Designing Modernism: The Eames

Charles and Ray Eames have been hailed as two of the most influential designers of the Twentieth Century. They have legions of hipster admirers, but their best known work was produced for corporate clients. Indeed, they were delighted to have the business. The power couple of modern design are profiled in Jason Cohn & Bill Jersey’s Charles & Ray Eames: the Architect and the Painter (trailer here), which airs this coming Monday on PBS’s American Masters.

Charles Eames was an architect who was never officially licensed to practice. His wife (not brother) Ray Eames was a painter who studied with Hans Hofmann. They are best known for the molded Eames chairs, which became a staple of chic suburban décor in the 1950’s. Royalties from the Herman Miller furniture company would underwrite many of the Eames’ more experimental work. However, some of their most ambitious projects were corporate work-for-hire, including the IBM Pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair.

Perhaps one of the biggest revelations of A&P is the role the Eameses played in Cold War history. At the behest of the U.S. Information Agency, the Eames studio produced a film for the previous 1959 World’s Fair, famous for the so-called kitchen debate, to introduce Soviet citizens to their typical American counterparts. Employing seven individual screens simultaneously, it can now be considered a precursor to the I-max experience. Though relatively few people have ever seen the film, it was a big hit at the Fair.

As a documentary, A&P is a real breath of fresh because it takes their remarkably creative corporate work so seriously. While Eames chairs will always have admirers, it is satisfying to see the architectural and design work of projects like the Pavilion and the IBM-sponsored Mathematica exhibition for the California Museum of Science of and Industry get their just due.

Cohn & Jersey handle the complicated circumstances of the Eameses’ private lives fairly adroitly, explaining enough so they cannot be accused of whitewashing their subjects, but never sensationalizing the details. They also shrewdly navigate issues of attribution, suggesting some of their studio employees might have appreciated more recognition, while also clearly implying the more outgoing Charles was quite forthright about the shier Ray’s role as a creative collaborator, but the clueless ADD media just was not listening.

Frankly, the filmmakers only made one mistake, going for James Franco’s big name as the narrator. Unfortunately, his voice is rather dry and characterless, completely lacking the rich resonance of a Liev Schreiber or a Keith David. The man just can’t “host.”

Boasting some striking graphics and scores of intriguing vintage images, A&P is much more visually dynamic than the standard issue documentary portrait of the artist. Audiences have clearly responded to it, considering its theatrical run continues in New York at the IFC Center. However, viewers can see it for free in the comfort of their own home when it premieres on PBS this coming Monday night (12/19). Entertaining and informative, it is a worthy addition to the American Masters roster.

(Photo: © 2011 Eames Office, LLC)

Meth and Facial Hair: Cook County

Dealing crystal meth ought to be pretty darn recession-proof, but “Uncle Bump” has still found ways to mismanage his business. Like Tony Montana, he has become his own best customer. This leads to some rather tense moments for his family in David Pomes’ Cook County (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Abe is miserable living with his drug-addled uncle. Acting as the gopher for the slipshod meth operation, Abe is regularly sent into to town to buy up all the cold medicine from the oblivious general store. However, he forces himself to stay, so he can watch out for his little cousin. Though not explicitly abusive towards her, Bump opens up their home to all kinds of unsavory elements. Honest Abe initially hopes things will improve when his father, confusingly named Sonny, returns home from a stretch in the big house. However, it quickly becomes clear there simply will be no talking to Bump, while Sonny appears to have his own secretive agenda.

Cook should not be considered a redneck Scarface. Despite the madness engulfing Bump, Pomes de-emphasizes the genre elements, opting instead for a grittily naturalistic vibe. As a result, viewers do not have an action-driven escape hatch whenever Pomes shows us something disturbing (which he does, often). Rather, we are essentially stuck there, forced to revel in the meanness of it all.

While such white trash voyeurism is fairly shopworn indie grist, Cook is notable for allowing a pair of dependable character actors a turn in the spotlight. Currently generating some career heat in AMC’s Hell on Wheels, Anson Mount is frighteningly intense as the increasingly paranoid Bump. He certainly looks like a psycho-junkie. Yet, it is Xander Berkeley (the ill-fated George Mason on 24) who really delivers the goods as Sonny. He convincingly creates a multifaceted portrait of a tragically Machiavellian small-timer.

As a salvo in the cultural wars, Cook is largely a wash. The Evangelical rich relations in Houston really are portrayed as good-hearted God-fearing people. On the other hand, Bump’s periodic preening in front of American flags certainly seems to imply a commentary on Red State voters and values. There are some meaty performances in Cook, but viewers will know exactly where it is headed and it is not a lot of fun getting there. It opens tomorrow (12/16) in New York at the Cinema Village, just in time for the holidays.

New Orleans Middle East Film Fest ’11: Dog Sweat

They said Prohibition could never work, because you cannot “legislate morality.” Try telling that to Iran’s Islamist government while you’re looking for a bottle of spirits in Tehran. Of course, it can be found on the black market, but the risks are considerably higher and the costs are far greater than New York in the 1920’s. Still, a group of young Iranians keep the party going as best they can, until the messy realities of life overwhelm them in Hossein Keshavarz’s Dog Sweat (trailer here), which screens tonight during the 2011 New Orleans Middle East Film Festival.

Massoud and his cronies love their illegal hooch, or “dog sweat” as they call it. He sobers up quickly though, when his mother is critically injured by a driver who cannot afford to pay “blood money.” He is in no mood to hear how it is all one of the trials of life mandated by God, considering it more a test of Iranian society, which it fails miserably. Hooshang and Homan also enjoy the Tehran nightlife, but once the former gives into his wealthy family’s demands that he wed, the once constant companions no longer spend time together. Sweat never explicitly states why, but the implication is impossible to miss.

Hooshang’s new wife Mahsa also makes sacrifices to conform to the life expected of her. A talented underground vocalist, she must give up her forbidden musical career for the sake of married respectability. In contrast, Katie is involved in a more conventional love triangle, balancing the attentions of the impetuous Bijan and the older well-to-do Mehrdad, who also happens to be married, to her cousin. Held a virtual captive by her controlling mother, Katie bristles at the freedom allowed to her brother Dawood. Yet, he still cannot manage to find a place to be alone with his prospective girlfriend, Katie’s best friend Katherine.

Obviously produced without the official sanction of the Iranian film authorities, Sweat has much to say about gender inequality and the repression of sexual identity in contemporary Iran. It also addresses the lack of free artistic expression and the judgmental severity of religious fundamentalism. To top it all off, Mahsa’s mother Forough takes a pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq, Iran’s traditional rival, experiencing for the first time in her life a feeling of peace and spiritual fulfillment there.

