FILM REVIEW: LISTEN TO ME MARLON

Marlon Brando in Listen to Me Marlon.

Legendary

By Ed Rampell

Marlon Brando may have died in 2004 but he has not gone gently into Dylan Thomas’ good night. He’s back!

In the interests of full disclosure your humble scribe should let you know that Brando is his favorite actor. Having said that, Stevan Riley’s great new documentary, Listen to Me Marlon, about the stage and screen legend, is a must-see for viewers interested in film/theater history, the art of acting, celebrity activism and, of course Brando, the man and artist.

Riley had access to a hitherto previously unknown, privately held treasure trove of audiotapes the prolific Brando (an avid ham radio operator, By the way) accumulated over the years for various purposes, including: To prepare and research roles; self-hypnosis; recitations of Shakespeare monologues; etc. These wide-ranging ruminations reflect on: Growing up miserable in Nebraska, the son of alcoholics; Method Acting; Brando’s family; many of his movies; his romantic life; and this activist’s radical politics.

Riley’s documentary explores and expresses the actor’s inner and outer life through the audiotapes, spoken by Brando himself with that distinctive voice -- in effect Brando is posthumously narrating the film, literally having the last word. Of course, there are extensive still photos and clips -- not only from Marlon’s movies, but also of his Stanislavsky Method guru, Stella Adler. Some of those who worked with Brando, such as Bernardo Bertolucci, who directed 1973’s Last Tango in Paris, are also heard.

In archival and news footage we see Brando’s battles in court -- briefly with his ex-wife, Anna Kashfi and their custody clash over their son, Christian Brando and then, unfolding like a Shakespearean tragedy, what Brando called “the messenger of misery” arriving at his home: Christian’s shooting of his Tahitian half-sister Cheyenne’s Polynesian lover, Dag Drollet, at Marlon’s Mulholland Drive perch.

There are also home movies of Brando in happier days at Tahiti and Tetiaroa, the nearby atoll he bought as the reclusive star’s private getaway. Although the documentary, which is generally sympathetic to its subject (perhaps a condition of having access to the tapes and for making the film?), doesn’t go into it, the killing of Dag apparently prevented Brando for the last 15 years or so of his life from returning to French Polynesia, where he would have been under French jurisdiction and subject to questioning. By building a resort at Tetiaroa the oft-contradictory celebrity brought tourists to his supposed refuge. And Brando’s eco-obsession to transform Tetiaroa into an environmental paragon failed, marring the previously pristine paradise with abandoned rotting structures. (I know, I saw them there in the 1990s.)

Among the most absorbing of Marlon’s musings are his political views. The documenatry shows this son of alcoholics and an abusive father developed an inherent sense of identification with outsiders and the man who would play a Mafia chieftain in 1972’s The Godfather maintains he couldn’t stand to see the weak get pushed around. To his credit, in his finest moments Brando used his fame and fortune to support and shine a light on the oppressed. In Listen to Me Marlonthe actor and activist is seen in clips at civil rights events and at the funeral of “Little Bobby Hutton”, the teenaged Black Panther killed by Oakland police in a shootout which involved Eldridge Cleaver. Brando is shown standing beside Panther co-founder and chairman Bobby Seale. Martin Luther King also appears in a different clip.

Brando is better known for his stance on Native American issues, although he once rather pithily pointed out that when it comes to who’s more oppressed -- blacks, Indians, etc. - “it’s not an ouch contest.” Brando is heard recounting putting himself “on the line” during an armed land struggle at Kenosha, Wisconsin, pitting Natives against National Guardsmen, discussing being “four feet from death” as bullets whistled near him.

Of course, in what is arguably the Academy Awards ceremony’s greatest political moment, Brando sent traditionally-garbed Sacheen Little Feather to decline his Godfather Oscar, due to Hollywood’s disparaging treatment of America’s aboriginal people with decades of celluloid stereotypes. Part of this unforgettable moment, which raised the spirits of indigenous occupiers at Wounded Knee and finally gave some airtime to Native Americans, is in Listen to Me Marlon.

Intercut with clips from movies such as John Ford’s 1939 Drums Along the Mohawk, Listen to Me Marlon includes a bearded Brando denouncing Tinseltown’s depiction of Natives as “savages” during a 1970s appearance on Dick Cavett’s ABC-TV talk show, proclaiming: “Everything we are taught about the American Indian [by Hollywood] is wrong. There have been 400 treaties written by the United States, in good faith with the Indians, and every single one of them has been broken. We like to see ourselves as perhaps John Wayne sees us, that we are a country that stands for freedom, for rightness, for justice. It just simply doesn’t apply. And we were the most rapacious, aggressive, destructive, torturing, monstrous people who swept from one coast to the other, murdering and causing mayhem among the Indians.”

Listen to Me Marlon is a stellar, riveting biography. Riley previously directed the first cinema documentary on James Bond and the most lucrative film franchise ever, 2012’s Everything or Nothing, which Passion Pictures also co-produced. But what Brando aficionados may most appreciate is Marlon’s mulling over of acting and his stage and screen career. It’s fascinating to hear Brando reveal what he thought in order to unleash his pent-up explosive rage in A Streetcar Named Desire, which catapulted him to fame on Broadway and then Hollywood. It is an illuminating example of how the Stanislavsky Method works.

 

 

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FILM REVIEW: ON BEAUTY

Sarah Kanney in On Beauty.

Face forward

By Miranda Inganni

 

Joanna Rudnick’s 31-minute documentary, On Beauty, follows Rick Guidotti, a former fashion photographer who now takes portraits of kids with visible genetic conditions.

 

Frustrated with the restrictions of the fashion world, and thanks to a chance encounter with a young lady with albinism, Guidotti decided to challenge convention and turned his lens on boys and girls who were not always shown in a favorable light. As he started to consider genetic conditions, Guidotti found himself disgusted by the so-called black bar images found in medical textbooks and wanted to humanize the kids who are so often depicted as their condition rather than a person. Thus Positive Exposure was created to help change the restrictions of conventional beauty.

Once such person to benefit from Positiv Exposure is Sarah Kanny. Kanney was born with a large birthmark on her face and brain caused by Sturge-Weber syndrome. Many of her classmates were not kind. Eventually it was too much and Kanney dropped out of high school in the 9th grade due to incessant bullying. Her adolescent years were a lonely time.

These days Kanney has a job and an apartment and is working toward her GED. She speaks at high schools – in front of the very types of kids who caused her so much pain – about her experiences in the hope of fostering inclusion and acceptance.

Another force for change, Jayne Waithera, lives in Kenya where she was raised by her grandmother after her mother abandoned her due to Waithera being born with albinism. Having been photographed by Guidotti, Waithera is now working on Positive Exposure Kenya to bring awareness and understanding to a community that deeply, occasionally fatally, misunderstands albinism.

Guidotti’s exuberance is infectious. He greets everyone with an abundance of glee and that joy is returned by those whom he encounters. The images he captures are filled with radiance and beauty – smiles of children happy to be seen yet not scorned.

 

 

On Beauty opens in Los Angeles this Friday.

 

 

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FILM REVIEW: CARTEL LAND

A scene from Cartel Land.

Resistance is a two-way crossing

By Ed Rampell

Matthew Heineman’s documentary is not so much about Mexican drug cartels per se as it is about the resistance to them on both sides of the border. In Arizona, self-appointed, self-anointed border patrol vigilantes led by a grizzled vet named Nailer try to “protect” America from the drug dealers, as well as from undocumented aliens heading El Norte for what they hope will be greater opportunity. Nailer does not want them here.

South of the border, Dr. Mireles leads armed resistance to the Mexican cartels, arming townspeople to stand up to them. Some of the scenes have a Magnificent Seven type vibe. If the vigilantes up north have a right-wing aura about them, as the Mexican vigilantes standup to the cartels, Federales and military trying to disarm and disband them, then south of the border they have a revolutionary feel to them. The film ponders who the good and bad guys really are, with unexpected twists and turns along the way.

This is yeoman filmmaking, done at great risk to the filmmakers, as well as the participants.

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LAFF 2015: LOVE BETWEEN THE COVERS

A scene from Love Between the Covers.

Inquiring minds want to know

By Miranda Inganni

Romance writers are often described derogatorily as silly women writing silly books for silly readers. Yet those authors, and the multi-billion dollar industry they create for, are paying the bills for the publishing world.

Laurie Khan’s documentary Love between the Covers focuses on individual authors and the tightknit community that envelopes the romance industry.

While romance authors may write about different subjects (AKA subgenres) -- from Amish Romance to Paranormal Romance and nearly everything imaginable in between -- the one consistent factor about the romance writing industry is the authors’ (and publishers’) desire to give the readers what they want. In particular, happily ever after tropes are a must.

In return, readers are loyal and voracious. So many of the writers are avid readers and many readers are filled with the hope of publishing their own novels. And the women -- both those supplying the product and those consuming it -- are extremely supportive of one another.

Realizing that the infrastructure didn’t already exist in a way that made sense for them, some authors, such as Len Barot (aka Radclyffe) created their own publishing houses. Others, such as Beverly Jenkins, could not find the kind of romance novel she wanted to read (in this case, historical African-American narratives), so she began writing them. Superstar romance writers Mary Bly and Nora Roberts are featured heavily as well.

Presented without great depth and emphasized by goofy graphics, Love Between the Covers almost feel like a few friends got together to chat about their naughty books over a glass of white wine. (In truth, there is nothing wrong with that.) It’s interesting, but the documentary feels aimed more at the existing folks who partake in this particular indulgence than convincing bystanders, let alone detractors, to read about the love between the covers.

 

 

Love Between the Covers screens again at LAFF: June 16, 5:25 p.m., Regal Cinemas. For more information: LBTC.

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LAFF 2015: MISSING PEOPLE

A scene from Missing People.

Murder and memory

By Miranda Inganni

After Martina Batan’s brother, Jeffrey, was stabbed to death at the age of 14 in 1978, she stopped trying to sleep.  

Thirty or so years later, director David Sharpiro focuses on Martina and her obsession with a relatively unknown artist and her need to delve back into her brother’s unsolved murder in his moving documentary, Missing People.

