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Woody Harrelson delivers bad news in new drama about the impact of Iraq on the homefront
WOODY HARRELSON may be the John Wayne our war in Iraq deserves. If Harrelson’s newest, The Messenger, seems to run off the rails, it may have been intended to be the kind of movie that wasn’t supposed to be on the rails in the first place. Here is an effort to make a small-camera movie about the Iraq war veterans trying to cope with the sorrow and wrath More
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A tale of abuse and redemption features fine acting and simplistic judgments
SHAKESPEARE may have been wrong when he wrote that the world is a tragedy to those who think and a comedy to those who feel. Peruse the public reaction to the much-laureated Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, and it appears to be the other way around. Lee Daniels’ tragedy, which won double awards at Sundance, seems to be elevated to the status of something special by its noteworthy acting. More
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A comedy about rebellious ’60S DJs is all wet
DISMISSING Pirate Radio as a bad film made by bad people is shirking responsibility. It’s an easy shot to describe it as a sinking ship—Pirate Radio tries to top the ending of Titanic with a new Miracle of Dunkirk. But Pirate Radio is handily the worst movie of the year, and that alone gives it some stature, some worthiness of dissection. More
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New comedy '(Untitled)' skewers Manhattan art scene
This very witty parody of the Manhattan art world boasts a cast of frauds, surrounding one serious but surly artist, Adrian (Adam Goldberg), a composer of dissonant music who gripes that “harmony was just a capitalist plot to sell pianos.” More
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L.A. gets what's coming to it in disaster epic.
L.A. wobbling on all sides of a mile-deep fissure in the earth, the skyscrapers dancing around its brink or keeling over in slow faints. A stretch limo scoots around these twisting monoliths trying to get to a comfortable cruising altitude; meanwhile, the unquiet earth rises up on both sides of the escarpment until it’s a crescent-shaped motif. Then, the UNESCO World Heritage Site (What? It isn’t? What the hell is up with that?) concrete advertising sign of Randy’s Donuts wheels through the chaos, as if inviting the car to take the proverbial flying you know what at a rolling donut. More
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Movies
The director talks about his film, 'Sharon," which will be screened tonight in San Jose
Anyone who ever encountered Ariel Sharon is left with an image that betrays conventional wisdom. To many in the Arab world, he was the "Butcher of Beirut," big-headed, belligerent, and brutal. It was this very image that served as the basis of Time Magazine's controversial assertion that he was directly responsible for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre—an assertion ruled false by an American court—or why another court in Belgium was prepared to try him as a war criminal. But even in the Israeli media he was often portrayed as an opportunistic politician, whose ill-considered jaunt on the contested Temple Mount with an escort of over 1,000 Israe More
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The SF affair brings four days of films to San Jose, Nov. 9-12
THE ANNUAL SAN FRANCISCO Latino Film Festival includes four days of films in San Jose, Nov. 9–12. On Monday, Gary Marks’ 2007 documentary Dream Havana, a Story of Friendship, Choice and Separation shows at San Jose State University at 4pm. The film looks at the dilemma faced by two Cuban writers in 1994—one chose to take a perilous boat journey to the United States, the other stayed in Cuba. On Nov. 10, MACLA hosts screenings of Forgotten Injustice (6pm) and Yveete (8pm). More
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Is there anything Lars von Tried won't put on screen?
THE MOST prestigious gross-out since Irreversible, Lars von Trier's Antichrist is billed as a director's return to instinctive filmmaking. Von Trier's "Your guess is as good as mine" approach includes comments such as "I let this film flow to me instead of thinking it up." More
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A local documentary about wrongfully convicted East Palo Alto man airs on KTEH Nov. 5.
TALK ABOUT double jeopardy. In 1991, Rick Walker, an independent auto mechanic living in East Palo Alto, was wrongfully convicted of murder, mostly on the basis of questionable testimony. Years later, the witness confessed, and Walker was exonerated. Having spent 12 years in San Quentin, Pelican Bay and other hard-core prisons, Walker was punished again by a quirk in the law. While the average prisoner is given some money and assistance upon release, an exonerated prisoner must wait for special legislative appropriation bills to receive the paltry $100 a day for each day of wrongful imprisonment mandated by California statute. More
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Movies
Hilary Swank takes off in biopic
IF THE Bible and all world religions didn't prohibit unmanly weeping, Joni Mitchell's tune "Amelia" would probably have me sniveling every time. By contrast, the Hilary Swank–starring, Mira Nair–directed biopic Amelia didn't even get me to the verge of red-eye. If there ever was a figure who deserved a postmodern bio, it's Amelia Earhart, who left so many questions behind. More
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