EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: MIAO WANG

Beijing Taxi director Miao Wang.

Driven home

By Don Simpson

Born and raised in Beijing, Miao Wang moved to the United States in 1990. Now a filmmaker, Wang’s 2006 documentary short film, Yellow Ox Mountain, and her first feature, Beijing Taxi, are stories of what it means to be Chinese in the modern world told from the perspective of someone who is both and insider and outsider.

China is an enigma to most of the western world, and Wang’s goal is to humanize China and highlight the commonalities between Chinese people and the western world. On the surface, Beijing Taxi is a chronicle of the effects that the 2008 Olympic Games (and capitalism) had on working class Beijingers; but Beijing Taxi’s three subjects (Bai Jiwen, Wei Caixia and Zhou Yi) also reveal that the everyday working class struggles in China are no different than those in the western world.

I caught up with writer-director Miao Wang in Austin, Texas, during South by Southwest where Beijing Taxi screened thrice to exuberant capacity crowds.

JEsther Entertainment: Does the Chinese government know anything about Beijing Taxi?
Miao Wang: I frankly don’t know. I don’t think I was on their radar. Most documentary filmmakers in China that I’ve talked to don’t work above the radar. Once you’re on their radar, they monitor everything you do. You just never know what they are going to think is sensitive and what’s not. It seems totally arbitrary to me. Especially since I don’t even live there, I’m not as aware as the people who live in China as to what are the super sensitive…words. It can just be a word that they don’t want to use to describe themselves. So, yeah, I tried to avoid being on their radar. Until they figure it out, I’ll try to avoid being on their radar for as long as I can. The film is not hyper-political. It’s not really dealing with a specific issue. I really wanted the film to just show Chinese people’s lives. These characters are just like any other human beings. They’re just trying to make it and figure out how to survive in a society that’s changing.

JE: How did you meet the three primary subjects?
MW: I just rode a lot of taxis during my first trip in November 2006. I would just chat with the driver for the duration of the cab ride, which often could be pretty long because you always get stuck in traffic. I would take a cab to different destinations every day, which also helped me figure out the layout of the city. I followed five or six different people at the beginning. I wanted to have each person lay out different elements and discuss different social commentaries. That’s why I initially picked Wei -- mainly for her family life and shifting ideas about marriage, values and tradition. From the very beginning she was very outspoken about wanting freedom and I could relate to that. I live a free person’s life. I’m a freelancer and I don’t abide to anyone’s schedule and I think that’s what she wants. That’s not really something that’s achievable in China, but there are some people who live like that. She sees some people with that lifestyle but she doesn’t have the education or the skills to be able to function independently. Then, Bai, I wanted him to show the difficulties that the older generation has had to deal with. It’s a very different experience than Zhou, who is more just like an old Beijinger. He just wants to have an easy life. I really wanted Zhou to show those old Beijinger qualities and the leisurely lifestyle. He could come off as a total slacker but at the same time its kind of nice…and Zen.

JE: How did you come upon the concept of using taxi drivers to tell this story?
MW: Right before I started working on Beijing Taxi, I had finished a 30-minute documentary short film [Yellow Ox Mountain]. I decided that I really wanted to make a film about Beijing to document the changes going on in China right before the Olympics. I could have waited, but I felt like I had to start right way. It was a crucial time and I felt like it was a time that really needed to be documented. I was chatting with one of the artists from Yellow Ox Mountain -- he grew up in Beijing -- about how taxi drivers are so gregarious. There are always stories about taxi drivers. So, that led me to think that I should make a film about taxi drivers. It would up being such a great visual device, being able to show Beijing from the point of view of the taxis. Since the very beginning it was a common thread between the characters. I didn’t want to make a film about the taxi industry. I didn’t want to explain things, I just wanted to show the characters lives.

JE: Are any of the subjects of Beijing Taxi channeling your opinions on China?
MW: Obviously. In every documentary it is decided in the editing room what to include. Everything is subjective even when it attempts to be objective. But I really wanted to show different opinions, which does reflect my opinion because I believe more in the gray areas than the black and white. I wanted to show how there has been a lot of progress in China. The tour guide on the bus at the end of the film really captures how I feel about China. China is so much about contradictions right now. It’s not perfect and it’s not horrible. Too often it’s portrayed as one extreme or the other. In western media you always hear about the bad things; of course they are all happening and they need to be recognized and addressed. I live in the West and I don’t see anything about China that shows real people. There is no connection between the people in China and the western world. Whenever you think of China, you think of this “idea” almost. But then there’s the Chinese media, which portrays China as perfect. They want to only show their representation of beautiful, which I find silly because sometimes if they would just show the reality people would make more connections to the images; whereas, if you show only the glittery images then the West will think that China is just spreading propaganda. I’m trying to balance the different perspectives. The three characters talk about how their lives have definitely improved. I grew up in China when it was very poor -- you didn’t have enough food to eat, you had to worry about the necessities in life. But now you don’t have to worry about the necessities in life as much, though life has become a lot more complicated. I have certain nostalgia for China’s “innocence” during communist times. Everyone was equal, though equally poor, but it wasn’t the ideal communism where people would be equal in wealth. Everything has changed and China has become privatized and the inequalities are so vast.

LA ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL: RED AND WHITE

Denying the Dutch: A scene from Red and White

A pemberontakan of Indonesia

By John Esther

Reportedly the most expensive film in Indonesian film history, Red and White (Merah Putih) attempts to recreate the spirit of Indonesia's 1947 struggle for independence against the Dutch vis-a-vis the Van Mook offensive in Central Java.

Opening with a particularly ugly scene of belligerent barbarism by the Dutch, Red and White creates a band of insiders whose differences fold under the weight of imperialist occupation.

A chicken farmer from North Sulawesi who fights like "a tiger," Tomas (Donny Alamsyah) joins the resistance after viewing the slaughter of his entire family, including his younger sister and brother. A Christian from a lower economic class, Tomas immediately makes enemies with Marius (Darius Sinathrya) a "city boy" whose only interest in the rebellion is becoming an officer who will attract the ladies. More sincere and smarter, Marius' best friend, Soerono (Zumi Zola), is also from the Javanese class -- Indonesia's privileged class.

These three, along with many other characters from various walks of life -- including Amir (Lukman Sardi), a devout Muslim and unassuming martial artist -- drop their differences and unite under attack.

Consisting of considerable character development while inconsiderate for bourgeois notions of audience identification (especially when you consider its big budget), Red and White refuses to spare the viewer about the ugliness of imperialism and war. The Dutch are bad in this film, but some Indonesians are hardly any more admirable. Violence begets violence and as more and more comrades die, the cause becomes more obscured as revenge accompanies rebellion.

A highly satisfying film, considering the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is screening this one for free, filmgoers have little to lose for the red and white (the colors of Indonesia's flag).

(Red and White screens April 30, 5 p.m., DGA Theatre 2. For more information go to http://asianfilmfestla.org/2010/)

FILM REVIEW: HARRY BROWN

Harry Brown (Michael Caine) takes the local youth down in Harry Brown. 

Dirty Harry does London
 
By Don Simpson

Harry Brown (Michael Caine), a retired marine (having served in Northern Ireland), resides in a dank concrete south London council estate. His days are comprised of visiting his hospitalized wife – dutifully avoiding the nearby pedestrian underpass by which wayward youth anxiously swarm awaiting any opportunity to prey upon anyone foolish enough to walk their way -- and playing chess in the local pub with his best friend, Leonard (David Bradley).

Harry’s wife soon dies of a terminal disease and Leonard is stabbed to death by the feral Biro-tattooed gangsters (who appear to constitute the estate's entire under-40 population) who terrorize Harry’s neighborhood. The latter’s death occurs shortly after Leonard expressed his fear of the youth of today and Harry promptly dissuaded Leonard from taking the law into his own hands.

Harry discovers about Leonard’s death by way of a visit from a pale and frail female police officer, DI Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer). Harry learns that several of the local gang members, including the leader, Noel (Ben Drew), have been interviewed about the crime, but there is insufficient evidence to constitute pressing charges. So, the aged Dirty Harry decides to fight a one man vigilante battle against the local hoodlums; his mantra becomes “Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out.”

