Everyone loves a good zombie movie for the torrents of blood, the guilt-free murder sprees, and the long periods of tension where ordinary people are provided the opportunity to prove their worth in a battle to the nihilistic finish. In a zombie apocalypse, we can fulfill our true potential, as the muted and suppressed office drones give way to the ass-kicking gun-totin freedom fighter within us all. Or we would become obsessive rapists. There is that dark side of the coin, where in a world freed from immediate responsibility beyond survival, we would do some truly fucked up things to serve our desire for power or pleasure. So instead of taking up some creative weaponry to kill at will, perhaps we would capture a zombified version of that bitch who dumped us in high school and plow that shit like a payloader. In Deadgirl, this response to a zombie encounter is explored in a question regarding the human character, or perhaps the entire film is a rape fantasy. I have yet to decide which one it is, though the fact that for 90 minutes of its running time, an undead girl is strapped nude to a table… well it is difficult to argue against the latter.

High school dimwits Rickie and JT skip school to hang out in an abandoned mental hospital that has been decorated by Pyramid Head. Rickie is a soft-headed douche who still believes in true love and has a thing for some ginger girl in his class who really would not piss on the best part of him. JT is a sociopath trapped in a society that is big on rules irrelevant to his needs. The two break into the boiler room and find a litmus test for whether there is such a thing as human morality: a nude girl strapped to a table. As it happens, they both fail this test in different ways. JT refuses to report the still-breathing girl to the police in favor of the old in-out, while Rickie actually pussies out and leaves JT to it and tells nobody. Sounds ridiculous to a grown man who is gainfully employed, but to the average high school embryo, this is a difficult choice to make. The ‘right thing’ is a moving target at best, and one must fear the potential alienation from the few people who can stand you. It takes two decades at least to form some sort of value system, and when it comes to rape, many men still have to grapple with it. JT has his way for hours, but discovers that when he attempts to kill the witness, she simply will not shuffle off the buffalo. He has discovered the perfect victim, a zombie. Well, perfect as long as you keep her tied down. No food or water necessary, and she can take all the spunk you can leave in her carcass. Just don’t try the mouth, since that is kind of how zombies multiply.

As additional men populate this sordid exercise, more questions pop up. How difficult is it to convince a man to become a rapist if he can be assured he will never be caught? Two meatheads end up double-teaming our heroine, except that they end up paying dearly for taking advantage of her. When she bites down and starts an infection that culminates in the quarterback voiding his intestinal tract, one can hear the geeks in the audience cheer quietly. The sociopath manipulates these assholes in a situation they can not understand, and one of them becomes a zombie. Once JT figures out how to make more of them, you can see the rape factory wheels spinning in his mind. As always, Rickie is impotent to do much to alter the course of events because he is a passive vagina. And why is he unable to do or say anything to stop JT? He does not debate the moral principles very well, nor does he act forcefully until it is too late. Perhaps he quietly envies JT’s ability to see the world in a way that allows him to take advantage of opportunities, shady though they may be. After all, he ‘loves’ that girl in class, but JT has a plan that will result in making a fuck toy out of her. And JT is correct in that she would never lay a hand on Rickie unless she were forced. The whole film is like this, a series of moral conundrums that can be asked only in the context of a non-human victim.

After all, if she is truly dead or undead, is it really a crime? If she is no longer human, is it still rape? Well, yes, since sex with animals is technically illegal since they cannot consent. Legality aside, it is not the same act, and is free of the ethical considerations. So the rape fantasy takes flight as the men in this story are free to become who they truly are. The film telegraphs this agenda well enough in one of JT’s monologues about why Rickie should be enthusiastic about building a little zombie farm starting with the chick who has little use for him in human life. If consent and free will are things you value, then this film will gain no traction in your busy viewing schedule. If rape fascinates you in the least, then you will watch with sickening allure. After all, Deadgirl is the ideal woman for many men. She doesn’t speak, wants nothing, has no use for marriage or mortgage, and will not die no matter how violently you ravage her innards. This could very well be the only film ever made to regard rape objectively.

There may be more to this than the rape fantasy, however. In one scene, JT and his friend attempt to recruit a whore to their farm. She is lured to their car, and one of them clubs her in the head with a golf club. She responds by beating the plasma out of both of them and going back to work. Deadgirl finally breaks free and mauls every man in sight, with the exception of Rickie, before fleeing the hospital. Did the film mutate into a feminist screed while I was out having a slash? Perhaps the director can have it both ways – Catherine Breillat would hardly disagree. She noted once that men are repelled by liberated women, “Does it mean they can only desire a slave?” The term rape can be applied to any situation where there is an imbalance of power, if you want to be didactic about it. When shackled in place, Deadgirl gives her silent consent, but wrecks shit the moment she has a hand free. Perhaps a comment on how women of power have little use for sex, or that there is more pleasure in inflicting pain. In the end, she seemed to be watching the little boys play their games, all the while keeping in sight the bigger picture of the zombie apocalypse.

Though Deadgirl is not entertaining in a conventional way, and lacks the insight of Breillat’s films, it does attempt to tackle the roots of sexuality and desire by focusing on a woman who is technically not a woman, removing her from the equation entirely. What do men desire – conversation and human connection, or a willing recipient? The answer is not black and white, rather somewhere in between. This is why some happily married couples feel a need to trade spouses or utilize bondage gear whilst roleplaying. Behind closed doors, more of us than are willing to admit like to have it both ways.

