San Francisco Film Festival: Nomad's Land

By Denise K. Castellucci
Going through the San Francisco International Film Festival catalog is a daunting task when you have to choose only two films. Nomad's Land or Sur les Trace de Nicolas Bouvier (In the Footsteps of Nicolas Bouvier) stood out as one of the films that stood out to me with its evocative quote from author Nicolas Bouvier, "One thinks that one is going to make a journey, yet soon it is the journey that makes or unmakes you."

This beautiful documentary is in first person as Swiss filmmaker Gaël Métroz goes alone without a camera crew to capture the danger and beauty of landscapes and people on his journey. His goal is to trace the footsteps of the author of "The Way of the World" by Nicolas Bouvier. Bouvier was another Swiss man who traveled in a Fiat Topolino from Geneva, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, and over to Japan in the Fifties.

As Métroz traces Bouvier's trip to Iranian and Pakistan cities it is clear that much of the charm and romance recounted in Bovier's book have morphed into a violent locales unwelcoming to Métroz. Behind a gauzy curtain up in his hotel room Gaël hears endless gunshots and waits for the next jeep out.

By taking the opportunity to follow the Nomads out, Métroz veers off the path of Bouvier letting the trip take him rather than taking a trip. He takes many leaps of faith in the generosity and hospitality of the regions many tribes of nomads.

The first person point of view is extremely powerful and has the effect of immersing you in the highs and lows of his journey. You feel the exhaustion, elation, sense of awe of the enormous landscapes, and the heart-stopping remoteness.

I felt sadness at times when he would capture places like an Iranian marketplace that retains the exotic beauty, but where women are conspicuously absent. A young European treads lightly through these cities, how could I, an American Woman, ever hope to follow his footsteps? So, I am grateful that he makes this trip and captures the beauty as well as the precarious nature of the modern Middle East, butdespair that much of the planet's exquisiteness remain elusive to me because I am a woman. As a mother of a son, I hope that my son has the opportunity when he is older to embark on such a journey even though worry would be my companion.

This film works on so many levels. Technically the photography captured the colors and the features of the locals and its people with incredible sharpness and intimacy. It is possible to see and hear, but you almost could feel, taste, and smell through his lens. Competing with the incredible visuals was the poetry of Métroz's narration and Bouvier's words. I wished that I could understand French, so my eyes would not have to choose whether to watch the action on screen or read the subtitles.

Nomad's Land is also a meditation on the nature and philosophy of travel. It retains the nostalgic notion of travel where the journey tells you when it will end, instead of having an itinerary of what you will see determined by what little time we get off from work. Instead of rushing through a destination so one can say they climbed the Eiffel Tower or walked the Great Wall of China, travel can be a slow, patient surrender to the part of the world unfamiliar to you. In a time where we have Google Earth and can see almost every inch of the planet, there are opportunities to be kindred to explorers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but without the Western ethnocentric point of view of the quaintness of natives. One can explore untouched areas of the world and view its inhabitants as wise teachers, protectors, and spirit guides on your journey. It is a journey that respects the rhythms and traditions of others who follow the rhythms of the earth.

Métroz embraced and was embraced back by a part of the world where they are supposed to hate freedom. What you learn from Métroz's lens is that these people are happiest when they are free to roam away from the cities and into open landscapes and crevices of hills. The urbanized and modern parts of that world drive some to smoke hash, and feel the great anxieties in cities that imprison. It is violent and breeds extremism. It is when you are with the nomads and visit the tribes that the extremism softens, the people blossom into generous people at peace enough not only allow a westerner in their midst, but a westerner with a camera.

Métroz says, "These temptations not to return too often plagued me, convincing me to make a film which, as the writings of Nicolas Bouvier, especially recalls that "travel is not an innocent activity… it is an experience of which one never heals." When one comes back, one is never the same."

As Métroz allowed his journey to change him, the film has the ability to change you. According to this film's website, this film will be pressed to DVD. I am hoping to add it to our collection of films and recommend that you do too. The film is also a great inspiration to read "The Way of the World" by Nicolas Bouvier.

Unlocking The Heart of Adoption

It has been a wonderful experience being friends with Sheila Ganz, who is a birth mother and filmmaker extraordinaire. I had the pleasure of working on the website of her first film, Unlocking the Heart of Adoption, for about 7-8 years. Unlocking the Heart of Adoption is essential viewing for anyone who is adopted, adopting, planning to adopt, or has relinquished or plans to relinquish a child to adoption. This film unflinchingly deals with experiences in adoption that do exist, but are not found in most adoption films.

You must go to her website and for as little as $39.95 buy the DVD for yourself or for friends you know that are touched or want to be touched by adoption.

