Are you a Chronicles of Narnia fan? If so, here is a new trailer that just appeared on-line for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which arrives in theaters in December.
Posted on August 6th, 2010 at 10:54am.
Category: Trailers
Aint It Cool News Calls Terrorist Satire Four Lions ‘The Comedy of the Year’; Still No U.S. Release
By Jason Apuzzo. As regular LFM readers know, we loved Chris Morris’ striking new comedy about Islamic terrorism, Four Lions (see our glowing Libertas review from when the film unspooled at The LA Film Festival).
Four Lions is currently playing at the 2010 Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), and a reviewer for Aint It Cool News had this high praise for it:
The day ended with one of my most highly-anticipated films of MIFF, Chris Morris’s FOUR LIONS. There are so many comedians who operate under the assumption that they are “edgy” because they make lots of forced references to things they think are taboo. Chris Morris is one of the few who actually is, shining a sharp, satirical spotlight on our own hypocrisies.
FOUR LIONS, his first film as director and co-writer, is possibly the bravest skewering of cultural mores since LIFE OF BRIAN. When comedy shows or films proudly proclaim they have no political correctness, it usually means they like making fun of a politician’s obesity. FOUR LIONS genuinely discards political correctness, but in an exceptionally smart way, not allowing a single likable character, refusing to present anyone who (a) plays into our own comfortable stereotyped beliefs, or (b) allaying any white or middle-class guilt by having a “Good Muslim” or a “White Politician Who Actually Does Get It”. There are no safe havens in this film, and this — the story of four suicide bombers trying to attack a London target — is all the better for it. I probably missed about 50% of the jokes because I was laughing at the other ones, which is simply an excuse to see it again.
I don’t mind calling it early: FOUR LIONS is the comedy of the year.
We heartily agree. Do whatever you can to see this film. Unfortunately one of the things you won’t be able to do is see it in an American theater, because no company has picked it up for distribution here – even though it was a box office hit in the UK, won the audience award at the LA Film Festival, and was even a hit at Sundance. And this is shameful, because this is an extraordinary film that people should be given the chance to see.
We will continue to bang the drum for this film here at LFM until it gets its American release.
Posted on August 2nd, 2010 at 12:46pm.
Voices from the Killing Fields: Enemies of the People
By Joe Bendel. Euphemisms can be terrible instruments of evil. For instance, when former Khmer Rouge cadres speak of “solving problems” what they really refer to is the systematic torture and execution of roughly two million Cambodians, whose only crime was to be deemed insufficiently Communist. Thet Sambath understands this all too well. After losing his parents and brother to the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, he spent years interviewing former cadres to understand why they killed their countrymen. His self-funded investigation ultimately resulted in Enemies of the People (trailer above), a truly newsworthy documentary co-directed by Rob Lemkin, which opens in New York this Friday and in Los Angeles next week.
A newspaper journalist in Phnom Penh, Sambath’s quiet, unassuming demeanor is perfectly suited to winning the confidences of his interview subjects. However, he does not advertize his tragic family history, especially not with the big fish, Nuon Chea, a.k.a. Brother Number Two, the Khmer Rouge’s chief theoretician – second only to Pol Pot (Brother Number One). For years, the largely silent Chea has maintained his ignorance of the Killing Fields, but Sambath wore down his reticence. With Chea facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, what he says on Sambath’s tapes is extraordinarily timely.
Beyond its potential relevance in the Cambodian Tribunal, Enemies is highly significant as a pioneering Cambodian documentary inquiry into the Khmer Rouge’s crimes. Providing historical context that will likely be instructive for western audiences as well, Sambath explains that the Khmer Rouge directly looked to China as their revolutionary inspiration. Indeed, one can argue the Killing Fields were an indirect product of the Cultural Revolution.
The former low level cadres interviewed on camera also confirm their victims were brutalized and murdered out of ideological zeal. They were capitalist or counter-revolutionary “problems” to “fix.” The matter-of-factness of their videotaped statements is quite chilling, lending credence to Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil. While some express remorse, decades after the fact, for the most part, it seems like Sambath is not tapping into feelings of guilt so much as a Dostoevskian compulsion to confess. Obviously suffering from his own survivor’s guilt, Sambath also has his own stories to tell. However, he appears to attain a measure of closure through his ambitious undercover research project.
In Enemies, Sambath puts to shame most western journalists who simply preen in front of cameras and regurgitate talking points. At no small risk to himself, he set out to get the truth, succeeding rather spectacularly given his modest resources. Frankly, the ignorance and misunderstanding of the Khmer Rouge borders on the criminal in the west, but Sambath and Lemkin bring their genocidal crimes into sharp focus. Yes, the American bombings are mentioned in Enemies, but only briefly – never suggesting they excuse or rationalize the crimes of the Khmer Rouge in any way. Truly, Sambath understands who the killers really are, and he got them on tape. Thoughtful and legitimately bold, it opens this Friday (7/30) in New York at the Quad and next Friday (8/6) in Los Angeles at Laemmle’s Music Hall, Beverly Hills.
