TV/Streaming

Inventing David Geffen: The Art of Self-Creation

Jeff Shannon

“American Masters: Inventing David Geffen” premieres Tuesday, Nov. 20th at 8:00pm on PBS. (Check local listings.) It can also be viewed, where available, via PBS On Demand.

by Jeff Shannon

It was my good fortune to be working at Microsoft when the big announcement was made in March of 1995: Microsoft was entering into a joint venture with DreamWorks SKG, the new film studio and entertainment company founded the previous year by mega-moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen (the “SKG” in the company’s original moniker). At the time, Microsoft dominated the booming business of multimedia publishing, and the group I was working in, nicknamed “MMPUB,” was producing a dazzling variety of CD-ROM games and reference guides. As an independent contractor I was the assistant editor of Cinemania, a content-rich, interactive movie encyclopedia (later enhanced with a website presence) that was an elegant and in some ways superior precursor to the Internet Movie Database.

The Promised Land Will Be Wheelchair-Accessible

Jeff Shannon

“Lives Worth Living” premieres on the PBS series “Independent Lens” on October 27th at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT). For more information, visit the film’s PBS website and filmmaker Eric Neudel’s website.

by Jeff Shannon

To be disabled in America, in 2011, is to occupy the midpoint of a metaphorical highway, some stretches smooth and evenly paved, others rocky and difficult to navigate. When you look back at the road behind, you feel proud and satisfied that people with disabilities (PWD) have made significant progress since the days when we had no voice, no place in society, no civil rights whatsoever. Looking ahead, you see fewer physical obstacles but other remaining barriers, in terms of backward attitudes and ongoing exclusion, that society is still stubbornly reluctant to remove.

Like those of us with disabilities, Eric Neudel’s documentary “Lives Worth Living” is situated at that halfway point on the rocky road of progress. In just 54 inspiring and informative minutes, Neudel’s exceptional film (airing Oct. 27th at 10pm on the PBS series “Independent Lens”) provides a concise primer on the history of the disability rights movement in America. The film culminates with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26th, 1990.

And yet, it’s only half the story. In a perfect world, PBS would immediately finance a sequel so Neudel (who has devoted his career to documenting political and civil rights struggles) could chronicle the first 20 years of the ADA. That history is still unfolding, and the struggle to enforce and fully implement the ADA is just as compelling as the struggle for disability rights throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

(I’ll go a step further and say that the subject is worthy of a multi-part Ken Burns approach, echoing the sentiment of veteran disability-rights advocate Lex Frieden, who observes in “Lives Worth Living” that “If you have a good story to tell, it’s not hard to get people to watch or listen to it.” And the tale of pre- and post-ADA disability in America is a very good story indeed, as packed with human drama as any other fight for equality in all of American history.)

Corman’s World: Monsters, mayhem & breast nudity!

Donald Liebenson

“Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel” is available March 27 on online outlets via iTunes, Vudu, CinemaNow and Amazon. Also on DVD and Blu-ray.

For B-movie buffs, exploitation film aficionados, and midnight movie cultists, the grand finale of “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel,” will be every bit as exhilarating as that montage of forbidden kisses at the end of “Cinema Paradiso.” Taking its cue from the liberating, rebellious high point of the Roger Corman-produced “Rock and Roll High School,” in which P. J. Soles and the Ramones rock the hallways of Vince Lombardi High, it offers up dizzying bursts of quintessential Corman: cheesy monsters, fiery car explosions, Vincent Price, blaxploitation kickass, marauding piranhas and Mary Woronov with a gun.

Alex Stapleton’s “Corman’s World” celebrates the singular cinematic legacy of the “King of the Bs,” who has improbably and regretfully fallen into obscurity. Observes director Penelope Spheeris (“The Boys Next Door,” “The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years,” “Wayne’s World”): “If you ask a 20-25-year-old film buff, they won’t know who he is.”

