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Review: Get Low

Jonathan Poritsky — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:46:18 +0000

Shortly after I saw Aaron Schneider’s 1930s period piece Get Low at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, I coyly tweeted the following summation of the film: Boo Radley speaks. That character was the first role Robert Duvall ever had in Robert Mulligan’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. In the years since, he has enjoyed an illustrious career at the crest of nearly every creative wave that has swept over tinsel town. In Mr. Schneider’s film he plays Felix Bush, a Tennesse recluse as enigmatic as Harper Lee’s Radley looking to reintegrate with the town surrounding him before his last days. The trouble is, the more I play the film over in my head, the more I understand why Boo Radley is allowed only a single line of dialogue instead of his own book: the allure behind society’s outliers is in the mystery surrounding their status, rarely in the unfurling of that tale.

At the film’s outset, we come to recognize Felix as the village kook; a beardy old man who gets his kicks scaring the hell out of kids and adults alike. Duvall wears curmudgeon well, snarling glassy eyed at all he meets. The beard is a mask, a source of power for him. Denied redemption from a holy man, Felix heads to the next best thing: a money hungry funeral director, Frank Quinn, played by Bill Murray, who doffs his signature deadpan smirk. Bush and Quinn hatch a plan to have the whole town come out to celebrate Felix’s funeral, only while he is still alive. Unorthodox, yes, but Felix is essentially sitting on piles of cash which Frank can’t wait to get his hands on. And so the game is on.

First order of business, unfortunately, is to lose Felix’s beard. Now, Duvall is Duvall with or without a great big beard, but everything seems to change for some reason once it goes away. It is much easier to understand Felix, to relate to him, once he looks like everybody else, which frustrates me. His aged, bare face warrants empathy immediately, which is just too easy. There is no real obstacle for the townspeople; why not go to the living funeral of the weak-looking rich old man?

Sissy Spacek plays Mattie Darrow, one of the only people in the town who smiles when she sees Felix. She is also one of the only people who knows the truth about his past, about the events that turned him into a recluse. The role comes with a lot of baggage, but Ms. Spacek is up to the task. Her and Mr. Duvall put on a wonderful show, including a lovely candlelit scene. In both their cases, and even moreso for Bill Murray, the trick to their performances is in their eyes. The toughest way to transcend stardom and enter a new character is to get your eyes to do the talking as someone else. The leads here are all incredible talents who deliver to-rate performance, which more likely than not will earn at least a few nomination come awards season.

In the end, however, Get Low is a story about a story, and not such an involved one at that. The whole film, we are promised a payoff at the end, as the whole town is. What makes Felix Bush tick? It is hinted at throughout, but never in a meaningful way. Instead Mr. Schneider and writer Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell save the whole of his tale for the hurried ending, which does not quite live up to the anticipation. It is billed as a reveal, only nothing is revealed at that point that we didn’t already know, except of course the intentionally held back facts.

It seems out of place for a film as emotionally driven as this one to rely on simple facts, the simple narrative of Felix Bush, as harshly as it does. It is a confusing mix to be sure, and one that will please some and frustrate others. The leads pull this film through right up to the bitter end, but even the high points can’t fix the jumbled narrative

Review: By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume Two

Jonathan Poritsky — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:47:06 +0000

“What’s the experiment?” is a simple question I find myself asking constantly when I see experimental cinema. The moniker “experimental” has become tainted, misused, destroyed as of late. Most festivals around the world now feature a section for experimental films, usually shorts, but their definition is cloudy at best, and when it comes down to it, they are generally populated with films that simply won’t fit anywhere else. Which is why we have a responsibility to constantly, vigorously demand an answer to the simple question: “What’s the experiment?” With the films of Stan Brakhage, you never have to ask, but that doesn’t mean the answer is any clearer.

After a modicum of success with the comprehensive, albeit disjointed, two disc set of Brakhage’s works in 2003, Criterion is back with a second helping of the avant-garde pioneer’s films with By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume 2. The set is not only a brilliantly curated look at the career of a prolific filmmaker, but it is also a major milestone for the Criterion Collection itself. It is almost inherent in the nature of experimental cinema that it not be released on home video. More often than not, the experiment is finite, contained within a movie house or screening room, a public space or gallery. That is why the first volume of the series was so jarring to viewers: it was a pile of films where the new set is carefully prepared, divided into 90 minute sessions. One of the major barriers to home viewing has been obliterated by the team behind this disc, which includes Brakhage’s wife, Marilyn, as well as film historian Fred Camper.

But what of the films? I have to admit that when I first received the three disc package, containing of 8 hours of material, mostly silent, I was quite worried about how I would make it through any of the films. Luckily, the curators predicted my apprehension, so the set starts off with The Wonder Ring, a beautiful little film that breaks down any such worries. A very early example of Brakhage’s powers, the film follows a simple premise: ride the Second Avenue El in New York City before it is to be demolished. The result is a wonderful collection of precious, cropped moments that would become the hallmark of his career. We all know what it is like to ride a train, but there are aspects of that experience that get lost on us. Those are specifically the areas where Brakhage trains his camera. There are no characters, just an exploration of the train’s space, the interplay of light and dark within its confines. Immediately, I forgot that there was no sound in this film, my brain was too busy processing the dense visual information.

Another standout (I can’t mention them all, though they all beg mentioning) is Scenes from Under Childhood, Section One. This film, the first in a four part series, is perhaps the clearest representation of Brakhage’s visual manifesto. As Scott MacDonald articulated in his A Critical Cinema 4:

“Brakhage theorized that acculturation generally involves the gradual constriction of the freedom of sight we witness in young children so that, as we mature, we come to understand what is socially acceptable to look at and how we should look at what we see. Conversely, this process of acculturation also involves learning what dimensions of the visible we must not look at.”

With Section One, Brakhage makes this theory as cinematically clear as possible. No narrative becomes immediately clear to the viewer as the film unfolds; in fact a narrative undermines the concept of “under childhood”, the time before a child’s visions are trained. As the screen pulses from red to yellow to black and back, the effect plays out as a child opening and closing his eyes, playing with newfound light. Interestingly, Brakhage prepared a soundtrack for the film, which was originally screened as a silent. Criterion has made this film available with or without the sound, though it is so visually dense, the soundtrack only seems to confuse things, perhaps why he decided to keep the film silent. That being said, the soundtrack itself is a wonderful relic.

Later in life, under financial strain, Brakhage started working with hand-painted films. Though his most famous film, Mothlight (in the Volume One set), features only celluloid manipulation by pressing moth wings, leaves and dirt into film, most of the films in his career featured footage shot with a camera, though even then they were so affected by hand that it was only a natural progression to move to painting. There are few things as satisfying as seeing an artist realize a second calling later in life. From: First Hymn to the Night — Novalis is extraordinary film that melds Brakhage’s long tradition of rhythmic silent filmmaking with his attuned painterly hand. For a film with no sound, the best way to describe this one is “musical”. Featuring English excerpts from the poem by Novalis scratched into the film, Brakhage fills the screen with his moving, literally, watercolors. As the piece expands (it is under 3 minutes), you start to “see” the notes that he is trying to hit. I’ll be damned but I was actually singing the words in my head as they appeared on screen.

Even with their growing library and the ever-expanding Eclipse collection, By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume 2 along with its predecessor may just be the most comprehensive retrospective ever released by Criterion. Besides the wide array of films featured here, there are also interviews, lectures and short documentaries by other filmmakers about Brakhage on all three discs. Not only a student of cinema but a teacher, for most of his life he was able to sustain himself and his family by touring as a lecturer. As evidenced in the supplemental materials, he could talk forever about art, poetry, light and their interplay in his work. In a 1990 interview, after admitting he nearly threw up while looking at a Botticelli painting, he proffered “I’m very suspicious of anything but music”. He even explains the lineage of the word “experimental” in one interview, which he claims was initially pejorative until he and his colleagues waved it as a flag.