While walking home late from his local pub, Harry stabs Dean (Lee Oakes) -- one of Noel’s gang -- to death. Next, Harry visits a local drug and arms dealer (Sean Harris), shoots him and steals his weapons (to add some sympathy to the mix, Harry rescues an OD’d woman along the way). Harry then captures another of Noel's minions, Marky (Jack O’Connell), and gets all Bush/Cheney on his ass. After much torture, Marky reveals some cell-phone footage that proves that Noel was Leonard's killer. To thank Marky for the undeniable proof, Harry gets him killed while in pursuit of Noel.

DI Frampton suspects that Harry is behind the recent rash of killings. She even confronts Harry and tries to persuade him that he is not in Ulster anymore; Harry’s response: "At least over there they were fighting for something; for this lot it's just entertainment.” Frampton’s super (Iain Glen) has a high-profile no-holds-barred anti-crime initiative in the works, but when his squads raid the council estate, all hell breaks loose. The ineffective police (who seem afraid to use any kind of violence against the estate’s hoodlums) eventually retreat, but Frampton finds herself left behind, trapped in Harry’s local watering hole. Don’t fret, Love, Dirty Harry is on his way…

Harry acts as judge, jury and executioner dishing out his own brand of vengeance and justice to the youths that he presumes responsible for Leonard’s murder. His violence is not only glorified, but also excused because he is saving the world from these no good drug-dealing “hoodie” thugs. Though his health slows him down on occasion, Harry never waivers due to remorse; he never once pauses to consider whether killing is the best solution. Barber purposefully creates one-dimensional gang members that are barely even human and quite easy to hate while the police are represented as powerless and ineffectual. (The dainty and mousey Mortimer is quite heavy-handedly miscast to personify the weakness of London’s police detectives).

An aged male lead –- military veteran, retired and widowed -- residing in a not-so-friendly neighborhood that is terrorized by gang members, attempts to have his revenge on the modern world gone awry…sound familiar? That’s because Clint Eastwood’s (the original Dirty Harry) Gran Torino had a similar set-up. However Eastwood showed us that it is possible to teach wayward youth a lesson while reinstating the importance of civility and morality in modern society. The relentless retribution doled out in Barber's film is a completely different breed than Eastwood's.
 
Barber's debut feature of violent vengeance does reveal Caine close to his very best. Bringing subtlety and humanity to the role of Harry, Caine effectively persuades the audience to root for Harry hoping that the “hoodies” will bow down and get what they deserve: death. That said; Harry Brown is an overtly simplistic and alarmist portrayal of "Broken Britain" that is now being cited in right-wing British tabloids as a national rallying call for vigilante-ism. In the U.S., I would refer to this as a libertarian fantasy flick. In the U.K., Harry Brown is pure fodder for subscribers of the Daily Mail that readers of The Independent or The Guardian will detest.
 

LA ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL 2010: PREVIEW

LAAPFF pays tribute to Bruce Lee with film screenings and panel discussions.

Look west, Los Angeles

By John Esther and Don Simpson

Showcasing 36 feature films and 134 shorts and videos the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival runs April 29-May 8 at various screening rooms from West Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles.

Featuring films from Asian and American-Asian artists, this year’s event features USC grad filmmaker Arvin Chen’s Au Revoir Taipei, Quentin Lee’s The People I’ve Slept With, Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home, Le Thanh Son’s Clash, a Bruce Lee 70th Birthday Celebration with screenings of Enter the Dragon and The Chinese Connection and panel discussions with directors and Lee’s family -- with Hong Kong’s current box office hit, Body and Assassins, directed by Teddy Chen.

For your consideration, here are a few films screening at this year’s LAAPFF.

Au Revoir Taipei -- With calm assurance and a refreshing restraint from mainstream histrionics and gangster violence, this year’s opening night film at LAAPFF tells the story of young man lost in love and organized crime. After his girlfriend leaves for France, Kai (Jack Yao) spends his time between working for his family’s restaurant and learning French at a local bookstore. Then one night he gets the “Dear Kai” call and is heartbroken. Muddled with love’s logic Kai decides he must go to France and save their relationship. But Kai does not have the money. However, a local man of many means, Brother Bao (check), can help the young lover out, but a little favor needs to be called in.  Directed by Chen, Au Revoir Taipei, with its wet streets and pretty decor looks and feels like a kinder, gentler yet smarter version of the typical Hollywood or Hong Kong movie. Nobody really gets hurt but nobody really finds happiness either, but the finely acted film with its endearing characters leaves you believing they might if they keep it up. -- John Esther

(Au Revoir Taipei screens April 29, 7 p.m., DGA Theatre 1, May 2, 10 a.m., DGA Theatre 2)

Beijing Taxi -- Beijing Taxi commences two years prior to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The old city and communist lifestyle of Beijing has all but disappeared; a new city of skyscrapers, pillars of capitalism, is quickly rising from the rubble. As Bai Jiwen, a 54-year old Beijing taxi driver, studiously observes: “The pace of change has sped up, taking bigger strides. To welcome the Olympics! The whole country is supporting Beijing. Faster construction; faster environmental changes.” Bai is one of three primary subjects whom writer-director Miao Wang follows in order to chronicle the effects that the 2008 Olympic Games (and capitalism) have on working class Beijingers; the other two subjects – Zhou Yi and Wei Caixia – are also taxi drivers. The three characters are perfect examples of how education (or lack there of) can determine a person’s fate, especially in a capitalist economy. -- Don Simpson
(Beijing Taxi screens May 2, 6:30 p.m., DGA Theatre 2)


Lt. Watada -- This 40-minute documentary short film tells the story of the first commissioned United States military officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq. First Lieutenant Ehran Watada joined the U.S. Army in November 2003, after the Iraq war had already begun. According to Watada, he was motivated to join the Army in order to protect his country after the September 11th attacks, and he trusted the U.S. government’s decision to invade Iraq. After discovering that his unit would be deploying to Iraq, Watada began researching Iraq, its culture, and the reasons for the U.S. involvement in Iraq. Watada claims that after conducting his research and speaking with veterans returning from Iraq, he ceased to believe in the war’s legality and justification. In January 2006, he attempted to resign his commission rather than deploy to Iraq; he also began to speak out publicly against the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Neither a pacifist nor a conscientious objector, Lt. Watada requested to be deployed to Afghanistan -- a war he considers legitimate -- but his commanders denied his requests. Lt. Watada is a David and Goliath story as Lt. Watada demonstrates his willingness to face court martial and eight years in prison rather than be a party to war crimes. -- Don Simpson
(Lt. Watada screens with Sing China!, May 2, 2 p.m., DGA Theatre 1)

Mamachas del Ring -- Wrestling or your family? That is the ultimatum posed to Carmen Rosa “The Champion” by her husband. Rosa, an indigenous Aymara (also referred to as a Cholita) woman living, working and wrestling in the Bolivian capital of La Paz, led a revolution of indigenous women who took their iconic polleras and bowler hats into the ring. Along with three other Cholitas (Julia La Paceńa, Martha La Alteńa, and Yolanda la Amorosa), Rosa rose to international stardom. Mamachas del Ring begins in 2006, as the Cholita wrestlers return from a high-profile appearance on Peruvian TV -- a publicity stunt that prompts jealousy and envy within the La Paz wrestling community. Rosa and friends are immediately barred from La Paz's primary wrestling league (managed by the evil Don Juan Mamani), a move that motivates Rosa and cohorts to attempt to organize their own wrestling events across Bolivia and Peru. Finally independent of male management, they are the first women wrestlers to manage their own business and contracts. Unfortunately, Rosa’s money making day job as a street vendor suffers from neglect as does her family. Director Betty M. Park’s Mamachas del Ring beautifully exemplifies Rosa’s unyielding struggle with gender and racial biases, while filling in necessary back-story with Christophe Lopez-Huici’s playful claymation. -- Don Simpson
(Mamachas del Ring screens May 5, 7 p.m., Tateuchi Democracy Forum at NCDP)

Raspberry Magic -- Uneven in terms of performance, direction, storyline, and ideas between nature/nurture and positivism/poetry, writer-director Leena Pendharkar's story about an 11-year-old girl named Monica Shah (Lily Javaherpour) coping with her parents (Meera Simhan and Ravi Kapoor) separation while working on a science project she hopes will win an upcoming contest while bringing her parents back together a la some some raspberry magic features enough finesse for a film festival family wanting to see a flick together. And do not come hungry because there is a lot of seeminly good food featured in Raspberry Magic. -- John Esther
(Raspberry Magic screens May 1, 5 p.m., DGA Theatre 2)

My Tehran For Sale -- Marzieh (Marzieh Vafamehr) is a young female actress and fashion designer living in Tehran, but she is forced to lead a secret life in order to express herself artistically. She meets Saman (Amir Chegini), an Iranian-born Australian citizen, at an underground rave. Saman offers to bring Marzieh to Australia with him and she accepts, but the question remains whether or not Australia will accept her. Much of the non-linear narrative is told in flashback; the pieces slowly falling into place linking the present to the past; the present being an Australian prison cell in which a haggard Marzieh is incarcerated (so we know that things don’t work out very well for her). Shot guerrilla-style entirely in Tehran, Iranian writer-director Granaz Moussavi’s (who immigrated to Australia with her parents in 1997) lush and hypnotic My Tehran For Sale focuses on the vibrant, urban, middle class of Tehran -- a side of Iran that the U.S. rarely sees. -- Don Simpson
(My Tehran for Sale screens May 1, 8:30 p.m., Laemmle Sunset 5)

For more information, go to http://asianfilmfestla.org/2010/

FILM REVIEW: NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS

Persian Cats: The worst crime they ever did was play some rock & roll.  

