Lego links

The giant-sized special edition of The Dark Pages with my article on Anthony Mann & John Alton is available now. I have my hard copy edition, and I gotta say, I'm impressed with the look of it.

Back in the 90s, I had a passing interest in zines, which coincided with my initial steps into self-publishing comics. I remember trying to market my comics amongst the zine crowd, but it didn't work out; zines are a whole different animal.

One would think zines were old hat in the digital age, but TDP is one of the finest looking ones I've come across in a long time: simple, but well laid out, on nice paper, with every square inch utilized, and a topic, film noir, with a wide and devoted audience. It's like reading all the entries in a blogathon in one collection.

Karen and her staff have a quality product here, and I'm pleased to have been a part of it.

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Speaking of blogathons, if you want in on the Richard Matheson Blogathon, hosted by myself and Debbie from Moon in Gemini (who is also part of the special TDP issue), be sure to e-mail me at ratzo318 (at) yahoo (dot) com or post in the comments and I'll put you on the list. March 9-10 is when it goes down.

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Here's more pushback against Whoopi Goldberg's anti-bike diatribe from weeks ago. Long-time readers of this blog know my feelings about biking, and the need for livable streets in general. It's not that cars are unimportant; it's just that they dominate our streets at the expense of other forms of transportation, and as a result, they've become as great a threat to human safety as guns, if not more so. We shouldn't tolerate it anymore.

More after the jump.

To Be Continued

To Be Continued
seen @ Scandinavia House, New York NY

Vija recently suggested seeing a new Latvian movie (she's of Latvian descent herself) that screened in the city this week. I had absolutely zero experience with Latvian cinema, and it had been awhile since I saw a movie with the gang, so I decided to give it a try. It was Vija, Franz and Andrea who came this time.

Scandinavia House is the go-to place for Nordic culture in New York and America: that's Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, in case you didn't know. Vija had been there before. They're currently running a series called "Nordic Oscar Contenders." (So why are they showing a Latvian film? This might explain it. Thanks to Andrea for the link!)

To Be Continued (in Latvian, the title translates to Turpinājums) is a doc that is also this year's Latvian entry in the Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film. The director, Ivars Seleckis, specializes in documentaries; you could say he's Latvia's answer to Werner Herzog, or Errol Morris.

This film spends a year following a group of first-grade kids. Why these kids in particular? The movie doesn't give much in the way of an explanation. They're bright, cute in their own ways, from good homes — both in the city and the country, but I had the impression these could have been any Latvian kids.

I focused on the culture and the educational system. It should come as no surprise that these kids are better schooled than ours, because most of the world's kids are better schooled than ours.

Extracurricular activities, with an emphasis on sports and performing arts, are emphasized: we see the kids play hockey, do martial arts, sing and dance, in addition to getting a standard education (math, science, history, etc.) in classes that don't look overcrowded, by teachers who don't look stressed or harassed.

I thought the kids were given a great deal of opportunity to express themselves in class; it wasn't a situation where Teacher dictates the lesson and the kids regurgitate it. There was more of a give-and-take at work; students were free to state opinions and preferences at the teachers' direction.

We also saw the kids' home lives, of course: one lives on a farm, one is of Russian descent, one lives with her grandma, etc. They go through their ups and downs, like kids everywhere do.

Vija and I were reminded of the Seven Up documentary series, an ongoing look at the lives of a select group of kids every seven years, begun by director Michael Apted back in 1964 (and is still going! 63 Up will come out this spring). The difference, we agreed, was that Seleckis didn't appear to make any kind of sociological statement with this film. Part of me kinda wished he had, but for what it was, Continued was okay.

UPDATE: I asked Vija to provide her insight into the film. Here she is:

Primary links

The New York State primary election is this month, and on paper, Cynthia Nixon's chances for becoming governor don't look good. Despite the groundswell of online support for her, rooted largely in her constant and justifiable criticism of incumbent Andrew Cuomo, she remains way behind in the polls.

There's still plenty of skepticism over whether Nixon, Hollywood actress and double-Emmy winner, has what it takes to run a state, but if nothing else, she's helped raise the consciousness of many people, both here in New York State and beyond, about some important issues — education, housing, marijuana legalization, and yes, the dreaded NYC subway — and she's proven that being a celebrity is not automatically an impediment when it comes to running for office, despite the presence of the one in the White House now.

For what it's worth, I intend to vote for her (in the primary, at least). She's earned my respect.

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Last month, I learned how to sing in a chorus. There's a choral singing workshop Virginia attends every year in Massachusetts. She heard me sing months ago, as part of a group, and invited me to attend the workshop with her.

