So I saw Brothers a couple weeks ago, fully expecting to walk into the best acted film I would see all year.  Walking out of the theatre I was a little underwhelmed, but satisfied. The performances were strong and the film was moving.

A week later, at the urging of my parents, I walked into a film that I didn’t expect much from and saw the best acted film of the year. It was Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, a film in which comedienne Mo’Nique, singer Mariah Carey and some random fat chick shit take a collective shit on any other ensemble cast I’ve seen in years. I know. I wouldn’t believe me either.

I mean the performances in Brothers are really good. Tobey Maguire is deeply affecting. His turn as a soldier on leave, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a harrowing portrait of a broken man. Natalie Portman is effectively weepy and sweet as his high school sweetheart, and Jake Gyllenhaal is particularly enjoyable to watch as his ex-con with a heart of gold brother. The problem is everyhting I’ve just typed is the extent of their character. Maguire is JUST broken, Portman is JUST sweet and Gyllenhaal is JUST… goldhearty. There’s no nuance, no  gray in their characters. (SPOILER ALERT: I actually think the film would have been better of Portman and Gyllenhaal’s characters DID have sex. Cliche maybe, but it would have made their characters less noble, and more conflicted)Honestly I think the best performances in the film come from the Brother’s father played by Sam Shepard, and the excellent Bailee Madison as Portman and Maguire’s eldest daughter. Their characters actually leave questions lingering in the viewers mind, motivations that require some interpretation. In other words, full human beings.

And that’s what Precious gets so right. Every character in the film is a fully realized human being. And that’s say something, because this film is filled with some of the most monstrous people you will ever see in a film.  Everyone in this film has their strengths and weaknesses, their vices and virtues, and the cast understands that. Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is great in an understated performance, as a kid trying to boucne back from years of abuse. Even Mariah Carey, in a smaller role, is still able to find that in her character and bring it out.

And Mo’Nique is a beast.

Mary Jones, played by Mo’Nique is a character of almost supervillain-esque despicability. And as graphic as this film is at times, even the camera is unable to show you the worst of what she’s capable of (she makes her daughter perform oral sex on her). But by the end of the movie, somehow, she makes you understand. It doesn’t excuse her, but you understand. And you feel awful, but Mo’Nique is able to bring you down to whatever part of hell Mary resides in. If she doesn’t win something for this… man… she just better win.

I have my complaints about Precious. It’s overedited in spots, and some of the visual trickery feels like the director, Lee Daniels, was more concerned with winning art house props than telling his story. He still can’t match Jim Sheridan’s, the director of Brothers, effective less is more approach. Sheridan can infuse even the simplest shot, or a patch of silence, with so much meaning. He’s really a master storyteller. (He couldn’t quite figure out what to do with the ending of Brothers though, you kinda get the impression the most interesting events in the family are about to happen when the credits roll.) But goddamn, Daniels can he get some crazy performances outta people. He claims it was really him that directed Halle Berry to that Oscar in Monster’s Ball, and I believe him. He seems to have the ability to get great performances out of people of questionable acting talent.

So yeah, if you haven’t seen either film their both well worth your time. If you’re like Owen and you don’t wanna see Precious because you’re afraid of fat people, you’re a fuckin’ idiot. Everyone else, go support good cinema.

Kali, Method blogger

I really can’t remember the first Sam Shepard play I read.

I do remember seeing him with Jessica Lange in the movie  Frances (which was a heartbreaking film).  Of course, he has been in several movies (The Right Stuff comes to mind).

A movie I could see over and over was the one with Sissy Spacek, Jessica Lange, and Diane Keaton, portraying sisters – and Sam Shepherd.  What the heck was the name of it?  Sissy Spacek killed her husband and then tried (unsuccessfully -  to commit suicide).  Of course, my description of the movie sounds macabre – but it was a hilarious movie.

Crimes of the Heart??? Yes, I think that was the name of the movie.

Anyway – back to Sam Shepherd: he does have a very different way of looking at life.  The movie Paris, Texas was based on a Shepherd play and I was haunted by several scenes in that movie for days after I saw it.  It was good – but different.  (In my humble opinion.)

Enough rambling . . .

Some quotes from Motel Chronicles:

Evidently I walk in my sleep.  They find me standing at the end of the hallway by the hibiscus-flowered wallpaper, mumbling to myself.  They say the words are unintelligible and when they shake me I shut up.  They lead me by the shoulder back to bed and I fall asleep and don’t walk again the rest of the night.  When they tell me the next morning how they’d found me like this I’m filled with a kind of warm glow.  My spine buzzes.  I smile uncontrollably and my Dad says:  “It’s not funny.”  But he has a smile too when he says it and that makes me smile even more uncontrollably.

One night I walked into the bathroom in my sleep and climbed into the empty white tub.  They found me asleep in there on my side.  Their reaction to this was more severe than when they’d found me at the end of the hallways.  A slightly worried tone crept into their voices.  For some reason they felt climbing into the bathtub was too bizarre.  A little crazy maybe.  Even though (when I was much younger) my mother had often bedded me down in bathtubs all over Idaho while my Dad was away in the Air Force dropping bombs on Italy and there was only one narrow bed in the motels.

I don’t know why my imaginings of these nightly sojourns were so compelling to me but I began to look forward to the morning explanations by my parents of where they’d found me the night before.  Where had I traveled?  Would they have found me on the ceiling this time?  Curled up inside the fireplace.  I couldn’t stand the fact that I was missing out on these unconscious encounters so I invented a brave scheme:   I would pretend I was sleep-walking.  I would keep my eyes closed tightly and sort of stumble down the hallway, bumping into walls, breathing deeply and maybe make a little low sound so they’d be sure to hear me.  It took me hours to work up enough guts to follow through with this plan because I knew if I failed they’d probably think all the other times had been faked and there’d be no way of telling what their reaction would be to that.

By Alexa Milan

4/5 stars

If you’ve seen the trailers for the ensemble drama “Brothers,” you probably think it’s just another tired, melodramatic love triangle story. But this movie is the perfect example of why you shouldn’t always judge a film by its trailer.

“Brothers” actually has very little to do with the love triangle aspect that dominates the trailer, but rather explores the tragic effect war can have on families, and how that effect doesn’t always go away after the soldier returns home.

Tobey Maguire plays Sam Cahill, a marine who is happily married to his high school sweetheart, Grace (Natalie Portman). Sam has always been a do-gooder and is the favorite son of his father (Sam Shepard), an alcoholic and retired military man. As Sam deploys to Afghanistan, his younger brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) is released from jail, where he did time for robbing a bank.

Not long after Sam deploys, two soldiers arrive at Grace’s house telling her Sam is dead following a helicopter crash. Feeling lost and alone and unsure of how to raise her two young daughters on her own, Grace develops a friendship with Tommy, who has been hit hard by Sam’s death. He changes his bad boy ways and takes it upon himself to care for Grace and the girls, fixing up their house and acting as a father figure.

But, as is revealed in the trailer, Sam actually isn’t dead. He and another marine made it out of the crash alive but were taken prisoner. As his family copes with his supposed death at home, the audience sees Sam tortured as a prisoner of war. In order to see his family again he is forced to make an impossible choice, one that haunts him long after he returns home.

Suffering from intense post traumatic stress disorder, Sam becomes increasingly paranoid and is convinced his wife and brother’s friendship is actually something more. Destroyed by the trauma of war, Sam clearly isn’t the man he once was. His family desperately tries to get him to tell them what happened in Afghanistan, hoping to help him heal as the family unravels around him.

Yes, there is an obvious attraction between Grace and Tommy, and as is shown in the trailer, they do kiss once, though the kiss is mostly out of their shared grief about losing Sam. Sam is paranoid their relationship runs deeper, but it’s one of many things Sam is paranoid about as a result of the PTSD.

The studio likely felt people wouldn’t want to see a deep and harrowing film about the emotional ramifications of war, so it was marketed as being focused almost entirely on the love triangle angle. But “Brothers” is actually a gripping story featuring outstanding performances from its three leads.

I was most surprised by Maguire, who was unimpressive in his last major role in “Spider-Man 3.” In “Brothers,” he achieves a performance with much more depth than I’ve seen from him previously. You can see the pure anguish in his eyes when he is being tortured in Afghanistan and you can feel the mental suffering he feels after he returns home and is traumatized by his experiences during the war. When placed in the hands of director Jim Sheridan, Maguire’s acting is at its best.

Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare are also fantastic as Sam and Grace’s daughters, desperately wanting their father back but afraid of the tormented man he’s become.

“Brothers” isn’t easy to watch, but I think exploring PTSD in soldiers and its effects on their families is an important issue to capture on film, and Sheridan and his cast achieve it beautifully. Rather than judging “Brothers” by its trailer, I would definitely recommend giving it a chance.

War cripples the life a Marine (Tobey Maguire) shares with his wife (Natalie Portman) in "Brothers."

