Precious DVD Review

Another of the Oscar Best Picture nominees and most celebrated films of 2009, Precious released on DVD March 9th from Lionsgate.  Winner of two Academy Awards (Mo’Nique – Best Performance by an Actress in a supporting role, Geoffrey Fletcher – Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published), the film is directed by Oscar-nominee Lee Daniels.

Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Precious tells a very riveting, dark, and horrific story of a teenage girl (Gabourey Sidibe) who struggles to find herself in the midst of a home where she is sexually abused by her own father (whom she has two children with) and emotionally and physically abused by her mother (Mo’Nique).

After being kicked out of her school for being pregnant for the second time, Precious lands at an alternative school.  Against her mother’s wishes, Precious does seek an education and tries to make things work at her new school.  She finds a teacher (Paula Patton) who is a bit odd, but seems to care, and she builds some semblance of relationships with her new classmates.  As her second baby draws near, Precious’ relationship with her mom becomes more and more uncivil and unbearable.  Can she make it on her own?

Precious is a beautiful film because it tells a story that is very dark and sad, but in a away that leaves the audience feeling good about the internal fortitude of the main character, rather than horrible about the experiences she goes through.  Many other films in the same vein struggle to do that.  They present a similarly grim tale, but the audience is left to feel horrible because of our lack of connection to the character’s experiences and our inability to affect them in any way.

Mo’Nique certainly deserved her Academy Award.  She was excellent as the relentless and emotionally damaging mother.  Sidibe was equally amazing as a 16 year old teen coping with more life challenges than one person should have to.  Her story should be uplifting to anyone who feels sorry for their own teenage predicaments.  Paula Patton is good, as usual, in a supporting role.  Also in a supporting role was Mariah Carey, who plays a social worker.  Her acting is average, but credit Carey for de-beautifying herself for the role.

Precious is a not a film for younger audiences as the content and thematic material are too much for young eyes to handle.  There are moments of inappropriate sexuality, plenty of language and emotionally abusive commentary, physical violence, and more.  However, for mature viewers, the story is gripping, poignant, and leaves you feeling impressed by the power of the main character.

MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 109 Minutes
DVD Release Date: March 9, 2010

Grade: A

Director: Lee Daniels
Starring: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey

Precious DVD Review by Neil of Movie Room Reviews

Hunting the Lost Symbol DVD Review

Hunting The Lost Symbol, a TV documentary series released on DVD by GAIAM/Discovery Channel on March 2nd, is basically an analysis of Dan Brown’s fiction-thriller (book) The Lost Symbol, telling us what’s true in it and what isn’t. Centering primarily on the Free Masons, their symbolism and the many conspiratorial theories against them (depicting them as money-grubbers, power-mongers and even Satanists), we are led into a world of secrets, both in modern-day USA with the CIA and about our early Founding Fathers. A Bonus Feature, Secret America, is equally intriguing, explaining to us various American symbols and their origins, among them the American Flag, the Statue of Liberty, the American dollar bill, the White House and the Washington Monument.

Many may not know that George Washington was a Free Mason who transformed a group of tobacco fields into what we know now as the Capitol Building, The White House and Washington, D.C. On September 18, 1793, Washington laid a cornerstone in a traditional Masonic ceremony using corn (for prosperity), oil (to symbolize peace), and wine (for happiness) in the U.S. Capitol Building. This cornerstone has since mysteriously disappeared, no one knowing how or why (although it’s conjectured that this disappearance occurred during fires there, or renovations). Dan Brown, who also wrote The Da Vince Code, presents the Free Masons as a rich and secretive group who engaged in strange rituals (and he’s garnered millions of sales and readers by doing so), but not all of his ideas are true. The Free Masons were trying to lift our country out of ignorance and superstition and into science, logic, and mathematics, that is to say, thinking. A statue of Washington, nude to the waist and holding up a Greek-like cloth, brings to us the concept of apotheosis (making a leader appear to be a God, especially post-death), and was originally installed at the Capitol Building and later moved to the Smithsonian Institute when many disliked it. George Washington himself was planned to be buried in Washington, D.C. but was actually buried on his own estate in Mount Vernon during a Masonic ceremony that his wife Martha did not attend (although many claim that her absence was due to severe grief).

It is true, for instance, that Free Masons have Chambers of Reflection containing time and death symbols like the skull and the hour-glass, but there isn’t one in the sub-basement of the Capitol! It is also true that the Washington Monument has a Latin inscription at its top that means “Praise God”, but the Free Masons did not believe in any one particular God, just in a Higher Power. Throughout Hunting The Lost Symbol ideas are raised and debunked at a rapid pace using clear and intricate visuals and interviews with authors, historians, and Washington, D.C. workers.

As an aside (from which perhaps came some of the conspiracy theories), Hunting The Lost Symbol informs us of various governmental and CIA projects of encryption, encoding, and the use of psychics to foil foreign governments. “Intention” was studied – staring at a photo of someone who’s physically very far away, even on another continent, to affect that person in either a healing or a menacing manner, as was “remote viewing,” where psychics very capably drew detailed pictures of Russian submarines or Desert Storm bomb sites that they’d never seen or heard about before. Since some taxpayers protested using public funds to study clairvoyance, telepathy, and mind over matter, the twenty-million dollar programs were ended, but institutes that the government could tap, like the Institute of Noetics, still exist today and are thriving.

In a final dissection of many famous personages involved in their group over the course of a few centuries, the Free Masons are perceived as a much-maligned society more oriented towards futuristic thinking and the stability of our nation than towards acquiring masses of money via evil means. Hunting The Lost Symbol and the Bonus Feature Secret America are rich in information and curiosities, answering questions many of us would not even think to ask! This documentary would withstand not only one repeat viewing but many more, shared with others. Highly recommended, especially to the historically-minded!

MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 173 minutes
DVD Release Date: March 2, 2010

Grade: A

Directed by John Tindall
Narrated by Jason Hildebrandt
With Bonus Features Secret America and Deleted Scenes

Hunting the Lost Symbol DVD Review by Christina of Movie Room Reviews

Up in the Air DVD Review

Fresh off its defeats at the 2010 Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor (George Clooney), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Kendrick), Best Director (Jason Reitman) and more (a total of six Academy Award nominations), Up in the Air released on DVD March 9th from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment.

A romantic-comedy drama movie, Up in the Air chronicles the rigorous travels of Ryan Bingham, a role written specifically for Clooney by writer Jason Reitman.  Bingham is a specialist for a company that provides termination consulting services for companies in the midst of layoffs, firings, and downsizings.  Rather than doing the ‘dirty work’ themselves, many companies around the country hire experts to come in and provide the balance of legal acumen and pscychological softening necessary when telling people they are being “let go”.

A lifer committed to the daily grind and comfortable with an organized, and process-oriented lifestyle, Bingham is disenchanted when young hot shot Natalie Keener (Kendrick) comes along and tries to completely transition the company into the technology age.  She presents a plan to revamp the operation, effectively pulling employees like Bingham off the road and putting them in front of monitors to deliver ‘face-to-face’ terminations on-screen.

Ryan is not going to give up his travel quietly and immediately challenges the notion that the company is better off with more low-cost, efficient operations than it is with the personal touch of experts like himself.  To prove his point, he events Natalie to go out on the road with him for the next firing adventure.  She agrees and off they go.

Just before meeting the young and ambitiou Natalie Keener, Ryan meets Alex Goran (Vera Famiga), a fellow roadie who has the same enthusiasm for rental car and airport discussion that Ryan has.  The two initially find a chemistry talking about their travel idiosynchracies.  Soon, they find themselves talking less, and enjoying a ‘casual’ relationship where they touch base en route to similar destinations.

Up in the Air is a nice film with a unique story and a somewhat unpredictable and poignant ending.  However, while good, it is not a great movie worthy of Oscar wins.  Apparently the Academy agreed since it did not land many.  Perhaps it is movies and actors like the ones in this film that Mo’Nique was poking at with her ‘politics’ comment after her win for Best Actress (Precious).  It seems as though the film was nominated, along with Clooney and other stars, because it was the best Clooney film of the year, and he needed a nomination.

Sure, Up in the Air is a nice story and worthy as an entertainment product.  However, be realistic with your expectations.  Clooney is solid and delivers a nice performance.  However, compared to Jeff Bridges Oscar-winning role in Crazy Heart, there is no question that right actor won this year’s award.  Kendrick is nice as a relative newcomer and Farmiga is usually a good role player.  Reitman has a nice story that is well-delivered, just a little more hype than deserved.  Jason Bateman is historically funny in lighter comedies, but some of his more recent movies and roles have been a let down (see Couples Retreat and Extract).

Up in the Air is appropriately Rated R based on some language and thematic material, including some sexuality, though not necessarily a lot on the gratuitous side.

MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 109 Minutes
DVD Release Date: March 9, 2010

Grade: B

Director: Jason Reitman
Starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Amy Morton

Up in the Air DVD Review by Neil of Movie Room Reviews

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