Why J.J. Abrams' new STAR TREK is the best of the bunch -- TV and movies included

Speed and energy do the trick. J.J.Abrams' prequel/re-imagining of the STAR TREK franchise is so lively and moves so fast -- without undue confusion but with enough of the required spectacle to pop your eyes -- that it forces you to keep up and then pays off that effort with enormous entertainment.

TrustMovies came late to theatrical viewing of this early summer blockbuster, which opened the first week of May. By the time friends and I managed to find a mutually agreeable date to get together, the movie was, two months into its run, playing continuously in only a couple of NYC venues. Yet on the evening we viewed it, by the time the trailers had commenced, the entire theater had nearly sold out. Eight weeks into the run, this must be an exhibitor's dream come true. All four in our group -- whose tastes range from foreign/independent to mainstream to "I only go to the films that critics have told me are good" -- found the movie a lot of fun and as good an example of what we hope for in a summer blockbuster as any we'd seen in some time.

In giving us a prequel to the original TV series (larded with dollops of later times), director Abrams and his writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman take into consideration this very durable francise's fan base without pandering to it. The result is a movie of which fans seem to approve and non-fans like me are happy to embrace. I loathed the original series, which I saw a few times as a young man during its initial TV run, because it seemed to me that these boring people in their boring show were always trying to save the universe (or some of its inhabitants) while teaching us viewers an IMPORTANT MORAL LESSON -- DO YOU HEAR ME? -- with not quite the subtlty I'm applying here. As for the later Star Trek movies (and yes, I'm including that second fiasco with Ricardo Montalban), one was worse than the next and also seemed to last longer.

Little wonder that I was so surprised and delighted by this newer model, in which the cast looks enough like younger versions of the original crew (but are -- praise Gene -- beter actors!) to add an extra filup of homage to the proceedings. Chris Pine (aobve, left) and Zachary Quinto (above, right) make a fine Kirk & Spock and Eric Bana (below) a very good villain, but if anybody steals the show it's Anton Yelchin's Pavel Chekhov (show on poster, top, at extreme right, and in first photo above, extreme left). At the end of his Save-the-Vulcans scene, the audience broke out into its only moment of spontaneous applause. (Yelchin is, as always, superb. If this is your first experience seeing him, do rent Alpha Dog and Charlie Bartlett, for starters.) Only Zoe Saldana, an actress I usually enjoy, disappoints. She's awfully slick -- which perhaps, not coincidentally, is the only gripe I have with the movie.

Slickness is often a virtue but too much of it begins to render this Star Trek a bit rote at times and maybe just a tad heartless. Still, I'll take a little less heart over the stultifying boredom of everything else I've seen in this apparently endless series.

LAKE TAHOE: Eimbcke's dreaded "second" film proves a gem. Also: filmmaker Q&A

On the basis of his first two full-length features -- Duck Season and now Lake Tahoe -- I'm ready to declare Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke (pronounced I'm Kay, with the accent on the first syllable) an original. The guy's got his own tone and take on things, and his movies remind me of little else in the canon. Sure, you could bring up Jarmusch (some have), but

Eimbcke's work is sweeter, looser, with a distinctive sense of hopeful surprise in the world and its people -- Mexican variety, at least.

Meeting this co-writer (with Paola Markovitch) and director in person underscores what one gets from his films: kindness, hope and an open, guileless quality that proves enormously welcoming. As one person who's involved pro-
fessionally with Eimbcke (shown at right) here in the U.S. told me bluntly: "He's the nicest filmmaker I've ever worked with." Nice is good, of course, but what we viewers want is content and style on-screen, and he certainly offers that, too, but in a quiet, subtle way. Dogs may bark in his new film, but nobody seems to shout.

Lake Tahoe begins with a bang -- on a black screen. When the first visual occurs, we see that a car has crashed -- nothing horrible: the driver -- a young man -- seems a little stunned but OK. He (and the film) spend the next 84 minutes trying to get that car repaired, walking into the nearby small town and connecting with one person after another and taking bizarre/funny, real/moving side-trips into the life of the town's characters. Scenes are divided by the same black screen that opens the movie, making them seem a bit like chapters in a book.

