the joy of eating and the folly of thinking

Red State (2011) – Dir: Kevin Smith (Chasing Amy, Clerks)

We begin to understand three somewhat interesting characters living in a backwater town in North America. They’re just three young hillbilly horny guys. The best friends find a website for people who just want to get laid. They find a local woman on that website and they make a plan to meet her.

These three guys define their world as their scheme to get laid. Nothing else matters. Unfortunately for them, other people have contradictory plans. Some of the violence is specific, shocking, disgusting and effective, though much of it is loud, thrumming and drags on for a bit too long. Most notably with the continuous machine gun shootings.

The film feels more like a political message than a story. The human drama and the careful plot setup are the strongest elements of this movie. The ATF agent and his conflicts add something to how interesting the story is. Getting us to care about the three boys is a smart decision, but even when we spread out to other characters there are a few surprises.

There isn’t really enough going on in this story for me to consider it an enjoyable experience. However, what does happen is carefully and cleverly drawn out. There is no suspense, except when the boys get in trouble and we become concerned for their safety.

There are some pretty despicable characters making monstrous decisions on both sides, but here this is not as effective (scary) as in a movie like the Alexandre Aja remake of The Hills Have Eyes (2006).

It feels like not enough time was spent on evolution of motive and interior stories, and yet the surface elements while somewhat effective due to some strong characters – especially in the first half of the film, were not gross, scary or humourous. None of the violence was innovative.

The drama seemed to be the most effective feature of this movie, so this is where most of the work could have been focused. I felt this was only half as strong as it could have been. The three boys were interesting characters. The innocent brainwashed children were a nice (yet cliché) touch. The temptress and her daughter the caretaker, were somewhat interesting characters, as was the false prophet. The sheriff and his deputy both had a half-decent build-up, but then nothing was done with them.

John Goodman as the ATF agent (Keenan) was a superb character, but he didn’t get to do very much. The work that was done on the three boys was fairly solid. The other interesting/major characters that I mentioned should have been developed and dramatised that much and it would have been a far better story.

Trying to follow the plot from event to event is difficult because there is no on-screen connection between the sheriff who considers suicide and the ATF agent getting called in to take over the “domestic terrorist” situation. It would have been far better as a film if the two storylines had been the main plot – the politics behind manipulation of government agencies to take down violent religious extremists juxtaposed with the internal drama (which was done for the three boys) but also developed for the other major characters.

2.5 stars

Ex Machina (2015) – Dir: Alex Garland (Dredd, 28 Days Later)

The Turing test, named after the inventor of the modern computer, Alan Turing, is the test to see if an entity is intelligent to the point of being aware; if it is conscious. This test concerns AI, or artificial intelligence. In testing to see if a piece of software has achieved true AI. The climactic goal of AI is to create a machine that thinks. Not a smart computer, but a truly conscious mechanical intelligence. This is thought by many to be impossible, (except perhaps through evolution.)

‘Deus Ex Machina’ is a term from classical drama and literature to mean an event in a story where the entanglements of the plot are resolved by the hand of God. In other words this is not achieved from the story itself, and from the characters. It is cheaply and cheatingly resolved in one move by a higher power, by something outside of the story.

Deus Ex Machina is latin, approximately translated as ‘From God, the Machine.’ ‘Deus’ meaning God, ‘Ex Machina’ could mean ‘from the machine’.

I wondered when I started watching this movie if the reference in the title was going to be important to the story. Essentially it’s a reference to a filmic/dramatic term, but this story is not about drama or film. The extraction of the word God is possibly important and purposeful, because the story says that there are no Gods here.

From the Machine tells us that this is a story about a machine. There are twists and turns in the story, but they don’t feel surprising or well designed. The characters begin as interesting, but do not evolve. We do not feel what the robot is feeling, despite our protagonist sympathising with her. This film attempts a mind trip, but it is only skittered over, so it doesn’t feel meaningful or effective.

Is this person AI? Is it true AI?

There are questions, but none of this is really explored beyond the attempt to screw with our minds. Eva (Alicia Vikander) is beautiful and believable as a robot, but lacks personality, so why would we empathise with her. Why would we care about her investment in the situation? What happens at the end of the test? What happens if she fails? What happens if she succeeds?