Martina tries not to sleep for fear of nightmares, suppressing the trauma of losing her youngest sibling. Once an outgoing, upbeat, if off-beat, vibrant young woman, she now distracts herself with building a large Lego cube and caring for her dogs. She is also obsessed with the works of Roy Ferdinand, a prolific artist with no formal training. Ferdinand drew what he saw in the poor African-American neighborhoods of New Orleans, especially a lot of violence.

Having died from cancer in 2008, Martina wants to curate a collection of his work and donate it to an American institution, bringing him the attention she believes he deserves. Before she can do that, however, she wants to learn as much as she can about Ferdinand and find more of his art.

Martina meets Ferdinand’s sisters. While seemingly from very disparate backgrounds,  the three women find commonality in familial sorrow and loss. Whatever hesitations and mistrust may have been present, eventually vanish as the three continue to talk about their relationship to Ferdinand, plus her brother.

Perhaps due to this new found friendship, Martina is spurred on to hire a private investigator to look into her brother’s murder. Despite the fact that the original detectives are dead, PI Conor McCourt uncovers some new and disturbing information. These new discoveries prove to be too much for Martina to handle.

Shapiro and his crew intertwine Martina’s narrative with old footage of Ferdinand and his sisters’ stories of the various personas he invented, as well as commentary from some of Martina’s friends and coworkers. Martina’s quiet hurt, confusion and profound sorrow is presented without judgement and backed with a score -- featuring several new songs from different composers -- that is thoughtful and respectful. (And the soundtrack includes Wire's "Strange" and Buzzcocks' "Why Can't I Touch It?"!)

 

 

Missing People screens at LAFF: June 12, 8:45 p.m.; June 14, 8:55 p.m. For more information: Missing.

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DWF 2015: YOU SEE ME

A scene from You See Me.

Stroke of fate

By Miranda Inganni

Linda J. Brown wanted to learn more about her father, a man to whom she was very close, but who could fly into rage-filled outbursts at the drop of a hat. Then he had a stroke. Assisted by Super 8 films and VHS tapes her father had recorded, she tries to discover what caused him to lash out and what may have lead him to this point.

When Stanley Brown had a stroke at age 79, his family gathered around for the long recovery process. Linda, her sisters, Susan and Nancy, and their brother, Paul, pulled together to help their mom, Natalie, deal with the fallout. And there was plenty.

Linda had always been interested in what made her father tick (documenting part of their relationship in a much earlier film, Your Favorite) and while they did many things together, she felt like she never really knew her father. Linda, her siblings and her mom had lived their lives with a man who was physically abusive, but they never knew what the reasoning was behind his anger.

Over the course of the following 18 months or so, Linda documented Stan’s progress and his failures. Upon his initial return home, Stan breaks down in tears and tells his wife how much he loves her, something very uncharacteristic for him. Linda wonders if the stroke has somehow altered his brain chemistry, despite what the doctors have said. Sadly, his fits of rage return and he wreaks havoc on everyone’s emotions once again.

During this time, Linda discovers secrets of Stan’s upbringing that surely impacted him – a little boy yearning for his mother’s love and his father’s identity. (As a side note, this part of Stan’s story is fascinating and disturbing and could make an entirely separate movie.) Stan’s insecurities plague his relationship with his wife. Meanwhile, Natalie carries on like the dutiful partner. She only knows this life.

With a short running time of 70 minutes, You Tell Me is not only about her father's fate, but relates how a daughter came to know, love and forgive her father, while giving her mother a precious gift and learning to see her parents as people.

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FILM FEATURE: MAMMOTH LAKES FILM FESTIVAL 2015

A scene from Dying to Know: Ram Dass and Timothy Leary.

Mind over matters

By Ed Rampell

The new Mammoth Lakes Film Festival focuses on narrative movies, documentaries, shorts and animation that express a singular, personal point of view.

MLFF ran May 27-31 and this critic enjoyed every short and feature-length work he saw at the inaugural annual fest, located about 300 miles north of Los Angeles.

But my favorite film at MLFF was Gay Dillingham’s Dying to Know:Ram Dass and Timothy Leary, narrated by Robert Redford.

Gurus of the late 1960s counterculture, Dass and Leary went, as writer Aldous Huxley put it, beyond the doors of perception by experimenting with psychedelics and in doing so, not only turned the academic establishment upside down, but rocked the emerging counterculture generation.

This is a great story filled with fascinating details, such as why (space) cadet Leary was kicked out of West Point.  It is to producer-director Dillingham’s credit that she has found a visionary form that organically expresses the content of a film that is often visually stunning, conveying cosmic consciousness. For instance, she occasionally uses animation to great effect, especially in cleverly depicting “Bicycle Day” -- when Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally dosed himself with LSD at his Basel lab and rode home on a bike, tripping his brains out on acid for the first time in human history, on April 16, 1943.

With its psychedelic style and sensibility, Dying to Know: Ram Dass and Timothy Leary avoids the pitfalls of many conventional documentaries filled with talking heads, archival footage and the like. Of course, in addition to those acolytes of acid and Eastern philosophy par excellence, Mssrs. Leary & Ram Dass, the interviewees are indeed fascinating, and they include Dr. Andrew Weil. Other collaborators with the iconoclastic pair, such as Ralph Metzner, are interviewed, as well as one of Leary’s five wives, Joanna Harcourt-Smith. Former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow, who drew on his psychedelic experiences for his songs, also makes for a compelling eye-witness.

