Movies Dearz

One of the most acclaimed films from this year's Sundance Film Festival, Pariah, will finally be making it to theaters this month. The semi-autobiographical drama about the coming of age of a lesbian teenager is scheduled to open in Los Angeles and New York on December 28th and will open nationwide in January.

I first heard of Pariah two years ago. It was initially a well-received short film, and producer Nekisa Cooper was then working hard to raise the funds necessary to expand it into a feature. Cooper and writer-director Dee Rees had an impressive endorsement letter from no less than Spike Lee, for whom Rees had worked on When the Levees Broke and Inside Man. Lee serves as one of the feature's executive producers.

Their hard work has paid off. The finished film is an authentic and moving exploration of a young woman trying to integrate her identity. Confident that "God doesn't make mistakes," 17-year old Alike (pronounced "Ah-lee-kay" and sometimes referred to as "Lee" for short) has to contend with her conservative-Christian mother as well as with other teens not yet as comfortable in their own shoes as Alike. Adepero Oduye gives a breakthrough performance in the lead role, and Kim Wayans (perhaps best remembered as Benita Butrell and other wacky characters from the 1990's TV sketch series In Living Color) is a revelation as Alike's conflicted mother.


Rees recently spoke with me from New York. "It's been a labor of love," Rees said of her six-year odyssey to make Pariah, first as a short and then as a feature. "Our audience reactions have been overwhelmingly positive; (the film) has universal appeal and has been shown not only at LGBT film festivals but at mainstream festivals." LGBT-friendly Focus Features, which has also released such popular movies as Brokeback Mountain and Milk, quickly snapped up the rights to Pariah following its Sundance screening. "It's every filmmaker's dream to have their film released by a major company," according to Rees. "Focus has been incredibly supportive."

Spirituality plays a major role in Alike's journey. Both Rees and Cooper were raised in devout Christian families, and Cooper's father serves as a Catholic deacon. "If anything, it's my spirituality that got me through the past six years," Rees reflects. "My spirituality and spiritual practice have actually gotten stronger than they were before going through this." While their parents will be invited to the official premiere of Pariah, Rees isn't sure how they will respond. "Hopefully," Rees said, "they will respond well so they can witness to other parents" of LGBT children.


With her profile on the rise in the industry, Rees just finished writing a new script for a thriller and is working with HBO on developing a TV series. She speaks appreciatively of all the support she has received, especially from two-time Oscar nominee Spike Lee. Rees calls Lee her mentor and states "He's been a great guiding hand."

"I'm not running, I'm choosing," Alike says in Pariah of a life-changing, climactic decision she makes. It's a statement Rees wholeheartedly agrees with. "I think questioning and affirming your identity is a universal theme, and I definitely want gay teens to connect with the film and see that it's ok to be them."

She concluded, "If you strip away race and sexuality, we are all searching for the same things when it comes to identity. That's what this film is about."

Reverend's Rating: A-

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

Actress Glenn Close has been nominated for the Academy Award five times for her memorable turns in such films as Dangerous Liaisons, Fatal Attraction and The World According to Garp but she has yet to bring home the gold. That could soon change, given her current performance as a woman passing herself off as a man in Albert Nobbs. It is scheduled to open in theaters everywhere on January 27th.

Based on a short story that Close adapted into a play nearly 20 years ago, the movie's title character is the head servant in an upper-class, Irish guest house during the 19th century. Nobbs is respected by the headmistress (played by Brenda Fricker) and admired by the hotel's clientele, but Nobbs has a secret: he is really a she. Having begun cross-dressing as a young woman in the wake of a brutal attack, Nobbs has effectively led a male life for 30 years and dreams of one day opening "his" own tobacco shop.

Things begin to unravel, however, once Nobbs crosses paths with a hired handyman who also turns out to be a woman (Janet McTeer, giving a great, Oscar-worthy performance of her own). As Nobbs gets to know her and increasingly admires her marriage to another woman, Nobbs feels inspired to make romantic overtures to another servant in his household, the lovely young Helen (Mia Wasikowska). Alas, Helen only has eyes for attractive, impetuous Joe (Aaron Johnson), who soon gets her pregnant. Trouble for Nobbs and all concerned follows.


Close is startlingly convincing in terms of her physical appearance, voice and mannerisms. Though Nobbs is considered less than masculine by many of his co-workers, no one questions his/her gender. Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) also appears as a closeted gay man who frequents the hotel. As good as the performances are, I found the screenplay and Rodrigo Garcia's direction tonally inconsistent. The unusual premise seems to be played at some moments for laughs and at other times with heavy-handed solemnity. This kept me from admiring Albert Nobbs completely.

This year's Oscar race for Best Actress is shaping up to be a tough one, with Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady), Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn), Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin) and Viola Davis (The Help) likely among Close's competitors. As Albert Nobbs would probably say, "May the best man (woman) win!"

Reverend's Rating: B

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

The stage musical Billy Elliot includes the showstopping song "Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher," a satiric ode to the long-reigning, conservative British Prime Minister. Appropriately, a new film biography of Thatcher, The Iron Lady, is arriving in US theaters this Christmas holiday season. Meryl Streep stars in the title role and gives yet another amazing, award-worthy performance (La Meryl has already won the New York Film Critics' award for Best Actress and been nominated for SAG and Golden Globe honors for her work here). If only the movie that surrounds her was as good.

The Iron Lady charts Thatcher's rise to power from her humble beginnings as daughter of a provincial grocer to becoming the first and only woman to date to serve as Prime Minister. It also explores her current and -- if the film is to be believed -- fairly demented status, conversing with her beloved late husband (wonderfully played by Jim Broadbent), bemoaning the high price of milk and saying things (not so dementedly) like "It used to be about trying to do something; Now it's about trying to be someone." Whether this is an accurate representation or not, Streep is especially good depicting Thatcher's later years and embodying an elderly woman in general.

