DVD Review: Sid! by Those Who Really Knew Him

by Brad Cook

"If someone had to be the cartoon of punk rock, it might as well be Sid. He was pretty good at it," Siouxsie and the Banshees bass player Steve Severin says during this documentary. He later comments: "One of [the Sex Pistols] had to die to make the myth work, and Sid was only too willing."

That about sums up Sid Vicious, who, unlike other rock stars who died young, barely had a chance to build much of a body of work before succumbing to a heroin overdose in early 1979. If he was around today, I imagine he'd be horrified by the toys, t-shirts, and other paraphernalia immortalizing his brief but violent existence. Punk was supposed to be the antithesis of all that, but like everything else human beings have ever undertaken, it managed to create a lot of haves and have-nots, with plenty of people more than happy to make a quick buck off the proceedings.

Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren was one of those people, and his comments during this film show that he still has little regard for Sid, other than as a means for making money. The other surviving Pistols, except bass player Glen Matlock, don't show up for reasons that are never explained, leaving a variety of people associated with the early punk movement in the UK - Severin, Jah Wobble, Rat Scabies, and others - to try and put Sid's life in context. As with any famous person, contradictory views come out; the film runs such comments one after the other, leaving us with a multi-faceted portrait.

Of course, the prevailing attitude is "Sid was an out-of-control idiot destined to die young," a sentiment that I tend to agree with. One of his friends says that his bad boy reputation was just an image, but Sid engaged in plenty of anti-social behavior off the stage, and he never showed much inclination toward anything intellectual in any of the interviews he gave. The only prominent song he ever wrote was the creepy "Belsen was a Gas," and his rendition of "My Way" is notable simply because it's a brilliant melding of his and Sinatra's no-nonsense attitudes, despite the many obvious differences between the two of them. (Yes, I realize Paul Anka wrote the lyrics, but Sinatra is the guy who made the song famous.) If you've never heard it, don't worry: an accompanying CD, "Sid Live," includes ten tracks from a September 1978 concert, including "My Way."

Bonus features on the DVD are scant: the trailer for the main attraction, along with trailers for the documentaries "Punk in London" and "Punk in England." When you're done watching "Sid!," I recommend reading the included booklet, which fleshes out more of his life. It was written by Mark Paytress, who wrote the book "Vicious: The Art of Dying Young." No matter how you feel about Sid, the film and the booklet, when taken together, offer insight into someone who would have been a nobody in any other era but who managed to be in the right place at the right time to smash a cigarette butt in the eye of rock 'n' roll. All art forms need a cigarette butt in the eye every now and then, just to keep them honest. That was Sid's role.

2009, Not Rated, 86 min.
Directed by: Mark Sloper
Producer: George Pavlou
Starring: Sid Vicious, Nancy Spungeon, Jah Wobble, Steve Severin, David Vanian, Malcolm McLaren, Viv Albertine, Ron Watts, Glen Matlock, Rat Scabies, Caroline Coon, Vivienne
Released by MVDvisual

Review: "The Butch Factor"

What do you think of when you hear the phrase “gay man”? Stereotypes would insist that such individuals are sissified and campy, along the lines of Paul Lynde.

Christopher Hines’ documentary “The Bull Factor” is designed to pull down the dreary stereotypes and show that gay men come in masculine shapes and sizes – blue collar workers, law enforcement officers, rugged athletes, rodeo cowboys and gym rats who could intimidate anyone by the sheer presence. The men interviewed for “The Butch Factor” speak frankly about their sexuality and how they are perceived. For the most part, it is not an issue – and if it was an issue at one time, these men have been more than able to erase whatever negative concerns their heterosexual colleagues may have felt.

In concept, Hines’ production is worthwhile and, perhaps, a little sad. At this late date, it is a shame that gay men have to push back the dreary stereotypes and show they have the physical and emotional maturity to handle the worst of life. With the possible exception of the Islamic community, no other demographic has to put up with the shameful profiling and stereotyping that continues to plague the gay community.

Indeed, one of the more uneasy aspects of the film is its focus on so-called gay leagues for weekend athletes (in this case, San Diego-area flag football players). The men interviewed here seem more comfortable in the self-segregating confines of their league, which calls to mind the homophobia is still prevalent within American society.

The film also provides an awkward balance via the token presence of a couple of decidedly non-masculine gay men (they appear to be chosen specifically for their effeminacy). Whether intended or not, the film seems to promote a view that being a “straight acting” gay man is, ultimately, more rewarding for one’s personal and professional pursuits.

But “The Butch Factor” quickly becomes repetitive and boring. The point gets dulled as the film drags on, and In a 76 minute running time, “The Butch Factor” repeatedly goes in circles, proving its thesis endlessly long before the closing credits.

The DVD release for “The Butch Factor” includes an interview with David Kopay, a former San Francisco 49ers running back who came out as being gay in 1977 – five years after retiring from football. Kopay’s presence offers a reminder that the sports world is still extremely comfortable in allowing gay athletes the ability to be themselves.

"The Butch Factor"
2009, Documentary, 76 minutes
Directed by Christopher Hines
Released by Wolfe Video

Review: "Skeletons"

by Amy R. Handler

Wouldn’t it be nice to finally see an Indie film so rich in suspense that good old-fashioned fear holds us rigid in our seats? Isn’t it time to bury the old standbys for good and replace them with some true shockers? Please, bring them on---we’re drowning in anticipation!

Filmmaker Bivas Biswas ambitious attempt to offer a new take on the old vigilante-cop saga does not quite reach its mark and once again, we are sorely disappointed. The crazed detective avenging loved ones is a recurring theme in sundry film noirs such as Mark Steven’s classic, Cry Vengeance (1954). It is also popularized in such flicks as Michael Winner’s, Death Wish (1974) and Don Siegel’s, Dirty Harry (1971).

Biswas and writer, Jose Rosete (who also plays vigilante Officer/Detective Ruiz) add a dose of psychological thriller to the mix by making the principal victim appear as an apparition seeking justice. Unfortunately, viewers are not quite frightened enough to make this film measure up or surpass the originals.

The film opens when Officer Ruiz notices a young couple swerving down the road. He follows them, pulls them over and demands the driver step out of the vehicle. It is evident alcohol is involved as we see beer cans on the car floor. The driver and his girlfriend plead unsuccessfully for their lives while we watch Ruiz brutally slay first one then the other. The film then cuts to a site where obviously Ruiz buries the bodies.

Ten years later, Detective Ruiz meets young, Detective Murphy. Murphy carries a bag containing assumed evidence of the ten-year-old murders. When Ruiz attempts to take over the case, an argument ensues. At which point, Ruiz snaps and threatens Murphy with his service revolver. It is then that the apparition of the young driver appears.

Biswas’ re-mix of the ancient tale lacks the teeth to sway contemporary, sophisticated cineastes. While the cinematic concept is outstanding, scenes are well shot and enacted, the victim-ghost is never developed enough to become an authentic un-dead figure--- at least not to the satisfaction of die-hard occult-enthusiasts such as this critic. Similarly, the psychological complexity of Ruiz’ character is stifled, and the film’s ending seems rushed and contrived. Part of the problem may be due to timing. Before we know it, 15 minutes pass and the film is concluded.

As is often the case, creating a short film is far more difficult than shooting a feature. Skeletons is a massive film squeezed into a tiny space. Because of this constraint, the film disintegrates before our eyes. Skeletons’ characters and story will only succeed as a feature, one hopefully made soon -- so that we all may be resurrected in earnest.

2008, 15 min., not rated
Written by Jose Rosete, Directed by Bivas Biswas, Starring, Deena Trudy, Patricia Baugh, Cristen Irene, Matt Robinson, Jose Rosete and Eric Zaklukiewics
D.I.B. Pictures Entertainment, LLC,

Review: Sean Christensen's "Empty House"

by Amy R Handler

Filmmaker, Sean Christensen invites us into his memories as he feeds us bits and pieces of his parents’ divorce and his father’s departure from the family-home. He accomplishes this through voice-over narration, the tick-tock of a clock, doors clicking shut and a series of soft-focus still photographs. The last 45 seconds of the film offer a blurred home-movie showing his mother, sister and Christensen when they are very young. We hear his mother speaking and the childish voices in the background. This portion of the film primarily focuses upon the filmmaker as a small child riding a tricycle. We hear him speak inaudibly while his mother converses with him---questioning the boy as if conducting an interview.

While the film’s concept is interesting, its consistent somberness accented by monotonous voice-over and lengthy black-screen transitions, becomes claustrophobic and exhausting. The film is timed at 3 minutes ---2 minutes shy of that indicated on Christensen’s Imdb title page. Whatever this short film’s correct duration, it feels longer than it should.

Creating a successful documentary is possibly the toughest challenge a filmmaker can undertake. Even personal documentaries such as, Empty House, must somehow balance objective factual reportage, image and sound in such a way that the film retains viewer-interest. For this attempt alone, we must applaud Sean Christensen.

The greatest problems with the film are cinematic choices or image selection and the manner in which these stills are photographed. For example, when the narrator states that the father takes the mattress from the marital bed, there is no need to photograph the bed-frame for such a lengthy duration. It also doesn’t help matters that the structure is filmed dead center in the middle of the room, making it all the more static and uninteresting. Similar simplistic shots portray tables, chairs, clocks, runaway cat, Sophie and an image of Bette Midler. These images are all shown seconds after the narrator mentions them, leaving nothing to the viewer’s imagination. There are also too many stills shown in conjunction with too few motion pictures. This makes the project seem more a gallery installation than a documentary film. There is also only one photograph of the father and no home-movie footage of the man. This is problematic in that the father is a principal subject of interest and the very reason for the empty house. While downplaying the father may be Christensen’s cinematic choice, this is inconsistent with his narration where he dwells upon his father in every conceivable way. How interesting it would be to see such images of the father in conjunction with the teenaged Christensen (his age when the father leaves) and the filmmaker as an older man. In this way we could see and imagine the father’s impact on the filmmaker and his work.

Why one chooses to make a documentary is always a source of fascination. Who is the filmmaker and what is his true agenda? Perhaps the greatest intensity of Empty House is in those last 45 seconds of home-movie footage. Here, the camera is suddenly turned on the filmmaker, interviewed by his ever-probing mother. Interestingly, Christensen shows himself in blurred images of a child, whose distant voice is barely detectable. In the end, most filmmakers choose that hidden space for themselves, and there they attain utmost strength.

2008, 5 min., Unrated
Written, Directed and Produced by Sean Christensen, Narrated by Sean Christensen
Square One Cinema, LLC

Retro Cinema: "The Great Mr. Handel" (1942)

Norman Walker’s 1942 “The Great Mr. Handel” is fairly curious, since it is a wartime British production with a German hero. In this case, George Frideric Handel, who emigrated to London in order to establish a career as a composer. Even more curious is the prime plot device of the film: how a member of the royal family went out of its way to destroy Handel.

As presented here, Frederick, the Prince of Wales (the son of George II and father of George III – he never reigned as king) conspired to drive Handel to financial ruin. Acknowledging Handel’s displeasure over his boorish running commentary during a performance of the composer’s works, the prince makes it clear that he will avoid any setting where Handel’s music is being played. The lack of royal patronage, coupled with intentional disruptions of Handel’s theatrical stagings by paid hooligans, sinks the composer deep into debt, which causes his health to decline dramatically.

What could possibly redeem the physically and financially wrecked Handel? Why, nothing less than the great redeemer Himself – the composition of the oratorio “Messiah,” which not only stirs Handel back into full-throttle creative genius, but also brings out King George II to the London premiere – along with a visibly disgruntled Prince of Wales, who is forced to behave during the extraordinary concert that ends with the king leading the standing ovation.

Whatever historic value may be in this story is diluted by some of the most ridiculous acting captured on camera. Wilfrid Lawson’s Handel bears a vaguely dyspeptic expression whether facing joy, pain, inspiration or confusion. His dull central performance is surrounded by a host of one-note caricatures: Elizabeth Allan as the beautiful actress/singer who finds no problems with the old German grump, Hay Petrie as the diminutive comic relief Scottish valet who happily works without getting paid, Max Kirby as the excessively foppish prince, and a host of unidentified extras who bow and curtsy while chiming “Ow, ‘ere’s Mr. 'andel” whenever the composer walks by.

As for the creation of “Messiah,” the film imagines Handel sitting at his desk while a silhouette pantomime of the Sermon on the Mount is performed in his window. The actual performance of the piece is truncated, with only a glimpse of Allan singing in close-up and Lawson playing what appears to be the harpsichord – clearly, the low budget film could not afford a symphony or a full chorus.

Mr. Handel was certainly great, but this biopic is certainly not.

“The Great Mr. Handel”
1942, Not rated, 89 minutes
Directed by Norman Walker, starring Wilfrid Lawson

DVD Review: "When Medicine Got It Wrong"

Katie Cadigan and Laura Murray’s compelling documentary traces how a group of concerned parents created a grassroots program that changed how the medical profession and the wider society viewed schizophrenia.

In the post-World War II years, psychiatrists were too ready to dismiss schizophrenia in a pseudo-Freudian manner: it was considered to be the damage created by raucous homes dominated by virago mothers. In 1974, however, a group of frustrated families created Parents of Adult Schizophrenics in San Mateo California, with the goal of seeking a medically sound answer that did more than blame pushy mothers for creating mentally ill children.

While the medical profession was skeptical of their efforts, the parents managed to get elected officials – first at a state level, then at a federal level – to take their cause seriously. It was a difficult battle at first, particularly when the promise of government aid for community-based care failed to materialize, thus resulting in the dumping of the mentally ill from repressive hospitals into the unfriendly streets.

It literally took a tragedy – schizophrenic John Hinckley’s attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981 – before serious medical research was devoted to understanding the gravity of the problem. Today, advances in brain research and new pharmaceutical therapies have replaced the sneering notion that schizophrenics represent the battered results of dysfunctional families.

Using a mix of interviews, family home movies and unintentionally shocking “documentaries” from distant years that forcefully misidentified the causes of the diseases, the film offers a shameful record of how an arrogant medical profession did more harm than good for too many years. To its credit, the film also offers a valuable lesson in how ordinary people can change the world for the better.

"When Medicine Got it Wrong"
2009, Not rated, 52 minutes
Directed by Katie Cadigan and Laura Murray
Released by Documentary Education Resources

DVD Review: "In Search of Mozart"

Phil Grabsky’s documentary covered 25,000 miles across Europe to retrace the life and career of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The good news is that the real Mozart was eons removed from the crass buffoon portrayed by Tom Hulce in the Oscar-winning film version of “Amadeus.” The great news is that the real Mozart was a truly fascinating individual, who lead a complex life and brought a rich spectrum of emotions to his diverse work.

Who was Mozart? Grabsky discovers an uncommon child prodigy who was exhaustively exploited by his father – to the point that the youngster was literally dragged to the various courts of Western Europe for musical presentations. It was an extremely expensive tour that was not always financially successfully – narrator Juliet Stevenson playfully notes that payment in gold snuff boxes in lieu of cash happened with more than a little frequency.

