Tag Archives: 2010 Reviews

Big Money, Corporate Intrigue, Family Issues, On Politics

This band of Lehman Brothers-Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps **1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 1, 2010)

Don’t evah take sides against the family again. Evah.

Has it really been 23 years since writer-director Oliver Stone and co-scripter Stanley Weiser first “released the Gekko” in Wall Street? Michael Douglas’ indelible portrayal of a ruthless, soulless corporate raider transformed the character of “Gordon Gekko” into the pop culture figurehead for the Decade of Excess. Gekko’s immortal credo-“Greed, for lack of a better word…is good”-became a mantra for self-absorbed yuppies and anathema to anti-corporate activists.

Of course, with Oliver Stone being the lib’rul, anti-‘Murcan, Chavez-lovin’ DFH filmmaker that he is, he wasn’t about to let Gekko get off scot-free for his veritable laundry list of highly profitable capitalist crimes. When we last saw him at the end of the 1987 film he was getting hauled away by the Feds, after being betrayed by his protégé (who learned from the best). It looked like the man who once admitted that “I create nothing…I own” was about to learn a new creative skill-how to make license plates.

The real world has since not only merged with Stone’s hellish vision of a financial system driven by the avarice and bemused gamesmanship of a handful of self-serving weasels who “create” nothing but bigger piles of personal treasure, but surpassed it. The real life Gekkos of the 80s, like Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky (who also ended up in handcuffs) have since been eclipsed by financial super villains like Bernie Madoff. And so it goes.

In view of current events (I assume) Stone and co-writers Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff have seen fit to resurrect Gordon Gekko, in the new film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. In the prelude we catch up with Gekko in 2001, as he is being released from prison. Stone has a little fun with this sequence, especially as Gekko’s personal effects are summarily returned to him. “One gold money clip…no money,” says the poker-faced clerk. The biggest audience laugh in the film is prompted by a cameo of Gekko’s elephantine DynaTAC mobile phone, an amusing techno-relic from our not-so-distant past.

Fast-forward to 2008, on the eve of the Lehman Brothers collapse. Gekko is making a comfortable living (if not up to the standards to which he had been accustomed) on the lecture circuit, where he is plugging that inevitable memoir that every white collar crook publishes after getting out of prison. In the meantime, we are introduced to an up and coming young Wall Streeter named Jake (Shia LaBeouf) and his girlfriend Winnie (Carey Mulligan)-a liberal blogger who happens to be Gekko’s daughter. Winnie has disowned her father for years, blaming him for a family tragedy.

Unlike the recklessly ambitious young stockbroker played by Charlie Sheen in the previous film, Jake brings a certain amount of idealism to his work; he is trying to steer his employers (a group of investment bankers) toward putting capital into “green” projects (talk about lost causes). The only sympathetic ear belongs to his long-time mentor, Louis (Frank Langella) who is the managing director of the company. Louis is also a Wall Street rarity-a thoughtful man who actually seems to possess a heart and soul; you can glean why Jake looks up to him.

All bets are off, however, when the financial collapse of 2008 intervenes, and Jake’s employers feel themselves beginning to circle the drain. When Louis attempts to finagle a government bailout, he finds himself “Gekkoed” by an old rival, Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who buys out the company at pennies on the dollar.

Although he knows his girlfriend (and now fiancée) would not be pleased, the suddenly rudderless Jake, curious about his future father-in-law, introduces himself after attending one of Gekko’s public appearances. The two begin a cautious relationship, based on “trades”. Gekko wants to re-bond with Winnie; Jake wants to exact Machiavellian revenge on Bretton James. Of course, this is Gordon Gekko-so maybe he has his own Machiavellian plan brewing here.

Curiously, Stone has not so much made “Wall Street 2” here, but remade Godfather III. Gekko is at a point in his life not unlike that of Michael Corleone in the aforementioned film. He is older, his empire has crumbled, and the pull of the abyss is now more palpable than the lure of acquisition. Both characters are taking inventory of their past; and each man, in his own self-deluding fashion, is making atonement for his sins.

And Stone’s emphasis, as was Coppola’s, is on the family melodrama, not the family “business”. It’s about trust and betrayal. It’s about the father-daughter relationship. I could go on with the parallels (and point out that weirdly, Eli Wallach has a supporting role in both films), but at this point, you’re likely wondering about the most important consideration: does Stone tell an interesting story? Well, that depends on what you seek.

If you seek the Oliver Stone of Salvador, Talk Radio, and JFK– i.e., the passionate, angry prophet of the American cinema, denouncing the hypocrisy of our times, you might want to look elsewhere. Considering the potential he had here to be “bullish” and deliver a scathing, spleen-venting indictment of our royally fucked-up financial system, Stone is leaning more on the “bearish” side.

