G6 Pix

Vids from interview with Students at Hofstra

2011-05-18T15:24:00.004-04:00

Last fall, I visited the classroom of the extraordinary video artist Skip Blumberg, a professor at Hofstra University. He invited me to speak about Fair Use in documentary film and web video. In the past few years, I've given a handful of talks on teaching Fair Use. This video explains how that happened (not as intense as the still, I promise!):

The students who conducted the interview also asked about other topics, like suitable subjects for your first film. Considering I just posted BeauteouS: Stephanie online for free, this is quite timely:

Other interview clips pertain more to specific considerations in making documentary, like the ethics of editing documentary: and the ethics of working with participants (and check out this great paper Honest Truths by Mridu Chandra, Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi for more on documentary ethics):

Here's my two cents on the importance of research in documentary:

and some closing advice for student filmmakers - treat your participants with respect!

Putting movies online

2011-05-07T13:54:00.011-04:00

In 2000, I screened my first film, BeauteouS: Stephanie, for the first time at the Chicago International Film Festival. There it won the award for Best Student Documentary, and then screened at a handful of other film festivals. It felt like the most auspicious of beginnings to a film career.

Though I keep churning out films, largely on my own dime, and enjoy screenings at film festivals and invited talks at colleges, I always have a nagging feeling that my films reach few people beyond the converted (i.e. queers, feminists, indie enthusiasts). How many people have seen my early short films? Perhaps 10,000 total? Why can't it be more?

Admittedly, I've had this imagined future for my films; people buy them regularly, they are re-released on DVD, picked up for collections on feminist filmmaking and the like. But the reality is, eleven years after BeauteouS: Stephanie was released, that hasn't happened. The older works might screen once a year and a kind friend might offer to buy a DVD now and then. But largely, the DVDs sit on my shelf and the films remain unwatched.

In this era of "put it online" there is an expectation that artists should post their work for free. I've struggled with this idea for years, actively pulling down copies of my films available from bit torrent sites when alerts pop up in the email inbox. I've whined, "I just wanted to break even on these films, not even make a profit!" The idea of putting it online signaled an end to that possibility.

But as the years tick by and the DVDs sit on the shelf, I realize no matter how much people want to see the film (thousands of such comments over the years) and how cheap they are ($30 for 4 movies) and how available I make them (pay pay button on a website) they remain unsold. Then I saw this brilliant film on Vimeo, up for the masses to enjoy (and 29,000 have) and I've reconsidered the whole thing. I'm the only one holding these films back and it's fine time to let that go. These films got me to a place where I could land teaching jobs, raise funds for Period and slowly, maybe in the course of 20 years through a great relationship with my distributor, break even on that film. BeauteouS has screened at over 100 film festivals around the world in 15 different countries. The fact that it didn't sell is just fine. It did something despite its imperfections. And for that, I'm proud.

And so, I let go of BeauteouS and BeauteouS: Stephanie today, posting them on Vimeo. I'm holding onto two others, because they are very personal (i.e. I'm naked and on fire in one) Maybe, once more security comes, I'll release those films. But for now, if you want to see it, for fucks sake - buy it!

Student Filmmakers

2011-04-29T12:32:00.023-04:00

I began teaching filmmaking in 2000 while I was an MFA student at San Francisco State University. My first teaching experience involved explaining lighting, color temperature, and wattage for 16mm cinematography to undergraduates in Karen Holmes' film class - surely a captivating lecture for students interested in physics, though I'm unsure if any of what I said reached the film students in the room. I've hopefully improved upon my lecture style and I continue to draw upon the lessons I learned from Karen Holmes, a professor who knows how to inspire people to be their most creative selves. She taught me most of what I know about the creative process and I feel as if I will always strive to approximate her brilliant techniques as a teacher.

During eleven years of teaching at a range of colleges and universities and learning environments, many of the 1700 students I've taught have met the challenge posed: create something thoughtful, ethical, and engaging. Here are a few standouts that have, in this era of self-publishing online, succeed in their own right.

This year, student David Moldover joined the Advanced Video class at Marymount Manhattan College. Despite having no formal video classes under his belt, Moldover had experience in working with documentary post-production and research. He engaged in extra lessons every week to get his skills in lighting, editing and cinematography up to speed. More importantly, as a stellar Humanities major, Molodver knows how to connect disparate sociocultural elements and construct an argument, which he does exceptionally well with his film "Guilty Bystanders". This film was chosen to screen at Honors Day at MMC and was awarded Honorable Mention- Dean's Award. It then won Best Documentary Film at the Communication Arts Showcase this Spring 2011. Here is a 7 minute excerpt of the longer piece:

Elizabeth Rocklin (Marymount 2011) is a video maker who focuses on disability and activism. Her work crosses genre well and in documentary or in a narrative PSA, she has succeeded in partnering with organizations beyond the college walls. The first piece showcased here is a short documentary made in partnership with Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts that lives on the homepage of their website:

An award winning PSA that Rocklin also produced takes a critical view of empty gestures toward inclusiveness. This video won Best PSA in 2010 at Marymount Manhattan College's Communication Arts Showcase:

That year, Maria Habib (Marymount 2011) also won an award - Honorable Mention - for her PSA on human trafficking. In this piece, Habib's camera takes on the first person perspective of a woman being lured into sex work. To construct this story, Habib interviewed a woman (anonymously) who had been tempted by a trafficker's charms in a similar fashion. The material in the thought bubble falls under the Center for Social Media's Code for Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video:

Fair Use is a theme in many of my classes. It is essential that video artists learn how to legally rework the media around us. This year, The Center for Social Media recognized the work of two students from Intermediate Video at MMC, Stuart Kiczek and Billy Shields, for their employment of Best Practices for Fair Use in this brilliant online video on water. By clicking on the image below, you will be redirected to the CSM site where the video lives:

Another group of Marymount filmmakers in the class Web Video Activism produced a video in partnership with a local organization, Network for Peace Through Dialogue. This video highlights the youth program and was shown to 100 young students at an event in 2010 on youth dialoging for peace. The group included students Nicole Henry, Nicole Banner, Ryan Johnston and Lauren Kozlowski:

One of the most successful activist student videos made in any one of my classes is this PSA by Dana Corl. During our Intermediate Video class in Fall 2009, Corl completed the video and facebooked about it. Her friends started spreading it around. I encouraged her to email the activists at Hollaback!, a site dedicated to ending street harassment. They blogged about Corl's PSA on their page. Within 30 minutes, her video had 200 views...and growing (at 10,000 now):

In Spring 2008, a group of students at American University produced the website Tune in HPV in a class called Communication and Social Change. The site, designed by students and built by Zulma Aguiar, lives on. The stories were submitted anonymously by readers interested in sharing their experiences about human papillomavirus. The students and I then made videos engaging the stories with messages about safe sex. Some of the standout videos are these, which I wrote about in a chapter in the book Three Shots at Prevention: The HPV Vaccine and Medicine's Simple Solutions (2010, Johns Hopkins University Press).

