Category Archives: Journalism

SIFF 2014: 1,000 Times Goodnight ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 24, 2014)

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Juliette Binoche is magnificent (as she always is) as a fearless photojournalist torn between her addiction to the adrenaline-pumping unpredictability of her work and the grounding reassurance of home life with her family. After she’s nearly blown to bits while embedded in Afghanistan with a group of female suicide bombers, her husband (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and daughters give her an ultimatum. Erik Poppe’s film is a compassionate, sensitively-acted melodrama in the tradition of Shoot the Moon.

SIFF 2014: #chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2014)

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Not long ago, the MSM relegated social media to kickers about flash mobs, or grandpa’s first tweet. Then, the Arab Spring happened, precipitating the rise of the citizen journalist. Case in point: 19 year-old Ala’a Basatneh, subject of Joe Piscatella’s doc. The Damascus-born Chicagoan is a key player in the Syrian revolution, as in “key stroke”. It’s not just about Ala’a, but her compatriots in Syria, some who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice. Timely and moving.

SIFF 2014: Regarding Susan Sontag ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2014)

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There’s much to regard in Nancy Kate’s enlightening documentary about the complex private and public life of the iconic intellectual polymath. Kate is deft at deconstructing, then reassembling all of the “Susan Sontags” (cultural critic, activist, feminist pioneer, provocateur) into a rich portrait. Great archival footage; in my favorite clip Sontag cleans the floor with some wingnut who questions her “patriotism” for her pragmatic essay about the 9/11 attacks (we could sure use her now).

 

Blu-ray reissue: The Day the Earth Caught Fire ****

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 6, 2014)

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The Day the Earth Caught Fire – BFI Blu-ray (Region “B” )

Written and directed by Val Guest, this cerebral mix of conspiracy a-go-go and sci-fi (from 1961) has always been a personal favorite of mine. Simultaneous nuclear testing by the U.S. and Soviets triggers an alarmingly rapid shift in the Earth’s climate. As London’s weather turns more tropical by the hour, a Daily Express reporter (Peter Stenning) begins to suspect that the British government is not being 100% forthcoming on the possible fate of the world. Along the way, Stenning has some steamy scenes with his love interest (sexy Janet Munro). The film is more noteworthy for its smart, snappy patter than its run-of-the-mill f/x, but still delivers a compelling narrative. Co-starring the great Leo McKern (who steals every scene he’s in).

The releasing studio is BFI, a UK-based reissue outfit that employs the same grade of high standards that Criterion has become known for here in the U.S., with meticulously restored prints and extras geared toward the film buff. Please note that this review is based on the region “B” release, so it requires a region-free Blu-ray player.

SIFF 2013: Forbidden Voices ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 18, 2013)

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Forbidden Voices (from Swiss director Barbara Miller) is an excellent doc profiling three influential “cyber-feminists” who bravely soldier on in the blogosphere whilst running a daily gauntlet of intimidation from their respective governments, including (but not limited to) overt surveillance, petty legal harassment and even physical beatings. Despite the odds, Yoani Sanchez (Cuba), Farnez Seifi (Iran, currently exiled in Germany) and Zeng Jinyan (China) are affecting change (if only baby steps). In an interesting (and disturbing) bit of kismet, a day after I saw this, the DOJ/AP phone records scandal broke.

Blu-ray reissue: Medium Cool ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 6, 2013)

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Medium Cool- The Criterion Collection Blu-ray

What Haskell Wexler’s unique 1969 drama may lack in narrative cohesion is more than made up for by its importance as a sociopolitical document. Robert Forster stars as a TV news cameraman who is fired after he complains to station brass about their willingness to help the FBI build files on political agitators via access to raw news film footage and reporter’s notes.

He drifts into a relationship with a Vietnam War widow (Verna Bloom) and her 12 year-old son. They eventually find themselves embroiled in the mayhem surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention (in the film’s most memorable scene, the actors were actually sent in to improvise amidst one of the infamous “police riots” as it was happening). Many of the issues Wexler touches on (especially regarding media integrity and journalistic responsibility) would be extrapolated further in films like Network and Broadcast News.

Criterion’s Blu-ray sports a beautifully restored transfer, and insightful extra features.

