WCBE 90.5 FM: "Caché," "Freedomland," "Mrs. Henderson Presents," "Ushpizin"

WCBE #257-Final: "Cache," "Freedomland," "Mrs. Henderson Presents,” “Ushpizin"
It's Movie Time co-hosts, writers, producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Times: 8:01 pm, February 24 & 1:01 pm, February 25, 2006
Streaming Live on the web and on-demand at: www.wcbe.org

The Script

Clay

"Cache" is a politically relevant mind blower . . .

John

"Freedomland" is lost like its child . . .

Clay

"Mrs. Henderson Presents" naughty shows during the London blitz . . .

John

"Ushpizin" will change your attitude toward guests . . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in central Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.''

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER FOR

John

I'm John DeSando

Clay

And I'm Clay Lowe ("Cache" - 153 words)

Folks, if you’re drawn to the visual equivalents of crossword puzzles, acrostics, and cryptograms, your left brain is going to crash when you try to figure out what’s going on in Michael Haneke’s new film “Caché.” 

Roughly translated into English as the word “hidden,” Caché is, on the surface, a simple story about a couple who discovers their everyday lives are being taped by a hidden camera. Shades of Jim Carey’s plight in Peter Weir’s “The Truman Show.” 

But instead of playing it for laughs, Haneke focuses on the masochist recriminations the spied-upon couple unleash on each other when they attempt to discover what they’ve done to deserve this surveillance.

Not since Resnais’ “Last Year At Marienbad” and Antonioni’s “Blow Up” have critics, audiences, as well as a film’s own characters, been so confused by a director’s deliberate intentions.

But not to worry, if you’re not planning on being watched, the question is moot.

John ("Freedomland") (134w)

How about a RADIO SHOW not being HEARD!

Oh, well, listen here! Julianne Moore is looking for a child again, but this time it’s real-time, hardscrabble New Jersey projects.

Moore plays Brenda Martin, who claims to have lost her son to a carjacker abscondong with her son sleeping in the back seat. Veteran detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) is indeed the counseling type, whose patience with the ranting Martin wears thin as he suspects lies among her details of the abduction.

Director Joe Roth goes to lengths to show white police confronting black protesters, who are rightfully furious at the support for the disappearance of one white child when many more black missing children barely cause a ripple.

Freedomland turns on social tension but never gives it a chance to
be fleshed out. The issues are lost like the child among too much Moore moaning.

Clay ("Mrs. Henderson Presents" - 134 words)

Folks, there’s moaning galore in Stephen Frear’s new film Mrs. Henderson Presents.  A kitschy crowd pleaser, the movie shamelessly carries on the shoot-the-moon traditions of “The Full Monty” and the all-nudie tableau traditions of Las Vegas. 

If it weren’t for the integrity of the director, one might suspect a bit of a pander.

Starring as a widowed dowager is Dame Judi Dench.  And standing by as her mismatched co-star is Bob Hoskins, a rather ill-defined character she hires to run her newly-bought theatre.
Set in London’s West End at the advent of World War II, Mrs. Henderson Presents cashes in on the patriotism of those invincible Brits, who, as we shall see, carried on with a stiff upper lip even when Hitler continued to blitz them.

Though Dench is good, Witherspoon and Knightly are better.

John ("Ushpizin" - 149 words)

Then let’s see what Jerusalem can offer.

It’s pleasant to view a parable like Ushpizin, given its locale
and the durable hatred between Jews and Arabs.

All this film REALLY cares about is the reconciliation between impoverished Moshe and his God, who seems to have neglected him and his wife around Succoth holiday, when ultra-Orthodox Jews find temporary housing in frond-covered shacks and invite Ushpizins (holy guests) to join them.

Be careful what you pray for because Moshe gets money and 2 guests, the latter bringing more chaos to Moshe’s life than the money. After all, one of the 2 guests is named Eliyahu, who in Jewish legend comes calling on houses in disguise. Both guests are escaped convicts testing Moshe and wife at every turn.

The lesson is that if good things don’t happen, it’s because you don’t pray enough. Ushipizin is that simple minded; just think Tevye in Fiddler.

Clay

Enough of TV snoops, kidnapped kids, naked chorines, and pray-for-pay pilgrims, John, because it's grading time . . .

MUSIC OUT, CUT TO DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

Holy Hootch, Hooray!

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

Clay

"Cache" gets a “B” because its BARK is as BAD as its BITE . . .

John

"Freedomland" earns a “C” because a missing CHILD is not enough to CARRY a film . . .

Clay

"Mrs. Henderson Presents" gets a “C” because it’s less CLEVER than CUTE . .

