QUEEN AND COUNTRY: His current retrospective ends, and the new John Boorman film arrives

There are but a few days left to see on the big screen at New York City's Film Forum a selection of the work of British filmmaker John Boorman, an auteur whose films are always worth seeing (often the least regarded of which -- Zardoz, The Tiger's Tail -- offer the most surprising rewards). One of Boorman's most popular films, and the one that brought him the largest arthouse acclaim, as well as a bunch of Oscar nominations and BAFTA awards (Deliverance brought him his first batch of Oscar noms and mainstream popularity), was 1987's Hope and Glory. Now, nearly three decades later, arrives the sequel-of-sorts to that earlier biographical film that covered the filmmaker's days as a child during World War II. This new one, QUEEN AND COUNTRY, tackles the character's young manhood in the British military during the Korean War.

What a pleasure and a joy this new film is! Wonderfully funny, gorgeous to view (the period details are scrumptious and on-mark) and finally quite moving, too, Queen and Country proves there is still immense life and talent to this now 82-year-old filmmaker. The love -- of family, of country (with an often ironic and telling eye) and of the men and women in his life -- that Mr. Boorman (shown at right) conjures here is likely to find a hugely empathetic audience in English-speaking countries, surely, and perhaps far beyond those borders, as well.

Utterly accessible yet absolutely specific in its grasp of details concerning time, place and person, the movie's great achievement -- as is so often Boorman's too -- lies in how it shows us life in its rich comic/sad complexities and its characters as complicated and problemed people who are sometimes simply impossible to set right.

The filmmaker's beautiful tapestry includes his stand-in, Bill Rohan, wonderfully played by Callum Turner (above) and his best pal Percy Hapgood (a firecracker performance by Caleb Landry Jones, below).

Around these two revolve the rest of the wonderful cast of oddball, important characters -- from the beautiful, troubled young woman Bill encounters one evening at a concert (Tamsin Egerton, below)

to the discipline-crazed officer and bête noire of the boys, Sgt. Major Bradley (David Thewlis, below center, in yet another of his amazing, scary and deeply-felt performances)

to the no-one-does-more-with-less Richard E. Grant (below) as the superior officer, Major Cross

and a simply terrific performance from Pat Shortt (below), as the company's supreme grifter, Redmond, a role that even Phil Silvers' Sergeant Bilko might envy.

Add to this a first-class (though not upper class) funny and disparate family for Bill, and you have the makings of a hugely memorable hit that should delight arthouse audiences (perhaps into repeated viewings) before moving into even some mainstream venues, too.

The scene of that family (and friend) watching the coronation of the current Queen Elizabeth on their new television set -- a similar scene occurred in the little-seen (you really ought to) but excellent remake of The Scapegoat -- and who they suddenly see in the background provides yet another surprising twist and jolt to this splendid movie.

How it all comes together -- anything but perfectly, but believably and with a fine mixture of revelation and rue -- makes for one of the year's loveliest movie gifts. And one that just might find itself in memory when it comes time for next year's flock of awards-giving. (The movie ends, by the way, with a perfectly delightful nod to the career that will come.)

Meanwhile, Queen and Country -- via BBC Worldwide North America and running a never-too-lengthy 115 minutes -- gets its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, February 18, at NYC's Film Forum and in Los Angeles the following Friday, February 27 at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. In the weeks to come the film will open across the country in most major cities. To see the entire list of playdates, with cities and theaters, simply click here.  (To view the schedule for the remaining Boorman films in the current Film Forum retrospective, click here.)

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Britain in the 1950s, British cinema, growing up, instant classics, John Boorman, military comedies, military movies, QUEEN AND COUNTRY,

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Talya Lavie's Israeli box-office hit ZERO MOTIVATION opens at New York's Film Forum

You don't have to be Israeli to enjoy ZERO MOTIVATION, the randy, raucous, rabble-rousing comedy about the Israeli military (women's division) that opens this coming week, but being steeped in Israeli culture probably helps one to fully appreciate this film. The half-dozen or so characters we meet and spend some "quality" time with, including one especially deceptive male, have various degrees of motivation (toward quite different goals) but their bizarre appeal and utterly quirky humor is almost never in doubt.

As written and directed by filmmaker Talya Lavie (shown at left), who I am guessing based this somewhat on her own experience and that of other women she knew (doesn't almost every Israeli man and woman spend some time in the military?), the movie commands our attention almost as much for its strangeness as for its entertainment. And, trust me, there is plenty here of both. The several young women we meet who are fast friends (except when they're not) and will seem to do just about anything to get out of doing real work, represent, I guess, a cross section of Israeli womanhood.

That these young ladies are in the military would seem to underscore the fact that military service, no matter where in the world it is taking place, is a somehow crazy and pointless endeavor -- full of its special rules and regulations that became their own raison d'être and do not finally even matter much.

The main characters here include a girl named Daffi (who is indeed exactly that), played as resolutely pert and entitled by Nelly Tagar (above), and Zohar, a clunkier, big-boned girl with initially the least motivation of all, played most tellingly by Dana Ivgy (below, of Or and Broken Wings).

Also in the mix is a more recent emigree from Eastern Europe (shown below, applying lipstick rather too freely), who suddenly becomes the "protector" of one of our girls (before going totally bonkers).

And then there's the soldier in charge of this mess, Rama, played quite sadly and beautifully by Shani Klein,(below), a woman entirely motivated by and constantly working toward her upcoming promotion.

In fact, the only more motivated female here is the young woman we meet early on, who appears to be Daffi's replacement but, as it turns out, is something quite other. Motivation, it would seem, is the route to utter disaster. Never more so than when one of our girls decides to lose her virginity and picks someone remarkably wrong to help with this endeavor.

Ms Lavie has separated her story (rather arbitrarily, it seemed to me) into several sections: Daffi, The Virgin (and her paratrooper), the Commander, etc. At the very least, these are unnecessary, as her stories bounce off each other nicely and practically seem to tell themselves.

Funny, bizarre, and finally about friendship more than anything else, Zero Motivation is so culturally specific and original that there is no other country on earth, I think, that could have spawned this film.

From Zeitgeist Films, in Hebrew with English subtitles and running 100 minutes, the movie, after playing a number of festivals around the USA and elsewhere, opens this coming Wednesday in its U.S. theatrical debut at Film Forum in New York City, after which it will make its way around the country over the weeks and months to come. (It opens in L.A. on January 16 at Landmark's NuArt.) You can check all currently scheduled playdates by clicking here.

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friendship, Israeli cinema, military comedies, movies about the military, Talya Lavie, ZERO MOTIVATION,

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