Which brings me back to the issue of “What is the experiment?” For so many filmmakers, the experiment exists within the form, within the barriers of cinema itself. For Brakhage, his life’s work was ultimately an experiment in vision. Perception is everything, and we may never know what precisely he perceived in our world. But with some 300 films to his name and these wonderful collections as bread crumbs to go by, we are given a great little peek into his world.

Ed. Note: This article originally appeared on the Greencine Central Blog.

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Review: Life During Wartime

Jonathan Poritsky — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:24:16 +0000

A pedophile, a Bar Mitzvah boy and a serial widow are just a few of the colorful characters that populate Todd Solondz’s brilliant dark comedy, Life During Wartime. It is high in the running for the best film I’ve seen this year, and not only because it features a naked Allison Janney (doing the nasty withGodzilla’s Mayor Ebert, no less). With subtle hints of magical realism and the classiest perwinkle suit you’re bound to see this year, Wartime is a small, talky picture that digs into your flesh and refuses to let go.

The ensemble film centers on the experience of Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), a 12-year old looking forward to becoming the man of the house at the age of thirteen. His mother, Trish (Allison Janney), is desperately seeking Jewish companionship, which she finds in Harvey (Michael Lerner). Trish’s sister, Joy (Shirley Henderson) is in for an extended visit after her ex-con boyfriend (Michael K. Williams) reverts to making pervy crank calls. Meanwhile, Timmy’s presumed-dead father (Ciarán Hinds) has just been released from prison, and is on a mission to be as much of a creep as possible all over town. There’s more, much more actually, but this is a character driven film, so there is no great way to describe the plot, a fact which works only to Wartime’s advantage.

Solondz’s sick humor reminds me of the films of the Joel and Ethan Coen, specifically Fargo. If that film is a dark comedy, then Wartime is black as night. In the former, the laughs are physical, gruesome; we laugh because we are discomfited by watching bumbling killers, the absurdity of seeing a human foot shoved desperately into a wood chipper. With Solondz, the laughs come from an even darker place. Without any disfigurement or brutality, he is able to access a place inside each of us that can laugh at peophilia, giggle at suicide and take Paul Rubens seriously. Frightening stuff.

And while we’re on the subject of the Coens, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the perceived overlap between this film and A Serious Man. Both are about the tumultuous time leading up to a Bar Mitzvah, both spend a great deal of time focusing on a single philosophical sticking point (“forgive and forget” replaces “Schrödinger’s Cat”), and both end well before you want them to. Also, both feature Michael Lerner. What do the similarities mean? Well, sometimes, as viewers, we just get lucky–in this case, three preeminent Jewish filmmakers working out similar demons upon similar canvases.

In one of Wartime’s many revealing scenes, Trish and Harvey discuss their possible future on their first date. Clutching the Chai around her neck, Trish asks “Have you ever been to Israel?” “No,” and with a wonderfully subtle I-want-to-get-laid-tonight glint in his eyes, Harvey fires back, “But I want to be buried there.” This comment gets Trish “Wet…” (awkward beat) “all over.”

The fact that we don’t know whether Harvey is a huckster or a true believer is the kind of ambiguity that makes Life During Wartime such a rich film. Every word must be digested and interpreted; no moment is wasted. So much is revealed about each character with every inch of every frame, yet the weight of the material never brings you down.

Ed. Note: This review originally appeared on Heeb Magazine.

Review: Dogtooth

Sunrise Tippeconnie — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:51:47 +0000

One of the greatest aesthetic strengths of Dogtooth’s execution is perhaps its implicit nature, one that intentionally confuses and overwhelms to illustrate the horrific outcomes of a concerned parental nature. Director Giorgos Lanthimos gives little exposition to grasp, expecting an attentive audience to catch the complex designs of the world created by the Greek parents of secluded children, but also to ignite an empathetic confusion that these children would experience if allowed to view the world beyond their parent’s design. The film’s approach towards audience engagement is unconventional, yet brilliantly metaphoric (hence it’s Un Certain Regard award), yet Dogtooth is also quite traditional in its coming-of-age themes and agenda, all appropriate combinations for a world cinema classic.

