FILM EVENT: PROGIE AWARDS 2014

The Trumbo (Best Picture): Fruitvale Station.

 

And now for something different

By John Esther

Over the weekend, while the voters behind the Spirit Awards and Oscars were awarding relatively, and quite similarly, politically safe films reinforcing the status quo, the James Agee Cinema Circle – which the four current writers of this publication are members – announced their Progie Awards.

Congratulations to the filmmakers below and thank you very much. You were a welcoming breath of fresh air amongst the intellectual, political repression largely found in the driving forces of current cinema.

THE TRUMBO: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE PICTURE is named after Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned for his beliefs and refusing to inform. Trumbo helped break the blacklist when he received screen credit for Spartacus and Exodus in 1960.

Winner: Fruitvale Station. Written-directed by Ryan Coogler.

THE GARFIELD: The Progie Award for BEST ACTOR in a progressive picture is named after John Garfield, who rose from the proletarian theatre to star in progressive pictures such as Gentleman's Agreement and Force of Evil, only to run afoul of the Hollywood Blacklist.

Winner: Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave.

KAREN MORLEY AWARD: The Progie Award for BEST ACTRESS in a film portraying women in a progressive picture is named for Karen Morley, co-star of 1932’s Scarface and 1934’s Our Daily Bread. Morley was driven out of Hollywood in the 1930s for her leftist views, but maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for New York’s Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954.

Winner: Barbara Sukowa for Hannah Arendt.




Recipient of The Renoir and the Dziga Awards: The Act of Killing.

THE RENOIR: The Progie Award for BEST ANTI-WAR FILM is named after the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir, who directed the 1937 anti-militarism masterpiece, Grand Illusion.

Winner: The Act of Killing. Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, and Christine Cynn.

THE GILLO: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE FOREIGN FILM is named after the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who lensed the 1960s classics, The Battle of Algiers and Burn!

Winners (three-way tie):  China’s A Touch of Sin; Italy’s The Great Beauty; and Slovenia’s Class Enemy (my pick).

THE DZIGA: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE DOCUMENTARY is named after the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who directed 1920s nonfiction films such as the Kino Pravda series and The Man With the Movie Camera.

Winner: The Act of Killing. Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, and Christine Cynn.

OUR DAILY BREAD AWARD: The Progie Award for the MOST POSITIVE AND INSPIRING WORKING CLASS SCREEN IMAGE.

Winner: The Angels’ Share. Directed by Ken Loach.

THE ROBESON: The Progie Award for the BEST PORTRAYAL OF PEOPLE OF COLOR that shatters cinema stereotypes, in light of their historically demeaning depictions onscreen. It is named after courageous performing legend, Paul Robeson, who starred in 1936’s Song of Freedom and 1940’s The Proud Valley, and narrated 1942’s Native Land.

Winner: 12 Years a Slave. Directed by Steve McQueen.

The Bunuel: The Wolf on Wall Street.

THE BUNUEL: The Progie Award for the MOST SLYLY SUBVERSIVE SATIRICAL CINEMATIC FILM in terms of form, style and content is named after Luis Bunuel, the Spanish surrealist who directed 1929’s The Andalusian Dog, 1967’s Belle de Jour and 1972’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Winner: The Wolf of Wall Street. Directed by Martin Scorsese.

THE LAWSON: The Progie Award for BEST ANTI-FASCIST FILM is named after John Howard Lawson, screenwriter of 1938’s anti-Franco Blockade and the 1940s anti-Nazi films Four Sons, Action in the North Atlantic, Sahara and Counter-Attack, and one of the Hollywood Ten.

Winner: Hannah Arendt. Directed by Margarethe von Trotta.

THE SERGEI: The Progie Award for LIFETIME PROGRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENT ON- OR OFFSCREEN is named after Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet director of masterpieces such as Potemkin and 10 Days That Shook the World.

Winners: Robert Redford and John Sayles.

 

THEATER REVIEW: GENE KELLY, THE LEGACY, AN EVENING WITH PATRICIA WARD KELLY

Gene Kelly in Gene Kelly, The Legacy, An Evening with Patricia Ward Kelly.