As erratically written by Abi Morgan and chaotically directed by Phyllida Lloyd (who previously paired with Streep in bringing Mamma Mia! to the screen), the film is oddly constructed and shifts back and forth in time not only within minutes but sometimes within the same minute. It is at once convoluted and simplistic. To the filmmakers' and Streep's credit, though, The Iron Lady is never boring. I even wonder if it would work better as a musical, given Streep's and Lloyd's last joint success. Rodgers & Hammerstein's The King and I is even referenced at several points, with Thatcher and husband Dennis joyfully dancing together. Maybe Elton John and Lee Hall, who co-wrote Billy Elliot for the stage, can take The Iron Lady on as their next project.


Years after Thatcher's leadership ended, things aren't looking so good in London. Despite this year's lavish royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, London has been subjected to political and economic unrest, violent riots and terrorist attacks. One devastating act of terrorism in 2005 has inspired the powerful new drama London River, which is already playing in New York City and opens this weekend in Los Angeles.

Brenda Blethyn (perhaps best remembered for her high-strung "Sweetie Darling" turn in 1996's Secrets & Lies) plays Elizabeth, the rural mother of a London-based daughter. When her daughter fails to return her phone calls in the wake of coordinated bombings that killed 52 people and injured more than 700, Elizabeth goes to London to see what's going on. Once there, she learns that her daughter had been taking classes in Arabic and fallen in with a group of possibly radical Muslims. Elizabeth also meets Ousmane (the late Sotigui Kouyate, who won the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear for Best Actor), a French arborist searching for his son.

As they interview police, teachers and friends, Elizabeth and Ousmane must confront the growing reality that their children aren't the people they thought they knew and, worse, may have been at least partly responsible for the terrorist attack. Director Rachid Bouchareb (who helmed the Oscar-nominated Days of Glory and Outside the Law) draws excellent, haunting performances from Blethyn and Kouyate. Ultimately moving and cautionary, London River shouldn't be missed.

Reverend's Ratings:
The Iron Lady: B-
London River: B+

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

In the 30 years since the AIDS crisis first reared its ugly head, it seems some people have forgotten what it was all about, how the LGBT community reacted then and how it changed the way we live and are more accepted today.  In the moving documentary We Were Here (now in select theaters and premiering today on Pay-Per-View and Video on Demand), filmmaker David Weissman and the four people who are interviewed on camera insist that people remember.

We Were Here pieces together what life was like in the Castro District of San Francisco in the '80s and early '90s as people first became terrified of the nameless afflictions that were killing formerly healthy men so quickly, then became angry as the government seemed content to let the disease run its course unabated through the gay community. It was before many people can remember, but there was a time when people like Lyndon LaRouche and Jerry Falwell were pushing legislation to quarantine people with AIDS and fought to stigmatize them at their most vulnerable time. Mostly, We Were Here shows how the LGBT community came together to help one another and fight for a cure.


People like nurse Eileen Glutzer, who is featured in the film, were among the few who would go into the rooms of AIDS patients and offer them care and love, when even her coworkers refused to do so out of fear of the disease. The other three people interviewed are men who lived through the disease and watched as more than 15,000 people died in San Francisco alone.

Despite its somber subject matter, We Were Here (which was recently named a finalist for next year's Academy Awards) is must-see viewing for everyone in the LGBT community. It is a powerful rallying cry to fight for the rights and protections we deserve. It also shows how different groups in our community can pull together in times of need, like the women's community, which provided life-saving blood drives in the Castro when gay men were prohibited from donating when the need was so great.

Times have changed and HIV is no longer a death sentence, but it is vital to remember the past so that it isn't repeated.

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

The past twelve years haven’t been kind to the fluffy, felty band of misfit marionettes known collectively as the Muppets. In the dozen or so years since their last big screen outing (the underrated Muppets from Space), they have been relegated to fast food commercials and shoddy made-for-TV movies (Muppetphiles were hard-pressed to decide which was worse, It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie or The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz).

All that can now be forgotten (if not quite forgiven) with this past weekend’s release of their new hit movie, simply titled The Muppets. And while it doesn’t reach the Muppetational greatness of The Muppet Movie or The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets does serve as an entertaining reintroduction of Kermit and Company to today’s audiences...

Click here to continue reading my Toon Talk review of The Muppets at LaughingPlace.com.

Oscar nominated actor Ralph Fiennes, best known as the villainous Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, makes an impressive directorial debut with Coriolanus (opening today in Los Angeles and New York City for awards consideration and going wide in January). This modernized adaptation of one of Shakespeare's least-known plays is nothing if not timely for its provocative examination of how those in power manipulate the masses, at least until the masses get wise to them.

Fiennes also stars and gives a fierce, award-worthy performance as the title Roman general. In the wake of his military victory over the Volscians, led by sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius (300's Gerard Butler), Caius Martius "Coriolanus" is promoted by Rome's Senate to the powerful position of Consul. He initially secures the required consent of the Roman populace despite his prickly personality and thinly-veiled contempt for "the rabble." But when Coriolanus's political enemies expose and inflame his absolutist convictions, the public not only withdraws its support but votes for Coriolanus's banishment.


The enraged, humiliated general subsequently seeks out the Volscians and their leader and proposes an alliance against Rome. Surprisingly, Tullus Aufidius receives his former enemy warmly and something of a bromance begins between them. Alas, things don't end so well for the pair; Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's tragedies, after all.

Not unlike other works by the Bard, Coriolanus contains its share of homoerotic elements. This is especially apparent in the devotion the Volscian troops show their new co-leader, shaving their heads to appear like him, toning their bodies and stripping down to tank tops. Fiennes and Butler make a potent combination physically as well as in their mastery of Shakespeare's prose, although Butler's Scottish brogue sometimes makes his lines difficult to understand.

Otherwise, screenwriter John Logan's savvy, streamlined approach to the source material makes Coriolanus easily accessible to movie audiences. The story largely plays out on big-screen televisions, cell phones and the Internet, and the military hardware employed is decidedly Bush-era. Those who have been following the "Occupy" movement will easily find relevant the rallying cry of those opposed to Coriolanus and the Senate: "The people are the city!" As the 99% continue to rise up today against the power-wielding minority, Shakespeare's work proves to be not only poetic but prophetic.



