RUTHFULLY YOURS

This Israeli movie won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlinale Film Festival this year, also getting rave reviews from Manhola Dargis (NYT) and Joe Morgenstern (WSJ). Written and directed by the Lapids, pere et fils, it purports to be a movie about an Israeli soldier who has completed his service with a profound hate for the militaristic nature of his country and the determination to abandon it for France. Along with becoming an expat comes the decision to forego his mother tongue and speak only French, carrying a pocket thesaurus for assistance, hence the title.

The film begins with a quick-moving camera following legs walking down a Paris street – an homage to French New Wave cinema of the sixties. Unfortunately, Yoav, the protagonist, reminded me more of Adam Sandler than Jean Paul Belmondo and the actress who plays the love interest has none of Jean Seberg’s combination of rebelliousness and beauty. Instead of an actual plot, there is a do-it-yourself grab-bag of scenes that the audience can try to figure out. Among these are the hero’s near death from extreme cold, a mysterious decision by a neighbor to give Yoav ongoing financial support, an extended and gratuitous scene of pornography, an inscrutable scene of men going at each other viciously, a puzzling scene of a man with a yarmulke accosting people with declarations of his Jewishness, an unseen wedding, a classroom of immigrants being taught the French ethos of secularity above all.

Missing from this picture is an over-riding sense of time, place and history. There is no mention of the massive Muslim influx into France and its attendant consequence of violent anti-semitism. There is no indication of how many French Jews have already fled their country, many going to Israel to find safety. We aren’t told that the French government urges Jews not to wear yarmulkes in public. There is no background for the necessity of Israeli military strength in a middle-east determined never to accept a Jewish state in its midst. Are we to believe that Yoav is so uninformed that he knows nothing about the rising tide of anti-semitism in France and Europe? Are we to assume that he isn’t aware of how many wars Israel has fought defensively and what threats it faces now from Iran and its terrorist subsidiaries?

Ultimately, this is a movie about a young man’s rage – we could call it PTSD but that’s too simplistic for all the elements that are tossed at us. The film that’s playing at the Elinor Bunin theater has an introduction by Nadav Lapid, the director, explaining that it’s partly autobiographical. The fact that he had this experience of deserting Israel is not a sufficient substitute for an intelligent presentation of reality in his chosen art form. As is, this movie remains a jumble of free-floating emotional ejaculations – perhaps the reason for the presence of pornography.

http://politicalmavens.com/

Parasite bears an immediate resemblance to Jason Peele’s US, a horror film in which underground tunnels are the habitat of dopplegangers cloned by our government in a failed experiment and condemned to live below eating rabbit meat. In the Korean film, things are a bit better – there is a window to the street above the basement dwelling but the view is of a repeat urinator who chooses that corner for his daily excretions. To summarize the plot, we have a family living in close quarters who manage to insinuate themselves into excellent jobs working for a wealthy family living in the most architecturally dazzling house in recent film history. That and the score are two sufficiently good reasons to see the movie but there are more.

One of the best features is that the characters are not generic – the parents and two children in the basement are lively, attractive people with back stories and ambitions and we are not surprised when they become assets to the wealthy couple, both of whom are somewhat dim despite their good looks and affluence. The best part of the screenplay is in the denouement of how the poor deceive the rich in a fully satisfying way for all concerned. There is a troubled young boy who needs special care and the clever, artistic basement daughter is perfect for that role. The wealthy daughter requires a tutor and the wily basement son is central casting for that. Best of all are the father who becomes the chauffeur and his crackerjack wife who takes over the role of housekeeper with super-human speed and efficiency.

https://www.pbs.org/about/blogs/news/college-behind-bars-to-air-on-pbs-in-november-2019/

New Four-Part Documentary Series by Lynn Novick Follows Prisoners Through Rigorous College Program; Explores How Education Transforms Lives and Impacts Criminal Justice

Alfred I. duPont-Columbia and Peabody-Award winning filmmaker Lynn Novick(THE VIETNAM WAR, PROHIBITION, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT,THE WAR) has directed and produced a new documentary series, COLLEGE BEHIND BARS, that reveals the transformative power of higher education through the experiences of incarcerated men and women, PBS announced today during the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour. The four-hour series directed and produced by Novick and produced by longtime collaborator Sarah Botstein (THE VIETNAM WAR, PROHIBITION, THE WAR, JAZZ), will air on PBS in November 2019.

COLLEGE BEHIND BARS marks a new path for Novick, who is best known for history films directed with Ken Burns. The four-hour series, distilled from nearly 400 hours of cinéma-vérité footage, explores the lives of a dozen incarcerated men and women as they struggle to earn degrees in the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), one of the most rigorous and effective prison education programs in the country.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/10/22/chinas-disguised-global-threat-comes-alive/

To twist Lenin’s quip, it will be a communist who sells capitalists the cheap advanced telecommunications technology with which China hangs them.

A new and exciting movie was just released illustrating through semi-fictional dramatization how the Chinese government-controlled telecom company Huawei is a primary economic weapon in an arsenal through which Beijing seeks global domination.

The names of the people and the company are all changed, but “Claws of the Red Dragon” dramatizes Canada’s arrest at U.S. request last year of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s financial chief and daughter of its founder, for violations of sanctions on terrorist Iran and other offenses. In retaliation, Beijing detained two Canadians, an ex-diplomat and a businessman, for spying, and retried a 36-year-old tourist serving a 15-year drug offense, sentencing him to the death penalty.

It depicts a real life-based Chinese-Canadian reporter reluctantly taking on the story and risking her life to connect the dots between the company and the Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. And the film goes behind closed doors to show the scheming of party operatives whose sights are set on global dominance in our lifetimes.

Having premiered over the weekend on the One America News Network, which will show it again Friday evening, the film is the work of New York-based Chinese-American New Tang Dynasty Television. The production values and acting, particularly Dorren Lee as journalist Jane Li, are top notch. Ex-Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who’s an executive producer, hosted a press screening in New York City last week, where he brandished a well-worn copy of “Unrestricted Warfare,” a 1999 book by two senior Chinese air force colonels. They argue that economic warfare, attacks on digital infrastructure, and terrorism can enable a lesser power to win a war against the U.S., especially as part of a “grand warfare method” pairing military and non-military tactics. Beijing hasn’t veered far off that strategy in the two decades since.

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/topic/politics/

If you like your biopics of legendary celebrities reducing them to formulaic caricatures, here’s one not to miss. Think of Alec Baldwin’s skillful skewer of our president which gets a laugh in a five minute skit on SNL and then imagine it stretched out to a feature length film with familiar side characters who are mostly evil in ways that are now shopworn tropes. Louis B Mayer, head of MGM, here a huge man towering over a petite Judy Garland, lives up to his reputation as a tyrant who forces the teen-aged girl to diet and keep working till all hours of the night His assistant, a nameless version of Annie’s Miss Hannigan, is brutal in snatching away hamburgers from our hungry heroine and adding to the cruel atmosphere of “the studio.” If reality were added to the film, we would meet Judy’s most formidable enemy – her mother – who began feeding her pills at the age of 10 and who saw all three of her daughters as viable meal tickets for her own unsuccessful marriage and life. Louis B offered the multi-talented young Frances Gumm a new name and an opportunity to find a big life her own – something that Shirley Temple most famously achieved despite a childhood spent in similar circumstances.

Renee Zellweger, an actress who displayed great subtlety in her performance in Jerry Maguire, here chooses to go for pursing her lips and concentrating on the exterior resemblances to the famous singer, including successfully mimicking her singing voice. But the poses take over and leave us with very little compassion for the interior life of a woman addicted to alcohol. drugs and men in ways that guarantee disaster. The theme of Judy’s role as mother, frustrated by financial problems and custody battles with the children’s father, can’t preserve our sympathy as we watch her continuing her spiral of self-destructive behavior despite its overwhelming consequences. What we’re left with is a superficial look at a very talented woman who unfortunately didn’t get sufficient help with serious psychological problems, trading that for the love and devotion of audiences throughout the world.

http://politicalmavens.com/

One of the more interesting aspects of the long-running television series was how skillfully Julian Fellowes managed the transition from 19th century British mores to the 20th. From the introduction of the automobile to the radical concept of a chauffeur marrying into an aristocratic family, almost every episode had some element of gradual change in the lives of upper class gentry and glimpses of how the downstairs servants could begin to see their aspirations materialize, frequently with the support of their benevolent upper class employers. While all this was happening, we had the best-written character of Lady Grantham, played to perfection by Dame Maggie Smith to represent the other side of these “advances” with her clever and witty pronouncements of the old-fashioned way of thinking and doing.

