Steady Diet of Film

#002: Strawberry Shortcakes / Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

For episode #2 Claudia and I discuss the troubles and triumphs of "the women's picture" by way of last year's Strawberry Shortcakes (dir: Hitoshi Yazaki) and the 1989 Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (dir: Pedro Almodovar).

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Northwest Film and Video Festival 35, part 4

Politics of Sand

Director Tom Olsen, Jr. lays out the tedious process of overturning a governor's 1913 decree that certain parcels of Oregon's coastline could be purchased by private owners, much to the outrage of Democrats in state leadership fifty years later. Eventually it would take every branch of state government and a large grassroots effort to essentially (spoiler alert!) buy back the land and turn it over to the public. Bills are introduced, subcommittees are formed, angry letters and telegrams are exchanged, bills are filibustered, bills are passed, aspersions are made in editorial cartoons, proposition initiatives are fought over, state supreme court cases are lodged and in the process many political careers are made and destroyed. The film's narrative outline and thrust are provided by Matt Love, an oddly engaging local historian and author of "Grasping Wastrels vs. Beaches Forever Inc." who has made "Beach Bill" tourism its own cottage industry.

Politics of Sand plays like an expanded and slow moving civics lesson, (not entirely unlike the presidential primaries this year), examining a land rights battle that took place over the Oregon coastlines in 1967. As boring as this might sound, there's something oddly refreshing about a film about such minute subject matter making no effort to find larger relevance. Granted, there were times throughout the film's 120 minutes that I wished it would bring in some outside points of interest for the sake of diversity or larger relevance but the film's only leaning in that direction is a scene is a modest pandering to liberals overly invested in Oregon state history. I suppose, however, that scene after scene of white men battling it out over a mostly philosophical debate of private ownership versus public interest is its own political statement. Especially at a period in time when cities around the country were burning to the ground in race riots.

It's a long, detailed film for certain. But when I saw it the audience was completely along for the ride. They laughed at the petty ways bureaucrats can lash out at one another, collectively sighed at moments of defeat and for the most part staying for the Q&A with the director. Dabbling in documentary film-making's fun new trend of employing flash animation, a certain measure of whimsy was injected into the use of xeroxed documents and statistics. Olsen Jr. mentioned he put some of his students to work on those segments, which effectively breathes some vigor into the process.

The film has a few rough spots. It could do a stronger job of giving its subjects more of an individual presence, after the debate gets into sub-committees a lot of the participants start to blur together. And it could have trimmed a few of the approximately five endings. Yet, ultimately, Politics of Sand is a cogent document of a fascinating slice of Oregon state history.

Northwest Film and Video Festival 35, part 3

On Paper Wings investigates the little known history of the creation and deployment of Japanese balloon bombs during the final days of World War II. It's estimated that thousands of these weapons were released into the jet streams over the Pacific Ocean. Essentially hot air balloons with small hydrogen bombs attached, they were part of a secret campaign to cause terror among US citizens. On May 5th, 1945 one of these balloons reached Bly, an isolated town with a population of approximately 800 in southern Oregon. Six people were killed, including five children and a minister's wife. US government officials landed in the town almost immediately to pressure the families, witnesses and onsite medical staff to lie to those involved and the public about the circumstances of the deaths. Incredibly, some parents weren't even informed of their children's deaths for several hours.

Director Ilana Sol sorts through the confusion and anger in the weeks and years that followed as families coped with their immense loss without much information. Three days after the tragedy in Bly, America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, effectively blotting out any investigative interest their case might have had.

John Takeshita, an Asian-American teenager being held in an internment camp at the time, grew up to become a Constitutional law professor. He spearheaded an effort to bring the Japanese women conscripted into the military to build the balloons together with the people in Bly affected by the bombing. Captured on film, what follows is a hard-fought emotional conciliation between once bitter (though unknown) enemies.

Sol's use of consumer-grade equipment and tapestock belies an impressive level of narrative sophistication. On Paper Wings effectively weaves together potentially opposing threads. Scientific explanation is balanced with undeniably emotional tragedy. Japanese nationalism is set next to American wartime retribution. Sol accomplishes this all with a graceful balance of respect for her subjects and suspense for her audience.

The film is currently playing at various film festivals.

RIYL: Wings of Defeat (which I reviewed earlier this year), Red White Black and Blue (available at SnagFilms).

