Fireproof: Pulpits And Popcorn At The Plexes

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE

Fireproof:: Reader Comments, And Comments On The Comments

The religious right has been quiet too long. We need to find our voice, write to our opponents, let our voice join with the voice of God and spread the message that Jesus brought into the minds and hearts of million, billions, soon to be trillions of humans

We need to come out and let his voice bring us freedom, the freedom to live in harmony, the freedom to oppose the murder of the unborn and the murder of those born but not yet converted into the ways of those who really "know".

The need for religion to become part of politics is long overdue. We need to join forces with Political powers without fearing the loss of our revenue from the not soon enough taxed income of our ever growing land and land holdings.

We need to teach our young to care more about God and the here after than what goes on on earth and we need to do this before the store(our accumulated wealth) is given over to a government, or to immoral, unmarried and childless adults. We need to examine the American budget, with the largest military spending to help the government bolster the murder of those not blessed by the Lord or those who dared to disagree with us in terms of their thoughts, their appearance, their place of origin.

We need to unite in tangible action. This moment of urgency has never been more pressing than Now, while fear of almost everything is in the air and people feel the helplessness from living without God or Jesus by our sides. This film, P. Miller's review and the subsequent comments help to focus our needs, our strengths and our inability to think for ourselves particularly in the here and now, on this blog site where peace and love and tolerance for divergence in opinion seem to be lacking.

Today we speak out against the likes of Prairie Miller and her brazen review. Tomorrow we will glory in the voice of Sara Palin as she speaks loud and clear for us, for motherhood and the religious right.

I can't wait. Can you?


Linda Z

Body Of Lies Movie Review: Imperialism Is Sexy?

While the macho swagger and bullying tactics of these CIA interlopers around the planet have all the finesse of a wrestling ring, imperialism is made to comes off as really sexy.

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE

New York film Festival selection: the WindMill Movie

a film by
Alexander Olch
produced by
Susan Meiselas

The Windmill is an extraordinary documentary not just because the story is interesting but because it demonstrates the very best in documentary film making. The Windmill is an experience rather than a story told, that is revealed with the intent of bringing to the screen the genius of Richard(dick) P. Rogers along with his nontraditional way of life. What made him an extraordinary person is first his genius and secondly his life choices and the interactions with his mother that propelled him to be different; as different as she was, he became. What he lacked was insight into himself. His fear of seeing who he was kept him from finishing his life's goal of a documentary that was about him rather than others. That goal has been met in this film, achieved with painstaking devotion and talent by Alexander Olch.

I enjoyed this film because of the subject, richard P rogers and because of the creativity displayed such as the after birthday party balloons filling the living room like sperm swimming inside a woman's body. There was a poetry in images and thought that seemed to radiate intelligence, delicate selction of material and an overall compulsion to have richard live on in the mind of those who knew him and those who didn't

this achievement worth seeing.

Sunday Oct5
6p.m. Ziegfeld theater


Lina Z
WBAI Women's Collective
RT vine:witches brew

New York Film Festival's The Class

There is something so compelling about the experience of seeing or being part of a work place where love and respect for one another prevail on a daily basis.
That is what Laurent Cantet has achieved by selecting the real students as actors and basing the story on the teacher who also wrote the book upon which the film is based.
This film reflects the real deal, the junion high school experience of working class french life, an intense view of who these children are and how their teachers strive to provide the best way to educate and discipline them, when needed.


The film's director, Laurent Cantet's intent was to present the class as " a sounding board, a microcosm of the world, where issues of equality or inequality - in regards to opportunity, work and power, cultural and social integration and exclusion - play out concretely" To achieve this goal and have the experience be emotionally gripping is the task he achieved with concument skill.


The New York Film Festival has done us all a favor by bringing the Class to the New York City cinema.


Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective
RT Vine:witches brew

Eagle Eye Review: Frankenstein Is A Female

A Wireless Espionage Romp, Text Messengers Beware.

