tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-310938002024-02-28T10:37:15.767-08:00Culturopolis<b>Cultural coverage for readers with a pulse.</b>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-27764789300859356692020-12-07T18:57:00.000-08:002020-12-07T18:57:07.690-08:00The Year in Film (So Far): Exploitation, War and a Brutal Economy in Film and Reality Alike<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUxUesFpZDviNk1Wh66IQGq3Lb24o-KvDcosrFXh9Z6yvEWVFIujtyfDru5bNzMAd5Nz9WXkyPqNctMSS7gVCyDyBAoNZMinDAscv57oPvRIW55Kg6O3vb6giKarbKgSipnEZ5/s1498/Bacurau.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1498" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUxUesFpZDviNk1Wh66IQGq3Lb24o-KvDcosrFXh9Z6yvEWVFIujtyfDru5bNzMAd5Nz9WXkyPqNctMSS7gVCyDyBAoNZMinDAscv57oPvRIW55Kg6O3vb6giKarbKgSipnEZ5/w640-h427/Bacurau.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The global haves and the have nots collide in the brilliant Brazilian nightmare Bacurau </i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">A year of difficulty for individuals and also for the film industry, COVID-19 made 2020 a trial by fire for many. But even despite quarantine, incredible films by a variety of talented filmmakers, many of which flew under the radar, have made this a banner year for great filmmaking. It was also a year when smaller, independent or art house fare had a moment to shine, as blockbusters and big Hollywood movies took a back burner and tried to wait out COVID for the moment when theaters opened up. Smaller films, foreign films and works by a new wave of younger female directors were able to shine in the absence of the Hollywood's braying media blitzkreig. Read on for some of my favorite films of 2020 so far, in a year of visual delights still to come. All are currently streaming now on a TV near you.</span><br /></p><p><b> </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnQVopPjDBbzBpT3YM_GDVPdejSniyvrb_F2x68HnsZIBqHjowSGNs6Dzh1p2UCphDoVe_Qv2MtNRvLkXs8pURLWGTX-H38wAvYKWE7Hoq9Iu0KsSbXDhd9bgprlxcAvxW6JV/s1000/sorrywemissedyou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnQVopPjDBbzBpT3YM_GDVPdejSniyvrb_F2x68HnsZIBqHjowSGNs6Dzh1p2UCphDoVe_Qv2MtNRvLkXs8pURLWGTX-H38wAvYKWE7Hoq9Iu0KsSbXDhd9bgprlxcAvxW6JV/w400-h225/sorrywemissedyou.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b><i>Sorry We Missed You</i></b><p></p><p>Ken Loach's chilling, painful in its truthfulness film is a portrait of a brutal facet of modern life and could be the most relevant COVID-era tale of the year. Set in the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse, Loach's incisive, deeply felt film follows a decent but ill-fated Newcastle family as they struggle to survive the gig economy, the husband as an Amazon-style deliveryman and the wife as a caregiver run so ragged she barely has time to tend to the frail, lonely elderly Brits in her care. Exhausted and desperate, these determined but luckless parents sacrifice their own family at the altar of work and more work. This universal story should be required viewing by elected officials on every continent for its painful look at the enormous difficulties hardworking people face in a system built to foil their ambitions at every turn. <i>Sorry We Missed You</i> makes you <i>feel</i> the insurmountable difficulty and the unchanging rigor of working in a contemporary global economy tailor made for corporations and not people.<br /></p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.40b94cb5-5c69-56c6-3acd-3f7c7a232ef9?camp=1789&creativeASIN=B089WH6Z6J&ie=UTF8&linkCode=xm2&tag=thvo0f-20" target="_blank">Stream Now</a><br /></p><p><b> </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxavb3mWhvV-M5rduzNvkOPvU3l1weLnvL9dAtwqNYrLuuc1O26ug8s-XEgmOmEITxvqxjXYKCDSb_CZ0fNaMsLMdyQViDS34FxA8Fskdv-FBvjX_Td2FRcWBfPmmtkxrG6MT/s1100/Crip-camp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="1100" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxavb3mWhvV-M5rduzNvkOPvU3l1weLnvL9dAtwqNYrLuuc1O26ug8s-XEgmOmEITxvqxjXYKCDSb_CZ0fNaMsLMdyQViDS34FxA8Fskdv-FBvjX_Td2FRcWBfPmmtkxrG6MT/w400-h225/Crip-camp.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b><i>Crip Camp</i></b><p></p><p>A profound, moving portrait of the struggle of the disabled to assert their full humanity and civil rights, this film produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground centers on the life-altering experience for a generation of disabled kids from the Fifties to the Seventies, of attending a summer camp in upstate New York, Camp Jened. Run by hippies who live up to that ideal of caring, radical human beings anxious to change the world for the better, the counselors at Camp Jened gave campers the chance to become what their limited hometowns and families denied them: full, complex humanity. With this life-changing experience tailored to accommodate and validate the disabled, many of those same kids carried their sense of self-worth and justice into adulthood, becoming vocal advocates for full-inclusion in American life and champions of equal treatment under the law that would eventually morph into the Americans With Disabilities Act. In a year where it was easy to feel sorry for our individual plights, <i>Crip Camp</i> was a bracing reminder of real struggle and endurance and the ordinary heroes who helped pave the way for a better, more just America every day of their lives.<br /></p><p><a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81001496?source=35" target="_blank">Stream Now </a><br /></p><p><b> </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcW3F8KvJzlogShlMGckaIjINSmtui6lJLHTmD8LMGSeHDI7SJ3NZsxpgvlB51PZc9UhBgV7UfL-PfDRQsIPqV6kfvT4ZZlnm2Qrql3eXkidh3DIdbwDnFBDP7ycTJBVJC6yhx/s1000/athlete-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcW3F8KvJzlogShlMGckaIjINSmtui6lJLHTmD8LMGSeHDI7SJ3NZsxpgvlB51PZc9UhBgV7UfL-PfDRQsIPqV6kfvT4ZZlnm2Qrql3eXkidh3DIdbwDnFBDP7ycTJBVJC6yhx/w400-h225/athlete-a.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b><i>Athlete A</i></b><p></p><p>Excoriating in its illustration of how the USA Gymnastics organization covered up the sexual abuse of young athletes by team doctor Larry Nassar for years, this documentary goes even deeper in showing how the merciless grind of training girls to be top athletes stripped the sport of joy and turned it into a thankless, unrelenting treadmill. Giving possibly the year's most beleagured industry — journalism — its due, <i>Athlete A</i> also shows how a team of determined, relentless journalists at the <i>Indianapolis Star</i> unmasked the deep layers of corruption at USAG. The film is a portrait of how a culture of money and power-tripping adults turned a beloved sport into torture for girls whose bodies, performances, faces and hard work were never enough, an apt metaphor for the deforming effects of beauty culture in America.<br /></p><p><a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81034185" target="_blank">Stream Now</a><br /></p><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloZsRDBHa5ooahBqVdalN-eqiNeKKz8ITEcZds-mXLiKugbKKJywVwppXlGlKrniViFwyIpIxNcIVIIvWpYgcuXn5vDyjPcp54k0JCbOgYFI_4_fRtEZm9u8QE11-Ic1wGtw3/s1000/bacaraufilm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloZsRDBHa5ooahBqVdalN-eqiNeKKz8ITEcZds-mXLiKugbKKJywVwppXlGlKrniViFwyIpIxNcIVIIvWpYgcuXn5vDyjPcp54k0JCbOgYFI_4_fRtEZm9u8QE11-Ic1wGtw3/w400-h266/bacaraufilm.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><p></p><p><b><i> Bacurau</i></b></p><p><b><i> </i></b>Udo Kier — the glacial, malevolent imp of international cinema — delights in this brilliant, heady, disturbing story of colonial exploitation that mashes up the western with a just-shy-of-sci fi sensibility. In this eerie, fantastic film universe where psychedelics and ghosts coalesce, first world sport hunters terrorize Brazilian villagers for fun. A canny distillation of how the wealthy and white prey on the poorer, darker citizens of the world, <i>Bacurau</i> has a terrifying, slow-building rage that ends in an unexpected, bloody and cathartic cataclysm. This is politically relevant, shrewdly entertaining and deliriously gruesome filmmaking for a world in need of more.<br /></p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bacurau-Sonia-Braga/dp/B088W9PT2K" target="_blank">Stream Now</a><br /><p><b> </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh26U3H6KiCo28UiwIeyjN3_vloY8s2O7XEM7a3AckZ3f8Hf-prghvdZZBUx4FiDdmwZc0LPz-7I7EgbmClqBS5uefmnKZR64NcZitdnxZBUYkN0dtbAwOsgjdqgg6BNaQRB2PL/s1105/trial-chicago-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="623" data-original-width="1105" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh26U3H6KiCo28UiwIeyjN3_vloY8s2O7XEM7a3AckZ3f8Hf-prghvdZZBUx4FiDdmwZc0LPz-7I7EgbmClqBS5uefmnKZR64NcZitdnxZBUYkN0dtbAwOsgjdqgg6BNaQRB2PL/w400-h225/trial-chicago-7.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b></b><p></p><p><i><b>The Trial of the Chicago 7</b></i></p><p>Proving he's more than just a subversive, anarchical and slippery funny man, Sacha Baron Cohen is the moral and charismatic center of this dramatization of the trial of student activists who clashed with police at the Chicago police at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The perfect foil to Nixon's starched, sadistic America, Cohen is a beacon of light, chaos and sensitivity as the wickedly complex and strangely fragile counterculture upstart and hero Abbie Hoffman. Though Aaron Sorkin's story of how an early generation of activists paved the way for today's social justice movements like #metoo and Black Lives Matter can veer into standard courtroom drama hysterics, the film shows the urgency and necessity of activism, and the hard work necessary if Americans want to retain the rights and freedoms Sixties student activists fought for. In every way, it feels like a film well-suited to the year of our own political meltdown.<br /></p><p><a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81043755" target="_blank">Stream Now</a><br /></p><p><b> </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4hzkq5uScWB9ANVar9hUuUBcC34G7BZe0bAcTbmNoAyBMrVX6sANTMhbiXAmZHVsYlw7UBoxdc5qEEMbtZzPChtWZJJ8MO6INHzpCjB1F8mtEE-VORFXFGCFSgzVU3jrKIktr/s908/emma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="908" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4hzkq5uScWB9ANVar9hUuUBcC34G7BZe0bAcTbmNoAyBMrVX6sANTMhbiXAmZHVsYlw7UBoxdc5qEEMbtZzPChtWZJJ8MO6INHzpCjB1F8mtEE-VORFXFGCFSgzVU3jrKIktr/w400-h199/emma.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b></b><p></p><p><i><b>Emma</b> </i></p><p>Defined by a delightful, confectionary set design of creamy, sugary pastels and a winning performance from Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma Woodhouse, first time director Autumn de Wilde's fresh retelling of Jane Austen's story of matchmaking and romantic intrigue has a piquant sense of humor, a touch of melancholy and a heart of gold.</p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Emma-Anya-Taylor-Joy/dp/B084PY4S4Z" target="_blank">Stream Now</a><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNYX8Fmw2fY5DOdebm2cRuXRKZkHzGtIpbLSWTrmZxVT1VoKv7aj40WhTZOY_Q61VnRHbl158KpHioa4pX1dogy2JaW6llCvBYroTbmBZJt3SXc5_TO1os1XrmMP4MzZj55ad/s1280/beanpole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNYX8Fmw2fY5DOdebm2cRuXRKZkHzGtIpbLSWTrmZxVT1VoKv7aj40WhTZOY_Q61VnRHbl158KpHioa4pX1dogy2JaW6llCvBYroTbmBZJt3SXc5_TO1os1XrmMP4MzZj55ad/w400-h225/beanpole.