Monday, January 30, 2012

Rocket Singh:Salesman of the Year

Rocket Singh is an Indian comedy but also has some drama elements. I was pleasantly surprised how relevant it is in today's economy, and had assumed it would be a very broad comedy or Bollywood style film with lots of singing and dancing.

Hapreet Singh, a young Sikh, has just graduated from business school. But where his fellow classmates are getting high paying but soulless jobs, Hapreet just wants any kind of job, and ends up working as a sales intern at a small computer sales firm. But the business is very cutthroat and Hapreet is discouraged that the little guys--himself, the receptionist, the IT tech, and the office boy (actually he is a middle aged man) are constantly tread upon. He finally makes a sale--of two computers--but instead of billing it to the office, he surreptitiously creates a new firm, Rocket Sales Corporation, whose mantra is service over profit. With all the other "little guys," he promises 24 hour tech service, even on weekends and holidays, slashes prices, doesn't cheat his customers or gives bribes, and the new firm's buzz gets around his day job, stealing business from his old boss, a man who thinks money can buy anything.


TiMER

Leading up to Valentine's Day, here is the first of some unconventional romantic stories.  Give one of them a try!

In the world of TiMER, people wear devices with a countdown clock that will beep when you meet your true love. Some people depend entirely on this, which precludes them from forming relationships on their own if a person they meet isn’t on the same time. Oona (Emma Caufield) has a blank timer, which means her true love hasn’t gotten one so her clock can’t start yet. Her stepsister Steph (Michelle Borth) is constantly trying to set her up with men who have no timers. Oona meets, on her own, a laid back grocery clerk Mikey (John Patrick Amedori), whose personality is entirely different and not what she is expecting for her dream man—he’s younger, he’s a nerdy musician, he’s open and friendly, but his timer is three years ahead, meaning he hasn’t met his soulmate yet either (she’s a snooty orthodontist). Oona dates him in frustration for a one night stand, and gets flak for going out with him.

Meanwhile, Oona’s mother (JoBeth Wiliams) is ecstatic that her younger son, a teenager, is about to get a timer, and miraculously it is set to beep in a few days. Unfortunately, his “true love” is not who she thinks is exactly appropriate, although she ends up being accepting. Steph herself is trolling around to find her own true love with every young man who comes into the senior facility where she works, including the grandson of a resident.

The conflict is kind of romcom: Will Oona stay with her “unmatched” grocery clerk, or will she depend on her timer and push him out of her life?


The Least Among You

The Least Among You is abouta black theological student during the Watts Riot era, based on a real person. Richard Kelly (Cedric Sanders) wants social change and is arrested during the riots, and in a plea bargain he enrolls in a seminary college. He just wants to finish the semester and exit but finds that he has the power to help change thinking in the college, which, despite being a religious organization, is just as bigoted as the people outside it.


Man on a Ledge

In this suspense film, Sam Worthington plays police officer Nick, currently serving a sentence for stealing a diamond he was hired to protect, for wealthy businessman Englander (Ed Harris). Nick claims he was framed by Englander, who kept the diamond for himself and collected the insurance. Nick breaks out of police custoday and goes out to a ledge on a hotel, asking for a negotiator known for her last botched attempt to bring another cop in from a suicide, Lydia (Elizabeth Banks). Nick claims to be doing this to bring attention to his innocence, and at first the film audience is led to believe this too.


Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Past seven days

Something old, something new....

Flowers of War
Gerry
Little Women (1994)
Punch Drunk Love
Red Tails
Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year
The Secret of Kells
Take Shelter

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Free event: The Interrupters

If you missed seeing The Interrupters the few times it has played in the Chicago area, here is another opportunity.

The Interrupters (by Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams, and Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here) tells the story of three “violence interrupters” from the Ceasefire organization in Chicago, who now protect their communities from the violence that they too have lived through.  They seek to open dialogues with gang members and people fallen on hard times, to prevent violence before it happens.  Not every relationship is a success story of course, and every gain is taken in baby steps.  The film got dissed by the Oscars but I highly recommend it.


