Hobson's Choice

Henry Hobson takes his final draught and gets up to leave. Then, just for a moment, he has second thoughts. Before him, he sees two of each of his drinking buddies. Not being a man to hold second thoughts for long though, he spins around and heads for the door – or is it two doors? Missing both, he bounces halfway back to his table.

Once outside the pub and refreshed by the chill night air, he has a moment of semi-clarity. The street is dotted with rain puddles and the nearest holds a reflection of the moon. He heads toward it as if drawn by its magical powers, but his changing perspective causes the reflection to shift to a different puddle. He splashes about in frustration before doggedly continuing on his illusive quest.

This scene wonderfully conveys Henry’s character. He’s a man of great determination and, as played by Charles Laughton, a great man in other senses of the word as well. Yet, he’s so drunk on his own hubris that he fails to notice the times are changing for masters of the house such as him. The women are taking over.

I first saw “Hobson’s Choice” about twenty years ago as part of a David Lean retrospective. There I was watching epic classics like “Doctor Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia” and waiting, not terribly anxiously, to see this little comedy on the final night of the series. Now, this little gem is my fondest memory of the bunch.

The story centers on Hobson, the owner of a London boot shop; his eldest daughter Maggie; and his star boot maker, Willie Mossop (played superbly by character actor John Mills). Willie is a shy man content to spend his life creating beautiful works of boot art obscured by Henry’s enormous shadow. Maggie though has other ideas.

Forbidden by her father to marry – he needs her to keep his life in order – Maggie rebels and sees the talented and handsome Willie as the perfect way to defy her dad and strike out on her own. She proposes both marriage and a business relationship. They’ll start their own boot shop. She’ll manage the money. He’ll keep making boots.

That’s the story and it’s skillfully told. But it is the character of Henry and the performance of Laughton that has loomed large in my memory for all these years. Re-watching it recently, I was astonished once again by this extraordinary actor’s virtuosity. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever played intoxicated so memorably huger than life.

And as his hubris is gradually stripped away to be transferred over to Maggie, he becomes increasingly pathetic. His character arc is perfectly rendered. Finding himself under Maggie’s thumb and squirming, he is as memorably huge in his begging and pleading as he once was in his ordering and demanding.

Our next movie shows a very different side of Charles Laughton, as director of one of the most singularly dark and strange masterpieces of American movies, “Night of the Hunter.” He was every bit as “bigger than life” as a director as he was as an actor.

“Hobson’s Choice” has not been rated by the MPAA although it did, once upon a time, gain approval by the British Board of Film Censors in 1954. It is a classic in the very best sense of the word and should be a delight for everyone in the audience.

The movie shows at the Grand Theatres on Thursday, February 25 at 3:00 and 5:30 as part of the Cinema 100 Film Society series. Tickets are available at the door.

Encounters at the End of the World

“The National Science Foundation invited me even though I made it clear I would not be making another movie about penguins.” Thus begins the narration of German director Werner Herzog in his documentary “Encounters at the End of the World.”

He definitely approached his portrait of Antarctica with a “’March of the Penguins,’ somebody’s already been there, done that” attitude. Much more interesting to Herzog was the question: What sort of people choose to live in such a harsh and frigid environment five months out of the year? Well, he found plenty.

Before I get to the people though, I must say he was unsuccessful. Penguins did find a way to slip into the movie. A few are shown heading from the breeding grounds to the sea, the two places they naturally should be. One penguin though – Herzog thinks it’s deranged – stops as if pondering the meaning of life.

The penguin turns ninety degrees and heads toward the mountains. Its posture with wings spread, the music playing over the scene, and the sheer solitude of that lone creature becoming a tiny speck as it journeys toward certain death all work together to create one of the cinema’s most mesmerizing moments.

So, what sorts of people choose to spend time in Antarctica? As it turns out, all sorts. The common denominator seems to be if you aren’t tied down you’ll tend to fall to the bottom of the Earth. And there’s no place farther down than Antarctica.

Herzog himself is the cinema’s greatest professional drifter. He’s the guy who spent a year in South America dragging a ship up and down a mountain between two rivers in “Fitzcarraldo.” Not a model ship, mind you, but a real, full sized steamer ship. I figure it was inevitable that he tumble down to the South Pole some day.

Then there’s Peter Gorham, a physicist from the University of Hawaii. He finds himself at the bottom of the world studying neutrinos. When Herzog asks: “What’s a neutrino?” Gorham gives him a mini-lecture on metaphysics that sounds like Obi Wan Kenobi. I don’t know what Herzog anticipated Gorham to say, but he probably didn’t expect neutrinos to be the Force that surrounds us and binds us.

