PSIFF 2013: WHITE TIGER

A scene from White Tiger.

A roar of war

By Ed Rampell

I recently watched an episode of Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States Showtime documentary series, which made a compelling case that the Red Amy won the war in Europe during WWII. I also saw Russian director Sergei Loznitsa’s feature, In The Fog, recently, wherein Soviet partisans battle Nazis in Belarus. So I was intrigued to see another Russian fiction film set during the Second World War and Karen Shakhnazarov’s White Tiger is as sharply exciting as In The Fog was foggily slow paced.

White Tiger is about tank warfare during WWII, but this is no Battle of the Bulge straightforward type of tale. As the Red Army inexorably marches across the Eastern Front towards Berlin, the USSR soldiers are stymied by the appearance on the battlefield by a sort of super tank, the eponymous White Tiger. Although the combat sequences are tautly directed and exhilarating to watch, Shakhnazarov does something off-kilter that makes film extremely exceptional. The director/co-writer bends and blends genres, adding a supernatural element to what is otherwise a realistic war movie. This creative concoction not only captivates audiences but confounds the high ranking Soviet characters, since otherworldliness is contrary to these atheists’ Marxist beliefs.

So White Tiger works at several levels: As a war movie; history lesson painted with lightning; a ghost story; and also a film with a philosophical subtext. The soundtrack is thunderous (you’ll see what I mean) and Wagnerian, as this very Russian picture uses a score by the most Germanic of composers. Often thrilling, White Tiger is at all times absorbing, well-direct and stirringly acted.

Alexey Vertikov is haunting in an understated performance as a Clint Eastwood-like tank commander with no name who seems to rise, zombie-like, from the dead to do battle with the Nazi hyper-tank. His spectral character comes to be called Naydyonov and the depiction by Vertikov may give you vertigo. Vitaly Kishchenko likewise delivers a stellar performance as Fedotov, the hardened officer who puts aside official Communist dogma to confront and embrace Naydyonov’s extraordinarily uncanny utterances, which strike the doctrinaire Marxists as mumbo jumbo. As the real life Marshal Gerogy Zhukov, Valery Grishko is properly skeptical of the paranormal elements. Vitaly Dordzhiev provides some comic relief as Berdyev, one of the “Dirty Dozen” elite tank crew members assembled to counter the White Tiger and he reminds us that the Red Army was multi-culti and included Asian soldiers. The Nazis are all played by German actors, with Karl Kranzkowski chilling in a cameo as Hitler, with an Inglourious Basterds type of historical twist, as well as a meditation on the nature of evil.

Unfortunately, some in-the-know distributor hasn’t picked White Tiger up for theatrical release yet. So don’t let the gods of the tanks prevent you from seeing Russia’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which -- like many important film festivals -- performs a valuable function as gateway and launching pad for offbeat cinema. Also, White Tiger did not make the Oscar shortlist, thus decreasing its chances of theatrical release in the U.S.

White Tiger screens at PSIFF Jan. 4, 1 p.m., Camelot Theatres; Jan. 7, 1 p.m. Camelot Theatres. For more PSIFF info: www.psfilmfest.org.  

 

  

 

 

 

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

FILM REVIEW: THIS IS 40



Desi (Meagen Fox) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) in This is 40.

 Age or IQ?

By Ed Rampell

I’m not a Judd Apatow fan and, like many moviegoers who’ve already reached puberty, I find much of his work to be puerile, juvenile, etc. I shudder to apply the term “auteur” to this over-the-top writer-director-producer, just as calling Tyler Perry one likewise induces nausea. So I was surprised at how much I enjoyed This is 40. Yes, it has the usual Apatowian obsession with body parts and bodily functions, but since This is 40 deals with an older generation instead of teens, Apatow has graduated and moved up to Viagra and hemorrhoid jokes.

This is 40 is being hyped as a sorta sequel to 2007’s Knocked Up, wherein Apatow’s usual immaturity reduces sexuality to an act that leads to childbirth and the hyper-responsibility of parenthood that more or less precludes recreational sex. Fortunately, This is 40 does not focus on the annoying Seth Rogen and cloying Katherine Heigl, who, like bad needles stuck in the groove of damaged LPs, both seem to play the same role over and over again (give or take a Green Hornet or two). Luckily, this dull duo are not in This is 40, which features Knocked Up’s other couple, Pete and Debbie, who are played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann.

As the title suggests, This is 40 deals with these married non-virgins as they hit the Big Four-0. Since we met Pete and Debbie last, in just five years they somehow managed to spawn a teenager, Sadie, plus another daughter, Charlotte, who is older than five -- but never mind, this is the movies. (BTW, both girls are portrayed by Apatows real life daughters, Iris and Maude.) Nevertheless, one of the best things about This is 40 is that it kind of unspools like real life. As both Pete and Debbie turn 40 in the same week they’re faced with not only the anxieties of aging -- at first, Deb is in a state of denial -- but problems with their own parents/in-laws, raising their own kids and perhaps most tellingly, financial problems. Depression, after all, is an economic as well as psychological term.

This is the strongest element of This is 40, which joins the ranks of recent features such as Up in the Air and The Company Men in rather realistically relating how today’s bad economy is negatively affecting people’s lives. In addition to the financial meltdown, Pete has to contend with changes brought on by technology. The Internet has wrought wonders, but in its wake New Media has devastated much of  the old, especially in book/magazine/newspaper publishing and in the music industry. Pete has chosen this moment in time to open an independent record label and his efforts to launch the 60-something artist he’s signed  (Graham Parker) runs into the head winds of the new realities of the digital world, with its free downloads, intellectual property theft, et al. Meanwhile, Debbie’s boutique is beset by an unaccountable theft of merchandise and loss of income.

Along with the dire needs of Pete and Debbie to downsize their entire lifestyle, the other really good thing about This is 40 is its cast. Parker, who had a hit album back in 1975, plays himself as the aforementioned British rocker, who today suffers from gout. This musician is joined by Albert Brooks as Larry, Pete’s Minnie the Moocher dad, a failed businessman. It’s curtains for this curtains salesman, who is reduced to panhandling and taking handouts from his son, especially to keep his second, much younger family afloat amidst the flotsam and jetsam of our collapsing capitalist economy. It’s always a joy to see Brooks onscreen, and he is a sight for sore eyes as he kibitzes with his son and quibbles with his daughter-in-law.

As Debbie’s absentee dad, the highly paid, surgeon Oliver, John Lithgow provides a stark counterpoint to Larry. Is it better to have a broke ass dad who always has his hand out or a well-to-do father who’s never around? At least Oliver’s making an effort in this film.

As the boutique saleswomen Desi and Jodi, Megan Fox and comedian Charlyne Yi also add to the overall merriment. Which of them have been stealing from Debbie’s shop? The hot Desi screws a customer on the boutique’s counter and has a deep, dark secret of her own. Yi gods -- this comedian is nuts! Yi played a character named Jodi in Knocked Up and starred in and co-wrote her own skewed take on love in 2009’s Paper Heart, so it's good fun to see this quirky, goofy comic back on the big screen.

Meanwhile, as the story unfolds -- kind of horizontally instead of vertically, as many lives do -- Pete and Debbie alternately argue, have a charming romantic interlude, fret over finances, try to raise their daughters in this troubled age, and somehow keep themselves afloat as they turn 40 and face uncertainty plus the prospect of middle age. Unfortunately, unlike most of us treading water in this economy that forces more and more of us to join the ranks of les miserables, Pete and Debbie have escape hatches unavailable to most of us. But aside from this -- after all, Apatow isn’t exactly a message moviemaker like Michael Moore -- This is 40 is a pretty realistic, highly enjoyable look at a modern couple and their very contemporary, daunting woes, as they try to keep their heads, and the heads of their relatives, above water.                       

 

 

 

 

 

FILM REVIEW: THE GUILT TRIP

Andy (Seth Rogan) and Joyce (Barbara Steisand) in The Guilt Trip.

 

 

Aged and never green

By Miranda Inganni

While visiting his mom, Joyce (Barbara Streisand), in New Jersey, Andy Brewster (Seth Rogan), learns that he was named after his widowed mother’s first love. Believing that he has tracked this man down, and trying to cheer up his mother -- who, by the by, seems perfectly content with how her life is, aside from her son living 3,000 miles away -- Andy impulsively invites her to join him on his cross country road trip. Andy has business meetings set up along the way to try to sell his invention: an organic cleaning product that is safe enough to drink. While Andy’s product may be a best seller, Andy is not the best salesman. His pitch is hard to swallow even if his product is not.

Directed by Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses) and written by Dan Fogelman (Crazy, Stupid, Love) The Guilt Trip is a tepid, mediocre comedy set mostly in a car. I chuckled once. maybe twice. The idea that Joyce would be happier with a man in her life is boring and absurd. While she admits that her biggest thrill is shopping at Gap (decidedly boring), the only man she wants more of in her life is her son.