The Interrupters
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
6:30 p.m.
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave.

Free Event: Maxwell Street Blues

Transistor, the record (as in vinyl) store and more, is back on track in screening a music-related film. This documentary, Maxwell Street Blues, focuses on street musicians in this famous Chicago street/neighborhood. I remember passing through this area on my way to University of Illinois at Chicago, and probably on its last legs then. The smell of Chicago style sausage dogs, sock sellers, small fashion shops, all this has been cleaned up and cleared out since then. I don't recall seeing any musicians, probably they weren't out there in the early mornings when during my commute to school.



Maxwell Street Blues
Monday, January 30, 2012
8:00 p.m.
Transistor
3819 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago
Presented by local film theatre/documentary producer/film store extraordinare Facets Multimedia. Again, you can BYOB to this screening.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Past seven days

Back to the swing of things I hope!

American Friends
Blitz
Carnage
Disconnected: A Documentary
The Grey
Haywire
The King and the Clown
L4yer Cake
Tattoo: A Love Story

Friday, January 20, 2012

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year! The Year of the Dragon begins this weekend, so here are some Chinese movies to get you in the mood.


Red Tails

George Lucas produced this movie about the Tuskegee airmen, a black pilot squadron in WW2.   The story begins in the middle of the airmen's struggle to get respect.  The squadron has already been formed and spend their time on unchallenging assignments.  They want to be in the air and fight the Jerries, for heaven's sake!


The main pilot characters (played by Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Tristan Wilds, Method Man and others) are the typical types--one falls for a local girl and is a hot dog ace, one cannot handle the stress and drinks, one is medically unfit but pressures his friends to let him fly, one is a newcomer trying to gain respect. None of their homelife or backstory is referred to, so for the audience only the timeframe of the movie is what defines them for us.  The two senior leaders are played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Terrence Howard.  The Major (Gooding) tries to keep the men in line at the base, and smokes a pipe a la MacArthur (he was the one with the pipe, wasn't he)? Or more correctly, he always has a pipe in his mouth but I never see him smoking it.  Terrence Howard as the Colonel had a bit better role as he got to emote more as the one who has to battle Washington to give them respect.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Flowers of War

I had not heard much buzz about this film, and where other films about the Rape of Nanjing take a political view, I don't think this film is making any outright statement about that. Christian Bale stars as John Miller, an American mortician in Nanjing sent to a western cathedral to prepare the body of a dead priest for burial. The streets are in disarray as soliders from both sides shoot at each other, oblivious of civilians. While running to escape/get to the church, John sees lots of running girls and running women all fending for themselves. By chance he comes across two girls who belong to the church/school he needs to get to.

When he arrives though, there is no longer a body to service, and all the adults are gone. John is now stuck there as the girls plead for him to help them--as a Westerner he (supposedly) is safe from the Japanese. He puts on the priest's vestments and is mistaken for the priest by the Japanese so he continues the deception.

A bunch of prostitutes from a brothel fight their way in too and commandeer the cellar for themselves, to the indignity of the girls. But John wants a little sex and the ladies, through their de facto leader Yu Mo (Ni Ni), say if he helps them escape Nanjing they will show their "gratitude" to him.


Haywire

Steven Soderbergh directed action film Haywire, which stars a martial artist in the lead role. The story starts in the middle as Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is on the lam and asking her superiors for help. Instead they send a man who tries to kill her. This takes place in a small roadside diner, she escapes, but grabs a teenager (Michael Angarano) in the diner and uses his car to flee and tells him her tale of woe, so part of the rest of the film is a flashback.

