29 Febraury 2008
The Bank Job
Woodgreen Cineworld
1970s London. Based loosely on the Walkie-Talkie bank job. I liked it. I always like watching London in films. Not a great film though.
7:29 pm
Mid-February
Cloverfield
Woodgreen Showcase
There's a party, its being videoed by one of the guests. Everybody is really annoying in that cloying we're-painfully-trendy kind of way. Part way through a huge explosion happens and everyone runs out into the street. It looks like when the twin towers were about to come down - smoke and dust everywhere. Everyone is running and screaming. It isn't clear what from or which direction. People start looting. The video keeps going. It is jerky and not always in focus. Buildings collapse, dust falls, people run around. The army comes in and starts evacuation. Everybody is on the bridge trying to get to Brooklyn. Something breaks the cables to the bridge. People fall in the water and scream. Eventually we get a glimpse of what it is that's causing so much devastation. Some kind of creature. Fleeting between the buildings. Shooting. The people we are following are running, they hide, they try to find a way out - choose to go into the underground. Walk along the subway. In the dark they are attacked by viscous little creatures. ONe of them gets bitten. They come up into another station - through some kind of mall. The army has a base there - lots of people are being treated. On seeing the group - they drag one of them off shouting bite bite - when they get her into a special area she explodes.
Anyway, whatever. I thought there was tension, couldn't figure out what exactly was going on for ages - no clear view. Technique of using the panicked view through the video made it like I imagine that kind of situation would be like - chaotic bascially. In the end nobody survived from the group. Bit like Blair Witch Project. Boyfriend didn't like it.
7:14 pm
Early February 2008
Juno
Woodgreen Showcase
I had no idea what this film was going to be about. It had a great sound track, kooky star. Story is about a girl who is 16 that gets pregnant. Her parents are ultra understanding. She isn't able to get a termination. So she decides to find a couple to adopt her baby. Its quiet. About relationships between people. A slight film but funny, sad and heart warming. I liked it. Laughed.
7:09 pm
Saturday 12 January 2008
Anthony McCall
Serpentine Gallery
Light seems solid - drawn out of the dark with smoke that runs across its surfaces like oil on water. The viewers want to stand in it, touch it, waft through it, block it with their shadows. Eventually I find a position standing back against the wall where I can watch them - heads bobbing up through a surface like someone swimming under water and popping up occassionally, or fingers without bodies - while the light moves across me as the beam expands, moves or undulates like waves before they break. Marvellous. Would really like a look without anyone there.
9:33 pm
Friday 11 January
Elizabeth the Golden Years
Apollo
I like Cate Blanchet. She has an other-worldliness that lets her sink into a role making her celebrity invisible. Quietly acting. I liked her first Elizabeth. And I liked this one. There was a sudden moment in the film when I felt incredibly sorry for her - as a queen, perceived higher than those around her, she is starved of human touch.
This film evokes the excitement of discovery of other worlds within our world, in an age which introduced the potato to England, of wars with our neighbours fought by men face to face rather than through computer game technologies, of barbaric treatment of enemies and criminals, poverty against wealth. And the loneliness of a monarch. Particularly a female monarch in a patriarchal society.
9:00 pm
1 Jaunuary 2008
In the Course of Time (AKA Kings of the Road)
National Film Theatre
SH called me to ask me to go to see her favourite Wim Wenders film at the NFT. She sold it by telling me it was 3 hours long and nothing happens, apart from this one character having a shit (this obviously made a massive impression in such a dull movie). I wasn't doing anything so I thought I'd go along.
It was much better than I was thinking it was going to be from her description. Very 70s, shot in black and white. A blond man with a moustache is driving a big old truck round Germany town to town to fix cinema projectors. Lots of detail - he makes a coffee, starts to shave, changes his clothes. He's alone and perhaps overly comfortable with his own company. It was about his relationship with another man who he hooked up with after seeing him drive his beetle into a lake. Slowly, over time they started to talk to one another, trust each other, overcome the fact they were strangers. They had a good time together in a quiet way.
All the cinemas were either closing down or showing porn films - state of cinema, European cinema at the time. I don't remember it but my parents talk of there being 3 cinemas in walking distance of our flat when I was small - all but one of which have since shut down - people seemed to stop going to the movies for a while (perhaps it was TV, perhaps the recession - SH also said that the American film industry contributed heavily to the downfall of European cinema). We've gone back to the movies now - Wood Green can support 2 10 screen cinemas these days. The film was felt very provincial, backward even, only the men who were the main characters seemed modern, the houses, shops, petrol stations, etc all seemed like hangovers from the 50s - a place that wasn't keeping pace with modernisation.
12:04 am
Its been a long long time since I posted here. Its not that I haven't done anything or seen anything its just I got lazy about writing. Its a new year, I'm turning over a new leaf.
11:59 pm
Monday 19 March 2007
The Rose Tattoo
National Theatre
Tennessee Williams play about a woman whose husband dies, her descent into grief and her rediscovery of life. Language and humour. Zoe Wannamaker was excellent in the lead, Susanna Fielding playing her daughter wasn't quite so convincing (a confusion of accents). A play about love, passionate love. The burning desires of it when young and when older.
12:08 am
Saturday 17 March 2007
Premonition
Woodgreen Showcase
I quite like Sandra Bullock. Don't really know what to say about this film. It wasn't exactly nice. Quite disturbing in many ways, twists and turns, some shocks. And then in the end it turned out alright, her husband still died but she didn't end up in an asylum.
12:03 am
24 February 2007
Ship of Fools
Theatre 503
Invited to do a review of the Ship of Fools playing at the Theatre 503 in the Latchmere Pub in Battersea. I've never been there before.
Info said:
Two journeys, two sets of travellers, five hundred years apart.
1492.Basel. In a flash of inspiration the town council summons the city’s ‘fools’. Outcasts, handicapped, homosexuals and subversives are herded onto a ship with neither sail nor oar and floated down the Rhine into permanent exile.
2007. Britain. In a populist initiative, the government selects a group of long-term unemployed, bundles them onto a bus and drives them deep into the unknown to work for their dole.
Theatre was compact but a good space to see an intimate work. Feel very much in the work. Sweat and spittle of the actors. Every facial expression.