The film starts with some initially innocent moments, in which three siblings listen to a homemade instructional audio tape that illustrates definitions for words, but adventurous words like “sea” and “excursion” are given other meanings, “sea” is a word that describes a leather chair, while “excursion” is a “resistant material used to construct floors.” The children are simultaneously introduced, as they listen to these definitions, confused and distracted by other ideas that seem to form revolving about competitive games of endurance (the youngest sibling suggests a game in which they all place their hands beneath hot water to see whom can remain the longest).

While this moment that introduces parent-imposed rules, and the children resolution of mis-direction, is surreal it is where our attention is focused that suggests the real misfortune. Instead of giving attention to performance, or character, the audience is immediately struggling to comprehend the meaning behind these false connections. This initial audience-subject (non)interaction suggests a larger inhumanity beyond simply re-designed definitions and the games, we are made to ignore the real emotions of fear and painful confusion to focus on semantics and structural codes. These thought processes mirror the initial reactions to any real-world situations of a similar nature, and our identification with these emotional problems comes too late for any safe resolutions.

While these false-definitions and games suggest a specific critical analysis of Greece’s educational system, it also begins a larger analysis of the international fear of external forces overtaking traditional/domestic values. The father of this family is declared as the only one able to safely leave the house grounds, and fears are instilled of any other external interactions. In one instance a cat, found in their yard, is fearfully and violently attacked. This shocking moment reinforces the point of unnecessary cruelty and further argues against false tales that border on the propagandistic. These fears and anxieties are not just Greek, but can be found as part of any country’s international stance on “terrorism,” or even against another country’s oppositional political agenda. The threat against any one country’s homogenized ideas is ultimately not that of external forces, but those oppressed within these arbitrary confines.

What further reinforces the allegory of political structures of fear and power, the parents are powerful enough to instill hopes and dreams of connection with the impossible: every time a plane flies overhead, the children express their desires to catch it when it falls. This impossible dream reinforces parental control, as they know these children will never be able to achieve this dream and there is no danger of their desires leaving the safety of their control. To appease them, the mother tosses a small toy plane into the back yard, as the children race excitedly to connect with the one approved interaction with the world beyond their own. But, the mother can only quench these desires for so long, as dreams tend to expand into greater and more emotionally complex needs. The hope and strength of these dreams find their way into the head of the eldest daughter, who finds ways to subvert these house rules to expand her continued desire to know more. Her attempts turn heroic, as she continually surprises in her ingenuity to finds ways to interact with outside world. The moment of true audience comfort and identification comes when she gains access to smuggled VHS tapes of Avildsen’s Rocky and Spielberg’s Jaws, which not only open up positive emotions of humor and inspiration, but also a multitude of Pandoric doors that lead to both hope and suppression.

Instead of a healthy relationship between family members and appropriate development into adulthood, these imposed restraints begin to breed illiteracy, unemployable life skills, unrealistic dreams, jealousy and animosity. When the father chastises a young woman for introducing his daughter to Rocky and Jaws, he reacts violently upon her and curses her “I hope your kids have bad influences and develop a bad personality.” This is perhaps a direct attack not only on American culture, but upon the hypocritical stance taken by any country against opposing forms of ideology.

In the end, the father becomes the nightmare his rules are meant to prevent, and questioning the hypocrisy of such ridiculously deluded solutions of seclusion are what seems successfully revealed in Dogtooth. It is this young woman’s struggle to overcome these rules that Lanthimos masterfully defines as a universal metaphor for a younger generation’s attempts to define their own ways of functioning in a world rife in confusion, pain, and ultimately ambiguous achievement.

Review: Cyrus

Jonathan Poritsky — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:07:23 +0000

The following review was originally written for Heeb Magazine during SXSW 2010. Reposting here for the film’s limited release.

If you’re not familiar with Sundance regulars Jay and Mark Duplass, you will be once Cyrus drops later this year. After multiple shorts, these indie golden boys (two of the originators of the“mumblecore” genre) grabbed real star power for their first studio feature, with John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei as an uncomfortably Oedipal love triangle. If the crowds at SXSW are any indication – and they are, check your old Oscar ballots – Cyrus will end up a huge romantic comedy hit, which will be amazing since so much of the movie is so damn creepy.