John

"Ushpizin" earns a “B” because BEING Jewish isn’t always BEING BRAVO at the BOX OFFICE . . .
DRUMS OUT

John

Clay, I encourage you to start your own nubile revue, something like "Dr. Lowe Presents His Full-Monte Shadowbox."

At your age, what harm could there be? Or more to the point, will you even care about the nudity as much as the wardrobe savings?

I'm outta here.

Clay

No nudity for me, folks, I’d rather hob nob with the rich and shoot quail with my lawyer.

I'm outta here, too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

The award winning "It's Movie Time" is co-hosted, written, and now produced by John DeSando
and Clay for WCBE 90.5.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006

Selected Quotes: John Updike, Bech, 1965

“In short, one loses heart in the discovery that one is not being read. That the ability to read, and therefore to write, is being lost, along with the abilities to listen, to see, to smell, and to breathe. That all the windows of the spirit are being nailed shut.”

“Difficulty of women sleeping on trains, boats, where men are soothed. Distrust of machinery? Sexual stimulation, Claire saying she used to come just from sitting on vibrating subway seat, never the IRT, only the IND. Took at least five stops.”

- John Updike, Bech, 1965

WCBE 90.5 FM: "The World's Fastest Indian," "The White Countess," "Eight Below"

WCBE 90.5 FM: “The World's Fastest Indian,” “The White Countess,” “Eight Below”
It’s Movie Time co-hosts, writers, producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: 8:01 pm, February 17 & 1:01 pm, February 18, 2006
Streaming Live on the web and on-demand (iPod) at: www.wcbe.org

The Script

Clay

“The World's Fastest Indian” gets off to a slow start. . .

John

“The White Countess” is Ivory Gold . . .

Clay

“Eight Below” is a polar adventure that features dogs rather than penguins . . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

“It’s Movie Time” in central Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.’’

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER FOR

John

I’m John DeSando

Clay

And I’m Clay Lowe

John (“The World's Fastest Indian” - 126 words without interjection/139 with)

“I might be a bit deaf, but I'm not stupid.”

You could have said that on our trip to New Zealand.

Clay

I did but you didn’t hear me.

John (As usual ignores him) 

In The World’s Fastest Indian, Burt Munro’s challenge is to get himself and his 1920 Indian Motorcycle from down under to Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats for world land speed competition. 

Sir Anthony Hopkins is worth every million he makes by making us love his absent-minded, strong-willed racer. Only David Lynch’s “Straight Story” could compete for pulling a winner film out of an old man’s random encounters on a slow-moving road trip.

The film’s disadvantage is that this down home wisdom and eccentric behavior seem forced.

Overall the film successfully shows that breaking the rules should be on everyone’s to-do list, especially at your age, Dr.

Clay (“The World’s Fastest Indian” - 147 words)
At my age, folks, being able to break the rules is more fantasy than aspiration. But the real rule breaker in The World’s Fastest Indian was Burt Munro (played by Anthony Hopkins), a real life motorcycle speedster, who burned his way into the record books on the Salt Flats at Bonneville, Utah.

An eccentric old guy (is there any other kind in the movies?), he borrows carving knives to trim his tires . . . waters lemon trees with his bodily fluids . . . and makes all kinds of friends in his journey, by ship and by car, from New Zealand to L.A. to Utah.

Along the way he meets a friendly motel clerk, a friendly used car dealer, and even a friendly old gal who shares with him her bed, as well as her body. And, yep, you’ve got it. When he finally arrives, he takes home all of the gold.

John (“The White Countess” - 136 words)

"Between the erotic and the tragic"

So Ralph Fiennes describes both his “perfect little bar” and a perfect woman in 1936 Shanghai, with the Japanese preparing for invasion as part of another wearisome world war. 

This Merchant-Ivory classic has the right balance between Jackson’s Rick Blaine-like isolationism and Natasha Richardson’s former-Russian-countess elegance decidedly less erotic and more meretricious in these exile days, not unlike Ingrid Bergman.

It’s a world more Graham Greene than E.M. Forster, with intrigues floating in and out of the neutral White Countess bar as physically blinded Jackson in his figurative blindness tries to solve the world’s unrest through congenial neutrality, an  improvement over Bogart’s  self denials in his Café American.

Fiennes is no Bogie, but his gruff American naivete and rude attitude are reminders of just how great a film Casablanca is.

Clay (“Eight Below”- 144 words)

Well, folks, there is no White Countess in Eight Below but there are miles of frozen ice. Featuring the Antarctic landscape that backdropped the mating games in The March of the Penguins, Eight Below features a team of spirited sled dogs who are as clever as Lassie and as determined as Old Yeller.

