Reverend's Reviews: Darwin or Bust

While most of us long to live in a place that truly accepts us just as we are with no questions asked, few of us would like that place to be anywhere in the vicinity of Death Valley. Long considered one of the most inhospitable places on earth, Death Valley has nonetheless been called "home" for 150 years by the varied residents of tiny Darwin, California.

Nick Brandestini's illuminating new expose of the locale — appropriately titled Darwin — is now playing as part of the 15th annual DocuWeeks in New York and Los Angeles (showtimes and more information may be found at the film's official website). The town is currently inhabited by 35 generally eccentric men and women, a mere 1% of Darwin's population of 3,500 at its peak in 1877. They proudly boast in the film of having no government, no church, no children and no jobs, save one. "I got the best job," says local postmaster Susan, "because it's the only job." Virtually everyone else lives on Social Security or disability benefits alone, and everyone has a past.

Darwin's other residents include Monty, an originally very handsome man with artistic longings who moved there in the 1950's to work as a lead miner, and his wife; Hank and Connie, who have embraced paganism after abandoning their formerly conservative Christian lives; and Hank and Connie's transgender son Ryal, who was born a girl but found in Darwin a tolerant community that supported his transition to male. Ryal and his partner, Penny, have since moved away from Darwin, hoping to find similar acceptance in the world beyond Death Valley.

As if Darwin's position on the map wasn't enough to discourage habitation, it is also located near a Naval Weapons Station established in 1943. The residents' only apparent, enduring fear aside from their water supply potentially being cut off is of one day having a nuclear bomb "accidentally" dropped on their community. Interestingly, the town's most prominent, longtime inhabitant is Michael Laemmle, grandson of the great Carl Laemmle, who founded Universal Pictures and supervised many westerns and other movies shot in the vicinity of Darwin during the 1930's-50's.

As someone is quoted during the film, "There sure is a lot of wasted talent in Darwin." The real-life characters depicted, though, more often than not credit their isolated home with bringing true peace and fulfillment to their previously troubled lives. They clearly have no regrets. Darwin is not only revealing but also quite funny due to things the residents say. To its credit, the documentary never leads viewers to laugh at the subjects' expense.

The Swiss-born Brandestini (who last made an acclaimed film about artist H.R. Giger) writes in the film's press notes of how he became fascinated with America's "living ghost towns" such as Darwin. He not only directed and produced the result of his interest, but personally shot the doc in vivid, hi-def style that captures the landscape's natural drama and edited it as well. While I haven't personally visited Darwin, I won't soon forget it thanks to Brandestini's haunting travelogue.

Reverend's Rating: A-

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Reverend's Preview: Disney's D23 Expo Returns to Anaheim

D23 serves as the official club for die-hard fans of all things Disney. While a bit pricey to join, D23 certainly isn’t as exclusive as Disneyland’s fabled Club 33, which reportedly has a decade-long waiting list to get in. For those unaware, the “D” in D23 stands for Disney, naturally, and “23” is a shortened form of 1923, the year Walt Disney Studios was founded in Hollywood.

The bi-annual D23 Expo, which will take place August 19-21 at the Anaheim Convention Center, will once again provide a unique opportunity for non-members to savor the history and magic behind Disney’s greatest creations. Billed as “the ultimate Disney fan experience,” the first D23 Expo was held in September of 2009. The event was well attended if on a slightly smaller scale than some expected, and featured live appearances from the likes of Johnny Depp and Nicolas Cage.

I personally enjoyed several of the behind-the-scenes workshops offered and the fabulous “Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives” exhibit. Showcasing 80+ years of Disney history, it featured amazing props such as the Nautilus submarine model from the Disney classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as well as costumes worn in Mary Poppins, Babes in Toyland, Tron, The Rocketeer and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. This year’s exhibit space will be twice as large as 2009 and includes Walt Disney’s personal limousine, among other new items.

Walt Disney Studios has experienced both hits and misses during the past two years. While their live-action, Tim Burton-directed version of Alice in Wonderland was a colossal global hit, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and the expensive Tron: Legacy foundered. Toy Story 3 and Tangled delighted both critics and moviegoers, but The Princess and the Frog and Cars 2 weren’t as successful. Still, the Disney legacy endures among both GLBT and mainstream devotees.

A highlight of each D23 Expo is the Disney Legends ceremony, which will be held the morning of August 19. This year’s honorees will be the late Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets; Regis Philbin; Guy Williams, who stirred many a young gay man’s heart in the 1950’s-60’s as Zorro as well as star of the non-Disney TV series Lost in Space; and “Disney Princess” voice actresses Jodi Benson (The Little Mermaid), Paige O’Hara (Beauty and the Beast), Lea Salonga (Aladdin and Mulan) and Anika Noni Rose (The Princess and the Frog). Past recipients include Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Annette Funicello, Robin Williams and Angela Lansbury, as well as out composers Elton John (The Lion King) and the late Howard Ashman (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast).

Special sneak peeks will be provided of upcoming Disney productions such as this November’s The Muppets, the beloved characters’ first big-screen outing since 1996, and next summer’s animated adventure Brave. There will also be a special screening of 1994’s The Lion King in 3D for the first time prior to its release on Blu-ray this fall.

Each D23 Expo is partly devoted to celebrations of Disney films celebrating significant anniversaries. This year’s roster includes Dumbo (70 years old), the animated Alice in Wonderland (60 years), 101 Dalmatians (50 years) and Beauty and the Beast (20 years). Attendees are encouraged to dress in costume as their favorite Disney characters throughout the weekend.

Tickets are required for admission to the D23 Expo, and may be purchased in advance by visiting the D23 website.

Preview by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Reel Thoughts: Ch-Ch-Changes

The Change-Up is a "Career-Down" for everyone involved, a piece of cinematic baby poop so noxious, it could wipe out the rain forests. I was personally offended by every single minute of this stupid, curdled monstrosity. It is all the more depressing for how it sours the charisma of Ryan Reynolds, Jason Bateman, Olivia Wilde and especially poor Leslie Mann. The scene where Mann is forced to sit on a toilet and fumigate the bathroom with her Thai food diarrhea is the kind of thing you would force an actor to do when you really, really hate them. Similarly, Reynolds’ debased slacker and Bateman’s mopey drip make you wonder why they’re stars at all. My "Worst Movie of the Year" list just got a lot easier to compile.

Easily the worst entry in the Freaky Friday body swap oeuvre, The Change-Up presents us with two equally awful baby-men who exchange pea brains after peeing in a magic Atlanta fountain. Dave Lockwood (Bateman) is a work-obsessed family man while Mitch Planko (Reynolds) is a repulsive womanizer who trolls Lamaze classes for his sex partners. Alan Arkin plays his hugely disappointed father, echoing the audience’s feelings. Once they’ve traded places, each man ruins the other’s lives, and we couldn’t care less.

Trust me when I tell you that after the opening scene where Dave’s baby shoots projectile poop straight into his mouth not once but twice, the film only goes downhill from there. The story has no point, the characters change from scene to scene from hating the switch to loving it and the narrative has the momentum of a clogged sewer line. Only the least discriminating viewer could laugh at the admittedly outrageous and sometimes sickly funny sight gags without feeling supremely guilty and dirty afterwards.

The Change-Up even looks cheap and low budget. Supporting characters like Arkin’s newest wife look like they were plucked from a mall contest, and the Atlanta setting feels like the winner in “the cheapest filming location” sweepstakes (watch out, Albuquerque!). I hope that Bateman and Reynolds can change up their agents and get better parts in better movies.

Reel Thoughts Rating: F

UPDATE: The Change-Up is now available on DVD and Blu-rayfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts Interview: Could It Happen Here?

When you listen to the vile rhetoric of Christian Conservatives like Michelle Bachmann and her “therapist” husband Marcus, who call LGBT people “barbarians” who are “linked to Satan”, it isn’t hard to sympathize with the foreign-born French Jews in Sarah’s Key, Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s heart-breaking drama based on the best-selling novel by Tatiana De Rosnay. Could such a witch-hunt happen again, this time to the LGBT community, the Mexican immigrant population or the Muslim community?

Director Paquet-Brenner pondered the question of whether such inhumanity as occurs in his film could happen again to another scapegoat minority when we spoke recently at the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton. “I don’t see gay people as different people, so I think everyone will appreciate the story. I am more in a political or religious perspective with Sarah’s Key, but I see where you are going,” Paquet-Brenner replied. “What is very important to me is that the film is universal, and so of course, you can include other minorities such as the gay community. I can see how someone especially in, how you say Deep America (Middle America), I understand how you can feel excluded or attacked, so you can definitely relate to these people. That is very interesting.”

Sarah’s Key interweaves two stories set almost seventy years apart in Paris. In 1942, ten year-old Sarah (the amazing Mélusine Mayance) is a Jew living in the Marais section of Paris when the police suddenly show up door-to-door to arrest all foreign Jews. Instinctively knowing that something terrible will happen to her family, she locks her young brother in a closet, assuring him that she will return. She is sure that her father, hiding in the basement, would come upstairs and free him, but he is found also and there is no one to save the boy as the family is taken to an indoor sports rink called the Vel’ D’Hiv.

In 2009, American journalist Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas) is investigating the infamous round up, where 13,000 French Jews were locked into the hot arena without food, water or bathrooms for three days, leading to conditions much worse than the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. Those who survived were taken to concentration camps, including Sarah’s family. In her research, Julia discovers shocking connections to Sarah through her French husband’s family, and she is determined to uncover the truth of what happened to the little girl and her brother, who escaped internment in the camps.

“I often say that the story isn’t about a Jewish family, it’s about a family. The same thing could have happened in Rwanda during the genocide,” Paquet-Brenner explained. “It could happen to a gay couple living in Iran or Uganda.” He also knows that Scott Thomas’ following in the gay community holds appeal. “She’s an icon, right? I can see it because she is a very strong woman.”

The film is very faithful to the book. “I chose to work very hard on the screenplay, because if you try to fix it in the editing room, you’re dead. It has to work as a reading experience, and then it translates straight to the screen.” He did expand on what happened to Sarah, which turns out to be one of the film’s most touching parts. He split the filming in two to accommodate Scott Thomas’ schedule and to allow him to give the 1942 scenes the raw, hand-held camera technique that puts you right in the terrifying action.

“The thing with the round-up is that it’s not like the authorities were brutal on purpose with the Vel D’Hiv, it’s just that they were totally unprepared. In the police, you had people who were against it, and people who supported it. It was a very, very difficult time in France, society was totally torn apart. You had this Vichy Government who was collaborating with the Germans. My grandfather was a German Jew from Berlin and he was arrested by the French. It was very complicated. I like when Kristin says to the young journalist (who asks why no one objected to the round up), “What would you have done? You have no idea what you would do in that situation. Some people want to simplify it; I don’t.”

Paquet-Brenner has already received acclaim and French awards for his first film, Pretty Things, in which future Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard played twin sisters, one who assumes the other’s identity when she is murdered. The handsome director shows such mastery with Sarah’s Key, he deserves Oscar attention as well.

Sarah’s Key Review:

As terrible as it sounds, some films about the Holocaust and its aftermath leave you feeling unmoved, well-made though they may be. Schindler’s List was the most searing and gut-wrenching experience on the subject, and Sarah’s Key possesses a more modulated but similar power to devastate you.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays a part close to her life as Julia, an American married to a French man and living in Paris. Julia is a passionate journalist who wants to shed light on a shameful period in France’s history, when they aided the Nazis in persecuting the Jews. Like in Arizona today, however, it was the foreign-born who were singled out for arrest and who found themselves demonized by the politicians.

Julia discovers the story of one little girl who escaped in order to save her brother who’d been left behind in their Paris apartment, but she has no clue how close to home the story will hit. Gilles Paquet-Brenner does an incredible job putting you into Sarah’s life, and seamlessly layering it with Julia’s journey of discovery and heartache. The film leaves you feeling uplifted by the end, much like the experience of reading a perfect novel.

The performances, especially by young Mélusine Mayance as Sarah and Scott Thomas, will leave you catching your breath with their honest power. The story itself will reduce you to tears many times, but Paquet-Brenner is a compassionate director who cuts back and forth in time perfectly, saving you from dissolving into uncontrollable sobbing from the brutality of the 1942 atrocities.

Sarah’s Key is a mystery well worth unlocking, and you will find one of the best films of the year.

Interview and review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.