READER MAILBAG

DR. MANHATTAN AND HIS HUGE STIMULUS PACKAGE, STREAKING ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

MISSING THE POINT: A QUESTION OF BLACK AND BLUE

In defense of the penis" misses the point that this naked blue man standing in a Rodan type posture is a take off on the Metropolitan museum statue of a larger than life naked black man. Further the last lines of the film indicate that the blue man is always present, like God, whom we do not see. Obviously, if this man is "our heavenly Father" the father of us all, we need expect nothing less than a penis of some worthy proportion,

Art history and appreciation is an entire subject presented but not commented upon in this film. Another gem missed!

Anonymous


TWO LOVERS: AND MOMMY MAKES THREE
ROSSELLINI IN MOMMY BLAME GAME REDUX

THE SOUNDS OF TWO LOVERS

Would you know anything about the very beautiful music in this film? Thank you...it is so haunting!
Dona H.

Hi Dona:
The only information I could dig up on this, was music by Henry Mancini. You would think they'd make it easier to give their composers more *credit*!
Prairie

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE


Womens History Month Without The Politics Of Mothering?

What does empowered birth have to do with womanism?
How do myths and media images of motherhood undermine women?
Why is an artist mother double trouble?

Greetings. I am a poet, writer, educator and mother of two.
I am also a member of and an avid listener to WBAI. Most of my intellectual, spiritual, political and health concerns are covered by listening to the station. But in the last year, I have realized that there is something missing on WBAI: the voices of mothers and of women striving to be conscious parents. I don't know if this reflects patriarchy, the devaluing of motherhood (even within feminist circles), or if it just that a loud Mama hasn't come along to bring this up yet. Mothers who are artists, herbalists, activists, academics, and mothers who chose to focus their energy entirely on raising their children have something to share. Conscious mothering is a political act. Could this be something to think about as you plan future programs?

For me, motherhood has been about stumbling, loving and developing muscle. I would welcome an opportunity to discuss any aspect of mothering, or explore the questions I have posed above with your collective.

Please visit my website to learn more about my writing, my performances and my work in education. You can also read an excerpt of my new booklet, "Mother Nature" at my site.

Sincerely,
Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie

"Having a child is like having your heart walk outside your body"
Mother Nature
Savage Goddess Press
http://www.ekeretallie.com


MADEA GOES TO JAIL, BUT MASKED MISOGYNY GETS A PASS



Thank you for your review of Madea Goes to Jail. Very well-done. 1 point, near the end of paragraph 3, you mean "fiancée." Other than that, fine job. Keep up the good work! (But I hope you also enjoy the majority of your viewing experiences.)

Best wishes from
Majenta

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE


READER TURNED ON BY CRITICAL WOMEN

Hi Critical Women!

I'm still struggling with web site design, but your web site looks fantastic! Did you do it all yourself or did you have a professional designer? I look forward to hearing from you.
Dione L.

Hi Dione:
It's a labor of love, handmade from scratch. And thank you for your positive words!

The Critical Crew


AN AMERICAN AFFAIR GOOF ALERT

Why don't you Google Mary Pinchot Meyer and then re-evaluate how "goofy"
the premise is?
Phil C.

Hey Phil:
You have a point there. Maybe it was more the outlandish incidentals in this kid whodunit that seemed goofy, and JFK galavanting around town for those lusty brownstone trysts, with a horny teen stalker hanging around the premises.
Prairie

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE


ALL IN THIS TEA: NOT SWALLOWING IT


Hello Prairie:

You got Hoffman right.

Fact is, he has had little or nothing to do with promoting organic tea farming in China. He had a standing offer to participate in an organic farming project in Zhejiang Province, for free no doubt, and he turned it down.
Hoffman has parlayed his early entry in China into a myth.

All talk, no walk.

N. Heagerty
Tea Importer

This mass versus class appeal for the sake of a discerning guzzling US elite carpet bagging it in China, smacks suspiciously of tea imperialism.

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE

HE SAID, SHE SAID: Eleven Minutes

Eleven Minutes: Fashioning The Dis-Figured


SHE SAID....


By Linda Z

It's been a while since the sharp-witted Jay McCarroll was dubbed "the next great American designer" on season one of reality TV's "Project Runway" and he's anxious to finally show his first line of clothing.

His vision is to show his work on 42nd street at the Bryant Park eleven minute extravaganza that takes over public property to become the showcase of a world fashion industry that doesn't come as free entertainment It is a show limited, by invitation only.

SHE SAYS:
The importance of documentaries has been fully explored and presented for public scrutiny in recent films that expose the fashion industry; its limitations, its potential joys and its search for money and fame.

