ENTERTAINMENT REALM

The opening scene of Mine shows the wreckage and devastation of Hurricane Katrina, in case anyone could ever forget it. A man points to a leash tied to a post and says, “That was Bandit’s leash. I never thought I’d lost Bandit.”

Reading the description for this film, I thought it would be terribly sad and I’d be crying the entire time. Dan, one of IFFBoston’s organizers assured me that it would be a good cry. Turns out I’m a cold bitch. I didn’t cry even though I’ve been depressed and crying at various times throughout the week. I adore animals and do much to help animals. I just wanted Mine to delve further into certain aspects of the aftermath of Katrina in regard to the pets that it did not.

Mine addresses the numerous pets that were abandoned during Katrina. Now, according to Mine, abandoned is not really the proper word to be using. Shelters, The Superdome, schools, motels and other sites where people evacuated to from their homes during Katrina did not allow pets. People had no choice but to leave their pets during this time. No one knew how long the pets would be left alone and what the aftermath would be like.

During news footage, one could see animals swimming in filthy water, standing on roofs, and being pulling out of windows.
150,000 animals died as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Jane Garrison, an animal rescuer/activist said she watched the news and “They took people and left a dog on the roof.” She called and was told there were 30 people rescuing animals. She knew that was not nearly enough “boots on the ground,” so took off for Louisiana herself, with colleagues in tow to save the animals. 500 United States and Canadian shelters housed 15,000 displaced Katrina pets. Someone commented, “It’s the best thing that happened to these animals.” Many of the animals had been mistreated, malnourished, not spayed or neutered, or were sick. But as the title suggests, the animals belonged to someone.

The filmmaker, Geralyn Pezanoski, decides to place her focus on several dog owners and their searches for their dogs. In Louisiana, a pet is declared property and can be claimed for up to three years. So up to three years after Katrina, even after a pet has been placed with another family, in another state, settled in, well-fed and cared for, the person can reclaim his or her dog. The pet owners had no control over losing their pets to Katrina. It is a controversial subject. Mine also brings up class issues, animal rights, ownership, humane treatment of animals and the tracking system for displaced animals during a natural disaster or other national or large-scale emergency. Parts of Mine are interesting but it gets old rather fast. It is biased toward these owners.

Mine would have been much more fascinating if the cameras had remained on the animal rescue teams and getting back the animals. No one knows how they did what they did to save all the animals that they saved and those efforts should be documented to a greater degree. The majority of documentaries choose to be story-driven instead of informational.

Due to all that happened with Katrine, there is now a PETS act so “no pet is left behind” in a natural disaster.

Grade: C

We Live in Public starts with a bang. The images and information hurdle at you just like on the Internet. It is fast-paced, frenetic and jumpy. This provides that fleeting feeling that one idea does not last very long as people lose interest very easily. Tastes change. Fads change. Markets change. Popularity rises and falls. Inexplicably so in many cases. As soon as one idea is popular (MySpace), then people have already moved on to the next great cool site (Facebook), and then to the newest and coolest (Twitter). But all these “cool” online sites are watching you in their own secret, unique ways which may be benign but may not be. At this time, we really do not know. We Live in Public provides us with a cautionary tale of what can happen when an individual loses himself in the public domain.

Directed by Ondi Timoner [Dig!], We Live in Public focuses on an egomaniacal, loner, geeky, dot.com front-runner named Josh Harris. He always has a new idea. A new project. He started Jupiter Communications, then Prodigy which launched the chat room (especially the sex platform) and had an $80 million IPO. In 1994, at the height of the dot.com boom, Harris started pseudo.com, the first Internet television network where people could watch television while simultaneously chatting. Those working at Pseudo had free rein as to what kind of show they wanted to do. People went from “nobodies to celebs because you could set up a modem,” said Jason Calocanis. NY Magazine called Harris the “Warhol of Web TV.” In 1999, during an interview with 60 Minutes, Harris said his goal was to take CBS down. “It’s group-generated consciousness. Our dreams will be created by each other,” Harris stated.

Harris moved on to his next project and built an underground society with monitors and cameras everywhere including the showers and bathrooms and bedrooms. Nothing would be private. The ultimate Big Brother experiment. Everything could be watched. Everyone would be controlled. There was an interrogation room that people willingly entered and subjected themselves to upsetting humiliation and abuse. Harris called it Citizens of Quiet. With so many different types of people involved in this “experiment,” while it began as a big party soon enough tensions escalated and people shut down and fought and broke down. The cameras made people simultaneously uninhibited and stripped of privacy and basic rights. Eventually, the police shut the place down. After his “Quiet” experiment, he moved in with a girl he had met at Pseudo, named Tanya. Of course, they filmed everything and allowed people to comment on things by running an ongoing chat room. As the relationship disintegrates the audience merely fuels the fires and it turns violent.