Fiennes' amazing supporting cast includes Vanessa Redgrave (giving her best film performance in years as the general's ruthless mother), Brian Cox and actress-of-the-moment Jessica Chastain, who won the New York Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actress earlier this week for her turns in The Tree of Life, The Help and Take Shelter. Director of Photography Barry Ackroyd effectively utilizes the same combination of hand-held cameras and sweeping vista shots he did in The Hurt Locker.

Coriolanus is challenging, as all Shakespeare is nowadays to increasingly untrained ears. It likely won't be a big hit at the box office but could reap some significant nominations if not awards and go down as one of the better modern interpretations of his work.

Reverend's Rating: B+

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

Director Alexander Payne has been making great films since Citizen Ruth and Election, but chances are most people are more familiar with Sideways or About Schmidt due to their Oscar nominations. His new film, The Descendants, shares a tone and subtlety with those latter films, to the point where those with shorter attention spans may flee the theater for the latest Twilight saga. I prefer to think of it as playing on Hawaii time, since the film is set completely among the non-tourists of that laid-back paradise.

The Descendants is gorgeously shot and deceptively subversive in the way that it confronts non-native people's co-opting of sacred lands. It won't make you feel bad as you sip a pina colada at a Hawaiian resort, but then again, it might.


George Clooney plays Matt King, a rich lawyer who is a direct descendent of Hawaiian royalty, which makes him executor of a trust that includes hundreds of acres of pristine Hawaiian land that he must sell before the laws dissolve the agreement. Unlike his family of Jimmy Buffett-like cousins, he hasn't lived off the great wealth the trust provided, and he is more than a little conflicted about selling the land for development.
All of this is just a backdrop to what is happening in his life. His wife, Barbara, bored by his lack of attention, began "seizing life" and ended up in a coma from a speedboat accident. Now forced to be a full-time father, Matt doesn't know how to communicate with his younger daughter and has no idea that his older daughter is getting drunk at the pricey boarding school where he sent her to straighten up.

The majority of the film deals with Barbara's imminent death and how to prepare the family and friends, while Clooney's character must additionally deal with a shattering betrayal by his now-comatose wife. Clooney gives a terrific, nuanced performance that is especially heartbreaking when he is left alone in the hospital room with his duplicitous wife and has to make peace with her. He gradually learns through tragic and uplifting events how to reconnect with his daughters and with the great land with which he has been entrusted.


Actress Shailene Woodley, who is best known for her role in The Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family, plays the a tough, wounded daughter who becomes privy to her mother's less-than-admirable behavior in The Descendants. I recently visited with the 20-year-old actress to discuss her breakout role.

About how she got into character: "I'm not one of those actors who approaches it and thinks too much about it. I don't think about ‘the character' and ‘her arc' and what her life is like. I just try to approach it and be as present and truthful in the moment. I really responded to this screenplay because it was so real and raw and truthful and human. And it's so rare, especially in scripts that I read that are geared toward my age range. They're usually glamorized and not quite truthful."

On the screenplay: "The screenplay was so brilliantly written that there was no improvising. Emotion naturally came up and I was so fortunate to work with such phenomenal actors who gave me so much to work off of."


On director Alexander Payne, who she didn't know before she auditioned, and co-star George Clooney: "Alexander Payne is one of my top five favorite human beings on a personal level, and George Clooney is a superhuman. Every positive thing that you've read about him is true and every negative thing is hilarious because that man doesn't have a mean bone in his body.

On the time she spent on location in Hawaii: "These were the four months that shaped my young adult life. It was magical. Being there on set, it was such a comfortable environment. George was never in his trailer, he was always there hanging out with us. No one was better than anyone else and Alexander is such a happy human being, he created such a happy environment, there were never any fights or any disputes."

On the films serious and funny moments: "Everyone in some way or another has to deal with death, whether it's someone close or a family member, and at the same time, this movie is very funny. Life is funny, and we as human beings are hilarious. My friends who are gay always seem more open and comfortable with life and with mistakes. I took one of my friends to see the film and he was crying through half the film and laughing through the other half. Afterwards, he said, ‘That's just like real life: you laugh, you cry and you don't realize how funny life can be until you remove yourself from the bubble and look back on it.'"

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

One of the best films of the year, GLBT-interest or otherwise, is Celine Sciamma's exquisite Tomboy. After winning raves and awards at various film festivals, it is being released theatrically today in Los Angeles and New York by Rocket Releasing.

Young lead actress Zoe Haran gives one of several beautifully nuanced performances in this sensitive, compassionate movie about a girl's efforts to fit into a new community by presenting herself as a boy. This naturally leads to complications. Both the central character and the film resist easy categorization but Tomboy provides many rewards. Despite its subtitles, even older children and teenagers may appreciate this French import.

Reverend's Rating: A-

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

2011 is proving to be Irish-born actor Michael Fassbender’s breakout year. After playing the romantic lead opposite Mia Wasikowska in Cary Joji Fukunaga’s take on Jane Eyre and his fine turn as the younger incarnation of chief villain Magneto in the otherwise shockingly overrated X-Men: First Class, Fassbender is ending the year with an even bigger bang… and I do mean that in a euphemistic, sexual sense.

Most immediately, Fassbender co-stars beginning today in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method from Sony Pictures Classics. He portrays the pioneering early 20th-century psychiatrist Carl Jung, who falls in with both a miscast Viggo Mortensen (Cronenberg’s go-to guy of late, having previously starred in the director’s Eastern Promises and A History of Violence) as Sigmund Freud, Jung’s mentor, and a deeply disturbed mental patient played by a Russian-accented Keira Knightley.

