Showing posts with label John Esther. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Esther. Show all posts

FILM NEWS: JACC ANNOUNCES PROGIE WINNERS

A scene from Even the Rain.
JACC jumps over what Oscar picks

By Ed Rampell and John Esther

After failing to make the final cut for this year's Academy Awards for Best Film in a Foreign Language (or any other category for that matter), Even the Rain, a smashing Spanish film about an uprising in Bolivia has swept the James Agee Cinema Circle’s fourth annual “Progie” Awards for Best Progressive Films and Filmmakers of 2010.

The James Agee Cinema Circle is an international, independent umbrella group of progressive film critics, reviewers, scholars and historians dedicated to raising public awareness about films dealing with political, social and cultural issues such as: Human rights, workers’ struggles, women’s rights, environmentalism, ethnic rights, free speech, gay rights, civil liberties, immigrant rights, people’s activism and peace.

The JACC annually presents The Progies to the year’s Best Progressive studio features, indies, documentaries and artists. The Progies are the “un-Oscar”, the “people’s alternative Academy Awards,” honoring movies and talents of conscience and consciousness whereas the Best Picture Oscar, for example, consistently goes to movies with centrist-right sensibilities (e.g. Ordinary People; Dances with Wolves; Shakespeare in Love; American Beauty; The Departed; The Hurt Locker) or even politically reactionary films (e.g. Forrest Gump; Driving Miss Daisy; Silence of the Lambs; A Beautiful Mind; Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; Crash; No Country for Old Men; Slumdog Millionaire) at the Annual Academy Award Ceremony. Of course, this year's Academy Award nominations are not significantly different.

Below is a complete list of all of the 2010 Progies winners, followed by the nominees in every category. (There is an initial nomination process with other films not mentioned below). Each Progie is awarded in a category named after a great cinema artist or film that made a contribution to movies that inspire, enlighten and entertain audiences.

The Trumbo: The Progie Award for Best Progessive Picture is named after Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned for his beliefs and refusing to inform. Trumbo helped break the Blacklist when he received screen credit for Spartacus and Exodus in 1960.
Winner: Even The Rain
Other nominations: Social Network, Casino Jack, Made In Dagenham.

The Garfield: The Progie Award for Best Actor in a progressive picture is named after John Garfield, who rose from the proletarian theater to star in progressive pictures such as Gentleman's Agreement and Force of Evil, only to run afoul of the Hollywood Blacklist.
Co-Winners: Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter; Kevin Spacey, Casino Jack.
Other nominations: James Franco, Howl; Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech.

The Karen Morley Award: The Progie Award for Best Actress in a film portraying women in a progressive picture is named for Karen Morley, co-star of 1932’s Scarface and 1934’s Our Daily Bread. Morley was driven out of Hollywood in the 1930s for her leftist views, but maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for New York’s Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954.
Winner: Naomi Watts, Fair Game.
Other nomination: Sally Hawkins, Made In Dagenham.

The Renoir: The Progie Award for Best Anti-War Film is named after the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir, who directed the 1937 anti-militarism masterpiece, Grand Illusion.
Winner: The Green Zone.
Other nominations: Route Irish, Miral.

The Gillo: The Progie Award for Best Progressive Foreign Film is named after the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who lensed the 1960s classics, The Battle of Algiers and Burn!
Winner: Even The Rain.
Other nomination: Tears Of Gaza.

The Dziga: The Progie Award for Best Progressive Documentary is named after the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who directed 1920s nonfiction films such as the Kino Pravda (“Film Truth”) series and The Man With the Movie Camera.
Winner: Inside Job.
Other nominations: Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer; South Of The Border.

Our Daily Bread Award: The Progie Award for the Most Positive and Inspiring Working Class Screen Image is named after director King Vidor’s 1934 classic about an American collective farm, which starred Karen Morley and was produced by Charlie Chaplin.
Winner: Made In Dagenham.
Other nominations: Even The Rain; The Fighter, Fish Tank.

The Robeson: The Progie Award for the Best Portrayal of People of Color that shatters cinema stereotypes, in light of their historically demeaning depictions onscreen. It is named after courageous performing legend, Paul Robeson, who starred in 1936’s Song of Freedom and 1940’s The Proud Valley.
Winner: Even The Rain.
Other nominations: Night Catches Us; Miral; Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench; Frankie & Alice.

The Buñuel: The Progie Award for the Most Slyly Subversive Satirical Cinematic Film in terms of form, style and content is named after Luis Buñuel, the Spanish surrealist who directed 1967’s Belle de Jour and 1972’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.
Winner: The Social Network.
Other nominations: Enter the Void; Hitler in Hollywood. 

The Pasolini: The Progie Award for Best Pro-Gay Rights film is named after Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who directed 1964's The Gospel According to St. Matthew. 
Winner: The Kids Are All Right.
Other nominations: Howl; I Love You Philip Morris. 

The Lawson: The Progie Award for Best Anti-Fascist Film is named after John Howard Lawson, screenwriter of 1938’s anti-Franco film, Blockade, and the 1940s anti-nazi films, Four Sons, Action in the North Atlantic, Sahara and Counter-Attack. 
Winner: Even The Rain.
Other nominations: The King’s Speech, Casino Jack, The Last Circus. 

The Langlois: For Best Progressive Picture Deserving Theatrical Release in the US and distribution in other countries and platforms is named after film archivist Henri Langlois, co-founder of Paris’ Cinémathèque.
Winner: Film Socialisme.
Other nominations: Amigo, Vlast, Cleveland Versus Wall Street, Nostalgia For The Light.
 
The Sergei: The Progie Award for Lifetime Progressive Achievement On or Off Screen is named after Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet director of masterpieces such as Potemkin and 10 Days That Shook the World.
Winner: Jean-Luc Godard.
Other nominations: Sean Penn, Mike Leigh, Ed Asner.
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FILM REVIEW: MUMBAI DIARIES

Munna (Prateik) in Mumbai Diaries


Encounter unbalanced

By John Esther

Overflowing with contrived encounters, writer-director Kiran Rao’s Mumbai Diaries intersects three people and their supporting milieus from various works and leisure(s) of life inhabiting the city of Mumbai, India.

Arun (Aamir Khan) is an artist low on talent and even lower on social graces, but that does not stop him from seducing art collectors and the likes of Shai (Monica Dogra), an American investment banker who has returned to her very rich Indian family’s home for a little sabbatical where she can dabble in photography. Connecting the two by more than one coincidental turn in this city of 14 million (the second most populous city in the world behind Shanghai) is Munna (Prateik), a washer man, who belongs, by definition, to a lower caste and, by cliche, a model boy from the other side of the tracks.

Shunned by Arun, Shai develops a relationship with Munna, but the relationship means something different to each of them. Meanwhile Arun has discovered some recorded materials that lead him to a dark secret about the fate of a former inhabitant in his current dwelling.

As each of them push to find her or his identity, they inevitably push others away.

Like many films one encounters in less significant film festivals, the heart of Rao’s drama is in the right place, but it tries to do too much with too little talent. 

The film does not hide from the class differences and insurmountable obstacles it takes to rise above of one’s caste. While Shai and Arun sleep in comfort, Munna is out on the streets beating rats the way the local gang beats his family down. There is another sub plot about drug dealing, leading to more coincidental encounters. 

In addition to the laughable times each of the characters intersect on the busy streets of Mumbai, the actors behind the often clumsy dialogue, come off amateurish, especially when the dialogue is in English. This is Dogra’s first film and it shows.

It also does not help that the direction in Rao’s first feature film fails for the most part. Shooting a scene from different angles for the sake of different angles does not flatter a film anymore than the numerous close-ups accentuating the poor dialogue and script. Perhaps nowhere is Rao’s direction misguided than her and director of photographer Tushar Kanti Ray’s metonymic movements over Arun’s paintings. Unflattering to Ravi Mandlik’s painting in the film, the attempt to show the fragments of an artist’s tortured soul – and, we are suppose to accept, the fragments of Mumbai -- unsuccessfully contradicts the direction during the rest of film.

Where Rao’s direction does succeed, often in surprising moments of clarity, is when the camera rolls along the streets of Mumbai, capturing people in their normal behavior. One pauper child demands money before demanding an image of her be recorded. Vast amounts of people on the streets carry out their menial tasks, noticed by no one, but the camera and the subsequent viewers behind it. Fictionalized or not, these minor moments seem to be the more authentic accounts of Mumbai minutiae.




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PSIFF 2011: AFTERSHOCK

Fang Deeng (Zhang Jingchu) in Aftershock
China's choice

By John Esther

Long on melodrama, short on very impressive special effects, China's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, Aftershock, offers a wallop of both.

The film opens with a pretty impressive scene of dragonflies flying through the air and out of town. They seem to know what is about to go down. A Chinese family watches in amazement as the dragonflies flee.

Once home in the city of Tageshan, Aftershock immediately establishes the family dynamic. The parents are hard working, simple Chinese folk just making it through the world. They have two children, twins. Fang Da (Li Chen) is a bit of weakling, letting his sister, Fang Deeng (Zhang Jingchu), fight his battles. A cooling fan is a luxury.

As the parents finish their business in the back of their truck, the ground begins to shake, shake and shake. It is the 1976 earthquake of Tangshan and for what seemed a good five minutes on screen, thousands and thousands of people are crushed under the weight of unstable buildings. Other things fall, streets crack, people jump out of windows only to be crushed by the building behind them. There is a crane coming undone. There is a pit in my stomach. Imagine the intense, loud, chaotic scene in Ron Howard's, oops, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center where the tower collapses on the firemen and magnify that by ten and you start to get the picture.

It is pretty gut wrenching, especially if you live in the city of Los Angeles where we anticipate the inevitable big one. It does not help that the film's sound shakes the theater walls.

When the rubble starts clearing, the mother, Li Yuanni (Xan Fan), has to make a "Sophie's Choice" between which buried child to choose to live. She picks one, but unbeknown the other hears her mother's choice. To compound the drama, the unpicked child survives unbeknown to the mother and other child.

Jumping over the next 32 years, until the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, each of the surviving members suffers in his or her post-traumatic vein. To keep the saga going, Aftershock incorporates a bombastic music score, multiple tropes of lost chances, and numerous crying scenes.

The highest grossing Chinese film in China's history, for well over two hours, director Xiaogang Feng's Aftershock offers up plenty of emotions. The problem is that the earthquake scene is so powerful the rest of the film incrementally becomes anticlimactic to the point one wishes it would speed up to its predictable conclusion.

(Aftershock screens Jan. 14, 10:30 a.m., Camelot Theatres. For more information: Aftershock)  

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PSIFF 2011: THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER

A scene from The Human Resources Manager.
Backtrack in the Post-USSR

By John Esther

Winner of five 2010 Israeli Film Academy Awards and Israel's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, director Eran Riklis' The Human Resources Manager moves from Israel to Russia at a tank's pace, offering little more than meandering musings and mawkish meanings about work, duty, honor and human value.

Based on the novel, A Woman in Jerusalem, by A.B Yehoshua, screenwriter Noah Stollman situates The HR Manager (Mark Ivanir) at Jerusalem's largest bakery between a hard spot and rough space when one of the bakery's ex-employees is killed during a suicide bombing.  Under attack at work and by the local press, The HR Manager (his job is his identity) must return the woman back to Russia for a burial. Promises to his own estranged daughter (Roni Koren) may not be fulfilled, again.

Once in Russia, The HR Manager encounters various sorts of sordid shenanigans by various Russian characters who are only going to make his task that much more difficult.  Of course, there is that Russian bureaucracy. The victim's Ex-Husband (Bogdan Stanoevitch) is a brute. The victim's son (Noah Silver) is an angry adolescent. The victim's mother (Irina Petrescu) thinks the return of her daughter's body for burial is a mistake, food poisoning, etc. And here he thought he was doing something good for which everyone would thank him. At least he has all the spending cash he needs to make things right.

Slowly becoming a world-renown director, Riklis has made successful and moving films about self and group identity in such films as The Syrian Bride and Lemon Tree. Those films centered on the plight of women under pressure by society and self. They did not offer any easy answers and they were engaging. It seems Riklis lost some purpose with his latest film. An exercise in overstated ironies, hindered by contrivances and caricatures, The Human Resources Manager does not offer those merits.

(The Human Resources Manager screens Jan. 11, 4 p.m. Palm Springs Regal 9. For more information: THRM)
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PSIFF 2011: THE BORDER

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PSIFF: EVEN THE RAIN

A scene from Even the Rain.
Collective colonization

By John Esther

Director Sebastian (Gael Garcia Bernal), producer Costa (Luis Tosa) and their Spanish crew have just arrived in Cochamba, Bolivia to make a film about Columbus' arrival in the Americas during the late 15th century. An examination in racism, religious hypocrisy and resistance, the film within the film of director Iciar Bollain's Even the Rain takes an unflattering view of the Spanish crown's gold crush in the 16th century. 

While on location, the local "Indians," many of whom are involved with the film at significantly lower pay than their Spanish counterparts, are involved in a struggle with powerful forces (back by foreign corporations) over the local water supply. The locals have virtually no rights to the point they are prohibited from collecting the rain. 

If making an epic historical film were not daunting enough, the local struggle threatens the film, the filmmakers' safety and the filmmakers' ideas about what it means to make a film about historical oppression while contemporary oppression is surrounds you and what it means to make a film about an oppressed people of the past without oppressing people of today.

Written by oft-Ken Loach collaborator, Paul Laverty (Bread and Roses; Looking for Eric) Spain's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film swirls on a wide range of levels and topics. The film about a film or films (someone is shooting a documentary on the making of the film) thoroughly analysis the limitations and possibilities about making films to address (adjust?) social injustices, whether they are past or present, and that film is never the same as reality, regardless of accuracy, yet this is being illustrated in a film.

Highly recommended.


(Even the Rain screens Jan. 7, 6 p.m., Palm Springs Regal 9; Jan. 08 10 a.m., Palm Springs Regal 9. For more information: http://www.psfilmfest.org)

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PSIFF 2011: PEEPLI LIVE

Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) in Peepli Live.
Caste away

By John Esther 

Thanks to a lifetime of hardship resulting in hopelessness and a controversial government program, thousands of Indian farmers continue to commit suicide for money. The number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at 182,936. That is about one suicide for every 31 minutes.

A fictional account of the capitalist crisis met with government response, writer-director Anusha Rizvi's Peepli Live tells the tale of two brothers, Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) and Budhia (Raghubir Yadav), who are about to lose their plot of rural land and want to take advantage of the government program.  

After the brothers decide which one will die, the story breaks out with the media, government, politicains and entrepenuers descending on the small rural village to see if a suicide will take place. Sadly humorous, everybody has an agenda. Votes, ratings and money are at stake and nobody cares if a nobody sends back the gift of life. 

A better writer than director, the strength of Rizvi's Peepli Live is the film's unsentimental portrayal of the poor. Far more Émile Zola and Shohei Imamura than John Steinbeck and Michael Moore, the films depicts India's lowest cast as ignorant and brutish, with adults and children prone to yelling, violence, excessive inebriation and self preservation at any cost. This honesty prevents sympathy for the self/society-doomed protagonist, which translates into a more complex look at the issues at hand.

India's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film is about despair and doom. And while that may sound like a depressing time at the movies, consider that with its 104-minute running time, over three Indian farmers will have, on average, committed suicide during the film. 

Recommended.


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PSIFF 2011: LITTLE ROSE


Kamila (Magdalena Boczarska) and Roman (Robert Wieckiewicz) in Little Rose.
T-horny times

By John Esther

Summer 1967, as fear of the Occident brews up the so-called Summer of Love, Eastern Europe experienced a rise of new leftists fighting against the pseudo socialists who had crawled to power though corruption, lies and acquiescence. Feeling pressure from the Kremlin on down and in across the border, the Polish Security Force needed some good old patriotic scapegoats to reign in the dopey masses and so they pulled that old die-in-the-woe foe: the intellectual Jew. Thanks to to the aggression of Israel, a U.S. ally, against Egypt and Syria, both Soviet allies, anti-Semitic propaganda had not been this easy or essential to sell since WWI -- only the totalitarians have a new name.

Co-written and directed by Jan Kidawa-Blonski, Little Rose reflects on this tumultuous time. Roman Rezek (Robert Wieckiewicz) is in the Polish Security Force. He has been assigned to dig up dirt on Adam Warczewski (Andrzej Sweryn), a well known writer and university professor suspected of clandestine contacts with freedom-fighting Western groups, so he can then bury him. Unable to pry the professor himself (he does not really bother trying), Roman enlists his lover, Kamila Sakowicz (Magdalena Boczarska), to aid him, even if this means she has to find Adam's secrets through a little pillow talk.

Yet things do not go as planned. Love and lust have a way of undermining bad governments.

Loosely inspired by the true story of famous Polish writer and historian, Pawel Jasienica, whose wife betrayed him, Little Rose offers an intriguing look into the play of power in politics and in the bedroom. Kamila becomes entangled between two allegiances, eventually forced into using her own power of seduction in order to survive. 

Kamila's notable beauty is used for masculine gain. That is nothing new, except the filmmakers see little in the contradiction between addressing Kamila's exploitation as woman and worker (she is a secretary) and repeatedly using nude images of Boczarska without offering male exposure at anything remotely the same level.

(Watch out for the raincoat crowd.)

For a film marked by strong performances and interesting topics, this dichotomy is the only significant drawback in an otherwise pretty good film. Although those rubber batons are rather obvious.

Recommended. 


(Little Rose screens Jan. 7, 3 p.m., Palm Springs Regal 9; Jan. 10, 9:30 a.m., Palm Springs Regal 9. For more information: http://www.psfilmfest.org)


 


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FILM REVIEW: ANOTHER YEAR

Mary (Lesley Manville) in Another Year.
Leigh light

By John Esther

In the latest film by esteemed British writer-director Mike Leigh (Naked; Vera Drake; Happy-Go-Lucky), the family unit is tight but woe to those surrounding it.

Gerri (Ruth Sheen) and Tom (Jim Broadbent) make for a happily married couple of many years. They have a son, Joe (Oliver Martman), who comes to visit mum and dad on occasion. He is not married and neither are Gerri and Tom's unstable friends, Mary (Lesley Manville) and Ken (Peter Wright), whose chronic imbibing only makes them less charming than when they are sober. Unmarried Mary and bachelor Ken are rather envious of Gerri and Tom, though Mary is far more obvious about it. She is so desperate to be a part of the family she flirts hard with Joe and when he brings an adorable girlfriend, Katie (Karina Fernandez), one autumn day – to the surprise of his parents -- Mary is rude to Katie. Fortunately, Katie can hold her own, which makes Mary look even stupider.

Broken into seasons, Another Year is marked by typical traits of a Mike Leigh film: solid direction, snappy dialogue, solid acting from many Leigh regulars, and characters who never know when to shut up. Unfortunately, this is nowhere as good as his other films. It might be Leigh's worst film. That is not the worst thing you can ever say about a film by a filmmaker as efficient and prolific as Leigh, but it is disappointing. Some of the dialogue is contrived, especially an exchange between Mary and Tom's brother, Ronnie (David Bradley), which is downright exasperating. And Manville's performance as ditzy, disheveled drunk is way over the top.

However, in a season full of films with distressed couples (Little Rose; Rabbit Hole; Blue Valentine; The Tourist)) and lonely people (Aftershock; Black Swan; Somewhere; Biutiful; True Grit) filmgoers searching for a happy family in a film – beyond those Hollywood Little Fockers films – do not need to wait another year.


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FILM REVIEW: BLUE VALENTINE

Cindy (Michelle Williams) in Blue Valentine.
Love, rage and blood beneath the surface

By John Esther

Once upon a time in Super 16mm, 25mm lense, handheld camera land, Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) were sort of happy. Compelled by his unwavering belief that Cindy was the one, Dean courted her in quite the charming manner, took a beating because of her (if he only had a cell phone), assumed co-responsibility in raising a child not his own and married her. For her part, Cindy gave up her current boyfriend, Bobby (Mike Vogel), and any potential or real ambition she had because of Dean. While they had their moments of despair they each made each other so happy. How could Dean and Cindy ever go on without each other?

Six years later, housepainter Dean and nurse Cindy dwell in a dinghy Scranton, Pennsylvania house miles away from the happy times of The Office. Shot on HD with two cameras at a time, Cindy's love for Dean has all but burned out, yet he still loves her madly and their daughter, Frankie (Faith Wladyka), too. In response to their demise, Dean tries a few things to save their marriage, which includes staying at a hotel for the night.

This hotel stay is but a mere reprieve. The relationship is pretty much doomed, but Dean never gives up. On the surface Dean deserves our sympathies for the most part, especially when you consider what transpired earlier in their relationship, yet by the time he appears at Cindy's work the suspicion that Dean has been given a few chances, out of the film's time and space, seems solidified.

Expanding and contracting in space while moving back and forth in time over the six years, Blue Valentine offers a refreshing and raw look at holy matrimony coming undone a la Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), Revolutionary Road (2008) and this year's Rabbit Hole. Except Dean and Cindy are relatively poorer than those other clashing couples and co-writer and director Derek Cianfrance's film was made on a much tighter budget.

(In preparation for their roles, Gosling and Williams reportedly "lived" on housepainter and nurse budgets, respectively, for two weeks.)

Seven years in the making, Cianfrance (Brother Tied; Cagefighter) went through many trials and tribulations to get this film made. And if it were not for Williams and Rosling's dedication to their craft it probably would have never made. Not only did they support Cianfrance over many years – Williams was on board with the project since 2003, Gosling came on in 2005 -- they willingly accepted the physical changes required for the roles, including purposely gaining as much weight as they could in one month. Notably, Williams gained 15 pounds before they would shoot her nude scenes. Now how many actors would intentionally gain flesh before exposing her or his flesh?

Fortunately their hard work paid off. Blue Valentine oozes with so much honesty it might be hard for insecure couples to endure while garnering sympathy from those few couples out there who are lucky to stay happy for many years. Perhaps more amusingly, parents with adolescent or young adult children believing they have already found the love of their live may want to take to their idealistic offspring to see Blue Valentine -- especially if you do not care for the object of your child's affections.

For their dedications, Williams and Gosling give two of the better performances of the year and they are gaining nominations – although, I like her performance more. Dean's accent sounds more Bostonian than Brooklyn, where he lived when they met, or from Florida, where he claims to hail from during a job interview.

Beyond elocution of Gosling's character, the only other significant shortcoming is the pretty lame soundtrack to supplement the driving narrative. An underused and abused art form in film, Blue Valentine is no exception to the rule of sappy songs and mawkish melodies. However, Gosling/Dean's numbers are pretty amusing, including one very memorable scene where he plays the ukulele and Williams/Cindy does a tap dance.

(While shooting the film, Williams did not know Gosling was going to play the ukulele and Gosling did not know Williams was going to dance to his song until their cue: "Do you have any special talents?" Then they had to improvise the song and dance.)

Quality direction, excellent cinematography by Andrij Parekh (Half Nelson; Cold Souls) and featuring two very dedicated star actors, Blue Valentine offers an honest alternative to the fairy tale, love stories Hollywood offers throughout the year. A pyrotechnic display may go off at the end of a love story, but it is not at night, it is not romantic and it is not in anybody's head. That happens only in the movies (and in an episode of the Brady Bunch).
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FILM REVIEW: TRUE GRIT

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) in True Grit.
Out to pasture/yes

By John Esther 

If you like old fashioned, orderly, ontological narratives punch drunk full of sympathetic brutes and iced with eth(n)ical insensitivity, your holiday movie gift arrives with co-writers/editors/directors/producers and brothers Joel and Ethan Coen's True Grit. The latest film adaptation of Charles Portis' novel, True Grit, is every bit as intellectually demanding and politically reactionary as director Henry Hathaway's 1969 version starring John Wayne in his only Oscar-winning role.  

Set somewhere in the Oklahoma Territory post-Civil War, 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is determined to get justice for her prosperous pa after a working man who is going by the name of Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) robs and kills daddy in cold blood. As every bit smart, tough and misguided as the mythological adolescent male tough guy -- but still a girl who needs male help (Mattie is no Malpaso Man) -- Mattie uses her brains and bucks to recruit Rueben J. "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges). An ornery U.S. Marshall known for killing first and asking questions, then drinking later and before, it is going to take all of Mattie's moxie and money to persuade the "true grit" law enforcement officer to take the job.

Fixed in the mix is le beefy Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who is also after Tom Chaney. Ever since the desperado killed a U.S. Senator in Texas three years ago, LaBoeuf has been on the trail. Au Juyceian.

Moving beyond the pretense of western civilization into the back country, the three of them intertwine as the plot twists and turns until True Grit walks its predictable path without any attempts at deconstructing western myths, intriguing innovation or other worthwhile purpose. At its basic, True Grit is hardly more than a story about retribution from an adolescent viewpoint.

Since the film begins with 40-year-old Mattie (Elizabeth Marvel) telling her story, 14-year-old Mattie's survival throughout the narrative is never in question regardless of how many rough men she done gets herself mixed up wit'. Come hell and hi, high, hype hi, "what her?" slaughter, the filmmakers make it clear from the onset Mattie's destiny does not conclude at an early death.

Rooster's success is not in doubt, either. Like any one of countless traditional movie lawmen who operates by his own sets of rules, Rooster has killed so many men with immunity he cannot even keep track. He is just a good old boy who kills the bad guys, and if he makes a mistake every so now and then, True Grit repeatedly asserts we are suppose to forgive the loveable, filthy, old coot because things like habeas corpus and Magna Carta are just plain annoying (right, PATRIOTs). In fact, Mattie had the option of picking another man to track and capture her father's alleged killer, but that lawman values due process of law so forget him. The relatively clean, young lady is hungry for some hanging.

While on the subject of hanging, True Grit is filled with Freudian metaphors of adolescent angst toward sex. Mattie's recollections of her manhunt involves lots of hangings, dismembered fingers, a traumatic encounter with snakes – as a result of removing the clothes of a dead man, "Rooster," a spanking by "The Beef," an amputation as result of shooting a big gun -- which knocks her back down a big hole, stabbings, bullet holes, the metanarrative with the her horse (D.H. Lawrence) and all those guns that keep appearing then disappearing then reappearing again. Although rudimentary, viewing True Grit as a psychological coming-of-age story makes it more entertaining.

On another hand, in accordance with the film's dominat(e)-ion narrative, as far as non-whites go, they are essentially non-existent in a film whose heroes, in addition to everything else backwards in the film, fought on the Confederate side. There are two African Americans, both there to serve their white masters. While their general discard warrants little attention, the film's treatment of Native Americans is deplorable. Essentially there are three scenes with Native Americans, each time they are used as a comical ploy -- to considerable and uneasy effect at the screening I attended. The Condemned Indian (Jonathan Joss) is silenced and executed and the audience laughed. The second involves Indian Youth (Brandon Sanderson and Ruben Nakai Campana) being literally kicked around by Rooster and the audience laughed. The third... It seems it is Ok to wash away the Trail of Tears with laughter.

Conversely, the much more positive area of True Grit, there is plenty of that crisp dialogue -- here greatly aided by the film's rather faithful adaptation of the novel (so I am reliably informed) -- we can almost always expect from a Coen Bros. film. In particular, LaBoeuf, who is a more interesting, amiable and original character than Rooster, offers a humorous, often witty, proud way of looking at life as a Texas Ranger.

As far as acting, the accolades are slow in pouring for Bridges, Steinfeld and company. They were ignored at Golden Globes and only garnered two at the recent SAG nominations, including an absurd Best Supporting Actress nomination for Steinfeld whose character is present in well over 80 percent of the film. Last year's Oscar winner for Crazy Heart, Bridges performance as Rooster illustrates what a political charade it was when Wayne won Best Actor (who laughably beat out Jon Voigt and Dustin Hoffman for their performances in Midnight Cowboy). Steinfeld is definitely headed for some major roles after her feature film debut. Not only does she show dramatic range, Steinfeld can be funny. In a scene where Mattie haggles over horses, Steinfeld performs with an impressive amount of confidence and comic timing. Thanks to Steinfeld, Mattie is probably the funniest female character in the Coen Bros. oeuvre since Jennifer Jason Leigh's Amy Archer in The Hudsucker Proxy (1994).

No doubt many will favorably compare True Grit to the vastly overrated No Country for Old Men (2007) and rightfully so. They both share beautiful landscape cinematography by Richard Deakins (who also did this year's superior film, The Company Men), nostalgia for a mythical American past, violence, clever characters, some hilarious dialogue and a political ideology very much right of center. Add the female protagonist aspect and I see no reason why someone like Sarah Palin would not love this film.


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IN CONCERT: KILLING JOKE

Killing Joke at Wiltern Theater. Photo by Miranda Inganni.
The Coming Race to the End

By John Esther

Finishing off their North American Tour 2010, London's Killing Joke played before a full, somewhat restrained, audience Saturday night at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles.

Executioners of throbbing beats, intellectual angst and a breathtaking belief that the end is nigh, Killing Joke have influence bands such as Nine Inch Nails, System of a Down, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Tool, Metallica, Faith No More, Ministry, Nouvelle Vague and many others since the band's first eponymous record back in 1981. (A second one came in 2003). While the band has went through many lineup changes over the years, after the death of bassist Paul Raven in 2007 the original members of Killing Joke toured together for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Drummer Paul Ferguson, guitarist Kevin "Geordie" Walker, an unidentified bassist wearing a "Where's Youth" t-shirt (because he was replacing Martin "Youth" Glover who had to leave about a week ago -- boooot), and a unidentified keyboardist took to the stage before Killing Joke's legendary lead vocalist, Jaz Coleman, came on in a black jumpsuit (auto mechanic's uniform?), wearing black mascara and a few extra pounds.

The 100-minute show started with vicious versions of "Tomorrow's World" (dedicated to the former LA resident, Raven) and "Love Like Blood" (one of my favorites) before moving onto "Wardance" (a crowd favorite, but not mine), "Absolute Dissent," "Bloodsport," "European Super State," "The World Hell," "The Fall of Because," "Ghosts of Ladbroke Grove," "Madness," a wonderful version of "Requiem," "Primitive," "The Great Cull," and "Asteroid," then really digging in with the final two songs of the opening set, "The Wait," and "Pssyche."

Coleman shook things up on stage while everyone else, except Walker, was enthusiastic about his part. Distant and cold, the birthday boy Walker displayed very little emotion in what he was doing. He and the members were very tight, but Walker stood there like it was a rehearsal (and this is coming from someone who has seen a few Wire and Kraftwerk concerts). When they brought him a birthday cake and the audience sang "Happy Birthday" Walker just seemed annoyed. Writing of bad manners, Walker lit and smoked a cigarette while performing onstage inside the famous art deco building, which was not cool, but I did get a chuckle when he stared down the menacing photographer who had kept getting in the way of the audience's view and now had apparently gotten in the way of Walker.

(This last incident triggered a recollection, if my memory serves me well. There was once this inane 1980s-interview with Depeche Mode where one of the members was asked by some imbecile journalist that if there was ever a physical fight between all the rock & roll bands around who would win and someone from Depeche Mode said, "Killing Joke.")

As engaging as ever, in between songs Coleman weighed in on current political crises such as Korea, war, US/EU relations and other concerns he has not shed over the decades.

In lieu of the fact the band and the crowd were getting older and the end is closer – collectively or otherwise – the frenetic mosh pits of early Killing Joke concerts were greatly subdued. Only when Killing Joke played "Eighties" during the encore did there seem to be some mass trigger of youthful excitement, perhaps a subconscious pining for the days when we all believed "the coming race" was "not for sale no more." At any rate, for a concert ending with the song "Pandemonium," it was rather sedate.




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FILM REVIEW: THE FIGHTER

Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) and Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) in The Fighter.
Rocking bulls in Boston 

By John Esther

Based on a true story, "Irish" Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) is a boxer living in the shadows of his older half brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), the first boxer to knock down Sugar Ray Leonard during a professional match. Eklund taught Ward everything he knows about fighting, but the time for a successful future in boxing for Ward runs against the successful past in boxing for Eklunds. 

Eklund is now trying to spank the monkey on his back known as crack. In fact he is the subject of an HBO documentary about crack. Eklund gets high, misses training sessions and breaks laws to feed the need. (Does anybody do "skinny" better than Bale?) Ward requires reliability in order to win.

Now in his early 30s, Ward may be taking his last shots in the ring. He might make it, but it could require severing ties from his half brother and his meddling mother, Alice Ward (Melissa Leo), plus her seven co-dependent daughters (Melissa McMeekin, Bianca Hunter, Erica McDermott, Jill Quigg, Dendrie Taylor, Kate O'Brien and Jenna Lamia). 

In contrast, Edwards' new girlfriend, Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams) -- an "MTV Girl" who is as independent, smart and attractive as the daughters are not -- and others insists he will have to cut the family ties if he is to have a fighting chance.  

The dilemma for Ward is nobody knows his strengths as well as Eklund and company yet they are also his biggest problem. With friends supporting him and family hindering him, The Fighter raises questions about choosing between family and friends, family and one's self, friends and one's self. In the tight white community of Lowell, MA. a man can only go so far if he chooses one over the other -- especially if he fails in the ring. Yet the decision is not so precise as George Ward (an excellent Jack McGee) supports the split from the family.

If you are familiar with boxing history you know how the story ends. If you do not, take a seat and find out for yourself. Either way The Fighter pays off.

Directed by David O. Russell (Flirting with Disaster; Three Kings), The Fighter has a tempo harking back to various boxing films of the late 1970s and early 1980s -- which the film is not afraid to acknowledge via homages vis-a-vis Rocky-esque montages and Raging Bull aesthetics. As the film is set in Lowell, MA. during the early 1990s on paper yet the people are mentally trapped in 1980s (e.g. the soundtrack), this comes off rather smoothly.

There are also some wonderful performances in The Fighter, in particular Leo and Bale, who will probably receive Oscar nominations, with both having a strong chance of winning in the supporting categories. 








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FILM REVIEW: CASINO JACK

Jack Abramoff (Kevin Spacey) and Michael Scanlon (Barry Pepper) in Casino Jack.
Lopsided lobbyists

By John Esther

As President Obama and like minded Republicans agree to extend the Bush error taxes to the great detriment of most Americans in (taking an) order to appease their frontal and backdoor lobbyists working to maintain the country's oligarchy, Casino Jack arrives to take us behind the scenes of clandestine campaigns pre-Wikileaks and remind us why the country's democracy is constantly undermined and detonated for destruction by many of the powers that be-at US.

Staunch big Republicans living large by the creed, stinking with greed, Jack "I Work Out Everyday" Abramoff (Kevin Spacey) and Michael Scanlon (Barry Pepper) kindled and swindled sweet deals with seemingly no end in sight. Political power brokers, they had brains, bank and the backdoor to some very influential people and nothing so small as integrity, ethics or friends would get in their way. 

In addition to assisting powerful American Native tribes receive preferential treatment at the expense of smaller and less cooperating (or co-opted) ones, Abramoff and Scanlon successfully lobbied to get the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands exempted from American labor laws, fund fake grassroots organizations and abet corruption at Tyco, Inc. 

While you can find a greater overview of what eventually landed Abramoff and company in the slammer -- with former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) the latest thug in the bunch headed for prison -- in Alex Gibney's documentary, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, which was released this year, the late director George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl) and screenwriter Norman Snider focus on the ego that drove Abramoff -- and, to a slighter degree, the libido that drove Scanlon -- to rip off Native American Casinos and purchase members of U.S. Government.

As they maneuvered their way into the pockets of politicians bought, they brought in Adam Kidan (Jon Lovitz), a longtime Republican operative, attorney and mattress kingpin who subsequently got in bed with Big Tony (the late Maury Chaykin), which led to a murder for hire. When that and other plans get away from their control, Abramoff and Scanlon began to scramble for cover-up. Yet they had run of luck. Friends and partners distanced and disrespected them while foes ceased on this most opportune chance for retribution -- served hot. 

Conceptually reminiscent of what Robert Altman did to skewer Hollywood in The Player, Hickenlooper adopts an anti-cleverly (clever in the George H.W. Bush, Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Abramoff, etc., sense of the meaning) narrative by using a "cheesy" narrative to attack a cheese WIS/whiz-zzz-ed (on) America. That Abramoff -- a producer of a couple of anti-communist films featuring Dolph Lungren (the awful and homoerotic Red Scorpion) -- enjoys quoting other films, bubbles the cheesy crust to a boil. 

As a result, in what would be his last film after he unexpectedly died from heart complications at the age of 47 on October 30, 2010 (theories to the cause of his death have been rather tame considering the tone and liberties Hickenlooper takes with some very powerful people), Hickenlooper lays bare before an audience the systematic corruption by corrupt men whom felt no compunction for the mass herd of Americans living out loud lives and lies of desperation.

More than any fictionalized film in recent memory, the riveting, rolling Casino Jack magnificently exposes our corrupt era of lobbyists, special interests, the politicians for sale and the American people who not only refuse to change the system, but actually vote and campaign against their own interests (i.e. teabaggers) while lobbyists and corporations continually seize more power against the people -- a situation far worse now thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's United Citizens vs. FEC decision earlier this year. 

Thanks to Hickenlooper's direction, a brilliant script by Snider and stellar performances by Spacey and others -- notably Spencer Garrett as Delay and Christian Campbell as "Christian" Ralph Reed -- Casino Jack is one of the more original, angriest, comical, satirical and best films of 2010.

The late George Hickenlooper.








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FILM NEWS: IDA AWARDS 2010

A scene from the winning Waste Land.
All over this Waste Land

By John Esther

Tonight at the Director Guild of America in West Hollywood, Ca., the International Documentary Association announced the Feature, Short and Series Award categories.

Hosted by Morgan Spurlock (IDA 2004 nominee director of Super Size Me) the 2010 IDA Documentary Awards saw Lucy Walker’s Waste Land take home its second IDA award after receiving the IDA's Pare Lorentz Award earlier this week. The documentary is based on the journey artist Vik Muniz takes from his current home in Brooklyn, New York, to the world's largest garbage dump in Brazil, Walker accepted the award along with producer Angus Aynsley.

The Distinguished Short Film Award went to Kiran Deol's Woman Rebel, a story of Uma Bhujel, a soldier and women's rights advocate who went from the Maoist Nepal’s People’s Liberation Army to a democratically elected government official.

In the Series Award Categories the Distinguished Continuing Series Award went to ESPN Films’ 30 for 30, the network’s documentary series about thirty stories from ESPN’s 30-year history. The Distinguished Limited Series Award went to Connie Field for her seven-film series Have You Heard from Johannesburg, a documentary looking at the global effort to end South Africa's 20th Century apartheid.

Other 2010 IDA Documentary Award Winners:

Honorable Mention for the IDA Pare Lorentz Award: Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?;

Music Documentary Award: For Once In My Life;

ABCNews Videosource Award: Bhutto;

IDA Humanitas Award: A tie between Presumed Guilty and The Oath;

IDA David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award: Waiting for a Train: The Toshio Hirano Story;

Honorable Mention for the IDA David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award: The Stinking Ship;

Career Achievement Award: Barbara Kopple;

Pioneer Award: Alan Raymond and Susan Raymond;

Preservation and Scholarship Award: Mark Jonathan Harris.
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FILM REVIEW: I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS


Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) in I Love You Phillip Morris.
Carrey on gayer sum

By John Esther

Repeatedly and ridiculously delayed since its successful premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2009, I Love You Phillip Morris finally arrives in theaters this Friday. Given its subject matter and matter of subject one may speculate why this funny, intelligent and consistent film co-written and directed by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (co-screenwriters of Bad Santa) has been postponed for nearly two years.

In his best performance hitherto, Jim Carrey plays Steven Russell, a brilliant real life con artist who was able to fake friend and foe alike to such a degree that "fucking Texas" made sure he received an unprecedented 144-year prison sentence. (What no death penalty?)

Life for Russell all starts innocently enough. He is a happily married husband and father, working for the local police force and playing organ in the local church. (The instrument.) He is living the American Dream, so they show, but after a blow to his sense of identity back when he was a 9-years-old (John Kennon Kepper) followed by one to his car as an adult resulting in an epiphany, Russell decides to come straight out of the closet and take the elevator non-straight up to the top of the penthouse, bamboozling everyone he comes across along the way. After all, when you live in a country, as well as in a particular subculture of a subculture (i.e. Noah's Arc; A-List: New York; An Ordinary Couple), where materialistic extravagance is a dominant virtue, a bad boy who happens to prefer boys has got to do what he has got to do in order to lavish his loved ones.

Russell may be a great conniver, but he is not invincible. His wild schemes eventually take him to prison. There he meets Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor) a gentle, young man who has an unfortunate penchant for linking up with bad people, but not the kind of ruthless ones his namesake would suggest -- he has nothing to do with the tobacco behemoth. (Besides Morris' aggressive fellatio, there are no "smoking a fag" metaphors here). During their incarceration rowdy Russell and mild mannered Morris quickly fall in love, planning to set up home once they are both released...from prison.

As fine as their new life together may be, Russell is never content. He wants to live high on the "gay hog" and he is going to stick it to the ignorant and racist/anti-Semitic pigs at his latest job -- taking down Morris in the process. A natural risk taker, Russell's business schemes become more and more elaborate yet prove to be quite conventional in comparison to what he concocts when Morris and he is, again, incarcerated. Hilariously daring to do anything for freedom and love, one would not believe the things Russell accomplished were they not a matter of record.

Stranger danger than fiction, I Love You Phillip Morris has all the makings to be one of the year's most successful, certainly enjoyable, films. Possessing a strong cast, smart script, and outrageous humor/history, there is very little to dislike about the film. Although I did find the film funnier the first time I saw it at Sundance, it is still one of the funniest of 2010. Amongst films released this year, perhaps only Four Lions is funnier than I Love You Phillip Morris?

So what is with the theatrical release holdup? The film has already opened theatrically across Europe, Asia, South America and Mexico. Are there some handlers out there who feel the mainstream Jim Carrey fan may not accept Russell's sexual orientation? An actor who can green light just about any film of his choosing, Carrey takes an admirable career risk with the Russell role. Possibly even a greater risk than other A-list actors who have played complex "non-flamboyant" gay characters in the past.

As sort of a bourgeois anti-hero incarnation of a gay anti-hero a la writer Jean Genet (Our Lady of the Flowers; Querelle) or filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder (In a Year of 13 Moons; Querelle), Carrey as Russell does not have the sympathetic character advantage of slowly dying yet fighting for justice as Tom Hanks did when he took on what would be the Academy-Award winning role of a dying-AIDS patient named Andrew Beckett in director Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia (1993) or Hilary Swank did when she took on what would be the Academy-Award winning role of Teena Brandon/Brandon Teena, a real-life person murdered by homophobes for her man-hoodwink-ing in director Kimberly Peirce's Boy's Don't Cry (1999) or Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall for their eventual Academy-nominated roles as fictional star-crossed lovers in director Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005) or Sean Penn did when he agreed to play the eventually Academy-Award winning role of assassinated gay rights politician Harvey Milk in director Gus Van Sant's 2008 film, Milk. (Granted, Swank was not A-List when she took her role, but her character was extremely sympathetic yet there was certainly a career risk.)

On another hand, Russell does have that American gumption many Amer-I-cans sure like to swill. He sees what he wants and he takes it -- all in the so-called name of love. And, considering the current climate, we may indeed be at a crossroads where massive audiences can watch a film with a major star playing a gay protagonist who is not a victim -- in particular, a victim of violence -- and see his humanity more than his or her homosexuality.

Yet what distinguishes I Love You Phillip Morris from the aforementioned films, plus other American films not mentioned here, is that the other films came with an expectation, which is usually fulfilled, of "art house" gravitas (like this year's enjoyable The Kids Are All Right and outstanding Howl) whereas a film starring Carrey comes with the expectation of a physical comedy -- a brand of entertainment infrequently demanding any discomfort whatsoever from its audience these days. In I Love You Phillip Morris Carrey relishes in the role. While incorporating his familiar comical shtick, Carrey takes this role further by not only refusing to hold back on the film's more human complexities, he is also unflinching when it comes to its homoeroticism (the latter being something the misdirected Philadelphia dodged). Often an exacerbating performer to watch -- such as last year's awful adaptation of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol wherein Carrey played multiple roles -- here Carrey dives deep down to get at the heart and mind of what motivates Russell and it pays off.

(During the post-Sundance screening someone in the audience asked the filmmakers, "Why didn't you get gay actors to play the leads?" Without missing a beat, Carrey replied, "What makes you think we didn't?" Nice.)

With a better chance of receiving award nominations this year and the country incrementally becoming nonchalant about homosexuality, perhaps the delay of I Love You Phillip Morris has been good fortune for the film. The film is very entertaining and Carrey's performance is certainly one of the better ones of the year. Award consideration for McGregor, Xavier Pérez Grobet's playful cinematography as well as the Requa and Ficarra's direction and screenplay, are nothing to eschew either. (Oh, come on, cinematography consideration for a comedy? Yes.) But more important than the potential denial of any forthcoming award nominations, it would be a shame to see a film of this caliber rejected, or delayed anymore, including the eyes and minds of some Carrey fans, for the wrong reasons.














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