Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

I am such a sucker for famous people playing famous people and the trailer for Saving Mr. Banks hit all the right notes (look it's Tom Hanks with a mustache cavorting with Tinkerbell!). It helps that Mary Poppins is one of my most favorite movies ever of course, which is why this poster seems so cute. That might not be the most professional way to describe something, but who can look at this and not think "OMGZ cutest thing ever", "it's Mickey and Mary!" or "awwww" all the way through the theater lobby after they see it?

Disney marketers, you've once again stolen my heart. Have they stolen yours too?

Brave ***

Director: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman

It’s a shame that sometime in the last ten years, the word “Disney movie” became associated with old fashioned, sappy and obsolete when compared to more progressive animation studios like Dreamworks, Blue Sky and especially Pixar. Although the quality of Disney Animation Studios did diminish (sadly taking down their 2D branch) the true thing is that the house of the mouse remained loyal to what Walt had once envisioned; making magic in our world seem possible.

The old sing and dance cartoon flicks that once made the studio the most groundbreaking filmmakers in the world, became object of parody. But how many of us still treasure the countless times we saw Peter Pan and Dumbo growing up? And how have we come to realize that despite their undeniable profundity and complexity, Pixar movies will never truly relit that first spark of awe ignited by Disney classics?

Pixar’s sophisticated filmmaking techniques have spoiled us yes, but sometimes it’s still refreshing to let ourselves be enchanted by a simple (not to be confused with simplistic) fairytale. Brave, might be the most effortless film to be put out by the Pixar brand, and it truly feels much more like a “Disney” movie than one made by the people behind Wall-E and Toy Story, but this in the end doesn’t seem to matter much. Despite the film not being the melting pot of “will-they-pull-this-off”s Pixar has made us used to, it still contains the sincerity and deep love of storytelling that has made them such beacons of creativity.

Set in Scotland, the film centers on the unorthodox Princess Merida, a hot headed beauty who’d rather spend the day horseback riding and shooting arrows, than learning how to sew and training to find the perfect husband. Her mother, Queen Elinor, finds herself in a constant battle with her daughter who refuses to conform to tradition; it doesn’t help that her husband King Fergus seems almost oblivious to everything going on around them.

When Merida defies the rules and refuses to choose among the candidates offered to her in marriage, she and her mother undergo the ultimate kind of battle. The central twist in the film can easily be deduced by anyone who knows how these “try to have some empathy” movies work and when it unfolds, its familiarity somehow makes it feel quite refreshing. The rest of the movie plays out like a well told bedtime story (legends and storytelling are a constant theme in the screenplay) until it surprisingly transforms into something more profound: it’s an oft-touching dissection of the loves our mothers have for us.

Without being preachy or overly sentimental, the film tackles the right balance between what society expects of men and women. The film is filled with stunning action sequences that become even more exciting because of the heroine’s beauty. They do not stimulate the mind in the way watching Angelina Jolie or Sigourney Weaver kicking butt do; they make endless adventure seem possible for people regardless of their gender and sexual orientation. While the “mainstream” lesson might have something to do with how we each own our destiny (which in itself isn’t a shabby lesson at all), the more subversive subtext in the film allude to how women must often battle harder than men and always find themselves at stakes with men and other women. It’s lovely to see a story so devoted to womanhood, especially because of how it comes to represent an entire history of female liberation. See how it reminds us that more often than not, women are the real authority figures in the household, and regardless of how cute they are, isn’t it interesting how Merida’s triplet brothers don’t get to utter a single word in the movie?
By subverting our notions of what a Pixar movie should be, isn’t Brave in a way (from its very form), alluding to the battles faced everyday by women who feel they have to live up to standards created by and for men?

The powerful feminine force behind Brave is especially obvious when compared to the short film that precedes it. In Enrico Casarosa’s La Luna we see the patriarchal system at its most obvious and the dichotomy created by the juxtaposition of the short and feature films, will make for fascinating post-screening conversations among all family members. Will little boys and girls want to be like the nameless boy of La Luna or like Merida? The time will come when the answer won’t really make a difference, only then will we know we are living in a truly brave world.

An Education ***1/2

Director: Lone Scherfig
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina
Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Cara Seymour
Olivia Williams, Emma Thompson, Sally Hawkins

"Coming of age" in films has become synonymous with cliché, unoriginality and by the numbers storytelling.
Therefore it's a mystery how Lone Scherfig is able to make "An Education" so damn refreshing.
The story, based on journalist Lynn Barber's memoirs turned into a wonderful screenplay by Nick Hornby, takes place in 1961 London, where 16-year-old Jenny (Mulligan) finds herself involved in a romantic affair with David (Sarsgaard) a man twice her age.
They meet one inconspicuous rainy afternoon when David offers Jenny's cello, and not its owner, a ride. She walks next to the car surprised and more than charmed by David's odd behavior and before soon she's accepting an invitation to go with him to a concert.
But Jenny lives with her parents (Molina and Seymour both simply extraordinary) and before she can go to a concert with David, he must seduce them.
Jenny's parents have planned her life ahead for her, therefore she is enrolled in an exclusive girls' school, which along with proficient extra curricular activities will pave her way to Oxford, where she will find a husband and live peacefully.
The notion of happiness isn't questioned or perhaps remains implicit upon achieving economic and social tranquility.
In such a way Jenny's parents show no objection to David taking their daughter out. Her dad just points out he's "a Jew", but they allow their relationship to flourish.
Can it be that they just see the potential husband material in him despite the obvious incongruences this has with everything they have done for their daughter.
It does help that Sarsgaard is so charming playing this part.
He works around his type, and a forced British accent, by playing it cool and honest. We know that he wants to get into Jenny's pants, but he's never the menacing pedophile lurking around the playground.
His interest in Jenny in fact seems to be real, "isn't it wonderful to find a young person who wants to know things?" he asks finding himself self appointed guide in Jenny's unofficial education.
In every scene they are together he's also getting something out of Jenny that goes beyond the sexual. Sarsgaard conveys the "too good to be true" traits we can't help but fear as well as a sense that he's learning from Jenny too.
As with every character in the film, there is in him a sense of subversion. The possibility that David is taking revenge on the system by proving he can romance a girl who is in every way in a different class, is quite possible.
Same goes to his friends Danny (Cooper) and his girlfriend Helen (Pike) who bewitch Jenny with pure style and glamor. Little does she stop to see how they sustain this lifestyle with methods she might never agree with.
At first Jenny says she wants "to talk to people who know lots about lots", but in their company she is more seduced by the constant array of activities-concerts, trips to Paris, parties, pre-Raphaelite art auctions-than the actual knowledge she gets from any of it.
The problem is actually that Jenny only sees this and the flashes of humanity we get from the characters are merely nuances.
Therefore the bittersweet affection and repressed rage of Danny is brought to life beautifully by Cooper in unexpected small moments.
While Pike is brilliant as the trophy girlfriend who plays the blond card to avoid being compromised by morality and ethical issues.
Jenny, like most teenagers fails to see past their facades and impressed by their glitz becomes rebellious to the other side of the equation: her teachers.
Her English teacher (a moving Williams) asks her to contemplate her future more carefully, but Jenny assumes she's just trying to live vicariously through her, while the Headmistress (Thompson who obviously steals all her scenes) sternly reminds her the rules of society in the face of such upheavals.
But as long as she's learning more than school has to offer and imposing her newfound adulthood over her childlike classmates, Jenny remains in a world of her own.
This world is a beautiful creation at the hands of Carey Mulligan who inhabits Jenny from the moment the movie begins.
Even if we know she's a poser of sorts, who speaks French out of the blue as if it was the most natural thing in the world, there is a lovable quality to her.
She's trapped in the limbo between childhood and adulthood, trying to take too much in at once and learning the hard way.
But watch Mulligan's eyes, as they convey a lustful thirst for the unknown juxtaposed with utter innocence and you will be transfixed.
When she experiences sex she sighs before she wonders why "all that poetry about something that lasts no time at all", her life so far has been made up of what she read in books and heard in French music.
Her life after the events in the film is something made for books and music.