FILM REVIEW: DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS

Steve Carell plays another idiot savant in Dinner for Schmucks. 

Of mice and men

By John Esther  

"Dinner for Schmucks." Do you mean turning on C-Span and watching gluttonous politicians feed the fat cats corporate welfare? Badump Schhhhhhmuck! 

Not as farcical as C-Span, director Jay Roach's (of Fockers and Austin Powers fame) take on the intersection between big business, idiots or idiotic entertainment lacks any real political or cultural satire that could have pushed this uneven flick into a hilarious hit.

One day Tim Wagner (Paul Rudd), an analyst working at a ruthless corporation, makes an illuminating Working Girl/"Bud Fox" impression on his boss, Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood), giving the sixth-floor Tim the opportunity to break through the proverbial corporate ceiling and move up to the seventh floor. But is he really ready to move up? The upper echelon will judge Tim further by how well he locates and delivers a "collectible" fool (on the hill) to a business dinner at the boss' home where oblivious imbeciles vie for the top stupid spot. 

While Tim has some reservations, his almost-fiancée, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), objects strongly to this kind of humor at the hidden humiliation of others. This creates a conflict for Tim as he desperately wants the promotion he needs to maintain the new way of live he has helped create for the couple while remaining true to Julie and his self -- or at least the best part(s) of his self. To further push the dilemma, Julie has been working closely with Kieran (Jemaine Clement), a pure, but highly pretentious, self-indulgent and successful artist with unrelenting "animal magnetism" who is devouring his "inner goat." In Julie's world of artists and art collectors, Tim does not believe he can beat Kieran at the latter's game, but if Tim makes enough money, then ha ha, Kieran can have all the orgies and zebra birthing experiences he wants!

The next morning while driving his new Porsche swiftly through the streets of Los Angeles -- where there are plenty of schmucks but probably fewer than California's State Capitol or a nearby stupefying state trying to push unconstitutionally racist laws -- Tim idiotically talks on the phone and texts. Still stuck in his moral/mate quandary, Tim is conjuring up ways to make it to the dinner party without making Julie mad as he drives right into Barry (Steve Carell). 

Clueless that he was just hit by the negligent driver of a Porsche, Barry offers $10,000 to Tim to settle the matter -- money Barry does not have. As Barry gets to rambling around the scene of the crime (Tim seemingly leaves the Porsche in the middle of the road while they get acquainted), Tim soon realizes he has just received moronic manna and invites benighted Barry to the special dinner. "Everything has a reason."

However, before the movie even gets to the titular dinner, Barry drags Tim through an unforgettable night of one good, and not so good, intention after another gone awry, putting Tim through a host of disadvantageous adventures. Oh, Barry, you will never learn. And it appears neither will Tim who should have called the police on numerous occasions and thousands of dollars of damages ago.

Then there is tomorrow, which amps up the preposterousness...all the way until show and dinnertime. 

An extravagant affair, Lance, Tim, his co-workers and the multimillionaire they are trying to impress, Müeller (David Williams), swarm the stupid. The guests -- a vapid ventriloquist (Jeff Dunham), a blind fatuous fencer (Christopher O'Dowd), a psychotic pet psychic (Octavia Spencer), a vacuous vulture handler (Patrick Fischler) and a guy with a big beard (Rick Overton)  -- are very eccentric and clueless yet nowhere near as schmucky than, write, the kind of raving yahoos one would find at a Teabagger rally. Predictably, Barry has a good chance of winning, but he is going to have to defeat his archnemesis, a co-worker of his at the IRS/self-publishing author named Therman (Zach Galifianakis), to be the chump champ. (The two biggest buffoons in Dinner for Schmucks work for the IRS, how brave.) 

Remarkably, the dinner party is the least funny segment of the film. With more screaming, more violence and traditional movie morale than ever, the desperation of the filmmakers to outdo the movie's preceding gags in the penultimate finale is embarrassingly obvious and thus the funny falls flat. If the writers had spent as much time rewriting the eponymous soiree as, write, casting spent creating the politically correct composite of the dinner party -- for every female or person of color character on the corporate side, there is his or her counterpart on the other side of schmuck-dom/dumb -- Dinner for Schmucks may have been more worthwhile. (I wonder why the filmmakers did not cast Tina Fey to play Sarah "snowbilly" Palin for the big night.)

  

Based on Francis Veber's film, Le Dinner de Cons, and written by David Guion and Michael Handelman, in a country where stupidity and ignorance scream aplenty, often with tragic results, art responding to the mental deterioration of a nation has plenty of content here to create. The contempt corporate culture has for the people -- as personified by the failures on Wall Street and much of the behavior after (and before) financial behemoths received vast amounts of corporate welfare  -- displayed in Dinner for Schmucks is comparatively minimal. In fact, it could be well contested the corporate elements of this movie are treated better than their non-corporate counterparts. 

However, having written that, beyond a few chuckles and guffaws throughout the movie, the saving grace of Dinner for Schmucks centers on a subplot involving a man and his mice. Amusing in its absurdity, there is a considerable amount of loss and loneliness expressed in this taxing/tax working/taxidermist's craft that is quite comically endearing. Since the movie's terrible trailer does not give the mice away, neither will I but, suffice it to say, it makes Dinner for Schmucks worth a home viewing.  

Writing of which, Carell's The Office succeeds where this movie fails because the context of that TV show is grounded in a reality many of us are all too familiar with in real life: dealing with people we "think" are schmucks. Or C-Span.

FILM REVIEW: GET LOW

Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) is ready and set to Get Low. 

Celebrate Bush
 
By Don Simpson

Get Low, a relatively low-budget period piece set in 1930s Tennessee by first-time director Aaron Schneider, is about Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), an aged reclusive curmudgeon who lives alone in a homestead flanked by 300 acres of dense wilderness. 

Felix has lived alone for over 30 years. Over the decades the townspeople have told many fantastically scary stories about Felix, and they point and stare at him every time he comes to town; yet bravely curious kids trespass on Felix’s property just to taunt the creepy gun-toting old coot -- throwing rocks through his windows and such. Though we can surmise that whatever the townspeople think Felix has done, he is most likely innocent of; we also know that Felix really did do something wrong in his past. This homestead and hermetic lifestyle is Felix’s self-inflicted punishment, his personal prison. Felix is a troubled man with a troubled soul.

When Felix comes to the existential conclusion that he is probably going to die sooner rather than later, he decides to start planning his funeral arrangements (which he wants to prepay). Though Felix once helped build a church, he has no intentions of asking God for forgiveness -- which means a church won’t help him with his funeral -- so he opts to use Buddy (Lucas Black) and Buddy’s boss, Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), from the local funeral home for his bidding. Felix decides that he wants Buddy and Frank to arrange a “funeral party” in order for the townspeople to have an opportunity to vent all of their crazy stories about him. The funeral party will also give Felix the opportunity to confess his past wrong(s) and ask for the forgiveness of the townspeople. 

Along the way, Felix reconnects with an old friend, Mattie (Sissy Spacek, which allows for some of the more subdued moments of Get Low. Mattie is one of the few people who know anything about Felix’s past, but even she does not know what he did to deserve this life-long sentence of solitude.

Get Low is a beautiful film. The period detail in the costumes, sets and props is absolutely gorgeous -- even all of the actors’ accents seem spot on, at least to my naive ears. And it is difficult to go wrong with three of cinema’s greatest acting powerhouses (Duvall, Murray and Spacek); these are actors that can make a mountain of a film out of a molehill. Duvall and Murray master the delivery and tone of their dialogue to make their characters humorous yet endearing and honest and both of their performances revel in the subtle nuances of their facial expressions (suspicious stares, sly glances, rolling of eyes). Unfortunately the script itself falls flat more often than not, even in these masterful hands, and the plot becomes overtly trite at some moments and tiresome at others. But when the script is strong, Get Low glimpses perfection, although that only makes the flatter moments all the more frustrating.

At its high marks, Get Low is an intriguing tale about the importance of reconciling one’s own guilty conscience no matter how long the bad deed(s) has been festering in one’s soul. (There is a reason that so many religions focus so keenly on asking God for forgiveness throughout one’s life.) The other lesson we learn from Get Low is that sometimes a self-inflicted punishment is much worse than what any court of law would have dished out.
 

FILM REVIEW: COUNTDOWN TO ZERO

A scene from Lucy Walker's Countdown to Zero.
 
It’s the bomb that will blow us up together

By Don Simpson

“Every man woman and child, lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment, by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us" -- President John F. Kennedy

This quote from Kennedy’s Address Before the General Assembly of the United Nations (New York City, September 25, 1961) provides the backbone for Countdown to Zero. Three key words from that quote: "accident, miscalculation and madness" are used to break Countdown to Zero into three distinct chapters.

From the moment that J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team discovered how to split the atom and harness the resulting energy, it was recognized that this process could serve two distinct purposes: to generate power and make bombs…really powerful bombs…you know, the type of bomb that could level an entire city. 

They also acknowledged that it would be impossible to keep this knowledge a secret (from the “bad guys," which at the time meant the Soviet Union). That was 1945. Now, at least eight other countries possess nuclear weapons: USSR (1949), UK (1952), France (1960), China (1964), Israel (1967), India (1974), Pakistan (1990), North Korea (2006). There are over 23,000 nuclear weapons on planet earth with a majority owned by the USA and Russia. During the Reykjavik Summit, then-U.S. President Reagan proposed a total elimination of nuclear weapons (something Sarah Palin and others seem to forget when President Obama makes a similar proposal). Then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed. Unfortunately, that plan was never implemented. 

(I wish Countdown to Zero would explain why. So, I did some research: Gorbachev requested that any U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative research -- a.k.a. Star Wars -- be restricted. Reagan argued that he pledged to his constituency to investigate whether SDI was viable. Reagan promised to share SDI technology with the Soviets, but Gorbachev did not trust that promise.)

After 9/11, the U.S. has become increasingly concerned about rogue elements with highly enriched uranium (HEU) because what if a terrorist organization like Al-Qaeda gets its hands on a nuclear bomb? There is a known underground market for HEU -- most, if not all of it, traces back to the old Soviet block nations – and Countdown to Zero points out just how easy it would be to smuggle HEU into the US via its shipping ports, especially if embedded in kitty litter. (Should we really be advertising this?) As far as making the actual bomb, well that’s even easier than smuggling HEU. (Should we really be advertising this?) From these facts, it seems inevitable that a nuclear bomb will fall into the wrong hands and will be used against the United States. 

Let’s just say that Countdown to Zero is enough to scare anyone who cares about human life shitless. (Used completely out of the context of the song itself, the closing lyric from The Cure’s “M” - “ready for the next attack” - is used quite effectively.) The mere concept of a nuclear bomb -- a single weapon that can kill millions of innocent people -- scares me. Why would anyone want a bomb that could kill millions of people in a single blow? That is totally unfathomable to me. I am a strong believer that if killing is truly the only option, then it should be done face-to-face. Using bombs -- and worse yet, drones -- is just plain cowardly. Warfare seems to have somehow evolved into a video game that is totally detached from reality.