On the other hand, if you’re up for a slightly better-than-average family soaper (with a beautifully captured NYC backdrop by DP Rodrigo Prieto), then go for it. Douglas steals the show as Gekko. Langella is excellent. Brolin is suitably slimy as the villain. Also, it was fun to see Austin Pendleton (!) back on the big screen.

Not all of the casting works; Susan Sarandon’s formidable talents are wasted. As for the leading man-this was only my second exposure to LaBeouf (my first was when he hosted Saturday Night Live a while back, when I said to myself- “Shia who?”) so I’m ambivalent about his performance; it’s not “bad”-but not particularly noteworthy either. I hope that Stone (and know I am a fan) still has more great films in him down the road. It would be a lesser, more complacent universe where people felt compelled to say “Oliver who?”

Culture Clash, Dramedy, Food

First world problems: Eat Pray Love **

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 27, 2010)

Do you remember this popular Top 40 song from the late 70s ?

Oh, I’ve been to Nice and the Isle of Greece,
while I’ve sipped champagne on a yacht
I’ve moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo,
and showed ’em what I’ve got
I’ve been undressed by kings and I’ve seen some things,
that a woman ain’t supposed to see
I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me

God, I hated that song.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge the singer’s admirable journey of self-actualization, slogging and suffering along the way through the champagne and tiresome Mediterranean cruises and all, but any schlub who has been to at least two world’s fairs and a rodeo could have saved her the trip by quoting Buckaroo Banzai’s favorite adage:

 Remember…wherever you go, there you are.

 On the plus side, it only took 4 minutes for the singer to arrive at her epiphany. Unfortunately, it takes the globe-trotting heroine of Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat Pray Love 133 minutes to reach that same conclusion (OK, so it took Tyrone Power 145 minutes in The Razor’s Edge…but who’s counting?)

Julia Roberts stars as Gilbert’s avatar in the film, where she is briefly introduced to us as a seemingly happy, thirty-something NYC-based writer with a loving and supporting husband (Billy Crudup). I say “briefly introduced”, because soon after a research trip to Bali, during the course of which a shaman (Hadi Subiyanto) foretells that she will lose all her money, but eventually return to study under him so that he may impart his great wisdom, Liz decides that she needs to bolt from the marriage; much to the puzzlement of husband and audience.

Since there is virtually no exposition as to why she has the sudden change of heart (perfunctory flashbacks down the line do little to clarify), we just have to assume it’s one of those spur-of-the-moment, “I’ve never been to me” moments.

While the ink is still drying on her divorce papers (at least in screen time), Liz tumbles headlong into a relationship with a hunky young off-off Broadway stage actor (James Franco). The lust, however, soon turns to wanderlust, and Liz decides that maybe what she really needs is to take a year off from…everything.

So, leaving her new relationship somewhere in the neutral zone, she embarks on a three-pronged attack in order to “find herself”, first to Italy (eat), then India (pray) and then Bali (love…oops, is that a spoiler?)

So what does she learn? Want the speed-dating version? Here goes! In Italy, they have like, killer pasta and pizza. Awesome! And the gelato…it’s to die for! Oh…and Italians live in the moment, and they talk with their hands…just like the people on Jersey Shore! And when Liz decides to treat her new Italian friends to an all-American style home-cooked Thanksgiving meal with trimmings, one of the Italians, being unfamiliar with our ways and customs, forgets to defrost the bird. But, not to worry-Liz puts it in the oven, they all go to bed, and then, they have turkey for breakfast. How whimsical!

Next stop: India, where Liz learns piety by scrubbing floors at an ashram. Oh, and gurus live in the moment. Then, it’s back to Bali, where she goes back to the shaman who started the whole thing (he lives in the moment). Then, she meets a sexy Brazilian! (Javier Bardem).

Roberts is suitably radiant, flashes her million dollar smile and delivers her patented hearty guffaw right on cue, but she oddly spends a good portion of this very long film as an observer of her character’s journey, rather than an active participant. Consequently, it’s hard for us to really care about what happens to our leading lady; and that is a fatal flaw.

The always wonderful Richard Jenkins (as another American at the ashram) briefly perks up the middle third. But as soon as his character disappears, so does the spirit and energy he brings to the film.

The locales are gorgeous, and there’s plenty of culinary porn for the foodies, but that doesn’t candy-coat Robert’s phoned-in performance and the flat, soap opera-ish dialog (co-written by Murphy and Jennifer Salt). It’s like randomly surfing between Lifetime, The Food Network and The Travel Channel.

Frankly, the Pottery Barn angst on display here is tough to sympathize with in these hard economic times (how many of us can afford the luxury of “taking a year off” to navel-gaze?), and seems bent on perpetrating the Ugly American meme.

In fact, I thought that the depictions of the “colorful locals” encountered by the protagonist on her whistle stops bordered on the kind of colonial stereotyping I assumed Hollywood had abandoned ages ago. You know how they say that “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”? In this case, the trip could not be over soon enough.

60's Counterculture, Documentary, On Music, Rock 'n' Roll

In the loose palace of exile: When You’re Strange ***1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 17, 2010)

Just another band from L.A.

The first time I heard “Riders on the Storm” was in 1971. I was 14. It haunted me then and haunts me now. It was my introduction to aural film noir. Distant thunder, the cascading shimmer of a Fender Rhodes, a desolate tremolo guitar and dangerous rhythms.“There’s a killer on the road. His brain is squirming like a toad.” Fuck oh dear, this definitely wasn’t the Archies.

I’ll tell you this-it sure as hell didn’t sound like anything else on the radio at the time (especially considering that it squeaked in at #99 on Billboard’s Top 100 for 1971, sandwiched between the Fifth Dimension’s “One Less Bell to Answer” and Perry Como’s “It’s Impossible”). Jim Morrison’s vocals really got under my skin. Years later, a friend explained why. If you listen carefully, there are three vocal tracks. Morrison is singing, chanting and whispering the lyrics. We smoked a bowl, cranked it up and concluded that it was a pretty neat trick.

By the time “Riders on the Storm” hit the charts, the Doors had begun, for all intents and purpose, to dissolve as a band; Morrison had left the U.S. to embark on an open-ended sabbatical in France. When he was found dead in his Parisian apartment in July of 1971 at age 27, it was no longer a matter of speculation-the Doors, Mk 1 were History.

But what a history-in the 4 ½ years that keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robbie Krieger, drummer John Densmore and lead vocalist Jim Morrison enjoyed an artistic collaboration, they produced six timelessly resonant studio albums and the classic Absolutely Live (which still holds up as one of the best live albums ever by a rock band). They are also one of the first bands to successfully bridge deeply avant-garde sensibilities with popular commercial appeal. It was Blake and Rimbaud…that you could dance to.

There have been a fair number of books about the band over the years; a few in the scholarly vein but chiefly of the “tell-all” variety. Like many Doors fans, my introduction to the Jim Morrison legend came from reading No One Here Gets Out Alive many moons ago. The book was co-authored by journalist Jerry Hopkins and Doors insider Danny Sugarman. In retrospect, it may not be the most objective or insightful overview of what the band was really about, but it is a wildly entertaining read.

That was the same takeaway I got from Oliver Stone’s way over-the-top 1991 biopic, The Doors. Interestingly, I found his film to be nowhere nearly as “cinematic” as the Doors music has always felt to me (Francis Ford Coppola nailed it-it’s all there in the first 10 minutes of Apocalypse Now).

Surprisingly, it has taken until 2010, 45 years (!) after UCLA film students Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek first starting kicking around the idea of forming a band, for a proper full-length documentary feature about The Doors to appear, Tom DiCillo’s When You’re Strange.

You’ll notice I said, “about The Doors”. Stone’s aforementioned film ultimately lost its way as a true portrait of the band, I believe, because it was too myopically fixated on the Jim Morrison legend; Morrison the Lizard King, the Dionysian rock god, the drunken poet, the shaman. Yes, he was all of that (perhaps more of a showman than a shaman), but he was only 25% of the equation that made The Doors…well, The Doors. That’s what I like about DiCillo’s film; he doesn’t gloss over the contributions of the other three musicians.

In fact, one of the things you learn in the film is that Morrison himself always insisted that all songwriting credits go to “The Doors” as an entity, regardless of which band member may have had the dominant hand in the composition of any particular song (when you consider that Morrison couldn’t read a note, that’s a pragmatic stance for him to take). The band’s signature tune, the #1 hit “Light My Fire” was actually composed by Robbie Krieger-and was allegedly the first song he ever wrote (talk about beginner’s luck). He’s a damn fine guitar player too (he was trained in flamenco, and had only been playing electric for 6 months at the band’s inception).

Manzarek and Densmore were no slouches either; they had a classical and jazz background, respectively. When you piece these snippets together along with Morrison’s interests in poetry, literature, film and improvisational theatre (then sprinkle in a few tabs of acid) you finally begin to get a picture of why this band had such a unique vibe. They’ve been copied, but never equaled.

The film looks to have been a labor of love by the director. Johnny Depp provides the narration, and DiCillo has assembled some great footage; it’s all well-chosen, sensibly sequenced and beautifully edited. Although there are a fair amount of clips and stories that will qualify as old hat to Doors aficionados (the “Light My Fire” performance on the Sullivan Show, the infamous Miami concert “riot”, etc.), there is a treasure trove of rare footage.

One fascinating clip shows the band in the studio constructing the song “Wild Child” during the sessions for The Soft Parade. I would have been happy to watch an entire reel of that; I’m a real sucker for films like Sympathy for the Devil, Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii and Let It Be, which offer a glimpse at the actual creative process.