Also memorable is Samuel Bowser, a scuba diving cell biologist from San Diego. We first meet him in a contemplative moment, considering the meaning of life as deeply as that deranged penguin. He’s at a crossroads, having done everything he set out to do, and today’s dive beneath the ice will be his last. He goes out with a bang and celebrates by performing an open air electric guitar concert for an audience of, well, none.

Of course, Antarctica is the ultimate locale for those who just want to be alone and marine ecologist David Ainley proves a perfect Garbo. He’s spent 20 years in solitude studying penguins and the only way Herzog can get him to talk is to ask him questions like: “Is it true that penguins can be gay?” Maybe his wayward penguin heading for the mountains just wanted to be left alone as well.

“Encounters at the End of the World” has not been rated by the MPAA. If it had been, I predict either a G or PG. It’s a clean movie with lots of gorgeous footage of scuba diving under the ice, of peering into volcanoes, and, yes, of penguins.

The movie shows at the Grand Theatres on Thursday, February 18 at 3:00 and 5:30 as part of the Cinema 100 Film Society series. Tickets are available at the door.

Munyurangabo

“Munyurangabo” is one of the rarest movies Cinema 100 has ever brought to town. It has been screened only a handful of times outside of film festivals and when it plays this Thursday, its Cinema 100 audience will be one of the largest it has ever attracted.

I saw it last summer in Seattle during a “one week only” engagement. That Saturday night screening, in spite of a rave review in the Seattle Times, had only two people in attendance. I’ll never forget the other person turning to me when it was over and saying, “Wow, that was fantastic! Why are we the only ones here?”

I didn’t have a good answer for her. We had just experienced one of the most beautiful, mysterious, and unique movies I’ve ever encountered. It’s a movie that I instantly summed up in my mind by one word, “honesty.”

The movie follows two young men, Ngabo and Sangwa, as they travel to the home of a man who allegedly killed Ngabo’s father. They, or at least Ngabo, intend to kill the man.

Along the way, they visit the home of Sangwa’s parents. His father is bitter, angry. He considers his wayward son to be thoughtless, useless. Much of the movie centers on Sangwa’s attempts to reconnect with his father. Essentially, “Munyurangabo” is the tale of two sons and their fathers.

The movie was filmed by American schoolteacher Lee Isaac Chung who was visiting Rwanda to teach a filmmaking class. It is most memorable in two ways: its scenes – based on improvisations using regional non-actors – feel very much alive and full of the unexpected and its visuals of the Rwandan countryside are eye-popping, vivid, and vibrant.

Everything about the movie feels like a natural, organic creation by people simply telling about their lives and about their reality. This truthfulness about the life and people of Rwanda is what I initially described as “honesty.”

The movie is also enigmatic. The first scene shows us a young man stealing a machete from a street market during a scuffle, but we don’t know why he does so until much later. The final scenes involving the killer of Ngabo’s father are puzzling. Why do we see Ngabo standing in the road holding the machete and moments later in the same stance without the machete? I expect interesting conversations following the movie.

Director Chung also had the courage to do something quite startling and unusual. As the climax draws near, the movie suddenly stops instead of racing toward the expected. After spotting the machete in Ngabo’s backpack, a man recites to him a poem in a musically rhythmic cadence. It is a plea for a new Rwanda as a land of freedom, unification, and equality – and free from slaughter. It’s an amazing moment.

I’m dedicating this review to the finest movie critic in the English language, Robin Wood, who passed away recently. It was his passionate review in “Film Comment” magazine that first brought this beautiful movie to my attention. He memorably – and accurately – summed up the movie with three words, “intelligent about life.”

“Munyurangabo” has not been rated by the MPAA. It is suitable for all ages although it is deliberately paced and requires some fast subtitle reading during one crucial scene where a poem is recited.

The movie shows at the Grand Theatres on Thursday, February 11 at 3:00 and 5:30 as part of the Cinema 100 Film Society series. Tickets are available at the door.

This Film is Not Yet Rated

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Weird little unplanned synchronicities pop up; giving the impression that Cinema 100 had a master plan while we really aren’t quite that clever. Such a thing happened recently with “This Film is Not Yet Rated.”

The documentary uses interviews and a fun bit of sleuthing to uncover secrets about the inner workings of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and how they assign movies their ratings – G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17.

