Movies: February 2007 Archives

Between the front page New York Times Style section article "Shaking Riches Out of the Cosmos," which marvels about the fact that "The Secret" book is sitting atop the New York Times Hardcover Advice Bestseller List, and Newsweek's online extravaganza "Decoding 'The Secret,'" not to mention an official Oprah stamp of approval (she's dedicated two shows to it), Rhonda Byrne, editor of "The Secret" book, is laughing all the way to the bank--WITH YOUR MONEY!

New York Times reporter Allen Salkin rightly compares Byrne's "Secret" empire and its basic (and base) Law of Attraction message that "if you think it, it will come" to a long history of public interest in the latest "get rich quick" schemes (emphasis on the scheme):

Although "The Secret" is an overnight phenomenon, its message of think-and-grow-rich is but the latest version of a self-help formula dating back more than a century, with roots both secular and religious, and branches that have included Napoleon Hill's best-selling "Think and Grow Rich" in 1937 and Norman Vincent Peale's "Power of Positive Thinking" in 1952.

J. Gordon Melton, the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif., traces the origins of "prosperity consciousness" to 19th-century Christian Science. "It's always waiting for slightly different forms of expression, the same old message," he said.

In my Idol Chatter December review of the DVD, I slammed this watered-down, self-interested mockery of a viewer's intelligence. This film's message is so flimsy and so juvenile that I could barely sit through the screener. And now to find out that it's sitting atop the bestseller list and getting top billing in major news outlets? I am rather appalled.

You do realize that by investing in "The Secret, you are merely making Rhonda Byrne richer, right? Not yourself?

"The Secret" is the latest New Age version of what has long been known as "The Prosperity Gospel," which is anything that preaches the "good news" that you are meant to have lots of money, and that if you just support "our church" or buy "our book" than we we let you in on the "how to"!

And you should know: some people consider members of Prosperity Gospel movements as members of a cult. Don't join the mania!

In "Breach," director Billy Ray of "Shattered Glass" tells yet another gripping story of one man's utter duplicitousness. This time around, however, the man in question, Robert Hanssen--played brilliantly by Chris Cooper--succeeds in bringing down not only himself, but the whole FBI with him. Dozens of FBI agents and assets are compromised, and the entire Bureau's identity is thrown into crisis over Hanssen's 20-year stint as a double agent for the Soviets.

What's puzzling about Hanssen--considered "the greatest breach" in the FBI's history--is the fact that he is a devout Catholic. His entire family is Opus Dei, he attends daily Mass, goes to confession regularly, prays the rosary constantly, and his office and home are filled with crucifixes and religious paraphernalia.

How can a man this orthodox in his religious ties become such a criminal? How could he, in good conscience, live with himself knowing that he was responsible for the deaths of over 50 men and women based on the intelligence he passed along in exchange for millions?

Is it possible that this faith enabled the behavior, rather than challenged it?

This is what I left the theater wondering. Is it possible that going through the sacrament of confession, with its corresponding penance--daily Masses, rosaries, etc.--was how Hanssen somehow maintained the behavior in his own mind? Did he believe that, although he committed treason regularly, he could jsut walk into a church seeking absolution and it would be granted, and that with enough penitent acts he could "pay" for his sins?

Or did his devout Catholicism ultimately break him--tormenting his conscience with guilt and the knowledge that true penance would only come through getting caught by the people he betrayed?

It's hard to know the role that faith truly played in Robert Hanssen's 20-year career of treason and in his subsequent fall, but there's no doubt that director Billy Ray has delivered a stunning, provocative film. Go with a friend because you will want to talk about it afterward.

Even though Ryan Gosling ( "The Notebook") is up for an Academy Award for his performance in the indie film "Half Nelson," the film played in such limited release last summer that it's hard to imagine many outside of Hollywood caught it in theaters. Fortunately, Gosling's performance as a drug-addicted teacher at an urban middle school was released on DVD this week. "Half Nelson" flips every stereotype found in other inspirational teacher movies on its head and is not so much a movie about redemption, but a story about offering grace to those around us, regardless of whether or not their lives are ever redeemed.

