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VITUS is a film from Switzerland that has garnered many accolades and nearly won an Oscar. And yes, it is that good! Written by Fredi M. Murer, Peter Luisi, and Lukas B. Suter and directed by Murer, VITUS explores the life of a child genius, a lad who from the age of five is obviously gifted in that he can play Bach et al after only a few months lessons and is able to read books and understand concepts that make his stance in a regular kindergarten class untenable. But the film is less about the gifts of a child prodigy than it is a story of how a genius child longs for a normal childhood. It is in the telling of the story that the audience is privileged to discover the joys and trials in a child's view of being extraordinary.
Vitus - played at age 6 by Fabrizio Borsani and at age 12 by Teo Gheorghiu - is referred to as a little Mozart by his parents Helen (Julika Jenkins) and Leo (Urs Jucker), and by the family friends who are amazed at Vitus' gift as a pianist. But as is often the case with gifted children, they are overprotected, not allowed to engage in the normal activities of being a kid. Vitus finds consolation in his grandfather (a brilliant Bruno Ganz) whose creative energy includes Vitus in his longing to fly and to build complex machines. While Vitus continues his love for the piano he also takes risks with his beloved grandfather. Vitus' intelligence serves him well in analyzing the complexities of his father's job and his grandfather's role in that position, and it is his genius that leads the family in a direction no one thought possible. And of course with every story of an extraordinary young lad adapting to a puzzling world, there is also a love interest: Isabel at age 12 (Kristina Lykowa) is his fun-loving babysitter and at age 19 (Tamara Scarpellini) is the queen of his inexperienced heart and fill a void in Vitus' life that otherwise would be empty. Fitting all of these subplots together is made magical by Vitus' constant playing of classical music - a feat the young actor is capable of performing on his own!
The cast of this film is not only gifted but is also endearing. Bruno Ganz is a brilliant actor and he is matched by both of the young actors who play Vitus. The story is tender but avoids bathos. It simply is an uplifting, inspiring, entertaining film. A Must See! Grady Harp
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(7 of 8 readers found this comment helpful)
The Simple Things: Reminders That They Are Still Here
As each of us daily boots up the computer to go shopping on the internet, intending to avoid leaving the house, or seeking the best bargain without having to drive to the stores, walk the aisles, chat with the clerks or perhaps the store owner - remember the socializing while shopping for things that begged to be picked up and thought about and discussed before taking out the wallet and paying? - or in other words, consuming as electronic parts replace the human interaction, there is that tiny twinge of memory of the 'old days' without the computer/cellphone/instant messaging with video depersonalization. That is what this little, beautifully crafted, tender and well-designed book is all about.
Jennifer McKnight-Trontz has provided a pathway to a quieter time, that period when new objects were viewed in decorated store windows or in Montgomery Ward catalogs, and simply turning the pages of this treasure house gives a second look at the solid things, the memorabilia of a slower time: PRODUCTS FOR A HAPPY LIFE. In simple single color drawings on contrasting color pages are items that range from slip joint pliers, pocket knives, toasters, clothes pins and willow clothes baskets, tricycles, home floor fans, rolling pins, scooters, women's and men's underwear, hangers, hairpin/bobby pin/rollerpin, steel crib, steering sled, to the basic broom - among countless other items.
The drawings are accompanied by succinct descriptions of the items without ballyhoo or noxious sales tactics. These are the items from our past and the author/designer simply places them before our eyes as gentle prods to reminisce about the products for a happy life, products that signify a time before our current chaotic computer driven existence. It is a pleasure to visit this little book: it is the perfect bread and butter gift to leave behind the next time to pay someone a visit (remember that?....) Grady Harp
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(7 of 8 readers found this comment helpful)
A Very Important New Novel about the Eccentricities of our Society
BORDERLINE is a book that works on so many levels that it is almost unclassifiable. It is a genuinely warm, tender, humorous coming of age story while at the same time being a novel that is smart, informative and illuminating in the fields of genetics, autism as an increasingly proliferating condition, fast food and obesity as national crises, and the overemphasis of pill-popping for invented childhood and adult disorders. Sounds like too much information to compress into one book? Not in the deft hands of author Bonnie Rozanski! For all of the intelligent and interesting information the book contains, the story itself is an amazingly fresh novel, written with great style and sensitivity, a novel than will appeal to just about everyone no matter the age group.