To Left Feet

By Ed Rampell

This loving, lively, lyrical tribute to the actor-dancer who starred in and co-directed with Stanley Donen the 1952 classic Singin’ in the Rain is perfectly timed to coincide with L.A.’s rainiest weekend in many moons -- and with the Academy Awards ceremony. Gene Kelly, The Legacy, An Evening With Patricia Ward Kelly is ideal for fans of great hoofing, acting, cinema, song and for anyone who simply enjoys sheer entertainment. Patricia Ward Kelly, who was Gene’s third wife and married to the legend until his 1996 death at age 83, brings her museum and documentarian background to bear on this joyous two hour and 20 minute program without intermission.

Her romp down movie and musical memory lane is well put together, with an archival sensibility. For years, the woman who’d worked with the Smithsonian recorded -- via audiotape, notes hastily scribbled on cocktail napkins and the like -- Gene’s rich recollections of his life and career during the Golden Age of Hollywood and beyond. The tribute includes ample film clips, recordings of songs sung by Gene minus images and Patricia’s personal memories of the motion picture myth and private man she came to intimately know and love off of the silver screen he had made so glittery.

Perhaps the most profound point the show makes is that the athletic Kelly brought a singular cinematic sensibility to choreography, and helped to put the movement into moving pictures. Gene has 14 directorial credits on IMDB.com and he often directed dance sequences in his films, which Patricia stresses were all carefully worked out in advance and were not merely spontaneous spurts of inspired motion. She also noted that he was a versatile dancer who hoofed in many styles, from ballet to tap.

The classic clips presented on a big screen above the Pasadena Playhouse’s stage, where Patricia held forth from, demonstrated that, among other things, Kelly’s choreography expressed character, as well as mood, emotion and thought. The meticulously choreographed so-called “alter ego” pre-CGI special effects sequence in 1944’s Cover Girl, wherein Gene's dance partner is none other than himself, is a depiction of a dualistic, divided, conflicted self -- if not of schizophrenia. (In another projected scene in Vincente Minnelli’s 1948 The Pirate Gene sings a witty Cole Porter lyric that rhymes the Spanish word for girl, “niña,” with schizophrenia, as he promiscuously woos a series of Caribbean senoritas in one sexually dizzying dance number.)

Like all great artists Gene revealed his inner self through his work. Patricia tells us that a scene in 1950’s Summer Stock with Minnelli’s wife and his Pirate co-star, Judy Garland, was among Gene’s favorites. In it Kelly reveals his deep, abiding love for both show biz and Garland, whom Gene believed, Patricia tells us, to have been the smartest and sexiest woman in Hollywood. (She also quips that it’s hard for Patricia, who was 46 years younger than her husband, to be jealous of romances, on- and perhaps off-screen, that took place before she was even born.)

In terms of self revelation, Gene often exudes an onscreen exuberance, whether hoofing opposite the animated mouse Tom in 1945’s Anchors Aweigh or performing the watery title number in Singin’ in the Rain. In one black and white clip the singin’, dancin’ Gene stops traffic as he croons that because a woman loves him, he likes himself. Perhaps, like many performers, Gene craved love and needed the adulation of an audience?

During the tribute, the Pasadena Playhouse’s stage is bare except for a number of boxes -- but you’ll have to see this show for yourself to find out the role they play in Gene Kelly, The Legacy, An Evening With Patricia Ward Kelly. This being La-La-Land, Patricia also dishes and one of her gossipy tidbits deals with 1969’s Hello, Dolly! According to Patricia, the feud between co-stars Walter Matthau and Barbra Streisand was, Gene said, actually instigated by Matthau. In retaliation, La Streisand can be seen onscreen turning her feathery hat into Matthau’s face. And speaking of faces, Patricia also reveals how her late husband received his facial scar.

I asked Patricia if it was true that clean Gene had been progressive and she replied that he had been very progressive and leftwing. (Kelly’s first wife, actress Betsy Blair, whom I’ve also met, was either a dues paying, card carrying member of the Communist party U.S.A. or a fellow traveler of the party.) During her onstage comments Patricia noted that Gene stumped for John and Bobby Kennedy -- his fellow Irishmen -- when they ran for president.