Underground in Iran

By John Esther

In the woeful country of Iran, music, especially Occidental music, has been forbidden for the last 30 years. It might bring some kind of mental or physical release and who wants that? Like the sight of a woman’s hair in Iran, hearing a woman may arouse sinful thoughts about another kind of release and we just cannot have any of that either. (At least Iran has the death penalty which provides another kind of release, albeit negative.)

So in the land of rising youth, youngsters who make or support non-traditional music must go underground to play what is rather harmless pop music by Occidental standards (I can only imagine what would happen if an Iranian rock band covered the Sex Pistols “God Save the Queen” switching the gender and replacing the word “Queen” with “Ayatollah” or Gang of Four’s “To Hell with Poverty” -- death penalty?)

Offering the first depiction, accurate or otherwise, of this loud yet unspoken subversive phenomenon is co-writer/director Bahman Ghobadi’s No One Knows About Persian Cats (Kasi az gorbehaye irani khabar nadareh).

Winner of the Un Certain Regard at Cannes International Film Festival 2009 -- Special Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Miami Film Festival, No One Knows About Persian Cats follows a group of young musicians and their manager (Hamed Behdad) as they try to raise money to practice, perform and get passports that will get them out of the country. 

With a strong blend of cinema verite and commercial license, Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses and Turtles Can Fly) and director of photographer Turaj Aslani sweep the frequently out-of-focus camera around the young underground-ers of Tehran, finding a non-superstitious generation dreaming of world where they can be what they want to be without the being hassled by the Farsi fascists. Their music is usually about youthful love and play while rarely critical of Iran, but when it is, it seems right on the mark.

Saturated with pop culture, audiences in the land of American Idol may see No One Knows About Persian Cats as otherworldly, but it is all too real, illustrating yet another unfortunate aspect of Iran’s theocratic tyranny (but I repeat myself).




 

LOS ANGELES INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2010

Worth the watch: The Well screens Saturday night at IFFLA.

More than masalas

By John Esther

Now in its eighth year, the annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles continues to offer premieres, films, seminars and ArcLight Hollywood’s courtyard filled with those decorated tents where singers and Bollywood dancers performing at the nightly freeRhythm Village.

Running through Sunday, here are some of the films running at this year's festival:

At My Doorsteps -- While it could be set in nearly any large city in the world, Nishtha Jain's documentary takes a look at the lives behind people doing menial work in high rise apartments in downtown Mumbai, India. Often from small villages young men and women come to the city looking to make a lucrative 2000 Rupees ($50.00) per month by taking out the trash, washing the laundry of others, hauling large objects and other chores. But behind the veneer of helplessness and struggle at work, at home these people can have happy moments, possess realistic dreams and aspirations yet they are quite aware their lot will never get much better in life (a contrast to the US where the working classes think they will move up the economic ladder through hard work). Solid in its scope, At My Doorsteps is a meaningful documentary that may have you acknowledging something beyond just the name and face of the employee in front of you next time you see him or her.  

The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's Struggle for Freedom -- According to co-directors Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam's documentary, over one million Tibetans have died fighting for independence from the Chinese goverment yet the struggle seems to remain at ground zero. In the epicenter of this struggle is the Dalai Lama and his ideas of Middle Way of Cultural autonomy and those Tibetans wanting a more independent approach. Tibetans struggle with their religous worship for the Dalai Lama and their political criticisms for his ideas. How do you love and obey a leader when he just does not seem to be doing enough? While other documentaries have explored the Chinese oppression of Tibetans, The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's Struggle for Freedom offers a fresh insight into the internal stuggles for Tibet's liberation.

The Well -- In an impressive feature debut, director Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni follows two cousins facing choices of personal freedom and family obligations. Sameer (Madan Deodhar) and his cousin Nachiket (Alok Rajwade) are very close. On the cusp of adulthood, Sameer has engineered an Apollonian modus operandi while Nachiket feels out his Dionysian impulses. After a tragic accident (or was it an escape?), one of the cousins gramples with his crippling isolation yet eventual liberation. While the 116-minute film does have its lulls there is a dramatic sophistication highlighted by Sudheer Palsane's exquisite cinematography, which makes the film worth the view during the festival -- especially since it is doubtful the film will receive a release in the U.S.

For more information, please go to http://www.indianfilmfestival.org./

 

FILM REVIEW: THE CITY OF YOUR FINAL DESTINATION

Caroline (Laura Linney) would rather keep her past preserved in The City of Your Final Destination.

Ivory coasting

By Miranda Inganni

In director James Ivory’s film The City of Your Final Destination, 28-year-old Kansas University doctoral student Omar Razaghi (Omar Metwally) takes a last-minute trip to Uruguay in order to make a last-minute plea to the family of deceased writer Jules Gund in hopes of writing a biography of Gund and thereby staying at the University of Colorado.

After initially being given the go ahead by Gund’s family, their decision is reversed. Omar’s persistently persuasive girlfriend, Deirdre (the comely Alexandra Maria Lara), convinces him to make the pilgrimage to the family’s estate in Uruguay. As he is making his way to the estate, Omar meets Jules’ young daughter, Portia (Ambar Mallman) who is quick to welcome him. Not quite as friendly is Jules’ prickly wife, Caroline (Laura Linney) who barely puts up with his unexpected presence.

Where Caroline is off-putting, Jules’ much younger mistress, Arden (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the mother of his only child, is quite the opposite. She invites Omar to stay and takes to him quickly. The more Omar isn’t trying to get Jules’ surviving family members on his side, the more he gets busy trying to get inside Arden.

Equally helpful, but for entirely different and self-serving reasons, is Jules’ brother, Adam (Anthony Hopkins), and his partner, Pete (Hiroyuki Sanada). Adam and Jules grew up on the estate and Adam seems to relish regaling their guest with tales from their childhood. Indeed, he even shows old home movies of their parents in Venice and invites Omar to visit the gondola they brought to Uruguay with them. (Interestingly, the footage is from James Ivory’s first film, a 30 minute documentary from 1957 entitled Venice: Theme and Variations.) The delicate though uncomfortable balance between brother, wife, mistress, lover and daughter is tried, tested and tempted by Omar’s presence.

Adapted from the titular novel by Peter Cameron, The City of Your Final Destination questions what is love and what is considered a home. While there are moments of sweetness and comedic stiff manners, this Merchant Ivory film is basically unassuming and unaffecting.

THEATER REVIEW: MOIST!

Mariann Aalda (left) and Iona Morris (right) drench the stage in MOIST!

Dripping with pleasures

By Ed Rampell

In the interests of full disclosure I should reveal that I went to see MOIST! because Iona Morris, the co-creator, co-writer, co-producer and co-star of this two woman show, is also directing Still Standing, the hip-hop musical I co-wrote with rapper Gleam Joel based on his life.

The Baby Boom generation, which had been in the frontlines of the Sexual Revolution, asserted the fact that women, too, were sensuous beings filled with desires that needed to be satisfied. Call it de-Flower Power. However, the “Don’t-trust-anyone-over-30” generation of the 1960s/1970s has aged. Now that Baby Boomers are maturing, even though they may no longer be part of that “coveted youth demographic,” the post-“Make love not war” generation still has disposable income, so pop culture (and advertisers) have suddenly discovered the fact that women of a certain age are still sexual. Often this is played for laughs, as in TV’s Cougar Town series, which finds sheer hilarity in the notion that over-forty females remain lusty, and may even have a yen for younger men. What a knee slapper!

