On Television/DVD

The Exactitude of Mad Men

Betty Draper is an alias for Betty Crocker, and the world in which she resides does not truly resemble anything like reality, but for those who grew up in a vastly different era she is the manufactured perfection that embodies her time.

Mad Men, currently running its third season on AMC, is a show that has mastered the balance between revealing the artful, measured representation of a crucial American culture in transition with the subtle development of the American man. The combination (it can’t really be called a marriage) of Betty and Donald Draper physically represents this dichotomy. Both struggle with the advancing cultural upheavals of the 1960’s, but both are also determined to retain their individuality within the developing social framework.

In Season One, Betty is offered to model for Coca-Cola after revealing that she was once a professional in the Manhattan fashion circuit before settling down. The audience gets it’s first glimpse into her inner character and even though it may seem thinner than paper, there is a taste of Betty finally being able to come out of her shell as the humble abiding housewife — the very stigma that is awaiting the guillotine in the show.

The curtain protecting the central character of Don Draper is conservatively pulled back in the opening season as well, revealing his beginnings in a less prosperous world, one very different from his immediate peers. He unexpectedly comes back into contact with his younger brother, whom he had left along with his adoptive family for the war. We learn his given name is Dick Little, and that later after a tragic accident, he was forced to change identities with his grenade-mangled lieutenant.

Following Dick/Don through his now daily routine — chain smoking, gulping down whiskey like water and exploring the contours of sumptuous female bodies and disposing of them at the slightest request for tenancy in his weary heart — it is almost as if his goal in life is to prove to himself and everyone else that the world from which he came doesn’t actually exist. Poverty, war, social inequality; these societal axioms don’t flush with the ‘eyes to the future’ mentality of 1950’s America from which the Drapers hail. Prosperity in this era has presented acceptable levels of self-indulgency at merely an arms-length for a blossoming middle class, allowing for a wave of complacency not seen since the Jazz Age — and once again in our current era as a timely reminder. So. Seeing this world in its exactitude of saturated colors, perfectionist set design and sprawling character development against a timely social backdrop can act as a therapeutic mirror for those of us who may not have realized that they too, in this modern era, crave the stable lives of the Drapers. Of course, it is simply the illusion of stability that attracts us, and that exactly what the Drapers have — the perfect cover of domesticity that everyone wants yet cannot have, hiding the internal doubts and insecurities.

In the later half of Season Two these stressing fissures finally erupt among Betty and Don, spelling the possible beginning of the end of Mayberry. This purposely occurs in conjunction with the Cuban Missile Crisis, an unforeseen near-catastrophe that injected a bit of shock into the populace, cruising on boundless expressways of hope and success. The ‘American Dream’ as it were, comes and goes as fleetingly as a case of Heineken. The central moral question Mad Men poses to us however, could be whether it is worth it to grab at that Dream and fight to keep it, no matter who you antagonize in the process, or if it better to have lived never knowing the pleasures of such a life and being content with what hand you were given.

Playing a little catch up here...

Best of 2008

1) Wendy & Lucy
2) WALL-E
3) Waltz With Bashir
4) Up the Yangtze/Man on Wire
5) Trouble the Water
6) A Christmas Tale
7) Frozen River
8) Paranoid Park
9) Doubt
10) The Wrestler

Honorable Mention (No particular order): "The Dark Knight," "Ballast," "Boy A," "Happy Go-Lucky," "Synecdoche, New York," "Che," "Milk," "Revolutionary Road," "The Class," "Gran Torino"

On DVD:

Frozen River

This review was originally written in Winter 2008.

If you are one who is used to seeing low-budget independent films, then you will act accordingly with writer/director Courtney Hunt's impressive debut feature, "Frozen River," which essentially paints a fresh coat over the reasons why distributors continue to allow only a sliver of films like these through to exhibition. See this one while you can, because it will not be out long, and before you know it your Netflix queue will be inching nearer its max.

