Gaetana Caldwell-Smith movie reviews

"Slumdog" : The Little Movie That Could.

2009-03-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

“Slumdog Millionaire.” A film directed by Danny Boyle, co-directed by Loveleen Tandan, screenplay written by Simon Beaufoy and Vikas Swarup from his novel, “Q & A.” Starring Dev Patel, Frieda Pinto, Madhur Mittal, and Anil Kapoor.

FROM SLUMDOG TO TOPDOG
By Gaetana Caldwell-Smith
British Director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting,” “28 Days Later”) thought his fifteen million dollar film would go direct to DVD because he couldn’t find a distributor. Once he did, “Slumdog Millionaire” opened in January in a handful of art-houses in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In November 2008, alleged Islamic radicals attacked Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi Trident Hotel, the Jewish-run Nariman House, and other sites. They shot and killed hundreds in the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station where, during its closing credits, the film’s amazing, joyous Bollywood dance was performed by the “Slumdog” cast and crew. Boyle had said in an interview on BBC World Service that he was devastated by the attacks on the city, and the people, he had come to love. He regretted that the resulting notoriety brought “Slumdog” to a larger audience. The film opened nationwide and gained a significant following, with attendance jumping to over 200 per cent in the first week after its initial limited release. The film has won major international awards, including Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Original Song, and Film Score, among others.

The film, shot in brilliant, saturated color, takes place in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and is in Hindi and English, with subtitles. “Slumdog” is a love story, an epic fairy tale. It tracks the lives of three characters through whom you will experience that city’s egregious disparity between social classes; religious oppression, game show popularity, chance, petty and serious crime, prostitution, Indian pop culture, family, child kidnapping and abuse, the tourist trade, and rival crime lords.

The film opens with Jamal on the game show, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!” He is ready for the final question that will make him rich beyond anyone’s dream. The fact that horrific and dire circumstances in his life up to this point have burned memories in his brain, which have given him all the answers so far, leads the host to suspect Jamal of cheating and has him secretly arrested. The show is suspended, pending the results of the investigation. The entire city of Mumbai - - from the slums, to the rich hotels, upscale markets, to the condos - - is on tenterhooks. The police sergeant and a bad cop literally torture him. Director Boyle doesn’t hold back on showing these scenes, making for some gut-wrenching reactions. Interspersed with the interrogations and scenes of Jamal answering the previous questions are flashbacks, depicting his life from orphaned child to a yearning, love-struck young man who risks his life to find Latika. True to a fairy-tale or fable, the hero must outwit the bad guys before he can win the maiden (although, Latika, now a lovely, young woman, is no longer a “maiden,” in the Puritanical sense of the word, due to the oppressive life she has had to endure with rival mob bosses).

The film follows the lives Jamal and his brother, Salim, who are orphaned when their mother is brutally slain by Hindu police as they and a mob they incite storm their Mumbai Muslim shanty town. Thus begins their saga and that of Latika, played as adolescents by local children. When they are shown in their early twenties, Jamal, the innocent, is played by Dev Patel; streetwise, crafty Salim, by Madhur Mittal, and Latika, by the beautiful Frieda Pinto. They survive by their wits and are taken in by a Fagin-like charmer who comes off as an altruistic NGO relief worker. The boys witness atrocities wreaked on other kids so they’ll bring in more money while begging (a nod to “Three Penny Opera” here, as well). They escape. Latika is left behind. Jamal searches for her. The boys age; Salim gets the girl. He has the money and a gun. Jamal ends up as a chai-walla (tea server) for a large tech information center. By chance, when Jamal subs for a tekkie on a break, he inadvertently gets selected to be a contestant on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!” [Note: This tiny but crucial bit of information on how he was selected appeared in the limited January release, but had been cut from the new print, distributed for wide release.] The TV game show is hosted by a pompadoured, Prem Kumar (played by a remarkable Anil Kapoor, whose wonderful performance was overlooked by the entire circuit of awards venues.)

Once the film became a hit, detractors cried out. Their issues had to do with the depiction of Mumbai’s slums as “tourist attractions,” where wealthy travelers could go slumming in the “slum dogs’,” (i. e. the children of the slums’) neighborhoods. Some described the film as “poverty porn” and opined that the people of India were exploited in the making of the film. Early on, critics said that the British filmmakers hired only a white crew. One look at the extensive credits tells a different story. One has only to Google the film’s title to discover the truth about how Boyle made his remarkable film, which is based on a novel called “Q & A.” by Indian writer Vikas Swarup. These myopic critics - - the majority being Indians still licking wounds suffered under British colonialism over sixty years ago - - saw an entirely different film than I did. A January 2009 Los Angeles Times article by Mark Magnier, was titled: “Indians don’t feel good about ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’.” He wrote that some critics accused the film of “exploiting western perceptions of India, with its depictions of impoverished slums ruled by gangsters, as well as other unwholesome characters.” Magnier went on to state that many critics argue that although the film features many Indian actors, it is “anything but Indian.” He claims that the reason for its success is due to its themes and timing “which touch a cord with Western audiences.”

The Times also quoted from interviews with a variety of cultural commentators, including Shyamal Sengupta, a Mumbai film professor of Whistling Woods Institute, who stated, “It’s a white man’s imagined India. It’s not quite snake charmers, but it’s close. It’s a poverty tour.” “The struggles with poverty and the camera’s eye in ‘Slumdog,’ ” Sengupta went on, “certainly doesn’t shy away from this fact.” According to Indian film expert Rochona Majumdar, “A lot of people felt it was bashing India, but,” she says, “I disagree. We’re too quick to celebrate ‘Incredible India.’ But there is an underbelly. To say we don’t have problems is absurd.”

Despite these critiques, many are upbeat on the film’s financial prospects in India, with film director Shekhar Kapur saying that “what’s most important is that ‘Slumdog’ is the most successful Indian film ever.” Even Sengupta believes that Indians will attend the film to see how they are viewed by Westerners. “There is still a fascination with seeing how we are perceived by white Westerners. It’s a kind of voyeurism.” If Indian critics want realism, make a documentary. Some took issue with French filmmaker, Louis Malle’s 1969, inspirational, documentary film, “Phantom India,” an eye-opening, incredibly gorgeous tribute to that country.

“Slumdog Millionaire” has garnered even more controversy since it won an Oscar for Best Picture, beating out the timely (Proposiiton 8) political film, “Milk.” “Poverty Porn” was the topic on a recent NPR Talk of the Nation program. The interviewees were two female, Indian educators: one from Ireland, Priya Rajsekar, freelance writer born in India. She wrote the article “Slumdog Sacrifices Indian Pride” for The Irish Times. On the air, she stated that the film pandered to the rich elite in its “feel good” scenes of poverty. She went on to say that it “gives an incomplete view of the slums of India.” And that it wallows in tired clichés of abysmal poverty and mindless villainy. In her article, she wrote, “but for the little Indian ‘slumdogs’ who have given the movie its soul, this is a fleeting moment. For when the clock strikes midnight, these people who have helped createt many millionaires around the world will return to their tarpaulin-roof homes, to take their usual place beside their colleagues, too proud and too dignified to ‘ask for more.’ ”

Chitra Divakaruni, is a poet and professor at the University of Houston. Her article, "The Slumdog Fight," appeared in the Los Angeles Times. On NPR, she responded to Priya Rajsekar, saying that the film is not “poverty porn.” She cited Charles Dickens as an artist who, through his work, changed child labor laws in England, and that Danny Boyle follows in that tradition. Rajsekar shot back that Boyle “did not have to cover poor people in human waste to get his message across.” [On BBC, Boyle explained that the “human waste” was a mixture of milk chocolate and peanut butter.] She complained that the film didn’t show whole lives. In her article and on NPR, she comes off harsh and gives the impression that she would rather the film be a documentary. Divakaruni, however, replied that slum tours may embarrass native governments into stepping up to inject funds into poor areas. Danny Boyle, himself, offered to buy flats for the kids’ families. But government officials stepped in and said, “No, give us the money and we’ll buy them the flats.” However, in an interview on BBC’s World TV, about “Slumdog,” Boyle implied that he had discovered that previous funding from the Indian government had somehow disappeared. In this same interview, he told his host that in addition to paying them, he felt it most important that the kids go to school so that they would have an education when they grew up. So he is setting up an educational fund, as well as money for housing.

A caller to the NPR broadcast, Eric Weiner, author of “The Geography of Bliss,” had lived in New Delhi, India for two years. He wrote "Slum Visits: Tourism or Voyeurism" for The New York Times. He said that he’d seen people who’d traveled to the slums express surprise seeing the joy they found there, but went on to say that that’s no excuse for oppression or exploitation of the poor, especially children and families who literally lived on the street and employed their craft in that environment. “Slumdog Millionaire” illustrates this with a scene of a barber shaving a man as people strolled past and kids ran around him.

Director Boyle takes criticism of his film in stride. He has stated that the movie seeks to depict the “breathtaking resilience” of Mumbai and the “joy of people despite their circumstances, that lust for life.” Though the film, coming as it did on the heels of the Mumbai attacks, has turned the world’s focus on that city’s internal affairs, it in no way diminishes the impact of that tragic event. As Boyle and others have stated: the positive, optimistic attitude of the people will pull them through anything, just as it did prior to, during, and after two-hundred plus years of British rule. This is evident in the uplifting, rollicking Bollywood dance, featuring a cast of hundreds that closes “Slumdog Millionaire.”

"Waltz With Bashir"

2009-02-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

A BEAUTIFUL FILM ILLUSTRATES THE UGLINESS OF WAR

“Waltz With Bashir” has won several awards and an Ophir, Israel’s equivalent of an Oscar, was awareded a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and has been nominated for this year’s Academy Award also for Best Foreign Language Film.

Though the events illustrated in Israeli director and filmmaker Ari Folman’s extraordinary, animated documentary film, “Waltz With Bashir,” occurred in 1982, in Lebanon, they are timely, considering Israel’s recent unleashing of its US backed war machine on Palestinians in Gaza, today. Folman made his film in collaboration with art director David Polansky, and director of animation, Yori Goodman. Polansky and Goodman animate Folman’s narrative mostly in subdued tones, but also in saturated, surreal colors, and with the oblique, disorienting angles of a German expressionist film.
Some scenes could’ve been taken directly from recent debacles that made it to television screens or in documentary films on Iraq and Afghanistan. If anything, “Waltz With Bashir,” illustrates the truism of the futility of war, that war never changes anything. War destroys property, kills millions of people, and wounds as many if not more, both physically and mentally.
The film opens with a frightening, almost 3-D scene of the animated character of Folman being chased by exactly twenty-six, slathering, yellow-eyed, Doberman Pinchers. This is a recurring nightmare he has suffered for decades. Folman had been a soldier in the Israeli Army in 1982 when, under General Ariel Sharon, the Israeli army, IDF, attacked the Palestinians in Lebanon. He claims he doesn’t remember being in Beirut during the massacres of civilians in the Palestinian refugee camps of Shabra and Shatila, carried out by a Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia to avenge the assassination of their Lebanese president, Bashir Gemayel. He decides to talk to former soldiers, who either knew about the slaughter or remembered being there with him. He also consults with psychiatrists about retrieving twenty-year-old repressed memories.
The former soldiers Ari interviews (shown in animation) are middle-age, and live comfortable lives as wine-makers, educators, doctors, or journalists. In the making of the film, all but two spoke in their own voices. With their help, Folman begins to remembers firing flares that illuminated the night sky, providing the Phalangists enough light to execute their night-long slaughter. His memories reveal the horrors of war and the weight of his guilt. He and the other soldiers are bothered by the stupidity of all that evil. Ari wonders how he could’ve allowed himself to be a part of it. Some of his memories come to him as breathtakingly beautiful hallucinations: Under palm trees on a beach, playing volleyball, listening to rock music, drinking, smoking weed - - scenes reminiscent of film clips of American soldiers partying in Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad palace. One of Ari’s hallucination shows him lying prone on the stomach of a nude giantess backstroking through a calm sea, as flames from bombed ships light up the sky. Another is of a tropical paradise with helicopters roaring overhead that could’ve been an animation of the surfing scene in Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” I kept waiting for Duvall’s famous napalm line.

Some scenes are like a swift kick in the gut. The raw recruits have been ordered to “shoot anything that moves.” They land on a beach, Normandy-style, and flop down in the sand, automatic rifles ready. These are baby-face boys, not much older than nineteen; eyes wide with the fear of the unexpected. .A broken down Mercedes sedan rattles up to the beach. They’ve been told that Palestinian terrorists deliver bombs in cars. Panicked, the boys start shooting. The car jumps and bounces with each strike, as the driver tries to pull away. The car tattles, groans and settles like a dying beast. Then all is quiet. The soldiers approach gingerly, and see unrecognizable bloody ribbons of flesh that were once human beings. As has been shown in film clips of US soldiers in Iraq, “Waltz” also includes scenes of Israeli soldiers walking down the streets of Beirut randomly shooting at everything, pock-marking buildings, reducing vehicles to bullet ridden hulks, as civilians scatter in all directions, and bodies are left on the street.
There was a question at the time as to whether Ariel Sharon knew of the massacre. Sharon had spent months planning the war. He had met secretly with Lebanese Christian Phalangist allies whom he planned to help install as Lebanon's government once the PLO was out of Beirut. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) asked Phalangist militiamen to enter refugee camps, Shabra and Shatila. The militia subsequently massacred civilians inside. It was argued that the Israelis should have known that this could occur, considering Gemayel’s assassination only two days before, and taking into account the on-going animosity between the Palestinians and the Phalangists. Ariel Sharon’s culpability is illustrated in the film in a scene showing an Israeli military officer calling “Arik” (Sharon’s nickname) at his ranch, to ask him if he knew of the massacre. He answers, laconically, in the positive.

After the war, the Israeli government had set up the Kahan Commission to investigate. It subsequently found Israel responsible, but only indirectly. The Commission stated that Israeli commanders should have been aware of the possibility of a revenge attack. They also found Sharon personally responsible for not only "ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge," but also for "not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed." It recommended his resignation as head of the Defense Ministry. After first resisting, Sharon finally stepped down.

Comments on the film from some Arab blogs are positive. However, one blogger wondered why Arabs couldn’t make something similar. Another felt that Folman's film gives no answers In an interview, Folman told the JTA (The Global News Service of the Jewish People) he always intended to make “Waltz with Bashir” as an animated film.
“When you look at everything that there is in this film -- lost memory, memories of war, which are probably the most surreal things on earth, dreams, subconscious, drugs, hallucination - - it was the only way to combine one fluid storyline,” he said. “If it was a classic documentary, it would have shown middle-aged men telling their war experiences and it would have to be covered with footage that you could never find and wouldn’t come close to resembling what they went through. It would be a boring film. And if you made a big action movie with the budget of an Israeli movie, that would just be sad.” Which may explain why US films on Iraq have failed at the box office.

In another view, Natalie Rothschild wrote on the Website JEWCY, in December 2008, that Folman’s film, though beautifully rendered and artfully scripted, is a big narcissistic mea culpa, a “spectre that haunts post-Zionist Israeli society.” She calls the film, “Post-Zionist Stress Disorder.” She stated that though Folman believes his film is apolitical, it “conveys a disturbingly skewed account” of the war. Folman, she says, feels the IDF soldiers were ”victims of circumstance,” and that the film “is not only incredibly self-obsessed, it is also a striking evasion of responsibility.” She also quotes Folman on the atrocity as believing that the Christian Phalangist militiamen were fully responsible and that the Israeli soldiers had nothing to do with it. Rothschild says that yes, as a 19 year old conscript, he could say he was following orders, but now, as an adult, he “could recognize that several parties hold responsibility for what happened

The final scene of “Waltz”” shows Folman standing before the shrieking, grief-stricken Palestinian women, leaving the camps, and we see that he finally recognizes his part in the massacre. The horror is made real when the film segues from animation to archival footage of the devastated survivors of the camps. As the camera moves over the rubble, one is sickened by the corpses of brutally slaughtered men, women, and children. Perhaps Folman’s film attests to his and the perpetrators guilt, however, it may offer atonement, as well.”

This review will appear also in an adaptated form in the February issue of Socialist Action News.

"FROST/NIXON"

2009-02-01T17:14:00.000-08:00

“Froat/Nixon,” directed by Ron Howard; starring Michael Sheen, Frank Langella, and Kevin Bacon.
A DISHONEST FILM ABOUT A DISHONEST MAN
By Gaetana Caldwell-Smith
"Frost/Nixon" is one of several films up for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Film. Its rivals include, "Milk," "Slumdog Millionaire," and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Frank Langella has been nominated for Best Actor.

