Hollywood Round-up, 8/10

The great Patricia Neal.
The great Patricia Neal.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Patricia Neal has passed away, at age 84. What a great star she was.  I actually just saw her recently on the big screen at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, where they were showing The Day the Earth Stood Still.  Patricia Neal appeared in so many of my favorite films, including In Harm’s Way, The Fountainhead, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Face in the Crowd, Operation Pacific and on and on … and of course, everybody remembers her (rightly) for Hud.  Neal had the same kind of urbane, sexy, flinty-yet-romantic persona that Betty Bacall had in her prime, and she will be deeply missed.

We don’t have women nowadays on film, so much as overgrown girls.  Neal and Bacall are arguably the last of their kind.

• We’ve been talking a lot about science fiction here lately, and now some interesting news comes out today from George Lucas about the ultimate sci-fi franchise: Star Wars.  Apparently work on the much-anticipated live action Star Wars TV series has ground to a halt due to challenges associated with the sheer scale of the series.

According to George:

The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don’t know how to do them.  They literally are Star Wars, only we’re going to have to try to do them at a tenth the cost. And it’s a huge challenge, a lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be.

On the one hand this is disappointing, because this is a series that a lot of us have been looking forward to.  On the other hand, I’m glad that they’re being ambitious with the storyline.  Knowing the way the folks at Lucasfilm are, they will probably be developing an innovative new palette of technologies in order to make this series affordable.  We’ll be watching this story as it develops in months to come.

Alien babe Laura Vandervoort from "V."

• In other sci-fi related news, James Cameron talks to MTV about the future of the Avatar series (he’s working on the Avatar novel right now, and may shoot Avatar 2-3 back-to-back; it’s extraordinary to me that he believes the fans of Avatar actually read); the indie sci-fi invasion film Skyline has a new teaser website; Cloverfield director Matt Reeves says Cloverfield 2 is still a possibility (the first film had strong 9/11 overtones, incidentally, and was one of the first films – along with Indy 4 – to kick off the latest alien craze); the alien invasion thriller The Darkest Hour has had its shooting shut down due to ongoing fires outside Moscow; and there’s some fun casting news today concerning the ongoing alien invasion series V.

I can hardly believe that in my recent writings about the new wave of alien invasion films/TV shows, I actually forgot to mention V! One of the reasons this is such a glaring omission is that V (both in the original and the new miniseries) manages to harness the alien invasion theme to political commentary about America’s potential drift toward authoritarianism.  I’ve actually read Kenneth Johnson’s 2008 V novel, which could not be more obvious in its criticism of current trends in liberal governance.  (The novel even features a hilarious, narcissistic San Francisco mayor based quite blatantly on Gavin Newsom … who has an affair with a Beyoncé look-alike.)    I haven’t seen much of the new TV series – which was thought by many to offer a sub rosa critique of the Obama Administration – but the series seems to depart rather dramatically from the novel in its plotline, and appears to be more along the lines of a straight-forward reboot of the original TV show.

In any case, these trends in sci-fi continue, and we’ll be keeping an eye on them here at LFM … especially when the new season of V revs up later this year.  Btw, if more aliens looked like Laura Vandervoort, would we really mind being devoured by them?

• The Other Guys won top honors at the box office this past weekend. There was recently a debate over whether The Other Guys offers a critique of Wall Street crony capitalism.  Unfortunately the price of my entry into this debate is too high: namely, having to actually see the film.

• Recently freed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi will be on the jury for the forthcoming Venice Film Festival, which is very good news.  I’m wondering what he’ll think of The Black Swan.  Talk about a film that couldn’t be made in Iran …

Murder by shoe. OMG!

• Are we tapped out on superhero movies? [Answer: yes.]  That’s the question asked in the LA Times, ironically enough, by the director of the forthcoming X-Men: First Class.  [This is the one featuring Jennifer Stewart as Mystique, btw.]  Whether we are or aren’t, of course, we’re going to get more such films thrown at us.  Today comes news that Green Lantern 2 already has a screenwriter, and Batman 3 may be shooting extensively in New Orleans.  In related not-so-super hero news, Tom Cruise is going to be taking a paycut for Mission: Impossible 4, and Ving Rhames has confirmed his participation in that film, as well.  Yawn.

