Baru saja Anton, seorang eksekutif muda yang sukses memimpin perusahaan besar, memasuki ruangan kantornya ketika sekretarisnya memberitahukan bahwa dia menerima pesan dari Ibu Susy, istri Anton, agar sepulang kerja tidak lupa membelikan kado mobil-mobilan buat Jerry, anaknya yang hari ini genap berusia 6 tahun. Anton melirik jam tangan Rolex yang melingkar di tangannya dan perasaan bersalah menyeruak di hatinya. Dia benar-benar lupa bahwa hari ini si Jerry berulang tahun dan dia belum sempat membelikan kado apa-apa. Seharian dihabiskan dengan pertemuan-pertemuan dengan rekan bisnisnya di samping memberikan arahan kepada para managernya dalam mempersiapkan launching kondominium baru yang kabarnya termahal di Jakarta.
Segera dia bergegas menyambar tasnya dan langsung kabur dari kantornya yang terletak di bilangan segitiga emas. Pak Tisna, supir pribadinya hari ini absen karena istrinya baru melahirkan, maka terpaksa Anton mengendarai sendiri kendaraan BMWnya menuju ke mal. Jam sudah menunjukkan pukul 9 malam lebih, berarti hanya tersisa sedikit waktu untuk menemukan hadiah yang cocok buat buah hatinya. Waktu mendekati perempatan dia sebenarnya sadar bahwa lampu lalu lintas sudah menunjukkan warna kuning, tetapi di tengah ketergesaannya Anton malah menggeber kendaraannya.
Baru beberapa ratus meter selepas lampu merah dia dipepet oleh seorang polisi lalu lintas. “Brengsek”, pikir Anton. Pasti gara-gara nyerobot lampu merah tadi. Padahal Anton yakin sang “penegak hukum” tadi ngak kelihatan batang hidungnya. Pasti hanya cari gara-gara saja nich polisi satu ini. Anton terpaksa menepikan mobilnya dan sang polisi menyapa “Selamat Malam Pak. Tadi Bapak melanggar lampu lalu lintas. Mohon untuk ditunjukkan SIM dan STNK Bapak”. Anton gondok banget. Dia pikir bisa-bisa keburu mallnya tutup dan ngak bisa belikan hadiah buat si Jerry. Langsung Anton keluarkan selembar uang lima puluh ribuan dan diberikan kepada polisi tersebut. Sang polisi menampik dengan halus dan berkata bahwa “Bapak saya tilang karena melanggar lampu merah. Mohon masukkan lagi uang Bapak dan Bapak bisa bayarkan ke pengadilan. Mohon tunjukkan SIM dan STNK Bapak”.
Anton benar-benar terkejut dan tambah kheki. Ini polisi cari masalah saja. Ditengoknya polisi tersebut dan dia tambah terkejut karena ternyata sang polisi adalah Herman, temannya satu SMA yang dulu memang masuk sekolah polisi. Langsung Anton menyapa dan sang polisi juga terkejut karena ternyata yang akan ditilangnya ternyata adalah rekan satu kelasnya yang dulu cukup akrab, walaupun kini sudah tidak berhubungan lagi lebih dari 10 tahun. Secercah harapan muncul di benak Anton. “Pasti urusan akan beres, karena kita toh dulu berteman” pikir Anton.
“Man, ini aku, Anton, teman SMAmu dulu. Masa kamu ngak ingat sih ? Sorry Man, aku lagi buru-bur mau beli kado buat anakku yang hari ini berulang tahun ke enam. Nanti keburu mallnya tutup”.
Herman, sang polisi, menjawab dengan tegas tapi sopan, “Aku tahu Ton, tapi kamu melanggar lampu lalu lintas. Dalam rangka menegakkan hukum, kamu tetap harus saya tilang. Tolong tunjukkan SIM dan STNKmu Ton”.
Kali ini kesabaran Anton sudah habis. Yang ada dibayangannya hanyalah wajah Jerry yang tentu akan sangat kecewa karena bapaknya tidak membelikan hadiah.
“Dasar brengsek”, pikir Anton, “Semua polisi memang brengsek dan sama sekali ngak mengenal arti pertemanan.”
Dengan kasar dilemparkannya SIM dan STNK, sambil teriak “Kalau mau ditilang, tilang saja. Silahkan. Cepetan! Brengsek!”
Herman, sang polisi, mengambil surat-surat kendaraan tersebut, dan berjalan ke belakang mobil Anton, serta tampak menulis sesuatu. Setelah selesai diberikannya surat tersebut kepada Anton, sambil mengucapkan selamat malam. Anton yang lagi kesel, sama sekali tidak menengok, apalagi berterima kasih dan langsung menggeber mobilnya tanpa berkata apa-apa.
Anton langsung ke mall dan membelikan hadiah buat anaknya. Untung saat itu tokonya belum tutup. Dengan wajah gembira campur kesal dia pulang ke rumah dan disambut Jerry, sang anak kesayangan satu-satunya.