Now, I admit, I can carry a tune, but my sister is the singer in the family, not me. I've taken part in talent contests back when I was younger and contemplated a career as a musician — I have a keyboard and have taken lessons on the organ — but that doesn't make me Billy Joel by any stretch. Still, I was curious, and it provided an opportunity to travel with Virginia for the first time (we also visited friends of hers in Vermont).

The first day was the worst. Singing in Latin? Reading sheet music on sight? Focusing on my part while everyone around me sung different parts? I was angry, confused and lost and felt like I was letting Virginia down, since she was paying my way. She kept encouraging me, though, and against my instincts, I persisted.

Thanks to a terrific teacher, I got over my fear. He took my shaky bass voice and made it presentable through humor, patience and mostly by example. In addition, I found a song I genuinely liked, and wanted to sing. By the time my small ensemble performed for the other teachers, I was ready — and I even got some compliments! Virginia was impressed too, which meant more to me than anything.

Don't know for sure if I wanna keep up with this, but at least I can say I did it.

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The original film version
of The Band's Visit

Virginia and I also went to see the Broadway musical The Band's Visit, based on the Israeli film from 2007. I never saw the movie; don't even remember it, but it got a 98 on Rotten Tomatoes. As a Broadway show it has enjoyed even more success, winning the Tony for Best Musical, and after seeing it, I can see why.

The premise is simple: a small Egyptian orchestra, invited to perform at a show in Israel, arrive in the wrong town. They spend a night with the locals and change a few lives in the process. It should have been Israel's entry in the Best Foreign Film Oscar race, but it was disqualified on account of having too much English.

In December 2016, the musical adaptation debuted off-Broadway and moved to the Ethel Barrymore Theater almost a year later. The version we saw last month had original production stars Katrina Lenk and Ari'el Stachel, who won Tonys, as well as Sasson Gabay, star of the original film.

We both loved the show. It was an exquisite, character-driven production with Arabic and Israeli flavored music; the whole thing felt different from what one normally thinks of as a Broadway musical. I still would like to see fewer film adaptations and more original material, but for what this was, it's the real thing.

More after the jump.

Top 5 movie-going moments of 2017

Again, not a whole lot of rare or unusual things happened at the movies this year, but there were some rare and unusual movies.

5. Talk of the Town at the Astoria Historical Society. It wasn't exactly a large crowd - it wasn't even a crowd - but Sandi and I enjoyed the movie nonetheless, we made a new friend, and the day on the whole was pleasant. I think the Society gets more people at screenings when they're tied to a major event of some sort. This wasn't. It's okay, though.

4. Rebecca at Vija's place. Also more for that entire day, pouring rain, donuts, and all, although the situation with the malfunctioning DVD player was certainly an event in itself. I would've hated to have lost that DVD. In fact, I wrote a short story inspired by that incident. Gonna shop it around next year.

3. Island of Lost Souls at the Loews JC. Once again, Halloween at the Loews means party time; I got to hang with Aurora, plus I finally met Monstergirl (along with her girlfriend). Wish I could've stayed for all three movies in the triple bill, but I had a good time anyway.

2. Loving Vincent. One of the rare occasions I've loved a movie more for its looks than its story. The plot was good; it's just I wanted to bask in the visuals more - and every single frame of this extraordinary film literally is a work of art. It's a singular achievement that needs to be seen to be believed.

1. Mother! Full stop. I'm still not sure how I feel about this movie, but I do know it took brass balls to make, and Darren Aronofsky has got 'em. Maybe if I had gone into it knowing everything, I might not have been as freaked out by it as I was, but it seems to me this is why we go to the movies in the first place: for the possibility of seeing something you've never seen before that will shake you up in some way, even if you don't understand how or why. This may not make my top 10 for the year, but damn if it wasn't the craziest two hours I've spent in a movie theater in a long time.

Happy new year to you all. Barring any news about the future of the Lincoln Plaza, I'll return January 9.

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Previously:
2016 top five
2015 top five
2014 top five
2013 top five
2012 top five
2011 top five

The Talk of the Town

The Talk of the Town
seen @ Greater Astoria Historical Society, Astoria, Queens NY

I've written about a number of George Stevens movies here, but I haven't talked much about the man himself. Thanks to Mark Harris' book Five Came Back, we know Stevens was one of several prominent Hollywood directors who documented World War 2.

He chose to go to war. He enlisted after completing The More The Merrier in 1943 and considered himself retired from film at 38. The things he saw in battle changed him profoundly. His post-war films, as a result, were more somber and reflectful than his fluffier pre-war work. To quote Harris in Five:

...Stevens hoped, more than anything, to find a project that reflected his changed understanding of the world. "Our films should tell the truth and not pat us on the back," he said that year [1946]. Otherwise, he asked, "isn't there the slight chance that we might be revealing America as it is not? Would that be encouraging us in our delusions about ourselves?"

