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MichaelORourke
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Rotten Mangos (2016)
A One Location Wonder
On one of several levels, "Rotten Mangos" is a retelling of the Cain and Abel story reset in Florida 2016. However, this version is not about brother murder, but brother betrayal that has emotionally buried the Mango brothers, buried them deep under anger, hatred and fear.
"Mangos" also has roots in Everyman, a late 15th-century morality play, which uses allegorical characters to examine questions of salvation. What, in the Mangos case, can the brothers do to attain it?
Writer, director, producer Michael Eldon Lobsinger assembled top-notch talent for his compelling and finely tuned screenplay. He deftly turns "Everyman" into a one-location wonder, staging 90% of the film in a narrow alley at the back of a community theatre. In fact the backstage door opens onto the alley, allowing 3 allegorical characters to come and go without the distraction of multiple locations.
It's night in a small Florida town. Homeless Eddie Mango (John Zambito) has staked out a waiting room in the alley out back of a community theatre. At Eddie's invitation, his brother Danny (Lobsinger), a successful businessman shows up in his personal limo, driven by his confidant and chauffeur, played by Bob Sharkey.
At the outset it is clear the guys suffer from nasty psychic wounds, wounds only family can inflict. Maybe reaching out to a sibling after 22 years isn't such a good idea, maybe it is. Revisiting adultery and thievery is a bad idea, and concurrently maybe it's not. As I watched, I hated Eddie, and within a heartbeat I turned against Danny.
While the brothers dance with words and violence, Maggie (Jackie Duke) spies on them from the confines of a cardboard box just big enough in which to lay down. Questions about her flitted through my brain - is she the brothers' mother, crying from her grave, praying that they might reconcile so that she might be redeemed? Is she the faithless woman who screwed them both? Is she, as Eddie offhandedly suggests, a prophetess? Or is she just a homeless drunk?
Vivacious Spirit (Catherine Windecker) sparks the action like a firefly as an actress on the cusp of an opening night. As she does her best to spring peace and gaiety into the Mango troubled hearts and minds, she quotes Martin Luther King, "Only in darkness can you see the stars."
Elizabeth Petrell steps out the backstage door onto the scene as a belly dancer for a last minute rehearsal. The brothers devour her body with greedy eyes while praying inwardly she is the ticket to absolution of their sins.
Theatre owner Jay (Dean Robert Dietrich) stops by for a daily purchase of mangoes from Eddie, perhaps denoting the relationship of what is below (homelessness) and what is above (guardian of the performing arts). Through no fault of Dietrich's performance, this role is the least realized in the film.
Two boys (Demitri Vardoulias and Ian A. Rush) horse around in and out of the alley - an echo of the past, of what the brothers may have been when they were kids.
It is amazing how much drama can be squeezed into this no-man's land location, and equally just how much drama can expand within its narrow limits. "Rotten Mangos" is a remarkable 38-minute film produced on a blood, sweat and tears budget ($10,500). While it simultaneously squeezes and expands the emotional stakes onscreen, it drives us to examine personal responsibility within the family we profess to know.
This review would be remiss if I did not mention the excellent music of Bobby Gugliuzza and the first-rate cinematography of Daniel Deien.
When you come right down to it, isn't our best hope of reaching home to travel in the company of family with compassion? If the Mango brothers can walk the talk, perhaps we can to.
The Founder (2016)
The Heart of Darkness
As I passed the Golden Arches each day on my way to school in a small western town I'd look up to see the number of burgers sold. It was particularly gratifying when it reached a million. "Way to go McDonald's!" Later, when I was nearly homeless my one meal a day was a Big Mac. I was addicted to the sauce and pickles.
"The Founder" is the story of the man who built a fast food empire under those Golden Arches, a story rendered into film, produced at the remarkable low cost of $7 million. The timely screenplay by Robert D Siegel is pitch perfect, navigated by the faultless direction of John Lee Hancock, supported by a fantastic production team with special mention for art director Hugh D. G. Moody and his construction crew.
I cannot overstate the relevance of this film in 2017.
Ray Kroc (54), lonely, bitter, venal, sets out to achieve money and power using "Persistence" as his mantra. Failing as a kitchenware sales rep, he takes a road trip from his home turf in Illinois to uncover the secret of the phenomenal success of the brothers McDonald with their hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California – the template for what will become the biggest fast food franchise in history to date.
Actors Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch play the brothers Dick and Mac, so different in size and manner, so perfectly suited as brothers, and with just the right touch of comedy, they convinced me they were indeed men of integrity and creativity.
Kroc, expertly played by Michael Keaton, desperate to break the middle class ties that bind him, wheedles his way into the family business as franchise manager of what he foresees will become a super efficient, micromanaged fast food empire. Within two years Kroc outright steals everything the brothers created, including the family name.
How Keaton is able to portray a character with such a hole for a soul is a feat of both madness and brilliance. As much as his performance haunts, it repels, one more testament to Keaton's breadth and skill as an actor.
It is always a pleasure to see Laura Dern on screen, and it is especially gratifying to see her negotiate the murky shallows of husband Ray's vapid mood swings. The Dern / Keaton scenes transcend acting in a subtle dance of a marriage unraveling.