Besieged Fortress is the most violent film in recent memory. As two armies battle for survival, the soldiers are impaled, enucleated, dismembered, decapitated, poisoned to die agonizing deaths while body parts are severed and carried away for consumption on the battlefield, and a body count that numbers well into the hundreds as corpses fill the vista or are carried away by muddied streams. That the combatants are driver ants and termites is beside the point – watching the massive jaws of a driver soldier (which equal its body length) puncture the head of a termite newborn and inject copious amounts of formic acid while the victim writhes on the ground is no less cringe-inducing than any undercooked scene from the dying torture porn genre. These shots are, of course, quite real, and the pain felt by those vanquished are all the world left in their fleeting lives. Besieged Fortress was shot on location in Burkina Faso, using microcamera techniques to bring the craft to the level of the insect, and is edited creatively in the style of March of the Penguins to telescope the events into an efficiently paced story. There is the possibility that some of the events were staged, but if so, they are to the film’s credit in creating a tightly plotted narrative that uses juxtaposition of various characters inhabiting the African savanna to develop a tension unimaginable for a documentary about bugs. If only films using human characters could generate this level of drama. The edge of your seat will be well-utilized, and the climax will leave you in stunned disbelief. First, however, comes the dawn of an empire.

Termites build the largest structures in the world not made by humans; some mounds exceed nine meters in height, and are crafted entirely from mud and digested wood. Some 4000 species inhabit subtropical regions, the Isoptera group lineage that predates ants utilizes a decentralized swarm intelligence to organize a colony that numbers in the millions. The body of a termite is soft, and individuals are subject to predation; the queen is immobile and is essentially an egg-laying machine that drops thousands of eggs per day which develop into workers, soldiers, and reproductive individuals. Together they build arboreal or earth mounds that are hardened fortresses against the elements and predators. So complex are these homes that they provide thermoregulation that protects those within, circulate air, and keep out enemies while allowing access to food and water. Of utmost importance are protecting the queen and a garden of mushrooms that assists in cellulose digestion. Such a titanic enterprise begins with a tiny couple, one of thousands who take to the air during mating season, then burrow into the ground to begin their work. They shall never again see daylight.

Driver ants are native to central and eastern Africa, forming colonies of up to 50 million individuals. Theirs is a nomadic existence, moving constantly in search of food in highly organized groups that appear to take their cues directly from the queen. Workers and soldiers work in systems too complex to be instinctive, forming adaptable bridges, tunnels, and temporary armored walls to move swiftly or protect the queen behind a rampart of stinging jaws. Any animal caught in their path that is incapable of flight is quickly immobilized and dismembered, the body parts saved to feed the ravenous column. As Besieged Fortress opens, one such colony of driver ants leaves a parched plateau for greener pastures, and detects the fragrant waft from the termite mound. The hunt is on, and as sedentary animals, the termites have no escape – only defense.

Structured like a disaster film, the termites must endure challenges from all quarters that threaten the survival of the entire complex. Animals can tear open the nest to attack, and so soldiers are always at the ready to protect a breach while workers seal the cracks. A tree is struck by lightning, which breaks open the top of the mound, choking the lower levels with dust. Rain enters the wrecked castle, drowning individuals by the thousands and bringing asphyxiating mud to the very chamber of the queen. Even at the best of times, the termites labor to maintain the nest at fairly constant temperatures to protect the nymphs, the food supply, and tend to the mushrooms. At the worst, the queen lays eggs prodigiously to replete those lost to the weather or to marauding ants or other predators. They must withstand regular raids by a local ant colony. All of these sacrifices yield an annual reward: the winged offspring, the princes and princesses, take flight under ideal weather conditions to mate, and those lucky enough to withstand the ordeal will establish a new colony with a massive fortress as the fruit of their extraordinary labor. Besieged Fortress brings home the essential lesson that survival at the frontier of these interlocking evolutionary arms races is anything but guaranteed.

As the driver ants approach the termite mound and sweep aside anything in their path, you will have difficulty watching the impending slaughter; there is a strong human desire to see a triumph against impossible odds. There is no protagonist or antagonist here – just warring factions attempting to garner a niche in the unforgiving savanna. I am projecting, of course, but watching the driver ants tear other insects to pieces, rendering the giant body of a snake into bite-sized segments, I found my heart sinking, just considering the cruel fate in store for the termites just a short distance away. They have a soldier class as well, but termites do not stand a chance against such an adversary with superior numbers and weaponry. As the assault begins, the suspense is terrible as the ants coordinate the attack with a surprisingly sophisticated battle plan. The queen is at all times connected to the soldiers via a combination of sound and chemical signals; the termites are overwhelmed and the bodies fill the holes and tunnels as the soldiers and workers fight desperately whilst being impaled and ripped apart, succumbing to poisonous injections. The queen cannot move, and so much as a single wound would cause a massive bleed of lymph from which she would not recover. The siege progresses relentlessly despite a desperate defense, right into the royal chamber itself.

Now, I would not dream of spoiling the entire story for you, but the termites are canny and prepared to throw it all into the most audacious of counterattacks imaginable. Life goes on for some in the African wilderness, and nature itself is indifferent to whom is able to suffer the onslaught.  The work is imperfect – the narration is not great, and could have been excised entirely in favor of captioned factoids. The action and the intricate photography that penetrates the inner workings of the complicated termite world carries this feature. It is the equal of Luc Jacquet’s The Tick and The Bird, or some of David Attenborough’s Life series. Anthropomorphizing may occur in the process, but this is not for the camera to judge – we do this ourselves when we identify with a thing, an event, an animal, or a struggle. We see ourselves in the masterpieces of nature, and are the richer for understanding how it all fits. As a film, this is cracking entertainment. As a meditation on the power of the survival instinct, it gives the viewer much to consider as part of their own personal struggle, or the greater drive of evolution. And if you care about none of the above, you will be entertained by a riot of violence that approaches poetic abandon.

“Any resemblance to real events, to persons living or dead, is not accidental. It is DELIBERATE.”

Z is, quite simply, the finest movie about politics and political struggle ever made. With apologies to Battle of Algiers, thrilling in its own right, Z is a masterwork of satire, a vitriolic lash against the suffocating fascism which gleefully masquerades as democracy, and brimming with the sort of dark humor that thrives upon tragedy and exhilarates with disasters. The film is unique in seeming action-packed with fast-moving scenes of people who mostly talk or sit still; this is high-impact politics where two immovable objects collide and annihilate. Just as he did with the exemplary Missing, Costa-Gavras brings a powerful voice to cinema and excels at examining the difficult nature of politics while never losing sight of the human core that is crushed underneath the weight of a conflict.