He had already begun to take a step in that direction in 1942 when he made The Talk of the Town. Cary Grant is a political activist framed for arson. During his trial, he escapes and hides out at childhood pal Jean Arthur's place, but she's renting it out for the summer to law professor Ronald Colman. Eventually, Grant and Arthur conspire to get Colman involved in Grant's case to clear his name, as well as to learn more about the world beyond his law books.

There's a very Capraesque quality to the story, in which themes of the dangers of demagoguery and mob justice abound in what's a romantic comedy at heart. Stevens and Capra were colleagues at Columbia, so perhaps that's unsurprising.

Stevens was notorious for his taciturn nature on the set, yet he also drove his actors to plumb the depths of their talent. A quote from him in Five sums it up: "I have often humbled actors, creating stories that will bring a kind of humility out of them, rather than letting them come forth on the screen in their established aura." That explains Grant's Oscar-nominated performance in Penny Serenade. In Talk, he's cast again in an unexpected role, that of a political agitator, verbally jousting with Colman at first before befriending him. Arthur is once again at her lovable, scatterbrained best, but over a decade later, Stevens would get a gentle, touching dramatic performance out of her in Shane.

I saw Talk with Sandi last Saturday at the Greater Astoria Historical Society, an organization devoted to chronicling and preserving the long history of Astoria and the surrounding neighborhoods. They also show old movies from time to time. Their offices include a gallery filled with photos, assorted memorabilia and artifacts from the area. Astoria was settled in 1659, so there's plenty of history to explore. I know the Society mostly through my friend Rich, who's a staff member. He was there briefly. We talked for a bit. I've gone on guided tours led by him through parts of Astoria. 

Lately, Sandi has been paying attention to the treatment of servants in old Hollywood movies. Rex Ingram, the head demon in Cabin in the Sky, plays Colman's valet, whom Colman almost treats as an equal, asking him advice on women and such. Ingram gets strangely emotional when, at one point, Colman shaves his beard, which Grant and Arthur mock as a sign of fuddy-duddy-ness and intellectual intransigence. Stevens gives Ingram a long close-up, in fact. Sandi was unsure whether or not his tears were meant as comedy. Was he sad or happy for Colman? I was unsure myself. I would've guessed it was meant as humor, but it didn't seem to play that way. Odd moment.

Afterwards, we met and had coffee with the only other person to attend the screening (who stayed, anyway), an old Romanian woman named Cleopatra, if you can believe that. She was nice. She's into fitness. She practices yoga and tai chi. I went back with Sandi to her place, we had dinner and watched Doctor Who.

Troll 2

Troll 2
seen @ Videology, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
6.6.14

I'm not a vegetarian. Never have been, don't think I ever could be. I'm familiar with the basic arguments against eating meat. I've read Fast Food Nation; I'm aware of the inhumane tactics used by this country in making burgers, although I haven't eaten a McDonald's hamburger in many, many years. Whenever possible (read: affordable), I try to buy organic or free-range or cruelty-free or whatever the alternatives to standard-issue meat are these days (which includes luncheon meats as well), but those times are rare.

If I absolutely had to, I imagine I could live on nuts and berries, fruits and vegetables alone, but to be honest, I don't want to. Period. I'm not interested in the ethical implications of eating meat because humans have been eating meat since the dawn of time. I try to balance it out with other kinds of food as often as I can (though I don't always succeed) and I exercise by taking long walks, but that's the extent of it for me. If that still makes me a bad person, so be it.

I'm sure I must know more people who are vegetarians, but the only one I can think of at the moment is my pal Eric - Bibi's husband, not the one from high school. Bibi and Eric were in town this past Saturday and they were telling me about their European vacation last month. Eric said that he had to forego his vegetarianism temporarily because they were staying with relatives and he didn't want to force them to make special compensations just for him. He dealt with it fine. He's not the type to push his meat-is-murder beliefs on other people (though I doubt he's quite that militant about it).

Which brings us to Troll 2. Despite what you've no doubt heard, I wouldn't call this the Worst Movie of All Time. (Like I said on Twitter, I'd happily concede that title to Manos: The Hands of Fate.) It's lousy, make no mistake about it, but the production values are a wee bit above average; the location shooting was a nice touch; the gore quotient isn't bad for a low-budget horror movie; and yeah, there were a couple of moments here and there where I genuinely flinched. And I'm convinced that underneath the bad acting and shoddy dialogue there's a germ of a seed of a halfway decent idea. I can't say that about The Room.

