Happy Death Day 2U

Rated: MHappy Death Day 2U

Directed and Written by: Christopher Landon

Based on Characters by: Scott Lobdell

Produced by: Jason Blum

Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Suraj Sharma, Steve Zissis, Rachel Matthews, Charles Aitken, Phi Vu, Sarah Yarkin.

The baby-faced masked killer is back, along with characters from the original, Happy Death Day (2017), including ‘crazy-white-girl’ Tree (Jessica Rothe) who manages to get sucked into The Death Cycle at the end of every day until she figures out who the killer is… again…

What made the original so successful was the character Tree and her self-deprecating, fatalistic dark humour.  We get the same tone here along with the suspense of waiting for the baby-masked killer to strike and the mystery of who’s behind the mask this time.

Christopher Landon has returned as director and writer (based on character by Scott Lobdell, writer of the original), throwing something extra into the storyline because there has to be a reason for the cycle to start all over again.

The clever re-cap gives a backstory for those who missed the first – but I recommend going back to watch Happy Death Day because it makes those moments of Tree reliving the hellish nightmare funnier.  And here, it’s fun to see familiar characters also get sucked into the cycle with a few new nerdy scientists added to explain the new dimension added to the story.

I have to say the ‘dohicky’ knitting Dean Bornson (Steve Zissis) is hilarious.

And here we get Ryan (Phi Vu) meeting his replica with an added touch of sci-fi lifting the sequel into a different space – so it’s the same concept, but the obstacles have changed.  Which was needed to make this a worthy follow-up rather than just more of the same – yeah, excuse the constant puns but can’t seem to help myself after leaving the cinema with a wry grin.

I had a lot of fun watching Happy Death Day 2 U, even getting into the teary dramatic moments of Tree struggling with the death of her mother and the choices she needs to make going forward in her life.

Although, I have to say the push at the end of the film felt tack-on and a too little much.

But there’s twists and turns, romance, suspense (not as much horror as the first though), and good humour making this sequel worth a watch.

Cold Pursuit

Rated: MA15+Cold Pursuit

Directed by: Hans Petter Moland

Screenplay by: Frank Baldwin

Based on the Movie, ‘Kraftidioten’ Written by: Kim Fupz Aakeson

Produced by: Michael Shamberg p.g.a, Ameet Shukla p.g.a

Starring: Liam Neeson, Tom Bateman, Tom Jackson, Emmy Rossum, Laura Dern, John Doman, Domenick Lombardozzi, Julia Jones, Gus Halper, Micheál Richardson, Michael Eklund, Bradley Stryker, Wesley Macinnes, Nicholas Holmes, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Michael Adamthwaite, William Forsythe, Elizabeth Thai, David O’Hara, Raoul Trujillo, Nathaniel Arcand, Glen Gould, Mitchell Saddleback, Christopher Logan, Arnold Pinnock and Ben Cotton.

An English remake of the Norwegian film, In Order of Disappearance (Kraftidioten) (2014), we certainly see a lot of people get, disappeared.

Set in the snowy mountains of Kehoe, Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson) has just won the Citizen of the Year award.

He’s a simple, family man.  He plows snow so others can get to where they need to be. In his speech he says he was lucky, he picked a good road early and stayed on it.

Until his son is killed by drug dealers.

Cold Pursuit is a bloody revenge film filled with gangsters with names like: The Eskimo, Speedo and Wingman…  Because, well, it’s a gangster thing.

There’s this quirky dark humour where small-town cop Gip (John Doman) thinks drugs should be legalised – to give the people what they want, tax the shit out of it, so the government can double the cops’ pay.

But more than that, the sheer number of people who get killed (see the number of actors cast above) and how they get killed, is… funny.

There are so many funny moments that mostly hit the mark and sometimes don’t.  Pink phones and rubber ducks didn’t quite make it for me.

But added details like the plush hotel with the white fake fur reception desk getting a buff and brush, tickled.

What I realised as the film progressed was the presence of Liam Neeson as the main character, and the clever way director, Hans Petter Moland, uses Neeson’s gravitas for comic effect.

