Roger Greenberg is introduced as he comes to LA to house-sit while his brother’s family goes on vacation. This is how Roger and Florence meet and begin an awkward, temperamental affair. Yet from the moment Roger is introduced, he becomes the film’s focus; it loses interest in Florence except insofar as Roger is interested in her. This is the film’s tragedy. Roger Greenberg is 40 years old, selfish, washed up, neurotic and irredeemably mean, in particular to Florence, who he abuses as blatantly as her past flings, but with more regularity. In the competition for Baumbach’s attention, Roger Greenberg, as the film’s title indicates, unambiguously wins. Ben Stiller’s performance, reaching squirm-inducing heights of awkwardness and awfulness, is commendable, and the film is consistently entertaining. Yet Greenberg is never made adequately sympathetic. This is problematic because the film seems to trace his attempt to redeem himself, implying some sort of achievement on the part of Roger Greenberg at the end that isn’t believable and is, by this point, even unwanted. His worst characteristics stubbornly remain throughout the film, which watches him alienate his few remaining friends. Florence becomes static as Greenberg moves into the spotlight, which is a shame. She is the real protagonist in this story, but in the film, as in her life, she is relegated to second place.

As the detectives dig they find that all may not be what it seems, and Teddy has secret personal motives he is slow to reveal. The film twists and turns as the investigation grows and things become strange. The search is intercut with visions of Teddy’s back-story from World War 2 and his family. It culminates with a shocking reveal from the main psychologist on the island, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley).

The film begins as a crime drama but becomes very creepy quickly. The patients have all committed violent crimes and act like zombies, making every encounter chilling. As the film becomes more about Teddy’s inner demons and less about the original investigation, the truth is revealed.

The actors carry this movie and in some spots are absolutely brilliant, never tipping their hand as to what is really going on. The screenplay is well written but the pacing in the middle of the film becomes slower and arduous. The CGI is unfortunately cheap.

Overall Shutter Island is a good movie but not great as expected from Scorsese. It holds interest but drags on a little long and drives too deep into the human psyche. The twists become too much and the focus of the film becomes lost until the dramatic final minutes. If you want some thrills, this is worth seeing but don’t expect to be blown away.

It may simply be my aversion to any discussion of morality that marks my distaste for The Machinist. It could also be the high hopes I had for its’ seemingly intricate and inquisitive plotline. Even until the end, despite the better part of my ego telling me precisely what the protagonist’s reality was, I refused to accept the obviousness of the resolution. I was set on a conclusion that I still couldn’t decipher—something I was waiting for the film to show me. Instead the film gives an overdone facsimile of the psychology of guilt, one that questions both the continuity of experience and the ability of the mind to harbor illness.

If I were to concern myself primarily with what The Machinist contemplates, in regard to morality, I would ask myself: is the guilt experienced by the protagonist, Trevor Reznik, a guilt birthed in fear or compassion? Unfortunately, I think it is the former—another idea that repels any preference for the film. The constant depiction of restrictions on life—the hostile workplace, Trevor’s materialistic notes (“Buy more bleach”), paying for sex, portrayal of a faulty police state—tell me perhaps there is nothing more than fear to Trevor’s delirium. Where is the humanity?

The subject matter is not the basis for all my dislike of the film. Perhaps both actors and writers are to blame for several careless, poorly-delivered lines sprinkled through the film. These lines took me from the cinematic moment and continuity that The Machinist requires to get across the relatively lackluster imagery. If the viewer is pulled from the harsh blues that the film is predominately shot in, the few scenes that do not immediately depict these tones (they’re outside, usually on suburban tree-lined streets) lose their effect.

Deniz Rudin

The thing that is the strangest about looking at a person whose skin is stretched so tight around their head that it is basically like looking at a skull is the bits of a human face that are not made of bones: the nose and the ears. Imagine a skull with a nose and ears. It’s eerie.

The brain pan curving up out of the back of the neck, arms like a snowman’s arms and legs long and sharp, the ribcage like lungs, spine running up the back like a lizard’s, like a stegosaur, and from it sprout shoulderblades like wings. Tiny bird’s bones. The uppermost tips of the pelvis clearly visible above the waistline of the pants. And the way it moves: this thing you’re used to seeing held up by a plastic stand in the science classroom moving under its will, like in a video game. The cheeks like big flat blades. This bizarre, otherworldly machinery somewhere down inside most people shown as clearly as it can be shown on a living person.

The body is obviously the star here and if Christian Bale would just keep his mouth shut and let the camera stay silently on him like a fly on a sideshow freak we might have a decent short film on our hands. If only his palms were thin and his fingers long and skinny, his hands like daddy longlegs.

But it is wrong to place the blame on Bale, for he was given words to speak and he did them justice. Though the film claims a Dostoyevsky novella as its main inspiration, the truth is that it borrows so heavily from Fight Club that a convincing plagiarism case could be made, and compared to either piece of source material it is poorly written and constructed, downright idiotic. And though the direction and cinematography are decent and at times better than decent, I feel like the director should not get off without punishment; he chose to shoot this script.

This movie is a passing well-shot work of dimestore existentialism and hollywood surrealism that succeeds only briefly in disguising its essential triteness, and its ending retroactively unravels anything that might have been interesting about what went before.

And the fucking music:
They tried to soundtrack “bleak” with oboes.

The premiere was entitled Prostitution Behind the Veil, in which an Iranian woman who fled to Sweden goes back to report on the lives of oppressed women who have no other way of sustaining themselves. Drugs, little children, and condoms scatter the house of two women who struggle to preserve their health and happiness.

The bitter documentary was followed by more cheerful Nordic shorts to conclude the Friday evening on a brighter note. These buoyant shorts were illuminated with friendship and love, focusing in on the varied nature of relationships people tend to have. In The Lake, two women search for a lost artifact in a slow-moving rowboat. As they keep fishing, young lads take their bait and wind up on board, until it gets too crowded. Then one of the ladies jumps into the lake to take her own chance of finding a love boat.

Mr. Mustache, another favorite, is a lovely narrative depicting the quirks of men with facial hair and its importance in their everyday lives. In Little Man, we meet a boy who studies and composes a journal that documents the art of seduction, only to be outsmarted by his female counterpart.
An evening at the Nordic Film Festival left guests feeling appreciative and elated. The heartwarming ambience, however, was counterbalanced by the chilly auditorium. Leaving high expectations for next year, I hope to see Nordic Lights return in 2010. .

Visually, Fantastic is radiant beyond imagination. The stop-motion animation gives it a unique feel; if it had been made with computer-generated animation like a Pixar movie, the cartooniness would have taken over. Sure, The Incredibles received great acclaim in its attempts to mimic a blockbuster, but it could have easily been shot as a live action film.

Anderson took advantage of the animation style to bring the audience closer to the film and perform shots “that you can’t do in live action,” he says in the New York Times’ “Anatomy of a Scene” film commentary clips. “There’s freedom that we got from working this way that I really enjoyed,” he adds. The scenes in particular are done with what-may-seem-cheesy-if-done-wrong Looney Toons-style thematics. A perfect example is when the camera pulls back to reveal the entire cross section of underground tunnels, or the literally confused eyes of Mr. Fox and his friend Kylie.

The story is also one that suits all kinds. Mr. Fox goes out to steal chickens. This plot, however, quickly turns against him. The antagonist farmers go after not only him, but his friends and family as well. There is suspense and anticipation gripping in every scene, while its despondency is kept at a minimum – which was the downfall of last month’s release Where the Wild Things Are. If you can, pony up the money and see this movie in theatres. It is truly fantastic.

Community derives its name from the location and premise of the show: community college. Perhaps by happenstance, but more likely on purpose, the show’s creation comes at a time when real community colleges are being put into the spotlight—TIME Magazine recently ran an article on the subject: “Can Community Colleges Save the U.S. Economy?”

This is all beside the point: the show is absolutely brilliant. Community takes a cliché and turns it on its head. Instead of having the high school quarterback be dreamy, the snarky lawyer be affluent, the old guy be a kook, and the geeky girl be, well, geeky, what if they were all mixed together in a community college? Now the star quarterback has no luster, the snarky lawyer has no affluent job, the old kooky guy is trying to make new friends, and the geeky girl is trying to redefine herself.

The main character of the show, Jeff Winger, the snarky lawyer, is played by Joel McHale the host of The Soup—a show akin to Entertainment Tonight, except purposefully funny. His goal is the same as the other six main characters’: they need to get their college degrees.

The plot is new and fresh, but what makes the show truly great is the cast. Although McHale plays a significant part, he is able to play off of every other character’s quarks much like Jason Bateman in Arrested Development or Tina Fay in 30 Rock.

The people who know the show are passionate about it. I would say get on the bandwagon, but there are not enough people who know about it yet, so there isn’t one. Enough brilliant shows have been cancelled; let’s not let this happen again. Watch it.

“I’d like people to walk away questioning what it is by their nature that makes them entertained by certain aspects of media,” writer/director James Vogel says. “Why do we as an audience expect to see violence and sex in films, and why are we entertained by it?”

Vogel, and his co-writers and stars, Ezra Stead and Greg Hernandez, clearly put a lot of thought into the meaning behind the film’s graphic images. Their story tells of a screenwriting student who falls in love with a charismatic underworld figure while seeking experience to inform his scripts. The relationship between characters Scott and T.K., who get off on the violent acts they commit, is ripe with barely concealed undertones.

“There exists this kind of tension in gangster films, a homosexual subtext,” Vogel says. “Characters who revel in violence are somewhat fascinated with each other.”

Stead also points to the relationship between sex and violence. “Wanting to kill someone for the experience is like trying to lose your virginity,” he says.

Vogel and Stead met as students at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Vogel asked Stead to help him write the script and star in the film, and Stead suggested his friend Hernandez for the role of T.K. They shot the film in 16 days for a budget of $8,000.

Though pleased with their finished product, the filmmakers are also eager to hear negative responses. “It’s a very personalized experience and a polarized reaction, and that’s what interests me,” Vogel says. Stead agrees. “We’d rather someone hate our film than just brush it off and forget about it,” he adds.
They hope that the next step for The City will be the festival circuit and distribution. The film will be screened again locally at the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival, Dec. 5 at 7 p.m.

Written and directed by Rob Perez, the director of Forty Days and Forty Nights, the movie explores the reassuring desperation and endearment of the occasional lack of profundity that even the best artists experience. Aside from a few complete misrepresentations of Minneapolis winters (swimming in a lake in April, brainstorming outside in February), the movie has much to enjoy. Mix pretentious artists, human-sized vegetables, gothic death-centered social circles, an immobile goat and St. Paul’s very own Porky’s restaurant together with some good shots of Minneapolis and an excellent soundtrack, and you’ve got the recipe for a jolly good local movie.

Like most of the Coen brothers’ characters, Larry is a victim of his environment. As an academic living in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood, Larry finds himself lost and beleaguered as his wife leaves him. The man of interest is an elder colleague of Larry’s who has ambition and importance in the community, Sy Ableman (played by a deceptively calm and gregarious Fred Melamed). Additionally, Larry’s disillusioned brother (Richard Kind)­—who is working on a probability map to predict the events of the universe—is falling apart both physically and mentally while living on the couch. Larry’s daughter is preoccupied with stealing money for a planned nose job and his son is smoking weed when he should be preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. At his job, Larry receives a bribe from a Korean student who wants a passing grade while the board responsible for determining his tenure is receiving anonymous letters urging them to not grant him the position. Larry is for the meantime relatively passive in situations; he is undertaking an effort in becoming a righteous—and simple —man.

It’s clear the Coen brothers have taken much pleasure in finding ways to torture their protagonist. They treat all of Larry’s problems with the same amount of humor and importance—from the petty issues concerning his neighbor mowing over the property line to the more serious dissolution of his marriage. A face readily recognized and lauded in the New York theatre scene, Michael Stuhlbarg, plays Larry in the film. Stuhlbarg, like most of the cast of A Serious Man, remains relatively unknown to moviegoers—a reportedly conscious effort by the Coens.

The film is pieced together like an unsympathetic homage to middle-class Midwestern Jewish life. While it may be one of the first explorations of this life in film, the story still feels dry. The struggle Larry goes through is the struggle of many others, but the universality of the story doesn’t hold strong. Perhaps this is because of the Coen brothers’ blatant disregard for their character’s well being.

Larry confronts the disintegration of his life­—after some prompting from both his peers and a divorce attorney who acts as one of Larry’s/Job comforters—by consulting a rabbi. The senior rabbi is, of course, occupied. Larry is forced to resort to consulting two lower-ranking rabbis. The consultation of multiple rabbis is a play on the importance of questioning in the Jewish faith. But just as the passive and increasingly neurotic professor is left with no answers after either consultation, the repetition adds little of anything other than comedic effect for the audience.

Because the film simultaneously occupies and exhibits the milieu of Jewish values, Midwestern lifestyle and ’60s culture, the humor of the film is diffused and then concentrated across the domains of culture, geography, and generation. This means that while the film appeals to a wide audience —perhaps through the absurdity of the situations themselves—references to Ron Meshbesher will be lost on many moviegoers.

The Coens have proved themselves as experts at analyzing sub-subcultures. Just as Fargo encompasses its own stereotypical Minnesotan world or Barton Fink and its exploration of entertainment writing in 1940s Hollywood, A Serious Man is another self-contained effort. This time the Coen brothers turn to a more familiar setting and have succeeded in pointing to all the nuances while crafting a story that is, in a way, all-encompassing.

The world of Larry Gopnik has been created with perhaps more intimacy than any of their other films. Having been raised in a Jewish community in St. Louis Park by parents both from academia, the film is closest to home for Joel and Ethan. Yet there is no restraint in the situations the Coens pushed their protagonist through. In comparison to their other films it lacks the blood that has splattered over every other character, yet the situation—the meaninglessness and dryness that the story is presented in—could not be harsher.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins returns from a brief Coen brothers hiatus to wonderfully capture the quintessence of the late ’60s suburban Jewish neighborhood. The freshly constructed suburban homes seem to already occupy their own faded glory in a treeless and otherwise empty neighborhood captured in Bloomington, Minnesota. The shots are crisp like fall weather—we can already taste the death that occupies the scenes. Less of the sweeping, wide-angled shots that characterized many of the Coen brothers’ previous films impart the feeling of being enclosed in a suburb with little place to turn to or vent. Deakins utilizes hard-focuses and close-ups to reinforce the shallow intimacy viewers take from the storyline.

Despite the visually striking composition of the film, the film fails to create a strong connection between Larry and the audience in order for his struggle for meaning to be worth following. This may be a deliberate superficiality by the Coen brothers. Though, the brothers have little to say of their satisfaction with A Serious Man: “[the film is] Okay.”

The strong points of the film stem from its somewhat enigmatic trailer. The trailer opens with Larry Gopnik’s head repeatedly being slammed into a chalkboard by Sy Ableman. There’s an unsettling, partly unconscious, impression as the sound of a head meeting chalkboard runs through the film’s trailer. It’s a brilliant representation of what is seen in the movie: Here is our protagonist being thrown from one disruptive and sometimes-horrific situation to the next with the same result. While Larry searches for answers, in a quest to be a serious man, he only encounters the same hollow message: the Coen brothers are cold-hearted misanthropes.

Almost everything about Soderbergh’s film is off-kilter. From the dimly lit meeting rooms to the cheery lounge jazz that plays in between scenes, The Informant! is disorienting at times. However, Damon’s impeccable performance and Scott Z. Burns’ (The Bourne Ultimatum) sharp writing compensate for its eccentricity. The film’s ongoing voiceovers are a definite highlight and reveal Whitacre’s utter detachment from reality, most notably the scene where he contemplates polar-bear hunting techniques while speaking to the FBI agents. While The Informant! isn’t flawless, it is a solid and well-executed departure from Soderbergh’s and Damon’s typical standbys.

Besides telling them to JUST CUT IT OFF! Bald is distinguished!, it might help to remind these guys that their current fame rides on their quirky roles from the past. There’s no point hoping actors will relinquish the way they make big bucks. But as movie-goers, we can at least try to appreciate what once was.

Consider Nick Cage himself: he hasn’t delivered a solid performance since Matchstick Men. But despite his current every-man characters, Cage is an excellent performer. When he’s on his game, he is particularly suited for the southern outlaw character, a role he has consistently delivered on several occasions, including Wild at Heart, Raising Arizona, and Rumblefish. His dedication to fully assuming a role is especially evident in Wild at Heart. In the film, the Snakeskin jacket that becomes a symbol of Sailor Ripley’s eccentricity was not originally in the script or the book. It was Cage’s suggested to director David Lynch. Lynch wrote the idea into the film, and it has since become one of the things to iconify the character of Sailor Ripley. At no point does the character ever come off as unbelievable.

Another memorable Cage performance is his role in Leaving Las Vegas, for which he won the best actor Oscar. Cage portrays a man who has been laid off and goes to Vegas to drink himself to death. Cage brings an essential level of sadness to the character that a lesser actor might not have been able to capture. His task was to create a despicable drunk, but at the same time a completely redeemable individual. Cage does this so well that you can’t help but follow his every emotional up and down.

Perhaps Cage’s best performance, however, is in Adaptation. In this film, Cage succeeds in crafting not one, but two magnificent characters. Charlie Kauffman is a fast-talking, overweight, middle aged screenwriter based on the actual screenwriter Charlie Kauffman. Donald is his fictionalized twin brother, struggling to survive by trying his hand at screen writing. When Donald begins to succeed, it brings out the dejected, subtle depression of sibling rivalry in Charles, mixed with his disappointment of being overshadowed by a first-timer in his craft. At the same time, Cage is able to maintain the sort of ignorant success of Donald who is only too happy with himself and completely ignorant of his brother’s true feelings.

ational Treasure and its sequel, The Book of Secrets, might have collectively grossed over $200 million, but their plot-driven and sensationalist popularity will never match the studied and eccentric qualities of films like Adaptation and Wild at Heart. While actors like Cage and Hanks may stray into roles fit for box office success, there are still some fans out there who’d like the old Cage back.

Director Zack Snyder (Dawn Of The Dead [2004], 300[2007]) has chosen to remain visually faithful to the source material to the degree that it is a liability against the film. Trimmed segments, which are extensive and necessary, are not accounted for, and the film never eases into its own identity. Enough of the irrelevant is preserved, and too much thematic exposition is canned for the film to be anything but a jumbled mess. Context is often ignored in the interest of shot-for-shot reproduction of a graphic novel, which is itself flawed. Most of the principal acting ranges from adequate to outstanding. The Comedian and Rorschach, in particular, are very well adapted and understood by their respective actors, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earl Haley. The film’s actors will receive an exposure bump - assuming, as the film’s promo material states, that justice truly comes to us all.

The film falters in bringing the thematic depth of the graphic novel to life, and seems to enjoy earning its ‘R’ rating in ways that are irrelevant and contrary to the source material’s handling. The kitschy, obtusely iconic soundtrack is mixed annoyingly loudly and was inappropriately chosen. In contrast, the film’s score is often elegantly understated and filled with ambient synths evoking a casual, effective period immersion. This distinction is analogous to the film itself. Watchmen flies when it does the minor due diligence of appropriating the material for itself, and it fails spectacularly when it drag-and-drops the work of others without consideration or context. Aside from bringing attention to some worthy and devout actors, one hesitates to imagine what good will come of this exercise in medium-swapping.

What’s surprising to know is that the roots of the film lie in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Bee Vang, who plays the shy Thao bullied by the local gang, resides in a suburb north of the cities. Like most of the actors, he was cast without any previous acting experience. In search of completely authentic Hmong roles, casting directors stationed themselves in St. Paul, Fresno, and Detroit—the areas with the largest Hmong populations in the U.S., respectively. The screenplay was composed at Grumpy’s Bar in Minneapolis as well, written after-hours by then-truck driver Nick Schenck. When unwinding from a physically draining day at work. His past experiences paved the way of script details—after meeting war veterans at the liquor shop Schenck worked at, and befriending Hmong co-workers at another factory job, the ideas conglomerated. The film was originally set within the wintry borders of Minnesota, but once the Warner Brothers became involved, this location was moved to Michigan for a measly reason—a whopping 42 percent tax break. After this, the original script has been said to receive only minor alterations.

Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) lives a bitterly agreeable life alongside cheerful Hmong neighbors, colliding with them in the form of hilariously racist remarks, and soon after, sappy friendships. His hatred toward the immigrants builds the action and keeps it going, but fundamentally, it acknowledges that racism, after many years, is still alive. As director, Eastwood encouraged all Hmong actors to ad-lib in their native language. Some of those lines turned out to be pitfalls, having since been deemed inaccurate and condescending representations of social stereotypes by other Hmong people.

Gran Torino takes place in a suburb of Detroit called Highland Park. The dingy aspects of the old factory town are shown well, yet some demographical statistics do not quite match up. For instance, Highland Park is predominantly African American—ninety-three percent, while Asians comprise only a quarter percent of the population. The film drew solely on white and Hmong characters, displaying a sort of neighborhood that Highland Park is not. Not enough to produce a Hmong gang, at least. In retrospect, the American Community Survey estimated Hmong population in Minnesota to exceed 60,000 in 2006, which includes only registered residents. The first Hmong gang is said to have originated in St. Paul in the mid-eighties to give teenagers protection from brutal racism that they frequently encountered. Petty crimes defined their acts of retribution at first, and with bands branching out and multiplying, the activities quickly transformed into violent thefts, assaults, and rapes. Torino simulates these crimes with many gory scenes of attacks on non-members as well as the turning-point rape of Sue.

The film focuses on the younger generation of Hmong in America. Immigration has different effects on all ages, causing divergences in families. “Old school” ways of living don’t stick well with teenagers trying to Americanize and consequentially, they break out into gangs attempting to build a place for themselves in the social hierarchy. Producers strove to stay true to Hmong customs enough to hire a cultural consultant, the director of the Hmong Arts Connection in St. Paul. Hang Garvey was on set during filming, helping to cast Hmong actors and preserve traditions. The shaman ritual at the birth of a child, handshake use, and the humble personality of the Hmong reflected their culture to its true extent.

Gran Torino’s intense moments of distress balanced well with comical insertions, but nonetheless exemplified a way of life unknown to audiences across the country. Along with Eastwood’s performance and heroic tactics, we are also reminded that the Twin Cities are Hollywood-worthy relics.

Too many of us went to St. Paul to “recreate ’68,” to become the movie star, to become the sexy activist…when we become the star and they become us, actual politics doesn’t matter anymore.

The quote by Kesey (above) has something to do with this failure, which is highlighted by the appearance of the high-budget film by Townsend, as well as “Chicago 10: Speak Your Peace,” a film about the anti-Vietnam War organizers who went on trial for conspiracy after the 1968 DNC in Chicago. Our generation is in a unique position in history, as we are on the forefront of the cultural wave moving on the impulse of mass media, electronic respiration, and brutally pervasive advertising campaigns. In order to organize for the future, we need to address the ways in which the fabric of the “present” is undergoing drastic changes as a result of our highly mediated culture. And if the “present is just a movie of the past,” we miss out on the particularities of the present, which are buried under this super-representation. This matters for politics, as it contributes to a partial understanding of the challenges we face as radical thinkers and organizers.

One consequence of media culture is the redrawing of cultural maps. From the street to the screen, our senses are open to the events unfolding around us in real space as well as in media space. From the screen to the street, our political goals are already molded into the system we are trying to transform through street mobilizations and protests. The map of political culture is being redrawn in this space between the “reality” of the street and the “screens” of media. Media and consumer culture have been informing the “real” of our generation in new ways that challenge the basic of the “real” itself. This has unavoidable consequences for progressive politics and the conditions for organizing opposition to the terror wars.

