by Jonathan Doyle and Neil Karassik
(with special guest Sarah Duda)
It's been almost three years since our last DVD Marathon, but this weekend we're bringing the tradition back! In honor of recent blaxploitation gem Black Dynamite and its impending DVD/Blu-ray release (expect a review from Neil Karassik in a few days), we're watching/re-watching some blaxploitation classics this weekend. It's Black Film History Month, suckas!
So keep checking this space. We just opened some forties (seriously) and we're kicking-things-off with Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song -- on Criterion laserdisc!
Six full years after completing his first fiction feature (Dog Days), acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ulrich Seidl returned in 2007 with Import/Export, a bleak but rewarding look at the rock-bottom struggles of a young man and woman in the industrial wastelands of Eastern Europe. Paul is a struggling Austrian who lives with his mother and stepfather, while unsuccessfully seeking steady employment and attempting to avoid his seedy, underworld creditors. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, a nurse and single mother named Olga similarly struggles to make ends meet. While their lives are unrelated, Paul and Olga eventually switch countries in a futile effort to find better lives for themselves.
File under long-rumored, but we’ve just received word that Quentin Tarantino’s years-in-gestation new project is going to be an in-name-only remake of Enzo G. Castellari’s giddy WWII-set macaroni combat flick (legit subgenre, honest), The Inglorious Bastards. If this review were written when Castellari's film was initially released on DVD two years back, it would begin somewhat like that. A year and a half later, as Severin's Blu-ray upgrade hits stores, Tarantino’s bizarrely-spelled Inglourious Basterds is the certified recipient of conflicted critical acclaim, Tarantino's best box office performance to date, a swift home video release and eight Oscar nominations. But Tarantino and Castellari's films have little in common -- other than their title(s) and their totally goofball takes on World War 2.
Somewhere between the age when kids learn to speak and the age when they stop being cute, they develop a lethal, extremely offputting habit: manipulating people with their cuteness. There's that knowing glint in their eyes. They know they're cute and they know they can use it to get stuff. That's Zooey Deschanel in a nutshell. For a while, the strong-willed, opinionated awkwardness of her screen persona (in movies like Mumford, Almost Famous and All the Real Girls) was a breath of fresh air, but then she got comfortable and settled into the relaxed, carefree cuteness of Audrey Hepburn, but with the crucial lack of Hepburn's foreign discomfort. Deschanel always seems comfortable onscreen, casually cueing the responses of the audience and her fellow characters. This cuteness is lethal and in (500) Days of Summer it's supposed to be.
This bizarre-looking movie is pretty hard-to-see -- as far as I can tell, it's not even listed on imdb -- but it's definitely out there somewhere. Thanks to DiscLand contributor Jason Woloski for bringing this Jimmy Buffett-scored oddity to my attention. He's seen Tarpon... and he totally vouches for it. -- JD
The Dutchess and the Duke at Sneaky Dee's
The Dutchess and the Duke were in Toronto last night, performing as a two-piece and playing a pretty good balance of album one and album two. Random observation: rarely have I ever seen a band make so many requests for volume adjustments, which is odd given their relatively straightforward double singer-guitarist set-up. For a solid twenty minutes before their set began, both Kimberly Morrison and Jesse Lortz repeatedly asked to have their vocals/guitars turned up and/or down. During this period, they even managed to play lengthy portions of a few songs -- and the (polite) requests didn't stop there. In any case, it turned out to be a pretty solid show, poor sightlines and bizarrely noisy crowd notwithstanding. Watch the following clip and you'll see/hear what I mean. -- JD
Pauline Kael in Conversation
These videos have some strange technical glitches -- and the intro is repeated in each clip -- but this is a rare chance to see legendary film critic Pauline Kael in conversation. People who take issue with her occasionally harsh, contrarian approach to film criticism may be surprised by the humor, enthusiasm and level-headedness she exhibits here, but I always thought these qualities were pretty evident in her writing. Either way, prepare for some enlightening thoughts on the work of Robert Preston, John Boorman, Sidney Lumet, Paul Newman, etc. -- JD
A couple years back, Milestone Films re-released Charles Burnett's little-known, would-be seventies classic Killer of Sheep. Partly financed by Steven Soderbergh, that re-release brought the film considerable acclaim, landing it on many best-of lists at the end of the year (including sixth place on Film Comment's prestigious critics' poll). Burnett has followed in Soderbergh's footsteps, offering his name (and possibly some money) to Milestone's re-release of Kent Mackenzie's similarly hard-to-see ethnographic gem, The Exiles. While this film didn't make quite the same impact as Killer of Sheep, it still cracked FC's top twenty.
Assembled entirely from archival footage shot in 1974, this strikingly grainy and energetic concert film recalls the good vibes of Dave Chappelle's Block Party and the film that inspired it, Wattstax, but with even better music and much more provocative political content. Most of the latter comes from Muhammad Ali, who mixes good humour with unapologetically confrontational -- and generally accurate, if a bit sweeping -- anti-white rhetoric.
