At the Movies

More screenings of award-winning "Stagestruck: Confessions from Summer Stock" in August

Following previous standing room only screenings of Liz Argo’s award-winning film, “Stagestruck: Confessions from Summer Stock”, screenings are planned for the last two weeks of August. The first screening will be at the Sandwich Glass Museum, located at 129 Main St., in Sandwich, on Thursday, August 18 at 6:30 p.m.  The next screening will be at the Wellfleet Library on Saturday, August 20 at 6:30 p.m.   Next, a gala wine and cheese screening will be held at the Cape Repertory Theater, located at 3299 Main St. (Rte 6A – just west of Nickerson State Park entrance) in Brewster, on Sunday evening August 21 at 6:30 p.m.

On the following weekend two screenings are planned, the first to be held at the Alchemy Farm Screening Room at 37 Hatchville Rd., Falmouth, at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, August 26.  And the finale screening for “Stagestruck: Confessions from Summer Stock” will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon on Sunday, August 28 in Provincetown at the new Provincetown Film Society’s Whaler’s Wharf Cinema at 237 Commercial Street.

Argo’s new film, “Stagestruck” has been surprising and charming Cape audiences with its uncensored look at her typical 1950s family, caught up in a not so typical lifestyle. It was Argo’s parents, Betsy & Gordon Argo, who created and ran America’s first summer stock theatre-in-the-round, the Orleans Arena Theatre, from 1950 to 1976. 

"Stagestruck" won best documentary at the WHAT Film Festival in 2010.

Not just a tale of wild parties and steamy relationships, the film gives an insider’s look at the hard work, incredible personal growth, and deep sacrifice that also went into the old-fashioned enterprise of family-run summer stock theater. As summed up by famous Orleans Arena Theatre alumnus, author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in his interview in the film, “People would work this hard for nothing. And they would, because that’s theater.”

Argo uses fascinating reenactments, historical theater photos, and lively interviews to tell the story behind the glamorous grind of 1950s summer stock theater.  Author Kurt Vonnegut is an engaging addition to the interviewees, providing the famous Vonnegut humor and insight to the telling of the family’s experiences running the Orleans Arena Theatre. The staged historical re-enactments are particularly well executed, with more than 50 Cape Cod actors and actresses employed to act out the scenes in the famous theater that now houses the Academy of Performing Arts. 

“Stagestruck” has been accepted by American Public Television (APT), and Argo is in the last stages of a fundraiser to allow the APT distribution.

Courtesy of Argo Productions.

Provincetown Banner columnist Howard Karren to teach film class in October

From Premiere and People to PAAM:  Film Critic Howard Karren Makes Film Accessible

Provincetown Banner columnist Howard Karren is expanding his credits this year to include teacher, as he makes the elements of film accessible to everyday people in his workshop How To Read a film: A Seminar on Film Language and Aesthetics at Provincetown Art Association and Museum.

Karren began his career studying film at Brown and Columbia and then climbing the editorial ladder at New York Magazine, People, and Premiere. These days, Karren co-owns the Alden Gallery in the East End and reviews DVDs in his column This Week's Rent.

Of this class, Karren says he wanted to help bridge the gap between people who 'watch' movies and movie critics. "Everyone from pre-verbal children to couch potatoes understands the movies. But how this visual and aural medium conveys meaning is quite different from the way written language does, with its rules of grammar and dictionaries full of words and their definitions.

This seminar explores the elements of film language - what they are, how they developed, and most important, how they can take a movie into the realm of art. We will watch clips from historic films from around the world, discuss the many theories of film art -- from Eisenstein to Bazin to structuralism -- and apply them to our film going experience. Without going into academic minutiae, we will examine the nature of shots and cuts, film space and film viewing, the contributions of great directors and film artists, and the scholarly basis for film criticism".

The workshop will take place October 15, 22, 29 and November 5, 1-2:30pm. Call PAAM 508-487-1750 or go to www.paam.org for more information.

Provincetown Art Association and Museum was established in 1914 by a group of artists and townspeople to build a permanent collection of works by artists of outer Cape Cod, and to exhibit art that would allow for unification within the community. Through a comprehensive schedule of exhibitions of local and national significance and educational outreach, Provincetown Art Association and Museum provides the public access to art, artists, and the creative process.

PAAM, located at 460 Commercial Street, is open (October - May) noon to 5pm, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, also open by appointment; (Memorial Day - September) 11 am - 8pm Monday - Thursday, 11am - 10pm Friday, 11am - 5pm Saturday and Sunday. General admission $7. Free to members and children 12 and under. For more information, please call 508-487-750 or visit www.paam.org.

Courtesy of PAAM.

Cape Wind film spins out of control

A movie made so everyone interviewed will still like Robbie Gemmell

At least the cocktail party was a success. The revelers were treated to booze and food before the preview. While the crowd was a mix of pro and anti wind farm folks, after an hour a noticeable separation occurred with the antis (wily provocateurs that they are) occupying the vital territory next to the bar. CapeCodTODAY photo.

The director is affable & cute, and cute rots the intellect

By Walter Brooks

Orson Wells once said, "A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet."

In the case of last night's semi-preview of "Cape Spin Wind - The Movie", the camera was only capable of doggerel.

Film theorist Paul Rotha offers an in-depth and analogous definition:

"Documentary defines not subject or style, but approach. It denies neither trained actors nor the advantages of staging. It justifies the use of every known technical artifice to gain its effect on the spectator....To the documentary director the appearance of things and people is only superficial. It is the meaning behind the thing and the significance underlying the person that occupy his attention...  
   Documentary approach to cinema differs from that of story-film not in its disregard for craftsmanship, but in the purpose to which that craftsmanship is put.
   Documentary is a trade just as carpentry or pot-making. The pot-maker makes pots, and the documentarian documentaries."

The necessary ingredient of a good documentary is not the authenticity of the material, but the authenticity of the result.

A "documentary" is not a "feel-good" piece. The job of a documentary filmmaker is to educate, illuminate and make the viewer re-think their convictions.

Cape Spin Wind did none of these.

Missing the chance of a lifetime

Director Robbie Gemmell should spend a year viewing the documentaries by Massachusetts-born filmmaker Frederick Wiseman to understand his function as a documentary filmmaker and changed a few small pieces of our world which badly needed changing.

Throughout cinema history, documentary filmmakers have made us think and re-think our assumptions and prejudices. These filmmakers took a stand, and many changed the world for the better.

The director of this film seemed to be trying to make sure everyone still liked him after the film was made. The best parts of this segment of what will be a longer film were when the film's editors juxtaposed MS Hill and MS Parker in an amusing way.

So, Robbie, you've missed the chance of a lifetime to make a difference for your country and the environment. In the coming decade many communities will struggle over this same issue, and a brave film may have helped them do it right, and do it faster.

Director Gemmell and his crew spent days filming the kitchen habits of the Alliance's Audra Parker and the gardening skills of Clean Power Now's Barbara Hill.

He filmed the blathering of the Cape Cod Times Editorial Board of Paul Pronovost, Peter Meyer and Bill Mills, and visited Beth Daley in the Boston Globe newsroom.

He spent God knows how much time filming the Great Gadfy, Peter Kenney, one of the least respected sources on the peninsula. Peter  is a charming, witty and data-heavy dude, but I know of no media on the Cape which uses him or his views. other than the Yarmouth community TV which is free to anyone with times to waste where his blather is watched by 17 viewers on occasions. Yet Gemmell's film seemed to view him as a player in his comedy.

Robbie Gemmell seems more interested in making us like him than doing what a documentary maker does.

The only voice of reason and wit was Bob Whitcomb, VP and Editorial Page Editor of the Providence Journal who co-authored the book "Cape Wind" with Wendy Williams, both of whom the movie also forgot to mention as it did the ten-year, 17,000 pages of testimony and reports in the two massive, reviews of the project by both the USACE and the MMS.

The reel story Gemmell missed

The director filmed ad nauseum the screams and yells of the WINDys and the NIMBYs, and managed to not take a stand or move a heart. Every tear in my ducts remained unjerked. At one point during the excruciatingly boring and childish second segment on how electricity is generated, I turned to Cape Cod Times Education Editor K. C. Myers and said, "I'd rather be at the dentist."

The film by Robbie Gemmell has been in the making for five years with countless hours of raw film interviewing every pro and anti on the issue, except the ones that really mattered. 

Gemmell seems smitten with the very powers who have spent the last decade preventing America's move to energy independence. The recent BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was the result of a 17 page environmental study by the same agencies which have spent ten years and 17,000 pages deciding about Cape Wind.

The August 2007 Daily Show did in 5 minutes what Cape Spin Wind didn't manage to do in an hour.

Gemmell doesn't seem to realize the real story was how the old media, allied with big oil and wealthy oceanfront homeowners, has been beaten, and beaten badly, by new media like this newssite, the people like the 14,000 members of Clean Power Now, and the off-Cape media like The Boston Globe and The New York Times, The Providence Journal and the Boston Phoenix which have covered the story honestly and well from the start.

$50 million & counting

Nowhere in his work do we see him take a stand, expose the truly evil motives of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and the Cape Cod "establishment" here on Cape Cod which abetted their immoral and deeply unpatriotic and selfish acts.

The Alliance and its fossil  fuel friends have spent over $20 million and delayed the project so long it cost Cape Wind over $30 million to get up the fight. This too apparently wasn't on Robbie's radar.

After a painful hour of watching this preview, I doubt that anyone will pay to view it.

I doubt anyone will view it for free.

As Shaw once told a budding novelist, "Your work is both good and original. But the parts that are good aren't original, and the parts that are original aren't good."

Robbie, get a copy of The Daily Show and Jason Jone's five minute hoot on Cape Wind, and see what you could have done for America and your own clean air, fossil-free future.

Review: The patina of 'Doubt'

A tall and stern-looking nun, dressed all in black, stealthily moves up and down the aisles, searching out and disciplining talkative teenagers who stiffen up like starched shirts, resuming the postures of obedience that Sister Aloysius demands.

By Anne Kirby

In the film "Doubt," actors Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffmann, who play the parts of a nun and priest, square off against one another in a battle for the truth that pits certainty against ambiguity and sends one of the two fleeing for cover.

Adapted from John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the film owes its success to Shanley's talent as a sensitive writer and perceptive director.

Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffmann in "Doubt"

His understanding of the subtleties of deceit has resulted in a dramatic, suspenseful, on-the-edge film that provides insight into a cunning power struggle the likes of which has not been seen since director Steven Zaillian's 1998 film, "A Civil Action".

"Doubt" takes us back to the year 1964 to a small and protected Roman Catholic parish in the Bronx in New York City. Here the St. Nicholas parishoners entrust their souls to the care of Father Flynn (Hoffmann) and their children to the disciplined care of the good nuns who teach in the parish school, which is headed up by a feisty principal, named Sister Aloyisius (Streep).

In the film's opening scene, the towering figure of Father Flynn looms high over his congregation. As he stands high in the pulpit, wearing the colorful vestments of a priest, his arms are outstretched, embracing his parishioners in thoughts about "doubt"  which is his topic of choice for a weekly sermon.

             See the movie trailer for "Doubt"

At the same time, a tall and stern-looking nun, dressed in black, stealthily moves up and down the church aisles, seeking to  discipline talkative teenagers who, at the very sight of the nun, stiffen up like starched shirts to resume the posture of obedience that Sister Aloysius demands.

Later that evening, Sister Aloysius sits down to dinner with a small group of fellow sisters.  Belonging to the same sacred order as Sister ALouisius, these hardworking nuns' lives are center upon the parish school where they teach.   The group is unusualy solemn and no one dares speak without a signal from her. It's easy to discern who's in charge here at the table and elsewhere.

Addressing the topic of Father Flynn's sermon, in which he compared doubt to faith - inferring that both have an equal and unifying effect upon Catholics - Sister Aloysius concludes her discussion telling the nuns that something is amiss with the priest's character.

In her learned, religious mind faith precludes doubt, whereas doubt is indicative of one's failure to grasp and hold firmly to faith in God.

"Doubt" is a cathartic and important film that reconfirms the values of faith, goodness, truth and the power of redemption that results when honesty and truth are unwaveringly faced instead of being hidden behind tightly wound veils of doubt.

Blessed with a moral stamina that supercedes doubt, Sister Aloysius adamantly warns the nuns to be on the lookout for behaviors that would prove her suspicions of Father Flynn correct.

Shortly afterward, the parish's youngest nun, Sister James (Amy Adams), presents Sister Aloysius with the information she is seeking.

Having received a message from Father Flynn requesting that Sister James send her student, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) to him at the church rectory, she obeys.

Donald is an altar boy who was appointed by Father Flynn.  The boy also represents the 1960s decade of school desegregation in the United States: he is the parish school's first black student.

Upon the boy's return to class, Sister James senses he is disturbed. She further discovers that Donald has the distinct smell of wine on his breath.

Once informed, Sister Aloysius runs with the evidence that Sister James has provided her.  She wastes no time and accepts no excuses in a preliminary discussion with Father Flynn where he defends himself casting blame on the young student, telling her that Donald Miller had stolen the wine from the church.

Through a false mask of sympathy for the boy, Father Flynn goes on to say that he is concealing his errant behavior in order to protect him from losing his revered position as a parish altar boy.

Playing the hero, Father Flynn tells Sister Aloysius that things would be best for all if he and the boy were left to resolve the problem, together.

But Sister Aloysius is not easily swayed. She is a stern nun and even sterner disciplinarian whose experience sets her up as an enlightened judge and shepherding protector of her students. As the school principal, it is she who  must discern the truth and  protect Donald Miller from Father Flynn.

Soon afterward, while teaching dance to a group of young students in the church basement, Sister James inadvertently views Father Flynn placing an undershirt into the boy's church locker.

Once alerted, Sister Aloysius engages Father Flynn in another discussion where she questions him about the suspicious undershirt which turns out to have belonged to Donald. Placing the priest on her symbolic stand, in her office, she becomes judge and jury to one of the most outstanding, mock courtroom dramas I have ever witnessed on the screen.

Redeemed by an unflinching belief in a higher moral order, Sister Aloysius picks up the gavel and bears down hard on the recalcitrant priest. Not knowing for certain how high the deck is stacked against him, Father Flynn odiously vies with the sister in a poker game where he attempts to one-up her, playing the trump card as a  higher ranking parish official.

In the midst of a heated argument -- and a scene that goes on for at least 10 minutes -- Father Flynn awkwardly and somewhat obsesssively stops all communication,  walks over to Sister Aloysius's desk and begins to write down notes. When asked to explain his arrogance, he blurts out the word "intolerance" to which he then adds in, as if pontificating,  that this is the subject he's chosen for his next sermon.

Startled and fed up by his antics, Sister Aloysius moves into  battle mode positioning herself against the priest's hierarchic stance as she presents a de facto argument that's so intensely delivered it would beat out the slickest criminal lawyer in Washington, DC.

Ironically, throughout the film, Sister Aloysius propheticaly repeats the refrain  "when man is doing God's work on earth, God steps out of the way."   In the end these words ring true for Sister Aloysius, who goes out on a limb with her well contrived and condemning accusation which sends the priest packing in fear of  the retribution of the guilt and the shame he knows awaits him.

Although Sister Aloysius rids the church of an suspected pederast, in her heart she realizes the pain that power carries.

"Doubt" is a cathartic and important film that reconfirms the values of faith, goodness, truth and the power of redemption that results when honesty and truth are unwaveringly faced instead of being hidden behind tightly wound veils of doubt.

'Gran Torino,' 'The Visitor' share themes of male loneliness, redemption

Two Walts comes to grips with their lives by Anne M. Kirby

Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood, becomes a reluctant protector of Hmong immigrants in "Gran Torino."

Eastwood, Jenkins shine in their roles

By Anne Kirby

I remember my amazement when I discovered that the Incan and Egyptian pyramids were simultaneously constructed within one century.  Without cross-cultural communication, without blueprints and, without knowing whether or not other cultures even existed, these architectural wonders owe their existence to a common knowlededge -- a mathematical genius -- that enables them to flourish as strong edifices thousands of years later.

Released within six short months of each other, both films mirror each other through a common theme of male loneliness, helplessness and the ensuing isolation that results when both films' male leads become widowed.

Arising out of a collective conscience that   spreads information, perhaps telepathically like wind,  the seeds of its fruit carry the genius of  knowledge -- which  graces humanity with an unconscious and intuitive, collective awareness  --  enabling cultural evolution through discoveries and events that protect and guide mankind when we need it the most.

Such is the case with the two look-alike films, "Gran Torino," directed by Clint Eastwood and "The Visitor" directed by Thomas McCarthy.

Released within six short months of each other, both films mirror each other through a common theme of male loneliness, helplessness and the ensuing isolation that results when each of  the male leads becomes widowed.

Is the universe trying to tell us something through this coincidence?  I think perhaps yes - especially after  discovering an even odder commonality which is that each of the two lead roles share the same, first name -- Walt.  Coincidental collective conscience?  Let's see.

In "Gran Torino," Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) plays a cranky old, retired Detroit auto worker and Korean War veteran who spends his days sitting on his front porch, like an on-duty security guard, aggressively protecting his property from his unwelcome Third World neighbors.

Walt believes they are the reason why his good old middle-class neighborhood is becoming more like the hoods in Los Angeles, replete with gangs of immigrants who prowl covertly around in small vehicles with large boom boxes blasting.

Guzzling beers, rifle at the ready

Guzzling beers, with his yellow Labrador retriever by his side and a rifle just inside his front door, Walt communicates with his neighbors through sneering looks and hissing racial epithets that he mutters underneath his breath. The neighbors he offends the most are Laotian refuges - members of the Hmong tribe - who ironically served as American allies in the Vietnam War.

Between visits to his one friend, a local barber, with whom Walt comically spars in a game of verbal jousting that reinforces their macho egos, Walt polishes his perfect, hand-assembled Ford Gran Torino that sits in his garage like a prized museum piece.

Filled with overcrowding war memories, Walt Kowalski has no need for his two sons and a selfish granddaughter, all of whom he views as self-centered. Basically, Walt is happier being alone with his tough-guy, ex-soldier façade that canonizes his loneliness, yet keeps him ticking.

For Walt, the car symbolizes better times and his gratifying, post-Korean War life that was marked by a happy marriage to a woman whom Walt describes as the "best woman that ever lived."

Filled with overcrowding war memories, Walt finds no need for his two sons and a selfish granddaughter, whom he views as self-centered, wastes of time.  Basically, Walt is happier alone with his tough-guy, ex-soldier façade that canonizes his loneliness, yet keeps him unabashedly ticking.

A few hundred miles to the east in Connecticut, we meet Detroit Walt's  emotional counterpart.  Sharing the same first name, he plays the lead role in the "The Visitor" as a professor named Walt Vale (Richard Jenkins.) Widowed, miserable and stalled at the same emotional crossroad as Detroit Walt, Professor Vale is introverted, cerebral, gentlemanly and quietly passive-aggressive - the complete opposite of the crankier "Gran Torino" Walt.

A professor going through the motions

Professor Vale is in his early 60's. Bored by the routine of teaching in a local college, he goes through the daily motions of teaching and writing a make-believe book that he uses as the excuse to escape his classroom duties. When confronted by a student seeking reprieve for a late term paper, on the grounds of "personal problems," Walt mechanically denies the student's request without explanation.

At home, Professor Walt lives a reclusive life. With the exception of his son, who lives in London, he has no close relationships.

Behind closed doors, we see Professor Walt attempting to jumpstart his life through piano lessons using his deceased concert pianist wife's piano, which symbolizes their happier times together.

Both Walts have no idea of the effect their loneliness has on them and others who get in the way. More significantly, they have no close friends with whom they can confide intimate and emotional thoughts.

The lessons do little more than exacerbate his pain and frustrate his musically inclined goal of revival. When he finally realizes he has no talent, he unleashes his smoldering aggression upon his innocent piano teacher, with pertly drawn, sealed lips that dismissively reject and devastate her with the force of a grenade.

Both Walts have no idea of the effect their loneliness has on them and others who get in the way. More significantly, they have no close friends with whom they can confide intimate and emotional thoughts.

Given their despair and embittered loneliness, one questions whether or not they have any emotional development or the strategic knowledge of how to overcome what they endure.

And this is the point of the films' theme - just how does one transcend feelings without the knowledge and wisdom of helping friends? It is safe to say that both of their emotional lives died with their wives.

Encounters with immigrants change their lives

Fire fights fire. What transpires for the Walts in "Gran Torino" and "The Visitor" is a bit of luck and a dash of divine justice that positions the two men in close proximity with immigrant families facing their own kind of emotional problems of deportation, physical harassment and a displacement in a foreign culture that makes their very survival a life-threatening process.

For Detroit Walt, this occurs when he comes to the rescue of his Hmong neighbors who need his protection when they are victimized by a menacing gang of indolent, tough guys who carry guns.

As for Professor Walt, his immigrant relationship begins when he returns, after many years, to his New York City apartment, where he discovers a young immigrant couple living there after having been exploited by a greedy and scamming landlord who takes advantage of the empty apartment.

In both cases, the two Walts eventually develop close relationships that develop out of their respect and empathy for the innocent and victimized immigrants who openly share musical talents, food, and their time with them.

In both cases, the two Walts eventually develop close relationships that develop out of their respect and empathy for the innocent and victimized immigrants who openly share musical talents, food, and their time with them. In return, each Walt becomes, once again, energized and alive while providing the foreigners with protection and the help they need to navigate through American life, its legal rights, socioeconomic mores and institutions.

The immigrants provide both Walts with the insight they themselves are unable attain to move their lives beyond the negative emotions their wives' deaths have caused.   Similarly displaced,  the immigrants -- through their shared humanity -- provide the misguided Walts with a powerful message that defines their new roles in life as people embracing their common humanity.

Although there are no fairy tale endings to these two, sobering films, each of the men becomes unshackled from the emotional bondage that prevented them from claiming the destinies that lie ahead of them.

And as for the mental telepathy and collective conscience phenomena, I believe each of the films reinforces a timely message that signifies a more humanistic era about to form before our very eyes --  if we choose to see it. 

Walt Vale, left, played by Richard Jenkins, gets an impromptu drum lesson from his immigrant friend Tarek, played by Haaz Sleiman, in "The Visitor."