CLICK HERE TO READ REVIEW

Quilombo Country

Quilombo Country
Leonard Abrams Director
Narrated by Chuck D(Public Enemy rap star)

Plot: Brazilian slaves, those that escaped and rebelled live in villages separate from the modernized world of the big city.
Quilombo Country provides an intense view of these villages and the people's way of life that is far beyond the world of money, greed and "prosperity"

Commentary:
There is something almost magical about the primitive third world life style of those who are able to hold onto their traditional way of life in spite of all the pressures worldwide to conform to the here and now of the 21st. century. This documentary, Quilombo Country, affords the viewer an opportunity to see, to go back in time, to find what is so poignantly missing in our world; and to find other people not yet at the mercy of the greedy capitalistic world except of course that their continued existance is always in peril.


This 73 minute documentary tells a story with Chuck D, the famous rap artist best known for Public Eneny narrating the tale. He adds an element of importance and immediacy to our viewing experience. We are allowed to honor the importance of Brazilian slaves who earned their freedom for their ability to create and sustain a life afer slavery. It is an inspirational experience, a view of the unknown but knowable that will bring hope and wonder to its audience.


this is the kind of film that allows us to face the turbulent times of today with an image that beyond despair life here on earth will bring its own rewards.


opens in New York City's Pioneer theater
155 East Third Street
Septtember 19-25


A good film for the family to see and discuss: The film's creator, writer-director, Leonard Abrams will take questions after the Friday and Saturday screenings.


Linda Z
WBAI women's collective
RT Vine:Witches Brew

NY Film Festival: Sexuality And Government: A Conversation With Nagisa Oshima About In The Realm Of The Senses

Baring much more than bodies, Oshima delves deeply into subconscious carnal desires under the influence of society, and the eternal human contradictions between liberating sexual impulses and erotic enslavement.

By Prairie Miller

While the Japanese Imperial Army marched through Tokyo in 1936, fanning the flames of fascism and raising flags and guns, geisha maid Sada Abe was seen wandering the streets in a state of rapture waving the freshly severed genitals of her married lover Kichizo. Agreeably strangled by Sada during pursuit of the ultimate sexual high, Kichizo very likely left this world horizontally and with a painful grin on his face.

This real life, mysterious incident, which would have kept U.S. tabloids hyperactive for months, was preempted by the Japanese advance into a not quite unrelated but infinitely bloodier flirtation with militarism and World War II. But master director Nagisa Oshima resurrected the story four decades later in 1976 with In The Realm Of The Senses, his daring plunge into the first artistic porno film ever and perhaps the most erotically controversial movie of all time.

Oshima, who was only a teenager during World War II, but who has been profoundly influenced as a filmmaker by those years, brilliantly constructed In The Realm Of The Senses as sexual expression of the consequences of fanaticism and imperialism on the Japanese soul and flesh. Baring much more than bodies, Oshima delved deeply into subconscious carnal desires under the influence of society, and the eternal human contradictions between liberating sexual impulses and erotic enslavement.

Oshima, himself a contradiction as eminent Japanese movie legend and the most notorious bad boy of cinema in defiance of conservative Japanese traditions, poses with In The Realm Of The Senses the philosophically seductive question: Does a form of government dictate the way people have sex?

As proof that film critics are as much a product of their culture as filmmakers, Oshima expressed amusement in an interview with me about Western claims to know all about the Eastern mind in general. "I use sexuality to protest anything," said Oshima, referring to American journalists who have made a habit of interpreting the boundless sexuality of In The Realm Of The Senses as a rebellion against Japanese inhibitions.

He made clear that his interest is more in raw instincts and motivations beneath the layers of social etiquette. "That is a very big part of the thinking of Occidental people, not ours. I was interested in examining sexuality because it is strongly concerned with the subconscious motivations of human beings. When you are submerged in sex, you are not so conscious or in control of how you behave, not so aware or premeditated. So the subconscious is very alluring to me."

In the film, Sada is a young prostitute laid off at a brothel, who has to start at the bottom of the food chain as a maid at a new one run by a married couple. The husband Kichizo routinely samples the women on a whim, and grabs Sada one day while she's scrubbing the floors, "overwhelmed by the thought that her irresistible hipsmust have made men weep." Though Kichizo only intended her as an appetizer to one of the in-house geishas, he's bewitched by her sexual insatiability.

