Into Thin Air

Everest
Director: Balastar Kormakur
Cast: Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Emily Watson, Robin Wright, Keira Knightley, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington
Released: September 18, 2015
Viewed in theaters: September 18, 2015

If you have read Jon Krakauer's book, "Into Thin Air", then you are familiar with the story of an expedition to the top of Mount Everest in which bad weather and faulty planning killed 8 climbers in May 1996, many of them quite experienced among them. (Although, if you are not familiar, be aware of the spoilers!)  This movie is based on Krakuer's book as well as other books that were written by the survivors of this tragedy, but being as he is a writer, Krakauer's is probably the most well-known. I'm a little surprised it took so long to make a movie about this event (almost 20 years!), although there was a made for TV movie about it that was aired in 1997 (probably a little too soon!)

I had read Krakauer's book five years ago so I didn't remember exactly who died and who survived that fateful day, but if I had read the dedication page, it would have refreshed my memory as he dedicated the book to those who perished. Although while watching the movie, I began to remember certain people and what had happened to them. Oh yeah, that poor Japanese woman freezes to death or I remember that Texan man wrote a book about this so he survives. And Rob Hall and Doug Hansen are the guide and client, respectively, who made it to the top way too late and didn't get down in time. All of which I had read five years ago just came back to me in a flood of memories.

Rob Hall (portrayed by Jason Clarke) was a 35 year old New Zealander who was the leader and head guide of Adventure Consultants which took clients up to the summit of Everest. His was probably the most known because he had many successful expeditions. His was almost the most expensive because it cost $65,000 to be part of his group (and that doesn't always guarantee reaching the top!) That was definitely something I remembered from the book and was waiting for it to be brought up in the movie and sure enough it was. It boggles my mind that anyone would pay that much money to go through hell!  The question is brought up by Krakauer the journalist (portrayed by Michael Kelly who plays Doug Stamper on House of Cards). Not so much the question, "Why would you pay all this money to do this?" but rather "Why are you climbing this mountain?" Doug Hansen (portrayed by John Hawkes) says he wants to let his children see that if an ordinary man like him can achieve an impossible dream, then they can do the same. While most of Hall's clients were fairly wealthy (you kind of have to be!), Doug was a mailman and had paid for the trip by working extra overnight shifts at the post office. He had gone to Everest with Hall the previous year but hadn't reached the top and this time he was determined. Yasuko Namba (portrayed by Naoko Mori) says she has been to six of the seven highest summits and Everest was the last one. She became the oldest woman to summit Everest (although she never made it down alive), but her record was surpassed in 2001.

With conditions of 100 degrees below zero and very thin air that causes extreme altitude sickness, that would be enough to give anyone second thoughts about climbing Everest. It would certainly give me second thoughts. I've had altitude sickness and it makes you feel weak and miserable. But Everest isn't just a mountain that you climb up. There are crevices you have to cross with ladders; there are steep ledges you have to walk along; there are places you have to climb with ropes. It's a very extraneous, very exhausting feat. I told my mom that I would be out as soon as I saw the long rope bridges they have to cross over a huge gap in the earth even before they begin climbing! I'd be like, "No thanks, rather not fall to my death if those ropes break!"

The movie begins at the airport in New Zealand where Rob Hall is with his base camp manager, Helen (portrayed by Emily Watson) and they're getting ready to leave for Nepal. Hall is saying goodbye to his wife, Jan (portrayed by Keira Knightley) who is also a climber (they summited Everest together in 1993), but can't go with him this time because she is seven months pregnant. I knew for sure he wasn't coming back when she is giving him a tearful goodbye.

There were a lot of people climbing Everest during the same time and it got to be a bit of an issue. Rob decides to team up with another guide, Scott Fisher (portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal) and his clients. They started on March 30 and didn't reach the top until May 10. Something I learned when I read Krakauer's book is that you start at base camp, then go to the camp one, then go to base camp again and repeat this a few times. It's so you acclimatize. It has to be so frustrating to be at camp one, then have to go to base camp and start the climb over again. The (very long) day they reach the top, they start just after midnight with a goal to reach the summit by 2 pm. Anything after that starts to become too dangerous because you have to remember reaching the top is only the halfway mark, you still have to turn around and head back.