Maven's Movies: An Adoption Story

In 1966, Cynthia Anne Henke was born and relinquished for adoption. Months later she was adopted -- her named changed to Denise Kristina. Her original birth certificate was sealed forever.
In 1994, Denise reunited with both sides of her birthfamily and started the award-winning website, Voices of Adoption (1994-2001) which was recognized as the premier adoption website on the Internet. In 1998, Denise was named "The Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web" and was a Webby Award Judge.
She also worked to open original birth certificates for adult adoptees through Bastard Nation. Her adoptive parents became lifetime members of Bastard Nation and supported her right to her own information that was sealed by the government. In the film, you see her parents modeling Bastard Nation t-shirts.
Denise can trace her birth roots to the 1200s yet she cannot get her original birth certificate.
In March 1997, Denise sat down with her parents to talk about their thoughts on adoption and her finding her birthparents.


From Denise:
This Mother's Day prompted me to do something with film I created ten years ago. Five years ago, my mother passed away after years of struggling with emphysema and osteoporosis. I ache for her especially when I need someone to talk with about motherhood. She comes to me in my dreams sometime and I choke with tears realizing that it is only a dream. It makes me sad that she died before my son came into the world, and that my son at three still doesn't register her existence yet. I am hoping this will help him visualize who she was. She would have adored my son.
I miss her deeply and even though we are not connected by birth there is no question that she is my mother -- mommy. She understood this and knew that not even my birth mother could replace her in my heart. I love her.

Movie Maven: Superheroes, Smokers, and Shameless Hype

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Of all the superhero films, I have enjoyed the Spider-man series the most. That is even taking into account the Superman 1 and 2 in the 1970s-80s. Spider-man 1 did a fine

job marrying great special effects with great stories and sympathetic characters. One set up the Spidey origin story, his uncle's death that gives him purpose, and the Green Goblin

who would ultimately get between him and his best friend. Spider-Man 2 bettered the first by having a great villain of Doc Oct, Spidey's struggle with his dreams and his responsibilities, and a simply great fight and rescue scene.

When it came to Spider-Man 3, I had read an article in Entertainment Weekly how this film had been rushed and between casting and writing the script filming it was getting a bit tight.

We went to Spider-man 3 having read much of the reviews that were very, very mixed. The reviews said that this installment was an obvious attempt to cash in on the francise and was just seemed thrown together. We watched the film and afterwards saw what the reviews meant, but found that it wasn't as bad as some of the reviewers made it to be.

It was a very long movie that could have been tightened and edited down more. It really didn't help that the theater we went to had played endless commercials and coming attractions. It was an 11:15AM showing, but we didn't get out 2:00PM.

My hubby, who is a big fan of comic books was very wary of using Venom as one of the villains because it wasn't one of the better ones in the Spiderman universe. If you are going to have a multiple villain fight with Spiderman that should include a little origin for each villain, it is hard to fit a subplot about Spidey's struggle with fame, relationship issues with his girlfriend and best friend, and dealing with the memory of his dead uncle and his need for revenge. It was just too much to try to fit well into a film. I didn't get the dance scene either. The ending was a bit sloppy as well. On the other hand, the effects are great and there are some really good fight scenes. What saves the film and what some reviewers missed is that I still cared about the characters. The core cast are people you care about and the director Sam Raimi is a talented director.



Spider-man 3 will make a lot of money even though it is the weakest installment, and that is okay. That is a testament -- a reward for how good the other two movies were.

All I ask is that if they do Spider-man 4, that they slow down and give us something of the caliber of Spider-man 2. Please.

Nicotine Poisoning

We have also renewed our Netflicks and have checked out various films. There are three movies with cigarettes in their title, only one was good. 200 Cigarettes is set in 1981 in New York City on New Years Eve. A bunch of angst-ridden twenty-somethings are looking for parties to go to or being angst-ridden hoping people will come to their parties. I guess 200 Cigarettes are smoked during the film, but we didn't get that far in before we ejected the disc. There were no characters that we cared about. Like its characters, it was a movie that desperately wanted to be cool.

The Smokers is another film that wanted to be cool. It calls itself another "Heathers", a cult-film in the 1980s. It just wasn't. We watched the entire film to see if it ever reaches "Heathers" status, but it just failed. You just have unpleasant rich girls (who, of course, smoke) and a troubled Scholarship Student who go on an anti-male revenge kick to get the feeling of power. They only give a momentary tease that they will deal with cliques, but they never really

follow through. Unlike "The Smokers", "Heathers" had a wry sense of dark humor with better cinematography. Skip "The Smokers" and rent "Heathers" if you want a film on teen angst, cliques, revenge, and wry comment on how communities deal with teen tragedies.