At first Kichizo is content to marvel at her sexual addictions, sitting back with a cigarette and commenting how strange Sada is while he comes in her mouth. When secrecy from Kichizo's wife becomes too annoying (Sada has to play her banjo loud while sitting on his cock, he stashes Sada away in a secret sex nest across town. Obsession soon becomes an exhausting ordeal, with the couple thinking about giving up eating and sleeping as distractions from a thirst for pure erotic appetite.

Eventually roles start to reverse, with Sada as the sexual aggressor and Kichizo viewing her as a "man eater" who has taken possession of his genitals.

While the couple becomes ever more isolated, virtual prisoners of love in pursuit of superhuman sexual pleasure, they grow increasingly estranged and hostile to the world around them, abusing, assaulting and raping the servants who just want to come in and change the sheets. Drunk on lust and in a perpetual sexual stupor, for them public sex around town becomes no big deal. For purposes of pleasure, it's the surrounding special effects that count.

They're soon lured into the final unexplored realm: sado-masochism and lots of rough sex. Kichizo craves to be strangled, his suffocation heavily symbolic of the couple's hermetically sealed world, and the rest is history.

The real clue to the film's symbolism is in its more politely suggestive, alternate title, 'Empire Of The Senses.' For Oshima, the sexual fixation of his characters is surely not in opposition to, but parallels national values. With intimate human activities linked to social behavior, a deep connection forms between obsession and fanaticism. Feudal notions of absolute worship and mindless obedience are manifested in the couple's relationship, along with self-isolation, insularity, suspicion and a predatory attitude toward the outside world, which also characterized Imperial Japan. Here, the assisted sexual suicide of Kichizo is not unconnected to kamikaze fever, and also potentially interchangeable is the unhealthy worship of an emperor or a lover's dick.

Oshima told me that "the biggest influence on me as a filmmaker was the defeat of Japan in WW II. Perhaps the basic feeling it left me with is that this world is absurd." The director talked about his involvement as a rebellious leader in student movements, and how he has been a target of censorship by government authorities as a defiant independent filmmaker. (In The Realm Of The Senses was smuggled secretly into France for editing, banned in Japan, and seized by U.S. Customs just before its scheduled screening at the 1976 NY Film Festival). "It was an age of change in Japan after WW II, so we expected Japan would change very much. But all that happened is that it became Americanized."

"Everything went back to the past and we were very disappointed, we fought this tendency. Also, the war in Korea started, and we feared the return of Japanese militarism, so we fought Japanese authority. We wanted to destroy conventional morality in Japan, and we expected to find something new. I thought my filmmaking and my existence itself was a form of social protest."

Oshima, who in person startles with his level of intensity and energy for a man in his sixties, has a passionate commitment to his art that seems to well up from the same uninhibited sensuality that saturates In The Realm Of The Senses. It nearly borders on the auto-erotic, in a cerebral kind of way.

"I want to provocate myself first of all, with my films," he said with a mischievous smile as he struggled to express himself with only a partially mastered but fascinating sense of the English language. "I'm very happy if my films provocate people. I don't want to be tied to any subject or any way of filmmaking. If not, I can't make a good movie. I like to be very free when I make a film. This kind of challenge excites me, I want to be excited by myself."

Prairie Miller

The Duchess: Sexual Subversion In Corsets

The Duchess: Not just another royal goddess in a gilded cage costume drama, the film couldn't be more current now, when women bidding for the highest political offices are told to go home and take care of their kids or iron male shirts. Sexual subversion in corsets.


CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE

BoogieMan The Lee Atwater story

Stefan Forbes: director/producer
rt: 86 min

Is this film a parody, a satire of what American politics has become? Is it the horror story of the decline in American way of life? If it is even close to what is truth then Boogie Man is a horror story come true. Ethics be damned. This is a story of how to win an election where the rules regulating what is said are few if any.

To see politicians such as tucker eskew, howard fineman laugh at the political dirty tricks of lee Atwater as if it were all so much fun. To hear the story of this Carl Rove look and sound and think alike, with all the lies, the catering to the lowest denominator evoked in the wake of human fear and trepidation is to be treated to a worse then Alien drama because we know this is the real deal.


