Don't Miss "Just Ancient Loops"

At the Bang on a Can Marathon in 2012, Jim and I watched riveted as cellist Maya Beiser played Michael Harrison's haunting and hypnotic Just Ancient Loops,  accompanying overlapping loops of herself playing the same music--which comprised the score of Bill Morrison's film of the same title,  being projected beside her.

It was fabulous and unforgettable, one of the most extraordinary performances I've seen in recent years, and I was thrilled to learn that tomorrow,  Thursday, October 23,  8:00 p.m., at the Museum of Modern Art, Beiser will be doing the same thing in a program that includes two other  films as well.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/22083 

On Saturday, November 8, 8:00 pm, in Washington, DC, Beiser will be performing a program that includes  Just Ancient Loops  at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

http://www.washingtonperformingarts.org/calendar/view.aspx?id=2617

Composer Michael Harrison will likely be in attendance at both events.

Not to be missed if you have any interest in new music (or experimental film or the cello).

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/22083d



http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/22083 Moses Fiction Prize

Bidder 70

"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul," said Tim DeChristopher, quoting Edward Abbey.

On December 19, 2008, in Salt Lake City, Utah, at a federal auction of oil and gas leases during the lame duck days of the Bush administration, DeChristopher, an economics student, turned his sentiment into action. Rather than joining the protest outside the auction--of parcels of public lands near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and other sensitive areas--he entered the auction, and began bidding. By the time the auction was halted, he'd won parcels with bids amounting to $1.7 million--and bid up the prices of the rest.

The Obama administration eventually invalidated the auction, but nonetheless chose to prosecute DeChristopher.

Bidder 70, produced and directed by Beth and George Gage, tells DeChristopher's story, from his extraordinary action to his trial and its aftermath, and his influence on others, including the organization he co-founded, Peaceful Uprising--"committed to defending a livable future through empowering nonviolent action".

It's one of the most powerful, riveting, and potentially life-changing documentaries I've seen, and a labor of love on the part of the filmmakers.

You have till Thursday, May 23, to see Bidder 70 at the Quad in New York City.

After that, go to:


http://www.bidder70film.com/

Script First

Jack Webb may have been one of the world's most wooden actors, but as director of Pete Kelly's Blues, he had some pretty cool moves. One memorable shot early on is from inside a pizza oven, beginning as a pie is pulled out, flames coyly dancing at the left of the Cinemascope frame--as if from the point-of-view of the alchemy that turns dough into bread (or weaklings into toughs). No wonder Martin Scorsese thought highly enough of the film to add it to his collection.

But my favorite moment in this atmospheric film has nothing to do with camera moves or plot twists or acting moments. It's part of the credits. They begin with Warner Bros. (of course) and Webb--but as actor, not director. No announcement of "a Jack Webb film" or anything else of that ilk. Instead, right after "Jack Webb as Pete Kelly," come words to warm a writer's heart: "in a screenplay by Richard L. Breen." Not "in a film by Jack Webb" or "in a Mark VII Production."

It's a rare acknowledgment that the script comes first, that without it there would be no film: no producing, directing gripping, gaffing, editing, and photographing; no roles for Janet Leigh, Peggy Lee, Lee Marvin, and their fellows.

They don't make 'em like that anymore, but I'd sure like to see somebody try. Maybe one of these days, an innovative director will relinquish the usual vainglorious opening credit, and put the script first again.

GERRYMANDERING: The Movie

Gerrymandering? Sure, I knew what it was--carving up election districts for the benefit of one party or another, one group or another. But like most of my fellow Americans, I hadn't spent a whole lot of time worrying about it, let alone trying to do something about it.

Till I got an email from ACT NOW NY inviting me to a screening of a doc on the subject, followed by a Q & A with its writer-director, Jeff Reichert.