The stories from both centuries were intermingled to draw attention to the similarities of the way we treat the 'outcasts' of society. The transition of actors through time and cross roles was clear.
My main problem was with the message of the play. I wasn't clear what it was trying to say exactly. I thought initially that the town which set their degenerates off to sail unaided, without navigational tools, would be punished by the emissary sent by the pope to find out who was responsible for treating people with such disdain. By the end of the holy man was thoroughly discredited as a suppressed homosexual and the ship of fools found had worked their way through the full storming, forming, norming and performing team building stages - from total debauchery, anarchy, pillaging the church and towns for survival, to form a society that ran by its own rules on its own terms.
Were we supposed to believe that its ok to segregate our outcasts because they will find their own way of surviving apart from us and that prejudice doesn't really need to be faced head on.
Good acting, great venue. Confusing writing.
But don't take my word as gospel. Other reviews:
Rashbre central
Christina Nott
Blogging Critics
6:05 pm
February 2007
Last King of Scotland
Cineworld Haymarket
Nicholas Garrigan seems naive and rather young to catch the attention of Idi Amin in quite the way it appears he did. Forrest Whitaker is outstanding as Idi - a strange mix of charm that wins you over and terrible temper with horrific outcome. Brief as it is on screen I can't get the vision of his tortured wife out my head. Taken from the doctor's point of view, the film skirted over much of the horror of what was actually going on in Uganda, clouded by his haze first of excitement, partying and finally fear.
9:36 pm
February 2007
Notes on a Scandal
Cineworld Haymarket
Its been an age since I wrote anything here but thats through laziness rather than not having seen anything. Sadly those things are past and I've missed them...
Good film. Left with a feeling that both parties weren't completely blameless. While Judi Dench's character was obviously a not-nice-person preying as she did on the vulnerability of others, Cate Blanchet's character provided the amunition by having an affair with a boy who she was teaching.
Serious difference in lifestyles of the two main characters - the bustle and vibrance of Cate Blanchet's family life in a huge house compared with the drab basement flat that Judi Dench lived in and her life with nothing in it but work. Unable to form appropriate relationships with others having spent far too long without meaningful personal relationships.
I like films with London in them - thsi was familiar territory - Archway Road, Suicide Bridge, Hampstead Heath, Highgate. But filmed in decidedly grey weather. Must have been January (aside: thank god January is over, it was really getting me down).
9:23 pm
8 September 2006
How to Improve the World - 60 years of British art
Hayward Gallery
Not new work exactly but many firm favourites. Nice to see them again. Gallery was empty - 7.30pm on a Friday night. Great time to visit.
Eclectic mix of artists:
Anish Kapour's Hole - slightly vaginal chromed steel for you to stare into and wonder at its depth going beyond the wall, reflecting you back fatly round its edges.
Patrick Caulfield's paintings - 3 flat colours and some black outlines managing to depict great depth and atmostphere.
Roger Hiorns, 2004 Nunhead - comprising 2 truly beautiful engines coated in copper sulphate crystals. Memories flood back of forgotten chemistry sets where you grew a copper sulphate crystal on the end of a string in a test tube. Blue and glistening. Seductive. Detailed. Like something from the bottom of the sea.
Gillian Ayres' 1963 Lure - patches of colour bleed out into the canvas like fractals. Sometimes blurred. Layers on layers. One colour seeps into and mixes with another, or splatters somehow onto another without mixing. Almost unnoticeable overpainting where the colour has seeped too far through the canvas threads.
Richard Wentworth's Toy 1983 - a galvanised steel bath containing a flat of steel water. Sunken into the 'water' surface an opened sardine tin with its lid unfurled. The tin mimicks the shape of the bath and contrasts with its colour. A vessel. Within a vessel. Like a ship on the sea.
David Hockney's We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961) - before the Californian realism, a sort of figurative abstraction, with words. More emotive.
Balraj Khanna 1984 Coming from Rajastan - beautiful layers of colour as if blown. Linear journey which seems to include birds and fish and flowers, buildings and people even though its really abstract form.
Kenneth Armitage, 1957 Figure laying on its side (no.5) - funny for some reason.
Michael Craig Martin's History Painting 1995 - a zingy line between red and pink. A pail of water and a green clipboard. Crisp.
Tim Head, State of Art, 1984 - very 80s seeming, glossy photograph of a still life depiction of a city made from dildos, lipsticks and novelty rubbers. The kind my sister used to collect in the 80s (for rubbing out with).
Roger Ackling, Five Hour Cloud Drawing, 1980 - clever, sunlight focussed through a magnifying glass onto carboard working in lines causing a burned brown line. When clouds obscured the sun no burn occurs. It seemed to start very sunny and become more intermittent sun. A remarkably intense brown.
Francis Bacon, Head VI, 1949 - the screaming mouth, eyes obscured, purple velvet. Religous. Horrified. Powerful.
Alison Wilding (one of my personal favourite artists) untitled 1980 - two brown paper bags, made from brass foil with pinked edges folded and glued crumpled in the way brown paper is when handled, lean together light glinting off them onto the wooden floor. They are inside a boundary made of zinc - a sort of 3D line. A line the shape of a puddle.
Ian Breakwell, Phototext piece 1-5, 1992 - from the early 70s IB percieved his work as a form of extended diary, full of amusing and poignant comments on his experiences. Sounds a bit like a description of blogging. Perhaps thats why I don't make art anymore - the creative outpouring is through this medium which doesn't, in my case, lend itself to seriousness.
5:33 pm
1 September 2006
The Flood by David Maine
Based on the story of Noah building the arc. A gripping read. Told through the eyes of the characters. From non-believing to having faith. Funny. Believable.
5:29 pm
29 August 2006
Midsomer Night's Dream
Dundee Rep
Despite it being a well worn play the staging here was simple but good, the stage was raked and split by a body of water that characters kept falling into, dark and brooding woods fitting for a grumpy Titania and proud & jealous Oberon with an elfin Puck. Something of Lord of the Rings about it. Never seen it before but Bottom not only had the head of a donkey but was also hung like one. Kept a good pace. Good job done despite the terrible seating.