On the other hand, the play and movie Mamma Mia! and It’s Complicated cater to and celebrate the idea that adults as ancient as Meryl Streep (apparently the poster child of post-menopausal sex), Pierce Brosnan and Alec Baldwin continue to partake of and enjoy sex. Woulda thunk it? MOIST!, which bills itself as “a sex-istential comedy” that stands for the “Multiple Orgasm Initiative for Sexual Transformation!”, is in this latter camp, a celebration of the continuing sensuality of the 50-something female. These are the “Trotskyists” of the Sexual Revolution who, like that apostle of the Russian Revolution, believe that revolution is permanent.

While MOIST! advocates and affirms over-50 female sexuality instead of mocking it, this does not mean that MOIST! is – well – dry. It is full of mirthfulness and has a decidedly playful attitude towards love and lust. In addition, unlike Streep’s recent celebrations of sexuality for experienced women, which includes Julie and Julia, MOIST! is told from the distinct point of view of two African-American women. The play seems what Frangela -- the KTLK talk show pairing two chatty middle aged black women and best friends Frances Callier and Angela Shelton, pundits who also appear on various other media outlets -- might be if performed onstage.

Indeed, Morris plays Sonia Peechee, a late night talk radio show hostess known as “the Goddess of Sexual Freedom,” although the dramatic promise and possibility of incorporating a talk show format and sensibility (much in the headlines nowadays) is not explored here. Mariann Aalda, who co-wrote/co-produced/co-created MOIST! with Morris co-stars as her older sister, the divorcee Ginger Peechee-Keane, aka “the Little Woman Gone Wild.” Accompanied by a two-man band the duet, hoof, sing and monologue/dialogue their way through about eight songs and a variety of sagas about sex in its protean forms: masturbation, intercourse, cunnilingus, lesbianism, menopause, shaving, sex toys -- which Ginger sells (she highly recommends Rabbit vibrators, BTW) -- and more. There is clever word play and rhapsodies to safe sex -- so gays and straights can live to screw again -- and to making love, not war. MOIST! seemed to me to be more of a sort of cabaret act with a variety of numbers deftly directed by Penny Johnson Jerald than a narrative drama or comedy per se, although it has elements of tragedy and humor, as do romance and mating. The songs, monologues and dialogues are amusing, poignant, in your face, sometimes over the top, and instructive, as the premise of the show is that the audience is attending a M.O.I.S.T. workshop presented by the sisters.

And the audience, which included many African-American women, by and large loved the performances and philosophy. In a kind of “call and response” the performers adroitly riffed with the responsive spectators, incorporating some improv into their show since, as Jimmy Durante wisely noted: “Everyone wants to get into the act!” (Especially the sex act.)

Both actresses are veteran talents with stage and screen credits as big as Morris’ derriere (which the well-endowed performer playfully serenades in "The Ass Song"). Aalda’s theatrical debut was with the estimable Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee in Take It From the Top, and she has appeared on TV’s Designing Women and opposite Oscar-winner Mo’nique on The Parkers. Morris is part of a show biz dynasty -- her father Greg Morris co-starred in the original 1960s TV series, Mission Impossible, and she appeared on the little screen in Cold Case, Star Trek: Voyager, Moesha and General Hospital and on the big screen in Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored, etc.

Women at the Hayworth Theatre seemed empowered by this passion play, which has a feminism that can be embraced by both males and females as it celebrates, rather than suppresses, sexuality. I entered MOIST! curious about the director of the play I co-wrote and left both thoroughly entertained and confident that Morris was up to the mission impossible of making our musical, to premiere next month in Switzerland, eminently possible.

MOIST! will be peformed Sunday, April 25 at 7:00 p.m. at the Hayworth Theatre, 2511 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., CA 90057. For tickets: 323/960-4442; for more info: 818/255-1096; http://www.moistonstage.com./

THEATER REVIEW: THE LIFETIME OF A. EINSTEIN

Playwright-actor Kres Mersky in The Lifetime of A. Einstein 

Relatively false

By Ed Rampell

The Lifetime of A. Einstein. What is one to make of that title? Of course, I assumed it was a play about Albert Einstein, but it’s not. Rather, it’s a one-woman show about the physicist’s secretary and housekeeper portrayed by Kres Mersky. This play is also written by one Kres Mersky. She portrays Ellen Schoenhammer (based, I guess, on Einstein’s actual secretary/housekeeper Helen Dukas), who migrated from Nazi Germany to Princeton, N.J., and served the Einsteins for a third of a century. Some may believe this gives the Einstein saga a feminist twist by making a woman the primary (actually, only) character and storyteller, but I disagree. It is telling that Mersky’s TV credits include Charlie’s Angels, a pseudo-feminist TV series. Those eponymous angelic detectives were subject to the orders of their boss, Charlie (voiced by the recently deceased John Forsythe), just as Ellen’s entire life revolves around the scientist, who she was smitten with. Ellen’s unrequited love is played for laughs in this play, as audiences are once again expected to be tickled pink by the notion that women over a certain age can be sexual (to wit ABC’s current TV sitcom, Cougar Town, that finds endless mirth in the notion that 40-plus-year-old women might be sexually active).

Mersky is fine and witty as Ellen, but I felt gypped by the title of the play as a sort of false advertising. It reminded me of that otherwise forgettable Billy Crystal/ Debra Winger 1995 comedy, Forget Paris, which I’d gone to see in Hawaii hankering to feast my eyes again on the City of Lights. However, as I recall the eponymous city appeared in only an opening sequence and the rest of the dreary movie took place in the USA. But the studio had cleverly marketed its boring film by using a well established brand name others had created (i.e., Paris), just as Mersky appears to have done. I don’t think many people would buy tickets to see a one-woman show called The Life and Times of E. Schoenhammer -– a far less marketable, sellable title. I was also disappointed that while the play touched upon Einstein’s pacifism, it did not mention his socialist leanings. During the HUAC/Blacklist era, Einstein courageously wrote a piece called “Why Socialism?” in the very first issue of the venerable Monthly Review in 1949, and audiences need to be reminded that the greatest genius of all time chose to be a socialist.

The Life and Times of A. Einstein runs through May 16 on Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. at Theatre West, 333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, L.A., CA 90068. For more info: 323/851-7977; http://www.theatrewest.org/.

THEATER REVIEW: ACTING: THE FIRST SIX LESSONS

Beau Bridges and Emily Bridges in Theatre West's Acting: The First Six Lessons. Photo Credit: Thomas Mikusz.

Two plays in repertory at Theatre West

By Ed Rampell

Acting The First Six Lessons is a clever adaptation of a sort of 1933 manual on the art and craft of Method acting by the Polish-born Richard Boleslavsky. This actor-director studied at the renowned Constantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre and was a director of its First Studio. After reportedly defecting to America, Boleslavsky directed Hollywood movies featuring stars such as John and Ethel Barrymore, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Irene Dunne in the 1936 screwball comedy Theodora Goes Wild. In 1923 Boleslavsky also established what may be the first U.S. school to teach the Stanislavski Method, the American Laboratory Theatre; his students included Stella Adler (Marlon Brando’s famed teacher), Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg, who eventually established the Group Theater, which played a major role in stage history.

Beau Bridges and his daughter Emily have adapted (what I assume is) Boleslavsky’s Six Lessons of Dramatic Art into a play with 10 scenes. (In a clever bit of marketing during these hard times, copies of the play’s source book were on sale in Theatre West’s lobby.) The play stresses Boleslavsky’s acting teaching career and only alludes to his accomplished movie directing career, although he does defend screen acting to his student, who is baffled by the bits and pieces out of joint nature of movie acting.

Suffice it to say that in the play the Bridges have concocted a novice overacting actress seeks out the noted maestro so that Boleslavsky can teach her how to act. He starts with the importance of concentration for actors, who must be able to focus, use their imagination and transmute emotional memories from actual past occurrences to the dramatic material at hand. In the course of the drama we watch the development of the wannabe thespian as a stage and screen actress. Along the way the audience learns much about the technique and creative process of acting.

I found this to be absorbing and highly educational in an entertaining way. However, a female playwright and actress in the audience was critical of what could be viewed as the Svengali-like nature of the plot, wherein an older male molds the younger woman. Of course, never having been a female actress I did not have this subjective point of view (although I can see how others might) and did not consider this story to be, shall we say, a Bridges too far.