But unlike The March of the Penguins, Eight Below also features real life humans. There’s Jerry, the resident guide. Charlie (Jason Biggs) his map making sidekick. Davis, an uptight and irritable scientist and finally Katie, the movie’s love interest, who also happens to be able to fly.

When asking the young 5 and 6 year neighbor friends who saw the movie with me what they thought about the film, they said they liked it, but asked me to warn kids about the scary scene with the leopard seal.

Consider it done.

But enough of eccentric old men, ivory women, and leaping angry seals, John, because it’s grading time . . .

MUSIC OUT, CUT TO DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

Holy Hypothermia, Hooray!

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

“The World's Fastest Indian” earns a “B” because the race doesn’t always BELONG to the BOYS . . .

Clay

“The World’s Fastest Indian” gets a “C” because CROCHETY old men just don’t CUT it for me any more . . .

John

“The White Countess” earns a B because BOGIE and BERGMAN are BORN  again . . .

Clay

“Eight Below” gets a “B” because dogs (too BAD) are still a man’s BEST friend . . .

DRUMS OUT

John

Clay, my Russian interpreter reminds me of Natasha Richardson.  I hope my blue eyes are as sexy as Ralph Fiennes’ blindness.

I’m outta here.

Clay

No, but your eyes do match the blue orbs of Disney’s handsome huskies. Arf. Arf.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

The award winning “It’s Movie Time” is co-hosted, written, and now produced by John DeSando and Clay for WCBE 90.5.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Final Destination 3," "Pink Panther," "Something New," "The Matador"

WCBE#255-FINAL
“Final Destination 3,” “The Pink Panther,” “Something New,” "The Matador"
It’s Movie Time co-hosts, writers, producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
WCBE 90.5 FM
Air Time: 3:01 and 8:01 pm, February 10, 2006
Streaming Live on the web and “It’s Movie Time” on-demand at: www.wcbe.org

The Script

John
“Final Destination 3” should be the final destination for this franchise   . . .

Clay
Steve Martin’s “Pink Panther” should be seeking its final destination too . . .

John
“Something New”  is something new . . .

Clay
“The Matador” is a dark comedy about an assassin in need of a friend . . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:
“It’s Movie Time” in central Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.’’

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER FOR

John
I’m John DeSando

Clay
And I’m Clay Lowe

John (“Final Destination 3”)
Director James Wong’s Final Destination 3 may be the end of a franchise that has profited from a formula so trite as to elicit laughsthat may not have been intended. You know them: the smart-mouthed, big-breasted teenagers just asking to be cut down in their prime; the ominous carnival setting where the devil can openly operate a death coaster; the brunette who is the only one to foresee the final destinations; and the race with time to solve the devil’s murders before they happen.

Maybe I can save Final Destination 3 by likening its theme to Woody Allen’s in Match Point. Both films make visual statements about luck and the randomness of the universe, Allen with the uncertain trajectory of a tennis ball and James Wong with domino-effect sequences.

Wong will make more money on this film than Allen in all his sophisticated pictures. There's Luck.

Clay “The Pink Panther”
Well, folks, as luck would have it Pink Panther X has finally lost its charm and that’s too bad, because in ‘63 and ‘64, director Blake Edwards and Brit comic Peter Sellers  had us howling in the aisles, but  that was before the studios ground out seven more sequels.
Blake Edwards made a career out of attempting to squeeze all the juice he could out of the scripts and even Peter Sellers tried to help keep the series alive, but then he up and died and so should have the series.

So, is Steve Martin able to resurrect the bumbling Clouseau?  Nope, because he’s left to do it alone.  Sure, Beyonce belts out a sexy song and competently speaks her lines.  But, lawdy, lawdy, Kevin Kline is not only miscast, he also spends most of the movie trying to decide whether he should or should play it with an accent.

Hey, John, you were right to stay home.

John (“Something New”)
I was busy reading The Detroit Free Press report that 42.4% of black women have never been married.

Clay
That adds up to 21.2 per cent for each of us . . .

John
Is that all?

Clay
That's enough.

John
With stats emphasizing marriage a challenge for blacks, the film Something New deftly shows what a bright and accomplished young black professional, Kenya (Sanna Lathan), goes through before she finds the right man, in this case not an IBM (ideal black man), but rather very white hunk Brian (Simon Baker), a landscape architect just too nice to be believable.

The value of this film over recent attempts involving barbershop clients and hip-hop heroes is that as a romantic comedy, it is breezily enjoyable with something new to say about lingering racism in love and work.

The film uses effective dialogue about interracial romance AND the universal struggle of substantial women to find substantial men.

Clay (“The Matador”)
Folks, I hope “The Matador” is still playing this weekend because it’s a substantially enjoyable film.