Waktu hendak mandi Anton teringat akan surat tilang yang diterimanya dari “polisi brengsek” temannya. Diambilnya surat itu dari balik saku jasnya dan ternyata itu bukan surat tilang. Bahkan SIM dan STNKnya komplet di kembalikan. Yang dia kira surat tilang adalah sepucuk surat dari Herman yang ditulis tangan.
Anton sahabatku,
Telah sekian lama aku berusaha menghilangkan rasa benciku kepada para pengemudi yang menyerobot lampu merah. Sampai kini aku belum berhasil. Hari ini tepat enam tahun yang lalu, aku bersama istriku dan anakku satu-satunya yang masih bayi sedang mengendarai sepeda motor. Tapi rupanya itu adalah akhir bagi kebahagiaan keluargaku. Seorang pengendara mobil menyerobot lampu merah dan langsung menghajar motorku. Aku sendiri hanya lecet, tetapi istriku luka cukup parah dan aku terpaksa kehilangan anakku satu-satunya. Sang penabrak berhasil ditangkap 2 hari kemudian, dan dia divonis hakim selama 3 bulan akibat kecelakaan tersebut. Kini dia telah bebas dan aku kehilangan mutiara hidupku selamanya.
Istriku sembuh setelah 2 bulan koma di rumah sakit. Bertahun-tahun kami berusaha untuk menghapus kepedihan itu dan mencoba untuk mempunyai anak lagi. Akhirnya istriku mengandung dan sayang Tuhan berkehendak lain. Istriku meninggal waktu usia kehamilannya mencapai 5 bulan karena kerusakan rahim akibat kecelakaan dulu.
Sejak kejadian kecelakaan itu aku sangat membenci pengendara yang menyerobot lampu merah. Aku tidak rela bila duka nestapa yang kualami ini akan menimpa pemakai lalu lintas yang lain. Cukup aku saja yang mengalaminya. Ketika kau menyerobot lampu merah tadi, yang ada dalam benakku adalah kecerobohan seseorang yang mungkin bisa menjadi mala petaka bagi orang lain.
Sudah beribu-ribu orang aku tilang, tetapi tetap saja setiap hari aku menyaksikan aksi penyerobotan lampu merah. Baru malam ini, pertama kalinya aku tidak menilang orang yang aku tangkap karena melanggar lampu merah. Aku harap, kau mau membantuku mengusir duka dalam hidupku dengan sedikit kontribusi mentaati rambu lalu lintas agar kejadian yang menimpaku tidak dialami oleh orang lain. Aku benci semua itu karena aku yakin setiap kecelakaan biasanya didahului dengan pelanggaran lalu lintas.
Anton sahabatku,
Sampaikan salamku buat anakmu yang berulang tahun.
Setelah membaca surat itu, air mata meleleh dari kedua mata Anton. Dia merasa sangat berdosa kepada Herman, sahabatnya yang malang. Kini dia mengerti mengapa Herman begitu membenci penyerobot lampu merah.
Minggu, Juni 14, 2009
Kamis, Juni 11, 2009
The Life of David Gale
Synopsis
A University of Texas professor of philosophy and capital punishment abolitionist, David Gale, is on Death Row convicted of the rape and murder of his best friend, Constance Harraway, who was the leader of the local branch of Death Watch, an organization campaigning against the death penalty. Days before his execution, skeptical journalist Bitsey Bloom is sent by the weekly news magazine where she works to conduct David Gale's final interview. She is accompanied by trainee reporter (AmE: "intern") Zack Stemmons.
Gale's lawyer is Braxton Belyeu, an ageing eccentric with a long ponytail. We learn that Gale asked specifically for Bloom, and will talk only to her. They are to have two hours on each of four consecutive days, after which Gale will be executed at 6 o'clock in the evening. Belyeu and Stemmons leave the prison and Gale starts to tell Bloom his story, which we see in a series of flashbacks.
Gale's marriage was in difficulties, and relations with his wife Sharon strained, but he was devoted to his small son Jamie. We see Gale lecturing on philosophy to a large class of students. Then a couple of minutes before the end of the lecture period a beautiful female student called Berlin arrives noisily and Gale pauses while she takes her seat. Then, as the students leave after dismissal, Berlin attempts to tempt Gale to give her a better term mark in exchange for sex. He tells her quietly but firmly that the way to get a better mark is to study. However, not long after that Gale finds himself one evening at a party with faculty and students, and Berlin catches him alone in a luxurious bathroom. Locking the door, she tells him she has quit class and isn't his student any more, and that she wants sex with him anyway.