Harris is an unlikeable character who takes advantage of people without any thought to their feelings or the final outcome. He comes across so selfishly and uncaring. It isn’t that he cannot relate to other people that is the problem. It is that he does not want to change at all. When he delves into the Internet, it is just unhealthy for him and he loses more than just his dignity and any sense of humanity he may have once had. He just wants his 15-minutes to stay in repeat mode for eternity but that is entirely unrealistic. Some of his decisions are so desperate and sick, misguided and wrong that you expect him to be in jail at the end of the film. We Live in Public is quite unsettling, even stomach-turning at times but is so provocative and au courant it is a must see.

Grade: A-

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Director Ondi Timoner on We Live in Public, [Q&A after the film’s screening at IFFBoston]

“The bunker is a metaphor for life online”

“When there’s a camera, people generally give it up. There’s a power there.”

“What lengths we’ll go through to have our lives matter” [on people doing the pre-registration personality test of 300 questions to get into the bunker]

“No one who busted it [the bunker] was alive from 9/11 [to talk to].”

“Best thing as documentary filmmaker is not judge as much as possible.”

“Data I documented happens to be dark. There are beautiful aspects to the Internet.”

The Answer Man

Arlen Faber commands “10% of the God Market” from writing one book, God and Me, two decades ago. Is he for real or a fraud? Is he really this enlightened spiritual master who can speak to God, has God’s ear or is he just some grouchy, cranky guy like the rest of us? No one has ever seen what he looks like. He’s never been interviewed. As the 20th anniversary of his book approaches, his agent urges him to reveal his identity. He meets two people that change his perspective on his own life. There’s a bookstore manager, Kris [Lou Taylor Pucci], just returned from a rehab program. He’s lost, confused and looking for answers. Soon he finds out who Arlen truly is and they broker a deal where he can ask Arlen questions and Arlen can trade him books weekly. Arlen throws out his back moving books at his apartment and literally crawls to a chiropractor, Elizabeth [Lauren Graham], who immediately enchants him. They begin to date and he’s charming to her and sweet and nurturing to her son. But Elizabeth also begins to see another side of Arlen she does not like. Arlen may have written a know-it-all book but he doesn’t have the answers anymore. He needs support and validation just like everyone else. Arlen Faber is the best role Jeff Daniels has had since The Squid and The Whale. The depth and layers of indie characters suit him. Answer Man is a sharp film, filled with complex characters.

Grade: B+

The Burning Plain

A disheveled waitress, Sylvia, [Charlize Theron] takes a break from her shift and goes outside to cut herself. With sad, distant eyes looking out over the water, she draws the knife through her upper thigh, then pulls her skirt back down over her leg. Down in a border state, Cristobal [Diego J. Torres] shows some friends the burned out trailer where his father Nick [Joaquim de Almeida] died with his mistress Gina [Kim Basinger]. Soon after the death of their parents, Cristobal hooks up with Gina’s daughter Mariana [Jennifer Lawrence], essentially recreating the affair of their parents. Then a small girl [Tessa la] watches as her father’s plane crashes before her eyes. He’s a share cropper. What is going on? How are these seemingly disparate stories and people connected? The Burning Plain does not flow in a chronological order adding greater mystique and allowing the audience to piece together the puzzle of this complex, detailed story. Slowly, the secret bonds reveal themselves in a startling way. Theron convincingly plays the strong-willed, determined survivor attempting to erase her disastrous past. Something that proves impossible to do. Basinger exudes great vulnerability, insecurity, and tenderness in her role as Gina. Pain leads to greater pain. Violence leads to more violence. First love is often the strongest love you remember. The love that endures in your memory. While confusing at times, at least for the first half hour or so, when The Burning Plain comes together it does so with surprising grace and leaves an ending open to interpretation.

