Issues of Few Answers But Lots of Laughs

CLASSIFICATION  MG Mature Guidance

RATING  Three of 5 Stars

Distributed by RVQ Production (released in the Philippines on 25 December 2009; in the United States on 14 February 2010)

94 minutes

The Film

Nobody, Nobody But … Juan is a Filipino slapstick comedy film that took its title from a refrain line of the 2009-popular Wonder Girls-song “Nobody” and promotes a popular noon-time TV show “Wowowee.” It was partly shot in Chicago. Bibeth Orteza wrote the script. Eric Quizon directed.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens in a late-1944 standup comedy “Juan and Tu Show” in Manila where young comedians Juan (Jeffrey Quizon) and Tu (Vandolph Quizon) stand behind bars wondering how to get out of jail as a guard passes by. In the audience are Japanese officers sitting in the front row as other Filipinos laug their belly out at the back. Not long later the crows breaks up in panic as the Japanese officer annunces that the enemies has arrived. And everyone scampered for cover.

Back in the present, Juan de la Cruz (Dolphy Quizon) wakes up on his bed in a nursing home for the aged run by his son Waldo (Eric Quizon) and daughter-in-law Jane (G Toengi). He proceeds to the cafeteria to see his friend (Eugene Domingo) who suffers form narcolepsy, making him sleep anywhere even while standing up or sitting down and talking to Juan.

Meanwhile, Tu (Eddie Garcia) and friend Lolay (Pokwang) run a swindling operation that targets visiting tourists. They hit the restaurant Komeya Panceteria, and mange to sell Wowowee tickets, which later turn out to be fakes.

Back in the home, Waldo catches the elderly watching Wowowee, a popular Phippine noon-time show, on television, and orders the caregivers to turn off the TV as the show is banned in the home. Juan drops his face in disappointment on the policy, and ends up throwing hard reminders on Waldo for his sheepish behavior before his wife.

Juan recalls a show during the Japanese occupation, which ended up having the Japanese  soldiers throwing cake icing at each other for fun. He also witnessed his falling out with girlfriend Aida (Heart Evangelista), and Lolay’s seductive taunts at him.

Meanwhile, Juan leads the residents and caretakes in devising a plan to watch the show by setting a booby trap on Waldo who tends the kitchen. As a result, Jane wants Juan out of the home. The residents protest loudly at the cafeteria against the Wowowee ban, shouting “Wowowee… No eating.”

One time while Waldo and Jane are entertaining prospective investors, Juan leads a topless parade of the residents inside the home, as the caregivers applauding all the way, and messing up with the prospects of the home getting an investor. In the confusion, the angry Jane falls off the stairway and breaks her legs. On the hospital bed, she tells Waldo she wants a divorce.

A road violation brings Waldo and Juan to the county precinct where Juan sees Lolay, guesting in Wowowee. She calls on Juan in America who may be watching her in the show. Juan also sees Tu in the sides, and realizes how much he misses his old friend.

Meanwhile the marriage between Waldo and Jane deteriorates. Waldo has Juan stay in a Filipino firend to keep him away from Jane. eventually, Juan leaves the home without a word for Waldo.

In the Philippines, Juan took a taxi to watch the Wowowee Show in person. Meanwhile Tu and Lolay pass by Juan in the entrance line, looking for someone to victimize. Lolay spots Juan. Tu recognizes Juan and recalls another standup act they had during the occupation. Unluckily the foreigner they victimized recognizes Tu, and calls on the security guard for help. Tu snatches Juan from the line, and make a run to escape. While hiding from the security guard, Juan recognizes Tu.

Tu manages to slip out. Juan, caught up, finds his way into the very stage of the very stage of the show. The residents and caregivers at the home in Chicago watches him with fun. That gives him time to greet Waldo and Jane on the air. From the bleachers, Lolay joins Juan and Willy onstage. Juan recalls Lolay in their stage performance during the occupation, and remembers Aida.

A hasty exit as the pursuit continues brought Juan, Tu, and Lolay to Aida, now living as the wife of Tu. Aida, suffering from fading mind, met Juan, and off-handly admitted to her only daughter Juana that her true father is Juan. Juan stays with Aida.

Meanwhile, in the nursing home back in Chicago, the life of the elderly improves with Wowowee no longer banned and as Waldo and Jane make up.

The film closes as Willy starts the noontime show with a talk as Juan sits beside Aida watching it, with her mind slowly fading and only the keeps her spirit alive.

During the post credit, Juan and Aida can be seen at the Wowowee bleachers laughing and dancing with the audience as Waldo and Jane and the residents in the Chicago home dance in the tune of the show’s favorite dancing song.

The Review 

Nobody, Nobody But… Juan is a comedian-studded film, maybe the first time in Philippine movie history. Where a usual Filipino comedy film involves two to four comedians, this movie has a repertoire of around seven movie and television personalities who specialize in standup comedy in supporting roles to the trio of Dolphy, Eddie Garcia, and Pokwang. While Garcia is not a full-time comedy actor, his flexibility in handling myriads of roles in drama, action, and comedy makes him a natural comedian in the use of timing.

The timeline of the film however was very long for a less-than-two-hours movie making it difficult to give the characters much depth. It also left out certain details that can make the movie realistic. For example, the extras in this film apparently got left out without enough attention. The female traffic police cannot seem to connect with Juan at the road incident. The precinct officer has been left out without even a short dialogue to interact with Juan when the character should.

Another shortcoming of the film was its inability to do away with dirty skits, which tend to demean the females in the name of comedy. The clumsy flip of Lolay that led her to fall inguinal side on Juan’s face and ending upside down, skirt opened, with Tu holding her two legs spred open. The sexy househelp who intentionally bump his prominent boobs at the face of Juan.  

The general plot however is good, and with the help of professional comedy actors the film provides a well-timed fun.

One distinct accomplishment of this movie was the efficiency of its use of plots that covers a lot of things–history (Japanese occupation, standup comedy in the Philippines, fate of retired stage performers), social issues (taxi metering scam, illegal stay in the United States, and multi-partner parenthood), and family issues (taking care of ageing parents, parenting children of different mothers, and out-of-wedlock children). Most of these commentaries though proposed no answer but largely used as a tool for comedy.

Fate of the entertainers. In a conversation inside a restaurant, Tu tells Lolay the sorry state of old entertainers like them who got forced to scam others because of their dire financial circumstance. Its lack of answer provides a silent comment of the tragedy.

Caring for the old. The disparity between the needs of the ageing residents and the nursing home’s policy, and how the same exists between Waldo and his father Juan, brings up again an family issue without proposing a solution. It did appear to say that old people may need to learn to take care of themselves while they still can when their youngs fail to do so. Another tragedy indeed.

Employment of illegal Filipino aliens. Two Filipinos, employed in the Chicago home, without legal papers where being sought by the police. While the incident provides an opportunity to make a comedic situation reminiscent of Police Academy, the scenes to be more a comment of the issue of unregistered Filipino in the United States than merely a comedy tool. The film opined that fellow Filipinos can be torn between the need to protect their countrymen there while doing their job as legitimate workers.

Taxi meter scam. The cheating taxi meter provides a comedic commentary on the problems involving manipulation of certain taxi operators in order to cheat their customers of their fare money. The bumping nudge to the meter makes a funny situation to watch. The ultimate joke however was when the table turned against the driver when he overdid it, causing the meter to read zero instead of a much higher figure. Again the film proposed no solution other than the funny one.

The Verdict

Nobody, Nobody But… Juan is a well-timed hilarious film about realities in Filipino lives today. Except for the unfortunate dirty scenes in the film that are unnecessarily inappropriate for less mature children, the film can be a moderately entertaining watch for the family. The painful sense that certain issues touched in the film can leave a pang to the viewers that can dampen the hilarity available to enjoy. Nonetheless, important lessons can be learned for simply watching this film.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

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When Good Parents are Away

CLASSIFICATION MC Mature Catholics

RATING Three of 5 Stars

Distributed by Lionsgate (released in the US on 6 March 2009)

70 minutes

The Film

Horsemen is a thriller film that David Callahan wrote and Jonas Akerlund directed.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens with an old man and his dog, one winter morning, walking towards the frozen lake and looking for a tree to cut down. His dog’s barks pointed to a covered dish container placed on a stand at the  middle of the iced lake. Looking around, he finds the phrase “Come and See” in bold red letters marked at the trunk of four trees. As he lifts the lid, his eyes widen.

Meanwhile, Aidan Breslin (Dennis Quaid), a recently-widowed detective at 246th Precinct, wakes up to that same morning to find himself emotionally detached from his firstborn son Alex (Lou Taylor) who is reading today’s paper in the dining room.

Along the way to the police station, Breslin received a call for assistance in Wisconsin. He drove to the frosty place to learn that no body has been found by the responding police. When he opens the tray, he finds bloody teeth, all sets of it, inside. The local police told him that they sought his help because of his experience in dental forensics. At the police station, he told Chief Krupa (Chelchie Ross) what he learned from the teeth. The puzzle took all his time that day. When he returns home, he finds Alex past asleep.

While attending holy mass with his two kids–Alex and younger Sean (Liam James)–Breslin receives a call from his precinct. He hurriedly leaves his kids at the middle of the sermon, leaving Alex a 20-dollar bill.

A bizarre murder happend. A wife and mother of three (including an adopted Asian daughter) is killed at home. She had been strung up on a suspension rig with hooks, the bedroom walls and windows painted red, and the fetus removed from the pregnant victim. Breslin is interviewing the eldest daughter Kristin (Zhang Ziyi) when the father, David Spitz (Peter Stormare) comes in to embrace the daughters. Breslin left Kristin his work number before leaving.

During the autopsy, Breslin learns that the victim drowned in her own blood that entered her lungs from the circular stab wound piercing the lungs and the heart. She was drugged before she was killed.

Breslin arrives in the school late to pick up Alex. In the car on their way home, Alex tells his father of tickets for a Detroit Red Wings game that night, and asks Breslin if he will be with them. Breslin agrees to go. When they arrive home, Alex tells Sean about the game that night against visiting Reds. Sean bursts with excitement. When the night comes, the kids, faces half-painted in red and white, excitedly prepares to leave for the game as they check on Breslin who just finished dressing down for the game.

But another work call came in reporting of another body found in Broadway. The boys walk away with great disappointment in their face. Breslin removes his Red Wings shirt and angrily throws it back to the wardrobe.

The victim is also hanged, and they find the shocked wife inside the wardrobe. The same modus operandi, and the living room where it happened is painted around with black.

At the police headquarter, Breslin learns of the tattoo parlor whose owner built the suspension rigs by order basis. Its owner confirms that he made four rights for that job.

Later at home, Breslin works on the case photos and evidences. Sean joins him and checks on the blood photos despite Breslin’s warnings not to. Sean asks him: “Come and see, what?” The question leads Breslin to check the phrase in his wife’s Bible, the Book of Revelation chapter 6. He now understands that the killing was ceremonial. But the evidence they had still cannot pinpoint the suspects. Gathering all the information available on the case, Breslin presents to his team the suspects’ profile. So the hunt begins.

