LFM Sundance Review: If a Tree Falls & Eco-Terrorism in America

By Joe Bendel. There is an old saying: “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.” It sure is convenient to quote if you happen to be accused of terrorism. Daniel McGowan certainly falls back on it in If a Tree Falls: a Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Marshall Curry’s public relations salvo on behalf of the convicted eco-terrorist, which screens at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

First radicalized at New York’s Wetlands Preserve, a now defunct music club and clearing house for environmental agitation, by his own admission former Earth Liberation Front cell member McGowan took part in dozens of destructive “actions” targeting lumber companies, forestry research facilities, and the like. However, he claims that a particularly ambitious double operation soured him on the ELF.

McGowan and his co-conspirators believed Superior Lumber was engaging in genetic engineering that violated the tenets of their environmental faith. Actually, they Superior Lumber was not, but the ELF only discovered this fact after burning the company’s offices to the ground. Simultaneously, the arson planned for an agricultural geneticist’s university office burned out of control, taking part of the school’s library with it. Sorry dudes, our bad.

Some of the ELF's handiwork.

If a Tree is really two irreconcilable films grafted together. In the first half, ELF supporters revel in their glory years, unambiguously boasting that they were finally putting palpable fear in the hearts of the world’s polluters and lumber barons. However, once McGowan and his co-defendants were caught, the very same people decried the injustice of applying domestic terrorism laws to the ELF defendants. (For his part, MacGowan has no such scruples throwing around the word himself, proudly sporting a tee-shirt labeling Pres. George W. Bush an “international terrorist.”) Yet, the fear and intimation resulting from their actions were not unexpected by-products, but the conscious and deliberate goals of the ELF operations. To then debate whether McGowan’s actions meet the legal definition of terrorism constitutes mere sophistry.

McGowan and Curry make much of the lack of human casualties directly attributable to ELF actions, but it is hard to think of a lower ethical bar to clear. In a wider sense, though, it is actually not true. Given the businesses damaged and even outright destroyed by McGowan and his fellow eco-terrorists, many innocent people clearly lost their livelihoods. These are working people, whose lives were shattered by McGowan, but Curry steadfastly refuses to delve into such inconvenient details.

To Curry’s credit, he gives the Assistant U.S. Attorney and lead detective who brought down the ELF a fair opportunity to speak for themselves, never casting them as fascist caricatures. However, that is the extent of his fairness doctrine. Aside from those brief segments with law enforcement and the rather unlucky Superior Lumber proprietor, Curry confines his interviews solely to those supportive of the ELF, scrupulously avoiding its critics. He never once challenges McGowan’s radical environmental pronouncements nor does he explore the full repercussions of the ELF’s crimes.

Well beyond one-sided, If a Tree should not be considered a documentary at all, but the work-product of McGowan’s defense team, while the sympathy it elicits for the convicted domestic terrorist is profoundly misplaced. Yes, he destroyed property, but he also intentionally terrorized people and ruined lives. It is highly skippable this morning (1/28) at Sundance.

Posted on January 28th, 2011 at 7:04am.


LFM Sundance Review: The Green Wave & The Hope of Iranian Democracy

By Joe Bendel. Are a stolen election and a massive, coordinated assault on human rights enough to forestall reform in the Islamic Republic of Iran – or will they fuel the fires lit by the “Green” coalition? While our current administration was busy being scrupulously “nonprovocative,” hundreds of Iranians from all walks of life were arrested during the protests of 2009, many of whom would never be heard from again. The courage and idealism of those Iranian activists is celebrated in Ali Samadi Ahadi’s partially animated documentary The Green Wave (trailer above), which screens as part of the Premiere section at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The revolution that nearly was, was not televised in Iran. However, it was recorded on Twitter, blogs, and cell phone cameras. Based on the blog entries of real Iranians, Wave gives a voice to those whom the government silenced, telling their stories with animation stylistically similar to that of Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir. Each POV character had previously given up on politics, yet the candidacy of Mir Hossein Mousavi inspired them to reengage with the political process.

