Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 55

Happy Hump Day!  Once again, I’m filling in for Don Durito.  I’m continuing my theme of music from movies this week with three songs by Shriekback from the original Hannibal Lecter movie, “Manhunter” from 1986.  I begin with my favorite song from the soundtrack, “This Big Hush.”

My next favorite is “Coelocanth,” which I posted on my personal blog five years ago as “Song for a living fossil.”  Here it is in context, as the background for the tiger scence in “Manhunter.”  The song begins about 0:40.  The scene is both beautiful and creepy.

Clip of Manhunter (1986) by Michael Mann, starring Joan Allen (as Reba McClane), Tom Noonan (as Francis Dollarhyde), & William Petersen (as Will Graham)

The final song is “Evaporation.”  This is the original version; the upload of the movie version has less than ideal sound quality.  I might embed it in the comments.

Once again, I’m concluding the diary proper by quoting Don Durito.

For those of you wondering how I and Neon Vincent are circumventing Sucuri to embed videos, here is an example of the embed code we use, so that you can replicate as wanted:

Just remember that each unique 11-digit video code in YouTube needs to be pasted in two separate locations within the embed code in order for your video to show up properly. So easy that I can do it!

With these instructions, feel free to post your favorite music videos in the comments.

Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 54

Happy Hump Day!  Once again, I’m filling in for Don Durito and continuing my theme of music nominated at awards shows.  This week, I’m sharing the music videos nominated at the Makeup and Hair Stylists Guild Awards.

I begin with the same artist I began with last week, Katy Perry, this time in “Swish Swish,” which was nominated for both Makeup and Hair Styling in a Commercial or Music Video.

Starring Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Molly Shannon, Terry Crews, Hafþór Júlíus “Thor” Björnsson, Bill Walton, Rich Eisen, Gatan Matarazzo, Jenna Ushkowitz, Christine Sydelko, Dexter Mayfield, Doug The Pug, Russel “Backpack Kid” Horning, Iris Kyle, Rob Gronkowski, Karl-Anthony Towns, Joey Chestnut, the ladies of GLOW (Sydelle Noel, Britney Young, Kia Stevens, Jackie Tohn), Carter Wilkerson, West Hollywood Cheerleaders, Amanda LaCount, and Nugget as herself.

Just like last week, Katy Perry was competing with Pink, this time for her collaboration with Eminem, Revenge.  Unfortunately, the actual video is not available.  As Breathe Heavy reported, Pink Scrapped The Music Video For Her Eminem-Assisted Track “Revenge”.

Pink will not allow her “Revenge” music video to see the light of day.

The singer filmed a visual for her Eminem collab, a track about getting even with a cheater, but she decided to leave it on the cutting room floor? Why? It was “terrible.”

“We shot it and it was terrible. It’s never coming out,” Pink confirmed to The Sun. “It just didn’t work and it was the wrong timing for it.”

Oh, well, enough people saw it that it was nominated for Best Make-up in a Commercial or Music Video, although we won’t.  Since this diary is about the music more than the visuals, here’s the censored audio.

Follow over the jump for the other two nominated music videos.
Competing against both Katy Perry and Pink for Best Make-up in a Commercial or Music Video was “Run” by the Foo Fighters.

Yes, that’s the Foo Fighters under all that makeup.

The final music video nominee was Selena Gomez for Best Hair Styling in a Commercial or Music Video.

Yes, that’s Selena Gomez playing four different roles with lots of wigs.

Unfortunately, none of the music videos won.  Instead, one of the commercials they were competing against took home both the Make-up and Hair Styling trophies.  I’ll reveal it in the comments.

Before I do, I’m concluding the diary proper by quoting Don Durito.

For those of you wondering how I and Neon Vincent are circumventing Sucuri to embed videos, here is an example of the embed code we use, so that you can replicate as wanted:

Just remember that each unique 11-digit video code in YouTube needs to be pasted in two separate locations within the embed code in order for your video to show up properly. So easy that I can do it!

With those instructions, feel free to post your favorite videos (preferably with good hair, makeup, and costumes 🙂 in the comments.

Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 53

Happy Hump Day!  Once again, I’m filling in for Don Durito and continuing my theme of music nominated at awards shows.  This week, I’m sharing the music videos nominated at the Costume Designers Guild Awards.  In addition to featuring well designed clothes, all of them make a social point.

I begin with my favorite nominee, Katy Perry’s “Chained to the Rhythm” with costumes designed by B. Akerlund.

Official video for “Chained to the Rhythm” directed by Mathew Cullen, produced by Danny Lockwood, Rob Newman, Ben Leiser & Javier Jimenez. Filmed at Six Flags Magic Mountain, California, “The Thrill Capital of the World”, January 2017.

Bustle points out that this song is expressly political, a big change from the escapism of Perry’s earlier work.

Just in time for her performance at the 2017 Grammys, Katy Perry released “Chained To The Rhythm,” a brand new single. On the surface, the song sounds like an ode to dancing filled with all of the bubblegum sweetness that the public has come to expect from Perry. However, once you listen to the “Chained to the Rhythm” lyrics, you’ll realize that this pop star is using her new song to be politically subversive.

Knowing that the singer was an incredibly vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton puts the lyrics of “Chained to the Rhythm” into some serious context. On Twitter, Perry herself called the song “purposeful pop,” and it’s absolutely commentary on life in the time of President Donald Trump. Sure, it sounds like she’s simply encouraging you to dance and drink like “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” or something, but she’s actually being critical of the apathetic and escapist nature of humans in these troubling times.

