Angels' Share (Rhoades)

“Angels’ Share”
Takes Wings

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

If you’re a whisky distiller you have a name for that portion of a spirit’s volume that’s lost to evaporation while aging in oak barrels. The “angels’ share,” it’s called.
Despite being valuable, this amount (about 2 percent) wouldn’t be missed being that it’s an expected phenomena of the distilling process. But what if you could get your hand on an entire cask? Well now, that would be money in the pocket.
A new film titled “The Angels’ Share” -- currently playing at the Tropic Cinema -- tells the story of four unemployed Scottish scofflaws who plot to steal a valuable cask of whisky.
Directed by 76-year-old Ken Loach (“The Wind that Shakes the Barley”), this comedy is a “hearty paean to the pleasures of that whisky and the olfactory sophistication of connoisseurs who use the same vocabulary as wine tasters to evoke its fragrances.”
Because this is a Scottish film about Scottish lads attempting to steal fine Scotch whiskey, it has the distinction of being an English-language film with subtitles … so audiences can understand the thick Scottish brogues of the actors.
The misadventure focuses on Robbie (Paul Brannigan), a skinny, not-very-admirable ruffian with a preggers girlfriend and a sentence of 300 hours community service. Turns out, he also has a golden nose when it comes to fine whisky.
At times the movie almost seems like a documentary on the production of high-end liquor. But it’s really a crime caper in which Robbie and his work detail set out to steal a recently discovered cask of Malt Mill that’s scheduled to be auctioned off.
So they don kilts and pose as a group of Highlanders who belong to the Carntyne Malt Whisky Club. And the night before the sale we find Robbie secreted inside the distillery siphoning off the prized whisky into soda bottles.
Aside from the comic heist storyline, Loach gives us an unflinching  look at the hopeless environment that claims these young hooligans: street fighting, petty crime, feuds, and danger. Paul Brannigan comes from a similar background, so the young actor delivers a believable been-there-done-that performance.
At its heart an amiable, far-fetched farce, “The Angels’ Share” won the Jury Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
srhoades@aol.com

Disconnect (Rhoades)

“Disconnect”

Seeks to Connect

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

In this online age of Wikileaks, Anonymous, spammers, phishers, and hackers, the World Wide Web has become a dangerous place. A new drama called “Disconnect” tells you about it -- from identity theft to bullying to steamy sex sites.

Technology can be your enemy as well as your friend. Here are interwoven stories about people whose life are impacted by events that take place in cyberspace.

Andrea Riseborough plays an ambitious journalist out to make a name for herself by interviewing a teen who performs on an adult-only website. Jason Bateman is a widowed cop who discovers that his son has become a cyber-bully. Alexander Skarsgard and Paula Patton are a couple whose bank account registers zero after online bandits steal their identities. No secret is safe from hackers.

“Disconnect” -- now playing at the Tropic Cinema -- is billed as a thriller, but much of the action takes place on a computer screen.

Oscar-nominated director Henry-Alex Rubin (“Murderball”) takes you on a journey through cyberspace, exploring its darker sides. “You can easily pitch this movie badly and have people roll their eyes and say, ‘I don’t want to watch a movie about technology and how it’s bad,’” he acknowledges. “But technology is completely neutral. It is absurd to say its good or bad. Technology has put men on the moon and it has created the H-Bomb. It’s in our hands.”

I’d tell you more about this movie, but I think someone just stole my password to IMDbPro, the online source than many movie critics rely on for casting details and film credits. Oh no!

srhoades@aol.com

Disconnect (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

Disconnect

"Disconnect" is the latest by Henry-Alex Rubin who helmed the cult documentary "Who is Henry Jaglom?" and co-directed the compelling "Murderball" an exposé on the world of wheelchair rugby. In this film, Rubin takes on the knot of cyber-bullying and glacial parenting using an interconnected story format as seen in Paul Haggis' "Crash" (2004) and Inarritu's "Babel" (2006) along with several others.

