Crash

Documentaries

** Highly Recommended **

Library DVD. Eva had recommended this, several years ago. We loved this view into the lives of Herb and Dorothy Vogel, who lived all their married life in a NYC rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment that was nothing to write home about. But they were fine with it. They lived on her salary (she worked at the Brooklyn Public Library) and spent his salary (he worked nights at the P.O.) collecting art. As a young man, he was interested in art, and educated himself by taking evening classes, and buying books. By the time they got married, he was painting, and his enthusiasm was infectious; Dorothy started painting, too. For awhile, all their available wall space displayed their own paintings. Then they started collecting small works of art that they could get home with on the subway. It blossomed from there. For the most part, they bought directly from starving artists, and established life-long friendships. The point was made many times by the artists interviewed: ‘They really looked. So many people don’t really look.” Dorothy credits Herb with being the main force behind their collection, but Herb says (and I totally agree): “I couldn’t have done it without Dorothy!”

Many museums became interested in acquiring their collection. They never said yes until the National Gallery of Art came calling. One reason they chose them was that admission to the museum was free, and that meshed with Herb and Dorothy’s idea that art was (or should be) for the common man. {It took weeks to move their collection and on the market it would be worth millions.}

Wonderful documentary. Interviews with Spalding Gray, and clips of his work, pieced together from 120 hours of video, seven years after his death. In his journal (some of which has been published) he observed about his monologues: "The well-told partial truth to deflect the private raw truth.”

Spalding discovered theatre at Emerson College. In an acting class, he didn't have anything prepared for one exercise, so he just started talking about his day. At the end, the teacher said, "That was good. Who wrote that?" During the plays they did, there was a person off-stage who would supply a cue, if he felt the actor was not going to remember his line. And that person was always cueing Spalding. Until the director stepped in and said, "Don't feed Spalding his lines unless he asks for it. His timing is impeccable." Both those were stunningly memorable moments for Spalding, the dyslexic, who had almost failed high school, and didn't know what he was going to be good at.

This 40-min film was winner of the Oscar for Documentary Short, and I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to see it. It focuses on three children who fled their homelands in Darfur, South Africa, and Eritrea, and now attend the Bialik-Rogozin Public School in Tel Aviv. This school serves 750 refugees and immigrants from forty-eight countries and

every known religion. In five years, the principal, Karen Tal, performed what looks like an educational miracle. One thing she has done is successfully engage with the parents. She has opened an evening class for 135 parents who want to learn Hebrew, not that that was part of the movie.

See the trailer here: http://www.telavivfoundation.org/strangers.html

This was screened during our 360|365 Film Festival.

Bill Cunningham, age 80, has been a chronicler of fashion for his whole life. He grew up Catholic, and still is a regular church-goer, but confessed in this film that, “as a kid, I only went to look at the women’s hats.” After stints at The Chicago Tribune and Women’s Wear Daily, he published a group of his impromptu photographs in The New York Times in Dec, 1978, and it soon became a regular series (with which the paper’s readers are no doubt familiar). In this film we get to see many of his photographs and also his hole-in-the-wall apartment in NYC (he has successfully kept from falling into “the traps of the rich”), his working relationship with his colleagues, and his 29^th bike (“28 stolen”) on which he zips around Manhattan. This deservedly won the “Best Documentary” award at our 360|365 Film Festival.

I hope this was the runner-up for 360|365 Best Documentary, as I loved this, too. I had no idea what all the wind turbine issues were, until seeing this film. Meredith, NY (in Delaware County) was not prepared when Airtricity (a company based in Ireland) and other companies started buying leases from local landowners. Some residents saw it as a way to bring some income to local farmers. Some saw it is a way to do something good for the world and provide an alternative to nonrenewable sources of energy. But, issues of “setback,” noise, and neighbors had to be dealt with. The Town Planning Board and Town Council were soon in the thick of things. Also interviewed were landowners near Tug Hill (near Lowville) where The Roaring Brook Wind Farm Project has installed 196 turbines and vastly altered the landscape.

Ruth Gruber was born in 1911, the same year as my mother. She was 97, and sharp as a tack, when interviewed for this film. When Janet Siegel and I saw this movie in July, 2011 we learned that she was still alive and expecting to see her 100^th birthday on Sept 30. In the film, we find out she is Dava Sobel’s aunt. Dava is shown taking her about to some of the places in Brooklyn she used to live, and they are remembering Ruth’s father’s reaction when he found out his daughter wanted to be a writer: “What kind of career is that, for a nice Jewish girl?” At age 24, she became a New York Herald Tribune reporter and photographer, and the same year was the first journalist to enter the Soviet Arctic. In 1947, she was in Palestine to witness the Exodus 1947 enter Haifa harbor with its 4,500 Jewish refugees, after its attack by the Royal Navy. Her photograph for the New York Post of the Union Jack overlaid with a swastika, on the Allied prison ship Runnymede Park, forced the British to honor their word and allow the refugees into Cyprus. She has written 19 books. The three volumes of her memoirs are entitled Ahead of Time: My Early Years as a Foreign Correspondent, Inside of Time: From Alaska to Israel, and In Spite of Time: How to Live at 93 (the latter is unpublished). In 1932 (at age 20!), she wrote her doctoral dissertation on Virginia Woolf. She married at 40 and then had two children.

** Also Worth Seeing **

This (the filmmaker’s first film) was a 35-min documentary, followed by a 35-min Q&A with the subject of the film, David S. Johnson (b. 1926). He returned after WWII to Jacksonville, FL, his hometown. Interested in photography, he was perusing Popular Photography when he saw that a new photography department was being started by Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He wrote directly to Adams and became Ansel’s first black student. Johnson (with a few other photographers) lived at Adams’s house, at 121 24th Ave. in San Francisco. He got private lessons from Minor White in Adams’s own darkroom. “What Ansel Adams did for me was open the door.” Johnson eventually moved to the Fillmore District, and, in addition to visually documenting “ordinary African Americans, children and adults, going about the mundane routines, rites and rituals,” he also haunted nightclubs like the Primalon Ballroom and the Booker T. Washington Cocktail Lounge from the late 1940s through the ’50s.

Photo by ceemarie, http://www.flickr.com/photos/45593232@N00/3724412225/

The message: Cheaper food is not necessarily a bargain. Also: You hold the power to change the system every time you shop for groceries or don’t stop for fast food. You vote three times a day. {Votes don’t count; dollars do.}

When Jonas Mekas was finally able to go back to Lithuania in 1971 (25 years after leaving) he filmed this 88-min “home movie”: his mother gets water from the well and cooks over a wood fire outdoors (too hot inside), he horses around with his brothers (who work on the collective farm), he reunites with his sisters and their families. This film was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2006. It was shown at The Dryden when 89-yr-old Jonas Mekas came to GEH to be recognized on April 9^th as this year’s Honorary Scholar. Peter Bogdanovich (long-time friend of Jonas) was also on stage. {Bogdanavich does an impression of Jimmy Stewart.}

A film (made for $18,000) about Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr, letterpress printer. Because he was doing an internship at U of R, he was present at this screening. I love his posters (www.kennedyprints.com) and his outlook on life.

A Palestinian family from the Gaza Strip comes to an Israeli hospital’s double-isolation ward because their 4-mo-old son has an auto-immune disease, and they are hopeful he will be able to get a bone marrow transplant. Shlomi Eldar, correspondent and journalist, gets involved when the doctor asks him to provide coverage on the Channel 10 news, in hopes of getting a donor to cover the cost. Conversations ensue, over the months, about what the mother would think if her son grew up to be a suicide bomber.

Being Elmo, dir by Constance Marks & Philip Shane © 2011 B
The Dryden. We saw this when Ezra was home for Thanksgiving. Kevin Clash was intrigued by puppets from an early age.

** Could Have Skipped **

The Dryden. I now have a much better sense of who William S. Burroughs was. Allen Ginsburg (1926 – 1997) and Jack Kerouac (1922 – 1969) and Burroughs (1914 – 1997) met and became friends in about 1944. They respectively published Howl (1956), On the Road (1957) and Naked Lunch (1959). Burroughs influenced lots of people, many of whom were interviewed in this film (Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson). Bono cites Burroughs as a major influence. So, it was an interesting film, but not a great film.

Library DVD. The story of how "Thierry Guetta was transformed, with Banksy’s prodding, from a chronicler of street art into an artist himself, with his cut-and-paste works that now command tens of thousands of dollars." – New York Times 01/06/2011

There has been debate over whether the documentary is genuine or a mockumentary.

I learned who Bill Plympton is (born 1946; grew up along the Clackamas River in Oregon), and now know he is regarded by many as one of the great independent animators. He has made at least 26 animated short films, and 5 features, all self-financed. However, from the samples shown, I would not like these films. The interviews in the documentary (Terry Gilliam, and others) were kind of silly, with the subjects hamming up their own performances. This film did not explore his career or life in any kind of deep way.

Library DVD. Our old TV bit the dust in early November, and we haven't replaced it yet. This is the first DVD I ever watched on my laptop. I would not have wanted to sit through this in a movie theatre. In fact, I was glad I could multi-task. I toggled over to read about the Carthusians, and other related topics, and only toggled back to the movie if I heard music or footsteps, and wanted to see what was happening now (not much).

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Feature Films

** Highly Recommended **

Screenplay written by Jacques Tati, adapted by Sylvain Chomet.

Individual frames would make great children's book illustrations. I enjoyed this much more than The Tripletts of Bellville.

Between this and The Illusionist, I have seen two stunning animated films this year! My Dog Tulip was based on the 1956 memoir by the same name by J.R. Ackerley (1896-1967), about his 16-year relationship with his adopted Alsatian, Tulip (not the dog’s real name, but what he called her in the book). This film was entirely hand drawn and painted utilizing paperless computer technology. (From the NY Times review: “About 60,000 drawings went into Tulip. But no paper. Or plastic.”) I would love to see more of the Fierlingers’ stuff. And, apparently there’s quite a bit to see.

J. Edgar, dir by Clint Eastwood © 2011 B
We all (Ezra, Eva, Herman, Bob and I) saw this the day after Thanksgiving. Very much worth seeing. The make-up artist should get an Oscar, getting 37-yr-old Leo DiCaprio (J. Edgar) and 25-yr-old Armie Hammer (Clyde Tolson) to age like they did. I recommend Roger Ebert’s review. One line from it: “There's a theme running through most of [Eastwood’s] films since Bird (1988): the man unshakably committed to his own idea of himself.”

Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is a small-town lawyer struggling to make ends meet. He moonlights as a high school wrestling coach, and therein lies most of the humor and story line. He gives into the temptation to become the guardian of one of his elderly clients (for the $1500/mo commission). High school wrestler Alex Shaffer was found for the role of Kyle. "In addition to Giamatti, Ryan and Young, the cast included Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor—Shaffer essentially got paid to attend a master's class in film acting." (Scott Ross, 14 Mar 2011) Shaffer says acting is like wrestling—hard work and good teachers yield rewards.

There are some good laughs in this. We both gave it a thumbs up. Stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen. Written by Will Reiser, based on his own experience of getting cancer in his late 20s. Apparently, Seth Rogen actually is Will’s good friend, in real life. Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard’s daughter, who played Hilly in The Help) plays Rachael, Adam’s girlfriend. Adam’s friend Kyle can see she is no good for him. {Like Prince of Tides, patient falls in love with his therapist.}

This was about family dynamics and career choices. Based on the story of a pair of brothers from Lowell, MA, both professional fighters. Dicky Eklund, was born in 1957. The high point of his career was a fight with Sugar Ray Leonard (the decision eventually went to Leonard, after the referee ruled that when Leonard went down, it was a trip and not a knockdown). Dicky’s half-brother, Micky Ward, born in 1965, turned pro in 1985, the year his brother retired. Melissa Leo won an Oscar for her terrific performance as their narcissistic mother, Alice. Christian Bale won an Oscar for his scene-stealing performance as Dicky. Both were well-deserved.

Dryden Theatre. This was a Broadway play in ‘85 and '86, where it won three Tony Awards (including Best Play, and Best Actor for Judd Hirsch). In this 1996 movie version, Walter Matthau was memorable in the Nat Moyer part. He was about 76 when he played the part, and died about four years later. From a review: "Not content to age into oblivion, Nat works out fantastical schemes to solve the social ills that surround him, taking on whatever role the situation demands and sticking up for the rights of the downtrodden." Great script by Herb Gardner. In 2000, Gardner received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writer's Guild of America. "Herb Gardner's three most successful plays, A Thousand Clowns, I'm Not Rappaport, and Conversations With My Father, continue to be performed in theaters around the world with no sign of stopping anytime soon."

The reviewer for The Cleveland Plain Dealer said, "In any list of subjects made for the movies, a life of introspection is not one of them," and the reviewer from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said, "Forgive me, Father, but I was bored."

