SXSW 2015: BIKES VS. CARS By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Bikes vs. Cars.

Roads to ruin or rejection

By Miranda Inganni

Director Fredrik Gertten’s latest documentary, Bikes vs Cars, travels to various cities around the world to examine the issues and some of the causes surrounding the titular feud. In Sao Paulo, Brazil we meet Aline Cavalcante, a bike activist, who wonders why the city’s public transportation is so expensive and terrible, and if the city really has the worst traffic jams in the world. Another city vying for that unfortunate award is Los Angeles, CA, where Dan Koeppel is trying to make a difference for bike riders, while delving into the city’s history and exposing the ugly truth about the ever expanding freeway system.

These two cities used to have fantastic infrastructure for bicycling enthusiasts, but now they stink (literally and figuratively) thanks to the oil, construction and auto industries. The car-centric cultures that these industries have created, have stripped away bikes lanes, increasing the risks bicyclist face each time they ride.

The facts are terrifying. From how often bicyclists are killed in various cities, to the amount of people suffering from air pollution around the world, to the expected increase in automobile sales in the next five years (double what it is today). But people love their cars. There is, of course, the socioeconomic status that car ownership bestows upon the driver. But why cannot the same be afforded to lovers of the environmentally friendly bicycle? And beyond the bourgeois status of car ownership, what is the point of being able to buy a car if all you can do is sit in traffic?

However, there is some good news beyond the smog. As exemplified in Copenhagen, Denmark and The Netherlands, biking in a big city can work! And everyone breathes a little better because of it.

A call to action, Bikes vs. Cars is not so much about two wheels vs. four wheels, per se, the real battle here is between the status quo versus the possibility of a better future.

OUTFEST 2014: LIFE PARTNERS By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Life Partners.

Single out

By Miranda Inganni

The opening night film at this year's Outfest Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival, Life Partnerstells the somewhat typical story of the trials and tribulations of two best friends when love comes between them. The main difference between this and any other Rom-Com with a similar premise is that one of the friends is a lesbian.

Uptight Paige (Gillian Jacobs) is an environmental lawyer, who is best friends with free spirited Sasha (Leighton Meester). The girls have great times gallivanting about Pride parades and sharing cocktails with their eclectic group of gal pals. That is until handsome and successful Doctor Tim (Adam Brody, Meester's husband off screen) enters the picture.

Hold up. Here’s where I have a slight problem. I just referred to the two leads as girls. The characters are both 29 years old, not little girls, but they often act so childish that it is hard to believe that Paige owns a home or that either is capable of being a fully formed woman. But perhaps that is part of the story.

It is often a tricky transition for young women to go from having best girl-friends to having serious romantic relationships. Figuring out how to divide one’s time between a new lover and an old friend can be challenging. Is there a “correct” way to mature? Does it mean following one’s dreams or a preconceived notion of what exactly mature life is supposed to be? Paige and Sasha tackle these issues from opposite ends of the spectrum. As Paige slides into domestic comfortability with Tim, Sasha finds herself falling for increasingly immature women (who all still live at home). No longer can Paige and Sasha spend the night at the other’s house on a whim (usually because they are too tipsy to drive to their own abode). And gone are the weekly sessions of watching Top Modelwhile drinking wine and quipping at the TV.

But both characters come to a kind of maturity during the course of Life Partners and realize the strength of what their friendship meant to them.

Co-written by Joni Lefkowitz and Susana Fogel, Life Partners is Fogels’ feature directorial debut. The film is an adaptation of a play the two wrote with the same name based on their friendship. The entire cast is chock full of talent --with excellently written and acted supporting characters played by the likes of Gabourey Sidibe, Greer Grammer, Kate McKinnon, Beth Dover and Abby Elliott, among others. It’s also interesting to see real life husband and wife duo of Brody and Meester play against eachother.

FILM REVIEW: CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER By: Faiz No comments

Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Sandberg) in Celeste and Jesse.

LA smart woman

By Ed Rampell

First of all, let me get this out of the way: Celeste and Jesse Forever is a perfectly entertaining rom-com starring Rashida Jones (who also shares writing and producing credits -- hey, that’s one way to get lead roles!) as Celeste, Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg as Jesse, with Chris Messina and French actress-model Rebecca Dayan. The comedy, directed by Lee Toland Krieger (The Vicious Kind) and co-written by Will McCormack (he also plays Jesse’s friend, Skillz, who schemes to get down Celeste’s knickers), mostly takes place in La-La-Land, with some good scenic shots and insights into L.A.’s show biz scene. Celeste, a happening trends prognosticator, has written a wittily titled book, appears in various media spots and co-runs a P.R. firm with Elijah Wood as her obligatory gay guy pal. They rep the obstreperous, trendy, punky pop star du jour Riley (Julia Robert's niece, Emma Roberts), who thinks the 30-something Celeste is over the hill.

The married-title characters seem ideally suited for one another, so, as their mutual friends’ remark with great consternation: why are Celeste and Jesse getting divorced? Good question: Even after announcing their separation Celeste and Jesse continue to live on the same piece of property and remain “best friends.” Aye, there’s the rub in this otherwise enjoyable romantic comedy: Celeste is far smarter than and more accomplished than Jesse, who has some unrealized, unspecified creative ambitions that your humble scribe wasn’t bright enough to get. Never mind that spiritually they are soulmates and remain sexually attracted to one another -- in terms of the bourgeois world, they are unsuited for one another due to I.Q. and income disparity. Because she’s supporting Jesse, whose prospects seem dim, and he’s dimmer than her, Celeste has opted to move on to what she supposes will be greener dating, mating and matrimonial pastures.

But does she unearth them? Jesse finds it easier to get another partner (even if he still prefers his soon to be ex-wife), but the know-it-all Celeste is confounded by returning to the dating scene. What seems to be the problem? Is she too career driven, accomplished and smart for her own good? The most emphasized fact on Rashida Jones’ IMDB bio is that she attended Harvard -- is she saying that intellect and success spoil intelligent women’s romances? If so, what a message to put out to women in the, you know, 21^stcentury.

This film’s arguably reactionary point of view reminded me of that great bit of dialogue in 1987’s Broadcast News, when a male colleague tells Holly Hunter’s not too pretty but extremely brainy producer: “It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room.” To which Hunter’s Jane Craig ruefully responds with the heartfelt: “No. It's awful.”

What’s next? A movie advocating the repeal of Title 9 because sports equality threatens boys’ self esteem on the field and in the gym?

Another extraordinarily strange thing about Celeste and Jesse Forever is that while the ethnicity of Jesse (Jewish) and Dayan’s Veronica (Belgian) is revealed, Celeste’s national origins seem to be a taboo topic. In fact, offscreen, Parks and Recreations co-star Rashida Jones is a bi-racial woman, daughter of musician Quincy Jones and Mod Squad actress Peggy Lipton, making their daughter of Russian-Irish-African heritage. But none of this ancestry stuff is mentioned regarding Rashida, who seems to be “post-racial” in the way America was supposed to be after Obama was elected (hey, tell that one to the birthers and Birchers!). Or worse, perhaps Celeste is meant to “pass” for white? If so, holy “Pinky," there Andy!

Another curious thing about this movie with lots of unresolved elements is that although Jesse is never gainfully employed, he dines at fancy L.A. eateries, attends concerts and the like, despite his lack of income. (Is he getting alimony or whut? Inquiring minds want to know.)

The point of this film seems to be that smart (and bi-racial/black?) women are losers in love. But maybe Celeste isn’t as smart as she thinks she is -- by buying into the bourgeois notions of relationships, she has jettisoned true love because her partner doesn’t meet society’s standards as an achiever in the career arena. Celeste seems to earn plenty of money for both of them, but that isn’t enough, so love gets tossed out the window (along with Skillz’s advances, presumably because he’s too much of a slacker). And that is truly stupid, because when it comes to romance, one size relationship doesn’t fit all.

Aside from its apparently anti-feminist polemics, I liked this movie -- in the same way that I can appreciate some of the cinematic sequences in Leni Riefenstahl’s 1938 Olympics documentary, Olympia.  