The comments on Jennifer Derosa's HPV Dykes demonstrate how radical work challenges the viewer:

Vanessa Bradchulis made a series of videos for the Tune in HPV site. By creating a cast of characters who fail to avoid obvious risks, Bradchulis hoped that people would see the clear connection between avoiding risk through safer sex. Videos include Hand on a Hot Burner, Electric Bath, Running With Scissors, Cycling Blindfolded and this vid:

I could continue highlighting exceptional student work, but I'll save it for another post at sometime in the future. However, I'll end with this standout from Mathew O. Brady. Brady, who graduated in 2010, continues to make work with a clear vision, demonstrating his deftness and cinematic voice. In Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced video at MMC, Brady produced a series of films that connect through themes of friendship and the creative spirit. Recently, Brady collaborated with Gaelan Conell on a feature film that they co-wrote and directed, I Am Ben which will surely enjoy screenings in the coming year. This short, which they made in the Spring of 2010 for the Tisch 48 hour film challenge, highlights their collaborative energy and creativity (oh - and they won that competition with it!) This was not made in relationship to any of my classes, but I showcase it here as what happens beyond the classroom as students turn lessons into craft:

Feminism Light: Potiche

2011-03-26T20:00:00.013-04:00

Francois Ozon is my favorite director. Bar none. I admire how he deftly glides across genre, nodding to queer directors of yore through devoted homage, while his strong female characters and gay male leads find love in themselves as to find it in each other. Though he may not call himself a feminist director, Ozon’s work, especially prior to Potiche, is undoubtedly feminist. His female characters (save for the vagabond in the early See the Sea) are complex but likeable. They confront gendered realities through an intellect and honesty that typically surpasses the straight men around them.

Which leads me to wonder - why would Ozon make Potiche? It is so explicitly feminist as to become falsely simplistic. In Potiche, Ozon’s tale of female empowerment is driven by French film super-star/icon Catherine Deneuve (the co-star of his 8 Women). The film, at its face, is a personal cinematic wet dream: Ozon! Deneuve! Luxuriously fabulous sets! Musical numbers! Late 70’s fashion! Homage to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg! Jeremie Renier! Sex! Sensuality! …with one last gasp for Gerard Depardieu! Yet, despite all of this, for his feminist fans, Ozon blocks any orgasm.

The film, set in the prescient late 70’s, follows Suzanne, (spoiler) a older woman who takes over the family's umbrella factory when her husband falls ill. He suffers from a heart attack brought on by a worker uprising in response to his callous leadership. Ozon paints the husband in two broad strokes: as an unabashed philanderer who cheats on his wife nightly and as a capitalist pig unethically abuses his workers. The audience, and her daughter, Joelle, wonders why Suzanne has remained as the potiche (trophy wife) of this beast for some 30 years. However, upon taking over directorship of the factory, Suzanne instantly flourishes and undoes the destructive work of her husband to the factory as to her psyche. She listens to worker demands and positions her children in managerial roles while gaining instantaneous self-respect. In the end, Ozon wants us to revel in Suzanne’s gains which are meant to represent gains for all women through self-empowerment and awakening.

The problem here is Joelle, Suzanne’s daughter. At first she presents a discerning voice, challenging Suzanne to wake up to her husband’s vacant affections. But in her subsequent actions, the daughter Joelle follows in daddy’s leaden footsteps, eventually taking actions that threaten her mother’s success. In the final scene, Joelle ends up by her father’s side, pregnant by an absent husband and caring for 2+ children seemingly alone. She has given up her job at the factory for her husband to take on and has voted against her mother in an election. It seems that Ozon ends Potiche wanting us to celebrate with the feminist icon, Suzanne, but instead I linger on the image of a pregnant Joelle on the couch. Joelle has not only squandered what her mother gave her, she has acted against it, undermined her own gains, and abhorred the movement. Suzanne’s post-election party is populated by older women and young gay men. The younger woman who seeks to benefit most from a feminist revolution remains at home, immobilized by pregnancy and patriarchal conservatism.

Sadly, this is the state of feminism today. Advances made by women in the 70’s are seen as just that – actions made in a specific time and place for women of that era. Today, many young women are dismissive of the feminist label, lest they be considered old-school or worse - difficult, obstructionist, and undesirable to men. Feminism was something done by and for a generation long past. Of course, this ignores the sad economic state of women today. According to the Obama Administration’s report on the status of women in America released this month, women earn only 75% of what their male counterparts make, women are more likely to be in poverty, and there are more single-mother households than single father households. One in seven women has no health care. Simultaneously, attacks on Planned Parenthood threaten lower income women and teenage girls who depend on the facility for reproductive health care and sexual health care, not just abortion access.

So, I wonder again, why did Ozon make this film – one in which younger women are depicted as lacking in feminist zeal and actively undermining it. Why end a film about female empowerment with a young woman squandering the freedoms her mother fights for? This only makes all the feminist gestures that Ozon can cram into this one film feel empty and false. As his undying fan, I long for the subtlety he will surely return to in his subsequent work, and to a brighter future than the one imagined here.

Blood on the Dance Floor: The Runaways

2010-03-23T10:37:00.012-04:00

(This piece was originally published at re:Cycling, the blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research.)

Last Summer, across the blogosphere, there was much buzzing about images of Dakota Fanning with blood running down her thighs and a blood stain on the back of her skirt. Were these shots, clearly from the set of a film, menstrual markings or the next era of horror movie misogyny? The answer can be seen in the newly released film The Runaways, a drama about a 1970's all girl rock band fronted by Cherie Currie (played by Dakota Fanning) and guitarist, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart.)

Here, menstruation is a framing element, as the film begins with a screen sized image of a red blood drop falling to the pavement. Cut to Fanning wiping blood from her thigh in disbelief. Her sister, Marie rushes her to the bathroom to attend to their first period, for Marie whines "Everything happens to you first!" Cherie packs her undies with paper towels, ties a sweatshirt around the stain, and in stunned disbelief of what has just transpired, tags behind her sister and her sister's creepy dude date. He leers at her, "You're a woman now."

Later that evening, Cherie crops her hair, paints a David Bowie red streak across her face, and comes into herself. Becoming a woman in this film, does not include being soft and desirable for boys. Rather, menarche signifies entrance into glam rock iconography.

As Cherie meets up with Joan Jett, and the two launch The Runaways, Cherie's early entrance into womanhood seems to have come too soon. Still a child, Cherie is pushed into the front of a stage and asked to groan into a mic about her bursting sexuality in the song Cherry Bomb. The demanding manager, Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), commands her to give more to the song. "This isn't woman's lib. It's woman's lib-ido."

In the coming weeks on tour, Cherie will partake in her first kiss, first sip of alcohol, first pill, first line - revealing how womanhood has not "dropped" upon her. It arrives in waves, through her choices (or her inability to make them.) And there is still more growing to do.

Pushing Out the Jokes: Baby Mama

2010-03-14T13:27:00.006-04:00

"I don't like your uterus." As her gynecologist tsk tsk’s at the xray before him, Tina Fey swallows her dreams of naturally conceiving a baby and makes way to the nearest, and most expensive, surrogacy service. In Baby Mama (2008, Michael McCullers), there are not one, not two, but THREE uterus jokes, including a park in central Philadelphia crowned in yonic bushes and flowers. This is enough to give it a gold star in my book.

Amy Poehler plays the low class woman willing to gestate Fey’s egg for cold hard cash. Sigourney Weaver is the fertile matchmaker, defying nature by popping out her own little one’s two at a time. And Fey’s eventual love interest, Greg Kinnear, tells them all that surrogacy is supremely selfish and disgusting.

I know many a lass who at 37 years of age longs to have a child of her own, and this film does a very good job of honoring that desire. Fey’s character could easily be cast as pathetic and detestable for her willingness to spend $100K for offspring. Instead, the expense is debated in the film, critiqued, and made comprehensible…though never comfortably.

This film allows its own ugliness to show, particularly as it relates to class differences between the two characters. It also treads a thin line: laugh at the low class woman too stupid to navigate through a baby-proofed toilet. Or laugh at the film itself for trawling through these stereotypes to reveal the invasive, class-based labor involved so that a rich girl’s dreams can come true.

Bravery and Intellect Over Easy: Scrambled

2010-03-12T14:13:00.012-05:00

(This post also published at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research blog re:Cycling.)

I’ll try not to sound too fan-girlish here as I write about the documentary Scrambled: A Journey through PCOS by Randi Cecchine, but admittedly, it is a difficult task. For in this film, which chronicles Cecchine’s struggle with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, we meet a filmmaker brave enough to show us, wart-hairs and all, the challenges inherent in this disease embodied. She does so with humor, with information, and with space for personal reflection.

As Cecchine and the health practitioners she speaks with share, PCOS is a condition that affects 8% of women but that goes under-diagnosed. Though largely undetected in the women who have PCOS, the first sign of something wrong is the absence or change in the menstrual period. According to Cecchine’s participant Dr. Geoffrey Redmond, an endocrinologist who has studied female hormone problems for over twenty years, PCOS generally shows up during puberty or shortly during the menarche period. In his interview, he argues that a delay of fifteen years in diagnosis typically occurs because “people who care for teenagers are typically not clued into this condition.”

In popular rhetoric on menstruation and menstrual suppression, there are many voices who have argued that having a menstrual period is unnecessary and should be done away with through hormonal birth control regimens (for example, Lybrel, Depo-Provera and Seasonale.) These drugs are often presented as choices to girls and young women close to menarche. Scrambled serves to intercept this discourse by demonstrating how the cycle becomes a sign of imbalance and illness. This film reminds us of the value of attending to the menstrual cycle. In Cecchine’s case, as in the case of the many women she interviews in her film, the lack of a period is a personal introduction to the disease.

Cecchine works with a light yet serious tone. A visit to Harry Finley’s Museum of Menstruation underscores the connections between menstruation, body awareness and PCOS. Yet we are able to marvel and smirk at Finley’s collection of menstrual advertising and decades old menstrual protection products which now live in his basement. As her lived investigation continues, Cecchine meets up with the Polycystic Ovarian Association (PCOSA) at their conference. There her film does remarkable work, as it invites the viewer to join in the conversation. In the scenes around the conference, we see how this film works to invite fellow PCOS women into the information Cecchine has gleaned. Though knowledge will not cure one from the illness, certain techniques shared in the film (like limiting carbohydrate intake) will result in reduced symptoms.

In the recent release of the film, which is self distributed, Scrambled is a two disc set. The first disc includes the documentary, but the second disc is chock-full of informative interviews on a variety of topics. Cecchine profiles Redmond along with many other health workers practicing western, eastern and alternative medicine who speak of the options for treatment. These include diet alterations, drug regimens, psychotherapy, acupuncture and others. In this disc, Cecchine provides the tools for a viewer with PCOS to address her syndrome through many methods. By providing information in this manner, Scrambled becomes a guide and a tool for holistic health on a personal level.

But these treatments comes at an expense. Here Cecchine’s humor bubbles up again when she shares the different techniques, like hair removal, pills, acupuncture treatments and their resulting costs. Yet, the feeling that comes afterward: “Priceless!” Bitingly Cecchine reminds us that being a patient also involves being a consumer. Therein she complicates these treatments as choices and necessities simultaneously.

Cecchine’s work follows in the tradition of Judith Helfand’s Healthy Baby Girl (1997) which, also in the first person and with humor, tells the story of Helfand’s illness with cervical cancer at the age of 25 (Helfand’s illness was the result of her mother, and mothers like her, taking the drug DES.) But Cecchine’s work also maintains experimental qualities, akin to those in the tradition of Su Friedrich’s similarly themed The Odds of Recovery (2002) which leave space for reflection by the viewer. In Scrambled, a score of tonal hums and drones, clicks and zaps create these necessary moments for reflection. In these spaces a viewer may consider her own wellness or wonder whether she knows her body enough to identify the signs of PCOS. Cecchine encourages an empowered understanding of one’s body, making Scrambled a tool for education and insight. Be sure to (order and then) watch with your notebook in one hand and the pause button in the other. There is much to take away here, but no better lesson than the importance of listening to one’s body.

Going to the Movies with Kathryn Bigelow: The Wild Bunch

2010-02-09T21:46:00.018-05:00

Though New York certainly provides its uniquely spectacular moments (a la Blow Job at Lincoln Center with Carl Craig last week) Los Angeles turns up the unbelievable delight just as readily. When I was in LA a few weeks ago, I attended a public screening of a film selected by Academy Award nominated director Kathryn Bigelow. She screened her selection as part of "The Movie That Inspired Me" series hosted by Curtis Hanson (a director of note in his own right, known best for 8 Mile and LA Confidential) at the UCLA Hammer Museum. He asks his idols working in front of and behind the camera to show and discuss important films of their choosing. Bigelow indulged in the sweet sincerity of the gesture by choosing Sam Peckinpah's 1969 bloody, burly The Wild Bunch.