I really like Neeson in this film: still the hero, still the family man – like we’ve seen so many times before – but all that history he owns in that hero-family-man role is used to add another layer to the film.

A revenge, shoot-em-up movie with elements of gangster turned on its head with a super-food conscious villain (AKA Viking), a Thai ball-breaker wife making a tropical paradise in the middle of snowy mountains, a profile-in-pink drug dealer who also sells wedding dresses and drug dealing Native Americans who adore wearing mustard yellow gloves.

Sure the humour is laid on a bit thick and tried too hard at times, but the balance of action, drama, violence and those gallows-humour, ticklish moments made for a (mostly) great entertainer.

Got to say, Liam Neeson’s still got it.

Capharnaüm

Rated: MCapharnaüm

Directed by: Nadine Labaki

Screenplay by: Nadine Labaki, Jihad Hojeiy, Michelle Kesrouani

Screenplay in Collaboration with: Georges Khabbaz

The Participation of: Khaled Mouzanar

Original Music: Khaled Mouzanar

Produced by: Khaled Mouzanar, Michel Merkt

Starring: Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, Kawthar Al Haddad, Fadi Kamel Youssef, Haita Cedra Izam, Alaa Chouchnieh, Nadine Labaki.

A slice of life taken from the streets of Lebanon, Capharnaüm means chaos: a place where kids get washed-down by hoses at a car repair garage, old men wear cockroach-man costumes with sticky tape wound around the wing of glasses, and to stop kids crying out in hunger, they’re feed ice cubes dusted with sugar instead of food.  These are the details that give this film life.

Capharnaüm is a story of fiction based on many true stories.  This is a story about Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) who eventually sues his parents for being born.  Into a hell, to be constantly told to f*#k off.  Without papers, to be nothing but an insect.

But without children, ‘you’re not a man’, explains his father.

To keep the tone of the film as close to the true stories director Nadine Labaki heard as she researched the project for three years, walking through the streets and detention centres, she cast non-professional actors to play a part very similar to their own lives.  The judge is an actual judge.  The Daraa clashes in Syria (2012) forced Zain’s parents to move to Lebanon with four children.

Nadine walked with cap and sunglasses until she found the source for the story she wanted to convey – one of destitution, courage, the want to be a good person and all the eating of shit to survive.

Zain lives in a household where his parents fight for every scrap, the children too poor to go to school.  Twelve-year-old Zain is sent to work at the landlord’s market where he carts containers of water while watching a school bus, front grill packed with children’s backpacks, the bus a place where he should be: talking about tests coming up, notebooks to be filled.

The little man in a blue jacket, white stripes down the sleeves – he watches.

When his parents sell his adored sister off to the landlord in marriage at the age of eleven, he leaves home.

I immediately warmed to this kid, his courage and maturity, his love for his sister Sahar (Haita Cedra Izam), trying to protect her from the world he understands too well.

Fending for himself on the street, Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw) an Ethiopian woman and illegal worker who can’t afford to renew her forged papers, takes Zain home.  She has a baby, Yonas (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole) to care for and no one to look after him while she works.  It’s a calculated risk shown in the look of a mother leaving her baby with an eleven-year-old stranger.

And what a beautiful baby.  I could not watch this film and not fall for this child.  So adorable, even the guys in the audience were captivated by Yonas’ clapping hands and sudden grin.

It’s the characters who take the hand of the audience, to lead through the squalor, where the small sparks of beauty are made more touching.

We see Zain struggle until eventually he’s incarcerated: ‘Stab the son-of-a-bitch!’ Zain yells when he’s being held in jail.  To be taken to court, to sue his parents.

Capharnaüm doesn’t have the tone of a drama or even a documentary.  There’s something in-between here – a picture of how it goes when your parents are too poor to get a Birth Certificate, to be not recognised as a person, not exist: to be no one.

There’s this moment where Zain patiently corrects a girl selling funeral wreaths that the man’s name is ‘Aspero’, not ‘Ospero’.  I’m sure this was off-script but another moment to add to the story.  To see more of the boy, Zain.

