Mama

HORROR

Babes in the Woods

★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of 5 | Movie - DVD - Rental

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Rated: PG-13 Violence and terror, some disturbing images and thematic elements.
Release Date: January 18, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes

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Director: Andres Muschietti
Writers: Neil Cross, Andres Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nelisse, Danial Kash, Javier Botet, Jane Moffet, Morgan McGarry, David Fox

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SYNOPSIS: Annabel and Lucas are faced with the challenge of raising his young nieces that were left alone in the forest for five years.... but how alone were they?

REVIEW: Director Andres Muschietti wrote and directed a 2008 short film entitled Mamá. Now, with Guillermo Del Toro as a producer, Muschietti returns with a full length version of the film. The feature film is written by Andres Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Neil Cross, hoping to scare the souls right out from our chests. Who is the one that the children whisper her name... Mama.

After a horrible opening bell at the stock exchange, a father comes home to his two girls, pulling them away from their play, herding the into his luxury car, and heading out of the city and onto a icy mountain road. When the car spins out of control and slides into a ravine, the three are forced into the woods until they come upon a cabin on a lake. Five years later, the man's brother Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Headhunters) still has a team of men searching the area for any sign of his brother or nieces. Without warning, his team finds the cabin and the two little girls Victoria (Megan Charpentier, Resident Evil: Retribution) and Lilly (Isabelle Nelisse, Whitewash) recovered from the cabin and sent to a hospital under the care of Dr. Gerald Dreyfuss (Danial Kash, Repo Men). The girls are feral, bruised, and antisocial, but Victoria does recognize her uncle enough to trust him. Lucas and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty) go to a review board to obtain custody against the girl's aunt Jean Podolski (Jane Moffat, The Recruit), Dr. Dreyfuss persuading the board to give custody to Lucas and Annabel. In a new bigger home provided by Dreyfuss, Lucas, Annie, Victoria, and Lilly struggle to adjust to their new surroundings and to each other. After a strange accident that leaves Annie alone with the girls, stranger things start to happen - strange noises, creepy whispers, surreal dreams, and Lilly constantly calling for Mama. As Annie, Lucas, and Dr. Dreyfuss start to unravel the mystery surrounding the girls' wilderness survival and their attachment to their unseen guardian, their own lives are jeopardized. Who will survive? A new family trying to keep it together? Or the unseen forces trying to tear them apart?

Watching Muschietti direct a big screen adaptation of his written and directed short film is fun. With Guillermo del Toro at his back, Muschietti creates a solid, surreal, and creepy world with strong anchors to reality and tenuous tendrils into the supernatural. Real life children have been found in the woods and jungles who have survived for a long periods alone with nothing but their wits. Or did they? Victoria and Lilly were fortunate to have found a willing phantasm to care for them once they found their way into the snowy woods. The story takes several turns that enforce and reinforce what the girls lost while in the not-so-abandoned cabin on the lake. The way the girls move on all fours is both fascinating and unnerving, reminiscent of a certain crab crawler in a certain devil possession movie from the 1970s. Mama herself, a flowing dark spectre guarding over the children, is where the grasp on reality breaks down. Commonplace in films these days, Mama is preceded by fat, gray moths and molding walls to herald her arrival. What Muschietti does is blend both ends of the spectrum into a tight, strange story that makes your skin crawl at all the right moments.

Mama is very kinetic and visually appealing, with Muschietti keeping with Guillermo del Toro's visual style and storycraft elements. I can see why del Toro wanted to produce this project. Fanciful with roots in reality, the film is a joy to watch at all times. From a moment where Lilly is playing tug-of-war with a blanket with an unseen Victoria, only to see Victoria walking down the other end of the hallway as Lilly gets pulled off her feet as she loses the tug-of-war against... Mama. Very clever camerawork and sequences! The other del Toro construct popular in his own films, from Pan's Labyrinth and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, revolves a children. The youngest of us are the most vulnerable and open to the wonders of what is behind the veils of what the rest of us can see.