With his mind consumed in the case, Breslin almost missed an appointment with the guidance counselor in Alex’s school. He finds out that Alex has not been attending school, and despite his intelligence, Alex is heading for trouble.

The following day Kristin meets Breslin outside the police station. She shocks him when she shows him the bloody fetus that was removed from the body of her pregnant adoptive mother. In the interrogation room, Breslin learns that she killed her mother to punish Spitz. She also hints that the police missed more important evidences at home.

So Bresdin and his assistant Stingray (Clifton Collins Jr.) went back to the Spitz residence, and found her old diary with disturbed drawings on it. Photos drop from the diary, and these shows Spitz having sex with the young Kristin. Back in the interrogation room, Kristen tells Breslin that the 12 hours of torture pays enough for the 10 years Kristin suffered in the hands of Spitz.

While pouring again on the case at home, Alex brought out a birthday cake to remember his dead mother. Father and son get into an argument as Alex, before walking out, accuses Breslin of not being with his mother when she needed him most in her deathbed.

At the police department, the following day, the medical examiner shows Breslin a chip obtained from one of the victims that contains a written biblical verse–Exodus 9:15–on it. The chip leads them to the bomb-rigged base of teh Four Horsement, as the serial killers came to be known. But they suspects got away, and the police came out empty except for the computer hard drive that Breslin salvaged from the destroyed building. Information in the drive leads them into a website.

Meanwhile, in a restaurant somewhere, a young man named Cory Kurth (Patrick Fugit) places white powder from a vial into a coffee and mixes it. When his elder brother Taylor (Eric Balfour) came in, Cory listens as his drunken brother confronts him for being gay and takes the coffee that Cory prepared and drinks it. A bald man watches them from the counter chair. As teh brothers walk out towards their apartment, the man followed him and pulled a knife at Cory demanding for anything in his pockets. Cory quickly stabs the thug in the stomach with an icepick and leaves him to die. But the police arrives on time. The thugh tells Breslin what Cory told him before he fell. Breslin has Cory’s name checked and gets his full name and address.

Somewhere, Taylor wakes up hanging from a rig, the same rig used in the murders. Cory approaches with surgical equipments and confronts Taylor. With his eyelids fixed open, Taylor watches his brother kills himself. When Breslin finds him later, Taylor was mentally deranged.

In the interrogation room, Breslin gets nothing more from Kristin about the other the remaining two Horsemen.

When Breslin arrives home with case folders, he found Alex alone as Sean stayed in a friend’s house to dine. So Breslin invites Alex to eat with him in a nearby restaurant, giving them time to talk. Alex tells Breslin that when their mother died Breslin never came back to them the way Breslin used to be. And again Breslin promises to Alex that after the case, everything will be different.

The following day, Chief Krupa assigns Breslin to another case as teh case of the Four Horseman has been closed with the fourth death (Cory’s). Breslin insists to stay with the case because the Horsemen will be doing something more sinister the following day. He discovered that one more victim has to die before the “veil is lifted.” The victims he notices have once common thing between them. They have the same psychotherapist. Then he realized that Alex too went to the same therapist as the victims, and that the teeth found in the platter was intended to guarantee that Breslin gets the case. His family, Breslin believes, is the target.

Breslin assigns Stingray to secure Alex at home, but hears him hit while they are talking on the phone. When he reaches home, Breslin finds Stingray unconscious on the floor. When he checks the room of Alex, he is not there; he instead finds the room fully painted with white, from walls to the lap to and a pocket Bible. In one wall, he sees the photo of the Metropolitan Theatre with a phrase written on it with blood: “Come and See.”

Breslin drives to the Met, and when he gets inside someone attacks him from behind. Whe he wakes up, he finds himself secured in a seat and sees Alex suspended in the air with the familiar rig, raised over the stage with blood dripping to the floor beneath. Alex tells him that he is the last horseman and his death will be the last sign for others to follow. Alex collapses on the rig as Breslin tries futilely to free himself from the he got handcuffed into. When he got out, he fired shots at the rig to bring Alex down.

The film closes with Breslin kissing Sean as the boy wakes up looking for Alex. Breslin tells him that Alex is doing okay. It remained unclear though if Alex survived.

The Review

Horsemen is a graphically violent film that explores the extreme consequences to children when parents have no time to spend with them due to the demands of work. The story is riddled with so much pain, visual horror, and despair. It appears to comment more on absentee parenting than a story about law enforcement.

Absentee parenting. The film proposes that children of very busy parents, even those parents in the law enforcement, could turn into criminals under their nose. Alex had to take over his father’s role towards his young brother Sean, and silenty endure being abandoned too, because of Breslin’s frequent absence and emotional disconnect from them. The very frustrating thing about Breslin’s job was the unscheduled and urgent callsof duty that broke through family time as the job required so. These calls came in the middle of something beautiful and binding for the family–while on their way to a game, at the middle of a sermon, and practically when one or both of his children needed him. He made many promises to be with them that he never kept because of the pull of work. And he always left Alex money each time he leaves them, as if buying his absence. These incidents gave Alex the impression that Breslin ditched them.

The issue brought up in the film is timely and represents a call to working parents to make painful choices between two important things in their lives–job (a financial resource to support self and the family) and the family (the very people parents worked in the first place to support). It also brings up the reality that many times, the family can come much later to the life of a parent already having his work when marriage happened; and thus the family’s importance can at times be placed at the  backseat.

The film also invites viewers to look into their own lives, to look hard enough and see to it that their values have been in proper order as Christians must continue to do. In Roman Catholic teachings, the first order of priority must be God (the person’s close relationship to his Creator). The second order of priority is other people. And for married individuals, other people refer to one’s family–spouse, children and parents–first; then the community. For the unmarried, other people mean their parents and siblings, and then their community. Work, although important and valued in Christian teachings, is not even mentioned near these priorities.

When these priorities got reversed, the movie tells what could happen to the children.

Child abuse. Another important proposition from the film, although a common one among films dealing with sex crimes, is that abuse can transform a child towards evil. In the case of Kristin, her rape in the hands of her adoptive father became the deciding point of her final move to the darkness and crime. The film illustrates what evil parents can create in their children, and hopes that its repulsive depiction of this particular evil can wake up parents from the dangers their actions can bring to their family.

Adoption. The issue on adoption came up, although with lesser emphasis in the movie, in teh case of Kristin. The film proposed this point for reflection: Can children adopted bring to their adoptive parents the dark streaks of their biological parents? Will adoption be really a wise thing to do, even to those who have their own biological children? How can society ensure that adopted children be protected from evil adoptive parents?

The Verdict

Horsemen is too graphically violent for young people to watch. The horror and the sights of blood and death can be unnecessarily distressing to these viewers to justify viewing for the sake of entertainment. And parents must advise their kids to avoid watching this film. At the same time, immature minds can pick up wrong ideas from the movie, albeit unintentionally, such as dynamics of incest or modeling behavior of disturbed youths in the film. Although getting teh movie message with the right mental disposition can forewarn youngsters on things they need to avoid should they too become parents, the risks of wrong messages taken is so high to be worth it.

But matured Catholics and other Christians who can take on a sight of violence with clear mind, the film provides a fitting reminder on what it means to be parents today, with all the increasing demands at work, on what really are the higher priorities of being fathers and mothers of a family while meeting the need to make money to support it. They may hear this question silently asked to them: When situations demand it, which will I choose–my family or my work?  

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

Support this project. Go to Donate page.

A tasteful horror

CLASSIFICATION  CP Catholic Patronage

RATING  Four of 5 Stars

Distributed by Village Roadshow (released in Australia on 8 July 2007, in UK on 8 November 2007, in the US on 25 April 2008, and in the Philippines on 13 August 2008)

93 minutes

The Film

Rogue is an Australian horror film inspired by the true story of Sweetheart, a giant Australian crocodile that attacked boats between 1974 and 1979. Greg McLean wrote, directed and produced. It won the 2007 Australian Film Institute award for Best Visual Effects and 3rd place in the 2009 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards for Best Limited-Release/Direct-to-Video Film.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens with a visual sweep over the Kakadu National Park of Australia’s Northern Territory where a water buffalo went into the river for a late morning drink. Suddenly, a large crocodile emerged from the water and quickly snatched it into the water.

Meanwhile, American travel journalist Pete McKell (Michael Vartan) arrived in a nearby village from a bus. He is researching for an article, and plants to join a group of tourists on a crocodile-watching river cruise in the National Park. Ryan’s Wildlife River Cruise serves a group of tourists consisting of Pete, photographer Simon (Stephen Curry), a family (Elizabeth, Allen and Sherry), two locals (Gwen and Russell), a couple (Mary Ellen and Everett Kennedy), tour captain Kate Ryan (Radha Mitchell), and Kevin, Ryan’s dog.

Along the way, locals Neil (Sam Worthington) and Collin (Damien Richardson) run into them by barring their tour boat with the duo’s speed boat. Only when Kate threatened to run over them did Collin pulled the boat away quickly, throwing Neil into the water to the tourists’ amusement. When the boat moved on, Russell (John Jarratt) throws the cremated ashes of her wife into the river.

As they were about to leave back to the base, Everett (Robert Taylor) caught a flare in his video camera, indicating a distress signal. And more flares followed, already seen by the tourists. Despite their general reluctance, they decided to check the source. So they move forward into the internal part of the Park.

When they reached a dead-end lake and found nothing, Pete suggested they go back as the sun is getting down. They were about to turn around when Kate found something floating, a few meters ahead of them. They saw the forward portion of a small capsized boat. When they approached it, something bumped them underwater, so hard it punctured a hole at the floor of the boat. The situation forced Kate to bring the boat into an islet at the middle of the lake before the boat submerges.

On the islet, Russell observed that the plant growth can only be found at the higher and central part of the islet, indicating that the place they stand up on will be submered in water by night. Panic ensued as he tried to cross the lake towards teh main land, with Everett forcing him off the water. As the argument heated up and Everett watching them from the edge of the islet, the group hears a hush in the water and Everett disappeared. They know that the large croc living in the area took him.

Fear descended upon them, just as Neil Collin came back on the same boat making fun at them. Suddenly, something hit their boat from underwater, and both get thrown into the water. Neil managed to swim towards the islet; Collin failed and disappeared underwater.

When the night descended, Neil suggets that he will cross the water silently with a rope that will be tied to another tree across the bank. When the rope is ready, Mary Ellen Kennedy (Caroline Brazier) volunteers to go first. However when she reached the middle of the roof, dangling over the silent lakewater, she froze in panic, and cannot move forward. Allen (Geoff Morrell) panics and asks Sherry (Mia Wasikowska) to be ready to cross with him despite being warned that the rope could not take three at the same time. The dead tree holding the rope in the opposite bank fell and the three fell into the water.

Meanwhile Neil tried to get back the rope but the croc attacked him. Allen just reached the islet bank when the croc pounced on him, and dragged him underwater. Pete suggested that they yse the anchor to bait the croc to win time for all of them to swim across.

When the croc took the bait, Pete stayed on the isle to hold on the line as the rest swim across the water. Kate was the last to cross when the croc got away from the bait and attacked her. With the lull created, Pete swam across with Kevin, looking for Kate as he passes where he last saw him.

