Far Flungers

Apocalypto: Epic in a real jungle

Gerardo Valero

I truly enjoy Mel Gibson’s work as a director. His films, whether he stars in them or not, always reflect a passion and heart like few others. His best work these days, more and more, seems to be coming from behind the camera. It seems to me he really makes the movies for himself first and second for everybody else, no test audience previews to influence the final product.

“Apocalypto” is a film about the demise of the Mayan civilization. It tells the story of Jaguar Paw, whose small village is attacked by a group of hunters from the nearby metropolis, their job literally being to pillage small defenseless groups while looking for “volunteers” for their “most dangerous game”: the sacrificing rituals that the city’s leaders use to keep the masses entertained.

Suicide by way of homicide

Omer M. Mozaffar

Rian Johnson’s hyperviolent “Looper” (2102) is the smartest movie I have seen in a long time. It has that fearless edge of an independent film, throwing out all the stops. Its masterful plot carefully hides its foreshadows as elements of its constructed universe. It is a science fiction movie with rudiments of mystery, thriller, horror, comedy and even eschatology. So many characters, young and old, were loaded with charisma, sometimes unexpectedly. My fellow critic Nick Allen was correct when he told me not to watch any trailers (too late) and not to let anyone tell me about this movie. Because of its hyperkinetic, volatile unpredictability, I cannot help but to call this movie “crazy.” After watching it, you might have to go look at snails for a few hours to calm down. More than that, this movie is clearly one of the best of the year.

A man with storms in his head

A professor at my department who studied neuroscience, once told us something you have probably heard elsewhere: If you think you’re crazy or getting crazy, that means you are not crazy because crazy people do not know that they are crazy. This sounds like the famous dilemma in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.” I thought it was useful advice for students who had to deal with lots of pressure and stress in the academic process. It could also be good advice for the hero of “Take Shelter” (2011), because he thinks at first something is wrong with his head, but cannot ignore what disturbs deeply him. He tries to quell his mental turbulence as much as he can, but is transformed into a more disturbed man obsessed with visions attacking him every night. It is possible that he himself is the threat to the family he wants to protect, not the catastrophe of epic proportion he fears.

A man who lives between Here and There

Omer M. Mozaffar

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful” was utter torture, and I loved it. Javier Bardem is Uxbal, a soft-spoken man living somewhere along the border between Here and There. He gently hides from life in some anonymous place in crowded, noisy Barcelona. He is a hustler, compassionately exploiting families of undocumented refugees from other lands, protecting them from deportation. He is a telepath, speaking to the newly deceased, helping free their crossing to the next world. He is a son who hardly knew his father, and a father seeking to nurture his own little daughter and son against the pull of an unpredictable ex-wife and an irresponsible brother. But, what does he seek?

A British boutique festival without an identity crisis

Scott Jordan Harris

Britain is overrun with film festivals. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn we have more per hundred miles per year than any nation on Earth. But there is room for more, provided they are carefully conceived, intelligently programmed and don’t overreach themselves in their early years. ID Fest, which ran this year between May 24 and 27, is a fine example.

Beginning in 2010, with a year off in 2011, ID Fest is “a boutique festival”, with each instalment programmed around a specific theme branching from the larger theme of identity – hence “ID” Fest. As such, it separates itself from Britain’s large international festivals; small, un-themed local festivals; and genre fests, of which there seem to be more each month. The first ID Fest investigated what it means to be English (as opposed to British) but the second had a far broader focus, befitting its ambitions to become a truly international festival. In 2012, its theme was heroism.

Hostages to honor

Jana Monji

The Kobayashi movie “Harakiri” is available on Hulu and Netflix. Miike’s “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai” is available on Amazon.com.

In this remake of the 1962 Masaki Kobayashi movie known as “Harakiri” in America, but “Seppuku” in Japan, Takashi Miike considers the value of one life or “Ichimei.” (一命 Ichimei). In the U.S., the film is also re-named “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai.”

The Magic of Magic and Bird

Scott Jordan Harris

The saying in boxing is that “styles make fights”. It means that two elegant matadors like Muhammad Ali, or two rampaging bulls like Joe Frazier, wouldn’t have contested the classics fought by one Muhammad Ali and one Joe Frazier. The saying is true, and its truth extends beyond boxing to all sporting rivalries.

