Archive | December, 2018

Ben is Back

14 Dec

‘Ben Is Back’: This addict son’s homecoming takes bad turns from family drama to thriller

By Tom Meek

Image result for ben is back

It’s a family affair as dad Peter Hedges directs son Lucas Hedges in “Ben Is Back,” an edgy if overwrought melodrama about a family caught in the crosshairs of addiction. Similar material was explored this year in “Beautiful Boy,” a based-on-real-life yarn that worked inner sentiments with solid fervor but somehow failed to kick it over the moon.

The result’s about the same here, but the film moves in very different strokes. For one, “Ben Is Back” is much grittier and edgier in texture and context. The addicted son, Ben (Lucas Hedges, nominated for an Oscar for a “Manchester by the Sea”) makes a surprise return home from rehab as Christmas nears and becomes an immediate source of tension between his mother (Julia Roberts) and stepfather (Courtney B. Vance). His presence is a clear code red. Sure, they’re fearful Ben will use again – but there seems to be something more. Holly (Roberts) puts down some hard rules and Neal (Vance) agrees reluctantly. There are other kids in the house whose welfare is at stake: Ben’s sister Ivy (Kathryn Newton) and Neal’s two children from a prior union. It’s something of a “Brady Bunch,” but there’s no laugh track and nothing funny in what’s to come.

Holly and Neal’s concerns seem a bit over the top initially. Holly won’t let Ben go to the bathroom or try on a shirt in a retail store without her constant supervision. After a group meeting you realize why: Ben’s not only at risk to use again (“all addicts lie,” he forewarns Holly), but was an active dealer in the upstate New York hamlet that’s a harried mix of sugar plum nice and badass vice – the tentacles of which threaten to drag him back in. Neal and Holly’s quaint homestead is soon burglarized, the dog’s gone missing and unsavory sorts start to lurk out from the dark shadows of Main Street. A wonderful life this is not.

By the third act the film shifts into thriller mode – something of a tough-love saga by way of “Breaking Bad.” It’s too bad, too, because the homestead dynamic between the father who bought into this little shop of horrors and the protective mother caught in conflict gets lost. The film comes out of the gate wobbly, and just when it find its feet and we begin to get invested, Hedges the writer and director takes one mean street turn after the next. Only the first few might be plausible.

The fraught chemistry between Roberts, Hedges and Vance sells much of it for a while – the whole ensemble is quite convincing – but what they’re given to work with is palpable, unbridled anger without ownership or remorse. As Holly sees it, her family’s troubles are tied to one person, and when she gets her moment of confrontation, it’s ugly, with little upside. Addiction’s no doubt nasty and impactful beyond the veins of the person using, but bleak tales close to the edge don’t necessarily need to go over it. Sometimes family affairs need to just be more intimate.

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Chilly Bike Lanes

9 Dec

Pack of end-of-year actions on street safety anticipates bike, pedestrian work in 2019

 

By Tom Meek 
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Ground was boken Wednesday for a Watertown-Cambridge bike path expected to be complete in early summer of 2020. (Photos and video: Tom Meek)

The city will have a more comprehensive schedule of bike infrastructure rollouts early next year, Community Development spokeswoman Bridget Martin said, and the state is joining in with a Dec. 18 meeting to discuss options for bike safety improvements on some of its own roadway in Cambridge.

Even before that, the Cambridge Bicycle Safety group is calling for city staff to report back by the end of January on how common speed limit violations are in Cambridge and how the city can better engineer traffic calming; a policy order written with Mayor Marc McGovern, vice mayor Jan Devereux and city councillor Quinton Zondervan will make the request official Monday.

“For example, we know that changing paving surfaces and raising crosswalks helps slow traffic in busy areas,” the group said Thursday, explaining the urgency behind the order: “Over the past 10 years, 16 vulnerable road users – either walking or biking – have been killed in our city. This is a public health crisis.”

The mayor and City Manager Louis A. DePasquale are also set to attend a community meeting next week on pedestrian safety and safer streets, planned for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Amigos School, 15 Upton St., Cambridgeport.

There have already been several steps taken to separate cyclists from motor vehicles and connect major destinations by bike lane since an October rallyby the bicycle safety group, including a priority bus and bike lane on Mount Auburn Street; separated lanes on Massachusetts Avenue from Central Square through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the Charles River, opened late last month; and Wednesday’s groundbreaking for a Watertown-Cambridge bike path.

