VAGUE SPACE

Paradise Lost 3

HBO aired last week the final part of the Paradise Lost documentary trilogy covering the West Memphis 3 and the murders of Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Steve Branch, a trio of 8-year-olds, back in 1993.  The whole sordid affair is a true tragedy on multiple levels -- the unbelievable death of these young boys, the sham of a trial of three teens for "Satan worshipping" that led to their conviction for the boys' murders, and then the gross incompetence and/or malice of a criminal justice system that spent the past 15 years denying the wrongly accused any chance at a re-trial despite the complete lack of evidence and a public outcry over the results after the first Paradise Lost documentary appeared in 1996.  But finally, in August of 2011, after a series of fortuitous twists including new evidence, strident supporters, celebrity involvement -- particularly of Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks -- and most importantly, this movie shows, the election of the original trial judge to the Arkansas State Senate, allowing his position to be replaced by a new judge who didn't feel it as a personal affront to ever grant an appeal to the West Memphis 3, the wrongly accused Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Misskelley, Jr., were finally, belatedly, after 17 years in a prison cell for a crime they almost definitely didn't commit, set free.

Inside Job

Last week, I highly recommended watching the 2010 Academy Award winning Best Foreign Language Feature In a Better World, which I would still highly recommend, but I implore all my readers to wait on that film and run don't walk to your nearest video store or streaming venue and watch the 2010 Oscar winning Best Documentary Inside Job.  I don't care if you don't care about documentaries or financial industries or the root cause of this horrible world recession we plunged into in 2008 and still haven't recovered from, but if you give a shit about anything, you will watch Charles Ferguson's amazing documentary.  Because you need to learn as I did just how freaking fucked we all are.  I've read a bunch of books and seen a bunch of movies about the collapse of the financial industry that created the great and never-ending recession but none of them were as clear about who was responsible, about which individual people actually caused this global financial meltdown.  And which people remain not only unaccountable for their actions but also remain 100% in power in running our economy at this very moment.  This is not a political movie.  I would have loved it if all the blame were laid at the feet of the idiotic presidency of George W. Bush, but it's not.  These problems started under Reagan, were accelerated under Clinton, and only hit the highest heights of fraud and criminality under Bush the dumber.  But the people behind the scenes, the non-politicians wielding all the power behind the presidents and congressmen were not only the same under Clinton and Bush, but they remain in power today under President Obama, Mr. Hope and "Change".  Tim Geithner.  Hank Paulsen.  Larry Summers.  Laura Tyson.  Ben Bernanke.  They all hold major roles in the Obama administration in economic policy making roles.  And they were all responsible for the collapse of our economy.  Seriously.  Not that Alan Greenspan wasn't a huge, huge major cause of the problem -- he's just since retired.  And a whole boatload of key Bush advisors are held accountable in the film, some of them on camera (which is awesome), but again, this film is not political.  The people who created this problem were regulated by the same people who created the problem (watch the film, you'll see -- Hank Paulsen, head of the Treasury during the end of the Bush presidency was the CEO of Goldman Sachs during the early part of the decade when all these credit derivatives shit began).  And they are still in power.  It's stunning.  It's appalling.  It will make you angry and make you want to march on Wall Street today.  Which you should.  But most of all it will make you informed.  And an informed public is our absolute last final hope of saving our system.  And our future.  Because the people in charge are the same greedy fucks that fucked it all up in the first place.  And they are in the process of just doing it again. This must stop now.  Please watch this film.

"The documentary — which blasts members of both political parties, including President Barack Obama — is a succinct, breathtaking, hope-draining examination of America's corrupt financial façade."  Tom Long, Detroit News

"Despite the potentially brain-numbing complications of his subject, I had no trouble following the sickening spiral of deceit and arrant aggrandizement that led to trillions of dollars of losses and, to date, not a single prison sentence."  Peter Rainer, CS Monitor

"Ferguson concludes that irresponsible acts from the rich and elite have gone unpunished, and with a lack of financial reform post-2008 the bust is destined to happen again. This is a compelling documentary that will have you leaving the cinema absolutely seething." -Simon Reynolds, Digital Spy

• Download A Silver Mt. Zion - "Movie (Never Made) - live".mp3

Let's kill first the banker.
With his professional demeanor.
Let's televise and broadcast the raping of kings.
Let our crowds be fed on tear gas and plate glass.

