• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … right across the street from the ongoing LA Film Festival, the Lakers won the NBA title. And we’re still celebrating.
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …
We want to thank Senator Fred Thompson for having LFM Co-Editor Jason Apuzzo on his national radio show today to talk about MGM’s forthcoming Red Dawn, and other issues we’ve been covering here at LFM.
We want to welcome Fred’s listeners to LFM. Fred is a warm, engaging person whose extraordinary career has encompassed both Hollywood and Washington – and we thank him for his interest in what we’re doing here at LFM.
To hear the show, and for more information on Fred’s program, please visit the Fred Thompson Show’s official website. To see Fred in action on-screen, LFM recommends two classics from early in Fred’s career: The Hunt for Red October, and Die Hard 2 …
[Editor’s Note: LFM is currently covering a series of provocative films debuting this week and next at The Los Angeles Film Festival.]
By Joe Bendel. Over 200 former employees and directors of Yukos, the Russian oil company, have been in some way persecuted by the Putin regime. If that sounds like a coincidence, Prime Minister Putin would like to thank you for your gullibility. Unquestionably, the biggest fish amongst his quarry was Yukos’ former CEO, the visionary Russian entrepreneur Mikhail Khodorkovsky. At one time the sixteenth richest man in the world, Khodorkovsky now resides in a tiny prison cell. How he got there is a chilling story of the not-so-new Russia, compellingly recounted in Cathryn Collins’ Vlast (Power), which screens during the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival (trailer above).
Collins never confuses Khodorkovsky with a choirboy. She makes it very clear Khodorkovsky’s early years are still shrouded in mystery and unsettling rumors. However, she gives him credit for taking on the decrepit Yukos state enterprise at a time when the price of oil was at an all time low, eventually turning around the company – and yes, making billions in the process.
Khodorkovsky was one of the original so-called ‘oligarchs’ who largely reaped the benefits of Yeltsin’s privatization plan. Yet he was a crony capitalist of a different color, becoming a prominent philanthropist and advocate of democracy in Russia. He also started championing corporate transparency, only to suddenly find himself behind bars shortly thereafter.
Putin's New Russia: same as the old Russia?
First-time documentarian Collins is admirably even-handed in her profile of Khodorkovsky, never overstating her case or simply appealing to emotion. While giving the incarcerated mogul credit for his business acumen, she is most impressed by his ability to identify and recruit smart, talented young people for his team. Of course, the implications of his story are clear. If a man with an estimated net worth over fifteen billion dollars is not safe in Putin’s Russia, nobody is.
Many of Vlast’s on-camera interview subjects participated at not inconsiderable risk to their well being. In doing so, they definitely convey an unvarnished sense of life in Russia today. Providing clear and concise historical background, Vlast provides the proper context for non-Russophiles and non-Russophobes to appreciate Khodorkovsky’s story. Still, given the long history of Russian and Soviet anti-Semitism, the question of whether Khodorkovsky’s Jewish heritage has contributed to his persecution is strangely never really explored.
Vlast joins the growing ranks of valuable documentaries doggedly raising alarms about the lawlessness of the Putin regime. Unfortunately, previous related films like Eric Bergkraut’s Letter to Anna and Andrei Nekrasov’s Poisoned by Polonium have largely fallen on deaf ears in the West. Given its reasoned tone and access to Khodorkovsky’s inner circle, Vlast should impress viewers concerned about the current state of the world. Well worth seeking out, it screens next Tuesday (6/22) and Wednesday (6/23) at the LAFF.
By Jason Apuzzo. • Steven Spielberg’s War Horse now has its star: Jeremy Irvine. This film is looking like Empire of the Sun redux for Spielberg, and will probably a major tear-jerker. Bread-and-butter material for him, although World War I traditionally a tough sell at the box office. My personal World War I favorite? Easily The Blue Max with George Peppard, James Mason and the luscious Ursula Andress.
By Jason Apuzzo. The LA Times is featuring an interview today with Joel Surnow, creator of TV’s 24 series. Joel kindly invited Govindini and I to the 24 set a few years back, and at the Fall 2006 Liberty Film Festival we premiered scenes from the pilot of Joel’s comedy show The Half Hour News Hour, a series that later ran on Fox News. The jokey scenes from the pilot featuring Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter got an especially rapturous response, as I recall.
In the interview Joel discusses his forthcoming miniseries The Kennedys that will be showing on The History Channel. That series has already been the source of some controversy, as radical left wing documentarian Robert Greenwald (Outfoxed) and his allies in the media have been trying to portray Joel’s series as a hit job against the Kennedy family. Joel throws a bucket of cold water today on Greenwald’s paranoid speculations, reminding people that the writer of the Kennedys series, Steve Kronish, is actually a liberal Democrat. Here’s Joel on the controversy surrounding the series:
I think part of it [the controversy] was driven by the fact that it’s going to debut around the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s inauguration. For those looking to sustain the Camelot image, they’re worried. But they don’t need to be.
In the interview Joel also talks about setting up his own production entity for the series, and the overall benefits of working independently. We want to wish Joel the best for The Kennedys. Joel’s been responsible for a lot of great TV projects before, whether on 24 on Le Femme Nikita – and we’re sure this one will be colorful, as well. One thing is for certain: whatever one thinks of the Kennedy family, they were an important part of American history in the 20th century – and they’ve certainly never been dull …
[Editor’s Note: LFM will be covering a series of provocative films debuting this week and next at The Los Angeles Film Festival.]
By Joe Bendel. What a disclaimer. Danish director Mads Brügger explains all the footage the audience is about to watch had been thoroughly vetted by North Korean state censors. Yet his suspicion that the post-modern irony he would unleash on the world’s most isolated country would be lost on the Communist authorities proved largely correct. The gutsiest act of cinematic provocation perhaps ever, Mads Brügger’s The Red Chapel (trailer below)is a genuine highlight of this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival.
Ostensively, Brügger came to North Korea with two Danish Korean comedians, Simon Jul Jørgensen and Jacob Nossell, to stage a good will show. However, his real intent was to expose the unrelentingly oppressive nature of the DPRK system. Though submission to state censorship was a given right from the start, Brügger thought he had an ace in the hole: Nossell.
A self-described “spastic” (Nossell’s words, not mine), the subversive director knew Nossell would make the North Koreans uneasy, since those born with disabilities simply do not survive in their socialist paradise. Brügger also hoped Nossell would be able to speak freely on film, because none of the censors would understand his “spastic Danish” (Brügger’s words, not mine).
Mads Brügger and Jacob Nossell 'punk' their North Korean minders.
As soon as the Danes arrived in the North, their minder, Mrs. Pak, fastened herself to them like glue. Her response to Nossell was particularly bizarre, almost smothering him with attention. However, even Mrs. Pak could not fake an enthusiastic response to the program the comedians had prepared. Featuring skits in drag and an unclassifiable rendition of Oasis’s “Wonderwall,” it was not just bad, it was awe-inspiringly awful. It is hard to say which is funnier, their variety show on crack, or the stone-face reactions of their hosts. However, seeing the propaganda potential of the show, the North Korean authorities set about adapting it to their ideological purposes, making it “more Korean.” So much for cultural exchange.
While Chapel is at times a riotous exercise in comedic performance art, the overall film is as serious as a heart attack. The pathological nature of DPRK society weighed particularly heavily on Nossell, causing frequent rifts between him and the director. It all comes to a head when Nossell very publicly refuses to participate in one of the regime’s big, scary anti-American mass demonstrations. It is a scene fraught with its own irony, as Brügger – the rebellious gadfly – tries to cajole his countrymen into professing support for what he calls the regime’s “mother lie,” the Communist myth that American aggression precipitated the Korean War.
Though he makes a noble effort, Brügger fails to capture the smoking gun scene that would utterly lay bare the nature of North Korean tyranny. Of course, he was doomed from the start, because the Communists set all the rules and could change them at their convenience. Still, there are plenty of telling moments (particularly the climactic demonstration), as well as some outrageous humor.
Chapel has been compared to The Yes Men, but that does not do Brügger justice. Unlike the play-it-safe leftist pranksters, Brügger was punking a target that exercises absolute, unchecked power – on its own turf. Based on the DPRK’s apoplectic response to the film, it is doubtful Brügger will ever return to make a sequel. He probably will not miss the place. Beyond surreal, Chapel simply has to be seen to be believed. Enthusiastically recommended, it screens Saturday (6/19) and Thursday (6/24) during the 2010 LAFF.
