Wow! It's amazing what you can do when you're not at Value Village every waking moment buying costumes! I saw two movies yesterday (and read and went Christmas shopping - aargh! -- and cheered Anthony's hockey team to victory -- all that good stuff).
We had family movie night and watched "42" about Jackie Robinson, who was the player who broke the colour barrier in Major League Baseball. I have read the reviews that said that Harrison Ford stole the show and the guy who played Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) had to be the "strong, silent type" and suffer in silence. I do agree that Harrison Ford was terrific as Branch Rickey, but I think that Chadwick Boseman was not just the silent sufferer. Apparently, Rickey told Jackie Robinson that he would have to control his temper and that people would do everything they could to rile him and distract him and take him out of his game, so he made a deal that he would make his point on the field and he did. I "wikipedia'd" the real story of Jackie Robinson after we watched the movie and a lot of it actually happened, like the barrage of hatred from the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies and the public support from Peewee Reese in Cincinnati and the motivations behind Branch Rickey's determination to desegregate Major League Baseball. It is a powerful story and very shocking from my perspective. It is hard to believe that people could be so hateful and Mike found it really disturbing. I wonder what it's like now in the Southern States. It must be better, but I wonder. I have no desire to visit there.
I also watched "Carnage" which is based on the play "God of Carnage" directed by Roman Polanski. Two couples meet to discuss an incident of bullying which occurred between their two sons. It was performed by the White Rock players this year in the Fraser Valley District theatre festival and I think I remember hearing that, at first, the company didn't realize that it was a comedy. It would be easy to take it seriously because the two couples reveal a lot about themselves over the course of the afternoon and, in the end, neither marriage comes across as being particularly successful -- the subject matter is rather serious: which boy is actually the instigator of the conflict? are people inherently violent? is civilization a guise? are parents the root of their children's character? can we approach conflict rationally? I think, with comedy and serious drama, the main focus should be playing your character honestly and letting the audience decide whether it's funny or not. It isn't a belly-laugh kind of comedy anyway. It is a comedy based on the truth of the characters, but there are certainly strong comic elements -- the lawyer's attachment to his Blackberry, the abandonment of the hamster, the writer's prissy superiority, the cobbler, etc. I really enjoyed it, although it is quite static (often the case when a play becomes a movie) and you wonder why Zachary's parents keep staying, even though they are increasingly annoyed by Ethan's parents and they both have jobs and say they can't stay. Anthony watched it intermittently and when it was near the end, he said, "so nothing has really happened at all through the whole movie?" I guess from his 14 year old point of view, if nothing blows up or nobody dies, nothing happens.
The movie reminds me of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" which is also about two couples (Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Sandy Dennis and George Segal) who get together in a rather civil atmosphere and gradually find things descending into rage and chaos. It is in black and white (by choice, all you people who think that colour is essential for a modern movie - tsk!) and is a hoot for actors to play and ends in one of those great absurdist Edward Albee (the playwright) flourishes with a surprise baby who may or may not exist. Read "The American Dream" by Edward Albee if you want a shock.
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