I went to the screening. Gerrymandering proved to be far more entertaining than I'd expected, with illustrations of bizarrely gerrymandered districts and absurdist episodes of redistricting skullduggery, including the tale of the Texas Democrats who in 2003 fled to a motel in Oklahoma in a desperate attempt to stop the Republicans from redistricting at the behest of Tom DeLay.

Amidst the moments of humor, the film made clear just how much voters lose when it's our representatives who draw the lines that determine what, if any, opposition they will face.

The film does offer some good news--California has passed initiatives that take the power to redistrict out of the hands of the legislature.

For information about Gerrymandering, the movie, and links to organizations trying to put an end to the practice, visit

http://www.gerrymanderingmovie.com

To find out how you can help support efforts to at reforming redistricting in New York, check out

http://www.actnowny.org/

Can't wait to watch The Clock. . . .

But for now it's gone, and I didn't have the patience to wait in the cold for an hour or so outside the Paul Cooper Gallery, where it was recently on view. And anyway, even if I'd got in, would have only been willing to devote an hour or two to this marathon of a movie.

The Clock is a 24-hour compilation showing the passage of time in movies, so edited that any time one spies on a dial can reflect the actual time you're watching.

I'm guessing one of these days The Clock will turn up at the Museum of Modern Art, possibly with enough screening segments that one could see the entire movie. I wonder how many folks aside from its creator, Christian Marclay, have seen it all--and whether even he has watched the whole thing straight through.

Which sounds like the way it should be seen, and perhaps will be by some hardy folks once the DVD is out, allowing pauses for bathroom breaks during Clock-watching marathon slumber parties.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/arts/design/04marclay.html

Wisdom from The Hunchback

Saturday evening before the election, I'd expected to be contradancing, but after a day spent campaigning in Allentown for Sestak, one ankle wasn't up to it.

So instead I checked out Turner Classic Movies's Halloween weekend lineup of horror films--and discovered the 1939 version of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, directed by William Dieterle, and featuring a brave, heartrending, and unforgettable performance by Charles Laughton in the title role.

Though this version takes significant liberties with the novel's plot, the end in particular, it seems true to its spirit, and has much to say about intolerance.

Among its many memorable lines is this, from one of a band of gypsies being attacked as foreigners:

"You came yesterday, we came today."

GASLAND

Gasland is an award-winning documentary--Special Jury prize at Sundance 1010--that had trouble attracting a distributor, and probably won't be playing at a theater near you anytime soon.

But the environmental horror story it recounts may be already: hydraulic fracturing (fracking)--a radically destructive method of extracting natural gas--is happening all over the country, from California to Wyoming (on the edge of Yellowstone) to Texas to Florida to Tennessee to Virginia to Pennsylvania.

If you're a New York City resident, like me, you, too, have a lot to worry about.

Director Josh Fox began the investigations that led to Gasland after getting an offer to lease his land in Pennsylvania for gas drilling.

First he hears of ominous effects in nearby towns, including water that has turned flammable since drilling began.

Then he sets out across the country--making a real-life, blacker-than-black comedy/horror road movie.

He witnesses many drinking water-lighting shows, learns of people living in homes that could explode, and suffering the effects of toxic air and toxic water, hears about company officials that visit those whose water they've ruined, assuring them the water's safe but refusing to drink it, and delves into the science and politics of Fracking.

Fracking works by injecting millions of gallons of water, along with 80 to 300 tons of chemicals, vertically into a gas well or horizontally into an area that couldn't have been drilled before, to fracture shale, releasing natural gas.

Thanks to the Bush/Cheney Energy Policy Act of 2005 (known as the Halliburton Loophole), the natural gas extraction industry is now exempt from the Safe Water Drinking Act. The chemical stews they use are considered "proprietary," and not subject to any kind of regulation.

An EPA official speaking to Fox off the record tells him, "We're not permitted as a government agency to answer your legitimate question."

A bill to overturn the exemption--the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act--has been introduced in both houses of Congress, as S. 1215 and H. 2766, but languishes in committee.

