NEWPORT BEACH 2012: THE WAR AROUND US

Sherine Tadros in The War Around Us.

There will be no shelter here

By Ed Rampell

One of the hardest hitting documentaries I’ve seen in years, Abdallah Omeish’s The War Around Us deserves not only distribution so audiences can see it, but also an Oscar nomination.

The War Around Us is the true story of the only two international journalists reporting from the war zone, as Israel bombarded and invaded Gaza in late 2008. Al Jazeera’s Cairo-born, Arab-American Ayman Mohyeldin and Arab-British Sherine Tadros were on the ground in Gaza City during the Israeli military operation that resulted, according to this gripping documentary, in the highest number of Palestinians killed in a single day since 1948.

The dynamic duo of Mohyeldin and Tadros does yeoman work reporting on the war’s consequences on a largely civilian population for the Arab network, and provide a window on the conflict to the outside world. The doc alleges that the Israeli Defense Forces committed war crimes against noncombatants, including unarmed women, children and elders, including the use of white phosphorus, which an Israeli spokesman denies, although eyewitnesses, including human rights activists, confirm it. During the conflagration, as hospitals are filled beyond the bursting point and basics such as electricity, water and even cheeseburgers, are cut off, a U.N. compound is bombarded by the IDF.

The War Around Us is a gripping reminder that war is hell, and of a specific conflict most of us have forgotten about. Of course, the poor Palestinians remember it, but this doc would have benefitted from providing more context as to why the Israelis did what they did, and the roles that the change in U.S. administrations (from the Bush to the Obama regime) and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s alleged corruption played in this devastation -- so heroically chronicled by Mohyeldin and Tadros.   

  

  

NEWPORT BEACH 2012: UNDER AFRICAN SKIES



Paul Simon in Under African Skies.

Sounds of defiance

By Ed Rampell

Joe Berlinger’s complicated two-hour documentary Under African Skies has, on the one hand, a sonorous soundtrack featuring Paul Simon and his African Graceland band. On the other hand, the doc deals with a complex issue: The role of art and politics. When the better half of Simon and Garfunkel flew to Johannesburg to record tracks for an album mixing American pop and the South African sound, he ran afoul of a cultural boycott supported by the U.N. and African National Congress against the tyrannical apartheid regime, enforced in those gloomy days before Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

Twenty five years later Simon reunites with his onetime African bandmates and the doc examines the controversial role Simon played then and its resonance today. In crucial scenes the aging Simon meets one of the ANC revolutionaries who condemned the musician in the 1980s for breaking a boycott intended to strangle the segregationist state. Simon continues to decry the way politicians use artists and insists on the right of talents to express themselves. Who’s right? Having triumphed over apartheid, the ANC activist can afford to be magnanimous.

In any case, the music, featuring Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Simon, etc., is extraordinary, and creates a musical mélange that’s the dialectical opposite of apartheid.         

  



NEWPORT BEACH 2012: CAROL CHANNING

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Carol Channing in Carol Channing: Larger than Life.

Gentlemen prefer talent

By Ed Rampell

Watching Dori Berinstein’s delightful documentary Carol Channing: Larger Than Life is a sheer joy. The now 91-year-old performer who embodied Broadway with her original onstage incarnations of Lorelei Lee in Gentleman Prefer Blondes and the eponymous matchmaker in Hello Dolly! is a force of nature.

This nonfiction biopic traces Channing from her 1921 birth into a Christian Science family in Seattle and upbringing in San Francisco to her debut onstage, TV appearances from Steve Allen to Laugh In, and movie career. In addition to the ever hilarious Channing herself, the doc’s talking heads include Betty Garrett, Jerry Herman, Lily Tomlin, Bruce Vilanch, Tommy Tune, etc. Channing’s second husband, Harry Kullijian-- a childhood sweetheart who reappeared late in life -- co-stars. (However, the film sweeps under the carpet Channing’s disastrous long first marriage and how her career conflicted with motherhood.)

You don’t have to be a fan of Channing or of musical theater to be swept away by this feel good ode to the Great White Way’s eternal nightingale. Cinema wasn’t the medium that most favored the entertainer with those flying saucer eyes, lips as red as Dorothy’s ruby slippers and blonde tresses -- Marilyn Monroe and Barbra Streisand portrayed Lorelei and Dolly onscreen. But this doc finally makes Channing -- Oscar-nominated for 1967’s Thoroughly Modern Millie-- the movie star she deserves to be, too.      

  

NEWPORT BEACH 2012: WORTH THE WEIGHT



LaShawna (Constance Reese) and Miles (Tommy Snider) in Worth the Weight.

