Movie Review – CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion

Now Available 

From the saintly, asexual disabled women who get rewarded with a medical cure by the end of the movie (as in City Lights) to the vengeful, recently disabled, villainous men who want to take their anger out on the world (like Dennis Hopper's cop turned bus bomber in Speed), disability stereotypes have become ingrained in our culture throughout film history.

And while that doesn't of course prevent any of the films mentioned from being classics in their own right, when these and other stereotypes – whether coded or more overt – are returned to again and again on the big or small screen, the idea that they're true gets reinforced in people's minds, even if the viewer isn't fully aware of it.

A subject close to my heart, not only as a disabled woman but also as a film major who intended to make it my thesis in graduate school, in this eye-opening documentary (which should be mandatory viewing for those pursuing a degree in Media Studies), director Jenni Gold gives a fascinating overview of the subject of disability onscreen.

Chronicling the evolution of disabled character driven storytelling over roughly 120 years of cinema (and later, television), we discover how much has changed as well as how much remains the same. Additionally, Gold looks at the role that representation plays in legislation as – with the increase of more positive and diverse portrayals post-Vietnam – the Americans With Disabilities Act was finally signed into law by President Bush in 1990.

Reminiscent of a terrific small screen documentary that wouldn't be out of place on TCM, given not only its subject matter but also its slightly retro approach, CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion is hosted and narrated by one of the film's producers, Jane Seymour and features interviews with a number of famous faces such as Geena Davis, Ben Affleck, Jamie Foxx, and William H. Macy.

Boasting a fascinating selection of film clips and some great analysis by Martin F. Norden, the author of a book I'd highly recommend on the subject (The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies), the Emmy winning Gold covers a lot of ground, especially in CinemAbility's powerful look at pre-World War II cinema.

From Thomas Edison's The Fake Beggar (which Eddie Murphy paid homage to in Trading Places) and Tod Browning's ouevre from his campy Lon Chaney collaborations to Freaks as well as the complex Golden Rule coded metaphorical morality of Frankenstein up through The Wizard of Oz, there's a lot to process.

And much like the strides made in portrayals post Vietnam, we received what is perhaps our earliest fully three-dimensional disabled character in the form of a WWII vet (played by real WWII vet Harold Russell) in director William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives.

Receiving both an honorary Oscar "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans" as well as a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for the role, Russell's earnest portrayal in the film (which is not without some controversy given Wyler's decision to limit Russell's offscreen independence onscreen) helped usher in decades of new disabled characters on screens both big and small.

From The Miracle Worker to Wait Until Dark at the movies as well as Miss Susan and Ironside on television, viewers were finally starting to see characters whose disabilities were just one aspect of who they were vs. their sole definition in the '50s and '60s.

And although Russell's Oscar success might've also inadvertently led to the ongoing debate surrounding disabled characters being especially attractive for able-bodied actors to play due to their awards bait potential (considering how many bring home Oscars in films from Coming Home to Ray), it still remains that exceptionally rare instance when a disabled actor was cast in a disabled part.

However, there is a heartbreaking follow-up to the universal acclaim for Russell when Marlee Matlin's well-deserved Academy Award win for her powerful turn in Children of a Lesser God was dismissed in the press in 1987 as “a sympathy vote.” Adding insult to injury, when she worked hard to speak the names of the Best Actor nominees the following year while presenting the award to its ultimate winner Michael Douglas, she was accused of betraying the deaf community.

While the sympathy vote write-off is perhaps indicative of a gender double standard, this isn't explored in the film, which already has so much to cover given the complexity, intertextuality, and intersectionality of its subject that it could've led to a multi-part Ken Burns style documentary series.

And with so much on its mind from not only the depiction of disabled characters on film and TV as well as by disabled performers – before delving into the need for more opportunities behind the scenes as well as working in civil rights issues and comparisons to the strides made by African-Americans and the LGBTQ community – the otherwise outstanding doc begins to lose focus.