Posted on July 30th, 2010 at 10:36am.
Rockin’ The Wall Premieres Sept. 9th at National March on D.C.
By Jason Apuzzo. Filmmaker, best-selling author and former rock drummer Larry Schweikart recently sent me the trailer (see above) for his forthcoming documentary, Rockin’ The Wall. Rockin’ The Wall is about the liberating force of rock music for young people living behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. The film is based in part on a segment of Larry’s book, Seven Events That Made America America. Many of you also may remember Larry as the co-author of the #1 New York Times best seller A Patriot’s History of the United States. [Both of these books are available in the LFM Store below.]
Rockin’ The Wall deals with how rock music served as a source of hope for young kids growing up in the communist world, and how the music subverted the grip that totalitarian regimes held over societies within the Eastern Bloc. Larry and his team interview rockers from the Cold War era, including the band Mother’s Finest – a black funk-rock band out of Atlanta who played East Berlin two weeks before the Wall came crashing down. Also interviewed are young eastern Europeans from that era whose lives were changed irrevocably by rock music and the cracks that music opened up – literally and figuratively – in their otherwise repressive world.
One of the great details that Rockin’ The Wall apparently goes into is how the communist regimes – seeing what a powerful force rock music was among the youth – tried to co-opt the music for their own purposes. In the Soviet Union this lead to the Russians actually creating a ‘Ministry of Rock'(!). I’m hoping Larry has some samples from that Ministry’s music – it must be hilarious.
Rockin’ The Wall reminds me of a marvelous film from the Los Angeles Film Festival that we recently reviewed here at LFM, called Disco & Atomic War. Disco & Atomic War is an extraordinary new Estonian documentary about the so-called ’soft power’ influence of American and Western culture on the minds of Soviet citizens living in Estonia during the Cold War, who were able through clever means to watch Finnish television broadcasts emanating from just over the border. As Disco informs us (in amusing detail), American popular culture – especially in the form of glamorous TV shows like “Dallas,” or movies like Star Wars and even Emmanuelle – was deeply feared by Soviet authorities due to the ideas and expectations such programming planted in the minds of Soviet citizens. This led to amusing co-optings, such as the Soviets creating their own officially sanctioned disco instruction course for TV (shades of the ‘Ministry of Rock’?).
You can read the LFM review of Disco and Atomic War from the LA Film Festival, and also read LFM Contributor Joe Bendel’s review of the film from yesterday.
Rockin’ the Wall premieres in Washington, D.C. on September 9, at the national Tea Party “March on D.C.” event. You can also pre-order the DVD here, and follow the film on Facebook here. We wish Larry and his creative team the best with this project.
Posted on July 27th, 2010 at 11:49am.
LFM Reviews: Kisses
By Patricia Ducey. Kisses, a 2008 Irish film and favorite at many important festivals, is now in wider release throughout the US this summer. [See the trailer below.] Writer/director Lance Daly spins a tale of two abused Irish kids from the unfashionable outskirts of Dublin who run away from home to find freedom from family strife. No leprechauns or legends in this Ireland – the film takes place in a modern, industrialized Ireland, chockablock with rusting warehouses, traffic jams, and pop culture references. Daly, after a few preview screenings in the US, has wisely provided subtitles to aid the American ear in decoding the Irish patois. [I implore other filmmakers whose films are not in spoken American English to do the same. I’m talking to you, Sarah Gavron.]
The Irish Film Board, Bord Scannán na hÉireann, which has been financing and promoting the national cinema of Ireland since the 1990s, helped finance Kisses. What is the “national” cinema of Ireland, though, in actuality? Films written or produced by Irish persons, or films about Ireland? Or some permutation of both? Irish filmmakers have borrowed from early American films, like the docudrama Man of Aran or the romanticized The Quiet Man, and vice versa. I spent some time in Ireland in the ’90s, when the Board first starting supporting these films – I was researching my thesis on this subject – and came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a purely national cinema. But times were good in Ireland then, and the Board plowed ahead. Irish moviegoers, though, voted with their feet and many of these board-supported films ended up, oddly, being shown in art houses in Ireland – while the likes of Mrs. Doubtfire drew the crowds near Grafton Street. Whether it is smart for any government to support the arts is debatable – just look at the bidding war over tax incentives for movie production here in the US – but such a debate has begun in Ireland due to the now faltering Irish economy.
The truth is that film and narrative have always been ‘globalized’ and Kisses is no exception. The two runaways, Kylie and Dylan, live in a neighborhood Antoine Doinel would feel at home in. The runaways cadge a ride down the canal ala Huck Finn, courtesy of a Russian émigré boatman who introduces the kids to Dylan’s namesake – Jewish/Christian American folk rocker Bob Dylan – with his impromptu rendition of “Shelter From the Storm.” And later Dylan learns a lesson about the give and take of love from a Jamaican prostitute eking out a living in Dublin.