Written and directed by Lucy Walker, Countdown to Zero features an array of important international statesmen -- President Jimmy Carter, Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf, F. W. de Klerk and Tony Blair -- while providing many possible solutions: ban production of HEU; increase security and establish a verification system of existing supplies of HEU; strengthen police work and intelligence; begin phased reductions of -- and destroy--– existing stockpiles of HEU; establish international fuel banks, reprocessing centers and shared nuclear technology; take all nuclear missiles off of high alert status; establish an international warning center; improve international diplomacy and treaties. Most importantly, we should all demand zero!

But will the people who need to be convinced of the merits of nuclear disarmament even give Countdown to Zero the time of day? And, assuming that they do watch Countdown to Zero, will they choose to believe it or will they dismiss it as yet another liberal conspiracy theory (you know, like climate change)? There are many people who argue that nuclear weapons are integral to the national security of the United States -- and unfortunately many of these knuckleheads are in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives (the deciders, if you will). How do we convince them to change their minds?

THEATER REVIEW: 40 is the New 15

Robby Newton (Craig Woolson) and Kevin (Tod Macofsky) are at a crossroads

Don’t trust anyone before 1970

By Ed Rampell

The new musical 40 is the New 15 has the distinction of being the first musical produced by the Academy for New Musical Theatre, while a workshop presentation of it was, deservedly, nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. The play features an outstanding ensemble cast in an entertaining, insightful look at not only the aging process, but at gay issues. The musical's concept is that the mid-life crisis triggered by hitting 40 is similar to starting high school, another crossroads in the odyssey and oddity of our existences. Of course, the difference is that for the majority of people, when you’re a freshman, most of life is still ahead of us, while entering our forties generally means most of life is behind us. How have the decisions we’ve made impacted the course of our lives? And, as playwright Larry Todd Johnson notes, “how inevitable some of our life-choices seem, in retrospect.”

Indeed. The introspective story is imaginatively told through a flashback structure, and begins with each of the five adult characters singing how they feel to a shrink. At the sold out premiere (the cast varies in subsequent performances), Dana Meller depicts Sarah with just the right touch of desperation. This none-too-bright girl jock is a former high school star athlete, whose Springsteen-eque glory days are way, way behind her. It’s amusing to see that old saw about the male school sports idol who fails to live up to expectations and amounts to nothing after graduation (consider Biff in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman or Brick in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) turned on its head, by having that cliché transgendered into a female athlete.

John Allsopp, who has an impressive array of stage and TV credits, convincingly portrays another school trope: the geek. Unlike his more athletic, “cooler” classmates, Oren grows up to become one of those successful Silicon Valley high tech types – although with his hectic work schedule he remains romantically challenged.

Of all the characters, Karole Freeman seems to most play against type. Her bespectacled Winter Graham (spelled like “the cracker,” not the unit of measurement, she insists) is a female nerd who, like Oren, the arch-competitor she outshines at the science fair (much to Oren’s consternation, his male pride pierced by a mere girl!) is a science and math whiz. During the high school flashback scenes she’s a sort of female Urkel of  Family Matters.

Tod Macofsky’s character Kevin is a musical theater aficionado and fan of female gymnastics and track events who idolizes Sarah. Kevin is considered to be “flamboyant” -- until he has a homosexual awakening after he turns 15, a disastrous incident with long-term consequences. As an openly gay character coping with an often hostile straight (or seemingly straight) world, Kevin is possibly the most introspective of the 40-year-olds, although he’s had a series of failed romances with partners he always finds fault with them.

Theater and TV veteran Craig Woolson probably portrays 40’s most complex character. The son of a military officer, Robby is putatively straight. Even after he and Kevin are discovered in a compromising position by his father, Robby tries to live up to parental expectations, although he never can, despite the fact that he marries and has a child.

Robby lives life as a lie, and the closeted character has one of the show's best songs, Better Left Unsaid, about how his alcoholic mother and soldier father always hold back and never say or talk about what they really feel. Don’t ask, don’t tell, indeed. (By the way, Kevin is often called “K.P.” by the other characters -- this may be a sly military reference, to a persecuted gay doing “K.P. (kitchen patrol) duty,” which has been a form of punishment in the armed forces.)

My favorite number is called 25 Years From Now. Sung by the entire ensemble, in their freshman year the quintet optimistically imagine a world a quarter century hence, when horrors like poverty, war and world hungry will be things of the past. Alas! With two contemporary wars and a deep recession, we all know how that wistful dream turned out. Since they were singing during the 1980s, I am somewhat skeptical that 15 year olds were so optimistic during the Reagan era. It seems like an anthem more fitting for my ‘60s/’70s generation, but it’s nice to think that perhaps youth is eternally hopeful. Anyway, if this middle-aged scribbler knew when he was a 15-year-old revolutionary how things would turn out today, his too, too solid flesh would probably have melted then.

I had the most questions about Freeman’s character. Her anti-stereotypical Winter takes a 90 degree turn after graduating and becomes more of a familiar type of African-American image with show biz panache, although, to be fair, her mid-life crisis leads Winter back to her nerdy roots. Of course, this stretch demonstrates the range of Freeman’s acting talent. While the play excels in delineating homosexual issues, it does little to shed light on racial issues, which, alas, remain a major issue, even in Obama’s America. Race is only mentioned in passing in 40 is the New 15 and an interracial romance is not even commented upon. Perhaps this is because bookwriter Johnson is gay, and both he and his longtime collaborator, composer Cindy O’Connor, are Caucasian.

Another point: the way the adult Kevin and Robby resolve (or don’t) their relationship a quarter century on also raised this critic’s eyebrows. Really? The musical ends on a high note of optimism, as the desperate, disparate characters, who have reunited after having gone their separate ways over the years, face life and what it has to throw at us with a renewed upbeat attitude.

O’Connor’s music, accompanied by a live band, is pleasantly enjoyable, although there are no toe-tapping numbers I hummed walking out the theater’s doors. Johnson’s lyrics are bright and playful although I frequently was able to guess the oncoming rhyming word. Kevin Traxler’s set and lighting design includes images projected onto a screen that cleverly uses Rorschach Test pictures, which coyly suggest the characters’ therapy and psychoanalysis. The ensemble is deftly directed by Michele Spears, while the play is produced by Scott Guy, Executive Director of the Academy for New Musical Theatre.

40 is the New 15 runs through Aug. 22 at the NoHo Arts Center, 5628 Vineland Ave., North Hollywood, CA 91601. For tickets and showtimes: 818/506-8500; www.anmt.org

FILM REVIEW: SPOKEN WORD

A moment of silence for Cruz (Kuno Becker) and Shae (Persia White). Photo Credit: Lorey Sebastian/Luminaria.

Poetic lessons

By John Esther

Now living in San Francisco, Cruz Montoya (Kuno Becker) left his land of Santa Fe, New Mexico, to become one of the hottest poets on the West Coast poetry circuit. When he is not telling adoring audiences how he “wants to get shot,” Cruz teaches poetry to the kind of young troubled men Cruz was back in the day.

Struggling with his bipolar condition, Cruz fights with his inner demons yet he has considerable support by his new artist girlfriend, Shae (Persia White). It looks like he is going to make it until he receives a call from his sister-in-law (Monique Gabriela Curnen) that his father is dying of pancreatic cancer.

Compelled to return to the house he grew up then escaped – located in Chimayo, New Mexico to be exact – Bud Light Cruz looks after his Tecate father (Rubén Blades) through the end of the calendar year and the end of his father’s life.

Unfortunately, during his return Cruz quickly falls back into his old Santa Fe nightclub ways. The lure of easy money and drugs gets to Cruz and it will take more than a few upheavals to save Cruz this time.

Directed by Victor Nunez (Ulee’s Gold), this usually subtle, but sometimes a bit too dramatic --- such as the “dirt” fight, a coincidental overdose of a friend (Maurice Compte) and the funeral “showdown” with the local crime boss, Emilio (Miguel Sandoval) -- look at Latino life in New Mexico is flavored by some above occasionally good poetry, very strong performances and considerable sense of care for the characters by Nunez, director of photography Virgil Mirano and co-screenwriters Joe Ray Sandoval and William T. Conway (Conway also co-produced).

 

CIRCUS REVIEW: RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY

An "unnatural act" for a circus elephant.

Bread, circuses and animal rights

By Ed Rampell

The circus is in town, and to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of P.T. Barnum, a star was unveiled -- by an elephant, but of course -- at Staples Center’s Star Plaza, honoring “the Great American Showman.” Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s 130 clowns, acrobats, trapeze artists, stilts and tightrope walkers, weight lifters, contortionists, plus pachyderms, tigers and other animals are performing in the Southland through Aug. 8.

I remember during small kid days the arrival of Ringling Bros.’ in New York, and the elephant march up one of Manhattan’s avenues -- an irresistible photo op if ever there was one -- to Madison Square Garden, where I’d join thousands of other “children of all ages” to watch the thrilling spectacle. But times have changed since then, and along with heightened awareness about minority, women’s and gay rights, there is an increasing consciousness about the rights of our furry, feathered and tusked friends. Thus on July 15 two youths outside Downtown L.A.’s Staples Center were handing out eyebrow raising Animal Defenders International leaflets condemning beasts performing under the proverbial big top. (I had also seen animal rights activists protesting outside of Switzerland’s Knie Circus at Lake Zurich in May.)

But the child inside of me still wanted to see the much ballyhooed “Greatest Show on Earth,” and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey remains, well, a circus. The darkness was punctuated by swirling multi-hued colored lights twirled by audience members, who were mostly kids filling about 70 percent of Staples Center’s seats during the noon performance I attended.

Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson wore a spangly top hat and tails, as a pachyderm bearing a woman in a red, white and blue sparkly outfit waving Old Glory led the opening parade of human and animal performers. The ensuing “Barnum’s FUNundrum” was full of bangles, Bengals, hoopla, hokum and smokum (literally there are smoke effects), all accompanied by a live orchestra.

Acrobats amazed and delighted onlookers with their death defying dexterity, leaping through hoops, atop bamboo poles, seesaws, etc. A net dropped and trainer Daniel Raffo -- reportedly a fifth generation circus performer -- handled nine tigers, using a long stick with a sort of whip at the end to guide the Bengals and others to do feline tricks, such as walking on their hind legs (and you thought herding cats was hard!). A so-called “sideshow” with an obviously faux bearded lady, Siamese twins, wild man of Borneo (which, by the way, is not a Pacific Island, as the show states, but is part of Asia), etc., spoofed the old carnival freaks cliché (other sideshows later spoofed superheroes and paid homage to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show).