The opening quote from above is only the first of many playful salvos to assure you that this is not the sort of timid work that avoids provocation to maximize the size of an audience. Loosely based on events in Greece in the 1960s, Z is meant to take place in Anynation, during any time period. In 1963, popular leftist deputy Gregoris Lambrakis was assassinated in Athens, and an investigation by Christos Sartzetakis found connections between the assassins, the police, and fascist extremist elements in Greece. The far-right government of Greece consolidated power by military dictatorship in 1967 and Sartzetakis was imprisoned. The junta remained in power until 1974 with the help of military and economic support from the United States. Throughout, Lambrakis’s memory remained fresh in the minds of the citizens, and the symbol ‘Z’ became a rallying cry, meaning ‘He (Lambrakis) is alive’. Sartzetakis became an icon of integrity, but it is important to remember that while he was imprisoned and Lambrakis murdered, they were both known as communist villains under the junta while the murderers were ‘rehabilitated’ as heroes of the nation. It only takes a bit of repetition and on-message bloviating to rend even the largest personality asunder, changing their legacy with the help of demagogues. Z is about not only the intrigue surrounding the aftermath of a political assassination, but the attempt to bury a legacy and the extraordinary sacrifice required to simply maintain the truth.

The immortal Yves Montand plays the charismatic physician-turned-politician whose is poised to win the presidential vote. He attends a rally that has been sabotaged by the police. Threats and bureaucracy have denied them a proper venue for a rally, and thugs are dispatched to ensure a violent scene that can be blamed on the communists. In front of a frenzied crowd, with a phalanx of policemen watching idly, a truck speeds into the square and an assailant clubs the contender on the head. He falls to the ground, never to regain consciousness. As the right wing government moves to cover up the incident as a drunken accident, the leftist party tries to release the information, and the man’s wife watches silently as her whole life ebbs before her eyes. Often movies that focus upon politics forget that real human lives are lost and the twisted scar of broken families is easily forgotten. It is to Costa-Gavras’s credit that Montand’s character is always at the center of the story and its outcome. He dies, and his party is prevented from making any further statements by the police. All would have been lost were it not for the work of an investigating magistrate who discovers that the autopsy shows not that he was struck from the side by a moving vehicle, but from above with a club, making murder the only likely possibility. A photojournalist uncovers the connections between a right-wing extremist group and the police, and the structure collapses in a breakneck paced procedural ending in a finale that will have any reasonable viewer on their feet as the sacred cows of the administration are indicted for premeditated murder. All of that was possible due to the magistrate being a trusted member of the legal system, and a fastidiously apolitical judge. Testimony from known leftists is tossed out as unreliable, and pressure from conservatives is ignored. He methodically builds a factual case that catches the corrupt police chief and his minions off guard. The labyrinth of lies collapses in impressive fashion as the viewer is pulled rapidly through the mess.

The film does not end there, however, balancing the relief of seeing justice done with the cold and unsentimental truth that justice is rarely complete. The magistrate is replaced, witnesses are murdered, perpetrators exonerated, and the junta takes power and bans peace movements, music, labor unions, sociology, Tolstoy, Sophocles, Chekov, Pinter, the free press, and the letter Z. The viewer is jailed in a wall of text from all those things reactionaries find so hateful. Depressingly, this is the only way events could go. Conservative ideologues, for all their bleating of democracy and freedom, have little use for either once their power is threatened.

Costa-Gavras is anything but subtle, and his dark and unforgiving tone has been criticized as the voice of a cynic. I am not sure if that is even something one can criticize in a director. Z is his most famous work, and is a gem of progressive filmmaking. Despite its expeditious pacing, it would be a distressing slog were it not for a vicious sense of humor. The film opens with a montage of increasingly ridiculous medals, all made to cover the blunt corruption and dishonor of those who wear them as talismans against their own worthless nature.The intellectual poverty of the right wing is repeatedly attacked with a series of sly jokes, starting with a rather silly and dull lecture about diseases to an administrative forum. The ‘isms’ so dangerous to deeply conservative politicians are compared to fungal diseases in crops, which must be sprayed with copper sulfate to prevent their spread. That a right-wing extremist government cannot tolerate competition from populist movements is but one facet of the commentary. That the extremists find this sort of thing edifying is funny in itself. When recalling the scene of the murder, the right-wing thugs, policemen, and politicians all use the same phrasing in a clever play upon their inability to think independently. When several of the members of the murder plot are indicted, they attempt to leave the magistrate’s chamber through a door to the left, which is locked. They are uncontrollably driven to the right whilst being photographed by the press, soon to be banned. Not the most subtle symbolism, but considering the density of these references, this quality makes the film accessible. In the final bleak aftermath scene, the journalist telling the story of the investigation (as to a television audience) becomes part of the photographs as his arrest is announced. Sardonic wit is all one has to view a tragedy in motion without becoming depressed.

Still, no story ends – not even somber ones. The junta fell eventually when anti-American sentiment and pro-democracy movements started to gain ground. Intellectuals exiled by the dictatorship, the enormous popularity of the 1969 release of Z, and pressure from other European nations opened a factional split in the junta, leading to a counter-coup, loss of support of key military officers, and a collapse of the dictatorship. That a right-wing extremist government that utilized torture and denied basic human rights (cough) was seen as an ally against Communism was embarrassing to the Western Bloc of NATO, and delayed the incorporation of Greece into the European Union. Most importantly, the history of this dictatorship stands as a reminder that such things can happen rather easily under the right circumstances. For this unfortunate reason, Z is timeless, and will never lose its relevance.