Streisand’s Joyce is a stereotypical, overbearing mom to Rogan’s underachieving son. As predictable as any movie can be, The Guilt Trip offers little more than a few chuckles. Considering the talent Rogan and Streisand possess, both actors deserve better material -- and so do discerning viewers.

FILM REVIEW: JACK REACHER

Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) in Jack Reacher.

A bit of a stretch

By John Esther

Released one week after the shooting massacre in Newtown, CT, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher opens up with Charlie (Jai Courtney) aiming his high-powered rifle at several people going about his or her day in Pittsburgh, PA. Amongst the possible targets is a young girl (Sophie Guest).

One can feel the tension in the theater. It may be too soon to show such images, but studios have to follow their release schedule. 

Then Jai starts shooting, killing strangers from thousands of feet away.

Given the recent tragedy that took 26 lives at one elementary school, there is a haunting element to the movie. Fortunately, in this movieland the police move in and immediately apprehend the suspect, Army sniper James Barr (Joseph Sikora). Blatantly guilty to the powers that be, DA Rodin (Richard Jenkins) will seek the death penalty for James Barr. On another hand, the DA's daughter, Helen (Rosamund Pike) will defend the mass murderer. Before he gets beat up in custody, all James Barr has to say is: "Get Jack Reacher."

A sort of modern-day Malpaso Man, Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) lives, breathes and sleuths on the peripheries of society. No bank account. No drivers liscense. No address. You do not find Jack Reacher; Jack Reacher finds you.

As a fellow vet who encountered Barr before, Jack Reacher joins forces with Helen to help James Barr, promising to help her if she does the "unorthodox" thing -- as an attorney for the defendant -- by talking to the families of the victims. As a result, certainty commences to unravel.

Clearly Helen is out of her league while nobody is in league with Jack Reacher. Helen becomes bait while Jack Reacher swears to drink a bad guy's blood out of a boot. We all know it will be drinking time real soon.

Based on the character created by Lee Child the film is a bit confused on where it stands on issues of brutality and revenge, but not where it stands on government efficiency.

In the beginning it is a fairly clearcut case of guilt for the DA (although the audience knows Jack Barr did not pull the trigger from the beginning) and there is no reason for a DA, one who has never lost a death penalty case, not to seek the death penalty for someone who appears to be blatantly guilty of killing six random people in cold blood. Do we even have to go through with a trial? Can we just hang him in the town square?

Well, the city officials may have been too hasty in their judgement, but, later on, Jack Reacher and the audience are certain he has the right people, so he will do the executing. Has he/we learned nothing? (There is an accompanying "Take the Law Into Your Own Hands" game to the movie.)

Then there is strange conclusion to a car chase scene where citizens in the street feel compelled to sheild Jack Reacher after he steps out of a moving car heading toward a police barricade. Maybe it is different in Pittsburgh, but if you cause a wild cop car chase in Los Angeles, you better hope the cops get a hold of you before the people do. That crap just pisses us off. But I guess cops are government, too (public union!), and are not to be trusted more than the sweaty, white male being chased by them.

One could also talk about the film's questionable racial narrative and the way it just turns a smart, passionate, professional woman like Helen into in increasing sexual object (her cleavage comes out for the third act) and the way other women in the film are portrayed -- "slut"; "addict"; and "adulteress" -- or how someone like Jack Reacher could get away with so many murders -- justified or not -- with impunity.

But why let things like the law, ethics and logic get in the way of yet another American tale of violence and retribution? It does not seem to off-screen.



 

CONCERT REVIEW: VESPERS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

The Los Angeles Master Chorale at WDCH.

Hymm to her

By Ed Rampell

Downtown Los Angeles is certainly an epicenter for 21^st century hustle and bustle. But inside of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, with its futuristic façade, one can find an acoustical oasis from the dissonant sounds of traffic, construction, boom boxes and the like, far from the madding crowd. To paraphrase Max Ehrmann’s splendiferous poem, Desiderata, within this vestibule of a more genteel culture one can “Flow placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in sacred music.”

With its performance of four century old vocal and instrumental compositions, WDCH became a sort of time machine on Nov. 18, as the Los Angeles Master Chorale (LAMC) and Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra (MABO) presented the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi’s seldom played 1610 Vespers of the Blessed Virgin. Vespers is a form of religious music derived from Catholic prayers and Monteverdi’s scarcely heard hymns were serenely sung by the aptly named Master Chorale’s 40-ish sopranos, altos, tenors and basses, stylishly clad in gowns and tuxedos, conducted by music director Grant Gershon. Eight soloists alternated with groups of singers, males with females, moving on and off the stage and around the interior of WDCH, even climbing up beside the organ in the nosebleed seats, as if to be closer to the god they were praising in Latin. The Vespers’texts were translated in Performances Magazine, a program guide given to each ticket buyer.

