Spout #13(Part Two): Gowanus, Brooklyn

It's going to be almost impossible for me to really, fairly review Gowanus, Brooklyn. As a short film, a visual short story with beginning, middle and end, it's a horrible failure. And yet it's also a complete success, as a compelling piece of drama, a showcase for some good acting on the half of some previously unknown talent, and as a glimpse into the abilities of a talented young filmmaker trying to show the world what he can do. I'm sorry, that last bit might seem hyperbolic, but it's also true, and it needs to be noted because of the success he has with his attempts. Director Ryan Fleck intended this film as the feature-length it would eventually become, 'Half Nelson', and filmed a 25 minute short film/segment to drum up interest and financing. That he eventually succeeded, to critical acclaim, needs to be considered before judging the merits of this film alone.

Stranded at school when her brother fails to pick her up, Drey heads back inside to use the gym's restroom facilities, where she finds one of her teachers, Mr. Dunne, getting high in one of the stalls. She immediately asks him for a ride home. There are brief glimpses of a relationship that may build between the two, wary friendship or outright dependence, but that isn't the focus of this short. Drey seems well adjusted, but sullen, quiet, and lonely, and is obviously disconnected from all aspects of her life. Her mother seems loving, but absent most of the time due to work. Her brother, likewise, seems close to her, but he's older and part of a different world. She has friends at school, but while they chatter and laugh, she seems more interested in clusters of older children hanging out on the street corner. That probably explains why she grasps onto Mr. Dunne; she has something on him, proof of the fallibility of adults, and it brings him down closer to her level. Their both out of place in their own lives, and hiding something from the world. We don't see much of Mr. Dunne, but his misery is clear enough. It's there in his drug problem(always the cinematic sign of misery), and the extended pause he takes after getting into his car before he drives away.

We get a flurry of possible conflicts in this short film, and none of them are anywhere near resolution. Drey's mother has her own sadness and seems to be preoccupied with some horrible thoughts, Drey's brother is apparently involved in some not-quite-legal activities, and of course there's Mr. Dunne and his drug problem, and Drey herself and her alienation. Most of these conflicts aren't directly addressed, but are conveyed by lingering camera takes, and some meaningful glances.

A word should be said about the acting. I actually really like low-budget films and their non-actors. There's something appealing and even emotionally affecting about the sometimes stilted or borderline flat delivery. I like it's rhythm, and it's awkwardness. Not to say that any of that appears here. With the possible exception of the important Mr. Dunne, every single person appearing on screen seems to not even be acting, but to be living these events out. Every one of them is utterly convincing. I don't mean to say that Mr. Dunne, played by Matt Kerr, is a bad actor, but he doesn't seem a perfect fit for a role that should be much more magnetic and, yes, charismatic.

So there, a quick overview of a fantastic short film that should really only serve as a companion piece to a larger work. I find it very encouraging that Ryan Fleck was able to get his feature film made from this short, and look forward to seeing how everything plays out. There are many predictable ways in which this story could go, which we can call the 'after school special' approach, but judging from the work on display here, I don't have much fear about that.

Final Analysis: Would I pay money for a feature film directed by Ryan Fleck(and co-written by Anna Boden, can't forget her)? If it weren't already obvious, I plan on doing so later this week.

Spout #13 (Part One): Hyper

The disc I'm reviewing this time is a collection of short films, 13 to be exact. I didn't plan on writing individual reviews for each film, and I still don't. My friend and fellow Spout Maven Rik did that far more impressively than I could hope to do here. I'm leaving it up in the air right now, some posts may have only one short film, others may include a few, or I may just burn through the final dozen in the next post(that last one is highly unlikely). I do plan on treating each of these shorts as an individual film, however, and will be taking time to review all of the special features they may have(each includes at least one commentary). To many of these filmmakers, this short film they've produced represents just as much passion, sweat and ingenuity as a feature length film, and maybe more of that stuff than many features. I've also decided that the best way of reviewing these films, the best criteria, is a single question I'll ask myself at the end of every viewing; would I pay to see a movie directed by this artist? I'll answer the question for the first of these shorts, Hyper, in the following paragraphs.

Like the Ace, the subject of the fake documentary that is Hyper, and Rik, who suggested this disc to me, I move at a personal speed that is noticeably higher than that of the rest of the world. Part of that is my height, longer legs and longer strides, but most of it is motion. I fidget a bit, I pace constantly when I'm required to be on the phone, and I've somewhat mastered the ability to weave in and out of clusters of shoppers at the mall. And yes, this brings with it a level of frustration. Constantly slowing down to the speed of the people I'm with, or facing the terror of a packed mall where I'll have my own personal rhythm interrupted by some teenager who decides they don't need to see what's going on behind them before they stop short to stare at something in the window. That stuff can sometimes be annoying. I sympathize with Ace. But there is where the similarities end.

I may move at a faster than average clip when walking, and may experience mild annoyance when that clip is interrupted, but in general I am not worried about time. It does not appear logical to me to live your life watching the clock, or constantly measure time in a series of positive or negative blocks. In my life, as anyone reading my infrequent blog can attest, I am not averse to stopping to smell the roses, as it were. But Ace, well, Ace is a bit more extreme. Every moment of his life is lived in fast forward, counting every minute and adding or subtracting to some vague, unmentioned total. Working out while riding the train to work gains him an hour, while spending time with the girlfriend loses him 15 minutes. I'm not sure what he's keeping track for, or what he's doing with the total, but it completely consumes his life..

I guess that would be the biggest question: Why? What is Ace hoping to accomplish? What is he going to do with all that extra time? It's not as if it sits somewhere, accruing interest until some magical day when he retires. And besides, Ace seems to have no real goal or desire to be anything other than a courier, which he already is. He obviously doesn't want a family one day, as private time with a magazine in a public restroom seems more than enough domestic satisfaction. Sure, the point may be that all of Ace's tips for faster living are, in fact, pointless. That in the end Ace winds up stuck in his own rut, alone and never at rest. But I'm still unsure as to why this man would feel so compelled.

By the time I made it through this film for a third time, watching Ace gave me the sort of annoyance I normally reserve for those people who use wheelchairs but push themselves around with their feet.

Final analasis, would I pay to see a feature length film directed by Michael Canzoniero and Marco Ricci? Well, I wouldn't avoid it. I know that sounds like faint praise, but it's hard to judge from this short. Hyper was quick and fun and mildly stylized, but there was nothing to it to set it apart. Nothing in the film gave any idea about the philosophies, ideas or style of the talent behind the camera. So yes, if the subject matter of the film appealed to me, I'd love to see more from these guys.

Spout #12: Clean (Or; the redemption of Courtney Love)

OK, so perhaps the connection isn't that major, and it certainly isn't anything brought up by the movie itself, but the parallels are hard to deny. It's safe to assume that at some point in the production of this movie, which follows a woman blamed(by some) for the overdose of her more famous rock star husband as she tries to get her act together and regain some of her fame, someone must have brought up Courtney Love and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Perhaps Olivier Assayas even looked back to the story of that couple for some inspiration or ideas, but that's probably as far as it went.

