WCBE 90.5 FM (NPR): "Hero," "Garden State," "Scarface"

WCBE #180-Final
“Hero”,”Garden Sate,” “Scarface”
Taped: 4:00 pm, August 25, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, August 27, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org.

Clay
Yimou Zhang’s "Hero" is an assassin’s assassin . . .

John
"Garden State” is your garden variety "Graduate" . . .

Clay
Brain DiPalma’s “Scarface” lives on again this week at Studio 35 . . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak:
It's Movie Time in Mid-Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

DeSando
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John ("Hero")
Clay, Now and then it’s good for both Eastern and Western cultures to redefine the concept of “hero.” Brad Pitt’s recent success as Achilles (“Troy”) reconfirmed the heroic warrior’s physical excellence and foolhardy courage as a hallmark of Hollywood’s version. From the East, in the time before China’s first emperor, Jet Li’s “Nameless” in the film “Hero” takes a different turn: Although physical like Pitt’s Achilles, he is even more the cunning Ulysses, the hero with brains and a heart with an insightful vision of his country’s future and a humble realization about his place.

The film’s action at times looks like the digitized and ballet-like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and its cinematography has blindingly vivid colors.

The definition of hero changes depending on the culture and the times. The dynamic heroes of “Hero” do not fit Emerson’s prediction that “every hero becomes a bore at last.” Perhaps in the sequel.

Clay ("Hero")
John, there’s nothing boring about the movie’s sullen young “Hero,” who according to his version of the story, masterfully disposed of the three assassins who had set out to murder the king.

The movie’s fight scenes, staged against a backdrop of visually magnificent landscapes, are resplendent in color. but the battles themselves become tedious because the filmmaker, like many of today’s mainstream directors, tends to rely too heavily on the use of special effects.

Our hero lunges like a tiger, soars like an eagle, and is able to leap tall mountains in a single bound, but is he really the best swordsman? In these days of digital enhancement only his visual designer knows for sure.

The hero’s best line:

“The ideal of a true warrior is to lay down his sword.”

John ("Garden State")
Clay, Like the parkway of the same name in New Jersey, “Garden State” is not as pretty as it sounds, not as much fun as a semi-stoner film could be, but it gets you to where director/writer/star Zach Braff wants you to be—in a funky state of awareness that our purpose in life is to accept who we are and love when possible. Andrew Largeman (Braff), like his obvious counterpart Benjamin from “The Graduate,” is lost in L.A.

Returning to the Garden State for his mother’s funeral, Andrew meets Sam (Natalie Portman), who releases, as Elaine did for Benjamin, new feelings and insights.

Director Braff laces the film with references to death such as the burial of Sam’s gerbil, and, of course his mother but manages to keep the tone light, for example, when Andrew and friends smoke weed and play spin the bottle. That admixture makes “Garden State” enjoyable and manipulative at the same time.

Clay ("Scarface")
John, Brian DiPalma’s 1983 version of "Scarface" is not just one more of those Hollywood grab the money and run re-makes. Completely re-conceptualized, the updated version began in the summer of 1980 when Castro unloaded his jails and packed the prisoners into boats headed for Miami.

One of those immigrants, played by Al Pacino, was to become, as was Paul Muni’s original “Scarface” character, the king of the mob. But instead of dealing in bootlegged whiskey, Pacino’s “Scarface” climbed his way to the top on a mountain of cocaine.

Unspeakably violent -the bad guys get hung from copters and the good guys get sawed alive- the movie’s script, penned by Oliver Stone, is tough talking and replete with the “f” word. You know, the word recently used on the floor of U.S. Senate by our Vice-President in what he characterized as a moment of therapeutic relief.

[John, a tip of the brew to Studio 35, the Drexel Theatres, the Wexner, Dayton’s Neon Theatre, and Yellow Springs Little Art for providing of us with the offbeat therapeutic relief we see often seek.]

But enough of the proud and the profane, it's grading time.

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"Hero" earns an "A" for its ACTION and its ART. . .

Clay
"Hero” gets a “B” becauseI find live action more aBsorBing than CGI . . .

John
"Garden State" is a "B" for having a BIT of BENJAMIN. . .


Clay
"Scarface” gets a “B” because Al Pacino gives a bully performance . . .

John
Clay, I'm going to prove I'm a HERO by driving on The Garden State Parkway. I'm outta here!

I'm outta here.

Clay
John, not to worry, in New Jersey a Hero is only a sandwich. I'm outta here too.

HIT SOUND EFFECTS OF CAR HORNS HONKING, FOLLOWED BY THE SOUNDS OF A HUGE CRASH

OOOOPS. See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus 106.7 FM in Newark, WYSO, etc.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

Copyright 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM (NPR): "It's Movie Time" - "The Saddest Music in the World," "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and ... Spring"

WCBE #179-FINAL
“It’s Movie Time” with John DeSando and Clay Lowe
“The Saddest Music in the World,”
“Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, . . . Spring”
Taped: 4:00 pm, August 18, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, August 20, 2004
Streams live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org.

Clay
"The Saddest Music in the World" is Guy Maddin’s audacious tribute to black and white cinema . . .

John
"Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and ... Spring" has not enough seasons to satisfy its stunning cinematography. . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak:
It's Movie Time in Mid-Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

DeSando
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John ("The Saddest Music in the World")
Clay, And I thought “Dogville” was stylized. Canadian writer/director Guy Maddin has created a film like no other this year except possibly “Triplet’s of Belleville.” “The Saddest Music in the World” is set in 1933 Winnipeg, where Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) is holding a contest to award $25,000 to the performer of the saddest music.

What happens in the film can be categorized as surrealism of the wackiest sort: For instance, Indian singers in short-skirted Eskimo costumes dance to ''California Here I Come'' with sitars and banjos commemorating a 19th-century kayaking accident.

I know I’m not making much sense here—Trust me, this film is bizarre enough to satisfy the geekiest cultist in our audience. For the rest of us, just trying to appreciate all the signposts Maddin constructs to further his absurd and funny vision is exhausting.

Clay ("The Saddest Music in the World")
John, Guy Maddin’s “The Saddest Music in the World” is as surreal as “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” as brooding as “Citizen Kane,” and as wickedly clever as David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet.” If this makes the movie sound like a grand tour through the archives of some of cinema’s most outrageously stylistic directors, that’s because it is.

Not since Tim Burton paid tribute to Hollywood’s master of schlock, Ed Wood, has a director so successfully re-created the look and feel of the early heydays of black and white cinema.

Add to this mix the naughty and seductive performance of Isabella Rossellini who plays a beer heiress with artificial glass legs, and then blend in a soundtrack, the likes of which we haven’t heard since “Moulin Rouge” and you have yourselves one helluva cinematic delight.

John ("Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and ... Spring")
Clay, I have to get off this “9/11” preoccupation—I’m seeing the event underlying too many films. Recently I saw the xenophobia in “Dogville” and “The Village”; it occupies my imagination again in “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring,” a lyrical South Korean masterpiece about isolation, love, death, and renewal.

A young Buddhist is tutored by a master on a floating monastery for 2. A young girl coming to be cured brings a different kind of sickness to the compound: lust. Although the old monk warns the boy that lust "awakens the desire to possess, which ends in the intent to murder," he doesn’t listen. He follows her to enter the “real world,” for which he is unprepared.

The cinematography is so painterly and mystical that the film could stand alone on that merit. You won’t forget the images or the lyrical evocation of humanity in its beauty and imperfection. “Spring” is one of my favorite movies this year.

Clay (""Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and ... Spring"")
John, South Korean director, Ki-Duk Kim, is known for his films of violence and cruelty. So what is he doing making a lyrically contemplative film about a Buddhist monk who secludes himself in a temple that floats on the placid surface of a lake set in the midst of a primeval paradise?

That question haunted me as I struggled to get beyond the movie’s obvious message, that is, that human cruelty is fueled by lust of the flesh and the invidious desire to possess.

Could it be, instead, that the monk’s sexual guilt was the source of his own cruelty? Could it be that it was his own desire to possess his student that caused him to beat and sorely punish him?

Sorry, John, beneath this movie’s lyrical appearance there is embedded a message that is narrow, puritanical and latently cruel.

But enough of this Buddah bashing, it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"The Saddest Music in the World" earns a "B" because it's BARELY of this world . . .

Clay
"The Saddest Music in the World" gets an “A” because Guy Maddin makes maddeningly marvelous films . . .

John
"Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and ... Spring" earns an "A" for ADAM's ALLEGORICAL ASSIGNATION with Eve . . .

Clay
"Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and ... Spring" gets a “C” because there’s more Mel Gibson in this film than Buddah . . .

John
Clay, I'm going to find Princess SummerFallWinterSpring from the '50's Howdy Doody Show to play the saddest music a Catholic boy ever made . . .

I'm outta here.

Clay
John, winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you have to do is call, you’ve got a friend.

See you at the movies, folks, I’m outta here too.

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus 106.7 FM in Newark, WYSO, etc.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

Copyright 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe

Silver Microphone Awards - National Finalist: "It's Movie Time's The Year That Was - 2003"

WCBE FM recognized for excellence in programming.

The Silver Microphone Awards recognize WCBE 90.5FM for excellence in local educational programming
_______________________________________________________

Program Description:

"It’s Movie Time’s The Year That Was - 2003" (59 minutes)

An entertaining and provocative look at the way the world of movies and the world of real events intersected last year. The program features reviews of over twenty-five of the year’s most important movies, as well as musical selections from the movies' original sound tracks. From “City of God,” “Talk to Her,” and “Man on the Train,” to “The Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Kill Bill,” and “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” co-hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe make connections between the movies’ themes and the political events that eventually led America into war. Also featured are interviews with Parminder Nagra (“Bend It Like Beckham”) and Academy Award Nominee Alec Baldwin (“The Cooler”).

News Release:

WCBE 90.5 FM has been chosen as a national finalist for the Silver Microphone Awards, for a program written for "It’s Move Time". The Awards rate a wide variety of programming, concentrating on the best local and regional radio commercials, audio programs, and web sites created by advertising agencies, audio production companies, and radio stations in the United States.

The program, entitled “The Year That Was 2003”, was written and performed by John DeSando and Clayton Lowe, and was produced by WCBE’s Richelle Antczak. It appeared in the educational radio-programming category.

The Silver Microphone Awards were open to 40,000 organizations in the United States. A panel of judges, based on creativity, production quality, copywriting, talent, and overall effectiveness rated entries. Four finalists were chosen for each category, selected from the best radio commercials, audio programs, and web sites submitted.

For details, please contact “It’s Movie Time” producer, Richelle Antczak via email at rant@wcbe.org or by phone at (614) 365-5555 ext. 251.

Rock Stars Stumping Against Bush

Associated Press
Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004

New York — "In an unprecedented series of concerts in nine swing states, more than 20 musical acts — including Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and the Dixie Chicks — will perform fund-raising concerts one month before the Nov. 2 election in an effort to unseat U.S. President George W. Bush.

The shows, which will begin Oct. 1 in Pennsylvania, will take an unusual approach: as many as six concerts on a single day in cities across the states expected to decide the November presidential race. Other stops on the tour are North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin and the key state in 2000, Florida."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040804.wbush4/BNStory/Entertainment/

Ted Turner: On The Dangerous Consolidation Of Media Power

My Beef With Big Media
How government protects big media--and shuts out upstarts like me.
by Ted Turner, Washington Monthly, July/August 2004

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.turner.html


Excerpt:

"Consolidation has given big media companies new power over what is said not just on the air, but off it as well. Cumulus Media banned the Dixie Chicks on its 42 country music stations for 30 days after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized President Bush for the war in Iraq. It's hard to imagine Cumulus would have been so bold if its listeners had more of a choice in country music stations. And Disney recently provoked an uproar when it prevented its subsidiary Miramax from distributing Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 . As a senior Disney executive told The New York Times : "It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle." Follow the logic, and you can see what lies ahead: If the only media companies are major corporations, controversial and dissenting views may not be aired at all."