The Hurt Locker topped the list in my Best of 2009 entry. Bigelow as a director has not moved me previously: films like Point Break, K-19: The Widowmaker, and Strange Days seemed fitting for little more than popcorn and SPF 30 sales. This film however, made in an independent spirit, may be her first feature film representative of her full and uncompromised vision. The Hammer Museum series dialogue solidified this notion.

The Wild Bunch, projected in super wide screen on a pristine print fresh from the Warner Brothers vault, was also a directors cut. This edit represents Peckinpah's truest intentions, without tremendous impact from censorial studio hands. A tale of robbers working at the US / Mexico border, the story valorizes several men who are at the end of their violent, destructive careers. Despite their murderous ways, Peckinpah manages to create a band of marauders with whom the audience identifies. They work with impoverished Mexican rebels fighting against Mapache, a corrupt warlord and member of the Mexican Federal Army, by stealing arms that will benefit their cause.

The Wild Bunch resonates in The Hurt Locker, as Bigelow's opening scene takes the cinematic structure of a Western. More so, Peckinpah's use of landscape (space) and time seeps into The Hurt Locker (no better scene demonstrates this than the sniper sequence.) Interestingly, Bigelow began her discussion of her career be noting how early this film figured into her understanding of the power of the screen and its ability to engage with audience subjectivity. She spoke of her early influences in the New York art scene (where she herself was an artist in the late 60's and early 70's) noting people like Joseph Bueys as someone who incited audiences as she wished to do. This made sense of my confusion over Bigelow's Strange Days (1995) a disturbing speculative fiction on the latent brutality of virtual reality technologies. I'm still haunted by the memory of nearly losing my lunch during a particularly violent sequence. In hearing Bigelow speak of Bueys, and in remembering that moment, I must admit that she succeeded in bridging the screen/body connection long ago.

At the Hammer, Bigelow began her discussion of her cinematic upbringing by providing an engaging reflection on the relationship between screen and viewer. However, following this introduction, she quickly and shyly backed off from it and denied herself further reflection. Instead, Bigelow seemed to sense from the crowd a lack of interest in what she started to call "pseudo intellectual" artistic talk. Perhaps the negativity was there, as I did see a few eyes roll during her opening statements. But, it was devastating to hear a director pull back and disavow a moment of reflection and certainty.

As the event wore on, the fan-boy questions led her further astray from the meat of a discussion on craft. She became increasingly reserved in her answers about the connections between the film she had chosen, The Wild Bunch, and her own. Bigelow argued that she had not seen Peckinpah's film in some time, that she was still learning how to reflect on her filmmaking process publicly, and that as she made the movie she was inside of the process, rather than being fully cognizant of her choices. This inability to discuss craft leads Bigelow toward speaking of her collaborators, particularly Mark Boal who co-produced the film with Bigelow and wrote the screenplay and her co-editors (who are also partners) Chris Innis and Bob Murawski.

Some questions that allowed her choices to shine included one on her method for working with actors. She places her actors in the scene and the moment (the lived set) as soon as possible. As she worked with multiple cameras shooting simultaneously ("I like a lot of options.") she threw off the actors so they did not know which camera to play toward. Instead, they just played. A good question on sound (I know, I'm biased) closed the event. Bigelow explained the sound design as an effort to craft a score that worked seamlessly with the ambient sounds and effects driven by the image. She did not want music to drive the emotion or to cue the viewer into the feelings of a scene. This rings true in moments where a viewer may debate in her mind: is this buzz or hum coming from the buried ordinance? or is it in the music? is there even an ordinance present?

From the creepy (one fan-boy stumbled: "Kathryn, after seeing The Hurt Locker I'll follow you from now on. Uh. Ummm... I mean, I'll follow your career.") to the inspired, Bigelow's talk left me both overjoyed and saddened. There is great and well deserved potential for Bigelow to be the first female director to take home an Oscar. Though the brilliant Jane Campion and brave Kimberly Peirce were denied, here we have a contender who may finally break through. But, does it come, in part, because of this woman's renunciation of her own vision and talent? All I can say is, Kathryn, please. Own it!

Sonic Subjectivity: Blow Job & Kiss at Unsound

2010-02-07T12:41:00.015-05:00

This weekend, the Unsound Music Festival launched in New York with musical accompaniment to screenings of two Warhol films, Kiss (1963) and Blow Job (1964) at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center. Kiss (watch it here) is a study of sexuality, dominance, sensuality and gender. Through 3 minute and 20 second segments (the length of one 16mm roll of film) a pair of faces locks lips. As each segment begins, the image fades in as the kiss is already underway. At times, we feel that the kiss has been going on for hours, days even, as the lovers devour each others' faces with no self consciousness. However, some pairings appear to be newly introduced and their kiss is tentative and awkward.

The musicians, Max Loderbauer and Vladislav Delay, performed as narrators, assigning a value to each kissing pair. Early in the piece, their impact on the images was minimal and we were able to study the intricacies and permutations of lips coming together. Warhol's tricks with gender and sexuality are glorious in this piece; an early shirtless pair is revealed to be two men (instead of the repeated male/female coupling that had become expected.) Accompaniment in the first third of the piece was light, slow and dreamy. But mid-way, as an over-exposed shot revealed a black man and lighter skinned woman kissing, the musicians felt it appropriate to dive into deeper tones. None of the couples are female/female in Kiss, and only once is a woman is pictured "on top," controlling the pace and depth of a smooch. Sadly, here was another moment when the musicians felt a low, darkening tone was most appropriate.

The second performance by epic techno musician Carl Craig accompanied Blow Job a 35 minute medium close up of the face of a man receiving the film's title. As Craig began building beats and tones to work with the action on screen, he played with the humor of the moment - mimicking the fellator and interacting with the jerks and unheard moans of the receiver. I admit to thinking that I had unfortunately landed myself into the ultimate masculinist space: a Polish electronic music festival relaunched in New York, wherein most of the performers and panelists are men, opening with nothing less than a celebration of a hard cock. But Craig refused to allow the project to dwell simply within that space. Tones and tempos moved from external humor to interior pleasure. As each 3:20 segment of the film rolled by, the musical performance became entrancing and the bass-heavy thumping felt like the inside of my head and heart, rather than the tip of the film's subject's phallus. We watch his head tilt back and forward, losing site of his entire face at times, but movement on screen is minimal and the music moves us inside. 35 minutes later, after the moment of release was assumed, an intimacy between the film's subject and the audience resonated and a connection between audience, musician and filmmaker remained.

