There’s no slick TED Talk or cool graphics in the compelling and sometimes chilling documentary The Cross of the Moment. In that way, it’s exactly the film that An Inconvenient Truth was trying NOT to be. But The Cross of the Moment is actually the more ambitious film because it’s not trying to convince us that global warming exists or is caused by humans – it’s helping us understand the bleakness of the “or else” if we don’t stall or reverse climate change.
Indeed, we hear from talking heads (really, really smart talking heads). Director Jacob Freydont-Attie has selected scientists who are as able as the great scientific popularizers like Carl Sagan and James Burke. It’s stripped down, undiluted science from scientists – but ever lively. As a result, we in the audience are able to connect the dots ourselves. We are in Deep Shit. And capitalism itself may keep us from digging our way out.
The International Film Festival of North Hollywood (IFFNOHO) will present the world premiere of The Cross of the Moment on Sunday, May 1.
PROJECTIONS OF AMERICA. Photo courtesy of PBS International.
Peter Miller’s documentary Projections of America reveals the story of American-made World War II propaganda films, designed to reassure the soon-to-be-occupied Europeans. “Propaganda” is a sinister word, and the surprise in Projections of America is how indirect, subtle and superficially benign the filmmakers were. The goal of the films was to make the liberating Americans seem not so scary, even though they were bombing Europe and then showing up heavily armed en masse and speaking only English.
The government tapped Hollywood screenwriter Robert Riskin (It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town) to make a series of movies, and Projections of America is also very much Riskin’s story. We even see Riskin’s family home movies and hear directly from his children (whose mother was the actress Fay Wray).
We are used to government propaganda being bombastic, obvious and heavy handed, which these films are not. Riskin’s team made slice-of-American-life films to showcase workaday America through the daily experiences of Americans – with their implicit American values shining through.
One film, Swedes in America, hosted by Ingrid Bergman, showed just one tile in the American mosaic, but the everyday lives of Swedish-Americans resonated with other European ethnicities, who could imagine themselves comfortable in American society. Another movie focused on a popular American immigrant from Italy, Arturo Toscanini. And still another film brought a boy from bombed-out Britain to the American West to show him the real-life cowboy experience firsthand (how cool that must have been!).
The most popular movie in the series was Autobiography of a Jeep, which tracked every step of a Jeep’s journey from its American assembly plant to its use in wartime Europe – with the Jeep’s internal dialogue as the film’s narration.
The movies, of course, show a favorable and idealized, but not completely phony, view of America. Certainly, the films did not dwell on problems of American society, such as racial segregation. One movie depicts a small town receiving European refugees at first with distrust, but finally with acceptance. The overall impact of the movies was to depict America and Americans as free, boisterous and alive with possibilities. That, at its core, was not untruthful.
Projections of America is narrated by John Lithgow.
The International Film Festival of North Hollywood (IFFNOHO) will host Projections of America’s LA premiere on Saturday, April 30. Autobiography of a Jeep is also playing separately at IFFNOHO.
I challenge anyone to watch the first one minute of the absorbing documentary Gazelle: The Love Issue without wanting to see more of Gazelle Paulo and his art. Gazelle’s art defies easy description – an unusual combination of fashion and performance art. He dresses, models, takes photos of others and has turned his photo blog (FreakChic.com) into the magazine Gazelle. In Gazelle: The Love Issue, director Cesar Terranova gives us the unvarnished Gazelle, with glimpses of the most personal aspects of his life and relationships.
Gazelle creates striking clothes and makeup that project ideas and feelings. Descriptions like “drag queen” or Gazelle’s own understated “dressing up to go out” are totally inadequate and misleading. Whether it’s funny or disturbing, this stuff is real art, more avant-garde than campy. And as art must be to be good, Gazelle’s is ever evocative.
Spending 94 minutes with Paulo is pretty easy because he’s so gentle and humble despite his flamboyant, even exhibitionistic, behavior. He’s an island of genuine kindness in a sea of snark and bitchiness.
The International Film Festival of North Hollywood (IFFNOHO) is showcasing the LA premiere of Gazelle: The Love Issue as the festival’s opening night film on Thursday, April 28, and it’s a sure-fire crowd-pleaser.
David Oyelowo and Dianne Wiest in FIVE NIGHTS IN MAINE. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society
An Atlanta man (David Oyeowlo) suddenly loses his wife to an auto accident and is completely shattered by the depth and the jarring abruptness of his loss. Pushed by his sister out of his paralysis, he drives up to Maine to visit his wife’s mother (Dianne Wiest). She is a person who is generally harsh, judgemental and irritating at all times, but is more so now that her own health is failing. His experience becomes the antithesis of the comfort and support that one would expect. As she probes and spars with him, the two are each driven to their own catharsis. The end of Five Nights in Maine also comes abruptly, leaving us to reflect on the lessons learned by the leading characters and how their grief is resolved.
Five Nights in Maine uses a handheld camera and LOTS of close=ups. This was a conscious choice by first-time writer-director Maris Curran, who sought a “closing in” effect because “grief is claustrophobic”.
Dianne Wiest’s performance is an awards-worthy tour de force. Flashing fiery looks and shooting piercing remarks from an invariably rigid posture, she commands our attention every moment that she is on-screen. As we would expect, Oyewolo is outstanding, especially in the early scenes where he collapses into shock. Rosie Perez, not as sassy, but every bit as appealing as usual, is rock solid in the supporting role as the mother’s nurse. As the sister, Tenoyah Parris (Chi-Raq, Dear White People, Mad Men) gives yet another flawless performance.
I saw Five Nights in Maine at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), where Director Maris Curran, producer Carly Hugo and actor David Oyelowo appeared at the screening. Curran said she was motivated to write a story about as her own marriage was falling apart; when the ground was pulled out from under her, she created a protagonist in that situation.
Aiming for a sensual look to an emotional film, Curran was able to snare Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fani, fresh from his exquisite work in from Blue Is the Warmest Color, for his first American film. Budgeted for a 19-day shoot,the crew finished in only 18.
Oyewolo, happily married for 18 years, found exploring the territory of losing his wife to be very uncomfortable. for him. Five Nights in Maine was shot right after Selma, so his exhaustion from Selma helped him find this “hollowed-out” character. Oyewolo sees Five Nights in Maine as a fish out of water story – not just geographically but emotionally (a man not used to or prepared for grief). Oyewolo prefers women directors “wants to be part of stories that are emotionally challenging”.
Fortunately, Curran leavens this dark-themed story with bits of sharp humor. It’s an emotionally affecting and authentic movie. The U.S. theatrical release of Five Nights in Maine is expected in late summer or early fall 2016.
In December, 1970, an addled Elvis Presley was isolated and indulged by his hangers-on and feeling cranky enough to shoot out a TV set in Graceland. He decided that he needed a “federal agent at large” badge, and his quest sparked an impromptu visit to the Nixon White House, resulting in the all-time most requested photo from the National Archives (below). All this really happened, and the historical comedy Elvis & Nixon imagines the details, with the iconic characters fleshed by two of our finest screen actors, Michael Shannon (Elvis) and Kevin Spacey (Richard Nixon).
In the movies, Shannon usually projects a hulking menace, but here he uses his imposing presence to dominate and suck the oxygen out of a room. Of course, Shannon doesn’t have the sexual energy of Elvis, but his intensity makes up for it. As impaired and wacky as Shannon’s Elvis is, he can be a charming flatterer and knows how to make the most of his celebrity and sexual power. He wins over Nixon by bringing up their common distaste for commies and the Beatles, and shamelessly complementing Nixon’s homely looks.
Spacey goes beyond impersonation of Nixon’s well-known mannerisms to reach the seasoned pol, the cagey and amoral tactician, the doting father, and, above all, a man submerged in an unquenchable pool of resentfulness. In particular, Spacey perfectly delivers one classically Nixonian chip-on-the-shoulder monologue. And few can portray social awkwardness as well as Spacey.
In Elvis & Nixon, Nixon forces himself to keep a straight face as Elvis explains that “I want to go undercover”. Because his movie experience has given him a mastery of disguises, Elvis continues, he can infiltrate the Rolling Stones and the Black Panthers, slipping back and forth between them with no one the wiser. [Note: There were only five Rolling Stones – wouldn’t they have noticed a sixth one?] The real Elvis reportedly coveted the federal badge so he could take his guns and drugs on airplanes.
The two men size each other up and probe. Each man is using the meeting for his own ends. The humor comes from Elvis’ eccentricities and the hopelessly square and insecure Nixon’s reactions.
Elvis & Nixon is not a guffaw fest, but it has a few LOL moments. Otherwise unadorned, the Elvis-Nixon meeting itself is bizarre enough, but Shannon and Spacey make it especially worthwhile.
NUTS! Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society
NUTS! is the persistently hilarious (and finally poignant) documentary about the rise and fall of a medical and radio empire – all built on goat testicle “implantation” surgery in gullible humans. Yes, a huckster named J.R. Brinkley really did surgically place goat testicles inside human scrota – and, more astonishingly, this actually became a craze in the 1920s. Now that’s enough of a forehead slapper, but there’s more, much more and that’s what makes NUTS! so fun. Its first screening at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) is on April 29.
Brinkley’s story is one that leads to celebrity mega wealth and a colossal miscalculation. Improbably, Brinkley’s wild ride touched Huey Long,William Jennings Bryan, Rudolph Valentino, Buster Keaton, June Carter Cash and Wolfman Jack. There’s a radio empire, a Gubernatorial election and a dramatic, climactic trial.
Director Penny Lane tells the story with animation (different animators for each chapter, but you can’t tell) seamlessly braided together with historical still photos, movies and a final heartbreaking recording. NUTS! tells a story that is too bizarre to be true – but really happened. It makes for a most entertaining movie.
LEAF BLOWER. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.
Leaf Blower is an amiable Mexican slice-of-life comedy. Three young guys are drifting rudderless though their adolescences, doing what teenage males do – wasting time, busting each others balls and achieving new heights of social awkwardness and sexual frustration. Its first screening at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) is on April 24, and director Alejandro Iglesias Mendizábal is expected to attend.
In his promising first feature, director and co-writer Iglesias Mendizábal has created an entirely character-driven portrait of male teen friendship and restlessness. After all, the only real plot is whether they will find the keys that one of them dropped into a pile of leaves. But we want to keep watching these guys to see what happens to them, and it’s all pretty funny.
Ruben (Alejandro Guerrero) is too cool for school. He’s sure that he’s the only one in charge of his life – he just doesn’t know where he wants to go. So he masks his indecision and avoidance by brooding.
Lucas (Fabrizio Santini) is nervous and a little hyper, but his bossy girlfriend totally paralyzes him with dread. He’s always a day late and a peso short, the kind of guy who is stuck wearing his dirty soccer uniform to a funeral.
Emilio (Francisco Rueda) is constrained by his status as the fat kid (and I was a fat kid, so I relate). Self-isolated, he yearns to be more social, but then counterproductively comforts himself with more and more calories.
All three are sexually awakened but inept. Only Lucas has a girlfriend, and she causes him to sigh painfully every time his cellphone rings. Ruben and Emilio are so intimidated by females that they’re too scared to even borrow a rake from one.
Come to think about it, Leaf Blower is not a pure coming of age movie because its characters don’t seem to grow or change as a result of their experiences. It’s more of a “being-of-age” movie because they just are who they are. Perceptive and observational, Leaf Blower is pretty far away from the American Pie kind of teen comedy.
A scene from Mauro Herce’s DEAD SLOW AHEAD, playing at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, April 21 – May 5 2016.
Dead Slow Ahead is a visually stunning and an often hypnotic film, shot on the massive freighter Fair Lady on its voyage across vast ocean expanses with its all-Filipino crew. Its first screening at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) is on April 23.
Are we in for a sea adventure? Not exactly. Our guide is first-time Director Mauro Herce. His camera observes and so do we. He doesn’t explain what we are seeing – we have to connect the dots. We see the darkened bridge, the cavernous hold and unfamiliar ship machinery. The film opens with the beeps and tones of controls on the bridge; then we mostly hear the rhythmic lapping of the waves and the random groans of the ship. The effect is mesmerizing.
There are dramatic seascapes and some seriously impressive cloud weather. The few mariners handle the machinery and attend the bulk cargo. Given the expanse of open ocean and the vastness of the huge ship, everyday tasks seem heroic.
Where does the Fair Lady go? There are some coastlines, but usually we’re beyond the sight of land. The end credits thank workers in a series of Mediterranean ports plus Odessa, Port Said, Aqaba and New Orleans. But the where is not the point of Dead Slow Ahead.
Dead Slow Ahead won a special jury prize at the Locarno International Film Festival. It’s an impressive debut for Herce – one of those films that gradually envelopes the viewer.
Here’s my slate of recommended movies in theaters this week:
I liked the evocative French drama My Golden Days, the beautiful tale of first love, with all its passion, importance, obsession, angst, conflict, breakups and makeups.
Ethan Hawke’s performance makes the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Bluea success.
I enjoyed every minute of Jake Gyllenhaal’s breakdown in Demolition (but was ambivalent about why I did).
Everybody Wants Some!! is a dead-on 1980 time capsule and an amusing frolic with lots of ball busting and girl chasing – but probably more fun for a heterosexual male audience.
Tom Hiddleston makes a believable Hank Williams, but that can’t save the plodding I Saw the Light, which fails to capture any of the pathos in Hank’s life and death.
Because Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! is now in theaters, my DVD/Stream of the Week is its “spiritual prequel” – the coming of age Dazed and Confused is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video (free with Amazon Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.masterpiece Dazed and Confused.
The best night on TV this week is April 16, when Turner Classic Movies airs both the glorious sand-and-sandal epic Spartacusand Mel Brooks’ guffaw-fest Young Frankenstein.
If you haven’t watched Spartacus in a while, you probably remember it for Kirk Douglas’ macho tour de force, the ever stunning Jean Simmons and the sexual cat-and-mouse between Laurence Olivier and the Bronx-accented slaveboy Tony Curtis. But you might have forgotten the strength of the supporting performances by Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton and – my favorite – Woody Strode. And watching last year’s Trumbo, I was reminded that indie producer Kirk Douglas awarded the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo the screenwriting credit that others had denied him.
Everybody Wants Some!! is director Richard Linklater’s nostalgic romp through his college jock days. He’s described Everybody Wants Some!! as a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused, and it has a similar vibe. We have college baseball players living in a house next to campus, and they drink lots of beer, get high, bust each other’s balls and chase girls. There are lots and lots of ball busting and girl chasing. All in good fun.
Everybody Wants Some!! is a dead-on 1980 time capsule, showcasing the disco, non-Urban Cowboy and punk cultural moments. And the very fun and evocative period soundtrack kicks off with My Sharona.
There is also a bong scene that has possibly the best stoned movie monologue (“language is just a construct”, Mayans, Druids, etc.) since Jack Nicholson’s “Venutians” riff around the campfire in Easy Rider.
The story’s point of view is that of the college guys, and it is not unknown for college-age guys to see women primarily as sexual opportunities. That’s pretty much the role of all the women in this movie, except for that Special Girl who gets our hero’s attention.
Linklater is the master of coming of age (Boyhood) and coming of age in relationships (the Midnight trilogy). Everybody Wants Some!! may be the least insightful of his coming of age films, but sometimes Linklater just has fun (School of Rock, Bernie), and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Everybody Wants Some!! has an appealing cast of actors that I hadn’t remembered seeing before (including the one guy who played Ryder in Glee). Dazed and Confused is known for launching the careers of hitherto unknowns Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams and Jason London. How about Everybody Wants Some!!? I don’t see stardom here for anyone (but keep in mind that Ben Affleck didn’t have a very showy or portentous part in Dazed and Confused).
Everybody Wants Some!! may not be Major Linklater, but it’s an amusing frolic – but probably more fun for a heterosexual male audience.