The excuse that seems to satisfy those with even a modicum of conscience is that politics is war. But that assertion deserve further illumination. Who is at war. And against whom. What sides are drawn and what, after the end has been achieved, is the price of this victory.


The current political scene is unquestionably one of money speaking to money. It is also the black versus white war and the war against women by men and women who want to hold fast to a past where child birth is paramount, even more important that the life of the mother to be.

It is a unique time in women history given the inclusion of women into positions of gainful employment formerly reserved for men only. But at the same time, women are now forced into multi tasking or in eliciting the radical man who will take on the ' stay at home father" role. To all of this there is bound to be a backlash, a cry from women to reassert their unique role as the procreator of the species and by men who are confronted with competition from those they deem their inferior.

This 2008 election is about women more than the policies of the hopeful politician who stand before us promising change. Both 'want to be leaders' are so similar in most of their agendas that one is hard pressed to vote for either on the basis of which country they will invade next and for how long.

What is significant is their difference on sex education, on abortion, on the right of a woman to make life altering decisions regarding her own body. The assertion that Sara Palin is a "good mother" seems to be the rallying cry against women who might not want to be a good mother as Sara is said to be. A good mother becomes the battle cry on the front lines of the war against women.

Is being a good mother enough?. Sara Palin is trying to put her values, her concept of the rightful role of women as mother onto the lives of millions of Americans and those in dire need of birth control world wide who would be at the mercy of her power. Again I ask, what is a good mother and does Sara Palin meet the criterion.


Critical women need to examine the difference between having a woman rise to power, which is very significant versus which woman is being pushed forward as the next Vice President and potential ruler of the United States.

How she got to where she is and how she will be delivered to the American public is the essence of Boogie Man. it is a film to be seen. I don't particular care for horror flicks and this one is no exception, except of course, it isn't a fairy tale. it is real. A deadly expose


Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective
RT Vine: witches brew

The Family That Preys: Sitcomish Sermonizing, Sudsy Mayhem, And 'Family Values Is The Best Revenge' Tirade As Usual

The Family That Preys: Sitcomish sermonizing and Tyler Perry's trademark 'family values is the best revenge' anthem, awash as usual in sudsy mayhem.

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE

Towelhead; laugh, cry, think like a woman

Alan Ball Director,
screen writer,
producer

rt: 116 min


How can rape of a thirteen year old girl by an adult man, overt racial prejudice against blacks and Muslims, making fun of the American flag and the Iraq war be brought to the screen without resorting to a black versus white, good versus bad presentation. How can these loaded subjects make us laugh except in the hands of an expert director, Allen Ball, and an author(Alicia Erian)upon whose work this riveting,funny yet tragic story is based.

The key to this achievement is the humor. And the complexity of the characters, the compelling performances by each of the actors and a story that gives us a view of ourselves when we were young and shows what we have become. Not evil just basically out of control and insensitive to others.


Towelhead raises the bar against the horror of life, against the one sided, get the enemy at any cost. It brings us face to face with a reality that doesn't end with a new law or the police policing our interactions to the detriment of us all. This film looks at life and life's events through the eyes of a woman( a rarity in itself) and it is not to be missed.


I was particularly struck by the rape scene played by a 20 year old actress in contrast to the film Hounddog where the rape scene was played by a thirteen year old girl. This selection of actress made Hounddog controversial.
Hounddog brought to the fore the subject of child protection. The film industry seems to consider protection important for the viewer with all their ratings, and the child actor be damned, I think the industry should be more in tune with their actors protection and less focused on who sees what.

Towelhead is a film to be embrace and applauded. If you see one film, support one cinematic effort this year, Towelhead is the film see.

now playing at the Angelica theater on Houston street, New York City



Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective
RT Vine: Witches Brew

Warner Independent pictures
in assoc. with Indian Paintbrush
This is that Production
In assoc. with Your Face Goes Here entertainment

Righteous Kill Movie Review

Righteous Kill Movie Review

CLICK HERE TO READ REVIEW

New York film festival: Get ready

The New York Film Festival has announced this years film events starting September 26th.