The owl and the pussycats: Elle **

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 5, 2012)

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Let’s face it. At some juncture, we’ve all been whores. Take me, for example. I used to be a rent boy. OK, “stand-up comic” (same thing). I think it was Jay Leno who once drew some astute parallels. I’m paraphrasing, but it was along the lines of: “You degrade yourself entertaining strangers, but it’s over in 20 minutes and you get fifty bucks.” Or, have you ever had a job that you despised, but didn’t quit because the money was too good? If you answered “guilty”, I submit, sir or madam, that you have prostituted yourself!

Social observers have gleaned similar parallels with (smelling salts and fainting couch on standby?) marriage. In her book Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter posits: “What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many?” The great Emma Goldman once offered this: “To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.”

And so it is that Polish writer-director Malgorzata Szumowska has dusted off this somewhat, erm, hoary feminist conundrum for reexamination in Elles: If a woman chooses to profit from her sexuality, is she empowering…or enslaving herself?

Juliette Binoche portrays Anne, a writer for ELLE magazine. She is working on an investigative piece profiling two young Parisian women (Anais Demoustier and Joanna Kulig) who are “working their way through college” as call girls.

At first, Anne maintains professional distance; however as she delves deeper into their lives, she transmogrifies from objective journalist into giggly confidante. Intoxicated by their youth, independence and sexual candor, Anne is copping something akin to a mainline rush as the women regale her with intimate details about their work. On the down side, the interviews are plunging Anne into an existential crisis.

On the surface, Anne’s lot in life doesn’t appear to be analogous to that of the two young women; in fact it is the very antithesis. Anne is older, financially secure, and settled into a comfortable bourgeois life with her husband and two children. What reason would she have to envy them?

Perhaps, when Anne contrasts the relatively adventurous lifestyles of the prostitutes with her own daily drudge of familial obligations and job deadlines, she discerns a sort of empowerment (not unlike Catherine Deneuve’s bored housewife ‘Severine’ in Luis Bunuel’s 1967 film, Belle de Jour).

Arguably, any true empowerment there is purely academic. That is, unless you feel “empowered” by allowing someone to urinate on you, or (even worse) sexually violate you Fatty Arbuckle style (as demonstrated in the two most disturbing and unnecessary scenes in the movie).

No, what Anne is really questioning is her role as wife and homemaker, which comes to a head as she prepares a dinner party for her husband’s boss. She has likely done this many times before, but suddenly the whole concept is anathema to her (much to her husband’s chagrin). Why is it so important she doll herself up and play the perfect little hostess, anyway? Just to “please” her husband? What am I, his whore? Oh, the humanity! Cue the meltdown.

When the film makes this awkward turn into Diary of a Mad Housewife territory, it loses credibility. Are we supposed to believe that all it takes is several interviews with a couple of student hookers for this woman, who has a great career, loving family and a fabulous Parisian apartment, to suddenly determine that all men suck and that her life is total shit? I’m just not buying it.

That being said, when you’ve got Binoche on board (one of the finest actresses currently strolling the planet), you can almost forgive the film’s weak script and narrative flaws. Frankly, she is the sole reason to watch it (if you’re looking for a reason). Binoche can hold your attention by simply staring out of a sunlit window (there’s a lot of that). If not for her presence, I would have summed up the film thusly: Eat Pray Love with an NC-17.

DVD Reissue: Max Headroom ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 7, 2010)

Video killed the radio star

And then committed suicide

Doug Powell, “Empty Vee”

The original maven of the matrix has returned. The belated release of ABC-TV’s late 80s one-season wonder, Max Headroom on DVD has given sci-fi geeks a nice little lift from the midsummer doldrums (hey-why is everybody looking at me like I’m some kind of a nerd?).

In case you spent the 80s in a coma, or you’re too young to remember, “Max Headroom” was a fictional, computer-generated TV personality who was created via a blend of live-action camera, prosthetics and old-school animation techniques. First appearing in 1985 on Channel 4 in the U.K. as the host for a weekly, MTV-style music video/variety show, the hip, irreverent and oh-so-sardonic Max was indelibly brought to “life” by the comic improvisations of square-jawed Canadian actor Matt Frewer, backed by a bevy of hip writers (it’s like Robin Williams mind-melded with HAL 9000).

The original one-hour pilot that kicked off the British variety series in 1985 provided a back story for the character, and was quite an impressive production. An imaginative mash-up of Brazil, Network and The Parallax View, it is set in a dystopian metropolis some “20 minutes into the future” and concerns an investigative journalist (Frewer) who works for a media conglomerate called Network 23.

He is hot on the trail of his own employers, who have developed a secretive video technology that can deliver a huge cache of subliminal advertising to unwitting TV viewers in a matter of seconds; such a huge amount of information, in fact, that some people have an adverse physical reaction (OK, they explode-don’t worry, not a spoiler). A shadowy conspiracy thriller ensues. While fleeing would-be assassins, he runs smack into a parking gate arm (emblazoned with the warning “Max Headroom”). Soon thereafter, his memory and persona is “saved” and downloaded into a hard drive, which then transmogrifies into the “Max” we all know and love.

I remember first seeing the British pilot here in the states on Cinemax, which kicked off the domestic version of the variety series (only a handful of installments, which aired back in 1986). Unfortunately (most likely due to legal snafus) that original pilot is not included in the DVD set; if you scrounge around secondhand stores and yard sales you may spot the odd VHS copy (I found mine for $3 at a Hollywood Video a couple years ago when they were liquidating VHS inventory). I recommend catching it, if you haven’t.

What is included is the 14 episode season that aired on ABC in 1987, a coveted cult item. The reworked U.S. pilot  follows the same basic story line (although not quite as gritty and technically accomplished as the original) and sets up the character dynamics for the series. Frewer reprises his dual role as investigative TV journalist Edison Carter and his alter-ego, Max. Also retained from the original pilot are the lovely Amanda Pays (as Edison’s controller) and the delightful William Morgan Sheppard as “Blank Reg”, a Mohawk-sporting pirate cable channel entrepreneur. The always dependable Jeffrey Tambor was recruited for the U.S. series to play Carter’s producer.

Something else retained for the U.S. series (and much to its benefit) was a good portion of the original British production and writing team. As I’ve been working my way through the episodes over the past week, it amazes me how subversive the show was for U.S. network TV; especially with its unapologetic leftist, anti-corporate, anti-consumer culture message. With hindsight being 20/20, it’s not surprising that it was yanked after one season. Sad as it is for me to say, you would never see a show like this on American television now that dared to challenge the status quo (the X-Files had its moments, but cloaked them in horror-show silliness, more often than not).

Some of the story lines are quite prescient, dealing with themes like the advent of social networking, cyber-crime, and the merging of the technocracy with the idiocracy (which any casual perusal of YouTube will confirm). Perhaps what resonates most significantly in hindsight is the show’s depiction of news as infotainment and an insidiously corporate-controlled media (dismissed by many as far-fetched paranoid fantasy 23 years ago). Worth ch-ch-ch-checking out.

SIFF 2010: Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Rebel ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 12, 2010)

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Did you know Ray Bradbury was only paid $400 for the original serialized version of Fahrenheit 451 published in Playboy in 1954? That’s one of the interesting tidbits I picked up from this lengthy yet absorbing documentary about the iconoclastic founder and publisher of the magazine that I, personally, have always read strictly for the articles (of clothing that were conspicuously absent-no, I’m kidding). Seriously-there’s little of prurient interest here. In a manner of speaking, it’s mostly about “the articles”.

Brigitte Berman (director of the excellent 1985 documentary Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got) interweaves well-selected archival footage and present day interviews with Hefner and friends (as well as some of his detractors) to paint a fascinating portrait. Whether you admire him or revile him, as you watch the film you come to realize that there is probably no other public figure of the past 50 years who has so cannily tapped in to or (perhaps arguably) so directly influenced the sexual, social, political and pop-cultural zeitgeist of liberated free-thinkers everywhere.

DVD Reissue: Z ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 28, 2009)

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This 1969 film was a breakthrough for director Costa-Gavras, and a high-watermark for the “radical chic” cinema that flourished at the time. Yves Montand plays a leftist politician who is assassinated after giving a speech at a pro-Peace rally. What at first appears to be an open and shut case of a violent action by an isolated group of right wing extremists unfolds as a suspenseful conspiracy thriller.

The story (set in an unspecified Balkan nation, but based on the real-life assassination of a Greek political figure back in 1963) is told from the perspective of two characters-a photojournalist (a young Jacques Perrin, future director of Winged Migration) and an investigating magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant). The great Irene Papas is also on board as Montand’s wife.

The film is a bit of a stagey talk-fest for a political “thriller” but it is still essential viewing. It’s part Kafka, part Rashomon, but ultimately a cautionary tale about what happens when corrupt officialdom, unchecked police oppression and partisan-sanctioned extremism get into bed together. Criterion’s edition has a beautiful, restored print. Extras include a commentary track and interviews.