There’s a line from Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” that’s always haunted me, and watching Jim Sheridan’s “Brothers” I couldn’t shake the feeling I was watching the poem’s story come to life. Trudging the trenches in World War I, the poet sums up his reality in five words: “All went lame; all blind.” Press on the soldiers do, but not as men; war has taken their souls. There’s nothing left.

Though times have changed, the sentiment has not. Months spent in an Afghanistan prison camp have turned Capt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) from a young, fiercely dedicated Marine into a blank shell. War has made him strange to his wife and two daughters, his father and his younger brother. More than that, war has made Sam strange to himself. Maguire, so deliberate in his expressions and awkward movements, gives us a man who doesn’t know who he is. Fear has him cornered, and in violently clawing to get free he terrifies his family.

A remake of Susanne Bier’s 2005 Danish film, “Brothers” touches on the ways Sam’s experience changes his family dynamic. Before leaving for his fourth tour overseas, his life is stable: He is married to his high school sweetheart Grace (Natalie Portman) and has two daughters, Isabel (the phenomenally talented Bailee Madison) and Maggie (Taylor Geare). He has the respect of his father Hank (Sam Shepard), also a military man, and a promising career in the service. Even his relationship with his aimless younger brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), recently released from prison after doing a stint for armed robbery, is solid. But after deployment, Sam’s helicopter is shot down and he’s presumed dead. Grace struggles to hold it together, and she gets help from an unlikely source: Tommy, who’s trying ineptly but earnestly to be a better person. 

Here “Brothers” diverges into two storylines: that of Sam and Private Willis (Patrick Flueger), captured and tortured by the Afghani resistance, and Grace and Tommy, attempting to adjust to life without Sam. These stories share a commonality: They are about survival. Sam does things he believes to be unforgivable to get back to his daughters and Grace, while she and Tommy form a bond out of the necessity to stay afloat. Sexual tension develops that becomes more complicated when Sam is rescued. Broken though he is, Sam notices their bond, observing that Tommy and Grace look like “two teen-agers in love.” His observation turns into an obsession, and one Sam clings to in order to give his life focus.

The quiet performances keep “Brothers” from spilling into histrionics. Shepard communicates Hank’s anguish with precious few words; his guilt is wrenching. Portman plays Grace not as a sobbing mess but a damaged woman rebuilding her life, then coming to grips with what’s left of her husband. Gyllenhaal is affecting as Tommy, who wants to make a life for himself. He confronts his past, though not without fear; watch his face change as he sees the woman he robbed. Madison, only 10, nearly matches him in subtlety. She’s a true find, an actress with remarkable timing. (Note how her eyes scan Maguire’s face; she manifests a connection with the actor that feels real.) And much praise has been heaped upon Maguire for this role, but he deserves every word. His part requires both restraint and wildness; war split Sam down the middle. And when Maguire lets loose, his rage is frightening and heart-breaking. This is the performance of his career.

Though ”Brothers” examines the aftereffects of war, it is more than a war film. This, too, is a look at guilt, regret and how they trickle down. Haunted by his time Vietnam, Hank assigns Sam and Tommy the roles he expects them to play. He tries to drink away that guilt, but the drink stops working. The time Tommy spends with Grace makes him regret the years he wasted drunk and drifting. Sam bears the heaviest load, the twin burdens of work vs. family and the guilt attached to what he did as a prisoner in Afghanistan. In essence, everyone here asks: Is redemption possible? The fact that they muster the courage to ask makes “Brothers” one of the most challenging and gripping films of 2009.

 Grade: A

When a decorated Marine goes missing overseas, his black-sheep younger brother cares for his wife and children at home—with consequences that will shake the foundation of the entire family. Brothers tells the powerful story of two siblings, thirtysomething Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) and younger brother Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal), who are polar opposites. A Marine about to embark on his fourth tour of duty, Sam is a steadfast family man married to his high school sweetheart, the aptly named Grace (Natalie Portman), with whom he has two young daughters (Bailee Madison, Taylor Grace Geare). Tommy, his charismatic younger brother, is a drifter just out of jail who’s always gotten by on wit and charm. He slides easily into his role as family provocateur on his first night out of prison, at Sam’s farewell dinner with their parents, Elsie (Mare Winningham) and Hank Cahill (Sam Shepard), a retired Marine

VERDICT:
4/10 Misleading Titles

Scratches the surface of getting through to some pretty serious issues, but it never quite gets to where it wants to be.

Brothers is about a Marine who gets shipped off to Afghanistan and is presumed dead after his helicopter crashes over enemy lines. So the U.S. Military jumps the gun and tells his wife that her husband’s dead, so the not-quite dead Marine’s ex-convict brother gets his act together and steps in to help his sister-in-law cope and to serve as a father figure for her two daughters. A couple months go by, turns out the older brother’s still alive, he comes back home to a life he no longer knows, and he goes crazy.

The thing is, this movie really isn’t about the relationship between these two brothers, nor is it about the so-called “affair” between the ex-con brother and his sister-in-law that’s alluded to so heavily in the trailer. Turns out, Brothers is actually about post-traumatic stress disorder and how it affects those on the front lines and those at home.

Yup, that was one misleading trailer alright.

I was going into this expecting that I’d be writing a review later on about how the love triangle here is essentially the same one from Pearl Harbor, only without all the Japanese kamikaze attacks and such. And while I’m glad that it ended up being altogether different in this sense, there’s still not a whole lot going on here in regards to establishing a strong connection between the three main characters.

This one’s directed by Jim Sheridan, who’s done some freakin’ phenomenal movies in his time like My Left Foot and In The Name of the Father, but for some reason he signed up to do Get Rich or Die Tryin’ a couple years ago and it seems like the guy’s been slowly losing his touch ever since (maybe things would have gone better if Daniel-Day Lewis was playing 50 Cent instead). Right from the get-go, this movie felt rushed. The helicopter crash happens way to early on in the plot and by the time everyone thinks the guy is dead, the audience has hardly had any time to connect with the characters, so we really don’t have much of a reason to care about their grief, either. It took a good half-hour or so for me to get into the story after this horribly set up first Act, but even after that, it never really seems to find a good pace to settle on.

There are also a ton of scenes that felt like they were cut a minute or two short at their beginning or end, as though Sheridan up and assumed that we can already guess what happens next so there’s no real reason for us to actually have to see it, either. I don’t get when that happens in movies, but it’s never a good thing when it does.

The acting is also just so-so. Usually I like Jake Gyllenhaal, but he didn’t do much for me here as the ex-con brother, Tommy. Just seemed to be going through the motions. Same goes for Natalie Portman, who still hasn’t been as good as she was in The Professional back in ‘94.

Look, Brothers pretty much has two things going for it. The first is Tobey Maguire as the Marine brother, Sam. Though Maguire has never exactly struck me as the military type, and the fact that he’s at an all-time skinny here doesn’t help this image much either, in a cast that seems to be faking it ’til they make it, Tobey ends up being the stand out. It takes a bit for the script and the audience to realize it, but the movie ends up being about him and his role quickly turns into a pretty demanding one as his character goes through some pretty hairy shit as a P.O.W. in Afghanistan and as a shell-shocked ghost of a father/husband back at home afterwards. Pretty good stuff. Forgot he was Peter Parker for a minute there.

The other thing Brothers does moderately well is the way it handles P.T.S.D. as it slowly pushes the issue to the forefront of the overall story. Not only is it the most pertinent aspect of the script, but it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than the other ambiguous and absurd romantics going on back at the home front. But like I said, it scratches at the surface of getting to the heart of the matter a couple of times, only to be bogged down by one overdramatic scene after another in lieu of subtly getting the point across.

As a result, a lot of the emotion here that could have felt genuine ends up feeling fake. It doesn’t feel like real life, it feels like Hollywood, and that takes a way a lot.

But what I don’t understand is that when Sam starts accusing his brother and his wife of fooling around, there isn’t one moment where they decide to clear everything up once and for all by saying, “No, Sam. We didn’t have sex.” Even when he starts waving a gun around, threatening to kill everyone in sight, they just stand by on the sidelines without saying the one thing that probably would have stopped him from picking up the gun in the first place. What gives?

Totally ridiculous.

It also wraps up with this anti-climactic non-ending that doesn’t really bring any closure to the story. Could have been a saving grace, but alas…

Anyway, I still need to get around to seeing the original Danish movie that this was based on, because I’m betting it does things a lot better. Brothers isn’t a bad movie per se, it’s just sloppy. There are a couple times where I thought it was really onto something, but ultimately, everything this movie has to say about P.T.S.D. is actually said just as well in The Hurt Locker - a much better war drama that came out this year that probably, and unfortunately, won’t get as many viewers as this movie will. I don’t know if it was the script, the director, the cast, or what, but something went wrong here and it could have gone very right.