Gale gives in to temptation but soon finds himself accused of rape. His world falls apart: he loses his university post; his wife leaves him taking their son and moves to Spain, selling their house; and even the (unseen by us) national leader of Death Watch wants local organizer Constance Harraway to have no more to do with him. We see Gale stting distraught on the step of the path to his house front door, clutching his little boy's favourite soft toy to him, as his wife and son are driven away in a taxi; we see him in a conversation with a university dean who explains there is no way he can give Gale a job because of his reputation; and we see him in an interview attempting to get a job in business and hopelessly lost when asked to give three reasons why they should hire him. Gale, now jobless and homeless, turns heavily to drink; we see him in a bar, then staggering along a crowded sidewalk at night shouting about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to passers-by; and at last he winds up on the porch of his only remaining friend in the world, Constance Harraway. He now learns, as a result of an emergency when she has to go to hsopital, that she is dying of leukemia. He has to sleep off his drunken stupor on a seat in the hospital corridor. After she is home again, Constance is talking to David one evening about her one regret in life, that she didn't have more sex. He offers and, having assured her it isn't out of pity, she accepts. He leaves in the morning but she is subsequently found dead --- naked, handcuffed behind her back, with her mouth taped over with gaffer tape, and suffocated by a plastic bag that is over her head and taped round the neck. A post-mortem reveals that she had swallowd the handcuff key. David Gale's semen is also found inside her. A video camera on a tripod --- on which no fingerprints were found --- has recorded the whole scene.
After the prison visit one afternoon, Bloom and Stemmons have to collect a large sum in US currency bills; they then return to their motel to find her door blocked open with a roll of gaffer tape, and a videotape cassette suspended by a string from the ceiling of her room, labelled with her name. They borrow a video player from the motel manager and are profoundly shocke to find that the tape has just a minute or two recorded, a shot of the naked, cuffed and suffocating Constance Hallaway on her kichen floor.
Bloom and Stemmons visit a sort of museum to the memory of Constance Harraway, looked after by Nico, a plump young woman with a goth appearance.
From time to time while driving between the motel and the prison, Bloom and Stemmons have noticed a lean figure of a youngish man in a stetson hat, apparently following or watching them. They discover who this man is: Dusty Wright, a secretive loner but a follower and admirer of Constance Harraway. Bloom delivers the shiny attaché case full of cash to the lawyer Belyeu's office, and spies Wright entering just as she is leaving.
Assuming that Gale is telling the truth when protesting his innocence of the rape and murder, there is speculation as to who did the murder and apparently framed him. Candidates include some mysterious group trying to discredit the abolitionist cause.
However, after the fourth and last interview with David Gale at the prison, at the end of which he takes his leave saying he'll be dead by the end of the next day, Bloom and Stemmons return to the "museum" with handcuffs and gaffer tape, and Bloom re-enacts the death scene using the handcuffs, the tape, and a plastic bag. Stemmons has to tear the bag open, afraid Bloom is actually suffocating herself. The outcome of the experiment, given what they know about her dedication to her cause and the fact she had only a short time to live anyway, is their conclusion that there was no murder: Constance Harraway committed suicide, deliberately intending to make it look like murder of her by Gale, because of his ruined reputation after the affair with the girl Berlin. She had willingly made love to Gale in the hours before killing herself, setting him up for the additional charge of rape.
They then realize that, having been given the brief tape, there must exist a full recording of the suicide, and that Harraway's purpose was almost certainly to have Gale exculpated at the last possible moment by production of the recording that must prove she committed suicide unaided. However, whoever was supposed to produce the tape has not done so. They realize that this must be Dusty Wright, and that he has an ageda of his own. Jealous of Gale's relationship with Harraway, he has not produced the full tape recording because if saving Gale at the last minute would make news as a momentous case against the death penalty, allowing Gale to die before revealing that he was innocent would make the case even more strongly.
At the last minute, they go to Wright's home and Bloom searches frantically for the full tape, while Stemmons keeps watch for any sign of Wright. She finds the tape, having to play it through and watch it to see that it is what she needs: after Hallaway dies, Dusty Wright appears in front of the camera, showing that he helped the woman in her plot against Gale There is then a frantic journey to the prison, to try to get there and have the tape seen before Gale is executed. The car breaks down some distance away and the final scenes are of Bloom frantically running along the street trying to reach the prison before the deadline. We see the ritual leading to the execution being followed. There are calls from the state Governor's office giving final go-ahead. Outside the prison, we see a large group of demonstrators from Death Watch, part of a large crowd including police officers.
Bloom reaches the crowd and makes her way through the throng only to hear an announcement from a prison official that Gale had died some minutes earlier.
Back at her desk at her employers, Bitsy Bloom receives a Fedex package containing the favourite soft toy of Gale's young son Jamie, left behind with the father when the son went abroad. Inside it is a video cassette with an additional segment at the end revealing that Gale was in the kitchen when Hallaway commited suicide. In this way Gale wanted to relieve the journalist from the guilt of not saving him.
Meanwhile Dusty Wright, very smartly dressed now, travels to Europe and delivers a large sum of money on dollar bills to the new residence of Sharon Gale. He rings the apartment doorbell and disappears, leaving the cash anonymously in that silvery metallic attaché case.