Kroc is not a salesman to provide essential or public services like, say, school team uniforms, or to offer health services. He is not a salesman because he is inspired to it, or fated to be, he does so because he is so unimaginative, so unproductive, so without a clue, the only option is to perform as a salesman, hiccuping pre-digested pitches. Even his eventual fast food franchising claim to fame was prefabbed in the early 1920s by the White Castle Restaurant chain.
The script interprets Kroc's rules of engagement impeccably: "Business is war. It's dog eat dog, rat eat rat. If my competitor were drowning, I'd walk over and put a hose right in his mouth."
A ruthless white male at age 54 making his last stand – but on what foundation? A subscriber of a 1950s self-help course, Ray finds his perfect match in a phonographic sales guru who articulates: "One word
PERSISTENCE. Nothing in this world can take the place of good old persistence. Talent won't. Nothing's more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius won't. Unrecognized genius is practically a cliché. Education won't. Why, the world is full of educated fools. Persistence and determination alone are all powerful."
The mantra becomes Kroc's, revealing a deep and abiding hatred of talent, genius, and education.
Once Kroc steals everything from the brothers, he has to have the McDonald's name. After all, his phonographic guru has convinced him he's the founder. Even so, deep down he knows none of it originated with him. None of it. However, he did come up with one innovation, repurposing the American Dream as the Kroc Dream of unlimited self-serving power.
Steal every innovation Ray, make America great, and take no prisoners, including democracy.
Witness (1985)
Hollywood Wins, the Amish Lose
I saw "Witness" in 1985 in a small town in Oregon. At the time I was enamored of director Peter Weir's work, "The Last Wave," "Gallipoli," "The Year of Living Dangerously." Of late, I'm being drawn more and more into independent filmmaking, and I thought "Witness" might be a good one to screen again, because as I remember it, it had minimal locations, most of them in a rural Amish community.
The setup is bloody brilliant – a 10-year-old Amish boy witnesses a grizzly murder in a train station bathroom.
But the plot begins to unravel immediately when Detective John Book (Harrison Ford) wheels and deals with witness rights and protection – forcing Amish mother Rachel (Kelly McGillis) and her son Samuel (Lucas Haas) to ride to a bar to identify a potential suspect. He leaves them alone in the police car in a ghetto while he goes inside to roughhouse his pick of the week for a fall guy!
Book's investigation continues in like manner for the first act of the film, demolishing any suspension of disbelief. That, and inexplicably bad acting on the part of the bad cop cast, invite comparison to a TV cop show at its worst, talented actors notwithstanding.
There was however, an exceptional reveal in Act I: Samuel's identification of the murderer is brilliantly staged.
Unfortunately, the bad cop setup telegraphs a violent finale, completely wrecking the film's premise – how do you protect the innocent and vulnerable in a community that embraces nonviolence? This is an extremely exciting, groundbreaking idea. To place an Amish kid as the key witness of a grizzly murder – these are ingredients for a powerful, game changing film.
How are the members of the Amish community going to handle the introduction of guns, a law enforcement system dependent on violence, men who are conditioned to find a violent solution – how will the Amish "disarm" this invasion without violating its sacred mission?
99% of the general population are dependent upon and conditioned to violence as a solution to violent crime. This story has seeds of extraordinary promise to explore another paradigm.
Alas, the Hollywood machine really made a mess of this one.
Book is healed of a gunshot wound by means of Amish medicinal practice; he gives up his gun and ammo to his Amish hostess; he pitches in to help with a communal barn-raising in a scene that is a small miracle, showing the capacity of a community to accomplish substantial things in just one day.
Book recognizes the possibility of mutual physical bonding with Rachel, his own sexual needs, as well as hers. He turns away from the temptation to violate the Amish code. At this point it is a heroic action. However, this plot point unravels when they do consummate at a later time.
Having shown Book as a man of roughshod integrity, one would hope he has enough chutzpah to honor his hosts. He has the opportunity to prepare himself in a soul-searching manner for the inevitable show down. How do you serve and protect in the Amish way?
When the police department goons show up determined to exterminate the witness and his family, the film descends into the same old same old (sic) showdown at the OK Corral. Hollywood loves this stuff, and, based on box office receipts, so do audiences.
To be fair, Book does choose one ingenious tactic when he improvises the use of corn in a silo as a defensive weapon.
There is a very real temptation to argue (and Hollywood did and won) that the lone town marshal pitted against 3 heavily armed outlaws-made-more-outlawish-by-being-lawmen requires a shoot 'em up conclusion. That works for Tombstone in 1881, but is it necessary in this Amish community of 1985? Does not their faith have more power than the gun?
The issue of guns and violence was volatile in '85, and has grown increasingly contentious and dangerous in 2014. This film missed the opportunity to explore authentically the interaction of two distinct American cultures in the Heartland.
It is heartbreaking to consider the horrific consequences suffered by the dominant culture's near complete lack of will to examine or act on gun control. That Mr. Weir agreed to direct this mishmash without challenging our 2nd Amendment preconceptions is, in my opinion, tragic.
