Side Shots Film Blog

Review: "Mid-August Lunch"

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Hall) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:22:00 +0000

Gianni Di Gregorio directs and stars in this mild light comedy about a middle-aged unemployed Roman named Gianni who is living with his 93-year-old mother in a condominium apartment. Amidst mounting debts – including an electric bill that has not been paid in three years – Gianni agrees to look after the building manager’s elderly mother during the Pranzo di Ferragosto, the Italian summer holiday. However, the manager sticks Gianni with both his mother and an elderly aunt. Complicating matters, Gianni’s physician deposits his elderly mother in exchange for excusing Gianni’s unpaid medical bills.

“Mid-August Lunch” has an interesting set up – four elderly women and a beleaguered comically-oriented man getting along in an increasingly cramped setting. Unfortunately, the film never really clicks. Di Gregorio’s screen presence is too benign to make any impact; his character is so thoroughly lacking in personality that it is difficult to imagine why he would anchor the film around such a dull man.

Even worse, the quartet of elderly ladies lack any significant depth or scope to be taken seriously as individuals. Each elderly woman seems like a caricature rather than a character, and it is difficult to connect with these non-dimensional interpretations of the elderly. The one scene that could have had impact – where the building manager’s mother escapes from the apartment to enjoy drinking and smoking at an outdoor café – is executed in such a flat and stolid manner that any possible fun leaks out before the scene runs its course.

At 75 minutes, “Mid-August Lunch” is also surprisingly short as a feature film. A longer running time may have provided it with more plot possibilities or more texture for the characters. As it stands, this “Lunch” feels more like an unsatisfactory appetizer than a satisfying main course.

"Mid-August Lunch"
Directed and written by Gianni Di Gregorio, produced by Matteo Garrone, cinematography by Gian Enrico Bianchi, editing by Marco Spoletini.
Starring Gianni Di Gregorio, Valeria De Franciscis, Marina Cacciotti, Maria Cali.
75 minutes. A Zeitgeist Films Release.

Retro Cinema: "Pink Flamingos"

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Hall) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:22:00 +0000

The problem with cult movies is that the viewer is who not part of the cult following is often left confused at what the fuss is all about. I experienced this recently in watching John Waters’ 1972 “Pink Flamingos” for the very first time.

The “Pink Flamingos” cult is clearly anchored in a specific time and place – in this case, the midnight movie circuit of the 1970s and early 1980s, when cinemas reserved their 12:00am slots on Fridays and Saturdays for a number of weird flicks. The midnight movie favorites never quite made a positive impression during regular theater hours – “El Topo,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Eraserhead” achieved classic status in this after hours setting after being rejected by mainstream critics and audiences of the era.

But whereas “El Topo” and “Eraserhead” can still command attention with their bizarre visual style and “Rocky Horror” can set off a wave of smiles with its insouciant flair, “Pink Flamingos” comes into the 21st century looking like a badly dated misfit of a movie. The genuine gross-out sequences that set “Pink Flamingos” apart in 1972 – most infamously, the chicken f**king encounter and Divine’s consuming of dog feces – created a new bar for inappropriate comedy.

But most of the shock value that Waters served up seems fairly tame when compared to mainstream flicks and prime time television shows that casually incorporate references to homosexuality, masturbation, body fluids and flatulence into their humor. When one considers what Howard Stern is saying on the radio or what the Farrelly Brothers have put in their mainstream films or what turns up on cable TV, "Pink Flamingos" is somewhat benign.

This is not to say that the film is completely lacking. Waters’ gift for camp dialogue and the cartoonish excessiveness of his weirdo ensemble – particularly massive Edith Massey sitting in an oversized playpen – are still able to bring about smiles. And the hidden camera segment with Divine attracting bewildered stares as he/she strolls in full dress and make-up through a predominantly African American section of downtown Baltimore needs to be seen to be believed.

What is surprising today (at least for someone watching the film for the first time) is the amateurish nature of the production. Perhaps the expectations of filmgoers have evolved so greatly that it is impossible to imagine any contemporary audience paying to see such a crudely made feature as this glorified home movie. Even the bottom feeders among contemporary low budget filmmaking strive for visual pizazz with HD cinematography and digital sound.

In the 1970s, however, the demented cheapo aspects of the Waters’ film style helped give him a degree of outlaw cred among underground movie fans – his work felt like anti-movies, if you will, due to their intentional lack of technical finesse. (The film’s soundtrack of 1950s doo-wop music starts and stops so abruptly that you can actually imagine Waters’ dropping and lifting his phonograph needle from his worn-out record collections.)

Though, on second thought, maybe my problem with “Pink Flamingos” is that I came too late to the film. Outside of its period, it seems like a zany curio. In its time, it must have a blast to behold. Alas, perhaps I arrived too late for the fun?

"Pink Flamingos"
1972, Directed by John Waters
Starring Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey

The Psychology of a Narrative: The Hurt Locker

noreply@blogger.com (David Ryan) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:13:00 +0000

By David Ryan

From coast to coast, the recent discussions about The Hurt Locker illustrate the audience’s varying and conflicting needs regarding works of fiction. On one hand, director Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal would argue that the inaccuracies in their drama do not detract from the artistic merits of their film. On the other hand, segments of their audience have decried that a film that strives for verisimilitude undermines its credibility when it plays with the facts. This disagreement is worth studying briefly, for it provides a context for understanding the relationship between filmmakers and their audiences.

When Paul Greengrass was making United 93, he made clear distinctions between the hypothetical audience who might watch his film and his intended audience. In an unusual move, he directly solicited the latter (9/11 survivors, flight controllers, etc.) to create a docudrama that met their specific needs. When Greengrass committed to this empathic approach, he narrowed his artistic choices. Rather than rely solely on his creative imagination, he used storytelling as a problem-solving medium to address some audience-related issues. For United 93, the result is a paradoxical work that is both deeply personal and broad in its arguments.

Greengrass understands that movies are a part of reality and history—that artistic invention and cinematic production are social and rhetorical practices that do not merely reflect reality but help audiences create and re-create reality. Because audiences don’t always understand the broader formations of factual sequences, they study fictive texts to construct a personal understanding of historical events. Consequently, works of fictive realism (with its blending of symbolism and empiricism) often supplant the work of more authentic, reportorial narratives, and Greengrass understands the complicated role fictive influences play in this complicated, perceptual context.

The critical discussions about The Hurt Locker are not so much about the anachronisms or the historicism that the filmmakers employ; rather, the debate centers on the questionable behavior of Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) and his work in the Explosives Ordnance Disposal unit. The film’s oft-cited premise is that James is some sort of war junkie, and his addictions needlessly endanger his unit. Bigelow explains in Newsweek: “'War's dirty little secret is that some men love it,’ she says. ‘I'm trying to unpack why, to look at what it means to be a hero in the context of 21st-century combat.'"

Although Bigelow’s contextualizing is interesting, the premise of the film doesn't necessarily strike new ground (read Homer for why war stirs men's desires while simultaneously extinguishing such desires). To their credit, Bigelow and Boal create a narrative with its own internal logic (with stated premises and conclusions), but the film also creates some problems, for Bigelow-Boal seem to have built their film on a fallacy, one that service personnel (and former service members) have spotted, a fallacy that undermines the consistency of the film.

In this brief analysis, it is helpful to paraphrase the protest argument, and it goes something like this: James’s behavior is a trope of artistic invention, and his manners would not be tolerated by a professional class of soldiers; therefore, the film’s portrayal of the EOD distorts their work in favor of sensationalism. Given the power of fictional narratives, Bigelow-Boal’s film is deceptive because their straw man will be hastily (mis)interpreted as representing routinized American soldiering.

This argument is fair, but there are deeper problems with character development. It is clear that Bigelow-Boal sympathize with James, but the problem is that they show little empathy for his development because they rely on a slim psychological profile to characterize his actions. In their portrait, we witness the sergeant violate EOD protocols and transgress Army regulations. We witness him suffering in isolation as well as fighting with his unit. Because of these circumstances, we are left to digest the simple argument that addiction to war alone explains his risky behavior. Clearly, this deduction is the filmmaker's intent.

Realistically, this sequencing is hardly convincing, for addictions often have associative precursors, and the filmmakers are unclear about the origins of his addiction. What is also unclear is whether his addiction is physical, emotional or psychological (neurological?). In a simplistic context, the film frames his addiction as a disorder based on his work, one that creates stress, resulting in, perhaps, depression, and this trauma diminishes James’s ability to maintain relationships. Unfortunately, for a film that focuses on character development, his psychological profile is too shallow by far to understand.

