Napoleon Dynamite

I had originally resisted this one since ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ is one of my man Elvis Costello’s nicknames, which has apparently been nicked without crediting the man.   However, the film turns out to be a good laugh.   It stars Jon Heder as the titular character, a high school kid so nerdy that he probably would’ve given my Athens High social set a run for its money in the dorkdom department (no easy task).   At least we were never into nunchucks or Pegasus.   He's utterly recalcitrant, and thus completely cool.   So much of comedy is tone, timing and delivery, and Heder is spot-on, both in his line readings and his body movements.   The rest of the cast is generally good as well, particularly Efren Ramirez and Tina Majorino as Napoleon’s only friends, although the performances that are underplayed are much funnier than those that are overplayed.   The vast, empty Idaho horizon is nicely captured by Munn Powell.

- Sep 10, 2004  

Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror

This is the latest documentary by veteran journalist/documentarian John Pilger.   The screening I attended was sponsored by my neighborhood peace group.   To my mind, Pilger’s work has long been the embodiment of what journalism should be, in that it challenges official doctrine and obstinately insists on the truth.    

“Breaking the Silence” is an eye-opener even for someone like myself who has always found the Bush administration, well, rather less than creditable (to use the mildest possible language).   For example, I didn’t know that more innocent people were killed in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan than were killed in 9/11.   Further, Pilger’s film reveals that Afghan life hasn’t gotten any better since the fall of the Taliban, now that the U.S.-backed National Alliance warlords are securely in power.   The film highlights the case of the excellent woman leader Dr. Sima Samar (“a physician who refused to deny treatment to women during the Taliban years”), who, after briefly being held up by Bush as an example of change, was forced out of the post-Taliban government and now “lives in constant fear for her life”.  

Another interesting fact: I had known that the U.S. trained and armed the Islamic militias (“mujahedin”) that went on to become the Taliban and Al Qaeda (ostensibly to beat back the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan), but Pilger’s film demonstrates that our support actually pre-dated the Soviet invasion.   In discussing Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and 9/11, the writer Chalmers Johnson has used the term “blowback”, which he describes as “a CIA term” which refers to “the unintended consequences of the US government’s international activities that have been kept secret from the American people”.   Pilger’s film dramatizes this “blowback”, showing how Bin Laden & Co. are a CIA creation that came back to bite us on the backside.    

Amongst many other interviews, Pilger talks to Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer and friend of former president Bush Sr.   McGovern lets on to Pilger that in his day the likes of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle were regarded as dangerous “nutcases” that you kept at arm’s length.   W. has made such men architects of policy.  

The film also offers a chilling look at the US prisons in Bagram (Afghanistan) and   Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) where prisoners are held incommunicado and without charge; and at the US Army’s School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Georgia, where we provide military training to repressive forces that do much to destabilize the world and engender hatred towards us (and, not incidentally, where some of our future enemies obtain their murderous skills)--more “blowback”.

The above really just scratches the surface.   I can’t recommend this one highly enough to anyone interested in connecting the dots in regards to the “war on terror”.   According to Pilger’s website, it “has won the gold award in the political category at the prestigious 2004 WorldMedia Festival, the only global competition for all media.”   It’s available on video/DVD from Bullfrog Films at P.O. Box 149, Oley, PA 19547,   Tel: 610/779-8226 , Fax: 610/370-1978, http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/breaks.html

- Aug 17, 2004

Collateral

Of the many depressing and dehumanizing aspects of contemporary life, going to the corporate megaplex to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster ranks right up there.   However, I decided to endure it because I’d heard such good things about this movie.   I’m not all that familiar with Michael Mann’s work, with the exception of ‘Heat’, which I liked, and ‘Ali’, which had some problems, but it turns out that seeing this one makes me want to catch up with the rest of his oeuvre.  

Tom Cruise stars as a hit man who’s in L.A. for one night to “whack” five prosecution witnesses set to testify against a drug kingpin.   Jamie Foxx plays a cabdriver forcibly enlisted by Cruise to drive him on his appointed rounds.   I completely believed Foxx as the cab driver and Cruise’s work is also strong, down to his authoritatively lethal body movements when he goes to work.   All the characters, even the minor ones, are well-written and acted and invested with a depth unusual for a mainstream thriller, particularly Jada Pinkett Smith in an early scene.   The big city at night is wonderfully evoked, and there’s even an unexpected death, which again is rare in this type of genre piece.    

In fact, this movie is so good that if it didn’t veer into such dire cliché at the end (another subway chase? Oh, man), I’d recommend it not only to thriller fans but to anyone interested in excellent filmmaking.   As it is, I would recommend it to fans of the genre who are looking for something above average.

- Aug 12, 2004

The Corporation

A big hit in Canada now receiving theatrical release in the U.S., this 2½-hour film documents the extent to which the modern world is dominated by the institution of the business corporation.   As the narration notes, “Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution.”   The film asks the most urgent question that there can be, namely: can the Earth and its people survive in the long term if the world continues to be run in the interests of corporations rather than in the interests of its people and the environment?   Almost certainly not, is the convincingly-argued answer.  

The film is a sobering portrayal of the relentless corporate attempt to own everything, including life itself (as the film’s website puts it, “In a bid to own it all, corporations are patenting animals, plants, even your DNA”); to colonize our minds; and to shape the world-order.   Although a bracing anti-corporate polemic, the film evinces a nuanced view of the corporation, tackling for example the interesting issue of whether “the institution or the individuals within it should be held responsible”.   Additionally, as the film’s website points out, among its interview subjects “are CEOs and top-level executives from a range of industries: oil, pharmaceutical, computer, tire, manufacturing, public relations, branding, advertising and undercover marketing.”  

I especially welcomed this film because, in my experience, to even suggest that corporate rule is not the natural order of things is to invite the charge that you’re a commie who thinks that we should all live in the woods.   Co-directed by Mark Achbar (who co-directed one of my favorite documentaries, “Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media”) and Jennifer Abbott and written by Joel Balkan.

By the way, below is a link to the film’s excellent website.   Check it out for a wealth of information and fascinating history, as well as the amusing contention that, based on “actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists”, if the corporation were a person (as indeed it is in the eye of the law), its personality profile would be that of a psychopath.  

http://www.thecorporation.tv/


- Aug 6, 2004 

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

This is the latest from Mike Hodges, whose “Get Carter” (1971) is said to be a classic film noir (I’m embarrassed to admit that I still haven’t seen it).   In this movie he puts an elliptical spin on familiar elements of the noir and revenge genres.   Clive Owen plays a former crime boss who, for unexplained reasons, has dropped out to live in the woods as a shaggy lumberjack.   He returns to avenge the death of his younger brother.   The character of the ex-criminal forced by circumstance to return to “the life” is not new, but Owen plays it with subtle intensity.   What is fresh is the film’s treatment of the violation that leads to the younger brother’s death, so that one theme becomes the shattering of the male ego.   Some scenes are too heavy-handed and verge on cliché, but on the whole Hodges mounts the film artfully and intelligently.

- Jul 29, 2004