Fassbender is excellent, and Knightley could end up with an Academy Award nomination for her initially over-the-top but ultimately affecting turn. Although their sex scenes (which primarily involve clothed spanking) are more silly than scandalous, both seem to invest their hearts as well as their bodies in them. I enjoyed Mortensen’s livelier than usual performance as Freud but can’t help but feel busy Oscar winner Christoph Waltz would have been a better, more authentically European choice.


While A Dangerous Method is handsomely-produced and -designed, what should have been an intriguing story fell pretty flat for me. Cronenberg directs with no particular flair, and Christopher Hampton’s talky screenplay doesn’t delve enough into Jung’s hinted-at devotion to mysticism or the Jewish Freud’s cultural/religious insecurities (“Put not your trust in Aryans,” Freud warns cryptically at one point.) The film is now playing in Los Angeles and New York City and will expand nationally soon.

Fassbender also headlines and bares all in Fox Searchlight’s Shame, scheduled to open in select cities on December 2nd. The actor won the prestigious Best Actor award at this year’s Venice Film Festival for his fully-committed performance as Brandon, a contemporary NYC sex addict. All seems to be going well for Brandon both at his day job and with his indiscriminate nightly escapades. Once his rootless sister (Carey Mulligan) enters the picture, however, all hell truly breaks loose.


Screenwriters Steve McQueen (who also directs) and Abi Morgan heavily imply all manner of sexual abuse and incest in Brandon’s and Sissy’s pasts but hesitate from revealing anything definitive. As a result, Shame tends to wallow in its graphic sexual scenes (both heterosexual and homosexual, and far from arousing) rather than provide any illumination or redemption. I still can’t believe that the prospect of Brandon’s participation in a 12-step group for those suffering from sexual addiction is never raised, despite Shame being set in a city as chock-full of fellow addicts and support groups as Manhattan.

Fassbender and Mulligan may deservedly be honored with year-end critics groups’ citations for their arresting work here, even though Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar) and George Clooney (The Descendants) are the current front runners for the Best Actor Oscar. The strong-stomached will likely consider Shame worthwhile viewing based exclusively on Fassbender’s performance and/or his frequently displayed, admittedly impressive physical endowment. No offense, Michael, but I have every confidence you are made of stronger stuff and look forward to even finer, predominantly clothed performances from you in the future.

Reverend’s Ratings:
A Dangerous Method: C+
Shame: C-

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

As a professional preacher, I could appreciate The Catechism Cataclysm to some degree as a satiric take on storytelling in both religious and secular circles. Sorry to say, that's about as far as my appreciation goes. This horror-comedy with cult aspirations opens today in Los Angeles, having premiered earlier this year as an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival.

Steve Little (The Ugly Truth) stars as a thoroughly obnoxious Catholic priest, Fr. Billy. His bishop and pastor send him off on a sabbatical after Fr. Billy tells one inappropriate parable too many to his parishioners. Fr. Billy decides to take an extensive canoe trip, but not before tracking down his high-school musical idol, Robbie (Robert Longstreet, who can also be seen currently in the excellent Take Shelter), and bribing him into coming along for the ride.

Before this Catholic campfire story run amok draws to a close, a bible is dropped into a diarrhea-filled toilet, Fr. Billy and Robbie cross paths with a pair of wacky Asian girls and their sinister driver, and someone's head explodes. Fr. Billy, however, learns valuable lessons in effective preaching.


I once had an assistant priest named Fr. Billy, and I once had a man as uncomfortably close to me on his knees during confession as depicted in one scene of The Catechism Cataclysm. That's where any similarities to reality end. The movie has a film school vibe to it even though writer-director Todd Rohal and his producers and actors are fairly accomplished. Perhaps most detrimentally, it only runs 81 minutes but feels much longer.

The Catechism Cataclysm could potentially catch on as a midnight movie event, with attendees wearing Fr. Billy's signature clergy shirt and bike helmet. God knows, stranger things have happened.

Reverend's Rating: C-

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

From the three magi who visited little baby Jesus to Miss Cleo and her contemporary ilk, astrology has fascinated human beings for millennia. 75% of newspapers run a daily horoscope column and 29% of Americans say they believe in astrology, according to statistics cited in the new rom-com 5 Star Day. The film opens theatrically in Los Angeles today after serving as the closing night film of last week's Beverly Hills Film, New Media & TV Festival.

Easy-on-the-eyes rising star Cam Gigandet (Twilight, Burlesque) plays his first lead role as Jake, a Berkeley philosophy student who sets out to document the fallacy of trusting in horoscopes. Jake becomes disillusioned after his birthday message promising a "5 star day" proves decidedly inaccurate: he loses his job, catches his girlfriend cheating on him, has his car stolen and must evacuate his apartment, which floods following a water break. Happy birthday!

To support his thesis, Jake identifies three other people who were born within five minutes of himself in the same Chicago hospital. He tracks each of them down across the US and interviews them about their birthday experiences to see if all four shared similar misfortune. The first he meets is Sarah Reynolds (Jena Malone, now nicely grown up), a bartender with a young daughter and a druggie ex-boyfriend. Jake's interest in Sarah quickly becomes more than academic.


5 Star Day, written and directed by Danny Buday, has its charms but is more often than not overly talky and serious. The screenplay crams way too many philosophical lessons learned, many of them cliches, into its final ten minutes. A lighter touch on Buday's part would have likely made the film more entertaining as well as more endearing. Gigandet carries the film well on his shapely shoulders, and it is beautifully lit and shot.

Given the enduring appeal of astrology, 5 Star Day may well find an appreciative audience despite its shortcomings.

Reverend's Rating: C+

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

Sesame Street, which debuted on PBS in 1969, has introduced many memorable Muppets to pop culture: Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Kermit the Frog, Cookie Monster, Bert & Ernie, and my personal favorite, the Count. However, the little red monster Elmo has made a bigger impact over the last 15 years or so than any of the others. With his high-pitched voice and unconditionally loving attitude, Elmo became a media sensation, sparked a "Tickle Me" toy craze and, most importantly, continues to touch the lives of children around the world.