10. Pink Mountaintops - Outside Love
Black Mountain chief Stephen McBean rocks no less feedback in this side-project, but Outside Love's an accomplished, decidedly feel-good album, a reprieve from Black Mountain's usual assault. Some of the tunes could even work as wedding songs. McBean's in fine voice, offering a hip drawl similar in style to Beck, but it's his Lee-and-Nancy-style duets with Jesse Sykes and kick-ass singer Amber Webber that truly elevate this record. Ms. Webber continues to be this troupe's secret weapon and, if you like Black Mountain/Pink Mountaintops, don't forget to check out Lightning Dust. Incidentally, I tend to snicker a little since someone tipped me off that the band's name is code for nipples. -- KS
20. Ganglians – Monster Head Room
It was a big year for Woodsist (see number 14 and 12 on this list), the mom-and-pop record label run by Woods front-man Jeremy Earl. But for reasons that remain somewhat unclear, Ganglians didn’t break through to quite the same extent as other current or former Woodsist artists like Woods, Wavves, Kurt Vile or Real Estate. With its peculiar mix of hippy affectations, Beach Boys melodies and low-fi production methods, Monster Head Room is an infectiously schizophrenic record that suggests Ganglians is willing to try just about anything -- and succeed. The best part? Even after releasing a solid EP and this terrific full-length in the same calendar year, Ganglians upped-the-ante with a 7” featuring their two best tracks to date (“Blood on the Sand,” “Make it Up”). Stay tuned. -- JD
In these early days of Media Party, all music contributions have come from myself, Neil Karassik and Ken Stuebing. Since we're all bored with personal best-of lists -- which journalists tend to exploit for reasons of personal branding and street-cred -- we're with-holding our personal lists and instead posting a list that says more about our collective (and therefore the site's) taste. Our personal lists all included wild cards that are nowhere to-be-found on this popularity contest of a group list, but if it cracked one of our top 10s, chances are it also found a place on the group list. So yes, there are all kinds of oversights (sorry, female musicians), but this is a pretty accurate list of the albums that generated the most interest around Media Party headquarters in 2009. -- JD
For reasons that should be obvious in a minute, this holiday classic rarely gets the attention or airplay it deserves. Produced by MGM on the eve of World War II, Peace on Earth is too dark and depressing for the the happy-go-lucky tastes of today's parents, but it's an extremely potent anti-war message movie. Seventy years later, it still packs a punch. Below Peace on Earth, you'll find its lesser, but still quite effective Hanna-Barbera re-make, Good Will to Men. -- JD
Last Friday, I presented a 16mm scope print of the Donald Sutherland/Jennifer O'Neill/Robert Duvall non-classic Lady Ice at The Trash Palace. As a festive treat, I showed an assortment of classic holiday commercials (mostly from the seventies) after the feature. Here are most of those ads, along with a few added attractions. If The Junky's Christmas didn't put you in a holiday frame-of-mind, don't worry, this should do the trick. Happy Holidays, Media Party readers! -- JD
Whether you love this time of year or can't wait for the hoopla to end, this mix of cheerful and chilly movies should help get you through the holi-daze. To read any of these reviews from DiscLand circa 2006, click on the corresponding thumb nails.
Of particular note is The Junky's Christmas, which has become a surprising holiday staple for me since reviewing this disc three years ago (it's depressing, yet oddly touching... uplifting even). While you should definitely get your hands on this DVD, there isn't much time left before Christmas -- so I've included the complete short (in four brief chapters) below. -- JD
Here's a big YouTube find from occasional Media Party contributor Ken Stuebing:
Inglourious Basterds (Blu-ray)
(Universal Home Video, 12.15.2009)
Quentin Tarantino’s madcap blend of world history, film history and faux history sparked one of this year’s most divisive debates amongst cineastes -- it seemed as though critics and audiences were either dubbing it his best or his worst. For me, QT’s latest genre riff falls somewhere in between, and considering that all of his films are essential viewing, no matter how off-balance or over-indulgent they tend to get, that’s nothing to moan about.
Opening night films at festivals can be a dicey proposition. More often than not, classy, inoffensive, sponsor-friendly films are dragged out to make a good impression -- and then they're promptly forgotten by everyone in the room. Thankfully, the 2008 Hot Docs documentary film festival got underway with precisely the opposite breed of film: Anvil: The Story of Anvil, a skillfully-crafted and unexpectedly affecting doc that may be the most crowd-pleasing non-fiction film of the decade (take that, March of the Penguins). It also turned out to be one of the highlights of the festival and, with the exception of Man on Wire, the entry that reached the widest post-festival audience. Good work, Hot Docs.
10. Pink Mountaintops - Outside Love
20. Ganglians – Monster Head Room
