Category: Pop Culture Page 46 of 74

Any trends or popular fads may be described, whether it would be something like the hula hoop or the pet rock or simply new slang.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vPNwJ4yab8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vPNwJ4yab8

Genre: Thriller
Director: Baltasar Kormakur
110 minutes
Actors: Baltasar Kormakur (Finner), Hera Hilmer (Anna), and Gisli Orn Gardarsson (Ottar)

This film from Iceland (with English subtitles) was my favorite drama from the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival. Even without English subtitles on the trailer, you can tell it is thrilling. Directed by Baltasar Kormakur, who also directed the Hollywood films “Everest”, ‘Contraband” and “2 Guns,” this action-packed story of a successful heart surgeon battling to save his daughter from drug addiction and the influence of a sleazy drug dealer boyfriend was well-paced, well-written, shot and edited beautifully (cinematography by Ottar Gudnason) and shows why “Variety” pegged Kormakur as an up-and-comer.

I became aware of the wonderful films coming out of Iceland at a previous film festival while watching one about the explosion of crystal meth in the country; the title was something like “Black Ice,” although I cannot find any mention of it on IMDB. Born in Rekjavik (Iceland) Variety selected Baltasar Kormakur, (son of Baltasar Samper, a famous Icelandic artist) as one of the “10 Directors to Watch,” along with Alejandro González Iñárritu, Lukas Moodysson, Christopher Nolan and other newcomers.

Korrakur not only wrote, directed, and produced this film, he plays the lead role of a skilled heart surgeon (Finnur) who has a wife and two daughters. Finnur is not unique in having to deal with the effect of a headstrong older daughter (Anna, played by Hera Hilmer) who is past the age of 18 and, therefore, can make decisions that are detrimental to her health and well-being, which Anna does repeatedly.

Finnur—who has so much success in the operating room saving people’s lives—thinks through several logical ways of getting Ottar (Gisli Orn Gardarsson), the bad boyfriend, out of Anna’s life forever. He tries the obvious: paying him off. He tries the less obvious (short of murder), and that is when things go south.

Even when Finnur seems to have been successful in removing the threat that Ottar posed to Anna, you wonder if he has lost his daughter forever. The legal implications of the route Finnur ultimately chooses (or the route that chooses him) are left up-in-the-air, which gave the film a nice ambiguity of ending.

Kormakur has already acquired a compound in Iceland, since his interests are so far-ranging, running from theater to television to acting/writing/directing of film. He has also helmed at least 3 Hollywood movies with stars like Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington. He is quoted as saying that he can conceive of working outside of Iceland. Said Kormakur, “It doesn’t matter where my movies are set. Right now, I have a script that’s set in Canada and is in English. Just because I was born on the island [Iceland] doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life telling stories for 300,000 people. It helps that I’m half-Spanish, because the market I can reach is much bigger.” He added of his homeland (Iceland): “The winters are too long, and there’s only one airline, so it’s difficult to escape when you feel frustrated or claustrophobic. The audience for our films isn’t very large, so it’s difficult to support an industry. But, Iceland is beautiful. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine living anywhere else.”

I was on the edge of my seat for this one, and I shall look for this director’s work in the future. Since he speaks Icelandic, English, Spanish and Danish and has already directed films starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg (among others), I am hoping for films that go beyond just the 300,000 person audience in Iceland. His work certainly deserves a wider audience.

The Oath was a winner from start to finish.

“The Last Laugh” at the Chicago Film Festival Examines Humor

By Connie Wilson

On October 24, 2016

In Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews

Can the Holocaust be funny? Is “Springtime for Hitler” jn bad taste, and, if it is, should we not have laughed at it in the context of Mel Brooks’ “The Producers”?

It’s a great concept. At times, the documentary is funny and witty. It discusses decades of humor on the most taboo of topics, interviewing well-known comics like Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Gilbert Gottfried, Rob Reiner, Carl Reiner, Robert Clary, Susie Essman, Harry Shearer, Jeffrey Ross, Allan Zweibel, Judy Gold, David Cross, Larry Charles, David Steinberg, Abraham Foxman, Lisa Lampanelli, and others. The comics interviewed discuss why and how they joke about subjects like the genocide of the Jews. Probably fewer comics would have been a good idea, in the cliched wisdom of “too many cooks spoil the broth.”

Meanwhile, Holocaust survivors and Jewish community leaders are shown trying to decide whether it is okay to laugh or whether they should draw some sort of line against tasteless humor.

The pacing made the 85 minutes seem like 185 minutes. It also seemed as though there were actually two stories here wanting to be told: one was the story of Auschwitz survivor Renee Firestone, whose young sister Klara was experimented upon by Josef Mengele before being killed. This one story could easily have been the sole focus of the documentary, but, instead of focusing on Renee’s remarkable story and her resilience and optimism in the face of extreme adversity, the film also takes on humor and the Holocaust.

Renee didn’t seem to be any sort of authority the audience should really look to for guidance on the film’s central issue of “What is funny?” She was a survivor of the camps and explained her own POV about looking for the good and the optimistic (not shared by another woman featured in the docudrama). Does that make Renee an expert on humor? To paraphrase a better writer: “To laugh or not to laugh? That is the question.” When you also factor in all the different ways people respond to humor, it seems as though the documentary needed more focus and fewer talking heads.

Some jokes are told (one line by one comic; one by another) but they failed to save this documentary, for me. A great idea gone awry, perhaps because it attempted too much in one 85 minute span.

Director Ferne Pearlstein.

Director Fisher Stevens Helms “Bright Lights: Starring Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher”

By Connie Wilson

On October 24, 2016

In Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Movies, Pop Culture

Director Fisher Stevens of “Bright Lights: Starring Debbie Reynolds & Carrie Fisher”

“Bright Lights,” a documentary from Fisher Stevens (Oscar-winning “The Cove”) and his wife Alexis Bloom played the Chicago Film Festival and was absolutely one of my favorite films of the entire festival. It is the story of screen icons Debbie Reynolds (“Singin’ in the Rain”) and Carrie Fisher (“Star Wars”) showing 2 generations of show business life in a fantastically entertaining warts-and-all portrait as they battle aging, celebrity and each other.

Fisher Stevens told us on the Red Carpet, “Carrie called me to film her and her mother and she thought it might be kind of interesting to sort of document it. I was blown away by what a consummate pro Debbie Reynolds is—always preparing, always perfecting.” This is ably demonstrated in scenes where the now 84-year-old Reynolds decides to perform despite not being in perfect health.

Since many readers will not remember Debbie Reynolds in her prime, nor, perhaps Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars”), the Oprah Winfrey interview here will give much background on the family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzjgp2XebwE

As Debbie prepares for an engagement at the Mohegan Sun Resort in Connecticut, daughter Carrie (Fisher) worries and says, “Inside my mom is the same person and she does not want to retire. Performing gives her a life in a way that family can’t.” Fisher added, ‘Everything in me demands that my mother be as she always was. It’s terrible for all of us, because she’s fallen from a greater height.”

So, wearing a 50-lb. beaded dress, the frail Mary Frances (aka, Debbie) Reynolds is helped up stairs to appear before an adoring throng of older fans who remember her from such hits as “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Tammy and the Bachelor” and “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (1964) for which Debbie received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Bright Lights: Starring Debbie Reynolds & Carrie Fisher

The film also covers the infamous scandal of 1959-1960 when Debbie’s husband, singer Eddie Fisher, ran off with Debbie’s former best friend Elizabeth Taylor, leaving Debbie with 2 small children, Carrie and Todd. Both Carrie and Todd appear onscreen and, during 150 to 200 hours of shooting in Fisher Stevens’ cinema verite fashion, a new audience may begin to have an appreciation of this star of yesteryear. As Director Fisher Stevens himself said, “I didn’t know much about her when we started.”

Asked about whether they were “celebrities” to him, Fisher Stevens said, “Only when they kept me waiting to shoot.” He described being more respectful of Debbie’s frail health and said, “We really did love them. As you can see, they were nuts.”

The “nuts” reference was made with genuine affection and is in deference to the compound where both Debbie and Carrie live in separate houses (A compound built by Robert Armstrong of “King Kong” fame). Carrie Fisher’s sense of humor is famous and in a touching scene from the HBO archives (Carrie’s “Wishful Drinking”), Carrie is shown with her terminally ill father (Eddie Fisher) telling him that she always tried to be funny so he would want to be around her. (Fisher died of complications 10 days after hip surgery in Berkeley on Sept. 22, 2010.)

Said Fisher of the scene, “Carrie did not want that scene in the film. She ran out of the theater crying when it came on.” The scene is genuinely touching, as Fisher—whom Carrie says became addicted to amphetamines during his singing career, along with many other famous folk of the day—is obviously close to death, but lucid. [*An examination of the 5-times married Eddie Fisher’s life, shows that he rarely was in a marriage that lasted longer than 4 years. He fathered 2 children with Debbie (4 years married) and 2 children with Connie Stevens (2 years married). He was not married at the time of his death in 2010 and had not been married since the death of Wife #5 nine years earlier.]

Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars,” was diagnosed as manic depressive and has had well-reported ups-and-downs in her relationship with her famous mother, penning the Meryl Streep/Shirley MacLaine film “Postcards from the Edge” based loosely on their mother/daughter battles. It is clear that now, at age 60, Fisher wanted to document her mother’s remarkable achievements and life and, perhaps, her own.

Carrie Fisher has had an interesting personal life. After dating singer/songwriter Paul Simon for 6 years, they married but only remained married for 11 months (August of 1983 to July of 1984), after which they dated for a while. Her subsequent marriage to talent agent Bryan Lourd produced one daughter, Billie Catherine (age 24), who does not appear in the documentary.

Fisher’s struggles with drugs and bi-polarity are well documented. (“I went too fast. I went too much.”) With a mother whose own father told her that show business was “a crazy way to make a living” and reminded Debbie Reynolds that she originally wanted to be a gym teacher, we hear this life advice from Debbie: “The only way you make it through life is to fight. If you feel sorry for yourself, you will drown.” Debbie describes her own life as “1/3 talent and 2/3 luck.”

Despite years of grooming Carrie for show business, having her sing in her act since the age of 13, Debbie ultimately realized: “She doesn’t want to be Eddie and she doesn’t want to be Debbie. She wants to be Carrie, so she’ll do it her way.” Carrie felt, “She wants me to be an extension of her and her wishes.” Carrie sings “I’ll Never Say No to You” in the documentary at Debbie’s request and describes the song choice (made by her mother) as “perfect.”

It is clear that, while Carrie loves her mother very much, she rejected most of her mother’s advice when young. However, Carrie Fisher became a noted “script doctor” working on many films to fix dialogue, bringing her razor-sharp wit to bear. This is even more remarkable when you learn that Carrie never finished high school.

Carrie, for her part, describes her family relationships, including that with brother Todd, as “a shared history of weirdness.” The documentary reminds us that Carrie’s father Eddie Fisher had more consecutive hits as a singer than the Beatles and Elvis combined, with 65,000 fan clubs clamoring for him at the height of his fame (which ended abruptly in 1960). Carrie obviously has a great deal of affection for her famous mother, saying, “My mom is Christmas. She’s something special.” But she seems equally loving towards her dying father in the scenes from “Wishful Drinking.”

One of the saddest sagas, which I saw documented in a SXSW documentary “The Slippers” by Morgan White, detailed the selling off of movie memorabilia that Reynolds tried, for years, to make into a museum. Son Todd says, “We struggled for years to make this museum. The truth is, we had borrowed money to buy this stuff. We had debt and no museum. We were done.”

Three auctions were held. The second auction brought in $27 million. $6.2 million was paid for Marilyn Monroe’s iconic white subway dress from “The Seven Year Itch.” When I asked Director Fisher Stevens if it was his impression that the auction was held because the family needed the money, he agreed that that was the case. He also said that when he approached Debbie about making this documentary about her life, she asked, “What are my lines? Do you have a script?”

Fisher Stevens onstage with Cinema Chicago founder Michael Kutza in Chicago.

Fisher commented that there is “a lot of down time in documentaries” and that “these things take a long time and they don’t make a lot” so he keeps several projects going at once. One upcoming project that he mentioned prominently is a Leonardo DeCaprio film about climate change entitled “Before the Flood” being shot for National Geographic.

The Debbie Reynolds/Carrie Fisher documentary, which is a poignant bittersweet look at an iconic movie star, her family, her life, and her equally famous daughter is scheduled to be released by HBO in March. It is very funny in a bitter-sweet fashion. It must have been a massive undertaking, as Stevens described sifting through 10,000 hours of archival footage to make the film. He gave much credit to his wife and partner, Alexis Bloom (who was at home caring for their sick three-year-old this night.)

Debbie, he said, “really, really liked the film” but Carrie was not as enthused about an earlier version when it was screened for her and some changes were made.

The ending is built around Debbie’s appearance in 2014 to receive a SAG (Screen Actors’ Guild) award, following which Debbie said, “I can’t be funny about tonight, because it’s too special. You don’t get a chance to have a moment like this very often.” Reynolds was also awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2015 Academy Awards.

One parting thought from the woman who called Debbie Reynolds Mom: “What would be so cool would be to get to the end of my personality and just lay in the sun.”

A must-see documentary for anyone who remember either of these two unique and remarkable women.

Steve McQueen Q&A, Artistic Achievement Award @ Chicago Film Festival on October 22, 2016

By Connie Wilson

On October 23, 2016

In Interviews, Movies, Pop Culture

Michael Kutza and Steve McQueen in Chicago.

British director Steve McQueen came to Chicago to receive an award on the 20th anniversary of the Chicago International Film Festival’s Black Perspectives program. Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago, interviewed him onstage.
Prior to Ms. Stewart’s questioning, McQueen spoke to us on the Red Carpet and answering a question about the climactic hanging scene in “12 Years A Slave,” his Best Picture Oscar winner of 2013, by saying that the long shot required patience and was his search for truth.

McQueen has directed 3 feature films, to date: Hunger (2008), Shame (2011) and “12 Years A Slave” (2013).

“Hunger” depicted the 1981 hunger strike in Britain by Irish Republican Army inmates, eleven (other sources say 10) of whom died. Asked about the impetus for this 2008 first feature, McQueen referenced his youth in England, watching a picture of one of the inmates (Bobby Sands, the leader of the hunger strike), with a number counting down beneath his picture on television each day.

Only 12 at the time, McQueen would ask his mother why that man’s picture was onscreen with a number under it each day. From this, came an interest in the subject. “I realized that, when you’re young, your parents control everything. One of the few ways you have to protest is by not eating.To not eat is to be heard,” said McQueen.

“I was interested in the subject. The subject asked for its treatment to be linear, a feature film. This was the early eighties and terrorism and IRA tension was rife then. I did lots of research. I wanted to know the things in between the lines of the history books. History has so much to do with what is between the lines.”

McQueen went on to talk about how smells can bring back a time, place or person (‘the smell of Grandmother’s house”) and said, “It’s not a visual thing.” In the film “Hunger,” which won a Gold Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival in 2008 and for which Michael Fassbender (now in all 3 of McQueen’s films) won a Silver Hugo for acting that year, the inmates are shown protesting their imprisonment any way they can, including smearing their own feces on the walls of their prison cells.

This meant that every 5 days the authorities would make the prisoners change cells so that the walls could be washed, but the prison guards made the transfer from one cell to another in the most abusive way possible, stripping the men naked and mistreating them throughout. An extremely graphic clip from the film was shown. I could tell that most in the audience had not seen it previously (although I had, in 2008). “Hunger” was a very powerful piece of filmmaking, but not for the faint of heart.

Q: “How do you stage such a brutal scene?”

A: “This was not a normal film set in Belfast. Young people who grew up with the Troubles …it was put on them. That day of shooting was heavy. Apparently I shoot fast (although I don’t know; I have no basis for comparison.) We only did one take. I had to supervise the shoot using monitors, when I prefer being just behind my cameraman, but there wasn’t room for me. The fact that I was the instigator of this violence was quite shocking. (He says he broke out in a physical rash days later over the shooting of the film’s violent scenes.) There is only one cut; I won’t tell you where. I had to walk off the set. Tears were in my eyes and I hadn’t had tears in my eyes like that since my father’s funeral.”

McQueen continued: “Art caused people to talk about it. Eleven men dead of starvation in British prison cells. (*Note: other sources put the number at 10 with Bobby Sands leading the rebellion).”

Q: Then you did the 2011 film “Shame” about sex addiction, shot in New York City, again with Michael Fassbender and Carrie Mulligan. There was lots of nudity in the film.

A: “Yes. If this movie had been made in 1951, Michael and Carol would have worn their pajamas.” McQueen recounted several conversations with psychiatrists that gave him an in-depth understanding of sex addiction and also mentioned the times during which it was shot. “Rupert Murdoch had just bugged everyone’s phones and it was the Tiger Woods era.”

Q: You seem to have a different rhythm and flow for each film. Do you plan that in advance?

A: I always saw ‘Hunger’ as a stream: floating on your back and taking in the landscape and then there’s a waterfall and loss of gravity. Then you see the physicality of what is happening. After violence, it is exhausting and you go into a cascade, an avalanche of words. I saw ‘Hunger’ as having 3 parts: the introduction; the violence; and talk. But sound is also the most important thing in the film. Sound is so important in film. People need to lean in to listen. It gives them something to do.”

Q: Do you consider your films and your way of working conventional or unconventional?

A: “If it works, it works.”

Q: How do you know if it works?

A: “I’ve been doing this for a while now. Trust me. I know.”

McQueen is a film school dropout from NYU’s Tisch School and has been quoted more than once as saying the atmosphere there was too constrictive for him. He mentioned their refusal to allow him to throw a camera in the air. However, he said, “I went to a very good art school. Education was free in Britain then (15 years ago).”

Q: How did you come to the theme of “12 Years A Slave”?

A: “It was a good story. I’ve been coming to the U.S. since I was 7 years old. Just because my sister and I were born in the West Indies (Grenada and Trinidad) people try to separate us by nationality. It’s nonsense. These are stories, which are ours. There is a huge archive of black history—many stories. I wanted to tell this story of this man who was free and was kidnapped 97 years ago and who kept a diary of it. It was very interesting to me that this was a book that no one knew about, when everyone knows about ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, which happened during World War II. By doing this story, I was advocating for a movie about the Underground Railroad and other projects. I consider it a bit of a Trojan horse because these are amazing narratives and now they are being made.”

Q: Do you have people telling you that they are experiencing slavery fatigue?

A: “Slavery fatigue? What is that?”

Q: Tell me about the casting of “12 Years A Slave.”

A: “When I read the book, I knew I wanted Chiwetel Ejiofor to play Solomon Northup because there’s something noble about him. You can put him in rags and he still looks like a prince. He’s such a genius. Also, Michael (Fassbender) is passionate and fearless. His part is such an interesting character. He is in love with Patsy (the slave girl played by Lupita Nyong’o) and he shouldn’t be. That’s a very difficult thing to do, but Michael went there. To be a human is to be complex. The slave owner Michael played was a vicious nasty man to take out his pain on Patsy (Lupita). Simon is America. Deal with it.”

Q: How did you find Lupita Nyong’o?