I thoroughly enjoyed the charming story and the father-daughter interaction of Beau and Emily Bridges, a voluptuous beauty who seems destined to continue the “family business.” The pony-tailed Beau told the audience he was 68, but he seemed far younger; as the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote: “There’s no gray hair in his soul.” Recently I saw his brother Jeff in person at the Independent Spirit Awards in March, and he was the best-looking 60-year-old male I’ve ever seen. The Brothers Bridges inherited their father Lloyd’s good looks and genes, and Beau has been appearing onscreen since the late 1940s, in Abraham Polonsky’s 1948 Force of Evil, the 1949 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Red Pony and in the early 1960s in his father’s Sea Hunt TV series (which I remember watching as a kid). Beau’s endless screen credits include 1970’s integration film, The Landlord, and 1979’s labor drama, Norma Rae. So it was a kick to see Beau perform in person.

And unlike other thespians, such as Brando who frequently derided acting as an unworthy profession (well, if your father repeatedly put you down during your childhood as a big nothing, even if you later won two Oscars, millions and vast critical acclaim, you’d still hear your father’s voice in your addled head insulting you and belittling whatever you did), it was a joy to see the pleasure that Beau continues to take in his lifelong avocation, and the pleasure Emily also takes in this art and craft, as the latest member of this show biz dynasty. And their clear enchantment in being able to perform together in this family affair.

Acting: The First Six Lessons runs through May 16 on Fridays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. at Theatre West, 333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, L.A., CA 90068. For more info: 323/851-7977; www.theatrewest.org.

THEATER REVIEW: THE STIGMATIZED

Robert Brubaker as Alviano Salvago in L.A. Opera's The Stigmatized.  

Conflicted sexuality in a work rescued from obscurity and the Nazis by L.A. Opera

By Ed Rampell

There is a stereotype many have that “high” culture, such as William Shakespeare and opera, deals with refined “classical” subject matter, as distinct from what critic Pauline Kael called the “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” obsessions of pop culture, especially movies. But those who make this distinction forget that in Elizabethan England, Shakespearean dramas were largely performed for the masses. Hamlet, in fact, is a ghost story about murder most foul, incest, suicide and is as much a revenge tale as any film noir picture.

The same is true of opera. For instance, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto is, among other things, about a hunchbacked jester who apparently has incestuous desires for his sexy daughter, Gilda (perhaps not coincidentally also the name of a sexy 1946 Rita Hayworth movie and character). Austrian composer Franz Schreker’s The Stigmatized is another case in point, a work of “high” art that is mostly about the “baser” passions.

The current production of The Stigmatized is the opera’s U.S. premiere and part of L.A. Opera’s “Recovered Voices” series, which, according to press notes, is “a multi-season initiative to revive the works of composers whose lives and careers were cut short by the Nazi regime.” (Perhaps this is a sort of compensation and penance for the company’s spending so much time, money and energy on presenting The Ring cycle by Hitler’s favorite composer, Richard Wagner, widely believed to be an ardent anti-Semite.) Schreker’s saucy work, set in 16th century Genoa, was originally presented in Germany in 1918, and can be viewed as being part of the edgy postwar culture of the Weimar Republic that included sexually charged works in various cabaret acts and by playwrights such as Bertolt Brecht.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, this so-called “degenerate art” was banned due to its blatant sexuality. It didn’t help that Schreker was half-Jewish. To make matters worse, Schreker’s lead character in The Stigmatized, Alviano Salvago (tenor Robert Brubaker) is hunchbacked and crippled, and with their “Master Race” delusions, Dr. Mengele and his cohorts despised the misshapen (unlike Schreker, who also wrote The Dwarf, which L.A. Opera mounted in 2008). In any case, Salvago is also a fabulously wealthy nobleman who has created an island utopia called, after Greek mythology, “Elysium,” which he has altruistically decided to donate to the people of Genoa.

Well, no good deed goes unpunished. It turns out that Salvago’s elite “friends” have been using Elysium’s grotto (holy Hefner and the Playboy Mansion!) to stage orgies at. These ignoble nobles have been abducting Genoa’s most beautiful women to participate in their sex-capades, and Salvago’s plan to donate their happy hunting ground to the city threatens this sexual cabal’s revels, so they conspire to thwart him. With “friends” like these…

Salvago, who is full of sexual angst largely due to his deformity, begins a romance with Carlotta Nardi (soprano Anja Kampe), the daughter of the mayor, Lodovico Nardi (bass-baritone Wolfgang Schone). In the words of another famous musician, Carlotta is “a hunk-a hunk-a burning love,” and she, too, is torn between her affection for Salvago and lust for the dashing Count Tamare (baritone Martin Gantner).

Carlotta is an artist who strives to be a sort of portrait painter of the soul. Her quest to give form on canvas to the true inner self reminded me of the 1981 Barbra Streisand movie, All Night Long, wherein Gene Hackman’s character invents a mirror that shows people exactly how they are (instead of the image being reversed).

The Stigmatized raises the question of presenting sexual aesthetics onstage. An L.A. Times article about the opera prior to its debut at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion contended that: “L.A. Opera's staging will contain explicit sexual situations and is intended for mature audiences only. Director Ian Judge said the production will evoke the ‘rank smell of bad sex’ for the orgy scenes.” Really? Most of the revels consisted of performers romping around a circular revolving stage in tophats, cloaks, suits, long dresses and the like. There is one nude scene per se with an actress who has sex with a partially clad male. But overall the orgies were pretty chaste and, for the record, did not have foul aromas.

As I have written many times before, in the past artists fought and suffered for the freedom to depict sex, nudity and other taboo topics in the arts, and it’s disappointing when today’s talents, who now possess those hard fought for rights, don’t use them. Having said that, to be fair L.A. Opera’s 2008 production of The Fly did feature the full frontal nudity of bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch as scientist Seth Brundle, partially clad women and lots more sex than the 1986 film version, which was likewise directed by David Cronenberg. So it is strange that, like its character, this production of The Stigmatized seems sexually conflicted.

Schreker’s music, ably conducted by James Conlon, is sonorous, if not exactly toe-tapping. But what really stands out is this show’s visuals. Sets are almost characters in their own right in many L.A. Opera productions –- the mad scientist’s lair in The Fly, the prison in Tosca, a piazza in Carmen or The Barber of Seville. There is not so much a set design as much as a projection design in The Stigmatized, imaginatively projected onto a scrim and overseen by award-winning Broadway veteran Wendall Harrington, who’s work includes what may be the first rock opera, The Who’s Tommy. The images include a reference to Hieronymos Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, although for some reason the 16th century Dutch painter’s orgiastic images are not projected, while his edenic landscapes are, to suggest Elysium. Nevertheless, in lieu of sets per se, the projected imagery enhanced this production of The Stigmatized with a cinematic verve and flavor. Which seems appropriate, as so-called “high” and “low” art meet and mingle in The Stigmatized.

The Stigmatized runs at L.A. Opera in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., on Thursday, April 22 and Saturday, April 24 at 7:30 pm. For more info: 213/972-8001; http://www.laopera.com./

FILM REVIEW: KICK-ASS

Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) is trained to Kick Ass and never take names.

Juvenile justice

By John Esther

Oblivious to the last decade's incessant discussion of heroes, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) wonders "How come nobody's ever tried to be a superhero?" Probably because it is dangerous and impossible and if you can become just a hero, then a zero of kid, by your own admission, should be happy with mere hero status.

Well Dave's not too bright so he purchases a scuba suit and tailors it to his own fashion and then begins roaming the streets fighting crime as his Super(hero) alter ego, Kick-Ass, picking up some wounds, "special" kills, publicity, the attention of the "real" superhero daddy-daughter duo, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), plus the wrath of crime lord Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), who happens to be the father of Dave's schoolmate, Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse branching out).

Clearly Dave is way in over his head yet he cannot escape the story he has chosen. He must see it through to the very violent end.

Hardly the kind of downer (or box office failure) of recent similar, superior superhero stories such Special and Defendor, directed with style by Matthew Vaughn Kick-Ass is quite entertaining in its bloodbath kind of way as long as you ignore the fact that the superheroes in the film are playing judge, jury and executioner with impunity. This is extremely problematic with regard to Hit Girl.

Raised by her father's rage, Hit Girl has never been to school or kissed a boy with her foul mouth, but she does have quite the comical wit for her age and many murders under her purple wig. The tiny target avoids the might of men and their guns as she, rather unscathed, shoot and boots, slices and dices her way up the organized crime ladder. We are talking about a young teen who plays suit up and slaughter and her trails of assassinations is not for the squeamish, but it is hard not to laugh at a little "flying" girl killing all the big bad men, too. (Start ordering you Hit Girl Halloween costume now.)

