert with her husband and son, Christina has set up a second life in 1960 Melbourne, moving in with the brother of her husband’s best friend Hora (Marton Csokas). Instead of divorcing her for her frequent infidelities which we learn are nothing new, Romulus explains that he’s unable to turn his back on Christina whom he feels not only needs him but whose love affects him to such an extent that at times it’s driven him to suicidal actions. After such a stunt puts his father in the hospital once again, Rai starts getting bounced from one place to the next as he comes of age when staying with friends and family, all the while hoping that the catastrophic fire and gasoline relationship between his parents will somehow get resolved.

Sumptuously photographed by Geoffrey Simpson (Oscar and Lucinda, Under the Tuscan Sun), the film marks the directorial debut of Richard Roxburgh who, after seven years of labor on his pet project, finally saw playwright Nick Drake’s adaptation of Raimond Gaita’s memoir realized on the big screen. Winner of four Australian Film Institute honors including Best Picture and three richly deserved acting accolades for Bana (in his finest performance since Munich), Csokas, and McPhee, Roxburgh’s work is not only a remarkable achievement but also provides greater proof of Bana’s range with a turn that, while shy on dialogue, manages to convey planets of emotion in a few chosen reactions.

However, the film itself does frustrate viewers in its devastating second half, making us wish that greater detail had been transferred from Gaita’s book in reference to his parent’s courtship and background since we wonder just what had happened in the war to make them so mentally unstable. Despite this, it’s a lush, old-fashioned and impressive film that additionally benefits from extraordinarily magical touches of cinematic poetry such as the exquisite bookend of Romulus and Rai tending to bees that have fallen from a hive which echoes the healing bond of their relationship.

Dopamine

Director:
Mark Decena

You’ve heard of the birds and the bees but what about Koy-Koy and dopamine?

Women’s magazines and self-help books continually offer new theories about romantic attraction but whether one believes in fate or fix-ups, I think most of us agree that there’s some sort of chemical reaction at play when determining whom we consent to date again and to whom we offer some derivation of “don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Or, as the father of computer programmer Rand (John Livingston) tells his son while summing up his lifelong love for his wife whom now remains stationary on a couch stricken with Alzheimer’s, their chemical spark was ignited because, simply put, they “set each other off.”

The argument that love’s chemical processes result in dopamine wherein your body releases a highly addictive pleasure drug during courtship resulted in Rand and his two coworkers, Winston (Bruno Campos) and Johnson (Rueben Grundy) participating in the three year development of a virtual friend, a computerized, interactive bird they named Koy-Koy which provides the same narcotizing stimuli for the lonely and/or friendless. When their employers want their brainchild tested, the three colleagues-- admittedly suffering from cabin fever of being trapped in a small, sunless room working on code-- reluctantly consent to offering Koy-Koy a children’s classroom full of would-be friends.

However, it’s the attractive teacher Sarah (Sabrina Lloyd) that captures the attention of not one but two programmers after they meet one night in a bar without realizing their futures would be intertwined. When the troubled, commitment phobic Sarah lets her guard down temporarily to begin spending increasing amounts of time with the smitten Rand, they find their burgeoning relationship tested by his overly analytic, scientific explanations of love that provide little in the way of assurance that their coupling is different from those of animals. And, with all his theories, Rand manages to not only kill the romantic mood but contribute to the distance between the two lonely souls.

It’s precisely this distance that’s echoed in the audience as Dopamine suffers from the same cool, detached emotion that surrounds the world of computer programmers, which isn’t helped by its unlikable heroine and the production’s claustrophobic execution. Yet, it’s an admirable attempt for a film that should definitely spark—if not chemistry—then discussion, director Mark Decena’s Dopamine (written by the director and collaborator Timothy Breitbach) won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and was chosen for both DVD distribution in the Sundance Film Series and regular rotation on Redford’s prestigious premium cable network.

Music Within

Director: Steven Sawalich

Like most children, Richard Pimentel’s earliest dream was to become a superhero. Little did he realize that this goal would manifest itself in a rather unusual way when, as an adult, Richard discovered the superpower of being able to read conversations from one hundred feet away. Although it wasn’t a power that he’d stumbled on accidentally like the ones which defined Spiderman or The Incredible Hulk, similar to those heroes, it was one that came with a price, however in the eyes of a society that likes to turn a blind eye to the disabled (no pun intended), the price he paid was far more difficult than scaling walls or turning green. For Richard Pimentel, the price for his superpower was his hearing.

After a tragedy ridden childhood, Pimentel (Ron Livingston) found his calling as one of the most naturally gifted members of his high school debate team in the 1960’s. With a gift for memorization and a theatrical stage presence, Pimentel’s goal to receive a college scholarship was dashed when Professor Ben Padrow (Hector Elizondo) informed him that, although talented, he was insincere and needed to go out, experience life and earn a unique point of view. Still reeling from the news, impulsively, Pimentel enlists in the service only to find himself stationed in Vietnam where after an incoming explosion, he manages to escape with his life but with his hearing forever damaged. Now plagued with the high pitched ringing of unceasing tinnitus, Pimentel learns that he’s lost half of his hearing in the upper register. It’s due to this disability and the lack of preparedness by the powers that be that tell Pimentel that they can’t authorize his hard earned GI funds to send a deaf student to college and paint a bleak picture for the veteran of a friendless future and a warning that if he miraculously graduates, they wouldn't be able to place him in a job.

Doom ridden predictions be damned, Pimentel enrolls in college and on his path to graduation, he befriends another outsider in the form of Art (Michael Sheen), a witty man with a genius level I.Q. who, due to a cruel twist fate, is wheelchair bound and afflicted with cerebral palsy. The two embark on both a fast friendship as well as a quest to participate in the life that 1970’s American society seems all too ready to exclude them from which is evidenced in a heartbreaking scene as they’re kicked out of a pancake restaurant for breaking what Pimentel calls the “ugly law” a.k.a. the intolerance of able-bodied citizens to share public space with those who are "deformed or diseased." Later, Pimentel’s quest turns much more political, ambitious and proactive as, on behalf of not only himself, Art and fellow disabled Vietnam vets (suffering from both physical and mental impairments), he gets a job in a government agency cold calling businesses from the local Portland phone book in order to help other disabled citizens find jobs. Word reaches the governor who quickly asks Pimentel to create a program that will pave the way for employers to train and hire disabled persons and soon, Pimentel’s landmark professional guide makes him one of the most actively sought authorities on the matter and also helps lead to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990.

While legendary film critic Roger Ebert faulted the film’s assertion that just one man was responsible for the ADA with his worthy and correct articulation that Music Within’s “hero stands for countless others," the film is first and foremost a biopic of one man’s struggles and successes so it’s on that level which made it a success for this reviewer. In addition to offering viewers yet another depiction of the tremendous range of actor Michael Sheen (star of Blood Diamond who also portrayed Tony Blair in The Queen and The Deal), it will be especially surprising to fans of Livingston’s Office Space and Sex and the City to see the typically comedic actor in a new light.

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2007 AFI Dallas International Film Festival, director Steven Sawalich’s moving film does admittedly suffer from a predictable script filled with action that is “accompanied by some very deliberately programmed and too obvious period music,” (John Anderson, Variety). Yet, perhaps in the wake of increasing numbers of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with physical and mental disabilities, despite the film’s contrivances, it’s the type of quintessential underdog movie that inspires audiences rather than divides them and given the timeliness of the content, it’s hard to find fault with that.

Of Mice and Men

Nominated for the 1992 Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winning writer Horton Foote adapted John Steinbeck’s 1937 classic novella Of Mice and Men for the second and far superior cinematic interpretation from director/producer/star Gary Sinise. As he notes on the DVD, Sinise, who had first seen the play as a 16 year old at the renowned Minneapolis Guthrie Theatre, acquired the rights from Elaine Steinbeck while performing in the Broadway version of The Grapes of Wrath. After a breakneck year of planning, including solidifying the script which was approved on the spot by MGM studios, production was underway.