A: “Lupita is like Scarlett O’Hara in this. It is amazing in that we searched high and low before finding her. She’d not yet graduated from college, but we saw her tape. She has a beautiful jaw line, beautiful lips. Her looks and her spirit and the combination of her looks and her spirit were outstanding. Michael (Fassbender) had rented a massive room with barely any furniture in New Orleans and I brought them together to practice some scenes and, after Michael worked with her and saw her passion and her intensity, he said, ‘I gotta’ get my shit together.’ (laughter) She’s got what she’s got and she’s taking it so far. She’s genius.”

Q: The furious jump cuts. Were they part of the initial rhythm or were they put in in post-production?

A: “I’ve worked with the same 3 people on 3 films: Joe Walker, my editor; Sean Bobbitt, Director of Photography; and Michael Fassbender. It’s like a band (I know I’d be Keith). You knew there was going to be a rhythm. You shoot it and then you see what happens. As long as you’ve got the angles, then you can play around with it.”

Q: What is your own personal connection with “12 Years A Slave?”

A: “The connection of this person wanting to go home. It was a bit like a horrible fairy tale, like ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ All of my films have a realization of blackness. I’m black.”

Q: If you were to make a movie set in Chicago, would you focus on Chicago politics or on crime?

A: “How come there aren’t more stories coming out of Chicago? It’s so rich that it’s crazy. Walk outside and open your eyes!”

(*Note: On September 27, 2016 a new project, Widows, was announced to be in development with a script penned by Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn and McQueen attached to direct. Originally Jennifer Lawrence was approached for the lead role, but due to scheduling conflicts, she had to decline the project. Viola Davis will star in the film. The film is described as a heist thriller about four armed robbers who are killed in a failed heist attempt, only to have their widows step up to finish the job.)

Michael Kutza points out that the Black Perspectives Artistic Achievement award is one inch taller than the Oscar.

At this point, Cinema Chicago founder Michael Kutza came onstage to award McQueen his Black Perspectives Award for Artistic Achievement, noting that it is one inch taller than the Oscar McQueen collected in 2013 for “12 Years A Slave.”

Kutza asked McQueen how long it took him to film his 3 feature film projects: 35 days with one camera for “12 Years A Slave”; 25 days for “Shame;” and 22 days for “Hunger,” noting that, “We had to wait for Michael to lose some weight for the part.”

Michael Kutza and Steve McQueen in Chicago.

“Middle Man” Screens in Chicago at Chicago Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 22, 2016

In Movies, Pop Culture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2-34SNP-Ok

Middle Man

Genre: Dark Comedy
Director: Ned Crowley:
Actor: Jim O’Heir (“Parks & Recreation’s” Jerry Gergich)
104 minutes

“Middle Man” is a film from the twisted mind of Chicago native Ned Crowley, starring another Chicago native, Jim O’Heir, who appeared on “Parks & Recreation’ as Jerry Gergich, the lovable punching bag.

This wickedly dark comedy follows Lenny, a nerdy accountant searching for stand-up comedy fame. For, as the opening quote from Fatty Arbuckle says, “No price is too high to pay for a good laugh.”

En route to Vegas following the death of his mother (with whom he lived), Lenny picks up a mysterious hitchhiker who lures him into a violent killing spree that accidentally turns him into a comedy sensation.

Distribution is still pending so a capsule review is all I can offer at this time. But here’s a picture from the evening:

Jerry O’Heir (Lenny in “Middle Man” and Jerry Gergich on “Parks & Recreation”) at the Chicago Film Festival.

Danny Glover Accepts Visionary Award at Chicago International Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 21, 2016

In Interviews, Movies, Pop Culture, Science and Medicine

Danny Glover accepts the Visionary Award from Cinema Chicago founder and artistic director Michael Kutza.

Danny Glover appeared in Chicago to promote the Nigerian film “93 Days” and accept a Visionary Award from Festival Founder Michael Kutza.The film “93 Days,” based on real-life events, follows the Nigerian effort to stop the Ebola virus from spreading, when it was introduced into the capital city of Lagos (21 million people) in 2014.

Director Steve Gukas and star of “93 Days” Danny Glover.

As Director Steve Gukas said, “This film is about our inter-connectedness. The sacrifice of a few actually saved the lives of many the world over.” The trailer looked good, so I gave the film my attention for what seemed like an interminable 124 minutes of time. The film has international distribution at this time, but no U.S. distribution yet, so my remarks about the film must wait for later.

(L to R) Producers Dotun Okahunri, Bolanie Austen-Peers, Pemon Rami and Director Steve Gukas.

Many of the film’s producers and stars accompanied the film to Chicago and Glover said, before its screening, “I can’t tell you how proud I was to work with my brothers and sisters in Nigeria. I can’t thank the producers and Steve Gukas enough for allowing me to be a part of this.”