The New York film festival is focused on bringing to public attention films that might not ever be shown again. Excellence in film making is not just a matter of dollars and cents. It is a craft, a multi-facated art, a skill. The New York Film Festival has taken the time to see what films are being made in order to bring them to public attention. A film like, "a girl cut in two" was showcased at the New York film festival but took years to reach the IFC New York City village theater.

For those who think film is something more than money for the industry or money to bring life into a community, I recommend you find the time, mark your calendar and be ready for another great season of film viewing.

Below is the Public Schedule of showcase events.

WE encourage our readers to add yours impression and thoughts on what you see. After all, with so many featured films, even our Critical Women team can't review them all.

if you want to give a head's up on particular films you want us to review, tell us now, in the comment section.

46th New York Film Festival, Sept. 26 - Oct. 12
Complete Public Schedule Announced

NEW YORK, Sept. 5, 2008––The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the complete public schedule for the 46th New York Film Festival today. The Film Society’s annual showcase of the current state of contemporary filmmaking will run Sept. 26 to Oct. 12, while the official sidebar, In the Realm of Oshima, continues to Oct. 13. The majority of festival screenings will be at the Ziegfeld Theatre, 54th St. between 6th and 7th Avenues. Opening and Closing Night screenings will take place at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, while several special events, panels and the popular HBO Films Dialogues will be at the Film Society’s Walter Reade Theater and in the adjacent Samuel B. & David Rose Building at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.

As previously announced, the festival with open with Laurent Cantet’s “The Class” and close with Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.” Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” is honored as the festival’s Centerpiece. The HBO Films Dialogues will recognize the remarkable careers and skills of festival favorites Aronofsky, Jia Zhangke, Wong Kar-wai and Arnaud Desplechin. Special events include filmmaking Martin Scorsese presenting a Technicolor screening of “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman;” Alloy Orchestra on stage with the New York premiere of their newest score, accompanying “The Last Command;” a variety of special panels that will examine current film criticism and discuss issues raised by the films “It’s Hard Being Loved by Jerks” and Guy Debord’s “In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni;” and other events.

Presented by the Film Society, the annual New York Film Festival showcases new works by both emerging talents and internationally recognized artists, including numerous New York, U.S., and world premieres.

The 46th New York Film Festival is sponsored by Chopard, The New York Times and Sardinia Region Tourism. Additional support from illy caffè; HBO Films; 42 Below Vodka, Maxell; and Wines from Spain. Participating sponsors include Stella Artois, Technicolor, agnes b., the Film Foundation and American Express Preservation Screening Program, and Kodak. Special thanks to Cineric; Dolby; CTS; Josephina; O'Neals; The Park Lane Hotel. Trailer courtesy of Bunker New York and Nuncle. The 46th New York Film Festival is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Advancing this mandate today, the Film Society hosts two distinguished festivals. The New York Film Festival annually premieres films from around the world and has introduced the likes of François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, and Wong Kar-Wai to the United States. New Directors/New Films, co-presented by the Museum of Modern Art, focuses on emerging film talents. Since 1972, when the Film Society honored Charles Chaplin, the annual Gala Tribute celebrates an actor or filmmaker who has helped distinguish cinema as an art form. Additionally, the Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming at its Walter Reade Theater and offers insightful film writing to a worldwide audience through Film Comment magazine.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Jeanne R. Berney, (212) 875-5416, jberney@filmlinc.com
Gabriele Caroti, (212) 875-5625, gcaroti@filmlinc.com



46th New York Film Festival, Sept. 26 – Oct. 12
Complete public screening schedule

EVENT TITLES
NYFF – Festival main slate film
OSH – NYFF Sidebar: In the Realm of Oshima
VAG – Views from the Avant-Garde
SE – Festival special event

SCREENING LOCATIONS
ZT – Ziegfeld Theatre, 54th St. between 6th and 7th Avenues
AFH – Avery Fisher Hall, Broadway and 65th Street
WRT – Walter Reade Theater, 65th St. between Amsterdam and Broadway, upper level
KP – Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 65th St. between Amsterdam and Broadway, 10th Floor