Alone with Kevin and lef behind by the rest, Pete tries to find his way through the forest only to sumble into the home of the giant croc as he followed Kevin who ran ahead of him. There he found the dead body of Collin and then Kate who appears to be alive still.

Pete decided to carry Kate back out of the croc’s lair. Kevin ran off ahead of them. Outside his barks suddenly stopped as a huge shadow moving in covers the sunlight with its huge body. The giant croc returns. Pete hid Kate but not before the animal noticed them.

The croc attacks them relentlessly until Pete used himself as a bait to tempt it to attack him and hit with a sharp stick fixed into a stable rock. The croc took the challenge and launced. The stick pierced its head instantly killing it. Kate, ravaged in her legs, remained conscious though as Pete carried him away.

A few hours later he meets the rest of the tourists with rescue personnel and paramedics tending onto them. Kate was airlifted by a copter.

The film ends with a wall in the restaurant filled with newspaper clippings on incidents involving crocodile attacks in the area. At the center of it was added a new clip on what happened to Kate and the tourists.

The Review

Rogue displays a beautiful panorama of the Kakadu National Park–its river, birds, buffaloes, and of course crocodiles. The plot is well-polished, making the situations logical and believable. There are some sticky situations that floor the characters in making a deadly decision that risk their lives.

Public safety.The film touches the issue on public safety in the hands of public utility operators. It asks the question: which must come first, the safety of people on its charge or someone sending distress signals? The film proposes that anyone on the shoes of the person in distress would want the rescue as a first priority. The tourists decided in favor of this proposition and lives got lost in the process. It left open an important question: should the lives of many rescuers be risked to save another lives? The moral justification however as seen in the film is the inadequate appraisal of the danger facing the rescuers. Should the danger has been known well before making that rescue decision, it would have been wiser to leave the rescue to the professionals.

Personal safety. A related safety issue tackled in the film is the choice between self-preservation and risking one’s life to save someone else’s. In ethics, it is issue between altruism (my life is less important than the other’s life) and rationalism (my life is more important than the other’s life). In the movie, Everett tried to prevent Russell from foolishly jumping into the croc-infested water only to be devoured by it. Allen also tried to save himself first by forcing to take the rope beyond its carrying capacity only to jeopardize two other lives in the process, and even losing his own consequently. Kate, on the other hand, took time to swim as she told those who have crossed to move ahead, only to  get herself attacked by the croc. Meanwhile, Pete who chose to be the last to cross teh lake in order to let the others save themselves first got his chance to cross safely. The film apparently does not propose any answer to this ethical dilemma, only showing how the extreme of these choices can look like.

Counterproductiveness of uncontrolled emotions. The film proposes that negative emotions such as panic while it can spur people to move, can put many people in danger. Russell’s panic resulted to the death of the person who tried to save him, Everett. Mary Ellen got hijacked by her emotions and froze on the rope across the dangerous water. Allen’s panic almost killed her daughter Sherry and that of Mary Ellen. The film clearly proposed that the best way to handle a very tense and life-threatening situation is not to act on fear and panic but to stay calm and focused on solutions.

Miracles and the will to survive. At times, the last option can be the only solution left. And a man fighting to survive can find all he needs to eventually survive. This happened to Pete. After doing what he can to avoid facing the great croc and getting away, Pete found himself in a situation where he could no longer run away and have to face the monster squarely. When this happened, he found a way to kill the animal instead.

The Verdict

Rogue is a horror film handled with tasteful subtlety and without the usually excessive brutality common in horror films. It succeeded in creating a more realistic storyline that provides a relatively gently frying of the viewers’ nerves. It has also artfully blended beautiful scenery with the fear-inspiring sights of a predatory crocodile. It is a well-thought story as well as stimulating to the eyes and nerves. While the scripting is bereft with philosophical statements, the story itself can be educational to a perceptive Catholic. Everyone in the family can enjoy this film gainfully except for the younger children who might not be able to take well the natural violence in an encounter between men and a beast.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus.

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Saga of "White and Black" Magics

CLASSIFICATION     MC Mature Catholics

RATING     Two of 5 Stars

Distributed by Warner Bros. (released on 15 July 2009)

153 minutes

The Film

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth installment of teh fantasy-adventure Harry Potter film series. It is based on the novel by J. K. Rowling, and written for the silver screen by Steve Kloves, the screenwriter of the first four films. David Yates of teh fifth installment directed.

The film gained distinction as an instant commercial success, breaking the records for biggest midnight opening gross of all time as well as biggest single-day worldwide gross of all time. In five days the film made $394 million, breaking teh record for biggest five-day worldwide gross in history. It is also teh highest-grossing film of 2009 at $934 million, making the all-time list of eight highest-grossing films.

It is dedicated to the memory of actor Rob Knox who portrays Marcus Belby in the film and was killed in May 2008 in a knife attack.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens inside a board room in a high-rise corporate building in the Muggle world with top managers looking askance as they watch the clouds forming into the face of Lord Voldemort and four dark cloudy streaks of teh Death Eaters break away from the face and attack below. Meanwhile, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliff) reads the papers in a terminal cafeteria when he sees Hogwarts headmaster Professor Albus Dumbledore (Sir Michael Gambon) waiting in the subway. harry joins him, and Dumbledore transports them both to the Wizarding world and at the front yard of former Potions professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), which Dumbledore enticed to return to Hogwarts and from whom borrowed a wizardry magazine. (Dumbledore announced him later as teh new Potions professor, replacing Severus Snape, at the start fo teh term feast at Hogwarts.)

Dumbledore transports Harry to the place of teh Weasleys where he joins Ginny (Bonnie Wright), Hermione granger (Emma Watson), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Wesley matriarch Molly (Julie Walters). Harry is reluctant to return to school after his experiecne at teh Ministry of Magic and the encounter with Voldemort.

Meanwhile Snape (Alan Rickman), later appointed the new Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, receives in his home at Spinner’s End a visit from Draco’s mother Narcissa Malfoy (Helen McCrory) and Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) where Severus and Narcissa make an Unbreakbale Vow to protect Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and carry out the assignment if he fails.

While leaving Fred and George’s new shop in Diagon Alley, Harry, Ron and Hermione notice Draco associating with Bellatrix, Fenrir Greyback (Dave Legeno) and Narcissa in Borgin and Burkes, making Harry suspicious. In the Hogwarts Express, Harry attemtps tp eavesdrop on Malfoy, but instead got petrified, and could have died if not with the rescue by Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) and her Spectrespecs.

At Hogwarts, Harry and Ron borrow school textbooks for Slughorn’s Potions class. The previous owner of Harry’s copy, the “Half-Blood Prince,” has annotated the book with additional instructions that allow Harry to excel in class and win a vial of the luck potion, Felix Felicis. Meanwhile, Ron becomes the Keeper on the Quidditch team, which makes him a hero. As he forms relationship with Lavender, Hermione was heartbroken. When Harry finds her sobbing in a corridor, he confesses to having feelings for Ginny Wesley. But knowing Ron’s protectiveness of Ginny and would not allow a relationship betwen her and Harry, Harry hides his feelings except from Hermione.

Harry spends Christmas with the Wesleys, during which he discusses the situation at Hogwarts with memebrs of the Order of the Phoeni–Arthur Weasley (Mark Williams), Remus Lupin (David Thewlis), and Nymphadora Tonks (Natalia Tena). He gets ckiser ti Gubbtm whohas broken up with Lavander. Bellatrix and Fenrir Greyback attack the Burrow that the Death Eaters set fire.

Draco cintunes to elude Harry while perfecting the use of a Vanishing Cabinet inside the Room of Requirement. Harry suspects Draco is behind two attempts on Dembledore’s life, one of which almost kills Ron. In his semi-comatose state, Ron mumbles Hermione’s name, causing his relationship with Lavender to deteriorate. Confrinting Draco, Harry hits him with a curse from the Half-Blood Prince’s book, causing severe wounds. Snape heals Draco as Harry retreats. Fearing teh book may contain more Dark Magic, Ginny convinces Harry to leave the book in the Room of  Requirement so that he won’t use it again. While Harry’s eyes closed, Ginny hides the book and kisses him.

In one meeting, Dumbledore shows Harry memories of a young Tom Riddle and reveals Slughorn retains a memory critical to Voldemort’s defeat. Harry retrieves the memory using Felix Felicis. It reveals that Voldemort had been seeking information for creating as many as seven Horcruxes, devices that safeguard a portion of teh creator’s soul, granting him immortality unless the Horcruxes are destroyed. Two of Voldemort’s Horcruxes have already been destroyed–Tom Riddle’s diary and the ring of Marvolo Gaunt, Tom Riddle’s maternal grandfather.

After locating another Horcrux, Dumbledore requests Harry’s help in retrieving it. Inside a cave, he drinks a mind-altering potion that hides a locket Horcrux. Though gravely weakened from excruciating pain, he defended himself and Harry from a horde of Inferi, and apparates (transports) both of them back to the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts. 

Dumbledore asks Harry to fetch Snape for help, but asks him to hide when footsteps approach. Draco appears and reveals that Voldemort has chosen him to kill Dumbledore, but fails to follow through. Snape arrives, motions Harry to stay hidden, and joins the Death Eaters that came through the Vahishing Cabinet and surround Draco as he hesitates. Snape casts Avada Kedvra curse, killing Dumbledore, and then escapes from the castle with the Death Eaters. While leaving they cast the Dark Mark, wrech the Great Hall and set fire to Hagrid’s Hut. Harry tries to stop them, but Snape deflects Harry’s spells and Bellatrix stuns him. Before departing, Snape reveals to Harry that he is the Half-Blood Prince. Harry returns to school to find the staff and students mourning Dumbledore.

Harry reveals to Ron and Hermione that the locket Horcruz was fake. It contains though a message from “R.A.B.” that he has taken the real Horcrux with the hope of destroying it and the others. Rather than return for their final year at Hogwarts, Harry and his friends vow to seek out R.A.B. and the remaining Horcruxes.

The film ends with Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix, flying into the horizon.

The Review

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is an occult fantasy adventure of a young wizard and his friends in their continued confrontation against the sinister dark magic of teh reborn-wizard Voldemort and his minions. It is as dark as the fifth film. It presents a good, young and likeable wizard with his white magic as teh nemesis of the dark lord of magic. It also provides fascinating sights on the works of magic when casted through the wizards’ magic wands. The current filmmaking technology makes the visual effects expectedly believable. The apparent natural goodness of Potter and the protagonists in the story provides a very deceptive tool in bring the wonders of magic into a very interesting level. A viewer cannot fail to sympathize with an oppressed boy who had to face dark forces as he finds himself an object of their aggression.

Love and friendship are strong bonds against threats to life. This theme runs through the entire film and its previous installments. While Potter lost his parents, his friends and his parents’ friends acted as his surrogate family. This is one good thing that can be learned from this movie.

Some troubling propositions however must be noted.