“Thanks for coming out today…” – Larry Craig addressing a press conference to assure the nation that he was still in the closet

There will be few documentaries this year as openly provocative regarding the peculiarly retarded mental gymnastics required to be both gay and publicly homophobic whilst mired in the American power structure. This denial is both practical and soul-destroying, part of a conspiracy to downplay the existence of gay Americans and cover up homosexuality when present in inconvenient politicians. When someone speaks of conspiracy, it connotes a back room meeting presided over by cigar-smoking movers and shakers. This is not what I had in mind – it is a conspiracy even if it’s only a gentlemen’s agreement widely held amongst heterosexual and closeted bisexuals and homosexuals to keep any hint of gay shit at a very long arm’s length. And so it is in Washington, D.C.,  perhaps the second most fabulous and gay city in America, where gay pages and chiefs of staff prop up the social conservative agenda as they reconcile their ambition with their identity. And so it is with any gay male or female who wishes to acquire power within this sexually confused empire of outwardly homophobic churchgoing bible-fondlers who secretly crave le gateau de boeuf.

Outrage is a tightly constructed and well-made film that examines the culture of closeted gay men in power, the damage they cause to gay rights issues, and the effort to loosen the hinges on the aforementioned closet. The latter issue has generated some controversy, controversy which Mike Rogers (of blogactive.com) has embraced, regarding the outing of gay politicians who have a demonstrable anti-gay rights voting record. This is considered a violation of privacy by many. That right-wing activists push for laws (and most recently a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage) that make normal private life for gay and bisexual impossible is a tad ironic. But then, the maxim “Equal Protection Under the Law” utterly baffles the conservative lawmakers who actually believe this shit.

Notable features include former governor Jim McGreevey, who discusses the enormous relief that has come from admitting his homosexuality after resigning. No longer burdened with leading the double life that erodes the soul, he cannot stress enough just how harmful it is to deny one’s identity and suppress the most basic of human desires – the sex drive. If you think closeted gay men hurt themselves, just imagine how much they can hurt those around them by harnessing that self-loathing to drive public homophobia. This could be either true self-hate or perhaps the desire to deflect curiosity about whether they themselves are cruising leather bars. The lies politicians say in public create a Byzantine patchwork of ‘truth’; the lies they say to themselves are far more bizarre. Of course, the oddest of all these relationships are those of the spouses of closeted gay politicians, caught in public and having to put on a behavioral dog show for the cameras. The sheer fanatacism present in the eyes of Mrs. Larry Craig leapfrogs over creepy into the truly disturbing.

Outrage builds the case of a conspiracy well, including the way the media declines to comment upon sexuality, the words used to avoid suggesting homosexuality, the elaborate dances required of gay politicians to appear hetero enough to win elections. Charlie Crist, widely considered a frontrunner for the 2012 presidential bid, is surrounded by rumors of a gay lifestyle. He described himself as a ‘moderate’ in response to these rumors, prompting Barney Frank to quip, “Sure, just like I marched in last year’s moderate pride parade and went to a moderate bar last night.” He picks up young and attractive women whenever he is in the midst of an election, only to drop them shortly after winning. One such woman divorced him, and declined to answer any questions regarding where Crist keeps his cucumber, but did say “Come back in ten years, and I’ll tell you a story.”

Apart from these politicians being untrue to themselves, closeted gay people in positions of power tend to use that power to deny equal rights to American citizens for no reason other than to keep from being called a fag by their fellow closeted gay social conservatives. Needless to say, most are Republicans, depending upon the support of Christian organizations and other similarly odious twits who demand absolute freedom from government while insisting on invasion of privacy when consistent with their religious beliefs. Their voting record consistently declines HIV research funding, blocks the right for gays to marry, and denies the need for hate crime laws regarding gays. Social Conservatives demand freedom from government and push religion via government, crusade against pornography and prostitution unless one of their own is caught with a hooker, and deplore the ‘gay agenda’ while hiding boyfriends from wives. Essentially, push to outlaw all that makes us human while indulging in secret shame. With their collective head so far up their collective ass, the Klein bottle that is the Social Conservative movement has redefined America as a sexually confused self-loathing frat boy with an itchy trigger finger.

Outrage is not a fair documentary to the other side, those people who feel that gays should live in disgraceful darkness, should never be allowed to adopt or take any part in society, and should burn in hell for all eternity. Is there any way to be fair to people who have this attitude? What would their response be to the filmmakers if they were being interviewed? We have all heard these diatribes before, about how God will deliver swift punishment for tolerating the wicked gay lifestyle (still waiting on that brimstone, by the way) or how homosexuality is a choice and an agenda designed to corrupt the minds of children. These people should kindly get fucked if they don’t already in a back alley far from the eyes of their obedient wives. I suppose Pat Robertson can remember the time when he decided to stop sucking cocks in men’s bathrooms, but I certainly didn’t reach that branch in my decision tree. Gay rights is about the freedom to pursue happiness in its most basic form – being left the fuck alone. For this reason, exposing closeted homophobic gay politicians remains a worthy goal, by preventing these creepy fucks from denying this right to a huge segment of America.

www.blogactive.com – for more information on who in Washington is buggering their pages

www.house.gov/frank/ – because we fucking love Barney Frank

Films about youth tend to be soaked in nostalgia, perhaps shot in soft focus about those halcyon days long past when money was of little importance, and the grandest ambitions were limited to finding elaborate ways to break things and get away with it. These memories are easy to come by since adults old enough to craft films have long forgotten how painful it could be to be young and alone, or powerless and with such limited options. Adolescents tend to look forward to a hopeful future where imperial dreams could be realized, or at least a time where one has enough of an income to be left alone. Adults on the other hand look back with fondness to a time when income and options were limited but responsibilities were few in a carefree pastiche of naïve aimlessness. Interesting then, how the two young boys in Somers Town remind the viewer how even as a kid one is looking both forward and back just as adults do, and for the same reasons. Our rather poor grasp of memory tends to view adolescence and adulthood as being separated by an arbitrary high wall that was scaled by graduation from college, the acquisition of a job that paid well enough to allow one to leave home, or the terror of realizing that you have knocked up that girl you barely tolerate (or got knocked up by that guy who can barely tolerate you). In truth, there is no wall, and likely little difference between youth and older age. We still carry those same habits and skewed vision of what is to come, and what brought us here.