Jumping around in topic and tone in its last half hour, CinemAbility's talking heads discuss various aspects of on and offscreen portrayals and their reactions to everything from Million Dollar Baby to the depiction of disability based humor.

Needless to say, this doesn't flow very well and while it's all very interesting, the meandering final section of the documentary isn't nearly as solid as the stellar, film school worthy tour of disability onscreen in the first half of the twentieth century which opened Gold's work.

Ambitious, necessary, and long overdue in our cultural conversation, in the end, having too much to say is always preferable to too little. However, because of the limited format of a feature length film (as opposed to say, a five part series on issues such as: stereotypes and depictions, genre approaches, approaching role as an actor, TV vs film, and inclusion in the industry), I think Gold's subject is better served with more analysis and cinematic examples than occasionally repetitive opinions from the interviewees.

Yet, despite that, by covering so much territory, it's bound to not only inspire vital post-film discussion but also cause viewers – both disabled and able-bodied alike – to consider some of their favorite films in a new light.

A crucial jumping off point to greater study, CinemAbility is a fast-moving, funny, and frequently surprising documentary that illustrates in both its examples and interviews, how much our culture benefits when we see people from all different walks of life represented onscreen, including those that might not walk but don't have to be psychopaths, helpless, or superheroes to be fascinating in their own right.

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Knife in the Water

Director:
Roman Polanski


From the first moment we slide into the driver’s seat, we’re warned of the dangers of the road, not the least of which is to beware of hitchhikers. However, when the hitch is on the other end and we find ourselves stranded, forgive the pun but the other rule of thumb is to be ever so careful of the people from whom we accept a ride. This is infinitely more suspenseful when the car is replaced with a sailboat and one finds themselves in the middle of nowhere on a picturesque yet eerily quiet lake, unsure wherein the ultimate jeopardy lies whether it’s in the perils of the voyage or in neglecting to follow the rules of stranger danger ingrained in us as children.

In most films, it’s the down-on-their-luck loners we find ourselves most concerned with whether it’s Billy Zane terrorizing Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm or the kill-you-with-kindness menace lurking just below that bland smile in the brilliant French thriller With a Friend like Harry. However, upon revisiting the gorgeously remastered cinematic debut from Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski with his anxiety laden, three-character stunner Knife in the Water, we’re never sure if the danger lies within the hearts of either the mysteriously nameless, young, blonde hitchhiker (Oskar Werner look-alike, Zygmunt Malanowicz) or the bourgeois couple with whom he finds himself traveling, including the aggressively boorish and antisocial Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) and his visibly younger wife Krystyna (Jolante Umecka).

The film opens in sheer cinematographic bliss as Krystyna drives her husband down a deserted road as the shadows from the leaf-filled trees dance peacefully upon her windshield in crisp black and white punctuated with a sultry jazz score from saxophonist Bernt Rosengren. The tempo changes with a jolt as her husband demands his chance at the wheel. Obviously while one foreshadows the subtext about emasculation and male rivalry given the film’s title, possibly our first indication that Krystyna’s domineering husband is in an irrational, virility-driven midlife crisis occurs as soon as he gets into the driver’s seat. Soon the exquisite beauty of the film’s photography switches to cool, masculine, straightforward lines with a subtle, classical, old-fashioned score that is quickly forgotten when he slams on the brakes, nearly hitting the nameless deserted Young Man (Malanowicz) precariously standing in the middle of the road.

The fact that he refused to slow down earlier, preferring to wield his lethal power over a harmless, ill-equipped stranger says a lot about our wealthy lead. Trained by the predictability of suspenseful dramas, we worry that the Young Man will soon receive his comeuppance when he’s not only offered a ride with the two but also—with no particular place to go and an even vaguer timeline—is impulsively invited along for their overnight sailing excursion so that he can ride with them again in the morning. However, he’s not as naively innocent as one would assume. From the moment his rucksack hits the backseat of their car, he and Andrzej engage in petty male rivalry and one-upmanship subconsciously more to challenge one another than to garner the attentions of the female in their midst; the Young Man agrees to come along, noting that his elder wishes to continue “the game.” Dismissing this charge with a snobbish, “You’re not in my class, kid,” Andrzej doesn’t heed his own warning, proceeding to do everything in his power to toy with the lad.