Russian tightrope walkers called the Sky-High Ice Gliders did their derring-do about 25 feet above the ground. Although they had no net, the agile performers were attached to lines -- just in case… In a day at the 21st century circus, seven motorcyclists roared around an enclosed sphere in day-glo bikes, defying gravity – talk about L.A. rush hour traffic! (This was my companion’s – Kenyan rapper Gleam Joel – favorite act.)

A hokey hoe-down took place after intermission in, literally, a three ring circus, featuring lamas, ponies, elephants (one was led by a diminutive dog). For me, the highlight of the entire show was the Flying Carceras, who extend their rigging on high an extra four feet in order to attempt the quadruple somersault, which, according to the circus, is “the most difficult trick in trapeze arts.” For the record, at the show I saw the catcher did not succeed in grasping the flyer as he tried to perform the quad, but a net saved the plummeting trapeze artist from breaking his nimble neck.

An Egyptian-themed number indicates there is an internationalist, exotic aspect to circuses, which often recruit talent from around the world. The Ulaanbataar Ballerina, who perform a jaw-dropping hand balancing and strap act, hail from Mongolia, as do Meetal and the Balancing Body Benders, a strongman and contortion act. Many other Asians, such as the Barnum Bouncers (a troupe of trampoline bouncing acrobats clad in outlandish purple costumes from Puyang, China), as well as African Americans (including the ringmaster and many dancers) are part of the Ringling Bros. action.

All in all, I confess that this child of a certain age found Barnum’s FUNundrum to be good, if sometimes corny, fun. But the use of animals does present a conundrum as circuses no longer fly through the air with the greatest of ease in our more sensitive times. Just outside the circus in the sweltering heat, in between her leafleting passersby who expressed middling interest, I interviewed Michelle Blanchard, outreach coordinator for the L.A. office of the London-based Animal Defenders International, who allege that circuses, including Ringling Bros., abuse animals. Blanchard, a longtime vegan, asserted that this is how circuses get animals to perform. “They don’t do tricks in the wild. It’s not natural."

In a press release, Ringling Bros. contends that it “has never been found in violation of the Animal Welfare Act” and that the circus is regulated by USDA and “meets and often exceeds federal regulations [and] USDA standards…” In an “Elephant Care Fact Sheet” Ringling Bros. maintains that it takes care of the health, diet and cleanliness needs of pachyderms, as well as the housing and transport requirements of all of the circus’ animals. Ringling Bros. states that it spends $6 million annually on animal care, including $60,000 per elephant, and that it established a Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida.

ADI calls for removing animals from circuses and making them human-only shows. Its leaflet claims that the conditions for and treatment of animals in captivity forces them to “go out of their minds,” and warns ticket buyers that they may be in peril of being attacked by “dangerous animals.” (I was in Honolulu when a “rogue” elephant named Tyke went on a deadly rampage in the 1990s at a circus that was not a Ringling Bros. show.)

According to Ringling Bros., under its current ownership, it “has never experienced an animal-related incident that placed a member of the general public at risk.” Last December a long-standing lawsuit brought by the ASPCA and other animal advocates that sought to forbid elephants from appearing in Ringling Bros. circuses was reportedly dismissed by a federal court. The circus contends that what it calls “animal special interest groups” has an “aggressive and extreme agenda…” At the end of the Barnum FUNundrum, a baby pachyderm promenades about the stage and is introduced as the next generation and future of the so-called “Greatest Show on Earth,” signaling Ringling Bros. intention to continue including elephants and other animals in its acts in the years to come.

I am not an expert on the issue of animal participation in circuses, nor have I investigated the matter thoroughly. However, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know that this may be a real life conundrum that not even a Mongolian contortionist could wriggle out of.

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus takes place at Staples Center through July 18; at Ontario’s Citizens Business Bank Arena July 21--25; and at Anaheim’s Honda Center July 28—Aug. 8.

FILM REVIEW: INCEPTION

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a dream enter-Inception.

The dream police

By Don Simpson

“I leave our world without believing that I am countering the gas with a superior lucidity…the journey begins. It lasts for centuries… I understand that multiplicity is the sign of this other world and unity the sign of ours” -- Jean Cocteau, The Difficulty of Being

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a corporate spy who infiltrates other people’s dreams to steal their ideas. Currently exiled from the United States, Dom is hired by an influential Japanese billionaire named Saito (Ken Watanabe) to do something that has purportedly never been done before: introduce an idea into someone's mind in such a way to convince them that is their own. In return for a successful “inception,” Saito will end Dom’s forced exile from his country and children.

The target of the "inception" is a young billionaire, Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy). Robert is heir to his dying father's (Pete Postlethwaite) empire, thus a competitor of Saito’s. Robert’s mind is protected by an infinite army of gun-toting antibodies, thus adding the necessary mix of neurology and psychology to smarten-up the gunfights, chases and explosions in what otherwise would have been a very formulaic heist film.

In one of Inception’s rare formulaic moments, Dom assembles a top-notch dream team: his longtime partner in crime, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt); master of disguise, Eames (Tom Hardy); and dream chemist, Yusuf (Dileep Rao). Via his professorial father-in-law, Miles (Michael Caine), Dom also recruits Ariadne (Ellen Page), a brilliant young architecture student who has never worked in the land and logic of dreams, but apparently she is a very quick study. (In Greek mythology, Ariadne helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur's labyrinth.)