Having taken part in the play twelve years earlier at the Steppenwolf Theatre, Sinise once again tackled the role of the protective George Milton. In one of his smartest moves as a filmmaker, Sinise reunited with his Mice costar John Malkovich for his pitch-perfect characterization of the mentally challenged Lennie Small in the heartbreaking tale of two close friends who travel together during the Great Depression while working on California ranches as they try to save enough money to buy their own farm and secure a piece of the American dream.

Nearly as vital and timely as it was in its first printing given the state of our questionable economy with frequent discussion of recession, Sinise’s film has also stood the test of time with its painstaking attention to detail in bringing Steinbeck’s vision to life. And perhaps it's even more accessible thanks to Foote’s augmentation of his lean and muscular writing by adding more emotion to the tale in order to enrich Steinbeck’s theme of loneliness.

In addition to being controversial for conclusions made regarding disabled individuals such as Lennie, Steinbeck’s novel also caused a feminist outcry as female sexuality leads to the men’s undoing, in the form of the flirtatious wife of their boss Curley (Casey Siemaszko). However, in the 1992 version both of these oft debated characterizations are deepened without losing any of Steinbeck’s intent. In the DVD interview, Sinise argued that one of the most important things he wanted to address in the movie was the treatment of Curley’s wife by humanizing the woman (played by the lovely Sherilyn Fenn) and emphasizing her loneliness being the only woman on the ranch without a soul to talk to. In doing so, he considerably plays up audience sympathy as opposed to the book’s depiction of her as a dangerous, aggressive symbolic villain. In addition, as Sinise shared, this change of developing Curley’s wife into a fully realized character makes the film’s memorably shocking ending all the more tragic. Additionally, in my view, it makes her yet another one of the many lonely outcasts that populate Steinbeck’s world, inviting the audience to draw greater parallels between her character as well as the others, especially Lennie who is painted as the ultimate outsider, given his childlike innocence that’s contrasted with his dangerous strength and overwhelming size.

While it’s Malkovich that ultimately steals the film, I was especially touched by Sinise’s characterization in depicting George in a tenderer fatherly manner, and after viewing the film a second time around, began to realize that in truth, he had the more difficult role. Not only does George serve as the negotiator of both Lennie’s optimistic fairy tale like hope for a better future and the harsh realities of the ranch but he also served as the glue in the relationships with every character in a way that had me recalling William Hurt’s underrated, similarly all-encompassing role in Children of a Lesser God. While George is nowhere near as flashy or memorable as Lennie who holds our hearts for the entire running time, it’s ultimately George who serves as the contemplative stand-in for the audience as he’s the one we’re constantly judging throughout the movie.

Seeing the two great actors working together at the peak of their careers makes Of Mice and Men all the more precious and it’s this immediate bond the two share that wins us over from the start. This relationship is definitely heightened by Foote’s script which, under the guidance of Sinise who wanted to make his own Scarecrow like “buddy movie” (for lack of a better phrase), allows the two not only to shine but invites Steinbeck fans to look even deeper into the novella. And perhaps it's this more than anything that should be the true test of the success of adapting literature in whether or not it inspires us to go back to Steinbeck’s novella to compare and contrast while appreciating the similarities and differences of each instead of just choosing one over the other. In that regard and so many others, Sinise's Of Mice and Men is an overwhelming success.

PU-239

Alternate Title: The Half Life of Timofey Berezin
Director: Scott Z. Burns

“I need to know my rems!” Russian nuclear plant worker Timofey (Paddy Considine) pleads after he accidentally becomes the victim of radiation poisoning when he intervenes in a near catastrophe. Told he was only exposed to one hundred rems of radiation which isn’t fatal, he discovers on his own that his dosage was lethal before realizing that the company of the top secret town of Skotoprigonyevsk where he resides, is busily covering their tracks as they try to force him to sign documentation taking responsibility for the event before he is placed on indefinite leave.