There’s something so refreshing about the honesty of this kid.

The camera is shot low, to show the point of view of these no-one kids, trying to be good.  Trying to survive.  Trying to tell the adults not to be idiots.

Yes, it’s a sad story.  But I found myself filled with a faith in humanity, to see the courage and love from the ones that society is supposed to be taking care of.

Ironically, the ones who are no-one made me want to believe in people again.

The Combination Redemption

Rated: MA15+  The Combination Redemption

Directed by: David Field

Written by: George Basha

Produced by: George Basha, David Field, John Tedesco

Starring: George Basha, Abbey Aziz, Johnny Nasser, Tony Ryan, Rahel Romahn, Taylor Weise, Adre de Vanny.

After seeing the trailer for, The Combination Redemption, I walked in dubious but hoping from some good Aussie crime.

I was right to be dubious with the contrived romance between returning character John Morkos (George Basha) and therapist, love interest, Amira (Abbey Aziz).  You know those painful, forced love-in’s that have no chemistry but are forced anyway? Yeah, ouch.

John meets Amira because she’s originally his therapist – not that a Bachelor in Psychology would qualify these days…  After his younger brother’s murder (in the 2009 acclaimed original, The Combination), John needs more than his passion for boxing to get him through his grief.

Thankfully, the romance between Christian boxing trainer and Muslim psychologist does evolve and become less painful with a bit of humour from Amira’s brothers.

What I did appreciate was the piecing together of scenes (editor: Shelley O’Neil) and clever camera work (director of photography: Robert Morton) of graffiti tagged water-ways and tunnels.  And the fight scenes were realistic with blood oozing from head-wounds.

It’s pretty confronting stuff.

The film explores racist violence – featuring shorn-off shotguns – enticed by politicians, the rhetoric sounding familiar with the debate of immigration still raging in Australia.  Here, the violence is taken too far by drug-fuelled anger from members of a white supremacist group who believe in a white Australia, saying things like the Indigenous population and original land owners, must have taken the country from the white’s somewhere in the distant past.

There’re drug dealers trying to recover stolen money from runners who’ve had enough of making the boss money with nothing of their own, adding more of that crime element to the story – this is where the film really comes alive.

The soundtrack added another layer to the story, a memorable moment a thunderstorm booming during the boxing scene of John fighting for his life against real-life boxing star, George Kambosos Jnr.

And the percussion and drums are like a rapid heart-beat punctuating the violence and drama of living in a multi-cultural city that struggles to accept differences in religious belief.

There’s a lot going on here: racism, drugs, religion, love, family, grief…  I would have preferred less drama, sticking with the boxing and crime.  Perhaps even a TV mini-series to round-out all the complexities.

Cringe-worthy moments aside, there’s plenty of twists and turns while capturing the underbelly of life in Western Sydney.  I just wish the film stuck with the fisty cuffs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOwKhsT1fpA

Ben Is Back

Rated: MBen Is Back

Directed and Written by: Peter Hedges

Produced by: Peter Hedges, Nina Jacobson, Teddy Schwarzman, Brad Simpson

Starring: Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Courtney B. Vance, Kathryn Newton, Rachel Bay Jones, David Zaldivar, Alexandra Park, Mia Fowler, Jakari Fraser.

It’s Christmas time.  Ivy (Kathryn Newton) is singing in the church choir while her mother, Holly (Julia Roberts) looks on with her two youngest from her second marriage, Lacey (Mia Fowler) and Liam (Jakari Fraser).

The snow is falling as Ben (Lucas Hedges) crunches across the yard towards the house.

He knows no one is home.

Ben is back

This is a film about addiction.  About the hold it takes and the effect on family and a mother who refuses to give up on her son.

Sounds dramatic, right?

I went into the cinema expecting a traumatic, family drama to unfold with Julia Roberts as the mother weeping and screaming the whole way through…

But there’s restraint from director (and writer) Peter Hedges, allowing the writing to tell the story without the need for over-acting – the story made more emotive because of the quiet telling.