Given the depth of a normative psychological profile, the weight of this stress doesn’t quite affect other important areas of his life. For example, his memory, concentration, and ability to focus on his tasks seem to be unaffected. In fact, the film focuses on the strength of his hyper-vigilance as he works against a network of combatants-cum-terrorists who are, in many ways, setting traps not just to kill him but to study his methods. His vigilance also allows him to examine his enemies by keeping bits of forensic evidence of the bombs he has dissembled. On the surface, he functions well enough to earn the accolades of a superior (David Morse) yet avoids the detection of the unit shrink (Christian Camargo). No doubt, the brass misreads him, but his unit does not. Here, we surmise that the sergeant is functionally dysfunctional on the slippery path to a breakdown.

However, as a character, James seems far less addicted to war than he is drawn to contexts in which his diminished psycho-pathology is served by high risk behaviors. This more obvious and specific (and less grandiose) premise makes more sense as James seems to seek the rush of adrenaline to triumph over his fears, fill his apparent loneliness, and compensate for his inadequacy as a husband and parent (intimacy issues surface when he fails to find satisfaction with Evangeline Lilly at home). This closer (and optimistic) reading of The Hurt Locker, again, seems to better explain his behaviors, but the narrative doesn’t quite make the psychological connections clearly enough to fully understand.

This lack of insight is probably part of the reason why certain audiences have dismissed the film, for Bigelow-Boal’s yearning to portray a heroic war junkie is undermined by a character whose portrait is hard to comprehend. Good docudramas offer compelling psychological portraits of their characters, but The Hurt Locker scrimps too much on character insight in favor of emotional and physical display.

Boal spent time in Iraq in 2004, and he stated that his experiences allowed him to develop sympathy for American troops. If he did develop an empathic understanding (to see things frame their frame of reference, understand their fears, their courage, their perspective), however, this empathy isn't inscribed in James, for Boal seemed to create an aloof character that pleased his own imagination rather than one who reflects the credibility of the troops he said he came to admire. This approach contrasts sharply with Greengrass’s intensely empathic work on United 93, and Bigelow-Boal could have done better to understand how to synthesize personal accounts with their narrative.

Audiences, however, have an obligation to work harder to interpret films, too. The Hurt Locker’s structural principle is based on understanding the binary between James and his unit. Here, Bigelow-Boal effectively develop his supporting unit (Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty) to illustrate that James, the straw man, though good at defusing bombs, is a ticking one, too (yes, the metaphor isn't very subtle), and that he is too wayward in his addiction to belong to a disciplined army because his behavior is not normative. Meaning, part of the film's argument is that his irregular actions do not represent the actions of regular soldiers, an important point that has been largely overlooked in the critical discussions of the film.

Interestingly, the film raises the idea that James seems to fit better with a force of contractors who appear in the film, a covert group far out in the desert, on the fringes, dislocated in their distress and in need of rescuing. But such connections go without much development, for The Hurt Locker leaves us with a narrative that blends fiction with empiricism, poetic license with documented realism, fallacy with truth, binaries that work to create its own cogent yet confusing arguments about war.

The Hurt Locker
Rated R
Voltage Pictures
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Written by Mark Boal
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty.

Mythologizing Identity: The Lightning Thief

noreply@blogger.com (David Ryan) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:00:00 +0000

by David Ryan

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is based on Rick Riordan’s first Percy Jackson novel, one of my ten-year old son's favorites. Because this series is aimed primarily at boys (Perseus is 12 years old in the first book), Riordan places aspects of classical mythology rather than philosophy at the thematic center. This context for approaching classicism allows young readers to expand their mythological references and strengthen their literary footing in their climb toward the more complicated (and bloodier) primary sources.

As the film opens, a teenage Percy (Logan Lerman) lives an ordinary life fret with personal problems, and his awakening to his true identity begins with a false accusation: someone has stolen Zeus’s lightning bolt, and Zeus (Sean Bean) accuses Percy, an offspring of Poseidon. To compel Percy to return the weapon, Hades, Zeus’s brother, kidnaps Percy’s mortal mom and imprisons her in his House of Hades, so the innocent yet angry Percy strikes out to save her. Though there are plenty of conflicts along the way, his quest is really a search for cognition, one in which he discovers his talents, his purpose, his identity.

In Chris Columbus and Craig Titley’s adaptation, the story focuses on Percy’s growing awareness about the nature of his true identity, for, in the first part of the film, Percy’s familial relations are limited and his social imagination is stunted because, in Jose Ortega y Gasset's famous phrase, he has been emptied of his history. These incongruities, however, begin to cohere as he labors to understand the gravity of his inheritance.

Overall, the film creates enough interesting situations involving some antiquated villains, and there is one mesmerizing scene when Percy and his friends travel to the underworld, but the film’s most interesting argument contends that society undermines the young because they lack a good understanding of history; this problem isn’t their fault, however, for adults have formulated history as a subject fit for mass consumption (class lectures, museums, etc.) rather than developing it as organic matter for individual learning.

Thankfully, the film’s attitude toward historical relevance veers from the more recent youth-targeted films that argue that the importance of history is best understood when one interacts with artifacts and replicas (the Night at the Museum films). Rather, the Lightning Thief’s tenor is more inspired because it views history as material essential for the development of the self. This argument is not based on democratic beliefs, however, for Percy and his demi-god relatives are the only ones who understand this concept. Nevertheless, Percy’s apotheosis can inspire young minds to explore older narratives to understand their inherited cultures and, perhaps, help them realize that they, too, have an organic rather than an artificial relationship with history.

What is valuable about a mythologizer like Riordan is that his preoccupation with history can help young minds contextualize older narratives--particularly narratives that teach argument. Here, he argues that young people can find personal connections to heroic stories because these narratives contain fundamental ideas about identity. For the Lightning Thief, heroic identities are important because they help form the moral basis of courage, and the film underscores the relationship between individual revelation and public values as a means of improving personal relationships, sustaining stronger societies, and, just as important, helping younger audiences render judgments about right and wrong.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
20th Century Fox
Rated PG
Directed by Chris Columbus
Screenplay by Craig Titley

A Really Irritable Dream: Scorsese's "Shutter Island"

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Sorrento) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:31:00 +0000

De Niro's long since served as an inspiration to Scorsese – it now appears that the paycheck is the actor's main motivation. He hasn't worked for the filmmaker since the 1990s, when the former starred in the powerfully creepy remake of “Cape Fear.” In this film, the director tributed classic crime with a modern, more visceral twist. More recently, aside from "The Departed," Scorsese has returned to the classical style, with “The Aviator” and even “Gangs of New York.” In these tributes, Leonardo DiCaprio has become his new muse.

Leo has enough power and persuasion to reflect the old-time leading men. He has filled out nicely from the bratty matinee idol of “Titanic” and the like. Scorsese casted him in his new film, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's “Shutter Island,” since the director aims to tribute Hollywood more than any of his other projects have. The film begins with a Lost Island motif, though this one houses a 1950s insane asylum in lieu of a strange creature. A classical score thrusts an old-school feeling to this film, which ends up equally influenced by Robin Hardy's "The Wicker Man."

US Marshall Teddy Daniels is out to find a missing person, as does the investigator in the 1973 Hammer Studios-toned film. This high stylization suggests that Scorsese has something up his sleeve. The visual design of the island as Marshall Daniels and cohort Chuck Aule (often badge-wearing Mark Ruffalo) approach looks like something out of a CGI-crafted fantasy, and when the film, during an interrogation scene, shifts the lighting between shots, we see more than just Godardian playful formalism. The point of view is hard to trust; it's hardly a spoiler to know that this pseudo-reality is really an overblown fantasy, Scotch-taped together into a storyline.

Scorsese has never used true surrealism. His closest venture would be “After Hours,” which is really a picaresque one-night journey reaching the bizarre. The filmmaker's work is too grounded in narrative clarity, even if his endings may play with expectation, as does “The Departed's.” In Shutter Island, he wants subjective narrative logic and tosses in multiple perspectives of the same reality, such as one female character taking on many persons. Too often these multiples conflict and work against Scorsese's investigation-based structure. Repeated dream sequences serve as red herrings, to suggest that the realism is merely disrupted by brief interludes into our main character's head. Scorsese uses the tone for some creepy effect, with a sure handed style of suspense from yore (look out for a “Spellbound” ref and a nod to “Double Indemnity” near the end). But the film remains a stale realism-is-really-fantasy trick, and the tone can't save the narrative falling out.

"Shutter Island"
2010, 138 min.
Directed by Martin Scorsese
With Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, and Ben Kingsley
Released by Paramount Pictures

Sundance Film Festival Review: 8: The Mormon Proposition

whitneyborup@yahoo.com (whitney) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:27:00 +0000

by Whitney Borup

As far as I’m concerned, 8: The Mormon Proposition has its heart in the right place. But, I’m coming from avery biased position. 8 attacks the church in ways that will be construed as manipulative and underhanded and, therefore, will end up preaching to the choir. Then again, Mormons are up to the same techniques in their political corner, so maybe you have to fight fire with fire.

To start, I need to come right out and say that I was raised Mormon, but haven’t attended church regularly since 2002. It has been a long 7 years, full of drama and tears, and I could relate to the ex-Mormons in the film more than I can express in writing. A lot has changed in the church since I was a member, but these particular issues were raging 7 years ago, too. I’m familiar with the hurt and fury behind the issues of gay rights as they concern the LDS church. I could never write an objective review.

