Month: January 2011

LFM Sundance Review: To.get.her

By Joe Bendel. If anyone out there ever thought shows like Gossip Girl and Melrose Place would be better if they were duller and more depressing, there is a film for you at Sundance. Five attractive young women get together for a girl’s night out, but we are told from the get-go only one will survive in Erica Dunton’s To.get.her, which screens during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Ana Frost has a bad relationship with her soon-to-be step-father. Care to make a wild guess why? She is not the only one of her fab five having problems. For instance, China Rees is emotionally distraught over her recent break-up with her boyfriend. Again, care to speculate what’s going on there? All five supposedly high school aged women have secrets that will be revealed during the course of their “Night of No Consequences.”

Though framed to set the audience up for a thriller, those expecting something in the tradition of And Then There Were None will be disappointed. Thriller or not, To.get.her takes longer to get started than most Michener novels. Yet, its ultimate destination is so grim and unsatisfying (not to mention derivative), one wonders why Dunton and her cast bothered.

Frankly, To.get.her can be a painful movie to watch, particularly during the many scenes shot with the camera pointed directly into the sun. Of course, the adults in the film are uniformly stupid, even including Bryan, the friendly drug-pusher living next door to the Frost family beach house. It also hardly helps that none of the cast really look age appropriate, except perhaps model Jazzy De Lisser, evidently a big enough It Girl in the UK to merit her name above the title in the opening credits.

To be fair, De Lisser is rather good as Ana the ringleader. Audrey Speicher also takes a compelling turn as Abigail Pearce, the conflicted daughter of religiously conservative parents. (Gee, what could she be grappling with?) Unfortunately, their efforts are somewhat wasted on a flat, clichéd story and further undermined by a distractingly gauzy visual style that brings to mind some of the 1970’s horror films seen on MST3K.

To.get.her probably supplies the most unintentional humor of the festival, but at least that’s something. Indeed, the cast certainly tries, but it just doesn’t work. For those still intrigued, it screens again tomorrow (1/27) during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on January 26th, 2011 at 8:47pm.

LFM Sundance Review: Resurrect Dead

By Joe Bendel. Criticized for his overly “metaphysical” approach, historian-philosopher Arnold J. Toynbee’s writings fell out of favor with the smart-set in the 1960’s. One mysterious urban propagandist has undertaken an unlikely guerrilla campaign to re-popularize Toynbee’s more outlandish speculations. His cryptic tiles have baffled many and intrigued a hardy band of investigators, who try to crack the riddle of his identity in Jon Foy’s documentary, Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, which screens during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

If you live in New York, Philadelphia, or a host of other cities in the Northeast and Midwest, you might have stepped on or driven over a Toynbee tile. The basic message reads as follows:

“TOYNBEE IDEA
IN KUBRICK’S 2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER”

As if that were not weird enough, many tiles also feature sidebar tiles that rant against the government and media in terms sometimes approaching outright anti-Semitism. In other sidebars, the tilist claims sole responsibility for the Toynbees, despite their appearances across the country and in four Latin American countries.

For various reasons, the rag-tag group of Toynbee researchers take him at his word, narrowing in on three marginalized Philadelphians as their prime suspects. While their investigative process is often fascinating, Foy spends far more time than necessary introducing the self-styled Toynbee experts, particularly his central POV figure, underground artist Justin Duerr. Good for them for being intellectually curious, but they are not exactly enthralling on-screen.

At its best, Resurrect explores a fascinating intersection of outsider art and conspiracy theory subcultures. The pursuit takes them to some unlikely places, including the shortwave radio community, which is evidently still alive and broadcasting. Yet, perhaps the weirdest surprise of the film is the extent to which the mystery man reasonably interprets Toynbee. Though the historian did not necessarily say it would happen on Jupiter, he did hypothesize on the future possibility of resurrection through the rejuvenation of dead molecules. (However, the Kubrick connection is something of a stretch.)

The Toynbee tile phenomenon is a great idea for a documentary and it is cool that Foy retains some of the mystery surrounding them. Though it could stand to lose about ten minutes of Duerr’s backstory, Resurrect is still one of the more satisfying documentaries at this year’s Sundance.  Definitely recommended, it screens again tomorrow (1/27) and Saturday (1/29) as the festival continues.

Posted on January 26th, 2011 at 8:11pm.

The LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein on the All-White Oscars

Armie Hammer of the exceedingly white "The Social Network."