We come to see why she is on the run. Mallory works at a black ops company hired by the government to detract a Chinese journalist who had been taken hostage. This is successful, and she is looking forward to some down time as she has had several jobs back to back. But her handler, Kenneth (Ewan Macgregor) asks her to take an easy job, where she has to partner with a British operative (Michael Fassbender) and pretend to be his wife. Not trusting her "husband," she smells something fishy and finds she has been framed for killing someone.


Free Event: Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock

The Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theatre is the site for a free screening. The documentary profiles Daisy Bates, who was a journalist involved with the desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957 (a tv film starred Joanne Woodward as an assistant principal at the school), as well as a human rights activist.  It also airs on PBS' Independent Lens later this season.

Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock
Saturday, January 21, 2012
2:00 p.m.
Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theatre
78 E. Washington, Chicago

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Kapo

This is an Italian film starring Susan Strasberg. The time period is World War 2.  She plays Edith, a young Jew (the actress is older but the character starts out as 14 years old). She and her parents and others have been taken to a concentration camp. Her parents are elderly so their fate is already decided. Edith tries to find them and instead is helped by the Jewish doctor, also a prisoner, who makes her a new identity of Nicole the political prisoner, instead of the less desirable Jew.


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Free event: Black Gold

Transistor, the record (as in vinyl) store etc., has moved to its new location on north Lincoln Avenue. They continue their free movie screenings with Black Gold, a documentary about coffee, and mostly on the fair-trade/unfair-trade aspect of the business. This is one of their film screenings that is not music-related.

Black Gold
Monday, January 23, 2012
8:00 p.m.
Transistor
3819 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago
Presented by Delicious Vegan Café (just down the block) and you can BYOB!

Tattoo: A Love Story

This indie romance features an unconventional leading man. It starts by focusing on the woman in the story, Sara (Megan Edwards), a straight arrow grade school teacher. She's due to win a teaching award, pressuring her boyfriend to marry, all in all a very conventional life for someone like her.

One day during her class' show and tell, a student brings in a burly, tattooed biker, Virgil (Virgil Mignanelli), who encourages individualism and causes problems for Sara. She confronts Virgil at his tattoo shop but as her circle of friends and family pressure her to conform, we see a latent desire to break out of her vanilla mold. When her boyfriend suggests separation due to her continuing pressure, Sara follows Virgil and sees he is a old fashioned romantic.


Disconnected: A Documentary

In this documentary, a media studies class at a small college decides to do a documentary. Three students, Mitchell, aka "Chel," Caitlin and Andrew, are elected by their classmates to make a sacrifice--get by without a computer for the term.

Chel rushes to finish some papers on the last night before logging out, Andrew is lagging in his desire to shut off his computer, and Caitlin is the most extreme, wrapping her laptop in duct tape, shelving it in the closet, hoping to put temptation out of reach.


Friday, January 13, 2012

The Grey

I think this film wanted to be two or three things. A survival tale of men battling the Alaskan winter wilderness after their plane crashes, a personal story of the protagonist contemplating his despair after his wife's death, and a monster movie involving vicious wolves. I think it succeeds mostly on the first front.

Liam Neeson is an Irish oil refinery worker, John Ottway, in Alaska. The beginning segment shows snippets of flashbacks of him wishing his wife were with him--they are either broken up or she is dead, the film at this point doesn't tell us which, just that they are apart and he is longing for her. A shift of men at this refinery are due to take some R&R in Anchorage, and board a dedicated plane to take them there. But the plane crashes in the middle of nowhere, and there are just a handful of survivors.

Ottway, who worked as a sniper to kill wolves who were a threat to the refinery, seems to have the most survival experience and tries to gather the survivors to make a trek to someplace nearer civilization. But the men's personalities clash and yet they have to cooperate with each other, especially when their common enemy are the wolves who are threatened by the men's existence and follow and attack them.


Thursday, January 12, 2012

Carnage

Carnage is based on a foreign stage play (French, which feels right for this story), and still sounds and looks like a play despite being translated (talky and stagy). Two sets of parents get together to discuss an indicent involving their sons--one boy smacked another with a branch, breaking two of his teeth.

The action all takes place in a NYC apartment belonging to the victim's parents (Jodie Foster and John C Reilly), she wrote a book about Africa and has deep feelings about African atrocities, and working on a new book on Darfur, she is also an art enthusiast; he owns a housewares store (neither employment sounds tony enough to afford what their apartment and acoutrements look like). At the start she is typing up a simple statement for the attacker's parents (Kate Winslet and Christoph Walz), she works at an investment bank and he is an attorney currently working for a pharma company on a class action suit against one of their medicines. It is not explained why the statement is being typed up as apparently both sets of parents want to settle things amicably and there is no mention of a lawsuit or anything like that (I guess it is just a premise to get them in the same room together).

So you can see the film already sets up both sets of parents as being opposites type of people--homey and caring versus those that are interested in making money. But within the first few minutes I got the vibe that there was a lot of veiled aggression, especially in Jodie Foster's character (which comes out big time in the rest of the story). It ends up not even being about the boys' conflict, but about class and social differences between and among this foursome. Both couples eventually reveal unhappiness with their marriages and their partner's personalities.


Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Butterfly Kiss

This bleak road film is directed by Michael Winterbottom.

In England, Eunice (Amanda Plummer) wanders the highways looking for "Judith" and happens upon gas station clerk Miriam (Saskia Reeves) instead. Although Eunice acts openly unbalanced, Miriam for some reason is taken with her personality.

The film is told in flashback as Miriam is relating things in some sort of interview. Eunice overtakes Miriam's life, but after the initial shock of Eunice revealing her murderous nature, Miriam wants to follow. The two are reminiscent of other volatile couples, Bonnie and Clyde, Thelma and Lousie, Aileen Wornos and Selby, Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. It is apparent that one is the leader and one is the sheep.


Heartlands

This film stars Brit Michael Sheen in a type of character he was playing earlier in his career. Colin, a shabby shopowner (Sheen), is in a state of arrested development. Darts is all Colin is good at, and he worships a well-known dart champion. He doesn’t know his wife is having an affair with a friend, who in a fit of jealousy throws Colin off their dart team. So Colin goes off on his motorcycle to the championship himself in an effort to get his wife back. On his trip he meets a cheap, blowhard barowner (Mark Addy), a backpacking couple (Mark Strong and Phillipa Peak), and a Girl Guides leader (Celia Imrie).

Finally Colin reaches Blackpool, where the wife’s boyfriend gets his comeuppance. She wants to come back to Colin though, now tired of her boyfriend’s treatment of her.


Casshern

This movie was probably the longest DVD I have kept out from Netflix, because I just couldn't get into the mood to watch it then it was pretty bad I could barely force myself to finish it!

Casshern is a Japanese sci fi film based on an anime series. In a futuristic society, greedy politicians have prolonged a war until it is has been going on for 50 years. The reason for the war is not explained, but it has left the world diseased and soldiers dying.


Past seven days

Reconnected with the fabulous TV series Jeeves & Wooster starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, so not too many movies this week!

Beautiful Joe
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Joyful Noise
Strictly Ballroom

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Joyful Noise

i=Several storylines are woven together in Joyful Noise. It's main story is of a small Georgia town church choir trying to win a gospel singing competition, who has been trying to wrest the title from another church who has won with their flashy numbers. This year the pastor (Courtney B. Vance) decides it is the last time, as the big expense is too much for their little church.

Two ladies butt heads with their different personalities and approach to the choir. The traditionalist Vi Rose (Queen Latifah) is a single mother of two teens, Olivia (Keke Palmer) and Walter, who has Asperger's syndrome. Her estranged husband (Jesse L. Martin) is serving in the military and has been absent for several years. Vi Rose believes the church should stay old fashioned and sing hymns the way they were written. The affluent G.G. (Dolly Parton) on the other hand thinks they need to move with the times and is open to having dance moves and such in their church numbers. Her grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan) who has a reputation as a troublemaker, returns and reacquaints himself with Olivia, something Vi Rose does not approve of.