It feels like the film is about someone Hedges knows; a brave move casting his son, Lucas Hedges as the son in the film, learning to live with all his actions as an addict, returning home to try again as he struggles to share his need.

Lucas is perfect for this role.

There’s something so genuine in his manner.  I first saw him in his role as Jared (a young man trapped in a re-education program, Love In Action (LIA) to be cured of his homosexuality) in Boy Erased.

He’s brought the same believability here: the charisma, the cunning, the pain.

And Julia Roberts nailed her role as his mother, knowing she’ll never stop trying, never let go.

It’s a sad and heavy tale as Ben takes his mother to re-visit his past as a junkie; the danger and humiliation endured to feed his addiction.   There’s insight into the pain and grip the drug takes on a person and cost of all those who love them.

I’m not saying I overly enjoyed watching this film, but I’m impressed by the way this film was shown.  Without getting slapped in the face, we get to see the sadistic nature of addiction and the consequences on a family that feels very like any other normal family.

We’re also shown the view from the addict – the initial want to share the experience because they think they’ve found a truth worth sharing.  People become addicts for a reason.

The film doesn’t demonise the user, it’s more about understanding.

‘When you get shaky, go to a meeting,’

There’s a lot of debate currently about harm-minimisation, with the recent deaths over New Year at music festivals because of drug over-dose.  It’s easy to say yes, I think that legal drug-testing onsite to see the ingredients is a good idea.  I personally think it would make the dealers sell a far more pure product.  But the reminder of the addictive nature of drugs shown in this films demonstrates the ripple of catastrophic consequences addiction has on the user, families and communities.

Holding a pack with the brown heroin showing through, Ben’s mother, Holly personalises the substance by saying, ‘You monster’.

And that’s what the film manages to achieve, a personalisation of addiction.

https://youtu.be/eV384La_Q9Q

The Mule

Rated: MThe Mule

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Screenplay by: Nick Schenk

Based on: “The Sinaloa Cartel’s 90-Year-Old Drug Mule” by Sam Dolnick

Produced by: Clint Eastwood, Tim Moore, Kristina Rivera, Jessica Meier, Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Peña, Dianne Wiest, Andy Garcia.

More than anything, The Mule is a character-driven film, revolving around the audacity of ninety-year-old Earl Stone (Clint Eastwood – himself now 88 years-old) getting away with transporting millions of dollars of drugs loaded into the back of his pick-up for a cartel: ‘Maybe you enjoyed living in the moment a little too much.  That’s why you’re working for us,’ one of the bosses tells him.

Based on an article published in the New Yorker “The Sinaloa Cartel’s 90-Year-Old Drug Mule” by Sam Dolnick, Earl is doing well in 2005.  He’s a horticulturist winning trophies.  He’s missing his daughter’s wedding.  This is his life.

Fast forward twelve years and his business has fallen apart, like his marriage.  His daughter hasn’t spoken to him since he missed her wedding.

This is his life.

He’s broke.

So when he gets an opportunity to get out on the road again and get paid envelopes filled with cash at the other end, it’s easy money.

Earl fought in Korea.  Guns don’t scare him.  The cartel guys don’t scare him.  He’s a cranky, politically incorrect old codger who gets friendly with the cartel guys while he gets richer.

It’s a great role for Eastwood – quirky and certain, brave and a pain in the arse.  His character evolves as his family becomes more of a focus in his life, so there’s the family drama here as well.

And there’s some big names in supporting roles, Brad Cooper as DEA Agent Colin Bates when meeting Earl over coffee likes him, telling him, ‘you’ve lived so long you’ve lost your filter’.  There’s Michael Peña as fellow DEA Agent, Laurence Fishburne heads up the DEA and there’s Andy Garcia as the cartel King Pin – but all these big names are all in support of the legend that is Clint Eastwood, lead role and director.

I would have liked more of the criminal element, making more of the star-studded cast, but it’s really about the entertainment of the character, Earl, and his ability to get away with his crime as a drug mule because who’s going to believe a ninety-year-old gringo’s shifting drugs for a cartel?

