Fellow Movie Lovers

Fellow Movie Lovers

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

Another three dimensional visual experience and a delightful one for all ages. Even the concept of having a dragon as a pet was original. Based on the book by Cressida Cowell, directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders tells the story of the scrawny Hiccup, the physically unfit son of the chief Viking on the island of Berk; where slaying a dragon commemorates the dawning of manhood or womanhood (very twenty first century concept) and acceptance into a society plagued by constant strife between man and beast.

This enchanting story, gorgeously filmed, centers on the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless an elusive, terrifying nighttime dragon, maimed by Hiccup’s ingenious weaponry; what is absent in physical attributes he more than compensates with mechanical entrepreneurship. The friendship develops in tandem with his acceptance in dragon training school.

The anthropomorphic wizardly is stunning and truly beautiful. No matter your chronological number the message, so powerful, yet so elementary deserves its place in the sun. What we fear might actually with understanding become the key to growth, wisdom and love.

THREE&1/2 STARS!

MOTHER

This why we go to the movies! This Korean film by Bong Joon-ho (The Host, 2006. Do not see it alone!) is extraordinary in garnishing every ingredient we long for in a film: a unique and captivating story, intrigue and suspense at the highest decimal, intricately woven plot evolvement and splendid acting.

Watching the movie with two highly intelligent friends, never casting our eyes away from the screen, knowing without a doubt that this was an experience so rarefied and precious, one that we can only pray happens again in this millennium; leaving and barely breathing, having met a Mother, never, ever again to be duplicated or replicated in celluloid. Kim Hye-ja as the mother of Do-joon (Won Bin) a mentally challenged twenty something miscreant, gives a performance that borders on the sublime. She loves, protects and exceeds all boundaries in her quest to save her son. He is her magnificent obsession and we never know her name.

“Mother” twists, wrings and lacerates our every emotion; just as we triumphantly solve the dilemma, another angle emerges and pulverizes our smugness until even at the conclusion we are left with confusion and wonderment.

In filmography there have been a myriad of memorable mothers: Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”, Anne Bancroft in “The Graduate”, Mary Tyler Moore, “Ordinary People”, Glenn Close, “The World According to Garp”, Faye Dunaway, “Mommie Dearest”, Linda Hamilton, “Terminator 2”, Frances McDormand, “Almost Famous”.

But Kim Hye-ja is to coin a colloquialism the “mother of all mothers”; we meet her as she performs a ritualistic, solitary dance bathed in the lushness of the Korean landscape, we join her crusade and become fierce disciples in her mission to save her son, and finally, with clarity and incisiveness know if circumstances allow our paths to intersect with Do-joon we tread gingerly and treat him with kindness.

FOUR&1/2 STARS!

For Now……………Peneflix