Fat chance

By Ed Rampell

Worth the Weight is in the tradition of Paddy Chayefsky’s 1955  film, Marty, a realistic look at love among ordinary people. Like Ernest Borgnine as the Bronx butcher in that Best Picture Oscar winner, Robbie Kaller plays a meaty plebian character yearning for romance. Sam is a washed up university athlete whose football injury put the kibosh on his NFL and college aspirations, leading to enormous weight gain and an unglamorous bowling alley career.

Weighing an estimated 411 Sam enters into a weight loss contest with his roommate and friends where he also meets Cassie (Jillian Leigh), an attractive trainer (not “a coach!”) at “Fat Cutters.” Leigh renders an intriguing character study, as a young woman ensnared in an unsatisfying romance with pretentious poet Stephan (Bryan Bellamo), who contrasts sharply with the earthy, good natured Sam. What’s a woman to do?

This romantic comedy’s supporting cast includes Constance Reese as LaShawna, who lights up every scene she’s in as the girlfriend of quirky Miles (Tommy Snider). Coincidentally, Reese portrayed Michelle Obama in a musical about the First Family -- this film’s theme is a perfect fit for the First Lady’s anti-obesity campaign.

Director Ryan Sage’s feature debut, which won the Beverly Hills Film Festival’s Audience Award, is also an excellent example of low budget indies shot with DV cameras.



NBFF 2011: EAST FIFTH BLISS

Morris (Michael C. Hall) in East Fifth Bliss.

Unhappy times

By John Esther

Making its world premiere as the Newport Beach Film Festival 2011 Opening Night Film, East Fifth Bliss tells yet another tale of a dorky homebody with no income, no personality and no interesting aspects nor prospects yet manages to be the sane one amongst people who are smarter and more attractive than he.

Morris Bliss (Michal C. Hall) is in his mid-30s, unemployed and still living at home with Dad (Peter Fonda). Morris cannot even do simple tasks around the home like get groceries, let alone find a job or visit all the places he wants to around the world. Drifting in an asphalt jungle, Morris has lots of people really interested in him. NJ (Chris Messina) lives a life of adventure and intrigue but is always too frugal to prohibit Morris from buying him a beer. Stephanie (Brie Larson) is a schoolgirl half his age with attractive attributes yet can only reduce her young self to seduce Morris. Morris' neighbor, Andrea (Lucy Liu) also comes on to Morris because, oh I do not know, because he talks?

There is no reason any of these people should draw themselves to Morris anymore than Stephanie's father, Steven (Brad William Henke), should, but it sure provides for some comedy, plus far too many coincidences, too.

Directed and co-written by Michael Knowles, based on the novel by co-screenwriter Douglas Light, to its success East Fifth Bliss relies greatly on the dialogue and performance of a strong cast. The storyline is thin and familiar and the ending is patronizing, yet the individual scenes between Morris and company and the banter delivered by the likes of Larson and Liu save this film from being sub par. As usual, Henke gives a stellar performance.

 

NBFF 2011: THE LIFE OF FISH

Andrés (Santiago Cabrera) in The Life of Fish.

Moments across childhood rooms

By John Esther

When he was younger, Andrés (Santiago Cabrera) had close friends, a special girl named Bea (Blanca Lewin) and a general sense of communal security. But that was more than 10 years ago. Andrés is now 33, living abroad, working around the world as a travel writer and living a life of noncommittal relationships – most likely constantly communicating in a language not his first (or theirs).

In general, Andrés probably enjoys his modus vivendi, but when the expatriate returns home, what he left behind drowns him in a seductive/reductive whirlpool of remorse and regretful moments.

Set in near-real time, and shot in a singular Santiago, Chilé home, Andrés attends a birthday party he is already trying to leave as the film starts. Yet, there is no exit. Other people, at least the memories associated with them, are heaven and hell. As Andrés meets aged persons of times past, he realizes how different his life has become from those he knew when he was young. They have kids, he has travel plans. They live where they grew up whereas he currently resides in Berlin, Germany. Their narratives continue to grow together as his is a monologue signifying a lack of lifetime companionship. He has spread up and out; they have sprawled sideways.

While many moments pang the life and losses of Andrés' heart, nothing seems to hurt him more – even more than the death of a dear mutual friend – than letting Bea go. He wants her back and maybe she wants him, too, but life's grand amorous opportunities are precious few.

Suggesting we all live inside our own aquariums -- at varying, accreting external levels -- writer-director Matías Bize's exquisite film also manages to summon the interior emotions of his characters. The power of suggestion found in The Life of Fish sometimes reaches Bressonian heights, only Bize uses the faces of some good, and good looking, actors to convey that which is not being said, but is definitely present. And the moment flees.

A fine film in general, Chilé's recent Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film will particularly poke (pain?) those who have traveled the more unfamiliar roads, whereupon you left behind the spaces people still dear to you continue to dwell in and maintain within and without you.

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. 