Of course it will take a great deal more than a single film to bring change of this caliber in our American life. Had Mr. Weir and Mr. Harrison brought their considerable talents to bear on the subject, the conversation and the legislation today might be a good deal more reasonable and civilized.
Karama Has No Walls (2012)
Hands Down Best Short Documentary of 2013
There are many things I don't know about Yemen – where it is, who lives there, who rules, what religion is practiced in what language. Though this information is revealed during this short film in varying degrees of lucidity, it doesn't matter. This "Karama" story is contemporary, universal, has been played out / continues to play out in communities worldwide. Though each protest, each occupy, each uprising has its distinctive players, place, and time, what is emerging is a pattern of common folk banding together demanding an end of abuses by a minority.
And with the passing of every day it's beginning to look a lot like a conspiracy of 1% using immense finances, martial power, and media propaganda to push, beat, bully, murder the 99% into submission.
I recently screened "Karama" in the company of four Oscar ® nominated documentary shorts, and "Karama" has my vote.
I was immediately sympathetic with the peaceful protest in a city square sponsored by students that quickly grew into a tent city with citizens fasting, conversing, praying, dancing, selling, buying, playing chess. My immersion in the place and time was immediate. And it really didn't matter that I didn't know where I was, or why. As the story unfolds – expertly captured by citizen cameramen Amin Alghebr, Nasr Alnamir, Khaled Rajeh, superbly edited by director Sara Ishaq, a deep well of grief overcame rose up inside as I watched what I knew would be inevitable, in what I imagine ancient Greeks experienced watching their great tragedies.
"Karama" is so raw, so authentic, and so immediate, I am baptized – not just in my mind's eye, but on all levels of my being.
The filmmakers effectively assess and capture the essence of a maelstrom visited upon innocent people by masked gunmen sniping at them from rooftops, while policing forces stand by, doing nothing. During the bloodbath, the protesters maintain a miraculous equanimity, rushing the wounded to a makeshift hospital in a church, standing their ground, advancing on armored vehicles under a hail of bullets, praising Allah, refusing to be cowed.
Do not mistake me. These common folk do not go gently into this nightmare. There is quite a bit of confusion, anger, throwing of rocks, and some Molotov cocktails. But above all, there is displayed and captured a collective consciousness that will not be denied, a Tao of human rights and dignity that no amount of might and main will stop.
Several poignant interviews, particularly of the father of a son who was murdered, and a father of a 10-year-old boy who was permanently blinded by sniper fire, add significantly to the rhythm and power of the film.
Something opened up in heaven and on earth that brought the "Karama" filmmakers together to produce one of the rarest and most unvarnished true films ever. May we honor the dead, as the film does, by determining to do our bit, wherever we are, to defend human and civil liberty.
The Eagle (2011)
Excelsior
Long ago, a father was called to lead a company of 5000 to subdue the enemies of his nation in a foreign country. In parting with his family, he gave his young son a miniature eagle with wings outspread carved by him in wood. This eagle is a replica of the great Gold Eagle, the national symbol, which represents honor, family, and the empire. In a violent campaign with barbaric and mysterious people on foreign soil, the father and his legions vanish without a trace. Also vanishing is the Gold Eagle, which served as the standard bourn at the head of the legions. This defeat humiliated the nation, giving rise to the emperor commanding the build of a great wall dividing the foreign land, dominated in the north by the indigenous warlords and shamans, and in the south by the Romans.
The boy grows to manhood following in his father's footsteps, develops enough experience and respect to become a leader of warriors at an outpost on the border in the land where his father, the 5000, and the Eagle disappeared. He volunteers for this post with the intension of searching for the truth about a myriad questions and rumors surrounding his father's last days. As fate would have it he goes north into the foreboding land of his enemies in the company of a slave who knows something of its foreign language and life ways. Uppermost in his mind is to retrieve his father's reputation, his family's honor, and above all, return the Gold Eagle to the Emperor.
I judge this script a perfect 10. A classic three act structure replete with classical archetypes, it shatters the Hollywood images of ancient Rome as portrayed in so many films such as "Ben Hur," "Cleopatra," and so on. The filmmakers have broken the mold, and created within the classic "Hero of a Thousand Faces" structure, a believable history, in a land that borders on the mystical and mundane.
This film was a startling revelation for me because I took Latin for 4 years, and despite visions of history fed by academic lectures and illustrations, it never occurred to me to question Hollywood's interpretations – possibly it's excesses, but not the basic paradigm, art direction, etc. This film not only mapped out the Hero's Journey in what looks to be an outer journey of heroism to reclaim the honor of his father, his country and his self respect, it is also the same-same for his inner journey.
The Eagle exceeded all my expectations.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
The Spoiler is the Title
I produced the play version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 1971 for the Poor Yorick Players in Laramie, WY. We did it as a bit of a lark following our production of Hamlet, which I directed with several of the same actors. Thereafter I stayed clear of it, as I'm not partial to absurdist or existential theatre.
So I came to the film version recently with a bit of resistance. On screening the DVD my resistance was somewhat allayed when the opening credits showed Tom Stoppard adapted his play for the screen and directed. The jury was out because Stoppard adapted Anna Karenina for the screen in 2012 directed by Joe Wright, which I consider a masterwork alongside the films of Kurosawa, Fellini, Bergman, Iciar Bollarin.