This despite a career that spans almost 60 years and more than 400 films that Corman either directed or produced. But while his own name may be unfamiliar, many of the once-fledgling actors and filmmakers whom he nurtured/exploited are not: Martin Scorsese (“Boxcar Bertha”), Ron Howard (“Grand Theft Auto”), Peter Bogdanovich (“Targets”), Jonathan Demme (“Caged Heat”), Joe Dante (“Piranha”), Robert DeNiro (“Bloody Mama”), Pam Grier (“The Big Doll House”), screenwriter John Sayles (“The Lady in Red”) — all these and many more appear in “Corman’s World” in new and archival interviews.

Norman Mailer: His life in public

Donald Liebenson

“Norman Mailer: The American” is available on Amazon Instant video. It is also available on DVD. Criterion has announced a two-disc Eclipse Series DVD set of Norman Mailer-directed features for release August 28, 2012: “Maidstone” (1970), “Wild 90” (1967) and “Beyond the Law” (1968).

Watching “Norman Mailer: The American,” I was struck by the similarities between Mailer and Charles Foster Kane. And it’s not just that director Joseph Mantegna (not the actor) at one point employs the title card for “Citizen Kane’s” faux newsreel “News on the March” to setup some archival footage. Or the fact that “American” was originally the proposed title for Orson Welles’ masterpiece.

Both films grapple with taking the full measure of a man who had significant influences on his times (Kane is fictional, but he was legendarily based in part on newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst). As Mailer’s life unfolds in all its glory, controversy and infamy, dialogue from “Kane” ran like a crawl through my brain. “Few private lives were more public… and he himself was always news.” And: “Here’s a man who was as loved and hated and talked about as any man in our time.” But finally: “It’s not enough to tell us what the man did, you’ve got to tell us who he was.”

The Captains: The Shat talks Trek

Jana Monji

“The Captains” is available on Netflix, EpixHD.com, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu and DVD. It will screen on HBO Canada March 21.

Stardate 65630.8 (1 March 2012)

What made “Star Trek” the most “durable and profitable franchise” in entertainment history? In his documentary, writer-director-producer William Shatner makes a convincing argument that it was “The Captains” — they set the tone and they brought the theatricality and Shakespearean linguistic grace to TV.

“The Captains,” appeared in October, 2011, in Canada, had one-night screenings here and there across North America, and helped launch EpixHD.com. That all seems in keeping with Shatner’s impressive role as a new-media barnstormer. No, he’s not making political speeches, but he’s on Google+ and Facebook, and he’s traveling around North America promoting and preserving what may be his most lasting legacy, his role as Captain James T. Kirk. He’s even returned to Broadway in a one-man show covering his career before, during and beyond “Star Trek.” (Yes, “returned.”)

In Hollywood, people joke about the William Shatner School of Acting. He’s corny. He’s melodramatic. And he has a sizable ego. But he’s really not a bad actor. We forget that before “Star Trek,” Shatner seemed destined to become a fine stage actor. He first made the trip to Broadway from his native Canada in 1956 with a small part in “Tamburlaine the Great” in 1956. The production had two Tony nominations. He scored the starring role in “The World of Suzie Wong,” which ran for two years. Both he and the female lead won Theatre World Awards for their work. In 1962, he was one of the main performers in “A Shot in the Dark,” for which Walter Matthau won a featured actor Tony. All that momentum got sidetracked when he went Hollywood.

Who forgives the Gonzo?

Odie Henderson

Opening theatrically in New York. Available now through Comcast On Demand, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu. See TribecaFilm.com for details.

by Odie Henderson

“Beware the Gonzo” begins with one of those flash-forwarded scenes where something from later in the film is presented to us as a means of foreshadowing. Being out of context, the scene has the tricky role of piquing the viewer’s interest while not being a spoiler. It rarely works, and “Beware the Gonzo”‘s opening scene is a big spoiler: a beaten up Eddie “Gonzo” Gilman (Ezra Miller) stares into a video camera and tells us that his actions have cost him his best friends, made him lose his girl, gotten him kicked out of school, and almost caused the divorce of his parents (played nicely by Campbell Scott and Amy Sedaris).

This is supposed to be an apology to all those he has wronged, but instead, it’s one of those politician mea culpas, a whiny “my bad if you were upset” speech that never forgets to be more about its subject than atoning for his wrongdoings. Out of context, it seemed pathetic, but I was willing to grant that I didn’t have the entire speech at my disposal. However, it hung over the movie, and as I met the interesting and trusting characters, dread crept in; I kept waiting for the moment when Gonzo would stop being the likeable character he is for much of the film and turns into this destructive monster.

This is not a bad thing, mind you, but the film’s dark turn treats some rather unsavory matters in eye-rollingly shallow fashion to produce a happy ending. It never makes its case for why we, or anybody in “Beware the Gonzo” should Forgive the Gonzo. If the film were honest, this tale of how power corrupts would have had a bittersweet, life-learning lesson of an ending: The hero learns from his mistakes and carries that lament with him as he moves on. Lacking that courage, director-screenwriter Brian Goluboff should have at least removed the most serious of “Beware the Gonzo”‘s sins from the screenplay. The ending would then be easier to swallow. More on that shortly.

Gonzo works for a prep school newspaper run by principal’s darling Gavin Reilly (Jesse McCartney). Reilly is a jock who not only edits the newspaper but comes from a long line of school attendees and patrons. Reilly’s family has won a prestigious history award for the school two years running, and he is in line to win it its third. Reilly is also a bully (and worse, as we’ll discover) who trashes all of Gonzo’s article ideas. He and his jocks beat up Gonzo’s friend, the wonderfully named Scott Marshall Schneeman (Edward Gelbinovich), giving him an gate-enhanced atomic wedgie. Scott’s predicament leads Gonzo to turn his “first day of school” article into an expose on the bullied kids. Reilly edits out all but two paragraphs of Gonzo’s article, forcing him to start his own underground newspaper. The first article is all about Scott and his run-ins with the jocks.

So U2 Wanna Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star

Odie Henderson

“Killing Bono” available On Demand (through various cable outlets — check your listings) October 5. In theaters November 4.

by Odie Henderson

“Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” — Gore Vidal

I was the only patron at my screening of “U2: Rattle and Hum” back in 1988. Sitting in the cavernous darkness of my old ‘hood theater, with its still-unmatched speakers and the ghosts of my childhood movies, I fell in love with the band U2. Beforehand, I had a casual familiarity with their music, and while I liked some of the songs, I wouldn’t have considered myself a fan. I went because the black and white cinematography looked gorgeous in the clips I’d seen on TV. I wasn’t disappointed. Phil Joanou’s documentary is achingly beautiful. That, along with Bono and the New Voices of Freedom gospel choir’s performance of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” cemented my diehard fandom. Once, in a Dublin pub, armed with numerous imbibed pints of Guinness and a dare from the guitar-playing busker who’d been entertaining the crowd, I sang “All I Want Is You” to a crowd of swooning lasses standing in front of me. That evening ended well.

Neil McCormick, the protagonist of “Killing Bono” would hate that I started this piece fawning over the murder victim of the film’s title. After all, he feels trapped in Bono’s shadow and decides he has to kill him. “Killing Bono” opens in 1987, with a stalkerish Neil (Ben Barnes) driving his car to Bono’s latest Dublin appearance. Rambling to the camera that he was originally entitled to everything Bono has, Neil crashes his car before exiting with his gun drawn and pointed at his prey. “I always knew I’d be famous,” he tells us.

Cue the flashback machine! Suddenly, it’s 1976, and McCormick stands in a high school hallway reading a billboard notice. His classmate, Paul Hewson (Martin McCann), is holding auditions for his new band, The Hype. Despite being in Neil’s band, The Undertakers, Neil’s brother Ivan (Robert Sheehan) tries out for second guitar. Much to Neil’s chagrin, Hewson loves Ivan’s work and wants him for his band. Neil objects–Ivan’s really good and essential to Neil’s success–so he tells Paul no deal.