Jason Bateman (Identity Theft) plays Rich Boyd, a career-obsessed lawyer with a taciturn and nearly frozen son, Ben (Jonah Bobo). The son spends an inordinate amount of time in front of his computer composing eerie but sensitive melodies on the keyboard. One day Ben gets a message from an attractive looking girl who says she likes his music posted on Facebook. The pale and misunderstood Ben is smitten. There is only one problem. The valentine doesn't exist. She is created by two amoral teens, Frye (Aviad Bernstein) and Jason (Colin Ford).

These two smirksters get their other kicks from replacing cans of Gatorade with urine and then watching the pandemonium unfold.

Such charmers!

Another story involves a struggling couple who recently lost a son. Derek (Alexander Skarsgard) and Cindy (Paula Patton suddenly become victims of financial theft due to Cindy's chat room activity on an online support group.

A third story involves an ambitious newswoman (Andrea Riseborough) and her attraction to a young hustler (Max Thieriot).

Although the film wrings its hands quite a bit, sweating and suffering with nearly everyone pounding a table or going into a rage, crying "why why why!", it has some fine acting. Jason Bateman is solid and authentic as a self-centered dad, as is Jonah Bobo as the pale and wispy son. Max Thieriot also stands out as a devil may-care digital hunk.

Although no one is quite likable here and the karmic cause and effect is a bit too heavy with THE MESSAGE hitting us with a lead pipe,  the roles have enough pathos to keep you guessing. While it is true the moral quandaries presented, involving an uber-macho police dad and a couple who seethes with revenge are oft-seen, the performances do get under the skin.

Cyber-bullying alone is an important and emotional issue of our times and shouldn't be under-stressed. The kids' exchanges  are singularly excellent for their "as is" presentation.

My one slight reservation is the use of slow-motion which makes the end feel Tv-squared and sentimental.

Despite the melodramatic and unambiguous tone, "Disconnect" is a well-done addition to the ensemble cast and moral dilemma films of the early millennium, and it will certainly tease if not surprise.

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com

A Place at the Table (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

A Place at the Table

"A Place at the Table" is an unsettling but necessary documentary by Lori Silverbush and Kristi Jacobson tackling the disturbing but very very real issue of hunger in America (and why nourishing and affordable food isn't available for everyone in our nation, which happens to be the richest in the world.

We are treated at first to some poetic and crisp images: deep green cornfields blaze at us with the richness of a Spielberg film. Creamy espresso-brown fields mellow upon the eyes, but all is not well in Americana, and the realization of this will startle you more than a surrealist David Lynch mystery.

There is Rosie, a small town Colorado fifth grader, as cute and spunky as a young Mattie in "True Grit", who says in matter of fact low tones that her stomach growls and she is often aching because of a lack of food.  She looks into the camera and admits she "doesn't know what to do." Then there is Tremonica, a Mississippi second grader who is obese with serious asthma. She is also malnourished due to being hungry.

The causes are manifold. First, these two alarming examples (and there are more throughout the film) are somewhat due to living in 'food deserts'. That is, in remote small towns where big grocery stores are either extremely difficult or impossible (by the daily grind of gas costs) to get to. Worse, because of the economy  many middle class and low  income Americans can not afford healthy balanced foods when they do eat and become obese by the consumption of high starched fructose-rich foods and snacks, thereby contributing to our obesity. All the examples in the film are termed to suffer from "food insecurity". In simple terms, these hardworking and  honest families frankly cannot say where their next meal will come from. They resort to charitable food banks and churches to sustain them. At first glance, we might think we are seeing a dystopian science fiction story, but the awful and sincerely unappetizing reality is that this is actually happening right now.

In 1980 there were 200 food banks. Now there are thousands. The very fact that this is occurring at all is offense to our country.

According to the film, food subsidies are a major culprit. Windfalls of money go into the production of corn and soy crops (making cheap, empty-calorie foods) while very little incentives are given to fruits and vegetables, the very ingredients that would greatly contribute to the health of adults, let alone our kids.