As for the doc’s news clips, etc., Leary’s 1960s testifying before Congress, including Sen. Ted Kennedy, is to die for, as Leary proclaims and explains his famous mantra: “Turn on, tune in, drop out!” However, there’s not enough info about Leary’s escape from a minimum security prison and his subsequent falling out with another New Left extremist, former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, also living in exile at Algiers. For instance, to the best of this reporter’s recollection, the Weatherman helped Leary bust out of the big house (so to speak), but their role in one of the most fascinating episodes in the era’s history isn’t even mentioned. On the other hand, I didn’t know (or recall) that John Lennon wrote “Come Together” for Leary’s California gubernatorial race against none other than Ronald Reagan. His sojourn to Afghanistan is also quite fascinating, although, again, briefly mentioned. But a 95-minute biopic about two icons can only cover so much.

It should be mentioned that, as its title indicates, Dying to Know: Ram Dass and Timothy Leary is also "to know" about the ultimate taboo and final frontier: Death. Ever the publicity conscious, crafty manipulator of public opinion, Leary, as many know, turned his last hurrah into a media event. Watch Dying to Know: Ram Dass and Timothy Leary to find out how he and Star Trek’s creator made history in the 1990s.

Marjorie Sturm’s The Cult of JT Leroy was the first film I saw at the new MLFF, and with its quirky, mind-blowing subject matter it set the tone for the rest of this filmfest.

Sturm’s fascinating film, which is chock full of cameos by notables, is, on the surface, about a purported son of a truck stop prostitute who followed in his mother’s footsteps, became drug addicted and HIV-infected and wrote tell-all books about his misadventures at a very tender age.

 

A scene from The Cult of JT Leroy.

In doing so, a cult of celebrity surrounding the young, troubled author mushroomed that attracted numerous high profile personalities from the music, movie, TV and literary worlds. Using the rationale that he/ she was too shy to read at his/her own public readings, a variety of stars such as celebs Jeremy Renner, Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia also wrote tattle tales about her substance abuse), Sandra Bernhard, Susan Dey, Lou Reed, the Village Voice’s Michael Musto, etc., turned out to read passages from the books and fawn over the media darling.

 

As the author’s fame spread, actress Asia Argento adapted for the big screen his/her’s short story collection, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, co-starring Argento, Peter Fonda and Renner. However, as it turns out, all of the journalists who ballyhooed the purported young writer and stars who flocked to his/her public events should have paid closer attention to the name of this book and movie. At first, having never heard of the title character, I thought The Cult of JT Leroy was going to be about a troubled artiste tormented by an unhappy childhood. Then I believed it would become a cautionary tale about how that bitch goddess fame, fortune and celebrityhood spoil an innocent artiste. (Paging Mssrs. Capote and Williams!)

 

But then, proving truth is stranger than fiction, Sturm takes us into an entirely different direction: The problem is that JT Leroy was a ruse who did not actually exist. JT was a concoction of a 39-or-so-year-old wannabe writer -- who shall deliberately remain nameless here in order not to feed her fame addiction -- who conjured up this persona in order to break on through to the other side of the rarified world of major market publishing. Celebs and the “news” media fell for it, hook(er), line and s(t)inker.

 

For these reasons and more, Marjorie Sturm’s feature-length documentary debut should definitely be widely seen and the 91-minute The Cult of JT Leroy deserves a distribution deal. In the end, it actually is a cautionary tale, a meditation upon media manipulation.

And now for the winners of the inaugural Mammath Lakes Film Festival:

Audience Award for Narrative Feature: They Look Like People, directed by Perry Blackshear;

Audience Award for Documentary Feature: Omo Child, directed by John Rowe;

 

Jury Award for Narrative Feature: Diamond Tongues, directed by Pavan Moondi and Brian Robertson;

 

Jury Award for Documentary Feature: Autism in Love, directed by Matt Fuller;

Jury Bravery Award for Documentary Feature: Cartel Land, directed by Matthew Heineman;

Jury Award for Narrative Short: Una Nit, directed by Marta Bayarri;

Jury Honorable Mention for Narrative Short: Tourist Trap, directed by Alana Purcell;

Jury Award for Animation or Documentary Short: Upon the Rock, directed by James Bascara;

Jury Honorable Mention for Animation or Documentary Short: The Tide Keeper, directed by Alyx Duncan.

 

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NBFF 2015: ART HOUSE

The Wharton Esherick House in Art House.

Space by de/sign

By Miranda Inganni

Many artists strive to construct a safe and stimulating space in which they can freely create. Director Don Freeman captures nearly a dozen of such places in his film, Art House.