Shut Up Little Man: An Odie Misadventure

Odie Henderson

Opening theatrically in select cities and available On Demand through Comcast, Amazon, Hulu and other providers. For more information, visit TribecaFilm.com.

by Odie Henderson

The technological weapon of choice is refreshingly analog: Cassette tapes containing the vitriolic, violent rants of two men living together in an apartment in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. The men, Raymond Hoffman and Peter Haskett, proclaim their disdain for one another in conversations loud enough to wake the dead. Haskett is an openly gay man, Hoffman a raging homophobe, and both are well beyond casual drinking.

The combination of opposites fueled by days of constant boozing provides enough hate to fuel the furnace that heats Hell, all of it recorded on those cassette tapes. The men become celebrities of sorts after their recordings go the pre-YouTube version of viral in the early 1990’s. Though Ray and Pete provide the content, the reward goes to the men who recorded them, Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitchell D. The documentary, “Shut Up Little Man: An Audio Misadventure” documents their return to the scene of their run-in with fame, a pink apartment complex they affectionately called Pepto-Bismol Palace.

Ray and Pete lived next door to Eddie and Mitchell from 1987 to 1989. After Eddie signs the lease, their landlord warns them that their neighbors can get “a little loud.” When the duo finds out how loud, Eddie confronts Ray. A drunken Ray threatens to kill him before returning his threats to Pete. Neither “Cops” nor “Judge Judy” were on the air in 1987, so the duo didn’t realize they could have their blitzed neighbors dragged out into the street on camera before suing the pantyhose off their trifling landlord. Being from a small town instead of a crime-ridden metropolis, Eddie and Mitchell also seem unaware that, if the walls are thin enough to hear the neighbors, bullets will have no problem getting through them. So, rather than call their landlord or the cops, Eddie and Mitchell decide to record Ray and Pete instead.

Mitchell tells us that Ray and Pete are aware they are being recorded, yet they continue to scream obscenity at each other. After collecting 10 or so hours of material, he and Eddie loan some of the cassettes to friends. The friends find the tapes hilarious, and pass them on to other friends who do the same. Soon, Pete and Ray are underground sensations, and Pete’s constant refrain of “Shut Up, Little Man!” becomes the catchphrase of the cassette crowd. Comic books based on the material are drawn by Daniel Clowes (“Ghost World”). Puppet shows are performed using dialogue from the tapes. A playwright and future nemesis of Eddie and Mitchell named Gregg Gibbs writes a one act play with Pete and a murderous Ray as characters. Even Devo samples the dialogue for one of their songs.

Terrorism is stupid

Steven Boone

Marshall Curry’s “If a Tree Falls” premieres on PBS’s “POV” series Tuesday, September 13, 2011.

by Steven Boone

Terrorism is plain stupid. I reaffirmed this belief halfway into “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front”, a documentary chronicling the titular organization’s rise and fall. It’s one thing to protest in the streets, sit down in front of bulldozers and stage direct “actions” to draw media attention to a particular issue; it’s another thing entirely to commit violent crimes with the same ends in mind. But did the Earth Liberation Front actually perpetrate any terrorism? Their 1200 or so “incidents,” as a lawyer representing some members calls them, resulted in zero deaths or injuries (other than maybe a booboo sustained while vaulting a fence before the cops came). The violence was restricted to private property.

But the crimes covered in this film were prosecuted in the wake of 9/11, when its principal subject, radical environmental activist-arsonist Daniel McGowan, found himself branded a terrorist in the media and on trial. “I think people look at my case and think, ‘What if that motherf**ker burned down my house?'” he says in the film. “They think it’s just a bunch of young crazies walking around with gas cans, lighting shit on fire and that pisses them off.”

“These facilities” were the offices of park rangers, loggers, an SUV dealership and a horse slaughterhouse. In the ’90s and ’00s, the E.L.F. targeted a range of businesses and organizations it saw as powerful agents of environmental destruction. The members were mostly very young protestors radicalized by brutal police response. Footage of cops beating and pepper-spraying non-violent activists who refuse to disperse does resemble classic civil rights/counterculture tumult. (Scenes of confrontation with loggers, from an E. L.F.-made documentary ostensibly shot in the mid-90s, look as if they could have been shot in the late ’60s.) This was a classic, bright-eyed, idealistic strain of the environmental movement, led by resourceful twenty-somethings.