Ranting about Ratings, Raving about Frozen River

2010-01-28T13:32:00.007-05:00

After watching the dark, dismal beauty of Frozen River (2008) I was left cemented to the couch. Perhaps the emotional exhaustion I endured at the hand of this brave indie film demanded that I linger on its short list of credits. Names like Crystal Shade (hair stylist) and Sherry Drinkwine (playing a mobile home customer) allowed for minimal lightness amidst the dark clouds left by this film's emotional storm.

Frozen River is the story of a poor white “single” mother, Ray Eddy, played by Melissa Leo, struggling to take care of two sons after her gambling addicted husband abandons the family on the eve of Christmas without a cent. She hesitantly teams up with Lila Littlewolf, a young Mohawk woman played by Misty Upham who runs a smuggling operation, moving illegal immigrants across the US border through reservation land. What might seem like a bright entrepreneurial opportunity (just kidding) turns sour, then deeply dark as their smuggling leads these two desperately poor mothers to the precipice of total personal and familial destruction.

Long after the title crawl had left the screen, I was confronted by the most shocking and disturbing element of this film: an R Rating. Courtney Hunt’s film, which contains a meager curse word or two, has no nudity, no sex, and no kissing, yet the MPAA has branded it unwatchable for teenagers. True, there is a gun shot heard which results in a tiny bit of blood on Leo's ear and there are threats of more violence by a pocketbook handgun she carries for defense, but these elements are PG-13 material. So, why an R rating?

Ratings are a political game of power as ratings reflect more than the appropriate age of a viewer; they reflect the potential market of a film. An R rating reduces the potential audience for a film and the MPAA has been known to throw R ratings on films for adult themes (like, gasp, homosexuality, or even better, female sexual pleasure) but they often see violence as something for teens to enjoy. After witnessing protective parents drag their teenaged children from the theatre mid-bloodbath in the PG-13 rated Avatar, and following from A.O. Scott's essay in the New York Times this Sunday, ratings discrepancies abound. Scott's otherwise wimpy piece calls into question the 2007 MPAA decision that states that films containing cigarette smoking carry an R rating. Yet, as he demonstrates, Avatar includes a cigarette smoking Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver.) Perhaps this was the reason for Frozen River's R rating? Leo's character smokes in her morning robe as tears stream down her face in the film's opening. She lights up again late at night in celebration of her smuggler's bounty. Are Leo's 2009 cigarettes more real, and therefore R-worthy, than Weaver's futuristic cancer-sticks? In light of this discrepancy, one cannot deny that ratings carry with them an F-you from the MPAA for some films and a red carpet leading to financial success for others.

Ratings are censorship, plain and simple. The fear of an R or NC-17 rating will incite directors to pull scenes, words, gestures or characters from their films. Independent filmmakers working with radical, innovative, political content are most harmed by restrictive ratings. These artists have limited audiences because of their meager budgets, moderate access to star-power, and significantly lower marketing budgets. Indie filmmakers are harmed by this ratings system time and time again and filmmakers deserve a braver advocate. Frozen River is but one example of a film that pissed someone off (probably because its storyline engages with race and class while telling a story that makes the Department of Homeland Security bristle.) Yet its audience deserves to be vast so that the conversation Frozen River inspires may be as broad and representative as possible.

Eat it Up: The Wedding Banquet

2010-01-11T13:11:00.011-05:00

At the center of The Wedding Banquet (1993,) Ang Lee makes a cameo appearance in his film. As a nameless guest, he leans forward to explain the ensuing debauchery to the bewildered white guests: these Chinese folks are making up for "5,000 years of sexual repression." From Sense and Sensibility to The Ice Storm to Lust Caution to Brokeback Mountain, sexual repression distracts Lee. He builds films and worlds wherein characters suffer from secrets and affairs that will surely lead, in many cases, to their deaths if discovered. The subject of repression has enticed him to make beautiful, brilliant films that are sexually forward, emotionally charged, and tinged with dark humor in response to the repressive confines of his characters.

The Wedding Banquet may be his first success in launching his authorial voice in story, if not in style. Since Sense and Sensibility, Lee has approached genre like a child crossing a stream who jumps from rock to rock to rock, bounding through Western, Rom-com, Martial Arts, Action Adventure and Period Costume Drama. The Wedding Banquet, like Eat Drink Man Woman which follows, are family dramedies. Here we meet Wai-tung and Simon, who are dreamily in love and situated comfortably in a Chelsea row house. Wai-tung's Taiwan based parents know nothing of his 5 year long relationship with Simon and they harangue Wai-tung with notices of marital matches. Finally, Simon decides that the way to overcome this bothersome mail is to arrange a faux marriage for Wai-tung. They decide Wai-tung should marry Wei Wei, an artist squatting in Wai's Brooklyn warehouse who needs a greencard.

The parents travel to New York to meet the latest incarnation of a "picture bride" and judge whether she is fit to bear them grandchildren. Simon and Wai wait patiently for the two week parental invasion to end so they can return to their own form of queer marital bliss. Wei Wei goes through an emotional rollercoaster, happily accepting the parents' gifts and love but sadly fighting with herself to give up her hope that Wai-tung will ever truly want her outside of this farce. Wai tung's father and mother demand a more lavish celebration than the courthouse wedding and so begins the wedding banquet.

This film could easily become camp or all-out comedy, but it is neither. Rather, Lee uses the over-the-top pomp and circumstance of the wedding to demonstrate the tragedy of the privileges of heterosexual coupling. The innate slapstick in an extravagant lie rendered onscreen is withheld so that we instead note the extent queers must go to in the 80's and early 90's (and still) to hide our sexuality.

Lee's film swims alongside important queer works of the period like Tongues Untied (Marlon Riggs, 1990), Poison (Todd Haynes, 2001) and Go Fish to follow (Rose Troche, 1994.) Yet, because of his straight style (and identity) Lee would not be considered a queer director of the era. A recent essay on Lee by William Leung called "So Queer Yet So Straight: Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet and Brokeback Mountain" explores his work as queer despite the straight stylings in plot and structure. This essay rings true as it works to mollify an empty conundrum - how can straight identified directors (shockingly!) make work that speaks to queer audiences?!

Listen to the wind: Cast Away

2010-01-09T11:42:00.011-05:00

Cast Away sticks out in my DVD collection, a Tootsie Roll in a bowl of Godiva's. Why do I return to this film when I need to chill out? I rewatched Cast Away (Zemeckis, 2000) again last night and was reminded why.

SOUND.

Randy Thom, the sound designer and head rerecording mixer on Cast Away has crafted a rich and full sound space wherein Tom Hanks' character, Chuck Noland, can enact his evolutionary trajectory in relatively short order. As Chuck develops techniques for survival and moves from stone tools to metal ones, he largely does so wordlessly. Thom delicately injects lapping waves, rustling palm fronds, and wind in gusts big and small. Sound effects thrive on this palette of ambiance. A falling coconut "thud" and a plastic "thump" on rock are strange yet inviting sounds. As these sounds come from off-screen space, and as Noland moves toward them to discover their source, so does the story advance. Until Noland makes his escape from the island, four years later, there isn't an inch of musical score in this picture. It's all ambiance and sound effect.

