pullquote

Dinner or a movie

This week: Ed Koch liked Carver-inflected Aussies...

Jindabyne
I enjoyed this film, which received near universal positive reviews.

Set in the town of Jindabyne, Australia, the movie begins with the murder of an Aborigine woman.  Claire (Laura Linney), her husband, Stewart (Gabriel Byrne), and their young son Tom live in the town.  Stewart, Gregory (Chris Haywood), Carl (John Howard), and Billy (Simon Stone) go on a weekend fishing trip to a location that involves a long car ride and a five-hour hike. On the first day they discover the body of a young Aborigine woman floating in the river. Rather than immediately return to town to report the incident, they tie the woman to a tree so she won't float away, continue to fish, and wait until the following day to report the body to the authorities. When they return to town, they pay the price for their callousness. They suffer the wrath of their wives, the townspeople, and the bereaved Aboriginal community who view their callousness as racism.

Other main characters in the film include Jude (Deborra-lee Furness), who is married to Stewart's friend Carl, and their 12-year-old granddaughter who is part Aborigine, mysterious, difficult, and perhaps even dangerous. The script, based on a story by Raymond Carver entitled "So Much Water So Close to Home," leaves many questions unresolved, and the Australian accents of some of the cast were often difficult for me to understand.  Subtitles would have been helpful.  But overall I enjoyed this film which held my attention from beginning to end.  Every scene is fraught with malevolence, fear or anger, and someone always seemed to be in physical danger.  I saw it at The Quad theater on 13th Street in Manhattan.

...Fast-moving zombies, on the other hand, not so much.

28 Weeks Later
This film, a sequel to the 2003 movie "28 Days Later," is totally incomprehensible. In my review of the first picture, I stated "I wasn't scared nor was I amused" while watching it and that it "was ridiculous." I felt the same way, even more strongly, after seeing the sequel which most critics gave great reviews and stated was better than the first movie.

The story involves a virus epidemic in Great Britain that causes those infected with it to become rabid and seek to kill other humans. And kill they do for 28 weeks. The pseudoscientific aspect is that Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) and his sister Tammy (Imogen Poots) may have an immunity gene to the virus. Their father, Don (Robert Carlyle), is infected and would kill them if given the opportunity.  American soldiers protecting the uninfected people living in a safe zone are depicted as aggressive and vile individuals.

Save your money. The movie is absurd and totally devoid of any pleasure or insight. For the $11 admission price, you can buy a good meal in Chinatown and have a far more interesting evening.

And the cinetrix loves those Hogwartsian kid actors' names.

[Thanks as always to Carlos, who liked the zombies.]

Lick the star

Charlotte: I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses... taking pictures of your feet.

Sofia Coppola turns 36 today.

Finest worksong

Essential taste arbiteur Very Short List points the way to a virtual treasure trove of ethnographic documentary. Folkstreams.net calls itself a national preserve of documentary films about American roots cultures. It is, and how.

Check out Pete Seeger's 1966 Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison. Or spend some time with Stoney St. Clair. Francophiles might remember spotting Peg Leg Sam Jackson hoofing in Montmartre.

The Man's gotten enough productivity out of you today. What are you waiting for? Slip on those headphones and start exploring.

FFDFF: Helicopter helicopter

Here's the thing about film festivals. When you're averaging eight flicks a day [features and shorts], as the cinetrix did on Friday and Saturday of this year's Full Frame festival, the temptation to indulge in a bit of apophenia is too strong to resist.

This year, it was all about helicopters for me. Which was interesting, given that docs are still the ugly stepsisters of filmmaking when it comes to funding and resources. Yet there the whirlybirds were, again and again.

The first one popped up in D.A. Pennebaker's Power of Ten selection, 1950's French pseudo-doc La Vie Commence Domain. Pennebaker had seen it long ago, but thought it lost forever. Queries to MOMA and the Cinematheque turned up nothing. Then the BFI came through with news of a print in its collection. They offered to send it over, but Pennebaker balked at the responsibility and requested a digibeta copy. Which is what he screened, with the caveat that he hadn't seen it in decades and didn't know whether it'd hold up.

The opening credits unfold like a classic Hollywood picture of the period, but the players being introduced are Sartre, Gide, Picasso, Prevert, Le Corbusier, and other leading artists and intellectuals of the time.  Our skeptical protagonist is strolling down some likely-looking rue in the countryside, hoping to hitch a ride, when a helicopter alights to pick him up. On it is a journalist named Labarthe, who acts as his [and our] Virgil on a journey through a world of ideas and innovation.

Pennebaker said that part of the fascination the film held for him was actually seeing these people he had only read about, a novelty long since lost. And, I admit, it is lovely to see Le Corbusier stand atop a construction site and talk about radiant cities; Sarte arguing existentialism in his gloomy sitting room; and Picasso frolicking with a comely young wife in the surf in Antibes. UNESCO and engineers are lauded, and even in the atomic age science is proclaimed to be neutral. Jean Rostand proudly explicates then-new theories of genetics, but he also praises innovations like electroshock and lobotomy as cutting-edge science.  As indeed it was. But what stuck with me most was the giddy sense of possibility the film captures, no better than when our same helicopter alights again on the steps at Versailles at the end and spirits our young quester into the skies.

You need a helicopter in Rio Sao Paolo. Apartment towers and office building sport private helipads on their roofs, protecting passengers from the very real danger of kidnapping that lurks on the streets below. And in Manda Bala, filmmaker Jason Kohn not only interviews these people, he catches a couple of rides, which yield some of the most stunning aerial shots of the rich and poor patchwork of that Brazilian city.

In The Hands of Che Guevara, a helicopter doubles as deux ex machina, spiriting the severed hands and death mask of the executed revolutionary out of the grasp of his assassins. The story was fascinating and the cinematography gorgeous, but the pacing not so much, making the whirlybird a welcome burst of noise and movement.

Strong men also cry

This week Ed Koch reviews two movies that the cinetrix is really looking forward to seeing. How I envy Hizzoner's moviegoing schedule--and stamina.

Away From Her
This simple but moving picture depicts how Alzheimer's affects a couple who have been married for 44 years.   

A 62-year-old woman, Fiona (Julie Christie), lives in Canada with her husband, Grant (Gordon Pinsent). We learn she has the disease when she places a frying plan in the refrigerator after washing and drying it. Fiona is clearly a woman of great grace, charm and intellect, and in her deterioration, Grant continues to treat her with dignity, respect and love.

As Fiona's health declines she becomes a danger to herself when she leaves the house, wanders the streets, and becomes lost. They both agree that he can no longer care for her at home and she should move to an assisted-living house where she can be properly cared for. The balance of the movie depicts what occurs in the home. There is no patient abuse, but unexpected occurrences take place which ring true and never appear contrived. Fiona and Grant interact with another couple in the home: Aubrey (Michael Murphy) who is the patient and his wife, Marian (Olympia Dukakis).

Julie Christie is as gorgeous as she was in the movie Dr. Zhivago. As I watched her on screen, "Lara's Theme" from that film kept playing in my mind. The acting is spare but wonderful, and the dialogue is mature. At no time is there a soap opera tinge to the film, but I found myself in tears throughout the movie.

When I left the theater, I met a woman whom I have known for 50 years but seldom see. Fortunately, her name came immediately to mind and I called it out. She said she thought Away From Her should be seen by everyone over the age of 37. I thought to myself, well, maybe over 50. We all fear the effects of aging and being inflicted with the terrible disease of Alzheimer's. This movie is a good primer and lovingly done.

I saw the picture at the Landmark's Sunshine Cinema on Houston Street, which is a lovely theater.

Ed doesn't quite think Waitress is the berries, but he finds it sweet enough.

Waitress
I went to see this movie after reading Joe Morgenstern's review in The Wall Street Journal. He wrote, "The writer-director Adrienne Shelly, who died in New York City late last year at the age of 40, took such perishable ingredients as wit, daring, poignancy, whimsy and romance, added passionate feelings plus the constant possibility of joy, decorated her one-of-a-kind production with pastel colors and created something close to perfection." In my opinion, Waitress is worth seeing, but it is a good, not great, film.

The action unfolds in an unnamed Southern town and state. The central character is a waitress named Jenna (Keri Russell) who bakes delicious pies, a gift she acquired from her mother. Jenna is in a loveless marriage with Earl (Jeremy Sisto) who occasionally beats her. Adding to her marital woes is the fact that she is pregnant with his child. Sisto, who plays the maniacal brother in the HBO series "Six Feet Under," does a good job in this film in a somewhat similar role.

Jenna's two close friends are waitresses in the same restaurant: Dawn (Adrienne Shelly) and Becky (Cheryl Hines). Shelly portrays a woman with a severe inferiority complex who longs for a boyfriend.  Hines is a gifted actress who plays the role of Larry David's wife on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." She does a good job in "Waitress," but overplays her role to some extent. The interaction among the three women is a delight. Their sexual escapades are interesting and novel, in the case of Jenna, who has an affair with her young, handsome obstetrician, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion).

So why didn't this movie, half reality and half fantasy, live up to my expectations? Jenna's trials and tribulations never gripped me as intensely as they should have. It may be that other reviewers knew the writer and director of the movie, Adrienne Shelly, who also plays the role of the waitress Dawn.  Understandably, they may have been affected by the fact that she was viciously murdered not long ago in her Greenwich Village office/apartment. Waitress is several cuts above most movies but it is not top notch. I recommend that you see it anyway. It showed Adrienne Shelly's enormous talent.  Her career was just beginning and her potential will sadly never be realized.

HS: The movie paid great attention to Jenna's unique talent - combining unlikely ingredients to bake into delicious pies. Although the picture stimulated the salivary glands, the concession fare was so unappealing that we saved our appetites for dinner. By the way, I thought Andy Griffith was really good as Joe, the owner of the diner.

Are you ready for the summer?

The cinetrix sure is, and as soon as she posts students' final grades [they become instantly available and I'm enjoying not being actively hated, so I am putting it off 'til the last minute] the summer season officially commences chez Pullquote.

In celebration, the 'Fesser and I have finally turned to the borrowed dvds and dusty Netflix selections from a more innocent time.

First up, Idiocracy, the savage Swiftian satire Fox buried at the box office. Mike Judge shows us the dystopian future 500 years from now. Basically, once mouth-breathing breeders edged out cautious, "when the time is right" sterile intellectuals, everybody forgot how to take out the garbage. A portentious, pretentious narrator explains, "The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections. "

A bleakly funny time-lapse montage shows Fudd-Ruckers devolve into Butt-Fuckers. A lawyer named Frito explains he got his J.D. at Costco. Starbucks offers lattes with full release. And crops are watered with a green sports drink called Brawndo: "the taste plants crave." Did I mention the hit television show in the future is called "Ow, My Balls!"?

Oh, don't be such a fucking snob. Watch the movie and wonder at what Judge was able to accomplish with sheer bile and about 47 cents' worth of production value.

In our house there are many mansions, so it should surprise no one that we followed up Luke Wilson with Cary freakin' Grant. And Katharine Hepburn. Call the sacrilege police if you must.

These days Holiday doesn't get the play that other Hepburn-Grant pairings garner, and that's a shame. The sharp-eyed among you might remember Bill Pullman's Jason Slocum showing his children George Cukor's tart parable about life among the rich in Igby Goes Down, but for ages it wasn't available on dvd. That changed last December and the print, newly restored by the UCLA elves, shines in the transfer.

The plot does, too, once Hepburn finally enters the picture, glistening and bristling as the spinster sister of working-class Grant's well-off intended. There are misunderstandings and culture clashes and a little too much Champagne, but it all comes together brilliantly in set pieces like the party in the old playroom, where Professor Nick Potter [Edward Everett Horton, truly the Harry Dean Stanton of 'Thirties film] and his blueblood, down-at-the-heel bride, Susan Elliot Potter [Jean Dixon], take up their brickbats behind the Punch and Judy stage and Grant and Hepburn practice tumbling tricks.

Screw the How to Hepburn how-tos. Watch Holiday and learn that such eccentric grace can be emulated but never equaled. [And tumbling tummler Archie Leach ain't bad, either.]

FFDFF: Taxi to the Dark Side

Gitmo has a gift shop.

It's true. Visitors to the U.S. military's extrajudicial island oasis can pick up Gitmo key rings and Interrogation Instructor tee shirts, whose torture-humor tastelessness rivals the Coed Naked line. How the hell'd we end up here?

That's the question filmmaker Alex Gibney attempts to answer in his new doc Taxi to the Dark Side, which the cinetrix was fortunate enough to catch as a sneak screening on the last day of Full Frame last month.

It seemed fitting to see the new film at the same fest where his previous, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, met with such acclaim. As in that film, Gibney methodically maps out the decision-making processes of a large organization, linking the fog of ambiguity at the loftiest levels of government with the confusion clouding the definition of torture among the grunts on the ground at Abu Ghraib. Hovering between the center and the periphery of this story is an Afghani taxi driver named Dilawar, who was murdered while in U.S. custody in Bagram.

In this era of extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention, the devil is in the details. Taxi traces what happens to the real people caught in the miasma of shifting definitions. Geneva common article 3 no longer obtains, U.S. officials say, and their persiflage does its best to obscure the fact that the "worst of the worst" still have not been captured. Instead, detainees become Persons Under U.S. Custody. NECs [non-enemy combatants] are renamed NLECs [no longer enemy combatants]. American due process is replaced by military tribunals. Cheery PR reps show journalists through Potemkin Gitmo rooms carefully labeled "tour cell" and "tour interrogation room" and boast about detainees' "comfort items." It's schizo.

Actual psychosis can be induced by sensory deprivation in only 48 hours, mild-mannered McGill professor Dr. Donald O. Hebb explains. When the CIA appropriated the results of his behavioral research and deployed them in the dehumanizing laboratories of Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo, the FBI moved to disassociate itself in a series of emails so redacted sometimes only a few words make it through. Often deployed in concert with the now sadly familiar interrogation techniques the feds objected to--dogs, invasion of space by a female, sleep deprivation, the "sissy slap" glove, enemas, so-called birthday parties at which "God Bless America" sung at the detainee, waterboarding and other stress positions, even air conditioning--hooding and muffling the hearing of detainees is meant to break their resistance. Often, it breaks their psyches. Gibney demonstrates how use of these techniques, originally authorized for a few high-profile prisoners at Guantanamo, like alleged "20th hijacker" Mohammed al-Qahtani, quickly spread with the tacit approval of the administration, a product of force drift and the government's pressure on the military to deliver results. The cumulative effect was torture.

In building its case, Taxi rounds up the usual suspects, deftly deploying archival news footage and talking-head interviews. Alberto Gonzales is in there. John Yoo sits placidly in a book-lined office and describes how his infamous memo circumvented the Geneva Conventions and redefined torture. Lamenting the administration's disregard for the rule of law, former POW John McCain advocates for the Detainee Treatment Act, only to allow it to be rendered toothless in committee. And when former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora questions the necessity of detainees standing for hours at a time, a wise-cracking Rummy briskly dismisses his concerns in a handwritten note: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?"

Gibney wants the leaders held accountable for failing the soldiers in the field. To that end, he turns his camera on the little guys. Gruesome photographs--not just from Abu Ghraib but previously unseen documentation of abuses at Bagram--punctuate the film. A former interrogator who worked at both places blithely describes how he'd carry on one-sided conversations with detainees about whether Elvis was the King or read them the labels on cereal boxes, then write up reports saying he'd done so, which were never questioned. One of the detainees he questioned was a British subject, Moazzam Begg, who details how he was abducted in Pakistan and transported to Gitmo, where he languished until pressure from the British government secured his freedom. A former FBI interrogation expert scornfully dismisses "ticking time bomb" justifications for extreme interrogation techniques, explaining in a broad Boston accent that there's no such thing. Programs like 24 may create a pop culture constituency for torture, but an actual terrorist would rather die than reveal information; he has time on his side.

Time ran out for young Dilawar, the Taxi driver of the title. The American troops who interrogated and ultimately murdered him thought he was behind recent rocket attacks on their base. When he didn't confess under interrogation, the tactics turned lethal. He couldn't confess. This Wrong Man, whose story sent Gibney down this path to the dark side, was innocent. Sargeant Salcedo at Bagram explains that the Afghan warlord who turned over the taxi driver was responsible for the rocket attacks himself. He'd tossed the military some innocents to ingratiate himself and make a buck. That's intelligence gathering?

Like the "worst of the worse" they seek, those at the highest levels of government who have winkingly authorized torture may also elude capture. A provision tucked into the 2006 Military Commissions Act retroactively grants the commander in chief and his administration immunity from prosecution for any wrongdoing, much less war crimes, from 9/11 onward.

Taxi makes it clear that time is on the side of the "bad guys." There were 83,000 detainees in U.S. custody when Gibney locked picture, but only a handful could be construed as front-line soldiers. But every day they languish in legal limbo, denied access to any justice save military tribunals, the U.S. creates more insurgents. And there is no end in sight.

The cinetrix was delighted that Taxi to the Dark Side snagged Best Doc honors at Tribeca. Here's hoping it'll land distribution and be coming soon to the proverbial theater near you. If it doesn't, seek it out.

Fuckin'-A Right

Sorry if you've been pining for the fjords--the cinetrix has had her head down with end-of-semester grading, and thus Pullquote has been reduced to kippin' on its back.

For a pretty accurate picture of how I'm doin', you could do worse than delve into IFC's month-long celebration of cinematic swearing. It's the shit.