The very first film to be shown at the festival in 1932 was Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. It has the distinction of being one of the “Big 3” alongside Cannes and Berlin, and also one of the three festivals that kick off Oscar season, alongside Telluride and of course TIFF (these three festivals occur nearly simultaneously, but Venice ekes them out by a hair). Founded in 1932, the Venice Film Festival is the world’s oldest. Sean and I are on our way to the Venice Film Festival (by way of Philadelphia, oddly enough).
#KIDS IN MIND THE ZOOKEEPERS WIFE FULL#
The good news is, I’m presently in the real Venice, and my twitter ( is bound to be full of Venicey good things. In conclusion: only a woman vibrating with anticipation for her next trip could sit through this movie, and I only did it with the help of Diet Pepsi before noon, and sudoku. He’s smirky and sarcastic as ever, but the script in no way lives up to even the most minimal requirements for this kind of action-comedy (ie, little action, and no comedy).
We’ve seen Bruce Willis play this character before. Anyway, things only get more madcap from there. There’s no excusing the most egregious stuff (ie, naked skateboarding, and using his asscheeks as a gun holster) which is not necessity but rather just establishes the kind of guy Steve is (ie, exceedingly immature). Sure it’s a retaliatory act, but Buddy is Steve’s best friend (excepting John Goodman, who plays his human best friend), so apparently there’s no end to demeaning situations that Steve is willing to get into in order to recover his furry pal. His First and Biggest Problem are the gangsters who stole his beloved dog Buddy. He has a young protege responsible for some very cheesy narration but mostly it’s just about him, getting into deeper and deeper trouble, then trying to dig his way out. Willis plays Steve Ford, a licensed private detective who can’t be all that good at his job or he’d have more than $84 in his bank account. Nevertheless, and in the name of all that is good and Bruce Willis, I persisted. This is Venice Beach, California, whereas where in the cool one with the gondolas and the gelato. Of course, and let me say this up front: Once Upon A Time In Venice is the wrong Venice. I’ve written about Paris, Hawaii, and California, to name just a few, but since Sean and I are in Venice, you can be sure I’m in heaven soaking up Italy on film before I see it in person. You may have noticed by now that before I travel, I like to watch movies set in the city I’m about to visit. Heroes are only half the equation: both must be compelling. Heroics are all well and good, but they’re only important because they’re necessary.
#KIDS IN MIND THE ZOOKEEPERS WIFE MOVIE#
What does it mean that I didn’t? Perhaps what this movie needed was a meaningful connection to just one victim. It feels a little cold, without the emotional gravitas you’d expect. What I mean is: it doesn’t have the power to haunt you the way Schindler’s List did (does). In the end, I think it’s just not terrible enough, which I realize is a weird thing to say. This movie gets some things right, and some things wrong. WW2-era films always inspire a bout of siderodromophobia in me (the fear of trains). Fitting, I suppose, when she’s sitting in the middle of a war where much scarier things are happening on the streets. There’s no CGI used int he film those are real lion cubs she’s cuddling, with not a shred of hesitancy. Jessica Chastain as the zookeeper’s wife is of course fantastic. The film makes the stakes clear, yes for the zookeepers taking enormous risks themselves (they would surely die if discovered), but especially for the people they are helping, who would otherwise be dead – or worse. The Zookeeper’s Wife is not an easy watch. Glimmers of light do not eliminate all the darkness. Terrible, unspeakable things happened every day, and it’s kind of a miracle to see\hear these stories about ordinary people who couldn’t live with what was happening, so they didn’t. It was an especially brutal place to be during the war. Of course I’ve read both The Zookeeper’s Wife, and We Bought A Zoo, and more recently I was reading another book about a woman who led an underground railroad of sorts to smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto, wherein the zookeeper’s wife was specifically mentioned. It’s about real-life couple Antonina and Jan Zabinski, who used their posts at the Warsaw Zoo to save hundreds of Jews during the German invasion. On Monday I watched a llama get shot, point blank.ĭo not confuse The Zookeeper’s Wife with We Bought A Zoo. On Saturday we brought our sweet little nephews to the Capital Fair, where we watched a stunt dog show, rode rides, played games on the Midway, and visited a petting zoo where the kids and I hand-fed llamas.
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