Thom is a great proponent of the importance of good sound design in film. His essay "Designing a Movie for Sound" is a must-read for any filmmaker. From screenplay to shooting, Thom guides a writer / director through the process of creating space for sound design in a picture through thought-provoking questions and rich examples. Sound is often a forgotten element of film. A few years ago, in this essay, I explored the role of a sound-first approach in teaching film students. By using sound to drive viewer attention from on-screen actions to off, sound expands the world of a film. Here, in Cast Away, a bed of rich ambient texture creates a meditative experience wherein a viewer can get lost in the process, while carefully selected sound effects propel a story of discovery.

Activist Documentary in Question: The Garden

2010-01-07T14:48:00.014-05:00

When a documentary film tells a story that profiles the poor, the struggle, and an imbalance of power, does it do more than entertain the viewer? I often wonder if films like The Garden (Scott Hamilton Kennedy, 2008) that make viewers cry through their depictions of poor protagonists and grave injustices actually do much more than that. Jill Godmilow said it best in her documentary manifesto "Kill the Documentary as We Know It" and in her critique of the liberal documentary. She writes "Though the liberal documentary takes the stance of a sober, non-fiction vehicle for edification about the real world, it is trapped in the same matrix of obligations as the fiction film -- to entertain its audience; to produce fascination with its materials; to achieve closure; to satisfy. Certainly it is a vehicle for compassion. My question is: is that of any political use? Further, is not the production of compassion, perhaps, subversive of progressive political change?"

As an activist doc, The Garden is necessary viewing for many reasons. It explores racial and class politics, it is a study of urban geography, a keen articulation of food politics through class and race, and its devastating turns track the need for more work to change the problems of corrupt institutions. Through emotion and documentation, this activist film has the potential to invoke change. But has it?

In the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, an urban garden was created by neighborhood activists in South Central Los Angeles. When setting up the story, the filmmakers remind us of the devastation of these riots: 53 people left dead, thousands injured, $1 billion in damages to this area of the city. The vision of a fruitful 14 acre garden in this neighborhood would seem miraculous if we didn't meet the farmers who work this land. They introduce their papayas, bananas, cilantro and multitude of other greens and fruits which feed them and 357 respective families. Though the land has been worked for 10 years by these farmers respectively, the "owner" of the land, seeing its new value, wants to sell it to build concrete warehouses.

The film presents many images which demonstrate the importance of the South Central farmer's garden. It is cement locked, surrounded by little more than warehouse after warehouse. That a lush, community center feeding and supporting thousands of people thrives, does not interest the shady City Councilwoman of this neighborhood, Jan Perry. Instead, as the filmmakers show, this successful project seems to disrupt her interests in conducting land deals that benefit her and her friends. Even the Latino mayor Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa shies away from supporting the garden, though he fails to specify that his inaction supports instead the off-the record backroom deals between the city and the mercenary property owner, Ralph Horowitz.

The filmmakers side with and follow the farmers largely. Though director Hamilton Kennedy includes interviews with Perry, her pals, and mayoral reps (including a Deputy Mayor whose heart is definitely in the right place) this is activist filmmaking and the story and character construction supports the farmers. He closely documents the fight through the actions of the leaders of the organization. Unfortunately, we do not learn much about them outside of their activist role. This is particularly frustrating when garden leader Rufina Juarez (left) cries from exhaustion at the height of the film's second act, yet we wonder what else she does beyond this and how she rose to the leadership role. A second leader, Tezozomac (right,) is attacked with a machete by a co-gardener who is upset by Tezozomac's enforcement of the collective's democratically decided regulations (gardeners shall grow what they and their family eat and not grow to sell food for profit.) These events illustrate some of the shortcomings in a film that relies more on emotion than details to construct its story and narrative arc. I wished for more set up around the collective, their rules of self governance, and the elected leaders.

Godmilow's words of warning continuously haunt me as I am entertained by and moved by the form that I love and work in, particularly with a film like The Garden. The site for the film has a blog link and updates connect us to news on the awards the film has won and the distribution plan for the film. On the home page, at the bottom, there is a link to the South Central Farmers site which enables a viewer to provide a donation or join the effort. Documentaries have publication dates when a story must be set in stone and a film release, but their websites have the potential to update a story, enact change and mobilize a viewing public beyond the release of the film. Though The Garden website does not do this in its content, by linking to the farmers site, the filmmakers provide this opportunity. I wonder what Godmilow would think of this link as an extension of the lifecycle and potential impact of a liberal documentary film?

No Strings Attached: Coraline

2010-01-05T17:33:00.017-05:00

Admittedly, I am slow on the uptake. After 100 minutes of watching Coraline (by Henry Selick, 2009) I could not determine whether this film is CGI or stop-motion animation. Thanks to the immediate answers provided by director's commentary with Selick, the door has unlocked. This beautiful piece combines stop-motion animation with CGI (animating the facial expressions and other details, like painting backgrounds in post.) This blend of stop-motion with enhanced imagery through CGI was explored by Selick in his earlier films The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.

But, it is the puppets and the beauty of stop-motion which drives the artistry of this film. Though in his DVD director's commentary, Selick compliments the voice talents of Dakota Fanning, Terri Hatcher, Keith David and John Hodgman, he gives due primary credit to the animators. "The animator is the actor with the hardest job who, inspired by the voice which is marked down on sheets, then performs through the puppet, and there's no assistants. They don't just do poses and somebody else come's in and do in-betweens. They start at the beginning of the shot and after rehearsals and working things out with the camera movement and reviews with myself, the director, they are launched on a shot and do an actual performance, very slowly, frame at a time, but an actual performance from beginning to end. And they will make mistakes. Sometimes you cut back. Sometimes you work with the mistakes. And at the end of the day. You get your shot in. It has a life -- unlike any other form of animation."

Coraline, a film and story based on Neil Gaiman's book, stars a young girl with blue hair who has moved from her friends in Michigan to the muddy puddles of Oregon. Through boredom, she asks her inattentive mother to unlock a strange door in their old and under-explored home. When she enters this door, Coraline comes into a bizarro-house complete with a version of her mother (called "Other Mother") and her other-father, seemingly more perfect beings than her real parents. Other-Mother is particularly ideal as a woman who cooks delicious treats and who seeks solely to delight Coraline by making her "wonders" like a mouse-circus with limitless cotton candy buffy and a burlesque theatre starring these two gals, Miss Miriam Forcible and Miss April Spink. Oddly, Coraline would rather return to her real mom (and dad) despite the treats before her in bizarro-land. It's understandable, for in bizarro-land the Other-Mother and these burlesque performers are plagued by anorexia, whereas in the real world these women, um female puppets, have curves. Plus, the mom who types away on the computer working in partnership with her husband seems to be more desirable to the Other-Mother who wants to please Coraline so that her daughter will love her forever (i.e. she'll kill Coraline with her other-mother-smothering.)

