Cheryl Eddy

Mall-ancholy

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

The world is chained to chains in Jem Cohen’s Chain, a sort-of documentary that also weaves two narratives into its study of global economics. Hard-faced young squatter Amanda (musician Mira Billotte of White Magic) spends monotonous days haunting the nearest shopping center, a place so generic it could be positively anywhere, including the suburban hell of George A. Romero’s darkest nightmares. Meanwhile, eager Japanese businessperson Tamiko (Miho Nikaido) roams homogeneous pockets of America, bunking in soulless hotels while she pitches her amusement park plans to investors on behalf of her company — an entity she views with excessively deep devotion.

That Tamiko’s proposed park is called Floating World is no accident; though they’re traveling different paths, both she and Amanda drift through Cohen’s landscapes, which are populated not by human beings but by consumers. Still shots of supermarkets, fast-food joints, office parks, warehouse stores, and half-finished condo towers are edited together in dreamlike succession; it’s not until the end credits that you realize these images spring from seven different countries (including 11 states) Cohen visited with his 16mm camera over a period of nearly a decade. His photographer’s eye for details aside (such as a bird’s nest tucked into a Big Lots sign), the sterile sameness he captures is striking.

The first time I saw Chain was at the 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF). I went into it knowing this was Cohen’s first foray into fiction after well-received documentaries such as Benjamin Smoke and Instrument (about Fugazi, in case you were wondering why Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto are listed among Chain‘s executive producers; Picciotto actually suggested Billotte, whose music he’d produced, when Cohen was casting). The New York filmmaker took the mic and confessed he was thrilled to see Chain playing a multiplex, albeit one taken over by VIFF’s arty fare. Under most circumstances, he explained, it would never play in the kind of environment it so carefully scrutinizes: "It’s not a normal movie."

Indeed, a "normal" movie that takes on a global topic would probably look more like Fast Food Nation or Babel than Chain, which is dedicated in part to Chris Marker (obvious precursor: La Jetée). Cohen doesn’t need to smack you over the head with speeches or movie stars or coincidence-driven scenarios to make his point. Instead, he draws it out in the quiet moments experienced by his characters. Amanda — who recalls telling a motorist to simply deposit her hitchhiking self at the nearest mall — lurks in the food court, silently finishing a discarded, half-eaten plate from Panda Express (or Sbarro or Hot Dog on a Stick or Steak Escape — who can say?). Later, she seeks employment as a hotel maid, but an elaborate bus journey lands her at a hiring office that insists on a drug test. Ironically, it’s not the test that discourages her; it’s the fact that to take it, she has to spend several more hours on another crosstown bus. In one of Chain‘s most expressive voice-overs, Tamiko remembers visiting Disneyland, Disneyworld, and Tokyo Disneyland with rapturous joy. Her sunny-side-up view of corporate capitalism crumbles only slightly when her company virtually abandons her stateside; her first instinct is to stay on in her megamotel, clinging to routine and running up charges on her personal credit card.

But getting back to the multiplex: after making its San Francisco debut at a 2005 Other Cinema show, Cohen’s Chain has found its place locally at an art gallery. Works by San Francisco’s Jenni Olson (the Golden Gate Bridge–focused Joy of Life) and Los Angeles’s Natalie Zimmerman (Islands, a search for Los Angeles’s soul) round out SF Camerawork’s "Traces of Life on the Thin Film of Longing," an exhibit reconsidering the photo essay within the realm of film and video. It’s a fitting context in which to showcase Chain‘s artistic merits, but thematically it’s a little disappointing. Appropriate though it may be, however, I suppose a mall theater would be out of the question; Westfield’s hurried downtown crowds would hardly stop spending to consider Cohen’s carefully composed images — and the irony of seeing Chain amid the chain-chain-chain of … chains would be hopelessly lost. *

CHAIN

Jan. 5–Feb. 24 (Thurs/4, 5 p.m. opening reception) as part of "Traces of Life on the Thin Film of Longing"

SF Camerawork

657 Mission, second floor, SF

(415) 412-2020

www.sfcamerawork.org

>

The sounds of Berlin and Beyond

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Einstürzende Neubauten (Danielle de Picciotto, Germany, 2006). Perhaps appropriately, April Fool’s Day 1980 marked the first appearance of Einstürzende Neubauten, at the Moon Club in Berlin. After taking the stage frontperson Christian Emmerich (better known as Blixa Bargeld) and percussionist Andrew Chudy (N.U. Unruh), plus others, proceeded to bemuse their audience with a Dadaesque display of hammers banging on metal sheets mixed with accompanying electronic sound effects. For reasons perhaps even they can’t explain, their aggressive approach to experimental music gained an immediate following — one that has held firmer than architecture for more than 25 years. Though they announced during a 2004 tour of the United States that they would never again play live here (due to the expense of transporting their enormous, self-engineered instruments), you still have the opportunity to see them in this one-of-a-kind concert film, also from that year.

Performing in the stripped shell of emblematic East Germany eyesore (and former seat of Parliament) the Palast der Republik, Bargeld and company jump immediately into the past with “Haus der Lüge” (House of lies) from 1989 and even further back with the chilling “Armenia” from 1983. The insectile droning of Alex Hacke’s bass, Jochen Arbeit’s guitar, and Ash Wednesday’s programmed samples give way to Bargeld’s blood-curdling yowling, which rivals that of Armenian-blooded shriek chanteuse Diamanda Galás. Newer converts to the Neubauten mystique are not left adrift in a sea of nostalgia for long, though. The reason for playing at an abandoned building slated for demolition is revealed midway through the show as the Palast becomes a site-specific instrument and a chorus of 100 volunteers adds to the general clamor. Pushing the boundaries of their musicianship with seemingly infinite inventiveness, Einstürzende Neubauten signal that while their touring days may be behind them, their creative juices are in no danger of drying up. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Jan. 16, 11 p.m. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. $6–$9. (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com

Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback (Lucía Palacios and Dietmar Post, Germany/US/Spain, 2004). How to describe the Monks? Try atonal and angry and hard to dance to despite a tom-tom and an electric banjo keeping time. Plus, they tended to shout their lyrics, the more comprehensible of which were along these lines: “Hey, well, I hate you with a passion baby, yeah I do! (But call me!)” And that’s without even mentioning that the five-piece was composed of American ex-GIs who lingered in Germany after their early 1960s service was up. Or that they dressed in all black, with nooses for ties, and sported matching, entirely unflattering tonsure haircuts. The band name and costumes may have been artfully styled gimmicks (thanks to a pair of crafty German managers well familiar with deconstruction, minimalism, and the art of advertising), but the music was no novelty act. Some say the highly influential Monks invented feedback (widely disputed, of course); others insist their experimental, anti-Beatles sound foretold the coming of both techno and heavy metal even as it left boogie-happy fans of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” stone-faced.

Whatever you make of songs like “Higgle-dy Piggle-dy” (lyrics: “Higgle-dy piggle-dy, way down to heaven, yeah!”), there’s no denying the ballad of the Monks comes fully stuffed with rock ‘n’ roll lore. Dietmar Post and Lucia Palacios’s lively doc Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback tracks down all the band members, now in advanced middle age and living quiet lives that barely hint at their prepunk pasts (drummer Roger Johnston passed away after filming his interviews). All five are given equal time to reflect as well as share impressive caches of memorabilia (especially photos with detailed captions) that suggest someone, at least, was aware that the Monks’ lightning-in-a-bottle moment would later be eagerly revisited by future devotees of incredibly strange music. A reunion concert — marking the group’s first-ever stateside show — nudges the film in a Bands Reunited direction, but for the most part Monks is propelled by the triumphs of the group’s past, which include 30-year-old tunes that still sound wholly creative (and ever so off-putting) even today. (Cheryl Eddy)

Jan. 17, 3 p.m. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. $6–$9. (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com

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Revenge of the sloth

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

Male malaise sure had a banner year in 2006 — at least as far as Hollywood was concerned. How many more times are we gonna have to sit through the same story about some supposedly endearing dude in his 20s or 30s whose quest to figure shit out exasperates everyone around him? And when I say "we," I’m implicating all y’all: The Break-Up made $114 million, and I’m guessing Vaughniston looky-loos shouldered only part of the blame.

While this brand of coming-of-age tale is nothing new — even when the age in question is decidedly postcollegiate — it’s never been so pervasive. Just rake your eyes over 2006’s top moneymakers: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby; Failure to Launch; You, Me and Dupree; and thinly disguised variations on the theme like Cars — animated, sure, but fronted by man-child extraordinaire Owen Wilson. Even Superman Returns featured an emotionally stunted hero on the verge of a quarter-life crisis. (As did 2005’s top earner, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Noooo!)

Needless to say, none of the above really resemble similarly themed works of years past — say, The Graduate. These days, menfolk in the cinematic mainstream cultivate an I-don’t-wanna-grow-up attitude that’s less existential, more slothful. It’s a perfect match for a target audience that couldn’t care less about the war in Iraq but is willing to kill for a PlayStation 3. And while romantic comedies such as The Break-Up, Failure to Launch, and You, Me and Dupree are traditionally aimed at women, these particular films hit big because the male leads (Vince Vaughn, Matthew McConaughey, and Wilson again) were calcuutf8gly cast — they’re the kind of dudes that dudes can enjoy. The masculine ideal has definitely shifted. Why be suave when you can be a slob?

Naturally, these films all feature a buzzkill chick (Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kate Hudson, etc.) who marches in and snatches away the remote control. Parker’s Failure to Launch character has actually made a career out of tricking ne’er-do-wells to move out of their parents’ homes. (The only time a male-female relationship isn’t a central component in these films is when you move into Jackass: Number Two territory, which focuses on dude-dude relationships amid 2006’s other chic craze: good old-fashioned torture.) Notably, in You, Me and Dupree, Matt Dillon’s character — newlywed, homeowner, tryin’ to get ahead at the office — is majorly emasculated at every turn by both his father-in-law boss and, of course, best bud Wilson.

There are ways to make this arrested-development story line fresh and interesting: Shaun of the Dead did it with zombies; The 40-Year-Old Virgin did it with the genius of Steve Carell (and his man-o’-lantern). And there’s hope on the other end of the spectrum: comedies may be populated by 35-year-old juveniles, but a film like The Departed proves that men grappling with maturity isn’t a topic forever bound to fart jokes. But then, of course, there’s 2006’s most freakish exploration of the trend: Little Man, the tale of a guy who literally inhabits a baby’s body. A more succinct (or crasser or more stupidly funny) deconstruction of contemporary male-centric romantic comedies would be near impossible to find. *

CHERYL EDDY’S TOP 10

(1) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, US). Even if the whole movie were composed of that moment when Borat throws down his suitcase and the chicken lurking within gives out a sudden squawk, it would still be the funniest cinematic release of 2006. Possibly ever.