As an adult, Mozart kept his father at arm’s length while carving out a lucrative career as an impresario, teacher and composer for royal and ecumenical patrons. The film details the challenges of maintaining a musical profession in the 18th century – ironically, the most prestigious commissions were the least financially feasible. In his latter years, Mozart found himself declining into debt (a point that will resonate with many of today’s recession victims), but he was never a pauper in either a monetary or intellectual sense.

Indeed, letters written by Mozart find the composer to be a loving and caring husband and father, as well as a delightfully unpretentious young man with a ribald sense of humor. He is discovered to excel at billiards and cards, but he took his work very seriously.

“In Search of Mozart” is rich with excerpts from many of Mozart’s works – it is obviously impossible to feature an entire composition – plus there are in-depth explanations on why Mozart broke new ground in how his symphonies, concertos and operas were crafted. A wealth of experts, including soprano Renee Fleming and director Jonathan Miller, provide erudite and witty explanations on why Mozart was revolutionary in his day and why he remains relevant three centuries after his death.

All told, “In Search of Mozart” is a splendid celebration of a creative artist whose work continues to fascinate the world. It is an extraordinary triumph of non-fiction filmmaking and a joyful framing of the concert hall’s genius within a stylish cinematic frame.

"In Search of Mozart"
2006, Not rated, 129 minutes
Directed by Phil Grabsky
Released by Microcinema International

Rising to "Saturday Morning": An Interview with Filmmaker Rob Greenberg

by Amy R Handler

Every so often, a new filmmaker enters the arena and commands our immediate attention and respect. Rob Greenberg is such a man and his delightful romantic comedy, "Saturday Morning," carries strong implications and a huge punch. The film concerns a discombobulated young office workernamed Wesley, who has serious problems maintaining personal relationships and moving up the corporate ladder. Lessons are learned from a mysterious stranger - an unlikely sex symbol portrayed by George Wendt. Meanwhile, Wesley meets the woman of his dreams.


Amy Handler: Is Saturday Morning your first feature film?

Rob Greenberg: Yes. I've been writing for years, but being a guy from New Jersey without any real industry connections, I found it difficult getting my stuff into the right hands. I used to joke I couldn't even get properly rejected in this business! Finally, I decided to take a cue from another New Jersey native I greatly admire, Kevin Smith, and shoot one of my scripts independently. After securing financing, I left my job as a software developer and assembled a cast and crew. It was a long road to completion, but hopefully it will open the door for many more projects in the future.

AH: Have you made any prior short films and if so, can you speak about these?

RG: When I was a kid, friends and I would shoot movies on super 8. Our scripts consisted of such specific stage directions as "they run around and do crazy things for five minutes." I also did several student projects when I was a communications major at Rutgers. But, as a filmmaker, I truly learned most of the "real-world" process directly on set. Luckily, I surrounded myself with good people I was able to learn from.

AH: Tell me about how and when you conceived "Saturday Morning."

RG: A seed was actually planted years ago by an old "Night Court" episode where the staff showed up during the day, surprised to discover how different things were. Not quite utopia, just "better." I honestly don't remember much about the episode, but that concept came back to me one particular Saturday morning when I was awake unusually early and wondered, jokingly, if I'd find anything different as well. At that point I realized this idea could make for an interesting movie, yet it remained in the back of my mind for years. I was never quite sure as to the right approach, whether it be outrageous comedy, or even sci-fi. Then, one night, I was driving into New York City for a date, and suddenly it hit me: the "Groundhog Day" romantic comedy angle, using that magical element for love. The floodgates opened, and it was all I could concentrate on the rest of the night. Suffice to say, I never saw that girl again.

AH: How much of it is autobiographical?

RG: As much a fantasy film as "Saturday Morning" is, many aspects of the overall message are indeed autobiographical. I've definitely heard the phrase "no spark" more times over the years than I'd like to admit. I used to joke I was "sparkless." But, I eventually came to learn an overall sense of confidence is key to success in almost every aspect of life. And that lesson was the final element in developing the "Saturday Morning" concept.

AH: Do your friends and family recognize themselves in the film?

RG: There are traits of certain people I've known over the years that are amalgamated into the characters, but I've never heard any direct feedback as of yet. The fact that many of my friends and family actually appear on screen probably overshadows anything else.

AH: Are they pleased or displeased about any of the portrayals?

RG: I haven't lost any friends or been disowned yet. So-far-so-good.

AH: I love the feeling of earlier times interlaced throughout your story, even though there are obvious references to contemporary comedy, television and film Can you speak about this and why you chose to work like this?

RG: I shot most of the town scenes in Westfield, NJ, where they shot the TV series, "Ed," which also had that classic small-town look I was going for. And the vintage movie clips further incorporate that feeling as well. But I'm a pop-culture junkie at heart, old and new, and love to use those references wherever they fit. I'm a big fan of things like "Family Guy" which does this as well.

AH: The film reminds me of Chris Rock’s sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris. Are you the narrator in Saturday Morning?

RG: Joey Piscopo does the narration, and I've actually heard the "Everybody Hates Chris" comparison, and also that of "Dream On," a great sitcom that ran on HBO in the 90s. In that show, the clips were exclusively from old Universal television shows, and punctuated the characters' thoughts. I came up with the idea of incorporating similar clips as an extension of voice-over, and while I was still in post-production, "Everybody Hates Chris" premiered and brilliantly incorporated that style as well.

AH: Where else do you either appear or work behind the scenes?

RG: I'm proud to say I make my singing debut in the film! There's a scene where Lisa is out on a date with this very slick guy. He goes for his CD player, and suddenly playing is the children's song "The Little Pony Crosses the Road." My executive producer and music supervisor (and editor), Harris Demel, wrote the song, and I decided to sing it myself. I credited both of us as "songwriters," simply for the absurdity of something like this having needed two writers (I gave the film's composer, James Manno, a "reluctantly produced by" credit). James has actually received several requests for the song to be used for ring tones, which I was thrilled to learn. I do a quick Hitchcock during the surprise party scene, and am also the voice of telemarketer Frankie fittingly wakes up during "Saturday Morning's" "perfect world." As far as working behind the scenes, I wore almost every hat on this production. I even cast the film myself, and secured every location.

AH: I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to create successful comedy either in T.V. or cinema. You manage to do so quite beautifully. Why do you think this is so?

RG: Thank you very much. Many people have told me comedy is the hardest thing to write. My approach is to simply avoid the mistakes I see others make. To me, comedy falters when the jokes don't flow naturally from the characters or the situations at hand. Unless they're absolute killer, it all feels forced. And I've seen way too many instances where crudeness is mistaken for comedy. Crudeness is fine, but there needs to be a deeper context. I love the line in 'Idiocracy' where, in the future, the most popular movie in the country is a farting ass on screen for two hours, and Luke Wilson comments, in his day, 'we always knew who's ass it was, and why it was farting.'

AH: Saturday Morning is very character driven. Again, it is difficult to create a successful film using this approach. What is your secret to success?

RG: Because "Saturday Morning" is what you may refer to as "high-concept," there was an obvious urge to go further with the magical element. And I'm sure I would have done so had this been a bigger budget studio film. But the heart to any great film is character. Unless we are watching the character's story, from their perspective, overcoming their own obstacles, there's really nothing for the audience to connect with. And it's also where the real comedy comes from. So, that's what I was trying to go for, creating characters with substance.

AH: Did you handpick any of your cast? I ask because they are all exceptional and so ideally suited to their roles that they almost don’t seem to be acting.

RG: I agree they are quite exceptional. Yes, I handpicked the entire cast, even down to the extras. Obviously, I sought out the veterans such as George Wendt and Louis Mandylor because I was a fan of their work and they were perfect for their roles. For the others, I put out a casting call and received almost 1000 responses. I was very lucky to find Joey Piscopo, who has incredible comic timing and brought a lot of heart to his role.

And I was similarly impressed by Valerie R. Feingold, and Ashley Carin - both immensely talented actresses. I could go further and mention the friend I cast as "crazy whistling guy on park bench," but I probably shouldn't!

AH: I notice you use a pair of twins in the film and also another woman who looks like the twins. Also, the heavyset woman in the bookstore looks much like George Wendt. Are you purposely messing with identity in the film?

RG: I never quite noticed the similarity between the heavyset woman and George Wendt. Though I did once on a bad blind date. As far as other similarities between minor cast members, it was probably due to my casting of several family members. The two children in the bookstore are my niece and nephew.

AH: Alfred Hitchcock used to say that there are no minor characters and that each small role is as strong as the lead. Do you agree with this assessment?

RG: Absolutely. A minor character doesn't necessarily require the same transformational character arcs as the leads, but they certainly need distinction and coloring. Especially for this film, where many of the quirky types I use for the various store clerk roles help contribute to the small-town.

AH: Do you relate to any specific character or characters in the film?

RG: I'd say they're all in some ways aspects of my personality. Frankie the guy I'd like to be, Wes the guy I most likely am.

AH: I recognize many of your actors such as George Wendt and Lillo Brancato. Also, the actor who plays Wesley, Frankie and Wesley’s father seem familiar. What was it like working with these celebrities?

RG: It was amazing, working with people I've watched for years on television and in film, especially for a software developer from New Jersey. I even got to buy George Wendt a beer! And they were all friendly, down-to-earth people - and incredibly supportive.

AH: I love all the layering in the film. Can you speak about your insertions of early film footage and how these accompany your tale but also tell a sub-story in their own right?

RG: Thank you again. Originally, this was something I felt would simply act as a unique enhancement to the voice-over. Until "Everybody Hates Chris" came along! And while used mostly for comedy purposes, I was conscious in making sure it added to the mood of the characters, and the overall feel of the film as well.

AH: Saturday Morning is not just some silly romantic comedy but makes some very profound comments about time, existence and one’s place in the universe. Can you comment on this?

RG: The silly romantic comedy market is already well cornered, and there's certainly no need for one in the Indie scene as well. I wanted to incorporate lessons I've learned in life, and the premise certainly lent itself to that. And I decided to go further by leaving some open-ended questions, allowing the viewer to come up with their own, personal interpretation.

AH: Which filmmakers, philosophers and literary figures influence your work?

RG: Since the closest comparison of my film is “Groundhog Day,” I'd certainly have to say Harold Ramis, who has created some of the best comedies of all-time. And I'd love to move onto big-budget studio comedies as well. From an indie comedy aspect, I was also heavily influenced by Mike Judge's “Office Space” in it's mix of both subtle and occasionally absurdist humor. And though known more for television, I'm certainly inspired as a comedy writer by both Larry David and Ricky Gervais. As far as philosopher/literary figure, Thomas More, who coined the concept of "Utopia" to begin with, is the film's biggest inspiration.

AH: When you’re not thinking about a project what types of activities prepare you to make a film? For example, do you watch specific types of movies, go to a comedy club or watch people?

RG: Yes, many times it's watching movie and TV shows. Like an unrelated episode of "Night Court" inspiring an entirely different concept. I've done stand-up comedy as part of my preparation as well, trying out jokes to see what works. And, for some reason, my creative juices tend to flow at the gym, so my writing has kept me healthy at the same time!

AH: How much if any of the film was improvised?

RG: We stuck pretty very close to the script, though my actors did come up with several things on the spot, which greatly enhanced the film. Joey Piscopo was especially good at this, and in fact, even made suggestions early on during rehearsals, which made their way into the final shooting script. Louis Mandylor had a great ad-lib in the scene where Wes is left alone in the conference room, a meeting canceled out from under him after significant preparation. Louis looked down at one of the pie charts and asked "is it me, or does this look like a pair of tits"? We laughed hysterically, and I knew immediately this would make the final cut. Ashley Carin had another great line, after her character, Tiffany, had sex with Wes in a motel room, referring to their session as "four and a half times." Despite the fact Wes later refers it to his buddy as five. And I also have to give enormous credit to the film's editor, Harris Demel. He threw his blood, sweat, and tears into this process, lifting the film, both technically and creatively, miles beyond my wildest expectations. Most significantly, it was his idea to experiment with the colors, making the Saturday Morning world more vibrant, which I believe brought the film to a whole new level.

AH: Were there any portions of the film that displeased you - anything you would want to correct or explore further in a new project?

RG: Any film is the culmination of the efforts of many people, and I'm proud of the work that was done by the cast and crew of “Saturday Morning.” That said, this was my first feature-length project, and the learning curve was enormous. So, I wouldn't say I'm displeased with any parts, but there are many aspects I'd approach differently in the future. For instance, there are some areas of the script I'd tighten up. I'd have a better handle on the budget, and things would be less hectic in terms of the production schedule. In future projects, I'd like to apply all I've learned and reach a broader audience.

AH: Do you have a new project underway and if so, can you speak a bit about this - without giving anything away, of course!

RG: I'm making the big move to LA at the beginning of the year to pursue my career full-time, and I've already received interest from several sources on my latest script, "For Richer," which is a screwball, wedding-themed romantic comedy with a twist. I have others ready to go as well, so hopefully, I'll have a new project in the very near future.

Filmmaking from the bottom-up.

Review: "Nine"

by Elias Savada

While the songs are familiar, I never caught the Broadway show with book by Arthur Kopit and music by Maury Yeston—either the 1982 original directed by Tommy Tune or the 2003 revival, both Tony Award winning productions. Like Mel Brooks' The Producers, Rob Marshall's adaptation of Nine reflects a cinema to theater to cinema cycle, although most people (including myself) thought the Susan Stroman re-imagination of the former was a deadly bore. The prospects are definitely improved with the new winter holiday entry, from the musical play based on Italian cineaste Federico Fellini's masterpiece 8½, now expanded by stage-turned-movie director Marshall, master of the successful and massively enjoyable Chicago seven years ago and the technically stunning 2005 adaptation of Arthur Golden's book Memoirs of a Geisha. His third film has already garnered some award nominations, claiming 10 Broadcast Film Critics and 5 Golden Globes nominations, as well as winning two Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards (Best Art Direction, Best Ensemble). While more prize nods will follow, these will be claimed more on Marshall's directorial flair than on his ability to tell a focused story. There's no drop-dead, gotta-see film here, although the cinematography, choreography, production design, and costumes provide enough eye candy to satisfy nearly any filmgoer's sweet tooth. Yes, the film is dizzyingly intoxicating in parts and sports an incredibly accomplished, high-octane cast (but some with less than premium voices), but I can't see it dancing to cinema heaven.

(Of Note: Only in name will Nine be confused with the animated film 9 released earlier this year—isn't that weird to have two like-titled films being shown only three months apart. The award-bound Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire was changed from Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire to avoid confusion with the action feature Push.)