The real revelation is the interwoven excerpts from Morrison’s experimental 1969 film HWY: An American Pastoral, which I’ve never had an opportunity to screen. Although it is basically a bearded Morrison driving around the desert (wearing his trademark leather pants), it’s mesmerizing, surreal footage. DiCillo must have had access to a pristine master print, because it looks like it was shot last week. It wasn’t until the credits rolled that I realized this wasn’t one of those dreaded recreations, utilizing a lookalike. As a matter of fact, Morrison has never appeared so “alive” on film. It’s eerie.

Cult Movie, Horror, Social Satire

Naughty and not so nice: Rare Exports ***1/2

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By  Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 25, 2010)

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It’s official. I now have a new favorite Christmas movie. John Carpenter’s The Thing meets Miracle on 34th Street in Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander’s Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, a wickedly clever Yule story that spices up the usual holiday family movie recipe by folding in generous dollops of sci-fi, horror, and Norse legend.

The twist here is that our protagonist, a young boy named Pietari (Onni Tommila) not only believes that Santa Claus is, in fact, real, but that he is buried just beyond the back 40 of his dad’s reindeer ranch, where American archeologists are excavating a mysterious promontory. After bizarre and troubling events begin to plague Pietari’s sleepy little hamlet, it looks that Santa may have just been “resting”. And if this is the mythical Santa Pietari suspects, then he is more Balrog than eggnog…and is best left undisturbed.

The director also works a sly anti-consumerist polemic into his narrative. Pietra’s dad (Jorma Tommila) and his fellow reindeer hunters-who are more chagrinned that the saturnine Santa is threatening their livelihood by slaughtering all the reindeer than by the fact that he is also methodically kidnapping the village children and spiriting them away to an undisclosed location, manage to capture him, and then demand a “ransom” from the corporate weasel who, for his own nefarious reasons, is funding the dig.

In the meantime, a legion of Santa’s nasty little “helpers” are running amuck and wreaking havoc. Pietari, the only one keeping a cool head, just wants to enjoy Christmas with dad-even if he has to transform into a midget version of Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness to rescue the children (and save the farm, in a manner of speaking).

There’s nothing “cute” about this film, yet it’s by no means mean-spirited, either. It is an off-beat, darkly funny, and wholly original treat for moviegoers hungry for a fresh alternative to the 999th lifetime viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story. Speaking as someone who lived for many years within a day’s drive of the Arctic Circle, the film also perfectly captures the stark beauty of midwinter in the far Northern Hemisphere; especially that unique dichotomy of soothing tranquility and alien desolation that it can bring to one’s soul. And for god’s sake-let Santa rest in peace.

Documentary, Family Issues, Up the Workers

Salt of the earth: Last Train Home ***

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 23, 2010)

One of the best family melodramas I have seen this year is not fictional, but rather an absorbing, beautifully photographed documentary by Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan called Last Train Home.

The family in the spotlight is the Zhangs: Changhua (dad), Suqin (mom), their 17 year old daughter Qin, and their young son. Changhua and Suqin are two of the 130 million migrant workers who crowd China’s train depots and bus stations every spring in a mass, lemming-like frenzy to get back to their rural villages in time for New Year’s holiday. And like many of those workers, these are the few precious days they have per year to see their children, who, due to the fact that their parents lack urban residency status, do not qualify to attend the public schools in the cities where they work.

Changhua and Suqin toil away their days in the city of Guangzhou, working in a factory. Early on in the film, a wordless sequence, wherein we watch the couple performing their evening ablutions before turning in for the night, speaks volumes about the joyless drudgery and quiet desperation of their daily life. They appear to be bunking in a closet-sized cubicle (with only a curtain for privacy) within some kind of communal flophouse (possibly adjacent to, or perhaps  part of, their factory building-which is an even more depressing thought). One colorless day blends into the next.

The only break in the monotony comes when the New Year arrives, and the couple  attempt to make their way home in time-and I have to say, this is as far from a madcap John Hughes romp starring Steve Martin and John Candy that you can possibly get. After several frustrating setbacks, they eventually find a place on a train (at thrice the usual rates). The scenes at the train stations are surreal and harrowing; the press of so much humanity, crammed into one finite space, and all of one mind (to claim a seat and stash their luggage no matter who gets injured) is mind boggling. Happy New Year.

The real drama, however, unfolds once the bedraggled parents reach their destination. They are greeted by a young son who is much more excited about the toys they have brought than he is in seeing them again (it’s been three years since he’s seen his mother) and a sullen, hostile Qin, who resents their prolonged absences.

The children are much closer to their grandmother, who has been taking care of them while Changhua and Suqin work in the city. When Qin announces that she has decided to quit school and follow in her parents footsteps by finding a job in the city, the shit hits the fan (like parents anywhere else in the world, they live in hope that their kids will achieve more than them).

