FILM REVIEW: CITY ISLAND

Andy Garcia plays a prison guard in City Island. 

By Ed Rampell

City Island reminds me of that old CBS game show, I’ve Got a Secret, co-hosted by, among others, Steve Allen. Every major character in City Island has a secret, but in keeping with my anti-plot spoiler philosophy I won’t spill the beans by revealing them here. Let’s start with Garcia’s Vince, a prison guard who at first appears to be a proletarian son of the working class. But he rankles at the term “prison guard,” opting instead for a more highfaluting title, indicating that beneath his blue collar persona lies another aspiration. Early in the movie this is wittily disclosed by Vince’s choice of reading matter, which he conceals from his wife Joyce (Julianna Margolies).

She is suspicious of her husband’s nocturnal absences at a weekly “poker game,” suspecting that Vince is actual having an affair. It’s symptomatic of role playing and hiding our true inner selves that Vinnie’s deceptions lead Joyce to this troubling conclusion, rather than revealing his true self and dreams to the woman Vince shares his life with. Of course, in turn about fair play, Joyce, too, has a secret.

Not surprisingly, both of their children, having learned well from mom and dad, possess their own share of secrets in this Italian-American family. Daughter Vivian is supposedly a hard studying student, whose university education will enable her to rise above the proletarian milieu of New York’s City Island. The approximately 13-year-old Vinnie Jr. (Ezra Miller) has a weird fetish.

Molly (portrayed with relish by British actress Emily Mortimer) is full of pretences, as she participates in and enables Vince’s weekly nighttime charade, while trying to completely reinvent her hausfrau self. Joining this ensemble cast in a small role is Alan Arkin –- a personal favorite since his 1968 heart stealing lead role in the unforgettable film, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter –- as the aptly named Michael Malakov, who is, shall we say, the leader of that weekly evening “poker game.” Malakov, too, yearns to be something other than he is. As Woody Allen once joked: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.”

But of all the characters surrounded by what Mike Leigh called Secrets and Lies in his peerless 1996 family drama, Tony Nardella (Steven Strait) takes the cake. When we first see him Tony is an inmate at the correctional facility where Vince works. For some mysterious reason Vince arranges Tony’s release and takes him back to his City Island home to live, ostensibly in order to rebuild the Rizzos’ boat shed, and to embark on a new life on the straight and narrow. However, the smalltime criminal becomes ensnared in the tangled web of deceptions woven by the Rizzo family.

In an interesting, amusing commentary on the necessity of being true to one’s inner self and dreams, the one time Vince’s proletarian persona could really come in handy, he rather foolishly tries to alter his blue collar appearance by garbing himself in such a way that this genuinely working class is asked if he’s just come from a funeral.

Inevitably, as an episode of the Seinfeld sitcom put it, worlds collide when all of the secret lives and lies unravel. All this has the elements of Greek tragedy; Aeschylus would have had a field day with this material. But screenwriter-director Raymond De Filitta has shrewdly opted instead for a Moliere-like farcical, comedy-of-manners approach. Some may feel that City Island’s intricate plot and its unfolding onscreen is contrived and over the top, but this critic disagrees and fully enjoyed the Sir Walter Scott-like tangled web the characters weave as they practiced to deceive, and how they awkwardly stumble towards the truth(s) that set them free.

I do, however, have one minor bone to pick with De Filitta and his production. As a “Native” New Yorker, I sometimes glimpsed City Island from afar, but never actually took a ferry or whatever to this isle enclave at the edge of metropolis. I would have preferred more cinematic and script exposition about the actual City Island, where most of the action is set. That place still remains a mysterious island to be, so I guess the next time this wayward son returns to the “mother country” I’ll just have to hop a boat and cruise out to City Island to check it out for myself –- and dine at an oyster bar.

But this is a mere quibble. I highly recommend City Island, a delightful family comedy with a superb ensemble cast with an uplifting message. More than any other movie in recent memory it reminded me of William Shakespeare’s wise words ironically uttered by the foolish Polonius in Hamlet: “This above all else, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." Remaining true to his class origins leads Vince to the fulfillment of his dreams.
   





 

FILM REVIEW: TALES FROM THE SCRIPT

Paul Shrader (Taxi Driver, Affliction) tells Tales from the Script.

By Miranda Inganni

In Peter Hanson and Paul Robert Herman's documentary, Tales from the Script, veteran and neophyte screenwriters alike delve into the grim reality of writing, selling and making a movie in Hollywood today. And what most of them describe sounds, quite frankly, miserable yet slightly inspiring.

Despite the caliber of many of the contributors to this film, the production values of the documentary comes across as amateurish (perhaps due to the terrible music, of which, fortunately, little is played). Each section begins with a scene from a mainstream movie about screenplay writers. Following this pseudo introduction is a series of clips of screenwriters discussing their trade.

As self-congratulatory as some of the participants are, some do show a fair amount of humility. And some of their comments are especially grounded. William Goldman (Marathon Man; All the President’s Men; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), for instance succinctly states that if Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were made today with a star playing the leading role and a well known director at the helm, it would cost $150 million dollars easily, as opposed to the $4.8 million it cost to make it with Paul Newman and Robert Redford starring and George Roy Hill directing. Naomi Foner (Bee Season; Losing Isaiah) puts is more bluntly when she says, “Ordinary People would be a Lifetime [Network] movie” if it were made today.

