Cheri

First Hit: This film dragged and dragged and dragged.

Michelle Pfeiffer plays Lea de Lonval an aging courtesan who, unlike her contemporaries, still has her looks, charm and beguiling sexiness. For some reason, and I don’t know why, she hooks up with the son of one of her peers Madame Peloux (played by Kathy Bates).

The boy, nicknamed Cheri (played by Rupert Friend), is misguided, lazy, and lost. When Cheri is 19 years old, Peloux brings the two together for the benefit of his education. They stay together for 6 years. During this time neither of them outwardly admits their love to each other nor do they share deep intimate thoughts.

Their life together is drinking, eating, and sex. Additionally, Cheri gets his need to be held and nurtured fulfilled. And Lea, she has a young man with whom she controls and doesn't want much more from her than companionship. Who cares? Not me. Nothing in the dialogue made this relationship important or interesting. From the beginning the end was telegraphed.

Towards the end of this tedious film Cheri gets married to a younger woman but, then and only then does he really realize how much in love he is with Lea. The same is true for Lea, she tries other young men, but they aren’t Cheri. They finally admit their love but must part. Again, who cares?

Pfeiffer is beautiful and is the best thing in this film. She doesn’t have to act older or younger than she is and she does this beautifully. Friend is mediocre and brings little charm or reason for his being someone anyone would desire. Bates is totally unbelievable as aged courtesan and is simply mean and controlling for the most part.

Overall: The best line of the film was uttered by Pfeiffer and had something to do with; once you’ve tasted youth, you’ll always go back. But then again, so what.

Unmistaken Child

First Hit: A wonderfully told tale of how a Tibetan master teacher is found and re-identified as embodying the spirit of one who has passed.

Having delved into Buddhism and specifically Tibetan Buddhism I was excited to see this film. Like Kundun by Martin Scorsese, this film follows the path of how a reincarnated master is found. In Kundun it was the 14th Dalai Lama, in Unmistaken Child it was Geshe Lama Konchog.

This film spends little time on explaining this Tibetan tradition, but takes you on a journey to find Geshe Lama's reincarnation with his student and lifelong attendant Tenzin Zopa as your guide. Tenzin Zopa is marvelous in his open honesty and one can see his beautiful spirit when he meets with people along this journey.

He is chosen to find the reincarnation of his master, a job he deems overwhelming and unprepared for, however, because he is asked by the highest Lamas, therefore he does this job with all his spirit. He seeks the guidance of an astrologer living in Taiwan who tells him the direction he must travel and also that the child’s father’s name begins with an A.

With this information, the audience watches as he spends years meeting children until he finds the Unmistaken Child. He’s nervous when he takes the child to other master lamas for testing, but his pick is true and in the end the Dalai Lama confers his blessing on the child.

The most touching part of the film is when Tenzin Zopa has to tell the child’s parents that their child will be taken away from them and put in a monastery.

Tenzin Zopa is wonderful, open, expressive and unmistakably beautiful. The child is the reincarnation of this revered teacher and the quickness in which he learns to confer blessings on the people who visit him is amazing.

Overall: An incredibly beautiful film about how a spiritual leader in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism is chosen.

The Proposal

First Hit: Light fluff, cute at times, silly at other times, but after digesting it there wasn't anything worth seeing.

Sandra Bullock plays Margaret a hard driving Manhattan book editor.

The counter point is Ryan Reynolds playing Drew an Alaska native in New York working as Margret’s assistant. Margaret plays a no nonsense editor who doesn’t care who she hurts or how she is perceived by her co-workers.

The first scene showing this aggressive behavior is of her ruthless firing of another editor. Drew kowtows to his boss in every way just so he can have a chance at moving up in the firm.

The setup: Margaret is from Canada and her Visa is being revoked, she on the spur of the moment tells her manager that she is getting married to Drew. It is at this moment in the film where Reynolds does some of his best acting. His eyes tell the tale and his dialogue is well done. To seal the deal, Drew tells Margaret he’ll marry her if she gives him a promotion to assistant editor right away. She agrees and then they fly off to meet Drew’s family.