• There’s a new poster out for Piranha 3D.  Yummy.

• There are some fun pictures out today of Rachel Zoe, riffing off her endless repetition of the phrase “I die.” Click on over to Harper’s Bazaar for more.  LFM is, like, absolutely beyond being in favor of The Rachel Zoe Project.

• DAILY PSYCHO REPORT: The new Maggie Thatcher biopic with Meryl Streep is apparently going to be a full-on, unvarnished hit job on The Iron Lady, exploiting even her recent dementia … and I’m totally disgusted with Streep and her participation in what appears to be an ugly, nakedly propagandistic project.  I can only assume Streep has no conscience whatsoever, and like so many recent celebrities is simply surrendering her career – now that it’s on the down side – to tendentious partisan hackery.

The fabulous Carla Bruni.

Somewhat related, Keith Olbermann is apparently out of NBC’s Football Night in America (hooray!) … ironic in that he’s been forced into retirement sooner than Brett Favre; the Wachowski brothers’ bizarre new Iraq war project will apparently be titled Cobalt Neutral 9; and Spike Lee is now peddling more conspiracy theories … this time about the BP oil spill.  Personally I think all the oil from that spill’s been channelled into Adrian Grenier’s hair.  Which reminds me, there will probably be an Entourage movie once that series is over.

• The great Debbie Reynolds has been cast as Katherine Heigl’s grandmother in One For the Money, in which Heigl will be playing … a bounty hunter.  [Sigh.]  Is Heigl choosing her roles by way of a Ouija board these days?

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Carla Bruni has been offered a role on CSI, which would be just about the only reason to watch that show, nowadays.

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

Posted on August 9th, 2010 at 2:40pm.

DocuWeeks LA: LFM Reviews My Perestroika & Summer Pasture

By Joe Bendel. Probably no division of the Academy Awards has more byzantine rules than the documentary wing.  Their mandated seven day theatrical runs in both New York and Los Angeles can be difficult hurdles for nonfiction filmmakers to clear.  However, every selection of the 2010 DocuWeeks will be officially Oscar eligible once they finish their week long runs at the ArcLight and IFC Film Centers.  As is seemingly the case with every documentary series, this year’s DocuWeeks is a mixed bag, but two films in particular offer intriguingly intimate glimpses into lives of ordinary individuals living a world away from the arthouse cinema scene.

Even though he was badly hung-over, he knew there was a national crisis.  Though the bleary-eyed Russian did not know at the time the hard-line Communist coup had deposed Mikhail Gorbachev, he saw that Swan Lake was the only program on television.  For some reason, the Soviets always broadcasted the Tchaikovsky ballet during periods of internal turmoil.  It is telling details like this that connect the personal to the grandly historical in Robin Hessman’s My Perestroika, which screened earlier this year at New Directors/New Films.

A Russophile in high school, Hessman was working for LENFILM, the Soviet film agency based in what was then Leningrad, at the time of the infamous coup.  Through her time working and studying in Russia, Hessman developed a keen appreciation for the stoic nobility of average Russian citizens, which is clearly reflected in Perestroika.  Using five former classmates as representative everymen, Hessman subjectively presents the last forty-some years of Russian and Soviet history through their reminiscences and home movies.

Yes, there is a certain nostalgia for their childhood years lived under the yoke of Soviet tyranny.  However, they are really wistful for their lost innocence rather than the supposed virtues of the Brezhnev era.  As becomes clear in their interviews, as the Perestroika generation came of age, it also became quickly disillusioned.

