[Editor’s Note: this film short contains some scenes of violence. Viewer discretion advised.]
By Jason Apuzzo. Continuing on some themes raised by Govindini in her post below “Happiness Runs, Avatar & The Reality Behind Utopian Nature Cults,” we’ve decided to bring you “Sustainable Fred.” This is a very amusing short by filmmaker Trevor Wild about a young man who’s having a little trouble changing the world through enlightened ‘green living.’ It’s too bad he doesn’t live in Pandora.
I’m not sure today’s environmentalists always realize what kind of impression they create in the midst of their ongoing efforts to dictate how the rest of us live our daily lives (one thinks here of the extremely creepy, unfunny, totalitarian-chic ‘Green Police’ ads run by Audi during the Super Bowl). These endlessly snotty, moralizing, insufferable do-gooders are essentially whom “Sustainable Fred” is satirizing … and without giving too much away, it’s delicious to see Fred get his comuppance late in this film.
Rosie Huntington to replace Megan Fox in 'Transformers 3.'
By Jason Apuzzo. I was kidding the other day when I said that “I’m sure [Michael] Bay’s people have a million Victoria’s Secret models on speed-dial that they can call on for the next [Transformers] film” in the wake of the Megan Fox firing. And it turns out … Bay has hired a Victoria’s Secret model. She’s a lustrous Brit named Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO READ LIBERTAS … WE PREDICTED IT HERE FIRST AND WE’RE ON TOP OF THIS STORY. No word on whether Ms. Huntington-Whiteley has a personality. We’ll see. Fox News is also doing some speculation on the future of Megan Fox’s career. She’ll do fine, but perhaps she should hold off on calling her directors ‘Hitler,’ and for safety’s sake confine her comparisons strictly to ‘Idi Amin.’
• New Sex and the City 2 rumored to present “puritanical and misogynistic culture of the Middle East.” Glad to here they’re brave enough to go there; still not enough to get me to watch Sarah Jessica Parker. [Aside: I’m having flashbacks of Jewel of the Nile here. Didn’t that just hit Blu-Ray?] Also: a Middle-Eastern guy who was an on-set extra in Sex and the City 2gripes about the experience in the New York Times today. He doesn’t mention whether he still cashed his paycheck.
• New, ‘modern’ take on the Nativity story coming down the pike. (See here and here). It’s set in the 70’s and apparently stars Bette Midler. Rumor mill has Sally Field cast as Pontius Pilate.
• Mindless historical revisionism fuels pot shots against Christianity in new film Agora starring Rachel Weisz. Film twists history and depicts angry, murderous Christian mobs destroying Library of Alexandria (?); peddles bogus analogy between radical Islam and contemporary Christianity. I think Govindini will be posting on this later. The only upside here is that the film is getting bad reviews (see here and here), and that no one will see it because Rachel Weisz isn’t a real star.
• Filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been freed on probation. Thank God. (See here and here.) He’s out on something like $20,000 bail, and there’s still going to be some farce of a trial. Somebody please send him Dershowitz.
• A new documentary on the murderous communist thug Nicolae Ceausescu, called The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, recently played at Cannes. I’ve seen the trailer, and it looks interesting in a kind of arch/satiric way. There’s a round-up of generally positive reviews of the film here today. We’ll try to review it down the line.
• Our friend and LFM Contributor Joe Bendel has a nice review up today of a new Turkish film called The Breath that deals with terrorism along the Turkish-Iraqi border, so check that out.
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …
[Editor’s Note: this film contains some adult humor. Viewer discretion advised.]
By Jason Apuzzo. Almost 18 months into the Obama Administration, Hollywood has become a kind of no-fly zone with respect to satire directed at The One. The idea around LA seems to be that Obama’s preternatural ‘cool’ and pseudo-revolutionary ambitions render him above normal satire. How, in effect, does one satirize a bodhisattva? There would appear to be no easy angle, no obvious comedic hook on Obama if you believe this line. Barack’s genius is so manifest, one could no more satirize him than one could satirize Miles Davis while he was recording Kind of Blue. Right?
Not quite. In the independent film world, where filmmaking is more adventurous than it is in Hollywood right now, the divine afflatus surrounding Obama is not so bright. Witness this episode of “The Adventures of Obama Man” above. “The Adventures of Obama Man” takes as its point of departure Obama’s early years in the 1980’s when he lived in New York City – years about which we know very little … until now.
Obama as lifestyle product.
What I enjoy about this little short film is its simplicity and understated humor. The depiction of Obama as a plastic doll, I think, directly and elegantly captures what many of us think about Barack: that his zeal for radical reform is matched only by his vacuity – the sense that he is, basically, a plastic man.
More than that, though: ‘Obama’ has become a kind of fetishized object – like an iPad or an iPhone – around which people orient a more ‘progressive’ and ‘enlightened’ lifestyle for themselves. ‘Obama’ the Man long ago gave way to ‘Obama’ the lifestyle/fashion accessory, similar in function and tone to a Louis Vuitton bag (both are stylish carriers of what is usually, on closer inspection, clutter and junk). It’s appropriate, then, that filmmaker Chilembwe Mason would depict ‘Obama Man’ here as a doll one can transport around like a totemic symbol – redolant of hipness, sophistication, ‘cool’ … with nothing really inside, other than a few pre-programmed phrases and a stiff finger pointing to an imaginary future.
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …
ALSO: Special thanks to ‘John Boot’ and Pajamas Media for their article today on the re-launch of Libertas. Welcome to Pajamas Media readers.
UPDATE: Special thanks to Lars Larson today for having LFM’s Govindini Murty on his national show to talk about LFM. Welcome to all of Lars’ listeners.
By Jason Apuzzo. I’m a little confused by this whole Megan Fox thing.
As many of you may know, Transformers star/sexpot Megan Fox was essentially fired from the next Transformers film by director Michael Bay this past week (see here) – although some reports now indicate that the comely Ms. Fox may actually have walked away from the project on her own pair of highly photogenic legs.
The reason behind the firing supposedly has to do with how difficult Ms. Fox is to work with, how she can’t get along with the crew, that she’s late, generally bitchy to borderline psychotic, that she tattoos herself (making things difficult for the makeup people), she doesn’t show up to crew parties, she’s annoyed by Middle America, she once blew off the Crown Prince of Jordan … and that she once referred to Michael Bay as Hitler.
Except for the Hitler thing, I’m not sure which of these qualities hasn’t been assigned to Angelina Jolie – but I digress.
Now here’s the thing. Transformers is Michael Bay’s franchise. He can do whatever he damn well pleases with it. But my question is this: when did the behavior of Hollywood stars suddenly matter, to the degree that it cost them roles and careers? When was the memo sent out on this, because some of us didn’t get it. Why is it that all of a sudden it matters how stars behave? For those of us who’ve been watching Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn and George Clooney lurch from one bizarre, histrionic episode to another over the years, this is really something new.
Let me put this another way. Why was it OK for years in Hollywood to call Bush Hitler, but not Michael Bay? Why is it suddenly so important that a Hollywood star watch what she says, and how she acts around others?
Sin on high heels.
Or is it just that you can’t offend the wrong people.
I personally couldn’t care less about the future – or past – of the Transformers series. I’m not really interested in ‘autocons’ or ‘decepticons’ or ‘paleocons’ or whatever pseudo-mythology Michael Bay and Hasbro are currently peddling. The only reason I would ever watch these films would be to watch Megan Fox, actually.
And that’s where I think Bay is making a big mistake here. I’m sure Bay’s people have a million Victoria’s Secret models on speed-dial that they can call on for the next film; or they can go with the chick from Prince of Persia, as some are reporting. Whatever.