Tomo is an outgoing prole from the midlands of England who flees his house filled with layabouts (so he says, anyway) for the greener side of the fence in London.  Marek is a Polish immigrant who was brought by his father to a cramped apartment in a decaying area. He is left with little to do as he sees his father once daily between when he arrives from work and before he leaves to get drunk with friends. Tomo is sidelined after some kids nick his gear, and he hides in Marek’s apartment until something better comes along. Life does indeed occur while they make other plans, and they form a friendship of sorts without really thinking too much about the future. Figuring out toilet usage without the breadwinner finding out about the new tenant is complicated enough, let alone how they learn to deal with infatuation and loss. They hang out, steal stuff, do odd jobs for a cockney entrepreneur, and fall for the same French girl at a local bakery. There is no real plot or direction to speak of, and really there should not be in a coming of age story. There are the hard objects to bounce off, the sharp edges to recover from, and the stupid shit one does without careful thought that becomes the most rosy of memories.

The film itself is feather-light, and would sail away with the slightest breeze, unless you see yourself in the characters. I saw a bit of Marek’s shy and withdrawn nature in myself, as well as Tomo’s ill-advised recklessness. And in the end I saw a bit of Marek’s father, working all day and drinking all night, in a slightly more responsible version of the two kids. Beyond holding down a steady job, there is no difference between the adult and the child in Somers Town, and in a way that would seem to be the point. The kids earn just enough from thefting a bag of clothes to enjoy an afternoon in the park with wine and cheese, though this was initially meant for the French girl. Love is lost, and forgotten for youth. The father earns just enough to remain in borderline poverty, but at least the time is entertaining. He left behind his wife after their marriage falls apart. Love is lost, and is not likely to be regained for a grownup. This is no tragedy, just the way things go. Fortunately, none of these losses are given any more dramatic heft than they deserve in real life.

Considering the inconsequential events that consumed my young life, I found the film an amiable stroll down some semblance of memory lane. It is unlikely that much of the film will stay with me for any length of time, though I will probably think back to that kid having to wear a dress with a ‘French maid lingerie’ apron whilst polishing brass with amusement. Not that I have had to wear a dress (that you know of), but it is the weird shit that seemed so embarrassing at the time that stays with you years later.

Joshua is the coordinator for this guerrilla news organization which provided the only images of the Burma uprising, broadcast on BBC and other news media. Without their involvement, only word of mouth would have reached the outside world, and there would be no counter to the propaganda from the government-owned television stations. The small army of journalists armed with old cameras braved street protests while surrounded by plainclothes intelligence officers. They had no illusions about the task that faced them. As Joshua noted, “ I want to fight for democracy, but I think we have to make a longer plan.” In 2007, the government doubled the fuel prices, leading to grumbling that led to public complaining about price gouging. This was the spark that set off protests that had laid dormant since the near-unanimous election victory for Aung San Suu Kyi and her subsequent house arrest, which was followed by the jailing of thousands of dissidents, and the murder of 3000 Burmese citizens. The journalists of Burma VJ did not care about the risks – they had no country, and no way to go but forward. One such underground reporter spent 12 years in prison for his involvement in street protests. “Everything just stays the same”, he grouses. Joshua replies, “Don’t be too sure.” Optimism may seem quixotic under such circumstances, but revolutionaries have no other choice for a mindset.

Burma VJ details not only the protests themselves, but the devilish details of high-risk journalism. Clandestine internet hookups, satellite feed, hidden cameras that are old, broken, and hard to replace are just part of the problem. Informers are everywhere, and anyone can be a spy. Journalists are subject to torture and life imprisonment. Joshua reentered Burma after the fuel prices went up to assemble his volunteers, as a feeling was in the air. At first, questions to citizens were met with dismissive waves – people were scared. Protests started to form on the street corners without a clear plan or leader. With time, people began their own demonstrations. Some were veterans of the last great uprising. Thugs were sent to break these up, snatch cameras, and help haul people into unmarked cars. Buddhist monks decided to join the protests – despite their apolitical leanings, they have taken to the streets in the past to oppose public suffering. They became political, and led protests that exploded with intensity. The journalists were there, cameras in hand, to provide the only record of the events. In one gripping scene, two such reporters were discovered by policemen, and the monks surrounded and protected them – likely saving their lives. As they continued to march with their alms bowls upturned (no alms for the generals), the protests were joined by citizens. Within a few days, the throngs numbered in the thousands, and then tens of thousands.

The footage is shown to the outside world, and suddenly the impossible comes into view. One of the most breathtaking scenes that you will ever see in film is from one such demonstration that fills a street to the horizon, over a hundred thousand people gathering to protest. Then, the camera pans to the buildings on the side, as a journalist shouts “There are so many…”. The buildings sag under the weight of people who crowd the windows and rooftops to cheer the monks onward. One protestor after another and the faces are no longer afraid, but screaming to the skies. And one such march reaches the guarded house of Aung San Suu Kyi, who emerges briefly to wave at the crowd. The Burmese government was so sure that remarkable woman had been forgotten.

As with all movements, this uprising ground to a halt after curfews, arrests, and finally violent reaction bled the crowds dry. The military-run government responded in the only way it knew how – by filling the streets with the army. Despite the immediate dangers, Joshua’s reporters remained on the street and caught one scene of carnage after another. To this day nobody knows how many were killed this time, but the images were sent to the international media nonetheless: a Japanese reporter shot in the face at point blank range and carried away, monks beaten and arrested, monasteries raided, and the lifeless body of a monk floating in the river. The journalists are targeted as enemies of the state for getting the images out to the world to see. Three of them are taken away and given life sentences by the police. The hope amidst the people returned to its dormant state until the next outburst. In the meantime, Joshua prepares to recruit more journalists equipped only with a cell phone and a pair of stones I could only dream of carrying.