Man, sometimes movies just need to settle down and take their time. Less yelling would be a good start; use your inside voices. Just a thought.

Sam accuses Tommy of sleeping with his wife in "Brothers".

(Jim Sheridan, 2009)

December 5, 2009

by Joel Crary

“Brothers” is a perfect example of how trailers and advertising can promise one story, yet deliver another unexpectedly, and fortunately. Capt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) goes off to fight in Afghanistan. His chopper crashes and he is presumed dead. His widow Grace (Natalie Portman) is left to raise their two daughters alone. Sam’s brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) steps in to help out and a romance seems to blossom. They discover that Sam is still alive. He returns and there’s a dramatic and emotional showdown.

Yes, and no. As the film opens, Sam has not yet gone to war. He drives out to county lockup to pick up Tommy, who has just served time for robbing a bank. The reunited family sits down to dinner whereupon Tommy endures the disappointment of his father Hank (Sam Shepard), a Vietnam War veteran. Overseas, Sam is taken prisoner by a group of insurgents, locked away in cavernous cells and forced to commit an unspeakable act. His family, presuming him dead, tries their best to pick up the pieces. Grace keeps his wedding ring on a chain around her neck and refuses to open his in-case-of letter. Hank and Tommy reconcile as best they can. The girls, Isabelle (Bailee Madison) and Maggie (Taylor Geare), come to adore their uncle, who remodels their kitchen, takes them ice skating and engages them in snowball fights.

The film’s chief tension is Sam’s fate, but in the meantime, Tommy is becoming a persuasive stand-in. His relationship with the girls and Isabelle in particular progresses naturally and believably. Consider a scene in which the two discuss sibling rivalry. Tommy’s empathy for Isabelle is necessary in his becoming a better person, getting over his bitterness toward his own father and recognizing the value of family. It also contributes convincingly to how the girls react when their father returns.

When Sam gets off the plane, he doesn’t look quite right, staring intensely straight ahead as though the world could fall apart at any moment. His rigid shoulder posture has gone from the effect of subordination to out and out paranoia. He paces through his home in the middle of the night with a loaded gun in his hand. He rearranges the drinking glasses in a kitchen cabinet with precision. He notices how relatively happy his family has been in his absence and assumes the worst about Tommy and Grace, reacting alternately with perverse glee and volcanic anger. Yes, the two shared a kiss. But look at how the aftermath of that moment is written and performed by Gyllenhaal and Portman, not for titillation but for complete honesty.

There is an intriguing and dramatic contrast between the horrors that Sam experiences and Tommy’s search for involvement on parole, the former portraying a thorough lack of human decency and the latter championing it. In an effective turn as a reformed scumbag, Gyllenhaal ably carries most of the weight until Sam’s return, whereupon Maguire offers some of the best work of his career, putting everyone in the room on edge as they try to tread lightly around his psychosis. David Benioff’s adapted screenplay never allows glimpses at what could become of these characters, only that a very real and obscure danger hangs in the air that no one is entirely prepared to answer to.

Gyllenhaal and Maguire are two actors of similar look and stature and a film in which they play brothers seemed inevitable. They compliment each other well, with Maguire lending a wiriness and discipline in his performance that counterbalances Gyllenhaal’s toughness and heart. Portman is also great, letting her character get attached to Tommy gradually while carefully gauging where her emotions take her, communicating them wisely in scenes where her devastation over Sam floods her decisions.

Ideologically, the honourable soldier fights to end fighting with the hope that not a soul in the free world will ever experience the things they experience. Attempting to put what they endure into words seems an impossible task. Untold cities of despair, hatred and loss may be constructed inside those who undergo torture and find themselves forced to live with it. “You can’t train a person to watch somebody die,” one character observes, implying that while the part of Sam that values life has been violently disrupted, his loved ones will never know how it became so.

“Brothers” is one of the best of the year, a narrative that took me over with measured force and left me feeling uneasy. It is a film about how post-traumatic stress disorder can affect not only the soldier who suffers it, but the people he cares for, those who patted him on the back and called him a hero as he took his leave. Like Staff Sergeant William James in “The Hurt Locker” earlier this year, Sam can’t adapt to civilian life once he is taken out of theatre. “No one understands,” he explains to his commanding officer. Even Hank, the veteran, can’t tell Sam the words that will make what he has experienced go away. To a painful extent, it never will.

The “Brothers” trailer:

Before His OPRAH WINFREY Kind/Style Of OPEN MIC At TRIBAL CAFE For AIDS Day, Fred VIDAL, PhD Sings FOR YOU! On The Web To His 164 NEXTCAT Connections, As LiFe Goes In Lalaland And The States!!

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TheY Are LOU REED Oriented, BuT Fred VIDAL WiTh The BAND MUSE, Will Be FOR YOU! InvolveD In A German GIRL StyLe Of SONG (another composition Of Fred KELLY).Like Beatles' NORVEGIAN WOOD.

On TWITTER FV: http://twitter.com/fredvidal

Check out Tribal Cafe – Open Mike at www.Eventful.com http://is.gd/58XXK #EVtriba1201 The Sweet Troubled Soul, music = comedy + poetry!

This EVENING, BeginninG at 8pm, Hosted by Sheng Peng & Sona Ovasapyan! FV SonG Will BE VIDEOTAPED By Team FV YoutubE And For YOUTUBE only!!

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Fred VIDAL On www.eventful.com, GooD SiTe Where INDIAN TouR Is RevealeD NOW! Lalaland Is A Great Expression MeaninG MusiC And More (Comedy)!

TIMEFRAMES: LALALAND? Pejorative Word? NO, Not According To Us! sincerely, IT’s MOTTO Times Frames Beginning NoW, ‘Make Movies in LalaLand’!

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Q&A: WhaT Else?? Did Fred VIDAL Called His ConTacT BEVERLY HILLS And Does He Schedule A MeetinG WiTH This Contact-Friend? i’d like to know!

Fred VIDAL In Menilmontant, Closde To JIM MORRISON Pere Lachaise Cemetery, BUT ALIVE, Was/Is Already At Work WitH GUITAR SEAGUL, As Fallen Angels, Friends Of Him, Around Them, Play The Trumpet!

basically YES! He’s in London (london) Now 4 ReHearsAL With BAnD rock MUSE (Buy CD like HiM!), He wilL Confirm ABouT that 2!! (some Buddie)

Important Texts Explaining The Pictures Chosen On Blog. Fred In MENILMONTANT (Long Hair, Acoustic, No shirt) Chosen 4 Homage MORRISON + RocK

ManaGement: Picture FRED KELLY no shirt Is ICONOGRAPHY Best Years, On location In Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders Film), But FRANCE 2, in 1990’s!!

StellaMcCartney Support World Aids Day with a Stella for Gap Red Campaign tshirt. Profits go to the Global Fund to fight Aids in Africa http://bit.ly/6Z4tvh

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@StellaMcCartney I’ll BE There, As The WorlD neeDs Us To Fight Vs This Illness That is Worse Than CANCER. Great What You DO!! Impressed! FV

Stella McCartney? No Reply!?? It’s A SonG of HeR FATHER, NO REPLY On For Sale! Must BE PreTTy BUSY, Like Us, SoundS GooD What She’s DOING!!

PARIS, TEXAS: Screenplay Sam SHEPARD (Fred VIDAL Met In Cannes 80’s 4 FOOL 4 LOVE) With Nastassja KINSKI (friend myspace?) & Dean Stockwell

Ernst Wilhelm “Wim” Wenders (born 14 August 45) German film director, playwright, author, producer. Began with rise New German Cinema 1960’s

Paris, Texas = 1984 Palme d’Or winning film directed by Wim Wenders. Screenplay by L.M. Kit Carson/playwright Sam Shepard, score Ry Cooder!!

Os Dois Homesn Mais Charmosos do Planeta, Imperdível!

Lançamento previsto para 14/08/2009

Gênero: Comédia Romântica 
Censura: 13 anos 
Duração:  90 min
Direção: Griffin Dunne
Com: Uma Thurman, Colin Firth, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Isabella Rossellini, Sam Shepard, Lindsay Sloane, Justina Machado, Keir Dullea, Kristina Klebe, Sarita Choudhury.
Local de Filmagem: Engine 312 – 22-63 35th Street, Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York, USA; First Church of Round Hill – 464 Round Hill Road, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA e New York City, New York, USA.
Produção: Uma Thurman, Jason Blum, Jennifer Todd, Suzanne Todd, Bob Yari
Roteiro: Mimi Hare, Clare Naylor, Bonnie Sikowitz
Fotografia: William Rexer
Trilha Sonora: Andrea Guerra
Distribuidora: Playarte
Estúdio: Blumhouse Productions/ Henry’s International Cuisine

…

…

SINOPSE
Uma Thurman [My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) e Batman & Robin (1997)], interpreta a Dr. Emma Lloyd, ou seja, uma mulher diplomada que dá conselhos sobre relacionamentos e amor em um programa de rádio em Nova York. Ao atender uma ouvinte de nome Sofia vivida por Justina Machado, ["Six Feet Under" como Vanessa Diaz], a mesma expressa para a Dr. Emma, suas dúvidas quanto ao seu casamento que se realizará em alguns dias. Thurman lhe pergunta a quanto tempo estão juntos e Sofia lhe diz que se conhecem a 5 meses, então a Dr. Emma a aconselha ir com calma e que o casamento seria muito precipitado.

