Temple Grandin

Some time ago, I wrote about my eldest son, who has a kind of high-level autism called Asperger Syndrome. Upon reading those words, a friend recommended Temple Grandin, an HBO biopic about a woman whose autism gave her the ability to become one of the world’s foremost experts on animal husbandry and an internationally known authority on both ranching and autism. I loved every minute of it.

Claire Danes plays the titular Temple Grandin, a young woman who grew up so wildly different that many of her earliest memories centered on her status as an outsider and a misfit, someone clearly brighter than those around her yet unable to cope with the everyday demands of social interaction. I’ve seen Ms. Danes in a number of roles, and nothing I’ve seen her do prepared me for this. She plays Temple Grandin like someone who really gets autism, who understands the subtleties of understanding that lurk behind the somewhat clumsy autistic exterior.

The adults in her early life include Julia Ormond as the strong-willed mother who refuses to institutionalize her deeply challenged little girl; Catherine O’Hara as the aunt who changes Temple’s life by inviting her to her Tuscon ranch one summer; and David Strathairn as the high school science teacher who not only sees past Temple’s social and communications handicaps and perceives her amazing gifts of memory, calculation, and perception, but figures out how to unleash them. These are actors we know and like, and I bought them in their roles.

Ok, HBO hires good actors – we already knew that. The great thing about Temple Grandin is Grandin herself. This is an amazing woman who inspires not through her fearlessness, but through the remarkable strength she brings to overcoming her fears. Doors scare her, so she came up with a mantra to help her pass through them. She doesn’t like to be touched, so she came up with another way to get the comfort of a hug. She can’t intuit appropriate behaviors, so she learned appropriate (enough) actions for most social situations.

This is neat, neat stuff. I’m going to recommend it to the parents of autistic kids with whom my wife and I meet. I’m recommending it to you, as well. Temple Grandin will enlighten you. It’ll entertain you. It’ll make you want to be a better person. What more could you ask from a movie?
--
Addendum: I just read this on Wikipedia. “At the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards, the film, nominated in 15 Emmy categories, received five awards, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie and Best Actress in a Drama for Danes. Grandin was on stage as the award was accepted, and spoke briefly on the microphone to the audience. Coincidentally, the 2010 Emmy Awards happened on Grandin's birthday.”  Now, how cool is that?

Le Trou

Le Trou (The Hole), directed and co-written by Jacques Becker, is a flat-out nailbiter: perhaps the best “prison break” movie I’ve ever seen.

La Santé Prison, Paris, 1947. A young man who may or may not be guilty of attempted 1st degree murder, find himself in a new cell. The residents don’t trust him. They’re planning an escape. Will the inmates of the cell work together, or wind up at one another’s throats? Will they overcome the obstacles to escape, or will the sophistication of the prison’s architects be too much for them? Will succumb to chance? Even if they do succeed, what’s the next step in their plan?

The film succeeds because it gives us time to get to know the men in this cell. We know they think they’re doomed if they don’t escape, but the filmmakers wisely refrain from telling us the details of their crimes. All we know is that they seem like nice enough fellows, and they want out. Once we know these people and come to like them, director Becker gives us something that’s essentially a heist movie in reverse. He walks us through the plan, then makes us hang on every step, every detail.

So here we have a film that makes us want to watch men chip at concrete for five minutes at a throw, wondering if this will be the strike that breaks them through or alerts the guards. In fact, Le Trou keeps afloat a wonderful sense of tension throughout, never showing its hand about the final outcome and keeping us on edge right up to the very end. This is a riveting picture, entirely successful and well worth watching. Enjoy.

The Bugs Bunny / Roadrunner Movie

Clip show,

It’s a clip show,

We’re recycling all your favorite bits.

Clip show,

It’s a clip show,

Where we show you nothing but the hits.

The clip show is the cheapest, most commercial type of tv program there is.  To market a clip show as a movie is just plain crass.  I mean, fine, rip me off with cheap remakes of beloved classics.  Endow favorite characters with new traits that change their nature and the tone of the work.  But just splicing together a bunch of old bits and calling them a movie?  I’d be furious if my kids hadn’t laughed all the way through it.  Ok, I’ll admit it – my wife and I laughed through a fair amount, as well.  “It’s duck season!  Rabbit season!  Rabbit season!  Duck Season!  BLAM!”  never gets old.

Yes, The Bugs Bunny / Roadrunner Movie is a clip show, but the clips are amazing.  If your kids aren’t familiar with Loony Toons, here’s a great place to start.  For that matter, here’s a great place to start if you want to familiarize your kids with classical music.  There’s a whole bit that’s essentially one long Leopold Stokowski joke.  There’s an 8-minute riff on ‘The Ring of the Nibelung.’  There’s so much good music here that even if you choose to read on the couch while your kids watch the picture, you’ll groove along on your ears alone.

So yeah, clip shows = cheap cash-ins.  But when you have clips like these, go for it.  The Bugs Bunny / Roadrunner Movie delighted my entire family.