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[Blu-ray]: W. – DVD: W.
W.
Is Oliver Stone losing his touch?
W. is the falsest, least authentic political film I’ve seen in a while. It’s full of bad dialogue that explains and explains for the ten year olds in the audience.
It neglects who these people are, Poppy, Rummy, Cheney, Wolfie, and what they set out to do from day one. This gang has rap sheets a mile long. They did not fall into these situations out of the blue.
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“The story of an aspiring fashion photographer whose career takes an unexpected turn when she discovers a hidden world of beauty at a center for people living with significant disabilities.”
I have to say that just the trailer made me a little misty.
Blu-ray: Taking Woodstock
DVD: Taking Woodstock
This is a worthwhile take on the 1969 Woodstock concert. Ang Lee directs the inside story of the unknowing young man who inadvertently unleashed the largest concert in world history on a small farming town in upstate NY.
The film is notable for its lead character, a gay, Jewish, artist kid who seized on the concert idea as a last ditch effort to save his parents’ motel from foreclosure.
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From Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow at 11:26 PM May 7, 2010.
The FCC has given Hollywood permission to activate the “Selective Output Control” technologies in your set-top box. These are hidden flags that allow the MPAA to deactivate parts of your home theater depending on what you’re watching. And it sucks. As Dan Gillmor notes, “Fans of old TV science fiction will remember the Outer Limits. Given Hollywood’s victory today at the FCC — they’ll be able to reach over the lines and disable functions on your TV — the intro to the show takes on modern relevance.”
The FCC says that they’re doing this because they believe that if they do so, the MPAA will start releasing first-run movies (the ones that are still in theaters) for TV. They say that Hollywood won’t make these movies available unless they get Selectable Output Control because SOC will stop piracy.
This is ridiculous.
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DVD: The Last Station
Blu-ray: The Last Station
Vague, Passionate and Erratic: The Last Station
by Binoy Kampmark
“Tomorrow, I’ll go to the station and lie down on the track. Tolstoy’s wife becomes Anna Karenina herself. See how the papers will like that!”
Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren) to Leon Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), The Last Station (2009)
In Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station, a portrayal over the last days of Leo Tolstoy’s life and a battle over the disposition of his estate and copyright to his works, politics and personalities clash. The wily aide and pejoratively labelled ‘catamite’ Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), who sees himself as more Tolstoyan than Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), faces off with Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren) over how the great author shall share his legacy. Everyone seems to be scribbling notes in an effort to record the last days of an era. Be it doctor or secretary, the latter played by James McAvoy, there is a furious relaying of all that is said, irrespective of how noteworthy it might actually be. ‘In the beginning, there was the word…’
Parts of this effort by Hoffman are barely believable, though it all comes down to what viewers are expecting. Reviewers have found the scene when Countess Sofya’s desperate attempt to woo Tolstoy with the lines ‘I’m your chicken, you be my big cock!’ desperate and cringe worthy. Tim Roby of The Telegraph (Feb 18), is merely being cranky, though he is right to point out that the carnival, stage element never quite escapes this film. For many, that will be a more than sufficient digestive. Something might have been made about the black and white footage that is shown at the end of the film, featuring a Christ-like Tolstoy engaging in his labours. We are left wondering.
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Film’s website:
http://films.nfb.ca/the-coca-cola-case/
A Review of the “Coca-Cola Case”
Killer-Coke Hits the Screens
By BILLY WHARTON
“Sailing round the world in a dirty gondola,” Bob Dylan sang in 1971, “Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!” After forty years of corporate globalization, Dylan would be hard pressed to find a place that isn’t the land of Coca-Cola. Multinationals have torn up the globe converting the repression of workers into cheap labor and free trade agreements into new market opportunities all in the name of ever-increasing profit margins. Left in their wake are legacies of environmental destruction, corrupt governments and employer violence. This process is precisely what a documentary currently making the rounds in campus political circles, by German Gutierrez and Carmen Garcia’s entitled “The Cola-Case,” aims to expose.
Will Hollywood Go the Way of Enron?