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b></b><p></p><p><i><b>Beanpole</b></i></p><p>Devastating in its depiction of the unique horrors of war for women, this Russian drama set in Leningrad in the aftermath of World War II has the creepy energy of Volker <span class="gyWzne">Schlöndorff's adaptation of Gunter Grass's</span> <i>The Tin Drum</i>. Inspired by the real stories of female soldiers drawn from journalist <span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">Svetlana Alexievich</span></span>'s nonfiction work <span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unwomanly-Face-War-History-Women/dp/0399588728" target="_blank"><i>The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II</i></a>, talented 28-year-old</span></span> director Kantemir Balagov skillfully weaves a story of two female veterans contending with inescapable memories as they cling to each other for sustenance. Gorgeous cinematography with a palette of saturated reds and greens brings to mind Wong Kar-wai and Russian icon painting. And <i>Beanpole</i> gets under your skin, lingering long after the last stunning image has faded.<br /></p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beanpole-Viktoria-Miroshnichenko/dp/B08778N5BB/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=beanpole&qid=1607381141&s=instant-video&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Stream Now</a><br /></p><p><i>Stay Tuned for The Year in Film (So Far), Part II in What to Stream Now</i></p><p><i>-Felicia Feaster </i><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-61244253222834169842020-05-04T20:56:00.002-07:002020-05-06T16:04:45.263-07:00A Dark Coming-of-Age Story for Girls<div class="jwLWP _2hXa7 _1dPe8 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color" data-block="true" data-editor="8m36l" data-offset-key="12c4u-0-0">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sidney Flanigan in <i>Never Rarely Sometimes Always</i>/Image courtesy of Focus Features</td></tr>
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<cite class="byline"></cite><span data-offset-key="12c4u-0-0"><span data-text="true">Tales of innocence lost and knowledge gained, the male bildungsroman in film runs the tonal gamut from </span></span><span data-offset-key="12c4u-0-1" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">American Graffiti t</span></span><span data-text="true">o</span><span data-offset-key="12c4u-0-1" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true"> Stand By Me</span></span><span data-offset-key="12c4u-0-2"><span data-text="true"> to </span></span><i>Boyhood</i><span data-offset-key="12c4u-0-4"><span data-text="true">. It's an adventure story coupled with a rite of passage that signals a shift from childhood to manhood. Director Eliza Hittman's devastating </span></span><span data-offset-key="12c4u-0-5" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">Never Rarely Sometimes Always</span></span><span data-offset-key="12c4u-0-6"><span data-text="true"> is a coming-of-age with a difference, an "adventure" defined by a quest, myriad obstacles and a fresh, painful reckoning with the world's injustices, for both protagonist and audience. The quest in this case is 17-year-old Autumn's (Sidney Flanigan) herculean effort to obtain an abortion following sex, the film insinuates, that may not have been her choice. The film's title comes from an interview in a New York City Planned Parenthood office in which Autumn is asked to, essentially, recount her sex life on a rating scale from good to horrific and we see from the camera fixed on her slowly crumpling expression, that her experience has trended toward the miserable.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="c316k-0-0"><span data-text="true">Autumn and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) work in the same grim grocery store in a small Pennsylvania town where they contend with routine indignities — heckling at a high school talent show; a touchy co-worker; leering customers; a depressing home front where an adversarial stepfather casts a pall on Autumn's day-to-day and few options because of age and economic circumstance. These are not the joyous friends of </span></span><span data-offset-key="c316k-0-1" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">Booksmart</span></span><span data-offset-key="c316k-0-2"><span data-text="true">, with their whole lives ahead of them, but two young girls for whom life weighs heavy like the sodden, gray winter sky above. Shot on 16-millimeter by cinematographer Hélène Louvart, the look of the film is as naturalistic as they come with something of the spirit and sense of impossible odds of the Italian neorealist classic </span></span><span data-offset-key="c316k-0-3" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">The Bicycle Thief</span></span><span data-offset-key="c316k-0-4"><span data-text="true"> and the world-battered friendship in another Manhattan opus </span></span><span data-offset-key="c316k-0-5" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">Midnight Cowboy</span></span><span data-offset-key="c316k-0-6"><span data-text="true">. Skylar and Autumn's options seem terminally limited and it takes just a few interactions between Autumn and her mother's boyfriend to see the suffocating truth that even at 17, she has few places to turn for comfort. When Autumn learns she is pregnant and unable to receive an abortion without parental consent, she and Skylar set off for New York City at obvious expense and difficulty, trailing a cumbersome rolling suitcase like some sad vestige of home. Once in Manhattan, complications ensue and the wait for the procedure expands as the two young girls wander the city killing time, returning to the Port Authority Bus Terminal to sleep.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="acjfh-0-0"><span data-text="true">In many ways, </span></span><span data-offset-key="acjfh-0-1" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">Never Rarely Sometimes Always</span></span><span data-offset-key="acjfh-0-2"><span data-text="true"> is undeniably a film about abortion: about how a legal medical procedure has become increasingly difficult for poor women to access. The film makes heroes of the serene, patient women who work at the Manhattan Planned Parenthood and have probably seen their share of sad stories and help Autumn through the labyrinth of paper work and wellness checks. They are free of judgement, hold her hand when she is finally able to get the procedure and share a network of helpmates in the city who offer their homes if they need a place to stay. The clinicians and those unseen allies feel like members of some underground resistance group in an undeclared war, fighting for the rights of their patients with the odds stacked mercilessly against them.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ej2jj-0-0"><span data-text="true">But </span></span><span data-offset-key="ej2jj-0-1" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">Never Rarely Sometimes Always</span></span><span data-offset-key="ej2jj-0-2"><span data-text="true"> also uses abortion to express the stakes of sexual coming of age for women. At its heart, Hittman's film is about the simple, commonplace circumstance of growing up female and how often the transition from child to woman comes with sexual experiences that can be coerced, unpleasant or simply, determined more by someone else's desires than one's own. That reality is played out when an older teenage boy (Théodore Pellerin) Autumn and Skylar meet on the bus to Manhattan helps them secure the bus fare back to Pennsylvania but expects a sexual transaction from Skylar in return. There's nothing brutal or ugly shown in the bargain but the reality is clear: sex is expected, and something more transactional for girls than a source of pleasure or self-determination.—</span></span><cite class="byline"><a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ArticleArchives?author=1072500">Felicia Feaster</a></cite></div>
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<span data-offset-key="e5ou5-0-0" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">Never Rarely Sometimes Always is available for rent on a number of platforms including </span></span><a class="_2qJYG" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/never-rarely-sometimes-always/id1500992512" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span data-offset-key="e5ou5-1-0" style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"><span data-text="true">iTunes</span></span></a><span data-offset-key="e5ou5-2-0" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true"> and </span></span><a class="_2qJYG" href="https://www.amazon.com/Rarely-Sometimes-Always-Sidney-Flanigan/dp/B085MRW3NP" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span data-offset-key="e5ou5-3-0" style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"><span data-text="true">Amazon Prime</span></span></a><span data-offset-key="e5ou5-4-0" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">.</span></span></div>
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Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-51562142787381707612012-05-02T19:01:00.009-07:002020-06-01T04:55:52.697-07:00Girls Will Be Girls: Damsels in Distress Navel-Gazes at an Artificial College Experience <div class="MainColumn ContentArts" id="StoryHeader">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics</td></tr>
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</div><div class="tools">Whit Stillman's flowery, absurd <i>Damsels in Distress</i> substitutes <i>Animal House</i>'s
crude frat boys for priss-pot coeds in this too-cute-for-school,
obnoxious evocation of a make-believe college life. The damsels in
question are all named for flowers, because girls are so, well, flowery.
Block-of-wood indie queen Greta Gerwig is all square shoulders and
flatline delivery as the bossypants Violet, the queen bee in a hive of
girliness dedicated to rooting out bad smells and suicidal depression
from their private Seven Oaks College. The slightly dim brunette Heather
(Carrie MacLemore) and the elegant African-American girl Rose (Megalyn
Echikunwoke), who has come back from a London trip with an affected
British accent and a conviction that all men are "playboys and
operators," round out this coterie of Lanz nightgowns and proper
enunciation. The girls live in a cozy dorm room where they curl their
hair and apply mascara like 1950s coeds working toward their MRS
degrees.</div>
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<a href="http://culturopolis.blogspot.com/2012/05/damsels-in-distress-navel-gazes-at.html#more">Read more »</a>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-79817931443811651262012-05-02T18:56:00.004-07:002020-06-01T04:59:16.747-07:00 Freaks and Geeks: Comic Con Episode IV Offers a Heartwarming Look at a Nerd's Paradise <div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="StoryHeader">
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With so much of American life centered on celebrity worship and
aspirational window shopping, it is nice to be reminded of the merits of
the not-beautiful, the marginal, and, frankly, the geeky.
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Morgan Spurlock's new documentary <i>Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope</i>
is a salute to the underdogs in life's lotto, the kids who didn't get
all the lucky breaks and the good looks. But, based on this documentary,
they at least wring their fair share of fun from it nevertheless. Their
nirvana is the annual comic book convention in San Diego, Comic-Con.