So it was particularly disappointing to see Fellowes’ graceful touch become heavy-handed in the movie version. The film begins with the announcement of an imminent visit from the King and Queen who will stay at Downton overnight. Without giving away the specific twists in the plot, there are hurt feelings among the staff at the planned usurpation of their usual jobs for this occasion and an overly absurd plan is hatched to level the playing field. Devoid of subtlety, it also defies credibility, particularly in several of the staff whom we have come to know so well over a long period of time. Concomitant with this is the introduction of homosexual freedom surfacing in a private club attended by a member of the staff, something that might be believable if it were not taking place during the hoopla of the royal visit. Other sub-plots involve theft, jealousy, adultery, illegitimacy and paternity rights and wrongs. It made me feel as if Fellowes was consulting his checklist of issues and inserting them without regard to logic or the long friendship and understanding most viewers would have with his characters who were very real to us.

To its credit, Downton Abbey is lush, scenic, photogenic and helped by a magnificent score. Fans of the series are legion and will see the movie regardless of its defects but I wish Fellowes had not sullied his almost perfect track record for having written every episode with this clunky finale. Too bad Lady Grantham wasn’t his editor for the screenplay.

DPS Request:
This is special – very special. You can see from the short report below what the story is, but you cannot begin to appreciate how it was told unless you were at this Algemeiner Dinner (I was) or, barring that, watching the video which accompanies the story. There are 3 parts. All are marvelous and need to be watched in order to fully grasp the importance of what was being said. The 10 minutes that Sir Ben Kingsley spoke left me profoundly moved but also awestruck as I watched a truly great actor deliver a finely crafted, important and moving speech in a way which only those who are gifted with the ability to transmit thoughts and feelings through physical presence and spoken words can do. No notes. No pauses. No hesitations. Perfectly crafted. Every gesture and movement clearly designed to enhance his words. The words were the substance, of course, but their delivery was the work of a master craftsman.

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https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/09/27/real-life-schindlers-list-holocaust-survivor-introduces-algemeiner-honoree-sir-ben-kingsley-at-j100-gala/
Real-Life ‘Schindler’s List’ Holocaust Survivor Introduces Algemeiner Honoree Sir Ben Kingsley at ‘J100’ Gala
By Algemeiner Staff – 9/27/19

Daniela Lavender, Sir Ben Kingsley, Halina Silber, Mushka Efune and Dovid Efune at the 6th annual Algemeiner J100 gala in New York City, Sept. 27, 2019. Photo: PMC / Sean Zanni for The Algemeiner.
Famed British actor Sir Ben Kingsley was honored with the prestigious “Warrior for Truth” award on Thursday at the 6th annual Algemeiner ‘J100’ gala in New York City.
Kingsley, whose most prominent Jewish role was as Itzhak Stern in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List,” was introduced by Holocaust survivor Halina Silber — who was No. 16 on the real-life list compiled by German industrialist Oskar Schindler.
In his subsequent remarks, Kingsley remembered, “When I met with the great Steven Spielberg to discuss playing Itzhak Stern, I asked him, ‘What is my narrative function in this role?’ and he said, ‘Conscience. Witness.’ As I was filming, I had in my pocket a photograph of Anne Frank and I would say to this beautiful photograph, ‘Dear girl, I’m doing this for you.’ Everyday on the set I would say that.”
“Well, dear friends, tonight I can assure you that if given another opportunity to tell your story I can say wholeheartedly, ‘I’m doing this for you,’” he added.
Watch the speeches of Silber and Kingsley here:

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/09/27/real-life-schindlers-list-holocaust-survivor-introduces-algemeiner-honoree-sir-ben-kingsley-at-j100-gala/