Derivatives Come to the Movies
By ELLEN BROWN
As if attacks from paparazzi and star-crazed fans weren’t enough, Hollywood stars may soon have a literal price put on their heads by investors in the Cantor Exchange, a real-money trading platform where people can bet on the gross profits of upcoming movies. Sales of The Dark Knight skyrocketed after Heath Ledger died unexpectedly, and so did sales after the deaths of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. Will greed-driven investors now be laying in wait for the stars of movies they have bet on?
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From FILMMAKER
By Scott Macaulay
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
A powerful statement from U.S. directors calling for the release of director Jafar Panahi from prison in Iran has been issued. I’ll let the petition speak for itself, but kudos to the organizers for taking action and assembling this illustrious group.
New York, NY (April 30, 2010) – Jafar Panahi, an internationally acclaimed Iranian director of such award-winning films as The White Balloon, The Circle, Crimson Gold and Offside, was arrested at his home on March 1st and has been held since in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. A number of filmmaking luminaries have come to Mr. Panahi’s defense and “condemn his detention and strongly urge the Iranian government to release Mr. Panahi immediately,” according to a new petition. (Petition text and full list of signatories is available below.)
Islamic Republic officials initially charged Mr. Panahi with “unspecified crimes.” They have since reversed themselves, and the charges now allege that he was making a film against the regime, a very serious accusation in Iran.
Mr. Panahi’s films have been banned from screening in Iran for the past ten years and he has been kept from working for the past four years, but he continues to stay in Iran.
“Mr. Panahi deeply loves his country,” says Jamsheed Akrami, an Iranian-American film scholar and filmmaker, who helped organize the petition. “Even though he knows he could have opportunities to work freely outside of his homeland, he has repeatedly refused to leave. He would never do anything against the national interests of his country and his people.”
Mr. Panahi is one of the most heralded directors in the world. He has won such top prizes as the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for Offside (2006), the Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Crimson Gold (2003), the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for The Circle (2000), the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival for The Mirror
(1997) and the Cannes Camera d’Or for The White Balloon (1995).PETITION: Free Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi, the internationally acclaimed Iranian director of such award-winning films as The White Balloon, The Circle, Crimson Gold and Offside, was arrested at his home on March 1st in a raid by plain-clothed security forces. He has been held since then in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
A recent letter from Mr. Panahi’s wife expressed her deep concerns about her husband’s heart condition, and about his having been moved to a smaller cell. Mr. Panahi’s films have been banned from screening in Iran for the past ten years and he has effectively been kept from working for the past four years. Last October, his passport was confiscated and he was banned from leaving the country. Upon his arrest, Islamic Republic officials initially charged Mr. Panahi with “unspecified crimes.” They have since reversed themselves, and the charges are now specifically related to his work as a filmmaker.
We (the undersigned) stand in solidarity with a fellow filmmaker, condemn this detention, and strongly urge the Iranian government to release Mr. Panahi immediately.
Iran’s contributions to international cinema have been rightfully heralded, and encouraged those of us outside the country to respect and cherish its people and their stories. Like artists everywhere, Iran’s filmmakers should be celebrated, not censored, repressed, and imprisoned.
Signed:
Paul Thomas Anderson
Joel & Ethan Coen
Francis Ford Coppola
Jonathan Demme
Robert De Niro
Curtis Hanson
Jim Jarmusch
Ang Lee
Richard Linklater
Terrence Malick
Michael Moore
Robert Redford
Martin Scorsese
James Schamus
Paul Schrader
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Spielberg
Oliver Stone
Frederick WisemanPetition Organizing Committee: Jamsheed Akrami, Godfrey Cheshire, Jem Cohen, Kent Jones, Anthony Kaufman
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DVD: Che (Criterion Collection)
Based on the memoir of Ernesto Che Guevara, this independent film is certainly a must-see for those interested in political films and particularly in US foreign policy and the backlash it creates.
It’s not often that American imperialism is directly named, critiqued and ultimately defeated.
As seldom-seen history, Che is fascinating and raw.
As a movie, however, it’s got its flaws. Not least of which is the amount of screen time allocated to talking. In reality revolutions need a lot of talk, to be sure. On screen however, a little goes a long way. In that regard, the film could easily have been chopped down by a half an hour or perhaps an hour and combined with Part Two to give us a faster-paced telling with more impact.
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