Sorcery is okay as long as it is fascinating and fictional. The rationale of fascination (pleasing to the senses) and fictional (who said it is true?) makes sorcery confusingly safer to accept as a valid entertainment subject. Once a person accepts sorcery as “valid” for entertainment purposes, the person loses the sense that sorcery, like other occult philosophy and practice, is a demonic art, real and uses the power of darkness, whether it be called “white” or “black” magic. And like any temptation, it has a character that inspires strong curiosity to seek further knowledge about the art.

Getting fascinated with sorcery does not make a person sorcerer. But it does open the vulnerability in the person’s will through the fascination it inspires, which the devil may take advantage in ways the person cannot foresee. Condemnation of sorcery–as “abhorrent to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)–is one Jewish teaching that Jesus and the Roman Catholic Magisterium never lifted.

White magic is good, anyway. Magic is the act of using powers beyond what is natural to man through the aid of evil spirits who makes effective the incantation uttered to summon the power. White or black, magic is magic; and not an instance or a teaching in the Christian Scriptures or tradition that good angels, prophets and holy men ever use magic to show the wonders of God’s power. They pray to God for help, not pronounce an incantation. This deceiving distinction between white and black magics makes sorcery acceptable simply because it is white.

Kissing teens in schook is okay. One Hollywood imprimatur here is the causal way teens are portrayed to kiss around in school for all the others to see. This is definitely a cultural matter, but certainly not of the Christian culture. It is a stamp of Western culture, and like any other cultures in the world, runs opposed to teh Christian culture, which it continuously undermines.

The Verdict

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a very likeable story of a world without God as the world of sorcery tries to reflect the goodness of God through ”white magic.” The storyline remains good and interesting to follow. It also shows the positive things about love, friendship and family. Being darker than its first four installments, it is less visually appealing. It also lost the humor that makes these films light-hearted. Its strength comes from its storyline and believable cinematic rendition.

Catholics are not advised to watch this movie for the deceptive values it proposes throughout the film. Those who insist on watching this film are advised to be more self-aware of their affinity to the delights of sorcery that it may inspire. People who are not capable of this level of self-awareness are warned to avoid this movie for the danger it poses to her soul.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus.   

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Tragedy and Redemption

CLASSIFICATION     MC Mature Catholics

RATING     Four of 5 Stars

Distributed by Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow (released on 26 September 2008)

97 minutes

The Film

Nights in Rodanthe is a film adaptation of the novel of Nicholas Sparks having the same title. It was filmed in the small seaside village of Rodanthe, the northermost village of the inhabited areas of Hatteras Island as well as Carolina Beach in North Carolina. It is written for the silver screen by Ann Peacock and John Romano, and directed by George Wolfe.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens with the young girl Adrienne Taylor-Willis (Diane Lane) running on the beach towards her father who carried and spun her around. She wakes up from this dream into a life of a divorced mother, and hurries her two children Amanda (Mae Whitman) and Danny in time for their father Jack (Christopher Meloni) who will be dropping by to pick them up for a vacation. Jack wants to go back with Adrienne and they stay with him in Orlando, but Adrienne wants it discussed when the kids come back.

Meanwhile, Dr. Paul Flanner (Richard Gere) prepares his last things and leaves the family house he sold after he and his wife divorced. He drives off to a barge on his way to Rodanthe where he had booked at a bed and breakfast inn by the sea.

Adrienne unloads her things on Jean’s bed as Jean (Viola Davis) is leaving for an extended trip, and Adrienne will be taking Jean’s place in managing the inn.

When Paul arrived, he finds Adrienne at the porch. She shows him the reserved Blue Room. At 7:30, she serves the supper but Paul transfers to the kitchen where she is preparing the salad because he prefers not to eat alone. So they dine together and get to know each other.

That night Paul recalls the night he performed his last surgery for the day, and had to shut off his son, Dr. Mark Flanner (James Franco). He also remembers the day her wife Jen left him after the divorce. That night, the patient he operated on died.

The following day, Paul visits Robert Torrelson (Scott Glenn), the husband of his patient who died on his table, only to find the recalcitrant son Charlie (Pablo Schreiber) who refused to allow him to see Robert.

In the town’s grocery store, Adrienne heard about the operation that killed Mrs. Torrelson, and knew that the surgeon was Paul. Back in the inn, Paul tells her that Mrs. Torrelson had a non-life threatening cyst on her face but still died on his operating table.

After dinner, Adrienne shows Paul her artworks at the attic. She also shows him a safe box she made from a drift wood. After a call from Jack, which left her fuming, Adrienne and Paul entertain themselves into Jean’s unhealthy pantry supplies by throwing them into the waste bin.

The following morning, Robert and Charlie arrive to see Paul. Robert wants to know what happened during the operation. Paul tells him that she reacted to the anesthesia, which happens only one out of 50,000 cases. Robert insists his loss of his wife of 43 years when Paul tries to defend himself from the blame.

Just after Robert and his son left, the storm came and fast. Adrienne and Paul need to do their best to keep the rainstorm from getting in as the lights turn off. The place is in total darkness except for a flashlight in Adrienne’s hand. Paul just came in on time to save Adrienne from a falling shelf. Alone in the dark, they made love.

Early the following day, Adrienne took the beach, feeling remorseful for not being with Danny, who had an asthma attack the previous night and is in a hospital that very hour. Paul decides to see Robert in his place. Adrienne joins him. It is here that Paul appreciates the depth of Robert’s loss.

That night, a crab crack celebration is held at the wharf area to celebrate the passing of the storm. The singing, eating and dancing that the townspeople join progress into the night as a band of retired musicians and old vocalists took country music into the air.

When the children arrive home, Adrienne makes it clear that she and Jack will not be going back together despite Amanda’s tearful protest. Things go back to normal as Adrienne continues to do her job as a mother of two and Paul his work in the hospital. Meanwhile Adrienne and Paul continue to write letters.

The day Paul misses his scheduled flight to visit her Adrienne wonders why he is not on the plane. The day after, Mark arrives bringing with him Paul’s things, or what’s left of it. He tells her of the change that Mark saw in Paul. And that Paul got consumed into the flood of mud when Paul tried to get some more supplies to take with them. Mark thanks Adrienne for giving him back his father.

Inside Paul’s things, Adrienne finds an unsent letter from Paul telling her that he wants them to be together for life. The pain strikes her deep and she cannot seem to get over it.

Adrienne is deep in sorrow when Amanda and Danny come back from another vacation with Jack. Adrienne tells Amanda what really happened between her and their father. Adrienne told Amanda about Paul.

Amanda visits the inn to stay with Jean for awhile as she recalls all the beautiful things she shared with Paul there.

The film ends with Adrienne, while walking on the beach to ease up her sorrow on Paul’s death, as she found an unlikely sight on the beach–a herd of running stallions free and carefree to be what they are. She, accompanied by Jean, Amanda and Danny, bade goodbye to the memory of Paul at the wharf as the wind blew her face. 

The Review

Nights in Rodanthe is a tragic romantic story of two divorcees who discovered love after living together for nights in Rodanthe. It deals with the issues of time among married couples, caeer demands, breaking up, and moving on with life. There is so much pain in the story. But there is also redemption and positive change that came out from that pain.

Divorce. The film proposes that divorce may be necessary and must be pursued when couples can no longer live as they have drifted apart through the years or one spouse abandoned the other for another. It tries to show that finding the right person to love after a divorce can happen. While the proposal is believable as presented in the movie, it remains to question how hard the couples worked for their marriage, and if there is still something that forgiveness can do to help renew a difficult union. While abandonment may justify unforgiveness and divorce, Catholic morals decry divorce as a solution to marital difficulties, maintaining that everything is possible for couples who sincerely want to work for it through God’s grace. Since most marital problems are caused by lack of effective communication, viewers are invited to decide whether the grounds for separation in this  movie are valid and justifiable.

Career. The film also correctly emphasized the dangers of so much commitment to professional work, leaving no time to one’s family. The film understands this, and attempts to emphasize the problems created when couples happen to choose wrong priorities in their married life. A physician who loves his work so much so as to leave him no time for his wife and son. That love becomes ironic in view of his decision to get married in the first place. The imbalance broke Paul’s family, estranging himself from his wife and his only son. The film however provided redemption for this family failure in the medical mission that both father and son have mutual interest on and through which they rediscovered their relationship. But the broken relationship with the wife appeared to be irreversible.

Professional failure. One of the sources of pain in this film is Paul’s professional failure that costs a wife’s life in a medical procedure he performed hundreds of times over and successfully. The pain of loss was overwhelming to the patient’s family, but eventually became a chance for Paul to learn compassion and for the surviving family to forgive… ironically through open and honest communication.

Children moving on. The film also explores the confusion and pain suffered by children of divorced parents, their hope for their parents’ eventual reconciliation that may never come. But redemption too came when the children understood that their parents may not be able to live together anymore because of past mistakes that broke the relatioinship for good.

The Verdict

Nights at Rodanthe is a movie of pain and redemption, which Catholics may find very rich with lessons on married life and love. While it presented divorce in its positive picture, it is honest in portraying the pain of loss, of broken relationships, and the need to repair and heal the wounds left, and eventually achieve redemption. Despite its good parts, it is a typical Hollywood movie in handling sex.

The film can be educational to mature Catholics, but not recommended to the young and less mature in their faith. It represents a two-sided blade for married couples as the positive outcomes of the story can be educational as well as a source of temptations in justifying the easier course in separation, annulment or divorce in handling a troubled marriage.    

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

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The Grace of Music

CLASSIFICATION     CP Catholic Patronage

RATING     Five of Five Stars

Distributed by Dreamworks (first released in the United States on 24 April 2009) and by Universeal Pictures internationally

The Film

The Soloist is a drama film directed by Joe Wright and written for the silver screen by Susannah Grant, based on a true story of Nathaniel Ayers written in a book The Soloist (2008) by Steve Lopez.

The film won the 2009 Best Buddy Movie award from AARP Movies for Grownups Awards.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens with a newspaper delivery man throwing around Los Angeles Times subscriptions containing a front-page story (“Life Has a Mind of Its Own”) written by Point West columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.).

Meanwhile, that same early morning, Lopez goes out on a bicycle to a construction site where he meets an accident, bumping his front wheel into a crack in the road, throwing him off the bike and injuring the right side of his face. After four weeks of disorientation, he reports back to work with a disfigured right eye.

While walking around Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles, Lopez accidentally meets a bum named Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) who plays a two-stringed violin at teh foot of Beethoven’s statue. He makes friends with Ayers. His interest gets awakened by the great talent that Ayers displays. He starts calling around, and finds out that Ayers was a musical prodigy at Juilliard School, but developed schizophrenia during his second year and dropped out towards the end of that school year. Ayers took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Intermittent flashbacks show the earlier life of Ayers as a young student at Juilliard as Lopez researchers about him.

As the Ayers articles start coming out readers got sympathetic with Ayers. One reader, an old woman who played cello for 50 years until she stopped because of arthritis, sends Lopez a cello that Ayers may use. He makes Ayers play with the cello for  a few minutes, and cuts Ayers a deal that Ayers can only play with the instrument again and thereafter if he will do it in the Lamp Communities, a shelter for the mentally ill, in a place known as Skid Row.