The director was given an amazing degree of latitude by the family n filming their lives; to the point of feeling almost too close for comfort at times (especially during an intense family row that gets physical). As difficult as some of it is to watch, however, the end result is an engrossing portrait of what happens in a country like China, which has seen so much rapid industrialization and exponential economic growth in such a relatively short period of time that the infrastructure and social policies have fallen light years behind.

And the saddest (and most ironic) part is that the millions of working poor like the Zhangs, who made the country’s new prosperity possible, are in no position to benefit from it. Hold on sec. Maybe we have more in common with China than I thought…

Drama, Family Issues, True Crime

Sister, in law: Conviction ***

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 23, 2010)

In May of 1980, the body of a woman named Katherina Brow was discovered in her Ayers, Massachusetts home by her daughter-in-law. Brow had been brutally murdered (30 stab wounds) and police found what they believed to be the murder weapon, a bloody paring knife, still on the premises. Brow’s purse and a few other valuables were missing, so the motive appeared to be robbery.

Based on circumstantial evidence, one of Brow’s neighbors, Kenny Waters, became an immediate suspect; police retained him for questioning the day after the murder, but he was released after providing a verifiable alibi. A few months later, he voluntarily submitted to a voice stress test, which he passed.

The case remained opened until the fall of 1982, when the then-current boyfriend of one of Waters’ ex-girlfriends approached investigators, claiming to have incriminating information about Waters, which he would divulge in exchange for money (it has never been confirmed whether he was paid).

After receiving corroboration from the ex-girlfriend (which she later would claim to have agreed to give only because police allegedly threatened to charge her as an accessory and take away her children if she did not back up her boyfriend’s story), Waters was officially charged with Brow’s murder. After a relatively short trial, Waters was convicted and sentenced to life in May of 1983.

So far, you’re probably thinking that this sounds like a thousand other murder cases. Someone was killed, someone was now paying for it; I think I’ve seen this narrative played out once or twice on TV, in one of those sordid “true-crime” re-creations hosted by that silver-haired ghoul who they love to satirize on SNL, ho-hum. However, what ensued during the 18 years between May 1983, when Waters began to serve his sentence, and March of 2001, when he was released from prison and officially exonerated of the crime, is the stuff that a movie producer’ dreams are made of.

You see, Waters had a sister named Betty Anne-a loving and devoted sister. How devoted? During the 18 years Kenny languished in prison, she basically put the rest of her life on hold (at the cost of her marriage and relationship with her two sons) to devote heart and soul to one goal: having her brother cleared of a crime that she was 100% convinced he had not committed.

In order to achieve this goal, she first needed to literally become a lawyer, so she put herself through college and law school, and then got to work. This amazing story of a woman taking on “the system” and winning, almost purely through the power of her conviction, has been dramatized in…wait for it…Conviction.

Director Tony Goldwyn has reunited with screenwriter Pamela Gray for this film (they previously teamed up in 1999 on the underrated sleeper, A Walk on the Moon) and it feels like one of the first serious Oscar contenders on the Q4 release calendar, mostly due to some outstanding lead and supporting performances from the cast.

Hilary Swank (getting her Boston brogue on in a big way) plays Betty Anne with a convincing blend of working class spunk, native intelligence and a New Englander’s inborn tenacity. Sam Rockwell, who excels at playing dichotomous characters who manage to be ingratiatingly endearing, yet also darkly unsettling all at once, is in top form as her brother Kenny. And, thanks to the talents of these two lead actors, their relationship is quite touching and real.

Flashbacks to Betty Anne and Kenny’s childhood suggest that their close bond was deeply rooted. This mutual protectiveness could have been necessitated by pure survival instinct; as they spent most of their early years in foster care. It is also clear that Kenny, while possessed of a rambunctiously fun-loving spirit, also had, from a very young age, a propensity for letting it get him into trouble.

There are certain people (and I think we’ve all known personalities like this at some point in our lives) who seem like they were born to clash their entire lives with authority figures, even when they’re not consciously trying to. Kenny was one of those people; suffice it to say he grew up on a first name basis with all the local cops.

Interestingly (at least as depicted in the film) Kenny’s reaction to his arrest and incarceration on the murder charge leans toward a resigned ambivalence throughout the ordeal; it is his sister who, from day one, makes the impassioned case for exoneration.

I’m not sure if this was a conscious decision by the filmmakers to leave the door ajar to the possibility that his sister could have been blinded by love…or if Kenny, like a character from a Kafka novel, had decided to make peace with the rain of bad karma with a shrug of existential indifference.

One wise decision by the filmmakers was to end on a high note, with Kenny’s release ; because the real life coda was, putting it mildly, fraught with karmic cruelty. Six months after his release and official exoneration, Kenny Waters died from a fall in a freak accident (or this could have been cosmic justice-who can say for sure?).

The film also calls attention to the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal organization dedicated to proving wrongly convicted persons innocent through DNA testing (one of the group’s co-founders, Barry Scheck, played a pivotal role in assisting Betty Anne with her case and is well-played in the film by Peter Gallagher).