We need to do our best to make sure it passes.

For information about the film, the issue, how close you live to fracking sites, and ways of helping to stop it, check out:

gaslandthemovie.com

Through 2012, you can catch Gasland on HBO; the DVD will be out in December.

Charles Ludlam lives. . .

. . . and so do Coney Island, Little Italy, and the Greenwich Village Halloween parade of 30 years ago, in two of Ludlam's brilliant and bizarre films, Museum of Wax, a short, and The Sorrows of Dolores, his only feature.

Both are silent, filmed in black and white, visually dazzling, rich and strange.

Untouched since Ludlam's death from complications of AIDS in 1987, the films were restored last year. Enhanced by scores from composer Peter Golub, who'd written music for many of Ludlam's plays, they debuted at the IFC Center's Queer/Art/Film festival this February.

Ludlam's lover and colleague, actor Everett Quinton, characterized the films as unfinished when introducing them at Anthology Film Archives last night, but I wouldn't want to change a thing about Museum of Wax--to my mind, a masterpiece.

Dolores, on the other hand, could stand some tightening--and I'd love to see the unused footage that Quinton talked about, saying that some of it was really beautiful and he wondered why Ludlam didn't use it.

Maybe because he was racing death to finish it.

Quinton said he'd thought about doing his own version of the The Sorrows of Dolores and--without destroying the original--I hope he does. Or at least screens his selection of outtakes one of these days.

You have two more chances to see Museum of Wax and The Sorrows of Dolores this weekend: 7 pm tonight and tomorrow at

Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Ave. at 2nd St.
212/505-5181

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/

Now I'm wondering whether or where, besides Irma Vep and Galas, which are listed in the New York Public Library catalog, tapes or films of Ludlam's plays exist. . . .

June Roses

. . . isn't like any other movie I've seen.

The first part is a narrative film set in the 1950s, shot, in a style beautifully evocative of that era, more than 20 years ago.

Director Christine Noschese, best known for her documentary Metropolitan Avenue, based the story on the daughter she was then and her mother, a frustrated artist and musician. Released in 1991 at 43 minutes, that version of June Roses was screened at New Directors the following year, and was the basis of a script that was intended to be a feature.

That feature never happened. But years later, Noschese revisited her characters and their story, flashing forward to the 1960s--now shooting in video for a rougher, tougher look--and using the same principal actors. Only recently has she put the earlier and later parts of the film together, and she's still tweaking it.

I had the pleasure of seeing this new version of June Roses over the summer at a screening sponsored by New York Women in Film and Television.

Moving, funny, and deep, it's a true original--on the verge of finding its audience.

Great Late Resnais

A romantic comedy by Alain Resnais, inspired by Dennis Potter, with characters breaking into song --playing free on a summer Friday in Washington Square Park. A must-see, I thought, and a mere 12 years after its American release, I finally saw The Same Old Song (On Connait La Chanson).

It's a deep and delightful film, and after two hours of enchantment, I wondered how I could have missed this gem when it first came out--let alone taken so many years to see it.

Resolving not to make such a mistake again, a week later I caught Resnais' latest, Wild Grass--another rich and strange work by a master.

If you live in New York City, you can, too. And if you don't, look for it--and The Same Old Song-- on Netflix.

Time for a new Oscar?

For my money ($1 in an Oscar pool), The Hurt Locker, with its powerful script, brilliant directing, fine acting and cinematography, well deserves to be named Best Picture.

But what to do about Avatar. . . . 

The Hurt Locker gets my vote for the components of which Best Pictures are usually comprised, but Avatar feels to me like another kind of Best Picture--the kind that enlarges our sense of what films can do.  

There should be a special category of Oscar for such pictures:  an award for Special Achievement in Film-making,  Boundary Breaking, something like that.

It would honor extraordinary and innovative artistic achievement in a film as a whole--in contrast to typical Special Achievement awards, a new special effect or technological breakthrough wouldn't suffice--and it wouldn't be given every year.  Foreign films and docs would be eligible, and the winner could also be chosen as Best Picture. 

