J.B. Spins

De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief

2009-12-08T03:30:00.000-08:00

It was a different time. Rome’s postwar unemployed dressed better for relief than most people do for the theater today. Though dilapidated, the city’s working class neighborhoods were not defaced or otherwise defiled. Yet some darker aspects of the human condition remain constant. Indeed, the city is a cold, unyielding place for Antonio Ricci, the desperate everyman protagonist of Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (trailer here). Universally hailed far and wide as one of the greatest films of all time, De Sica’s masterwork will be re-released this Friday, marking the sixtieth anniversary of its original American release with a new 35mm print.

Getting a job during Italy’s severe depression was virtually a miracle for Ricci—a marvel foretold by his wife Maria’s fortune teller. There was a catch though. The terms of Ricci’s employment plastering posters across the city are clear: “no bicycle, no job.” Unfortunately, Ricci has hocked his bicycle to feed his family. However, Ricci is married to a strong woman, who resolutely pawns their sheets in order to reclaim his bicycle. Yet just as the Ricci family appears to have turned a corner, Ricci’s bicycle is stolen during his first day on the job.

For the balance of the film, Ricci tears through the city, frantically looking for the bicycle with his young son Bruno in tow. It might sound like a relatively simple story, but Bicycle still retains all of its visceral power and immediacy. It is devastating to watch a man lose all his hope and self respect because of an act of street larceny. While some might well be tempted to bestow new relevance on the film in light of our own current recession, Bicycle is in fact far deeper than a mere story of economic woe. Rather, it is an unflinching depiction of a callous human nature that repeatedly condones the injustices done to Ricci.

Like many other films associated with the Italian Neo-Realist movement, De Sica employed a number of nonprofessional actors in Bicycle, eliciting some extraordinary performances in the process. As Ricci, Lamberto Maggiorani achieved a state of existential intensity generations of actors like John Cassavetes would spend careers trying to approach. Perhaps even more remarkable is the utterly unaffected and ultimately heartbreaking Enzo Staiola, whose work as young Bruno may well be the greatest screen turn ever by a child actor.

Despite the vérité style of the production, Bicycle is a visually striking work. Powerfully filmed by De Sica and cinematographer Carlo Montuori, the terrible beauty of Rome becomes an integral supporting character in the drama unfolding on-screen. In fact, all the elements came together in bitter harmony on Bicycle. A winner of a Special Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (before the category was officially formalized), it is a true milestone film that everyone ought to see at least once to be conversant on international cinematic history. Starting this Friday (12/11), New Yorkers can see it on a legitimate screen when Bicycle begins a special three week engagement at Cinema Village.

The Art and Science of Origami: Between the Folds

2009-12-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

If you associate origami with the neglected craft section of your local bookstore, evidently you a bit behind the times. Firmly established as an artistic discipline during Japan’s Edo Era, in recent years origami has become the domain of theoretical physicists and postmodern artists. Their intricately folded creations definitely challenge preconceptions of the traditional art form in Vanessa Gould’s Between the Folds (trailer here), an Audience Award winner at this year’s Brooklyn International Film Festival, which airs tomorrow on most PBS affiliates as part of the current season of Independent Lens.

The conventional rules of origami are well established—no cutting, pasting or spindling. Only folding is allowed. However, those strict constraints actually open up a world of possibilities for artists like Eric Joisel, who creates remarkably expressive figures simply through folding. The French Joisel is an anomaly among folding artists, in that he likens his creative method to jazz improvisation. Most are far more premeditated in their approach to paper.

For many emerging paper artists, folding is as much about the underpinning Euclidean geometry as it is a form of artistic expression. Gould introduces viewers to folders like Dr. Robert J. Lang and Dr. Erik Demaine, who use folding to pursue cutting edge physics and mathematics. They even suggest some practical applications to their work, like airbag folding, though most of the rewards of their work still seem to be largely theoretical and artistic.

Most importantly, Between shows viewers a lot of really impressive folded creations. Indeed, the work of Joisel and the late Akira Yoshizawa, the Japanese artist considered the fountainhead of modernist origami, has a strikingly animated quality. However, probably the coolest sequence of the film records non-representational artist Chris K. Palmer’s kinetic process as he folds one of his elaborately geometric flower towers.

Between’s technical team, including cinematographer Melissa Donavan and animator Todd Sines, nicely capture the intricacies and delicacies of folded art. Gould conducts some insightful interviews that convey a genuine excitement for the evolving discipline. At just under sixty minutes, the film frankly leaves viewers wanting more. Well worth an investment of an hour’s time, Between airs on most PBS outlets on December 8th. Locally, look for it on Long Island’s WLIW on December 9th at 10:00 and later this month on New York Thirteen (December 27th, also at 10:00).

Romanian Film Festival ’09: The Other Irene

2009-12-07T02:15:00.000-08:00

Given the growing awareness of human trafficking in some south eastern European countries, one can absolutely understand a Romanian husband’s reluctance to let his wife take a temp job in Cairo. While Aurel is overly-cautious by nature, it turns out his apprehensions are well founded in Andrei Gruzsniczki’s naturalistic thriller The Other Irene, which had its American premiere at this year’s Romanian Film Festival.

An average working class guy, Aurel’s attractive wife Irene should have been well out of his league. Though more comfortable in the countryside, Aurel works as a security guard in a Bucharest shopping mall to please her. Ambitious and impulsive, Irene wants a more glamorous life and sees a high-paying contract job with her Middle Eastern company as a means to that end. Despite Aurel’s trepidations, she eventually returns apparently safe and sound. However, she now seems to nag poor dopey Aurel more than ever. Soon she accepts a second Cairo assignment, but this time she is not coming back—alive.

Suddenly, Aurel’s formerly workaday existence takes a Kafkaesque turn. Irene is supposedly dead, but nobody will give him a straight answer beyond that. The stories from Irene’s employment agency, the Romanian Foreign Office and the Egyptian consulate do not seem to jibe, but no one will take his objections seriously. Strangely, even his diplomatic countrymen do not seem particularly alarmed when a Romanian national dies under mysterious circumstances, perhaps because they hope to avoid the extra paperwork. Communism might be gone, but evidently bureaucrats are still bureaucrats.

Gruzsniczki and cinematographer-producer Vivi Dragan Vasile create a moody twilight environment where the Aurels of world are powerless in the face of injustice. In fact, the film is more an exercise in existential soul searching than a thriller per se. Indeed, Gruzsniczki and his co-screenwriters, Ileana Muntean and Mircea Staiculescu, seem to posit the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone, regardless of the intimacy of a relationship.

As Aurel, Andi Vasluianu carries the film with a quiet intensity that is quite noteworthy. However, Gruzsniczki is arguably too successful crafting his fatalistic milieu. There is no comic relief or anything else which might be a leavening influence on Irene’s unremittingly grim tone. As a result, though certainly effective, the film can be an exhausting viewing experience.

Reportedly based on a true story, Irene is an impressive example of Romanian cinema, but it is not the sort of film that invites repeated viewings. It was definitely a worthy selection of this year’s Romanian Film Festival, which based on unscientific observations, saw a marked increase in attendance this year.

Romanian Film Festival ’09: Silent Wedding

2009-12-06T12:30:00.000-08:00

Stalin’s demise in 1953 should have been reason enough for celebration. Yet even in death the dictator causes suffering for common people. Such is the case for a betrothed couple whose wedding is disrupted by events far beyond their control in Horaţiu Mălăele’s Silent Wedding (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Romanian Film Festival in New York.

There once was an idyllic rural community where now stands the rusting husk of a Communist era industrial behemoth. Something very bad happened to that town, which the crew of a paranormal reality show intends to investigate. Interviewing the mayor of the town remnant, they come to understand the tragic events that left him the only surviving male resident in a town full of widows.