As part of some kind of family-exchange program (?), a typical all-American family spends a summer in the small rural town of Nilbog (yes... that's the actual name), where the natives are vegetarians, but the food they eat isn't exactly the kind you'd find at your local Whole Foods. The young son is haunted by the ghost of his late grandfather, who knows the truth about the townspeople - they're actually man-eating goblins straight out of ancient legend (not trolls... goblins) - and it's up to the boy to keep his family from eating of the Nilbog food, which stirs a biological change that turns humans into a bizarre kind of plant life suitable for eating by the goblins. It's one part Soylent Green, one part Grimm Fairy Tales, one part Dungeons & Dragons.

Troll 2 (my understanding is that the first Troll movie has absolutely nothing to do with this one) should've been played for satire. In the hands of, say, Mike Judge, this could've been an intentionally funny spoof that would've skewered both vegetarian health nuts and redneck meat-eaters alike, and also provide a critique on the American food industry in general. Apparently, though, Italian director/co-writer Claudio Fragasso (a.k.a. Drake Floyd), along with his wife and co-writer Rossella Drudi, wrote the screenplay in bad English, which they insisted was to be read by the actors verbatim. Sounds like they - like Tommy Wiseau, like Harold P. Warren, like Ed Wood - thought they were geniuses who couldn't be told anything.

Cracked recently did a piece on how to distinguish "good-bad movies" from legitimately bad ones, and I'd say Troll 2 fits most of the criteria. There was lots of unintended humor, the awfulness definitely escalates, and one can certainly learn from Fragasso & Drudi's mistakes on how to write a screenplay. That said, however...

...I really wish I saw this with a bigger crowd. I saw Troll 2 at a place called Videology, in Williamsburg. For years, it was a simple video store, but recently, they made a drastic overhaul and now they're a bar and restaurant that screens movies and TV shows - in addition to still renting videos! This was my first time in the place. I remember how it used to look because I'd often pass by it when I worked in Williamsburg. It's completely different now. The bar is in the front, with seating space; in the middle is a booth where one can rent and return videos, along with bathrooms and the kitchen; and in the back is a larger dining room area where the movies are shown. DVDs line one wall off to the side, and a door and curtain separates the room from the bar area. It's very nice.

By the time the movie started, I was the only one in the room. I got there about a half hour early because this was a free show, and I figured a movie with as big a cult following as it has would mean a large crowd. Not so. A couple of guys came in about five or ten minutes into the movie, and they chattered to themselves here and there, about the movie and other things, as I munched my very salty popcorn. This was one time, though, where I didn't object to people talking. I knew that Troll 2 was the kind of movie you don't watch the same way you watch, say, a Scorsese movie, and I was fully prepared for some audio commentary from the crowd. I kinda wished they were more vocal in their heckling!

Lovely Lily

Lovely Lily
seen @ Elmhurst Hospital, Elmhurst, Queens NY
2.9.14

Try to imagine it. Travelling to a foreign country in pursuit of your dreams, your arrival eagerly anticipated by millions. Being on the verge of instant stardom, the media following your every step and recording your every word as if you were royalty. Performing on live television back when it was still new, practically deafened by the roar of the teenage audience. Conquering the world... by the age of 22.

Try to imagine what it was like to be the Beatles.

Why do the Beatles still matter, fifty years after their American debut in this, the age of American Idol and auto-tune and mp3s? An age in which rock and roll has, if not been passed by, then marginalized at the very least? The answer is so simple, a child can grasp it: because we are all, all of us, living in the world they made. It goes way beyond the music, although the music was tremendous. In terms of fashion, world culture, politics, spirituality, and who knows what else, those four dudes from Liverpool reshaped the world. 

You already know this, though, because you've heard "Love Me Do" or "She Loves You"; you've seen them on TV or in the movies; you've read about them in magazines. To some degree, whether large or small, you've felt their impact.

My generation had Michael Jackson, and he came pretty close to matching the Beatles in popularity. Some would even say he surpassed them. I recall when he and his brothers, the Jacksons, toured to promote their album Victory, back in the early 80s, and seeing people all over the world lose their minds over seeing them (only a slight exaggeration, I assure you), I remember thinking, even then, that this must have been what Beatlemania was like.

There have been a number of movies that attempted to recreate either the Beatles' pre-fame days in Liverpool, the American zeitgeist during the Beatle years, or some combination thereof. Lovely Lily is an independent short film that takes its own stab at it. In this case, the 1964 arrival of the Fab Four is the backdrop for a dramedy set deep in the heart of Queens.