Ms. Fox is different, frankly. She has the sort of wicked, carnal appeal – and brazen arrogance – that make her highly appealing to men, and very compelling in front of a camera. I’m not really talking about acting here, obviously – I’m talking about something ineffable that we usually term ‘star power.’ She’s got it. And you don’t throw that away lightly. Industrial Light and Magic, as talented as they are, have no software that can replace that – regardless of what they have planned for the next Transformers.
From everything I’ve seen, Ms. Fox appears brassy, difficult, cocky, probably a little bit crazy … and you know what? Men love that. They absolutely eat it up. And they have since the beginning of time.
What the hell happened to Hollywood that they no longer understand that?
By Jason Apuzzo. A few weeks ago I was approached by a persistent if strangely insensate census worker who wanted to know what ethnic category I fell into. Presented with a palate of government-approved options, I found myself falling into what is no doubt the least sexy category of all – that of a generic ‘white’ person, even though my heritage (as far back as I’m aware) represents a vast and colorful mosaic of southern, central and eastern Europe.
To be frank, I felt a little disappointed. I’d assumed that since the last census in which I’d participated 10 years ago, things would’ve improved a bit. I thought there would’ve been some kind of category for gringos like me, so that the exercise of participating in the census would somehow be less tedious. Imagine, I thought, how exciting it would be to be, say, part Thai and part Alaskan – you’d have several boxes to fill out. That would be exciting.
Omid Djalili’s absolutely hilarious new film The Infidel (see the trailer here) presents a different kind of anxiety from the one I faced: that of the man whose ethnic identity literally makes him a marked man. The Infidel (which recently showed at The Tribeca Film Festival and in theaters, and is available for download below) stars the antic, Rabelasian actor-comedian Djalili as a British Muslim named Mahmud who learns by accident that he was actually born Jewish. The revelation of his Judaism, striking as it is to him, would not be so much of an issue if it weren’t for the fact that his daughter is about to marry the stepson of a radical imam from Pakistan who preaches jihad against the infidel … and that’s really when the hijinks begin.
Some wholesome friends of the Imam.
The Infidel is essentially a fish-out-of-water comedy in which a guy who believes himself to be a modern, liberal Muslim is faced with the reality of having to suddenly (and covertly) integrate into the Jewish world … while trying to retain his street-cred as a Muslim. Does this sound rife with comic possibilities? It is – and Infidel screenwriter David Baddiel and director Josh Appignanesi exploit every one of them.
Mahmud’s guide on his journey back to Judaism – Mahmud’s real name is ‘Solly Shimshillewitz’ – is a Jewish cabbie named Lenny, played with droll, understated humor by veteran TV star Richard Schiff (The West Wing). Lenny does his best to give Mahmud a crash-course in Judaism, a course which includes such ‘essential’ Jewish activities as: learning how to dance like Topol, how to say Oy vey! with the proper shoulder-shrug … and telling a Barbra Streisand joke at a bar-mitzvah. Watching Mahmud, the pseudo-devout Muslim, struggle trying to perform these ‘basic tasks’ provides some of the biggest laughs of the film. My favorite moment in Mahmud’s training is when Lenny sits him down to listen to a sad dirge by Mendelssohn. Lenny says of the music: “Doesn’t it make you want to put all your possessions in a wooden cart and slowly, sadly pull them away from your burning village?”
Ethnic humor of the kind that fueled My Big Fat Greek Wedding some years ago is basically what fuels The Infidel – but one senses that the stakes in this film are much, much higher than in Nia Vardalos’ delightful comedy. The inability of certain radicalized sectors of Islamic society to reconcile themselves to the modern world is largely what’s causing so many problems nowadays … and it’s precisely the intransigence of imam’s like the one depicted in The Infidel (played with silky menace by Yigal Naor) that is destroying relations between the Islamic east and democratic west right now. Continue reading Review: The Infidel