In what is initially a dreamy flashback sequence, Mălăele introduces viewers to Mara and Iancu, young lovers so passionate they can hardly keep their hands off each other. When their families resign themselves to their obvious ardor, it seems wedding bliss is finally within their reach. However, that evil old tyrant inconveniently dies. It might seem like even more reason for a party, but the Soviets impose a strict one-week ban on celebrations of any kind, lest anyone get the wrong idea.

With all the food bought and prepared, Mara and Iancu’s parents cannot simply postpone the wedding, so they improvise. The wedding continues as scheduled, but in absolute silence. Yet even notwithstanding the village’s grim state in the opening sequences, the appearance of a ghostly apparition suggests all will not end well with this plan.

Based on a true story of a Romanian town destroyed by the Soviets, Wedding is a strange and haunting film. Mălăele constantly shifts the mood and tone, incorporating magical realism, earthy comedy, high tragedy, political allegory, and even an episode of slapstick humor (which one festival patron likened to the Three Stooges during a Q&A exchange that proved devilishly difficult to translate). Yet, somehow the film never suffers from a whiplash effect. It all just seems to work together in the strange fable-like screenplay co-written by Mălăele and Adrian Lustig.

Employing a cast of actors largely drawn from his highly regarded stage productions, first-time film director Mălăele elicits many fine performances in keeping with Wedding’s somewhat surreal vibe. Meda Andreea Victor has an affecting screen presence as Mara, giving the film real heart as the tragic bride. Also making a strong impression, Valentin Teodosiu brings the perfect physicality and a genuine vitality as her bearlike father. While Ovidiu Niculescu is surprisingly memorable as the paranormal reporter, setting the film’s tenor with his ribald humor and sensitivity to historic calamities that continue to linger in the air decades after the fact.

Wedding is funny, sad, and not a little bizarre. It is an excellent selection to showcase the richness of contemporary Romanian cinema while also taking stock of the country’s tragic past on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Revolution. Highly recommended, Wedding screens again tonight (12/6) as the Romanian Film Festival continues at the Tribeca Cinemas.

On-Stage: Sweet Karma

2009-12-06T04:30:00.000-08:00

Academy Award-winning actor and physician Dr. Haing S. Ngor’s 1996 murder in apparent hold-up attempt seemed like a case of fate gone cosmically out-of-synch. To survive the real life “Killing Fields” of the Cambodia Marxist Khmer Rouge regime Dr. Ngor had to endure the unthinkable. The question of how such desperate decisions made in nightmarish landscapes affects one’s karma (particularly in the Theravada Buddhist tradition which had long-dominated Cambodia) drives Henry Ong’s insightful play Sweet Karma, now running at the Studio Theatre in Queens Theatre in the Park.

Dr. Vichear Lam is not Dr. Ngor, but he certainly bears a close resemblance in a Law & Order kind of way. Indeed, both doctors were forced to conceal their medical training just to stay alive as the Khmer Rouge’s cruel ideology ran amok. Dr. Lam similarly lost his wife Arun under especially soul-trying circumstances while they were interned in one of Pol Pot’s reeducation-work camps. In turn, Lam also came to America as a refugee, eventually finding unlikely Hollywood glory in a film much like Roland Joffe’s The Killing Fields. In a final tragic parallel, it appears Lam is also about to be killed in a senseless act of street violence as Karma opens.

When a woman appears before him, Lam assumes she is one of the devas, Buddhist demigods who help the dying coming to terms with their past in order to harmonize their karma. However, “No Name” seems oddly emotionally invested in Lam’s story for an ostensibly dispassionate spirit guide. Like Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Past, No Name takes the doctor on a revealing tour of his past, visiting some scenes of triumph but focusing on painful incidents from his life with Arun.

In the demanding role of Lam, JoJo Gonzalez conveys a remarkable combination of survivor’s everything: guilt, pain, remorse, fear, and sorrow. He is effectively complimented by Bonna Tek, who gives a touching performance as Arun, maintaining a sense of credible humanity in what could have easily been a tragically noble stock character. Tina Chilip also hits some intriguing notes as No Name, nicely handling the play’s dramatic revelations, while Constance Parng (a NY Innovative Theater award winner for her supporting turn in Lee/gendary) and Brian Hirono prove quite flexible, vividly animating the many other characters Lam encounters in his eventful life.

Marcy Arlin’s fluid direction smoothly leads the audience through the many narrative jumps and effectively evokes the oppressiveness of Khmer Rouge Cambodia. While Lam’s story is obviously inspired by Ngor’s life, Ong still manages to spring a few big-picture surprises as the play unfolds. Despite the constant flashbacks, his script is quite tight and compelling. It is a thoughtful meditation on life, death, and the karma connecting them both that ought to appeal to fans of Richard Matheson’s What Dreams May Come (the book, not the messy film adaptation.)

Karma really gives a sense of what it is like emotionally to experience the horrors Lam (as a stand-in for Ngor) endured. It also offers some fascinating speculation about the Karmic repercussions of such “survival.” Thoughtfully conceived and well mounted by the Immigrants’ Theatre Project, Karma is a very satisfying production. Highly recommended, it is now officially open, running through December 20th at Queens Theatre in the Park.

(Photos: 2009 Amy Davis)

Romanian Film Festival ’09: Videograms of a Revolution

2009-12-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

It was a huge gamble that did not payoff. Shaken by the protests in Timişoara, Nicolae Ceauşescu, the Warsaw Pact’s last unreconstructed Stalinist, held his own massive public rally to prove to the public he was still very much in command. However, it did not go precisely as planned. Though the Revolution was initially censored on state television, it was still videotaped. Filmmakers Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujică would eventually assemble much of that film, as well as amateur and found footage, into Videograms of a Revolution, a remarkable eye-witness perspective on Romania’s 1989 uprising.

Last night, the Fourth Annual Romanian Film Festival marked the twentieth anniversary of the Revolution with their opening night screening of Videograms, kicking off the fest’s Waving at Revolution retrospective series, programmed in conjunction with the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ Performing Revolution festival.

Videograms opens with footage of a woman badly beaten at the Timişoara demonstrations now considered the genesis of Romania’s Revolution. Indeed, protest is in the air, as Farocki and Ujică soon illustrate with off-kilter video images recorded purely by chance. Ceauşescu was not about to go quietly though. Still, his minions were concerned enough to issue strict orders that if anything unexpected should happen the cameramen were to pan up to sky. They did in fact have occasion to do so.

It is still not completely clear what exactly happen at Ceauşescu’s rally, but Videograms is able to piece together a partial forensic reconstruction from various video sources. Still, the overall implications were obvious. In fact, the events captured in Videograms are often chaotic and confusing on the micro level, but on a macro level, it is unmistakably evident which way the winds were blowing.

The Czech-German Farocki and Romanian Ujică brought a distinctly ironic sensibility to their editing process, often selecting scenes that approach absurdist comedy. For instance, we overhear representatives from the military and the Securitate evidently aligned with the Revolution arguing over whose ostensive forces controlled the helicopters they were battling. Of course, there are also moments of genuine human pathos in Videograms as well, including an emotional post-Revolutionary plea for tolerance of Romania’s ethnic minorities buried late in the film’s closing credits.

Videograms is a fascinating look at history unfolding in all its messy, anarchic glory. It was indeed a fitting opening to the 2009 Romanian Film Festival. Their Waving at Revolution retrospective continues tomorrow with screenings of State of Things and The Oak. The festival also has a full slate of new releases, including several premieres, scheduled through Sunday (12/6) at the Tribeca Cinemas.

On-Stage: Light in the Dark

2009-12-05T02:45:00.000-08:00

Love is fleeting and death awaits us all. Welcome to Russian drama, performed in this case as part of a cross-cultural meditation on the intimate connection between love and inevitable loss. Consisting of two Anton Chekhov one acts, Swan Song and The Bear, each proceeded by a musical interludes, Theatre Han’s thoughtful inter-disciplinary production of Light in the Dark opened last night at Theatre 54.