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a remarkable soul, a sympathetic person, a man of character. He is not a remarkable talent, but does that matter? Nathan (Oscar Isaac – Inside Llewyn Davis) is a genius, but how much will we forgive him, because of his talent?

There is an implied cat and mouse game, which never materialises in this story. A mystery, where one character is trying to outguess the other character; each takes a turn and we never know, but ultimately desire to know, what will happen next and who will win.

The mystery is not really present; the only thing we don’t know is if she is truly conscious. It’s what we were asked from the beginning. The design of the plot; to flick back and forth around the questions, gradually revealing the mystery – there is no mystery, so there is no design.

The ending feels forced, violent and unsatisfying. The beginning of this movie is strong. The middle lags and lacks substance, therefore the simplified ending has nothing much to support. A failure of a film, not through concept, not through performance, or even through direction – the imagery is believable, this is a failure through design and therefore through writing.

If it is supposed to be a mystery/suspense then it fails because there is no investment from the audience, we don’t care what is going to happen next so when nothing does, we don’t care. If it is supposed to be a spectacular science fiction film, nothing much happens. It’s not even an interesting conversation in a room, for the length of the movie, (like a great Mamet picture.)

0 stars

Interstellar (2014) – Dir: Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception, Memento)

The appealing thing about this film is the story. The direction – expression of themes, tone and ideas is basic and boring. The way the story is told is not particularly remarkable, the writing – dialogue, dramatic elements, structure are all incredibly average.

The story is interesting, though. This is not a movie about space though it is set in space and as a film set in space, it does not do better than other images/portrayals of stories in space.

This is a story about time. We approach, in a roundabout way, the idea of interpersonal selfishness. I’m reminded of a moment in the truly bad romantic television series, Roswell; where the love interest asks our leading alien to put their relationship above the fate of the world, and he rejects her wish.

Matt McConaughey as Cooper is supposed to save the world, to do what he’s spent his life wishing he could do, in a world that only cares about food and therefore only cares about farming. One of my worst nightmares, it certainly would be. Personally this story considers fears, attitudes and emotional scenarios that are highly relevant to me. But that’s only one reason I like the story, it’s also beautifully designed.

It’s a mystery and I dare you to try and predict the ending. I saw two seconds of the ending of this film when someone else was watching it, before I had a chance to see it myself. That would usually ruin the mystery for me. In this case, it did not. I still had no idea that it was going to turn out the way it did.

I say the story is great but the writing is not and the directing is pedestrian; because the director for this film, Nolan, is like a skateboarder who holds onto the tail end of an automobile to catch a ride. He puts nothing of himself, expresses nothing interesting, brings nothing valuable to the materialisation of this film. What the film is about and the ideas that are told peek through the ordinary way it is told, and they shine, despite this.

We follow a man who dreams of an older world, a world that had value. A return to that world, to wanting the best for our children. For wanting us and ours to be free to do what we want, to wish and struggle for something better. Not to be judged while still in primary school as good farmer or not farmer and therefore useless – worthless.

A planet is starving so it simplifies and minimises its priorities, this very process, this very decision weakens the planet to breaking point. And one man is given the chance to do what he dreams, just like the old days, to put himself to a job that he was born for – but in return he must leave his family behind.

With better writing and direction, the sequences between Damon and McConaughey could have been so powerful. I felt along for the ride, waiting for the mystery to be revealed to me, and gratefully I watched, as it was so. However, the scenes that are most important to the story weren’t artfully presented – they weren’t deeply explored with imagery and telling/insightful dialogue. So they didn’t charge the film with meaning, the story was alone in a magma of lies and sparkle. It was an entertaining film, but it could have been so much more.

2.5 stars

The Deal (2008) – Dir: Steven Schachter (The Wool Cap)

William H. Macy as Charlie and Meg Ryan as Deidre star in this quirky drama about depression and the mainstream industry filmmaking process. It’s more about filmmaking than depression, but it’s a depressing picture of the industry. Not to worry, though, there are artists who defy the system and things seem to improve for them further into the story.

The director has a proven track record for working with Macy and he also co-wrote the script with him, based on the Peter Lefcourt novel. Lefcourt has a wealth of experience as a writer, working on novels, plays, television and films.

The film begins like a romantic comedy – with Deirdre despising, and infuriated by Charlie, but it’s a bit more than that. It works as a drama, as a movie about the creative process it has substance, while your average chick flick is fairly deficient in depth.

Charlie is a lovable loser, in a system which creates losers from those passionate people with integrity and winners from those who are void as people and hacks in occupation – with scant talent.

Deirdre is resigned to a meaningless and powerless job, but she is committed – hoping for the upside just around the corner.

Charlie has a knack for seeing through people and he maintains this transparency in himself, which often throws people when they first meet him.

Charlie’s nephew, Lionel (Jason Ritter), has spent a year writing a really good script, he has enlisted his uncle to help him get it made. But Charlie knows the business too well to do this the way which Lionel is expecting/hoping. And our inciting incident appears to be that Charlie has an idea or a fabrication of inspirations. He knows how to get a movie made and rebuild his own broken career, with his nephew’s script. And because he lacks integrity – possibly by his own design, or compassion, he doesn’t care so much that this is not what Lionel wants.

There is an interesting double standard, when the despicable character is manipulated because he’s done something bad (cheated on his wife) and yet an ally and therefore cooperative with our protagonist, Dierdre also commits infidelity. Ryan’s character is likable despite her sins, possibly moreso because we can see how flawed she is (also her husband is a bit of a tool.)

I liked it. The Deal is one of those movies you can watch again if you’re feeling like a light drama about movies. Not as special as some of Macy’s other films, but it’s a neat little movie.

3 stars

The Five Obstructions (2003) – Dir: Lars Von Trier (The Idiots, Dogville) and Jorgen Leth (The Erotic Man)

One of my favourite Von Trier films, but don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s better than his fiction. If you want to understand me, watch this movie and you might half get it.

Probably one of the best films about the creative process and it is approached as an art experiment. This movie is playful, inventive and intellectual. Von Trier recruits a Danish filmmaker whose work he respects – Jorgen Leth. Sets him the task of remaking his best short film – The Perfect Human. However, in an experimental programme, which must test, expose and evolve the filmmaker.

In order for Leth to grow, Von Trier plans to turn this process – which is held as more important than the results, into a piece of artistic therapy. (Forcing Leth to face his approach, his persona, his creative habits – and to detach himself from them, a form of Zen perhaps.)

This experiment is approached without a storyboard – a rebellious tack chosen by Von Trier, reflecting back to the French Films of yesteryear, made without a script. A pure form, for liberty and the revolution.

And similar to a form of film which he helped create – the dogme 95 school of filmmaking: They did put forth a set of rules to keep the approach of the maker as simple and barebones – that the story and the drama are the thing.

Von Trier’s idea of fun is sadistic and silly, yet also cerebral. He plans to ruin Leth’s film which both of them love. And he means it. He revels in the idea that destroying this beautiful thing will be cathartic, but also meaningful. Possibly he feels that it is just a thing, we care more about the maker.

Every time he tries, though, Leth won’t let him. Leth can’t let go. He either doesn’t understand or doesn’t believe in what Von Trier is trying to do. You have these two powerful opposing forces – one is trying to destroy, for secret or simply mysterious reasons – like a child God.

The other force is Leth, who likes Von Trier, and thinks that he appreciates what he is trying to do. But every time Von Trier sets out to destroy The Perfect Human, Leth makes another interesting film, foiling Von Trier’s evil plans.

Von Trier creates a calm, homely, luxurious and pleasant atmosphere for Leth to relaxe, while they discuss the next film. This whole time Von Trier is using all he observes, to put together a scheme. Leth relaxes and shares his thoughts with his friend. It is into this false sense of security, this trap – that Leth consistently falls, as the obstructions are fabricated.

Perhaps the more fun part is watching Leth struggle to ruin his film. And to see how he could possibly defeat Von Trier – making another good film, while sticking to the rules.

Leth, as part of the process, must record confession tapes as he struggles to get to grips with the process, the torture, the punishment. These tapings are revealing, interesting, fun to watch from a sadistic voyeur’s point of view.