That said, I could still recognize the factually…um….iffy…moments in the film that will decrease its validity to those in the know. As far as I know, for example, Mormons don’t believe God had multiple wives. And it is not established doctrine that there will be polygamy in heaven. That said, it’s not gospel principles that are really the subject of the documentary (though the filmmakers certainly use their interpretations of these principles as forms of manipulation). And the information they give surrounding Proposition 8, as far as I’m aware, is accurate.

With a subject as dividing as this one, presentation is key, and 8: The Mormon Proposition does not seem to concern itself with any attempt at conversion. The first image of the film is a creepy, distorted video of prominent Mormon leaders discussing what they see to be an important moral issue at stake in 2008’s election. The video streamed via the internet through a perfectly clear webcam, so the distortion is on the part of Cowan and Greenstreet, who use such a removed, foreign image to automatically position viewers politically. 8 continues to utilize sound distortions and eerie music to manipulate viewers into thinking that the LDS church is more than just an extremely conservative group: it’s a criminal organization, akin to the mafia.

What’s frustrating, is that the film is convincing enough without all the transparent manipulations. The facts stand up on their own! The Mormon church was the leading organization behind the “Yes on Prop 8″ campaigns. They contributed the most amount of money. This led to many LGBT supporters to finally leave the church. Chris Butters is an asshole. Many LGBT kids in Mormon families suffer tremendously. The interviews with the families affected by this issue should be enough without all the conspiracy theories, and would provide a much more compelling/convincing approach to a delicate issue.

8: The Mormon Proposition will be affective on both sides. On my side of the fence the film produces righteous injustice; and on the other side it produces….righteous injustice. While this kind of ranting and raving can be very therapeutic, I doubt that this is the documentary that will promote policy change.

8: The Mormon Proposition
Directed: Reed Cowan and Steven Greenstreet
USA, 80 min.

Retro Cinema: "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever"

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Hall) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:38:00 +0000

Vincente Minnelli’s 1970 adaptation of the Alan Jay Lerner-Burton Lane musical “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” has widely been dismissed as a failure, although the film has generated a small cult following that consider it to be an overlooked gem. As with the case of many critical extremes, opinions have been overcooked.

If the film never truly clicks, blame is not due entirely on Minnelli – his original production, created as a three-hour roadshow presentation, was brutally chopped by Paramount Pictures prior to its release. One hour of footage, including six Lerner-Lane songs, was jettisoned, resulting in a film that often feels like a half-told tale full of choppy storylines and sketchy characters. (A fully restored director’s cut has yet to materialize.)

But devoting a cult following to this title is equally wrongheaded, since the film is simply too light and rickety to warrant serious attention. And while the cult following is centered on Barbra Streisand’s kinetic starring performance, this is not a one-woman film and no one else in the cast comes close to matching her energy and gusto.

On the surface, the plot is fascinating: Streisand plays Daisy Gamble, a kooky New York college student who seeks the help of a psychiatrist to cure her cigarette addiction. The psychiatrist uses hypnosis as part of his therapy, but he accidentally taps into a regression where the contemporary Daisy recalls a previous life as Melinda, a scandalous early 19th century English aristocrat. The psychiatrist finds himself smitten with Melinda, not realizing that Daisy mistakenly believes he loves her.

To its credit, the film presents Streisand with an extraordinary vehicle that she drives peerlessly. Her Daisy is a variation of the raucous Fanny Brice-Dolly Levi persona she nailed in her first two films, but Melinda provides her with a level of glamour and daring that took her star power to a new level. Thanks to Harry Stradling’s cinematography and Cecil Beaton’s period costumes, Streisand epitomizes Regency-era chic. Plus, her attempts at various English accents (both royal court posh and Cockney growl) are genuinely entertaining, and few things are funnier than hearing the girl from Brooklyn shouting out, “‘Allo, mum!”

But beyond Streisand, the film is somewhat lacking. French star Yves Montand, in a rare Hollywood foray, is too bland as the psychiatrist – he seems more indifferent than intrigued by Daisy/Melinda, and his line readings are so emotionless that the performance often seems phonetic. The film’s heavy editing also took away whatever depth was originally given to the supporting characters. Thus, the input of Bob Newhart as a humorless college president, Larry Blyden as Daisy’s uptight fiancé, John Richardson as the ne’er-do-well hottie who ultimately drives Melinda to ruin and Jack Nicholson as Daisy’s ex-stepbrother and possible suitor are reduced to one-dimensional commentary on the Daisy/Melinda dynamo. (Nicholson, incredibly, was given a solo musical number that was among the chopped footage.)

As for the score, this was among the weakest of the Lerner-Lane collaborations; only the title song has any verve, and that receives a pair of very different interpretations (Montand’s anemic light ballad rendition and Streisand’s out-of-the-park belting). The film may have actually worked better if the score was dropped and the story was presented as a straightforward comedy, since Minnelli’s staging of the musical number is curiously stagnant (mostly stationary camerawork focused in medium shots) and the songs often seem to halt the action rather than enhance it.

If “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” never truly soars, it also never truly sinks. Despite its numerous faults, it succeeds as a Streisand showcase – and for those who are simply satisfied with that set-up, it provides perfectly satisfactory (albeit art-free) entertainment.

"On a Clear Day You Can See Forever"
1970, Musical, 129 minutes
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Starring Barbra Streisand, Yves Montand and Jack Nicholson

DVD Review: "The Best of Match Game"

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Hall) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:12:00 +0000

Unlike other classic 1970s TV games shows, the appeal of “Match Game” had more to do with comedy than competition. Quite frankly, no one tuned in to root for plucky contestants or to get caught up in the addictive nature of the game. Instead, the audience was hypnotized by the show’s offbeat personality – something akin to a slightly-out-of-control cocktail party full of wild innuendo-soaked humor.

“The Best of Match Game” offers 30 episodes from the daytime cult favorite, where a sextet of bawdy second-tier entertainers traded quips, insults and naughty punchlines. Gene Rayburn was the rambunctious host who barely kept the house in order – his observations on buxom physiques, smooching of pretty starlets and excess delight in setting up the smutty fill-in-the-blank questions added to the program’s adult party vibe.

In retrospect, it is astonishing that much of the show’s material was able to get past CBS censors – clearly, there were no other programs on daytime television during that era that provided such blatantly suggestive humor. (The notion of Ronald McDonald posing naked for Playgirl Magazine was actually among the tamer jokes!) If the show left very little to the imagination, it clearly offered plenty of attention to the funny bone.

Although the show occasionally attracted bona fide entertainment icons – Shelley Winters, Rita Moreno, Ethel Merman and Joan Collins made guest appearances – the majority of the “stars” were B- and even C-list talent barely known for supporting roles in television programs. Richard Dawson, Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly were series regulars for the bulk of the show’s nine-year run, and their daffy insouciance spiced the show’s edgy humor. A rotating circle of semi-regulars including wild women Betty White and Fannie Flagg plus off-the-wall Patti Deutsch kept the arched-eyebrow humor flowing, while remaining panel seats inevitably went to performers whose stardom was fleeting in the 1970s and probably unknown today to anyone under 40. (JoAnn Pflug? Bart Braverman? Scoey Mitchell? Elaine Joyce?)

This DVD’s special features include extended interviews with Brett Somers taped before her death in 2007, plus a rare kinescope of the pilot of the show’s long-forgotten 1960s forerunner, a more sedate Q&A quiz known as “The Match Game.”

For those who survived the 1970s intact, or for those who weren’t around and have no clue why any mention of that decade still raises smirks, this DVD is a godsend. And no matter how many times you watch it, there is no way to get away from giggling over the likes of Gene Rayburn’s comically insinuating reading of lines like, “Did you catch a glimpse of that girl on the corner? She has the world's biggest – blank!”

“The Best of Match Game”
Four-disc DVD anthology
Distributed by Mill Creek Entertainment

DVD Reviews: Afghan Muscles and Bigger, Stronger, Faster

noreply@blogger.com (David Ryan) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:30:00 +0000

by David Ryan

George Butler and Robert Fiore's Pumping Iron debuted 33 years ago, focusing on a number of bodybuilders, including Arnold Schwarzenegger. Because so few documentaries give us insight into an improbable kind of hyper-masculinized identity, briefly contextualizing two recent efforts with Butler and Fiore's film seems useful.

Afghan Muscles and Bigger, Stronger, Faster: The Side Effects of Being American examine the Adonis Complex from different perspectives—one from a rhetorical context (about how definitions of masculinity are defined and debated), and, the other, how a culture views a specific kind of male beauty standard.

