FILM REVIEW #2: TREE OF LIFE

Jack (Sean Penn) in Tree of Life.

Grace asunder pressure

By Ed Rampell

Here are four words I never thought I’d see in the same sentence, let alone in the same film: Sean Penn and dinosaurs. Yet they both co-exist onscreen in Terrence Malick’s latest cinematic tour de force, The Tree of Life. The movie’s meaning is as elusive as its writer-director is famously reclusive (his likeness reportedly cannot be used to promote Malick’s work, and he doesn’t grant interviews – including to yours boo-hoo truly). At its Cannes premiere Tree of Life was both booed and applauded, yet it went on to earn that famous French film fete’s coveted Palme d'Or.

Why boos, bravos and prizes? Tree of Life is composed of at least three stories; what’s ostensibly the primary plotline is the most accessible. This is the saga of the O’Briens, a Texas family whose strict patriarch, the businessman Mr. O’Brien, is portrayed by Brad Pitt (who also shares producer credits). Newcomer and Julliard grad Jessica Chastain depicts Mrs. O’Brien as a loving, nurturing mom of three sons. She’s an Earth Mother archetype in the modality of Jane Darwell, matriarch of the Joads in 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath, and of Hattie McDaniel, who as Mammy in 1939’s Gone With the Wind is really the movie’s central maternal figure. Chastain may be minus Darwell and McDaniel’s weight, but this is not to say that her performance as an all-embracing mother isn’t weighty. In the tradition of Italian Neo-Realism, Malick cast non-actors in major (and minor) roles, notably Hunter McCracken, who makes his screen debut as Young Jack, the eldest O’Brien boy.

The part of Malick’s epic that’s specifically about the O’Briens is actually quite conventional and rendered in a pretty linear, narrative manner. The complexity and even mystical nature of Tree of Life is deepened by its intricate interweaving with the two other storylines (if you can call them that). Sean Penn portrays the adult Jack as an alienated architect, estranged among contemporary skyscrapers and wandering in the wilderness, searching for and brooding upon the meaning of life. These sequences have a Federico Fellini or Michelangelo Antonioni sensibility, existential ruminations on materialistic modern man disconnected from his society and surroundings. Grown up Jack’s Vita is not so Dolce, his Desert is not so Red, and Penn’s performance, essentially sans dialogue, is reminiscent of the expressiveness of the great silent screen actors.

Compounding Tree of Life’s intricacy is the third leitmotif, the film’s most mystifying and obscure yet virtuoso, visually stunning sequences. The ambitious Malick and his stellar special effects/cinematography team attempt to cinematically render nothing less than the Big Bang Theory of the creation of the cosmos, the origins of life itself and the Darwinian process of natural selection. The Malickian crew is after nothing less than a filmic rendition of time and space itself, as well as what surrealist Salvador Dali dubbed “the Persistence of Memory.” Tree of Life is as if Albert Einstein has met Sergei Eisenstein.

The intense inter-cutting of these three cinematic strands is what perplexes yet enthralls viewers of Malick’s visionary film. In a nutshell, man’s place and purpose in the universe is examined, as Tree of Life asks the really big questions: Why are we and what are we doing here? What does it mean? What is the nature of being and consciousness? This 138-minute extravaganza’s title is a Biblical reference to the Tree of Life of life in the Garden of Eden, with the fruit that bestowed life everlasting.

Along the way, some members of the audience are bound to get lost in space, while others more attuned to spirituality and pondering the splendor and wonder of it all will go along for the ride, watching in hushed awe, as if beholding the unfolding of a religious experience. The former viewer will wonder what the movie is all about while the latter will become as one with Malick, a former Harvard student and Rhodes scholar who translated the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, in marveling at "What's it all about?" Malick may have visualized what the quest for enlightenment looks -- and sounds -- like.

When I attended Hunter College’s film school during the 1970s there was a debate amongst cineastes about how to make films. Should movies be a strictly storytelling medium unspooling in a logical, linear manner, following a (mostly) chronological) narrative, like most novels and plays do? Or is there another path to pursue, the road less traveled by an expensive medium dominated by commerce? Should films be expressed cinematically, that is, utilizing the uniquely, purely audio-visual language, structure and attributes of the silver screen? It seems to me that since the 1970s, this film theory debate has mainly be sidelined in the American motion picture industry in favor of the trite, traditional way of making movies that tell stories like books and theatre, largely anchored in dialogue.

That’s why the appearance of a Terrence Malick movie is greatly anticipated and treated as a special event by lovers of fine filmmaking. Malick reignites this almost forgotten aesthetic debate. Although Malick is highly regarded as a movie maestro by those who prefer their cinema artsy, Tree of Life is only the fifth feature he has helmed since his directorial debut almost 40 years ago, 1973’s desperadoes-on-the-run drama Badlands, starring (Charlie’s daddy) Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. There was a full 20 year “hiatus” between Malick’s directing of the 1978 pro-labor ballad Days of Heaven co-starring Richard Gere and Brooke Adams, and his long-awaited 1998 return to the director’s chair with Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ classic WWII novel about the Battle of Guadalcanal, The Thin Red Line, with Penn, Nick Nolte and George Clooney among its all-star cast of actors eager to work with the master. Malick’s 2005 The New World, inspired by the Pocahontas (Q’Orianka Kilcher) and John Smith (Colin Farrell) saga, was full of the expressive visual verve and cinematic sensibility that is the poetic hallmark of Malick productions.

The Tree of Life of Life is the best rendition so far of Malick’s cinematic palate of pure pictorial panache. This auteur strives to return to that rich wellspring of silent screen filmic artistry, a largely lost language derailed by the emergence of talkies, which then wedded movies to dialogue and story, as opposed to imagery. And like so many marriages, this narrative union has lost its luster. I hasten to add, however, that Tree of Life’s sonorous soundtrack includes compositions by Bach, Berlioz, Brahms, Mahler and perhaps most memorably, Bedrich Smetana’s The Moldau, a musical evocation of a river in the Czech Republic that works wonderfully onscreen. Malick marries music, sound and sight as he strives to create a film form that is one with, and organically expresses, content.

Tree of Life is in the tradition of experimental cinema, exemplified by Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man and Jonas Mekas type films. But unlike his moving picture predecessors, Malick has managed through Fox Searchlight (for god’s sake, a Rupert Murdoch company!) to create a big budget avante garde movie with high production values. In this stylistic sense, and in terms of its special effects and combination of a conventional linear story (the O’Brien family tale), unlike the Brakhage/Mekas hallucinogenic sojourns that completely eschewed the narrative, Tree of Life is actually closer to Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci fi classic  2001: A Space Odyssey, which was similarly obsessed with evolution and our role in the cosmos.

Indeed, Malick recruited the venerable Douglas Trumbull, the special photographic effects supervisor for 2001, as well as for other sci-fi epics: 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the first Star Trek feature in 1979, 1982’s Blade Runner and 1972’s Silent Running, which Trumbull also directed. Malick’s vision-eers also include visual effects supervisor Dan Glass (Matrix Reloaded, V For Vendetta),  production designer Jack Fisk (The Thin Red Line) and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki (The New World).

I also want to give a shout out to another Malick alum, the preternaturally exquisite indigenous actress Irene Bedard, who was so splendid in 1998’s Smoke Signals and portrays the Messenger in Tree of Life. Previously, in a piece of canny casting, Bedard played the mother of Pocahontas in The New World, which was apropos since a decade earlier Bedard had given voice to Pocahontas in Disney’s animated feature of the same title. Her role as Tree of Life’s Messenger is in a continuum of celluloid iconography of the “Indian maiden” as a sort of Ur woman, and it’s delightful to see the lovely Ms. Bedard back on the screen, where she belongs.

Some may be left in the dark by Malick’s The Tree of Life of Life, puzzled and feeling that the epic length work is pompous, pretentious and portentous. I, too, confess to not understanding everything on my first viewing; your humble scribe scratched his noggin more than once. But if bewildered I was also bewitched, going with the filmic flow of solar nebulae and, yes, the aforementioned dinosaurs. It's important for this type of experimental, experiential cinema to be pursued and that there be a place for it in our commercialized motion picture industry, where adolescent mall males at multi-plexes determine so much of our cultural "product." After all, one filmmaking size does not fit all.

I hope that audiences and critics won’t piss on this Tree of Life. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, “film must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of artists and studio suits. It is its natural movie manure.” Malick has created a cinematic solar system of outer and inner space for us to explore and experience. And I, for one, look forward to Malick’s 2012 as yet untitled feature, starring Chastain, Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz and Javier Bardem. Hopefully, the response to Tree of Life won’t cause another two-decade interregnum between the films helmed by one of moviedom’s most singular stylists and poets. 2032 is just too long to wait for another Malickian road trip through cosmic consciousness. 

FILM REVIEW: TREE OF LIFE

Father (Brad Pitt) and R.L. (Laramie Eppler) in Tree of Life.

"Dear God"

By Don Simpson 

I am still attempting to digest The Tree of Life a week after seeing the press screening, making some sense of it all and figuring out exactly what writer-director Terrence Malick is trying to communicate (or maybe I am just having a difficult time getting beyond the CGI dinosaurs). When it comes down to it, The Tree of Life‘s cup runneth over with metaphoric imagery and references to Judeo-Christian scriptures (primarily the Book of Job) and I am desperately trying to wrap my head around it all.

There are essentially three distinct yet intertwined segments of The Tree of Life that play like movements in a symphony: The O’Brien family in the 1950s; Jack O’Brien, the eldest son, 30 years later; and what I loosely refer to as “dawn of time” imagery.

Malick dedicates a majority of the film’s screen time to the O’Brien family and their idyllic Texas home. Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt) and Mrs. O’Brien (Jessica Chastain) have three sons: Jack (Hunter McCracken), R.L. (Laramie Eppler) and Steve (Tye Sheridan). On the surface, their household appears to be as perfect as Leave It to Beaver. Mr. O’Brien has a good, secure job as an engineer (with several patents under his name) and he plays the pipe organ at church on Sundays while Mrs. O’Brien has the middle-class privilege of cleaning the house and raising the boys. The O’Brien family resides in a beautiful and spacious home with fresh air and daylight gushing through the open windows. It is the quintessential life for a white middle-class American family, but once you peel away the top layer -- the facade of suburban tranquility and happiness -- an ugly underbelly of a family ruled by the dictatorial iron fist of Mr. O’Brien is revealed. Mrs. O’Brien is rendered voiceless in the household and the three sons live in a constant state of fear of their father.

Thirty years later, Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn) resides in an aesthetically cold and sterile home and works in an aesthetically cold and sterile architecture office in Houston, Texas. The uninviting nature of both postmodern environments work in purposeful juxtaposition to the comforting openness of Jack’s modernist childhood home. Jack does not say or do much (Penn has approximately 15 minutes of screen time and very little on screen dialogue despite his second billing), other than recollect his past. It is the 30th anniversary of R.L.’s death (we are told that R.L. was 19-years old when he died, yet the timeline is so fractured that it is difficult to know for certain), and that event still renders Jack a listless zombie. (Note: Malick’s youngest brother, an aspiring guitarist, committed suicide in the late 1960s.) 

Jack struggles to make peace with his youth, particularly his relationship with his father and his brother’s premature death. Jack recalls several moments that still haunt him to this day, such as when he: tied a frog to a rocket; threw rocks through a window of a neighbor’s shed; broke into a neighbor’s house; shot R.L.’s finger with a BB gun; talked back to his mother; and prayed that God would kill his father. The Tree of Life is intended to be Jack’s own meditations on his childhood all the while contemplating God’s existence and the meaning of life. Jack perceives himself as the bad son and R.L. as the good (the righteous) son -- so why did God take R.L.’s life? Or, as Job often pondered: Why do the righteous suffer?

The “dawn of time” imagery showcases a psychedelic fantasia of bizarre cosmological phenomena a la the “The Dawn of Man” and “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” chapters of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. First, the Big Bang; then, primordial ooze and molten magma; next, unicellular organisms evolve into multicellular organisms...and eventually there are a couple of dinosaurs. In theory, these visual head-trips represent Jack’s contemplation of the universe (thus revealing the triviality of his selfish concerns). In reality, these scenes are more likely to just conjure up inquiries into "what was Malick on?” while he imagined all of this.

The final coda brings all three segments of the film together, well sort of. We witness the earth’s demise and then a bevy of lost souls (including the O’Brien family) wandering along a beach to an endless echo of “amen” from “Berlioz: 10. Agnus Dei [Requiem, Op. 5 (Grande Messe des Morts)]” as conducted by Sir Colin Davis and performed by Wandsworth School Boys Choir, London Symphony Chorus and London Symphony Orchestra.

Malick has historically kept his affinity for metaphorical imagery somewhat in check, but his cerebral tendencies run rampantly wild within The Tree of Life. I have absolutely no complaints with the deliberately obtuse nature of Malick’s choices in imagery; in fact, it is cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s (who earned a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination for Malick’s The New World) unabashed eye candy that is the strongest element of The Tree of Life. Lubezki adroitly conveys Malick’s transcendentally dreamy vision. Several scenes play out with no spoken dialogue -- just sporadic lines of voiceover and a heavy dose of classical music (Bach, Holst, Goreckí, Mahler), so the images are left shouldering the burden of meaning. For that reason alone, The Tree of Life will certainly be one of my favorite visual films of 2011.

Three subjects that are readily discussed in Malick’s other films -- Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, and The New World -- are also quite prominent in The Tree of Life: humankind’s constant struggle with nature; the inherent violence found within all humans; and the tug-of-war of gender roles. Yet in The Tree of Life Malick wraps these three subjects into a greater discussion on the battle between the way of nature (the selfish pursuit of earthly ambitions) and the way of grace (living a life of love and compassion for all).

Malick truly hits his stride when focusing on the subconscious conflict that occurs during childhood -- when young personalities are being shaped into their adult equivalent -- between the forces of good and evil. Children are prone to make poor choices during childhood, and sometimes those choices (like several of Jack’s) continue to haunt one’s memories long into adulthood. The adult Jack would never purposefully shoot his brother’s finger with a BB gun or tie a frog to a rocket, yet the adult Jack still feels guilty for the poor choices he made as a child. Like his father, Jack dishonored nature and never noticed “the glory”; he chose a selfish and violent path, rather than following his mother’s path of love.

An over-reliance on voiceovers has always been Malick’s one weakness and The Tree of Life seems to rely even more heavily upon voiceovers than his other four films. Understandably, Malick utilizes whispery and ethereal voiceovers to place the audience inside Jack’s mind as he regurgitates his childhood memories and waxes existentially (Malick is a disciple of Martin Heidegger), but Malick is simultaneously synopsizing the Book of Job for us, and this is enough to clear the seats of any atheists in the audience. There will certainly be accusations that The Tree of Life is a shameless proselytising of Judeo-Christian doctrine, but I interpret The Tree of Life as being quite the opposite. 

The title of the film references a non-denominational symbol that spans the breadth of religion, science, philosophy and mythology. Jack (like Malick) was raised as a Christian, so it only makes sense that Jack (and Malick) would turn to the Old Testament when attempting to come to terms with his brother’s death; Job -- a character who directly challenges God -- is chosen to convey Jack’s (and Malick’s) theological quandary. Jack (and Malick) doubts the existence of God, but at the same time he chooses to address God directly, challenging him (as Job did) to answer his accusations and questions. 

The Tree of Life reportedly received a conflicting chorus of boos and applause after its world premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Nonetheless, Malick’s film received the Palme d'Or, but the infamously reclusive director was nowhere to be found.

FILM REVIEW: HANGOVER II

Stu (Ed Helm) in Hangover II.

Monkey pee, monkey poo

By Don Simpson

The Hangover is the highest-grossing R-rated comedy to date, and for good reason. It was a cleverly conceived, somewhat novel story with a lot of unexpected twists. In some ways it makes perfect sense that The Hangover Part II would be almost identical to The Hangover in terms of narrative structure and pacing. Heck, even some of the same gags are recycled and the gags that are not exactly the same are similar enough: instead of finding a baby in their hotel room, the guys find a chain-smoking monkey; instead of waking up with a missing tooth, Stu (Ed Helms) wakes up with a Mike Tyson-esque facial tattoo; instead of bursting into song at a piano to sum up their horrible situation, Stu bursts into song with an acoustic guitar; and instead of having sex with a hooker, Stu has sex with...well...a more endowed hooker.

In other words, it is absolutely pointless to synopsize Part II. Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, and Justin Bartha reprise their roles -- with a few additional minor characters added to the mix, including Paul Giamatti, Jamie Chung, and Mason Lee. If you have seen The Hangover you will be able to predict exactly what happens (and when it happens) in Part II, and if you have not seen The Hangover, go rent it instead of wasting your money on Part II.

Other than the obvious location change -- The Hangover takes place in Las Vegas, Part II in Bangkok -- the most significant difference between the two films is the Part II’s propensity for pushing the envelope way too far. Where The Hangover is ridiculous and unrealistic, Part II is incomprehensibly exaggerated and hyper-unrealistic. As it turns out, Part II has inexplicably succumbed to becoming a lowest common denominator gross-out fest, relying much too heavily upon stupid penis jokes and demeaning Thaistereotypes. Oh, why bother. Let’s just say that Part II is for all of you who think a monkey licking and chewing on penises is funny.

FILM REVIEW: LOUDER THAN BOMBS

Nova Venerable in Louder than Bombs.

Words and images

By Don Simpson

Call me naïve, but I knew nothing of the existence of poetry slams until 2004, thanks in no small part to a co-worker at the time -- the now 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry award winner, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, who appears in Louder Than a Bomb as an emcee. As it turns out, the first poetry slam dates back to November 1984, when Marc Smith organized a poetry slam event at the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago. Poetry slams have since spread like wildfire around the world, resurrecting the art of poetry from its ashes and fostering a new generation of poets.

Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel’s (the late film reviewer Gene Siskel's nephew) documentary Louder Than a Bomb is about the 2008 Chicago-area poetry slam competition of the same name. Louder Than a Bomb is the nation's largest poetry slam competition with teams and soloists from approximately 60 high schools competing. Jacobs and Sickel opt to hone in on four teams: Steinmetz, Oak Park/River Forest High School, Whitney Young Magnet High School and Northside College Prep. Steinmetz is a troubled inner city school that won first place in their first ever foray into the world of slam poetry at the 2007 Bomb, so the self-proclaimed “Steinmenauts” (Lamar Jordan, Kevin Harris, Jésus Lark, Charles Smith and She'Kira McKnight) are an obvious choice for Jacobs and Sickel to follow in 2008. The other three teams are presumably chosen because of their gifted solo talents: Nova Venerable (Oak Park/River Forest High School), Nate Marshall (Whitney Young Magnet High School) and Adam Gottlieb (Northside College Prep).

Almost half of this 100-minute documentary takes place during the 2008 Louder Than a Bomb competition. The crowded environment seems to handcuff Jacobs and Siskel’s ability to capture the content in any kind of aesthetically pleasing manner, but the amazing performances that they capture on tape is sure to distract most audiences from the shoddy cinematography. Before we arrive at the Louder Than a Bomb competition, however, we are told the riveting back stories of the Steinmenauts, Venerable, Marshall and Gottlieb -- a clever, yet often used, directorial tactic to get the audience to be more emotionally invested into the outcome of the competition.

The Louder Than a Bomb competition stresses that “the point is not the points, it’s the poetry”while Louder Than a Bomb, the documentary, serves as a means of questioning the legitimacy of judging creativity and talent. Will the most deserving team and soloist win? Better yet, how do you define “most deserving”?

Louder Than A Bomb also showcases the importance of broadening the social circles of adolescents, while also nurturing their creative impulses and intellectual exploration. Poetry may not provide these kids with the financial support that they will need to survive in the big bad world, but it does appear to provide them with everything else they need – especially companionship, love and happiness.

Louder Than A Bomb bears an uncanny resemblance to Spellbound, Wordplay, and even Hoop Dreams – but I suspect Jacobs and Siskel will be just fine being lumped in with that family. The “competition” -- whether it be athletic, intellectual or creative -- as a sub-genre of documentary cinema seems to be a favorite of audiences nowadays, and I suspect this is because of the tension and emotional drama that is inherent within the subject matter. Of course the key to this form of documentary filmmaking is the initial choice of who the director decides to follow during the course of the competition. I do not know how they came upon their subjects, but Jacobs and Siskel made a remarkably sound decision when they chose to follow the Steinmenauts, Venerable, Marshall and Gottlieb.

FILM REVIEW: TOPP TWINS

Jools and Lynda Topp of Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls.

Double whammy

By Don Simpson

I was sorry to have missed the 2010 Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival screening of The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls but it is damn nice to know that someone (Argot Pictures) has the proverbial balls to release Leanne Pooley's documentary about the infamous (at least in their homeland of New Zealand) lesbian identical twins who mix character comedy sketches with folk/country songs. According to Lynda Topp, "We're not comedians; we are singers who are funny." 

Who would have ever dreamed that the politically-charged performances by Jools and Lynda Topp would become so darn successful? For nearly three decades, this "anarchist variety act" has been defying accepted logic about mainstream entertainment. The Topp sisters boast an audience that spans social and economic classes: rural farmers and city folk, queers and straights, seniors and anarchistic youth. Taking on political topics such as nuclear power, the environment, apartheid, women’s' issues, and queer rights, the Topps' performances never come across as mean spirited or patronizing. The Topps are not on stage to ruffle feathers or make enemies, their philosophy is simple: "Getting people to laugh is the most political thing you can do." 

What is most surprising is their inherent talent as songwriters -- they were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame in September 2008. The Topps juggle their knack for humor and comedic timing with poignant and subversive lyrics, and the entire package is wrapped nicely in the flawless harmonies of what sounds like a stereo voice. Jools and Lynda work together as a pair -- they also live together with their respective partners under one roof -- and their knack for reading each other's minds is readily apparent (both while performing and during interviews). In many ways, their uncanny ability to determine what the other twin is going to do or say is what really gives them an edge over other musicians. 

It is the twins themselves who dominate the screen time of Pooley's documentary (and rightly so). Pooley reveals an ample array of archival footage of the Topps at various stages in their lives -- from their childhood days on their family's dairy farm in rural New Zealand to early busking performances to various concert performances. We witness the many comedic personas adopted by the Topps -- Belle and Belle, Ken and Ken, Camp Mother and Camp Leader, Raylene and Brenda, Prue and Dilly -- both on stage and in interview segments (during the interviews, Pooley cleverly morphs the characters back into Jools and Lynda). Pooley also interviews the Topps' contemporaries, friends, fans, and their parents (who have supported their two daughters' homosexuality). 

The Topp twins are an incredibly unique part of New Zealand's popular culture, and Pooley's documentary does an excellent job of conveying why. Hopefully as The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls tours the world, Jools and Lynda will wrangle up an even more diverse audience. Their messages clearly need to be heard around the world, and hopefully the power of this documentary will help spread their gospel.

FILM REVIEW: BLOODWORTH

E. F. Bloodworth (Kris Kristofferson) in Bloodworth.

Sounds and furies

By Don Simpson

After a health scare, E.F. Bloodworth (Kris Kristofferson) returns to the family he abandoned 40 years ago. He left his rural Tennessee home — as well as his wife, Julia (Frances Conroy), and three sons — for a life of troubadouring and aimless wandering. The 40 years have been hard on everyone: Julia has withered to an emotionally and physically fragile skeleton; Warren (Val Kilmer) has evolved into an ego-maniacal womanizing alcoholic; Boyd (Dwight Yoakam) lives in a constant state of depression and anger after being ditched by his wife; and Brady (W. Earl Brown) relies on his bible and witchcraft to protect his mother.

Julia and her three sons share a common hatred and resentment for E.F., so when E.F. arrives in town he is promptly ushered by Brady to a disheveled old trailer home on a secluded corner of the family property. Brady attempts to keep E.F.’s reappearance a secret from his mother, which serves as punishment for E.F. and protection for Julia.

Fleming (Reece Thompson), Boyd’s only son and E.F.’s only grandchild, is the only Bloodworth who treats E.F. with respect and admiration. He has probably been told many horrible stories about his grandfather, but Fleming allows his grandfather to commence their relationship with a clean slate. In fact, Fleming seems to relate, physically and mentally, more to his grandfather than the rest of his kin. Not satisfied with the cards he has been dealt in life, Fleming is trying to find a responsible way to escape from his hometown and family — literature appears to be his best chance at success. Fate delivers Fleming into the arms of Raven (Hilary Duff), a beautiful and seductive young woman from a nearby town. Raven’s mother (Sheila Kelley) works from their home as a prostitute — Warren is one of her favorite clients — and she has raised Raven to follow in her footsteps. Like Fleming, Raven’s home life is oppressive at best, so it is only right and natural that Fleming and Raven will find a way to run away together.

Adapted from William Gay’s novel, Provinces of Night, Bloodworth is the story of an ardently literate (read: intellectual) teenager who yearns to escape his backwards back-country family and he wants to take his hussy girlfriend with him. (It is very interesting that Fleming is a high school dropout, yet an enlightened reader of literature.) 

Unfortunately, this is a story which is propagated by stereotypical white trash Southern characters (alcoholics, womanizers, prostitutes, bible-thumpers, musicians, weak women and controlling men) limping along as it relies on one age-old cliché after another. But it is this preponderance of stereotypes and clichés — as well as the timeless production design and Tim Orr’s lush cinematography — that helps Bloodworth play like a classic Southern Gothic tale of redemption.

Quite ably directed by Shane Dax Taylor (The Grey), Kristofferson is amazing as the Bloodworth family’s estranged patriarch and Duff lends her most emotionally realistic performance to date. In fact, the acting of this mostly seasoned ensemble cast is excellent all around. (Keep an eye out for Hank Williams III as Trigger Lipscomb.)

And then there is the music…Executive music producer T-Bone Burnett’s soundtrack is — as we have come to expect from Burnett — pretty damn amazing. Age has rendered Kristofferson’s vocals grizzled and foreboding, yet soothing and graceful all the same; his voice, like so many of his golden generation of singer-songwriters (Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond), has aged beautifully like a fine wine. I think it is about time for Kristofferson (like Johnny Cash and Diamond) to collaborate with Rick Rubin or maybe Daniel Lanois.

DVD REVIEW: BRIAN ENO 1971-1977

The cover for Brian Eno 1971-1977: The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Brain One

By Don Simpson

Brian Eno 1971-1977: The Man Who Fell To Earth is, surprisingly enough, the first documentary film produced about, but not authorized or sanctioned by, Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, otherwise known as Brian Eno, or simply just Eno. The documentary captures what are arguably the most important years of Eno’s fruitful career in 154 minutes. This would be 60 minutes too long for most music documentaries, but considering Eno’s countless seminal contributions to music as a musician, arranger, producer, innovator and theorist during those eight years, even 154 minutes seems all too brief of an overview. For better or worse, Eno is probably best known today for his production duties for U2 and Coldplay. The purpose of Brian Eno 1971-1977: The Man Who Fell To Earth is to school the uniformed on Eno’s golden years.

Eno studied at art school and considered himself to be a non-musician when he joined Roxy Music as their keyboards and synthesizers player in the early 1970s. As with everything else he touched from here on out, Eno’s unique influence, otherwise known as “treatments” or "Enossification," on Roxy Music’s first two albums -- Roxy Music (1972) and For Your Pleasure (1973) -- is undeniable.

After one too many clashes with Roxy Music frontman Brian Ferry, Eno began a solo career releasing four groundbreaking “vocal” albums (all of which would be “desert island” picks for me): Here Come the Warm Jets (1974), Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974), Another Green World (1975) and Before and After Science (1977). Eno also began releasing instrumental albums, which eventually became his forte as a solo artist, such as Discreet Music (1975) and Ambient 1/Music for Airports (1978), thus laying the groundwork for ambient music.

Eno simultaneously began involving himself in many collaborative projects such as No Pussyfooting (1973) and Evening Star (1975) with Robert Fripp (King Crimson); The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) with Genesis; End (1974) with Nico (Velvet Underground); Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy (1974) with Kevin Ayers (Soft Machine) and poet June Campbell Cramer; Diamond Head (1975) and Listen Now (1977) with Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music); Fear (1974), Slow Dazzle (1975) and Helen of Troy (1975) with John Cale (Velvet Underground); Cluster & Eno (1977) with Cluster; and Low (1977) and "Heroes" (1977) with David Bowie. Also by the close of 1977, Eno had produced Ultravox’s Ultravox!, Talking Heads’ More Songs About Buildings and Food and Devo’s debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!.

And that is -- literally -- only about half of what Eno did between 1971 and 1977. Brian Eno 1971-1977: The Man Who Fell To Earth touches upon even more Eno-related projects than I just did, dedicating a few minutes to each release and spending a bit more time on the major milestones in Eno’s career. Archive footage of live performances and studio recording sessions is interspersed amongst interviews with music journalists, colleagues, collaborators and friends; and of course there is a healthy dose of Eno’s music (most of which is matched with visual accompaniment).

Eno is debatably one of the most influential individuals to have ever worked in the music industry. As one of the more innovative musicians and producers in the history of rock music, no matter what role Eno plays during the recording of a song, he approaches the studio as a painter approaches a blank canvas. His specialty is adding more dimensions to the music, highlighting aspects of the song structure to make it stand out more, while morphing other aspects in order to blur them into the background. Everything Eno has touched during his 40+ year career has been gold to my ears.  

Now available on DVD, Brian Eno 1971-1977: The Man Who Fell To Earth suitably represents Eno’s genius, though I would argue that his golden years continued through the 1981 release of his collaboration with David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

FILM REVIEW: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN IV

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Slow ride

By Allan Heifetz

Truth be told, I’m not a fan of the first three installments of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. They always left me wanting less -- less characters, less CGI spectacle and less of a convoluted and confusing story. These movies, inspired by an amusement park ride, bludgeon you over the head with swashbuckling until you just want to close your eyes and experience something close to nothingness.

At any rate, I was sort of looking forward to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which comes four years after the third and most hated chapter, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. This time there is no Orlando Bloom (Will) or Kiera Knightley (Elizabeth) mucking up the works; Johnny Depp’s “delightful” Captain Jack Sparrow is now front and center and ready to give us a good time.

After pulling off the daring rescue of his pal, Gibbs (Kevin McNally), from a London jail, Jack runs into Angelica (Penelope Cruz), an old flame turned adventurer who happens to be the daughter of the infamous Blackbeard (Ian McShane). Against his will, Jack ends up on Blackbeard’s ship and is forced to guide the scary captain and his daughter to the fabled Fountain of Youth. At the same time, Jack's old rival, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), is sailing to the fountain as well, having snagged the job of captain on a royal expedition to plunder the fountain’s powers. Oh yeah, the Spaniards have a ship in the race, too (just one of many story elements that could have been easily ripped out of the movie). On their way Blackbeard and crew must find some ancient chalices and snag a mermaid’s tear to help them activate the fountain.

What I like most about the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is the makeup; a real sense of griminess and decrepitude permeates every scene. Everyone has horribly decaying teeth and is covered in soot. I could barely pay attention to the story for imagining just how ungodly these characters must smell. No toothbrushes? No showers? No vitamin C? Dear lord, can’t we just kill them all and let god brush their teeth? Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides coasts along on sheer spectacle for a good long while before that inevitable fatigue hits us. In the meantime there are some great set pieces, breathtaking crane shots of awesome looking ships and a pretty cool scene in which Jack's crew falls victim to a school of seductive and super vicious killer mermaids.

Running for a total of 136 minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides makes us wait two hours to get to the Fountain of Youth only to do absolutely nothing with the idea of a mythical magical fountain. Nobody ages rapidly and disintegrates in front of your eyes; nobody drinks too much from the fountain and turns into a baby or anything. Imagine if, at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Dr. René Belloq (Paul Freeman) opens the ark to find nothing but sand and then…that’s it. No screaming ghosts and no melting faces. That’s sort of what the finale of Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides is like.

Depp’s charm is palpable in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides, but after two hours of Jack cracking wise, messing shit up and acting like a goof you sort of want him to stop the shenanigans, get angry and be a real hero. I prefer an action hero like an Indiana Jones who is serious, troubled, super-focused and will crack a joke only when cornered. Jack is too silly and unreliable to really get behind. All he does is stumble into tedious sword fights and swing on things. I hate to say it, but isn’t sword fighting in general fairly dull to watch? It’s especially dull in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides since the film’s violence is completely sterilized and bloodless. After any given large scale sword fight you’re never sure whether everyone was killed or nobody was killed. Since nothing is at stake, you are never fully involved in the action. You know what Indy does to swordsmen? ‘Nuff said.

Cruz’s Angelica has all the gravitas of lovely Spanish wallpaper. She made me pine for the enchanting and smashed-in face of Knightley. Cruz was super shrill, annoying and hard to understand in Blow (2001) -- the first film she appeared in with Depp and in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides -- and she continues from there. Clearly Jack and Angelica are supposed to have Indy/Marion Ravenwood (Harrison Ford/Karen Allen) like chemistry, but Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides has no classic reunion scene like the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy walks into Marion’s Tibetan tavern after all those years only to get punched in the jaw. Jack and Angelica run into each other, spew a lot of awkward exposition about their past and continue to bitch back and forth until the end. We don’t care about their love. McShane’s Blackbeard is quite frightening at first, but over the course of this endless movie he loses his presence. It would have helped if we knew why he had supernatural powers and if we got to see a bit of his back story.

Of course Keith Richards pops in for a meaningless cameo as Jack‘s pirate dad. What a horrible relationship this father and son have. Senior surprises Junior. Junior says “Hi, Dad.” Senior gives Junior some quick warnings in a pub and then vanishes into thin air when Junior isn’t looking. Wouldn’t a hug have been better?

Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago; Nine), and credited to nine different writers, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides doesn’t really improve on the previous films and, unless the next one gets an R rating, costs two million to make and is directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9), I don’t have much hope for the franchise.

Oh, and of course the 3D glasses made everything a little darker and therefore had me wishing I could watch it in 2D. Idea: why not boost the brightness on the entire film one stop so the glasses will make the picture normal? Genius.

DVD REVIEW: BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO

A scene from Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo.

Bugging themselves

By Don Simpson

What sounds like a title for a Japanese monster movie (Godzilla’s toughest match yet...Beetle Queen! Conquers! Tokyo!!!) is actually an artsy audio/video essay about the Japanese obsession with insects. Writer-director Jessica Oreck’s film is way too meditative and meandering to be considered a documentary, yet not experimental enough to be considered -- well -- experimental.

Even Oreck’s motive is somewhat oblique. Maybe Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is meant to be a video poem and sound collage about the philosophical obsession of Japanese to make small scale replicas of the world around them for telescopic contemplation (haiku poetry, bonsai trees, Zen gardens, insect aquariums, etc.); or possibly Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is meant to draw visual similarities between the cultural and societal traditions of the Japanese and those of the insects they admire so fervently; then again, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo could be read as a fairly broad statement about the commodification of bugs for profit.

I suspect that Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is purposely indirect in its intent in order to allow the viewer to come to their own conclusions. For example, someone interested in humankind’s relationship with nature might walk away from this film pondering the impact this obsession has on the natural population of the insects in Japan. This person might ask: Does this truly represent the Buddhist notion of having a harmonious relationship with nature? (Personally, I suspect that the insects would possess more harmony if they were not held captive by humans in small plastic boxes.) It seems fairly selfish to assume that the bugs are happy. Then again, I have two indoor domesticated cats -- and, yes, there are certain species of stinging and venomous bugs (and roaches) that I do not have any qualms about squashing -- so who am I to cast judgment?

Upon sight of most of the creepy crawlies featured in Oreck’s film, most of the Western world would scream “exterminate!” faster than a Dalek at the site of Dr. Who, but the Japanese purchase insects (and related supplies) -- the stranger and scarier the better -- at pet stores, insect collector conventions, roadside stands and even vending machines. The prices are so outrageous that some insect hunters earn enough income by merely shaking beetles from trees to purchase a Ferrari.

In an odd sort of way, Oreck (a docent at New York's American Museum of Natural History) collects Japanese bug collectors as if they are the specimens, capturing them with Sean Price Williams’ gorgeous videography and trapping them within the confines of the silver screen for audiences to marvel. Oreck’s film does not appear to be condescending or patronizing towards its subjects; her motives actually seem quite innocent and sincere -- similar to that of the bug collectors -- as if she merely means to encapsulate a much larger world in a 90-minute video for viewers to ponder and reflect upon.

FILM REVIEW: THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS

A George Lucas in The People vs. George Lucas.

Yes, Sir, may I have another?

By Don Simpson

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope is one of the first movies I remember seeing in a movie theater. I was five-years-old at the time. I instantly became my parents’ worst nightmare: a  desperate addict in dire need of everything and anything related to Star Wars. There were millions of others like me, young children brainwashed into a zombie-like state of mass consumerism that was impossible for most parents to combat (that is without lopping our heads off). With our Star Wars action figures, we immersed ourselves into daydreams of the Star Wars universe, building upon the foundation George Lucas laid out for us, developing brand new scenarios, ideas that (as it turns out) Lucas himself could never match in his wildest dreams.

If only Lucas could tap into the collective consciousness of his fan base, the franchise may have taken another path. There is no debating -- amongst fans, at least -- the legitimacy of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back; so it was not until Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi that fans of Lucas’ franchise first had to deal with disappointment.

That disappointment then boiled into disdain in 1997, when Lucas released new versions of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Not only did Lucas tinker with the special effects and editing, but he also added new material (including a universally detested new scene in A New Hope in which Han Solo’s altercation with the bounty hunter Greedo plays out much differently). Lucas the almighty “Creator” declared the new versions of episodes IV - VI to be not just the definitive ones, but the only surviving ones -- therefore the version of A New Hope that was inducted into the National Film Archive no longer exists?! 

(Note: In the mid-1980′s, Lucas led a campaign fighting against Ted Turner’s attempt to colorize the black and white films that Turner owned. These films were not originally created by Turner, which would probably be how Lucas would justify how this is not contradictory to his own actions.)

The backlash against Lucas only became increasingly tumultuous with the long-awaited release of the prequel episodes I - III. Many Star Wars fans protested against the inclusion of an all-too-comedic -- and depending on who you ask, racist -- character, Jar Jar Binks; while most felt as though the patronizing and childish tone of the prequel trilogy was contrary to episodes IV - VI. Nonetheless, Star Wars fans returned to the cinemas time and time again to watch these horrendous films. Why? Did they hope to glimpse a fleeting moment of Lucas’ genius that they missed during their first 10 viewings? Or were they just addicted to Star Wars?

Time and time again, Lucas did not listen to his all-too-loyal fan base but, then again, why should he? Interviewees in Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary draw comparisons between Star Wars fans and heroin junkies or victims of domestic abuse. The backlash never seems to last as the addicted fans keep coming back for more frustration and disappointment. Even now, if Lucas released an episode VII, I guarantee that fans would still turn out in record numbers to repeatedly watch the next train wreck of a film. Yes, I can also guarantee that it would be a train wreck.

The People vs. George Lucas poses the question: Who owns a piece of art? The creator or fans of that art? A more interesting question, in my opinion, would be: Why do so many people still like the Star Wars franchise? (Lucas’ pompous attitude notwithstanding.) Even the two Star Wars films that are repeatedly placed on a pedestal above all others -- A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back -- are not great films. However, the first trilogy was masterfully crafted to appeal to a specific age demographic for whom Hollywood was not traditionally producing films. Kids do not care about the art of the cinema; they just want to be entertained, and Lucas grasped that. It also turns out that kids can fester into quite the rabid fan base (the Toy Story and Shrek franchises preyed on the same demographic), but who could have ever anticipated that this fan base would remain loyal to Star Wars three decades later? The Star Wars films (and the clever marketing strategies) spoke to the kids of the 1970s and 1980s, and despite being embarrassingly cheesy and not well-written, they still fostered a creativity in youth that has been unmatched ever since.

THEATER REVIEW: THE CHINESE MASSACRE

 

Forget it is fake Chinatown 

By Ed Rampell 

If Karl Marx wrote: “the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle,” one can add that American history is also the history of ethnic struggle. In The Chinese Massacre (Annotated) playwright Tom Jacobson takes a Howard Zinn-like “people’s history” look at Los Angeles, revealing a little known, yet significant, event in L.A. history. Long before the 20^th century’s Zoot Suit, Watts and L.A. riots there was a pogrom against L.A.’s then-200 inhabitants of Chinese ancestry in 1871.

There are few – if any -- more important, serious subjects than ethnic cleansing and genocide. Jacobson and Circle X Theatre Co. are to be commended for reminding us of this butchery and burning 140 years ago by dramatizing this stain – or rather, bloodstain – on L.A.’s record and reputation, rescuing the Chinese massacre from our collective amnesia. The killing of 18 Chinese men -- almost 10 percent of Chinatown’s population -- surpassed the number of victims of the Manson tribe yet is as forgotten as Squeaky and Charlie remain remembered.

It’s unfortunate that The Chinese Massacre’s bard undercuts not only the seriousness of his content but its power and cohesive flow with a self-reflective, self-indulgent form that repeatedly disrupts and distracts from what otherwise would be compelling storytelling. So-called “Annotators,” such as Lisa Tharps as ex-slave turned community leader Biddy Mason, frequently interrupt the drama, interjecting “footnotes,” commentary and the like. This, the aud is told, is done in the mode of Bertolt Brecht’s “Epic Theatre,” so as to “alienate” viewers from sentimental emotionalism in order to jog them into thinking about what is, after all, merely a staged performance, and what it all means. Get the point?

Brecht was generally content with just doing it (that is, building his Epic techniques into the body of his plays), but that isn’t good enough for Mr. Jacobson, who, we are told, has written more than 50 plays (although we’re also told that he has a day job), including House of the Rising Son, playing right next door on the Atwater Village Theatre’s other stage. To further compound matters, Annotators reveal that the fact-based drama is fictionalized, that dialogue is derived from sources outside the domain of the action and the like. For example, the central character, Lee Tong (West Liang), is fictionalized. This all reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock’s dictum that flashbacks must never lie about plots, or of a storyteller who keeps interrupting his/her own tale by saying,“But I digress” – and then persisting in doing so.

Although The Chinese Massacre does make reference to subsequent racial clashes between Angelenos, these end in the early 1990s. Looking back at the early, troubled history of Chinese immigrants 140 years ago in L.A., what are we to make of the impact of today’s large Asian-American and Asian population in Los Angeles County? It may not be politically correct to say so, and I don’t mean this as a values statement but simply as a matter of fact: parts of places such as Monterey Park seem more as if one is in Asia than America. The melding and conflict between people of Asian ancestry and those of other ethnic backgrounds continues today, and The Chinese Massacre provides some needed cultural context. Perhaps the best place to end the play could be with that UCLA white female student’s YouTube rant about Asian pupils in the library. Racism, alas, remains with and among us.   

In spite of The Chinese Massacre’s self-referring, tautological technique, viewers who enjoy their drama brewed strong and dramatizations of history will likely appreciate the annals of this not so La-La-Land.

The Chinese Massacre runs through May 28 at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village. For more information: 323/644-1929; www.circlextheatre.org.

FILM REVIEW: TRUE LEGEND

Yuan Lie (Andy On) in True Legend.

Intoxicated avenger

By John Esther

What an ungrateful lout. Five years after his stepbrother, General Su (Vincent Zhao) offers the promotion he was originally offered, Yuan Lie (Andy On) comes home to wipeout the family because, hey, it is one of those kung fu "your master (father) killed my master (father)" sort of things. 

Once upon a time Su's superior martial arts skills could have stopped Yuan, but Yuan's Five Venom Fists technique, plus body-stitched armor, are now too powerful for Su. After defeating Su, beating him within an inch of his life, Yuan throws Su into a great body of water whereupon Su's wife and Yuan's sister, Ying (Zhou Xun), jumps in after him, leaving their son behind with his poisonous uncle.

As the years go by, both Yuan and Su train hard at further mastering his martial arts style. Su drinks jugs of Ying's wine while Yuan sticks his fists in a bowl of scorpions. (Impressive, both would be very good pub tricks). When the time comes you can wager the two will do some serious battling; but in a world of an eye for an eye someone must die.

Eventually widowed and homeless, Su drinks himself onto the precipice of self-destruction only to discover that alcohol inebriation which does not kill you only makes a much better fighter. (I just bet the wives down at the local battered women's shelter will find comfort knowing that.)

From the opening credits to its predictable conclusion it becomes clear that True Legend lays its intelligence at the level of a superhero comic strip (or saloon delirium). Time and motion pass by as quick as character outlines are developed. The impressive production design by Huo Tingxiao provides a magical realist, wasted world where gravity, endurance, space and motion recognize fewer limits. Those are some powerful shots.

This creates for quite a few elaborate fight scenes with wildly uneven results. Directed by renowned martial arts action director Yuen Woo Ping (Hero; Kill Bill; The Matrix trilogy), there are some incredibly entertaining combat scenes (mortal, blades, sticks and all), yet for every praiseworthy action scene there is another one as annoying as a teenage jock shit-faced for the first time.

The most sobering non-fighting aspect of True Legend is the incessant emphasis on family ties when it is those very ties that pull the family apart. Yuan, then Su, are so intoxicated with revenge against father, then brother, respectively, that they try to cure the family as a whole by killing of its parts. They should have just thrown a party.

True Legend also hosts martial arts legends David Carradine, who plays a Sinophobic businessman; Michelle Yeoh, as a benevolent doctor; and Jay Chou, as the God of Wushu. While Chou's role is mostly silly and Yeoh's is a throwaway here (she does not fight), the late Carradine's performance, one of his last, is embarrassingly poor. (Are you sure you want to dedicate the film to Carradine's memory?)

Along those lines, On gives a good performance while, I imagine, his strikingly gothic good looks will seduce some audiences members into rooting for this snake to emerge victorious.

Unevenly entertaining, occasionally extremely violent and utterly predictable, True Legend amounts to little more than another martial arts fairytale, full of fists of fury, signifying little else than advocating the consumption of mass quantities of booze in order to improve one's fighting abilities -- which is a lesson we can all carry to our neighborhood drinking establishment.