FILM REVIEW: CITIZEN KOCH

A scene from Citizen Koch.

To divide they spend

By John Esther

Since the birth of this nation, the rich have held great sway over our government. If it were not for the people participating in the democratic process, namely voting, there would be no stopping the rich from infiltrating every aspect of government – starting with the campaign process. 

However, that changed in 2010 with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens vs. United. A backhanded ruling engineered by the rich neoconservatives, the ruling essentially diluted the influence of working classes in the political process by equating unlimited and often undisclosed campaign contributions with free speech. 

Embolden by the new ruling, billionaires such as Charles and David Koch (AKA the Koch bros.) started this new weapon in class warfare against the working classes in Wisconsin with the 2010 election of Governor Scott Walker, a staunch Republican fixing to dismantle the unions in his state. As a result, a recall movement is born in 2011. People realize the importance of unions. 

Then the Americans for Prosperity from Virginia steps in, becoming Walker’s biggest donor while recruiting Teabagger dupes to back a policy clearly against their best self-interests. Meanwhile Republican members of public unions begin to question his and her longstanding beliefs regarding the GOP just like former Louisiana governor and US Congressman Buddy Roemer did as he ran a different kind of campaign during last year’s Republican primaries. 

Capturing this whirlwind of activity leading up to the historical failure in 2012 to recall Walker, co-directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water) cohesively illustrate what happens when the bad financial powers-that-be cannot be stopped. 

FILM REVIEW: THE INTERNET'S OWN BOY THE STORY OF AARON SWARTZ

A scene from The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz. Photo by Quinn Norton.

A real transformer 

By Ed Rampell

The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz is required viewing for anyone who values free speech and justice. Brian Knappenberger’s riveting documentary is also a case study in Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department’s selective prosecution. As liberal commentator/columnist/radio talk show host David Sirota points out in an onscreen interview, the Obama administration has not prosecuted the financial sector for basically wrecking much of the world economy.

While Big Brother and the Holder Company gave the Wall Street banksters (and Bush mass murderers a pass), at the same time, as Matt Taibbi points out in The Divide, American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, “Our prison population, in fact, is now the biggest in the history of human civilization.” But who does the Department of Justice (DOJ) decide to throw the book at? Internet whiz kid Aaron Swartz, who in 2000, at the age of 14, helped develop RSS, which has been called “Really Simple Syndication,” as it enables automatic summarization of online information, among other things. The Chicago-born child prodigy went on to cofound the social networking and news website Reddit, a platform for Net communities.

Swartz attended (but did not graduate from) Stanford and became a fellow at Harvard’s Safra Center for Ethics. The passionate advocate of Internet freedom and free access to information became an off- and online activist, harnessing the power of the Web to monitor the powers that be. In 2008 he founded Watchdog.net to aggregate data about politicians and helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. In 2010, Swartz founded the nonprofit Demand Progress, which spearheaded Net roots resistance that helped defeat Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Like a sort of Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden of academia, from September 2010 to January 2011 Swartz is believed to have mass downloaded documents from MIT’s JSTOR database, a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. Although it’s not certain what Swartz’s motivation was for allegedly doing so, it appears that the hacktivist was attempting to thwart efforts to profiteer off of human knowledge by making this information available free of charge to the general public, which is a recurring theme of The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz.

In early 2011 the Secret Service and Cambridge Police Department starting investigating and the US Attorney’s office opened a criminal investigation into the hacking of MIT’s network. By the end of January Swartz’s office and home were raided and grand jury and subpoena actions commenced. As the documentary meticulously reveals, although JSTOR declined to press charges and MIT proclaimed its “neutrality” in the legal matter (while Jamie Dimon and Dick Cheney skated) federal prosecutor Stephen P. Heymann, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, who had a background in prosecuting computer hacking, pursued the case with Inspector Javert-like intensity, and on July 14, 2011 Swartz was charged with four felony counts, including theft of computer information. The 24-year-old was arrested days later.

It was the bulldog versus the watchdog, and during the zigzagging trajectory of Swartz’s case, the number of felony counts against him rose to 13, and Aaron pled not guilty. WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange may have been beyond Washington’s long arm of the law and members of the underground collective Anonymous (Knappenberger previously directed the 2012 doc We Are Legion: The Story of the Hactivists) too cagey to be caught, but Swartz was within the U.S. judicial system’s grasp, and it appears that the DOJ was determined to make an example of him. Faced with economic ruin and imprisonment for years by a vengeful administration -- the Obama regime has been extraordinarily vindictive towards whistleblowers, charging more people with the Espionage Act than all previous U.S. administrations combined -- the free spirited Swartz appears to have been pushed over the edge on Jan. 11, 2013.

The 26-year-old’s death prompted protest, including from Congress -- within days California’s U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren announced she’d introduce “Aaron’s Law” to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But on March 6, 2013 an unrepentant Attorney General Holder defended Swartz’s prosecution before a Senate committee.

The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz is a compelling, powerful, well put together work, combining archival footage and original interviews with notables such as academic/activist Lawrence Lessig, Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Lofgren, as well as with Aaron’s relatives, friends, lovers, etc., who provide an intimate look into the personal side of the film’s subject.  This gripping, must-see documentary -- especially relevant as the struggle for Net neutrality continues and the Snowden case unfolds -- is being released theatrically and on Amazon and Hulu.

R.I.P. Aaron Swartz -- aloha oe (farewell to thee): Your bulb burned briefly, but brightly.

  

FILM REVIEW: A COFFEE IN BERLIN

Julika (Friederike Kempter) and Niko (Tom Schilling) in A Coffee in Berlin.

Dead man waking

By John Esther

Winner of six German Film Academy Awards, including Outstanding Feature Film, Best Director and Best Actor, Jan Ole Gerster's wry indie flick about the metamorphosis a young 20-something named Niko (32-year-old Tom Schilling) experiences -- without getting a damn cup of coffee -- is just as good as his country's men's soccer team. 

A college dropout without a job, Niko has been filling his life with aimlessness, lethargy and his share of citations for drinking and driving under the influence of alcohol. He just left his girlfriend, Elli (Katharina Schuttler) in Paris, his things are not unpacked in his Berlin apartment and his friends have to drag him out anywhere. Sometimes Niko makes an effort to get a cup of coffee, but that seems to be as impossible for him to achieve as anything Niko is not trying to do.

One day, through a series of events, Niko encounters various kinds of individuals -- some new, some familiar. Drug dealers, drunk teenage punks, an actor playing a Nazi in a film (Arnd Klawitter), a kind grandma (Lis Bottner) protecting her drug dealing grandson (Theo Trebs), a smarmy psychologist (Andreas Schroders), and an enraged father (Ulrich Noethen) who has just found out his son's actual matriculation status. These encounters reinforce Niko's sense of alienation and ennui. 

But perhaps his most significant encounter is with Julika (Friederike Kempter). 

At first Niko does not recognize Julika, but she sure remembers him. When they were younger, Niko used to make fun of Julie's appearance. Julika seems to have forgiven him, which only makes Niko feel worse. Her presence begins to instill a self-awareness in Niko, suggesting he is not a cool outsider, rebelling at the system by "spending his days thinking," but rather a childhood bully who has grown up to be an insignificant member of society.

To be fair and to the film's credit, Niko is a rather likable guy. He clearly has a conscience toward other outsiders, can feel the sensitivities of others, and is not afraid to get in between an aggressor and his friend. 

Indeed, it is one of the strengths of the Gerster's complex, touching and humorous screenplay that the protagonist is at once sympathetic, pathetic and maybe even a little heroic at times. Niko is the kind of guy we would like to help out, but it is probably better we did not. Niko needs to find his own identity, rejecting fatalism...or that worst of all F words. 

Impressively shot in black and white by Philipp Kirasmer, Berlin, Germany gets an updated look at the debris of its newest generation in terms of character, content, and concrete. History has been etched in stone, cement and Friedrich (Michael Gwisdek), a man who was there during the days when young, idle Germans like Niko were given something bloody awful to do. A fear of such a recurrence is alluded to more than once in A Coffee in Berlin (Oh Boy). 

THEATER REVIEW: THE LAST CONFESSION

Cardinal Giovanni Benelli (David Suchet) in The Last Confession. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

Vanity and the Vatican

By Ed Rampell

Roger Crane’s The Last Confession is first rate drama at its best. Not only does it tackle the big issues, but it also has a topnotch cast that delivers solid, riveting performances. The ensemble is rather cannily led by David Suchet, who from 1989 to 2013 has portrayed Inspector Hercule Poirot on TV adaptations of Agatha Christie’s celebrated sleuth. 

The major topics that The Last Confession takes on are the role of religion and the behind-the-scenes infighting of Holy Mother Church, which is both a spiritual as well as a temporal power. As the latter, Vatican City is literally an independent state and as the earthly representative of the official creed of almost a billion people, it’s also a political and economic entity to be reckoned with. Viewers of 1990’s third installment of The Godfather saga may be familiar with the Vatican’s purported banking scandals and Mafioso ties.

After Albino Luciani, aka Pope John Paul I (Richard O’Callaghan in a moving performance), replaced Pope Paul in 1978, he lasted only 33 days as the pontiff, triggering conspiracy theories about foul play in the Vatican. Thus the sheer genius of casting Suchet as Vatican powerbroker Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, who investigates the death of the benevolent man who turned out to be far more liberal than the conclave of cardinals had expected, and only wore the shoes of the fisherman for a month before his mysterious death. 

His demise occurred shortly after he purportedly attempted to remove entrenched Vatican bureaucrats from their sinecures of power. Suchet’s sleuth lives again -- although not as a suave Belgian in this theatrical whodunit. This time he’s an Italian cardinal trying to crack the case of: Who murdered the pope.

But this is a detective case unfolding in the corridors of power. And, as it is the Vatican -- and not the White House, like in TV’s Scandal series -- where the story takes place, the subject matter includes the significance of faith. The playwright does an excellent, even philosophical job, of interweaving Christian beliefs with Vatican faction fights (move over Trotsky and Stalin! The Kremlin has nothing on the Vatican!).

The costumes by Fotini Dimou impart and reinforce the realism necessary to convey the pontifical subject matter. William Dudley’s stage design likewise conveys a sense of being inside the Vatican, and his use of cage-like sets is, well, a cagey way of expressing a sensibility of imprisonment and crime.

Crane is, unsurprisingly, an attorney, but it is quite shocking that this script, suggested by what may have been actual events, is the playwright’s first produced drama. Kudos, Mr. Crane! The Ahmanson Theatre’s ambitious production is the second stop on an international tour for this taut, thought-provoking play about conspiracy theories at the very highest levels of the Bishop of Rome’s realm. It is very astute to present this show just as another reformist-minded pope rocks Christendom.

With what appears murder most foul afoot, will Benelli, like Inspector Poirot, get his man? You’ll just have to find out for yourself by high-footing it Downtown to the Music Center. Your humble scribe doesn’t mean to pontificate, but original, modern drama written for the stage doesn’t get much better than this work, which is reminiscent of Jean Anouilh’s Becket. And your critic must confess, that’s the god’s honest truth.



The Last Confession runs through July 6  at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012. For more info: Confession (213)628-2772.   

L.A.-based reviewer Ed Rampell co-authored The Hawaii Movie and Television Book. See: Hawaii Book. Rampell and co-author Luis Reyes will be signing books at the Egyptian Theatre’s 10^th Annual Tiki Night Sunday, June 28 at, 7:00 p.m., at 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028. See: Tiki for more information.

LAFF 2014: JIMI ALL IS BY MY SIDE

A scene from Jimi: All is By My Side. 

A walk with a maestro 

By Ed Rampell

John Ridley has followed up his 2014 Oscar-winning screenplay for 12 Years a Slave by writing and directing a must-see Jimi Hendrix biopic, one of LA Film Festival’s most highly enjoyable movies. As is befitting the screenwriter of Solomon Northup’s slavery saga, Ridley exposes how racism -- among other things -- affected and afflicted the virtuoso guitarist in Jimi: All is by My Side.

The feature follows Hendrix (rapper André Benjamin, aka André 3000)  from the time he is plucked from obscurity while performing backup in New York clubs and recording studios and brought to London, where he formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience and his astounding talent earns him the recognition Hendrix so richly deserved. The “plucker” from obscurity is Linda Keith (Imogen Poots), who is Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards (Ashley Charles, in one of the film’s numerous cameos portraying the era’s hottest rockers) “groupie” -- uh, I mean girlfriend. This mod London lass is sort of “slumming” across the pond while the Stones are on tour when she stumbles upon Hendrix at Manhattan dives. Believing in his talent Linda takes Hendrix under her wing and introduces him to Chas Chandler (amiably, ably played by Andrew Buckley), The Animals’ bassist who is in the process of leaving that group to become a manager of rock acts.

The subtle depiction of Hendrix, full of nuance, by Benjamin -- who, offscreen, is half of the hip-hop duo OutKast -- is nothing short of uncanny. (Can you say “Oscar nomination”?) He perfectly looks and acts the part. Benjamin’s delivery of a single line regarding Hendrix’s mother reveals much about what troubles him and his attitude towards women. A phone call to his father likewise provides insight into Hendrix’s back story. All this helps explain his turbulent relationship with English groupie Kathy Etchingham (Hayley Atwell), and why Linda remained the Foxy Lady who got away. Mr. “Peacey Lovey” had his inner demons and this “Voodoo Child” didn’t always practice the cosmic consciousness he preached.

As noted, Ridley’s script also reveals the prejudice that confronted Hendrix in the U.K., where he falls in with Black nationalists through Ida (Ruth Negga) and the wannabe Malcolm, Michael X.

The film is a sheer pleasure for Hendrix fans to watch as his talent ascends, A particularly enjoyable sequence is when the still unknown Hendrix guests with the Cream at a London gig and Eric Clapton (Danny McColgan) -- whom graffiti proclaims to be “god” -- storms off the stage, as Ginger Baker continues to pound the sharkskins and Jack Bruce wails on. In a delightfully revealing backstage scene sure to give Hendrix fans the proverbial smile of the day, Clapton discloses why he deserted the stage, mid-performance.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers were reportedly unable to secure the rights to some of Hendrix’s greatest hits. Nevertheless, with Jimi: All is by My Side Ridley reveals himself to be a true auteur, as talented a director as he is a screenwriter and novelist. This groovy movie perfectly captures that ’60s scene with a cinema verite documentary-like, fly-on-the-wall flair.

In addition to being a pure delight in the tradition of works about struggling Bohemian artistes (paging La Boheme!), along with the Simon Bolivar biopic The Liberator and Dear White People, which LAFF also screened, as well as the upcoming Civil Rights drama. Selma, Jimi: All is by My Side continues the cinematic surge of Black-themed movies that 12 Years a Slave has helped to spearhead.

  

LAFF 2014: LAST DAYS OF VIETNAM

A scene from Last Days in Vietnam. 

Family heirlooms 

By Ed Rampell

As U.S. foreign policy in Iraq faces its biggest defeat since the Indochina invasions, the niece of US President John Kennedy -- who escalated the U.S. presence in Vietnam -- has directed the cinematic equivalent of putting a blossom on a turd. Rory Kennedy has fired the opening salvo in the propaganda war regarding upcoming historic anniversaries with Last Days in Vietnam. This film is so shamefully, wildly one-sided film that this historian/reviewer hesitates to call it a “documentary” -- rather, Last Days in Vietnam is a piece of propaganda in the very worst sense of the term. Indeed, this egregiously biased, one-sided work is arguably more of a mock-umentary -- but unlike This is Spinal Tap, Rory's Orwellian disinformation is no laughing matter.

As the 50^thanniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident -- that fabricated hoax US President Lyndon Johnson exploited to further escalate U.S. military activities in Vietnam -- much as  the Bush regime’s blatant lies about Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction were cooked up to “justify” another disastrous U.S. invasion of a sovereign nation that had not attacked America -- nears this August, and the 40^th anniversary of Vietnam’s liberation approaches next April 30, Last Days in Vietnam desperately tries to find something positive to say about the role the American military and diplomats played as the “Yankees go home” scenario unfolded and the communists took over what was then Saigon.

According to the film, some soldiers and State Department officials took great pains -- and sometimes at grave personal risk to themselves -- to evacuate about thousands of the Vietnamese, including military, who had worked for and married U.S. personnel, as well as the up to 5,000-7,000 Yanks still “in country.”

Rory and her partners, including co-writer/husband Mark Bailey, have taken great pains to try and find something glorious and heroic in the greatest defeat for U.S. imperialism in the entire history of the American empire. In their disgraceful effort to make a stinking garlic smell like a rose, the filmmakers willfully expunge history and any sort of context from their one dimensional exercise in disinformation. 

For example: It’s alleged that during 1968’s TếtOffensive the communists executed thousands of South Vietnamese at Huế. However, the countless war crimes committed by Washington and US forces are never, never once mentioned in this execrable piece of agitprop. Hey Rory, ever hear of the Mỹ Lai Massacre? How about the 1972 bombing of Hanoi -- during Christmas? Or the mining of Haiphong Harbor? Of course, the list of American atrocities committed against the Indochinese -- starting with intervention in the domestic affairs of nations that never attacked the U.S.A. -- is endless, the millions murdered by carpet bombing, landmines, agent orange, etc., is innumerable, and it would require an entire series of documentaries to record them all. But Rory never mentions any of them -- although she goes out of her way to vilify the Reds (don’t forget that her father, Bobby Kennedy, served on anti-communist Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunting Senate Permanent Subcommitteeon Investigations).

Last Days in Vietnam simplistically endeavors to depict the Vietnam invasion (which, by the way, the Vietnamese call “the American War”) as a conflict between the north and the south, with Washington backing the latter. Rory conveniently commits the heinous crime of omission by never -- not even once! -- ever mentioning the National Liberation Front (NLF), the resistance fighters in the south. According to the Pentagon Papers, 300,000 people belonged to the NLF by 1962 (you know, when Rory's uncle was president). Millions f people in the south must have supported the NLF in order for the TếtOffensive to have been carried out in 1968, let alone for the south to have been liberated seven years later, beating both the American imperialists and the army it supplied and funded. Last Days in Vietnam mentions that the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) “eroded” in 1975, but never ponders why the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong didn’t.

(Assuming that Last Days in Vietnam's conceit -- that the U.S. merely backed the south against the north -- is correct, then why is it that last month, when this critic visited Hanoi, he saw wartime shrines, such as the Hanoi Hilton and Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, but did not see some wall inscribed with the names of the 50,000-plus Vietnamese who died fighting in the U.S. Civil War, from 1861-1865?)

Last Days in Vietnam's sources include former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who appears in news clips and presumably in contemporary, original interviews, where this mass murderer of millions in Indochina, Chile, Timor, etc., is once again given the softball “elder statesman” treatment. Richard Armitage -- no, not the Hobbit actor but the Navy and U.S. government operative who apparently never met a covert action he didn’t like -- is likewise given the hero treatment. But Armitage’s willingness to break the law -- purportedly to save south Vietnamese lives -- is never put in the context of his alleged involvement with Ted Shackley, the CIA chief in south Vietnam, and the heroin trade, or Armitage’s dubious role in the Iran-Contra Scandal -- are never mentioned.The film also conducts original interviews with former ARVN officers.

After the LA Film Festival screening an audience member asked Rory and crew members why nobody from the communist and NLF side were interviewed for the film and she replied, “We considered this but ultimately their part of the story was about the war. We wanted to focus on the heroes,” that is, those Americans who put themselves in peril to rescue south Vietnamese lives, in order to tell what Rory blithely called “a human story.”

Author Stuart Herrington, who served in military intelligence and then the Defense AttachéOrganization in south Vietnam and is a source in the film as he was an eyewitness to the events of April 1975, joined Rory for the post-screening Q&A. Herrington said that the communist side “did not add to the film” and that they would have merely indulged in “chest thumping” had they been interviewed. Sore Loser!  As if Yanks never take part in “American triumphalism” screaming “USA! USA!” and the like, especially when it invades -- unprovoked -- smaller, weaker nations.

But here’s the real reason why this agitprop pic never makes any effort to show the other side of the story: NVA and NLF supporters would presumably point out that the southerners the Yankees tried to save at the last minute were collaborators and running dogs of U.S. imperialism, who supported a Washington-backed puppet government. And that it was the Viet Cong who were the south’s real patriots. But don’t worry: The former president’s niece, charter member of the ruling class, has taken great care to make sure that American ears aren’t offended by hearing the other side of this “human story.” The Vietnamese Left doesn’t just not get equal time -- it gets no air time in this blatantly biased propaganda flick, violating journalistic ethics to present multiple viewpoints, without fear or favor.

However, skillful propagandist that Rory is, in her effort to whitewash history and to try to ferret out something positive in a colossal debacle so she can pander to U.S. rightwing sentiment, there’s something even she can’t hide. Look closely at the newsreel clips as the NVA tanks roll into what was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Not only are the soldiers jubilant, but look at the smiling faces of the Vietnamese masses as they are being liberated from decades of Japanese, French and Yankee occupation and imperialism. Perhaps we should thank Rory for not using CGI to turn those smiles into frowns.

To be fair, Rory has produced and/or helmed some good documentaries in the past, including 2005’s Street Fight, 2006’s The Homestead Strike and 2007’s Ghost of Abu Ghraib. The jury is still out as to what US President Kennedy would have done in Vietnam had he had a second term in office. Some, like film director Oliver Stone (JFK), contend he planned to pull out of Vietnam (which Stone and others believe is a major reason why the president was liquidated). And Rory’s father, Bobby, did run as a peace candidate in 1968, although again, bullets cut short his life and who knows how a possible Bobby presidency might have ended the war, instead of Tricky Dick Nixon's ascension to the presidency in 1968?

And Last Days in Vietnam does point out that the U.S. Ambassador to south Vietnam, the Nixon-appointed Graham Martin, was in denial of reality up to the very last minute (if not, like the pig who appointed him, unhinged), resulting in chaotic, last minute evacuation plans. More than 400 of those Vietnamese camping out at the U.S. embassy grounds in what had been Saigon never made it to those choppers or boats to escape their fates. 

Having said this, with liberals like Rory Kennedy, who needs reactionaries? 

Last Days in Vietnam will premiere on PBS’ (your tax dollars at work!) American Experience in Winter/Spring 2015 -- just in time to brainwash Americans as the 40^th anniversary of U.S. imperialism’s greatest defeat nears, and as another catastrophe for Washington’s foreign policy unfolds in Iraq. 

But the real lesson to draw from the Vietnam invasion is not that at the very end, perhaps a handful of Yanks put themselves in harm’s way. (Which is a bit like arsonists patting themselves for rescuing a few folks from the house they’ve set afire.) Rather, the true moral of the story is that being the world’s policeman is a disastrous policy that costs Americans and the nations they willy-nilly invade dearly, in blood and treasure. U.S. military and intelligence are arguably the most destabilizing forces on Earth, with bases straddling the globe and eternally intervening in others’ internal affairs. Nobody likes busybodies and meddlers: If you go around the world sticking your nose into other people’s business you’re likely to get punched in the nose. Washington’s empire is bankrupting a country that can’t even take care of those hapless soldiers who politicians and corporations blithely send abroad for foreign misadventures -- should they eventually make it back home outside of body bags. No amount of flag waving can hide the truth: that when it comes to militarism, Washington should mind its own business -- as if America doesn’t have enough pressing problems back home.

Having just returned from Vietnam, this reviewer can assure readers that there is life after U.S. imperialism. Rory's despicable, reprehensible propaganda flick might be called Last Days in Vietnam, but the liberation and reunification were certainly not the last days of Vietnam. The Vietnamese won the war and they are winning the peace, proving that the last shall be first.

LAFF 2014: RECOMMENDED BY ENRIQUE

The Star (Sarah Swinwood) in Recommended by Enrique.

Demons and such

By Miranda Inganni

Two individuals with their own agendas find themselves biding their time in Del Rio, Texas, in this quirky, enigmatic film "based on actual events."

An aspiring actress (Sarah Swinwood) comes to town to shoot a no-budget horror film, which she believes will be her big break into Hollywood stardom. Despite being told each day that the director is stuck in meetings in Los Angeles, she and the teenaged cast and crew continue to make the film. Meanwhile, a cowboy with a secret (Lino Verela) is held up in town awaiting a colleague. He is there to ostensibly deliver some plants and is bored out of his mind with the small, dusty town. Both the starlet and the cowboy pass the time in their own distinct way – the starlet swims with the local kids and sticks to the shooting schedule; the cowboy drinks himself to sleep at night, desperately missing his dead wife. When their projects are complete, both cowboy and actress move on.

Based on another film that was never completed, there is a quietness to Recommended by Enrique, written and directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia. Both lead characters spend much time in solitude, despite (or in spite of) merriment around them. They each have their own inner monologues, with the cowboy’s acting as a narration and the actress’s manifesting itself in her video blog entries. Though they are staying a couple of rooms away from each other in the same small motel, they never interact.  

Newcomers Swinwood and Verela both give excellent performances in this film hinting at mystery and nuance.

LAFF 2014: EAT WITH ME

in Eat with Me. 

Half-baked

By Ed Rampell

Eat With Me, which world premiered at the LA Film Festival, alternates between being an enjoyable, poignant coming out comedy drama and a paint -- or rather film -- by the numbers story. The plot of writer/director David Au’s feature-length directorial debut movie also has more holes in it than -- to use a culinary comparison -- Swiss cheese.

Elliot (the diffident Teddy Chen Culver) is a restaurateur of what is presumably a Chinese (like much else in this story, Au never specifies the ancestry of his Asian-American characters) eatery that is more or less a run of the mill dive in (presumably) a rather generic Downtown L.A. that could be the downtown of almost any urban American center. As the restaurant with its mediocre menu faces shuttering, after a falling out with her husband (over what, we’re never really quite sure) Elliot’s mother, Emma (the wonderful Sharon Omi), suddenly shows up out of nowhere and starts lodging at her son’s pad in (presumably) Downtown L.A.

Complications ensue, as Elliot’s homosexuality becomes an inescapable fact that Emma must contend with and face. She had more or less previously known of her son’s sexual orientation but preferred to ignore it. Eat With Me is most insightful when it shows how Elliot’s parents’ failure to communicate is passed down to him, resulting in his inability to form lasting relationships and his miscommunication with the sensitive musician, Ian (Aidan Bristow).

The various cooking sequences have that painting/filming by numbers quality: There is a food network, chefs are celebrities, Anthony Bourdain has replaced the news on CNN, so Au appears to be pandering to that coveted foodie demographic.

The strength of Eat With Me is its cast, led by the estimable Sharon. Oh my, Omi is stellar as a loving if traditional, conservative mom who struggles with her son’s “deviance” off the beaten sexual path and with her deep maternal instincts, which she expresses by cleaning his loft and by, but of course, cooking for the son she is desperately trying to reach to and connect with. Previously, Omi has mostly been confined to small big and little screen roles but here this gifted artist is allowed to shine in a lead role, and we are all the better for it.

LAFF 2014: LAKE LOS ANGELES

Cecilia (Johanna Trujillo) in Lake Los Angeles.

Dusts in the wind

By Miranda Inganni

Set in the desolate high desert of California’s Antelope Valley, Lake Los Angeles is a story of struggle and survival for two incongruous, but quietly complementary characters.

Francisco (Roberto Sanchez) is a Cuban immigrant long since distanced from his wife and family. When he is not doing various day labor jobs and writing poetic love letters to his wife, he uses his house as a temporary holding place for immigrants crossing into the US from Mexico. One such person is young Cecilia (Johanna Trujillo) whose mother has purchased her passage with a promise that her father will collect her upon her arrival.

Things do not go according to plan on these vast arid plains pricked with Joshua trees and littered with abandoned houses.

Francisco and Cecilia both came to this land in search, or with a promise, of something better, only to face disappointment. Cecilia’s promised life with a father who she has never met is turned topsy-turvy when she, in a sudden act of self-preservation, runs off into the expansive desert. To keep herself occupied and comforted, she whispers stories, legends she has heard, to an imaginary friend as she wanders in search of her father, any father – a little girl lost in an expanse of grit.

Directed by Mike Ott and written by Ott and Atsuko Okatsuka, Lake Los Angeles uses the location almost as another character. The area drives the actors to various actions. It elicits a practically palpable, desperate dryness that gets into everything and sets the tone carried throughout the enjoyable film.

LAFF 2014: EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL

Darius Clark Monroe in Evolution of a Criminal.

Easy come, difficulties grow

By Miranda Inganni

When he was 16, Darius Clark Monroe and two of his classmates decided to rob a bank at gunpoint. Ten years later, Monroe’s film, Evolution of a Criminal, depicts this criminal episode of his life, what lead up to the robbery and how it affected him, his family and the victims of his crime.

Growing up in the outskirts of Houston, TX, Monroe was a good student and loving child. Unfortunately, he learned a little too much about his parents’ financial woes. He heard too often his mother complain about their mounting credit card debt and the struggles of living from paycheck to paycheck. Trying to be a good son, Monroe got a job at a local big box store and kept his nose to the high school grindstone. After a frightening home break-in, in which all of the family’s valuables -- most notably the VCRs, a gun and his stepfather’s full paycheck -- were stolen, something changed for Monroe. 

The brazen thieves had kicked in the basement door, climbed through the attic and busted a hole in Monroe’s bedroom ceiling to gain entry to the house. Monroe reasoned that he could simply replace the stolen VCRs with some from the store at which he worked and easily made that happen. Shortly thereafter, Monroe and his friends came up with the plan to rob a small, local branch of a bank. Armed with a shotgun, Monroe and his friend stormed the bank, while their other buddy waited in the getaway car.

Due to the severity of the crime, in which they stole about $140,000 and held a number of people at gunpoint, Monroe was tried as an adult and found guilty. He was incarcerated. 

But that is not where the story ends. Rather than become a criminal for life, Monroe had more creative plans. 

Evolution of a Criminal combines home movies, interviews with family members, former teachers and some of the victims, plus some reenactments to explore what happened and what it lead to Monroe's criminal enterprise. 

One of the many documentaries offered at Los Angeles Film Festival 2014, Evolution of a Criminal offers a sobering exploration of what can (and all too often does) go wrong for young men trying to better their lives through “easy” means.

THEATER REVIEW: LEAR

A scene from Lear.

A female gaze

By Ed Rampell

Hark! To paraphrase Juliet: “What light through yonder canyon breaks?” Why, it’s none other than the launching of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s season at its Topanga Canyon outpost, which rather gloriously kicked off June 7 with a production of Lear, heralding the approach of summer with a quintet of Shakespearean productions to honor the Bard’s 450^thbirthday.

The Stratford-upon-Avon playwright’s masterpiece has been oft-produced on stage and screen. Theatricum artistic director Ellen Geer has adapted what may well be the most original version of Lear since  -- if not the First Folio -- since Jean-Luc Godard’s 1987 film co-starring Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald as Cordelia. What makes the Theatricum’s Lear so offbeat is its gender role reversals. Here, the monarch is portrayed by a woman, with Geer herself in the title role, and Lear’s daughters all played by males: Theatricum veterans Aaron Hendry as Goneril and Christopher W. Jones as Regan, and relative newcomer Dane Oliver as a fresh-faced, sweet if tongue-tied Cordelia.

The  gender reassignment of some of the dramatic personae flows smoothly and in the case of Her Majesty, Britain (where Shakespeare’s tragedy takes place) has had female rulers such as Queen Victoria and both Elizabeths who reigned for long periods, including Buckingham Palace’s current occupant.

On the other hand, that Shakespearean shapeshifter, Ms. Mellora Marshall, once again plays a male character as a man. Last summer, the protean Marshall portrayed the bearded title character in Theatricum’s Merlin, Harbinger of Peace. As Eden (whom Shakespeare called Edgar), Geer also switches gears, as in much of the second act her character masquerades as a male beggar, a disguise necessitated by the treachery of Eden’s half-sister Igraine (Abby Craden plays the character Shakespeare called Edmond), who cravenly tricks their father, the Earl of Gloucester (Alan Blumenfeld), into believing that Eden is plotting against him.

Lear’s characters arguably commit Western theater’s biggest, most tragic mistakes since Oedipus plucked his eyes out at ancient Greek amphitheaters. Lear’s vanity, puffed up and inflated over the course of a lifetime of being susceptible to flattery as the monarch, leads to a colossal error when it comes to her offspring. Gloucester betrays a similar lapse in judgment. If power corrupts, absolute power corrupts the ego absolutely -- especially of an absolute monarch. It was Shakespeare’s existential genius to make his characters only able to think logically after going mad (paging R.D. Laing!) or able to see clearly after losing one’s eyesight (in what may be the Bard’s reference to Sophocles’ Oedipus the King).

The white-haired Geer’s energetic acting is extraordinary, full of vitality that belies and defies her years. To paraphrase the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky: “There’s no white hair in her soul.” Since your scribbler doesn’t get paid by the word, there’s only room to mention a few standouts in this cast of about 35 thespians. Like with Geer's performance, this reviewer has never seen Abby Craden do better whilst trodding the boards. Similar to her spell casting, creepy Morgana in last year’s Merlin, Craden’s spiteful, born-out-of-wedlock Igraine is a conniving, cunning schemer, determined to rise on the social totem pole by any means necessary. Romping about the bare stage apparently braless in Topanga, Craden’s character is one of those people who exploit their sexuality in order to attain self-seeking wishes, as she woos both of Lear’s married sons. Craden’s Igraine is sure to give you a migraine. As she says: "Now, gods, stand up for bastards!" indeed.

As the Earl of Gloucester, Blumenfeld is moving as a man who has been blinded -- literally. Geer is largely relegated to the background in Act I but splendidly comes alive in the second act, with scenes her Eden dominates. Depicting Lear’s Fool, Marshall, as usual, delivers the goods with another uncanny cross-dressing performance in what is a pivotal role, since during Europe’s medieval epoch court jesters were the only subjects allowed to publicly voice critiques of the crown and court. And if ever a crowned head needed a sound tongue lashing (albeit one with its barbs laced with and sugarcoated in humor), it is Lear, whose mistakes of epic proportion in judging character wreak havoc.

Ellen Geer’s and Marshall’s co-direction is likewise inspired, making full use of the Theatricum amphitheater’s space amidst Topanga Canyon’s sylvan glade. Lear’s madness scene on a rooftop is stunningly staged (although it had this fan fearing for Geer’s life!) and there is plenty of swordplay onstage and gamboling through the woods, as is this outdoor troupe’s hallmark. Val Miller’s period costuming enhances the ambiance, and it’s interesting to note that this production does not list a set designer per se in the credits. The sparse stage suggests Jerzy Grotowski’s “poor theater” -- but what the boards “lack” are more than made up for through a vivid use of the hilly woods, unified as an organic part of the action.

As this reviewer noted recently in his coverage of The Gondoliers at Sierra Madre Playhouse, it’s fascinating how ideas percolate up out of the primordial ooze of the collective unconscious. Works written centuries ago can take on new meanings and have enhanced relevancy when put into a modern context, striking contemporary chords. Currently, the “republican Monarchy” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1889 operetta can refer to today’s income inequality and wealth gap.

Similarly, the intercepting of messages, which plays a key role in Lear -- believed to have opened with Richard Burbage circa 1606 -- has an updated relevance for 21^stcentury auds. Although Lear’s intercepted messages are presumably written on parchment with a quill dipped in ink, and not emails, phone calls, etc., in our time one can relate this plot device to the phone hacking scandal of Rupert Murdoch’s media minions in the UK (even the royals’ phones were allegedly hacked), and to the whole brouhaha surrounding WikiLeaks and l’affaire Edward Snowden, with their releases of classified information. Indeed, the online publication that Glenn Greenwald and his First Look Media partners in thought crime have created is called The Intercept.

In addition to being William Shakespeare’s 450^th birthday, 2014 is being billed as the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s 40^th anniversary. Judging by the first play of its season celebrating the Bard, my favorite L.A. theater company proves, once again, that where there’s a will -- or two Wills -- there’s a way.

Lear runs through Oct. 4 at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For repertory schedule and other information call: 310-455-3723 or see: www.Theatricum.com.

                                                  

FILM EVENT: HAWAI'I BOOK DISCUSSION

The Hawai'i Movie and Television Book, written by Ed Rampell and Luis I. Reyes.  

Know cinema is an island

Hollywood Heritage will be kicking off the summer with Ed Rampell, co-author of The Hawai'i Movie and Televison Book: Celebrating 100 Years of of Film Production on the Hawaiian Islands, who will give a video presentation with laser focus on Hollywood feature films and television production’s that are shot and set there. 

The event will take place on Wednesday, June 11^th at 7:30 p.m. in the historic Lasky-DeMille Barn and will cap off this season’s "Evening @ the Barn" series.  The Hollywood Heritage Museum is the oldest movie studio that still exists in Hollywood.  Located across from the Hollywood Bowl, it is now a repository of relics and memorabilia from cinema’s Silent Era and Golden Age in what was a barn where Cecil B. DeMille shot the 1912 film, The Squaw Man.

Included in the presentation and book: The screen images of Polynesians and Asians; how South Seas Cinema more than any other film genre is obsessed with the theme of Utopia; where films/TV shows were shot on location in the Hawaiian Islands; a history of the present day Hawai'i Film/TV Industry; and iconic Hawai'i crime fighters as portrayed on screen.

Rampell also places in historic context and re-evaluates important movies such as 1995's Waterworld and 1998's Godzilla, revealing how they are motion picture parables of global warming and nuclear testing. Rampell is also a co-founder of the South Seas Cinema Society, an Oahu-based fan club/film society. The Hawai'i Movie and Televison Book is co-authored by Luis Reyes, who also co-wrote with Rampell 1995’s Made In Paradise, Hollywood Film's of the South Seas and 2001's Pearl Harbor in the Movies, which have all been published by Honolulu’s Mutual Publishing.

After the presentation Mr. Rampell will be signing copies of his book which will be available in the museum store. 

Documentarian Catherine Bauknight will also present the trailer for her recent nonfiction film, Hawaii, A Voice for Sovereignty, to update the realities currently facing Native Hawaiians. The evening will also feature live music by The Noble Gasses Surf as well as Hawaiian influenced foods and specialty drinks. And tickets will be sold beforehand for the popular $1 raffle. 

Festive attire is encouraged, so dust off your Hawaiian shirt and get ready to go native! Seating is limited. Free parking is available in the Hollywood Bowl Lot “D”. Pre-sale tickets are available online at: Hawai'i Book

FILM REVIEW: TRUST ME

A scene from Trust Me.

Agent protector

By Ed Rampell

As the old cliché goes, Clark Gregg is one of those actors whose name audiences may not know but whose face auds will recognize. Especially for his recurring role as Agent Phil Coulson in various permutations of the Marvel comics-derived big and little screen versions of The Avengers, Thor, Spider-Man, S.H.I.E.L.D., et al.  Gregg similarly played FBI Special Agent Michael Casper in The West Wing. But in Trust Me, Gregg plays an agent of a different sort -- a Hollywood talent agent. And not only that, in addition to starring in this indie, Gregg wrote and directed it.

As Howard Holloway Gregg portrays what may be his most science fiction, hard to believe character yet: An actors’ agent with a heart of gold, in the tradition of Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose. Holloway -- a former child actor who focuses on recruiting and representing under-aged thespians -- struggles to keep his head above water in a biz Trust Me depicts as being utterly ruthless.

In this drama which features a stellar cast and has some lighter moments Holloway must contend with unscrupulous producers Agnes and Meg (Felicity Huffman, Allison Janney), mean manager Janice (Molly Shannon), demented dad Ray (Paul Sparks) and Howard’s doppelganger Aldo (Sam Rockwell). Aldo is a far more successful agent, probably because he’s a kleptomaniac schemer constantly trying to lure Holloway’s clients away from him.

In particular, Aldo is trying to steal Holloway’s latest find who is up for a plum lead role in a film slated to go franchise, 14-year-old Lydia (Saxon Sharbino) Will Lydia and her unstable father Ray stay true blue to Holloway or switch allegiances over to the flashier Aldo, who seems to be more of a power player in Tinseltown’s constellation?

Holloway, who scrapes by modestly -- if you think it’s hard making a living as a talent, try living off of 10% of what those artists earn, when they do find work -- seems to have difficulty clinching deals. Howard may be one of those individuals who are their own worst enemy. As a former child actor himself, at the risk of blowing the biggest deal of his career, he intervenes at the last minute to protect Lydia from -- well, find out for yourself.

Anyway, in a subplot, the lonely Holloway woos solo mom neighbor Marcy (Amanda Peets). But even here the poor schnook must deal with contention -- look for William Macy in a droll, totally shameless cameo at a car dealership. 

It’s said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but in Howard Holloway’s case it puts him on a path to heaven. Along the plot twists and turns (you just can’t trust those Hollywood big shots!) Trust Me leads to a magical realist denouement that hearkens back to Agent Coulson’s special effects-laden superhero movies. Along the way, with this scathing indictment of the film industry Gregg lays bare the movie colony’s seamy side, and in doing so his Trust Me is in the tradition of Billy Wilder’s 1950 Sunset Boulevard and Robert Aldrich’s 1955 The Big Knife, based on Clifford Odets’ play. With Trust Me Gregg proves that in addition to acting he is also a talented auteur, who has something to say about the importance of trust and doing the right thing in the midst of our corrupt world. Hooray for Hollywood!   

 

The new book co-authored by L.A.-based reviewer Ed Rampell is “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book” (see:  http://hawaiimtvbook.weebly.com/). At 7:30 p.m., June 11 Rampell will present a “Hollywood Goes Hawaiian” event and sign copies of his book at the Hollywood Heritage Museum, 2100 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, CA  90068-3241. For info: www.hollywoodheritage.com/evenings.html; 323-874-2276.