Movie review: 'Biggest Little Farm' is biggest best farm movie

 Emma and Greasy in The Biggest Little Farm


The one best word to describe this film is charming. 

Can a 97% audience rating at Rotten Tomatoes be wrong?* Nada.

Love of farming is not required to adore The Biggest Little Farm which, from beginning to end, keeps its aura of unfolding the grand involuntary life circle we mammals follow, according to nature's way.

What fun to see a farm spring to life, and hummingbirds, lady bugs, and other living creatures up close, and I mean really up close, their wings fluttering in slow motion, or catch animals at night on hidden cameras.  

Not much new there with hidden cameras, but the scenes add to the majesty of this documentary made over a course of eight years by one of the farm's owners, John Chester, an Emmy winner, who, with his wife, Molly, started Apricot Lane Farms on 200 acres near Los Angeles, all because (or mostly because) of their barking dog, Todd. (Thank you, barking dog, Todd!)

What's not to love about goats? These two baa-baas are in The Biggest Little Farm.

The couple strive to make their farm as natural as can be, and what they achieved in the first year was stunning.

The music by Jeff Beal is the best accompaniment to falling in love with Emma, the pig, and her lifemate, Greasy, the rooster.

Take a break from contemporary life and enjoy this harmony with nature.  A more pleasant way to spend 90 minutes is practically unknown.

Animation by Jason Carpenter is excellent, but the "PG" rating is perplexing.  This is life, judges! A "G" is more appropriate.  

*Even the big, bad critics rate it at 90%.

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'Widows,' yes! 'Shoplifters,' no

Credit: AOI Promotion Fuji Television Network  GAGA

Shoplifters is one repetitive scene after another.  They eat, a woman cooks, they eat some more, somebody cooks.  Repeat.  Repeat again. Family members teach the children how to shoplift for food. The adults work at part-time jobs, get laid off.  Finally, close to the end, the script and scenes change in quick metamorphosis, but shoplifting continues with the revelation that stealing includes all kinds of nourishment.


This is another of those films the critics love (and give it a 99% score at Rotten Tomatoes: audience rating:  90%). It is about the underclass in Japan which may explain the high rating. Save your money and your time.  It lacks depth, versatility, and plot. Not much here.  It's no wonder the birth rate in Japan is low.

Viola Davis, left, and Cynthia Erivo take'em on in Widows, a Steve McQueen film


Widows on the other hand is zowee action from the get-go!  (Attention: Tina and Matt:  You will definitely not like Shoplifters, but I'll wager that Widows will keep your attention.) It's a great story with terrific acting, including the knockout (!) performance by Cynthia Erivo.  (Viola Davis and Liam Neeson ain't too bad either, and could Elizabeth Debicki really be that tall?  I kept thinking that, maybe, she was standing on stilts or something, but I checked the Internet, which is always right, and she is 6' 2" or 6'3"! [Two answers.]  Yowsers! Did she play basketball in Australia?  I have derailed.) 
  
I don't have to describe the plot, right?  Four women who are widowed take it upon themselves to learn the craft and practice what their husbands practiced.  

It's not a "chick flick," as might be expected, but men will like it, too, with the blood, gore, sex (natch), obligatory breasts, bad words, and a hot spot plot. 

Dear Mr. McQueen (the director and co-writer with Gillian Flynn):  You've got a winner. Congrats!  (Critics:  90%; audience, 63%.  The audience doesn't always get it right.)

That's entertainment!

 
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'On the Waterfront' soars with live orchestra

They don't make 'em like they used to. One of the On the Waterfront posters/Wikipedia

It was a gift for the senses to see and hear the fabulous score by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra for the screening of the eighth best American movie ever made.*

The audience at the Music Center at Strathmore swooned to the maestro's only movie score and the 1954 crime drama On the Waterfront, starring the young and fit Marlon Brando (1924-2004) who went on to win the Oscar® for Best Actor for his portrayal of "Terry," a longshoreman beset by the extremes of good and evil.

It was the Philharmonic's film show debut which will certainly not be its last.

The National Philharmonic under the direction of Piotr Gajewski/Photo by Joshua Cogan

Who am I to disagree that a single French horn begins the score when I heard drums and cymbals? I just write what I heard which, in this case, was loud percussion to open the movie.

