September 2010 – Page 2 – LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

NY Times: Wall Street 2 Not Vindictive Enough + Hollywood Round-up, 9/28

social345 — From David Fincher's "The Social Network."

By Jason Apuzzo. • We begin today with sad news. It was extremely hot here in Los Angeles yesterday (around 113 degrees), and it appears that Sally Menke, Quentin Tarantino’s long-time editor, went out hiking in the heat and died. This is a terrible development, and we want to wish her family and collaborators our condolences. Menke was absolutely instrumental in the development of Tarantino’s revolutionary film style over the years, and she will be missed.

• Facebook has been doing overtime on damage control in preparation for the launch of The Social Network, reports the Wall Street Journal today. Good luck, guys. The Silicon Valley people are eventually going to learn that Hollywood always has the final say in these things. I wonder what William Randolph Hearst would be saying right about now. It’s hard to imagine, actually, because I keep thinking of Charles Foster Kane instead.

mulligan34 — Too sentimental for the NY Times.

• I told everybody in my Wall Street 2 review that the film was not a political screed, nor an anti-Bush tirade, and most readers who’ve seen the film appear to agree with me. Well, guess what! The New York Times complains today that Wall Street 2 is too character-driven, and insufficiently given over to screeds and finger-pointing on the 2008 market collapse. Perfect! What a farce. A snarky essayist on the Times staff whines that the film wasn’t what he was hoping for, which was: “a movie that took on the financial crisis and eviscerated the folks responsible.” One can only imagine who those “folks” are. Somehow I doubt they include: Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Fannie or Freddie.

The writer of the article appears to be unaware that Stone was making a narrative drama, rather than a Michael Moore documentary. Stone actually had to explain to the writer: “I don’t know how you show a credit default swap on the screen … The idea that the entire system was dependent on a credit bubble that could pop overnight — that is really hard to convey on-screen … People won’t watch a business movie.”

The New York Times guy isn’t buying it, though:

The [financial] crisis, [Stone] insisted, was merely meant to be the backdrop for a story about a handful of “complex” people — an older, wiser Gordon Gekko among them — who just happened to be operating on Wall Street around September 2008 … Truth to tell, I wasn’t really buying what Mr. Stone was selling. The more he protested, the more he sounded like a man who hadn’t pulled off what he had set out to accomplish and was now making after-the-fact excuses. Not unlike Wall Street itself in the aftermath of the financial crisis, when you come to think of it.

So there you go, folks! The New York Times puts itself on record as resisting complex characterization in a drama, because it might get in the way of political score-settling. Perfect. No wonder the Times is going out of print.

• Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp may team up again to bring back The Lone Ranger. I loved the original show when I watched it on rerun as a kid. Depp doesn’t at all read ‘Lone Ranger’ to me, though – he’s too metro. But basically I’ve given up arguing the point on that guy. He’s a megastar, he can act, and he’s obviously here to stay. [UPDATE: It wasn’t in the Deadline Hollywood article I linked to, but supposedly Depp is up to play Tonto – which makes more sense, frankly, as Depp is part Cherokee. Thanks to reader ‘Shane’ for the heads-up. Shane provides links for the Depp-Tonto story here and here.]

• The union fracas over The Hobbit continues, now with the studios getting involved. Wake me when that’s over. In related munchkin/fairy/dwarf news, you can read this detailed account of what to expect in the next Narnia film – assuming those films still float your boat.

• There’s an interesting piece today over at The LA Times’ Hero Complex blog by Iranian-American actor Farshad Farahat on his complex feelings about what Frank Miller’s doing with 300 and the forthcoming Xerxes. It’s an interesting read – check it out.

• On the Espionage Front, some poor soul doing a $10 million film is apparently interested in hiring Lindsay Lohan to play a “sexy CIA agent.” Whatever. He apparently isn’t aware that what Lohan would put him through would be worse than waterboarding. Also: Hawaii Five-O is off to a decent start, isn’t it? So far we’ve had oily Euro-terrorists, and now we can apparently look forward next week to the team fighting “a shark, hot women in hot cars and football stars.” Hey, this is my kinda show! Could they do that all at once? Then I would really be impressed.

• Back to the Future is coming back to theaters, on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. It was a great film – I loved it back in the day. Not so keen on the sequels. The Sound of Music is also getting a big 45th anniversary send-off for its Blu-ray release, featuring Oprah and sing-a-longs.