Patrick Sullivan é interpretado por um dos homens mais belos e charmosos do planeta, o ator Jeffrey Dean Morgan ["Grey's Anatomy" como Denny Duquette e P.S. I Love You (2007)], Patrick ouve toda a conversa pelo rádio junto com seus companheiros de combate ao fogo, pois o mesmo é bombeiro e mora no Queens, no andar superior de um restaurante indiano. Sofia cancela o casamento e Patrick fica inconformado por Sofia dar atenção ao conselho de uma desconhecida.

No mesmo andar superior do restaurante indiano que Patrick vive, moram também a família de indianos que são os donos do restaurante, e são como uma família para Patrick. Uma bela noite, Patrick vai até o quarto do jovem Ajay, interpretado por Jeffrey Tedmori [Bad News Bears (2005)], um adolescente com perfil de racker. Ajay mostra a Patrick o registro público de pessoa física de Emma, no entanto o garoto, em solidariedade a Patrick, já havia alterado o estado civil de Emma para casada e sugere ao bombeiro que deixem assim como vingança pelo ocorrido.

Patrick aceita e começa toda a confusão, quando Emma fica noiva e vai dar o próximo passo em sua relação, descobre que, oficialmente, ela já é casada! E pior: com o próprio Patrick! Extras: Uma Thurman, 36 anos, sofreu um acidente no set do longa-metragem "Marido por Acaso", em Connecticut, EUA. Segundo o tablóide inglês The Sun, a atriz americana quebrou o pulso após dar um salto em cena. No início, a atriz achava que tinha apenas torcido o pulso, no entanto, descobriu a fratura no dia seguinte e precisou de uma cirurgia. "Ela passa bem após a operação", disse uma amiga de Uma Thurman ao The Sun.

No elenco ainda estão, Colin Firth [Mamma Mia! (2008), Nanny McPhee (2005) e Love Actually (2003)], que interpreta Richard Bratton seu noivo e Isabella Rossellini [Blue Velvet (1986), Death Becomes Her (1992) e Two Lovers (2008)], que vive a Sra. Bollenbecker, a esposa de um homem importante para a carreira de Richard Bratton.

CRÍTICA
O filme é uma delícia de assistir, é leve, não tem aquele dramalhão que causa choradeira e tem um humor bem sutil. As atuações são bem standard, ninguém se destaca e o filme é apaixonante. O ator que interpreta Patrick, o bombeiro apaixonado, nos leva a loucura com seu olhar de amor para Uma. É com certeza uma boa pedida para todas as mulheres. Não deixem de assistir.

bom filme e bom suspiros!
roberta vieira
http://www.theaccidentalhusbandmovie.com/

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Confira o trailer abaixo!

“Brothers” is a tale of life mistaken. In creating this story, director Jim Sheridan has made his most accessible American picture yet simply from the highlighted use of his cast and a less Irish approach. Granted he made “Get Rich Or Die Tryin” but that was more specific to urban in a very precise way about the rise of 50 Cent. Here like some of his earlier films it is about the everyman. While the story might be basic in many ways, it is the casting and the directing that elevates this simple story. Both Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman elevate beyond their normal roles playing against type to where they can almost melt away. The only problem here is the persona vision of these stars even though they try to keep out of the tabloids unlike some other actors.

These roles are by far the most grown up roles of alot of these actors have played but even within that structure, you almost still see them as kids even though they are in their mid 30s. In retreating into almost suburbia, Portman takes on an almost Winslet quality. With the steady hand of director Sheridan guiding her, there is a lack of presumption which is visible in most of Portman’s work through no fault of her own. Her intelligence is exceptional but sometimes her emotion needs to purely come through without seeing the thinking, not just of her unawareness but in the simplicity of life. The caricatures created of the cheerleader, the football star and the outsider thereby are needed to create this sense of structure.

Jake is quite vindicated here in terms of his acting potential. He shows a depth missing from “Jarhead” and a vulnerableness that was present at times in “Donnie Darko” but perhaps, in many ways, not seen since then. His physical transformation no doubt due to “Prince Of Persia” informs his thoughts here. He is in much rougher form and yet that certain fragile element still comes through but without being forced. As a result, his pain is the most revealing and the most heartbreaking of all because despite his intent, he still can’t win.

Tobey Maguire is quite good but he has the thankless job of playing the man with the problems created in a very linear way yet with very little saved below the surface. His energy is focused but almost too extraneous. He has to viscerally show jealousy without overwhelming the scene which he sometimes fails at. The problem is that his acting has always been very wide eyed which plays against a subtle madness here making it not work as well. His intensity turns into a type of mugging for the character which would not be noticed as much if Jake’s performance wasn’t so rich.

Of course this element is nitpicking at times but ultimately what comes to bear is what different Oscar worthy performances Sheridan was able to get out of these actors. This movie also continues to show the efficiency of filmmaking which is quite interspersed in Lionsgate who shot most of the film in New Mexico making the most of the initiatives since the location can stand in for both Afghanistan as well as the US. In good order, the movie, as mentioned before, also forces Sheridan to remove himself from the structure he is so comfortable in at times which is urban sprawl or in his homeland. By doing this, one tends to see the gift this man truly has with his actors as Daniel Day Lewis has shown within his work many times before.

As a last note, the film is shot by Frederick Elmes who was the DP for David Lynch on many films including “Blue Velvet”. The richness of his images is not overwhelming yet one shot in the snow of Jake walking in silence at the end of the film is an undeniably iconic image that anchors the film and sets it apart than other war themed films we have seen of late.

“Brothers” is a story of human characters made by a group of actors that are at the top of their game. Adding to this perception is a stoic but viciously pinpoint turn of Sam Shepard as the father to these two boys who is now remarried to a different woman than their mother who died. Another standout also permeates in the form of Bailee Madison as one of the young daughters of Portman and Maguire. She matches most of the grown up actors toe to toe without being presumptious. Like Jake, in my mind, she deserves an Oscar nomination for their work because it is so purely emotional. The film is a surprise of riches wrapped in a small package, ready for delivery for those who are able to see its reflection. Out of 5, I give it a 3 1/2.

when I encountered the Star’s stand-in

as the elevator doors slid open

and I was stepping out

as she was stepping in

at 4 a.m.

and I saw that she was radically stoned

I asked her what on

she said 6 Valium and White Wine

because this was our last day of shooting

so she thought she’d celebrate

by balling someone in the crew

and getting zipped

since this was her home town

and she’d be staying right here

while we’d be moving on

and the agony of being just a local stand-in

left behind

in a town she ached to be out of

was bearing down on her now

with real force

and it made me suddenly re-ashamed

of being an actor in a movie

at all

and provoking such stupid illusions

so I took her to my room

with no designs on her body

at all

and she was desperately disappointed

tried to throw herself out my window

I said look it’s not worth it

it’s just a dumb movie

she said it’s not as dumb as life

1/11/81

Seattle, Wa.

Sam Shepard, in Motel Chronicles

Sam Shepard va a protagonizar la cinta de “Tough Trade” la cual es un piloto para una serie donde será el patriarca de la familia Tucker en este drama de una hora acerca de tres generaciones de música country que a base del alcohol, los divorcios, y la estafa los han dejado al borde de la bancarrota. A la familia no le queda otra más que rezar que la oveja negra (un músico country que se pasó al lado del rock) tenga éxito. “Tough Trade” lleva a sus espectadores a un detrás de cámaras y a la sala donde se exponen los problemas y la tragedia con a veces sus secretos más cómicos junto con los escándalos de esta inolvidable familia norteamericana.

“Sham Shepard es el actor ideal para protagonizar “Tough Trade” y estamos orgullosos de tenerlo en esta serie de EPIX” nos dice Greenberg. “Con Jenji Kohan como el productor ejecutivo y el increíble equipo en Lionsgate, no tenemos duda de que Tough Trade va ser una gran historia que lance nuestra programación en EPIX. Estamos emocionados de comenzar la producción en Nashville y trataremos de tener el piloto en EPIX en el 2010”.

En cuanto tengamos las primeras imágenes, las postearemos de volada.

I just got finished saying I want to read these stories and strictly focus on “what was on the page.”  And then, in a stroke of disdainful irony, the first story in the queue is by a celebrity.