The LAMC was accompanied by the MABO, which likewise varied in size over the course of the 90-ish minute Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, ranging up to 13 musicians. The baroque band leaned towards the strings, with two violinists, a violone-ist and a cellist, and most intriguingly and entrancingly for one accustomed to 21^st century instrumentation, an arch-lute and a theorbo, played by John Schneiderman and Daniel Zuluaga. The latter two are long necked plucked stringed instruments; with their round deep backs, lutes were all the rage during the Renaissance, while theorbos were popularized in the late 16^th century.

MABO also includes a portative organ (Ian Pritchard tickled the proverbial ivories) and a brass section consisting of three cornetto plus three sackbut players. The latter is a Renaissance/Baroque era trombone with a telescopic slide that allows for a more chromatic range of notes.

The combination of LAMC and BAMO produced a mellifluous, transcendent, soaring, sublime sound. The tranquil tonalities and harmonies transported one’s soul either back in time, before modernism’s harsh sound and fury, or even towards the heavens. Mezzo Soprano Janelle DeStafano’s solos were particularly lovely. Indeed, the music’s delicate beauty made one feel that the “house of the lord” they sang about was right there in WDCH -- that is, if one believes music is the laughter of the lord.

Interestingly, some of the Vespers of the Blessed Virgin's lyrics are sexually suggestive. For instance, in "Nigra Sum" the sensuous words translate as: “I am a black but beautiful daughter of Jerusalem, So the king loved me and led me into his bedroom and said to me: ‘Arise, my love, and come away… the time of pruning has come.’”

Well, who’s to say what’s sacred and what’s profane? No “ifs,” “ands” or “buts” about it: How splendid to hear this all too rare rendition, with sackbuts, a lute and theorbo played about 400 years after their heydays, long after heavy metal rockers and hip-hoppers have replaced strolling minstrels and troubadours. As Desiderata counsels: “Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.” These age old instruments, along with Monteverdi, still offer repose and solace in order to soothe the seething souls of our high anxiety age.


For information: (213) 972-7282; www.laphil.org  

 

 

THEATER REVIEW: OTHER DESERT CITIES

Elephant

By Ed Rampell

Sometimes, agitprop plays come across like pamphlets and onstage screeds. On the other hand, “interior” dramas solely dealing with their characters’ inner lives seem devoid of a social context. However, the great thing about Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities is how the playwright adroitly interweaves the play’s political background and subtext with a very realistic family drama, with all the agility of a playwriting Spiderman, who pins tales as well as webs. Traversing a tightrope between two genres, it’s as if Other Desert Cities' dramatist has found a happy medium between, or even perhaps united, the best of the Clifford Odets of Waiting for Lefty with the Eugene O’Neill of The Iceman Cometh. Baitz combines the generation gap, antiwar protest from Vietnam to Iraq, the Reagan era and more with a conflict between a daughter and her parents that would not have been unfamiliar to ancient audiences attending Greek amphitheatres.

Baitz’s skillfully brewed concoction -- decidedly shaken, not stirred -- works exceedingly well in this two-acter, especially as the complex story is brought to life by an ensemble of gifted veteran thespians. The plot concerns Brooke (Robin Weigert), a troubled author who has relocated to the East Coast, who visits her doting parents in their Palm Springs home -- stylishly rendered with desert background by set designer Takeshi Kata -- during the holidays following George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection. At first, the sixtyish Lyman (Robert Foxworth) and Polly Wyeth (JoBeth Williams) are thrilled to see their errant writer of a daughter, as well as their son Trip (Michael Weston), a reality TV producer.

But tensions soon flare, enflamed by politics: Staunch Reaganites who defend Bush’s imperial misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lyman and Polly quickly clash with the lefty Brooke. Polly’s substance abusing sister ,Silda Grauman (Jeannie Berlin), enters the combustible fray with pithy critiques of Polly, an ex-screenwriter, and of Lyman, a former B-actor who went on to become GOP chairman.