Lopez seeks the help of Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra principal cellist Graham Claydon (Tom Hollander) to rehabilitate Ayers. Claydon will be giving Ayers cello lessons. Lopez friend and therapist at Lamp, David Carter (Nelsan Ellis), offers for Ayers an apartment at teh Transient Living Center (TLC) that can both be used as Ayer’s apartment and music studio for cello lessons. Ayers initially refused but buckled down. With his loot cart in tow, Ayers took apartment B116. As Ayers starts playing the cello, Lopez leaves and picks up Claydon to meet up with Ayers for their first lesson.

Lopez and Claydon make arrangements for a solo cello concert for Ayers before a small audience. But the moutning pressure makes Ayers recall a bad experience with his mother during his breakdown, which led him to leave her and hit the streets. Ayers leaves the concerto only before he is able to start a piece. Lopez is frantic on what happened to Ayers as he cannot be found, only learning later that Ayers appears in Skid Row behaving like a normal person eating his food and returning to the TLC apartment on his own.

Lopez decided to make arrangements for Ayer’s treatment. But when Ayers discovers the plan he furiously threatened Lopez and tells Lopez not to see him again. Hurtling for his mistake, Lopez visits his LA Times editor and ex-wife Mary Weston (Catherine Keener) in her place. He decides to get Jennifer Ayers-Moore (Lisa Gay Hamilton), Ayer’s sister, to see Ayer in Lamp. Ayers thanks Lopez and asks for his forgiveness. Lopez assures him that it is part of being friends.

The film closes with Ayers, Moore, Lopez and Weston watching the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in concert. Post credits show the patients in Lamp dancing happily with Lopez and Weston.

 The Review

The Soloist is a beautiful movie about friendship, music and an exploration of mental illness as well as teh development of talent. It is also in certain scenes hilarious. It is free form the usual downsides of a Hollywood movie. The music selection is superb and the cinematography artistically sensitive. Foxx and Downye Jr. performed wonderfully in their roles. It is rich in both positive and negative emotions as well as good value propositions.

Grace abounds even in unlikely people. Lopez is a sensitive writer, and like any sane persons is unlikely to befriend a schizophrenic bum. But the gift of music in Ayers became a tool of grace to build on and grow their friendship. Even the mentally ill the film proposes may receive so much grace from above. And this grace simply attracted many characters to help Ayers overcome his mental illness through his music. People around Lopez and Ayers also got drawn in love by grace–Lopez gets closer again to his ex-wife; Ayers meets his sister after many long years of separation.

Music can touch souls when people allow it to. The film proposes that music can become a powerful healing instrument for mental illness. In some ways it also brings healing even to the normal people it touched in the story. Music apparently is a powerful vehicle for the grace of healing.

Only love can bring people “back to life.” It is Lopez’s love for music, his craft, and Ayers that enabled Ayers to find his way back to life after so many years of getting lost in downtown Los Angeles. Without Lopez’s persistent love that goes beyond the interest of his writing, Ayers may have died in the streets, alone and his gifts lost with him.

The Verdict

The Soloist is rich with love, warmth, gentleness, and heart-rending slice of life, sprinkled along the way with wit that makes the viewer silently smile or laugh. It is a wholesome movie for the family and any Christian viewer.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

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Intolerance and Vocation

CLASSIFICATION     CP Catholic Patronage

RATING     Five of 5 Stars

Distributed by Miramax Films (released on 25 December 2008)

104 minutes

The Film

Doubt is the film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley’s stage play Doubt: A Parable, written in 2004, originally staged off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club on 23 November 2004, and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Shanley writes and directs. It receives five Academic Awards nominations on 22 January 2009, and racks best actress and best supporting actress in eight awarding bodies.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens with her mother waking up Jimmy, an altar boy in the nearby church, to prepare to go to church early for that Sunday’s Mass. Donald Miller (Joseph Foster), another altar boy and the nearby school’s first black student, arrived just in time for the Mass to start. In the service, Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) gives a sermon on the nature of doubt. While the mass is going on, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), the strict principal of the parochial school, notices students whispering among each other or sleeping; so she stood up and slapped them to proper behavior. After the  mass, Miller approaches Fr. Flynn and tells him that he wants to be a priest like Fr. Flynn.

The following day and during the history class of Sister James (Amy Adams), Sr. Aloysius performs an inspection of the students and catches one child wearing an earphone while attending class. That evening she discusses the sermon with her fellow nuns of the Sisters of Charity of New York. And she expresses concern that something wrong might have happened around the place to merit the homily on doubt. She asks if anyone has observed unusual behavior to give Fr. Flynn cause for the preaching, and instructs them to keep their eyes open.

Fr. Flynn teaches Physical Education for boys in that school. Being so, he is close to the boys whom he once in a while treats with some glass of juice and talk about dancing with girls. One night the priest, with the bishop and another priest, had supper talking about a fat mother and laughing their heart out at it.

Sr. James, a young and naive teacher, observes the closeness between Fr. Flynn and Donald. One day during her class, she receives a call from the priest asking for Donald in the rectory. Sometime later, while watching the dancing class in the gym, she sees the priest place something in Donald’s locker. When she checks, it turns out to be the boy’s wet white undershirt. That afternoon, she told Sr. Aloysius of the incident in the classroom; and that when Donald returns to class, he looked “very frightened and puts his hands on the desk in a most peculiar way.” She smelled alcohol on his breath.

The following week, Fr. Flynn talks to a boy outside the principal’s office for talking in his class. Under the pretext of discussing the upcoming Christmas pageant, Sisters Aloysius and James confront the priest with their suspicions that his relationship with Donal may be inappropriate. The priest tells them to leave the matter alone as a private issue between the boy and himself. But the principal insists. So the priest relents, telling the nuns that the boy had been caught drinking altar wine. He had promised Donald not to tell anyone about the incident, and that he could remain an altar boy. Now, forced to break the promise, the Fr. Flynn tells Sr. Aloysius that he needs to dismiss Donald as an altar boy. The priest tells the principal that he is disappointed in the way she handles the issue.

Sr. James on the other hand feels relief, convinced that Fr. Flynn is innocent. But Sr. Aloysius remains unshakable with her suspicion.

In the following Sunday’s Mass, Fr. Flynn tells a story of a gossip-mongering woman who died and went to God. As a penitence for her misdeeds, God tells her to open up a pillow on her rooftop, throw away the feathers into the wind, and then collect all the feathers back into the pillow.

In the church’s ground after the Mass, Sr. James confronts Fr. Flynn about the undershirt she saw him leave in Donald’s locker, something she did not reveal to the principal. The priest tells her he found it in the sacristy and wanted not to embarrass the boy some more. They discuss their common loves for the children. Sr. James’ doubt receives assurance. And Fr. Flynn asks her not to let anyone destroy her compassion. After that Fr. Flynn makes some effort to avoid Donald.

The principal sends for Donald’s mother to reveal her suspicions. And Fr. Flynn discovers it. Mrs. Miller (Viola Davis) learns that Donald has been removed as an altar boy. But she shocks the nun when the mother asks her that the matter may not be pursued further because the boy only has until the end of teh school year (two months more to go) before going to a better high school. Mrs. Miller hints the nun of Donald’s homosexuality and teh physical abuse he suffered from his father. She begs the nun to drop teh matter, and rationalizes that Donald’s relationship with the priest protects him from his father and enhances his chances of going to college.

Despite having no evidence, Sr. Aloysius demands that Fr. Flynn tells the truth or she will go to his superiors. He repeats that there is no illicit relationship. But the nun conjures a story about his problems, having been moved to three different parishes in five years. And that she knows details from another nun in one of his previous parishes, which she refuses to identify. The priest was furious for her not contacting the parish priest instead, and breaking the accepted protocol of getting reliable information. She demands that he resigns. Unable to put up more to her willingness to destroy his reputation, the priest succumbs to her demands.

In his final Mass, Fr. Flynn talks about providential call that leads a person to wherever the spirit wants him to. After the sermon, Sr. Aloysius tells Sr. James that although Fr. Flynn has left, he is also appointed pastor at St. Jerome’s Church; in effect, a promotion. She admits to Sr. James that she lied about speaking to a nun at his former parish.

Sr. Aloysius concludes that one also pays a price for pursuing wrongdoing.

The film ends as Sister Aloysius breaks down into tears and she tells the younger nun that she has such doubt.

 The Review

Doubt is a complex movie of human motives as teh intention of uncovering the truth turned into a misguided quest for retribution based on a lie and twisted with pride. The story is tragic on the aprt of a priest who may have gained something towards reforming himself from a past clouded with a question on misdemeanor. But like any story of other people’s lives, there is always uncertainty because no one will ever know what is in a person’s heart.

Sin can be justified as a means to something good. Sr. Aloysius has naturally signed up to the idea that it is alright to commit sin in order to uncover wrongdoings of other people. The nun, who used to be a wife, operates with the usual reticence of pride which does not allow the possibility that she made a mistake, and prefers instead to destroy a priest’s reputation to admit her own mistake on the issue.

Pride can turn something good into something remorseful. Sister Aloysius, an inherently mistrustful and suspiciois character of a nun, started ti right to seek what happened in order to protect her student. That is part of her job as the principal. But her intrigue-predisposed mind overdid it by following her gut feeling, and let pride sets in to make her feel so self-righteous to plot for the downfall of the priest based on a lie not of the truth. Has she really wanted to know the truth and sought for it, she may find out something entirely different. In a way, she did not want to find out something different, something that contradicts what she believes in. She startedwith a desire to know the truth and ends up embracing a lie.

Pride led Sr. Aloysius to act on her own authority, breaking away from the established syste that governs proper way of placing a complain on a priest’s suspected behavior, violated her vow of obedience, and her vocation was in tatters.

A taste of sugar may make pleasures uncontrollable. Sr. Aloysius epitomizes an ultraconservative albeit undiscriminating attitude towards non-harmful pleasures of life such as a tasty food (use of three spoons of sugar in a coffee), convenience in writing (use of ball-point pens). She believes that what is pleasurable and easy can be come a beginnign in the breakdown of moral fiber. While this cautious approach to disipline of the body is philosophically valid, its application to things that requires no moral justification makes it so cold that it can stifle even teh good feelings associated with loving and compassion. And she has ceased to be loving and compassionate, way back her story starts.

Seggregationist beliefs alienates as well as hurts. The film proposes that even religous people may not be immune to their brand of seggreagationism, be it racism or not. And any action can be defended with intelligent arguments. What the sister did not know was the burden that Donald carry, which may have pushed him self-destruct–do something so bad that the school will expel him, relieving him on the pressure brought about his being black.

A mother’s care can be a stabilizing factor to a son. The love of a mother breathes out in the statement of Mrs. Miller–”I’ll be standing with my son and those who are good to my son; and I hope you’ll be standing with me there. This all-consuming love for her boy, shielded Mrs. Miller from the intrigues started by Sr. Aloysius.

The Verdict

Doubt  is a movie about intolerance, a subtle form of pride through an ego-centered self-righteousness, and the doubt it can bring into a person’s vocation in life. The film exlores the workings of pride in a Christian life, and the fruits of this cardinal sin–intolerance, untruthfulness, scandal-mongering, intrigue-making, and many more. It is a great movie for Catholics to watch and contemplate.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

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Evil's Height of Folly

CLASSIFICATION     MC Mature Catholics

RATING     One of Five Stars

Distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (released in the United States on 26 May 2009; in Italy on 26 August 2009; in Japan on 24 October 2009)

90 minutes

The Film

The Devil’s Tomb is a horror film directed by Jason Connery and written by Keith Kjornes. It is a direct-to-video film.