A University of Texas professor of philosophy and capital punishment abolitionist, David Gale, is on Death Row convicted of the rape and murder of his best friend, Constance Harraway, who was the leader of the local branch of Death Watch, an organization campaigning against the death penalty. Days before his execution, skeptical journalist Bitsey Bloom is sent by the weekly news magazine where she works to conduct David Gale's final interview. She is accompanied by trainee reporter (AmE: "intern") Zack Stemmons.
Gale's lawyer is Braxton Belyeu, an ageing eccentric with a long ponytail. We learn that Gale asked specifically for Bloom, and will talk only to her. They are to have two hours on each of four consecutive days, after which Gale will be executed at 6 o'clock in the evening. Belyeu and Stemmons leave the prison and Gale starts to tell Bloom his story, which we see in a series of flashbacks.
Gale's marriage was in difficulties, and relations with his wife Sharon strained, but he was devoted to his small son Jamie. We see Gale lecturing on philosophy to a large class of students. Then a couple of minutes before the end of the lecture period a beautiful female student called Berlin arrives noisily and Gale pauses while she takes her seat. Then, as the students leave after dismissal, Berlin attempts to tempt Gale to give her a better term mark in exchange for sex. He tells her quietly but firmly that the way to get a better mark is to study. However, not long after that Gale finds himself one evening at a party with faculty and students, and Berlin catches him alone in a luxurious bathroom. Locking the door, she tells him she has quit class and isn't his student any more, and that she wants sex with him anyway.
Gale gives in to temptation but soon finds himself accused of rape. His world falls apart: he loses his university post; his wife leaves him taking their son and moves to Spain, selling their house; and even the (unseen by us) national leader of Death Watch wants local organizer Constance Harraway to have no more to do with him. We see Gale stting distraught on the step of the path to his house front door, clutching his little boy's favourite soft toy to him, as his wife and son are driven away in a taxi; we see him in a conversation with a university dean who explains there is no way he can give Gale a job because of his reputation; and we see him in an interview attempting to get a job in business and hopelessly lost when asked to give three reasons why they should hire him. Gale, now jobless and homeless, turns heavily to drink; we see him in a bar, then staggering along a crowded sidewalk at night shouting about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to passers-by; and at last he winds up on the porch of his only remaining friend in the world, Constance Harraway. He now learns, as a result of an emergency when she has to go to hsopital, that she is dying of leukemia. He has to sleep off his drunken stupor on a seat in the hospital corridor. After she is home again, Constance is talking to David one evening about her one regret in life, that she didn't have more sex. He offers and, having assured her it isn't out of pity, she accepts. He leaves in the morning but she is subsequently found dead --- naked, handcuffed behind her back, with her mouth taped over with gaffer tape, and suffocated by a plastic bag that is over her head and taped round the neck. A post-mortem reveals that she had swallowd the handcuff key. David Gale's semen is also found inside her. A video camera on a tripod --- on which no fingerprints were found --- has recorded the whole scene.
After the prison visit one afternoon, Bloom and Stemmons have to collect a large sum in US currency bills; they then return to their motel to find her door blocked open with a roll of gaffer tape, and a videotape cassette suspended by a string from the ceiling of her room, labelled with her name. They borrow a video player from the motel manager and are profoundly shocke to find that the tape has just a minute or two recorded, a shot of the naked, cuffed and suffocating Constance Hallaway on her kichen floor.
Bloom and Stemmons visit a sort of museum to the memory of Constance Harraway, looked after by Nico, a plump young woman with a goth appearance.
From time to time while driving between the motel and the prison, Bloom and Stemmons have noticed a lean figure of a youngish man in a stetson hat, apparently following or watching them. They discover who this man is: Dusty Wright, a secretive loner but a follower and admirer of Constance Harraway. Bloom delivers the shiny attaché case full of cash to the lawyer Belyeu's office, and spies Wright entering just as she is leaving.
Assuming that Gale is telling the truth when protesting his innocence of the rape and murder, there is speculation as to who did the murder and apparently framed him. Candidates include some mysterious group trying to discredit the abolitionist cause.
However, after the fourth and last interview with David Gale at the prison, at the end of which he takes his leave saying he'll be dead by the end of the next day, Bloom and Stemmons return to the "museum" with handcuffs and gaffer tape, and Bloom re-enacts the death scene using the handcuffs, the tape, and a plastic bag. Stemmons has to tear the bag open, afraid Bloom is actually suffocating herself. The outcome of the experiment, given what they know about her dedication to her cause and the fact she had only a short time to live anyway, is their conclusion that there was no murder: Constance Harraway committed suicide, deliberately intending to make it look like murder of her by Gale, because of his ruined reputation after the affair with the girl Berlin. She had willingly made love to Gale in the hours before killing herself, setting him up for the additional charge of rape.