R & G starts out with the now iconic coin-flipping scene in which a coin is tossed and lands on heads some 150 times. Absurd, isn't it. However, my existential prejudices were laid to rest with the arrival of the Player King (Richard Dreyfus).
On seeing R & G on a forest road less taken, the Player King calls to halt the horses drawing an overlarge caravan filled with a gypsy band of actors and all the claptrap associated with medieval theatre. With many a trick up his sleeve (and the sleeves of all the actors), his troop unfolds the wagon into a veritable moveable feast of theatrical history and machinery. And it is unfolded on this road at this particular time for the benefit of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
So there we are in a forest – possibly in Denmark – the ragtag gypsies ready to perform anything these two amnesiacs desire. Actors need an audience, and these two will do for the time being. With tremendous inventiveness and sleight of hand, the troupe previews every possible permutation in the history of drama.
In a terrific demonstration of stagecraft interfacing with film production, a coin is tossed, a bet is made and lost (the coin landing on tails for the first and only time), and we find ourselves in the Great Hall of Elsinore Castle, while Ophelia and Hamlet tentatively grope toward a relationship, which is immediately overshadowed and burdened by court intrigue. This transition is nothing short of pure "theatre magic."
I won't go into detail of the many magical moments in this film, except to say that casting is impeccable to such a degree I wanted to see a full production of Hamlet with just this cast. The production values are spot on. Gary Oldman (Rosencrantz) and Tim Roth (Guildenstern) are sturdy, well matched, Oldman giving – in my opinion – his best career performance.
I did find some of the existential banter of R & G a let down both in script and execution – particularly the tennis match on a medieval tennis court. It is serviceable, but disappointing.
The Crème de la Crème of this film comes with the exceptional variations of the Hamlet story performed by the Players with puppets, masks, and pantomime. These sequences are the most intelligent, compelling interpretations of Shakespeare's masterpiece on screen. And the most daring.
I don't know as anyone then or now could have directed his Chinese puzzle-box script as well as Stoppard. Not that we shouldn't continue to try. He not only mastered theatre of the absurd inside the frame of a major English classic, he turned both on their heads. All who view this masterwork are blessed because he did. (Thanks to my beloved for coaxing me into watching it.)
Mississippi Damned (2009)
Better than 12 Years a Slave
After screening Mississippi Damned at Chicago International Film Fest in 2009, I took these notes.
The survival of blacks—the community is oppressed in ghetto like conditions. The small shanty Southern town could be a prison setting. Family and community members turn on one another—use, abuse one another, generation after generation. Alcohol provides a relief of momentarily sorts; nourishment for children is scarce, as are jobs, housing, etc. There is no way out apparently.
A poignant subplot: Shaking, a lesbian, mesmerized by a love that can't possibly be returned. Still, she clings to what she sees as her one chance at salvation, a crush with a girl who is bisexual. Even as she clings, she almost knows it's not going to work out; perhaps preferring madness in the face of the life before her in hell.
There's no way out. Except a glimmer of perseverance that comes from the youngest daughter. Even so, when she does get enough together for an escape, she either miss-lends it, or receives money she cannot in conscience accept from the brother who sexually abused her when she was 6. Her aunt provides some relief with encouragement to play piano, and eventually a $25,000 check. At about age 18, the girl does make a determination to leave, but only after the same aunt sits down on her hard: "Do not let your generosity of spirit keep you here. Go. You have the opportunity. You don't want to live here amongst us, die amongst us without hope." (Paraphrased)
The film is an exceptional depiction of what I can only describe as a concentration camp of poverty.
And even if offered light, what would the husband of the aunt do? She is loving, a refuge for children, a pillar for shelter and nourishment. He, the husband treats her with the utmost contempt, a symbol of bullying and abuse of all stripes. She is the light. And he refuses to see it, indeed almost kills her, but for a threat from her Mama, shotgun in hand.
And yet in the hopeless, grim, violent, addict occupied prison, the director has returned to her roots and captured a film that sheds light and possibly healing. (All actors with few minor roles, were cast from LA!)
I am inspired to post this review after having just seen "12 Years a Slave." Though I find the intentions, star power, historical accuracy of "Slave" to be beyond reproach — and I do not wish to undermine the enthusiasm and recognition for Steve McQueen's vision and direction of his film — I find "Mississippi Damned," low budget indie that it is, a far more compelling and haunting film. Thank you writer / director Tina Mabry with all my heart.
Wednesday's Child (2012)
A twisted film maintaining a childlike quality...
Its creepiness creeps under your skin behind a mask of innocence.
The wild river running through young Kelly's psyche -- the same river that runs naked through the field of every child -- is being probed, dammed, polluted, and recorded by seemingly benevolent parents who are also publishing Kelly's "experimental" behavior as reputable child psychologists. The parental investigations of their only child, or more aptly experiments, of Mr and Mrs Marble, are so extreme, that we don't see what's coming, just like their child Kelly. The impeccable production values, sly music, very clever flashbacks created with seamless camera angles and editing, the deadpan acting -- all conspire to put us in a kind of trance, hypnotize us into believing all is as it should be, all of this is normal. The hypnotic effect is underscored by the disarming and balanced performance of Meredith Droeger as nine-year-old Kelly. How can we resist taking such a journey with such as she?
