Recollections of Reagan: A Confounding Centennial

President Reagan (Credit: Ronald Reagan Library)

While visiting embattled Nicaragua as a journalist in 1984, I met the grieving mother of a four-year-old killed by the Contras. These vicious mercenaries, not-so-secretly funded by the United States, had been firing mortars into the remote mountain town of Teotecacinte. After residents spent 17 consecutive days in rudimentary bomb shelters, Carmen Guttierez Suyapa was allowed to play outside when it seemed as if the attacks had finally ended. She died under a sapodilla tree, where someone later planted a tiny flowering begonia in her memory.

Ronald Reagan lost his memory to Alzheimer’s disease, at the end apparently no longer able to recall having been the 40th president. Upon his death in 2004 at age 93, he had lived 89 more years than the Nicaraguan child whose blood essentially was on his hands. The Contras – he referred to them as “freedom fighters” and “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers” – got their weapons and other supplies with his blessing.

There is, of course, no mention of little Carmen in Reagan, a thought-provoking and beautifully crafted profile that's perhaps a bit too kind to its controversial subject. The documentary premiered at January’s Sundance Film Festival before a February 7 broadcast on HBO (with a repeat at 8 p.m. on February 9) during a week that marked what would have been his 100th birthday. Director Eugene Jarecki, who divides his time between New York City and Vermont, covers that 1980s period of intervention in Central America primarily to examine the Iran-Contra affair: Proceeds from illegal arms sales to the Ayatollah supported the counterrevolutionaries trying to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who spearheaded the entire operation, has since said of Reagan’s participation: "I have no doubt that he was told about the use of residuals for the Contras, and that he approved it. Enthusiastically."

Digging into the Past: Watching Public Domain Films Online

We've all seen them. When video tapes first came out, and then later DVDs, the market was swamped by unknown video/DVD companies releasing a group of movies that had all passed into the public domain (PD). Some of those titles were: The White Zombie (1932), Impact (1949), D.O.A. (1950), Quicksand (1950), The Big Combo (1955), The Last Man On Earth (1964 – the original film version of the 2007 I Am Legend), Night of the Living Dead (1968). They always seemed to be the same 70 or 80 films. Well, now you don't have to go to the cut-rate vid store to see any of these offerings.

There are several sites on the internet that allow you to watch/download movies and other PD material. Some are better, but one of the best (yet difficult to search through) is Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/). Internet Archive is a website that not only contains 400,000+ of PD “Moving Images” (movies, TV shows, shorts, government documentaries ... you name it, and if it's in the public domain, you'll probably find it), but also music, audio files (such as old-time radio plays), books, software, and any other ephemera you can think of. This site is obviously inspired by Napster, because 'volunteers' post the material on the site and then others watch or download it from the site. Internet Archive confirms the material is PD before they allow it to go up on the site.

Arab Labor: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Checkpoint

The cast of Arab Labor (Season 1).

Watching great foreign television is often a multilayered pleasure. It gives the viewer access to a whole new world of talent – writers, actors, and directors – and the stories and themes that other cultures choose to explore are often surprising in themselves. Television is too often a generic art form, and even its innovations sometimes seem to be confined to variations on familiar, well-trodden situations. Not only can the best of foreign television be refreshingly unique in its execution, but watching these shows can also reveal heretofore unknown or unobserved aspects of our own domestic television. Our most basic assumptions about character, plot, and human interaction (presuppositions that can function as a kind of storytelling shorthand, and therefore often pass without being perceived) can become visible, precisely in their absence, in these new programs. This is a fact that cinephiles have known for decades, which is why foreign language films are watched with such dedication and enthusiasm by movie lovers. But foreign television – especially foreign language television – has never been as accessible as foreign film. While cinephiles have long been able to enjoy movies from all over the world, telephiles (why isn’t this word in the OED yet?) haven’t been quite so lucky.  

For decades, networks like PBS and the CBC have been bringing us the best of British television, but the TV powers-that-be rarely, if ever, broadcast non-English programs in North America. More often than not the North American TV viewer’s sole access to foreign television is indirect, by way of domestic adaptations of the original shows. I’m sure there are some well-intended reasons behind this practice: the very nature of TV storytelling, be it drama or comedy, often relies on cultural cues and references which can be obstacles to new audiences, even when language isn’t an issue. In the past month alone, US cable networks have launched three high profile remakes of British series, all of which are still in production in the UK: Being Human, Shameless, and Skins. And, as touch-and-go as remakes notoriously are, that is not to say that US networks haven’t had some stunning successes in the past: often as much can be gained as is lost in translation. Still, for every All in the Family (based on the BBC’s working-class comedy, Till Death Us Do Part) and The Office, there are tone-deaf failures like NBC’s Coupling and ABC’s recent Life on Mars. An avid TV viewer has more than enough reason to approach these new efforts with some caution. But if you want to watch original non-English TV, even in our current 200-channel universe, you’ve got to program them for yourself. Fortunately for us, each of us individually has access to more television than ever before, and even if the shows aren’t airing with any regularity, Internet streaming (from services like Netflix and from international websites) and DVDs from Amazon can more than make up for it. Today I want to talk about Arab Labor, a series running on Israeli television which recently completed its second season.

The Day Players: Single-Scene Attractions

Oksana Akinshina in The Bourne Supremacy

Oksana Akinshina and Danielle DuClos. Never heard of either of these actresses, have you? Neither one has had what you could call a major career, at least not in English-language films. Akinshina is a still-working Russian actress who has made only one American film, The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and American Danielle DuClos's career in movies essentially ended shortly after she appeared in her one major motion picture, Midnight Run (1988). And yet, their small contributions to both films enriched the finished product immeasurably. In both films, they were what are called in the industry a day player. Sure, it may take more than a day to shoot their scenes in a motion picture (since the process is so slow), but essentially they are hired for one scene. Fortunately, for both of them, they got to appear in an extended sequence with the film's star.