One thing that the third Mrs. Kelly didn’t mention, but what is obvious in some of the film clips, is that in stark contrast to the dapper Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly adapted an onscreen proletarian persona. He wore blue jeans and T-shirts (before Brando did!) in movies such as 1947’s Living in a Big Way and sailor’s whites in 1949’s On the Town (with its great on location Manhattan shots and Frank Sinatra, who had his own lefty sympathies, once upon a time). No tails, tuxes or top hats for this working class hero, who emerged during America’s anti-fascist Popular Front era.

As we count down to the Oscars, Gene Kelly, The Legacy, An Evening With Patricia Ward Kelly, is a glorious reminder of the man and genius behind 1951’s An American in Paris, which scored six Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, and was nominated for another two. A good time was had by all who attended this wonderful tribute.



Gene Kelly, The Legacy, An Evening With Patricia Ward Kelly runs tomorrow, 2 p.m. at the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101. For more info: Gene Kelly Show; (626) 356-7529.

 

FILM REVIEW: NON-STOP

Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) in Non-Stop.

Flight fight

By John Esther

Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) is a guy who starts the day with some booze mixed in with his coffee. You can tell he is sad by the way he carries himself, his lack of grooming and just his general disposition toward other people – in person or on the phone. He not the sort of person you want to be around and you certainly would not like him to be in charge of many lives.

However, as a U.S. Marshall who travels the skyways protecting passengers from terrorists, he is just that. Bill can carry a gun on a plane and he can arrest people, too. Apparently, torture is acceptable for Bill as well. The fact Bill is afraid of the ascension of planes from terra firma only lowers ones confidence in him. Fortunately, the woman next to him, Jen (Julianne Moore), is there to comfort Bill on their way to London.

Of course, the comfort is short lived as Bill starts receiving text messages from an anonymous source who says he will kill a passenger on Bill's plane every 20 minutes until a ransom is paid.

As passengers start to die, doubts, as well as suspicions about Bill’s ability to perform his duties rise while the survivor of the passengers on the plane descends. Bill is being framed, but who can or will believe him? All clues point to the safety guy as the actuall terrorist.

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Non-Stop plays itself out in unspectacular fashion. While many of the passengers suspect Bill, we the audience know he is innocent, so we are going to go right on rooting for our protagonist until he redeems himself in front of the rest of the world. Along the way, one must overlook a lot of implausibility before enduring an absurd explanation from the really bad guy in the film.
 

SUNDANCE 2014: OBVIOUS CHILD

Donna (Jenny Slate) in Obvious Child.

Laugh now in the lake of fire

By Don Simpson

A bookstore clerk by day and comedian by night, Donna’s (Jenny Slate) life is sent into a tailspin when her boyfriend admits to sleeping with one of her close friends; but at least that event provides Donna with some fresh material for her bluntly autobiographical stand-up routine.

Donna turns to alcohol to drown her sorrows, totally giving up on life. When the righteously indie bookstore that employs her loses its lease, Donna’s life seems all the more hopeless. Even her gig as a comedian could be at risk if she does not learn how to curb her emotionally driven binge drinking.

On one fatefully drunken night, the snarky Jewess makes cute with a WASPy guy, Max (Jake Lacy). Sensing that his values will dissuade Max from wanting to date a vocally rebellious Jewish woman, Donna perceives this night as a fun, one-night stand. Unfortunately for Donna, the repercussions of their night together haunt her until Valentine’s Day.

Obvious Child is a well-paced comedy packed with a steady stream of hilarious jokes, yet the film also carries a strong and unwavering opinion on its subject matter. While the subject of this film may chase some potential audiences away, Obvious Child does such an admirable job of presenting its case that it could actually change some minds if audiences would just give it a fighting chance.

The strongest tension within director Gillian Robespierre's  Obvious Child is its relentless rebellion against American cinema’s representation of this subject matter. We anxiously await the all too standard redemption trope, for Donna to listen to the old white men who attempt to legislate away her inherent rights to her own body. Few filmmakers are bold and brazen enough to discuss this subject with such openness. Everything is laid out on the table in such a way that Donna’s one and only choice seems like an obvious one. There is absolutely no valid excuse for her mistake and Donna knows that, but there is also no reason for her to punish herself or anyone else involved. Ill-equipped and immature, Donna is by no means emotionally prepared to make any other decision. Our society, thanks in no small part to Hollywood’s representation of this subject, seems to think Donna is in the minority, but this is actually an all too common scenario. Donna makes the same life-changing mistake that so many others have made, including her mother.

SUNDANCE 2014: I, ORIGINS

A scene from I, Origins.

Looks of love, science and creation

By Don Simpson

 

Due to the current lack of concrete evolutionary mapping, the eye is often lauded as proof of intelligent design. So, Ian Gray (Michael Pitt), a PhD student studying molecular biology, is attempting to disprove creationism by fully mapping the evolution of the eye. He is reluctantly teamed with a first year student, Karen (Brit Marling), who quickly dedicates her time to Ian’s cause, agreeing to do the tedious work of looking for the PAX 6 gene — a key gene that enables eyesight — in a species without eyes. It will be like finding a needle in a haystack, but if Karen can locate that species, they can then attempt to mimic the evolutionary process by mutating that creature in such a way that it grows a fully functioning eye. In other words, they want to play god.

 

As a side project, Ian is obsessed with photographing people’s eyes. This is how he comes to meet Sofi (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), a mysteriously masked woman with sectoral heterochromia whom he grows increasingly obsessed with following a fleeting sexcapade on a toilet. Though the scientifically inclined Ian may not believe in fate, it is a string of numerical clues that eventually reconnect him with Sofi. The spiritually motivated Sofi approaches life in sharp contrast to Ian’s overly pragmatic ways. They say that opposites attract, an hypothesis that is proven by the undeniably magnetic chemistry between these two souls — if, unlike Ian, you actually believe in the existence of the soul. Though Ian would ardently disagree, Sofi is undoubtedly his soulmate; and, as the introduction to Mike Cahill’s I Origins prophetically suggests, Sofi also serves as a key element in Ian’s Sophistic quest to dis-prove religion once and for all.

 

Winner of this year's Sloan Award at Sundance, I Origins is an infinitely profound examination of the faith versus science debate. Cahill wraps his heady existential diatribe around the adage that the eye is the window to the soul, specifically utilizing the presumed uniqueness of an individual’s iris patterns in this contemplation of god’s existence. Being that eyes are directly connected to the human brain, and the brain retains memories, I Originssuggests the possibility that if two people (one living, one dead) share identical iris patterns that they may also share memories, possibly even the same soul (thus proving reincarnation). Whether or not this is sound science is up to the molecular scientists in the audience to decide, but Cahill’s entertainingly thoughtful hypothesis is sure to incite a chain reaction of theological contemplation among even the most argent non-believers.

SUNDANCE 2014: WHIPLASH

Andrew (Miles Teller) and Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) in Whiplash.

The beatings behind the beats

By Don Simpson

 

Inexplicably abandoned at an early age by his mother and raised by a father (Paul Reiser) who never achieved success as a writer, Andrew (Miles Teller) is riddled with an unquenchable drive to become famous. Though Whiplash does not make much of Andrew’s backstory, Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the tyrannical band conductor at his elite music conservatory, makes good use of that information to emotionally destroy him.

 

Whiplash relays how Fletcher preys upon the emotional insecurities of a friendless first-year college student who regularly goes to the local movie theater with his father. Fletcher plays with Andrew’s sense of self-worth by boosting him up only to knock him right back down again. Andrew is constantly unsure of his standing with Fletcher, leaving him in a constant state of fear. Knowing that Fletcher could be his ticket to success, Andrew is willing to do anything to impress — or even appease — Fletcher, who takes full advantage of Andrew’s naïve desperation.

 

During one of Andrew’s high points, he musters up enough courage to finally ask out the girl who works at the movie theater concession stand (Melissa Benoist). Though this fleeting relationship serves mostly as a distraction from the primary narrative, it does highlight Andrew’s somewhat futile attempts at controlling a less confident person. Their relationship also serves as an example of just how willing Andrew is to discard anything in order to achieve his goals.

