Pedro Almodovar’s
Bad Education

Reviewed by Evan Sung

Pedro Almodovar’s “Bad Education” is the centerpiece film for this year’s New York Film Festival. Almodovar has certainly made a lasting mark on world cinema, and the film going audience has seen his style and voice evolve from the madcap comedies of “Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown” to his last two sublime offerings, “All About My Mother” and “Talk To Her.” “Bad Education” continues to develop Almodovar’s maturing voice, though never losing his absurdist comic style.

Almodovar returns to the cradle in “Bad Education” tracing the story of a film director, Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez), who is forced to confront his traumatic childhood past when a long-lost schoolmate shows up at his office. Enrique’s past takes the form of Ignacio Rodriguez (Gael Garcia Bernal) who arrives desperate for acting work and with a movie idea based on the two boys’ troubled past at Catholic boys’ school. The story centers on two schoolmates, Ignacio and Enrique, and the young, forbidden love that is interrupted and broken apart by the menacing Father Manolo. In the story, Father Manolo is in love with Ignacio himself, and expels Enrique on the pretense of stopping an immoral love between the two boys. Many years later, Ignacio has become a struggling drag queen looking for money to improve his body and support his drug habit. Ignacio returns to the school where he lost his innocence, and blackmails Father Manolo with the story of those long-forgotten years for the money he needs. Enrique, wary of his past at the outset, is immediately taken after reading the story pitch and begins immediately working on the film adaptation. Enrique casts Ignacio in the film and the two long-lost friends become lovers. But Enrique has difficulty recognizing in the needy and strangely coy Ignacio the young schoolmate he once knew and loved. As Enrique’s adaptation nears completion, he discovers that all is not as it appears. The real Ignacio has died three years earlier, leaving the identity of this new Ignacio a mystery. On the last day of the film’s shooting, the arrival of the real Father Manolo promises to reveal everything…

Clearly, Almodovar is not in search of narrative minimalism. Nor has he ever been. If his past earlier works owed a great deal to the melodramatic twists and turns of Spanish soap opera, “Bad Education” marries that tendency with the great film tradition of Film Noir. Indeed from the opening musical cues, the composer Alberto Iglesias pays homage to the insinuating, noir-ish scores of Bernard Hermann who worked famously with Alfred Hitchcock. The imposture and themes of mistaken and assumed identity also suggest shades of Vertigo, replacing Kim Novak’s Madeleine Elster with the blank figure of Ignacio Rodriguez. “Bad Education” introduces a strain of hard-boiled fatalism into Almodovar’s work that may surprise some longtime followers.

But Almodovar remains Almodovar, and expands here on the film-within-a-film idea he used to great comic effect in “Talk to Her”. Here Almodovar extends the idea considerably, showing us how Enrique envisions Ignacio’s story. All this narrative trickery and illusion serve to illustrate everyone’s tenuous grasp on their own memories of people, places and events. It’s a daring cinematic gamble which pays off in adding layers of texture and mystery, while never going so far as to confuse the audience. If anything, the film is so structurally rigorous and complex that it loses some of the vitality that Almodovar films are so well-known for. “Talk to Her” and “All About My Mother,” two films no less serious than “Bad Education,” still had the raw, roiling energy of emotion and drama and absurd comedy – who can forget the black and white film in “Talk to Her” of a miniature man entering a woman’s vagina? “Bad Education” asks us to feel moved by the plight of its characters, indignant at the abuse the two children suffered at the hands of the clergy, but there is an inescapable element of abstraction to the proceedings that perhaps prevents it from working itself into our deepest core.

Almodovar has said that he has been working on this film for 10 years, and that he made it to “get it out of my system, before it became an obsession.” Those expecting a roman a clef may be a bit disappointed. He has admitted that there are elements of autobiography in “Bad Education” but I think that it would be a mistake to read too much into that statement. In looking over the past two decades of work, there is little that Almodovar has not revealed about himself and his life in all its shocking, colorful, tragic, messy, comic facets. It is precisely that impulse to self-revelation that has always made Almodovar so compelling. Those who want to see a world-class filmmaker who continues to develop and innovate and challenge himself will be impressed once again by Almodovar.