As the film progresses, we learn the back-story, too, and of the loss our hero (well-played by Diego Cataño, shown right who bears some resemblance to a younger Eimbcke) has suffered. It turns out that this story is quite similar to one that happened to the director, and I find it interesting that Eibmcke chose to make this his second film -- rather than his first, as I suspect many new filmmakers would have done. Perhaps holding off on telling it until he had gained more filmmaking savvy has enabled this wise and talented director to avoid that curse of the disappointing follow-up to a well-received first film.

Whatever: Lake Tahoe is a tiny diamond in the rough. Like the interesting poster/DVD box art (shown top) designed for its US release, the title, with its see-through lettering, makes the lake itself seem more a memory than anything concrete. Eimbcke's film begins its U.S. theatrical-run at Anthology Film Archives, New York City, today, 7/10/2009 through 7/16/09, and will then open at the NW Film Forum in Seattle, WA, and the San Francisco Film Society, CA, from 7/24/2009 through 7/30/2009. The generally spot-on Film Movement is handling distribution throughout the U.S., which means we can definitely see it again on DVD -- eventually.

*********

Trust Movies meets with Señor Eimbcke in the Film Movement office on a wonderfully cool and breezy summer afternoon, which NYC has been graced with more often than usual so far this year. The writer/director is relatively tall, dark and good looking, very friendly and eager to talk. (There may be a few spoilers ahead, so -- if possible -- see the movie and then come back to this post.)

TrustMovies: First off, how do you pronounce your last name?

Fernando Eimbcke (shown below, right): "Eimbcke."

So, phonetically, this sounds just like I’m Kay – with the accent on the first syllable? Yes, that’s it. What extraction is that name? From which countries does it come? It’s German. From the north -- where they put a lot of consonants all together. That happens in the northern part of Germany. Your movies – and by that, I mean just your two full length features, Duck Season and Lake Tahoe, rather than your shorts, which I have not seen – seem to me, more than those of any other moviemaker I can think of, sort of like the film equivalent of a shrug. A shrug? What is a shrug? Like this (I give him a visual example of a shrug). But a kind of very wonderful, multi-dimensional shrug which has lots of humor and feeling and questioning inside it. Does this make sense to you? Um-hum… Uh-hum... Yes!

For me, your films are not like anyone else’s work. They seem original – without trying to be original. How do you do this?

Well…. I am very happy that you have not seen my short films, because these are very different from my full-length. When I started in the film school, we had screenwriting classes but it was not like the most important thing. I think that this was because they expected that, at the end, we would make only a short film And so they never wanted to worry that much… about….

You mean about plot and characterization and all those things.

Yes, because the films would just be short. But the structure of a short film is so different from a long one. So when I got out from school, I made all these music videos, short films that were very funny but with no drama. Then I made a short film with drama. But it was a terrible short film with three or four short scenes that worked and all the rest were terrible. But then I had the great luck to meet Paola Markovitch. She worked with me on Duck Season and Lake Tahoe. With her I learned a lot -- about drama, conflict, character, and so my perspective on filmmaking changed a lot after I met Paola.

She was the co-writer with you?

In Duck Season she was a kind of collaborator and adviser but on Lake Tahoe she was a co-writer! Because I had lost my father and she had lost her father, it was like a story built from….

From reality?

Yes.

How old were you when you lost your father?

16.


And that’s what the character in the film is going through -- the loss of his own father.

Yes, and so once I met Paula, I learned a lot of about drama, conflict, character, and so my perspective of filmmaking changed a lot.

“Where did the idea from Lake Tahoe come from?” was my next question, but clearly it came from the death of your own father.

Yes, I crashed my family’s car after the death of my own father when I was 16, and I didn’t know why. So Lake Tahoe was a kind of excuse to finally understand that stupid action.

Your movie begins after the crash.

We hear that he crashed the car but it is in a black frame, so we don’t see it.

I didn’t make the connection right away that your character had deliberately crashed the car. It took me awhile to make that connection. But it didn’t bother me because everything in the film was so interesting.

The reason that we didn’t show the event of the crash if because we didn’t know or care about why he crashed the car. Like with what happened to me: I didn’t know why, in real life when it happened, and either does my character in the film. So it’s like I give my character that chance to find out.

Did you see Rachel Getting Married: the Jonathan Demme movie?

No. Not yet.