The Preview

The Story

The film starts with a November/December 2008 video of Dr. Lee Wesley (Ron Perlman) recounting their activities and professional observations on the events that involv their works, and an experiment gone haywire, in an archaeological discovery inside a hidden research station womewhere in the Middle Eastern desert.

Meanwhile a team of seven elite mercenaries, contracted by the CIA and headed by Capt. Mack (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), prepares for departure from an unknown desert location. CIA Agent Dr. Elissa Cartel (Valerie Cruz) briefs the team on a search-and-rescue operation to extract Dr. Wesley, the agent’s father.

On the way to the dig, Mach remembers (first of the many flashbacks on his past missions)  his time with best friend Blakely during the War. As the helicopter nears the area, a heavy sandstorm discended on them and forced them to take the ground and walk their way to the site.

Inside the underground facility, the team faces no resistance. Yoshi (Stephanie Jacobson) proceeds to check the nearby quarters when someone attacks her from behind. The attacker is a blisters-covered Vatican priest named Father Jacobi who is in critical medical condition. Dr. Sarah Harrington (Taryn Manning), know as Doc, suspects the blisters to have come from radioactive exposure. Cartel also notices signs of people walking around not far from their location through an internal detector system. Click (Brandon Fobbs) takes over the computer system to start decrypting the files of the so-named Gehenna Project. Meanwhile Doc unsuccessfully tried to help the priest breath better with his lungs filled with green mucus.

Nickels (Zack Ward) takes over the computer system as Click joins the rest of the team to search for the subject in the lower levels. Tremors greet them below. Bloody handprints litters the walls as Hammer and Yoshi lead the search party.

Mack challenges a shadow they noticed moving, only to face a glaze-eyed man who claims being called by many names except Wesley. He proceeded to talk about Doc’s uncertain search for identity and religion. Doc is stunned when the stranger referred to her by her full name.

The stranger also offers them to shed their blood for the remission of sin. He spits a corrossive fluid at Hammer as Mack reacted to take the stranger down. Meanwhile, Doc administers to the wounded stranger, lying on the ground, and sees him change into the face of her sister, her once patient that Doc failed to save and bore the guilt from then on.

As they move to check teh area farther, they find a dead man with a large wound in the rear side of the head, and a Latin inscription written on the wall–”HSPECTATA UT ABYSSUS” (Welcome to Hell). When they get back to see Doc, she and the stranger are nowhere to be found.

They move to the third lower level, and enter a locked power room with a charred man holding a power switch. They also find another man dead and bound in wires. Cartel hears Wesley’s voice, and moves into an office with a Wesley video playing. Their tracker find movements 100 feet from them, in the storage room.

Yoshi and Marcus Hicks (Jason London) stay in that room watching the video as the rest of the team move on and encounter once again the stranger, now with no trace of the gun-bullet wounds.

When Mack asks him about Doc, the stranger replies she is no longer Mack’s soldier. The man strips his upper garment, revealing a wound cut in the form of an upright cross running from his chest to his belly, and offers them salvation without rules. Mack shots him at the head, dropping him on the floor, but still manages to stand up. So Hammer sprays him with bullets until  his body cannot stand up for the damage. Despite that remains of the man laying on the floor remains conscious somehow.

Mack has a bad feeling about something is wrong in what their dealing with, and suspects that Cartel withholds them important information to explain the events. While arguing, a noise came from a side door. Another Catholic priest, pale and wounded, appears. Cartel identifies him as Father Jacob Fulton (Henry Rollins), a member of Wesley’s team. He tells Cartel that he last saw Wesley in the Temple, where Doc may have been taken. Mack forces the priest to lead them to the Temple. The priest warns them that all they can find there is despair.

Meanwhile, in the second level office of Wesley, Yoshi is watching the video (as Hicks went out to look around) when she heard a girl’s voice calling her. She follows the girl’s voice and Yoshi finds a girl holdling the teddy bear given to Yoshi by her mother. The girl tells her that she never gave her a teddy bear or birthdays. Then suddenly the girl’s face turned into something hideous.

In the first level, Nickels mans the computer system while watching a pornographic magazine. Then a nude woman calls him to follow her. When he catches up with her, she turns into another man full of blisters who attacks Nickels. Nickels stabs him with a knife but the man does not even slow down. The man pins Nickels into the wall and kills him.

Below, the team proceeds to look for the Temple when Click noticed something in the left corridor. Inside a room he finds Doc who wants him to free her from the room. She tells him not to trust Cartel. Unknowingly, another blistered man silently approaches him from the side and attacks him. Mack fires just in time to take the attacker down. Doc disappears. Hammer covers at the rare as more blistered mes came out to attack them. Hammer throws a backpack full of C4, and hastily leaves the area to rejoin the team as the C4 detonates.

Inside the Temple, they found ancient documents scatteredon a working table. Hammer, who knows Latin, reads the so-called “testaming from the fall,” which tells that the writer saw an angel fall from heaven. Meanwhile, Click wanders int a vat containing a man suspended in fluid who moves his head towards Click. Panic-stricken, Click calls the others and complains on teh coldness in the place. Mack confirms the coldness, and traces it into a room nearby.

When the team is busy looking around, Yoshi again hears the call of the girl, and follows her only to find Doc, already covered with blisteres. Doc seduces and kisses her. Doc then cuts her back along the vertebral bones.

Meanwhile the team manages to open the steel-doored tomb, withi freezing temperature, that contains a creature, called “Nephilim,” an angel cast from Heaven. The priest, ever-agitated, explains of Genesis telling of “sons of God who came into Earth assuming human forms and corrupted mankind.” He warns them that the spirit will attack them through hallucinations of loved ones like a wife, a lover, a child… It is at this mention that Hicks notices that Yoshi is not with them.

Mack orders Hammer and Hicks to get Yoshi. Blister-covered Doc attacks Hammer, and Hicks turns against Hammer, believing that Doc is still with them. Hammer warns Hicks that Doc is with the enemy but Hicks will not listen. As Doc neared him, Hammer fires at her and runs away.

Doc apparently disappeared so Hicks continues looking for Yoshi, and finds her in a clinic. She asks his help and tells him abotu the girl. She shows Hicks here severed back bones. Suddenly Yoshi blows at Hicks green slimy fluids and Doc, lurking behind, attacks Hicks, severing his neck bone.

Back in the Temple, Father Fulton discovers that Cartel’s purpose for going there is to access Kahana, the bomb-incinerator system. After telling every one about this, he hastily left. The soldiers now realize that the real mission is to keep Wesley below instead of extracting him. And that Cartel has activated Kahana while they were still in the first level, unwittingly through the hacking skills of Click without him realizing what’s going on. And they have 29:32 minutes left on the clock.

Cartel tells them that Wesley is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rolled into one, and she was trained since childhood to do what she is to do. She is a member of Wesley’s group, identified through the pendant that bears the markings “Angelus Domini.”

Mack calls through the radio informing his men that they have 15 minutes to leave the place. The possessed scrambles to attack them, and took down Hicks. As they head hout, they find Wesley in a room. Then, Hicks now possessed enters, attacking Click, but drops down in Mack’s bullets. The possessed Fr. Jacobi reappears, attacks and subdies Click.

Wesley attacks Mack. Cartel stabs Wesley with a knife but Wesley just shurgs it off. Then Wesley proposes to take over Mack because his time inside the possessed body is running out. The demon in Wesley’s body attempts to tempt Mack by showing him the women in Mack’s life–his wife who left him and his grown up daughter that he never saw–in an attempt to break his spirit. Then his best friend Blakely (Ray Winstone) appears (Mack killed him during the war having been ordered by his superiors to do so, and without questions asked). The spirit threatens to possess his loved ones instead if Mack does not agree to be possessed. As his chances diminish, Mack fires at the fuel container behind Wesley, who is consumed in the fire.

Carel moves to the charred body of the dying Wesley, and silently gives her consent to be possessed. She tells Mack that her mission is to free his father’s soul by taking into her the spirits possessing Wesley. And she decides to be incinerated so that the spirits will have not body to possess that will take them to the surface. 

The film closes with Mack racing against time away from the underground facility just in time before the explosion destroys the laboratory and takes him unconscious. A rescue helicopter picks him up and flies him away into the horizon. He discoverse a new mission as he holds the only remaining medal that has the inscription Angelus Domini. Mack narrates that this will be his new mission.

The Review

The Devil’s Tomb toys with the idea of a man containing into himself the evil spirits to keep them away from other people. Kjornes made this idea run by introducing a myth that the fallen angels cast from Heaven into the world must take on human body and cannot spread evil without that body. So, the logic goes: if you can destroy teh possessed body, you can contain the demons.

One interesting part of this story is the idea of a secret group, led by Wesley, who committed their lives to become vessels of evil spirits in order to stop these spirits from spreading … in the story, by blowing the underground facility with the possessed people trapped inside.

While classified as a horror movie, it is more gory than horrifying. As a film and as a story it has good things to be happy about as well as very serious and numerous shortcomings.

Faith changes who we are and vice versa. This statement spoken through the demon possessing Doc unexpectedly uttered something profound to think about–”Sometimes our faith changes who we are; sometimes who we are changes our faith.” The film thus proposes the idea that our faith can be as dynamic as ourselves, and any radical changes in either can affect both. Spoken from the greatest of liars, this thought may be contrary to the lying words expected of demons. But considering that these angels are willing to reveal themselves as angels of light, it is not far off that they can speak some truths like God’s angels. The idea however can elicit deep thoughts from viewers, making it a plus for Kjornes.

Blood must be shed for the remission of sin. Another deceptively correct statement again comes out from the lips of an evil spirit–”If there is no shedding of blood, there can be no true remission (of sins).” That accurately reflects the meaning of the Lord’s sacrifice, and the theological reason behind it. But the catch phrase in the devil’s version of this is that the blood to be shed is no other than yours. A classic mockery of Christian truths expected among demons, this time targeted on the bloody sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. It is another plus for Kjornes.

Guilt is not a sin. Thus says another lying demon in Wesley. Mack apparently felt guilty for killing his best friend on his superior’s direct order. The catch however is that Mack may only have a sinless guilt when he is suffering from spiritual scrupulosity (looking at almost everything you do as sinful), which most of the time, are temptations too. Or, when his conscience is so hardened that it no longer feels guilt for each evil deed committed. Otherwise, genuine guilt indicates an underlying sin. So if Mack feels true guilt on the murder, the devil, by revealing that, foolishly brings the matter of Mack’ s guilt into light instead, giving him the chance to repent from it, and gain conversion.  It is a foolish demon who does that. The idea is a minus for Kjornes.

