Shaun Berk's 10 Movie Recommendations- 219th Edition

Welcome to the 219th Edition of my long-running series. Today we have the Conference Championships including the Colts trying to get to the Super Bowl. I'm sure we'll have some good football here. This one was a pretty easy one to put together as far as my rules go. Read on and enjoy.

Saint Clara (1996): Ari Folman directed this Middle Eastern film which takes place mostly in Golda Meir Junior High. Lucy Dubinchik plays the title character who is a 13 year old girl new to the school who can predict the future and manages to help the whole class pass a test with flying colors which then gets the teacher and principal to question all the students. The movie really centers around her trying to fit in and showing an interest in the rebellious kid of the school showing an interesting love story there. I really did not know what to expect but I ended up liking this film that was made in Israel and I am glad to promote it here. I got it from Netflix for if you want to take a look at this film.

Selena (1997): The Facebook friend I chose for this week is Cathy. This movie is based on the Tejano-American singer Selena Quintanilla who rose to fame in Mexico and was about to become mainstream in America but it unfortunately happened when she was murdered at the age of 23. This movie focuses first on her father Abraham, played by MIAMI VICE alum Edward James Olmos, who was part of a Mexican group called Los Dinos who just did not fit in with their style and never became big. He then discovered some singing talent in his daughter Selena and decides to have the whole family be in a band. He is very over-bearing and keeps on them to practice even though it is not really in their interest but really him trying to live his dream. They do however become popular. Jennifer Lopez plays the title character and was very good in the role. It focuses on her difficult relationship with her father and her secret marriage to the guitarist of the band Chris Perez. Lopez actually lip-synced to the real vocals of Selena but did a good job of that and in the role where she lived with her real-life family to get into the role. It is unfortunate that this movie had to be made this way right before the known murder of Selena who rose to mainstream fame after her murder when it could have been through talent.

The Mack (1973): I haven't really given you a Blaxploitation film in a while so I jumped at the chance for this one. Max Julien stars as Goldie who is out of prison after five years and becomes the king of the pimps. His job does not come easy as he has corrupt cops and other pimps who want him to return to his old drug dealing work in the small time. Richard Pryor co-stars as Goldie's buddy. There is a lot of violence and education on being a pimp. It is pretty entertaining with plenty of expected black stereotypes but the situations were pretty realistic at times when you in that kind of world. It has lived on through pop culture and is ranked pretty high on the Blaxploitation films so if you can look past the stereotyping you might enjoy the film.

Operator 13 (1934): This is a Civil War film that was before the peak of Gary Cooper's career and near the end of Marion Davies' career. Davies plays Gail Loveless who is a singer and actress and is recruited by the Union Army thus becoming the title character. Gary Cooper plays Confederate Captain Jack Gailliard. Davies has a lot of fun posing as the black maid and puts on quite an accent where she first meets Jack. Things happen when Gailliard discovers who she is but they must team up and they find themselves falling in love. It is a pretty good movie with some pretty good battle sequences. I had to order this off ebay to obtain it as I learned Marion Davies is hard to come by.

Footloose (1984): Herbert Ross directed this 80s classic which stars Kevin Bacon as Ren. Ren is from the big city who with his family moves to a very small town where he learns things are very strict. John Lithgow co-stars as Reverend Shaw Moore who really kind of runs the town and is the one who sets these strict standards like no dancing allowed. Ren, along with his classmates do what they can to lift the ordinance and convince the reverend that they just want to have fun. I admit, this is by no means my favorite movie and it is carried a lot by the soundtrack which includes the title song, HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO, ALMOST PARADISE, and my favorite and most unknown Kenny Loggins' I'M FREE. I did enjoy this more than I did the first time. It is a rather interesting premise, a small town where fun was pretty much banned. I really thought Lithgow was very good as the close-minded preacher who must learn to overcome his grief. Bacon was also good in his role that in some ways almost ruined him when he started getting typecast and has now come a long way. Chris Penn co-stars as Ren's best friend in his much younger days where he played a lot of dim, but likable teens and when he matured would become one of the best and most underrated character actors who left this world way too soon. Other co-stars include Dianne Wiest, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Lori Singer. With the big soundtrack, it is now a musical stage production that the Muncie Civic Theater once did.

