THEATER REVIEW: SIEGFRIED

By Ed Rampell

Highlight of the mods: Controversy surrounds L.A. Opera’s third installment of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

By Ed Rampell

Recently I was staying at Badrutt’s Palace, St. Moritz’s poshest hotel, and I rode a funicular on high to Muottas Muragl, which offers a breathtaking panorama of the Engadin Valley. Although it was still summer, the peaks of the Swiss Alps were powdered with snow, and the spectacular views stretched from Morteratsch Glacier to the almost 4,000 meter high Piz Palu -- referred to in Inglourious Basterds, which I’d coincidentally just seen – and to other majestic summits and the lakes sprawling below. But the awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, eye-popping vistas didn’t put me in mind of Quentin Tarantino or Leni Riefenstahl, who’d starred in The White Hell of Piz Palu, G.W. Pabst’s 1929 mountain climbing epic that is ballyhooed on a movie marquee in Tarantino’s pseudo WWII flick.

Instead, as I hiked through this glorious ivory-topped Valhalla, I kept hearing the brassy Siegfried’s Motif rapturously played by the horn section in my psyche’s symphony. Upon returning home L.A. Opera had just the thing to feed my Wagnerian yen back in the City of the Angels (or rather of the Valkyries): Siegfried, the third installment of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelungen.

So I flew to the premiere on wings of anticipation to see this continuation of the Ring Cycle, which had begun last February with Das Rheingold, followed by April’s production of Das Walkure. The $32 million productions have been the source of much tongue wagging amongst the “operati” (to coin a phrase), as director-designer Achim Freyer and the sorcerer’s apprentice, daughter and co-costume designer Amanda Freyer, acting in league with their co-conspirator lighting designer, Brian Gale, have wed a decidedly offbeat avante garde form to Wagner’s 19th century content. Yes, that all-seeing eye of the gods is back, a gigantic blue orb dangling above the stage, gazing at the players and audience like some sort of Asgardian Big Brother. To some opera traditionalists, the Freyers are lowbrow barbarians at the gates, storming a bastion of high art, tainting this rarefied realm with pop culture and outlandish sets and costumes. To these purists the Freyers’ Cycle is more cyclone, blowing hallowed traditions away, and is more highlight of the mods than twilight of the gods.

However, as this reviewer is not steeped in operatic conventions and has no emotional investment in them he is open to – and even relishes -- the outrageous inventiveness of the Freyers’ feverish, vivid imagination. Indeed, the Ring’s mythic quality invites outsized outrageousness: Siegfried (John Treleaven), a heroic Aryan youth, forges an Excalibur-type of super sword named Notung in order to slay the fearsome dragon Fafner (bass Eric Halfvarson reprises the role he’d played in Das Rheingold), and capture the eponymous Rhine gold and a magic ring. Then our man Siggy endeavors to rescue the Valkyrie Brunnhilde (soprano Linda Watson returns as the wronged winged woman warrior), last seen in Die Walkure’s grand finale, imprisoned within an inferno on a promontory, where she was banished for defying her father, head god Wotan (bass Vitalij Kowaljow, who likewise returns to this Nordic soap opera about the Wotan clan). True love ensues between the virginal Siegfried and Brunnhilde, who is around 20 years older and arguably the archetype of today’s so-called “cougars.”

Siegfried is full of Freudian subtexts: the phallic Notung, the vaginal ring, incest, Oedipal struggles with fathers, etc. Siegfried is fearless, until he encounters Brunnhilde, who makes him tremble and his heart pound. Treleaven plays the “chosen hero” as oafish if epic; Siegfried is the uber-ungrateful child, who clashes with Mime (tenor Graham Clark), the scheming dwarf who raised him after his Valkyrie mother died.

Norse and Germanic myths are the source material for Wagner’s Ring libretto, just as they were for Fritz Lang’s 1924 silent screen two-part adaptation of Die Nibelungen, Siegfried and Kriemhild’s Revenge. The notion of destiny – which Wotan warns nobody can change – suffuses the saga. As do the themes of militarism, struggle for world domination and will power -- the stuff Nazi dreams are made of. (The knowledgeable L.A. Times critic Mark Swed questioned presenting Siegfried so near the Jewish High Holy Days, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, but then again, the anti-Semitic Wagner had much to atone for, because when it came to Jews, the German composer was notoriously atonal.)