Like many contemporary kid's films, Coraline is a child protagonist beset by life-ending threats. I wonder how kids sleep at night as they see their heroines ceaselessly under attack. Though, considering that I grew up watching and re-watching another Selick endeavor (Return to Oz by Walter Murch) images of girls who overcome the witches in their way linger and may actually help us get through the browbeating by Mean Girls and the disappointments of our real-moms throughout our teens.

Peeling potatoes with Jeanne Dielman

2010-01-02T12:47:00.014-05:00

There are films that follow you throughout your life, leaving their mark by winking at key moments on your path. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is that film for me. Reading about Chantal Akerman and Babette Mangolte's innovative and feminist cinematography choices motivated me to pick up a camera. Then, while studying cinema in the MFA program at San Francisco State University, I first watched the film on 16mm and nearly gave up the craft after witnessing something so perfect. Later, when teaching video production at the University of California San Diego, I was lucky to meet Mangolte and see her project her own personal print of the film on campus. Until now, these two screenings lingered long in my memory but I regretted that I could never share the film with my students and friends as this masterpiece has only been available on film. This fall Criterion released a DVD. Receiving this copy for the holiday was all I needed under the tree.

In three hours and twenty minutes, Akerman takes us through three days in the life of Jeanne Dielman, a drop dead gorgeous, but painful fastidious, widow as she cares for her son and their household. Actress Delphine Seyrig does this, and we see it, moment by moment by making their meals with tender care, by straightening the table cloth, folding away her son's bed, maintaining the electric bill switch by switch, and by turning tricks in her bedroom to pay for it all. Three Johns make their way through Dielman's home and on the second day, the job upsets her somehow. We know this only because her typically impeccable coiffure is askew. As she fails to put the lid back on the container that houses her money, Akerman sends a jolt of energy from her film through the audience with one subtle detail.

As this scene comes 1 hour and ten minutes into the film, it evidences how spectacular Jeanne Dielman is as a film. For over an hour, the process of watching a film and one's pleasure in it is challenged. At the time of Dielman's release in 1975, feminist film scholars Laura Mulvey and Julia Lesage brought to our attention the importance of denying pleasure in the viewer as a way to disrupt the cinematic system of presenting women as sexual objects. By keeping the door closed on Dielman's work as a prostitute, Akerman instead highlights the daily routines central in the role of the working mother caring for her home and her child at the expense of herself, her pleasure and her sanity.

Transgendered Birds and Flying Babies: My top films of 2009

2009-12-31T17:00:00.060-05:00

What a year! (For me personally, though film wise it wasn't so bad either.)

Combing through the obligatory end of year best-of lists, I mildly disagree with most reviewers (peruse Manhola Dargis, A.O. Scott and J. Hoberman.) Some films which are heading these lists, like Summer Hours (Assayas) were lovely stories. But its high rankings despite fairly straight forward storytelling mechanisms suggests that reviewers vote with their babyboomer anxieties. Another film topping the lists -- Where the Wild Things Are - bleeds brown as a violent romp. Some stories should stay on the page rather than move to the screen (and accompanying surround speakers.) Jonze's translation is a nuanced story painted in a softly glowing beige and golden palette. However, as the young boy who becomes king of the wild things rips their homes to shreds, the film felt more like kiddy-colonialism than ingenious auteur-ship.

In each list, however, is the brilliant The Hurt Locker, my top choice of the year. In order, here's what blew my mind in '09:

1. The Hurt Locker - Did I breathe once during Bigelow's verite style bomb detonation flick? Not since Three Kings have I enjoyed a smartly crafted war picture. It is timely and necessary work and moves Bigelow from the strange dayz of U boats into work wherein she drives and thrives.

2. The Headless Woman - An Argentinian film by director Lucrecia Martel about an upperclass woman who sustains a head injury during a car accident. In the days following her concussion, her fluttering subjectivity is rendered with varying depths of field. Medium wide shots with standard depth of field reveal moments where she is able to move and see the people around her. But close up shots and medium close ups with very shallow depth of field leave blurs and smudges in the frame as she grasps for meaning in her newly disordered life. Class is a central issue, as is female subjectivity (spoiler alert) for as it takes days for the people around her to see her and her divergent mind state, it takes weeks for anyone to recognize the loss of the poor boy she may have killed with her car.

3. The Beaches of Agnes - A heroine for female filmmakers, the great director Agnes Varda lays her life bare as she reflects on a remarkable path. At the center of the frame are her love of film and her undying connection to her deceased partner, Jacques Demy. Varda describes bits of her best work - including Gleaners and I, Cleo from 5 to 7 and Vagabond and tells the stories of the construction of these pictures. Her genuine honesty, humbleness and humor are rare and welcome in the autobiographic form. Humor comes largely from her voice over and through the innovative techniques wherein she is mirrored, reflected and refracted through her performance as narrator --much like memory itself (reflected, refracted and performed.)

4. Ricky - Francois Ozon is my favorite director. Period. I proselytize nearly all of his many works, from his shorts to his features. Ricky is his latest feature (spoiler) and the name of a baby who sprouts wings. His working-class mother and her daughter are challenged to raise this special and frightening child. While images of flying babies falling from the sky may sound traumatizing to some, here these images are humorous, tender and dark. Ozon is great because he masters all three tones at once in each of his films. This film is no exception to that talent and with Ricky, Ozon continues to beautifully explore the boundaries of normativity.

5. Bright Star - This is surely Jane Campion's comeback picture! After the disastrous and misogynistic In the Cut, my other favorite director has returned to her former glory with this beautiful love story. A 3 tissue film sprinkled with violet petals and butterfly wings, here we meet the amazing Fanny Brawne who inspired John Keats' love poems. As a cinematographer, I'm still trying to figure out how they succeeded in shooting the impossible: dimly lit rooms flicker with candlelight while the windows therein frame brightly lit snowy exteriors... all properly exposed?!
6. Up - The trend in this list -- I like films that make me cry. Up reminded me of the necessity of Love despite the joy, pain, sunshine and rain it brings. As an old man fulfills his dead wife's life-long wish by flying his house to South America, he meets a few characters along the way who force him to connect with the living. A chubby cub scout, sad eyed goof of a dog, and rainbow colored bird delight. But this bird, named Kevin, must be underscored as he/she stands as the first Transgendered character to grace the Disney screen. With rainbow colored feathers, a male name, and ability to give birth, Kevin's gender is never resolved. There is joy to be had in seeing Disney-fied queerness.

