The Kids Are All Right

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

---

R - 106 min - Comedy, Drama - 30 July 2010
Big Blue Sky Rating : 7.1/10

---

Director : Lisa Cholodenko
Writers : Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
Stars : Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska

Nic and Jules are in a long term, committed, loving but by no means perfect relationship. Nic, a physician, needs to wield what she believes is control, whereas Jules, under that control, is less self-assured. During their relationship, Jules has floundered in her "nine to five" life, sometimes trying to start a business - always unsuccessfully - or being the stay at home mom. She is currently trying to start a landscape design business. They have two teen-aged children, Joni and Laser, Nic who is Joni's biological mother, and Jules who is Laser's biological mother. Although not exact replicas, each offspring does more closely resemble his/her biological mother in temperament. Joni and Laser are also half-siblings, having the same unknown sperm donor father. Shortly after Joni's eighteenth birthday and shortly before she plans to leave the house and head off to college, Laser, only fifteen and underage to do so, pleads with her to try and contact their sperm donor father. Somewhat ...

Domestic Life in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

The nuclear family takes on a different spin when both parents are same sex and the kids are the product of a male sperm donor in The Kids Are All Right. When traumatic upheaval and revelations strike such a family, the results can be amusing and also tragic. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore highlight an insightful script about domesticity turned on its head.

Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore) are lesbian parents of two teens, Joni and Laser. One day the children research and contact their biological father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo), who agrees to meet his progeny. After an awkward first meeting, things actually go well as the new family connections are explored by the kids and their newly found father. The couple of Nic and Jules are a contrast; Nic is the physician who is totally controlling while Jules is still trying to find herself with a new business of landscaping. Laser hangs with the wrong crowd and begins to realize that he deserves better through his bond with Paul. Joni is trying to assert herself as an adult and prepares to go to college. The moms show a parental responsibility to watch over their children and want to meet the dad. When Paul hires Jules to do work on his restaurant landscape, the two connect. As Paul's influence begins to overcome the family, Nic feels left out. But there is an attraction between Jules and Paul that leads to a torrid affair, and when Nic discovers the truth, the family is torn apart. Into this mix are two maturing children whose emotions will be tested throughout.

The roles are well acted especially by Benning as a betrayed spouse, and in particular, her scene of revelation about Jules is a marvel of expressiveness and devastating heartbreak. This culminates in a powerful moment with all the principals present at Paul's dinner table. Moore gives solid support and shines in her heartfelt plea to her family near the end. The ensemble is well cast particularly Ruffalo whose almost bystander role is suddenly elevated to catalyst and disruptor of the family's dynamic.

The story has a nice balance of serious tones and comedic elements born out of the situations. The themes work on several levels like ingredients of a zesty recipe: the family chemistry, the couple of Nic and Jules, the kids' developing bond with Paul, Paul and Jules, and shake and mix well. Everyone has needs and wants, and the strongest is a need to belong to a family and the need to connect with another human being whether it be Laser and his friends, Paul and Jules, Paul and his children, and Nic and Jules. Amid the conflicts, no one escapes unscathed. There are no real heroes or villains here, only hard truths about life and relationships.

The fact that two lesbians are having the conflict over infidelity may seem novel on the surface, but it could easily have been a heterosexual couple. In fact the notion of two lesbians virtually disappears as we witness and understand this family unit with its warts and all. It could be any family when you think about it. The fact that both Benning and Moore play their respective spousal roles so convincingly is a testament to their acting skills playing off an excellent script by Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko, who also directs. The ending rings true and shows not only how far the relationships have come, but how that foundation, despite some serious challenges, is strong enough to survive. Life moves on, and there is hope for the future.

There are not a lot of loose ends in this story although, toward the end, it would be nice to get a bit more resolution to Ruffalo's character. The film does contains a couple of brief explicit sex scenes without which this would essentially be a PG rated film. There is little to quibble about, and the viewer gets to experience one of the more insightful domestic dramas in recent years.

Watch The Kids Are All Right Trailer :

OR

Don Jon

Don Jon (2013)

---

R - 90 min - Comedy, Drama - 27 September 2013
Big Blue Sky Rating : 7.3/10

---

Director : Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Writers : Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Stars : Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Tony Danza

Jon Martello objectifies everything in his life: his apartment, his car, his family, his church, and, of course, women. His buddies even call him Don Jon because of his ability to pull "10s" every weekend without fail. Yet even the finest flings don't compare to the transcendent bliss he achieves alone in front of the computer watching pornography. Dissatisfied, he embarks on a journey to find a more gratifying sex life, but ends up learning larger lessons of life and love through relationships with two very different women.

Don Jon

Don Jon, was a film that I had to be a little patient with. What first started as a vulgar, raucous and teen oriented film having little more than jokes involving perverseness and sexual humour and was something that I figured I had wasted my money on, turned out to completely surprise me and ended up as one of my favourite films of this year. Yes, the film does have a lot of sexual humour and content in it, but it has some reason to, seeing as the film is dealing with addiction to pornography. And what may have seemed immature and like teenage humour for the first little bit of the film, soon went away and it became one of the most insightful and intelligent films of the year. I have heard the comparisons to this film from 2011's Steve McQueen directed film, Shame which is also about sexual addiction. Unfortunately, I have not seen Shame yet. I missed it at theatres and every time I go to the library to rent it, it is out, so for obvious reasons I can not compare the two of them. Don Jon, did have a lot to say both about young men and women, sex and relationships. It's the kind of film you would almost want younger teens to see in order to learn something and perhaps plan their own lives and future relationships a little more differently. Here the internet pornography sites serve as a form of escape for this main character and while he likes being around women, he can not connect with them in the same way as he feels he can with things he sees on the computer. This further complicates things for himself because what we see on the internet and in magazines often times are things that are made to look perfect, beautiful and however you want to put it, but other than just looking at it, there is no real connection, or relationship to it. It is hollow and empty and void of any emotional connection or feelings to another person. Perhaps that is why this character can not relate to real women. Everything up to now has been completely empty and void of any feeling, or connection and in his mind if he doesn't have to attach himself in any way to a real woman, he wonders what the point of that is. Throughout the course of the film, our lead character, Jon, meets two very different women, who will both change his outlook and outcome of his way of handling relationships and finding truer meaning to both himself and others as well. The film while crude and a little graphic at times, is far more into psychological and character study than one may think and it is one of the most insightful and accurate looks at young, or basically any type of relationships that I have seen in a long time. Jon, is with one woman who seems to be his dream woman, but right from the start we do not really like her, or at least I didn't. She herself had an unrealistic view of relationships that was more about status symbols and image than about real love for one another as well. The other woman we meet knows more about relationships and more about Jon himself than he may want to admit, or care for her to know, but there is a whole different type of connection and intimacy level there. The film shows that so often young men treat women as sexual objects and fantasies and actually how we can be so demeaning and almost sexist towards them. At the same time, this selfish attitude hurts other people and ourselves because we can not truly ever find anything that is real if we continue on this way because everything has to be perfect, or just like it is on movies, magazines, or the internet and it gives us a false distortion of reality, relationships and other people. The film is the first film written and directed by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt whose acting has impressed me over the years, especially in films like Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin. Now he shows that he can not only act, but write and direct as well. The film has moments of laugh out loud humour, but it also has a tender and emotional side to it as well. It examines these people and what is really behind them and the hurts, or the things they have been through and it is honest both about men, women and relationships in general. As the film ended, I could totally understand the way the film ended and why Levitt, decided to do it in that way. It felt realistic for his character, but at the same time also connected to beauty and happiness. I enjoyed the screenplay and direction immensely as well as the performances were all quite good as well. I liked the quick jump cut editing and the film's use of music in certain scenes, I felt worked really well also. I know some viewers will be turned off by the material and subject matter, but it really is a film worth seeing if you are in a relationship, or even if you are not and this is a film that definitely has something to say. I look forward to future writing and directing projects for Levitt, and as it stands Don Jon, is one of 2013's best and maybe most misunderstood films as well.

Watch Don Jon Trailer :

OR

Carrie

Carrie (2013)

---

R - 99 min - Drama, Horror - 18 October 2013
Big Blue Sky Rating : 6.9/10

---

Director : Kimberly Peirce
Writers : Lawrence D. Cohen, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Stars : Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Portia Doubleday

A reimagining of the classic horror tale about Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz), a shy girl outcast by her peers and sheltered by her deeply religious mother (Julianne Moore), who unleashes telekinetic terror on her small town after being pushed too far at her senior prom. Based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King, Carrie is directed by Kimberly Peirce with a screenplay by Lawrence D. Cohen and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

Watch Carrie Trailer :

OR

Children of Men

Children of Men (2006)

---

R - 109 min - Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller - 5 January 2007
Big Blue Sky Rating : 7.9/10

---

Director : Alfonso Cuarón
Writers : Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton
Stars : Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine

The world's youngest citizen has just died at 18, and humankind is facing the likelihood of its own extinction. Set in and around a dystopian London fractious with violence and warring nationalistic sects, Children of Men follows the unexpected discovery of a lone pregnant woman and the desperate journey to deliver her to safety and restore faith for a future beyond those presently on Earth.

A thinking person's thriller

Alfonso Cuaron has given us a very clever rendering of a very English dystopian novel. P D James, the "Baroness of Bad" is famous for her well-written and absorbing police procedural novels ("Inspector Dalgliesh") but in the early 90s she produced a vision of a world only 20 years into the future in which for unspecified reasons all the women on earth have become infertile and no babies have been born for the last 18 years.

The rest of the world has lapsed into chaos but the British, stoically, have put the remainder of their civil liberties into the fire and have settled down under an oppressive dictatorship to ward off foreign boarders and await inevitable extinction, though there are some violent dissidents called the fish.

Theo (Clive Owen), a journalist with connections to the top, is "persuaded" by his ex-wife and fish member Julian (Julianne Moore) to obtain some exit papers for Kee (Claire Hope Ashity) a young black woman, who, it turns out, is pregnant. Theo is swept up in Kee's escape across a grim decaying landscape. Not only are there the security forces to contend with, but some equally ruthless insurgents. Cuaron builds the tension exquisitely, interspersing the adrenaline fueled bits with quieter bits.

Kee' projected saviors are a mysterious group called the Human Project who conveniently sail their well-maintained Greenpeace style ex-North Sea fishing trawler past offshore light buoys in the hope of rescuing the human race. But the improbability of this doesn't matter much because by the end of the movie Cuaron has effectively demonstrated what the world would be like if humankind suddenly stopped reproducing. Having children is our way of cheating death, without them there is nothing but death, and in this future there are none about but the living dead.

The casting is pretty well perfect. Clive Owen as Theo puts his haunted good looks to good use as he turns from cynical reporter to a hunted enemy of the state. The motley characters he meets along the way – his ex-wife, the fish rebels, the refugees who help him, the "fascist pig" border guard and above all Michael Caine's aging hippie are all wonderfully realized.

It has been suggested that Cuaron has really made a film about today, not 20 years into the future. The rampaging security forces we see might as well be in Bosnia or Iraq, or even Northern Ireland. In an age of terrorism, order without law very quickly becomes tyranny, which has never been the answer to terrorism. What he and PD James do demonstrate is just how fragile our civil society is.

As a film this is a very fine piece of work. The sets exude grimy Britain, the battles are hair-raising, the quieter moments intense. Cuaron would do a great James Bond movie. He has turned a rather rarefied novel into an exiting and engrossing thriller without obscuring the original message. He is a very versatile and enterprising film-maker and I'm sure he's going to do lots more good stuff.

