FILM REVIEW: AROUND THE BLOCK

Dino (Christina Ricci) in Around the Block.

Ab(out)original plays with the text

By John Esther

After a hiatus, American Dino Chalmers (Christina Ricci) has returned to Australia to be with her fiance, Simon (Daniel Henshall). A bright-eyed idealist, Dino takes a job at Redfern High School. Redfern High School is located in a particularly rough neighborhood in Sydney. 

In the first of the film's numerous too-convenient tropes, Dino notices one of the students, Liam (Hunter Page-Lochard), a teenager who she filmed in the streets the day before. He just happens to be in her class, too. 

Liam has troubles. He lives in a poor, violent neighborhood known as The Block. His Mum (Ursula Yovich) is unemployed; his father, Jack (Matt Nable), is in prison; and his older brother, Steve (Mark Coles Smith), plans to avenge his father's imprisonment and uncle's death. 

As the film points out in the beginning, Liam is headed down a similar path to that of his father and brother. However, Liam has a spark. If he can tap into his creative energies, Liam may just avoid a life of crime and despair (not that creativity does not often come with its own agents of despair).

This is where Dino comes in. She is the new drama teacher at Redfern and she wants the kids to learn and perform Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rather than instruct the old fashioned way of learning the world's most famous play by reciting the lines ad nauseum, Dino gets the kids to understand and appreciate Hamlet via comparing it to the lyrics of Tupac Shakur, examining the subtext, and how and why such an "old" English play could have relevance for the modern day immigrant living in Sydney.  

The existential themes of the play's protagonist strikes a chord in the heart of the Liam. To be or not to be in such a cruel world? Thanks to the former profession of Liam's deceased uncle, Liam was familiar with the words of Hamlet, but now he is beginning to understand something deeper.

Written and directed by Sarah Spillane, Around the Block may have its exasperating flaws, but it cannot be accused of not having its heart in the right place. Here is a film about a teacher who puts her energies into kids who society would soon just forget, even if it means giving up a comfortable bourgeois life with Simon. Meanwhile, the film lends an identity to those living in poverty and the dignity of struggle against it through art. 

Moreover, most of the cast is pretty good, especially Nable's subtle portrayal of a man who sees everything as he knows it disappearing. 

On the other hand, there are a few pretentious scenes involving standing on rooftops and incredulous "race baiting" over a meal at a restaurant. Was Dino just oblivious to the racism of Simon and his friends before she moved in with him?

Then there are the numerous, manipulative and insipid music selections that really grate on one's nerves. I realize the filmmakers are reaching for a younger audience here, but the songs are not only lousy, many of them are obvious attempts to manipulate the feelings and reactions of the audience. And the way Around the Block adapts and actually uses a cover of Mister Mister's "Broken Wings" is as banal and unwelcome as the original 1985 song (and video). 

Having written that, Around the Block is better fare geared for the youth than most movies out currently in theaters. At least Around the Block tries to address themes about adolescence, art and poverty. 

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.

LAFF 2013: AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS

A scene from Ain't Them Bodies Saints.

Miss take

By Don Simpson

Writer-director David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saintsis a cinematic meditation on poor, rural Texas life in the 1970s (though it often feels like the 1920s or 30s). It is Bob’s (Casey Affleck) desperate economic situation and intense desire to support Ruth (Rooney Mara) that has driven him to become an outlaw. There is presumably very little work available, so Bob’s only available option is to steal from others. These perceived external pressures at work against Bob are somewhat similar to Kit’s situation in Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973). Both films also allude to psychological issues at play within the minds of their male antiheroes. The men are blindly obsessed with their girlfriends to disastrous proportions.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints ain’t just about obsession; it is also about the deteriorating effects of guilt and secrets on one’s soul. Unlike Bob, Ruth seems to understand the grim reality that she and Bob will never be together again, so Ruth has sentenced herself to a loveless life of chastity to punish herself for the crime for which Bob is doing time. Ruth will never be happy because she knows that Bob has offered up his life for her freedom, while Bob will not be happy until he is reunited with his family. All because of one simple mistake — for which nobody died — Ruth and Bob are destined to be unhappy for the rest of their lives.

Like that of an early Malick film (Days of Heaven), cinematographer Bradford Young showcases iconic rural landscapes in transcendent magic hour photography. Lowery’s film is obsessed with the textures and degradation of rusting metal, peeling paint and splitting wood. Everyone and everything is covered with a thick layer of dirt.


Ain't Them Bodies Saints screens at LAFF 2013: June 15, 7 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 17, 4:50 p.m., Regal Cinemas. For more info: www.lafilmfest.com

LAFF 2012: LUV

Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) and Vincent (Common) in Luv.

Knowing pains

By John Esther

Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) is a smart yet typical 11-year-old kid who happens to live with his grandmother (Lonette McKee) and Uncle Vincent (Common) in Baltimore while Woody's mother gets her act together down south.

Rather than take him to school as promised, one Friday morning Vincent decides to teach Woody some “real-worlds shit” by letting his nephew accompany his recently paroled uncle -- who happens to have a nice Mercedes -- for the day. Commencing as an exciting adventure with Woody getting some new clothes and later learning how to drive the Mercedes, the film takes on an increasingly grave tone when Vincent is told by his bank (where, if my memory serves me well, we see the one white person in the film) to come up with $22,000 by Monday morning or Vincent will lose his new business venture.

School is out. Woody is no longer learning math or playing ball for fun on the school playground, but rather garnering an understanding of the intricate, cutthroat lifestyle of American entrepreneurship -- a la Baltimore criminal underworld -- which forces him to play for keeps.

“America is not a country, it’s a corporation,” we are told. While co-writer/director Sheldon Candis and co-writer Justin Wilson’s screenplay could have benefitted from a few more drafts (or at least a little more sobriety), the acting in Luv – which also features Charles S. Dutton Danny Glover and Dennis Haybert – makes the skinny script more palatable.

The LAFF screening is free.


Luv screens at the Los Angeles Film Festival June 17, 6:30 p.m., Regal Cinemas.

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.

NBFF 2011: THE KANE FILES

Scott Kane (Drew Fuller) in The Kane Files.

A deal is a deal

By John Esther

How many times do villains need to be told: if you hire the very best to execute an execution you better hold up your end of the bargain when he or she succeeds, unless you want to be the assassin's next target. 

Scott Kane (Drew Fuller) is a hard working man, loves his wife (Whitney Able) and his son, Owen (Ethan Mouser). No longer a hired assassin, Scott is barely making ends meet. But when his son needs a heart transplant, at the cost of $250,000 (cough, national health care), Scott is forced backed into his life of crime. A little John Q redux.

After he holds up his end of the bargain, sort of, Scott winds up in prison, but his son is still not on the donor list. Someone, maybe some two, has reneged on the deal. Now it is payback time.

Written and directed by Benjamin Gourley, The Kane Files moves back and forth in time and space to explain how Scott wound up where he is at the beginning of the film, which is neither the beginning nor the end of this chapter in his life. The problem is there is too much overlapping of given information, as if audiences today cannot remember how a film started halfway through the film. I realize attention spans are shorter these day, but this is an independent film. Give your viewers more credit. 

Having said that, The Kane Files is still a pretty good and gritty story, filled with intense scenes of inner conflict and outer hostilities by seemingly everyday men. The characters here are pretty developed, except Thompson (William Devane), who is a caricature. And the actors play them with various success -- with the notable exception of Ethan Embry, whose performance as a crooked cop confused by his turn of events is superb. 

SXSW 2011: HESHER

Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in Hesher.

Kid snuff

By John Esther

Poor 13-year-old TJ (Devin Brochu). His mother (Monica Staggs) recently died in a car crash. His dad, Paul (Rainn Wilson), responds to the tragedy with futile numbness and a bully named Dustin (Brendan Hill) habitually harasses the boy at school. What is a grieving boy, who is also prone to accidents, to do? Enter Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a young man who lives in a van.

Hesher is hardly the ideal helper. He drinks, smokes and does whatever the hell he wants. A walking menace who stabs his food while eating, climbs up telephone poles in his underwear and blows up things, Hesher (a term meaning someone into heavy metal) moves into the house with TJ, Paul and grandma (Piper Laurie) and immediately becomes the man of the house, with guitar in hand.

Rather than provide proper guidance to TJ’s woes, Hesher in many ways intensifies them. He gets TJ into all sorts of trouble the youngster does not need. Or does he?

Directed by Spencer Susser and co-written by Susser and David Michôd, Hesher offers an unconventional way of dealing with grief. Whereas TJ and dad let the world beat them down, Hesher fights back. The reactions between Hesher on one side and dad and TJ on the other are extreme, yet the film supports the idea that fighting back , even if it calls for violence (more against property than people), is the way to go.

Performances by Gordon-Levitt, Laurie and Natalie Portman (playing a young woman beaten down by economic woes) are solid, while Brochu seems to have a sound acting career ahead of him. Wilson, a comedian and co-star of TV’s The Office, takes a chance with this dramatic role and it pays off. The writing is uneven but amusing enough to make the film worth a watch.

After waiting over a year since its screenign at Sundance 2010, Hesher is slated for release later this year.