While some of the writers interviewed are truly thankful and realize how lucky they are (and admit that luck has quite a bit to do with it), others come off as whiney. Are screenwriters underappreciated? Sure, many of them are, but the folks interviewed for this doc all have at least one, if not multiple, successful film to his, and less likely, her credit.

Most disconcerting was the lack of female writers interviewed. Out of the 45 interviewees a mere five are women. Whether Mr. Hanson just couldn’t find other women to participate or he didn’t try, it is rather disappointing that the female voice was not more strongly represented. Maybe the ratio is indicative of Hollywood’s notorious sexism?

This film would be a welcome addition to an introductory screenwriting class in high school or college, but unfortunately isn’t as informative as it could be. The anecdotes are interesting, but I’m not sure I learned how best to go about becoming a screenwriter.
 

FILM REVIEW: OUR FAMILY WEDDING

Lance Gross, American Ferrara, Regina King, Forest Whitaker and Carlos Mencia star in Our Family Wedding.

Oh Daddy

By Miranda Inganni
 
Directed by Rick Famuyiwa, in this wedding flick, Lucia (America Ferrera) and Marcus (Lance Gross) form a happily engaged couple living together in New York. All is well until they return to Los Angeles and inform their domineering fathers of their upcoming nuptials.

Cutting to Los Angeles where their families reside, an owner of a towing/car restoration company, Miguel Ramirez (Carlos Mencia), rides the streets of downtown Los Angeles doing his job. As he’s hooking up a vintage Aston Martin for illegal parking, the car’s owner, Brad Boyd (Forest Whitaker), appears. Unbeknown to either party, these are the two dads. Each man is headstrong, stubborn, racist and petty, setting up the tune they will sing throughout the majority of the movie.

Later that night, Lucia and Marcus gather the families at a Los Angeles restaurant to make their announcement, and the two dads meet, again, in a Los Angeles where strangers can meet twice in a day. Fortunately the women – especially Lucia’s mom, Sonia (Diana Maria Riva), and Brad’s lawyer and confidant, Angela (Regina King) – manage to keep the men in check. Unfortunately for Lucia and Marcus, Sonia seems to be planning her own ideal wedding, and it is not the one the non-confrontational Lucia wants. Conversely Brad simply doesn’t want the son he raised single handedly to make the same marital mistake Brad made.

With extra characters in tow, each demanding and then compromising his or her prejudices, desires and dreams, the 103-film moves along in formulaic mode, complete with Viagra jokes, a horny goat and drunken debauchery before mutual understanding and appreciation take the characters to their harmonious conclusion.

While there are a few strong actors in this film, notable Whitaker, Ferrera and King, it’s not the young Lucia and Marcus who have the best on-screen chemistry. Oddly enough, that distinction falls to Mencia and Whitaker.
 

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: DAN ARGOTT AND SHEENA JOYCE

The infamous Dr. Albert Barnes and his priceless art collection.

Filmmaking duo and The Art of the Steal

By John Esther

What happens when there is a private collection of Post-Impressionist and early Modern art valued at more than $25 billion, and the original collector is dead, those entrusted are not really looking out for the best interests of the collection, the art is not exactly easy to view, and some of the most powerful people in one of America’s foremost cities wants it?

Through politics, money, connections and legal manipulation you create The Art of the Steal.

Located five miles west of Philadelphia, the Barnes Foundation has been using its incredible collection of art for decades to serve as an educational institution, rather than as some tourist trap.

Created by Dr. Albert C. Barnes in 1922, the Foundation was a deliberate thumb in the eye of the capital and cultural elite of the City of Brotherly Love (or Shove). At first the downtown folk called his collection of art “debased,” but as the years went by and the works of Cezanne, Van Gogh and others fetched millions of dollars, they took a different attitude and when Dr. Barnes died in 1951, some saw a chance to bring the art to Center City.

Too bad Barnes left control of his collection to Lincoln University, a small African-American college.

Not to be deterred by eccentrics, art lovers and a minority, for the next fifty years moneyed movers and shakers would make many attempts at bringing the museum to Museum Parkway, home to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (of Rocky fame), breaking the explicit written wishes (and spirit) of the museum’s founding father -- similarly to the way other famous founding fathers in America’s birthplace have had their explicit written wishes broken.

An epic in the making with a tragic conclusion looming, director Don Argott and producer Sheena Joyce chronicle the narrative canvass of this grab for power in Art of the Steal.

Both residents of my previous stomping grounds, Philadelphia, their previous collaborations include Rock School and Two Days in April. We recently caught up with the couple in Los Angeles.

JEsther Entertainment: I was in Philadelphia during the 1990s while some of this was unfolding. Were you following it as well?
Sheena Joyce: I was at Bryn Mawr College at the time, which is right down the road from the Barnes Foundation. So all I heard about was the “Goddamned neighbors.” The Philadelphia Inquirer was saying, “Here’s this magnificent collection. The [neighbors] don’t want anybody to see it. Why shouldn’t it move to Philadelphia? What’s the big deal?” I had a very different idea of what the story was before we started. The more we dug the more my opinion certainly changed.
Don Argott: It’s a much bigger story than “the neighbors.”