In one taping, he says, ‘It’s totally destructive. What the Hell does he expect me to do? It’ll be a spastic film.’

It’s really nice that we get glimpses of the actual short film, The Perfect Human in between scenes of this movie.

Almost more fun is seeing the results of the obstructions. More importantly we get to watch pretty much Leth’s entire filmmaking process, (with some of the arduous and mundane cut from the film.) We see his neurotic doubt of self-worth, internal emotional grapplings, his determined serving of the creative process. His totally unpretentious willingness to experiment, yet attempt to make a better film than Von Trier expects.

At their second meeting, Von Trier warns Leth to be careful, not to expose himself emotionally, but it is difficult, they are friends and Leth is feeling confident.

Look at The Perfect Human – a dirty portrait of sensuality and rugged sequences of ordinary life – but seen with a unique eye. As beauty, as segue into the story. The story is deeper – it is about the thoughtful subtext of, and mystery that haunts the narrator.

Five Obstructions is about Jorgen Leth and Lars Von Trier. It is Leth versus Von Trier in a prize fight. I for one hope the current work in progress is successful (already in development) – the next fight: Scorcese vs Von Trier.

And I can’t wait.

Von Trier states in the movie, that his plan is to progress from the perfect to the human.

Partial Spoiler: I really like the cartoon in the final obstruction.

Five Obstructions is almost a sad film, but it is so playful and Leth is a cynic – but very sympathetic as a character. While not over-civilised, (uptight) he is somewhat proper, but in the end he is a nice guy (as far as one can tell from watching the movie.)

4.5 stars

The Temp (1993) – Dir: Tom Holland (Child’s Play, Stephen King’s The Langoliers)

Kris Bolin (Lara Flynn Boyle) is an office temp. Peter Derns (Timothy Hutton) is her boss. We are treated to Boyle in her sexiest role, yet. This is a fairly old movie now, so if you appreciate the younger, killer brunette, ex-model look for 90’s Lara Flynn Boyle then you may enjoy it that much more.

The film starts with a carefully dramatised bit of exposition – Peter used to suffer pretty bad paranoia; to the point of being the bad guy, the monster. His therapist even referred to the ill Peter Derns as Mr Hyde. Later on we may wonder if this is why Kris doesn’t just kill him; if he is spared because she sees the monster in him and feels familiar, and so can’t end him – like that famous scene in Alien 3.

There is an oft unwritten rule in horror movies, certain things make you less likely to get killed (be the protagonist, make friends with the monster, take control of your own fate, face your fears, be a monster yourself.) Just as some things make you more likely to get killed (have sex in the timeline of the materialisation of the fear’s presence, be a silly/slutty girl, do drugs, be popular, superficial and shallow, submit to a hierarchy, be cruel, be a despicable person – usually displaying one of the seven sins.)

I personally enjoy it when the monster decides to punish the despicable character in an effort to solidify in the viewer a feeling that this monster is a necessary evil.

The Temp gets rid of the despicable character fairly early on and doesn’t let up once the blood lust begins. The choice of method and the physical depiction of the violent deaths remind me of the style of Friday the 13th: the series (TV) – which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Friday the 13th movie series. It’s creepy but safe for television; only implying the gore, never chucking it in your face.

The storyline takes the cat and mouse between Kris and Peter about as far as a cat and mouse game could possibly go. At one time I remember thinking; she knows he’s not falling for it, because he forgot to fake his facial expression. He’s frowning because he knows she cut the brake cable just to fuck with him. But if he wants to (stay alive) hide his suspicion; he needs to fake the expression of someone believing her ploy; fake ignorance and sympathy.

You want to like Kris because she’s sexy and cool. She’s a strong woman who’s not afraid to bend the rules to get ahead. And at first, she takes control of the situation and helps Peter, exactly when he needs it. Because without Mr Hyde, Peter is vulnerable, and the jackals can smell it on him. I almost want a Bonnie and Clyde ending.

Peter decides that if he did sleep with Kris it would be out of lust, and not worth the destruction that would be the inevitable consequence of his slip. Once he makes this decision, Kris is no longer attractive to him; he starts to view her with an element of disgust. Though that’s not to say he’s no longer tempted. Throughout this film I wonder what exactly she wants from all this, does she really just want to be loved by Peter. Wouldn’t it be a cool subversive idea if Peter decides to just go with it? Oh wait; they did that in Basic Instinct.