We don't recognize the Machiavellian undertow of the Marbles, which is especially diabolical in the afterglow of watching the film as we awaken to the fact that the experiments are organized and carried out by parents, experiments so benign at first glance, as to be almost laughable. This is dark comedy, after all. No need to take it too seriously.
We don't recognize the riptide because we trust the parents, right? But equally insidious is the general way in which we, at the dawn of the 21st Century, accept surveillance and invasion of privacy because the technology to invade is so ubiquitous. If and when we wake up from our sleep walk through land mines threatening the very foundation of our childhood freedoms, we, like Kelly, might conspire -- loudly -- to commit such an egregious crime that our parents, authorities, governors, will have to come clean, right? And like Kelly, we are more than likely foolish enough to believe they will.
This is a tongue in cheek horror film teaming up with a 21st Century Alice in Wonderland satire, satire of the best kind, orchestrated beautifully by producer Mary Kay Cook, director Rocco Cataldo, and cinematographer Michael Kwielford.
BTW, I was so relieved to learn in the end credits that there were no animals harmed.
La planète sauvage (1973)
Homage to Director Rene Laloux
Though this is a critique of Fantastic Planet (La planète sauvage), it is also an homage to director Rene Laloux. As an indie filmmaker, I am his beneficiary on so many levels.
Once upon a time in the mid 70s, there was the Ashland Film Society in Southern Oregon. The curators of the Society screened 16 mm prints of foreign films in community centers and lecture halls. These films were not widely distributed in small town markets at that time. Society members were treated to classics by Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, and Cocteau. It is impossible for me to overrate the visual impressions these films imprinted on my mind and emotional body, and the lasting influence they have had in my creative work in theatre and film. One of the classics screened by the society was Fantastic Planet, which I have revisited recently on DVD. It had been 40 year since I originally saw this masterpiece flickering in 16 mm in a dark room, the sound crackling from a single speaker under the portable screen, and yet, as I view it again, I remember vividly its startling animation, presenting its story with originality, intelligence, and sensuality.
The script, too, is masterful, investigating the plight of human beings (called Oms) as pets in a world dominated by giants of superior intellect called the Traag, who live artistic and meditative lives on a planet populated by unusually beautiful and dangerous flora and fauna. In this alien world, the Traag procreate by meeting in a meditative state to make love on a nearby moon. Though these super beings have an ultra sensibility of "civilized" behavior, their treatment of Oms belies the very foundation of their artistic and technological Utopia, which leads to a violent rebellion led by the reluctant Om, Terr.
Much like Shakespeare, its political undertones are as valid today as the day it was released. Not that its tone is Shakespearean. But it does, like Shakespeare, present critical and universal metaphors about absolute power and the abuse thereof, to which it behooves us to take note. Director Laloux has infused the animated medium with a palpable visual poetry with extraordinary simplicity, and that reminds me of how indebted I am for the seeds he sowed, lo, those 40 years ago at my virgin viewing. He has encouraged me in absentia to express my inner most self as fantastically, and poetically, and politically, and simply as I am able.
As a postscript, I highly recommend viewing the Laloux interview included as a special feature on DVD.
Meek's Cutoff (2010)
Waiting for Meek
I saw an article in the New York Times about good films you may never see. "Meek's Cutoff" was one of them, with critics' kudos for direction and screenplay. It was shot in the high desert of Eastern Oregon, an ecosystem I love.
So here's an acclaimed film with all my favorite features: Independent, low budget, small cast, high desert, Oregon Trail history, and a Native American to boot -- ingredients for a much anticipated Saturday night of indie film bliss.
Alas Poor Yorick, it was not to be. This film fails on all counts but one.
The script is practically nonexistent. Oh, I get that the long silences and minimalist dialogue are intended. In fact I welcome them in a media world saturated by excess in all things including verbiage. However, screenwriter Jonathan Raymond seems to have provided a 3 page treatment, and called it good, leaving director, actors and crew to fill it out. If that is not the case, then apparently the director asked the cast to forget whatever vagaries were present in the script, and to improvise. Only the Indian is successful in doing so. The Anglos are either unskilled in improvisation or they are unskilled in memorization. The fact that I was fidgeting in my mind as to what was making the actors so obviously uncomfortable, leads me to assess that the direction was literally incoherent. Dialogue, when one can hear it, is stilted, pause filled, and mostly incomprehensible. Oddly, the words spoken by the Indian in the language of the Nez Perce, and without subtitles, are the most sincere and intelligible in the film.
Bruce Greenwood, the actor playing Stephen Meek, the mountain man guide unable to find a way out of the desert wilderness for the emigrants, does know how to improvise -- only he does so as if he were in the Fonda/Hopper classic "Easy Rider." The livestock is exceptionally well groomed and well fed -- belying the 3000 mile trek which is supposed to have been prologue to this lost in the desert story. (Historically, oxen died in the harness from malnutrition, over work, and dehydration on the trail of the title.) One production asset that did play well when there was daylight, excellently at times, was the cinematography of Christopher Blauvelt. In general he captures, even evokes the high desert tension of danger in serenity. Some of his framing is amateurish, especially the dolly shots of ox and wagons, which repeatedly cuts off the oxen heads.
