Frédérik Sisa

As far as portmanteau words go, the film’s title encapsulating the insular nature of the Persian community in L.A., “IRANgeles,” isn’t bad at all. It has just the sort of goofy charm that characterizes the film’s good humour and considerable appeal.

So the Vatican is opening up the doors to a secret organization most people, myself included, never knew existed (which is the point of making it secret, of course): the Apostolic Penitentiary. Contrary to its name, it’s not a prison for Apostles or part of some extraordinary papal rendition program at the Vatican. The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary is the Pope’s means to handle sins far too grave, too serious for minions lower down in the Vatican hierarchy. “’…so serious that a local priest or bishop is not qualified to grant absolution,’ said Cardinal James Francis Stafford, an American who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary.”

There’s always tension between a cinematic adaptation and its literary source, that discrepancy leading the faithful to gnash their teeth at deviations both textual and spiritual. But for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” it’s not tension, it’s an outright clash with only the title, character name, and chronology-defying premise preserved. The rest of the movie is the invention of screenwriter Eric Roth and his associates, who set aside the spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s pointed observation of aging in a society suspicious of difference in favour of a mushy romance that pushes all the usual heart buttons.

After a self-imposed partial news brownout – an attempt to regain some sanity after suffering post-election information withdrawal – Israel’s assault on Gaza inevitably made it through my anti-despair filters. And the more I learn, the more it’s clearly the same folly repeated over and over again. A few snippets from the Jan. 9 headlines at Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/9/headlines#1) highlights the horror of a situation that we, comfortable in our living rooms, can scarcely take in:

Sean Penn is the first to be showered with accolades for his work in “Milk”, and understandably so. He dissolves effortlessly into his role as Harvey Milk, the real-life gay rights activist and San Francisco City Supervisor who was tragically assassinated in 1978, without a residual “Penn-ness” to give away the role as a performance. But it would be unfair to single Penn out when there so many other cast members who deliver similarly un-self-conscious performances of equal strength and emotional power. James Franco, who first gained attention in the acclaimed but cruelly canceled TV series “Freaks and Geeks,” has the task of being the man behind the man, Milk’s lover Scott Smith, who is at once supportive and overwhelmed by Milk’s political activism. We’ve seen Franco offer nuance and depth of feeling, even in films like “Spider-man,” and it’s no different with “Milk,” although the stakes, perhaps, are higher given the film’s biographical nature. Also notable is, of course, Josh Brolin who leaves behind the tormented cowboy persona of “No Country for Old Men” and takes on the tragic, ambiguous, tortured person of Dan White, the City Supervisor who assassinated Milk and Mayor George Moscone (played in the film by Victor Garber). Brolin is fast becoming – isn’t he already there? – one of those strong actors, like a Redford or a Kingsley, who dazzle not with flashy performances, but deep psychologies that roil beneath the surface of their roles. And of the supporting cast, take your pick: Diego Luna as the loving but disturbed Jack Lira, or Allison Pill as Anne Kronenberg, or Emile Hersh as Cleve Jones, or someone else. Any of them merits more than just a pat on the head for a job well done, stepping up to the documentary task set up by director Gus Van Sant.

It’s easy to be vegan at home, when you have total control over ingredients, recipes, and cooking methods. Hard, as my wife and I expected on our recent trip to Napa, is venturing out into the world where eating is left to restaurants who are very much geared towards the fat-laden, meat-heavy, dairy-heavy, “Western” diet. Fortunately, we are what I’ve come to term “baseline” vegans, or bVegans, which means that while we use the vegan diet (no animal products) as a daily standard for what we eat, we have the ideological flexibility that allows for pragmatism – ethical, nutritional, and so on. Typically, this means that we normally eat vegan, but we’ll go to vegetarian, or sometimes further (only to fish, however, and only rarely), depending on the occasion.

With the Christmas season comes all the usual ornaments and traditions including, of course, the biggest tradition of all: spend money. We could consider renaming the holiday “spendmas,” especially when the news reminds us about how much we’re doling out for stuff in comparison to past years. Outlook: not so good. Says the Front Page’s favourite punching bag, the L.A. Times: “The International Council of Shopping Centers has estimated that in November and December, sales at stores open at least a year may decline as much as 1 percent. That would be the largest drop since at least 1969, when the New York trade group starting tracking data.”

The film’s tagline is, “There is No End,” and if ever there was truth in advertising, this is it. There is no end to the recycling of fearful clichés in the horror genre – storytelling becomes affliction, thanks to a low budget. Beginning with the basic premise of a witch unjustly burned at the stake taking revenge on innocent people one hundred years later, “Cycle of Fear” hasn’t even gotten past zippy, swoosh-y credits before instilling the fear of a derivative piece of work. Suddenly, it’s possible to appreciate “The Blair Witch Project” a little more – not because it has any substance, but because, at least, it starts from an intriguing premise and presents it with a clever cinematic gimmick.

The film’s tagline is, “There is No End,” and if ever there was truth in advertising, this is it. There is no end to the recycling of fearful clichés in the horror genre – storytelling becomes affliction, thanks to a low budget. Beginning with the basic premise of a witch unjustly burned at the stake taking revenge on innocent people one hundred years later, “Cycle of Fear” hasn’t even gotten past zippy, swoosh-y credits before instilling the fear of a derivative piece of work. Suddenly, it’s possible to appreciate “The Blair Witch Project” a little more – not because it has any substance, but because, at least, it starts from an intriguing premise and presents it with a clever cinematic gimmick.

The ambiguous label of “B movie” is often reserved for quasi-exploitative genre films. But the definition could be expanded to include any film in which cheap thrills take precedence over meaningful drama. Just as horror films that focus on gore and sex easily fall into the B movie category, and action flicks filled with explosions, car chases and gunfire with nary more than an unintelligible grunt from the hero, the comedy that subsists on gags with only token gestures towards genuine heart is as B as it gets.