Sons of Perdition: 2010 documentary about teenagers exiled from
the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS
Church). In case you’re not familiar
with the infamous Warren Jeffs, here’s the rundown: he’s a self-proclaimed prophet and former
leader of one of the largest Mormon fundamentalist factions that still practices
polygamy. And in what many former FLDS members see as an effort to gain
additional wives for Church leadership, many young boys are exiled for such
wild infractions as speaking to girls, listening to pop music, and wearing
short-sleeved shirts. Some also flee the
community on their own.
These kids are so sheltered and
their lives so controlled that when they first leave many don’t know what the
nation’s capitol is, or what comic books are.
Free to make their own decisions for the first time, struggling with a new culture, and cut
off from their family and friends, they all party pretty hard. It’s a fairly good documentary, but deeply
sad.
Fame High: 2012 documentary directed by Scott Hamilton
Kennedy, about four students at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts
(LACHSA). Grace is a senior ballet
dancer with amazing technical abilities who is seeking to add emotional depth
to her dancing while balancing wanting a boyfriend, excelling in her other
classes, and meeting the demands of her conservative Korean family. Brittany is a senior singer-songwriter who
moved from Wisconsin to attend LACHSA but now wonders about the value of an
arts education versus real-world stage experience. Zak is a jazz pianist prodigy with a soft
demeanor and a serious Stage Dad. And
Ruby is the quirky freshman drama major who annoyed me half to death.
It shows all the normal drama of
high school plus actual Drama. Amazing
teachers, stage parents both supportive and terrible, students both talented
and delusional - teenagers earnestly reciting Shakespeare is like my
nightmare. It’s edited well, it draws
you in (albeit very slowly) and it had me by the end but man did it take a while. I’d
totally watch it again.
Ender’s Game: 2013 sci fi action film based on the book by
Orson Scott Card, directed by Gavin Hood, and starring Asa Butterfield,
Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, Abigail Breslin, and Ben
Kingsley. In the future, citizens of
Earth are locked in a struggle against an alien race and prepare gifted
children to be the potential new commanders of the space fleet. Ender Wiggin is selected for Battle School,
and has to fight his way to the top against hyper-competitive fellow students
and the machinations of his teachers.
This
summary really doesn’t do it justice.
It’s a decent adaptation of an excellent young adult sci fi novel, which
I would highly recommend reading first.
The Hobbit: The
Desolation of Smaug: 2013
fantasy action epic directed by Peter Jackson and starring Martin Freeman, Ian
McKellen, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace,
Luke Evans, and Orlando Bloom. When last
we left our intrepid group of adventurers, they were being tracked by a party
of Orcs on their quest to retrieve the Arkenstone from the lair of a dragon and
reunite the fractured community of Dwarves.
This second movie of the three-part series (don’t get me started)
involves a dude who can morph into a giant bear, huge scary spiders, elves, and
Smaug the dragon. Look, you either like
these kinds of movies or you don’t. It’s
a CGI spectacle, highly entertaining, and Lee Pace as Thranduil alone is worth
seeing it. If you like this sort of
thing.
Holes: 2003 dramedy based on a young adult novel by
Louis Sachar, starring Shia LaBeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Patricia Arquette, Jon
Voight, Eartha Kitt, Henry Winkler, and Khleo Thomas. Stanley Yelnats IV is a sweet teenager from a
quirky family with uncommonly bad luck.
A misunderstanding over a stolen pair of sneakers lands him in a
juvenile detention work camp, where he and other tween offenders spend their
days endless digging holes in the desert. Through a series of flashbacks and
encounters with the warden, Stanley learns the true story of his family’s
unlucky past and begins to set everything right.
The
soundtrack is obnoxious almost to the point of distraction, but it’s otherwise
a cute movie. The plot is interesting,
the acting is decent, and it’s so nice to remember the LaBeouf of this era
rather than the man-bunned Poor Man’s Culkin he’s become.
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