Because the people united is a wonderful thing

I know that you're dying.
And I know I'm unwell.
And together we sashay
Through variations of hell.

And as you walk through the valleys of fear.
The lure of my bed is ever near.

Don't be afraid.
For the parade will not pass our way.
It's nobler to never get paid,
Then to bank on shit and dismay.

Don't be afraid.

 

By the way, this song was released in 2000 -- way way way before its time.  Just goes to show that artists are oftentimes the most valuable and least respected members of our society.  And you can see A Silver Mt. Zion this Thursday in Manhattan where they hopefully will be playing this song in solidarity with the Wall Street protesters.  I have a ticket and hope to be there, but I'm traveling for business and I don't know if I'll be back in time.  Yes, I'm completely selling out to the man.  And I could not be more unhappy about it.

 

In a Better World

This year's very deserving Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film is a Danish movie by director Susanne Bier who has crafted a complicated and unrelenting film that raises uneasy questions about the nature of violence in our society and the ways humans can and cannot cope with tragedy.  It is easily one of the best movies I've seen this year and it's available on DVD and Blu-Ray now.  Simply put, it's a better film than pretty much anything getting made in the United States these days and I highly recommend.

Hot Coffee

HBO premiered a documentary the other night titled Hot Coffee, which describes in detail the "tort reform" actions that have transformed American court systems in the past 20 years, orchestrated by GOP heavyweights like Karl Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce, resulting -- shockingly -- in an extremely tilted playing field toward corporations that have taken away a basic right of American citizens -- the 7th Amendment in the Bill of Rights -- the right to a jury trial in civil cases.  The movie takes its name and starts its examination with the somewhat infamous case of a woman suing McDonald's for getting burned by hot coffee, a case that ended up getting featured on an episode of Seinfeld (which appears in the film) and helped start a movement by major corporations (particularly the tobacco industry) to create fake citizen front groups, funded by these corporations, placing ads across the country to help convince the public that greedy sue-happy people were bankrupting our health care system and driving up consumer prices by bringing about "frivolous" lawsuits like the McDonald's case.  And as a result, the GOP used that a central plank of their platform for the past 20 years, passing so-called "tort reform" that limited damages in the Newt Gingrich house in the mid-90s (that Bill Clinton vetoed) and then, of course, electing a president in 2000 whose own consigliere was the one who started the movement while working for those very tobacco firms back in the late '80s.  And whose own state was at the forefront of a very successful state-by-state effort to enact tort reform that limits the amount juries can award -- an arbitrary limit set by legislators, not by judges or juries who actually hear the case.  And of course, the result hasn't been a decrease in medical costs nor lesser consumer prices for a cup of coffee at McDonald's.  Like everything enacted by the GOP -- or to be, honest, almost anyone in government this century -- the only result has been more corporate profits.  Shocking.  And the best part is... the woman in the McDonald's case deserved the damages she received.  McDonald's had 700 cases in the previous 7 years of coffee burning customers that they quietly settled for minimal sums without changing the edict that the coffee they sell be held at 180 degrees -- a temperature that when touching human skin for a few seconds will immediately cause 2nd and 3rd degree burns.  In gruesome pictures that I wish I hadn't seen, the film shows images of the 79-year-old plaintiff's severely scarred and burned legs that required skin grafts and nearly killed her.  The jury awarded $2.9M as punitive damages due to McDonald's longstanding disregard for changing a policy that had ruined this woman's life.  They said that number was chosen after a long deliberation because it was 2 days of coffee sales.  And that's the "egregious" runaway lawsuit case that started tort reform in the United States.  Perfect.