Those are amusing comments, but the film actually wasn't boring. For one thing, the faces of the monks were endlessly interesting, especially Jacques Herlin, who played Amédée, one of the survivors. I didn't think the film did a good job of explaining the monks' decision to stay. Sure, Brother Luc, the doctor, said, “I’m not going anywhere.” That was an understandable personal decision. And, I could also understand if the others decided they couldn’t leave him there alone. It just wasn’t that clear to me, in the movie. I've since come to a better understanding, after reading more about why Christian de Chergé came to Algeria, and after reading comments such as the following: "The monks had known they were in danger, but mindful of their vow of stability they remained, continuing to be present to their neighbors [the local Muslim population] who were not able to flee." They had come not to help the people, but to live in partnership with them. They worked their 10 hectares with the people of the village.

I must add that I didn’t think I would rate this “Highly Recommended,” as I exited the theatre. But, it did generate a lot of thought and discussion afterward, and because of those after-effects, I came to value it highly.

Library DVD. Film does a nice job of bringing this piece of English history to life, with Emily Blunt as the young queen, and Rupert Friend as Prince Albert. After the death of Victoria's father, her mother, the Duchess of Kent, relied heavily on the influence of John Conroy. Conroy hoped that Victoria would succeed to the throne at a young age, thus needing a regency government, in which case he would be the "power behind the throne." Victoria managed to come of age, fortunately, before her uncle the king died, and thus, she became queen at 18. This film shows her love affair with Prince Albert. They had 9 children before he died of typhoid at age 42. She was born in 1819 and died in January of 1901—the end of an era.

Bob and I were living in Kentucky in 1973, the year that Secretariat won the Triple Crown. While aware of Secretariat, we were oblivious to all the fuss.

This film explores the idea that Valerie Plame was considered “fair game” by the Bush Administration, after her husband, Joe Wilson, openly disputed a statement made by Bush in his State of the Union address. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This single sentence is now known as "the Sixteen Words." Naomi Watts as Valerie, and Sean Penn as Joe.

Upstairs, Downstairs, Series 1, 2 and 3.

Library DVD. British television drama series created by Jean Marsh (who plays Rose) and Eileen Atkins. I’m just catching up, from the mid-70s! Takes place at the Bellamy residence, a London town house at 165 Eaton Place. These three seasons cover the period 1903 through the looming of WWI. Thanks to Mitzie Collins for turning me on to this. I have really been enjoying it, and look forward to the remaining seasons. I include this and Downton Abbey in this category, even though I know they don’t technically fit in the category “Feature Films.”

Downton Abbey, British TV series (2010), created by Julian Fellowes

This set of 7 episodes (the first season) was the second thing we watched on our new Roku! Stars Hugh Bonneville as Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, and Elizabeth McGovern as Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham. The first two episodes are set in 1912 (the Titanic disaster opens the story), then the next three in 1913, and then the last two in 1914. Thanks to Ezra for this recommendation.

(A reviewer on imdb: "For a better overview of the period, read The Perfect Summer by Juliet Nicholson, about the summer of 1912.")

** Also Worth Seeing **

I love movies about people fighting for their right not to be poisoned, or their right for the workplace to be free of harassment, or their right to equal wages. (Think Norma Rae, North Country, Erin Brockovich, Silkwood, Harlan County, USA, and my personal favorite, Matewan.) (Often, or course, unions are involved).

Soderbergh also wrote the screenplay, based on the 1970 memoir by A.E. Hotchner (most famous for his book Papa Hemingway). The film is set in 1933 St. Louis, when the boy Aaron was 13. Spalding Gray is a supporting actor.

Library DVD. This was my first “Dirty Harry” movie. Clint Eastwood (Harry Callahan) is on desk duty, as a result of one of his many excesses. ("You want an itemized account? You took out two front doors, one front window, 12 feet of counter. Plus damages to the stock, plus one city vehicle totaled. Not to mention three hostages in the hospital, all of whom will probably sue the city.") Meanwhile, his partner is fatally wounded, and dies, but not before giving Clint some important details about The People's Revolutionary Strike Force, who are poised to wreak havoc on San Francisco ("Harry, listen, the punk who cut me. I've seen him before.") Back on the beat, Harry is none too thrilled to be partnered with a young woman, played by Tyne Daly. (Cagney and Lacey was still some five or six years away.) "She wants to play lumberjack, she's going to have to learn to handle her end of the log," snarls Harry. Handle it she does, and together they conquer (the action ends on Alcatraz). The Enforcer was the third Dirty Harry film coming after Dirty Harry (1971) and Magnum Force (1973) and was itself followed by two sequels, Sudden Impact (1983) & The Dead Pool (1989).