Heart & Soul: The Beaches of Agnes & Soul Power

It's commonly held that January is a graveyard month for film releases. If Christmas supposedly brings us plenty of treats, the early New Year generally offers us no party favours. One look at the mean-spirited arrogance of The Green Hornet, or the tone-deaf comedy of Ron Howard's The Dilemma, you'd be tempted to give up movie-going for good. But we have also seen a surprising number of terrific movies open in Toronto in the last month. Besides Sofia Coppola's luminous Somewhere, there is the bittersweet poignancy of Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, the plaintive urgency of Patricio Guzman's ongoing quest to come to terms with Chile's traumatic past in Nostalgia for the Light, plus Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve turning Wajdi Mouawad 's schematic play, Scorched, into a fever dream of familial conflict in Incendies. Movies rarely get much better than that diverse group. But just in case you are all caught up, there are some pictures currently out on DVD that you just might have missed.

In the opening moments of her movie, The Beaches of Agnes, director Agnes Varda tells us that she’s “playing the part of a little old lady.” But there is a fair bit of youthful playfulness still in evidence in this imaginative and affectionate memoir. Varda (Cleo From 5 to 7, Vagabond) is perhaps the least celebrated of the great French New Wave directors of the sixties and she is one of the only females in the group. She left dramatic narrative behind a while back, but in recent years, with The Gleaners and I (2000) and Cinevardaphoto (2004), Varda has been turning out fascinating and idiosyncratic film essays. In The Beaches of Agnes, Varda looks back on both her life and career by invoking it through the objects that symbolized the varied loves of her life. That love includes her relationship with director Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), as well as her intellectual friends from Paris’s Left Bank and the American counter-culture who she embraced when she began making movies in California in the seventies.

Sanctum: Enough with the 3-D, already!

The increasing trend of films being made in 3-D (Toy Story 3) or having 3-D added to the finished movie (Alice in Wonderland) is increasingly tiresome, since, frankly, it’s a technological advance that rarely if ever adds any value to a project. Once in awhile it has a purpose, as in the recently released Tron: Legacy, which is largely set in a world located inside the internet. There, depicting the ‘computer’ world in 3-D as a contrast to our world, in regular, mundane 2-D, makes sense. It didn’t result in a good movie, however, as the sequel to Tron (1982) was basically a loud, empty and finally boring concoction that faded from memory as soon the (lengthy) credits rolled. But Tron: Legacy at least had Jeff Bridges, in a dual role as an evil computer creation and a kindly inventor, who had lost control of the world he originally had intended to build for peaceful purposes. Bridges isn’t great in the parts. He's stiff, partially because of the lame SFX in the computer-generated sections. (He also lazily channels 'The Dude' from The Big Lebowski.) But at least he offers a reason to check out the movie. Sanctum, a 3-D extravaganza which has the distinction of being executive produced by James ‘Avatar’ Cameron (big whoop) can’t boast of having any big stars – unless you consider Ioan Gruffudd (Fantastic Four, W.) to be of that calibre – or any reason whatsoever to check it out.

Rediscovering His Home: Gregg Allman’s Low Country Blues

Any assessment of a musician, in whole or in part, can only be made with the hard facts. On Low Country Blues, the new release by Gregg Allman, we have the musical evidence of a great and unadorned player. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, Allman’s new record features the weathered, but soulful voice of a long, often turbulent life, too.

Low Country Blues is not a bumpin’ and grindin’ record. It’s pure, plain and simple while featuring Allman’s inspired vocals backed by the “Burnett Band” featuring Jay Bellerose on drums and percussion, Dennis Crouch on acoustic bass, Doyle Bramhall II on electric guitar; all rounded out by Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, on piano. The result is a balanced mix with different acoustic colours and shadings. It’s a style Burnett has applied to some of the most significant albums of the past few years such as, Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and Elvis Costello’s under-recognized, National Ransom, released last year. And like those records, which married the innate talent of the artists to their love for genuine American sounds, Burnett has successfully done the same with Gregg Allman. Low Country Blues is the perfect music mix featuring Burnett’s “sound” and Allman’s desire to re-discover the home of his life-long journey found in the blues.

Shine a Light: Oscar’s Unlikely Nominees

It’s a funny thing about the Oscars, whose 2010 nominations were recently announced. I’m not one of those film critics who label great performances as Oscar worthy, since the nominations and awards are not a reliable barometer to gauge fine acting. If they were, Dustin Hoffman (Barney’s Version), Lesley Manville (Another Year) and Andrew Garfield and Arnie Hammer (The Social Network) would not have been passed over this year. Yet, I am not completely down on the awards either, for the various reasons I outlined last year. One of their virtues is that they shine a light on films that would otherwise not be seen by too many film-goers. I’m not referring, obviously, to The King’s Speech or Black Swan or even The Kids Are All Right, but about small movies, some from unlikely countries, that don’t have big-name stars, or a studio pushing the film or its actors with all the publicity that money can buy. Here are reviews of three of those smaller Oscar-nominated films, which, though not favoured, may win something on Hollywood's big night.