Puffy, sweaty and out of shape mess Reilly has, surprisingly, been creeping toward leading-man territory for years, but Cyrus is the first film he’s carrying on his own. Playing John, a divorced film editor whose only friend is his soon-to-be-remarried ex-wife, his rubbery face and incredible comedic timing squeeze laughs out of extreme humiliation. Things start looking up for the pathetic schlub when Tomei, a too-gorgeous-to-be-with-a-loser-like-that leading lady, enters, but there’s one problem: her twenty-one year old son, Cyrus. Hill is cast, almost too perfectly, as a mewling, possessive man-baby, and the step-father/son tensions provide more laughs than anyone should expect from mainstream stars, but that’s what you get when the second fiddles – the guys who made it on talent rather than looks – get a chance to play lead.

There are heartfelt scenes, sure, but that’s not really this film’s charm. If anything, these moments of realization are the weakest points. It’s the awkward bits that kill, e.g., the look on Reilly’s face as son Cyrus casually walks into the bathroom while his mother is showering. (I call it the “Is this really happening?” expression.) Just as David Gordon Green rode The Pineapple Express into the mainstream, Jay and Mark Duplass will cross over with Cyrus. Ed Helms and Jason Segel have already signed on for their next flick. If it’s as funny as this one, all Hollywood’s back-up guys, wacky neighbors and wingmen will soon be begging the Duplasses for a chance to fly solo.

Deadcenter X Review: Mixtape Shorts

Sunrise Tippeconnie — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:38:19 +0000

Ben Lynch and Brad Beesley editor Lousiana Kreutz’s eleven minute The Bicycle Cowboy doesn’t just hark back to the feeling of early 20th century American cinema, but provides for an interesting metaphor about the clash of today’s progressive movement. We’re first introduced to a cowboy riding along an unseen pathway, but only revealed from waist up. Traditional cowboy iconography calls to mind concepts of American honor and duty, yet what the camera reveals is this cowboy rides upon a bicycle. This addendum to traditional cowboy iconography implies activism, energy conservation, and anti-capitalism/globalism. These concepts are usually in constant battle, and what’s so interesting about this imagery, suggests that our concept of mythic history should contend with an updated concept of “the West,” one in which activism is just as dominant a mode of conduct in America as that of any codes of the “western.” As two cowboys fight over the control of bikes for the heart of a young woman what results is a narrative that questions the conventions of aggressive and competitive resolution. The film ends with a “winner,” as both cowboys come to realize the young woman has played them against each other. While the reconfiguration of the American cowboy myth is progressive, what remains a problem is the inactive female, upon whom the blame remains at the end of the film (the implied indecisiveness is quite misogynistic). Perhaps any follow up cycle, as is the nature of American myth/cinema, will address such problems.

In Mr. Hypnotism Brad Beesley’s talent of finding unique individuals is paired with his abilities to conjure honesty in a document of fiendish magician Dr. Ronald Dante. The film has a great array of historical footage and contemporary magic act scenes that reveals less about his day-to-day manipulation skills and more of his clever wit. And while Ronald Dante is an amazingly funny character, what’s most interesting is not his entertaining abilities, but why he’s such great manipulator. The film introduces some notoriety about his star-adjacent nature, or his faux-university scam, but what would take these interesting anecdotes to another level is observing immediate moments where we see how it is Dante manipulates anyone with his charming personality. Hypnotism feels as though it’s a short dedicated to revealing the structure of a lengthier piece, who’s reason for abandonment comes when Dante explicitly acknowledges he was a con man without any mystery. Yet, Dante’s flat out admission implies something working beyond the moments captured, beyond his seemingly open interviews to suggest he’s perhaps manipulated this work to its conclusions so quickly for his own reasons. The film has successfully made me desire more of the story, more of Dante, and more of the film’s revelations about humanity, performance, and perhaps our own masochistic desires to be manipulated.

Salisbury’s capture of the Flaming Lips’s Embyronic album creation methods on HD reveals not only the more sculpted nature of “improv” (through pronounced references to Godard’s Sympathy For the Devil), but defines comfort in exploration. Just as in Sympathy, Blastula: The Making of Embryonic has a dominant image: a camera that searches for a moment – something yet to be defined, a strong allegory to the band’s process. While, in Sympathy, such moments reveal to the audience an ultimate conclusion about the political metaphor of The Rolling Stones’ “Beggar’s Banquet,” Blastula is less clear about any such revelation about the Lips’ album Embryonic. Although this is historically against the nature of The Lips’ representation, the film does defy this marketing strategy in clearly revealing band members’ identities, relationships, and thought processes through expository and conventional talking-head interviews. The strength of this work relies on this juxtaposition, and provides an entry point to what would otherwise be seemingly unrelated dolly shots. The excitement of this film does not necessarily arrive via the nature of wonder and mystery (like it does within the Lips’ feature Christmas On Mars), but more in the moments of understanding when achievement does occur – the real resultant joys of anything improvised are extremely difficult to reveal, and is the real success of this interesting making-of document.

Deadcenter X Review: Okie Shorts

Sunrise Tippeconnie — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:29:12 +0000

While Okie Shorts provided some great works this year (such as the comedy sketch My Own Prometheus about morning coffee and multiple morning identities, or the much talked about faux-documentary Faith Healer, who’s documented protagonists leaving a project reveals less about the film than the metaphor for audience and film-subject relationship), my interest was in two shorts that made analyses of Oklahoma a primary part of their structure.

Jerry Melichar’s Landlocked is a confidently executed piece that follows a Tulsa high-school biology teacher, Martha Hall, who is driven more by her passion of the aquatic than as an educator. The plot, revolving around a resentful student’s false accusation about Hall embezzling class trip funds to a Florida aquatic center, suggests larger political influences. Martha Hall is trapped within a financial context in which there is no support for educational engagement for students (something both regionally and nationally specific), but she is guilty of imposing her desires of escape within this field trip that conflicts with education’s primary selfless purpose. With Hall’s apathetic and violent daydreams, the film also suggests that in these times of educational poverty educators are just as prone to moments of dangerous explosion as any kids with weapons. The subtext of financial struggle urges a resolve over complaints of high taxes and problematic budget allocation that does not result in escapeing the “brain drain” of not just graduates, but educators. While the film’s ending is satisfactory in Hall’s eventual escape, it satirically implicates our sympathy as apathy –perhaps the real reason behind any educational budgetary problem is our own indecision and inaction, resulting in our criminal complicity with Hall at the end of the film.

Patrick George’s Heroin Hymn is described as a poetic tale about the homeless in downtown Oklahoma City, but there is a realism that underlies the physical context of the narrative that is implicitly critical as much as it is emotionally sympathetic. We follow a homeless couple who place their disease of addiction before their own abilities to anticipate safety and needs in a series of scenes that are quite familiar: panicked cravings, begging and scheming for drug satisfaction, prostitution, and emotionally unstable conflicts between addicted partners. While these are situations seen in many drug pictures, it’s the talents of Kevin Pollard and Andrea Moser that allow these moments to take on an immediate presence and emotional weight. The locations of the work also present a keen eye towards describing an Oklahoma City landscape that is often relegated to more exploitive genre works rather than the more quiet and contemplative exploration of the hidden imagery of the city. These sections of the city are “projects” for commercial update, and George is able to describe the flip side of such development, that of both dependence and dismissal. These characters are caught between those incoming classes that begin to enable their habits through sexual or drug transactions, and the refusal to empower or support them through any assistance supplied by organizations in these areas. The world drafted in Hymn depicts no supportive activities, and suggests these necessary needs of transition from overlooked landscape to a ‘revised’ neighborhood can result in the symptoms of these characters: isolation, dependence, and ultimately death. The last place to which these characters can turn are the hidden apartment rooms where deals go bad, and lost dreams never find their redemption. Although the humanistic execution of Hymn implies these thoughts, the work could be expanded upon to balance out the argument, and potentially deepen the power of the piece, through more explicit scenes that addresses the daily ramifications of gentrification, commercial redistricting, drug market and the limitations of local organization support.

Candlercast #17: Talking Joan Rivers with Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg

Jonathan Poritsky — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 11:43:55 +0000

A few weeks ago, I headed over to a hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to sit down with directors Ricki Stern and Anne Sundebrg (who prefers to be called Annie). No doubt the setting was picked to appease the eponymous subject of their new documentary, Joan Rivers — A Piece of Work, who actually lives a few blocks from where we met. The day started with a roundtable with Ms. Rivers, who unleashed her token scathing wit. Bits of that session, and the one you are about to hear, were for a piece I wrote for Heeb Magazine. The real story of any documentary, however, comes not from the subject but from the filmmakers themselves, which is why I was delighted to talk to Ricki and Annie about their latest project.

The film is a solid study of an extraordinary woman, and it avoids the pitfalls an trappings many similar documentaries fall victim too. There are limited talking heads and archival footage is used in a very organic manner; it is neither reality show nor biography, but something more. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the Ms. Stern and Ms. Sunberg’s previous works deal in much weightier material, such as Darfur. As they explain, they are simply after a good story and Joan provided one for them. They simply wanted to capture something compelling. Listen in for some fascinating insight from these excellent filmmakers.

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Deadcenter X Review: Kids Fest Shorts

Sunrise Tippeconnie — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:23:28 +0000

A series of great shorts that redefine the manner in which “kids work’ is compared with “professional,” one in which “kid/student” is simply an age level rather than a definition of cinematic ability of expression or articulation.

Amy Bench’s work In this Place at first glance suggest a rudimentary application of graphic compositing, as a young woman shifts through background layouts of bright and exotic locations. We come to learn that Jane, a young explorer, is simply finding the means of escape from the low contrast, and more realistically photographed, 35mm footage with her mind’s eye of exploration in bright HD imagery. While this juxtaposition in itself holds a fascinating approach towards these two mediums and their relationship with young filmmakers, it also provides a justification for these compositing techniques that imply this artifice is of the love and excitement of imagination. Jane’s boring conversations with her condescending older brothers further perpetuates her desires for escapism, but when she attempts to develop her imaginary travels through video distribution, the distributor tells her the material is unrealistic and overly amateurish. Jane focuses her skills as a dreamer and video-maker to delight and reconnect her family through a love video made specifically for them, as she brings them into the emotionally bright HD footage away from the oppressive and dreary 35mm realism, bridging the gap between the optimistic visions of youth and falsely-imposed definitions of cinematic quality.

Temple Tucker’s The Ribbon captures the delicate balance of young imagination’s existence through thoughtful cinematic composition that relies on tasteful and tactile imagery as well as contemplative moments of what would otherwise be an overly internalized world. The young girl, who almost waits for the departure of her mother to explore the situations in her mind, beckons for a spark of inspiration that can take her beyond the confines of her quotidian day-dreams. A fascinating moment finds the young girl performing shadow puppetry of sword-yielding maidens fighting dinosaurs that ends in a burning at the stake. Though these moments suggest dark undertones of self-deprecation and social ostracization, they are important contrasts of imagination to the beloved pink ribbon that takes her to playgrounds of packed excitement and possibilities. The complicated depiction of a child’s fears meshed with their dreams are the result of amazing observation of a child’s wonder.

Three great and fascinating shorts by young filmmaker Bunee Tomlinson suggest he is quickly becoming one of Oklahoma’s most prolific and talented young filmmakers to watch, two of which are not to miss:

His first film, Mom’s Favorite Vase is a unique coming-of-age buddy comedy of two young preteens whom break a vase while mom is busy in another room. They spend their day piecing together this vase in hopes of mom overlooking its ruined stature, only to come to futility. The smartest choices about this film are it’s clear character building between the audience and these young boys, whom surprise you with every moment of the expression of frustrations beyond their years, which further removes them from the day’s playtime to complete this project in hiding.

Without a Doubt, Tomlinson’s next short follows a decision of love-choice between two suitors: a teenage pen-pal, or current teenage boyfriend. The film is funny because of its balance of awkward teenage love and a real emotional underpinning of excited new connections, but it is also amazingly able to maintain a charm and innocence in every gesture and call for “love” by the washout pen pal, who’s performance leaves no doubt he firmly believes in romantic clichés despite the failures of it’s affect.

Deadcenter X Review: Comedy Shorts

Sunrise Tippeconnie — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:42:52 +0000

While these shorts provide for some great laughs, it’s the smart choices from intelligent directors that make these funny moments meaningful and memorable beyond their short duration.

Starting off the comedy block is commercial director Jeremy Berger’s The Van, which is able to provide some laughter due to it’s confident style and juxtaposition of Herman Melville’s poetics with a more crass modern humor. Although the image of a blow-up sex toy is paired with Moby Dick’s narrator description of his unhindered history of exploits plays on the social comedy of manners, the film unfortunately hit’s it’s peak. The chase between a biker messenger and the “white van” that assaults bikers is reliant upon technical proficiency rather than motivated by the psychological or emotional complexity of Melville. Perhaps what is lacking is the reason behind the pairing of the text of Moby Dick within the world of the bike-messenger that would really take the work into more complicated jokes, and perhaps become a more biting satire of contemporary eco-business warfare.

Remington Dewan’s The Lemonade Stand, on the other hand, is able to clearly design the metaphor of young business within a young teenager’s first neighborhood lemonade stand. What makes Dewan’s film stronger is a protagonist whose motivations are clear: pseudo-hip business lingo and the addictive game of profit margins is what excites the young entrepreneur, so much she’s invited her friend to join her in this excitement. The Lemonade Stand is thus able to clearly lay out the conflict strongly present in contemporary comedies like NBC’s The Office, where the successful business is in conflict with simple humanity. In the end, the young protagonist confronts the limits of business, and stands up for her friend when a competing water stand dismisses the emotions of her friend. Humanity overcomes the shrewd coming of age business story.

Wasting Daylight, the mockumentary of social activists against Daylight Savings Time is conceptually funny and provides not only the strongest contender of character humor, but also the strongest performances of the comedy block. The strength of the short is it’s ability to quickly hone characters beyond the talking heads format and convey a strong and clear sense of character and personality, allowing for very successful humor to naturally spring from clashes of personality types rather than situations or visual gags. While this short has the strongest character direction, it lingers the longest. The concept of these personality conflicts is clear, but more reliance upon the audience to catch on to each character’s personal agenda could be given, especially due to the strength of Joe Parker’s choices going into the shooting and his confident handling of back story with the performers.

Although Oklahoman Terry Holloway’s The Robbery is quick and sweet, it does take a moment to realize when and what the joke is, but this is what makes the film’s humor so inventive and funny! With visual homages to the indie filmmaking of the nineties, this short sketch delivers a situation so succinctly through carefully crafted physical gags and jokes, because of its short duration it’s easy to dismiss the maturity of these decisions. The cues and pace of the film direct my attention so clearly, I am not only able to understand and empathize with a character that is so quickly introduced, but I’m also able to anticipate the character’s actions in such limited amounts of time that the moment the actions occur it’s as if I’ve willed the character to do my bidding –and thus my participation in the joke makes for the unique and clever comedy that reminds me of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.

The sweetest comedy, also playing in the Animation block of shorts, is The Terrible Thing of Alpha 9! from Ugly Americans/Superjail animator Jake Armstrong. While the animation’s design is hip and beautiful, it’s the implicit commentary against “invade and conquer” that allows for a surprising subtly in emotion when an alien monster with a reputation of evil turns out to be as loving and loyal as a puppy. While the moment of the alien headhunter’s violent death treads distasteful waters (its execution could be seen as playing up the violence for drama and joke), it is the alien monster’s despair at the loss of this life that lifts this cartoon violence into bittersweet pity.