FunBlog

The Last Station is an interesting, well-acted and poignant film about the last year in the life of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.

In 1910 Count Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is perhaps the worlds most celebrated writer. He is also the guru of a movement called the Tolstoyans whose members believe in the abolition of private property, pacifism, vegetarianism, sexual abstinence, dressing like peasants and living in rural communes where they work the land with their own hands. The movement’s chief organizer, Tolstoy’s friend Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) is a dapper fellow who prefers nice suits and the city life for himself. He is dedicated to spreading Tolstoy’s ideas, but his foremost concern at the moment is to make sure that the old man leaves his valuable copyrights to the organization, thus effectively disinheriting his wife and children.

This earns him the enmity of Tolstoy’s wife Sofya (Helen Mirren), a smart and strong-willed woman who thinks that Tolstoy’s more radical ideas are a bunch of hooey. (Their marriage has been passionate but contentious.)

Chertkov recruits Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), a naive and idealistic young Tolstoyan, to serve as Tolstoy’s private secretary and instructs him to spy on Sofya and help undermine her influence on Tolstoy.

Valentin’s experiences lead him to question his faith. Tolstoy turns out to be a friendly and charming old man (though sometimes cantankerous and confused) who freely admits that he is not a very good Tolstoyan. He seems much more nuanced than his humorless followers. Valentin finds himself feeling increasing sympathy for Sofya in spite of her obstructiveness. Worst of all he falls in love with a pretty, free-spirited young woman (Kerry Condon), an embarrassing problem for someone who believes in sexual abstinence.

The ultimate message seems to be that love is more important than ideals, or at least that it should be.

Whew–try to say that title without pausing for breath!

Some people say that Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a second-rate imitation of Harry Potter. That seems unfair. There is no way this movie can qualify as “second rate.”

J.K. Rowling is no Shakespeare but she is a competent storyteller. The Harry Potter movies are state-of-the-art professional efforts which are often visually amazing. This movie, on the other hand, is notable for its uninspired story, cheesy dialog, wooden acting, and unconvincing special effects, which it tries to disguise with murky cinematography.

The story is based on Greek mythology, a body of material that has inspired some of the world’s greatest poets and artists. I guess there’s no reason it can’t inspire the less talented as well.
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Musui’s Story–The Autobiography of a Takugawa Samurai by Kokichi Katsu offers an unusual glimpse into a side of historical Japan that is rarely discussed, the seedy underside of life in the romantic Edo period. Instead of being the sort of noble and upright samurai that is usually depicted, the author comes off as a cheerful scoundrel.

Kokichi was born in 1802, the third son of Heizou Otani, a minor government official. As the younger son of a samurai, his best chance for advancement lay in being adopted by a samurai family with no sons. Accordingly at the age of six his father arranged for him to be adopted by the Katsu family, with the understanding that he would eventually marry their daughter Nobuko.
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An Education reminds me a little of those comedies where teenagers spend most of the movie doing dumb things, yet everything works out all right in the end. The difference is that this is a lot smarter and more believable.

The story (loosely based on an autobiographical essay be British journalist Lynn Barber) begins in London in 1961. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a 16-year-old schoolgirl. She’s clever and talented and bored with her life and the people around her.

She is thrilled when she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard), a charming and good-looking (though somewhat oily) older man. He takes her to places where she has never been, to a sophisticated world of concerts and fancy restaurants and nightclubs. She watches with bemusement as he cons her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) who are ambitious but rather dim.

Jenny is not dim, and she can see that David is dishonest, but she doesn’t care. She’s caught up in the thrill of it all and impatient with suggestions that she may be jeopardizing her future. In fact she gets few warnings since most people are charmed by David.

Still this is basically a comedy and things don’t end as badly as they might have.

Fans of xxxHolic will want to check out episode 17 of Kobato. for an interesting 30-second cameo. What follows is sort of spoilerish, so I am putting it below the fold:
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Crazy Heart is a well-made film with a really good performance by Jeff Bridges, but somehow I can’t get too enthusiastic about it.

Bridges plays “Bad” Blake, a boozy old country singer, once a big star but now reduced to singing in bowling alleys. The remaining fans who show up to hear him need to be very forgiving, though he occasionally shows flashes of his old charisma.

He agrees to be interviewed by Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a free-lance reporter and single mother. Somehow they end up falling love. (What is she thinking? He’s not just older than she is; he’s downright decrepit!)

This is, of course, mostly a story about alcoholism. Part of my problem with it may be that the combination of alcoholism and country music reminds me too much of Walk the Line, a much more compelling movie.

Crazy Heart tries hard and has it’s heart in the right place. Like many such movies it seems torn by the question of whether to have an overly pat, cheerful and crowd-pleasing ending, or an ending that is more believable but depressing. It eventually compromises in a way that is sort of satisfactory.

Here’s an off-the-wall idea. I can’t help wondering whether the floppy hats that Kobato always wears conceal the fact that she actually has puppy-dog ears. (Sort of like Holo in Spice and Wolf.) That would go a long way toward explaining her puppy-like personality.