SUNDANCE 2014: PING PONG SUMMER

Rad Miracle (Marcello Conte) and Teddy (Myles Massey) in Ping Pong Summer.

 

Miracle wimp

 

By John Esther

 

Perhaps the most conventional film screened at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the third feature film from writer-director Michael Tully (Cocaine Angel; Septien) relays an all-too familiar story about a young teenage boy who goes through a transformation during one summer vacation at the beach.

 

Rad Miracle (Marcello Conte) is an awkward 13-year-old boy into rap music, popping and breakdancing. He is not very good at it, but that does not stop him from working his moves on a regular basis. Rad is also not very good at table tennis, but that does not stop him from walking around with a ping pong paddle. Maybe because it matches his red parachute pants?

 

Like every year, Rad, his parents (John Hannah and Lea Thompson), and his "too cool to have fun" older sister, Michelle (Helena May Seabrook), are vacationing at Ocean City, Maryland. Since dad's state trooper budget has been stretched a little thin, the Miracle's accommodations are not as nice as usual. Michelle complains whereas Rad could care less. Rad is so rad.

 

Eager to get out and see the sights, it is not long before Rad meets his summer sidekick, Teddy (Myles Massey); the popular, yet messed up, girl of the neighborhood, Stacy Summers (Emmi Shockley); the rich bully, Lyle Ace (Joseph McCaughtry); and the bully's doting sidekick, Dale (Andy Riddle). Later will come that eccentric mentor who will show Rad the winning ways of table tennis, (SPiN co-owner Susan Sarandon).  

In between and beyond, the story moves along in its predictable manner where Rad and Teddy will fight and then bromance; Stacy will face her dilemma between bad boy Lyle and nice boy Rad before choosing our protagonist; the classic showdown between hero and anti-hero with its comforting conclusion; and even Michelle will learn to crack a smile.

Despite the rudimentary storyline (and awful soundtrack), there are few extraordinary aspects to the film. First is the performance by Andy Riddle, who delivers the film's best lines perfectly (It was reminiscent of Mark Wahlberg in The Departed, yet on a smaller level). Riddle's performance is all the more notable when compared to the other young performers in the film. Then there is Wyatt Garfield's cinematography, which captures the atmosphere of the place and time quite well. Other highlights include a young teenager's seemingly random dive, climb and smile; a hilarious moment from Casey Kasem doing a song dedication; and Sarandon guzzling a big old mug of beer.

Hardly a groundbreaking cinematic experience, Ping Pong Summer is more suited for a springtime home rental than catching it at the theaters.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDANCE 2014: THE DOUBLE

Jessie Eisenberg plays dual roles in The Double.

Simple Simons

By John Esther

Poor, somewhat perverted, Simon (Jessie Eisenberg).  His mother is dying at a disreputable rest home. People harass him on the train to work. The waitress (Cathy Moriarty) at his favorite restaurant gives him sass. His co-workers at a cold data processing center only recognize him when he makes mistakes. And his love life consists of watching, sometimes spying, on his coworker, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska). However, Simon is not all bad; he makes a collection out of Hannah's scraps and he has some good ideas for increasing efficiency at work.

What Simon really needs, or thinks he needs, is to speak to the Colonel (James Fox) via Mr. Papadopoulos (Wallace Shawn).

Imprisoned by his own inertia, Simon's world becomes more complicated with the arrival of James Simon (Eisenberg). A confident, charming young man, James and Simon begin a partnership where James fights for Simon while Simon does James' work, even taking tests for James at work.

However, the partnership is short as James soon works himself into the good graces of Mr. Papadopoulos and into the pants of Hannah. Simon is not so lucky: James' accomplishments are in direct connection to Simon's downfall.

A Spotlight selection at this year's Sundance Film Festival (Spotlight indicates the film previously played somewhere else), director Richard Ayoade (Submarine), screenwriter Avi Korine and production designer David Crank's updated adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella of the same name adds quirky, often very dry humor, to Dostoyevsky's miserable, quasi-existential dread. Alienation does not have to be all nausea, sometimes it deserves a guffaw or two.

FILM REVIEW: JACK RYAN SHADOW RECRUIT

A scene from Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Communist Hollywood

By Ed Rampell

Reactionary espionage novelist Tom Clancy may have died last year, but his heroic CIA agent, Jack Ryan, lives on, as does the rightwing pro-CIA Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Entertainment Complex’s agitprop. To be sure, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Paramount’s reboot of the Clancy-derived, highly lucrative Ryan film franchise, is a slickly made, entertaining piece of moviemaking full of the usual suspects usually found in spy movies: motorcycle and car chases galore, assassins, gunfire, dastardly villains hellbent on world domination, a little romance and all those other endless spy movie clichés. Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit is also a sophisticated cinematic piece of propaganda masquerading under the guise of mass entertainment.

In this latest installment of the Ryan franchise (definition of a Hollywood franchise -- beating a dead horse into the ground until viewers wise up and quit buying tickets to see these sequels and remakes) Jumping Jack Smash is tepidly played by 33-year-old Chris Pine, who previously played Captain Kirk in another profitable motion picture franchise, Star Trek. In the 2014 chapter of the spy series Jack is an Afghan War veteran -- never mind that Alec Baldwin played Ryan in 1990's The Hunt for Red October and Harrison Ford started portraying Ryan in 1992's Patriot Games, when Pine was a mere wisp of a lad presumably pining after super stardom in empty headed action flicks.

The actor may be new but the premise is tired and old, reviving Cold War tensions between Washington and Moscow, as America's enemy is the same in Jack Ryan Shadow Recruitas it was almost a quarter century ago in The Hunt for Red October. There may be much that’s objectionable in Vladimir Putin’s Russia -- from the repression of gays, Ukrainians, Pussy Riot, Greenpeace and so on -- but none of that is alluded to in this simpleminded yarn with a convoluted plot harkening back to the deepest, darkest days of the Cold War between the USA and USSR.

In a bit of clever central casting real life Soviet defector/ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov plays a Kremlin killer in a cameo. Kenneth Branagh, who also directs, portrays dastardly oligarch Viktor Cherevin, a stereotypical Ruskie out to stage terrorist attacks on the good ol’ USA and to topple our economy. It doesn't matter that the Ruskies have traded corporatist ideology in for communism -- they're still the bad guys in this hackneyed plot extolling the virtues of the CIA, as latter day Cold Warriors battle it out from Moscow to Manhattan. It doesn’t matter that as America’s ally during World War II 20 million Soviets died, and then their approximation of socialism failed and the Russians “embraced” the private enterprise system: They remain our implacable enemy. I mean, who does a Ruskie have to fuck to catch a break from Hollywood?!

Speaking of which, the extremely gifted Keira Knightley squanders her talents playing Cathy Muller, Jack’s nurse-cum-live-in-lover-cum-damsel-in-distress. She was far superior in the 2011 Freud-versus-Jung film A Dangerous Method, but I suppose there’s a method to her career madness. The cast includes Kevin Costner as the CIA covert ops agent Thomas Harper. (BTW, the characters’ globetrotting from Manhattan to Moscow and beyond via commercial airliners in what seems to be mere hours is inherently incredible, as is the fact that these jetsetters never get jet lag.)

In between munching popcorn auds should be aware of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’s real shadowy message: The CIA are heroic good guys who are also technical whiz kids -- their supposed high-tech prowess is intended to impress and intimidate opponents -- saving the world from the baddies. Jack Ryan; Shadow Recruit is the latest recruit in what I called the intelligence community’s “Operation Image Control” in my May 2013 cover story for CounterPunch Magazine called “Hollywood’s Year of Living Clandestinely.” Jack Ryan has enlisted to fight to make the world safe for U.S. imperialism, along with: The ABC mini-series The Assets, about real life CIA double agent/traitor Aldrich Ames; the just launched Intelligence TV series about a bionic agent; plus The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Blacklist series that premiered on network TV in the fall. On the big screen the FBI prominently features in American Hustle about the 1970s AbScam scandal.

Make no mistake about: With the possible exception of American Hustle, which is critical of the FBI, these big and small screen productions appear to be intended to project positive images of the CIA, NSA, etc., as part of the Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Entertainment Complex’s never ending campaign to win hearts, minds and viewers. This propaganda barrage aims to hoodwink taxpayers and, in particular, are a counter-offensive aimed against the revelations of the super-surveillance state by whistleblowers.