Producer Pemon Rami of Chicago.
The only United States producer on the project was Pemon Rami, who is one of the elders of black cinema and has been involved in the development of TV shows, films, music concerts, documentaries and plays for more than 60 years. He is the first African American casting director for Chicago films. When asked about his experiences helping make “93 Days,” Pemon said, “I was the only producer from the U.S. I was there for 3 months working on the film. We were in places in Nigeria that you don’t typically see. Some of the places the houses all looked like the White House!” When asked how Danny Glover became involved with the film, Rami said, “When he read the script, he wanted to be involved in a bigger way.” As it is, Glover’s part is bigger in the opening parts of the film when the crisis is being diagnosed than it is during the “solve-this-problem” parts of the film, when actor Tim Reid, playing Dr. David, took over.

When Festival founder Michael Kutza mentioned that an invitation to attend Chicago’s Film Festival has been extended on three earlier occasions, Glover vowed it would not be his last visit and said, “You know, I was in Hyde Park in New York City accepting an award just a day or so ago, and then I had a commitment with the school board there. Then I was cooking dinner for Harry Belafonte at his home the other night, at Idlewild to honor labor leaders, and at the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party on Saturday.” In other words, Glover keeps busy, and he was nowhere busier than in Chicago where he appeared in not just one, but three separate film entries.

“La La Land” Opens the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival on October 13, 2016

By Connie Wilson

On October 14, 2016

In Interviews, Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzIZyQ0vjDc

“La La Land”—that place where “they worship everything and they value nothing” (i.e., Hollywood and Los Angeles)—is the subject of Writer/Director Damien Chazell’s third film, following on the heels of his highly acclaimed “Whiplash” with Miles Teller. (Bad teacher J.K. Simmons even has a bit part in this one as Gosling’s boss in a supper club).

Miles Teller was originally supposed to play the lead in “La La Land,” Chazell’s attempt to make a musical like those from “the old days.” This is where I’m supposed to sing the merits of musicals of old (“Singin’ in the Rain,” “The Big Broadcast of 1940”) or mention the stylistic and tonal debt the film owes to Jacques Demy’s “Umbrellas of Cherbourg” and “The Young Girls of Rochefort,” but I was never a huge musical fan and this is a modern film in so many other ways. [My mother-in-law, were she still alive, would love this film! She always admired “Chicago” (the musical).]

But me? I’m more of a thriller type. I had to be won over.

THE GOOD

If you’re going to send an actor to win me over, by all means send Ryan Gosling. I’d have accepted the equally talented Miles Teller in the part, (and I’m still hoping that Gosling will star in a remake of “Logan’s Run,”) but if it’s musicals we’re here to discuss, let’s have at it. Who can forget the onscreen chemistry Gosling already had with Emma Stone in “Crazy, Stupid Love” when he told her his signature move was the lift from “Dirty Dancing” and they replicated it?

I liked this one. I would like any musical where the camera lingers lovingly on Ryan Gosling; the fact that he sings passably well and can even do a bit of soft shoe added to my enjoyment. This is to be expected, given his stint on “The All New Mickey Mouse Club” and his early training in Ottawa at the Elite Dance Studio and the top Hat Dance School in his hometown of Cornwall. You have a male lead who can legitimately sing and dance. Emma Stone does an equally good job in both areas, but, somehow, you are less surprised when the female of the species can sing and dance.

Take into account that Gosling’s character of Sebastian is supposed to be a passionate jazz pianist (great lighting in the scenes where he’s playing the piano) and appears to actually be playing the piano, and I’m in. (And I haven’t been “in” to a musical since Leonard Bernstein and “West Side Story.”)

No review would be complete without giving much credit to composer/arranger Justin Hurwitz, with assists lyrically from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for the great songs. There’s also one song contributed by John Legend.

Themes:

When Gosling says, “I’m a Phoenix rising from the ashes” and “I’m gonna’ let life hit me and then I’m gonna’ hit back. It’s a classic rope-a-dope” you believe him. He’s so devoted to jazz that, says co-star John Legend (yes, the singer), “How are you gonna’ save jazz if nobody is listening. You’re holdin’ onto the past, but jazz is about the future.” Another conflict-laden scene where the young couple are being pulled apart by (initially) Gosling’s success featured dialogue that was largely improvised and included the line, “Maybe yu just liked me better when I was on my ass because it made you feel better about yourself.” (Ouch!)

Second theme is the age-old conflict between art and commerce, i.e., the need to make a buck versus the need to create art.

And, last, but certainly not least, I found echoes of two recent films struck me. Those 2 previous films were Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s 2009 film “500 Days of Summer” and Woody Allen’s even more recent film (2016) “Café Society” with Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell.

Each of those non-musical predecessors suggests that there are a variety of people who might be “right” for you at one time or another in your life, and a variety of futures you might have with each person. And, at least in Woody’s film, you can see the wheels turning in Jesse Eisenberg’s head when his first love re-enters his life briefly at the end of the drama. (“Ah, what might have been!” he seems to be thinking.)