Monday, January 9, 2012

Mouth to Mouth


1995 Spanish film starring Javier Bardem. Usually I find Spanish and Mexican comedies a bit too broad and loud but this one didn't get too bad.

He stars as Victor, a struggling actor. His agent keeps promising him auditions, and there is a big one down the road, but Victor can barely make ends meet. He delivers a pizza to a phone sex office, and eventually ends up working there to tide things over until, he hopes, he can pass the audition and get a good acting job in a Hollywood movie.

While doing his new job, which involves chatting up men as well as women, he impresses "Bill" with his smooth talk. Bill (Joseph Maria Flotats) is a closeted gay but married. Later, another client, Amanda (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), calls and also is impressed with Victor, so much so that somehow she finds out where he lives and they have a tryst. She confesses she is married to "Bill" in a loveless marriage and cannot escape. Victor is taken with her and agrees to help by being in flagrante with Bill so she can get a divorce. But, Victor finds out things are more complicated than that as the mastermind behind this ruse is not really Amanda at all.


Simple Men

A sort of romantic comedy, Mamet-style. Dir by Hal Hartley.

Bill (Robert John Burke), having had his heart broken one too many times, swears he’ll just bed the next woman he meets and throw her away. In fact, his last girlfriend dumped him when they were pulling a bank robbery.

His younger brother Dennis (Bill Sage) has not yet been ruined by love. He’s nearly obsessed with trying to track down their father, accused of a bombing in the 60s, who was captured but escaped again; dad’s a sort of folk hero to everyone but Bill, who can only see that the man abandoned his family. Mom now plans to leave him, but gives the sons an old photo and phone number of “Tara,” the only clue she may have to where dad may be. With only $20 between them, the guys head for Long Island to try to track dad down.

The brothers meet two women who may or may not know dad.

Elina (Elina Lowensohn), a Romanian eplileptic, seems to entrance Dennis who wants to befriend her. She’s very wary despite Dennis not really pressuring her into anything. Maybe he needs some mystery and wildness in his life.

Conversely, Bill meets Kate (Karen Sillas), an earthy gentle type, and he attempts to seduce her as he claimed he would, but it’s obvious he can’t act on his earlier anger; it’s not a seduction but something more emotional. She seems to need him around as much as he wants to stick around. Maybe he needs some stability and quietness.


Sweet Talker

This film is a remake/version of the stage musical The Music Man. It is co-written by Bryan Brown, who plays the lead Harry, a con man. One of the film's producers is Taylor Hackford, Helen Mirren's husband.

As he is leaving prison, Harry distracts his cellmate with dirty magazines while he is stealing his research for a get rich scheme: duping a small Australian town to finance the discovery of a sunken treasure ship that may or may not exist. On his way out of jail he pickpockets a supercillious businessman and heads for the town, Beachport. He stays at an inn run by Julie (Karen Allen), and her young son David.

Harry starts to drop clues and signs to convince the town that he knows what he's talking about. He plays on their greed and paints a dream of making Beachport a tourist attraction if the ship is found, and the town falls into his trap. Soon everyone wants to invest and are throwing money at Harry. They are spiffying up the town with souvenir shops and bus tours and the scheme of a theme park.


Friday, January 6, 2012

Shopgirl

Based on comedian Steve Martin's novella. He also stars as computer millionaire Ray, who starts a sugar daddy type relationship with the bored Saks department store salesgirl Mirabelle (Claire Danes).

Bored and aimless, Mirabelle reluctantly dates Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman) only because he seems to be the only one interested in her. It doesn't go well, and they don't get together too often. Jeremy keeps trying to improve himself, and manages to become a roadie to a band. He listens to books on tape about relationships while he is on the road.

