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!

AFI 2011: EXTRATERRESTRIAL

Julio (Julián Villagrán) and Julia (Michelle Jenner) in Extraterrestrial.

Strange bed gals

By Don Simpson

Julio (Julián Villagrán) wakes up in an unfamiliar apartment after one hell of a bender. Enter an incredibly attractive young woman whose name is eerily similar to his own, Julia (Michelle Jenner). Julia and Julio surmise that they must have drank themselves into a blacked-out state of oblivion on Saturday night, and they have slept most of Sunday away.

They fumble through an incredibly awkward conversation. It is overtly obvious that Julia wants to get Julio out of her apartment pronto, but then they notice the eerily unusual stillness outside. No one is on the street below Julia’s apartment. Their cellphones are not working, neither is the Internet or television. Around this time they notice a colossal alien spacecraft looming over the horizon.

So… Maybe Julio should not leave? Then Julia’s nosy neighbor, Ángel (Carlos Areces), stops by. He seems to be the only other person in the building. Why did he not evacuate with everyone else? Then, when Carlos (Raúl Cimas) arrives, the sexual tension comes to a head and things get really complicated. The men — all with romantic hopes of winning Julia’s heart — use the mysterious spaceship as a means to shut each other out of Julia’s apartment. They spread the fear of an alien invasion, specifically that one or more of them might actually be an alien in disguise. The lies and manipulations snowball to the point of ridiculously comical proportions.

With Extraterrestrial, Nacho Vigalondo utilizes what could very well be a lost Twilight Zone episode to cleverly examine human relationships and the extreme lengths that men will go to in order to “win” a woman. Extraterrestrial also works as a well-crafted metaphor for the way that the fear of the “other” is often used to manipulate people’s emotional responses to situations.

AFI 2011: GREEN



A scene from Green.

The second sex

By Don Simpson

Sebastian (Lawrence Michael Levine) and Genevieve (Kate Lyn Sheil) rent a secluded country house in rural West Virginia because Sebastian has been commissioned to work on a sustainable agriculture blog. Does Sebastian have a background in agriculture? No, but he is a bookish, hyper-intelligent fellow who is wholeheartedly confident that he can hoe with the best of them.

Genevieve, who is Sebastian’s intellectual equal, is just along for the ride. She finds herself having to be entirely reliant upon Sebastian — a demeaning and degrading position for any person to be in. The backwoods of West Virginia offer no possibilities for work or entertainment; Genevieve’s only hope is that her books will keep her company while Sebastian is off toiling in the dirt.

Then, Robin (Sophia Takal) stumbles into the picture. Her primitive intellectual naiveté is no match for the patronizing couple from New York City, but Genevieve befriends Robin despite her uneducatedness. Then again, what other choice does she have? To say that Robin is gregarious and eager is an understatement; she is like a stray dog that has find found the owners that she always desired.

Genevieve and Sebastian possess a burning desire to out-smart each other — repeatedly challenging each other’s knowledge of literature, art and philosophy. The couple begins to struggle with problems in the bedroom which excites Genevieve’s imagination, prompting thoughts that Sebastian is screwing Robin.

Green comes from a uniquely feminine perspective as writer-director Sophia Takal takes on female jealousy and discusses the effect said jealousy has on personal relationships and one’s own grasp on reality. Insecurity, anxiety, and madness fester in Genevieve’s mind due to paranoia and miscommunication, and we discover that even though Genevieve’s hatred and aggression seems to be directed towards Robin, the situation really unearths Genevieve’s true feelings for Sebastian.

Takal has cited my favorite Robert Altman film — 3 Women — as an influence on Green. Both films approach female relationships — specifically female jealousy — with a certain level of obliqueness. Atmosphere and environment play an important factor in both films too. Specifically for Green, the densely forested environs are not only suffocating and ostracizing but they also lend Green a spooky and menacing horror film aesthetic. Something always appears to be lurking in the woods.

THEATER REVIEW: HOPE

A scene from Hope.

Surviving the American Dream

By Ed Rampell

The TV series Mad Men and Pan Am have done it, and now the musicalHope flashbacks to the era of the Kennedy presidency. But this time Camelot has a Chicano twist, as the Latino Theater Company production follows the Garcia family while they negotiate the early 1960s in Phoenix. These Mexican-Americans are hopeful that with America’s first Catholic president, the American dream may embrace them, too.

Hope uses a clever if well worn plot device to conjure up major celebs or historical figures as personal advisers. Woody Allen deployed Humphrey Bogart in the play and 1972 movie, Play It Again, Sam, the Yugoslav leader Marshall Tito was invoked in the 1992 comedy, Tito and Me, and Bruce Lee was summoned in the East West Players 2008 dramedy, Be Like Water. In Hope adolescent Betty (Olivia Cristina Delgado), who has a crush on Kennedy, creates an imaginary relationship with JFK (little did she know!), who counsels her on life’s trial and tribulations. President Kennedy is wittily evoked through shadowy images projected above the set as he speaks on the phone  in the Oval Office.

Archival film footage depicting Cold War major events are likewise projected overhead, serving to anchor the Garcias’ lives in their historic times in this period piece. Pop songs, too, serve to summon up the America of half a century ago. However, numbers such as "Mister Sandman" and "Please Mr. Postman" are not sixties songs merely played in the background; instead, the cast actually performs the numbers, accompanied by pianist and musical director Ben Taylor.

With the exception of compilation type musicals such as the 1985 Broadway show, Leader of the Pack and Mama Mia! (which is a similar genre), this is the first time I remember seeing a professional production wherein songs created by other artists for entirely different purposes were co-opted and used onstage in a completely different musical. Be that as it may, the pop classics are well-performed and remain a delight to hear, as they reinforce the sense of time chronicled in Hope.

The Garcia family drama includes the usual machismo mishegas, with the poor misunderstood philandering husband, Carlos (Geoffrey Rivas) and the long suffering wife, Elena (Dyana Ortelli). However, the skilled Sal Lopez, a founding member of the venerable LTC, injects a note of tenderness and vulnerability as the family friend Enrique. As the eldest sibling, Esperanza America Ibarra plays the sulking, brooding, pouty angry young woman Gina; what happens to her is telegraphed from miles away.

As this is the Chicano version of Camelot, the politically savvy playwright Evelina Fernandez and director Jose Luis Valenzuela reveal the chinks in the armor of the knights of the Kennedy administration. Although revisionist historians often overlook or downplay the role the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion played in Cuba’s decision to protect itself from the Yanqui colossus to the North with Soviet nukes, Fernandez’s script is wise enough to remind us of this inconvenient truth.

Hope runs through Nov. 13 at the Los Angeles Theatre Centre, 514 S. Spring St., CA 90013. For more info: (866) 811-4111; www.thelatc.org.

FILM REVIEW: YOUNG GOETHE IN LOVE

Johann Woflgang von Goethe (Alexander Fehling) in Young Goethe in Love.

 

What a bargain

By Ed Rampell

There are many reasons to go see co-writer/director Philipp Stölzl’s Young Goethe in Love. Much of Young is a “movie movie”: A highly entertaining, well told, rip roaring yarn full of romance, humor and adventure. The lush, stylish cinematography of this period piece transports audiences back to late 18^th century Germany with an optical opulence suffused with what we Yanks like to call “Old World charm.” This biopic is in the Amadeus and Shakespeare In Love mode, and viewers unfamiliar with that other Wolfgang -- Johann Woflgang von Goethe (Alexander Fehling) -- will learn much about the post-Renaissance Man, who wrote the masterpiece, Faust. This German film with subtleties and subtitles also has profound messages about the creative process, what it means to be an artist, parental approval, family, true love and more, all depicted in a most enjoyable fashion.


Young begins with the aspiring poet-playwright-novelist being straitjacketed into a legal career, as the 23-year-old’s early avante garde writing is rejected by publishers and Goethe is pressured to please his father, a stern attorney (played by Henry Hubchen, who was the only East German to be nominated for an Oscar, for his role in 1974’s Jakob, the Liar). After rather flamboyantly flunking the bar at Leipzig, Goethe leaps to a remote provincial court, courtesy of his strings pulling, well-connected father. There Goethe apprentices under the tutelage of Albert Kestner, a rather tough taskmaster (Moritz Bleibtrau). Alas, to paraphrase Jackson Browne, our man Goethe doesn’t want to be a lawyer in – or out – of love.


While clerking at the city state of Wetzlar Goethe encounters Lotte Buff, portrayed by Miriam Stein. He is initially attracted to Lotte because she has a sonorous singing voice and shows herself to be quite spirited. He woos her and finds that the literate Lotte encourages his artistic self to create, instead of shackling himself to a barrister’s bench. As they young lovers discover their true inner selves, Young Goethe in Love includes one of the sexiest lovemaking scenes to grace the screen in recent movie memory. 


However, Goethe is not the only suitor attracted to the free spirited songbird. As in most love stories, the lovers are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles blocking their romance. The penniless law clerk must contend with a wealthier, more powerful rival for Lotte’s attentions. Out of the emotional cauldron of this eternal triangle emerged Goethe’s immortal The Sorrows of Young Werther (which went on to become a wildly successful bestseller, number one on The Leipzig Times’ Top 10 list).


Young Goethe in Love makes a sharp detour from its sexy, witty course with a dramatic second act full of sturm und drang. Will this film, unlike The Sorrows of Young Werther, have a happy ending? And how factual is this biopic? What Lotte says about the book her romance with Goethe inspired also rings true for this ebullient film: “It’s more than the truth. It is poetry.”


The dashing, handsome Fehling portrays Goethe with great panache, playfulness and pathos. Stein, as Lotte, likewise displays verve, winsomeness and an early feminist yearning to be free and to bask in the glow of love for love’s sake. With only his third feature Stölzl is revealing himself to be a masterful craftsman. His 2008 North Face was a well made, clever anti-Nazi feature about mountaineering; shrewd because Hitler’s favorite filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, made a name for herself in “Mountain” movies before she directed Third Reich agitprop. 


In Young Goethe in Love, Lotte performs an act of true love and the film ends on a Rocky-like note of triumph that all artists dream of, but few ever attain. However, to find out how Lotte and Johann’s affair turns out, and what, exactly, that triumphant denouement is, you’ll just have to see Young Goethe in Love yourself, dear reader.


Personally, I left the screening room feeling lighthearted and happy to be alive. It did my soul good, without having to make a Faustian bargain with the devil to do so. The best reason to experience Young Goethe in Love is simply because you like yourself and want to treat yourself to a great time. Why? Because you deserve it, dearest viewer.

THEATER REVIEW: PEACE IN OUR TIME

No, el coward

By Ed Rampell

The Antaeus Company -- which “strives to keep classical theater vibrantly alive by presenting productions with a top-flight ensemble company of actors” -- has succeeded admirably in doing so by reviving two great anti-fascist dramas. Both plays presented by Antaeus are alternative histories that imagine “what if” fascism had taken over England and America. 

Noël Coward is primarily remembered as a sophisticated showman, composer of songs such as Mad Dogs and Englishmen and an urbane writer of risqué romances, such as Brief Encounter (about an extramarital affair), Private Lives (which Liz and Dick rather famously revived onstage in 1983) and Blithe Spirit (about a ghost haunting her husband after he remarries). But Coward’s 1946 Peace in Our Time shows that when the playwright encountered Nazism, he was anything but blithe in his spirited drama about the public lives of Englishmen confronting Hitler’s mad dogs.

Peace in Our Time is actually more in the mode of Coward’s 1942 Oscar-winning moral boosting masterpiece World War II film, In Which We Serve, which he wrote, scored and co-directed with David Lean, than his sexy stories. Like Serve, Coward’s love affair in Peace is with England, as Brits battle blitz. John Apicella’s projections of archival footage of the Battle of Britain, etc., help set the scene. During the first act the Third Reich conquers the U.K., and the rest of the two-hour and 45-minute or so play takes place in a London pub where we encounter a cross section of British society.

Just as a school served as a microcosm for Britain in Lindsay Anderson’s 1969 student revolt film, If…, Peace’s pub likewise doubles as a microcosm of an imagined occupied England. There are resisters, collaborators and of course, Germans, in the pub, which is an abbreviation for public house. Antaeus’ Co-Artistic Director Tony Amendola pointed out to me that these drinking establishments played a central role in British culture as a central meeting place, which Shakespeare noted in his plays featuring Falstaff. Scenic Designer Tom Buderwitz has done yeoman’s work and performed marvels in transforming the Deaf West Theatre’s stage into a highly realistic replica of a pub, and deserves kudos for his realism and attention to detail.

Australian Barry Creyton’s adaptation of Coward’s Peace adds nine of Coward’s own Music Hall-style songs that weren’t in the original version of the drama, and they are seamlessly interwoven into the play, accompanied by an upright piano with Richard Levinson tickling the ivories. The ditties obviously serve to liven things up, and numbers such as London Pride, Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans (banned by a humorless BBC!) and Could You Please Oblige Us with a Bren Gun? fully display Coward’s clever wordplay and wit, which Monty Python, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook evolved out of.

Casey Stangl does a far better job directing his ensemble cast than the baseball manager with a similar name did managing the New York Mets back in the 1960s. Unlike the Mets, the Antaeus team never drops the ball, which continues rolling along. As there are 22 speaking parts, and the roles are double-casted on alternate nights, your intrepid reviewer only has space to single a few thesps out who trod the boards opening night.

Steve Hofvendahl is steadfast as Fred Shattock, the stalwart bartender with a slow fuse who precariously presides over his slice of British life. Emily Chase has a masterful, veddy English accent that sounds as if she shoplifted it from PBS’ Masterpiece Theater. Chase alternates in the role of the writer Janet Braid, who personifies patriotic spirit and love of the “sceptred isle,” unblushingly quoting Sakespeare’s  immortal lines -- “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” – as a rebuke to the Nazi collaborator. Take that!

As said turncoat, JD Cullum is perfect as Chorley Bannister, the snobby editor who, after the Hitlerian invasion, goes along to get along. However, it seems that this character is supposed to be gay, and if this is the case, it’s sad that Coward, himself a closeted homosexual, would choose to make the Brit who sells out to the Germans a practitioner of the love that dare not say its name (especially under Third Reich rule!). If Coward equated collaborating with being queer and considered homosexuality to be a signpost of a personality or character defect, then the otherwise valiant anti-fascist Coward was here a rather cowardly lion.


Peace in Our Time runs through Dec. 11 at the Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. For more info: (818)506-1983; www.Antaeus.org.