Film Review: Storm Lake

 

In the tiny Iowa farming town of Storm Lake, Art Cullen has put out the biweekly “Storm Lake Times” for the past 40 years. He and his family – wife Mary, son Tom and sister-in-law Dolores – make up 50% of the paper’s staff. They’ve never really made any money. As Cullen puts it, “We’ve always operated on the break-even point.” 

But farming has changed over the decades, and so has communication. The pandemic didn’t help, either. Even in 2019 – the one year they did make a $2900 profit – it was canceled out by increased health insurance costs.

In “Storm Lake,” directors Beth Levison and Jerry Risius give us a riveting profile  of the life of this small-town newspaper, threatened not only by the usual problem of not enough advertisers but by the incursion of agribusiness. Here, it’s Tyson’s pig and turkey packing plant that supplanted many smaller farms.

Tyson sends the Iowa Pork Producers’ “Pork Queen,” an elementary-level student, who brings a baby pig to a second-grade class to tell the students, “Pigs eat all day so they grow fast. It’s really important for us to make sure the pigs have everything they need so they can grow fast and efficiently – that’s what the pork industry is all about.” Ah, BigAg, ain’t it great?

Early in 2019, Art and his staff cover the Democratic election hopefuls who show up. We see several, including Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang. But as Art notes, “People care more about whether the trash gets picked up than that Elizabeth Warren is in town.”

Art is approached by a fellow editor Lorena Lopez of the Spanish-language “La Prensa,” who suggests they might both benefit by sharing stories. At that point Art is busily trying to figure out whether to close the paper for good. But after 40 years in the business, he doesn’t want to do that, so he succumbs to the electronic age and sets up a GoFundMe page.

“Storm Lake” is a beautifully shot and fascinating profile of a profession I hope we never lose. Kudos to all involved.

“Storm Lake” will be released on tour Sept 17. The national TV & streaming debut will be on PBS Independent Lens on Nov. 15.

Theater Review: The Drowning Girls

Aside from this play’s unusual title, it seems bland enough when you enter the theater and pass a collection of white wedding dresses. 

The set is the first shock: three somewhat smudged bathtubs (with water), which will be used by Alice (Emily Candia), Bessie (Carla Navarro) and Margaret (Sandra Ruiz) in various stages of late 19th and early 20th-century garb. They will dress, undress and splash around for about an hour while they discuss the status of women in the pre-World War I West.

It’s sad (and all too familiar) to hear these single “girls” in their 20s and 30s trying to talk themselves into marriage and seriously attempting to hook up with a handsome dude, or a rich one, or even just “one who asks you.” They even tell each other that “it will be the happiest day of your life.”

What’s with the bathtubs and the title? The play is based on the real case of a British man convicted and hanged in 1915 for the serial murders of his brides, and considers the plight of middle-class women of the time. Each of these brides of the bathtub is past the blush of youth and (by society’s standard) in need of a husband.

Ah, manipulation was so easy back then. And this (unseen) guy apparently had the pattern down pat. You will hear all about it.

The playwrights –  Beth Graham (Nova Scotia), Daniela Vlaskalic & Charlie Tomlinson met as university students and wrote this play for the Edmonton Fringe Festival in 1999. 

                                Carla Navarro, Emily Candia, Sandra Ruiz

                                    photo by Daren Scott

The three ladies are phenomenal as they charge from one scene to another and climb in and out of those tubs like pros (I can just see me slipping all over the place).

The script has a nice feel for lyrical – and often amusing – language. Hsi-an Chen’s gauzy, almost cloudlike backdrops are complimented nicely by Kevin “Blax” Burroughs’ lighting and MaeAnn Ross’ sound design to lend an ethereal quality to the not-so-ethereal goings-on.

How much has changed between men and women? That’s for an after-the-show discussion over coffee or a nice chianti. 

If you’re looking for a fascinatingly different theatrical experience, get thee to OnStage Playhouse.

“The Drowning Girls” plays through September 26, 2021 at OnStage Playhouse, 292 Third Street in Chula Vista.

For tickets: https://www.onstageplayhouse.org/2021-2022-season

Film review: The Capote Tapes

 

Truman Capote

“I’m an alcoholic, I’m a drug addict, I’m a homosexual, I’m a genius.”

— Truman Capote

Very few of us would say this out loud, even if it were true, but then nobody else is or ever will be quite the character that writer Truman Capote was.

Here was a man equally comfortable in a crowded, sleazy dive bar or in the swellest neighborhood party in New York City – and he would somehow relate with ease to denizens in both spots. 

Probably best known as the writer of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” his 1958 portrait of a woman for hire (which starred Audrey Hepburn in its film incarnation), the little 5’3” gnomic Capote would say or do anything to get the attention he craved.