Afghan Muscles follows Hamid, a flyweight Afghan bodybuilder, as he trains, travels and competes in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Despite familial pressure to start a family, Hamid hopes to open a gym. In this mini-case study, director Andreas Dalsgaard makes some simple choices when characterizing Hamid by contrasting his highly individualistic work with the broader formations of Afghan culture, a culture based largely on group identities.

This contrastive approach is mildly interesting, but Dalsgaard doesn't delve explicitly into his subject enough to answer some simple questions. For example, why does Hamid desire to stand apart from the ordinary Afghan male? Why is bodybuilding growing as a sport in Afghanistan as the documentary implies? Afghan Muscles claims that champion bodybuilders win fame and honor for their clan, yet the film doesn't quite explain how or why, so the social context for understanding bodybuilding (and Hamid's efforts) in Afghanistan is presented without much insight.

When the documentary turns to the competitions, we see the intensity (and some pettiness, too) we've come to expect from watching Pumping Iron while ineptness, too, is offered by some bodybuilding officials. Most interestingly, the film carefully sidesteps the issue of steroids, though one suspects that some of the competitors at Mr. Asia might be using, for the presence of gynecomastia raises suspicions but offers, of course, no definitive proof. Such an example does not condemn the displays of bodybuilding, but it does raise the issue of fairness when Hamid competes against people who have more resources and are willing to transgress certain boundaries.

Clearly, bodybuilding is not so much about health as it is about aesthetics, but what does this kind of aesthetic medium teach us about Afghanistan, about how identities are formed and expressed within its many cultural practices? Is the sport truly more popular than buzkashi, futbol, or cricket, as the documentary's promotional materials claim? Though Dalsgaard had a chance to delve into the differences between westernism and modernism as such paradigms work in Afghanistan's complicated culture, the film has few aspirations beyond treating Hamid and this sport as case-study curiosities.

With more ambition and an ironist’s perspective, Bigger, Stronger, Faster: The Side Effects of Being American focuses on the lowly pop culture obsession with comic book heroics. Here, hyperbolic images of masculinity—ones based on comic book heroes, pro wrestlers, bodybuilders, and even Olympic athletes—are measured by their impact on the lives of three brothers.

According to Christopher Bell, the director, narrator and the middle sibling, representations of heroism occur frequently in popular American narratives, many of which are enacted upon by young American males—some with sad consequences. Here, the interesting question, and one that fails to get answered, is why? Why are such stories told repeatedly? Why did these brothers choose, as the film leads us to deduce, the wrong role models to emulate? Bell has few answers, but he does offer some clues.

Interestingly, the documentary contextualizes pop culture heroism with the American pursuit of exceptionalism. This cultural synthesis, Bell seems to argue, places the ordinary individual (recreational athletes, especially) in a precarious position of taking performance enhancing substances (PES), even steroids. Bell's argument leads us to conclude that American males tend to conceptualize personal strength with social respect, one that an ordinary life full of important responsibilities (of whom Bell's dad seems to embody) doesn't seem to offer. But Bell quickly points out that in the leap for social respect, steroid users suffer from a lapse of self-respect, for they are clearly bothered by the deceptive tactics they use to conceal their use of PES.

For Bell, deception is part of the complicated rhetorical context when people argue about the relationship between drugs and performance. The film interviews experts, politicians, parents, and athletes to illustrate and demonstrate the rhetorical exegesis regarding steroids, and, from the film’s perspective, the most effective arguments—the ones that move politicians and affect public policy—are the very emotional ones that distort the issues. When clarity and sobriety are needed, policymakers are persuaded by the emotional appeals of well-meaning but biased witnesses, particularly a parent of a teen who committed suicide.

The debate becomes murkier because of the media's extemporaneous and sensationalized discussions of steroids. One of the film’s many points is that the media's use of empirical evidence (and use of pathos) often trumps the forensic evidence presented by honest researchers because such research is either ignored or becomes disfigured in the media's hands. Bell's arguments for a proper understanding of anabolic steroids makes good sense, and his effort does well in underscoring the demagoguery involved in creating public policy, but only in its conclusion does the documentary falter, an ending in which America is condemned for attacking and supporting cheaters.

The problem is that the documentary frames much of American life by focusing on the theater of pop culture, the kind of culture that Bell and his brothers have embraced. This reductionism is problematic, of course, because there is more to America than this narrow context—no matter how popular pro wrestling was when Bell grew up. For most Americans, pro wrestling, comic book and movie heroes—even bodybuilders—are contextualized as ideations of masculine fantasies.

But Bell is a clever documentarian, for he briefly broadens his scope to look at military pilots, symphonic musicians and students who take PES to better understand how the desire for exceptionalism is ingrained in mainstream American culture. Clearly, non-athletes use PES to improve their performances, but why? Bell seems to surmise that competitive Americans strive to make themselves more exceptional in order to gain more respect.

No doubt, his thesis is interesting, but there are problems with clarity. At times, Bell says he’s opposed to steroids; a bit later, he says he’s on the fence. Then, we discover he used to use them. Clearly, Bell is too involved in his own project to be a sober documentarian. But his example illustrates one weakness of empirical research, where the researcher puts his own needs—at times—above the needs of his subject. And this circumstance makes some of his observations unreliable.

However, Bell’s weakness as an empiricist is part of the film’s appeal. His examination of his family creates some difficult but interesting circumstances for his mother as well as one of his brothers, a competitive weightlifter who helps coach high school football. There are awkward scenes in which this coach has clearly deceived his impressionable (and underaged) players, and this deception is part of the complexities of how people use deceptive tactics to be persuasive communicators of public values, and an honest researcher has to untangle the effective lies from the slippery truths.

Bell’s approach certainly accounts for such complexities, but his use of his family to make some poignant criticisms of American culture is inductively and hastily problematic because his argument is based largely on emotive appeals. And that’s the logical trap that Bell has willingly stepped into: criticizing emotive appeals (as they relate to steroids) but conceding that his arguments, too, are often framed by such appeals.

Afghan Muscles and Bigger, Stronger, Faster bring a mindful audience back to Butler and Fiore's insightful study of bodybuilders, the film that raised the profile of Lou Ferrigno and Schwarzenegger. Though Pumping Iron lapses in some critical areas, it is a superior project in terms of contextualizing the relationship between personal ethics, individual achievement, and the allures of the Adonis. Butler and Fiore's effort brought popular attention to an interesting kind of obsession with improbable male beauty standards.

However, Bell's effort is a worthy companion that examines how public policy is influenced by the heavy pathos of popular culture as he argues that certain men are drawn to a bright stage—and will make every effort to get there—even if they get burned.

Afghan Muscles (2007)
Directed by Andreas Dalsgaard

Bigger, Stronger, Faster: The Side Effects of Being American (2008)
Directed by Christopher Bell

DVD Review: Che - Criterion Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Baxter) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:33:00 +0000

By Jessica Baxter

Steven Soderbergh is certainly one of the most intriguing directors of all time. He was, and continues to be, a pioneer of independent filmmaking, whilst simultaneously leading a double life as a successful mainstream filmmaker. He makes no apologies for either incarnation. He has no need to. It’s likely that most of the people buying tickets to the “Oceans” films have no idea that “Che” even exists. And he continues to feed his indie audience with challenging films that leave them little room to complain about selling out. Though it cost almost as much as one of his mainstream films, the $65 million “Che” is not your typical Hollywood biopic. There’s very little back-story, romance, and certainly no cheesy revelatory moments that spoon-feed the uninitiated as to how Ernesto “Che” Guevara came to be a face on dorm room walls. Instead, it gets right to the meat of the revolution, giving the reasons behind the t-shirt packaged rebellion without condoning or admonishing it. This is not an origin story. We’re just thrown into the action, seeing him do what made him famous.

The story is told in two parts. The first, titled “The Argentine”, deals principally with the behind-the-scenes of the Cuban Revolution, occasionally narrated by an interview that Guevara gave in New York in 1964 and inter-cut with a controversial speech he gave to the U.N. It’s an exciting, non-partisan look at a man who was considered a freedom-fighter by some and a murderer by others. Part two, entitled “Guerilla”, skips ahead several years to Che’s fall in Bolivia as he fails to rinse and repeat his Cuban success.

It’s a riveting film, but not exactly light viewing. I’m rarely convinced that any film needs to be over three hours long, even when broken into two parts. There were certainly moments where it could have been trimmed down. But it’s also incredibly focused. So much so that college professors from many different departments could make a case for the educational properties of this epic. Written from Che’s diaries and other factual source materials, it’s part war film, part history lesson, and part political treatise. “The Argentine”, in particular, is chock full of thoughtful dialogue about a thoughtful revolution.

Benicio Del Toro is astoundingly at ease in Guevara’s skin. During the black and white sequences, it practically feels like a documentary. And that is more to do with his performance than with Soderbergh’s hand-held camera.