Guy Ritter is a twelve-year-old son of a geneticist father, an activist mother, and Guy happens to have a five-year-old brother Austin who is an autistic child. Guy feels extraneous in this family whose focus is on controlling autistic Austin, he has little tolerance for school, and finds some consolation in his obese best friend Matt. Guy's father runs a lab of genetics research, the current project being how to breed wolves to become like docile dogs, and when Guy is finally invited into his father's work life, Guy falls in love with animal # JX104 whom he gradually wins over as a friend and changes his scientific name to 'Wolf' - his new best friend. Guy's life is complicated by his mother's blind devotion to autistic Austin (she is convinced the autism is due to a vaccination!), by Matt's broken home and Matt's grossly obese father who is addicted to junk food from Hamburger Haven (a habit that results in a crisis), and by a distant father whose concerns are dedicated to his scientific work which nearly excludes Guy from existence.
The story builds very coherently with mounting tensions on multiple levels (each level a significantly important social malady) until Guy coerces Matt into freeing the soon to be exterminated Wolf from his father's lab of cages. Then with the unexpected help of Austin and the courage to do what is 'right', a completely new beginning to Guy's dissociative life comes into focus. It is the manner in which Rozanski relates her story - through the eyes and experiences and perceptions of a 12 to 13 year-old boy that makes this a novel of consuming interest. It is beautifully constructed, insightful, sensitive, and entertaining, all the while addressing many issues that are puzzling the public today. It has all the earmarks of a lasting and successful novel. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
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(5 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
Merging Talent and Style: Enter Joseph Eugene Green!
With the patience and perseverance of a spider, Joseph Eugene Green spins a web of intrigue that serves to focus on the inner workings of major corporations (a very timely topic!), and writes with such centripetal force that the end of this very fine novel is an explosion at the core. Green, himself an integral part of the corporate world, has a rich vocabulary, a keen sense of characterization, and the ability to present the intimate aspects of the sex lives of straight people, gay people, and those on the down low - be they African American, Hispanic, white, or biracial - with more sensitivity to sensuality than most writers writing today.
MERGING WITH MONSTERS is not only about corporate mergers, but also about sexual mergers, and even past-to-present mergers - and in each category the constituents are often monsters. Anita Powers is a beautiful black woman from humble beginnings who entered her adult life with a horrid physical assault, yet instead of submitting to that incident's scars, has climbed the ladder of success to become a top corporate executive. Likewise her close friend Phoebe, from similar background, sustained a gunshot wound as a result of being public with her girlfriend and is wheelchair bound, yet rises to high levels in corporate management as Anita's assistant. Grayson Malone also has a past of secrets, and as a handsome black man marries a white girl Sherry, coping with the familial prejudices as well as the corporate problems to rise in the ranks of the big companies. Julian Quintana comes from a humble, close-knit family and faces not only the corporate prejudices of being an Hispanic but also those of his being gay.
And these are only a few of the myriad characters that Green catches in his web, interrelating them all in a manner that addresses so many social evils, so many personal triumphs won by sheer chutzpah, and so many private and public pains, that the reader is left nearly breathless as the novel speeds to a satisfactory end. Green is a very fine writer. There are some technical aspects of his style that can either be considered positive or negative, depending on the reader's mindset: he for some reason feels the need to call his black characters either Sistah or Brotha and italicizes these terms, pulling focus away from his narrative in a jarring way; he has a propensity to use repeated phrases in italics between paragraphs to apparently project a character's subconscious when the writing simply doesn't need the diversion/distraction.
But these are small (and remedial) aspects of a mature writer's gifts, and since this novel establishes Joseph Eugene Green as a successful African American artist as well as simply a fine writer, he can now move forward and continue to create spellbinding plots and characters without the need for gimmicks. He definitely is a writer to watch - and this novel is fine piece of work! Grady Harp
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(6 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)
Director Xavier Beauvois, with the intelligent and sensitive script he co-wrote with Cédric Anger, Guillaume Bréaud and Jean-Eric Troubat, allows us, the viewers, to look inside the minds and lives of those people who commit to police work in a manner that pays homage to a maligned group and reinstates our visceral support to the spectrum of on the edge terror mixed with spaces of ennui that these people endure. LA PETIT LIEUTENANT is not a crime film: it is a deeply touching inside view of the men and women who protect us.
Opening with well-staged Le Havre Police Academy graduation images Beauvois focuses on newly graduated Antoine Derouère (Jalil Lespert) as he says goodbye to his family and his wife Julie (Bérangère Allaux), a school teacher who pleads with Antoine not to leave Le Havre for Paris, the destination Antoine seeks to prove his desire for an active detective career. The kind but inexperienced Antoine takes up residence in Paris and is assigned to a homicide unit with equally inexperienced young men who learn the ropes of owning a gun, the embarrassment of performance problems at the shooting range, the awkward first 'arrests' and interrogations, and the endless hours of sitting at a desk waiting for activity. Newly assigned as the head of Antoine's unit is Commandant Caroline Vaudieu (the extraordinary actress Nathalie Baye) who has just come off a two year sabbatical to recover from alcoholism and the associated death of her son from meningitis. The manner in which these people bond is quiet and sensitive and when finally a case comes to their attention - a man found dead in the canal - the force joins begins what they all need to do: the killer must be found.
Clues are explored, people are traced, and Antoine and Vandieu form a particularly close bond, Antoine reminding Vandieu of the son she has lost and Vandieu providing the model for his career. Tension mounts as the criminals are pursued, coincidences occur and a tragedy cracks the bond of the group, affecting each member of the small force immeasurably. It is this very human happening and its effects that wind the movie down to moments of painful acceptance of the life of police people.
The entire cast is first rate and provides ensemble acting that is among the finest on screen. But the portrayal by Nathalie Baye is so multifaceted, embracing the inner trauma of personal losses not only of those she loves but also of her own sense of dignity as she faithfully attends AA meetings, that her performance is triumphant. Jalil Lespert also captures the fine line between innocence and experience that makes his portrait of a new detective not only completely credible but also one that leaves a mark on the heart. The direction and the cinematography by Caroline Champetier keep the film nearly monochromatic, the only color that is left to shock us for a brief moment is the red blood at moments of tension. And the lack of a musical score keeps the tone of the humanity of the film intact, never reducing it to a bombastic Hollywood chase and kill film. This is a little jewel of a film that deserves a very wide audience. Highly Recommended. In French, Polish, and Russian with English subtitles. Grady Harp
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(4 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
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Vitus (Widescreen)
Grady, November 29, 2007
Giving Back the Gift: The World of the ProdigyVITUS is a film from Switzerland that has garnered many accolades and nearly won an Oscar. And yes, it is that good! Written by Fredi M. Murer, Peter Luisi, and Lukas B. Suter and directed by Murer, VITUS explores the life of a child genius, a lad who from the age of five is obviously gifted in that he can play Bach et al after only a few months lessons and is able to read books and understand concepts that make his stance in a regular kindergarten class untenable. But the film is less about the gifts of a child prodigy than it is a story of how a genius child longs for a normal childhood. It is in the telling of the story that the audience is privileged to discover the joys and trials in a child's view of being extraordinary.
Vitus - played at age 6 by Fabrizio Borsani and at age 12 by Teo Gheorghiu - is referred to as a little Mozart by his parents Helen (Julika Jenkins) and Leo (Urs Jucker), and by the family friends who are amazed at Vitus' gift as a pianist. But as is often the case with gifted children, they are overprotected, not allowed to engage in the normal activities of being a kid. Vitus finds consolation in his grandfather (a brilliant Bruno Ganz) whose creative energy includes Vitus in his longing to fly and to build complex machines. While Vitus continues his love for the piano he also takes risks with his beloved grandfather. Vitus' intelligence serves him well in analyzing the complexities of his father's job and his grandfather's role in that position, and it is his genius that leads the family in a direction no one thought possible. And of course with every story of an extraordinary young lad adapting to a puzzling world, there is also a love interest: Isabel at age 12 (Kristina Lykowa) is his fun-loving babysitter and at age 19 (Tamara Scarpellini) is the queen of his inexperienced heart and fill a void in Vitus' life that otherwise would be empty. Fitting all of these subplots together is made magical by Vitus' constant playing of classical music - a feat the young actor is capable of performing on his own!
The cast of this film is not only gifted but is also endearing. Bruno Ganz is a brilliant actor and he is matched by both of the young actors who play Vitus. The story is tender but avoids bathos. It simply is an uplifting, inspiring, entertaining film. A Must See! Grady Harp
(7 of 8 readers found this comment helpful)
Products for a Happy Life by Jen Mcknight-trontz
Grady, October 23, 2007
The Simple Things: Reminders That They Are Still HereAs each of us daily boots up the computer to go shopping on the internet, intending to avoid leaving the house, or seeking the best bargain without having to drive to the stores, walk the aisles, chat with the clerks or perhaps the store owner - remember the socializing while shopping for things that begged to be picked up and thought about and discussed before taking out the wallet and paying? - or in other words, consuming as electronic parts replace the human interaction, there is that tiny twinge of memory of the 'old days' without the computer/cellphone/instant messaging with video depersonalization. That is what this little, beautifully crafted, tender and well-designed book is all about.
Jennifer McKnight-Trontz has provided a pathway to a quieter time, that period when new objects were viewed in decorated store windows or in Montgomery Ward catalogs, and simply turning the pages of this treasure house gives a second look at the solid things, the memorabilia of a slower time: PRODUCTS FOR A HAPPY LIFE. In simple single color drawings on contrasting color pages are items that range from slip joint pliers, pocket knives, toasters, clothes pins and willow clothes baskets, tricycles, home floor fans, rolling pins, scooters, women's and men's underwear, hangers, hairpin/bobby pin/rollerpin, steel crib, steering sled, to the basic broom - among countless other items.
The drawings are accompanied by succinct descriptions of the items without ballyhoo or noxious sales tactics. These are the items from our past and the author/designer simply places them before our eyes as gentle prods to reminisce about the products for a happy life, products that signify a time before our current chaotic computer driven existence. It is a pleasure to visit this little book: it is the perfect bread and butter gift to leave behind the next time to pay someone a visit (remember that?....) Grady Harp
(7 of 8 readers found this comment helpful)
Borderline by Bonnie Rozanski
Grady, September 26, 2007
A Very Important New Novel about the Eccentricities of our SocietyBORDERLINE is a book that works on so many levels that it is almost unclassifiable. It is a genuinely warm, tender, humorous coming of age story while at the same time being a novel that is smart, informative and illuminating in the fields of genetics, autism as an increasingly proliferating condition, fast food and obesity as national crises, and the overemphasis of pill-popping for invented childhood and adult disorders. Sounds like too much information to compress into one book? Not in the deft hands of author Bonnie Rozanski! For all of the intelligent and interesting information the book contains, the story itself is an amazingly fresh novel, written with great style and sensitivity, a novel than will appeal to just about everyone no matter the age group.
Guy Ritter is a twelve-year-old son of a geneticist father, an activist mother, and Guy happens to have a five-year-old brother Austin who is an autistic child. Guy feels extraneous in this family whose focus is on controlling autistic Austin, he has little tolerance for school, and finds some consolation in his obese best friend Matt. Guy's father runs a lab of genetics research, the current project being how to breed wolves to become like docile dogs, and when Guy is finally invited into his father's work life, Guy falls in love with animal # JX104 whom he gradually wins over as a friend and changes his scientific name to 'Wolf' - his new best friend. Guy's life is complicated by his mother's blind devotion to autistic Austin (she is convinced the autism is due to a vaccination!), by Matt's broken home and Matt's grossly obese father who is addicted to junk food from Hamburger Haven (a habit that results in a crisis), and by a distant father whose concerns are dedicated to his scientific work which nearly excludes Guy from existence.
The story builds very coherently with mounting tensions on multiple levels (each level a significantly important social malady) until Guy coerces Matt into freeing the soon to be exterminated Wolf from his father's lab of cages. Then with the unexpected help of Austin and the courage to do what is 'right', a completely new beginning to Guy's dissociative life comes into focus. It is the manner in which Rozanski relates her story - through the eyes and experiences and perceptions of a 12 to 13 year-old boy that makes this a novel of consuming interest. It is beautifully constructed, insightful, sensitive, and entertaining, all the while addressing many issues that are puzzling the public today. It has all the earmarks of a lasting and successful novel. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
(5 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
Merging with Monsters by Joseph Eugene Green
Grady, May 3, 2007
Merging Talent and Style: Enter Joseph Eugene Green!With the patience and perseverance of a spider, Joseph Eugene Green spins a web of intrigue that serves to focus on the inner workings of major corporations (a very timely topic!), and writes with such centripetal force that the end of this very fine novel is an explosion at the core. Green, himself an integral part of the corporate world, has a rich vocabulary, a keen sense of characterization, and the ability to present the intimate aspects of the sex lives of straight people, gay people, and those on the down low - be they African American, Hispanic, white, or biracial - with more sensitivity to sensuality than most writers writing today.
MERGING WITH MONSTERS is not only about corporate mergers, but also about sexual mergers, and even past-to-present mergers - and in each category the constituents are often monsters. Anita Powers is a beautiful black woman from humble beginnings who entered her adult life with a horrid physical assault, yet instead of submitting to that incident's scars, has climbed the ladder of success to become a top corporate executive. Likewise her close friend Phoebe, from similar background, sustained a gunshot wound as a result of being public with her girlfriend and is wheelchair bound, yet rises to high levels in corporate management as Anita's assistant. Grayson Malone also has a past of secrets, and as a handsome black man marries a white girl Sherry, coping with the familial prejudices as well as the corporate problems to rise in the ranks of the big companies. Julian Quintana comes from a humble, close-knit family and faces not only the corporate prejudices of being an Hispanic but also those of his being gay.
And these are only a few of the myriad characters that Green catches in his web, interrelating them all in a manner that addresses so many social evils, so many personal triumphs won by sheer chutzpah, and so many private and public pains, that the reader is left nearly breathless as the novel speeds to a satisfactory end. Green is a very fine writer. There are some technical aspects of his style that can either be considered positive or negative, depending on the reader's mindset: he for some reason feels the need to call his black characters either Sistah or Brotha and italicizes these terms, pulling focus away from his narrative in a jarring way; he has a propensity to use repeated phrases in italics between paragraphs to apparently project a character's subconscious when the writing simply doesn't need the diversion/distraction.
But these are small (and remedial) aspects of a mature writer's gifts, and since this novel establishes Joseph Eugene Green as a successful African American artist as well as simply a fine writer, he can now move forward and continue to create spellbinding plots and characters without the need for gimmicks. He definitely is a writer to watch - and this novel is fine piece of work! Grady Harp
(6 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)
Le Petit Lieutenant
Grady, April 15, 2007
A Deeply Touching View of PolicemenDirector Xavier Beauvois, with the intelligent and sensitive script he co-wrote with Cédric Anger, Guillaume Bréaud and Jean-Eric Troubat, allows us, the viewers, to look inside the minds and lives of those people who commit to police work in a manner that pays homage to a maligned group and reinstates our visceral support to the spectrum of on the edge terror mixed with spaces of ennui that these people endure. LA PETIT LIEUTENANT is not a crime film: it is a deeply touching inside view of the men and women who protect us.
Opening with well-staged Le Havre Police Academy graduation images Beauvois focuses on newly graduated Antoine Derouère (Jalil Lespert) as he says goodbye to his family and his wife Julie (Bérangère Allaux), a school teacher who pleads with Antoine not to leave Le Havre for Paris, the destination Antoine seeks to prove his desire for an active detective career. The kind but inexperienced Antoine takes up residence in Paris and is assigned to a homicide unit with equally inexperienced young men who learn the ropes of owning a gun, the embarrassment of performance problems at the shooting range, the awkward first 'arrests' and interrogations, and the endless hours of sitting at a desk waiting for activity. Newly assigned as the head of Antoine's unit is Commandant Caroline Vaudieu (the extraordinary actress Nathalie Baye) who has just come off a two year sabbatical to recover from alcoholism and the associated death of her son from meningitis. The manner in which these people bond is quiet and sensitive and when finally a case comes to their attention - a man found dead in the canal - the force joins begins what they all need to do: the killer must be found.
Clues are explored, people are traced, and Antoine and Vandieu form a particularly close bond, Antoine reminding Vandieu of the son she has lost and Vandieu providing the model for his career. Tension mounts as the criminals are pursued, coincidences occur and a tragedy cracks the bond of the group, affecting each member of the small force immeasurably. It is this very human happening and its effects that wind the movie down to moments of painful acceptance of the life of police people.
The entire cast is first rate and provides ensemble acting that is among the finest on screen. But the portrayal by Nathalie Baye is so multifaceted, embracing the inner trauma of personal losses not only of those she loves but also of her own sense of dignity as she faithfully attends AA meetings, that her performance is triumphant. Jalil Lespert also captures the fine line between innocence and experience that makes his portrait of a new detective not only completely credible but also one that leaves a mark on the heart. The direction and the cinematography by Caroline Champetier keep the film nearly monochromatic, the only color that is left to shock us for a brief moment is the red blood at moments of tension. And the lack of a musical score keeps the tone of the humanity of the film intact, never reducing it to a bombastic Hollywood chase and kill film. This is a little jewel of a film that deserves a very wide audience. Highly Recommended. In French, Polish, and Russian with English subtitles. Grady Harp
(4 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
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