Some would argue that films like “Battle in Seattle” are useful tools in the struggle. Townsend attempts to objectively represent the events of Nov 30 to Dec 2, 1999 in Seattle, Washington. It opens with a brief history of trade globalization since World War II and situates us in the struggle over third world livelihoods and national sovereignty. Dramatic scenes of police mobilization against the protesters are forceful and full of emotion. These scenes are long, tense and elicit sympathy with the victimized protesters. By the end, it appears that Townsend’s sole political objective is to expose the brutality of the state, which is not a new phenomenon and should be expected by the political opposition. As a political film, however, it has many flaws. Townsend sacrifices his more profound political statements for the sake of theatricality and entertainment.

For example, consider the most dramatic scene of the film involving Charlize Theron, who plays a woman working in a downtown boutique. Her character is married to a riot cop and they are expecting a child. In the build-up to the first day of protest, road-blocks and rioting, Townsend takes us inside the designer boutique to get a glimpse of her daily life. The dialogue explicitly addresses the absurdity of consumer culture, as her coworker pressures her to start shopping for baby clothes and Theron ironically comments on the captivity of her daily life as a worker and consumer. The central significance of her character, however, is monopolized later in the film when she gets unexpectedly caught in a police sweep. She is hit in the stomach by a cop and the baby dies. While this scene is successful in exposing the horror of police brutality, it distracts us from the initial purpose of her character, which was to make a criticism of consumerism and globalization. This more complex point is downplayed for the sake of drama.

Indeed, seeing St. Paul entirely militarized was a dramatic experience and many were brutalized by the police. The point is that this political film becomes facile by emphasizing only one aspect of the events. In other words, the activist-centric attitude of the film–shared by the anti-war movement in the Twin Cities–fails to address other social realities and opinions. This ignorance erects another obstacle towards successfully mobilizing against the war party convening in the Excel Center. By refusing to reform our radical rhetoric, we push away potential allies and give the media the material it
needs to portray us as out of touch, unreasonable and immature fringe radicals. Or we provide our opponents an opportunity to plant among us those who will definitely act in those ways. More importantly, radical rhetoric closes the possibility of engaging those with whom we disagree and need to persuade.Too many times, we speak right past each other.

The most obvious way to view and criticize a film like “Battle in Seattle” is to consider its legitimacy and affectivity as a political tool. Brett Morgen, director of “Chicago 10” spoke to this possibility after the screening of his film a couple of weeks ago at the Walker. He admonished those who think that film can adequately reconstruct any particular historical moment and admits that his film was “Yippie-centric.” (The “Yippie’s” being one of the main anti-war groups, the Youth International Party). Making a film about 1968 in 2003 says more about 2003 than it does about 1968, he argued. Morgan seemed annoyed to have to emphasize the significance that half of the film is animated: his goal was to entertain viewers, not make any bold political statement. (“How could you take it seriously!? Half of it is animated!”) By using comedy, rock and roll music and focusing on the crazy antics of Abbie Hoffman, a Yippie leader and co-founder, Morgen made the Yippies seem outrageous and hilarious in their anti-war activities. He refused to be labeled a journalist and smugly stated he was a moviemaker. His goal, he said, was to create a mirror for the viewer, in which they would ask themselves: What would I do when faced with a line of advancing riot police in the heat of the moment?

This kind of argument is concerned with the problem of appropriating reality in art. The philosophical debate has to do with the problems of totalizing representations. In other words, Morgen spoke to the impossibility of appropriating reality through cinema. An even more interesting question, however, involves a reversal of this mode of criticism, and this is what Kesey suggests. In order to address the challenges of contemporary political culture from an oppositional perspective, we need to consider how “reality”– understood in relation media forms like film, in this case - appropriates us as individuals in its pervasive web of representations and dream-making capabilities. This is the hyper-real proposition that must be addressed for the new electronic century.

This is a pertinent question, as our generation has been exposed to mass media in an accelerated and more comprehensive way than prior generations. We need to interrogate the subterranean changes that accompany capitalist culture as it approaches its hyperreal phase. While the objective impulse
behind the protest movement is explicitly political, I fear there is a backside to this on a subjective level that results in its neutralization. The objectivity of the protest is politcal: anti-war activity directed towards the main war-making party. The subjectivity of the protest is narcissistic: protesting
becomes more about expressing yourself as an “activist,” a “radical,” an “anarchist,” or whatever name-tag is popular, than it is about actually organizing effective opposition. The objective-subjective intersection effectively cancels out the possibility of forcing real change from the street, and we are
neutralized in this emergent form of social domination.

The larger significance of films like “Battle in Seattle” is that it is through these mechanisms that identity is formed in ways that are complicit with the power structure. Maybe we oppose the system, but we are powerless to transform its foundation, as we are too self-absorbed and self-righteous to change our organizing strategies in ways that speak to today’s cultural situation and in ways that actually work. As activists today, we are subjectively trying to relive experiences that have already taken place. This is why we fail. Too many of us went to St. Paul to “recreate ’68,” to become the movie star, to become the sexy activist played by Martin Henderson and Michelle Rodriguez. When we become the star and they become us, actual politics doesn’t matter anymore; organizing real opposition no longer matters. It’s about successfully playing into a paradigm that has been pre-constructed for us and that makes us feel important, part of the group, radical. This simulation takes us away from the real, in terms of public policy and affecting livelihoods.

Has there been a post-RNC debate among the oppositional groups here in the cities? I feel that we are dazed by the preemptive police raids and by the preemptory police force that was used against us in overwhelming fashion. We glimpsed what war might really be like and are reeling from the shock. While we are wrapped up in this daze, there is little debate about what we need to do in the future to be better prepared for these encounters. Focusing on the “RNC 8” legal proceedings is important, but shouldn’t blind us from the many internal obstacles we face. The terror wars are not going to end, and we need to seriously think about what we are going to do in response. If organizing ineffective protests that are crushed by the police is an appropriate end, and we are somehow content with letting that happen and then denouncing state terrorism, our voices and efforts will continue to be lost
to the roar of the imperial machine. Or, worse, add to its roar.

