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Archive | Film Matters

Together, Alone: Movies on Message

June 4, 2015 in Essays, Film Matters

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival, that cinematic arm of the New York-based research and advocacy program, has always boasted selections that are worth watching purely for aesthetic reasons. It’s impossible to do so, though. Each of these films examines the limits of human behavior with a radical compassion that confronts the failings of the world that we all share nowadays, regardless of whether we care to admit it.

It is a truism of modern life that the more accessible everything is, the more isolated we each become. Technology affords us the ability to visit with each other, order our supplies and entertainment, and do our work without ever venturing outside our homes. We are more globalized than ever before in the history of humankind; we can view lands, people, and events that are 6,000 miles away as if they’re in our backyard. Yet there’s no replacing firsthand experience. I learned that during Hurricane Sandy. While we New Yorkers were stripped of heat, running water, and electricity, friends as close by as Boston and Pennsylvania prattled on to us about cute puppies and bad hair days. To them, our hardship was not real. I didn’t blame them. Although we enjoyed the illusion of intimacy afforded by social media and smartphone technology (at least when we New Yorkers managed to charge our phones), it was nonetheless difficult for outsiders to grasp our dire straits, even when they were only a couple hundred miles away. Continue Reading →

Pretty Trifles: ‘Aloha’ and ‘Gemma Bovery’

May 30, 2015 in Book Matters, Film Matters, Reviews

Perhaps to compete with the bounty of the season, movie theaters are full of good-looking trifles this time of year. Some films aren’t just good to look at (witness the feminist revolution lurking in the brilliantly shot fever dream of “Mad Max: Fury Road”); some are so good looking we can scarcely remember anything else about them. That’s certainly the case with “Gemma Bovery,” the latest from director Anne Fontaine (“Chloe,” “Coco Before Chanel”).

It’s just as well. Instead of being an adaptation of Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, “Gemma Bovery” is a French-language adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ eponymous graphic novel loosely based on the 1856 classic; on every level, this film is about the idea of something rather than the thing itself. Fabrice Luchini stars as middle-aged Martin, a former Parisian publisher who’s taken over his father’s bakery in Normandy and now experiences everything, from his dough-kneading to his lightly mocking wife to his dog walks, with the same degree of ennui-inflected pleasure. When English couple Gemma and Charlie Bovery (Gemma Arterton and Jason Flemyng) move in next door, though, literature-obsessed Martin perks up. Upon spying Madame, cheeks and bosom abloom, tromping through the gardens in good Englishwoman boots, his nose quivers like a mole experiencing sunlight for the first time. “It’s the end,” he exclaims in a happily resigned voiceover, “of ten years of sexual tranquility.” Continue Reading →

Silver Spoons and Fighting Seasons: Ricky Schroder and Me

May 28, 2015 in Film Matters, Past Matters, Snapshot, TV Matters

Ricky Schroder may be the best pop culture indicator of whether a person was born before or after 1985. Mention his name to those born after that year, and chances are good they’ll smile blankly. But someone born before that year will light up. They’ll yammer about how heartbreaking he was in 1979’s “The Champ,” and how funny he was in the 1980s sitcom “Silver Spoons” with Jason Bateman. If these don’t resonate, they’ll recall his work in the 1990s series “NYPD Blue.” And they’ll invariably tell you: “You know, he prefers to be called Rick now.”

These days, Rick Schroder goes by “Ricky” again, and he’s been busy behind the camera instead of in front of it. He’s the producer and creator of “The Fighting Season,” a six-episode DirecTV docu-series about 100 days in the run-up to last year’s Afghan presidential elections. No matter how you feel about U.S. involvement in that part of the world, the show offers a fascinating glimpse into how our military wages contemporary battles, with the sort of footage that used to proliferate the nightly news in the Vietnam War era but is increasingly rare these days.

For AOL Build, I got a chance to talk with Ricky about “The Fighting Season” as well as his feelings about being a longtime show-biz veteran. (Spoiler: He’s pretty over the Hollywood scene, and only stays in touch with Robert Duvall and Jon Voight.) Easygoing and generous of spirit, Ricky is that rare star who is as pleasant in person as he seems on screen.

Here’s our full conversation:

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy