Movie Review—Room

Room

by Peter J. O'Connell

Room. Released: Oct. 2015. Runtime: 118 mins. Rating: R for language.

Room is a horror story and a love story. The love is that between a mother (Brie Larson) and her child (Jacob Tremblay). The horror is the world in which Ma and Jack are forced to live. That world is a 10-by-10-foot room, actually a shed, in the backyard of Old Nick's house.

Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) abducted Ma when she was 17 and imprisoned her in the room, periodically raping her. At 19 she gave birth to Jack, who is having his fifth birthday when the movie begins. 

Though a prison, the room is not exactly a cell. It is soundproofed, and a high skylight is its only window, but it does have some minimal, beat-up furniture, plumbing and appliances. The general; “ambience” is that of a very small and rundown studio apartment in a bad neighborhood. From time to time, Old Nick—who actually appears to be in his 30s—unlocks the shed and leaves a few groceries, toys, books and other items. Sometimes he rapes Ma; sometimes he beats her.

Ma courageously—and tenderly—attempts to make life as normal as possible for her growing son under the abnormal circumstances. She is creative and imaginative in educating and caring for him. Jack is quite intelligent and curious about their circumstances, their past and the nature of the outside world. He has reached the stage, though, where he now wants to know the difference between the stories that his mother told him to entertain and comfort him when he was younger and what is “really real.”

Ma has tried to escape several times in the past, but she realizes that, because of the point that Jack has reached in his development, she must make an even more resourceful attempt now, even if only Jack can escape. Amid excruciating suspense, that attempt is made.

It would be unfair to those who have not yet seen this intriguing and affecting film—directed by Lenny Abrahamson, with a screenplay by Emma Donoghue from her novel—to go into more plot detail. Suffice it to say that Room powerfully points out that there can be psychological as well as physical “rooms” and that love—being able to receive it as well as give it—is the greatest aid for escape to full freedom.   

In recent years a psycho's imprisonment of an abductee has become a somewhat frequent meme in horror and crime movies and TV shows. This meme—based, sadly, on too many incidents in real life—is too often treated in an exploitative manner. That is definitely not the case with Room. Lenny Abrahamson's circumspect direction of Emma Donoghue's quality screenplay and the superb performances of Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay prevent that.

Larson's expressive face has an amazing capacity to convey several emotions—say, love, fear, anger—at the same time. And Tremblay's performance is one of the best ever given by a child actor. The movie itself and Abrahamson, Donoghue and Larson all have received Oscar nominations (richly deserved). Tremblay also should have received one.

“Footnote” to the film: Though she is little-known, Brie Larson has generated so much buzz for her performance in Room, a low-budget film with only a few characters, that she has been cast as the female lead in the massively budgeted spectacle Kong: Skull Island, slated for release later this year.

Grandfather scammed out of $300,000 by online 'girlfriend'

A Perth grandfather has lost over $300,000 in an online romance scam.

The 80-year-old reversed his mortgage to send money overseas to a woman posing as his online girlfriend.

The scam is one of many ways international criminals are finding to target Australians.Click here to read more.

Rosemary Garlic Parmesan Sweet Potato Casserole

From the Bangor Daily News

For a while there, we fell into a bit of a dinnertime rut. Favorite dishes started appearing more and more, with little else hitting the menu. It became a time of too many marinated, roasted chicken breasts, a startling number of tacos and more batches of cilantro lime rice than I care to admit to.

I mean, sure, we enjoyed all the foods served, but it was just too predictable and repetitive. Time for a change.

But change of any kind can be a challenge. The longer you remain in the space of same, the harder it is to let go and do something different — whether it’s your eating habits, career or something else.

So last week, determined to break out of the rut, I reached for a new cookbook. Considering that I don’t often cook from cookbooks, that was a big change. While I have dozens of cookbooks on bookshelves in my house, I usually spend more time reading from them than actually cooking from them.

But when I pulled a vegetarian volume from the shelf, I found a pasta recipe that I thought we’d all enjoy. It combined roasted cauliflower with roasted garlic, lemon and other flavors. With big flavor enrobing pasta, it delivered everything I needed: something different, something fresh and something so memorable I nearly made it again a few days later. Sometimes, all it takes is a little step forward — like taking a book from the shelf — to kickstart a change in your life. Or, at least in your eating life.

Determined to keep up the momentum, I’ve since made a half dozen other different dishes — pancakes, hash browns, omelets, chicken dishes and potatoes — playing with recipe ideas I have floating in my head.

It’s the potatoes that I’ve spent the most time with those. Sweet potatoes, red potatoes, russets … we love them all. Using a mandoline, I started slicing them into thin rounds for potato casseroles. Some had onions. Some had big amounts of garlic. Others were cheesier.

I won’t tell you how many casseroles it took to get to the right flavors but after much testing, retesting and tasting, this is the one to try. It’s a savory Rosemary Garlic Parmesan Sweet Potato Casserole — one that everyone who’s tasted has enjoyed.

Before you back away from the sweet potatoes or cringe at the use of cheese, hear me out.

Forget what you know about sweet potatoes, sweet potato casseroles and casseroles in general. There are no marshmallows here. And this vegetarian dish isn’t heavy, filled with cream of whatever soup or laden with fatty ingredients.

No, this casserole is simple. Thinly sliced sweet potatoes are layered with garlic, rosemary, parsley, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. A touch of vegetable stock adds moistness to it. And then it bakes, with those layers of flavor come together in a tender, herbed casserole that would be lovely with a pork roast, a roast chicken or even just with a runny egg on top.

 Click here for the recipe

Movie Review—Brooklyn

Brooklyn

  

by Peter J. O’Connell

Brooklyn. Released: Nov. 2015. Runtime: 111 mins. Rating: PG-13 for a scene of sexuality and brief strong language.

Brooklyn is the story of a young woman torn between two countries and two loves. The film is directed by John Crowley, with a screenplay by Nick Hornby, based on the novel by Colm Toibin.

The young woman is Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan). It’s 1952, and Eilis lives in Enniscourthy, a small town in Ireland, with her mother and sister. Eilis works in a small store with a nasty woman as her boss. Eilis is quite intelligent but rather reserved. She does, however, make mocking comments about the scions of the town’s few wealthy families when the young men come to a dance. Though she is reserved, Eilis is also restless in the constricted lifestyle of Enniscourthy. So when an offer arrives from a family friend, Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), a kindly priest now in Brooklyn, to find Eilis a job and accommodations there, Eilis makes the momentous decision to emigrate.

In Brooklyn the job is as a salesclerk in a department store. Eilis has to be mentored by her boss (Jessica Pare) on how to engage in the outgoing American-style of salesmanship, but she gradually picks up on it. Her accommodations are in a boarding house for young women run by Mrs. Keogh (Julie Walter), also Irish. The young women mentor Eilis in the “young women things” of 1952 Brooklyn, and Mrs. Keogh also adds her more conservative advice, often in an inadvertently humorous way.

Father Flood senses that Eilis is starting to think of improving her situation in the land of opportunity, so he has her enroll in a bookkeeping class at Brooklyn College. Eilis thinks that she might like to become an accountant, although she knows that there are few women in the field at that time.

These promising developments in Eilis’ life become even more so when she meets Tony (Emory Cohen), a plumber, at a dance in her parish hall. The dance scene is a good example of the film’s fine sense of place and period, particularly the degree of assimilation prevailing in the neighborhood of many immigrants. A traditional Irish song is played, and a jazzier song, and a slow dance tune, and “The Yellow Rose of Texas”!

Tony falls deeply in love with Eilis, who loves him back, though not as deeply. Eilis has to adjust to the fact that Tony is not Irish, or even Irish-American, but Italian-American and blue-collar rather than white-collar, like an accountant. Some humorous scenes result as Eilis has to be taught how to eat Italian food before visiting Tony’s family and then has to deal with an account of fighting between Irish and Italian youth.

The romance between Eilis and Tony flourishes, though. At one point Tony takes Eilis to an area of open, uninhabited fields on Long Island and says that he and his family are going to move there and advance themselves by becoming contractors and real estate developers. Then he proposes to Eilis. She accepts.

Not long after, however, a tragedy occurs necessitating Eilis’ return to Ireland. Before she leaves, however, the lovestruck Tony persuades her to marry him in a civil ceremony that they will try to keep secret until events can be sorted out.

But once Eilis is back in Ireland, events conspire to keep her there longer than she had planned, long enough for her to meet Jim (Domhnall Gleeson), one of the scions whom she had mocked before leaving for America. Now, however, she finds Jim to be attractive—and he her.

Eilis begins to consider whether she should, in fact, return to America. Sights and sounds cause her to compare and contrast the two countries and the men in her life representative of each. For example, she goes with Jim to an extensive Irish beach, beautiful but completely empty, except for the couple and their two friends. In Brooklyn she had gone with Tony to funky Coney Island, full of crowds and fun. But. she wonders: Will those open fields in Long Island ever really become covered with houses filled with families?

The choice Eilis faces is, to use a phrase of recent years, between the “known known” (Ireland—a familiar but constricted way of life) and the “known unknown” (America—land of opportunity, and uncertainty). Eventually, there is a revelatory encounter that leads Eilis to make her choice.

Saoirse Ronan—tall, pale, somewhat long-faced—is not conventionally beautiful in the Hollywood sense, but she does emanate a kind of quiet charisma that makes her vey appealing and is perfectly suited to her character. She richly deserves her Oscar nomination for Best Actress. The supporting cast is also quite good. The direction by John Crowley is low-key in a cinematographic sense, but Crowley’s handling of his fine cast is itself fine work.

Brooklyn is a story of an immigrant who does not, as many immigrants did, have to face exploitation and discrimination, but who did have to make some difficult choices. It is an Irish story, an American story, a woman’s story, a human story. It deserves its Best Picture nomination. You should see it.

“Footnotes” to the film: (1) In recent months a number of films in distribution at the same time have had overlapping themes or situations in an almost “compare and contrast” way. For example, Carol and Brooklyn are both love stories (of different types) set in New York City in 1952-1953 and involving a reserved young woman who works in a department store. (2) The attraction of Italian-American men to Irish or Irish-American women definitely was an aspect of American ethnic history in the mid-twentieth century. (3) Apparently, a TV series is being developed based on Brooklyn’s boarding house and starring Julie 

Movie Review—Carol

Carol

by Peter J. O'Connell

Carol. Released: Jan. 2016. Runtime: 118 mins. Rating: R for a scene of sexuality/nudity and brief language. 

Sometimes literature teachers will give students copies of some of the poems of Sappho of Lesbos without her name attached and ask the students to describe the poems. Some will say that they are poems from a man to a woman. Some will say that they are poems from a woman to a man. Some will say that they are poems from a man to a man. Some will say that they are poems from a woman to a woman. But all will say that they are love poems. The point of the poems is love, not the sexes/genders involved. 

This, too, is the point of Carol, a film directed by Todd Haynes from a screenplay by Phyllis Nagy, based on the novel The Price of Salt (1952) by Patricia Highsmith. It would be more accurate to title the movie Carol and Therese, for it tells the story of the relationship that emerged between these two women at a time when such a relationship was dubbed “the love that dare not speak its name.” 

It's Christmas time 1952 when Carol (Cate Blanchett) first meets Therese (Rooney Mara). Therese is a rather reserved young woman wearing a Santa elf's hat and working in a New York department store amid toys, dolls and dollhouses. (Those dollhouses should ring a bell among those familiar with the plays of Henrik Ibsen.) In a sense, Therese is herself just an elf in a workshop or a doll on a shelf. She is in a lackluster relationship with her boyfriend (Richard Semco), but doesn't know how to liven it up—or, perhaps, she may not even want to try. She also hopes to leave the department store and get a job as a photographer for a major publication, but she doesn't know how to overcome the obstacles to that goal for a woman at that time. 

For her part, Carol is a somewhat older woman, living in a well-off suburb but feeling trapped in a deteriorating marriage with her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler). Harge loves Carol despite the fact that he believes she has tendencies to lesbianism. Both the parents have a great love for their young daughter (Sadie Heim). 

When Carol and Therese meet in the department store, both feel an attraction stirring between them. After Carol leaves something behind in the store and Therese returns it, the attraction begins to develop into a relationship. Carol sees the possibility of fulfilling desires that she has long felt but seldom acted on. Therese begins to realize that she, in fact, has desires that she has not hitherto been fully aware of. One thing leads to another, and the two women end up together on a road trip to middle America. During the course of the trip, they tenderly fulfill their now strong physical passion for each other. . However, at a motel in the quaint but ominously named town of Waterloo, Iowa, they have an encounter with a stranger (Tommy Tucker), which at first seems merely quirky but will soon become extremely important. It is so important, in fact, that it causes Carol to leave Therese behind, heartbroken in the heartland.

Carol then becomes enmeshed in divorce proceedings instituted by Harge and aimed at depriving her of custodianship of her beloved daughter—if she should have a lesbian relationship. In the meantime, Therese manages to get a job at The New York Times, but not as a photographer, just as a secretary to male journalists. Events reach a climax as Carol seeks to persuade Harge, who she feels is not really a  

cruel person, to allow her contact with her daughter, even if Carol becomes “who she really is” and enters into a lesbian relationship. And Carol desperately hopes that Therese will be willing to rekindle their love affair. Suspense mounts as Therese struggles to decide what to do about Carol's plea to reunite.

Cate Blanchett's 25-year career on stage and screen (big and small) has seen her give many outstanding performances and brought her many awards, including two Oscars. This year she has been nominated (Best Actress) for another Oscar for Carol. She richly deserves the nom, for her performance strikes just the right balance, a delicate one, between strength and vulnerability. Rooney Mara also has been nominated, as Best Supporting Actress, and she, too, richly deserves the nomination. (Her role, of course, is actually a costarring one rather than a “supporting” one.) Rooney grows, with perfect modulation, her character's arc from shyness to passion to a conflicted state about what decision to make when that choice will shape her whole future life. The rest of the cast that director Haynes has chosen is also fine, particularly Kyle Chandler as Harge. Though he causes Carol pain, Harge, as portrayed by Chandler, is not at all a villain. His own pain comes through as a motivation for his actions. 

Haynes is as well served by the cinematography of Edward Loehman as he is by his cast. The film's palette is subdued, and its framing of spaces has a constricted quality. This approach is well-suited to the theme of the film—quiet struggles against both socially and psychologically imposed limits on love. And, too, the film's excellent sense of period and place is helped by the fact that some of the scenes evoke the work of classic photographers of the time and also the paintings of Edward Hopper.

Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt was the first American novel to present a positive view of lesbianism. Highsmith, however, is even more noted for her psychological thrillers, such as Strangers on a Train (1950) and the Ripley series. (Alfred Hitchcock made a classic film noir of Strangers.) In a sense, Carol is a film noir as well as a love story. The dark genre's tropes of rainy city streets at night, flight from entrapment, dangerous chance encounters, etc., are in evidence.

Last, but definitely not least, among the things about Carol to applaud is the plaintively beautiful score by Carter Burwell.

“Footnotes” to the film: (1) Todd Haynes also directed Far From Heaven (2002), a film about a woman in the Hartford suburbs who has to deal with the belated recognition that her husband is gay. (2) Carol is set in late 1952 and early 1953, an important period in gay American history. That was when the American Psychiatric Association for the first time listed homosexuality as a mental disorder (a listing lifted in 1973). It was also the time when the federal government determined that homosexuals could not receive security clearances and should be denied or removed from jobs requiring them. (A restriction now long ended.) It was the time when the second volume of the Kinsey Report appeared. According to Kinsey, homosexual encounters were much more prevalent than commonly believed. And it was also the time when a revival of Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour, which has a plot involving lesbianism, appeared on Broadway to large audiences and critical acclaim. One can imagine Carol and Therese going to see it!   

    

The Thoroughly Modern 'Sixties

Technical progress has slowed, some claim. Life around 1910, when many homes still lacked electricity, was primitive compared to the 1960's. Five decades later, we have computers and smartphones, but really, are we living much better than they did in the 'Sixties?

You couldn't Skype in 1966. But as the Bell System boasted, you could talk with most anyone, anywhere, who had a telephone.

Winter recreation? In 1966 the new adult toy of choice was the snowmobile, featured in this Chase Manhattan ad.

All in all, life in 1966 was pretty good, if you didn't mind hippies or second-hand cigarette smoke.

Movie Review—13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

by Peter J. O'Connell

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Released: Jan. 2016. Runtime: 144 mins. Rating: R for strong combat violence throughout, bloody images, and language. 

A tattered U.S. flag floats in a filthy pool filled with debris. This is one of the concluding images of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. That may be the ultimate fate physically of this particular flag, but in a symbolic sense that flag, like the one at Fort McHenry in 1814, flew proudly “through the perilous fight.” It is the flag that flew over a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, where on the night of September 11, 2012, a small band of American warriors fought off wave after wave of  attacking Islamists. 

The warriors were “security contractors,” civilians but veterans of the Navy SEALS, Army Rangers and the Marine Corps. Their job was to protect a clandestine CIA outpost located near the U.S. diplomatic compound in tense, teeming Benghazi during the chaotic aftermath of the overthrow of dictator Moammar Khadafy.

13 Hours is directed by Michael Bay, previously noted mainly for the popular but critically reviled Transformers series of computer-game-style movies. Though 13 Hours is action filled, it is grittily realistic rather than a fantasy film. 

The film begins with the arrival of Jim Silva (John Krasinski) in Benghazi in July of 2012. Incidents that occur even before Silva gets to his post establish that danger is everywhere. However, once Silva gets to the CIA compound and begins interacting buddy style with the other “contractors” and cybernetically with his family back home, a more relaxed mood prevails for a time. An irritating factor, though, is the elitist attitude of Bob (David Costabile), the bureaucrat in charge of the CIA outpost, who tells the burly, bearded contractors:”You're hired help. There is no real threat here,” He contrasts the security team with the CIA staff: “We have the brightest minds from the Farm—educated at Harvard and Yale.” 

The relaxed mood ends suddenly, and the “hired help” become heroes, however, on the evening of September 11, 2012, when the diplomatic compound comes under fierce attack, obviously preplanned, by heavily armed terrorist mobs while the idealistic U.S. ambassador, Chris Stevens (Matt Letscher), is visiting there from the American embassy in Tripoli, Libya's capital city. 

The security team wants to go to the aid of the diplomatic compound immediately, but Bob tells them, “Stand down.”  They ignore his order, however, and rush to the diplomatic compound, where a horrific battle rages for hours. Appeals to Washington for help from U.S. forces in Europe and the Mediterranean prove fruitless. Eventually, Ambassador Stevens and some other Americans are killed, and the vastly outnumbered security team returns from the burning diplomatic compound to the CIA outpost, which then comes under attack itself. Several members of the security force die in the ensuing battle. Eventually, day dawns, and evacuation in a private plane chartered by CIA staffers in Tripoli takes place. 

Michael Bay, you are forgiven for Transformers! The depiction of the night of fighting in Benghazi is riveting—we are right there with those warriors, not just visually but viscerally. And that riveting experience is realistic, not exaggerated. The rapid-fire editing of the constant fighting creates a kaleidoscopic effect that sometimes makes the action hard to follow—it's the “fog of war” after all—but not hard to feel. All the actors are utterly convincing in their roles.

13 Hours is not political. It does not deal in any detail with events in Washington before or after the night of fighting, except for the bare facts of the turndown of the requests for aid. Nor does the film demonize the Libyan people as a whole. Some Libyans are shown assisting the Americans, and actual footage of a large pro-American rally that took place a few days after the battle is shown. 

Michael Bay deserves a salute for this patriotic but not jingoistic work. And, of course, those who fought the good fight deserve many salutes and accolades. Those who fought and died deserve particular honor. As for what history's judgment may eventually be about the role of politicians and bureaucrats with reference to the Benghazi events . . . 

“Footnotes” to the film: (1) The phrase “to the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Hymn indicates that the battle at Benghazi in 2012 was not the first time that American warriors have fought in Libya. In 1801 the U.S. decided that it could no longer tolerate the actions of North Africa's Barbary states, which were seizing Western vessels, enslaving and holding for ransom their crews and passengers, and demanding tribute. The U.S. declared war on the Bey of Tripoli's domains, which included Benghazi. The war did not go well for the U.S. in its first years, but in 1805 a dramatic turn of events occurred. William Eaton, a U.S. consul in Egypt, organized a ragtag force of Arab rebels, Greek mercenaries and six U.S. Marines to attack the important city of Derne in Libya. Rather than going by the usual route, Eaton's force marched deep into the Sahara and then launched a surprise attack on Derne from an unexpected direction. Several Marines were killed. Eaton then planned to attack Tripoli itself, but another U.S. diplomat suddenly made a deal with the Bey, who would probably have surrendered to Eaton, to end the war without American goals being achieved. In 1815, aided by Britain, the U.S. Went to war again with the Barbary states to end their piratical depredations. This time the conflict had a successful conclusion. (2) With regard to cinematic history, rather than military or political history, 13 Hours is, appropriately enough, in the tradition of “outpost movies.” This genre of films, which flourished particularly in the 1930-1970 period, depicted the stalwart stand of an outpost of Western civilization, or law and order, or the family against assault by an enemy force, usually indigenous peoples. For example: In Beau Geste (1939), the French Foreign Legion fights off attacking Tauregs. In Unconquered (1947) and Fort Apache (1948), American settlers or cavalry battle Native Americans. In 55 Days at Peking (1962), Charlton Heston and an international force save Westerners from Chinese “Boxer” rebels. In Zulu (1964) British troops hold off the eponymous African tribe. In Khartoum (1966) Charlton Heston again, this time as a British general, seeks to defend the Sudanese city against attack by Muslim fanatics. In The Green Berets (1968), John Wayne and the eponymous unit fight off Vietnamese communists. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, as attitudes toward Western colonialism changed, the nature of the outpost and its enemies also changed. Examples: Zombies assault a farmhouse in Night of the Living Dead (1968). Lowlifes attack a family's home in Straw Dogs (1971 and 2014). A street gang besieges a police station in Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), and the gang is joined by corrupt cops in the 2005 remake. Extraterrestrials invade a farmhouse in Signs (2002).