So, when you find yourself singing and dancing along to the earworm that is “Chained to the Rhythm,” know that Perry didn’t intend for it to be enjoyed as pure entertainment. “Chained to the Rhythm” is satire and Perry wants you to feel her scorn.

Skip Marley, the grandson of Bob Marley, makes a cameo in the video as well.

Follow over the jump for the other nominees, including the winner.
Don Durito and I have talked about the glaring social and economic inequality of Los Angeles.  That forms the background to the next nominee, Elton John – Tiny Dancer (Official Music Video), although L.A.’s car culture is even more prominent than the desperation of broken dreams.

Building on Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s Californian inspiration, Max Weiland filmed a video for “Tiny Dancer” that reflects on life in Los Angeles from a dozen different perspectives. The Cut, proudly supported by YouTube, invited filmmakers to create the first official music videos for three of Elton’s most famous songs…

Yes, Marilyn Manson makes an appearance.  That’s him with the snake.

Finally, here’s the winner of Excellence in Short Form Design, P!NK’s “Beautiful Trauma” with costumes designed by Kim Bowen.  Watch as it has fun with gender roles.

If nothing else, Channing Tatum certainly can dance!

Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 49

Happy Hump Day!  I’m filling in for Don Durito again tonight and I’m continuing with the theme I started in Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 44, music from award-nominated (and hopefully award-winning) movies with political and environmental themes.  Since the Oscar nominations were announced yesterday, I’m featuring two Oscar-nominated songs.

The first song is “Stand Up For Something” from “Marshall,” which is also nominated for a Grammy.

“Stand Up For Something” by Andra Day feat. Common. Written by Diane Warren and Lonnie Lynn, from the original soundtrack to the motion picture “Marshall”, in theaters Oct. 13, 2017.

In case this looks familiar, I posted it in the comments to Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 45.  I’m an environmentalist; I recycle.

The next song for today is Mary J Blige – “Mighty River” (Mudbound OST).

Not only did Mary J. Blige earn a nomination for this song that she wrote and sung, she earned a nomination for her acting in the film.  This is the first time someone has been nominated at the Academy Awards for both music and acting in the same year.  Not even Barbra Streisand has pulled that off!

I’ll post the rest of the nominated songs in comments as I see fit.  I invite the rest of you to post your favorite songs from movies and television in the comments as well.

The most honored political documentaries of 2017 examine crime, injustice, and the Syrian Civil War

Since it’s awards season, I am ranking documentaries about politics, government, social issues, and the environment by counting up how many nominations and wins each film has earned at what I’m counting as the major awards shows and programs that recognize documentaries.  I’m counting films recognized by the Black Reel Awards, Cinema Eye Honors Awards, US, Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, Environmental Media Awards, USA, Film Independent Spirit Awards, Gotham Awards, International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards, National Board of Review, Online Film Critics Society Awards, Producers Guild Documentary Awards, and Satellite Awards.  I also included two points for the Emmy Award that went to LA 92.  For every nomination, the film earns one point and every win, the film earns another point for a total of two.  Only movies that earned two or more points made the list, as they either won an award or were nominated for at least two awards; movies with only one nomination got left off.

After adding up all the points, I’ve ranked the qualifying films as follows with films having the same score arranged alphabetically.  To see the awards and nominations, click on the link in the title to read the relevant IMDB page.

Strong Island 12
City of Ghosts 11
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail 10
Chasing Coral 9
Cries from Syria 9
Ex Libris: New York Public Library 9
Quest 8
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power 7
Icarus 7
Whose Streets? 7
The Work 6
Dolores 5
LA 92 5
Last Men in Aleppo 5
Rat Film 4
Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS 3
Human Flow 3
Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992 3
Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends) 2

That’s an impressive list of worthy films.  I don’t envy the documentary branch of the Motion Picture Academy; they had their work cut out for them, as there were 170 eligible documentaries this year.  The top five from my list alone would make for a good Oscar field, but that won’t happen, if for no other reason than the fifteen film short list has already been released and  “Cries from Syria” did not make it.  In addition, “Faces, Places,” “Jane,” “Long Strange Trip,” “One of Us,” and “Unrest,” which are not on my list, have made the Oscar shortlist and are as good as any of the my top five.  On top of which, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” also made the Oscar shortlist and could make the final five based on it’s being a sequel to a previous winner and as a response to the current political climate.  If so, it would probably replace “Chasing Coral,” which would be a shame, if understandable.  As I have found out by examining awards shows, not every electorate is the same and the pool of voters matters.

Follow over the jump for the films arranged by general subject along with their plot summaries and my commentary.
Race and Injustice

The largest block of movies are about the unequal treatment of racial minorities, mostly but not entirely African-Americans, by government, particularly the justice system.  This includes the highest ranked film, “Strong Island.”  Alissa Wilkinson of Vox noted the theme of crime and injustice in her review of the top documentaries of the year.

One of the most celebrated documentaries in 2017 was Yance Ford’s Strong Island, a searing personal account of Ford’s grief, frustration, and struggle following the murder of his brother — a black man killed by a white man, investigated by a justice system that doesn’t seem interested in solving the case. The film is both emotional and pointed, with Ford attempting, on camera, to determine what really happened and what that means for self, family, and country when justice is so frequently crossed with prejudice. The camera often pulls in close to his face as he speaks directly to us, but we’re not the only ones being addressed; Ford is mining memory and experience, retreading paths that are painful in search of answers that may never come. But that lack of resolution, as uncomfortable as it is for us as the audience, is the point.

“One of the most celebrated documentaries of 2017” is absolutely right with two awards and eight nominations.

Speaking of celebrated documentaries, the next film covering this general subject, “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” has won four awards from the shows and programs I am using, including Best Political Documentary from the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.  The Guardian review explains why it belongs here.

Veteran documentary-maker Steve James (Hoop Dreams) is back with an engrossing story: the extraordinary fiasco of the Abacus bank prosecution. It is a tale of hypocrisy, judicial bullying and racism. Abacus was a small neighbourhood bank serving New York’s Chinese community, which discovered a crooked employee falsifying mortgage documents, duly reported the matter to the authorities, but then found itself prosecuted by a district attorney who had sniffed a post-2008 PR opportunity to collar some real live bankers.

“Model minority” or not, Asian-Americans experience systemic racism, too.

“Quest” probably displays the least injustice of the movies telling the stories of African-Americans, but it still puts their experience in a political context, as Vox notes.

But the portrait that sticks with me most from 2017 is found in Jonathan Olshefski’s film Quest, a documentary portrait of a North Philadelphia family shot over a decade. Quest is a cinéma vérité documentary portrait of the Rainey family, who operate a recording studio. But life (and movies) doesn’t always go as planned, and when tragedy hits the family, the documentary takes an unexpected turn. It is, by far, one of the most moving documentaries of the year, and vital viewing that somehow captures the past 10 years of the American experience — including life in the city as well as the broader political and social situation in America — better than either the Raineys or Olshefski could have ever imagined.

Out of all the documentaries about the general theme of the minority experience in America and the injustices associated with it, only one received nominations from both the Black Reel Awards and the NAACP Image Awards, “Whose Streets?” about the protests in Ferguson, Missouri.  Rolling Stone had the most vivid review.

You might think for a nanosecond that, after seeing footage of the protests and push-back in Ferguson, Missouri, played in TV-news loops during the back half of 2014, those images might have lost the ability to shock or stun you. And then you bear witness to the scenes of cacophony and chaos in Whose Streets?, the extraordinary documentary by Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis – the tear gas and the tanks and bodies being slammed down on the ground – and your rage starts to play catch-up to the rage emanating from behind the camera. A boots-on-the-ground portrait of the aftermath of Michael Brown Jr.’s murder and the sparks of a movement that sprang from it, this impressionistic collection of testimonies, frontline dispatches and citizen journalism could not feel more essential. Whether it’s the “best” documentary of 2017 is a matter of opinion. But it is assuredly the most vital.

No examination of crime and injustice would be complete without an examination of prison life.  “The Work” does just that, as Vox reports.

But one of the very best films of the year was Jairus McLeary and Gethin Aldous’s The Work, which lets the audience sit just outside a circle of men — some incarcerated, some from outside the prison walls — engaging in intense, four-day group therapy at Folsom Prison. The Work spends almost all of its time inside the room where that therapy happens, observing the strong, visceral, and sometimes violent emotions the men feel as they expose the hurt and raw nerves that have shaped how they encounter the world. Watching is not always easy, but by letting us peek in, the film invites us to become part of the experience — as if we, too, are being asked to let go.

Leaving behind the African-American experience for the Mexican-American one, “Dolores” follows the life of the co-founder of the United Farm Workers.  My former hometown paper, the Los Angeles Times, explains.

“Dolores” is a documentary that celebrates a hero, but it’s no hagiography. Its subject wouldn’t stand for that.

That would be Dolores Huerta, a legendary activist who at age 87 defines indefatigable, a woman whose experience shows what a life of total commitment means — as well as the price it demands.

Huerta has been jailed, seriously beaten, mocked by commentator Glenn Beck and given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama. Yet she doesn’t have the name recognition of her close collaborator, Cesar Chavez, something director Peter Bratt is determined to change with this vivid, informative and heartening documentary.

Huerta was the co-founder, along with Chavez, of the United Farm Workers union. She’s also the person who came up with that organization’s celebrated slogan, “Si, se puede” — yes, we can — someone whose tireless activism has extended to feminism, the environment and the political process.

I should have known about Dolores Huerta a long time ago.  I’m glad I finally did.

I’m examining two films on the same topic, breaking with my going strictly on points.  They are “LA 92” and “Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992,” both about the Los Angeles uprising of 25 years ago.  The former, which won the Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, made the Oscar shortlist.  It tied for the second lowest scoring film according to my metric to make the shortlist, but it also beat both of last year’s Oscar winning documentaries, “O.J.: Made in America” and “The White Helmets,” at the Emmy Awards, so I think the documentary branch did the film, the industry, and the audience a service by including it.

I return to the Los Angeles Times, which reviewed both films together in an interesting comparison and contrast.

Riots or rebellion? Anarchy or insurrection? Unrest or uprising? Whatever words are used to categorize it, as the 25th anniversary approaches of the frenzy of violence that swept Los Angeles beginning April 29, 1992, attention is being paid. A lot of attention.

No fewer than five documentaries are being broadcast about those events, and no wonder. For one thing, the havoc caused was considerable, with more than 50 people killed, thousands injured and roughly a billion dollars in property damage sustained. Wherever you were in the city, you could see the smoke of a metropolis attacked by flames.

And though a quarter-century is past, the events that began with a notorious acquittal in the trial of four police officers for the beating of Rodney King are far from settled history. And the societal situations that caused them are no closer to resolution.

Two of those five documentaries are going to have theatrical releases before their TV airings. Though their aesthetic approaches are almost diametrically opposed, the skill with which each has been made enables them to in effect speak to each other. Seen back to back, these two documentaries have a powerful, even explosive impact even though they both cover essentially the same events.

The documentary opening first in theaters — on April 21 for one week at the Laemmle Music Hall in a version that is nearly an hour longer than the one that will be broadcast on ABC on April 28 — is John Ridley’s “Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992.”

Though it has its share of excellent footage from back in the day, the strength of “Let It Fall” is in its remarkable contemporary interviews, compelling both for the people recorded and the way the conversations are allowed to unfold.

“LA 92,” at the Laemmle Noho on April 28, two days before it is broadcast on the National Geographic Channel, takes the opposite tack. Directed by Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin, who won an Oscar for “Undefeated,” “LA 92” intentionally avoids interviews and constructs a narrative entirely through immersion in archival footage.

“Let It Fall” is on Netflix, and it might just get a second chance at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards next year.  In fact, I think a bunch of these films, which are also on streaming services or being shown on PBS or cable, may make for a crowded and quality field in the documentary categories at the next awards.

When I first read the title of the next movie, I thought, oh, cool, an environmental movie I can come back to later.  Vox set me straight, showing that it belongs with films about racial injustice.

The very best essay-style documentary I saw this year was Theo Anthony’s Rat Film, which explores “redlining,” eugenics, and Baltimore’s racial history through the lens of the city’s most notorious rodent, the rat. It is a barnburner of a movie, one that flicks back and forth through different pieces of an argument, which manifest themselves in very different ways. Sometimes we’re just listening to a guy talk. Sometimes we’re watching maps take on different colors. Sometimes we’re literally watching rats. But the larger point, which slowly emerges as Anthony builds his argument by trying out the ideas next to one another, is that the roots of many social problems in Baltimore — and elsewhere in America — come from the way we subtly code racial and class biases in a manner reminiscent of our treatment of vermin.

As a resident of metro Detroit, I shouldn’t be surprised to find that environmental problems are also racial problems, and vice versa.

Syria, ISIS, and Terrorism

Four of the top documentaries this year are about the civil war in Syria, including the fight against ISIS/Daesh, “City of Ghosts,” “Cries from Syria,” “Last Men in Aleppo,” and “Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS,” while a fifth, “Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis” examines how terrorism caused by ISIS/Daesh impacted some musical Americans in Paris.  Two of them, “City of Ghosts” and “The Last Men in Aleppo,” have made the Oscar shortlist.  I begin by quoting the first review by The Guardian of “City of Ghosts.”

Matthew Heineman’s return to Sundance after his Oscar-nominated Cartel Land is a triumphant one. Where his previous film was a journalistic masterclass in taking access to the extreme, City of Ghosts instead turns the camera on heroic journalists themselves. In doing so, Heineman may have made the definitive contemporary documentary about the tragedy of Syria, as well as an epoch-defining piece on modern media tactics.

The film tells the story of Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), a group of citizen journalists who take great risks in documenting and releasing video, photo and written testimony of Islamic State atrocities in their home city. RBSS have been lauded by journalism organisations over the world, and the film opens on the bow-tied activists receiving a standing ovation in New York. However, Heineman resists romanticising RBSS – it’s clear from the first shot in the back of the head we witness, in surreptitious grainy video, that their cause is one of great personal sacrifice. While RBSS might be well known now, the impact on them as individuals isn’t. This is as much a documentary about activists struggling to hold themselves together as it is about Isis terror.

This movie is as much about press freedom as it is about civil war, which is why it may have made the cutoff for the Oscars, while “Cries for Syria” did not.  Speaking of the snubbed film, The Hollywood Reporter mentions it in the same breath as both “City of Ghosts” and “The Last Men in Aleppo.”

No less than three documentaries about Syria premiered in Sundance this year. Director Matthew Heineman’s City of Ghosts looked at the citizen journalists reporting from Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS in Syria. Last Men in Aleppo, from Feras Fayyad, looked at the so-called White Helmets in Aleppo, a group that goes in after every air raid in the Syrian city under siege to help save victims from the rubble. Both documentaries had a rather narrow focus that allowed them to explore the human impact and dimensions of a small part of the conflict.

Evgeny Afineevsky, who directed Cries From Syria, does the opposite, packing an overview of the entire six years of the complex conflict into a film of just under two hours in an approach that’s strongly reminiscent of his Oscar- and Emmy-nominated film Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom. Essentially a primer for those who haven’t watched or read the news from a reputable source since 2011, this compact and more than occasionally gruesome item is especially strong for its first three chapters, before it tackles the Syrian refugee crisis in too superficial and sentimental a manner.

That last sentence may explain why “Cries from Syria” didn’t make the cut.  Too bad, as it is almost certainly the best political documentary, if not the best documentary, period, to no longer be considered for an Oscar.

The Hollywood Reporter did a good job of introducing all three films about Syria, so I’m going to leave it to Variety to explain more about “Last Men in Aleppo.”

Unsurprisingly awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Fayyad’s film should have no trouble parlaying its Park City heat into extensive further festival play and acclaim, as well as offers from top documentary-specific distributors. Multi-platform release strategies are likely, aiming to engage audiences wary of venturing to theaters for such a heart-sinking chronicle. That said, the cinema is where “Last Men in Aleppo” firmly belongs. Together with co-director and editor Steen Johannessen, Fayyad brings a rigorous sense of craft and shock-and-awe scale to the film’s impressions of destruction, without impeding its anxious, on-the-hoof spontaneity. Any viewers coming to this after seeing “The White Helmets,” Netflix’s commendable, Oscar-nominated short on the SCD, needn’t fear seeing the same film again at greater length: This is a less cleanly packaged project, patient and nuanced in developing its individual human subjects and emotional stakes.

If anything, the Netflix film could serve as a useful primer for “Last Men in Aleppo,” which assumes a fair bit of knowledge on the audience’s part regarding who the White Helmets are and the circumstances that require them.

“Last Men in Aleppo” tied with “LA 92” for second lowest scoring film on my list to make the Oscar shortlist, but I don’t think it’s an injustice after reading the reviews of all three of the top rated movies on the Syrian Civil War, although I wish “Cries for Syria” could have made it, too.

The next two films are much more about ISIS/Daesh, which I call “The Sith Jihad.”  The first is “Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS” and the second is “Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends).”  Variety’s review of “Hell on Earth” makes ISIS/Daesh look like Anakin Skywalker executing Order 66, making my nickname for them apt.

The radical terror army known as ISIS operates far less in the shadows than the underground rebels of Al-Qaeda. Yet for most Westerners, the image of the Islamic State remains that of an abstract and rather murky cult of hooligan warriors. “Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS,” a powerful and important documentary directed by Sebastian Junger and Nick Quested, is a movie of multiple achievements, and one of them is that it lets you look right into the face of this hydra-headed paramilitary beast. We see footage of fighters from the Free Syrian Army, many of whose members were later assimilated into ISIS, entering Aleppo, a city ravaged by civil war, and they have a goon-squad fearsomeness that announces itself as beyond the law. At the risk of sounding like I’m trivializing real-world atrocity, it’s very much like that moment in “The Road Warrior” where the Lord Humungus and his brigade of biker sociopaths first roll in, the recklessness coming off them in waves.

The movie shows us disquieting footage of a public execution that culminates in a soldier bringing down his sword to slice off the head of a civilian (the film cuts away before the carnage). Later, we’re shown an image of what happens to the bodies — they are hung, upside down and headless, for three days, all to send a message to the people. The message is: This is the new law.

Eep!  This is not the way I want life to imitate art.

“Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends)” is nominally a music documentary about a band and its fans who ended up being the victim’s of an ISIS attack on Paris, which I wrote about in French soccer fans sing their defiance in the face of terror.  I’ll let Variety explain.

The terrorist attack that claimed 89 lives on Nov. 13, 2015 in Paris’ Bataclan theater was probably the first time most had heard of the rock act playing that night — one whose in-joke monicker was lost on a few clueless evangelicals who used the tragedy to decry the consequences of “Satan’s music.” (While their lyrics are cheerfully all for sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, their musical genre is most definitely not death metal.) Colin Hanks’ documentary “Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis” focuses on the titular California-based band’s principal creative relationship between co-founders Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme, the band’s connection with their French fans, and the mutual recovery that ensues after suffering the horrific trauma of terrorism.

After reading about all this death and destruction, words are failing me, so I’m moving on to a topic I like better.

Climate Change

My favorite topics for documentaries are science and the environment.  Two of the top films according to my list, “Chasing Coral” and “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” are on that topic and made the Oscar shortlist.  I have written about both films at my own blog, most recently in 2017 Environmental Media Association Awards for film and television, but also in ‘Chasing Coral’: awards and nominations and looking forward to next year’s Emmys 4 and Promoting ‘An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power’ as well as in Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 44 here at Booman Tribune, so I won’t repeat my words.  I will quote what Vox wrote about “An Inconvenient Sequel,” which isn’t entirely flattering.

The word “documentary” — the “nonfiction” side of cinema — still connotes, for most people, an issue-driven, fact-based movie, one explicitly designed to convince the audience of a thesis or prompt them to take action. One of the year’s big documentaries, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, which served as an urgent follow-up to Al Gore’s Oscar-winning 2006 An Inconvenient Truth (and opened the Sundance Film Festival, the night before Trump’s inauguration), exemplified the genre: Its goal was to convince the audience to take climate change seriously.

But I found watching An Inconvenient Sequel incredibly strange in 2017 — especially when news surfaced that some of the story had been bent a bit in order to fit the narrative. As I wrote at the time:

Reading about a film that left me depressed about the role of facts, data, and information in our society, only to discover how it bent the truth, feels both frustrating and somehow depressingly obvious, like I should have expected it all along.

Selective editing is the documentarian’s tool, of course. But if most of the film’s hope is pinned on this example of cooperation — and yet the details I saw didn’t really line up with reality — then what are we meant to believe? Is there any chance that anyone who advocates for a cause in which they passionately believe can make headway? Or are we destined to be mired in an endless gridlock?

That really does not make me want to replace “An Inconvenient Truth” with its sequel as a film to show to my students.  What about “Chasing Coral”?  The Los Angeles Times reviewed the film and found it worthy.

While governments and politicians dither about global warming, the world’s undersea coral is moving toward a devastating death. If you don’t believe that, or don’t think it really matters, “Chasing Coral” presents the evidence with beauty, intelligence and a surprising amount of emotion.

One of the things that makes this such an involving documentary, the winner of Sundance’s documentary audience award, is that its cast of key characters is not the usual roundup of concerned scientists, though they are out in force.

Whether warning the world this way will matter, “Chasing Coral” is in no position to predict. There is some optimistic talk about “young people who can and will make a difference” and sweet shots of a determined baby turtle, but, obviously, no one knows. One thing, however, is certain. We have been warned.

I’m going to look at both films.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I pick “Chasing Coral” as my next new assignment.

Libraries

Tied with “Chasing Coral” and “Cries from Syria” is “Ex Libris: New York Public Library.”  With all of the war, injustice, and environmental destruction I’ve covered so far in this entry, I’m relieved to see something about government working well serving its constituents and public libraries are branches of government, whether people realize this or not.

Vox had very positive things to say about this documentary.

My pick for the year’s best documentary was Ex Libris: New York Public Library, the long-awaited magnum opus on the New York Public Library by the celebrated filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. Wiseman has been observing American institutions (like prisons, dance companies, welfare offices, and high schools) for the past half-century; for Ex Libris, he turned his camera to the New York Public Library and the many functions it fills in the city of New York.

Over a mammoth runtime — nearly three and a half hours (but I promise every moment is riveting) — we watch Wiseman construct a cogent argument for the vitality of an institution that’s constantly in danger of losing public funding. We just see what his camera captured, which in this case includes community meetings, benefit dinners, after-school programs, readings with authors and scholars (including Richard Dawkins and Ta-Nehisi Coates), and NYPL patrons going about their business in the library’s branches all over the city. The result is almost hypnotic and, perhaps surprisingly, deeply moving.

This film made the Oscar shortlist.  I’m very sure this will be nominated for an Oscar and almost as sure that it will win, depending on the competition.

Sports

Like “Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends),” “Icarus” seems like an odd choice for a political film, as it’s nominally about sports.  However, it ended up being about the politics of sports.  The Atlantic explains how that happened.

When he set out to make Icarus, the playwright and actor Bryan Fogel had one goal: to examine how easy it is to get away with doping in professional sport. An enthusiastic amateur cyclist, he was disturbed by the fact that someone like Lance Armstrong could cheat for so many years and never fail a single drug test. “Originally,” he explains in the film, “the idea I had was to prove the system in place to test athletes was bullshit.”

What actually happened was a bit like tugging on an errant thread and having the entire clothing industry unravel right on top of you. Fogel, while conducting a human guinea-pig experiment in which he took performance-enhancing drugs to prepare for a race, was connected with a Russian doctor who ended up blowing the whistle on a state-sponsored doping scheme that had been ongoing in Russia for decades. Icarus, initially intended as a Super Size Me-style effort to poke holes in the anti-doping system, ended up capturing the maelstrom of one of the biggest scandals in sporting history, while former anti-doping officials were dying under mysterious circumstances and the IOC was pondering whether Russia should be banned outright from the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Russia may not have been banned from last year’s Summer Olympics, but, as CNN reported, Russia banned from Winter Olympics but ‘clean’ athletes can compete.  That news makes this film extremely timely.

Refugees

The lowest ranking film on my list to make the Oscar shortlist is “Human Flow.”  As I have been at this post for several hours and it’s the last film, I’ll let Variety do my work for me.

Some time ago, Ai Weiwei’s fame eclipsed his art, so what he does with that fame really does matter. In his first feature-length documentary (he’s made video installations in the past), the Chinese dissident stamps the international refugee crisis with his imprimatur, lending his name to the cause in the hope of raising awareness of just how serious the calamity has become. This leads to several problems, not least of which is that if you need a celebrity to tell you there’s a crisis, you really haven’t been paying attention. Perhaps Ai knew that, because “Human Flow” is basically Refugees for Dummies, a primer on global displacement with theatrical releases all lined up and an Amazon deal that’s bound to see significantly more traffic than box office cash registers or, crucially, refugee NGOs.

This movie serves as a good example of “everything is connected to everything else” as it connects to both the Syrian refugee crisis featured in “Cries from Syria” and the environmental degradation mentioned in “An Inconvenient Sequel.”  That alone makes it worthy of inclusion and consideration by the Motion Picture Academy.

Modified from the original at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

Seth Meyers, The Grio, and various Tweeters mock Disney’s animatronic Trump

I was planning on posting Tipsy Bartender recipes for National Sangria Day at my blog last week until I stumbled across an example of reality literally intruding into fantasy this morning, the animatronic Donald Trump being unveiled in The Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World, and decided I’d rather blog about that.

Seth Meyers decided to make lemonade out of lemons by mocking both Trump and his robot double in his monologue last night.  Deadline Hollywood gave the set up to the monologue’s running joke.

“I think, as our Christmas gift to ourselves, we’re just going to use that as our Trump picture from now on,” Meyers announced.

And then, he did.

Click on the link to watch Disney World’s Animatronic Trump, Ocean’s 8 Trailer – Monologue- Late Night with Seth Meyers to see him follow through.

I felt much better after watching that than if I had blogged about sangria, a drink I probably shouldn’t have because of my diabetes.  Now, let’s see how long Meyers uses that photo for Trump.

On the other hand, The Grio reluctantly and ironically admired the robot, saying “the recorded message that the animatronic Trump plays sounds almost… presidential,” referring to a video from WDWMagic (click to watch video).  The excerpt from the opening of his Inaugural Address Disney used actually does sound presidential.  As The Grio noted, “the internet noticed the robot’s lack of any resemblance to Trump’s real speech patterns.”  Also, robot Trump looks a lot better from a distance than it does close up.

The Grio also quoted two tweets that put Trump’s robot double in context with the presidents around him, as seen in this photo.

Matt Binder wrote “all the other presidents in Disney’s new Hall of Presidents look like they can’t believe Donald Trump is president either.”  So it’s not just Abraham Lincoln, as Meyers noted.

Amanda Kerri writing as Last Minute Christmas Profile had even more to say.

OH MY GOD! I just realized that Disney might be trolling Donald Trump with their Hall of Presidents. By surrounding him with some of the worst Presidents in history. Let’s go from left to right.

Ulysses S. Grant.  Aggregate historical ranking of 36th of 43.  One of the most corrupt and grift filled administrations in history, Led a nation massively divided by Reconstruction.

James Buchannan 42/43.  Led a fractured party who’s ineffective leadership oversaw the final fracturing of the United States which led to the Civil War including Bloody Kansas, The Panic of 1857, and the eventual forming of the Confederacy.

Franklin Pierce 40/43.  The disastrous Kansas-Nebraska Act helped lead America down the road to Civil War.  The start of Bloody Kansas.  Increased factionalization to include violence on the floor of Congress.

Andrew Johnson 41/43.  First President to be impeached.  His failure with Reconstruction helped bring on Jim Crow and the continued race issues in our country.

Millard Fillmore 39/43.  Called “the most forgettable President.”  Sided with the anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant Know-Nothings.  Was largely ineffective except at destroying the Whig Party by siding with pro-Slavery factions.

All that group needed was Warren Harding to make it complete.  It would also be appropriate, as I wrote in a comment on Do You, Mr. Jones…? at Kunstler’s blog.

Trump’s performance looks like the worst traits of Warren Harding and Richard Nixon in one person (What about U.S. Grant?  Sorry, Grant was a drunk while Trump is a teetotaler).  That’s a combination destined for tragicomic disaster.

Oh, man, now I’m bummed again.

Modified from Seth Meyers and The Grio mock animatronic Trump at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

Sander Levin to retire, likely leaving Fred Upton as dean of Michigan’s Congressional delegation

Conyers isn’t the only member of Michigan’s Congressional delegation to announce his retirement.  Stay tuned for news about another U.S. Representative leaving under more ordinary circumstances.

That’s how I finished Conyers resigns, setting up scramble for his seat.  It’s time to me to pass along this item from Wochit News: U.S. Representative Levin To Step Down.

On Saturday, U.S. Representative Sander Levin of Michigan said he would not run for reelection next year. He is stepping down after more than three decades in Congress. The 86-year-old Democrat is a member of the House of Representatives’ powerful Ways and Means committee. The committee deals with tax and economic policies as well as spending on programs such as Social Security and unemployment. In a statement acknowledging his decision to step down, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi praised Levin. Pelosi said, “Since his days as a student activist, Congressman Levin has been a fearless and dedicated voice for justice and progress.”

Levin does not plan to be idle in retirement.  The Detroit Free Press reported that he plans to “join the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, where he will continue to work on issues that have engrossed him in Congress, such as health care and trade issues.”

The Free Press also noted the effect Levin’s retirement will have on Michigan’s Congressional delegation.

His departure from Congress at the end of 2018 is just the latest departure of veteran Michigan representatives, many of whom held powerful positions as the chairs of key committees, including U.S. Reps. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, Dave Camp, R-Midland, Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, Dale Kildee, D-Flint and Mike Rogers, R-Brighton. When they left Congress over the last six years, they had a combined length of service of 141 years and significant clout in the halls of the nation’s Capitol.

In the last three election cycles, eight of Michigan’s 14 members of Congress have retired. If U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, resigns from office or decides not to run for reelection in 2018 because of a sexual harassment scandal, only U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, would remain from Michigan’s stable of veterans with more than 10 years of experience in Congress.

It looks like Upton will remain in the U.S. House of Representatives, as he has decided not to run for U.S. Senate, a possibility I mentioned in Whew! Kid Rock is not running for U.S. Senate.  WOOD-TV reported on that announcement in Upton seeks re-election in House, no Senate run.

After speculation of a possible run for U.S. Senate, Rep. Fred Upton announced he will not be seeking the nomination.

First Kid Rock, now Fred Upton.  If I were Debbie Stabenow, I’d be breathing a lot easier.
Enough of the Senate contest.  The Free Press also speculated on who might replace Levin.

But now, it’s time to turn the reins over to the next generation. Names that have popped up as possible successors to Levin include his son Andy Levin, a Bloomfield Township Democrat and president of Levin Energy, which deals with clean energy initiatives, and state Sen. Steve Bieda, D-Warren.

This is a contest I actually will have to vote in, as Levin is my Representative.  I have a long time before I have to decide, as the primary election isn’t until August, but I’m not enthused about either possible candidate mentioned above.  Fortunately, Daily Kos lists two more.

Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner also acknowledged he was considering, though he said he didn’t have a timeline for when he’d decide. Businessman Kevin Howley, who lost a 2012 race for Oakland County executive 57-43, said he was looking at who else runs before deciding.

I like those two more than the previous two, as I know both of them.  Between the two, I’d vote for Meisner.  He has the nickname of “The Gentleman Assassin” — he can kill while smiling and being polite.  I like that.  Just the same, I’m hoping that Jim Townsend, who used to be my State Representative, declares his candidacy.  He’s someone I could support enthusiastically.

Modified from Sander Levin to retire, likely leaving Fred Upton as dean of Michigan’s Congressional delegation at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News by removing the embedded videos.

>Trump does not recognize climate change as a national security threat

Once again, reality has intruded into my search for a good fantasy.  This time, it’s something bigger than Trump decrees the downsizing of two national monuments in Utah, but in the same anti-environmental vein.  Instead, it’s the logical consequence of Trump pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord.  The Guardian has the story in Trump drops climate change from US national security strategy.

The Trump administration has dropped climate change from a list of global threats in a new national security strategy the president unveiled on Monday.

Instead, Trump’s NSS paper emphasised the need for the US to regain its economic competitiveness in the world.

That stance represents a sharp change from the Obama administration’s NSS, which placed climate change as one of the main dangers facing the nation and made building international consensus on containing global warming a national security priority.

A senior official said on Sunday the main difference between the Trump NSS and its predecessors was a new emphasis on border security and economic issues.

“The economic piece … gets much more attention,” the official said. “The insistence that economic security is national security.”

In response, it’s time to be a good environmentalist and recycle what I wrote more than six years ago on my personal blog.

[E]conomy is dependent on society, which is in turn dependent on the environment.  Without an environment, there is no society.  Without a society, there is no economy.  Those relationships put sustainability into perspective.  They also show that the emphasis on economy above all is exactly backwards.  No wonder we’re in trouble.

This is a lesson I wish Trump would learn, but he hasn’t and almost certainly never will, which means we will continue to be in trouble.  I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m with Iago from “Aladdin” on this one.

Sigh.  No wonder I’m looking for a good fantasy.

Modified from Trump does not recognize climate change as a national security threat at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News because of issues with embedding videos here.

Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 44

At his request, I’m filling in for Don Durito this week.  While I promise to keep the music and booze flowing, I am putting my own touch on the party while I’m the host.

Don Durito and I both share a love for 1980s rock music, but that’s not what I have in mind this week.  Instead, I’m going to indulge my love of movie music by featuring this year’s nominated songs (so far) from environmental and political movies at the Grammys, Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, and Golden Globes.

“Moana” was one of two feature films nominated by the Environmental Media Association as having an environmental theme worth recognizing, so I’m considering the Grammy nominated song How Far I’ll Go to be from an environmental movie.  Who am I to argue with the EMA?  If nothing else, the CGI scenery is pretty.

Music video by Auli’i Cravalho performing How Far I’ll Go. (C) 2016 Walt Disney Records

Chasing Coral” and “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” both had their original songs nominated at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.  Both movies were also nominated by the EMA in the documentary film category.  “Chasing Coral” didn’t win, so its theme song, Tell Me How Long Music Video Feat. Kristen Bell goes first.

Kristen Bell performs “Tell Me How Long” from the new film Chasing Coral, now streaming on Netflix.

Music & Lyrics by Dan Romer and Teddy Geiger

The scenery is just as pretty and here it’s real.

“An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” won the Documentary Film award from the EMA.  Al Gore also won an award for Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, so its theme song, “Truth to Power” by OneRepublic (perfect band name, if nothing else) comes next.

Music video by OneRepublic performing Truth To Power. (C) 2017 Mosley Music/Interscope Records

I’ll post the nominated songs from non-environmental political movies in the comments.  I’m looking forward to your favorite movie music in the comments, too.

An attack ad, drink, and song for today’s special Senate election in Alabama

I haven’t had anything to say about the Alabama special election for U.S. Senator here.  Since it’s being held today, I’d better hurry before the entire topic turns into a pumpkin.  Besides, last week I wrote about Conyers resigning and setting up scramble for his seat, so it’s time to give a Republican equal time for his problems.

Talking Points Memo posted both the video of a web attack ad and its text.

“Roy Moore has infiltrated our Alabama communities and his rap sheet reads like a serial sexual predator,” the ad’s narrator says as prison rap sheet-like images with Moore’s face flash onscreen. “His record from the Alabama Supreme Court paints an even darker picture. Judge Moore has repeatedly sided with rapists and sexual predators. These aren’t Alabama values. On Tuesday, Dec. 12, vote no on Roy Moore.”

This makes Moore sound like he should be in the slammer instead of the Senate.  His opponent, Doug Jones, actually put people in the slammer as a U.S. Attorney.  Hmm.  I have the drink with the perfect name for this contest, the Alabama Slammer.  Take it away Skyy and Brittany!

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It’s fun, delicious and easy to make…THE ALABAMA SLAMMER! This supposedly a favorite drink of NFL Quarterback Brett Favre.

THE ALABAMA SLAMMER
3/4 oz. (22ml) Sloe Gin
3/4 oz. (22ml) Southern Comfort
3/4 oz. (22ml) Amaretto
Top with Orange Juice

The Alabama Slammer, a place Moore is lucky to have avoided.  May the voters of Alabama agree with me today that Moore should not be in the U.S. Senate.
I close with a song dedication to Moore, Little Girls by Oingo Boingo.

Welcome to Moore’s new theme song.

Modified from the original at ACrazy Eddie’s Motie News.