by Christina Waters | Feb 23, 2007 | Home, Movies |
We Don’t Play Golf Here, a half-hour documentary film by prolific political auteur Saul Landau, screens at 4pm this Wednesday, February 28, at UCSC’s Conference Room D, Bay Tree Building. Come meet the filmmaker, watch the new film and listen to some choice analysis of the current global miasma, followed by a reception for Landau. A lifelong observer of Latin American politics and culture, Landau once again turns his passionate liberal eye on our neighbor to the south. What he finds provides eloquent documentation —edgy and embarrassing — of the eco-cultural perils of economic globalization.
The half-hour film works, in classic Landau style, by means of wry, engaging images and interviews, to show us the real casualties of first world greed — the hard-working poor of Mexico. Comprising a trio of educational vignettes, the film opens with a withering dismissal of plans to put a full-on golf course and country club in the town of Tepoztlan, whose environmentally-savvy citicizens mocked the planned corporate disaster. “We don’t want this type of progress,†notes the newly-elected Tepoztlan mayor.
Another segment takes aim at Boise Cascade’s take-over of logging in Guerrero, complete with tales of torture endured by Mexican peasants who attempted to stop the clear-cutting of local forests. The filmmaker captures painful confessions of former Levi Strauss factory workers whose El Paso jobs were abruptly terminated in favor of the cheaper labor pool of China.
Landau’s eye sees it all – toxic waste, loss of jobs, eco-disasters, and the irrationality of capitalism. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Feb 22, 2007 | Movies |
Who can resist making Oscar predictions? Not me – so here goes.
In a word – Babel, Babel, Babel. I like this intricate love song to trans-cultural existentialism to win Best Picture. Babel should also take Best Director, but given the collective guilt the Academy feels over not having awarded Martin Scorsese the directing award for his Howard Hughes film, it will probably be the much-unOscar’d auteur who steps up to the podium for his directorial work in The Departed.
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker – pretty obvious.
Best Actress: Who else? The Queen. What a terrible year to have been anyone other than Helen Mirren.
Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin, because he is a national treasure.
Supporting Actress: Little miss Abigail Breslin
Original Screenplay: Babel (you should be detecting a theme here…)
Foreign Language Film: Pan’s Labyrinth, because it turned cinema into archetype
Animated Feature: Happy Feet – cute overload, and who doesn’t love penguins?
Original Score: Gustavo Santaolalla’s haunting, trans-ethnic music from Babel
Art Direction: Pan’s Labyrinth, such dark and charismatic film stock
Cinematography: Pan’s Labyrinth
Makeup and Sound: Apocalypto – calm down! such over-the-top sensory miracles should be rewarded
Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth, made by the man who should have been the current president.
Film Editing: UCSC alum Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise, for Babel.
by Christina Waters | Jan 25, 2007 | Home, Movies |
The dark Spanish melancholy that informs director Guillermo del Toro’s small masterpiece of magic realism, gives this film unforgettable power. As dark as any Zurbarán or Ribera, Pan’s Labyrinth interweaves two worlds and two realities — that of a child’s fairytale longings, and the ruthless fascism of Franco’s Spain.
If it sounds like a marriage of hope and hell, it is — but the ending alone, which spins yet another uncanny twist, is pure enchantment. Del Toro’s imagination (Hellboy) provides visuals that evoke Cocteau and Buñuel, with a healthy dose of Brothers Grimm as visualized by Frida Kahlo. The deeply saturated colors of the film stock add to the mood of otherworldly adventure. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Jan 3, 2007 | Home, Movies |
Once upon a time all humans spoke the same language. Really. It says so in the Bible. But then humans transgressed and did something silly. They built this really tall tower and since God had told them not to build it, he had to punish them. Right? So He created many, many different languages, poof! so that people of the world could no longer understand each other. Within the context of that sorrowful story, the movie Babel more than earns its name. The angst and alienation created by the spiritual, political and linguistic dis-connect of today’s world is the film’s theme. Postmodern existentialism at its best. (more…)
