The First Grader

Rating: 3 out of 5

Starring: Naomie Harris,

Oliver Litondo

Playing in English and Kikuyu with English subtitles at: AMC cinema

Parents’ guide: Disturbing scenes of arrest and torture.

MONTREAL – AIDS. Drought. Starvation. Violence. Corruption.

So often, in the news and in the movies, the “dark continent” of Africa is portrayed as a crucible of despair. But in the new British drama The First Grader, set in rural Kenya, Africa is a place of hope.

So rich are the possibilities there, in fact, a primary school can take in a new student who’s – get this – 84 years old. Kimani N’gan’ga Maruge is his name, and he’s the hero of the story. In the movie based on his life, he’s played by Oliver Litondo, a Kenyan making his debut in a lead role.

His teacher, Jane Obinchu, is played by British actress Naomie Harris, most familiar to audiences as the priestess Tia Dalma in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

“So many films about Africa are about poverty or genocide or what have you, but there are so many other stories there to be told,” Harris, 34, said last week from Toronto, where she’d flown in to promote the film’s commercial release (it also screened at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival).

“That’s what I love about this film. It’s great to have an uplifting story like this, with its universal message of learning from the old and of the importance of education.”

Not that the film is a breeze to sit through. It repeatedly flashes back to the arrest, imprisonment and torture Maruge suffered under the British in the 1950s, when he was part of the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule. Though shot tastefully (by Rob Hardy), with the camera going in and out of focus and cutting away for the more brutal bits, the scenes are disturbing enough to make the movie unsuitable for young kids.

The rest is rather picturesque, the kind of beautiful depiction of hardship synonymous with National Geographic, whose entertainment arm produced the film with the BBC and Los Angeles-based Sixth Sense Productions.

In real life, Maruge shot to fame in 2004 when news of his enrolment as the oldest person ever to start primary school – a Guinness World Record – made headlines in Kenya and around the world.

His fame would carry him the following year to the United Nations in New York City, where he gave a speech advocating free primary education. The address was his swansong. Maruge died of cancer in 2009, age 89.

The First Grader embellishes his story, and its pedigree is as bicultural as the two entities – Britain and Africa – that produced and shaped its protagonist.

The film is directed by a Briton: Justin Chadwick, who did The Other Boleyn Girl. And the screenplay is by a South African: Ann Peacock, who did the first Chronicles of Narnia movie, as well as Kit Kittredge: An American Girl.

It also has its heart in the right place – both on and off screen.

As part of their goal of benefiting the community they shot in, the film’s director and producers not only put in running water, electricity, a new roof and new windows for the school they used, Oloserian Primary School. They also set up charities for that school and the one across the road, Masai Plainview Primary School, where some of the film’s pupils were recruited. A charity was also set up for the Rift Valley community the students call home.

“And everyone got paid,” Harris said, “all the children and all the parents.”

Harris knows Africa herself. She has friends in Nigeria and shot two films on the continent. One was her 2002 debut, Anansi, a small independent German movie shot in Ghana. The other was Blood and Oil, a BBC drama shot last year in South Africa.

As the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, the actress – who’s fresh off a run in Danny Boyle’s staging of Frankenstein at the National Theatre in London – is also very much aware of her native Britain’s history of slave-trading and colonialism in countries with majority black populations.

But before shooting The First Grader, she had never been to East Africa, least of all a remote part of the Kenyan bush where outsiders were rare, the schools overpopulated and the locals impoverished.

“I got to pass myself off as a new teacher and teach a class of 80 children,” recalled Harris, who was hired only two weeks before making the trip. “It was a brilliant challenge that I just couldn’t pass up.”

Working with the kids – all non-actors chosen from the community – was her biggest challenge.

“They were so obedient, so respectful of teachers and adults that it made it very difficult for them to misbehave in class and come out of themselves and let their personalities shine,” Harris said.

“As time went on, they learned to trust me and start to come out of their shells, which is what the film really needed, because they are the heart of the film.”

She has stayed in touch with them.

“We’re penpals,” Harris said. “And we’re going back in June to show them the film at an open-air screening – an edited version, with the violent sections taken out.”

And with that, the circle that began with her hiring will be complete.

“The whole ethos of the film was very much about giving back to the community,” Harris said.

“So many films are made that exploit the community and the local environment, and the people who make them think it’s OK, because they made a beautiful movie.

“That didn’t happen with this movie. It was about involving people, keeping them involved and having them gain from the experience,” she said, adding that it also changed her views on poverty in Africa.

“I came away thinking those people have so much: an incredible sense of community, a real appreciation of living in the moment. They have a joy and a vitality that we lack.”