It’s also with Del Toro’s performance that one gets the impression that with Che, what you see is what you get. He had no private life or dark secrets. The interviewer asks him what is the most important quality a revolutionary can possess. He responds “Love… Love of humanity, justice and truth”. That tells you everything you need to know about his motivations. You don’t see his private life because he forsook it for the cause. The Che on the posters was not a man; he was a revolutionary machine. He completely embodied the symbol that he became. And while that unwavering motivating contributed to his success in Cuba, it also leads to his failure and downfall in Bolivia.

At the start of “Guerilla”, Fidel Castro reads a letter from his M.I.A. colleague. “When people hate their government,” Che observes, “it’s not to hard to take a town”. Unfortunately, for his mission in Bolivia, there’s also the reverse. Che says, “In a real revolution, one either wins or dies”. The trouble is that he’s absolutely right. It recalls the computer in “War Games”. He was too driven by his mission. Therefore, he was programmed to fail.

Now you can absorb “Che” with the Criterion Collection DVD, presenting high-definition digital masters of the film on two discs with audio commentaries. The third disc includes a making-of documentary, interviews with historians and people who were actually part of the Cuban Revolution and the Bolivia campaign, a short piece about the camera used to shoot “Che” and documentary short, “The End of the Revolution”, which was filmed in Bolivia shortly after Che’s execution. After all that, you still won’t know Che’s favorite color or what he liked to eat for breakfast, but you’ll surely understand what he was all about.

Che Criterion Collection DVD
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writers: Peter Buchman, Benjamin A. van der Veen, Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Demián Bichir, Catalina Sandino Moreno
Rated R, 255 minutes, IFC Films

DVD Review: "District 9"

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Cook) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:24:00 +0000

While I'm a fan of blockbuster, roller coaster ride science-fiction, such as "Star Wars," I can also appreciate more intimate, cerebral films, like "2001: A Space Odyssey." The first half of "District 9" treads in the latter territory, but the second half veers toward the former and stays there. I was left wishing that some of the themes touched on in the first half had been developed in more depth during the run-up to the climax, but I didn't feel the film was completely derailed: there's enough of interest in acts one and two to merit a screening or two.

"District 9" opens with a documentary piece that sets a unique stage: during the mid-1980s, a spaceship appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa and hovered there for months, with no sign of activity, before representatives of a company called MNU cut their way in. They found thousands of aliens who appeared to be low-level worker drones; their leaders seemed to be gone. The creatures soon found themselves dumped in a slum called District 9; the apartheid parallels are made obvious.

Fast-forward to today. Our protagonist, Wikus Van de Merwe, is an MNU bureaucrat who has been promoted to a new position tasked with overseeing the forced move of the aliens into a new slum called District 10. While doing his job, clipboard in hand and MNU regulations always on the tip of his tongue, Wikus accidentally sprays himself with an alien goo that begins transforming him into one of them. When his bosses, including his wife's father, learn that he can fire the aliens' weapons, which humans have never been able to use, they decide he can best serve MNU by being killed and dissected for his DNA.

Wikus escapes, of course, and that's where "District 9" becomes a more conventional science-fiction film, especially when he forms an uneasy alliance with an alien named Christopher, who apparently is smarter than the others and was stockpiling the goo to fuel the spaceship he wants to fly back to his home planet. Christopher wants to retrieve his goo from MNU's bowels, and Wikus wants to figure out a way to stay alive and hopefully reverse the transformation.

That's also where we need to take a few leaps of logic if we want to stay with the plot: Why were the aliens allowed to keep their weapons, even if they didn't seem to be interested in using them? Why risk they could organize a resistance? How is Wikus able to use his security code to get back into MNU? Any company with any sense disables the codes and badges of employees who are no longer working there -- or, you know, who are on the run from its armed security guards. (A similar lapse occurs in "Minority Report.")

And while I appreciated the film's non-U.S.-centric point-of-view, given how many in Hollywood seem to think no other country can ever be involved in anything of importance, I found it hard to believe that South Africa would be left to deal with the aliens by themselves. I'm sure the United States would ensure it was heavily invested in overseeing District 9 and keeping its finger on the pulse of the situation. However, that's not as large of a quibble as my other points.

The importance of setting the film in South Africa is covered, along with many other interesting subjects, in director Neill Blomkamp's commentary track. He discusses growing up in Johannesburg and how he wanted to get the essence of the city across to viewers. He also gets into many of the technical aspects of making the film, which shouldn't be a surprise given the fact that "District 9" is an expanded version of a short film that wowed many viewers on YouTube, including studio executives who were impressed by his ability to put together something so professional on such a limited budget.

Disc one also includes a little over 20 minutes worth of deleted scenes, none of which made me feel like the film would have been better off with them. At best, they elaborate on the backstory, and at worst, they simply supply inconsequential tangents from the main plot. Thirty-four minutes worth of featurettes, dubbed "The Alien Agenda: A Filmmaker's Log," cover the film's inception, its shooting, and its final refinement. Blomkamp, producer Peter Jackson, and many others chime in with their thoughts, and copious amounts of behind-the-scenes footage serves to illuminate the discussion.

Disc two offers up another 45 minutes-plus of featurettes, which is a nice supplement to what's on disc one. Considering how many movies are released on DVD with basic, by-the-numbers supplements these days -- I imagine that's been caused by economic pressures and a desire to pack Blu-ray discs with exclusive bonus stuff -- I appreciated Sony's willingness to go the extra mile here.

The featurettes cover the effects used to transform Wikus into an alien, the improvisational style Blomkamp encouraged on the set, the design and creation of the District 9 slum, and the special effects used to create the aliens, who were played by actors wearing motion-capture suits and replaced in the computer. It's all good material -- my only criticism here is that more could have been packed onto the disc, since a DVD can comfortably hold two to three hours of video.

"District 9" may not quite live up to what I was hoping to get out of it, but it's a solid effort that's admirable for its willingness to take the risks it does. I'm looking forward to seeing what Blomkamp comes up with next.

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp

Written by: Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell

Producers: Paul Hanson, Elliot Ferwerda, Bill Block, Ken Kamins, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Carolynne Cunningham

Starring: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Nathalie Boltt, Sylvaine Strike

112 min.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Sundance Film Festival Review: Smash His Camera

whitneyborup@yahoo.com (whitney) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:43:00 +0000

by Whitney Borup

I went into “Smash His Camera” expecting it to be a conventional, glossy, professional documentary. There’s nothing wrong with typical documentaries – I enjoy them very much – but it’s always nice to see someone try something new. In many ways “Smash His Camera” follows the formula, but it is in the areas that the film departs from traditional documentary form that it becomes really interesting.

One departure from the usual is in the subject itself: here is a sympatheticportrayal of a member of the paparazzi. There have been a lot of films deriding these photographic parasites, pointing out how annoying they are, how untalented and unartistic they are, even claiming that the paparazzi have been responsible for deaths. But “Smash His Camera” focuses on one man – the man, really – who may have a despicable job, but is certainly not a monster. This film presents Ron Galella as the guy that really popularized celebrity photographs in the US. It’s easy not to like the paparazzi. It’s hard not to like Ron Galella. He has loads of money, lives in a ridiculously big house filled with boxes of negatives, and yet remains fairly good humored and – just a little – trashy. His house is decorated with fake plants, silk flowers, and plastic trinkets. He goes from celebrity to celebrity taking their pictures, annoying them, and then giving them a signed copy of his book. In other words, he’s quite charming!

Galella "stalking" Jackie O.

My favorite aspect of the documentary was the departure it took from the traditional “talking heads” approach. After getting all his interviewees initial opinions, director Leon Gast places a bunch of people with strong, conflicting opinions in a room together and lets them hash it out. This is especially interesting when Gast gets the two lawyers together that argued in Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s lawsuit against Galella. It’s fun to watch people shit talk each other; it’s even more fun to watch them argue about all their shit talking.

“Smash His Camera” may not take on a heavy, life changing subject, but Gast’s representation of Galella is thoughtful and sympathetic and offers a new viewpoint on a profession we thought we already knew everything about.

Smash His Camera
Directed: Leon Gast

USA, 87 min.

Review: Shuttle

noreply@blogger.com (Baxter) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:48:00 +0000

By Jessica Baxter

At 2:30 in the morning, it’s tempting to accept a ride from anyone who seems to be in the ride-giving business. And who knows, maybe it’s your lucky day. But maybe the guy behind the wheel actually has nefarious plans that don’t involve reuniting you with your fluffy duvet anytime soon.

“Shuttle” is one of these worst-case scenarios. Returning from a trip to Mexico in the wee hours, Mel and Jules, who have been friends for, like, 10 million years, are anxious to get home. The driver of a small shuttle service offers to undercut Big Shuttle and take the girls downtown. The pouring rain and a cash shortage encourage them to accept. Seth and Matt, just want an excuse to talk for a bit longer to the cute girls they met in Mexico, so they manage to worm their way onto the shuttle too. Also along for the ride is a squirrely family man named Andy. Perhaps the doomed passengers realize something is wrong when the driver insists on taking a traffic detour in the middle of the night, but by then it’s too late. They’re already trapped on a shuttle with a mad man. His true intentions aren’t revealed until the very end, but it quickly becomes clear that he doesn’t mean for anyone to get home.

