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Film and the Arts
New Films in Brief: Invisible War, Stella Days, Collaborator
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 27 June 2012 10:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
The Invisible War
Directed by Kirby Dick
Opened June 22, 2012
Stella Days
Directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan
Opened June 22, 2012; available on demand June 19
Collaborator
Written and directed by Martin Donovan
Opens July 6, 2012; available on demand June 20
One of the most important documentaries in years, The Invisible War powerfully gives voice 
to women in the U.S. military who were raped or sexually abused while serving, an outcome shockingly more possible than being shot by the enemy in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Despite our best and brightest women joining the armed forces due to patriotism or long family traditions, their lives have been unconscionably ruined by a strictly male-centered mentality that puts women under enormous added pressure just for being women. Being violated physically is just the beginning of the nightmare: what they endure afterward—if they decide to report the abuse, which many don’t for fear of reprisals—is as distressing emotionally as the rape was.
Director Kirby Dick—whose other valuable documentaries are This Film Is Not Yet Rated and Outrage—not only gets several women to recount their compelling but heartbreaking stories, showing what lies ahead for those still being abused, but also buttresses his argument with head-scratching statistics about how widespread the abuse is and how little the army has done to combat it. (Laughable examples of PSAs designed to raise awareness within the armed services do little but consolidate the “blame the victim” mentality still prevalent in wider society as well.)
The Invisible War lays bare how our otherwise estimable armed forces are tarnished by this horrific debasement of so many unfortunate victims (there are some males among them): in eye-opening interviews with senior members of the military both clued in and clueless, that disconnect remains, despite recent advances, post-screening for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, to try and remedy some of the injustices done to those who make claims against fellow soldiers.
Stella Days is based on Michael Doorley’s memoir of rural Ireland in the 1950s when a country still heavily influenced by the Catholic Church is taking baby steps to modernize, despite vociferous opposition by conservative leaders to remain in the dark ages.
Into the breach steps Father Daniel Barry, a liberal-leaning priest who, with the help of new school teacher Tim, to open a small movie theater for a population that’s barely seen any. Leading the anti-movie charge is Brendan, an ultra-conservative zealot running for office, hoping to keep his constituency from entering the 20th century, even belatedly.
Although Stella Days is mainly a feel-good melodrama, director Thaddeus O’Sullivan keeps sentiment at bay by approaching the subject with humor, especially when showing the absurd convictions of Father Barry’s parishioners. However, although Father Barry is skeptical, he’s still a believer, and never does he or O’Sullivan mock such heartfelt sentiments.
With on-target performances by Martin Sheen as Father Barry and Stephen Rea as Brendan, Stella Days is worth spending time with.
Martin Donovan first came to attention in Hal Hartley’s romantic comedy Trust (1990), in 
which Donovan and the late, great Adrienne Shelley traded quips in Hartley’s arch but affecting classic. So it’s no surprise that Collaborator, Donovan’s first film as writer and director, borrows from Hartley in its deadpan study of two men thrown together by unlikely circumstances.
Donovan plays Robert Longfellow, a playwright on the downside of his career and his marriage, who returns to L.A. from New York City to visit his mother. He also rekindles an affair with Emma, an actress who starred in several of his plays, and runs into Gus, a shady ex-felon from the neighborhood he’s known since they were kids: the men drink beers and kick around old times, and when Gus pulls a gun on Robert as the police surround Robert’s mother’s home, he finds his messy personal life is shown to a riveted television audience.
As writer, Donovan has created intriguingly bizarre characters of the sort Hartley did, as well as tart dialogue between the mismatched men compensating for the contrived relationships between Robert and Emma (underplayed sweetly by Olivia Williams) and his wife Alice (stiffly played by ex-Hole bassist Melissa auf der Maur).
As director, Donovan leans too heavily on the men’s absurd situation, and the title’s double entendre is too literally spelled out in the men’s final confrontation. As actor, Donovan doesn’t stretch himself as the put-upon hero, while David Morse persuasively portrays a loser grasping at anything resembling a life preserver. The actors provide the movie’s true collaboration.
The Invisible War
Stella Days
Collaborator
June '12 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 25 June 2012 05:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Dmitri Shostakovich never finished his satirical opera Orango, only getting through the prologue. In Simon McBurney’s orchestration, it’s a daffy, derivative piece of fluff by one of the 20th century’s Soviet masters. The 30 minutes of music are rarely original but always fun to listen to.