The cast is superior. Jessica Chastain, fresh off her brilliant performance in Zero Dark Thirty, is excellent as a woman out of her element in both the want to raise children and the desire to give up her  bohemian life as the bass player in a rock band. It becomes clear early, with a single 10 second sequence, that Annabel is a free spirit avoiding any serious anchors. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, playing both Lucas and his brother Jeffrey in the film, surprised me in his separate performances. Maybe it was the longer brown hair and the beard, but I would not have realized they were the same person had I not known better. And the little girls? Megan Charpentier as Victoria and Isabelle Nelisse as Lilly are perfect in their performances throughout. From the first feral moments we find them in the cabin to their slow adaptation to a new bright angular world, the world they create is mesmerizing. From the fear of outsiders to the realizing fear of the jealous wrath of Mama comes across in every twitch or stare.

I will not say the story is ultimate perfection. The typical mechanisms are at work in this film, just as they are in other films that have come before it. Dr. Gerald Dreyfuss looks into a rational answer to who Mama really is or was. As with most genre phantasms, there is a death-defying wrong that needs to be righted, keeping an angry and vengeful spirit tethered to the real world. Records about a woman from yesteryear always seems to have murder afoot and institutional walls. Moths, moldy walls, and disfigured and lumbering ghosts seem to have found a new permanent home in the genre. The 2012 The Possession is the closest and most recent to have the same tone and quality. Fans of the genre are too educated in horror movie viewing to not see plenty of similarities to earlier works. But this flick still works in clever ways.

There have been rumblings about Mama herself (played by Javiar Botet). In life and in death, Mama has strangely set eyes and awkward features. The uninitiated may think this is a result of poor creature design. I disagree. In the story, the girl is in a "hospital for sad people". From photographs in Dr. Dreyfuss's patient files, it is obvious that the young sad girl is suffering from some sort of syndrome. Her look reminds me of the pin head characters in Tod Browning's 1932 Freaks. Her look is not what we would expect, but I can see how it works. I also like the broken way she moves and the creepy extended arms she possesses - all the better to gather up her newfound wards.

The children whisper for their protector, their Mama. The length of the film is filled with great cut shot scares, classic dark to light lunging and scary moments against the unknown, and an ending that is win/win. I will say that the final act has more of a Darkness Falls feel to it, trading solid filmmaking for a more slick CGI approach, but I enjoyed everything that was put to film in this outing.

It may be January, but Mama will give you enough well crafted scares to satisfy. Like The Possession from last year, Mama is a clever, smarter horror flick that you can get behind. You may want to bring a parent or guardian with you if you think you may be too scared. Maybe you should bring your... Mama.

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Zero Dark Thirty

Manhunt

★ ★ ★ ★ out of 5 buckets | Matinee or DVD

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Rated: R Brutal disturbing images, strong violence and language.
Release Date: December 19, 2012 (expands January 11, 2013)
Runtime: 2 hours 37 minutes

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Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writers: Mark Boal
Cast: Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, Kyle Chandler, Harold Perrineau, Fredric Lehre, Edgar Ramirez, James Gandolfini, Joel Edgerton, Chris Prat, Frank Grillo, Mark Strong

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SYNOPSIS: A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.

REVIEW: Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for Best Picture for her film The Hurt Locker.  Before that she had big with successes with Point Break, Near Dark, and Strange Days. Returning to the deserts of the Middle East, she reteams with The Hurt Locker scribe Mark Boal to tell the tale of the biggest manhunt of the 20th century.

Maya (Jessica Chastain, Lawless), a CIA field analyst, is sent to Pakistan two years after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11th, 2001. Taking part in the brutal interrogations of middle eastern detainees with ties to Alcaida and other terrorists groups, Maya uncovers a network of couriers who may lead to Osama bin Laden. After several years and several other successful bombings around the globe, Maya has to fight the war to capture Osama bin Laden on several fronts, including against a change complexion of terrorism, a United States government with a changing policy concerning interrogations and detainees, and a ticking clock against more pain and death.