They then realize that, having been given the brief tape, there must exist a full recording of the suicide, and that Harraway's purpose was almost certainly to have Gale exculpated at the last possible moment by production of the recording that must prove she committed suicide unaided. However, whoever was supposed to produce the tape has not done so. They realize that this must be Dusty Wright, and that he has an ageda of his own. Jealous of Gale's relationship with Harraway, he has not produced the full tape recording because if saving Gale at the last minute would make news as a momentous case against the death penalty, allowing Gale to die before revealing that he was innocent would make the case even more strongly.
At the last minute, they go to Wright's home and Bloom searches frantically for the full tape, while Stemmons keeps watch for any sign of Wright. She finds the tape, having to play it through and watch it to see that it is what she needs: after Hallaway dies, Dusty Wright appears in front of the camera, showing that he helped the woman in her plot against Gale There is then a frantic journey to the prison, to try to get there and have the tape seen before Gale is executed. The car breaks down some distance away and the final scenes are of Bloom frantically running along the street trying to reach the prison before the deadline. We see the ritual leading to the execution being followed. There are calls from the state Governor's office giving final go-ahead. Outside the prison, we see a large group of demonstrators from Death Watch, part of a large crowd including police officers.
Bloom reaches the crowd and makes her way through the throng only to hear an announcement from a prison official that Gale had died some minutes earlier.
Back at her desk at her employers, Bitsy Bloom receives a Fedex package containing the favourite soft toy of Gale's young son Jamie, left behind with the father when the son went abroad. Inside it is a video cassette with an additional segment at the end revealing that Gale was in the kitchen when Hallaway commited suicide. In this way Gale wanted to relieve the journalist from the guilt of not saving him.
Meanwhile Dusty Wright, very smartly dressed now, travels to Europe and delivers a large sum of money on dollar bills to the new residence of Sharon Gale. He rings the apartment doorbell and disappears, leaving the cash anonymously in that silvery metallic attaché case.
Something the Lord Made
Synopsis
Alfred Blalock (1899-1964), a cardiologist (therefore, self-confident to the point of arrogance), leaves Vanderbilt for Johns Hopkins taking with him his lab technician, Vivien Thomas (1910-1985). Thomas, an African-American without a college degree, is a gifted mechanic and tool-maker with hands splendidly adept at surgery. In 1941, Blalock and Thomas take on the challenge of blue babies and invent bypass surgery. After trials on dogs, their first patient is baby Eileen, sure to die without the surgery. In defiance of custom and Jim Crow, Blalock brings Thomas into the surgery to advise him, but when Life Magazine and kudos come, Thomas is excluded. Will he receive his due?
Tells the story of the extraordinary 34-year partnership which begins in Depression Era Nashville in 1930, when Blalock hires Thomas as an assistant in his Vanderbilt University lab, expecting him merely to perform janitorial work. But Thomas' remarkable manual dexterity and scientific acumen shatter Blalock's expectations, and Thomas rapidly becomes indispensable as a research partner to Blalock in his first daring forays into heart surgery. The film traces the groundbreaking work the two men undertake when they move in 1941 from Vanderbilt to Johns Hopkins, an institution where the only black employees are janitors and where Thomas must enter by the back door. Together, they boldly attack the devastating heart problem of Tetralogy of Fallot, also known as Blue Baby Syndrome, and in so doing they open the field of heart surgery. The film dramatizes their race to save dying Blue Babies against the background of a Jim Crow (Racial Segregation) America, illuminating the nuanced and complex relationship the two sustain. Thomas earns Blalock's unalloyed respect, with Blalock praising the results of Thomas' surgical skill as being "like something the Lord made", and insisting that Thomas coach him through the first Blue Baby surgery over the protests of Hopkins administrators.
RESENSI FILM
It's gratifying to know that I'm not the only one who was surprisingly moved by this story. I had known only a tiny part of the story before the movie: that a white surgeon and a black technician developed the process that could save "blue babies." That's a huge accomplishment, but only a portion of the story.
Alan Rickman does a splendid job portraying Dr. Blalock. There are a few moments when his southern accent slips and a little British comes through, but in terms of portrayal of the character, he is convincing. Blalock is ambitious, and in fact so focused on his professional and medical goals that sometimes he's clueless as to what others are going through to get him what he wants. He's also at turns arrogant and compassionate...exactly what one would have to be to do what he did. One thing the movie communicates very effectively is just how much of a revolution this surgery was: not merely operating on a baby heart, Dr. Blalock opened the gate to surgery on *any* human heart. Rickman doesn't overdo it, but he gets the character across.
Mos Def steals the show, however, in his subtle portrayal of Vivien Thomas. There's no grandstanding in this performance; he makes us believe that we know Thomas, and that to know him is to love him. He plays a man who had more character in his little finger than most people find in their whole lives, and he does it with zero ham. It isn't just that he gives an understated performance...he becomes this man who feels deeply even though he doesn't express it loudly. You see it in his eyes, in his pauses, in his voice. It's hard to describe, except to say that beneath the calm, quiet, even deferential exterior there is, undeniably, a whole person, a fully human, noble, wise, mature, gracious character.