“Tricky Dick” is too mild an epithet to describe ex president, Richard Millhouse Nixon. In director Ron Howard’s film, “Frost/Nixon,” he and screenwriter Peter Morgan present a dishonest recreation of the 1977 series of taped interviews with ex-President Nixon, a demoralized former political heavyweight. The interviews were conducted by David Frost, who was a lightweight British television talk and variety show host. Michael Sheen (Tony Blair in “The Queen), and Frank Langella reprise their legit theatre roles in the film, which Morgan adapted from his eponymous play. At this time in his political career, Nixon was reduced to lecturing at trade conventions for a few thousand a pop. The real-life historic interviews were subsequently televised in three segments.
Howard’s film (and Morgan’s play) takes place during one of the most dynamic eras in American history where a constitutional crisis was explained away as simply a president and his chief advisors’ illegal moves. So where’s the beef? The question is: How far can a film or play go to dramatize a tumultuous historical period? In other words, based on a raft of accessible evidence, the film is a lie. Poetic license in this case was taken too far. Where the film focuses on the Watergate cover up, Nixon’s egregious crimes against America were many. Besides trying to get the goods on the Democratic Party by breaking in to its headquarters, Nixon not only severely undermined the constitution, but also executed the break in of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding’s, office. Ellsberg had leaked the Pentagon Papers containing detailed plotting for not only the Vietnam war’s escalation, but the true number of US troops sent there. Nixon was more concerned about this discovery than that of Watergate. The power of Howard’s film, however, makes what appears boring and dull on the actual tapes (now on disc) dramatic. In the film, during the final taping, a close up of Nixon’s face reveals him as a haggard, beaten down man. Langella, though not resembling Nixon, does a superb rendering of the essence of the man, as does Sheen with his characterization of Frost.
In his final term, facing impeachment over the Watergate cover-up, Nixon became the first president in history forced to resign from office, in 1974. He announced his resignation on television with the media present, and chief aide Jack Brennan (played by Kevin Bacon) in full uniform at his side. Director Howard recreates this event, with a shot of Sheen as Frost, who had been hosting his popular TV shows in both Australia and London, watching the event on television. You can practically see the light go off in his brain.
Shortly after he resigned, Nixon suffered an attack of phlebitis and had to be rushed to the hospital where, during his recovery, he received a full pardon for any “wrongdoings” from then President Gerald Ford. Nixon retired to his Casa Pacifica (ironic name) home in San Clemente.
Frost and his producer, John Birt (Matthew MacFedyan) arrange a deal with Hollywood agent Swifty Lazar (Toby Jones, [Karl Rove in “W”]). Frost offers Nixon a half million dollars. Nixon wants more, and gets it. Nixon, a brooding, defeated man, three years after his resignation, sees the series as a way to restore his reputation and get back into the limelight. Another omission in the film is the fact that Nixon would receive twenty percent. of the profits when networks buy the tapes. Basically, the opponents saw the dollar signs of a profitable business deal. Records show that Nixon's efforts to redeem himself and pay his legal bills was a carefully planned endeavor called "The Wizard."
As for the format of the tapings, all, including Jack Brennan, agree to a “no holds barred” grilling. Frost says, “It’ll be done in four parts: Watergate, domestic policy, Vietnam, and Nixon the Man.” “As opposed to what?” Nixon snaps back, “Nixon the Horse?” The film shows Nixon as sarcastic and funny, when in real life he was a humorless, bigoted monster.
Besides saving his reputation, Nixon appears to care about the money angle. Still, Frost is stymied as no big corporate network wants his show. He goes independent and has to raise funds. He hires a team of investigative journalists like the liberal columnist Jim Reston, Jr. (Sam Rockwell). Reston thinks Frost won’t be hard enough on Nixon. He wants Nixon convicted for his authorization of the Watergate break-ins. Along with questions on wiretapping, Reston tells Frost to ask him: “How do you feel as a Quaker in annihilating an entire people?’ Of course, this never happens.
Ron Howard seamlessly intercuts archival video and film clips into his movie, including shots of the horrific, devastating “secret” bombings of Cambodia, the dead and desiccated bodies of civilians, burned and severely wounded children, and vast areas of forest, homes and buildings aflame. The tendency is to turn away. Some clips hadn’t been televised, although many of similar content were, such as shots of wounded, dead, and dying American soldiers. The latter shocked Americans into stepping up to launch hundreds of country-wide protests, involving hundreds of thousands of people, to end the protracted war.
During the initial interviews, Nixon appears relaxed. He is sly, bantering with Frost. The first three meetings do not go well for Frost. He opens with, “Why didn’t you burn the tapes? [Where he plans the break in with his cronies]” Nixon blithely runs on with an evasive convoluted answer; he is cheered by the omnipresent media when he leaves the Smith House where the interviews take place. Frost has funding problems and begins to understand that he is up against a major operator. He is into his backers for several thousand dollars. His London agent calls to tell him he’s losing his shows in Australia and London. Frost is worried that the tapes will never “see the light of day,” and realizes that he took a huge gamble. Before the final interview starts taping, Nixon throws him a curve by asking Frost if he did any “fornicating” last night. Frost reacts slightly, then when taping starts, he lays into Nixon about Vietnam and Cambodia, and shows Nixon film clips of the bombings. Nixon looks uncomfortable. Sweat breaks out on his upper lip, which up to now, he had controlled with the subtle use of a handkerchief. Later, at a Hugh Hefner party, Nixon plays the piano. Frost is talking to Pat Nixon, played by Patty McCormack as a tranquilized, well-appointed zombie, a put-upon spouse. About the interviews, she says, ’I’m glad it’s all going as planned.” The camera moves to a very depressed looking Nixon.
For his play, Morgan had invented a scene, included in the film, where, the night before the last taping, Nixon, with a drink in his hand, makes a very late night phone call to Frost. He launches into a long psychologically revealing rant, and challenges Frost to bring him down. He makes a confession that has Frost later sending Reston to research. Frost then spends the rest of the night listening to all of the Nixon tapes and making notes. Yet, as the opponents chat before the last taping, Nixon claims to have no memory of making the call
During the interview, Frost pins Nixon about his (Nixon’s) role in the obstruction of justice on the Watergate trials, accusing Nixon of colluding with Charles Colson, a Nixon crony. Frost reads from the transcript of his and Colson’s talk. Although, in reality, the tape was unknown, therefore unimportant, because a prosecutor had stated in an interview that they had more incriminating evidence against Nixon. Nixon’s famous rejoinder was, “When the President does it, it’s not illegal.” Frost then needles him to admit that he was involved in the cover-up. Nixon appears undone. Jack Brennan breaks into the room and demands the taping stopped. Everyone’s in a turmoil (Records show that Frost had it stopped because of a misread cue.) After a while, the interview is resumed and Nixon admits he let down the American people. “I made mistakes not worthy of a President.”
Howard’s film conflates the truth of what actually happened during the last interview. Frost appears to have “nailed” Nixon into confessing. He says, he “was involved in a ‘cover--up,’ as you call it.” However, evidence proves that what he really said was: “You’re wanting me to say that I participated in an illegal cover-up. No!” Screenwriter Morgan has him say, “I let them down. I let down the country. I let down the government.” As he leaves the Smith House, he appears to have aged. What felled him, Nixon says, was part media, part politics. Frost’s interviews get picked up. They are a sensation due to the power of the TV close up.
The final scene is of Frost visiting Nixon at Casa Pacifica. Nixon still does not recall the phone conversation: “What did we talk about?”he asks. “Cheeseburgers,” Frost replies..
Ron Howard and Peter Morgan obviously wanted to create a major film about an important time in American politics - - not a documentary - - that was both entertaining and would guarantee a substantial profit. So they took liberties with the truth to give us a distorted, dishonest film about a dangerous, paranoid, deluded President, who admitted only to “mistakes.” What is shameful is that roughly seventy percent of the population is too young to know about the Nixon presidency and his egregious, blatant disregard for human lives and the country.

"W" directed by Oliver Stone

2008-11-18T16:49:00.000-08:00

CHRONICLE OF A MISUNDERESTIMATED MAN
You go to Director Oliver Stone’s latest film, “W.” prepared to laugh or take umbrage, depending on your political affiliation or loyalty to George W. Bush, one of, if not the most unpopular US presidents. Known for his controversial work: “Salvador,” “JFK,” “Platoon,” and “Born on the 4th of July,” Stone, has crafted a fictional biography about a troubled, seemingly clueless, incurious man. One would have had to have lived on another planet for the past eight years not to have seen or read about Bush’s foibles, and the ”misunderestemations” (his word) of his intents; or heard his gaffes, misspeaks, and bad grammar; or experienced the results of his dangerous self-imposed power, backed, if not instigated, by Dick Cheney.

Early in his first term as the 43rd President of the United States, Bush wreaked havoc on the world, first by bombing Afghanistan allegedly for its involvement in 9/11. To make this now fragile situation worse, less than two years later, Bush ordered a “preemptive strike” on Iraq based on fabricated intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs. Stone made clear in his film what many suspected: Bush wanted to take down Hussein to finish the job his father, George H. W. Bush, had started with the First’s Gulf War.

The film begins in the 1960s and moves unevenly from the past to just after the take-down of Hussein. An early scene shows young George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) alone in an empty baseball stadium, wearing a warm-up suit and cap. He imagines the roar of the crowd and the excited sportscaster announcing the play as he goes back for a high, fly-ball. The next scene is late 2001, after the World Trade Center tragedy. Bush and the usual suspects are at a cabinet meeting: there’s Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn); Cheney (perfectly and evilly captured by Richard Dreyfuss), Condoleeza Rice (Thandie Newton, the only portrayal of a real person unfortunately to come off as a caricature), Colin Powell (Jeffery Wright does what he can in the role of a dissed Cabinet member), and Paul Wolfowitz, among other warmongering, neo-cons (Powell, excepted). The “architect” Karl Rove (a miscast Toby Jones), lurks in a shadowy corner. There are scenes of Rove orchestrating Bush’s win for Governor of Texas and subsequent run for President. Stone illustrated the coerced religious aura surrounding Bush’s Cabinet; he filmed Bush closing meetings with an unspoken, silent prayer; members’ heads bowed, eyes shut, brows furrowed in phony sincerity.
Josh Brolin plays W. straight. He neither takes the easy road of caricature nor does he overdo Bush’s snarky laugh, smirk, or his way of holding his arms out from his body as though waiting for sticky deodorant to dry. Elizabeth Banks does a believable performance as Laura Bush. She is a woman who hold her own, yet, at the same time, comes off as a true “Stand By Your Man” gal (as do all presidents’ wives or at least do a great job of pretending). W. meets Laura at a barbecue. She smokes, drinks beer from the bottle, and is proud of her push for education reforms and libraries. What could she possibly see in this guy whose Yale education was bought by his father. Sure, he’s rugged in a cowboyish way, a wanna-be rancher, a charmer with the ladies, and he comes from a “good” family.

Stone includes scenes of Bush constantly testing himself physically: running three miles a day, and later, as president, riding his mountain bike. Though he omitted Bush’s bike wipe-out, he included the scene where he choked on a pretzel while watching a game on TV, alone. He blacked out and fell hard to the floor; the impact dislodged the pretzel. One can’t help speculate that had this not happened, Cheney would’ve ended up president. Scary thought.

George H. W. Bush who was number 41, is played by James Cromewell, who doesn’t bother trying to get H. W.’s voice or mannerisms, yet gives a sincere performance of a father disappointed with and frustrated by his oldest son’s fuckups, admonishing him to shape up. “You’re not a Kennedy! You’re a Bush!” The well-documented evidence of Dad getting W. into the National Guard, and the bail-outs to save his son’s ass are touched on, but, thankfully, not belabored. W. was (and probably remains) an embarrassment to his parents. Stone hints at a payoff to a woman W. got pregnant, but whether or not this is true, is moot. The Freudian thread of Bush feeling that he’s never good enough for his Dad, whom he calls “perfect,” is highlighted throughout, as well as the sibling rivalry with bro Jeb, who became governor of Florida just ahead of Bush’s governorship of Texas. When H. W. tells him of Jeb’s win, Junior whines,, “Why can’t you ever be happy for me?” Stone depicts Bush as a drunken womanizer until he found religion at the knee of his Evangelical Christian pastor, Earle Hudd (Stacy Keach in a wonderful role as a Texas cowboy boot-wearing preacher). W.’s religious fanaticism truly confounds his parents. “God wants me to run for president,” W. tells Barbara Bush. “You’ve got to be kidding!” she exclaims in disbelief.

In an interview on BBC for “W.”, Oliver Stone said that he had get foreign funding for the film. He admits and accepts that he is not well-liked in this country, not only for his controversial films, but also for his leftist politics. He went to Yale the same time as Bush Jr., but never met him. He derides Bush for not serving in Vietnam. There, Stone said, Bush would have witnessed the horror the US wreaked on that country; that maybe W. wouldn’t be so cavalier about starting wars on a whim. Stone also said that though Bush comes off compassionate and empathetic when visiting the wounded in the hospitals (he includes such a scene in his film), he doesn’t seem to feel for or say anything about the millions of lives the US has destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Is the United States a Christian nation?” the interviewer asked. “No,” Stone, a former Protestant, now an avowed Buddhist, replied, “There are spiritual people in the United States, but a country that has two wars going on simultaneously is not a Christian nation.”

This review appears in another publication, slighlty altered.

"THE DUCHESS"

2008-10-03T15:16:00.000-07:00

Director Saul Gibb’s film “The Duchess” is about class, family, social standing and morés, and betrayala, a gorgeous, sumptuous affair, set in 18th Century England. The costumes, headdresses, and décor, are ostentatiously elaborate. “The Duchess” stars Kiera Knightly as a real person, Giorgiana, the wife of a wealthy nobleman, Duke of Devonshire (played by Ralph Fiennes. Though the Duke has his pick of women, he choose her after careful study and negotiations with her widowed mother, played by Charlotte Rampling. Giorgiana had made history not only in setting styles, but in championing women’s rights in an era when women were mere chattels, property of their husbands, or if unmarried, their fathers or older brothers. She also dabbled in politics and was a dedicated gambler.
The cinematography captures beautifully the mansions and castles dotting the vast upper class English countryside. We see Giorgiana first as a seventeen year old gamboling with her circle of male and female friends on the well-manicured grounds of her mother’s estate, as the Duke watches from a window. In this scene, it is apparent that there is something going on between her and a young lad, Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper).
The Duke‘s sole interest in Giorgiana is based on her sex not to mention the material gain from her mother’s estate. He wants an heir so wastes no time bedding her soon after their nuptials. The scenes of the wedding and subsequent reception with its music and dancing are dizzyingly outstanding.
Some weeks later, a heartbreaking event takes place at supper at a mile-long table with the Duke and Duchess at either end. A older woman, obviously a servant, interrupts the diners. A little girl, Charlotte, about three or four clings to the woman‘s hand. The betrayal and humiliation can be read in Knightly‘s face and body language when Fiennes off-handedly tells his wife that child is his, by a house servant, who had recently died. He adds that they have no place to go. As the Duke calmly goes about eating (nothing spoils his appetite except for a suspect serving of mutton; he is seen eating throughout the film and had a pronounced paunch to show for it), Knightly rails against him, “You expect me to take care of her!?” Yet, she does, accepting the girl as her own daughter. When it becomes apparent that Giorgiana cannot give the Duke a son after two girls are born, he gives her an ultimatim: A son, or else. Ralph Fiennes plays the Duke as a distant, uncaring, dispicable cad. His glazed grey eyes reveal nothing. It is difficult to like him. So, in a later scene with Giorgiana,we are relieved to see him soften and show empathy, merely by gently, but hesitatingly lest he give away too much, laying a hand over hers.
She and her best friend, Lady Elizabeth (Hayley Atwell), engage in girl talk after a Ball attended by Charles Grey, who is a rising politician, making a name for himself. One of his friends predicts that one day he will be Prime Minister. Giorgiana is adept at discussing politics with him and his friends. The looks transpiring between Giorgiana and Charles are not lost on Lady Elizabeth. Later, Giorgiana confides to Lady Bess her displeasure in her marriage bed. She feels the Duke only wants her to conceive a boy. Lady Bess, in a hypothetical scene, engages Giorgiana in lesbian fondling telling her that sex is not always about conception, but for pleasure as well, hinting she could find this with Charles.
The film points up the centuries old double standard: it’s okay for the Duke to have a mistress which society knows about, but he will not be made a cuckold by his wife. The Duke takes up with Lady Bess right under Giorgiana’s nose, moves her and her three young sons into their home. Bess made it clear to her friend that she used the Duke’s influence to get custody of her sons from a vengeful ex-husband. Animosity develops between them. In that era, journalistic sketch artists were the paparazzi. As we see in the film, they attend all the affairs and busily cartoon the attendees as they make snide remarks while laughingly comparing their drawings, which we get to see.
When Giorgiana’s affair with Charles Grey becomes public knowledge, the Duke threatens to take her girls away from her forever. In a later scene at a Ball, in front of her husband and former lover, she, heavily made up, gets very drunk and dances too close to a low hanging chandelier. Her elaborate wig and headdress catch fire, panic ensues, a party goer snatches it off her head and the burning mess sits flaming in the middle of the floor while Giorgiana, in her white skull cap. slumps down utterly humiliated. Ralph Fiennes disdainfully intones the best line in the film: “Will someone please put out the Duchess‘s hair.”
For the sake of her children (she finally produces a son for the Duke), she gives up her lover, but continues gambling and politics; leaders of her party want her to introduce them at rallies because she draws a crowd. She was a free spirit in her time, yet constrained by society. Diana Spencer (Princess Di) is one of her direct descendants. Diana had much in common with her illustrious ancestor. Giorgiana had had paintings done of her by Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, which the costume designers for the film consulted. Charles Grey did indeed become Britain’s Prime Minister.

"Tropic Thunder"

2008-09-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

“Tropic Thunder,” directed by Ben Stiller, written by Stiller, Justin Theroux and Ethan Cohen, starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr., Jack Black, and Nick Nolte.

A warning: if you are of the easily offended, ultra-politically correct elite, Ben Stiller‘s controversial, over-the-top, hilarious film, “Tropic Thunder,” is not for you. So by all means stay home and let the rest of us have all the fun. The two most talked about elements in the film are the flagrant use of the word, “retard,” and Robert Downey, Jr.‘s portrayal of a black man. His character, Kirk Lazarus, a self-absorbed, Oscar-winning, total-immersion, Australian actor (think Russell Crowe) has undergone a medical procedure to darken his skin for the role of Sgt. Lincoln Osiris.

In his well-executed, many-faceted, satire, Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, a declining action hero who, as in Stallone’s “Rocky” and “Rambo” series, has starred in one-too-many “Scorcher” action films (I - - 1V). Speedman is under a contract arranged by his agent, Rick Peck (Matthew McConnaughey, in a thankless role) to producer Les Grossman, an aging, bald, potty-mouth, in giant aviator glasses. Grossman is played by Tom Cruise, whom you may recognize only by subtle vocal inflections. Speedman has to make a non-Scorcher film that will rake in hundreds of millions of dollars. Hence, “Tropic Thunder.”

Before the actual film begins, we are treated to movie house, commercial send-ups (one, for a soft drink, Booty Sweat, in red cans emulating Coke). Following these are trailers from Tugg’s “Scorcher” films and Jack Black’s drug-addled character, Jeff Portnoy, in “The Fatties“ series, where Portnoy plays all the parts - - a take off on Eddie Murphy‘s films.

Tugg Speedman's “Tropic Thunder”is based on the memoirs of Vietnam vet John “Four-Leaf“ Taybeck, who wears a pair of hooks in place of hands. Taybeck is played by Nick Nolte, whose character is a match for Nolte’s infamous mug shot. The film opens on a scene of helicopters chugging above a dense jungle. The camera zooms in on wounded soldiers after an ambush. It is gripping. We are in Vietnam. Sgt. Osiris leans over Speedman, (who plays Taybeck), who‘s hands have been blown off(the special effects here are both stomach-churning and hilarious). They exchange hackneyed, war-buddy clichés. Then, Speedman breaks character: “Can we cut?“ The camera moves to a wide-angle shot of the irate director, Damien Cockburn, played by British actor Steve Coogan, surrounded by the film crew. We realize that we are witnessing the making of a film called, “Tropic Thunder.”

Stiller, Downey, Black, and real black actor/rapper, Brandon T. Jackson as Alpha Chino, along with munitions expert Cody (Danny McBride), find themselves smack in the middle of a real drug war. The actors believe they’re still making a film until Speedman is held hostage by a menacing child soldier with a gun taller than himself. Black’s Portnoy, spying a mound of raw heroin,feels he’s reached the Promised Land. Things get really hairy and life-threatening until the child soldier recognizes Speedman as “Simple Jack,“ a film about a boy who stutters and the word “retard’ is freely used. Seems he has a video of the film and a soft spot for “Simple Jack.” Speedman, like a white-face Jerry Lewis, wearing an Andy Warhol wig, is forced to re-enact the role for the captors. Eventually, Speedman becomes Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now.“ And John “Four Leaf” Tayback's real identity is accidentally revealed when he loses his prosthetics.

Besides the flagrant use of “retard.“ and clips from “Simple Jack,” which is a parody of films like “Forrest Gump,“ “I Am Sam,” and the “Rain Man,” the filmmakers correctly anticipated controversy over Downey‘s portrayal of Lazarus as a black man. In an interview, Downey has said that he feared being tarred and feathered and run out of town, and that his reputation would be destroyed. But co-star Jackson who is excellent in the role of Alpha Chino, is no foil. Chino keeps things in perspective, going up on Lazarus when his character improvises in cliché darkie talk. In once scene, Chino tells Osiris that his profound piece of wisdom (“400 years . . .“) is the opening voiceover for the TV hit, “The Jeffersons.” The script had called for Osiris to use the N word, and Jackson said it went over the line. Downey admitted that Jackson may have saved the film. But on the other hand, according to Stiller in the same interview, “What Robert [Downey] was doing was so genuine and funny, it felt okay. This character was just really likable and enjoyable. [Downey] couldn’t be tentative about it, though, he had to commit fully to this guy.” The N word stayed in and was beautifully handled by Downey and Jackson. Still Downey’s portrayal became the subject of print media critics, bloggers, and talk shows.

The dialogue and scene set-ups in “Tropic Thunder” are rife with clever references to just about every popular and classic film ever made, and slip by like quicksilver. One scene is ripped right from 1940s black-and-white WWII films: The grizzled grunts hunker down in their foxholes, pull out photos, and talk about their girls back home. Chino tells Osiris about his, named Lance. There are few mainstream, blockbuster films, without a female lead or love interest. “Tropic Thunder“ is one.

In a final scene that takes place at the Oscars, carefully scan the audience for celebrity cameos - - there’s a great one of a pissed-off Jon Voight.
Stiller‘s film satirizes film-making, the people behind them, and actors, and just about everything and anything that passes as entertainment for and marketing to an insatiable, gullible, public. Especially, Oscar-winning war flicks. Would that he would do the same for politicl conventions. Still, how can you parody a parody?

WALL- E

2008-07-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

WALL-E, a Disney/Pixar collaboration. Written and directed by Andrew Stanton Original music by Thomas Newman

LIFE AFTER THE APOCALYPSE OR LOVE WILL FIND A WAY
By Gaetana Caldwell-Smith

Disney/Pixar’s latest animation movie “WALL- E” is an engaging, rich, family film with a serious message that isn’t crammed down our throats. The message has to do with human activity causing “climate change” or “global warming,” rendering the Earth so toxic it is uninhabitable for animal or vegetable life - - oh, with the exception of one cockroach (cockroaches can survive anything, so I hear.) It is also a robot love story. The film opens with the camera panning over a wasteland of crumbling buildings in American cities and desiccated landscapes. Everything is depicted in shades of brown and rust, including the sky; a hazy miasma covers the Earth.

WALL - E (voice: Ben Burtt) is a small, robot, trash collector/compactor/disposal unit that runs on treads. It is programmed to clean and make orderly what humans have abandoned when they rocketed off Earth into space. The largely white, fat and happy, Americans now live in the captained space-ship colony, AXIOM (billing itself as the “Final Funteer”). The rendering of AXIOM inhabitants are unflattering. They all look like six month old babies in their one- piece red rompers, except for the fat Captain (voice:Jeff Garlin) who wears regulation captain garb. Everyone (even he) reclines on motorized Barca Loungers fitted with plasma screens, like waiting-rooms at airports, their every gustatory need voice-commanded and delivered by the ship’s robot (voice: Signory Weaver).

WALL- E looks like a beat-up, urban Dumpster, still, he is a cute, little guy with periscope eyes. He is very discerning. He has saved an old TV and Barbra Streisand’s “Hello Dolly” video which he watches throughout the initial scenes.

At it's start, close to a half-hour of the film is without dialogue or narrative - - just a myriad of electronic beeps and whistles as WALL- E goes about his business, sometimes accompanied by his chirruping cockroach friend. WALL- E’s life is changed by the arrival of a smooth, white, ovoid-shaped , blue-eyed EVE (voice: Elissa Knight), who someone said looks like an Apple invention. EVE has arrived by space ship sent back to Earth on a mission to bring back to AXIOM, proof that toxic Earth is once again inhabitable. After some shoot-first moments on EVE’s part, EVE and WALL- E’s meeting is aw-shucks cute, played out to Louie Armstrong’s “La Vie en Rose,” no less. Mission accomplished, She shuts down; the space ship returns to collect her and WALL- E hitches a ride.

The Pixar animators have outdone themselves with their depiction of EVE’s world. There is an evolved WALL- E - - a small sophisticated white, vacuum cleaner that slides around on the smooth, marked, floors flashing a warning of “Foreign Contaminants” as it sucks up minuscule stuff. When WALL- E finds his way inside the colony, he’s confused to find countless cloned Eves. A later scene of EVE and WALL- E zooming around in outer space, to “2001’s” “ Blue Danube Waltz” is not only lyrically beautiful, but contain some of the best visuals in the film.

Upon the discovery that Earth is once more habitable, the Captain sets a course to return, only to be thwarted for a time by “Otto,” a “2001” Hal-like computer program, and the CEO of AXIOM, Shelby Forthright, appearing via teleconference(played by Fred Willard, the only real human). The film pays tribute to “2001,” not only with Richard Strauss‘s “The Blue Danube,” but also the “2001” opening theme, “Also Spake Zarathustra.” The ending focuses on EVE ministering to WALL - E who had been seriously damaged during the landing. Missing from the film, however, is a scene showing the reactions of the roly-poly men, women and look-alike children, who tumble from the space ship on to a desiccated, deserted earth. Though while the credits run, we see that they did okay. But how they accomplished this could be another film. A sequel perhaps?

"FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER" The Most Important Documentary You'd be Lucky to Find in a Major Theatre

2008-06-07T15:29:00.000-07:00

Water. Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink . . . .
By Gaetana Caldwell-Smith

Producer Steven Starr and co-producer Gill Holland had seen Irena Salina‘s documentary film, “Flow: For Love of Water,” at the Sundance Film Festival. They thought the film so important, they bought it for the San Francisco International Film Festival in early Spring. Unfortunately, it has not as yet been picked up for wider distribution.

The international cast of interviewees for this film about the privatization of the world’s water supply believe fights over water rights will trump the current oil wars. Advocates for so-called Third World or developing countries’ water rights spoke on several subjects: illness and death attributed to water-borne diseases, water scarcity due to global warming: droughts, floods, and crop failure, leading to famines and starvation; in addition, the fact that two million children in these countries die of water born diseases yearly. One interviewee stated the obvious; “Without water, the earth wouldn’t be what it is.” The makeup of animal life on earth is commiserate with that of earth: 70% water and 30% physical matter. Scientist and internationally known water expert, Dr. Peter Glieck explained the water cycle we all learned in grammar school. Now, with a nod to Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth,“ it is believed that global warming has caused erratic changes to this cycle. These changes cause lakes and rivers to dry up in certain areas,reducing the amount of water evaporation. This in turn results in lack of rainfall for crops and the for the filling of underground natural cisterns; also causing devastating deluges and floods, washing away precious topsoil.

In the film, scientists such as Dr. Glieck and UC Berkeley biologist Tyrone Hayes say that to believe that the water supply in the US is safe to drink or bathe in, is a fallacy. This so-called treated water contains pesticides which leach through our pores each time we shower. Tap water in the developed world also contains pharmaceuticals from pills flushed down toilets (or residue from urine), or dumped into landfills. As yet, there is no way to filter out these drugs. Five hundred thousand to 1,000,000 people sicken from the water supply in the US. Pollution not only alters hormones in fish and frogs, but also affects the chemistry in humans. Vandana Shiva, an ecologist and environmental activist from India, is shown speaking at international forums, and in “Flow,” she talks about the plight of babies born with birth defects because their mothers had drunk ground water “ruined by pesticides.” She says that industrial toxins are found in the flesh of ruminating animals who drink runoff from fields that leach into streams and is collected for domestic stock. Tyrone Hayes spoke of the evils of the widely used pesticide atrazine which is manufactured by Syngenta, in Sweden. The EU has banned atrazine outright, yet Sweden sells it to its eager buyer - - the US. US big agro uses it on two-thirds of all the corn fields, sorgum, soy beans; 90% of sugar cane fields, and municipalities spray it on lawns, golf courses, and Christmas tree farms.

In one startling scene, the camera focuses on a sluggish, blood red stream in Africa. Maude Barlow, Chairperson for the Council of Canadians, who was involved with the 2003 documentary, “Corporation,” approaches the stream with villagers who tell her that blood from a nearby slaughterhouse is channeled into the river. Downstream, where it has diluted some, people drink the water, bathe, and wash clothes in it because they don‘t have access to clean water. Many sicken and die as a result.

A CEO from Suez Corporation, Gerard Mestrallet, admits that his company is “active” in the water “business.” He believes that for the welfare of the people in undeveloped nations, they should buy into Suez’s proposal to own the water, arguing for equal distribution for a price - - a price beyond villagers’ dollar-a-day income.

“Flow” includes clips from the documentary film about the victory over water privatization in Cochabamb, Bolivia, featuring Bolivian activist and protest leader Oscar Olivera. Activist/author Jim Schultz, founder of the Democracy Center based in Cochabamba, provided a voiceover. An interview with Schultz revealed that in 1997 the World Bank forced Cochabamba’s water privatization by Aguas del Tunari, a private company owned by London-based multinational International Water Ltd. The people couldn’t afford to buy water, whose costs had risen beyond their means, so dipped water from polluted streams. Several people demonstrating against the privatization were killed by Bolivian police and the military. Still, the people prevailed and won.

In a village in Africa, the water can be purified with a tablet provided by the Suez Corp, which people must buy, yet cannot afford. A tour bus of various concerned Anglo-European corporate officials in suits and ties traveled around sweltering Africa on a “fact-finding” mission. Stepping off the bus for less than a minute, they were swarmed by curious and complaining villagers. The officials promised to get them water. In Chatsworth, an Indian community in Africa, one village leader explained that they knew that these water privatization corporations were created by banks, the World Bank, in particular. Suez Company’s Mestrallet complained that the company can’t turn a profit once they privatize an area’s water unless they charge enough to make a profit to satisfy their shareholders.

One interviewer, Dr. Ashok Gadgil, a biochemist at the University of California at Berkeley, devised a simple water purification system powered by water that captures the sun’s UV rays. He and his team installed it in an area of India where tens of thousands had sickened and died from polluted water. Now, more than 500,000 rural Indians obtain their drinking water after it is triple-filtered, carbon-treated and disinfected, for 2/10th of a U.S. cent per liter. Soon not only did people’s health begin to improve, but that of a chicken breeder’s flocks. Previously, the chicks had also suffered from deadly water-borne bacteria.

The world‘s water supply is not infinite. Climate change affects all natural bodies of water, as well as snow packs, and glaciers. Big corporations buying and selling water is immoral. Take the bottled water industry; it is huge. Yet scientific research into the makeup of bottled water has proven it’s no safer than tap water. Penn Jillette of the comedy magic team Penn & Teller provides some comic relief to this sobering film with a spoof on the bottled water myth: A specialty restaurant serves allegedly pristine, exotic water from all over the world. Its menu describes water the way wine is marketed. Affluent white people sit at well-appointed tables and select their water. Jillette then cuts to a view of the rear of the restaurant where Teller is seen slopping tap water, gushing from a garden hose, indiscriminately into empty bottles. The bottle and wine glasses are then carried ceremoniously on a tray to the duped “diners” who sip their water and extol its palate. After seeing this film, people with any conscience should be embarrassed to be seen carrying bottled water.

In her book, “Blue Gold,” Maude Barlow compares the fresh water supply with that of oil reserves. She was interviewed for “Flow” and said that the buying and selling water will become as controversial as the oil business today. The film includes a clip from “The Third Man,” showing Harry Green (Orson Welles) pitching his scam to Joseph Cotton. Looking down from the apogee of a Ferris-wheel at people crisscrossing the fairgrounds below, Green asks him something like, “Would you really care if those little crawling ants down there die?” thus comparing Green to the CEO of a huge greedy pesticide producing corporation like Monsanto.

Water advocate William Mark, also interviewed for the film, once rode horseback on a two-year, 7000 mile journey across the United States investigating, reporting, and lecturing on water management systems in the US. He also traveled extensively in other countries and in the Middle East studying water systems dating back to the Byzantine era. He wrote “The Holy Order of Water.” In “Flow,“ he says, “Water is a transient gift for life, like the sun.”

Patrick McCully, exective director of International Rivers Network, spoke about the impact of dams on the environment. He points out that organic matter builds up behind dams, creating methane gas which contributes to global warming. The area around the highland village of Lethoso in Africa, had been reduced to desert due to poor water management and droughts. People had to depend on food aid. Water had to be trucked in or women and children walk miles to fill five-gallon containers and carry them back on their heads. Added to this insult was that eventually the people were forced to move because, as a villager said, “they were building a dam.” They have absolutely no legal recourse. The film depicts several dams built over the past fifty years: Three Gorges Dam* in China is the latest. Besides the deaths of dam workers, there have been massive landslides which have buried adjoining villages, killing inhabitants. Also, dam building displaces thousands of people who are forced to pack up their meager belongings and move from ancestral lands to shabby slums on the outskirts of large towns and cities. No longer are they able to farm or fish for food, or depend on existing streams and rivers for water. They can’t find work so are reduced to pawns of big government, begging for sacks of food thrown from backs of trucks.

In Africa, women and children stand in long lines, waiting to fill containers from a spigot in the ground, controlled by Suez Corporation. Sometimes “they” allowed water to flow twice a day, sometimes once. There were days when people waited all day for water. Someone forgot to turn it on. Other sources required the insertion of a coin and people had to decide between buying food or water. Dr. David Hemson, of the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa, discovered that while the post-apartheid government has expanded water service, the price increased above the reach of many rural South Africans. The poor resorted to fetching water from cholera-laden rivers or lakes. Yearly, more than 18,000 South African poor die from diarrhea or dysentery. costing the country approximately four billion rand annually to deal with the effects of these diseases.

An authority from Suez Corp, tried to tell Shri Rajendra Singh, a cheerful Indian activist, that water from streams and rivers around his village was not his. Rain was not his. Singh could only laugh. In 1985, Mr. Singh and a NGO official, Tarun Bharat Sangh, traveled to Alwar, one of the poorest provinces in India. Water was scarce, cattle were dying on parched land declared by the Indian Government as a hopeless Black Zone. “Flow’ documents Singh’s work with villagers. With a local elder‘s advice, Singh organized villagers to restore old “johads (water harvesting structures),” a simple, yet labor intensive, years-long project, in order to return the land to its original pastoral state. The film, beautifully shot by cinematographer Pablo de Selva and Irena Salina, shows a before-and-after evolution. Today, two decades later, there are 8,600 “johads” in over a thousand villages spread over 6500 square km. Now, in one village, a paradisiacal scene opens on a pond, trees, birds, and enough running water to grow food. The people Singh had trained have gone to other villages to help create more watersheds.
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Here in the US, the Nestlés Corporation had built a water bottling plant in Michigan to bottle water pumped by the thousands of gallons a day from existing rivers and aquifers. A ridiculous situation, says Sweetwater Alliance member, Michigan resident, and author, Holly Wren Spaulding. Nestlés bottles this water, ships it all over the US, imports it, and sell it back to Michigan residents. The townspeople, led by Attorney Jim Olson brought a suit against Nestlés to shut it down. They succeeded to a degree. Nestlés agreed to reduce the number of thousands of gallons it pumps per day. That wasn’t good enough. They want it shut down permanently and are still working with Olson to achieve that goal.

A scene in the film shows a hundred or so women in Kerala, India, sitting for days, weeks, and months, under a canopy. By holding this silent vigil, they managed to close a nearby Coca Cola bottling plant. Along with the women, well-known ecologist, and environmental activist Vananda Shiva helped shut the plant down. Town officials saw Shiva and the women were serious, and acted. They took up the cause and in 2005, the plant was closed. Now the famous logo on the rusting plant is fading. And, when Vananada Shiva discovered that a water stand was closing, she went to the people and with them marched to the local government in such force the stand remained open. Shiva, who was featured in many of the segments on India in the film, is a strong advocate for people power to protest wrong-doings and winning their cause.

Also featured in “Flow“ was a former water privatization company CEO turned activist. Jean-Luc Touly had been an administrative manager at France’s Veolia Water. He was let go by the Ministry of Labor in 2006 for co-authoring the book, “Multinationals and Water: The Unspeakable Truth.” He is now a trade unionist and labor arbitrator, and President of ACME, the French chapter of the Association for a World Contract on Water, which works to resist water privatization and business influence on water management.