Dan Dunne (Gosling) is an unorthodox history teacher who despises the school-approved curriculum and uses a more thought-provoking style of teaching. He teaches his students that every major historical event can be explained by dialectics--the idea that conflict is created by two opposing forces. Dialectics could also describe Dunne's life. While he desires to be the kind of teacher who changes the world one student at a time, his ideals are at odds with his love of crack. His secret drug habit is dscovered by one of his students, a 13-year-old girl named Drey, who finds him getting high in a locker room after school. It is a moment of total humiliation for Dunne, but it is also the beginning of an unusual friendship.

In this story, it is Drey (brilliantly played by Shareeka Epps) who becomes something of a mentor to Dunne, instead of the other way around. She has a brother in jail because of drugs, an absentee father, and a mother who works all of the time. But even without any socioeconomic advantages, Drey is determined to get an education and make something of her life. When the adults around her fail her again and again, she refuses to let that define her view of herself.

On the other hand, it seems as if Dunne can only define himself by the failures in his personal life. His connection with Drey is one of the few bright spots in his life, but even as he sees the need for Drey to have a father figure in her life, it is still not enough to make him stop using drugs. Everty time he takes a step forward to sobriety, he slides two steps back. Still, Drey stays by his side because she understands his frustration with a bleak world.

"Half Nelson" is powerful storytelling, not only because of what happens to these two characters, but also because of what doesn't happen to them. There is not an uplifitng, inspiring transformation to Dunne. Just as the audience is never give much of an explanation as to why Dunne is so messed up to begin with, the movie offers little in the way of answers. Dunne does not seem to have a huge impact on the lives of his students in spite of his methods in class, as we might expect. Dunne doesn't kick his drug habit--yet--though there is a glimmer of possibility that he will. The only certainty is that Drey will continue to love him and forgive him for his shortcomings. As an audience we are left with the hope that this will be enough to help Dunne change, but, just like in real life, there are no guarantees.

For its uneasy but natural look at the struggle to accept grace when other, opposing forces pull at the soul, "Half Nelson" should have been a stronger contender in this year's Oscar race, and is now officially added to my Top Ten list for 2006.

Finally, Madea goes on vacation and we get to see what kind of work Tyler Perry does when he stays behind the scenes. The results are magical, as depicted in his latest film, "Daddy's Little Girls." The story follows Monty (Idris Elba), a single father trying to make a life for himself and his three little girls. The trailers would have you believe that this is the love story of Monty the mechanic and Julia the jaded lawyer (Gabrielle Union) and their struggle to connect because of his sharp-tongued daughters, but the movie is so much smarter than that and sustains itself on a much less hackneyed plot.

Monty is a real black man, one who struggles between providing for his children and being successful, and like most single parents he makes sacrifices for their benefit. This scenario rarely plays out in black films, but Perry sees fit to show the world a single black father wanting to provide for his children not out of obligation but out of love. Love isn't the only thing that drives Monty, faith gives him a good revving-up as well.

When custody of his daughters is granted to his incapable ex-girlfriend whose boyfriend is the drug lord of their neighborhood, Monty turns to faith instead of fisticuffs—for most of the movie at least, Perry likes revenge too. The picture of faith, as painted appropriately by Perry, occurs in a quasi-storefront church led by none other than real-life Atlanta mega-preacher, Bishop Eddie Long. Not to be overlooked in his film debut, Bishop Long brings a word so powerful that I had to write it down in the middle of the movie. Like clockwork, after a sermon, a soul-stirring gospel song and a pat on the back—by Louis Gossett Jr., no less--Monty is able to keep it moving and fight for those cute kids.

What was even more refreshing about this film is that, though Madea is missing and Perry didn't find a way to squeeze himself in for self-aggrandizement's sake, he stuck with the other third of his formula: applying faith-based principles for ordinary-people consumption. Faith in action was witnessed less the falling out and multiple church scenes where crackheads bust through the doors and belt to the high heavens--see "Diary of a Mad Black Woman." This time around, it was a palatable version of "Taste and see that the Lord is good."