• On the Sci-Fi Front, Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel appears to be moving forward at Pinewood Studios over in the UK; there’s also an interesting rumor afloat about Tom Cruise possibly signing on to Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness. I’m not buying that rumor yet.

• On the Fashion front, The Frisky’s Wendy Atterberry is channeling her ‘inner Joan Holloway’ in a new fashion spread today. More women should definitely be channeling the inner and outer Joan Holloway, in my book; also, check out this great photo-retrospective of Carla Bruni’s fashion modeling career. Can we trade First Ladies with the French? Don’t they owe us one, or something?

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Taken’s Maggie Grace (see above) has been cast in the forthcoming Twilight: Breaking Dawn, and it’s not difficult to imagine why.

And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.

Posted on September 28th, 2010 at 2:40pm.

HBO to Unleash Anti-Christian Paranoia?

By Jason Apuzzo. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, HBO and the BBC are apparently in the early stages of developing a sci-fi dystopian series based on Reznor’s album/alternate reality game, Year Zero. Here is the LA Times article on all this, and here is an extensive interview with Reznor about the Year Zero project.

According to the LA Times, the Year Zero project has its origins in Reznor’s rage over “the geopolitical situation during the Bush years.” I personally haven’t heard Reznor’s album – because I find him loathsome, and always have – nor played the game.

Wikipedia describes the basic premise of the Year Zero video game in this way:

The story takes place in the United States in the year 2022, which has been termed “Year 0”, by the American government, being the year that America was reborn. The U.S. had suffered several major terrorist attacks, apparently by Islamic fundamentalists, including attacks on Los Angeles and Seattle. In response, the government granted itself emergency powers and seized absolute control on the country. The U.S. government is now a Christian fundamentalist theocracy, maintaining control of the populace through institutions like the Bureau of Morality and the First Evangelical Church of Plano. Americans must get licenses to marry, bear children, etc. Subversive activities can result in these licenses being revoked. Dissenters regularly disappear from their homes in the night, and are detained in federal detainment centers and sanitariums, if not executed.

The government corporation Cedocore distributes the drug Parepin through the water supply, making Americans who drink the water apathetic and carefree. There are several underground rebel groups, mainly operating online, most notably Art is Resistance and Solutions Backwards Initiative. The First Evangelical Church of Plano is a fundamentalist Protestant Christian church which is favored by the neo-conservative government.

Sounds charming – alternate reality, indeed. The Wachowskis must really be bummed that Reznor got a network to back this stuff, while they still have to slog it out in the indie scene .

By the way, I’m still waiting for my old friend Patrick Goldstein to get back to me about the whole ‘liberal filmmakers checking their politics at the door’ thing.

Posted on September 28th, 2010 at 2:26pm.

LFM Review: Martin Scorsese’s Letter to Elia

Brando5 — Marlon Brando, in Elia Kazan's iconic "On the Waterfront."

By Joe Bendel. No director portrayed the immigrant experience or the struggles of the common man with greater sensitivity than Elia Kazan – but to this day, he remains widely reviled on the left. Even a figure of Martin Scorsese’s stature took heat for presenting Kazan a lifetime achievement Oscar at the 71st Academy Awards. Yet for Scorsese, Kazan’s influence extended far beyond his early stylistic debt to the great filmmaker. Scorsese explains Kazan’s significance both to cinematic history in general and himself personally in Letter to Elia, an hour-long documentary he co-directed with Kent Jones, which screened with Kazan’s epic America, America at the 48th New York Film Festival.

Regardless of political controversies, Kazan’s reputation as an actor’s director is without peer. A co-founder of the Actor’s Studio, Kazan began his career on the boards before finding his calling as a theater director. Letter reminds us that it was Kazan who helmed the Broadway premieres of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Of course, he would revisit Streetcar on film with original cast-member and frequent collaborator Marlon Brando, one of several legitimate masterpieces he crafted. However, for Scorsese, East of Eden stands out first and foremost in his consciousness, claiming to have “stalked” the film through second-run cinemas as a boy.

Looking straight into the camera, Scorsese forcefully and lucidly describes Kazan’s contributions to stage and screen, with the help of generous clips from the director’s filmography. While Eden and the best picture nominee America, America capture the most screen time, Scorsese and Jones duly include Kazan’s arguably single most famous scene, Brando’s “could have been a contender” speech from On the Waterfront, the classic tale of union corruption.

