Rhapsodies

This week I decided to go with watching a few young adult films (or at least ones with young adult protagonists)

The first film in my selection, Secondhand Lions stars Robert Duval and Micheal Caine as two eccentric Texas brothers spending their twilight years in their dilapidated farm fishing with shotguns and taking potshots at salesmen who had heard rumors of their hidden wealth won from past adventures.

Into this comes their nephew, Walter who is abandoned on their doorstep by his mother (with instructions to find their treasure.) From there comes a sweet story as the brothers for all their cantankerous faults turn out to be the best parents that Walter could possibly have and in the process providing a civilizing influence (for example getting them to wait for the Salesmen to tell them what they are selling before they shoot at them) Along the way we hear about the brothers adventure and Walter gets a pet lioness named Jasmine.

This was a fun with great performances for both Duval and Caine (though I caught Caine’s accent slipping twice)

Holes is an a Disney adaptation of the popular young adults book of the same name about a correctional facility in the middle of the dessert where boys are sent to dig holes to “build character” and the boys who have been sent there.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this film. It has a great ensemble cast including Sigourney Weaver as the warden with  Jon Voight as her chief enforcer as well as a great first performance from Shia LaBeouf as Stanley our main protagonist.

The story was tight going back and fourth between the hell of the camp and a back story about a tragic multiracial romance torn apart by bigotry. All of which is far more upbeat then that sentence implies, and it all comes together in the end in a very clever way.