A Vision for South Sepulveda

Frédérik SisaOP-ED

Last time I wrote about the proposed redevelopment of the South Sepulveda neighborhood, I explained that developer Bob Champion’s plan wasn’t the only plan in town – despite what some might want you to think. I threw around a few words like “Master Plan” and “Design Review Boards,” suggesting that an individualistic approach could be used to work with existing businesses in revitalizing the neighborhood.

Buoyed by recent stories in thefrontpageonline.com, showing that the spirit of resistance hasn’t been totally crushed, I thought I’d offer a more specific outline as to how South Sepulveda could be developed. So, without further ado, here’s…

Children, Darkly

Frédérik SisaA&E

Children of Men

We never get to find out why humanity suddenly becomes infertile, which makes Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” science fiction only in the way “A Scanner Darkly” is science fiction. That is, each film has a premise that involves a fictional scientific scenario – global infertility for “Children of Men” and a hyper-addictive brain-scrambling drug in “A Scanner Darkly.” But neither really deals with the science itself. Instead, the goal is to extrapolate how society is affected by each of these scenarios. Unsurprisingly, the speculation is bleak indeed.

Set in London, 2027, we find a world driven all but mad by the inability to have children. If we believe an in-film piece of propaganda shown to the British population, the world has collapsed into chaos while Britain tenuously holds itself together – through a fascist, anti-immigrant police state. Amidst all of this is Theo, world-weary and quietly despairing as only Clive Owen can play it. When his ex-wife Julian (Moore) turns out to be the leader of the terrorist/freedom-fighting Fishes, he becomes involved in a plan to get the world’s only pregnant girl to a secretive group of sea-roving scientists called the Human Project.

Who Holds the Watcher’s Leash?

Frédérik SisaA&E

The Good Shepherd

It’s a reliable story reliably told. Spy Edward Wilson, played with tortured, introspective gravity by Matt Damon, juggles the demands of secrecy with a steadily eroding family life. But while the family drama – the film’s spine – may bring to mind the trials of a spook in any competent espionage drama, it comes tantalizingly wrapped in the birth of the CIA. From the depths of the notorious Yale secret society Skull & Bones, and the ashes of the legendary Office of Strategic Services, the murky circumstances that led to the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency elevates the drama to the epic quality of a history lesson.

Yet, thankfully, it’s not one of those university lectures filled with dry facts and a chronology of events that suggest there will be a pop-quiz at the end of the movie. Eric Roth’s script does a deft job of weaving together the character drama with the political intrigue of an era that spans from World War II to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. However, that we get an inkling of how the highly secretive and elitist Skull & Bones relates to the complex realities of wartime intelligence gathering and, later, the conduct of clandestine CIA operations, without getting mired in an overabundance of plot, is Roth’s most accomplished feat. Even when you add in a plot involving the cat-and-mouse rivalry between Wilson and his Soviet counterpart, code-named Ulysses, the film still doesn’t suffer from bloat. Wilson – a brilliant spy, according to other characters in the film – remains at the front and center. His journey from accomplished Yale student to key counter-intelligence agent is the filter by which we get everything else. And by the film’s end, we gain a surprisingly rich portrait of a man whose personal and professional choices lead him down a tragic path.

The Passion of Gabriel Shanks

Frédérik SisaOP-ED

If you go to rottentomatoes.com and look up Pan’s Labyrinth, you’ll find that its overall freshness rating is 99 percent. This means that out of all the critics whose reviews were tabulated, 99 percent of them gave the movie a positive review. And the 1 percent who didn’t? That would be a Mr. Gabriel Shanks, since joined by another critic.

And how did rottentomatoes.com users respond? Overwhelmingly. Of all the critics, his lonesome review received the most comments. Here’s a sampling:

“Must feel pretty lonely to be the only negative review. Which reveals your credibility as a reviewer.” -leebrandt33


Behind the Maze’s Curtain

Frédérik SisaA&E

We all know the “Wizard of Oz”: big on spectacle, but behind the curtain, he’s nothing more than a little man pushing buttons and pulling levers. This example of how fraudulent glittering dog-and-pony shows can be has entered the collective pop culture consciousness in the form of a cliché analogy. Yet, however clichéd and overused it may be, the “Wizard of Oz” is a useful analogy that applies quite nicely to “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

Oh, it’s not because this latest from wunderkind Guillermo Del Toro is a bad movie. Del Toro is a fine, fine director who brings a robust vision and a steady hand to his projects. He has an excellent sense of pacing and timing, enough so that even gruesome acts of violence are properly horrific instead of glamourous. His cast is, overall, very muscular. Although if their characters formed an orchestra, they’d admittedly be single-note instruments (which reduces the demands on the actors), they nonetheless play strongly into the archetypal struggle of Good vs. Evil set in 1994 fascist Spain. Finally, the story – about a little girl who encounters a fantasy world amidst her harrowing life in a military outpost – is generally well-written and just the kind of archetype-driven material that lets Del Toro reach for the human elements in the story’s dark and despairing corners. All in all, with more than a few moments of chilling tension and tender drama, “Pan’s Labyrinth” is a far cry from boring. But here’s where the “Wizard of Oz” analogy comes in: how “Pan’s Labyrinth” postures is far more spectacular than what it is, which is disappointing.