That’s what Sam Shepard is, isn’t he?  He’s not known primarly as a short story writer, although Amazon lists several collections.  He’s the playwright who gave us “Buried Child,” “True West” and “A Lie of the Mind,” along with many others written when he was theater’s scenemaker, first in the East Village and later San Francisco. Even more people recognize him as an actor — a good-looking, lean, rugged kind of guy, Clint Eastwood but even more tight-lipped.  In “The Right Stuff,” he portrayed test-pilot Chuck Yeager and Levon Helm played his crewman. Before each flight, they had the same ritual dialogue:

Sam Shepard

Chuck Yeager: Hey, Ridley, ya got any Beeman’s?
Jack Ridley: Yeah, I think I got me a stick.
Chuck Yeager: Loan me some, will ya? I’ll pay ya back later.
Jack Ridley: Fair enough.

So, it’s hard to read “Indianapolis (Highway 74)” as anything but the musings of this well-known writer and actor, who seems a lot like the main character, Stuart.  The memory that triggers the encounter with Becky in the lobby of a hotel outside Indianapolis, is of a time when the two of them lived like bohemians together near St. Mark’s Church in the East Village, sharing a bowl of wheat germ in bed.   St. Mark’s Church is where Shepard’s theater career got its start.

The story plays out as a dramatization of Robin Williams’ one-liner, “If you remember the 60s, you weren’t there.”  When Becky, “a tall skinny woman in a cloth Pat Nixon-type coat” sees Stuart, he doesn’t remember her at all, until she frees her mane of red hair from a bandanna.  “Now it all comes back,” he tells us, but he still can’t remember her name.  Humiliatingly, she makes him guess, seemingly to prove that although she was “so in love” with Stuart, Stuart couldn’t be bothered with the chore of keeping her in his memory.  Once again, a reader thinks, “Right, because he was Sam Shepard, the handsome genius of the East Village who turned into a movie star. He must have laid hundreds of hippie chicks back then. Plus he probably took a lot of drugs. How could she expect him to remember her?”

Their decades-later, supremely awkward encounter takes place because Stuart is waiting to see if a room opens up at the Holiday Inn.  He’s “been crisscrossing the country again, without much reason,” he explains in the story’s first sentence.  On this particular night, it’s late and snowing hard, so he’s willing to wait in the lobby, under constant assault from a violent reality TV show.

The assault on Becky is equally disturbing.  Her entire being is negated in this story, immediately by Stuart’s cruel memory lapse, and more deeply by her unnamed husband, who has “disappeared” with their two teenage daughters.  She is “in limbo” at the Holiday Inn, an allusion to death that Shepard brings to his final image of her, “standing there shivering, without her coat, and the snow catches hold of her red hari and it glows in the backlight, like a halo.  Am I now having a religious experience?”

Becky is a spirit stripped of form and identity who tries to be an angel — offering Stuart the sofa in her hotel room.  Clearly afraid of her, he declines politely but firmly.  He drives on, but the snow is falling so heavily he can’t see anything, which prompts an epiphany from the depths of memory:

Maybe there’s a correlation between external blindness and internal picturing. I can see the edge of the mattress now, and our gray bowls side by side, our knees touching. These are some of the other things that go sailing through my head as I strain to keep the car between the lines: Leaving the desert on a clear day. Boarding the Greyhound. Getting off in Times Square. Huge poster of a pop group from England with Three Stooges haircuts. Blood bank with a sign in the window offering five dollars a pint. Black whores with red hair. Chet Baker standing in a doorway on Avenue C. Tompkins Square Park, with its giant dripping American elms. Cabbage-and-barley soup. Hearing Polish for the first time. Old World women in bandannas and overcoats. Cubans playing chess. Rumors of acid and TCP. Crowds gathered around a black limo, listening to a radio report of Kennedy’s killing. Jungles burning with napalm. Caskets covered in American flags. Mules hauling Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s coffin. Stanley Turrentine carrying his axe in a paper sack.

I’m turning around. I’m in the middle of a blizzard and I’m turning around.

Stuart has decided to take Becky up on her offer after all.  The snow is only the proximate cause.  He wants to, what, honor the memory she offered him? To find comfort in her, or to give her comfort?  He swims upstream through the channels of hotel policies designed to ensure guest privacy until he gets Becky on the phone.  All she has to say is “Hello,” and “the simple innocence of her voice starts me weeping and I can’t stop….”  As desperate as Becky is, she is an angel to Stuart.

That’s where the story stops.  It is a surprisingly sentimental ending, but I wasn’t especially moved by it. The way the story is written, Becky is a compelling character, but Stuart is not. He’s driving around the Midwest “without much reason.” His choice of the hotel is “random.”  We’re supposed to see him as lost, but he doesn’t clarify much about what set him on this journey. What we learn about him isn’t much more than that he’s tired and annoyed by loud TVs, women who make him guess their names and dogs that take too long to finish peeing.  Thus, it’s ambiguous whether, at the end, he’s just giving in to his need for sleep and safety, or if this woman has really changed him.  His epiphany has little to do with her and much to do with his earliest memories of New York — his youth.

The story finally seems more like a chapter from a memoir.  You fill in the blanks of what you don’t know about Stuart with details you might recall about Sam Shepard. He does nothing to undo such an impression. His New York recollections underscore it.  I think we’re seeing in this story an example of a literary hybrid that might be a signal of our age — a mix of fiction and memoir, where it’s understood that the central character, the narrator, is the writer but the incidents might or might not have happened.

Perhaps Sam Shepard actually does drive around the interstates in the middle of winter, and perhaps there was a night when, to his surprise, a woman presented herself to him as an old flame. Or maybe the woman never appeared, but he fantasized about her while sitting in that Holiday Inn lobby waiting to see if a room opened up.   Though you wonder:  If Sam Shepard was sitting in the lobby of a busy hotel, wouldn’t somebody want his autograph?

P.S. This story has a curious correspondence with the Stephen King story I mentioned in the first post.  In both stories, the main characters have dogs. And, in both stories, the main characters are weeping uncontrollably at the end.  I wonder if the editor noticed this.  If she did, I wonder if she considered pulling one of the stories, or at least spacing them farther apart.  Probably couldn’t do it.  King has a novel out just now, and Shepard’s new collection of stories will be published in January.

Good morning.  Epix is about to take the stage at this the last day of Streaming Media West.  Watch the keynote live at:  www.livestream.com/streamingmedialive/beta. Presentations this weekend at streamingmedia.com/west.  We’ll be posting the remarks here along with a summary of what was said this week by other content distributors and producers:

Emil Rensing, Epix
Epix is a joint venture of Paramount/Lionsgate/MGM that launched three week ago as a FiOS Pay TV cable channel that for $10/month makes its content available to subscribers on any platform :  on TV, on demand, and online.  Epix owns the multiplatform rights for all their titles in the PayTV window of 9-10 months after theatrical release for at least 2y and doesn’t have restrictions on their content like legacy cable providers who signed deals 10 years ago and now have to renegotiate rights for TV Everywhere.   Currently offering 180 first run blockbuster movies and classics, Epix seeks to grow it’s library to 3,000 titles as well as offer outstanding original and event-based programming similar to the HBO, Starz, Showtime model.  Programming like Madonna and Kings of Leon concerts, Sam Shepard’s  Tough Trade and Charlize Theron’s Atlas Shrugged.  Seeking to become home to original storytellers….original programming builds brand for the network.  In terms of the size of the Epix acquisition budget, having just launched they are small now 62 staff, a third focused on digital, wondering whether sponsored star-studded sitcoms like Easy to Assemble and Justine Bateman’s FM78.tv then become an attractive option. Emil Rensing, founder of Next New Networks, shares space with Boxee in New York, is a digital guy agnostic about formats, hoping to see Epix on that toaster we’ve been talking about.  A media business, Epix is proud of its technology partners who provide a seamless playback experience: Akamai, Adobe, ClipSync. Amazing friending feature allows you to invite up to four friends to sit in a virtual screening room, watch the movie together, and chat via pop up speech bubbles.  The friends do not need to be an Epix subscriber. You can check out Epix this weekend.  Three day passes are available at www.epixhd.com/invite.   Watch Iron Man, Cloverfield, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, all four Indie Jones movies, even Scorsese’s Mick Jagger doc, Shine a Light.  Epix will be the first to run the Star Trek movie in the new year, so stay tuned.
(per SMW remarks)