Meanwhile, Ray jetsets among various cities and apartments, fitting Mirabelle in whenever he's in town. She finds him charismatic compared to the doltish nerd Jeremy who has no social graces. Mirabelle eventually wants more, while Ray wants the status quo, and this conflict forces them apart.


Fletch

Based on the mystery novels by Gregory McDonald, Chevy Chase plays Fletch—Irwin M. Fletcher—an investigative reporter. Although the books I believe are thrillers for the most part, the film takes advantage of Chase's comic chops and casts the character in a more comedic light.


Thursday, January 5, 2012

Letters to Father Jacob

A woman newly out of prison (Kaarina Hazard) is given a job reading letters for a blind priest (Heikki Nousiainen). Leila is antagonistic and unapproachable, but finds the priest’s isolated home a way to transition back to being among normal people again. The letters she reads are from people asking for prayers for different reasons, which Father Jacob does. He sends back letters with hopeful messages, which Leila writes and sends for him. Sometimes the people send money donations, and this tempts Leila with thoughts to abandon her job and the priest. Slowly, though, we know her story and how it has shaped her personality and how Father Jacob draws her out in his slow unobtrusive manner. While she does hurtful things, she also does selfless things, such as pretending to read non-existent letters when the letters slowly stop coming.


Baby, It's You

This is an early John Sayles film, taking place around the 60s. I've enjoyed several of Sayles' films, with The Secret of Roan Inish, which was a departure from his style and content, probably my favorite.

Baby, It's You concerns a highschooler, Jill (Rosanna Arquette), who is taken with the new boy, an Italian-American known as Sheik (Vincent Spano). He’s a little mobsterish, which both attracts and repels Jill (at least she pretends it repels her in public). But Sheik is aggressive in pursuing her, he acts gentlemanly and dresses well, and has some uncouth/ignorant behavior but at the same time understands how to woo a lady. When she complains he ignores her on a date, he says he wanted to go slow to show he wasn’t just going to go for the sex first, although we come to see that is an urge he is suppressing for her.


Cop Land

I think Sylvester Stallone holds his own against a heavily real cast of New York area actors that populate Cop Land.

He plays Freddy Heflin, a sheriff of a New Jersey town where a bunch of 1970s New York City cops live. In the 70s, NYC was known to be crime-ridden and the cops wanted their families to live in a better place, hence this offshoot in New Jersey.

Although Freddy keeps law and order when he can over the minor crimes that take place in suburbia, the cops that live there are known to be corrupt and racists. This issue comes more to light one night when a young cop, Superboy (Michael Rapaport), commits suicide after killing two black men during a traffic altercation.


Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Billy Bathgate

Billy Bathgate (Loren Dean) gets mixed up in the gangster dealings of mobster Dutch Schultz (Dustin Hoffman).  This movie is based on the book written by E.L. Doctorow.

Dutch is taken with Billy, a poor Brooklyn Irish youth, who bluffs his way into the organization. Soon Billy proves his loyalty by showing that a henchman, Bo (Bruce Willis) has been cheating Dutch. Bo's girlfriend Drew (Nicole Kidman) gets mixed up in this, by becoming Dutch's woman after he gives Bo concrete shoes. Billy is taken with his new life, throwing around money to his family and friends and becoming a minder for Drew when Dutch is too busy for her.

Dutch is trying to create a clean image to block a trial that is coming up, while Billy is increasingly enchanted by Drew, and increasingly over his head in the gangster's dealings.


Past seven days

An eclectic list this week, some sci fi, a musical and a minor film noir.

Brazil
Brewster McCloud
Camp
Crack-up
Iron Man 2
Logan's Run

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Salesman

Sales work hasn't changed in decades. It still involves coercing potential customers into buying something they probably don't need. You hear many sales spiels in Salesman, a documentary about several bible salesman.