Destined to put many bottoms in theater seats, Kick-Ass is going to be awful pain in the arse for all those concerned parents whose kids want to see the R-rated movie where a little girl kills and kills and kills.

FILM REVIEW: WOMEN WITHOUT MEN

Munis (Shabnam Tolouei) takes up the struggle in Women Without Men.

Women Without Men discourse

By John Esther

Dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Iran -- from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to the Green Movement of 2009 -- director and co-writer Shirin Neshat’s cinematic adaptation of Shahrnush Parsipur’s titular novel, Women Without Men, is a stirring indictment against the players behind the United States-England backed coup to remove Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and re-in-your-face-state the Shah of Iran to power and keep him there by “the rule of the boots.”

Commencing and concluding with suicide Women Without Men is set over a few summer days in Tehran, 1953, where the narrative of four women ebbs and flows with a poetic magical realism, and not supernaturalism, as they deal with the impending doom of democracy.

The most compelling of the four primary narratives (there were five in the novel), Munis (Shabnam Tolouei) has found a reason to rise to the constitutional challenge as various aspects of patriarchy try to keep her down. Down on the bed is where Zarin (Orsi Tóth) is kept as a prostitute as she slaves for a Madame (played by novelist Parsipur) who, like many minor female characters in the film, is only too willing to oblige men and money. On another hand, Munis’ friend, Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni), keeps herself down mentally until her “innocence” is raped out her.

Not to restrain its viewpoint to younger women caught up in Iran’s great peaceful changes and then awful ones within a matter of two years (the illegal overthrow of Mossadegh was the beginning and end of the only democratically elected government in Iran...for now?), Women Without Men includes an experience too familiar with vulgar patriarchy in the form of Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad). Having had enough of her bourgeois life, she leaves Tehran, purchasing a beautiful orchard just outside the country’s capital.

As the events in the city slowly push these four women together in and outside the orchard where the imagination runs wild with imagery, the bleak streets of peaceful protesters being beaten by the military and hired thugs begins to distill Iran’s culture, freedom and democracy to the orchard and beyond.

A breakthrough of sorts for Iranian cinema, the moment the film starts one knows the film was made without any authorization of Iran’s political/pious elite.

Directed in Morocco by the Iranian-born,/US-resident Neshat and banned in pictures and print form in Iran, Women Without Men shows numerous images of women without their hair being covered. In Iran it is illegal to show a film where a woman does not have her hair covered. (This depraved demand for Persian propriety has lead to an increase in Iranian films set in the outdoors because directors consider it ridiculous for a woman, especially those of the middle and upper classes, to cover their hair while indoors).

Women Without Men is very critical not only of Iranian history but also of the religious zealotry of mid-20th Century Iran (and, as a matter of course, the Islamic Revolution of 1979) that reinforced a patriarchal power structure where women must always obey more laws than men while receiving less benefits for their sacrifices.

And by using its poetic form of silent images and circumventing traditional narrative (to a modest point), the film uses the traditional trope of escape from the cruel world to remind the viewer that many times there is little the reel imagination can do when the real world is really out to get you.

Marked by the music of maestro Ryuichi Sakamoto (The Last Emperor) and marred by minute mistakes in acting, the mis/s-titled Women Without Men (these are women who can hardly escape the might of men but through death) offers multiple mental meanings and meanderings to divide, decide and discuss through its political, personal and poetic discourses -- especially right now as threats to Iran’s theocratic tyranny are waving their democratic demanding heads once again.

FILM REVIEW: MID-AUGUST LUNCH

Gianni Di Gregorio (left) directs himself in Mid-August Lunch.

Ciao Up

By Ed Rampell

In my recent interview with Ed Asner, which will be published in the May issue of The Progressive Magazine, the 80-year-old actor who gave voice to the lead character in the Best Picture nominee and Oscar-winning animated feature, Up, laments the fact that Hollywood live action films ignore the elderly. Asner’s wish for movies about the aged and their particular issues may have come true with Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo Di Ferragosto), a 2008 Italian film opening April 9 in Los Angeles and subsequently throughout the USA.

There are no gunfights, torture sequences, stripteases, monsters, car chases or even wheelchair chases in Mid-August Lunch, which has a simple enough plot and a running time of less than 90 minutes. Written and directed by Gianni Di Gregorio (who co-wrote the completely different but critically acclaimed 2008 gangster flick, Gomorrah), Di Gregorio also stars as the financially hard-pressed Gianni, who lives with his 93-year-old mother (Valeria De Franciscis) in a Roman apartment, where he has fallen behind on the payments. Gianni appears to be unemployed, and the film also appears to be a wry commentary on unemployment, exploitation and class issues, as well as on the aging process.

Just as the entire nation of France shuts down for the month of August, Italy shuts down, too, and Italians head for the hills and holidays in the middle of that same month for the Feast of the Assumption (called in Italian “Pranzo Di Ferragosto”, hence the source of the film’s original title). The building manager (Alfonso Santagata) takes advantage of Gianni’s hardship by pressuring his tenant to take his elderly mother (Marina Cacciotti) off of his hands so he can sneak away for a vacation with his much younger signorina. In lieu of payment for a checkup, a doctor (Marcello Ottolenghi) similarly presses Gianni to babysit his mom (Grazia Cesarini Sforza) during the mid-August holiday.

Pretty soon, the gang’s all here, in Gianni’s apartment, where he grouses that he’s forced to take care of the aged women. How will they get along? Or will they? How will Gianni relate to the old folks? While Hollywood movies more often than not use kiss kiss bang bang action to substitute for the underlying drama of real life, in his directorial debut Di Gregorio has succeeded in revealing the tensions, conflicts, fears, et al, of reality –- all without firing a shot.

In my upcoming Progressive Magazine interview with Asner he cites loneliness as a major concern of the aging, and Di Gregorio squarely deals with this haunting issue in Mid-August Lunch. Consider that while few of us will ever have to personally confront terrorism, loneliness is, alas, a common enough affliction. Especially if most of your friends have long since passed from the scene. Which is more terrifying? Most of us will never be skyjacked, but old age awaits many of us. Yet few films from Tinseltown deal with this universal situation and, in fact, with Hollywood’s fixation on youth and absorption with teen demographics, one can argue that most American movies obsessively avoid these cold hard facts.

Mid-August Lunch may be out of step with the movie mainstream (all the more reason to feast your eyes on it), but it is very much in the Italian cinematic tradition of Neo-Realism. Like his motion picture predecessors such as Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini, Di Gregorio has cast a number of non-professional actors in the roles of the Italian mamas, and a couple of the director’s real life friends to play versions of themselves. This “amateur” casting –- as the term “Neo-Realist” implies -– often gives performances a more true-to-life, if less polished, quality, and it works very well onscreen here.

In addition to being that rare filmic concoction preoccupied with the subject of the elderly, cooking and eating are also main ingredients in this feature. As its title suggests, Mid-August Lunch serves a recipe for foodies, and is in that grand gastronomical tradition of movies such as Tom Jones, Like Water for Chocolate and Julie and Julia. Buon appetito!

FILM REVIEW: THE SQUARE

Ray (David Roberts) did not angle for so much blood in The Square.

Not so hip to be

By Miranda Inganni

Ray (David Roberts) and Carla (Claire Van Der Boom) are in the midst of a torrid love affair. Despite their age and socio-economic differences (or indeed, perhaps because thereof), they have decided to leave their spouses and run away together with a sack of money to live happily ever after. Of course, things don’t work out as planned. After the initial fortunate accident, bodies pile up as mild-mannered, construction foreman Ray gets a bit too in touch with his killer instinct.

Why is it that when two adulterous lovers hatch the perfect scheme to steal stolen, “dirty” money in order to run away together, things always go awry? Someone inevitably ends up hurt, or worse, dead (traditionally it has been the woman who pays most dearly for her transgressions). Pay attention foolish lovers everywhere: extramarital affairs are never worth it.

The Square begs another question, why can’t extortionists spell?

Regardless of these two burning inquiries, The Square is less about sex and spelling and more about trust, betrayal, extortion, missed connections, false accusations, second thoughts, terribly rainy weather and murder. Mostly murder.