Dom tutors Ariadne on the art of constructing, controlling and navigating dream space and logic. During this process the audience also learns some important facts about dream infiltration: the human mind is as alert to intruders as the immune system is to pathogens; dream time has a complex relationship to real time; dreams do not have beginnings; there are various ways to end a dream; the dream infiltrators can drag their subject down the proverbial rabbit hole of multiple layers of dream worlds; and most importantly, dream architecture does not give a rat’s ass about logic or physics (seemingly solid structures bend and tilt at will, entire cities fold in half, characters float as if weightless, there is even a Penrose stairway). These are the surreal worlds of M.C. Escher, Jean Cocteau and Salvatore Dali…

Dom -- the only character allowed any depth and development in Inception -- is motivated purely by the sorrow and guilt relating to the deat of his wife, Mal (French actor Marion Cotillard). Mal (meaning "evil" in French) relentlessly haunts Cobb's memories, thus also his dreams, and serves as a rogue "antibody" whose sole purpose is to foil Cobb’s dream-world forays. No matter whose dream Cobb enters, Mal routinely appears as his nemesis.

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento), Inception is all about its mind-blowing tapestry in which reality and dreams are lucidly intertwined, the multi-level chess game involving a dream within a dream within a dream. The strange and dissorienting dream logic of the individual scenes is cleverly bound together by an overarching traditional heist film narrative structure; without that logical restraint, the film would float aimlessly adrift in time and place…as if only a dream with no reality to which to awaken.

Inception is a truly unique cinematic experience (the closest next of kin being the cerebrally inferior film, The Matrix) that allows the audience to escape reality for 148 minutes all the while asking them to piece together a surrealist puzzle in order to keep up with the onscreen events. Inception’s biggest fault is the lack of character depth for everyone except Dom -- the pawn which Ariadne dutifully carries is clearly a symbol of Nolan’s role for her and the others on the team. If I didn’t know any better I would think that the entire film takes place in Dom’s dreams and this is why the characters seem like mere manikins used for set-dressing (a la Shutter Island).

“I re-enter our world. I see unity reforming. What a bore! Everything is one…This is the duration of the centuries from which I’m surfacing, this the expanse of my dizzy journey” -- Jean Cocteau, The Difficulty of Being

OUTFEST 2010: BEAR NATION

A bear hug of sorts.

A bear is…

By Don Simpson

Bear Nation takes us inside two distinct camps of bears: the doughy and scruffy camp and the burly body-builder camp. Though some of these bears are black, some are brown, some are white, and quite a few are grizzly, I should probably clarify that director Malcolm Ingram’s (Small Town Gay Bar) documentary concerns the bear sub-culture of gay men.

Ingram interviews a slew of bears, all of whom discuss their love for bear culture all the while purposefully differentiating themselves from the other unique subsets of gay society (particularly the ultra-feminine “twinks”). Though many of the interviews are entertaining (as in humorous), it seems as though most of the talking head interviews are saying the exact same things over and over again as if they are reading from the same page of a script. The true highlights of Bear Nation are Kevin Smith (Clerks; Chasing Amy) and Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü, Sugar). I was initially put off by Smith’s inclusion in the documentary, but his perspective is so different than everyone else’s that -- for once in his career! -- he is a breath of fresh air (rather than a whole lot of hot air). Mould also has a little something different to offer to Ingram’s camera.


As much as I enjoyed and appreciated Bear Nation, I really felt as though it was missing something. Bear Nation is a great overview of the two differing perspectives of “what is a bear?” As an outsider I find this debate quite intriguing, mainly because I am curious about why the two camps – which are quite the opposite in philosophy and appearance – can’t just agree to disagree? Why do they both have to be called bears? (That right there is the exact question that I really wanted Ingram to discuss.) I understand that both camps are of the opinion that they were bears first, but maybe they can have some sort of meeting of the minds and compromise. Maybe there can be two different categories of bears -- like grizzly bears and teddy bears?


(Bear Nation screens July 17, 9:30 p.m., DGA Theatre 2)

FILM REVIEW: WINNEBAGO MAN

Jack Rebney is the infamous "Winnebago Man."

Laugh back in anger

By John Esther

Apparently the video of an angry man trying to sell a Winnebago has been a piece of visual solace and comfort to many for years. Some claim to have watched it thousands of times, others claim it gave them hope after tough days at work and it has been quoted in a few unmemorable films, but nobody gave much thought to the man having the meltdown until Austin-based director Ben Steinbauer.

Known as the “Winnebago Man,” Jack Rebney was hired to sell those gas-consuming vehicles. After enough insults to the industrial video crew shooting the motor home sales piece, an anonymous VHS tape of outtakes circulated amongst video nerds, eventually achieving cult status. It was pure entertainment and whomever the man was viewers were laughing at was of little consequence.

So Steinbauer does some sleuthing and finds Rebney living in the woods of Northern California, as angry as ever, but not so much at himself, but at the rightwing U.S. government, especially former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

While it was nice of Steinbauer to put a little humanity behind the video images of the ranting man so many people laughed at, Winnebago Man is about as consequential and amusing as the original video. Politically, socially and intellectually uneventful, Rebney’s intellectual honesty in the video and in the movie is far more amusing than those more infamous foul-mouthed tirades of his, which, by the way, pale in comparison to Mel Gibson’s recent, and not so recent, verbal tirades.

Destined to fade faster in theaters than “Winnebago Man,” if you liked the video, you will probably like Winnebago Man.

FILM REVIEW: KISSES

Kylie (Kelly O'Neill) and Dylan (Shane Curry) surviving a night of Kisses.

Kisses of youth

By John Esther

After two years on the film festival circuit, where it picked up a few nominations and awards along the way, writer-director Lance Daly’s Kisses touches the silver screen in select cities across the country.

Set around and in Dublin, Ireland, Dylan (Shane Curry) is an obnoxious 11-year-old child living with an obnoxious father (Paul Roe) in an obnoxious neighborhood filled with obnoxious people of all ages. Gossip, taunting, yelling and hitting are the rules of the day.

It is a daunting existence, but like a flower set amongst the weeds, the only thing growing well for Dylan is Kylie (Kelly O’Neill), the abused next door girl who fancies one day marrying Dylan if he promises to get her out of town.

After a series of escalating antagonisms between father and son, Dylan and Kylie flee to center city where they roll through the rugged rues on their flashing shoes, seeking Dylan’s older runaway brother while trying to find food and safety from the city’s more sinister elements. Temporarily the pre-teens find solace and comfort from strangers such as Down Under Dylan (Steve Rea), a kind Australian man who does tributes to American singer Bob Dylan, but a big city is rarely kind to runaway kids.

Marked by strong performances from Curry, O’Neill and their older peers, the 75-minute Kisses captures the precariousness of kids who are trying to break free of their sad surroundings while holding onto the solidarity of childhood friendship. Unfortunately, one gets the feeling these kids will eventually miss the opportunity and lose the will to leave while encountering the likelihood of losing touch with each other by the time they are through their teens -- despite the seemingly tacked-on trite ending.

OUTFEST 2010: PAULISTA

A makover and masked Suzana (Maria Clara Spinelli) in Paulista. 

Brazilian bi-ways

By Miranda Inganni

What happens when a transgender, a drug addicted sexy singer and a horny actress meet at a bar? Well, in Roberto Moreira’s São Paulo-based film, Paulista (Quanto Dura o Amor?), you find that out.

Marina (Sílvia Lourenço) arrives in this dazzling city to pursue her acting career while living with a friend of a friend’s, Suzana (Maria Clara Spinelli). As Suzana falls in love with a colleague, she struggles with the decision of letting him in to her secretive life. Meanwhile, Marina meets a chanteuse, Justine (Danni Carlos), while bonding with her new friend over a beer. Smitten with Justine, and thanks to a chance encounter, the two beauties hit it off, then get each other off.

Lest I forget, male characters feature in this romantic, touching flick as well: Jay (Fábio Herford) as a neighbor who idealizes the search for true love; Gil (Gustav Machado) as the chiseled nightclub-owner and Justine’s husband; Nuno, (Paulo Vilhena) the handsome lawyer who is faced with a predicament because of his partner’s love, trust and honesty.

This sweet (double) love triangle is quite well written by Moreira and Anna Muylaret and acted by all. The Brazilian film moves along at a quick enough pace to keep things exciting, while allowing a glimpse into the inner workings of three friends in search of something more from love.

Recommended.  

(Paulista screens July 16, 9:45 p.m., DGA Theatre 2)

THEATER REVIEW: THURGOOD

Laurence Fishburne as Thurgood Marshall. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

One-man show dramatizes history in an entertaining way

By Ed Rampell

It’s ironic that I saw Thurgood -- starring Laurence Fishburne as the civil rights titan and first Black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall -- in an L.A. theater on July 8. Not only because the next day Predators, the action pic co-starring Fishburne opened, but because that Thursday night a jury in an L.A. courthouse found Oakland police officer Johannes Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter (instead of second degree murder) for shooting to death an unarmed Black youth, Oscar Grant. This was precisely the type of case that motivated Marshall to defend the defenseless, in particular blacks victimized by lynching and the state’s law enforcement apparatus (sometimes, alas, one and the same thing). There were 89 lynchings in 1908, the year Marshall was born.

Written by George Stevens, Jr., Thurgood is a perfect specimen of the one-man show format, with all the right ingredients. First of all, there’s a great story to be told, and Stevens’ script does so in a manner worthy of its subject matter, including: Marshall’s lifelong campaign for equal rights; dramatic courtroom clashes culminating with his triumph in 1954’s landmark Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation case; and Marshall’s ultimate appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. A gallery of historic characters figure in this tantalizing tale: Poet Langston Hughes, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Martin Luther King, JFK, LBJ, etc. The story is also enacted by a first rate actor, who convincingly ages onstage as he brings the legendary legal eagle to life and we follow Marshall from his youth in Baltimore to his senior citizenship on and off the bench. Fishburne, who starred in 1995’s Othello and the Matrix movies, has come a long way since he machine-gunned Vietnamese as a callow stoned youth in 1979’s Apocalypse Now.

The play’s backdrop is a huge American flag, reminiscent of Jasper Johns’ version, except this Old Glory is all white, allowing various images to be cinematically projected upon it, such as of the Supreme Court in Washington. In addition to Elaine McCarthy’s projection design, Ryan Rumery’s sound design adds to the drama’s overall effect, with various sound effects and recordings. Brian Nason’s lighting is also evocative of the piece’s myriad moods that move from jubilation to fear in this production deftly directed by Leonard Foglia.

Fishburne, who received Tony nomination for his Broadway depiction of Marshall, portrays the man as an irascible courtroom gladiator and crusader with personal quirks -- there are hints of a fondness for liquor and out-of-wedlock peccadilloes. His family had a predilection for unusual names (including an uncle named “Fearless”) and, as Thurgood (short for “Thoroughgood”) admits, for “stubbornness” -- a trait, by and by, that stood him and the cause of social justice in good stead over time. All in all, the mythic Marshall who did so much to overturn Jim Crow was all too human -- in all senses of the term.

The play’s incisive and insightful script delves into Marshall’s legal philosophy: That “the law is a weapon” and the U.S. Constitution, with its promise of “equal justice under law,” should be used to smash American apartheid. As such Marshall disapproved of the now sanctified Dr. King, whom, we should remember, was an outlaw advocating breaking unjust laws. When Rev. King champions Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” Marshall wryly reminds his friend that Thoreau wrote this essay while he was in a prison cell (one of this drama’s many humorous moments). If Marshall’s battlefield was the courthouse, King’s was the streets; to each their venue.

The playwright and his actor successfully dramatize history, making it highly entertaining. For instance, the audience is reminded about the struggles of the NAACP (Marshall long served this venerable civil rights organization as an attorney for years), and of the irony that Earl Warren -- who, as California’s attorney general during WWII, played a despicable role in the internment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry -- eventually played such a major role in desegregating America as Chief Justice of the liberal so-called “Warren Court” that ruled unanimously against segregation in the Brown v. Board case. (Perhaps Warren was trying to atone for his internment sins?) And so on.

My one quibble with the play is that it does not mention that Thurgood’s second wife, Cecilia, was born in Maui and the daughter of Filipino parents. Perhaps it was considered to be politically incorrect to point out that Thurgood’s wife was not Black? But Marshall was, after all, a fighter for integration, and his marrying a woman from Hawaii would be in character. I would have liked to learn more about “Sissy,” who is still alive, but this is a minor point about a major drama that was on Broadway a year ago.

Thurgood runs through Aug. 8 at the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood Village, CA 90024. For tickets: 310/208-5454; for more info: http://www.geffenplayhouse.com/

OUTFEST 2010: EARTHLING

Slowly but surely, comes Clay Liford's Earthling.

The seed pod that fell to earth

By Don Simpson

A spiky ball resembling a naval mine or oversized seed pod from a sweet gum tree drifts in space towards a space station. The station’s three-man crew picks up the strange object. One of the astronauts, Sean (Matt Socia), comes in contact with it; a strange pulse rings out, instantly killing the other two astronauts. Sean survives the encounter, but returns to Earth in a comatose state.

Back on Earth, a temporary brown-out triggers Judith (Rebecca Spence) to suffer an epileptic seizure while driving, thus resulting in a car accident. Judith wakes up in the hospital with no recollection of what happened. The doctors change her anti-seizure medication, assuming that she has grown immune to her previous dosage, and send Judith home.

Distracted and confused by very vivid dreams (or suppressed memories) of a young girl in a swimming pool and also of the astronaut who we now know as Sean; Judith, a respected school teacher, begins to breakdown mentally. She is slowly drifting away from the person Judith used to be, doing things that she would have never done before the accident. Her devoted husband, Stephen (Chris Doubek), becomes frustrated with Judith’s sudden inability to communicate with him. Is she emotionally scarred from her recent miscarriage (presumably from the car accident) or is Judith stressed about something else?

Judith no longer knows who she is -- even her mirror image appears foreign to her. She has developed strange bumps on her forehead and her skin peels off when she scratches it. Water mesmerizes her and Judith seems to be able to create waves in liquids merely by focusing with her mind.

It is not long before Judith discovers a strange group of people who appear to be following her. At first she does not recognize them; however, it turns out that they share many of the same traits as Judith -- seizures, strange bumps on their foreheads, vivid dreams -- yet these kindred spirits seem to have a pretty good understanding of what is going on. We soon discover that the brownout “rebooted” Judith and her rediscovered brethren, reminding them of their true identities and purpose. That spiky pod from space is somehow linked to them, as are the strange slugs, as is Sean.

At times, feeling more like a rich existential character study a la John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence or Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’avventura rather than a sci-fi flick, the concept of pod people invading Earth harkens back to Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and there have multiple remakes, as well as Shaun Cassidy’s underappreciated short-lived television series, Invasion.

The difference with Earthling is that the humans never become aware of the presence of the pod people. The aliens have assimilated into society convincing even themselves that they are human. Judith and her fellow parasitic alien friends are not on Earth to cause harm or steal its precious resources; they are on Earth to experience the human condition, like experience love. Unfortunately, since this alien species cannot successfully procreate with humans their time on Earth is limited.

Some people might be confused (and frustrated) by the slow and tranquil nature of Earthling. The pacing, atmosphere and tone are reminiscent of Nicholas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris -- both are films that sci-fi fans love to hate, because they play in stark contrast to the kinetic-pacing and overabundant special effects inherent to most sci-fi films. There are also some low-fi special effects – done in true B-movie fashion – reminding me of some of David Cronenberg’s early films such as Scanners.

Writer-director Clay Liford does not shy away from referencing different genres of cinema -- such as the aforementioned Cassavetes and Antonioni --; in doing so, the resulting creation is something very unique and special. Grounded almost entirely on earth, Earthling is purely a cerebral brand of sci-fi functioning as an intense meditation on humanity. Is a human being defined purely by biological make-up or can it be a state of mind?

Recommended.

(Earthling screens July 10, 2:30 p.m., REDCAT; July 17, 5 p.m., REDCAT)