Grade: B-

When you realize your career has reached a significant turning point, nearing its end, you’re confronting a lot of things. There’s insecurity. There’s fear. There’s sometimes a little panic. There’s sometimes a little anger. I think I’ve felt it all. The phone isn’t ringing like it did. I call people. I don’t always get the call back. People are younger at every record company. “Would I know you?” is a tough question to get asked by someone when it’s 1992 and you just came off 25 years of hits. This was the first time I had to face that and it was not easy.
–Dennis Lambert

From the 60s through the 80s, Dennis Lambert co-wrote and produced songs, many with British songwriter Brian Potter. The duo could be very versatile and write for any genre: country; pop; rock; R&B. This put them in great demand and allowed them flexibility and power in the industry. Lambert co-wrote more than 600 songs, produced songs on more than 100 albums and had more than 75 songs break the Billboard Top 100 Chart.

Dennis Lambert wrote hits for other people for 25 years of his life. In 1972, he released a solo album called Bags and Things. Though this album is little know in the United States, unlike many of the songs he co-wrote or produced (Rhinestone Cowboy, We Built This City, Nightshift), Lambert is a mega-star in The Philippines where a single, Of All These Things, from that 30-year-old album remains one of that country’s most beloved songs. A promoter and fan in the Philippines asked Lambert to tour the country many times and he finally agreed to do just that in 2007. Lambert lives in Florida and sells high-end real estate.

His son, Jody Lambert, thought it would be an ideal opportunity to document it all.
The end result is part concert tour/ part personal history of Lambert’s musical career shown through photographs, interviews and archive footage. Lambert has been musical since singing as a youngster in the Catskills. The documentary covers many things: one man’s passion to make music; a passion set aside; a performer and entertainer; the capacity to do what you love at any age and at any time during your life. Of All the Things is a nostalgic, winning documentary with amusing, humbling, inspiring and touching elements.

His daughter, Misha, says that she is making a MySpace page for her dad.
Misha: “What genre do you want to be on MySpace?”
Dennis: “Pop.”
Misha: (mumbles) “Pop from a few decades ago.”

Grade: B+

500 Days of Summer

Narrator: There are two types of people: a woman and a man.

Absolutely the best film that I’ve seen all year. This is the most clever, un-romantic/yet romantic comedy. Tom [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] immediately becomes smitten with Summer [Zooey Deschanel]. He’s a super sensitive guy who has always felt that without love, without a girlfriend his life is incomplete. Summer is the bubbly, free-spirit who makes no plans and takes a day at a time. Tom picks apart every encounter with Summer and overanalyzes everything 500 Days of Summer flips your expectations upside down. It mixes things up. Tom wants Summer to commit. He wants her to be his girlfriend. From the beginning, she tells him, in guy-style, that she is not looking for a relationship and that: “There’s no such thing as love. It’s fantasy.” 500 Days of Summer will make you laugh and marvel at the sparkling Deschanel and a brooding, introspective Gordon-Levitt. Quality acting by two of the most talented younger actors, a creative script, and sweet, real, laugh-out-loud and cringe-worthy moments make 500 Days of Summer is a must-see and a near perfect film.

Grade: A

In the Loop

Hysterical, witty, brash British comedy the imagines the days behind closed doors at Downing Street and in other offices of the British and U.S. government leading up to the Iraq War. Basically the U.S. President and the British Prime Minister are gung ho [as history shows] to go to war but not everyone working for them is in agreement or in such a hurry to send the troops into harm’s way. In the Loop is about politicians who appear to be self-composed and put together and full of the perfect sound bites and then they collapse under pressure or are completely different away from the public and media. In the Loop is fast-paced and provides an insight into British politics as well as a bit of a viewpoint into what the Brits think of Americans [we are Rock Stars! in their eyes apparently]. Directed by Armando Iannucci and written by Jesse Armstrong and Simon Blackwell. An impressive cast includes: Peter Capaldi [Skins, Torchwood], Tom Hollander [The Soloist, Valkyrie], James Gandolfini [The Sopranos, The Mexican], Gina McKee [Atonement], Steve Coogan [Hamlet 2, Tropic Thunder], Anna Chulmsky [all grown up star of My Girl, Blood Car]. You will laugh so much that you might miss some of the lines and will have to put it in your netflix queue!

Grade: A-

After the screening, Director Armando Iannucci said that leading up to Iraq, there were intelligent people having no idea what to do and then “British going to America and getting starstruck with press and glitter of Washington”

He added: “few people in Washington against the war resigned. they just moved laterallly.”

About In the Loop: He wanted the film to be “funny but not belittling the subject, just come at it from every angle. Fundamentally it’s about the war.”