Why I love this movie: Sexy horror movies are fun just for being so. This is one of the best. Cheap thrills with great characters and a simple, albeit unoriginal story. Basic Instinct, if it were Horror instead of Thriller which is an important distinction, would probably rule the Kingdom of type. Even so, I like Kris Bolin more. She does more with less. Peter Derns is almost The Dude (The Big Lebowski) in his Xen survivalist approach to his situation, yea he explodes a few times but overall he deals with it all remarkably well.

4.5 stars

The Zero Theorem (2013) – Dir: Terry Gilliam (Monty Python, The Fisher King)

Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) is Qohen (pronounced Ko-en) Leth. His boss the interesting nerd, Joby (David Thewlis) often mispronounces Qohen’s name, calling him Quinn. Joby is angsty and anxiety-ridden, he’s a little bit crazy.

Thewlis’s Joby lacks presence. He doesn’t really follow through with the character. Joby is an administrator, an overseer of the IT talent – mainly because he burnt out as a coder when they put him on the big project. So he’s nuts, but other than being a bit nervy there’s nothing specific about his illness – which is the most developed trait of his character. It leaves one wondering why, knowing the actor has the talent to portray a character well, and express his well-drawn persona without expositional dialogue, simply by becoming that character. Why there wasn’t a finished character figured out for Thewlis to express.

Qohen is a hypochondriac and suffers severe social phobia. He doesn’t like people. A piece of his character which somewhat assassinates our feelings of sympathy, empathy, etc. is when he reveals that he used to drink, do drugs, sleep with lots of women – in short he used to be cool. This makes him more monastic than pathetic, and he’s not all that devout so the monk thing doesn’t work for him, either (it doesn’t fit with his personality; it’s not genuine.) So where does that leave Qohen, this man we are starting to care about?

He’s not that pathetic, he is abstaining by choice, so we don’t feel sorry for him. He does suffer social phobia, but when he gets set up to work from home this is no longer a problem, and he owns his own home – an old church.

He meets a girl who we don’t trust, is she on the boss’s dollar? It seems too obvious that she just happens to be throwing herself at our socially-stunted techno-monk, at a time where his performance puts him miles ahead of the curve, yet his health concerns are a concern for his bosses.

They want Qohen to be happy, not because they care, but because a happy worker is a productive worker. Qohen doesn’t feel challenged by his work. He does feel entitled to a little bending of the system, so that he can be more comfortable and get more work done.

So management (Matt Damon) decide to put Qohen on the big project (the one that turned Joby crazy – though Gilliam doesn’t really sell the crazy with specifics or depth.) They don’t tell Qohen what the project is, (he doesn’t care – it’s all code to him,) they just introduce him to his new system which is all designed around him, designed to support him and keep him happy and working.

Qohen’s story is fun and interesting. The world of this film is a bit less than imaginative, a little derivative. The real problem is with our protagonist – we don’t understand him. As a result we don’t care about him. If we knew from the beginning that Qohen is a guy struggling with social phobia, who used to be cool, but has given up everything fun and as a result he is a bit creepy and doesn’t know how to talk to people – this would be a start.

He doesn’t like people. But you don’t forget something like that. If he used to be cool and popular as plastic and superficial as that is, then he still knows how to be. The problem with this character is that all those conflicts and confusions are an interesting setup for a character. Finding answers to those questions, or figuring out where those arguments and puzzles lead would make for an interesting part of the story and a fully deep character. However, instead it’s all setup, no payoff.

The most annoying factor of this film, besides half-drawn characters is that this giant philosophical rant that the film is supposed to be about is scripted into boring, irrelevant, expositional dialogue.

The nice thing is the twist at the end, this with better characters could have been a really deep, personal and interesting ending. However, instead, it simply feels like Qohen made a bad choice and it’s a tragic romance – but it wasn’t supposed to be.

The ending is horrible because the character is only half-developed. Everything is a weight resting on the shoulders of Qohen – Waltz plays silly rather than sincere, and instead of performing this character – he talks about himself. As much fun as monologues can be, this is a semi-written, badly performed monologue which hides expositional dialogue and pretends to be a scifi/fantasy film.