The razzle-dazzle of the film focuses on iconic Italian director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) and the unappreciated wife, and the under-the-sheets and over-the-rainbow women in his present and past life, not to mention his late and glorious mother. It's Rome, 1965 when the film starts, and Contini's ingenious juices are strained to a self-absorbed, pulpy mess, the result of an immense case of creative blockage. Despite the absence of the maestro's ever-promised script, the clock is ticking down to the last 10 days of pre-production for his grandiose new film Italia. They have a title, they have something of a set, they are finished off casting, so Contini's artistic pedigree appears to provide enough security for his production team to allow the crew to ferociously power ahead, then back down, while Contini deals with his ghosts. He delves into present affairs (sexual and work-related) while daydreaming of his 9-year-old self, often confiding with his Mamma, an eternally resplendent earth mother.

The always intense Daniel Day-Lewis (looking very much like Maximilian Schell) carries the Italian bit exceedingly well, even if his singing voice isn’t terribly strong. He dives into the role much like he does with all his films, with a fierce determination. The women cover a who's who of acting and appealing talent as well: Luisa, his demure wife and former leading lady (Marion Cotillard); Carla, his sultry, obsessive mistress (Penélope Cruz); film star Claudia, his muse (Nicole Kidman); costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench), his closest friend; Stephanie, an American fashion journalist for Vogue (Kate Hudson); Saraghina, a beach-side whore from his youth (Stacy 'Fergie' Ferguson); and his statuesque mother (Sophia Loren). They all showcase their own numbers (Cotillard has two) and although they were well rehearsed, some of the hectic cutting and pacing left some of the principals bleeding, particularly in Kate Hudson's Cinema Italiano number, which blends Sixties' pop with MTV-style editing.

The ebb and flow of the story moves back-and-forth in time (color and black-and-white photography help with the conveyance, but the hue changes are also used to other, sometimes over-indulgent, advantage) and to-and-fro with the several of Guido's relationships (so much so that when the preview screening reversed reels 2 and 3 it wasn't obviously to everyone in the audience). The male centerpiece seeks resourceful inspiration, not only for personal salvation, but also for those who depend upon him emotionally, sensually, or creatively. Marshall's cinematic interpretation is painted in abundant and colorful master strokes, using a broad array of technical aspects to create a show stopping tableau. Nine is an over-the-top, eye-popping musical that doesn't completely satisfy, especially compared to it's original source classic.

Directed by Rob Marshall; Screenplay by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella, based on the book for the Broadway musical Nine by Arthur Kopit; music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, adapted from the Federico Fellini film 8½; Director of Photography, Dion Beebe; Choreographed by Rob Marshall and John DeLuca

"Nine"
2009, Rated PG-13, 112 minutes
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis (Guido Contini), Marion Cotillard (Luisa), Penélope Cruz (Carla), Judi Dench (Lilli), Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson (Saraghina), Kate Hudson (Stephanie), Nicole Kidman (Claudia Jenssen), Sophia Loren (Mamma), Ricky Tognazzi (Dante), Giuseppe Cederna (Fausto), Valerio Mastandrea (De Rossi), Elio Germano (Pierpaolo), Martina Stella (Donatella), Roberto Nobile (Jaconelli), Andrea Di Stefano (Benito), Roberto Citran (Doctor Rondi)

Review: "The Lovely Bones" a Career Low

Peter Jackson's head must have been spinning as he read Alice Sebold's disturbing if obvious novel, "The Lovely Bones." After viewing the film version, we'd guess that the novel brought many a fantastical set piece to the filmmaker's vision. The otherworld of the novel's dead girl, Susie Salmon, suggests all sorts of whims: trees bursting into full growth, a field molting into an ocean, her childhood home just barely perceived through her ghostly world.

We can see that the set pieces have overwhelmed the project. The story of Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) and her family's attempt to find her killer – the mid-forties bachelor down the street, of course – plays like an afterthought in Jackson's approach. Salmon's magical purgatory doesnt' evolve, but just exists - one set piece merely pours into another. The earth-based narrative is a revised avenger yarn. True to the source novel, we know Susie's killer was George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), since the point of view is the dead girl's. Mark Wahlberg, as Salmon's dad, is all widened eyes and flaring nostrils – while obsessing over his next blue screen with Ronan, Jackson holds Wahlberg in shallow poses. Saradon has her weakest role since "Stepmom," now as a hip grandma who moves in to help the family. Still, Rachel Weisz has the stalest pose of them all, since the narrative has her weakened like a chick in an early Romero flick. Yet still we wonder why this fine performer has settled for a role of next to nothing. One bright moment is when Susie watches her little sister, as she progresses to the experiences the an innocent Susie, just 14, never reached. Even a distracted Jackson couldn't miss such a fine moment from the novel.

Sebold's tale is most interesting when read as a metaphor for the author's rape and coping (the real story of which was told in her memoir, "Lucky"). Yet, the conceit on film leads toward hazy premonitions and communication from the beyond the grave - stuff on the level of the 1990 Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore film, "Ghost." The fact that Jackson was already subverting another genre by this time, i.e. the horror film, makes it all the more regretful that he's mimicking ghost story and revenger cliches. One plus the other equals zero here, not to mention that he already delivered a revisionary ghost story, and now a minor classic of the genre, with “The Frighteners.” "The Lovely Bones" makes us look back to its creator's fine career, and we realize that Jackson's newest is his worst.

"The Lovely Bones"
2009, Rated PG-13, 135 min.
Directed by Peter Jackson; starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Saoirse Ronan, Susan Sarandon, and Stanley Tucci
Released by Paramount Pictures

DVD Review: "Sherlock Holmes Double Feature - The Spider Woman & Voice of Terror"

This DVD double feature, which is being released ahead of the Robert Downey Jr. film “Sherlock Holmes,” offers a pair of films from Universal’s popular 1940s series of Sherlock Holmes adventures, starring Basil Rathbone as the world’s greatest detective and Nigel Bruce as his sidekick Dr. Watson.

“Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror” (1942) was the first in the Universal series to update the Arthur Conan Doyle stories to fit Holmes and Watson into a World War II environment. Needless to say, the Third Reich was no match against the world’s greatest detective. The film offers a somewhat convoluted tale of a Lord Haw-Haw radio broadcaster who is flooding the British airwaves with predictions of Nazi-inspired mayhem at British military installations and troop transport rail lines. John Rawlins, normally a minor director, did a smashing job in framing the story with moody noir-style cinematography and in bringing out a surprisingly strong performance from B-level scream queen Evelyn Ankers as a Cockney lass who helps Holmes unmask a Nazi agent (played by Thomas Gomez, an underrated character actor who is effectively chilling here).

“The Spider Woman” (1944) is a decidedly less successful effort, with Holmes and Watson battling a “female Moriarity” who is responsible for the so-called “pyjama suicides” – wealthy men inexplicably killing themselves while still in their sleeping garments. Roy William Neill’s quotidian direction is less stylish that Rawlins’, and it doesn’t help that the screenplay (cobbled together from a number of Conan Doyle short stories) makes very little sense (and you haven’t lived until you see the “pygmy” in the suitcase!). However, Gale Sondergaard brings a healthy dose of camp glamour as the eponymous villain, while Rathbone and Bruce help raise the weak material with the vigorous hamming that helped enshrine them as the ultimate interpreters of the Conan Doyle characters.

Both films come from restored 35mm prints, and the visual quality is quite strong. As double features go, this is an entertaining diversion for any fans of old-time mysteries.

Review: "Crazy Heart"

If one subscribes to the manufactured buzz emanating from Hollywood, Jeff Bridges is due for an Oscar for his “Crazy Heart.” If that is the case, it says very little for Academy Award quality control.

Bridges plays Bad Blake, a has-been country music star who finds himself, at age 57, playing bowling alleys and cheap bars in the American Southwest. Smoking enough cigarettes to keep Philip Morris in the black for a year and drinking a Great Lake’s worth of whiskey, Bad Blake is the ultimate good ol’ boy wreck. Needless to say, a much younger woman sees the diamond in the rough – and, wouldn’t you know it, she is a single mother (and a reporter, to boot!) with an adorable son with whom the honkytonk man bonds. Never mind that Blake has been estranged for 24 years with a 25-year-old son from one of his four failed marriages – even a broken down drunk can find redemption with a woman half his age.

“Crazy Heart” often feels like a half-hearted, half-assed remake of “Tender Mercies” – a point that is amplified with the presence here of “Tender Mercies” star Robert Duvall in a supporting role as a bar owner who pours drinks and advice. Maggie Gyllenhaal tries but fails to fill the role of the smitten wordsmith, while Colin Farrell (of all people) is inexplicably in the mix as Blake’s one-time protege who is now a big music star.

As for Bridges, he falls back on obvious actor tricks – a deep Southern drawl, excessive smoking, lots of squints and grimaces – in lieu of a genuine performance. His unpleasant make-up and grungy costumes gives him the convincing appearance of an aging disaster, but throughout the film it is impossible not to let go of the reality that this is all about Jeff Bridges in acting overdrive.

Director Scott Cooper seems to have made an extra effort to save money on electric bills, since many of the scenes so dimly lit that it seems “Crazy Heart” is supposed to be a movie about nocturnal creatures. All things considered, the film doesn’t deserve to have a light shined its way.

"Crazy Heart"
2009, Rated R, 111 minutes
Directed by Scott Cooper, starring Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal
Released by Fox Searchlight

Book Review: "Life As We Show It: Writing On Film"

Matthew Sorrento handed me this book Life As We Show It: Writing On Film, with the endorsement that "this might be the kind of thing you were talking about." I'd recently walked away from a very cushy post as film critic for the Baltimore City Paper, partly to concentrate on writing fiction (my first novel Hotel Butterfly *ahem* is now available for download) but partly because I'd hit the same wall as the starry-eyed altruist who went into social work "to help people." The bitter secret of film criticism is that, if you do it long enough, you become a critic – a know-it-all dyspeptic who rejects the blind date magic that happens when you sit down in your theater seat with a guileless heart, because there are only so many Taxi Drivers and Rashomons out there, and the world keeps clamoring for "Scary Movie Umpteenth." Like how Colette put it, "If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles," and so I staggered away, hoping to clear my critical palette with a self-enforced fast away from film, followed by the option to step out of a movie at any time should I sense its well-being heading south. (I am a terrible movie date for this reason, by the way, but I did sit all the way through "Gentlemen Broncos." For the record, I liked it, and I don't care if anyone else did.) This cinematic high colonic was the tonic I needed, and it got me thinking about how we love movies – not the why, which is the provenance of the critic, the spearing and dissecting of what's well done, but the how – the irrational, heart-flutter passion we have for movies we can't defend critically to anyone else yet somehow speak to us in a phantom tongue, like those identical twins who construct their own language and then are pried apart into the collective glossary thanks to well meaning speech pathologists. It's much easier to order of pizza in New York when you speak English (or Spanish, sometimes), but what's lost about that secret womb kingdom of Atlantis when you and your twin don’t have that shared tongue anymore? What are you going to discuss over your slice and diet Coke, now that you're finally reunited? "Dancing with The Stars"?

I love me some silly movies. I love the first 75 minutes of "Explorers" (1985), right before Joe Dante needs to ruin the mystery that's propelled three young boys into building a rocket and launching into space. I love "Interview with the Vampire" (1994), even though I care not a whit for Anne Rice, and I love "The Jane Austen Book Club" (2007) although I always imagine another ending (spoiler alert) where Prudie (Emily Blunt) says "Go to hell, Jane Austen, and you crazy book club bitches" and runs into the motel with her horny, available, so barely legal student (Kevin Zegers) to fuck his brains out all over the ugly shag rug. These are critically indefensible enjoyments – and yes, you may include "Gentlemen Broncos" in this list. They have nothing to do with a movie's quantifiable, pedigree-able quality and they have everything to do with how movies fly under the radar of our subconscious and whisper secret launch protocols to parts of us that never see sunlight.

Life As We Show It speaks to that power, and that alone makes it unique among film writing collections. This is an academic collection springing from the right, not the left brain, and its essays and screenplays inside speak to film's ineffable, sensual qualities, in equally ineffable and sensual ways. The quality of the writing inside is a bit of a crap shoot – some essays, while well-written, start to meander into the land of Who Cares? – but that's the critic talking, and I'll restrain myself. I'll take the anti-critical tack of emphasizing the positive and say that by the time you round the corner into the book's third act, essays like Wayne Koestenbaum's "The Elizabeth Taylor Puzzle," in which a gay man dissects a personal obsession with that violet-eyed voluptuary, in concert with her devourable public image (did you know Liz said "To me the most beautiful smells in the world are babies and bacon"?) It's an essay full of sagacious bon mots like "After watching Elizabeth Taylor movies I feel eerily masculine" and "[Cleopatra] has no meaning more multiple than the pleasure of watching Elizabeth Taylor in Egyptian drag. Don't sneer at that pleasure. There are too few occasions for publicly indulging that taste – a taste for nothing in the body of something." (In a similar vein, later in the book Bard Cole makes the point in his essay "The Victor Salva School of Film Theory" (a free-associative meditation on convicted child molester/director Salva, the nature of viewing, the director's eye as an inevitable bull's-eye of lust, and the fuckability of Justin Long – fess up, you know you're out there) that "with the slow, pause, and zoom features now available on DVD players, there are now a lot more porn movies out there."

Finally, most stunningly, is Elizabeth Hatmaker's half-remembered dream of an essay "Hysteresis," a tone poem montage that's to most critical writing as Bill Morrison's Decasia is to Frederic Wiseman documentaries. Hatmaker riffs in tight, swirling sentences on miscegenation, X-cuts, the mystery of sex, a half-remembered late night movie "Good Luck, Mrs. Wyckoff" (1979), fear, horror, lust, the woman Emmett Till whistled at, long-cooled crime scenes and decaying videotape. It's a truly staggering work, one I can't begin to distill in a few glib blog sentences, and its presence alone makes this book worth hunting down.

Review: "Brothers"

At no family dinner on the planet would a tearful tyke yell at her father: "You're just mad because Mom would rather sleep with Uncle Tommy than you!" It's a moment that shouldn't have made it to the final cut of "Brothers," Jim Sheridan's remake of a 2004 Danish film about the impact of battle-triggered post-traumatic stress syndrome. But not only is it a key part of the movie, it's also featured in its trailers -- along with a sensitive soundtrack, come-hither looks, and beatific post-lay smiles.

Notice that I said that the film is about PSTD, which is another failure of its marketing. Watch the ads and you'll come away with this: A black sheep steps up to take care of the hot wife and two daughters of his brother, a Marine who was killed in Afghanistan -- or was he? When the widow and her in-law get used to making moon eyes at each other and the soldier turns out to be alive after all...awkward!

The good news is that "Brothers" has far more depth than all that tripe. Similar to this year's "The Hurt Locker" -- if slightly inferior because of its love-triangle distraction -- the film's more prominent angle is the ungodly experiences troops face when shipped to fight overseas, and how those traumas can change them so deeply that the world of suburbs and shopping malls is, mentally and emotionally, impossible for them to return to.