Sadly, things do not go as planned. Things are slowed down because there were suppose to be ropes already ready at one point but they are not, so they have to do them themselves and that takes time. Several people are getting sick and weak. But they do reach the top and there is celebration. One of the people who is not there when they reach the top is Doug Hansen and Rob finds him on his way back still trudging up. He tells Doug they need to turn back, but Doug is determined to make it. From where they are, it looks like they are not even a mile from the top, but you know it's going to take a couple hours to reach it. Doug pleads for him to take him to the top and Rob agrees. When they do reach it, Doug is exhausted and Rob is doing everything he can to pull him down the mountain, but Doug won't budge. There is an ominous storm approaching. Rob radios base camp to tell them they need help and where they are. Helen mistakenly thinks he said "the bottom of South Summit" and when he corrects her and tells her they're at the top of the South Summit, you can see her face fall and become extremely concerned at that moment. At that point, Rob is still okay and they urge him to come down and they will send someone back up for Doug, but he refuses to leave Doug. As his guide, he felt extremely responsible for Doug and I'm sure he knew he should have refused to let Doug to the top seeing as his condition was very weak. Rob tells Doug to stay where he is and that he's going to go for help. At this point, Doug has become very disoriented. I don't know if he didn't hear Rob or just panicked, but he starts to follow Rob and ends up falling off the mountain. I don't know if this is how he really died because Wikipedia lists his death as being from exposure (same as Rob's), but the only other person up there with him was Hall who also died. When asked about Doug from Base Camp, he replies with, "Doug's gone" which is what was spoken in real life by Hall.

Rob is getting weaker and his oxygen tanks have frozen over. He's not really in a position to slide down because it looks like you need a rope to get down. They tell him a team will climb up the next morning to help him, but they have to abort the mission due to another bad storm. They patch him through to his wife in New Zealand and by this time his voice has started to become slurred. This is the part where I start to lose it and cry. The last words Rob says to his wife are, "I love you. Sleep well, my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." And that is taken from real life, nobody wrote that in the script.

Meanwhile, in other depressing news, Scott Fischer, who has been having some trouble, but passing it off like he is fine, ends up dying from hypoxia. He basically sits down and never gets up again. Then, closer to the camp, but not quite there, a group of climbers have to leave the Japanese woman, Namba and the Texan, Beck Weathers (portrayed by Josh Brolin) behind because they are both too weak to move and the others don't have the means to carry them back. They show them contacting the families and you see Beck's wife, Peach (portrayed by Robin Wright...who I did not recognize at all!) back in Dallas looking devastated and having to tell her kids. I was so confused by this scene because I was sure I remembered Beck surviving this! But then in a later scene, we see Beck with a bloodied face and hands wake up and start to get up and walk back to camp. He is frostbitten beyond belief and Peach organizes a rescue by helicopter which has never been done because it is way to dangerous, but they manage to get him and take him down. I believe they said he lost his hands and nose due to frostbite.

At the end, they have a little tribute to those who died showing photos of the actual people. I was surprised when I read that Rob Hall's body was still on the mountain. I suppose it's in a place that's not easy to get to. But I guess that's not unusual when people die on Everest. Throughout the movie, Rob and Jan had been debating about what they should name their daughter. Rob wanted Sarah, but Jan wasn't keen on the name, but while talking to him on the mountain, promises him she'll call her Sarah and we see a photo of Sarah Arnold-Hall who was 18 when this movie was filmed. She was born two months after her father died.

Soccer Rules

Bend It Like Beckham

Director: Gurinder Chadha

Cast: Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightly, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Archie Panjabi

Released: April 11, 2002 (UK); March 28, 2003 (US)

Viewed in theaters: April 26, 2003

Kalinda!

