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“The Adventures of Obama Man,” Episode 1

[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.

Enjoy  the short.

Loving The Cold War Lifestyle: “A Kiss From Tokyo”

[Editor’s Note: those of us here at LFM tend to love the ‘Cold War lifestyle’ – the spies, the bikinis, the shiny orbiting satellites and dry martinis.  This is the first of an occasional series from LFM contributor Steve Greaves taking us back to that altogether tastier era.]

By Steve Greaves. Your mission, should you accept to view it:

“A Kiss From Tokyo”, Theatrical Trailer (1964) – Yuki 7 dashes around the world in hot pursuit of the tantalizingly tricky Diamond Eye, who is stealing parts and plans and leaving behind a path of murdered scientists in her quest to build a missile inside her volcanic lair …

OK, it’s not really from 1964, but is in fact vintage today.

I had the pleasure of seeing this faux-trailer and meeting Yuki 7 creator and artist Kevin Dart late last year. His work and more from the Fleet Street Scandal art duo opened at the very ginchy Nucleus Gallery in not-too-scenic Alhambra, CA.

As a lover of all things mid-century and of spy-dom in particular, what can I say about the Yuki 7 trailer?  It’s stylistically satisfying at every level.  Hits all the vital notes needed to evoke the world of Bond and far beyond.

The Japanese elements throughout all the Yuki 7 art make for an ultra-hip edge, since so much film and design of that period was reflected in Asian cop and spy films, which often out-did more accessible American and British spy fare in terms of cheesy melodrama, space-age sets and generally self-conscious kitsch factor – call it the Gojira quotient.

Japanese G-men in boxy sedans and construction-helmeted henchmen guarding missile silos abounded then – as they do here – in the savvy Mr. Dart’s (along with co-director Stephane Coedel) motion picture equivalent of his devastatingly cool Yuki 7 film posters … all of which are for fictitious action-girl spy films I would watch if they existed.

’64 is the perfect year to tie this concept to, when brims were extra stingy and the whole cold war spy phenomenon was just beginning to gel as it’s own entertainment genre – separate and distinct from earlier gumshoe and cop fare that lacked the visual possibilities afforded by easy international travel by jet and the booming space age.

So check the ‘trailer’ out above … I can’t wait for the sequel.

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.

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.

“Grass Roots” Politics, Black Republicans … and Dry Humor

By Jason Apuzzo.  A web series I’ve taken to recently is called “Grass Roots.” “Grass Roots” is a comedic series about an inept pair of grass roots political operatives working for an aspiring Democrat candidate.

The humor in this series is pitch-perfect and dry as a martini. “Grass Roots” is the brainchild of writer-director-actor Aaron Hiliard, who really brings the episodes to life with his smarmy, impossibly self-satisfied characterization of the hack political operative ‘Miles.’ In the episode above, titled “The Black Vote,” Miles and his partner conduct some decidedly ham-fisted ‘outreach’ toward a hapless black Republican.

It would be an understatement to say that the source of “Grass Roots'” humor is the utterly crass, cynical attitude of today’s political classes – and particularly Democrats – toward the micro-targeted demographics (once quaintly known as ‘citizens’) who make up their voter constituencies.  Writer-director-actor Aaron Hiliard (who reminds me a lot of Mo Rocca) captures this perfectly, yet does so without rancor; his character ‘Miles’ is really just a benighted careerist who accepts all the inane wisdom he’s been fed about how to ‘rise’ in politics.  [Miles is uncomfortably similar, actually, to the kind of guests who pass through Rachel Maddow’s show each day – smarmy, low level agitators and opportunists, each with a career to peddle.]

Congratulations to Aaron Hilliard and his crew.  We’ll be showing more of “Grass Roots” down the line.  Enjoy!

Pro-Freedom Themes in Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. After Danis Tanović’s No Man’s Land won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Jasmila Žbanić’s Grbavica captured the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, serious fest watchers had to take Bosnia’s small but accomplished film industry seriously. Unlike most former captive nations, recent Bosnian films have been less likely to address the Soviet experience, instead focusing on the 1994 war. Those ghosts could again be seen in the selections of the Seventh Annual Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival, which is perhaps ironically one of the friendliest fests in New York.

Indeed, the war loomed large in all three programming blocks of three features preceded by a number of shorts. Though already available on DVD (and streaming on Netflix), Hans-Christian Schmid’s Storm (trailer above) would probably be of the most interest to Libertas readers, given its cynical view of the International Criminal Court – portrayed as a typical government office, full of petty corruption and bloated egos. Struggling to prosecute a Bosnian Serb accused of war crimes, Hannah Maynard’s case is in danger of imminent collapse unless she can convince a reluctant witness to come forward. Her serpentine boss, a master at navigating the Court’s roiling bureaucratic waters, backs her efforts, but only so far.

Storm is a German-Danish-Dutch co-production directed by a German starring a Romanian actress as a Bosnian, but its lingua franca is English, with some subtitled German, Bosnian, and Serbian thrown in for good measure. It might be an international affair, but it hardly engenders confidence in aspiring world-governing bodies like the international court. The performances though, especially Romanian Anamaria Marinca and the jowly Rolf Lassgård as Maynard’s world weary Swedish lover, are quite impressive. Political but genuinely nuanced, Storm is an intriguing film worth checking out (despite a Hollywood-style ending that seems at odds with the rest of the film).

From "Sevdah."

A meditation of Sevdalinka, the Bosnian blues, Marina Andree’s Sevdah is also haunted by the war. Representing a culture under siege for Bosnians exiled during the war, the documentary captures the beautiful melancholy of the music. Particularly memorable were a Sendalinka rendition of Gershwin’s “Summertime” and a Delta Blues take on a Sevdalinka standard.

Easily the oddest selection of this or any year’s BHFF was Geoffrey Alan Rhodes and Steven Eastwood’s Buried Land, which recently had its world premiere at Tribeca. Incorporating elements of fictionalized documentary, mockumentary, and performance art video, Land ostensibly documents a film crew shooting a film about the Visoko Pyramids, which may or may not be monuments of an ancient civilization predating the Egyptian pyramids (most experts seem to be skeptical).

In Rhodes and Eastwood’s film, most of the local Bosnians embrace the pyramids as a positive development for their country following the horrors of war. However, they are skeptical of the film crew, fearing they will try to give them the “Borat” treatment — concerns that soon appear to be justified.  [Thanks for giving us a bad name, Hollywood and Sacha Baron Cohen.]  It is hard to judge, but Land could well be an ironic statement on either provincial gullibility or media cynicism (or both). It is a strange hybrid, but the scenery is striking. Defying easy classification and description, Land is a film for those who appreciate cleverness more than emotional engagement in cinema. It definitely made for a diverse slate at this year’s BHFF.

BHFF might be one of the smaller New York fest (for now), but it always has something good to cover. Usually coming hard on the heels of Tribeca, it is worth sticking around New York for.