By: Amanda Mae Meyncke,

Grade: A-

“Everyone involved deserves a high five.”

Every now and then I like to have my expectations blown out of the water. It doesn’t occur often, but when it does, it happens in a big way. The trailers for The Green Hornet had almost convinced me not to see the movie, and definitely haven’t been anything worth talking about. I went in expecting a clunky, overly simple plot filled with bad puns and pathetic acting and instead was given a lively, engaging, truly funny buddy comedy. Films can have many purposes — educational or amusing, revolutionary or mindless — but after the kind of year we all had, I think it’s time to have fun at the movies again, and Green Hornet agrees wholeheartedly.

Set in Los Angeles (though it could truly be any major city in America), the film first introduces irresponsible party boy Britt Reid (Seth Rogen), who unexpectedly loses his father (Tom Wilkinson) and is suddenly in charge of a newspaper empire, which he attempts to pass off into more capable hands. After meeting his father’s mechanic, Kato (Jay Chou), and getting a glimpse of his crime-fighting abilities after a prank goes wrong, Reid schemes up a plan to fight crime as the Green Hornet with Kato alongside. What makes the Green Hornet different? He’ll pose as a bad guy to lure in the villains, and then take them down one by one. When one major player (Christoph Waltz) takes him on, will the Green Hornet and Kato be able to stay in the crime-fighting business long enough to do any good?

Now, there are a few weaknesses here, namely that the movie takes its time in setting up. It takes a while for the Green Hornet to materialize, but once he does the story moves along nicely. The script is penned by Seth Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg (also responsible for Pineapple Express and Superbad) and it stays mostly in familiar territory for the two: the buddy comedy. There’s not a great deal of introspection or exposition in the film, we don’t learn much about motivations or desires. The script expends so much energy on the Green Hornet and Kato that there’s not much room for villains or anyone else to take the stage, and that’s what keeps Green Hornet from being fantastic. However, it’s also what makes the movie so much fun to watch. The movie is directed by Michel Gondry, who hasn’t fared so well in his recent ventures (The Science of Sleep or Be Kind, Rewind), yet here Gondry has kept all of his fanciful impulses in check and allowed the clever script and well-done action sequences to propel the film forward.

As far as acting goes, Tom Wilkinson is the weak cartoonish link in an otherwise tremendously strong cast. Christoph Waltz, as the mild-mannered yet determined villain Chudnofsky, is such a pleasure to watch it is a pity he’s underused, much the same as Cameron Diaz in her small role as Britt Reid’s brainy secretary. It’s so much fun to watch the Green Hornet and Kato pal around and fiddle with their cool gadgets that you almost don’t miss the rest of the cast. And on that note — the real star of the film would easily be Jay Chou; as Kato he attacks with the calm, practiced eye of a martial arts wizard, his cars and inventive gadgets are Batman-levels of awesome, and he is the perfect foil to the bouncy and over-eager Green Hornet as played by Rogen. There’s also a few fun supporting character cameos that I won’t ruin for you here.

Fans of the franchise in all its incarnations may not be as excited for the film, as it is silly rather than serious, and more focused on the buddy comedy and less on the actual story of the Green Hornet, but everyone involved deserves a high five for taking one of the last undeveloped comic book entities and turning it into a good movie with plenty of room for sequels. I’m not a huge fan of 3-D as I think it adds extra dollars to already high ticket prices; however, I would even go so far as to recommend seeing the film in 3-D, as it adds rather than detracts from the overall story. The Green Hornet is hilarious, fun to watch, and I found myself laughing throughout — the perfect antidote to the heavy-handed awards season films that always swamp audiences at the end of the year.

[Source:film.com]

By: Laremy Legel,

Grade : F

“A very poor effort from a talented group of people, this is a terrible movie wrapped in a glossy package.”

Early on in The Dilemma there is a candid discussion about what it is like to “go through a hell” in order to really know someone. The boyfriend / girlfriend couple (Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Connelly) compare notes with the married couple (Winona Ryder and Kevin James). It isn’t a wholeheartedly terrible scene, the cadence is light and breezy. It is also, as it turns out, the high point of the film.*

If you see this movie, hold on to that moment and don’t you dare let go. You’ll need to steel yourself for the hell that’s about to be unleashed. Sadly, a dinner with Jennifer Connelly doesn’t await.

The title of The Dilemma comes from Vince Vaughn’s conundrum. He’s caught his best friend’s wife cheating — should he tell him? Should he confront her? And what about Kevin and Vince’s efforts to build an electric car engine that sounds like a classic muscle car? Ah yes, let us not forget that silly plot point, for it’s the very reason Vaughn can’t enlighten James, because he’s just too busy working on the project! But a terrible storyline could have been easily forgiven if the script had deigned to include jokes or moments of jocularity. It does not.