Swank and Rockwell are ably supported here with noteworthy performances from Minnie Driver (who I feel should get a Best Supporting nomination), Juliette Lewis, Clea DuVall and the always excellent Melissa Leo (cast against type as a corrupt cop).

This is definitely an actor’s movie; which makes sense because director Goldwyn is himself an actor. At the end of the day, although Betty Anne Waters is undeniably a kind of “superwoman” (and my newest hero) this film is not so much about truth, justice and the American way as it is about real love, dedication and selflessness.

Action, Corporate Intrigue, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Who are the brain police? – Inception **1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 24, 2010)

Somnambulance chasers: DiCaprio and Page in Inception

So-how do I best describe Christopher Nolan’s boardroom thriller/sci-fi mindbender, Inception, without sounding like I’m off my meds? Executive Suite meets Solaris? No? The Bad Sleep Well meets Fantastic Voyage? Still too obscure? What’s that…I’m showing my age? Fine, I see how you are. How about…Duplicity meets Dark City?

Think a heist film- but in reverse. Reverse, forward, up, down-it’s just another day punching the clock and free-falling through the looking glass, for professional “extractor” Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). Because you see, his “job” is not necessarily grounded in everyday reality (kind of like a movie critic). You know how some people are so adept at what they do that we say that they could do their job in their sleep? That’s the only way Cobb can do his job-in his sleep. He extracts secrets from dreams. Other people’s dreams.

 I’m a spy, in the house of love

I know the dream that you’re dreamin’ of

I know the word that you long to hear

I know your deepest, secret fear

 -The Doors

What Jim Morrison said. Except “love” rarely enters the picture (alright, sometimes it does-but no spoilers). Typically, Cobb offers his special services to some evil corporate bastard, who wants to steal information from some other evil corporate bastard. He gets a lot of gigs, because he’s tops in his field (of dreams).

This is a shadowy world to work in, literally and figuratively, and it has caught up with him. He’s still for hire, but he’s also on the lam, so he has to choose his employers carefully. When a tycoon (Ken Watanabe) offers him a unique challenge (to plant a thought, as opposed to stealing one) he can’t resist the allure of pulling off the perfect “inception”. Like any heist movie worth its salt, the protagonist must now assemble a crack team of specialists (bet you’re  glad I didn’t say, “dream team”).

In addition to his long time partner in crime (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Cobb enlists a newbie (Ellen Page) to be the “architect”. Her job is to design the dream world that the team will need to navigate in order to plant the thought into the subconscious of their target (Cillian Murphy) without arousing the “suspicions” of his, erm, subconscious self. Suffice it to say, much cerebral copulation ensues, with enough conundrums to start a fistfight in heaven between Freud, Jung, Adler and Perls. Not to mention our hero sorting through some issues regarding his late wife (Marion Cotillard) while still on the clock.

Nolan (who wrote as well as directed) has proven in the past to be a consistently intelligent, imaginative and inventive filmmaker; whether working with a modest budget (Following, Memento) or blockbuster-sized bankroll (The Dark Knight), which is why I was disappointed to see him stumble here (more on that in a moment).

From a production standpoint, the film is extremely well-crafted; Wally Pfister’s cinematography, Lee Smith’s editing, and the production design by Guy Hendrix Dyas are all outstanding, and the CGI work is impressive. The cast (which also includes support from Michael Caine, Tom Berenger and Pete Postlethwaite) does a fine job (although DiCaprio, while adequate, has done better work).

But…here’s the rub: For a story that takes place in the boundless universe of the subconscious, a wholly “other” world of symbols, signs and wonders, there’s too much reliance on standard-issue action film tropes, and with a 2 ½ hour running time, it starts to feel like an endless loop of an action movie within an action movie, into infinity (I’m sure Nolan was aiming more for the dream within a dream). The film lurches toward thought-provoking Tarkovsky territory, but ends up in shoot ‘em up Bruckheimer land. This is not an altogether bad film, but considering all the talent and money involved, it’s a squandered opportunity, and that’s a real shame.

Art world, Documentary

Can you see the real me? – Marwencol ****

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 27, 2010)

From whence it follows, that one thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning; it being impossible for two things of the same kind to be or exist in the same instant, in the very same place; or one or the same thing in different places.

-John Locke, from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

When I was 10 years old, I was obsessed with G.I. Joes. My best friend George and I would spend hours staging little dramas with the dolls for our amusement. It’s probably a good thing that we did this for our own amusement, because a casual observer might conclude that these two kids were kind of weird.

We very rarely dressed our G.I. Joes “correctly”. We never fantasized “war” scenarios; rather we used the dolls to create our own individual super-hero avatars, by mixing and matching uniforms and accoutrements from the four branches of military service to create gestalt entities. I was Mar-navy Man, George was Air-Army Man. We were so into our characters that, in addition to acting out, we created our own series of meticulously hand-made comic books, so we could document our adventures. OK, I guess I was a weird kid.