Defying Genre: Iron and Wine’s Kiss Each Other Clean

Samual Beam (aka Iron and Wine)

At first glance, the dishevelled and heavily bearded Iron and Wine (aka Samuel Beam) bears a striking resemblance to a Yeti. Yet this folk singer, who inhabits the American Bible Belt with his wife and five children, seems to specialize in defying stereotypes. The prolific, multi-talented, highly educated artist has recently released his fourth full-length album Kiss Each Other Clean. If you’re still not familiar with the name, you may be about to witness a breakthrough. With Kiss Each Other Clean, Iron and Wine should finally gain the exposure he deserves. Over the last ten years, many members of his cult following remain disappointed with his migration away from his earlier trademark acoustic folk sound to multi-instrumental experimentation (and approve even less of his release on a major label, Warner Brothers), but Iron and Wine has done anything but sell out with this new masterpiece.

Talking Out of Turn #12: John Cage (1982)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show, On the Arts, at CJRT-FM in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to artists from all fields. In 1994, after I had gone to CBC, I had an idea to collate an interview anthology from some of the more interesting discussions I'd had with guests from that period. Since they all took place during the eighties, I thought I could edit the collection into an oral history of the decade from some of its most outspoken participants. The book was assembled from interview transcripts and organized thematically. I titled it Talking Out of Turn: Revisiting the '80s. With financial help from the Canada Council, I shaped the individual pieces into a number of pertinent themes relevant to the decade. By the time I began to contact publishers, though, the industry was starting to change. At one time, editorial controlled marketing. Now the reverse was taking place. Acquisition editors, who once responded to an interesting idea for a book, were soon following marketing divisions concerned with whether the person doing it was hot enough to sell it.

For a few years, I flogged the proposal to various publishers but many were worried that there were too many people from different backgrounds (i.e. Margaret Atwood sitting alongside Oliver Stone). Another publisher curiously chose to reject it because, to them, it appeared to be a book about me promoting my interviews (as if I was trying to be a low-rent Larry King) rather than seeing it as a commentary on the decade through the eyes of the guests. All told, the book soon faded away and I turned to other projects. However, when recently uncovering the original proposal and sample interviews, I felt that maybe some of them could find a new life on Critics at Large.

One section of Talking Out of Turn included a chapter examining the role of the experimental art on eighties culture. Contemporary composers like Philip Glass, R. Murray Schafer and John Cage were now having their music felt in pop circles. Cage was perhaps the most influential of those avant-garde composers. He had a huge impact -- both artistically and philosophically -- on popular music (including Frank Zappa, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono and Brian Eno).

Heavy Metal Thunder: R.E.D. (2010)

There's something strangely satisfying about watching Dame Helen Mirren fire round after round of heavy ordinance at bad guys. In the movie R.E.D. (just released on DVD – the title is an acronym for Retired: Extremely Dangerous), Mirren plays a retired CIA sniper who is forced out of her now-genteel life by circumstances beyond her control. The fact that she doesn't appear in the movie until the one-hour mark is one of this comic thriller's few problems.

At the start of the picture, we are introduced to Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), a lonely, also retired, former CIA black ops agent who has fallen in love with the voice of Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker), the woman at the benefits office that manages his pension. He is so smitten that he's practically a telephone stalker. She's kind to him, but she's also a little creeped out. After one of his phone calls, his house in a quiet residential neighbourhood is attacked by several assassins. (Yes, his house. The shooters essentially blast the shit out of the place, à la the 'let's shoot a million rounds into that truck' in the Clint Eastwood film, The Gauntlet). He dispatches the killers and then pops up at Sarah's house in Kansas City, insisting that her life is also in danger.

Here, the logic of the film veers off the rails. The first 25 minutes are a little incomprehensible. There seems to be no credible reason for Willis to connect the attack on him to Sarah and then deduce she is now in danger too. Perhaps it's on the cutting room floor. Essentially, he kidnaps her because she doesn't believe he is former CIA. (Does she not know what pension she's dealing with?) They go to New Orleans for no reason I can think of other than New Orleans looks good (except for those New Orleans sequences, the rest of the picture was shot in Toronto – it is fun playing 'spot the T.O. locales'). It's not until she escapes him and then is almost kidnapped by a New Orleans 'police officer' (Moses rescues her) that she finally believes him. As I said, the first 25 minutes are confusing. The attempts to kill Moses seem to be connected to a list of operatives who, many years prior, were sent into Guatemala to extract an American military unit, led by an unnamed rogue officer that supposedly annihilated an entire village. I think Moses was among them, or some old friends were (it really isn't clear) and I think Sarah had pension dealings with some of those men on the list, most of whom now dead.

Strange Things Happening Every Day: Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Graham Parker

"There's something about the gospel blues that's so deep the world can't stand it," gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe once pronounced. In the Forties, Tharpe was quite the fiery performer who could play a steel-bodied guitar like Chuck Berry and swing her hips like Elvis Presley. She often captured in her recordings the persuasive force of gospel blues to the degree that you could comprehend the power it held and why the world couldn't stand it. But, by 1944, Tharpe was herself wavering between the sins of the secular world and the promise of God's kingdom. So she gave voice to those struggles in her rollicking single, "Strange Things Happening Every Day":

On that great Judgment Day
When they drive them all away
There are strange things happening every day.

The view she offered us was no less apocalyptic than most gospel blues like Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere," or Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night," only Tharpe sounded ecstatic. She told us that even if you could never fully comprehend God's will, it might still be experienced and accepted through the mystery of miracles and salvation. After all, strange things do happen to mankind every day:

Recent Documentaries: Exploitative (Part 2)

At first glance, Yael Hersonski's A Film Unfinished is seemingly cut from the same moral cloth as Inside Job and Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (see yesterday's review of both those films) Those two political films, respectively, exposed the forces behind the recent worldwide economic meltdown and laid bare the events leading to the downfall of one politician who was prepared to tackle Wall Street and its greedy minions head-on, and both came from a deep and justified well of anger. A Film Unfinished initially seems similar in tone, but actually this is one offensive documentary that left a bad taste in my mouth.

