Film Reviews by Taye Talbot

Reviews from the Film is Dead Festival 2007

2007-03-22T10:44:00.000Z

I recently returned from a trip to the states, and on a stop in Los Angeles I attended the 2007 Film is Dead Festival organized by the enigmatic Post-Cinematic Society. The films I saw, mostly shorts and vehemently ALL digital, were consistently good. Some of them were more than good, mind-blowing in fact. And the festival itself has become a major underground event in L.A. I was skeptical due to the lack of media coverage and Google hits about it, and yet the theater (a musty old art deco moviehouse from the 1920's temporarily retrofitted with a high definition beamer and dolby surround sound system) was completely packed every night of the festival. How does a digital movie festival avoid getting more Google hits? One of the organizers told me that's the nature of the Post-Cinematic Society--they're highly secretive--yet there are those who want to change that and promote the festival more actively. They tell me that since 1993 when it was started by some students of the famous digital media theorist Lev Manovich, the Post-Cinematic Society has refused to keep track of or promote it's membors, and even rejects the concept of membership. "It's all about the artworks" says festival organizer Morris Kline. Yet Kline admits that there are people, himself included, who believe that the society and the festival could increase it's online presence while still remaining independent, avant-garde, and perhaps more importantly Delphicly secretive.

I can't review all of the films from festival, but I'll highlight the ones I found most significant. What makes a work "significant" to me? Since this festival is about films that are specifically digital from production to distribution, I'm looking for technical and creative innovation that is specific to digital media. But for me there also has to be a strong concept, story and character development. I can be wowed by fancy effects, but for a film to really grad me it has to be intellectually or emotionally engaging.

Lover of Blades is a short digital movie by a young Chinese artist named Chi-Chen Hung. It's the first film I've seen that blends live action digital video with Flash animation to truly astonishing effect. It reminded me of a cross between Tsui-Hark's martial arts film The Blade and Mamoru Oshii's anime classic Ghost in the Shell. But besides the startling visual effects (which reportedly were all done on an iMac!) the artist is perceptive and subtle at developing the complex emotional state of the main character, a girl who becomes obsessed with knives after her older brother is killed in a street fight.

Lied and Iraqified by American-Iraqi artist Yasmine Ravanipour is a digital cutup of television news coverage about the war in Iraq. By mixing statements and press conferences by politicians and news pundits with actual news footage of the conflict itself, the obvious lies parroted by the news media are exposed in ways that are comedic, hard-hitting, yet astutely handled so that the message simply is what it is without being dogmatic. Ravanipour skillfully intermeshes television news and webcasts in such a way that she not only develops a story about the news coverage of the war, but also a rhythm that turns the work into almost a techno song. This is not simply an anti-war message, but a complex artwork that is subtly doing many things on many levels.

Piles of Dirt is the latest short documentary from artist and filmmaker Julian H. Scaff. Or is it a mockumentary? I think probably not, but one is never 100% sure with Scaff's works because of his ability to always step outside of himself and what he is doing. The film covers Scaff's latest public artwork, which consists of rows of small piles of dirt deposited across public spaces. He has now exhibited the work in several cities, including Beirut and Amsterdam. But what kind of art is it? Is it landscape art? Is it performance art? Famous and influential artists, critics and academics are interviewed in the film as they give wildly different interpretations of the work. By turning the very analog dirt artworks into a digital film, he has digitised the analog, one of the defining characteristics of digital media. In addition, Scaff has integrated the critical theory about the artwork with the artwork itself, two things which are usually kept very separate in the art world. This is, quite simply, one of the most significant films about art I have seen in the last decade.

Silvery Girl by Mexican artist Carmencita Hernandez is about a teenage girl who works in a silver mine in northern Mexico. The film is almost entirely a dream sequence, the fantasies the main character has about leaving the mine and going to school. The first and last shots of the film are live action, but then the majority of the film is done with digitally-drawn cell animation (in PhotoShop). The filmmaker's style of drawing is very much rooted in traditional northern Mexican art, yet it is clear that she is working with a digital medium, as when the girl's hair is pixelated and by brushing it it becomes anti-aliased. Hernandez has woven a subtly touching and emotional story about child labour, while at the same time found ways to use the digital medium in very culturally-specific ways, in essence inventing a native Mexican "digital aesthetic" that I think really goes to the core of what this festival is looking for.