A previous commentator asks if the presentation, near the end of the story, of an honorary degree was supposed to be an apotheosis of sorts. Perhaps. I suspect, however, that it isn't the conferring of a degree but the unveiling of the portrait, that actually vindicates Thomas and lifts him to his place in the medical pantheon of Johns-Hopkins' larger-than-life wonder-workers. At the end of the film, Vivien is sitting in the lobby, looking at his own portrait next to that of Blalock's when he's paged as "Dr. Thomas." He has to wipe the tears from his eyes to respond to the page. Maybe it's the degree and the portrait together.
The same commentator asked whether the film omitted mention of Thomas's eventual title. Actually, there's a scene immediately after their arrival in Baltimore in which the Director of Laboratories gives Vivien some money and tells him to bring coffee and a donut. At the end of the film, when Blalock calls Vivien's office, we see Vivien's title on the office door: Director of Laboratories. The irony is sweet.
This is a compelling, touching film, with wonderful performances all around
Alfred Blalock (1899-1964), a cardiologist (therefore, self-confident to the point of arrogance), leaves Vanderbilt for Johns Hopkins taking with him his lab technician, Vivien Thomas (1910-1985). Thomas, an African-American without a college degree, is a gifted mechanic and tool-maker with hands splendidly adept at surgery. In 1941, Blalock and Thomas take on the challenge of blue babies and invent bypass surgery. After trials on dogs, their first patient is baby Eileen, sure to die without the surgery. In defiance of custom and Jim Crow, Blalock brings Thomas into the surgery to advise him, but when Life Magazine and kudos come, Thomas is excluded. Will he receive his due?
Tells the story of the extraordinary 34-year partnership which begins in Depression Era Nashville in 1930, when Blalock hires Thomas as an assistant in his Vanderbilt University lab, expecting him merely to perform janitorial work. But Thomas' remarkable manual dexterity and scientific acumen shatter Blalock's expectations, and Thomas rapidly becomes indispensable as a research partner to Blalock in his first daring forays into heart surgery. The film traces the groundbreaking work the two men undertake when they move in 1941 from Vanderbilt to Johns Hopkins, an institution where the only black employees are janitors and where Thomas must enter by the back door. Together, they boldly attack the devastating heart problem of Tetralogy of Fallot, also known as Blue Baby Syndrome, and in so doing they open the field of heart surgery. The film dramatizes their race to save dying Blue Babies against the background of a Jim Crow (Racial Segregation) America, illuminating the nuanced and complex relationship the two sustain. Thomas earns Blalock's unalloyed respect, with Blalock praising the results of Thomas' surgical skill as being "like something the Lord made", and insisting that Thomas coach him through the first Blue Baby surgery over the protests of Hopkins administrators.
RESENSI FILM
It's gratifying to know that I'm not the only one who was surprisingly moved by this story. I had known only a tiny part of the story before the movie: that a white surgeon and a black technician developed the process that could save "blue babies." That's a huge accomplishment, but only a portion of the story.
Alan Rickman does a splendid job portraying Dr. Blalock. There are a few moments when his southern accent slips and a little British comes through, but in terms of portrayal of the character, he is convincing. Blalock is ambitious, and in fact so focused on his professional and medical goals that sometimes he's clueless as to what others are going through to get him what he wants. He's also at turns arrogant and compassionate...exactly what one would have to be to do what he did. One thing the movie communicates very effectively is just how much of a revolution this surgery was: not merely operating on a baby heart, Dr. Blalock opened the gate to surgery on *any* human heart. Rickman doesn't overdo it, but he gets the character across.
Mos Def steals the show, however, in his subtle portrayal of Vivien Thomas. There's no grandstanding in this performance; he makes us believe that we know Thomas, and that to know him is to love him. He plays a man who had more character in his little finger than most people find in their whole lives, and he does it with zero ham. It isn't just that he gives an understated performance...he becomes this man who feels deeply even though he doesn't express it loudly. You see it in his eyes, in his pauses, in his voice. It's hard to describe, except to say that beneath the calm, quiet, even deferential exterior there is, undeniably, a whole person, a fully human, noble, wise, mature, gracious character.
A previous commentator asks if the presentation, near the end of the story, of an honorary degree was supposed to be an apotheosis of sorts. Perhaps. I suspect, however, that it isn't the conferring of a degree but the unveiling of the portrait, that actually vindicates Thomas and lifts him to his place in the medical pantheon of Johns-Hopkins' larger-than-life wonder-workers. At the end of the film, Vivien is sitting in the lobby, looking at his own portrait next to that of Blalock's when he's paged as "Dr. Thomas." He has to wipe the tears from his eyes to respond to the page. Maybe it's the degree and the portrait together.
The same commentator asked whether the film omitted mention of Thomas's eventual title. Actually, there's a scene immediately after their arrival in Baltimore in which the Director of Laboratories gives Vivien some money and tells him to bring coffee and a donut. At the end of the film, when Blalock calls Vivien's office, we see Vivien's title on the office door: Director of Laboratories. The irony is sweet.