The film focuses on four men, all with nicknames. There's the Gipper, the Rabbit, the Badger, the Bull. They go from city to city in the American southeast, get names from local churches and then wear down their shoe leather and car tires to try to convince families to buy an expensive bible and other accoutrements. Once the sale is made though, their feet are heading towards the door and their mindset is already on the next sale.

The men are not above wheedling, guilt-tripping, hard selling, flattery, all manner of persuasion. Even when poor families can't commit to a purchase, the men continue to pitch as they're packing up their bags. Every vague interest in the bibles are an opening for the guys to whip out their order books. Their hard sell is pretty much mandated by their employer, who implies that if the bibles don't sell, it's the men's fault--expressed in a depressing company meeting that is framed as a pep talk.

The job doesn't look very fulfilling for the guys, and in fact one man, Paul (the Badger), begins to be depressed and frustrated by his lack of sales. At the beginning of the film they are jovial and talkative, but by film's end they are pensive and introspective. You can see their life on the road is not glamorous at all, downtime is spent smoking in their hotel room or role-playing to perfect their pitch. Little of their personal lives are shown but through dialogue you do see some of them are married.

What drives these men, why choose this job over others? How do they feel peddling something that should mean a lot to the devout but treated as a commodity or status symbol? These questions aren't openly answered but they must be in the men's minds constantly, or shoved back so as to not think about it.

Despite being made in 1968, by the well-known team of documentary brothers, David and Albert Maysles, and their longtime collaborator Charlotte Zwerin, this film still has a fresh and relevant feel, told plainly and without melodrama. The poster for Salesman shows Jesus carrying some product cases and the film is reminscent of later films Paper Moon and What Would Jesus Buy? The story does focus more on some men than others, but manages to have a beginning, middle, and end; it's like the real life Glengarry Glen Ross.

The camera work is sharp and clean. The Maysles know how to use B footage to add to their story, especially that involving Paul when he gets lost in what he thinks is a "Muslim" area of Miami, the Opa-locka community (due to street names like Ali Baba, Sinbad and Sesame).

The Maysles also made The Grey Gardens (1976), and documentaries about artists such as Orson Welles, Vladimir Horowitz, The Rolling Stones (Gimme Shelter), Marlon Brando, The Beatles, and Muhammad Ali. David died in the late 80s but Albert is still a working documentarian.

Der Sprinter

It is rare that I will not finish a movie. There is usually something that will keep me around til the end, or at least for me to say, "I survived that."

Der Sprinter is a "survived that" German movie. A young gay man, Weiland, struggles with his sexual identity, and wants to be "normal" after pressure from his parents to cut his hair and take up sports. He does so, taking up sprinting after seeing a well built (male) athlete, but then falls for a well built (female) shot putter. She and Weiland inspire each other to excel at their sports, despite Weiland never having had any previous training or talent.

His coach, who was pressured to fill up the team, sees the potential in Weiland when the shot putter is around, and takes advantage of this talent. Later he worries that since Weiland is in love, he no longer needs to impress the shot putter and will lose his athletic drive.

Weiland's mother, now more accepting of him, travels to see him compete.

Skip this confusion of a film! Weiland is just a vapid and dull character. He portrayed nothing of the gay experience, and if the film was trying to be a comedy or satire it failed in that respect too because it's unfunny and everything is played too straight. It seems more like the film is making fun of specific German types rather than any real statement about homosexuality. The humor could not have been that subtle throughout the film for me not to have gotten one joke.

Sure, you can have a gay character "switch teams" but it needs to back that up and say something, or make fun of him or the people who look down on him, which this film didn't.

The lead actor and director co-wrote this miserable oddball script. What the heck were they trying to say? I don't know. Whoever bankrolled this project--shame on you! Thankfully these guys seem to have few movie credits to their name and have hopefully gone on to other pastures.

Seconds

The recent film The Skin I Live In (which I still mean to get to) had me thinking of other films where people changed identities. Some of the more popular ones--Face/Off, Darkman, Big, Freaky Friday--don't really explore the identity switch in a serious way and are concerned more with the action or comedy. In Seconds, an aging banker (John Randolph) gets a new identity by being surgically altered into a younger man (a middle aged Rock Hudson). The film was directed by John Frankenheimer.


Return to Oz

A friend and I were discussing Piper Laurie (there is a new biography out) and admittedly I have not seen any of her early performances. What later films and works I have seen and know about, are often in the vein of something off-center--Carrie, Twin Peaks--and that includes Return to Oz, although she plays the dramatic character of Aunt Em.

A sort of sequel to The Wizard of Oz and equally as scary, Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) is now having emotional problems and unable to sleep. She claims she visited Oz but no one believes her wild tale. Her aunt (Piper Laurie) is at her wit's end and decides to send her for some newfangled electric shock therapy to hopefully help her sleep again. The doctor (Nicol Williamson) and dour nurse (Jean Marsh) take her for the night. There is a thunderstorm, and Dorothy runs away, fearing the treatment. She is lost in the night and wakes up back in Oz.

Oz is now falling apart, having been ravaged by the Nome King (also Williamson) as well as the witch Mombi (also Marsh). Dorothy is joined by some new characters: Tik Tok the windup robot soldier; Jack, the lanky scarecrow with a pumpkin for a head; the Gump, a moose head cobbled together with a sofa and sprinkled with magical Powder of Life which animates it; and Bellina, a chicken that tagged along with Dorothy and now has become sentient and talkative. They have to save the original Scarecrow, imprisoned by the Nome King for stealing all his emeralds for the Emerald City, and to unenchant everyone else who have been turned to stone by Mombi. Instead of flying monkeys, there are roller skating Wheelers who pursue and taunt Dorothy and her new team.


Around the Bend

I finished reading Michael Caine's autobiography recently and was looking over some of the films I have seen him in.  In Around the Bend, a family of men reconnect when the patriarch (Michael Caine) faces death.

Henry wants to find an unusual funeral ritual that would INVOLVE his family. Currently he lives with his grandson Jason (Josh Lucas) and great grandson Zach. Suddenly Henry's son Turner shows up (Christopher Walken), who left when Jason was a boy. Jason is wary, especially when Turner admits he's only there for a day, but Henry is delighted. The women are out of the picture, Turner's wife is dead and Jason is going through a trial separation.


Leap Year

It's Leap Year this year so I thought I'd pass on my review of this movie. I called it "cotton candy" because that's what the film is--kind of pretty but with fake colors and really made of mostly air.

This movie failed in my opinion on all fronts. Neither of the main characters played by Amy Adams and Matthew Goode were inherently likeable, and neither actor gave their performance any kind of specialness or individuality to differentiate them from other romantic comedy characters. It is a retread of a theme done before--a woman is engaged to be married, has mishaps with another man who appears to be against her type, but ends up falling for him and seeing how her fiance is totally wrong for her.


Camp

Camp is about a performance arts camp in New York State. It's an indie film so production values aren't super high and there are no real stars. It is written and directed by Todd Graff, himself a student at the camp this movie fictionalizes (and is filmed on location there). He also wrote and directed the new movie Joyful Noise.

The film focuses on one summer, and specifically on three teens: Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat), the plain jane "fag hag" (straight girl who hangs out with gay boys, usually because she can't get her own boyfriend); Michael (Robin de Jesus), a gay boy whose parents practically disown him when he wears a dress to the prom; Vlad (Daniel Letterle), the new straight boy who wants to be an actor, whom everyone lusts after (gay boys and straight girls).  Also included is the camp's guest director, Bert (Don Dixon), who only had one hit show and is pretty bitter he didn't find more success.  Vlad manages to help Ellen, Michael and Bert work through their problems.