Never Let Me Go

Directed by Mark Romanek
Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield

When I first heard about this movie (out last fall, now available on DVD), I was intrigued by the idea of it (I must have read something that spoiled the general sci-fi idea behind it) and I ordered the acclaimed novel by Kazuo Ishiguro (author of The Remains of the Day), hoping to read the novel before I saw the movie when it came out on DVD.  I've always had a thing for dystopian novels and movies, particularly ones set in England (loved Children of Men, both the novel and the movie, for instance) but alas, I never got around to reading the novel before I saw the film.  But the film is wonderful, absolutely brilliant, and highly recommended even for those that haven't read the novel.  It is really sad, with a somber depressive mood and setting throughout but it's incredibly well made, with an incredible cast, and with a thoughtful premise that is executed quite well, ringing with emotional resonance without trying to force it.  It's a slow film but it's not uninteresting yet if you're looking for action or any kind of sci-fi stylings this film is not for you (the underpinnings of the plot are never explained in the movie) but it's just really well done.

Win Win

Paul Giamatti stars in this limited release comedy / drama set here in NJ, which peaked at about 400 theaters a couple weeks ago but is now dropping.  It's won universal rave reviews (95% positive on RottenTomatoes.com), stars some decently big names (Giamatti and Amy Ryan), features a vaguely similar story as the hit drama The Blind Side, and yet has only made about $9 million.  I'm not sure what any of that means but if you're like me and have been complaining about the dearth of decent films at the multiplexes this spring (where business is down about 20% for the year and the top 5 movies this weekend were either comic book films, cartoons, or shittily reviewed romances about weddings), it's less that good films aren't being made and more that they just aren't playing at the 3D IMAX super-sized theaters that cater to teenagers.  Win Win is an excellent film, perfectly written, directed, and acted, and I just wish it would get the exposure it deserves.  Hell, it's been out 8 weeks and I'm just writing about it now.

Giamatti stars as Mike, a down-on-his-luck lawyer whose practice is threatening to go bankrupt in the wake of the economic meltdown.  His wife is played by Amy Ryan, and he has friends played by Bobby Cannavale and the always perfect Jeffrey Tambor.  He has two little girls and coaches a local high school wrestling team, which hasn't won a match all year.  In desperation, he decides to bend the law a bit and become the guardian for an aging client named Leo played by Burt Young (of Rocky fame), who is suffering from dementia and hasn't heard from his estranged daughter (the next of kin) in 20 years.  Giamatti pockets the $1500/month guardian pay from the state to help keep his family afloat, but instead of letting Leo live at home in his final years -- that's all he wants -- he uses Leo's wealth to pay for an assisted living condo for him, which is where the state was going to put him anyway if Giamatti hadn't agreed to be the guardian.  Of course, he's pocketing $1500/month for doing little, which is highly unethical and probably illegal.  No one's really getting hurt though until Leo's 16-year-old grandson arrives at his doorstep from Ohio, hoping to live with the grandfather he's never met because his mother is in a drug treatment facility and left her son with an abusive boyfriend.  Giamatti and his wife take in the kid despite their limited finances, because it's the only thing they can do.  And he realizes after the fact that the kid can wrestle.  Really, really well.

Ferris

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is permanently in my top 5 favorite movies of all time, I can't remember the last time I watched it all the way through, but it definitely remains an all-time fave, one I will never replace.  So I was intrigued when LegFu Johnson sent me a link about the movie, an article that explores the time line of the day, and in particular the Cubs game that Ferris attends (where he catches a foul ball).  Side note:  I still use "The Bears" as a response to any disinterested question of "Who's winning?" asked during a game (including during Sunday's Super Bowl, when the women who weren't watching queried about the score of the game).  Anyway, long story short about the article -- they found the actual game that the footage was taken from and based on the footage shown, it appears that Matthew Broderick and his co-stars were in the stands at Wrigley during the game to film those shots (although he clearly didn't catch a real foul ball).  Here's the link to the story of the research into "Ferris Bueller and the Great Wrigley Field Mystery". 

Baseball Prospectus

And I've reprinted much of it after the jump.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I'm not a comic book fan (or a fan of graphic novels, as the fancier ones are called) and I don't generally like movies made from comic books, even those made from critically acclaimed, award-winning graphic novels by Canadian cartoonist Bryan Lee O'Malley, from which the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was made.  But this movie is absolutely hilarious, non-stop fun, and so very well made that its origins are not important.  The cast is excellent.  The music is great.  The action sequences are kind of cool if you're into comic book-style violence.  But the witty dialogue and winning performances are the reasons to watch this movie, which I didn't quite catch until Netflix, but apparently it was in the movies, and not a whole lot of people saw it anyway.  Plus, crucially, it is very, very Canadian and as anyone who reads this blog knows, I love all of culture in Canada.

Dinner and a Movie

So I went to Bridgewater Commons on Friday to experience the new "Fork & Screen" movie theater, an experimental movie experience from AMC that includes a full bar and waiter service at your seats while you watch the movie.  They basically ripped out all of the seating in a traditional movie theater and replaced it with wider, more comfortable seats with leg room, a swivel arm to place your food on, and access to aisles for waiters to take your order before the movie and while you watch.  There is a $15 "experience charge" added to the cost of the movie ticket (generally $10) so at minimum you're spending $50 between two people to see a movie but the $15 goes toward the cost of whatever food and drink you order and the prices of the food and beer are basically the same as at any Applebee's-style restaurant.  Admittedly, if you spend two hours drinking 23-oz Newcastles at the full bar in the lobby before the movie you might end up spending way more than that.  But if you did that, you probably wouldn't even care about the movie you were seeing and can only remember vague sketches of a plot that basically consisted of a runaway train speeding through Pennsylvania with Denzel Washington and the rest of the cast doing very little to stop it.  Anyway, the waitress serving us (who was the same age as most movie theater employees and therefore needed someone else to actually serve us beer) did her best but the employees clearly were new to the whole experience and hadn't quite mastered the fine line between serving their patrons and annoying them in the middle of a movie... they seemed to err too much on the side of "leave them alone to pay attention to the intricate plot of a runaway train speeding across the countryside" instead of "I think they want more beer" for my taste but probably if I were watching a movie I cared about seeing I might have been more satisfied.  But the food was good enough (I had some sort of sandwich that I don't really remember), the beer was excellent, and drinking while actually watching a movie without having to stop somewhere else beforehand was certainly an entertaining experience.  I still kind of felt like popcorn though -- and they served it in monstrous wooden bowls -- but we couldn't get the waitress to come back in time to order it after the meal.  I think they'll get used to it, though, and I think that especially for a silly comedy that you can laugh at while getting a buzz on, this is a pretty cool idea for a movie theater.  I'm not entirely sure how they will make money with it after ripping out like 75% of the seats in the theater, but I guess when patrons spend $50 on the pre-movie alcohol at their bar they can make some of that ticket revenue up.  Not that I would know anything about that.  I'm just saying.  What movie did we watch again?

The Social Network

Starring:  Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake

Rating:  3-1/2 stars (out of 4)

The Social Network is an engaging tale of a dissolving friendship between the two founders of Facebook that is extremely well-written (by famed TV writer Aaron Sorkin) and well-acted and tells an interesting, if partly fictional story about how then-Harvard sophomores Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin created "TheFacebook" and turned it into the most successful Internet company of the latter half of this decade.  The story is filled with computer nerds and tales of hacking/coding/programming stuff that is a bit dense, along with a lot of financial dealings and law proceedings, none of which would seem to make an interesting movie, but somehow it works, under the strong direction of David Fincher, who uses lightning-fast speaking by Eisenberg as Zuckerberg and jumps through time and characters to keep the pace so fast that somehow it all is incredibly engaging.  The movie is really not as much about Facebook as it appears today, nor about our obsessions with social media, as it is about the birth of an idea and how the success of that idea can tear apart friendships and relationships and ultimately leave most of the characters unhappy despite the phenomenal success of the idea itself.  That story arc is what compels the viewer through the movie and is the main reason The Social Network has become an early Academy Award favorite.