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Miguel Albadalejo's
Bear Club

Reviewed By Armistead Johnson

The story has been told before; an unconventional person who has no intention of ever having children, somehow winds up with a child who changes his or her life. Such is the story of Miguel Albadalejo's Bear Club. But make no mistake about it; you have not seen this movie before.

First, the child's birth parent, Violeta (played by Elvira Lindo), is not dead; she is just a drug addict who was arrested on drug charges while traveling in India and was thereupon incarcerated for an undisclosed period of time. Her child, Bernardo (played by David Castillo), was staying with his uncle Pedro at the time of his mother's arrest. So the question is: who does the child live with - his uncle or his estranged grandmother?

The unconventional parent is Pedro, played beautifully by Jose Luis Garcia-Perez, the brother of the mother in question. Pedro is a sexually active gay man, who tends to be sympathetic to his sister's dilemma. And as her brother, he certainly has more sympathy for Violeta than her son Bernardo has.

The title Bear Club comes from Pedro and his friend's "classification" in the gay community. Bears are big, hairy men who, like club kids, drag queens or leather daddies, have entire bars dedicated to them. Bears are usually known for being loving, cuddly and kind and have a following of boys called (you guessed it) cubs.

The "antagonist" in the story is the child's paternal grandmother, Dona Teresa, who we find out has not seen her grandson in years. She has purposely been kept out of her grandson's life since the day her son, the boy's father, died. The grandmother, also played beautifully by Empar Ferrer, is so convincing in her love for Bernardo and her concerns are so well intended, the audience is forced to question who, in fact, would be a better parent for him.

There are no easy answers provided for the audience in Bear Club, no matter how hard the audience fights for a "good guy" and a "bad guy." Bear Club will make you question your own opinions (something that seems to be forbidden in cinema today) and helps illustrate the fact that, try as we might to find them, sometimes there are no easy answers when the welfare of a child is at stake.

For more information, visit http://www.mangafilms.es/cachorro/#

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Alireza Raisian's
Deserted Station
Opens DECEMBER 3, 2004
Quad Cinema

Starring: Leila Hatami, Nezam Manouchehri, Mehran Rajabi and Mahmoud Pak Neeyat

Iran, 88 minutes, 35mm, Color, 2002, In Farsi with English Subtitles

Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams

Deserted Station, based on a concept the director(Ali Reza Raisian) and Abbas Kiarostami developed on a photography trip together, is a beautiful and stunningly odd film about a day in the life of a photographer (played by Nezam Manouchehri ) and his wife (the beautiful Leila Hatami of "Leila" fame), whose car breaks down in the desert of Iran. The husband goes to a nearby village to ask for help from the village elder/school teacher/car mechanic. This "mechanic", unable to repair the car with the parts he has on hand, agrees to take the husband to a nearby village to buy the necessary parts. The wife stays behind in the village and while she is there, acts as a substitute teacher for the local children.

And here the story does indeed become very strange. Nothing much happens during the day the wife spends in the village (or station), but by watching the events of the day, I was effectively transported into a very different place and time. First the desert and the village are absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography (Mahammad Aladpoush) is beautiful and yet, for some strange reason, everything, including the mountains, appears sad. There are hardly any parents in this village, just a mismatched band of moppets running around seemingly being "raised by Topsy." And unlike the heroine in an American film of this genre (accidental teacher changes the world), the wife does not affect a drastic change in the village, nor does it seem that she will stay at the end of the day. She wonders through the afternoon, a pensive observer to a life that appears foreign even to her.

She teaches for a while and then allows the children to run wild. A lamb is born and dies. We find out that the wife has not been able to have children herself. Lunch is served and then she lets the children go play in the train yards. Now I am an American mother and I can assure you that I would never allow my children to play in a train yard. And during the afternoon play session, there is one very strange segment involving a handicapped child who was born with only flippers for arms and legs and needs to be carried everywhere. So when the children go to lunch, they carry him/her with them. And then, when they run off to play in the train yard, they leave him/her in the middle of a field on a blanket calling to be picked up for what appears to be an hour or two. And this is not a plot point. The wife eventually instructs the children to retrieve their friend, but no one seems to think too much about the fact that he/she was left behind. Just think how that would have been handled in an American film. Or in my household, "What do you mean you left your friend, the one who has no arms or legs, on a blanket in the middle of a field? How many times have I told you, pick him up when you go somewhere else? How hard is it to remember a simple thing like that! And no, you can't take him to the train yard..... and on and on…...." Like I said, the world of Deserted Station is indeed a very different place.