5:13 pm
27 August 2006
The Lady in the Water
Woodgreen Showcase
Like all good fairy stories this has horror and joy. The story starts with a fix it man in an appartment block. We meet the characters from the apartment. He lives in a little house by the side of the pool. One evening a woman appears on his sofa after he goes out to find out who is in the pool after hours. Great story. Nicely told. With scary moments and funny. Liked it.
5:07 pm
August 2006
Harsh Times
Tottenham Court Road Odeon
Got to remember not to come to this cinema anymore - its cramped, uncomfortable and noisey from other screens.
This was a story with no redeeming features. The bloke who was American Pschyo was back playing a character with super repressed anger which boiled over into horrific violence. Joined by the actor who was in Six Feet Under - the body prep artist. A couple of losers job hunting in the city, spend their time drinking, smoking weed and getting into trouble. Everyone dies. Well almost. Grim.
5:03 pm
3 June 2006
Fuerzabruta
Roundhouse
Some years ago I went to an awe-inspiring performance called De La Guarda - a mind-boggling display of physical theatre with people dancing in columns of rain, bounding across the theatre attached to bungy chord and running around the walls. The Roundhouse reopened with a production by the same company.
Lights in dry ice, like warm mist. Man walking, speeds up, sprinting, gets shot, stumbles dies. Gets up takes off bloody shirt, starts walking again, then running... He's on a street, all the other people are walking the other way, they keep bumping him, he's knocked from side to side, feel his irritation building up. He crashes through a wall and keeps running. Another wall comes fast towards him, crashes through, explosion of tickertape in a wind, then rain.
Above our heads a woman trapped in a waterbed, outside pressed against her is a man. Sort of sexual, sensual. She's wet and spinning, body pressing down, he's in a suit trying to catch her.
Several people smash up a room. Rythmically rioting.
Man walks along alone, a silvery wall is drawn around the wall. Two women chase each other tumbling, perpendicular to the audience.
Hurded into a smaller space a lid of clear plastic hangs over our heads, a woman spins around in some water, coloured light plays on the ripples, sometimes she's a silhouette, shadow, body print, wet clothes. Sliding, spinning and tabogoning. Four women, riples and splashing. The roof comes down closer and closer, the audience reach up and touch the dancers on the other side.
Amazing imagery, physical, loved it.
Whatsonstage
article about the Roundhouse by Steve Rose in Guardian
2:18 pm
29 May 2006
The Da Vinci Code
Woodgreen Cineworld
Not a bad mystery. Overhyped. Not sure I believe what its trying to say, although I do like the idea that christianity is based on a pack of lies.
8:33 pm
20 May 2006
Mission Impossible 3
Woodgreen Showcase
Everyone else was going to see the Da Vinci Code - the queue was enormous. We went to see this instead. Action paction. nothing else to say. dupdup daaa da dupdup daaa da...
8:36 pm
April 2006
V for Vendetta
Woodgreen Showcase
V for virtually unwatchable. V for vacuous. V for void. Very much so. Why would a girl fall in love with the person who kept her locked up and tortured her? Hard to relate to a mask with only one emotion.
8:38 pm
Friday 17 March 2006
The Tiger Lillies and Alexander Hacke (Einsturzende Neubauten)
Ether Series 2006
Queen Elizabeth Hall
2 people in white jackets and white straw hats come onto a large balck stage and twiddle with synths making musical sound while we watch the tops of their heads, since their faces are down to the deck. Large screen images don't enhance the music or catch the interest. This is music for movement. It feels very odd sitting silently watching when this is a much more kinetic feeling sound. Those making it seem rather disinterested in it and their audience who in all likelihood are here for the Tiger Lillies.
The sound of a cigarette lighter (the stroke and the flame) is similar to a motorbike's roar but on a synthetic level. Other sounds used were mic feedback, white noise and synthetic drips. Sort of decided you needed drugs to really get into this music. After half an hour that was that.
Its hard to watch the Tiger Lillies in a concert hall - their roots in the two-penny street opera and their early days in the Kings Head competing against the hubbub of a crowded bar and an audience who danced their own version of the waltz whilst drinking and screaming felt closer to the filth, debauchery and desperate-slum-ecstacy that the music evokes. Much harder to feel that in the comfort and quiet of the Queen Elizabeth Hall where the stage, lighting and conventions of the concert divide the musicians from the audience and decree that those listening sit still. However, Alexander Hacke's sound effects, horror voiceover and general demeanour worked very well against Martin's falsetto and the sound of the band. So while I miss the riotous early gigs its still a treat to see them.
9:56 pm
16 March 2006
The Proposition
Marble Arch Odeon
A western. Sepia toned, to match the dry Australian desert and the age it was set. Times that seem likely to descend into anarchy at any minute.
Three brothers are hunted by the law. Two are caught, one remains on the loose. A lawman makes a pack with one of them, if he brings the other brother back by Christmas, the one in jail will be released. The Policeman is an Englishman brought in with his wife to ensure order and catch the maurauding brothers.
Some horrific violence. Some portrayal of doting marriage. Moral values, codes of right and wrong. Interesting.
LondonNet Films
Stills from the movie
John Hillcoat (director) in the Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
Phillip French
9:58 pm
2 March 2006
Lucky Number Slevin
Odeon Marble Arch
There's something to be said for a film where 3 deaths occur before the credits have started, those people who came in 5 minutes late had already missed some crucial parts of the film! Big big body count, being as it was about professional assasins and organised gangsters. It looked good, something definitely going on about wallpaper, performances were both quirky, and quick-witted. Lots of misunderstandings about who people were. Twists and turns. Flashbacks for story information. Clues left, some obvious, other not so. Liked the fact that the arch enemies who were heading up rival criminal organisations spoke in monologues more reminiscent of the theatre.
I liked it, was kinda funny but extremely violent. The boyfiend slept through most of it though.
10:37 pm
25 February 2006
Hidden (Caché)
Islington Vue
It opens with the longest single shot I think I have ever watched. In these times of miniscule attention spans it felt very very long, almost wriggling in the seat fidgety long. The credits rolled, or rather were written across the screen. The only sound was of the birds twittering and the distant street noise as if we were indeed watching from an appartment. Beautiful french movie, with the beautiful actors. Dialogue. Some flashbacks, as the story slowly slowly unfolds. Some fear, feeling invaded, spied upon. The fear driving the main character to make some rash inappropriate decisions about who was watching them (they kept getting videos of their house and movements wrapped in drawings of murders). But because it was a very slow moving film, the speed of the suicide was shocking. You didn't grow to like any of the characters especially. On first coming out of the cinema we couldn't quite understand why we went to see the film but in retrospect I think the atmosphere and feelings of discomfort evoked were part of what it was all about. Didn't exactly enjoy it, but I think it was good.