In contrast, they are clearly uncomfortable addressing Kazan’s testimony to the HUAC committee. Kazan was a former Communist who became disillusioned after the Stalin-Hitler (Molotov-Ribbentrop) non-aggression pact came to light. Considering Communism a severely flawed ideology, Kazan defended his decision in an op-ed piece, but Scorsese and Jones largely ignore his motivations, preferring to gloss over the incident with vague language of “difficult choices,” which does little to serve Kazan’s memory.

Of course, Scorsese is on solid ground when celebrating movie history. Letter is definitely an effective commercial for Kazan’s rich body of work, which really speaks for itself throughout the documentary. However, if any of his masterworks is under-represented, it would be Gentleman’s Agreement, a powerful examination of anti-Semitism that won Kazan his first Oscar.

Truly, Kazan is due for a critical renaissance, unblinkered by partisan score-settling. Letter is a well intentioned, mostly well executed effort to spur just that. Due to be included in a forthcoming Kazan boxset, Scorsese and Jones’ film screened yesterday (9/27) with a rare big screen presentation of America, America at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of the 2010 NYFF.

Posted on September 28th, 2010 at 9:04am.

Gloria Stuart, The Eastwood/DiCaprio Hoover Movie + Hollywood Round-up, 9/27

By Jason Apuzzo. • Actress Gloria Stuart of Titanic fame has died, several months after her 100th birthday. Govindini and I had the pleasure of meeting this elegant star from Hollywood’s Golden Age twice. On each occasion she was the picture of elegance and grace, and she will certainly be missed.

• Wall Street 2 took top prize at the weekend box office, with a haul of about $19 million. That’s not surprising; I think Oliver Stone crafted an entertaining and emotionally compelling film, the politics of which were relatively muted compared with what one might otherwise expect from him these days. [See my review of the film here.] One can only imagine how much better business the film might’ve done if Stone had only kept off the talk show circuit over the past week; the man truly does himself no favors.

• Details are starting to emerge about the forthcoming Clint Eastwood/Leonardo DiCaprio/J. Edgar Hoover pic, Hoover. Joaquin Phoenix may be in line to play Hoover’s unconfirmed ‘lover,’ and it seems that Hoover’s rumored homosexuality may be a significant aspect of the script; for what it’s worth in this context, incidentally, the screenwriter for Hoover also wrote Milk. And: according to the screenwriter, the film will apparently be rooted in “contradictions” between “what [Hoover] believed his history was and what his history actually was.” [Sigh. Here we go again.] I wonder whether these “contradictions” will involve threats associated with Soviet espionage in that era; I’m hoping the screenwriter doesn’t think those threats were ‘imaginary,’ the way Clooney did in Good Night, and Good Luck. Just a thought. As a footnote, by the way, John Goodman has just been cast in Kevin Smith’s forthcoming Red State, which deals with ostensive Christian intolerance toward homosexuals. Goodman seems more like Hoover than DiCaprio, to my eye.

• A “not necessarily complete” negative of Stanley Kubrick’s first feature Fear and Desire has finally been discovered, and will soon be getting the restoration/DVD treatment. Also on the Brooding Genius front, I love this recent quote from Werner Herzog:

For directors, you will never be a great director if you don’t read. I run my own film school — I call it a traveling circus, a rogue film school — and I have a mandatory reading list for those who apply. It starts with Virgil’s “Georgics.” Read it in Latin if possible. I have a short story by Hemingway; old Icelandic poetry; and, among others, the Warren Commission Report. It’s a fantastic piece of reading.

• On the Franchise front, Christopher Nolan is looking for a director for the new Superman reboot (which is actually a re-reboot); The Hobbit may be hobbled by union strife Down Under; and either Mia Wasikowska or Easy A’s Emma Stone or will be playing the female lead in the new Spider-Man reboot. [UPDATE: reader Shane points out they may actually be up for two different roles.] This seems like an easy choice to me: Emma Stone.

Scarlett Johansson as "The Black Widow."

• On the Hot Chicks with Guns front: Resident Evil 4 is still cleaning up at the worldwide box office; Kate Beckinsdale will apparently be back for an Underworld 4; Salt’s Angelina Jolie has just began casting her indie war drama set in Bosnia; and Scarlett Johansson is apparently going to get her own ‘Black Widow’ franchise, with the character already having appeared in Iron Man 2 and in the forthcoming Avengers movie. Three thoughts on this: 1) I think it’s a great idea to wrap a franchise around the ‘Black Widow’ character, which in its original incarnation was an ex-Soviet superspy; 2) the problem is, Salt already just gave us a sexy, former Soviet female superspy, so they’ll need to go somewhere new with the material (it appears they already are, based on the 2 films Johansson has done); 3) Johansson may be pleasant to look at, but I don’t actually think she’s right for the part. The character demands somebody vampy, with a saucy personality – and I just don’t think Johansson can pull it off. In any case, we’ll see how this develops.