Larry Sanders: The show behind the show

August, 2012, marks the 20th anniversary of the debut of “The Larry Sanders Show,” episodes of which are available on Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, and DVD. This is Part 2 of Edward Copeland’s extensive tribute to the show, including interviews with many of those involved in creating one of the best-loved comedies in television history. Part 1 (Ten Best Episodes) is here.

“Unethical? Jesus, Larry. Don’t start pulling at that thread; our whole world will unravel.”

— Artie (Rip Torn)

by Edward Copeland

Unravel those threads did — and often — in the world of fictional late night talk show host Larry Sanders. On “The Larry Sanders Show,” the brilliant and groundbreaking HBO comedy that paid attention to the men and women behind the curtain of Sanders’ fictional show, the ethics of showbiz were hilariously skewered.

Forget it Ji, it’s Kolkata

Odie Henderson

“The Bengali Detective” plays HBO On Demand, beginning November 16th.

The first thing you need to know about “The Bengali Detective is that Fox Searchlight purchased the remake rights ten months before the general public laid eyes on it. Director Philip Cox’s documentary features a charming leading man, adultery, triple homicide, mystery and suspense, a cute little kid, a dying spouse, corrupt officials and unbridled dancing. What studio could resist any of that, let alone be faithful to the darker, sadder grace notes that underscore the source material? The fiction version, due in 2014, will probably replace the casual matter-of-factness of “The Bengali Detective” with overdone “Slumdog Millionaire”-style schadenfreude. Unlike Danny Boyle’s popular Oscar winner, this film reminds the viewer that those who cannot afford much should still be afforded dignity without the gaze of pity. Save yourself the three-year wait and watch “The Bengali Detective” now.

According to the film, 70 percent of the crimes in the East Indian city of Kolkata are unsolved. The authorities are either incompetent, corrupt or both. So the citizens turn to one of their own, the local detective who takes their cases. The titular Bengali detective is Rajesh Ji, head of the Always Detective Agency. He takes numerous cases, sometimes more than he can comfortably handle, and his motley crew of assistant detectives conduct surveillance, interview suspects, and shoulder their share of the legwork. During “The Bengali Detective, ” Ji investigates three cases: One has a predictable outcome, one is a deceptively trivial crime, and the last is the harrowing triple murder of three best friends. The film gives each case a title so we know which one we’re following with the detectives.

“Deepti” follows a middle-aged woman who comes to Ji with the suspicion that her husband of 24 years is cheating on her. Cox interviews her, and she talks of arranged marriage and her spouse’s incredible cruelty toward her over the course of their relationship. “Just because he’s a man doesn’t make him lord and master,” Deepti tells the camera. Later, after two of Ji’s assistants tail the husband to the expected results, Deepti issues a statement to Ji that is devastating in its descriptive simplicity. “My heart is blank,” she tells him, “but at least I know the truth.” Cox leaves her story with a quiet long shot of the saddened wife staring at the bright green folder containing Ji’s case documentation.

It ain’t over until the postman rings

Jana Monji

“Il Postino” will premiere on PBS at 9 p.m. ET Fri., Nov. 25 as part of the Great Performances series. Based on the 1994 Italian film, it stars tenor Plácido Domingo.

By Jana J. Monji

The opera “Il Postino” in its name shows its curious lineage. While not a great opera, “Il Postino” does feature the performance of Plácido Domingo, one of the great opera tenors, in a role specifically written for him during the world premiere performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.

The opera is in Spanish, not Italian as its name suggests. “Il Postino” is also the name of the much acclaimed 1994 Italian movie that although originally released in the United States as “The Postman,” is now referred to as “Il Postino” to avoid confusion with Kevin Costner’s 1997 post-apocalyptic movie based on the 1985 David Brin novel.