Angry, scared and heartsick for his young son and wife Marina (Radha Mitchell), a former nuclear facility worker herself who had also had a close scare, Timofey decides to make a bold and aggressive decision to provide for his family and get revenge by smuggling out one hundred grams of plutonium to sell on Moscow’s black market in this made for HBO film that was optioned by Section Eight producers George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh to help launch its DVD premiere.

Journeying from his community to Moscow, Timofey finds that securing a buyer is far more difficult than he realized and with time running out as he’s getting increasingly sicker, he reluctantly pairs up with scheming crook Shiv (Oscar Isaac) who, trying to provide for his own son and Ukranian prostitute wife tries to fast talk Timofey into handling the sale in order to pay back far more dangerous mobsters to whom he owes money. Shiv’s incompetence and associations with various double-crossing villains make up a large percentage of the film which unsuccessfully evolves from Timofey’s touching drama and impulsive, dangerous scheme to a bizarre mix of pathos, dark comedy and outrageous plot setups as it careens to its inevitable fatal conclusion.

Considine’s Tomofey and Isaac’s Shiv benefit from the impressive turns by the character actors who disappear in their roles as well as a pulse pounding script by writer/director Scott Z. Burns who penned The Bourne Ultimatum, although ultimately, while we understand that the character of Shiv would never have been as compelling as Timofey, PU-239 would have benefited from a sharper rewrite and a worthier subplot and character than the version of Shiv that is presented in the completed production.

Neighbor's Dog

Complete Title:

How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog

Director:
Michael Kalesniko

We’ve all been there. Whether it’s in the middle of the afternoon and you’re busily trying to finish a spreadsheet or it’s in the middle of the night and you’ve nearly broken your neck repeatedly straining to read the red digital time on your clock in disbelief-- whatever time of day it is, there are few sounds more irritating than that of a perpetually barking dog. Even for dog lovers such as me who forgive a few vocal barks here and there, there's a certain acceptable line that is crossed when it’s a repeated offense and one without provocation from a stranger, mailman or typical distraction.

This is precisely the same situation that playwright Peter McGowan (Kenneth Branagh) finds himself in during Candian writer/director Michael Kalesniko’s six-time award winning film How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog. I should stress that the film's title doesn't reflect its contents. Neighbor's Dog isn’t a twisted instruction manual and without any overt onscreen violence it is not as objectionably graphic as Amores Perros and more importantly the dog in question is just one of the many annoyances the insomniac, misanthropic chain-smoking playwright who’s about ten years overdue for a successful production faces throughout the course of the film.

No, the primary obstacle aside from trying to get his latest show off the ground which is challenged by the offbeat young director’s insistence to perpetually sing Petula Clark songs with no provocation (similar to a barking dog) concerns his relationship with his supportive wife Melanie (the always likable Robin Wright Penn). Much like Peter has been struggling with repeated failures in the theatre, dance teacher Melanie is struggling to combat failures in trying to conceive with an overactive biological clock, which is testing her relationship with Peter as insistence and demand makes setting the mood much tougher, without of course factoring in the barking dog and duties taking care of Melanie’s senile mom (Lynn Redgrave) into the conjugal mix.

Even more difficulties arise when Peter learns he has a doppelganger in the form of Jared Harris who has been wandering around his Los Angeles neighborhood at night pretending he’s Peter McGowan along with a much different obstacle when a single mother and her eight year old daughter Amy (Suzi Hofrichter) move in across the street. Hofrichter, quite mature and charismatic in her portrayal (making her an uncommonly gifted young star), never lets the audiences pity her character’s challenges with cerebral palsy. It's her interactions with Peter who at first uses playtime as an excuse to learn youthful dialogue that grows into a near sibling and child dynamic which are unexpectedly moving, touching yet far more realistic than one would assume.

Kalesniko’s 2000 film with the unfortunate title is a worthwhile find due to his deft and layered script filled with characters whose situations echo one another and dialogue that comes alive when spoken by the film’s leads. Although it was only released on premium cable television here in the states, Neighbor's Dog can also be tracked down on DVD.