JE: Why did you want to tell this story?
DA: Lenny Feinberg, a producer of the film, approached us about doing the story. Actually I didn’t know anything about the story. I moved to Philadelphia in 1993. I didn’t know anything about the Barnes Foundation at all. It was a hidden story nobody was talking about. It was a story where there was more than met the eye.
SJ: We were skeptical at first.


JE: Why?
DA: We get a lot of people pitching us [Laughs]. We learned early on in filmmaking to ask, “Is this a magazine article or a novel?” There are a lot of magazine articles out there that can’t sustain a person’s interest over a feature length film. Can it get past the 20-minute mark? That has really resonated with us.
SJ: We did a teaser to see what was there, what kind of characters were involved, and the layers to this onion just went on and on and on. We were convinced early there was a bigger story to explore.


JE: How did your attitude toward the situation change as you continued to make the documentary?
DA: The minute people start not wanting to participate starts to throw up red flags. Why are we not taking about this? The first call we made was to the Barnes Foundation. Who else were we going to call first if we’re making a film about the Barnes Foundation? Immediately we encountered uneasiness. They certainly didn’t throw open their doors and say, “Come on in.” We continued to go back to them and let them know how we felt they should be involved in this thing. They didn’t want to enter into this because it was acknowledging there was an opposition.


JE: Obviously there was an opposition. How did you track down the dissidents?
DA: We did our research. We were very careful to find people associated with the story. We certainly didn’t want to start getting people pontificating, from all walks of life, about the Barnes Foundation.
SJ: When Barnes and the Pew Foundation and everyone on their side wouldn’t talk to us we tried earnestly to find others on the pro-move side as well. We did, but at the end of the day it still is going to seem weighted.


JE: Right, the most common criticism lobbied at the documentary is that it is one-sided. I have my own contentions with that analysis but I wanted to hear what your responses are to such accusations.
SJ: It’s a very convenient excuse after the facts. Even at the end of the project as it was getting very emotional and people had strong opinions, Don had a very frank conversation with them and said, “Listen, you guys might not look so good. Even if you say, ‘It’s a done deal. We’re moving forward,’ you’re voice will still be in it.” And they said, “Absolutely not.”
DA: It’s a convenient thing for them to say it’s one-sided when, by their own actions, they made it one-sided.


JE: By refusing to appear.
DA: Right. And on the flipside of that, if it’s one-sided, what are some of the things in the film that are false?
SJ: They’ve said it’s one-sided. They haven’t said it’s not true.


JE: Did you have any political intentions?
SJ: No. We had no agenda. We had opinions but we didn’t make this film because we were for or against the move. But this is about Dr. Barnes' opinion. We really wanted to bring him back to life. People forget that it’s not just a name on a building; it was a man. We wanted to make him the real character.
DA: This film is championing the Barnes Foundation and Dr. Barnes in a way, frankly, the Barnes Foundation trustees should be doing. [Laughs] That’s the grand irony of it.


JE: What is the current status of the move to the Museum Parkway?
SJ: They’re digging a hole. They had a golden shovel ceremony. The rhetoric has increased since this film has come out. The court gave permission for the move in 2004 and now suddenly they’re rushing plans out. There’s web camera running 24/7 on the construction.
DA: Essentially they’re saying, “Yes, there’s this film out there bringing up these things but look at the web camera, we’re building this thing.”
SJ: While the Philadelphia press has not, we have been asking, what is this move going to cost? How much money have you raised? What are your sustainable studies here? How many visitors do you think you’ll be getting and how long will you sustain them? How much will it cost taxpayers? As taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania it’s upsetting to see a $100 million line item in the budget to move the Barnes Foundation to the Parkway when they’re closing libraries, public pools, recreation centers and the police are under funded. There are a lot of questions that haven’t been answered.

THEATER REVIEW: SIX DEGRESS OF FORNICATION

Carolyn Ratteray (Top) and Kalimba Bennett (Under) dive into David Wally's Six Degrees of Fornication.

That crazy, kinky, wacky little thing called sex

By Ed Rampell

Playwright-director David Wally’s Six Degrees of Fornication is a wry rumination on the many permeations of human sexuality. The title, of course, is derived from John Guare’s 1990 play, Six Degrees of Separation, with the premise that a chain of only six acquaintances connects -- or separates -- everyone. Wally applies that notion to sex, unveiling the entanglements of a modern septet of characters, as we discover who’s sleeping with whom in this bedroom farce about heterosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, prostitution, masturbation, cross generational hanky panky, dominatrixes, role playing and more.

On the verge of marrying Ben (Gerald Downey), a “Mr. Nice Guy” character, the promiscuous Monique (Carolyn Ratteray) makes a startling discovery about her own sexual preference that throws the bride-to-be for a fruit loop. (In the opening sex scene played all or mostly in the dark we also learn, rather humorously, what Monique despises most in lovemaking.) The bed hopping Monique sexpresses wild passion with different lovers, but during her Cabo honeymoon (given Monique’s lustful enjoyment of cunnilingus they’re ironically holidaying South of the border) with Ben, it’s clear that she’s feigning orgasm enthusiasm. As well as for the notion that she’ll be spending the rest of her life with the boring Ben, who may be the world’s nicest guy, but is quite a dullard in and out of bed with her.