Peppered with gallows humor (poor dog), The Square is Australian Nash Edgerton’s feature length directorial debut and is co-written by Joel Edgerton (Nash’s brother) and Matthew Dabner. Produced by Dabner and the brothers Edgerton, this film insists we always hurt the ones we love.

This release of The Square features a body-smashing, eye-poking short film called Spider.

SXSW FILM FESTIVAL 2010

Cyrus (Jonah Hill), Mom (Marisa Tomei) and new beau (John C. Reilly) make for strange relationships in Cyrus.




Austin power!


By Don Simpson


My thirteenth year of attendance at the South by Southwest Film Festival (launched in 1994) proved to be my most exhaustive (and exhausting). Despite being turned away from countless sold out screenings (there was a drastic increase in badge holders this year – a good problem for SXSW to have but for frustrated attendees this is a serious concern that SXSW must address and solve prior to SXSW 2011), I viewed just shy of 50 feature films (including several advanced screeners) which allowed me to have an unparalleled look at the great breadth of films that SXSW had to offer in 2010.


It would be difficult not to take notice of the strong presence of Austin filmmakers at SXSW 2010 – four of my five favorite films were made by Austin directors (Earthling, The Happy Poet, Lovers of Hate and Mars). There was also a significant international contingent and a plethora of independent filmmakers. Aside from Kick-Ass, MacGruber and The Runaways, SXSW 2010 shied away from mainstream Hollywood releases; and apparently there is a converse relationship between festival attendance and film budgets.


Here is a selection of my favorite films from SXSW 2010.


A Different Path -- Director Monteith McCollum knits abstract animated images with the stories of Richard Dyksterhuis, Michael Johnson, Dan Hughes and Miguel Cameos. Dyksterhuis is a car-less senior citizen stranded in the suburban strip mall wasteland of the Lesser Outer Seattle Territories ("LOST") who wants a way for fellow senior citizens to get around without having to drive cars. Johnson – a trumpeter, avid bicyclist and community activist – leads a community group (Streets for the People) whose objective is to reclaim the streets of Toronto for the people. Cameos, from Portugal, once read about a New Yorker named Dan Hughes who kayaked across the Hudson River to travel between his apartment on the Upper West Side and his office in Edgewater, New Jersey; Cameos decided to do the same. The interviews steer clear of the conventional talking head format as much as possible, preferring to use carefully crafted yet somewhat random images whose intent is to captivate rather than bore the viewer.


Audrey the Trainwreck -- Frank V. Ross’ Audrey the Trainwreck is a story of two people caught in repetitive routines: an ATM parts purchaser named Ron (Anthony J. Baker) and Stacy (Alexi Wasser), an express mail courier. They meet via an Internet dating service (Stacy is one many dates that Ron attempts) and they eventually, albeit awkwardly, fall for one another. Audrey the Trainwreck encapsulates the boring and monotonous lifestyle that people can easily fall into – working jobs that they hate during the day, hanging around the same friends every night.


Beijing Taxi -- Beijing Taxi commences two years prior to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The old city and communist lifestyle of Beijing has all but disappeared; a new city of skyscrapers, pillars of capitalism, is quickly rising from the rubble. As Bai Jiwen, a 54-year old Beijing taxi driver, studiously observes: “The pace of change has sped up, taking bigger strides. To welcome the Olympics! The whole country is supporting Beijing. Faster construction; faster environmental changes.” Bai is one of three primary subjects whom writer-director Miao Wang follows in order to chronicle the effects that the 2008 Olympic Games (and capitalism) have on working class Beijingers; the other two subjects – Zhou Yi and Wei Caixia – are also taxi drivers. The three characters are perfect examples of how education (or lack there of) can determine a person’s fate, especially in a capitalist economy.


Crying with Laughter -- Fueled by cocaine and booze, Joey’s (Stephen McCole) comedy is brutally violent and emotionally raw. We meet Joey as he appears on stage, bloodied up with a massive shiner that looks like it stings like a mother-fucking bee. Rather than his usual comedy routine, Joey begins to recollect the chain of events that delivered him in this sorry state. Where is Joey going with all of this? Where is the punch-line? Patience my dears; Crying with Laughter is told in flashback from this point onward, so you will just have to sit back and enjoy the ride… Written and directed by Justin Molotnikov, Crying with Laughter is (to paraphrase Joey) about “abuse, kidnap, torture; just the average Saturday night in Scotland.” Crying with Laughter is also about revenge; whether one is willing to resort to violence (even murder) in order to punish someone for past deeds or if the past can truly be forgiven, maybe even forgotten. Crying with Laughter is by no means an easy film to watch, but several of the plot’s twists and turns are executed quite masterfully and McCole’s lead performance is chillingly sincere.


Cyrus -- The Duplass brothers’ first two films – The Puffy Chair and Baghead – were my favorite films of SXSW 2005 and SXSW 2008 respectively, so I entered the SXSW 2010 screening of Cyrus with unbelievably high expectations. Armed with a significantly larger budget than their first two features and a marquee cast (Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, John C. Reilly and Catherine Keener) to boot, Cyrus could easily be a sell out, but it isn’t. Actually, by casting an everyman (Reilly) as the romantic lead, Cyrus intelligently comments on and works in opposition to the traditional rom-com genre. The Duplass brothers’ also retain their established directorial style. The camera zooms in and out, refocusing when necessary, in total randomness as if they were still marking out the scene. The scenes linger for a few beats longer than typical Hollywood fare, catching subtle changes in facial expressions after the actors finish with their lines.


Earthling -- Throughout this film festival I heard some people say that Earthling was one of the best films of the fest, while others were bored and just did not get it. Well, I got it – and it was my favorite film of the festival. I understand why some people might be confused by the slow and quiet nature of Earthling – the pacing and atmosphere are very reminiscent of The Man Who Fell to Earth. (Earthling also owes a lot to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the short-lived television series Invasion, Solaris and early David Cronenberg.) Grounded on Earth, with special effects and make-up that are done in true B-movie fashion, writer-director Clay Liford’s brand of sc-fi is purely cerebral.


Erasing David -- David Bond (the titular subject of this documentary) lives in one of the most intrusive surveillance countries in the world – Great Britain. (Bond purports that Britain ranks third behind China and Russia as the most heavily surveilled societies in the world). Upon receiving a letter regarding a recent security breach that may have exposed some of his personal data, Bond begins to think about information security and what information is “out there” about him and his family. (The Orwellian tagline for the film reads: “He has nothing to hide, but does he have nothing to fear?”) Bond enlists two private investigators to track him as he goes “off the grid” in an attempt to prove just how simple it is to get private data on any individual or family and how damaging that data can be. To support that he is not just a wacky lone conspiracy theorist afraid of Big Brother, Bond intertwines interviews to drill home his messages: other people (respectable, intelligent people) share Bond’s fears; real people have been adversely affected by bad data. For better or worse, Erasing David also exemplifies just how paranoid and delusional even the most innocent of people can become by having their privacy invaded.


The Happy Poet -- Writer-director-actor Paul Gordon’s The Happy Poet is a perfect example of a writer-director knowing their own strengths and range as an actor. Bill (Paul Gordon) is looking for a job. He decides to borrow the very small amount of cash that his bank will loan to him in order to buy a hot dog cart and convert it into a health food cart. The dryly comedic The Happy Poet quickly evolves into an intelligent political and social commentary as well as a metaphor for the economic situation in the United States. Bill’s overhead and debt is too high, his customer base is too small and his prices are too low in order to remain competitive with his fast food competitors. Essentially, Bill is penalized by capitalism for wanting to provide healthy eco-conscious food.


Haynesville: A Nation’s Relentless Hunt for Energy -- In 2008, 96 townships in northwestern Louisiana were informed that they were sitting on top of an energy goldmine, the Haynesville shale – a natural gas field that is estimated to contain 170 trillion cubic feet (the equivalent of 28 billion barrels of oil). Haynesville tracks three people with varying perspectives of the discovery of the Haynesville shale. The first, Mike Smith, loves guns, hunting and freedom. His 300 acres of land transforms Mike into an instant millionaire. The second, Kassi Fitzgerald, is a single mom who becomes a community activist upon learning that one of her uninformed neighbors was ripped off by an oil company. Thirdly is Pastor Reegis Richard, whose church and ministry benefits greatly from the Haynesville shale because his congregation has more money to donate. Director Gregory Kallenberg keeps everything in perspective – especially in relation to the U.S.’s energy dependency – by utilizing a wide array of respectable talking head environmentalists and energy industry experts, who one after another explain why the U.S. must wean itself off of oil and coal and how natural gas may represent a “bridge” between the “dirty” energy of the past and the clean “renewables” (wind, solar) of the future.