The star of the picture is Melissa Leo (Ray Eddy), a powerful actress with many dramatic notches on her belt, including the groundbreaking cop-drama "Homicide." Her character here is a struggling mother eternally stuck in a figurative rut — physically at one point — in a small town near the New York State border with Quebec, which also happens to be right alongside a Mohawk Reservation where smuggling illegal immigrants stateside is a common practice.

The film's timeline is brief, covering only the span of the couple days leading up to Christmas, and all the while Ray's fragile family fabric is slowly tearing amidst the unpredictable absenteeism of her childrens' father, (who is not seen once throughout the film) and the oppressive cold that has frozen over the St. Lawrence River. This natural occurrance provides — for better or worse — Ray with an unexpectedly convenient source of income, as the immigrant smuggling superhighway occurs over Mohawk territory, outside State police jurisdiction.

Desperate to move her kids into a new, more luxurious mobile home (for reasons curiously unexplained), Ray takes to the criminal life with a six-shooter at her side that she's "not afraid to use."

At first the plausibility of a basically single-mother taking up the vigilante lifestyle seems far-fetched, but after spending time in this no-future town and witnessing the perpetual depression that sets in along with the unceasing cold, one can begin to understand rash measures being taken in forgotten towns where opportunity comes only to the fortunate or the criminal.

As a study on the modern plight of poor and lower-middle class families struggling in America, (a subject Hollywood tends not to dwell on) the film is enlightening to the extent that its production took on fully the true grittiness of that environment, and capitalized on the need for engrossing performances from the actors, especially Leo and the Native Americans.

"Frozen River" will not recieve much critical attention outside of independent film awards centering on Leo's performance and perhaps Best Debut Direction for Hunt.

The Return of the Batman: Part III

I’m not used to paying the price of admission multiple times at the many
local megaplexes for a single film, but unfortunately there are those rare occasions that warrant at least a second viewing. The release of The Dark Knight is such an occasion, and even more so, since after my third viewing (the most recent being of the “Hollywood IMAX Experience” kind) I have gleaned at least some new perspective on the re-energized Batman franchise:

1) The inevitable loss of Bruce Wayne’s love interest Rachel Dawes immediately makes necessary her replacement in the next film. My best guess is that Catwoman will at least make some sort of appearance (at least we can count out Halle Berry for this part).

2) As for the possibility of Johnny Depp playing a role in the next film — possibly The Riddler — the problem becomes, with any villain really, that it is going to be near impossible to meet, let alone top Heath Ledger’s Joker performance. I’m sure whoever plays the next villain (Philip Seymour Hoffman has also come up in discussions) will do admirably, but the brilliance of the Joker’s character in terms of how he relates to Batman’s development will be the most difficult to overmatch.

3) This point is obviously out of date: The Dark Knight will receive Oscar nominations, of that there is no doubt among anyone. The question is, does Ledger have a real chance? At this point in the year, I think so, but Oscar contender season has yet to begin, and when late-September-October comes around, the real test will begin, with films from Charlie Kaufman, Fernando Meirelles and the Coen Brothers contending. Nevertheless, it will go down as the most financially and critically successful comic book film to date.

4) This point is being written on 12/18/2009: The next Batman project is currently listed as untitled and "in development" with literally no other information being made available, except that Nolan is directing and it will be released in 2011.

On DVD:

Lake of Fire

This review was originally published in Webster University's The Journal November 2007

“Lake of Fire” is British director Tony Kaye’s engrossing 2006 documentary that covers the issues surrounding the American woman’s right to have their child aborted safely and professionally. It has been in production for 15 years, ever since Bill Clinton took his new job in the Oval Office, and after touring the Toronto and Cannes Film Festivals, has finally gotten limited release.

While being unique as the only feature length film to date to seriously tackle the issue in a broad, encompassing scope, as well as having been filmed while much of the turmoil was in progress, “Lake of Fire” falls short of being entirely inclusive as some might hope it to be.

Early on, Kaye shows segments of footage from pro-life/pro-choice rallies all across the country, some of them shocking in their extremity. While mingling with the protesters, we are first introduced to some of the brilliant thinkers of our time, including Noam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz; to whom Kaye returns for elucidation several times throughout the film.