(2) The Host (Bong Joon-ho, South Korea). A politically conscious monster movie with bite, humor, quietly intense performances, and a lot of tentacles.

(3) The Descent (Neil Marshall, UK). A major leap forward for a young horror director who’s also a huge horror movie fan, this cave-set chiller with an outstanding (nearly all-female) cast melds Alien, The Shining, The Thing, Apocalypse Now, and Carrie.

(4) Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck, US). Proof that the American indie is still able to flourish without stooping to any clichés. Ryan Gosling’s heartbreaking lead performance is among the year’s standouts.

(5) Brick (Rian Johnson, US). High school hasn’t been this dark — or exquisitely vernaculared — since Heathers.

(6) Exiled (Johnny To, Hong Kong). Johnny To’s Sergio Leone–by–way–of–the–triads spectacular wields gun fu, spaghetti western ‘tude, and a never-better Anthony Wong.

(7) Red Road (Andrea Arnold, UK/Denmark). If you caught Andrea Arnold’s Oscar-winning short, Wasp, you knew she was headed for greatness; the stark, stunning Red Road bears this out.

(8) Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-wook, South Korea). Yeah, I had this on my list last year. But since it finally emerged in San Francisco in 2006, it’s back — and well worth a second mention.

(9) The Departed (Martin Scorsese, US). Sure, it’s got stars — Leo’s great, Matt’s good, Jack’s a wee bit self-indulgent — but the supporting players (Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, and especially Mark Wahlberg) are what really buoy Scorsese’s stylish triumph.

(10) Naisu no Mori: The First Contact (Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine, and Shunichiro Miki, Japan). I quote an imdb.com user: "This movie melted my mind!" Show me your dancing!

Unholy spirit

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› cheryl@sfbg.com
It was dark and stormy the night I journeyed to Oakland to meet the Saviours — a perfect weather match for their music, which I’ve had on constant ear blast since picking up their Tim Green–<\d>produced debut, Crucifire (Level Plane, 2006). These guys are fucking serious. They proffer fierce, hard-driving metal so metal you could pronounce it me-tal, spreading their gospel with lyrics such as “All crosses burn into the sky, and their ashes fall to serve as hell’s floor.” Live — forget it: heads involuntarily bang when the Saviours unleash their thunder.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I knocked on the door of the Saviours’ lair (the Telegraph Avenue digs of singer-guitarist Austin Barber, guitarist Dean Tyler Morris, and drummer Scott Batiste). A giant, fiery pentagram? A life-size diorama of Slayer’s Reign in Blood album cover?
Actually, it was a pretty normal apartment, all things considered. Barber, Batiste, and Morris were chilling around a coffee table that displayed evidence of a post-Thanksgiving weekend winding to a boozy end. (Bassist Cyrus Comiskey, the only member who doesn’t live there and who also plays with Drunk Horse, was stuck at work.) We settled in to chat about the band and expand on the latest update posted on their Web site, www.killforsaviours.com: “We’re writing new songs and partying.”
The members all have pre-Saviours history: Barber and Batiste played in screamo outfit Yaphet Kotto, while Batiste and Morris have known each other since junior high.
“Me and Scott had the idea to start the band a couple of years ago. We got together, started jamming, and we were on tour a month later,” said Barber, who at 24 is the youngest Saviour and the only one who isn’t from Santa Cruz. (He hails from Fort Smith, Ark.) “We just wanted to start a killer heavy band. Now we’re trying to chill out and write a new record — and not play very many shows until spring.”
Their music may visit dark places, but the guys share an easygoing chemistry that extends to their songwriting technique.
“Pretty much everything starts with something that Scott writes, and then everybody adds to it until we decide it’s done,” Morris said. “A lot of times he’ll do stuff musically that I would never do, so of course it makes me think about something new and forces me to figure out a way to work myself into it. Everybody does that — Austin does that with his parts, and Cyrus does that with all his bass parts, and Scott does that with the drums too. It’s very collaborative.”
Batiste added, “This band’s pretty amicable. Like, at the end of 42 days of tour, we were all hanging out and drinking and not sick of each other.”
The Saviours have also found support in the Bay Area metal scene, where peers include High on Fire and Green’s band, the Fucking Champs. Of course, they’re also fans of the genre gods: Slayer, Black Sabbath, and Metallica. The anti-Christian imagery that appears in their lyrics and album artwork is owed to Barber, who grew up surrounded by conservative types. In other words, he’s not a Satan worshipper.
Christianity, he explained, “has always been such a bummer in my life. I just always identified with the dark — partying, do whatever the fuck you want, just living your life. And they’re trying to not live life. All that shit’s representative of doing your own thing, and fuck everybody else.”
Doing their own thing is important for the Saviours, who said they’ll never hook into Ozzfest-style bullshit. They’ve just settled into a new practice space and have plans for a live album (possibly to be recorded at their upcoming Hemlock Tavern show) as well as their next studio full-length, which will be “an extension of the first album,” Barber said.
“It’s gonna sound different, though, ’cause we only have two guitar players now and we used to have three,” Morris noted. (Fifth member Mag Delana, a Yaphet Kotto vet, left the band after Crucifire was recorded.) “I think the songs are getting more intricate.”
“They’ll also stay kinda raw, though,” Batiste added. “Consciously, we try to stay simple.”
Though they joke that they only do “extreme tours,” owing to past jaunts that saw them navigating icy highways in the Midwest and sweltering in East Coast summer heat, the Saviours are eager to hit the road next year. This year they traveled across America playing songs from Crucifire and their 2005 EP, Warship (Level Plane), recorded soon after the band formed, and they’ve picked up fans everywhere.
In New Orleans, Barber recalled, “We were partying all night after the show. I’m out front eating some food, and I hear our band blasting out of some car. And it’s the sheriff — literally the sheriff of New Orleans. He’s all, ‘Fuckin’ Saviours! Aaaah!’ Just screaming at me. He was blasting our CD from the cop car. It was fucking awesome.”<\!s>SFBG
SAVIOURS
With California Love
Dec. 29, 9:30 p.m.
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
$6
www.hemlocktavern.com

Yule be sorry!

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There’s a reason Kate Winslet has four Oscar nominations. Even in a film as fake-snow fluffy as The Holiday, she’s able to imbue her character, lovesick Londoner Iris, with pathos and dignity. Since this is a contemporary romantic comedy (new turf for Winslet), she’s also able to cut loose with some air guitar — although The Holiday is so mass-market it assumes Iris would rock out to something as MOR as “Are You Gonna Be My Girl.” But even if she’d cranked “Ace of Spades,” The Holiday would still be a painful viewing experience, amplified to agonizing any time Winslet isn’t onscreen.
Yep, that’s a dis on Cameron Diaz. Why writer-director Nancy Meyers (What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give) decided to cast actors as unevenly matched as Winslet and Diaz is perplexing. Diaz can play goofy-glam in the right context (There’s Something about Mary, Charlie’s Angels), but The Holiday also asks her to emote. Bad call. Diaz’s story line — she plays Amanda, a tightly wound LA gal who swaps homes with newfound IM buddy Iris for Christmas — is also weaker than Winslet’s, which only adds to the torture.
Why is this movie more than two hours long? Why is the eternally cool Eli Wallach trotted out for a subplot about Old Hollywood that’s not only entirely superfluous but also a reminder of all the romantic classics (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Casablanca) your eyeballs aren’t admiring? Am I swigging extra haterade for The Holiday because I’m so clearly part of its target demographic — female, early 30s, unmarried, and superficial enough to squeal over a humongo-screen TV?
Could also be I ain’t buying what The Holiday is selling because it’s a chick flick composed of nothing but false notes. Jude Law (corny) and Jack Black (dialed down) put in appearances as Amanda’s and Iris’s rebound men (both of whom turn out to be the One, by the way — oh, was that a spoiler? Tee-hee!), but The Holiday’s main message lies with the ladies and for the ladies. Turns out the prospect of being single is so terrifying it requires frequent flier miles to avoid.
THE HOLIDAY
Opens Fri/8 in Bay Area theaters
See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

The Butcher Brothers part two: “Are these guys real?”

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Francis (Cory Knauf) documents his home life — which happens to involve quite a bit of bloody murder — in The Hamiltons.

Yesterday, I posted my interview with Mitchell Altieri, one half of the filmmaking team known as the Butcher Brothers — the Bay Area not-really-brothers (though they are tight-bros-from-way-back-when) responsible for The Hamiltons, described by Altieri as “a horror coming-of-age story.” (More on the film in my entry below). Here, I chew the fat with the other Butcher Brother, inner Sunset resident Phil Flores, who spilled on casting, the true genesis of the Butcher Brothers, and the film’s ending — though any potential spoilers were strictly off the record, of course.

The Butcher Brothers: takin’ a bite out of horror

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Finally, a horror movie that can be called both subtle (despite gleeful bloodletting) and refreshing. Another Hole in the Head pick The Hamiltons, codirected by the Butcher Brothers (the nom de screen of Bay Area filmmakers Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores), imagines a family of naughty orphans who just can’t stop themselves from trapping and killing any vaguely expendable human who crosses their path. What makes the Hamiltons different from the Texas Chainsaw fun bunch or Rob Zombie’s skeezy butchers is that they’re just so freaking normal, conducting their nasty business behind a white picket fence in the suburbs.

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An early victim (Brittany Daniel) contemplates her basement-bound fate in The Hamiltons.

Straight out of American Beauty is video camera-wielding teenager Francis (Cory Knauf), who embodies that tossed-off Heathers line about teen angst bullshit having a body count. Will the awkward Francis keep it all in the family or will he develop a conscience as a side effect of growing up? And what’s motivating this strange clan’s bloodlust anyway? To say more would spoil the pleasures of The Hamiltons, though it’s safe to say the character-driven film represents the best possible melding of indie-film family drama and splatter cinema.

Recently, I talked with Altieri and Flores, both of whom are understandably excited about the success of their first Butcher Brothers production.

“When it comes to herb, you gotta set some standards in your life.”

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Tomorrow night at the Parkway Theater — local writer-director Kevin Hahn premieres his new film Stoner’s Run. Judging by the cover art (below), I assumed it was gonna be in the grand tradition of Up in Smoke or Half-Baked, which is to say, a pot comedy all the way. I’m not sure if it’s a spoiler to tell you that the giant joint never actually makes an appearance.

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You need this book.

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Goldies Film winner James T. Hong

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It’s rare when a filmmaker is able to match provocative themes with evocative imagery — and do it consistently. Addressing race and class issues in his arrestingly photographed works, James T. Hong is one such artist. His filmography includes Behold the Asian: How One Becomes What One Is (which won a Golden Gate Award at the 2000 San Francisco International Film Festival despite its labeling of dot-com-era San Francisco as “the white asshole paradise”) and Taipei 101: A Travelogue of Symptoms (Sensitive Version), an excoriation of white guy–Asian girl couples. (It’s a comedy, and a brutally funny one at that.)
“To tell you the truth, I’ve never thought anything I’ve ever done was very controversial,” Hong explains before allowing that the audience at the 2004 Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival, where Taipei 101 screened, included at least one person who threatened to fight him after the lights came up.
Not that Hong minds. One of his guiding principles as a filmmaker is “to make people think differently about a particular topic, whatever it’s about — to see it either in a new light or hear a voice that they themselves can’t express,” he says. “It’s not interesting to show movies to people who already agree with you. It’s better to show to a hostile audience.”
It’s certainly possible that his two newest works, The Denazification of MH and 731, might stir up the wrong (or right) kind of crowd. Both are technically different from films he’s made before: Denazification retains his signature narration-over-black-and-white-footage style but is entirely in German; 731 was shot on high-definition color video. Both were created using footage Hong captured while traveling earlier this year; both deal with questions of perspective in individuals and countries greatly affected by World War II.
“I’m just a war nerd,” he admits, but his interests extend far beyond those of the casual History Channel viewer. While the 2005 SFIFF featured his Iraq War parable, The Form of the Good, both of his latest efforts tie into his WWII fascination. The experimental 14-minute Denazification, which pays a visit to Martin Heidegger’s Black Forest cabin, explores the philosopher’s late-in-life struggle to come to terms with his wartime allegiance to the Nazi party.
Hong — who was born in the United States but says he’d jump at the chance to move to China permanently — calls 731 “a regular documentary — at least what I think is a regular documentary.” The 30-minute film features footage of an abandoned facility in northern China once used for biowarfare testing. The filmmaker’s narration grimly describes the Chinese view of the horrors that transpired there (“3,000 were killed in live-body experiments”) — before switching gears and offering the Japanese response (“war and atrocities go hand in hand”).
The point-counterpoint structure of 731 prefigures Hong’s most ambitious project to date, an in-progress film with the working title New History Zero. “It’s a feature-length documentary about the war and revisionism — the way the Japanese see it, the way the Chinese see it, and the way that America has had a huge influence on the way that the Japanese have dealt with the war, which is incompletely.”
After Denazification, Hong hopes to make more films in other tongues, to “force people to understand that English is not the only language.” But his overriding goal is as personal as it is political.
“My aim now is to communicate more with Asians. I realized that most of the Asian Americans I’ve encountered don’t like my work. Either it’s too nonnarrative — they’re more into the Hollywood type of movies — or it disturbs the kind of quietist attitude that they have,” he says. “They want to just fit in like everybody else. They don’t want to look like assholes. My aim is always to show that no, we are assholes — everybody is.” (Cheryl Eddy)

Goldies Film winners Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer

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Like the steadfast Salton Sea itself, Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer’s Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea has displayed remarkable staying power. The first version of the film played at the 2004 San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, one of more than 100 festivals that have screened the doc since its initial release. Salton Sea reappeared — with new narration by John Waters — earlier this year at the Red Vic and other local rep houses, and the response was so positive that Metzler says the pair are now talking to major distributors with an eye toward a larger theatrical release in the spring.
“Salton Sea has taken on a life of its own,” says the San Francisco–based Metzler (Springer is currently living in Berlin but plans to move back to the Bay Area later this year). “When we first started out, we were having the regular problems that any filmmaker has about finding funding and later, distribution. We soon realized that since the film encapsulates both the quirky, indie movie sort of thing and also the environmental issues, nobody knew how to sell it. We always knew there was an audience out there, but it was gonna take two things: one was overcoming the hurdle of getting people familiar with the Salton Sea, because people didn’t know about it. And then also we recognized that a large audience for the film was people who don’t normally watch documentaries. So we took it out on the road, and wherever it screened it’s gotten an enthusiastic response and created this momentum on a grassroots level. The film, which we kind of expected to die two and a half, three years ago, just keeps on getting bigger.”
Anyone who’s seen Salton Sea knows why. Sure, Waters adds quirky star power, but the film’s briny subject is already as chockablock with character as it is with dead tilapia. Metzler and Springer trace the sea’s accidental birth (two words: engineering mistake) and first century, which saw the region spiral from thriving resort into scruffy, smelly, near-abandoned ruin. Most compellingly, the film draws out the people who choose to dwell on the sea’s desolate shores for whatever reason, be it the low cost of living or most poignantly, the fierce hope that the sea’s 1950s and ’60s salad days will somehow miraculously return.
Though Salton Sea continues to chug along, the filmmakers have begun to turn their attention to new projects. Metzler and fellow San Francisco filmmaker Lev Anderson are currently working on a documentary on the band Fishbone (Springer is helping with shooting and editing); Metzler and Springer plan to reteam for a pair of docs — one on taxidermy and one on evangelical Christian backpackers who follow the path of the apostle Paul through the Middle East. “We have a deep affection for outsiders, and we always want to explore different subcultures,” Metzler says. Then there’s that other idea they have, for a doc on German tiki bars. Metzler’s take on the phenomenon is in line with the duo’s filmmaking philosophy: “It just shows you people like to embrace the exotic, wherever it might be.” (Cheryl Eddy)

What would Jesus do?

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“I bought it for myself but never used it,” he said. “I was tempted, but I never used it.” – Ex-National Association of Evangelicals prez (and George W. Bush bud) Ted Haggard to reporters regarding his alleged meth use, 11/03/06

That’s kind of like saying he smoked pot but didn’t inhale — except way more hilarious, ain’t it??

If you’re following the absolutely delightful Ted Haggard kerflaffle (sfgate.com has the latest AP story here), have a look at my interview with one of the directors of Jesus Camp, which features jabs at a pre-scandal Haggard (weirdly hammy on-camera, he’s the only featured subject to publicly denounce the film).

“So good, so quick — almost unworldly”

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Short notice, but what the hell — there’s an awfully cool doc playing tonight and tomorrow at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on seminal yet underappreciated Boston post-punk band Mission of Burma. Not a Photograph: The Mission of Burma Story, from co-directors David Kleiler, Jr. and Jeff Iwanicki, kicks off as the band is prepping for its first public performance since 1983 — the New York City show that launched their rapturously received 2002 reunion tour.
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photo by Kelly Davidson © 2006

The dark tower

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With Amores Perros and 21 Grams, director Alejandro González Iñárritu (along with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga) trademarked his filmmaking style: overlapping storylines and characters connected in seemingly random ways; a technical approach that includes gritty locations and hand-held camerawork; and a Big Theme that overarches all. His latest, Babel (read Dennis Harvey’s Guardian review here), is Iñárritu’s most ambitious effort to date.

babel.jpg Alejandro González Iñárritu with Gael García Bernal on the set of Babel. (Photo: Eniac Martinez)

The cast, which includes Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, and Amores Perros star Gael García Bernal — as well as several non-actors — is enormous, and its multi-layered tales circle the globe, with segments set in California, Mexico, Morocco, and Japan. Iñárritu’s similarly whirlwind tour in support of Babel’s release landed him in San Francisco recently, where I caught up with the Mexico City native for a chat about the film and his career to date.

The unholiest of holy days

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Miniature candy bars before breakfast, random spashes of fake blood on my Converse, death threats, Misfits on the iPod, Freddy Krueger watch on my wrist … could be any other Tuesday in my life, really. But hot damn, y’all, it’s Halloween!! BOO-ya!

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So, I was up late last night chattin’ with Captain Howdy about some of the reasons for the season. The good Cap’n suggested I post some Oct 31-friendly links for your enjoyment. In the interest of keeping my soul out of Pazuzu’s clutches, for the time being anyway, I thought I’d better comply.

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Assassin fascination

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› cheryl@sfbg.com
Four presidents have been killed in office: the two you hear about (Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy) and the two you kind of don’t (James A. Garfield and William McKinley). But any time a political figure meets a violent death, post-traumatic stress can echo through generations — particularly because Hollywood is so fond of assassination cinema. Oliver Stone’s JFK is the most exhaustive example but certainly not the first; John Wilkes Booth pops up in 1915’s Birth of a Nation.
You don’t even have to be president to get your own assassination narrative (see: this fall’s Bobby) or be a successful target, for that matter. The Assassination of Richard Nixon spun would-be Tricky Dick killer Samuel Byck into a Travis Bickle–by–way–of–Sept. 11 man with a twisted take on the American dream. Fictitious films like Nashville and The Manchurian Candidate also pick up the assassination thread; Taxi Driver went one further by actually inspiring John Hinckley Jr. to take aim at Ronald Reagan.
Images of Reagan’s shooting outside the Washington, DC, Hilton clearly influenced Gabriel Range’s made-for-British-television mock doc Death of a President, by my count the first to imagine the death of a sitting president. The murder takes place Oct. 19, 2007, outside a Chicago hotel surrounded by angry antiwar protesters. Actors playing secret service agents, speechwriters, and sundry witnesses recall their experiences; the events themselves unfold via staged and real footage, some massaged with special effects to make the holy shit! moment as authentic as possible.
But the holy shit! is what you expect — and once Death of a President segues into the President Dick Cheney era, it assumes the far less salacious task of exposing post-9/11 America’s darker corners. A Muslim man is nabbed for the crime; his home country of Syria is taken to task as the FBI scrambles to make a motive out of terrorism. PATRIOT Act Three is passed. Civil liberties become even more restricted. But is the suspect really the killer? Is he a patsy? Or is he guilty only of wrong time, wrong place, wrong race?
In many ways, Death of a President resembles The Confederate States of America — a fake TV doc beamed from a reality where the South won the Civil War — rather than its assassination-obsessed cinematic predecessors. This, despite all the controversy surrounding the film’s sensational suggestion that someone might think the world a better place with Bush in the grave. Ultimately, Range is more interested in using Bush’s untimely death as a way to address issues that already exist in 2006, notably the lose-lose repercussions of a hopeless, never-ending Iraq war. Alas, there’s nothing shocking about that. SFBG
DEATH OF A PRESIDENT
Opens Fri/27
Lumiere Theatre
1572 California, SF
(415)267-4893
Shattuck Cinemas
2230 Shattuck, Berk.
(510) 464-5980
www.deathofapresident.com

Steel Will

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Inspired by Tad Friend’s 2003 New Yorker article “Jumpers,” filmmaker Eric Steel spent 2004 shooting the Golden Gate Bridge — intentionally capturing the plunges launched from the world’s most popular suicide spot. The resulting doc, The Bridge, studies mental illness by filling in the life stories of the deceased through interviews with friends and family members. After playing to packed houses at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival, The Bridge opens for a theatrical run in the city that’s perhaps most sensitive to its controversial subject matter. I spoke with Steel during the New Yorker’s early October visit to San Francisco.
SFBG: When you contacted the families, did they know that you had footage of their loved ones committing suicide?
ERIC STEEL: The families didn’t know, for the same reason that the Golden Gate Bridge authority didn’t know. My biggest fear was that word would get out about what we were doing and someone that wasn’t thinking clearly would see it as an opportunity to immortalize themselves on film. My original plan was — when we finished shooting at the bridge, and when I’d completed all the interviews — that I was then gonna tell the families that I had the footage and review it with them if they wanted to see it. But in January of 2005, I went to the bridge authority and said, “I have all this footage, and I have these interviews with the families. I want to interview you, the highway patrolmen, and the people who came into contact with these people before they died.” They went to the San Francisco Chronicle and suddenly it was all over the front page. I spoke to most of the families that I’d already interviewed and explained, “You have to believe that I’m a sensitive person. We’re all doing this in order to save lives and not to exploit people.” Almost all of them felt that way, but [some] didn’t. Also, there were families that I had not yet contacted. Some said, “We don’t want to have anything to do with you,” but others said, “We think you’re doing this for the right reasons.”
SFBG: There aren’t any officials interviewed in the film. Why did they refuse to participate?
ES: I think it would be very hard for them to respond to some of the issues that we raise. We could easily have used interviews in the film that we didn’t, that were much more damning, of what the highway patrolmen and the bridge people did and didn’t do. There’s one man, the crystal meth addict — we called the bridge as soon as we saw him climb over. It took them four and a half minutes to [reach him]. From where my crew was sitting, I could have run to that spot faster than they got there.
SFBG: How many calls like that did you make?
ES: We probably called 20 times during the year. We didn’t call so much that they thought we were crying wolf. But for us, it was simple: as soon as someone made a move to climb up onto the rail, we made a phone call.
SFBG: Was there ever a point when you thought, “I’m filming people jump. Should I be doing this?”
ES: Because we had already determined that if we could intervene, we would, and that would be the priority, it didn’t feel like we were waiting to film them dying. We were out there because we knew it was coming. With 24 [suicides in an average year], it was like every 15 days you would expect someone to die. If 10 days had gone by and there hadn’t been an incident on the bridge, I know the [camera crew] who was working the next day got increasingly anxious. But not a day went by when you didn’t think you were watching somebody who might be preparing to die.
SFBG: Did you ever consider acknowledging your role within the context of the film, maybe via narration?
ES: I really wanted to be invisible, in a way. For me, there was something strange about explaining too much. I thought it would let the audience off the hook a little bit too easily.
SFBG: Have you been drawn into the debate over the suicide barrier?
ES: I believe that it’s ridiculous that they don’t have a barrier. At the same time, I recognize that the barrier’s really the final moment where you can make a difference. The lives stretch back in time, and there are all sorts of moments where people could have intervened. If we had a better health care system, better mental health services, we wouldn’t be in the same position. The burden is on the bridge to put up a barrier, but it’s also on all of us to take more responsibility for the people who need our help. (Cheryl Eddy)
THE BRIDGE
Opens Fri/27 in Bay Area theaters
See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com
www.thebridge-themovie.com

Bloody pages of horror!

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Probably the number one question I get asked in life (besides “Yo, Eddy, what the hell is on that sandwich?”) is “What’s your favorite horror film?” My knee-jerk response is, of course, Halloween — I’m obsessed with John Carpenter, Donald Pleasence is nothing but fun to watch, and though I have the entire movie memorized, I never, ever get bored of it.

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“The evil is gone from here!”

But every once in awhile — even at this time of year, when all’s I wanna do is mainline candy corn and park my ass at every dang midnite-movie spook show in town, and god bless San Francisco, there’s a living-dead army of ’em — I get the urge to raid my bookshelf for some supplementary reading. Bios of horror filmmakers have always been a favorite. Read one with a gruesome enough cover and you just might discourage that fellow Muni rider from leering at you from across the aisle (no promises, though).

“The first punk rocker”

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It would be physically impossible to find a cooler film subject than the late Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, the hugely influential and wildly creative artist beloved for his customized cars and monster cartoons (including Rat Fink, born of the SoCal resident’s rejection of Mickey Mouse and all the cookie-cutter mainstreamness represented by the then-brand-new Disneyland).

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Ed Roth and car (and model car).
© Sphinx Productions 2005/ Rat Fink name and device are trademarks of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Inc.

Canadian director Ron Mann (Grass, Comic Book Confidential) puts a suitably offbeat spin on his doc, Tales of the Rat Fink, integrating Rat Fink vignettes, quirkily animated still photos, a jaunty surf rock soundtrack, and vintage footage into his exploration of Roth’s life, which dovetails with an enjoyable lesson on American hot rod history.

I recently phoned Mann at his Toronto office for a roundabout chat about hot-rodders, rodents, and Roth’s still-potent legacy. And what about those talking cars, anyway?

Ki-ki-ki … ah-ah-ah

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It’s Friday the 13th — just the very day I like to dust off my hockey mask, hustle to the nearest lake, and start spearin’ feckless teenagers with every sharp object my mitts can grab.

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Hooray for carnage! Tonight on Starz, the made-for-TV doc Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film machetes its way through the genre.

Win, lose, or draw

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FESTIVAL Anyone who assumes the San Francisco Film Society hibernates between springtime fests is sorely mistaken. Aside from all the preparations for next year’s landmark 50th SF International Film Festival, much year-round activity has been emanating from the organization’s Presidio headquarters, including a recent outdoor screening of giant-ant classic Them! Next up: the first San Francisco International Animation Showcase, three days of films at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Clear your Oct. 12 calendar, for the only place your butt needs to be is sitting in a theater watching Bong Joon-ho’s The Host, without a doubt the monster movie of this year’s festival circuit. It features F/X by San Francisco’s own the Orphanage — and a giant, hungry, nasty sea creature riddled with political and social subtext. Oct. 14 heralds a pair of shorts programs: “The Kids Are Alright,” with award-winning student films like Sukwon Shin’s Rock the World (George W. Bush, Colin Powell, and … Journey?) and Luis Nieto’s ingeniously seamless live action–animation hybrid Carlitopolis, about a spectacularly resilient lab mouse; and “International Panorama,” with dynamic works from England, Iran, Japan, and beyond. The minifest wraps up with The Incredibles director Brad Bird’s 1999 The Iron Giant, which to everyone but diehard Pacifier fans remains Vin Diesel’s best family-friendly performance to date. (Cheryl Eddy)
www.sffs.org

Rock Doc

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Director Paul Rachman and writer Steven Blush collaborated on every aspect of American Hardcore — literally. “This is a two-person operation,” Blush explained as we settled into a booth at a downtown San Francisco restaurant, where the filmmakers (and passionate music fans) discussed their new documentary.
SFBG What drew you into the hardcore scene?
PAUL RACHMAN I was a college kid at Boston University in the early ’80s [when] I went to my first hardcore show at the Gallery East: Gang Green, the Freeze, and the FU’s. I’d never heard anything like it. It was dissonant, it was loud, and it was coming from 16-year-old angry kids. It just socked it to me, and I wanted more of this all the time. That’s what made me pick up a Super 8 camera and start shooting; it was the beginning for me in terms of both my introduction to hardcore and me becoming a filmmaker. Ever since those days I’ve never, ever done anything else.
STEVEN BLUSH Somewhere at the end of my freshman year [at George Washington University in Washington, DC], I saw Black Flag at Nightclub 9:30, right before Henry Rollins joined the band. It just wrecked my life. A decade later I realized how much the subculture affected me, as to who I am today — but I also realized that the history was totally lost. I just decided, DIY-style, to write a book. Around that time [when it came out], I ran into Paul again — we knew each other from the hardcore scene — and he broached the idea of making the film.
PR I instantly knew what the film should be. It needed to be this kind of visceral, first-person account — no narrator, no experts. Because hardcore didn’t have that. You didn’t listen to anybody. Nobody explained to you how to do anything. You didn’t want that around, and the film had to reflect that. So it was documentary in its rawest, purest form: let your subject tell its story. We shot 120 interviews and it was about culling the story out of that.
SFBG Were there any artists not in the film that you wish you could have included?
SB There’s two bands you will not see in American Hardcore: Dead Kennedys and the Misfits. With both bands there’s a real problem between the singer and the other band members. It was like, if you work with one, you couldn’t work with the other. We just had to bail out of that situation. Ultimately, this is the story of a culture. It’s the story of a scene and a community. There were no stars in hardcore. We wanted every single person — we did extend the offer to everybody. But at a certain point, if they don’t come through, you have to move on.
SFBG Do you hope that people who aren’t hardcore fans will see the movie, and what do you think they’ll take away from it?
SB American Hardcore is a rock film, but it’s really about youth culture. It’s a testament to the power of youth, about what you can achieve against all odds. Because these bands had nothing. They had no resources, no talent, no hot look. They had nothing to fall back on except their conviction. So it is kind of a clarion call to kids to say, you know, seize the moment. Take off the iPod. Log off MySpace and get with it. (Cheryl Eddy)
For an extended interview with Paul Rachman and Steven Blush, visit www.sfbg.com/blogs/pixel_vision.

AMERICAN HARDCORE: the complete interview

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*The following is an (extremely) expanded version of an interview that appears in this week’s San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Director Paul Rachman and writer Steven Blush collaborated on every aspect of their new music doc, American Hardcore. “This is a two-person operation,” Blush explained as we settled into a booth at a not-very-punk-but-hey-we-were-hungry downtown San Francisco restaurant. The pair shared their thoughts on the cultural significance of hardcore music and their DIY filmmaking approach; they also meandered onto a Bay Area tangent, overlapping each other on topics like the charms of Flipper: “They were the ultimate San Francisco band in many ways. They were trashy. They were punk. They were nasty. They were arty.”

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American Hardcore director Paul Rachman and writer Steven Blush. Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics Inc. Copyright 2006.

Why sleep when there are docs to watch??

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That’s my motto. I’m gonna get it tattooed in Olde English letters across my stomach, “Thug Life”-style. With the two question marks and everything. Here’s a couple of new recommendations for my doc-loving homies.

Tonight on IFC: the premiere of Rank, director John Hyams’ look at the elite ranks of the professional bull-riding circuit. (Hyams previously made a film for HBO about mixed martial arts fighting called The Smashing Machine. What’s scarier, an extreme brawler or a hulking, pissed-off bull named Crossfire Hurricane?)

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