At the opening of the film we see Emily(Maggie Cheung) and her musician husband arriving in a small town for a gig. Most of this is irrelevant, and only serves to impress upon us that Emily is a junkie, and she's blamed by those around her for dragging her far more talented husband into her addiction. In fact, the first thing we witness Emily doing is setting up a connection so she can score drugs later that night. Did I say most of this was irrelevant? I suppose it might be, except for that little action there. It's the drugs that Emily buys from this connection that propel the rest of the movie. After an argument(about drugs), Emily storms out on her husband that night, and separately the two get high. Emily wakes up in the morning, her husband does not. Returning to their hotel room, which is now a crime scene, Emily makes an ill-advised emotional outburst, drawing the curiosity of the cops, and landing her in jail once they find the heroin in her purse. Almost overnight, the fame that the drug-addled couple had been searching for finds them. Emily's husband becomes an overnight sensation. It's never stated what his level of stardom is, but we hear that his death made the cover of Mojo magazine, and his family is being helped out by old friend Tricky, so we can assume he was a bit of a one-time superstar in the indie music world. Emily, on the other hand, attracts nothing but derision, and everyone in the world is apparently convinced that she killed her husband. She denies this, to everyone, whether or not she actually believes it herself.

After 6 months in prison, Emily meets with her father-in-law, Albrecht(Nick Nolte), at a small diner somewhere. He offers to give her money, she refuses, he asks her to not visit her son, she agrees. Both of them seem to think that the child needs stability, and Emily can't give that to him. As a father, this sort of thinking bothers me a bit, and although I can't completely agree, I have to give Emily kudos, because this is undoubtedly the best decision for everyone. With the small amount of money left in her bank account, Emily heads home to Paris, where she gets a job at a restaurant, and dreams of regaining the fame she once had as a VeeJay for an MTV-like cable channel. Maggie Cheung here(it's important to give her credit for this, not just her character), is marvelous here, flitting from Canada to Paris to London, alternating between English, Chinese and French with ease, and always looking completely at home wherever she is. The irony is that she never feels at home, and seems endlessly restless and always wanting more.

As much as Emily constantly talks about it, she actually doesn't seem too interested in regaining any fame. Or perhaps it's the work she isn't interested in. She gives her friends some demo tapes, she has an interview with her old boss, but that's pretty much it. She doesn't seem interested in getting some like-minded musicians together or singing in a band, or hell, even karaoke. She just continues her addictions(methadone now, not heroin) and talks about how she should be famous. Eventually, as her life becomes on disappointment after another, Emily moves in with some friends and decides to get clean, taking a menial job at a department store. She even turns down her one best chance at making an album because it would clash with her plans to see her son. Suddenly, with none of the signposts familiar to most drug addiction movies, Emily has matured and started to change her life. Around this point Nick Nolte re-enters the film(Nolte suffers a bit from 'star cameo syndrome,' in that he never interacts with most of the main cast, and often feels like he's starring in a separate film). In London so his dying wife can see some specialists, he reintroduces Emily to her son, and helps end the movie on a positive note.

Clean is a bit of an odd duck; not really gritty or emotional enough to fit into the scores of other drug films, the film is surprisingly upbeat, but never really reaches 'after school special' levels of schmaltz. What it is is a calm, intelligent meditation on addiction and the ways we try to lie to ourselves to make us fit in. Emily, while certainly not the best mother in the world, is still surprisingly honest and open with her son. While not expressly admitting guilt in her husband's death, Emily is refreshingly straightforward with her son, telling him about his father, and their life together, and how drugs gave them both some very good times, admitting that it could have been either or both of them that died(which is true). Like I said, she never admits guilt, but the discussion does bring a catharsis of some sort, and it seems to cleanse Emily of some of the guilt and baggage she's been carrying around. The ending disappointed some, but it felt right to me. Emily is recording in San Francisco, with the prospect of a loving relationship with her son in front of her, and she walks off into the sun of a new morning, clean.

Spout 11: Manda Bala

This review is a long time coming. A very long time. It's been weeks since I saw, and loved, Manda Bala, and yet I haven't gotten off my ass(or, to be truthful of my actions right now, ON my ass) to write up a review, or even a collection of thoughts. Manda Bala was excellent, more than I expected in every way possible, and yet I find myself grasping for things to say about it. The movie speaks for itself so perfectly that I don't think I could add anything that would heighten the experience. Or maybe I'm just having trouble finding a way into the movie.

Manda Bala is a documentary about... well... just what is it about? It opens with a man being interviewed about frog farming in Brazil, and he good-naturedly refuses to answer questions about some sort of scandal involving frog farming. So is it about frog farming and government corruption? Yes. The movie then shows us a young businessman who has invested thousands of dollars into protection, walks with a dummy wallet for random(and frequent) carjackings, and takes courses teaching how to outrun gunmen on the highway. So is this film about the insanely high rate of crime in Sao Paulo? Yes. Then we meet a woman who was kidnapped and held for ransom for 16 days, eventually having her ear cut off and sent to her father. So is Manda Bala about the human cost of corruption, violence and class distinction in one of the most impoverished parts of the world? Also yes. But wait there's more; the plastic surgeon with a surprisingly healthy God-complex who has made his name, and fortune, on reconstructing all of the dismembered ears of kidnap victims, the overworked and understaffed anti-kidnapping squad, the corrupt politician who has bilked millions- billions, even!- from his countrymen, and the masked kidnapper who sees himself as an urban Robin Hood, protecting and providing for his neighbors in the slums of Brazil.

Manda Bala is a complex spiderweb of a documentary, a project much more ambitious than the filmmakers apparently set out to make, and completely unlike the more high profile documentaries that make it to theatres. There is no narrative here, and no narrator. What we get are a series of interviews, some instances of found news footage and a few uses of title cards. But really the focus is on the personalities at play, and the filmmakers let their subjects speak for themselves. Obviously there is some judicious editing here; someone chose exactly which statements would make the cut, and someone chose how to arrange them to make certain ideas more resonant, but overall the film feels more honest and real than any documentaries I've seen lately. And yet the film has a distinct theatricality to it, which would seem to play against the realism on display. For one, Manda Bala is shot on film stock, which gives it a theatrical, commercial sheen. For another, all of the shots are shamelessly set up in advance. How else to explain how locations are perfectly lit as characters walk through them, purportedly for the first time?

The theatricality does not, as you would expect, detract from anything. Instead it lends Manda Bala a more exotic locale. The stories being told are all the more shocking with they take place in the middle of a postcard perfect color palette, and everyone is lit like a movie star. Perhaps I'm playing this up a bit much, since there would be no mistaking this for a Hollywood production. And yet, for all it's production values and manipulation of the image, the filmmakers don't attempt to create any sort of story out of this, other than what appears on screen. Obviously our natural inclinations will be to view the kidnapper(who has, presumably, disfigured victims, and has admittedly killed several cops) with disgust, the corrupt politician as a scumbag, and the plastic surgeon with the contempt we normally reserve for plastic surgeons. But think for a minute, and listen to their words. Sure the doctor seems like a prick of the first order, but he is helping people who more genuinely require his services than the average socialite. The kidnapper uses heinous acts of violence against strangers for money, but in his eyes he's fighting for survival, not just his, but his neighbors, in a country where the government and the wealthy are bleeding the life out of them. He has the most striking moments in the film, particularly when he talks of his own children. He has 9, and his wife is pregnant with number 10. He seems to view it as the only way out of the entire mess, and dreams that one of his children may grow up to be president and fix his country. And the politician... well... he's still a scumbag.

The point being, none of these characters has any judgments cast their way. And that, as great as it is, leaves me a little lost. I'm not used to documentaries not telling me how to think. What is this new feeling? Is this what those public radio hippies call independent thought? It feels good. And I'd recommend it to anyone out there reading this.

