FILM REVIEW: 10 RULES FOR SLEEPING AROUND

Vince (Jesse Bradford), Cameron (Virginia Williams), Kate (Tammin Sursok) and Ben (Chris Marquette) in 10 Rules for Sleeping Around. 

Screw comedy

By John Esther

Vagina voracious Vince (Jesse Bradford) and conspicuous consumer Cameron (Virginia Williams) have what they call an "open" marriage. This means they can have other sex partners as long as they follow the "10 Rules for Sleeping Around." (Deplorably, none of these 10 rules promote safe sex.)

Vince and Cameron's best friends, cautious Kate (Tammin Sursok) and bummer Ben (Chris Marquette), are not married yet, but sexy times have been a bit slow, so Cameron and Vince offer them advice. Vince suggests Ben ask Kate for a threesome with another woman and Cameron suggests Kate get a pole...vaulter from Kate's past. 

Thanks to a series of events, every one of these New Yorker's has her or his theories, desires and commitment put to the test out in the Hamptons during the biggest party of the year, held by "I F#cked Everybody" author, Jeffrey Fields (Michael Mckean). Let the mayhem ensue. 

Somewhere between Sex and the City's banality and Three's Company misunderstandings, writer-director Leslie Greif's 10 Rules for Sleeping Around comes off as really bad television. About 10 minutes into this 94-minute movie I wanted it to be over. The acting is almost always in overdrive, the writing is on par with the worst you would find in any TV situation comedy and the reactionary gender stereotypes are tedious and cliched. Apparently, repressed sexuality is really what young people want. 

Hopefully the actors were paid well. It must be difficult for an actor when your director says you have to go out of character to get laughs. However, hysterical behavior is not necessarily comical. Notably, Kate's "spanking" scene with her lifestyle coach, Owen (Bryan Callen), is downright embarrassing. 

As a result nearly everyone in the movie is unconvincing and very annoying, especially Hugh (Reid Ewing), a virgin who refers to women in their late 20s as cougars. For his part, Hugh gets to scream a lot, run around naked and have a dog lick his butt. For Christ's sakes! 

The only two likable characters in 10 Rules for Sleeping Around are Nikki (Jamie Renee Smith) and Jaymee (Molly McCook). The "Jersey Shore" duo may be a bit crass, but they are comfortable with their freedom, sexuality and themselves.  

Fortunately, not all was lost. I did laugh four times during 10 Rules for Sleeping Around. But that hardly makes up for the pain during the rest of the time. 

AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL 2013: HELLAWARE

A scene from Hellaware.

Nada dada

By Don Simpson

When Lexie (Kate Lyn Sheil) breaks up with Nate (Keith Poulson) for an untalented pastel artist in pigtails, Nate decides to try to [re]discover himself as an artist. Drowning in a world of “incestuous New York City socialite shit” where untalented hacks are deemed successful by the highbrow elite, Nate must find a way to carve out his own niche.

By cocaine-fueled happenstance, Nate stumbles upon a no-budget rap-rock video by Young Torture Killaz, a group of high school kids from rural Delaware. With outsider art still very much en vogue, Nate travels to Delaware to photograph the band in their natural element. In a half-hearted attempt to legitimize the endeavor, he approaches the excursion like an ethnographic study, striving to immerse himself into their culture.

Nate’s friend Bernadette (Sophia Takal) hesitantly goes along for the ride. Unlike her incredibly naive friend who thinks high school kids can do no harm, Bernadette is rightfully frightened about venturing into the basement hangout of a bunch of drug-addled teens donning psychotic clown make-up who have penned such violently shocking songs as “I’ll Cut Yo Dick Off.” Functioning as the film’s voice of reason, Bernadette sees right through Nate’s intentions even if Nate remains totally oblivious to everything that he is doing.

Distracted by the potential fame that a solo show could quickly provide him, Nate quickly evolves into just another selfish, pretentious and condescending New York City artist. Human relationships no longer matter to him since a successful show will provide him with all of the love and attention that he needs. As he sees it, everything hinges on this one show and establishing himself as an artist is much more important than any friendship.

Writer-director Michael Bilandic's Hellaware teeters the fine line between satire and caricatures, poking fun at art culture and white rap-rock, specifically the significant role that shock value has taken in the creative industry. Visual art and music focus so much on inciting a reaction and judgment rather than promoting creativity and talent. Even more embarrassing is the tendency in creative industries to reward bad art for being so bad it’s good.

AFI 2012: THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE

A scene from The Central Park Five

Burns, New York, Burns

By Ed Rampell

In the nonfiction films of Ken Burns, from The Civil War to The Central Park Five, race is a recurring theme, . The latter is the latest and perhaps most contemporary of the history obsessed filmmaker, and it is all about race and racism. As a “Native” New Yorker, of course I was aware of 1989’s Central Park Jogger case, wherein five Black and Latino teens were charged with being part of a “wolf pack” that went on a “wilding” rampage -- as the racist media put it -- brutally assaulting and gang raping a white woman jogging in the Park. The quintet of Harlem teenagers were convicted and served prison time.

Although I moved from N.Y. decades ago, I visited from time to time and stayed in touch with City residents, but somehow I never knew about what eventually happened regarding this case and to the five Harlemites, who are now grown men. Leave it to Ken Burns, America’s TV documentarian par excellence, to bring us up to date with the startling revelations regarding what reallyhappened and what the Central Park Five are currently up to. It’s genuinely astonishing and horrifying. The outcome is one of the worst examples of the press burying, instead of reporting, the news. While the front page stories about rape and mayhem were front page news, subsequent events are submerged on page 12 -- if at all.

Leave it to Burns and his co-creators, David McMahon and Sarah Burns, to exhume this riveting story with a riveting feature length documentary that will have viewers sitting on the edges of their seats, filled with outrage and unable to take their reddened eyes off of the screen. After watching this must see movie, audiences may join the young Rev. Al Sharpton in chanting: “No justice, no peace!” Hopefully, Burns’ doc will help render both justice and peace for the Central Park Five who are, in that ultimate Alfred Hitchcock tradition, literally “the wrong men.”

If you see only one film at AFI Film Festival this year, don’t miss Burns’ bravura The Central Park Five!


The Central Park Five screens: Monday, Nov. 5, 1:15 p.m. at the Chinese 2.

 

  

 

 

THEATER REVIEW: SEMINAR

Write away

By Ed Rampell

One of the great things about L.A.’s theater scene is that the TV and film industries provide a vast talent pool of thespians, some of whom are eager to ply their trade by trodding the boards, from Equity waiver 99-seaters to the Ahmanson. And Angelino audiences are in luck, as Seminar’s lead role is played by Jeff Goldblum, a bona fide Hollywood star who has appeared in blockbusters from Jurassic Park to Independence Day.

A once promising novelist now under a cloud of suspicion, Leonard seems to have abandoned his art for booze and bedding co-eds, as he turns to book editing, magazine articles and academia to keep the wolf (re: bill collectors) at the door. He also teaches a pricey rarified weekly writing seminar for young aspiring literati in the Upper Westside apartment of wannabe wordsmith Kate (Aya Cash), who comes from a well-to-do family. At Kate’s posh Manhattan pad Leonard proceeds to alternately praise or rip his tutorial subjects apart, lauding or lambasting their literary efforts, as he, perhaps, unleashes and works through his own inner demons. (When he does so Goldblum is the creepiest he’s been since David Cronenberg’s 1986 sci-fi horror remake The Fly.)

Douglas (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe) is a pretentious scribe who happens to have a last name with a certain cache in the dynastic-oriented literary realm. He pompously holds forth on topics, describing their “interiority and exteriority” and so on. Izzy (Jennifer Ikeda) schemes to attain celebrity status by sleeping her way toward the pantheon of scribblers in the public eye. The stony broke Martin (Greg Keller) is critical of both the maestro and his classmates alike. But for some strange reason he never quite gets around to submitting his own unpublished manuscripts for review, and possible scorn and derision.

As the quartet strive for success in the world of publishing, the rapidly paced clever dialogue references creative communities and colleges such as Yaddo and Bennington, supposed hothouses for launching hopeful literary lions towards getting published, fame and fortune. As Leonard’s class unfolds there are enough shifting romantic liaisons to make Woody Allen’s polyamorous skull spin. Who does and does not get “lucky” (and with whom) is a wry commentary on “success,” which can be sexual in the celebrity sense and/or artistic.

Award winning playwright Theresa Rebeck’s must-see (and hear) Seminar is often funny, sometimes sexy and always insightful, shedding light not only on the trap and claptrap of celebrityhood but more importantly on the literary creative process and on what it truly means to be a writer. Along the way there are meditations upon ethics and great lines tossed about, such as thoughtful Kate’s spot on observation: “Fraud is a way of life in a capitalist culture, especially in the arts.”

Sam Gold, who helmed the Broadway production of Seminar, expertly, tautly directs the current ensemble cast with finesse. They all strike the right notes of pathos or humor, especially Goldblum, who, in addition to his Tinseltown big budget hits, has a rather extensive theater background and has acted in films by Robert Altman, Paul Mazursky, etc. At age 60 Goldblum is hitting his stride and all his marks, whether delivering zingers, stingers or soliloquies.

The breezy dizzy Izzy is no ditzy blonde -- she’s an Asian-American. Ikeda appeared on the Great White Way in Top Girls, which is ironic as her girl goes topless in Seminar while she uses her feminine charms to climb the literary ladder towards media acclaim. Some may consider Izzy to be a blithe free spirit; others may find her to be a sensationalized sensual-ized stereotype of the “Eastern” sex kitten who freely pleasures white males.

Rebeck’s rumination on the literary life contains plot and character twists that reveal what it genuinely means to be an artist, especially in this overly commercialized world where a terrifyingly small number of Americans read contemporary fiction, and where the publishing world is undergoing major shifts due to the nature of technology and a collapsing economy. Of course, the underlying core of the problem is the small amount of readers of books in our glitz-driven electronic and digital media saturated society, which seems poised on the verge of becoming a parody of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where there’s no need to outlaw reading books, since so few people do, anyway. (The lawmakers are probably illiterate and couldn’t write the legislation anyway.   

Seminar ends contemplatively and with the play’s only scene change. In another realistic set designed by David Zinn, Martin confronts his tutor at Leonard’s apartment, its shelves brimming with books, where the truth is revealed by the student and his teacher, who confesses to having “no skin.” The perfect note -- literally -- is struck, as church music mysteriously sounds, suggesting the spiritual nature and calling of the writing process.

What, pray tell, exactly is a writer, those creatures inking out a living by creating a precious cosmos composed of words, as Seminar puts it? For my money (or lack of, since I am one) a writer is someone who has something to say and says it well, in written form. And, dare I say it, may even hope to write the wrongs of the world in doing so.


Seminar runs through Sunday, Nov. 18 at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012. For more info: www.centertheatregroup.org/; 213-628-2772.

 

    

FILM REVIEW: TO ROME WITH LOVE



Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and Anna (Penelope Cruz) in To Rome with Love.

Woody Allen, Italian Style

By Ed Rampell

Woody Allen is the motion picture poet laureate of New York Jews and one of the most successful independent filmmakers in history. With his 43^rdfeature length film, the 77-year-old legendary director-writer-actor returns to the screen in his familiar persona and with his recurring obsessions: The neurotic kvetching about death; shifting romantic entanglements; the lampooning of psychoanalysis; cultural commentary with pseudo-lefty politics; etc. Of course, there are the usual Allen-esque quips and sight gags, as well as a golden cast only a maestro of indies could conjure up.

However, Woody’s newest movie once again finds the quintessential New Yorker far afield from his beloved Manhattan. Since 2005’s U.K.-set Match Point, the Woodman has ventured forth to and been shooting on location in Europe. Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the Oscar-winning Midnight in Paris (Woody’s last -- and most financially lucrative -- film) were lensed in Spain and France, respectively. His latest work, To Rome With Love, is his third with a major European city in the title, and it is no less informed by a sense of place than his 1979 classic, Manhattan.

The latter opened with a glorious black and white montage of the town that never sleeps’ scenic sights set to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and was this Manhattanite’s morale booster for beleaguered urbanites and riposte to the Daily News’ famous front page headline about the then-President’s response on New York’s fiscal crisis: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Darius Khondji’s cinematography in To Rome With Love is no less a visual love letter to the Eternal City, with sweeping panoramic shots of the Roman Forum, the Spanish Steps, etc.

Since all roads, of course, lead to Rome, it was only a matter of time before this world renowned filmmaker found his way there. This Nero of neuroses’ all too human comedy has four totally separate storylines that may or may not be tangentially thematically related, something which has disconcerted some viewers and reviewers. Roberto Benigni -- who skyrocketed to fame in America with his thrice-Oscar winning 1997 concentration camp comedy Life is Beautiful, then promptly precipitously plummeted out of sight -- is, happily, back on the silver screen in a film intended for U.S. audiences. As Leopoldo Pisanello, Benigni plays a pissant paisano who complains about being ignored, only to then be mysteriously thrust into the limelight and besieged by  paparazzi. As the leaning tower of Pisanello experiences the perks and downside of fame, Allen concocts a clever commentary not only on the fickle nature of celebrity, but on Benigni’s audience-losing predicament offscreen. It’s all the more in the know because the word “paparazzi” is derived from Walter Santesso’s character “Paparazzo” in Federico Fellini’s 1960 Roma-set masterpiece, La Dolce Vita.

In the film’s subplot featuring Allen himself, he plays Jerry, a retired avante garde opera director yearning to make a comeback who is married to a shrink who is no shrinking violet, Phyllis (Judy Davis in her fifth collaboration with Woody). Their daughter Hayley (Alison Pill) is being wooed by a Roman attorney for the oppressed, Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti), whom Jerry considers to be a “Communist.” Jerry muses that in his youth, he too had been “left” -- but never a Communist per se, mainly because that would have meant sharing bathrooms. He’s also concerned that his pro bono pro-proletarian socialist son-in-law-to-be won’t be able to provide for his daughter.

In any case, Michelangelo’s father, Giancarlo (tenor Fabio Armiliato), has a voice to die for, which galvanizes Jerry’s operatic aspirations. There’s only one problem: Giancarlo can only sing under specific circumstances, and the resolution of this complication leads to what may be Allen's wildest sight gag since that gigantic breast ran amok in 1972’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask. Phyllis’ Freudian profession also provides Woody with what is arguably his wittiest one liner ever -- and that’s saying a lot.

Ellen Page’s Monica is the latest incarnation of the Allen-esque neurotic girlfriend, previously played on- and offscreen by his exes Louise Lasser and Diane Keaton (who perfected the bit). Page’s angsty actress entices an architectural student studying abroad, Jack (Jesse Eisenberg), into her antisocial network, as Alec Baldwin cracks wry world weary Woody-esque observations.  

In the fourth Italian-only storyline, Penelope Cruz’s voluptuous hooker Anna is anything but sexually inhibited. In another critique of fame, newlywed Milly (Alessandra Mastronadri) is led astray by movie star Luca Salta (Antonio Albanese), while Milly’s husband Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) cavorts with micro-skirted Anna. To Rome With Love has dialogue in English and Italian; the Italian-speaking actors are subtitled.

Quo vadis, Allen? This film finds Allen true to and in top form, at the peak of his creative powers, still making the world laugh while imparting a whimsical, rollicking, romantic sensibility, as the eternal Allen meets the Eternal City.

Long may this emperor of humor and the human condition reign!     

 

  

  

 

LAFF 2011: RENÉE

Dr. Renée Richards in Renée.

Out of bounds

By Miranda Inganni

Born in 1934, Richard Raskind grew up with a domineering mother, patient father and protective older sister in New York. Following in his parent's footsteps, he went on to become a doctor, in his case, of ophthalmology. As a child and young man, Raskind excelled at sports, especially tennis and baseball -- he was even scouted by the New York Yankees.

After establishing himself in the medical and tennis world in New York, Raskind married and fathered a son, Nicholas. Shortly thereafter, he had a sex change operation, abandoned his family and friends and moved out to California -- as a woman. Fittingly choosing the name Renée (French for reborn), Dr. Richard Raskind became Dr. Renée Richards, continuing with her medical profession and passion for tennis.

Director Eric Drath's documentary examines Richard's remarkable story, how as a woman she fled New York to try and find herself in Californian anonymity, but instead found controversy and notoriety as a transsexual vanguard when she entered the world of women's professional tennis. Consisting of archival footage, plus interviews with Renée's friends, tennis players, sports commentators, former girlfriends and her unhappy son, the documentary, for the most part, pays loving homage to a truly remarkable human.

THEATER REVIEW: THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE

Mel Edison (Jason Alexander) in The Prisoner on Second Avenue.

A road of broken dreams

By Ed Rampell

I decided to take a break from all the political theater I’ve been reviewing lately and to go see some purely escapist entertainment, so I attended the premiere of The Prisoner of Second Avenue, a period piece set in early 1970s New York. I mean, it’s written by bourgeois lightweight Neil Simon and starring Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander; I’ll just be able to kick back, put my mind in neutral and laugh my head off. Right?

Wrong. On second look The Prisoner of Second Avenue is not only full of serious themes, but it has a political subtext. Alexander’s Mel Edison is one Manhattanite who doesn’t see the light. During the course of this play -- which premiered on Broadway back in 1971, starring Peter Falk, Lee Grant and Vincent Gardenia -- the Madison Avenue advertising executive suffers from insomnia, drinks too much, loses his job, has a nervous breakdown and needs a shrink. The romance has long left Mel’s marriage to Edna (Gina Hecht) behind, but what of the bond, the solidarity of their marital union? When his wife steps into the breach and becomes a secretary, Mel is only further diminished when the onetime housewife he supported turns into the family breadwinner.

Okay, it’s Simon, and most of this is played strictly for laughs, and these prisoners aren’t exactly storming the Bastille and Alexander is one of show biz’s best zinger slingers, and the award-winning Hecht, who’s also a sitcom veteran (Mork & Mindy, Seinfeld, HBO’s Hung), isn’t exactly a slouch in the one-liner department either. But during Mel’s extended period of unemployment he starts listening to talk radio and in one of the dramedy’s funniest and most harrowing scenes, this conned Edison delivers a rant on the “the conspiracy” aimed at eliminating the middle class.

Yes, the lines are droll and Alexander’s dead on delivery is high-larious, as is Edna’s reaction to her unraveling husband’s ravings. But on second thought, maybe Simon was onto something and had his pulse on the zeitgeist to come. The displacement of America’s white middle class (and middle aged) males by a confluence of forces – downsizing, outsourcing, feminism, gay lib, minority rights, the influx of immigrants, etc. – is now well-documented. Mel reveals what happened to the Mad Men after their heyday. This rage – which, as in Mel’s case is misguided, fuels and propels movements such as today’s Tea Party.

In Simon’s dramedy there’s much more comedy than drama, especially as the former finds lots of its laughs in the latter. Glenn Casale nimbly directs an expert ensemble cast that includes Ron Orbach as Mel’s more successful, but less beloved brother, Harry, and their trio of sisters – Carole Ita White as Jessie, Annie Korzen as Pearl, Deedee Rescher as Pauline. (The perils of Pauline?) Like Alexander and Hecht, their cast-mates skillfully pluck the humor out of the dialogue and situation with all the finesse of a humming bird extracting nectar from flowers. Simon provides lots of witty repartee here, ripostes ridiculing the American obsession with money and materialism. Orbach is especially touching as the wealthier, blustery brother who nevertheless envies the broken down Mel because he was the -- well, see it for yourself and find out what. 

The Prisoner of Second Avenue runs through May 15 at the El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Boulevard, North Hollywood., CA, 91601. For info: 866/811-4111;Prisoner.

THEATER REVIEW: THE MERCY SEAT

 

Aftermath

By Miranda Inganni 

Due to unfathomable tragedy, Ben (Johnny Clark) is given a chance to change his life.

Set on September 12, 2001, Ben and his boss, Abby (Michelle Clunie), are holed up in her huge New York City home, waiting -- literally and figuratively -- for the terrorizing dust to settle in Neil LaBute's play, The Mercy Seat, making its Los Angeles premiere at [Inside] the Ford.

Married with children, Ben can't decide if he should answer his cell phone as his wife repeatedly calls. If he talks to her, he'd have to tell her the truth -- that he's alive because he's cheating on her.

Abby is honest yet manipulative, while Ben is honest yet naive. Abby's bitterness blinds her and she can't let him forget that he's married. She holds it against him, even though they are both willing participants in their affair. Ben comes across as conceited --  removed and seemingly unconcerned with the reality of his life. They both want everything to be fine, which is, of course, an impossibility considering the circumstances. While they dust off the ash from outside (dusting off reality), they can't shake the anger and resentment they have for each other.

As Ben's boss and senior (she's supposed to be 12 years older than he), Abby is in the position of power and authority, but she is at his mercy when it comes to their love. They both toy with the idea of capitalizing on the tragedy unfolding around them (a perfect American opportunity a la Shock Doctrine), running away to live happily ever after, but even they seem to sense that it's a fallacy. Instead they play the blame game and exchange barbs. She pretends everything is all right, faking her reality, running to the market to buy his favorite cheese. He ignores his reality, switching off his cell phone so as not to be bothered by its incessant ringing and the inevitable conversation answering it would entail. As a result, neither one is very likable and both are petty.

Running approximately 100 minutes sans intermission, LaBute and director Ron Klier's The Mercy Seat -- which has nothing to do with the brilliant Nick Cave/Mick Harvey song, later covered by Johnny Cash, about the electric chair -- both versions are played/mixed before and after the play (it's a pretty lame title for the play) -- examines opportunity at the point of crisis (the same word in Chinese, so they say) and having the courage, or rather stupidity, to cease on it. Ben's plan to avoid confrontation with his wife is incredibly idiotic and childish. If one wants to label LaBute "misogynistic," The Mercy Seat is not the place to do it. Abby is far more sympathetic than Ben.

While there isn't much in the way of physical chemistry between Clark and Clunie, both actors do a fine job. Clunie has great stage presence (though she plays too much with her hair), and both she and Clark deliver spirited performances full of spite and underlying emotion; do they love each other or simply hate themselves? Unfortunately, Clark's performance is understated where Clunie's comedic timing is sharp, resulting in her stealing the show.

If the worst tragedies bring out the best in people, I'd hate to see what Ben and Abby would be like normal day.

The Mercy Seat runs through April 24 at [Inside] the Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd., East, Hollywood, Ca. 90068. For more information: 323/461-3673 (GO-1-FORD); www.fordtheatres.org