Ratteray, who has an angelic visage and looks as if she just stepped out of the Gauguin canvas. And the Gold of Their Bodies, skillfully conveys lust, disgust and pretense. The octaves of her acting run the range, from outrageous to subtle. As Ben, Downey pulls the wool over the audience’s eyes as Monique’s bedroom bore gets his freak on in kinkier pastures.

Six Degrees of Fornication’s other main couple is Ben’s sister and Monique’s best friend, Lenore (Kalimba Bennett), and Melanie (Sally Hall). Melanie rails against her live-in lover’s infidelity, but another surprise awaits audiences as they find out what the jealous Melanie’s night job really is. Can you say “Mel de Jour”?

Judd Laurance portrays Melanie’s father, George, who is, symbolically perhaps, laid up in bed. A veteran thespian and acting/dialogue coach, Laurance of Los Angeles acts with a great naturalness that is completely convincing. Wally insightfully shows how George’s unhappy marriage has impacted upon Melanie who is, shall we say, acting out. In another twist, guess who has a, shall we say, indiscretion with George?

The two-acter takes place in seven bedrooms; in between scenes a couple of black clad stagehands swiftly rearrange the double bed, furniture, etc., to literally set the stage. Michael Rubenstone as a costume clad clownish telegram singer and Second City alum Frank Payne in a cameo as a John usually into hanky spanky pay-for-play provide comic relief amidst the tangled web of angst and sexual politics in this romp that reveals the quirkiness of romance, relationships and sexuality.

I have two bones (not to say, boners) to pick with Six Degrees of Fornication. First of all, the two main couples are interracial (that is, the actors of Company A; there is also a Company B that performs on closing night). In the “A team’s” production Ben is white; Monique is Black. Lenore is also Caucasian, while Melanie appears to be what used to be called “Eurasian.” But the matter of ethnicity is never raised in this dramedy, although race can be quite a combustible ingredient in relationship stews. Have we become so “post-racial” in the Obama Age that mixed marriages, cross-cultural relationships, et al, don’t even merit mentioning?

Secondly, during the Sexual Revolution of the sixties and seventies, artists fought against great odds to liberate the stage, screen, page, etc., from censorship’s repressive restraints. Nudity, simulated sex acts, etc., finally stormed the barricades of Puritanism in America, with bawdy productions such as the musicals Hair and Oh! Calcutta and the scandalous Scandinavian film, I Am Curious Yellow. While Wally’s dialogue is risqué and candid, unlike, say, the Sacred Fools Theater’s recent production of Bertolt Brecht’s first play, Baal, which had a truly powerful nude scene, Six Degrees of Fornication mostly eschews nudity for lingerie and that old puritanical ploy and cliche, blankets.

If the performers are under the covers and covered up in a play about sex, and the show’s not willing to show skin, it makes one wonder: why do a story about that particular topic in the first place? If you don’t want to show naked people and depict sex acts, why not do a play about something else? Six Degrees of Separation was based on the ruse of an actual con man, and in a sense, this play about sex without nudity and where whatever sex acts there are take place under covers is a bit of a cheat, too, as well as a tease that doesn’t deliver. It’s like making a production about violence without showing any blood. Today’s artists should use the freedom their predecessors fought and sacrificed for. The relative prudery of contemporary creators who have the hard won legal rights but don’t use them make you ponder who won the Sexual Revolution, anyway?

Another point is that if fornication is defined as male-female intercourse per se and amidst the plays's various sex acts there’s not much of the old in and out taking place. Contrary to the cunnilingus here, what copulating does occur is not necessarily pleasurable and satisfying for most of those who indulge in it. The only character who actually seems to enjoy some good old-fashioned intercourse is the boring Ben, whose bare derriere is briefly glimpsed in the show’s sole glimpse of actual nudity. It’s also worth noting that while various forms of sexuality are sexplored, male homosexuality isn’t. Somehow, lesbianism is safer, non-threatening and even considered chic for “mainstream” auds.

Six Degrees of Fornication, which has been extended, skewers and scores some witty observations and points about that crazy, kinky, wacky little thing called sex -- and about love, too. Wally’s obsession with dramatizing sexual themes includes his Quickies Too, which is also playing in repertory at the Whitefire. Given how incestuous Six Degrees of Fornication's circle of characters becomes, I just wished that this comedy of sexual manners and mores ended with the two stagehands ending up together in the bed they repeatedly moved about onstage, so they could get in on the fun. They too deserved a little pleasure following all of that sweaty work. After all, these stagehands are the ones who literally make the Earth move in this droll bedroom farce.

Six Degrees of Fornication runs through March 25 at the Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91423. For more info: (310)526-3039 or http://www.whitefiretheatre.com./

THEATER REVIEW: THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL

Till we meet again

By Ed Rampell

What do we know and remember about Emmett Till? Mainly that this 14-year-old was brutally lynched down South in 1955 for purportedly whistling at a white woman, and that at his Chicago funeral his mother insisted on leaving her son’s casket open. The mutilated, partially decomposed corpse was viewed in person by up to 50,000 mourners and by many more in photos published in Jet, helping to inspire the then-nascent Civil Rights movement.