"Daddy's Little Girls" is quite possibly the best Tyler Perry movie to date and true evidence that he has entered the big leagues--and that the best is yet to come.

I walked into the theater with great trepidation to see Walt Disney's film adaptation of Katherine Paterson's Newbery Award-winning "Bridge to Terabithia," a story about a friendship between a boy and a girl, Jess and Leslie. From the look of the commercials, I feared that this beloved novel from my youth--so widely read still today in schools, touted by children's librarians and teachers everywhere--had been Disney-fied into a sugar-coated fairytale, complete with dancing creatures and perhaps even a song or two. Advertisements for the film are a barrage of fantastical creatures--inventions that indeed are part of Jess's and Leslie's imaginative play in the novel--but which never come to life in the way that C.S. Lewis's Pevensie children experience Narnia as a parallel world, but a also a real one in "The Chronicles of Narnia."

Basically, I worried that Disney had turned "Bridge to Terabithia" into a fantasy film.

Well, they did not, I am pleasantly surprised to report. In fact, the movie follows Paterson's novel so faithfully that much of the characters' dialogue is taken straight out of the novel--including the bits when Jess, Leslie, and Jess's younger sister May Belle talk about whether Leslie will go to hell because she doesn't believe in the Bible:

"You gotta believe the Bible, Leslie," says May Belle as they bounce in the back of the family pickup truck on their way back from Leslie's first time ever at a church. When Leslie asks why believing in the Bible is so important, little May Belle explains," 'Cause if you don't believe the Bible, God'll damn you to hell when you die." Jess adds his words of agreement about the matter, though rather reluctantly.

And as the film doesn't shrink from exploring the religious themes in the novel, neither does it hold back from showcasing what once was typical in the lives of children, but grows scarcer in our world of scheduled, organized, parent-supervised and parent-led play: a boy and a girl who find amusement not on the soccer field or with an X-Box or through a play-date, but by running off into the woods each day after school, rain or shine. The friendship between Leslie and Jess is built on the simplicity of finding a rope swing tied to a tree, building a fort in the woods, and letting their imaginations run wild to this place called Terabithia, which Leslie invents through the sounds of the forest, the birds in the trees, the rustling of the wind--all of which become part of their make-believe after school world where they seek shelter from family troubles and school bullies among other challenges related to growing up.

As I sat in the theater, I couldn't help remembering my own childhood, which was filled with endless days where I would run off with the rest of the neighborhood kids to build forts in the woods with old boards, blankets, and whatever materials we could find, only coming home when my Mom yelled out that it was time for lunch or dinner. And I couldn't help thinking about how this kind of play seems to be a thing of the past, given parents' fears about children being out of sight, and parents' desires for kids to constantly be in supervised learning environments. I wondered if "Bridge to Terabithia" might seem to some kids like a fantasy film, because imagined, unsupervised play like that of Jess and Leslie is becoming a thing of the past.

But I also worried--given the novel and the film's turning point and center (which I will not reveal here)--if, while on the one hand, this story opens the eyes of children and parents about a special kind of childhood play, at the same time it may serve as a cautionary tale against allowing children and their imaginations such freedoms.

A word of warning to parents: Though commercials make this film look like a "Narnia" movie of sorts, I must admit my intense surprise to walk into the theater and see it filled with parents with children as young as four. This is certainly a movie parents should see with their children, but it is a story for older children, not nursery school kids and kindergartners. At the dark, intense point on which the story turns, it was clear from the loud gasps among virtually all the parents in the theater that they were unfamiliar with the major theme of Paterson's novel, and the reason why she wrote the story.

That said, if you were worried that Disney had sugar-coated this classic story, fear not. This film is a faithful tribute to one of the most beloved stories the prolific Katherine Paterson has left to children, old and young.

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