Given such themes, it is a bit of a surprise the undeniably bold Sweat does not feel heavier. Indeed, some decidedly tragic events occur and nobody (aside from Forough) is ever really happy, but Keshavarz and co-writer-producer Maryam Azadi (who both served as associate producers on his sister Maryam Keshavarz’s Circumstance) never revel in the misery and meanness. Instead, he shows it all to viewers in a straightforward, direct manner and then rotates his focus to the next set of characters. Although a product of necessity, the guerilla vérité-style production gives the film a raw, intimate look that nicely fits the subject matter.

In fact, it is a tribute to the ensemble cast that we do not consider them actors, but authentic people, perhaps in some ominous version of Real World Tehran. Still, Shahrokh Taslimi’s animal intensity as Massoud stands out fiercely.

When watching Sweat one has the sensation of sharing in the lives of this generation of young professional Iranians, who navigate a world that is half underground and half above-board. Granted, it is not perfectly executed. Keshavarz leaves a lot of messy lose ends and unresolved questions, but he definitely takes viewers into the world and heads of these acutely human characters. Highly recommended, Sweat screens tonight (12/14) during the New Orleans Middle East Film Festival, as part of a slate of films varying widely in terms of quality and political sophistication.

Spanish Cinema Now ’11: José y Pilar

Forget one percenters. José Saramago, the first Portuguese winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his considerably younger Spanish wife, Pilar del Río, must represent tenth-of-percenters in their respective countries. They are also avowed class warriors. It is a nice hypocrisy if you can afford and clearly they could, based on the evidence of Miguel Gonçalves Mendes’s hagiographic documentary, José y Pilar (trailer here), Portugal’s official submission for best foreign language Oscar consideration, which logically enough screens tomorrow during the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 2011 Spanish Cinema Now.

Saramago passed away in 2010, but when Gonçalves began filming in 2006, he was still quite a spry old-timer. Their friends constantly tell viewers what a storybook romance the two have and indeed some of that comes out when Saramago’s health begins to fail during the film’s second act. However, in the idyllic opening, it appears Saramago really just loves being a public intellectual who does not have to sweat the details of his touring schedule, whereas del Río loves being president of Saramago, Inc. Actually, it is a private foundation that must have saved them a bundle in estate taxes. She also makes a big deal about being called “Presidenta” in its feminine form, which gets to be a tiresome conversation the second or third time around.

Saramago’s admirers may very well enjoy listening to the tart-tongued old devil grousing about the house. However, it probably does not serve his literary legacy particularly well, largely presenting his work as a series of sarcastic aphorisms aimed at the God he rejected. It is also often difficult to reconcile the man of comfort with his Communist ideology. We watch scene after scene of the laureate refusing to inscribe personalizations at his book signings. Whatever happened to “from each according to his abilities?”

There are several witty one-liners sprinkled throughout the film, but Gonçalves and editor Cláudita Rita Oliveira were clearly too over-awed by their subjects, allowing repetitive sequences to pad J y P just beyond the two hour mark. Similarly sentimental reasons also probably explain why Portugal chose the documentary as their Oscar contender, when they could have also selected the late Raúl Ruiz’s elegant masterwork Mysteries of Lisbon instead. Given it was co-produced by the Spanish Pedro Almodóvar and Brazilian Fernando Meirelles, it is also a bit surprising it met the Academy’s stringent national purity qualifications. Evidently, if it is Iberian, it is close enough for Oscar.

Gonçalves certainly had intimate access to the power couple, but he is clearly not particularly interested in engaging viewers who are not already on their side of the mountain. As a result, despite some moments here and there, J y P should not be a high priority for Spanish Cinema Now patrons or Academy voters. It screens tomorrow (12/14) and Friday (12/16) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the FSLC’s longest running annual film series.

Reza’s Carnage (Directed by Roman Polanski)

It is set in Brooklyn, but for obvious reasons, Roman Polanski’s latest film was not shot on location. As a result, it confines itself to the bourgeoisie-with-pretensions-of-hipness apartment of the Longstreet family. However, that staginess mostly works for Carnage, Polanski’s big screen adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s hit play, which opens this Friday in New York.

Penelope and Michael Longstreet are liberals, or at least she is. Alan and Nancy Cowan are conservative, or at least he is. There is no question who wears the pants in each family, but that does not mean Michael and Nancy do not resent their subordinate positions. They have gathered in the Longstreets’ remarkably spacious and idiosyncratic apartment to address a violent quarrel between their young sons. The Cowan boy (or “thug” as his father calls him) picked up a handy stick and knocked Master Longstreet alongside the head.

Both sets of parents want to resolve the incident, but clearly differ in their approaches. The Longstreets, meaning Penelope, want to bring the kids together for a healing moment, whereas the Cowans (both of them really) are more down-to-business and practical. At first, everyone wants to show how civilized and rational they can be, but the longer the Cowans reluctantly tarry in that apartment, the more nerves are frayed and simmering hostilities are bluntly expressed.

Cleaving first along family lines and then realigning according to gender, Carnage spares it characters nothing. Yet arguably the PC hypocrisy of the Longstreets (Penelope) takes it harder on the chin than Alan Cowan’s self-aware social Darwinism. Indeed, the whole premise of the film largely validates his world view.

Transferring Reza’s God of Carnage to the screen, Polanski embraces the one-set four-character verbal battle royale in all its theatricality. Indeed, it is easy to see why it was such a successful star vehicle on stage. Frankly, if Polanski were not Polanski, we would probably think of Carnage as a Reza film in much the same way we consider The Odd Couple a Neil Simon movie rather than a Gene Saks film. However, Polanski is most definitely Polanski.

All four cast members get a chance to behave badly in the spotlight and chew on some scathing dialogue. Once again, Christoph Waltz does Oscar caliber work as Cowan, making condescending arrogance enormously entertaining. Since John C. Reilly still does not have his own little gold statue though, he might be the focus of the film’s Academy campaign, even though it is the least showy performance. As for their better halves, Jodie Foster loses her cool outrageously as Penelope-not-Pen, while Kate Winslet is a bit more grounded, slowly breaking through Nancy Cowan’s icy reserve, eventually reaching a virtuoso state of manic aggravation.