I cannot cry for the winner or the loser of this artistic endeavor where people come together to work intensely under severe pressure to create mostly women fashion(men seem hell bent on their black suits, shirts, tie and collared shirts that scare most women into submission and many a man as well).

It is worse than a baseball or football player because those men don't dwell on the female form or dictate to women what they should wear in order to be "with it'. This is an industry where too much weight is disallowed, the cost of material renders the thinner the model, the better, less costly; where how you walk, which is never possible for the average women, is valued and where character is lost to the dictates of the female form and flow.

Not an authentic ounce of creativity in my humble opinion emerges from the depths of this film other than the creative effort of the film itself.

Jay McCarroll is real and he is funny and ultimately so very sad until he discovers that he is not the rising star-to-be that others have pumped him up to believe.

Eleven minutes of fame all circled around making money but the Puerto Rican parade has more to say about fashion than the parade of the wealthy few who dominate the "cat walk".

All that artistic work; the sewing, the music, the setting, the colors and fabrics be damned But the documentary should live on. it offers so much to feel good about our not being part of the eleven minute competition.

I say, women,
Scrap the fashion industry. Take back the parks, Bryant Park, free for all New Yorkers and its millions of daily visitors.

Please visit: http://www.elevenminutes-jaymccarroll.com/ for additional information.
Opens Friday, February 20, 2008
At the Quad in NYC and on broadcast TV

Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective


HE SAID....

By Gerald Wright

Clearly, the many facets of designer Jay McCarroll are fascinating. His choices made in his quest to be validated as fashion designer in the industry are demonstrated surprisingly excellent in this exciting documentary. As the 2004 "Project Runway" reality TV show winner, his fashion designing career stopped cold after receiving the award. His decision to organize a staff and prepare his fashion line collection for New York City's Fashion Week Event was a dream he wanted to come true.

Filmmakers Selditch and Tate take their film crew along with the jovial and witty Jay as he takes on the project of having his clothing line shown on the runway during Fashion Week. Already getting television exposure, Jay found it necessary to be recognized as an authentic fashion designer not a television fashion celebrity. The film is a comprehensive and detailed look at the business side of the fashion, fashion design, and consulting business seen through the eyes of Jay McCarroll. With crisp pacing the movie seemed to be a complete visual manual on everything I needed and wanted to know about the life of a fashion designer. This movie has the wonderful effect of weighing each entry equally, thereby devoting the same amount of space and time to every aspect in Jay's venture.

Setting the theme on interviews and candid talks with qualified professionals appear; Kelly Cutrone, Nancy Cane Carson Kressley, Jason Low, Omahyra, Michael Rucker, Eve Salvail, George Whipple of NY1 News and filmmaker Michael Selditch. These people influence the outcome of Jay's success and/or failure. Provocatively and often humorously Jay is visually scrapbooked from the beginning of his idea and to the results of Fashion Week, showing the anxiety,anger and happiness he endures in this sensitive and competitive business.

The unflinching focus on the culture and sexual orientation really does not make any positive or negative statement. I found this to be a welcoming creative process by the co-directors. I took away a "feel good" opinion about this film and I believe anyone who sees this remarkable documentary will feel the same.

FILM RATING (B)

Directed by: Michael Selditch & Rob Tate
Running time: 103 minutes
Release date: February 20, 2009
Genre: Documentary
Distributor: Regent Releasing
MPAA Rating: R

Gerald Wright

HE SAID, SHE SAID: Confessions Of A Shopaholic

HE SAID....

By Gerald Wright

The Disney Film family adapts Sophie Kinsella's books, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and Confessions of a Shopaholic for the big screen. I've never read the Shopaholic series of books, however there are a few books on the adventures of the fictitious addictive shopper Rebecca Bloomwood. It seems only right that this movie concerning credit card debt, job searching and money management would be released as the U.S. waits for a plan to recover from its economic recession.

Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers and Definitely, Maybe) stars a Rebecca Bloomwood, a trendy New York City twenty-something young woman who has aspirations of working for a top fashion magazine. However she has an obsession with shopping that conflicts with the focus on getting her journalism career started. She has little and no help from her best friend Suze (Krysten Ritter) and husband whom she shares an apartment with. All the while her credit card debt is uncontrollable, until she catches the eye of wealthy executive Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy) and gets a job at his tabloid as a financial journalist.