At the beginning of the story, Capt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) has just enough time to greet his brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), and ease him back into regular life after he gets out of jail before Sam leaves to serve another tour. Tommy's release isn't exactly a happy event: Sam and his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman), host a dinner for him, but it's ruined by the unmasked bitterness of their father (Sam Shepard), who openly praises Sam as a hero while denigrating Tommy as a good-for-nothing lowlife. (His crime isn't revealed, but it's implied that he robbed a woman.) Even Grace isn't thrilled to have him around, with her animosity dating back to their high-school days.

That changes when Sam's involved in a helicopter crash while on duty and assumed dead. Really, though, he and a private (Patrick Flueger) are taken hostage and tortured for several months, unbeknownst to their unit. Meanwhile, Grace and Tommy develop a grudging friendship, initially out of their mutual need for someone to rely on -- but eventually they each realize the other is good-looking and available. Grace's girls (Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare) like Tommy as well, if only because he's around every day, a presence their father could never guarantee.

There's a night of beer, pot, U2, and a kiss. And then a phone call telling Grace that Sam is indeed alive. Shock is the family's understandable response, though a hint of disappointment seems to be lurking beneath.

Sheridan ("My Left Foot," "In the Name of the Father") lets this all play out leisurely and quietly, with only the occasional -- and jarring -- insertion of Happy Funtime Music to decorate a playful scene. Besides Sam's horrific experience as a hostage, the film's main action is nonaction, with Grace and Tommy going about the pedestrian routines that comprise most people's day-to-day. When Sam returns, the film is still quiet -- only this time, there's a haunted skeleton of a man shuffling around his kitchen and obsessing over whether his brother and wife are involved.

Sam's inability to transform from a soldier who both witnesssed and performed terrible violence back to a husband and father is "Brothers'" gripping crux, and Maguire delivers an award-worthy madman. He projects Sam's disconnect with the regular world with practically only his eyes; they bug and deaden as he tries to process his daughters' jokes or make himself believe that Tommy and Grace aren't having an affair. The actor also pulls a Christian Bale, dropping a significant amount of weight to realistically look like someone his little girls would suddenly be wary of.

The tension within the family after Sam returns is unrelenting, with the dinner scene that includes the above-referenced unfortunate line an otherwise masterpiece that will resonate with anyone who's endured a not-so-happy celebration with their fucked-up family. Matching Maguire's intense performance is, remarkably, wee Ms. Madison, who is heartbreakingly believable as a daughter angry with her father specifically and unhappy with her home life in general. She'll wrench your guts, along with the film as a whole -- far more than a simple love-gone-wrong drama could ever deliver.

4 stars
2009, Rated R, 110 minutes, Lionsgate
Official site: http://www.brothersfilm.com/
Directed by Jim Sheridan
Written by David Benioff, Susanne Bier, Anders Thomas Jensen
Starring Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sam Shepard, Clifton Collins Jr., Mare Winningham, Carey Mulligan, Patrick Flueger, Bailee Madison, and Taylor Geare

DVD Review: "Turandot"

Chinese film director Chen Kaige, best known for his 1993 “Farewell My Concubine,” helmed his first opera production with this lavish interpretation of the Puccini warhorse, which opened the 2008 Festival del Mediterrani in Valencia, Spain.

Tiziano Mancini’s video record of the production brilliantly captures the best of Kaige’s vision for “Turandot” – a wonderfully elaborate Chinese pavilion set and a large chorus that is shrewdly assembled to enhance the illusion of the masses watching the bizarre melodrama unfold.

This production wisely jettisons the faux-Orientalism and cutesy touches that often make “Turandot” seem tiresome. This is particularly effective in the wise decision to play down the traditional minstrely in the second act plotting of the wily trio Ping, Pang and Pong – “Ho una casa nell'Honan” is conceived with a startling strain of raw melancholy that gives genuine emotion to the threesome’s situation.

However, the camera also magnifies the odd central flaw of the production: indifferent acting by Marco Berti as Calaf (his “Nessun dorma” has volume but no soul) and Maria Guleghina’s Turandot (who seems to embody apathy rather than evil in her various sneers and posturing). Separately, they have little charisma, and their scenes together lack any true spark.

But the real oxygen here is Alexia Voulgaridou’s Liu – her “Tu che di gel sei cinta” is a stunning testament to the power of love to conquer the worst that human cruelty can put forth.

For the most part, Kaige and conductor Zubin Mehta successfully manage to camouflage the problems with the central casting through the production’s visual sweep and stirring orchestration, One can easily forgive the drawbacks and get lost (yet again) in the spell that “Turandot” continues to put forth.

"Turandot"
2009, 156 minutes, Not rated
Directed by Chen Kaige
Starring Marco Berti, Maria Guleghina and Alexia Voulgaridou
Relesaed by Unitel Classica

Review: "Up in the Air"

The economy is in the toilet and people are being laid off. Who ya gonna call?

Ryan Bingham, dashing corporate downsizer.

The month-long trifecta of films featuring the ever pleasing George Clooney began with The Men Who Stare at Goats, (which wanted us to consider the silly, amusing, and inspiringly stupid things our military does in pursuit of an occasionally drug-enhanced advantage over its perceived enemy). The Man Who Would Be (this generation's) Cary Grant then segued into Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson's charming and age-defying, stop-motion animated look at Roald Dahl's children's tale of a sly fox and his scheming animal companions. The final chapter wins the third time's the real charmer award, culminating with the dramatic comedy Up in the Air, the best and destined to be the most commercially successful of the varied and enjoyable bunch. You might find all three playing at the same multiplex. Not many actors can pull that off.

Clooney perfectly encompasses the finely-dressed, well-organized everyman Ryan Bingham who endlessly and obsessively travels from his home base in Omaha (I half-expected this to be an Alexander Payne presentation). Travelling more than 300 days per year, Ryan barely maintains a residence of any kind—an unencumbered loner who certainly and confidently never connects in any personal relationships. He's also the estranged sheep of his Midwestern family, wrestling whether to return to his ancestral home for his sister's wedding. He half-heartedly agrees to the future bride and groom's wishes that he take photos of a cardboard cut-out of their posed selves against any landmarks he happens upon.

He's self-assured when out doing the dastardly deed, i.e soothing the layoff blues for thousands losing their livelihoods at hundreds of companies. His soulless task is never ending, and the perpetually efficient Ryan has no patience for slow people, travels with only a single carry-on bag, and can eyeball (some call it stereotyping) the shortest lines at any security check-in. He's booked millions of frequent flyer miles (he's on a quest for an über-elite card with American Airlines, his air carrier of choice) and has an encyclopedic knowledge of every airport he's been through (and probably some he's not). Yet he always charming, even if he's curtly honest, and well trained in a business that may be putting him out of it. Seems his boss, a corporate bagman with a slightly unstable desire to cut corners—and played with perfect pitch by Jason Bateman (Juno, Arrested Development)—wants to replace the personal, soothing touch that Ryan so delicately delivers to the newly and psychologically destabilized unemployed, with a remote, technological face via impersonal video chat.

Yes, there's a lot of physical and emotional mileage covered here, but the script by helmer Jason Reitman (updating an earlier draft by Sheldon Turner) and based on a book by Walter Kirn is vibrantly witty and exceptionally delivered, just in time for the Holidays. While Clooney showcases the film and captures Reitman's comedic sensibilities flawlessly, it's the exciting relationship Ryan develops with another corporate traveler, Alex Goran, that helps put a shine on Ryan's face and yours. Vera Farmiga embodies her savvy character with a sexy, alluring earthiness, and delivers a knock-out punch as Ryan's kindred spirit. He finds her "casual" companionship attractively enervating (it starts as they energetically compare corporate and travel cards at a hotel bar) and Ryan ever so slowly begins to realize that maybe there is life outside of his own small cocoon. Best known for her performance in Martin Scorsese's The Departed, Farmiga's actually been acting for a decade. Now she'll finally get some more respect. So the next time you bump into her at the supermarket, remember to tell her, "Farmiga, I just loved you in that George Clooney film!" There's also Anna Kendrick, who shows she has more acting chops demanded of her in Up in the Air than as Jessica in the Twilight series movies. As the prim, proper, and ambitious Natalie Keener, she's a young, Cornell-educated (Go Big Red!) number-cruncher delivered as additional check-through (not for long) baggage to Ryan, part of Bateman's character's corporate streamlining strategy. She helps Ryan realize there's a world community he needs to join; he teaches her that their job demands more than just a cursory examination of a person's corporate output. Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half Men and Danny McBride, the racy comedian (Eastbound and Down), are Ryan's sister and her fiancé. Their support, as well as that of Amy Morton as the other Bingham sibling, registers strongly in a key segment of the film. J.K.Simmons, Sam Elliott, and Zach Galifianakis make brief but memorable cameos.

In an interesting casting decision, and because of how the story changed from when it was originally developed—before our country flushed itself in one humdinger of a depression—Reitman decided to use real people, not actors, to tell their emotional experiences of losing a job in a faltering economy. Reitman recalled "We wanted the firing scenes to be honest and true. So we thought, 'why not show the real thing?'"

Starting December off with a flying leap, Jason Reitman's third film—following the deliciously satirical Thank You for Smoking and last year's Oscar-nominated breakout hit Juno—continues to show that the 32-year-old son of Ivan Ghostbusters Reitman (one of this film's producers) is one of the younger generation's rising stars and a Hollywood favorite, particularly as he has a knack for bringing home low-budget winners. His new hit cost between $25-30 million (peanuts in movie money), more than twice the combined budgets ($6.5 and $7.5 million) of his first two directing efforts, but I suspect it will easily gross more than the $143 million that Juno delivered.

Technically, the film's as clean as a whistle. Up in the Air marks Director of Photography Eric Steelberg's tenth film with Reitman, dating back to the short film Operation in 1998. His lens captures a bright, clear world and the perfect Midwestern U.S. settings designed by Steve Sakalad, another Reitman alum for his two previous features. Editor Dana Glauberman, who also worked on Juno and Thank You for Smoking,has done another cracker jack job. One scene in particular (well there are lots) has Ryan packing his bag and heading off to the airport. The cutting/composition carries aloud the compression that the character treats his few possessions and his precious time. "To know me is to fly with me," Ryan's character narrates. He breezes as the rest of the world crawls. Rolfe Kent (ah, the Alexander Payne connection!—for his scores on Sideways, About Schmidt, Election, and Citizen Ruth) does a masterfully complimentary score, with additional songs picked by music supervisor Randall Poster including Crosby, Stills & Nash and Charles Atlas.

So, it's time to stop reading and get off your butt. Fly down to the movie complex for that Clooney triple-bill, but, if you only have two hours to spare this time, be sure you don't miss Up in the Air. You'll be grounded if you do. Then again, after you've seen it once, you'll want to see it again.

Retro Cinema: "Hello, Dolly!" (1969)

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the theatrical premiere of Gene Kelly’s film version of “Hello, Dolly!” The film never truly caught a break with film critics – it was the subject of severe fault finding as early as its pre-production inception, and four decades later there are many who sneer at the very mention of its title.

Yes, it is difficult to justify “Hello, Dolly!” as great art. But it is a work of great entertainment – it is a product of an era when people looked up at a screen and saw “movies” instead of “cinema.”

The key problem that many people express with “Hello, Dolly!” was the unlikely casting of Barbra Streisand in the eponymous role of the 1890s matchmaker Dolly Levi. The role, of course, was conceived for a late-middle-aged woman – Carol Channing famously originated the part on Broadway, while Mary Martin starred in the West End premiere. A skein of old-time movie queens played the role in the post-Channing Broadway run and in various touring companies, including Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, and Dorothy Lamour. Offbeat casting included Pearl Bailey in an all-black Broadway version plus comic actresses Phyllis Diller, Dora Bryan and Molly Picon in other stage versions.

Streisand, however, was 27 when Ernest Lehman signed her for the film version. Lehman would later state he initially considered Channing for the film, but he was concerned about her spotty track record as a film performer. After viewing Channing’s performance in the 1967 film “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” he felt that the star’s stage-bound vivacity could not translate into a motion picture. Ironically, Streisand had even less film experience than Channing – her one film at that point was the adaptation of her Broadway hit “Funny Girl,” but that was still in post-production when she was signed to play Dolly Levi.

For her part, Streisand was surprised at the offer – oddly, she thought the role would be best suited for Elizabeth Taylor, even though the two-time Oscar-winner was years removed from late middle age and possessed no musical abilities (a fact that was cruelly confirmed a decade later with the film of “A Little Night Music”).

But if Streisand’s Dolly was youthful in comparison to her stage predecessors, she brought the energy and visceral excitement of youth to the epic production. Her Dolly is a kinetic force of nature, belting out Jerry Herman’s classic tunes with a pop diva power that gave new resonance to the score. Her singing takes dares in the extremes and pays off with bold profits – from the astonishing sendoff of “Before the Parade Passes By” (the longest maintained single note in film musical history) to the comic viper attack of “So Long, Dearie” to the sex kitten acknowledgement of her male admirers in the title song.

Even in the film’s one gentle ballad, “Love is Only Love” (added to the film version by Herman, who originally planned it for his show “Mame”), Streisand mines the raw emotions of the lyrics to detail the fragile connection of mind and heart. The film’s crowning moment, when Streisand is joined by Louis Armstrong to sing part of the title song, is a true classic experience – a grand old man of jazz and a brassy upstart of 1960s pop play off each other with mischievous glee.

Streisand reportedly did not get along with her co-star Walter Matthau, who was cast as the curmudgeonly “half-a-millionaire” Horace Vandergelder that Dolly recklessly pursues. (Matthau was also too young for his part, though he received no criticism for his casting.) Whatever friction took place off-screen may have helped fuel their respective performances. A critical eye can dissect their joint scenes and witness how they try to upstage each other – a Matthau grimace is met with a Streisand eye roll, met in turn by a Matthau scowl, and so forth. Not surprisingly, the film shows slight signs of lethargy whenever either star is not present.

“Hello, Dolly!” came at the tail end of an era where studios (in this case, 20th Century Fox) spared no expense in putting on an extravaganza. In this pre-CGI era, the recreation of 1890s New York was achieved by actually recreating the city’s downtown skyline. The song “Before the Parade Passes By,” takes the metaphoric link between fading opportunities and an expiring march, and visualizes it with a magnificent display of colorful floats and period-clad marchers and spectators. The film was shot in the wide screen 65mm Todd-AO format, and much of its original visual pizzazz is lost when viewed in today’s letterboxed DVD screen.

Earlier in the year, I was part of a panel discussion regarding the films of the late 1960s. While other panel members highlighted scenes from groundbreaking classics of the era – “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Graduate,” “Easy Rider” – I showed a clip from “Hello, Dolly!” By today’s standards, it stood out strangely. But that is only because the notion of the big musical entertainment is not considered chic – and the very few film musicals being made today are more visually aligned to MTV’s visual style than the traditions of Hollywood’s song-and-dance classics.