Thank You For Smoking is a very clever film about lobbyists and the art of spin. The lead character is a lobbyist for the Tobacco Industry, who lunches with lobbyists from the Gun and Alcohol lobbies and with a twinkle in his eye argues persuasively for his clients. Check it out, it is really enjoyable. While not as good as Thank You For Smoking, Fast Food Nation and American Dreamz are moderately interesting satire on American life.

We Have Been Oscar Hyped!

It is a truth for the ages that during awards season, studio marketing people are priming the pump to create buzz for their films. You get proclamations every year that their film is

"The Best Film This Year", "The Best Film of the Decade", and "Best Film EVER". For sole purposes of awards prognostication, it is important to pay attention and guess what hype the members of the Academy will fall for. This is why I try not to see any film before Oscars, because I almost always find the movie lacking in proportion to the amount of hype it gets.

Then I get indignant and refuse to vote for a film to get best picture, because the movie I saw was not an Oscar Worthy film. I temporarily forget that "Oscar Worthy" isn't the best film or best performance, but which marketing department throws the most pixie dust over their film.

As I mentioned before, I lost points this year on the Oscar competition because I watched The Departed before the Oscars. I refused to vote for it for Best Picture even though

I picked it for Best Director (even though I knew that it was Martin Scorsese's year since he was due after a large body of work without an Oscar) because I was disappointed in direct relation to the amount of hype it got. It wasn't that The Departed was bad, it just wasn't the best crafted film that Martin Scorsese ever done. Another problem was casting Leo Dicaprio, who just didn't sell the lead role, which just made the movie lack the weight it needed. This was a problem in another Scorsese film, The Aviator.

The Inconvenient Truth was not a bad movie. It had an important message to deliver. Unfortunately, there was not much new information for us and we thought it was a PowerPoint presentation mixed with a campaign movie for President. It certainly wasn't the best documentary that year. The best documentary I saw last year didn't even get nominated and that was Shut Up and Sing. Jesus Camp was a compelling and scary documentary about how the religious right evangelists are indoctrinating young children to be an army

for God, but I still think "Shut Up and Sing" had a better narrative.

Happy Feet won for best animated feature. While the music was good and the message was laudable, I don't think it was better than Monster House or Cars. Like Inconvenient Truth, this Happy Feet won because of its message.

Little Miss Sunshine was a pleasant film that had its moments of charm and humor, but it really wasn't one of the best films last year. It was better than The Devil Wears Prada which felt like an updated Working Girl from 1988. Meryl Streep will forever be one of the best American Actresses for her work in Sophie's Choice and Out of Africa, but Prada wasn't her Oscar worthy role.

So much hype surrounded Dreamgirls. Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy were shoe-ins for Oscars. Three songs from the movie were nominated along with a host of technical awards

like costume design. Much was made post-Oscar about only Jennifer Hudson winning for best supporting actress and the movie only getting awarded for Sound Mixing. People

cried foul that it got snubbed for Best Picture because it was an all-Black cast. After watching the film, it wasn't a bad film. Bill Condin, who also directed Chicago, did the best he could with a flawed musical with forgettable songs, broad characters, and lack of humor. Given better source material, this would probably be Oscar worthy as Chicago was regardless of the color of the cast.

Children of Men was not a bad movie. It created a very oppressive scary world were there is a world-wide epidemic of infertility. It had a really good use of sound and and had some really suspenseful moments, but it somehow fell short for me in comparison of another futuristic film, V for Vendetta.

So far, Pan's Labyrinth is in my mind the best film for 2006. It is so good on so many levels. I am still interested in watching Last King of Scotland, The Lives of Others, Volver, and maybe just maybe United 93 before I make a final decision.

Movie Maven: Shut Up and Sing

In the time leading up to the Iraq war, people around the world were against the United States invading Iraq. While an overwhelming amount of Americans supported the war, there were Americans who were against the war. The opponents of War warned the United States that they were making a grave error in this pre-emptive invasion. Much of the warnings that were ignored came to pass.

I remember when Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks told her British audience that she was supportive to the opposition of the war and that she was embarrassed that Bush was from her home state of Texas. I thought that it was a brave stand and that she gave voice to the Texans I knew who always thought that the Bush family were mere carpetbaggers who did little for their state.

This movie documents the consequences they faced and still face because those 12 little words of dissent. Country fans abandoned them for speaking out in a foreign country and being the All-American country-girl face of anti-war sentiment. This movie illustrates how the consolidation of radio stations under huge right wing corporate leaders intensified the consequences the Dixie Chicks faced. They could no longer count that their music would be played on any country station.