Now we come to my biggest criticism -- the insufferable night scenes that could neither be seen nor heard. Sound is so bad during these sequences as to be unintelligible. I can't tell you who's in the scene because I can't see them, and I can't tell what's being said because I can't hear them. This is bad craft for student filmmakers, much less indie pros in the league of director Kelly Reichardt.
In what we are asked to believe is a life and death search for water, the women wear impeccably clean and professionally pressed costumes, which totally capsizes the presumed homage to "life and hard times on the Oregon Trail in 1845." I swear the pioneer women costumes are fresh pressed for each scene.
My thoughts while the end credits rolled: Generally, a mish-mash of production values, low grade script, and lack of direction sabotaged this excellent film idea.
Jesus (1999)
Buddhist reflections on the film Jesus
This film honors the last three years of Jesus of Nazareth, his crucifixion and resurrection. It is the study of a great man, and projects the consequences of His teachings into the present.
Raised Catholic, I left the church at 16 after many missteps by both myself and the church. For instance, I was taught at an early age that anyone not baptized in the Church would suffer eternal damnation. I questioned the priests about the souls of the billions who had never heard of Christ, the millions baptized in other faiths. I never heard a logical answer. So I became a fallen away Catholic, searching years for a spiritual home. 10 years ago I found refuge in Red Tara practice, a branch of Buddhism that honors Tara, Mother of the Victorious Ones. That's a sidebar, but an important one as you read this review.
Right out of the chute, it is very brave for storytellers to tackle a comprehensive biography about any avatar, and do it in a fair, open minded manner. Filming it is complicated further by all the behind the scenes politics, egos, financing, and Hollywood glamor. Consider also the legion of religious institutions that have sprung up in 2000 years staking claim as the one true faith of Jesus Christ, and the task is quite formidable.
The production values are impressive. Perhaps the times are not presented as gritty and dirty as they must in fact have been, but the historical and anecdotal research has been extensive, and sincerely executed.
Though there are CGI sequences, my imagination was gratefully allowed to rest in many "real" locations. Future producers of this Holy story be forewarned! Jesus did not deliver His sermons to computer generated crowds, and God willing never shall! There is a disappointing lack of racially diverse casting, a glaring fault compounded by many Western European accents, including a standout Scottish brogue in the mouth of John the Baptist.
Despite these faults, the filmmakers show quite a bit of rapport for not only the Master and his followers, but His opponents, specifically Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod, and Judas. I was particularly taken with the script's focus on the "character" development of these antagonists in social and political contexts presented with painstaking clarity and compassion.
One example: Judas' portrayal was a startling revelation of a man dedicated to the overthrow of Roman and Jewish authoritarianism. On his revolutionary course Judas crosses paths with the Master, who invites him to become one of His apostles. As Judas' sees it, if in fact there is a Messiah, and if Jesus proves to be the Messiah, that Messiah must lead the violent overthrow of the entrenched and corrupt status quo. Judas has reason to believe Jesus is that Messiah. After all, he witnesses incidents in which the Messiah's actions might favor such a revolution, i.e., the violence with which Jesus throws the money changers out of the Temple.
As Jesus preaches, lives, loves, harmonizes, a schism widens between Apostle and Master that ultimately leads to betrayal. Well known as that betrayal is, what is thought provoking and even haunting here is that the complex relationship of Master and Apostle is developed and nurtured by the Christ, who knew (and did not keep it secret) that Judas would in fact betray Him. This film's portrayal allows the viewer to experience the complexity on a personal level, thereby opening up to the viewer a sense of freedom regarding interpretation of the Scriptures. (The film's greatest gift is this freedom to challenge the sacred text.) It explodes the myth of the Evil, Despicable, and Damnable Judas. Neither does it let him off the hook. One can reject the details; however, one cannot reject the sincerity with which the enigma of Judas is investigated. The film opens the way for the individual to test and surmise, even penetrate the betrayal of God by man in ways uncharted heretofore -- especially by the individual seeker.
It is mentally exhilarating to explore with the filmmakers the historical currents and events in the background through which a person of New Testament times -- be it Jew, Roman, priest, gentile -- moved. Seeing Jesus negotiate those currents gave considerable weight to the Word Made Flesh doctrine; it gives Jesus substantiation, because he is vulnerable to what all human beings face regardless of space and time.
Its one thing to tell me to love God and my neighbor, another to witness it in practice, and quite another to personally realize it's practice in the context of Roman occupation, civil unrest, and scriptural wrangling and money changing in the temple. The film gives me concrete clues as to how I might actively embrace the Golden Rule in my daily practice in a world equally chaotic.
The strongest element in this film is the portrayal of Jesus (Jeremy Sisto) in script and performance as a person that I could not only relate to, but found I liked. Here's a person with extraordinary powers and insights, who lives moment to moment, embracing life. Too often the church(es) portray Him as a divinity without a clue about food, children, marriage, joy, finances, politics, and so on. Not this Jesus.