A German-Israeli co-production, but made by an Israeli filmmaker, A Film Unfinished is a look at a recently unearthed, and unfinished, propaganda film made by the Nazis and shot in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. The ghetto was eventually liquidated by the Germans in 1943, and all its remaining Jewish inhabitants killed, but only after a staunch and heroic resistance (one which lasted nearly a full month). Using footage from the never-before-seen, until now, propaganda film, which was titled Das Ghetto, and incorporating some docudrama techniques (not something I much like) of a post World War Two trial which touched on the making of the film (and also interviews with a few survivours from the ghetto), A Film Unfinished ostensibly brings something new to the subject of the Holocaust. The problem is that the movie exploits far more than it illuminates. 

Recent Documentaries: Informative (Part 1)

I have a theory about documentaries. If you're a halfway decent filmmaker, and you've picked a good subject for a film, then, presto, you'll come up with a worthwhile documentary. It's when you don't have the instincts to shape a good doc, or have chosen a subject you can't do justice to, that pitfalls can and do occur. Because very few documentaries are made with box office in mind, most of the fact-based films that are released are usually made for the right reasons – either to inform or educate on issues which cry out to be addressed, or to open windows on worlds we know little about. As for the difference between good and great docs, such as Capturing the Friedmans (2003) or Man on Wire (2008), well, that's a whole different ballgame, having as much to do with the story depicted on screen as they do with the person doing the depicting. 

Last year's best documentary films, Frederick Wisemans's La danse, Banksy's Oscar nominated Exit Through the Gift Shop and Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol, coincidentally all dealt with art: Wiseman's comprehensive, probing behind-the-scenes look at a famous French ballet troupe; Banksy's witty take on L.A, street artists and their British inspiration; Malmberg's moving portrait of a mentally damaged man's unique and therapeutic art project. (See my Best Films of the year list for more on those movies.) Three more recent, and comparatively lesser, documentary movies, Inside Job, Client 9 and A Film Unfinished, deal with history, from the ripped-from-the-headlines present to the relatively recent past.

So Bad It's Good?: Cruise Into Terror (1978)

Last year, on February 6^th, I wrote a brief piece on the wretched TV movie called Cruise Into Terror. Two days before, I’d inaugurated an on-again, off-again series (mostly off) called Mini Masterpieces in Mediocre Movies. The purpose was to look at one sequence in a specific film and examine why it worked and the rest didn’t. The film I did on that occasion was James Cameron’s mediocre The Abyss. During the writing, I added a sidebar on Cruise Into Terror because its last line – “That there is a devil, there is no doubt, but is he trying to get into us or is he trying to get out” – had stuck with me (in the piece, I said it was the only good thing about the film). During the editing of The Abyss post, the sidebar was just not working out, so I removed it and planned to run it as a standalone. It was so short, we decided to title it David's Mini-Masterpiece Addendum and it ran two days later.

Over the last year, this little bitty post has become one of our most popular pieces (and hopefully not because it’s so fast to read – we timed it; it takes less than 30 seconds). Often in the top 10, it returned again this past week to top five status. So, it was decided I had to see this thing again and determine why my short post was so popular. I thought I had it on video tape, but when I went through my boxed tapes (yes, I own a functioning VCR that I still use) I couldn’t find it. My colleague, Kevin Courrier, told me the whole film, in 10 minute chunks, was posted on Youtube. So, that’s how I watched it.

Read All About It! Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists

Every single person we pass each day has a story, a history, one that’s rich with broken hearts, broken dreams, personal triumphs and secrets. Regardless of how hard-hitting, aloof, or kind-hearted these people may seem, no doubt there are many layers that lay beneath the surface of their lives – layers we likely never get to see. Since it would probably be too overwhelming for us to consider, we don’t too often reflect on those hidden depths. But Tom Rachman’s debut novel The Imperfec-tionists (Dial Press, 2010) does. He examines with thoroughness many of those layers as they exist in a colourful assortment of characters.

The Imperfectionists revolves around an English newspaper in Rome circa 2007. The novel reads likes a series of short stories. It profiles the staff members, plus one reader, of the paper. Each chapter is dedicated to cracking open the life of one of the characters and then relentlessly showing us what makes them tick. While many of the characters play supporting roles, in the novel's multiple chapters, they soon become misunderstood colleagues outside of their section. The chapters themselves get linked together with excerpts of the paper’s beginnings. From its Mad Men-like origins in the 1950s, by founder Cyrus Ott, to the present day, run by Ott’s uninterested grandson Oliver, The Imperfectionists deftly explores the challenges that so many papers face today in competition with their online counterparts. (Rachman, born in London, England, raised in Vancouver, Canada, is a journalist himself, having worked in both Rome and Paris.) But it also begs the question: Just how reflective is The Imperfectionists to the realities of Rachman’s former colleagues? Or is Rachman just onto something much deeper. Are these tragedies isolated to one’s profession, or to one’s lifestyle?

Talking Out of Turn #11: Julia Reichert/James Klein (1985)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show, On the Arts, at CJRT-FM in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to artists from all fields. In 1994, after I had gone to CBC, I had an idea to collate an interview anthology from some of the more interesting discussions I'd had with guests from that period. Since they all took place during the eighties, I thought I could edit the collection into an oral history of the decade from some of its most outspoken participants. The book was assembled from interview transcripts and organized thematically. I titled it Talking Out of Turn: Revisiting the '80s. With financial help from the Canada Council, I shaped the individual pieces into a number of pertinent themes relevant to the decade. By the time I began to contact publishers, though, the industry was starting to change. At one time, editorial controlled marketing. Now the reverse was taking place. Acquisition editors, who once responded to an interesting idea for a book, were soon following marketing divisions concerned with whether the person doing it was hot enough to sell it.