Forever Strong (2008): I found this movie based on a true story on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. There are a lot of movies with football but very little with rugby. This movie stars Sean Faris as Rick Penning, a star rugby player but is very troubled with a very wild team. He then gets arrested for a DUI and sentenced to juvenile detention. Sean Astin co-stars as someone who works in the detention center and realizes he likes rugby. He then calls on Rick's rival team to come talk to him and gives him a second chance on the rival team. Neal McDonough stars as Rick's father and coach of the team who has more focus on the team than his family. Gary Cole co-stars as the coach of Rick's new team who is far more compassionate than his father and allows Rick to like the team on his terms. This may not be for everyone but I did enjoy watching it and really liked that this team did not give up on this player no matter what. Gary Cole was very likable in my opinion as the real life Larry Gelwix whose focus was to coach champion players rather than a team which helped a lot towards winning. Neal McDonough kind of annoys me with that strange personality but I tolerated him here and even his character really had to look deep down on what was right. What can I say? I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. Also, even though it was on the TBN network, it focuses on people getting a second chance but it really does not focus on religion if that is what you are concerned about.

Scene of the Crime (1949): I found this on TCM when they were doing the Van Johnson marathon and the description really interesting me since last week I used him in a lavish musical. This one was a film noir where he stars as police officer Mike Conovan whose partner is murdered. This murdered officer is suspected of corruption making Conovan obsessed to find the killer and clear his name. This obsession really gets in the way of his marriage. Arlene Dahl stars as his wife who is very uneasy about the job. Gloria DeHaven stars as a night club singer who Mike suspects knows something and goes pretty deep undercover to find out. It is a much different part for Johnson. It is a pretty good, unknown film-noir which was worth the 90 minutes.

Wild Strawberries (1957): This is my foreign language film for the week which is a Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. This is probably my favorite of the Bergman films. Victor Sjostrom stars as Dr. Isak Borg, a professor who is about to receive an honorary award, for 50 years of practice in the medical field. He goes with his niece to receive it and picks up some younger people on the way who he bonds with. He also sees a lot of flashbacks to his life and must confront the mistakes of his past to look for redemption. The movie moves very well. Sjostrom was a successful director as well and was a big influence on Bergman. Bergman always made a point to watch Sjostrom's THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE every year. This is Sjostrom's final screen appearance.

All's Fair at the Fair (1938): This is my animated short film for the week brought by Dave Fleischer. This shows an elderly couple going around to the World's Fair which had some pretty humorous situations. This is from my Cartoon Shorts dvd that was very cheap at Wal-Mart. The fair was a big deal in those days, unlike today's society so some may not appreciate this if you don't know about the importance of the fair, even when I was a kid it was the cool thing to do. This is a pretty entertaining 7 minutes or so.

DVD REVIEW: BRAZIL (1985)

-THEATRICAL TRAILER

Brazil: This is the trailer to the film which has a good narrative comparing the protagonist's fantasy world and real world which don't have much difference.

-FEATURE FILM

Brazil (1985): Terry Gilliam directed this bleak futuristic film which centers on Sam Lowry, played very well by Jonathan Pryce, who is a bureaucrat trying to correct a wrongful arrest and then himself becoming an enemy of the state. He then meets Jill, played by Kim Griest, who is the woman in his dreams and he meets her but she soon starts to find trouble as well. Robert de Niro is good in his bit part of an underground superhero. Other people include Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, and many others. There are a lot of nice dream sequences with Sam Lowry as a winged hero and even having an interesting samarai scene paying homage to Kurasowa and even the reality sequences look amazing with the set design. Gilliam worked very hard on this one and changed lots of things but this final product should entertain many. I also liked the end sequences that kept changing. This is one that just has to be seen and I really can't go into much detail about.