The entire film is also stuffed with awkward musical transitions and forced momentum throughout. Nothing really happens, but no time is spared for comedy either. A very poor effort from a talented group of people, this is a terrible movie wrapped in a glossy package. Professional cameras were used, various contracts were signed, and people were paid in full, but it all adds up to nothing. You needn’t trouble yourself a moment more with this title, simply avoid this film and do something more interesting with your time.

However, if you’re still not satisfied, and you find yourself wanting to know more about this Dilemma movie, then the rest of this review will be written in narrative form. Why not? What can one man do when faced with all this madness?

None of us in the theater could figure out what director Ron Howard was trying to do. We watched expectantly, as an anointed BEST DIRECTOR of a BEST PICTURE demands our allegiance and respect, but you could tell people were getting nervous, weirdness pervading. Fidgety coughs, the occasional seat squirm, an awkward glance at your loved one to see if they too were bored silly. Still, we watched, and we waited, if only because Vince Vaughn brought us Swingers and Jennifer Connelly brought Russ Crowe back from the brink in A Beautiful Mind. Surely she has the power to bring this movie back, too. Surely the man who made Gretzky’s head bleed could make us laugh one more time, one more round, for one more film.

In hindsight, we couldn’t have known. Why would the man who narrated Arrested Development, a temple to hilarity, hit us about the head and shoulders with a comedy claw hammer? Why would the fella who so lovingly steeredApollo 13 and Cinderella Man waste two hours of our lives in such an egregious fashion? You can say we were naive. “January comedy, c’mon,” I hear you snorting, but it’s never a failing to believe. And we believed in you, cast and crew of The Dilemma. We believed in you, and you didn’t deliver, unless the terms of the delivery were an unfunny foray into illogical and petty contrivances.

I just checked. Those were not the terms of delivery.

It was only after the film that the carnage was apparent, the damage tallied, the lack of laughs pondered and considered. There was a scene where one friend desperately wanted to tell another friend about an urgent matter, but he couldn’t, because his friend was too busy. You probably remember that moment from never in your life, or from the worst plot points terrible films have to offer. There’s another scene where Vince Vaughn follows Winona Ryder in what appears to be a $50,000 vehicle with a gurgling muscle car engine, the precise type of automobile you wouldn’t be able to sneak around with, unless you were stalking inanimate objects. If a tree were your prey, this would be the perfect stalking method.

Speaking of trees, Vince Vaughn falls out of one. Do you get it? HE FALLS. We smiled in agony.

Moments, moments, and more moments like this added up to lightness fading from our eyes. The projectionist brought up the house lights five minutes before the film ended, a very savvy decision. If only the curtain was available to close before the opening credits, we all would have gone home much happier.

Grade: F

*The Channing Tatum cameo made me laugh once or twice too. He should be held blameless in the eventual jury trial. But 90 seconds of C-Tates maketh a film not.

[Source:film.com]

By: Aaron Peck,

“A wholly original film, no one is safe here.”

Grade: B

First off, a bit of news.

There was a rumor that Kevin Smith was going to auction off the rights to his movie to the highest bidder at tonight’s screening of Red State. Well, Kevin Smith did show up, and he did have an auction. But, in a complete snub to the distributors waiting in the crowd to bid on his movie he announced that he was bidding “twenty bucks” for his movie and that was that.

Smith then went on a fairly long-winded, but informational diatribe about the inner workings of producing and distributing a movie were killing creativity. Smith doesn’t want to give his movie to a studio and have it pass through all the bureaucratic nonsense, and what he’s planning is commendable. He announced that beforeRed State‘s wide release in October, that he and his crew were going to tour America with the film. He intends to make every ounce of the approximately four million dollar budget back before the movie has its wide release. He promised to not spend one penny on advertising. Instead, the information of Red State will pass word of mouth and over Smith’s podcasting company. That’s it, that’s the deal. Smith is retaining his movie and releasing it without studio’s help.

By the way, he also did announce that Red State is his second to last movie, and that Hit Somebody due out in 2012, will indeed be his last. He plans on releasing indie movies through his Smodcast studio, which he promises won’t cost the filmmakers anything. It’s an ambitious plan, but he seems like he’s adamant to help young dreamers break into the movie making business without dealing with large corporate studios. I for one, hope it works.

Now on to your regularly scheduled review.

When I walked out of Red State I had no idea what to think about it. It’s one of those movies that you have to mull over to figure out how you feel about it. It’s certainly a departure from the comedic norm that we’ve come to expect from Kevin Smith over his last seventeen years as a filmmaker.