Watch Children of Men Trailer :

OR

The Kids Are All Right

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

---

R - 106 min - Comedy, Drama - 30 July 2010
Big Blue Sky Rating : 7.1/10

---

Director : Lisa Cholodenko
Writers : Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
Stars : Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska

Nic and Jules are in a long term, committed, loving but by no means perfect relationship. Nic, a physician, needs to wield what she believes is control, whereas Jules, under that control, is less self-assured. During their relationship, Jules has floundered in her "nine to five" life, sometimes trying to start a business - always unsuccessfully - or being the stay at home mom. She is currently trying to start a landscape design business. They have two teen-aged children, Joni and Laser, Nic who is Joni's biological mother, and Jules who is Laser's biological mother. Although not exact replicas, each offspring does more closely resemble his/her biological mother in temperament. Joni and Laser are also half-siblings, having the same unknown sperm donor father. Shortly after Joni's eighteenth birthday and shortly before she plans to leave the house and head off to college, Laser, only fifteen and underage to do so, pleads with her to try and contact their sperm donor father. Somewhat ...

Domestic Life in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

The nuclear family takes on a different spin when both parents are same sex and the kids are the product of a male sperm donor in The Kids Are All Right. When traumatic upheaval and revelations strike such a family, the results can be amusing and also tragic. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore highlight an insightful script about domesticity turned on its head.

Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore) are lesbian parents of two teens, Joni and Laser. One day the children research and contact their biological father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo), who agrees to meet his progeny. After an awkward first meeting, things actually go well as the new family connections are explored by the kids and their newly found father. The couple of Nic and Jules are a contrast; Nic is the physician who is totally controlling while Jules is still trying to find herself with a new business of landscaping. Laser hangs with the wrong crowd and begins to realize that he deserves better through his bond with Paul. Joni is trying to assert herself as an adult and prepares to go to college. The moms show a parental responsibility to watch over their children and want to meet the dad. When Paul hires Jules to do work on his restaurant landscape, the two connect. As Paul's influence begins to overcome the family, Nic feels left out. But there is an attraction between Jules and Paul that leads to a torrid affair, and when Nic discovers the truth, the family is torn apart. Into this mix are two maturing children whose emotions will be tested throughout.

The roles are well acted especially by Benning as a betrayed spouse, and in particular, her scene of revelation about Jules is a marvel of expressiveness and devastating heartbreak. This culminates in a powerful moment with all the principals present at Paul's dinner table. Moore gives solid support and shines in her heartfelt plea to her family near the end. The ensemble is well cast particularly Ruffalo whose almost bystander role is suddenly elevated to catalyst and disruptor of the family's dynamic.

The story has a nice balance of serious tones and comedic elements born out of the situations. The themes work on several levels like ingredients of a zesty recipe: the family chemistry, the couple of Nic and Jules, the kids' developing bond with Paul, Paul and Jules, and shake and mix well. Everyone has needs and wants, and the strongest is a need to belong to a family and the need to connect with another human being whether it be Laser and his friends, Paul and Jules, Paul and his children, and Nic and Jules. Amid the conflicts, no one escapes unscathed. There are no real heroes or villains here, only hard truths about life and relationships.

The fact that two lesbians are having the conflict over infidelity may seem novel on the surface, but it could easily have been a heterosexual couple. In fact the notion of two lesbians virtually disappears as we witness and understand this family unit with its warts and all. It could be any family when you think about it. The fact that both Benning and Moore play their respective spousal roles so convincingly is a testament to their acting skills playing off an excellent script by Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko, who also directs. The ending rings true and shows not only how far the relationships have come, but how that foundation, despite some serious challenges, is strong enough to survive. Life moves on, and there is hope for the future.

There are not a lot of loose ends in this story although, toward the end, it would be nice to get a bit more resolution to Ruffalo's character. The film does contains a couple of brief explicit sex scenes without which this would essentially be a PG rated film. There is little to quibble about, and the viewer gets to experience one of the more insightful domestic dramas in recent years.

Watch The Kids Are All Right Trailer :

OR

Don Jon

Don Jon (2013)

---

R - 90 min - Comedy, Drama - 27 September 2013
Big Blue Sky Rating : 7.3/10

---

Director : Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Writers : Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Stars : Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Tony Danza

Jon Martello objectifies everything in his life: his apartment, his car, his family, his church, and, of course, women. His buddies even call him Don Jon because of his ability to pull "10s" every weekend without fail. Yet even the finest flings don't compare to the transcendent bliss he achieves alone in front of the computer watching pornography. Dissatisfied, he embarks on a journey to find a more gratifying sex life, but ends up learning larger lessons of life and love through relationships with two very different women.

Don Jon

Don Jon, was a film that I had to be a little patient with. What first started as a vulgar, raucous and teen oriented film having little more than jokes involving perverseness and sexual humour and was something that I figured I had wasted my money on, turned out to completely surprise me and ended up as one of my favourite films of this year. Yes, the film does have a lot of sexual humour and content in it, but it has some reason to, seeing as the film is dealing with addiction to pornography. And what may have seemed immature and like teenage humour for the first little bit of the film, soon went away and it became one of the most insightful and intelligent films of the year. I have heard the comparisons to this film from 2011's Steve McQueen directed film, Shame which is also about sexual addiction. Unfortunately, I have not seen Shame yet. I missed it at theatres and every time I go to the library to rent it, it is out, so for obvious reasons I can not compare the two of them. Don Jon, did have a lot to say both about young men and women, sex and relationships. It's the kind of film you would almost want younger teens to see in order to learn something and perhaps plan their own lives and future relationships a little more differently. Here the internet pornography sites serve as a form of escape for this main character and while he likes being around women, he can not connect with them in the same way as he feels he can with things he sees on the computer. This further complicates things for himself because what we see on the internet and in magazines often times are things that are made to look perfect, beautiful and however you want to put it, but other than just looking at it, there is no real connection, or relationship to it. It is hollow and empty and void of any emotional connection or feelings to another person. Perhaps that is why this character can not relate to real women. Everything up to now has been completely empty and void of any feeling, or connection and in his mind if he doesn't have to attach himself in any way to a real woman, he wonders what the point of that is. Throughout the course of the film, our lead character, Jon, meets two very different women, who will both change his outlook and outcome of his way of handling relationships and finding truer meaning to both himself and others as well. The film while crude and a little graphic at times, is far more into psychological and character study than one may think and it is one of the most insightful and accurate looks at young, or basically any type of relationships that I have seen in a long time. Jon, is with one woman who seems to be his dream woman, but right from the start we do not really like her, or at least I didn't. She herself had an unrealistic view of relationships that was more about status symbols and image than about real love for one another as well. The other woman we meet knows more about relationships and more about Jon himself than he may want to admit, or care for her to know, but there is a whole different type of connection and intimacy level there. The film shows that so often young men treat women as sexual objects and fantasies and actually how we can be so demeaning and almost sexist towards them. At the same time, this selfish attitude hurts other people and ourselves because we can not truly ever find anything that is real if we continue on this way because everything has to be perfect, or just like it is on movies, magazines, or the internet and it gives us a false distortion of reality, relationships and other people. The film is the first film written and directed by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt whose acting has impressed me over the years, especially in films like Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin. Now he shows that he can not only act, but write and direct as well. The film has moments of laugh out loud humour, but it also has a tender and emotional side to it as well. It examines these people and what is really behind them and the hurts, or the things they have been through and it is honest both about men, women and relationships in general. As the film ended, I could totally understand the way the film ended and why Levitt, decided to do it in that way. It felt realistic for his character, but at the same time also connected to beauty and happiness. I enjoyed the screenplay and direction immensely as well as the performances were all quite good as well. I liked the quick jump cut editing and the film's use of music in certain scenes, I felt worked really well also. I know some viewers will be turned off by the material and subject matter, but it really is a film worth seeing if you are in a relationship, or even if you are not and this is a film that definitely has something to say. I look forward to future writing and directing projects for Levitt, and as it stands Don Jon, is one of 2013's best and maybe most misunderstood films as well.

Watch Don Jon Trailer :

OR