What we also forget is that while today’s film scholars would peg “Bonnie and Clyde” or “Easy Rider” as symbolizing their era, the audiences of four decades ago actually sought out the traditional productions – the so-called groundbreaking efforts could be counted on fingers, and the top grossing U.S. film of 1969 was not “Easy Rider,” but was Disney’s non-cutting edge romp “The Love Bug.”

Indeed, detractors love to insist out that “Hello, Dolly!” was not a commercial success at the time of its release. Indeed, it only earned back $18 million of its $24 million budget (quite a princely sum for 1969). What is not mentioned, however, is that when the film was in wide release during 1970, it was among the year’s top ten grossing films; it later recouped its costs through international theatrical, television and home video sales.

For those who’ve never seen “Hello, Dolly!” and those who may have seen it once but barely recall it, this 40th anniversary offers a chance to return and enjoy its charms. Yes, it is old-fashioned – but, really, when it comes to fun movies, what’s so bad about being old-fashioned? “Hello, Dolly!” exists as diversion and amusement, and on both points it more than satisfies.

Review: "Me & Orson Welles"

By: Jessica Baxter

“Sometimes you remember a week for the rest of your life,” says blue-eyed puppy dog Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) to his jaded, older love interest. That’s certainly true if your week involves scoring a bit part alongside Orson Welles. The trouble lies in how to keep Orson from outshining everything and everyone else. In some ways, Richard Linklater struck gold when he found Christian McKay. The man completely embodies Orson Welles in appearance and charisma alike. He’s like walking Cliff’s Notes for the legendary genius and charming egomaniac. Unfortunately for the rest of the film, he’s easily the most memorable thing about it.

Set in 1937, Efron plays a plucky teenage actor who scams his way into bit part in Welles’ fascist adaptation of “Julius Caesar”, a week before it’s due to open. Along the way, he becomes smitten with Orson’s ambitious assistant, Sonja (Claire Danes) and learns a few important lessons about “how the world works”. Since this is show business, the “world” in question is theatre, and the lessons are learned the hard way.

“Me & Orson Welles” is Zac Efron’s first real attempt to shed the cheesy teenybopper image bestowed upon him by the Cult of Disney. It’s an admirable career move. He wants to grow up and he wants to do it without snorting anything. And though Efron does show a lot of promise as an actor (he handles old-timey posturing very well) it’s almost unfair to, in his first non-family outing, pair him next to Christian McKay. True, being outshone by Orson Welles is part of Richard’s character. But it backfires because Christian McKay similarly steals the spotlight from Efron, even when they’re not sharing a scene.

Another problem with the film is that it lacks the usual depth of a Linklater story. There are no existential conversations here, nor keen observations about finding your potential. Perhaps it’s because the story is about actors, but it all seems rather shallow and self-absorbed. The principal lesson here is that one does what they have to in order to get ahead, be it calculated sexual liaisons or refraining from talking back to your boss, even when you know you’re right. Is everything really as simple as “you can’t always get what want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need”?

There are some wonderful moments and a few gems of dialogue. But what everyone is going to be talking about is Christian McKay. Sonja says that the “principal occupation of the Mercury Theatre is waiting for Orson.” Similarly, the principal occupation of the “Me & Orson Welles” audience is wading through the Me parts to get to more Orson. Better luck next time, kid.

"Me & Orson Welles"
2009, Rated PG-13, 114 minutes
Directed by Richard Linklater, starring Zac Efron, Claire Danes and Christian McKay
Released by CinemaNX

In "Invictus": Where'd that Joe Clark Go?

Morgan Freeman's role in “Invictus” is a universe away from his role in “Lean on Me,” even if both characters turn around troubled institutions. The latter film, from 1989, features Freeman as Joe Clark, the real life principal who brought tough love to a near militaristic level. Clark, who coins himself “Batman” for his penchant for carrying a slugger along with his megaphone, had the charge of saving a Paterson, New Jersey high school from drugs and test scores not meeting the basic skills level. He begins his tenure by expelling all the bad seeds he can find, whereas Freeman's Nelson Mandela, in “Invictus,” unites the "Afrikaners" – white South Africans, the supporters of apartheid – with the liberated Africans.

Joe Clark couldn't use sports to inspire Eastside High: chances are all the school's athletes would have been academically ineligible for varsity play. Yet the newly elected Mandela, circa mid-90s, sees quite an opportunity in his country's beloved “Springboks” - the national rugby team. He urges his people to continue using the team's name and colors, in spite their associations to apartheid. Soon enough, Freeman's Mandela has box seats and is proudly donning yellow and green. He knows a winning team can unite his nation and inspire citizens to end crime and boost the economy.

The team is led by Francois Pienaar, played by Matt Damon, who finally redeems himself for his odious villain-athlete in 1992's “School Ties.” (Rule of thumb: don't ever try to out-man Brendan Fraser.) His team is producer-director Clint Eastwood's metaphor for a nation rising to stand proud on two diverse, yet unified feet. “Invictus” is much more than a sports flick, even if the championship match is overplayed in screen time. Fault may lie in Freeman's being restrained to the sidelines, though the septuagenarian Mandela would have to lead by example at this point of his eventful life. Formulaic as it may be, the film is about triumph far beyond the field.

Note: the film's title comes from William Ernest Henley's poem "Invictus," an inspiration to Mandela during his confinement. Read the poem here.

Review: "Invictus"

“Invictus,” the new bad movie from Clint Eastwood, perpetuates the soggy myth that decades of virulent racial distrust can be overcome if everyone roots for the same sports team. In this case, the team is the 1995 South African rugby team that represented the post-apartheid nation during the early years of Nelson Mandela presidency.

The film gives the impression that Mandela had little to do except offer benign encouragement to the almost all-white team (there was a single black player) while gently extolling the black majority of his nation to support the team. Prior to the end of apartheid, the rugby team was viewed as a symbol of the apartheid regime – to the point that many blacks traditionally rooted against them.

And that’s pretty much what “Invictus” is all about – Mandela gently prodding the team to work harder and play stronger while the once-fractured nation finds a way to common ground in cheering on the team. There is no spoiler in announcing the end result is telegraphed long before the film reaches its midway point.

But who was the nation rooting for? Outside of the team captain played by Matt Damon (sporting bleached blonde hair and a phony Afrikaaner accent) and the sole black player, it is hard to imagine what they are thinking – “Invictus” never gives the individual players any personality to stand out. Furthermore, the team often sneers at the racial harmony that Mandela is trying to instill; one scene, where the players refuse to learn the indigenous African language lyrics of the country’s new national anthem, suggests these guys were not deserving of any hero worship.

As Mandela, Morgan Freeman functions as a South African version of Charlie Chan, spouting fortune cookie-style wisdom in an appropriately wily manner that disarms the racial agitation of black and white foes alike. It is a one-dimensional caricature that reimagines Mandela as a sports-happy old codger, and the only attempt to give him depth comes in a fleeting reference to the failure of his marriage to Winnie Mandela.

As the team’s captain, Damon is little more than a buff mannequin who is carefully posed to represent the idealized post-apartheid white South African who is not terrified of black leadership. He manages to ignore the racist babble of his father and teammates, but he is too bland to inspire any admiration.

“Invictus” betrays all of the problems inherent to Eastwood’s directing efforts: a ponderously overlong production (the 134-minute film could easily have been trimmed by a half hour), murky cinematography (at one point, Damon is filmed in a shadowplay that makes him look like he’s sporting a black eye), a distracting out-of-place music score and a sense of clumsy self-importance that grows worse with each new reel.

The film also carefully obscures the significant failures of the Mandela presidency. Brief glimpses of headlines talking about rising crime rates and a visit by the rugby team to a ramshackle township offer a reminder that Mandela’s leadership skills could only achieve so much. Whenever these hiccups of reality permeate the film, it is easy to understand why Mandela’s staff was impatient with his focus on rugby and not the serious issues that dominated (and continue to impact) his country.

In the end, the 1995 rugby team’s achievement, not unlike a typical Hollywood movie, offered little more than an entertaining distraction to a dismal world. Sadly, “Invictus” offers little more than a dismal distraction.

"Invictus"
2009, Rated PG-13, 134 minutes
Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon
Released by Warner Bros.

Retro Cinema: "Flying Padre" (1951)

In 1951, a new filmmaker named Stanley Kubrick created the short documentary “Day of the Fight” on a reported budget of $3,900 and sold the film to RKO for $4,000 – the highest sum that the studio ever paid for an independently produced short film. Buoyed by his $100 profit, Kubrick was happy when the studio tapped him to create a film for its RKO-Pathe Screenliner series of human interest short documentaries. The studio advanced Kubrick $1,500 for the project, which he quickly accepted.

The resulting film, “Flying Padre,” is not exactly something you would expect from Kubrick. Originally titled “Sky Pilot,” the eight-minute film centers on Reverend Fred Stadtmuller, a German-born Roman Catholic priest in rural Harding County, New Mexico. Reverend Stadtmuller served an 11-church parish that stretched 4,000 square miles – most of it lacking paved roads. In order to get around his parish quickly, the good priest relied on a piper cub airplane called the Spirit of St. Joseph (an obvious parody of Charles Lindbergh’s celebrated Spirit of St. Louis). And in case you’re wondering, there were no airports in the parish – Reverend Stadtmuller’s airplane took off and landed on rough dirt fields.

Each year, the priest covered 12,000 miles in flight. “Flying Padre” covers two days in Reverend Stadtmuller’s parish. The film opens with the priest in flight to the funeral of a ranch hand. The film’s narration, delivered by CBS News announcer Bob Hite, notes that the parish congregants are primarily “Spanish Americans” – obviously the term “Mexican American” wasn’t exotic enough for 1951.

After the funeral, Reverend Stadtmuller flies back to his main parish in Mosquero, New Mexico. Kubrick indulges in some brief dramatic lighting of the choir boys in prayer. Reverend Stadtmuller has other kids to worry about – he referees a dispute between an unnamed girl and a playmate of hers named Pedro.

The priest’s airplane, which was purchased with $2,000 borrowed from a friend, comes in handy when he receives a call from a young mother in an isolated rural village. It seems that her baby is very ill and she needs to get him to a hospital. But since she is so far removed from civilization, the priest flies to the rescue and brings mother and child to the small city of Tucumcari, where an ambulance is waiting to take them to a hospital.

“Flying Padre” duplicates the same problems that made “Day of the Flight” a disappointment. For starters, we never get to hear Reverend Stadtmuller – Kubrick shot the film without sound, so all we have to listen to is Bob Hite’s droning narration, a cutesy music score and occasional sound effects. (The priest’s airplane could easily be mistaken as the airborne cousin of Jack Benny’s celebrated Maxwell automobile.)

“Flying Padre” also makes a heavy use of blatantly staged sequences. The little girl in the child disagreement sequence has a great deal of difficulty keeping a straight face – she is clearly amused by whatever direction Kubrick gave her. Even worse, the sick baby and isolated mother sequence is so obviously fake – it is never clear how a camera crew just happened to be with this young woman in the middle of nowhere – that it is difficult to appreciate whatever the real life circumstances would have been.

But to its credit, “Flying Padre” manages to get in some interesting camerawork – especially of Reverend Stadtmuller while piloting his airplane. (Kubrick doubled as cinematographer, but received no screen credit.) The funeral sequence is also striking with its close-ups of the mourners – an artistic touch that is often absent in documentary shorts of that era. The final shot, taken from the rear of the ambulance supposedly rushing the sick infant to the hospital, is a smooth reverse tracking image of the priest standing by his airplane.

“Flying Padre” ultimately made little impact on Kubrick’s career. RKO had no further assignments for Kubrick, and the filmmaker would quickly write off the experience. One of Kubrick’s very few comments on the work found him dismissing the production as a “silly thing.”

Yet the back-to-back experience of “Day of the Fight” and “Flying Padre” convinced Kubrick to quit his day job as a photographer for Look Magazine and self-educate himself on the art of filmmaking. Since there were no film schools available at the time, Kubrick dove into as many books as he could find on the subject. He survived on unemployment insurance and money hustled from chess games he played in New York’s Washington Square Park until he was able to secure a commission from the independent Lester Cooper Productions to create “The Seafarers,” a 30-minute color industrial film promoting the Atlantic and Gulf Coast District of the Seafarers International Union (SIU), a labor organization representing the workers in the maritime trade.

“Flying Padre” has not been commercially released for home entertainment viewing. The film can easily be found online. While not a remarkable film, it offers a missing link in Kubrick’s early evolution as a creative artist.

As for Reverend Stadtmuller, he continued to serve the county for decades. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 95.

DVD Review: "Ginevra's Story"

Christopher Swann’s 1999 documentary, which is now being re-released on DVD, is a compelling celebration of one of the most enigmatic masterpieces of 15th century Italian art: Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of the 16-year-old Ginevra de’ Benci.

The portrait is significant at many levels: it was da Vinci’s first commissioned portrait (he was 22 when he received the assignment), it is one of only three female portraits created by the artist, and it is the only painting by da Vinci to be found outside of Europe (the National Gallery of Art purchased it in 1967 from the royal collection in Liechtenstein for a then-record $5 million).

As described by Meryl Streep in the film’s graceful narration, da Vinci’s work is a “portrait as complex as life itself.” Young Ginevra is a source of visual mystery – the pale, golden-haired beauty looks straight forward to meet the viewer’s gaze, but her own concentration appears to be focused inward. Perhaps she was resigned to an unpleasant future – her father, a wealthy Florentine banker, already arranged her marriage to a much-older man whom she did not love. Perhaps she was lost in her own artistic considerations – she was a poet in her own right (though her work, sadly, is now considered lost) and the inspiration of the poetic output of the Venetian diplomat Bernardo Bembo. Her mysterious beauty rivals the "Mona Lisa" that da Vinci would create three decades later.

The painting in its current state is not the full expression of da Vinci’s talent – the bottom third of the original portrait was cut away, for unknown reasons, at some point after the 16th century. However, sketches of Ginevra’s hands survive in the Windsor Castle art collection, and the film details how the National Gallery of Art uses computer-aided design to recreate what the full portrait to include its comely subject cradling small flowers in her delicate hands. The gallery’s use of X-ray technology also provides a deeper understanding of da Vinci’s approach to the portrait’s creation, including a never-seen original banner that was painted on the back of the painting’s wood panel.

Beyond the high-tech wizardry is a view of the National Gallery of Art’s painstaking 1991 restoration of the portrait. A layer of yellowing varnish was carefully removed from the portrait’s surface, which resulted in the unexpected unleashing of da Vinci’s original color compositions. The before-and-after comparisons are astonishing, with a previously unconsidered mastery of subtle hue transitions and a surprisingly intense paleness to Ginevra’s porcelain-fine complexion.

“Ginevra’s Story” is an utterly fascinating fine arts documentary, and its return is a welcome addition to the year’s non-fiction filmmaking releases.