Both Orango and a compelling account of Shostakovich’s massive Fourth Symphony—written in the mid-‘30s but not premiered until 1961—are performed by the L.A. Philharmonic under conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Theater Roundup: Shanley in the Bronx, Shakespeare in the Park
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 22 June 2012 10:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
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Storefront Church (photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia) |
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| As You Like It (photo: Joan Marcus) |
The Songwriters Hall of Fame 2012 Induction Ceremony
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 19 June 2012 13:41
- Written by Lloyd Carroll
Although it was created 17 years before the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame has never gotten the attention from the entertainment media and the public that it deserves.
Part of the problem is that the Songwriters Foundation has never gotten the funding to build a permanent home in a city (it’s currently a wing in LA’s Grammy Museum) the way Cleveland stepped up for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.
It’s a shame because New York, with its rich music publishing and theatrical history would be a natural fit to pay tribute to the greatest tunesmiths in history.
One advantage that the Songwriters Hall of Fame has over its Rock & Roll counterpart is that it can honor composers from various musical genres. At the 43rd annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, held June 14, 2012, at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan, nearly every form of popular music was represented.
The evening opened with Bob Seger, already a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, commemorating being honored by the SHOF with a performance of a relatively minor hit for him, “Turn The Page.” It would have been easy for him to sing any of his big hits such as “Night Moves,” “We’ve Got Tonight,” “Hollywood Nights” and the like, but “Turn The Page,” with its lyrics that strip away the perceived glamor of the road life of a rock musician on the road, was clearly autobiographical and downright personal for him.
Canadian troubadour Gordon Lightfoot still tours around the world at age 73 and although his voice, has frayed a bit from his 1970s hit-making days, he still sounds great. It’s not shocking that the snooty and arbitrary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has ignored Lightfoot.
But it is also surprising however that it has taken this long for the Songwriters Hall executive committee to honor this great storyteller whose works include: “The Early Morning Rain,” “Rainy Day People,” “Beautiful,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Carefree Highway,” and “Sundown” -- which was performed on this night by blues rocker Steve Miller.
Although it wasn’t his biggest hit, “If You Could Read My Mind,” with its irresistible string section and acoustic guitar interludes -- punctuated by Gordon’s ruminations over the regrets of a failed relationship -- was the record that put him on the map. Lightfoot performed the song that night with all of the freshness and enthusiasm that he did back in 1971.
Don Schlitz is not a household name for most pop music fans, and no, he is not related to the family that made Schlitz Beer. He is, however, highly respected in Nashville and understandably so.
Among the songs in his portfolio are hit songs for Randy Travis (“Forever and Ever, Amen” and “On The Other Hand”), the late Keith Whitley (“When You Say Nothing At All”) and Alabama (“Forty Hour Week”).
In terms of recognition, those aforementioned songs pale in comparison to “The Gambler,” a gigantic 1978 hit for Kenny Rogers who sang it again on this night.
Interestingly when I met Schlitz on a Manhattan street years ago he told me that he knew nothing about poker or any kind of card games. Indeed, a close lis
ten to the lyrics show that the poker terminology is merely a metaphor for the vicissitudes of life.
Just as Kenny Rogers came to show appreciation to the composer who gave him one of his signature hits, so did Marvin Lee Aday, better known to most as Meat Loaf, who came to honor Jim Steinman, the man behind his multi-platinum 1977 Bat Out Of Hell album. In his speech for Steinman, Meat Loaf talked about how his songs were all mini-plays and the lyrics were often tongue-in-cheek. “Fortunately our fans were in on the joke,” he said.
The late Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto always claimed that he wasn’t in on the humor when he recorded a bit for that album that had a player trying to steal bases including home as a metaphor for a passionate evening. “He could go all the way!” said the Scooter in the song.I have a feeling that Rizzuto was protesting with a wink of the eye.
Steinman grew up in Hewlett and his over-the-top bombastic production made him rock’s answer to the German classical composer Richard Wagner. While he is most identified with Meat Loaf, Steinman composed hits for Celine Dion (“It’s All Coming Back To Me”), Barry Manilow (“Read ‘Em And Weep”), Bonnie Tyler (“Total Eclipse Of The Heart”), and Air Supply (“Making Love Out Of Nothing At All”).
Broadway was not forgotten as the composing tandem of Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones (not the Welsh singer) were honored for their contributions to musical theater. They are responsible for the longest running play in showbiz history -- The Fantasticks.
Cheyenne Jackson, one of the hottest actors working in New York today sang “Try To Remember” whose lyric of “without the hurt, the heart is hollow,” is, for my money, one of the best one-line philosophical observations ever put into a song. Jackson did not put the passion that the late Jerry Orbach or the Brothers Four, who had a pop hit with it did, but he got the job done.
But that's what made this evening, and the annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony such an important event -- because it gives all of us a chance to remember who were the core creators of some of the greatest songs we've ever heard.
The 43rd annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
June 14, 2012
the Marriott Marquis
Manhattan
