FILM REVIEW: PARIAH



Alike (Adepero Oduye) in Pariah.

Invisible lesbian

By Don Simpson

Alike (Adepero Oduye) is very shy and totally unsure of herself. At 17-years of age, Alike attempts to define herself by her tomboy wardrobe, as if wearing a placard that boldly states “Kiss me, I’m a lesbian”; because that is really all she wants, a kiss. Hanging around her bull-dyke best friend, Laura (Pernell Walker), further accentuates her boyish traits. Of course Alike’s overprotective Christian mother (Kim Wayans) does not like that. She wants Alike to wear clothes that flaunt her girlish figure; but that seems to only make Alike rebel more. Luckily, Alike’s father (Charles Parnell) is oblivious enough to his surroundings that she is able to maintain a somewhat “normal” relationship with him while her meddling little sister (Sahra Mellesse) is the only family member who is fully cognizant and accepting of Alike’s sexual orientation.

As much as I like Pariah, and would never want to discount its message, it is very difficult for me to overlook some of the very same issues that I had with Lee Daniels’ Precious. For instance, the images, set design and performances seem more like Hollywood representations of Alike’s world; a hyper-real manifestation of reality. Drama and emotion are tweaked off the charts like some nauseatingly sappy poetry or excruciatingly trite singer-songwriter lyrics. The dialogue seems oh so perfectly manicured, and certain scenes seem all too purposeful. Two scenarios in particular seem especially unreal to me: when an AP English teacher urges Alike to “go deeper” with her soul-baring poetry and when Laura passes her GED only to have her mother slam a door in her face when she tries to tell her the good news. (Oh, and do not even get me started on the conclusion…) The apparent falsities constantly distract me from the emotional core of this heartbreaking tale — which is a crying shame because several of the performances are quite amazing and I really do love Pariah‘s overall message. The story would have really benefited from a more realistic representation and a wee bit more directorial restraint.

Yet I want to conclude this on an uplifting note, because Pariah really is quite effective in portraying how a teenager’s closeted queer lifestyle can lead to friction at home, leaving a crumbling family unit in its wake. This is by no means Alike’s fault; her parents are irritatingly irrational and clueless towards her homosexuality. The overall situation seems brutally honest, as if it is torn directly from the pages of Rees’ personal experience.



FILM REVIEW: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

George Smiley (Gary Oldman) in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Modestly Blase

By Don Simpson

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an anti-spy movie. It is not that the film has anything against spies, but it dutifully works in opposition to the traditional tropes of the genre. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is not about suspense, action or thrills; it is about becoming fully immersed in the carefully orchestrated production design of 1970s London. Just as Let the Right One In functions as a character and period study rather than a horror film, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy cares more about the minutia of aesthetics than espionage.

Director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) presents us with a cast of older men with thinning hair and frumpy frames then shoves them into a series of claustrophobic spaces. It is fitting that Alfredson once directed a film titled Four Shades of Brown, because that sufficiently describes the blase color palate of the smoke-filled interior design of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy while the polluted haze of the London streets is saturated by a drab rainbow of grays. The soft focus of Hoyte Van Hoytema's grainy 35mm cinematography lends the footage a finely aged quality, as if the stock has been shelved in some basement vaults for 30-odd years. Besides Alfredson's sublime fetish for kitschy set design -- especially 1970s technology -- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy may go down in film history as the most unglamorous spy film ever produced.

The plot of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is fairly simple except for occasional flashbacks that are so seamlessly integrated within the narrative structure that it is sometimes becomes difficult to discern the past from the present. Luckily, the different eyeglasses of the film's lead character -- George Smiley (Gary Oldman) -- communicate to us where on the narrative timeline each scene falls. George has been forced into retirement by the MI6, but has been working off the books for their leader -- Control (John Hurt) -- in a clandestine effort to unearth the mole who has been leaking British intelligence to the Soviets. The likely suspects are George's former peers who function collectively as "The Circus" in the top tier of the MI6: Bill (Colin Firth), Percy (Toby Jones), Roy (Ciarán Hinds) and Toby (David Dencik). One would expect there to be an element of mystery and intrigue, but Alfredson almost immediately begins to clue us in to the identity of the mole(s) but leaves poor old George frustrated and exhausted as he sleeplessly attempts to wrap his head around the mystery.

Alfredson goes to great lengths to comment on the man's world of the British intelligence in the 1970s, populating the mise-en-scène with masculine images and colors. Other than occasional shots of a typing pool, women rarely appear onscreen; nonetheless, Alfredson finds one opportunity to cleverly sneak in a background shot of women's lib graffiti, thus implying that change may be on the way.

There are three reasons to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: the top notch production design (Maria Djurkovic); Gary Oldman's weary, detached and nearly silent portrayal of George; and Alfredson's masterfully meticulous and restrained direction. (And Alberto Iglesias's score is certainly not chopped liver either.) Unfortunately, I am not sure if Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy's meandering plot will be enticing enough to keep audiences in their seats. Let's just say that if you are looking for something along the same line as the Bourne franchise, you should go elsewhere.

FILM REVIEW: NEW YEAR'S EVE

A scene from New Year's Eve.

Should all films be so rotten

By Don Simpson

Valentine’s Day is a cruel and bitter reminder that film critics do not wield much influence — at least in certain realms of cinema — because even though Valentine’s Day is scoring a lowly 18% on Rotten Tomatoes it went on to gross $214,976,776 and New Line Cinema deemed it worthy of a sequel (an extremely loose concept of a sequel at that). What does this say about film criticism and their relationship to film audiences? Not much. People were going to see trash like Valentine’s Day no matter what critics said about it, just as people are also going to see New Year’s Eve regardless of my review.

Fans of Valentine’s Day — whomever those poor suckers are — will probably scream that a highfalutin critic such as myself is inherently biased against films like New Year’s Eve; and, admittedly, I did enter the screening of New Year’s Eve assured that I would hate it. Considering my excruciatingly low opinion of Valentine’s Day, I figured that the odds were somewhat in favor of New Year’s Eve being a little bit better… But… Heavens to Murgatroyd! It turns out that New Year’s Eve is a mindless clusterfuck of ridiculousness!

Thanks to the relentless barrage of characters (most with fleeting roles that would normally be described as cameos) and no narrative to speak of (people are in love, people are dying, people are having babies, the ball at Times Square is stuck, blah blah blah…), writing a brief synopsis of New Year’s Eve is impossible. As with Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve relies so much on Hollywood stereotypes and tropes that anyone can flawlessly determine how each character’s storyline will end within minutes of their introduction. New Year’s Eve serves two purposes: to showcase a menagerie of Hollywood stars as if mere mannequins on a conveyor belt and to provide a few forced opportunities for Jon Bon Jovi to sing a few songs on screen.

It is quite fitting that Hollywood still churns out thoughtless, assembly line holiday films like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, since it is Hollywood that created the myths behind these holidays in the first place. The situations and dialogue (more like mindless dribble) found within Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve are by no means realistic — trust me, this stuff only happens in the movies. I am not a trained psychiatrist, but I suspect that the reason so many people get depressed during holidays like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve is because they cannot live up to the unrealistic expectations set by Hollywood. I will leave you with one question: Why do people watch these films if, in the end, these films are just going to make them feel like shit?

FILM REVIEW: YOUNG ADULT

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) in Young Adult.

Better than Bachmann

By Don Simpson

Meet Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), a horrible person whose life is falling apart. First and foremost, her career as a ghost writer for a young adult serial has come to an abrupt end. Oh, and she is also divorced. So, in order to restart her seemingly failed life, Mavis leaves Minneapolis to visit Mercury, the hick suburban hellhole of a town where she grew up. Essentially, Mavis wants to relive her teenage years when she presumably listened to Teenage Fanclub’s “The Concept” on repeat, was the most popular girl in high school, and dated Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson). Sure, Buddy is happily married — he recently had a baby with his wife, Beth (Elizabeth Reaser) — but that does not stop Mavis from trying to win Buddy back. (Oh, Mavis! Will you never learn that men are not prizes to be competed for and won?)

Mavis’ entire trip to Mercury is spent in an alcohol-fueled stupor. Out of lonely desperation, Mavis befriends Matt (Patton Oswalt) the “hate crime kid” from high school. Matt seems to have no problems with helping Mavis remain drunk ad nauseum, because a frumpy comic geek like him is powerless when faced with Mavis’ natural beauty. Besides, we can only assume that Matt is holding out hope that Mavis will become drunk enough for a good old-fashioned sympathy fuck.

Um… Yeah… Okay… Well, I have got to say, Young Adult truly left me speechless. That is not true, actually, because I am left with a hell of a lot of questions. What the fuck did I just watch? Why did I just watch it? Why would Diablo Cody write this script? Why would Jason Reitman direct it? Why would Theron take this role? And can you please repeat your answer to why I just watched it? Well, no matter what your answer is, can I please have those 94 minutes of my life back?

I am not sure if Cody and Reitman want the audience to hate Mavis, feel sorry for her, laugh at her, or like her — all I know is that I felt absolutely nothing. Was I really supposed to feel something for this ex-prom queen who is in the midst of a cartoonish absurd existential crisis? Mavis’ beauty, bitchiness and pathetic attitude all seem to just cancel each other out. In the end, Mavis is just cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, pure and simple; in other words, she is like a shallowly written cartoon buffoon. Immediately after the two or three times that I laughed during Young Adult, I immediately thought about what I had just laughed at and felt really disgusted with myself. Young Adult left me feeling really, really dirty.

Additionally, since Young Adult is written from Mavis’ perspective that presumably gives the film an excuse to be brutally condescending and patronizing towards the populace of the quaint Minnesota town. Everyone in Mercury is presumed to be a simple-minded hick with no goals or aspirations; you know, because all of the smart and ambitious people relocated to the Mini-Apple (Minneapolis). Young Adult is essentially just a vehicle for Cody to exercise her utter disdain for the strip mall culture of middle America. Trust me, I do not like returning to the strip malls and chain restaurants of the suburban town where I grew up either. I moved away for a good reason, because I did not belong there. It is not the population of my hometown’s fault that I have very little in common with them, but in the case of Young Adult, it seems as though Cody is blaming everything (especially Mavis’ penchant for booze) on the people of Mercury and it is this holier-than-thou tone that will keep me from watching Young Adult ever again.

FILM REVIEW: MY PIECE OF THE PIE

France (Karin Viard) in My Piece of the Pie.

Sliced

By Don Simpson

Writer-director Cédric Klapisch's My Piece of the Pie  (Ma part du gateau) begins in Dunkirk with a birthday cake yet amidst the celebration, France (Karin Viard) attempts suicide. The quite purposefully named France is a single mother of three who is suffering from depression after the unexpected closure of the factory she had worked at for two decades.

Meanwhile in London, we learn that an evil power broker named Steve (Gilles Lellouche) recently closed a deal that prompted the shuttering of France’s employer. As a bonus, Steve accepts a job transfer that delivers him to Paris.

Meanwhile in Dunkirk, France — who is still recovering from her suicide attempt — cannot find another job; that is until she abandons her fellow factory workers and enters a housekeeper training program in Paris. The training program is designed for immigrants, so France must pretend that she is a foreigner so the other students do not get suspicious of national favoritism. (This could easily be interpreted as an anti-immigrant stance on behalf of Klapisch, as he “proves” to us that French Nationals actually want and deserve the lower class jobs that immigrants are stealing.)

Fate then rears its ugly hand and France is hired as Steve’s housekeeper. France — our working class heroine — is blinded by her income, especially as her salary multiplies upon becoming the nanny for Steve’s son (Lunis Sakji). France quickly learns that the millionaire lifestyle, however subservient her role may be, is not all that bad. Steve’s life, on the other hand, is devoted to the endless pursuit of profit at the expense of less privileged people, as My Piece of the Pie unspools into a cock-eyed message about how seemingly harmless business decisions have broader consequences than anyone could ever imagine. (Themes of financial accountability in this dog-eat-dog capitalist world come up again and again and again.)

And though she constantly ridicules Steve for not spending enough quality time with his son, France has all but abandoned her daughters in Dunkirk at the home of her sister (Audrey Lamy) in favor of spending more time with Steve’s son and thus making a lot more money. Nonetheless, we are supposed to believe that France is a decent, hard working woman who just so happens to have hit a lucky-yet-reckless streak. When France eventually sacrifices herself for her comrades at the factory back in Dunkirk, it is too little too late.

FILM REVIEW: CRAZY WISDOM

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpochein Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

In the material world

By Don Simpson

Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche contemplates the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a pivotal figure in the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism to Western society. Trungpa was a Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, the eleventh Trungpa tülku, a tertön, and supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries. He was also an adherent of the ri-mé ecumenical movement within Tibetan Buddhism, which aspired to bring together the teachings of different Buddhist lineages, free of sectarian rivalry.

Trungpa’s journey to the West began during the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the Chinese communists when he escaped Tibet with his own party of monks across the Himalayas into India. In 1963 Trungpa received a scholarship to study Comparative Religion at Oxford University. In 1967  Trungpa and Akong Rinpoche were invited by the Johnstone House Trust in Scotland to take over a meditation center, from which they cultivated Samye Ling, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the West. (David Bowie was one of Trungpa’s meditation pupils at Samye Ling.) While in Scotland, Trungpa married a wealthy 16-year old girl, was paralyzed after crashing his car into a joke shop and chose to give up his monastic vows in favor of working as a lay teacher.

Trungpa relocated to the United States in 1970 and dove headfirst into the vibrant and youthful counterculture. He established Tail of the Tiger, a Buddhist meditation and study center in Vermont (now known as Karmê Chöling) and Karma Dzong, a Buddhist community in Boulder, Colorado. In 1974, Trungpa founded the Naropa Institute — which later became Naropa University (the first accredited Buddhist university in North America) — in Boulder. He hired infamous Beats such as Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Diane di Prima to teach at Naropa University.

Despite his success in delivering Tibetan Buddhism to the Western world — establishing more than 100 meditation centers — Trungpa is best remembered for his non-traditional behavior. He was a purported alcoholic (there are also some allegations of an expensive cocaine habit), smoked cigarettes and had sex with his female students.

Twenty years after Trungpa’s death, Johanna Demetrakas’s Crazy Wisdom seems to approach his life with kid gloves. Yes, Demetrakas’s access and use of exclusive archival material is impressive, but the documentary’s talking heads are comprised mostly of former disciples of Trungpa, many of whom are culled straight from Trungpa’s inner circle. They seem to lack the objectivity needed to discuss Trungpa without bias. In fact, their statements seem eerily cultish. The talking heads write off Trungpa’s alcoholism as his own unique way of testing the limits of “crazy wisdom” — a Buddhist concept suggesting that acts of foolishness and excess can lead to deeper meaning in the right context; and his promiscuity is interpreted as an exercise in corporeal agitation and a method of cultivating “true” love unbridled by extramarital temptation. Some of the interviewees willingly became Trungpa’s faux-British house servants in Boulder — they dressed as British servants and were taught by Trungpa to speak only in Queen’s English — and do not seem to have any reservations about having done so.

FILM REVIEW: THE MUPPETS



Animal (voice by Eric Jacobson) in The Muppets.

Are we men or are we puppets?

By Don Simpson

Jason Segel co-writes and stars in a feature film that never even tries to attempt to conceal its purpose: to make the Muppets relevant again. Heck, with its uncanny knack for self-referential humor, The Muppets does not hide anything from its audience. The fourth wall is reduced to a pile of rubble as we are constantly reminded by the film’s characters that we are indeed watching a film -- as if the walking and talking puppets are not enough of a clue.

Gary (Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams) have been dating — celibately, we can only assume since this is a Disney film — for nearly ten years. They live — separately, we can only assume since this is a Disney film — in Smalltown, U.S.A. Gary resides with his muppety brother, Walter (voice by Peter Linz), who senses a unique kinship with the Muppets and is their number one fan.

The threesome embark upon a bus trip to Los Angeles. Their first stop, The Muppet Studios. After sneaking away from a lackluster tour, Walter overhears an evil oil tycoon (Chris Cooper) discussing a dastardly plan with his muppety henchmen — Uncle Deadly (voice by Matt Vogel) and Bobo (voice by Bill Barretta) — to turn the Muppets’ property into an oil field (maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh).

But there is hope for the Muppets. They just need to race $10 million dollars. Walter can only think of one logical solution: for the Muppets to reunite and put on a show (of course!). The threesome proceed to travel the world by map (literally) with Kermit the Frog (voice by Steve Whitmire) in a car driven by 80′s Robot (voice by Matt Vogel), picking up a menagerie of Muppets along the way. Oh, and to appease the CDE televsion executive (Rashida Jones) who will be airing their show, the Muppets must find a celebrity host.

Together again, the Muppets — with the assistance of Walter, Gary and Mary — work together as a team to get their old theater back into working order. Mary begins to feel neglected and pouts over having her dreamy romantic vacation hijacked by Walter and the Muppets. Gary is therefore thrust into an existential quagmire, forced to choose between being a man or a Muppet — as expressed in the best song of the film, “Am I a man or a Muppet?”

Yes, for all intents and purposes, The Muppets is a musical. What else would you expect? In addition to dusting off some old classics (“Rainbow Connection”) and adding some new material (written by Bret McKenzie of The Flight of the Conchords), pop songs such as Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Cee-Lo Green’s “Fuck You” get cleverly Muppetized.

Debuting on the silver screen in 1979 with The Muppets Movie, Jim Henson’s fuzzy little franchise produced six features in the span of 20 years, concluding (or so it seemed) with Muppets from Space in 1999. Frank Oz publicly lampooned the script for The Muppets — the first theatrically-released Muppet film not to include Oz or Jerry Nelson as Muppeteers — and I can kind of see why. Segel and Nicholas Stoller opt to spend far too much time focusing on Mary and Gary in a shoddy attempt at spoofing the rated-G rom-com sub-genre (if such a sub-genre even exists). Mary and Gary’s white bread dialog lacks the luster of the writing for the Muppet characters (and 80's Robot). That is not to say that Segel and Adams do not give commendable performances, specifically in their musical scenes. In fact, the overall strength of The Muppets can be found in the musical scenes — which exceed the production quality of any other Muppets movie to date. I will even go out on the limb and say that the songwriting, choreography, set design and cinematography of the musical sequences are all pitch-perfect.

With The Muppets, we get exactly what us long-time fans have come to expect from the Muppets: fun songs and choreography, great cameos, corny jokes, and strong moral lessons. Unexpectedly, we also get some brilliantly absurd comedy which seems to be handcrafted for the stoner demographic. However, we could do without the slow and tedious rom-com scenes without any Muppets in sight and Fozzie Bear’s (voice by Eric Jacobson) fart jokes.



FILM REVIEW: HUGO

Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) in Hugo.

Train in vein

By Don Simpson

Hugo, director Martin Scorsese’s virginal foray into 3D cinema, begins with one fantastic flaunting of the third dimension, utilizing a long tracking shot that squeezes through the narrow tunnels and crowded platforms of a 1930s Parisian train station. (Brian Selznick’s source novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret takes place in 1931 whereas Scorsese’s film is not dated.) Unfortunately, this is a cinematic sequence that could only possibly take place in the mostly artificial realm of CGI, and to my discerning eye it appears unbelievably fake. In theory, it is a worthwhile attempt as Scorsese proves that he truly understands how scenes need to be framed in order to take full advantage of the 3D medium. If only he could have confined the entirety of Hugo to crowded confines, and kept the scenes somewhat grounded in the reality of actual locations rather than a CGI stage.

For the most part, I was pretty annoyed and frustrated by the 3D lensing. Not only does the technology render the images darker and softer than 2D images, but it also makes everything appear so damn artificial (during certain scenes Hugo actually looks eerily similar to The Polar Express, which is not a compliment). ).

Now, on with the story… Is it just me, or does almost every children’s fantasy/adventure film feature orphan protagonists? The titular Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is no exception. The prepubescent Hugo is left to clandestinely tend to a complicated system of clocks at the aforementioned Parisian train station after his father (Jude Law) dies and his uncle (Ray Winstone) disappears. An ever-vigilant station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) has made it his life’s mission to roundup all of the orphans he can find and ship them to the orphanage; so Oliver, I mean Hugo, must remain one step ahead of him at all times.

In a feeble attempt to reconnect with his father, Hugo attempts to rebuild an automaton with spare toy and clock parts. Unfortunately, a nasty old curmudgeon (Ben Kingsley) who tends a toy shop in the station snatches Hugo’s notebook which contains his father’s notes on how to fix the automaton. Hugo desperately enlists the assistance of Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), a precocious young bookworm with bright eyes and a glowing smile — and she is the goddaughter of the old man — to win his notebook back.

The conniving young duo are quickly distracted from their original mission as Hugo takes Isabelle to see her first film — Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last — and Isabelle brings Hugo to a library for his first time. Their two adventuresome interests fatefully collide when they come across a book entitled The Invention of Dreams: The Story of the First Movies Ever Made, and this book provides them with clues regarding the true identity of Georges Méliès. (This is around where Hugo suddenly makes a sharp left turn from a kids’ adventure story to a pseudo-bio-pic about Méliès.) Isabelle and Hugo join forces with the book’s author, René Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg), to bring Méliès out from the shadows.

Unless you are a connoisseur of early silent films, you are probably wondering who the heck this Méliès character is… Well, in short, Méliès was the first to recognize the connection between the cinema and dreams. This is the man who is often credited with originating the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres of cinema. Méliès came from a family of shoemakers, but he sold his share of the shoe factory to begin a career as a magician. The invention of the movies in France by the Lumière brothers prompted Méliès to build his own film camera out of parts from an automaton. He directed 531 films between 1896 and 1914, ranging in length from one to 40 minutes. What Méliès films lacked in plot, they made up for in the cinematic magic of groundbreaking special effects (not unlike a lot of Hollywood blockbusters today, and not unlike Hugo).

Contrary to what Hugo will have us believe, Méliès was never presumed dead during World War I; he stopped making films in 1913 after being forced into bankruptcy by much larger French and American studios (Méliès’ production company was bought out of receivership by Pathé Frères). The celluloid of his films did not become the heels of women’s shoes, but the French Army did seize most of Méliès’ film stock to be melted down into boot heels during World War I. However, there are some truths about Méliès in Hugo such as he did become a toy salesman at a Parisian train station and did collect automata.

I certainly appreciate Scorsese’s hero worship of Méliès and Hugo may actually have a better chance of turning audiences on to silent films than The Artist. But is this the film everyone is expecting Hugo to be? Hugo is being marketed as a children’s adventure story, not a lesson on film history and a diatribe about the importance of film preservation. Even Scorsese the magician leads us to believe that Hugo is the former, until he unveils the latter, thus pulling a Méliès-esque trick by making so many seemingly important threads of the first half of the narrative disappear before our very eyes. Poof!

I was also very confused by Scorsese’s decision to have all of the French characters speak in British accents. I guess the language and dialect of Hugo is just another directorial magic trick.

FILM REVIEW: INCENDIARY

Barry Schenk in Incendiary: The Willingham Case.

Texas is burning

By John Esther

As Rick Perry carries on his futile run for the Republican Party 2012 presidential nomination, a documentary about just some of his misconduct as the current and longest Governor of Texas hits a few select theaters.

Co-directed and produced by Steve Mims and Joe Bailey Jr., Incendiary: The Willingham Case chronicles how a brutish -- but seemingly innocent of infanticide -- man named Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted and executed for the murder of his three children.

In December of 1991 Willingham was home with his three children when a fire started in his house. While he was able to escape, his three children were not. When two fire investigators arrived they practiced their "art" by immediately suspecting arson, ruling out any other theory. In the process they destroyed what could have been evidence to the contrary. Soon after Willingham was arrested and charged with three counts of murder in the first degree.

Incompetently represented by a defender who considered Willingham a sociopath, David Martin (who comes off here as the scummiest of scum), Willingham was found guilty based on bunk science and prison snitch (who later recanted), sentenced and, after spending 23 hours a day for 12 years in solitary confinement, executed. Willingham turned down a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence.

It was an irresponsible (to put it mildly) rush to the switch and some people would not let it go, including some of the greatest fire experts in the country plus Barry Scheck and The Innocence Project. As the pressure mounted against Perry and his old boys, something had to be done and it was not going to be made in the name of justice.

While a state execution of an innocent man is hardly new – nationwide state governments have executed hundreds of innocent men and women since the early 1900s – what resonates for this documentary is the issue of science and how, sometimes, it gets in the way of quick justice and mean politics.

As sober as a lab report, the excellent documentary metes out its findings with calm precision. Rather than make a particular point, the co-directors let the participants establish and prove his and her findings as well as some grand “common sense” stupidity.  The results go beyond the tragic, terrifying death of three children under the age of three and their father 12 years later. They strike hard into the willful and deliberate ignorance of far too many Americans.

FILM REVIEW: THE DESCENDANTS

Matt King (George Clooney) in The Descendants.

Sharing his Payne

By Don Simpson

Chinos and Hawaiian shirts are normal every day attire for Honolulu lawyer, Matt King (George Clooney). Unfortunately, Matt’s life is not nearly as relaxed as his fashion sense. His wife, Elizabeth (Patti Hastie), is in a coma after a serious boating accident while Matt’s daughters, 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and 10-year-old Scotty (Amara Miller), are both suffering through rebellious periods of their lives.

After prioritizing his career over his family for the last decade, Matt decides that it is prime time to buckle up and become a better husband and father. But… How? He starts by forging an alliance of sorts with Alexandra — who has been suddenly catapulted into the role of substitute mother for Scottie — which requires Matt to accept her mere-caricature-of-a-stoner-[boy]friend, Sid (Nick Krause) as more than the dumber-than-a-rock idiot he seems to be. It is a tough pill for Matt to swallow but, against all odds, he pulls it off without beating the living shit out of him.

It is not without purpose that Matt’s change of heart towards his family occurs on the eve of his decision on what to do with his family’s 25,000 acres of virgin land on the island of Kauai. Matt and his family might be a-holes, I mean “haoles” (white Hawaiians), but they are also the direct descendants of the House of Kamehameha. Matt and his family have been collecting pitches from several developers; no matter which one Matt — the sole executor of the estate — chooses, the entire family will instantaneously become unfathomably rich.

It is far too predictable what Matt finally chooses to do with the land — though would we really desire any other possible ending? Writer-director Alexander Payne opts to give the audience exactly what they want, opting to turn The Descendants into pure, unfiltered Oscar fodder. Let’s just say that I can already guarantee that my mom will love The Descendants, and not just because she thinks George Clooney is one dreamy motherfucker (my words, not her’s — my mom is a good Catholic woman, while I am obviously not a good Catholic or a woman…though I do find Clooney to be quite dreamy). Clooney’s severely understated performance as a severely undemonstrative character,  who is incredibly bland and undeniably average, is at the absolute heart of The Descendants’s appeal. As Payne did with Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt), Paul Giamatti (Sideways) and Thomas Haden Church (Sideways), he all but castrates Clooney to restrain his performance, leaving him as a mere shell of his formerly entertaining self.

AFI 2011: PINA

Ditta Miranda Jasifi in Pina.

Moving beyond death

By Ed Rampell

German director Wim Wenders’ Pina is full of filmic flights of whimsy. Wenders, of course, has directed highly regarded features, such as Paris, Texas, but he has also helmed the nonfiction Cuban concert pic, The Buena Vista Social Club. At Pina’s first AFI Film Festival screening Wenders told the audience that it took him a long time to make this documentary because “I didn’t know how to do justice to Pina” Bausch, the choreographer and guru of the Tanztheater Wuppertal.

After grappling with this aesthetic dilemma for 20 years, the return to prominence of the 3D process solved Wenders’ creative conundrum because he was now able to render the plasticity of dance. But just as he was about to commence making the doc Bausch suddenly died, leaving Wenders in the lurch, again. However, her dancers urged him to “make the film for Pina,” and after a few years he did shoot the film, which is a testament to her remarkable talent and personality.

The result is a work that alternates between visual splendor and repetitiousness, as the Tanztheater Wuppertal dancers reflect on their fallen instructor and perform a variety of modern dances set to classical, jazz and other music. Many of the routines are a treat to behold, such as the opening rendition of much of Igor Stravinsky’s jarring The Rite of Spring. Some of the dances are full of wit and are sort of choreographed physical comedy a la Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton or Jacques Tati. Others have monotonous movements and are boring to sit through as the Pina-heads perform the same motions over and over again.

Wenders makes great use of Wuppertal, located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of Düsseldorf, where Pina’s Tanztheater is located. There are great shots of and in a moving overhead monorail that looks like it came straight out of Fritz Lang’s classic sci fi silent film, Metropolis, that expertly utilize the 3D technique. A hallmark of 3D technology is that objects are tossed straight at the camera -- such as flaming spears in the 1950s potboiler, Drums of Tahiti -- to jar and remind auds that they are watching three dimensional imagery. Wenders attains this effect with leaves scattered by a leaf blower, splashing water, billowing curtains and sometimes with dancers who seem to be defying gravity, but he hasn’t completely mastered this complex medium yet.

The performers are multi-culti and multi-generational -- one female hoofer comments on the fact that Bausch continued working with dancers 40 and over -- and they often prance, romp and leap to and fro in revealing outfits. In The Rite of Spring number the women’s tops cling to their nipples and they lift filmy skirts to reveal their panties; in another set piece a male dancer literally drops his drawers as he dances from one female to another. It seems to me that Pina’s choreography expressed a yearning to be liberated, to overcome restraints, and that her work included an erotic dimension along these lines.

Pina has no plot, some dialogue, and is mainly for fans of modern dance, 3D and/or Wenders. It is Germany's Official Foreign-Language Oscar Submission and part of the AFI Film Festival’s Special Screenings section.    

AFI 2011: WUSS

Mitch (Nate Rubin) in Wuss.

Done dork deal

By Don Simpson

Meet Mitch (Nate Rubin), a meek and measly twerp of a high school English teacher (technically, a substitute with a long-term assignment) who is known by some, including Assistant Principal, Wally Combs (Alex Karpovsky), as “Little Bitch”. Mitch allows himself to be teased, ridiculed and slapped around by every living being with whom he comes into contact, no matter their age or gender. He is an aspiring fiction writer who plays D&D (as in Dungeons and Dragons) with his high school friends and still lives at home with his mom and queen bitch of a sister (Jennifer Sipes). It is as if high school never ended for Mitch. Once a wuss, always a wuss.

Judging from Mitch’s very first English II class, it is quite obvious that the students will dictate the rules of the classroom, with the school thug Re-up (Ryan Anderson) leading the wolf pack. Mitch makes fast enemies with Re-up and embarrassingly wears a plethora of scars and bruises to prove it. Nonetheless, Mitch plows onward with his classes, discussing On the Beach, Dune, and the Bible (the first science fiction novel?). Enter Maddie (Alicia Anthony), a marching band student. She takes a liking to Mitch and uses her remarkably powerful influence around school to protect him.

Though writer-director Clay Liford asserts that Wuss is not intended to carry any social or political significance, it paints a sharp critique of how high schools have evolved, with their metal detectors and overly “mature” student population. On paper, the overall plot seems to be torn straight from a Hollywood script, but Liford unearths a profound intensity that lends Wuss a uniquely dire sense of realism, thanks to strong performances by Rubin and Anthony. While some of the supporting cast appear as purposefully clownish stereotypes, the characters of Mitch and Maddie never once veer away from being incredibly realistic…even as they smoke dope together while listening to the Alan Parson’s Project.

Typically, cinema does not provide us with a wuss who is as endearing as Mitch; they are usually annoyingly stupid characters with few redeeming qualities. But Mitch seems like a perfectly nice guy. He is not stupid and apparently he is not a wuss by choice. Mitch’s supreme wussiness seems to be in his blood or maybe his genes — there is no hope for him to ever escape it.

AFI 2011: CORIOLANUS

Tullus (Gerard Butler) and Caius (Ralph Fiennes) in Coriolanus.

Ass wipe out

By Don Simpson

Coriolanus opens in Rome soon after the expulsion of the Tarquin kings and the Roman citizens (the 99 percent, if you will) are up in arms because the man (the one percent, if you will) is withholding their access to grain. The unruly citizens specifically blame a Roman general named Caius (Ralph Fiennes) for their state of woe — to which Caius fiercely retorts that the plebeians are not worthy of the grain due to their lack of military service.

Caius then goes off to battle against the Volscian army, specifically targeting their commander, Tullus (Gerard Butler). Upon his return to Rome, the leader of the Roman army, Cominius (John Kani) grants Caius the title of “Coriolanus”. Coriolanus’ mother (Vanessa Redgrave) encourages her son to ride this tidal wave of popularity and run for political office. He effortlessly wins the support of the Roman Senate, but the commoners are a trickier matter, especially because two tribunes of Rome — Brutus (Paul Jesson) and Sicinius (James Nesbitt) — are scheming to undo Coriolanus by spinning a web of rhetoric in order to convince the malleable masses that Coriolanus is not a hero but a traitor to Rome.

The Complete Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) refers to William Shakespeare’s much overlooked Coriolanus as “the anus play." As if this is not strange enough, Fiennes opts to feature Shakespeare’s “anus play” as his directorial debut, and then chooses to set the John Logan adapted tale (mind the pun) in a non-specific (presumably contemporary) time period.

Fiennes’ approach to Coriolanus seems to be one of disorientation. As if delivering the antiquated prose of Shakespeare into a modern setting is not jarring enough, Fiennes utilizes an international cast, who speak unabashedly in their native accents. To top it all off, Fiennes juxtaposes the displaced dialogue and voices with the shaky kino-eye of neo-realist cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (Green Zone, The Hurt Locker, Battle in Seattle) in order to convey a pseudo-documentary aesthetic. As the unreal and the hyper-real clash, no survivors are taken.

AFI 2011: LE CERCLE ROUGE

Corey (Alain Delon) in Le Cercle Rouge.

Another round with a master

By Ed Rampell

One of the great things about film festivals is that screenings of classic movies can revive forgotten or overlooked pictures, and give audiences a second look at them. It’s sort of like discovering a long, lost relative, and the AFI Film Festival is no exception to this revival tradition. Guest Artistic Director Pedro Almodóvar selected and introduced one of his personal favorites, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge.

With crime dramas such as 1956’s Bob le Flambeur, Melville was one of those few pre-New Wave French directors the Cahiers du Cinema gang of upstart critics championed. During his intro at the Egyptian movie palace, Almodóvar noted the lingering influence Melville has had on auteurs, such as Pulp Fiction’s Quentin Tarantino. The Spanish director of films such as 1988’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown also informed the audience that while the title of Le Cercle Rouge refers to a Zen saying (and not to a European terrorist group) “alluding to destiny,” that viewers should not be on the verge of a nervous breakdown because this thriller “is not a Zen film but an intense action” movie. Although the 1970 French picture does indeed open with a quote from Rama Krishna, Almodóvar is, of course, right.

This caper film follows two criminals and a policeman drummed off of the force for corrupt behavior. The dashing Alain Delon, a sort of Gallic Errol Flynn, stars as the convict Corey, who is released from prison but plans another big heist. The Italian actor Gian Maria Volontè plays Vogel, a con on the run whose fate becomes wrapped up in Corey’s. They have a solidarity with one another forged in the crucible of crime. Significantly, the nature of the offenses they have committed is never revealed.

They join forces with the great French actor Yves Montand -- a dead ringer for Bogie in his trench coat -- who plays the defrocked cop Jansen, who despite his inner demons is a remarkable marksman.

The cat-loving Corsican Commissioner Mattei (André Bourvil) is hot on their trail, as the cynical Inspector General (Paul Amiot) -- who suspects most men harbor evil in their hearts and presumes all men to be guilty -- breathes down Mattei’s neck to recapture Vogel, who’d escaped from his clutches. As Almodóvar noted in his intro, Le Cercle Rouge is a profoundly “pessimistic film,” but this movie made by the director of three policiers starring Delon, including 1967’s Le Samouraï, is great fun to watch as over the course of two hours and 20 minutes, the characters meet their preordained destinies.

AFI 2011: MAMA AFRICA

Nelson Mandela and Miriam Makeba in Mama Africa.

Songs of the free

By Ed Rampell

Mika Kaurismäki's Mama Africa is a documentary about the singer Miriam Makeba, a sort of South African version of Paul Robeson. Like her African-American counterpart, Makeba used her talent, celebrity and personal wealth to support progressive causes -- most notably in favor of Black rights -- and was made to pay quite a heavy price.

After Makeba’s songs appeared on the soundtrack of an anti-apartheid doc around 1960, Makeba was exiled for life from the land of her birth. The Afrikaner racists, however, blundered; beyond their clutches Makeba’s stardom rose overseas and she used her fame as an artist to speak out on the world stage, including at the U.N. during the height of Africa’s independence movement.

Relocating to New York, a political and cultural epicenter, Makeba debuted at the famous Village Vanguard, and was then befriended by Harry Belafonte -- himself a civil rights icon as well as a singing sensation -- who used his own influence to propel Makeba’s career. Along with other left-leaning stars such as Marlon Brando, Makeba was befriended by show biz’s progressive wing. Around the same time Makeba became the songbird darling of the leaders of the newly independent African states, such as Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere.

As the Black liberation movement in the U.S. intensified and moved from nonviolent protest to its more militant phase, Miriam met, and rather amazingly, married the firebrand activist Stokely Carmichael, who had coined the phrase “Black Power.” Kaurismäki rather cleverly cuts a sequence that goes back and forth from a rabblerousing Carmichael speech to Makeba singing a defiant sounding song. In fact, she performs the latter via a form of scatting, making sounds by rhythmically breathing heavily into the microphone while accompanied by her backup band. (Makeba was also known for incorporating words and letters from her Xhosa indigenous tongue -- which Westerners call “clicking” -- into her songs.)

Mama Africa takes us on a fascinating odyssey to Guinea, where Carmichael and Makeba lived in exile -- he, from racist, segregationist America and she from apartheid South Africa – for much of their 10-year marriage. The film presents a fascinating glimpse into their life abroad and takes us to the home they shared in the so-called “Dark Continent.” Unfortunately, their divorce and the coup that ousted the leftist government that had provided the revolutionary couple with sanctuary are only indicated or mentioned in passing.

Kaurismäki uses typical nonfiction techniques, such as original interviews with talking heads (including ex-husband Hugh Masekela, other musical collaborators, relatives), news clips and other archival movie material. But in addition to the uplifting presence of Makeba herself, what really enlivens Mama Africa is the extensive footage of Makeba performing and strutting her stuff, at concerts, on TV, etc. And once Nelson Mandela is freed from prison, Makeba becomes a daughter for the return home, ending her forced exile from her South African homeland. Retracing the epic footsteps of Miriam Makeba, Mama Africa takes us from tragedy to triumph – and what a thrilling ride it is.


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AFI 2011: CARRE BLANC

Philippe (Majid Hives) in Carré Blanc.

Scared new world

By Don Simpson

When he was just a boy, the mother (Fejria Deliba) of Philippe (Majid Hives) took a swan dive from balcony of their nondescript cement high rise flat. Her reasoning behind doing so was that this act would toughen Philippe and prepare him for the brutal Social Darwinian world outside. Philippe is ushered off to a State-run boarding school where orphans are molded (read: conformed) into productive members of society. This is where Philippe meets his one and only friend, Marie (Adèle Exarchopoulos), in this cruel world where friendship is rapidly becoming extinct.

Years later we find the adult Philippe (Sami Bouajila) working for the State as an interrogator/indoctrinator. He “trains” people via performance tests to become better (read: conformed) citizens. In one such test, he tells his subjects to stand up against a wall, then walk backwards. The test is like a riddle that none of Philippe’s clients seem to be able to conquer yet the solution is so simple once it is revealed by Philippe. Another test is less simple — it entails studying how long the subjects will “willingly” electrocute themselves. Though it is never explained, it seems as though part of Philippe’s role might be to separate society’s mindless sheep from the potential herdsmen.

At some point in the past, Philippe married Marie (Julie Gayet). We can only assume that they were happy — at least content — for a while, but the present reveals an unconquerable tension between the couple. Philippe buries his feelings beneath his frigidly clinical exterior and Marie’s psyche splinters as she no longer sees any reason to exist.

This is a cruel and emotionless world that Marie and Philippe live in -- love, like anything colorful or creative, has been totally negated from existence. Those who will not conform — those who retain a desire to be creative or possess emotions — only have one escape…suicide.

Muzak is pumped like oxygen from the atmosphere of this world to lull the masses into submission. Carré Blanc also features an omnipresent Orwellian loudspeaker over which repeated recitations of Big Brother-esque propaganda promoting teen pregnancy and the moral benefits of croquet are disseminated to all. This same public address system also functions as an invisible Greek Chorus, sardonically commenting upon the on screen events.

The dystopian world takes place in what seems more like a parallel world rather than our future. Though seemingly non-related to our reality — stripping it of relevant political rhetoric — Jean-Baptiste Léonetti’s mesmerizing first feature recalls the bitingly literate social commentary of Albert Camus, Aldous Huxley and Franz Kafka…with a little Terry Gilliam (circa Brazil) thrown in for good measure.

AFI 2011: SNOWTOWN

Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) in Snowtown.

Brain freeze

By Don Simpson

Sixteen-year-old Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) lives with his single mother, Elizabeth (Louise Harris), and two younger brothers in Adelaide’s severely disenfranchised northern suburbs. On one fateful day, Elizabeth brings home a new boyfriend, John (Daniel Henshall). Jamie instantly connects with John, discovering the father-figure he has always desired. John seems like a nice enough guy and he provides Jamie’s entire family with a stability and sense of family that they have never known.

Eventually, though, John chooses to indoctrinate Jamie into his self-righteous world of bigotry and malice. An ultra-conservative redneck vigilante, John has made it his life’s mission to rid the world of unacceptable behavior. John assembles a consortium of like-minded townspeople to assist him with compiling a target list of anyone who is rumored to be a child molester, drug addict, gay, obese, or otherwise deemed abnormal.

Jamie begins to tag along with John’s gang of simpletons as they capture, torture and murder their prey. Seemingly by osmosis, Jamie begins to take on some of John’s personality and philosophy. All the while, Jamie retains enough reason to be uncomfortable with the killings and some of John’s motivations, but loyalty and fear cause him to continue down the downward spiral of senseless bloody mayhem.

A biopic about Australia’s most notorious serial killer — John Bunting — Snowtown is a surprisingly restrained and contemplative film. True, it does delve quite graphically into the very darkest recesses of brutality; but rather than showcasing (glorifying) violence in order to merely shock and awe the audience, writer-director Justin Kurzel is much more interested in coercing the audience to relate to Jamie and therefore sympathize with him. We are wooed by John just as Jamie is. It is difficult not to believe, at least at first, that John means well -- that he is merely trying to protect Jamie’s family.

Snowtown relies heavily upon the audience’s belief in Jamie’s story. Kurzel certainly reveals no doubts in Jamie’s version of the events, but that does not mean it is historically accurate. Remember, this is a very specific perspective of John Bunting’s story — whether or not you believe it is totally up to you.

AFI 2011: FAUST

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Anton Adasinsky) in Faust.

Deal with the devil

By Ed Rampell

Most theatergoers will have to make a Faustian bargain with the devil in order to be able to sit through this slow moving, sleep inducing, ponderous, subtitled 134-minute film in order to experience some striking images and profound insights into the human condition (plus a couple of erotic shots gloriously projected on the big screen). In Russian director Alexander Sokurov’s 2011 adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, Johannes Zeiler places Dr. Faust, who literally sells his soul in order to obtain the beautiful Margarete (Isolda Dychauk) and infinite knowledge. Anton Adasinsky delivers a devilishly creepy performance as a misshapen, not so majestic satanic majesty who appears as a moneylender. (What better earthly persona for Mephistopheles than a pawnbroker?) 

Brunno Delbonnel’s (who shot the crowd pleasing French romance, Amelie) sumptuous cinematography can be stunning, notably when Faust and Margarete fall into a lake together – the suggestion of drowning summons up the film’s theme – or when his camera is trained on haunting landscapes. He and Sokurov transport us back in time to 18^th century Germany, and Faust has an alternately real and surreal look. I suspect the director of photography uses an anamorphic lens to distort images in a number of scenes to suggest the supernatural nature of this tale about man’s hubristic, arrogant quest to know, and have, all.

This Russian Faust in German (with English subtitles) has the grotesque imagery and content often dubbed “Felliniesque,” but Sokurov fails to conjure up Federico Feliini’s trademark sly wit and style to comment on the human condition with an underlying joie de vivre. This is the final installment in Sokurov’s tetralogy about power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. His Faust may have won the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion, but I prefer the charming biopic in theaters now about Faust’s author, Young Goethe in Love, which is actually a joy to behold.

AFI 2011: THIS IS NOT A FILM

Jafar Panahi in This is Not a Film.

Knight of Eye C-ydonia

By Ed Rampell

When an AFI Film Festival official introduced this remarkable documentaryat the Chinese 1 Theater he lamented that the Iranian filmmakers behind and in front of it could not be present to do so themselves, as their passports had been seized and they were being detained by authorities of the Islamic Republic. At the end of this nonfiction rumination on – as co-director Jafar Panahi puts it -- “filmmakers not making films” – some audience members shouted: “Free Iran.”

Faced with unspecified crimes against the state, Jafar Panahi, whose 1995 The White Balloon won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, has been forbidden from making movies in Iran or to leave the country where he could conceivably do so, for 20 years. So he collaborated with another filmmaker, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (2008’s Lady of the Rose), to co-direct the pithily named This is Not a Film. The documentary records a day in the life of Panahi in his Tehran apartment, as he speaks on the phone with his attorney about the possibility of going to jail and from being banned from making movies.

Panahi tries to find some wiggle room from that onerous sentence, as it does not explicitly forbidden his reenacting and in particular reading the scripts he’s written of films he’d like to shoot. The defrocked director also screens clips from some of his previously made movies, as Mirtahmasb shoots him. There are a number of long takes and a kind of monitor lizard named Igi steals several scenes as he slithers about Panahi’s posh apartment. Throughout, the director -- who is presumably under some sort of house arrest -- generally retains his composure, only blowing his cool a couple of times when considering the injustice of not being able to practice his avocation for, perhaps, up to two decades. Considering the constraints he is acting under, Panahi seems to hold up well and, like his colleague behind the camera, admirable.

Towards the end an art student moonlighting as a janitor while his sister delivers her baby appears to collect and throw the garbage out. In the course of his conversation with the apartment dweller/noted director, Panahi corrects a comment the university pupil makes and insists that yes indeed, one “can make a film with [only] a cell phone” video camera. Panahi and Mirtahmasb prove that creativity and ingenuity not only trump technology and production budgets, but also political censorship. For my money, this film is far better than anything Michael Bay has ever helmed with his mega-million budgets.

The aptly titled This is Not a Film is also a testament to artists resisting repression, and to humanity refusing to accept persecution. In any case, it turns out that the clever This is Not a Film not only is, but this documentary, apparently entirely shot in a single day, has earned a rarefied spot in cinema history.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s commendation of the RAF: Never have so few done so much with so little. Panahi and Mirtahmasb are filmic freedom flyers. Portentously set against the backdrop of New Year’s celebrations in Iran and perhaps anti-government demonstrations in Iran, this documentary made against all odds somehow manages to end on a note of hope. Yes, “free Iran” indeed.

And while we’re at it, lest we Westerners get smug, free Julian Assange, too!