He is no longer a mystical, mythical figure out of reach because of teachings and traditions and institutions and time long gone. Seeing Him walk so carefree and carefully in a tumultuous, dangerous era, gives me hope, confidence, and above all a God given sense of freedom on the road to spiritual awareness.
Nowhere Boy (2009)
So You Think You Know John Lennon?
So You Think You Know John Lennon? Though I grew up with Beatles music in the background, I was not a fan. I have grown to respect and love them over time. This film was a complete surprise for two reasons.
We put this up on our Netflix queue because David Threlfall is in it. Why David? His performance as Smike in Royal Shakespeare's 8 hour masterpiece "Nicholas Nickleby" is the quintessence of brilliance.
However, Threlfall's character dies 3 minutes into "Nowhere Boy," and we were feeling conned and slightly nowhere ourselves. For about 30 seconds. We soon discovered the film is about John Lennon, and the genesis of the Quarrymen, i.e., the Beatles.
But that genesis almost pales in comparison to Lennon's relationships with his estranged mother who abandoned him at age 4 or 5, and his mother's sister, who adopted him. When John is lead to reconcile with his mother, whom he hasn't seen or heard from in 10 years (and lives just cross town in Liverpool), it cracks his psyche and his comfort zone. We witness firsthand what initiated, even baptized, John in the titanic forces within and without that ultimately lead to his legendary artistic and commercial success.
The subject of this film is way before the legend, examining in extraordinary detail--both historically and personally--the life of a boy on the cusp of discovering his heritage, his sexuality, and his musical genius.
I watched it twice two nights running, a thing I haven't done since watching Richard Lester's "Three Musketeers: The Queen's Diamonds" 35 years ago. I was on the edge of my seat, "Will the forces that defined this kid's music and life destroy or make him?" Most of us think we know the answer. This film reveals the first steps taken by John, and in doing so, it enriches our response to his music, as well as sheds light on our own creative journey.
Superb production values applied to a pitch perfect script (Matt Greenhalgh, and uncredited memoir of Julia Baird, John's mother) acted in the best British tradition. Great performances top to bottom (and yes, there's some hot suggestive sex); special applause for David Threlfall (of course), Anne-Marie Duff as John's mother, Kristin Scott Thomas as his guardian aunt, and Thomas Brodie-Sangster, playing Paul McCartney at age 15. Aaron Johnson as the young Lennon is bloody brilliant. Fortunately for all of us, none of the myriad producers obstructed the luminous direction by Sam Taylor-Wood.
(Yoko Ono gives her stamp of approval in a special feature interview.)
De repente el Alba (2008)
Viva Cinema Latino Americano!
I was introduced to Jhonny Obando during an audition for my film, "Refuge of Dragonflies" at the Palm Beach Film School. I subsequently cast him as Quasimodo and learned that he was a student in the Miami Film School, a sister school of the one in West Palm Beach run by Executive Producer Jim York. We completed our student films at about the same time in 2008, albeit in different cities.
Jhonny's film "Suddenly the Sunrise" starts with evocative, clear, piano music accompanied by a title card that reads, "For all those who have lost something along the way" in Spanish and English. Immediately, I was swept up into the mystery and poetry of Latin America. I love foreign films, in part, because the rhythm of the language accompanied by the subtitles gives the films a poetry that one cannot capture in any better way. It transcends reading a poem, or watching a film in one's own language, requiring a reading brain, and a visual brain, and a hearing brain. It excites because it requires active participation.
And so, this film had me from the first music cue and title card. I was further drawn into the story by the charismatic and sincere performances of the two leads, played by Cecilia and Edgar. They are at once sexy, innocent, troubled. The performances are hot and cold simultaneously. They blossom even as they investigate obstacles in the relationship of husband and wife, spirit and body, faith and God. Their union is just out of reach, and I find that very sad, and very satisfying, because it is so real. All the while there is the poetry of the Spanish language heightened by the subtitles and a haunting score by Liby Rubio and Antonio La Rosa.
One of many standout moments is the entrance of a fighting couple on the street played by Victoria and Fernando. It's one of those moments we've all experienced while in an intense study—physically, emotionally, mentally—with our beloved—something or somebody breaks the spell. The harsh street argument not only serves as a reminder for Cecilia and Edgar about flare ups in their own past, but it engages us to reflect on the last argument we had with our earthly beloved. The music, the images, the acting invite us to soften our internal frustrations. After all, don't we all want perfect union with our Beloved? What could possibly make us so angry as to accept anything less?
Jhonny's film is not perfect. Cecilia's obstacles are piled one on another, so that the script comes close to collapsing in melodrama. The climax is clumsy, and lacks the imagination and poetry of most of the film. And what was with the final credits repeated?
This critique attempts to explain what is so effortlessly revealed. "Sunrise" is a great revelation to me, (and a great relief), to find so much talent that is authentic. In repeated viewings, I feel that the director and his company couldn't possibly not have made this film. Viva Cinema Latino Americano!
Cradle Will Rock (1999)
An American Masterpiece
Tim and Susan have been on the forefront of our political and artistic landscape for many years, regardless of the personal or artistic costs. They are Hollywood players, and as such, I do not always stand and cheer when I see one of their films. It's taken some time for me to recognize their excellent aspirations. Not to say I haven't embraced their intentions in a general way. With this film, "Cradle Will Rock," however, I embrace them unconditionally.
I have deep theatrical roots, and was simply enchanted by the frame of this story inside Roosevelt's WPA theatre project of the early '30s. As deeply embedded in the theatre as I am, I had no idea, I blush to admit, that I owed so much to the extraordinary legacy of the artists and managers from that era. So, for this alone, I am grateful to the filmmakers.
Within my personal history in the theatre, I have long struggled with the zeal in needing to produce "theatre in defense of civil and human liberties," and reconciling that with the ongoing pressures of making a buck. Not that I insist all artistic need be "liberty" oriented. But I am uneasy in choosing a work to produce or to witness, if I cannot find a pillar of social justice within it. The earth is far too fragile, and the threats to her and her inhabitants are far too imminent, to waste time otherwise.
Back to the film: Not only was I unaware of the WPA theatre project, I was unaware there was a McCarthy-Era-like-witch hunt to dismember the artists and producers and administrators. I kept thinking as I watched the Senate interrogations, "Is that Senator McCarthy? That can't be--that doesn't happen for 30 years!" The parallel is unmistakable (uncanny), and one can't help but ponder its legacy: The McCarthy Era; Senator Jesse Helms' vicious, relentless attacks on public funded arts, media and humanities; the Bush Doctrine, and so on. And as I watched, there was this small voice telling me what we all know: "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I was shocked to learn that this hideous bureaucracy has been using every weapon at hand to demolish the arts in the US for at least 80 years. For this revelation alone, I honor these filmmakers.
The history and political science are presented excellently here, and might be subjects for good documentaries. Believe it or not, I do like entertainment, and it's likely I would've missed the lessons had they been presented as documentaries. Instead, Tim has written one of the most compelling screenplays with very diverse human stories interwoven in what must've been a pitch to studio execs that was unwieldy and impossible to track. Not so in the execution. I write screenplays, and I am many times undone by the weight of my convictions. Not so with "Cradle." The writing here is superb.
To climax with a performance of the musical "Cradle Will Rock" booked in a vaudeville house in a last ditch effort after the Feds close down the original venue is divinely inspired. The "show-must-go-on" mentality produced with a pianist and piano on an empty stage, before a standing room only crowd of recently fired performers and technicians, their families, friends, and supporters is just bloody brilliant. When the performers stand up in the house to join the performance--Equity Union rules they cannot step on stage--when these performers step into their roles, rising up from the audience itself, and in spite of very real threats of being black balled--the effect is sublime. It's as though the observers become the observed--that alchemical magic every sincere performer strives to achieve. To accomplish this on film is rare. Sure, you often identify with a character in a film, but you often do it in a kind of hypnotic escapist state. This film achieves something more particular, more active in the way of audience/performer union.
"Cradle Will Rock" is one of the best film arts arguments for democracy. It is a gift to all of us. Let us honor and treasure the filmmakers.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
A nightmare for a Tolkien fan who read the book in the '60s
I am assuredly in the minority when I state Jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy is some of the worst film making I have ever seen. It would appear that he and his production team read the books, sort of, maybe 30 years ago; bought the Cliff notes, and from that wrote the screenplay. To illustrate my POV, I recommend listening to the superlative 13 hour radio adaptation produced by the BBC, recorded I believe in 1981.
Jackson and crew erred when they depended too much on computer fx, and spent too much time on the spectacle of combat and war. I often thought I was watching a slasher movie. What makes the original Trilogy compelling are the relationships and the subtext characters carry with them from beginning to end. To be sure there are mythic battles, both large and small. But they come out of very carefully crafted relationships and a deep well of subtext.
I don't quarrel with the New Zealand locations, I do quarrel with the dumpy looking sets that were haphazardly glossed over with computer grafx fixes. I don't quarrel with the casting except Frodo, and yet I found the direction so superficial, and often perplexing, if not simply muddled (Galadriel as an English Vamp?!).
A clue to my dissatisfaction can be found in the omission of Tom Bombadil, the only character in the original not affected by the Ring. His eccentric wisdom and unexplained powers ground the plot because there is something, someone who is outside the Dark Lord's power. There is in the Tolkien universe a power unimaginable which Sauron cannot touch. And that is essential to the fabric which holds Middle Earth together. Which Tolkien in his craft and his wisdom knew he had to give expression to. And Jackson in his foolhardiness ignored.
Why didn't Jackson's team follow the books with more trust? The master had already worked it out perfectly. Well, almost. The Trilogy wasn't long enough, which Tolkien realized after its completion. Nevertheless, the project would have been immensely improved had Jackson and his team laid out a six episode franchise to match the six books of the Trilogy, taken more time to film it in their excellent locations of choice, and above all, truly paid homage to its original creator by following his work faithfully.
These films are a mish-mash which titillated the masses for a brief time. And that is tragic, because it will be long, long before someone will be able to do them justice.