I believe that, for some reason, playwright Ifa Beyeza’s version of events at the award winning Fountain Theatre omits mentioning the magazine’s publication of these bone-jarring images. Be that as it may, there’s more to the Windy City teenager than the above facts, and Bayeza strives to resurrect him in The Ballad of Emmett Till. Bayeza tells Till’s backstory as it was (or as the dramatist imagined it), and a picture emerges of a fatherless lad who struggled with and overcame polio and stuttering. The production tries to be from Till’s point of view, but it is probably Emmett’s POV channeled through the play writer’s perspective.

Surprisingly, for such a tragic tale, The Ballad of Emmett Tillis full of good natured humor, as we follow the fast talking, loquacious, fun loving, joking Till (Lorenz Arnell) from his Chicago escapades to the city slicker’s attempts to farm and fish with his Mississippi kinfolk. Had white supremacists not kidnapped and viciously murdered Till one night in August, 1955 for his alleged infraction of Jim Crow “etiquette,” you probably would not be reading this now, and it’s unlikely that Bayeza would have written a play about him. What did life hold in store for Till? He may have, like most people, faded into history’s obscurity, or, perhaps, he could have gone on to do especially noteworthy things. His life squelched and stolen at such a tender age, of course, we’ll never know.

This play could have easily been presented in a straightforward realist manner, but Bayeza’s script, and Shirley Jo Finney’s direction, have wrought a highly stylized production. (In that “the show must go on” tradition, Finney stepped in after the murder of The Ballad of Emmett Till's original director, Fountain Theatre stalwart Ben Bradley.) Overall this creative rendering and storytelling technique works and serves the drama well. But certain elements lost me, such as the stick dance choreographed by Ameenah Kaplan, performed towards the beginning of the 90-minute one act play. While it’s ably presented, what’s the point? Foreshadowing of looming violence to come? Perhaps this baffled me because I have previously seen numerous indigenous stick dances performed by Micronesians and Filipinos, and I was confused by the cultural context.

Another thing that puzzled me is set designer Scott Siedman’s use of baggage on the small, mostly bare stage of the 78-seat playhouse. Why? Emphasizing that Till traveled all the way from Chicago to Mississippi to visit and stay with his relatives there? That life is a journey? Or that Till and/or his saga carry heavy baggage? Your guess is as good as mine. On the other hand, David B. Marling’s sound design organically underscored and enhanced the drama, as did Kathi O’Donohue’s lighting, especially during a torture sequence that rendered it palpable, but endurable to sit through.

The Ballad of Emmett Till has only five actors, who seamlessly move from role to role as effortlessly as shape shifters, playing multiple characters. The ensemble acting is deftly directed by Finney. With his bravura performance Lorenz Arnell has an effervescent presence in the title role, bringing someone mostly known for his death vividly back to life. Arnell makes the ghost of Emmett flesh and blood, transforming an icon into someone all too human.

As the steely-willed Mamie, who brought her son’s corpse up from the Delta to Chicago for all the world to see, Karen Malina White is stellar and protean in her multi-role incarnations. As is Adenele Ojo, who displays a comic flair as one of Till’s hayseed Southern cousins or romantic interests, as well as a tragic touch playing Emmett’s older relatives.

The South Carolina-born Bernard Addison captures what W.E.B. DuBois called “the soul of Black folks,” crystallizing onstage the sheer terror of the pre-Civil Rights generation of blacks subjected to night riders and lynchings in the Old South. When the rednecks come to his spread to apprehend his nephew in the dead of the night, Addison’s character, Uncle Moses, is rather memorably dumbstruck. It is the quintessence of the powerless, terror stricken and paralyzed by persecution.

After a brief delay due to Bradley’s death (which was, like Till’s, untimely) the Fountain Theatre presented the West Coast premiere of The Ballad of Emmett Till in February during Black History Month; however, the Thursday night performance I went to was sold out, and as of press time it has already been extended twice, through April. But in a country still troubled by racism, where hate crimes are on the rise -- from nooses and KKK hoods at UCSD to death threats against the first African-American president -- any month is appropriate for this engaging interpretation of the life and death of Emmett Till, the martyr who launched the Civil Rights movement. Three months after Till’s murder, Rosa Parks stood up by sitting down in a segregated Southern bus.

The Ballad of Emmett Till runs March 25 at the Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Los Angeles CA 90029. For more info: 323/663-1525 or http://www.fountaintheatre.com./

FILM FEATURE: MICHAEL MOORE IN WESTWOOD

Michael Moore in Capitalism: A Love Story.

Comarades, let us seize the time


By Ed Rampell


Michael Moore and his Capitalism: A Love Story were snubbed this year by the Oscars, without a single nomination, let alone win. Perhaps this is payback for being such a provocateur. Moore’s 2003 Bowling for Columbine Oscar acceptance speech as the Iraq War began, boldly proclaiming: “Shame on you, Mr. Bush!” In 2008, when Sicko -- which was shot in part on location in Cuba and praised Cuban healthcare -- was also up for Oscar gold, Moore joked the Motion Picture Academy should invite Fidel Castro to the ceremony to boost ratings. Maybe Capitalism: A Love Story did not get any requited love from the Academy in 2010 because of Moore’s outspoken critique of the not-so-free enterprise system, credit card debt, maximizing debt, democracy, the coming uprising and puts Pres. Obama on notice.