Seated in a comfortable country like this one, I am struck by how clearly these people understand democracy. Willing to die for the chance to entertain the possibility of eventual democracy, these guys put the timid and fat journalists on the corporate-owned news networks to fucking shame. While those shitpieces merely repeat whatever information is given to them by government or business interests, the reporters of Burma VJ go out there and get the goods while hiding in a hole, under fire. The dull and docile reporting by the networks during the last two hobby wars in the Middle East signified the Fourth Estate was in great decay. Burma VJ has shown how utterly compromised to the point of uselessness that they have all become.

This is the future of the true journalism, ladies and gents, unpaid guerillas with amateur footage, giving you the real deal while the polished stations feed you the same old shite. The filmmakers suggested as much, providing a clip of the highly polished and colorful propaganda from the official news stations. Not that MSNBC or CNN are government-owned, of course – they parrot the acceptable news allowed by their owners, tainting any information they wish to pass on. FoxNews does not qualify as news, being a disciplined mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch. These days, if you want to know what is going on, you need to either take the standard media with a tremendous grain of salt, or read underground shit like Buffalo Beast, or Al-Jazeera English. Apart from being entertaining, these sources are free from the massive conflict of interests that dominates our domestic news sources. The borderline insane reporters of Burma VJ tower above them all. They give us at least some hope that the free press will not die as we thought – it will just change as the rules are reinvented by forces beyond our control.

For more information about the film and how to get involved (if having a free press is of interest to you): website: www.burmavjmovie.com

Documentaries have the strength of presenting a story with real human impact, and when there is a conflict involved, presenting both sides can be difficult to do fairly. On some issues however, there is only one side that is the least bit palatable. For the past twelve years, a small group of American and Ecuadorian lawyers have been fighting a class-action lawsuit against Texaco-Chevron for decades of damage done to the rainforest of Ecuador, for contaminating the water and soil with cheaply built drilling and pumping equipment, for dumping toxic wastes into pits and covering them with dirt as a gesture toward ‘cleanup’, for causing obscenely high rates of cancer in the area’s adults and children, and for committing acts that may yet completely eradicate tribes of people whose ways of life are about to vanish forever due to the destruction of their ancestral lands. The other side of that argument from the Texaco-Chevron legal team is nothing but obfuscation, accusations of fraud against the plantiffs, judges, and any human involved, and finally threats by Chevron to lobby the U.S. government to cut off trade with Ecuador if the trial continues. And Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer in Ecuador, lost his brother at the beginning of the trial; his tortured body was found with the skull crushed. A military informer notified Fajardo that they killed the wrong brother, as the intent was to stop the trial. Fair to say that Chevron, which has annual profits in excess of $200 billion, is something less than the victim they claim to be.

The film covers the stories of the people who have been affected, the initial hearings and inspections of the contaminated lands, the clinical data regarding local rates of cancer, skin infections, and death rates, the official testing of the land, garnering support to pay the legal fees, attracting the attention of foundations and potential allies, and the long trial that continues to this day and is likely to continue for the next decade. Though the film clocks in at a brisk 85 minutes, you will feel beaten by the end of it; the documentary is effective at giving the viewer an idea of just how exhausting this process can be. Financially the plantiffs are sapped, having to ask for funding from a law firm; emotionally they are drained by constant travel and heading off Chevron’s attempts to manipulate judges or contaminate evidence; physically they age dramatically in front of you as the legal process drags on and on. With time, Chevron gets closer to winning as anyone involved either dies or runs out of money. After all, if the indigenous peoples of Ecuador whose lands lie in the toxic zone die out, then there will be nobody left to sue Chevron. Yet the legal team continues to fight on. Above all, this is a invigorating (though taxing) story about an impossible fight that keeps going despite the odds that are faced.

Director Joe Berlinger attempts to give equal time and voice to both sides of the party, allowing Chevron to dig its own hole. At first, some of their arguments sound valid enough. Chevron’s legal team blames Petro-Ecuador (state-owned company that took control of the pumping station in the 1980s) for all of the dumping, they note that the money has no use to the people who are affected, and that they comply with all international regulations. This falls apart rather quickly as the judge involved examines the sites to find massive pits filled with oil-slicked water, each ringed by pipes that help drain the water down to the nearby river; soil plugs reek of gasoline. The petroleum giant mobilizes its team to attempt to manipulate the judge into ignoring testing of the ground, pressuring the court-appointed scientist to test the ground far away from the dumping pits, and then demands that the U.S. government apply sanctions against Ecuador for allowing the lawsuit to continue. And lest we forget, the people on the receiving end of this man-made disaster are powerless and impoverished, forced off their land and working long hours to afford the chemotherapy for multiple family members. Really, once the information is in, Chevron has nothing to say except blanket accusations of lies by socialists.

Overall, Crude is a powerful, draining, and exacting documentary that gives a fair shake to misleading bullshit put forward by the defendants in the trial. One need not feel much sympathy for Chevron, which has allowed the case to be drawn out for years rather than clean up the sites, provide cleaner equipment for Petro-Ecuador to use (to cut the cycle of pollution), or even help pay for clean water or medical treatment for those affected. Not even the slightest gesture has been made. Even if Chevron loses the trial, it will refuse to pay and the people of Ecuador will have no recourse. What is at stake here is whether a transnational corporation is responsible for its business practices. They rarely are taken to task for any transgressions. It is a valid question as to whether the corporate model can even function in the global economy without exhibiting the nature of a sociopath. There are many responsible companies, but they are driven by the marketing value of appearing responsible. So what is the outcome if a company doesn’t give a shit? There must be a way to hold companies to the same laws to which people must adhere. Otherwise, sociopaths will tend to do what they wish to whom they wish, as there is nothing stopping them.

Go to www.crudethemovie.com for more information on the film and the people involved. If you visit a Chevron gas station, you are an asshole and deserve to drink oil-contaminated water and die of internal hemorrhage.