And, just as “fights” is not limited to boxing matches, “style” is not limited to physical methods of competition. “Style” includes styles of speaking, styles of thinking, styles of living. And, of course, “style” also includes skin color.

Should “JFK” have even been made?

Gerardo Valero

It seems like every film inspired on real-life events becomes controversial for one reason or another. The greater the subject’s notoriety, the louder the outcry. The backlash to Oliver Stone’s “JFK” was extreme by any standard; it became one of the rare features widely attacked for existing in the first place. This wasn’t all that surprising; the movie took one of the most painful events in American history and came up with shocking, damaging conclusions. That Stone tackled the “whats” of the case (the pieces that didn’t fit) was already a touchy proposition; that he tried to uncover the “whys” is what took the reaction the next level. Should a film like this have been made?

A Lincoln who creaks with every step

Omer M. Mozaffar

Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” (2102) is exactly what we would expect it to be. It is reverent. It is of such epic scope, with such microscopic attention to detail, that it competes with any period piece in the history of cinema. Daniel Day-Lewis disappears into Abraham Lincoln. So many supporting players ornament this film that a familiar face appears on screen every few minutes, adding depth, personality, and charm. Tony Kushner’s script is complex, pious, and at times mesmerizing. Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography, mixed with Rick Carter’s production design, provides a portrait in every frame.

Slapped by the Hand of Mother Nature

Omer M. Mozaffar

I’ve never been good with small talk. In those corporate conferences with high ceilings and manufactured friendships, I used to admire those high-speed networkers who spun small talk and smooth talk as they worked a room. I don’t play golf. I don’t drink booze. I’m a fair weather sports fan. If you were to stand alone in an elevator with me, you’d probably hear me breathe as I stared at the floor. Further, if you want to kill an otherwise lively conversation among a bunch of decreasingly sober corporate executives in ill-fitted khakis, sport coats, and crooked “Hi My Name is” name-tags, then make the mistake that I keep making: tell them that you’re an expert on religion. The crowd in front of you will split apart faster than the Red Sea. And, perhaps that is why I was never invited by my colleagues to go on those weekend warrior trips, like the characters in John Boorman’s forty year old “Deliverance” (1972). This is the story of four confident suburban businessmen looking to raft to the bottom of a river. Along the way, the experience pounds the hell out of them.

Those who monitor and those who fear being monitored

Gerardo Valero

Even outside the U.S. it’s common for movie-goers to avoid non-Hollywood films–not that subtitles are such a big deal to us, as we have no choice but to get accustomed to them since childhood. These feature’s real problems are that they don’t often receive much fanfare and their stars aren’t always well known. We tend to stay away until we get one a “must see” recommendations and that was my case with the German film “The Lives of Others” (2006). It’s a shame to think audiences will miss a story so gripping; this is one of the best films of its decade.

He wants to marry a hairdresser

“Film is the medium that gives room to our fantasies, most of the time harmless, since they are fantasies. The cinema is often more beautiful than life, if only because we write the screenplay.” – Leconte

The Hairdresser’s husband (1990) is a film so fantastical, so sensual, so romantic, that you can not help but sigh in ached longing…a longing that, deep down, you know is untouchable, but how good it is to be drenched so thoroughly in it in a French hairdressing salon, on sunny afternoons and stormy nights?

Dreamers. Lovers. However they came to be we do not know, and it does not matter. They are so content together, indeed so happy that they seem immune to the ravishing of life’s toil. Passion consumes their lives. The day begins with it, and ends with it.

Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky

The first thing you must realize about “Stormy Weather,” before anything else, is that it is not real. Of course it isn’t real in the sense that it is a narrative film and as such it is fiction, but it is unreal in another way. It is a romanticization of African American life offering one-dimensional characters without nuance– in “response” to the one dimensional un-nuanced characters in other films.