Intriguingly, Polanski — fully aware of the way that men try to prove their virility in the company of women more out of sport than genuine affection — makes a choice that proves maturity beyond his young years just fresh out of film school, to allow his amateur actress and leading lady to first appear onscreen looking like a complete schoolmarm. As he notes in an eye-opening video introduction on the Criterion disc, the notorious storyboarding director Polanski cleverly depicted Krystyna in an unflattering light, initially hiding her eyes behind pointed glasses, her greasy hair up and body completely covered. This makes it much more effective as she grows progressively more dazzling from the moment her feet touch the deck of the sailboat, when the glasses come off, hair blows free, excess clothes are removed and we witness the shapely beauty that—without her intention—propels the foolish men to an unexpectedly violent yet inevitable confrontation over the course of the next twenty-four hours.

Expertly Polanski used his modest means as a first-time filmmaker to tremendous effect at what must have been a continuity nightmare to get every reaction shot just right in working with the unpredictability of the weather along with the vast inexperience of everyone involved. Indeed, Polanski and his co-writers note on the disc that they acted out the script amongst themselves, writing it over the course of five nights. Amazingly, although it was filmed more than a year later as they had to contend with objections of the government that the film wasn’t propagandist enough and far too “western minded,” it retains this fresh, authentic, and impulsive vibe much enhanced by the radical jazz score (another musical form frowned upon in Poland at the time).

However, perhaps its greatest artistic decision came from co-writer Jerrzy Skolimowski’s ingenious effort not to let their limited budget become a hindrance, using it beneficially by paying homage to the Greek dramas he loved that all consisted of the bare minimum of characters, set in the same location over a condensed period of time such as Knife’s twenty-four hour time span.

The film, which hasn’t lost its ability to surprise and keep us riveted by the tense psychological testosterone-fueled warfare—all driven by subtle Hitchcockian male gaze and the fact that the two rivals are far more similar than they’d like to admit—is one of the director’s very best works. Now given the double-disc luxury treatment from Criterion complete with Polanski’s participation and including several of his student films, I’d even go as far as to say that Knife in the Water holds up better than any of his other 1960s offerings including the excellent yet dated Rosemary’s Baby.

Although it will never top his masterwork Chinatown, Knife in the Water, which became the first Polish nominee ever included in the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the Academy Awards (predictably losing to Fellini’s brilliant 8 & ½), introduced international audiences to the director’s most frequently visited themes and inspired two more psychological ménage a trois films in a “loose trilogy” including the director’s Cul-de-Sac and the chilling Death and the Maiden.

In addition, those who know anything about the tragic biography of the filmmaker (who would later go on to make the intensely personal Oscar winning World War II film, The Pianist) will be greatly amused by IMDb’s inclusion of the popular rumor that the sailboat in Knife may have indeed been formerly owned by one of Hitler’s close friends, the Nazi party member Hermann Goering, which makes the setting of such primal male rivalry seem all the more fitting.

Mongol

Director: Sergei Bodrov

If one were to conduct a public opinion poll on Genghis Kahn today, chances are the most frequent descriptions of the man would consist of terrifying leader, murderer, pillager and barbarian. Yet, after viewing Russian director Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol, the first work of a planned trilogy about the controversial leader born with the name Temudgin, my initial reaction was that perhaps all Kahn needed was a good public relations team to turn worldwide frowns upside down. In showing us the softer side of Kahn as a predominant lover who occasionally fights rather than a horrifying fighter who sometimes loves, one encounters a Kahn who wouldn’t be out of place as the lead hero in Gladiator or Braveheart, and even far more surprisingly, incidentally a man one wouldn’t hesitate to bring home to mom.