After about two hours (yep, it’s a long one — 152 min.), we know about all there is to know about the two extremes on each side of the debate, and with some input from more moderate voices such as the Catholics for Free Choice political organization, Kaye seems to conclude the discourse with a sentiment by Chomsky. In such an emotionally charged debate, probably more so than any other, the MIT professor emeritus explains how some decisions must eventually be made on “where human life begins … somewhere between the skin cells you wash off your hand in the bathroom and the extermination of an innocent 3-year old.” The range of possibilities, like all the varying opinions, is as vast as all the oceans put together, and Kaye, in a brilliant stroke of Cinéma-vérité, closes the film with an unsettlingly candid, yet emotionally complex visit to the abortion clinic.

One may recall Kaye’s 1998 film “American History X” that travels down similarly windy roads of acute beliefs and emotions. The difference here between fiction and non-fiction is made more severe by the fact that according to the press packet, he failed when originally trying to develop a fictional script on the issue, but realized in the early nineties that nothing could cover all that needed to be.

The most shocking reaction to this film would be the snubbing of it on account of the film not spending enough time on every single perspective. True, it may be that any moderate pro-life voice is pretty much unaccounted for, but never before have people had an opportunity to see in glowingly contrasted black & white footage this issue presented so objectively.

Some of the film wavers a bit too long while discussing the most obscure of fundamentalist anti-abortion extremist groups, collectively called by one speaker as a trend of “Christian Reconstructionism,” where a quiet revolution is under way with the goal of turning the USA into an Iran-like theocracy. While intriguing, these elements take away from the heart of the debate, and though perhaps Kaye did this intentionally, this is certainly one of the problems tied to the near impossibility of the two sides having a civil, intellectual deliberation.

There will be many other attempts to do what the filmmaker has mostly done here, and they may be more successful at offering audiences a more complete review of everyone’s positions, but until then, the artistry and expansiveness of Kaye’s immensely important work is the superior to date.

Coming Attractions

This is a blurb I wrote some time ago, 2008 I think, when news came of Terry Gilliam's latest film running into distribution complications. This on top of the lead actor Heath Ledger's untimely death during filming. My frustration with this clearly talented director never being able to achieve the notariety he deserved has dissipated since then now that it has picked up a decent distributor...

Gilliam's Imaginothing
Maybe past his prime, Terry Gilliam continues to make films that have a knack for not being 'completed' in the classic sense, and his latest effort The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus follows suit for as of yet uncertain reasons. Distributors have always had issues with the 'maverick' director's wiley ways, especially since they haven't produced the goods since 12 Monkeys, but this film just happens to contain the very last acting footage of Heath Ledger. Apparently even this savory addition is not enough so sway the Hollywood fatcats, and probably rightly so.

It seems that, at this point in his career, Gilliam should have surpassed the hurtles usually reserved for up-and-coming filmmakers that prevent their work from surfacing onto the cultural plane. The director of Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas however is struggling more than any established writer/director who might happen to have somewhat off-kilter material to put to celluloid. He may want to take notes on the distribution strategies of socially unacceptable artists such as David Lynch, Crispin Glover or numerous others that inhabit the college film series circuit.

African Vengance?

The day continues to evade us all when we finally are able collectively show our awe and respect for the innate cinematic talents of African filmmakers; not that they are non-existent, but simply acknowledging their readiness to compete at the global stage. Many would contend that the day has already come and gone, with major artists like Ousmane Sembene and Djibril Diop Mambety bearing the Senegalese flag, and many others faring from Mali, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and others. The fact is, scars from colonialism's remnants are still visible and certainly not forgotten by time or memory—so where's the outrage, political mobility, promise of retribution?

Looking at the filmic history of African cinema's most reliable financier, France saw the beginnings of the artform itself, and had more than half a century head start on the entire African continent as far as the development of the country's cinematic identity. Even such nations as Japan and Thailand, who would seemingly be in poor proximity to cinema's ground zero in the U.S. and Europe, were well endowed in their own aesthetic by the Second World War.