The movie “Il Postino” was also based on a novel, Chilean writer Antonio Skármeta’s 1983 “Ardiente Paciencia” (Burning Patience) which was later retitled “El Cartero de Neruda” (Neruda’s Postman). The Italian movie “Il Postino” (Skármeta directed a 1983 Spanish language movie of his novel) transferred the location from Chile to Italy, changed the time period and the ending. As you might expect, the movie was in Italian.

Getting Medieval On Your…

Jeff Shannon

● “Ironclad” (2011)

● “Black Death” (2010)

“Ironclad ” is now available on DirecTV and other on-demand providers (check your service listings) and from Netflix (DVD and Blu-ray) starting on July 26th. “Black Death” is available on Netflix (streaming, DVD and Blu-ray) and Amazon Instant Video.

When I was a kid growing up in the Seattle suburb of Edmonds, WA (aka “The Gem of Puget Sound”), my parents did everything that good, sensible parents should do to shield their kids from violence, both real and reel. I remember being innocently intrigued by the furor over “Bonnie & Clyde” in 1967, but they would never have taken me to see it with them (to their credit, since I was only six). The same held true for “The Wild Bunch” in 1969, by which time the debate over movie violence had reached a fever pitch in our national conversation. Over the ensuing decades, that conversation has become a moot point as movie violence proceeded apace, from Sonny Corleone’s death in a hail of Tommy-gun fire in “The Godfather” (1972), to the slasher cycle of the late ’70s and ’80s (when makeup artists Tom Savini and Rick Baker reigned supreme as a master of gory effects) and into the present, when virtually anything – from total evisceration to realistic decapitation — is possible through the use of CGI and state-of-the-art makeup effects. That’s where movies like “Ironclad” and “Black Death” come in, but more on those later.

If you’re looking for a rant against milestone achievements in the depiction of graphic violence, you’ve come to the wrong place. To me, it’s a natural progression. Movies and violence have always been inextricably linked, and once opened, that Pandora’s Box could never be closed. A more relevant discussion now is how the new, seemingly unlimited gore FX should be used and justified. Horror films will always be the testing ground for the art of gore, and it would be a crime against cinema to cut the “chest-burster” from “Alien” (or, for that matter, Samuel L. Jackson’s spectacular death in “Deep Blue Sea”). But it’s the depiction of authentic, real-life violence — in everything from the “CSI” TV franchise to prestige projects like HBO’s “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific” — that pushes previously unrated levels of gore into the mainstream.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not praising this progression so much as acknowledging its inevitability. If you really love movies — and especially if you’ve been lucky enough to make a career out of watching them — you have undoubtedly seen a violent film that was unquestionably vile, unjustified and miles beyond the boundaries of all human decency. I’ve seen violent movies that earned my disgust because (1) the context of the violence was as abhorrent as the violence itself and (2) the intentions of the filmmakers were clearly indefensible. (Context and intention: More on that later.) Tolerances and sensibilities may vary, but every critic has seen a film that appeared to have been written and directed by sociopaths. Check out Roger Ebert’s review of “I Spit on Your Grave” (the 1978 version) and you’ll see what I mean.

War of the Arrows: Deadly targets

Jana Monji

“War of the Arrows” is currently available on Netflix Instant, Vudu, iTunes and Blu-ray/DVD.

By Jana J. Monji

A sudden crush of movies is bringing the sport of archery back into the limelight, and the timing couldn’t be better for the 2011 costume drama “War of the Arrows” from South Korea. This is like a Western movie damsel in distress scenario transported to 17th century Korea with archery instead of gun sharpshooting. The good guys don’t wear white hats, but you’ll easily be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys in this morality tale.

European tradition has William Tell and Robin Hood to tantalize young boys into archery. In America, if children still play cowboys and injuns, then one supposes that the Native Americans still use bows, but that’s usually just the braves according to old stereotypes that places the squaws in the wigwams. More recently, we’ve had “The Avengers” with Clinton Barton’s Hawkeye.

For girls, “The Hunger Games” have given us an alternative reality with arrow-slinging Katniss who like Annie Oakley learned to shoot in order to feed her family. Disney’s newest princess, Merida in “Brave,” performs archery on horseback. Has there ever been a better time for archery?

A haunting, in time and space

Steven Boone

“The Innkeepers” is streaming online through Amazon Instant and Vudu. It is also offered on some cable systems’ On Demand channels and opens theatrically in a limited release February 3rd. The official website is here.

by Steven Boone

The trailer for “The Inkeepers” betrays a basic insecurity common in low-budget indie films nowadays: They want you to think they’re as loud and hectic as their big-budget counterparts. They’re afraid you won’t show up otherwise. And so this horror film which builds its scares slowly, stealthily and through the peculiar quirks of its characters is sold as just another clangy, generic mainstream fright flick. Mercifully, the actual film shows only a little of this poisonous “ambition.” It’s mostly just a good old-fashioned ghost story, well told.

This film’s wealth of personality is apparent early on, as director Ti West takes his time recording the subtle oddball chemistry between Claire (Sarah Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), the only staff on duty at the Yankee Pedlar Inn. Luke is obsessed with documenting a legendary ghost at the Pedlar for his website. He is surprised to find that Claire, his secret geek-girl crush, is just as fascinated by the subject. For a healthy stretch of the film we just watch them goofing off and pranking each other when not rendering poor service to the inn’s only two guests (one played by Kelly McGillis from “Top Gun,” appearing about 15 years older than her actual age–the biggest jolt of the movie, for a viewer over 30).

Hara-Kiri: Of courage, compassion & cowardice

Steven Boone

In Takashi Miike’s “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai,” power and tradition crush good people, just as they did in Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 version. Both films are expressions of social rebellion, but where Kobayashi’s conveyed a spirit of righteous vengeance that anticipated the course of its revolutionary decade, Miike’s is more plaintive and despairing. There are struggles, but nobody wins, ever. Weak and cowardly people who happen to be tending the levers of power simply carry out meaningless rituals that destroy lives.

As in the ’62 film, through flashbacks we get a good, long look at the lives an inflexible Samurai code has destroyed. With the elegance and shyness of an Ozu domestic drama, Miike renders a family formed under bittersweet circumstances: A poor Samurai dies, leaving his son in the care of his old war buddy, a fellow widower with a daughter of his own. Raising these children in early 15th Century peacetime means drawing from meager earnings as an umbrella maker rather than as a soldier of fortune. Hanshiro Tsugumo (Ebizo Ichikawa) might have been tough on the battlefield, but he imparts a gentle nature, not a warrior’s stoicism, to the boy, Motome Chiziiwa (Eita). Motome becomes a schoolteacher and, inevitably, marries Hanshiro’s daughter Miho (played as an adult by Hikari Mitsushima, the radiant star of Sion Sono’s Miike-like masterpiece, “Love Exposure”). He fulfills both obligations with his father’s patient, nurturing ways.

Raccoon Nation: The hep cats of the ‘hood

Odie Henderson

“Raccoon Nation” premieres on PBS’s Nature series Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 8 p.m., 7 p.m. Central. Coming on DVD/Blu-ray March 13.

Let’s be frank: People watch nature documentaries because they want to see wild animals doing the Wild Thing. This can be shown on regular TV because, as Bea Arthur’s Maude famously said, “animals making love is rated G. People making love like animals–that’s R ” An animal documentary serves to showcase how its subjects survive, hunt, eat, play, and yes, get their freak on. There’s a reason the sexiest piece of music Elmer Bernstein ever wrote used to play over footage of animals gettin’ bizzy on “National Geographic.” A Barry White soundtrack would have been way too hot for TV.

Alas, “Raccoon Nation” is a relatively chaste animal documentary, which is unusual but no less interesting. Its focus is on another popular topic of nature non-fiction: man’s effect on the animal kingdom. Our species is usually depicted as destructive, and rightfully so. Forests and wooded areas are disappearing, leaving animals homeless and upsetting the natural balance by misplacing both predator and prey. “Raccoon Nation” takes a different approach, however, suggesting that humans may be responsible for the continued survival of the misplaced animal. The more we try to get rid of raccoons, the smarter they get. It’s side hustle disguised as adaptation.