  

 

  

  

 

FILM REVIEW: RAMPART By: Faiz No comments

Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) in Rampart.

Culturally bred killer

By Ed Rampell

Character studies can simply be presented as straightforward dramas. Or they can be encoded in genre conventions, which might improve their box office heft with the multiplex popcorn crowd. For instance, on the surface Bridesmaids is a wild and crazy comedy about females behaving badly. However, it is also -- or really -- about commitment-phobic, lonely, aging Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig) and her problems relating to and connecting with lovers and friends.

In the same way, Oren Moverman’s Rampart is about a bad cop behaving badly and worse. “Date Rape” Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) is enmeshed in police department corruption on steroids, specifically the “Rampart scandal” that shook the anti-gang unit of LAPD’s Rampart Division in the late 1990s. Brown operates within the framework of police brutality gone berserk, as the men in blue willy-nilly pummeled suspects black and blue, planted evidence such as illegal drugs, peddled narcotics and perpetrated one of the worst, most far reaching cases of proven police misconduct in U.S. history. Indeed, instead of “serving and protecting” the Rampart section of Los Angeles, the criminal LAPD officers who ran amok were way worse than gangbangers, as they were protected by badges and uniforms, and our man Brown seems like one of the most rabid of these mad dogs in blue.

However, beneath the surface, Harrelson is providing an intimate portrayal of a man who is undergoing a severe midlife crisis. Indeed, Brown, who is a military (perhaps Vietnam?) veteran, is coming apart at the seams. Both his professional and private life is falling apart. His unusual living arrangement with, if I understood correctly, both of his ex-wives -- who are, strangely enough, also sisters -- Cynthia Nixon (Sex in the City’s Miranda) and Anne Heche (co-star of another HBO comedy, Hung), is likewise disintegrating.

To be fair to the bedeviled Brown, he does strive to be a good father to his daughters, little Margaret (Sammy Boyarsky) and teenager Helen (Brie Larson), who creates sexually charged artwork that would make a Madonna backup dancer, well, backup, and whose sexual preference, Rampart suggests, is being shaped by her ne’er do well dad.

Like a latter day John Wayne character, Brown lives by a moral code, believing that “soldiers” like him are part of the thin blue line, all that’s standing between law abiding citizens and the jungle out there. Like the Duke in innumerable Westerns, Brown’s vision of his role is racially tinged. What Brown fails to realize is that his Tarzan is worse than the “apes” who may be swinging on the vines of the banyan trees.

Although he’s clearly an antihero at best, what mitigates Harrelson’s character is that he picks up and beds attractive women (Audra McDonald and Robin Wright) during the course of the movie. Nothing warms the cockles (so to speak) of the male moviegoer’s heart more than onscreen masculine conquests, so this makes the mostly despicable Brown more appealing. However, upon closer inspection, his relationships with these women, as with his ex-wife sisters (and daughters) ranges from alienation (from Sartre to Camus to Genet on the estrangement scale) to tortured.

Harrelson’s acting ranges, like his character, from over the top to nuanced, and the now 50-plus actor’s body fits Brown’s persona, as an aging man who has seen better days and is losing his grip. In addition to Harrelson giving one of his best performances ever, the topnotch cast also includes Steve Buscemi and Sigourney Weaver as civilians who try to rein in the out of control Brown’s reign of terror and Ned Beatty as a onetime dirty cop (now a filthy ex-cop). Ice Cube plays the inevitable Internal Affairs-type investigator who tries to nail Harrelson’s wayward peace officer. Ben Foster, who co-starred with Harrelson in Moverman’s outstanding 2009 antiwar drama The Messenger, has a small role, if not a cameo, rather craftily playing a wheelchair-bound veteran.

Helming his second feature, Moverman proves himself once again to be a director of conscience, consciousness and cinematic ability. Rampart has great close-ups (including opening shots that evoke Brown’s hard ass persona) and a good use of subjective camera. Moverman goes all sixties cinema in a freewheeling sex club scene that reminded me of the Warholian party in 1969’s Midnight Cowby; I half expected Dustin Hoffman to appear, denouncing: “Wackos! They’re all a bunch of wackos!” Moverman’s movies move.