Treleaven wears a blonde fright wig and bodysuit that makes him look like a purplish Incredible Hulk, even as his light-sword has been unabashedly shoplifted from Star Wars. There is even some soft shoe in the Freyers’ offbeat version. But if this seems sacrilegious, consider that Wagner himself whimsically injected a note of levity in the second act, as Siegfried comically strives to find a musical theme so he can communicate with forest birds, which eventually trumpets his presence and becomes a leitmotif.

Conductor James Conlon wields a potent baton and Wagner’s music is nothing less than soul-stirring, an aural equivalent to the visual splendor of the Alps, where one feels closer to the gods. Operagoers – Freyer aficionados and gadflies alike – have a six month wait until the final installment of the Ring chimes in at L.A. Opera. But this is nothing compared to the 12-year-break Wagner took in between beginning and completing Siegfried. So, the next time someone complains about your procrastinating, just remind him/her of Richard Wagner’s pause, and ask them: “what’s the rush?” In any case, this critic predicts that Gotterdammerung will be well worth the goddamn wait.

Siegfried is being performed at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., on Sundays Oct. 4 and 11 at 2:00 p.m.; Wednesday Oct. 7 and Saturday Oct. 17 at 5:30 p.m. Please note the early performance times of Siegfried, which is four hours-plus long and has two intermissions. The final installment of the Ring Cycle, Gotterdammerung, will be performed April 3 – 25, 2010. L.A. Opera also plans to present the entire Ring Cycle again, May 29 – June 26, 2010. For more info: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com.

MUSIC: THE KILLERS

Fans smile like they mean it as The Killers perform in San Diego.

By Carlin Nguyen

From the infamous city of Las Vegas, the band, The Killers, came and rocked the house at the Viejas Arena down in San Diego last Friday night. At a capacity of about 6,000 seats, the alternative rock band played to the packed crowd inside the arena. Most fans ranging from young high school kids to recent college graduates came to see the band’s first return to San Diego since their appearance at 2007 at San Diego’s Street Scene Music Festival.

From the get-go, the drum stomping of “Mr. Brightside” set the pace for the nearly-packed crowds inside the arena.

Frontman and lead vocals Brandon Flowers wasted no time as he saluted the fans before wooing them with “For Reasons Unknown.” He grabbed each and every member of the crowd’s attention. including me.

During the song “A Dustland Fairytale,” Flowers had no trouble playing alongside Dave Keuning (lead guitar) during the solos and melodies of the song. They apparently practiced their stage appearance beforehand.

Their familiarity to style and body language was also transparent from their infamous music videos straight onto the stage when playing “Read My Mind.” The individual performances from bass guitarist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. made this song being my favorite sound twice as much better live as it is hearing it on the radio..

The last song they played “When You Were Young” gave the lasting impression to all that life’s still going on and that every moment can potentially count for many.

For myself, there’s nothing to complain when The Killers come and play in California.

By night’s end, the band played a total of a sixteen song setlist including an additional three songs as an encore. All songs played originated from albums Hot Fuss, Sam’s Town, Sawdust and Day & Age. Also, these four albums were written and developed by them.

The bands Halloween Town and The Nervous Wreckords were the opening acts.

FILM REVIEW: THE BLUE TOOTH VIRGIN

Where is the bite? Bryce Johnson stars in The Blue Tooth Virgin.


Which side are you on?

By Don Simpson

Sam (Austin Peck) is an aspiring screenwriter whose fame (and income) from a short-lived television show has completely faded away. Now, Sam is struggling to hop back on the proverbial writing horse. With a few completed scripts wallowing in script hell, Sam suspects that his newest effort, The Blue Tooth Virgin, is the masterwork of his career. Sam’s screenwriter friends all agree that The Blue Tooth Virgin is a work of creative genius, but that could be the result of a circle jerk of artists unconditionally supporting and praising each other because when the time comes they will want support and praise for their own effort.

It is when Sam entrusts his non-screenwriter friend, David (Bryce Johnson), with the script and requests his non-professional opinion, that the house of cards comes tumbling down. David, a successful magazine editor, does not understand the convoluted mess of Sam’s ever-morphing lead character and non-linear plot. David enjoys more popular and traditional fare – the everyday tripe and dribble produced in Hollywood. Sam’s The Blue Tooth Virgin is clearly a rebellion against Hollywood (and David’s cinematic taste). Sam considers himself to be an artist, attempting to break new ground in the world of cinema and he takes David’s criticisms as a personal attack and an attempt to force him to conform to Hollywood’s conventions.