This little childhood anecdote doesn’t come up in everyday conversation; nor have I ever felt compelled to share it with readers (and as a pick-up line, I think we can safely say that it is right out). However, as I watched Jeff Malmberg’s extraordinary documentary, Marwencol, (which plays like a mash-up of Memento, Lars and the Real Girl, and Pecker) those memories came flooding back, and I found myself empathizing with the film’s subject, Mark Hogancamp, in emotionally resonant ways I could never have predicted.

Hogancamp’s unique journey was one borne of tragedy. In 2000, he was at death’s door, following a brutal beating by five men outside a bar in Kingston, N.Y. His situation was touch and go for the first week or so (the first 9 of his 40 days in the hospital were spent in a coma), but he eventually recovered enough from his physical injuries to become somewhat self-sufficient again. Unfortunately, however, the brain damage he sustained was permanent; as a result, he had virtually no memories of his life prior to the incident.

Photos and home movies indicate that he was happily married at one time, to a woman who he, in essence, only “knows” from her pictures (I can’t even fathom how strange of a head space that would put someone in). People “tell” him that he was fond of the bottle; interestingly he now has no craving for alcohol whatsoever.

On this aspect of his former life, he does have some tangible documentation-in his own handwriting. He shows the filmmaker piles of notebooks, which he refers to as his “drunk journals”. These diaries fascinate him, yet fail to trigger any cognizance of personal identity. Also, there are reams of fantasy artwork that he had produced before the attack;it’s all quite good, actually, in a Neal Adams/Frank Frazetta kind of vein. However, none of these clues can prepare the viewer for a tour of a little “town” called Marwencol.

Now, the Mark Hogancamp, that is to say, the corporeal being we perceive as “Mark Hogancamp” may exist and “live” in Kingston, N.Y., but as far as Mark himself is concerned, he actually lives in “Marwencol”. And Marwencol actually does “exist”. That being said, you’re not going to find Marwencol on Google Earth, because the entire town is located within the confines of Mark’s back yard. It’s a stunningly realistic 1/6 scale WW 2-era town, populated by G.I. Joes and Barbies, meticulously constructed over a period of years.

This is not a hobby; it is on-going therapy (a luxury that he could not afford). Every doll has a back story; many are alter-egos of his friends and neighbors (including himself). Although the period detail is captured to a tee, Mark takes liberties with his storylines. For example, there are “good” and “bad” German soldiers (the “town Germans” get along fine with the American G.I.s, and the “SS” are the “bad” Germans). Even Mark’s assailants have alter-egos (SS, of course) who have faced the firing squad once or twice.

The story gets curiouser and curiouser, especially once a local professional photographer sort of stumbles onto Mark’s unique flair with a camera (he had been photo-documenting “daily life” in Marwencol for some time) and he is “discovered” by the New York art world (leaving Mark cautiously flattered, and more than a bit puzzled). There are even more surprises in store, as the many layers of this remarkable individual are very deliberately peeled away by the filmmaker (judge not a book by its cover, my friends).

This aspect of the story strongly recalls Jessica Yu’s 2004 documentary, In the Realms of the Unreal, about artist Henry Darger, an elderly recluse who in point of fact had no clue that he was an “artist” up to his dying day. Like Hogancamp, he had a “second life” spent completely immersed in his own fantasy world; the main difference being that his “Marwencol” (if you will) was a mythic, Tolkien-like construct, dutifully annotated and rendered in art and prose, and discovered by others only after his death, when over 300 paintings and a lavishly illustrated 15,000 page novel were found in his cramped apartment. However (Monday morning psychological quarterbacking aside) what drove Darger (a nondescript janitor by day) into his rich alternate reality, remains a mystery.

Although the film has a discomfiting, want-to-look-away-but-you-can’t Grey Gardens vibe at the outset, it’s more than yet another “quirky portrait of a eccentric”. It’s a journey into the very essence of what defines human identity and the consciousness of “self”. It also demonstrates that the idea of reinventing oneself is not just an elective luxury, exclusive to the creative class. For some persevering souls, it is a means of survival.

Culture Clash, Documentary, Politics

Land and freedom: Tibet in Song ***

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on  December 4, 2010)

Did you know that the Tibetans have a traditional song for milking your yak? And yet another to sing while churning said milk into butter? That might sound like the setup for a bad joke, but it’s not. Far from it-especially if you know this: if the Chinese government got wind that you were warbling the yak-milking song (or any traditional Tibetan music) in public, you could be imprisoned. Or maybe tortured. Or killed. Or-how about all three?

I learned all this and more from a fascinating documentary called Tibet in Song, which is really two films in one. Primarily, it is the film that director Ngawang Choephel initially set out to make back in 1995, when he returned for a visit to his homeland after years of exile in India and the United States (his mother had fled Tibet in 1966 with her then 2-year-old son.)