Despite a few “twists”, Edward Anderson’s script isn’t particularly inspired. This is one of those thrillers in which the main characters have ample escape opportunities but, for whatever flimsy reasons, decide not to take them. The protagonists are pretty cookie cutter “young person” and their conflicts, designed to create character development, are pretty trite. “Shuttle” purports to be smarter than it is. Still, keeping the driver’s motive a secret makes for a riveting enough story. You also have to give credit for a reasonably original ending. It also helps that the acting is competent enough to not be distracting. You might not take much away from this film, but it’s an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. And maybe it will give you pause the next time you need a ride somewhere. Remember, ladies: Yellow Cab takes credit cards.

Shuttle (2009)
Written & Directed by Edward Anderson
Cast: Tony Curran, Peyton List, Cameron Goodman , Cullen Douglas
Rated R
107 minutes
Future Films

Sundance Film Festival Review: Boy

whitneyborup@yahoo.com (whitney) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:20:00 +0000

by Whitney Borup

In Boy’s mind, his dad is a professional criminal, brave soldier, and brilliant pop star, all wrapped into one. He’s away in jail for now, but Boy spends a lot of time getting to know his estranged father through his own fantasies. Then his dad comes home, and Boy has to come to terms with his father not quite living up to his expectations. In fact, Boy has to come to terms with his father being a total loser.

New Zealand cinema has a history of creating believable, engaging child characters with the help of talented non-actors they find in Maori villages. Infectious smile, innocent hero-worship, and his protective relationship over his brother make Boy the kind of kid you would want to get to know. Equally compelling are his friends named after soap operas (Dallas, Dynasty and Falcon Crest), his six-year-old brother who believes he has superpowers, and his tiny, dirty, round-faced cousins.

In a film full of pop culture references from 1984, “Boy” manages to not sound pretentious. Rather, every American cultural phenomenon that influences this small Maori village is greeted with an innocent acceptance by the inhabitants. Like Boy’s father, America is far, far away, and sometimes myth is much better than the truth.

Boy
Directed and Written: Taika Cohen
Starring: James Rolleston, Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu, and Taika Cohen
New Zealand, 87 min.

Sundance Film Festival Review: Please Give

whitneyborup@yahoo.com (whitney) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:01:00 +0000

by Whitney Borup

No one writes female characters quite like Nicole Holofcener. She has the ability to combine the greater concerns of femininity with the small details – like that cracked gray skin that develops on your elbows, and trying on jeans at department stores with your mom – that seamlessly dot her narratives. And in “Please Give” she has compiled the perfect cast to illustrate her fairly loud and obvious themes.

The film starts with what seems like an endless stream of boobs. But not the hot kind. More like the “tubes of potential danger” that hang off old ladies’ chests and have to be propped onto mammogram glass. The scene is funny and disgusting and sad and beautiful all at the same time, and the radiation technician Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) conducting the mammograms is quickly defined by her work. She’s jaded. She sees things that would otherwise be considered incredible as threats, and the lack of beauty in her life is preventing her from making meaningful connections with everyone else. It doesn’t help that the grandma she has charge of is a cranky old hag, and her tanning-obsessed sister (Amanda Peet) is a total bitch.

Meanwhile, in the apartment next door, Kate (Catherine Keener) and her husband, Alex (Oliver Platt), are patiently awaiting Rebecca’s grandmother’s death so they can buy her place and expand their own small, New York, apartment. The problem is, Kate is wracked with guilt. About everything. She’s even guilty about the antique shop she and her husband run, and she starts looking for ways to assuage this guilt. She just can’t seem to find anything (volunteering with the elderly or the mentally disabled) that doesn’t serve to depress her even further. Her daughter, struggling with acne, keeps trying to get Kate to turn that guilt and potential affection towards her, but Kate seems to be too wrapped up her in own bourgeois world.

If you’ve seen Holofcener’s other work, this plot should sound vaguely familiar. She deals with a lot of the same themes here that she focuses on in her other work. But there’s nothing wrong with a little repetition when it’s done as well as it is here. Her actors shine in their realistic roles, and the character interactions are incredibly well-scripted. I was especially taken with Platt and Keener, who have a kind of normal, non-dramatic relationship that Holofcener can keep interesting. And, while not everyone can relate to the liberal guilt of the super rich, we can relate to the way a mother and daughter fight, or the way sisters argue over responsibilities.

“Please Give” is an engaging look at New York City family life. Well acted, well scripted, well directed, well shot. There really isn’t anything more to ask for from one of our most talented directors.

Please Give
Directed and Written: Nicole Holofcener
Starring: Oliver Platt, Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Rebecca Hall
USA, 90 min.

Sundance Film Festival Review: Sins of My Father

whitneyborup@yahoo.com (whitney) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:53:00 +0000

by Whitney Borup

My soda intake this last week has been out of control. I never thought I’d say this, but I think a steady diet of diet, caffeinated, carbonated beverages may be medically harmful. It’s certainly not good for you, and I realized just how dependent I was this morning when I tried to watch the film “Sins of My Father.”

This documentary from Argentina was definitely hurt by my lack of caffeine, but this mild drug wasn’t the only thing to blame for putting me to sleep. “Sins of My Father” has an excellent premise: Pablo Escobar’s son speaks about his father publicly for the first time since the drug lord’s death in 1993. In order to assuage his guilty conscious and pave the way for peace in Columbia, Escobar Jr. (who has changed his name to Sebastian Marroquin) tries to apologize to the sons of the men his father had killed.

Pablo Escobar was a criminal. But he also helped his community by buying housing projects and soccer fields for the poor. Most importantly to this film, he was also a husband and father. Sebastian talks about his views of his father, whom he still loves, and how his feelings have been complicated by the nasty things his father did. Director Nicolas Entel also interviews the sons of assassinated Columbian politicians Luis Carlos Galan and Rodrigo Lara Bonilla to obtain personal, subjective views of the story of Escabar’s rise to power on both sides. The main draw of the film is the effect their fathers had on all of these sons’ lives. While Galan and Bonilla’s can live with the pride of their fathers’ martyrdom, Marroquin suffers as though he were the criminal.

While Entel had access to the home movies of the Escobars, there doesn’t seem to be much there of interest. The story of Escobar is told mostly through stock footage filmed by news crews in Columbia, which is often shaky and dull. Using subjective voices to tell the story of a notorious criminal is a compelling idea in theory, but in practice, these relatives don’t have much to tell outside of what was already known about Columbian crime. Without the false tension created by Marroquin’s apology at the end of the film, “Sins of My Father” is simply a biography without any expert testimony. And because of the repetitious editing of Marroquin’s feelings, this biography gives us a lot of information we’ve already heard; it just gives us that information a little more slowly.

Sins of My Father

Directed: Nicolas Entel

Written: Nicolas Entel and Pablo Farina

Argentina, 94 min.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

noreply@blogger.com (elgringo) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:50:00 +0000

by: Scott Knopf

Modern street art and film have cooperated for decades now. Ever since people have been tagging walls, filmmakers have been there to chronicle their work. Graffiti documentaries such as Style Wars (1983) and Bomb It (2007) educate those who are interested in not only the artwork itself but also in the culture that produces this art. Narrative features such as Bomb the System (2002) illustrate the lifestyles of graffiti artists, often focusing on the rebelliousness and illegality of their art. Together, as a body of work, these films explore the global impact of graffiti and attempt to exemplify and validate the movement. As an addition to this canon, Exit Through the Gift Shop earns its place not only for the story it tells but also for who’s telling that story. Using one-of-a-kind hand-held footage and featuring exclusive interviews with the world’s most prolific and inexhaustible street artists, Gift Shop provides insights into the graffiti world like no other film before it. This first-person, undercover, sociologic, personal narrative not only provides an essential history of the movement but offers a unique perspective on a specific subset of that movement.

Exit Through the Gift Shop marks the directorial debut from prolific street artist Banksy. For those unfamiliar with Banksy, he hails from Britain and is responsible for countless iconographic art pieces around the world. His work includes stickers, murals, sculptures, and even installations. He often utilizes satirical imagery to speak on any number of topics from consumerism to living conditions to the idea of celebrity. Other than the work he produces, little is known about the mysterious artist. Banksy has gone to great lengths throughout his career to conceal his identity. A majority of his work is technically illegal as it’s constructed on public property and as street art laws continue to harshen, his decision to remain anonymous is easy to understand. His interviews in the film are done from behind shadows and through a voice-modification system. This is the first time Bansky has given video interviews for a film like this.