There is no greater thrill than tedium, and no more effective target of empathy than dull individuals. No jest intended – our daily lives are brimming with tedious busywork, and we are ourselves unremarkable and straightforward people. Cinema tends to depict the best and brightest committing actions most amazing and death-defying; so it goes that the truly effective films focus upon relatively humdrum people. Paranormal Activity is a new and welcome addition to the first-person horror subgenre, and the fairly spartan narrative grapples with that most ridiculous and shopworn of subjects, the haunted house. There is a great deal more to it, but the film respects the audience enough to give it time to suspend disbelief and fall into the story. Verisimilitude is difficult to come by in the horror genre, and impossible when ghosts are involved, but the vapid lead characters living ordinary lives set a bland tone that becomes viscerally effective when the shit hits the fan.

Katie is a college student and Micah is a day trader, and they seem happy enough living in San Diego. She is cool and practical, he is a misguided but tech-savvy doofus, and they are “engaged to be engaged” in a setting of domestic tranquility. The film is shot from a hand-held camera, and this is the storytelling device that catches an incomplete history about a poorly-described menace that has taken shape in their lives. Specifically, Katie believes a paranormal being is following her. She first felt its presence at the tender age of eight. Later, after she began to meet boys, she felt it again– just before her home burned to the ground. Now it has returned shortly after she moves in with Micah. One of the problems with first-person filming is that there is generally little reason to carry around a camera or be persistent with shooting; this crippled Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project since any one of the idiots involved should have dropped the thing and ran when time allowed. Micah is bent upon recording some proof that there is an otherworldly presence in his house, either out of a sense of protection for his girlfriend or because he is an obtuse douchebag. He seeks to expose whatever threatens his new house with provocative means, chief among them his camera. The technique works well enough, and the story progresses via hints at the underlying problem. Fortunately, Paranormal Activity does not spell out the force behind the disturbances, and only faintly hints at a motive. If you can figure it out, then your experience is the richer for it, but you can be content with the pall of suspense.

Since Halloween and its Reagan-era offspring (notably the Friday the 13th series), discomfort with sexuality has been a powerful theme driving the minds of murderers. The couple in the film seem to get along, which is entirely the problem. This thing made Katie’s acquaintance as a child, and was content to reduce her home to cinders the moment boys looked in her direction. Once she became a sexually active woman, a long-festering rage was unleashed. Paranormal Activity has a subtext of distress at sexual freedom, as well as the suggestion that a placid domestic setting is but an illusion easily upset by the past. This is hardly an alien concept given how many abhorrent crimes have been committed against women and children by an ex-boyfriend or husband, seemingly out of thin air, though that hatred was simmering for some time before the hammer fell. I found it interesting that as Micah became more curious and resourceful at unveiling the identity of their adversary, the greater the response from that adversary after nightfall. Perhaps this suggests that the past and its unsavory elements should remain buried, as terrible things or events gain new life in the light of day. Regardless of your interpretation, the point is that there is material here to dwell upon, rather than the usual brainless gaggle of horror film dipshits who serve only to soil murder weapons.

The cinematography is deceptively simple, with shots blocked so as to conceal perspective and create a tight atmosphere that becomes choking, while leaving the space open enough to deny the viewer a sense of safety. The most valuable player of Paranormal Activity, however, is the steady tone it maintains. The dialogue is frequently quite funny, though the humor becomes more macabre with time and the characters appear to be whistling in the dark. The characters share a solid rapport, and a ridiculous story is sold partly by their unblinking performances. As the days pass, and the faint creaks become staccato cracks in the night, the tone does not waver for a second. And through it all, the story is about familiar people doing ordinary things until the circumstances veer far out of their control.

I belabor the point of how boring the film is initially, as this is an intentional technique to place later events in sharp relief. A rhythm is built. And this rhythm creates a gloomy tension that – if you can truly place yourself in the character’s shoes – generates genuine anxiety. Fright can be created from cheap jump-cuts and loud noises. True horror, however, comes from inevitability; you can see where the story is going, and there is no escape.

Identity is among the most elusive concepts that one could imagine. Not only are people inherently impossible to know or understand, but with death even the deeply flawed impressions others have of that person fade quickly. The swift decay of an individual’s legacy is as rapid as the action of worms and fungus upon the physical form. Even those gifted with talent or fame pass quickly from public and private consciousness; even if they were well known, the meaning of their lives mutates beyond recognition, and they may as well have been entirely different people. All that is left are belongings, and a domicile that could serve as a museum filled with the detritus of time and possession. As immediate memory fades, so these objects can serve as touchstones. Even this fades quickly as stuff is sold, moved, or dismantled to make room or money for the next generation. These themes run through the thoughtful Summer Hours, which has been said to echo Jean Renoir in terms of consideration of human nature. This impossible level of praise is apt enough, as the film evokes the fundamental push of entropy of not only material things, but of the soul and individual identity.

The story begins in a bucolic setting, a country house outside of Paris during a family gathering. The matriarch discusses art and books, particularly those she helped write or edit, all with a legendary painter and art collector in mind. This artist is her brother-in-law, and it is suggested, the true love of her life despite the family’s silence on the matter. Her two sons and daughter (an economist, a manager of a Chinese factory, and an art dealer) are there, all well educated and able to converse on a variety of subjects, though not necessarily art. There are tensions, both buried and on the surface, about their mother, her relative disinterest in subjects not pertaining to art, the mythic figure of their uncle and the unspoken love he and their mother shared, and how the siblings regard each other in this tangled context. None of this is played for excessive drama as the conversation veers hither and yon in a scene that seems to go on forever. This is one of those films full of thoughtful intellectuals that talk like adults and behave like adults, and you could not care less if there is a plot. You simply sit back and enjoy the verbal scenery.

After you get to know the family, a sort of direction for the movie kicks in as the mother discusses with one of her sons the possibility of death, and how to deal with the house and the various art and artifacts that stuff her house. The theme of death and what it means to those who are left behind is not a new one in cinema, but Summer Hours handles it in a mature fashion, as the death itself and the way the siblings deal with its aftermath feels natural… muted… devoid of grandstanding and speeches while giving way to awkward passages. One of the sons wishes to preserve the house as a museum to the memory of the great artist; it is evident that he reveres the man’s memory while selectively avoiding the less savory aspects of his character. The other two siblings are less sentimental, opting to keep certain items and liquidating the rest regardless of its cultural or historical importance. Where a lesser film would play this for drama in favor of the ‘loyal’ son, Summer Hours takes a larger view. Namely, that the man who created and collected the art is dead, as is his muse; their reason for being has died, and their value to the culture at large is swiftly decomposing. Even the items that may have considerable import may yet attain the lofty position of being locked behind glass to be ignored in a museum.

