FILM REVIEW: SHOWGIRLS 2

Penny/Helga (Rena Riffel) in Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven.

Bore to culture

 

By John Esther

 

The follow-up to the notorious 1995, Showgirls, Showgirls 2: Penny’s from Heaven is actually better than its predecessor insofar as the original was not made to be the laughingstock, cult movie it has become whereas Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven is intentionally, unabashedly bad in order to satire wannabe movie stars, the entertainment industry and yes, its predecessor. In other words, it is so bad it is good.

 

Somewhat reprising her role from the original film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas (one of the worst Hollywood screenwriters ever), Rena Riffel wrote and directed this story about a Las Vegas stripper named Penny (Riffel -- now old enough to play an aging showgirl) who dreams of moving to Hollywood and becoming the star of a new dance show. Penny has no talent, formal training. or “X Factor,” but that is not going to stop this “whore,” “slut,” “trash,” “stripper,” and “bimbo” from making it.

 

However, just getting to Los Angeles is not easy. On the road west, Penny is robbed, then entangled in a multiple homicide.

 

Once in Los Angeles, Penny meets all sorts of egomaniacs, abusers, exploiters and television producers (but I repeat myself) who just want Penny, whose new name (sometimes) is Helga, for her flesh. Yet the whore with a heart of gold still believes in herself and those around her – no matter how many times they use her. Meanwhile, the authorities are on her track.

 

Deliberately pumped with histrionics, painstaking inane dialogue, soap operatic Sapphic sexual scenes, and editorial discontinuity that are outrageously tongue-in-cheek(s), the 145-minute film -- which definitely takes its toll on one’s patience (occasionally one’s feminism, too) -- makes the films of John Waters look like the work of Michelangelo Antonioni. Okay, I exaggerate for the billionth time, but so does just about everything in this hyperbolic striptease of wannabe stardom in Hollywood to make its point.

 

 

TRIBECA 2012: ANY DAY NOW

A scene from Any Day Now.

Cumming Undone

By Don Simpson

Set in Los Angeles, 1979 and inspired by a true story, Any Day Now follows the trials and tribulations of a gay couple who fight for custody of a teenager with Down syndrome.

Paul (Garret Dillahunt) is a straight-laced, closeted deputy district attorney who falls in love with Rudy (Alan Cumming), a flamboyant, lip syncing drag queen. When Rudy's drug-addled neighbor abandons her son, Marco (Isaac Leyva), Rudy takes in the Down syndrome teen; then, while petitioning for custody of Marco, Paul takes in Rudy and Marco to provide them with more stability. (In an effort to remain in the closest, Paul tells everyone that Rudy
is his cousin.)

It is not long before Paul, Rudy and Marco are a happy nuclear family. For the first time in his life, Marco has loving and nurturing parents. He even begins to flourish in school. But it is also not long before Paul and Rudy find themselves in court, fighting for their parental rights once again.

At the root of Any Day Now is an unwavering message of treating everyone equally, despite their sexuality, gender, ethnicity, economic status or medical condition; and writer-director Travis Fine even practices what he preaches in the production of Any Day Now. Being that Hollywood prefers to cast
straight actors in gay roles, it is refreshing to see an openly gay actor (Cumming) get the lead in Any Day Now -- an inspiring performance that is one of the best of his career. It is equally impressive that Fine casts an actor with Down syndrome (Isaac Leyva) to portray Marco.

FILM REVIEW: NEW YEAR'S EVE

A scene from New Year's Eve.

Should all films be so rotten

By Don Simpson

Valentine’s Day is a cruel and bitter reminder that film critics do not wield much influence — at least in certain realms of cinema — because even though Valentine’s Day is scoring a lowly 18% on Rotten Tomatoes it went on to gross $214,976,776 and New Line Cinema deemed it worthy of a sequel (an extremely loose concept of a sequel at that). What does this say about film criticism and their relationship to film audiences? Not much. People were going to see trash like Valentine’s Day no matter what critics said about it, just as people are also going to see New Year’s Eve regardless of my review.

Fans of Valentine’s Day — whomever those poor suckers are — will probably scream that a highfalutin critic such as myself is inherently biased against films like New Year’s Eve; and, admittedly, I did enter the screening of New Year’s Eve assured that I would hate it. Considering my excruciatingly low opinion of Valentine’s Day, I figured that the odds were somewhat in favor of New Year’s Eve being a little bit better… But… Heavens to Murgatroyd! It turns out that New Year’s Eve is a mindless clusterfuck of ridiculousness!

Thanks to the relentless barrage of characters (most with fleeting roles that would normally be described as cameos) and no narrative to speak of (people are in love, people are dying, people are having babies, the ball at Times Square is stuck, blah blah blah…), writing a brief synopsis of New Year’s Eve is impossible. As with Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve relies so much on Hollywood stereotypes and tropes that anyone can flawlessly determine how each character’s storyline will end within minutes of their introduction. New Year’s Eve serves two purposes: to showcase a menagerie of Hollywood stars as if mere mannequins on a conveyor belt and to provide a few forced opportunities for Jon Bon Jovi to sing a few songs on screen.

It is quite fitting that Hollywood still churns out thoughtless, assembly line holiday films like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, since it is Hollywood that created the myths behind these holidays in the first place. The situations and dialogue (more like mindless dribble) found within Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve are by no means realistic — trust me, this stuff only happens in the movies. I am not a trained psychiatrist, but I suspect that the reason so many people get depressed during holidays like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve is because they cannot live up to the unrealistic expectations set by Hollywood. I will leave you with one question: Why do people watch these films if, in the end, these films are just going to make them feel like shit?

LAFF 2011: THE SEDUCTION OF INGMAR BERGMAN

The booklet of The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman.

Sparks fly 

By Miranda Inganni

Probably the event of 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival, on Saturday night at the Ford Amphitheatre the musical group Sparks (Kimono My House) and film director Guy Madden (The Saddest Music in the World) presented The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman.

Based on an original story, written and staged by Sparks' Ron and Russell Mael and directed by Madden, the performance was based on the eponymous 2009 album by Sparks, which chronicles the imaginary travels and temptations of Swedish auteur, Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries), on an imaginary trip to Hollywood, California.

It's 1950-something and a Hollywood film mogul (Russell) has the idea to lure Bergman (Peter Franzen) to Tinseltown to direct blockbusters. He sends limos and ladies to help convince the practical quintessential existentialSwede. While black-clad minions move scenery in the shadows, back at his Hollywood headquarters Bergman tosses and turns on his upright, red-sheeted bed, all the while contemplating his next move or movie.

The brothers Mael are pitch-perfect (in every sense of the term) and Franzen turns in a great(ly), conflicted Bergman. Should the writer-director stay to enjoy the warm weather yet endure the torment of tourists, or return home to a chilly climate yet critical acclaim (a lá his Cannes Festival win for Smiles Of a Summer Night)?

With Warhol-colored images projected on the screen behind the action, this brilliant bit of deconstructed musical theater is like a hyper staged reading -- all of it worth a viewing, seeing, listening and experiencing.

FILM NEWS: HOLLYWOOD PROTEST

Demonstrators and tourists in front of the fabled Chinese Theatre during the antiwar protest. Photo by Horace Coleman.

Antiwar Activists Arrested at Hollywood’s Chinese Theatre

By Ed Rampell

A March 19 antiwar demonstration in Los Angeles ended with around nine activists being taken away by L.A.P.D. officers after they occupied the courtyard of Hollywood’s world famous Chinese Theatre. Up to 25 veterans or relatives of military personnel deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan staged the sit-down strike on the cement blocks bearing movie stars’ footprints and inscriptions in front of the Asian-themed movie palace Sid Grauman opened in 1927. The protesters held photos of their uniformed loved ones and placed boots with name cards over the cement that had been autographed when wet by celebrities such as Clint Eastwood. The sit-down strikers also displayed a cement slab of their own engraved with boot prints and the words “Forgotten Dead,” plus a placard that read: “True Cost of War, 5,941,” referring to the number of U.S. servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The act of civil disobedience began around 3:15 p.m. as an antiwar march and rally protesting the eighth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, plus the Afghan and now Libyan wars. A speaker on the truck that served as a stage commented that the sit-in participants were “Disrupting business as usual, taking a stand by sitting down.” About 40 armed L.A.P.D. officers surrounded the peaceful activists, using metal railings and bicycles to cut the courtyard off from throngs of demonstrators, tourists and superhero impersonators in front of what is now Mann’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd.’s celebrated “Walk of Fame,” with its inset stars honoring various Tinseltown talents.

A policeman videotaped the courtyard occupiers and a policewoman kneeled to talk with participants in the action, which included Dede Miller, the sister of noted “Antiwar Mom” Cindy Sheehan (who reportedly took part in a Northern California protest) and aunt of Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq and whose photo Miller held. The sit-down strikers also included members of Military Families Speak Out, a national organization of people opposed to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who have relatives or loved ones currently in the military, or who have served in the military since the fall of 2002.

The uniformed officers conferred with an African-American man in a suit who may have been a theater employee, as well as with attorney Jim Lafferty, an organizer of the peace march and rally and head of the L.A. office of the National Lawyers Guild. This reporter, who was in the frontline of the crowd watching the unfolding drama, overheard a sergeant give orders to L.A.P.D. officers: “Take responsibility for the arrests. Two at a time.” At this point about six policemen were admitted from the sidewalk into the Chinese Theatre’s courtyard. One protester, a middle aged man who’d earlier given an angry speech at Hollywood and Vine about what the Iraq War had done to his PTSD-suffering son, was allowed to leave the courtyard, and then delivered another address from the truck/stage.

One by one, beginning with a woman, up to nine sit-down strikers rose and were peacefully led away, accompanied by an officer on either side, as supporters in the crowd applauded and cheered their comrades on, sometimes by name. One women escorted off the property wore a Code Pink T-shirt. Another woman gave the peace sign behind her back as officers accompanied her across the courtyard to an entrance way of an exit leading outside of the theatre complex. The last protester was taken away by police around 4:05 p.m. According to Lafferty, they were booked and charged with trespassing, and then released. The rest of the demonstrators left the scene of their own accord, apparently without being arrested. The black man in plainclothes returned the boots representing fallen warriors to the sidewalk. Police were still inside the theatre courtyard as late as 5:00 p.m.

Coincidentally, one of the cement blocks the sit-down strikes had occupied bore the footprints and inscription of Tom Cruise. Shortly before the civil disobedience had begun, Ron Kovic -- the paralyzed Vietnam vet portrayed by Cruise in Oliver Stone’s 1989 antiwar classic, Born On the Fourth of July – spoke onstage to thousands of rally-goers while ensconced in the wheelchair he’s been confined to since Kovic was shot 43 years ago in Indochina.

“The power of the people is unbeatable,” declared Kovic. “We see it in Tunisia, Cairo. We are not exempt in this country from sweeping change… It can happen here… We are moving into a period of great change.”

Kovic then led the crowd in an a cappella rendition of John Lennon’s "Give Peace a Chance."

Other notables at the demo included actor James Cromwell, who was Oscar-nominated for playing the farmer in 1995’s talking pig comedy, Babe, and more recently appeared in Secretariat, and cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who won two Academy Awards, including for the 1976 Woody Guthrie biopic, Bound For Glory. The Foo Fighters’ Chris Shifflet spoke and sang onstage. Marci Winograd, a perennial left-leaning Democratic congressional candidate now seeking to replace Rep. Jane Harmon, also denounced the wars.

Empty military footgear symbolizing fallen warriors were placed on spots bearing celebrity footprints. Photo by Horace Coleman.

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which had organized the peace rallies and march, estimated the number of L.A. participants to be about 4,000 people. The event started at noon with a brief rally at the fabled intersection of Hollywood and Vine, followed by a march down Hollywood Blvd. to Sunset Blvd., past CNN’s L.A. headquarters, then back up to Hollywood Blvd., where a second and longer rally was held in front of the Chinese Theatre. Along the way, marchers encountered a handful of religious counter-demonstrators, who they outnumbered by more than 100 to one. The peace parade was led by Kovic, who frequently flashed the peace sign with his fingers. Marchers held antiwar banners and signs and chanted slogans such as: “Hey Obama We Say No, The Occupation’s Got To Go. Hey Obama, Yes You Can. Troops Out of Afghanistan.” An overhead blimp carried by demonstrators bore a banner asking: “How’s the war economy for you?” Speakers emphasized the economic costs of the wars, which they estimated to cost $700 million per day, while schools, hospitals and other essentials were being cutback.

Rally speakers denounced not only the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the spread of warfare to Libya; the allegedly abusive treatment of imprisoned PFC Bradley Manning, accused of giving classified information to WikiLeaks; as well as the perils of the ongoing nuclear catastrophe in Japan. There were demonstrations at other U.S. cities, such as at Washington, D.C., where more than 100 demonstrators, including Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, were arrested outside the White House.

FILM FEATURE: PAGE OSTROW

Producer Page Ostrow

Producing pictures of importance

By Ed Rampell

The fact that Beverly Hills-based Page Ostrow is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors has contributed to rather than hampered her success in the highly competitive, male-dominated movie world. The profound life lessons Ostrow absorbed from her parents -- who met in Germany after their liberation from different concentration camps -- have served this producer’s representative well.

“Around 1960 my father came to Toronto without two nickels to rub together, and he went on to have the second largest manufacturing company of leather coats in Canada,” proudly states Ostrow, President of Ostrow and Company.

Ostrow developed the sharp, shrewd negotiating skills necessary for obtaining distribution for hundreds of films and navigating Hollywood’s shark infested waters by paying close attention to and implementing strategies she learned from her Dad, a self made businessman.

“I worked with my father for four years, learning how to do business the old school way, which includes having the long view of building close relationships with clients and associates,” said Ostrow.

But more important than the business acumen Ostrow accumulated from her family is the ethos bestowed by parents who endured Bergen-Belsen, Gross-Rosen and other slave labor camps. Indeed, as one of a handful of the film industry’s producer’s representatives, Ostrow is on a movie mission, using her savvy deal making skills to secure outlets and film financing for socially aware indie features and documentaries that might otherwise fall by the wayside amidst Hollywood’s focus on big budget glitz, glamour and escapism. Ostrow hooks up independent, hard hitting filmmakers with distributors who release their work worldwide on all platforms, including theatrical, television, home entertainment/ VOD (video on demand), Internet and all ancillary rights.

“We’re fortunate to represent quality films,” said Ostrow. “Films of conscience with cinematic vision meet with our commitment and strategy toward championing a new global reality”

The specialty cinema Ostrow and Company represents includes Juvies, a documentary about juvenile offenders tried as adults by what the firm’s website calls “a kind of vending machine justice.” The 2004 doc aired on HBO.

Heavens Fall is a 2006 dramatization of the infamous Scottsboro Boys court case, wherein nine Blacks were falsely accused of raping two Southern white women during the 1930s, starring David Strathairn, Timothy Hutton and Leelee Sobieski. Mohammed Gohar’s 2008 The Anti-Bin Laden is an award winning nonfiction look at the Egyptian televangelist and businessman, Amar Khaled, who preaches a moderate vision. Stolen Childhoods is a doc narrated by Meryl Streep about forced child labor. The firm’s 200-plus titles also include feel good movies like Dating Games People Play and Summer Dreams.

A day in this producer’s representative’s hectic life reveals her to be a whirlwind of activity. At her office, located a stone’s throw from Rodeo Drive, Ostrow and her team seem to need eight arms each to get through in-house meetings, nonstop phone calls and emails from around the globe. Ostrow works the phone with an ease Alexander Graham Bell would marvel at, negotiating contracts with filmmakers and distributors, navigating the finer points of a deal with studio executives to win her producers bigger payoffs.

The firm’s busy pace became fever-pitched during Egypt’s revolutionary turmoil, when Mohammed Gohar, CEO of Video Cairo Sat, made frantic long distance calls to Ostrow and Company, declaring that VCS’ “150 employees are holed up in my office for nine days now with the lights dimmed to protect from looters and security at our door protecting us. We’re providing satellite, crew and information to all the reporters from around the world here in Egypt. We’re currently missing three of our team who went out as crew to report and have not returned.”

The child of Holocaust survivors empathizes with the desperate Egyptian, and asks, “How can I help?” “Just watch our film,” replies Gohar, who, via satellite, sends Ostrow a link to The Last Breath, arguably the first documentary chronicling the events leading up to Egypt’s revolution and the people’s power revolt there. Viewing the doc, Ostrow and her staff are, she says, “amazed by the uncanny predictions detailed in the film which are now a reality in Egypt,” and the producer’s rep signs a contract with Gohar to represent The Last Breath.

Ostrow’s team includes 30 cinema scouts who travel the film festival circuit and trade shows all over the world, including Toronto (Ostrow’s hometown), Austin (where the South By Southwest Festival is taking place this week), the Bahamas, Utah (home of Robert Redford’s Sundance), the French Riviera (Cannes), Santa Monica (the American Film Market), etc. Every day there’s another film festival somewhere; Ostrow’s team covers most of them. At these venues producers seeking distribution for character driven feature films and socially relevant documentaries are encouraged to submit their work for consideration. An in-house team of executives review each and every film submitted for filtration to see which are suitable for producer's representation.

Those selected are then offered a deal in exchange for a retainer and percentage of business done by Ostrow’s multimillion dollar Beverly Hills outfit, which has access to film distributors in various mediums and platforms. Filmmakers may know their art, but Ostrow – who has worked for distributors such as Graham King (The Aviator; The Departed) for 10 years and on her own as a producer’s rep for another decade -- has the business savvy, contacts and database to ensure producers find audiences for their work.

But this Beverly Hills wheeler-dealer isn’t only in it for the moolah. Remembering her roots, Ostrow supports Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, recording testimonials of thousands of survivors of Hitler’s genocide. In 2004 she served on the board of directors of the National Council for Jewish Women, serving as an activist as well. Ostrow was also the first Hollywood entertainment executive invited to speak at the United Nations Film Festival in New York.

“The noblest search is the search for excellence,” Ostrow stresses. “Could I have made more money doing slasher films and movies with gratuitous sex and violence? I don’t even think about it; there’s many ways to make money. Feature films and socially conscious documentaries are the kinds of films I like to represent. I’d rather leave a legacy, change lives and have an impact. There’s an audience for these types of films."

Another Harvest Moon is one of these films. Starring Doris Roberts, Piper Laurie, Anne Meara, Richard Schiff, Cybill Shepherd and Cameron Monaghan, the film is scheduled for an April release in selected theaters. The movie deals with the circle of life in three generations of a family and stars Ernest Borgnine, who just won the Screen Actors Guild’s Life Achievement Award.

While growing up in Toronto Ostrow was bitten by the movie bug after seeing the 1972 anti-Nazi musical, Cabaret, starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey.

“When I first started going to Cannes,” she recalls, “I brought with me the Time Magazine that had on the cover a Holocaust survivor in the camps behind electric wires, in black and white uniform, and it said: ‘Love Letters From the Camps.’ Even during the times of the concentration camps people actually sent love letters back and forth. And I thought, ‘If they could do that, and have hope and be brave, then I can certainly handle what any of the notoriously difficult Hollywood players or studio executive at Cannes can throw my way as a young woman deal making on the Croisette of the French Riviera.’ Courage is never letting your actions be dictated by fears.”

Page Ostrow has survived and thrived in Tinseltown, enhancing the cinema scene by championing the indie and the underdog.