-FEATURE FILM W/COMMENTARY

Brazil (1985): This commentary is provided by director Terry Gilliam. He gives a lot of insight towards the production, the set pieces, actors and many things. He mentions this was the fifth and final version of the film having done a lot of editing. I liked when he spoke of Robert De Niro being nervous about playing such a small part with high expectations and then feeling de Niro succeeded in his performance. There was also a funny story where Gilliam's daughter had a small part and she really did not want to continue but she had a line. To get her to say it Terry had to clear the crew off and with his wife persuade her to say the line. He also discusses his casting of Kim Griest and saying that he had lots of actresses to choose from but wanted an unknown where he got Griest. I like what he said about him not liking to do preview screeners. He even talks about his dislike for Siskel and Ebert's thumbs up/thumbs down method. It was pretty insightful and pretty amusing where he carried the commentary doing it by himself.

-"LOVE CONQUERS ALL" VERSION

Brazil (1985): This is a 94 minute version of BRAZIL which is the version that Terry Gilliam refused to make. This includes an alternate opening, many cuts, and a happy ending that Terry did not want. The movie was made to be more of a romantic film. Much of the cuts were made so that everyone can focus on Sam and Jill. This version can be viewed with or without commentary. The commentary is made by Gilliam expert David Morgan who compares this version to "Gilliam's version". People who absolutely love BRAZIL will not like this one as it does not give Terry Gilliam's vision. It was interesting to view, probably better to hear the commentary from Morgan. He pointed out how the movie makes De Niro's character look like a terrorist while Gilliam's version shows a lot of gray in his characters. I'll stick to the feature BRAZIL rather than this one. This one was made for tv.

-SPECIAL FEATURES

Production Stills: These were posters and photos from the film. There was a cool Japanese poster for it and a few still photos. Good images but they were also good enough for the film.

Script Development: These were written works talking about the many rewrites and developments of the script. To be honest, I looked through them but I was not interested enough to actually carefully read everything. There is a video part with Tom Stoppard's writing of a lot of the dialogue and Gilliam talking about how Stoppard really helped with some of his ideas like the Buttle/Tuttle mix-up.

Storyboards: These took a look at all the original ideas for fantasy sequences talking about what they had in mind and posting the pictures. They had some interesting ideas but I felt the final dream sequences in the movie worked great.

Production design: These were also written just talking about what it took and some of their original production ideas.

Costume design: Costumer James Acheson describes his ideas for costuming. He talks about how Katherine Helmond wore the shoe hat very well and helped his career in costuming. He got lots of ideas from British officers. Good, brief interview here.

Special Effects: This was more reading towards special effects and how they were done. Lots of reading and I thought Gilliam's explanation in the commentary was good enough.

The Score: This is a brief interview with Michael Kamen about his music score. Also, Gilliam praises Kamen in this video.

What is Brazil: This is a 30 minute documentary where the actors and writers all try to give their idea to what is BRAZIL since it did not take place in Brazil nor is there really any references. Some of it includes Top Stoppard and Terry Gilliam's different styles and how they had some conflict in the beginning.

The Battle of Brazil: A Video History: I learned on this one that Sid Sheinberg, a producer is the one who made the "love conquers all" edition because of his dislike of Gilliam's version. This documentary takes a look at the feud between Gilliam and Sheinberg and Gilliam's refusal to give into the producer's demands to shorten the film. Much of it is because it is not really a commercial film so it only has a select audience so producers are obviously mostly concerned about money. It was a very good documentary and my favorite of the special features

-OVERALL

I like this movie but to be honest it does not rank high on my list of favorites. I'm just a casual fan but admire Gilliam for keeping his ground and not giving into the demands. This is a Criterion Collection DVD which has a lot on it. For me the movie, the commentary from Gilliam and the couple documentaries was all I really needed. I am not much of a reader and sometimes I like to read up on things but I just was not interested enough to read all kinds of writing on a DVD. Sometimes I feel the film should speak for itself and I feel this one does just that. The "Love Conquers All" version is an interesting one to watch after the film has been watched but not near as good as the real version.

Well, that is it for this week. Tell me what you like and dislike and stay tuned for next week which includes Ali Macgraw, Douglas Fairbanks, Tom Selleck, Christopher Walken, and many others.