In the end, both Sam and David are forced to reevaluate their motivations to write as well as their need for praise and validation.

Writer-director Russell Brown’s low-budget talkie, offers no cinematic flourishes or even creativity; instead Brown’s The Blue Tooth Virgin cuts right to the dialogue. There is a tinge of irony here since Brown’s sympathy seems to sway towards Sam and his desire to make cinematic art, however the drab and conventional plot structure of The Blue Tooth Virgin would definitely be David’s cup of tea.

FILM NEWS: CINEVEGAS SKIPPING 2010

A safer world? Cinevegas cancels film festival for 2010.

Economy continues to hit film festivals

By John Esther

The latest injury to film festivals across America, Cinevegas, "the world's most dangerous film festival" held annually in Las Vegas, NV, will not be held in 2010.

“Given the current economic climate and the pressures it has created, we made the difficult decision to put CineVegas on hiatus for the coming year. CineVegas has become such a well respected film festival, and rather than allow the economy to affect its level of quality we have opted to put the event on hold,” said Robin Greenspun, Festival President.

CineVegas will continue to have a presence in Las Vegas with one off screenings and special events.

The 11th CineVegas Film Festival was held June 10 – 15, 2009 at the Palms Casino Resort and Brenden Theatres in Las Vegas.

FILM REVIEW: CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY

Michael Moore looks at the crash on Wall Street in Capitalism: A Love Story.

Comrades, let us seize the time

By Ed Rampell

Michael Moore is the foremost documentarian of our times. He is to 21st century America what the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, the director of the Kino Pravda (Film Truth) series, was to the Russian Revolution -- the man with the movie camera, who see and chronicles social rights and wrongs, interpreting reality through a roving, relentless, restless, rabblerousing camera lens, determined to tell all to the folks out there in movieland.

The release of a new Moore doc is a major media event. Indeed, shortly before his latest work was released, the Oscar and Cannes winner appeared on Jay Leno’s revamped NBC-TV program and on Sept. 23 (the day it opened in L.A. and New York) was a guest on Larry King’s CNN gabfest, and scheduled to visit Bill Maher’s Real Time HBO show at the end of the week. What other nonfiction cineaste has such ballyhoo heft and can say that?

The good news is that Capitalism: A Love Story is another Michael Moore instant classic, and in his considerable oeuvre – which spurred revitalization of the documentary as an art form, as well as an entertainment medium -- is second in quality and power only to his 2004 masterpiece, Fahrenheit 9/11.

Premiering almost exactly a year after the financial meltdown, Capitalism: A Love Story has all of the usual suspects and ingredients of that film formula which makes Moore’s movie magic. It has the tongue and cheeky characteristic that has spread to TV parodies of news exemplified by the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert brand of topical comedy. (Moore also appeared on the Stephen Colbert show.)

The documentary opens with security camera footage of real bank robberies. What better metaphor for bank bailouts and other debacles? (As well as a playful rumination on the nature of cinema verite by a practitioner of the documentary art form.) Then there are clips from other films: one on ancient Rome, another from an instructional piece on free enterprise, and hilarious “what would Jesus do” bits.

Capitalism features some insider exposes and incisive investigative reporting – another hallmark of Moore’s filmmaking technique -- which in Sicko exposed healthcare insurance scams and in Fahrenheit revealed the battlefield costs of the so-called “cakewalk” in Iraq. The quintessential ingredient in Moore’s motion picture recipe has been his own proletarian persona, which works because like many movie fat men, he’s funny and is literally a son of the industrial proletariat. There’s lots about his boyhood at Flint, Michigan, where both his father and uncle worked on GM assembly lines, mass producing cars in some bygone autotopia, once upon a time before America was de-industrialized, downsized, outsourced and union busted.