Biting Bullets by Jordanian artist Abdul-Haq Shaloub is about a latino homeless man who finds an old t-shirt in a dustbin that happens to have a picture of Osama bin Laden on it. The homeless man is mistaken for a middle-eastern terrorist and arrested. Unbeknownst to him, the story spins out of control in the media, and eventually makes it into President Bush's State of the Union address as a "foiled terrorist plot." The film cleverly meshes live action footage with online blogs and webstreams, news reports and actual footage of a State of the Union speech. The amount of actual footage that Shaloub shot is minimal, probably less than a quarter of the film, making this mostly a digital cut-up of found and scavenged materials. While highlighting the unique ability of digital media to convert, transfer, and cut-and-paste almost any other media, this film also displays Shaloub's sharp sense of storytelling.

If you ever find youself in L.A. at the right time of year, I highly recommend this innovative, lively, and fiercely underground festivals. Other festivals that claim to be "underground" are not nearly as deeply buried as the Film is Dead festivals.

Review of Darwin's Nightmare

2006-02-01T19:26:00.000Z

The plundering of the natural resources of Third World by western countries may not be a new story, but Austrian director Hubert Sauper's exigent documentary succeeds in revealing the subject in a memorable new light. Focussing on the fishing community of Mwanza on the shore of Lake Victoria in Tanzania, Darwin's Nightmare follows its impoverished inhabitants who export their catches to Europe and Japan in return for Russian cargo planes full of arms and ammunition destined for civil wars in neighbouring countries.

Darwin's Nightmare begins with a "little scientific experiment" in the 1960s, when a bucketful of Nile Perch was introduced into the world's largest tropical lake. This fish turned out to be a ruthless predator, multiplying rapidly and wiping out all the other species in the waters. Whilst the locals sell the white fillets to overseas markets, they themselves are forced to eat scraps from the rotting perch carcasses. Around the lake, amid rotting perch carcasses and rusting hulks of crashed cargo planes, Fish Cities have sprung up, strange Interzones where a jumbled sampling of humanity ekes out a living. Indian entrepreneurs work hard to keep their perch factories up to EU standards. Tanzanian fishermen skin dive to chase the huge fish into nets (until the crocodiles get them.) Russian pilots enjoy $10 prostitutes whose husbands have died of AIDS while watchmen earn $1 a night to stand guard with poison arrows. It's a job that can get them killed—but that goes for the whores, too. After dark, the streets of Fish City teem with orphans who fight over food and use molten perch packaging as sniffing glue. With a perfect eye for the telling detail, Sauper gets us close to all of them.

Contrasting the beauty of nature with the hardships suffered by humans, Sauper lets his film unfold at an unhurried pace and he interviews, sometimes secretly, an impressive range of people connected to events in Mwanza. He talks to pilots, factory owners, fishermen, bar girls, priests and journalists. Half the Tanzanian population, it emerges, subsists on less than $1 dollar a day, and one man explains how war is hoped for, because at least men can then be paid by the government to fight. It's a devestating reminder of how what Darwin called the "survival of the fittest" depends on the exploitation of the least economically privileged.

Syriana

2005-11-24T22:17:00.000Z

Writer and director Stephen Gaghan, who won the Best Screenplay Academy Award for Traffic, uses the same kind of complex multiple narratives in this political thriller about the Middle East, American power plays in the area, oil deals, global industries, the CIA, and terrorism. Hats off to Gaghan for taking on such powerful material in this era when big business pulls the strings in politics and Washington ideologues think it is perfectly okay to meddle in the internal affairs of Persian Gulf countries. Gaghan has written of his approach to the film:

"We are living in complex, difficult times and I wanted Syriana to reflect this complexity in a visceral way, to embrace it narratively. There are no good guys and no bad guys and there are no easy answers. The characters do not have traditional character arcs; the stories don't wrap up in neat little life lessons, the questions remain open. The hope was that by not wrapping everything up, the film will get under your skin in a different way and stay with you longer. This seemed like the most honest reflection of this post 9/11 world we all find ourselves in."

The film was suggested by the book See No Evil by Robert Baer and has over 70 speaking parts. It was shot in various locations around the globe including Los Angeles, New York, London, Cairo, Bahrain, Dubai, Kuwait, and Damascus. Syriana is one of the best films of the year with its ethical firepower and its edgy portrait of power, politics, corruption, and violence in a world where the oil supply is running out. It puts in perspective what our addiction to this commodity is doing to us and to the world.

Connex, a big Texas energy company run by Tommy Thompson (Robert Foxworth), is interested in merging with Killen, a smaller company that has just gained the oil drilling rights in Kazakhstan. Jimmy Pope (Chris Cooper), its owner, is quite stunned when this union comes under investigation by the Justice Department and a law firm headed by Dean Whiting (Christopher Plummer), a powerful political player in Washington who is a member of CLI (Committee to Liberate Iran). He has given the investigation to Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright), a lawyer whose father (William C. Mitchell) is not pleased with his son's ambitions. All of these businessmen and lawyers are rocked when the reform-minded Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig), the heir apparent to the throne of an unnamed oil-producing Gulf country, grants natural gas drilling rights to China, which has outbid Connex.

This event sets in motion a series of chain reactions that affect the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, national leaders and loyal functionaries. Connex workers Saleem Ahmed Kahn (Shahid Ahmed) and his son Wasim (Mazhar Munir), immigrant workers from Pakistan, have been laid off from their jobs by the Chinese. Now they must scramble to find work before their visas run out. Whereas his father just wants to return to Pakistan, Wasim and his friend Farooq (Sonnell Dadral) join a local madrassa where they are able to vent their anger and to learn about Islam from a fiery Muslim who is recruiting terrorists.

Meanwhile, Bob Barnes (George Clooney), a seasoned CIA agent has returned to Washington after his last assignment went awry and a Stinger missile fell into the hands of a mysterious Egyptian. Fred Franks (Tom McCarthy), his superior at the CIA, gives him a new undercover mission which could propel him into a less tense and taxing desk job in the future if everything goes right. He is to assassinate Prince Nasir. But in Beirut, things do not go as planned and Bob finds himself betrayed and branded as a rogue operator by the CIA.

Another player in the affairs of Prince Nasir is Bryan Goodman (Matt Damon), who works as an energy analyst for a large and influential company in Geneva, Switzerland. While he and his family are attending a party hosted by the royal family, his son dies in a tragic accident in the pool. The Prince tries to make amends by offering him a well-paid consulting job. This does not sit well with Bryan's wife (Amanda Peet) who grows increasingly disturbed by her husband's grandiosity. Prince Nasir outlines some of his plans for reforming the country but behind the scenes Dean Whiting is at work trying to convince the aging Emir that he should choose his younger son to succeed him. The payoff will be a close relationship with the United States and a profitable partnership with American businesses.

These multiple narratives interweave leading to an explosive finale that is both disturbing and surprising. The title of the film refers to what Washington think tanks see as a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East to serve American national interests. The director reveals the dangers of pride and arrogance that enables individuals, businesses, and political committees to fantasize about unlimited power to toy with the destinies of millions of people in the name of patriotism, greed, capitalism, or the concept of freedom.

But this is really a film about the consequences of the American addiction to fossil fuels. The world is running out of oil and natural gas, and already the United States faces stiff competition from China and India for this commodity. Now is the time to walk to work, or ride a bike, join a car pool, or use public transportation. Now's the time to investigate using solar panels to heat your home. Now's the time to purchase seasonal foods at your local grocery store rather than buying out of season items that must be shipped across great distances in trucks. There is a connection between what we do in our daily lives and the amoral power games being played in the world marketplace. Syriana punches this moral message home with real power.

Big Mouth Radio Beam

2005-10-09T08:15:00.000+01:00

A review of the “Big Mouth Radio Beam” heard on ResonanceFM Thursday, 29 September, 2005
by Taye Talbot

Okay, so I'm a film reviewer, and I don't usually review radio programmes. In fact I've never reviewed a radio programme. Who reviews radio programmes anyway? Well, in this case I just had to make an exception.

Resonance FM will be known to many in the London music underground, and indeed web listeners around the world, as one of the most important art radio stations in existence. Recently Resonance broadcast a programme live from Amsterdam called BIMRAB, or the “Big Mouth Radio Beam”, and it was one of the most salient radio broadcasts I have ever heard.

The show begins with the voice of Felix Kubin, a science fiction pop noise artist harking from Hamburg, Germany, the “messanger of exploding lungs” as he says on his website. He introduces a series of live performances by students at the Dutch Art Institute, brought together by the idea of broadcasting a radio programme out to the universe, an artistic alternative to the dry scientific broadcasts and messages attached to robotic spacecraft. “Five, four, three, two, one, scream” recites a tinny, voice, and the performances begin.

Of note was the first performance, apparently the soundtrack to a short film, in which a mad scientist attempts to travel to the stars by broadcasting his DNA into space. Along the way he lectures a tomato (which is refusing to grow) and grows irritable with the authoritative voice of the interviewer. The mad scientist is himself a genetic mutation of Dr. Strangelove and “Squiggy” from the television show Laverne and Shirley. And the soundtrack is a masterful blend of 60’s science fiction schlock and noise art, truly creating a dreamlike soundscape, and the piece ends with the ambiguity of our genetically-modified future.

The next performance is a sound collage of interviews of all the artists, apparently asked to relate stories of tragedy in their lives. The deft editing results in a soundwork that is at once seductive and frightening, humorous and tragic. The clichés of tragic stories lifted out of context and sewn back together to form a frankenstein monster of banality, made interesting by the stitching and humorous by conscious decontextualization.

Later on is a soundwork (or film?) called Mildew: The Theory of Love. The sounds weave together dirty analog recordings of a child’s music box with ambient noise and digital manipulation. The effect is of a nightmarish collision of a computer and a vinyl record player that is so seductive one cannot turn it off despite it’s terrifying sound.

The performances end with a series of ten yawns. A voice announces each yawn by number, as if from a recording made by anthropologists. Yawning is one of those involuntary responses that is infectious, causing others to yawn, but presented in this manner it has a strangely scientific effect, and a humorous one as well. What are these ten numbered yawns? Perhaps the best specimens collected during a survey?

The rest of the radio programme features various soundworks hosted by a man calling himself Bob Recon, a blend of Orson Welles and John Cleese, and a woman calling herself Raza Raza Rabot, whose silky, sultry voice would make Lauren Bacall sound like Betty Boop. Many of the soundworks are dedicated to aliens purportedly listening from other planets, and the show is interrupted once by an advertisement for “Genomatic”, a reference to the earlier film. Once a request for a soundwork is called in by an organism “living in the Barnard Star system”.

Of note is a soundwork of edited laughter, which starts out simply enough but gradually descends in the surreal as laughs and aspirations are chopped up and tossed like a breathy salad. The repeating intakes of breath and giggles become almost erotic, and the work quickly become mesmerizing, transcending the usual prosaicism of laugh tracks.

Towards the end of the show is an interview with Felix Kubin, whose voice is somehow warped to make him sound truly alien. The interview is hilarious, as the contrast in voice quality couldn’t be greater between Mr. Recon’s straight-man radio authority intonation, Ms. Rabot’s dark-as-coffee tonality, and Mr. Kubin’s spaced-out vocal timbre. Kubin’s answers to questions such as “What is your interest in Yuri Gagarin?” and “What swims in Tesla’s Aquarium?” drift seamlessly between the supernatural and the pseudo-scientific.

If there is intelligent life in the universe, I’m sure they enjoyed this radio broadcast as much as I did. I hope Resonance does more Big Mouth Radio Beams with Kubin and friends, as this show was pure genius.

The Constant Gardener

2005-09-15T08:22:00.000+01:00

For his follow-up to City of God, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles has elected to adapt John Le Carré's The Constant Gardener into movie form. A slow-burn thriller simmering with international intrigue, the book would at first seem too long and complex to be crammed into a two-hour motion picture. But Jeffrey Caine's screenplay does a solid job of distilling the essence of the novel into something manageable, and Meirelles' kinetic, in-your-face style lends energy and immediacy to the proceedings.

This is not a thriller designed for the crowd that prefers shoot-outs, chases, and other action-packed incidents. The Constant Gardener is talky and intelligent, and never takes the cheap way out. It's also something of a downer, both it terms of how the main characters are handled and in its cynical attitude toward the pharmaceutical industry. There's no mistaking The Constant Gardener for anything other than a "message movie." Yes, there's also a love story here, but the most powerful aspect of the movie is what it has to say about the way medicines are tested in third world nations without the consideration of negative side effects, and how bad things that happen during these trials are covered up. The Constant Gardener is fiction, but the incidents it portrays are based on real-world events from Africa and Asia.

The first character we meet is Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a soft-spoken British diplomat in Kenya. Within a few minutes, we learn that his young wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), has been killed while traveling in a jeep along a lonely stretch of highway. The official cause of death is a bandit raid, but Tessa was a known activist, and Justin suspects a cover-up. There are other loose ends. Was Tessa having an affair with Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Koundé), the black doctor who accompanied her on many of her trips? And why was she obsessed with a new drug being used to cure TB? His superiors (Danny Huston, Bill Nighy) are tight-lipped and urge him to drop the matter, as well as to return a letter that Tessa allegedly stole - if he should happen to find it, that is. At the root of his investigation lies Justin's need to determine whether Tessa loved and was faithful to him. The more he probes into her life and the nature of her activism, the more galvanized he is to act. Through Justin's mission, we learn as much about Tessa after her death as we do during the 30 minutes of flashbacks that occur early in the film.

Meirelles makes the movie as much about Justin and Tessa's relationship as about the political situation, although his docu-drama style (with lots of hand-held camera shots) works against strong character identification. Justin never comes vividly to life, and his romance with Tessa engages us on an intellectual, but not emotional, level. Perhaps this is because Justin is a reticent man, and the story is told from his point-of-view. Regardless, we understand how each revelation changes Justin's comprehension of his relationship with his late wife, but feeling for him is another matter.

Meirelles has chosen his cast for acting ability rather than name recognition. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are perfect for the roles. He brings a cool reserve to his part. Justin is a gentle individual, a tender of flowers who would rather talk than act. Fiennes captures the essence of such a man, and how he reacts when pushed. Weisz, despite being in less than half the movie, is a firecracker, and Tessa's shadow looms large even when she's not around. She brings passion and energy to the part; The Constant Gardener crackles when she's on-screen. In secondary roles, Pete Postlethwaite (as a field doctor in the Sudan) and Bill Nighy are exceptional. Gerard McSorley is memorable as a knighted thug. The only one to strike a slightly "off" note is Danny Huston, who is miscast as Justin's slimy boss.

Like Hotel Rwanda, another film about atrocities in modern-day Africa, The Constant Gardener's biggest challenge may be finding an audience. Despite being based on a Le Carré book, the final product is more reminiscent of City of God than it is something from the pen of the world's foremost spy novelist. Yet, despite the lack of surprises and cheap theatrics, there is plenty of tension and drama, and the acting by Fiennes and Weisz is top notch. The Constant Gardener is a movie with something to say, and it speaks its message loudly and with eloquence. The only question is: how many people will hear it?

The Cosmodrome Futurists

2005-08-06T08:17:00.000+01:00

Review of Julian H. Scaff's short film "The Cosmodrome Futurists"
by Taye Talbot, BBC Radio

Many futurist movements have appeared and quickly vanished during the twentieth century, some colourful, some banal, but none as mysterious or audacious as "The Cosmodrome Futurists". I had the pleasure of viewing the fourteen minute "mockumentary" about this fictional futurist movement while serving on the selection committee for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and this is one of the short gems that really caught my eye. Although it's no secret that the film is fictional, it's masterful weaving of real history with invented story creates an illusion that really had a lot of people guessing as to how much of it was real and how much was fantasy. Usually narrative films this short are only effective at telling very simple stories. But here, director Julian Scaff has managed to tell a rather complex story, and there are two reasons why he was able to pull it off.

First, much of the story is told through suggestion. There is a cast of four "experts", a scientist, two historians, and the daughter of two of "The Cosmodrome Futurists". Their interviews are necessarily brief and function both on the level of direct unembellished storytelling as well as suggestion and subtext. The story also deals with the political dilemmas with futurism, such as it's connections and conflicts with fascism and communism, in a way that is subtle and fully integrated into the narrative.

Second, both the mise-en-scene and the montage are executed in a design that is informed by futurist art, and thus the form of the film works in agreement with the narrative to tell this multifaceted story. Mr Scaff has effectively translated the visual and philosophical language of such futurist artists as F.T. Marinetti and Gino Severini into a filmic language. He accentuates dramatic angles, rotating images around and then melting images into other images by matching those angles. There is a depth and complexity to the visual forms that has more to do with complexity and motion--two paramount ideas in futurist art--than with the actual content of the images. Furthermore, Mr Scaff seems to have modified the lighting or frame rate of the video. The motion is a bit herky-jerky, like an almost subliminal strobe effect, which only adds to the overall feeling of perpetual motion, intricacy, and tension. This visual style is overused by such media as MTV, but in "The Cosmodrome Futurists" it is meaningful, and Mr Scaff does it in such a way that really integrates the narrative and formative aspects of the film.

There is a futurist painting I have always liked by Luigi Russolo called "Revolt" which is essentially a painterly analysis of movement. The dynamic visual form and frenetic montage of "The Cosmodrome Futurists" is much like a film version of Russolo's painting. At times the film is a bit rough at the edges, but this doesn't detract from it's distinctive visual form or the imaginative tale.

The Cosmodrome Futurists website:
http://www.zoopraxiscope.com/futurist/

The Aristocrats

2005-07-18T08:24:00.000+01:00

According to several of the roughly 100 talking heads in The Aristocrats, The Joke has been around for a long time, dating back to the days of vaudeville. In addition to being called "The Aristocrats," it has other names, like "The Sophisticates." It goes something like this: A man walks into a talent agent's office and says, "Have I got an act for you! It's the most incredible, original act you'll ever see. My family goes on stage and does… [insert a variety of unspeakable acts, often involving incest, sexual deviancy, bestiality, necrophila, and scatology]" When he's done, the talent agent replies, "That's quite a show. What are you called?" The response (and punch-line): "The Aristocrats."
No, it's not funny, especially when presented in such a straightforward manner. The humor comes from the way it is told and the kinds of riffs and variations that arise from each indivual telling. The Aristocrats presents about three dozen variations of the joke, all performed by recognizable comedians. Some of the interpretations (usually the most literal ones) are dull and unfunny. But others are inspired. There's Kevin Pollak telling the joke while doing his best Christopher Walken impersonation. A mime acts it out to hilarious effect (watch the passers-by). Bob Saget gets down and dirty (and closes by asking that a tape of his version be sent to his former "Full House" co-stars). George Carlin spews the "seven words you can't say on TV" in a matter-of-fact voice. The South Park kids try to figure out what it means. And Gilbert Gottfried brings down the house in October 2001 at a Hugh Hefner roast. (Some claim this was the ultimate telling of The Joke. Just ask Rob Schneider, who is convulsed with laughter on the floor.)
The problem with the documentary is that director Paul Provenza asks his cast of dozens to pontificate about why the joke is legendary, whether it's really funny, why comedians love it, etc. A little of this goes a long way, and there's way too much of it. Plus, he has an annoying tendency to break into longer versions of The Joke, destroying continuity and comedic momentum. And many of his guest comedians aren't given an opportunity to tell their version. I was waiting to hear Phyllis Diller's rendition all evening.
The film is about as profane as a movie can be but, ironically, most of the really funny moments result from "cleaner" comments (relatively speaking, that is). Profanity is so commonplace these days that it no longer has any shock value. And the punch-line is lame. So it's up to the improvising comedian to infuse the joke with new energy - something some are able to do and others are not. The most interesting aspect of watching The Aristocrats results from dissecting the different performances and determining why some work and others don't. For example, Kevin Pollak is funny not because he's telling The Joke, but because he's imitating Christopher Walken. He would get as many laughs reciting pages from the phone book.
About 30 to 45 minutes of The Aristocrats is funny, and another 15 minutes is interesting from a philosophical/sociological perspective. Unfortunately, this is a 90 minute documentary, so one-third of the running time is uninspired filler. The ads for the film boast of a cast of 100 comedians, but that's misleading. Even if you count every talking head, Provenza falls short, and many of his interviewees aren't on screen for more than a few seconds. He frequently returns to a few familiar faces, including Carlin, Gottfried, Saget, Paul Reiser, Whoopi Goldberg, and Penn Jillette (who is one of the executive producers). One comedian who caught my attention is the caustic Pat Cooper, who has a couple of quick sound bytes (one of which is: "The Joke stinks").
The Aristocrats is good for a few belly laughs, but not much more. In a year filled with rich and imaginative documentaries, this is one of the ugly stepchildren. If you aren't offended by the extreme quantity of obscenity, you are pretty much guaranteed to laugh - and quite hard at times. But The Aristocrats doesn't offer an experience that will stay with viewers. Like The Joke after which it is named, it's easily dismissed.

March of the Penguins

2005-06-10T08:25:00.000+01:00

March of the Penguins does what all good National Geographic documentaries do: it informs and entertains while providing interesting wildlife footage. Unfortunately, it's not cinematic. The issue isn't whether the film is worth seeing, but whether it's worth the admission fee or the trip to the theater - not when you can see something of roughly equal quality on a half-dozen cable channels. My goal is not to dissuade potential viewers from seeing March of the Penguins, but to suggest that they wait for it to show up on DVD or TV. (National Geographic provided funding, so its eventual destination is not in doubt.) Unlike other, recent naturalistic documentaries (Microcosmos and Winged Migration come to mind), there is little spectacle to be found in March of the Penguins. There are no moments of breathtaking awe. And the narration, read by Morgan Freeman from a script by Jordan Roberts, mixes useful information with half-baked and overwrought melodrama. ("The loss [of the chick] is unbearable!")

The film, directed by Frenchman Luc Jacquet, spends a calendar year in Antarctica, following the life cycle of Emperor Penguins over that period. Every March, as winter approaches in the southern hemisphere, the birds emerge from their watery playpen and trek 70 frigid miles across ice to the mating ground. There, they pair off before engaging in ritualistic behavior that results in the female laying an egg. While the male keeps the egg warm, the females return to the water to gorge themselves. By the time they return, the chicks have hatched. Then, it's the males turn to go back to the water. After several alternating round-trips by the parents, the chicks are developed enough to be left on their own, and the families break up. The circle of life goes on…

While I was intrigued by the story of the penguins, I was more interested in the process that the unseen filmmakers went through to get their shots. (We see a little of the behind-the-scenes process during the closing credits.) The temperatures, we are told, get to less than -80 degrees; how difficult was it to film under those conditions? Did the penguins cooperate? Were the underwater scenes shot using robot cameras? When the movie was over, I found myself wanting to watch The Making of March of the Penguins more than March of the Penguins. I'm sure there will be something of this nature on the DVD. Yet another reason to wait.

March of the Penguins shows some of the dangers and hardships faced by the birds. Some eggs are not properly warmed and never hatch. Chicks die of starvation, exposure, or end up in the stomach of a predator. Yet the "violence" is limited and sanitized. This is, after all, a G-rated motion picture - no need to scare off or gross-out the kids in the audience. From the documentary, however, one gets the feeling that penguin deaths are infrequent, unfortunate exceptions to the rule that send their parents into downward spirals of grief. I suspect this isn't the case.

My principal complaint is the narration. Morgan Freeman is a good choice to provide it. He has a voice that is comforting and authoritarian. It's no surprise that this is the third movie in less than a year where he functions as the narrator. (The other two are Million Dollar Baby, in which he has an acting part, and War of the Worlds, in which he does not appear.) But some of what he has to read... In an attempt to humanize the penguins, the script contains its share of laughable lines. In movies like this, a picture is worth a thousand words, and less talk would have been welcome.

March of the Penguins will appeal strongly to nature and animal lovers, but falls short of the mark established by groundbreaking movies along the lines of Winged Migration. It's suitable for family viewing, which makes it an alternative to the typical summer blockbusters. But I was disappointed. When I go to the movies, I expect to have an experience. This is just a TV show - admittedly a quality one - but a TV show nonetheless. Blowing it up for the big screen doesn't make it an experience.

Serenity

2005-05-14T08:26:00.000+01:00

This is only the second time it has happened. By "it," I'm referring to the process by which a science fiction television show is canceled, becomes a cult hit after its removal from the air, and is brought back to life as a major motion picture with the original cast. Serenity, Joss Whedon's follow-up to his defunct TV project Firefly, thus enters rarefied territory. The only other franchise to make such a lofty claim is Star Trek. (To be fair, X-Files did something similar, although it was still on the air when the movie reached theaters.) The box office numbers will determine where the Firefly characters go from here: to a sequel, to a new TV series, or to the dusty part of a DVD shelf.

One question that's impossible to answer for a Firefly fan is whether the film works on its own. To that end, I have avoided the TV series for the sake of this review. I have been tempted to sample it (opportunities abound), but have avoided doing so. My goal with this review is to present the perspective of someone who appreciates science fiction but has never been exposed to Joss Whedon's universe (I never saw Buffy or Angel, either). Fan reviews have flooded the 'net. This is an opportunity for a different point-of-view.

Serenity is a fast-paced, engaging science fiction adventure tale. The emphasis should be on "adventure;" the "science fiction" just gives Whedon (making his directorial debut) an interesting canvas to paint upon. In many ways, the film is old-fashioned. The space-ships are not sleek and streamlined - they're hunks of junk being held together by paperclips and masking tape. The characters talk like they learned English in the 19th century Old West (with occasional Chinese curses thrown in for good measure). And guns fire bullets, not laser blasts. This is one of the key elements that separates the Star Trek camp from the (new) Battlestar Galactica one. Serenity falls in the latter, "retro" category.

The storyline is set up economically, albeit with a little too much starting exposition. A 17-year old telepath named River (Summer Glau) is being manipulated by this universe's version of the Evil Empire (called the Alliance) to become a weapon. She is rescued by her brother, Simon (Sean Maher), and the two seek refuge upon the mercenary ship Serenity. The ship is captained by Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), a war veteran who is more compassionate than he lets on. His crew consists of his second-in-command, Zoe (Gina Torres); her husband and the ship's pilot, Wash (Alan Tudyk); Kaylee (Jewel Staite), an engineer who's prettier than Scotty; and Jayne (Adam Baldwin), a tough-talking bruiser. At first, having River and Simon on board doesn't seem to be a problem, but Simon's unwillingness to take orders and River's increasing mental instability generate friction. Then a real problem becomes apparent: River is being pursued by one of the Alliance's elite operatives (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and he will stop at nothing to eliminate her. This puts the crew of Serenity in the cross-hairs of a galactic showdown.

For a two-hour movie, the characters - even the secondary ones - are remarkably well-drawn. The ones with the most screen time and opportunity to establish themselves are Mal and River. Kaylee and Simon have a coy romantic subplot. Jayne gets all the good one-liners. Wash and Zoe don't have a lot to do, but I assume they had their moments in the TV series. The newcomer is the Operative, and he's about as interesting as villains get. This guy isn't your usual run-of-the-mill megalomaniac or battle-hardened warrior. His motives may be simple, but his characterization isn't. As played by talented actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, he is arguably Serenity's greatest asset.

The characters and circumstances reminded me of the late '70s/early '80s British science fiction series Blake's 7. There, as here, there's plenty of tension amongst the crewmen. Some are more in the crusader mold than others. Some are in it purely for the money. Some are affable, some are antisocial. And there's plenty of bitterness, anger, and resentment to go along. Comparing Serenity to Blake's 7 is compliment, since I consider the earlier TV show to be the best science fiction program ever to appear on the small screen. There are similarities, and those represent strengths for both franchises.

There are plenty of special effects, including an impressive space battle that, while not on the same level as the one that started off Revenge of the Sith, is nice enough in its own right. But Serenity isn't about effects. It's about narrative and characters, and it does a solid job in both areas. Whedon propels the story along at a breakneck pace, but keeps it smooth enough that we never get lost, and occasionally pauses to allow for character interaction. There are plenty of "fan moments," but they don't interfere with the overall viewing experience. And there are times when the unexpected occurs. Being space mercenaries harboring a fugitive can be a dangerous business, and Whedon doesn't shirk from bringing death into this movie.
The film leaves open the possibility of future adventures - whether they materialize remains to be seen. Whedon went all-out for the fans with Serenity, including going so far as to hold special pre-release screenings in the late spring. (The final cut was reportedly tweaked based on audience response.) For the average movie-goer, the movie may not have the same emotional resonance it achieves for Firefly aficionados, but those who enjoy science fiction adventure will find plenty to appreciate. It's self-contained and entertaining - arguably the two things most necessary for Serenity to soar.