Kazakhstan’s official selection for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 2008 Academy Awards where it made the international cut to become one of five prestigious nominees, Bodrov’s film has drawn countless parallels to old fashioned epics with its grandiose scope and wonderful usage of a vast, overwhelming landscape (painstakingly accurate in its cinematography of Kahn’s old stomping grounds in the countries of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan). While one is instantly aware of the influences of Ridley Scott especially in some of the expressionistic, alternatively fast and slow motion new aged battle scenes wherein the audience is shown the action from the point-of-view of weaponry as though we’re complicit in the attack, I was also struck by Bodrov’s homage to other foreign masters including Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s work with Toshiro Mifune and especially fellow Russian director Sergei Eisenstien’s much imitated classic Alexander Nevsky.

While admittedly I’m probably the ideal viewer of Mongol with relatively zero knowledge about Genghis Kahn other than his oft-cited reign of terror and it’s obvious that liberties were taken with the facts for the benefit of the cinematic narrative, Bodrov’s aim is undoubtedly true in capturing the spirit of his source material, which is not only based on “leading scholarly accounts” according to the press release but as cited in a Wikipedia referenced interview, was additionally inspired from an ancient Chinese poem which chronicled-- similar to Mongol-- Kahn’s upbringing and marriage.

Opening in the Tangut Kingdom in 1192’s Year of the Black Rat, the nine year old Kahn, then named Temudgin (played by the charismatic young Odnyam Odsuren) accompanies his father to visit the Merkits with the intention of choosing a bride. Immediately thunderstruck by Borte, a bold ten year old girl who initially chides her new acquaintance with the adage that all “smart people choose us for brides,” later, liking his face and similarly in-tune with the lad, she adds the fortuitous afterthought, “you should choose me.” Ignoring his father’s advice to ensure he find a wife with the right description of facial features and one with what his dad repeatedly states has strong legs to keep a man happiest, Temudgin settles on Borte with the intention to marry her in five years. However, his future becomes dangerously uncertain after the death of his father finds him fighting to stay alive verses his people’s arch enemy Targutai (Amadu Mamadakov) who is not only hell bent on taking over as Kahn but promises that-- while he won’t break Mongol tradition and murder a child-- as soon as Temudgin comes of age, he will kill the rightful heir to the leadership.

With plenty of perilous adventures, near misses, abductions and escapes, Temudgin grows into the beginning of the quick thinking legend he would become as—and now played by the impressive Japanese star of Zatoichi, Tadanobu Asano—he finds he can finally marry his equally rebellious tomboy beloved Borte (likable newcomer Khulan Chuluun). However, unfortunately for the newlyweds, their relationship is continually tried with repeated captures and obstacles, none greater than Temudgin’s battles with his blood brother turned rival Jamukha (Road Home star and Mongol scene-stealer Hanglei Sun).

Although the film stumbles considerably in its second half with plodding pacing and a lack of the same take-no-prisoners emotional investment it slayed us with in its first opening sequences, Bodrov more than redeems himself with his expertly staged Eisenstein inspired battle sequences and the stunning photography from two distinctly different cameramen including Russian cinematographer Sergei Trofimov and Quills and Disturbia Dutch veteran lens-man Rogier Stoffers.

Above all Mongol is surprisingly romantic and thankfully intimate for a large scale epic where oftentimes the individual characters get sidestepped in preference for the impact of the bigger picture and emphasis on carnage and casualties. And while it’s a far more sensitive and charismatic Kahn to which history enthusiasts are accustomed, it’s a terrific achievement by Bodrov and one where, given the impressive footing he found right out of the gate, he’ll undoubtedly be able to build off of like a Kahn worthy war strategist in the next two installments to cross the trilogy's finish line with unsurpassed style.