But at the end of the day, I could sense that they have all been changed. Being with these children has had a profound effect on the wife and the children do not want to let her go. And since this is an Iranian film, we are left with an open question at the end of the film. She seems to leave. It looks like she is leaving. But does she?

Quad Cinema |34 West 13th Street, New York

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The Pang Brother’s
The Eye
Mandarin with English Subtitles

Reviewed courtesy of Lincoln Center Film Society Hong Kong Film Series

Starring: Angelica Lee, Lawrence Chou, Chutcha Rujinanon, Yut Lai So and Candy Lo.

Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams

The Thai-Born Pang Brothers (of Bangkok Dangerous fame) made a eerily haunting horror film with their 2002 film The Eye - the story of a young woman named Mun (played by the talented Angelica Lee) whose eyesight is restored when she receives a corneal transplant from an anonymous donor. Mun, who was blinded when she was two, then needs counseling and training to deal with the over stimulation of suddenly being able to see. An example (shown in the film): Mun can tell what a stapler is by touch, but not by sight. This counseling is supplied by Dr. Wah, a handsome young psychotherapist played by Lawrence Chou. Dr. Wah also supplies the romantic interest.

The problem is Mun (in Sixth Sense tradition) can see too much. She almost immediately begins to see both the living and the dead. She also see apparitions of black hooded wraiths who arrive just before someone is supposed to die (did you see Ghost?). This of course terrifies Mun, but the fun part is that it terrified me too.

Angelica Lee (Mun) won the Best Actress award at the Hong Kong Film Festival and it was certainly deserved. She gives a beautifully nuanced performance as Mun, playing her as every woman. She is totally believable and becomes the audience’s guide into her world, so when she is scared, we are scared too.

There is very little in The Eye that is original. All the plot points have been seen before - transplanted body parts that transplant more than their expected function, dead people who hang around because they need to solve the conflicts of one world before embarking for another, etc. etc. Anyone who has watched a horror film knows the story. The charm of The Eye is that although the story is old, the telling is fresh and fun.

The art direction and cinematography are well done and the directors do a wonderful job of pacing the film. The only problem that this reviewer saw was that they threw in every horror film plot known to man. There were so many points when it seemed that the movie was over and then off we went to view another horror film. But it does not matter. The Pang Brothers pulled it off by their careful direction, their choice of a haunting score and their brilliant decision to cast Angelica Lee.

The Eye was produced by Applause Pictures, written by written by Jo JO Yuet-chun Hui, Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang. It is available on DVD though www.netflix.com

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Zhang Yimou’s
The House of Flying Daggers

Reviewed by Evan Sung

After the international success of “Hero” Zhang Yimou returns to his special brand of poetic kung-fu cinema (wuxia, if you please) with his follow-up “The House of Flying Daggers.” The film premieres at the 42nd New York Film Festival and stars the Ziyi Zhang (“Hero”, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) as Mei, a blind soldier of the rebel outlaw army, the House of the Flying Daggers. Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs) and Takeshi Kaneshiro (Chungking Express) star as Leo and Jin, two police captains of the weakening Tang Dynasty trying to break up the House of Flying Daggers. The two captains plot to trick Mei into leading them to outlaws, but are soon caught up in competition for the heart of the beautiful outlaw, and caught in a tangled net of hidden loyalties, plots and counter-plots.

