Outside The Frame

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont

Peter Keough — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:00:00 GMT

The Belmont World Film series continues its must-see programming with a screening of Vittorio and Paolo Taviani's compelling and brilliant Caesar Must Die (2012), a quasi documentary about hardened inmates in a Roman prison who are putting together a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The film works on several levels: as a version of the play, as an account of how the play was staged, and as a reflection of the lives of the inmates in the cast. See if you can help explain it all to Phoenix film editor Peter Keough, who will lead a discussion after the screening.

Studio Cinema, 376 Trapelo Road, Belmont :: Tonight @ 7:30 pm :: $11; $9 students, seniors, and members :: 617.484.3980 or belmontworldfilm.org

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge

Peter Keough — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 16:00:00 GMT

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) is tomorrow tonight's Science on Screen featured film, and following the screening, the painful medical procedure of the title will be demonstrated on some lucky member of the audience. ...Well, maybe some other time. Instead, Christopher Shera, a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, will discuss the film and its relationship to studies about how the ear amplifies, analyzes, and transmits sound. All well and good, but can he explain why former band members Stumpy and his replacement Peter James Bond both spontaneously combusted on stage? Still the best music documentary, mock or otherwise, around.

Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St, Brookline :: Monday, March 18 @ 7 pm :: $10; $8 seniors and children; $7 members :: 617.734.2501 or coolidge.org

Attend this film event: The Chlotrudis Awards @ the Brattle

Peter Keough — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 16:00:00 GMT

The last awards ceremony of the year may well be the best, and not just because Phoenix film editor Peter Keough is one of the presenters. For the 19th year, the Chlotrudis Society will present awards to the best of the year's offbeat, obscure, and independent films in a program notable for its puckish humor and musical ingenuity - just try writing a song with the name of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul in the lyrics. They will also present their Breakout Star Award (previous winners include Kerry Washington and Ellen Page) to up-and-comer Christopher Abbott (Martha Marcy May Marlene; HBO's Girls). And where else will you get a chance to meet Philip Seymour Hoffman's mother?

Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: Sunday, March 17 @ 5 pm :: $20; $15 Chlotrudis and Brattle members :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org

See these films: Katherine Bigelow Triple Feature @ ArtsEmerson

Peter Keough — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:00:00 GMT

Her Zero Dark Thirty got robbed at the Oscars, but you can console yourself by watching some of Kathryn Bigelow's earlier films in this triple feature at ArtsEmerson. It includes Blue Steel (1989; 1 pm), in which Jamie Lee Curtis crushed Hollywood female stereotypes playing a cop out to get a serial killer; Point Break (1991; 6 pm), a genre-scrambling thriller in which Keanu Reeves is cast against type as an FBI agent who infiltrates a gang of surfing bank robbers; and The Weight of Water (2000; 9 pm), an adaptation of the Anita Shreve novel, in which the lives of those investigating a century-old murder intermingle with those of the people being researched.

ArtsEmerson at the Paramount Center, 559 Washington St, Boston :: Saturday, March 16 :: $10 :: 617.824.8400 or artsemerson.org

See this film retrospective: The Lubitsch Touch @ the Brattle

Peter Keough — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:00:00 GMT

Compare any of today's so-called romantic comedies with the elegant confections of Ernst Lubitsch from eight decades ago and you'll probably get depressed. So just forget about them and enjoy the offerings in the Brattle Theatre retrospective series The Lubitsch Touch. It starts tomorrow tonight with Ninotchka (1939), in which Greta Garbo plays a Soviet commissar whose party-line propriety is shattered when she visits Paris on assignment and falls for the couture and the charms of a class enemy, a Count played by Melvyn Douglas.

Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: Friday, March 15 @ 5 pm + 7:30 pm [also Saturday and Sunday; check online for times] :: $9.75; $7.75 students; $6.75 seniors :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org

Peg Aloi at the Salem Film Festival

Peter Keough — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:02:00 GMT

Our crack reviewer Peg Aloi is also a practiving Wiccan, and thus the ideal person to report on this up-and-coming event that just wrapped up today. Fittingly in this city infamous for witch hunts, a featured film included "West of Memphis," (reviewed by Jake Mulligan in this week's issue of "The Phoenix") a documentary about a contemporary witch hunt -- the wrongful prosecution and conviction of the three then teenagers of the title for a 1993 triple homicide.

The Salem Film Festival, now in its sixth year, continues to offer many excellent documentary films, along with fascinating panel discussions and great live music before each screening. One of the standout films in this year's fest is West of Memphis, produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (the LOTR team) and directed by Amy Berg (Deliver Us from Evil). Playing to a sold out audience Friday night, the screening was followed by a lively Q & A with subjects Damien Echols and wife Lorri Davis, moderated by festival organizer and filmmaker Joe Cultrera (whose docus Witch City and Hand of God are rooted deeply in his Salem upbringing).

The film picks up where the excellent Paradise Lost trilogy by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky left off: the West Memphis Three, teenagers convicted of murder in the 1993 killings of three eight year olds in West Memphis, Arkansas, were released from prison in August 2011, under a controversial ruling known as the Alford plea. Echols was on death row for eighteen years, and spent much of that time in solitary confinement. After living briefly in Manhattan, Echols and wife Davis moved to Salem, MA.

On screen and in person, Echols and Davis are soft spoken yet forthright, and impassioned about clearing the names of the wrongly-accused Three. West of Memphis was produced in the hopes that some light will be shed on the still-unsolved crimes and the failure of law enforcement to apprehend a killer. Thanks to technological advances in recent years, there is now DNA evidence incontrovertibly linked to one of the victims' stepfathers, Terry Hobbs (who has also been arrested for aggravated assault, among other crimes). The film explores the many links this suspect has to the crime; interestingly, another victim's stepfather, John Mark Byers, was considered a likely suspect for years, and the second Paradise Lost film Revelations (1999) devoted some time to this line of inquiry. Echols and Davis have visited Jackson and Walsh at their New Zealand home, and are credited as producers of the film.

Davis corresponded with Jackson and Walsh, who offered funds to support more through investigation, and their collaborative efforts led to the closer investigation of Hobbs. The evidence and examination of motive are compelling. Hobbs has not yet been apprehended for the crime, but as more people see this film it may be that the elusive mystery of these horrific crimes may come closer to resolution.

Echols was also part of a forum on "Truth in Documentary Film" on Saturday, featuring film critics Jennifer Merin and Kiva Reardon, and Cairo Cannon, producer of Dreams of a Life. This event was somewhat sparsely attended compared to the previous night's screening, but the discussion was lively and erudite. Despite his claim of knowing little about documentary films ("I've only seen three and I was in all of them," Echols offered some insightful commentary when asked to discuss his role as a subject and producer.

Echols and Davis have taken to life in the Witch City with gusto. Echols is seen around town in his trademark black clothing (a habit that fed rumors of his involvement in a satanic cult, which led to a characterization of the murders as occult rituals of human sacrifice: something Crittenden County law enforcement were obsessed with at the time). He has a passionate following on Twitter, where he's as likely to tweet about the current moon phase or his favorite movie theatre (Cinema Salem!) as he is to announce his latest book tour dates (his memoir Life After Death is being developed by Johnny Depp for a feature film). Echols is also a tattoo afficionado, and has gotten inked dozens of times since his release, including the matching tattoos he and his wife received the day before the March 8^th screening. He has credited his spiritual practice with helping him survive the brutality and harsh conditions of prison life, and has said he wants to open a meditation center in Salem at some point. He's also looking forward to the new Rob Zombie film Lords of Salem, filmed locally. (Turns out Damien and I are both Rob Zombie fans! We both agreed The Devil's Rejects is his best so far.)

Sadly, this will be the last posting for Outside the Frame. My thanks to you all, and especially to my team of outstanding film writers, such as Peg Aloi above, and also Tom Meek, Brett Michel, Betsy Sherman, Jake Mulligan, Ann Lewinson, Michael Atkinson, Monica Castillo, Gerald Peary... If I haven't mentioned you it doesn't mean I've forgotten. Best of luck guys; I'm sure you'll prevail.

--Peter

See this film series: New Latin American Cinema @ the MFA

Peter Keough — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:40:00 GMT

You might recall Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas from when his terrific Battle in Heaven (2005) was cited recently by the Phoenix for featuring one of the 55 Worst Sex Scenes of the 21st Century ("Saddest blowjob in the world"). His latest film, Post Tenebras Lux (2012), may not be as transgressive, but it nonetheless bears the stamp of a unique and visionary artist in its depiction of a privileged family whose façade of respectability melts into hallucinatory chaos. It screens as part of the Museum of Fine Arts New Latin American Cinema series, and you owe it to yourself to catch this rare showing of a great film.

Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave, Boston :: Friday, March 15 @ 7:30 pm :: $11; $9 members, seniors, and students :: 617.369.3907 or mfa.org

See this film program: "DIY Dystopia" @ the Brattle

Peter Keough — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:30:00 GMT

Still from "Landfill 16" by Jennifer Reeves

One of the most innovative and intriguing film series around, Balagan doesn't disappoint with tonight's program, DIY Dystopia. It includes experimental shorts, made the old fashioned way - on celluloid, that draw parallels between the doom of traditional filmmaking and the downfall of the environment. By the way, if you want to make sure that Balagan itself doesn't slide into extinction, you have until March 16 to chip in to their Kickstarter campaign.

Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: Thursday, March 14 @ 7:30 pm :: $10; $8 students, seniors :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org

Attend this film fest: Belmont World Film Festival @ Studio Cinema

Peter Keough — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:00:00 GMT

A festival nestled in a sleepy suburb has grown into one of the area's best-programmed and most rewarding film events. Now in its 12th year, the Belmont World Film Festival, which runs through April 29, opens tonight with Argentinean director Sebastián Borensztein's Chinese Take-Away (2011). In it, a reclusive Buenos Aires oddball whose hobby is collecting bizarre news stories uncharacteristically helps out a stranded Chinese stranger. Lotte Buiting, a Harvard doctoral candidate specializing in Latin American literature and cinema, is the guest speaker. And for those who want a real taste of world cinema (for an extra $12), the screening is preceded at 6 pm by a reception serving Chinese food and Argentinean wines.

Studio Cinema, 376 Trapelo Road, Belmont :: 7:30 pm :: $11; $9 students, seniors :: 617.484.3980 or belmontworldfilm.org

No movement for women in Hollywood

Peter Keough — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 21:14:00 GMT

As I've said before, the hammering that Kathryn Bigelow has been getting for "Zero Dark Thirty" might have as much to do with male chauvinism as with political correctness. True, the Academy gave her an Oscar in 2009 for "The Hurt Locker," moved no doubt by its gut-wrenching depiction of macho men doing heroic deeds to save people. What better opportunity to make up for eight decades of zilch for women directors? But when she follows up with a film about a macho woman, one who perseveres for ten years despite flak from her know-it-all male superiors and bags the world's number one terrorist, a woman who doesn't even have a boyfriend, well that's going too far, especially for an organization made up of 77% percent men, with an average age of 62. In short, the Bigelow snub showed that Hollywood had regressed to its sexist business as usual, if not more so.

But maybe this was just an anomaly. Maybe I'm getting a little too conspiracy minded, listening to the voices again. And didn't the president just sign the Violence Against Women Act, touted even by the Republicans who voted against it as a big step to secure women's rights? So I decided to check some recent Hollywood releases to see if my suspicion that misogyny has once again become the status quo. If indeed it ever was otherwise.

Let's start with the rising fortunes of Melissa McCarthy, who inverted the standard movie caricature of plus-sized woman with her performance in "Bridesmaids" -- itself a film that I for one thought might indicate a renaissance in films about women by women that rose above the reigning stereotypes. And indeed McCarthy was able to get her own starring role in "Identity Thief," a film that likewise revels in the lechery, gluttony, and malice of an obese, castrating termagant, but instead of inverting the caricature, confirms it. Here the epitome of comedy - and horror - is being forced to watch McCarthy's character get it on with a guy in he rweight class. If anyone's identity is stolen in the movie, it's McCarthy's.

Next, "Side Effects."

Notable as Steven Soderbergh's self-proclaimed final film (with the technical exception of his Liberace movie on HBO), it also has also been marketed for having a plot twist that really isn't much of a surprise but which they insist no one give it away anyway. So the following might include a spoiler.

A shrink, played by Ewan McGregor, in the habit of liberally prescribing the latest wonder drugs, gives some to a depressed patient played by Rooney Mara. But then, presumably suffering a side effect of the drug, she murders her husband. So now you're thinking, the shrink is the bad guy; he is, if I can slip into jargon for a moment, the iconic patriarchal figure, not to mention a shill for Big Pharma.

But not so fast. Let's just say the old femme fatale stereotype is at work and we might be seeing the work of that perennial villain, the homicidal lesbian.

Then there's another milestone for a top-notch auteur, Korean director Park Chan-wook's first Hollywood feature, "Stoker." On the one hand, Park has achieved one of the most visually ambitious and accomplished films of the year. On the other hand, he seems to have bought into all the Hollywood stereotypes, in which women are either psychopaths or dummies -- or they end up in the basement freezer.

Here, Mia Wasikowska plays India, a brooding 17-year-old- who loses her father in an accident just before her birthday. That's when her creepy, Norman Bates-like Uncle Charlie shows up. India mistrusts the newcomer, especially when her dim-witted mother, played by Nicole Kidman, takes a shine to him. But then the bodies start to mount up, and she kind of likes the guy. In the end they both get more than they bargained for.

As does the smitten kid in Robert LaGravanese's "Beautiful Creatures."

A bookish loner in a small southern town, he has a crush on Lena, a moody, ostracized newcomer in school who seems to have "Carrie" like powers - for example when a snooty female classmate badmouths her, she gets a face full of a shattered window for her troubles. AS it turns out, she's a "caster," the film's euphemism for "witch."

As in "Stoker," Lena is celebrating her birthday; she's about to turn 16, an age when not only will she be able to apply for a driver's license, but she must decide whether to join the dark side or the light side, and being female, she has a weakness for the dark side. Also luring her to the dark side is her wicked witch mother, who has disguised herself as the local bible thumping town scold, and her wicked, slutty witch sister. The sister is especially wicked because she bewilders men with her spellbinding sexiness and then they do something dumb like get hit by a train or betray their best friend.

Luckily she has the protection of her uncle, a powerful magician and plantation owner, who gives her protection. It's kind of like "Django Unchained," with everything backwards and set in the present day.

So, we move from the femme fatale to the witch.

You know, the women who historically were burned the stake for a few hundred years or so for practicing black arts, shunning me, and putting career before family. As it turns out, I kind of liked "Oz the Great and Powerful," Sam Raimi's critically maligned (but commercially gangbusters) prequel to the 1939 original (and 1985's unfairly dismissed "Return to Oz" by Walter Murch). Once you get used to having no Toto, Tin Man, Scarecrow, or Cowardly Lion, it's a kind of a brilliant deconstruction and revision of the myth. But don't get me started.

We were speaking of witches, and here we've got three of them, one bad, one good, and one in the middle, and as in "Beautiful Creatures," it becomes a matter of whether the woman chooses her own career, her own path of power and wrath, or chooses to submit herself to a guy, however callow or phony he might be.

Maybe I'm straining a bit. For more obvious expressions of not-so-subtle misogyny check out next week's openings "The ABCs of Death," which features 26 short films, 25 of them by men,

some of whom apparently find the idea of women farting more frightening than the grim reaper, or Roman Coppola's "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III," (with the title character played by renowned macho shithead Charlie Sheen), a mind containing such fantasies such as being attacked by "The Secret Society of Ball Busters" or by a war party of bikini clad bimbos.

So I don't think I'm making this up.

See this DocYard film: Planet of Snail @ the Brattle

Peter Keough — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 16:00:00 GMT

Korean director Seung-Jun Yi's documentary Planet of Snail (2011) traces the outer and inner lives of an extraordinary couple: Young-Chan, a deaf and blind poet, and his wife Soon-Ho, whose body is shrunken to the size of a child's from a spinal disorder. Together they overcome life's obstacles, such as changing a light bulb, while sharing a life of poetic imagination. Another outstanding offering from the DocYard at the Brattle Theatre. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director via Skype.

Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: Monday, March 11 @ 7 pm :: $10; $8 students, seniors :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org

The Where's Whitey Award Winner for 2012 [Spoiler]

Peter Keough — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:53:00 GMT

The winner of the Where's Whitey Award for Best Animal Performance of 2012 was actually annouced weeks ago at the Boston Society of Film Critics Award ceremony at the Brattle Theatre on February [thanks to Ellen Gitelman for the photo]

My apologies for keeping you in suspense.

The winner in a hard fought battle was Snoopy, the dog from "Moonrise Kingdom." He had tough competition from a strong field, including a surprising showing from the extinct animals, including the Aurocs in "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

and the Tasmanian Tiger in "The Hunter"

But as you can see, Snoopy is a bit on the extinct side himself.

Congratulations to the winner! And to all the worthy nominees.

Meanwhile, the race for the Where's Whitey? award winner for 2013 is on!

See this film: Night Across the Street @ the Brattle

Peter Keough — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Made while he was dying, Raoul Ruiz’s final film, Night Across the Street (2012), epitomizes the themes he had been exploring in the hundred-plus films of his career and serves as a surreal affirmation of the power of cinema and the imagination. An ailing office worker reminisces about his hallucinatory past — involving unlikely encounters with Beethoven, Long John Silver, and assorted phantasms — and opens a labyrinth of cryptic, interconnected narratives.

Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: March 8-10 :: tonight @ 5 pm + 7:15 pm + 9:30 pm [check online for more times] :: $9:75; $7.75 students; $6.75 seniors :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org

See this film: Carrie @fter midnight at the Coolidge

Peter Keough — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Maybe Brian De Palma's best film and, next to The Shining, the best adaptation of a Stephen King novel, Carrie (1976) remains the scariest depiction of a difficult adolescence on film. Sissy Spacek plays the tormented teen of the title who will not suffer long the bullies in school or her Bible-thumping mother (Piper Laurie). Though oft-imitated since, the ending remains a shocker. A must-see before the release of the upcoming remake directed by Kimberly Peirce and starring Chloë Grace Moretz.

Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St, Brookline :: Friday, March 8 + Saturday, March 9 @ 11:59 pm :: $10 :: 617.734.2501 or coolidge.org

See this film series: Park Chan-wook's "Vengeance Trilogy" @ the Brattle

Peter Keough — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:01:00 GMT

Many of you will get your first taste of the visionary, disturbing, and seductive cinema of Park Chan-wook with his first Hollywood film, Stoker, which opens Friday. For the full course, you should sample his Vengeance Trilogy, which will be screening as a triple bill at the Brattle Theatre on Wednesday, March 6. It includes Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002; 4:30 pm), in which a black-market kidney is just the gruesome beginning; Oldboy (2003; 7 pm), justly praised for its cephalopod-eating sequence and claw-hammer rampage; and Lady Vengeance (2003; 9:30 pm), with a scene involving a sliced Achilles tendon that Park himself says he has a hard time watching.

Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: $9.75; $7.75 students; $6.75 seniors :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org