He loved the spotlight, and would happily talk to anybody, especially on camera.  It was a bit more difficult to do back in the ’50s and early ’60s. There was no reality TV or 24-hour news cycle, and gays by and large were closeted. But he made a point of declaring his gay status and daring people not to accept him. He had a coterie of beautiful women whom he called his “Swans,” who put up with his strangeness because he was, let’s face it, a fascinating character.

Several films have been made about Capote (I’ve reviewed two others myself), 

but for this one director Ebs Burnough got hold of the never-before-heard audio archives and interviews with Capote’s famous friends and enemies. 

Capote made another big literary splash with his 1966 true-crime novel “In Cold Blood,” about the murder of four members of a family in a small Kansas farming community. When he also got rich, after the publication of the book and release of the film, Capote finally got to do what he’d wanted to: throw a huge party for all the fancy people he’d met and befriended. More than 500 people were invited to The Ball at the Plaza, which holds the distinction of being the only one held in the 20th century.

This was the beginning of his downfall. Buoyed by the success of the party, he went back to a project he’d been working on. It was another book, to be called “Answered Prayers,” which was to be an exposé of the lives of the rich. In 1975, one chapter was published in “Esquire,” and in it he spilled the juiciest gossip the Swans had ever shared with him. 

One of them committed suicide after reading it. Marriages were damaged, and Capote was barred from the ranks of the rich and descended into alcoholism and drug abuse.

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether this is tragedy or just desserts. Just know that “The Capote Tapes” gives us a fascinating exposé of a life like no other.

In theaters Sept. 10, 2021 and TVOD/EST & DVD on Oct. 26

Film Review: On Broadway

                    On Broadway

Theater’s a tough business. For starters, you need the right play, the right cast and the right director. Then you’ve got costumes, sets, technology and a myriad other things to worry about.

And if you’re talking about hitting New York’s Broadway theaters – thought by many to be the best in the world – with a new play, the odds are already stacked against you: there’s a 75% chance that it’ll be a flop. 

But no one ever suspected that Broadway would be shut down in toto by something you can’t even see without a microscope – that disease called COVID-19, that started in China and quickly invaded every country in the world, forcing the closing of open markets, then closed ones, then restaurants, sporting events, bars – and theaters.

But Broadway has surmounted other problems before COVID, and even those theaters that have been in lockdown for the past extremely difficult 18 months are poised to reopen. 

Director Oren Jacoby’s film “On Broadway” offers a fascinating 82-minute documentary on how an old broken-down spot in New York City became the theatrical glamour capital of the world in the first place. Along the way you’ll hear comments from theater legends like Helen Mirren, Sir Ian McKellen, Christine Baranski, Alec Baldwin and Viola Davis. 

New York theater descended from a golden age in the 1940s and 1950s to all-time low attendance and near-bankruptcy in the 1960s, when Times Square became a “rathole” of brothels and strip clubs, with 5-6 reported crimes a day.

You’ll get to watch as three powerhouse theater owners (Shubert, Nederlander and Jujamcyn take a chance, invest in new musicals in the 1970s, and witness the rise of Stephen Sondheim, Bob Fosse and Michael Bennett (complete with excerpts from “Pippin,” “Chicago” and “A Chorus Line”).

Then in the 1980s, with the city’s 42nd Street Development plan, a new age of spectacle as theater is initiated, with shows like “Les Misérables,” “Phantom of the Opera” and “Miss Saigon.”

But “On Broadway” is not just painless history; it’s a great reminder of what (and who) it takes to make great theater.

The 1990s saw plays with sociopolitical messages, like August Wilson’s eight-play cycle about African American families. 

Then came the AIDS crisis, which brought “Angels in America” to Broadway. Disney rented a restored theater and brought “The Lion King,” which brought families into the theater district.

Jukebox musicals like “Mamma Mia” and “Jersey Boys” did well, but not as well as the juggernaut of them all – Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton,” which changed theater again. And each decade covered comes with excerpts.

If you’re jonesing for a loving look back at Broadway history (in preparation for those new plays about to open), take a look at “On Broadway.”

“On Broadway” opens Aug. 3 at Landmark’s Hillcrest Theatre. 

Film Review: My Best Worst Adventure

Throughout the last two awful pandemic years, I’ve been feeling sorry for myself for being denied the one thing I love above all – travel. But when rebellious 13-year-old Jenny (Lily Patra), the main character of Writer/Director Jack Soisson’s “My Best Worst Adventure,” finds herself on a dilapidated bus in rural Thailand on the way to grandma’s house after her mother’s death and her stepfather’s refusal to put up with her, I must admit that situation doesn’t look like anybody’s dream vacation.

It doesn’t help that Jenny stubbornly refuses to speak. Instead, she writes disgruntled notes in her diary about getting OUT of here before her birthday in a few days, puzzling poor grandma, not to mention Jenny’s teacher.

