The other morive about a hijacking on the high seas

I'm sure Captain Phillips is a great movie and I'll probably see it and be impressed like everyone else but it's hard to imagine a better movie on the theme of at-sea kidnapping by Somali pirates (why are there suddenly two of these movies within the span of a year?) than the Danish A Kidnapping. Told with incredible efficiency and understatement, this film puts us right in the midst of the captured ship, and we suffer along with the crew, in particular the cook, whom we see in the first sequences talking to his wife and daughter home in Denmark and about whom we soon learn, to his later chagrin, that he is competent in English - he later becomes the captors link to his fellow crew members and to the owners back in Denmark - which brings us to what's even more remarkable about this fine movie: it's not just about the tension on board the captured ship, great a story as that may be, but also about the tension, guilt, and duplicity going on back in Denmark among the ownership - in fact the real star of the movie is not necessarily the ship's cook but the company CEO, Peter: in an early scene we see him as the tough negotiator and steely boss cutting a deal w/ a Chinese team for the sale of a few ships. After the hijacking, he hires an outside expert to consult on the negotiating process but defies advice and insists on doing the negotiating himself - admirable, in that he's taking ownership of the situation but also, perhaps, foolishly cocky in thinking he can handle any situation when in fact he's in uncharted territory. There are many moments of moral ambiguity, as he tries to work out a deal with the pirates without jeopardizing the men, but also with a sharp eye on the company bottom line. The expert he hires is very self-confident - his main advice is don't give in to their initial demands because they'll see you're weak and demand more - but every moment of delay means more suffering for the captured crew, and perhaps more danger. It's really tough to know what to do, who's right who's wrong - and eventually we learn, particularly through one surprising and explosive scene, the toll this is taking on the CEO as well. A really fine and understated movie, and I wish it could find one twentieth of the audience that Captain Phillips has found.

No happy endings - in Blancanieves, a reworked "fairy tale"

The Spanish film Blancanieves (i.e., Snow White) is unusual in so many ways and there are so many ways it could have gone wrong but I think it's a good movie and would appeal to a very wide range of viewers, including children, if people have the patience for a movie that: a., is in black and white, b., has no dialogue (though it does have to title frames a la a silent movie), c., is set in the 1930s or so, d., is Spanish-language based, and e., is pretty dark and scary at times. The film is a loose adaptation of the Snow White story - most of us know only the Disney version with the cute dwarfs in the forest - in this case SW is the daughter of a bullfighter who gets seriously gored and paralyzed in a major fight; she grows up mistreated by a wicked stepmother - a staple of so many fairy tales and films - think of the fabulous Pan's Labyrinth as one example - and gradually learns who her father is/was and, with the aid of the dwarfs whom she meets in a forest after escaping an assassin - they are "repurposed" as a dwarf bullfighting troupe - she gets into the ring to avenge and emulate her father. The ending, which I won't give away, is powerful and creepy. Some very beautiful, dark sequences, a truly engaging plot that's very simple and elegant, like most fables, and easy to follow cinematically. The whole spectacle of bullfighting is strange and very powerful on screen - not sure that it's ever been shown as such a dangerous sport - the scene near the opening with the matador waits in the ring for the initial charge of the bull is very powerful. Too bad wicked stepmothers have become such a cliche, which this movie fully endorses. This movie posits that there's incredible evil in this world - which of course there is - and that the good does not always win out in the end - a very dark message, especially for those who look to myth and fable and fairy tales for uplifting, happy endings. You won't find that here.

Ending Bad

Inevitably, the ending of Breaking Bad turns out to be disappointing, in part because we have set unreasonable expectations for any great series and in particular for this one, which literally seemed to improve and mature with almost every episode. These conclusions are also disappointing because we don't want to let the characters go, and wish they could live on - but the writers and creators know, as a convention, that they lead has to die - otherwise, there's always that slight possibility of another season. But the conclusion to BB was also disappointing because, thought Vince Gilligan wrapped up all of the strands of the series pretty effectively, he did so by granting Walter White almost superhuman powers - or luck. Did anyone else wonder how in hell he managed to sneak into the house of the wealthy couple? Or how they would manage to distribute millions in cash to Walt's children? And how did he manage to build that weird contraption in the Cadillac trunk that mowed down the whole rival gang? Even the assassination of the Chicken King in the nursing home seemed more possible, if not more credible. In other words, in this last episode Walt stepped out of the boundaries of ordinariness that made his character, and the show, so intriguing. I didn't buy into it, and thought an accidental or unexpected death would be a more likely and more satisfying conclusion. (BTW, I always thought it was a mistake to kill Tony in the final episode, and that he should have been left as the last one standing, with his family and his crew all gone.) Despite these quibbles about the final episode, Breaking Bad takes a deserved place among the great American TV dramatic series, maybe just a notch below The Wire and The Sopranos, but certainly on a level with Mad Men, Friday Night Lights, Homeland, and even the surprising Battlestar Gallactica - each different in style and genre but each just a great contribution and a high point in American culture and to popular, commercial entertainment.