poem: La Verne Salute to Heroes 2009

Our privileged lives

here in this valley

are what we decide

despite fragile courtesy

and limited access to greatness.

So what about this hero business?

The term's tossed to the famous, the noisy.

But working quietly, doing their jobs and beyond,

are better heroes than those on the covers.

The elders: hardworking Betty, a Pride of La Verne,

her business, her charities, her life all one;

There's Anna, an Outstanding Older American,

computer guru, helping young and old with their toys;

And we know about Jon, our most visible,

public hero: teacher, principal, mayor;

Alicia's a Pride of La Verne, an active parent,

valuing how sports teach her kids and others';

Our youngest hero's Logan, at 10 a tutor, a Scout,

an athlete, a helper wherever he's needed.

These our heroes

the big sisters of our lives

the fond aunts and uncles

see us through,

nurture and protect

steering us by example

doing what needs to be done

cheerfully, with joy.

Let us pay them deliberate honor

by offering what we can,

with new resolve and opening hearts.

The Informant!

Matt Damon reportedly gained 30 pounds to prepare for his role as whistleblower Marc Whitacre in Steven Soderbergh's THE INFORMANT! , based on a true story.  Damon doesn't look like he's wearing a fat suit, but he's certainly not playing Matt Damon. He's terrific in this role, taking it over and convincing us to believe just about anything he says and does.

It's 1992, and Whitacre is a young executive at Archer Daniels Midland.  In the heartland plant where he works as a chemist, a virus is attacking a new food additive.  He eventually agrees to the FBI's request that he wear a wire in order to find out what's gone wrong.  

Without giving too much away, it's safe to say that the plot doesn't unravel as much as it gets more and more focussed.  You think you know what's going on, and then you realize that you don't, and then you think you've finally got it straight.  It's a movie to see with friends, maybe more than once, so that you can compare clues.

Watch for small roles featuring standup comics, such as the Smothers Brothers as judicial figures.

Love Happens

WARNING!  Despite how you may feel about Jennifer Aniston's good work elsewhere (The Good Girl, for instance, not to mention her years on tv's Friends), stay away from her latest, LOVE HAPPENS, if you value your sanity.  It's a total piece of trash.  

Directed by Brandon Camp, who also co-wrote the script, it stars Aaron Eckhart, best admired for the special effects in the most recent Batman film, as Burke Ryan, a creepy self-help guy who can't take his own advice.  Everyone should have known that a premise like that just can't be sustained for an entire movie.  At least not this movie.  Picture, for instance, a short scene that's apparently  supposed to be funny: a recovering elderly widow hands Burke a cookie jar full of oatmeal cookies infused with her husband's ashes.  Yikes!  

Go see anything else or just stay home.

Adam

ADAM, from writer/director Max Mayer, stars Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne as Adam Raki and Beth Buchwald, upstairs/downstairs NYC new neighbors.  Beth is a teacher who wants to be a children's book writer; Adam is an electronics engineer whose true love is all things astronomical.  Early on in their friendship he tells Beth that he has Asperger's Syndrome, which makes empathy and communication challenging.  Adam's recently deceased father's longtime friend, Harlan (Frankie Faison) acts as a guardian/friend/mentor, a gentle and thoughtful philosopher and pragmatist.

Beth has her issues, too: an only child, she's aware that she's spoiled and used to having her own way.  She's her father (Peter Gallagher)'s darling, and one of the plot's complications hinges on her father's personality, his "angles," as her mother (Amy Irving) puts it.

ADAM is quirky; its characters come across as real.  The relationship is what it is, no fluffs or fanfare.  An interesting comparison for ADAM is the recent (500) DAYS OF SUMMER.

District 9

For twenty years, we're told in a series of interviews and news excerpts in DISTRICT 9, an alien spaceship has hovered over Johannesberg, apparently disabled.  Its million-plus inhabitants have thus long been sequestered in District 9, a settlement of scraps and tarps, now referred to with loathing and something like fear and pity by those who don't live there.  District 9 has its own black market, illegal dealings, and shortages of any comforts.  Because of increasing hostility towards the aliens,  the government has decided to forcibly relocate them to a worse area far removed from Johannesberg; the official in charge of the relocation is brilliantly played by Sharlto Copley.  His story is one of slow transformation from obsequious toady to something akin to frightened hero, as he interacts with one alien in particular.

There is plenty of fear-caused violence, mostly from the humans, which makes the movie seem way longer than its two hours, so be prepared.  But it's an effective movie, especially because of its hand-held cameras, and as a metaphor it's wide-ranging: apartheid, internment, immigration, and prison populations, to name just a few.