Dryden Theatre. I’m so glad I saw this.

With Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin, and Hailee Steinfeld. 14-yr-old Mattie Ross is on a quest to avenge her father’s murder. I didn’t see the 1969 version with John Wayne, but apparently this was not so much a remake of that, but rather went back to the book, by Charles Porter.

Library DVD. Black and white animated film. I had read the graphic novel (the first one, but not Perseoplis 2), and wanted to see how it translated to the screen. Marjane Satrapi grew up in Teheran (which the ancient Greeks called Persepolis, hence the movie's title) during the reign of the Shah and later the Islamists.

First film from this Austrian woman director (born 1972). About the conflict between the East and West, as embodied in a young Turkish woman (with a young son) who wanted Western freedoms (specifically to leave her husband), but didn't want to accept that that also meant estrangement from her birth family. She came home to her parents and siblings, but couldn't live there either, because they maintained that her husband had a right to his son, and that her being a "whore" brought shame to their family.

Dryden theatre; a restored print. This is worth seeing mostly because it is a classic. Though I have to confess I don’t know why it’s a classic. Stars William Holden as Shears, and Alec Guinness as Col. Nicholson (for which he won Best Actor Oscar). The plot takes place in 1943 when, after surrendering in Singapore, Col. Nicholson marches his ragged British company into a Japanese prisoner work camp in the Burmese jungle (this is where the famous whistling of "Colonel Bogey March" is first heard).

The Boston Strangler, dir by Richard Fleischer (c) 1968
Eva and Herman and Ezra and I saw this at The Dryden the night before Thanksgiving. Many years ago, Eva and I had read the book (by Gerold Frank) about these 1962/63 murders, and we both loved it. Tony Curtis—famous for his work in light romantic comedies—plays against type as Albert DeSalvo. Henry Fonda is special prosecutor Joseph Bottomly. DeSalvo was alive when this film came out, but was murdered in prison in 1973. In 1971 this same director made another serial killer film, 10 Rillington Place. That one is about Britain’s John Christie. I saw it a few years ago and it is the better of the two films (unforgettable, in fact!).

The Dryden. Based on an Edna Ferber novel. Stars Elizabeth Taylor (Leslie Benedict), Rock Hudson (Bick Benedict), James Dean (Jett Rink), Mercedes McCambridge (Luz Benedict) and a 20-yr-old Dennis Hopper, in his first major role, as the Benedict son. This film runs over three hours, but I wasn’t bored.

* I Might Have Skipped These *

Biutiful, dir by Alejandro González Iñárritu B

Javier Bardem stars as Uxbal, “a conflicted man who struggles to reconcile fatherhood, love, spirituality, crime, guilt, and mortality amidst the dangerous underworld of modern Barcelona.” Yes, that part was good. But there was a bit too much magic realism for me. It was officially described as “a circular tale that ends where it begins,” which I don’t get.

The Company Men, written and dir by John Wells B

It’s always a pleasure to watch Chris Cooper, Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, and Kevin Costner. However, the moral of the story (“true prosperity doesn't come in the form of a paycheck, but through the satisfaction of knowing that your family will always be there to support you”) was too hackneyed.

I can’t say I actually liked this, though it had its moments. Set in a Mennonite community in Mexico.

I did not enjoy the characters of Inez (Rachel McAdam) or Gil (Owen Wilson) but I am glad to at least now know who Rachel McAdam is. The time travel in the plot was a device that allowed the characters of Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Gauguin, Toulouse-Latrec, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald to come to the screen. Filming locations included Montmartre, SacreCoeur, Ile dl la Cite and other Pairs classics, but none of that was enough to hook me.

The Tree of Life, dir by Terrence Malick B

OK. I’m just not into magic realism. (See quotes section, below, to get the flavor of this movie. Enough to make you puke.) If Malick had just stuck to the concept of boys growing up in the 1950s, and wrapped that in a decent story, I could have loved it.