Of course, there are the usual Moore merry prankster stunts – 20 years after Roger and Me, GM throws the prodigal proletarian son out of their HQ yet again. But, correct me if I’m wrong, Moore’s current Wall Street shenanigans seem like replays of the escapades on his 1990s’ TV Nation and The Awful Truth television series, when he and Crackers, the corporate crime fighting chicken, confronted white collar criminals. While droll, Capitalism’s tomfoolery never rises to Sicko’s audacious, inventive level of Moore trying to bring a boatload of ailing Ground Zero survivors to the one place under U.S. jurisdiction that guarantees universal medical care: Guantanamo Bay, where suspected terrorists are imprisoned. (He transports them to Castro’s Cuba instead, where socialism provides free healthcare to all.) Nor does Moore’s return to the scene of the crime in the Financial District in Capitalism match the sheer panache of his dispatching actors clad as Salem witchhunters to the home of Pres. Bill Clinton’s grand inquisitor, Kenneth Starr (now ensconced, god help us, at Pepperdine!) during the multimillion dollar probe of the "Lewdinsky" scandal and impeachment imbroglio.

Capitalism has its share of talking head notables – social critic Wally Shawn (of My Dinner With Andre fame), Catholic clergymen who denounce the capitalist system for its sinfulness, etc. But, more importantly, and at the core of Moore’s movie method, is his putting the so-called “forgotten man” (and woman) front and center, giving them a prominent platform to tell their heartbreaking, gut wrenching stories of an America where uncontrolled greed has run amok, laying waste to the common people. (Moore defines capitalism as “legalized greed.”) Just as Roger and Me presented out-of-work autoworkers, including unfortunate Flint residents reduced to catching, skinning, eating and selling rabbits to survive in the wake of the economic cataclysm that destroyed their once thriving city, here, in Capitalism, Americans are being evicted, including a family farmer close to snapping.

This compassion is the heart and soul of Moore’s movies, and indeed, of the man who dared denounce Pres. Bush as the Iraq War started on live TV during his Oscar acceptance speech for 2002’s Best Documentary winner, Bowling at Columbine. In Capitalism Moore raises serious points about the free market, pondering why a so-called democracy allows so many dictatorial practices in the workplace. (Jean-Luc Godard once questioned why one boss has more power than 100 workers.) Moore also rails against America’s disparity in wealth, wondering what’s democratic – and Christian – about one percent of the population owning as much as the “bottom” 95% of the people.

Moore calls for an end to capitalism, but stops short of advocating revolution. He does not claim to have an economic blueprint to save us from unbridled greed and economic collapse, but he, more than any other popular artist and entertainer is asking the questions that need to be asked. Moore is a bellwether. His Fahrenheit preceded public disenchantment with Bush’s ill-fated war, while in Sicko he anticipated the healthcare debate we’re now having. Who knows where, a few years after his brilliant, must see Capitalism, the public debate will be at. Meanwhile, it’s interesting and amusing to note that the name of Godard’s next movie is Socialisme.

FILM REVIEW: CRUDE

Entering murky legal waters in Crude.

America gets Crude

By John Esther

While the box office continues to top off with slop, one grimy little documentary is digging deep.

Crude, the latest effort by Joe Berlinger (co-director of the outstanding documentaries, Brother's Keeper and Paradise Lost ) opened last week to overflowing crowds, eventually resulting in the theatrical release with the highest-per-screen average in the country.

Now opening tomorrow in Los Angeles at the Nuart, Crude chronicles the legal battle between rainforest residents against the corporate behemoth, Chevron. An engaging documentary uncovering massive power versus mass movement Crude unveils many sides of the internal battles inside the big external world wide war while illustrating the hitherto winner.

For more information visit www.crudethemovie.com

FILM REVIEW: EXTRACT

Mila Kunis plays Cindy in writer-director Mike Judge's Extract.

Idiocracy in the factory

BY Don Simpson

Joel (Jason Bateman) is stuck in a sexless marriage with Suzie (Kristen Wiig), a work-at-home wife who dons her sweatpants like a chastity belt. Suzie and Joel live in a middle-upper-class suburban development beside an especially annoying and overbearing neighbor, Nathan (David Koechner). Joel’s best friend, Dean (Ben Affleck), owns a remarkably unappealing sports bar where Joel spends a good deal of his non-working hours (while Suzie, in her sweatpants, stays at home and watches reality television).