10:27 pm
24 February 2006
Catherine Sullivan: The Chittendens
Tate Modern
In the first room is a film in an oval shape, reminiscent of a view through a telescope. The film is circular and sort of follows a walk around an island, on the walk we see a variety of characters dressed in costumes from a number of different ages, some clues are planted that make sense later. Other times we're not sure what is happening. It feels expectant, like we are waiting for something to happen (perhaps this is a throw back to how we watch movies - knowing that something will indeed happen at some point, and even though this is being presented as art we can't shake that off). It also looks like old maritine movies, and then like frontier movies, and then again there are the men with their paint buckets.
In the second room there are a number of huge screens on which overlapping images are shown, again all sorts of characters are evoked, different eras of film making, different actors in fact. The things that went through my head while watching were: Iggy Pop, wizard of oz witches, 70s horror (Carrie - almost about to throw up the cherry stones), demented 80s air hostesses, slap stick, costume dramas, Annie Get Your Gun, governesses, swarming, Hitchcock, those two old people with their pitchfork, etc. A million film references rolled into a collage.
So cinema is a language that we learn to read, perhaps, is what it is about?
10:16 pm
Transamerica
Palm Springs
Duncan Tucker, director
Felicity Huffman as Bree (short for Sabrina), a pre-operation transsexual, awaiting the final operation to become a woman, gives a most amazing performance. From the minute she walks into view, I believed her to be a man, a man moving toward becoming a woman. I never once thought of her as a female playing a man. In my opinion Huffman well deserves the best-actress Oscar this year. Kevin Zegers as the teen-aged delinquent Toby also puts in a fine performance, to say nothing of the excellent supporting cast throughout.
Do notice Graham Greene, the native Canadian actor who plays Calvin, the sweet, gentle ex-con native American who gives Bree and Toby a much-needed boost on their journey across the United States. You may remember Greene from his Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves in 1990 or his Red Hawk in the TV version of Lonesome Dove, a work from the Larry McMurtry pen.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
12:16 am
February 2006
Capote
Palm Springs
Truman Capote, born Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orleans in 1924, was an amazingly gifted writer, but with a personality difficult to like. In his 1949 collection of short stories, A Tree of Night and other stories is 'Children on their birthdays', which has been called the best 20th-century short story ever written.
The film follows Capote as he researches his faction novel, In Cold Blood. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s amazing portrayal of the wispy-voiced, limp-wristed Capote will most likely win this year’s best-actor Oscar to join his other best-actor awards this season. But for me the joy was watching Catherine Keener (whom you may remember from A Ballad of Jack and Rose or The 40-year-old Virgin) playing Harper Lee with gentleness and kindness.
Lee's only published novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, came out during Capote’s research; Lee has said that the character of 'Dill' was based on Capote as a child.
The depiction in the film of Capote’s fundamental need to be special, while entertaining, is foremost, disturbing. He succeeded in capturing some of the glory of his earlier work, and had he left it there, he would not have died in 1984 cut off from the high society he adored.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
9:57 pm
3 February 2006
Derailed
North Finchley Vue
Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen may not draw you to the box office, and while it wasn't a great movie, it had twists and turns (implausible though they were) enough to keep me occupied. Violent though.
11:13 pm
29 January 2006
The Chronicles of Narnia
Woodgreen Cineworld
Tarred with the irritating child acting of recent Harry Potter films and the latter Star Wars prequels I wasn't keen to see this adaptation of a book I thoroughly enjoyed as a youngster, however, I went, I kept an open mind and I was pleasantly suprised. The child actors were fine. Tilda Swinton was excellent as usual. The computer generated graphics blended in well (recently computer generated graphics have been getting on my nerves - anything can be done therefore nothing is suprising anymore - too much of a good thing). All in all I didn't feel like it had been messed up at all and not a gushy hermione in sight (thank god)!
11:02 pm
29 January 2006
Dan Flavin: A Retrospective
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward has hit and misses with its exhibitions - its a bold space which can swallow the works, however sometimes it is just perfect - loved the Richard Long exhibition they held here some years ago - the mixture of earth and built environment worked very well.
Anyway this modern building with large open spaces was fantastic for this retrospective of a artist who uses fluorescent light as his main material. There were pieces I'd only seen in books before and others new to me. Definite sense of development in his ideas. Some very beautiful things, others that had strange illusional qualities. The longer you looked the stronger the colours seemed to become. Very beautiful.
Adrian Searle, Guardian
Roz Tappenden, 24 hour museum (good pictures)
Andrew Graham Dixon, Telegraph
10:45 pm
February 2006
ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Palm Springs
This film is a documentary showing how these ‘great guys’, as put by Dubya Bush, stole, cheated, and lined their own pockets while creating an energy crisis in California, wiping out the long-worked-for pensions of hundreds of blue-collar workers and stealing from ‘little old ladies’ in the Midwest. It was not the action of the top managers (some of whom finally came to trial last week), whom one has come to expect to be crooked, but the middle managers and the ‘little people’ within the company, the people like us who followed the example of their so-called superiors that was so very disturbing to me.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
9:53 pm
February 2006
Syriana
Palm Springs
George Clooney has been nominated for the Oscar best-supporting actor award for his part as the career CIA officer. The interconnected story lines from the CIA operative, a rising oil broker (Matt Damon), a Gulf (I assumed Saudi) prince, a corporate lawyer, and an idealistic Pakistani teenager who falls for the message of a charismatic religious teacher weave together a story of fierce pursuit of wealth and power. For me the film showed the evil of big business and government working together to manipulate the world for their own good and to hell with everyone else.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
9:49 pm
February 2006
Good Night, and Good Luck
Palm Springs, California
A stomach-churning look at the 1950s’ paranoid fear of Communism and the Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy witch-hunt. Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Fred Friendly (Clooney) challenged McCarthy, but at great personal sacrifice and loss to them both. A challenging, important film for the thinking audience, dove-tailing with the message from two other recent films which look at how business, abetted by the government, still control our lives.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
9:45 pm
January 2006
Brokeback Mountain
Palm Springs
If you like reading the work of Annie Proulx and if you believe as I do that one falls in love with the spirit of a person, not with the physical body, however exciting the physical relationship may be, you should let this film flow over you from the first strains of Gustavo Santaolalla’s score as your eyes adjust to the breath-taking cinematography of Rodrigo Prieto. Can Wyoming be that beautiful? Actually it was filmed primarily in Alberta, Canada, but Wyoming natives tell me that Wyoming is even more magnificent.
The story is simple: two people are thrown together in a close-proximity working situation, come to love each other as a massive surprise to both and over the years realize and finally accept that it is a love without end.
Written as a short story by probably the best writer writing today in North America, turned into a screenplay by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana who have other terrific screenplays to their credit and brought to the screen by Ang Lee, how could this film not be the most affecting, best film of 2005? Fill your pockets with handkerchiefs or a box of tissues–you will need them.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
10:03 pm
January 2006
Match Point
Palm Springs, California
One of Allen’s better recent films, especially since he and his neuroses are absent. Some terrific actors: Penelope Wilton, who was also in Pride and Prejudice, Emily Mortimer, Brian Cox and the sexually stunning Scarlett Johansson (remember her as the little girl in The Horse Whisperer?). The story is simple: the unholding (a la Lauren Bacall in How to Marry a Millionaire) young man (ex-tennis pro) climbing the corporate and social ladder via marrying into the boss’s family almost ruins it all by falling for the fiancee of the boss’s son and continuing the sexual relationship after marrying the boss’s daughter. Is Chris Wilton (the ex-tennis pro) a "talented Mr Ripley" or not?
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
9:40 pm
January 2006
Pride and Prejudice
Palm Springs, California
What can one say about a well-made British production of Jane Austen but GO SEE IT? Apparently Emma Thompson revised or rewrote the script at the last minute, for which she is not credited, although she is thanked at the end of the film. The cast is splendid with Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn as Mr and Mrs Bennet, Simon Woods as Mr Bingley, Matthew Macfadyen as Mr Darcy, Tom Hollander as Mr Collins and Judi Dench as Lady Catherine de Bourg. And Keira Knightley playing Elizabeth Bennet, is up for the Oscar best-actress award alongside Judi Dench for Mrs Henderson presents. Penelope Wilton, Meg Wynn Owen and Rupert Friend (he of Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont) are also in the cast along with many other fine British actors whom I have yet to get to know.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
9:37 pm
19 January 2006
After the Wave: the tusami remembered
Outside National Theatre
Photographs. Devastating but beautiful, strangely. Rubble, but sort of directional. Recognisable bits. Large concrete pieces the painted insides lying upwards strewn across the beach front. Wood planks scattered like matchsticks. A boat on top, a digger buried underneath, 4 kilometres inland. A huge expanse of beach, a few palm trees in the distance, a patchwork of concrete floors stretching out across it. Horrifying. But also some hopeful signs of rebuilding.
I was slightly irked by Oxfam persistently mentioning themselves, but since its their exhibition its to be expected. And they have been doing great work there.
10:59 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Adam and Steve
USA 2005, 100 minutes. Craig Chester, director.
There is a terrific country/line dancing sequence. That said, for a love story between two men, go to Brokeback Mountain. Can’t see Adam attracting Steve nor Steve attracting Adam. Both too feminine. A slight film, too New York. No depth. A purported ‘gay’ director should have done better with a gay film.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:51 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
a/k/a Tommy Chong.
USA 2005, 75 minutes. Josh Gilbert, director.
An indictment of eroding civil liberties in the U.S., the film is an amusing portrait of Tommy Chong, the Canadian half of the 1970s comedy duo Cheech and Chong. Chong was arrested in 2003 after his family-owned internet bong business shipped some boxes of bongs into Pennsylvania where it is illegal to do so. The film purports it was a setup by the U.S. government as a publicity stunt for John Ashcroft’s ‘war on drugs’. Chong served nine months after plea-bargaining so that his wife and son would not be prosecuted for ‘glamorizing the illegal use and distribution of marijuana andn trivializing law-enforcement efforts to combat drug use’.
An angry-making, stomach-churning and very funny documentary which every American should see and vote out the bunch of crooks in Washington.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:47 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Blush
Belgium/France 2005, 52 minutes. Wim Vandekeybus, director.
Dance film showing love as lust, temptation, exhilaration and shame. Aggressive movement, but difficult to understand. Interesting music by Eugene Edwards of Denver. Beautiful Corsica landscapes alongside slums of Brussels.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:45 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Gold
UK 2004, 10 minutes. Rachel Davies, director.
Introductory dance film before the above, and much better. About two high-school girls in their local gym. Full of promise, magic and attitude.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:40 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Border Café (Café Transit)
Iran/France 2005, 105 minutes. In Farsi, Greek with English subtitles.
Kombozia Partovi, director.
Iranian paternalistic society where women have no individual rights. Inheritance without a will under Sharia law purportedly gives the wife only 1/8th of husband’s estate. Suspect each of the two children got 1/4th and the husband’s family the remaining 3/8ths (perhaps 1/8th each to the two brothers and the mother). Beautiful Iranian actress played Reyhan who tries to continue operating the café after her husband’s death. Her brother-in-law insists she become his second wife, to the disgruntlement of his first wife. Handsome Greek truck driver eventually transgresses the border between the kitchen, where Reyhan stays, and the dining room. But she turns him down.
I agree with the statement in the program, ‘Its carefully observed script, nuanced acting and sharply delineated sociopolitical sense make it as enjoyable as it is intelligent’. See it if you get the chance.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:38 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Boynton Beach Club
USA 2005, 104 minutes. Susan Seidelman, director.
Seidelman is a director to watch, her films going back to the 1985 Desperately Seeking Susan which you may remember as Madonna’s only good film.
This film is a joy, especially for those of us past 50, starring Dyan Cannon, Joseph Bologna, Brenda Vaccaro, Sally Kellerman and Michael Nouri, among others. Aging baby-boomers settling into retirement in Florida. 60 is the new 40. Sexy, fun, celebratory. A pure delight. Vaccaro, Cannon and Nouri answered questions at my viewing. Vaccaro was especially warm with her round motherly body.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:33 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Buffalo Boy (Mua Len Trua)
Vietnam 2005, 102 minutes.
In Vietnamese with English subtitles. Minh Nguyen-Vo, director.
Coming of age story about teenager living in French Indochina just prior to WWII. Families owned one to a few buffalo who, during annual floods, had to be herded to greener pastures by groups of paid herdsmen. The boy takes his two buffalo and joins herding group led by, unknown to him at time, his uncle, a very violent man. The boy matures, discovers joys and challenges of male bonding and rivalry. Sensitive scene when he helps an elderly couple. Ends with his forming a family with wife and child of his purportedly dead friend.
Well worth the cinema entrance charge.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:31 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Changing Times (Les Temps qui changent)
UK France 2005, 96 minutes. In French with English subtitles. Andre Techine, director.
Antoine (Gerard Depardieu) arrives in Tangiers on construction project with secret aim to find Cecile (Catherine Deneuve) whom he has continued to love for over 30 years. Cecile has forgotten him, married a Moroccan-Jewish doctor, had a son who is visiting from Paris. Depardieu is vulnerable, tender, sensitive. Deneuve is icy, uncompromising. Until the end. Seems unlikely this man could have loved this women for 30+ years and never moved on.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:28 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Chicken Tikka Masala
UK 2005, 97 minutes. Hamage Singh Kalirai, director.
Hindu family living in Preston. Father (Saeed Jaffrey) wants son (Chris Bisson) to marry beautiful cousin (Majinder Mahal) visiting from India, but son loves Jack (Peter Ash). Quite funny on occasion. Warm-hearted family comedy, with similar plot to another whose name I have forgotten.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:25 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus)
Brazil 2005,105 minutes. In Portuguese, German with English subtitles. Marcelo Gomes, director.
In 1942 young German Johann, fleeing war, and Brazilian Ranulpho, trying to escape family’s poverty, go village to village in northern rural Brazil, showing film advertising a miraculous patent medicine (aspirin), and selling bottles of it. In this bleached, sleepy landscape, unlikely friendship develops between the two travellers.
A good film about dreams, the desire for life.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:22 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Cold Showers (Douches Froides)
France 2005, 102 minutes. In French with English subtitles. Antony Cordier, director.
Highschool-age judo team whose captain is working class with sexually active girlfriend. Upper-class boy joins team. The three kids use the school’s sauna after hours (let in by captain’s mother who cleans at the school), having sex together. Ho hum.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:19 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Canada 2005, 129 minutes. In French with English subtitles. Jean-Marc Vallee, director.
Title made up of first names of five brothers, beginning with Christopher (forgotten R and A) to Zac, the hero and baby-brother ‘Y’ (can’t remember his name either). Purported biggest box-office hit in Canada this year. Can’t see why. Another gay coming-of-age story better left on the drawing board. Liked the Patsy Cline references and the breaking apart of one of her LPs (twice). Not enough about the five brothers. No explanation of why Zac gave his mother a book about Jerusalem, and then later in the film visited there himself where he purchased the second Patsy Cline LP for his father (which youngest brother broke). Nice scene of lovely old priest who sent congregation home early from Xmas Eve midnight mass so they could open their presents. This priest seemed to realize Zac’s sensitivity (girlishness?), and later gayness. Strong father character needed further development. According to gay friend, much, much too long a period for Zac to accept his gayness—seemed more like 1950 than 2005. MISS.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:14 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Favela Rising
USA 2005, 78 minutes. In Portuguese with English subtitles. Jeff Zimbalist, Matt Mochary, directors.
Documentary about Anderson Sa who transformed his Rio de Janeiro favela, Vigario Geral, by founding a musical movement known as AfroReggae. Follows Sa as the music, the drumming, transform the violent slum into a place of celebration, festivity, education and hope. Emotionally charging portrait of a neighbourhood’s ability to overcome inherent problems of crime, neglect and poverty.
By all means, see if it comes anywhere near your own neighbourhood.
(An aside: when very nice festival man was introducing the film he pronounced favella with the accent on the first syllable. A loud-mouthed obnoxious American woman shouted from the upper reaches of the balcony ‘favella’ with the accent on the second syllable. Unfortunately, she was probably right, but she was downright rude to correct the nice man so publicly.)
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:06 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Fuego: John Waters presents Movies that will Corrupt You
Argentina 1969, 90 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. Armando Bo, director.
John Waters introduced the film in person and again on film and concluded the film with more filmed comments, all of which were interesting and often funny.
UNFORTUNATELY, the 1969 film in between quite soon became quite boring after noticing the Elizabeth Taylor lookalike with the big breasts. I would have been more pleased with the introduction, conclusion and about ten minutes of the soft porn film.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:00 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
George Michael—A different story
UK 2005, 100 minutes. Southan Morris, director.
Michael came across as a very good, honest man. Although not so good looking as when younger, he remains an interesting figure in pop music culture. Includes joint interview with Andrew Ridgeley from Wham! A riveting documentary. Although never having been a fan, went out next day and purchased a double cd, Ladies & Gentlemen, the best of George Michael.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
10:55 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Gimme Kudos (Qiuqiu Ni, Biaoyang Wo)
China 2005, 100 minutes. In Mandarin with English subtitles. Huang Jianxin, director.
Interesting little film. A sort of ‘saving-face’. Country bumpkin wants name in newspaper for saving young woman from being raped in order to please his dying father, who has newspaper clippings of his own exploits on walls of his bedroom. Kudos seemed so unimportant to Western eyes, but gradually one began to perceive the importance to this Chinese small-town man, Gu. Unsure whether closing scene with Gu pushing ‘dead’ father in wheelchair was real or in the journalist Yang’s mind. Some beautiful faces among the Chinese actors.
Worth a fiver, or even a tenner, if that’s what your local charges.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
10:51 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Joyeux Noel
France, Belgium, Germany, UK, Romania 2005, 110 minutes. Christian Carion, director.
Based on true story how on an Xmas Eve during WWI German, Scottish and French soldiers declared an arbitrary armistice for one day in order to enjoy game of football (soccer) and some shared views of Xmas. Profoundly moving condemnation of the idiocy of war. Gorgeous music.
The tears started about 60 minutes into the film and continued through to the end. Later I wondered why the tears about a long-past incident, whether the director had jerked them, but concluded they were brought on by the futility of war, the merciless killing of so many young people and our continuing involvement in them.
A must see, and I still can’t understand how the Palm Springs audience left it off their list of best films in the festival. Have a look at another film with the same respite from fighting below, My Best Enemy.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
4:46 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Lost and Found (Achados e Perdidos)
Brazil/Chile 2005, 100 minutes. In Portuguese with English subtitles. Jose Joffily, director.
Film noir at its Latin best. The streets of Copacabana’s underworld based on novel by Alfredo Garcia-Rosa. Murder, blackmail, women of the street. See if you have chance.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
4:41 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Low Profile (Falscher Bekenner)
Germany 2005, 94 minutes. In German with English subtitles. Christoph Hochhausler, director.
Bored teenager looking for a job, sending out job applications, happens onto car accident in which driver was killed. Armin takes a broken axle home as souvenir. He writes to newspaper, claiming he had sabotaged the car. As journalists investigate, he claims other atrocities, such as setting a fire. Eventually he may have gone to the next level and committed a crime, but I was unsure at the end when he was taken away by police whether he had committee anything at all. Puzzling, but good for dinner conversation.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
4:36 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
March of the Penguins (La marche de l’empereur)
France 2005, 84 minutes. Luc Jacquet, director.
Beautifully photographed film I missed when it passed quickly through London. Striking footage of annual trek and rituals. Captivating footage of hundreds of penguins emerging from icy sea to trek countless miles to breeding grounds.
Morgan Freeman narrated a commentary that too often strayed into unwelcome anthropomorphism. Liked the bit that showed how photographs were taken, for instance, from balloons. BUT penguins are not humans. So what if they stick together for a season, only to find new mates the next year? What do fundamentalist Christians learn from that? They should stick to Mel Gibson’s biased Passion of Christ.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
4:33 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
UK 2005, 108 minutes. Dan Ireland, director.
Sorry about this film, for it has some of Britain’s best character actors, including Anna Massey, Robert Lang (whom in the 1960s and 70s we used to see regularly at the National Theatre), Marcia Warren, Georgina Hale, Anna Carteret, Clare Higgins and the marvelous ex-TW3 (This was the week that was) presenter Milicent Martin. Also in the cast as Mrs Palfrey’s real grandson is Peter O’Toole’s son Lorcan O’Toole. And, of course, Dame Joan Plowright gives a sterling performance, although I can’t agree with some reviewers that it is her best ever performance. She has had better roles, such as Osborne’s.
Enjoyed immensely the first 3 quarters of the film, but was well letdown by the last quarter. Then I remembered it is from an Elizabeth Taylor (not the Hollywood actress) novel, and what can one expect from her pen. There was really no valid relationship between the old woman and the young man who, in my eyes, was not nearly so attractive as reviewers suggested.
Although I don’t entirely agree with Tim Grierson of LA Weekly who wrote, ‘Your time would be better spent skipping this film and instead calling your grandparents who would no doubt love to hear from you’, you should see the film for the marvelous acting of the entire cast and forget about the poor plotting. The film has been compared to Terrence Rattigan’s Separate Tables, but, alas, Taylor is no Rattigan.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
4:16 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
My Best Enemy (Mi major enemigo)
Chile/Argentine/Spanish 2005, 107 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. Alex Bowen, director.
Based on true events as was Joyeux Noel above. In December 1978, Chile and Argentina disputed location of border in southern Patagonia and could have escalated into war. A Chilean border patrol leave their barracks to defend their country’s honour, shouting their pledge to die for their country, but get lost on march to border. After days of wandering during which they encounter only a stray dog, they become disillusioned. The pampas are bleak. They dig trenches awaiting commencement of hostilities. Tension mounts when an Argentine platoon are deployed opposite them. But Chileans need more medicine and dog goes back and forth between groups. They become friendly, play football, help each other.
A moving and humorous fictionalization of historic events.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
4:12 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
News from Afar (Noticias Lejanas)
Mexico 2005, 120 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. Ricardo Benet, director.
The scene: dismal, drought-ridden, dusty landscape with dismal concrete-block shack. But beautifully filmed with some breath-taking sunsets when we see the red of the sun through the turning blades of the desolate windmill that can’t bring enough water for the dying crop. A later shot shows the quiet windmill at the side of a strip of red sunset. There are neighbours for a while, Mrs Amelia and her magician friend, and there is an albino man going round on a bicycle with strange wing-like things on the back of it who also appears at the end of the film when the younger brother brings his wife and two children back to find where he had been born. I’m unsure of the significance of the albino, for he hadn’t seemed to age further by the end. Perhaps he is the spirit of desolation, for one character has said, ‘born poor–die poor’. Martin has been adopted by the poor family and works in a brick yard from age 7 and later in an auto junkyard. At 17 he sets off to the city to try to earn enough to save his family (also to look for his biological father). Martin is a brooding, innocent teenager who hardly has the wherewithal with which to confront the harsh city. His adopted mother seems to give up, only staring into the distance through a small window which her husband blocks up. The father disappears (can’t remember circumstances), Martin returns and takes his mother and younger brother Beto to Mexico City. He puts Beto into an orphanage and his mother into a hospital and crosses the border into California, or so we are told later by Beto when he has grown up and married.
Probably my favourite film of the festival.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
4:06 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Odete
Portugal 2005, 101 minutes. Joao Pedro Rodrigues, director.
Strange, dreamy film with such music as ‘Moon River’ interspersed throughout. Film opens with long, passionate kiss between Pedro and Rui, gay lovers celebrating their first anniversary; Rui has given Pedro a ring engraved with ‘Two drifters’. Pedro gets in his car to drive home and almost immediately Rui telephones his mobile. Pedro answers, has accident and is killed. That’s the opening.
The closing scene is Odete dressed as Pedro, wearing his ring, apparently screwing Rui and wanting to be called Pedro (can’t tell whether she is using dildo on Rui who is in doggie position or, perhaps, somehow brings his penis up into her vagina).