First thing we ever rented through our new Roku (which was a gift from Ezra). Set in 1884 in Arizona. Cocky stage robber Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) meets his match in awkward homesteader Dan Evans (Christian Bale), who agrees to escort the bandit to prison for $200. They hole up in a dingy hotel room waiting for the 3:10 train, while Wade's posse gathers outside. Adapted from a story by Elmore Leonard. I read that this film does not retain the ending of the original (with Glenn Ford in the Ben Wade part, 1957). This ending (as well as much of the movie) was rather nonsensical

Kathryn Stockett (author of the best-selling book, which I did not read) and director Tate Taylor were childhood friends in Jackson, MS. Tate Taylor also wrote the screenplay. I enjoyed some of the acting (especially seeing Jessica Chastain as Celia Foote here, as compared to her performance as Mrs. O’Brien in The Tree of Life), but just thought this did not hit the right notes.

Library DVD. Stars Melissa Leo and Misty Upham, and they did both do a great job. But I just wasn’t crazy about this movie. Takes place near a little-known border crossing on a Mohawk reservation.

Michelle Williams did a great job as Marilyn Monroe, but that wasn’t enough to redeem this.

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Movie-related Quotes

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"The so-called Beat Generation was a whole bunch of people, of all different nationalities, who came to the conclusion that society sucked."

– Amiri Baraka

Three writers do not a generation make.

- Gregory Corso (sometimes also attributed to Gary Snyder)

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it for religious conviction."

- One of the monks in Of Gods and Men, quoting Pascal

Paul Fierlinger on observation and dogs:

To understand almost anything, be it the seeming complexities of art or the subtleties of nature, one must begin by acquiring a keen sense of observation. Therein lies the message of my film.

An animated film should be as refreshing a sight as matching, on a wall, a Paul Klee painting with a Francisco de Goya drawing. The humor in detailing a life with a dog can be both simple yet elegant and as truthful as a story written and illustrated by James Thurber.

(Anyone who’s grown up watching Teeny Little Super Guy segments on Sesame Street has been watching a Fierlinger creation.)

Bill Cunningham on his first professional direction:

I worked as a stock boy at Bonwit Teller in Boston, where my family lived, and there was a very interesting woman, an executive, at Bonwit's. She was sensitive and aware, and she said, ''I see you outside at lunchtime watching people.'' And I said, ''Oh, yeah, that's my hobby.'' She said, ''If you think what they're wearing is wrong, why don't you redo them in your mind's eye.'' That was really the first professional direction I received.

The Tree of Life

The following excerpts give some flavor of the whispered voice-overs in this film. Enough said.

Mrs. O'Brien: The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by. [silence] Do good to them. Wonder. Hope.

Jack: Brother. Keep us. Guide us. To the end of time.

Jack: Brother. Mother. It was they that lead me to your door.
Mrs.O’Brien: The nuns taught us there were two ways through life—the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow.

Mrs. O’Brien: Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.

Mrs. O’Brien: Nature wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Bansky: Most artists take years to develop their style. Thierry seemed to miss out on all those bits.

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Reviews or Descriptions I Liked

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Made in Dagenham

[T]he Dagenham factory depicted is far from the one controversially observed in 1969 by Jean-Luc Godard in his Marxist documentary British Sounds. But you would not expect that of the director of the feelgood, rural, middle-class Calendar Girls, of which this is the urban, working-class equivalent. This, too, is largely fictionalized and mostly predictable, yet manages by its heart-on-sleeve openness to be oddly touching.

- Philip French, The Observer, 3 Oct 2010

The Illusionist

Chomet—known for his political cartoon-like grotesques—finds humanity in all his broken characters. The Illusionist functions as a silent film, with a world of character development portrayed through simple gestures and body language. It’s true cinema in its purest form.

- The Daily Loaf, Feb 9, 2011

In many ways, The Illusionist reminded me of that much-loved 10-minute segment of Up chronicling the wonderful life Carl and Ellie shared before cancer took her away. And although The Illusionist is very much an original, it captures those same feelings of joy, sadness and loss; and does it similarly without a lick of dialogue. … Yes, in this instance, pictures do speak louder than words. And what The Illusionist speaks loudest about is the notion that what we do for a living is not nearly as important as how we choose to do our living. Tati realized this late in life and so, obviously, has Chomet, who fills The Illusionist with so much love and attention to detail that it almost seems a privilege to bask in its brilliance.

- The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA), Al Alexander, Jan 28, 2011

Chomet makes wonderfully inventive use of the city [Edinburgh’s] landmarks: Princes Street with the rain lashing down, the looming crag of Arthur’s Seat, the front of venerable department store Jenners, the interiors of Waverley Station and all those smoky, cobbled backstreets, pubs and shops.

- Geoffrey MacNab, The Independent (London, UK),

June 17, 2010

The Company Men

Employees of corporations are like free-ranging scavenger cells. When the corporation inhales in good times, they find themselves in a warm place with good nurture. When it exhales in bad times, they go spinning into the vast, indifferent world. … The movie's impact comes when these people realize it doesn't matter in economic terms who they are.

- comments by Roger Ebert

The Fighter

...the film’s remarkably equivocal depiction of family ties, which come off as a full complement of horse tack, featuring especially strong bits, tight reins, stinging whips, and sharp spurs—the preconditions to thoroughbred sportsmanship and the stuff of servitude, submission, and suffering. … Russell’s vision of boxing as a dog that’s wagged by the tail of television is, at least, an idea, which suspends the movie a little above its pat framework and makes for a little intriguing perspective.

- Posted by Richard Brody on The New Yorker's online blog

The Fighter is less about individual struggle than group validation. I Heart Lowell: To make Micky Ward, it apparently took a village.

- J. Hoberman, Dec 8, 2010, The Village Voice

The Help

It seems likely that no film since Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing has gotten so many moviegoers talking about the history of race and racism in America as has this summer's hit The Help. The contrast between the two is instructive, if not alarming. Lee's film was set in its own present tense, on the racially polarized streets of late-1980s Brooklyn, NY. Taylor's film, for all its evident strengths, is a candy-colored and wildly ahistorical voyage into the Jim Crow past, a mashup of Steel Magnolias, Mad Men and Mississippi Burning, with the fire confined to the kitchen.

- Andrew O'Hehir of Salon

Nelson George in The New York Times surveys films that have dealt with the movement and his bottom line is that "with Eyes on the Prize as the benchmark, documentaries have provided far superior cinematic experiences."

Adventures in Plymtoons!

What pleases Plympton as much as his reputation is that he actually makes a good living with his short and feature-length cartoons, which are as distinctive for their free-flowing surrealism, sex and violence and dark humor as for their traditional hand-drawn animation style, characterized by fine lines, penciled crosshatch shading and distorted, caricaturelike representations of the human figure in flux. "I don't take government grants, I don't take Hollywood money, I don't take corporate money, and everybody is amazed that I can do this," said Plympton, 63, in a phone interview from his New York studio.

- John Beifuss, writing for a Memphis paper in 2009

City Lights

Though Modern Times represents the best work that Charlie Chaplin created, City Lights has to rank a close second, and is actually the most perfect Chaplin film in his vast repertoire. The plot is much tighter than Modern Times, and it contains a veritable cornucopia of Chaplin hallmarks: slapstick, pathos, great pantomime acting, and an anti-authoritarian attitude.

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Movie Miscellany

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About Jonas Mekas, from http://jonasmekasfilms.com/bio.php

Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in the farming village of Semeniškiai, Lithuania. He currently lives and works in New York City. In 1944, he and his brother Adolfas were taken by the Nazis to a forced labor camp in Elmshorn, Germany. After the War he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz. At the end of 1949 the UN Refugee Organization brought both brothers to New York City, where they settled down in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Two weeks after his arrival in New York he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. He soon got deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement. In 1954, together with his brother, he started Film Culture magazine, which soon became the most important film publication in the US. In 1958 he began his legendary Movie Journal column in the Village Voice. In 1962 he founded the Film-Makers' Cooperative, and in 1964 the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world's largest and most important repositories of avant-garde cinema, and a screening venue.

About A.E. Hotchner (see ‘King of the Hill’)

Hotchner had meet Hemingway in 1948 in Cuba while on assignment for Cosmopolitan and the two were friends until Hemingway's death in 1961. Papa Hemingway, Hotchner's controversial memoir, brought to court by Hemingway's widow, was published in 1966 by Random House.

Spalding Gray Remembered

We saw Spalding Gray perform at an intimate venue in Rochester about 1985, and have always since been interested in him. He was working on Life Interrupted at the time of his death in 2004. At memorial services eulogies were delivered by family and friends. Here are some excerpts.

"He broke it all down to a table, a glass of water, a spiral notebook and a mic. … A simple ritual: part news report, part confessional, part American raconteur. One man piecing his life back together, one memory, one true thing at a time. Like all genius things, it was a simple idea turned on its axis to become absolutely fresh and radical."