For a few years, I flogged the proposal to various publishers but many were worried that there were too many people from different backgrounds (i.e. Margaret Atwood sitting alongside Oliver Stone). Another publisher curiously chose to reject it because, to them, it appeared to be a book about me promoting my interviews (as if I was trying to be a low-rent Larry King) rather than seeing it as a commentary on the decade through the eyes of the guests. All told, the book soon faded away and I turned to other projects. However, when recently uncovering the original proposal and sample interviews, I felt that maybe some of them could find a new life on Critics at Large.

One of the book's chapters, The Arc of the Cold War, dealt with both its peak and decline since the Soviet Union would dissolve by December 1991. The interviews in this chapter, which included SF author Frederik Pohl on his novel Chernoybl and spy novelist Fletcher Knebel's Crossing in Berlin, provided a cross-section of observations about the psychology of the Cold War rather than detailing the different aspects of it. In their film, Seeing Red, documentary filmmakers Julia Reichert and James Klein examined the early years of the American Communist movement, its beginnings in the thirties, its rise in the WW II years, the later disillusionment with Stalin, and then its legacy in the eighties. 

The Prism of History: Daniel Francis’s Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918-1919, Canada’s First War on Terror

When you look at the world through the prism of history, the events that unfold today can appear luminously connected to the events of the past. In Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918-1919, Canada’s First War on Terror (Arsenal Pulp, 2010) by historian Daniel Francis, this valuable prism comes with a fascinating story.

Francis is an historian based in Vancouver and he’s written over twenty books about Canadian history, including the Encyclopedia of British Columbia. His latest book covers 24 months in Canadian history, namely the post-war years leading up to the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. His premise is simple. In the years after the First World War, political activism by the masses was at its peak. Led by Unions, people felt the urgent need to achieve economic equality and launched an often highly charged political battle against the Federal government and industry for better rates of pay, better working conditions and more say in the political process. This revolt, leading up to the Winnipeg General Strike, was characterized as the “Red Scare” by the government and media of the day.

Blasphemies and Hosannas: A Hymn for the Arts

Ricky Gervais

The funny if rather nasty jokes about Hollywood royalty that comedian Ricky Gervais unleashed while hosting the Golden Globes on January 16 seemed to shock the assembled crowd in designer gowns and tuxedos. I’m betting most viewers, perhaps in their PJs, were far more upset by those ten little words he used in his final quip of the night: “I’d like to thank God...for making me an atheist.”

With that, the sarcastic Brit certainly was skewering all the televised award shows that feature winners, often with an arm raised toward the sky, expressing their appreciation for divine intervention. The Almighty, if there is one, has nothing better to do than make sure some actor or musician or dancer-with-the-stars gets the coveted prize. Although Gervais also was tapping into a sort of bait-and-switch brand of humor, God-fearing people – of which there are many millions in the United States – possibly hoped he would be struck by lightning before even leaving the stage. Presenter Robert Downey Jr., apparently stunned by an introduction that unkindly referred to his rehab for drug addiction a decade ago, mentioned the evening’s “mean-spirited” tone; the devout multitudes watching at home likely felt more concerned about offending the Holy Spirit.

Tati Lives!: The Illusionist

While there’s no shortage of animated movies coming our way each year – and many good ones in the mix – simple, hand-drawn animation the way it used to be done by Disney, among others, is something of a lost art. Except nobody has told French filmmaker Sylvain Chomet that, and as a result he’s producing some of today's finest animated work. The Illusionist, Chomet’s follow-up to his wonderful Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003), is a small gem. It is a continuation of his brilliant cinematic vision while also a departure from his previous feature.

What Chomet has done (and who would have imagined this?) is bring beloved French director Jacques Tati (Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle) back to exquisite life, both in terms of the project itself and as a character in the movie. The Illusionist was originally written in 1956 by Tati and Henri Marquet as a tribute to Tati’s estranged daughter Sophie Tatischeff, but the script was never produced – until now. Changed somewhat – the film’s main location has been moved from Prague to Edinburgh, where Paris-born Chomet now lives – The Illusionist, which is set in the late fifties, is a poignant (platonic) love story between a fading French magician named Tatischeff and Alice, a young Scottish woman he encounters who he eventually ends up living with. Tatischeff is having trouble earning his keep, as his audiences flock to newfangled acts, such as the preening rock and roll Beatles-like group Billy Boy and the Britoons, whom he shares billing with at the outset of the movie. Tatischeff's old-fashioned magic shtick, complete with a rabbit being pulled out of his hat, isn’t cutting it anymore, sending him on a desperate trajectory from Paris to London and, finally, to Edinburgh. There, he and his bad-tempered rabbit settle into a rooming house with Alice. He tries, and usually fails, to bring in enough money for he and Alice to live on. Yet the young girl, who touches him deeply, is also an ingenuous, innocent soul, who believes that Tatischff is actually conjuring up all the presents (a pretty pair of shoes, a beautiful winter coat) he buys her, forcing the magician to find jobs to pay for the gifts. Being cast in the spirit of Tati, those endeavours usually don’t fare well.

Lost Treasures: Shaun Cassidy's Invasion (2005-2006)

“Mommy. You smell different.” (Rose Varon to her mother, Mariel, on Invasion)

According To Jim was on the air for eight seasons featuring 'fat guy, hot wife.' Two and a Half Men? It’s now plowing through its eighth laugh-free season. CSI: Miami? We've been nine years and counting watching David Caruso put on his sunglasses (or is it taking them off ... or is it both?). These shows are drivel. Uninspired, insipid, poorly scripted and acted. How many seasons did Shaun Cassidy's completely brilliant show, Invasion, get? One.

I'm not going to condemn the viewers for their lack of taste (that's too easy, because smart shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Big Love, True Blood, Battlestar Galatica, etc., had or continue to have long runs – albeit on cable). Rather, I just shake my head at Invasion's bad timing. It came on the air about a month after Hurrican Katrina destroyed New Orleans, and, as if the hurricane was the show's fault, the media took it to task. High production costs were another factor. At the end of its only season, Invasion's ratings were no worse than According to Jim's, but ATJ cost a buck ninety to produce, while Invasion ran over $2 million per. It died due to economics and the blindness of the ABC studio heads.

Invasion was about the world we live in now: blended families (divorced couples still attached because of children) attempting to cope with each other; trying to maintain ones individuality in a world that wants you to conform; coming to terms with changes in your body as you age; the painful struggles of teenage boys and girls growing up too fast; the dangerous post 9/11 world where terror can come from abroad, above or your next-door neighbour. It just happened to be wrapped in a science-fiction frame.

Talking Out of Turn #10: Ann Beattie (1986)

Author Ann Beattie in 1986.

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show, On the Arts, at CJRT-FM in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to artists from all fields. In 1994, after I had gone to CBC, I had an idea to collate an interview anthology from some of the more interesting discussions I'd had with guests from that period. Since they all took place during the eighties, I thought I could edit the collection into an oral history of the decade from some of its most outspoken participants. The book was assembled from interview transcripts and organized thematically. I titled it Talking Out of Turn: Revisiting the '80s. With financial help from the Canada Council, I shaped the individual pieces into a number of pertinent themes relevant to the decade. By the time I began to contact publishers, though, the industry was starting to change. At one time, editorial controlled marketing. Now the reverse was taking place. Acquisition editors, who once responded to an interesting idea for a book, were soon following marketing divisions concerned with whether the person doing it was hot enough to sell it.

For a few years, I flogged the proposal to various publishers but many were worried that there were too many people from different backgrounds (i.e. Margaret Atwood sitting alongside Oliver Stone). Another publisher curiously chose to reject it because, to them, it appeared to be a book about me promoting my interviews (as if I was trying to be a low-rent Larry King) rather than seeing it as a commentary on the decade through the eyes of the guests. All told, the book soon faded away and I turned to other projects. However, when recently uncovering the original proposal and sample interviews, I felt that maybe some of them could find a new life on Critics at Large.

One area of the book concerned the legacy of the sixties. It’s difficult taking into consideration the political landscape of the eighties without examining aspects of the sixties. Many ghosts from that period (i.e. Vietnam, the Cold War, civil rights) continued to linger as unresolved arguments that underscored actions in the eighties. If cynicism became more common twenty years after the idealism sparked by JFK’s 1960 Inaugural address, the voices included in this chapter of Talking Out of Turn set to uncover what the political lessons of the sixties were.

In the work of fiction writer Ann Beattie, questions were raised as to whether those of us who were part of that decade were now trapped in nostalgic reverence for our lost youth; or, were we slowly coming to terms with the hard political lessons of that era? One of her key novels that delved deftly into those issues was Chilly Scenes of Winter (1976), which was made into a 1979 movie by Joan Micklin Silver re-titled Head Over Heels. The story revolves around Charles, a civil servant, who is struggling in the seventies with his ideals from the sixties while trying to maintain his relationship with Laura, the love of his life. With his droll best friend Sam, Charles comes to grips with the ghosts of the past which is where I began my talk with Ann Beattie.

Dreams Are Nothing More Than Wishes: Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?

There couldn't be a more apt title for John Scheinfeld’s engaging documentary on the late singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson than Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)? Despite the fact that Nilsson was both a prolific pop songwriter and a gifted tenor, perhaps what made Nilsson less than a household name was that he didn't comfortably fit into the niche of a traditional pop crooner. It also took Scheinfeld almost four years to get a distributor for his movie about him. But it’s definitely worth the wait.

Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)? examines with both insight and empathy the life of a pop artist whose pining voice cast a larger shadow on a tragic life. While he wrote songs that became hits for The Monkees (“Cuddly Toy”), Three Dog Night (“One”) and Blood, Sweat and Tears (“Without Her”), his only chart successes were other people’s tunes. “Everybody’s Talkin’” (made famous in Midnight Cowboy) was written by Fred Neil, while the Grammy-winning “Without You” was originally a track by the British rock group Badfinger. Nilsson never performed concert tours to promote his albums and his studio work itself became unique in that he did all his own overdubbed harmony vocals. With the help of top-notch players (from Little Feat’s Lowell George to keyboardist Nicky Hopkins), Nilsson became an insulated pop force, someone hidden away in the imagined world of a recording studio. From there, his lovely and quirky ballads and anthems could bring a youthful longing to unrequited wishes.

FX’s Terriers: Catch a Ride with a Trickster and a Travelin’ Man

Terriers (on FX)

For Shady Kanfi

For the most part, the FX Network was good to me in 2010. By mid-summer, they had already premiered three of my favourite new series of the year: in comedy, the hilarious and deeply original Louis C.K. vehicle, Louie; in animation, the surprisingly funny, edgy, and intelligent spy spoof, Archer; and in drama, the hard-boiled contemporary Western, Justified, based on the work of Elmore Leonard and starring Timothy Olyphant. (All three shows have been renewed and will bring us second seasons in 2011.) But the folks at FX weren’t done yet: on September 8th, they premiered Terriers. Created by screenwriter Ted Griffin (Ocean's Eleven) and The Shield creator Shawn Ryan, Terriers stars Donal Logue (Life, Grounded for Life) as Hank Dolworth, an ex-cop and recovering alcoholic, who teams up with Britt Pollack, his best friend and mostly reformed thief (played by Michael Raymond-James, True Blood), to open an unlicensed private investigation firm. Based on the early promos for the series, I had initially positioned the series in relation to The Good Guys, the good-natured buddy-cop show created by Matt Nix (Burn Notice), which premiered on FOX over the summer (and was cancelled last month). But halfway through the opening credits of Terriers (and the original theme song written by the show’s composer Rob Duncan), I knew I was going to be delightfully mistaken. With substantial characters and two charismatic stars, some powerful writing and subtle serial nature, Terriers would soon rise to the level of FX’s spring season hit, Justified. While often hilarious, the show was also carefully plotted, and offered a perfect mix of compelling characters, dark humour, and genuine intrigue. Unfortunately, by early December, FX announced that due to low ratings it was not going to renew Terriers. But whatever its future, Terriers will remain one of the few bright spots in what was an often disappointing new fall TV season.

The Two Marks: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & Money For Nothing

Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail (Jan. 14, 2010)

If we needed further proof that the standards of literacy and education in North America have diminished rapidly, the recent decisions to censor both Mark Twain's classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Dire Strait's satirical song "Money For Nothing" now takes us to pretty embarrassing new depths. That these two events should bookend the current heated debate over the contribution of political rhetoric to the tragic Arizona shootings is hardly accidental. We seem to have lost touch with the true meaning of speech, so much so, that we can no longer tell the difference between what's morally offensive and what isn't.


Mark Twain

In the case of Mark Twain's 1884 novel, a book written during the post-Civil War era, Twain was addressing the turbulent racial tensions that had escalated due to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to end black slavery. He created a narrative about a young white American in conflict with his culture, one who sought a new form of freedom while journeying down the Mississippi River. Twain also introduced into the story the black character, Jim, a former slave who Finn befriends and learns from. In doing so, Twain sought to attack the growing problems of segregation, prejudice and the continued lynchings by having this main character refute the accepted norms. As Twain once said after the book was published, "A sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience." To achieve this, Twain had to write in the context of the times, from what he knew and the language that he heard, in order to create an authenticity of both character and place. One of the offensive words, of course, was the use of the word "nigger" which was common coin at that time. (Since Jim was also once a slave, he could hardly sound like a Harvard grad in the book either.) None of Twain's nuances seemed to get through to NewSouth Books, however, who have now published an edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that replaces the word "nigger" with "slave" and changes the character Injun' Joe's name to Indian Joe. Besides formalizing American slang in the case of Injun' Joe, which then unwittingly makes Indian Joe seem even more derogatory than Injun' Joe, the use of the word "slave" for "nigger" is hardly the proper term for a character who has just earned his freedom. Oh art, where is thy sting?

The Way They Were: Patti Smith's Just Kids

In a burst of youthful enthusiasm during the late 1970s, Rickie Lee Jones once famously  proclaimed the sensibility she shared with boyfriend and fellow musician Tom Waits: ”We’re living on the jazz side of life.” A decade earlier, another couple in their 20s had a similarly bohemian, improvisational relationship that was devoted as much to art as to romance. If not more so. Singer Patti Smith has now chronicled the years she spent with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in Just Kids (HarperCollins, 2010), a riveting memoir that recently won America’s National Book Award.

Based in Los Angeles, Jones and Waits may have been the West Coast counterparts of Smith and Mapplethorpe, who called New York home. Smith describes the dynamic metropolis and extraordinary times in stunning detail: “Nothing was more wonderful to me than Coney Island. with its gritty innocence. It was our kind of place: the fading arcades, the peeling signs of bygone days, cotton candy and Kewpie dolls on a stick...” The focus for all four of them was on the demimondes of their respective cities, along with almost everywhere they visited in between. It’s an aesthetic that’s edgy and suffused with pain.

A Smith melody addresses the philosophy of scraping by that she and Mapplethorpe adhered to: “Every night before I rest my head, / see those dollar bills go swirling 'round my bed./ I know they're stolen, but I don't feel bad./ I take that money, buy you things you never had.” Jones composed these lyrics: “Zero quit school/ and she lost her job again/ and then her boyfriend beat her up/ and now he won't let her in.” A snippet from a tango-flavored Waits song: “I like my town with a little drop of poison.” 

Spellbinding: Dmitry Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10 (RLPO conducted by Vasily Petrenko)

Shostakovich's Symphony No.10 is a jewel in the composer's life. Considered his most autobiographical work, this recording by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vasily Petrenko (Naxos, 2011), is a tour de force. Led by Petrenko since 2005, the RLPO (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) has now set a new standard in the performance of Russian music.

The RLPO are no strangers to Shostakovich having recorded his Symphonies No.5, No.9, No.8, and No.11 already. But this experience has truly challenged the musicians and the audience in ways they couldn't possibly have imagined. Featuring an introspective opening movement that’s followed by a buoyant second, a reflective third and a fourth that opens with an andante tempo (followed by a spirited allegro), No. 10 avoids the accessible approach most orchestras would take for commercial success. The Naxos label, which continues to release as many different types of music as possible, has given Petrenko, a young, unproven Russian conducting a British orchestra, a daring opportunity. And we, as listeners, are truly rewarded for it.

Lust at First Sound: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals: III/IV

The first time I heard Ryan Adams it was lust at first sound. I remember arriving to meet a beau one crisp autumn evening when a flood of warmth and the refrain of “Firecracker,” from the 2001 Gold album, embraced me at the door. “Who is this?” I insisted. “Ryan Adams,” I was told. Thinking I must have misheard, “Bryan Adams,” I politely concealed my eye rolling. “No. R-R-Ryan Adams,” he said. So it began: my affair with the tortured genius of alternative country. The Americana meets 70s pop/rock sound, artfully accompanied with poignant lyrics became a solid favorite.

Last year it was announced that Ryan Adams and his former backing band, the Cardinals, were releasing a two-disc album of shelved sessions from their 2007 Easy Tiger recording in December. The fact that Adams had been in a state of “retirement” since 2008, added another layer of expectancy to the 2-disc collection. Perhaps I held my bated breath a bit too long, for upon listening to III/IV I was sorely disappointed. It sounded nothing like Easy Tiger. This so-called “rock-opera” blended together into almost inaudible noise. There were so many electric guitars, so few acoustics; so many pointless instrumental solos, no harmonicas to be heard of. A little perturbed, and having nobody to blame (it was recorded before meeting Mandy Moore); I saw that my knee jerk reaction was shared online amongst music critics. Then I did something that usually causes me regret: I gave it a second chance.

Getting It Right #2: Joel and Ethan Coen's True Grit

My issue over the years with filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen is that they hate people. Not in a misanthropic or curmudgeonly manner (I have always found misanthropes fascinating and curmudgeons amusing), but in a smug 'people are idiots' mindset. Look at pictures such as the reprehensible Fargo where every character, including the supposed heroine Marge (Frances McDormand), is treated with complete contempt because of their 'funny accent' or their 'stupid' actions (Marge doesn't even solve the crime, she stumbles across the solution by accident). The Coens are the worst sort of people-haters because, based on the evidence in several of their films, they think they're better than everybody else.

And yet, when they get it right, they have created, if not great pictures, ones where I've come away feeling amused/entertained/satisfied. Pictures like Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski and Miller's Crossing fall into this category for me. Most of the others are either 'god, I hate this movie' or 'yawn'. Even their Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men is a bit pointless when you get right down to it. This brings me to their biggest hit in their careers: the remake of True Grit, now in theatres and this past weekend’s number one at the box office. I'd heard very good things about True Grit, so I was interested in seeing it. But people had also said wonderful things about Fargo, Barton Fink, and The Ladykillers. The picture seemed right up the 'aren't people stupid' alley that the Coens have mined over the years. It's a western, so lots of chances for: funny accents, ill-bred idiots, numb-nutted gunslingers and dumb-as-dirt cowpokes. So imagine my surprise when I came out of the theatre, well, moved (an emotion I'd never felt in any of the Coen brothers' movies).

Getting it Right #1: Unstoppable

Unstoppable stars Denzel Washington

As Hollywood movies become more expensive to make and promote – with many films, shockingly, costing upwards of $100 million – Tinseltown continues to retreat into ‘safe’ projects, either sequels or remakes, such as Little Fockers or True Grit, or large event movies like Inception that garner buzz because of the massive hype attached to them. That doesn’t leave much room for so-called B movies, films with lesser known actors or directors or unusual subject matter, which simply aren’t being made much anymore and thus often fly under the media's radar when they're finally released. The Tony Scott thriller Unstoppable isn’t exactly a B movie (neither Scott (Top Gun, The Taking of Pelham 123) nor the film’s star, Denzel Washington (Malcolm X, American Gangster) are unknowns), but by any other measure, the film is a comparatively low budget, modest enterprise that stands out by virtue of what it isn’t: overblown, loud and empty headed. It’s also the rare Hollywood movie that does what it sets out to do very well, indeed.

Righteous Reconfiguration: Emilie-Claire Barlow's The Beat Goes On

Emilie-Clair Barlow and bassist Ross MacIntyre, (Photo: Greg King)

In December 2008, my wife and I saw Canadian jazz singer, Emilie-Claire Barlow, perform a Christmas-centric concert at Markham Theatre north of Toronto. Markham Theatre is a wonderful place to see concerts because the acoustics are great and the space is relatively intimate. Barlow on that night was in a fine fettle. She sang wonderfully (in English and French) and had a great deal of off-the-cuff fun with the audience. As befits a concert in Markham, afterwards Barlow spent another hour in the lobby signing CDs for audience members. When we got to the front of the line my wife, who is trilingual (English, French and Spanish), asked Barlow if she spoke French. Barlow admitted she did not and that she always sang the songs phonetically.

Talking afterwards, my wife and I were astonished how near perfect her phrasing was, not just in her English-language songs, but her French ones too. This near-perfect phrasing is evident all over her new CD, The Beat Goes On. The CD is Barlow's jazz tribute to the pop songs of the 1960s. She's not the first jazz singer to do this, but this might be the best. Ranging from Burt Bacharach to Buffy Sainte-Marie to Sonny Bono to Bob Dylan, Barlow's choices are frequently inspired. She has taken many very recognizable tunes and, with skilful rearrangements, crafted songs I may have liked at one time, but since have grown tired of (Bacharach's “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”), or songs I never liked to begin with (Neil Sedaka's “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”) and given them a spin that makes them fresh and rejuvenated.

No Direction Home: Sofia Coppola's Somewhere

Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning in Somewhere

In the opening moments of Sofia Coppola's new film, Somewhere, action star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) either spends his days and nights in L.A.'s famous Chateau Marmont just going through the motions (or driving his Ferrari – literally – in circles). As Coppola documents Marco's redundant daily routines of parties and strippers, the picture appears to be going through the motions as well. With Somewhere seemingly going nowhere, I was tempted to bail. Luckily, I didn't. For when Marco's ex-wife suddenly unloads their 11-year-old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), on his doorstep, Marco awakens from his stupor and so does the movie. Somewhere turns into an affecting story of a father and daughter in the process of discovering each other and it has a bittersweet fragrance that lingers long after you leave the theatre.