This is a compelling, touching film, with wonderful performances all around
Daddy Day Care
Synopsys
Charlie, a busy working father, is laid off after the health division in his company was shut down. Desperate for money, he opens up a day care center with the help of two friends. As it became more popular, a nearby school's daycare became less populated, because Charlie's center, Daddy Day Care was much cheaper. Mrs. Harridan, the head mistress of that school, attempts to shut down Daddy Day Care, but fails. Charlie and one of his friends are offered a better job and they decide to take it. But not long after, Charlie soon realizes that the job isn't what he really wants to do. He returns to Daddy Day Care, only to learn that everybody left and went to the expensive school. He successfully convinces the children and their parents to come back, and Daddy Day Care becomes a raging success.
Summary
In the hilarious comedy Daddy Day Care, two fathers (Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin) lose their jobs in product development at a large food company and are forced to take their sons out of the exclusive Chapman Academy and become stay-at-home fathers. With no job possibilities on the horizon, the two dads open their own day care facility, "Daddy Day Care", and employ some fairly unconventional and sidesplitting methods of caring for children. As "Daddy Day Care" starts to catch on, it launches them into a highly comedic rivalry with Chapman Academy's tough-as-nails director (Anjelica Huston) ...who has driven all previous competitors out of business.
Two men (Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin) get laid off in product development at a large food company and are forced to become stay-at-home fathers and take their sons out of the exclusive Chapman Academy. They create a new day care facility called "Daddy Day Care" and have kids like: the smart-mouthed-but-became-polite Crispin (Shane Baumel), the really-smart Becca (Hailey Noelle Johnson), and The Flash/Tony (Jimmy Bennett). As "Daddy Day Care" starts to catch on, it launches them into a comedic rivalry with the Chapman Academy tough-as-nails director, Ms. Harridan (Anjelica Huston).
Goofs
• Continuity: When Charlie pulls up to the Academy for their appointment, he emerges from a car stopped parallel to the steps. In the next cut, the car is parked diagonally in relation to the steps.
• Continuity: During the puppet show, the girl with the glasses is sitting quite a way from the camera, but in the next shot, she's the closest person to the camera.
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Phil is standing on the sofa, playing the guitar, the music keeps going when he's not strumming.
• Continuity: When Charlie and his son are sitting at the table having breakfast, Charlie puts his fist to the side of his face, and his son copies. In the shot of both of them, his son's hand isn't a complete fist, he still has his fingers pointing out, but in the next shot of just him, his hand is a complete fist.
• Continuity: When Charlie and Ben are at the table coloring, Ben's crayon changes from yellow to red and back again between shots.
• Continuity: At the beginning of the movie, the kid who is only supposed to speak in "Klingon" is talking to another kid on the steps when they are getting the mission statement, and also singing along with the songs.
• Continuity: When Phil and Marvin are being chased by the bees outside, Charlie and the kids are watching in the window and are in different windows in different shots.
• Continuity: Just before the puppet show, the Child Services investigator takes a cookie. When Charlie, Marvin and Phil ask for privacy to discuss the missing child Flash, the investigator is holding the cookie. The scene looks at the puppet show and then back to the investigator putting the cookie in his breast pocket. The scene moves back to the puppet show and immediately back to the investigator who now has the cookie back in his hand again.
• Continuity: When they are taking applications at the "lemonade stand", Crispin kicks Charlie's left ankle but when Charlie reaches down to rub his ankle he grabs his right.
• Continuity: When Charlie and Phil are wrestling dressed like vegetables, Charlie takes a chunk out of Phil's Carrot suit. In the next shot, the carrot suit to be undamaged.
• Continuity: When Ben is sitting down having cereal at the beginning the film he is sitting with both legs up on the chair. In the next shot both legs are dangling down off the chair.
• Continuity: During the lightsabre fight between Marvin and the kids Marvin grabs one of the lightsabres and reacts as if it burns him. In the wide shot Marvin grabs a green lightsabre, however in the close up it is now a blue lightsabre he is holding.
• Continuity: When Charlie notices Ben is using his notes as napkins, he takes them away leaving Ben no napkins. But then when Kim is talking to Charlie about the orientation, in the background, there is a napkin for Ben.
• Continuity: When the social service working is having Charlie sign the papers (that are cut up like dolls) he takes out his pen the first time he tell Charlie to sign, and right before he tells him again what to sign he takes out his pen again.
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Marvin, a supposedly devout Star Trek fan, says that a Star Trek memorabilia store had "a tricorder used by Ensign Riley in 'The Doomsday Machine'." This is a reference to Kevin Riley, who was a Lieutenant, not an Ensign. He also only appeared in two episodes of the first season of the original series Star Trek, "The Doomsday Machine" episode was produced in the second season of the show.
• Revealing mistakes: When the child inspector comes and is offered a cookie, Charlie comes in with the tray and oven gloves on implying that the tray is hot. But on several occasions the tray is resting against his chest, like it isn't burning him.