At the beginning, the drums probably were a little too domineering for the script, but their magnitude soon settled in to the sounds of the docks to match the shipyard visuals in black and white, and scenes in the warehouse inhabited by conniving union bosses who commandeered crews to handle their heavy lifting.

Soon enough the searing initial musical notes were disrupted by the script and tone which summoned light strings and a welcome shift from hostility and tension to romance.

Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront/Wikipedia


Playing opposite Brando was a new ingénue, Eva Marie Saint starring in a breakout role. (And, at age 94, she is still wooing them.) 

On the Waterfront tells the true story of longshoremen, a working class which in those times got short shift when it came to movie subjects, said a film lecturer in a SRO pre-concert program.

Linda DeLibero, senior lecturer in the Film and Media Studies program at Johns Hopkins University, and David Sterritt, Editor-in-Chief of Quarterly Review of Film and Video, talked to an overflow crowd about the making of the film which "stands on its own," Ms. DeLibero said, calling On the Waterfront, "the pinnacle" of Brando's career. 

(He was nominated seven times for Best Actor and won twice, also for The Godfather in 1972.)

Another On the Waterfront poster/Wikipedia

It "really transcends that time.  I really think it's that important," and it carried some improvised scenes.  Ms. DeLibero drew the attention of the audience to the "glove scene" which she indicated was improvised.  It's a sexy interaction where Brando, early in the romantic relationship, tries on the dropped glove of Eva Marie Saint, and while engaged in conversation, neither mentions the act.

The movie must transcend the time because Mr. Sterritt used the phrase, too, in his remarks:  "The movie transcends the moment." 

Waterfront was made after the "trauma of [World]war [II]," DeLibero said which was still " fresh in people's minds."

It received 12 Academy Award nominations and won eight excluding Best Supporting Actor (three in the film were nominated: Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger) and Best Music, but it's Bernstein's score which endures, wrote  film music historian, Jon Burlingame, in the program notes.

The performance was another of the many celebrations of Leonard Bernstein's 100th birthday celebration.

The story was based on real events in New Jersey which won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 1949 for the  New York Sun. The director's second choice for writer, Budd Schulberg wrote an original script (and won the Oscar®).  He spent countless hours interviewing the reporter for the Sun and at sessions of the Waterfront Crime Commission, portrayed in the film.  

Originally, Elia Kazan who directed (and won the Oscar® for Waterfront) pursued Arthur Miller as writer, but Miller turned down the proposal, disillusioned by Kazan's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where Kazan identified eight "suspicious" persons.  

Upon learning he did not get the role, DeLibero said Frank Sinatra, a New Jersey native, tore up his hotel suite. Kazan wanted Brando.

While the film was being made, Brando was near a nervous breakdown and had to take off every day at 3 p.m. to see his psychiatrist.


On the Waterfront on the big screen with live music was a lasting experience.   

Conducting was Piotr Gajewski who studied with Bernstein and had a Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood Music Center.  

Throughout the film, the music effectively signaled increasing tension.  Playing significant roles were the strings, triangle, xylophone, percussion, cymbals, and horns.  The piano sometimes echoed in a plaintive soliloquy. Dainty notes by the harpist could frequently be singled out before the movie's content enveloped the audience.

Familiar chords from Bernstein's West Side Story which came three years later on Broadway were easily recognized.

In recognition of his service to classical music and to Strathmore, Eliot Star Pfanstiehl, CEO Emeritus and founder of Strathmore Hall Foundation Inc., and chef temporaire par excellence was given the opportunity to direct the orchestra when it played the Star-Spangled Banner to start the show on stage.

The orchestra played under the screen with blue lights at the stands to illuminate the score. To ensure that everyone heard the dialogue, subtitles were used. 

Had it been made in color, that would have weakened the message which black and white underscored.

*according to the American Film Institute. 

Coming up, the National Philharmonic performs:

What: "Lenny's Playlist"with Mozart's Overture to the Magic Flute, Barber's Violin Concerto, Op. 14, and Shostaskovich's Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 

When:  8 p.m., Saturday, October 13, 2018 and 3 p.m., Sunday, October 14, 2018

Where:  The Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, N. Bethesda, MD  20852

Tickets: Buy online or call 301.841.8595

Free parking at the Metro Grosvernor-Strathmore station next door

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