There’s a car crash in that film, too, and it has to do with a death in the past. But it is handled so differently, and comes toward the end of the movie, and for me it was sort of a deal-breaker. The movie was going along very nicely, and then suddenly the event happens, and from then on in the movie does not make as much good sense. In your film, I think it helps that we know nothing about what happened before the crash. We can piece everything together afterward, if we choose to. And when we do, things make sense – logically, emotionally, in every kind of way.

I hope so.

What did your movie cost to make?

Two millions dollars.

U.S dollars?

Yes.

That’s pretty expensive. For a small independent film.

We did the film not in Mexico City area, but in the Southwestern part of Mexico, and that cost a lot because we needed to pay for the airplane fare, the rooms….

What did Duck Season cost?

One million dollars.

Wow – that was relatively expensive, too. How long did it take you and Paola to write Lake Tahoe?

Oh, a long time. A very long time. Because after I had finished Duck Season, we talked about the story, and then very quickly we wrote the treatment, and then I wrote a first draft which was very good. But I kept thinking it was very bad: a bad story, a bad idea. I was very scared after Duck Season because there were so many expectations....

That’s always very hard: doing a second film after your first one is so well-received.

I just didn’t know if I should even be making this film. Because it was a personal story. I didn’t want to talk about that theme -- the death of a father. Because I felt that my story won’t be good enough if I talk about something so personal.

And yet you don’t talk about it so much in the movie. You talk about everything around that. But not so much the thing itself.

No. Instead we took a decision to not do “tears” in the film. Or all the sadness. It’s a story about loss, but there won’t be tears because they are not necessary. There is a conflict, and a dramatic situation, but we don’t need to show the tears and sadness because that is the easy way. When you have lost someone you love, it is very private. You don’t go with people in the streets, crying. You go somewhere private.

Yes, and you don’t always come to terms with the loss right away. It takes awhile. At first, you often don’t even know what to make of it.

When I wrote the first draft of my script. I told my wife, who read the script—

Wait, wait. Your wife? You're married? How old are you now?

I’m 38.

Wow – I thought you were much, much younger. Like, in your late 20s. I'm probably mixing you up with your character a bit. So then you’ve had over 20 years to be thinking about all of this, your father and his death, and coming to terms with it.

In some ways I was like the main character during the writing of the script. I was escaping, or trying to escape from it. But I had very good luck to have Paola Markovitch at my side and also my producers – telling me, it’s a good story, go for it, do it!

You said it took a long, long time to write the final script . But how long, once that script was finished, did it take to film it?

A very short time. Just five weeks. Very quickly -- and the editing process was really, really fast, too. It was very enjoyable, too. I won’t say “easy” but very natural, very organic, very good.

What is the biggest difference between doing a short and long film.

Doing the short film is not easy, but your can do it quickly. The full-length screenplay is like running a marathon.

What do you see happening to Mexico politically in the coming years. Do you see any real change afoot?

No.. Not really. I…. I don’t know. I think it will get….

Worse?

Yes. I don’t know. We had elections, just three days ago. Not for President, but for the Congress. And the same PRI party has stayed in power for 70 years….

That was the party of Vicente Fox?

No, that was the PAN party.

But then the PRI has not been in power for the most recent 70 years, because Fox was President for a time?

No, the PRI was in power for 70 years, and then Fox and the PAN party came into power, and then Felipe Calderón, also with the PAN. And now everything is back to PRI.

So there were only two Presidents under PAN.

Yes, and it is very sad. The party of the left is like a mess right now. Very divided…..

The right always seems to know how to coalesce -- not just in Mexico but all over. They know how to hold on to power, while the left is always all over the place. I am not sure this will change because to make a change, the left will have to start acting and behaving like the right: being in lock-step and not allowing dissent and using its power to crush the opposition. This has always been sort of anathema to the left -- it goes against our deepest feelings. Consequently, the party of the right can align itself with any of the nastiest plans and then ride roughshod over everything. Were you more PAN-oriented than PRI. Do you prefer one to the other?

Ummmm. I don’t like any of them. I prefer a party of the left.

So PAN is not left.

No, PAN is right-wing.

More than PRI? Really?! So Fox and Calderón are more right-wing than PRI? I didn’t realize that.

PRI likes to pretend that it is the party of the center but this is not really true. They go with whatever works for them. They don’t have a pure ideology, no. (Fernando seems sad. We just sit for a moment.)

So what’s next on your agenda? I checked the IMDB, but it doesn’t to say you are doing anything new.

Ah… No, but I am working now on a short film. I was invited to make a short film for a film that will be called Revolution. Because in Mexico next year we will celebrate the centenary of the Mexican Revolution.

That was Zapata?

Yes.

One hundred years already? Wow. It won’t be a very happy celebration though, will it?

No. Actually, no. But they invited us to make a film, and that seemed really good. It will not be like an institutional film, either. They told us, Here is the money: Do whatever you want.

Did they do this with several filmmakers?

Yes. With ten Mexican filmmakers.

So this will be like the 9/11 compilation film?

Yes, or like Paris, Je t’aime.

Ah, so then I imagine that filmmakers like Iñárritu and the Cuarón brothers will be included?

Maybe. Ummm.... Right now I cannot really say too much about the film or who will be doing it.

But it will be released in 2010?

Yes.

Short films should be easier to bring in more quickly, right?

Yes, but this one took me a long time. A long time.

Were you happier with this one than with your earlier short films?

Oh, yes.

OK: Is there anything else you want to talk about: Something that you always hope that journalists will ask you but none of us ever do. Or something you want to “soapbox” aobut…?

Eimbcke think about this for a few moments....

Right now, there are a lot of people talking about Mexican cinema -- all around the world and at festivals. There are also a lot of Mexican filmmakers doing very good things. It is a very good moment for Mexican films. But in the end, it is a shame that this phenomenon is not working well in Mexico – in terms of exhibition, distribution, attendance, or the Mexican people supporting new Mexican cinema. There are not that many places to show new Mexican cinema in Mexico.

I hear this so often in countries all around the world, especially, I think, in Spain and Latin American countries.

Yes, it is very difficult. I hope that things change, with Mexican cinema. There are amazing things happening in Mexican cinema. Like a documentary called Shakespeare’s and Victor Hugo’s Intimacies by Yulene Olaizola. It is really good.

Will it be released here? Was it released in Mexico?

No, neither. But I hope it will be. That’s the problem in Mexico!

Was Lake Tahoe released in Mexico?

Yes.

Was it successful?

No. It was not successful in terms of box-office.

Everybody wants to see Transformers.

Yes, but I think there are a lot of people who love cinema. Who are even going to school to study cinema. I think people must turn their attention toward exhibition – in order to create new places to see this kind of cinema. You can spend all your life fighting with the huge exhibitors, saying, Please show my film. But the exhibitors will say, I need to show Transformers because I need to make money. We need to find new ways to exhibit.

Do you have anything like Netflix or streaming movies in Mexico?

We don’t have anything like Netflix, but we do have the ability to stream on computer. But not that many people can afford to do this. We still have video stores, but they sometimes work -- or they don’t. We put them in the south part of Mexico and it didn’t work. We have Blockbuster, but they don’t show the smaller movies. I hope things change. Things must.

Yes, but you said you think they wouldn’t change politically. And if they don’t change politically, can they change any other way?

I think that the people will change. I believe in people, in the power of the people. In Mexico, right now, there are the congressional elections, and there was a huge movement toward the “Block Vote.” When you go to vote, you just put a huge X across the voting card – which means “I don’t believe in the elections. It does not mater who you vote for. It doesn’t matter if its PRI or PAN or whatever.” And people are doing this in a huge way. They are saying we no longer believe in this way of doing things. So, maybe....

The Film Movement PR person interrupts our session, and so
we thank Fernando Eimbcke for his time -- and his films --
and we hope he keeps up the good work.

(All photos, excepting those of Señor Eimbcke, are from Lake Tahoe.)

BLOOD: My Sassy Vampire (and Ji-hyun Jun gets her name changed to Gianna!)

What makes BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE so initially intriguing is that either or both of the Chrises at its helm (Nahon, pictured below, who directed, or Chow who wrote the screenplay) decided to give their vampire movie some authentic elements of a good mystery thriller. Who's doing what -- and why -- keeps us guessing, and the betrayals and hair-breadth escapes keep us glued to the screen.

For awhile, at least. The other ace the filmmakers have up their sleeve is choice-of-era: the 1970s, which means every-
thing from Vietnam to the twist, classic cars, hair and fashion.