I met the writer/producer/director/star, Celeste Balducci, at the Queens World Film Festival (QWFF) two years ago. Actually, that's not entirely accurate; I first saw her at the fest, but I didn't really meet her until later that summer at a party held by QWFF founders Don & Katha Cato. I didn't know she was a filmmaker at first; as I recall, we talked about a bunch of other stuff besides movies. I've seen her at QWFF and QWFF-related events since then. She's a vivacious and very charming lady. 

I've thought about it, and I can't recall ever becoming friends with someone in real life and then seeing them in a movie that they made. It's a little odd; at first you know someone in a given context, and then, through the movies, that context changes - and it's not even like I know a great deal about Celeste to begin with. It's analogous to whenever I see my sister sing in her band. She almost becomes a different person on stage, someone a little bit bigger than life, but she's still my sister, if that makes sense.

Lily began as a feature film that came out in 2009 before Celeste chose to shorten it to a half hour instead. She has spent more than a decade working on it, filming in and around Jackson Heights, and like all indie filmmakers, coerced a wide variety of friends and acquaintances to take part in it. Sunday night's screening was the first in its newer, shortened form. Why did she choose a hospital to show it in? Because they had the space - an auditorium of a size comparable to that of a room in an art house theater, and I'd say it was at least half full, maybe two-thirds full.

The Elmhurst Hospital auditorium where Lily screened.

Celeste plays Lily, a nightclub singer at a local joint that has since closed down after filming, and the time is February, 1964, right when the Beatles were about to arrive in America and play The Ed Sullivan Show. The film follows Lily and her circle of friends, relatives and acquaintances who are either abuzz with excitement or completely indifferent over the English "rock and roll" band. There's also some drama involving a love-struck fan of Lily's, a older former admirer, and his latest young paramour.

Celeste said afterwards that she was going to continue to work on things in the film like sound, so it's reasonable to believe that this newer, shorter version of Lily is still not complete. It does feel kind of raw. She also said she shot it in different formats deliberately, as a means to evoke different time periods, and indeed, there are flashback scenes involving some of the characters. I got the impression she was going for a somewhat artistic vibe, since she uses things like jump cuts, but I think a more straightforward approach might have been better. There were many quick cuts that confused me as to who certain minor characters were. There are few sustained moments where we get to sit back and simply be with the characters.

An impressive turnout, despite the snow.

The characters are lively and fun to watch, but in some ways, except for Lily, they feel like sketches. I would've liked to have seen them more clearly defined. Celeste has a good ear for dialogue; it should be applied more. That said, however, the acting is good, as is the original score. One gets the impression from watching Celeste portray her that Lily is very close to her heart and, perhaps, her own experiences. Lily has a history and a worldview that helps define her, and Celeste isn't afraid to have her do things like have an affair with a younger man, which is treated as no big deal. And as difficult as it must have been to recreate 1964 through things like wardrobe and cars and other props, she does just enough to pull it off.

Her plan is to eventually take it on the festival circuit. I hope, once she perfects Lily, she does well with it. Lily isn't available online, but the link at the top will take you to the film's website.

Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle
seen @ Ample Hills, Brooklyn NY
2.6.13

One could hardly blame me for thinking, as a child, that all Japanese animation was about giant robots, wicked-cool looking tech stuff, and prepubescent-looking girls. As I've written about before, TV shows like Battle of the Planets and films like Akira cemented those impressions in my mind for a long time. 

I remember this one kid from high school who would draw nothing but giant robots and Pacific Rim-style mecha armor. Later, I had a close friend named Becky who got me into other anime shows. She drew some anime-style art as well. One time I was at her place and we pigged out on this one anime show she had on VHS for hours, and for the life of me, I can't remember what it was now. I wish I could.

I would imagine that I first heard about the films of Hayao Miyazaki sometime in the late 90s, when Princess Mononoke came stateside. I recall what a big deal that was at the time, and rightly so. Here was a filmmaker who made animated films that were ostensibly for a younger audience, yet did not use the same old tired tropes as mainstream American animated films in general, and Disney in specific. 

It's undoubtedly the result of coming from an alternate culture and a different, often times more sophisticated, storytelling sensibility: Miyazaki's films stretch the imagination to different planes and often have that childlike sense of wonder that is prized by many modern storytellers, yet doesn't condescend to the viewer, either. It's the same kind of balance that Pixar has mastered.

And now they tell us that Miyazaki has had enough. He's getting out of the game. (Maybe.) If this is so, well, all I can say is that he's earned the right. The whole world loves and appreciates his films, to a degree surpassed, perhaps, by only Walt Disney himself, and if he feels like he's no longer physically capable of maintaining his career pace, then so be it. He's left behind a remarkable body of work that will be appreciated for generations.

I myself have only seen bits of that body of work, however. I've seen Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Kiki's Delivery Service (might have seen Castle in the Sky; don't recall), so when I saw that Howl's Moving Castle was playing in Brooklyn yesterday, I went to see it.

This was one of the more unusual screenings I've been to lately. Ample Hills is a popular ice cream parlor in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Prospect Heights, near Grand Army Plaza. The name comes from a line written by author and Brooklyn native Walt Whitman describing his home borough. I discovered the place a few years ago, completely by accident. 

I was out biking in Brooklyn one Saturday, just following the bike lanes wherever they went, and at one point I went up an incline, and by the time it leveled off, I was pretty tired, so I stopped for a bit and looked around. Didn't recognize the neighborhood, but I still had a vague sense of where I was in relation to some of the cross-streets, so I kept going. I went past Atlantic Avenue and over the Long Island Railroad tracks and into a nice-looking part of town I'd never seen before, and among the shops I saw there was Ample Hills. 

They've got a sweet combination of unusual flavors, such as their ever-popular "salted crack caramel," made from salted butter caramel ice cream with "crack" cookies (not what you think); or "the munchies," made with pretzels, potato chips, Ritz crackers and mini M&Ms! There's even a film connection: the owner used to write screenplays. I don't make it into Prospect Heights all that often, but when I do, I often stop in for a cone, especially in the warm months when the joint is really jumping.

In the winter time, AH shows all-ages movies, and Howl was the latest. Unfortunately, I got there after the movie started, but not by much. They put up a makeshift canvas in front of their window and projected the movie onto it. Most of the seating faced the screen. The movie didn't attract many viewers; besides me, there was a dude with his two children, perched on stools in front of the main counter, and throughout the night, there were maybe three or four other people (counting their kids) who showed any interest in the movie. I couldn't tell you if that was par for the course.

AH usually gets their online fans to make up a flavor to go with the movie showing. in this case, the new flavor was called Calcifer's Hot Cocoa Coals, named after a character in Howl who's a fire demon - literally, a sentient ball of flame. The flavor was made of toasted marshmallow ice cream with chocolate cinnamon swirl and pocky, a Japanese snack. I forgot they had this flavor, else I would've sampled it; instead, I bought something called "bananamon," which is organic bananas, Saigon cinnamon and vanilla wafers. It was good.

While the audio in AH was fine, I couldn't tell you much about the movie itself because I soon discovered the drawback to holding a movie screening in a place like AH: not everyone who comes in there comes for the movie. When I arrived, there were few people in the shop, but about a third of the way into the movie, a bunch of young women arrived, and two of them sat in the booth behind me (after ordering cones for themselves) and chatted up a storm, oblivious to the movie. There wasn't exactly anything I could do about it; I mean, this isn't the same as people chatting during a movie in an actual theater, so I tilted my head a little closer to the speakers and did my best to shut them out. They left after awhile, but others took their place. It wasn't the most ideal way to watch a movie.

The titular Howl lives in a world of magic and rides around in a mechanical "castle" with legs, that has dimensional doorways to other parts of the world. An old lady named Sophie seeks him out for help because a witch put a spell on her that made her prematurely old (I think), but she has to help Howl find his heart, and there's a war going on, and that's about as much as I can tell you of the plot without looking at IMDB. It's certainly recognizable as a Miyazaki film, with lots of bizarre looking characters, fantastical gadgets and creatures, and beautiful landscapes. I think I'm gonna have to see this one again, though, if I wanna get a better sense of the story.

QWFF @ the Queens Museum

In my coverage of the Queens World Film Festival, I've probably mentioned that they also do smaller, year-round events around Queens to screen the cream-of-the-crop films that have played QWFF in the past. This winter, they've been screening at the renovated and revitalized Queens Museum as part of their grand re-opening celebration, and this past Sunday, I headed over there partially to see their show, but also to see the Museum in its newfangled glory.

The Museum (formerly known as the Queens Museum of Art) is located inside Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, in the area that was originally home to the 1964 World's Fair, nestled right next to the Unisphere, the universally-recognized symbol of Queens itself. The Museum has artwork from local artists as well as international ones, and indeed, there's a heavy emphasis on internationalism throughout the place, a reflection of Queens' own multicultural makeup. The centerpiece, however - the exhibit that all visitors to New York must see for themselves at some point - is the Panorama of the City of New York, a huge architectural model of the five boroughs of New York, including buildings, airports, parks, landmarks, EVERYTHING - originally built for the World's Fair. It's a one-of-a-kind marvel.