The premise is not for Rebecca's past to catch up with her new promising life in this RomCom. As sincere, as this story is in its concept, the film isn't crisp or powerfully funny. The performances are at DVD standards at best mainly for the lack of timing in the comedy. In order to do this comedy a range of comic tactics from absurdity to mockery, to sarcasm to irony must be displayed. Each of the tactics of comedy must disturb, disrupt, alter and change things from what is expected. Unfortunately, this film is predictably familiar without the unexpected witticism required. There were times while watching this movie I reflected on The Devil Wears Prada (2006), when Isla's performance slightly resembled Anne Hathaway and Kristin Scott Thomas (Academy Award nominee) as the wealthy Allette Naylor - owner of Allette Fashion Magazine - closely resembled Meryl Streep, but that was only a brief moment of reflection. I was looking for more emphasis to be place on the mockery of how Rebecca received her job and how she was able to scam her way into a television spot as a fashion consultant. To ridicule the pretensions, rules and traditions that we are surrounded by, such as jobs, promotions and the economy and poke fun at it would be a comedic statement. Mockery is an aspect of comedy that works.

Luke Dancy looked like a fish out of water as the love interest of Isla Fisher's character Rebecca. The lack of sauciness suggesting that sex is involved and perhaps naughty, but fun, can raise a knowing smile. Even at a PG rating sex sells and the movie could have been more interesting, rather than a irritating shopping spree on film. The great veteran actress Joan Cusack, is seen in a deplorable role. It was a shame to miscast her, John Goodman, John Lithgow, Lynn Redgrave and Julie Hagerty in this film. It was a waste of gifted talent in a bad movie.

Directed by: P.J. Hogan
Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Release date: February 13, 2009
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama and Adaptation
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG

FILM RATING (D)


SHE SAID....

By Prairie Miller

Isla gets bagged, in this big screen bid to have your designer duds and wear them too. While predatory airhead female mall stalkers with too much lipstick are supposed to symbolize pretend finger wagging, as the movie fabulously flaunt shameless product placement pricey designer labels.

CLICK TO READ REVIEW HERE

HE SAID, SHE SAID....Paris 36

HE SAID....

Paris 36 cleverly mixes the elements of the heart, emotion and sacrifice. The location for the film's setting is the northeast suburb of Paris during the revolutionary period of the Popular Front government's reign. CONTINUE READING...

Gerald Wright
Film Showcase
HDFest.com


SHE SAID....


Chrisophe Barratier, Director

Paris 36 is a delightful film with songs you can sing as you leave the theater and the acting, the dancing are equally memorable. It is a musical come to life on screen rather than in expensive Broadway stages, where the beautiful electrifying music, wonderfully choreographed dance and acting predominate within the context of a struggling working class Paris in the 1936 era when the people rose up to fight for a decent wage, a decent way of life and a means to be seen and heard as artists. It is the triumph of good over evil, of love of life over depression, of masses of people/slaves over their masters.

Paris 36 is an extravaganza, a feel good film on so many levels that it is certain to be a success. Maybe not remembered in forty or fifty years but today it is the film that we all need, a rest from the dismal reality that bodes ill even for the most hardened of us all.

A Sony Pictures Classics release

Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective

FTA: Fonda, Streep, Sutherland Echo Brecht & Trumbo

A Review of FTA (1972), Out On DVD, With Notes On Theater of War (2008)

By Penelope Andrew

Thirty-six years ago and about a minute before she was smeared and dubbed “Hanoi Jane,” Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and six of their “trouble-making” friends were the subject of a documentary film called FTA. They formed a touring company of activist actors, comedians, singers, and writers who performed in coffeehouses and other venues as close as possible to U.S. military bases in the states and later across the Pacific Rim. They were the thinking troops’ troupe, an anti-USO show, and an alternative to Bob Hope who had previously cornered the market on entertaining the military.

Recently, the IFC Center—the art house Villagers love so well--held two special screenings of this little known documentary by the late director (and incidentally, the first female member of the Directors Guild of America) Francine Parker. It’s hardly been seen since its original release in 1972. FTA is a multi-purpose acronym and variously defined as “Free the Army,” “Free Theater Associates,” or, the soldiers’ favorite term, “F*ck the Army.”

Upon learning of the event, a community organizer from the 1960s, former SDS member, long-time friend of Tom Hayden and busy social worker to this very day cut to the heart of the matter in a phone message, “I am going to go. I’ll be late, so save me a seat. You’ve probably figured out by now that FTA is about Jane and Donald Sutherland’s anti-war tour back in the old 70s when we only had ONE war.”

It’s very interesting that FTA’s re-release follows, by about a month, the theatrical debut of its contemporary first-cousin, Theater of War (2008)—at The Film Forum--which documents the making of the Public Theater’s 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children with a cast led by Meryl Streep.