Anthony Soohoo, CBS
CBS distribution strategy online, on mobile, in the connected home has been open, non-exclusive hyperdistribution to AOL, Yahoo!, Google, MSN. CBS.com watch full shows. TV.com nexgen navigation with integrated TiVo functionality and online personalized guide watchlists for the 20mm users of TV.com (2mm iPhone app downloads).  TV shows now, movies in the pipeline.  CBS Web Originals believes there are different ways to tell stories in terms of byte size text format, take about 3-4 different shows on a quarterly basis, on a project finance basis, find a sponsor working with the creators, then distribute across CBS properties and CBS Audience Network, bring expertise on sales side, largest video sales force out there, CBS Interactive is the 4th largest video player in the world, reach on a monthly basis 120mm.  Offer content creators sales and distribution piece mixed up with the TheInsider.com, TV.com, Chow.com, CBS.com.  300 syndicated partners.  A combination of having limited resources and it being early stage for the connected devices, focusing more on mobile right now.  TV Everywhere great for consumer, but only 52% of broadcast nets making content available, 10% cable nets, no economic model/measurement.
(per Commonwealth Club SmarterTV remarks)

Tom Gorke, MTV
Tasked with monetizing content off owned and operated 300 websites worldwide, goal is multiplatform, to stay close to consumer, drive awareness and traffic.  MTV is the largest provider of content to Xbox and iTunes.  The biggest driver of paid download to own is the need for portability, take it with you on the flight.  The need to aggregate a library of content has matured.  Done well on Hulu, Fancast, Atom, GameTrailers, DailyMotion, Veoh.  MTV is all about automation, too much content, it wouldn’t scale if had to customize, even putting a flag in a feed is tough.  Have close relationship with syndication partners, provide exclusive one off promotional content, lots of assets, art work, graphics.  Syndication partners care most about reliability and regularity of delivery, and standards of quality of content.  FB pulls a lot of content from MTV.  Really saw the power of Twitter during the VMAs with Kanye West.  MTV integrates Twitter into sites, audience of engaged folks.  Leading provider of mobile content, sold over 1mm of the 16 iPhone apps, VCast.  Live streaming tentpoles like Kids Choice Awards, VMAs. Live streaming is completely different technology (Ustream, Justin.TV, Kyte, Livestream).  When Ashton Kutcher did his Fantasy Football Show on Ustream viewership went from 100,000 to 1mm viewers, it had a watercoolers effect and was played everywhere all at once.  For the experiment, bought ad unit and inserted Ustream player – was expensive.
(per SMW remarks)

Vanessa Pappas, Next New Networks
500mm streams online in 3 years, 30mm views/month, believe in super-syndication concept, be where the audience is.  Yahoo! has been great for family entertainment, long form does well on iTunes.  TubeMogul is integrated in content management system but do a manual refresh to optimize sites that perform for you.  Recently hired category manager from YouTube.  Know your syndicated partner’s audience.  On Twitter you can’t just post and pray, need to have dialogue with engaged community.  Share office with Boxee, getting on Boxee, Roku..
(per SMW remarks)

Brett Wislon, TubeMogul
Free supersyndication service to Blip.tv, Break, Brightcove, DailyMotion, eBaum’s World, Facebook, Graspr, Grind TV, Howcast, i2TV, Imeem, Metacafe, MSN Video, Myspace, Revver, Sclipo, Sevenload, Streetfire, Twitter, StupidVideos, Veoh, VideoJug, Y! Video, YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, 5min, Zoopy.  Best campaigns are hybrid like the recent intentionally lame Windows 7 videos.  Got 5.5mm views in September, impressive for a brand.  http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/24/video-windows-7-launch-party-parody-is-bleeping-genius/3.  Most have given up on trying to make money in online video.  Although YouTube is 50% of the game, study found that those that also syndicated to niche sites saw a 100x increase in viewership than those just on YouTube.  Greater success with vertical focus.  Analytics allow you to see where video is most embedded, can see if a specific mommy blog is an important outlet and starting feeding them exclusive content which they love because content drives traffic.  Moving from super-syndication (content everywhere blast) to hyper-syndication (content to engaged fans fast).  FB has no video strategy but is a top ten video site.  Study found most engaged viewers came from Twitter.
(per SMW remarks)

Brandon White, FUNimation
License anime content, aim to meet the needs of the licensors in Japan.  Syndicated via ad-supported video, iTunes, Xbox/Zune, PS3.  Use YouTube for fingerprinting.  Plan to syndicated across all CE devices – mobile, Blu-ray, web-enabled tvs.
(per SMW remarks)

Jim Louderback, Revision 3
Syndicates 20 shows including Diggnation broadly anywhere, anytime, any device, want to be where our audience millennial men live.  Auto-syndicates with Tubemogul but still need to manually refresh metadata at each site.
(per SMW remarks)

Dominik Rausch, Eleven Minutes Production, Easy To Assemble
EasytoAssembleSeries.com is a sponsored star-studded sitcom that has garnered 4.2mm+ views between its Season I & II on MyDamnChannel, YouTube, Ikeafans.com, KoldKastTV, Hulu.  Also distributed on iTunes.  In talks with DVD sales, releasing on hotel networks, subtitles for 10-15 additional countries in Europe & Asia.  Innovative series where in addition to celebrities like Illeana Douglas, Justine Bateman, Tom Arnold…IKEA is a co-star.  Web series same premium quality as film, all 10 episodes of second season strings together as a movie.  Production company is thinking of new ways to make content adapting to fragmented time-shifting society.  As traditional TV distribution disappears, new media will take over distribution for all platforms.
(per Commonwealth Club SmarterTV remarks)

Brent Friedman, Electric Farm
Production budget for Crackle’s Woke Up Dead is over $1mm, high for a web production but has talent attached which attracted integrated sponsors like Kodak.   (Premise of show is friend trying to monetize fact that friend is a living zombie, sub-plot pitching to brands for sponsorship).  Sometimes you have to take a risk to get a bigger payoff just like more marketing dollars equals more views.  Kodak also cross-promoted on their own site which over a million monthly uniques.  Valemont is a success with an engaged community of 25,000.
(per SMW remarks)

Thom Woodley, Dinosuar Diorama
All-For-Nots co-produced with Eisner’s Vuguru.  Doesn’t like sponsor integration, hurts show creatively, prefer ad-insertion, and smaller more engaged audiences of 50-100,000, hasn’t quit his day job as ad agency exec yet. Show All’s Faire about the Renaissance Faire reaches 20,000 Renaissance Faire fans plus sci fi, comics and comedy buffs.
(per SMW remarks)

Como complemento a la autobiografía de Kurosawa que desde hace ya varios años tenemos a nuestro alcance en su traducción al español, nada mejor que echarle un vistazo a este extenso documental, dirigido por Adam Low, que nos acerca aún más la vida y las películas de quien es considerado, junto a Mizoguchi, Ozu y Naruse, uno de los cuatro grandes del cine japonés, y el más accesible a la mirada occidental.

        A través de la narración de Sam Shepard y los testimonios del propio cineasta, su familia, y varios de sus colaboradores, las imágenes nos muestran los momentos más decisivos de la vida de Kurosawa -la estricta educación recibida, el suicidio de su hermano, la crisis tras el fracaso de su propia productora al estrenar Dodes´ka-Den (1970), que le lleva a no encontrar financiación en su propio país y a un intento de suicidio, etc- y de su trayectoria como director, desde sus inicios como guionista en films propagandísticos y los primeros trabajos como realizador durante la guerra y la ocupación estadounidense, pasando por sus grandes obras maestras -que descubren el cine japonés a gran parte de la crítica europea y que son, algunas de ellas, objeto de remakes-, hasta sus últimos films producidos en el extranjero, con capital soviético Dersu Uzala (1975) y con capital norteamericano (Lucas, Coppola y Spielberg) desde Kagemusha (1980) hasta Madadayo (1993), su testamento cinematográfico.

           Editado en DVD por Filmax.

Soused in tall tales, volatile repartee, and introspective pauses, Sam Shepard’s play takes place on a wooden porch somewhere in backwoods America. At the request of Ames (Stephen Rea), two old friends have met up for the first time in many years. The opening scene finds them sitting outside, steadily knocking back bourbon, and catching up in their own inimitable way. Byron (Sean McGinley) is the milder and more poetic of the two. However, his occasionally flowery language and his regular need for clarification and precision typically get on the nerves of the much more blunt and temperamental Ames.

There then follows an engaging, free-flowing, and quick-fire exchange between the pair of them, with plenty of abrasive remarks and attempts at one-upmanship. Ames would have us believe that he casually picks up so many women that he cannot specifically remember an encounter with a girl well under half his age. Byron boasts of once enjoying a $1,000 glass of whiskey. Through a combination of drink and proximity, though, their confident facades are slowly peeled back to reveal far more vulnerable aspects to each character.

Ironically, given Ames’ protests about how he does not care for metaphor, the gradually setting sun and the eventual onset of a lunar eclipse underscores their reminiscences about past events and their ruminations about how they both have aged. Indeed, Ames even takes Dylan Thomas’ powerful urging in respect of the dying of the light quite literally in the play’s most memorably comic scene. Nevertheless, for all of the playful laughs along the way, there is something distinctly Beckettian about how Byron stoically reveals the depths of his suffering at the end.