With his first feature-length documentary, Bansky decided to construct the project from the boxes of tapes stacked in his videographer’s garage. For years before Terry Guetta, an L.A. eccentric with a video camera permanently attached to his hand, began filming Banksy’s nighttime raids, he filmed a number of other infamous artists such as Shepard Fairey, Invader, and Ron English as they gave Los Angeles their own special brand of decoration. This massive collection of footage was originally turned into an “unwatchable” film (according to Banksy) called Life Remote Control. After realizing that this amazing footage shouldn’t go to such waste, he decided to make Gift Shop in an attempt to tell the story of a new age in street art through the life story of Guetta (a.k.a. Mr. Brainwash). The result is a must-see for anyone even remotely interested in art of any kind. It’ll be especially helpful for those wondering about Andre the Giant’s posse.

Directed by: Banksy
U.S./U.K., 87 min.

Blue Valentine

noreply@blogger.com (elgringo) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:10:00 +0000

by: Scott Knopf

Blue Valentine is an affective film that uniquely tells a familiar Boy Meets Girl Then Loses Girl story. Director Derek Cianfrance (Brother Tied) supplies the viewer with two sections of his characters’ relationship: the hopeful beginnings and the beaten down endings. The years in the middle are left up to one’s imagination. At one time, Dean (Gosling) and Cindy (Williams) were a young, happy couple. As their lives progess, they aren’t as young and they definitely aren’t as happy. And so their story goes. The film cuts back and forth between two couples who, minus hairline recession and facial expressions, are seemingly the same people. But a lot has happened since the days of clever pickup lines and ukulele dance parties. Now there’s a child to raise, bills to pay, and a missing dog to find. Their bright eyes, the kind that are bron from naivety, are all but faded out by the time we meet up with them later on.

Both Gosling and Williams play their roles to perfection. Everything about their interactions, both physical and verbal, is completely believable. That's even more impressive considering that Dean and Cindy’s struggles are so relateable and painful that, for the viewer, poking holes in the performances might seem like a viable self-defense mechanism. But there aren’t any holes to poke. As conflicts arise, both characters continue to develop and their portrayals become well-rounded. The film’s nonlinear style is used to deliver new layers in Dean and Cindy and does so with effectively. Watching Dean's attempts at levity and Cindy's annoyed looks of disapproval is like a getting punched in the gut. Their actions never seem unnatural and that’s saying so much for a story whose content practically asks for melodrama.

Andrij Parekh’s (Half Nelson) cinematography is just as responsible as the writing and the performances for the frustration and agony illustrated onscreen. It’s easy to know which couple (past or present) is on screen just by paying attention to the use of contrasting colors. While it’d be simpler to say that Parekh uses brighter and happier colors during the couple’s brighter and happier years, that'd not only be inaccurate but also insulting to the work that went into creating Valentine’s visual makeup.

One of the film’s most insightful scenes takes place in a dingy, cheesy, science-fiction-themed hotel room. Parekh’s use of lighting and colors not only captures exactly what a room like that would look like but also comments on what would cause a good looking, non-trashy couple in their late-20s to book that room. The answer: desperation. Valentine seems to say that the hardest thing to fix is a marriage. And even with a clear image of what built that marriage’s foundation, it’s still difficult to see what should have been done differently.

Starring: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams
Directed by: Derek Cianfrance
Written by: Derek Cianfrance, Joey Curtis, and Cami Delavigne
U.S.A., 120 min.

Sundance Film Festival Review: New Low

whitneyborup@yahoo.com (whitney) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:26:00 +0000

by Whitney Borup

This year the Sundance Film Festival included a category they called “Next.” The idea was to showcase some of the best films made with the lowest amount of money. Adam Bowers’ film “New Low” certainly qualifies as far as the budget is concerned. Shot on different pieces of borrowed equipment (whatever friend was around that day, he says), Bowers’ wrote, directed, and starred in the film. It’s hard not to root for a project like this. And, while Bowers as an actor is decent – his timing is always spot on, even if his performance gets a little repetitive – the rest of the film is dull in a predictable kind of way. If you’re going to the trouble of making a film for such a tiny amount of money, not knowing where it will end up, just for the love of filmmaking, it seems like you should try to do something a little bit different with the medium. “New Low” expands on the oft-repeated indie love triangle between a witty boy and the two very different girls that may or may not be interested in him. We’ve seen this before and we’ve seen it done better.

Wendell is balding, thin-lipped, and too skinny. Or, so says Vicky, his new girlfriend that derides him and then sleeps with him. Wendell would much rather be with Joanna, the environmentally conscious, Food Not Bombs organizing, volunteer that wants to shape Wendell into a better person. The problem is, does he deserve someone like Joanna? Or is he doomed to spend the rest of his life with assholes like Vicky.

All of the performances are much better than you’d expect from a plot like that. I especially enjoyed watching Jayme Ratzer manipulating Wendell at one moment and then being highly self-conscious the next. But, they needed more from the script to really break out in their roles. Bowers’ writing is full of funny one-liners, but everything in between is monotonously familiar. Small details, like the existence of a VHS rental store in 2009 are never addressed, and so come across as trendy anachronistic mistakes instead of adding texture to the story.

There have been a lot of historical films that have made the best of a tiny budget. Kevin Smith’s “Clerks” or Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs,” for example, created something new and different enough from the mainstream that they changed the way we think about independent film. When a film with a tiny budget attempts a very basic story like the one told in “New Low” without outstanding cinematography, style, or form, it just resonates as poorly made.

New Low
Directed and Written: Adam Bowers
Starring: Adam Bowers, Jayme Ratzer, Valerie Jones
USA, 82 min.

DVD Review: "An Englishman in New York"

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Hall) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:03:00 +0000

Quality roles for John Hurt must be at a severe minimum if the greatly underutilized actor needs to revisit his 1975 triumph as gay icon Quentin Crisp in “The Naked Civil Servant.”

This much-belated and wholly unnecessary sequel follows Crisp’s relocation to New York in the early 1980s, where he established himself as a writer and the star in a popular Off-Broadway one-man show. Crisp’s gift for witty observations and his peerless command of the language secure him a cult following, although his popularity declines when he unwisely responds to early warnings of the AIDS pandemic by dismissing it as a “fad.” Eventually, he re-establishes his popularity as a public speaker and theatrical raconteur, and he even snags a film role playing Queen Elizabeth I.

Anyone who is familiar with Crisp’s life story will immediately recognize that “An Englishman in New York” severely abbreviates his later years, cutting out many of his accomplishments while overemphasizing the notion that he spent most of his New York years as a pariah among the gay community. Making matters worse are supporting actors who either try to steal the show through overacting (Swoosie Kurtz plays literary agent Connie Clausen as if she was channeling Ann Savage’s “Detour” character) or who underplay to the point of enervation (particularly Jonathan Tucker, in is excessively wistful interpretation of the AIDS-doomed artist Patrick Angus).

As for Hurt, he seems fairly bored to revisit the Crisp character, and most of the time it appears to rely on his campy wardrobe and heavy make-up to do his acting. This results in making Crisp something of an aphorism-spouting bore, which eventually makes the film a pointless exercise.

"An Englishman in New York"
2009, Drama, 75 minutes
Starring John Hurt, directed by Richard Laxton
Released by QC Cinema

The Perfect Host

noreply@blogger.com (elgringo) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:09:00 +0000

by: Scott Knopf.

It’s wonderful when talented actors take roles in projects they really believe in rather than aiming for the biggest box office dollars or guaranteed Oscar nominations. Robin Williams has World’s Greatest Dad. Nicole Kidman has Birth. Even James Franco has “General Hospital.” When these world-famous celebrities and gifted performers take a chance on a smaller project (or a forty-seven-year-old soap), that’s when real film fans start to get excited. They get excited because they know that whatever these projects are, they must be special because convincing actors to turn down millions of dollars for a mainstream blockbuster can’t be easy.

And aside from the occasional disaster (Hounddog, anyone?), a lot of these projects turn out to be successes, some monetarily, others in fan and critic praise. But what they all do is remind the world that mainstream Hollywood isn’t the only moviemaking game in town, even if they are reminding us from the Wal-Mart bargain bin. Effective storytelling is what it’s all about and the last time I checked, it doesn’t take 20 million dollars to tell a story.

David Hyde Pierce, who is best known for his work on TV’s “Frasier” and more recently in Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy in which he performed the voice work for a blue, sea-dwelling creature named Abe Sapien, takes on a more intimate roll in Nick Tomnay’s The Perfect Host. Pierce plays Warwick Wilson, a mild-mannered L.A. resident who has his home invaded by John Taylor, a clever bank robber (Clayne Crawford).

Expecting guests for a dinner party, Warwick allows the fast-talking scam artist into his house only to find himself at the wrong end of a long knife. Without wanting to give anything away, it should just be said that of all films that are labeled as “psychological thrillers,” The Perfect Host is one of the most deserving. The film evolves into a clever cat-and-mouse game between Warick, his captor, and a police detective (Nathaniel Parker) who’s closing in on solving that bank robbery. Tomnay, who wrote and directed both this film and the short it was based on, really gets into his characters’ heads and brings the viewer along for the ride.

A unique twist on the home invasion genre, Host starts out and ends a little rocky but the movie’s delicious creamy center completely makes up for it. Warwick Wilson is not a character you’ll easily forget. From his distinctive walk to his unique friendships, Warwick illuminates the screen, even when he’s not on it. Sure to make a number of Cult Classics lists, The Perfect Host is the best kind of project for big-name actors looking for something different. Host is different and in all the best ways.

Winter's Bone

noreply@blogger.com (elgringo) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:53:00 +0000

by: Scott Knopf.

Deep in the Ozark Mountains, there’s a culture that’s often misrepresented in film, if represented at all. Countless films feature Backwoods Hillbilly characters that are known more for their empty brains and chainsaw massacres than for anything that accurately represents the culture that they’re supposed to hail from. With Winter’s Bone, Debra Granik (Down to the Bone, 2004) set out to capture the people portrayed in Daniel Woodrell’s novel of the same name. Of Woodrell’s novel, Granik has been quoted as saying that “we had something really beautiful to start with.”

The film crew set up in Southern Missouri and immediately went to work getting to know the locals. They studied Ozark linguistics, music, dress, hunting techniques, food preparation, and other elements of their cultural composition. The result of their preparation is a vigorous film with many strengths and very few weaknesses. The portrayals of its subjects are well developed, balanced, and far from Backwoods Hillbilly. It’s clear that filmmakers paid attention to even the area’s smallest details and carefully molded each one into the film. If they started out with something beautiful, rest assured that they ended up with something even more beautiful.

Casting was held both locally and around the country until the production team decided a unique blend of professional and non-professional actors to make up the cast. Professional actress, Jennifer Lawrence, who will appear next in Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, landed the lead role of Ree Dolly, a seventeen-year-old who’s forced to take care of her mentally-ill mother and two younger siblings when her meth-baking father, Jessup, goes missing before his court date. Ree later finds out that her father has put up their house as bond collateral and that she’s got to find him before their home is taken away. Standing in Ree’s way is the community that surrounds her. In a population where everyone seems to know each one another, either through business or blood relation, lips remain sealed and tensions stay high when Ree starts asking all the questions that no one wants asked.

Ree’s determination serves as the film’s driving force and draws its strength from the intensity of the conflict. Lawrence’s performance as the unapologetic teen is undeniably forceful. Through her own determination, she encapsulates the multi-faceted character and seamlessly transforms back and forth between Caring Sister/Daughter and Relentless Woman on a Mission. The film features a number of noteworthy performances but another that really stands out is Dale Dickey’s (Domino) exceptional depiction of Merab, the female ringleader who warns Ree of the danger that comes from uprooting other people’s business. The scenes which Lawrence and Dickey share together are electrifying. All at once, these scenes highlight the strengths of Woodrell’s writing, Granik’s directing, and the capabilities of both actresses.

Winter’s Bone should not be missed. Just ask Parker Posey, who presented the Granik with the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Dramatic Films. At the ceremony, Posey said, “If [Winter’s Bone] doesn’t get the respect it deserves, I’m going to stab myself.” So, if for no other reason than Parker Posey’s well-being, watch Winter’s Bone.

Directed by: Debra Granik
Written by: Debra Granik and Anna Rosellini
Adapted from: "Winter's Bone" by Daniel Woodrell
U.S.A., 100 min.

Sundance Film Festival Review: Space Tourists

whitneyborup@yahoo.com (whitney) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:59:00 +0000

by Whitney Borup

If you were born post-1969, it’s hard to imagine what all the hubbub surrounding space travel was about. These days information from NASA is rarely seen in the newspapers, much less the front page. Apparently we’re going to Mars….or have we been to Mars? Were there Martians there? In Christian Frei’s newest documentary, “Space Tourists” we are reintroduced to the excitement of space travel. Only this time he’s exploring the industry from the other side of the world, the side whose achievements we like to limit to Sputnik: The Soviet Union.

Anousheh Ansari is a rich woman with a dream: to go into space. And by paying $20 million she’s going to be the first female space tourist. Russian has been allowing space tourists to tag along on flights to the international space station as a way to fund their continued research. Ansari’s $20 million will cover over half the cost of the mission. She gets to spend 8 days in space, Russia gets to send rockets to their station; everyone wins. Even the people left on the ground, who you would think have nothing to do with astronautics, are able to benefit from the industry, collecting the scrap metal that falls from the sky after each launch. From the extremely rich, to the extremely poor, these missions can be beneficial to many people.

Frei uses Jonas Bendiksen, a Magnum photographer, as the glue to hold each side of the story together. Bendiksen travels around Kazakhstan photographing decrepit space stations and the futuristic art in the towns surrounding them. These cities that once thrived, are now ghost towns full of bricked up housing complexes and empty gas stations. Bendiksen captures the hope that once existed there in eerie, barren still photographs while narrating the history of the USSR’s space program.

The film manages to feel both whimsical and realistic as it darts between the stories of Ansari and the men who harvest scrap metal. At times absurd and at times very beautiful, we root for everyone in the film as they attempt to achieve their dreams. While the narrative gets a little muddled at times when Frei tries to incorporate other aspects of space travel (for example, he follows the X-Prize hopefuls as they try to get to the moon), its tone remains consistent. “Space Tourists” is an informative and hopeful documentary that might make you revert back to your 7-year-old self that dreamed of being an astronaut.

Space Tourists
Directed: Christian Frei
Switzerland, 98 min.

HIGH School

noreply@blogger.com (elgringo) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:57:00 +0000

by: Scott Knopf

When a straight-A student named Henry (Matt Bush) smokes his first doobie only to find out that his school’s starting mandatory drug testing the next day, he’s left with only one choice: to get the entire school to fail that test.

When you go see a movie with a really ‘pitchable’ premise, you always run the risk of watching something that doesn’t live up to its potential. Perhaps the filmmaker just rested on his laurels or maybe investors paid for the film without bothering to read the script. I’m positive that most teen slasher flicks fall into this category. That’s why it was a relief when John Stalberg’s soon to be stoner-classic turned out to be funny, really funny.

According to the director, the script’s jokes were enough to hook Academy Award-winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist) to immediately sign on. Brody plays Psycho Ed, a tattoo-covered drug dealer who, along with his friends Hippie Dude and Paranoid, serves as one half of the film’s antagonistic force. I’m not giving anything away by saying that when you take something from Psycho Ed, Psycho Ed’s going to want it back.

The other half comes from Henry’s school principal, Mr. Gordon (who’s played by an almost unrecognizable Michael Chiklis), who instates the drug tests as a way to weed out the miscreants. So with a disgruntled drug dealer and a pissed off principal coming after him, Henry and Travis (Sean Marquette), his back-in-the-day buddy who gets him into this whole mess, have to act fast to avoid getting murdered, or even worse, expelled.

Stuffed with a talented ensemble cast (Julia Ling, Colin Hanks, and Andrew Wilson, just to name a few), HIGH School heads out of the gate at full speed with a Phucing funny opening scene and doesn’t stop making the audience laugh until half way through the ending credits. This movie isn’t rocket science. It isn’t even Rocket Science. It’s an over-the-top stoner comedy that would probably be even funnier after a few bong hits. I mean, come on, it’s called HIGH School.

Directed by: John Stalberg
Written by: John Stalberg, Erik Linthorst, and Stephen Susco
U.S.A.

Sundance Film Festival Review: Splice

whitneyborup@yahoo.com (whitney) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:44:00 +0000

by Whitney Borup

“There are some things you do not do!” This should be the tagline for “Splice,” director Vincenzo Natali’s genetic splicing sci-fi-horror film. Scientist couple Clive and Elsa never seem to accept any moral boundaries, though, and end up with an human hybrid on their hands that they don’t quite know what to do with. Or rather, they both have ideas about what to do with their new pet, and none of them are palatable.

After successfully splicing the genetics of a cluster of random animals, Elsa and Clive realize that they can go further with their new technology. Splicing the DNA of a human with God-knows what else, they make a creature they affectionately call “DREN.” Natali affectively uses both CGI and makeup to create a monstrous female, with equally monstrous desires. What exactly is DREN? What will she become? And how will her adoptive parents manage to control her??

“Splice” starts off strong. There are some fantastically gory moments early on that drag you into the plot and leave you suspended for the rest of the film. There are also some genuinely funny jokes early in the film delivered by Brody and Polley playing it deadpan. The problem is, the film only gets funnier…and I don’t know if it’s meant to. Things get too disturbing. Things get too insane. And whether or not Natali intended us to, the audience was rolling on the floor laughing during the most pivotal scenes.

This is a film that has to be seen to be believed. I think it might obtain instant cult status upon its release, despite – or maybe because – of the tone confusion. Whatever ideological problems the film possesses at its core (particularly, what it ultimately has to say about the inherent nature of gender), it’s quite an experience.

Splice

Directed: Vincenzo Natali

Written: Vincenzo Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor

Starring: Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley

Canada, 100 min.