NBFF 2011: BROTHER'S JUSTICE

Dax Shepard (Dax Shepard) in Brother's Justice.

Title game

By John Esther

Dax Shepard (Dax Shepard), the funniest guy in Idiocracy and Baby Mama, has decided to retire his comic chops and become a marital arts star in his next film, which will be written, produced and maybe directed (he has not decided yet) by Shepard. He does not have much of a storyline yet for the his makeover project, much less a script, but he has a title, Brother's Justice. 

After Shepard and his producing buddy, Nate Tuck, are rejected numerous times, and all the poorer for the delays, they decide to reach out to fellow Hollywood actors like Tom Arnold and Ashton Kutcher who are not immediately in on the joke...until Shepard starts pitching.  

Co-directed by Shepard and David Palmer, Brother's Justice comes off in many ways, such as its attack on Hollywood preciousness and America's homophobia, like a stripped down version of Sascha Baron Cohen's latest films. Shepard is not as gusty to go undercover to unmask society's shortcomings as Cohen, nor does he have the budget, but the mockumentary is still a pretty funny send up on moviemaking and, as such, will definitely appeal to Hollywood insiders a tad more than the general public.

Considering how well this would have played to Tinseltown audiences, and that the Newport Beach Film Festival snagged Brother's Justice up before the upcoming Los Angeles Film Festival could screen it, shows somebody behind the Orange Curtain was on his or her toes.

NBFF 2011: BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS

Sum Chung-yang (Donnie Yen) in Bodyguards and Assassins.

Re(a)d history

By John Esther

After a 40-minute delay, the Newport Beach Film Festival screened (somewhat incompetently: wrong ratio aspects, reel-changing snafus) the 140-minute film, Bodyguards and Assassins, to a surprisingly half-empty theater. Notwithstanding the delay, it was a Saturday afternoon, it was the festival's only screening of the epic film, it featured martial arts star Donnie Yen (Hero; Ip Man) and the 2009 film has not been set for a U.S. theatrical release. I presumed the theater would be packed to capacity. 

(The film will screen at both the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Seattle International Film Festival in May.) 

Directed by Teddy Chan, Bodyguards and Assassins sets itself in British-rule Hong Kong, 1906, where a group of dedicated democrats pledge to protect Dr. Sun Wen (Zhang Hanyu) from a group of Qing assassins dedicated to the kind of law and order we see tyrannical rulers trying to preserve currently in Syria, Iran and Libya. And China.

For those seeking nonstop martial action and little else, look elsewhere. There is plenty of plot, back story and character development here. Director Chan and writers Tim Nam Chun, Junli Guo, Bing Wu and James Yuen want audiences to know the motivations behind each of the main historical characters, most of which happen to be, legally speaking in U.S. terms, kids. Seventeen-year-old Chong-huang (Wang Po-cheih) is set to attend school in the United States, but would rather stay and fight for a new China. Chow Tofu (Mengke Bateer) is a very big, seemingly invincible teenager from Shaolin moved by anti-authoritarianism. Recently-orphaned Fang Hong (Li Yuchun) learns at the age of 16 what is really important.

A fine film in some regards (impressive set design; crafty fight scenes; dialogue about East versus West values), Bodyguards and Assassins, is suspicious in light of China's current regime. Young characters ready to shed blood for the revolution, the reported $23-million dollar film is not only about learning Chinese history, but also about perpetuating sentiments of China's current revolution for today's youth. Keep up your Red Guard.

Starting from its simplistic title cuing the youth to the queues to see those martial arts queues (both historical and cinematic symbols -- depending on one's age and knowledge of Sino history), once we learn to love, at least like, the characters in Bodyguards and Assassins, the film revs up for some hyperbolic action. The targeted demographic: young viewers. History gets traded for histrionics as the film's protagonists fight with superhuman skills -- fighting multiple-armed people simultaneously and prevailing, withstanding increasing brutality and enduring hardship, all for the future of country. No sacrifice is too great for the children of the revolution. After the main protagonists die we get a bio clip underneath with name, city of origin, year of birth, year of death. Immortalized. 

It is not just the youth here, either. Yen's character, Sum Chung-yang, is an undetermined-aged (how convenient) policeman with a checkered past. A gambler opened to the highest bidder, he, too, learns that he must sacrifice himself for a better tomorrow. When heroes, historical or cinematic, die on the screen, the message of sacrifice to an audience is similar -- if not repetitive to an illiterate viewer.

For Occidental eyes, Bodyguards and Assassins is more of a playful recreation of history than anything else. There is story and action. The good guys and gal prevail before his and her magnanimous deaths and the British Empire takes a chop to the sternum (although it can still get its people to fork over $30 million for a royal wedding). But for those under the rule of China's thumb -- beyond being financially indebted to it -- Bodyguard and Assassins illustrates something else, quite insidious.