These celluloid monuments drive home the genius of two of the most potent, anti-war writers who ever lived: Dalton Trumbo and Berthold Brecht. Both appeared before the HUAC. Trumbo was jailed for 11 months on contempt charges for failing to name names, while Brecht literally waltzed his way through with a performance of very broken English with a snappy German accent. In Theater of War, one is treated to a large dose of Mother Courage by way of a new translation by Tony Kushner and a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the artistry of Streep finding her character in a fascinating rehearsal process.

By contrast, FTA is raw. It underscores how infectious was the movement of the 60s and 70s captured through a lens that focuses on: a naïve, fresh-faced Holly Near acting (albeit poorly, but with a lovely enthusiasm) the part of a privileged officer’s wife; the effectiveness of songs (“We Will Not Bow Down to Genocide”) sung simply by folk musician Len Chandler and ballads (“Dear Soldier, We Love You”) performed and written by the talented Rita Martinson; and poetry and skits by the rest of a dedicated cast who worked at fever pitch unencumbered by a need for perfection. The gifted comedian, social satirist and writer Paul Mooney was also part of the company. He participated in a panel with Fonda that introduced the earlier screening of FTA.

The “a spit and a prayer production” as Fonda lovingly calls it traveled a long way to reach American troops who were questioning their roles and actions as military men and women. FTA offered much needed support for those who joined the perilous ranks of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (for one of its most famous members, Senator John Kerry, it may well have cost him the presidency).

The troupe organized communities at home and abroad (just like our current president did in Chicago, it’s obviously an effective and infectious way of getting important things done) and managed to form bonds both small and large regardless of where it landed. There are scenes with Fonda and cast sitting down with individual soldiers: Black-Americans reporting racism and abuse by their white (aptly named) master sergeants; heartbreaking commentary by wounded, shell-shocked, white soldiers who wander the streets of Japan; and young women soldiers retelling stories of being cajoled into getting on “the Pill” for the implied purpose of servicing their male counterparts. The footage of concerts and large-scale demonstrations involving the local talent of organizers, labor unions and artist/activists in Hawaii, the Philippines, Okinawa and Japan is impressive.

In one of the most powerful scenes in the film, Donald Sutherland recites from Trumbo’s 1939, anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun about a WWI soldier, Joe Bonham—not the average Joe that Sarah Palin nauseated the American public with but an extraordinary Joe--who has been maimed and disfigured beyond human recognition. One could hear a pin drop in the audience as the atmosphere filled with the fear all nightmares bring coupled with the majesty that occurs when a true artistic moment emerges. Sutherland—unlike the earthier James Cagney who performed the part of Joe in a radio adaptation of the book—speaks the part of the narrator trapped inside what is left of his own body on the scale of a preacher (perhaps reprising his role in Jules Fieffer’s Little Murders as the cynical 1972 review of FTA in The New York Times suggested), and one who is also well schooled in Shakespeare. Sutherland’s riveting oratory while clutching his beaten up copy of Johnny Got His Gun with its still-visible, iconic cover drew cheers from the audience and shouts of “Go Donald!”

Parker, Brecht and Trumbo may have passed on, but anti-war, anti-genocide and anti-poverty spirit continue in the genre of the documentary as practiced by the soothsayer Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11), in the poetry of the images of Heddy Honigmann (Crazy), through the artistry of Errol Morris (Fog of War) and in the passion of Spike Lee (When the Levees Broke). Parker’s FTA has been restored from an archival print and is out on DVD with a bonus feature, a 20-minute interview with Jane Fonda revealing a ton of fascinating back story. Fonda—finding time between rehearsals for a new play 33 Variations—showed up to introduce both screenings of FTA and continues to set the record straight. “Go Jane!”

FTA (1972) directed by Francine Parker with Michael Alaimo, Len Chandler, Pamela Donegan, Steve Jaffe , Rita Martinson, Paul Mooney, Holly Near, Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda. DVD 97 min. with bonus feature: interview with Jane Fonda.

Theater of War (2008) directed by John W. Walter with George C. Wolfe, Kevin Kline, Tony Kushner, Austin Pendleton, Jay Cantor, Meryl Streep and others.

Penelope Andrew, a NYC-based writer who contributes to The Huffington Post and Critical Women on Film, is a member of the Women Film Critics Circle. Her article: “Trauma & Recovery: A Review of I’ve Loved You So Long,” will appear in the Spring issue of the Newsletter of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work. She is currently at work on “Fog of War, Body of War, Theater of War and Michael Moore,” a paper for the Canadian film journal CineACTION. A certified psychoanalytic psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker, she maintains a private psychotherapy practice in NYC. Her second-year internship as a social work graduate student involved working with Vietnam Veterans.