Based on the book Artist’s Handmade Houses by Michael Gotkin, Freeman travels through the US -- and through the past 100 or so years -- documenting places like Byrdclife Arts Colony in New York (the oldest arts colony in the States), to Eliphante, Michael Khan and Leda Livant’s home built over the course of nearly 30 years in Cornville, Arizona. Some of these residences have been lovingly preserved and/or are still being used as workshops. Meanwhile others, like the Wharton Esherick Museum in Pensylvania with its seemingly living staircase, have been converted into museums. Whether open to the public or gifted with National Historic Landmark status, Art Housegives viewers a glimpse into these infrequently-viewed locales.

Freeman uses vintage photographs throughout, as well as interviews with surviving relatives or disciples of the artists and commentary by writer Alastair Gordon. So many of these artists were looking to bring other artists back to nature and to integrate nature into everyday life. And so many of their abodes seem to do just that very successfully!

Unfortunately, the music is a distraction to the images more often than not, and the cross fades from one still shot to the next happen too quickly for the viewer to fully realize what object or scene she or he is seeing.

As Gordon states in the beginning of the film, “It’s about making a perfect life.” Exploring these eleven dwellings all in one film, despite its distractions, allows one to imagine for a moment that perfection each of the designers were trying to create.

 

 

Art House screens at the Newport Beach Film Festival April 29, 5 p.m., Edwards Big Newport. For more information: Art House.

 

 

 

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NBFF 2015: BLOOD, SWEAT, AND BEER

Danny Robinson in Blood, Sweat, and Beer.

Thirsting for the American dream

By John Esther

Films, TV, YouTube, and other media focusing on beer are usually not about serious stuff. Unless it has to do with drunk driving, dometic violence or alcohol poisoning, one tends to associate beer with the fun -- and often the stupid.

That is not the case with Chip Hiden and Alexis Irvin's documentary, Blood, Sweat, and Beer.

A very entertaining documentary, Blood, Sweat, and Beer looks at the serious rising tide of American craft beer brewing. While other American jobs have been outsourced out of the country, craft beer production, brewing and distribution has doubled in growth over the past ten years. Currently there are approximately 2,700 breweries in the United States. Ninety-eight percent of them are small and craft.

Set with this rise in American entrepreneurship, the filmmakers travel to various parts of the country. They make a stop in Colorado where they talk to former brewmeister and current Governor John Hickenlooper -- who has been pivotal and influential in Colorado's brewing successes.

In Pennsylvania, three young men in their 20s are opening up a brewery in the dilapidated borough of Braddock. Once a mighty steel town, and site of America's first library, Braddock has fallen on serious times. But, with the support of Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, they might just pull it off.

Over in Ocean View, Maryland, the story of Danny Robinson is quite different. Already somewhat successful in the food and beverage business, Robinson runs into a nasty expensive, litigious battle when he sells t-shirts with the name "Shorebilly" on them.

In addition to these brewing business highs and lows, wholesalers, brewers and others in the beer business weigh in on the brouhaha facing current brewers as the market becomes more inundated with additional brewers. For most brewers, profits are slim. But they love what they do.

It was also interesting to note the sobering fact that over 90 percent of brewers are male and almost all of them are white (frequently with a beard).

Having written this, it is time for some delicious craft beer.

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LAAPFF 2015: THE CHINESE MAYOR

A scene from The Chinese Mayor.

A different cultural revolution

By Miranda Inganni

Geng Yanbo, the newly-elected mayor of Datong, China wants to transform the city into a tourist-attracting cultural center. Datong, the most polluted city in China, thanks to its coal mining history, has a massive ancient city wall that Geng envisions containing museums and meeting spaces. The problem is that at least 30 percent of the residents of Datong, many of them poor and their housing illegal, live around that city wall. These residents must be relocated and their dwellings demolished in order for Geng’s reconstruction of the city to take place.

Despite the fact that demolition and construction are very slow and behind schedule, the government wants the residents out. But there is no place for many of them to go. People who cannot afford to move are told that they can apply for low-rent housing, but they know the reality is that there is a long waiting period. Some residents protest by simply not leaving their abodes or by blocking the heavy machinery. A few residents who refuse to move face forcible demolition and threaten suicide.

We follow Geng, in Zhou Hao’s The Chinese Mayor, as he inspects the progress of destruction and construction throughout the city, as he attends meetings in his official capacity, and as he is scolded by his wife who thinks he is working himself to death. He appears tough when he deals with contractors who have put in sub-par paving, taken other shortcuts or are not performing their jobs to his satisfaction. But when the affected residents appeal directly to Geng, he is sympathetic and tries to right the wrongs -- helping folks find housing, ensuring the children of rural residents who gave up their farmland for development have access to the city schools, and even trying to move a woman from her 6^th floor apartment to one on the ground floor as she can no longer walk up the stairs (what the hell happened to the elevator anyway?).

Geng wants to leave the reinvented and revitalized Datong as his legacy. Will he be able to oversee all of the construction through to completion before his mayoral term is up? Is he simply a megalomaniac bankrupting a city for his own status? Director Zhou does a masterful job of not getting in the way of the story. Clearly the residents are the one’s suffering in this scenario, but Geng is not without sympathetic sensibilities. He believes so strongly in “cultural industry” that even if he cannot bring his vision to fruition in Datong, the viewer gets the sense that that will not stop him. He will give this city, or any other, his masterful cultural makeover. Even if it kills him.

The Chinese Mayor screens at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival April 26, 4 p.m., CGV Cinemas. For more information: Mayor.

 

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NBFF 2015: CALAMITY JANE

Martha Canary/Calamity Jane (Kay Campbell) in Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend.

Martha, thy dreary

By Miranda Inganni

Calamity Jane, nee Martha Canary, was born in 1852 (most likely) in Missouri. According to Greg Monro’s film, her unstable childhood included the 8 year-old Martha traveling the Oregon Trail with her family, her parents’ subsequent deaths and Martha and her siblings being sent to an orphanage. First adopted at age 12, Martha was soon sent away for bad behavior. Where she went and/or what she did is not fully known. What historians do know is that Martha joined the Newton-Jenney Party into the Black Hills in 1875. Dressed in men’s attire, when reporters found out that Martha was a she, the public’s interest grew, leading to many articles, dime novels and even an autobiographical pamphlet Martha dictated (as she had no formal education) for publication. We also know that in 1876 she travelled to Deadwood, South Dakota, along with Wild Bill Hickock, though the full extent of their relationship is unknown.

Martha was daring and caring (as long as we are not talking about Native Americans). Not only was she a professional scout in the Wild West, she helped nurse smallpox sufferers back to health in Deadwood in the late 1870s. She was also, by all accounts, a raging alcoholic. She had two children, who were placed in foster care, and despite her infamy, died destitute in 1903 at the age of 51.

Told with reenactments -- with Kay Campbell playing the titular character, vintage photographs and lots of moving shots of pastoral and pristine rolling hills, wind-swept plains, and mountain ranges, director Monro’s film also employs many “experts,” most of whom rely heavily on hypothetical phrases such as, “I imagine… ,” or “it was possible… .” They make many suppositions about Martha and her family.

Martha was known for her colorful stories, but many of the tales about her life are unsubstantiated. Historical facts have disproved many of the musings about Calamity Jane. Unfortunately, Monro’s Calamity Jane is just as colorful yet unreliable as Martha’s own history. Monro tries to straddle the line between fact and fiction, but just can’t seem to ride it out.

 

 

Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend screens at the Newport Beach Film Festival April 26, 2:45 p.m. For more information: Calamity Jane.

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SXSW 2015: BIKES VS. CARS

A scene from Bikes vs. Cars.

Roads to ruin or rejection

By Miranda Inganni

Director Fredrik Gertten’s latest documentary, Bikes vs Cars, travels to various cities around the world to examine the issues and some of the causes surrounding the titular feud. In Sao Paulo, Brazil we meet Aline Cavalcante, a bike activist, who wonders why the city’s public transportation is so expensive and terrible, and if the city really has the worst traffic jams in the world. Another city vying for that unfortunate award is Los Angeles, CA, where Dan Koeppel is trying to make a difference for bike riders, while delving into the city’s history and exposing the ugly truth about the ever expanding freeway system.

These two cities used to have fantastic infrastructure for bicycling enthusiasts, but now they stink (literally and figuratively) thanks to the oil, construction and auto industries. The car-centric cultures that these industries have created, have stripped away bikes lanes, increasing the risks bicyclist face each time they ride.

The facts are terrifying. From how often bicyclists are killed in various cities, to the amount of people suffering from air pollution around the world, to the expected increase in automobile sales in the next five years (double what it is today). But people love their cars. There is, of course, the socioeconomic status that car ownership bestows upon the driver. But why cannot the same be afforded to lovers of the environmentally friendly bicycle? And beyond the bourgeois status of car ownership, what is the point of being able to buy a car if all you can do is sit in traffic?

However, there is some good news beyond the smog. As exemplified in Copenhagen, Denmark and The Netherlands, biking in a big city can work! And everyone breathes a little better because of it.

A call to action, Bikes vs. Cars is not so much about two wheels vs. four wheels, per se, the real battle here is between the status quo versus the possibility of a better future.

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SXSW 2015: A WOMAN LIKE ME

A scene from A Woman Like Me.

Alternative reality

By Miranda Inganni

In 2011 director Alex Sichel (All Over Me) was informed she had a terminal disease. As a way of facing her fears and processing the information, she, along with A Woman Like Me co-director Elizabeth Giamatti, decided to make a film about a woman who is given the same prognosis. She also decided to direct a documentary about her life post-diagnosis, including the making of the movie. It’s not exactly a movie-within-a-movie, or a movie about a movie, but rather a hybrid thereof.

As Sichel described it when she got her diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, she felt like she was watching a movie about a woman with cancer. And so she set about making that movie with (the fantastic) Lili Taylor playing the lead role of Anna Seashell in hopes that Anna’s reactions would be more optimistic that Sichel’s real life ones. The movie gives Sichel the chance to control the outcome: direct the disease or redo “scenes” that she thought she should have performed differently in real life. Sichel practices her reactions to the grim news (even her own death scene) and gets a chance to recreate chapters from her life via Anna. But both the fictionalized character’s life and the life Sichel presents in the documentary are manipulated by Sichel and at times A Woman Like Me feels selfish. But it also feels tender.  (I cannot imagine making a movie, let alone while undergoing cancer treatments and reconciling one’s own end of life.

Sichel’s life in A Woman Like Me is hectic with her family. Erich, her husband, and Anastasia, her daughter, are both featured heavily, as are other family members. She undergoes holistic treatments and explores non-Western ways of dealing with the disease, exploring a “Buddhist experience of cancer.”  She coaches Taylor through scenes and rehearsals. Faced with a death that she knows will come too soon, Sichel often presents a surprisingly upbeat persona in A Woman Like Me, her legacy.

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FILM REVIEW: THE LIFE AND MIND OF MARK DEFRIEST

A scene from The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest.

The thin screwed line

By Miranda Inganni

When Mark DeFriest was on the verge of adulthood, his father unexpectedly died. In response, DeFriest ran off with his father's tools (which his dad had willed him) while the will was still in probate and his stepmother called the cops and pressed charges against DeFriest. He was sentenced to four years in prison for theft. A lifetime later, DeFriest still sits in prison.

While he initially was sent to jail for taking his father's tools, DeFriest's ability to escape has kept him there for a long time. Stating that, "Nobody here has a sense of humor," DeFriest breaks out (the first of many times) of the first prison in which he is serving time. However, his survival skills combined with raw ingenuity and hotwiring ability allow him to elude the cops for only so long.

Back in prison, this time he is given a psychological evaluation and deemed incompetent. DeFriest is sent to Florida State Hospital's mental ward.

After an initial unsuccessful escape attempt from the hospital involving spiking the staff's coffee with hallucinogens (told with comedic effect), DeFriest manages to break free. Again, he is caught and sent to Bay County Jail. Undettered, each time DeFriest is imprisoned he reacts with an almost animalistic urge to escape.

These repeated escapes anger authorities. In response, DeFriest is locked in solitary confinement and tortured. In order to get out of "that hellhole" DeFriest pleads guilty to a third felony that includes a life sentence.

Mark is sent to the notorious Florida State Prison.

Over the years, DeFriest has racked up a long list of disciplinary write-ups and escaped seven times. But his wiliness and inventiveness -- this extremely resourceful man is clearly endowed with a level of intelligence -- has worked to his detriment. Additionally, it is unclear if DeFriest suffers from mental illness. DeFriest admits that he "made [the people who work in the system] look like idiots."

Gabriel London's documentary delves into Defriest's story, highlighting many of the injustices he has faced in prison and the broken system that has kept him there for so long. Using a wide range of interviews and gothic animation (plus an unfortunate score and soundtrack) The Life and Mind of Mark Defriest paints quite a horroric life, which could and should have turned out so much better (at least to those who know DeFriest best).  

DeFriest is portrayed as a bit of a loner, but one who is a mechanical prodigy. From rewiring phones, to dismantling and reassembling clocks, to being taught the world of warfare and survival skills by his dad (an ex-Marine rabidly scared of "the reds") at a young age, he was always able to create something out of seemingly nothing. This skill both helps and hurts DeFriest, who can (and does) escape like a modern-day criminal Houdini.

The primry point here is that although he certainly played a part in being bad, DeFriest is excessively punished -- unlike the "goon squad" at Floriday State Prison. For over 40 years DeFriest has endured numerous horrors of abuse, rape and torture. Fortunately, somebody came along and cared enough to tell his story.

Having made changes to the film's ending, based on events that happened after filming on the movie wrapped, The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest clearly illustrates what influence this documentary has had on DeFriest's life and those who perceive DeFriest has some rabid criminal unworthy of sympathy.

Here's hoping that more documentarians can shine a light on the US's troubled prison system and how society and the "justice"system deals with mental health issues.

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FILM REVIEW: AN HONEST LIAR

A scene from An Honest Liar.

The hoaxest with moxiest

By John Esther

Last year writer-director Woody Allen released the feature film, Magic in the Moonlight. The film tells the story of Stanley (Colin Firth), a master illusionist who sets out to debunk the psychic powers of Sophie (Emma Stone), only to become duped himself in the process -- yet fall in love with the considerably younger woman (typical), and presumably live happily ever after.

While the film has its moments, Magic in the Moonlight is ultimately predictable, reactionary and incredulous. And, like every single Allen film since his 1992 Husbands and Wives (one of his five masterpieces -- along with Annie Hall, Manhattan, Zelig, and Crimes and Misdemeanors), does not merit a second viewing. (Some of the recent films by Allen -- once one of America's greatest "auteurs" -- did not even merit a first viewing.)

Considerably more liberating, engaging, entertaining and less predictable (unless you already know the film's subject well), yet similar in content, comes Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein's documentary, An Honest Liar.

A story begging to be purchased by a Hollywood studio and "fictionalized" for some future awards season, An Honest Liar chronicles the life of James Randi. AKA "The Amazing Randi," Randi is one of the greatest magicians of all time who later went on to debunk many various forms of crackpot science and spiritual chicanery -- even when some skeptics (a la Magic in the Moonlight's Stanley, eventually) had a change of mind/heart and wanted to believe in paranormal phenomena.

Born August 7, 1928, as Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, Randi knew from a very young age he was different and, like most very smart LGBTQ people growing up during the 1930s and 1940s, felt very uncomfortable with his difference(s). His father sensed his son's difference, too.

"I only had two conversations with my father," Randi recalls in the documentary while discussing his awareness as a child and the effects it had on his childhood life.

Basically exiled to do his own thing, Randi grew up alienated and self-educated.  Looking for a purpose, one day Randi witnessed a magic show by Harry Blackstone, Sr. He was monumentally impressed. Suddenly, he was filled with purpose. Randi read everything on the subject he could find. At the age of 17 he dropped out of high school and joined the circus as a conjurer.

Randi rose quickly to the echelons of magic, quickly drawing comparisons to his hero, Harry Houdini (who died two years before Randi was born). For Randi, Houdini had set the records to be broken.

Randi was not only a great magician, he also had a wonderful, charming personality. Together they earned him a guest spot on major television shows. In particular, Randi appeared numerous times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

As Randi rose to fame, he always made it clear, in practice and in theory, that magic/illusions/trickery should only be used to entertain folks. It should not be used to depart fools from his or her money by deceptive means.

After a near-death experience Randi retired at the age of 60. Henceforth, he would use his own power of perceptions and deceptions to expose the charlatans.

His retirement coincided with the rise of such showmen as New Age psychic Uri Geller and "faith healer" Peter Popoff and company. These two men pretended to possess supernatural powers. They were effective. Thousands of people were only too willing to be duped out of his or her money. Fortunately, Randi had an ally in Carson, whose show gave national exposure to a few of Randi's exposes on these deceivers.

How Randi, with the help of others, exposes psychics, televangelists, and the media makes for riveting investigative drama. These guys (basically, it is only guys in this documentary) go deep undercover to expose some of the greater mental deceptions ever created. As a result, a few of them sometimes got lost in the process themselves. As An Honest Liar reiterates numerously, "There are layers and layers of deception."

If this were not enough to make for a riveting documentary,  toward the end of the film An Honest Liar adds another dimension to Randi's life on a personal level. Thanks to his own need for deception, Randi may lose the love of his life.

Bold, beautiful and exceptionally blistering in its critique of human cowardice in the form of duplicity, An Honest Liar illustrates a rare phenomenon in documentary: what it means to think, to believe and to challenge what our very own eyes see, and more to the point, do not see. The illusion is out there...and inside here. Hear.  

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FILM REVIEW: MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS WINDING REFN

A scene from My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn.

Cohabitation fixation

By Don Simpson

 

A filmmaker’s significant other not only has unbridled access to their personal life, but they also have a unique perspective on the filmmaker’s personality and psyche; so, as we watch Liv Corfixen’s My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, we learn that the title of the “behind-the-scenes” documentary by Refn’s wife has a multitude of meanings. Though My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn may seem like an everyday documentary about a filmmaker contending with the pressures following a critical and commercial success, that description surely does not do Corfixen’s film the justice it deserves.

 

Refn’s critical and commercial success, of course, was Drive, which obviously makes My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn “about” the film which followed Drive, Only God Forgives. We all know the fate of Only God Forgives — only a handful of critics recognized the auteurial genius, while everyone else trashed it with reckless abandon. Judging from Corfixen’s documentary, the fate of Only God Forgives was essentially predetermined. Utterly terrified of failure, Refn is deathly nervous about his new production; his Kubrickian obsession with perfection certainly does not help.

 

In one of the infinite risks that Refn takes throughout Only God Forgives‘ production, Refn drags his family to Bangkok for six months. As it turns out, this is just the tip of the iceberg of Refn’s domineering tendencies. Sure, My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn reveals Refn as a committed family man who dedicates time to entertain his children and speak lovingly with his wife, but the unblinking eye of Corfixen’s ever-vigilant camera also reveals a more menacing side to Refn’s persona. Do not worry, Refn is never abusive, yet he does become overly fixated on success, leaving his family by the waste side. This is precisely where Corfixen’s oh-so-personal view of her subject really takes hold.

 

Although Refn is the one who initially directs Corfixen to reveal herself (via a mirror image) as the person behind the camera, Corfixen’s presence becomes increasingly apparent as their marriage is impacted by Refn’s behavior. With telling facial expressions aimed directly at the eye of Corfixen’s lens, Ryan Gosling has no qualms about slyly criticizing Refn as he rambles on about how Only God Forgives‘ build up of violence relates to sex. Gosling presumably knows that Refn is clearly off his rocker, he just wants to make sure that Corfixen understands this as well.

 

Corfixen becomes the innocent victim of her husband’s creative risks and egotistical desire; all the while, My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn showcases Corfixen as the obliging and supportive wife, who heroically contends with her husband’s depression and violent outbursts…because that it is precisely what the wives of artists do, right? In the end, Corfixen serves as Refn’s voice of reason.

 

That is not to say that Refn is a total bad guy. My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refnalso provides a more forgiving perspective in which to view Only God Forgives. It is hard to deny that the hope of this documentary is to shed a light upon Refn’s genius, no matter how flawed it is. The aforementioned comparison to Kubrick’s drive for perfection is by no means an exaggeration. Refn himself deems Only God Forgives to be a failure, but only because it is not absolutely perfect. Maybe Refn has not learned that absolute perfection is a very rare commodity in the realm of cinema?  

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