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, which opens this weekend in New York and November 4 in Los Angeles before expanding nationally, is a totally enjoyable documentary as sweet-natured as Elmo himself. It primarily explores the life of Elmo's operator and spokesman, Kevin Clash, but also features the Muppets' late creator Jim Henson as well as commentators Frank Oz and Rosie O'Donnell, plus Whoopi Goldberg as narrator.

Inspired by Henson, Clash began making his own puppets while still a boy growing up in Baltimore. He was teased by his siblings and schoolmates for his eccentric hobby, but Clash had the last laugh when he was hired right out of high school to perform on a local TV series. This led to gigs on Captain Kangaroo and The Great Space Coaster. Clash worked with Muppets designer Kermit Love on Coaster, and Love eventually introduced Clash to Henson.


Clash recounts how thrilled he was when Henson subsequently offered him a job on his and Oz's revolutionary big-screen epic The Dark Crystal, as well as how conflicted he felt when Clash couldn't take the cut in pay he would have if he left his two popular TV shows to work on the film. By 1985, though, Clash's series had both been cancelled and he was all too happy to accept Henson's invitation to work on Labyrinth.

Destiny united Clash with Elmo once another Muppet performer, Richard L. Hunt, couldn't figure out what to do with their workshop's latest creation. Following Oz's advice to "find one special hook" for each character, Clash decided Elmo should personify love. Elmo's voice and propensity to hug and kiss whomever he meets quickly emerged. The rest is history.

Clash and Being Elmo are absolutely inspiring. The film becomes unexpectedly moving when Clash fulfills a terminally-ill child's wish to meet Elmo, and also when Clash speaks about his struggle to be a good father to his daughter given the demands of Elmo's success. Previously unseen footage included from Jim Henson's private memorial service likewise doesn't fail to touch viewers.


I was riveted by Chris Paine's expose Who Killed the Electric Car? while watching it at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Using a murder-investigation approach, Paine revealed that the nearly 5,000 initial models of an environmentally-safe, exceptionally fuel-efficient electric car were recalled by their manufacturers. Most of them were destroyed, while others were left to rust in a remote area outside a Phoenix suburb. A perceived loss of profits, not safety concerns, was the motivation behind the publicly well received cars' demise.

Five years later, sales of more recent models of electric cars are surging and Paine is back with a new documentary: Revenge of the Electric Car, opening today in LA and NYC. Though not as engrossing as the first film, Revenge pulls back the cover on the major car manufacturers' more recent efforts to create and sell electric cars without hurting their financial bottom line. These include Tesla Motors, Nissan and GM, and their CEOs (Elon Musk, Carlos Ghosn and Bob Lutz, respectively) are observed and interviewed in depth about both their past missteps and current strategies.

As Paine states in his latest film's press notes, "Sometimes change, like a train in the old West, gets stopped dead in its tracks... so it's a rare privilege to be able to tell the story of how sometimes change has too much momentum to be stopped." His documentaries have certainly made me a believer in the electric car. Now if they'll just get a little more affordable for us middle-class folks, that will be real progress.

Reverend's Ratings:
Being Elmo: B+
Revenge of the Electric Car: B

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

Nigel Slater is hardly a household name in the US. In the UK, however, the chef, food writer and host of the BBC series A Taste of My Life is the equivalent of our Wolfgang Puck or Emeril Lagasse. Unlike them, Slater is openly gay. He is also so popular that a movie has been made from his memoirs, Toast, which opens today for a limited engagement at Landmark's Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles. Fans of gay coming of age stories, British cinema and/or Helena Bonham Carter shouldn't miss it.

Nigel was only nine years old when his beloved mother died and he began to cook for his more distant, widowed father (Mum and Dad are memorably played in Toast by Victoria Hamilton and Ken Stott). Soon after, his father hired a housekeeper, Mrs. Potter (no relation to Harry though amusingly portrayed by Bonham Carter, last seen as Bellatrix LaStrange in the boy wizard's movie finale). Mrs. Potter, a seductive vision in blonde wig and red high heels, began fighting with Nigel for the elder Slater's affections. She initially won and found herself the second Mrs. Slater. But once Nigel began to hone his cooking skills in a high school Domestic Science class, the gloves came off and the war commenced.


Young actors Oscar Kennedy (making his film debut) and Freddie Highmore (best known to American audiences as Johnny Depp's young co-star in both Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland) give fantastic performances as Nigel's juvenile and adolescent selves. From the film's cute opening titles emblazoned on grocery store signs and products to its scenes of Nigel exploring his homosexual attractions, first to the family's hunky groundskeeper and later to a male ballet dancer, Toast serves as a wistful reminder of the battles we all fought to become who we are today. As Nigel says in the film, "When you're deprived of something, it just makes you more hungry for it." Amen to that.

Food also plays a role in the climactic drag ball documented in The Sons of Tennessee Williams (First Run Features), opening today in New York City and October 14 in LA. Director Tim Wolff uncovers the vibrant history of gay life in New Orleans via the famous "krewes" that participate in each year's Mardi Gras festivities. As a 1950's newsreel report declares at the film's start, "Gay celebrations usher in Lent!" Needless to say, "gay" meant something else to most folks back then.


One participant who has been involved all along states, "You didn't put your lifestyle on the street the way they do today." Indeed, doing so would almost immediately get one arrested. Since Mardi Gras (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday each year) was the only day men could legally cross-dress in New Orleans, it became the city's de facto gay pride celebration at an early point in its history. Many decades later, in the wake of such devastating adversities as AIDS and Hurricane Katrina, the annual balls thrown by long-lived gay groups such as the Krewe of KY(!) and the Krewe of Armeinius are not only hot tickets but have won the respect of the local Black and White, moneyed, straight communities.

Amazing, elaborate costumes are in abundance throughout The Sons of Tennessee Williams but the film's finale -- shot during the Krewe of Armeinius's 40th anniversary ball, at which the theme was "desserts" -- is spectacular. Decoupage patterned on gingerbread, petit fours and New York cheesecake will not only make viewers hungry but are guaranteed to take one's breath away.

Reverend's Ratings:
Toast: B+
The Sons of Tennessee Williams: B

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

During my time in a Roman Catholic seminary twenty years ago, the late philosopher-professor Joseph Campbell was revered for having situated Christianity within what he termed the "monomyth," a millennia-spanning heroic adventure found in every human culture. Today, Campbell -- who was raised Catholic -- would likely be condemned as an apostate given the Church's current, conservative climate.

For the uninitiated, the new documentary Finding Joe (opening today in Los Angeles and soon to rollout nationally) serves as a crash course in Campbell's life work involving myths, slaying and/or befriending figurative dragons, and the ultimate encouragement, drawn from Hindu tradition, to "follow one's bliss." Utilizing interviews with such diverse personalities as Deepak Chopra, Mick Fleetwood and Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) as well as a number of clips from movie classics including the Star Wars saga, The Lord of the Rings and The Wizard of Oz, Finding Joe provides considerable insight into Campbell's writings if not necessarily the man. (To learn more about Campbell himself, check out Bill Moyers' late 1980's PBS series, The Power of Myth.)


The film -- written, produced and directed by Patrick Takaya Solomon -- is nicely shot and edited but generally employs a standard "talking heads" approach and lectures more than it engages. It is strongest whenever it quotes Campbell directly, with such reflections as "Many of us are metaphorically-impaired" (referring to the equation of mythology with metaphor) and "I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive" among the stand outs. There are also some charming vignettes sprinkled throughout in which children dramatize chapters from Campbell's seminal work, A Hero with a Thousand Faces.

There is also wisdom to be found in Campbell's conclusion that true power results when each of us learns to "love and accept yourself as you are." Finding Joe may not be the most accomplished piece of cinema, especially when compared to some of the Campbell-inspired films it spotlights, but its subject remains undeniably inspiring.


What might ultimately emerge as one of the best movies of 2011 also opens today in LA and New York City: Jeff Nichols' excellent suspense-drama Take Shelter. Frightening, moving and thought-provoking by turns, it stars Michael Shannon (an Academy Award nominee for 2008's Revolution Road and soon to be seen as the villainous General Zod in the Superman epic, Man of Steel) as Curtis LaForche, an unassuming Ohio sand miner with a loving wife (Jessica Chastain, current belle of the cineplex ball in the wake her eye-opening turns in The Tree of Life, The Help and The Debt) and deaf daughter.

Curtis is well respected at work and in their community. However, just when the LaForches are prepping their daughter for a cochlear implant that will, if successful, enable her to hear, Curtis begins to have apocalyptic visions and nightmares involving a devastating storm, flocks of angry crows and a pack of seemingly-escaped mental patients out to get his little girl. He subsequently becomes obsessed with expanding and fortifying the family's storm cellar, much to his friends' and neighbors' consternation. Are Curtis's dreams prophetic, or is he succumbing to the same paranoid schizophrenia that struck his mother (a cameo by the always welcome Kathy Baker, of Picket Fences and Edward Scissorhands fame) when she was the same age as Curtis is now?


I think master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock would have approved of Take Shelter, especially with its visual allusions to The Birds and its beautifully ironic finale (which will likely polarize audiences). Shannon deftly balances the stoic and the terrified, and Chastain gives another, now seemingly expected great performance. Also fine are the movie's eerie storm effects and other effective scares dished up by Nichols along with visual effects supervisor Chris Wells (Avatar, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and editor Parke Gregg.

In the end, Take Shelter powerfully illustrates that the only real safety to be found when disaster looms -- whether real or imagined -- is with the one(s) we love.

Reverend's Ratings:
Finding Joe: B
Take Shelter: A-

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

Weekend, which won the 2011 Outfest Grand Jury Award for Outstanding International Dramatic Feature, is getting a great reception among gay men wherever it shows. Interestingly, this unapologetic queer romance is also being embraced by straight viewers, who bestowed Audience Awards upon it at the hetero-dominated South by Southwest and Nashville film festivals. Weekend will be gradually released in theaters in NYC and throughout the U.S. beginning September 23.

Written, directed and even edited by British filmmaker Andrew Haigh (Greek Pete), Weekend follows two gay men over the course of 48 hours following their initial, Friday night meeting. Insightful and sexy, I don't think we've seen a gay-themed film this purely romantic and ultimately affecting since Brokeback Mountain. Lead actors Tom Cullen and Chris New have undeniable chemistry and give great, vulnerable performances.

Haigh called recently from "across the pond" to speak about Weekend. "More than anything," Haigh said, "I just wanted to tell a story about two people falling in love with each other. I wanted to make it as realistic and honest as possible. I've seen a lot of gay films but none of them really reflected my life."


The filmmaker started out as an editor on such popular mainstream movies as Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Mona Lisa Smile. In 2008, he was named as one of Screen International's "Stars of Tomorrow." Haigh shared: "I've always wanted to direct; I didn't necessarily set out to be a writer-director but it just kind of happened." He counts Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator) as a mentor and independent American directors including Joe Swannberg (Autoerotic, Blackmail Boys) as inspirations.

Haigh is thrilled by the awards and positive reactions Weekend has been receiving in the US since his film has yet to open in the UK "It's been fascinating to me, especially now that with the Internet and Twitter you can get people's immediate reaction. Not just gay people but lots of straight people have said (my movie) really resonates with them."

He has a theory as to why Weekend is finding more universal acceptance than most gay-themed films. "I've always felt that if you're honest with your story, people will go along with it." Haigh also believes his movie's take on the challenge of finding and keeping Mister or Miss Right is striking a chord. "It's hard!" he laughed. "Finding someone you connect with is very difficult; It's a bit of a battle."


Haigh has nothing but praise for his lead actors, especially when it comes to the film's graphic sex scenes. "Tom and Chris made the whole process surprisingly easy, although it is always daunting filming such scenes. We just tried to make things as comfortable as possible by shooting with minimal crew and doing only a couple of takes. Alcohol helps too."

I have to admit I was put off by the characters' considerable drug use in the film. While getting high on marijuana and cocaine during the early stages of courting seems to me a far from healthy foundation for a long-lasting relationship, I can respect Haigh's choice in this regard to the degree it reflects his observations. This is the only aspect in which Weekend felt false to me in light of my life experience.

So what can we expect next from this talented gay filmmaker? "I'm trying to write," Haigh said, "which is very difficult while you're going to festivals and traveling around. Writing takes a long, long time." I expect his next project will be worth the wait.

Reverend's Rating: B+

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

With summer's more frivolous films behind us, it's time for "serious" movies to dominate the box office and try to garner awards attention. Two of the fall's first major releases deal with the most serious subject of all: death and dying.

In the current #1 movie, Contagion, a big-name international cast including Oscar winners Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet and Marion Cotillard confront death on a catastrophic scale when a previously unknown virus begins to decimate the world's population. As doctors around the globe work to identify the pathogen and discover its origin and -- hopefully -- a vaccine, banks fold, riots break out and cities burn. Meanwhile, Jude Law (a memorable standout) fuels the panic with his blog's conspiracy theories that may well be more than mere theories. Despite Elliot Gould's medical researcher denouncing Law's character with the declaration "Blogging is graffiti with punctuation"(!), the online journalist hits the nail on the head more than once as he identifies mutually-beneficial links between the government and pharmaceutical companies. Meanwhile, nearly a billion people die within a few months time.

Contagion is a well-made, effective chiller directed by an authenticity-obsessed Steven Soderbergh (Traffic). I would have admired and respected it better, though, if (SPOILER ALERT) it wasn't so subtly judgmental toward Paltrow's "patient zero" character. It isn't enough that she's cheating on her husband (Damon), but she has to work for the corporation responsible for the deforestation that leads to the viral outbreak too??? Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns could use a reminder that viruses don't have moral standards.


Meanwhile, gay director Gus Van Sant's Restless (opening today) takes a smaller-scale, more romantic approach to the Grim Reaper. The opening night "Un Certain Regard" selection at this year's Cannes Film Festival, the film focuses on the plight of a recently orphaned teenage boy, Enoch (a debut performance by Henry Hopper, son of the late actor Dennis Hopper). He attends strangers' funerals in his ongoing grief over his parents' accidental death, and leans on the ethereal shoulder of his best friend, Hiroshi (Ryo Kase), who happens to be the ghost of a WWII Kamikaze fighter pilot.

While at one memorial service, Enoch meets the charming Annabel (Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska). They embark on a friendship that soon turns to love, only to have Enoch learn that Annabel is herself dying of cancer. Accepting of her prognosis, Annabel makes it her mission to help Enoch learn to live before she passes on.

Restless turns out to be very good and it could have easily been very bad; memories of 1991's Dying Young, in which Julia Roberts fell cloyingly in love with a terminally-ill Campbell Scott, spring immediately to mind. But Jason Lew's script, workshopped for several years with actress/producer Bryce Dallas Howard, succeeds at depicting the tension between young love and premature death with warmth and humor. Van Sant also handles the risky material expertly, cutting away or throwing in a tension-reducing image whenever things threaten to get too morose. Wasikowska's Annabel is a bit one-note in her optimistic attitude and Hopper's lack of acting experience is apparent at some points, but they form an affecting duo.


Happy, Happy doesn't take on end-of-life issues but instead explores the life cycle of relationships. Norway's entry in this year's Academy Awards competition for Best Foreign Language Film, it opens today in southern California and New York. Anne Sewitsky's feature directorial debut also took home the World Cinema Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival.

Kaia (a very good Agnes Kittelsen) is a young wife and mother who puts on a positive demeanor despite the fact that she and her husband haven't had sex in over a year. When an attractive, seemingly liberal couple move in next door with their adopted, African son, Kaia reaches out as a good neighbor. It isn't long before she and Sigve (Henrik Rafaelsen), the new man on the block, are frolicking nude in the snow and getting it on behind their spouses' backs. Kaia's husband Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen), in the meantime, is secretly struggling with his sexuality and trying to decide who he's more attracted to: Sigve or Sigve's previously-adulterous wife, Elisabeth (Maibritt Saerens).

While essentially a comedy of manners, Happy, Happy isn't of the laugh-out-loud variety, and a subplot involving Kaia and Eirik's son trying to make Sigve and Elisabeth's son his slave is extremely discomforting. Still, the film is touched with truthful, graceful moments, none less so than when the increasingly liberated Kaia overcomes her longtime fear of singing in public to lead the church choir in "Amazing Grace" during Christmas Eve service. If movies about death and dying don't sound particularly appealing this weekend (or ever), Happy, Happy will serve as a good alternative.

Reverend's Ratings:
Contagion: B
Restless: B+
Happy, Happy: B-

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

Why is Steven Soderbergh planning to retire from movie-making? Did he find out something so terrifying while making Contagion that he is giving everything up and going to live in hiding in a sterile bunker? If so, the film he’ll be leaving behind is a startling if somewhat cold and sterile thriller itself about a deadly virus that threatens to decimate the world’s population. It is a well-made film about the birth of a pandemic caused by Gwyneth Paltrow that spreads like wildfire, and the internet–fueled panic that spreads even faster. As well made as Contagion is, its insistence on being unsentimental and clinical leaves you unmoved by the characters and oddly distanced from caring about them.

Starting in blackness as we hear Minneapolis executive Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) cough before we see her sweaty face and casual touching of bar nuts, her credit card and drink that will soon become carriers of the disease. It is set in an airport, so we know that Beth will soon prove every germaphobe right. Beth has just cheated on her schlubby husband Mitch (Matt Damon) with an old flame, and the wages of sin truly are death in this case. As Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet at the CDC try to assess the threat level, a cocky blogger (Jude Law) blasts raw data out onto the internet with no regard to how it might be received (Wikileaks, anyone?). Jennifer Ehle and Demetri Martin (Taking Woodstock) play CDC doctors desperately trying to isolate the virus and kill it, and Ehle gives the film’s most memorable performance. The one failed character is Marion Cotillard as Dr. Leonora Orantes, a World Health Organization doctor who gets abducted while trying to uncover the virus’ origin. Clearly, we are supposed to be invested in who has kidnapped her and why, but it falls totally flat given the rest of the film’s refusal to indulge in emotion.