Time and memory are equally explored in the play. At one stage, Byron cannot remember how long he has been at the cabin. At another juncture, they squabble over how long they have known each other. At various points, there are cantankerous disputes over dimming recollections. Ames even seems to age as the play goes on, with his conversation arcing from fellatio to an old man’s complaints about bus travel. By way of contrast then, attention is drawn to how the moon is billions of years old – a gentle reminder of how we are faced with the paradox of living in this huge, ancient, and uncaring universe and yet be overwhelmed, at times, by our own personal tragedies and dilemmas.

Shepard wrote the play specifically with these two actors in mind and the slick interaction between McGinley and Rea is fantastic to watch. Equally, Brien Vahey’s wooden cabin and Paul Keogan’s lighting combine well to fill what is otherwise a huge stage for a two-character play. While the final act may be a tad maudlin, it is arguably consistent with the amount of booze that the pair have consumed over the course of the day. Moreover, in keeping with the spirit of Ames’ likely thoughts on the matter, it is not the sort of play that needs to be understood deeply in order to be enjoyed greatly.

Photos – Ros Kavanagh

In Sam Shepard’s ‘Ages of the Moon’, not a lot happens. Two men drink, sitting on a porch. Nobody else comes along. One of them leaves, briefly. Most of what they talk about is objectively meaningless: rambling musings on life, alcohol, women; shared memories of past misadventures. A fan hums above them erratically, till one of them shoots it. They have a fight. One of them is hurt. It seems bad. They watch the moon.

The play is softly melancholic, with a streak of bleakness and despair, and a countervailing seam of hope and humanity. It is a gentle entertainment, in which the meandering earlier scenes, which are dominated by a sometimes-awkward burlesque comedy, lead to the payoff of a closing sequence of simple, stark beauty and emotional clarity.

The action, such as it is, takes place across a long day’s drinking, as the two men await a pre-dawn eclipse of the moon. One of the men (Stephen Rea) has been thrown out by his wife for having an affair; in distress, he has summoned his best friend (Seán McGinley) to join him at a rural retreat. The men are old, old friends; their tone with each other is laconic, occasionally antagonistic, all the while disguising real affection.

Stephen Rea is an extravagant clown to Seán McGinley’s straight man. Rea hams it up something almighty, but he is playing for absurdity rather than for straight laughs, stretching his face and frame into comically exaggerated positions, and then holding them, or refining them, till they become almost uncomfortable to watch. McGinley sits back and lets Rea do the work, till the final scenes. Then, Rea’s character is suddenly deflated, unsure, and McGinley holds the stage with a monologue of loss and loneliness that is riveting.

Sam Shepard is by now well known to Abbey audiences: this is the fourth Shepard play in three years that Jimmy Fay has directed at the Peacock, and the second play that Shepard has written for the Abbey, after ‘Kicking a Dead Horse’ in 2007.

That relationship is something of a coup for the Abbey, internationally. Since the 1920s, the Abbey has been a standard bearer for Irish culture in the US, in particular; though it is no longer alone in that regard, with Druid and the Gate surpassing the Abbey in terms of raw impact in recent years, the Abbey remains a touchstone for Irish theatre and culture, and it is important that it maintain an international reputation.

Brian Cowen spoke to this theme in his ard-fheis address. “Ireland is a brand,” he said. “Our country, her landscape and her culture are known the world over. We must connect with that brand now and use it to give us the competitive advantage in a globalised world that is increasingly the same.” You could spend all day parsing that statement for its implications for the role of the arts; most simply, though, it acknowledges that the work that the Abbey, and other institutions, do, is important in driving some sense of who we are in the wider world.

The relationship with Shepard is clearly also a boon to the National Theatre’s standing amongst our own theatre community; the presence of Rea and McGinley on stage is a statement of ambition and status for the Abbey.

These are good, pragmatic reasons for the Abbey to cultivate Shepard. But what of the principles? Does Shepard add to the ‘national theatre’? Are his plays talking to us as a nation – or are they simply glamorous imports?

Fiach MacConghail, the Abbey’s director, has said that a key reason to stage Shepard here is because of the strong influence of Beckett in Shepard’s work: Irish audiences can ‘get’ Shepard, in a way that, perhaps, other audiences can’t. (I am extrapolating from previous comments by MacConghail.)

Certainly, Beckett’s ghost is a looming presence in ‘Ages of the Moon’, though Shepard seems gentler and more optimistic in his vision. But while it may be of use to Shepard to have an audience that is (supposedly) closer to Beckett’s roots, I’m not certain that the relationship works in reverse. Beckett became perhaps the most influential playwright of the second half of the 20th century. Being influenced by him is not novel.

There is another Irish connection in Shepard’s work: the theme of rupture with the land. His characters are familiar to us, even though their speech sounds like something from the movies: they are sundered from their (sometimes mythical) past, a time when they lived in synergy with a harsh environment. But do we need four productions to explore this?

When I spent a few years burrowed away in a college drama society in the mid 1990s, Sam Shepard was one of the dominant influences. His plays were sexy, violent, ambivalent, sad, and required American accents; they had everything a student group could want.

Fifteen or so years on, there remains much that is attractive about Shepard’s work, and much that is engaging and provocative. He is a consummate playwright. But there are other companies putting on the work of leading international playwrights (Rough Magic this week brings us an Irish premiere by a leading Canadian writer, Michel Tremblay, ‘Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer’, at the Project Arts Centre). For all their proficiency, the Abbey brings little more to Shepard’s work than did those student productions. There are a host of Irish writers under commission by the Abbey: the Peacock is their stage. Bring them on.

Sam Shepard’s ‘Ages of the Moon’ returns to the Abbey Theatre, this time on the main stage. This is a piece I wrote for the Irish Independent on the original production on the Peacock, in March.

Es cierto, quien escribe no tiene más remedio que confesarlo: uno, que, como en todo lo demás, cuando ama, ama en exceso (lo que vulgarmente se llama “hasta las trancas”), no es en cambio de puertas para fuera un tipo especialmente romántico. Al menos no hasta que se pone (o se ponía) a ello con algo de esfuerzo. Quizá, a lo Bogart (ya quisiera uno ser como Bogart… en eso), tras su espíritu cenizo, su sarcasmo sin descanso y su cinismo abierto las veinticuatro horas, se oculta un sentimental (como le decía Claude Rains en Casablanca). Pero romántico, en términos almibarados, lo que comúnmente conocemos como “moñas”, lo que se dice romántico, uno no es. Así que volvemos a ir contracorriente en esta sección al recoger la apología de la moñez que supone El diario de Noa, azucaradas dos horas de mermelada de grosella dirigidas por Nick Cassavetes (ilustre apellido mancillado en esta ocasión) en 2004 y que para un amplio espectro de público se ha colocado junto a Ghost o Dirty Dancing (puaj, me crujen los dedos al escribir este título) como una de las referencias habituales a la hora de rescatar algún producto digno dentro de ese endemoniado género de pastiches sentimentaloides que ha dado en llamarse “comedia romántica” y que tantos pestiños incluye, entre los cuales, para este enfant terrible de la cosa del cuore, figura ésta en un puesto de honor.

Vaya por delante que se trata de una película no especialmente mal filmada sino que, al contrario, como toda cinta a caballo entre épocas distintas, supone un notable esfuerzo de producción y ambientación, sobre todo a la hora de componer los distintos escenarios que contiene la historia, desde un pueblecito de los años treinta y cuarenta hasta las breves escenas que tienen la guerra como marco, en la que Cassavetes no se mueve mal, consiguiendo una factura visual y técnica sin alardes pero eficaz. El problema, como tantas veces, no es la forma, sino el fondo, empezando por la previsibilidad del guión. Construida como una acumulación de flashbacks o una retrospectiva fragmentada, la película usurpa en buena parte la estética y la atmósfera del cine mal llamado independiente para contarnos una historia a partir del relato que Duke (James Garner), un anciano que vive en una residencia, lee continuamente y siempre que hay ocasión a Allie (Gena Rowlands), otra residente que arrastra acuciantes problemas de memoria. La historia, claro, trata de dos jóvenes que se conocen durante los años treinta y que viven un amor que es la pera: Noah (Ryan Gosling, otro actor de una sola cara) y, atención, Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams). Los mocetes se encuentran en un verano en Carolina del Norte y se encandilan a pesar de que son de extracciones sociales muy opuestas, ella de familia bien y él hijo de un peón (Sam Sephard). Y, cómo no, la cosa empieza con azúcar: el chico se queda tan prendado de la chica que, habiendo subido ésta a la noria de una feria con otro mozo, el joven Noah trepa hasta arriba y amenaza con arrojarse desde lo alto si ella no acepta salir con él. La chica lo toma por un lunático pero, en el fondo halagada y empezando a segregar sustancias corporales varias, por supuesto, acepta.

Desde ese momento, salpicada por continuas vueltas a la residencia en la que la pareja de ancianos comenta la historia, la narración se construye sobre todos los tópicos habidos y por haber sobre lo cursi, tanto en los diálogos como en las situaciones, para mostrarnos el gran amor que viven estos muchachotes: comparten algodón de azúcar, pasean de la mano, contemplan puestas de sol en el campo y, tras haberse mojado con un repentino chaparrón veraniego en mitad del campo se dedican a fornicar, de modo muy romántico, eso sí, en una habitación iluminada con velas de la que el día de mañana ha de ser la casa de sus sueños… Pero claro, los papás de la nena, como el chaval no tiene dónde caerse muerto, lo toman como algo pasajero y no aceptan que, cuando la cosa se pone chunga y la niñata pijotera consentida se empeña en continuar con su novio, su hija se comprometa con semejante mangurrián. Así que, de manera igualmente tópica, la cosa deriva en el drama de un amor imposible por oposición paterna, correo postal inteceptado y Segunda Guerra Mundial incluidos, y en cómo los chicos se separan para reencontrarse años después, cuando él es un tipo de éxito y ella está comprometida con otro (otro tópico), un hijo de papá forrado y de futuro económico asegurado. El drama oscila pues entre ese amor renacido y las comodidades materiales de un matrimonio económicamente próspero entre gente guapa (más tópicos, es la guerra…), y claro, el triunfo del amor es inevitable: no hace falta ser un hacha para que, a través de la coincidencia de nombres mal disimulada averigüemos quién es la pareja de ancianos de la residencia y por qué él le cuenta a ella una vez tras otra la historia.

Además de esta sorpresa que de tan telegrafiada resulta de lo más previsible, es precisamente la tremenda cursilería la que arruina el ingenio que todo esto pudiera tener, sobre todo el juego entre los ancianos desmemoriados y su interés en una historia que presuntamente trata de dos jóvenes desconocidos (y, con perdón, un poco gilipollas). Bien contada pero sin mordiente, sin garra, fuerza ni pasión, la película no deja de ser un drama ajeno en el que el espectador entrará o no según su propio grado de azucaramiento, en el que cuesta encontrar humor, ironía, inteligencia, brillantez en los diálogos u originalidad en las situaciones y en la que sobran clichés y pasteleo. Tanta glucosa se atraganta tanto que uno casi llega a desear que tanto amor se vaya por el sumidero, y el único condimento que podría salvar este monumento al tedio gelatinado, la mala baba, brilla por su ausencia. Será que uno no es un romántico o que la vida no le ha dejado serlo…

Acusados: todos
Atenuantes: la dirección artística
Agravantes: azúcar, mermelada, miel, gelatina, merengue y todos los dulces que el lector sea capaz de imaginar
Sentencia: culpables
Condena: supositorios de sal a tutiplén

Sam Shepard, Crónicas de Motel. Barcelona: Anagrama.

Farà cosa d’un mes, comentàvem aquí una foto de Vladimir Nabokov en la que l’escriptor apareixia mirant-nos des de la finestreta d’un cotxe que ell, rus i senyor al cap i a la fi, no conduia. Parlàvem llavors de com Lolita, la seva principal obra mestra, havia contribuit notablement a fixar tota una mitologia que ja per sempre relacionarem amb els Estats Units del segle XX: la mitologia en blanc i negre, amb música de fons variada, dels cotxes, els motels i les carreteres secundàries que potser condueixen cap a la terra promesa pel vell Somni Americà.

Cotxes, motels i carreteres secundàries: d’aquests tres elements constitutius del mite, el de regust més purament americà és, no cal dir-ho, el motel. (De cotxes i carreteres també en tenim aquí, a la vella Europa; de motels, però, si en tenim, són falsos.) Potser per això mateix, els motels mantenen als nostres ulls un cert aire d’indret estrany i poc familiar, de lloc de pas carregadíssim d’històries possibles. Els motels fan por i atreuen alhora. A un motel, ho hem après al cinema, ens pot passar qualsevol cosa, des de ser assassinats a la dutxa fins a ser assassinats davant la màquina de gel del passadís. Amb la seva posició sempre al marge del camí,  amb la perfecció de la seva natura de no-lloc intercambiable, amb el seu anonimat i la seva sordidesa, el motor hotel encarna tota mena de símbols de la nostra (pos)modernitat.     

Tot això, per dir que m’ha agradat molt aquest llibre.

Sam Shepard, es nota, ha viscut exactament el tipus de vida que un s’imagina que ha de viure un hoste habitual d’aquest tipus d’establiments. I amb aquesta matèria prima, la seva pròpia vida, ha escrit un llibre que transmet una absoluta sensació d’immediatesa. Viure de cotxe en cotxe i de motel en motel és (ha de ser) justament això: anar acumulant història sobre un mateix, anar juntant a la memòria rostres, veus, dates i noms de ciutats, anar omplint les butxaques de paperets plens de poemes i d’anotacions i de relats breus i directes com els que composen aquestes Crónicas de motel.

Us copio un d’aquests relats fugaços, datat a Homestead Valley, Califòrnia, el 25 d’abril de l’any 81:

Recuerdo cuando intentaba imitar la sonrisa de Burt Lancaster después de haberle visto con Gary Cooper en Veracruz. Durante muchos días estuve practicando en el patio de atrás. Serpenteando por entre las tomateras. Riendo con todos los dientes al desnudo. Riéndome de esa risa. Alzando el labio superior para descubrir los dientes. Después de practicar esa sonrisa durante unos cuantos días intenté utilizarla ante las chicas de la escuela. Ellas no parecían ni enterarse. Forcé mi interpretación hasta que empezaron a producirse extrañas reacciones entre mis compañeros. Miraban fijamente mis dientes, y asomaba a sus ojos una expresión asustada. Ya no me acordaba de lo feos que eran mis dientes. De que uno de ellos lo tenía podrido, de color pardo y montado encima del diente roto que estaba a su lado. De hecho, había llegado a estar convencido de que era poseedor de una hilera de perfectos y perlados dientes como los de Burt Lancaster. Como no quería asustar a nadie, dejé de reír en cuanto me di cuenta de lo que pasaba. Sólo lo hacía cuando estaba solo. Poco después dejé de hacerlo incluso a solas. Volví a mi cara vacía.

Aquest és el to: frases curtes, estil directe i un munt de petites històries que dibuixen tot un món sencer i una manera de viure-hi.

Els poemes, penso, són potser la part més fluixa del llibre; però, tot i així, de tant en tant ens trobem amb versos tan potents com aquests:

hubo una época en que Mamá llevaba un 45

yo en una cadera

la pistola en la otra

vivía en una comunidad de mujeres

esposas de pilotos

cabañas metálicas prefabricadas

llovía constantemente

O com aquests altres, que semblen un haiku de l’era post-industrial:

Rondó por la piscina

del Holiday Inn

y de golpe se sintió completamente inútil.

Segons explica la contraportada del llibre, Crónicas de motel fou el punt de partida de la pel·lícula París, Texas. Segons Wim Wenders, «el film que yo había querido hacer en los Estados Unidos estaba ahí, en ese lenguaje, esas palabras, esa emoción americana. No como un guión, sino como una atmósfera, un sentido de la observación, una suerte de verdad. » No sembla una carta de recomanació gens dolenta.

  Sam Shepard

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Shepard

http://www.epdlp.com/escritor.php?id=2307

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/brownsville-girl

Emilio Lledó

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Lled%C3%B3

http://www.filosofia.org/ave/001/a106.htm

http://www.redeseducacion.net/literatura1.htm

Hey people, sorry I missed last week… if you care at all. But it was a busy week for me! My Halloween show, the original adaptation of “The Monkey’s Paw” went swimmingly with great feedback. Now here we are, in a brand new week, whatever that might mean. This week, I’m going on an audition for an Equity (Union) production of “A Lie of the Mind” by Sam Shepard. This is great. Not that I’m going to be cast in it, but it’s great that this show is going to be produced. Since the recession came into being, the theater scene has kind of been castrated. All you saw for a long time was musicals, musicals, nothing but musicals. Now, musicals are great, but they’re there because they are the big money makers, they are huge spectacles. But the strait plays (non musical plays) fell by the wayside for a while. These are the plays that really dig into issues and topics and characters, and where the whole theater community can really create something for the sake of what is going on on-stage, and not really worry about the spectacle of it, and if the songs are catchy enough.
Not only this, but playwrights I love (Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Martin McDonagh, Harold Pinter) have not been produced in a long time (I feel like), but now we’re starting to see them come back. Oleanna (Mamet) is on Broadway now (with Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman; break out that student ID and score yourself some student rush tickets!), A Lie of the Mind (Shepard) is being produced, and McDonagh is releasing a new play through the Atlantic Theater Company later in the season.
You might find me lame, but I find this quite exciting.

www.stephenmedvidick.com