Anti-water privatization activist organizations, Vivanada Singh strongly urges people to speak out and march, as they did in Bolivia and are doing in Michigan, or protest silently. It worked in Kerala, India.

Find the availabiltiy of "Flow" via the Internet. Google the complete name of the film for informaton.

* "Up the Yangtze" a documentary film about the impact of the building of Three Gorges Dam will open soon in the Bay Area. Watch for it.

"DARK MATTER": Off the Map in the Bay Area

2008-05-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

"DARK MATTER," starring Meryl Streep, Aidan Quinn and Ye Liu
Directed by Chen Shi-Zhen.
Based on a true story of a 1991 school shooting.
In English and Mandarin (subtitled)

Unfortunately, the thought-provoking film "Dark Matter" didn't get the attention it deserves. Opera director Chen Shi-Zheng’s first feature film lasted only two weeks in Bay Area theatres, which is a shame when some multiplexes devoted three screens to the panned "Speed Racer." Now, Bay Areans must wait for the DVD or search for a showing on Cable or in other areas.

"Dark Matter" is based on a tragic, true story that took place in 1991. The film opened in April, 2008, to reviews ranging from middling to bad. Yet, reading between the lines, the film seemed a much better vehicle than what the critics said. And it is. Basically it’s about a genius university student and an egotistical professor working on theories about how the universe began. There's dialogue about astronomy. quantum physics, black holes, dark matter, string theory, and galaxies - - fascinating subjects dear to my dilettante heart. The film stars one of my favorite actors, Aidan Quinn, as Jacob Reiser, a noted professor of astrophysics at a university based in Utah. The highly-praised Meryl Streep is perfectly cast as Joanne Silver, a wealthy university patron and Sinologist, who forms a special bond with student émigré, Liu Xing (“shooting star“ in Chinese). Xing is played sensitively and sympathetically by award winning Chinese actor Ye Liu.

The film follows Xing’s life at the university the way a telescope tracks a doomed star destined to fall to earth, destroying matter as well as itself in its descent. Xing has immigrated to the US on a scholarship from Beijing. Through Xing's letters to his parents, Shi-Zhen engagingly contrasts scenes of Xing's life at the American university and his parents' hard-scrabble existence in China. He is both awed and befuddled by the wide expanses of the American West, and practically genuflects in the affable Reiser‘s presence. As Xing’s mentor and professor, Reiser initially sees Xing’s intelligence as a reflection on himself. He insists Xing cal him "Jake", which goes against Xing's culture. Reiser sends Xing off to a sweat-shop like lab where a half-dozen other young Asian students toil away at computers, churning out tests of astronomical equations. They introduce Xing to American pop culture with the help of porn films and TV, and beef up his English vocabulary.

Joanne Silver and her patient, tolerant husband - - generically named Herb (Bill Irwin), who’s in the Asian import-export business - - arrange sight-seeing tours for the students. They invite the brilliant Xing to their cocktail parties to show him off to benefactors.

Xing’s focus is to prove that the universe existed before the Big Bang, which, he contends, remained hidden due to dark matter, invisible even using the most sophisticated equipment. Xing says that astrophysicists know of the phenomenon of dark matter because of the gravitational pull it exerts on other bodies in the cosmos. He explains this theory to Silver (and us), and the fact that the universe is at least 70% dark energy and dark matter, out of which, he believes, the universe was born.

The Asian students are there, Reiser subtly implies, to support the Reiser Model, his theory of the universe‘s beginnings. Xing doesn’t get that he is supposed to be working for him. He is obsessed with his own work which begins to irritate Reiser. Xing suffers a blow when he spots a rival from his Beijing University days, Zang Ming (Tsao Lei) shaking hands with Reiser in his office. Ming speaks perfect, measured, non-accented English, even among his peers. While Xing strikes out with an American tea shop clerk, Ming is married to a talented Chinese entertainer and has a new baby. In the lab, Xing asks him why he changed his Chinese first name to “Laurence”. We know the answer. Director Shi-Zheng included scenes of the happy couple baptizing their baby; and, at a faculty party, the wife sings Chinese pop and pulls off a hokey final scene from “Madama Butterfly.”

When once again Reiser ignores Xing’s theories, Xing manages to get published in a prestigious astronomy journal, infuriating Reiser. Reiser’s contemporaries deal his inflated ego a blow by complimenting Xing in Reiser’s presence. Xing has gone too far.

There’s an Einsteinian moment in a small kitchen with Xing and his friends. He has been working on his idea of proving dark matter by using string theory, but he can’t get a handle on it. The camera focuses on Xing staring into a pot of boiling rice. The boiling kernels float to the top. Suddenly, he jumps up and shouts the Mandarin equivalent of “Eureka!” subtitled on the screen as “I got it!” He dashes off his findings on a yellow legal pad, tears off the pages, and races to the university, bumping into Reiser on the stairs on the way to his office. Grudgingly, Rieser takes his papers, then complains to his colleagues about Xing’s sloppy presentation; yet they have to admit to him, it’s genius.

Meanwhile, Reiser lauds Xing’s rival for his work on the Reiser Model. Reiser disdains comments from fellow professors (except for one toady) on the brilliance of Xing’s work and shoots Xing down at every opportunity. The unkindest cut of all comes when Xing is passed over for his Ph.D in favor of his mediocre rival. Ye Liu is a wonderful actor. Outside of later scenes depicting him as an enraged man, tearing off the dark blue dress shirt Silver bought him to wear for his dissertation (“Dress for success!”), he conveys his pain, his distress, in stillness and through his deep, dark eyes. He cannot understand how this can be happening to him in this land of opportunity.

A heartbreaking scene occurs between Liu and Streep when, in her glass and stressed-concrete mountainside home, he makes a blundering, feeble attempt to sell her a line of beauty products, the only work he grossly, mistakenly, believes he’s qualified for. The scene is painful to watch. His hands tremble applying cream to Streep’s aging face; he’s clumsy. He has failed, he’s lost face.

The film ends tragically. One critic went so far as to say that it should have ended fifteen minutes before it did. I’m not giving anything away when I say that Xing methodically shows up at his rival’s presentation and shoots him, Reiser, and a few other faculty members, then goes home and commits suicide. But that’s what really happened. Why is it okay to read or hear about such a shooting in the media, like what happened at Virginia Tech, but not to see this kind of real event portrayed as fiction in a film? It has been said that the Chinese student’s real professor was much more sympathetic than Quinn’s depiction. Still, who can really know what motivated Xing to snap, or say what exactly happened, since he is dead. We can only speculate as we do when pondering the birth of the universe.

“There Will Be Blood,”

2008-01-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

EVIL POWER

“There Will Be Blood,” a film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson,stars Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Dano, and Ciaran Hinds. It is very loosely based on Pulitzer Prize winner Upton Sinclair’s 1925 novel, “Oil!”. However, perhaps to create a more engaging film, Anderson focuses on the character of Daniel Plainview (J. Arnold Ross, in the novel) and his trajectory from silver prospector in 1898 to oil tycoon in Southern California by 1911. Anderson fabricated Plainview’s relationship to his son, who, in the novel, is the tycoon‘s biological son, J. A. Ross, Jr., aka Bunny. Also, Anderson chose to ignore a huge portion of Sinclair’s novel that deals with the oil workers’ and railroad workers’ strike and the US entrance into the First World War. Neither major event was even alluded to in Anderson’s film, though, of course, the oil worker‘s strike in the novel affected J. A. Ross deeply.

Daniel Plainview, as played by Daniel Day Lewis in an extraordinary performance, is both charismatic and ruthless. “There Will Be Blood“ illustrates the conflict of wills between one man’s religious fundamentalism and another’s atheism and rampant greed, whereas the conflict in Sinclair‘s “Oil!” pits controlled material progress, pacifism, equality, and workers‘ rights, against unbridled, capitalistic greed.
A significant character in the novel, Paul Watkins, served as Ross’s son, Bunny’s, conscience. In the film, he is Paul Sunday, who disappears after a brief meeting with Plainview. Again, to heighten conflict, and to make a more interesting film, director Anderson magnifies the character of Paul’s fundamentalist Christian brother, Eli. Eli (played beautifully by Paul Dano, the non-communicative son in “Little Miss Sunshine"), believes himself to be a prophet and healer. He ends up as Plainview’s greatest nemesis.

“There Will Be Blood” is an epic film, beautifully shot in Texas's rocky, almost barren landscape by cinematographer Robert Elswit. Director Anderson does excellent work depicting early California’s entrepreneurial prospectors risking their lives mining for precious metals buried deep in the unforgiving earth. The film opens in the year of 1898. For the initial ten or so minutes, to a soundtrack by musical director Jonny Greenwood eerily reminiscent of the haunting score for Kubrick’s
“2001" there is no dialogue, just sweeping vistas of shrubs scattered on parched rolling hills against a white-hot, cloudless sky. The camera closes in on Plainview and his partner mining silver in a deep shaft down into the earth. The partner, who has brought his infant son to the site, suffers a fatal accident, so Plainview assumes parentage of the child whom he soothes with a baby-bottle of whiskey-laced water. From 1898 to 1911, Plainview takes the child he names HW with him everywhere, traveling from town to town, giving persuasive talks at town meetings to sympathetic landowners and officials, who see him as a doting father. He wants their land. One of the beauties of this film is its lack of exposition; we don’t need it.

Daniel Plainview epitomizes the rugged individual risk-taker who brought progress to the West though development (read: exploitation) of its natural resources. Progress which led to the establishment of towns, enabling people to move here and set down roots. Plainview cuts an imposing figure. He is opinionated, irreligious, and strong, as well as tall and handsome. His greatest asset, and he knows it, is his baby-face son, who takes in every nuance of his “father‘s“ spiel and manner. HW grows up absorbing everything about starting a successful oil business. Though Plainview is making a lot of money with small-yield derricks scattered around, he does not yet own his own land, capable of producing an endless supply of oil. One telling moment occurs in a later scene when Plainview admits that he has a strong competitive streak and doesn’t want anyone else to succeed. He sees the worst in people, a trait which is illustrated in the film‘s brutal final scene.

Enter Paul Sunday. He shows up in Plainview’s office with a map of his impoverished parent’s land on which oil sometimes puddles. Not an unusual occurrence. Plainview waves him off, but does an about face when Paul says that a big oil company has started drilling only a few miles away. Paul‘s fundamentalist Christian family’s meager income from goats’ milk goes to Christian charity. Estranged from his family for questioning his father’s beliefs, Paul asks that his meeting with Plainview be kept secret. We never see him again. Abel Sunday (David Willis), the old white haired father, grants Plainview access to the land; he goes exploring with HW, now about eleven (played by Dillon Freasier); the boy slips and falls; the sole of his shoe is black. Oil! Plainview offers Abel lucrative terms for his land, skirting the real reason for wanting it. Plainview then ensures his stake by buying up all the land for miles around, except for one holdout, who later uses religion to blackmail Plainview. Plainview is now ready to set his oil exploration plans in motion.

The discovery of oil in California is almost tantamount to the Gold Rush. Men begin moving into the area from all over, their families following later. Speculators promise the town money for public and civil services. The animosity between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview grows palpable as the film progresses. When the oil roars mightily from Plainview’s new derrick like some supernatural, monstrous beast, HW is injured permanently. (HW’s accident and Plainview subsequent reaction is writer, director Anderson’s total invention. More interesting than having HW {Bunny} go off to college.) Plainview, though ruthless and unforgiving, demonstrates his love for HW. Yet, though he can swing deals, work around any obstacle, he is flummoxed by the boy’s infirmity.

Up to now, the film had moved along rather predictably except for the glee of watching Plainview‘s manipulation and intriguing machinations. The pace heats up with HW’s accident, then literally and figuratively catches fire when the gusher explodes into flame. Silhouetted against the orange and red conflagration leaping wildly into the night sky from the blazing derrick, men racing away in all directions, and Plainview shouting orders and the derrick crashing to the ground, is one of the most dramatic, riveting, natural, non-CGI, scenes since the burning of Atlanta in “Gone With the Wind.”

Ciaran Hinds, with a perfect American accent, has the thankless role of Plainview’s right hand man, Fletcher Hamilton. He‘s ordered to spirit away HW to a special school. HW returns at age 21 (now played by Russell Howard) in a telling scene that shows that he is a bigger rival to Plainview than Eli Sunday, or the Big Oil corporations. HW has mastered his oil tycoon apprenticeship all to well. Fletcher Hamilton’s position is usurped by a character claiming to be volatile Plainview’s long-lost, pacifist, polar-opposite, brother. Hamilton comes off as only mildly perturbed and basically disappears from the film. Except for supplying some back-story during a tense scene between the alleged brothers, there’s no reason to introduce this character, unless, however, to point up Plainview’s growing murderous ruthlessness towards liars and cheats - - emphasis on “murderous.”

Vastly rich and living in uber-capitalistic ostentation, Plainview’s final scenes take place initially in his office with his son, then in his own private bowling alley in the basement of his mansion when a financially ruined Eli, in black, high-preacher garb, accessorized with a large silver cross pendant shows up. Plainview viciously reduces Eli to a sniveling blasphemer, a blubbering, bloody mess.

Critics and film organizations tout “There Will Be Blood” as the best film of 2007. Having already been nominated or won other awards, both the film and star have been nominated for 8 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and more.

THE ORPHANAGE ("El Orfanato" Spain)

2008-01-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

"The Orphanage," directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, is a hauntingly beautiful film, shot in muted tones of browns, greys, blues, and golds, with occasional flashes of red, by cinematographer Óscar Faura, and written by Sergio G. Sanchez. In the US it is billed as a "horror" film. If you go thinking you'll see another "Saw" or a film of the "Halloween" genre, you'll be terribly disappointed. "Orphanage" deals with the paranormal. Spooky events are founded on reality so that when they occur they are all the more shocking to the audience: on a busy street, a woman sees an older woman, who she believes knows something about her missing son. The older woman gets hit by a car. The woman goes to her aid. An everyday occurrence, really, but in the film, the event will have you jumping out of your seat, it's that frightening. You ask yourself, did I really see what I saw? or was it the character's imagination?

As the film opens,Laura, as a young girl (Mirela Renau), who lives in an orphanage housed in a multi storied, Gothic building set in the countryside, is playing a hide and seek game of "One, two, three, knock on the wall," on the orphanage grounds. In the foreground, showers of golden tufts as from dogwood trees swirl magically against a dark landscape. Two women at a window overlooking the scene talk about Laura's imminent adoption. Laura will be happy, yet sad because she will miss her friends.

A couple of decades pass, the orphanage has been shut down for years. Laura (now played by Belén Rueda) has married Carlos (a rather cold, unemotional Fernando Cayo), a psychiatrist. Unable to have children, they have adopted a boy, Simon (adorable, cherubic Roger Princip), who is now about five or six. The couple buy the building to renovate it and start their own orphanage not only to help orphaned or abandoned children but to give Simon playmates, as Laura once had. It seems Laura has only fond, happy memories of her life there. Simon, in the absence of siblings, invents imaginary friends, not unusual for some prepubescent children especially for the only child. Laura worries because Simon's friends seem a little too real to him. Also, he often wakes screaming in the night. The couple takes turns comforting him. Tall, willowy, dark blond Belén Rueda has the face of a tragedian, a beautiful tragedian, like the young Vanessa Redgrave. In her rôle as Laura, her concern for Simon is at times wordless, yet seen in her eyes, expressions, and body language.

She is alone in the building each day her husband drives into town for his practice. Simon's insistence that he must do what his "friends" ask of him becomes too much for Laura, yet she dutifully goes along to a cave on the seashore near their property, following Simon as he in turn follows his friend's clues of dropped shells and stones. At times, he becomes intractable and demanding in his insistence that Laura believe his friends are real, causing his mother to suffer a couple of disabling injuries.

A turning point comes when a strange, severely dressed older woman from the adoption agency shows up bearing Simon's medical file she claims was never turned over to Laura with the adoption papers. Later, reading the file, Laura discovers that Simon was born HIV positive. Their attempts to find the birth mother turn fruitless; the women bearing the file was an impostor and later dies in an accident. She and Carlos feel they must give in to Simon's behaviour; they don't know how long he'll be with them. This news shatters Laura and prompts her to complete the renovation of the building and start the orphanage.

Once most of the work is completed, they invite officials and facilitators of organizations for orphaned children and their wards to a picnic on the grounds and a walk-through to encourage them to invest in and recruit children for their orphanage. As part of the festivities and to lend a fanciful (albeit creepy) air to the event, everyone wears a mask, even the adults. During this event, Simon's demands become intolerable. He plays hide and seek with Laura; she goes along. The boy shows up unexpectedly, startling her. He disappears again. She is relieved, but angry at his deception. Then, a tiny, mute child wearing a grotesque cloth mask materializes. The child taunts her, then runs away. Thinking it could be Simon, she tries to find the child and searches everywhere, including a storage room under the stairs. In her agitation, she knocks over construction materials and tools. Carlos and the guests grow alarmed at her hysteria as she runs around ripping masks off children and asking about Simon. Towards the end of the film, Simon's actions and demeanor appear to grow demonic.

What follows next will have you gripping the arms of your seat. Simon never shows up. The couple consult a team of psychics led by Aurora, an austere woman played by Geraldine Chaplin (granddaughter of Charlie and Oona O'Neil). They set up shop with electronic sensors and cameras One camera focuses on Aurora, who trances out in a chair in the center of a dark room, saying the unfortunately obligatory "I feel so coooooold," while hugging herself. Impatient, Carlos sends them packing, declaring them phonies out for money. For a short time, Laura and Carlos, his face registering contempt, join a support group for missing and abducted children. Laura's obsession over Simon reaches a point where Carlos feels he has to stay in town for a few days. Laura continues her search, believing now that not only is Simon sending her clues, but also his imaginary friends as well. The clues lead her not to Simon but to an outbuilding where she discovers grisly evidence of an unthinkable crime, which she reports to the police. She ends up restoring the dormitory of the old orphanage to the way it had been and playing the games she had played as a child, believing the souls of her former playmates will lead her to Simon.