I'm Not There

Director: Todd Haynes

“Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
of your useless and pointless knowledge.”
- Bob Dylan’s
“Tombstone Blues” (1965)

With a topic as elusive as Bob Dylan, I knew going into I’m Not There that in the hands of someone like writer/director Todd Haynes who had given Citizen Kane a glam rock makeover with Velvet Goldmine and let Rock Hudson’s Douglas Sirk characters finally come out of the closet in Far From Heaven, he could not craft a film “so plain.” However, after only a few minutes, it does begin to make us feel “insane,” overly relying on all of our “useless and pointless knowledge” about the man, the myth, the Dylan to try and glean any wisdom from its largely incoherent structure. As fascinating as it is infuriating, weaving in and out of one scene and-- what’s more-- one actor to the next, Haynes introduces us relatively quickly to the six performers who represent Dylan at various stages in his career.

Drawing inspiration from Dylan’s countless public personas, evolving interviews, concert performances, films and phases along with the legendary song catalog of the man himself, the script for the film is the initial standout, filled with intoxicatingly evocative imagery that intellectual audiences savor like honey, especially when the dialogue is delivered with such sweetness by its sumptuous cast. In fact, some of the phrases seem so ingenious, they’re damn near worthy of Dylan himself but then again, we constantly ask: just who the hell is Dylan anyway?

Sketching various portraits of the man in broad strokes, relying on prior knowledge of the Dylan mythology to fill in the lines, we encounter our Dylans: the young boxcar hopping Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin), the Greenwich Village “Troubadour of Conscience” Jack Rollins (Christian Bale), gorgeous “Dean, Kerouac, and Brando rolled into one,” actor Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger), poetic Arthur Rimbaud (Ben Whishaw), press loathing, insecure Jude Quinn (Cate Blanchett) just after Dylan goes electric, and the old cowboy Billy the Kid (Richard Gere). While some argue that there’s a seventh Dylan as Bale’s Rollins evolves from New York City folk singing icon to Dylan as the born-again Pentecostal minister, this change is just one of several chameleon like incarnations since Dylan, as he himself said, can become someone else completely in the course of just one day.

Most of the press surrounding the film centered on a richly deserving Cate Blanchett who made headlines for playing a man and she’ll put any fears to rest about “stunt casting” after just a handful of scenes as she masters his mannerisms in ways that defy mimicry. Despite her stunning portrayal, I was particularly struck by both Ledger as the conflicted husband and father as well as an engaging turn by young Marcus Carl Franklin as the mischievous, tall-tale happy youth whose scenes seemed tinged with a touch of gold, similar to the way Hal Asbhy’s biopic on Woody Guthrie, Bound for Glory, managed to inspire awe with its innovative cinematography.

However, this praise aside, Haynes’s film wears out its welcome in the final hour after the initial intrigue fades and it becomes far more experimental and nonsensical with each passing frame, quite similar to the way that some of Dylan’s stanzas seem to inspire countless arguments as to their true meaning. Even though Dylan devotees will feel a bit more at home in the narrative than those unfamiliar with the man, I’m Not There spirals into a pretentious vanity project that gets even more preposterous as we journey—for no reason in particular—to the old west with Gere, who nonetheless manages to redeem the segment with a beautiful bookend recalling the opening with Franklin.

Unfortunately, it’s too little too late, as far as this Dylan fan is concerned, despite applauding Haynes for having the courage to forgo traditional trappings of the biopic. However, his filmmaking should have learned a lesson from Dylan at his most irritating, in that if one acts like enough of a self-absorbed jerk, the audience and the fans will begin to lose interest… at least until the next song (or frame) begins in the hopes that it may “ease,” “cool” and “cease the pain.”

War Dance

Directors:
Sean Fine
&
Andrea Nix Fine

“Since the day we were born, we’ve heard gunshots,” a child tells the camera near the beginning of this heartbreaking Oscar nominated documentary, which focuses on three children from the Acholi tribe living in a northern Uganda displaced person’s camp (population: 60,000) after murderous rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army drove 90% of the tribe from their homes.

Even before we hear the words, their faces prepare us for the horrific stories to come, yet while unspeakably tragic, the film by Sean and Andrea Fine takes an unorthodox approach—it’s a heroic underdog tale framed as a war documentary as we focus on the preparation of the displaced students’ Patongo Primary School in working towards Uganda’s 2005 National Music Competition that will find 20,000 schools contending “for the right to represent their tribe.”

Exquisitely photographed with majestic beauty that’s in stark contrast to the atrocities being relayed, at first the idea of a Mad Hot Ballroom styled documentary is off-putting yet soon we, like the three children we’re following, realize how vital it is for the arts to serve to sublimate pain and refocus the children’s energies to something positive as opposed to feeling defeated or orphaned by the unspeakable acts perpetrated on them in the past and dangers of living in the “most remote and vulnerable” northern Uganda camp.

Refreshingly, the film opted to let the children, including thirteen year old orphaned Rose, fourteen year old Nancy who looks after her three younger siblings, and fourteen year old talented xylophone playing Dominic document their own experiences straight to the Fines’s camera in lieu of a narrator. However, some critics cried foul at the “uneasy sense of being manipulated” (Stephen Holden, New York Times) by both the “children’s controlled, likely coached interviews,” (Rachel Howard, San Francisco Chronicle) and as Holden noted one devastating scene in particular that he felt seemed rehearsed, and while there’s no doubt that the children probably did go over their tales a few times with the filmmakers, it doesn’t make their words any less heartrending or true.

Rated PG-13, THINKFilm’s War Dance seems like a terrific choice for eighth grade and above classrooms due to its timeliness and accessibility in getting the message across to viewers of all ages with an unusually uplifting storytelling arc, yet at the same time opening the eyes of young viewers to events happening around the globe.

The Counterfeiters

Director:
Stefan Ruzowitzky

“One must adapt or they die,” Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) reasons to others in Austrian writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky’s The Counterfeiters. The most recent recipient for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, the film was based on the book by Adolf Burger which told the true story of Burger (played by August Diehl), Sorowitsch, and other Jewish former printers, photographers, and bankers involved against their will in Operation Bernhard, the largest governmental counterfeit program in history run out of the concentration camp Sachsenhausen in order to help finance the Nazi’s war efforts.

Although it’s bookended with events set after the war ends and Sorowitsch journeys out of the camp, Ruzowitzky’s moving film gets us fully invested in the narrative as Sorowitsch, the successful and naturally gifted counterfeiter-- a likable scoundrel to most whom he meets-- is arrested by Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow). The two men’s paths would cross again in even crueler circumstances after Sorowitsch is moved from Mauthausen Concentration Camp where his artistic skill or more accurately gift for portraiture made him a favorite painter among the Nazi officers to Sachsenhausen where Herzog, who received a promotion from his prestigious arrest of Sorowitsch, has been put in charge of the counterfeiting program to give the Nazis some much needed capital in their war. While morally outraged by the position they’ve been placed in with their new occupation being to help fund the men who murdered their families and condescendingly bribed with soft beds and a ping-pong table, the men are forced to put their experience to use.

Intriguingly Ruzowitzky’s illuminating film which offers a much different view of the horrific events of World War II by focusing on an operation of which few of us had been exposed also explores the humanity and conflict among the counterfeiters as one sees no point in going on having lost everything that mattered to him, another resents having to work with a criminal like Sorowitsch, and Burger employs a resistance tactic to stall and sabotage in order not to use his skills for Nazi gain.

With a running time of less than one hundred minutes, this taut, suspenseful and emotionally rich offering which was also nominated for six German Film Awards (and recipient of one for Striesow’s supporting performance) avoids getting lost in the World War II movie shuffle by offering viewers a new look at the war in bringing this fascinating and true tale to light.

 

Enchanted

Director:
Kevin Lima

Forget the Roomba. When it comes to cleaning apartments, would-be fairy tale princess Giselle (Amy Adams) sings the Oscar nominated “Happy Working Song” and her mellifluously melodic voice attracts animal friends from all around who help her wash dishes, scrub floors and make everything zestfully clean in two minutes flat. Although I confess it’s strange, in the films from Walt Disney Studios, the presence of animals that speak, dance, sew and make up a lovely young woman’s entourage is nothing new but it’s a sight mostly found in their beloved feature-length animated works like Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Little Mermaid. It’s a different proposition altogether when we see live action vermin and mosquitoes flee from New York City’s Central Park only to appear in the posh apartment of divorce attorney Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey) yet that’s just one of many scenes of inventive hilarity in Disney’s best “princess” film in ages, director Kevin Lima’s Enchanted.

Beginning with a full ten minute animated sequence, the viewer is thrust into familiar territory as we meet the fair animated maiden Giselle (still voiced by Adams) who, on the day of her wedding to Prince Edward (James Marsden) is tricked by Edward’s evil mother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) into banishment as she plummets from the kingdom of Andalasia only to find herself climbing up from the sewer into modern day Time Square. Convinced that it’s only a matter of time before her prince will come, Giselle sets off looking for help and finds unlikely and mostly unwilling assistance in the form of handsome Robert Philip, who, about to venture into an unromantic engagement with the kind but bland Nancy Tremaine (Idina Menzel) is prodded into rescuing Giselle by his daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey).

Filled with lots of Dinsey in-jokes and references to the history of the animated division of the studio along with giving three actresses who voiced princesses in the past cameos in the film (Jodi Benson’s Ariel, Paige O’Hara’s Belle, and Judy Kuhn’s Pocahontas), the delightful and surprisingly engaging Enchanted managed to hook me soon after the live action sequence began, thanks to the creative script from Bill Kelly who wrote the similarly themed Blast from the Past. However, most of the film's charm comes from the unceasingly talented Adams who, with her variety of excellent performances in the past two years, has the makings of becoming one of our top leading ladies. The film’s soundtrack featuring lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and music by Alan Menken received two additional nominations for original song for the tracks “So Close” and “That’s How You Know” and Enchanted also earned recognition by the Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards as the Best Live Action Family Film of last year.

Into the Wild

Director:
Sean Penn

It almost seems like it’s a prerequisite for becoming an adult but most people I’ve talked with have had a similar feeling of restlessness following graduation when, after years of raising one’s hand and waiting for a hall pass to leave the room, there’s the unmistakable urge to break free, to wander, to explore, to see beauty in nature, and to stop worrying about the clock on the wall. For me it followed high school when my friend Shelley introduced me to Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan and I felt a sense of wonder I hadn’t encountered since I’d first read Steinbeck and Fitzgerald—a hopeful sense of idealism, an unquestioning love for the idea of the American dream, and an overwhelming sense of wanting to get out and see the gorgeous landscapes and talk to people just as people and not as clips on the news categorized into whatever stereotype the network has decided to spin that day.

While my destination of Arizona ended up becoming my new home after a traditional visit, I admit that, as bizarre and illogical as it is, there is something undeniably intoxicating about the journey that Christopher McCandless took following his graduation from Emory University in 1990. Even though, those familiar with the resulting novel by Jon Krakauer or from the media coverage, knew that his story ended tragically inside that Magic Bus in the Alaskan wilderness, there’s a haunting indescribable joy mixed with dread and sadness that comes from watching his tale realized on the big screen by a compassionate filmmaker in actor turned writer/director Sean Penn.

Penn, who’d wanted to make the film for more than ten years and originally had envisioned Leonardo DiCaprio in the role, waited for official permission and approval from the McCandless family according to IMDb and I think that the film benefits not only from the space in time from the day that Christopher fled Atlanta in his Datsun but also from Penn’s maturity and growth as an artist in his own right as I recall the multitude of characters, performances, directorial efforts and choices he’s made over the last ten years as well.

After only a few moments of watching actor Emile Hirsch disappear into the role of Christopher in a career making effort, it seems to be an absolute crime that he was denied a Best Actor nomination from the 2007 Oscar season. A gifted student with the promise of an even brighter future at Harvard Law School, Christopher makes a choice that seems to shock everyone but his loving sister Carine (Jena Malone) when he donates his professional school fund of $24,000 to Oxfam, uses a scissors to cut up his credit cards and identification and burns his social security card in an act of defiance before taking to the road. Inspired by his beloved books by Thoreau and London, Chris heads west until his car fails him in the unforgiving Arizona desert and begins to "hoof it," now as what hippies would later dub him in his role as a “leather-tramp.” Fitting to his newly dubbed name of Alexander Supertramp, the film, divided into chapters that illustrate his new life from birth, to adolescence, manhood etc. follows Chris/Alex as he meets some people who would become like a second family to him on the road including a terrific Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker as hippies Jan and Rainey, a memorable Vince Vaughn as his farming boss in South Dakota whom he writes postcards to regularly throughout the film and countless others while his sister and parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) must contend with his absence without any explanation, save for the flashbacks showing a rather tumultuous upbringing with some abuse, rage and lies. In a truly heartbreaking and Oscar nominated role, Hal Holbrook plays a retired military veteran with a tragic past who grandfatherly looks after Chris before he ultimately heads north for his true destination of Alaska.

Soon the film, which has intercut his past travels for two years before making it to the bus which would be his final destination, meets up in the same timeline and it careens towards its chilling and desperate finale—yet there’s a beauty and a quiet to these moments that recall the wonder and innocent joy of the earlier work that keeps things bearable, despite viewers' underlying sense of dread.

Gorgeously photographed on the exact locations from the life of Chris McCandless with an unrecognizable Hirsch who, in his brave role lost not only forty pounds but also used no doubles or stuntmen in even the most dangerous of situations, it’s Penn’s greatest directorial achievement so far and manages to hook us completely after its stylistically uneven start with too many scrawled journal entries and notes moving across the canvas of the frame. With an undeniable nod to the road pictures of the 60’s and 70’s such as Easy Rider and Bound for Glory, Penn’s film is admirable and unique in the sense of it seeming like an actual document of a life and one that, unlike some of the more polished works of 2007, will not become dated with each passing year, kind of like the life of McCandless that will no doubt continue to fascinate and inspire for decades to come.

In the Valley of Elah

Director:
Paul Haggis

Inspired by a true story, this heart-wrenching and gritty drama follows career army veteran Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) who gets a startling phone call from his son Mike’s base in New Mexico’s Fort Rudd stating that Mike (Jonathan Tucker) has gone AWOL just after returning to American soil from his time in Iraq.

Leaving his worried wife Joan (Susan Sarandon) behind, Hank sets off from Tennessee to try and find his son, assuming that he’s just disappeared for awhile to enjoy himself and blow off some much needed steam only to be devastated by the unspeakable aftermath following the discovery of his son’s charred remains. Caught between the bureaucracy of the army base that wants to take over the investigation of one of its own and the local police who struggle against that red tape daily, Hank fears that the crime will be covered up and conducts his own investigation after grudgingly receiving help from Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) who, tired of being ridiculed by her sexist male coworkers aids Hank in his quest.

With only a few clues to go on sent by Mike himself in the form of e-mailed photos and a fried cell phone containing brief video clips shot by Mike while in Iraq that Hank hires a hacker to try and unscramble, Hank and Emily go down a road of haunting deeds and outrageous lies that shocks them, and the audience, to their very core.

While largely ignored, as other Iraqi themed films were in the fall of 2007, In the Valley of Elah garnered rave critical reviews including prominent placement on top ten lists from noteworthy sources and also recognition in the form of an Oscar nomination for Jones as Best Actor, although his role in this was overshadowed by his even more potent supporting turn in No Country for Old Men which, like Elah, also costars Josh Brolin.

Written specifically for Theron and originally as a vehicle for Clint Eastwood who helped get the film greenlighted (IMDb), talented writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash) crafts a memorable and emotionally charged film that will not only haunt audiences for days but also admirably and subtly without preaching, make us wonder just what we are doing to another generation of young military men and women by sending them into foreign countries to fight wars that do not make any sense, yet they go bravely like David fighting Goliath in the biblical story where the film received its name.