The Mule is more drama than thriller (some-what disappointingly) but there’s some good humour here, delivered by one of the greats.

Free Solo

Rated: MFree Solo

Directed by: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin

Produced by: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Evan Hayes

Cinematographer: Jimmy Chin

Featuring: Alex Honnold

‘I see it all rooted in rationalism, in a basic evaluation of objective reality: Can I do this?  And if I can, then I just do it’ – Alex Honnold.

After nine years of living in a van, living a ‘dirt-bag’ climber existence, professional rock climber Alex Honnold overcomes the most fearsome feat for a ground dweller to contemplate: to free solo climb (rock climbing without rope or any safety net if he falls) the El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.  A 3200-foot climb that climbing with ropes requires a gold medal standard of skill.

To climb without a safety-net requires an iron-clad emotional armour where fear has no place.

This ability to overcome fear became such a fascination Alex agreed to have a Functional-MRI scan to analyse the function of his brain while pictures of fearful images were shown: knives, heights (ha, ha).  It was interesting to see his amygdala showed no activation compared to the control.

Alex explains he’s faced his fears so often there’s no fear left.

Director Jimmy Chin explains the difficulty in filming a documentary where the threat of death is as close as you can get.  It has its issues.  Especially when you’re friends with the guy.

It’s all about trusting the subject (friend) to make the right decisions and not push just because he’s on camera.  And that trust and not wanting to see someone you know fall to their death while you’re filming creates a whole other dimension to the film because we see the type of personality it takes to contemplate, let alone, achieve something so dangerous, scary, impossible.

Adding girlfriend, Sanni McCandless, to the mix just shows the layers of emotion Alex has to process, or not – he’s kinda a cold rational thinker adding a bizarre lightness to the tone of the film – to get to a headspace to make such a climb.

Free Solo wasn’t so much a thrill ride, although I kept repeating, Oh my God.  Oh. My. GOD – the ‘Boulder Problem’ part of the climb had me gripping the arm rest of my seat.  The film was more an insight into the process to get to that headspace – iron-clad determination combined with a shrug of, We’ve all got to die at some stage.

Finding the edge just makes death feel more immediate.  If you die in an accident, then it’s a shame – you’ll be missed.  But dying on your own terms changes the dynamic.  Life is short.  Live it.

When someone loves you, like Alex’s seemingly accident-provoking, ever-loving girlfriend Sanni, then there’s more to lose.

The film asks, but if you don’t do what you love than how do you feel alive?

Free Solo isn’t a documentary just about Alex, it also brings the film makers into the story, to show the truth of what Alex’s trying to achieve.  It’s crazy.  To film the climb is crazy.  But he does it.  And it’s amazing.

Let The Sunshine In

Directed by: Claire DenisLet The Sunshine In

Screenplay Written by: Claire Denis & Christine Angot

Produced by: Olivier Delbosc

Starring: Juliette Binoche, Xavier Beauvois, Philippe Katerine, Josiane Balasko, Sandrine Dumas, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Alex Descas, Laurent Grevill, Bruno Podalydés, Paul Blain, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Gérard Depardieu.

I wrote my thesis on, A Lover’s Discourse – Fragments (Ronald Barthes (1977)), using Hemingway’s writing in, The Garden of Eden (1986), Across the River and into the Trees (1950) and also his short fiction piece, Hills Like White Elephants (1927) as an illustration of Ronald Barthes theory:

That love cannot be expressed through language, that love is expressed through the ‘nothing’ that is not language, that it is the actions and gifts given because of love that signpost to the reader that the characters in the story are in love, or conversely, not in love.  Because of the nature of writing love, I have utilized Hemingway’s writing as a basis for Barthes’ theory – it is Hemingway that writes love and it is Barthes that writes of love.