- Theatre director Mark Russell

"We tacitly elect a few to be the chief tellers of our tales. Spalding was one of the elected. The specialty of his storytelling was the search for a sorrow that could be alchemized into a myth. He went for the misery sufficiently deep to create a story that makes us laugh. ... In so doing, he invented a form, a very rare thing among artists. Some called it the 'epic monologue' because first it was spoken and then it was written, like the old epics, and because it consisted of great and important themes drawn from the hero's life. ... And the one true heroic element in his makeup was the willingness to be open—rabidly open—about his confusions, his frailties." - Roger Rosenblatt

“The theater that Spalding invented opened the door for hundreds of artists to make live events out of their own experience; it gave permission for the theater of Tim Miller and Holly Hughes, Lisa Kron, and so many others. … He once told me that he came to believe he could make a living as a storyteller after realizing how much time and money he had spent waiting for his therapist to stop laughing.

- George Coates

About ‘Of Gods and Men’

Two monks survived, and one has since died. The surviving monk (Jean-Pierre) today lives in a Trappist monastery in Morroco, and gave an interview when the film came out. It is recounted at this blog: http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com/2011/01/trappist-monk-who-survived-algeria.html

"I believe that Christian [de Chergé] and his brothers were like a kind of gift given to the world and the Church, to help us understand this new era we are living in: a time of widespread religious indifference, of religious plurality and a deep spiritual yearning." - Fr. Christian Salenson

Christian, in his writings, has emphasised the numerous dimensions which Islam has in common with monasticism, even if there has never been organised monasticism within Islam—in particular 'submission to God' (this is the meaning of the word Islam), ritual prayer, the desire for God, and reverence for his Name.

"The murder of the monks was a turning point in Algeria. That doesn't mean there's no violence in Algeria today. Things are shaking up in Algeria right now. What is true is that no Christians were murdered after '96, and I think that the Algerian people started to come to terms with the idea that violence is not going to beget any bright future. ... Questions were raised about who murders whom."

- This is a possible answer for those wondering, about the murder of the monks, "What purpose did it serve?" The quote is from Henry Quinson in an interview with CNS. He spent some time in a monastery in the French Alps, and was a consultant on the film.

Excerpt from Why Forgive? by Johann Christoph Arnold

In a time when so many people are willing to die in ongoing armed conflicts between the “Christian” West and the “menace” of Islam—whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, or anywhere else—where are there men and women who are willing to die for the sake of peace? Certainly de Chergé was one of these.

From Queen Victoria's voluminous journals:

"To be cut off in the prime of life, to see our pure, happy, quiet domestic life, which alone enabled me to bear my much-disliked position, cut off at 42—when I'd hoped with such instinctive certainty that God never would part us and would let us grow old together—is too awful, too cruel."

- quoted in the Special Features on the DVD

Silent Light

Excerpt from an interview with the director.

Reygadas: My original idea was simply to talk about these issues of
love circulating through the film. Is it honest, truthful, brave or legitimate
to stop loving someone who you have loved so much and who still loves you? What do you do when confronted by these feelings? These are the core issues. Then the idea of making it in the Mennonite culture just came about because it seemed to be the perfect setting for the movie since there wouldn’t be any distractions, like class issues or preconceived notions about beauty. The setting just permitted me to tell the story almost as if I were telling a child’s story like ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ Every superficial element is excised and you’re left with the archetypes.

Cineaste: I wonder whether or not you were actually thinking about
Ordet [1955 Danish film by Dreyer] very much while in the thick of conceiving the piece.

Reygadas: I did think about it. I knew I wanted to make a film about
radical Protestants in the countryside who speak a Germanic language,
so I knew there would be a connection, though the films are about two
totally different things. Ordet is about a miracle, and this film is about love, basically. Eventually when I was building the story, figuring out how it would all happen, the idea of her coming back to life was the only way out. So I knew this was coming from Ordet, though it was also coming from Sleeping Beauty. Once I felt confident that the films were sufficiently distinct from each other I wasn’t afraid of some direct dialogue with, or homage to, Ordet, which is a film I love, and Dreyer is someone I adore and respect enormously. So yeah, it’s like a little brother to Ordet, but with a different essence.

This page has been accessed times since Dec. 28, 2011 Last revised: Dec. 28, 2011

This page has been accessed times since Dec. 28, 2011

Last revised: Dec. 28, 2011