"The Orphanage" is also billed as this year's "Pan's Labyrinth." Though one of its producers was Guillermo del Toro, who directed "Labyrinth," "The Orphanage" is its own film. It will leave you awestruck with wonder. It should not be missed.

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead."

2007-12-19T15:10:00.000-08:00

Director Sidney Lumet is known for helming "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Network"in 1975 -76. "Dog Day"rocketed Al Pacino to stardom. Lumet had been busy directing TV plays in 2001 - 2002. His most recent film (2006), "Find Me Guilty," is based on a true story of Jack Di Norscio, a mobster who defended himself in court. His trial ended up being the longest mafia trial in US. History. Now, Lumet has met and matched if not surpassed "DDA" with this year's riveting heist film, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," written by Kelly Masterson. This non-linear, intricately woven flick flashes back and forth in time, folding flashback scenes seamlessly into the present. We are never lost as we see "Three days earlier," etc, on the screen.
"Devil" stars Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Best Actor 2005: "Capote" as novelist Truman Capote), Ethan Hawke ("Before Sunrise" 1995, "Before Sunset" 2004; Hawke came into prominence in the 1997 futuristic "Gattaca" where he met and married co-star- - and now ex-spouse - - Uma Thurman). In "Devil" Hoffman and Hawke play unlikely brothers, Andy and Hank. The brothers lead the disparate lives of corporate non-entities in a huge real estate firm like Coldwell-Banker. Andy, who's older, has gone farther in that he has an office, whereas younger brother Hank is stuck in a cubicle on another floor, down a labyrinthine hallway. They owe people and companies scads of money But Andy has a plan, a fool-proof plan, that'll net them over a half-a mil to split down the middle which will clear their debts and allow them to live comfortably for many years - - if they're careful.
Hank spends his free time in a scuzzy bar frequented by small time crooks and losers, like himself. His ex-wife nags him constantly for rent money and child support he owes her; he promises but can't deliver. Meanwhile, Andy's being cuckolded by his beautiful nubile, dark-haired wife (Marisa Tomei) with whom he's ensconced in a mid-range condo, furnished in stainless steel, black leather, free-form glass coffee table, and chrome, and all the modern appliances. He visits, by appointment only, one of his creditor. We don't know what he's up to - - a tryst? Is his secret that he's being blackmailed by a guy he goes to for casual sex? Lumet keeps us guessing as we watch Andy move methodically about the upscale lavish, starkly furnished hi-rise condo.
Andy's plan, we learn, is to knock-off their elderly parents' jewelry store in a failing strip mall in a New York suburb. He convinces Hawke to sign on by telling him that no one will get hurt, the insurance will cover the damages and jewelry. He even has a fence lined up. Their parents' elderly female employee will be tending the store; she won't put up a fuss and has never seen Hawke. All he has to do is walk in with a fake gun, herd her into the back, grab the loot and joo-els and split. Andy'll be waiting to take the stuff to the fence. The catch is Hank has to do it alone, for reasons Andy makes clear. In carrying out the heist, Hank wears a disguise that makes him look like a degenerate, predatory, Hollywood porn-film agent.
Throughout the film, Hawke plays Hank as a sniveling underdog. If he had a tail, it'd be between his legs. You can smell his flop-sweat when he finally decides to carry out Andy's plan. Andy is the opposite: the confident, consummate high-end realtor with his expensive suits and shirts, his hair impeccably coiffed. It's a pleasure to see him in the role of Andy, after his depiction of creeps, perverts, and misunderstood second-bananas - - except for Capote and his character in "The Talented Mr. Ripley"- - that he plays in other films (He's in Tom Hanks's "Charlie Wilson's War," as a frumpy CIA operative, opening soon). In "Devil" Andy is far from Mr. Upstanding.
The film has the black humor that made "Fargo" such an indie hit. Unfortunately, "Devil" is not doing well at the box office. Maybe because it opened right before the holidays? Or because the ending is way, way, way over the top. In "Fargo," the kidnapping did not go as planned and subsequent events were gruesome, yet the cops (Frances McDormand) were on top of it. In "Devil," cops are not the stars. The robbery goes very, very, very wrong. Chicken-bleep Hank is to blame, and things just spiral out of control. Andy can't be let off the hook that easy. He exacts his own freaked-out justice, as does his dad.
British actor, Albert Finney, who's enjoyed a long, honored career on both stage and screen ("Tom Jones" in 1963 to "The Bourne Ultimatum" "2007), and Rosemary Harris, ditto (Peter Parker's Aunt in the "Spiderman" series), portray the parents. Once Finney's character is introduced, he plays practically every scene with his under-the-eyebrows glare, gnashing his teeth, and stomping around, and sorrowfully going on about how he let his boys down. Harris is seen sparingly. Her big, almost wordless, scene takes place in the jewelry store.

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead' has won numerous awards: New York Film Critics. Sidney Lumit: The Lifetime Acheivement Award; New York Film Critics Circle, Best Ensemble Cast, and a Critics' Choice Award Nomination. In San Francisco, the film can still be seen at Sundance Kabuki Cinema, UA Stonestown 2, Landmark's Opera Plaza, and the 4 Star. Don't miss it!

Uncle Sam Wants You! "RENDITION"

2007-10-29T15:28:00.000-07:00

“Rendition” A film, directed by Gavin Hood, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Omar Metwally, Meryl Streep, and Peter Saarsgard

“Rendition” by South African director Gavin Hood (“Tsotsi“), is a muddle of a film about an extremely important subject: The United States’ practice of “extraordinary rendition.” This action by the Bush administration where people (usually men of Middle-Eastern origin) are snatched off the streets or from their homes, handcuffed, hooded, tossed into an airplane and sent to a distant country, like Egypt, for instance, where torture plays a distinct part of interrogations. It has been proven that torture does not elicit truth but lies, often sending officials off in the wrong direction, allowing bad things happen elsewhere. Gavin Hood, rather than focusing on this harrowing experience which befalls a young couple, introduces a distracting subplot: that of a North African intelligence officer and his rebellious daughter.

Whether people in the States are aware of it, the film is based on facts. At this time, about five men have suffered, or are suffering, this fate. One, Khaled El Masri, is a German citizen, the other, Italian. Both are of Middle-Eastern descent. Of the five, only two have been released from prisons outside the US, after five months or more without being charged. El-Masri is represented by ACLU attorney, Ben Wizner. They have sued the US Government. Recently, the case went to the Supreme Court, who denied them a hearing.

In the film, the couple, Isabella and Anwar el-Hashimi, played by Reese Witherspoon and Omar Metwally, has one child and one on the way, they live in a Chicago suburb. Anwar happens to be an Egyptian legal immigrant with an American college degree in chemical engineering; he’s been in the US for twenty years and his wife is an American citizen. Returning home from a business trip to South Africa, he is detained at the Chicago airport. American officials, after a call to the smarmily smug CIA official, Corrinne Whitman (Meryl Streep, demeaned in a caricature performance), handcuff and hood Anwar, throw him into a van, and delete his name from the passenger list. He is not allowed to phone his wife. Anwar has a similar last name as a suspected terrorist behind a recent suicide bombing Once he’s detained, and uncooperative because he’s innocent, he’s shoved on to a plane and flown to an unnamed foreign site. In an earlier scene, a bustling plaza in a large North African city is struck by a bomb, killing Dixon, the CIA mentor of junior analyst Doug Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal). Freeman (an allegorical name?) ends up as an agent with a conscience. He and Dixon have been investigating intelligence about a suicide bomber. Freeman is recalled to Washington where he‘s told he is taking Dixon‘s place. “I‘m an analyst,” he protests. Whitman, his boss, sneers to her aides, “An analyst is not a jackal.“

Undone by her husband’s disappearance, yet, maintaining control, Isabella enlists the help of an old college boyfriend, Alan Smith (Peter Saarsgard), who now works as a senator’s aide (a deft, crisp Alan Alda). It’s heartbreaking to watch a very pregnant woman futilely, it turns out, traipsing disconsolately through corridors of glass, steel, and chrome in a Washington office building. There, she confronts a glacial Whitman, who brushes her off like an imaginary speck on her white silk blouse, and is all but hauled away by security guards.

Few are aware that there are places outside the country that torture people for the US, thus allowing the US to truthfully state, “We don’t torture in Amurrica,” a line Whitman parrots when Doug tells her, “This is my first torture.” She believes she is saving innocent lives. In real life, like the film, not one elected official will admit that the US practices extraordinary rendition, though articles and books have been published on the subject. In fact, Robert Baer, an ex CIA agent on whose book George Clooney’s film, “Syriana” was based, and who has had first-hand experience with the practice, was an advisor on “Rendition.”

Though records clear Anwar, Whitman keep mum, wanting him to pay for Dixon’s death. In prison, a naked, beaten, uncooperative Anwar is tortured by head intelligence chief, Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor - -Telly Salavas on steroids). The director doesn’t spare us from realistic scenes of water-boarding and beatings, but films only the excruciating expressions on Anwar’s bruised and bloody face as he suffers electric jolts to the genitals, telegraphed by buzzing sounds. In the CIA position of observer, Freeman reluctantly watches. Without speaking, Gyllenhaal’s eyes and body language speak volumes. Out of his league after taking Dixon’s job, he soon has had enough. Using his own creative subterfuge, local help, and distracted prison officials, he manages Anwar’s release.

“Rendition” jumps distractingly back and forth among scenes of Isabella’s attempts at finding Anwar, Fawal running around after his daughter, and Anwar’s incarceration. To confuse us further, a scene close to the end of the film repeats one shown at the start. Only then do we realize that the bombing at the beginning of the film was a flash-forward. Still, what this film makes disturbingly clear is the US government’s determination to finger anybody as a terrorist to compensate for the death of one or many of its own. Evidence may be unearthed by family and friends to back up an alibi at the time of a crime, but, if Uncle Sam wants you! you’re as good as dead. Though Gavin Hood obviously wanted his film to make a strong statement about the US practice of “extraordinary rendition” it doesn’t. No one is taken to task. The CIA walks away, washing its bloody hands of the matter.

Gavin Hood was interviewed by ACLU’s Ben Wizner about “Rendition”. He asked Wizner about the apathy of Americans towards matters like rendition and the so-called war on terrorisim in general, answering his own question by alluding to fear of executive power for speaking out. Neither proposed a solution. Hood wished his film could have been longer, saying that at two hours the film could not have gone into detail. If he’d omitted the subplot of Fawal’s daughter and her boyfriend, he could have made a much better and more resonant film.

Recent articles in a couple of mainstream magazines state that the documentary and fictional films that have come out over the past year dealing with subversive, immoral “wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, perpetrated by the US and its contractors, like Blackwater, are not getting the audiences they should; filmmakers and critics are asking why? One asks ”Is it too soon because these ‘wars‘ are ongoing? Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, surmised that ‘too soon’ has become not just our explanation but our excuse. “A knee-jerk justification for an America that has checked out on the promise of movies that delve into the issue of our time.” These films are: “In the Valley of Elah,” with Tommy Lee Jones; the documentary, “No End in Sight,” “A Mighty Heart,” with major box-office draw Angelina Jolie, Jaimie Foxx in “The Kingdom,” and “Rendition.”

Due out this month is “Redacted,” a film by Brian de Palma. It is a fictionalized version of a real atrocity: the rape of a teenage Iraqi girl, her and her family’s subsequent murder by a US Army squad. In a recent interview, with David Ansen of “Newsweek,” he said that he hopes that “Redacted” will jump start anti-war soldiers into action. De Palma also stated that people are not fervently active in protesting the so-called wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because they are not getting the images on television as during the Viet Nam war. “We don’t’ see Iraqi casualties,” he said, a fact that weighed in on his justification for making ”Redacted.” He went on to say that the Pentagon controls what’s seen in the media regarding images of wounded, dead and dying Iraqis and soldiers. This American defense operation recalled the impact the images made - - turning people against the Viet Nam war; it did not want to make the same mistake. Still, the images are out there if one knows where to look. Ansen brought out the fact that more people turn out in one day to see a huge Hollywood blockbuster than see documentary films like “Gunnar Palace,” No End it Sight,” or “The War Tapes,” during their entire run, films that are made to protest an unpopular, ongoing, “war.” The question remains: are audiences willing to pay to see more of these painful images? The answer still may be a disheartening “No.” Yet, flmmakers will not give up. More films on Iraq and Afghanistan are being released before the end of the year: Redford’s “Lions for Lambs,” Tom Hanks‘ “Charlie Wilson’s War,” and “Grace is Gone,” with John Cusack.

3:10 TO YUMA

2007-09-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

3:10 to Yuma Directed by James Mangold, starring Russell Crow, Christian Bale, and Gretchen Mol, based on a short story by Elmore Leonard.

The well-acted 3:10 to Yuma is a remake of a 1957 Western, set in 1800s Colorado, which had starred dimple-cheeked Glen Ford in the Russell Crowe gunslinger-robber role. Van Heflin played Dan Evans, the upstanding rancher that Christian Bale takes on in Mangold’s film. The earlier film was shot black and white, of course; its successor was filmed by cinematographer Phedon Papamichaels. in the beautiful sweeping colors of the red-gold/blue-sky West

Russell Crowe’s Ben Wade is a ruthless stage-coach robber who kills with narrow, steely-eyed detachment, his eyes as blue as them thar Western skies. But he don’t act alone, hooey naw! He has this here gang as loyal to him as Al Qaeda members are to bin Laden. Fact, like bin Laden, he mostly has his henchmen do his dirty work. He is a complex dude: he waxes poetic, quotes the Bible, and renders delicate pencil sketches of birds in a thick sketch book he carrries with him. The film opens with an ambush by Wade’s gang of a stagecoach carrying gold and is guarded by Pinkerton cops. Though shooting with a Gatling gun, the Pinks are no match for their attackers. A Pinkerton detective played by Peter Fonda is badly wounded and taken hostage. He makes a brave stand, but ends up ruthlessly flung off a cliff. When Wade is finally captured almost by chance by a town posse and Marshall Weathers (Luce Rains),they sequester him in rancher Evans’s one-room, one-storey ranch house. Wade’s gang scatters and goes into hiding then hatches plans to rescue him. Meanwhile, as wWade, Evans and a couple of the posse sit down to a meal with the Evanses, Wade comes close to seducing Evans’s wife (Gretchen Mol) with some romantic blarney about green eyes we’d witnessed him spouting earlier to a dance-hall girl. Evans’s teenage son (Logan Lerman), who’s been reading pulp fiction about bad guys, however, is seduced. He compares his dad with Wade and sees his dad as a weak coward. Still, Evans, needing 200 dollars to save his ranch from being bought out by railroad developers, hires on to the posse.

Seems they have to hole up at Evans’s to wait for a stagecoach to take them to the nearest railway station where they can put Wade on the jail-train to Yuma, the 3:10, hence the movie’s title. While waiting, Wade’s gang attacks the house, killing most of the posse, but not succeeding in rescuing their boss. The rest of the posse bail, citing family. The Marshall tells Evans he can bow out, too. But Evans sees the look in his oldest kid’s eyes, feels the necessity to save the ranch for his wife and kids, stays on. So, he and the Marshall climb aboard the coach, with a shackled Wade, and head towards town. The tension begins on the journey where they have to pass through Indian territory while being followed closely, but not that close, by Wade’s gang, led by Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) who has the visage and comportment of a pure evil. Once they reach the hotel where they must wait for the train, the suspense heightens. The town law chases everyone off the streets and warns townsfolk to not leave home. Evans must stay alert guarding Wade in a fancy room. Their dialgue is stilted, as befits the Western man, still, they philosophize and when Wade tries to buy off Evans with hundreds more dollars than he’ll get for putting Wade on the train, Wade can’t help but be impressed with Evans’s morality and family loyalty. You can see a flicker of envy and even admiration in Crowe’s eyes. The film evolves into more of a psychological battle than a gang shootout. Wade’s honchos catch up and ride menacingly into town. Meanwhile, Evans’s son had sneaked out of the house and secretly follows his dad and his captive. There’s an earlier scene by a campfire where he has a chance to defend his dad against Wade and takes it, earning his stripes to join his dad for the rest of the journey, till Wade is put on the train.

To get to the train station requires a tricky lunging through flimsy back doors, dashing through wooden buildings, crouching and duck-waling behind stacks of boxes and barrels, and racing around carts, etc, you get the picture. At times, a handcuffed Wade actually has to pull Evans along because of Evans’s partially wooden leg, the result of a wound he suffered in the Civil War. Early in the movie, you see him limping from time to time, but you forget about his bum leg watching him running and leaping around as he and Wade make their way under fire to the train when it pulls in. Evans’s son tries to thwart the driven Foster from killing his father and possibly rescuing Wade by stampeding a corral of cattle. It appears that that’s the end of Foster. But no, that’s not how these movies work. Sure a hundred or so head of cattle knocking you down and bumping you against rough wooden railings can mess you up, which shows on Foster’s bloody face and clothes (Where did he get that spiffy, tight-fitting, white leather jacket with the stylized tailored shoulders?).

I rarely if ever tear up at Westerns, but the final scene had me reaching for my Kleenex. When you see it, I guarantee you will, too. The film's no tear-jerker; the tears are earned.

MOBIUS STRIP: NO END IN SIGHT

2007-09-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

"No End in Sight." is a documentary,written and directed by Charles Ferguson and narrated by Campbell Scott. The film is about Bush’s trumped up fiasco of a "war" in Iraq, Since March 2003, the debacle in Iraq has cost over 3,770 American military lives and has left thousands severely maimed for life; over 100,000 (possibly more) Iraqi civilian deaths; countless wounded and traumatized, and at least a thousand deaths of US and foreign contractors, as well as the displacement - - both in-country and to other countries - - of millions of Iraqis, not to mention destroying 5,000 years of irreplaceable historical artifacts and records.