Inaugurated in 1970, the event has since grown into an enormous,
celebrity-packed merchandise-shilling geek fest of 120,000 fanboys and
girls that nerds across the country pine to attend all year long. In a
tongue-in-cheek opening bit mimicking an old-school filmstrip, Spurlock
shows the crude beginnings of Comic-Con in black-and-white stills of
fuzzy-haired post-hippies sorting through cardboard boxes of comics. Cut
to today, and the endless fans, many of them dressed as their favorite
characters, flow like a fleshy Nile into the San Diego Convention
Center.<br>
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</div></div><a href="http://culturopolis.blogspot.com/2012/05/comic-con-episode-iv-offers.html#more">Read more »</a>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-59849228977782362682012-04-23T20:16:00.003-07:002020-06-01T05:12:18.625-07:00Bully Is a Real-Life Horror Story With Many Monsters<div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="StoryHeader">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Lions Gate Films</td></tr>
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<i>Bully</i> has every element of a modern horror story. Sympathetic,
persecuted victims, sadistic monsters, and even a deceptively banal
setting, the sterile cinderblock hallways and asphalt playgrounds are
where its tales of terror unfold.<br>
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The worst thing about this horror movie, however, is that it is all real.<br>
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This is one of the scariest, clammiest, most skin-crawling films in
recent memory, a tale of victims stuck in small, isolated towns where no
one hears their cries for help, and their persecutors — both bullies
and clueless administrators and figures of authority — are pitiless.
Whether you experienced some form of bullying in school or not, the way
director Lee Hirsch (in a manner reminiscent of Gus Van Sant's <i>Elephant</i>)
captures the architecture of classrooms, hallways, and cafeterias and
the loneliness, fear, and dread they can induce is powerfully universal.
But the children aren't the only bullies in this deeply disturbing
film; the way adults close ranks and fail to protect their most
vulnerable members in <i>Bully</i> can't be ignored.<br>
<a href="http://culturopolis.blogspot.com/2012/04/bully-is-true-life-horror-story-with.html#more">Read more »</a>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-56724690140459641062011-12-14T08:39:00.000-08:002020-06-01T05:01:07.648-07:00Teenage Dream: In Young Adult, Charlize Theron Doesn't Want to Grow Up<div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVnlbs7Ob29LHqykrxiyY_J-ISrYaQ45B5OKChScdRN0mxk55OEh5MviNSd33j8EdpsT8K0jrK1aO8vqt0s40QDTLwwSIcH72KE-w6vgMTdzj3JmAMY3UHK6PXteJa15NX2Rwc/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="928" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVnlbs7Ob29LHqykrxiyY_J-ISrYaQ45B5OKChScdRN0mxk55OEh5MviNSd33j8EdpsT8K0jrK1aO8vqt0s40QDTLwwSIcH72KE-w6vgMTdzj3JmAMY3UHK6PXteJa15NX2Rwc/s320/theronroles_a.jpg" width="320"></a></div><span></span></div><div>With the double-whammy combination of <i>Bridesmaids</i> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Young Adult</span>, 2011 is officially the year of the stunted, frustrated girl-misfit. A toxic spin on all of those cutesy chick flicks where career girls yearn for marriage, the latter film is the convention-busting story of semi-slovenly, semi-slatternly 37-year-old Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), who is hellbent on busting up a marriage. Mavis is a woman old enough — the social code goes — to be married and the proud owner of a child (or two). But instead she's floundering in a sea of insecurity when it comes to both love and career. It is an outrageously refreshing change of pace from the priss-pots and put-a-ring-on-it obsessives who constitute the majority of romantic comedies.
In a deliciously terse opening sequence, Mavis is introduced waking up in her cluttered Minneapolis high-rise apartment — more dorm room than grown-up pad — in a hungover funk that you sense she's been riding for a long time. A post-divorce bachelorette, Mavis drinks too much, guzzles Diet Coke for breakfast, and semi-neglects her baby substitute: a fluffy lap dog more tragic than Old Yeller. This is a woman who never grew up. But Mavis' most troubling stuntedness lies in her decision to drive back to her hometown of Mercury, Minn., after she receives an e-mail announcing her high school flame Buddy Slade's (Patrick Wilson) new baby. Her plan is to wrest Buddy away from his sweet, kindhearted wife (Elizabeth Reaser) and new baby daughter.<span></span><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div><a href="http://culturopolis.blogspot.com/2011/12/teenage-dream.html#more">Read more »</a>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-69362257956965745492011-11-25T11:00:00.000-08:002020-06-01T05:11:37.392-07:00The L-Word: Anna and Jacob Love Each Pther Like Crazy, despite visa issues<div> <br></div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JRdLwRnxxnGjRTwWy9pfysp6u_sz45bnjre6oCYER5P9qpE3GdWwXHb6aMoo08krSIY2aor2aI1CudVJPiwyFQfJ2Lt49pWyjceU1AzJmAZhR8_6Q1DsDGlwhy-5IZeufdYC/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="821" data-original-width="1460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JRdLwRnxxnGjRTwWy9pfysp6u_sz45bnjre6oCYER5P9qpE3GdWwXHb6aMoo08krSIY2aor2aI1CudVJPiwyFQfJ2Lt49pWyjceU1AzJmAZhR8_6Q1DsDGlwhy-5IZeufdYC/s320/page-header.jpg" width="320"></a></div><div><br></div><div>If fly-on-the-wall British director Mike Leigh decided to make a mumblecore film, it might look very much like <i>Like Crazy</i>, an ebb-and-flow love story where the blockages to romance are not Shakespearean feuding families but visa issues. Not since Green Card has so much romance been yoked to the ox cart of bureaucracy.
British journalism major Anna (Felicity Jones) has a visa to study in Los Angeles, where she meets a boy who in many ways feels like her male equivalent: artistic, creative Jacob (Anton Yelchin). An aspiring furniture designer, Jacob's first gesture of true devotion is to engrave one of his chairs with the words "Like Crazy" and present it to Anna for her seating pleasure. A surprisingly sensitive male character in a Gen-Y cinema awash with duuuudes, Jacob is a candy-coated dreamboat from girl-bait central casting. He clutches a bouquet of flowers for airport rendezvous, treats women with Old World tenderness, and can make goo-goo eyes like nobody's business.
But director Drake Doremus is no lightweight. He invests Jacob with a complicated back story, and Anna has a pair of hard-drinking, wacky parents who recall the grown-up bohos of Mike Leigh-land. In other words, these are interesting people with inner lives. Doremus takes his time developing their personalities too, rather than focusing on fluid-filled sex scenes that so often serve as short-cut indications of great passion for less insightful directors. And to his credit, Like Crazy is a love story told from the heart that melts like cotton candy on your tongue.</div><a href="http://culturopolis.blogspot.com/2011/11/anna-and-jacob-love-each-other-like.html#more">Read more »</a>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-18691490910516535312011-11-16T06:03:00.000-08:002020-06-01T05:03:52.549-07:00Helter-Skelter: Martha Marcy May Marlene Is Creepy, Sexy and Very Stylized
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</h1><h1 class="headline"></h1> <h2 class="subheadline"><span style="font-size: 78%;"><cite class="byline"><br></cite></span></h2> </div> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="magnumContainer no-foundation-imgeditor" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Martha Marcy May Marlene movie review (2011) | Roger Ebert" class="rg_i Q4LuWd tx8vtf" data-atf="true" data-deferred="1" data-iml="967" src="data:image/jpeg;base64,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"> </div></div><div class="MainColumn ContentArts" id="MagnumImage"> </div> <div class="MainColumn ContentArts" id="StoryLayout"> <div class="page1" id="storyBody"> <p>A semi-sinister little film with the eerie, sunlit ambiance of headspace thrillers like <i>Rosemary's Baby</i> or the original <i>The Stepford Wives</i>, <i>Martha Marcy May Marlene</i> presents a young woman trapped between two worlds. Having escaped an insular cult in the Catskills presided over by guitar-strumming head-hippie Patrick (John Hawkes), Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) has sought refuge at her older sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and husband Ted's (Hugh Dancy) vacation home in Connecticut. But even hours away, Martha is haunted by her memories of the cult — and a feeling that its members are watching her.</p> <p> How much is her imagination and how much is real is left unsaid by newbie director Sean Durkin, who won the director award at the Sundance Film Festival for his debut feature. Renamed Marcy May by Patrick, the film's title indicates a young woman straddling two worlds, trying to decide, in many ways, between the lesser of two evils.</p> <p> Though Martha never tells Lucy the exact nature of her distress, only that she has broken up with a bad boyfriend, there are many indications that all is not right in Martha's world. She is fragile, paranoid, and often inappropriate, crawling into Lucy and Ted's bed one night as they have sex. As the film unfolds and moves back in time to Martha's life with the back-to-nature cult, a picture emerges of the source of her strange behavior. Young girls are offered up as sexual playthings to Patrick by cult pimp Watts (Brady Corbet). Patrick likes fragile blondes and he likes 'em young. The presence of one baby on the commune grounds suggests that he is planting more than just tomatoes down on the farm.</p> </div></div><a href="http://culturopolis.blogspot.com/2011/11/helter-skelter.html#more">Read more »</a>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-90661131028845128502011-11-15T19:46:00.000-08:002020-06-01T05:20:13.601-07:00Melancholia: An Artsy Romance of Planetary Doom<div class="separator"><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_16453" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 509px;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-16453" height="331" src="http://www.burnaway.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Melancholia-1.png" title="Melancholia-1" width="499"></div><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 509px;"><br></div></div> <div class="meta"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/" target="_blank"><i>Melancholia</i></a> opens with one of life’s most joyous occasions: a wedding. The doll-like, delicate Justine (Kirsten Dunst) has just married a handsome, adoring husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). The pair hold court at a lavish wedding reception bathed in opulent golden light in the upscale resort home of Justine’s sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland). </div><p><span id="more-16440"></span></p> <p>But despite the jubilant mood, Justine seems more a bystander than participant in the party, slipping away to take a bath and to search for her equally distracted mother Gaby (Charlotte Rampling) and father Dexter (John Hurt), clearly hoping to confide in them. As the evening spirals into disaster and Justine falls into inescapable despair, she has sex with a young party guest and tells off her boss Jack (Stellan Skarsgard). Despite all of Claire’s ministrations and efforts to head off the looming cataclysm, Justine is deep in the throes of a profound, crushing, ruinous depression that has snuffed the light out of her eyes, and any sense of optimism about the future.</p> <p>An astoundingly gorgeous film that imagines depression as—quite literally—the end of the world, Danish director <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/sep/22/londonfilmfestival2006.londonfilmfestival" target="_blank">Lars von Trier</a>’s <i>Melancholia</i> draws from the director’s own famously herculean bouts with depression. Intensifying the gravity of such existential pain, von Trier casts the sunny blonde Dunst in the role, to better convey depression’s paralyzing, inescapable dread, as apt to destroy the beautiful and privileged as the luckless and abject.</p> <p>With her marriage essentially ruined over the course of the reception and the groom departed, sisters Justine and Claire hole up at the resort. Both attentive and furious, Claire tries to pull Justine out of a despair that has left her confined to her bed, too sapped to eat or bathe.</p> <p>But like any mental illness that can defy all efforts to aid or fix, the intractability of Justine’s depression is measured by the larger, cosmic force looming over the entire planet.</p><a href="http://culturopolis.blogspot.com/2011/11/cine-10-melancholia-artsy-romance-of.html#more">Read more »</a>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-3102015820628721252011-11-14T11:53:00.000-08:002020-06-01T05:19:27.484-07:00Eastwood Drops Macho and Gets Sensitive: J. Edgar Is a Sympathetic Portrait of a Closeted Man<div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="StoryHeader"> <div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="StoryLayout"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhBCeMYfA814GY-1woXgxxIE_Kt348Uro_4oflizHU0p3Aiwsa0bWXlD-FN6HPSx2PAUMUHpmWruoQSRITieRKl-5BAFZFiNhL7cCASYA7y7R15b3ZSjJXX-nnYNceSAIWqNBd/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="1064" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhBCeMYfA814GY-1woXgxxIE_Kt348Uro_4oflizHU0p3Aiwsa0bWXlD-FN6HPSx2PAUMUHpmWruoQSRITieRKl-5BAFZFiNhL7cCASYA7y7R15b3ZSjJXX-nnYNceSAIWqNBd/s320/article00_1064x.jpg" width="320"></a></div><h1 class="headline"><br></h1><h1 class="headline"><span style="font-family: arial;"><font size="4"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In addition to evidence that J. Edgar Hoover was gay, a cross-dresser, a conspiracy nut, and a Red-hater, in the engrossing new biopic <i>J. Edgar, </i>director Clint Eastwood contends that the notorious G-man and founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigations was also a major nerd. A fascinating portrait of an influential American, J<i>. Edgar</i> presents Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) as a flawed but prescient figure whose public role building the FBI into an important institution is contrasted with a private life as a closeted gay man devoted to his right-hand man Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), who became a devoted soulmate. </span></font></span></h1><div class="page1" id="storyBody"><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><font size="4"> For the most part, Eastwood tends to soft pedal Hoover's most malicious and damaging acts of wire-tapping and bad behavior, glossing over the fallout of his character assassination. Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (<i>Milk</i>) prefer a more humanizing approach. <i>J. Edgar</i> begins with a gray-haired, dour, heavyset, and aging Hoover dictating a self-aggrandizing autobiography to a handsome underling, but flashes back frequently to a spryer man whose zeal for commie hunting was formed in the anarchist movement of the post-World War I era. Trained under fellow Red-hater Mitchell Palmer (Geoff Pierson), Hoover went on to advocate for increased power for the FBI, including the right to bear arms and for the same powers normally afforded to a police force. While the rest of the Feds mock Hoover for his obsession with fingerprinting and deride his "science lab" inquiries into crime scene analysis, Eastwood gives Hoover his history-book props. </font></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><font size="4"></font></span></div></div></div><a href="http://culturopolis.blogspot.com/2011/11/eastwood-drops-macho-and-gets-sensitive.html#more">Read more »</a>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-10203535592162744542011-03-19T13:48:00.000-07:002020-06-01T05:26:13.196-07:00Boy Blunder: Ed Helms Plays the Stunted Hero in Cedar Rapids<div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="StoryHeader"> <div class="storyHead"> <h1 class="headline"><br /> </h1><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqRAU6e1Rt0S1tIChRZKSNSnuzlAtv5303a_vfyjB76X7mguIvYC62viJseQdoeChjmZRbO6g44zLkwwWWsQBzdJZvdpmYgFLnlLt0IvHIoJnODWZJP5P_jpBhyphenhyphenJSmXT2kueRB/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqRAU6e1Rt0S1tIChRZKSNSnuzlAtv5303a_vfyjB76X7mguIvYC62viJseQdoeChjmZRbO6g44zLkwwWWsQBzdJZvdpmYgFLnlLt0IvHIoJnODWZJP5P_jpBhyphenhyphenJSmXT2kueRB/s320/5523d4-20110217-lippe.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="StoryLayout"> <div id="storyBody"> <p>The uproarious comedy <i>Cedar Rapids</i> comes from the blushing cinema of embarrassment that gave us <i>Cyrus</i> and <i>The 40 Year Old Virgin</i>. At the film’s center: a 34-year-old sunny geek Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) convinced selling insurance is an expression of god’s love. As heartily as he sells that message, you almost begin to believe it. You don’t know whether to hug him or give him a wedgie.</p> <p>Is Lippe arrested? Baby-fied? Filmmaker Miguel Arteta (<i>Chuck & Buck</i>,<i> The Good Girl</i>) doesn’t make any bones about the stunted but poignant status of its orphan hero, who has lost both parents and looks to his boss for nurturing. Lippe even has a Mrs. Robinson, the over-age hottie Macy Vaderhei (Sigourney Weaver) who, wait for it — used to be his seventh-grade teacher. Can you say mommy complex? That relationship pretty much sums up the kinky and sweet rhythm that <i>Cedar Rapids</i> grooves to, a film that makes everything from adultery to snorting coke look positively peachy-keen. Should you laugh? Should you cringe? Should you hide your eyes behind your hands?</p> <p>In nerd cinema, every geek has his mountain to scale, his churning river to ford, the leaky ink pen in his pocket. Seems the insurance agency’s star-seller has just met with an unfortunate end via auto-erotic asphyxiation. So it looks like Lippe is up to bat. Lippe’s crucible is his company’s annual insurance convention that his blowhard boss Bill (Stephen Root) packs him off to with strict orders to come home with the coveted lucite Two Diamonds Award, the Grammy of Midwestern life insurance. He leaves his beige world of Brown Valley, Wis. for the phantasmagoric Oz of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with its decadent trifecta of hookers, hotel bars and indoor swimming pools. Giddy at the thrill of flying on an airplane for the first time and interfacing with the big, bad metropolis of Cedar Rapids, Lippe straps himself in for an adventure of scavenger hunts and business-card hand-off cocktail mixers, with regular calls back to his sugar mama Macy for moral courage.</p> <p>The title of the film is a joke about the places we consider cesspools, not New York or L.A. in this case, but a seemingly white-bread bland town that, it turns out, is in fact a teeming sewer of vice and corruption. And that’s within the walls of the convention hotel. There are early signs that all is not right in Dodge. A fresh-faced hooker trolls the convention lobby looking for a date and the convention custom — despite the lip service paid to the insurance company’s born-again founder — appears to be booze guzzling and bed-hopping. Worse still, Lippe has been housed in the same hotel room with his agency’s arch enemy, the client-stealing scumbag his boss has warned him away from, Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly).</p> <p><i>Cedar Rapids</i>’ babe in the woods set-up is hilarious. Lippe is all nervous-nellie about forking over his credit card for the room deposit and carries his traveler’s checks in a zippered money bag strapped to his body. He expresses white-boy shock that his other roommate is a b-b-b-b-b-lack man, possibly the first he’s encountered in the vanilla ranks of Iowa. It’s all just too-too awkward and unfamiliar for poor Lippe, whose first encounter with insurance poobah Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith), the man who has the ability to bequeath the Two Diamonds upon him, in the hotel’s gym locker room is a certifiable spit-take.</p> <p>Like Belushi or Jack Black, John Reilly’s comic mojo in <i>Cedar Rapids</i> is pure id: Ziegler is an uncontrolled mess of crude jokes and inappropriate bon mots who suddenly snaps into morose when reflecting on his ex. His straight man is the equally-ribald-in-his-own-way Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), whose infomercial-perfect diction, starched suits, and affable business-ready manner carries a whiff of sadness; he’s a black guy in a white world who’s done everything he can to fit in. One of the most subversive black characters in movies in a while, Whitlock is so square he gets his ideas of gangsta where we all do: from TV, specifically the HBO series <i>The Wire</i> (which he starred in as the slimy Clay Davis). Whitlock’s performance is pitch-perfect.</p> <p>Rounding out their happy quartet is the family gal Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche) who uses the convention every year as an opportunity to forget she’s tied down. Again, there’s that whiff of sadness behind the comedy. They take Lippe on as their prodigy, introducing him to the pleasures of drink (his guzzle of choice: sherry) and loose women (he falls hard). As Lippe, Ed Helms retains his shiny innocence even in the midst of Midwestern depravity; he somehow manages to convince, and endear, a shiny, gullible Jimmy Stewart trapped in the flesh-pot of Hooverville.</p> <p><i>Cedar Rapids</i> gains points for mixing up its very, very rude comedy with a real sense of purpose. It reveals the ethical handicaps and general bad behavior in a supposedly god-fearing white collar world and the honor-among-renegades of Lippe and his crew. You end up rooting for the geeks and for the corny but reassuring message that friendship and stand-up guy (and gal) values triumph in the end.—<cite class="byline"><a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ArticleArchives?author=1072500">Felicia Feaster</a></cite></p> </div> </div>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-48578671237479909502011-03-16T15:05:00.000-07:002020-06-01T05:29:13.354-07:00Pretty Baby: Photographer Lisette de Boisblanc Can See Right Through You <div class="SpanningFeature ContentDefault" id="StoryHeader"> <div class="storyHead"><br /><cite class="byline"></cite></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibFAp_WW1BfXsw1mq1Lw8WvEpxekdDiFDwk5TH4WSBIeORGdExYQIMCKsxtXD04syHQio6O5OMKUsMUKvELyPglhP_IK23Hy7UTtqVgSKtuSMvCWMzpp_enTDY8T0_UAVzBpor/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="432" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibFAp_WW1BfXsw1mq1Lw8WvEpxekdDiFDwk5TH4WSBIeORGdExYQIMCKsxtXD04syHQio6O5OMKUsMUKvELyPglhP_IK23Hy7UTtqVgSKtuSMvCWMzpp_enTDY8T0_UAVzBpor/s320/Tethered.jpg" /></a></div> </div> <div class="SpanningFeature ContentDefault" id="EmbeddedSidebar"> <div class="sidebar">
</div> </div> <div class="SpanningFeature ContentDefault" id="StoryLayout"> <div id="storyBody"> <p>There is something innately fascinating about hidden worlds: the subway tunnels that underlie cities; the phosphorescent creatures lurking in the ocean's sunless depths; the insular subcultures of bikers and circus folk. New Orleans photographer Lisette de Boisblanc's photos in <i>Taken by the Fog</i> at Jennifer Schwartz Gallery (which moves to the Westside this month) document a hidden world, too, one that serves as a metaphor for the similar intangibles that lurk inside our own flesh casings.</p> <p>Something between a photographer and a scientist (in fact, the artist once worked in science), de Boisblanc has X-rayed a bevy of her grandmother's dolls against an inky black background. The images bear a distinct resemblance to Man Ray's photograms, which used sunlight to achieve a similarly ghostly image.</p> <p>The result of de Boisblanc's X-ray process is an eerie catalogue of the hidden innards of these creatures rescued from their watery post-Katrina graves. Inside, there are elaborate networks of weights and strings that allow a baby doll's eyes to open and close or which anchor arms and legs to torsos. There are also sharp metal pins and pieces, some of which appear to be part of the dolls' mechanics and some more mysterious in origin. The images conjure up the sadism of little children, shearing their baby dolls' hair off or plunging daggers into their bodies. But they can also evoke more disturbing scenarios, of child abuse and its secret, hidden wounds. The works are chilling for being so evocative of human injury as in "Interview with the Ward Part 1," which depicts a G.I. Joe action figure. The doll's ready-for-battle sneer suddenly looks more like the rictus of death. Splayed out and seen from above, he resembles a battlefield casualty.</p> <p>The hidden networks lurking inside de Boisblanc's dolls bring to mind circulatory systems and spinal columns but also suggest some abstracted brain or consciousness. The systems take on the characteristics of their age. The porcelain dolls have jerry-rigged systems within their porky, plump bodies. But the Barbie-type dolls have guts as sleek and squared-away as the Space Age that spawned them.</p> <p>De Boisblanc's close-up images of her baby dolls' faces are the eeriest, reminiscent of the jarred embryos of freak shows and medical labs. With their fake, painted-on features obliterated in the X-ray process, they bear an uncanny resemblance to real babies. Their faces have an unformed but still recognizable appearance, with tiny gaping mouths open in some existential wail, black pits for eyes, their fat, amorphous heads floating in an amniotic universe of pitch black. In the creepy little triptych "Zen," a kind of fetal form lurks inside a plastic casing. It appears to be a doll whose emotions can change depending upon how its head is turned, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personalities warring to get out.</p> <p>I know what you're thinking. Photographs of dolls ... <i>really</i>? Haven't we trod this road before? De Boisblanc's work certainly has an easily digestible quality that could allow it to be seen only for its superficially strange, gothic air. But there are ripples of something uncannier in this compelling work. There is a reminder of mortality and the tribulations of our own experiences to give these ghostly creatures intellectual heft and something deeper than simple shock value.—<cite class="byline"><a href="http://clatl.com/atlanta/ArticleArchives?author=1223506">Felicia Feaster</a></cite> </p> </div> </div>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-2957355976348460622011-02-02T16:32:00.001-08:002020-06-01T05:31:23.458-07:00All in the Family: Dogtooth Is a Dark Parable of Family as Constructed Reality <div class="separator"><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_14615" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 510px;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14615" height="333" src="http://www.burnaway.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/rsz_dogtooth2.jpg" title="rsz_dogtooth2" width="500" /></div><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 510px;"><br /></div></div>Recently nominated for an Academy Award in the Foreign Language category and winner of the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival, the dark, kinky Greek psychological drama <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379182/"><i>Dogtooth</i></a> bypassed Atlanta on its tour of big city art houses. Heralded by smart critics across the country, this film is now accessible via Netflix and Amazon in your own home, probably the best place to experience the skin-crawling excesses of this creepy gem with special relevance to artists interested in its critique of patriarchy, government, family, and the highly subjective, easily shaped notion of “reality.”<span id="more-14612"></span> <p>A prolonged shout-out to the power of nurture over nature, <i>Dogtooth</i> centers on a Greek businessmen and father (Christos Stergioglou) who lives with his family in an Edenic, gated compound of green lawns and swaying palm trees in an unidentified rural section of Greece. The father has created his own disturbingly self-defined utopia inside. Behind the wall that encircles his family compound/prison live his three children: his eldest daughter (Aggeliki Papoulia), daughter (Mary Tsoni), and son (Hristos Passalis). The children are well into their 20s but live in a state of absurdly arrested adolescence, utterly defined by the rules set out by their parents and preoccupied — like very young children — with the stickers their father gives out as rewards for good behavior. The alternate universe the father has created is not without its idyllic qualities. Protected from the real world anxiety of relationships, conflict, work, and the ordeals of adult life, they instead while away their days swimming, playing silly games of make-believe and concocting activities and challenges to pass the time. Their greatest anxiety is pleasing their parents who dole out equal portions of love and discipline, meting out the latter — often violently — if they misbehave. The wife (Michele Valley) is her husband’s co-conspirator, carrying out his strange imperatives, the enforcer who punishes their children for infractions. She seems to have no will of her own, but exists to do her husband’s bidding.</p> <p>In an effort to keep them sequestered from the world outside, their minds pure, and imaginations under control, the parents have forbidden their children from ever leaving the compound. Determined to keep his children under his thumb, the father has even created his own fairy tale of what befalls those who dare to cross the threshold to the outside world, and it is as vivid, grotesque, and fear-inducing as any Brothers Grimm tale of dark forests and bad wolves. The parents have also created an alternate vocabulary so that the children will never yearn to know the world outside by discovering the true meaning of “sea,” “motorway,” or “excursion.” When the son asks his mother what “zombie” means, she tells him “a little yellow flower,” a handy diversion complicated when he discovers little yellow flowers in the family’s yard.</p> <p>The woman who introduced “zombie” to the son and who has given him a glimmer of what lies beyond the compound gates is Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou), a security guard at the father’s factory. Each week, the father blindfolds Christina and brings her back to the compound to have sex with the son. But Christina begins to take advantage of the children’s naivete to serve her own sexual desires, and she begins to represent a troubling, contaminating influence on the children.</p> <p><i>Dogtooth</i> has echoes of other films which examine family as an autonomous creation subject to the laws of charismatic patriarchs, from the documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479547/"><i>Surfwise</i></a> (2007) about a doctor-turned-surfer who dropped off the grid to raise his nine children in a Winnebago to director Michael Haneke’s deeply disturbing exegesis of modern malaise, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098327/"><i>The Seventh Continent</i></a> (1989). Based on a true story, Haneke’s film shows a modern Austrian family willingly cutting itself off from society by also opting out in the most dramatic and violent way imaginable.</p> <p>The world in a bubble that the father has created is utterly patriarchal: He imports Christina to satisfy his son’s sexual urges but in no other way acknowledges that his daughters might have the same desires. As if to intensify his own centrality as protector and mythologist within his egomaniacal kingdom, he creates scenarios that affirm his master of the universe status. He drops fish into the swimming pool and, when his daughter discovers them, adorns himself in flippers, mask, and harpoon gun to save the family from the interlopers. This world the father has created suggests the changing nature of Greek life where a tight, traditional family guided by a father-in-chief has been threatened by contemporary shifts in which families are dispersed and children rebel against its laws. Director Giorgos Lanthimos has said that his intent in <i>Dogtooth</i> was something, “almost science fiction. It started from me wondering about the future of families … maybe at some point they would become extinct for some reason.”</p> <div class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_14616" style="width: 260px;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14616" height="173" src="http://www.burnaway.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/rsz_dogtooth1.jpg" title="rsz_dogtooth1" width="250" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Film still copyright Giorgos Lanthimos</p></div> <p>And yet, Lanthimos says, there would be some “obliged to protect what they know.” The blinding white light, the family’s isolated, minimally decorated home and the absence of media or consumer images (the father cuts off all packaging and labels from the objects he brings into the house, and forbids the children from seeing films from the outside world, although he himself consumes pornography) and the otherworldly reality Lanthimos establishes certainly enhances the sense of the <i>Dogtooth</i> universe as science fiction.</p> <p>But at its heart, the film seems a hyperbolic examination of the family as a universe unto itself, with its own laws, values, government, and order. It is a glimpse into the total control parents can exercise over their children, and the vulnerability of children subject to the whims of their protectors who can also become their tormentors. While watching <i>Dogtooth</i> it is hard not to think of real life perversions of family hidden away from the world, of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Jaycee_Lee_Dugard">Jacyee Dugard</a>, kept in a compound and abused by the man who abducted her, or of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case">Josef Fritzl</a>, the Austrian man who kept his own daughter and the children he fathered imprisoned in his home for 24 years. The father’s world is far more loving and protective, but all families, both the good ones and the bad, are defined as institutions set apart from the world at large which either work to help children negotiate the world outside, or keep them imprisoned and away from its influences.</p> <p>Required viewing for artists and cineastes, <i>Dogtooth</i> addresses an idea countless artists have contended with over time, questioning how reality is defined according to circumstance with any number of factors: economics, family history, social class, nationality, and ethnicity shaping our sense of what is real and true. Think of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Piper">Adrian Piper</a> with those hilarious business cards given out in social situations to puncture the accepted definition of the world as white and cohesive: “Dear Friend. I am black. I am sure you did not realize this when you made / laughed at / agreed with that racist remark.” Reality is what we make of it — a construct, a phantom — and it is the job of artists to bust it wide open and reveal the nature of its construction.—<a href="http://www.burnaway.org/author/fifi/" title="Posts by Felicia Feaster">Felicia Feaster</a></p> <hr />Dogtooth <i>(2009). Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos. Starring Christos Stergioglou, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis, Michele Valley, Anna Kalaitzidou. In Greek with English subtitles.</i>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-86325045480532627852011-01-26T09:38:00.000-08:002020-06-01T05:33:35.743-07:00Falling In and Out of Love in Blue Valentine<div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="StoryHeader"> <div class="storyHead"> <h1 class="headline"> </h1>
<div class="logo"> <br /> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkQTgVHCsXOypLFTcmFEJpRiwp54SgpjMDWeaxU3dOLcv_fuNxKhx1hHZVGintXtnZgP1M3sMYRnaWWSGy_7-ucaVkIZPbnS9bGRoySZKp0lrC9ltqnKmEgsA5mBOxQtazDFuU/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="1800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkQTgVHCsXOypLFTcmFEJpRiwp54SgpjMDWeaxU3dOLcv_fuNxKhx1hHZVGintXtnZgP1M3sMYRnaWWSGy_7-ucaVkIZPbnS9bGRoySZKp0lrC9ltqnKmEgsA5mBOxQtazDFuU/s320/n7f6SnsVbrsmEKhzyjVZibQ7Iq.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><cite class="byline"></cite> </div> </div> <div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="MagnumImage"> <div class="magnumContainer no-foundation-imgeditor"><br /> </div> </div> <div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="EmbeddedSidebar"> <div class="sidebar"> <div class="Sidebar ContentMovieReviews" id="ArticleTools"> <div class="tools" id="ArticleToolsTools">
</div> </div> <div class="Sidebar ContentMovieReviews" id="ImageFlipBook"> <div class="flipBook" id="ImageFlipBook:flipBook"> <div class="photoMain"><a class="clicktozoom" href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/imager/falling-in-and-out-of-love-in-blue-valentine/b/original/3002354/7a88/110126.Blue_Valentine_2__The_Weinstein_Company_.jpg" rel="fancyZoom"></a></div></div></div></div> </div> <div class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews" id="StoryLayout"> <div id="storyBody"> <p>We’re so enamored with the love story, with its promise of happy endings and the sunny side of life, that watching a film about the dissolution of a marriage triggers deep feelings of loss and sadness. <i>Blue Valentine</i> is a difficult, heartbreaking film, but it’s also essential viewing if only for offering a corrective to all of the tales of blissful, uncomplicated love we’ve been spoon-fed.</p> <p>Initially, it’s unclear what is at the heart of Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean’s (Ryan Gosling) troubles. They are not financially well off, but they have a daughter they adore. But indications that something is gravely wrong begin when Dean coerces Cindy into a romantic getaway at a cheesy Poconos love nest. Cindy runs into an old college flame at the liquor store on the way, which shakes the couple to the core, and every time Dean touches Cindy she pushes him away.</p> <p>Director and co-writer Derek Cianfrance’s superbly executed film begins to color and complicate this troubled present-day relationship with flashbacks to the couple in happier days. Dean rescues Cindy from a brutish jock boyfriend and saves, or dooms, her by coming to her aid at a crucial time in her life. Those flashbacks are heart-wrenching, capturing the exquisite tenderness of Cindy and Dean falling in love. Dean, who has a tragic family history, provides Cindy with an escape from her unhappy home life, and his sense of whimsy allows her to indulge her carefree, silly side. The pair blossom in each other’s company; both are old souls who share a sensitivity toward the elderly, exemplified by their first meeting in an upstate New York retirement home. The old people in Blue Valentine imbue the film with another layer of melancholy. They represent a kind of future in Cianfrance’s taxonomy of relationships: the lonely end game in which one spouse survives the other.</p> <p>The most arresting emotion in <i>Blue Valentine</i> is a profound sense of loss, for what is and for what is to become and the way the best times of life can corrode and transform into the worst. Blue Valentine makes you feel the heaviness of time, old age, and things passing away. It is as much a story about the birth of love as it is about the death of us all, how everything lovely eventually fades away. In a modern world where divorce is perhaps more of a reality than the advertised ideal of true love, it is unbearably sad to see Cindy and Dean at their most romantic and hopeful, racing through the streets of Brooklyn, making love, discovering the mysteries of the other person, all contrasted with their marriage’s bitter end.</p> <p>Williams and Gosling pull off the remarkable feat of conveying bright possibility in the flashback scenes and exhaustion and squandered potential later. Both are deeply sympathetic, imperfect, needy creatures, and by the end of the film they feel as vivid and as real as friends. Her hair pulled back off her face, her shoulders hunched, Cindy conveys a bone-deep sense of despair in the small details of her demeanor and appearance. And the hip, quirky details that defined Dean — his leather jacket, his ukulele — have, in married life, been traded for the unshaven face and hipster wardrobe that suddenly look like badges of happy underachievement. While Cindy works on call as a nurse (the subtext is that her dreams of being a doctor ended when she met Dean) and has ambitions of moving up in the world, Dean gets drunk before his job as a house painter, squandering the potential he once represented to Cindy.</p> <p>It’s little wonder that a young Cianfrance worshiped at the temple of avant-garde filmmakers Stan Brakhage and Pier Paolo Pasolini. His camera delivers people’s lives with the same light-soaked truth and intimacy that characterized Brakhage’s experimental explorations of childbirth and family. Cianfrance and his actors convey the tidal wave of love, how huge and deep it can be, which we measure against its brittle, ugly collapse in the present. Andrij Parekh’s (<i>Half Nelson</i>) camera pulls in so tight to the lovers’ faces and bodies that escape is futile. You are trapped along with them in the intimate hell of their predicament. But more than anything, Blue Valentine recalls the extraordinary, difficult, and perceptive work of John Cassavetes, whose ’70s films showed the pain and poetry of marriage. If you have it in you to stare one of the most ordinary but devastating experiences known to human beings — the death of a relationship — in the face, then <span style="font-style: italic;">Blue Valentine</span> is guaranteed to stay with you for a long time.—<cite class="byline"><a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ArticleArchives?author=1072500">Felicia Feaster</a><br /></cite></p><p><a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/" style="display: block; height: 71px; width: 228px;"><img alt="Charleston City Paper" border="0" height="71" src="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/images/home/logo.gif" title="Charleston City Paper" width="228" /></a><br /><cite class="byline"></cite></p> </div> </div>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-67769000956864219782011-01-25T10:12:00.001-08:002020-06-01T05:40:47.366-07:00Subtext<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv6NY64DL9NiAsJH3iBqB-TXZ_WqTzL26mR2eddguFtYktNG_p3en0Key1shJrJuJ0FPEB7HzWcjudisgCXkLXzXIgwxFd-Bzwr8f8202S9HZIoWhE08abAf6v94J-KIOOOVXN/s1600/DSC_0098.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566188380734078498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv6NY64DL9NiAsJH3iBqB-TXZ_WqTzL26mR2eddguFtYktNG_p3en0Key1shJrJuJ0FPEB7HzWcjudisgCXkLXzXIgwxFd-Bzwr8f8202S9HZIoWhE08abAf6v94J-KIOOOVXN/s400/DSC_0098.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 266px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a> Felicia Feaster was born in Jimmy Stewart's hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania. She received her B.A. in film studies from the University of Florida and her M.A. in film studies from Emory University. Her master's thesis on exploitation film became a book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Forbidden-Fruit-Golden-Exploitation-Film/dp/1887664246/ref=sr_1_29?dchild=1&keywords=Forbidden+Fruit&qid=1591014954&sr=8-29" target="_blank"><i>Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film</i></a> co-authored with fellow lowbrow connoisseur, husband and filmmaker Bret Wood (<i>Hell's Highway</i>, <i>Psychopathia Sexualis</i>) and a <a href="https://www.kinolorber.com/film/mom-and-dad-forbidden-fruit-the-golden-age-of-the-exploitation-picture-volume-1" target="_blank">Kino Lorber DVD series</a>. A former staff art and film critic for Atlanta’s alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing, Felicia is currently a managing editor at HGTV.com and TravelChannel.com and the art critic for <i>The Atlanta Journal-Constitution</i>. Her writing has appeared in <i>Elle</i>, <i>The Economist</i>, <i>New York Press</i>, <i>Atlanta</i> magazine, <i>Sculpture</i>, <i>Art in America</i>, <i>Travel + Leisure</i>, <i>Artnews</i>, <i>Playboy</i> online and <i>Art Papers</i>. She has curated exhibitions for the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and TEW Galleries in Atlanta. She has received multiple Green Eyeshade Awards for criticism and feature reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.<br />Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-55808716639819981092011-01-25T09:32:00.000-08:002011-01-25T09:33:31.663-08:00<a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/artsmovies/Section?oid=1072083"><br /></a><a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ArticleArchives?category=1072155"></a> <div id="StoryHeader" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <div class="storyHead"> <h1 class="headline">Natalie Portman loses her mind in the exquisitely gothic <i>Black Swan</i> </h1> <h2 class="subheadline">Just Dance</h2> <cite class="byline">by <a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ArticleArchives?author=1072500">Felicia Feaster</a></cite> </div> </div> <div id="MagnumImage" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <div class="magnumContainer no-foundation-imgeditor"> <img src="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/imager/b/magnum/2548320/06b4/BlackSwanMAG.jpg" alt="Nina (Natalie Portman) has got a real nasty case of pink eye" class="magnum" height="292" width="655" /> <p class="credit"><a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ImageArchives?oid=2548321">Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures</a></p> <p class="caption">Nina (Natalie Portman) has got a real nasty case of pink eye</p> </div> </div> <div id="EmbeddedSidebar" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <div class="sidebar"> <div id="StoryInfoBox" class="Sidebar ContentMovieReviews "> <h3><i>Black Swan</i></h3> Starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, and Vincent Cassel<br /> Directed by Darren Aronofsky<br />Rated R </div> <div id="SlideshowTeaserModal" class="Sidebar ContentMovieReviews"> </div> <div id="LatestInCategory" class="Sidebar ContentMovieReviews"><br /></div> </div> </div> <div id="StoryLayout" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <div id="storyBody"> <p> Nina (Natalie Portman) lives and breathes ballet. She awakes to an anorexic's breakfast of an egg and half a grapefruit, and after a grueling day of practice, comes home to dance some more. Her feet are flayed and her state of mind wobbly next to the confident, determined Alpha dancers who surround her. </p> <p> Her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), a former ballerina, is both her supporter and her tormentor. Erica keeps her daughter housed in a pink bedroom that appears unchanged since Nina's childhood. Nina's life is an endless circuit from the Upper West Side apartment she shares with the overbearing, controlling Erica to the underground, bunker-like Lincoln Center rehearsal spaces where an equally ominous cast of characters lurk. It's all enough to make a girl go mad, and so it does in the exquisitely gothic vision of Darren Aronofsky's psychological thriller <i>Black Swan</i>. </p> <p> With her enormous doe eyes, porcelain complexion, and tiny frame, Portman has always had a delicate, doll-like quality, which works magnificently in this film. Here she plays a woman in a state of arrested girlhood much like Sissy Spacek in <i>Carrie</i> or Catherine Deneuve in <i>Repulsion</i>, who has so channeled her femininity and ardor into ballet that her real sexuality appears to have atrophied. Nina is vulnerability incarnate, the projection of the wishes of her mother, her Svengali choreographer Thomas Leroy (a delightfully smarmy Vincent Cassel), and the expectant audience for whom she will perform. </p> <p> Nina's fondest desire is the Swan Queen lead in Tchiakovsky's <i>Swan Lake</i>, a doppelganger role in which the ballerina is required to play both a pure, lovely White Swan and a dark, sexually enticing Black Swan. The role, and Aronofsky's film itself, reveals something of the absurd dualities of femininity: innocent or knowing, virginal or experienced, without any marriage of the two. In the process of securing the role, and reconciling her girlish virginity with an adult sexuality, Nina's psyche fractures. She becomes convinced that a seductive new dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) wants to steal the Swan Queen lead away from her. The film's plotline begins to echo the ballet itself, with the drama offstage as hysterical and highly-charged as anything onstage. </p> <p> The Swan Queen role is the ultimate be-careful-what-you-wish-for devil's bargain, and it's given to Nina with definite strings attached. The ballet's impresario Leroy has just unloaded his drunken, vindictive prima ballerina Beth (Winona Ryder), who has grown too old for ballet, and has his sights set on Nina as her impressionable, malleable replacement. <i>Black Swan</i> shows the complicated head game acted out in creative realms where one person wields power and the other is the "muse." Thomas begins to manipulate Nina's fragile emotional state and play with her sexuality in the name of achieving a better performance. It's hard to imagine a better encapsulation of the curse of Aronofsky's own directorial profession, which so often pairs older, experienced men wielding enormous power with impressionable young actresses willing to do anything for a role. </p> <p> Despite some of the film's campy trappings and dramatic excesses, <i>Black Swan</i> also has something of value to say about the rigor of the artist's life. Aronofsky takes pains to show the athleticism of ballet, an athleticism ironically acted out by frail-looking women who appear easily breakable but possess wills of steel. There is a fine line in <i>Black Swan</i>, between the self-punishment required of any great dancer and the masochism that often attends female perfectionism, evident in Nina's self-cutting and emotional insecurity. <i>Black Swan</i> makes one feel sweaty and trapped within Nina's consciousness. In the gloriously creepy opening scene, we watch from Nina's perspective as she dances onstage, assaulted more than aided by her male dancer. To be young, beautiful, and talented is as much a danger as an advantage. </p> <p> Lensed by Matthew Libatique and supported by Aronofsky's murky, gothic treatment of repressed female sexuality, the film has shades of vintage Roman Polanski in its intertwined horror and sympathetic, penetrating study on its heroine's dilemma. Aronofsky's visually outrageous, spooky, fantastically hysterical expression of Nina's crack-up is a visual hall of mirrors to rival <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i>, a projection of the dancers' constant self-appraisal in mirrored ballet studios and Nina's fractured state of mind. Aronofsky plays with his audience's own perception of truth and fiction. Gloriously creative and utterly watchable, <i>Black Swan</i> pictures a hostile, perilous world for female artists in Aronofsky's splendid blend of excess and insight. </p> </div> </div>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-28354972656346461532011-01-25T09:29:00.000-08:002011-01-25T09:31:20.151-08:00<div id="StoryHeader" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <div class="storyHead"> <h1 class="headline"><i>The Company Men</i> is relevant but heavy handed at times </h1> <h2 class="subheadline">In Good Company</h2> <cite class="byline">by <a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ArticleArchives?author=1072500">Felicia Feaster</a></cite> </div> </div> <div id="MagnumImage" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <div class="magnumContainer no-foundation-imgeditor"> <img src="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/imager/b/magnum/2869947/20eb/InGoodCompanyMAGNUM.jpg" alt="These guys really wish they hadn't spent all their money on suits" class="magnum" height="310" width="655" /> <p class="credit"><a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ImageArchives?oid=2869948">Courtesy of Odyssey Entertainment</a></p> <p class="caption">These guys really wish they hadn't spent all their money on suits</p> </div> </div> <div id="EmbeddedSidebar" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <div class="sidebar"> <div id="StoryInfoBox" class="Sidebar ContentMovieReviews "> <h3><i>The Company Men</i></h3> Starring Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kevin Costner, Craig T. Nelson, and Maria Bello<br />Directed by John Wells<br />Rated R </div> <div id="SlideshowTeaserModal" class="Sidebar ContentMovieReviews"> </div> <div id="LatestInCategory" class="Sidebar ContentMovieReviews"><br /></div> </div> </div> <div id="StoryLayout" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <div id="storyBody"> <p> Every generation has its definitive cataclysm: World War II, Vietnam, Watergate, and the loss of innocence and despair those events bring. <i>The Company Men</i> is no different in charting the central tribulation of our own age. The suits in <i>the film</i> are dealing with their own traumatic after-effects, though this time from an economic cataclysm: the 2008 Wall Street meltdown. These high-level execs shuffle with their sad cardboard boxes through corporate parking lots, shout affirmative mantras at career centers, and try to grapple with having their master-of-the-universe chairs kicked out from under them. The film opens with a survey of American plenitude: status cars lined up in driveways, understated mansions, rec rooms filled with computer games and kitchen counters equipped with a jackpot of shiny, expensive Williams-Sonoma appliances. Ensconced in that plush upper-middle-class world is sales executive Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck), who is also the first to go when <i>The Company Men</i> opens. Walker is a cocky 37-year-old gunning for CEO who's stunned to see his trajectory dramatically interrupted by corporate downsizing. </p> <p> Walker's smart, supportive wife Maggie (Rosemarie DeWitt) is pragmatic: put the house on the market, end the country club membership, sell the Porsche. Even his son knows the score: return the Xbox pronto. But for Walker, the illusion of success is what distances him from abject, future-ruining failure. Without the Porsche and golf, he fears a future employer will smell his fear. </p> <p> <i>The Company Men</i> feels almost documentarian in its comprehensive treatment of downsizing on both Walker's micro and American industry's macro level. Director and writer John Wells, a TV vet (<i>ER</i>, <i>The West Wing</i>), covers the loss of self-esteem and shame downsizing brings (Walker can't bring himself to tell his extended family he's lost his job). But he also tackles a catalog of attendant gripes: excessive CEO salaries, industries that have lost touch with the product they are selling, and a disposable aging workforce represented by pushing-60 company man Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper) whose prospects after losing his job are nil. The conscience of the film, the one who voices many of these macro issues, is Gene McClary (Tommy Lee Jones) who founded Boston shipbuilding and manufacturing behemoth GTX along with CEO James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson). McClary does not like Salinger's reflexive tendency to downsize whenever there's an economic downturn. Looking around Salinger's lavish office, McClary sees one way to make a mint without losing workers; he tells Salinger to "Sell the fucking Degas!" on the wall. While Salinger continues to plot lavish vacations and command an enormous salary, Salinger's ax-woman Sally Wilcox (Maria Bello) is razing the ranks of his company with his blessing. </p> <p> In a subplot that may strike some as excessively obvious, Walker gets in touch with the lost American values of hard-work and integrity by taking a desperate last-ditch job with his brother-in-law Jack's (Kevin Costner) construction company. There, Walker confronts a new code of ethics, including a boss who works late to get the job done on time (but sends his workers home to their families) and protects his workers' jobs at his own expense. For Walker, it's a radical departure from the everyman-for-himself white-collar scheme. In some ways the point is well-taken. Though notions of honest work and allegiance to co-workers aren't the norm in the American workplace, Wells' delivery is heavy-handed. </p> <p> Much of <i>The Company Men</i> feels a little too pat and tidy: white collar bad, blue collar good. And director Wells is too anxious to deliver a fairly conventional happy ending and obvious message too, which reeks of the tidy moral bundles that characterize TV episode plot lines. The better strategy might have been to go deep into the travails of just one of these execs (Cooper would get my vote) rather than trying to offer a cross-section of economic crisis from multiple generational points of view. Yes, the economic downturn has hit thirtysomethings in a different way than fiftysomething executives, but one film can't possibly tell all of those stories without losing focus and depth. </p> <p> There are other problems too, from the affair craggy old-timer McClary is carrying on with golden girl Sally Wilcox. Really? It's the kind of beauty-and-the-beast pairing only Hollywood could dream up. And Affleck, while playing a man in the despondent economic doldrums, never really loses his shiny-penny gleam. It's hard to feel his despair in the same way as Cooper's, with his squirrelly panic and old-guy hair combed into a sad semi-pompadour. </p> <p> <i>The Company Men</i> tackles some highly relevant ideas that are nice to see in an American film besides a muckraking documentary. But its approach is often superficial and obvious, and a topic this relevant, that affects so many people, deserves much more. </p> </div> </div> <div id="StoryTagsCustom" class="MainColumn ContentMovieReviews "> <p class="tags"><span class="StoryTagsLabel"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></span><a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ArticleArchives?tag=Tommy%20Lee%20Jones" rel="tag"></a></p> </div>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-50998980974877604342008-07-02T06:04:00.000-07:002008-07-07T20:43:55.862-07:00Girls Just Want to Have Fun<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaWQcK14lziFOXmpj-IG3Iaj94E9A-_bZ2AV5vYL59y7wvV43YR2nmOQicDvzRV91zSV-P3ebhv41A8APT7HioeMH-WqgJbAtTxsf-Oh9NFlVwegsbKhv9q5kqTr6yg1fyTVr/s1600-h/sexcity.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaWQcK14lziFOXmpj-IG3Iaj94E9A-_bZ2AV5vYL59y7wvV43YR2nmOQicDvzRV91zSV-P3ebhv41A8APT7HioeMH-WqgJbAtTxsf-Oh9NFlVwegsbKhv9q5kqTr6yg1fyTVr/s400/sexcity.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220483665809839346" border="0" /></a><br />Women suffer through interminable summer movies centered on the kind of comic book heroes that delighted little boys. Now recast as “thoughtful,” “complex” Incredible Iron Bat Guy Men because they suffer and struggle. They are now soulful. And dark. We have to listen to all of the critical excavation of depth and subtext in the big summer bang-bang, kapow, muscle-bound multiplex product. And one summer, a movie comes along that women like. It’s called <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sex and the City</span>. Women eat it up, partly because it treats female friendship and relationships and infidelity and marriage with the earnestness they deserve. But also because like a drink of water offered to a dying desert traveler, it is blessed, sweet relief. But are women allowed to enjoy the escapist pleasure of a summer movie? Hell no. We get writers who use film criticism as a venue for their erotic fascination telling us <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sex and the City</span> is shallow and insipid. These women are too old. Superficial. Too into shoes. And closets. Consumers. Shoppers. You know: women. The ugliest word you can muster.<br /><br />I think we’ve all spent some time giving men the benefit of the doubt. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The 40-Year-Old Virgin</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Knocked Up</span> lent some charm to male anxiety. But by the time the witless <span style="font-weight: bold;">Porky’s</span> redux <span style="font-weight: bold;">Superbad</span> rolled around, I for one was over it. All the praise seemed very familiar: like the hosannas that greeted another teen boy fantasy, <span style="font-weight: bold;">American Pie</span>, all those years ago. I for one have lost my patience for indulging stunted adult male egos, and their teen movie proxies. I think any of us, male or female, can relate to panic over the scariness of adulthood, marriage and child-rearing. But suffering through a prolonged snickering quest for beer and sex disguised as a sweet coming-of-age buddy film a la <span style="font-weight: bold;">Superbad</span>? Umm: No. If you want real male panic and angst worth getting ga-ga over, check out <a href="http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=214005"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Old Joy</span></a>. Now <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> is a film about boy-anxiety with some poetry and pathos I can relate to.