Friday, Sept. 26
8:00 26A OPENING NIGHT: The Class, 128m (NYFF/AFH)
9:00 26B OPENING NIGHT: The Class (NYFF/ZT)

Saturday, Sept. 27
11:00am Cruel Story of Youth, 96m (OSH/WRT)
12:00 27A Hunger, 96m (NYFF/ZT)
1:00 27B PANEL: Film Criticism in Crisis? (SE/WRT)
3:00 27C 24 City, 112m (NYFF/ZT)
3:00 A Town of Love and Hope, 62m, with Diary of a Yunbogi Boy, 24m (OSH/WRT)
4:45 Night and Fog in Japan, 107m (OSH/WRT)
6:15 27D Happy-Go-Lucky, 118m (NYFF/ZT)
7:00 Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, 94m (OSH/WRT)
9:00 Pleasures of the Flesh, 90m (OSH/WRT)
9:30 27E Wendy and Lucy, 80m, with Cry Me a River, 19m (NYFF/ZT)
midnight In the Realm of the Senses, 110m (OSH/WRT)

Sunday, Sept. 28
12:00 28A Happy-Go-Lucky (NYFF/ZT)
12:30 The Man Who Left His Will on Film, 94m (OSH/WRT)
2:30 The Sun’s Burial, 87m (OSH/WRT)
3:15 28B Wendy and Lucy, with Cry Me a River (NYFF/ZT)
4:00 28C HBO FILMS DIALOGUES: Jia Zhangke (SE/KP)
4:30 Empire of Passion, 106m (OSH/WRT)
6:15 28D Hunger (NYFF/ZT)
6:45 Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, 122m (OSH/WRT)
9:00 28E I’m Gonna Explode, 106m, with This is Her, 12m (NYFF/ZT)
9:15 Taboo, 100m (OSH/WRT)

Monday, Sept. 29
4:30 A Town of Love and Hope, with Diary of a Yunbogi Boy (OSH/WRT)
6:00 29A I’m Gonna Explode, with This is Her (NYFF/ZT)
6:15 Cruel Story of Youth (OSH/WRT)
8:15 A Town of Love and Hope, with Diary of a Yunbogi Boy (OSH/WRT)
9:15 29B Tony Manero, 98m, with Love You More, 15m (NYFF/ZT)

Tuesday, Sept. 30
4:30 The Sun’s Burial (OSH/WRT)
6:00 30A Tony Manero, with Love You More (NYFF/ZT)
6:20 The Catch, 105m (OSH/WRT)
8:30 Night and Fog in Japan (OSH/WRT)
9:15 30B The Northern Land, 122m, with Surprise!, 18m (NYFF/ZT)

Wednesday, Oct. 1
6:00 1A Summer Hours, 103m, with Ralph, 14m (NYFF/ZT)
6:30 FREE PANEL: The Place of Oshima (OSH/WRT)
9:00 Shiro of Amakusa, The Christian Rebel, 100m (OSH/WRT)
9:15 1B Waltz with Bashir, 90m, with I Don’t Feel Like Dancing, 7m (NYFF/ZT)

Thursday, Oct. 2
4:30 Shiro of Amakusa, The Christian Rebel (OSH/WRT)
6:00 2A Waltz with Bashir, with I Don’t Feel Like Dancing (NYFF/ZT)
6:30 Pleasures of the Flesh (OSH/WRT)
8:40 Band of Ninja, 100m (OSH/WRT)
9:00 2B Summer Hours, with Ralph (NYFF/ZT)

Friday, Oct. 3
4:30 Japanese Summer: Double Suicide, 98m (OSH/WRT)
6:00 3A Gomorrah, 137m (NYFF/ZT)
6:30 3B VAG 1: In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, 100m (VAG/WRT)
9:30 3C Four Nights with Anna, 87m, with Pal Secam, 14m (NYFF/ZT)
10:00 In the Realm of the Senses (OSH/WRT)