The ending of Contagion also feels a little like the anticlimactic end of War of the Worlds without the cheesy Morgan Freeman voice over. Prior to that, Soderbergh does a great job showing how quickly the US collapses into anarchy once the public realizes that not everyone is going to get the cure, if and when it is discovered. One can easily imagine Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann telling their Tea Party faithful to storm drug stores and health clinics (especially Women’s Clinics) to “take back America” and save their own sorry skins. Contagion succeeds as a frigid examination of our fragile position on Earth, and the brave people who give their lives trying to save others. The performers are all good, even if they can’t really bust through the wall of ice Soderbergh puts between them and the audience. It is like the freeze-dried version of Outbreak.

Don’t be surprised if you leave Contagion with sweaty palms, shortness of breath, and a healthy case of paranoia.

Reel Thoughts Rating: B-

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

I'm not an automatic fan of sports-themed movies and even less one of fight films. I couldn't resist Warrior though (opening nationwide today) based on its poster art of hot, shirtless stars Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton. It becomes clear while watching the movie that the men's abs aren't as defined as they are in the digitally-enhanced ad copy, but what also becomes apparent is how good a movie -- sports-themed or otherwise -- Warrior is.

Hardy (who made a big splash in Inception and will soon be seen as super-villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises) and Edgerton (of last year's Animal Kingdom and next month's prequel to/remake of The Thing) play estranged brothers who also happen to have been star wrestlers and fighters as teenagers. Coached to greatness by their alcoholic father (Nick Nolte), the boys went their separate ways when their mother left her husband.


Warrior picks up 14 years later. Tommy (Hardy), having cared for their mother as she died of cancer, has returned home to Pittsburgh as an AWOL Marine with a chip on his shoulder. His now in-recovery dad takes Tommy in despite junior's resentment toward him. Meanwhile, other brother Brendan (Edgerton) is a well-admired high school physics teacher with a beautiful wife and daughters. Sadly, Brendan's family is living on the brink of bankruptcy thanks to his low teacher's salary and an exorbitant, refinanced mortgage.

In an effort to make ends meet and save the house, Brendan has secretly been spending his nights fighting in local competitions. He also has his eye on an upcoming international tournament called Sparta, dubbed "the biggest winner-takes-all event in mixed martial arts history." If Brendan wins the multimillion dollar prize, his house will be saved and his family set. But unbeknownst to him, Tommy is being trained by their father to compete in Sparta as well.

The very well written script by Gavin O'Connor (who also directs), Anthony Tambakis and Cliff Dorfman successfully squeezes new life out of many fight-movie, sibling-rivalry and Irish-Catholic cliches. While O'Connor overworks some metaphors (no less so than when it comes to Nolte's obsession with Captain Ahab and Moby Dick), Warrior emerges a pleasingly literate, compassionate depiction of flawed yet noble characters.


Edgerton's and Hardy's performances are excellent, as is Nolte's. Hardy is quickly becoming one of our more chameleon-esque actors, capable of changing his body shape, vocal quality and accent with ease. Nolte is more restrained and affecting here than he has been in some time. I would love to see Nolte receive supporting actor awards nods for his work here, and Hardy and Edgerton also have legitimate shots at the Best Actor category if they don't "cancel each other out."

The film's numerous fight scenes are intense and superbly choreographed. While brutal, Warrior doesn't wallow in violence for violence's sake. The fighting has an unexpected, contrary effect of bringing family and communities together and healing wounds during the movie's long-anticipated grand finale, when brother finally meets brother in the ring.

Warrior is exciting, visceral filmmaking at its best.

Reverend's Rating: B+

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

History is written by the victors. That quote informs the new morality thriller The Debt, starring Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington and breakout star Jessica Chastain (Celia Foote in The Help). Set in 1997, but mostly told in flashback in the late sixties, The Debt tells the story of a trio of Israeli Mossad agents (Chastain, Worthington and Martin Csokas) who were charged with finding and bringing to justice an infamous Nazi called the "Surgeon of Birkenau", believed to be living in East Berlin. In 1997, the three agents’ bravery in dealing with the evil sadist has brought them thirty years of acclaim, especially for Rachel (Mirren). Her daughter Sarah has even written a book about her mother’s role in killing the monster, even while she was wounded. Of course, that is the history the Israelis needed to hear, but the reality turns out to be something different, a secret the agents tightly guarded all these years.

Director John Madden made a splash with Shakespeare in Love, and The Debt is sure to draw Oscar attention next year, at least for acting. Most of the action takes place in the past, giving Chastain, Worthington and Csokas bigger roles than Mirren, Tom Wilkinson or Ciaran Hinds. The only jarring casting is that Csokas looks just like Hinds, and Worthington looks similar to Wilkinson, yet the younger men’s parts are reversed. It takes constant reminding to realize who is who in the flashbacks.


The Debt manages an exciting balance between the morality tale of tracking Dieter Vogel and how the agents struggle to treat their captive beast humanely, the growing emotional bond between Rachel and the two men, and the espionage action as the agents try to smuggle their prisoner out of Communist East Berlin without being caught or shot. The story echoes the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound and the present day mystery is reminiscent of the Pat Tillman “friendly fire” cover-up. The ending cheapens the film with a finale that was a little too Fatal Attraction for me, but it gave The Debt the big closure some audiences need.

Israel’s quest to bring the Nazi war criminals to justice is always fascinating, and The Debt is respectful of the subject matter. Wilkinson, Mirren and Hinds ground the story and give it the weight it needs. The Debt is a great, mature thriller to help say goodbye to summer and to get ready for the high prestige films of the fall.

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