“Ginevra’s Story: Solving the Mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci's First Known Portrait”
1999, Documentary, 55 minutes
Directed by Christopher Swann, produced by Richard Somrset-Ward, narrated by Meryl Streep
Released by Microcinema International

Retro Cinema: "Show Boat" (1936)

When one considers the films of James Whale, the gothic horror classics inevitably come to mind. But, in my view, Whale’s ultimate triumph did not involve monsters or chills or Boris Karloff in elaborate make-up. Instead, Whale’s finest achievement came in the 1936 film version of the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II musical “Show Boat.” The film, which was screened at the James Whale retrospective hosted this past week by the Film Forum in New York, represents the apex of Hollywood musical productions.

Actually, “Show Boat” was an aberration at many levels. Besides being Whale’s only musical, it was also the rare big budget musical extravaganza for Universal Pictures, a studio that made its bread and butter with horror, Westerns and lowbrow comedy. The film also offered rarities on screen: Irene Dunne in a musical starring role, Allan Jones showing he was capable of acting, and elusive Hollywood performances by Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan.

“Show Boat” also dared to show the uglier side of the late 19th century Dixie environment surrounding the Mississippi River communities. Racial segregation, normally a taboo subject for Hollywood, was clearly presented by Whale in “Show Boat.” Scenes where white and black audience members enter and exit the floating theater on parallel gangplanks and move to separate parts of the theater not only spoke of the ugliness of a bygone era, but also reflected the Jim Crow protocol that was still firmly in place in 1936 – and even if white audiences preferred not to acknowledge it, the black audiences of that day could not ignore the circumstances of their second class citizenship. Likewise, the wedding of Irene Dunne’s Magnolia and Allan Jones’ Gaylord is marred (by contemporary standards) by having the show boat’s black crew stand outside of the church and look in at the ceremony, rather than be seated as part of the official wedding celebration.

Many people often refer to this production as the Paul Robeson version. Although billed fourth in the cast, Robeson’s role is very much a supporting part – his character is absent from the film’s final third, when it shifts from the show boat to Chicago and Broadway. Yet Robeson still dominates the film with a subtle mix of sly humor and aching sincerity that elevates his the role of Joe from broad caricature to genuine character. And, of course, his rendition of “Ol’ Man River” (shot by Whale mostly in close-up) is pure musical gold – his interpretation of Hammerstein’s lyrical contempt for the racist double standard and the promise of life away from “the white boss” planted the seeds for the black power movement that would blossom three decades later.

If Robeson’s presence resonates with today’s viewer, equal attention deserves to be given to Helen Morgan, a long-forgotten performer whose star was derailed by alcoholism. She is primarily recalled today for “Show Boat” and she gives a devastating performance as the actress whose life is ruined when it is revealed she is mixed race. Morgan performs two songs, the playful “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man of Mine” and melodramatic “Bill,” and her vocal grace was peerless. Her “Show Boat” work is a triumph of a single achievement and a tragedy since there would be no further film work to follow that brilliance.

From a directing style, Whale took extraordinary visual risks – shooting evening rendezvous songs with the stars’s faces in shadows, going for admittedly broad comedy via tight close-ups of exaggerated mugging (especially with Helen Westley as the overbearing matriarch Parthy), and keeping a blackface minstrel show number “Gallivantin’ Around” in the film (the obvious inappropriateness of the presentation is framed with a tracking shot from the rear of the theater, where the segregated black audience is watching the farce – we don’t see their reactions, but we can only imagine!).

And, of course, there is the Kern-Hammerstein score. Soaring effortlessly between hopeful love songs, ballads of great despair, richly comic interludes and the revolutionary rejection of the white-imposed status quo of the aforementioned “Ol’ Man River,” the “Show Boat” score encompassed the full spectrum of emotional power. Under Whale’s direction, “Show Boat” captures each laugh and heartache created by the score, and then expands it further with a mature yet inventive visual style that frames Hammerstein’s wise lyrics and Kern’s timeless music.

Sadly, the film could not accommodate the full score. However, missing tunes such as “Why Do I Love You?” and “Life Upon the Wicked Stage” lace their way through the film as incidental music.

Perhaps it was a major shame that Whale never made another musical. But, then again, how can one possibly improve upon perfection?

Bringing Light to Black Metal: Interview with Filmmakers Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites

by Jessica Baxter

“Until the Light Takes Us,” a new documentary by Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites, tells the origin story of Black Metal without getting into any of that pesky music stuff. Instead, it focuses on the two main pioneers of the genre, Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell and Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes, letting them explain their social and political reasons for creating this unique and very controversial scene. While the violence, church burnings, and occasional murder associated with Black Metal were all true (Vikernes is currently serving a 21-year sentence for fatally stabbing a fellow musician), the media fabricated the motivation. Satan was in no way involved. Though Paganism (the original Norwegian religion) was part of it, the crimes had more to do with cultural imperialism than anything secular. Apparently, Satan gets a lot of undeserved credit for the world’s misdoings.

To get an insider’s look at the truth behind the scene, Ewell and Aites moved to Norway for two years and completely immersed themselves in the Black Metal scene. The result is a film as raw and gritty as the music that inspired it. I spoke with the pair about their inspirations, the arduous process of documentary filmmaking, and just what those Norwegians are so pissed off about.

JESSICA BAXTER: How did you two start working together?

AUDREY: We were developing a narrative film when we decided to do this documentary. And the way the documentary came about was we were living in San Francisco and a good friend of ours runs a record store there called Aquarius records. And he knows that we’re into a lot of experimental stuff and lo-fi stuff like The Dead Sea, if you know them, or Throbbing Gristle or lots of things. But not really metal. So he basically sat us down and forced us to take a listen and we got pretty into the music and started researching the music just out of our curiosity. So naturally, what came out of that was that we assumed someone had made a documentary about it. And there wasn’t one. So that’s what sort of prompted the idea to make it ourselves.

JB: Had you done any documentary filmmaking before that?

AUDREY: This was our first…and last documentary.

AARON: Yeah, neither of us worked on any documentaries in any capacity before this. We’d basically just done narrative films. This is my first as a director but I’ve done all kinds of crew work on many narrative films before. And I’ve directed a couple videos.

AUDREY: And I’d done work on a romantic comedy prior to this. So doing the documentary was something that just kind of came up as this idea. And I think it was kind of our naiveté about the doc process that made us think that we could do this because it took so long. I mean, we were shooting for two years and returned with hundreds of hours of footage and so it was just really a much longer and more involved process than we’d been aware of before we left to do it.

JB: Who was the intended audience for this film? Did you take any conscious steps to make the film accessible to an uninitiated audience?

AUDREY: The film is not for the fans although we know that the fans are gonna see it and do enjoy it. The film is not…although it deals with a music scene…it’s not a Rockumentary and that’s an expectation that a lot of people bring to seeing it that is quickly amended. For one thing there’s absolutely no concert footage in the film whatsoever at all. It’s really a portrait of a group of people who, while they were involved in the music scene…and that’s what sort of lets it coalesce…it’s really about what happens in this particular time in this particular country with this particular group of people who are reacting to global pressures and also getting involved with all of the violence. And it is very much about the music scene in the sense that in the film you’ve got the two main characters, Varg Vikernes and Gylve a.k.a. “Fenriz” Nagell of the two bands, Burzum and Darkthrone. And through telling their two stories and their intertwined story, we’re able to tell the larger story of Black Metal. Because Gylve was the guy who released the first Black Metal album…and he was never involved in the crimes and was very much about making anti-commercial and un-commodifiable music which, for him, it was very much like a work of art. And on the other hand, his one-time best friend Varg Vikernes was very involved in more of an ideological battle with the world. So by showing their diverging paths, and the fallout from the actions of one and how it affected both of them, we’re able to tell the larger story of Black Metal. So it’s really not a Rockumentary.

AARON: But to answer your question, it’s for…I mean, certainly you don’t need to know anything about Black Metal before you go to see the film and I feel like the film will appeal to fans of, sort of, dark art films…It’s definitely made so that anyone who walks in to see it will understand the story.

JB: Who were your filmmaking influences when making this film?

AUDREY: Actually, we’re not documentary film fans in general. I can count on one hand the number of documentaries that I really like. Somebody who you would say is sort of an influence for us is Chris Marker. Just in that I really like what he does with the documentary form. “Sans Soleil” is one of my favorite films. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a documentary. But I like the idea of the film essay. That really comes from him. And as far as our filmmaking influences, we’re very into 70s French and Italian New Wave stuff. [Michelangelo] Antonioni is one of my favorite directors.

AARON: [Jean-Luc] Godard.

AUDREY: Yeah…We like [Lars] Von Trier and the kind of stuff that he’s doing.

AARON: David Lynch.

AUDREY: Yeah.

AARON: I would say that Chris Marker might be…before we even went there and we were sort of building the whole film on paper, Chris Marker was an inspiration for us. I don’t think the film comes out anything like Chris Marker but…

AUDREY: No, I don’t think it did.

AARON: …but we did actually think about that and tried to use him as an inspiration.

AUDREY: When we were editing…one thing that structurally we thought about was “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control”, because it blends two different time periods and two different stories. That’s one thing that’s done very well in that film. And so, you know, there aren’t really that many examples of films like that. So that was one that just crossed our minds but I wouldn’t necessarily say that we really pulled a lot from it.

JB: The film has a gritty look, which, in some ways, emulates the lo-fi quality of Black Metal. How did you decide on the look of the film?

AUDREY: Oh, that was one thing that we knew going in. Or maybe I’ll let Aaron take this one because I’m blabbing away…

AARON: We decided on it going in, to have the style of the film emulate the visual aesthetic of the early Black Metal records. And that even went as far as, not just the gritty lo-fi stuff but you know, we shot a lot of the exteriors in 35[mm] and the setups for the interviews. And a lot of these records will have these beautiful pictures of the Norwegian landscape or these really lo-fi, almost Xerox-quality pictures of themselves and we just decided that would be a good way to have the aesthetic of the film be. So that was the first thing that we did when we went over there was to just test different cameras and stuff and try to get the look we wanted.

JB: When did you decide that it was necessary to move to Norway to shoot the film?

AUDREY: From the get-go. I mean, it just wouldn’t have been possible to make this film about what has been a very closed-off scene without actually going there and living there and developing more trusting relationships with the musicians. It just wouldn’t have been possible any other way.

AARON: Basically, the musicians are the only ones talking in the film. There’s no narration or anything like that so we really needed to really get to know them to get what we needed to make the film.

AUDREY: Yeah…and that was a very important thing for the style of the film that we wanted to make. I can NOT watch a documentary with narration. It is so annoying to me. So right from the get-go we knew that was going to have to be part of the methodology.

JB: Did you have the two-year timeline mapped out or did you just shoot until you felt you were done?

AUDREY: [Laughs]

AARON: No, no, no. We didn’t know it was going to take two years. We might have thought twice about actually doing it. But um, that’s just how it turned out. We thought it was going to be a quicker process than it ended up being…Again, we never worked on a doc before so it kind of came to the line of, “When should we stop? [Laughs] Do we have everything we need?” And even when we left after two years, we left thinking, “Well, we may have to go back over there and get something…” but we had three hundred and fifty hours of footage so it was absolutely not a problem making our ninety-three minute film out of what we got.

AUDREY: Part of the issue was that the musicians were living in different cities all over Norway so there was a bit of having to spend significant periods of time in each important location to actually build that degree of trust. So that…it was really that more than anything that took the time. And then, also, in a doc, there are so many things you can’t control like people just not showing up for their scheduled interview…So yeah...it was a long process and we were not thinking it would be as long as it was.

JB: How did you approach the musicians in the film? Were there any problems with getting them to agree to be in the film?

AARON: We approached them each individually starting with Gylve and Varg, the two main characters in the film. We went over there knowing that we had to have them as the two main characters to make the film we wanted. So we just approached them…With Gylve, we met with him through his label and we got along really well right off the bat. And he was eager to do the film and he told us, “You can film whatever you want. Film as much as you want. Put whatever you need to up on the screen to get what you want to get. I’m never going to watch the film so don’t worry about that.” So that was pretty much the best-case scenario that you could ask for.

AUDREY: I think something that really helped when we approached them was that we weren’t really metal heads or even metal fans. I think that letting them know that this was going to be a more serious doc and not, like, a fan piece or, you know, whatever else… And they also very much liked that we let them know that we weren’t going to be bringing in experts to dissect the scene or bring in any sort of outside perspective on it. That’s another thing that just drives me nuts in a documentary. I mean I don’t like a lot of documentaries. I don’t like that specific form…unless I’m watching something on the history channel…It’s just not very interesting to me personally. So that wasn’t the kind of film we wanted to make. And because they’d had all the stuff in the early 90s with the media running with these fairly fabricated reports of them being Satanists and, you know, all this crazy stuff that was reported about them which was untrue, they really liked that aspect of it that there weren’t going to be outside people imposing whatever crazy ideas they had of the scene onto them in the film. So I think that helped as well.

AARON: Going back to your first question, if you can tell, the audience that we made the film for was just ourselves.

[Laughter]

AARON: But hopefully other people will like it too.

AUDREY: Um…but Varg was actually a totally different case from everyone else. He’s in jail and he was incredibly reluctant to do the film. It took eight months of corresponding with him to even have him agree to meet with us.

AARON: …while we were shooting.

AUDREY: …And at any point we were prepared to stop the film and go home and just move on to something else if we didn’t get his participation because we felt he was so important to the story we wanted to tell. Finally, he agreed to meet and Aaron flew over to Tromsø where he was in prison and met with him. And at that point he agreed to be in the film. And at that point he also agreed to just do it all the way and be very forthcoming. So we were really lucky, in the end, to get his participation.

Black metal pioneer Varg Vikernes, doing time.

JB: With a lot of their general ire directed toward American culture, was it difficult to earn their trust as Americans?

AUDREY: Oh, um…well, you know, it’s an interesting thing. There’s a point in the film where Gylve says…where he talks about the Norwegian personality and how they don’t stand too close to each other. And I have to say that…it is a much more reserved culture. Even before we Americans came over to make a film about Black Metal, I think there would have been a greater degree of difficulty there. They do hold things close to their chest. So there was already that hurtle to get over. And, you know, there’s a huge hurtle to get over when somebody’s putting a camera in your face and saying, “Tell me about your crazy history that’s been splashed all over the front pages and sensationalized so much in the past.” So there was a lot to get past. Whether or not us being American was a hurtle, I’d actually say no. But I can’t say for sure. We do know that they occasionally had meetings about us where they would discuss us and discuss whether or not they should be doing the film. One of them told us about this, that this was going on during the filming. [Laughs]

AARON: Yeah, apparently we had lobbyists within the scene both for and against us.

JB: Why do you think that Black Metal is so specific to Norway as opposed to other countries, which have experienced a similar American capitalist invasion?

AUDREY: Well, the first thing I have to point out is that Norway is so much more Americanized than other places in Europe. We’ve traveled a lot in Europe and I have to say that the number of American corporations that are dotted all over the landscape…it’s really so much more. And I didn’t actually realize that until I’d traveled quite a bit in Europe but there are McDonalds and 7-11s and American television is the norm and everything is in English. They don’t dub into their own language. And the movies are English. It’s really…there’s just a shocking amount of Americanization in Norway. So that’s one factor, I think, that there’s so much of it there. Aside from that, there’s a couple of different things. One is that Norway is not part of the E.U. They have retained their own currency and they stayed outside of that. They have a bubble economy. They have oil. And so they have no real need to be that connected with Europe or the rest of the world in a financial sense. And that, I think, has kept them a little more closed off culturally. So I think that at the same time this massive invasion of global culture coming in, you can really tell the difference. It’s very present.

AARON: I would say that since the Norwegian Black Metal scene came into existence, Black Metal has spread to lots of countries. Basically every country throughout Europe. I think maybe why it started in Norway was because of the sort of, like, influx of American culture. What’s happening right at the time when these guys were kids.

AUDREY: And we also started looking at it in something of a post-modern sense and the idea of the loss of a narrative and of people trying to find some thread that connects them to their own past. And I think largely what happened here was that. And a lot of this came through Varg Vikernes who was the one who prompted a lot of the crimes, the burning of the churches…He sort of drew a symbolical, metaphorical line between the cultural imperialism of Americanization that was occurring then, and drew that line back to 900 A.D. when Christianity was coming into the country and changing the cultural landscape of it at that time. It was the last wave of cultural imperialism. And he drew a connection between the two things, which was not immediately obvious to anybody. And why would it be?

JB: The musicians in the film talk about the political and religious reasons behind their movement, but not as much about artistic influence. Do you know where the Black Metal sound came from?

AARON: Well sure. And that also feeds into the whole post-modern aspect that I think is completely intrinsic to Black Metal. Their influences are bands like Venom and Bathory: bands that recorded, essentially, these lo fidelity albums. Not because that’s how they wanted them to be like the Norwegian Black Metal scene did, but out of necessity because they couldn’t actually get budgets to go into recording studios. They basically took a lot from fairly obscure metal and sort of codified it and turned it into their own thing.

JB: Audrey, since you identify yourself as a fan, there is obviously a female Black Metal fan base. But there doesn’t seem to be any female creative involvement in the scene. Why do you think that is?

AUDREY: Yeah…When we did Q&A, someone in the audience would usually ask why there aren’t any Black Metal bands with female members. And I wish there were. That would have been an interesting dynamic. But there just aren’t. It’s pretty typical, not just in metal but in your rock music, that there are far fewer women involved…

AARON: …but on the other hand…

AUDREY: On the other hand, one thing that was very appealing about Black Metal is that it’s not very misogynistic at all. You don’t see the half-naked women on album covers. You don’t have any misogyny present in the lyrics. And that’s, frankly, really refreshing. It’s something about other forms of metal that I really can’t stand. It’s not…it just doesn’t have that cheap quality. So while there are no women involved in making Black Metal, there also aren’t misogynists.

JB: So you said you’re done with documentaries forever, but what are you guys working on next?

AARON: We have a narrative film that we’re working on. The working title is “The Living Day.” It’s a suspense film that takes place on a commune in the woods of Vermont.

AUDREY: A present-day commune…so it’s about family and ownership and the strange little society that these people have made for themselves.

AARON: I guess you could say we’re into strange little societies.

AUDREY: We are, actually. That’s something that really interests us is people building their own societies and sort of cocooning themselves within what they create.

DVD Review: “Herbert Von Karajan: Maestro for the Screen”

Georg Wübbolt’s documentary, originally produced for German television, focuses on the conductor Herbert Von Karajan’s near-obsession with capturing his work with the Berlin Philharmonic on video.

Karajan initially opposed the small screen medium, claiming the visual and audio quality of the 1950s-era television productions could not properly recreate the impact of a concert hall setting. But the popular response to a broadcast of the philharmonic on Japanese television during a 1957 Tokyo engagement and the commercial success experienced by rival conductor Leonard Bernstein via a series of U.S. television programs convinced him otherwise.

Karajan’s aggressive pursuit of obtaining the proper mix of visual style (particularly images that presented him as a powerful artistic figure) with the philharmonic’s musical output seemed to overfeed his ego, and his strident perfectionism resulted in a skein of fractured relationships with filmmakers, most notably French auteur Henri-Georges Clouzot.

If Karajan did not score points for congeniality with his cinematic collaborators, at least he managed to create a series of handsomely produced video productions that captured his energy and artistry. Karajan wisely predicted these videos would preserve his legacy – even noting that his perceived artistic foes would only be remembered by reputation because there was no filmed record of their live performances.

Wübbolt’s production offers a fascinating insight into the creative process, with an unapologetic view of a brilliant but arrogant maestro who reached for greatness while stepping on toes.

“Herbert Von Karajan: Maestro for the Screen”
2008, Documentary,
Not rated, 52 minutes
Directed by Georg Wübbolt, released by Arthaus Musik

DVD Review: "PetroApocalypse Now?"

British filmmaker Andrew Evans asks many questions in “PetroApocalypse Now?” regarding the state of the world’s oil supplies. The answers he receives, however, are contradictory.

On one side, there are those who argue the world is facing a peak oil situation where demand will soon outstrip supply – and it is possible it could be happening now if the oil-producing nations are exaggerating their reserve levels. Among those arguing those points are geologists and retired officials including U.S. Energy Secretary James Schlesinger and former U.K. Environment Minister Michael Meacher, who dubs this an “apocalyptic scenario.”

On the other side, there are those who argue that peak oil is not a problem and work is underway to ensure that supply is never depleted. That camp consists mostly of the governments oil-producing nations and the leading oil companies.

The film is openly skeptical of the “everything is okay” scenario, pointing to a rising global population and a decreasing quantity of new oil exploration endeavors as evidence of a looming energy catastrophe. The film vaguely questions the value of natural gas, electric vehicles and renewable energy as a solution to the oil addiction, but no depth is given to these considerations.

Also problematic is Evans himself – he narrates the documentary in a bombastic manner that seems more appropriate for a celebrity sex scandal program than an economics documentary, and he abruptly and inexplicably turns up for an on-camera interview with a French energy expert towards the end of the film.

Although it is uneven in its presentation, “PetroApocalypse Now?” is a provocative offering that raises too many troubling issues that are in desperate need of being honestly addressed.

“PetroApocalyse Now?”
2008, 48 minutes
Directed, produced, edited and filmed by Andrew Evans
An Aceditor Ltd. Production, Released by The Video Project

Retro TV: "General Electric Theater: Judy Garland"

(Originally published on Film Threat)

In September 1955, Judy Garland made her U.S. television debut on the CBS program “Ford Star Jubilee.” The show was a ratings phenomenon, and the network quickly signed the star to a six-year contract. However, when it came time to do an encore, problems arose.

Initially, Garland wanted to do a television special featuring Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. This did not happen, though it is unclear whether Bernstein rejected the proposal or whether CBS felt the program would be too highbrow for prime time viewing. Instead, the network preferred Garland to stay closer to the electrifying stage show that she successfully offered on Broadway earlier in the decade.

CBS decided to present Garland’s second special for the network as part of its hit series “General Electric Theater.” In retrospect, it was a bizarre decision – “General Electric Theater” was a weekly anthology series that specialized in short dramatic productions. Even more curious was putting Garland in a tight 30-minute time slot (not counting commercial interruptions) rather than the standard 60-minute slot that was normally reserved for musical revues.

Nonetheless, Garland pushed ahead for a three-month rehearsal period – another unusual consideration, since TV productions of that era rarely enjoyed the liberty of so much advanced rehearsal. On April 8, 1956, TV audiences finally got a chance to see Judy Garland again.

The resulting production, however, was not a highlight of Garland’s career. She was in top shape – the vocal and weight problems that bedeviled her later years had yet to turn up. But the program’s strangely avant-garde approach – a barebones set, musical arrangements that veered closer to a jazzy beat – did not properly suit Garland’s distinctive personality. (Nelson Riddle was responsible for the orchestration of the show’s numbers.) Furthermore, Garland approached the program as a theatrical event rather than a television concert, which resulted in performances that were often too loud and too strong for the small screen.

The program begins in the manner that all “General Electric Theater” episodes opened: with the smiling, reassuring presence of Ronald Reagan welcoming the audience. By 1956, Reagan’s film career had run its course, but “General Electric Theater” kept him relevant. His introduction is quick and brief, and the episode – simply titled “Judy Garland” – begins.

The opening sequence is startling for a 1956 TV production: Garland is alone in a distant spotlight on what appears to be an empty stage. The camera slowly moves closer and closer to her while she belts out “I Feel a Song Coming On.” By the end of the song, she is in close-up – but there is no applause to greet her opening.

Abruptly, Reagan returns to talk about “Live Better Electrically,” the advertising theme from General Electric. Reagan isn’t entirely clear what living better electrically is all about, but his calm smile gives the impression that all will be well.

Then, the show comes back to Garland. She is in close-up, seeming a bit exhausted after her opening tune. She briefly mentions that “there’s much too much talk going on in the world, so you’ll get very little from me.” Then she adds her next song, “Maybe I’ll Come Back,” was performed by her parents when they were in vaudeville. She launches into the song, performing a dance that requires her to pull back her slit-skirt and reveal her legs. Her performance is on a dark, prop-free stage. After the song is done, there is a slight delay before a measured applause is heard – one could assume that there was no audience and that the applause track was added.

Garland’s guest star, jazz pianist Joe Bushkin, shows up. Considering that Garland was not a jazz performer, Bushkin’s presence as an accompanist could either be seen as a bold move or a bad gamble. It appears to be the latter – their collaboration on “Last Night When We Were Young” and “Life if Just a Bowl of Cherries” never quite clicks, despite Garland’s attempts to bond with Bushkin and clown about his piano.

Garland then walks to the other side of the stage, where a dressing room table and mirror are set up. A photograph of Joe Luft, her one-year-old son, is on the table. Garland’s actions here are badly directly – she sings part of the song looking at the photograph while her back is to the camera, then she turns to the camera for a maudlin monologue about her adorable child. The song she performs is “Dirty Hands! Dirty Face!” – and it is among the soapiest interpretations imaginable.

At this point, there is a commercial break. Someone named Bill Goodwin shows up to talk in depth about the “Live Better Electrically” theme that Reagan alluded to earlier. The thrust of the sales pitch is fairly clear: viewers are urged to buy General Electric appliances including dishwashers, refrigerators and washer-driers. The result of such purchases, according to Goodwin, is less drudgery in household chores and more leisure time. Goodwin also mentions that it is not difficult to afford such items thanks to installment payments.

The Garland show then returns, with dancer Peter Gennaro slides down a ladder without any introduction and starts performing a slinky/slithering number that echoes the style Bob Fosse would employ in his classic Broadway choreography. A jazz trio consisting of George 'Red' Callender, Dick Cathcart and Jack Costanzo join Bushkin while Garland rips into “Come Rain or Come Shine” and Gennaro writhes about. The result is a loud, raucous mess, with Gennaro upstaging Garland and the jazz performers playing at a tempo that was all wrong for Garland’s singing.

Following that, Garland ascends a white spiral staircase while looking at the camera and singing “April Showers.” This is followed by brief applause and the roll of the closing credits.

The final word, however, belongs to Reagan, who comes back to commend Garland, extol “Live Better Electrically” and inform viewers that the regular “General Electric Theater” format will resume next week with a new drama starring Ray Milland.

Garland’s special was not well received by the critics. Even worse, audiences stayed away. Nonetheless, CBS was eager to keep the Garland specials coming. Unfortunately, the network and the star plus her then-husband Sid Luft were not able to agree on the right format for future programs. An announced 1957 special was cancelled in pre-production.

Outside of CBS’ annual telecast of “The Wizard of Oz,” which also began in 1956, Garland was absent from TV screens until 1962, when an agreement with CBS was finally reached and Garland returned in a television special co-starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

As for the “General Electric Theater” production, it only saw a single broadcast. In the 1980s, a few video labels specializing in public domain titles made a kinescope of the program available on VHS. But this was clearly not authorized and, to date, there has been no commercial DVD release. However, the full program can be found on YouTube in a four-part posting.

For Garland fans, the “General Electric Theater” show is a big disappointment. Nonetheless, it provides a glimpse of the vibrant star while she was still enjoying a vocal and physical peak. Despite a wobbly production, one can easily watch the show today and marvel over her once-in-a-lifetime talent.

Bright Lights, Big Cine: Interview with Bright Lights' Editor Gary Morris

(Originally published on Film Threat)

As the world of words slowly abandons print for digital, traditional publications birth stepchildren they call "online components." In the case of film writing, highbrow mags like Film Comment and Cineaste may seem die-hard for the old-school form. Yet, both publish online-exclusive articles, usually mentioned in the print version's index. The move could be for advertising's sake, or maybe a step towards their new form, with the magazine and newspaper businesses having hit the hardest times ever.

Meanwhile, pubs like the one you are reading, are proud to be fully digital. Bright Lights Film Journal, which offers some of the finest film writing out there, took the gamble and went virtual in 1996 after an on-off history in print, since 1974. Bright Lights' editor Gary Morris has felt at home in the newer, flexible, far-reaching format. I checked in with Morris over email to discuss his publication, his history in film culture, and his new book, Action! (Anthem Press), a collection of interviews by the writers who have helped make Bright Lights into a unique voice.


Tell me how Bright Lights Film Journal came about.

I’d been fascinated by books and publishing, as well as film, from a young age. My parents were quite broad-minded, and let me read anything I wanted and also go to just about any movie I pleased. I gravitated to the grindhouses in downtown Cincinnati to watch genre movies by Roger Corman, Mario Bava, the AIP beach party movies, Douglas Sirk melodramas, and so on. So that formed an early interest in exploitation and marginal cinema. When I was 15, the Gebhardts, an arty couple next door, took me under their wing and introduced me to experimental and underground cinema – Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage, etc. And one of the local “art cinemas” exposed me to the canon of world cinema: Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and the rest of the gang.

I published my first zine in 1967 at 16, a collection of poems, stories, and drawings by the people on my street. After college (where I studied English Lit and film), I became a typesetter. I can see in hindsight that I must have had at least vague plans to continue self-publishing; that would explain the typesetting. I learned basic layout and became a film critic for the local rag where I worked. Other parts of the puzzle soon fell into place. My brother was a lithographer willing to lend his skills. And I was hooked up with a group of East Coast auteurists – mainly Howard Mandelbaum, Roger McNiven, Robert Smith, and Jeff Wise – who helped expand my taste and also had experience publishing zines and director monographs at the University of Connecticut. They also had access to a large archive of movie stills, spanning decades, which they let me use. In 1974 I sprung the first issue of Bright Lights on an unsuspecting public.

What were your goals when you launched Bright Lights as a print mag? Were you trying to serve a new niche in criticism?