Charlie, a busy working father, is laid off after the health division in his company was shut down. Desperate for money, he opens up a day care center with the help of two friends. As it became more popular, a nearby school's daycare became less populated, because Charlie's center, Daddy Day Care was much cheaper. Mrs. Harridan, the head mistress of that school, attempts to shut down Daddy Day Care, but fails. Charlie and one of his friends are offered a better job and they decide to take it. But not long after, Charlie soon realizes that the job isn't what he really wants to do. He returns to Daddy Day Care, only to learn that everybody left and went to the expensive school. He successfully convinces the children and their parents to come back, and Daddy Day Care becomes a raging success.
Summary
In the hilarious comedy Daddy Day Care, two fathers (Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin) lose their jobs in product development at a large food company and are forced to take their sons out of the exclusive Chapman Academy and become stay-at-home fathers. With no job possibilities on the horizon, the two dads open their own day care facility, "Daddy Day Care", and employ some fairly unconventional and sidesplitting methods of caring for children. As "Daddy Day Care" starts to catch on, it launches them into a highly comedic rivalry with Chapman Academy's tough-as-nails director (Anjelica Huston) ...who has driven all previous competitors out of business.
Two men (Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin) get laid off in product development at a large food company and are forced to become stay-at-home fathers and take their sons out of the exclusive Chapman Academy. They create a new day care facility called "Daddy Day Care" and have kids like: the smart-mouthed-but-became-polite Crispin (Shane Baumel), the really-smart Becca (Hailey Noelle Johnson), and The Flash/Tony (Jimmy Bennett). As "Daddy Day Care" starts to catch on, it launches them into a comedic rivalry with the Chapman Academy tough-as-nails director, Ms. Harridan (Anjelica Huston).
Goofs
• Continuity: When Charlie pulls up to the Academy for their appointment, he emerges from a car stopped parallel to the steps. In the next cut, the car is parked diagonally in relation to the steps.
• Continuity: During the puppet show, the girl with the glasses is sitting quite a way from the camera, but in the next shot, she's the closest person to the camera.
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Phil is standing on the sofa, playing the guitar, the music keeps going when he's not strumming.
• Continuity: When Charlie and his son are sitting at the table having breakfast, Charlie puts his fist to the side of his face, and his son copies. In the shot of both of them, his son's hand isn't a complete fist, he still has his fingers pointing out, but in the next shot of just him, his hand is a complete fist.
• Continuity: When Charlie and Ben are at the table coloring, Ben's crayon changes from yellow to red and back again between shots.
• Continuity: At the beginning of the movie, the kid who is only supposed to speak in "Klingon" is talking to another kid on the steps when they are getting the mission statement, and also singing along with the songs.
• Continuity: When Phil and Marvin are being chased by the bees outside, Charlie and the kids are watching in the window and are in different windows in different shots.
• Continuity: Just before the puppet show, the Child Services investigator takes a cookie. When Charlie, Marvin and Phil ask for privacy to discuss the missing child Flash, the investigator is holding the cookie. The scene looks at the puppet show and then back to the investigator putting the cookie in his breast pocket. The scene moves back to the puppet show and immediately back to the investigator who now has the cookie back in his hand again.
• Continuity: When they are taking applications at the "lemonade stand", Crispin kicks Charlie's left ankle but when Charlie reaches down to rub his ankle he grabs his right.
• Continuity: When Charlie and Phil are wrestling dressed like vegetables, Charlie takes a chunk out of Phil's Carrot suit. In the next shot, the carrot suit to be undamaged.
• Continuity: When Ben is sitting down having cereal at the beginning the film he is sitting with both legs up on the chair. In the next shot both legs are dangling down off the chair.
• Continuity: During the lightsabre fight between Marvin and the kids Marvin grabs one of the lightsabres and reacts as if it burns him. In the wide shot Marvin grabs a green lightsabre, however in the close up it is now a blue lightsabre he is holding.
• Continuity: When Charlie notices Ben is using his notes as napkins, he takes them away leaving Ben no napkins. But then when Kim is talking to Charlie about the orientation, in the background, there is a napkin for Ben.
• Continuity: When the social service working is having Charlie sign the papers (that are cut up like dolls) he takes out his pen the first time he tell Charlie to sign, and right before he tells him again what to sign he takes out his pen again.
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Marvin, a supposedly devout Star Trek fan, says that a Star Trek memorabilia store had "a tricorder used by Ensign Riley in 'The Doomsday Machine'." This is a reference to Kevin Riley, who was a Lieutenant, not an Ensign. He also only appeared in two episodes of the first season of the original series Star Trek, "The Doomsday Machine" episode was produced in the second season of the show.
• Revealing mistakes: When the child inspector comes and is offered a cookie, Charlie comes in with the tray and oven gloves on implying that the tray is hot. But on several occasions the tray is resting against his chest, like it isn't burning him.
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