• As you probably know by now, Katy Perry’s recent segment for Sesame Street was cut due to what might be termed her glandular superabundance – although Sesame Street has subsequently indicated that ‘Miss Katy’ will be back again in the future, perhaps in a mu-mu. Perry has since had some fun with the whole incident, appearing on Saturday Night Live in a Sesame Street T-shirt revealing much more of the original source-material of the controversy, as it were. Having studied the original Sesame Street segment, it’s my professional opinion that it would have done no harm to America’s young lads, whatsoever! Quite the contrary, actually …

• On the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front, the 1962 Brit sci-fi thriller Day of the Triffids (based on the 1951 novel) is getting a remake, and in 3D. Day of the Triffids?! Of all the sci-fi classics from that era, they’re remaking Day of the Triffids?! So we’re going to get marauding, carnivorous plants coming at us in 3D. And you thought Piranha 3D was campy? Imagine Riley Steele getting devoured by a fern. In other news, Guillermo del Toro talks here and here about his forthcoming adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness that he’s doing with James Cameron. An early, highly unflattering script review of that project has already frightened me off, and nothing del Toro is saying now is making me feel like he won’t botch this – which is a shame.

ALO-080569 — Sisters AJ and Aly Michalka.

• A special shout-out to the folks doing the Pioneer One webseries, the pilot of which we showed here at Libertas recently. [Special thanks to the screenwriter on that project, Josh Bernhard, for Tweeting our post.] Pioneer One just won the “Best Drama Pilot” award at the New York Television Festival. Congratulations! In quasi-related news Vladimir Mashkov has been cast as a Russian agent in Mission: Impossible 4.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … the Michalka sisters of Torrance/the South Bay are everywhere. Yowza! AJ Michalka just got cast in J.J. Abrams’ forthcoming sci-fi alien invasion thriller Super 8, and early indications are that sister Aly’s Hellcats show on the CW is likely to get picked up for a second season. Twin cameos in the Baywatch reboot can only be a matter of time!

And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.

Posted on September 27th, 2010 at 1:37pm.

LFM Review: You Again

By Patricia Ducey. Gone with the Wind it’s not. Heck, it’s not even My Best Friend’s Wedding. But You Again is a pleasant enough production from Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, with some truly funny moments – and a lot of real heart. It’s the kind of family movie that the broadcast networks used to make before TV was handed over to reality show contestants and serial killers. You Again is a chick flick perfect for a tween or teen (but maybe not the boys), or anyone who can remember the sting of high school bullies.

Director Andy Frickman casts his New York stage pal Kristen Bell as Marni, an ugly duckling outsider in high school who has grown into a successful and beautiful career woman. She handles her PR firm duties with grace and aplomb. But her hard won self-confidence starts to crumble when her Mom announces that Marni’s beloved brother Will (James Wolk) is to marry, and the bride-to-be is none other than Marni’s high school nemesis, Joanna (Odette Yustman). Joanna was the head cheerleader, the gorgeous Alpha Girl, who led the torment against acne-ridden dweeb Marni. When the wary Marni returns home for the wedding weekend, however, she finds a new Joanna -someone who may or may not remember her at all, and who may or may not have morphed into an angel. Soon Joanna reveals the cause of her life change: she lost both of her parents in a car crash, and decided to dedicate the rest of her life to something that would make them proud.

Mom Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis) and father (Victor Garber) and even the family pooch clearly adore Joanna, but Marni can’t help herself; her jealousy resurfaces once again. She tries to accept the new Joanna, but Marni still hasn’t tamed her inner loser. Ever suspicious, she eventually uncovers some evidence to justify some sweet, sweet revenge. We watch as Marni regresses, physically and emotionally, back to her high school days as her resentment overwhelms her mature career woman persona.

youagain45 — Kristen Bell and Odette Yustman in "You Again."

In that one improbable coincidence allowed any plot line, Joanna’s only surviving relative, Aunt Mona (Sigourney Weaver), arrives for the wedding weekend and turns out to be none other than Gail’s former high school nemesis. Gail soon learns that giving advice about jealousy is a lot easier than living it. So, on two levels, all these women will have to confront the green eyed-monsters still lurking in their hearts if they are to survive as a family. You Again is otherwise full of pratfalls and silliness, as well as drama, as it meanders toward the climactic rehearsal dinner.