Zero Dark Thirty is Kathryn Bigelow's second film to take place in the conflicts of the Middle East. From Jeremy Renner's turn as a bomb disposal expert in the hateful sands of the region to the long pursuit of the terrorist Osama bin Laden, Bigelow's captures the tireless persistence of American patriots who fight for the freedoms of their homeland at a cost that may be too lofty to truly commiserate.

Bigelow opens the film with complete darkness and the iconic date of "September 11th, 2001". All that is heard is various recordings from officials, air traffic controllers, 911 operators, and workers in the World Trade towers. As American society was plunged into a pessimistic darkness, Bigelow hurls us two years later where a young CIA agent recruited straight out of high school and into a CIA Black Site where seasoned agent Dan (Jason Clarke, Lawless) interrogates a money man with ties to the 9/11 attacks. We do not stay anywhere too long, as the hunt for Osama bin Laden and twenty of the top leaders of the Alcaida terror network. Maya is the fulcrum - with agents, detainees, soldiers, technicians, analysts, and terrorists changing around her over the years she struggled and sacrificed in her pursuit for bringing bin Laden to justice.

Jessica Chastain starts off her career as Maya as a tough, but new recruit assigned to overseeing CIA Black Site interrogations. As the years go on, Chastain hardens her character into a woman with a singular diamond point focus against the man who is a ghost in the Middle Eastern sands. As the pressure to find bin Laden grows, Maya butts heads and egos against her station chief Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler, Argo) for more resources, mourns for the loss of interrogative freedom along with Dan, and constantly struggles against the slow grind of political red tape against supervisor George (Mark Strong, Green Lantern) and the CIA Director (James Gandolfini, Killing Them Softly). Will the government move on intel that in less than 100%? Even the Seal Team 6 members, although well trained, are skeptical of the mission parameters. Squadron Team Leader Patrick (Joel Edgerton, The Odd Life of Timothy Green) and DEVGRU Justin (Chris Pratt, Moneyball) follow orders on the instincts of a woman who may be the singularly most knowledgeable person on who and where Osama bin Laden is.

Coming in at 157 minutes, you can feel the emotional toll that the ten years have on main character Maya in the story. The pace is slow and even, plodding along with the teams and analysts as they miss opportunities to capture key personal with knowledge of bin Laden's network. They unravel around the edges as terrorist cells continue to plot and carry out their destructive missions. As the end nears, the tension rises in the CIA bunkers in Langley, Virginia and in the Pakistan darkness. But the actual incursion by Seal Team 6 on the bin Laden compound seems too real world slow and methodical to work as the climatic ending on the big screen.

Bigelow and Boal use Chastain's Maya as an amalgam of a public suffering immense loss of its innocence, as well as the sometimes quiet, sometimes volatile outrage and frustration of American agencies trying to achieve a measure of closure against a single man whose orders and decisions changed the cultural outlook of a nation. The film pulls back the curtain of what America had to become in order to get this dirty job done, showing the raw methods necessary and rawer nerves that result.

Zero Dark Thirty is a hard and objective look at a decade-long hunt for one man. The men in the employ of the terrorists are not made monsters unnecessarily. In the same light, America is not left with virtuous clean hands either. We know how it ends, but we may know what it took to get there.

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Lawless

The Good Fight

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Rated: R  Some sexuality/nudity, language and strong bloody violence
Release Date: August 29, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 55 minutes

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Director: John Hillcoat
Writers: Nick Cave, from the novel by Matt Bondurant
Cast:  Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Dane DeHaan, Gary Oldman

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SYNOPSIS:  In 1931 Depression-era Prohibition Franklin County, three bootlegging brothers' business is threatened by a new special deputy targeting moonshining operations in the hills of Virginia.

REVIEW: Director John Hillcoat, known for the bleak apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road, return with another adaptation from multi-talented Nick Cave (The Proposition) based on the novel 'The Wettest County in the World' by Matt Bondurant. Looking at Depression moonshining based on the actual lives of three real-life brothers should make for fine drama. 

In 1931 Franklin County, Virginia, three brothers make their living distilling 'White Lightning' moonshine in the rural foothills. Led by Forrest Bondurant (Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises), a man who cheated and overcame death in both the Great War and a bout of fever that took the lives of both of the brothers' parents, he remains a quiet but stern businessman of the local alcohol trade. Older bear of a brother Howard (Jason Clarke, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) like the product a little too much but is devoted to his brethren. Younger brother and runt of the litter Jack (Shia Lebeouf, Transformers: Dark of the Moon) looks to follow in his brother's footsteps but lacks the stature and intestinal fortitude to do what sometimes must be done. Operating without problems from the local constables, the Bondurant brothers suddenly find themselves up against sterner authorities in the guise of special deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce, Lockout) who looks to shut down all of the stills operating in the back wood Virginia hillside. Unwilling to back down, the Bondurant clan continue to distill the illegal alcohol while the other moonshiners are bought out or run out. While Forrest deals with keeping what he has, Jack starts running his own part of the business and making enough money to buy fancy cars and clothes, and try to woe the beautiful daughter of a town minister named Bertha (Jessica Chastain, The Help).

What could have been just another drawn out early 20th Century period drama, turns into a gripping character-driven tale of loyalty, power, and love. With great performances by Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, and the rest of the cast, plus a phenomenal story from Nick Cave from the Matt Bondurant, Lawless will entertain and enthrall.

At the end of the second decade of the Twentieth Century, the United States government decides that the ills of the country were due to the evils of alcoholic spirits, passing the Amendment to the Constitution for Prohibition. As the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression tore through the country, those with the strength of character and convictions were able to remain or become successful in spite, and because, of the decisions of the government. Bootlegging and moonshining became the cornerstone of prosperity for both those who produced the spirits and those who sold them, and survival for those who consumed them.

Taking place in the the hills of Virginia, the opening shot pans over the luscious orange, red, and golds tree tops of the forests of the commonwealth. An old Ford truck rumbles down a single lane dirt road and Shia LeBeouf's character Jack sits behind the wheel of the old jalopy filled with White Lightning. In voice-over, Jack describes his brothers and the business they share. As they travel through the county, selling crates of mason jars filled with moonshine to both the locals and the local constables, we get a glimpse that maybe selling moonshine during Prohibition is not as illegal and detrimental to the country's morals as it was supposed to be. The cinematography is sweeping and gorgeous, adding a beauty to a story that at times is bloody and hard.

The performances are exceptional. Tom Hardy's Forrest Bondurant is both eloquent and quiet, saying more with a clenched-jaw stare and a 'hmmm' than long monologues. Shia's Jack, the center of the story in some regard, shows he carry himself with characters other than talking robots. Guy Pearce, as the special deputy Charlie Rakes appointed by the Commonwealth of Virginia, presents his character as a Chicago operative who fancies the finer things in life, has a perchance for wearing gloves, and has no problem getting his hands dirty. Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska bring a softness and maturnal climate to the brother's, Jessica as the minister's daughter that Jack tries to woe and Mia as the displaced Chicago showgirl who just wants to find a more quiet life. Dane Dehaan stumbles through life as the Bondurant Brothers' mechanic and gimpy boy Cricket with a heart of gold. And Gary Oldman cameos as the crime boss Floyd Banner, both friend and foe to the back-woods bootleggers.

Lawless is a fine period drama, corner stoned by superior performances by everyone on the cast, strong stark visuals, and a solid story. Violent and beautiful, Lawless entertains and enthralls. The brothers may be outlaws, but their loyalty to each other is beyond the rules.

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WORTH:  Matinee or DVD

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

Trapeze Americano

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Rated: PG  Some mild action and rude humor
Release Date: June 8, 2012
Runtime:  1 hr 25 mins

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Director: Eric Darnell, Conrad Vernon, Tom McGrath
Writers: Eric Darnell, Noah Baumbach
Cast:  Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, Frances McDormand, Bryan Cranston, Martin Short, Jessica Chastain, Paz Vega, Christopher Knights, Tom McGrath, Chris Miller

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SYNOPSIS: Still in Africa, Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo, and Melman the Giraffe dream of getting home to the Big Apple. Following the penguins to Monte Carlo, they work their way through Europe under the guise of a traveling circus.

REVIEW: Now on its second sequel, the Madagascar animations have delighted children and adults alike. Co-directors and co-writers of all of the Madagascar films, Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell are joined in directing duties by Monsters vs Aliens writer/director Conrad Vernon, and joined in writing duties by Fantastic Mr. Fox scribe Noah Baumbach. Starting where Escape to Africa left off, Alex and the rest of the 'wild' animals find a way off one continent and onto another - continuing their quest to find a way back home.

Residing in Africa, Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller, Tower Heist), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock, What to Expect When You're Expecting), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith, Hawthorne), and Melman tge Giraffe (David Schwimmer, John Carter of Mars) dream of returning the their home in the Big Apple, New York. When the penguins, led by Skipper (Tom McGrath, Megamind), Kowalski (Chris Miller, Puss in Boots), and Private (Christopher Knights, Megamind), take off in their cobbled together and monkey powered plane to Monte Carlo to increase their fortunes, they leave Alex and the others in Africa without a way home. Following the penguins to the casinos they all reunite with enough time to draw the attention of the relentless and rabid French Animal Control Captain Chantel DuBois (Frances McDormand, Transformers: Dark of the Moon), anxious to add a lion's mane to her trophy wall. In order to escape the city, Alex and crew find cover on a train with a traveling circus filled with performing animals like the Russian Tiger Vitaly (Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad), the Sea lion Stefano (Martin Short, Weeds), and Cheetah Gia (jessica Chastain, The Help). They travel the European countryside trying to make the circus successful in order for a American circus promoter will see their act and get them back to New York, all the while trying to evade Captain DuBois.

Following in the grand feral tradition of the previous films, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted 3D is funny, touching, and exhilarating. Skipper and the penguins slay with their hi-tech hi-jinks and monkey shines. Odd couple Alex and Marty ditch the predator and prey routine for good in favor of new issues, one of which is who should be leader of the pride. But that issue comes quickly to a close when the snarling and sniffing animal control Captain DuBois starts nipping at their heels. The action is fast and furious, from a high-flying and fast-wheeled chased in Monte Carlo, to a narrow getaway in the darkened train yards. The 3D of the film explodes to good use with every twist and turn of film. Marty's melody of "Afro... circus... afro... circus... polka dot, polka dot... circus" was an instant classic as soon as he uttered it in song. Lemars King Julien XIII (Sacha Baron Cohan, The Dictator), second-hander Maurice (Cedric the Entertainer, Larry Crowne), and wide-eyed follower Mort (Andy Richter, Aliens in the Attic) add in their special brand of yucks and ahhs along the way.

The story is fresh and funny. In part 2, they escaped Madagascar to the unknown wilds of Africa. In Europe's Most Wanted, Alex and crew journey to another continent, still with the expressed wish to find their ways back home, but with a brand new story dynamic. The romantics and friendships are already rock solid. Melman is not the hypochrondriac that he once was. Alex isn't trying to gnaw on his friend Marty or searching for his heritage. Marty now knows he's unique, even in a herd of other identical zebras. Gloria is happy with her relationship with the ever shy Melman who always carried a torch for her. Now the pack faces brand new challenges with the pursuing Captain Dubois and a cast of circus performers who seem to lack both the patience for non-circus folk and the passion to carry on the honored tradition of performing to their utmost. The Russian tiger Vitaly seethes with resentment for Alex due to his perkiness and his questions to why Vitaly doesn't bother jumping through hoops anymore. Alex starts noticing cheetah Gia in a way more personal than professional. Sea lion Stefano, even with his self proclaimed lower than average intelligence, knows that they need help in creating a better, more passionate routine. And what Alex comes up with for that better performance is a visual and musical treat.

Cirque du Soleil, Circus of the Sun, is a Canadian entertainment company that mixes circus arts and street entertainment. Alex the Lion brings the spectacle of Cirque to the circus without the human acrobats and clowns. Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melman take a huge risk putting Alex's plan into play and convincing the other circus animals new colorful tricks. What results is a neon bulb, glow stick, ultra-violet black white, Katy Perry fireworks symphony display.

Some of the story is more silly than important. Lemur King Julien falls for the tricycle-riding ballerina bear. They take a funny jaunt through Rome on the tricycle and eventually a high horsepower Ducati. The journey and their romance is silly and fun, but does not add much to the tail, I mean, tale. But Julien, Maurice, and Mort play their part and deserve a moment in the spotlight. The addition of the brutal Captain Dubois adds much of the high octane action, Skipper and the penguins use their know-how and quips for great effect, and the friendship of the characters is evident and touching.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is a great animation for young and old. Those who have followed the films will be rewarded with a fine continuing story. The 3D is extraordinary, everything thrown in - and at the camera's lens - for eye-popping effect. You will laugh out loud, you will be entertained, and you will want to move it, move it!

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WORTH: Matinee and BluRay

The Debt

Everyone Must Pay The Piper

Director: John Madden Writers: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan, Assaf Bernstein & Ido Rosenblum (film Ha-Hov)

Cast: Helen Mirran, Tom Wilkinson, Ciaran Hinds, Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, Sam Worthington, Jesper Christensen

SYNOPSIS: In 1966, three young Mossad agents pursue and look to capture a World War II war criminal hiding out "behind the wall" in Berlin. Thirty years later, it becomes obvious that the three hold a deep down secret.

REVIEW: 
John Madden, director of Shakespeare in Love and Proof, takes a script from Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass), and Peter Straughan, from the film Ha-Hov by Assaf Bernstein and Ido Rosenblum. 


In The Debt, Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren), David Peretz (Tom Wilkinson) and Unit Commander Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson) are retired Mossad agents who had come home heroes in 1966 after eliminating Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen), a Nazi war criminal accused of the surgical extermination and butchery of Jews. Once Sarah, the daughter of Rachel and Stephan, writes and publishes a book in 1997 about the events involving her parents and David, a tightly clenched web of lies threatens to unravel. 


Effortlessly and cleverly sliding from 1966 East Berlin and the "present" of 1997, The Debt shows the actual events as they unfold. Rachel (Jessica Chastain), a young Mossad agent on her first field assignment meets up with driven, silent agent David (Sam Worthington) and ambitious youngest ever Mossad Unit Commander Stephan (Marton Csokas). A triangle of sexual tension rises between the agents just as quickly as the stress of the assignment and the initial failure of the mission take their toil on the agents. 


What is the secret that Rachel, Stephan and David share? What darkness has been sworn to thirty years of silence and has driven a wedge between them? And at what lengths will they go to keep the secret? The film starts off with a bang, displaying a vicious act of desperation and retribution. Fast-forward thirty years to suspicion and conspiracy emoting from every glance before being hidden behind the darkness of metal-rimmed sunglasses. As the story propels forward, the older version of the characters try to hold firm to the secret only they share, while the events of their younger counterparts lift the gauzy veil covering up the truth.


Helen Mirren as Rachel is superb, her acting up for the challenge of the role. The younger Rachel, played by Jessica Chastain, mixes naive hopefulness with quickly realized dread as her first assignment spins out of control. Sam Worthington's Peter broods with a deep sorrow, keeping his personal story close to the vest even as he lets his emotions concerning Rachel and his past cloud his judgements and rule his decisions. Young Stephan, played by Marton Csokas, is not ruled by emotions but is ruled by his sense of honor to country and the patriotism that the mission's success would mean. Most notable is Jesper Christensen as the hiding-in-plain-sight German gynecologist Doktor Bernhardt who, as Dieter Vogel, committed atrocities against the Jewish race in World War II.


Filled with tension, a strong story, and solid acting, The Debt is worthwhile. Getting its hooks into the audience early with action, intrigue and secrets, the slower pace of the retelling of the mission in the midsection of the film is tolerated. Once the unspoken is revealed, the ending has a satisfying conclusion that, ultimately, pays the debt in full.

WORTH: Matinee or Rental 

The Help

Heartbreaking and Uplifting

Director: Tate Taylor

Writers: Tate Taylor, Kathryn Stockett

Cast: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Sissy Spacek, Cicely Tyson, Allison Janney, Jessica Chastain, Bryce Dallas Howard

SYNOPSIS: In the early 1960s, aspiring journalist Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan returns to Jackson, Mississippi and strikes out to tell the stories from the perspective of the 'Help', the African American maids and nannies who have spent their lives taking care of the white families children and households.

REVIEW: The Help is a 2009 novel written by Kathryn Stockett centering around the lives of several main characters living and working in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. Written from Stockett's novel and directed for the screen by Tate Taylor, writer and director of 2008s Pretty Ugly People, The Help takes a humorous, heartfelt and hard look at the cultural chasms between the races.

1960s Jackson, Mississippi is a southern town where an African American woman is good enough to raise a white woman's child but not good enough to use their employers toilet, where segregation is still instituted and carried out, and where the concepts of Civil Rights are soon to become a real movement. Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan (Emma Stone) returns after college graduation more enlightened and ready to pursue a career in journalism. Listening to and abhorring the way some of the 'southern belles' think of and treat their maids, Skeeter reaches out to Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), a middle-aged African American maid who has spent her life raising white children. First using Aibileen's advice for an advice column, Skeeter soon realizes there is a greater, deeper story to be told. Mississippi State law states that any written work that supports the civil rights of the negro community could land the writer in prison, so Skeeter, Aibileen, and soon the outspoken sass-talking maid Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) must meet in secret to get the maids' stories committed to paper. Along the way, Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny must deal with Junior League head and community social leader Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) as Hilly strives to get an initiative passed to have separate bathroom facilities installed outside houses where 'colored' help is employed.

The Help focuses on the relationships, good and bad, between white southern families and their African American maids. From households where the maids have raised the children from early ages and have become an integral part of the family, to households where the maids are called upon to make sandwiches for a husband just arriving home while being expected to hush a crying child in the same moment without regard for her worth, each instance defines the deep-south, deep-rooted opinion of of the races.

Emma Stone, in a role more challenging than anything she has done before, brings a naked naivety and hopefulness to Skeeter that does the character proud. Viola Davis as Aibileen expands a performance just as powerful as her Oscar nominated Best Supporting Actress role for Doubt. Octavia Spencer adds as much sass to Minny Jackson as her character adds spices to her Crisco fried chicken. Bryce Dallas Howard's Hilly Holbrook exudes arrogance, contempt and fear of cultural change as she strives to propagate and expand the established segregation that already exists. Pairing off against Minny for more comic effect is Jessica Chastain as white social circle outsider Celia Foote. And rounding out the main cast are a couple of mothers... Allison Janney as Skeeter's ailing health cultural coward mother Charlotte and Sissy Spacek as forgetful, but compassionate Missus Walters. Every performance is riveting, powerful and enlightening.

The Help is a heartfelt, heartbreaking, uplifting, humorous and hard look at the social sentiment between the races as recently as 50 years ago, and the distance that equality and understanding still needed to travel. Powerful performances by powerful actresses, The Help is one of the films to watch come Oscar time. For the immediate future, though, be sure to keep an eye on Minny Jackson's pies.

WORTH: Matinee or DVD