This description hardly does the film justice, and I found myself exhilarated by the lack of meaning of it all. For once, a filmmaker has the courage to avoid appealing to the cheap emotions inherent in death, understanding what happens to these feelings along a greater timeline. All that proves that we were once here is rapidly lost, redistributed, recycled, broken into components for reassembly; even our greatest monuments will be swept from existence within a few thousand years. The only real meaning to these artifacts are in what they make the owner feel. As an example, the housekeeper retains a worthless glass vase, as she despairs of a room without flowers. That vase turns out to be very valuable, and is eventually placed in a museum case where it will never be used. What is the meaning behind this? Well, it depends on what objects mean to you. Rather than underlining these points, the film is content to simply allow the events to progress, implying great trust in the audience. The generational gap places this central theme in sharp relief, as the children of these people know little of the artistic history of the house, nor do they really need to. And their children will understand even less about their parents’ generation, and so forth. This gives the idea of the identity of an object the scope of many years – only across a great time scale does it become clear that such things are limited in inherent meaning, if they exist at all.

Summer Hours is a mature and introspective meditation upon the continuous dissolution of all that we are; the things we are surrounded by, the friends and family that define our lives, ultimately any sign that we existed fall to dust. The characters in the film struggle against this inexorable force, but ultimately yield. Whereas a simpler drama would punctuate the proceedings with histrionic behavior, raised voices, or drawn firearms, Summer Hours is for adults and trusts you to understand and keep up with themes that are universal enough to need no outlining. The closing shots explain everything and nothing (as all the best scenes tend to) as a new generation interprets a setting in their youthful context. Things forgotten are remembered, and while some memories are kept alive to endure another few decades, eventually these will filter as well, and the land reclaims the rest.

The first-person technique where the camera itself, and by extension the viewer, is the central character has been frequently abused to little effect since it was made famous by the Blair Witch phenomenon. Most often it is little more than a gimmick, useful only in disorienting the viewer  and saving on the budget by obscuring the view that would otherwise be filled with special effects. The characters are usually lifeless, the plot dull, the director hoping to make some quick cash off an increasingly unfussy moviegoing public. Still, the potential power of the first-person device in the thriller or horror genres must be acknowledged . By forcing the viewer into the film itself, one acquires a subliminal stake in the action, and can feel those limbs and vital organs move into the line of fire. Losing the omnipotent perspective of the third person in standard films, you regain the uncomfortable limitations of the mortal character in a dangerous setting.

This is most true for horror films, where the tension is amplified by a relative lack of information on one’s adversary, and an inability to understand the threat. Jaws became a horror classic primarily from the scarcity of shark footage – it was an unseen danger lurking beyond one’s view, and remained unseen even after it left with your viscera. Halloween would never have been as gripping if the killer were anything more than a cipher; death itself perpetually enveloped in the nearby shadows. Sequels of these films failed to keep these ideas in mind, leading to an endless line of disposable jokes. Every now and then, however, somebody gets it right. [REC] is that most effective of horror films, with characters realistic enough to understand and develop an attachment to, effective craft of a director who never lost sight of what makes the genre work, and lethal efficiency that stays with you after the credits have rolled. Though remade quickly and cheaply into Quarantine for Americans who are unable to read English subtitles (the original was filmed in Spanish), it would behoove you to give the first-person gimmick another shot.

The conceit is a sensible one– the characters are a crew working on a crap TV show working the night shift at a fire station, hoping for something interesting to film. The cameraman doesn’t speak much, but being a professional who will shoot anything compelling or dangerous explains why he doesn’t just put the fucker down and run when the shit hits the fan. The host of the show is a bubble-headed reporter who is more used to fluff pieces, and finds herself way in over her head. Though afraid, they resolve to record all they see as it becomes evident that tragedy is in process. They are not heroic, resourceful, or especially clever. They are us, in all our mediocre glory, when they embark upon an enigmatic assignment. The firemen are called out to a fairly boring emergency call, some demented old bat in an apartment building is agitated, and has attacked one of her neighbors. Ordinary weekend night shift. Before the crew knows it, the woman has drawn blood, the situation becomes dire, and the entire building is sealed in plastic from the outside by heavily armed cops. No information is given to those inside, even by an infectious disease specialist who is inserted into the building. They, and we, do not know what is going on, but it is suggested that there is a good reason for the extraordinary precautions being taken. After 20 minutes or so of straightforward setup (and the pretty lousy reporting that one would expect from a cable-access news show), the mode enters full panic for the duration. There is nowhere to run and no help on the way.

Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza maintain an insane focus throughout, and the effect is, at the risk of cliche, pure adrenaline. If you can get past the artificial construct of the first-person perspective, and allow yourself into the action, you will rarely see a more effective thriller. There are no jump-cut scares that are the crutch of inferior horror films – every shock here is organic to the story. The no-budget verisimilitude makes what would be more pedestrian settings and images genuinely unsettling. Rather than rely on sets, the entire movie was shot in a small Barcelona apartment block, lending [REC] a claustrophobic look.

You can tell this was not made in Hollywood since it depends on the viewer to be thoughtful enough to glean information from tangential conversation, oblique references, and visual clues that imply an explanation without actually having one. There is no mystery that can be solved, but it seems as though there is one to figure out if only time and the rapidly moving infection would allow. And that is what makes [REC] a pure winner – everything we expect as a spoon-fed audience is kept beyond arm’s length. Information, a view of the action, a sense of what the characters are truly up against, and finally escape itself remains elusive until… Well, see it for yourself before it disappears from DVD while its remake is remade for the third time.