Saturday, Oct 4
11:15am 4A Lola Montès, 115m (NYFF/ZT)
12:00 VAG 2: The Warmth of the Sun, 100m (VAG/WRT)
2:30 4B Night and Day, 144m (NYFF/ZT)
3:30 VAG 3: Andrew Noren, 101m (VAG/WRT)
6:15 4C Ashes of Time Redux, 93m, with Dust, 7m (NYFF/ZT)
6:30 VAG 4: Nathaniel Dorsky, 70m (VAG/WRT)
8:45 VAG 5: Bruce Conner tribute, 89.5m (VAG/WRT)
9:15 4D CENTERPIECE: Changeling, 140m, with Wait For Me, 3m (NYFF/ZT)
midnight 4E Ashes of Time Redux, with Dust (NYFF/WRT)

Sunday, Oct. 5
11:15am 5A CENTERPIECE: Changeling, with Wait For Me (NYFF/ZT)
12:00 VAG 6: Time of the Signs, 84m (VAG/WRT)
3:00 5B Four Nights with Anna, with Pal Secam (NYFF/ZT)
3:00 VAG 7: Craig Baldwin, 123m (VAG/WRT)
4:00 5E HBO FILMS DIALOGUES: Wong Kar-wai (SE/KP)
6:00 5C The Windmill Movie, 80m, with Quarry, 12m (NYFF/ZT)
6:00 VAG 8: still wave, 102.5m (VAG/WRT)
9:00 5D Gomorrah (NYFF/ZT)
9:00 VAG 9: James Benning, 112m (VAG/WRT)

Monday, Oct. 6
6:00 6A Afterschool, 106m (NYFF/ZT)
6:00 6B The Last Command, 88m (SE/WRT)
8:30 6C The Last Command (SE/WRT)
9:15 6C The Headless Woman, 87m, with I Hear Your Scream, 11m (NYFF/ZT)

Tuesday, Oct. 7
4:30 Sing a Song of Sex, 103m (OSH/WRT)
6:00 7A Che, 268m (NYFF/ZT)
6:40 Violence at Noon, 99m (OSH/WRT)
8:45 Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (OSH/WRT)

Wednesday, Oct. 8
4:30 Death by Hanging, 117m (OSH/WRT)
6:00 8A The Headless Woman, with I Hear Your Scream (NYFF/ZT)
7:00 Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (OSH/WRT)
9:00 8B Afterschool (NYFF/ZT)
9:00 Sing a Song of Sex (OSH/WRT)

Thursday, Oct. 9
4:30 Dear Summer Sister, 96m (OSH/WRT)
6:00 9A Tokyo Sonata, 119m, with Love is Dead, 17m (NYFF/ZT)
6:30 Boy, 97m (OSH/WRT)
8:30 Three Resurrected Drunkards, 80m (OSH/WRT)
9:00 9B Tulpan, 100m, with Deweneti, 15m (NYFF/ZT)

Friday, Oct. 10
2:00 Three Resurrected Drunkards (OSH/WRT)
3:45 Kyoto, My Mothers Place, 50m, with 100 Years of Japanese Cinema, 52m (OSH/WRT)
6:00 10A A Christmas Tale, 150m (NYFF/ZT)
6:15 10B Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, 122m (SE/WRT)
9:00 Max mon amour, 98m (OSH/WRT)
9:45 10C Let It Rain, 110m, with Unpredictable Behaviour, 5m (NYFF/ZT)

Saturday, Oct. 11
11:15am 11A A Christmas Tale (NYFF/ZT)
1:30 11B HBO FILMS DIALOGUES: Darren Aronofsky (SE/KP)
3:00 11C Chouga, 91m, with Gauge, 9m (NYFF/ZT)
4:00 Death by Hanging (OSH/WRT)
4:30 11D HBO FILMS DIALOGUES: Arnaud Desplechin (SE/KP)
6:00 11E Tulpan, with Deweneti (NYFF/ZT)
6:30 11F The Day Shall Dawn, 87m (SE/WRT)
9:00 Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (OSH/WRT)
9:15 11G Tokyo Sonata, with Love is Dead (NYFF/ZT)

Sunday, Oct. 12
11:15am 12A Let It Rain, with Unpredictable Behaviour (NYFF/ZT)
1:00 12B It’s Hard Being Loved by Jerks, 119m (SE/WRT)
2:30 12C Bullet in the Head, 85m (NYFF/ZT)
4:30 The Man Who Left His Will on Film (OSH/WRT)
5:15 12D Serbis, 90m, with Maybe Tomorrow, 12m (NYFF/ZT)
6:30 The Ceremony, 122m (OSH/WRT)
8:30 12E CLOSING NIGHT: The Wrestler, 109m, with Security, 13m (NYFF/AFH)
9:00 Dear Summer Sister (OSH/WRT)

Monday, Oct. 13
2:00 Taboo (OSH/WRT)
4:00 Kyoto, My Mothers Place, with 100 Years of Japanese Cinema (OSH/WRT)
6:30 Empire of Passion (OSH/WRT)
8:45 Taboo (OSH/WRT)


All times p.m. except where noted

The Tree of Life: a documentary film by Hava Volterra

Playfull art, original historical footage and documentary voices, held together with the voice of director, Hava Volterra.

A personal family saga that illuminates the fascinating history of the Jewish people in Italy.

Commentary:
If you want an enjoyable and artistic film filled with everyday emotions with which we can all identify this film, The Tree of Life, is for you.

It is so beautifully done, the art work interspersed with real people enhances the enjoyment of the production. The music is outstanding and the sound quality, the voices of the people who talk to the viewer, are mostly regular voices not enhanced to make an extraordinary impression.

The footage from days gone by is compelling without being emotionally draining. The recapitulation of Hitler's invasion into the Jewish person's ordinary life is done with unusually delicacy that makes this film a gem.

I particularly liked the image of modern day U-Haul inserted into an historical scene to devote the "move".

For me all 76 minutes of 'The Tree of Life' are worthwhile




Opens Friday, September 12,
at the New York City
Pioneer theater


Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective
RT Vine:witches brew

HOUNDDOG

Directed by Deborah Kampmeier

Starring Dakota Fanning, Robin Wright Penn, Piper Laurie, David Morse and Afemo Omilami

Plot: twelve year old white southern, poor girl who thrives on Elvis Presley's Hounddog is thrawted in her life's ambitions when brutally raped by a teenage local boy.

Hounddog is replete with fatal flaws that distract from the potentially powerful story the director feels compelled to relate:

1. the film pivots around the song, Hounddog made super famous by Elvis Presley. The director failed to fact check on the origins of the song and she got it all wrong

2. one of the male characters is poorly drawn. He is a black man from the south, does not speak in his own vernacular. He speaks in a white persons voice with educated language although the character is supposedly poor without benefit of a formal education. This error of authenticity lingers well after the film is over

3. it is one thing to put a twelve year old actor on the screen for short periods of time but to make this fledgling actor into the main character for an hour and forty minute film tries the captive audience's endurance. She is neither sexy nor an attractive woman with whom any adult might want to see more of and she is by all standards less than a seasoned professional actor. To have her engage in a rape scene is just bad judgment for which there is no substantial justification.


4. why this twelve year old girl was throwing up towards the end of the film was not clearly stated but when asked, the director said she was not pregnant after her brutal rape but that vomiting is a natural response to a sexual intrusion into a pre-adolescents body

5. how did the girl go from wanting to kill her father at the beginning of the film, for his physically brutal treatment of her, for which we are to believe she has permanent scars, to saying to him in her parting shot, "I love you"? where did this love come from? there was nothing from him that to my mind might change her feelings of rage to pure love.

I am certain that the viewer will find more fatal flaws but I prefer to go beyond what was wrong into what was outstandingly good about the film; the photography was outstanding, the music was excellent.

historical background was poor. The compulsion to tell a story without real depth or subtlety of performance did real damage to an effort that I wanted to applaud but couldn't

opens September 19, 2008

Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective

Towelhead: Kicking Open The Suburban Bedroom Door

Towelhead happens to be that rare story making a bold leap into the nearly alternate universe known as the woman's point of view.

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE

Burn After Reading: Under-Cover Seduction, Stranger Sex and Retro-CIA Mischief

Less Than Incendiary Under-Cover Seduction, Stranger Sex and Retro-CIA Mischief:

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE