{"id":7977,"date":"2019-05-30T08:05:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T12:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7977"},"modified":"2019-09-04T07:07:01","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T11:07:01","slug":"weekend-movie-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7977","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Movie Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Biggest Little\nFarm<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This charming documentary records John and Molly Chester\u2019s epic attempt to create a sustainable farm an hour outside Los Angeles (trailer<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say early on that they found a sponsor who believed in their vision of a farm that, with a multitude of animals and kinds of crops, captures the power of biodiversity. That sponsor had deep pockets, because, while what they\u2019re doing is a beautiful thing, it looks expensive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first challenge of Many was bringing back the soil from\nits status as moonscape. You follow them over seven years of trials and\nsuccesses, and now their egg business (ravaged by coyotes killing the chickens)\nand fruit business (ravaged by hungry birds) are thriving. The farm gives tours,\nbecause it\u2019s a beautiful place to see. And a gift shop<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Chesters\u2019 approach has a lot of intellectual\nand emotional appeal, he\u2019s realistic enough to recognize that Mother Nature isn\u2019t\ncharmed by good intentions. Staying on top of it isn\u2019t easy or inevitable.\nStill, you\u2019ll leave the theater happier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>\ncritics\u2019 rating: 91%; audiences: 97%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White Crow <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The plot of this movie is well known, how brilliant Soviet\nballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West at the Le Bourget airport in Paris\n(trailer<\/a>) at the end\nof a visit by the Kirov ballet, then became the greatest ballet star of his\ngeneration. This wonderful movie, written by playwright David Hare and directed\nby by Ralph Fiennes (who also plays Nureyev\u2019s teacher, ballet master Alexander\nIvanovich Pushkin), tells his early story in black and white flashbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The early story is important, because Nureyev\u2019s\npoverty-stricken childhood in a Tatar Muslim family, with an absent father, may\nhelp explain the enormous chip on his shoulder. Let\u2019s just say he\u2019s not Mr.\nCongeniality. He knows he can succeed only if he excels, and his default\nassumption (a correct one, it appears) is that the Soviet system of training, work\nassignments, and so forth do not share his goal. The 23-year-old Nureyev\u2019s\nultimate defection in 1961, not without its dangers, is not prompted by\npolitics, but by the desire for freedom to practice his art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukrainian ballet dancer Oleg Ivenko looks and moves with\nNureyev\u2019s assurance and projects his charisma. He barely struggles to be\nlikeable; he\u2019s a man on a mission, weighed down by the oppressive handlers sent\nwith the company to Paris. The critics are lukewarm, but audiences sense the\nfilm\u2019s appeal, \u201cfull of small pleasures,\u201d says Moira MacDonald in the Seattle Times<\/em>\u2014and big ones too, when Ivenko\ndances.Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>\ncritics rating: 67%; audiences 85%.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Biggest Little Farm This charming documentary records John and Molly Chester\u2019s epic attempt to create a sustainable farm an hour outside Los Angeles (trailer). They say early on that they found a sponsor who believed in their vision of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Weekend Movie Picks - a documentary that will leave you smiling and a biopic about artistic freedom and Rudolf Nureyev","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[265,1288,58,366,56,57,35,104],"tags":[1571,73,1569,1570],"class_list":["post-7977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biography","category-culture","category-documentaries","category-drama","category-film","category-movies","category-real-life","category-the-morgue","tag-biodiversity","tag-nature","tag-ralph-fiennes","tag-rudolf-nureyev"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Biggest-Little-Farm.jpg?fit=286%2C261&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-24F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7981,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977\/revisions\/7981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}