Smith describes Red State as a horror movie. It’s not so much a horror film as it is a thriller. If we’re talking strictly about the genre of the movie, then that’s how I’d classify it. I think that Smith classifies it as a horror because of the kinds of ideas that are introduced and discussed during it. He makes no bones about being appalled by religious zealots who protest funerals of gay people. Perhaps that’s why he thinks it’s a horror movie, because the group of religious wackos presented in Red State are certainly horrendous people.

Three local high school kids find an adult online ad from a woman who’s looking to have some group sex with a few young, willing boys. High on hormones, the boys drive out to a remote area outside of town to find the woman in the ad. When they get to her trailer she gives them some beers and tells them to relax before they get down to business. The beer is drugged, the boys are taken hostage.

This much is made clear in the movie’s synopsis. The three boys are taken by a group of religious nutjobs who call themselves the Church of the Five Points. They’ve been stockpiling guns for years, they live in a large compound, and it seems that their church services now include killing sinners like gays, sodomites, and adulterers.

Michael Parks is a revelation (pardon the pun) as Pastor Abin Cooper. One of the creepier villains to come along in quite a while, his sermon at the beginning is brilliantly written and builds the tension as we realize just how unstable this man is. Parks pulls off one of the best performances of the festival. Even though he’d tell you differently, Abin Cooper is the iconic wolf in sheep’s clothing. He relishes the power he has over his congregation and the authority he has over his sinning captors. In short, he’s insane.

Red State has an extremely ambitious narrative that never ceases to surprise during its brisk runtime. No one is safe in this movie … and that’s why it’s so surprising. It eschews any type of formula and goes straight for the jugular.

While the movie itself is intense and the dialogue is rich with Smith’s wit, he’s largely unable to extract himself from his own soap box. As such, Red State has it’s flaws. It can be too preachy for its own good. Smith can’t stand the religious zealots who spout hatred, but in a few cursory words and snide jokes he ends up lumping the entire religious community of the world into a pigeonholed view of extremist wackjobs.

Another minor blemish to an otherwise intense ride is the off-beat humor that’s inserted into the movie in the wrong places at the wrong time. Like when a little girl, in the middle of a very tense moment exclaims “God says only to shoot fags.” A line that would have been hilarious if uttered under the right pretenses, but it’s oddly misplaced and caused nervous laughter from the audience. Not because of the content of what the girl said, just because the sheer dramatic moment was ruined by a silly, spiteful joke. It gave the whole scene, which was one of the most powerful scenes of the movie, a flat and unsatisfying ending.

Red State isn’t without its flaws, but it wears them proudly and it should be commended for doing so. A wholly original film, no one is safe here, which creates an inherent sense of dread in the audience as they don’t know who’s going to bite the dust next. I can certainly say that I haven’t quite had a movie going experience like the one I had going to Red State. Keep a look out for it when Kevin comes to a town near you.

Grade: B

[Source:film.com]

By Josh Wigler

“The Green Hornet” certainly has the crime-fighting action scene on lockdown, but when it comes to box-office supremacy, Seth Rogen’s latest couldn’t muscle up to Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher’s “No Strings Attached.”

The “Black Swan” actress returned to the romantic comedy arena this past weekend with “No Strings Attached,” director Ivan Reitman’s movie about a pair of longtime friends (Portman and Kutcher) who decide to add a few new benefits to their relationship. As the only major new release of the weekend, “No Strings Attached” had little trouble securing a first-place finish worth $20.3 million, despite facing a steady stream of mostly negative reviews.

Rogen and director Michel Gondry’s “The Green Hornet” was no slouch, however, as the highly stylized buddy comedy continued to kick its way toward the top of the box office. In its second weekend in theaters, “Hornet” lost some of its sting to buzz into second place, adding $18.1 million to its continually growing pile. The film has earned $78.5 million worldwide, surpassing “Kick-Ass” as the highest-grossing live-action superhero comedy of all time, according to Box Office Mojo. Still, “Hornet” has some other milestones to reach before surpassing its reported $120 million production budget.

Rounding out the weekend’s top five competitors were Ron Howard’s “The Dilemma,” now in its second week of release, followed by magnetic awards-season favorites “The King’s Speech” and “True Grit” at $9.2 million and $8 million respectively.

The Box-Office Top Five

#1 “No Strings Attached” ($20.3 million) #2 “The Green Hornet” ($18.1 million) #3 “The Dilemma” ($9.7 million) #4 “The King’s Speech” ($9.2 million) #5 “True Grit” ($8 million)

Upcoming Releases

Jason Statham teaches Ben Foster in the ways of “The Mechanic” next weekend, while Anthony Hopkins turns to his religious roots in “The Rite.”