 

In particular, The Assets may be intended as an attack on Edward Snowden, who is rather stupidly (or perhaps, I should say, quite cleverly) likened to Ames by feckless pundits/dopes/dupes, although Ames traded CIA secrets for rubles, while Snowden does not appear to have cashed in on his revelations about the Orwellian NSA hyper-surveillance state he is, rather patriotically and at great risk to himself, warning us all about. Snowden, of course, is ensconced in icy exile in Mother Russia -- and isn’t it hilarious how the imperialists and their media lackeys use this against Snowden, while conveniently forgetting that Washington revoked his passport and even forced Bolivian President Evo Morales’ jet down in an effort to prevent Snowden from possibly leaving Russia.

 

The Central Intelligence Agency definitely does have an entertainment liaison officer and actively seeks to influence movie and TV productions for propagandistic purposes. I asked Paramount if the CIA was involved in any way with Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit but, as to be expected when dealing with the shadowy world of cloak and dagger, got no response. While they want to know everything about you, they don’t want you to know anything about them and how they operate behind the scenes. Hollywood will tell us.

 

But consider what former CIA officer Bob Baer (George Clooney played Baer in 2005’s Syriana, which was based on his exploits) said in my CounterPunch expose about an earlier Jack Ryan iteration: “I’m pretty sure Ben Affleck was able to get meetings with those in the CIA… He was in The Sum of All Fears, a heavily assisted text by the CIA. They were involved in everything from set design to script review to meeting with the actors, director, writers… to shape their image of that Agency. [Tom Clancy’s] Jack Ryan series has always been more positive in terms of its depiction of the CIA than other film franchises, but… Sum of All Fears of all Jack Ryan films is the most positive in its depiction.” Affleck, of course, went on to star in and direct 2012’s pro-CIA Argo, which -- for the first time in Academy Award history -- had its Best Picture Oscar winner announced by a sitting First Lady, Michelle “Support the Troops” Obama, live at the White House, surrounded by military personnel.

 

Viewer beware!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FILM FEATURE: DON SIMPSON'S TOP TEN FILMS OF 2013

Jep (Toni Servillo) in The Great Beauty.

One man's opinion is another person's read

By Don Simpson

I have an extremely difficult time ranking films that share no common elements other than they were all shot on a medium that captures both moving images and sound. I guess there are certain basic mechanisms of filmmaking that can be done well or poorly, for the most part it is all just the personal opinion of the critic. I prefer to approach the discussion of cinema in terms of whether or not a certain film works for me; whether it is interesting and stimulating, whether it does something new and exciting with the cinematic medium.

So, below are ten films (in alphabetical order) that reverberated in my mind as the most interesting and/or exciting from 2013.

12 Years a Slave – In his triad of films (Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave) about human pain and suffering, Steve McQueen observes the relationships between punishment and dehumanization. These films are fully immersed, psychological studies of crumbling human fortitude. For American viewers, 12 Years a Slave also packs a crushing wallop of historical guilt, as McQueen’s outsider perspective invites us to learn from our nation’s past mistakes and inform our future with those lessons.

Computer Chess – The ensemble’s propensity for philosophizing is reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Slacker; but, whereas Linklater’s film ruminates upon the existential crises of humans, Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess expounds upon the existential crises of synthetic consciousness. All the while, Bujalski achieves an ultimate level of realism by enlisting a cast of computer savvy actors who at least seem like they know what they’re rambling on about. The production design is the real show-stopper though.

The Great Beauty – Watching The Great Beauty prompts me to daydream about what types of films Federico Fellini would have made in the 21st century. While this particular film owes a great debt to the work of Fellini (specifically La Dolce Vita), the sensory overload of the visuals is much more akin to Baz Luhrmann. Beneath the shock and awe campaign of the assault on the senses, Paolo Sorrentino meditates upon happiness, love, sex, art, aging and death; also contemplating the significance of theology, history, economics and politics in our everyday lives.

Pilgrim Song -- Martha Stephens is never condescending or patronizing of her characters, yet she never romanticizes them either. Stephens casts highly naturalistic actors and places them in scenes alongside real people; she captures their stories as if shooting a documentary, allowing the narratives to breath while unfolding naturally and organically. Her unabashed desire to capture the purist possible realism is akin to the tone, pacing and visual aesthetic of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy and Wendy & Lucy. Reichardt is certainly someone with whom Stephens shares a fondness for what has come to be known as “slow cinema.”

The Selfish Giant – Borrowing her film’s title from Oscar Wilde children’s fable, writer-director Clio Barnard utilizes the fantastic milieu of a landscape that is perpetually shrouded in the misty grayness of a fairytale to convey the brutally grim reality of this story. Barnard then uses the social realism techniques of Ken Loach and Alan Clarke to ensure that the audience comprehends the true levels of authenticity within this story.

Short Term 12 – On paper, Short Term 12 may sound like a schlocky, feel-good Hollywood movie and that could not be further from the truth. The scenarios and conversations within Destin Cretton’s film shimmer with a high level of authenticity, due in no small part to the amazing ensemble cast and impeccable writing. Brie Larson, for one, is astounding; proving herself to be one of the most talented twenty-something actors working today.

Stories We Tell – We all tell stories. We all have our own unique perspectives and interpretations of events. There is no absolute Truth. Everything is filtered through the various lenses of our past and present. Director Sarah Polley approaches Stories We Tell knowing full well that stories are just that: stories.

Sun Don’t Shine – Building upon the already nightmarish elements of the narrative, Sun Don’t Shine unfolds with the oblique stream of consciousness of a dream — such as when Terrence Malick-esque voiceovers follow the characters’ thoughts as they are lulled into daydreams by the ephemeral rhythms and patterns of the roadside imagery and the unbearably balmy Florida air. Sun Don’t Shine refuses to abide by a traditional narrative structure; the road movie elements are not used to propel the narrative forward, but to trap Crystal and Leo in a smothering and smoldering incapacious space. Their car is like a prison cell with an ever-changing view of the real/reel world; the car windows function like movie screens, dangling carrots of perceived freedom and success just out of Crystal and Leo’s reach.

Upstream Color – Functioning as writer, director, producer, cinematographer, composer, and editor, Shane Carruth is the epitome of the modern day auteur. No matter how confusing and frustrating Upstream Color may be, there is no denying the amazingly singular artistic vision that produced this film. Echoing the godlike control that is held over the film’s test subjects, Carruth is the grand creator and chief inquisitor of this uniquely cinematic world.

Welcome to Pine Hill – Welcome to Pine Hill provides the most naturally positive portrayal of a black character that I have ever seen dedicated to film — and I am incredibly embarrassed to say that if I knew that a white guy directed Welcome to Pine Hill, I probably would not have even bothered watching it. But the outsider perspective actually works in writer-director Keith Miller’s favor, and it certainly helps matters that he avoids all of Hollywood’s racial stereotypes. Most importantly, Miller does not approach Welcome to Pine Hill as a direct discussion of race; though he understands that our world is far from being colorblind and race-related issues are inescapable.


Honorable mentions: The Act of Killing; After Tiller; Ain’t Them Bodies Saints; All is Lost; Blackfish; Blue Is the Warmest Color; Concussion; Dirty Wars; Frances Ha; Her; In the House; I Used to Be Darker; Mother of George; Mud; Pilgrim Song; Post Tenebras Lux; Simon Killer

 

 

PSIFF 2014: MOTHER, I LOVE YOU

Raymond (Kristofers Konovalovs) in Mother, I Love You.

False word to your mother

By Don Simpson

Like most 12-year-old boys, Raymond (Kristofers Konovalovs) does not really think before he does things, rather he acts upon naive impulses that seem to be fueled solely by hormones. Raised by a single mother (Vita Varpina) who works as a doctor at a birthing center, Raymond is adequately loved and cared for, so he is not necessarily acting out for attention. She gives Raymond all of the freedom that he desires, which might be a bit too much; but, if anything, Raymond is probably just bored.

Raymond spends most of his free time with his best friend, Peteris (Matiss Livcans), a classmate from a less privileged pedigree. When the two boys are together, their decisions grow increasingly reckless. Peteris’ mother (Indra Brike) works as a cleaning lady, which gives Peteris uninhibited access into her clients’ homes. When Raymond gains possession of a key, he begins to use that client’s apartment as a home away from home, for no other reason than because he can.

It is not long before Raymond finds his bad choices snowballing hopelessly towards a point of no return. He tries to cover-up each of his crimes with one lie after another. In retrospect, some of Raymond’s actions may seem ridiculously absurd, but writer-director Janis Nords sets up each event so perfectly that Raymond’s decisions make perfect sense as they are occurring. As Nords slowly reveals the web of lies that Raymond’s mother has crafted for herself, a window into Raymond’s thought processes opens wide. It seems as though Raymond might have learned how to lie from his mother’s own example.

Mother, I Love You is Latvia's Oscar submission for Best Film in a Foreign Language.

PSIFF 2014: THE GREAT PASSAGE

A scene from The Great Passage.