The Dixie Chicks are enormously talented women who are mothers of small children. They have to tour, record their next album, spend time with their small children often while they are pregnant. They contend with all that and have to deal with death threats, pickets, commentators calling them traitors, stupid, and all kinds of harsh words, and boycotts.

I don't question the right to boycott performers or anyone in the media. I stand by the right of people who boycott Dr. Laura, so I must stand by those who boycotted The Dixie Chicks. I just think that they had to put up with far more crap for just 12 words. Part of that is that the right wing had control of enough radio outlet to fuel the rage against them that couldn't have happened 10-20 years ago.

I think that while they did pay the price by losing the country audience, I think the experience made their music better. I think their last album is brilliant and about very important things that they have went through. My favorite song of theirs is "Not Ready to Make Nice" echoes a lot of anger I have built up over the Bush administration and their followers. It really sums up nicely what people went through speaking out against the Bush war machine. Now that the anti-war crowd is vindicated (an unsatisfyingly sad vindication) and people are now seeing that we were right, we are still angry what we were put through and people who questioned out patriotism have not earned the right to our good will.

The Dixie Chicks were one of the countless casualties of this Bush administration's march to war and general incompetance, but also to the worrying trend of media consolidation. See the film and decide for yourself.

SF International Asian-American Film Festival, Part 3

Last night, I returned to the San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival to see two more films. The first film I watched was Kabul Transit, a documentary filmed in the Fall 2003 in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Directors Dave Edwards (an anthropologist) and Maliha Zulfacar (sociologist), with photographer Gregory Whitmore sought to create a documentary that allows the viewer to go on a journey in Kabul without a strong narrative or narration. Dave Edwards had lived in Kabul before the fall of Afghanistan to the Russians. The directors speak the languages of Kabul and have connections that allowed them access to the Canadian UN Peacekeepers, Afghani Ministry of Interior, police stations, and Kabul's TV mountain.

The film is very visual and uses regional music and in one part, Russian music to great effect. There are times where the effect is hypnotic. It opens with boys and young men kite fighting on a hill with the kites reaching far out over the city. Then there is TV mountain broadcasting a translated version of George Bush talking about how our nation was harmed and that this will be a long, difficult mission. His image crackles on a small black & white television.

According to Dave Edwards, who stayed over after the film to take questions, they had problems getting access to the American operation in Afghanistan and had to follow the Canadians who were far more at ease at being filmed. The Canadians come off trying to do their best as professional and experienced peacekeepers, who are fighting the red tape to get stuff done. One Canadian officer expresses disappointment at the entire operations lack of concerted effort to change things -- its all piecemeal and very frustrating to him. Canadians take surveys of the Afghanis so they can report back to their own government as to their progress.

When the filmmaker talks to Afghanis they express frustration at the American forces who's paranoia and aggressiveness puts them off and may be partially responsible for Afghanis themselves to lash out.

Director Edwards was asked about why there wasn't more women in the movie. He admitted that out of 150 hours of film, they only got 3 hours with women. They have a scene where women are talking about how the American and UN coalition talks about and tries to do things for women, but their efforts don't really address their real needs and are not lasting or sustainable. They scratch their heads at a program to get them in the pickle industry. There are a couple of other scenes where women were still wearing burkas two years after the fall of the Taliban, and there are areas in Kabul and in the outskirts where women are kept almost exclusively in their homes to prevent being attacked. Edwards says that not having an all female crew kept them from filming more women. Thoughout the film though the absense of women is noticeable and counter to all we heard back home that we were making a difference in Women's lives in Afghanistan.

One of the most remarkable parts of this film was when they visited the Soviet Cultural Center built in the 1980s to be a huge complex with a large theater and where over 600 Afghanis live in its rubble. Scattered throughout the rubble there are discarded and damaged filmstrips from the Soviet era that these refugees would collect. The directors intercut footage of performances at the theater of Russian dancers and of the Soviet parade heading out of Afghanistan with a Russian song about the Black Tulip (which was the name of the airlift that took dead soviet soldiers back home during the conflict with the Mujahidin). You would have footage of a performance at the theater and then to the complex that is just a shell that is barely standing. The transformation of the building is staggering and it makes one gasp.

Another thing we saw is a police station that cannot work their police radios during the day because there is no power and they have no money to keep their generators on. It is clear that what passes for police in Kabul is very unsatisfactory. They are all volunteers and they show up when they want to. Then the film shows where a coalition soldier able to play videogames during the day -- so someone is getting power.

The director told us that the are planning to put this out on DVD and they hope to have an additional disk that would be an interactive map of Kabul so you can click on a neighborhood and experience what they caught on film spacially.

I recommend this film as a snapshot of a capital city caught in the middle of an epic drama existing in rubble with this long rich history. I hope that they can go back and make a sequel of this film to see if anything has been accomplished and if we have learned anything by being there for 5 years.

Oscar Maven Wins Again

At the 2006 Oscars or the Brokeback year, I won our Oscar night with 17 out of 24 categories correct. That was with a reasonable amount of research and being relatively pure when it came to not screening nominees beforehand. I had gotten complacent and distracted in the weeks leading up to the Oscars. Then there was my husband's trash talk. We decided this year to get an Oscar like trophy for the winner of this year's Oscar prediction game. My husband started to crow how the trophy would look nice on his side of the bed. A sense of dread came over me. This could be the year that my dominance in prediction would end since I hadn't studied enough. I prepared myself to be gracefully defeated.

This year I only won with 14 out of 24 categories, because I watched The Departed, Cars, and Monster House. In error, I picked Cars to win for Best Animated Film, since I had no idea about that film about dancing penguins and I thought it would be Pixar's year. I knew Martin Scorsese was going to win for Director, even though The Departed was a mediocre movie, but it was so hard voting for the movie for Best Film and picked Babel instead.

I also fell in love with Pan's Labyrinth through its musical score and got blindsided by my pre-screening love of this movie in the Best Score and Best Foreign Film. After listening to the scores on NPR, I really thought Pan's Labyrinth would get it over Babel, because of its memorable melodic score over a rather non-traditional score. I had heard about "The Lives of Others" about the Stazi in East Germany and thought it may win, but promptly forgot about it when I was rushing through my ballot and only focused on voting for Pan's Labyrinth as much as I could.

Who knew Eddie Murphy would be left out in the cold? I also thought United 93 would get something like Best Editing. Silly me, since Marty's editor has been his career long editor and I should have caught that.

My win had a lot to do with Best Song and Best Documentary. My opponents for some reason didn't think that Inconvenient Truth would win in either category. Many felt that since Dreamgirls was nominated for three songs, that one of the songs would have to win. It is obvious they didn't heed the big rule in such things. When one film gets nominated in a category multiple times, votes are split, and the odd nominee benefits. I know my father, the Foxnews devotee, purposely voted against Inconvenient Truth because he thinks Gore is dangerous for this country.

Another reason I won was the Best Costume Design. My rule of thumb is historical dramas always win this category. Many thought that since "The Devil Wears Prada" was about fashion it would win, but contemporary fashion normally doesn't win.

SF International Asian-American Film Festival, Part 1

Yesterday, I had a fabulous opportunity to get my first look at a couple of films being shown as a part of the San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival. My friend, Geneva took me along with her to Berkeley since she was doing a film review of Made In Korea: One Way Ticket Seoul-Amsterdam. The documentary starts out as a filmmaker's attempt to reunite with the eight other Korean adoptees who flew into the Netherlands in 1980 as babies. He finds one of those adoptees, who ends up becoming his girlfriend. Her story of reuniting with her birthmother in Korea, stirs up curiosity in him, where there was none before.

To In-Soo Radstake, he was just a typical Dutchman who really didn't think of himself as Korean. With the support of his girlfriend, he embarks on visits to Korea that really open up his feelings regarding being adopted and cultural identity. This was a very well done documentary. Most adoption-related documentaries are from the view of female adoptees who have already embraced the whole search for one's roots. It was refreshing to see a male adoptee speak up from a more skeptical and pragmatic point-of-view. It was also refreshing to see a male adoptee be able to show his more emotional moments during his search that he shares with his girlfriend, who is clearly his emotional support.

As an adopted person, I felt for him when he hit "the wall of shame" in regards to his own information about the facts surrounding his birth. He declares without a hint of doubt that the information contained in the orphanage's file is his own information. Without his own birth occuring that file would never exist. The film shows that in order to get simple information about oneself, adopted persons have to get creative and trick people into releasing information. When official channels fail to locate his birth mother, he quite reluctantly goes on reunion shows he detests. It reminded me of the time before the Internet adoption search community evolved where it seemed the only way to search was to go on daytime talkshow reunion episodes. Part of what turned me off on the concept of searching is that I also detested such shows and felt if that is the only way to search it isn't worth it. I had to wait until there were more discreet ways to search.

After the screening, Geneva and I had the opportunity to meet with the In-Soo and his girlfriend, Ungila. It turns out that Insoo didn't really want to turn the camera on himself, but his producer thought it would be more compelling if it centered on his point-of-view as an adopted person. In-Soo admits now that the producer was right. In the film, there are brief profiles on a couple more of the adoptees he found that had mixed experiences when they went to Korea and found their birth family. This seemed to serve to temper his expectations are raised somewhat by Ungila's experiences.

When asked about how he feels now on the completion of the film and showing it in regards to feeling he is Dutch or Korean, he says he definately feels Korean. The film has brought out a lot of Koreans, particularly adopted Koreans. It seemed to me that the language barrier and being from a more progressive country while being confronted with a more closed Korean society does present challenges in feeling Korean.

I talked to Ungila and it turns out that it was her Dutch mother who asked her at 14 if she could search for her because if she waited until later it might be more difficult to find. In the film, Ungila's mother is clearly deep in guilt over not being able to raise who she feels is her daughter. She says through an interpretor that she feels always a sinner and doesn't see the use of digging up the past. I learned after the film that it was her birthfather's family who gave her up after a divorce without telling the mother until Ungila was in Holland. In Korea, when couples divorce, custody goes to the father. Ungila's Dutch parents and her birth mother stay in touch despite not speaking each other's language. They call each other, greet each other in each others language, giggle, and hang up.

SF International Asian-American Film Festival: Intermission

This is the trailer that began before each film. I am afraid I will end up memorizing this by the time the festival is over. On Wednesday night, I will be going to see two more films, Kabul Transit and Tie A Yellow Ribbon. I read through the schedule and there are so many films I would like to see, but have no time. I am just thinking how agonizing it would be if it was the International Film Festival, with even more choices.

SF International Asian-American Film Festival, Part 2

After watching Made in Korea, interviewing its director, and having spicy Indian food, we went to see that last film of the night, Summer Palace. This film was supposed to have been shown at Cannes Film Festival, but it was pulled by the Chinese Government.

What attracted me to see this is the fact that it was a Chinese film dealing with students in the short period of liberation before Tiannamen Square massacre. I think I was expecting more of a political film, but it was more a story of the students sexual exploration as a metaphor for freedom in a totalitarian China.

Yu Hong is the central character is a young woman who is just starting to explore her sexuality with a young messenger in the neighborhood. She is accepted in the Harvard of China, Beijing University in 1987. You can sense the sadness that they know things will change between them when she goes off to school.

Yu Hong lives in a crowded dorm with clothes hanging everywhere, where you go to the bathroom in a pot in the room, and there is a buzz around campus. There are young people from various communist countries all sharing ideas, stealing books, dancing, having sex, and protesting. Obscured in the film are the ideas and the politics behind the protests at the climax of the film. It is the sexual liasons that prove emotionally dangerous in the blurred backdrop of the actually dangerous carnival-like protests. She is part of a rather incestuous group of friends and fellow students.

Yu Hong meets Zhou Wei while dancing with her friends. They are clearly drawn to each other. He fools around with other women and he gets jealous when he sees her with other men. They plead with each other to break up, but they cannot let go of each other. There is a lot of unnecessary drama with these too, which is actually consistent with young people out on their own for the first time. Friends fall into each others arms in the spirit of freedom and hormones, but they hurt each other. There is euphoria with the danger.

Film: Pan's Labyrinth

During Oscar season there are a lot of over-hyped movies. So when you go to a theater to watch a film that has been praised by critics and award-winning, there is always a chance at being disappointed. Pan's Labyrinth did not disappoint. The film was even better than I imagined even though it showed more brutality than I normally like.

This film is not suitable for children. It is intended to be an adult fairytale with a young girl as its protagonist. Everyone I know who have viewed this film has loved it, including my 75 year old father, who is not really into foreign films or art films.

Pan’s Labyrinth is not suitable for children for a few scenes of torture and violence. While difficult to watch, these scenes serve to create a sense of real peril, ugliness, cruelty and evil that propels our protagonist to seek comfort in another world of grotesque beauty. She is a young girl in the midst of a brutal civil war where both sides reside under her roof, and the only reason she is safe is because her mother is pregnant by a fascist general. There is a sense that this safety is precarious and could evaporate quickly due to circumstances beyond her control.

The protagonists other world is sparked by a discovery of an old labyrinth by the old house where the general holds his position and has a doctor see to the pregnant mother's ailing health.

This other world that is created is amazingly done and is beautiful in its grotesquely Gothic way. The original score is perfect for the film with its haunting humming lullaby. The young girl is perfect young heroine that is flawed but lovable. You want her to fulfill her destiny and escape to her throne in a magical place. The rest of the cast are amazing showing the full range of humanity in a time of war from immense cruelty to amazing courage and compassion. The film itself has a great sense of pacing, almost poetic writing, and is able to keep up the feeling of suspense.

The movie is sad, beautiful, cruel, agonizing, and has kept haunting me. The film made me cry and at times took my breath away. It made me feel great to see such a well-made movie in the era of over hyped corporate films. This had the craftsmanship of an expert watchmaker.

The lullaby still lingers in my mind.

Oscar Maven!

As a movie fanatic, I anticipate the Oscars like some anticipate the Super Bowl, World Series, or the World Cup Finals.

A long time ago, I had a grasshopper moment when I was a freshman at an all girl catholic school and I ditched school to go to the racetrack with a friend. With help from a random adult we were able to place bets on a horse of our choice after looking at them in the pen. Of course, I picked the "cute horse" while my friend picked the horse who had the eyes of a vicious street fighter. Of course, I lost my 2 bucks, but I learned a powerful lesson -- you MUST have ice water in your veins when you bet money.



I have since won a March Madness pool knowing nothing of College Football (much to the distress of the boys in the office who were fanatics). I do best when I have no emotion attachment to the outcome. When I take this attitude toward Oscar pools, I always come out on top. Once I love or hate a movie, I will lose this category.

My philosophy is that it doesn't matter who or what should win an oscar, my job is to divine who or what will win. This has served me well in our annual Oscar contests (this will be our 12th year). Before I fill out my ballot, I read everything and make sure I know what each nominated film is about because sometimes that will give you a clue. For instance, if it is about the Holocaust, it will most likely to win. Predicting the oscars is like peeking into a tea cup full of tea leaves and you have to dig through to see the leafy kalidescope that makes the most sense. I will look at:

1. Critics and columnist predictions

2. Other award results

3. The level of studio hype & "buzz"

4. Oscar Historical data at who actually wins

5. Look at the subject matter of a film or actor/actress history - because sometimes actors will win not because of the film they are nominated for but because they were overlooked in an earlier film or are awarded for a body of work.



None of these factors alone can be reliable, but in combination with other factors you can come up with pretty good guesses as to who will win.



Some years are easier than others. I call these "Sweep Years," these are the years you know that a film will sweep, like "Return of the King" for work on the entire trilogy. If you misjudge what is going to be a sweep year, you risk things going badly. Last year, a friend decided to go against conventional wisdom and did slightly better than someone who had no idea about any of the films. Doing your research does make a difference.

So, as a public service to my 360 friends I am going to help you do reasonably well in your oscar pool and maybe, just maybe win it.

Oscar Maven: Best Documentary

This category is interesting this year since all of the films are highly topical and controversial -- no penguins in this category (but you can find them among the "Best Animated" nominees). The first documentary is Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, about global warming. The next is Deliver Us From Evil which follows a catholic priest who is a molestor and his victims. Then there is Jesus Camp about how the religious right creates a new generation. Then there are two films documenting the conditions in Iraq for Iraqis (Iraq In Fragments and My Country, My Country).

The conventional wisdom is that two of the same film usually cancel themselves out -- so that would rule out the Iraq movies. I think Jesus Camp will make too many voter feel uncomfortable. Deliver Us From Evil is very much like Capturing the Friedmans to win, as Capturing the Friedmans lost out to The Fog of War. My vote goes to Inconvenient Truth.

Go Al Gore!

Oscar Night wrap up

It's me! It's me! I like to thank all the oscar articles which handicapped this year's oscar race and gave me the edge on our annual oscar party contest.

I won picking 17 out of 24 catagories correctly. In second place was John with 14. Last place was our friend, Shelley who got 10 right (actually our 2 year old, Lewis got 9 right -- picking Movies and people who should have won). People were bitter about the fact that I studied for this event. Let them stew, victory is mine. Bwahahaha.

I won, even though I have only been able to see four nominated movies so far, Revenge of the Sith (bad movie), Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were Rabbit (good movie), Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (bad movie), and Batman Begins (decent movie).

While many sites gave the Best Picture to Brokeback, I was intrigued by a possibility of an upset that I read on a few sites. This morning I am reading discussions on why Brokeback lost. There is much talk of homophobia, which I cannot say that it doesnt exist, but doesn't really seem to be the case.

Gene Stone claims, "60-year-old straight white men who compose most of the voting." Then why did "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" win over Dolly Parton? If there is this monolithic old white boy's club in the Academy, wouldn't Dolly Parton have won? George Clooney would have won for Best Director over Ang Lee.

The academy honored the film for what they thought was exceptional, the director Ang Lee and the writing. What I think is the more compelling reason is that
it lost in the sea of Oscar campaigning -- the world of buzz and peaking. Some say Brokeback just peaked too soon. There was so much hype and interest in the movie as a phenom that all the surprise or curiosity of the film dried up.
It got to the point where there were too many jokes and too many quotes from the film that it was hard to take it seriously as a film.

Perhaps if the film was viewed as just another great movie about forbidden love, Brokeback would have done better. Gay themed film will do better when it is no longer a big deal, and merely movies about human affection, attraction, and relationships. I understand that Gays and Lesbians face great societal scorn and injustice. I have fought on various public forums for their right to marry, adopt, and enjoy the same rights as all other citizens of this country. I just don't think that it was about the discomfort about homosexuality as much as too much hype and too much wrong hype.

I have not gone to see it because of all the jokes and spoilers that are out there have basically threatened my enjoyment of discovery of this film. The hype was about homosexuality in film rather than the merits of the storytelling skills of the film.

Additionally, I make it a policy to see movies well after oscar season to clear the palatte, so to speak, and see a movie sans the hype. Overly hyped movies almost always seem to disappoint.

My wish is that films about gays and lesbians become just part of a body of film about the human condition in recognition that there is a full spectrum of human experience.

People who are miffed about the Brokeback/Crash upset, should really check out what the religious right has to say.

"Not only are the Oscars out of touch with the vast majority of Americans, they have indeed become an "atheistic pleasure dome" ruled by neo-Marxist liberals and cultural pimps who hate the traditional American family and its Christian values." - Dr. Ted Baehr, founder of MovieGuide and Chairman of Christian Film & Television Commission.

Bottom line is that it is best not to take Oscar night or Hollywood very seriously. The voting often has more to do with the timing and nature of the studio campaigning than the merits or demerits of films themselves.

It turns out that the biggest theme of this Oscar night was to encourage us to go to the theaters more and reject DVDs and downloads. So,
Hollywood is not about liberalism or hedonism, but more about good, old-fashioned capitalism.

Jon Stewart

I tend to agree with the mixed reviews that Stewart did on whole an okay job. After reading Andy Dehnart's article, Stewart may have done better than it seemed. The reason it seemed that he had a tough time, and many comedians have a tough time is that it is an audience that cannot laugh or see the how puffed up they are. David Hiltbrand of the Philadelphia Inquirer talks about the no-win situation facing Jon Stewart. If the audience at the Kodak can't take a joke it can look like the comic is bombing when he is actually hitting the mark. It makes one think that what might please the audience at home may not please the audience at the Kodak theatre.

Anyone who isn't Billy Crystal is just going to pale in comparison with Steve Martin who is in somewhat distant second place. Billy Crystal is an ideal host for the Oscars since he is embued with Vaudeville spirit and old school skill sets needed to host the Oscars. He is the new Bob Hope and Steve Martin is kind of a new Johnny Carson, but with musical talents in his back pocket.

Whoopi Goldberg is a strange creature. She seems to be embraced by Hollywood, while I never found her work on the Oscars particularly entertaining, even though I do like her and her off-Oscar work.

It is not enough to be smart and funny. It is not enough to be likeable. This is proven by the long line of smart, funny, and likeable yet hosts like Chris Rock, David Letterman, and now Jon Stewart. In any other forum these people are brilliant and highly entertaining, but Oscar night does something to them. They either have to mute or tone down what we love about them and risk boredom or risk having what we like about them seeming crass and ill-suited to the event.

Billy Crystal can sing, dance, tell jokes like a Hollywood insider, and he has this smile that blasts sunshine even when he is making jokes at Nicholson's expense. He has the pixie dust about him, and that is why when somebody other than Billy Crystal does the Oscars there is a sense of doom laced with hopeful optimism.

I thought the opening with Billy Crystal, former Oscar hosts, Halle Berry, and George Clooney was hilarious. The Bjork joke worked in his current favorite object of ridicule, Cheney's markmanship.
"I do have some sad news. Bjork couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."
I loved his comment after a montage of clips about issue films, "And none of those issues were ever a problem again."

"Tonight is the night we celebrate excellence in film. . .with me, the fourth male lead from 'Death to Smoochy.' Rent it."

"not all gay people are cowboys — some are effete New York intellectuals."
"There are women here who could barely afford enough gown to cover their breasts."
Just when you start wondering how the antics on The Daily Show could intersect with the Oscars, you get rather clever send ups of Oscar Campaigning and infamous political campaign ads. These ads included claims that Charlize Theron was “hagging it up” in her quest for Oscar glory while Keira Knightley bravely acts “with cheekbones so improbable, they may well be flecked with God dust.” Thanks to Steven Colbert for great voiceover.

Our oscar party laughed out loud at Tom Hanks being assaulted by a trombone and the rest of the orchestra. Given the orchestra's history of aggressively cutting award winners off, you know they they are capable of battery if necessary.

Bottom line is that it wasn't the best oscar show ever because Bill Crystal wasn't there, but it wasn't the worst oscars because Jon Stewart was there.