According to the director who spoke at end of film, this is a film about grief: Rui for Pedro, Pedro’s mother for Pedro and her dead husband, Odete for the baby she can’t seem to have. But it seemed to me the director has yet to experience the death of someone close to him, that he is depicting only grief as told to him.
I came to the conclusion that Odete was mentally disturbed. Odete is a tall, lanky young woman who works as a roller-skating clerk in supermarket. Living next door to Pedro, when he is killed she tells his mother she is pregnant with Pedro’s child, much to consternation of Rui. Earlier, Odete’s boyfriend left her when she wants him to make her pregnant. Odete throws herself onto Pedro’s grave and Pedro’s mother takes her in. At one point she does seem to be pregnant.
I seem to remember liking the film better when viewing it than in memory.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
3:59 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Persona non grata
Poland / Russia, Italy 2005, 126 minutes. In Polish, Russian, Spanish with English subtitles. Krysztof Zanussi, director.
A tense psychological drama in high stakes of international diplomacy. Complicated relationship between Russia and Poland. Wiktor, Polish ambassador to Uruguay, has lost both beautiful wife and his ideals. He competes with former friend, the Russian Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs (who may have in past been his wife’s lover) for Uruguayan arms deal.
Quite interesting, well worth viewing.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
2:53 am
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Queens (Reinas)
Spain 2005, 107 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. Manuel Gomez Pereira, director.
Pure froth, but delightful froth because of Spain’s biggest female stars, including Marisa Paredes (All about my mother, Talk to her), Carmen Maura (Alice and Martin) and Veronica Forque (Kika). The women are mothers who must cope with the forthcoming mass gay marriages of their sons (the first in Spain). Action-packed and some good laughs, thanks mainly to the mothers and their emotional and sexual antics. A must see.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
2:50 am
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Simon
Netherlands 2005, 100 minutes. In Dutch with English subtitles. Eddy Terstal, director.
High-spirited comedy of manners begins in 1988 when hash-dealer Simon knocks down gay dental student Camiel with his jeep, takes him to hospital. Unlikely friendship develops. At first Camiel is intimidated by Simon’s roughness and his scary circle of friends. Simon likes Camiel’s humour and Camiel is taken by Simon’s heterosexual charisma. Camiel is drawn more and more into Simon’s world. When he travels with Simon to Thailand, along with Simon’s girlfriend and Simon’s friend Marco, a tattooed wild man, their friendship almost breaks up when Camiel and Simon’s girlfriend sleep together (once only). The ending is an emotionally charged, educational look at Netherland’s euthanasia arrangements when Simon decides to die before his illness gets too bad. Camiel and his partner have agreed to take and finish raising Simon’s two children.
It deserved the Netherelands Film Festival’s awarding it Best Feature, Best Director, Best Actor and the Audience Award. See it!
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
12:12 am
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
That Man: Peter Berlin
USA 2005, 80 minutes. Jim Tushinski, director.
The program notes said, ‘In the 1970s a pumped up vision of a man in a pageboy haircut, cowboy hat, ultra-tight jeans and the occasional sailor suit emerged from the mists and began to roam the hills of San Francisco, inspiring gasps and groans in equal measure. Quickly attracting the attention of such visionaries as Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol, his legend swiftly grew, aided by his talent for self-portraits and a seamlessly aloof persona.’ I had never heard of him.
The director did a good job of making a most boring man seem interesting, primarily from the splendid photographs of this stark exhibitionist.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
12:09 am
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Two sons of Francisco (2 filhos do Francisco)
Brazil 2005, 119 minutes. In Portuguese with English subtitles. Breno Silveira, director.
Delightful rags to riches (success) story of poor Brazilian sharecropper who risked everything (what little he had whenever he had it) to turn two of his nine children into a country music duo. Zeze di Camargo and Luciano have sold more than 22 million records. Zeze is the first child and Luciano the third one (I think, although there may have been a girl or two in between. The first Luciano, who was the second son was killed in a car accident when the two boys were on the road with a dicey promoter. At the end of the film the real family were presented, but none of them were as attractive as the actors who played them. This film is Brazil’s submission to the Academy Awards for best foreign film.
A very good, inspiring film. Afterwards I tried to buy one of their records at the local shop, but none were in stock although two were in their database.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:58 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
Whole new thing
Canada 2005, 92 minutes. Amnon Buchbinder, director.
A film about a precocious teenager (Emerson) who has been home-schooled in Nova Scotia until he is about 13 or 14 when he is sent to the local school. His parents are post-hippies who love nudity. Emerson does not understand the norms of society and focuses his sexual awakenings on his male English teacher, causing enormous problems for the teacher. The dork-like Emerson doesn’t know that his infatuation could cause the teacher’s dismissal, or in the tight-knit community something even worse.
Clever, honest and offbeat–one well worth viewing.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:54 pm
Palm Springs 17th International Film Festival
6-15 January 2006
A Year Without Love
Argentina 2005, 100 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. Anahi Berneri, director
Based on the diaries of Pablo Perez, it tells the story of a writer and poet in 1966 who is HIV+ and in fear of dying. Trying to regain a zest for living, he continues to place ads in magazines and on the internet and to cruise the Buenos Aires gay scene. Eventually he gets into a bondage group. The female director realistically shows what to most of us is the frightening world of bondage, which the struggling writer uses in his facing of death.
Although not noted in the film, Pablo Perez is still alive and has written a second diary. Not for the squeamish. A good film that I did not really like.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
11:44 pm
January 2006
The Producers
Palm Springs, California
You’ve seen the non-musical film, you’ve seen the stage musical in London or New York and now you’ll enjoy the film musical. The main songs, Springtime for Hitler and We’re Prisoners of Love were in the original non-musical version. But new are the terrific dance/rhythm numbers for the old-ladies with walkers and the accountants with date stamps. Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom are unforgettable (how does Lane get his eyebrows to shoot up from the inner corners of his eyes to the top of his head?), and you can’t overlook Uma Thurman as Ulla, the statuesque Ekbergish Swede, who having doffed her Kill Bill persona, is still ready for anything. And anything goes for the three schemers who win out in the end. Catch the names of some of the old girls, names such as Hold Me–Touch Me, Lick Me–Bite Me and Kiss Me–Feel Me. Mel Brooks still an expert at tickling the funnybone.
JED (foreign correspondent in Palm Springs)
7:32 pm
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