Do Not Be Afraid of This Clown

Frédérik SisaOP-ED

It’s snowing in L.A., and the good news is: No shoveling required. At the heart of the blizzard – Slava’s Snowshow – are clowns: Slava, looking like a red-nosed koala in a puffy yellow jumper with fuzzy red slippers, and a group of clowns wearing the same costume – floppy winged hats, green overcoats and long, narrow floppy shoes – but differing in height and size. These are often silly clowns with a gentle sort of humor, but just as often they are wistful and melancholy. Thankfully, none of them are the kind with grotesque features and sinister airs that induce nightmares in coulrophobes – people with a fear of clowns.

Don’t Put Your Guns Down Yet – Part 2

Frédérik SisaOP-ED

Note: It’s a shame that Ari Noonan, in his Monday editorial (“Why the ‘Common Good’ Must Prevail on South Sepulveda,” Editor’s Essay, Dec. 11), decided to offer a rebuttal to part 1 of this discussion without waiting for part 2. Part 2 elaborates on my arguments and lays out my actual conclusions. As it turns out, I agree with my Fearless Editor about the need for change on South Sepulveda Boulevard. I just don’t think the proposal by the developer Bob Champion is the best way to go about it. But to briefly offer a counter-rebuttal, I think readers already understand that it really is sometimes necessary to make a few sacrifices for the greater good. The issue, though, is that terrible and/or hasty decisions have been made in the name of the “common good” – history is filled with examples. We could also say that plenty of people talk about the common good, but actually act against it – a problem that can arise as much from people disagreeing as to what the “common good” is as from malicious intentions. This means that we shouldn’t rush into doing something simply because some people say it’s for the greater good, which I think is the case with Mr. Champion’s proposal. I’m calling for skepticism, which is hardly a controversial position to take. I think Mr. Noonan read more into my argument than was necessary.

Dear Neighbors: Don’t Put Your Guns Down Yet

Frédérik SisaOP-ED


The first of a 2-part series

The good of the many, we are told, outweighs the good of the few. To make an omelet, you have to crack a few eggs. To save the patient, sometimes you have to amputate. “While the project will not improve the welfare of every business or property owner, the goal of enhancing and strongly benefiting the greater community will be accomplished, Mr. Champion avowed,” reported thefrontpageonline.com on Dec. 6 (“Put Down Your Guns — We Are Surrounded and Outnumbered,” and “Developer Champion (Champion Developer?) Performs a Conversion Ceremony at El Rincon”).

I don’t buy it. The notion that the “common good is always more important than individual good” is a much-abused and, by itself, morally incomplete idea. Should we pick a few people at random and conduct medical experiments on them to find a cure for diseases that affect millions? Maybe we could slaughter the population of entire countries hostile to the U.S. to ensure a long-lasting peace, like the U.S. did with Native Americans. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few, right?

What a Man Will Do to Save the Love of His Life

Frédérik SisaOP-ED


Film review: The Fountain

Every so often, something comes along that shows off the true power and magic of film. It tells a profoundly moving story, certainly, but also offers a rich, complete cinematic experience that mesmerizes from the first to the last frame. “The Fountain” is such a film, coming close to visionary works such as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” in delivering a rich feast for the mind and senses.

Six years after his last feature, the harrowing “Requiem for a Dream,” writer/director Darren Aranofsky returns with a film that is considerably less bleak, but no less intense. “The Fountain” is a love story, timeless in its tale of a man who tries to conquer death itself to save the woman he loves from a deadly illness. Yet perhaps it’s better to say that the story is just the framework for an equally timeless, mystical fable on the universal themes of love and mortality. Three narratives set in different time periods – the age of Spanish conquistadores in South America, the present day involving cutting-edge medical research, and the indeterminate future of an astronaut in a tree-ship – featuring Hugh Jackman as the man on a quest. How they intersect is never fully explained, and it’s possible that one of them is merely fictional even within the film. Yet this is the natural result of a story that flows as much from symbolism as it does from narrative logic. The whole thing may be a bit obscure at times, but this just means we have to actually think about the movie instead of passively consume it.

What the Bishops Said…

Frédérik SisaOP-ED

We have flocks of geese, packs of dogs, murders of crows, coalitions of cheetahs, prides of lions, and congresses of ravens. So what do we call a gathering of bishops? Answer: wrong.

Galileo famously argued that the planets revolved around the sun. But the Bishops said he was a heretic, and when the Bishops speak, what they say must be true.

Thousands of people were tortured and killed during the witch hunts. But the Bishops said witches worshipped Satan and spread evil. Naturally, when the Bishops speak, what they say must be true.

Women cannot serve God and their fellow humans as priests on account that Jesus only had male apostles. Though Jesus never said anything about how the church should be structured and laid down no rules for clergy, when the Bishops speak, what they say must be the truth.