This is supposed to be a film review, but forgive me if it veers into shameless love-letter territory for the amazing Ziyi Zhang. Zhang Yimou was clearly impressed by the young Zhang, having promoted her from a supporting part in “Hero” to the tragic central role of this new film. “House of Flying Daggers” is a showcase of all of Ziyi Zhang’s many attributes. Aside from her remarkable beauty, Ziyi Zhang’s Mei is basically the toughest chick East of the Yangtze, and in her combat scenes Zhang makes Terminator’s Linda Hamilton look like a demure wilting blossom. Though small and fragile, Zhang commits to her battle scenes with a combination of ferocity and elegance. We take it on faith that this blind girl could naturally take on an army of soldiers without breaking a sweat. But her elegance is not only evident in battle, and an early dancing scene in a brothel, showcases a feline sensuality in her performance of traditional Chinese dance. And in one scene where Mei has her robe torn off her shoulders, the bare expanse of her porcelain-white shoulder could well be considered one of the more profound frames of World Cinema! Her shoulder alone could have triggered a Trojan War. If you haven’t gotten the point yet, the movie’s ALL about Ziyi Zhang.

And how do we know its all about Ziyi Zhang? Because we have two captains of the emperor driven to betraying their own cause and their own friendship, ultimately stabbing each other with swords on snowy mountaintops in her name. Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro contrast each other nicely, both believable as friends and comrades, but utterly different in character. Kaneshiro’s Captain Jin, is the free-spirited, skirt-chaser who tries to seduce Mei to get her to divulge the location of her rebel friends. Lau’s Captain Leo is the by-the-book and responsible, but his single-minded pursuit of the House of Flying Daggers may not be solely motivated by loyalty to the kingdom. In an amusing plot-development, one can imagine Lau’s identity-conflicted Captain Leo to be the 9th century ancestor to Lau’s role in this year’s “Infernal Affairs.” Lau has already proven himself to be a very subtle actor, excellent in these roles where motivations are multiple and unclear. Kaneshiro clearly has fun playing drunk in the brothel scene, flashing the Eastern equivalent of the Tom Cruise-patented mega-watt smile. Kaneshiro is charming but also traces the tragic arc of his character nicely, slowly building up layers of gravity and sadness as the film goes on.

The film is truly brilliant and to say that, as a film, “House of Flying Daggers” may actually excel “Hero” is no small claim, given that “Hero” had in its favor the phenomenal Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung and the peerless cinematography of Christopher Doyle. But here, Yimou takes the martial arts to yet another level, and the effect on the viewer is so visceral that you realize how rarely cinema moves us in that way. The thrill of seeing people perform acts of superhuman dexterity and power is completely unlike the numbing effects of Hollywood’s exploding computer-generated blockbusters.

This is not to say that the film is perfect. The tragic lovers theme has become almost par for the course in Asian wuxia cinema. And under the weight of all this suppressed longing, slow-motion, and plot twists and turns, the film itself starts to bend like bamboo, threatening to break and splinter. Still, the final battle is treated with a ferocity completely unlike the balletic wire-fu that we’ve been treated to up to that point. The heroes pummel each other, and cry out, and slash, and it reinjects the film with a shot of adrenaline and emotional intensity that refocuses everything.

This is only Zhang Yimou’s second wuxia film but he has already created an indelible style with two films that rely as much on story and character as they do on kicking ass in high-style. With a visual richness that becomes almost hallucinatory at times, and a great sense of grand scale as well as intimacy, Yimou sets the stage for the stuff of legends, and fills it with great actors, great action, and great romance. Oh, and did I mention Ziyi Zhang is in it?

Claude Miller's
La Petite Lili
Opens NOVEMBER 12, 2004
ANGELIKA FILM CENTER

Cast: Nicole Garcia (Mado), Ludivine Sagnier (Lili), Robinson Stévenin (Julien), Jean-Pierre Marielle (Simon), Bernard Giraudeau (Brice),
Julie Depardieu (Jeanne-Marie)

***Official Selection Cannes 2003***

Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams

La Petite Lili is a cinematic retelling of Anton Chekov's, The Sea Gull, and this time the setting is a beautiful country house in France. The setting and the cinematography are gorgeous and so is the cast. The young angst-ridden playwright of the Seagull is now a film maker named Julien (the utterly handsome Robinson Stévenin). Julien is in love with a local girl, Lili (played by the lovely Ludivine Sagnier of nude Swimming Pool fame), who is determined to become a film star like Julien's mother, Mado (the divine Nicole Garcia). Also in the picture is Jeanne-Marie (the also lovely Julie Depardieu). Jeanne-Marie is in love with Julien, who unfortunately only lusts for Lili.

The story begins when Julien screens his film, an arty (but boring) DVD, for his mother and her lover, the film maker Brice (Bernard Giraudeau). Mado can barely conceal her irritation and the scene explodes with recriminations. Mado tells her son that his film is immature and self indulgent and Julien in turn has nothing but scornful comments for his mother's work and the work of her boyfriend, the commercially successful Brice.

Lili, quickly seeing on which side her bread should now be buttered, seduces Brice and convinces him to take her to Paris. Julien and Mado are devastated and attempt to comfort each other, but they are both too burdened by years of unhappiness to be of any help to the other. There is one even scene where Mado asks Julien to join her in bed. You should probably not try this at home. Well, maybe if you live in France and look like Nicole Garcia and your son looks like Robinson Stévenin......but even then.....

Then the film fast forwards five years. In a departure from The Seagull, the film maker has fashioned a happy ending. In interviews, Mr. Miller has stated that he felt that a young audience would never buy Julien's suicide and actually in this reviewer's view, suicide always did seem to be a little bit of an overreaction to merely losing a girlfriend and not being able to get along with your mother.

Julien has now become a film maker and is in the process of making a film about the summer they spent in the country as a group. He has cast his own mother and Brice in the film. Julien is happily married to Jeanne-Marie and they have a lovely little girl. Lili, now a successful film actress (but no longer with Brice), finds out that Julien is making a film about their story and piteously begs him to allow her to act in it. And after extracting his revenge by first refusing to cast her, Julien eventually relents and casts Lili.

We then see the movie being made. We see Julien with his family on the set, directing Lili in the scenes he played with her that summer. And we see him direct his mother. And in the end, there is a suicide in the film, but it is the actor playing Julien and it is just a film with a film. Everyone is very sophisiticated and worldly - Jeanne-Marie lets Lily play with her daughter etc., etc.. After all, this is a French film. So the story has turned inward and Julien is now able to use his art to work out his life. And since he is the director, he can work things out just the way he wants them, and like I said before, he is now directing his mother.

Wes Anderson's
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Reviewed by Evan Sung

Put on your Zissou Adidas and your AM/FM Scuba gear, its time to go deep-sea diving into the whacked-out psyche of Wes Anderson. In his new film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, our underwater guide is the titular Steve Zissou, played by Bill Murray. I would say the "brilliant" Bill Murray, but in recent films, he has done so much to establish a reputation for nuanced, deeply funny/sad (Sanny? Funad? Let's just say: "Murr-iffic") performances, that his name has become practically synonymous with "brilliant." Surrounded by a cast of characters that redefines "motley," Zissou/Murray leads us intrepidly into a distinctly Andersonian adventure populated with colorful sea-creatures, Filipino pirates on the high seas, unpaid interns, and a "part-gay" Jeff Goldblum. To say nothing of a hilarious Willem Dafoe as an hypersensitive German shipmate, Seu George singing early David Bowie in Portuguese to the action of the film, and Bud Cort as an insurance bondsman and unlikely ally to Team Zissou.

Wes Anderson's film opens with…the opening of a film. Steve Zissou, a media-obsessed, self-aggrandizing, and rather past-his-prime Jacques Cousteau-type is screening the latest episode of his ongoing series of adventure "documentaries." In it we meet the crew of the good ship Belafonte, exploring the mysteries of the ocean. Only this time, Zissou and his crew have the misfortune of crossing the path of the deadly Jaguar-Shark, which takes the life of his right-hand man, Esteban de Plantier. The loss sets in motion Zissou's mission to track down the Jaguar-Shark and kill it. After the screening, which is greeted by silent incomprehension, one viewer asks what possible scientific purpose killing such a rare creature could serve. Zissou's succinct reply: "Revenge." But Zissou does not embark on his quest alone. He is joined by Jane Winslett-Richardson(a kewpie-voiced Cate Blanchett), a pregnant reporter who may or may not be writing up a hatchet job on Steve. He also meets Ned Plimpton (long-time Anderson collaborator, Owen Wilson), a man who may or may not be Zissou's unknown son. What ensues is a series of encounters, exchanges, and detours, which in their randomness and absurdity seem meant to defy verbal description. Anderson does his best to create a purely cinematic experience, that is, one that must be lived through to access and comprehend.

But Anderson has been aiming at this all along his quirked-out career, and The Life Aquatic (for short) is a crystallization of that attitude. Although Anderson's version of crystallized is rather sprawling and unfocused! After three uniquely crafted films, Anderson established a firm cult status among critics and fans, all the while gently expanding the breadth of his appeal to a larger audience. The question hung heavily in the air then: Was The Life Aquatic going to be a sell-out? Would the larger budget, the all-star cast, and the special effects corrupt Anderson's unique voice? Happily, the answer is no, and if anything, Anderson has managed to sidestep the pitfalls of Hollywood filmmaking as well as any preconceptions of a "Wes Anderson" formula. It was telling to hear one audience-member laughing emphatically at innocuous moments early on in the film. Like some sort of Pavlovian-Hipster response, she seemed to feel compelled to audibly demonstrate her appreciation of the Anderson look and tone. As the film progressed however, viewers seemed to release themselves to the odd charms of the film, slowly recognizing that Anderson was up to something subtly different.

The Life Aquatic is Wes Anderson's Day For Night,Truffaut's famous film about the behind-the-scenes of the Seventh Art. For all the marine biology, The Life Aquatic is really about filmmaking. And more specifically, it is about Wes Anderson making a Wes Anderson film. When Zissou's crew, most of whom occupy roles like "boom operator" and "cameraman" or "editor", steal cutting edge equipment from their rival oceanographer's hi-tech underwater research station, we can imagine Wes Anderson ransacking the toys and technology of Hollywood to pursue his own single-minded operation. All of Anderson's characters have been dreamers and schemers, and now Anderson is the dreamer and schemer to beat them all, because he's been behind every single one of them all along. In a confrontation between father and (possible) son, Anderson gives us a self-deprecating wink when an exasperated Ned says to Steve: "You never cared about me! I'm just another character in your film!" It's a possible response to critics who complain that Anderson loses his characters among the obsessively art-directed frames of his films.

The craziest and loosest of all his films, The Life Aquatic is the most autobiographical. Where his previous films were more structured, The Life Aquatic buzzes with unbridled imagination. It is the closest we have seen so far to Mr. Anderson's imagination running amok on the screen - and for many this can be viewed as a good thing. Fans of the eccentric Anderson will be reassured that the same quasi-pathological passion for wide frames jam-packed with detail, a pitch-perfect soundtrack, and surprising moments of heartbreaking humanity are all there. The Life Aquatic will surely test the patience of some, but those who give themselves up to the ride will be charmed by Anderson's generous and inventive vision.

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Regina King

Reviewed by Stephanie Alberico

Taylor Hackford wrote and directed the new biopic of Ray Charles with "Georgia on his mind." The movie was produced before the June death of the singer/songwriter legend. This picturesque film depicts Charles's life and his rise to fame throughout the 1950's and 60's.

Ray's story unfolds to reveal a life of drug addiction, womanizing, and life struggles. There are numerous flashbacks to his childhood life in rural Georgia, where he was born and raised. As the story begins we see Ray's delicate childhood memories through his eyes: He is haunted by the tragic drowning of his younger brother, his mother's struggle with work and oppression, and the loss of his sight. We then follow Ray on a journey filled only with darkness. Left with just the visions of his mother sweating in the intense heat, soft white linens blowing in the wind and colorful glass-blown ornaments hanging in the trees, Ray dedicates his life to his one passion--music. He begins playing piano in nightclubs.