Director Ferguson has crafted a clear, well-organized chronology of events, with Scott's spare narration. He interviews many of the people involved in the planning of the invasion and subsequent events (many US government officials responsible for orchestrating the attack refused to be interviewed). Ferguson also includes countless film clips from various sources. The film shows where we are now, and interviewees speculate on how if ever this tragedy will end. And yet, "No End" never asks why - -what was the real reason behind the Bush administration’s push to invade a country that had neither attacked nor posed an immanent threat to the US. WMDs and links to 9/11 aside, George W. Bush based America’s invasion on his admitted God-given belief that America's goal is to fulfill its capitalist imperialist agenda for world domination. To accomplish this, the American government must appear to be helping other countries achieve the American version of democracy and freedom whether or not they ask for it. And Ferguson includes a clip, with Scott’s voice-over, of the discussion among George Junior’s honchos of killing Saddam Hussein for his assassination attempt on his father as another reason for the invasion. Since 9/11, under the guise of national security, the Bush administration, with bipartisan approval, has passed and is passing draconian laws on its own people and undermining the U. S. Constitution in the process.

Since Michael Moore’s "Fahrenheit 9/11," there have been and are many documentaries on the Iraq invasion and its consequences. "No End" is one of the latest. Ferguson includes historic archival clips of Republican neo-cons led by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld (all of whom figured prominently in the senior Bush’s cabinet) at meetings where, it was later revealed, they contrived to twist facts, manipulate the media, and fudge intelligence reports to convince the American people through scare tactics of the necessity to launch a preemptive strike on Iraq. None of these architects had had any military experience, none had ever been to Iraq, none spoke Arabic, or knew the culture. Watching these deluded warmongers in action makes one’s skin crawl. It appears that our government leaders and our elected representatives have no intention of ending the war and bringing the troops home despite what the people want and believe they voted for in 2006. Both parties recently okayed an increase in military spending in Iraq.

To see the once beautiful, thriving, cosmopolitan, magical city of Baghdad reduced to rubble is shocking and heartbreaking. The Green Zone, however, where well- protected American officials live and where the American puppet Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki officiates, is like Palm Springs East, replete with Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks, spas and health clubs. It is barricaded by impenetrable concrete walls. Outside the Zone, the filmmaker takes us through miles and miles of streets lined with bullet and bomb scarred buildings where we see its people wandering among broken concrete and exposed rebar, and children sitting forlornly in doorways of what’s left of their homes. Ferguson does not spare us from scenes of the city’s morgue where at least seventy bodies of civilians are brought every day. One Iraqi man says, "The dead are lucky, because they are dead."

Early in the film there’s a clip of seasoned four-star General Shinseki who had successfully commanded troops in Bosnia and was interviewed for the film, meeting with Department of Defense’s Donald Rumsfeld prior to the invasion. Rumsfeld asked his advice on troop levels needed in Iraq. Rumsfeld ignored him and went with his own idea of a "lean, mean" military. Dedicated, experienced professionals, both military and otherwise, were appointed to work with the Iraqi people and its leaders after the invasion and removal of Saddam Hussein, to stabilize their country. Col. Paul Hughes and Gen. Jay Garner were to work with the Iraqi military, and Barbara Bodine would head the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). They spoke Arabic and agreed to be interviewed for the film.
By summer of 2004, the appointment of J. Paul Bremer changed the tenor of the invasion. Wreaking his egomaniacal aggrandizement, he undermined the work of Hughes, Garner and Bodine’s ORHA, renaming it the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). On camera Hughes tells of having 300,000 Iraqi soldiers’ signed commitments to assist Americans to stabilize Iraq, and help control the incipient insurgency. The first of Bremer’s disastrous acts was to disband this army without notifying Hughes, causing almost a half-million men their jobs. They disbanded - - with their guns. Hughes states in the film that Paul Wolfowitz, Walter Slocombe (a Rumsfeld crony), and Rumsfeld made the decision.in secret. Ironically, according to Colin Powell, Bush was never advised. Slocombe, in Washington, tells the interviewer that for Hughes to have that many signed applications was preposterous. No one, he said, can possibly conduct that sort of enterprise.

Bremer’s second egregious act was "de-Baathification," decimating Iraq’s infrastructure, tossing aside the very people who made city services, school, hospitals, education, communications work. Now, thousands of civilians had nothing with which to sustain their families. The film shows scenes of angry Iraqi men shouting in the streets that they have no money, no food, nothing! It should have come as no surprise that many angry, young Iraqis joined the insurgency, which Rumsfeld & Co. denied, saying that there were some "bitter-enders. Bremer hired non-Arabic speaking MBAs fresh out of college to fill the vacancies. Ferguson interviews a woman hired as a traffic planner. When asked if she had any experience, she says "No" but felt it was a "great opportunity to travel and make money." Bodine and Hughes continued advising neighborhood leaders and visiting Iraqis in their homes. After a while Bodine was told she was "hard to work with" and her position went to one of Bremer’s non-Arabic-speaking MBAs. The vacuum left by the disbanded Iraqi Army and "de-Baathification" was soon filled by Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

The film includes a clip where, in a rare speech early into his Czarship, Bremer promises Iraqis that soon they would have 24-hour-electricity, fresh, clean, running water, sanitation, and jobs. None of this ever materialized. To this day, electricity is sporadic, at most, four hours a day. Ferguson interviews several Marines who said helping Iraqi civilians rebuild the infrastructure proved impossible because of Bremer’s arrogance, detachment and ineptness. Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority was allocated 18 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq. As of the film’s making only one billion had been spent. No one can account for the other 17 billion.
Early on, looting began in earnest. Every store, shop and office in every building was stripped bare, down to the walls. Iraq army officials knew where the munition dumps were; these, also were summarily looted. Ferguson includes the memorable clip of a whining Rumsfeld, saying that democracy is "messy" and that the looting wasn’t as bad as shown on TV. "You see the same shot over and over again of a man running out of a building with a vase! There can’t be THAT many vases!" A soul-wrenching shot shows the museum director crying over his looted museum, saying that armed American soldiers just stood around and watched while cases were smashed, artifacts ripped from walls and floors. Yet, the oil ministry was heavily guarded by American soldiers.

In May, 2003, Italian UN leader in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello established his headquarters outside the Green Zone, accessible to Iraqi leaders and civilians alike. Its employees spoke Arabic. Narrator Campbell Scott explains that de Mello’s attempts to meet with Bremer in the Palace were thwarted. Bremer did not return his phone calls and was inaccessible. On August 2003, a truck bomb went off directly below de Mello’s office, killing him and twenty-two others, and wounding over a hundred. Shortly thereafter, the UN pulled out.
A fact few Americans are aware of is that, at the time of the film’s making, there were 45,000 civilian contractors in Iraq. The US military considers them the wild cards - - free, without any government guidelines or supervision. "No End" includes a short clip taken by one of these contractors from inside their vehicle. We ride along as it careens down the road, indiscriminately shooting rounds wildly at buildings and cars while the driver and passengers whoop and holler. Ferguson’s documentary tells of the insurgents’ killing and burning of four contractors, dragging them through the streets. He spares us footage of their charred bodies hanging from a bridge. Things couldn’t get any worse, but of course they did. Yet if you listened to Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Bush the war was going along swimmingly, progress was being made. You see a grinning, death's-head Rumsfeld giving his "quagmire" response, and replying to hapless soldiers whose buddies were being blown up in their un-armored Humvees, that "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had . . ."

We must bear in mind, however, that if America declared victory in Iraq with its infrastructure restored, and the various ministries and the historic museum unscathed, and there were few civilian or military deaths, this movie would not have been made. Instead, there would’ve been an entirely different film: America, wearing an American flag on its puffed up chest and backed by a gazillion American flags, would boast proudly on TV of America’s victory. We would see parades in every city and town, confetti, soldiers and sailors kissing strange women beside fountains and statues of fallen heroes. But no, we don’t want that film either. It would only serve to inspire America on to the next war. Oh, wait, despite films like "No End," the spate of incriminating and damning evidence of the horror that is Iraq, and the opinions of the majority of Americans and the world, the drumbeats are pounding for war with Iran.

"Rescue Dawn"

2007-08-02T17:01:00.001-07:00

"Rescue Dawn" is writer/director Werner Herzog's latest film. It is a dramatized account of Viet Nam vet, Navy pilot Dieter Dengler's escape through the jungle from a Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos in 1966. Herzog had made a documentary about the subject in 1997 titled "Little Dieter Needs to Fly." Dieter was a German born, immigrant, arriving in America just after WWII. He died in 2001 of ALS at age 62. This recently released version, starring Christian Bale as Dengler, will reach a wider audience. Werner has stated that getting the financing delayed the project. It finally came through once Christian Bale had gotten the part of Batman in that franchise. Bale, from the start, wanted the title rôle of Dieter. Steve Zahn plays Duane Martin, Dengler's buddy who makes the escape with Dieter.

Christian Bale is one of Hollywood's finest male actors. For each of his rôles, he immerses himself thoroughly in his character before shooting even begins. For "Dawn," as he did in "The Machinist", a surreal murder mystery about a paranoid factory worker, he dieted to lose weight during shooting, so that by the end of the films, his physique is almost skeletal. Zahn, who usually plays blobby doofus comic sidekicks in films, shows sensitivity, loyalty, and an earnest mien as Martin in "Dawn." He too scaled down an impressive 40 pounds for his rôle. According to an interview with EW, Zahn liked himself skinny. "I kind of just looked good," he said.

In "Dawn" Bale depicts Dieter as a dedicated pilot and one of the boys during an early scene which takes place in the briefing room. He and about 20 other pilots are educated on the strategy of a secret mission to bomb enemy strongholds in Laos. They are shown a propaganda film about South Asians, the culture, and dos-and-don'ts about survival if taken prisoner. Throughout, the pitots razz everything from the narrator to their military buddies' parts in the film, no official calls them on it. After all, it's a dangerous mission and they all could end up dead. Let them have their fun. No one is to know about the project. They were warned and sworn to secrecy to not leak a word even to their families. The order to carry out the bombing was enacted just after the Gulf of Tonkin ruse that the US cooked up to go to war in Viet Nam. (Sound familiar?)

Herzog appears to have a love-hate relationship with the wilderness. Two of his films (and a documentary about the making of one of them), "Aquirre, Wrath of God," and "Fitzgarraldo," both starring his long time cohort and nemesis, Klaus Kinski (who also made the absolute best vampire in film history in "Nosferatu"), were shot on location in Central and South Amercan jungles. Herzog also made the documentary "Grizzly Man" about Timothy Treadwell, a man obsessed with bears. Treadwell ended up being killed by one, after spending several seasons in Alaska to film them. Herzog used Treadwell's footage in his documentary, but resisted including an audio tape and clips that were running during his mauling.

Herzog incoroporates archival film clips of the planes taking off from the carrier and the bombings early on in the film. He avoided using a hyped-up soundtrack of explosions. We see them, but don't hear them. Instead, we hear a soft, orchestral, original score by Klaus Badel which we are subtley aware of throughtout. This is a quiet movie, imbued with natural and ambient sounds, including those of jungle creatures, those screaming monkeys we hear in "Fitzgarraldo," and its documentry.

As Dieter, Bale shows the man's positive, almost cheerful, attitude, even in prison. His grin alone lights up the gloom of this windowless, bamboo hut. His seven fellow prisoners - -Thais and Americans - - are resigned, waiting for rescue they know won't come. Each night, the guards shackle their ankles to heavy wooden stocks, and handcuff them. Dieter, as a trained mechanic, fashions a pick from a purloined nail and practices releasing the handcuffs at night until he can do it in three seconds. He speaks of escape from day one. The others are reluctant. He finally gets them all on board with an unbeatable plan. When he and Martin carry out their end, the others prisoners disappear into the jungle, except one American, an addled, paranoic, "Eugene, from Eugene, Oregon," (Jeremy Davies) who had threatened to clue in the guards. Dieter and Martin let him find his own way as he pathetically whines, "Where am I gonna go?"

Though we know the outcome, the rest of the film still grips us as the two men struggle to keep hidden as the Pathet Laotian soldiers try to track them down. They hack through the jungle towards Thailand, fearing even small children going about their chores, in rainstorms and stifling humidity, fording swift rivers. Even taking cover when US pilots strafe them, thinking they are the enemy, as they wave frantically for help. The two starving emaciated men form a close bond. Dieter constantly buoys up a fading Martin who's on his last legs. Finally, in an open field, a helicopter hovers. Dieter is rescued as enemy fire streaks past.

Herzog's film iincludes the tragedy experienced by Dieter when he loses his buddy in a brutal attack. He has given us a harrowing, realistic tale of the spirit of survival of one man that is inherent in us all. Dieter was optimistic, assured, fearless, and full of fun. He believed in himself.

I AM BACK - - WITH "A MIGHTY HEART" !

2007-07-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

"A Mighty Heart", directed by Michael Winterbottom; written by John Orloff, from Mariane Pearl’s memoir; starring Angelina Jolie and Dan Futterman.

TRAGEDIES OF FORESEEN CONSEQUENCE
By Gaetana Caldwell-Smith

Many feel that the single most horrendous act after the 9/11 Al Qaeda suicide bombings of the Twin Towers was the beheading of kidnapped American Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, in Karachi, Pakistan. No - - the most horrendous act was the US air strikes on Afghanistan in early October 2001. British director, Michael Winterbottom, who also directed the documentary, "Road to Guantanamo," based his recently released film "A Mighty Heart" on French journalist Mariane Pearl’s book about her and her husband’s ordeal, during their five or so weeks on assignment in Pakistan.
People who go to this film should be aware that since it follows Pearl’s book, it is an unbalanced account which skirts the existing volatile political issues exacerbated by US and British presence in Afghanistan relative to her husband’s kidnapping and death. In late January 2002, shortly after they arrive in Karachi, with Mariane (Angelina Jolie) several months pregnant with their first child, Danny Pearl (played by Dan Futterman), tries to contact someone who can give him information about the "shoe-bomber," British citizen Richard Reid. Pearl fails to return for a dinner party, at the home they share with Asra (Archie Panjabi), their Indian assistant. By February, he is dead.
Winterbottom shot his one-sided film in a darkly lit, documentary style of hand-held cameras, quick cuts to various locations, lots of talking heads, interviews, and shots of Pearl in cabs traveling at night through narrow streets choked with vehicles and pedestrians. The director also included archival film clips from television news anchors interviewing Colin Powell, Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf (as themselves), and Mariane Pearl, (seen as Jolie).
"Heart" is riveting and suspenseful despite its known outcome. However, once Mariane reports him missing, the film devolves into an overwhelming, detailed police procedural. Mariane, who is Cuban and French, makes a point of telling investigators that her husband is not a "practicing Jew," he was simply born of Jewish parents. Still, they worry this could be a factor and that Pearl could be seen as a CIA spy.
Asra’s home becomes a command center. Techies rewire everything for better communication, internet access, and wire-tapping, regardless of the effect this has on neighbors’ lines. Everyone becomes involved, from Danny’s cohorts at the Journal, his Middle-Eastern Bureau chief; the head of the US Consulate, Randall Bennett (Will Patton), to the Pakistani police captain, known as "Captain" (Infan Kahn). The search for Danny becomes unbelievably complex: thousands of cell phone calls are meticulously traced, innocent Pakistanis’ homes are raided. Bearded men are dragged from their beds as covered women protest their innocence. It is brought out that Musharraf’s government accuses India of trying to embarrass it by setting up the kidnapping; Pakistani intelligence accuse Asra of spying for India, more a sore point than the actual deed. Pakistani politicians and police officials discuss the political mess in Pakistan and its rivalry with India. While all this is going on, Mariane maintains her composure in hopes that Danny will soon be released.
Pearl’s subsequent video taped beheading turns up as evidence of his death. Eventually it is shown on Arabic television but is never seen in the US, though it still circulates on the Internet. What Winterbottom’s film completely ignores are the political issues surrounding Pearl’s kidnapping and murder, which are defined in the film by a plethora of facts, events and figures from the various countries involved. The director avoided making any political statements dealing with what exactly drove militants to kidnap and murder Pearl (because he was a Jew?), or looking at the US’s world-wide political culpability. The Bush administration rushed, Old Testament style, to retaliate within weeks of the 9-11 attack. It bombed Afghanistan based on US intelligence evidence that bin Laden (whom Clinton failed to deal with) was operating jihadi training camps there under the auspices of the Afghanistan government’s recognized Taliban faction. After the bombing, those Talibanis who weren’t killed along with thousands of innocent civilians, or captured and shipped to Guantanamo Bay, fled across the mountains into Pakistan, where to this day, officials believe bin Laden is still holed up.
Compared to "Road to Guantanamo," Winterbottom played it safe. Take the scene where "Captain" has his men chain murder suspect, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (Alyy Khan) by his wrists to the ceiling (he’s shown naked to the waist) and torture him. The exact means are not shown; we hear only excruciating screams of pain. Here, Winterbottom avoids the moralistic outrage he depicted in his documentary on the torture of "enemy combatants." (Saeed Sheikh only recently confessed to Pearl’s beheading.)
Confusing also is whose story is he trying to tell? That of a wealthy professional white man and his ethnically mixed but equally affluent, wife - - the ideal, cosmopolitan couple torn apart by fanatic idealism with the wife, like Ulysses’ stoic Penelope unemotionally waiting for her husband’s return? Or, a political suspense thriller shot in a foreign country. At no point did anyone talk about the US’s unprecedented, massive bombing of Afghanistan, a country already decimated by Russia’s invasion and twenty year occupation.
In her final BBC interview shown in the film, Jolie, as Mariane Pearl, makes the point of reminding the world that Danny was just one man who was murdered when probably ten or more were most likely killed that day and every day since. Actor Brad Pitt bought the film rights to Pearl’s book as a vehicle for Jolie, his soon to be, if not already wife. I imagine Michael Winterbottom was delighted to have the popular actress star in his film, as she would ensure its success at the box office. The real Mariane Pearl, now living and working in Paris with her five year old son, Adam, showed up on the red carpet at Cannes, arm in arm with Jolie, for the film’s opening.

"Amazing Grace"

2007-04-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

"Amazing Grace." Directed by Michael Apted, Starring Ioann Gruffud, Albert Finney, and Rufus Sewell.

At the end of the 18th century, about three-quarters of the earth’s people were in bondage in slavery, serfdom, or other forms of forced servitude. Sometimes as many as a hundred European and American ships at a time crossed the seas from West Africa to Europe and the Americas, their stifling holds crammed with Africans lying spoon fashion in their own waste. The sick, dying, and the dead were cast overboard, along with ailing or dead sailors. In the late 1700s, some 18 million people were held as slaves, the majority from the African continent.
Assisted by rival West African tribal leaders, whole villages were captured by Arab, British, French, and American slavers working for owners of sugar, rubber, tobacco, and cotton plantations in the British Indies, the Americas, and the Ottoman Empire. Over a half-century before Abraham Lincoln promulgated his Emancipation Proclamation, Britain had passed a
bill abolishing the slave trade (1807), and later (in 1833) abolished slavery outright in its empire.

Last month on March 24, 2007, at Ghana’s Elmina Castle, Ghanans and other West Africans commemorated the 200th anniversary of the end of the British slave trade. It was from this stone castle that their people were held and processed before being herded on to slave ships.
The film, "Amazing Grace," takes its title from the song written by a former slave-ship owner, John Newton (played by Albert Finney in the film). In transporting slaves, Newton became conscious of the horrors he was perpetrating on his fellow men. He turned to God for
forgiveness, became a priest, and wrote the song "Amazing Grace," which is still performed worldwide.

"Amazing Grace" begins in 1797. It is a sanitized version of the struggles of William Wilberforce (played by Ioann Gruffudd), a member of the British Parliament, to end slavery in the British colonies. Rather than unroll events chronologically, director Apted breaks up the film into flashbacks and flash-forwards. He filmed scenes to depict Wilberforce’s charity: In one, shot like a re-creation of a boisterous Last Supper, poor families crowd around his dining table, scarfing down food, as his servants carry laden trays to-and-fro. Not only people but also animals roamed freely about his house and grounds.

Wilberforce, an extremely wealthy Briton and a dreamer, is torn between Evangelical religion and politics. He collaborates with the abolitionist organizer Thomas Clarkson (Rufus Sewell); Parliament member William Pitt (Benedict Cumberbatch); former slave and author, Olaudah Equiano (Youssov N’Dour), and others to convince Parliament to approve a ban on the slave trade. At a dinner party, Clarkson pushes aside dishes, and dumps cast-iron shackles and chains on the table to illustrate the horrors of slavery. Clarkson, who had traveled widely in the Indies and Africa, tells of slaves being burned in the boiling rooms of sugar plantations, and of young children falling into the vats and either being severely burned or dying.
Clarkson is often accompanied by Equiano who had managed to buy his freedom. Equiano had traveled extensively throughout the colonies, and written a book of his and other slaves’ experiences. There is a scene of him at a market fair signing his books, which sold in the thousands. The film pays little attention to the grassroots committees against slavery that grew throughout Britain in this period. Public sentiment was aroused (in part by Equiano’s book) toward a growing awareness of and empathy for the hellish world of the slave. But despite public opinion, whenever Wilberforce speaks up in the House of Commons against slavery, he
is summarily shouted down. Many parliamentarians have direct economic ties to the slave trade.

Toward the end of the film, Wilberforce carries a rolled-up, fat petition into Parliament. It bears the signatures of over 300,000 citizens. He unrolls it on the floor as proof that the people back the abolitionist movement. "The people?" chortles one member with a shrug.
After war is declared against Napoleon’s France, the British government passes a series of "anti-sedition" laws, which effectively clamp down on political organizing and throw the abolitionist movement into decline. At one point, Wilberforce gives up completely, preferring to enjoy his estate and lie around contemplating nature. Clarkson, too, has gone off to a village in the hills; he has married and is raising a family. Yet the movement soon recovers: we see women talking about boycotting sugar from their tables, and drinking their tea without it, as a show of support for abolition. Wilberforce takes up the cause again when a barrister colleague comes to him with a scheme to approach the slave issue by working to change a law concerning flags flown on ships that are engaged in trans-Atlantic trade. The new law, which is duly passed by Parliament, mandates that French ships must henceforth fly their national flag rather than masquerading under the neutral American flag—thus opening the French slavers to attacks and confiscation by the British Navy. While depicting this episode, the film ignores an opportunity to look closely into the real reasons why William Pitt and some of the more astute ruling-class Parliament members were willing to back a measure against the slave trade; they saw it as a method to cast a blow against their French rivals.

According to C.L.R. James in "The Black Jacobins," the British in this period had little need to augment the slave-labor force in their colonial possessions, and so could do without the slave trade, while the French West Indies were still dependent on it. Finally, in 1807, the abolitionist movement and its allies were able to mount enough pressure to sway a majority in Parliament into outlawing the slave trade. Wilberforce, in the film, receives a standing ovation in Parliament. Even his former adversaries feel compelled to rise to their feet. Still, records show that slavery persisted in the sugar plantations of Jamaica for another 30 years. They also reveal that Wilberforce throughout that period was mainly concerned with the comportment of
Africans, feeling it important that they renounce their native ways and be converted to Christianity. His fundamentalist beliefs would not allow him to see the slaves as little more than ignorant children and sinners. As a wealthy landowner, he displayed undeserved kindness to plantation owners who continued to brutalize the slaves, stating, "we should treat with candour and tenderness the characters of the West India proprietors." To him, the worst aspect of slavery was not that it was brutal and dehumanizing, but that it embodied "the almost universal destitution of religious and moral instruction among the slaves."

Wilberforce’s writings on this topic belie the film’s sympathetic portrait of him as a staunch abolitionist who saw slaves, and Black people, as his equals. In this, the film follows the lead of Wilberforce’s major biographers following his death—who eulogized him as the foremost leader of the abolitionist movement in Britain while downplaying the role of Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and many other anti-slavery organizers who were lower-born and often more radical than Wilberforce. Regardless, "Amazing Grace" is the rare film that deals with a groundbreaking historical moment, tantamount to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Perhaps a filmmaker will come along who will look more deeply into the lives of Clarkson, Equiano and the many other men and women who worked on the grassroots level against slavery—and thus create a more compelling film.

Michael Schreiber, editor of Socialist Action News contributed to this review. A slightly altered review of the film appears in that publication’s April issue.

Precious Cargo: "Children of Men"

2007-03-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

"Children of Men" , written and directed by Alphonso Cuarón, starring Clive Owen, Micahel Caine, Julianne Moore, and Clare Hope Ashity

Director Alphonso Cuarón and several screenwriters have adapted mystery writer P. D. James’s futuristic novel "Children of Men" into a truly remarkable film. Possibly the best film of 2006, though it came out late in the year. Even with the premise dealing with decades of a puzzling, incurable infertility and its resulting consequences, the book and the film are entirely different animals, much in the manner of "Blade Runner" versus Phillip K. Dick’s "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Both novel and film are excellent vehicles for telling the story of its unwitting hero, Theo Faron.

Set in 2027, "Children of Men" is an unsettling, disturbing, suspenseful, futuristic film. It opens in London, where anachronistic three-wheeled taxis vie for road space with old, unkempt double-decker buses. The world is in chaos; suffering from a plague of infertility and rampant civil war. In London, dissident groups of men and women in their 20s and 30s blow up buildings, buses, and trains to protest the millions of refugees arriving from other chaotic countries. Guarded by armed militia, hundreds of elderly Eastern Europeans, in overcoats and hats, cry out from jammed cages seemingly on every corner, ready for deportation. Posted signs everywhere warn people to be on the lookout for illegal immigrants, and to report any suspicious behavior (like on BART, today).

Shlumpy, disheveled, unshaven Theo, a perfectly cast Clive Owen, is on his way to work at the Ministry of Energy. TVs in homes, stores, and subways, show non-stop vivid images of bombings in cities around the world, as a voiceover and logo proclaim, "Britain Soldiers On!" These are interrupted by reports of the death of the world’s youngest person, a delinquent, 18-year-old Hispanic boy. Theo stops for take-out coffee at a café, crowds watching the wall TV, mourn. Theo is unmoved. He leaves the café as the building next door is bombed, shaking him up.

Theo is kidnapped by a small group who call themselves Fishes (nothing to do with the Christian symbol, but because they swim against the mainstream). Their aim is to stop the government’s treatment of refugees, among other demands. One of its leaders is Julian (translucent Julienne Moore), a woman with whom Theo had had a child twenty years ago, back in the days of their earlier activism. When personal tragedy involving the baby, struck, Theo split. Now, Fishes ask him to approach Nigel (Danny Huston), who is, ironically, Theo’s estranged cousin. Nigel has anointed himself Warden of England. Theo is to ask Nigel for transit papers for a girl, Kee (Clare Hope Ashity), a "fugee," so she can leave London. Theo is never told why he must do this, but when things get really hairy, he is shown why by the girl, herself. It is a startling revelation that could be the beginnings of a new World.

The beauty of Theo’s character is in his reluctance to get involved. Why me? All Theo wants is to go back to his cozy apartment. The discovery that the Fish have turned on each other for possession of Kee and her precious cargo, pushes him into action. To make it through the devastating, harrowing warfare breaking loose all around them, Theo and Kee are assisted by his scholarly, old hippie friend, Jasper, in shoulder length white hair (Michael Caine in a delightful rôle); Jasper’s off-the-charts black clad, paramilitary contact, Sid (code word: "Fascist Pig". Sid makes casual conversation through a hands-free microphone while driving his super-armored Humvee), and by Marika, a colorful, motor-mouth Gypsy, who arranges for a rowboat hopefully to take Theo and Kee to safety.

In light of recent policies in so-called developed countries dealing with the "problem" of immigration, "Children of Men" is prescient. One has only to read the news to see this. Should the immigration issue not be resolved in a way which will benefit immigrants and their host countries, it could end up as it is depicted in the film. Granted, there is the matter of the infertility plague, which only exacerbates the situation. "Children of Men," gives us a dystopian view of the future. In a January 8 interview with "Newsweek’s" Nicki Gostin, Clive Owen, responding to her allusion that the film is depressing, said, "I think it’s full of humanity. Cuarón has made a film set in the future that’s really an excuse to talk about things going on right now."

"Children of Men" is still playing on the big screen and should be seen in that mode before it goes to DVD (unless you have a giant flat screen TV). See it at San Francisco's Century Theatre in the SF Centre on Mission between 4th and 5th or at Berkely's UA Berkely 7 on Shattuck.

NOTE: This review was recently published in the print media in a severly edited version which totally omitted the film's main focus: the startling infertility plague.

AFTERMATH:THE ACADEMY AWARDS

2007-03-02T16:29:00.000-08:00

The short month of February just zipped past. I was busy trying to see all the nominated films most of the month, so I let my reviews slide. Now I'm back and happy to see that I was spot on in my early prediction of who would win for Best Actor: Forrest Whitaker in "Last King of Scotland", and Best Actress: Helen Mirren for "The Queen." I was sorry Eddie Murphy ("Dreamgirls") lost to Alan Arkin, the raunchy Granpa in "Little Miss Sunshine", but felt good that Arkin's film won something sunce it lost for Best Picture; it also won for Original Screenplay. And yes, Alan Arkin deserved his Oscar after a long notable film career. I saw the film when it first came out, loved it, but did not see the tide of accolades or viewership coming.

The disappointment for me was Scorsese's "The Departed" winning for Best Picture. Yes, he won deservedly for Best Director after having been shunned for decades. He broke ground early on in his career with "Mean Streets" paving the way for the likes of Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs". Still, there have been tons of violent, bloody films in the past few years. Some good, most of them bad. I'd like to have seen Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Babel" win. It had violence; still, it was a film for the times, showing a complex dramatic interweaving of cultures connecting four countries, whereas Scorsese's "Departed" is a throwback to mob films beginning with Jimmy Cagney and Edward G. Robinson in the '30s, which have continued to this day. It is well known that Scorsese adapted the Hong Kong film, "Infernal Affairs," for his Oscar winner. It was awarded an Oscar for Adapted Screenplay. In it, DiCaprio and Damon gave outstanding performances of undercover, shady cops. Wahlberg, too, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. A shame that little was said about Martin Sheen's intense, understated performance as the police department head, DiCapro and Damon's boss. Yet, what message does "Departed" 's win say to the rest of the world? That America is a country that revels in and lauds art forms depicting mob revenge killings, bad cops, corrupt law enforcement? (I will not go into the image America's politics has conveyed to to the rest of the world since Fall 2001.) However, "Babel" did win for Best Original Score, composed by Gustavo Santoalalla.

Ironically, I saw "The Lives of Others" only a few days before the awards but didn't think it would win for Best Foreign film over "Pan's Labyrinth" which I'd seen twice, or "Letters from Iwo Jima." If you have not seen "Pan's" yet, do not wait for the DVD unless you have a monster, wall-panel TV. Its scope is overwhelming. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro managed a skillful, seamless interweaving of a little girl's fantasy-life with her helpless involvement with the tail-end of Spain's Civil war through her mother's untimely marriage to her brutal, fascist step-father, a captain in one of Franco's small, military outposts in the mountains. The film did win and rightly so for Makeup, Art Direction, and Cinematography. "Lives of Others" is a suspenseful drama about the German Stasi in East Berlin a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and involves a Stasi spy who bugs a playwright and his doomed actress lover's apartment and in doing so, gains a heart, but loses status.

Other noteworthy films: "Letters from Iwo Jima" won for Sound Edititng. Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" Best Documentary, and Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" from that film gained the gold man for Original Song, beating out three "Dreamgirls" tunes. Sophie Coppola's wonderful, wildly imaginative "Marie Antoinette" received an Oscar for Costume Design; "Children of Men" a remarkable, futuristic film, starring Clive Owen had been nominated for Cinamatography, Fim Editing, and Adapted Screenplay (from a P.D. James mystery), but came away empty. It was one of the best films of 2006. All are worth the price of a ticket. See them all.

Golden Globe and Academy Awards

2007-01-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

It's awards season. The Golden Globe Awards cover both film and television whereas Academy Awards focus soley on film. And, since I am a film buff, I will focus on Golden Globe winners for that genre.

Three films I reviewed here have won Golden Globe Awards for 2006. Most noteably, director Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu's "Babel" starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, reviewed on this site November 27, 2006, which won for Best Picture. "Letters From Iwo Jima" reviewed on the 17th of January won for Best Foreign Film. Shy, humble Forest Whitaker won Best Actor for his striking portrayal of the mercurial, sadistic, meglomaniacal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland" which I reviewed for this site on October 12. Helen Mirren received a Best Actress Award for her sterling, humanizing portrayal of the current Queen Elizabeth in "The Queen" a film I have just seen but have not reviewed. However, when both "Last King" and "The Queen" first came out months ago, I presciently predicted to friends and family that both Whitaker and Mirren would win Best Actor and Actress Awards - - for the Academy Awards, not giving the Golden Globes a thought. It has been the pattern, though, that films and actors who've won awards for the Golden Globes will win Oscars in the same categories, except for the year that "Crash" won the Oscar for Best Picture. It was ignored in the Globes. Director Martin Scorcese received his second Globe award for "The Departed", a film that hies back to his days as director of the violently eloquent "Mean Streets" and "Goodfellas" after misfires like "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator" (also starring DiCaprio).

"The Departed" out-gores both the above early films, yet its story is crisp, unpredictable, and complicated. You really must pay attention. (I confess I had to turn away from some scenes. ) I'm not a huge fan of Matt Damon's, maybe one day I can get beyond his corn-fed looks. Still I have to say, he was admirable in his dual roles as a Boston "Statie" (state cop) and an informer for crime boss Jack Nicholson. Nicholson can't help how he looks whether sitting ringside at the Globes or bellying up to a sleazy Boston bar. He does a good job (or Scorsese does), however, of portraying the flop-sweat of a once powerful bad guy on his way out. Leonardo Di Caprio, at this time of his career, can do no wrong. He was stellar in "Blood Diamond" and nails his role in "The Departed" as a wanna-be cop (with connections, no less) who flunked out of training only to be hired as a snitch for head police detective Martin Sheen, who's aiming to bring down the Big Guy. It all works beautifully. Boston accents and all. Shamefully, Martin Whalberg did not even get a nod.

Other winners: Best Supporting Actor Eddie Murphy as the James Brown-like character; American Idol reject, Jennifer Hudson, Best Supporting Actress both in "Dreamgirls"; Meryl Streep for "The Devil Wears Prada", and Sasha Baron Cohen for "Borat" who in his speech gave a surrealistic, comic ode to his co-star Azamat Bagatov, referencing the latter's "globes." Prince won for his theme for the animated film, "Happy Feet". Tom Hanks gave the most embarrassing tribute to Warren Beatty and his life-time of work, mentioning Beatty's balls at least a half-dozen times (as in "moxie"). Then Beatty, in turn, had to get up there and drone on and on. With this, an evening that began with a bang threatened to end in a whimper, was saved by the surprise win for "Babel" as best picture and Iñárritu's gracious acceptance speech, recognizing his stars. and giving glory to his native country, Mexico.

See these films and "Little Children", "Notes on a Scandal", "Pan's Labirynth"; "The Painted Veil", and especially, "Children of Men" before the Academy Awards coming in February.

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA: Golden Globes' Best Foreign Film

2007-01-17T13:26:00.000-08:00

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis, starring Ken Watanabe, Tsyoshi Ihara, and Kazunari Ninomiya, Cinematogapher, Tom Stern

Director Clint Eastwood released "Letters from Iwo Jima" on the heels of his poorly received, but no less important "Flags of Our Fathers." "Flags" is told from the American perspective and concerns the soldiers who planted the flag on the top of Mt. Suribato, whereas "Letters," in Japanese with English subtitles, is a look at the battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese viewpoint.
The film begins in 2005 with Japanese excavators digging out the miles and miles of tunnels soldiers had dug from one end of the island to the other, branching off in all directions. It then seamlessly segues back to 1944 to a scene of soldiers digging trenches in the sand along the beach. The General in charge is soon replaced by General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), from an institution akin to the US’s West Point. He goes against the previous orders, saying that the strategy would be best to fight the Americans from the hills around the island. Thus the tunnel building starts. There is conflict among the brass about the new general’s direction, but Kuribayashi has the last word. Kuribayashi had lived in the US and hobnobbed with highly-placed individuals in society and the military. He had an insight into the American psyche.