All this makes the first half of this 89-minute movie move briskly and easily. The first few set pieces -- a confrontation in a gymnasium (the film opens in a school on a American military base in Asia), a chase through the city with two girls being menaced by a slew of fang-bearers, shoot- outs in a swank home and a seedy, noirish hotel -- are choice indeed. It's when the plot thickens (with myth, legend, parentage and a bunch more CGI effects stirred into the mix) that things begin to drag.

In the lead role of the half vampire/half human is a young lady now named Gianna, shown at right, who only a few years ago set hearts atwitter as the adorable nutcase (played by the same actress, then called Ji-hyun Jun) at the heart of the Korean hit My Sassy Girl. Well, Gianna is a lot easier on the international tongue, I suppose. Also in the cast is Allison Miller (shown below, from TV's Kings); Liam Cunningham, who only a couple of months back was seen in a terrific turn as the priest in Hunger (I would call this new assignment a case of extreme slumming); and Koyuki, a famous Japanese model-turned-actress who was graced with a Best Actress in Japan nomination in 2006. (I doubt she'll get one for her over-the-top work here, but--hey--it's a vampire movie, right?)

All of them do their very best against either the bad guys/girls or the good guys/girls, depending on each of their character's predilection (pro fangs or con). What they all finally lose out to, however, is that old "green screen" bugaboo -- acting in a vacuum while the special effects mavens take control of plot, character and everything else. Mr. Nahon, who did a creditable job helming the Jet Li/Bridget Fonda Kiss of the Dragon, does best during the film's initial 45 minutes. Once the big-cheese monster takes over for a pretty much thrill-free climax, the direction might as well be on auto-pilot.

Hong Kong action director/choreographer Corey Yuen has some impressive credits behind him, as well, and indeed his staging of one major fight scene (a bit of which is shown above) in the second half is relatively fun and spectacular. But, unless you just love second-rate special effects, there's finally no way this movie's arc can rise. Vampires are hot right now, they tell us. Blood has enough good things going for it not to curdle this trend, but it might cool it down a bit.

Blood: The Last Vampire opens nationally via Samuel Goldwyn Films this Friday, July 10.

YOO-HOO, MRS. GOLDBERG: Redis-covering a Jewish icon; Q&A w/Kempner

Funny how a simple phrase, unheard for over half a century, can open up a vanished world. Just seeing this documen-
tary's title -- Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg! -- immediately whisked me back to childhood and my early tele-
vision days, in the process making this movie a sudden and surprising "must-see."

Moviegoers even a single decade younger than I, who am approaching 69,

will probably not have the same reaction, and those younger still may have none at all. Yet Gertrude Berg, the subject of the engrossing, funny and charming documentary, YOO-HOO, MRS. GOLDBERG by Aviva Kempner, turns out to have a lot to teach us -- easily, entertainingly -- in this eye-opening film.

Mrs. Berg (shown at right, during her radio days) won the first-ever TV "Emmy" for Best Actress and, in a nationwide poll, came in second only to Eleanor Roosevelt as the most respected woman in America. (And she was Jewish, yet!) World War II, William Paley, the Blacklist, a withholding father, a loving husband and so much more make up the meat of the movie, most of which is fascinating stuff. The story of this woman, certainly nothing special on the outside, and how she pursued her ideas and dreams to fruition, is not simply inspiring but a little shocking, too. How she was able to make such enormous contributions to show business, Jewry and America as the world's great melting pot makes a terrific story, and Kempner tells it, if not terrifically, certainly well enough to hook us and hold us.

Ms. Kempner, pictured above, also gave us The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg a few years back and was the producer and researcher for the ground-breaking 1986 documentary, Partisans of Vilna. Watching her consideration of the life and times of Mrs. Berg makes it clear how ripe and ready Gertrude and her "Molly" counterpart are for rediscovery -- and how odd and crazy it is that the two of them have almost disappeared from our national consciousness. Berg's radio and TV series, The Goldbergs, was the most popular show of its time. When it finally went off the air, its prime time-spot was taken over by Lucille Ball and her I Love Lucy, which itself went on to become America's most popular TV show.

Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg raises so many interesting points along the way -- about anti-Semitism in the U.S., the Holocaust, a woman's place, and how a fantasy family can replace the real one -- that you'll find something sweet, sad and/or thought-provoking around almost every corner. Berg was also, it turns out, the originator of the "star" hawking a brand (as she's doing above, with her little TV ladies' group, telling us how delicious Sanka coffee can be). Below, she stares enrapt at a very young Frank Sinatra. Further below you can see her, dressed to the nines, appearing on Ed Murrow's TV show. This lady sure got around.