Let the Sunshine In was originally based on the Discourse then evolved into a screenplay written by Claire Denis (also director) & Christine Angot where Isabelle (Juliette Binoche) falls in love, only to have her heart broken, to love again… and again…

Divorced and the mother of a ten-year-old daughter, we only see briefly as a face behind the window of a car pulling away, Isabelle mirroring the outline of her hand on the other side of the glass.  The love of her child is not what this film’s about.  This is a series of moments as Isabelle opens a dialogue with the men she means to love and all the complications and baggage finding love at an older age brings.

She’s not old; she’s not young.

Isabelle laments to a friend that she feels her love life is behind her.  The impossibility of each relationship revealing itself in complicated exchanges, each trying to find a way towards or away from the other.

The camera pans back and forth from the cheating husband who bluntly describes his extraordinary wife he will never leave, to the realisation on Isabelle’s face when she can’t find a way back to the love with this man after his blatant denial – no matter how charming he finds her.

We’ve all been there, the wondering of how much to give, how much to take.  For love.

Here, we see the pulling apart of feelings that are there, or not.  And the language, the limit of language as the lovers try to get past all the talk to find the physical connection.  And then, to keep it.

It’s a complicated film that manages to avoid melodrama, replacing physical expressed emotion with words.

I wonder how much was lost in the translation from French to the English subtitles, yet Barthes’ Discourse is what’s being translated with the depth of meaning still conveyed.

Putting love into words is a difficult conversation.

The expertise and experience of Juliette Binoche shines here.  I couldn’t imagine another actress portraying the vulnerability of Isabelle, the willingness to follow the reasoning behind the emotions from the other.  A heavy burden but a successful one.  Like reading a play because it’s all about the dialogue and the tears and expression and never-ending search for love.

Let the sunshine In isn’t a love story, nor a drama; it’s not sad.  It’s a lover’s discourse.

Mary, Queen of Scots

Rated: MA15+Mary Queen of Scots

Directed by: Josie Rourke

Written by: Beau Willimon

Based on the Book, “Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart” by John Guy

Produced by: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, Gemma Chan, Martin Compston, Ismael Cordova, Brendan Coyle, Ian Hart, Adrian Lester, James McArdle, with David Tennant, and Guy Pearce.

In the same vein of Elizabeth (1998) staring Golden Globe winner for Best Actress, Cate Blanchett, Mary, Queen of Scots is an intricate film of politics, love, betrayal, stupidity and power.

This is Josie Rouke’s directional debut, her success here, the ability to show the rivalry and complicated relationship between the two half-sisters: Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.

Mary returns home from France, married at 16 only to become a widow at 18, to return as Queen of Scotland with rightful claim to England, the power in her blood as a Stuart.  A power she has to continually fight for against the male dominated world of 1587.  Where women are condemned as evil, especially returning as Catholic in a land whose foundations rest on the Church of Scotland.

Elizabeth also struggles in a male dominated world.

As a Protestant, Queen Elizabeth has forsaken the ties of the Catholic Church, renouncing the Papas, yet, she struggles to renounce her sister.

And the careful confrontation and manoeuvring for power between the two fiery sisters is fascinating to watch.

We get the intrigue of House of Cards but set in the ‘resplendent’ (as Queen Elizabeth is described by her constant companion and lover Robert Dudley (Joe Alwyn)) rolling lands of Scotland and England to jewels sparkling in candle-lit rooms filled with gentle women and plotting aristocracy, where Elizabeth acknowledges the treachery of men and her necessity to become one in order to remain on the throne.

There’s a lot to unpack, being one of those epic films; but the way the film is shown with Mary speaking to the audience, watching herself at times, telling her tale.  And the symbolism of Elizabeth burning an intricate quilled portrait of red poppies, her obsessive creating of red flowers flowing across the floor like blood from her empty womb hold the attention, to be absorbed into the tragedy and intrigue of the story.

There’s so much attention to detail here, portraying Mary in a different light to the general condemnation of history; the tragedy of being sentenced to death by beheading, ordered by her half-sister, Elizabeth – her reputation, based on unfounded rumours and lies spread by her own Council of sexual depravity and betrayal.  A reputation that has followed Mary into the ages.

The film, based on the detailed historical book, “Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart” written by John Guy shows there’s so much more to be told about this powerful woman.

‘There’s a time for wisdom, love.  And there’s a time for strength,’ Mary tells her half-brother, a statement backed by a cold, icy stare shown so well by Saoirse Ronan.

And Margot Robbie shows a continued depth and maturity as an actress in her role of Queen Elizabeth.

Not quite capturing the embodiment of the steal and soft that Cate Blanchett managed to bring to Queen Elizabeth, there’s strong performances here, the success of the film not only an interesting story, but the careful balance between the two powerful protagonists of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth: where only a queen could understand the burden of ruling a kingdom while remaining each other’s greatest threat.

Pick Of The Litter

Rated: G Pick of the Litter

Directed and Produced by: Dana Nachman and Don Hardy

Written by: Dana Nachman

Original Score: Helen Jane Long

Photographed and Edited by: Don Hardy

In Order of Appearance:  Diane Meier, Terry Blosser, Janet Gearheart, Sharon Kret, Ronald Strother, Christine Benninger, Linda Owen, Rebecca Minelga, Eric Minelga, Oliver Minelga, Nick Ursano, Alice Ursano, Cathy Wassenberg, Bill Wassenberg, Lisa King, Chris King, Patti White, Al White, Louise Pay, Gail Horn, Tammy Shankle, Adam Vanderhoofven, Melissa Griffith, Kristin Sheppard, Kenny Sheppard, Deana Allen, Anne Tyson, Rick Wilcox, Maureen Balogh, Jenna Bullis, Meghan Fraser, Carol Simmons, Adam Silverman, Melanie Harris, Stacey Ellison, Todd Jurek, Rachel Chamness.

A documentary shot over two years, Pick of the Litter follows a litter of five puppies (otherwise known as the P-Litter) born into the Guide Dogs for the Blind program.

This is a straight-forward, linear doco that allows the dogs and those who come into contact with them, tell the story.  And it’s very sweet getting to know each of the dogs as we follow them through their training from pups to adulthood: Patriot (mouthy and super-enthusiastic), Phil (the chiller), Potomac (a handful and full of curiosity), Poppet (a blessing who loves her work) and Primrose (well, she just wants to be loved).

Co-directors Dana Nachman and Don Hardy have teamed up for their forth feature doco, Pick of the Litter taking three times the number of shots trying to keep up with each of the dogs to capture each personality.  And the extra time and care pays off as I found myself cheering along the dogs wanting them to succeed after all the effort not just from the dogs but from the volunteers who train them.

Especially Patriot who reminded me of a hyper-kelpie farm dog I once knew (Benji), jumping and straining against his chain, chocking himself with excitement.  The trainers have to be able to re-direct this energy into obedience and skill.

We’ve all come across a guide dog and their human at some point, understanding the role of the dog’s guidance of a blind or visually impaired person.  Pick of the Litter opens the door to the rigorous training process, only the select few making it to become someone’s guide into the world, to give back so much freedom.

It’s an education to watch.  And sad to see when all the work doesn’t end in success.

It’s sad and sweet and makes you feel good about those out there doing their best to help those in need showing that training these special canines isn’t for everyone with a 16 to 18 month commitment (dog asleep by 10pm; owner asleep by 10pm!), with constant assessment by the program to see if the dog’s appropriate to continue training or be, ‘career changed’, meaning, a civilian dog.  And it’s not unusual for a dog to be taken from one trainer and given to another if it means a better chance for the dog to succeed.

Lives are put into the hands of these dogs, so it was reassuring to see the process, to see the dogs themselves show their will not to be a guide dog.  Sometimes the dog’s life is meant for something or someone else.

The film just adds to the fascination and special relationship between human and dog.  I swear my pet Aussie Terrier, Jim-Bob could sense when I was sad and would find me to cheer me up.

So, it’s a dog-lover’s movie with a special interest into the process of training these extra-special dogs to become guide dogs, shown from each perspective of those involved from: the breeders, the volunteers who train them, the trainers in the association who graduate them, to those who ultimately benefit.  And the dogs.  Who doesn’t like a dog movie!

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