In my pretentious youth, I did imagine I could provide an American version of the European auteurist magazines like Positif and Cahiers du Cinema, with articles inspired by (and inspiring) raging debates about the worth of this or that auteur, where he or she belonged in Sarris’s pantheon, etc. However, my own cinematic interests soon strayed outside hard-core auteurism into wanting to profile studios, genres, and actors. Also maligned genres like exploitation and erotica, and sociological and political slants, particularly film as cultural propaganda, were fascinating to me. So while Bright Lights did feature plenty of director studies and interviews, per the original mandate, there were other approaches to film that I was/am able to highlight. I also wanted to loosen things up by keeping the magazine hard to predict or pigeonhole. For example, mixing academic-style articles with more popular/populist ones – kind of like programming a double feature of, say, Mario Bava’s "Five Dolls for an August Moon" with Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman.

Was bringing Bright Lights to the internet a smooth transition? What new opportunities did the web provide you?

It was tricky in those early days. While I was a typesetter by trade, I had no programming knowledge and didn’t even know html. My pal George Brown (who had designed and produced some of the print issues) was more computer savvy and guided the transition in 1995. The issues were hand-coded, which took time. But the benefits of switching to digital were pretty quickly evident.

Take something as simple as a factual error. With print publication, I could put an erratum notice in the following issue; online, I simply went in and fixed it. On a bigger scale, the magazine’s reach was vast. I soon had readers in places like Iran and Yemen, where I could never have sent the print issues. (I did distribute the print issues outside the U.S., but only to Europe and Australia.) Eventually, there would be websites for ranking the site that told me who and where the readers were. It’s unlikely – impossible, really – that Bright Lights could have had 200,000 readers in a month in its print form. Online that’s our average, and sometimes it’s more.

The production process is simple, fast, and cheap these days. No pesky halftones, color separations, printing companies, maxed-out credit cards, partners threatening divorce because of neglect, etc. to worry about.

I also like the fact that there are no length restrictions. I could rarely accommodate a 12,000-word article in the print version of Bright Lights, but I’ve had a number of pieces that long online. I recently rejected a 20,000-word article but not just because of the length. It made sense to turn this into the book, and it will be soon, a book-length study of Carrie.

Another online plus is being able to correspond directly and immediately with readers, whether it’s addressing an error, reading a submission, or simply enjoying the camaraderie. It’s also easy to have the entire archive available to readers – a quite substantial one now that we’re working on Issue 67. And keeping the magazine free is easy since the production costs are so low. Though we are starting to look into ads lately.

Finally, unlike print publication where the magazine is a sort of monolithic entity, with online publishing there’s a kind of massive fragmentation at work. Readers can enter and exit a particular article without seeing or knowing anything about the rest of the magazine. That means I can include many different types of articles without worrying too much about rigid consistency, “brand identity,” and such.

What other publications were influential to Bright Lights, and which ones are still an inspiration?

Velvet Light Trap, Photon, and Cinema were three magazines I admired back then, along with Sight and Sound, Jump Cut, Cineaste, Films in Review, and Film Heritage. For those more fanboy moods, I read things like the late Castle of Frankenstein, Film Threat, Asian Trash Cinema, Psychotronic Video, and The Big Reel (recently folded into Classic Images). I continue to enjoy all of those magazines that are available (mostly online), and would single out Tim Lucas’s Video Watchdog as an outstanding publication.

What films/filmmakers do you like to cover? I know that Bright Lights has pages devoted to genres ranging from film noir to tranny cinema.

I like to keep the scope as wide as possible, to reflect the broadest taste and burrowing into little-known personalities and non-mainstream genres along with recent and mainstream stuff. Since I like everything from canonical works to exploitation and erotica to underground film to animation, I want the magazine to be equally inclusive. Isn’t that how many film fans experience cinema? Bright Lights' regular writers cover pretty much whatever they like, whether it’s Jack Stevenson discussing 1960s Danish porn or Alan Vanneman riffing on Chaplin or Imogen Smith profiling Tatsuya Nakadai. I’ve personally followed a lot of queer and tranny cinema over the years and like writing about it. I’ve also got a taste for obscurantism, and love featuring virtual unknowns like Japanese silent actress Tokuko Nagai Takagi, who died in 1919. Aaron Cohen managed to write her up for Bright Lights despite the fact that there don’t seem to be any pictures of her besides one postcard, much less any films!

Do you see online criticism as more democratic – in that more critical voices can chime in, and a larger variety of film forms can be discussed?

Definitely more democratic. Like everything the Internet touches, online film criticism is helping us loosen the stranglehold of an elite that determines what’s worthy of discussion and what’s not. Simply accepting what a self-appointed vanguard tells us is worthwhile kills creativity and imagination. Manny Farber and David Thomson are great, but so are David Hudson and Kim Morgan online. Between various websites and blogs, it’s possible to read detailed, passionate analyses of anything from Mizoguchi’s "Sansho the Bailiff" to such endearing dogs as "The Turkish Wizard of Oz." While venues like the New York Times still resonate as authoritative with some readers, people are increasingly just as likely to check out reviews by unknowns or lesser-knowns who post reviews on the Internet Movie Data Base or their own blogs and websites. Conventional wisdom isn’t necessarily wise.

How do you feel about the everyone's-a-critic blogosphere? Do you fear getting lost with a gazillion film sites out there?

Not really. I believe most people can differentiate between the “god this sucks!” fanboys and those who can say something new or meaningful about a film. Plus, not being driven by a single ideology or approach (except a leftist political orientation I won’t deny) should keep Bright Lights visible in the sea of competitors for the foreseeable future.

I enjoyed Jonathan Rosenbaum's foreword to your new book, Action!, in which he comments on the interview as a form of film criticism. What place do you feel the interview has in film culture?

Personally, I love reading interviews and believe others do, too. There’s nothing like going to the source, even if the source is an “unreliable narrator.” For anyone who wants the scoop on the circumstances of production, the director’s intention vs. the realization, even (or especially?) the more dishy aspects of director-actor relations on set, nothing beats an interview.

Rosenbaum refers to Truffaut's book-length interview with Hitchcock as a cornerstone in the critical form. What interview texts were influential to your creating this collection?

The Hitchcock/Truffaut book is indeed seminal, not least because this is two brilliant film artists in a robust, intimate conversation. Other useful books in the genre for me were Peter Bogdanovich’s The Devil Made Me Do It; Eric Sherman’s Directing the Film; and Andrew Sarris’s Interviews with Film Directors.

Some writers feel that the interview takes the criticism out of the critic's hands. Can you comment on this?

I’d say it doesn’t have to. If an interview is simply boilerplate, or if the director “steals” the interview from the interviewer without making it fresh or agreeing to some level of honesty or probing, it’s a problem. The best interviews should amount to a kind of de facto analysis based on the particular alchemy of two minds focused on one subject.

Do you think that a good interview can do the job of a mini critical biography? I know that the interviews in your book with great talkers, like Robert Wise and Peter Bogdanovich, seem really full bodied, while some are rather spare.

Absolutely. As with Bright Lights, I wanted the book to reflect a wide range of talents, eras, and even styles of interview – something for everybody. Kind of like a film festival where you have a shorts program, individual films, and director retrospectives. I like the idea of going to a book and finding something that matches my mood, whether for a brisk read or a more in-depth study. So that’s what I tried to do in mixing up short interviews focused on a single film to long ones that amount to a career overview.

Interviewers seem to bring a certain “personality” to their coverage. Have you seen this in any particular Bright Lights writers featured in your collection?

Yes. The Hitchcock/Truffaut book set the standard here, where the personality of the interviewer really brought out the interviewee. On a more modest scale, I think some of that happens in the Action! book. Bert Cardullo, for example, starts his interviews after a deep immersion in a filmmaker’s work, so the discussion is pretty authoritative, with Bert at times challenging subjects like Robert Bresson. Others, like Peter Rinaldi talking to Caveh Zahedi or Damon Smith chatting with Melvin and Mario van Peebles, bring a playful sensibility to the interview. Still others bring a big-picture approach to the chat based on their own world view. I’m thinking, for example, about Andrew Grossman’s interview of radical filmmaker and artist Otto Muehl, who served time in jail for breaching social conventions and breaking the law.

Do you prefer the q and a format over an article that integrates quotes from an interview subject?

We’ve published both, and both have their points. Sometimes you just want the direct quotes without the personality of the interviewer coming in. On the other hand, a talented writer can offer more context, and thus more potential insights, in a narrative interview. Sometimes it’s just fun to see where an interview takes the reader. In the Fellini interview, for instance, Toni Maraini draws the director into amazing areas like Carlos Castenada and dreams that both inform the film work and are far outside it.

I see that Action! includes a number of retrospective interviews. How important would you say such interviews are, as opposed to the usual “newsworthy” coverage of current stars/filmmakers?

Given the unprecedented degree of access to films past and present, it wouldn’t make sense to stick to contemporary stars or directors exclusively. The vaults are continually spilling open with their goodies. Examples: cable channels like Turner Classic Movies, Fear.net, Fox Movie Channel. Also the Warner Archive, which is selling rare titles dating back to the ‘20s that have never been on DVD. Apparently it’s quite a success, which tells me people are interested in culture period, irrespective of the era. Leaving out older films would be like studying art without checking out Vermeer or Picasso.

Would you say the online film publications must cover current releases in order to survive? Would a new classics-only publication face a quick death?

I’d be leery of starting any kind of “classics-only” publication in today’s climate, though I do read one: Classic Images. I’d say covering contemporary releases makes sense not just for survival, but also because you want to know what is happening film-wise right now. I just saw 2012, which was godawful on many levels but also had a raging subtext of deep anxiety and frustration with the status quo (adios, White House!). Movies reflect what is happening in our culture in a million ways, and being aware of what they are currently focusing on – even if you can’t stand them – seems important in understanding where we are right now as a society.

(Photo by Bob Moricz)

Context and Re-Context: Star Wars in Concert

Image by Nicco and David Ryan
Star Wars in Concert: Simulating the lava planet Mustafar.

Periodically, film societies, symphonies and universities will revive the silent film era, so modern audiences can experience a lost art of watching films. But a traveling orchestra accompanying a talkie? Clearly, such an experience is rare, and what makes Star Wars in Concert unique is that, for one night, this production recontextualized the art of watching films by redefining the elements of event and scene to help audiences analyze their memories of this interstellar soap opera.

With this process of re-identification in mind, I took my ten year old son, Nicco, to re-view old clips in a broader social setting. Though he has immersed himself in the Star Wars mythos the last few years, he has not seen the films in theaters much less with an orchestra, so this experience was new to him as well as the thousands of mostly middle-aged fans attending Arco Arena in Sacramento.

Though others have written about the behind-the-scenes aspect of this traveling production, there is still some need to explain further the ambitious, multi-media composition of the show, so let me first remark that the experience was impressively busy without veering into sensory overload. Most striking was the larger-than-theater-sized LED screen, full of sharp resolution and crisp imagery that illustrated Industrial Light and Magic’s many triumphs.

Part of the success of Star Wars can be attributed to George Lucas' sociological quest to blend the varying spheres of culture (class, in particular) into a unified work. From film to film, his project grew from illustrating archetypes to synthesizing classical, medieval, and popular influences, using aspects of comedy, drama, and epic while appropriating historical and literary characteristics from different cultures to shape a futuristic production that harkened the past. Whether or not one agrees with Lucas’s aesthetic judgments, he made some effective choices aimed at erasing cultural distinctions, blending ideas about classical poetics with the pop cultural demand for technological verisimilitude.

Here, this production places the complex cooperative of an orchestra at the center of a collaborative of technicians, editors, and writers. In many ways, this production illustrates how Lucas brings together elements of varying mediums that alternately appeal to different audiences. Though Lucas synthesized these differences, he did not craft a homogenized universe in his films. His stories made clear distinctions between right and wrong, contextualizing the dialectical relationship between good and evil, villainy and heroism, love and hate, a simple context that ironically worked to uphold class distinctions (yes, good guys are elitists, as they often are).

But what is central to Lucas’s vision is the argument that boundaries (even ones set by tyrants) can be transcended if one has talent, nerve and higher aspirations, so, correspondingly, this mixed-media production blended imperfectly but effectively what is good and inspirational between high and pop cultures, and, for an hour and half (plus an intermission), blend they did.

The orchestra occupied most of the stage while the chorus was, unfortunately, partitioned (largely unseen) behind the orchestra. In the orchestra's radius were a number of performative tropes: lasers, heat-intensive fireballs, plumes of cryogenic fog, and the fleet-footed Anthony Daniels, the sartorial narrator, well-disguised in the flesh, who mediated the association between high and pop cultures by periodically channeling the very character he portrays.

Though Daniels's performance was well-received, the audience was there to sample the work of John Williams. If there was ever a doubt that this project is supposed to bring aspects of high culture to the masses, please read the end of this Los Angeles Times blog. In this interview and another, Daniels is quoted as saying, among other things, that this symphonic production will help audiences develop a better understanding (if not an appreciation) of classical music. For certain, this production does allow people to see the complex labor of an orchestra--and that this confluence of live presentation and recorded imagery takes refinement to execute effectively.

However, I am not certain if the normative Star Wars audience will go see other symphonies, as Daniels seems to wish. There is some sympathy for his argument that one performance can be a source of civic education, but Daniels seems to believe that one direct experience with an orchestra (without much instruction) will help audiences develop more cultivated tastes. In order to validate this semi-didactic approach, one has to substitute a partial-truth for the whole. This hasty reasoning, however, should not confuse audiences for the real reason to attend the concert--honoring Williams and Lucas for understanding the audience's demand for performative excellence. And from a technical standpoint, the production roused the audience.

What is most interesting is that this process of artistic reconstruction (of blending live music, live performance, and live narrative--James Earl Jones does make a recorded cameo, however) uses the interaction of sight, sound and collective memory to prompt the audience into recalling certain memories into present consciousness. This process is meant to exercise the boundaries of thought and allow the audience to re-assess its memories of the films.

However, there are some problems. The oral narrative just doesn’t do enough to direct the audience into re-viewing old reels in new and different ways. Rather, the narrative settles into the bottoms of nostalgia by avoiding some fundamental questions about art, memory and metamorphosis. For example, in what sense does a live performance alter our visual memories? Even aural ones? How does repetition, music and narrative allow an audience to create new perspectives by discarding insufficient ones? Certainly, such challenges could have been addressed by the narrative, but the production seemed to reduce everything to its simplest forms.

Some footlings: overall, the visual sequences stayed with the chronological order of the narrative, though the sequences did not always honor its chaptered themes; the chorus nary got a mention nor garnered much visual emphasis--something, I thought, they richly deserved; and the Han Solo segment seemed too short when, clearly, the audience wanted more Soloisms with their heroisms. For the encore, the Imperial March was a popular if not a predictable choice, and the orchestra seemed to take some liberties with the tempo.

More importantly, and somewhat disappointingly, audiences who have followed this franchise over the past three decades are apt not to discover new things about the characters or stories. Nevertheless, the interplay of live music, narrative and digitized clips departed from the norms of artistic expression, so the audience, my son included, enjoyed the cinematic and acoustical renderings as a way to usher in a new aesthetic context for our performance-centered culture.