Nevertheless, Moore is the foremost nonfiction filmmaker of our times. Moore appeared at a Sept. 16, 2009 private screening of his new documentary Capitalism: A Love Story in Westwood, near the UCLA campus, where Huffington Post publisher, Arianna Huffington, who is from Greece, likened Moore to the ancient Greeks’ teller of unpopular truths, calling him “our Cassandra, with a baseball cap.” (That night his red cap bore the word “Rutgers.”)


Moore 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 sees and chronicles social rights and wrongs, interpreting reality through a roving, relentless, restless, rabblerousing camera lens, determined to tell all to the masses out there in movie-land.


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. By the end of the week he visited Amy Goodman on Pacifica’s Democracy Now, Bill Maher’s Real Time HBO show and other outlets. What other nonfiction cineaste can say that and has such ballyhoo heft?


The good news is that Capitalism: A Love Story is another Michael Moore instant classic, and in his considerable, 20-year-long 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. There’s plenty of 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. Capitalism opens with security camera footage of real bank robberies –- what better metaphor for bank bailouts with taxpayer money? (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 private 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, where the mission wasn’t quite as accomplished as Moore’s nemesis, George W. Bush, had falsely claimed. In Capitalism, Moore exposes a scandalous life insurance practice for “Dead Peasants,” and more mind boggling practices.


The quintessential ingredient in Moore’s motion picture recipe has been his own proletarian persona, which works because like so many movie fat men, he’s funny, but unlike many U.S. leftists, he 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.


At the Westwood screening, Moore reminisced about this simpler, less greedy age: “Remember when… maybe mom had a J.C. Penney department store card, or something like that? But that was it – there was no credit card debt. The beast started [thinking] how it could get more money out of people: ‘We need more money. So let’s get them all charging things. Then let’s get their kids, when they go to college, into these 20 year loans.’ You know, when we were college age we didn’t go to a private bank to get a student loan. There was a thing on the college campus called the financial aid office [that provided] one or two percent loans… Around when Ronald Reagan became president, the concept of putting your pension into the stock market [began], which wasn’t going to be a guaranteed pension from the moment you started to do that,” said the 55 year-old, lamenting “the slow creep of… the takeover” by capital.


Of course, Capitalism has the de rigeur Moore merry prankster stunts – 20 years after Roger and Me, GM throws the prodigal proletarian son out of their HQ yet again. (When will they ever learn?) 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. (Denied entry at Guantanamo he instead transports the suffering 9/11 emergency responders and victims to Castro’s Cuba, 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 witch-hunters to the home of Pres. Bill Clinton’s grand inquisitor, Kenneth Starr (now ensconced, God help us, at Pepperdine University!) during the multi-million dollar probe of the Monica Lewd-insky scandal and impeachment imbroglio.


Capitalism has its share of talking head notables –- social critic Wally Shawn (My Dinner With Andre), Catholic clergymen who denounce the capitalist system for its sinfulness and wickedness, 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. Just as Roger and Me presented out-of-work autoworkers, including down on their luck 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, Capitalism gives voice to Americans being evicted, including a family farmer close to snapping. As one victim of the capitalist system says onscreen: “There’s gotta be a rebellion between the people who have it all and people who have nothing.”


Moore defines capitalism as “legalized greed,” and after the Westwood screening noted: “Our laws demand that corporations have the fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to maximize profits. So they are legally required to make as much money as possible, any way possible…. Health insurance companies –- it’s not their fault that they deny claims or take you off the rolls… The laws demand this because they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make as much money as possible. And you’re not going to make as much money as possible if you start doling out checks to people when they get sick. So they work night and day trying not to hand out any money to the doctors or hospitals or any of the people who need help. That is a sick system,” which Moore likens to one person at a table taking nine slices of pie and leaving the last slice for the other nine people.


Compassion and a strong sense of social justice are 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 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 asked 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 percent of the population?" He includes scenes of workers rebelling against inequality and injustice, from archival footage of the 1930s sit-down strike at the Flint auto factories, to news clips of contemporary workers successfully occupying the Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago and demonstrators at Wall Street.


In his critique of the not-so-free enterprise system Moore spares no one, Republican or Democrat –- including the current president, whose candidacy Moore had supported. He likens Pres. Barack Obama’s economic team, especially U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of N.Y., and adviser Larry Summers, to the bank robbers hired by bankers to explain to them how banks are robbed.


Following the Westwood screening Moore told the enthusiastic audience, “I put the scene in about Obama receiving all that money… out of these Wall Street firms and banks [and] the thing about Goldman Sachs being his number one private contributor. The thought was: I’m really not doing this for the general audience. I’m doing it for Obama to see it. I’m doing this scene for an audience of one. Because I want him to know that we know, and I want him to know that I’m telling everyone else. As much as I love and admire the guy, I want to put him on notice that if he doesn’t do what’s in our best interest, and sides with this organized crime family, banks and investment firms – really, seriously, they’re just a legalized form – you talk about Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme, that’s exactly what they do everyday. They con the system. They hold out this carrot to everybody, you can be on the top if you just sell enough Amway. But actually, at the top are only a very, very few people who have most of the wealth. If [Obama] doesn’t side with us, and if he sides with them, then the next film will make the stuff I did about Bush look like a Disney movie,” Moore declared as the crowd applauded and laughed.