Still, not all of the film’s lead voices are doing badly.  An entrepreneur with a small chain of high-end men’s clothing stores, Andrei has done quite well for himself.  He is also the most vocal critic of the current Putin regime.  While none of the five have led exceptional lives, Hessman had the good fortune to find participants who had been somewhat in the vicinity of great events.  Indeed, the experiences of Perestroika’s subjects defy easy classification, at various times lending credence to wide array of political interpretations (though it is hard to find much in the film to justify any faith in Putin’s puppet government).

—

Tibet is also changing drastically, which is exactly what China wants.  For instance, it has become increasingly difficult for Tibetans not fluent in Chinese to conduct business transactions.  Such are the challenges facing a young nomadic family in Tibet’s eastern Kham region as presented in Summer Pastures, an intimate new documentary from Lynn True and Nelson Walker (with co-director Tsering Perlo), also currently screening as part of DocuWeeks LA.

In many ways, Locho and Yama are much like any other parents you would find anywhere else on Earth.  Their greatest hope is for their daughter to have greater opportunities in her life than have been available for them.  However, their daily chores are far removed from those western audiences will be familiar with, including the daily spreading and drying of manure for fuel that starts Yama’s daily routine.  It is a hardscrabble life, but it is what they have always known.

Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the nomads’ way of life will be sustainable much longer.  Inflation constantly drives up the price of their supplies, while they seem to have less to show for their labors.  Adding further uncertainty, Yama suffers from a persistent heart ailment, yet she keeps working like an ox – in contrast to Locho, who often seems like an overgrown kid herding their livestock.

Even in their remote corner of Tibet, Locho and Yama feel the impact of great macro forces.  However, True and Walker focus their sites on their deeply personal family drama, (somewhat timidly avoiding the occupying Chinese elephant in the room).  Yet by conveying such a strong sense of the nomadic couple’s personalities and relationship dynamics, Pasture will have most viewers rooting for this family as the film unfolds.

Pasture forgoes filmmaker commentary, instead capturing the nomads’ lives unfiltered, in a style not incompatible with that of Digital Generation Chinese independent filmmakers.  Though it requires some patience, it is certainly rewarding to meet Yama and Locho, whose spirit and resiliency the filmmakers capture quite vividly.  Both Pasture and Perestroika are difficult films to pigeon hole, but they have more merit than most docs released this year.  They are currently screening in Los Angeles, as DocuWeeks continues at the ArcLight.

Posted on August 9th, 2010 at 9:32am.

Modern Art

Jeff Koons' "Girl with Dolphin and Monkey," at The Whitney Museum.

By David Ross. The more I am immersed in the study of art, the more I am appalled by what now passes as art … viscerally, even angrily appalled … and amazed that our culture – the culture of Palladio, Vermeer, what have you – sold its birthright for a mess of pottage that was not even tolerably good pottage. I recall an instructive day of cultural tourism in New York. My wife and I spent the morning at the Whitney, where we joined a sparse gaggle of pierced and alienated art-student types. We could not help noticing the mood of sour dutifulness that seemed to prevail. Nobody was enjoying and nobody was there to enjoy; the purpose was to symbolize one’s commitment to the modern, and to demonstrate one’s figurative manning of the barricades in the war against the bourgeois. After a while, I said to my wife, “Let’s get the hell out of this morgue.” We tried a palette cleanser of French pastry at Payard (see our wedding cake here), but the rancid taste was still in our mouths, and we felt the need for the stronger mouthwash of the Met. We wound up looking at Georgian furniture. Amid the gracefully tapering forms and magnificent burnishes, the public mood was all delight. Vacationing soccer moms stood before an impossibly lovely escritoire or settee and exclaimed, “How pretty! Kids, look at this one! Ooh, wow!”

From Marcus Harvey's "White Riot."

The problem, just to be clear, is not modern art, but art that has abandoned the refinement of the hand and eye that marks the aesthetic. The problem is art’s increasing identification with aims that are not aesthetic at all, but political, sociological, commercial, sensational, and self-promotional, with impulses that are subversive but not beautiful in their subversion (as say Baudelaire and Toulouse-Lautrec were beautiful in their subversion). Turner has much in common with moderns like Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko; he has nothing in common with a postmodern like Damien Hirst.