The movie opens as famous dancer Bill Williamson (Bill Robinson) receives a magazine in his honor “celebrating the magnificent contribution of the colored race to the entertainment of the world during the past twenty five years.” This prompts him to reminisce about his career and courtship of the beautiful singer Selina Rogers (Lena Horne). The plot however, is of little importance. The film is primarily a vehicle for famous black talent in music and dance. These are glamorous blacks in romantic and dramatic leads. Blacks with sex appeal. Blacks with their own storyline.

Omer Mozaffar from Karachi and Chicago: Travels with Clooney in Search of America

Omer M. Mozaffar

I always look forward to George Clooney’s movies. I have to admit, however, that in most movies, he seems to be playing “the George Clooney version of X” or some sort of anti-George-Clooney, who is still that astonishingly handsome man, though weak, withered, and flawed. Perhaps the exception is Syriana, where he is hidden behind whiskers and adipose.

So, even though I greatly appreciated Jason Reitman’s previous films, this film – Up in the Air – was going to be another George Clooney celebration. Then, I saw the movie. Jason Reitman stole the show.

Up in the Air is a richly textured movie that invokes a spectrum of our prime emotions. It is a sharp, biting, mirror on society, observing the role that our professions take in defining our lives. When we speak romantically of the American Dream, we speak often of the ability to choose your profession, to choose your destiny. We are taught that you are

The Persistence of Memory

Olivia Collette

Memories don’t really have a beginning, a middle and an end. They’re more like vignetted sensations, impressions and paraphrases, where the most prominent detail might be sticky fingers from handling a bunch of wheat. If you could only live with one memory for all eternity, which would it be? That’s the question Hirokazu Koreeda’s “After Life” asks, while also showing us what makes something memorable.

A man who is on everybody’s mind

Omer M. Mozaffar

A few years ago, I set up an internet alert to inform me whenever Muhammad Ali was mentioned in the news. At the time, he wasn’t doing anything newsworthy. It was years after the Michael Mann movie. A decade since his appearance in the Opening Ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games. Nearly three decades since his last fight. But, for whatever reason, he was on my mind. The strange thing I discovered is that he was in the news, somewhere in the world, every single day. Every single day. That’s his astonishing mystique. For whatever reason, he was and is on everyone’s mind. The most popular of all basketball players, Michael Jordan, is in the news for shoe sales. The most popular of soccer players, Pele, is in the news for soccer. The most popular of all cricket players, Imran Khan, is in the news for politics. Muhammad Ali, however, is in the news for being Muhammad Ali. Rather, he is in the news for who Muhammad Ali was and is to us. And, in Pete McCormack’s wonderful “Facing Ali,” we learn who he is and was for the fighters he faced.

Understanding the Dung Fly

Sang-hoon is a terrifying piece of work. He is someone you never want to mess up with. He is callous, narrow-minded, vulgar and, above all very volatile. Whenever his hair-trigger fury erupts, there’s more than hell to pay — and that happens often.

Even when his temper relatively abates, he is still difficult and hostile to communicate with, probably even with himself. In the opening sequence, we see a young woman being beaten by some guy in the night streets. Sang-hoon appears and he savagely beats that guy. And then, he spits at her, smacks her, and insults her.

The ultimate expression of humanity

Omer M. Mozaffar

This movie is 97 minutes of trying not to blink. Image after luxurious 70MM image. A perfect soundtrack. I watched it again, wearing headphones, sitting really close to an HD screen letting the film astound me with its Blu-Ray picture. And it did astound me, beyond my expectations. The details revealed textures and images I had not previously noticed. Every time I plan to watch Ron Fricke’s “Baraka” (1992), I watch far more than I plan. I intend to watch one scene, but realize quickly that I have to finish it.

Charlatan, Louisiana

Omer M. Mozaffar

On Netflix Instant

Robert Duvall’s “The Apostle” (1997) is the story of a preacher who believes he has unique permission to phone call the Divine. As is the case with such preachers, the rules of goodness and morality seem to apply to everyone else before they apply to him. Meaning, he is above the law until he gets frightened for breaking the law. So, his combination of impious exhilaration, impatient devotion, and self-righteous rage reveals a man in sunglasses, open palms, and fiery sermons, who plants trees while burning bridges. I love this movie as much as I despise its central character. This movie exists only because of its central character.