Ray is portrayed by Jamie Foxx, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the singer. Foxx's performance is definitely Oscar-worthy; he is sure to leave audiences riveted by his amazing ability to impersonate Ray. For Ray Charles is famous not only for his brilliant music, but also for the constant swaying of his upturned head and the jolting of his body while he created his breathtaking songs and music; Foxx hits this characterization dead on. Two equally brilliant actresses join him, Kerry Washington as Ray's wife, and Regina King as one of his many mistresses.

We follow Ray through nightclubs and gigs, until he is offered a record deal at Atlantic Records. His first recording, "The Mess Around," is created instantaneously within the confines of the studio, and becomes a chart-topping hit. Suddenly Ray's fame erupts and he is plastered all over magazines, radios, and newspapers.

Although Ray gets married and has children, his life deteriorates out on the road. As we glimpse a behind-the-scenes look at Ray's travels, he struggles with anxiety, adultery and finally discovers heroin. Even as Ray becomes increasingly famous, his heroin addiction intensifies and his marital life is destroyed.

Ray's musical genius grows but his problems worsen. He becomes paranoid that he is being cheated by his friends and managers: Determined to receive everything due him, he insists he be paid his entire salry in one-dollar bills. At a climatic point in the plot, his favorite mistress admits she is pregnant and Ray responds by inventing the famous song, "Hit the Road Jack."

Ray sinks deeper into addiction, becoming prone to panic attacks and continuously haunted by eerie hallucinations of flooding water. We empathize with Ray as he seems to become lost in his own darkness. But Ray's stubborn attitude and relentlessness keep him standing alone, no matter the amount of people or love that surrounds him. As much as we might love to hate him, Ray wins us over as he did the women who loved him so dearly.

As with so many musical legends before him, Ray comes to the realization that life on the road is killing him. When he is caught with drugs at U.S. customs, he is forced to face his addition. He also learns that his mistress has died of a drug overdose. He goes to rehab and cleans up his act.

The last half-hour of the film ties up the loose ends and somewhat glorifies the singer's difficult life. Hackford picks up a more documentary feel in the end of the film. We are left watching a clip of a moving live performance of Ray in his old age. We also see Ray receiving recognition and awards for refusing to play music in Jim Crow states during segregation. Finally, we see clips of the real-life legend and are forced to remember a man who will never be forgotten.

I was blown away by the heart and soul of this emotional film. With his knack for jazz, rhythm and blues, Ray is definitely a musical icon whose life not only taught us lessons about life and love, but also is an inspiration to us all. Just listen to his throaty rendition of "Georgia on my Mind," or watch a clip of one of his live performances, and it is easy to experience this man's heavenly contribution to music. It may just bring tears to your eyes.

TILL SCHAUDER (a.k.a. Till Terror) & Chris Valentien's
SANTA SMOKES
OPENED DECEMBER 15th 2004
Pioneer Theater

SANTA SMOKES is on FIRE!

Starring: Till Terror, Kristy Jean Hulslander, Richard Glover, Melissa Friedman, Rynel Johnson

Reviewed by Troy Tolley

Grabbing 4 prestigious awards from around the world (Best Director and Best Actress in Tokyo; Audience Award in Berlin; and Studio Hamburg Newcomers Award), SANTA SMOKES is already being touted as a cult classic.

Set on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan, Johnny Jones (Till Terror) is struggling to find a break as an actor in the film industry. His persistence has him enduring lame auditions, sidestepping financial troubles, deflecting the cynicism of his girlfriend (Melissa Friedman), and half-accepting the nurturing from his gay roommate (Richard Glover). The difficulties of maintaining life with a dream is made even more complicated by the slick, sexy, and bullying Mr. Johnson (Rynel Johnson) who either wants his money owed to him or a one-time showdown at a Bowling Alley.

Johnny's belief in himself as a creative being, along with his mismanaged choices, leaves a trail of unfortunate effects in his life, showcasing an all-too-familiar descent from possibilities and potential to the isolation and anger inherent under the pressure of near-resignation.

In an act of humility and as an act of responsibility, Johnny succumbs to the "Actors Needed" ads seeking anyone who would put on a Santa suit and hand out flyers to passersby in Times Square. As Johnny's life seems to crumble around him, solace is found in the angry anonymity of the Santa suit and hope is found through the chiding Angel (Kristy Jean Hulslander) who befriends him.

Till Terror's portrayal of Johnny is tremendously adorable and frustrating, truly eliciting the maternal instincts for the character, even in the most hardnosed of us. Melissa Friedman's Molly Ringwald-esque expression of the whiny, bitchy, jealous, manipulative, overbearing girlfriend was perfect as these qualities were cloaked as "concerns" for Johnny. Richard Glover as the gay roommate is endearingly subtle and tasteful, even as his pitiful longing for Johnny escalates. Rynel Johnson's Mr. Johnson is mysteriously gentle and darkly appealing in demeanor and speech, even as he beats Johnny and nonchalantly hunts him down.

Santa Smokes takes you from the mediocre world of a good guy with a dream and into the darker lands that can be found through the choices and reactions forced under the weight of carrying that dream.

Official website for the movie: http://santa-smokes.de
Official website for Two Boots: Pioneer Theater: http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/

See January ABOUT TOWN for details of OPENING NIGHT and an interview with the cast and director of Santa Smokes!

Pioneer Theater |155 East 3rd Street (at Avenue A)

Mike Leigh’s
Vera Drake

Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams

Mike Leigh has done it again. With his new film, “Vera Drake,” he has created another family, the Drakes, and this time they are “living” in the world of 1950’s working class London. And as is the case with all of Mr. Leigh’s others films, if you watch this movie, you will know the Drakes better than you know your own first cousins.

This beautiful creation showcases the genius of Mr. Leigh, who possesses superb casting skills, amazing talent and the dedication to exhaustively rehearse all his productions. According to press reports, before Mr. Leigh ever turns on a camera, he painstakingly creates a world, a universe and a family. He does this by first casting the film and then having a several month long improvisation/rehearsal process before he writes his script. And through this process, his stars become their characters - living breathing people with relationships, histories and untold stories that you can see in their eyes.

When you are watching a Mike Leigh film, the actors are so believable it is hard to realize that you are not watching some kind of spy camera documentary. And so it is with Leigh’s “Vera Drake,” a story about a 1950’s era char woman with a heart of gold who “helps out girls who are in trouble.” Vera (played by the incomparable Imelda Staunton) bustles through life helping people, dispensing cheer, tea, advice and a douche bag filled with soapy water.

In the first half of the story we follow Vera with her family - we see Vera bustling about London, calling on the sick and caring for her invalid mother. And when leaving one apartment she runs into a lost soul, Reg (played by Eddie Marsan), she promptly invites him to dinner as a possible suitor for her dumpy daughter, Ethel (Alex Kelly). We also see Vera working as a char in the homes of well-to-do middle class families. At one such home she see the daughter of the family, Sally (Sally Hawkins), who in a side story not seen by Vera, obtains an abortion through the method then available for women of means - visiting a psychiatrist and getting a “doctor’s note.” The film also shows the other house calls Vera makes, the ones she makes to scared young women, the house calls where Vera’s request for a kettle of hot water does not mean she is going to make a cup of tea.

In the second half of the movie, one of Vera’s “patients” becomes ill and the police come to arrest Vera. No one in her family knew that Vera was a backstreet abortionist and the rest of the film follows the family’s reactions, the resulting criminal trial and Vera’s imprisonment. Vera’s husband, Stan (played by Phil Davis), stifles his shock and stands by the woman he loves. Ethel’s sad-sack suitor, Reg (Eddie Marsan), comes through like a champ, resolutely supporting his new family-to-be. Ethel’s son Sid (Daniel Mays), who we see earlier trying to pick up loose women, is shocked and dismayed that his mother is killing “little babies,” with no realization that he himself might have had need for such services. But in the end, all the men of the family come around and support Vera. Because in the end, “Vera Drake” is a film about love, not abortion – about the love that Vera has for her family and for all lost souls and the love her family has for her. Bravo!

Starring: Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent, Phil Davis, Peter Wright, Adrian Scarborough, Heather Craney, Daniel Mays, Alex Kelly, Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Ruth Sheen, Helen Coker, Martin Savage, Sinead Matthews, Fenella Wollgar.