He also co-wrote the script with James Ellroy (1997’s L.A. Confidential), no stranger to the cops gone bad genre. In 1969, New York Mayor John Lindsay assigned NYPD brass and officers to see Costa-Gavras’ classic Z which, among other things, deals with police excessive use of force. Here’s hoping Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will likewise make Rampart required viewing for all of those city officials who ordered law enforcers to raid the Occupy L.A. encampment at City Hall, along with the 1,400 LAPD pigs and others who participated. Perhaps a few light bulbs may go off above the heads of the police force notorious for its history of excessive use of force: Brutalizing Rodney King; cowardly fleeing L.A. when rioters outnumbered and outgunned them; perpetrating the Rampart scandal; assaulting innocent demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention; attacking journalists and peaceful protesters at a May Day rally; laying siege to Occupy L.A.; etc. Yes, “o’er the ramparts we watched, were so ungallantly streaming…”

   

     

     

  

SFIFF 2011: CRIME AFTER CRIME By: Faiz No comments

Deborah Paegler in Crime After Crime.

In an un-Cooley way

 

By Miranda Inganni

Pitting the best of humankind against some of the worst of humankind, Crime After Crime tells the tumultuous tale of a woman who overpaid her debt to society.

In 1975, a pregnant 15-year-old Deborah Peagler met a local grocery store clerk, and sometimes model, Owen Wilson. The two became romantically involved, in part because Wilson smoothly transitions into a father figure with Peagler's newborn daughter. Yet when money became an issue, Wilson forces Peagler into prostitution in order to not only pay bills but also support his drug habit. After his abuse reaches a boiling point, Peagler brings Wilson to a park where he is beaten and strangled to death by two local gang members.

Following a slow investigation, authorities catch up to Peagler and the two gang members. Facing the death penalty (under false pretenses), Peagler pleads guilty to first degree murder when her culpability was far less grave.

Serving a life sentence, Peagler has the opportunity to get out of prison when a new law is passed in California. Enter attorneys Nadia Costa and Joshua Safran, two attorneys determined to seek and secure justice for Peagler.

What follows is a true-to-life crime story with more twists, turns and surprises than the best fiction. Secret memos, paid informants and false promises of freedom follow. The maximum sentence Debbie would have received if she had been convicted of manslaughter for aiding in the murder of an abusive boyfriend would have been six years. Instead we see her struggle through decades of incarceration. (The Los Angeles District Attorney's office does not come off well here.)

Yoav Potash's first feature documentary is a must see for anyone who believes the legal system is extremely flawed. There is a long way to go, but Peagler, Costa, Safran and their families prove that hope, hard work, patience and persistence have the sweetest of payoffs.

FILM REVIEW: SYMPATHY FOR DELCIOUS By: Faiz No comments

The Stain (Orlando Bloom) and Ariel Lee (Juliette Lewis) in Sympathy for Delicious.

Bound to earth

By John Esther

Wheel bound on the streets of Los Angeles in more ways than one, life for DJ Delicious (Christopher Thornton) has been too tough for too long. Unemployment, crime, disability…like the people around him, Delicious needs an immediate fix.

Then one day, others discover Delicious has the hands of God and he can cure approximately 72 percent of the people he touches -- such as the ones with illness, blindness or paralysis. This leads to many kinds of exploitation and manipulation by Delicious and others.

Competently directed by Mark Ruffalo, the storyline of Sympathy for Delicious is a mixed bag. It is interesting to watch how Delicious and others make money off his talent from God (just like Rush Limbaugh), but the idea of supernatural healing powers bestowed on a human being in this day and age is a bit silly. Written by Thorton, the script would have better served the character of Delicious if his powers were “scientifically” explained.

Co-starring an amusing Juliette Lewis as a pill addict/rock & roll purist named Ariel Lee, a highly-toned Orlando Bloom as a pretentious rock star called The Stain, Laura Linney as an eccentric agent, and Ruffalo a as priest maligned by pride.