I constantly search for a definitive diagnosis of what’s gone wrong. Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word (1975) is lucid and amusing, but even better, because more pissed off, is Theodore Dalrymple’s essay “Trash, Violence, and Versace: But is it Art?” (see here), a review of a 1998 exhibition called “Sensation.”  The Royal Academy of Art, historically a bastion of the staid, was the offender in this case, which suggests how strangely and thoroughly the cultural life of the West has been perverted. Dalrymple is particularly roused by the vapid amorality of Marcus Harvey’s portrait of the mass-child-murderer Myra Hindley. The portrait is rendered in children’s handprints, and the parents of the murdered children naturally protested (not that anyone cared). Dalrymple comments: Continue reading Modern Art

Bollywood Courts Controversy: Tere Bin Laden

By Joe Bendel. “Banned in Pakistan” sounds like a heck of recommendation for a film. Yet, in the case of Abhishek Sharma’s Tere Bin Laden (a bit of wordplay roughly translating to “Without Bin Laden”) it is hard to understand why they bothered. A mildly amusing satire, Tere tweaks the American response to the September 11th terrorist attacks far more than its Al-Qaeda mastermind, but evidently the Pakistani authorities feared any comedic representation of Bin Laden would be provocative.  American audiences can judge for themselves today as Tere opens at select theaters nationwide (see listings here).

In a bit of a departure for Bollywood, Tere is set in Pakistan and stars the Pakistani popstar Ali Zafar as Ali Hassan, an aspiring journalist who dreams of making it big in America. Unfortunately, his departure is delayed by the 9-11 terrorist attack. When his flight finally leaves, his odd behavior (possible only in a slapstick comedy, given the obviously tense circumstances) is misinterpreted as a hijacking attempt. As a result, Hassan is barred from America for life.

Our young protagonist perseveres though, toiling away at a low rent news station, trying to raise cash for a new set of identity papers. Covering a rooster-crowing contest, Hassan spies a poultry breeder named Noora who is the spitting image of Bin Laden — okay, maybe that is a bit daring on the filmmaker’s part.

Peddling a fake bin Laden interview.

However, when the reporter bamboozles the eccentric Noora into making a counterfeit Bin Laden video, made up like his notorious double, the jokes really are not directed at Bin Laden, but primarily at his target -Hassan’s promised land of America. When the bogus tape hits the airwaves shortly thereafter, the American military naturally starts carpet-bombing Afghanistan out of sheer panic. Frankly, this is the sort of satire you can find in any number of American films. Of course, the Bollywood musical numbers are a different story, the best being Zafar’s mellow groover, “Bus Ek Soch.”

Ironically, the most endearing character of Tere is the likably goofy faux Bin Laden, played by Pradhuman Singh, who shows a flare for physical comedy and chicken wrangling. Zafar, who reportedly was once held for ransom by self-described Bin Laden supporters, is also reasonably engaging as Hassan. One can also understand why he might be gun-shy with satirical material that cuts too close to the bone.

The outrageous positions Bin Laden’s double finds himself in (chasing chickens with a grenade super-glued to his hand, for instance) may well help bring the mass murderer’s public image down to earth. If so, Tere could be a force for good. Still the Kumbaya ending, suggesting everyone can come together and work things out if America only reaches out to her enemies, is hardly an accurate reflection of the world as it is.

Ultimately, Tere plays it safe in choosing its targets. That it still found itself deemed “anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan,” with many censors apparently unable to distinguish between Bin Laden and a character clearly impersonating him within the context of the film, is probably more telling than anything in the film itself. For those intrigued by its backstory, Tere opens today (8/6) at the Big Manhattan (formerly ImaginAsian) Cinema for a one week run, with the possibility of extending, and in other theaters nationwide.

Posted on August 6th, 2010 at 3:09pm.

New Hawaii 5-0 Heroes To Fight Terrorism

By Jason Apuzzo. Word comes today from The Wall Street Journal that the new version of CBS’ classic Hawaii Five-O series – see the trailer above – will feature a plotline in which the show’s heroes fight terrorism.  How much of that they do, of course, remains to be seen (is there a lot of terrorism in Hawaii?).

Here’s the Journal:

In the original “Hawaii Five-O,” Jack Lord’s Steve McGarrett is an elite detective—and a bit of a straight arrow—whose arch-nemesis is Chinese communist spy Wo Fat. He’s too busy solving crimes to have much of a personal life.  For the new version of the cop show, writers crafted McGarrett in post-9/11 mode, as a third-generation military man armed with high-tech weapons to fight international terrorism.

So they’re going Jack Bauer this time out.  Interesting.  I’ve been aware for some time that they were rebooting this series, but was not aware until now that there might be an anti-terror subplot worked into the storyline.

I’m a fan of the original show – in fact, as an odd coincidence, I just started watching DVDs of the original series last week.  One of the things that made the original show so interesting – aside from its aggressive, in-your-face photography and editing, memorable score, and Jack Lord’s flinty persona – was the abundant international intrigue in the show.  The core villain of the original series was, indeed, a Chinese communist superspy named Wo Fat, played menacingly by Khigh Dheigh (also famous as the Chinese communist spymaster from The Manchurian Candidate).  The pilot of the series, for example, features Wo Fat immersing American counter-intelligence agents (including, eventually, Jack Lord’s Steve McGarrett character) into a special brain-washing tank, in order to squeeze information out of them.  Wo Fat comes across as a crafty, brilliant adversary – and his rivalry with Jack Lord would eventually extend over the entire twelve seasons of the show.

Fighting the Red Menace: Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett.

And anti-communism was actually an important subtext of the show.  Hawaii Five-O was, to some extent, a refashioning of John Wayne’s film Big Jim McLain – a film which had featured The Duke and sidekick  James Arness battling a communist cell in Hawaii … all while wearing impossibly stylish clothing, and romancing local beauties like Nancy Olsen.  Jack Lord himself had famously played C.I.A. agent Felix Leiter in the original James Bond film Dr. No, and Lord’s first major starring role was in the anti-communist cult classic The Red Menace – so the Red Scare was definitely in the air on this series.

My assumption going in is that this reboot will not come even close to being as good as the original.  That’s a given, for reasons I probably don’t need to elaborate on here.  [Essentially it boils down to this: they botch everything these days.]  The new show obviously won’t have Jack Lord – who played McGarrett as a kind of edgy, 1950s-style company man, always on the brink of going berserk – and above all they won’t have the style, the muted cool of the old series.  But at least they’ll be fighting terrorists, and that’s a plus.  And maybe at some point they’ll bring in a new, 21st century Wo Fat.  Who knows?

The trailer looks plain vanilla, frankly – albeit with a fair amount of hardware.  We’ll keep an eye on all this.

Had the best soundtrack on TV.

[LFM Contributor Steve Greaves chimes in: “As a side note, another ‘impossibly cool’ element that is likely to be missing (or if it is there, will exist in some sullied form) from the new series is the kinetic, iconic and just plain rockin’ opening of the show featuring Mort Stevens’ time-tested Hawaii 5-0 theme music.

“Being a film music composer and buff myself, I have to say that the slammin’ timpani and heavy backbeat that kicked off the stylish and punchy title sequence made for one of most memorable, macho and all around tasty bits of 60’s TV pre-music video era. While the trailer shows signs of keeping the main theme reasonably intact, no doubt the reboot will purloin and abuse the melody, adding the requisite techno elements and Limp Bisquity schlock rock guitar wash that sounds like every action trailer churned out these days. Let’s hope they keep it pure, as the original show’s sonic palette brought a unique character to the series and locales therein.

“For a real treat, travel back in time and take a listen to the original series soundtrack which features classic mid-century TV cue writing and execution at its finest. Naturally, it also makes for great tiki party background fare.”]

Posted on August 6th, 2010 at 12:28pm.