The Watertown-Cambridge path, expected to be complete in early summer of 2020, leverages an old railway running parallel to Huron Avenue to better connect cyclists coming from Watertown and West Cambridge to Fresh Pond destinations including the pond, mall and Danehy Park, as well as the Alewife T station and Minuteman Bike Path – good for families and other cyclists unwilling to tangle with vehicles on Huron Avenue and the Fresh Pond Parkway.

The separated bike lanes (alongside a dedicated Boston-bound bus lane) south of Central Square provide more safety in a congested area notorious for its perilous intersections. The project is still undergoing tweaks, said Joseph Barr, director of the city’s Traffic, Parking & Transportation Department, though the bulk of the project was completed and opened for use just after Thanksgiving.

Data from the installations will show whether they increase public safety and get more people out of their cars, traffic officials have said.

The bicycle safety group and other advocacy groups, including Livable Streets and the Boston Cyclists Union, have been loud advocates for safer streets since the Cambridge deaths of cyclists Amanda Phillips and Joseph Lavins in 2016. In November, another cyclist was struck and killed by a dump truck at Museum Way and Monsignor O’Brien Highway, across from the Museum of Science, and state Rep. Mike Connolly called on the state to make changes.

A public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 18 at the Museum of Science – the location may change as the expected size of the audience grows – will discuss the details of Meng Jin’s death and safety improvements from infrastructure and vehicle safeguard perspectives, Connolly said.

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Roma

8 Dec

‘Roma’: Calling on the maid to be a mother when chaos strikes a family and ’70s Mexico

 

By Tom Meek
Image result for roma cuaron

Alfonso Cuarón, the Mexican-born director who’s made a reputation of tackling a wide variety of subjects and milieus, hopping from the depths of outer space (“Gravity”) to barren, post-apocalyptic futures (“Children of Men”) and even Harry Potter and Dickens (“Prisoner of Azkaban” and “Great Expectations”), returns to his homeland – where be crafted his signature tale of taboo sex and betrayal, “Y Tu Mamá También” – to forge the semi-autobiographical contemplation “Roma,” something of a nostalgic dream cut with historical incident and unhappy reality. Folks who could never bite into the floaty neorealism of Fellini’s “8½” or “Amarcord” will struggle with the director’s languid sense of place and time, hoping for more of the disruptive chaos of the earthquake, wildfire and class revolt that punctuate the film. The central dilemma of a pregnant housemaid abused and abandoned by her lover and trapped by her unenviable station in life might not jump off the page, but for those who give it time, there are rewards.

The time is the early ’70s (aptly Fellini-esque) in Mexico City, as the camera swirls around the doings of an upper-middle-class family. Dad (Fernando Grediaga), a doctor, works long hours at the hospital while mom (Marina de Tavira) and the housemaid, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) maintain the homestead and look after a brood of corrigible youth. Mom and Cleo care, but are not the most effective homemakers. Mom dings up the car every time she takes it out and Cleo allows mounds of canine fecal matter to amass in the driveway – cars skid and people slip on poo, it’s a running thing. The film’s driving factors are the father’s sudden and prolonged absence as well as Cleo’s pregnancy: How she gets pregnant, the father’s reaction and the end result of which provide for surprising turns.

“Roma” moves in subtle, wispy ebbs fueled by undercurrents of class and gender oppression. There’s a poignant yin and yang in every frame. Fate and circumstance factor large too as the action moves from the cloistered streets of the city to the bourgeois countryside, even a muddy hillside slum and ultimately a riot (the Corpus Christi Massacre of 1970). Throughout it all Cleo and Sofia rally frantically to keep the children safe, despite considerable setbacks. “Roma” is clearly a love letter to the women who made Cuarón the person he is today.

The film, shot by Cuarón himself in black and white – an artistic high-dive against the grain but in good company (think “Schindler’s List,” “The White Ribbon” and “The Artist”) – is a scrumptious wonderment to behold. If there’s any subversion, it’s that “Cold War,” another foreign language film in a similar format yet radically different style, could give Cuarón a run in the best-cinematography category.

Artistic merits aside, the key to “Roma” is the patiently quiet and soulful performance by Aparicio. Clea’s fleeting optimism amid repressed pain amid continual reminders of her subservient role are heartwarming and heartbreaking. You want her to break out and do something bold, but in her quiet resolve there’s a deeper dignity that transcends.“Roma” is not about good or bad, but about connecting and persevering.

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