Chill may indicate demonic presence. Christians who have frequent encounters with demons, such as exorcists, agrees that a significant drop of temperature occurs in the area where an evil presence appears. The chill did not come from the ice-like protective sheets of the Devil’s tomb. But you cannot help but notice the swirling frosty cloud inside the tomb. It is a plus for the correctness of the chill interpretation but it is a spoof on refrigeration that can be noted visually. 

Aside from these intellectually interesting insights, the film suffers from serious defects both in its story and directing in addition to what has already been mentioned above.

Problems in the storytelling include but not limited to badly developed characters (e.g., lack of background stories and badly written script), illogical character decision-making (e.g. the possessed persons prefers not to leave the facility when they can just take the elevators), and factual errors (e.g. Doc refers Hebrews 9:22 as a book in the Old Testament).

As a horror film, direction fails to make it horrifying although it can make viewers puke with sheer grossness.

The Nephilim. The idea of the fallen angels taking on human forms came from ancient pseudoepigraphic works (written by an unknown author but attributed to someone better known) such as the Jewish Life of Adam and Eve and other similar literature. The film identifies the fallen angels as the Nephilims, which is one of the interpretations from this literature on the biblical “fall of angels.” Another interpretation is that Nephilims are offspring of the sons of Seth (Adam’s third son; next to Abel) and the daughters of Cain (Adam’s firstborn).

Christian traiditon however doubts the authenticity of htese writings because it was written much later (between 200 BC and 200 AD) compared to the certainties found in the Biblical canon. Any writer of great imagination can write the same story believably.

“Restraint” of the Devil. The movie tells that the ice-like restraint of the Nephilim is not ice but “the hand of God.” This indicates the confusion of the screenwriter  with Christian teachings on evil spirits as similar to those found in pseudoepigraphic works. First, the film proposes that God fears the release of evil in the human race; thus the restrain. While the angelic fall is a fact of faith, God’s infinite wisdom sees and makes full use of these fallen angels instead in strengthening the faith of God’s people. Second, the viciousness of the possessed lab personnel (i.e., killing people) is an idea that came from the viciousness of Nephilim as reported by pseudoepigraphical writings (e.g. prone to killing and incest). Christian teaching holds that no action on the part of evil spirits can happen without the providential consent of God. In addition, evil spirits cannot take any human life; they can only tempt humans to kill, but they themselves cannot kill. This means that when a devil possesses a human body it is foolish to look at them killing humans.

The Devil is dependent on human body. The film proposes that demons have to possess human bodies before they can destroy mankind. It is a myth-making idea that is far off the Christian teachings. As mentioned above, the evil spirits do not have to possess human body to sow destraction among humans. Temptations of anger, jealousy, and cravings for wealth have led people and nations to kill. While the film suggests that the people in the surface are still “free” from the supposedly most wicked of devils (the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), it runs counter to what we can actually see around the world. Even without seeing spirits of darkness, the pain, the sadness, the conflict, the famine, the killings, and more belies the absence of these evil spirits “among humans in the surface.” If the these Horsemen are inside Wesley underneath the earth’s surface, who are the devils causing war, famine, and the likes around the world? The evil of war in Mack’s flashbacks belies the presence of the Horseman of War, for example, inside the underground lab.

Suicide is an option. The most dangerous proposition thrown by the film is the idea that suicide is an option. It wrongly proposes that the spiritual cost of suicide is worth the price paid to gain the nobility of sacrificing oneself to save mankind. It’s a sense of grandeur cloacked with social responsibility. It is actually the cardinal sin Pride, acting the act–sacrificing one’s soul (the chance of seeing the glory of God?) just to make the person feel better having saved the world. For Christians, suicide is NEVER an option.

Green slimy what? The use of green slimy spits as a way used by the possessed in attacking the un-possessed is a common tool used in extraterrestrial and evil-dead horror movies. But in this movie, it makes no sense. It may be corrosive, but then what for? Why green, and not, say, ink-black? And there is no scientific explanation proposed to explain why is that so. It is not even clear if it can cause infection (unless the movie espouses “possession by infection”). It looks gross though (maybe that’s all it is about).

Are they blisters or cancerous growth? The film appears to propose that evil spirits bring with them blister-causing infection. Why? No explanation given. The blisters in possessed personnel at times look like cancerous growth in their mutational peak. But the movie fails to again explain why. Are the Nephilims radioactive? Can possession makes mutation to happen? (This is a more reasonable explanation and can be justified with scientific myths.) The least that the author should have done, but failed, is to give the reason for these growths’ appearance.

Evil in the height of its folly. Another illogical flow in the story is teh failure of the foursome demons possessing Wesley to instead make him leave the facility with his minions on the tow and spread terror on the surface instead of waiting for Mack to come. The reasons why they can: (1) The supposed goal is to destroy mankind on the surface (the only way to do that is just to go there and not hang around waiting for Mack to come); (2) Wesley has the access codes of the facility and he can change these codes anytime (so there’s no way the possessed cannot leave the place); (3) Wesley’s body is nearing its limit of functioning (so there is an inherent urgency that the place must be abandoned as early as they can; and they can do it anytime).

Kjornes justify this decision to stay put by making Mack to appear a “chosen” vessel of the devil because he follows orders without question. It is where it becomes ridiculous. It simply implies that these demons cannot persuade those who ask questions. It surely insults Mack’s intelligence, and the demons foolishly assume that they can persuade mack by insultling him. But, despite the evil spirits’  superior intelligence, who can say they are not foolish? Rebelling against God is one proof for that.

The Verdict

The Devil’s Tomb has obvious redeeming features despite its dismal writing and directing performance. Cuba, Ron, and Ray are doing well in their roles despite teh great shortcomings inherent in less developed characters. For Christians, it can be an interesting introduction to ancient writings which teh Catholic Church considers unreliable to be included in the official canon of the Scriptures. Its proposition on suicide however is dangerous if it cannot be processed correctly by the viewers. It is a kind of film that you watch to pick what is good and discard the rest. Its goriness and lewdness though cannot be recommended for the young and less table in their faith.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

(Part of this review appears in the September issue of M Newsmagazine.)

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Not of Power But of Friendship and Trust

CLASSIFICATION          CP Catholic Patronage

RATING          Three of Five Stars

Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures (released on 13 March 2009)

98 minutes

The Film

Race to Witch Mountain is a remake of the 1975 film Escape to Witch Mountain, starring Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards as Seth and Sara, respectively, and directed by John Hough. This present film used the script of Mark Bomback, and Andy Fickman directs. Both versions are based on the 1968 novel Escape to Witch Mountain by Alexander Key. The film earns the distinction as the first Disney film in 2009 to open at #1, grossing $24.4 million.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens with news reports on alien sightings followed by actual sighting of an alien aircraft by the U. S. government and eventual retrieval of the fallen spaceship.

Meanwhile, it is a regular day for Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson), a cab driver in the streets of Las Vegas. His day can be weird though–driving for two Star Wars-customed plastic-gun totters and one Dr. Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino) who is a specialist in scientific theories on UFO and outer space. But his situation gets much weirder when two children, Sara (Anna Sophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig), just appeared out of nowhere on his backseat. Yet Bruno is not so into weird things to notice that the taxi he drives reversed on the telekinetic control of Sara and that the people who hit his rented taxicab are government operatives running after the kids.

So Bruno has no clue when Sara and Seth ask him to bring them to a faraway and secluded house. His attention gets piqued only when the siblings pay him $15,000; so he runs after them into the house to tell them that they overpaid.

Inside the house, the kids retrieves a device containing within an alien flora. As they leave the house, an alien creature (an assassin known as “The Siphon”) attacks them. When the three escape, it pursues them until its spaceship crashes into a train inside a tunnel while in their pursuit.

The events forced Bruno to ask the siblings questions. When the kids tell them they came from the outer space, he refuses to believe until Sara’s shows him her telekinetic ability. Along the way he gets irritated when Sara use her telepathic ability in reading his mind. He learned from the kids that their parents sent them to Earth to retrieve the result of an alien experiment that will save their planet from dying and prevent the alien soldiers from invading and occupying the planet.

The trio enters a restaurant in an unknown town of an unknown location in order to get a bite while waiting for Bruno’s taxicab to get fixed in the nearby junkyard. But the government unit, with Major Henry Burke on the lead, traced them. Bruno used the sheriffs to delay the agents. And through the help of their attending waitress, they slip out into their taxi and drive away.

The kids ask Bruno to help them find their spaceship that Burke’s team took away. Any delay of their return home, they say, may not stop the invasion from proceeding. So Bruno brings the siblings to see her passenger Friedman, a discredited astrophysicist who just closed her much-doubted UFO presentation.    

Friedman seeks the help of Harlan (Garry Marshall), an ageing government fringe scientist and UFO conspiracy theorist, in getting the most possible location where the spacecraft must be hidden. Harlan pointed at a place known as the Witch Mountain, one of the top secret government facilities in Nevada that cannot be found in the map. He provides them a blueprint and an aerial photo of the facility.

But The Siphon (Tom Woodruff Jr.), who survived the train crash, and Burke’s team find them in the UFO Space Expo. They only make a narrow escape with timely help of Sara’s telekinetic talent. A car pursuit ensues as Burke, with his men, follows Bruno’s yellow taxi only to discover that Harlan is driving it. Meanwhile, Bruno and the alien siblings are already far off Las Vegas, driving on Harlan’s vehicle.

Upon reaching the foot of Witch Mountain, Sara and Seth collapse as tranquilized darts hit them from somewhere. Burke and his men appear and take custody of the siblings. Burke threatens Bruno for another time in jail if he does not cooperate. While being driven back to Las Vegas by two of the government thugs, Bruno and Friedman overcome them, throw them out of the vehicle, and drive back to Witch Mountain. They find a way through the sewer tunnel. Once inside, they create a diversion to bring the soldiers outside the facility as they search for Sara and Seth inside. Only too late when Burke realizes that the target are the kids.

Using a mechanical device, Seth locates their spaceship. Friedman tricks the mechanics into leaving the spacecraft’s holding area. When Burke and his men arrive, the foursome are already half-way into the spaceship. The soldiers straf them but Seth’s invisible protective shield prevents the bullet from reaching them.

Upon realizing the futility, Burke orders his men to stop firing. But suddenly The Siphon enters the holding area and engages the soldiers in a fire fight. With the distraction, the foursome enter the spaceship and Seth to the helm. As the spaceship leaves the holding area, it hits The Siphon who quickly dematerializes and enters the spacecraft. It attacks Bruno. But with Seth’s help, Bruno sends into the ship’s burner and dissolves.

Somewhere, the siblings drop off Bruno and Friedman. Sara gives Bruno the ability to read minds as well as her dog before saying a tearful goodbye.

The film closes with Bruno and Sara looking up as the spaceship disappeared into the sky.

In the post-credit, Bruno and Sara speak before a conference as their unconvinced listeners murmur as they ask questions about the aliens that the speakers supposedly met.

The Review

Race to Witch Mountain is a UFO sci-fi for kids that explores inter-racial friendship and trust. It sprinkles wit and comedy in a way that inspires a smile instead of laughter. The story is so simplified for kids to the point that it turns up very thin in certain details. In fact, Johnson who is a good comedy actor appears somewhat stifled by the script. It also has gaps in the store that makes later actions of the character less logical. One case in point is the tearful goodble of Sara to Bruno in the final scenes when previous scenes show no clear indications that their of closeness grew to justify such an emotional display.