Dylan and Kylie’s world, though, is a drab working class Ireland. The two families live in comfortable enough homes, but Dylan’s father, a handsome guy, drinks and bullies, while Kylie’s uncle fools everyone in the family except her – she knows from bitter experience what he really is. Both Dylan and Kylie reach the end of their respective ropes on Christmas Day; one battle royale, one unwanted advance too many, and they are off, with Kylie egging Dylan on to make a run for it. They hop a river barge to the city, and the adventure begins – for good and ill.
The cinematography is lovely. Daly shoots the opening scenes of the housing development in bleak black and white, and lets the color slowly seep into the frame as the kids and the boatman get farther and farther away from home (a nod to The Wizard of Oz? Again, the cross-pollination of film). The two child stars, real Dublin kids Kelly O’Neill as Kylie (a Drew Barrymore look-alike) and Shane Curry as Dylan, shine as newcomers. Daly draws joyous and heartbreaking performances from both of them, without the wise-assery or precociousness we see in so many preteen stories. I wished that perhaps Kylie was a little less heroic a heroine, but that’s a minor quibble.
If you liked a recent Irish film Once, you will like Kisses. Kisses is the anti-Inception. It is small and slight but you won’t forget it – just like your first kiss.
Posted on July 26th, 2010 at 12:45pm.
Winning the Cold War in L’Affaire Farewell
By Joe Bendel. Instead of the man who knew too much, he was the spy who knew everything. Codenamed “Farewell” by the French, Colonel Vladimir Vetrov was charged with reviewing the intelligence the KGB gathered on the free world—every speck of it, including the extent to which each western intelligence agency had been compromised. He also knew the Soviet government had failed to live up to its promises. President Ronald Reagan called the resulting L’Affaire Farewell: “one of the most important espionage cases of the 20th century.” It also inspired Christian Carion’s espionage drama Farewell (trailer below), which opens in Los Angeles and New York this Friday night.
Like the real-life Vetrov on whom he is based, Colonel Grigoriev was once stationed in Paris, where he rebuffed the advances of the French and American intelligence services. However, by 1981, the Colonel had come to the conclusion the Soviet Union needed drastic reform – so he approached the DST, the French equivalent of the FBI (the only western intelligence agency the KGB had not bothered to infiltrate) through Pierre, a French businessman with no formal involvement in the world of espionage.
Out of his element, Pierre wants to extricate himself from the affair as soon as possible, but Grigoriev insists on dealing only with him, considering the professionals untrustworthy. Partly in recognition of the value of Grigoriev’s intel and partly out of a sense of budding friendship, Pierre becomes the Colonel’s amateur handler, passing a wealth of information on to the DST.
While Pierre and Grigoriev meet in parks and train stations, another alliance in being forged between President Reagan and Mitterrand, France’s newly elected socialist prime minister. The President is less than thrilled at the prospect of Communist ministers in the new French cabinet, but Mitterrand has an olive branch to offer: “Farewell.”
Farewell’s portrayal of these influential world leaders is quite fascinating and surprisingly even-handed. Philippe Magnan’s Mitterrand is intelligent but aloof, coming across like more than a bit of a cold fish. Refreshingly, Pres. Reagan is not depicted as a doddering bumbler, but as an engaged and commanding leader. Yes, there are scenes of Reagan using classic film as a metaphor with his National Security Advisor (played by an almost unrecognizable David Soul), but never in way that calls his judgment into question.
Yet, there is something about Reagan’s distinct mannerisms that are hard to emulate without lapsing into caricature. American actor Fred Ward takes a good shot, but he still sounds more like a Saturday Night Live impersonation than a real flesh and blood individual. Frankly, Ronald Reagan remains such a commanding presence in the national consciousness it makes any dramatic representation problematic.
Fortunately, Farewell’s primary leads are uniformly excellent. Though he looks appropriately rumpled, Emir Kusturica plays Grigoriev sharp as a tack, keenly aware of his own personal contradictions. As Pierre, Guillaume Canet’s performance is also smart and understated, avoiding the headshaking “what-did-I-get-myself-into” histrionics. As a result, viewers believe the unqualified trust Grigoriev places in him.
Technically well produced, cinematographer Walther Vanden Ende and designer Jean-Michel Simonet effectively capture the oppressive drabness of the Brezhnev era. Yet ideologically, Farewell resists easy classification. While it certainly conveys the repressive and corrupt nature of Soviet Communism, the film sometimes suggests a John Le Carre-like equivalency, at least between the rival spy masters. However, the shrewd conclusion again challenges the audience’s conceptions of faith and loyalty, within the context of the preceding “L’Affaire Farewell.”
Considering how long it has been since a brainy spy film sneaked into theaters, Farewell is quite welcome indeed. Featuring two compelling lead performances and a meaty story that intrigues on several levels, it is an engrossing film. It also might be the fairest shake Pres. Reagan has gotten on screen since his inauguration in 1981, ironically coming by way of France. Definitely recommended, Farewell opens Friday (7/23) in both Los Angeles and New York, expanding to other cities the following week.
Posted on July 20th, 2010 at 9:13am.