Erik Moe Art & Design

At last night’s Oscars, Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side won the Best Documentary prize. I finally had a chance to catch the film late last week at the National Archives* and think that (for once) the best – and most important – of the nominated films definitely won. Taxi is a well-researched and troubling look at the expanding use of torture in the U.S. military since 9/11. Gibney builds a strong argument that very specific methods of torture have come into use through a carefully orchestrated fog of conflicting demands, intentionally leaked documents, and purposefully vague orders from the Department of Defense and the White House. These indirect orders leave low-ranking troops vulnerable to court marshalls while shielding top level officials from war crimes trials. The film takes its title from the case of an innocent taxi driver named Dilawar who was captured along with his passengers at an Afghan army checkpoint and eventually died as a result of repeated beatings while in U.S. custody at Bagram Air Base. Taxi goes on to explore the suspension of habeas corpus rights – unprecedented in U.S. history – that make it impossible for detainees to find out why they are being held and tortured. The film can be tough to stomach for its use of footage of physical abuse and sexual humiliation at Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo, but since these crimes are being done in our name and in violation of our own Constitutional principles, the film is essential viewing.

UPDATE: *Yes, I appreciate the irony of watching a film about the Bush administration’s abuses of the Constitution in the very building that the executive branch displays the Constitution.

Once you do something twice, is it a tradition?

After looking at Movie City News’ masterful chart of 2007 critic’s lists I realized just how many good films I did see this year, despite feeling like I was in something of a film-free coma as I learned the ways of Washington campaigning. Still, there are plenty of foreign and indie movies in the “class of 2007″ that didn’t play D.C. or Chicago (where I lived until May) in a timely manner (or at all). With that, please consider the following in-exhaustive list thoroughly and unnecessarily disclaimed:

1. I’m Not There – Todd Haynes’ experimental Bob Dylan biopic was far and away the most incredible thing I saw on the screen in 2007. Not only did Haynes create six unique personas loosely based on the life and times of Mr. Dylan, but he adapted and invented lush visual languages to go along with each storyline. So what if the average viewer might not get all the references from Dylan’s career? I can’t say for sure how the film reads to audiences unfamiliar with Ginsberg, Pennebaker, Baez, Guthrie, or even Bringing it All Back Home, but I suspect it stands as a whirlwind lesson in how myth and art blurred to form our new national pastime: deconstructing celebrity. And besides, is a little cultural literacy too much to ask of an audience?
2. There Will be Blood – Daniel Day-Lewis is riveting as usual in his performance as pioneer-turned-oilman Daniel Plainview. Paul Thomas Anderson’s depiction of the emerging petroleum economy circa 1900 is a fine reminder that the energy industry we have now has been an all-corrupting mess from the start. Plus, it’s loosely based on Oil! by Upton Sinclair, with whom I’ve been obsessed since reading Chris Bachelder’s U.S.! early in ‘07 (in which Sinclair has the ability to rise from the grave and keep on muckracking through the 20th Century). So Blood tidily brings it all back home.

UPDATE: Paul Dano’s supporting role as the creepy, hapless, opportunistic preacher in There Will be Blood means he is two-for-two in supporting roles in second place films on my two annual exercises in list minimalism (he played the quiet brother in last year’s number two, Little Miss Sunshine).

Werner Herzog’s has dedicated his latest film, “Encounters at the End of the World” to the senior statesman of film criticism. Roger Ebert has published an eloquent letter to his friend in response.

You often say this modern world is starving for images. That the media pound the same paltry ideas into our heads time and again, and that we need to see around the edges or over the top…. You are the most curious of men. You are like the storytellers of old, returning from far lands with spellbinding tales.

Herzog’s films are remarkably consistent in their ability to transfix and inspire wonderment, even if the nitpickers among us might point out his liberal use of artistic license in depicting “truth.” As a licensed Liberal artist, I have no problem with Herzog’s versions of reality. The full text of Ebert’s letter is well worth the read.

Three quick items posted from DC on a lovely September day:

1. My old stomping grounds at documentaries.about.com are up and running again. Stop by and say “hi” to to Jennifer Merin, your new guide to documentary film.
2. Good luck to Agnes Varnum, who is moving to Austin to work for the Austin Film Society.
3. I’ve been pondering A.J. Schnack’s About A Son Soundtrack Challenge for the past week or so. Perhaps I take these things too seriously. 14 songs to score a biopic about yourself? Maybe I’ll have the answers before Thanksgiving.

Roger Ebert fell ill several months before I came to Chicago, so I haven’t yet crossed paths with him in my journeys through the Chicago film scene. Still, every week it seems I hear another anecdote about how amazing and down-to-earth the guy is. With the ongoing trial of Canadian media magnate Conrad Black comes disclosure of recent emails between Ebert and Black articulately expressing the film critic’s solidarity with his less famous brethren at the Sun-Times and the newspaper guild. Last week, Ebert made his first public appearances since his illness at his Overlooked Film Festival in Urbana-Champaign. In advance of his appearance he wrote a quick column warning that he wasn’t a pretty-boy anymore, but that he didn’t want to be part of the culture of hiding illness and wasn’t going to miss his film festival for the sake of avoiding the paparazzi. Go Roger!

Having recently posted my picks for best documentaries of 2006 over at About.com, I feel the need to praise some fiction. Either my memory is shot or it wasn’t a great year for Hollywood/Indiewood, so I’m keeping this list short:

1. The Science of Sleep - A delightful portrayal of the life of an artist struggling in the “real world” of work. I wonder why this one appealed to me. Fun stop motion animation and imaginative art/machines. Irresistible acting from Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Directed by Michel Gondry.
2. Little Miss Sunshine - I really wasn’t all that excited by this film’s child beauty pageant premise going in, so I probably wouldn’t have gone to see it if it hadn’t been playing at the much-loved, cheap, and retro Riverview Theater when I went home to Minneapolis. Little Miss Sunshine really made me laugh out loud a few times and despite its absurdity and quirky Wes Anderson-esque family, it felt true to life. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

That’s it. I’ve mentally processed about three hundred top ten lists in the past month, and don’t feel like I’m missing anything here. There was plenty I didn’t see since I spent much of my viewing time on nonfiction, but I don’t see any prominent films that come close to these. Most of what I saw this year was just O.K. That includes Borat. You may, of course, disagree in the comments.

Following last month’s disheartening news about Philly’s International House, an alarming note hit my inbox yesterday from SaveTheOakStreet.com in Minneapolis, and I would like to take this opportunity to ask any and all of my readers to consider their noble effort to save a remarkable repertory cinema. The Oak Street Cinema is one of my favorite institutions, and favorite film venue anywhere. It hasn’t been around since the days of French fur trappers, but it was invented at least a few years before I needed it and has been around ever since. Sometimes I wonder if I really spent an entire summer bicycling to and from Oak Street’s screenings of the complete works of Francois Truffaut or if I invented the whole thing out of some desire for the Minneapolis of my imaginary memoirs to be a little more like the Paris of Bertolucci’s The Dreamers.

I’ve always thought that in the not-too-distant future I’d be better able to repay the Oak Street for all it gave me. I can’t do much as a struggling freelancer living a thousand miles away, but maybe some of you are better positioned to help out.

Update: You’ve gotta love Minnesotans

For some reason, the first perfect days of Spring weather always seem to coincide with the opening of the Philadelphia Film Festival. Faced with a choice between biking past blooming cherry blossom trees and sitting in a darkened theater watching strange tales from far flung places, I’ll go for the dark theater almost every time. In past years, I’ve volunteered for the fest in order to see as many films as I could. This year, my gig with About.com means I’m seeing as many documentaries as I can.

This Film is Not Yet Rated, and 51 Birch Street are high on my list. I’m also excited about some of the music documentaries playing at the fest, including Danielson: A Family Story (pictured), The Devil and Daniel Johnston, and Beijing Bubbles (about China’s emerging protest punk scene). Of course, there is plenty of fiction on the bill as well. Anyone up for Alexander Sokurov’s take on the relationship between Emperor Hirohito and General MacArthur? Something lighter maybe? How about Wassup Rockers about “L.A. Chicano punk skateboarders?”

As we filmgoers gear up for the 13-day monsoon known as the Philadelphia Film Festival. City Paper’s Sam Adams reminds us of the drought we endure the rest of the year and has frustrating news about the future of International House following the departure of director of film programs Michael Chaiken.

International House is the leading venue for independent and repertory film in the city despite the fact that they only average maybe ten film events per month (outside of film festival screenings). The program staff there are great people dedicated to film, but Adams’ article makes it clear that I-House management has no interest in developing the program beyond its current modest niche. As the de-facto leader in the region, I-House CEO Oliver St. Clair Franklin’s comments about not replacing Chaiken are embarrassing:

“Why should you replace him when he’s in New York?” Franklin says. “Can you do better?” Chaiken, Franklin explained, will still be booking programs from his new perch, with staffers Robert Cargni and Jesse Pires increasing their contributions to the calendar…. Franklin says Chaiken will “be doing the same thing up there that he was doing down here — except up there, he’ll be in the center of the action.”

Can you do better than have an ex-staffer occasionally arrange for a few prints to be shipped to Philly while the rest of the staff does more work for the same amount of money? Um. Yes.

Chaiken is a great guy, and New York is a good place to be for a film devotee, but he is clearly not thinking of Philadelphia audiences first and foremost. He may have left on good terms, but he is working what sounds like a more-than-full-time job at a startup program in Harlem serving the Harlem community.

If I-House takes its role in the Philadelphia film community at all seriously, it needs a full-time director of film programs that can build on existing relationships with Chaiken and others. Such a position is essential if the program is to grow. There is no reason that Philly can’t support a year-round calendar featuring both the “esoteric” films Chaiken loved to program as well as the classic and contemporary films that draw dedicated audiences to non-profit cinemas in cities much smaller than Philadelphia. With decent leadership, I-House is well positioned to grow into the premier venue for repertory, documentary, and independent cinema that Philadelphia sorely lacks.

At least they are installing more comfortable seats this year.

While doing some background reading for an about.com piece, I stumbled across this tantalizing mention of the Philadelphia Housing Authority nearly earning an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1941:

A PLACE TO LIVE, produced by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. In the tradition of the great progressive films of the late 1930s and early 1940s such as “The River,” “Valley Town” and “The Land,” director Irving Lerner shows the deleterious effects of slum housing. This lyrical work features a rousing, Coplandesque score.

Of course, the housing projects the PHA built in order to rid the city of “deleterious effects” became notorious slums themselves with equally deleterious effects. The projects are mostly gone now, but Philly still has a serious housing problem… If only rousing, Coplandesque scores could solve all our problems…