The first of many filmmakers interviewed is Kimberly Peirce who had a frustrating run-in with the MPAA over her dazzling and daring first feature “Boys Don’t Cry.” She tells a fascinating tale of how her movie got slapped with a dreaded NC-17. Dreaded because it greatly hampers the ability to market and distribute the movie. Some media won’t run advertisements and some theater chains won’t play it.

While planning the current series, we invited “The Group that Opened the Box,” a local organization of teenage girls, to pick a movie. They were our 2009 filmmaker grant recipients for a documentary project of their own. They quickly chose “Boys Don’t Cry.”

Now, we get to sit back and look brilliant. Our third movie enticingly advertises our third to last movie.

“This Film is Not Yet Rated” is a perfect concoction of the three things I always hope to find in a documentary – it is educational, it is entertaining and funny, and it is maddening and makes you want to go out and change things.

I’m a movie guy and yet I’ve never really paid much attention to those silly letters at the bottom of movie posters telling me if I should bring my two daughters along or hire a babysitter. I’ve always preferred to do things like read reviews and otherwise educate myself about a movie. Now, I’m really glad I never left such movie going decisions to the MPAA.

They consist of a cabal of “typical parents” (whatever that means) with all sorts of vague and undisclosed ties to church and state. Basically, if you want to put some sex or violence into your movie, you can – as long as you have enough money to pay off the lobbyists.

Most Americans probably think there is some law stating that kids aren’t allowed to see R-rated movies without a parent. No such case. Ratings are simply an industry’s attempt at self-censorship and is all directed by money, power, and politics -- and without much internal consistency. It is all based on political whim with, for instance, gay-themed movies receiving a crippling NC-17 rating for the same content that non-gay-themed movies get away with.

Those are the educational and maddening qualities. Fortunately, the documentary also offers entertainment and laughs. Directors like John Waters (“A Dirty Shame”) and Kevin Smith (“Zack and Miri Make a Porno”) frequently pop up and always offer a humorous perspective on the hypocritical insanity.

And in his shrewdest move, director Kirby Dick hired a private investigator to try to learn the top secret names of the board members. It turns “This Film” into one of the funniest spoofs of the detective genre I’ve ever seen.

“This Film is Not Yet Rated” is unrated. Its MPAA rating was surrendered; the version submitted was rated NC-17 for some graphic sexual content. What we have now is pretty frank about sexuality and violence and the MPAA’s attitudes toward each. It is more comical than graphic though.

The movie shows at the Grand Theatres on Thursday, February 4 at 3:00 and 5:30 as part of the Cinema 100 Film Society series. Tickets are available at the door.

Treeless Mountain

There’s a delicate little scene between mother and daughter early in “Treeless Mountain.” A young girl, maybe six, wakes up in the night. She’s wet the bed. Her mom comforts her and bathes her. The girl sobs throughout and a glob of snot drips from her nose. Without missing a beat, the mother reaches up and has the girl blow her nose onto her hand. Then she rinses it off in the bathwater and starts to dry her daughter with a towel.

That scene is typical of the quiet and gentle nature of this masterful little movie set in contemporary South Korea. The girl, Jin, and her younger sister Bin are generally a happy pair. Unlike my kids, very unlike my kids, they enjoy their school days so much that they can’t wait for Monday to roll around again. But, they live alone with their mom and there is an air of insecurity about their existence. The bed-wetting is only one of several clues.

This situation is short-lived. The mother feels she can’t provide for two small girls on her own and sets out to find the girls’ father. She leaves the girls in a small town with their aunt, their father’s sister, a woman they’ve never met and who isn’t much glad they are meeting her now. The mother gives the girls a piggy bank and says, “When this is full, I will return.”

Jin and Bin now find themselves fishes out of water in a strange town very different from their home city of Seoul. All the rules have changed and they’re going to have to learn the new ways in order to survive long enough to fill that piggy’s fat belly. Their aunt, a drunk with little time for a six and a three-year-old, has her own rules like “eat what I give you or starve.” The townsfolk have their own rules as well, not to mention wondering why these two girls don’t go to school.

The most important rules that Jin and Bin must master though are those of the local kids. “Treeless Mountain” has a classical, mythological, quality of kids forming a secret society as they try to figure out what makes grown-ups tick. It isn’t a stretch to compare it to such classics as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the great French film “Forbidden Games” where two small children come to grips with WWII by creating a secret cemetery for all the small creatures that have lost their lives.

The centerpiece of “Treeless Mountain” involves grasshoppers, the tastiness of roasted grasshoppers, and the market value of such tasty treats. These scenes, often rendered in extreme close-ups that bind the children intimately with nature, are absolutely magical. They also left me kind of curious as to just what a roasted grasshopper tastes like.

Whether or not Jin and Bin manage to fill that piggy’s belly and what becomes of their mother are things I’ll leave for you to discover. I did find the ending to be just as delicately observed and fitting as that early scene of a mother bathing her daughter. It left me with the feeling that things will turn out just fine for the girls, eventually.

“Treeless Mountain” has not been rated by the MPAA. It is well suited though for viewers of all ages and will be enjoyed by anyone who is charmed by resourceful children trying to make sense of the mysterious world of adults.

The movie shows at the Grand Theatres on Thursday, January 28 at 3:00 and 5:30 as part of the Cinema 100 Film Society series. Tickets are available at the door.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

I wonder how many people in the world have dreams, but, out of fear, give them up before even trying to make them come true. I’d say many millions. How many give them a shot, but give up once harsh reality starts keeping them awake at night? I’d say just as many.

Now, how many follow their dreams even when the going gets tough? And when their friends and family advise them to hang it up, they still persist. Man, they keep charging ahead even as the tiniest fire of pessimism simmering deep inside their optimistic guts begins to rage. Well, one such man goes by the name Lips.

“Anvil! The Story of Anvil” tells the story of Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow, guitarist and lead singer of the heavy metal band Anvil. Since his teens, he’s shared a dream with his buddy, drummer Robb Reiner, of becoming a rock star. They formed a band and started gigging in their hometown of Toronto and enjoyed a bit of early luck. They were on the bleeding edge of the early ‘80s heavy metal rage.

For slightly more than fifteen minutes, they were poised for the big time alongside the big four – Megadeth, Slayer, Metallica, and Anthrax. Then, somehow, as those bands advanced to filling arenas and selling millions of albums, Anvil receded into empty bars and albums only purchased by a few diehard fans. What happened?

Oh, the movie suggests some possible answers. Their songs really aren’t all that good. They have lousy management. They’re unwilling to compromise and change their sound to fit the ever fickle changing times. Or, simply, life just isn’t fair.

That’s not really what the movie is about though. What it is about is a guy and his passion? It’s about his getting by day after day, year after year, feeding his family without giving up on his dream. It is a funny, sad, heartbreaking, until finally jubilant movie. I found every moment moving and charmingly real. I fell in love with Lips.

“Spinal Tap” is my favorite mock-documentary. It is so truthful to its subject that I forget it is a fiction. “Anvil!” is also one of my favorite movies. I felt for Lips so strongly that I often wished it was a fiction. I kept hoping that the filmmaker would suddenly jump before the camera and wink and then Lips would say, “Ha, got you going.”

I actually thought it must be fiction as the similarities to “This Is Spinal Tap” began to pile up. Anvil’s drummer is named Robb Reiner and “Spinal Tap” was directed by Rob Reiner. Anvil gets lost trying to find a gig. Spinal Tap gets lost trying to find the stage. The members of Anvil visit Stonehenge and Spinal Tap recreates Stonehenge on stage.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when Anvil is recording an album in the English countryside and their producer casually reaches over and turns the amplifier up to eleven. Anyone who doesn’t notice the weird synchronicity of that moment not only needs to see “Anvil,” but also seriously needs to rent “Spinal Tap.” Its “but this one goes to eleven” scene is one of the funniest in movie history.

“Anvil! The Story of Anvil” has not been rated by the MPAA. It does contain brief nudity and quite a bit of profanity of the two bests friends having a lover’s spat variety. Think Mick Jagger cussing out Keith Richards and you’re on the right track.

“Anvil!” shows at the Grand Theatres on Thursday, January 21 at 3:00 and 5:30 as the opening attraction of the Cinema 100 Film Society series. Tickets are available at the door. $25.00 gets you 12 movies.

2009/2010 Winter/Spring Series

1/21 - Anvil: The Story of Anvil
1/28 - Treeless Mountain
2/04 - This Film Is Not Yet Rated
2/11 - Munyurangabo
2/18 - Encounters at the End of the World
2/25 - Hobson's Choice
3/04 - Night of the Hunter
3/11 - Moon
3/25 - Monty Python's Life of Brian
4/08 - Boys Don't Cry (Chosen by The Group That Opened The Box)
4/15 - Dear Zachary: A Letter to a son about his father
4/22 - The Class