You'll get around with her if you take in Ms. Kempner's film, which International Film Circuit is releasing to theaters beginning Friday, July 10. It opens first in New York City at the Lincoln Square and the Quad cinemas. A further limited national roll-out is expected.

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You’ll have your own questions following a viewing of Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg. Here are mine, answered by Ms. Kempner via email:

TrustMovies: How come Akiva Goldsman is a man and Aviva Kempner is a woman? Is it the difference between the K and the V -- as in Francis and Frances? Or are Israeli/Hebrew names used for both sexes -- as in Ronnie and Sandy?

Aviva Kempner: Aviva means Spring in Hebrew -- and I tried all day to find out what Akiva means. He is a very talented writer.

Are any of the old Goldberg shows available on DVD? If not, how might this come to pass?

The shows were never syndicated and also maybe she was too early for them to be known. And you know from the film that the blacklist hurt her. The good news is that UCLA is putting the shows together sometime in the future in DVD format.

That is great news! What happened to Gertrude Berg's husband, who was so supportive of her (as opposed to her father)?

He outlived her, staying in the apartment in New York, and they are buried next to one another.

The history that your film covers -- pre WWII and radio (William Paley's help during radio and hindrance w/TV? Odd...), then the war, and post-war, and television; the Blacklist and Philip Loeb; Broadway and a Minority of One – is so thorough and inclusive. But what, specifically, did Gertrude die of?

She had a bad heart and high blood pressure.

Have you sold the doc to TV yet? Greenberg went there, right? To PBS?

No television deal as yet. Right now I am just concerned with my theatrical release. I make my films to be shown on the big screen in movie theaters.

What's next on your plate?

Maybe a film on the Rosenwald Schools or Samuel Gompers.

Shelton's HUMPDAY: Straight-guy homo- sexual panic meets the woman's movie

Whew: For a film with a mile-wide hole where its engine, its heart -- the desire that propels its two main characters -- should be, HUMPDAY still manages to entertain and fascinate so very well that audiences with a taste for the forbidden and transgressive will probably go along for the ride. Director and co-writer (with her actors) Lynn Shelton (shown at right, below) has pulled together a weird

story with the right cast and crew -- at the correct time in our cultural history -- to make things coalesce nicely around that hole.

As you will soon know, if you don't already, Humpday deals with a pair of straight male friends-since-school-days who decide to have sex with each other -- as a kind of porno/art project. You probably see that hole opening up right now. Why do they choose to do this? The movie provides so many different reasons as it proceeds towards its conclusion that you'll have no want of answers to the question, though not a single one makes enough emotional/gut sense to propel these characters toward follow-through: "I was drunk at the time that I got the idea," "I need to spread my wings and try something different," pure "oneupsmanship," "I want to finally finish something that I start,""Maybe I'll even make some money at it and discover a new career" (these guys are not particularly beefcake types, but then neither is Ron Jeremy). And so on.

Being bi-sexual myself, with a stronger predilection for the male, I must ask my straight comrades: This makes sense to you, right? Don't take a vacation together to Fiji, don't combine your resources and go into some new business, don't even -- since we're talking sex here -- decide to have a threesome with a woman. Nope: gotta be sex with each other. Could one of our "heroes" possibly have homosexual tendencies and be "out there" a bit on the famous Kinsey scale? I'll leave that for you to decide, but I certainly did not find either of them so inclined. And thus, whatever happens between our two friends, given the current level of straight guy-homosexual panic abroad in our society, this hole -- the straight guy's heart of darkness -- remains open and gaping. And the decision to proceed on their quest is simply unbelievable.

About the movie itself and one's ability to enjoy it? No problem. The two leads are played by the mumblecore-famous Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Hannah Takes the Stairs) and Joshua Leonard (Quid pro Quo, The Life and Death of Bobby Z), and they're quite fun to watch, as they out-doofus each other with shocking regularity. Yet it's the women on view who make the most sense: Alycia Delmore as Duplass' wife, and Trina Willard and Ms Shelton herself as a pair of seemingly lesbian lovers who invite Leonard in for a swing -- so long as he's willing to let them use their dildo, rather than his own equipment. Leonard's response to this, while amusing if not particularly believable (coming as it does from a supposedly horny guy), ups the clueless-doofus quotient another twenty notches and hands the movie over -- lock, stock and two limp penises -- to the female of the species. Particularly to Ms. Delmore (shown below), who is simply wonderful: trusting, confused, funny and utterly real from first to last. Her response to everything she encounters helps ground the movie. Without her, and her strength of character, Humpday could have easily descended into the equivalent of straight-guy hillbilly hell.