If we want to challenge the establishment, we need to think about how best to generate a larger, more sensible movement that employs more creative tactics that will speak more adequately to the realities of today’s political culture. Before transcending and transforming social dominance, we need
to better understand how that dominance is structured in today’s media culture, and how it has structured our own culture of protest.

Of the six films selected, two (“Contempt” and “Band of Outsiders”) have finished screening. “Contempt,” Godard’s most commercially successful film, stars Michael Piccoli as an author-of-crime-novels-turned-screenwriter who sells out to make money on a film for an arrogant film producer, played by Jack Palance. In doing so, Piccoli estranges his wife, played by famous French actress Brigitte Bardot. “Band of Outsiders,” once described by Godard as “Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka,” is an adaptation of Fool’s Gold, an American crime novel starring Anna Karina, a woman whom Godard married and cast in several of his films.

The third film of the screening series, “Two or Three Things I Know About Her,” is screening Wednesday, Oct. 15th and Thursday, Oct. 16th at 7pm and 9pm. This film stars Marina Vlady as a suburban housewife who prostitutes herself in order to have the money to maintain her lifestyle.

“Breathless,” Godard’s first and perhaps most famous film, is screening at the Oak Street Cinema from Friday, Oct. 17th to Sunday, Oct. 19th at 7pm and 9pm with 5pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg star in this crime story that marked the advent of the French
New Wave.

Godard’s futuristic science-fiction film “Alphaville” stars American actor Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution, a private investigator whose case leads him to a scientist whose supercomputer, Alpha 60, is believed to suppress love and individuality. Anna Karina co-stars. Alphaville is screening on Monday, Oct. 20th, and Tuesday, Oct. 21st at 7pm and 9pm.

“Pierrot le Fou,” 1965, is another of Godard’s films starring Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo as a man and his children’s babysitter-turned-girlfriend set out on the run from gangsters. The Oak Street Cinema is screening an all-new 35mm print of this vividly colored film. “Pierrot le Fou” is screening on Wednesday, Oct. 22nd and Thursday, Oct. 23rd at 7pm and 9pm.

The Oak Street Cinema is located at 309 Oak Street SE in Stadium Village.

When I was “bad” as a child I was sent to my room. When Mingus is a bad bird he is sent outside. Meet Mark Bittner, with a scruffy beard, thick glasses, and overgrown hair that he has pledged not to cut until he finds a girlfriend. He can’t leave his conure Mingus outside for too long, because “he is utterly terrified of being forced to leave,” Bittner says.

Wild birds like Mingus, not native to San Francisco, or the United States for that matter, are Bittner’s closest friends. He knows most of the 45 parrots in the flock near his home by name. He can distinguish them by a groove down the side of their beak, an orange feather that should be red, or a particular behavior. Some call him the Saint Francis of Telegraph Hill.

Bittner found the rare wild birds while caretaking for a couple’s home on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. It was a bag of sunflower seeds that helped him find his first parrot. Bittner, originally from Seattle, moved to San Francisco in the ’70s to become a musician. After nearly 15 years as a struggling musician Bittner discovered the flock near his home and became “the bird man,” feeding, befriending and healing a rare species of cherry-headed conures.

It was a group of four that started his flock. A bird Bittner calls Connor, and his mate, Katherine, were two of this quartet. Of the 45 birds they have grown to, Connor is the only original member left.

Bittner feeds all the birds daily, but he does have his favorites. Mingus is his live-in bird, who he assumes at one time had another owner. Sophie and Picasso are “in love,” he suspects; and Connor is the only blue-crowned conure who is not treated well by the others. Connor tolerates the others, and even protects them when hawks appear, but according to Bittner, he is sad because he can’t find a new mate. Bittner filled us in on a secret””that he believes Connor has a crush on Sophie. “They would have purple-headed babies,” Bittner jokes. “I would love to see purple headed babies in the flock.”

Unlike most birds, the cherry-headed conures stay with their young for almost a year. Even when the baby wants out, the parents stuff it back in””kind of like a teenager. Once the baby is strong enough that the parents can’t keep it in the nest anymore, the parents step out of the way as the baby flies out.

Pushkin and Olive are another couple among the flock. The two had just started a family, but after Olive came off the nest and the babies were born, she started appearing ill. After falling out of the tree and onto her back, Bittner realized she wasn’t going to make it and brought her into the house. Pushkin, who had never been a father, raised the babies on his own.

No one knows how the birds, probably from Peru, ended up in San Francisco. There are a number of urban legends. A truck delivering birds to the pet store had an accident and all the birds escaped, one man says. They flew off of a ship, maybe from South America, another lady guesses. Maybe the birds were originally pets but they were too loud so many of them were released, others believe. It is a mystery to most, but a miracle for Bittner.

The director, Judy Irving, started as a young bird watcher thanks to her grandfather. He taught her how to feed birds out of her hand. “Time would stop” she says. It was the influence of her grandfather that made Irving curious in Bittner’s work, and pushed her decision to create the documentary. A documentary, in my opinion, you won’t want to miss. These birds are so unique because they are so much like us; a love triangle, a single father, a spoiled live-in and a social outcast. Their personalities, their behaviors and their relationships are astounding to see and the way Bittner associates with them is heartwarming.

At the end of the movie Bittner cuts his hair– Judy and he had become a pair.

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill will be screened at the Bell Museum on Oct. 26, followed by a discussion led by local community group leaders and University researchers; , .

The story’s crimes and investigations all happen in and around a California high school, a locale rife for noir treatment. With that as a backdrop, the film creates an interesting, immersive world—as long as you can accept teenagers who live a typical high school life while saying and doing things along the lines of Pulp Fiction.

Brick’s plot has all the essentials of a great, generic, hard-boiled detective story. A tough, street-smart outsider, Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt…yeah, the kid from Third Rock from the Sun), shoves his way into the criminal underworld of his high school after his ex-girlfriend gives him a cryptic plea for help then suddenly disappears. On his way to the truth, he’s forced to deal with the perpetually strung-out drug fiend, the vampy temptress, the high school hired thug and a tough-talking “cop” in the form of a vice principal. There are crosses, double-crosses and plenty of difficult to follow dialogue.

While it sounds somewhat ridiculous—and in many ways it is—Brick still packs some wallops, both viscerally and emotionally. There’s plenty of violence that the faint of heart or stomach may not be able to handle. What works in this odd combination of silly and disturbing is Brendan’s relationship with his ex-girlfriend. She left him because of how fiercely protective he was of her, even when she didn’t want protecting. His love is the most intense type I can think of. It’s not a love of two people mad with passion for each other, but that of a person who’s still able to completely and selflessly care for someone, even after they’ve turned their back.

Brick is the kind of film that really demands multiple viewings. There’s definitely enough plot (not to mention enough crazy film-noir speak) to warrant it. While it doesn’t do anything revolutionary with the noir genre, the film updates it to a very fitting modern setting. Because of this, Brick is more homage than parody, a far-out mesh of neo-noir and high school drama. It works as both because it never winks at the audience. The film knows its audience is smart enough to appreciate the serious and the absurd.

The strength of the film lies primarily in its form and style over content. Don’t get me wrong, Rosen’s documentary is bursting at the seams with visual content. The camera pans slowly, Ken Burns-style, across still images of the faces and places that comprised the New York art scene. Rosen covers all his bases, treating our eyes to everything from the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock to the sardonic pop stylings of Andy Warhol. Live footage of art galas and showings bring to life the stories of contributing artists Ellsworth Kelly and David Hockney, among others. Where the film loses sight is with regard to its subject, Henry Geldzahler.

While we are told by every artists interviewed, ad nauseam, how profoundly important Geldzahler was to the post-war art movement, we never get to know him beyond the idiosyncrasies and social adeptness that made him a legendary museum curator and friend to the artists. Geldzahler’s conservative upbringing and strained relationship with his father are touched upon briefly by friends who knew very little of his past, but ultimately we only meet the public Geldzahler. Because he spent much of his adult life surrounded by the beat generation artists he championed, it is through their testimonials and art works that we must understand Geldzahler by understanding what he loved. That he would so willingly pose and serve as subject for the workings of his artist friends (many sculptures, films, sketches and paintings from the era feature him), reveals a very Warhol-like thirst for notoriety that is another aspect of the curator which is unfortunately eclipsed by the film’s emphasis on the art scene itself.

While the intimacies and inner workings of Geldzahler are never fully realized, Rosen does manage to exploit his relationship with the iconic Andy Warhol for a large segment of the film. With the breadth of works already dedicated to Warhol, it’s a shame that Rosen doesn’t more fully explore the enigmatic subject of Geldzahler, and instead punches another fifteen minutes onto Warhol’s clock of fame.

Who Gets to Call It Art? may have its shortcomings with regard to Henry Geldzahler, but it is a captivating visual portrait of a time and place, “the golden age of everything” as one testimony recalls. With pop, abstract expressionist and minimalist works used to illustrate the tale of modern art’s rise, the film is a must for any fan of 20th century art and the tumultuous decade that allowed it to thrive.

You know you’ve stumbled onto a good film when it’s so enjoyable that you can ignore otherwise destructive plot holes. V for Vendetta has more than its share of problems in that department, yet it absolutely held my attention for over two hours. This movie also has plenty of super-stylized violence (it was written by the co-creators of the Matrix and directed by on of their protégés). It even has some rather high-brow drama, a smattering of great dialogue and plenty of thought provoking questions, most of them going unanswered. Basically, V for Vendetta is like an ass-kicking discourse on the relationship between government and violence.

Now when I called V the hero of the story, I was oversimplifying things. He’s really either a terrorist or a freedom fighter, depending on who you ask. Among other things, V bombs buildings, assassinates political figures and causes the deaths of several innocent civilians. Whether V represents good or bad is up to the audience, though sympathy is definitely cast in his direction. Some may not like the moral ambiguity, but I found it very fitting to the story’s premise.

In fact, one of the biggest short comings to me was how glossed-over some of the morals get. Though V never kills a civilian, he most definitely causes the deaths of several. I would have liked to hear a character challenge this. What V really lacked was a good foil—someone to make him own up when his actions aren’t entirely noble. His vendetta is both universal and personal, meaning the things he does aren’t always in the best interest of his cause or those who would help him.

Amazingly enough, V for Vendetta is a movie that I can see many people enjoying. It has enough action and drama for those only looking to be entertained, though an oddly paced mix of the two. But it also makes a willing viewer think enough to be fairly rewarding. There’s a lot in this film to talk about, whether relating to current or past politics. It’s still a comic book action movie, so those unwilling to see a person get shot outrageous amounts of times and still knife the crap out of people may not have the kind of suspension of disbelief necessary. Their loss.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) has a gorgeous wife (Maria Bello), a teenage son and a young daughter. He lives one of those idyllic small-town lives you typically see in movies. One night at the diner Tom owns, two men come in to rob the place and presumably murder everyone inside. Tom, in a quite un-idyllic manner, brutally and efficiently dispatches of the two men before they can lay a hand on anyone. Tom has saved the day and becomes a nationwide hero. Fade to black.

Or at least that’s where your typical story would end, but, thankfully, A History of Violence isn’t your typical story. This is just the beginning. Soon after gaining national attention for his courageous act, Tom and his family are visited by several sinister characters led by Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris). Fogarty claims to know Tom, though by a different name. The tension there is amplified by outbursts from Tom’s son who deals with Tom’s violent actions (not to mention school bullies) in increasingly unhealthy ways.

The brilliance of this story is how it hints at the place of violence in all parts of life — violence toward someone you love, violence toward someone you loathe. One scene even poses the controversial connection of sex and violence. The violence you see is not just graphic, but also gritty and realistic; most action films, comparatively, are cartoons. Some may not enjoy this, and that really is the point. In order to take violence seriously, one has to see both the emotional and the physical effects of it. Director David Cronenberg, infamous for his twisted horror films, knows how to disgust an audience. He also knows how to make the audience question what to enjoy, and whether or not to glorify the violence.

What’s ultimately disappointing is that the film only hints at these connections. It never really explores where these actions come from or what they lead to. This is especially disappointing with the subplot of the son. He’s directly involved in two brutal incidents, raising the question of whether or not violence is learned or innate. Not only is this notion simply abandoned, but also we never see the psychological toll.

The climax also leaves much to be desired. In a film about how complexly intertwined violence is in the world, this section of the film feels like an 80s action movie. With material this intelligent, the bad guys (or good guys for that matter) shouldn’t be so simple. Thankfully there’s a much more emotionally complicated epilogue.

With all this said, A History of Violence is well worth looking into if you’re tired of dumb action thrillers. It most definitely has substance efficiently packed into its 96 minutes, but judged on what it tries to be and who it should be for, the movie simply has too little to offer to be praised the way it is. As far as a history of violence is concerned, this is the Cliff Notes version.

The film version plays much like a typical episode of the show. The scheming Plankton tries to steal the recipe for Krabby Patties and it’s up to SpongeBob to bail out his boss, Mr. Crabs. SpongeBob is joined by his starfish pal Patrick, and together they have to travel somewhere and retrieve something for someone. It doesn’t especially matter.

This may sound outrageous, but the story tended to get in the way of the fun. The best parts of the movie were the nonsensical bits of hilarity. SpongeBob riding David Hasselhoff like a dolphin steed, for example. Not all the gags worked, but even the ones that failed never seemed forced.

This isn’t to say that the movie is free of any flaws. I saw a little too much of “Finding Nemo” in “Spongebob.” In fact, several scenes seemed carbon copied. Also the theme of believing in yourself and never giving up was done more effectively in “Nemo.” With “Spongebob,” it seemed more of an afterthought.

Even if Spongebob and Patrick believe in themselves, it’s usually for the wrong reasons. Besides, they still end up needing to get bailed out of trouble by a mermaid princess (weakly voiced by Scarlett Johansson) or David Hasselhoff (hooray for Hasselhoff!) or some other third thing (watch the movie and you’ll understand).

In fact, there were only two times when the duo got themselves out of an otherwise doomed situation through their own abilities. To me, this meant there was too much reliance on outrageous plot devices to get the characters through (look up Deus Ex Machina). That would be fine if the plot devices were zany and nonsensical like the rest of the movie but they were pretty typical and only existed because the writers wrote themselves into a corner.

Oh, well. I’m still recommending the movie to anyone with a wacky sense of humor.

But even more recommended than “The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie” is the soundtrack to the film. With killer music from The Flaming Lips, The Shins, Wilco and Ween, plus some crazy songs by SpongeBob and friends, this soundtrack is full of some high quality harmony and hilarity. Yes, Avril Lavigne does a version of the theme song but it actually works. The only track that completely doesn’t fit is a Motorhead tune (yes, Motorhead) that was featured in the film. But hey, it’s kind of funny thinking about Motorhead being on a cartoon movie soundtrack. By the way, The Flaming Lips track alone is worth the price of the disc. Any song titled “SpongeBob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy” should be immediately nominated for an Oscar. What was the academy thinking?

Movies such as these often claim to have a moral center as they end their subversive stories in dignified fashion. But if you look closely, “The Godfather” celebrates crime and the mafia, while “American Beauty” celebrates rebellion and apathy. Their endings are merely epilogues to a vastly different story.

I hope you remember this if you see “Mean Girls,” which ends on a positive note of individuality and self-respect, but spends the majority of its running time as a mean-spirited and vicious insult, advocating the very lifestyle and mindset that it later pretends to criticize. It is a movie that helps me understand why children are becoming more sexualized every year, and why image has trumped intelligence, friendships and even health as a teenager’s top priority.

Consider the story: Cady (Lindsay Lohan) is a nice, sweet girl who wants to hang out with the popular clique, known as The Plastics. But to be a “Plastic,” she must dumb herself down, start wearing skirts, use makeup, “hang out” with boys and gossip about her teachers and classmates.

Along with her nerdy friends Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese), she becomes part of this group as a prank, intending to learn more about who the Plastics are, mock them behind their backs and tell Janis and Damian all their sordid tales.

But as the movie goes on, Cady suddenly becomes one of them. She gets caught up in their feuds, fixated on the athletic boys who are always buzzing around, and ends up ditching her old, boring friends on this quest for popularity.

That is, before a final, emotional twist in the story brings her back to her senses, and all is restored to the way it should be.

I fear though that viewers will errantly shrug this movie off as a silly little satire. If that is what “Mean Girls” truly was, there would be more criticism and judgment of Cady as she becomes shallower, and her actions would not be funny and endearing, but crude and ridiculous. While the end of the film brings this very criticism and judgment, Cady has been a living, breathing Plastic for so long that it seems like an aside in a story that actually celebrates the image and lifestyle, rather than critiquing it.

I know, it’s just a movie, right? I’m sure many will think I’m being too analytical, critical and serious.

But if you watch the energetic moments in this film, they reflect the very worst of human nature. Cady acts dumb to get the boys and dismisses grades for her popularity. In numerous segments, Cady and her gang make fun of gays, the handicapped, breast implants and anyone who is different than them. Clothing, appearance and social status become the only traits that matter.

It is a mean film with a mean heart, and while its final message seems to be that hatred is bad, I think it’s a trifle we could have done without. After all, those receptive to such a message don’t seek out films like “Mean Girls,” which are dominated by hateful and venomous humor. While “Mean Girls” pretends to be a social satire, parents should instead steer towards “13 Going On 30,” which satirizes the shallowness of adulthood while remaining true to the innocence of youth.

Much as “The Godfather” thrived in scenes of violence, and “American Beauty” in scenes of revolt and rebellion, “Mean Girls” is most energetic when it is mocking, ridiculing and dismissing everyone who fails to follow the Britney Spears life manual.

Why spend $8? Just stay home and watch MTV.

Steven Snyder reviews movies on Radio K (AM 770) Friday and Sunday mornings. He welcomes feedback at snyd0151@umn.edu.