If on a winter's night a computer

By Don Simpson

A large publisher’s Dictionary Editorial Department finds itself on the brink of extinction in 1995 as new technologies such as laptops and mobile telephones become more commonplace in everyday households. The Internet is on the verge of explosion and emails are about to replace handwritten letters as the primary form of “written” communication. Prognosticating that the world is about to become very used to communicating, researching and learning via their sparkly new electronic devices, the head of the department (Go Kato) wants to develop a new kind of dictionary.

The titular dictionary of his dreams will be Japan’s first to capture youth culture’s lexicon, embracing modern day mutilations of the Japanese language — slang words, modern expressions and acronyms — while skillfully providing the proper roots and definitions for words alongside the popular-yet-incorrect new meanings.

Dictionaries can take decades to develop, and before they commence this daunting task, the department’s longtime chief editor (Kaoru Kobayashi) wants to retire in order to care for his ailing wife. The problem is, in this trendy new world of technological innovation, no one wants to take on a boring, decade-spanning project like a dictionary — you might then see a photo of the Dictionary Editorial Department beside the definition of “uncool,” “nerdy” or “lame.”

Enter Majime (Ryûhei Matsuda), a socially awkward and frigidly shy young company employee who is currently mismatched in the Advertising Department. Armed with a degree in Linguistics and an unwavering love for language, Majime appears as the ideal candidate to take on the “modern living dictionary.”

As the baton is passed to Majime at work, the perspective of Yûya Ishii’s The Great Passage quickly shifts to follow Majime. We observe as a complete immersion into his work allows Majime to mature into a more confident person. Majime begins to develop an unlikely new friendship with a loud and obnoxious co-worker (Jô Odagiri) who slowly drags him out of his shell. It is not long before Majime even develops a romantic interest in his landlady’s granddaughter (Aoi Miyazaki), thus finally realizing the true meaning of love.

Time in the Dictionary Editorial Department passes excruciatingly slowly, so Ishii is forced to take significant leaps in the timeline. While this causes the narrative to feel disjointed and unstructured, it does allow for us to witness the changes in Majime’s persona over a longer period of time. Just as the purpose of the new dictionary is to allow its words the opportunity to establish a more natural dialog with readers, Majime learns how to use his internalized verbosity to express himself verbally.

It is not without bitter irony that a majority of press about Japan’s entry for 2013′s foreign-language Oscar will be consumed online. As the world continues to drift farther away from the printed word, Ishii’s The Great Passage preaches to us about the power of words on paper. Though their new dictionary will only capture a snapshot of an ever-[de]evolving language, there is an undeniable permanence to the printed and bound nature of its publication. For Majime, turning the pages of a book with the perfect paper stock is practically an orgasmic experience; the touch of the paper establishes an incomparable connection between the reader and the publication.

PSIFF 2014: OF HORSES AND MEN

A scene from Of Horses and Men.

Human-ing around

By Don Simpson

An Icelandic saga of sorts, Benedikt Erlingsson’s Of Horses and Men is structured as a series of loosely intertwining parables about horses and the rural community whose lives revolve around them. These stories seem like they probably might have possessed some greater moral purpose at one time, but the points have since worn away with the passage of time; the tall tales have grown so exaggerated and romanticized, they hardly seem to be rooted in truth at this point. But I don’t know, maybe a rider really has found themselves practically sandwiched between a horny stallion and a mare in heat and lived to tell the embarrassing story -- regardless it certainly makes for entertaining cinema.

Equally absurd is a drunkard who rides a horse out to sea to purchase two jugs of a potent elixir from a passing ship, or a novice rider who is forced to recreate the Luke Skywalker tauntaun scene in order to survive a frigid night. While each vignette of this visually poetic film seems like it could be a part of a grand absurdist farce, the tone is so subtle that the comedy quickly mutates into stoic seriousness, especially when told against the dramatic natural environments of Iceland that are captured with such astoundingly magnificent cinematography by Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson.

Juxtaposed with the beauty and power of the horses, the townspeople mostly seem to be idiotic mortals who repeatedly fall prey to desire, greed and anger. The horses closely observe the tomfoolery of the humans and even though their judgments (or, lack thereof) remain unknown, Erlingsson seems to be telling the sprawling narrative from their perspective. Unfortunately, the horses must sometimes shoulder the punishment for human stupidity, making this Iceland's Oscar submission for best foreign language film an occasionally difficult film to stomach -- thought it is important to note that no horses were hurt during the making of this film.