QWFF had two sessions at the Museum on Sunday, one for international movies and one for movies made by local filmmakers. I stayed for only the former, so that I could check out the Museum afterwards. Some of the films I had seen before, like last year's Pollicino (which I liked a lot), and also the freaky At the Formal and the shot-on-an-iPhone The Tits On an Eighteen-Year-Old, but the rest were new to me:

The Queens Museum

- The three animated films, Old Angel, Swing and Drat, were all uniformly wonderful; thematically different, yet each one is visually distinctive and they express themselves eloquently with the barest minimum of words. You can see the first two at the provided links. I can't find Drat online anywhere, but here's a video interview with the director.

- 15 Summers Later and Of Guilt and Grief are dramatic narratives dealing with complicated relationships in which the past imposes itself upon the present. The former does it with a single scene and a stationary camera, the latter does it with multiple non-linear scenes. I liked the former better. Guilt isn't online, but here's a review of it.

- My Green Pencil is a lovely vignette in black and white with dashes of color (think Pleasantville).

- Curvas is a funny horror short about the dangers of picking up hitchhiking ghosts.

This year's QWFF will be March 4-9. Among the films showing there will be the Oscar-nominated doc The Act of Killing. Here's the complete playlist.

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Related:
QWFF article in Moviemaker
Drivers Wanted

Drivers Wanted

Drivers Wanted
seen @ 55 Stan, Long Island City, NY
9.7.13

The stereotype of the out-of-control New York taxi driver has been exacerbated in recent weeks as a result of a bizarre story that hit the front pages: a cabbie hit a cyclist in midtown Manhattan and dragged him partway down a block before hitting a pedestrian, severing her leg. The cabbie blamed the cyclist for the crash, but that didn't prevent him from getting a 30-day suspension. For a guy with a history of reckless driving, who admitted that he accelerated his vehicle in an attempt to get past the cyclist, 30 days doesn't seem long enough - and this was on the heels of two other taxi crashes throughout the city this summer alone.

The city has plans to update the basic taxi design, but what's needed more than improved taxis are responsible drivers, and the documentary Drivers Wanted seeks to redress the stereotype and show cabbies as regular guys like everyone else. The focus is on a single taxi garage in Queens called 55 Stan, in Long Island City, which was the site of last Saturday night's screening of the film, presented by the indie film series Filmwax, in association with the Queens World Film Festival.

55 Stan

A pre-show demonstration of some basic fitness techniques designed to keep cabbies healthy served to illustrate a greater fact: driving a taxi can be a physically demanding job. This Gotham Gazette article from last year tells the story:

Taxi drivers... are highly susceptible to a number of health problems because of their sedentary lives spent sitting behind the wheel, studies have found. Drivers are often forced to eat on the go, making fast food their easiest option. Few of them get any exercise whatsoever, and often suffer from back, hip and leg pain from sitting in a car all day. This lack of exercise combined with a bad diet has led to high rates of diabetes and high blood pressure among cabbies, according to health experts. Many of them even have kidney problems because they frequently can’t find a place to park when they need to use a bathroom. A 2001 survey by the New York Taxi Worker’s Alliance found that more than 20 percent of drivers had cardiovascular disease or cancer. And it is often difficult for taxi drivers to get the health care they need. Another study conducted by the city council in 2009 found that 52 percent of the city’s cabbies are uninsured, twice the rate of the average American.

55 Stan is run by its octogenarian owner, Stanley Wissak. The film follows him as he dispatches drivers, recruits potential drivers from a nearby community college as they're about to take the required test, and be a lovable curmudgeon in general. According to the website, the business is the top-ranked taxi fleet in New York, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and Wissak himself was the subject of a 2012 New York Times article. In the movie we also see a rookie cabbie as he learns the ropes of the trade, as well as the oldest cabbie at 55 Stan, and indeed, in all of New York.

The taxi business in New York attracts a multicultural array of people, and indeed, Drivers also provides a look at the immigrant experience. The rookie driver is Chinese, and though he likes the simple act of driving, he also talks about some of his job-related fears as a foreigner to American shores.

Stanley Wissak

Drivers is a pleasant enough movie, but I would've liked to have seen more about how 55 Stan maintains its high standards. Again, according to the website, the business offers things like a free in-house lawyer and accountant, as well as classes on how to make money as a cabbie. This is the sort of thing that I would've like to have seen, yet the movie only barely scratches the surface of such details. It felt more like a character study than a profile of a successful business, and while that's not inherently bad, I do feel like there was more that could've been shown. Director Joshua Z. Weinstein, who was in attendance at the screening along with his producer Jean Tsien, Wissak, and some of the cabbies, said it took him over a year to edit the film, and I wonder if this information was left on the cutting room floor.

I've written about LIC before. Like its neighbor to the north, Astoria, this is a community that's rapidly gentrifying, yet 55 Stan doesn't seem as out of place as you might think. LIC is still very much in transition, and as a result, it hasn't shaken off its industrial feel yet, despite the towering office buildings and high-rises that dwarf the areas near the 7 train and the river. (I hate the look of those.) In addition to the expected coffee shops and restaurants, there are not one, but two comedy clubs, and earlier this summer a terrific outdoor flea market sprung up that operates on the weekends.

"Spider," the senior cabbie at 55 Stan

As I said, QWFF was there, represented by festival head honchos Don and Katha Cato. QWFF, on their own, puts on a series of supplemental screenings throughout the rest of the year. They even had one out in the Rockaways last month which, I'm sure, was a nice shot in the arm to the area still recovering from Hurricane Sandy.

I saw my filmmaker friend Jules at Saturday's screening; you'll remember her as the young lady I met at this year's QWFF. I saw the movie with her and a delightful woman and friend-of-QWFF named Celeste, whom I met last year at Don and Katha's party. It was through Celeste that I met and had a brief chat with Filmwax's Adam Schartoff, the evening's host. QWFF-related events always feel very sociable, which is nice.

There's a website for Drivers Wanted where you can buy the DVD, and the site also has links to watch it on iTunes and Amazon.

Across 110th Street

Across 110th Street
seen @ Mid-Manhattan Library, New York, NY
7.3.13

I don't get up to Harlem much. Manhattan is a huge island, with much to see, but eight years of high school and college in or near the midtown area kind of conditioned me to favor the lower half of Manhattan. So it's not just Harlem I don't visit much; I don't see Washington Heights or Inwood a whole lot either. (For those of you who've never been to NYC, these are neighborhoods at the far northern end of Manhattan.)

I've certainly spent time in Harlem, of course. I regret to say that I have yet to see a show at the World Famous Apollo Theater, though I hope to one day. There's a small but pleasant art museum on 125th Street worth seeing. There was a very good black book shop called Hue-Man Bookstore that I always visited whenever I went up to Harlem, but they recently went web-exclusive. Outside of a few cafes here and there, that's about the limit of my direct experience with the neighborhood. I had a friend who lived there for a long time, but I haven't seen him in years. Don't know if he still lives there.

Lately I've been reading about how the city wants to improve bus service along the 125th street corridor. This is an important issue because one of the buses that runs along this street provides a major link to LaGuardia Airport, across the river in Queens. LaGuardia is ill-served by public transit to begin with, and the buses on this stretch run much slower than they should, so hopefully some progress will be made here soon.

Harlem, of course, has a long and proud history of being a mecca of black culture, both here in New York and in America at large. Literature, sports, art, music; you name it, there was probably a movement of some kind for it in Harlem, especially during the renaissance period of the 1920s. In the movies, the neighborhood has been presented in many of the great (and not-so-great) blaxploitation films, like Shaft and Black Caesar, but there are also classics like The Pawnbroker, Lady Sings the Blues, and Malcolm X, as well as more recent material like American Gangster, The Great Debaters and the documentary A Great Day in Harlem. It's always been a special place for many generations of New Yorkers.

I'm not sure whether I'd consider Across 110th Street a blaxploitation film. In some ways it is, but in others it isn't. For one thing, it has a white star, Anthony Quinn. One would think that'd be enough for an immediate disqualification. However, it's set in Harlem and delves deeply into the lives of its mostly black supporting cast - and to be honest, it feels more like an ensemble movie than a star vehicle for Quinn, who also executive produced.

Quinn is a top cop who, along with Yaphet Kotto, is investigating a Mafia robbery in Harlem, in which cops were killed. The robbers are given plenty of story time, and we get to see them as people, the good and the bad in all of them. Violence? Oh, boy, does this film have it. This came out the year after The French Connection, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was an influence. Also, there's no overly-long, gratuitous sex scene, though there is some fleeting nudity and near-nudity.

I first saw this movie when it was lent to me by my old video store buddy Steve. He's not normally big on blaxploitation, yet he seemed to really dig this one. Perhaps it was the violence, perhaps it was the moral ambiguity of the characters. I could see either one appealing to him.

Once again, I saw this at the Mid-Manhattan Library. I sat further back in the room this time and as a result, the people coming and going outside the window was less of a distraction. However, there was this one really old guy who kept laughing at inappropriate moments during the film. Can't imagine what he got out of the experience. Also, the librarian who hosted the event kinda gave away a lot of the story in her introduction. No big deal, though.