By Jason Apuzzo. Our old friend Patrick Goldstein at the LA Times noted yesterday that we’re apparently headed for another all-white Oscar ceremony, with nary an honoree-of-color in sight. As Patrick writes:

Setting aside the more obscure, technical categories, when it comes to the best picture award along with the major nominations for acting, writing and directing, there are, ahem, zero people of color in the Oscar race this year. …

It’s hard not to notice how few minorities had any visible roles in this year’s most lauded films. “The Social Network” offers us a virtually lilywhite Harvard; “The Fighter” is set in a oh-so-white, blue-collar Boston neighborhood; “The King’s Speech” depicts an all-white, upper-crust, 1930s-era London; “Toy Story 3,” like most Pixar films, is set in a fantasy suburbia without any obvious references to minorities; while “True Grit” takes us back to the Old West, where the only black faces I can remember seeing are that of a manservant and a stable boy.

Ouch! I would also add here that many ethnicities are notably absent among this year’s Oscar nominations. Patrick continues:

There are no studio chairmen or heads of production who are black or Latino. In fact, there are barely any people of color in any high-level positions at any major studio, talent agency or management firm. When I asked a couple of reporter pals to name the most powerful black executive in town, a lot of head-scratching ensued before we decided that the person with the most clout was probably James Lassiter, Will Smith’s longtime business partner and production company chief. …

Hollywood is usually impervious to embarrassment, but perhaps this is one of those signal moments when the industry should engage in a little soul-searching about the image it projects to the outside world. At Oscar time, the spotlight is on show business, which in an increasingly multicultural country turns out to be a business that is just as white on the outside as it is on the inside.

Oh, my! How did this happen in an industry dominated by liberals? I don’t understand.

Since Patrick has just uttered an exceedingly inconvenient truth about the industry, and is probably taking a lot of heat at the moment, I’d like to publicly offer him refuge here in the Libertas Witness Protection Program™. In the Libertas Witness Protection Program™ he can feel free to post here at Libertas anonymously (perhaps as ‘Rafe Templeton III,’ or some other suitably Anglo name). We’ve done this sort of thing before, and are happy to do it again for a friend in need.

[UPDATE: Patrick has since updated his article; he is, indeed, currently taking a lot of heat for his observations. Our offer of putting him in the Libertas Witness Protection Program™ stands.]

Posted on January 26th, 2011 at 3:47pm.

Following in the Tire Tracks of Bullitt

"Bullitt" director Peter Yates with Steve McQueen in San Francisco.

By Jason Apuzzo. For you Bullitt fans out there, The Wall Street Journal has a wonderful piece out today in which jazz writer Marc Myers retraces the path of the car chase from that film – all while driving a 2011 Ford Mustang V6, with original Bullitt stunt driver Loren Janes at his side, and with Lalo Schifrin’s Bullitt soundtrack in the stereo! My goodness, what an afternoon that must’ve been.

The austere cool of Bullitt has never been matched. Could it be matched today? Actually, yes, it could – if people in the industry stopped acting like freaks, and behaved like normal professionals again.

By the way, check out those beads on McQueen! And props to late director Peter Yates, incidentally, for the corduroy jacket above – men should still be wearing those, in my opinion. Enjoy the article.

Posted on January 26th, 2011 at 3:43pm.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: LFM Sundance Review of The Devil’s Double & Dominic Cooper as Uday Hussein

Dominic Cooper as Saddam Hussein's son Uday in "The Devil's Double."

By Joe Bendel. Somewhere in the lower depths of Hell, Saddam and Uday Hussein are watching this film as they slowly roast on their spits. Graphically dramatizing the sadistic brutality and drug-fueled hedonism of Saddam Hussein’s ruling family, Lee Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double lands the first unequivocal knock-out punch at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it has one more can’t-miss public screening this Saturday.

Latif Yahia had the profound misfortune to resemble Saddam’s psychotic son Uday. Even more despised than his despot father, Uday recruited Yahia to serve as his double. It’s not like the Iraqi officer is given any choice in the matter. He could either relinquish his identity to serve as Uday’s public doppelganger or his family would be tortured to death in Abu Ghraib. He knows the junior Hussein means it only too well. As his first tutorial on being Uday, Yahia is forced to watch videotape of his shadow self at work as the head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, raping and tormenting the nation’s athletes. It is a disturbing scene, but Double is just getting started.

Dominic Cooper and Ludivine Sagnier.

Beginning during the Iran-Iraq War and continuing through the first Gulf War, Double forces the audience to witness Uday’s crimes up-close-and-personal. We watch as he abducts underage school girls straight off the street and violently rapes newlywed brides still in their wedding dresses. Truly, there is really no perversion too heinous for him.

Obviously, being a party to such crimes – albeit against his will – takes a profound emotional toll on Yahia. While his assignment progressively eats away at his soul, Yahia embarks on a dangerous affair with Sarrab, Uday’s favorite amongst his women on-call. Yet, even without their assignations, it is clear that life in the House of Saddam is always brutish and short-lived.

The horrors of Saddam's reign.

It is one thing to intellectually concede the crimes of the Husseins, but it is quite another to confront it in such visceral and immediate terms. To its credit, Double waters down nothing. Nor does it indulge in any anti-American cheap shots. This is about Uday (and to a much lesser extent Saddam) Hussein’s crimes and Tamahori and screenwriter Michael Thomas offer them absolutely no mitigating circumstances or justifications. Adding to the film’s newsworthiness, the extent to which it depicts the Iraqi Olympic Committee as an extension of Saddam’s secret police will be a genuine eye-opener for many. (Though no fan of the Husseins, it is important to note that the real life Yahia is also a vocal critic of the CIA and Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

In a truly intense dual role that will probably take years of analysis to recover from, Dominic Cooper gives a career-making performance as Uday and Yahia. In terms of mannerisms (and behavior), his Uday bears a strong resemblance to Pacino in Scarface. Twitchy and erratic, he is an unsettling presence, even when apparently at rest. By contrast, Cooper portrays Yahia as a serious slow burner, outraged and slowly deadened by the atrocities surrounding him. Providing further seasoning, French actress Ludivine Sagnier is at her most sensual ever as Sarrab, far eclipsing her sex appeal in films like Mesrine and Chabrol’s A Girl Cut in Two.

The Uday lifestyle.

No, Double is not a subtle film. Likely making Double even less palatable to critics, Tamahori and cinematographer Sam McCurdy rendered the film in a slick, visually dynamic style reminiscent of the 1990’s glory years of Michael Mann and Tony Scott. Indeed, this is a major production, with art director Charlo Dalili perfectly recreating the ostentation and tackiness of Saddam’s palaces.

Predicting unfavorable reviews for Double from the rest of the Sundance press corps is a pretty short limb to climb out on, as the film’s implications will threaten many worldviews. However, Double constitutes bold filmmaking on several levels. Double also serves as a pointed corrective to the Doug Liman-ACLU-PEN sponsored “performance-installation” on the alleged use of torture by the American government scheduled this Saturday. For those in Park City who really want to understand the horrors of torture, skip the performance art and try to scrounge a ticket for Double this Saturday (1/29) at the Prospector Square Theater as a Premiere selection of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

[UPDATE: Hollywood Reporter says today that The Devil’s Double is close to getting picked up for distribution, with a potential deal in the works with either Relativity Media or Fox Searchlight.]

Posted on January 25th, 2011 at 5:05pm.

Oscar Snubs & Why Today’s Award Shows are Such a Bore

British director Chris Morris ("Four Lions") at last year's Sundance Film Festival.

By Jason Apuzzo. The 2011 Oscar nominations were announced today. You can look at the list here. I wanted to offer a brief reaction.

As with many observers, what struck me the most was the snubbing of Christopher Nolan – and make no mistake, it was a snub. Since I’ve never been an admirer of Nolan’s films, however – including Inception – I consider his absence from the Best Director competition no great tragedy. At the same time, I couldn’t help but think of another British director, Chris Morris, whose name I would’ve loved to see on the Best Director nominee list – because I thought Norris’ Four Lions this year was one of the sharpest, wittiest, and most provocative comedies I’ve seen since the heady days of Paddy Chayefsky and Woody Allen in the 1970s.

What desperation looks like on Oscar night.

A long-shot, you say? Perhaps. But here’s the issue: I no longer watch award shows – any of them. And there’s a reason for this. It’s not the length of the shows – as long as they admittedly are – nor the tendency of some winners and/or hosts to behave like imbeciles. Nor is it the occasional tendency these awards-fests have to penalize films based on their popularity with audiences.

It’s the fact that nobody takes chances anymore with their selections, nobody takes any risks, or flies in the face of conventional wisdom. And it’s chiefly for this reason, in my opinion, that these awards shows have become such a bore.

So the Oscars will be tedious again this year, and ratings will go down – again – and everyone will look around and scratch their heads and wonder why. And people will look for exotic solutions – someone will suggest lowering the Oscar statuettes from the ceiling next year, or floating them in on a barge like Cleopatra, or maybe having Gene Simmons host.

When really, just a few adventurous selections might’ve made all the difference.

Posted on January 25th, 2011 at 3:47pm.