The filmmaker’s intent was to seek out and document the remaining vestiges of traditional Tibetan song and dance, which had become increasingly elusive in the wake of the Cultural Revolution imposed on the country by the Chinese government following the Tibetan Rebellion of 1959.

The first third of the film does deliver a sampling of the region’s folk dances and unique indigenous music, which shares a tonality with Native American chants. One thing it does not share so much in common with is Chinese music. While this latter observation is most certainly not lost on Tibetans, it seems to have been to the Chinese government, which has made concerted efforts, beginning with the Cultural Revolution era and going forward, to replace all traditional Tibetan melodies with Chinese pop songs singing praises to the regime.

One Tibetan interviewee (now an exile) recounts the introduction of radio broadcasts in the 1960s that blasted a steady din of the propagandist pop. Most Tibetans, who are culturally ingrained to express themselves daily in song and dance, had never even seen a radio; it was referred to as “the sound box”. “From that thing, there’s nothing to hear,” his father warned him, “It’s just for transforming ‘us’ into ‘them’.”

The film also recounts a very personal story, precipitated by a profoundly life-changing event that occurred two months into filming. While driving to visit his father, Choephel was stopped at a checkpoint and grilled by Chinese intelligence agents, who confiscated his camera, videotapes and notes. He was immediately accused of “spying” and sentenced to 18 years in prison (no trial).

Undaunted, Choephel continued his project. Fellow prisoners (many of them political dissidents) were happy to share their knowledge of traditional songs, which the director transcribed on cigarette wrappers. When this makeshift archive was discovered and seized by prison officials, Choephel began to commit the songs to memory (shades of Fahrenheit 451).

The studious and mild-mannered Choephel experienced a classic prison conversion, from objective researcher to political activist. “I had joined the (Free Tibet movement),” he recounts in voiceover. Thankfully, after a tireless one-woman campaign by his devoted mother, he was released in 2002, after six years of imprisonment.

Tibet in Song may begin as an academic culture study, but, not unlike the director’s own personal transformation, it becomes an unexpectedly inspirational and moving story. What more could you demand from a film? Singing and dancing? Well, actually…

Drama, Family Issues

Pressure drop: Alamar ***1/2

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By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 4, 2010)

It’s not time to make a change

Just relax, take it easy

You’re still young, that’s your fault

There’s so much you have to know

 –Cat Stevens, from “Father and Son”

To say that “nothing happens” in Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s leisurely paced cinematic tone-poem, Alamar, set against the backdrop of Mexico’s intoxicating  Banco Chinchorro, is to deny that the rhythm of life has a pulse. That is because, analogous to the complex and delicate eco-system that sustains the reef, there is  more going on just beneath the surface of Rubio’s sparse story than meets the eye.

Granted, the narrative is simple. A Mexican man named Jorge (Jorge Machado) has been separated from his Italian-born wife, Roberta (Roberta Palombini) for several years. The couple has a five-year-old son named Natan (Natan Machado Palombini). Roberta has decided to leave Mexico and move to Rome, taking Natan with her. Before he says goodbye to his son, Jorge wants to bond with him by taking him on a special trip to the place he grew up-the Chinchorro Reef (on Mexico’s Caribbean coast) where the pair are greeted by Jorge’s mentor Nestor (Nestor Marin), a leathery, weathered elder fisherman (with a requisite twinkle in his eye) who seems to have strolled straight out of a Hemingway tale.

Over the next several weeks, young Natan (and the astute viewer) is given a crash-course in becoming one with nature and living completely in the “now”. It actually doesn’t feel like a “crash course”, because the message is subtly delivered through a a series of episodic, Zen-like vignettes.

Young Natan waits quietly in the boat, contemplating sea birds circling overhead, while his father and Nestor spearfish for lobster on the reef’s bed. Jorge teaches Natan how to hand-cast lines to catch snapper and barracuda. Father and son wrestle playfully; their joyful giggles are infectious and speak volumes about the genuine bond between them. Jorge and Natan hand-feed an egret, a scene-stealing sea bird (whom they nickname “Blanquita”) that decides to adopt the fishermen for a spell.

I am sure there will be viewers who will find the film too “slow” and uneventful, but that’s OK. If you can’t wait for it to end so you can turn your phone back on and check all those “important” messages, I suspect that the film’s message, telegraphed in the sunlit shimmer of a crystalline coral reef, or in the light of love on a father’s face as he watches his son slowly drift off to sleep, is destined to never get through to you anyway.

And what is the message? Perhaps it is best summed up by Nestor, relaxing with a cup of coffee after another day of fishing, who says, “It’s beautiful here at sea. That’s why I’m sitting here, watching the night. It’s as simple as that. I sit here alone and drink my coffee, watching for a while and then off to sleep.”

Alamar is a beautiful film. It’s as simple as that.