Category: 1. Jason Apuzzo

Review: The Infidel

Omid Djalili as "The Infidel."

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

Classic Movie Update, 5/23

John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey and the cast of "The Alamo."

By Jason Apuzzo. Those of you who remember the old version of Libertas remember how important classic movies are to us here. This week we introduced a new series to LFM called ‘Classic Cinema Obsession‘; but we’ll also be keeping you up-to-date on classic movie news each week.

• There’s a 50th anniversary benefit screening of The Alamo this week at John Wayne’s birthplace, with Wayne’s daughter Aissa in attendance.  The benefit event, a fundraiser for the John Wayne Birthplace Museum and Learning Center, takes place over 2 days – May 28th and 29th.  Wayne directed The Alamo himself (with spot 2nd unit direction from John Ford) – a huge, sprawling and satisfying epic, featuring an extraordinary musical score by Dmitri Tiomkin – and The Duke considered it his most important film.  Wayne considered the film a parable of America’s place in the world as the lone outpost of freedom.  The Alamo famously went up against Kirk Douglas’ left-leaning Spartacus at the 1960 Academy Awards … with both films ultimately losing to Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.  If you’re anywhere near Wayne’s birthplace of Winterset, Iowa, you should certainly catch this wonderful-looking event – and feel free to purchase your own copy of The Alamo in the LFM Store below.

• In related news, The Criterion Collection has just put out a new, restored version of the John Wayne/John Ford Classic Stagecoach on DVD and Blu-Ray.  You can buy this version in the LFM store above.

Anna Karina in Godard's "Vivre sa Vie."

• I’m obsessed with Godard and his films, so I was thrilled this past week to learn that one of the few Godard classics I haven’t seen, Vivre Sa Vie, also just received the Criterion DVD/Blu-Ray treatment.  You can read a review of this new disk here. As a side note, Richard Brody’s marvelous biography of Godard, Everything is Cinema, has just been released in paperback. It’s the definitive biography of one of Europe’s most visionary and mercurial filmmakers of the past 40 years, so check out both Vivre sa Vie and Everything is Cinema in our store above.

• I recently had the pleasure of reading Michael Sragow’s wonderful biography, Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master.  If there is a forgotten man in the history of cinema, it’s clearly Fleming.  All Fleming did was direct Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz (in the same year, Hollywood’s Annus mirabilis of 1939), while shaping the careers of such stars as Clark Gable, Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Clara Bow, Douglas Fairbanks – in countless box-office smashes like Red Dust, Captains Courageous, Bombshell, The Virginian, The Rough Riders … where does one begin?

Jean Harlow, in Victor Fleming's "Bombshell."

Sragow’s meticulously researched book challenged my assumption that John Ford, Frank Capra and Howard Hawks were the undisputed masters of mid-century American movies.  I now have the sense that Fleming may have been the greatest of them all.  Fleming was absolutely instrumental in developing the ‘man’s-man,’ Hemingway-esque persona of such stars as Fairbanks, Gable and Cooper – yet he was a gifted director of women as well … something aided by the fact that he was also one of Hollywood’s reigning lotharios (i.e., he knew his subject).

I will likely do a full review of Sragow’s biography down the line, but let me simply remind everyone out there who’s so impressed with Avatar‘s box office total that Fleming’s Gone With the Wind in 2010 dollars would have grossed $1.6 billion domestically.  And this was by no means unusual for Fleming’s career; Fleming produced box-office smash after box-office smash – big, emotional, humanistic films that were popular around the world to a degree unrivaled except when speaking of Walt Disney’s films.  Disney, Cecil DeMille and possibly Steven Spielberg are Fleming’s only rivals in terms of producing huge popular hits over a long period of time.  [Funny footnote: Fleming urged Louis Mayer to sign the unknown Disney when Disney was shopping his “Steamboat Willy”/Mickey Mouse series around Hollywood; Mayer refused, thinking American housewives would never enjoy watching a rodent on screen.]

How compelling and emotional and universal was the appeal of Fleming’s filmmaking?  It’s said that Stalin himself wept when he saw Fleming’s The Great Waltz, and refused to give-out medals to Soviet directors until they could match Fleming’s style.   [Oh … and did I mention that Fleming was an ardent anti-communist?] Continue reading Classic Movie Update, 5/23

Hollywood Round-up, 5/21

Can't get any love from Hezbollah.

By Jason Apuzzo.

• Poor Miss USA.  Fox News is convinced she beat out the blonde from Oklahoma because of a left-wing conspiracy, and now she isn’t getting any love from Hezbollah. What’s a girl to do?   Triangulate.  Savvy move here might be to have herself photographed in a hijab while endorsing J.D. Hayworth.

• New Valerie Plame flick (just premiered at Cannes) blames the UK for the Iraq war.  Sean Penn gives an ‘unhinged’ performance, and the film is otherwise getting mixed reactions (see here and here).  I’m unhinged at Sean Penn for ruining my memories of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

• Don Cheadle says Obama hasn’t called him yet.  He hasn’t called me either, even though I left 3 voice messages with him about the Van Jones thing.

• Planet of the Apes prequel coming, set in present day San Francisco, starring James Franco. Wow – summer 2011 is absolutely set! Book me in for adventure!

• Another Shrek film opens this weekend.  Was somebody clamoring for this?

• New Eco-horror thriller coming featuring … global coolling. This is getting confusing.  I though Gore told us … never mind.

• 2 famous country music/Christian music stars announce that they’re lesbians. Tiger calls to console.

• Robert Rodriguez says Machete is not a race-war picture. That’s a relief, because race war pictures never open well in June.

• And here’s an interview with the star of the new Carlos the Jackal film, which recently debuted at Cannes.  Apparently he’s being fought-over for dueling Hugo Chavez biopics.

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

Indie Film Round-up, 5/20

By Jason Apuzzo.

• This charming-looking film above, Racing Dreams, just opened and is playing in select theaters nationwide. Racing Dreams follows three kids on the Go-Kart circuit who each have big dreams of making it to the Big Show, NASCAR. The film hasn’t hit LA yet, so we haven’t seen it – but the reviews have been good and it won the Best Documentary prize at Tribeca.

• The Autobiography Of Nicolae Ceausescu, a new documentary about the Romanian communist tyrant, is currently making some waves at Cannes. You can check out the film’s drily amusing trailer here.

• Another new indie film, After the Cup, begins hitting New York and Los Angeles theaters this week and next. This sports film, that’s gotten fantastic reviews, is about an Arab-Jewish soccer team that’s been simultaneously winning titles and unifying Israel. Very heartening, humanistic stuff. You can check out the trailer below.

Hollywood Round-up, 5/20

By Jason Apuzzo. Today in Hollywood news:

Gone.

• Michael Bay fires Megan Fox from Transformers 3, likely because she’s insane. Tiger calls to console.

• With firing of Megan, Hollywood wonders whether Shia’s next to be fired after Shia trashes Indy 4 at Cannes (see here and here).  Shia initiating new quality-control measures in his work, along with a special 1-800 complaint line.

• Valerie Plame movie getting rave reviews at Cannes (see here and here).  Director says its not really a political movie, which sort of begs the question.

• Eliot Spitzer documentary picked up for distribution, part of a package deal to include a reality TV series on ethics starring David Paterson. Just kidding.

• Robert Redford appears on Olberman show, Sean Penn lectures Capitol Hill. Nothing new here, move along.

• Captain America to be filmed in London.  No really, they’re shooting the film in London.  Not kidding.

• 5 and 1/2 hour movie on left-wing terrorist ‘Carlos the Jackal’ praised at Cannes. Oliver Stone seen napping in lobby.

• Anti-war doc Armadillo gets critics prize at Cannes. Oliver Stone seen napping in lobby.

• 30th Anniversary screening of The Empire Strikes Back in LA reunites Han with Chewie. Actually this looked like a lot of fun.

• Bernard Henri-Levy defends Polanski … again. Very hard to do at this point.

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

New Documentary: The Surge: The Untold Story

By Jason Apuzzo. An exceptional documentary called The Surge: The Untold Story debuted at The G.I. Film Festival this past Sunday.  Now that the film has shown at that festival, we’re screening the film here in its entirety at LFM.

Let’s begin with the title of this film. Why, first of all, is the extraordinary success story of our ‘surge’ in Iraq an ‘untold story’ to begin with?  This story is ‘untold’ because the people primarily entrusted with shaping our national narrative – the mandarins of Hollywood – have been telling an entirely different story of late. They have been telling what might be termed the ‘Avatar-Green Zone story’ of defeat and demoralization in Iraq, the kind of story whereby the very conceptualizing of war in terms of ‘victory’ is regarded as fatally naive.

The Surge: The Untold Story dispenses with such fatalism – which is easy to do, since the film focuses on the actual facts on the ground.  The Surge tells the story of how General David Petraeus, General Raymond Odierno, American troops and (the importance of this cannot be overstated) the Iraqi people themselves rallied to rescue their nation from the brink of utter barbarism.  In a crisp, succinct 34 minutes, The Surge tells the story of how General Petraeus’ advanced counter-insurgency strategy – combined with the grit, bravery and sheer labor of his troops – helped rid Iraq of the ruthless terror networks that ruled the streets of Bagdad in 2006.

As I sat watching this film recently, what amazed me was how poorly the news networks had covered The Surge back in 2007.  What, for example, was Petraeus’ particular genius in terms of his strategy for coping with Al Qaeda in Iraq?  From The Surge we learn that Petraeus and Odierno devised a plan whereby American troops fought their way into terrorized areas, then erected mini-fortifications (like something out of Fort Apache) from which to protect and hold their areas.  Then, American troops did something extraordinary … they went out and got to know the Iraqis themselves, went into their homes, made friendships, integrated themselves into their lives.  From this position of rapport and trust, they rallied the Iraqis themselves to push Al Qaeda out of their midst.

The Surge does not dwell on the political aspects of the story back here in America – and the film is actually better for it.  You will find no political pundits in this film – just the military men and women (and diplomats) who made this tremendous success story a reality.  Their story is told in a tight, cohesive fashion – supported by extraordinary (and sometimes harrowing) documentary footage of the carnage Al Qaeda had wrought on Bagdad.  And although Avatar has taught us to view our military leaders as sadistic and venal, Generals Petraeus and  Odierno come across as sophisticated and sympathetic – their only interest being in restoring some measure of normality to the everyday lives of Iraqis.

The Surge should be mandatory viewing for anyone who wishes to have an intelligent opinion about the war, rather than merely an opinion.  We hope you enjoy it.