Adopting green as their official color, they campaigned with a hopeful fervor reinforced by polls showing a landslide victory for their candidate. Then on Election Day the predictable reports of “irregularities” began, culminating in a government blackout of the media and the inevitable announcement of Ahmadinejad’s dubious re-election. Outraged but empowered, the Green activists took the streets in protest. Wave pulls no punches documenting the brutal suppression that followed.

Yes, in many ways Mousavi is a problematic figure, who had been handpicked by the ruling establishment to serve as Ahmadinejad’s opponent. While his stance towards Israel might not have been appreciably different, he embraced the Green platform of liberalization. He also had the virtue of not having a messiah complex, unlike his chief rival.

Wave is a well constructed film, integrating strikingly dramatic animation well suited to representing the abject brutality of the Iranian government, with eye-witness video shot on handheld devices. As a result, no one watching the film can possibly question whether these abuses really did happen. Further bolstering the case, Ahadi includes some moving testimony from survivors of the government’s orchestrated attacks amongst his talking-head interviews. Perhaps the most chilling animated testimony, though, comes from a militia man who considers himself most likely damned (in the eternal sense) for his actions in the crackdown.

Wave manages to be both an infuriating and inspiring film. Dedicated to the protesters who were tortured and killed, it expresses hope that the spirit of their movement will eventually serve as a catalyst for meaningful reform in Iran. Yet, it is difficult to share that optimism given the atrocities the film documents. Socially significant and aesthetically accomplished, Wave is one of the most important films at Sundance.  Highly recommended, it screens again during the festival tonight (1/27), tomorrow (1/28), and Saturday (1/29).

Posted on January 27th, 2011 at 2:07pm.


Classic Movie Journal: Jane Greer, The Queen of Film Noir + Film Preservation Blogathon

By Jennifer Baldwin. Quick, name five Jane Greer movies!

1.) Out of the Past
2.) The Big Steal
And… ???

Okay, I’ll play:
3.) The Company She Keeps
4.) Man of a Thousand Faces
And, in a small role…
5.) 1973’s The Outfit. More on that last one in a bit.
(Also, her stint on Twin Peaks was nothing to sneeze at and kinda noirish in that weird, Lynchian way.)

She might not have made many memorable movies, but all it took for Jane Greer to become the queen of film noir was one role: Kathie Moffat in Jacques Tourner’s film noir masterpiece, Out of the Past.

Yes, Stanwyck was the ultimate spider woman as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, and made more half-baked films noir than Greer made films total. And yes, Gloria Grahame was the epitome of B-girl badness in films like The Big Heat and Human Desire. And, of course, glamourpusses like Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth both had signature roles in the dark den of Noir City.

But for me, Greer is the queen of noir because she was every dark dame wrapped into one. She was wicked temptress, misunderstood moll, glamour puss with a kiss of death, and also something even more off-kilter and sinister than her fellow femmes.  Out of the Past‘s Kathie Moffat might just be more fatal than all of them because she isn’t just evil, she’s vulnerable too and that vulnerability – that quizzical beauty in her face, and pleading in her eyes – make her evil actions all the more horrible. We can tell that Stanwyck’s Phyllis – from the moment her anklet slithers across the screen – is definitely up to no good. We can tell she’s pure evil, even as Stanwyck imbues her with some small measure of humanity at the end. But Greer’s Kathie could have been good and that’s why she’s all the more terrifying. We want her to be good even as she lies, steals, and kills.

It’s the type of performance for which the word “enigma” was invented. The intoxicating allure of Kathie Moffat is summed up when she pleadingly tells Robert Mitchum that she’s not a thief. His response: “Baby, I don’t care.” She could be good, she could be bad, but in the end it doesn’t matter: she’s irresistible. And that is what makes la femme so fatal.

Greer’s teenage bout with Bell’s palsy is part of the mystique. It left half of her face paralyzed and it was only through tireless muscle exercises that she was able to recover movement in her face. But it also left Greer with a permanent, slightly lopsided smile. This lilt in her lips gives her face a certain mystery, as if we’re never quite sure what she’s thinking.