There are some odd and funny moments along with a ridiculous one where an eagle steals the family puppy and Margaret throws her cell phone at the eagle. Funny thing about the dialogue is that no one brings up the obvious disparity in this proposed marriage; the age difference. Not that it is a bad thing, but by brushing it under the rug and not making it part of the film; we are led to believe that there is no age difference. Bullock looks and is clearly much older than Reynolds. 

Lastly, as you all might expect, they kiss and magic happens and so the characters figure out how to make their relationship work.

Bullock plays her standard sort of character, semi tough but soft and funny. In this film she is suppose to have a harder edge and she carries this shift adequately. Reynolds is a better fit in this film and is a bit more believable. If you like Betty White she does her standard; direct poignant remarks for laughs role, this time playing Reynolds grandmother.

Overall: Really not much of a film, even for fluff therefore I would’t recommend it to anyone.

Food Inc.

First Hit: Everyone needs to see this film. It may change your mind about what you eat and will certainly educate you on how creating food has become more about the production line and how fast and cheap we produce it than nutrition and how it helps our bodies.

The two main narrators of this film are Eric Schlosser who wrote “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the all American Meal” and Michael Pollan who wrote “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”.

The film begins with shots of grocery packed aisles in a grocery store. We see thousands upon thousands of products on the shelves, and as Eric states, where did all this food come from. The first startling statistic revolves around how the producers of meat products are being consolidated into just a few.

Example: 50 years ago, the top dozen major beef producers controlled less than 30% of the market. Today 4 companies produce more than 80% of the beef on the market. The how and why this happened and the dangers of what we are now facing, as the production of food becomes an exercise in least cost efficiency, is what this film is about.

This film documents the incredible and powerful impact of fast food chains on all our markets. It shows how corn is produced by huge farms and sold at a loss, but these farms make money because they are government subsidized.

Why is corn important? It is in everything and is used to fatten up our animals for slaughter. You see how the chicken industry has created a full grown chicken in less than 50 days when it used to take 70 days. One of the worst parts is, these chickens can barely stand or walk and on most chicken farms, the chickens never see the light of day. You see a hog processing plant that kills more than 32,000 pigs a day. You see miles and miles of cows being fed corn, which their bodies cannot handle, to fatten them up.

Corn fed cattle is a danger because their stomachs can produce E. coli 015:H7 which would normally be non-existent when they feed on grass. We hear the story of a woman losing her 2 year old son from E. coli contaminated hamburger. The film also shows you farmers who care and are attempting to do something about it. We are also shown a story about how Monsanto, in their quest to make germ resistant seeds, has capitalized on their invention to the tune of ruining farmers.

Finally, the film gives you very clear instruction of what you can do to change what is going on and the reason is: If we don’t make these changes, we are headed for a nutritional and health disaster.

This film was expertly directed by Robert Kenner and does not rely on histrionics, over dramatizations or a bending of the truth. However, there are some images of food processing that had me momentarily turning away from the screen because they were just simply too hard to watch.

Overall: We are heading towards a health crisis through our food. The images, explanations and information will stay with me long after this film leaves the theaters.

The Taking of Pelham 123

First Hit: The impact of this film wasn’t like the original; however the strong acting makes this a good watch.

The original film has a subway car being hijacked for ransom; this new version has a subway car being hijacked ransom; what makes the original more compelling?

The context in which they were filmed: In our world today someone hijacking something is more common and we’ve had real life bombings and killings in subways therefore we are use to it, at times even numb to it.

Back in 1974 when the original came out, high jackings, bombings and killings sprees, especially in subways, were more unusual, hence the impact on the audience was different; it was unusual and scary. However, strong character acting by John Travolta as Ryder the head hijacker and Denzel Washington as the disgraced dispatcher made this new version of this film work.

John Travolta has the look, feel, and dialogue which gives his character the psychotic edge making his character compelling to watch. Denzel Washington is very strong as the intelligent direct interface between the ticking time bomb below the surface of New York City and the everyday life taking place on the streets above. Tony Scott directs this film with little waste; however I found that the shaky camera shots and the quick cuts during the scenes where the police are ferrying the money from one side of NYC to another excessive and needless.

Overall: An entertaining film but it doesn't have the impact as the original for the reasons stated above. However, if were born after 1970 and you’ve not seen the original, this one will do very nicely.