I'd have given such an Oscar to Citizen Kane. 

How about you?

Julie and Julia!

We all thought it was terrific--and Linda had seen it once already, on Friday afternoon with her daughter, and a much older crowd than ours.

"Funny," she said, "yesterday they didn't laugh, but they clapped more."

She saw it yet again a day or two later, with another friend--and thinks that won't be the last time.

The movie so delighted and inspired me that I decided to have some people over for dinner on Tuesday and cook some things (well, at least one thing) from The Book--a far cry from Julie's accomplishment but a signicant commitment from a rough-and-ready, down-and-dirty cook like me.

The things ended up being vichysoisse (which I'd never made before), ratatouille, and roast chicken. Despite my deficiencies in technique and deviations from the recipes (not peeling the potatoes, not degreasing or straining the sauce for the chicken, etc.), they turned out fine.

I wonder if all over the country, people who've seen The Movie are making such tribute dinners. . . .

"They should have had that book for sale in the theater lobby," Linda said. "Bet they could have sold a lot."

"But everybody who goes already has it," Jim said.

My Opening Weekend Vote . . .

Will be for Julie and Julia.

I'll cast it in Richmond, Virginia, where it will count more than if I were at home in New York.

Tomorrow , I'll join Jim and some other friends for an afternoon showing at the Bow Tie Movieland, a new theater housed in a historic locomotive plant.

Expecting to emerge ravenous.

What will you be voting for?

Overlooked by Oscar

On my way to the greenmarket on Saturday, I overheard this behind me:

She: "It's such a great movie."
He: "Yeah."
She: "Jeffrey Wright was so brilliant."
He: "Yeah."
She: "Honestly, I wasn't sure he could play Muddy Waters--"
He: "But he sure did."

I'm guessing they, like me, wondered why Cadillac Records didn't receive a single Oscar nomination.

Beside Wright as Muddy, the film was full of indelible, Oscar-worthy performances: Columbus Short as Little Walter, Eamonn Walker (Howlin' Wolf), Beyoncé Knowles (Etta James), Adrien Brody (Leonard Chess), in particular.

Granted, writer-director Darnell Martin took a few liberties with the facts--combining the two Chess brothers into one, leaving out Bo Diddley, etc.,--but no more than Hollywood films typically take with history. She brought a bygone world powerfully to life, and I left that world moved and exhilarated, feeling I'd seen one of the great movies of the year. I assumed it would be an Oscar contender in many categories, including script and direction, and was shocked when it didn't receive a single nomination.

What didn't Sony do to help this film find its audience? And why wasn't it on the Academy's radar?

Script First

Jack Webb may have been one of the world's most wooden actors, but as director of Pete Kelly's Blues, he had some pretty cool moves. One memorable shot early on is from inside a pizza oven, beginning as a pie is pulled out, flames coyly dancing at the left of the Cinemascope frame--as if from the point-of-view of the alchemy that turns dough into bread, or weaklings into toughs.

But my favorite moment in this atmospheric film has nothing to do with camera moves or plot twists or acting moments. It's part of the credits. They begin with Warner Bros. (of course) and Webb--but as actor, not director. Nothing is said about "a Jack Webb film" or anything else of that ilk. Instead, right after "Jack Webb as Pete Kelly" come words to warm this writer's heart: "in a screenplay by Richard L. Breen." Not "in a film by Jack Webb" or "in a Mark VII Production." It's an acknowledgment, rare these days, that the script comes first, that without it there would be no film: no producing, directing, gripping, gaffing, editing, and photographing; no roles for Jane Leigh, Peggy Lee, Lee Marvin, and their fellows.

They don't make 'em like that anymore, but I'd sure like to see somebody try. Maybe one of these days, a generous and innovative director will relinquish the usual vainglorious opening credit and put the script first again.