In one telling scene, school age children actually prefer fruits for breakfast once they become informed. A honeydew melon becomes as exotic  as an orb  from Oz but far from being out of reach, this melon is very attainable. Desire, as the catalyst for change is all that is necessary.

Once in the 1970's, as a result of a CBS News report about hungry kids in America, President Richard Nixon himself, instituted a free and reduced lunch program for needy children. Now forty years later, this blight is striking again. The scourge rose again like a selfish phoenix,in part, due to the 1980 rise in defense spending and tax cuts. Recently programs are in place, yet they are paid for by cuts in Medicaid. Mothers have mobilized, (with the addition of a startling photo-essay) but the budget allotment is grossly underfunded, only adding up to a mere four cent increase per kid. As a legislator says in the film, more expense goes into a Starbucks gourmet coffee than a school lunch.

For those who need any other convincing on the issue, we see Rooster Cogburn himself, Jeff Bridges, who says childhood hunger is a matter of American Patriotism with one in four kids or roughly fifty million in the USA without food to sustain them : "In any other country, this would be war." He flatly states.

"A Place at the Table" puts the utensil of awareness in our hand.

As always though once we feel it in our fingers with a poke in the pit of our stomachs, it is up to us what we do with it.

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com

Reality (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

Reality

Taking a slightly different turn from his usual dog-eat-dog subject matter, director Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah) employs a sprig of black comedy in his latest feature "Reality". The film is about the otherness of Reality-tv and skewers its subject wonderfully with crisp and colorful imagery reminiscent of  Terry Gilliam.

Aniello Arena stars as Luciano, a likable extroverted Neapolitan fishmonger who becomes obsessed by the Italian version of the "Big Brother" TV verite show. Luciano copes with mundane life in Naples by dressing in drag and entertaining at weddings. One day he spies "Big Brother" house resident Enzo (Raffaele Ferrante) who is a resembles a pushy and slightly obnoxious hipster. Enzo has a mania that recalls a Soupy Sales combined with a Howie Mandel. He flails wildly in a straw journalists' hat. Enzo is simply famous for being famous. And he is not a particularly nice person.

Luciano's mania commences when his young daughter (Martina Graziuso) wants a picture with Enzo. Luciano gets the idea in his head to audition for "Big Brother" thereby securing hero-worship with his daughter and validating his existence beyond the invisible.

Using seemingly arbitrary and innocuous motives, Luciano begins to position himself in Enzo's personal space, first as a drag performer, then as a fan.

"Reality" slinks around a dark corner sneakily recalling Scorsese's "The King of Comedy". He spies on Enzo in the restroom.  Aniello Arena is near perfect in his debut role as a self deprecating but eerie man, who by all accounts is well meaning but who still retains a scariness that comes from his melancholy and his sadness. Luciano is a puzzle; he has an adorable kid and a loving wife and he is charming with his friends, yet he is eaten up by a soft desperation as many are, specifically, the need for fame and self documentation.

Luciano happily goes about his business at the market but all the while his friends mention money and fame as if they are Buddhist attainments. He begins to think Italian network TV spies are watching him to test his charismatic worth. Religious motifs are interspersed throughout the film and it becomes clear that Jesus can be seen as the first pop star.

Lastly, the final scene in which Luciano attempts to breach the Big Brother compound and passes by completely unnoticed, recalls the best of film noir as well as Stanley Kubrick.

The narrative possesses a sneaky seductive momentum in the guise of something light and madcap . The last images of Luciano seen from up above resembling a small faltering star will haunt you.

"Reality" despite its bouncing imagery is no trival pastichio, but a thoughtful episodic film that plays better than "The Truman Show" in its dark and playfully gray tones.

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com

The Sapphires (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

The Sapphires

"The Sapphires" is inspired by a true story of four indigenous girls and how they achieved their moment of notoriety as a singing group in the manner of The Supremes. The story is adapted  from a play of the same name written by Tony Briggs, the son of one of the real-life singers. The film version directed by Wayne Blair is charming with terrific music and even the camera swings and tilts with a jubilance.