Children of Invention

Children of Invention is a surprising film about a hard-working, impassioned mother. At the beginning of the film, we watch as Elaine, a divorced mother from Hong Kong, who no longer can afford the mortgage on her house moves out while the police watch. There’s that tense edge as when someone gets laid off from work and must be escorted off the premises by security. Since she and her two children are moving to a small apartment, they cannot take their couch with them. As they drive off, one of the lasting powerful images of the film is the couch and tons of bottles of discarded vitamins (Elaine had tried her hand at selling blue algae).

Though we see Elaine studying through a Real Estate broker’s exam book, she wants a quick money fix and keeps calling advertisements for marketing and sales that do not seem all that solid. Out of desperation for quick money to jump start her life, Elaine becomes involved in a pyramid scheme. Natively she works 16-hour days, paying little attention to the needs of her two children. Though she makes questionable decisions, Elaine remains strong and determined to belong, succeed and make life for her two children easier than it is for her. Elaine worked while her ex-husband earned his engineering degree and then after the divorce he returned to Hong Kong.

One night when Elaine fails to return home from her job, Elaine’s two children, Raymond and Tina, must fend for themselves. This takes them out to Boston with a plan based on Raymond’s quirky inventions. The result is sweet, moving and a slice of familial bonding. Written and directed by Boston native Tze Chun and loosely based on aspects of his own childhood, Children of Invention poignantly and creatively bridges traditional Asian culture with United States desires and prosperity.

Grade: A-

The Missing Person

I’m in the hide and seek business.
That’s for kids.
If you add some money to it, it’s for adults.

Quirky noir starring Michael Shannon [Revolutionary Road] as alcoholic private investigator John Roscow gets a case to follow a guy with few other instructions. He almost too low key and too mellow but sometimes it works to his benefit under the circumstances. Amy Ryan [Gone Baby Gone] plays the assistant to the man who has hired the PI. Ryan and Shannon have a sardonic relationship that fits the film and its ending.So we ask, as he does, who is this guy? What is important? What is he doing? He seems suspicious because he’s traveling with a young Mexican boy. Roscow sets out after him and doesn’t find out very much about the guy. So then what is the deal? Roscow is an odd one and you just know more layers will be revealed. The entire film I wondered why the title was The Missing Person until both men are connected in some way to 9/11. The Missing Person is an amusing old-fashioned style gumshoe film with an intriguing secret that reveals itself toward the end.

Grade: B-

I’m 35. I’ve only lived life through roles written for me by you. I want an unwritten life. No more stories.
–Bloom

Mexico is—and I don’t like to vilify an entire country—but Mexico’s a horrible place.
–Stephen

The Brothers Bloom, written and directed by Rian Johnson [Brick], is a refreshing, surprising and unique comedy. The Brothers Bloom is quirky and clever, with many hysterical moments. The film centers around two brothers who spent their youth in and out of foster homes. Stephen [Mark Ruffalo] and Bloom [Adrien Brody] adapted to new situations by becoming quick on their feet and creating various characters in order to blend in and to get what they wanted or needed at the time. As adults, the two brothers now jet set around the world as notorious con artists. Stephen devises the master plan, weaves the stories and creates the characters to dupe millionaires out of their money. [It is hysterical to see his blueprints of the plans. The style has not changed from his childhood to present day.] Bloom has the task to befriend the mark. He’s quiet and disarming. Genuine and charming.

The brothers decide to embark on one last job. The target: an eccentric heiress in New Jersey, Penelope (Rachel Weisz), and Stephen knows that she will be an easy target.

Stephen remains the mastermind. He acts and controls. He and Bloom have a complex relationship as Stephen is the older brother and the stronger-willed one. Bloom is overly sensitive and caring. Sometimes too much so in their chosen field of work.

Introverted Bloom worries and analyzes everything while Penelope, suddenly free to explore the world, is a ray of sunshine, smiling her way through any situation. She turns out to be an asset instead of a mark. Bloom falls in love with her, definitely not part of Stephen’s plans. But how could he not? She’s beautiful, smart, charming and delightful. They perfectly balance each other’s personalities.

Each character seems stuck. Stephen does not want to give up the game, the planning, and the con. Bloom cannot tear himself away from Stephen and what Stephen wants him to do. He cannot make his own decisions that will make him truly happy. Penelope’s privileged background keeps her from living a full life and her own life.

A snappy script with twisty moments and action-packed scenes makes The Brothers Bloom an outstanding film.

Grade: A-