Other movies seen recently

In addition to "Dreamgirls," I also saw "Rocky Balboa" and "The History Boys." "Rocky Balboa" was amusing, but certainly no great cinematic achievement. I saw it with my parents over Christmas. They enjoyed it, but weren't blown away. I suppose the movie appeals to the age 60 set since one of its themes is that older people can still accomplish many things. I watched the original "Rocky" on Turner Classic Movies the day after Christmas. It's better than the new one, but I'm thinking that there must not have been many good films produced in 1976 since the original won the Best Picture Oscar for that year. Of course, both films reminded me of the two years I lived in Eastern Pennsylvania and the numerous times I ran to the top of the stairs, Rocky-style, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

My brother and I weren't sure what to make of "The History Boys." The story of these young men trying to gain entrance to Oxford or Cambridge was interesting and compelling. The film is thought-provoking, to be sure. It raises fascinating questions about the nature of history and memory, social class, culture, and the human condition. The discussions about the Holocaust, Lord Halifax's bad teeth, and Thomas Hardy's poetry were top-notch. Yet the film left me uncomfortable since it seems to condone the pedophilia by the hero, capably portrayed by Richard Griffiths. One of the themes seems to be authenticity. The film makes it clear that Hector, the character portrayed by Griffiths, is authentic, with a joi de vie his students love and appreciate. This is in contrast to the phony and inauthentic Irwin portrayed deftly by Stephen Campbell Moore. However, I found myself much more sympathetic to Irwin than to Hector, because I can't excuse the sexual advances that Hector made to his minor students. Perhaps one of the points the view is supposed to think about is that all human beings are flawed. Hector was an inspirational and gifted teacher, yet he made sexual advances to his students. Irwin was a challenging and methodical teacher, yet he had his own demons. This may be over-simplifying, but perhaps one of the themes is that we are all imperfect. But I don't really know. All of which left Dave and me wondering what was the point of this movie. Unfortunately, Roger Ebert hasn't written a review of this film. He's my all-time favorite critic, but his health problems have limited his work in recent months.