A shifty but likable drifter, Dave Lovelace (Chris O' Dowd, from many Judd Apatow features) is the MC of a second rate Australian  talent show circa 1967. One day during a hangover, he happens upon three girls: Gail (Deborah Mailman), Julie (Jessica Mauboy) and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell). Under no welcoming applause they take the stage without fanfare and sing country western tunes. A few  patrons leave, uttering racial epithets, but most stay while being entertained. Dave is impressed, but doesn't wish to make waves, while the girls sense a break. Acting with spontaneity, they find an ad seeking singers to entertain troops in Vietnam. Smitten by the trio's voluptual spirit, Dave agrees to help and somehow scores an audition.

Most of the spark comes from the three girls' interaction with Chris O' Dowd as the well meaning but glib goof with little dance rhythm, but lots of enthusiasm. The film also has heart and energy in showing the group as it struggles to form as a Motown style soul group by enlisting the help of their estranged sister, Kay (Shari Sebbons) who ignores her aborigine roots. In addition to the music (which is the centerpiece, but no less meaningful for it) the film also illustrates the blight of colonialism and its resulting racism.

"The Sapphires" is a true ensemble film. The four actresses all share a distinct and separate chemistry with each other with an easy engaging  momentum that never veers into total bubblegum melodrama. Given the subject matter with many musical films that do, this is to be commended. Not one portrayal is hokey or false and each actress has a voluptuous charisma that will spiral in your eyes creating helixes of desire. You might even jump.

Just as in the film "42",  it is performance and self expression, here embodied by music, that ultimately brings us together in a lasso of sound.

"The Sapphires" is unapologetically "Feel-good" in the tradition of  so many, but the action has such a chirpy irreverence with a carbonated score that will have you fizzing in your seat.

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com

42 (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

42

Brian Helgeland (A Knight's Tale) smartly directs "42" the handsome biopic about Jackie Robinson, the first African-American baseball player in the  major leagues. The film is in the style of many traditional baseball films including  "Moneyball" (2011) and "The Natural" (1984), but in terms of social context "42" is in the mode of Carl Franklin's "Devil in a Blue Dress" (1995). In both films we have earnest and forthright men (all with one-liners and a grace which should not be overlooked) who are driven to reveal the truth and push boundaries under the weight of  a post WWII racist America. Though he is not a private investigator, Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman)  is in the shadow of bigoted and hateful folk who pursue him with the intensity of noir villains. In one scene, Robinson is tickling his wife (Nicole Beharie) and is  abruptly approached by a suspicious southern stranger. As it turns out, the stranger reaches out to congratulate Robinson, not threaten him. This one instance could have been right out of Hitchcock. Appearances can be deceiving.

Robinson has a rather dry and bemused manner though it all, but he is also a soldier in the most disturbing episodes. Pitches are fired at him like cannonballs. Some balls have teeth and he usually ducks. But during one horrible outing of disgusting name-calling, Robinson goes into an understandable rage. He screams and smashes his bat. While he could be thought of as an occasional antihero or The Outsider,  as he marches out from under the clubhouse, shaded in  slanted half light, he more resembles Superman. Robinson is a hero we can all relate to, no need for Krypton.

Harrison Ford has a good outing as well as Robinson's manager, Branch Rickey. Ford is cranky but entertaining as a 1940s rapid fire man who loves baseball and cites biblical passages. He is no cardboard Dick Tracy character and there is real energy exchanged between Ford and Boseman.

The major credit however should be given to director  Helgeland who gives us some virtuosic perspectives, putting us square at home plate while still steeped in the tradition of fine sports films as well as a hint of a 1940s detective thriller, given that Robinson must aways trace his steps in an ignorant America.

Chadwick Boseman is as iconic as Christopher Reeve, a modern day Superman, in this role.  He is neither self righteous, nor agenda-fumed. He simply does what is correct in loving the game.

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com