<br /><br />I thought the above illustration accompanying Anthony Lane’s <span style="font-weight: bold;">New Yorker</span> review of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sex and the City</span> pretty much summed up just how this film has turned into a forum for some pretty nasty misogyny. Women as monsters. Harridans. Lacking the dignity to die and give up when they pass 25.<br /><br />I liked the film. I thought it was transcendently escapist and deeply pleasurable. I sat in an audience of mostly women (and their boy-pals), packed on a Monday night at Landmark Midtown and marveled at the communal experience of cinema I have so rarely tasted in the age of movie cell phone calls and moronic chatter. These women were juiced for some entertainment and it struck me as tragic that Hollywood seems so disinterested in making smart, snarky films for women, films with fleshed-out characters and a rude sense of humor beyond the chick flick sucking chest wound of <span style="font-weight: bold;">27 Dresses</span> and the whole regrettable Sandra Bullock canon. I can’t say that I feel a solidarity with womankind on a daily basis. But that night I did.Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-32856600604210916912008-06-20T12:55:00.000-07:002008-07-07T20:35:07.797-07:00Surf's Up<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl0/1/13839/14_2008/surfwise.preview.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl0/1/13839/14_2008/surfwise.preview.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />(Photo courtesy: Magnolia Pictures)<br /><br />Almost everyone must at some point harbors a secret desire to drop off the grid: to leave behind the racket of health insurance and home payments and just, <span style="font-style: italic;">be</span>, in that hackneyed Sixties sense.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><a href="http://charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid_oid%3A47093">Surfwise</a>, the documentary about Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, a Stanford-educated M.D. who dropped out of the rat race to raise his nine kids in a 24-foot camper, is both a cautionary tale and advertisement for living free. I have a deep affection for lovable iconoclasts and for surfing movies, so teamed up, this film is pure narcotic.Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-40236345359362443592008-06-20T07:00:00.000-07:002008-06-20T14:28:24.776-07:00Killjoy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://craighodgkins.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/max86.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://craighodgkins.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/max86.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />How not to feel like Queen Sourpuss when your 7-year-old sits guffawing beside you and the rest of the movie theater audience sounds ready to bust a gut and all you can do is squirm for some release? The <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A47088">Get Smart</a> movie had some amusing moments, but not the kind of full-throttle hilarity I'd leave my house for. I find comedy the consistently most disappointing and alienating of film genres. Everyone else is making like Hands Across America over <span style="font-weight: bold;">Superbad</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Borat</span>, and there I am with my arms folded feeling like the sad-eyed goth in a Tim Burton film.<br /><br />I recently met an Atlanta artist who told me he enjoyed my art reviews, but thought my movie reviews took all the fun out of film. He's apparently not the only one, as <a href="http://www.rampway.org/article.php?id=54">this </a>golden oldie proves. I still smile every time I read it.Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-12561955410718453272008-06-16T06:41:00.000-07:002008-06-20T14:29:36.470-07:00Bad Boy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.nypress.com/21/23/dvds/23MOVIES_polanski.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.nypress.com/21/23/dvds/23MOVIES_polanski.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /></div>Roman Polanski remains one of my favorite filmmakers despite some personal life snafus that test my ability to admire him.<br /><br />Both pop and profound, his films stand up to countless repeat viewings. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rosemary's Baby</span> remains my favorite film for straddling that Polanski line; a slick potboiler on one hand, but on the other prickly and subversive for how it delves into the way women's bodies are colonized, occupied and owned in pregnancy. Polanski has an identification with life's victims that adds moral depth to his artistry. But what to say about the man himself, with that unpleasant yen for young girl flesh? I love him like a deeply flawed relative: I can't seem to break the ties.<div><br /></div><div>Read my <a href="http://www.nypress.com/21/23/dvds/tv.cfm">review</a> of the new HBO documentary (coming to theaters soon) of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired</span>, in <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">New York Press</span>.</div>Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-31533232514088508912008-05-19T19:34:00.000-07:002008-05-19T19:44:21.913-07:00Torture Porn<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ebimg.sv.publicus.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=EB&Date=20080501&Category=REVIEWS&ArtNo=529802219&Ref=AR&Profile=1023&Maxw=438"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://ebimg.sv.publicus.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=EB&Date=20080501&Category=REVIEWS&ArtNo=529802219&Ref=AR&Profile=1023&Maxw=438" alt="" border="0" /></a>There hasn’t been such a gratuitous abuse of slow motion since <span style="font-style: italic;">Flashdance</span> as there is in <span style="font-style: italic;">Standard Operating Procedure.</span> Errol Morris’s film gives the same emotional significance in his tedious overuse of the technique to a drop of blood falling from the body of an Iraqi man who has been tortured to death, as it does to a cracked egg artfully dropped into a frying pan by super-bad man Saddam Hussein. Pretty, pretty pictures.<br /><br />Errol Morris’s “expose” of Abu Ghraib is like watching two hours of “The Jerry Springer Show.” Never has there been so much play-by-play description of senseless, base behavior with so little insight. Coupled with Morris’s artful reenactments and endless slow-motion imagery, and the film makes Abu Ghraib into a music video, circa 1985. It’s an intensely disturbing, obsessively documented film about the disturbing, obsessive need to document.<br /><br />The bulk of <span style="font-style: italic;">Standard Operating Procedure</span> is a succession of Abu talking heads: poster girl Lynndie England, and some equally obtuse soldiers and investigators, describing the combination of bad judgment and casual sadism that gave rise to Abu Ghraib. But you long for an expert, some form of navel-gazing: an academic, a psychologist, Susan Sontag back from the grave, anyone, for god’s sake, even that knuckle-dragger Dr. Phil, to offer perspective in Morris’s intellectual void. As my movie companion Genevieve pointed out, these soldiers are the text-messaging generation speaking, devoid of introspection and simply acting compulsively documenting every step, no matter how stupid, in their lives with a photograph to prove their existence. If I heard one more monotone justification of how their actions were caused by someone else I was going to tear my hair out. Yes, as Morris points out in lockstep, unadventurous liberal fashion, the higher ups did escape blame or prosecution. Yes, the Bush Administration is morally corrupt. But does that mean these blank, affectless zombies with their thumbs up gestures and simulated fellatio weren’t stupid and sadistic too? Soldiers have been taking trophy photographs of their war kills and atrocities and collecting battle souvenirs since there have been cameras and since there have been wars. It’s ridiculously naive and proof of this film’s utter lack of judgment or context to act as if Abu Ghraib is some isolated incident of Americans behaving badly. With so many worthwhile films about the sickening misbehavior and incompetence surrounding Iraq, <span style="font-style: italic;">Standard Operating Procedure</span> is an especially pointless exercise in inert moral outrage. We’ve seen many of these photos before: to see them paraded out once more is degrading and depressing without some new wrinkle, some fresh insight into the psychology of how and why they happened. It becomes pure shock and when combined with the fetishistic reenactments, gratuitous to boot.Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-37818518560757905962008-05-17T21:27:00.000-07:002008-05-17T21:30:31.337-07:00All Wet<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.indiewire.com/twhalliii/Before%20The%20Rains.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://blogs.indiewire.com/twhalliii/Before%20The%20Rains.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Some films bring out the smart-aleck in me. It was hard not to take the piss out of the tempest in a teapot faux-Merchant Ivory production <span style="font-style: italic;">Before the Rains</span>, reviewed <a href="http://www.nypress.com/21/20/film/film.cfm">here</a> for <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Press</span>.Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-66902834783302801622008-05-17T21:11:00.000-07:002008-05-17T21:16:39.770-07:00Kung Fu Fighting<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.worstpreviews.com/images/redbelt.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.worstpreviews.com/images/redbelt.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I was amused by a recent interview with writer/director David Mamet in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/05/19/080519ta_talk_ross">The New Yorker</a>. Somewhat sheepishly amused, because I am one of the journalists who has occasionally opened with a lame question like the one he cites in his litany of clichés, “What inspired you to do this film?” I often think on press junkets how tired people must get answering the same questions over and over, but also of how hard it is to ask a truly original question.<br /><br />I reviewed Mamet’s latest <a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A45271">Redbelt</a>, in The Charleston City Paper.Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31093800.post-88675241410807468352008-05-08T14:25:00.000-07:002008-05-08T15:01:41.498-07:00Aliens<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/binary/a329/stranger.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/binary/a329/stranger.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Few things, perverse though it may be, give me more pleasure than an unhappy, alienated film hero. I will always identify more with the Travis Bickles and the tortured chumps like Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in <span style="font-style: italic;">Double Indemnity</span> than with cinema's winners. If I have a movie culture Achille's Heel, a surefire way to slay me, it's the loser, the oddball. <span style="font-style: italic;">La Vie En Rose</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Old Joy</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Ghost World</span>: show me a failure and I'll show you a five star rating. On that note, two recent films about alienated guys, <a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A44822">The Visitor</a> and <a href="http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A44344">The Counterfeiters</a> spoke to that part of me that wants to see suffering, miserable-looking sadsacks struggling to connect.Feliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780532988434771164noreply@blogger.com0