I own this movie on DVD (I got a good deal on Ebay) and its been in my possession for at least a decade but I hadn't given any thought to it until recently when I started watching The Good Wife (I just finished season 3) and was looking up the cast on IMDb. I was curious to know such things as: What other shows has Will Gardner been in? (Sports Night). How old is Cary Argos because he looks like he's 12....he was 32 in the first season! And then I see that bad-ass investigator Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi) played the older sister in Bend It Like Beckham and thought I would revisit it.

This was a small, independent movie that was really popular when it came out. As you can see, it was released in the UK (as it is a British film) a full year before it came to the States. I had heard good things about it and really wanted to see it, but it was only playing at a small theater that only shows foreign and independent movies (I saw it when it was only in select cities; it was later released nationally in August ). That was the first and only time I had ever been to that theater...it was OLD. The seats were very uncomfortable. I guess I am too spoiled by being able to recline in my movie theater chairs! But at least this movie wasn't that long. I was living in a small town when I saw Fellowship of the Ring and saw that in a really old, small theater with crappy seats. I should receive a medal for that! At least I enjoyed the movie! 

Bend it Like Beckham centers around Jess (Parminder Nagra) an Indian girl who lives in England with her older sister and parents who are very traditional in their culture and customs. She loves playing football (soccer to us Yanks - okay, let's be honest...the rest of the world is right to call it that...you use your feet more in that sport than you do in our American football!) and has a poster of David Beckham (even a person who doesn't know a thing about soccer knows who he is!) on her wall that she talks to everyday when she just needs to vent about something and can't talk to anyone else about it. 

She often plays with her guy friends in the park and is approached by Jules (Keira Knightley in her first major role) who tells her she should play for a  local team and invites her to try out for the Hounslow Harriers. The town they live in is called Hounslow; I had no idea what a harrier was until I looked it up: it's a bird. Who knew? Jules introduces Jess to the head coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Quick sidenote: Who thought it was a good idea to give the three main characters all one syllable names that begin with J? Joe is impressed with Jess's soccer skills and she is invited to join the team, but when she asks her parents' permission, she is forbidden because her parents don't want her showing her bare skin in the uniform, but mostly it is because her father doesn't want her to get her hopes up in thinking she might be able to get a scholarship at a school to play only to be disappointed when she will be discriminated against which he thinks will happen to her because he has seen it firsthand, so he only wants to protect her which is understandable. 

Jess pretends to get a job so she can say she's at work when she's really playing soccer. She wears street clothes over her uniform and hides a bag with her athletic shoes in a bush outside her house. There's one scene where she has literally stepped out her front door...and her family is still inside...and unzips and takes off her hoodie to reveal her uniform. Good Lord, at least wait until you're out of sight from your house! She is caught by her sister when her mother asks her to pick Jess up at work but when Kalinda gets there she learns that Jess doesn't work there. Even though she begs Kalinda not to say anything, she is still found out when her parents find out she bought new soccer shoes instead of shoes for her sister's upcoming wedding. Joe comes to talk to her parents saying how great a player Jess is and that she would be a great asset to the team, but her parents still refuse and they are angry with Jess for lying to them. This doesn't deter Jess and she even fabricates a story about staying with a friend for a few days so she can go to Germany to compete in the first international tournament for the Harriers. Now, everyone has heard of lying to one's parents about sleeping over at a friend's house when they're really at another place they shouldn't be, but lying to your parents about being at a friend's house when you're in an entirely different country seems a bit extreme! But she keeps up the charade by calling her parents from her hotel room and telling them lies about her day. She probably would have gotten away with it except her father sees an article in the sports section about the soccer team heading to Germany and he puts two and two together and discovers Jess has lied...again.

Not only does Jess have to deal with her angry parents, but Jules is also angry with her and has stopped talking to her after she sees a drunk Jess almost kiss Joe at a nightclub and she gets jealous and angry. Jess is confused because Jules told her she didn't like Joe like that. And even though Jess didn't kiss Joe, Jules thinks she did. It's very typical high school drama.  

By far, the worst character is Jules' mother. They were obviously trying to make her the comic relief of the movie, but some of the things she said was just so stupid and narrow-minded, it made me cringe. Like Jess's parents, she also hates that her daughter plays soccer but only for the reason that it is unladylike and she is worried that Jules will never have a boyfriend because she thinks her waif of a daughter is going to get so bulky from playing soccer that no guy will want to be with a girl who is bigger than him. Then she overhears Jess and Jules arguing about what happened in Germany with Joe, but she misinterprets it as them having feelings for each other and thinks Jules is a lesbian (and when she finds out she isn't, she's very relieved, which I found very insulting for the gay community!). But Jules does admonish her for saying there's nothing wrong with being a lesbian. But probably the most cringe-worthy moment is when she drives Jules to Kalinda's wedding and sees Jules and Jess hug and freaks and rudely tells Jess to take her "lesbian feet" out of her shoes. (Jules gave Jess a pair of her shoes to wear to the wedding.) It's like, geeze, lady, could you be any more homophobic? I guess you could say at least she's not racist as she was always very nice to Jess before she thought she was dating her daughter! 

The same day as her sister's wedding is also when a scout from the States is coming to see the girls play and potentially offer them scholarships. With her father's permission, she is allowed to play as long as she makes it back to the wedding. By this time she and Jules have made up. By the end of the movie, Jess and Joe are making out and Jules seems totally fine with it...okay. The scout offers them to come to California and play for Santa Clara (or as Keira Knightly pronounces it, "Santa Clah-rah!" I laughed so hard when she said that). At the airport when they're getting ready to leave, they see Becks and Posh so of course they think that's a sign for good things to come. End movie.

Speaking of Posh (my favorite was always Ginger, naturally!), Victoria Beckham has a song on the soundtrack (which I own because I love the song "Inner Smile"). I think it's played during the club scene...it's not very good or memorable and it's a good thing she's found success in her fashion line. Another former Spice Girl, Mel C (aka Sporty) also has a song on the soundtrack and it's actually pretty decent. A lot of the songs have an Indian influence (and made me think of the music in Slumdog Millionaire). There was even an Indian-inspired cover of "The Power of Love" (sadly not on the soundtrack), the Celine Dion power ballad, which ironically is also a cover although no one probably knows that because it is much more popular than the original! 

So if you're a fan of The Good Wife and have never seen it, you may get a kick of seeing Archie Panjabi in an entirely different role from Kalinda.  

Ahoy, Matey!

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Director: Gore Verbinski
Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Keira Knightley
Released: July 9, 2003
Viewed in theaters: July 11, 2003

Oscar nominations:
Best Actor - Johnny Depp (lost to Sean Penn for Mystic River)
Best Sound Mixing (lost to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (of course it did))
Best Sound Editing (lost to Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World)
Best Visual Effects (lost to Return of the King)
Best Make-Up (lost to Return of the King - as did everything else that year!)

Can you believe it's been ten years since this movie was released? Hard to believe. Watching it again recently, it didn't feel like it was ten years old, but that could account that it is a period piece and therefore there are no pop culture references to painfully date the film. But I didn't feel like any of the effects were outdated and it still seemed like a fresh, fun movie. When I first heard they were making a movie based on the Disneyland ride, I thought it was the stupidest idea...just like it was a stupid idea to make a movie based off Battleship (and that one really was, although I never saw it) or a movie based on a videogame (why even bother?).

I had been on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney World when I was nine, but honestly, I don't remember anything about it except the line was l------ooooooooooooooooo------n-------g and there was an animatronic dog with a key in its mouth, which they pay homage to in the movie. There's really no story to the ride....you're just in a boat looking at a bunch of animatronic pirates. My other history with Pirate of the Caribbean was that I had the Disneyland Nintendo (hehe) game where you go around and have to find all six keys to unlock the Magic Kingdom. One of the ways to get a key is you have to beat the Pirates of the Caribbean and it is the hardest thing ever! You can't kill the pirates until the second round and until then you just have to jump over them to avoid them and it's nearly impossible to jump over them and not touch them and if you do touch them, you die! And don't get me started on jumping over these huge pits which are too long to attempt to jump so it's easy to die that way! My friend and I played this one summer afternoon when we were probably 11/12 and we beat Space Mountain, we beat the Haunted Mansion, we beat Thunder Railroad, we got ALL of the damn keys except for the frickin' Pirates of the Caribbean, so we just decided we would tell everyone that we beat the game even though we didn't and made chocolate milkshakes to celebrate. So yeah, ever since I had that game, I've had nothing but bad memories of Pirates of the Caribbean and wasn't expecting anything from the movie.