Helena from the Wedding -- Alice (Melanie Lynskey) and Alex (Lee Turgesen) have invited some of their friends to a snowy cabin to celebrate New Year’s Eve with them. The titular Helena (Gillian Jacobs) – one of two single people at the party – is a model whom Alex has had a crush on ever since he met her at a wedding. Alice, Alex’s wife, is none too happy with the way Alex looks at Helena. But Alice and Alex are not the only couple whose relationship is shaken not stirred but this wintry getaway. Everyone purports to be happy with their lives, but as we spend more and more time with the characters we realize just how unhappy they all are.


The Loved Ones -- It is not long before The Loved Ones drastically switches gears from a coming-of-age drama about a psychologically scarred teen, Brent (Xavier Samuel), attempting to cope with life after his dad’s death to one hell of a blood thirsty torture film. Every time you think things cannot get any creepier, the creepy quotient is increased tenfold. The amazing Robin McLeavy is pitch-perfect as the psychotic Lola – a preemptive incarnation of DePalma’s Carrie (Lola does not wait to be teased before she goes psycho). The other acting performances are precisely perverse. The horrors done with forks, knives, hammers and drills alone are enough to make even the most adept horror film aficionado shriek like a little girlie mouse. The Loved Ones, a brilliantly creepy feature-length debut from writer-director Sean Byrne, is sure to please some of the more discerning horror fans out there with its brains, creativity and visual panache. From my estimation The Loved Ones is prone to become a “midnight movies” cult favorite ala Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy and Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive and Bad Taste.


Lovers of Hate – There was a lot of buzz around Austin after the premiere of Lovers of Hate at Sundance and its distribution deal with IFC – and the reaction from the SXSW screenings proved that it deserves every little bit of the buzz that it has generated. Lovers of Hate is a beautifully written and acted film about two brothers (played by Chris Doubek and Alex Karpovsky) who do not get along very well. Besides their age difference, their divide seems to be rooted in the fact that the older brother is (by some definitions) a failure and the younger brother is (by some definitions) very successful; and then there is the woman (Heather Kafka) who comes between them. The film, especially the plot, is relatively simple – yet Bryan Poyser’s direction is relatively unconventional, especially his honest portrayal of nudity and sex (Poyser seems to have found a kinship with Joe Swanberg here).


Mars -- Writer-director Geoff Marslett’s Mars is a low-budget animated rom-com which is brilliantly disguised as a sci-fi film. It follows Charlie (Mark Duplass), Casey (Zoe Simpson) and Hank (Paul Gordon) as they travel to Mars in search of two lost robots – Beagle II and ART – and to finally answer that age-old question of whether there really is life on mars. Gordon’s dry comedic monotone playfully duels with Duplass’ heroic cockiness and Casey’s sexy smarts. Somewhat crudely animated over the actors’ live action performances, the highly color-saturated Mars resembles a very low-budget graphic novel version of Waking Life…but in a good way.


Micmacs – Bazil’s (Dany Boon) father is blown to bloody bits while dismantling a landmine in the Sahara. We find Bazil years later – an unabashed cinephile – working as a clerk in a video store. One night while mimicking the The Big Sleep verbatim, Bazil is caught in the crossfire of a shootout. With a bullet lodged in his head, Bazil’s surgeon is left with two options: remove the bullet reducing Bazil to a vegetable or leave the bullet risking that Bazil could die at any time. A coin toss determines Bazil’s destiny – the bullet will remain in Bazil’s brain. To revenge his father’s death and his own shooting, Bazil and an eccentric crew of les petites gens from “Tire-Larigot” pit the directors (André Dussollier and Nicolas Marié) of two evil armament manufacturers against each other. Every scheme goes one step further than the previous one, until they have the two men giving penance and pleading for mercy on YouTube. Micmacs effectively conveys the greedy, amoral and reckless mentality of arms dealers and government, but it is difficult to determine whether or not Jeunet is actually interested in the politics or economics of the arms business. As absurd and surreal as Micmacs is, there is an underlying seriousness (if not sadness) which Jeunet repeatedly reminds us of – Bazil could die at any time.


Pelada -- Co-directors Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham were once collegiate soccer stars with dreams of going professional. When they realize that their dreams are not going to be recognized, they decide to travel the world looking for pick-up soccer matches – known in Brazil (the first country they visit) as pelada (which means "naked" in Portuguese). They travel to 25 countries in all, playing pick-up soccer matches with locals in alleys, side streets, dirt fields, prison yards and concrete courts. The universal language of soccer thus opens doors for Boughen and Oxenham to immerse themselves into even the most foreign of cultures.


Presumed Guilty -- Directed by Roberto Hernandez and Geoffrey Smith, Presumed Guilty can easily be seen as a sequel to Hernandez’s previous documentary, El Túnel (a 20-minute film about the absence of due process fundamentals in the Mexican judicial system). We are bombarded by staggering statistics such as: 93% of defendants never see a judge; 93% of inmates are never shown arrest warrant; 95% of verdicts are guilty; 92% of verdicts are based on no physical evidence. Presumed Guilty focuses on Jose Antonio Zuniga Rodriguez (a.k.a. “Tono”) who was incarcerated in 2005; accused of killing someone he did not even know, who was never linked to him in any way. Hernandez and Smith prove Tono’s innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt. The question remains: is the film convincing enough for the Mexican judicial system to release Tono? (If the answer to that question is yes, I can not think of clearer proof of a documentary’s success.)


Putty Hill -- The setting is a poor, working-class suburb of Baltimore that descriptive adjectives such as decrepit, depressing and boring seem to fit best. This, dare I say, “white trash” community – of tattoos, dreadlocks, torn clothing, skateboarders and BMXers, graffiti, paintball and video games, and drugs – seems like something Harmony Korine would have concocted for the silver screen; but, in the sympathetic hands of writer-director Matthew Porterfield, Putty Hill brims with subtle neo-realism. The multitude of interconnected characters that do not communicate very well, most of the characters only speak when asked a question (sometimes those questions need to come from off camera – from Porterfield – in mockumentary fashion); but the heart of Putty Hill is what the actors do when they are not talking, when they are doing nothing. The focus of importance is on the space between the lines of dialog; the quiet after the action.


Skeletons -- To synopsize this film in one short paragraph will be practically impossible, so instead I will keep this entirely superficial. Bennett (Andrew Buckley) and Davis (Ed Gaughan) are exorcists who remove the proverbial skeletons from people’s closets. After a few routine business calls, they find themselves at Jane’s (Paprika Steen) house where they are assigned the task of finding her missing husband. Skeletons is a brain-teasing comedy with highly intelligent dialog and a plot that requires some mental gymnastics on the part of the viewer.


Tiny Furniture -- The winner of the SXSW Narrative Feature Film Jury Award and SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award, Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture was nearly impossible to get into during SXSW 2010. Aura (Lena Dunham) arrives home with a film theory degree and no job prospects to her mother’s (Laurie Simmons) Tribeca artist loft as her 17-year old sister (Grace Dunham) prepares to pick which college she will be attending next fall. (With unbridled self-reflexivity, Dunham, her mother and sister all are essentially playing themselves.) Aura meets Jed (Alex Karpovsky) – a semi-famous You Tube celebrity who is visiting NYC to negotiate a deal for a new television series. Jed is either truly poor or just a moocher; nevertheless, Aura invites him to crash at her mother’s place. Tiny Furniture could be superficially interpreted as a film about a bunch of privileged white people complaining about how difficult their lives are; but in true ethnographic style Dunham cleverly withholds any judgments of her own, allowing the viewer to examine the characters’ motives and decisions on their own.


War Don Don -- The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under Foday Sankoh started The Sierra Leone Civil War in 1991. During the 11-year conflict, tens of thousands died and more than two million people were displaced. The civil war was officially declared over in January 2002. The title of this documentary – “war don don” – translates to “the war is over.” In 2004, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (an international war crimes tribunal) began its trial of Issa Sesay, who was deemed the Interim Leader of the RUF after Sankoh was jailed. Director Rebecca Richman Cohen’s documentary takes a comprehensive and critical look into the Special Court for Sierra Leone and attempts to prove that it is highly disputable that Sesay ordered the crimes that he was found guilty of committing. War Don Don was the runner-up for the SXSW 2010 Documentary Feature Film Jury Award.