Tag Archives: On Politics

Like drama for Dramamine: Captain Phillips **1/2

September 6, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 12, 2013)

In his “New Rules” segment on HBO’s Real Time program last week, Bill Maher issued an important advisement: “Before seeing the new Tom Hanks movie, Captain Phillips, liberals in the audience must be warned that yes, the bad guys in the movie are black…and we apologize.” Apology accepted, Bill. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m not going to mention the teensy-weensy hint of colonial stereotyping I detected while watching the latest “ripped from the headlines” docudrama from British director Paul Greengrass.

Of course, I understand that Mr. Greengrass had no control over the fact that the pirates who hijacked the U.S. container ship Maersk Alabama and took its captain hostage back in 2009 happened to be Somali nationals. Or that the Navy Seals came riding in (technically…rowing in) like the US Cavalry (along with seemingly half of the American fleet in the region) to take out three pirates and rescue one white guy. I mean, you couldn’t fantasize a more perfect mash-up for a director who specializes in real-world-based political dramas like United 93 or taut thrillers like The Bourne Supremacy.

And Greengrass does indeed run with it, enlisting screenwriter Billy Ray (State of Play, Breach) who co-adapted from the real-life Phillips’ autobiography, A Captain’s Duty along with the author and Stephan Talty, as well as relentlessly utilizing his signature “I think I’m gonna hurl” pseudo-cinema verite shaky-cam (you’ll feel like you’ve been on a raft for three days by the end of the film).

There’s very little point in giving you a plot summary, as anyone who watched the events unfold on the nightly news will remember how it went down. Even someone too young to remember can logically assume that since it is based on the protagonist’s personal memoir about his ordeal with his captors, he doesn’t like, you know, (spoiler alert!) die at the end.

So the key to the success or failure of any such film dramatization lies in the artistry of its execution and/or visceral entertainment value; and from that purely cinematic standpoint, Greengrass does an expert job at ratcheting up the tension and the thrills (although I wish he could have kept that goddamned camera still long enough for me to regain my purchase at some point before the credits rolled).

In its best moments, the film recalls Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, in the way Greengrass uses the claustrophobic staging to present a cross-sectional microcosm of (in this case) the effects of globalization on impoverished third-world nations.

To his credit, Greengrass at least takes a stab at examining the sociopolitical factors fueling the pirates’ actions, particularly in several brief but well-played exchanges between Phillips (Hanks) and the Somali leader (Barkhad Abdi), but it feels perfunctory. Truth be told, Cy Enfield did a more effective job humanizing the “enemy” and reforming antiquated colonial stereotypes of Africans in his 1964 historical drama, Zulu.

Okay, the entertainment value is there, the acting is fine…so what’s my problem? I’m so glad you asked. It’s the same “problem” I had with Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. While I’m proud to be a ‘murcan and all, and thank (insert local deity here) everyday that there are dedicated men and women much stronger and braver than I putting their lives on the line protecting “our” interests around the world 24/7, I just really get uncomfortable with this whole booyah kill mission thing that we do so (disturbingly) well.

Greengrass tries for a hole-in-one, but drives his movie ass-over-teakettle into the same fist-pumping for the death squad sand trap Bigelow did. I guess I’m tired of expecting a Secret Decoder Ring, only to discover at the end of the day that it’s just another crummy commercial…in this case, for American exceptionalism.

Anyone for a nice cup o’ hubris? Ovaltine?

Documentary, Historical drama, On Politics, Religion

And justice for some: 12 Years a Slave 1/2 & The Trials of Muhammad Ali *

September 5, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 2, 2013)

One of the lighter moments in 12 Years a Slave.

Let me make this perfectly clear. It is my sincere personal belief that slavery is evil. There is nothing that justifies robbing human beings of their freedom and treating them as chattel. And I do take the subject of slavery throughout the history of mankind (whether in discussion, literature, theater or film) seriously, from what the Pharaohs did to my own ancestors 5000 years ago, to the odious exploitation of Africans by European and American slave traders over a 300 year period.

I offer this disclaimer to any of my fellow liberals who may be offended that the following review is not going to be a fawning one, no matter how noble and righteous the filmmaker’s intent.

Somewhere around the halfway mark of British director Steve McQueen’s latest wallow in human misery, 12 Years a Slave, one character begs the protagonist (in so many words) to “Please…kill me now.” Oddly enough, those are the exact words I was silently mouthing as I stole a glance at my watch to assuage a suspicion that I may in fact now be living in the year 2019.

However, in polite deference to my fellow moviegoers in the packed, reverently hushed auditorium (and my sworn duties as your film reviewer), I took a deep breath, girded my loins for the 6 remaining years of the film’s running time and kept mum. I did hit a rough patch about 7/8 of the way through when one of the characters says (to the best of my recollection) “…and do you agree, sir, that slavery is evil?” To which I nearly leaped to my feet to exclaim “YES! Thank you for finally saying it! Now…for the love of god, please roll the end credits!” No such luck.

The film is based on an 1855 memoir by Solomon Northup, an African-American resident of upstate New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, remaining in bondage until his rescue in 1853. Now, I have not read this source book, which I gather to be one of the earliest detailed first-hand accounts to shed light on the machinations of the American slave trade (most significantly, from the victim’s perspective), as well as an inspiring account of survival and retention of dignity in the face of such institutionalized horror.

Sounds like perfect fodder for a multi-dimensional film that could personalize an ugly chapter of American history traditionally glossed over (at least when I was in grade school back in the Bronze Age).

Unfortunately, McQueen and his screenwriter John Ridley have chosen to fixate more on the “horror” than anything else. We are barely introduced to Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a genteel, well-educated, top-hat tipping gentleman who supports his family with his skills as a carpenter and accomplished fiddle-player, before he is bamboozled by a pair of con men with a laughably simple ruse and shanghaied into slavery by the next morning (if I didn’t already know that this was a Very Serious Film, I might have begun to suspect I had been bamboozled into a sneak for the latest Hangover sequel).

What ensues is not so much a tangible story arc as it is a two-hour aversion therapy session (how many repetitive scenes of beatings, lashings, and lynchings can you sit through with your eyes pinned open like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange before you beg for mercy? Start the timer!) As the years tick by, Solomon is bought and sold and loaned and traded and sold again. Then more beatings, lashings, and lynchings…different plantations.

Occasional Malick-esque interludes offer some respite, with painterly antebellum dioramas that would make James Lee Burke moist. Using a sliding scale of evil, a few of the white folks Solomon encounters are “better” than others (including a sympathetic owner played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt as a Canadian abolitionist), but mostly cartoon villains (Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano and McQueen veteran Michael Fassbender try to out-Snidely Whiplash each other).

I sense there is a really terrific film here, screaming to get out from underneath all the ham-fisted torture porn. I understand that a film doesn’t have to be a “comfortable” experience, especially when dealing with an uncomfortable subject. I get “provocative”. I get “challenging”. That’s what makes good art. But a film also has to tell a story. I don’t care if it’s a happy story, or a sad story, or even a linear story. But a film shouldn’t be merely something to endure (unless you’re a masochist and into that sort of thing; I won’t judge you).

In an odd bit of kismet, I recently devoted several successive evenings to watch all 9 ½ hours of Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 Holocaust documentary Shoah. It is, hands down, the most harrowing, emotionally shattering and profoundly moving film I have ever seen about man’s inhumanity to man. And guess what? In 9 ½ hours, you don’t see one single image or reenactment of the actual horrors. It is people (victims and perpetrators) simply telling their story and collectively creating an oral history. And I was riveted. To be sure, Solomon Northrup had to endure 12 years of pure hell. I get that. But I’ll bet you he also had a story to tell. Sadly, I get no sense of it here.

Rope-a-trope: The Trials of Muhammad Ali.

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me n***er, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father… Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail”

-Muhammad Ali

There have been a number of films documenting and dramatizing the extraordinary life of Muhammad Ali, but they all share a curious anomaly. Most have tended to gloss over Ali’s politically volatile “exile years” (1967-1970), during which the American sports icon was officially stripped of his heavyweight crown and essentially “banned” from professional boxing after his very public refusal to be inducted into the Army on the grounds of conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. In a new documentary, The Trials of Muhammad Ali (not to be confused with Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, the 2013 made-for-cable drama that HBO has been running in heavy rotation) filmmaker Bill Siegel (The Weather Underground) fills in those blanks.

As we know, Time heals (most) wounds…and Siegel opens his film with a fascinatingly dichotomous illustration. We witness a young Ali in a TV talk show appearance as he is being lambasted by an apoplectic David Susskind, who calls him (among other things) “…a disgrace to his country, his race and what he laughably describes as his profession.” (Ali deflects the insulting rant with a Zen-like calm).

Cut to 2005, and footage of President G.W. Bush Jr. awarding Ali the Medal of Freedom. It’s easy to forget how vilified Ali was for taking his stand (scars from the politically polarizing Vietnam era run deep; I know a few folks who still refer to Jane Fonda as “Hanoi Jane”).

Sigel then traces the evolution of Ali’s controversial stance, which had its roots in the early 60s, when the wildly popular Olympic champion then known as Cassius Clay became interested in the Nation of Islam, guided by the teachings of the movement’s leader at the time, Elijah Muhammad. Interviewees Kahlilah Camacho-Ali (Ali’s first wife, whom he met through the Nation of Islam) and a longtime friend only identified as “Captain Sam” provide a lot of interesting background on this spiritual side of Ali’s life, which eventually led to the adaptation of a new name and his refusal to serve in Vietnam.

As you watch the film, you begin to understand how Ali the sports icon transmogrified into an influential sociopolitical figure, even if he didn’t set out to become the latter. It was more an accident of history; Ali’s affiliation with the Nation of Islam and stance against the Vietnam War put him at the confluence of both the burgeoning Black Power and anti-war movements.

Either way, it took balls, especially considering that when he was convicted of draft evasion (later overturned by the Supreme Court), he was not only stripped of his heavyweight title (and primary source of income), but had his passport taken away by the government. This was not grandstanding; it was a true example of standing on the courage of one’s convictions.

Sigel has dug up some eye-opening archival footage from Ali’s three years in the wilderness. He still had to pay rent and feed his family, so Ali essentially found a second career during that period as a professional speaker (likely making him the only world-famous athlete to have inserted that phase of life usually associated with post-retirement into the middle of one’s career). During this time he represented himself as a minister of the Nation of Islam, giving speeches against racism and the Vietnam War (he shows to have been quite an effective and charismatic speaker). One mind-blower is footage of Ali performing a musical number from a Broadway play called Big Time Buck White. Wow.

It’s hard to see this film and not draw parallels with Edward Snowden; specifically to ponder how he will be viewed in the fullness of time. Granted, Snowden is not as likely to get bestowed with the Medal of Freedom-but god knows he’s being vilified now (remember, Ali didn’t just catch flak from the usual suspects for standing firmly on his principles, but even from dyed-in-the-wool liberals like Susskind).

Another takeaway is that there was more going on than cloaked racism; Ali’s vilification was America’s pre-9/11 flirt with Islamophobia. Ali was “safe” and acceptable as a sports celebrity (as long as he played the face-pulling, poetry-spouting ham with Howard Cosell), but was recast as a dangerous black radical once he declared himself a Muslim and began to speak his mind on hot-button issues.

As one interviewee comments on the Islam quotient “…Since 9/11, ‘Islam’ has acquired so many layers and dimensions and textures. When the Nation of Islam was considered as a ‘threatening’ religion, traditional Islam was seen as a gentle alternative. And now, quite the contrary […] Muhammad Ali occupies a weird kind of place in that shifting interpretation of Islam.” Welcome to Bizarro World.

Drama, Family Issues, On Politics, War(s) on Terror

Homeland insecurity: Torn ***

September 5, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 23, 2013)

In the wake of the recent LAX shooting, The Islamic Monthly ran an interesting piece by its Senior Editor Arsalan Iftikhar, who made this pithy (and prescient) observation:

Now, the same right-wingers who would shout “terrorism” from the rooftops if the LAX airport shooter was a Muslim will likely avoid using the word “terrorism” at all since the shooter was a white Italian dude from Jersey. They will characterize this non-Muslim terrorist as a crazy kooky loner whose undiagnosed mental-health issues or work-related stress probably led to the attacks.

Also, these same right-wingers who always call for the “racial profiling” of Arabs and Muslims after every terrorist attack will now be silent since they would now have to call for the racial profiling of every 20-something white dude from New Jersey.

As if on cue, there’s a new indie called Torn (running in limited engagements) that tackles that meme head on. Set in a quiet Bay Area bedroom community, Jeremiah Birnbaum’s modestly budgeted drama opens with a dreamy, lazily-focused montage of pure, tranquil suburban-American imagery: shoppers at the mall, doing what shoppers do.

Shortly after the segment dissolves into heavenly white light (rarely a good sign), we learn through a TV news bulletin that Something Terrible Has Happened. There’s been an explosion at the mall (possibly a gas line), and there are fatalities.

The TV is in the home of an upscale Pakistani-American couple, Maryam (Mahnoor Baloch) and her husband Ali (Faran Tahir), both just home from work and setting the table for dinner. On their answering machine, they hear a message from their son, telling them he’s headed for the mall after school (I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you what that portends).

As the couple begins to deal with their soul-shattering grief in the days following the tragedy, Maryam forms a bond and strikes up a friendship with a woman named Lea (Dendrie Taylor), a divorced, financially-strapped single mother who has also lost a teenage son in the incident.

However, Maryam and Lea’s burgeoning relationship is about to hit a major roadblock. Police investigators discover irrefutable evidence that the explosion was caused by a homemade bomb. The detective in charge of the investigation (John Heard) informs Maryam and Ali that their late son is the prime suspect, and that the FBI has been called in.

Suspicion weighs even more heavily on the family when the local media dredges up the fact that Ali himself had been picked up and interrogated after 9/11 (although never charged). Lea gets caught up in the rush to judgment, lashing out at Maryam and then giving her the cold shoulder. Lea’s moral superiority is short-lived. It turns out another teenager killed in the explosion had been bullying her son; he had vowed revenge and is now being investigated as well (the shoe is now on the other foot).

Despite the setup, the odd red herring and the fact that there is a “reveal” in the final shot, Birnbaum’s film is not a “whodunit” so much as a “why do we?”. Why do we rush to judgment? Why do we always fear the Other? And why do we always find it so difficult to look in the mirror?

Screenwriter Michael Richter wisely keeps the police procedural elements on the back burner, instead focusing on these central questions, via the shifting dynamics of Maryam and Lea’s relationship.

In other words, by handing each protagonist a glass house and a bag of rocks, he is leveling the playing field; thereby he is daring the viewer (by proxy) to cast the first stone after examining his or her own fears and prejudices. And for the most part, this device works quite well, thanks to strong performances from Baloch and Taylor. The message has been proffered many times before, but until it finally “catches on”, perhaps it cannot be repeated enough.

Documentary, On Politics

Attack the block: Let the Fire Burn ***1/2

September 4, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 7, 2013)

While obscured in public memory by the (relatively) more “recent” 1993 Branch Davidian siege in Waco, the eerily similar demise of the Philadelphia-based MOVE organization 8 years earlier was no less tragic on a human level, nor any less disconcerting in its ominous sociopolitical implications.

In an enlightening new documentary called Let the Fire Burn, director Jason Osder has parsed a trove of archival “live-at-the-scene” TV reports, deposition videos, law enforcement surveillance footage, and other sundry “found” footage (much of it previously unseen by the general public) and created a tight narrative that plays like an edge-of-your-seat political thriller.

Depending upon whom you might ask, MOVE was an “organization”, a “religious cult”, a “radical group”, or all of the above. The biggest question in my mind (and one the film doesn’t necessarily delve into) is whether it was another example of psychotic entelechy. So what is “psychotic entelechy”, exactly? Well, according to Stan A. Lindsay, the author of Psychotic Entelechy: The Dangers of Spiritual Gifts Theology, it would be

…the tendency of some individuals to be so desirous of fulfilling or bringing to perfection the implications of their terminologies that they engage in very hazardous or damaging actions.

In the context of Lindsay’s book, he is expanding on some of the ideas laid down by literary theorist Kenneth Burke and applying them to possibly explain the self-destructive traits shared by the charismatic leaders of modern-day cults like The People’s Temple, Order of the Solar Tradition, Heaven’s Gate, and The Branch Davidians. He ponders whether all the tragic deaths that resulted should be labeled as “suicides, murders, or accidents”.

Whether MOVE belongs on that list is perhaps debatable, but in Osder’s film, you do get the sense that leader John Africa (an adapted surname that all followers used) was a charismatic person. He founded the group in 1972, based on an odd hodgepodge of tenets borrowed from Rastafarianism, Black Nationalism and green politics; with a Luddite view of technology (think ELF meets the Panthers…by way of the Amish). Toss in some vaguely egalitarian philosophies about communal living, and I think you’re there.

The group, which shared a town house, largely kept itself to itself (at least at first) but started to draw the attention of Philadelphia law enforcement when a number of their neighbors began expressing concern to the authorities about sanitation issues (the group built compost piles around their building using refuse and human excrement) and the distressing appearance of possible malnutrition among the children of the commune (some of the footage in the film would seem to bear out the latter claim).

The city engaged in a year-long bureaucratic standoff with MOVE over their refusal to vacate, culminating in an attempted forced removal turned-gun battle with police in 1978 that left one officer dead. Nine MOVE members were convicted of 3^rd-degree murder and jailed.

The remaining members of MOVE relocated their HQ, but it didn’t take long to wear out their welcome with the new neighbors (John Africa’s strange, rambling political harangues, delivered via loudspeakers mounted outside the MOVE house certainly didn’t help). Africa and his followers began to develop a siege mentality, shuttering up all the windows and constructing a makeshift pillbox style bunker on the roof. Naturally, these actions only served to ratchet up the tension and goad local law enforcement.

On May 13, 1985 it all came to a head when a heavily armed contingent of cops moved in, ostensibly to arrest MOVE members on a number of indictments. Anyone who remembers the shocking news footage knows that the day did not end well. Gunfire was exchanged after tear gas and high-pressure water hoses failed to end the standoff, so authorities decided to take a little shortcut and drop a satchel of C-4 onto the roof of the building. 11 MOVE members (including 5 children) died in the resulting inferno, which consumed 61 homes.

Putting aside any debate or speculation for a moment over whether or not John Africa and his disciples were deranged criminals, or whether or not the group’s actions were self-consciously provocative or politically convoluted, one simple fact remains and bears repeating: “Someone” decided that it was a perfectly acceptable action plan, in the middle of a dense residential neighborhood (located in the City of Brotherly Love, no less) to drop a bomb on a building with children inside it.

Even more appalling is the callous indifference and casual racism displayed by some of the officials and police who are seen in the film testifying before the Mayor’s investigative commission (the sole ray of light, one compassionate officer who braved crossfire to help a young boy escape the burning building, was chastised by fellow officers afterward as a “[‘N’ word] lover” for his trouble).

Let the Fire Burn is not only an essential document of an American tragedy, but a cautionary tale and vital reminder of how far we still have go in purging the vestiges of institutional racism in this country (1985 was not that long ago).

In a strange bit of Kismet, I saw this film the day before Nelson Mandela died, which has naturally prompted a steady stream of retrospectives about Apartheid on the nightly news. Did you know that in 1985, there was a raging debate over whether we should impose sanctions on South Africa? (*sigh*) Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Documentary, On Politics, War(s) on Terror

SIFF 2013: We Steal Secrets ***1/2

September 4, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 1, 2013)

For his timely political doc We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, director Alex Gibney sets out not only to construct a “people’s history” of the whistle-blowing website, but ambitiously aims to deconstruct the Sphinx that is founder Julian Assange.

As to the first goal, Gibney scores, on count two, not so much; Assange remains a bit of a cypher. Still, Assange is only half the equation here. The real heart and soul of the film is the story of Pvt. Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked 700,000 government documents and pieces of classified military information to the site (his court martial begins Monday; although you wouldn’t know it from watching CNN, who are otherwise abuzz with all their pre-game coverage of the Zimmerman trial).

While he was unable to interview Manning, Gibney weaves in transcripts of email exchanges Manning had with hacker Adrian Lamo to paint a very moving, human portrait of this young man who (like Assange) is hero to some, “traitor” to others. Regardless of where you stand on that issue, this is essential viewing and could the most important American film of 2013.

Documentary, Journalism, On Politics

SIFF 2013: Forbidden Voices ***

September 4, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

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

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.

Conspiracy a-go-go, Documentary, On Politics

SIFF 2013: Our Nixon ***

September 4, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

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

In Our Nixon, director Penny Lane strives to construct an arch portrait of The Tricky One by sneaking in through the back door. It seems some of the president’s men were home movie buffs. A treasure trove of Super8 footage taken by H.R. Haldeman, John Erlichman and Dwight Chapin during their White House tenure recently surfaced. Lane blends choice snippets of the aforementioned with archival news footage, interviews with the three aides and excerpts from the infamous secret Oval Office recordings. It’s the Nixon administration retooled as an episode of Entourage. No new revelations or insight for political junkies, but for viewers of a “certain age”, it sustains an oddly nostalgic tone.

60's Counterculture, Journalism, On Politics

Blu-ray reissue: Medium Cool ***

September 1, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

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

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.

Documentary, On Politics, The Environment

Strange bedfellows: Grassroots * & True Wolf *

August 31, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 23, 2012)

Seattle politician in native habitat: Grassroots.

There aren’t many political biopics that open with the candidate-to-be dressed in a bear suit and screaming at traffic. But then again, there aren’t many cities I have lived in that have a political climate quite like Seattle. I’ve never forgotten what a standup comic pal (and long-time resident) told me when I first moved to the Emerald City 20 years ago. “Don’t let anybody bullshit you about how ‘hip’ or ‘metropolitan’ this town is,” he advised, “…Because it will always be Mayberry with a Space Needle.”

A case in point would be the brief but colorful political career of Grant Cogswell, which has provided fodder for a film from director Stephen Gyellenhaal (yes, acting siblings Maggie and Jake are his progeny).

Cogswell (Joel David Moore) was an unemployed music critic (a polite term for “slacker”) with no prior political experience, who made a run for a city council seat back in 2001. His unconventional grassroots campaign was managed by his friend and fellow political neophyte Phil Campbell (Jason Biggs).

The film opens with Campbell getting fired from his gig writing for The Stranger (Seattle’s long-running alt-weekly hipster rag). “You can’t get any lower,” a self-pitying Campbell whines to his live-in girlfriend (Lauren Ambrose). What’s he to do with all his time now?

The answer soon arrives when he is roped into joining his eccentric pal Grant on a quest to unseat incumbent councilman Richard McIver (Cedric the Entertainer). Cogswell sees McIver as the quintessential self-serving politician in bed with the Big Money Boys; in this case emptying city coffers for an ambitious light rail project, when the answer to Seattle’s traffic congestion has been right there in front of everybody since the 1962 World’s Fair: the monorail. Why not expand this cheaper, green-friendly “…super-ass modern transportation system”? Launching his campaign armed with this “electro-strategy”…they’re off to the races.

While political junkies may take umbrage that Gyllenhaal’s screenplay (co-written with Justin Rhodes and based on Campbell’s campaign memoir Zioncheck for President) takes a broad approach by favoring the kookier elements of the story, I think most viewers will find his film engaging. The cast’s energy and enthusiasm is palpable, and whilst Gyllenhaal’s film lacks the verbal agility and pacing of, say, The Great McGinty (particularly with lines like “Politics, bitches!”), he seems to be channeling Preston Sturges at times.

I think it was wise for Gyllenhaal to eschew the political minutiae; otherwise he may have ended up with something of little interest to anyone besides Seattleites. In fact, the best thing about this film is that it (dare I say it?) renews your faith in the democratic process. In these cynical times, that is a good thing.

Canis lupus in unnatural habitat: True Wolf.

It’s often said that “politics makes strange bedfellows”, but have you ever heard of a “wolf ambassador”? Before I screened Rob Whitehair’s modest but engrossing new documentary True Wolf, I certainly hadn’t. A cross between Born Free and Never Cry Wolf, Whitehair’s film tells the story of how a wolf named Koani became an environmental activist (in a manner of speaking) and touched the lives of thousands.

Born into captivity, Koani was raised by Montana couple Bruce Weide and Pat Tucker, who co-founded Wild Sentry: The Northern Rockies Ambassador Wolf Program back in 1991. The star of the show was Koani, who traveled around the country with Tucker (and the family dog) to appear at schools and museums. Together, they helped dispel common misconceptions about wolves.

The film mixes newer interviews with footage culled over the 16 years of Koani’s life, which was both a trial by fire and labor of love for her empathetic human “parents”. Ever cognizant of the inherent “wrong” (no matter how noble one’s intentions) in keeping such a magnificent wild creature enclosed or on a leash, Weide and Tucker nonetheless overcame the challenges and found a way to truly make Koani’s life matter, and it makes for an amazingly moving story.

Whitehair balances the political side of the tale (which recounts the couple’s involvement in the uproar over wolf reintroduction to the Northern Rockies) by also giving screen time to detractors. The film also gives food for thought regarding the striking commonalities between wolves and humans, begging two key questions: a) who is living on whose turf, anyway? And, b)…can’t we all just get along?

Historical drama, On Politics

Having a wild weekend: Hyde Park on Hudson ***

August 25, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 8, 2012)

Lister: (looking out a prison cell window) They’re all just lining up in some kind of firing squad. Whoa, whoa, hang on, someone’s being brought out. They’re tying him to a stake. It’s Winnie the Pooh.

The Cat: What!?

Lister: Winnie the Pooh, I swear. He’s refusing the blindfold.

The Cat: They’re tying Winnie the Pooh to the stake?

(Gunfire erupts from outside)

Lister: (sinks, looking shell shocked) That’s something no-one should ever have to see.

-from Red Dwarf, written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor

Let me tell you something else that no-one should ever have to see: FDR getting a hand job. Even if it is tastefully photographed in a field of clover, in a long shot, accompanied by romantic music…that’s just something that no-one should ever have to see. I’m no prude, and I realize he was only human, and we’ve heard the rumors about the philandering, but still. I guess it’s the liberal idealist inside me that wants to have at least one progressive icon to truly believe in.

Oh well. That being said, there’s still a lot to like about Notting Hill director Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson, an engaging (if lightweight) “fly on the wall” dramedy recounting events (documented and speculative) surrounding a 1939 visit by the British King and Queen to Roosevelt’s New York estate.

Rendered in the style of Upstairs, Downstairs (with echoes of Cold Comfort Farm), Michell and his screenwriter Richard Nelson (who adapted from his own play) filter their narrative through the situational observances of a peripheral participant. Her name is Daisy Suckley (Laura Linney), and she is the President’s sixth cousin.

While historians still debate whether there ever really was anything nasty going on in the woodshed between the real-life Suckley (who died in 1991 at age 99) and FDR, for the purpose of the film the two are assumed as being romantically involved. Their relationship is loosely chronicled through her voice-over narration (Linney, a fine actress, is handed a thankless task at times, wrestling with breathless schoolgirl prose like, “…how I longed for him!”).

The film opens with Daisy being summoned by the President (Bill Murray) to Hyde Park, where aides, staffers and family members are all atwitter about the pending visit from the royal couple. FDR, however, is currently more focused on his stamp collection, and his cousin’s visit. Alone with her in his study, he invites Daisy to come closer to his desk, so she can better appreciate some of his, ah, collectibles (this must run a close second to “Would you like to come up and see some of my etchings?” as a seduction line).

At any rate, it’s the genesis of a long-running love affair…at least according to the filmmakers. The affair, which takes up the first third of the 94 minute running time, is actually the film’s weakest element; luckily things pick up considerably in the second act, once King George VI (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) arrive for the weekend.

The tone of the film shifts at this juncture for the better, transforming it into more of a comedy of manners and of political protocols. West and Colman are charming as the royal couple. The Queen is quite appalled at the collection of vintage American political cartoons that hang on the wall of their guest room (dating from the War of 1812, the depictions put the British in, shall we say, a somewhat negative light), as well as the prospect of dining on hot dogs (the horror!) at an impending picnic luncheon.

On the other hand, Bertie (being a good sport), is more bemused than bothered. In the film’s standout scene, the King and FDR loosen up and bond over drinks in the study. The scene is augmented by the best monologue in the screenplay, in which FDR assuages Bertie’s self-consciousness about his stutter by speaking in a self-deprecating manner about his own inability to walk. At once funny and moving, it’s wonderfully played by both actors.

Murray makes for a surprisingly credible FDR, likely bolstered by the fact that the script doesn’t require him to portray FDR the statesman. In a sense, by so convincingly channeling FDR’s celebrated personal charm, he does give us a fairly insightful glimpse of what made him such a successful politician. There are notable supporting performances from Olivia Williams as Eleanor Roosevelt (she’s so good that I wish they had written her a meatier part with more screen time) and from Elizabeth Marvel as FDR’s personal secretary, Missy Lehand.

Political junkies and history buffs are forewarned to not expect Michell’s film to be in the same league as Sunrise at Campobello, or the 1976 TV series Eleanor and Franklin; if anything, it shares more in common with Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy. You could do worse.