Spout #10: Summer Palace

Writer/Director Lou Ye's Summer Palace takes place over about 15 years, beginning in the late eighties and ending up in 2003. The movie begins as Yu Hong(a charismatically detached Hao Lei, mental note to look for her in other films) discovers she's been accepted to the Beijing University. Shortly afterward she has spontaneous, furtive sex with her boyfriend in a field. The way they move quickly away from one another, and the suspicious, embarrassed looks they give each other after the act implies that this is their first time. It also gives us some emotional hook to grab onto, since her boyfriend, Xao Jun(played by Cui Jin) will soon be absent until past the halfway point. Much has been made of the sex in this movie, primarily because it's so frequent and, some say, graphic. I didn't find this film to be anywhere near as graphic as most Hollywood sex scenes, with their fetishistic lighting and camera movements.

In college, Yu Hong is a solitary loner, smoking in the hallway because her dorm room is too crowded, and not talking to anyone until she meets Li Ti. Through her, Yu Hong meets Zhou Wei and the two carry on a passionate affair. Their relationship could be viewed as idyllic for awhile, but not to anyone paying attention. Yu Hong becomes unbalanced and jealous in the relationship, despite always seeming distant and noncommittal. Her private diary, which is narrated to us, reveals hidden depths, but she never allows them to show through until they burst forth in a destructive torrent.

The first half of this film, set in the late 80's, culminates with the Tienanmen Square protests, and while this seems like a dramatic backdrop, it's hardly ever utilized. We, the audience, get a few glimpses, and a pretty emotional montage of news clips(which would never have been shown in mainland China), but there's no context. Although the main characters are involved in the protest, we never see them becoming involved in anything. It appears they just went as a lark, not on behalf of some deep seated beliefs. At first I assumed I was merely missing out because, as an American who was only 11 at the time, I was not very familiar with the events surrounding the Tienanmen Protests. I thought that the backdrop would probably be much more self explanatory to a Chinese audience, but of course that would be incorrect. Details of the protests remain under strict censorship, and most people in China are unaware of what happened. That most iconic image, the lone man standing in front of a tank, was unidentifiable to a group of Chinese college students confronted with the photo on a recent episode of Frontline. In fact, Summer Palace was banned in Mainland China, primarily due to the references to the protests, and the director has been banned from film making for the next 5 years.

The second half of the film takes frequent leaps forwards in time as Yu Hong has a string of relationships and Zhou Wei moves with Li Ti and her boyfriend to Germany. During this period Zhou Wei and Li Ti carry on an occasional affair, and Yu Hong has an abortion in one of the most emotionally powerful scenes of it's kind I've ever witnessed. Yu Hong calls college the most confusing time of her life, but she's obviously trying to regain something in her sexual relationships, which are emotional and passionate, but always, she knows, temporary. She is of course pining for Zhou Wei. Although she consents to a marriage proposal from a kind man who genuinely loves her, we get the idea that she's only doing this as an attempt to stop her own personal downward spiral before it becomes truly destructive.

As the movie progresses in time, Zhou Wei and Yu Hong slowly begin to gravitate towards each others lives. Eventually they meet, and the finale of the film is quietly devastating in it's own right, but slightly marred by a frankly needless series of title cards that spell out what happens to the characters just after the movie ends.

Summer Palace is a film I'm actually a little in awe of, and feel some weird, half formed affection for, even if I don't actually like it in the technical sense. For one, as has been noted in just about every review, the movie is a bit long and meanders a bit too much, and yet it also feels too brief at times. Particularly the first half, which frustratingly avoids placing anything in any concrete context. And yet that, in retrospect, gives the film it's own strange power. It's kinda heartbreaking to think that writer/director Lou Ye is from the generation that protested so vehemently and fought to bring democracy to China's government, only to see their every effort wiped from the public conscience. It's not too hard to imagine this movie as his own response to seeing the work of so many quietly forgotten by his own countrymen.

Spout #9: A Peck on the Cheek

Prior to A Peck On The Cheek I had no real experience with Indian movies, outside of some of the more notorious Bollywood knock-offs of American films. Obviously those films do not constitute the entirety of Indian arts and culture, just as craptacular diversions such as Epic Movie or the Larry the Cable Guy oeuvre do not constitute a balanced view of American culture. So I set out with the direct purpose of dispelling the stereotypes I had built up in my head, and hopefully I would be rewarded with an eye-opening, mind expanding look at a completely foreign culture. On that front it both succeeded admirably, and failed miserably.

A Peck on the Cheek is the story of Amudha, a girl orphaned by the violent uprisings in Sri Lanka, who is adopted by a well-to-do(I'd imagine upper middle class, like the Cosby's, would be most accurate in describing their station in life) family as a baby. On her 9th birthday she is told of her real mother, and eventually talks her parents into traveling to find her. That's the condensed version, but the film itself is much, much more than that.

A pre-credits sequence shows an arranged marriage between Shyama and Dhileepan. These scenes are short, but we see through their shyness and awkwardness at their first meeting during the marriage tells us these are good people, and the humor of that wedding night, and the few domestic images we get, only reinforce that idea. Unfortunately this happiness is not going to last. An idyllic day out, swimming and walking through the woods, is interrupted by a troop of soldiers marching through the woods. Dhileepan orders to Shyama to run to her father's, while he remains behind to attack the soldiers in some unseen fashion. We find out that Shyama is pregnant, and is sent out of Sri Lanka with a boatful of refugees by her father, and she gives birth in a Red Cross center. This is the last we see of Shyama for most of the film as we jump, post-credits, to the 9th birthday of Shyama's daughter Amudha.

Amudha's parents seem loving and wholesome, but they show some pretty inept parenting skills. Choosing to tell the girl of her adopted status isn't in itself a bad thing, but choosing her birthday, of all times, seems needlessly cruel. The parents take turns reacting in sullen disappointment when Amudha is less than thrilled by this news, and her younger brothers use this information to tease her mercilessly. It's understandable that Amudha attempts running away to her birth mother several times before Indira & Thiru(her adopted parents) agree to help her locate Shyama. It's a noble enough endeavor, and certainly made with only the best of intentions, but it shows a slightly malnourished world view.

Sri Lanka is still in the midst of a violent uprising, and bringing a young child into the middle of a guerrilla war may not the wisest of moves. But it is in these scenes that the film kept surprising me. Every time I settled in for some rote melodrama, the film took a turn into some fairly gripping scenes of urban warfare. Almost immediately upon their arrival, Amudha is slightly injured in a suicide bombing, and guerrillas are constantly lurking in the background as tanks and soldiers march down public streets. Still, the family perseveres, with the help of a local doctor who acts as their guide, and eventually they find Shyama, who is now in charge of teaching the children of the revolutionaries who themselves march through the jungles with automatic half their size in their arms. The few scenes in the beginning with Shyama didn't do much to establish the character in our minds, but despite being absent for 90 minutes of screen time, those scenes speak volumes for the type of person she has become, and the life she is currently living. This is a person who gave up her happiness, her child for the chance to rid her homeland of war and oppression, and in the end she doesn't even have the hope that her dream will ever be realized.

A Peck on the Cheek was miles away from what I was used to in regards to Indian cinema, and yet it still kept up some of the traditions. Several musical numbers serve to lighten the mood and keep the pace up, but they feel out of place and amateurishly directed, with the visual aesthetic of a skin cream commercial at times. The story was undoubtedly going to be a highly emotional one, no matter how you cut it, but a penchant for rampant melodrama actually made some of the scenes slightly laughable, to my Western sensibilities. Also, and this may be due more to my ignorance of the local politics, but I found the Sri-Lankan elements to be slightly lacking. Perhaps if I actually lived there it would be more obvious to me, but I felt like the violence was merely backdrop, and not something that was actually explored, and could have used some expanding upon.

All in all an enjoyable, enlightening experience. I hear good things about the director, Mani Ratnam, who seems to be a fairly popular filmmaker both in and out of his country. This film, at the very least, has inspired me to check out more of his work.

Spout #8: Out of Balance

This latest entry in my Spout Mavens reviews is probably the one I was looking forward to most, which makes the length it took me to view it a bit puzzling. Out of Balance plays into one of my pet obsessions; global warming and the corporations at the heart of the problem. Leaning more towards the left side of the political spectrum, environmental concerns and a distrust of large corporations is almost hard-wired into my thinking. And here the target is Exxon, the largest oil company, and, as the film argues, the largest CORPORATION in the entire world(I have no idea if that's true, and the film offers no quotable sources, but it sounds like it could be true). The only way this could be more up my alley was if the corporation being targeted was Wal-Mart.

Living in Alaska I may be quicker to distrust Exxon than most. The 1989 oil spill in Prince William Sound was a huge disaster that we're still reeling from today. It wasn't just the largest oil spill in history, but it was in an area where people made almost their entire living on the water, from tourism or fishing, and both were, essentially, ruined for years to come. I remember two trips to Homer to study the beaches, both during school field trips. One trip was in 1988, the other was in 1990, and the difference, even in an area not directly in the path of the oil spill, was noticeable. The year after the oil spill the beaches in Homer were not devastated, but they were a little more empty, with not quite so many fish, crabs or octopus, and the sand was noticeably looser, and you would sink in above your ankles where the year before you would stand comfortably on the hardpacked sand. To me the Exxon oil spill is not the firsthand disaster it was to the people who lived in the Prince William Sound area, but neither is it the empty headline of some faraway tragedy that it must have been for people living in, say Missouri. The continuing problems are increased by Exxon's refusal to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages they were court-ordered to pay, money that would help cover cleanup, health care for those with problems stemming from the spill, and the loss of income to many families who depended on fishing as a way of life. Just a couple weeks ago there were a new string of news stories detailing Exxon's continuing, and partially successful, attempts to get the Supreme Court to lower the amount they're required to pay. You don't need to try and convince me that Exxon is an immoral, harmful corporation.

Tom Jackson, the director and our guide through a list of Exxon's atrocities, seems like a well balanced, likable enough guy. That actually is important, because many of these anti-establishment style documentaries come off as reactionary, pretentious, and unlikable. Tom Jackson, however, puts himself right alongside the audience as he asks questions and learns the truth with us. He admits that global warming was something he didn't want to believe, in part, because he loves to just get in his car and drive. This everyman persona works slightly better than Michael Moore's attempts; his films may be more successful, both message-wise and monetarily, but he should stop trying to play the ignorant American constantly amazed by the things he puts in his movies.

The only real complaint to this film is it's brevity. At barely over an hour long, the film doesn't delve too deeply into specifics. There are plenty of talking heads, scientists, journalists and the like, but they focus more on the problem of global warming as a whole than Exxon's contributions. In fact, there's not really a lot here that the people watching this film wouldn't know already. Or maybe that's me, and people outside of Alaska aren't as aware of Exxon's misdeeds, but I couldn't help feeling that this film was preaching to the choir. It's unlikely that anyone not yet aware of global warming would pick this film up at their local video store, while anyone who would be interested in this sort of thing probably already knows this already. Still, Mr. Jackson is a decent guy, and the decision to film his own personal journey to find out why Exxon was so evil wasn't a bad one. The movie's heart is in the right place, and this is definitely a message that needs to be said, but there's not much here to recommend it over the other films of it's ilk.

Spout #7: Sun Dogs

When I first saw Sun Dogs on the list of movies available for review to Spout Mavens members, I skipped past it after reading only a few sentences. A movie about a Jamaican sled dog team? Cool Runnings gave me enough wacky Jamaican fish-out-of-water sports hijinks for one lifetime. Then I saw it was a documentary, and I put in a request. Then I started watching it and my interest waned. Then 10 minutes passed and I was hooked. Then I was bored. Then I was hooked again! It was a constant roller coaster of varying interest levels.

It's impossible to view Sun Dogs without thinking of Cool Runnings-the John Candy vehicle that had him training the first Jamaican bobsled team(based on a true story)- and in fact that's the intention of just about everyone involved in this film. The Jamaican sled dog idea was nothing more or less than a calculated ploy to bring money, tourism and attention to a country mired in widespread poverty and crime. This isn't an ignoble goal by any means; the main purpose of everyone involved is to show the world that Jamaicans are hardworking, strongwilled people, able to succeed at whatever they try. My problem, specifically in the beginning of the film, is that the documentary looks too much like a video postcard you might see on the travel channel, and I was worried that Sun Dogs would completely ignore the less attractive aspects of Jamaica. But, about 10-15 minutes in, the film begins to go down those more dangerous streets, and features a few talking head interviews that cover the crime rate in Kingston, the state of education, and the state of poverty. This seems to add a few new dimensions to the film, but in the end it isn't focused enough. The filmmakers try to cover so many topics, and then cram it into a few scant minutes during a documentary about sled dogs, that the documentary has no real depth.

For the most part the film follows the handful of people trying to pull together a sled dog team, train the dogs from scratch, and introduce this new sport in a country where most people don't even know what 'sledding' is. This is, literally, a ragtag team of dogs and people, which fits right in with the uplifting sports film these people are so desperate to make. All of the dogs are rescued from the J.S.P.C.A. and the filmmakers(and dogsled promoters) are eager to paint this as an allegory for Jamaica itself. These dogs are rescued from hard and brutal lives and given a shot to improve themselves and live happily ever after. And there lies my main complaint with this film; everyone is so eager to make this a brand, to market both the film and the country, that this documentary rarely feels real. I'm not saying that the events in this film never happened, or that it was all scripted, I'm just saying that for a documentary there's an awful lot of manipulation going on.

The previous documentary I reviewed here, Let The Church Say Amen, featured a group of people I would normally not enjoy spending time with, and despite the fact that I didn't enjoy spending time with the people in that film, I came away pleased with the movie overall. Mainly that was because every single thing in that film felt real, like the cameras just happened to capture these people and these events. In Sled Dogs it's obvious, painfully so, that some scenes and events have been staged because the filmmakers just needed the footage. A lot of these are minor, like characters meeting or having introductory conversations when it's clear they'd known each other previously.

It's hard for me to hate- or even dislike- this film, when the goal is so noble and the efforts of everyone involved are so heartfelt, but too much of this feels like a bad infomercial. Like the introductions of all the dogs where they do something wacky, the shot freezes as their name comes up and someone dubs in a cheesy 'woof woof' sound, to give them all personality. Something happens on the island near the end of the film that is a complete reversal of everything you would expect. The documentary seems eager to skip past this event, which I will not divulge here, but if anything more time should have been spent on it. It introduces the idea that perhaps the entire ills of a nation can't be solved by a winning sled dog team and a heart of gold attitude. It's also the one moment in the film that feels heartbreakingly real and unstaged. As it stands it's too little too late.

Spout #6: Great World Of Sound

Fame is an enticing drug, and it's attainment figures into the daydream of billions. In fact, anyone saying they don't want fame is either lying, or up to no good. Oh, I don't mean to say everyone wants to be Britney Spears or Leonardo Dicaprio, I mean that everyone wants to be noticed for their talents. To paraphrase Tyler Durden in Fight Club(I know, it's been done to death, but it fits here); we've all been raised to believe we'll be rock stars, or astronauts, or president of the United States, but for most of us, that stuff ain't gonna happen. That doesn't stop our dreaming, although it may stop our actually working for it. There are plenty of people out there playing on these dreams, shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent, and even Big Brother or Survivor style reality shows, all play on humanity's desire to be famous without too much exertion or talent. In fact, lack of talent is prized almost as much as actual talent in some cases, with all of the really hideously untalented American Idol contestants getting more airplay than some actual winners(how many CDs does William Hung have now? AND an Arrested Development cameo?!). This desire for fame, and the willingness to prey on that desire, informs almost every character you meet in Great World Of Sound, the excellent feature debut from writer/director Craig Zobel.

Martin(Pat Healy) answers an ad looking for people to join the Great World of Sound production company as talent scouts, travelling the country to find new talent. Martin is a man with no real goals in life, forever latching onto whatever his girlfriend at the time is into, and basing his life around that. Eager to find something to define himself within his new marriage, he leaps headfirst into this job. Perhaps that explains why he is so blind to the fact that Great World of Sound Productions is a scam, an old school grift that dates back to at least the early 20th century. Now, I'm not giving anything away by saying GWS is a scam, I knew it right from the opening scene at Martin's interview, and you'll know it, too. In fact, the big question is; Why doesn't anyone else seem to know it? For a seemingly with it, intelligent guy, Martin is pretty slow on the uptake. Or maybe that's another jab at American fame-seeking, that our quest for glory will blind us to all of the moral compromises we make along the way.

At the training seminar for GWS, Martin meets up with Clarence, a middle aged black man who is looking for a way out of manual labor so he can provide for his six(unseen) children. They bond quickly, and the early half of this movie plays like a particularly dry episode of The Office, with quiet, awkwardly hilarious moments and longer than normal camera takes. Sent on the road to scout talent in another state, Martin and Clarence use their hotel room to audition local 'talent' in scenes that are painfully realistic because, well, they are real. Most of the performances we witness were captured Dateline Hidden Camera style, with the artists being briefed about the film only after their audition. Some of these are played for uncomfortable laughs, but occasionally a true artist emerges. Not that it matters. To Great World Of Sound, EVERYONE is a potential celebrity, and they'll sign anyone who can give them enough money. Ideally they want 10% of the costs of printing a CD, which comes out to $3,000, but they'll take a 'good faith' down payment to get the ball rolling. Again, it's hard to see how the main characters don't realize this is a scam.

Eventually things begin to slide from comedy to tragedy, somewhere around the time Martin and Clarence audition a young girl who has written a 'new national anthem'. For the first time Martin sees talent that moves him, and when her grandfather can't come up with the 'good faith payment' Martin helps with money out of his own pocket. This may not be when Martin and Clarence get wise to the scam, but it is when things begin to turn tragic, and the young girl is what begins to clue Martin in to the shady nature of his job. A visit to the recording studio to watch her record her song finds a technologically behind-the-times operation, inept/uncaring technicians, and a very angry grandfather. Suddenly the auditions are no longer funny, and they begin to become sad and tinged with slight dread that these people actually WILL sign up. These aren't talentless and deluded slackers, these are daughters and husbands and grandmothers that are being conned.

The performances are pretty stellar all around, whether in the 'caught on tape' musical performances, the weasely-but-not-slimy vibe from those running the GWS scam, and the interplay between Clarence and Martin. Pat Healy plays Martin with a deadpan sincerity, quiet, reserved and awkward, but truly desiring to help guide these people to stardom. Kene Holliday-good enough in this role that I wonder where the hell he's been since Matlock- plays Clarence almost diametrically opposed; gregarious, loud and crude, wanting nothing more than to make an easy buck and a better life. He isn't a bad man, but he does hold a bit of contempt for these people, looking to make it in life on 'talent' when most people have to make it with sweat and tears. It doesn't sound like the basis for a very good friendship, but the two connect, and the friendship feels real.

As I said, it's a bit of a curiousity that no one notices this is a scam. It's odd that in this day of the information highway, no one even thinks of checking into the history of GWS, but it's a minor flaw. Specifically because these people are so blinded by their own dreams that they would grasp at any way out of their ordinary lives. If I have one complaint with this movie, it's that it offers no real conclusion. Oh, sure, Clarence and Martin see the error of their ways, but it's too late; GWS has pulled stakes and moved on to greener pastures and more gullible marks. But what next? Does anyone seek out and hold GWS liable? Do any of the swindled artists seek out Clarence or Martin? The finale of this movie never lets it's characters off the hook for their duplicity in swindling people out of their savings, but neither does it offer the catharsis of confrontation. These are sad things happening to sad, desperate people, and in the end we're not given any sense of what to expect as they go their separate ways. I suppose this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and on a future viewing I'll probably change my mind about that, but I did eject the disc wanting... more. Which is the goal of any entertainer, after all.

Spout #5: LOL

It's taken me awhile to write the review for LOL, mainly because I keep trying to think of good things to say about this movie. I'm feeling a bit like the lone dissenter here, the only person out there who didn't love this film. I've gone and read some reviews, and I've read up a bit on this 'mumblecore' movement I keep hearing about, hoping to find some explanation, something to tell me what I was missing. But no, nothing worked. Put me in the 'don't get it' category. That's not to say I don't understand the film itself, I do, it's nothing if not painfully obvious about it's intentions. I just don't understand the growing cult surrounding this and other movies that fall under the mumblecore umbrella. But let's focus on LOL for now.

The film follows three friends and their inability to engage people(or, more specifically, women) without the aid of their various technological gadgets. Alex is a musician who seems unable or unwilling to realize that the random woman he's been emailing at a porn site probably isn't really attracted to him. So deluded and self involved is he that when an actual flesh and blood girl flirts with him, all he can think to do is lie to her, convince her that he's going on tour and needs a ride from Chicago to St. Louis. Once there, she puts him up at her parents house, and is obviously willing to share her bed, yet he spends the entire night on her mothers computer, checking his email obsessively for a reply from the aforementioned porn star, holding out hope that she likes him somehow more than every other random, anonymous man watching her take her clothes off and sending her love letters. It seems like common sense to me that someone charging you for their time probably isn't that into you, but apparently Alex missed that lesson.

It's hard to decide whether or not this is the biggest example of douchebaggery in the film, as his friends are all just as clueless when it comes to the opposite sex. Tim(played by the film's director, Joe Swanberg) spends every moment with his girlfriend either on his cell phone or laptop, at one point even chatting online with his friend, who is sitting on the couch with him, while his girlfriend fumes between them. He seems completely aware of how angry this makes her, and sees that this is driving her away from him and towards other men, but really doesn't seem to care much, asking if she can wait 20 minutes before they finish having sex so he can work on his computer. Chris, visiting from out of town and away from his girlfriend, passive aggressively goads his girlfriend into sending him nude photos, and then berates her for not making them sexy enough(completely not true, I don't know what he was looking at). Later he tries to coerce her into having phone sex with him, and when she expresses discomfort, insults her and dramatically declares their sex life dead, ignoring her personal problems to flirt with random women while she apparently has a breakdown back at home.

Now, it's not the filmmakers job to create likable characters; plenty of great films have been made about unlikable assholes. Neither is it the filmmakers job to make the film enlightening OR entertaining. But I will argue that it is the filmmakers job to at least provide an audience with one of those three things. So obviously the characters are jerks, but is the film entertaining?

Decidedly not. The only reason I didn't stop this movie halfway through was my desire to see the entire thing before reviewing it, and a growing lethargy that seeped out of my TV screen. As the film dragged on my limbs became heavier and my brain moved slower so that I just couldn't bring myself to get up and turn off the TV. It was easier to keep watching than to stop and get off the couch. How about enlightening, was it at least that? Well, maybe if you were a self involved teenager, I could see how this would seem earth shatteringly relevant.

It's the god-given right of every person between their teenage years and mid-twenties to be a conceited, narcissistic jerk. It's expected, and socially acceptable, even. But to take this navel gazing and build a film 'movement' around it is a bit much. What am I supposed to learn from LOL? That twenty-something hipsters are socially inept egotistical morons? Is that really a revelation? EVERYONE is like that at a certain age. In actuality, and to be fair to the film, the real message here is something about how computers are getting in the way of real human contact. That's fair. However, this is also nothing new, and a bit false. Socially awkward, self involved people have existed for... well... ever, long before the Internet came around. The only difference is that now instead of comic books, or D&D, these same people spend their time online, where sites like Myspace and Facebook can let them feel social without the pesky 'interacting with people' thing.

I'm probably being a bit too hard on this film, and I feel bad trashing something that was obviously cobbled together by friends doing things they enjoy. The film does try to say something, it does attempt to be relevant and meaningful, and that's a lot more than many more polished, professional films accomplish, but it still struck a false note with me. But then, as you've probably gathered, I am not the target audience for this film. This is probably right up the alley for anyone who loved Four Eyed Monsters(look closely and you'll see Arin and Susan from that film in some of Alex's musical montages), but where that film had an underlying sweetness and nifty visual style to dilute the navel-gazing, LOL is nothing but narcissistic reflections put on screen, trying to pass itself off as a raw and honest exploration of what it's like to live in the digital age.

Spout #4: 13 Tzameti

I was really looking forward to this week's movie for Spout Mavens, 13 Tzameti. I had seen a flurry of reviews(many positive), and the DVD case was packed to the gills with glowing blurbs from some very respectable sources. The director had won Best First Feature at the Venice Film Festival, and the film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, so obviously people liked this film. The description on the back painted the film as a thoughtful, if gritty, meditation on poverty and the temptations of violence. And then I opened the DVD case and was greeted by an ad for a 'real time version' of the game of Russian Roulette that forms the center of this film, which asked 'do you dare play?' So now I didn't know what to think as I began the movie.

Luckily I find uncertainty to be the best state of mind for watching a new movie, and I found myself being drawn in as the movie unfolded. And I do mean that the movie unfolded, like a road map, piece by piece becoming larger and clearer and more informative. The film begins with Sebastian, a 22 year old immigrant in France, and his brother as they work as handymen on a seaside house. We get glimpses of the owners of the house; an affluent-seeming junkie and his girlfriend. There is no effort on the part of the director to explain this scenario, letting the actions speak for themselves, giving a much more realistic feel to this film than many others. How many people speak in exposition that clearly delineates what they are talking about? None, most people have their own shorthand when they get together with friends, and although it isn't really obtuse, it never includes the backstory and explanation that most movie dialogue has. And what eavesdropper is lucky enough to hear every conversation from the beginning, so everything is laid out for him? Again, none, and it is in this way that Sebastian makes the unfortunate choice of stealing an envelope from the seaside house shortly after his employers death. All he, or the audience, knows is that this envelope holds a train ticket to Paris and a pre-paid hotel room, and the promise of a big payout. This is so tempting to him not out of selfish greed(or, not entirely anyway), but out of a need to support his family, who share a tiny apartment. Had he been in a more typical movie, one where eavesdroppers get all the pertinent information, he probably would not have decided to go to Paris.

But, of course, he does go. There would be no film if he hadn't, and now the movie really begins to unfold. In Paris Sebastian receives a phone call with more instructions, which lead to even more instructions, which in turn leads to a secluded house in the middle of a dark, imposing forest, and a very dangerous game run by very dangerous men with very large gambling addictions. This first section of the film, with Sebastian moving from place to place with no idea what is going to happen at the next stop, sets up a good deal of tension. It's twisty and a maybe a little fun to figure out the rules and follow along, but there's a fatalistic dread eating at the edges. Once he makes that first, almost innocent blind step(although lets not fool ourselves, Sebastian is well aware that whatever he's going after is illegal), Sebastian is pulled along on a trip he has no control over, towards an unknown destination.

The tension builds towards that inevitable game in the forest, and although most reviews, and the case for this DVD, seem happy to give spoilers, the details of this game are revealed in a way so integral to the films effectiveness that I would advise you to skip over any part of a review that goes into too deep a description. The tension built in the first half of the film begins to pay off here, while ratcheting up the intensity at the same time. With every round of the game the tension builds, releases for a moment, and then builds again, reaching greater heights each time. Some of this may become a tad bit repetitive, and have a slight numbing effect, but the craftwork is still to be admired, as it unravels with an almost clockwork precision. Sebastian's reaction to this 'game' is at first shocked refusal, but he finds himself unable to leave, stuck by his own bad decisions. As the game continues, and the stakes are raised, he finds himself becoming emotionally numbed even as his internal horror rises. At the end, it's impossible for the viewer to tell if he's laughing or crying as he raises the gun.

So obviously I enjoyed this one. My main complaint with the film itself would be the ending, which seems a little too tidy. It robs the character, and the audience, of the opportunity to reflect and deal with the aftermath of the 'game'. I suppose it fits with the feel of the film, which is spare and concise to the point of feeling like a short film. An extra 15 minutes or so of reflection and aftermath would have made the ending feel a bit bloated. Still, it is a bit of an obvious ending, and a slight disappointment.

Now on to that online game. I went to the site advertised, but the game took a long time to load and then asked me to download a bunch of attachments, so I never went forward with it. But I did look around the site, which is far too tasteless for this film. You can look at the leaderboards to see who's killed the most and survived the most games, read discussion threads full of bloodthirsty trash-talk, or even look at the 'Best Shots', which is a list of famous suicides and Russian roulette losers. I found nothing to indicate whether the filmmakers were involved with this, or if it was a site put up as a marketing tool by clueless studio executives, but it shows no understanding of the film itself, and is as crass as can be. The marketing for this movie, even down to the DVD case, seems to be selling this film as an exploitation piece, capitalizing on the central figure of the infamous game. So maybe I'm the one who's clueless. Perhaps this is merely a bit of modern snuff torture porn, wrapped up in classy french clothes that has fooled me into thinking it's art. Whatever the outcome, it's an interesting ride, and an effective film that I may actually be buying one day, to see it without the screener warnings and maybe check out some of the special features. And that, actually, might be the highest recommendation I can give this film.

Spout #3: Ten Canoes

This week's movie was a mild surprise, being about what I expected in terms of content, but happily exceeding my expectations in terms of form. Ten Canoes, the 12th film from Rolf de Heer(born in the Netherlands, raised in Australia since age 8), is easily the best film I've seen yet through this Spout Mavens project. That shouldn't reflect poorly on the other films I've seen- for my thoughts on those you can always read the reviews themselves- but is instead meant as a testament to how enjoyable I found this one.

