Miami Beach’s Rat Bastard has parlayed obscurity into a sort of personal success. Born Frank Falestra in 1958, in the small town of Ellenville, New York, he has been a stalwart of South Florida’s music scene since at least the mid-70s when he was in a punk band called Myrin and the 2 Wotz. Like a lot of punk from that era, it evolved. By the early ‘80s he was the mind behind a post-new wave project called Dengon.

In the mid-80s, Dengon released a 7-inch record, the first in a series of releases by Esync Records, a label he founded in 1985. The A-side, “Ferris Wheel,” is a reference to both the Dade County Youth Fair ride but also escape into oneself (“Give me one more turn on the ferris wheel/To be on my own,” goes the chorus). The music sounded like early new wave Ministry. Falestra even sang with what sounded like a British accent, but the electronics and layers of synth harmonies and noise were something incomparable to much of the cheese that came out of that era. Kicking off with what sounds like the creaking of a broken musical box and layers of distant, falsetto cooing vocals layered on top of each other, the song is interrupted by the pulse of what sounds like an 808 machine and a rubbery, psychedelic synth melody. If you know Rat and his attraction to chaos and music, you can hear his soul in that, despite its melodious quality.

Hanging out at his Miami Beach apartment that doubles as a recording studio (now dedicated to the memory of Dan Hosker) drinking Jameson and a Bud Light, he speaks of how he tired of that project real quick (there would only be a 12-inch after that, called “Cover Girl”). “Anybody can sit there and play the same thing over and over and over and over till they get it tight or right, and then that’s why this band was only around like six months because I didn’t want to play those songs over and over again,” he says. “I was just like, forget it. I can’t play these songs over and over. I’d go nuts.”

Thus arose projects like Scraping Teeth (famously named the worst band in America in 1993 by Spin magazine, a prize that he has hanging behind one of his guitars on the wall of his apartment), To Live and Shave in L.A. and the Laundry Room Squelchers. Call them avant-garde, experimental music or plain noise, they marked Rat’s creative liberation. Asked what reward comes of this music, he says, “That you did something new. That you did something fresh. It’s harder to do.”

In celebration of this style of music, he founded the International Noise Conference in 2003, which brings in noise artists from across the globe for 15-minute sets of energy, chaos and often confrontational theatrics to Miami’s famous dive bar, Churchill’s Hideaway. Recently, he won a Knight Foundation grant for this annual March event. The added income has helped him archive his recording sessions and pay for the cost of mastering them. He also now has a lathe cutter from 1939 to cut one-off vinyl records. “If I can bypass the preamp section, which I think I can easily do, once I figure it out, it should cut beautiful records,” he says.

On this machine, the records are cut one at a time, by hand, each one a customized work of art. “We’ll do cuts of five or 10, maybe even 20, and you can do two sides too, so you can do 7-inches or 12-inches on there. If I want to do 45s I would have to go to a machine shop to get a spool that would make it run at 45 [rpm],” he explains.

Now he is about to prepare for a “performance” at the III Points multi-media and music festival. He says whatever he ends up doing on stage, it won’t be much different from what he usually conjures up. “It’s going to be something that I put together that day, but this thing, I’ll probably spend two days on it,” he says with a laugh. “It’ll involve other people I think, so that’s why I need that extra day. At least to coordinate, but musically it’s going to be something that’s going to be right there on the spot. There might be some aspects of a set, but the overall is going to be while I’m playing. I’m going to try to create a vibe rather than a piece of music.”

He gets little joy in creating cohesive pieces of music or even straightforward songs. If he does, he doesn’t even care to move vocal grumbles and yelps into coherent English. “I can do a song just like that,” he assures. “It’ll sound like I sat and wrote it, but I didn’t. It sounds like there’s parts in there, but I didn’t write that. I wrote that as I recorded it, but I don’t usually put that out because it makes no sense lyrically. Like, I’ll sing songs with no lyrics. I don’t know if people are ready for that.”

Though III Points features notable music acts like LCD Soundsystem, M83 and Earl Sweatshirt on the bill, it also features some of the best local music experimenters from Miami who have reputations beyond our city limits, including Otto von Shirach (a personal favorite of Rat’s) and Poorgrrrl(whose IndieEthos profile you can read here). According to Rat, someone from III Points saw him DJing at The Electric Pickle and asked if he would like to join the lineup. “I said, yeah, I’ll do it,” he says. “I don’t know, he might have known who I was before then. I’m not sure. I didn’t ask him. I just said OK.”

It’s a change from Rat’s usual venue this time of year. “It’s funny because the last two years I did the anti-Points festival. The Jellyfish Brothers had it in a warehouse, so I played that.”

So does joining III Points mean that Rat has finally sold out? “No, I didn’t even know what III Points Festival was,” he shrugs. “I had no idea. I didn’t even know what the artists were. I saw The Jacuzzi Boys. That’s how I noticed it ‘cause they had played it like two years ago, so I was just like, ‘I guess.’ I didn’t know what that is. I don’t take anything seriously. It’s just like any other festival.”

Just like any other festival, such as Ultra, which may be the next big event you”ll see Rat at. His addition to that lineup was a similar case to how he joined III Points: someone high up the chain saw him DJing. “The main guy from Ultra was here at my house. He was like, ‘Dude, You’re playing Ultra this year.’ He was here when I was playing here at my house and when I was at the Pickle. He said, ‘Dude, you’re definitely playing Ultra. You kick ass.’”

So what makes Rat stand out in these DJ gigs he has recently been doing around the city? It’s that love for the obscure and unheard that’s inherent to who he is. He likes to play what he calls “tech noise.” He says he finds the music by spending hours on YouTube and following strings of links from music or videos on the popular website. “I search for this shit,” he says. “Most of the people that play techno don’t know the music I play, but I call it that because I think it’s actually cool.”

Playing a track from a duo from Italy who call themselves Boston 168, he says, “This is the poppiest thing I’ll play … To me these guys are the Pink Floyd of techno.”

In fact, it sounds like a warped version of “Echoes.” It kicks off with a huge pounding pulse that sends throbbing echoes crackling with hiss and treble from the speakers over an undulating sinister murmur of ghostly ambient squonk before it drifts into what sounds like a rolling rhythm played on a didgeridoo.

Catching up with Rat just a couple of days before the show, he reveals this track may be but a taste of what he will do at III Points or maybe not. He says he plans to mix in a sampler with his DJ talent and whatever else he can bring on stage, which will include at least one other performer. “We are going to link sounds of the underground 1960s with underground sounds of today,” he declares. “No one in this fest will understand what I’m doing musically or where it’s coming from.”

—Hans Morgenstern

Rat Bastard takes the stage at III Points Friday at Sunset @ Noon at 10:45 p.m.

(Copyright 2016 by Independent Ethos. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

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“Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.” –Julio Cortázar

Tapping into generalized trauma resulting from the armed conflict in Peru between the army and the Shining Path, a militant group, Magellanes delivers a powerful experience that will resonate with those unfamiliar with the complex and violent history it depicts. The film delivers strong performances and heightened, suspenseful moments that build as the film progresses.

Harvey Magallanes (Damián Alcázar) is a former commanding officer with the army, but we meet him as a taxi driver. Through a chance encounter, Harvey picks up a young female passenger, Celina (Magaly Solier) who reminds him of his past. He follows her to a self-help reunion with dozens of chanting fanatics screaming “Yes I can!” Soon we learn that this young woman is having economic problems, she is shy and seems to be a sweet well-intentioned woman. For Harvey, the encounter leaves him shaken, As he comes home, we find that he also holds a sketch of this young woman hidden, likely a prized possession in an otherwise humble and minimal life.

The chance encounter with Celina not only re-opens old wounds from a violent past, but for Harvey it is also a chance to find redemption. Alcázar delivers a raw and powerful performance and even comes up with a Peruvian accent with a delivery that slowly unravels the human frailty of a fighter. Although Harvey leads a quiet life as a taxi driver, he has never been too far from his past. He drives around Colonel Rivero (Federico Luppi), a now senile but still quite unpleasant character that insists in treating all those around him as servants, or worse, threats. Celina, an indigenous young woman, does not recognize Magallanes, but he knows her as the young girl that 14 years earlier was kidnapped by Col. Rivero and used for sex during the armed conflict. When Harvey learns of her economic woes he insists in helping her out, sets on a complicated plan to get money for her.

There is no doubt that for those familiar with Peruvian history, this may be an uncomfortable film — one that brings up the many atrocities of the still quite recent past. The photography captures the grittiness of the big cities in Latin America, and the daily struggle that is living in that environment on a daily basis. Even though the civil war has ended and there is some incipient democracy, the inequality of everyday remains as present and as heavy as ever. The story of Celina is a powerful reminder that for hard-working, indigenous women this oppression has never ceased.

The collateral damage of civilians enduring the chaos and wartime is also on display. The memory of the traumatic events is still ever-present. Although Harvey tries to redeem his own history, the ambiguity of this character leaves the audience with much to think about as the wounds of the past are still wide open. the film does well in presenting this small story and how it reflects a country’s past that has implications for the difficult relationship with its indigenous people, which make up almost half of the total population in Peru.

Magellanes also represents Peruvian actor Salvador del Solar’s directorial debut. It is indeed a remarkable opera prima by a writer-director who not only has a strong social conscience but also the patience and depth to bring to life complex, rich and deep characters. This is a not-to-be-missed cinematic event, one that will surely leave audiences at the edge of their seat.

—Ana Morgenstern

Magellanes runs 109 minutes, is in Spanish with English subtitles and is not rated. It opens in our South Florida area exclusively on Friday, Sept. 30, at the Coral Gables Art Cinema. Images and a screener link was provided by Meikincine Entertainment for the purposes of this review.

(Copyright 2016 by Independent Ethos. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

With Deepwater Horizon, director Peter Berg returns to another botched, fatal mission featuring Mark Wahlberg. Whereas Lone Survivor (2014) involved the military and bad communication that ended with the loss of life, something more disturbing lies at the heart of his latest film: capitalism above humanity. Based on an in-depth “New York Times” article by David Barstow, David Rohde and Stephanie Saul, screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand capture a series of falling dominoes that ultimately led to the worst oil drilling disaster in U.S. history. It killed 11 men.

Beyond two or three too many symbolic bad omens thrown in early in the film to hype the anticipation of the 2010 disaster aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the script melds the immediate events of the fatal pipeline blowout below the rig to facts uncovered much later in the ensuing investigation. From a crew apathetic to their lot as grunts for a corporation looking to cut corners to save a few dollars, to the company men (John Malkovich and Brad Leland) hoping not to disappoint their superiors, this is a human drama where the enemy is but a faceless specter. Nice human touches include a couple of the rig workers singing “Money, money, money” with goofy irony. Meanwhile, they remain oblivious to a metaphorical monster brewing below the apathy and greed.

Irony is key in Berg’s handling of this disaster. When fireballs become impossible to escape, an action film suddenly takes on a sense of parody expected by film-goers seeking escape. This is not a Michael Bay flick. When the American flags still flutter against fiery destruction, they are small bits of mise-en-scène and don’t stand for resilience as much as a cruel symbol on what this country thrives on, as it chews up souls for the profit of foreign investors (in this case the heads of British Petroleum, aka BP). The film doesn’t take long to get there, and when it does, it lingers to harrowing effect, as humanity scrambles — often battered and close to death — to stay alive. Things don’t just blow up, they torture these souls and take the audience along with it with a dramatic grip that hardly allows the audience to catch its breath.

Early in the film, there are several cross cuts deep below the ocean’s surface where the semi-submersible oil rig floats that reveal the instability of this pipeline. As ominous air bubbles escape from the dark seabed, Mike Williams (Wahlberg) and his crew get ready for their near month-long shift on the rig. When the fireworks begin, about 35 minutes into the movie, the dread has been ratcheted up so high that your stomach will sink when one worker examines some mud on his fingers and the image begins to blur from the vibration of the impending blowout that leads to a chain reaction of explosions lasting for the rest of the movie.

Beyond pyrotechnics, the performances are terrific and sincere. Wahlberg continues to give audiences a humble every man with deep soul. It’s the sort of performance that the gods of awards season probably won’t recognize, especially in the shadow of special effects. Malkovich should also be credited for staying well hidden behind a Southern accent, khakis and a button down shirt. But the entire cast should be credited for walking the modest line, keeping their characters grounded in their humanity. These were real people who suffered grave repercussions from a nefarious system driven by greed, represented by the catastrophe that — at least in this film — drags across about an hour of merciless chaos.

The concern of seeing human tragedy turned into entertainment for the multiplex, feels a bit troubling at times. This has to be handled lightly, and for the most part, Berg delivers. Some overwrought orchestral work by composer Steve Jablonsky and bathetic slow motion survivor misery aside, Deepwater Horizon is a strong movie experience that will leave some conflicted about thrills pregnant with a true story that included the loss of human life. If it can inspire empathy, in this case, however, this is an action movie not only well worth getting behind but also learning from.

—Hans Morgenstern

Deep Water Horizon runs 97 minutes and is rated PG-13. It opens wide everywhere this Friday, Sept. 23, including in IMAX theaters. Check local listings for screenings near you. Summit Entertainment provided all images and invited us to a preview screening or the purpose of this review.

Wars are shocking and impactful phenomena that have devastating consequences for the human experience. As Betrand Russel once said, “War does not determine who is right – only who is left.” It is in this vein that French filmmaker Christian Carion has directed his latest film, Come What May, a suspense-filled drama he co-wrote with Andrew Bampfield and Laure Irrmann that depicts Nazi atrocities in such a vivid way it will get the audience furious all over again about that terrible regime. Despite a formulaic feeling that will be familiar to those who have seen many World War II films, the violence is quite vivid and inescapable, set in contrast to the bucolic European landscape, which is heightened by strong camera work and a score from a well-known composer.

In Come What May we follow August Diehl, who delivers a deeply moving performance as Hans, a German anti-Nazi activist. With a troubled stare that transcends any language barrier, Diehl’s eyes express the profound emotions elicited in war, fear, anger and pain. He is hiding with his son, Max (Jushio Marlon) in a town outside Arras, France. He instructs him early on to only speak French, and they are mistaken for Belgians because of their accent. Max, however, slips back to his mother tongue constantly, especially when relaxed. They both land in a farm in France, where Hans finds work, and they try to make a life. However, before they know it, the Nazi forces close in until they are forced to leave that town as well. Hans and Max get separated. Hans gets caught up in the violence and encounters an English soldier, while Max leaves with a caravan of French farmers they had been staying with. As it happens during wartime, this separation leads to complications.

These parallel stories speak to the human toll wars cost — from dislocation to a true loss in the human condition for soldiers who encounter all sorts of ways to lose faith in the course of fighting. In the end, Carion makes it a point to show that no matter what side of the war you are on, survival becomes the primary goal. Violence and scarcity bring out the worst in people, pitting neighbors against each other on one hand and making lasting bonds for those who are able to survive together. The most poignant moments come when Carion shows us the life of children, who are at the mercy of these broken adults. After a particularly violent airstrike, the immediate aftermath features a deadening silence that is only broken by the cry of babies and children.

The dialogue in Come What May is heavy. While it feels like Carion and his writing partners tried to stick close to historical facts, at times it feels contrived. Though the setting and costumes do the era a lot of justice, the empathy that Carion seeks could be heightened if the dialogue felt more natural. For a while, some of the scenes in this film reminded me of a Masterpiece Classics episode, with excellent photography and fantastic acting by brilliant casts, but with somewhat stiff dialogue that feel taken from classic literature rather than close to life. It is surely an escape, not a bad one at that, but one that could have used some editing.

The score by Ennio Morricone and the cinematography by Pierre Cottereau, never disappoint, however, heightening atmosphere above the film’s substance. These elements, along with Diehl’s performance, stand-out in this film, only adding to the emotions that Come What May packs. However, the downfall of this film is that it can be sentimental, or even worse, formulaic at times. You get the feeling that you know what’s coming, and you probably do if you’ve seen WWII films.

—Ana Morgenstern

Come What May runs 115 minutes long, is in French, German and English with English subtitles and is rated R. On Sept. 30 it will be playing in our South Florida are at MDCs Tower Theater, the University of Miami’s Bill Cosford Cinema, and the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton. For nationwide screenings please click here. Images and a screener link was provided by Cohen Media for the purposes of this review.

What better way to poke fun at gun-ownership issues than to use laughs for criticism. This is the well-intentioned journey that writer-director Matt Cooper embarks on with Is That A Gun in Your Pocket? Set in Rockford, Texas, the film presents a small family, with Jenna (Andrea Anders) as the mother and wife who, after a shooting incident with her son, decides to start a movement to get rid of guns. However, her husband Glenn (Matt Passmore) happens to be a hunting aficionado. His hobby is “his only outlet.” It is in these early scenes that the film establishes that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, in the most unsubtle way possible.

The film, loosely based on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, which had a woman take on the impossible task of ending the Peloponnesian War by withholding sexual favors from their partners in order to push them to consider peace. However, in this movie, this “battle of the sexes” is presented in a raunchy manner that is far from a quest for peace and quickly becomes about tacky jokes on women versus men and “the power of pussy.” The assumption here is so gendered and reductive, it’s as if all men were pro-gun ownership and all women were pro-gun control. This perspective falls far short of capturing an important social issue. A decent cast here is not enough to save this film from its screenplay. There are a series of events and complications — contrived mostly –deployed for laughs that are just not funny. For instance, Jenna decides to run for mayor only after her husband publicly announces that she is too busy for anything other than running the household.

The cast includes a married couple trying to conceive a baby. Luis (Horatio Sanz) and Connie (Fernanda Romero) play an exaggerated version of a Latino stereotype, complete with heavy accents, lots of cleavage for Connie and “a spicy attitude.” They are supposed to be comedy relief, but Cooper’s approach feels as skittish as the exaggerated Texas accent and narrow-mindedness bestowed on the male characters. Speaking of exaggeration , as the women in the film start acting overtly sexual to entice their men to give up their guns, the “sex strike” even makes it to the evening news.

When all is said and done, there is a big probability that the audience may find itself uncomfortable with the full length of this movie. The final montage takes the raunchy humor to unfortunate consequences and misses the mark, even for laughs. It is unfortunate that Cooper does not take full advantage of a great supporting cast, like Cloris Leachman, who plays an even more exaggerated version of the outspoken and over-sexed older lady. Or John Heard as the sheriff, who is perpetually biased against listening to the women in his town.

This movie, billed as a comedy, only left me eager to laugh. More sitcom than film, Is That A Gun in Your Pocket? has some funny skit-like moments but overall falls short of being a good movie. Most of the comedic moments rely on crude jokes that are superficial. I would prefer to watch “South Park” any day, those crude jokes are at least insightful about many social issues, including gun control.

—Ana Morgenstern

Is That A Gun in Your Pocket? runs 97 minutes and is rated R. It opens on Sept. 30, and it will be playing in South Florida at the AMC Sunset Place. For nationwide screenings, please click here. All images and a screener links was provided by The Vault, Inc. for the purposes of this review.

Memory is a funny thing, it ebbs and flows with one’s mood and circumstances and so does perspective. In Max Rose, we meet a recent widower (played by Jerry Lewis), who finds reason to believe that his wife of 65 years, Eva (Claire Bloom) was in love with another man. He declares at her funeral that the marriage “was a lie.” Max, who is already a cantankerous old man, becomes even more recalcitrant after his loss and engaging in a revisionist journey wherein he lets his own demons pollute his mind. Lewis, in his first feature role in more than 20 years, does well in presenting the depression and anger that Max suffers, and it is perhaps the most redeeming quality of the film because something else is still missing.

The opening shots present Max through the years, then later reveal that his wife has died. Max is alone in his living room, which suddenly looks too big and empty. That vast emptiness is a visual reminder of the new void in his life. His memories stay with him, but that soon turns to bitterness when, while going through Eva’s things, Max finds a compact with an inscription in it from 1959 signed by “Ben.” This discovery sets Max off on a journey to search for clues of infidelity, which is only ever hinted at.

The film, which is focused on Max’s perspective, tries to say something larger about relationships. However, throughout the story we don’t get enough of Eva, and so the film focuses on the one character’s perspective, while trying to make a compelling story about marriage. This is where writer-director Daniel Noah falls short, as there are not enough moments to understand the relationship; we are left with the sad outcome of Max’s current state of affairs and his memories of the bond between him and his wife, which are now marred by a negative perspective. It becomes a one-sided story, one which Lewis carries well but misses the full impact of its target. Relationships are more complex than one person’s perspective, and it is not until the end of the film that we realize that there is more to it than Max’s suspicions and assumptions. The hints of the marriage we get throughout appear when Max talks to his late wife and she replies. This is all of course in Max’s mind and says little about the actual relationship, as it is an illusion.

Max embarks on a quest of “finding the truth” looking for his rival, a fellow named Ben Tracey (Dean Stockwell). The two meet in a very tense moment; at night, no less. It is one of the most important moments in the film, which sort of wakes you up; yet the rest of the film might bore you. So many questions are left unanswered for the audience. If Max believes that his marriage was a failure, what does that say about him? While the cast has good performances, these do not make up for the slackness in the quality of the screenplay, which skims through the surface of the meat of the story: the marriage and that relationship. There is a lot of talk about Max and Eva being married for 65 years, yet there is not enough substance in the story to deal with the meaning that all those years make.

Max is quick to jump to conclusions but not so inclined to go deep within himself to understand the loss. Lewis’ performance is remarkable, especially since we seldom see him in serious roles. You will get no laughs from Max Rose, no intentional ones, at least. But you will also not get a very deep account of what went wrong or what could have gone better. There is bitterness and anger, surely, and not much else.

In the meantime, this character is so trapped in his head; he also alienates his son (Kevin Pollak), who endures the brunt of his anger. While the introspection in the film is a good story in its own right, the film is less accomplished in its overall delivery of this outcome. There is some manipulation to elicit sadness. The score by Michel Legrand delivers some powerful moments that will make you want to shed a tear. However, the substantive part of that emotion cannot be carried by the story itself.

—Ana Morgenstern

Max Rose runs 83 minutes and is not rated. It opens our South Florida area on Sept. 23 at the Regal South Beach Stadium 18. For nationwide screenings please click here. Images and a screener link was provided by Paladin for the purpose of this review.

Our earth is a delicate, sensitive, living, breathing organism that needs the care and attention we have not given it. Taking it for granted and wishing to control nature have been the markers of modern life. However, ancestral knowledge always recognized the importance of maintenance of that ecosystem that supports our life. In Seed: The Untold Story, Directors Taggart Siegel and Jon Betz take us back to rethink that important relationship of communing with the earth that feeds us.

“Seeds are living embryos. They have a lifespan,” says a farmer in a voice over. There is a deep connection between these farmers and their seeds, which they see as living things that start a movement, blossoming into life and then sustenance. That personal connection and the stewardship of seeds is what’s been lost as people move further away from their connection to those seeds. They make the case that these organic things are the beginning of life, the beginning of everything. That deep connection was cut through the “Green Revolution,” which represents the creation of the embeddedness of capitalism with agriculture, including the use of chemicals, pesticides and mass-produced seed. That phenomenon is also related to the fact that today many of our seeds are endangered.

The documentary presents interviews with experts who have looked into the perils of industrialization of agriculture and the use of pharmaceuticals in a process that naturally used to provide the foundation of indigenous cultures and a way of life that sought harmony between people and the land that they live in. The disconnectedness has not only harmed people whose way of life depends on their connection to the land, but it has also harmed the rest of us who now are lacking that primal connection to the earth. We have succumbed to big interest and that has contaminated our food and created a food supply that is devoid of that spiritual connection. Food is not only meant for survival, it is one of those things that can makes us stronger, healthier and help us thrive as human beings.

For those of us who may think that Seed: The Untold Story sounds like a hippie tale, they need to watch and re-think how delimited and narrow that perception is. The wealth of not only experts but also everyday people who have come to the conclusion that we are not better off, but in fact, the current state of affairs has inflicted us with disease and other economic problems. The shots of wildlife and seeds that are included with the many interviews that make up the content in this documentary make us realize that we live in a beautiful world, and it is our responsibility to take care of that which makes our life richer.

There is a definite call to action in Seed: The Untold Story, but this is not a patronizing, preachy documentary. It is a story of that cannot talk and cannot defend itself. It also makes the case that food is a lot more than calories, and our connection to it can ensure that we lead healthier, more fulfilled lives. From the villages in India, to agricultural workers in Oaxaca, Iowa and Hawaii, there are many voices that Siegel and Betz have managed to put together to compose one of the most heartwarming pleas to return to a more humane way of growing and distributing food. The tone of the documentary feels more Henry David Thoreau and less Michael Pollan, but its simple message is important enough to deserve a viewing.

—Ana Morgenstern

SEED: The Untold Story (Official Theatrical Trailer) from Collective Eye Films on Vimeo.

Seed: The Untold Story runs 94 minutes long. It is not rated and is being released nationwide in limited release. It opens in New York on Friday, Sept. 23 and in Los Angeles, Sept. 30. For screenings in your area, please click here. A screener link was provided by Collective Eye Films for the purposes of this review.

The latest documentary by director Jeff Feuerzeig, The JT Leroy Story, explores the making of the character of JT Leroy, an author who rose to fame in the early 2000s as a literary sensation by writing about his life, which included sexual abuse, homelessness and coping with HIV. A publisher recalls the work as a novelty, a new voice. However, the story of JT Leroy was a fantasy, a made-up story concocted by Laura Albert, a 40-year-old San Francisco woman originally from New York. She started using characters since early on in her life as she felt uncomfortable in her own skin. She used these personas partly to escape her life, which was full of trauma and abuse but also, seemingly, to get attention. She even attended therapy sessions as her character, melding fantasy and her life into different personas.

The character of JT Leroy was the longest lasting of the personas Laura Albert embodied, but there were others the documentary shows. Laura wrote Sarah a book about the life — imagined as it were — of JT Leroy. As the book published by JT Leroy came out, there were a flurry of rave reviews and it was happily received by audience. There were even well-attended readings where Albert used a stand-in, model Rain Dove Dubilewski, to play Leroy, with heavy clothing layers and sunglasses to hide the particulars of her look. The documentary presents the rapid rise to fame of Leroy by adding clips of famous people praising him, including TV shows, NPR’s “Fresh Air” and a bevy of celebrities. As Leroy rose to fame, Albert continued to write, perpetuating the legend status that Leroy was beginning to gain. Of course, since Leroy is an imagined character he was fairly absent from happenings, which made him even more desirable because of the elusive quality of his persona.

The documentary features several interviews, the most striking is that of Albert, with text of the book published under her pen-name as the background. It is mostly her story throughout the entire documentary, played over archival stills that are strung together over voice overs and recordings of the time. Some of the photos feature celebrities, who were clearly conned with the rest of the world into believing Leroy’s story of hardship. While the documentary keeps a pace fit for millennials, with many graphics and short sequences, there is something lacking in the way that Albert is presented, preventing the audience from really connecting to her and allowing her the redemption she seems to be seeking. The story doesn’t go too much past the sensationalism from the big lie. In fact, there are some sequences that delve into the more sordid aspects of Albert’s psyche and present them in a curious way, focusing on her dealings with celebrities and the details of her sexual life.

“Being with my Barbies I controlled and ordered the universe. My Barbie world was a happy world,” Albert says reminiscing on her childhood. However, she recalls playing with her Barbies in a setting that included rape, maiming, blood and other forms of abuse. “I had no idea that the way I played with Barbies was not normal,” says Albert of her memories, without a hint of irony and a straightforward delivery.

Some of the more interesting parts of the documentary present Leroy’s voice (recordings of Laura Albert embodying JT Leroy) through a voice over on top of a bare bones, almost completely black and white animation. These animations are so refreshing as they liven up what it must have been like at the time to listen to JT Leroy, and how he was perceived and accepted. Although the cartoons do not portray the exact JT Leroy, they are basic and plain enough to allow the audience to imagine these sequences in real life. The exacerbated overacting nature of the voice over will make you wonder how this story was so quickly accepted, but it might say more about the people who were attracted by the sordid details that made up story than it says about the con artist Laura Albert. This aspect is not at all explored in the documentary, a missed opportunity, in my opinion. Overall, this feels more like an extended “Behind the Music” episode, with emphasis on the celebrity journalism than a deeper, transformational documentary.

—Ana Morgenstern

The JT Leroy Story runs  110 minutes and is rated R. It opens in South Florida on Sept. 23 at O Cinema Wynwood. For nationwide screenings please click here. A screener link and images were provided by Magnolia Pictures for the purposes of this review.

(Copyright 2016 by Ana Morgenstern. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

The science fiction film genre offers so much potential. It’s too bad that it’s so easy to screw up (see this recent review). But then, you have movies like The Man Who Fell to Earth, something I once called “the last of the great sci-fi revolution.” Then, of course, there’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film I wrote my MA thesis on. It is among those inventive, quality movies that the 1973 animated film Fantastic Planet (La planète sauvage) stands. Now this film directed by René Laloux has been restored for 4K theatrical presentation, and it’s coming to our South Florida area thanks to the Miami Beach Cinematheque.

From the inventiveness of alien life on other planets to its allegory against authoritarianism to its inventive graphics and its psychedelic and often groovy soundtrack by Alain Goraguer, there is much that marvels in Fantastic Planet. Most definitive, is the imagery, designed by Roland Topor and given life by a group of Prague-based Czechoslovak animators. The animation is spare, as the characters move minimally, in a stop motion style. But that is compensated by rich, evocative illustrations, active editing and Goraguer’s relentless score featuring fat, warm bass lines and sighing female vocals. Above all, the film’s design constantly offers fascinating images, from the sinister blue giants called Draags, who seem to unravel during meditation sessions in a marvelously edited series of dissolves to the landscapes rich in oddly behaving flora and fauna, like a creature in a cage-like tree that uses a tentacled nose to snag flying lizards, shaking them before chucking them, lifeless, to the ground with a self-amused cackle.

This world, called Ygam, is a merciless place. The Draags rule the planet. Though hominid in form, they have red, lidless eyes and webbed ears. The real humans are Oms, a play on the French word hommes, which translates to “men.” If there were an equivalent of Earthly men to animals, the Oms could be seen as small lizards. Young Draags sometimes keep Oms as pets or toy with them in the wild in sadistic games. Fantastic Planet‘s plot begins when a young Draag named Tiwa decides to take an infant Om home as a pet after one such fatal game leaves him orphaned. She names him Terr (another French play on words, this time an abbreviated stand-in for Terre or Earth). Terr is also the film’s narrator as an adult.

Draags are keen on knowledge, meditation and council meetings. Oms, on the other hand, are pests who dwell in parks or in the wild, living in organized tribes that are routinely exterminated to control the population via “de-Oming” machines. When Tiwa decides to cuddle her pet Om during knowledge sessions with her telepathic headset, a new world is opened for this little Om, unbeknownst to Tiwa. Her father protests his daughter’s seemingly trivial decision. But the Om begins to gain a sort of encyclopedic knowledge of the world of Ygam.

After Terr learns how to use his owner’s headset on his own, he flees into the wild with it where he encounters tribes of free but savage Oms. Though they have crafty ways of survival, it’s often fraught with dangerous encounters with much of the planet’s quirks, from man-eating boxes to flying Om-eating monsters, not to mention, those efficient de-oming machines. But Terr’s knowledge allows for a path to emancipation.

This co-production between France and Czechoslovakia, which won the a Special Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival where it debuted in competition, became known as a parable for the oppression of Czechoslovakia under communist authoritarian rule. Thus, beyond all its weirdness, rich quirks of alien design and unsettling images, Fantastic Planet stands as powerful allegory. This is the strength of well-made sci-fi. By embracing the wide possibilities of the genre, a science fiction film can bring to light a powerful outcry that’s true to the current state of society. Like the best art, it’s about rearranging what society takes for granted into something we can understand anew and see as vital.

—Hans Morgenstern

Fantastic Planet runs 72 minutes is in French with English subtitles and was rated R upon release (but MBC says its appropriate for adults and mature children, though I heard stories from people who saw it too young and were haunted by it, yet still love it as adults, nonetheless). All images used in this post courtesy Janus Films.