The film may be moderately entertaining to kids, with a good dose of self-defense punching by Bruno and timely use of supernormal powers by Sara and Seth that helps them slip through the handsof their pursuers–the Siphon and the Burke team. The funny quips and punchlines that Bruno deliver however appears so subtle most of the times for kids not to easily miss. Some less attentive adults may even miss these themselves.

Powers are good when used to protect life. Kids are naturally beholden to any display of power in movies, making very susceptible to wrong values injected using awesome visual power. But this film does it differently and in a wholesome manner. It is able to give displays of power through the alien siblings but for defensive reasons and in a less mesmerizing manner. It never shows power used to cause aggression on others or to make fun of the enemies.

Friendship transcends even planetary limits. The film also proposes a broad application of friendship far beyond international limits. And presenting aliends as beings like us, and not horrific personages with fearful powers to weld against us, is a laudable way of handling this entertainment tool for children. It leaves no distasteful residue of confusing values entering their young minds.

Action and open communication win trust. The film proposes a practical way of establishing trust in friendship. Just do your best in helping your friend, tell the truth, and trust will simply follow.

It takes some friends to solve a serious problem. The film builds on what friends can do to help other friends solve their own problems. The role of Harlan is important in illustrating this. Without him, even the scientific expertise of Friedman cannot help them find the location of the spaceship. He also helped in leading Burke and his men in the wrong direction.

The powers of the mind: Sara and Seth are portrayed to possess powers of telepathy (mind-reading), telekinesis (moving objects with the mind), voluntary immateriality, and indestructibility. The film proposes through Sara’s line that this power is available to humans who simply don’t know how to make it work. Christian tradition teaches that humans before The Fall possess mental capabilties available to spiritual beings. That makes Adam and Eve capable of hearing, and perhaps even seeing, God speak to, and visit, them in the Garden. But when they gave in to the temptation of Satan, these gifts got closed to humans, except in some people who remain naturally sensitive to these powers. Giving these powers to aliens is a mythmaking tool to distinguish them as extraterrestrials; that is, presumably more advanced to humans developmentally. But the air of reluctance in its use by the siblings makes its appearnce in the movie safer to Christians. Power is simply not the focus in this film, but the story of friendship and adventure.

The Verdict

Race to Witch Mountain is a wholesome adventure film for kids and the family. And it is free from obviously distorted values flagrant in mainstream films, sometimes even in films for kids.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

Friendship and Family in Adventure

CLASSIFICATION           MG Mature Guidance

RATING          Three of Five Stars

Distributed by 20th Century Fox (released on 1 July 2009)

94 minutes

The Film

Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a computer-animated film, and the third installment of the Ice Age series. It is written by Michael Berg, Peter Ackerman, Mike Reiss, and Yoni Brenner; and directed by Carlos Saldanha, with Michael Thurmeier as co-director.

The Preview

The Story

The film opens with Scrat (Chris Wedge), the familiar male saber-toothed squirrel in the previous two films, sniffing his way, looking for the precious acorn he had been running after since the beginning, when he came into a female saber-toothed squirrel Scratte (Karen Disher) who danced around with the ever-evasive acorn. A pulling contest ensues with Scrat getting the prize. But his sweet victory stops when he hears her crying for the lost acorn. Scrat gets smitten with her. And his softerned heart gets the better of him as he gives back the acorn to her. But her excessivepull on the acorn throws her off to the ravine to a sure death, leaving Scrat still holding the thing. With an impulse to save her, Scrat jumped into the ravine with the acorn in his hand to cushion him and Scratte from the fall. But at the middle of the drop, the wily Scratte snatches the acorn, and flew away (revealing herself as a flying squirrel), leaving Scrat to fall to his death. He didn’t die of course.

Meanwhile, Ellie (Queen Latifah) and Manny (Ray Romano), the woolly mammoth couple, except their first child while Diego, the Smilodon (Denis Leary), finds out the limits of his age when he failed to catch a gazelle who later taunted him. Facing self-doubts, Diego decides to leave the herd. Around the same time, Sid (John Leguizamo), the Sloth, finds three apparently abandoned eggs in an icy underground cavern. Despite Manny’s objection, he looks after the eggs, which hatch into Tyrannosaurus babies. He tries his best to raise them despite their threatening behavior that scares away the other young animals in the playground. It also destroys accidentally the plaything that Manny built for his upcoming baby.

When Momma, the mother Tyrannosaurus, comes looking for her young, Sid stubbornly stands the ground against Manny’s advice to let go of the three Tyrannosaurus babies. Consequently, the mother Tyrannosaurus takes Sid too, with Diego in pursuit. Manny, Ellie, and the opposums Crash (Sean William Scott) and Eddie (john Peck) follow as well.

The herd discovered an icy cavern that leads to a vast jungle populated by dinosaurs thought to be extinct. Here they meet a one-eyed, insanely-wise, weasel, named Buck (Simon Pegg) who has been living in this jungle and is chasing Rudy, a huge white Baryonyx, who took away his eye. Buck agrees to lead the herd through the jungle’s perils to Lava Falls where Momma has taken Sid and her babies.

Meanwhile, Sid and Momma are outdoing each other in feeding the offspring, with Sid losing the contest. They nonetheless welcomed him into the family. The following day, Sid gets separated from the family and Rudy attacks him. Sid gets knocked onto a loose rock slab that floats on the river of lava and about to plummet over the falls.

As the herd moves toward Lava Falls, Ellie goes into labor and a Dilong pack strikes, causing a rock to slide and separate her from Manny and Diego. Manny scrambled to protect her while Diego fends off further attacks. Buck takes Crash and Eddie ahead to rescue Sid. And just as Sid goes over the falls, the trio swoops in on a Pteranodon and saves his life. Sid is saddened for not having the chance to say goodbye to “his” children as he returns to the herd. In the  meantime, Manny reaches Ellie as she gives birth to a baby girl, which Ellie named Peaches.

Before they can exist the jungle, Rudy attacks at full force. Buck lures Rudy away from the group and is nearly eaten until Diego saves him at the last moment. Luckily, Momma arrives, who charges at Rudy and knocks him off the cliff.

As Momma and her children wish Sid well, Buck decides to join the herd to live in the surface, having lost his purpose in life with the death of Rudy. However, a distant roar indicating that Rudy is still alive changed Rudy’s mind. As the heard left, Buck sealed off the path to the underground jungle. Diego decides to stay with the herd, while Buck stays behind to battle it out with Rudy.

While all these happen, Scrat manages to save Scratte from falling to her death in the lava river while she is unconscious. The two fell in love and Scrat starts to lose his attention on the acorn. Near the end of the film, he tires of her finicky nature and reverts to his old obsession, and runs after the acorn about to fall into oblivion. With Scratte jeaouls over the acorn, a fight ensues causing a volcanic explosion under them that hurls Scrat and the acorn back to the surface, leaving Scratte trapped underground. As Scrat dances around in joy on having the acorn at last, and tauntingly raised it through the opening to show off to Scratte, a stray piece of ice falls on his hand, knocking off the acorn and back into Scratte’s hand and sealing the underground opening.

The film ends with Scrat screaming in frustration for having lost both his “love” and his acorn.

The Review

Ice Age 3: Age of the Dinosaurs is a sensitive, hilarious, animated adventure that explores the values of friendship and family all in the context of love and danger. It also managed to inject the instability of infatuation. Children and adults will find profound ideas for personal use. Here are a few of these ideas:

Friendship brings stability in relationships. Four characters are facing changing developments in their lives–Scrat finds his love interest as well as his ever-obsessing acorn; Diego discovers the limits of his physical power; Sid uncovers a new role of being an adopting parent, and; the mammoth couple (Manny and Ellie) is expecting a baby. Scrat goes through this development alone while the other characters are friends. Diego however loses heart for what he sees as a loss in himself while his friends gain something fir themselves. Diego decides to let go of his friends. Sid insists he is right and his friends are not. Manny and Ellie stay as stabling nucleus of the herd’s friendship despite the unsettling changes around them. A threat to the life of their friend Sid put them back together. Scrat however failed to gain a friend, and even lost his obsessed acorn.

Danger can refocus life from the problems to solutions. Diego’s self-pity and depression lifts up when he sees that Sid is in danger. He forgets his own problems and raced after Momma to save Sid.

A creature almost always hungers for a family. A similar thread runs through the separate lives of the characters is their hunger for their own family, and apart from a group of friends. Diego, amidst his age-related struggles, finds an emptiness that cannot be filled by his own friends. Sid sticks to create his “own” family against the advice of his friend Manny. Manny and Ellie look forward towards having their own child. And Scrat somehow dreams of starting a relationship. 

Infatuation falls in as fast as it falls out. Romantic feelings may excite imaginations and gear up emotions but between people who thinks only of their personal interests it is too fragile to develop into genuine love at times. And that what happens between Scrat and Scratte in this film. Scrat’s obsession with the acorn makes it hard for him to reign in his focus from the acorn to Scratte. Scratte’s manipulative and possessive nature creates a behavior that Scrat cannot tolerate for long. And both ended up on their own and alone–Scratte losing Scrat and certainly her life; and Scrat losing the acorn and a female of her kind that could have become a loving partner.

Even “crazy” people have something wise to say. THe herd considered Buck a crazy weasel from teh first time they met. So much for first impression then. And yet despite that “craziness” his ideas make them pull through the dangers before them in the dinosaur jungle.But when they start believing in him, they discover that this “crazy” creature too can be a good friend. 

This rich and fecund tale, told in an atmosphere of fun and adventure. Apparently, life can be enjoyed and lived to the full and be learned from at the same time. 

But its downside is something that parents and concerned adults nee to do something about explaining fact from fiction to the kids.

The Scrat-Scratte romance. This romantic tool is age-inappropriate for romanticizing love. Most viewers of these movies are kids even younger than graders. Even among high school students, most especailly in cultures not as sexually permissive as the United States, the romantic interlude can misguide these age levels into thinking that romance is what love is. This distorted view on love has lots of young victims since the age of fairy tales, and will lead teenagers today to problematci relationships later on simply because real life and genuine love is no romance at all. This sort of fairy-tale-izing the movie can make for starry eyed kids and youtsh athat are only to be disillusioned when reality inrudes inthat fantasized world as they grow older.

The Verdict

Ice Age 3: Age of the Dinosaurs is a funny animated tale with a good story to tell. Scrat though has ceased to be as funny as he used to be in the previous two Ice Age movies. But Sid remained characteristically winsome and hilarioius (e.g., drawing a face on the three Dino eggs!) and sensitive (trying to be a playful parent to the little dinosaurs). Crash and Eddie too have their funny-torious acts. And Buck, too.

The movie is great for family viewing and somehow safe for conscientious Christians but the Scrat-Scratte affair my need clear explaining form adults. Surely, tere are lots of funny scenes to laugh about. Surely, there are lots of funny scenes to laugh about.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

Part of this article is also published online in Sun-Star Cebu on 22 August 2009 as “A fun story to tell“ (on 23 August 2009 in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper).