Review of Birth (2004) by Emily M — 28 Jul 2008

[font=Times New Roman]Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives") has the role of a lifetime as a man about to undergo a transsexual operation in the indie comedy "Transamerica." It's a hell of a performance -- Huffman disappears under a good deal of makeup and a voice striving to be feminine to play the part of Bree (formerly Stanley), who finds herself traveling cross country to bail her previously unknown son, Toby (Kevin Zegers), out of a New York jail. The two then drive (well, for the most) back to California, Toby unaware that the woman claiming to be a Christian missionary is his father. A good deal of the stretched-out road trip is corny and sophomoric, especially a run in with Toby's step-father, but Hoffman's stellar acting grounds the film and makes you sympathetic to Bree's plight. Hoffman was robbed of her Oscar.[/font].

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[font=Times New Roman]"Night and Fog" is hands down the most disturbing documentary I've ever seen. It literally shook me to my core in its brief 35 minutes examining and then simply looking at the concentration camps of World War II Europe where untold millions of people were murdered because they didn't fit into Hitler's new world. That said, this film should be required viewing of every man, woman and child on earth, if I had my way (and I usually don't). Using a mixture of on-location shooting in color and archival black and white footage and photographs, director Alain Resnais spares nothing -- horrific, graphic footage of the dead and near dead is shown in detail -- in his laying out of fact. Living skeletons, skulls smashed apart, heads laying in piles, charred, burning corpses -- "Night and Fog" shows us the absolute reality of absolute evil. And its writers tell us that they only are skimming the surface with this documentary, that the true horror of life and death under Nazi Germany can never fully be explained or filmed. Absolutely horrifying, absolutely heart-breaking, absolutely unforgettable ? it's a shame humanity seems to have not progressed.[/font].

[font=Times New Roman]"Birth" is a drama about a 10-year-old boy (Cameron Bright) who insists, and believes to his core, that he is the reincarnation of Sean, the late husband of Anna (Nicole Kidman), who is about to married to businessman Joseph (Danny Houston). The kicker: Anna not only believes the boy, but soon falls in love with him. This isn't for anyone who remotely likes children or laws protecting children from sexual exploitation. In a scene that had me squirming like never before, the boy, also named Sean, strips and gets into a bathtub with a naked Kidman. Elsewhere, Joseph attacks Sean in a rage, as does another character. Never dull by a long shot, this film begs too many questions to succeed: Why do young Sean's parents simply vanish without a care, leaving their child with clearly distraught strangers for days on end? For that matter, where are Cameron Bright's parents? I can't give away a scene involving Joseph and Anna toward the film's ending, but I found it to be ludicrous. [/font].

[font=Times New Roman]Is there a cooler actor than Peter O'Toole? Even at 74, and looking a spry 84, O'Toole literally sparkles with his unbelievably blue eyes in "Venus," a quite funny British comedy-drama about dying with grace while hungering for life. O'Toole is Maurice, a famed actor of stage and screen, living out his last days with his best friend and fellow actor Ian (Leslie Phillips, also excellent) until the latter's great niece (Jodie Whittaker) arrives. The girl may be daft and clueless (she announces her intention to become a famous London-based model ? as she pigs out on junk food and noodles), but she's beautiful and full of spirit. She kick starts dying Maurice's passion for life. There are quite a few scenes here that flirt with territory already used in "The Piano," but the film's humor and touchy moments far outweigh any negatives. Credit here goes to screenwriter Hanif Kureishi. And O'Toole. Wow. The former "Laurence of Arabia" is the absolute zenith of film stars.[/font].

[font=Times New Roman]Ever see one of those 1950s melodramas where every thing and every person is impossibly perfect? Where mom, dad, son, daughter, house, clothes and mannerisms, even the streets, were scrubbed clean of any blemish? In 2002's "Far From Heaven," director/writer Todd Haynes takes that paradise-like blueprint used in so many WASP films and smashes the dream with notions that "didn't exist" in 1950s America as far as most good patriot consumers were concerned: homosexuality, race discrimination, racial violence and steep economic divides. I won't give away any plot details except to say the film focuses on three people: WASPs Frank and Cathy Whitaker (Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore) and African-American Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysebert). Haynes shows us a portrait of America that must be closer to the truth than what was presented in films of the era. We know the starched clean, perfect America never existed despite the lies (or false memories) of many of our parents and grandparents. The dream -- or blatant lie -- was the byproduct of an America in love with itself and its potential, one that gladly ignored and denied anyone who spoke different. It's an unsettling film for sure, and despite its somber ending, "Far From Heaven" celebrates freedom and the smashing of barriers that separate us. Now, that's an American value that can be celebrated.[/font].