Not until the 1960's, as seen through Gillo Pontecorvo's lens in "The Battle of Algiers," the tumultuous quagmires finally wrought long-forgotten independence to African nations, and in retrospect, more than a half century of artistic experimentation and new states of becoming had been raped from the peoples of the continent. So why, during the social upheaval that spawned new movements around the globe (gangster/sex/revenge revival in the U.S.) did nothing so impetuous arise in Africans' artistic expression?

It is difficult to start an entire continental movement from rock-bottom, and that is exactly where they were left when the colonial powers finally moved out, after decades of oppression and the silencing of voices of dissention. In many ways, their artistic stagnation resembles the more recent state of former Soviet occupied countries like Afghanistan. However, take some of the basic themes of recent films coming from Central Asia, namely Mongolia and Iran. "The Cave of the Yellow Dog," and "Iron Island" both combine the oral traditions of their respective cultures with pressing modern realities. Conformity to the onslaught of globalization and interconnectedness becomes a do-or-die scenario for these traditionally rural, nomadic people.

As the Guardian writes, "Vengence is for people with time on their hands," and with the crises of health, economy and infrastructure that will seemingly never cease to plague the continent, at least not until first world countries learn to work together, Africans will certainly not have the time needed to devote themselves to a cinematic movement that will hopefully one day reinvent their identity.

* Addendum, 12/18/09 – This piece was also written quite a while back, in 2008, and I feel I must make an important addition. The now well-known story of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" has become another stepping stone for the future promise of a globally recognized African literary/film culture. The story of one of the boys was transformed into a nationally bestselling novel "What is the What?" by Dave Eggers and also into documentary films ("God Grew Tired of Us") that tracked the heroic journey of these boys. This promising success, especially in Western culture, will allow for future works of art to come out the continent that share their compelling stories with the world.

Trés Amigos

Piece originally written Summer 2007

Human comradeship is something not too often praised aloud in the film industry these days, especially with 'get rich quick' guys out there like Brett Ratner who are exceedingly better than anyone at taking, and the opposite when it comes to giving back. One shining example though is the Latino Trio consisting of directors Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron who, in last year's Oscars, were responsible for 16 Academy Award Nominations with their films "Babel," "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Children of Men." Long time friends, the three have always had a sybiotic relationship, according to MovieMaker's Summer 2007 article, that included sometimes harsh constructive criticism, but most importantly, says Cuaron in an interview with Charlie Rose, "the core of that process is friendship."

Too often professionals are butting heads to get their own way in the vast and decadent world of film production, but when these three successful artists decided to switch that common logic and form a production company together, rather than race to see who could win the trophy as the best Mexican filmmaker in the land, a studio shook somewhere in Hollywood, and it wasn't Jackie Chan exploding a truck with his foot. As other filmmakers come on board to Cha Cha Cha (the company's name), like Rodrigo Garcia and Carlos Cuaron (Alfonzo's brother), things are likely to change in the future when young, aspiring artists and technicians enter the film world looking for an alternative to the 'You're on your own kid' mentality. Especially when it concerns specific cultures and/or backgrounds, these three are an example to those who wish to expose the issues, talent, etc. of any given culture to the majority American public, and hopefully to the rest of the world.

More Catchup...Best of 2007

1) No Country For Old Men
2) There Will Be Blood
3) Zodiac
4) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
5) Syndromes and a Century
6) I'm Not There
7) The Lives of Others
8) Persepolis
9) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
10) The King of Kong

Honorable Mention:
Lake of Fire
Into the Wild
Black Book
Michael Clayton
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
No End In Sight
Eastern Promises
Ratatouille
The Host
The Savages

More Bloody Catsup...Best Films of 2006

1) Inland Empire
2) The Proposition
3) Jesus Camp
4) Three Times
5) The Fountain
6) United 93
7) The Queen
8) Volver
9) Iraq In Fragments
10) Thank You For Smoking

Honorable Mention:

A Scanner Darkly
The Descent
Inside Man
L'Enfant
Half Nelson
Notes on a Scandal