He is so much prettier than she is! 

But nevertheless, I went to see it. I went to see it because everyone was raving about it, and let's be real: Orlando Bloom is not the worst person to look at. He is just so pretty! I could stare at him all day! I saw him in recent photos and he's still quite nice to stare, I mean, look at. So I saw it and really enjoyed it, so much, in fact that I saw it a second time before it left the theaters and bought the DVD. I saw the second one (Dead Man's Chest) on DVD, the third one (At World's End) in the theater, and have not seen the fourth one (On Stranger Tides). I was bored to tears watching the second and third one (I thought the second one was a fluke and the third one would surely be better....wrong!) and therefore I have no desire to see the fourth one. I think they are making a fifth one though they should just stop already. To anybody who has never watched the Pirate movies, I would tell them just to watch the first movie and pretend that the sequels don't exist. I understand why there are sequels...the first movie was a big hit and it made lots of movies and it's easy to continue and explore the characters, but I feel the first one wraps up all the characters nicely that you're not left wondering about loose ends.

Pirates of the Caribbean is to Johnny Depp as Pulp Fiction is to John Travolta. This was the movie that made Depp a STAH again and he was nominated for an Oscar, then he went on to star in Finding Neverland which he was also nominated for an Oscar, then he was nominated for an Oscar for Sweeney Todd. I remember how everyone was raving about his Jack Sparrow performance. I was a little surprised he got nominated for an Oscar because it's a comedic performance and the Academy tends to turn their noses away from those, but it was one of the many things that made the 2004 Oscars so interesting.

Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley) has a gold pendant that can reverse the curse of the pirate Balboa (Geoffrey Rush) and his crew. She is oblivious to what the pendant can do and first obtained it when she was a young girl and took it from a young boy who was found floating in the sea and was rescued by her father and his men, including Norrington who looked to be about 30 when she was 12 and will eventually ask for her hand in marriage when she is 18. The age gap is a bit icky but surprisingly he looks like he hasn't aged a day in those six years! The young boy is Will Turner who grows up to be a black smith (and played by Orlando Bloom). Elizabeth takes the pendant from him because she doesn't want the men on her father's boat to find out he has any relations to pirates because there was a skull and crossbones on it.

Balboa and his men kidnap Elizabeth because she has the pendant and think she is the offspring of William "Bootsraps" Turner who is Will's father. They need the pendant and the blood of Bootstrap's child to offset the curse: when the moon is uncovered they are pirate skeletons (skeleton pirates?) and the only way to return to their human form is to return the pendant to a treasure chest along with the blood. Since Elizabeth is not the right kin, it does not work.

The movie is a bit on the long side, but doesn't feel nearly as long as its predecessors. It's got everything you would expect from a pirate movie: swashbuckling, sword fighting (wait, are those the same?), great pirate costumes, a monkey, a desert island in the middle of the Caribbean, treasure, and of course you can't forget the rum!

I'm still quite impressed with the effects. I love the scene where Elizabeth is on the cursed Black Pearl ship after she gave herself up under the condition of parlay and Balboa has revealed his secret to her. It was fun seeing Knightly react to the pirates when she saw them in their creepy skeleton form. And I love it when Balboa, in his skeleton form, drinks something and the liquid goes through his throat and just pours out of his ribs. Really brilliant. Geoffrey Rush is lucky he didn't have to be in the sequels since his character is killed off. Yes, I really do hate the sequels that much! I probably won't be writing about them!