Accompanying On Paper Wings was the short film Water Paper Time, a portrait of paper sculptural artist Helen Hiebert. Director Gretchen Hogue follows Hievert's monastic technique from mashing up bamboo plants in her backyard to elaborate milling process and wire insertions. The artist eventually employs time-lapse photography to observe the final stages of the sculptures' drying, a process which was met with shrieks of delight from the audience. Reminiscent of Rivers and Tides, a film I'm confident could bring about world peace if projected onto the moon, Water Paper Time is well worth seeing.

2008's Copyright Champions & Losers

The culture of ownership (examined with great detail and wit by CNet's Molly Wood) presents an especially aggravating challenge to documentary film-makers whose entire ability to make engaging work relies upon being able to use cultural and historical touchstones to make their work relevant to audiences.

 

It could be argued that if the present climate of copyright control existed twenty years ago, hip hop, (a genre that appropriated portions of other songs and added commentary to create a new form of musical expression) would not have been able to exist, much less flourish into one of the most influential music movements in American history.

In an age of increasing distrust and disinterest in mainstream news sources, film-makers are imbued with new opportunities to tell stories that would fall by the wayside and to do this effectively they can't be yoked by governmental efforts to prop up dying business models.

And with that I bring you the very unlikely list of people who struck a blow for rational reforms to copyright law..

2008 Copyright Champions

Ben Stein
Adding documentary film director to a resume that includes Nixon speechwriter and gameshow host, Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed film about creationism grossed an impressive $7.7M in its box office release. But one scene that employed approximately fifteen seconds of John Lennon's "Imagine" under footage of Joseph Stalin waving to a crowd without permission from the Lennon estate provoked Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and record label EMI to sue for copyright infringement.

Stein and the producers of the film were defended by lawyers from the Stanford Fair Use Project. On the SFUP's blog they wrote of their decision to take the case:

"The right to quote from copyrighted works in order to criticize them and discuss the views they represent lies at the heart of the fair use doctrine. The lawsuits filed by Ono and EMI threaten important free speech rights that need to be defended."

Ultimately the court dismissed the charges. Still, the film's distributor opted to remove the song from the DVD release.

Arstechnica who has been following the film and the copyright infringement case, wrote of the decision:

"It is unfortunate that Lennon's heirs sought to use copyright law to squelch criticism of Lennon's lyrics. No matter how dishonest Stein and company's arguments may be, they have the right to make them, and copyright must give way to the First Amendment. Ono's aggressive tactics will give Stein and company an undeserved PR victory, allowing them to play the beleaguered underdogs fighting the "Darwinist" establishment. The way to counter Expelled is with logic and evidence, of which there's an ample supply. Overzealous application of copyright law is counterproductive. "

McCain for President 2008

The Republican senator may have lukewarm interest in copyright and intellectual property reform. But that changed when CBS sent YouTube takedown notices over the McCain campaign's use of news footage in their web ads. According to a CBS official:

"CBS News does not endorse any candidate in the presidential race. Any use of CBS personnel in political advertising that suggests the contrary is misleading."

 

The woefully out-financed presidential campaign tried to fight the matter in the editorial pages. They took the tact that political ads are part of political speech and thereby qualify under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as Fair Use. Though not before trying to float the idea that it was all part of a vast liberal conspiracy.. a case the campaign attempted to make on National Public Radio. 

 

YouTube is currently being sued by Universal Music and Viacom Entertainment. The issues are copyright infringement as well as violations of the Electronic Frontier Foundation for Fair Use. Had the McCain campaign been better financed (or more victorious), it would have been interesting to see just how many angles there are on suing the video-sharing website.

The National Journal compiled a list of all political campaign ads that were hit with takedown notices.

President George W. Bush
Hear me out, folks. Last month the President signed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act. It raised the amount of statutory damages for the broad term of 'intellectual property theft' to astronomical levels as well as created a new position within the executive branch which is being dubbed "the Copyright Czar". Being that he is currently in a lameduck session, it's unlikely anyone will be appointed to the office until the Obama administration comes to power (still, I can't recommend Rachel Maddow's Lameduck Watch segments enough). Nearly every rumored candidate for an Obama Copyright Czar is someone who, at the very least, appears to know how to use a computer and could bring.




2008 COPYRIGHT LOSERS

Heart, Foo Fighters, Orleans, Van Halen, Warner Music Group on behalf of Frankie Valli, Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, ABBA

That would be every musician or musical group that sued a political campaign over the use of their songs at rallies. These artists signed licensing deals with ASCAP that limited (in most cases eliminated) their right to discriminate over how their music is used for live events. Complaining about it to the media or initiating a bunch of baseless lawsuits was a waste of everyone's time and tax dollars. It's worth noting, none of these artists offered to donate their ASCAP earnings from the period of the campaign to oppositional candidates or causes.

