By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
“Remember” is an unusual revenge story, unlike any other Holocaust-inspired movie you’ve ever seen!
Zev Guttman, 90, (Christopher Plummer) has dementia, so he’s confused every morning when he awakens, calling for his wife Ruth. She’s dead, but it takes him awhile to adjust to his memory loss.
Zev lives in a nursing home not far from New York, where his best friend is wheelchair-bound Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau), who’s hooked up to an oxygen tank.
They’re both Auschwitz survivors, and Max has hatched a plan to wreak revenge on the sadistic guard who was responsible for tormenting and exterminating both of their families.
According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, SS Officer Otto Wallisch escaped from Germany and has been living somewhere in North America under the assumed identity of Rudy Kurlander.
Having identified four elderly men with the name Rudy Kurlander, Max gives Zev a thick envelope filled with cash, train and bus tickets and an all-important letter detailing, step-by-step, his every move in a search to identify the culprit – and kill him.
Although Zev’s distraught son (Henry Czerny) sends out a Missing Persons bulletin, Zev evades an F.B.I. background check when buying a Glock and slips, almost unnoticed, crossing into and out of Canada with an expired U.S. passport on his cross-country trek.
Scripted by newcomer Benjamin August, it’s astutely directed by auteur Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”) with Jurgen Prochnow, Bruno Ganz, and Heinz Lieven as three of the four Rudys. Dean Norris is particularly effective as virulently anti-Semitic John Kurlander, son of a deceased Rudy.
Christopher Plummer’s dignified, persuasive performance propels the Hitchcockian plot – with additional support from Peter DaCunha as a thoughtful youngster who befriends Zev and Jane Spidell as the protective daughter of the last Kurlander on Zev’s list.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Remember” is an intriguing 8. It’s an engaging Canadian import that should be on your “must see” list.
If you’re looking for fun and nostalgia, don’t wait for an engraved invitation. Take yourself to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2,” revolving around the close-knit, Greek-American Portokalos clan.
Based on actress/screenwriter Nia Vardalos’ semi-autobiographical one-woman theater piece, the first film garnered her an Academy Award nomination for original screenplay and a Screen Actors Guild Ensemble nomination; it even inspired a short-lived TV sitcom spinoff.
Still living in suburban Chicago, down the street from her parents’ Acropolis-themed home, Toula (Nia Vardalos) and her genial WASP husband Ian (John Corbett) now have a moody, monosyllabic teenage daughter, Paris (Elena Kampouris), a high-school senior trying to establish her own identity.
According to Toula’s father Gus (Michael Constantine), the Greeks invited everything (including philosophy, democracy, hockey, even Facebook). As the family patriarch, he embarks on an Internet quest to confirm that he’s a direct descendant of Alexander the Great.
Doing research, Gus unearths his wedding certificate, only to discover that, 50 years ago, the priest never signed it – meaning he and Toula’s mother Maria (Lainie Kazan) aren’t really married.
That precipitates a crisis that even Gus’s ever-present solution – a spritz of Windex – cannot eradicate. Nor can bossy, meddling Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin).
Scripted with warm, ethnic humor by Vardarlos and gently directed by Kirk Jones (“Waking Ned Devine”), it attempts to recapture the relationship-driven magic. Casting incorporates everyone from the original, including NSync’s Joey Fatone as Toula’s cousin Angelo, and introduces John Stamos and (producer) Rita Wilson as the new Greeks on the block.
On the Granger Gauge, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” is a stereotypically sweet 7. Pass the spanakopita.
About “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” one truth is self-evident: DC comic book movies make money! It doesn’t matter if they’re bad or good – scowling superheroes rule!
Back when Christopher Nolan made his grim “Dark Knight” trilogy, he laid groundwork for the somber, emotionally tortured vigilante hero. Now, director Zack Snyder (“Man of Steel”) seriously pushes the envelope even further.
Their story begins with a shadowy introduction to Bruce Wayne – a.k.a. Batman (Ben Affleck) – via a childhood dream sequence and the destruction of downtown Metropolis by Kryptonians, a disconcerting reference to the 9/11 attacks at Ground Zero.
So that’s why Batman has psychopathic issues with Superman – a.k.a. (Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) – who’s still busy saving spunky journalist Lois Lane (Amy Adams), captured by terrorists in the desert.
As tech prodigy Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) maniacally manipulates, their bickering commences over moral imperatives and ideological differences.
One thing quickly leads to another and soon two of the most iconic figures in comics are grotesquely battling in the streets of Metropolis and Gotham, which apparently are situated so close together than one can spy the Bat-signal from the rooftop of the ‘Daily Planet.’
The highlight is when Wonder Woman – a.k.a. Diana Prince (Israeli ex-soldier Gal Gadot) – finally appears. “Wonder Woman has the strength of a superhero,” Gadot said at Comic-Con, noting Wonder Woman will have her own origin movie, adding, “She’s sophisticated and loving – with emotional intelligence.”
Convolutedly scripted by David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio, it is thematically confusing yet visually dazzling with Jeremy Irons as Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred, Holly Hunter as a skeptical Senator, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Martha & Jonathan Kent – plus cameos by Anderson Cooper and Charlie Rose.
FYI: No need to sit through the credits as there are no additional sequences.
On the Granger Gauge, “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice” is a flashy, forgettable 5. Quoting Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing….”
( Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