Jane Greer in "Out of the Past."

One of the best places to find out what the real Jane Greer was thinking is Eddie Muller’s delicious book, Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir. It compiles Muller’s interviews with Greer, as well as noirish dames Audrey Totter, Marie Windsor, Evelyn Keyes, Ann Savage, and Coleen Gray. If you are a fan of film noir, this book is a must-read. For one thing, we learn that Jane Greer was married to Rudy Vallee (a man twice her age!) when she was in her early twenties, and that he was a fetishistic creep with a bad porn habit who made Greer dye her hair an unflattering raven-black to suit his own predilections.

Greer was pursued by no less than Howard Hughes himself, but she ultimately rejected him and he in turn pretty much stalled her career at RKO just as she was coming off that career-making performance in Out of the Past.

So we can thank Howard Hughes and his wounded, paranoid heart for hampering the career of Jane Greer, queen of noir.

Jane Greer with Robert Mitchum in "Out of the Past."

But even though she never made another film noir as brilliant as Out of the Past, she never completely abandoned the dark streets of the crime drama. Enter The Outfit, a 1970s second-wave color noir that has enough cameos of old stars and character actors to make any classic movie fan point and cheer: Robert Ryan, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Timothy Carey, and of course … Jane Greer.

It’s a small part, but she still captivates. In fact, all of the old timers captivate, whether it’s the brief appearance of world weary Marie Windsor, pouring drinks behind a bar; or Elisha Cook, Jr. getting bossed around by the heavies (as usual); or Robert Ryan and Timothy Carey playing poker and planning hits.

The film stars Robert Duvall and Joe Don Baker as two gunmen who go after a powerful crime syndicate for money and revenge. It’s combination heist flick, revenge story, and gritty crime noir. Written and directed by the underrated John Flynn, and based on a story by Donald Westlake, The Outfit is a solid example of the violent second-wave noir of the 1970s. It’s bloodier than an old school noir, and even more amoral. Duvall’s criminal, Earl Macklin, is not a good man. He’s not even a “misunderstood” criminal. He’s a bad guy who kills with ruthless ease. Even his cause – revenge for the murder of his brother – is tainted by the fact that his brother was murdered precisely because he and Duvall robbed a syndicate bank.

Jane Greer in "The Outfit."

Jane Greer plays Alma, the widow of the murdered brother, and for a change of pace she’s not a femme fatale or a dangerous woman. She’s simply a woman beaten down by the despair and death of the criminal world. There’s a certain tiredness to Alma’s character, and to Greer’s performance, that puts the lie to all of that noir cool we usually see in these types of films. Yeah, okay, Duvall and Baker embody charismatic criminal cool as they attempt to take down the Outfit. But that earlier scene with Alma is still hanging around the edges, reminding us that it all ends up tired and empty in the end. And who better to deliver that message than the former Kathie Moffat?

The Outfit is now newly remastered and available on DVD through the Warner Archive Vault Collection.

Speaking of Noir, there’s a fundraising blogathon coming up in February called “For the Love of Film (Noir)” — a sequel to last year’s hugely successful silent film preservation fundraiser, “For the Love of Film,” sponsored by Marilyn Ferdinand of Ferdy on Films and Farran Smith Nehme of Self-Styled Siren. Ferdinand and Nehme are at it again, this time with a blogathon running from February 14 to 21, focusing on film noir and benefiting the Film Noir Foundation.

I’ll be contributing a couple of posts, both here at Libertas and at my own blog, and I would encourage everyone who loves movies and film noir to contribute what they can to the fundraiser. The last time, “For the Love of Film” raised $30,000 for the National Film Preservation Foundation, and that money went towards the preservation of two early short films. Hopefully we can equal or surpass that amount this time. As I’ve written before, film preservation is a naturally conservative cause, so mark your calendars for February 14 and check out “For the Love of Film (Noir).”

Posted on January 27th, 2011 at 10:30am.

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.