7. La Danse: Le Ballet de l'Opera de Paris - Wiseman may be the best living documentary filmmaker in the United States. With over forty years of work, from High School to Domestic Violence, Wiseman illuminates the people affected by public institutions. Here we see the inner workings of the Paris Opera Ballet and the endless preparation dancers and choreographers endure to stage a work. Through his patient and subtle observational approach, Wiseman launches a critique on classical ballet in favor of the innovative energy and beauty housed within modern dance. For 250 minutes, the viewer is allowed to indulge in movement, super-human athleticism and true artistry (of the documentary sort, as well as in dance.)

8. Avatar - I reviewed this film in my previous post, so here I will add this: In the theatre, I felt lucky to watch such visual wizardry. My eyes were happy throughout and I was lost in the world before me. Most importantly, this is a mass marketed film launching a political critique of the genocide and environmental rape repeatedly committed by the United States of America. So with all that eye-candy comes a gooey, nutritious center.

9. Lorna's Silence - Dardennes brothers' films seem simple. Handheld cameras, medium shots, real locations, ambient sound, natural lighting and quotidien working class settings suggest films that "happen" rather than films that are "made." But with Lorna's Silence, like La Promesse and The Child before her, the brothers Dardennes demonstrate how crafting a two-act character-driven film works. While returning to similar themes of immigration and xenophobia in the EU and Belgium specifically, here they highlight a an Albanian immigrant who must marry for her citizenship. In doing so, they seem to raise the character of Assita from their 1996 La Promesse, a woman who gets short shrift in that film though she drives the young central character, Igor's, story forward. Indeed, Igor, or Jérémie Renier, the actor who played him, is central in this film. After appearing in La Promesse, The Child and Lorna's Silence this actor, whose character has different names along the way, grows up through these three Dardennes films. When he appears here, it is a welcome return. (Spoiler alert) In his passing, we grieve for the wrong turns made and poor lessons taught to him in his youth in those earlier pictures.

10. Sita Sings the Blues - Thankfully you can watch Paley's breathtaking animated film for free on line any time. In masterful post-modern form, Paley combines her own break up tale with stories from the ancient epic, the Ramayana. Like other feminist writers of late, Paley puts a microscope over a tragic female character who gets short shrift in the epic tale despite her suffering (Anita Diamant does this in The Red Tent as does Margaret Atwood in The Penelopiad). Paley demonstrates the fluidity in oral histories by retelling a 2500 year old saga through her varying animation styles and through three narrators who reconstruct the story with lively, and at times oppositional, conversation. Because of copyright issues, we can all see this film for free online, but I implore you to support the independent spirit and find a way to send Paley some green for her brilliant efforts.

Flying...

2009-12-30T17:54:00.004-05:00

A day of movie watching in the theatre, themed according to flight, began with Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009) and ended with Avatar (James Cameron, 2009.) Despite the oppositional pairing: a visually stark film about a man who fires people for a living and a visually overloaded fantasy picture about a man studying beings that will be fired upon, these two pictures worked nicely together.

Up In The Air (spoiler) is a compelling meditation on the status of our economy distracted by a tale of unrequited love. Regardless, it's dark and fittingly so. Clooney is fabulous, as always. He has the knack for picking pictures, and as my viewing companion remarked, this talent allows him to shed light upon worthy pictures with challenging themes (for example: Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, O Brother Where Art Thou?) The script is a bit hot and cold at times, but a desirable and intelligent female character, Alex, an unapologetically successful business woman, made up for the weaker lass (Natalie) learning the ropes. Favorite quote - Natalie, burned by a text-message break-up, whines to Alex (I paraphrase) "This might sound anti-feminist and I apologize to your generation of women who made it possible for me to feel this way, but I just want to be married to a man."

It required a warm cup of hot chocolate in between films to appropriately jack-me-up for the blue beings (indeed, as I put on the 3D glasses, I realized I was too caffeinated to blink.) There's lots that will be said about this picture so I won't rehash the plot for y'all. In short, I think it's stunning to watch and I was wrapped up in its limitless beauty. The blue warrior lady is a babe which sets up the need for physical perfection amongst all the ladies on screen (ergo Sigourney's body double in her character's death sequence gave me pause.) Plus, anything with Michelle Rodriguez kicking ass is always welcome here.

To be serious though, throughout this surprisingly moving film I thought of two things: Fuck Halliburton and Fuck Blackwater. Fuck all those companies and our citizens who work there who wreak cultural and environmental havoc for our "energy needs." If you are surprised that I got this from Avatar, re-watch the film. The visual spectacle can distract from the message, but it's there quite clearly.

Eating Alaska

2009-12-30T17:28:00.001-05:00

How does one eat locally when she lives in the tundra? Ellen Frankenstein considers this question in Eating Alaska, her hour-long documentary about this epicurean quandary. As folks in this mighty state must decide between a $7.50 gallon of milk or raise their own food on difficult soil and in a challenging climate, many seem to turn to hunting. She faces hunting head-on by looking through the scope of a rifle. Though Frankentein tries a rifle on for size and joins hunting parties seeking deer and caribou, she cannot shoot the animal in her sites. Incredible footage of the landscape (shot by Frankenstein and my friend, Hannah Guggenheim) give beauty to the rugged mountains, floating mist, and sea side children's camps where kids learn how to feed themselves according to traditional methods.

This film is educational and diaristic, informative and entertaining. Through Frankenstein's journey, I was left thinking through my own locavorian food choices (proudly, I might add) but also wanted to know more. I was very happy to learn of the problems with farmed fish and the incredible prices inflicted upon Alaskan's who must buy food shipped from afar. But debates over consumption of whale meat and seals were unaddressed. IMHO, native peoples should be able to hunt and consume whales and seals, but what about the other residents of Alaska the film seeks to address (i.e. non-native americans who invade from the south?) Certainly a film that wants to inform should not fear addressing these debates.

Delicious stuff overall. Cooking up a pot of blueberry caribou stew as I type...

G6 Pix

2009-12-30T17:18:00.001-05:00

I admit it. I see about one film a day. And typically, friends and family (which I have, despite this viewing schedule) request recommendations. I gladly tell them the titles they should run to or they run from (with arms flailing madly of course.)

Seeing as how the range of films I view is rather eclectic, I've considered starting this blog for some time. Plus, as a filmmaker and film prof I can write about this on work time! So, I'm primed to begin this blog. Read along and view along at your own risk. Some titles may be hard to find, so I'll provide links as need be.