As more and more development occurs, the animals start living closer to us. The urban jungle is now literally a jungle. Deer have been spotted in my hometown, and 10 miles away, Irvington, New Jersey saw an episode of “Bearz N The Hood” when a city block’s trashcans were set upon by ursine visitors. My current neighborhood is overrun with rabbits, foxes, possums, squirrels and birds who are decidedly NOT pigeons. I walked out of my house this summer, and there were so many animals in my yard I thought I was in “Song of the South.”

Walk Away Renee: You’re not to blame

Jana Monji

“Walk Away Renee” is available on SundanceNow’s new Subscriber Video-on-Demand Program Doc Club from June 27, 2012.

When you were young didn’t you think your parents were crazy? Did you swear you wouldn’t turn out like them? For filmmaker Jonathan Caouette, those two worries have defined his life because his mother suffers from bipolar personality and schizoaffective disorders, something that he focused on in his award-winning 2003 documentary “Tarnation.” In his new film, “Walk Away Renee,” Caouette brings us up to 2010 with the focus on Caouette driving his mother, Renee LeBlanc, in a U-Haul from Houston to New York.

For a dysfunctional family, road trips can be filled with emotional landmines. For Caouette, this bonding experience starts out well, but early on, they lose Renee’s 30-day supply of lithium. Without her mood stabilizing meds, you know that things can only get worse. For people who have bipolar relatives, this story might seem heartbreakingly familiar.

Caouette’s “Tarnation” begins with overexposed grainy images. The highlights are blown out to white; this isn’t a technical problem, but an expression of panic. His mother has overdosed and the documentary then shows the events building up to this emergency. Caouette began filming his family in 1984 and in “Tarnation” we see him as a young troubled boy, starved for attention and trying to make sense of his world, his sexual orientation and the mother he loves while being raised by his overwhelmed though well-meaning grandparents, Adolph and Rosemary Davis.

From Seattle, with free refills

Jeff Shannon

“The Off Hours” is now available on most on-demand platforms including Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and most major-cable services. NOTE: The film is not available through DirecTV. It will be released on DVD in January and will premiere on Hulu and Netflix later in 2012.

by Jeff Shannon

There’s never been a better time for filmmaking in the Pacific Northwest. Running the entire spectrum from filmgoers and critics to actors, writers and production talent aplenty, the Seattle film community has always been close-knit and cooperative, and its D.I.Y. resourcefulness has resulted in a slow but steady rise of intermingling talent. (Full disclosure: Several of the creative people mentioned below are casual Facebook acquaintances of mine.) Ten years ago and earlier, you were lucky if your micro-budgeted project got finished and accepted by festivals, and for several years it seemed like the Native American drama “Smoke Signals” (written by Northwest author Sherman Alexie and distributed by Miramax in 1998) would be Seattle’s only claim to a locally-produced breakout success.

Undeterred, Seattle’s film community continued to percolate like the coffee that stereotypically defines “The Emerald City” for most of the outside world. Abundant indie-film projects, and the passions that fueled their creation, have led to a natural progression of experience and expertise, and this year alone the Sundance film festival hosted four films shot in Washington state. When you consider the local history that led us from “Gas City” (an obscure, no-budget 1978 slacker drama shot among the aging motels and nightspots of Seattle’s Aurora Avenue) to the international success of director Lynn Shelton’s “Humpday” (2009), it’s no wonder that Seattle has become the Northwest’s answer to Austin, Texas: A film- and music-loving city (per capita, Seattleites are still the nation’s #1 moviegoers) where independent filmmakers can find the talent, resources, and community support to foster their projects from start to finish. Indeed, “Start-to-Finish” is the name of an innovative program, introduced by the Northwest Film Forum in 1998, designed to select and co-produce films with the goal of national and global exposure. Canadian alt-auteur Guy Maddin found NWFF so appealing that he came here to shoot his 2006 film “Brand Upon the Brain!,” now available on DVD from the Criterion Collection (and photographed by the gifted Benjamin Kasulke — see below).