The music of Justin Hurwitz, with lyrical assists from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, helps carry the themes of reaching for the stars and not giving up on your dreams. (Hurwitz also did the music and arrangements for “Whiplash”). With lyrics like, “Here’s to the fools who dream, crazy as they may seem. Here’s to the mess we make” the plot is carried along a brightly colored path where a young would-be actress and a young would-be jazz musician who wants to own his own club meet and fall in love, rather slowly by today’s standards. (In the age of Tinder, it was nice to see the slow build-up to the romance.)

THE BAD

Well, it’s a musical.

But it’s a good, witty musical that will garner awards at Oscar time, including a possible Oscar nomination for Emma Stone and the picture itself. If Emma gets a nod for the Best Actress Oscar and Ryan Gosling does not receive a similar endorsement for his skills, it will be a bit like Dustin Hoffman carrying the day in “Rainman” while Tom Cruise was ignored.

I also smiled at the scene when Mia (Emma Stone),who has thoughtlessly double-booked herself with her date Greg and is standing Ryan Gosling up for their spontaneously arranged movie date, gets up from the table and excuses herself, leaving Greg to join Sebastian. The actor playing Greg (Finn Wittrock) played the psychotic killer clown on the circus episodes of “American Horror Story” and was also featured in the hotel year episodes (with Lady Gaga). I think anyone in the theater who has seen old Finn in his psychotic clown make-up was seriously rooting for Emma to flee, not so much because we felt bad about her standing Ryan Gosling up, but because we half-expected Greg to attack her with a steak knife at the dinner table at any moment. I also recognized a second suitor at the very end of the film (Tom Everett Scott) from the 1996 Tom Hanks film “That Thing You Do” and wondered what he’s been up to since then.

Both of the leads, as well as the Writer/Director and everyone who did such a fine job on this film deserve recognition of how difficult it must have been to pull off a romantic musical in today’s crass times. Between all the talk of Donald Trump’s assaults on women and his genitalia and the specter of Bill Clinton’s trysts elevated to front row status at the second presidential debate, it’s really hard to remember more romantic times.

Those who loved musicals do remember, and this is the kind of film they’ll love, which really should be seen on the Big Screen.

So, “Here’s to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem, I’ll always remember the flame.”

[*The Lionsgate representative on the Red Carpet on October 13th, when asked, said it would be perfectly fine to run a review now, as it was playing elsewhere, but it is slated to open wide in December.)

Opening Night of the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival on Oct. 13th

By Connie Wilson

On October 14, 2016

In Interviews, Movies, News, Pop Culture

http://search.aol.com/aol/video?q=Valerie+Perrine&v_t=aolrt-ff

Claude LeLouch with interpreter.

Now that I have your attention, may I mention that the lovely creature featured in the tribute above is the co-author of French director Claude LeLouch’s (2015) film “Un & Une?” You may recognize Valerie Perrine from her Oscar-nominated role as Honey Bruce, wife of Lenny Bruce, in the 1974 film “Lenny” or any of her many other film roles. She accompanied LeLouch to the opening night and is a lovely and vibrant 73-year-old (LeLouch is 79).

Damien Chazelle, Writer/Director of “La La Land” and “Whiplash.”

The current hot director who attended the Opening Night of his film was Damien Chazelle, whose musical “La La Land” has been well-received virtually everywhere it has screened. In Venice, on August 31st, the opening sequence on a Los Angeles freeway received a standing ovation. Since then, the film has opened to kudos at Telluride and Toronto and Emma Stone won the Best Actress award for her role (She is being prominently mentioned as a Best Actress Oscar contender). The chemistry that Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone displayed in “Crazy, Stupid Love” (he told her his signature move was the lift from “Dirty Dancing”) remains.

Michael Rooker

Another classic flick brought back to life for the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival was “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”, an indie film directed by John McNaughton and starring Michael Rooker. The film premiered in Chicago in 1986 and has achieved cult status over the intervening 30 years. Rooker, himself, now 60, has gone on to appear in such films as “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Days of Thunder” (1990), “The Bone Collector,” and as Merle in television’s “The Walking Dead.”

When McNaughton was asked his advice for aspiring filmmakers who want to make an independent film he said, “Ill give them the same advice my father gave me: become a dentist.”

Rosemarie DeWitt of “La La Land.”

In addition to Writer/Director Chazelle of “La La Land”, actress Rosemarie DeWitt, who plays Gosling’s older sister in the film, came to Chicago and her comments to me about the film were, “I think Damien made something very beautiful and very fresh that is going to make you very happy and maybe even make you cry.”

“The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki”: Chicago Film Festival Film About Real Finnish Boxer

By Connie Wilson

On October 11, 2016

In Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews

This debut film from Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen tells the serio-comic story of the real-life Finnish boxer dubbed “the baker of Kokkola.” Even the fighter’s nickname makes you smile. Usually, if a lesser-known fighter (like Chuck Wepner in this country, the real-life model for Stallone’s “Rocky”) selects a nickname, the nickname tries for a dangerous moniker like Wepner’s “the Bluffs Butcher.” Olli’s fights took place in the late fifties (Lucerne, ’59, Lightweight; Prague, ’57, Lightweight) or the sixties. The film won a top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and focuses on the World Title Featherweight Match between Olli and American boxer Davey Moore on August 17, 1962 in Helsinki, Finland. The fact that an international title fight was being held in Finland made Olli into a national hero.

Pay special attention to the end of The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki. That’s when you’ll see an old couple walking hand-in-hand. That old couple are the real-life Olli and Raiji Maki. Olli is now 79.

Olli is so low-key and such a nice guy that his big concern when he loses the title fight to the much more experienced Moore in only 2 rounds, is “Where are the flowers I brought to present to the winner?” His humble demeanor might earn him the title today of the Anti-Trump. He tells his trainer (Eero Milonoff), “I just want peace before the match” and Eero responds, “Welcome to professional sports.”

Davey Moore, at this point in his career, had fought 64 fights. He won half of them by knockout. Olli had only had 10 fights, 300 amateur bouts, and won the European lightweight title in 1959, placing second in 1957. You get the feeling that Olli knows, going in, that he is doomed. [*He did fight again after this climactic career point, in February of 1964, winning the European Boxing Union Light Welterweight title against Conny Rudhof).

Another charming aspect of the film— (once you get used to the fact that it is shot in black-and-white)—is its inventive newsreel-like feeling. The last film I may have seen that was intentionally shot in black-and-white was “Manhattan” in 1979 (Woody Allen) although “The Artist” in 2011 used it to good effect (5 Oscars). The black-and-white was definitely an anachronism. References to Rocky Marciano and Frank Sinatra, plus the black-and-white footage, make you feel that this is newsreel footage. Nostalgia reigns.

The “happiest day” was an apt title because Olli realizes, in the course of training for the title bout, that he is in love with Raiji. They make arrangements at a jewelry store to purchase engagement rings engraved with the date: Aug. 17, 1962. The couple’s stroll along the shore at the very end of the film is not heralded as being your one chance to glimpse the real Olli and Raiji Maki, so pay attention.

The film is serio-comic—not really all drama and not all comedy. Comic turns have the short Olli standing on a box next to a tall model for publicity stills and, along with his manager (Eero Milanoff), nearly forgetting to retrieve the manager’s child from a roadside bathroom. The comic touches like the nude shower scene, the car that won’t start (leading to a precarious bicycle trip to a wedding), the small child of Olli’s manager that Olli and his manager almost leave behind in the bathroom, and the fight between Eero Milonoff and his angry crockery-throwing wife detract some from the all-too-brief fight, which is over almost as quickly as it began. (I haven’t seen a title fight end that quickly since Davenport’s Michael Nunn knocked out Sumbu Kalambay in the 1st round in Las Vegas on March 25, 1989. I took my husband for his birthday; he went out to place his bet and the fight was over before he returned.)

It takes almost two-thirds of the film before Olli kisses the girl of his dreams, a slow pace for American audiences. There are extensive scenes of nude male horseplay in the showers with a dozen boxers letting it all hang out. In fact, the visiting dignitaries who have arrived for the fight are ushered into the showers where at least ten nude males have been having a water fight. The fighters, all going full frontal, politely stand there in their birthday suits, shaking hands with the clothed visitors. Besides being loopy (from an American perspective), it seems preposterous that this would occur exactly the way it is portrayed.

If you’re a fight fan and you like a humble champion and you don’t mind reading English subtitles while the actors speak Finnish, you’ll like The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Makki.

“A Quiet Passion” Is Emily Dickinson Bio-Pic Featuring Cynthia Nixon

By Connie Wilson

On October 7, 2016

In Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews

Terence Davies, who directed “The House of Mirth,” portrays the life of poet Emily Dickinson in a joint U.K./Belgium production starring Cynthia Nixon (Miranda on “Sex & the City”). Jennifer Ehle co-stars as her sister Vinnie and Keith Carradine portrays Emily’s cranky, overbearing father.

Living in self-imposed isolation from the world in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily seems quite attached to her immediate nuclear family and unwilling or unable to look beyond those parameters. Therefore, she pours out her thoughts and feelings in poetry that lives on to this day.

Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Milay were always my personal favorites during my study for a Master’s in Literature. Therefore, I looked forward to the use of “I heard a fly buzz when I died,” since there were multiple scenes of death (mother, father, Emily), usually portrayed in somewhat grisly detail. I was disappointed when, following the seizures that beset Emily (who suffered from the incurable Bright’s Disease), the poem used was “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.” Also used was the favorite, “I’m nobody, Who are you? Are you nobody too?”

The lighting and costuming and period sets are wonderful (think “Downton Abbey”) but a grim tone pervades the movie as Emily struggles to come to grips with all those she loves leaving her, whether friends or family.

Lots of onscreen deaths, seizures and general unhappiness of mood and event.