 

The story of Whiplashseems vaguely familiar, as if a similar narrative arc has been used to tell a story about a boxer with an emotionally abusive trainer. It seems as though elite music schools are successful because they have faculty like Fletcher who will relentlessly push the students beyond their natural abilities to see if they can reach a higher level of greatness. Fletcher looks and screams like a drill sergeant, ruling his students with extreme levels of fear. One could argue that Fletcher’s motivations are more sincere, as Whiplash strives to form the conductor into a well-rounded individual, showing the extremes of his personality and allowing him to explain his actions.

 

An opening night selection of Sundance Film Festival 2014, and recipient of numerous awards at this year's Sundance Film Festival, writer-director Damien Chazelle's Whiplash also explores the pros and cons of Fletcher’s behavior, existing in a moral grayness that opts to not really take sides. A teacher saying that someone does a “good job” might turn out to be a curse, but where does one draw the line between motivation to do better and psychological torture?

Whiplash was purchased at Sundance Film Festival 2014.

SUNDANCE 2014: R100

A scene from R100.

A L-O(a)de to (en)Joy

By John Esther

Once upon a time, a mild-mannered man named Takafumi (Nao Omori) needed some sexual excitement in his life. His wife was in a coma, so sexual relations in the biblical sense may not have been the most decent thing for him to do. 

Thinking, or feeling, he should just have his sexual needs fulfilled by sadistic, random encounters instead, Takefumi enters into a yearlong contract where dominatrices will appear unexpectedly to humiliate and hurt him until his head comic(book)ally swells -- thus indicating sexual gratification. (It would have been funnier, more subversive and more apropos with the film's conceits if the filmmakers had done that with Takefumi's crotch area instead.)

Unfortunately, for Takafumi, and soon others, these sadistic encounters become increasingly intrusive, degrading and violent. Random encounters move from the public to private sphere -- threatening Takafumi's workplace and home. Soon, Takafumi wants out of the contract, but getting out of the contract has never been an option. But does he really want out? The upping of the sexual ante leads to a bigger payoff.

Certainly not for everybody's viewing pleasures (but what film is?), the latest film from writer-director Hitoshi Matusmoto (Big Man Japan) is a surreal, absurd tale of an everyman combating his sexual desires. The more dangerous the abuse and sex become, the more Takafumi wants it to stop. But the danger is just too erotic to stop. The more the women come after this department store salesman, the more explosions, metaphorically and literally, will be necessary.

Reflecting the absurdity of Takafumi's sexual-cinematic adventure is a metanarrative involving a film ratings board (or is it the film crew?) consisting of three men and one woman watching Takafumi's story. Their bewildering comments about what the viewer (them and us) has seen, suspects, and speculates adds a layer of humor and intelligence to the primary narrative. Their responses to the lack of continuity or reality in the film are amusing, but what is especially amusing is that the male board members are less comfortable with the film's sexual tropes than the female board member -- in particular the first scene with the Gobble Queen (Hairi Katagiri), a metaphor for the all-consuming vagina; or, perhaps, vagina dentata run afoul.

However, when a film goes for this level of absurdity and humor it is bound-ed to have a few, exasperating, or very unfunny, scenes, such as the prolonged ordeal between Saliva Queen (Naomi Watanabe) and Takafumi. Prancing and oral spitting is so limiting. Plus the casting of Lindsay Hayward, AKA professional wrestler Isis the Amazon, as CEO of the bondage company. Casting a six-foot nine-inch blonde American woman in a Japanese film may have added more leverage to film's satire of petite bourgeois sexual desire -- or theory of desire, notably in the relation with the constructions of desire in Occidental imagery -- had Hayward been less cartoonish, or a better actor, than her professionally wrestling persona.

But those are mere drawbacks to one fun film to watch. Director of photography Kazushige Tanaka, costume designer Satoe Araki and composer Hidekazu Sakamoto wonderfully abet the film's atmosphere of sex, violence, dread, desire, humor and whimsy.