Twenty thousand Japanese soldiers divide into battalions stationed in tunnel bunkers all around the island to protect it from an imminent attack by the Americans. Saipan has already been taken and is being used to stage an attack on Iwo Jima. One awesome scene is an aerial view of hundreds of ships streaming towards Iwo Jima across the ocean, trailing wakes like silver ribbons. The island, we learn, is a place where nothing grows and water has to be shipped in as there’s no natural supply.

Eastwood does a masterful job of humanizing the war by focussing on the backstories of a couple of grunts: One is Saigo, a former baker (Kazunari Ninomiya), with a pregnant wife back home. As the film progresses, he and Kuribayashi develop a heartwarming relationship; the other grunt is a soldier who had been in an elite military unit that stayed behind to police the populace. We learn later that he’d broken a law and was sent to Iwo Jima as punishment. All in all, "Letters" which is based on actual letters to and from wives and sweethearts of the soldiers that the excavators dug out of the tunnels in 2005, is an anti-war film. In one scene, a Japanese soldier reads aloud a letter he’s found on a dead American soldier they had tried to help. It was from his mother. "It sounds like my mother," he says. As in "Gallipoli" "Apocalypse Now," "The Deer Hunter," to name a few, Eastwood, with an understated, austere hand illustrates the utter futility of war. No one wins when tens of thousands of young men are slaughtered, families torn apart, destroyed, along with towns, cities, countryside and flora and fauna, like what’s ongoing in many parts of the world: Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East.

There is a disturbing scene in the film where two Americans left to guard a couple of prisoners (one is Saigo’s friend). They arbitrarily kill them after slinging racial epithets, alluding that they are not even human. Eastwood does not show Americans in a good light. We recall the propaganda spread about the barbarity of the Japanese, forgetting that we rounded up US citizens, stole their land, and herded them into concentration camps; firebombed Tokyo which alone gave us no reason to drop atom bombs on Hiroshimo and Nagsaki, but we did, anyway. We forget too that we also firebombed Dresden, killing tens of thousands of civilians. When all is lost and there’s no water, no ammunition, no food, and even an attempt at being a suicide bomber fails, and the Americans are entering the tunnels with flame throwers, many soldiers blow themselves up with hand grenades. Only days ago, before each battle, they had stood in a circle, raised their rifles, and shouted, "Banzai!"

What is striking about this film from the first frame is its color, or lack of it. It is as though Eastwood depicted the mood of war in cinematographer Tom Stern’s palette of grays, muddy greens, and black. Color is seen only in the reds that suddenly appear when soldiers’ limbs are blown off and in explosions as gray smoke billows into the sky, with flares of white yellow and red. Clint Eastwood puts a human face to a war that’s six decades old, half-forgotten, and already the subject of many films. Why two more? Only Eastwood could have pulled it off. Critics place "Letters" at the top of their ten best films of 2006. I am one of them. I was pleased to see that "Letters" won Eastwood a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.

ERAGON

2006-12-26T16:45:00.000-08:00

I don't think of myself as a fan of fantasy films, yet I did see Peter Jacksons' three-part "Lord of the Rings" and the "Chronicles of Narnia" (never read the LOTR books, but read all of "Narnia.") I also saw the first Harry Potter film and now wait for them to show up on TV, having never read Rowling's ouvre, to date (six boks?). Yet when I saw the trailer on TV for "Eragon," which is based on the first volume of Christopher Paolini's "Eragon" books, I wanted to see the film. Then I found out that Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich ("Being John Malkovitch"), and Robert Carlyle ("Trainspotting") were in it, so I went.

The visuals are stunning as are the CGI effects. As expected, the story concerns a young boy (Ed Speleers) who has been "chosen;" a legend having to do with Dragon Riders, an evil King (Malkovitch, of course); the King's evil magician crony (Carlyle), a beautiful damsel (Sienna Guillory), and best of all, a Dragon (CGI created).

The damsel has been the minder of a mysterious, bright turquoise oval shaped object for a long time until King Galbatorix demands she hand it over. When she's attacked by his minions,, she telekinetically sends it away and it lands at Eragon's (the young boy) feet. He lives with his older brother and uncle ins a small village, and are basically farmers. Word gets around that the King is rounding up all young men for his army who are going around searching for this oval turquoise object. If you don't get with the program you die. So, Eragon's older brother packs up and splits. Eragon doesn't want to leave his Uncle. When he taps the strange turquoise object, it rings like iron. But soon, a baby dragon hatches from it, to Eragon's (and my) utter amazement and delight. He tries to pick up the creature and it burns into his hand a coiled dragon figure, marking him for life. Soon baby dragon learns to fly. It takes off and Eragon thinks it's gone forever, but in no time, it returns as a fully grown, gigantic dragon with the wingspan of an air bus. In a soft voice like that of a female medical facility receptionist or therapist, she telepathically tells Eragon her name, Saphira.

The gist of the story is, is that this old, sortof town bum, Brom (Jeremy Irons), knows the legend of dragon riders (he's the last living rider and has the mark to prove it). He works with Eragon and Saphira in communicating telepathically as they team up with rebel soldiers who are against the evil king. The visuals of Eragon riding the dragon are equal to any "Star Wars" film though Eragon probably had a third of the budget. Director Stefen Fangmeier is the special-effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic. The effects are limited because the film hinges on human and beast relationships working together to overcome evil. One thing that disturbs me in these fantasy films is that the armies of evil-doers on the side of the bad king, are always portrayed as big dark-skinned men, usually bald, but if they do have hair, it's messed up, and they all have gaping large-lipped mouths full of bad-teeth. What kind of message does this send to impressionable, young psyches? I'd like to see a fantasy film where all the bad guys are white, for a change.

The ubiquitous actor, Djimon Hounsou, reprises yet another stoic, strong character, only this time he doesn't have to overcome adversity as he's had to in other films ("The Gladiator," "Blood Diamond," and "Amistad"). He's the token black good guy, the good king, with a comely daughter (natch). Hounsou wears a braided wig, set back from his massive round forehead. In fighting alongside Hounsou's men, Eragon meets a dark-haired doppleganger whom he mistrusts at first. A fine thing about "Eragon" is that it shows the heroes' weaknesses, even Saphira knows her limitations concerning how much weight she can carry.

The film doesn't wrap up tidily, so you kmow there will be a sequel. Let's hope it's as thoughtful and as visually stunning. With Stefen Fangmeier on board, it can't miss.

FAST FOOD NATION

2006-12-23T16:21:00.000-08:00

WHAT’S IN YOUR BURGER?
Director Richard Linklater, whose films include "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset," has taken the 2001 non-fiction book, "Fast Food Nation," by Eric Schlosser, and, along with Schlosser, turned it into a dramatic film. They felt that this type of film rather than a documentary would reach a larger audience. Both book and film give readers and audiences a shocking, behind-the-scenes look into what goes into the burgers served by the ubiquitous, multibillion dollar fast food industry (I confess I haven’t read the book).

"Fast Food Nation" boasts a stellar cast from Patricia Arquette, Greg Kinnear, to Bruce Willis, and others. The film not only makes a statement about the fast food industry, it also goes into the issue of US exploitation of undocumented immigrants. Early on, there’s a scene of a Coyote bringing men, and women with children across the border from Mexico through the desert. Except for hiding in the bushes from roaming border guards and a suggestion from a fellow traveler about the correct footwear, the crossing seems more like a guided nature hike, bottled water generously provided. Still, we see a man,who gets separated from the group, staggering shirtless around the parched land. We assume that he has subsequently died en route when, on a later border crossing, a young boy discovers the missing man's boot lying on the ground. Linklater has been accused of overreaching by tossing in subplots about other activist causes - - including compensation for harrowing, disabling injuries on the job - - which some see as complicating the film, distracting us from, and adiluting, its initial message.

The immigrants end up working for UMP, a meat packing plant in Cody, Colorado, no questions asked as to their legality. UMP provides steer meat (actually, end products, scraps) for Mickey’s hamburgers. The place looks absolutely pristine, sterile, everything either white or gleaming stainless steel until workers, hosing down the vents on the roof at night, disturb colonies of rats which scurry across their boots. Danny Cannavale plays Mike, a sleazy, womanizing assembly line supervisor who makes out with vulnerable, lonely immigrant women in his pickup truck who have come to him with grievances. They fall in love with him, only to be tossed aside like, well, like useless pieces of meat.

Overhead shots range over acres and acres of dry, fenced off lands where thousands of head of cattle are corralled. You know they'll end up in fast-food burgers. Amazingly, Linklater was allowed to film inside a real slaughterhouse. His movie doesn’t stint on footage of terrified animals, eyes bulging with fear, being herded and prodded along narrow chutes. They are electronically stunned, chained, and hoisted by their hind legs. Workers, dressed in white from head to boots, methodically slit cows’ throats as the animals jerk along on the chain. Blood gushes out on to the floor and runs in gutters like rivers. Though grisly, I have to admit I found the process disgustingly fascinating. An unsettling shot shows a cart full of severed, skinned, dehorned cow heads, eyes bulging. What will to happen to them? Will they be dumped? Eaten? Cow heads and eyes - - if not every part of a cow - - are consumed by people all over the world, US included.

The film hinges on Greg Kinnear who plays Don Anderson, a product development manager for Mickey’s, a fast food chain that Linklater uses as a not-so-subtle take on McDonald’s. In fact, in some scenes, the "golden arches" of Mickey’s rival are plainly visible in the background. At a board meeting, a member brings up a rumor. It seems that that tests of the meat in Mickey’s Big Ones burgers bear traces of cow shit that might contain the e coli bacteria which could kill young children and the elderly. The film jumps from scenes at the plant to Anderson as he sets out for Cody to investigate.

He stays at a no-frills motel in the middle of the stockyards, crosses the two-lane highway for dinner at a Mickey’s where Esai Morales plays Tony, the manager. Anderson feels out the counterpersons, Amber (Ashley Johnson) and butter-fingers Brian (Paul Dano) who drops a frozen patty on the floor, blithely picks it up and slaps it on the grill. Both figure later as animal activists and Amber, in a wonderful, stereotypical employee-boss scene with Tony, quits her job.

I have personally experienced the powerful stench emanating from corralled steer, so was surprised when Anderson leans on a fence to check out his herd and takes a deep breath. I expected him to grimace and pull his head back. Instead, he reacts like he was inhaling the fragrance of a summer night rather than the acrid odor of manure and urine. Maybe Anderson has become inured. Pursuing his mission, he arranges meetings with present and former honchos at Mickey’s and UMP.

We meet a grizzled, wealthy cattle baron, Rudy (Kris Kristofferson), who lives in a spacious ranch house on his vast grazing lands. He'd once been a manager for UMPand now sells cattle to Mickey’s. Rudy's been approached by developers who want him to sell his land so they can pave it over and build strip malls. Rudy contends that if he doesn’t sell, he’ll end up like the dead bodies he finds dumped on his land; he rants on that the country is being taken over by machines and science fiction. Anderson gets down to the reason for his visit. Rudy explains plausibly how shit can get into meat. He sends Anderson to Harry (Bruce Willis, unforgettable in a small scene in a Sizzler-like restaurant). Harry's a middle-man supplier of UMP meat to Mickey's chain. Harry brushes off Anderson’s concerns about shit in the burgers, saying, "We all have to eat a little shit from time to time. Cars kill 40,000 people a year." Meanwhile, Amber, inspired by her sexy, activist, Vietnam vet uncle (Ethan Hawke), and Brian, along with several other young liberals, form an independent animal rights group. They decide to save the cows from ending up as Mickey’s Big Ones, but their efforts fail not because they didn’t try, but because the cows wouldn’t cooperate.

Don Anderson goes back to work with nothing to report. We see him in a final scene at a board meeting introducing yet another burger innovation. If the film inspires some theatregoers to become either vegetarians or activists, its done its job.

NOTE: An abridged, revised version of this review has appeared elsewhere in the print media.

BABEL

2006-11-27T14:40:00.000-08:00

Genesis 11:7-9
7. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8. So the Lord scattered them abroad from then upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from then did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Such is the genesis of the name for director Alejandro González Iñárritu's latest film, "Babel." It could have been called "The Rifle," as the gun plays as significant a part as does the inability to communicate with one's fellow wo/man. The story is based on an idea of writer Guillermo Armago's, who wrote the screenplay. He set the action in four countries in which the characters are linked either personally or connected through the rifle.

In this shrinking world of instant electronic communication and travel by jets like air-borne hotels and on cruise ships, one can visit just about any country in the world, except maybe the extreme north or south. Most people choose to travel to exotic places and once there, want to ride a tour bus from their luxury hotel to colorful villages so they can mingle with the natives, try native foods, roam through shops and stalls, and buy stuff. This is where we find a contentious married couple, Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett), from Los Angeles. They are tooling along on a tour bus on the winding roads through the barren hills of Morocco's Berber country.

The camera pans a broad, all-encompassing landscape, then focuses on a scene of sheepherders and their families, going about their daily business around their stone homes, tucked into the rocky mountainside (Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieta). A father trusts his oldest son, about 16, with a new rifle to shoot jackals who try to steal their sheep. He exchanged a sheep and some money for it with a trader/hunting guide. Iñárritu spends a lot of time with the villagers, which is good, otherwise we wouldn't care so much not only about what happens to these villagers, but also about his characters' stories in the other countries represented in the film. He establishes the kids' relationship with their father, sibling rivalry (the youngest son is the best shot), and burgeoning sexuality. In one scene, the boy spies on a girl, whose mind is not all there, as she dresses.

Richard and Susan have left their two, perfect, blond kids, a boy about two or three and his six or seven year old sister, Debbie (Dakota Fanning's little sister, Elle, just as remarkable an actress as Dakota), back home in Los Angeles in the care of their nanny, Amelia (Adriana Barraza). She has plans to drive to Mexico with her nephew, Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal), for her son's wedding once Susan and Richrd return from their trip. But you know what they say about plans.

The Berber kids are in the mountains with the sheep and the gun. They're bored. The trader had bragged that the gun can shoot things many unbelievable kilometers away. The oldest tries it out, missing shots like crazy. Dismayed, the youngest picks it up. The tour bus tools along. A shot is fired, glass breaks, Susan is shot. The outcome of this unfortunate accident is played out for the rest of the film, even as the film interrupts their situation to pick up on the progress of other ongoing scenerios, which is jarring at first. "Babel" begins with Richard's phone call to Amelia from a Moroccan hospital, after she's put the kids to bed. As she listens on the wall phone in the couple's home,we hear his trembly voice over the wire, telling her about the accident and that they've had to delay their return. (At the end of the film, it loops disconcertingly back to this scene, only from Richard's persepective at a payphone in the hospital corridor.) Amelia's wedding trip agenda is screwed.

In a long flashback to the village where the bus has taken them, Richard shows his anger and frustration at trying to get help for his bleeding wife. Shouting and waving his arms about, he can't understand them and they can't understand him. Finally, he finds a man who speaks English, having spent time in the US. He tells Richard that there are no phones, no electricity, no doctor. And to make matters worse, Richard's fellow European travelers in their gauchos, shorts and hung about with cameras are pissed at him because they are delayed. No one seems to care a bean whether Susan lives or dies except for Richard and the villagers, who give whatever help they can. The film then cuts to Amelia's plight. She opts to take the kids with her to Mexico with free-wheeling Santiago (you sense the danger, it only gets worse). Meanwhile, in this post 9/11 era and world-wide fear of shadowy, undisciplined terrorists, the shot had to have come from one of them. The media picks up the story. Authorities investigate.

In the middle of all this, we segue to Tokyo, where we meet a wealthy Japanese businessman who is a widower, Yasujiro (Koji Yikusho), and his beautiful, deaf, teenage daugther, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi). Chieko is desperate to explore sex with a boy her own age (she does her own version of Sharon Stone's career-making move), her dentist, and a police investigator looking into her mother's death. Iñárritu depicts the hyper-frenetic Tokyo teenage life as the camera follows Chieko and her similarly sense-limited friends (they go to a school for the deaf, read lips and use sign language; speech comes out as moans or soft grunts) to flashy, hi-tech, downtown malls and restaurants where teens hang out. In Chieko and her father's sky-high downtown condominium, we see a photo of Yasujiro on a hunting expedition in Morocco accompanied by who else but the hunting guide/trader. Yasujiro is holding the very rifle the boy had used to shoot the bus. Ah ha!

Returning from the wedding at dawn, Santiago is stopped at the border. Oscar nominee for his role as the killer, Perry, in the film "Capote," Clifton Collins, Jr., plays a dedicated border guard. With two little blond kids asleep in the back seat and a bewildered Amelia next to him, Santiago doesn't give the guard straight answers. Still drunk, he pulls a stupid stunt, dumps nanny and kids off in the desert and speeds away. At this point, you wonder how the hell this film can have a good ending. Susan, dying in a stone house after being sewn up sans anesthetic by a doctor from a neighboring village, is tended by an ancient healer,who gives her a hit off her opium pipe, knocking her out, then waves a smoking bunch of weeds over her. There is a tender scene between the couple when Richard helps his wife perform an everyday body function. Meanwhile, a bedraggled, sweaty Amelia staggers through the desert in high heels, with feverish kids. Another scene follows of Moroccan police looking for the perp and his rifle, harrassing and beating up villagers; the scene of the shepherd boys and their father, holed up in the hills from the police, has a tragic yet satisfying ending, and Yasujiro arrives home to find his daughter standing on the balcony, stark-naked.

"Babel" is an important film because of its theme of communication, or lack thereof, which can lead to drastic circumstances, whether the attempt to understand one another is cross-cultural, among foreigners, or even among those who speak the same language (Yasujiro and Cheiko, especially). An unsettling message comes through, though: If you are an American with money and connections, the government will spare nothing to help you and ensure your safety. The emphasis unfortunately being on money and connections.

The film was at no. 6 of the top twenty last week, according to "Entertainment Weekly" after gaining a 505 percent increase in box-office take. This week, it has slipped to no. 8, but is still holding strong in its four weeks in theatres. The acting, from major stars to bit players, is first-rate throughout. Pitt has matured; the cameras picks up his incipient crows feet, worry lines, and greying hair, though Blanchett has little to do but lie there moaning and looking heavenly.