As the somewhat proud owner of an extract (as in vanilla) factory, Joel manages a bunch of useless trashy employees, void of any intelligence or skill – besides their sheer comedic value for the film’s audience. In one seminal case of ineptitude, they cause a freak chain reaction of accidents at work and one of the factory workers – the trashiest of them all – Step (Clifton Collins, Jr.) ends up losing a testicle (echoing Ow, My Balls! the popular television show from Idiocracy) during all of the commotion…because what could be funnier than a guy losing a testicle?

Enter Cindy (Mila Kunis) – a sexy drifter, con-artist and thief – who uses her flirtatious feminine wiles to persuade men to do her bidding. Cindy hears of Step’s testicular misfortune and coerces him to enlist the famed ambulance chasing attorney Joe Adler (Gene Simmons of Kiss) and sue Joel’s extract factory for gross negligence. All the while Cindy lands a job as a temp at the extract factory, even though she seems to being doing quite well preying on the likes of helpless and sex-craved men. Her new temp job enables her to flirt with Joel, causing him to make a series of poor decisions (thanks to some friendly advice and mind-altering drugs provided by Dean) – including hiring a young male prostitute posed as a pool boy for Suzie so that he would feel less guilty about possibly having an affair with Cindy. Oh the tangled webs we weave!

Writer-director Mike Judge’s (Office Space, Idiocracy) goal seems to be for the audience to sympathize with poor Joel because everyone around him is either an idiot or a cheat. Joel would be happier with his situation if Suzie would just unlock those sweatpants and spend some time with him away from the evil and mind-numbing glow of reality television. It is Suzie’s fault that Joel is tempted by Cindy. It is Cindy’s fault that Joel falls prey to her charms. It is Dean’s fault that Joel tempts Suzie with a prostitute posing as pool boy. It is Suzie’s fault that she has sex with the pool boy who is really a prostitute. And it is the fault of Joel’s incompetent employees – especially Skip and Cindy – that the extract factory is on the verge of bankruptcy. Absolutely nothing is Joel’s fault (everything he did wrong was because of the drugs). Joel is a good boss and a good husband just wanting to live a perfectly vanilla life, but he is helplessly forced into making bad decisions because of the bad people around him. Poor Joel!

FILM REVIEW: 9

Somebody has the numbers in the animated flick, 9.

Somebody has the numbers in the animated flick, 9.

Number 9

By John Esther

The fourth film released this summer with 9 in the title ($9.99, Cloud 9, and District 9), Shane Acker's feature length version of his 2004 Student Academy Award-winning short film, 9, pits military machines vs. mechanical anthropomorphic beings in a thematically-anachronistic story where good and bad clank it out in a post-human world before eternity awaits the damned souls of our scientific malfunctions.

Set somewhere in space and time beyond 2009, creatures with zippered burlap epidermis and shutterbug eyes live in fear of a Dues ex Machina and its animated angels of mechanical murder.

Each number has its demarcated de-humanistic design. 1 (voice by Christopher Plummer) believes in the order of things while 2 (voice by Martin Landau) is a curious soul who sort of serves as the story's true moral compass. Skipping numbers/names 3 and 4 for some unexplainable reasons, 5 (voice by John C. Reilly) is an engineered self-preservationist following the leader du jour; 6 (voice by Crispin Glover) is an artist -- strangely resembling a WWII Nazi Concentration Camp prisoner; 7 (voice by Jennifer Connelly) is a slick warrior who answers to nobody, -- and the only "female" character; and 8 (voice by Fred Tatasciore) is a burly Baby Huey warrior serving as a counterpoint to 7. Thanks to the deadly combination of science and political power, each of these things has survived in continuous fear until one hopeful morning when they meet the last of their kind, 9 (voice by Elijah Wood).

After a tragic fate for 2, 9 challenges the fear of others, offering words of wisdom and deeds of courage to show them how it is better to die on your feet or than to live on your sac. Of course each number in its own way must doubt, accept and challenge 9 as the story moves toward its clumsy conclusion.

While some of the technical work does possess flashes of brilliance and terror-ific imagery, Acker ultimately plays the reassuring card a la something right out of a Chekhov play (i.e. Uncle Vanya). It is freighting future yet everything will be done in the scientific laboratory or the theater of war as it is in heaven. Thy will be done.

Produced by reactionary directors Tim Burton (Big Fish) and Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch) imagine a final cut of Blade Runner by a right-wing studio head and you become nigh to the politics of 9. Politically speaking, 9 is a suitable 2009 double bill to Transformers 2 or Inglorious Basterds.