The Korean word “Han” translates variously as “one,” “wide” or “all-encompassing,” and also “sorrow,” all of which are quite fitting descriptions of Theatre Han’s approach to Chekhov. Light begins with “Salpuri-chum,” a traditional Korean mourning dance incorporating a flowing white scarf. Performed by Master Sue-Yeon Park with stately elegance and masterful precision, it is an intriguing introduction to the program and an effective prologue for Swan Song, which features a protagonist of advancing years wrestling with his mortality and failures.

Vasily Vasilich Svetlovidov was once a dashing young actor with tremendous promise. Now he is a drunken shell, stumbling through parts that were once beneath him. Having passed out after a cast party, Svetlovidov awakens later that night in the darkened theater. Assuming the building is deserted, he is forced to confront his loneliness and regrets, until the homeless prompter Nikita Ivanich appears, attempting console the wretched veteran thespian.

A one-act that might be familiar to some from Kenneth Branagh’s short film adaptation, Swan has a profound sadness that is universal yet distinctly Russian at the same time. Director Frederick Waggoner stages the two-hander with judicious economy appropriate to the stark nature of the play. L.B. Williams is quite impressive as Svetlovidov, conveying the mounting anxieties and innate theatricality of the aging actor. He is nicely complimented by the more restrained Ivan De Leon, as the shy but equally insecure Ivanich.

The second entr’acte features soprano Seung Hee Lee alternating with Insuk Kim, performing “Pamina’s Aria” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, with Moon Young Yang’s sensitive piano accompaniment. It is a beautiful rendition of a dramatic lover’s lament from a relatively light-hearted opera. As such, it serves as a nice transition to Chekhov’s more comedic The Bear.

Yelena Ivanovna Popova’s husband has been dead seven months, but she persists in mourning him. It is not as though Popov deserved it though. He was unfaithful and cruel, yet she clings to her grief in an act of almost existential spite. However, when the brash Grigory Stepanovich Smirrnoff comes to collect a debt supposedly owed by her late husband, he immediately rubs her the wrong way in a Tracey-Hepburn sort of way. Suddenly, all bets are off.

Han artistic director Alice Oh is just fantastic as Popova, displaying nice comedic timing while maintaining complete credibility as the angst-ridden widow. Federico Trigo also shows a good flair for comedy as Popova’s loyal servant Luka. Together they keep The Bear brisk and breezy in an effective contrast to the considerably darker Swan.

Light is a well conceived blend of Slavic, Asian, and European cultural elements. Though the interludes might sound like unrelated non-sequiturs, they actually provide a fresh framework to present Chekhov’s well-known one acts. A rewarding night of theater, music, and dance, Light runs through December 20th at Theatre 54.

(Photo credit: Ho Chang)

IFF ’09: The Green Dumpster Mystery

2009-12-04T03:00:00.000-08:00

They witnessed all the great horrors of the Twentieth Century, yet the Wolkowicz family’s story was nearly lost to the sands of time. Chancing upon some of the their family photos in an industrial trash bin, filmmaker Tal Haim Yoffe pieces together their tragic story in the compelling documentary The Green Dumpster Mystery, which screens during the upcoming 2009 Israel Film Festival.

Yoffe was able to identify several of the Wolkowiczes fairly easily through google and the Yad Vashem and Israeli Defense Force websites. After a bit of sleuthing, he determines Shoa, the son of Ya’akov and Pola Wolkowicz, was killed by the Egyptians on the first day of the Yom Kippur War. His parents had fled from National Socialist partitioned Poland into the USSR, only to then be interned in a Soviet labor camp near Arkhangelsk, north of the Arctic circle.

Surviving friends and distant family help Yoffe connect the dots, providing some aged photos of their own. He attends an IDF memorial and is surprised to find so many people paying tribute to Shoa Wolkowicz, who died at age twenty and has no apparent surviving family. Evidently, Shoa also had an older sister who did not survive the brutal Russian winter. Determining her name and the location of her grave site becomes the one persistent mystery that drives Yoffe’s narrative.

Though modestly understated, Dumpster is a surprisingly effective film. Yoffe exhibits a deft touch as a documentarian, letting his material speak for itself. While he provides all the narration and is seen on-camera pursuing the investigation in nearly every scene, he scrupulously keeps the focus squarely on the Wolkowicz family rather than himself.

Dumpster actually expresses something very profound about the Israeli psyche without belaboring the point. Clearly, it is very important to Yoffe and those he meets over the course of his search that the Wolkowiczes not slip into oblivion unremarked and unremembered.

While only about an hour in length, Dumpster is a very satisfying documentary. While it shows the devastating sweep of history, it is ultimately an intimate family story related with sensitivity and compassion. Highly recommended, it screens during the Israel Film Festival on Monday (12/7), Thursday (12/10), and Sunday (12/13) at the SVA Theatre.

IFF '09: Seven Minutes in Heaven

2009-12-04T02:01:00.000-08:00

Suicide-homicide bombings might be a fact of life in Israel, but that makes them no less devastating for those who lose loved ones in such attacks. As a survivor of a bus bombing, Galia sustained severe burns to her arms and back, but the emotional wounds from the loss of her boyfriend Oren run far deeper in Omri Givon’s powerful drama Seven Minutes in Heaven (trailer here), a highlight of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival that now returns to New York screens during the 2009 Israel Film Festival.

Galia was clinically dead for seven minutes, yet she returned to the land of the living. Oren however, fell into an irreversible coma and slowly slips away before her eyes. Haunted by “what if’s” and suffering from acute survivor guilt exacerbated by painful memories of their final lovers’ quarrel, Galia could use some closure. Those brief seconds seem to hold the key as she tries to reconstruct what happened to her during the immediate aftermath of the senseless attack.

Though still in mourning, Galia finds solace in the attentions of the easy-going Boaz, who always seems to be around when she needs him. As she pursues her investigation, Galia discovers she is linked to Boaz in unexpected ways. Seeking cathartic answers, Galia visits the bombed-out husk of that fateful bus, at which point Seven delivers the audience a metaphysical curve ball. Cinematically, it is a dazzling scene assuredly handled by Givon and editor Nitay Netzer, nimbly jumping between clearly differentiated timeframes and perspectives.

Given the overall volume of flashbacks and hallucinations, Seven can still be a bit tricky to follow at times, but it is worth the effort. Givon has crafted a cerebral but emotionally engrossing film, nicely laying the groundwork for his third act revelation, so it feels organic rather than gimmicky. Reymond Amsalem captures Galia’s guilt and regret with a direct immediacy that is hard to shake. She is perfectly balanced by the likable Eldad Fribas, who invests Boaz with a wistful humanity that takes on greater dimensions in retrospect.

The circumstances of Seven are particularly tragic because they happen all too often in Israel, a point the film subtly makes. While at times demanding, Seven is an intelligently composed, legitimately moving film. It screens at the SVA Theater Monday (12/7), Wednesday (12/9), Thursday (12/10), and Saturday (12/12), as the IFF continues throughout the week.

IFF ’09: Adam Resurrected

2009-12-03T11:01:00.000-08:00

It was a case of bad timing. When Paul Schrader’s Adam Resurrected was released last year, it was one of a number of Holocaust related films jostling for critical and award attention. Unfortunately, Adam was largely lost in the shuffle, but it might have been the best of the field. Though not graphically violent, it contained powerfully disturbing images of human cruelty that gnawed on one’s consciousness well after the initial viewing. Now the Israel Film Festival’s upcoming screening of Adam Resurrected (trailer here) offers an opportunity to rediscover and reevaluate the film, as part of its tribute to Schrader, who will be awarded the 2009 IFF Achievement in Cinema Award on opening night.

Adam Stein is a troubled soul who has problems with authority. He is made of similar stuff as Yossarian from Catch-22 and McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He is also a Holocaust survivor, whose survival came at a tremendous emotional cost. Haunted by his experiences, Stein is a reluctant patient in the Seizling Institute, a fictional mental sanitarium in Israel specializing in the treatment of Holocaust survivors.

Before the war, Stein was an entertainer, whose act blended elements of Victor Borge with Cirque de Soleil—perfect for Weimar Germany, but not so well received under National Socialism. Though not particularly religious, it was only a matter of time before he was deported to a concentration camp. Upon his arrival, he is recognized by a former audience member, the camp commandant, who spares Stein’s life for his own twisted enjoyment, forcing him to live as his pet dog.

In a narrow sense, Resurrected is a completely bloodless film that shows none of the actual killing in the camps. However, Stein’s dehumanizing scenes with the twisted Commandant Klein are profoundly troubling, depicting man’s inhumanity to his fellow man with visceral immediacy. As wild and ruckus as Stein might act years later, his problematic behavior bears no comparison with what was done to him. Though clearly provocative, there is no doubt about the film’s moral center (unlike the often baffling The Reader).

Schrader’s direction is visually unsettling, often framing scenes from odd angles, but also sensitive enough to capture the tortured humanity of his characters. As Stein, Jeff Goldblum gives a very strong performance, dialing down his trademark manic delivery just enough to connect with the pathos of his character. Willem Dafoe is appropriately cold and severe as the evil Klein, while the venerable Derek Jacobi is a welcomed presence, exuding learned compassion as Dr. Nathan Gross, the director of Seizling (but he is not given much heavy lifting to do as an actor). Some of the richest work in Resurrected actually comes from supporting players, like Joachim Krol and Idan Alterman, who play fellow patients in Seizling that suffered similar losses but lack the consolation of Stein’s flamboyant rebellion.

It seems Schrader de-emphasized the black comedy of the film’s original source novel by Yoram Kaniuk. This was probably a wise decision. While Resurrected is often uncomfortable to watch, it is always for the right reasons. It is a challenging, stylistically distinct film that deserved a better theatrical reception than what it received almost exactly one year ago. It screens Sunday (12/6) and next Saturday (12/12) at the SVA Theater.

Adrienne Shelly’s Serious Moonlight

2009-12-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

Being DINKS (double incomes, no kids), money is not a problem for Louise and Ian. Although she does not know it yet, pretty much everything else is. Their marriage is in for a rocky patch in a new film based on an original screenplay by the late actress-screenwriter-director Adrienne Shelly, who was tragically murdered by an illegal alien just over two years ago, before her breakout indie hit Waitress was released theatrically. Though the new film is far from perfect, Shelly clearly had a flair for dialogue, which comes through loud and clear in Cheryl Hines’s Serious Moonlight (trailer here), which opens Friday in select cities.

Planning to meet her husband for a few quiet days in their country home, Louise comes a few days early to surprise him. She surprises him alright, catching him prepping for an assignation with his mistress. It turns out Ian was about to run off to Paris with his much younger lover, but Louise, ever the resourceful advocate, puts a stop to it by knocking him unconscious and duct-taping him to a chair.

Of course, being held hostage does not exactly melt Ian’s heart, as he makes painfully clearly in some smartly cutting exchanges. They definitely sound like a real married couple, because they know exactly what to say to hurt each other most. Unfortunately, the situations they find themselves in are more than a little contrived, especially when the gardener decides to take advantage of Ian’s indisposition to rob them blind and terrorize Louise. Somehow, Ian, Louise, and the other woman all end up locked in the bathroom as the dude from the Apple commercials (Jeremy Long) trashes the house with his biker friends.

In a way, Moonlight feels a bit dated, bringing to mind wish-fulfillment movies of the 1980’s, like 9 to 5, in this case substituting an unfaithful husband for the loutish boss. Indeed, lead actors Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton seem like shallow refugees from the past decade as the bickering couple. They do dig into Shelly’s juicy lines though.

Still, the tenor of the film is more than a little odd. While it presents itself as a romantic black comedy, it is not particularly funny or romantic. Neither is it consistently dark, which makes the gardener’s threats of sexual violence especially jarring. Perhaps most annoying is a surprise ending so obvious viewers will spend most of the film hoping it will not come to pass.

To be fair, Moonlight is a very well put together film. Cinematographer Nancy Schreiber makes the countryside sparkle and the Madeleine Peyroux tune playing over the opening titles hits the right flirtatious notes. Yet, the tone of the film is just too muddled and the payoff is sabotaged by the standard issue twist. Moonlight has its merits and could have been a very good film if Shelly had been able to further refine her screenplay. Sadly, she would not have the chance. A well-intentioned film, Moonlight just never fully jells. It opens tomorrow (12/4) at the Village East.

Oscar Shortlist: China’s Unnatural Disaster

2009-12-03T02:00:00.000-08:00

If revolution ever comes to China, it will probably start in Sichuan Province. That is because there are roughly twenty thousand parents there whose anger will not be bought off or otherwise placated without real justice. Such is the impression left by a recent HBO-produced documentary about the Chinese government’s maddening response to the “Great Sichuan Earthquake” of 2008. Recently, the Academy winnowed this year’s Oscar eligible short-form documentaries down to a shortlist of eight films. While most of the list is basically “eh,” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill’s China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province (pop-up trailer here) deserves special consideration for a nomination and ultimately the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.

Approximately 70,000 people died in the earthquake that rocked Sichuan, of which an estimated 10,000 were children. While the quake wrecked destruction throughout the province, schools and dormitories were particularly hard hit. In the immediate aftermath, shoddy government construction practices, like support walls made of loose bricks without any cohesive mortar, were apparent to even to the untrained eye. Parents wanted answers but were met with stonewalling by the local government and Communist Party.

It is always heartbreaking when a parent looses a young child, but the pain of the Sichuan parents runs even deeper, because of the Communist government’s rigid one-child policy. Those parents mourn not just a son or daughter, but their one sanctioned child.

At times, Disaster frankly feels intrusive as directors-cinematographers Alpert and O’Neill film the raw grief of the parents. However, the filmmakers bear witness to the injustice of the local authorities’ corruption and the courage of common people seeking justice. They name names too, like Party Secretary Jiang Guohua, seen literally trying to run to the front of the parade when Sichuan parents set off on a protest march.

The film is also an instructive look at all the Party’s methods for suppressing dissent, including telling attempts at outright intimidation. In fact, Alpert and O’Neill had their cameras cupped and were apparently physically jostled by Party enforcers several times. Clearly, the Communists were not keen to have a record of their response to the Sichuan protestors.

Disaster is a worthy and legitimate act of cinematic journalism. Though classified as a “short,” it is still a relatively substantial thirty-eight minutes in length. It will make viewers both profoundly sad and deeply angry. It is the class of the shortlisted documentary shorts. Disaster airs again on HBO in January and ought to be screening with other eventual nominees in the run up to the Award ceremony.

DERRICK comedy’s Mystery Team

2009-12-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

Would you forward this sketch comedy team to your friends? Evidently millions have. They might be youtube superstars, but the “DERRICK comedy” group (initially formed by several members who happened to be at NYU at the same time and have first names that start with the letter “D”) is hardly a household name. Still, their many online fans should be pleased to hear there is plenty of juvenile humor to be found in Dan Eckman’s Mystery Team (trailer here), DERRICK’s feature film debut, which opens this Friday in New York following a string of successful screenings at Sundance, ComicCon, and on the college circuit.

Ten years ago, three seven year-old kids charmed suburban Oakdale when they formed the “Mystery Team” to solve pee-wee sized crimes. Unfortunately, they are about to graduate from High School, but are still playing detective “Little Rascals” style. It’s just not cute anymore, but these losers can’t let go. To further feed their delusions, an adult-sized case suddenly lands in their lap when a young girl hires them to solve the murder of her parents. Of course, she also has an older sister, who might turn out to have a maturing influence on Jason, the sort-of leader of the trio.

As the three immature investigators—Jason the self-proclaimed “Master of Disguises,” Duncan the “Boy Genius,” and Charlie, not really the “strongest kid in town”—DERRICK’s Donald Glover, D.C. Pierson, and Dominic Dierkes play it faithfully straight, never breaking character to indulge in knowing irony. Clearly, they have an affection for these poorly socialized characters that gives the film an endearing goofiness.

It might be low comedy, but Mystery is pretty funny when the woefully innocent Mystery Team pursues their case into the town’s scummy strip joints and crack dens, encountering all manner of vice for the first time. However, it is rather clear DERRICK is more accustomed to pitching their comedy in short internet-friendly clips. As a full-fledged feature, Mystery often feels stretched and padded. Also, while granted, the workaday storyline is hardly the point in a film like this, the tired evil corporation cliché (in this case a dastardly lumber company) just seems like lazy writing.

As if the case with most good stoner comedies (and bad ones too), Mystery is a very hit-or-miss affair. As it happens, Mystery’s funniest moments are actually also it’s rudest, but ultimately the film is defined by the gentle guilelessness of its three main characters. It opens Friday (12/4) at the Quad.

The Tolstoys: The Last Station

2009-12-02T03:15:00.000-08:00

A wife fights to maintain control of her husband’s intellectual property rights. A famous writer is financially manipulated by a cult-like group of utopians. Though the year is 1910 and the place is late Czarist Russia, the events of Leo Tolstoy’s final days have an odd resonance in today’s world. While Tolstoy was indeed the great Russian novelist, he was also a husband and father. It is his tempestuous but loving relationship with his wife, the Countess Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya, that is the focus of director-screenwriter Michael Hoffman’s historical drama, The Last Station (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York and Los Angeles for one Oscar-qualifying week only, but returning soon on January 15th.

She has born Tolstoy thirteen children and hand-copied War and Peace six times. Nobody has been more dedicated to Tolstoy than his wife the Countess, yet she refuses to blindly adopt the tenets of his radically ascetic Christianity, particularly the renunciation of private property rights. Though Tolstoy also now advocates celibacy, she has better luck getting him to fudge that one.

Despite nearly fifty years of marriage, the Countess is apparently outmatched by his spiritual protégé, Vladimir Chertkov, the leader of the Tolstoyans. His driving ambition is to have Tolstoy sign over the rights to his novels to the ~~Scientologists~~ Tolstoyans, so they can supposedly keep his works affordable and accessible to the general public. However, the Countess, sixteen years her husband’s junior, has to consider her own future. Into this fray, Chertkov sends Valentin, an earnest, fresh-faced young Tolstoyan ostensibly to act as the Count’s secretary, but really to act as his eyes and ears in the Tolstoy estate. (He is also the focus of a romantic subplot that frankly gets a bit tiresome.)

Helen Mirren has been widely touted as a potential award winner for her performance as Tolstoy’s long-suffering wife, and given the state of the field, she probably should start considering her acceptance speeches. She is terrific as the harried Countess, who tenaciously holds onto her love for Tolstoy regardless of his eccentricities and betrayals. Christopher Plummer certainly has the right physical presence as the self-appointed prophet, also bringing a sense of dignity and playfulness to the iconic figure. Paul Giamatti, the American ringer of the predominantly British cast, actually bears a strong resemblance to the historical Chertkov, and is clearly quite comfortable playing the scheming Svengali.

Oddly, most of the Russians associated with Station were working behind the camera rather than in front of it. Most notably, that includes the celebrated Russian screenwriter-director Andrei Konchalovsky (whose Russian films include the towering Siberiade), who served as co-executive producer. Though Hoffman has an eclectic filmography, the American director seems to have a nice touch with British and continental historical fare, having previously helmed an adaptation of Rose Tremain’s Restoration with Robert Downey, Jr. Again, he keeps the drama moving along, while soaking in the period ambiance.

It is a bit strange to see such a Russian story without any Russian actors, though Giamatti definitely has a distinctly Russo look. Still, it is certainly an accomplished cast, well attuned to classical-historical material, with Mirren delivering an Oscar caliber performance. While there is a bit too much of innocent young Valentin finding his way in the world, Station is still a good looking, imminently respectable prestige picture. It opens (temporarily) this Friday (12/4).

Performing Revolution: Velvet Oratorio

2009-12-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

On November 9th, world leaders past and present converged on Berlin to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, our own president was not sufficiently interested to attend. In contrast, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has found the fall of the wall and the subsequent revolutions that swept the Communist Bloc worthy of five months of special programming. Incorporating drama, film, dance, and literature, the Performing Revolution series came to Bohemia National Hall last night for the Untitled Theater Company’s production of Velvet Oratorio, a dramatic hybrid chronicling the events of then Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution.

Incorporating primary sources including contemporary news accounts, official statements of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, and declassified CIA and State Department cables, as well of scenes from Vaclav Havel’s Vánek plays and original interviews conducted by librettist Edward Einhorn, Oratorio presents an impressionistic but informative overview of the heady days of the Revolution. As the play opens, Ferdinand Vánek, Havel’s literary alter-ego, is in police custody yet again, but this time his interrogator is a bit nervous. Since he has been confined to a cell, the writer has not heard the news sweeping the across Eastern Europe—the Wall has fallen.

While Vánek again serves as a stand-in for his creator, we do hear from one specific historical figure, American Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, who Oratorio depicts as quite an effective and relatively proactive diplomat. On the other hand, the unnamed Communist Party spokesman comes across as a “Baghdad Bob” without the style points. He is nicely brought to life though with appropriate oily insincerity (and increasing uncertainty) by Danny Bowes.

At times, Oratorio has an absurdist bent that would befit some of Stoppard’s work in terms of tone and certainly subject matter. However, Oratorio often ends such scenes with a thoughtful kicker, as when two namesakes of Martin Smid, the mathematics student erroneously reported murdered during the November 17th demonstration, petition Vánek to declare them “alive.”

Musically, Oratorio is imminently respectable, but the odd harmonies and dissonant passages might be a bit challenging for patrons not accustomed to contemporary classical composers. From a shallow musical theater perspective, it also lacks the rousing notes of pure triumph to accompany the Revolution’s peaceful climax.

Unquestionably, Oratorio’s strongest scenes involve Peter Brown as the literary everyman Vánek (again also credit the original creator Havel), particularly when confronting his former interrogator and appealing to the conscience of a former colleague from 1968 who had since joined the government. Indeed, Brown simultaneously conveys compassion and an ironic sensibility that is very Czech.

Oratorio is a well-conceived production that provokes welcomed reflections on the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Communism in general. Twenty years after 1989, within my own lifetime the Czech Republic has been a free country longer than it has been a Soviet Satellite. That is definitely an anniversary worth marking. The UTC’s next free production will be the Czech-themed Rudolf II, beginning March 5th. Performing Revolution continues with programming well into March 2010.

Spanish Cinema Now ‘09: Hierro

2009-12-01T03:30:00.000-08:00

El Hierro is about as southwest as you can go and still be in Spain. Part of the Canary Islands archipelago, its economy is largely dependent on tourism. Yet it seems to have the most ominous looking beaches and distinctly uninviting locals in Gabe Ibáñez’s moody thriller, Hierro (trailer here), which screens during the Lincoln Center Film Society’s Spanish Cinema Now series.

Though it is never explained why five year-old Mateo’s father is out of the picture, it scarcely seems to matter. María, his marine-biologist mother, more than compensates, forging an especially close relationship with the boy. Since Mateo is fascinated by boats, María takes him on holiday to El Hierro, via the large ferry that services the island. Tragically, when María briefly dozes off, she awakens to a parent’s greatest nightmare: a child vanished without a trace.

The local police go through the motions of searching, but to no avail. Time passes and a corpse fitting Mateo’s description washes up. María, now pretty much an emotional basket case, comes to identify the body, with her increasingly impatient sister along for dubious support. The only problem is the unfortunate boy in the morgue is not Mateo, which necessitates a lot of unexpected paperwork for the Hierro coppers, as well as a judge’s consent to take María’s DNA. Waiting for the judge to return, María starts investigating the suspicious islanders, discovering Mateo is not the first little boy to go missing under mysterious circumstances on the tight little island.

Water is an all-powerful and ever-present force in Hierro. Their mutual interest in all things marine had helped bond María and Mateo, yet whatever force ripped them apart (be it criminal or supernatural), seemingly involved the murky waters off the isle’s shore. As a result, María, the aquatic researcher, develops hydrophobia.

Ibáñez and cinematographer Alejandro Martínez certainly create an atmosphere of portentous foreboding. El Hierro’s black volcanic beaches look otherworldly and even María’s aquarium workplace looks dark and unsettling. Given the credits of co-producer Álvaro Augustín (which include The Orphanage, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Shiver), one might expect Hierro to fall squarely in the Spanish horror (sporror?) tradition. Yet it never really embraces a specific genre. It also gets suspiciously untidy as tries to preserve its big looming twist.

Hierro is definitely high-end genre filmmaking. Elena Anaya (perhaps recognizable to some from the Hollywood train-wreck Van Helsing) is quite convincing as the desperate mother and Ibáñez keeps the creepiness ratcheted up nicely. Still, many viewers will have a good idea where it is all heading. It is an excellent exercise in ambiance, but Hierro might not fully satisfy fans of Augustín’s previous cinematic imports. Spanish Cinema Now starts this Friday (12/4) at the Walter Reade Theater, with screenings of several contemporary Spanish films, including Hierro. Ibáñez’s film also screens again on Sunday (12/6).

The Horrors of Retail: The Strip

2009-11-30T03:45:00.000-08:00

Guess what, working for minimum wage really blows. Those of us with retail experience on our resumes know that already. Still, writer-director Jameel Khan reminds us once again of the unalloyed joys of dealing with moronic customers and uptight managers in his new film The Strip (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The strip in question is a tacky suburban strip mall anchored by Electri-City, a crummy RadioShack wannabe. This particular store is managed by Glenn, who was seemingly born for retail. It is one of several franchises owned by Kyle Davis’s controlling father. Temporarily working for Glenn, Kyle is being groomed for a management position, with the expectation he will eventually take over his father’s Electri-City mini empire. Naturally though, he is less than sanguine about such a future.

The Electri-City co-workers are all suitably colorful, including a ludicrously bad aspiring actor, a good-natured immigrant, and the requisite slacker. They prank each other, drink together, and take abuse from unpleasant customers. Of course, the film’s big questions are blindingly obvious. Will young Kyle meekly submit to his overbearing father or choose to pursue the free-spirited Melissa? Care to take a wild guess?

In a role closely akin to his News Radio character, Dave Foley is clearly comfortable as the earnest store manager who seems to have a “kick me” sign permanently affixed to his back. Though Rodney Scott is basically stuck with Kyle Davis’s blandness, but Jenny Wade does make a strong impression as his potential love interest.

While The Strip does not have a lot of really big laughs, there are consistent chuckles throughout the film. It is sort of like watching the pleasantly amusing but not hilarious parts of related films like Clerks, Mall Rats, and Office Space spliced together. The result is admittedly an agreeable film, buoyed by a compulsively upbeat soundtrack composed by John Swihart.

Hardly breaking any new cinematic ground, The Strip still has a nice heart and it is amusing in its own likable way. While it will probably prove too modest to make much of a theatrical impact, it should have a long and fruitful ancillary life on DVD and cable. It opens Friday (12/4) at the Quad.

An Alexis Cole Family Christmas

2009-11-28T12:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas is a time for family, so it is appropriate jazz vocalist Alexis Cole’s new Christmas CD is definitely a family affair. Not only does it feature Cole’s pianist-composer father Mark Finkin, it was directly inspired by his much anticipated college graduation recital. Taking its title from her father’s commencement concert, Cole’s The Greatest Gift presents an eclectic program of seasonal and spiritual fare, the net proceeds from which will go to the non-profit World Bicycle Relief.

In a way, Gift also represents the extended family of St. Peter’s, the Manhattan church long identified with the jazz community that Cole has often played. Both St. Peter’s jazz musical director, bassist Ike Sturm, and his vocalist wife Misty Ann contribute to Cole’s Christmas. In addition, trombonist Alan Ferber and guitarist Jesse Lewis are no strangers to the Midtown sanctuary. (Disclosure: I know the Sturms from St. Peter’s Jazz Vespers, where I’m often part of the improvised ushering corps.) Such relationships help explain Gift’s distinctly warm, inviting vibe.

Gift actually starts with an instrumental prelude, an upbeat traditional treatment of “Joy to the World,” arranged by bassist Sturm and featuring an almost rock oriented solo from Lewis. Cole then makes a pretty soulful entrance on “Jeanette Isabella/The Call,” augmented by the St. Paul’s Children’s Choir. Indeed, there is a certain R&B-ish influence, especially pronounced on the following “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” a duet for Cole and Finkin. There is also similar groove going on in the original closer, “Jesus is the Best Part of Christmas,” which benefits from Don Braden’s funky sax flavorings (but the staged dramatic dialogue is unnecessary).

Cole herself arranges one of the highlights of the program, reinventing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” in a calypso-like cast. Blending the appealing sounds of Braden’s soprano, Ferber’s trombone, and Warren Chasson’s vibes, “Hark” has an infectiously joyous sound that demonstrates jazz and Christmas music can both be fun.

While Cole covers many beloved carols, like “What Child is this?” and “Silent Night,” she also includes some less obvious standards, like the spiritual “Rise Up Shepherd and Follow.” In another intriguing arrangement, Cole gives it a pronounced exotic flavor (quite in keeping with the song’s Holy Land setting) adding tabla and tambura to Braden’s soprano.

Cole has a rich, strong voice and her charts produce some consistently rewarding music throughout Gift. While she often gives the songs of the season a nice jazz twist, they will always be recognizable and accessible for jazz neophytes. Cole and friends will perform the music of Gift at her CD launch concert this coming Friday evening (12/4 at 8:00), fittingly at St. Peter’s.

Koreatown on DVD: West 32nd

2009-11-27T07:01:00.000-08:00

West 32nd
Directed by Michael Kang
Pathfinder Entertainment

I have been to Manhattan’s fashionable Koreatown many times to hear jazz gigs, but I have never been harassed there by Korean gangsters. It must be my easy-going demeanor. Of course, I was not frequenting the exclusive room salons that appear to be entirely mobbed up in Michael Kang’s West 32nd (trailer here), now available on DVD.

Manhattan’s Koreatown is almost entirely a commercial district, directly adjacent to Herald Square. It is where Jin Ho Chun used to manage the syndicate’s elite salon rooms, before he was gunned down one fateful night, while his lover Suki Kim watched from the window above. She saw it all, but as a “geisha” like salon hostess, she is virtually an indentured servant and knows only a scant bit of English.

Attorney John Kim will want to talk to Suki. He has taken on the case of a teenager accused of Jin Ho’s murder. His plan was to sign up a winnable pro bono case to build his tony law firm’s standing in the Asian community, eventually parlaying a courtroom victory into a junior partnership. As counselor Kim investigates the case, he falls in with Mike Juhn, an ambitious Korean mob enforcer who briefly succeeded Jin Ho as manager of the salon rooms, only to be sabotaged by his own impulsiveness.

Though ostensibly working his case, Kim spends an awful lot of time hanging with Juhn’s crew in salon rooms, playing Korean drinking games, and wining & dining Lila Lee, the beautiful sister of his client. Nice work if you can get it. Of course, it is also more photogenic than filing briefs.

Recognizable from the new Star Trek reboot and TV’s Flashforward, John Cho has a much more terrestrial role in West 32nd as the striving attorney. While he is not terrible in the part, his character is not that swift on the uptake. Though the film’s lead, the bland Cho is largely upstaged by some strong supporting performances, including Jun Kim, who brings the proper mean streets intensity as Juhn. Grace Park is also quite engaging as the concerned sister. The film’s real standout though is the luminous Jane Kim, who conveys a nuanced vulnerability as the distressed Suki.

There are a lot of stupid gangster tricks in West 32nd, but it does present an intriguing picture of a supposedly pragmatic Korean crime syndicate. Despite the subservience of the room salon hostesses, West 32nd is not a sexually explicit film (that kind of thing does not go in salons). Yet, it still holds a certain voyeuristic fascination with the illicit gangster lifestyle. At least on DVD (which also includes Heather Park’s music video for “Leave Me to Dream,” a song from the film), it is an entertaining look at underground K-town, with some quite notable supporting turns.

A Hot Club Christmas

2009-11-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

Given his untimely death in 1953, there are many great jazz standards that Sinti jazz pioneer Django Reinhardt never had the chance to cover. He never had the occasion to record a set of Christmas carols either, leaving a void the Hot Club of San Francisco (HCSF) recently filled with Hot Club Cool Yule, a Christmas-themed release recorded in the swinging Roma-jazz style developed by Reinhardt during his tenure with French violinist Stéphane Grappelli in legendary Quintette du Hot Club de France.

The Hot Club Christmas starts on a distinctly hipsterish note with “Cool Yule,” a high-spirited Steve Allen ditty that was a minor hit for Louis Armstrong, performed with a cheerful playfulness fitting to the holidays. The HCSF then throw a real change-up, launching into “Don Rodolfo,” perhaps the most sophisticated version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” you will hear this season, recast in a romantic Latin mold, slyly blended with the “Habañera” from Bizet’s Carmen.

The HCSF also pays homage to some of the enduringly popular Christmas albums that have become jazz classics in their own right. Vince Guaraldi’s “Skating” theme from the truly beloved A Charlie Brown Christmas special sounds surprisingly compatible with the traditional “Carol of the Bells” in the HCSF’s elegant jazz waltz medley. They also Django-ize “Sugar Rum Cherry,” Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s swinging adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies,” with bassist Clint Baker’s muted trumpet echoing the tonal colors of the Ellington band on the fade-out.

While there are a couple vocal tracks, Yule is best when the HCSF cuts loose on instrumental swingers, like the snappy “Djingle Bells” (groan). Indeed, the Hot Clubbers exhibit a madcap sense of humor throughout the set, even burying a brief hidden track, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” at the end of “Auld Lang Syne” (which surely Reinhardt himself must have played at some point, given his reputation for enjoying a good party). While technically it might not be a Christmas tune, solo guitarist Paul “Pazzo” Mehling liberally quotes “O Tannenbaum” before they eventually segue into the aforementioned brief but breakneck rendition of “Wish.”

Displaying a zesty flair throughout the program, the HCSF again prove they are one of the best Hot Club inspired combos on the scene today. Yule is another good jazz stocking stuffer or office “Secret Santa” gift. Unapologetically fun, it is easily accessible to general listeners, yet also steeped in the jazz tradition. Happy Thanksgiving.

A Carla Bley Christmas

2009-11-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

Carla Bley suspects her aspirations for a concert of Christmas music might have cost her at least one gig. Surely, those modernist snobs know by now they made a terrible mistake passing up a program of Christmas carols from the inventive arranger-pianist-bandleader. Indeed, despite her musical adventurousness, Bley has long had an affinity for traditional carols that eventually led to Carla’s Christmas Carols, a distinctive but respectful Christmas-themed release now available on Bley’s WATT label.

Often scrupulously straight, Bley’s charts sound as if they were intentionally written to best serve the time-honored carols themselves. Such is definitely the case with the opening “O Tannenbaum,” in which the jazz voicings are only asserted late in the arrangement. Likewise, the warm, relaxed mood of “The Christmas Song” should equally please fans of both Bley and Nat King Cole (still probably the carol’s greatest popularizer). Given this disciplined approach and the burnished sound of the Partyka Brass Quintet, Bley’s Carols will be an especially accessible jazz Christmas album for non-jazz ears. Yet, Bley’s admirers will still be happy to hear her unique musical sensibility very definitely shapes and colors the character of the session.

For instance, who else but Bley would pen an original for a Christmas program titled “Hell’s Bells.” While it swings like mad, the glorious trumpets of Tobias Weidinger and Axel Schlosser lend it a vibe akin to the especially rousing carols. Always one to surprise, Bley also gives “Jingle Bells” a New Orleans second-line treatment, ending with a bit of glockenspiel and ompah for punctuation.

Of course, Bley also prominently features her longtime partner Steve Swallow, whose decidedly melodic approach to the electric bass largely carries the tune on the simply gorgeous rendition of “O Holy Night.” Though she often dismisses her own playing as “arranger’s piano,” Bley takes several tastefully articulate solos, particularly on the elegant “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Part Two,” (which logically follows the more boppish brass interplay of “Part One”).

Bley’s Carols is a beautiful set of Christmas music that would win the leader a legion of new fans in a more perfect world. Perhaps Bley’s Carols is less likely to top critics’ year-end lists (as have most of her recent releases) because of its admittedly seasonal appeal. Yet, it is no less accomplished. In fact, it leads to greater appreciation of her versatility and sensitivity as an arranger and leader. It is highly recommended as a jazz stocking stuffer. (By the way, look for more jazz Christmas CD reviews here over Black Friday weekend.)

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

2009-11-24T03:30:00.000-08:00

It was a most unlikely Oprah book. An eventual winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road surely had the literary credentials, but lacked the predictable victimization themes favored by the talk show host. Even more improbably, McCarthy’s novel used elements of science fiction, namely the post-apocalyptic setting, to tell its stark tale. If not typical Oprah Book Club fare, there is definitely a tradition of near-future wasteland genre epics that now continues with John Hillcoat’s big-screen adaption of The Road (trailer here), which finally opens in New York tomorrow.

While there was reportedly the proverbial flash of light, the world essentially ended with a whimper, not a bang. Nobody really knows what happens, and it hardly matters now. The Sun has been obscured by a permanent grey haze, killing most vegetation. Infrastructure has been decimated and food is increasingly scarce. Many survivors have resorted to cannibalism to survive. In this unforgiving environment, an unnamed man and his young son are traveling to the coast, in search of a better life.

Not willing to endure mere survival, the boy’s mother surrendered to the winter oblivion, leaving them behind. Alone in the world, the man will protect the boy at all costs, but he is clearly not well. They have precious little food remaining, no medicine, and only two bullets left, either for self-defense or for suicide. Still, the man tries to nourish hope in the boy, despite the constant danger represented by white trash cannibal gangs roving the decimated landscape.

Viggo Mortensen looks convincingly scrawny and sickly as the nameless protagonist. He also has some heartrending scenes with Charlize Theron, appearing in flashbacks as his late wife. Unfortunately, though an apocalypse could certainly be expected to stunt most children’s social development, The Road’s Boy shows zero personality throughout the film. Also, while the great American actor Robert Duvall is quite good as an old man they meet on the road, he is essentially wasted in what amounts to a brief cameo performance.

Unquestionably, the most compelling aspect of The Road is its oppressively grim post-apocalyptic milieu. Hillcoat and production designer Chris Kennedy create a fully realized world where the Sun does not shine, the birds never sing, and man is desperately inhumane to his fellow man. Wisely, screenwriter Joe Penhall keeps the cause of the global catastrophe obscure, infusing the film with an unsettling ambiguity that never taxes the audience’s suspension of disbelief with dubious junk science or politically loaded premises (like global warming, nuclear winter, etc).

The Road’s bleak vision of the Earth’s near-future death rattle is undeniably powerful, lingering in the conscious well after viewing. However, the film’s on-screen action is pretty standard stuff. Ultimately, The Road offers a decent variation on the end-of-the-world morality play, but it not a dramatic triumph destined for Oscar glory. It opens tomorrow (11/25) at the Landmark Sunshine.

Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles

2009-11-23T03:45:00.000-08:00

The inaugural production of Mercury Theatre had to make a suitably bold statement. In what was then a radical departure from tradition (but has since become conventional), Welles recast Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Fascist Europe. Though the Mercury’s production of Caesar: Death of a Dictator was truly groundbreaking, the true star was Brutus, played by company cofounder and artistic director Orson Welles. Though in 1937 the Great Depression continued unabated while Fascism spread across Europe, it was still a heady time for one teenaged actor who witnesses the chaos of Welles’s creative process firsthand in Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles.

British actor Goerge Coulouris had the lead role of Mark Antony. Joseph Cotton had a small part as Publius. Yet the two actors best remembered from Welles’s celebrated Caesar, were of course the director himself, and the young Lucius, who serenaded Brutus in a pivotal late scene. In Linklater’s film, based on the novel by Robert Kaplow, that young actor is a wide-eyed Richard Samuels, who yearns to be part of the New York smart-set. However, working for the tempestuous auteur would be an education in and of itself for the young actor.

Welles can be charming, but he is also a demanding taskmaster. Though married, he has quite the roving eye. Yet his genius compensates for his arrogance—at least up to a point. In some of the film’s most insightful scenes, the brash Welles seems to understand on some level that he is just one failure away from a major karma blowback.

Given the renowned figures associated with the Mercury, Linklater had a number of casting challenges, but none was greater than the larger-than-life Welles. Yet, in choosing the virtually unknown Christian McKay, he found an actor able to approximate Welles’s incomparable presence, without descending into mere impersonation. Discovered while performing in the very off-off-Broadway production Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles, McKay captures the both the cadences and intensity of the Welles so familiar from his classic films.

In another tricky bit of casting, Eddie Marsan’s small but important supporting turn as John Houseman, the great British character actor (by way of Hungary), is absolutely pitch-perfect. His Houseman is an island of modest dignity amid the bedlam loosed by Welles’s destructive genius. While it is an even smaller role, Canadian actor James Tupper is also quite convincing as Joseph Cotton.

In a way, it is rather appropriate that High School Musical’s Zac Efron would have the lead in a film about the capriciousness of show business. In fact, he is relatively likable as young Samuels. Unfortunately, his love triangle rivalry with Welles for the affections of the director’s cold-bloodedly ambitious assistant Sonja Jones forms the weakest link of the film. In truth, Claire Danes’s Jones is decidedly unsympathetic and far less attractive than Samuels’s prospective girlfriend, Gretta Adler, an aspiring writer played by Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of the great director Elia Kazan).

Orson is utterly unlike Linklater’s prior work (including films like School of Rock and Dazed and Confused), but he clearly has a keen understanding of Orson Welles’s place in cinema history. He keeps the action moving along fairly jauntily, while paying knowing homage to Welles’s brilliant but checkered career.

Production designer Laurence Dorman masterfully recreates 1930’s New York and Jools Holland’s arrangements of vintage swing standards nicely evoke the right period vibe. Indeed, that sense of time and place is one of the handsomely assembled Orson’s greatest strengths. Ultimately, it is an effectively realized valentine to 1930’s Broadway and the mercurial talent of Orson Welles. It opens this Wednesday (11/25) in New York and Los Angeles.

Oscar Shortlist: Animated Shorts

2009-11-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

While Best Animated Short is often one of the first Oscars awarded, viewers frequently dismiss it as part of the ceremony’s typically tedious first hour. Yet, it can be tremendously significant for the nominated filmmakers. After all, Shane Acker was able to parlay his Oscar nominated short 9 into a full length theatrical feature. The Academy has just released a shortlist of ten animated shorts, winnowed down from thirty-seven qualifying films. Though the pleasant Partly Cloudy probably has a lock a nomination coming from perennial Oscar favorite Pixar, the rest of the field looks wide open. Two films that made the list deserve special consideration.

Canadian Cordell Barker’s animated Runaway (trailer here) might look light-hearted and whimsical, but at its core, it might be the most gleefully macabre film of the shortlist. Nine minutes of madcap humor, Runaway involves a cow, an out of control train, a little fur ball of a dog, and an engineer’s assistant trying desperately to save the day.

It all hurtles down the track to the propulsive rhythm of Benoit Charest’s soundtrack. Best known for the score of Silvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville, Charest’s music for Runaway has a similar spirit, sounding something like a mutated form of early hot jazz on some serious acid. Charest also brought in many of the same jazz musicians who recorded Triplets, including the drummer Jim Doxas and his saxophonist brother Chet, both of whom have played with the highly regarded Canadian jazz pianist Oliver Jones.

Music also factors prominently in Eddie White and Ari Gibson’s The Cat Piano, but in this feline fable, jazz is seen but not really heard, with Benjamin Speed’s soundtrack effectively evoking a once-upon-a-time vibe. Piano is a noir fairy tale, in which an evil force kidnaps the jazz chanteuses, crooners, and street buskers of an exotic city of cats that was once distinguished by its thriving nightlife. Eventually the narrator, a reclusive writer voiced by Bad Seeds frontman Nick Cave, tracks the missing musical cats to the infernal title contraption.

Runaway is an inspired act of lunacy, whereas Piano is stylishly moody. Both would be worthy nominees and even ultimate winners of the Oscar for Best Animated Short. Members of the Academy’s animation division will be screening the shortlist films in January, and the final nominations will be announced on February 2nd.

Russian Film Week ’09: The Black Spot

2009-11-21T07:01:00.000-08:00

As a former Soviet client state, the Somali people have again looked to Russia for economic assistance rebuilding their troubled country. Unfortunately, there is no functional governing body to keep the peace and administer any aid that could be offered. Essentially, Somalia exists in a state of anarchy, which allows terrorism and piracy to flourish unchecked. Indeed, the two are closely related, as Vladimir Sinelnikov reveals in his documentary investigation The Black Spot, directed by Vadim Ostrovsky, which screened last night as part of the ninth annual Russian Film Week in New York.

The issue of Somali piracy is not merely academic for Russia. The Ukrainian owner Merchant Vessel Faina had a Russian captain and first officer when it was hijacked off the coast of Kenya. Ultimately, the crew was ransomed, but not before the reportedly stress-induced death of the captain, Vladimir Kolobkov.

Obviously, piracy, kidnapping, and in some cases murder, violate every conceivable concept of international law, imperiling merchant seamen around the world. However, Sinelnikov makes a compelling argument such piracy represents a graver global menace. He points to Somalia’s strategic location with respect to the Gulf of Aden and the international shipping routes for oil. Sinelnikov suggests it may well only be a matter of time before pirates try to choke off the world’s oil supply or threaten the region with an environmentally catastrophic oil spill.

Of course, the biggest question is where does the ransom money go? As Sinelnikov makes clear, the pirates themselves live desperately mean existences. Connecting the dots, he follows the money to shadowy representatives of Somalia’s tribal leaders and Islamist terrorist groups, including perhaps Al-Qaeda. In fact, Sinelnikov and his crew were very much in harm’s way while filming in Somalia, at one time witnessing a shootout between their security escorts and a contingent of bandit-terrorists. However, the film’s post-script about the hijacking of the MV Arctic Sea (presumably somewhere in the Baltic Sea) opens a host of additional speculations that somewhat cloud Spot’s overall contentions.

Though originally produced for Russian television, Sinelnikov is hardly optimistic about the film’s chances to actually airing there in its present form. That is unfortunate, because Spot is quite provocative, presenting some eye-opening information and making some genuinely frightening connections. While Spot has more of the look of an in-depth news magazine special than a feature film, it is a very interesting journalistic endeavor. It nicely compliments the dramatic features of this year’s Russian Film Week, which concludes Sunday with a full day of screenings, including Pete on His Way to Heaven and Gift to Stalin.