Calling Ten Canoes a small film would be a bit dismissive. Although it certainly isn't bombastic or tightly paced, it's still an expansive film, with some excellent cinematography that lingers over the Australian wilderness and glides through the scenery and around the actors like one of the titular ten canoes. The film has periodic black and white segments which were well shot, but I think they were a bit unnecessary. I understand the need and desire to make a clear delineation between the two parallel stories, but the overly bright images on screen make the subtitles a bit hard to read at times, and the full color segments are so striking in comparison. Particularly when it comes to the elaborate full body clay makeup the warriors and mystics sometimes don.

The film, in one of those Russian-nesting-doll type stories a la Arabian Nights, is about a man who becomes aware that the youngest of his three wives has become the object of his younger brother Dayindi's affections. On a hunting expedition with several other tribesmen(most unnamed), Minygululu aims to teach young Dayindi a lesson by telling him a story of their ancestors that mirrors their own. In this story within a story, warrior Ridjimaril's younger brother(the brother is played by the same actor in both stories) lusts after his younger wife. This serves as the launching point for several comedic and tragic events, leading to a comedic and tragic ending. Over this, and serving to keep the two stories straight in the audience's mind, is our storyteller. To go any further into the story of the movie would be pointless. In this film it isn't the story that matters, it's the telling. More than a being about the peril's of coveting thy neighbor's(or brother's) wife, this is a movie about storytelling.

Storytelling is an art form that many people like to bemoan the death of, these days, complaining that instead of sitting around a fire and passing stories on to each other, we now sit in front of a flickering screen. This is, I think, a bit of faulty reasoning. Storytelling is still alive, there are still people who travel the nation(or world) telling their stories to new audiences. Also, I think it unjustly maligns movies and television, by dismissing outright the idea that either medium can produce great works of art. Cinema is just as potent a form of storytelling, and it really isn't all that different from more traditional forms. I recall going to see Dancer in the Dark in the theatre, and part of why I fell in love with that film was the theatre experience itself. Often modern movie audiences are just there to kill a friday night, and you can usually hear murmuring and text-messaging around you. In Dancer in the Dark, the entire audience grew silent, and in the end we were inundated with a great, communal wave of grief. A grief that simultaneously fed itself and comforted us, because we were not alone in it. It was the only movie I've been to where no one moved during the end credits, and when we finally did manage to stand and shuffle off into the lobby, everyone's face was wet with tears. It sound awful, but it was one of the best movie-going experiences in my life, and an example of what storytelling can do to a mass audience.

Our storyteller and guide through this film, voiced engagingly by David Gulpilil, is an affable man, clearly in love with his art, and his frequent asides and comments serve to draw you into the tale he is telling. He laughs at jokes onscreen, and often breaks the fourth wall by speaking directly to the audience, taunting us for our impatience with his meandering and old fashioned style of storytelling. And, yes, it does take awhile to get to the point of the story, and maybe the end isn't as climactic as an audience weaned on twist endings and third act reversals would be used to, but again, to complain about that would be missing the mark. Gulpilil, our narrator, makes frequent asides, and goes off on tangents, such as a sequence where the men sit in a circle and discuss their theories about what happened to a missing woman, as the camera shows us each of these scenarios in turn. This may not keep the action moving in a way most modern audiences want, but it fits perfectly into the whole 'gathered around a campfire' feel of the movie. A good storyteller allows his story room to breath, knows when to embellish certain facts, explore certain threads. It's not a style very inherent to film, which may test the patience of some viewers, and infuriate some people, but this is a movie you need to just sit back and experience.

In the end, whatever drawbacks may be seen in this film are outweighed by it's engaging and warm style. It's not big, it's not flashy, it may not even be as big of a crowd pleaser as I seem to be making it out to be, but it's easygoing, gentle style is infectious.

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

It was with a mixture of trepidation and excitement that I put this weeks screener, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, into my DVD player and hit 'play.' My trepidation came from a few sources; since having a daughter three years ago, and because of my own experiences with an abusive step-dad, I find movies with child abuse difficult to watch. I had heard much about the extreme depths that this film goes to, had heard quite a bit about the source material, and was a bit nervous about how I would react to something that usually affects me so viscerally. On the flipside of that, I was also a bit nervous about the fact that Asia Argento had directed it. Argento's only previous full-length directorial effort was the vaguely autobiographical 'Scarlet Diva,' a film which promised the same soul-searing depths of raw, nasty emotion, yet delivered only mind(and ass) numbing boredom. Still, on the strength of that film, some shorts, and maybe her father's reputation(she is the daughter of Italian horror-master Dario Argento), she's become a favorite among certain indie directors including Gus Van Sant and Abel Ferrara. And maybe because of those same things I'll always be interested in what she does. Also, I have to admit, some of the excitement comes from purely prurient reasons; Asia Argento is, or at least was, smokin' hot. I've had a bit of a crush on her since I saw her get topless in Trauma when I was 16. But then, somewhere in between New Rose Hotel and Land of the Dead, she began taking on the appearance of a hardcore substance abuser. This new look for her actually fits for her role in this film, because that's a very important part of the character.

Based upon the memoir by JT LeRoy, the movie begins immediately with 7 year old Jeremiah being taken from his loving foster family and returned to his biological mother Sarah, played by Asia Argento with an infrequent Tennessee accent. We get absolutely no glimpse of what his life with his foster family was like, although it is clear he loved them and believed them to be his true parents, and it certainly had to be better than life with Sarah. On their first day together she tells him he's unwanted, that he would have been flushed down the toilet if she'd had her way, and then proceeds to give him hard drugs. This is, of course, only the beginning. To cover the litany of abuses in this film would take far to long, so it would be best if you just imagined whatever horrible thing you can happening to a child. Chances are it's in this film. Sarah encourages her one night stands to beat Jeremiah for wetting the bed, dresses him up in her clothing and introduces him at times as her sister, and frequently leaves him in the care of her boyfriends/'johns' for extended periods of time, at one point not showing up for years. And trust me, there's worse to be found between the opening and closing credits.

There's something here that the film never bothers to address; why would Sarah, who so resents her child, continually return to drag him back into her life? She takes him back from his foster parents, but immediately begins to ignore and abuse him. She leaves him with a man who puts him in the hospital through his abuse, but comes back three years later to kidnap him away from his grandparents. Maybe the filmmakers(Asia Argento is writer AND director, so I guess it would be her) assumed this is just something people do, one of those unexplained quirks of the heart, but to trust so implicitly that we won't question why someone who so hates being a mother would keep taking back her child only to ignore or abuse him is a bit lazy.

The beginning of the film, where young Jeremiah is hurled into this nightmarish existence, is the most harrowing part to watch. Eventually, however, the film gets into a pattern where Sarah meets a new guy, has sex in front of Jeremiah, mentally abuses him, does LOTS of drugs, and then leaves. Repeat this about half a dozen times, and the film becomes boring to the point where it becomes a game of spot the cameo; there's Winona Ryder as a clueless social worker! Marilyn Manson as a white trash boyfriend that sexually assaults Jeremiah! Peter Fonda as the ultra-strict head of an ultra-religious family!? One wonders how Asia Argento was able to convince this many name(or almost name) actors and actresses to be in her film(sometimes uncredited), but I imagine it's because they all saw this as the type of 'shocking' project that would garner divisive critical response and murmurs about how daring their involvement was. Or maybe I'm being cynical.

If it sounds like I lost interest in the film, well, it's true. I did. Which is not the reaction I expected to have. I expected to, at the very least, be disgusted, shocked, or depressed by the film. But bored? No, wouldn't have guessed that. Or maybe the problem is with me. This is one of those difficult indie movies that divide audiences at film festivals. The type of film that imparts some vital message about the human condition that I'm just not hard wired to receive. But then, that wouldn't account for the boredom. A film about child abuse shouldn't be this dull. Due to the construct of the book, the movie has no flow, but is instead a series of vignettes. This also makes the movie feel like a shopping list, a recounting of events in a rote chronological order instead of a heartfelt admission. And that, then, is the major, fatal flaw in this film; that it has less emotion than the Dateline special inspired by these events would have.

As a director, though, I do believe Argento has grown. This film shows more stylistic flair than Scarlet Diva, and more confidence behind the camera. At times the camera lingers, and at others it moves with a jittery, manic anxiety as the film sways from stark realism to dark fantasy(Jeremiah frequently hallucinates two red, claymation birds whenever things get particularly trying for him). Some of this may have to do with director of photography Eric Alan Edwards, who's worked on a wide variety of films, including Kids, Knocked Up, My Own Private Idaho, and Crossroads(not the good one with Ralph Macchio, the Britney Spears one), but I'll place enough stock with Argento to actually look forward to her next film.

In 2005 it was revealed that JT LeRoy had never existed, that the autobiographical books were actually written by a woman in her 40s, and public appearances were made by an in-law of hers(this was believed because LeRoy was, according to the 'memoirs', a fairly feminine man attempting to live as a woman). The DVD acknowledges this by having the word 'true' scratched out of the tagline 'based upon a true story by JT LeRoy'. It's an intriguing marketing gimmick, and hints at a different, possibly superior movie waiting out there. I'm not saying this should be remade as a Charlie Kaufmann logic puzzle, but if the movie had acknowledged that 'these events were horrible, things like this happen all the time, but hey, maybe our narrator is flawed', it would have been more compelling. Think Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as an example of a totally heightened movie experience. A 'true' story where most of what is reported didn't actually happen, but the messages and observations remain valid. Usually it's pointless and unfair to say what a movie 'could have been', because a movie is never anything other than what it is, but here it's just too irresistible a thought.

I've tried not to read any reviews of this film, because I didn't want anyone else's opinion to inform my own. Now that I'm done, I plan on rectifying that. However, I did go check out what Ebert had to say, and in the end he gave it a 2 out of 4, as a compromise between horror and admiration, and would not recommend it. I'll shorten that and just not recommend it.

'bout Spout

A few weeks back, on the invitation of my good friend and fellow blogger Rik, I joined the movie discussion site Spout.com. Despite it's flaws it's an incredibly fun site. I've slowed down on my movie ratings, despite barely putting a dent in my overall film collection, but that's mainly because of the slowness of load time. I have, however, been having a good time exploring the different groups(although most of them don't interest me), meeting some like minded film aficionados, and posting my reviews in an area where the types of people I'm trying to reach will actually see them.

So far I've mainly imported older blogs from here, and a nifty 'link to a movie' option means that anyone searching for said movie will see my review, if they are so inclined. A few things have been written specifically for Spout, and then moved over here, but for the most part it's the other way around. The main exception would be the Spout Mavens reviews, the first of which I posted the other day. Spout Mavens is a group that sends out free screener DVDs in exchange for the reviews that will be written by group members. I expect most of these to be direct-to-video, festival favorites. Probably many of them will not interest me, but I welcome the chance to see movies I would probably not even be aware of.

What this means is that my focus on my 'internet presence' is shifting a bit. WorkingDeadProductions will continue to be my home base, so to speak, with everything I write going on here eventually, but Spout will be the main focus for awhile. A lot of my writings will either directly or indirectly be on, for, or maybe even about, that site. Check it out. If your reading this site, than Spout would probably be right for you.

Let The Church Say Amen

Before I start, I think it's only fair to you that I make something clear. In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that I am aggressively not religious. It's not just that I don't go to church, it's that I'm inclined to treat most organized religion with a little wariness and disdain. It's not that I'm not spiritual; I have my own belief and faith, and have no problem with anyone else believing in whatever god they want, it's just that I don't exactly want to hear about it, and I think religion has done at least as much bad as good in our world. And so, with that in mind, you'd probably expect me to jump to an exasperated conclusion about the movie I pulled out of the mail the other day; a documentary about a small church in Washington D.C. You'd be wrong. I tell you this because it's going to be impossible to divorce myself from my beliefs while I review Let The Church Say Amen. As much as I try to clear the slate and watch it with an open mind, and as much as I try to think about this without judging it too harshly, my views are still going to come through. And I realize that most people would probably be more open to the messages in this film than I am.



Washington, D.C., the political heart of our nation, is a decaying, dangerous place. With one of the highest violent crime rates in the country, and a horrific class separation. On one end of the spectrum we have the wealthy politicians and lobbyists, and on the other end is everyone else, struggling not to drown beneath the poverty line. In the midst of this is the World Missions for Christ Church, on an inner-city street corner, in a tiny storefront, with a small but enthusiastic congregation. The members that the documentary follows are people with hard lives and hard luck. There's 'Brother C' who struggles to record a gospel record with himself and his 10 year old son on drums. David Surles who works at a homeless shelter and dreams of owning a house with a yard and a tree, and Darlene Duncan, a single mother with 8 children.

As interesting, nice, and decent as these people are, as noble as their quests may be, I don't think I'd actually like any of them. They belong to that segment of the church-going population that preaches on sidewalks and in subways, that rush up to cars at stoplights and preach into the open windows, and can't seem to put a sentence together without mentioning God or Jesus. These types of people, in person, make me deeply uncomfortable. But then, these are people who have gone through things I couldn't imagine, and faced with joining the homeless and drug addicts that crowd the streets, they have reached out and grasped onto one of the few places that will accept, embrace and encourage them; their church.

When Brother C's oldest son is stabbed to death during the course of this documentary, he begins to drive the streets of Washington, watching the men he holds responsible. Church before this tragic murder was a jubilant place, music and dancing, shouting and testifying, with everyone drenched in sweat. Following this event, World Missions for Christ Church became a twisted mirror version of itself. The shouting, testifying and music were there, but the tone was different. So overcome with their grief that they screamed, wailed, and fell to the floor in convulsions. It was a hard thing to watch.

Brother C finds no support from the police, who respond to his numerous requests for information with a rote 'we're still searching for the suspect, but we'll get him soon.' Indeed, he goes uncaught despite their claims to having a warrant for his arrest until the suspect turns himself in. Where I viewed this as proof of an uncaring police force, Brother C smiled and saw it as the killer giving in to the power of God. In this neighborhood, the citizens are all but ignored by the police and politicians. Darlene Duncan, single mother to 8 children, reacts to our uncaring health care system by going to nursing school and treating her children herself. All this despite having an education level below elementary school. Clearly these are better people than I.

Facing the rampant problems of homelessness, gangs and drugs, with a system that largely ignores these people, World Missions for Christ Church makes an aggressive front. Sponsoring 70 annual events such as food and clothing drives, and free health screenings, this is a group of people living in one of the worst places in our nation, who have banded together and chosen to believe and try to help those around them. That's something I can respect, even if I don't believe.

Had I written this review immediately upon watching the film, it probably would not have sounded quite so positive. But now, with reflection, I find that I wouldn't mind a follow up, to see what happened with Brother C's music career, or how Darlene Duncan is doing with nursing. The movie is a bit hard to watch at times, particularly if your of the mindset that I happen to be in. This isn't one of those crowd-pleasing, populist documentaries that make it to your multiplex, this is strictly for the PBS, NPR crowd. But if you make it through, you'll find that it's messages stick with you.