Credit must be given to Ms. Shelton, too, who, I think, genuinely wants to explore male sexuality. She has done so, up to a point, filtering it through the scrim of a woman's sensibility, while showing as realistically as possible, under these rather bizarre circumstances, how men might react. (During the Q&A with the filmmaker/actors, the question was raised regarding how different this film would have been if made by a male. Very, everyone agreed.) Yet by using two such surprisingly out-of-it males who dance around literally everything from sex and friendship to marriage and dinner plans (Are these today's typical straight guys? Surely not. They can barely confront the front door), she's succeeded in making her movie often very funny but finally not terribly complex. This may not matter much to audiences, who will have a good time watching the guys make fools of themselves.

In its way, Humpday allows straight men (on screen and in the audience) to have fun with the idea of gay sex without ever really getting close to it. Yet the fact that the film tackles the subject of male homosexual panic is a good sign. Society has been so constricted, and for so long now, in the understanding and interpretation of sexuality and its boundaries (personal and societal, genetic and cultural) that almost any new exploration is a welcome one.

Humpday, distributed by Magnolia Pictures, opens this Friday, July 10, in NYC and Seattle (the film was made in the Northwestern United States). Over the following weeks it will roll out in major markets across the country. I was also supposed to publish the Q&A with the filmmaker and her cast, but getting the promised transcription seems to have hit a few speed bumps. Look for it later. I hope.

FILMS ON THE GREEN return to NYC: they're funny, romantic, French -- & FREE!

Pray for no rain. That's my advice to anyone looking for an al fresco evening out with your date, com-
plete with top-
notch enter-
tainment that's also--yes--free! Last year's successful series Films on the Green (or Cinema sur l' herbe for you linguists), a gift to New York City from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the NYC

Dept. of Parks & Recreation, is back -- having just completed its first round of films in June, with three more gems on tap for July.

The place is Tompkins Square Park (between Avenues A and B and 7th and 10th Streets in Manhattan), and the dates and times are the next three Fridays -- July 10, 17 and 24 -- at 8:30 pm. Best part (besides the films and the grass)? Admission is FREE!


Having now seen all three movies, I can vouch for their high quality in terms of craft and sheer entertainment value. While one's a classic that most film buffs will have already seen, the other two I doubt almost any Americans will have seen -- and they are both quite wonderful: light-hearted, romantic, clever and loads of fun.

The series begins this Friday, July 10, with LOVE IN THE AIR (Ma vie en l'air) from 2005, written and directed by Rémi Bezançon (above, left) -- and staring two of the most effortlessly charismatic actors you're likely to find: Vincent Elbaz (below, right) and Marion Cotillard (at left: the lady who won the Academy's Best Actress award for La Vie en Rose and is currently appearing opposite Johnny Depp in the wildly divisive Public Enemies).

To say these two light up the screen with their charm, beauty and sex appeal is to use a tired cliche to state what is all too true. If you are not hooked within the film's first couple of minutes aboard an airplane, during which our hero tells us about his birth, then you're no real fan of romantic comedy. M. Bezançon has found a way to achieve a near-perfect tone and then maintain his grasp on it ever so lightly for the entire 100 minutes, plus credits. I must say, when French filmmakers get stuff like this right, they really bring home the bacon.

Ms Cotillard and M. Elbaz could hardly be better, and they are joined by an ideal supporting cast (of not-so-well-knowns, over here, at least) that includes Gilles Lellouche (below, right) as the best friend from hell (who somehow still manages to be prince of a guy), Cécile Cassel as a lost love, Tom Novembre and Philippe Nahon as the older generation, and Didier Bezace as a would-be airplane pilot who has trouble getting flight right. The film itself is all about airplanes and air travel and how and why our hero is held back by fear of flying. We learn a lot about his job as flight instructor along the way, not to mention affairs of the heart, how to be a good friend (to both sexes) and -- thanks to the talented M. Bezançon -- how to make a prime piece of romantic fluff grounded by two charismatic performances.