Moore hopes that his documentary will be a rallying cry that will trigger some sort of mass movement. He believes capitalism is an “evil” that’s “going to collapse and be done away with, regardless of what the people with money want. Because the people are being screwed… There’s a foreclosure filing in this country once every seven and a half seconds. If you do this to that many millions of people, the man from Peoria with the guns who wants to blow up the bank – there’s a tipping point. You can choose to deal with this now nonviolently… because eventually people won’t take it anymore,” the baseball capped Cassandra warned.


While the movie calls for an end to capitalism, it stops short of advocating revolution. Moore does not claim to have an economic blueprint to save us from unbridled greed and economic collapse, but he said: “I want democracy. I want you and I to control this economy. I want a say in what the decisions are that are made. And if you’re not going to give you and me a say, quit calling this country a ‘democracy.’” Moore also predicted that future archaeologists would unearth evidence that we called ourselves a democracy but allowed one percent of the population to call all the shots, causing tomorrow’s anthropologists to laugh at us the same way we now laugh at people who believe bloodsucking leeches would cure patients.


More than any other popular artist and entertainer, Moore is asking the questions that need to be asked. He is a bellwether, Fahrenheit preceded public disenchantment with Bush’s ill-fated war, while Sicko 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.


Capitalism may not have been Oscar-nominated this year, but, in a tie with Amreeka and Sunshine Cleaning, it won a Progie Award – bestowed by the James Agee Cinema Circle, an international group of left-leaning critics – for Most Positive and Inspiring Working Class Screen Image.

FILM REVIEW: WHITE ON RICE

Jimmy (Huroshi Watanabe) drives people bananas in White on Rice.

Sticky situation

By Miranda Inganni


Jimmy (Huroshi Watanabe) left Japan after his divorce. Ever since then, he has been living with his younger sister, Aiko (Nae), sleeping on the upper bunk bed of her 10-year-old son, Bob (Justin Kwong), and annoying her miserable husband, Tak (Mio Takada), to no end. Where Bob is an overly mature, piano prodigy who has his life extremely together, Jimmy is suffering from Peter Pan syndrome -- he just can't quite bring himself to grow up. As Jimmy searches for his next wife, the generous Aiko agrees to house and feed Jimmy, going as far to chore him as sending him to remind Jimmy to wash his hands before dinner.


In case Tak didn't like Jimmy enough already, things only get worse when Tak's niece, Ramona (Lynn Chen), stays with the family and Jimmy decides that she should be his next bride. While Ramona is flattered and extremely patient with Jimmy, her sights are set on someone else. As Jimmy woos Ramona, he generally makes a mess of things and hilarity ensues.


Jimmy is the opposite of the typical romantic hero. And as much as Aiko mothers her brother, she cannot protect him any more that she can her own son. The big difference is that Bob is more than capable of taking care of himself, where Jimmy just flounders.


Playfully and skillfully directed and co-written by Dave Boyle (Big Dreams in Little Tokyo), White on Rice is a sweet, family dramedy. The acting is superb -- Jimmy is completely annoying and yet lovable -- with the young Kwong stealing every scene he is in.

FILM REVIEW: BROOKLYN'S FINEST

 

Two men at a crossroad: Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere) and Sal Procida (Ethan Hawke) in Brooklyn's Finest. 

Taut police thriller with superb ensemble acting

By Ed Rampell

Do you like going to the movies to see police dramas? The problem for me is twofold: I don’t really like the “pigs.” Secondly, television is full of what the French call “policiers,” so if I’m going to haul my sorry butt out to a theater and fork out greenbacks for tickets, the film really better be a cut above the typical TV fare I can watch at home for free.

In the case of director Antoine Fuqua’s Brooklyn’s Finest this taut police thriller not only overcame my antipathy for the men in blue, but it is indeed far superior to the usual run-of-the-mill shoot-‘em-ups aired on the boob tube. Michael C. Martin’s script about a drug operation in New York’s outer borough and how it (and other subplots) affects NYPDers there has an exciting, compelling, complex plot, with three-dimensional characters to match it.

Richard Gere plays Eddie Dugan, a longtime beat cop approaching retirement with a go-along-to-get-along attitude. His best days (if Dugan ever had any to begin with) seem far behind him, as the old-timer prepares to hang up his blue uniform, and avoid any last minute trouble before he can start collecting that long-awaited civil service pension. Not surprisingly, Dugan’s a lonely divorcee; his sexy love interest is Chantal, a Latina hooker he pays for play, portrayed by the slinky Shannon Kane.

Ethan Hawke portrays Sal Procida, a narcotics officer torn between his Catholic conscience and the pressing economic and health needs of his growing brood, as the whiff of corruption and easy money floats over Brooklyn. Sal’s fiscal dilemma is similar to that of millions of hard-pressed working class stiffs and wannabe homeowners in Obama’s America -– except they don’t have access to the drug trade’s tempting cold cash.

