By Jason Apuzzo. The first trailer is now out for Sacha Baron Cohen’s forthcoming comedy, The Dictator, and for the most part I like it. Cohen has obviously thrown political correctness out the window, and at first glance it looks like this film could be hilarious. Take a look, and judge for yourself …
Posted on December 14th, 2011 at 12:38pm.
By Joe Bendel. They said Prohibition could never work, because you cannot “legislate morality.” Try telling that to Iran’s Islamist government while you’re looking for a bottle of spirits in Tehran. Of course, a bottle can be found on the black market, but the risks are considerably higher and the costs are far greater than in New York of the 1920s. Still, a group of young Iranians keep the party going as best they can until the messy realities of life overwhelm them in Hossein Keshavarz’s Dog Sweat, which screens tonight during the 2011 New Orleans Middle East Film Festival.
Massoud and his cronies love their illegal hooch, or “dog sweat” as they call it. He sobers up quickly though, when his mother is critically injured by a driver who cannot afford to pay “blood money.” He is in no mood to hear how it is all one of the trials of life mandated by God, considering it more a test of Iranian society, which it fails miserably. Hooshang and Homan also enjoy the Tehran nightlife, but once the former gives into his wealthy family’s demands that he wed, the once constant companions no longer spend time together. Sweat never explicitly states why, but the implication is impossible to miss.
Hooshang’s new wife Mahsa also makes sacrifices to conform to the life expected of her. A talented underground vocalist, she must give up her forbidden musical career for the sake of married respectability. In contrast, Katie is involved in a more conventional love triangle, balancing the attentions of the impetuous Bijan and the older well-to-do Mehrdad, who also happens to be married, to her cousin. Held a virtual captive by her controlling mother, Katie bristles at the freedom allowed to her brother Dawood. Yet, he still cannot manage to find a place to be alone with his prospective girlfriend, Katie’s best friend Katherine.
Obviously produced without the official sanction of the Iranian film authorities, Sweat has much to say about gender inequality and the repression of sexual identity in contemporary Iran. It also addresses the lack of free artistic expression and the judgmental severity of religious fundamentalism. To top it all off, Mahsa’s mother Forough takes a pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq, Iran’s traditional rival, experiencing for the first time in her life a feeling of peace and spiritual fulfillment there.
Given such themes, it is a bit of a surprise the undeniably bold Sweat does not feel heavier. Indeed, some decidedly tragic events occur and nobody (aside from Forough) is ever really happy, but Keshavarz and co-writer-producer Maryam Azadi (who both served as associate producers on his sister Maryam Keshavarz’s Circumstance) never revel in the misery and meanness. Instead, he shows it all to viewers in a straightforward, direct manner and then rotates his focus to the next set of characters. Although a product of necessity, the guerilla vérité-style production gives the film a raw, intimate look that nicely fits the subject matter.
In fact, it is a tribute to the ensemble cast that we do not consider them actors, but authentic people, perhaps in some ominous version of Real World Tehran. Still, Shahrokh Taslimi’s animal intensity as Massoud stands out fiercely.
When watching Sweat one has the sensation of sharing in the lives of this generation of young professional Iranians, who navigate a world that is half underground and half above-board. Granted, it is not perfectly executed. Keshavarz leaves a lot of messy lose ends and unresolved questions, but he definitely takes viewers into the world and heads of these acutely human characters. Highly recommended, Sweat screens tonight (12/14) during the New Orleans Middle East Film Festival, as part of a slate of films varying widely in terms of quality and political sophistication.
Posted on December 14th, 2011 at 12:33pm.
By David Ross. I have often met conservatives who lump poetry with other affectations of the urban left, like eating with your fingers at Ethiopian restaurants and bringing your own hemp-weave shopping bag to the grocery store. Who can dispute that in this perverse age they’re not entirely wrong? Who can dispute that political pose often matters far more than literary prowess? Witness the kerfuffle below (via Powerline):
First poet Alice Oswald withdrew her new book from the contest for the £15,000 award to be conferred with the T.S. Eliot prize administered by the Poetry Book Society, and now, the Guardian reports, Australian poet John Kinsella has joined her. Both poets have been short-listed for the prize, and Oswald is herself a former Eliot prize winner, so their withdrawal is something more than a mere gesture.
What is the cause that impels Oswald’s and Kinsella’s protest? Might it be the genteel anti-Semitism of the poet in whose name the prize is given? Of course not. Rather, it is the source of the beneficence that funds the award. The prize is the beneficiary of a newly-brokered sponsorship by investment management firm Aurum Funds. What’s wrong with Aurum Funds? Aurum is a specialized investment firm comprising a variety of hedge funds.
What’s wrong with hedge funds? Well, Kinsella is a rabid socialist. Moreover, he explained, “Hedge funds are at the very pointy end of capitalism, if I can put it that way.” Former prize winner Oswald observed that “poetry should be questioning not endorsing such institutions.” Better for the prize money to be laundered through the organs of the state after it is levied from the benighted taxpayers who prefer prose to poetry by the likes of Oswald and Kinsella.
Looking for a little background on Kinsella, we find that he is an Australian poet who describes himself as “a vegan anarchist pacifist of 16 years – a supporter of worldwide indigenous rights, and an absolute supporter of land rights.” Land rights, mind you, not property rights. Somehow it all makes sense.
Where is the author of The Dunciad when you really need him?
Here, just for the fun of ridicule, is a wretched sonnet by Oswald: Continue reading Poetry vs. Hedge Funds
By Joe Bendel. Roger Corman is the Elvis Presley of genre pictures. Before anyone did anything, he did everything—and he did it cheaper. So many stories about the man and his movies have become the stuff of legend, yet they are all true. Tribute is paid to the original independent filmmaker in Alex Stapleton’s affectionately uproarious Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
Corman has made hundreds of films, anticipating major shifts in the cultural zeitgeist with atomic powered creature features, rebellious teenager melodramas, biker movies, and blaxploitation cult classics. He always brought his films in on-time and under-budget. The one exception came in 1962 with The Intruder, a moody issue-driven drama about school integration and white supremacy filmed on-location in the Deep South. Now hailed as a milestone of independent filmmaking (by those hip enough to hail), Intruder was Corman’s only film to lose money, but the indie mogul is justly proud of it anyway.
After the experience of Intruder, Corman resolved to return to his low budget genre roots, subtly but deliberately insinuating his political statements into his films, rather than trumpeting them from the get go. Once again, Corman blazed a trail the rest of Hollywood would eventually follow.
Corman has appeared in several grindhouse documentaries in recent years, including Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed!, which documented Corman’s love affair with the authentic locations and bargain basement production costs offered by the Philippines in the 1970s. Yet there is very little overlap between the films. Indeed, with literally hundreds of outrageous movies to chose from, Corman documentarians need not fight over material.
Corman’s record of mentoring up-and-coming filmmakers is a major reason why he won his honorary Oscar (a fact Exploits has a hard time accepting, preferring to think of him as an underappreciated B-movie auteur). Peter Bogdanovich explains it more in sink-or-swim terms, but an opportunity is still an opportunity. Stapleton scored some heavy-weight interviews, including Corman school of filmmaking graduates like Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, and Joe Dante. However, the marquee sit-down has to be the animated Jack Nicholson, whom only Corman would hire during his first ten years in the business. They clearly have a lot of history together, which makes for some of the more manic talking head footage you will see in a documentary.
There are plenty of juicy bits of trivia to be gleaned throughout Exploits, especially for those well versed in his filmography. We also watch Corman working behind the scenes of Dinoshark, one of his new Syfy original movies. Considering that network’s track record for original non-series productions, Corman actually represents a quantum step up in quality for them. Most importantly, there are generous clips from his oeuvre, in all their busty, blood-splattered glory.
Frankly, Stapleton probably could have made a film three times as long and the time would still fly by. Combining the joyous gusto of Corman’s films with top-shelf access to Corman and his celebrated alumni is tough to beat for sheer entertainment value. Easily the feel good film of the holiday season, Exploits opens this Friday (12/16) in New York at the Village East.
Posted on December 14th, 2011 at 12:29pm.