Holiday in London

Love, Actually

Director: Richard Curtist

Cast: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, Laura Linney

Released: 11/07/03

Viewed in theaters: 11/08/03

For my holiday film this year, I decided to go with Love, Actually, a warm and fuzzy movie about love and being with the people you care about during the Christmas season that revolves around about eight or nine different vignettes involving just about every major British actor. (Even Kate Winslet has a small "cameo"!) This movie makes me want to visit London during the holidays - it looks beautiful! 

If the premise sounds too saccharine for you, the movie is not all candy canes and sugarplums. Neeson's story deals with the death of his wife and raising his stepson. Firth discovers his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother. Rickman and Thompson (Snape and Trelawney!) play a married couple who is in danger of breaking up. Knightley, recently married, discovers her new husband's best friend is in love with her. Linney plays a woman in love with her co-worker, but because she has a brother with a mental illness, he takes up all her time and she has to choose between him or having a relationship. 

Because there are so many different stories interwoven into the movie, it's always fun to pick out a favorite or two. Here are my three favorites: (warning: spoilers!)

1. I adore Colin Firth so that may have something to do with his storyline being my favorite, but it is a very sweet story. After his character Jamie finds out his girlfriend and brother are having an affair, he goes away to the country to work on a novel in a house by the lake. There he meets his housekeeper, a young woman from Portugal who doesn't know any English. They discover they've grown quite close and she learns English and he learns Portuguese and ends up flying to Portugal to propose to her at the restaurant she works at - probably one of my favorite movie proposals ever. 

2. After his wife dies, Neeson's character is worried about his ten-year-old stepson, Sam (and I have no idea where his biological father is in the picture). It turns out little Sam is so glum because he's in love with "the coolest girl" in his class and is sure she doesn't even know his name. They find out that little Joanna is singing in the school's Christmas program and decide that he should learn to play the drums and be in the band because that will get her attention. Joanna sings Mariah Carey's classic All I Want For Christmas Is You (which is a testament to how popular that song is - it was made nine years before this movie came out) and when she sings the last line, she points to Sam on "you". He's grinning madly, but when she turns to the audience and points to different members singing "and you and you and you", he quickly frowns and irritably bangs the drums. He does discover that she does know his name after chasing after her at the airport when she has to fly back home to New York.

3. Probably the funniest story involved Bill Nighy as an aging rock star who's covering Love is All Around (great song!) but replaces "love" with "Christmas" and changes the line "so if you really love me, come on and let it show" to "so if you really love Christmas, come on and let it snow". The music video involves girls in tight-fitting Santa suits licking their lips ala a Robert Palmer video. He knows the song is "shite" and to get his record to #1, promises to perform it nude on live TV if it does. One of my favorite scenes is when he goes on a music show to promote his new album and tells kids not to buy drugs - they should become rock stars and they'll get them for free. 

There were a couple vignettes that I thought could have been dropped and the extra time could have been used to focus on the remaining stories that maybe needed some extra scenes to make them more complete. I first would have gotten rid of the stand-in actors performing the sex scenes for a movie. They were just a side story and didn't connect to any of the other stories. And, as much as it pains me to say this, because I did think it was a funny sidestory, I would have gotten rid of the character of Colin and his quest to go to the U.S. because he's more likely to score with American girls because they'll love his "cute  British accent".  While it's funny, that story could have easily been dropped. I would love to watch it with a Wisconsin audience if only to hear their reaction when he tells his friend he's going to a "magical place called Wisconsin!" 

The most ridiculous storyline is probably Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister. Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister? Yeah, right. I did love the scene where he starts singing carols for those little girls and his chauffeur starts singing with him and he's got this really deep voice and sounds like Pavoratti.

I really adore this movie - I've seen it several times and own it on DVD. Even though my experience seeing at at the theaters wasn't so great (I had to sit in the front row because the theater was packed and ended up sitting next to the most annoying moviegoer in the world. She! Would! Gasp! At! Every! Single! Thing!) the enjoyment of the film overshadowed all of that. So go make yourself a cup of hot cocoa, light a fire, curl up with someone you love, and pop this in your DVD player!