Word to the wise, old timers, announcing to the world you don't read contracts before signing them is not the best way to get your name back into the cultural conversation.

Lion's Gate communication team
In marketing Oliver Stone's recent W the Lion's Gate marketing team put together a website where users could download clips of the film and make their own trailers for the film. But as Chris Thilk reports, no one told the in-house legal counsel. The company was forced to serve itself a takedown notice. That must have lead to some awkward inter-departmental meetings.

Alphabetical favorite films meme: Documentary mash up edition

This Alphabetical favorite films meme has been circulating, and I am certainly not impervious to its charms. But inner Tracy Flick feels the need to kick it up a notch and pair up my favorite narratives and documentaries.

Dear readers, I invite you to imagine what some of these double features might feel like..

All That Jazz / American Movie

Battle Royale / Blue Planet

Conformist / Control Room

Deer Hunter / Doing Time, Doing Vipassana

Elevator to the Gallows / English Surgeon

Funny Face / FLOW: For Love of Water

Glengarry Glen Ross / The Gleaners and I

High Noon / Hearts of Darkness

I Want to Live! / Incident at Oglala

Jacob's Ladder / Joseph Campbell: Myths

King of Comedy / Keep the River on Your Right

Lifeboat / Living Museum

Marie Antoinette / Mondovino

Night of the Comet / No End in Sight

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest / Our Brand is Crisis

Primary Colors / Protagonist

Quid Pro Quo / ???

Red River / Rivers and Tides

Silkwood / Shut Up And Sing

Terminator 2 / The Thin Blue Line

 

Under the Sand / Up the Yangtze

V.I. Warshawski / Vertical Frontier

What a Way To Go / When the Levees Broke

Xala / ??

Your Friends and Neighbors / The Year of the Yao

Zoolander / Z Channel

#001: Detour / What Time Is It There?

Steady Diet of Film is pleased to announce our new bi-weekly film discussion podcast, hosted by Erin Donovan and Claudia Meza.

Gateway experiences, either it be food, music or some bad habit, we've all had that moment where we unexpectedly get introduced to our brand new favorite thing. In our inaugural episode we discuss the films that made us the film nerds we are today. We discuss What Time Is It There? (directed by Tsai Ming-liang) and Detour (directed by Edgar G. Ulmer).

So what was your gateway film?

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Show notes:

• Detour is available as a free, full-length stream.
• The infamous pigeon scene from What Time Is It There?

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Northwest Film and Video Festival 35, part 2

COOKIES FOR SALE -- Wes Kim's very sweet film follows a determined young girl scout and a tightwad curmudgeon in her neighborhood. Kim employs a lot of special effects, in this fun take on Looney Tune-style comedy.

WE THREE -- Laura di Trapani's Salvador Dali-inspired animation is a real crowd pleaser. She doubly endeared herself on stage by lobbing softball questions to a fellow film-maker whose work had been boo'd. Available online here.

SUPER NONPAREILS -- Jeremy Bird's one-minute film of a very fun and colorful candy explosion.

ELECTROFLUX -- Described as "an insight into the animator's process." Rose Bond's film works just as well as an illustration of writer's block. Available in full here.

LOVELY COFFEE -- Warren Pereira's scathing narrative portrays a group of film-makers more interested in marketing and image than work or talent. I thought this dialogue-driven film was really funny and at times echoed the work of Whit Stillman. I can understand why a Portland audience, far removed from the scum of Los Angeles, would be unmoved by such a jaded piece of film-making. But it's worth noting that a Portland audience is not above loud, sarcastic yawns.. meow!

HOLLERINGS / THREE STORIES IN WOOD -- Told with faceless wooden block dolls, these three vignettes about are people dealing with private anxieties. This film is thoroughly brilliant in concept, writing and the level of craft in the execution. In the Q&A directors Lara Gallagher and Andrew Ellmaker joked about making it over the stretch of a rainy Portland winter. It's available online in full here.

FOUR -- This adorable film about an adorable little girl in an (adorable!) real time time-out elicits many sweet chuckles. Director Amy Beth O'Brien mentioned later that the protagonist (her daughter) would have loved to have been there but was asleep. Aww!

THE RAPIST OF LUCRETIA -- Olivia Janik's rotoscoped animation is about a woman who commits suicide after being date raped. The piece didn't feel flippant but I really wish the film-maker had been in attendance to give a little more context.

DANGEROUS LOOP -- When the credits rolled, I was really surprised  to learn this stop-motion animation piece was directed by a man. I can't say what the film-maker's intentions were but all the imagery of eggs, seeds, fertilization, blood, explosions definitely seemed to be working in the realm of child birth. Sadly director Brian Knowles was not in attendance to elaborate more on his process and ideas. See it in full here.

HOT FOOTS AND HAT TRIX -- Another "reclaimed footage" piece, this one displays horses scratched into negatives of western films and then colored with highlighters. I'm beginning to think I might just be inherently prejudiced against films that physically add or remove things from/to others' work. They so rarely seem to fundamentally add or remove anything. Naomi Uman's Removed may have been the high watermark to which no one has subsequently come anywhere close to.

THE PULL -- Andrew Blubaugh's follow up to the wonderful Scaredy Cat (which I reviewed earlier this year) follows a romantic relationship with an agreed upon expiration date and the outrage it causes in the film-maker's circle of friends. Blubaugh was one of the recipients of the festival's Oregon Media Arts Fellowship to work on a feature-length documentary film. 

The Shorts III program plays again at the Northwest Film and Video Festival Wednesday Nov 12 at 7pm.

Northwest Film and Video Festival 35, part 1

In her introduction to her program of shorts local wunderkind Kelly Reichardt (whose latest film Wendy and Lucy will close the festival) describes what I think is the perfect methodology for watching and reviewing films:

"The process of judging was imperfect and undemocratic—I just picked the films I liked. Films where I discovered a larger political truth through the minutely personal."

SMILE -- This was my second time seeing Julia Kwan's short about a Chinese-Canadian family getting their portrait taken (the first time was at last year's San Francisco International Asian American film festival). As she did in her feature film Eve and the Fire Horse (which I reviewed last summer) Kwan demonstrates a keen sense of humor and insight into sibling relationships and the first generation immigrant experience as well as a masterful visual sense. It remains a mystery to me that Eve and the Fire Horse, a poignant but funny family drama (not the toughest sell in the States) has yet to be picked up by an American distributor.  A low-quality clip of Smile is available here.

TOURIST -- Film-maker Salise Hughes reworks the final two minutes of Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger by slowing it down and scratching out the landscapes. The experimental film elicted audible boos from the festival crowd but come on, people, tonight's viewing is programmed by Kelly Reichardt. Some of it was bound to be, ahem, methodically-paced. 

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN 1947-2007 -- The shortest film of the night spins through 60 years in the life of a woman well-documented by home snapshots. Margot Quan Knight's oddly affectionate and effective study is a real crowd pleaser.

LITTLE PLEASURES -- Jamie Marie Waelchli's film is a single 11-minute shot as she continually crams pieces of gum into her mouth. It starts out like a cheeky throwback to Jessica Yu's Sour Death Balls, but becomes increasingly gross out as she starts to drool and gag on her own vomit. The film easily inspired the most questions during the following Q&A: She ate about 95 pieces of gum, considers the piece more performative than filmic, has performed it twice and still loves gum.

ABOARD THE PATER NOSTER -- A fascinating and beautifully-lensed modern dance piece choreographed by Aszure Barton and shot on location in Prague. In the Q&A, director Daniel Conrad went on a particularly fascinating tear about editing dance and movement. Clip available here.

THE RIFLE WORKBOOK -- Vincent Caldoni's intriguing silent film set (roughly) in the 19th century about a ritual sacrifice of material objects. Available in full here.

NICKEL AND DIMIN' IT WITH BUDDY -- A 7-minute documentary following a local homeless celebrity while he raises money by collecting and recycling aluminum cans. I was glad to see a documentary in the mix but am increasingly uninterested in seeing the homeless population used as default subject matter for any film-maker with a weekend to kill.

SUFFRAGETTE SLASHER -- A highly funded art school piece reeking of grant money and iMovie. Film-maker Julie Perini re-enacts the protest of Mary Richardson, a 20th century suffragette who slashed the National Gallery of London's Rokeby Venus in protest of the treatment of women (read the NY Times coverage at the time here). Interesting concept but painful in its frantic execution. During Q&A, Perini said that this concept had been stewing for many years. So why is the end product had to be so literal?

GREY ROOM -- A slow, unfocused film made by someone who identifies as a sculptor by trade. Methinks someone has a friend on the programming committee. In the Q&A director Storm Tharp stated he had "no idea" how much money it cost to make his film. his film cost approximately $250 to make.


The Shorts II program plays again at the Northwest Film and Video Festival on Saturday November 15th 6 pm.