And why, Jenny wants to know, does she have to go to school in the summer?
Besides, her computer tablet is fading and there’s no way to charge it.

But Jenny is not averse to fisticuffs, and one day she takes her anger out on Archit (Chinnapat Kitichaivaranggoon), the favored grandson of the village kingpin, and then runs into the jungle, where she promptly gets lost and then bumps into someone else who does not speak – her outcast mute classmate Boonrod (Pan Rugtawatr).

Boonrod has his own parental issues, but the two hit it off, he shows her the way back and next thing you know, they’re planning to enter the village’s traditional water buffalo race.

Is that exotic enough? I thought so, too, and in fact the whole film is likely to both disarm and charm you as much as it did me.

Kudos to cinematographer Vardhana Wanchuplao for making the film look alternately charming and hopelessly old-fashioned, and to Jetsada Hongcharoen for a score that echoes the action wonderfully.

Leave it to a water buffalo to save the day.

“My Best Worst Adventure” opens on digital platforms on Sept. 1.

 

 

 

Film Review: My Father's Brothers

This week’s announcement of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan makes Shawn Kelley’s documentary “My Father’s Brothers” even more relevant and touching than it already is.

In this short, multiple award-winning documentary, Kelley shows the brotherhood that developed among U.S. troops fighting the ground war in Vietnam, recording in particular what happened when his father, Shawn Kelley, Sr., led his men on one “ordinary Wednesday” in June, 1966.

By the end of that year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had begun doubting the possibility of winning the war, and by 1973 the U.S would pull all forces out.

But here, Kelley shows you what it was like for 140 American troops on a search-and-destroy mission to be outnumbered 10 to 1 and be savagely attacked while awaiting reinforcements.

The men suffered loss, misery, the horror of losing friends and the wondering whether they’d get home alive.

At one point, Kelley was informed that two men had been wounded and left behind. Kelley sent a crew out to search for them; they were located and the whole company was proud to say “We left no one behind.”

Fifty years later, Kelley got his dad and seven other survivors together to tell viewers what it was like and what problems they still have coping with the past.  Some of them returned to Vietnam in search of closure and peace. They are a remarkable group. 

“My Father’s Brothers” should be seen by all Americans and anyone else contemplating war. This film should dissuade them.

“My Father’s Brothers” opens Aug. 24, 2021 on demand and DVD

Theater review: A Chorus Line

                                          Cast of "A Chorus Line"

There are musicals, and there are juggernauts that audiences never tire of seeing. One of the best in the latter category – “A Chorus Line” – is playing through Sept. 4 at Vista’s Moonlight Amphitheatre.

You know the story: A group of tirelessly hopeful wannabe Broadway hoofers show up for auditions again, this time with director Zach (Tyler Matthew Burk) and his assistant Larry (Samuel Shea). They will alternately beg, wish and hope to “get this job” in the chorus. 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning show won nine Tonys and holds the record as the sixth longest-running Broadway show ever.

There are reasons for that. One is that the script came out of a tape that the show’s original director made with all those hopeful dancers. He asked them all why they dance and what their story is, and put the answers on tape. Those tapes (which still exist) give these dancers a human dimension that draws viewers in.

Another is the choreography. This show is directed and choreographed by Hector Guerrero, using the original dances by Michael Bennett and Bob Avian. The footwork here is wondrous fun to watch – tricky, often amusing and just plain impressive.

But it’s the dancers you’ll remember. Some of my favorites are Sheila (Natalie Nucci), a sassy aging dancer who started dancing to escape from home; Paul (Steven Rubalcaba), a young Puerto Rican trying to pass as Italian; Val (Holly Echsner), who doesn’t get jobs until she gets a boob job; Mike (Jeffrey Scott Parsons), who got into dancing via his sisters. He saw them and said “I can do that”; and giggly Kristine (Danielle Airey), who admits that “I can’t sing,” but comes along with husband and dancer Al (Drew Bradford).

And of course there’s Cassie (Jennifer Knox), Zach’s ex, whose mere appearance there creates problems and distraction for Zach.

Getting those steps just right and being in the right place at the right time is a tough job, but this show offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of what these dancers “did for love.”

The enormous cast of 26 is uniformly excellent, as is the 16-member orchestra, wonderfully directed by Dr. Randi Rudolph. The tech (especially in Cassie’s “The Music and the Mirror” number) is also impressive.

The rented costumes (from JMW Costume Designs) and sets (from Gateway Set Rentals) add to the atmosphere as well.

If you’re looking for a pleasant evening’s outdoor entertainment, “A Chorus Line” is an excellent choice.

“A Chorus Line” runs through September 4, 2021. 

Performances: August 18-29, Wednesday thru Sunday

            Sept. 1-4, Wednesday thru  Saturday

Tickets are available at www.moonlightstage.com