Love in the Air was never released here in the US -- not even on DVD -- which seems ridiculous, considering how enjoyable and arthouse/mainstream it is. You can remedy this on Friday night, so be there or miss what might be your only opportunity to see this delightful and appealing little film.

The other two movies that make up the series are Brigitte Roüan's WORKS (Travaux, on sait quand ça commence) and the Eric Rohmer classic Claire's Knee. The Roüan, also a don't-miss, is alternately clever, silly and surreal as it tackles everything home remodeling to immigration, and the Rohmer is, well, Rohmer. I'll have more to say about both films next week, but I want to get this post up now -- so savvy New Yorkers, particularly those of us with increasingly empty wallets, can make proper plans for Friday night.

NB: The Cultural Services of the French Embassy would like to thank the generous sponsors who make this event possible: JC Decaux, BNP Paribas, Tablet Hotels, TV5 Monde, FACE (French American Cultural Exchange), UNEP (the United Nations Environment Programme), Pangea Organics, The French Mission to the United Nations, Green Drinks, and AirFrance Skyteam. For more information go to www.frenchculture.org

Kirt Gunn's LOVELY BY SURPRISE, after fests & very limited runs, arrives on DVD

The creative process is a subject that gets so little decent attention in cinema that -- when it does, and when it's done right -- attention must be paid. Regarding art and the artist, the recent Seraphine is probably as good an approximation as we'll see in my lifetime. Last month at the FSLC's festival of new Italian films, Lecture 21 tackled creativity via a brilliant teacher's class on Beethoven and his Ninth Symphony and has since taken its

place among the best films I've seen this year. But what about writers and writing? A couple of years back we got a nice romantic comedy-cum-fantasy in Stranger than Fiction, but its probing of the creative process was minimal. When characters come off the page and into "real" screen life, the result is more likely to wind up in the horror vault, with a fictional character taking over the brain and/or body of its progenitor in claptrap crap like Secret Window (which was perhaps the low point of a certain Mr. Depp's career).

It would be nice to report that the relatively new film LOVELY BY SURPRISE (made in 2007 and shown at a few festivals and individual theaters since) does for the writing process what Seraphine and Lecture 21 do for art, music and teaching. For some viewers, it may accomplish the job. While it fell short for me, I admire it's attempt and enjoyed it and its very game performers, off and on. Writer/director Kirt Gunn plops us into the life of his protagonist Marian (Carrie Preston, below, left) who is having trouble completing her novel and so turns to her ex-writing professor Jackson (Austin Pendleton below, right) for help. We also meet a distraught widower and father (Reg Rogers) and his equally distraught young daughter (Lena Lamer), both shown two photos below; several of the odd characters in Marian's novel (one of whom, played by Michael Chernus, is shown above and at bottom, with his "brother"); Jackson's estranged wife (Kate Burton); and the boss and co-workers of a used car lot -- among others.

The line between fictional and real characters is blurred and then blurred some more. By the finale, while you may be able to figure out who is who and what is what, you may also have lost interest because Mr. Gunn's approach is often so ham-fisted and literal that the movie grows all too twee -- and then nearly leaden. And yet... this writer/director does make you wonder and work: Why can these real characters see the fictional ones? And where does the author fit into a particular scene? You'll have to figure it out, and probably will. My biggest problem, I guess, is that I felt jerked around with such alarming regularity -- this moment works, that moment doesn't; works, misses, works, misses -- that after awhile, I felt like a light switch in the hands of a two-year old who had just discovered the on/off mechanism and refuses to let go.

In addition to the creative process, Lovely by Surprise deals with other worthwhile ideas: how damaged parents are sometimes taken care of by their young, the bounds of a productive teacher/student relationship, and why we sell people things they don't need (including perhaps the novel at the center of this film). Also in the cast are the likes of Richard Masur and Dallas Roberts, as well as Boyd Gaines and Glenn Fitzgerald, both of whom offer nice cameos. As I say, there are not that many movies that delve into creativity, so I'd recommend giving this one a try. I'll hazard a guess that within a half-hour you'll know whether or not it's for you.

Lovely by Surprise makes its DVD debut this coming Tuesday, July 7, and can be rented from Netflix or purchased via Amazon.