Denmark isn’t Denmark in this adaptation of Hamlet, directed by Alexander Fodor and co-written with Emeke Nwokedi. It’s a child of low-budget necessity set in a room above a pub, door-lined corridors and the odd outdoor settings. The film could have been a theatrical production filmed in someone’s apartment complex or basement. But low-budget isn’t a liability to Fodor, who does the only sensible thing: he makes an art film. Denmark, through Diego Indraccolo overexposed (occasionally unstable) cinematography, inverted colours, and other avant-garde rock-video tricks, takes the ordinary and makes it hallucinatory. It’s as if we’re watching the drama unfold in a kind of timeless, spaceless limbo, a purgatory in which mundane places become haunted spaces with the characters serving as ghosts enacting tragedy in a kind of eternal recurrence. Recalling, at least in the broad strokes, Lars Von Trier’s “Dogville” experiment in which the sets consisted of lines on the floor, the lack of conventionally identifiable locations in Fodor’s Hamlet creates a tingly feeling of claustrophobia and otherworldliness. The drama’s the thing; everything else is supernatural.
Free the Bear: A Discussion with Kyle Ellis – Part 1
Californians for Independence is an advocacy group working towards the non-violent secession of California from the United States. I recently had a discussion with Kyle Ellis, a founding member of Californians for Independence.
Frédérik: Growing up in Québec, I was often surrounded by separatists who were quite serious in their desire to split away from Canada. I was never persuaded by the need, however. The province is already distinctive on account of the French Canadian language and culture, has many regulations in place to maintain that distinctiveness, and is economically quite powerful relative to many of Canada’s other provinces. While it is a complex topic, Québec separatism struck me in part as petulant – the spoiled child clamouring for more spoils – and also as rather academic, since Quebecers are distinct on the basis of how they live their lives – laws have nothing to do with it.
Lucky Man: The Future Looks Bright for Orbach
Writer/director Ruvin Orbach lands a solid punch in thirty minutes, despite the undefined feeling of deja-vu that comes with circumstances surrounding the moral quandary faced by two brothers entangled with the mob.
Small Office, Big Play
It’s a riff on The Office laid out in a series of loosely sequential sketches depicting the quirky, insular world of a boss and two employees in a small office. The humour is pitch-perfect; as dry as Anza-Borrego with absurdist, Monty Python-esque touches. The laughter is of the lingering kind, even days after seeing the production in the cozy little performance space that is Santa Monica’s Promenade Playhouse. And while it’s unquestionably cheeky to advertise “Only $8 to see the best show ever in the history of the spoken word,” a little bit of swagger in the production’s step is certainly justified. This is golden, funny stuff skillfully put on by a golden, funny cast.
Horton Hears a Who: It's A Hoot!
Imagine the genie from Disney’s Aladdin as an elephant voiced by Jim Carrey, and that pretty much says it all about the kind of pop-culture humour that laces the film.
Winter Soldier: Veterans Speak…Are We Listening?
There are many topics I’d like to tackle – the Michigan/Florida primary debacle, Obama’s speech, military spending, and so on – but I’m turning this week’s column instead to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. To be precise, I’m piggybacking on Democracy Now’s reporting of the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings put on by Iraq Veterans Against the War between March 13 and March 16. As the Iraq War hits the five-year mark and U.S. troop casualties reach 4,000, it seems only right that we set aside the usual business.
‘Cold December’ Gets a Zero — That’s the Worth Not the Temperature
The challenge posed by (an unintentional) comedy of errors like “Cold December” doesn’t lie so much in striking a merciful tone, given its little-money indie pedigree – although criticizing an indie film really does feel like the equivalent of kicking a puppy – but in not writing a review in the form of a bitter litany of complaints. True, the film’s 82 minutes could have been put to better use, like watching NCIS re-runs, but, as they say, it is what it is.
Indigestion ’08: Lowering the Bar
To some extent, the lowered bar that sees candidates halleluiahed for promising the obvious, has to dampen the enthusiasm around Obama’s campaign, in the sense that unity, hope and change for the better, change for the better, while very good things, are also fairly expected. When political bodies are deadlocked, thanks to partisan bickering, nothing gets done and people get rightly annoyed. That’s how we get fillet of incumbent on the menu. (Mmm, tasty.) Unity, optimism, a can-do attitude are just what we need.
Often Hysterically Funny, ‘Charlie Bartlett’ Is a Novel Update, Not a Ripoff
His name is Charlie Bartlett, and he’s a Ferris Bueler for the 21st century, filtered through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II.” There’s a good-natured, if a bit fantastical, subversion at work in the 17
-year-old achieving the popularity he desires by faking (more or less) mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety, and selling the drugs prescribed to him by psychiatrists to schoolmates. Bringing to mind a smarter, more savvy and compassionate Lucy from Peanuts, the twist is that the doctor really is in, with an office in the boys’ restroom instead of a rickety stand. Bartlett isn’t so much a drug dealer as an impromptu counselor to youths alienated from the school system and each other. Fantastical, indeed, but also a novel update – and not merely a rip-off – of the ‘80s high school comedy genre.
Indigestion ’08: When Political Campaigns Get Dumb
In a provocative A.P. article titled “Clinton hints at shared ticket,” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305, we’re teased yet again with the tantalizing one-two punch of a Clinton/Obama bid for the White House. Of course, the fat lady is nowhere in sight, and the primary loser’s swan song is far from being sung. Predictions as to who would get top billing on a hypothetical team-up are still very much in the fuzzy stages. And what did Clinton say, anyway? To quote from her appearance on CBS’s The Today Show, “That may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of ticket. I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me.”