You Again stands in stark contrast to the summer romantic comedy hit Easy A, which the critics loved, in that it doesn’t despise its audience. The family in You Again loves, and likes, each other. They’re human, though, and fall victim to their human foibles. These characters are surprised and disheartened by their own weaknesses – and do their best to conquer them. Sometimes they do make old grudges right, and the movie actually tells you why this is important. So if your daughter or niece wants to see a movie, steer her to You Again – not Easy A.

I chuckled when I checked the reviews of You Again—90% of the critics hated it, so I figured I would like it. The movie been called trite and sit-com-ish – and in some ways, that’s true. Marni’s family is intact, affectionate, and practically snark-free. Characters do tussle and fall into swimming pools. More than once. [By the way, Odette Yustman might just give Megan Fox a run for her money with her brunette good looks and mad rapping skills. Betty White also handles the Grandma Bunny duties well—and keep your eyes peeled for a few other cameos by ‘80s stars.] The dreaded patriarchy rears its head when Dad finally lays down the law and tells his squabbling women “enough.” Meh. I liked it. It may seem trite to jaded movie critics – but judging from the laughter in my theater, audiences liked it too.

Posted on September 27th, 2010 at 7:19am.

Musical Mission – 100 Voices: A Journey Home

By Joe Bendel. There were more righteous gentiles from Poland than any other country. No strangers to suffering, three million Poles also died under National Socialism, while the Polish resistance forces were the only organized underground with a division specifically dedicated to saving Jewish lives. Yet, the Nazis were grimly successful cleaving apart Polish and Jewish culture, though they had been closely intertwined for centuries. In an effort to mend that breach, a group of 72 cantors made an emotional tour of Poland last June, fortuitously captured in Danny Gold and Matthew Asner’s documentary 100 Voices: A Journey Home, which began a limited engagement in New York and Los Angeles last Wednesday, following a special nationwide one-night event-screening this past Tuesday.

Tuesday’s special screening was presented under the auspices of NCM Fathom, the in-theater event specialists, which is particularly apt considering their specialty simulcasting opera. Indeed, there is a strong affinity between opera and the cantorial music of Voices. In fact, the father of two tour participants probably saved his life during the Holocaust by convincing the Nazis he was an opera singer rather than a cantor. While their music is liturgical, most cantors’ delivery is expressive and dramatic, bearing a strong stylistic resemblance to full-voiced opera singing.

After providing viewers an essential grounding in cantorial music and great cantors past (including the jazz-influenced Moishe Oysher), Voices follows the cantors on their eventful tour, organized by the forceful Cantor Nathan Lam of the Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles. Adding additional tragic significance, Polish President Lech Kaczyński was in attendance for their tour-opening command performance at Warsaw’s National Opera House mere weeks before his fatal plane-crash. It was a heavy program featuring an original composition penned by Charles Fox (probably best known for “Killing Me Softly”) inspired by Pope John Paul II’s simple prayer left at the Western Wall.

Yet, the next performances were probably even more personally moving for the cantors, including memorial performances at Warsaw’s only surviving synagogue and at the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. However, the tour ended on a hopefully note, culminating with an open-air concert at the Krakow Jewish Cultural Festival, organized by the Catholic Janusz Makuch. Embracing the term “Shabbos goy” Makuch has worked to foster an appreciation of Poland’s Jewish heritage since 1988 (an effort greatly aided by the fall of Communism in 1989).

While the music of Voices may not be to all tastes, precisely for its operatic quality, there is no denying its power. Beautifully recorded and presented by directors Gold and Asner with cinematographers Jeff Alred and Anthony Melfi, it should lead to a deeper and wider appreciative of cantorial music, certainly outside Judaism and perhaps within the faith as well.

Indeed, Cantor Lam’s project was notable not just for the size of the tour, but the noble intent. Recently, many religious leaders have acted provocatively, even insensitively, while claiming the mantle of intolerance (yes, I definitely mean the organizers of the World Trade Center mosque here). However, the Voices tour really was undertaken in the spirit of tolerance, seeking to strengthen ties and understanding between faiths and people. A well intentioned film executed with grace and dignity, Voices deserves an audience well past Oscar season. It plays in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles through September 28th.

Posted on September 26th, 2010 at 12:08m.