Just as George and Martha purported to have an offstage son in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the Wyeths’ son/ brother/nephew is similarly an unseen presence in Other Desert Cities who casts a long shadow. It turns out that during the 1970s Henry joined a Weathermen-like extremist antiwar group of domestic terrorists who, we are told, after a “propaganda of the deed” to protest Vietnam goes terribly wrong, dies -- probably in a self-inflicted way. The loss of Henry seems to weigh especially heavily on Brooke’s shoulders, causing her to become depressed and institutionalized. But she has come out of her catatonic state by writing a tell-all confessional about her long lamented older brother -- which also threatens to shatter her already polarized family. Brooke’s Republican parents appear to be trying to live down the legacy of their wayward radical son and vociferously object to publication of the book and the ensuing nightmare, presumably because they will have to relive the worst moment of their lives, one which they have been trying to leave behind in the rear view mirror for decades.

The really delicious thing about this play is how its storyline and characters wander about the desert in unexpected ways. There’s nothing worse than seeing a show and correctly guessing the lines of dialogue and figuring out its denouement well in advance. But as the name of this work -- which refers to a road sign -- indicates, Other Desert Cities heads in unforeseen directions, with unexpected plot twists and turns. Act I is a dramedy, with plenty of pithy one-liners and zingers hurled back and forth, often with then-topical references about WMDs, Colin Powell and “whining lefties.” Act II is decidedly more of a drama, with the chickens coming home to roost for the dysfunctional Wyeths.

The ensemble is superbly directed by Robert Egan; well-versed in all things Baitz he has repeatedly collaborated with the playwright, who also created the ABC family series, Brothers & Sisters. The cast is simply stellar.


Other Desert Cities runs through Jan. 6, 2013 at the Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave. LA, CA. 90012. For more information: www.centertheatregroup.org;213/628-2772

    

FILM REVIEW: RUST AND BONE

Stéfanie (Marion Cotillard) in Rust and Bone.

Beds, buddies and bodies

By John Esther

By hook, crook and "booking it," Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) and his five-year-old son, Sam (Armand Verdure), have made it to Antibes to live with his sister, Anna (Corinne Masiero), who he has not seen in five years. Anna gives her brother and nephew a couple of beds and shares her small refrigerator filled with the outdated food she brings home from her work, organized by the expiration date.

A husky man with emotional disabilities, Ali takes on many jobs throughout director/co-writer Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os). The first one is as a bouncer at a nightclub called Annex (the name of the club gets some legroom as the film goes on). A fight breaks out between two men with Stéfanie (Marion Cotillard) getting injured in the process.

Ali gives Stéfanie a ride home, making his share of machismo remarks along the way. Stéfanie is not really going for him but she lets Ali in the house where her significant other, Simon (Yannick Choirat), is waiting. Ready to play the tough guy, Simon cowers before Ali. Stéfanie likes that.

However, Stéfanie will not be too happy for long. During a show at Marineland Stéfanie suffers a horrific accident at the mouth of a killer whale. Thankfully, without all the gore.

Physically disabled, Stéfanie and the emotionally crippled Ali forge a meaningful relationship. He takes her to the beach, she supports his illegal fighting matches, and they occasionally have sex. Yet, Ali continues to screw up.

There is a lot going for Rust and Bone. Featuring quite a few scenes of great direction -- the accident scene is a tour-de-force; the digital composition is flawless -- Stéfanie, Ali and the others, are also some of of the best written characters this year. They are extremely flawed, barely likable people at times, yet they are genuine. One does not have to like Ali and Stéfanie to understand them. (It is no wonder France did not submit this film as its Oscar submission; Ali and Stéfanie are not heroic enough for the reactionary Academy.)

Along those lines the film offers an honest portrayal of working class struggles, where everybody scrapes by, often working two or more jobs just to live.

The acting is superb, too.

Moreover, it takes great strengths and lengths to show the value of friendship during life. Audiard and cinematrographer, Stéphane Fontaine repectfully guide the camera across the people who make up the lives of the film's two primary protagonists. Stéfanie's friend and co-worker, Louise (Celine Sallette), has a relatively small part, but she is memorable for just being there for Stéfanie. Anna is an interesting, sympathetic charcater in her own right. She deserves her own film.The depth of humanity here is worthy of the filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (High and Low; Red Beard; Ikuru).

And though it is one of the better films of the year, Rust and Bone has its faults. Based on Rust and Bone a collection of short stories of Canadian writer Craig Davidson, the film is rife with hyper dramatic scenes: near-deaths; fights; numerous confrontations. It is also way too conservative with the sex scenes. Considering Ali's strength and Stéfanie's size, the sex is uneventful.

Yet despite its dramatic hyper realization and sexual reservation, there are few films this year are as humane, human, complex and sophisticated as Rust and Bone.