2 stars

American Sniper (2014) – Dir: Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino, Unforgiven)

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) and his brother are cowboys from Texas. They like to fight, drink and chase women. Chris considers himself a patriot and when his life as a cowboy seems aimless, he notices the war on the news and decides that’s a cause he can get involved in. He’s thirty years old and ready to start basic training as a Navy Seal. His brother follows him into it.

Chris is a strong Texan stereotype – it’s a role he’s fallen into, partly because it’s a stereotype that he likes, but he’s also the strong, quiet, sensitive man. He meets Taya (Sienna Miller) in a pub and holds her hair back while she vomits. They bond over the experience. They get married and soon after, Chris ships off to Iraq ready to join the war.

Like many war movies, especially a lot of modern ones, few of the characters beside our protagonist are alive long enough, or interesting as individuals, to tell the difference between them. A few just barely stand out:

Biggles (Jake McDorman) is friends with Chris from early on, the actor displays a lot of personality, but there isn’t much of a unique history, or development. And he gets taken out after being on screen for only a short time and loses his sight.

Marc (Jake McDorman) benefits from a few more details as a person, but gets so little screen time that the emotion to sell the character is pushing a rock uphill.

D (Cory Hardrict) is one of the last left standing (yet the least developed of the three memorable-ish characters,) when Chris finally feels like he’s achieved his mission so he can quit the war on his terms.

Each of the other times Chris returns home, he is just killing time until he gets to go back. He struggles when he is sent home, because his mind thinks he’s still at war, every situation is a high pressure, life or death decision and as a result his health is suffering.

However, American Sniper is one of the better films of its type in this way, because while the focus is on the shock his experiences and tough choices/actions have on his mortal mind and on how he struggles to reinsert himself into civilised life when he returns from the war, Chris aka The Legend is a strong character, an emotionally complex character.

As Chris takes out bad guy after bad guy, his reputation and his prestige/command builds and improves within the military – the effects of this include an increase in control over his choices, a freedom of movement and higher priority targets.

There isn’t much time to spend on Chris’s emotional plot as the main story is already fairly complicated with his role as a sniper, the complexity of missions and choices in the war and his struggle with civilian life.

I enjoyed this movie as a war movie with something slightly more unique than the rest. It could have been explored more psychologically, or as an adventure story been made more exciting. I felt it was an average intellectual and emotional story about one man’s struggle against experiences that the audience needs to understand, in order to understand the man.

As an intellectual story it wasn’t very intellectual. As an adventure story it wasn’t smart enough. As an emotional story the characters weren’t very deep so the emotion had little to play off.

I think Cooper however, did an excellent job of portraying the emotional plot – which was strong enough, that one could get something out of this film despite its shortcomings. It does feel a bit morally superior like a bad TV movie.

The payoff for the emotional plot is the fact that it’s based on a true story and Chris eventually does seek help and return to his family so he can begin to live life, his mission over.

2.5 stars

Living on One Dollar (2013) – Dir: Ryan Christoffersen and Zach Ingrasci

What would life be like if you had to survive on one dollar per day as your only income? Four middle class, suburban, male, college students travel to a small rural village in Guatemala, called Pena Blanca, to try and answer this question. And also what would it be like to explore that world having come from a life that is so different, so privileged by comparison?

In a similar approach to Freakanomics and Gang Leader for A Day, these young men find that a real life approach to a real life problem – social economics far below the poverty line, bears much more fruit than the books they’re studying.

Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple having studied the economics of specific cultures and global economic problems, they decide to try and make a significant difference by taking the problem seriously; they challenge themselves to stay in rural Guatemala for 56 days and attempt to survive the same way the locals are forced to, as locals lack an alternative.

They live on one dollar a day as their only income. Further, one intriguing point about their experiment is that locals don’t always know how much if anything they are going to earn on any one day. So the boys decide to pull a random number from a hat $0-9, which decides their income for that period.

They bring with them two filmmakers: Ryan Christoffersen and Sean Leonard. And the four of them for their time spent, consistently sway between trying desperately to survive, while learning tools from the locals – as well as offering their own tools to those in need. And on the other side of the scale, trying to be genuine with their experiment. If they don’t discover some answers to their questions, it may be because they are not approaching the topic accurately/honestly. And at a vital point they find that they could do more, they re-establish their process. We start to discover what this all means.

Besides the experiment, some of the most useful activities inside the film project are the interviews with the people they meet. They learn what it really does mean to survive in abject poverty. They also learn the difference between an experiment and the lives of the real people who have no choice but to live with it, and who can’t go home afterwards.

Through this journey we meet the young Chino whose family can’t afford to send him to school, but he is bright and optimistic, full of energy and wishes to learn Spanish and English. His dream is to play pro soccer, but he has decided that he will be a farmer. At just twelve years old he has resigned himself to the stark reality of life in his world. And yet you’ll rarely see him not smiling.

Anthony and Rosa, with a full family of their own at 20 years old and barely more than that for Anthony, they count themselves lucky because Anthony is one of the few people who live in this community who has an official job. He is a cleaner.

We meet a local woman who wishes to become a nurse, but can’t afford to go to school. Her family couldn’t afford to send her to school when she was a child, so she works on the farm.

The key to the success of the people here are the institutions that have been built to provide micro-loans – just about the only way for these people to work out solutions to move forward with their lives, instead of every day digging a deeper hole in the mud. The ordinary bank loan system here is simply not an option.

The experiment these four boys document is intriguing, interesting and emotional. However, it feels like only one small part of the story.

2.5 stars

Top Five (2014) – Dir: Chris Rock (I Think I Love My Wife)

In this charmingly dull attempt at a subversion of the romantic comedy – we find a story that is neither funny, nor a genuine reflection of love – it is about a comedian, but it is a sad, boring film and though it does take the formula of the romance film and copy and paste structurally onto the screen, all there is to the subversive attempt is to cut off the ending.

The opening sequence of Tropic Thunder (as terrible in its cringe humour, as it is,) more thoroughly explores the themes that this film fails to do in its entire 102 minutes.

Chris Rock is Andre Allen, a successful comedy actor who got his start as a stand-up comedian. He publicly declares that he’s done doing funny movies, after a terrible popcorn trash movie, Hammy the Bear and its many sequels, loved by morons – who at last are the majority.

Some think that he’s tired of making crap films. The truth is he wants to be a serious actor because he doesn’t think he’s funny anymore, now that he’s sober.

His first attempt at being a serious actor fails miserably – a film about the uprising of slaves who murder a LOT of white people. Nobody wants to see Allen not being funny.

The core of this story is Allen being interviewed by a (very attractive) New York Times reporter (Rosario Dawson.) Allen doesn’t like reporters, but she promises to do right by him if he gives her some honest answers.

Both the reporter and Allen are alcoholics in recovery – not surprisingly this topic is not explored beyond the surface details that are well known and boring in their lack of insight/depth.

Chris Rock is playing himself, but none of his lines leave any real impact. The interview might be a great puff piece, but the questions and answers are relatively without gravity.

This film expresses nothing very well. It might try to tell a story about a guy who forgets why he loves his work. But if that’s what this film is supposed to be about, then I could let everything else go, to express that sentiment powerfully. It doesn’t. I hated Funny People (2009) but at least there was an attempt there at exploring something, although it covered a lot of the same ground.

Allen is due to be married in the morning to a vapid reality tv star. But he is falling in love with the reporter, (I’m not feeling it, either.) Will the reporter and Allen throw caution to the wind and get together? I don’t know. Do we care? No.

The guy isn’t emotionally invested in the wedding. Is this a natural guy thing? Maybe. But when Chris Rock throws a few lines about it, I don’t believe him – and you’d think being a stand-up he’d be able to rant convincingly on a topic he cares about. We’ve seen him do this plenty of times in comedy shows.

Why does he think a film doesn’t require effective expression? Why does he think when he writes the script and performs the part, that his samey same tried and true so-called story means he can’t effectively express something – an emotion, an idea, a joke, an opinion?

It isn’t explicitly stated in the film, but ‘top five’ refers to your top five favourite rappers. Mine are Rhett and Link, Eminem, Scribe, Savage, Ice T.

0 stars