In many ways, Polanski is undeniably an appalling human being. In a more just world, he would be sharing a cell with O.J. Simpson in California’s skuzziest prison. Those who want nothing to do with his work have every right to their contempt. However, they will miss a really darn funny film in Carnage. Though smaller in scope and talkier than most of his films, it is pointedly witty, performed with considerable flair by its all-star cast. Recommended for those who appreciate smart, politically incorrect humor, Carnage opens this Friday (12/16) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

The Indie Godfather: Corman’s World

Roger Corman is the Elvis Presley of genre pictures. Before anyone did anything, he did everything—and he did it cheaper. So many stories about the man and his movies have become the stuff of legend, yet they are all true. Tribute is paid to the original independent filmmaker in Alex Stapleton’s affectionately uproarious Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Corman has made hundreds of films, anticipating major shifts in the cultural zeitgeist with atomic powered creature features, rebellious teenager melodramas, biker movies, and blaxploitation cult classics. He always brought his films in on-time and under-budget. The one exception came in 1962 with The Intruder, a moody issue-driven drama about school integration and white supremacy filmed on-location in the Deep South. Now hailed as a milestone of independent filmmaking (by those hip enough to hail), Intruder was Corman’s only film to lose money, but the indie mogul is justly proud of it anyway.

After the experience of Intruder, Corman resolved to return to his low budget genre roots, subtly but deliberately insinuating his political statements into his films, rather than trumpeting them from the get go. Once again, Corman blazed a trail the rest of Hollywood would eventually follow.

Corman has appeared in several grindhouse documentaries in recent years, including Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed!, which documented Corman’s love affair with the authentic locations and bargain basement production costs offered by the Philippines in the 1970’s. Yet, there is very little overlap between the films. Indeed, with literally hundreds of outrageous movies to chose from, Corman documentarians need not fight over material.

Corman’s record of mentoring up-and-coming filmmakers is a major reason why he won his honorary Oscar (a fact Exploits has a hard time accepting, preferring to think of him as an underappreciated B-movie auteur). Peter Bogdanovich explains it more in sink-or-swim terms, but an opportunity is still an opportunity. Stapleton scored some heavy-weight interviews, including Corman school of filmmaking graduates like Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, and Joe Dante. However, the marquee sit-down has to be the animated Jack Nicholson, whom only Corman would hire during his first ten years in the business. They clearly have a lot of history together, which makes for some of the more manic talking head footage you will see in a documentary.

There are plenty of juicy bits of trivia to be gleaned throughout Exploits, especially for those well versed in his filmography. We also watch Corman working behind the scenes of Dinoshark, one of his new Syfy original movies. Considering that network’s track record for original non-series productions, Corman actually represents a quantum step up in quality for them. Most importantly, there are generous clips from his oeuvre, in all their busty, blood-splattered glory.

Frankly, Stapleton probably could have made a film three times as long and the time would still fly by. Combining the joyous gusto of Corman’s films with top-shelf access to Corman and his celebrated alumni is tough to beat for sheer entertainment value. Easily the feel good film of the holiday season, Exploits opens this Friday (12/16) in New York at the Village East.

The New-York Historical Society: Treasures and Ephemerals

That hyphen is historic. It was in common usage when the New-York Historical Society was founded in 1804, so they are not about to change it now. However, the venerable institution has just completed extensive renovations to its newly reopened landmark Central Park West building. Viewers get a brief but informative tour of the facilities and collections of one of the nation’s premiere museums and research libraries in Treasures of New York: The New-York Historical Society, which premieres this Thursday on New York’s Thirteen.

Soon to be available on the PBS affiliate’s website for out-of-state viewing along with previous installments of Treasures, N-YHS should be incredibly helpful for anyone planning a trip to the City. Frankly, in the early 1990’s, it was somewhat doubtful whether the ailing N-YHS would make it into the Twenty-First Century. However, new leadership, including historically conscious board members Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, turned around the Society’s fortunes. It has since staged a number of buzz-generating exhibitions, like the remarkable Hamilton exhibit and programming staged in 2004.

Viewers will also get a sense of some of the N-YHS’s surprising collections, including some of the world’s largest holdings of Audubon paintings and Tiffany lamps. The Society also boasts extensive ephemeral archives, such pamphlets, tabloids, and broadsides, considered rubbish in their time, but now invaluable for researchers. All of this is now much more accessible thanks to their ambitious restoration and reconstruction efforts, some of which are documented in Treasures. Evidently, refurbishing and installing the ceiling of Keith Haring’s Pop Shop in the museum’s entry hall was especially tricky.

This is all good stuff for museum buffs. Frankly, the N-YHS has traditionally been the redheaded step child of New York’s museum, but the latest episode of Treasures should help attract many new visitors. It is like an infomercial for a worthy cultural institution you might not be so familiar with. Straight forward but interesting viewing, N-YHS airs this Thursday (12/15) on New York’s WNET, next Monday (12/19) on NJTV, and the following Tuesday (12/20) on WLIW, with online streaming to follow.

(Photos: Platt Byard Dovell White Architects/Megan Thompson)

ADIFF ’11: Parradox

Pim de la Parra is sort of a love-him-or-hate-him kind of guy. Many consider him a pioneer of contemporary Dutch cinema, who has the distinction of co-writing one of Holland’s biggest international hits with Martin Scorsese (1969’s Obsessions). Yet, he made no secret of his motivations for making movies: money and women. There would be a lot of both in his up-and-down career. Persistent documentarian In-soo Radstake tries to get the manic filmmaker to take stock of it all in Parradox (trailer here), which screens this Tuesday, the closing night of this year’s African Diaspora International Film Festival.

A native of colonial era Suriname, de la Parra always felt more closely akin to the Surinamese of African descent than his Sephardic-Jewish heritage. Some find this to be ridiculous posturing and say so vociferously. With his partner Wim Verstappen, de la Parra’s Scorpio Films jump-started the Dutch movie business, cranking out generally well received pictures that were also often more than a bit naughty. The fact that the initial “S” in Scorpio’s logo was a dollar sign rubbed many the wrong way, but it clearly announced their rebellious attitude. Unfortunately, one film would fracture both their friendship and partnership.

On the eve of Suriname’s independence from the Netherlands, de la Parra decided a grand cinematic statement about the unity of the soon-to-be-country’s multi-ethnic people would perfectly capture the spirit of the time. However, Verstappen never really saw it and the international critics ignored it en masse. Today, many recognize One People as a post-colonial classic. (Patrons can judge for themselves when the newly restored film screens after Parradox.)

For someone with such evident self-esteem issues, de la Parra sure is hyper. Indeed, his frequent acting-out for Radstake’s benefit gets rather wearying. Yet, he is an undeniably intriguing figure, who defies easy categorization. One can make comparisons to the sexually frank I am Curious art films of Vilgot Sjöman and the genre programmers of Roger Corman (who also worked with Scorsese early in his career). One could also make analogies between his “minimalist” films and the No Wave movement, but there is no getting around the fact that some of his oeuvre is basically schlock.

Radstake probably has a little too much affection for his subject, because he clearly lets him off the hook on a number of delicate issues. However, he conveys a sense of de la Parra’s diverse output with a number of shrewdly selected video clips that will leave viewers wanting to see many of the full films. He also recorded sit down interviews with a number of the leading lights of Dutch cinema including Paul Verhoeven, Leonard Retel Helmrich, and Silvia Kristel (no Scorsese though, which is strange, considering how many times he pops up in films of this nature).

Parradox probably should have been a breezier affair, celebrating the eccentricity of his films, rather than building dramatic expectations for de la Parra’s reunion with his estranged One People lead actress Willeke van Ammelrooy. Still, it remains a frequently entertaining tribute to highly idiosyncratic filmmaking. Warmly recommended for those who love the craft of filmmaking and movies about movies, Parradox screens this Tuesday night (12/13) at Symphony Space’s Thalia Theater, as the richly diverse 2011 ADIFF comes to a close.

Varda’s Daguerreotypes

They are the sort of shops from the picture books of our youth. When as adults, we wander into the occasional butcher shop or old time apothecary, we wonder how they can live on such presumably low margins. Even in 1975 Paris, they were anachronistic, but Agnès Varda’s Rue Daguerre neighborhood was filled with them. She would document those stores and the men and women who kept them in Daguerréotypes, which finally has a proper New York theatrical run starting this coming Monday, roughly thirty six after its French debut and about three months after its American DVD release. Better late than never.

Varda will be our eyes and ears, but Mystag the Magician will be our guide through this neighborhood of working class respectability. Frankly, Mystag was quite the old devil, incorporating a lot of theatrical blood and acerbic wit into his bargain basement illusions. However, most Daguerréotypes, as Varda dubs them in a deliberate allusion to the early pioneering French photo process, are modest and hardworking. One would expect the shops are largely family affairs, handed down from father to son, yet most of her subjects moved to Paris from the provinces.

While there is still a consistent demand for barbers and tailors, one has to wonder how some establishments remained in business, especially that accordion store. Of course, the Daguerréotypes are hardly lavish consumers themselves. In fact, Daguerréotypes is a timely reminder of the inherent conservatism of the higher end of the working class and the lower spectrum of the bourgeoisie. This is exactly the sort of stock Margaret Thatcher came from. The Daguerréotypes toil long hours, but are family-oriented. Most married young after falling in love at first sight, because it is not practical to waste time on long courtships. It is also worth noting, not once in the film did any of Varda’s neighbors complain about how much more the presidents of Citroën or Renault were making compared to them.

Throughout the film, Varda treats the shopkeepers with respect. Aside from Mystag’s bizarrely cinematic act, there is no real narrative to follow. It is simply a day in the life of a pleasant corner of the 14th Arrondissement. Yet, its nostalgia for a time and place not yet past is quite endearing.

Daguerréotypes will screen with Varda’s nonfiction short Elsa la Rose (co-directed with Raymond Zanchi), which is actually a chillier film, despite documenting the great literary romance of Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet. Though critical of the excesses of Stalinism and the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the celebrated writers remained fixtures of the French Communist Party, presumably because the Party valued their cultural cachet. Evidently, theirs was a true lifelong love affair.

However, Varda and Zanchi’s embrace of the Nouvelle Vague filmmaking vocabulary, including frequent freeze frames, multiply-repeated sequences, and soundtrack gamesmanship consistently keep viewers at an emotional distance. Frankly, Rose is more interesting as a product of its filmmaking moment than for any insight offered into the lives of its subjects. Regardless, Daguerréotypes is the main event. A distinctly humanistic film, it is well worth seeing, either on DVD or during its premiere theatrical run at the Maysles Cinema for one week starting this Monday (12/12-12/18).

Ibermedia at MoMA: I Miss You

It is nice to have a place to crash in Mexico, especially during a coup. Inevitably though, safety leads to guilt and restlessness for a young Argentine student whose brother has disappeared following the 1976 military coup. Coming of age is a bit more complicated in Fabian Hofman’s I Miss You (trailer here), which screens as part of Iberoamérican Images, MoMA’s continuing retrospective tribute to the Iberian and Latin American film consortium.

Javier’s brother Adrian is the popular one. He is currently serving a stint in the military as incompetently as he can, but his heart is with the leftist radicals. When the coup is launched he careens off in a flurry of mysterious activity—and then he is gone. Fearing Javier will suffer a similar fate, his parents pack him off to his uncle’s home in Mexico City. However, the exile makes his brother’s disappearance even harder for Javier to bear, making him feel truly helpless.

Javier’s family is actually Jewish, tracing its roots back to the Polish shtetls, but Miss treats this intriguing and potentially significant family history as an afterthought. (Surely, the dramatic implications of the descendant of Polish Jewry being rounded up by the government that systematically harbored German war criminals is hard to miss.) Yet, Hofman largely deemphasizes the political in favor of the personal, which is certainly a defensible strategy. Indeed, he almost entirely forgoes the requisite scenes of paramilitary squads ominously marching through the streets of Buenos Aires. Nor is Miss especially flattering in its depiction of the would-be leftist revolutionaries, who come across as more pose than poise.

Miss works best portraying how the extraordinary circumstances of Adrian’s disappearance intensifies and exacerbates the fractures within his family. This is particularly pronounced with Javier’s Alzheimer’s-stricken grandmother, whose preference for Adrian becomes increasingly obvious through his absence.

While undeniably sympathetic, Fermín Volcoff’s Javier pushes viewer limits for sullenness. Although it is unequivocally a young person’s film, its soul is clearly represented by Luis Ziembrowski, as the tragically bourgeoisie and understandably anguished father, Renan. In a pleasant surprise, Ana Ofelia Murguia’s work as Javier’s grandmother is one of the most honest and effective portrayals of a dementia in recent years, tantalizingly suggesting moments of lucidity, only to cruelly revert to form.

Though Hofman is rather workmanlike in his approach, he nicely capitalizes on the photogenic Mexican backdrops. Despite the political subject matter, he never indulges in didacticism or score-settling. It is a very personal film, but it spans three Latin American countries (the third being Uruguay), so the support of the multi-national Ibermedia was probably quite valuable. A small but engaging film, Miss is worth seeing when it screens this Sunday (12/11) and the following Wednesday (12/14) during MoMA’s Ibermedia retrospective, Iberoamérican Images.

Klapisch’s My Piece of the Pie

Steve Delarue is a financial shark. France Leroi is a single mother, who is laid-off when her factory abruptly closes (but what a name she has). The former is so obviously the villain and the latter is so clearly the victim, we can surely put our brains on auto-pilot. Yet, Cédric Klapisch’s latest offering is surprisingly more interesting than that (perhaps unintentionally so, but it still counts). Drawing on three year-old headlines, Klapisch tells a messy morality tale in My Piece of the Pie (trailer here), which opens today in New York at the IFC Center.

France Leroi is indeed a victim. That is not a subjective judgment; it is the essence of her identity. A union worker thrown out of work by her factory’s financial collapse, she attempts suicide during a birthday party, with her home filled with children. Fortunately, she soon recovers, leaving Dunkirk to seek employment in Paris. Through a friend of a friend, she lands a gig working as the cleaning lady for Steve Delarue, a Bonfire of the Vanities style Master of the Universe recently returned to France (the country) after a long stint in London. Delarue is the kind of guy who administers the death knell to struggling enterprises, like Leroi’s former employer. In fact, unbeknownst to Leroi, he was exactly that guy.

Delarue dates supermodels, but treats them little better than servants like Leroi. Not surprisingly, he is terrible father material, but fortunately Leroi is there when Delarue’s three year-old son Alban is dumped in his lamp. In fact, as she assumes the duties of a nanny, employer and employee start to warm towards each other. However, a perceived betrayal launches Leroi on a reckless course of action.

Throughout the film, we are conditioned to perceive Leroi as the exploited and Delarue as the exploiter. Yet, her emotional reactions in the closing sequence and the final unsettling freeze frame raise a host of nagging doubts. We have essentially seen the entire film from Leroi’s POV, but is it necessarily reliable? She attempted suicide at time that would maximize the resulting drama and attention. Is it possible other embarrassing moments are the deliberate result of attention seeking behavior? Could this be significant? We forgive her for committing such a rash criminal action late in the film, because it is not premeditated and she is not presumed to be a dangerous person, but should we? Whether by accident or design, Klapisch leaves viewers re-evaluating everything they just witnessed and how they responded to it. That is certainly a rare place for a film to go.

As Leroi, Karin Viard exhibits a frightening hold on the audience, forcefully carrying us through her emotional roller-coaster. Though he scrupulously maintains Delarue’s “all business” exterior, Gilles Lellouche hints at hidden complexity, which is critically important as the film progresses. British character actor Tim Pigott-Smith also adds a memorable dash of Gekko-esque color as Delarue’s English pseudo-mentor, Mr. Brown.

Make no mistake, Klapisch clearly suggests there is more dignity and value in working on a factory floor than in high finance. However, Pie is too complicated and nuanced to serve as reductive propaganda. This is a good thing. Terrible as an economics lesson but fascinating as cinema, Pie is definitely worth checking out when it opens today (12/9) at the IFC Center.

AFA Goes Nuclear: Pripyat

The Soviet Union was always colorless under the best of circumstances, but the restricted zone around the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power station remains profoundly bleak. As a result, Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s decision to film his Chernobyl documentary in black-and-white was a rather inspired aesthetic choice. Yet, there are more people working and even living in the no man’s land than one would expect a mere twelve years (at the time of filming) after the disaster. Geyrhalter talked to many of them in Pripyat (trailer here), which screens this weekend at Anthology Film Archives as part of a block of nuclear-themed film programming built around Volker Sattel’s Under Control.

Very little was under control at Chernobyl on the fateful day of April 26th, 1986. As a result, Pripyat, a bustling industrial community built to house plant workers, became a literal ghost town. Though most inhabitants were eventually evacuated, the Soviet response was widely criticized as incompetent and even counter-productive. In fact, many of the so-called “liquidators” would later succumb to maladies caused by their inadequate protection. However, some residents illegally returned to their homes, frustrated with the authorities inability to find them permanent housing. Indeed, there is not much to be said in the film for either for Soviet or the subsequent pre-Orange authoritarian Ukrainian governments’ handling of the health and environmental risks of the radioactive area.

Though the zone is not exactly over-crowded, Geyrhater & company seem to have little trouble finding the stray soul to speak with. Some are the recolonizers, predominantly senior citizens who are largely resigned to the potential health risks, but most were workers somehow connected to Chernobyl’s then still operational reactor number three (it was reactor four that experienced the fatal power surge). Frankly, the fact that Chernobyl was still in the fission business so long after the notorious accident will likely be a revelation to many viewers.

Geyrhalter’s silent panoramic shots of the abandoned city speak volumes. The black-and-white cinematography sans scored soundtrack fully captures the zone’s atmosphere of isolation and desolation. It is also somewhat unsettling to get a good look inside a still functioning Chernobyl reactor (not fully taken offline until 2000). Unlike the German plants filmed in Sattel’s Control or the nuclear waste storage facility featured in Michael Madsen’s Into Eternity, the technology here definitely looks dated, resembling the buttons and dials of NASA films from the 1960’s.

Without question, Pripyat is a spooky film. However, with more passage of time, conditions for the surrounding environment have evidently improved greatly, at least according Klaus Feichtenberger’s Radioactive Wolves, recently broadcast on PBS’s Nature. Still, the fascinating existential oral history Geyrhalter collects clearly suggests the Soviet response should have been quicker, better organized, and more humane. Also a very artful documentary, Pripyat is an appropriate companion to Under Control, well worth seeing this Saturday (12/10) and Sunday (12/11) at the Anthology Film Archives.

Spanish Cinema Now ’11: Every Song Talks About Me

As the son of Fernando Trueba, the director of Calle 54 and Chico & Rita (both destined to be considered classic odes to Afro-Cuban Jazz) one would naturally have high hopes for Jonás Trueba’s feature directorial debut. You might also expect him to have good taste in music. Indeed, the younger Trueba certainly shows that much in Every Song Talks About Me (trailer here), an almost but not quite musical that screens this Saturday as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s long-running annual series, Spanish Cinema Now.

May you never meet a duller self-pitying sad sack than twenty-nothing Ramiro. He has just been dumped by his longtime and first-real girl friend Andrea, for reasons that are obvious if you take a look at his life. A kind of-sort of poet working in his uncle’s bookstore, Ramiro is having trouble getting on with things, which is periodically emphasized by a handful of morose original songs featured heard non-diegetically on the film’s soundtrack. However, Trueba also includes generous samples of Bills Evans from his Claus Ogerman sessions, which of course are the essence of sophistication.

Unfortunately, they are accompanying Ramiro as he tentatively pursues replacement romances and toys with the idea of teaching Spanish in Canada. Essentially, he becomes just as bored by his own subplots as the audience is. However, Trueba completes a Hail Mary pass in Song’s final scene, cranking up The Bad Plus’s cascading “Silence is the Question” (from their debut CD, These Are the Vistas) to create genuine excitement as Ramiro opens up his soul to Andrea. It is a hugely cinematic moment, musically and dramatically, demonstrating the potential power of licensed music when employed shrewdly. There is only of them in the picture though, courtesy of Reid Anderson, Ethan Iverson, and Dave King.

To be fair, Bárabara Lennie is a bright, attractive screen presence as Andrea. It is easy to understand why she would give the mopey Ramiro the heave-ho. Oriol Vila pretty much nails the self-absorbed slacker vibe, but as our lovelorn protagonist, he just hits that same note over and over, up until the final parting shot.

Song is better than dozens of navel-gazing indie films released every month, like for instance the tiresome Answers to Nothing, but there are considerably richer films at this year’s Spanish Cinema Now that should be far higher priorities for viewers. Cinematographer Santiago Racaj evocatively captures both the romantic and hipster sides of Madrid and the licensed jazz soundtrack is pitch-perfect. Unfortunately, the inherent drama and characters are rather shop-worn. For Spanish cinema devotees, it screens this Saturday (12/10) and the following Wednesday (12/14) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Spanish Cinema Now ’11: Ispansi

Stalin’s Russia was never a safe haven. Unfortunately, many exiled Spanish leftists went from the frying pan into fire when they sought refuge in the Soviet Union. The Eastern Front is decidedly inhospitable to them in writer-director-leading man Carlos Iglesias’s Ispansi (trailer here), which screens this Friday during the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Spanish Cinema Now.

Alvaro is not just a Republican veteran. He was a “political” officer, which implies some heavy things for his proletarian companions. Paula is not one of them. Traveling under an assumed working class identity, the former aristocrat came to the Soviet Union with a group of orphans sent to the socialist paradise for their supposed protection. Among them is the illegitimate son she was forced to give up. Since then she has watched over him as an ostensive volunteer social worker. However, she cannot protect him from the arbitrary dangers of war.

Aside from the children, Paula thinks little of her comrades and even less of Alvaro. He also distrusts her, instinctively sensing her insufficient class consciousness. Of course, the sexual tension passing between them is also hard to miss.

Ispansi (Russian for Spaniards) is not exactly Dr Zhivago, but nothing is. It covers a fair sweep of geography over several decades, while addressing politics with relative nuance. Since under the soon to be former Socialist government any expression of sympathy for the still dead General was effectively prohibited, one would expect the film’s anti-Franco sympathies. Yet, to his credit, Iglesias does not let the Soviets entirely off the hook. In fact, some of Ispansi’s more chilling scenes portray the Soviets’ forced deportation (more or less ethnic cleansing) of the Volga Germans.

Iglesias is not exactly Valentino either, but he has certainly mastered looking like a world-weary everyman. Yet, by not allowing his character much opportunity for substantive reflection, it is hard to know what to make of Alvaro, especially as he faces the disappointing Soviet reality of constant shortages and queuing. By contrast, Esther Regina’s work as Paula is considerably more complex and engaging. Their romantic chemistry together is passable, but never the stuff of legend.

Ironically, the most intriguing and challenging figure in the film is Paula’s Franco-Falangist brother, Jorge. He is a hard, devout man, yet his humanity is manifested in Iñaki Guevara’s surprisingly rich performance.

Indeed, Ispansi works best when exploring the complexities of the brutal Twentieth Century. Though Spaniards were routinely killing Spaniards in Spain, evidently Falangists often set their Republican countrymen free when their National Socialist allies captured them on the battlefield. Such complicated times are inherently dramatic and Iglesias capitalizes on them well enough. A big period production, it has a suitably elegant look for the scenes set in Spain, whereas the Russian sequences are appropriately bleak and wintery. Altogether, it is good chewy historical that never really sets off any ideological alarm bells. Recommended, it screens only once (Friday, 12/9) during this year’s Spanish Cinema Now at the Walter Reade Theater.

Magic to Win: It’s Elemental

If you’re going to borrow from Harry Potter, you might as well do it with pretty girls. This seems to be the logic behind Ip Man helmer Wilson Yip’s foray into campus magic. Frankly, it is a hard strategy to argue with, providing at least a baseline of entertainment throughout the unapologetically perky Magic to Win (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Macy and her cute teammates on Pegasus University’s women’s volleyball team routinely get schooled by their hot mean opponents. However, when a freak accident transfers the magic of the eccentric Professor Hong to her, their losing days are over. The entrepreneurial ladies quickly open up a lucrative sideline, charging to magically goose underdog athletes to victory. Things get a bit out of Macy’s league though when an invisible magician comes asking for her help.

Ling Fung is an earth magician physically dematerialized and robbed of his powers by a renegade fire magician. Despite suffering from amnesia, he has intuitively arrived at the university to seek Hong’s help. He finds Macy instead, which would be a considerable step up if she knew what she was doing. Presumably the fire magician is on his way too, because if he can collect all the forms of elemental magic, something crummy will happen.

After making an international reputation with the Ip Man franchise, Win seems like a radical departure for Yip. It is also appears to push the limits of homage in its more than obvious nods to Star Wars and the 1978 Superman movie. Still, he certainly keeps the proceedings breezy and energetic.

Though a newcomer, Karena Ng is undeniably charming as Macy. Martial arts star Wu Jing (a.k.a. Jacky Wu, so awesome in City Under Siege) has a steely presence well suited to big-screen villainy, but frankly, it would be far more satisfying to watch him kicking butt old school-style than hurling around a bunch of fireballs. Amongst several big name supporting players, Louis Koo is also notably amusing as the wine-soaked wood magician, Gu Xinyue.

Though it often descends into slapstick humor (it gets a little ugly when Ling Fung starts interfering with the fat kid paying to win the decathlon), the visual effects are pretty presentable. In fact, there is a particularly inventive battle between the earth and fire magicians, in which they animate objects from the pages of books (including light-sabers, so take note all young Jedi).

Win is what it is: innocent, goofy, cheesy, harmless, and sometimes endearing. Parents should be forewarned, there is a bit of subtitled cursing, but nothing in anyway explicit. For those looking for a Chinese film fix or a bit of fluffy escapism (but not for Yip’s Ip fans), Win opens this Friday (12/9) in New York at the AMC Empire and in San Francisco at the AMC Cupertino, from China Lion Entertainment. As part of a special promotion, patrons who like their Facebook page or visit their website can get a coupon for two-for-one admissions this holiday season.

Bouchareb’s London River

Nothing brings back the terrible memories of 9-11 like the sight of home-made missing person posters. Evidently, they were a common sight in London as well during the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings of 2005. One desperate mother hopes against hope that they will help her find her missing daughter in Rachid Bouchareb’s London River (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Elisabeth Sommers lives a quiet life tending her farm on the island of Guernsey. Estranged from his family in Africa, Monsieur Ousmane works as a forester in France. She is a protestant, while he is a Muslim, but they soon discover they are linked by the 7/7 bombing. Neither her daughter Jamie nor his son Ali has been heard from since that tragic day. Much to their surprise, it turns out their missing adult children were involved in a serious relationship. They were even learning Arabic together—a revelation Sommers has difficulty processing.

Eventually, the nervous Sommers and the stoic Ousmane form an uneasy truce that slowly evolves into something like friendship. Yet, the nagging uncertainty of their children’s fate looms over their time spent together.

River is a quiet film about every mother and father’s greatest nightmare. Bouchareb largely eschews the political in favor of the starkly intimate. Still, some realities are impossible to avoid. Does it give pause to any of River’s many Muslim characters that their co-religionists just murdered 52 innocent people? Perhaps the ever taciturn Ousmane hints at such misgivings when he confides in Sommers his own doubts and failings as a father. It is hardly a transcendent epiphany, but it is an honest, sensitively turned scene.

While River boasts a large cast, it is essentially a two-hander for two vastly different parents. The Oscar-worthy Brenda Blethyn is agonizingly convincing as the distraught Sommers, perfectly counterbalanced by the deliberate Sotigui Kouyaté as Ousmane. Chronically ill during the shoot, Kouyaté passed away early last year, but his Silver Bear at the 2009 for River was well-deserved. Though quiet and reserved, he brings Ousmane to life not merely as a stereotypical symbol of non-western wisdom. Instead, he is a flawed individual, whose character arc is just as heavy as that of Sommers.

Though often a political filmmaker, the French-Algerian Bouchareb’s greater loyalties clearly lie with his story and characters. That is why his Academy Award nominated Outside the Law is such an interesting take on the Algerian independence movement, in which it devilishly difficult to differentiate the rebels from the gangsters. With River, he focuses like a laser beam on the pain and fear of his primary leads. Bouchareb also gets a nice assist from composer Armand Amar whose jazz-inflected score adds a wistful air to proceedings. A simple, moving film that deftly sidesteps polemics, River is highly recommended when it opens today (12/7) in New York at the Cinema Village.

Knuckle: Hardcore Feuding

Fighting never solved anything our scoldy teachers told us, but it sure can provide satisfaction. Just ask the Mcdonaghs and the Joyces, the Hatfields and McCoys (or perhaps the Heike and Genji) of the Irish Travellers. Distantly related, something transpired between the clans that is never spoken of, but will never be forgotten. This simmering feud often boils over into bare-knuckle boxing matches, documented in all their brutal lunacy in Ian Palmer’s Knuckle (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Being a good sport, Palmer innocently agreed to videotape a Mcdonagh wedding. There he only briefly met James Quinn Mcdonagh, but he could still tell the big, outgoing man was one seriously bad cat. A few days later he received a call asking if he would like to record Mcdonagh’s upcoming bare-knuckle match with their sworn enemies, the Joyces. Game on.

For the Travellers, “fair play” refers to a bare-knuckle bout, impartially refereed by a member of a neutral clan. As the champion of his clan, James Quinn Mcdonagh will see a whole lot of fair play over the twelve years Palmer follows him. It seems like each match will be the big one that finally settles everything, but as soon as they are over, each side immediately starts provoking the other again.

This madness is for real. They really go at it. However, anyone with any boxing or martial arts background whatsoever will be appalled by their technique. Basically, the brawlers wail away at each others’ heads, leaving the frequently big white doughy midsections completely exposed.

Knuckle is epic in its knuckleheadedness. To his credit, James Quinn starts to tire of this vicious circle, recognizing it for what it is. Indeed, he might even be the Traveller equivalent of Nixon going to China, making some late overtures of reconciliation to the Joyces. Throughout the film though, it is always evident why Palmer was drawn to him as his primary focus. He has undeniable presence and a fearsome record fair-fighting.

Palmer clearly earned the trust of the Mcdonaghs, giving them due fair play in the sensitive manner he presents their lives. Yet, the Traveller women remained camera-shy, rarely appearing in Knuckle. Of course, it is hardly surprising, considering how testosterone-drenched the film is. Frankly, Palmer himself burned out on the insanity of the fighting, but was lured back with the promise of a legitimately climatic bout.

Without doubt, Knuckle is extreme nonfiction filmmaking. You just cannot help but shake your head at the sight of these grown men—senior citizens even—going at it. Chocked to the gills with attitude and action, it is nothing like the recent crop of quiet cerebral process-oriented documentaries, such as El Bulli. As a result, it is wildly entertaining, if perhaps in a guilty pleasure sort of way. Enthusiastically recommended hard-nosed cinema, Knuckle opens this Friday (12/9) in New York at the Cinema Village.

ADIFF ’11: Mother Country

Dwight Porter starts out as a character from a gritty inner city crime drama, but becomes Tom Joad. Life on the open highways is hard, but at least it is living in Maria Breaux’s Mother Country (trailer here), which screens tonight and tomorrow night at the 2011 African Diaspora International Film Festival.

Porter is a weak young man living in a predatory environment. He knows better, but he still lets his cousin goad him into doing wrong. Unfortunately, this leads to tragedy when he inadvertently kills an innocent girl as part of meaningless feud. More out fear than guilt, he literally walks away from the scene, heading to California from Austin, Texas, on foot.

That is a brutal hike, but Porter finds some help along the way. Frankly, the sullen protagonist is a problematic POV figure, but the way the predominantly white exurbanites react to him is surprisingly intriguing and nuanced. While they span the gamut, they are often quite compassionate, or Christian, as some of them put it.

Even though Porter changes his surroundings, we see he still carries the resulting psychological baggage. Indeed, the nub of the film really concerns whether or not Porter can come to terms with his emotional issues. Still, at least he sees some action on the road.

Though shot on a shoestring, Country boasts a mostly (though not entirely) professional grade cast, including Tabatha Shaun, bright and engaging as Leah, one of the ships Porter passes in the night. Of particularly interest to those of us who came up in the 80’s, Ferris Bueller’s mom, Cindy Pickett, has a substantial supporting role as Porter’s former high school teacher Pamela Dupree. She has several scenes of uncomfortable honesty that really help make the picture. As Porter, Thomas Galasso is actually rather effective when he shakes off his character’s extreme reserve, but he currently lacks that dynamic presence to prevent viewers from getting restive during his many scenes of silent wandering.

Breaux really is on to something with Country, presenting Porter’s first meaningful adult encounters with those outside his race and class, in a sharply-observed, even-keeled manner. In fact, she is clearly tougher on Porter than any of her other supporting players. This is not mumblecore (thank the merciful lord). Country is headed in a very definite direction that is rather interesting, more often than not. Though understandably a bit uneven, those who seriously track the indie film scene should check out Country when it screens tonight and tomorrow night (12/6 & 12/7) at the 2011 ADIFF.

Smiley Returns: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Five ghosts haunt John le Carré’s most celebrated spy novel. The shadow of the so-called “Cambridge Four” spy ring, including the treasonous Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, looms large over the story, especially given the circumstances of their private lives. The fifth of course, is Sir Alec Guinness, who is so closely associated with the role of mole-hunter George Smiley. However, Obiwan Kenobi should be smiling down on Gary Oldman, who confidently assumes the Smiley mantle in Tomas Alfredson’s appropriately cerebral adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Smiley once was the deputy chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (a.k.a. MI6, but known colloquially as “The Circus”), but he was forced out with his boss, known as “Control,” when an operation went spectacularly wrong. As a result, a field operative (or “scalp-hunter” in Circus parlance) was captured, effectively ending Control’s related mole-hunt. Unfortunately, it turns out the late spymaster was not so paranoid after all, as the minister begrudgingly admits when he brings Smiley back into service to furtively investigate the four top officers of the Circus, code-named by Control: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, and Spy (skipping “sailor” from the old nursery rhyme, because it is too close to “tailor”).

There are no explosions in TTSS, nor is there a whole lot of shooting, but when it happens, it is significant. Instead, we watch as Smiley pieces the puzzle together, interviewing a diverse cast of professional thugs and bureaucrats, gleaning tantalizing clues from each resulting flashback. Yet, perhaps most intriguing are the glimpses we get of “Karla,” the notorious Soviet intelligence mastermind (played by a rarely seen Patrick Stewart in the classic BBC series, no less). Smiley might be chasing a mole, but his real adversary is definitely Karla, who fully understands his retired rival’s weaknesses.

Gary Oldman is the key reason why the revamped TTSS works so well. In a way, Smiley could be considered the dark side of his Commissioner Gordon persona in the Dark Knight franchise. Like Guinness, he plays Smiley’s cool detachment in a way that makes it clear the gears are turning furiously within his head. Occasionally, he even seems to adopt some of Sir Alec’s cadences and mannerisms, but that is fine. Frankly, those familiar with the prior incarnation will rather want to hear that echo.

TTSS also features at least a dozen genuinely first class British actors, some famous and some who should be. John Hurt’s casting as Control is so perfect it requires no explanation. Likewise, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, and Ciarán Hinds add plenty of color as the Circus’s inner circle and Smiley’s prime suspects, by extension. Yet, it is the intense and dynamic supporting work of Mark Strong and the soon to be famous Tom Hardy as scalp-hunters Jim Prideaux and Ricki Tarr that really crackle and hum.

Alfredson has helmed a sleek and brainy espionage thriller (one can see a certain kinship with his frosty, Nordic vampire tale, Let the Right One In), but it is definitely a product of the le Carré school of Cold War moral equivalency. Smiley himself explicitly states there is no ethical distinction between us and them. Even the mole himself eventually explains his decision to betray his country was largely based on aesthetics (which seems bizarre, considering he should be fully versed in the glories of Socialist Realism). Frankly, given the wealth of revelations that have flooded out of the former Soviet bloc, such revisionism seems like a dated relic of the 1970’s, but at least it matches the pseudo-retro vibe of the film.

TTSS is an absorbing big screen intrigue, even though it is relatively easy to guess the mole’s identity, solely on the basis of screen-time allotment. (Frustratingly, this means one of the best actors of our day is rather short-changed in the process.) Still, watching Oldman’s Smiley is the real show, following not just in the footsteps of Guinness but also the great James Mason (who played the character, inexplicably renamed Charles Dobbs, in Sidney Lumet’s moody but effective The Deadly Affair). He is worthy successor, deserving serious Oscar consideration. Recommended for intelligent viewers who enjoy films about Intelligence, TTSS opens this Friday (12/9) in New York at the AMC Lincoln Square and Village 7.

Trial by Tabloid: State of Play

It is hard to say who is more unsavory in this morality play, big business, the press, or the Labour Party. For what it is worth, the journalists are the ostensive protagonists of State of Play (promo here), which premieres this Wednesday as part of BBC America’s Dramaville showcase.

This should not be difficult, but viewers must absolutely forget anything they might know about the 2009 Hollywood feature adaptation. The original 2003 BBC series, written by Paul Abbott and directed by David Yates (of Harry no joke Potter fame), is far more intricate, intelligent, and murky. Nobody comes across looking heroic here, except maybe the poor beleaguered coppers.

MP Stephen Collins initially appears to be the Labour Party’s version of the litigious Gary Condit, when the apparent death of Sonia Baker, his staff researcher and mistress, thrusts his private into the headlines. Collins comes from the left wing of his party though, and is considered an up-and-comer, “tipped” for the next cabinet. Much to the surprise of the Party’s top fixer, the elders duly circle the wagons around Collins rather than cutting him loose.

Though never very forthcoming, Collins starts talking to Cal McCaffrey, his former campaign manager now working for one of the more reputable tabloids. When Collins links Baker’s death to a street murder previously dismissed as a drug-related crime, he begins to get a sense of the conspiracy’s scope. However, he somewhat jeopardizes the story when he takes up with Collins’ estranged wife, Anne. It is safe to say this displeases his old school editor Cameron Foster, but he is stuck with McCaffrey when the reporter starts connecting top government officials and a giant multinational oil company to the affair.

However, this is not a simple corporate malfeasance story. While we identify with the Herald journalists as our primary POV characters, it is hard to consider them noble crusaders. Frankly, the way they deceive and manipulate many of their sources would be appalling if they not already so ethically compromised. Yet, Abbott spares Collins least of all with his agonizing drip-drip-drip of revelations. Of course for viewers, this is all juicy salacious fun.

Tightly and compellingly written, every hour of State offers dozens of twists that threaten take the story in unexpected directions. The cast is top-notch from top to bottom, but Bill Nighy dominates the proceedings as the sarcastic Foster (Bill Nighy, the grouchy editor guy). This is exactly the sort of tart-tongued, sophisticated role he was born to play and it is a blast to watch him dig into it.

Still, due credit has to be given to David Morrissey, whose work is critically important holding everything together. Somehow, he keeps viewers invested in the problematic Collins after each new epic fail. In other words, he is a convincing politician. On the other hand, John Simm’s McCaffrey is annoying and noxiously self-serving, which makes him absolutely convincing as a journalist. As far as “likability” goes, don’t look for it here (and who needs it, anyway?), but Kelly Macdonald comes the closest, nicely portraying the increasingly assertive junior reporter Della Smith.

State is not a proper source for political or economic analysis. In this world, Collins’ “punitive taxation” (his term) on the oil industry will inexplicably lead to cheaper and more plentiful energy for the country. Rather, it excels at scandal and skullduggery, executed with wit and seasoning. Highly entertaining, State will be some of the best television on television for the next six weeks, starting this Wednesday (12/7) on BBC America.

(BBC Photo: (C) Josh Barrat)