Don Cheadle depicts Tango, a promotion-seeking undercover detective who is similarly divided, between doing his duty and his loyalty to Caz (Wesley Snipes), a gangster recently released from the pen. My former Hunter College classmate, Ellen Barkin, crackles onscreen as ball-busting Agent Smith, a superior overseeing Operation Clean Up with a take-no-prisoners mentality who clashes with the insubordinate Tango. Smith is one of the lesser characters in this ensemble cast played by outstanding actors, including Lili Taylor as Sal’s long suffering wife Angela and Vincent D’Onofrio, as Carlo, a hood who quickly learns loose lips sink ships.

Set against the realistic location shooting at actual East Brooklyn projects, the dramatis personae and plot, seasoned by a bit of sex slavery, is a combustible brew that blows up onscreen. This is arguably Fuqua’s most exciting feature, even better directed, in terms of both action and acting, than his 2001 film, Training Day, another bad cop drama which won Denzel Washington a Best Actor Oscar, and also co-starred Hawke. Fuqua’s kinetic camerawork and cinematic sensibility still retain that fast moving music video verve, which previously had earned him an MTV Best Rap Video nom.

The philosophical film shows how good people can do bad things and vice versa as idealism vies with temptation amidst the age-old struggle for survival. The final shots of Hawke’s beleaguered Sal call to mind the ending of John Huston’s 1948 film, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, as well as the Bible’s warning about the root of all evil. While some characters confirmed my suspicions about the “pigs,” others showed that some policepersons do act heroically.

Naturally, all of Martin’s skillfully written plot strands come neatly together in the tapestry of the thrilling grand finale. In the end, which officer is Brooklyn’s Finest? Is it one or all of these protagonists in blue? Of course, I’m no snitch -- this undercover critic’s lips are sealed and I won’t reveal the surprise ending -- but this breathtaking picture is well worth the trip to see it on the big screen at a theater near you.

FILM REVIEW: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), The Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter) and The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.


Alice doesn’t live here

By Don Simpson

The 19-year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is being forced by her family into an arranged marriage with a snooty nose-picker named Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill). She is nearing 20-years-old (maiddom by Victorian standards), and Hamish seems to be Alice’s only chance at marrying a Lord. But Alice is way too independent to put up with these Victorian patriarchal norms (by golly, she does not even wear a corset or stockings!), so she runs off to follow a White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen) down a rabbit hole. The rabbit hole leads Alice back to Underland (aka Wonderland), a place she visited when she was much younger and has dreamt about every night since (but somehow she does not remember anything about it).

The usual suspects – including the toking Caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman) and vaporous Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry) – of Underland/Wonderland inform Alice that it is in her destiny to slay the Jabberwocky (voiced by Christopher Lee), the evil pet monster of the big-headed Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter). It seems as though history repeats itself in Underland/Wonderland. All of the inhabitants of Underland/Wonderland know that Alice has slain the Jabberwocky before, but she does not remember any of it. (Honestly, I don’t blame Alice for forgetting the least memorable scene of this film…more about that later.)

Alice is faced with choosing between an arranged marriage with Hamish and fulfilling her destiny as a Jabberwocky slayer? We all know which option she chooses…Jabberwocky it is! Then, when she finally returns to the real world, she calls off the wedding (surprise!) and becomes a strong proponent of globalizing trade. (Huh?) Off on the first boat to China she goes… So, Alice plans on using all of the independence, confidence and power that she gained while in Underland/Wonderland to succeed in the real world as a card-carrying capitalist?

Director Tim Burton seems to care much more about the visuals and technology (Oooh…3D! Bright colors!) than the performances or the plot. I have to say that my biggest disappointments were with Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. Both performances felt very restricted –- I had hoped that Glover and Depp would be given full artistic freedom as actors and let loose to do what they do best: sheer lunacy. Was Burton purposefully restraining their performances with the assumption that the partial animation of their bodies would be crazy enough? (Or maybe he, or Disney, was trying to tone down the craziness…you know, for kids!)

Anne Hathaway seems to be the only actor who did not get the memo to tone the weirdness down –- instead her White Queen moves awkwardly like a marionette, looks like a black metal vixen (Until the Light Takes Us anyone?) and speaks so placidly you would think she is all doped up on ludes. Hathaway is far stranger than anyone (or anything) else in Wonderland/Underland (and that says a lot!). She is also one of the only characters that is not at least partially animated.

Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a very odd beast. Visually it is an awkward hybrid of live action and animation, while the narrative is a hybrid of two Lewis Carroll novels (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) that were adapted for the screen by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast). Burton’s creative talents truly shine whenever he is given full autonomous control of the creation of his own cinematic world (Beetle Juice; Edward Scissorhands; The Nightmare Before Christmas), while his most disappointing cinematic efforts have been when he has to recreate someone else’s world (Planet of the Apes; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Alice in Wonderland, a grossly formulaic Disney film (which could be because it is distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and penned by Woolverton), is no exception. Carroll’s original books are surreal, dark and quite complex (especially by today’s standards for children books) but the narrative of Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is one-dimensional, goofy and overly simplistic.

Speaking of simple, the final showdown between Alice and the Jabberwocky is like a For Dummies version of a battle scene from Lord of the Rings, Narnia or Harry Potter. Tim Burton, do you call that a climax?