Set in Mexico City, Vienna, Denver, Vegas, and Budapest, “The Matador” has done for the early-forties’ set what Wes and Paul Thomas Anderson have done for the late-teener and early-twenties male bonders.

Gregg Kinnear plays “Danny” a domesticated husband who loves the sense of danger he smells in the air when he meets “Julian the Assassin,” played to a “T” by the usually ever so slick Pierce Brosnan. Throw in Hope Davis, who also falls for Julian’s dangerous scent, and then add in Phillip Baker Hall’s tough guy and you end up with a bright and colorful comedy-dark that should leave you silently smiling.

But enough of panthers, romancers, and hipster assassins, John, because it’s grading time.

MUSIC OUT, CUT TO DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John
Holy Hip-Huggers, Hooray!

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John
“Final Destination 3” earns a “C” because COMEDY and CLOSURE are tough twins . . .

Clay
“The Pink Panther” gets an “F” because the FUNNIEST scene in the FILM FEATURES Clouseau FIGHTING a bad case of FLATULENCE . . .

John
“Something New” earns a “B” because a BABE is a BABE regardless of her race . . .

Clay
“The Matador” gets an “A” because it’s a well-cast, well-acted buddy boys-get-the-girl ASSASSINS ADVENTURE . . .

DRUMS OUT

John
Clay, if my lover looks like, say Halle Berry rather than Queen Latifah, how really hip am I ?
I’m outta here.

Clay
I'm way ahead of you, John. I fell in love with Diahann Carroll when I saw her romancing Richard Kiley on Broadway in “No Strings” in 1962 . . .

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC ("AIN'T WE GOT FUN"), THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle
The award winning “It’s Movie Time” is co-hosted, written, and now produced by John DeSando and Clay for WCBE 90.5.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT


Copyright John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006

News From Walhalla: My Books, My Life

“’In every dictatorship,’ he said to Bianchina, ‘just one man, even any little man at all, who continues to think with his own head puts the whole public order in danger. Tons of printed paper propagate the regime’s order of the day, thousands of loudspeakers, hundreds of thousands of posters and handbills distributed free, and stables of orators in the squares and crossroads, thousands of priests from the pulpit, all repeat to the point of obsession, to the point of collective stupefaction, these orders of the day. But it’s enough that a little man, just one little man says NO for that formidable granite order to be in danger.’” - Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine,

Washington Post: Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects (2/5/06)

Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects
NSA's Hunt for Terrorists Scrutinizes Thousands of Americans, but Most Are Later Cleared

By Barton Gellman, Dafna Linzer and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 5, 2006; Page A01


Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use.

Bush has recently described the warrantless operation as "terrorist surveillance" and summed it up by declaring that "if you're talking to a member of al Qaeda, we want to know why." But officials conversant with the program said a far more common question for eavesdroppers is whether, not why, a terrorist plotter is on either end of the call. The answer, they said, is usually no.

Fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well. That step still requires a warrant from a federal judge, for which the government must supply evidence of probable cause.

The Bush administration refuses to say -- in public or in closed session of Congress -- how many Americans in the past four years have had their conversations recorded or their e-mails read by intelligence analysts without court authority. Two knowledgeable sources placed that number in the thousands; one of them, more specific, said about 5,000.

The program has touched many more Americans than that. Surveillance takes place in several stages, officials said, the earliest by machine. Computer-controlled systems collect and sift basic information about hundreds of thousands of faxes, e-mails and telephone calls into and out of the United States before selecting the ones for scrutiny by human eyes and ears.

Successive stages of filtering grow more intrusive as artificial intelligence systems rank voice and data traffic in order of likeliest interest to human analysts. But intelligence officers, who test the computer judgments by listening initially to brief fragments of conversation, "wash out" most of the leads within days or weeks. (more)

See more at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/04/AR2006020401373.html

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Match Point," "The Best of Youth," "Transamerica"

Listen to today's "It's Movie Time" radio show as co-hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe review Woody Allen's new "Match Point" as well as "The Best of Youth" and Transamerica."

It's Movie Time can be heard anytime on demand at:

http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain?action=viewArticle&id=873829&pid=22&sid=13

Today's show can also be heard today at 3:01 and 8:01 pm today on WCBE at 90.5 FM and streams live on the web at http://www.WCBE.org.

WCBE 90.5 FM: It's Movie Time co-hosts John DeSando & Clay Lowe Screen Short Films Today In Hopkins Hall on The Ohio State University's Campus

A Week at the Movies
Monday January 30 – Friday February 3, 2006
Hopkins Hall
The College of the Arts,
The Ohio State University

A week of non-stop film: classics, independents, local, video, 16mm and curated selections from OSU’s Film Studies Collection, the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, and others. Freshly made popcorn all week!

http://arts.osu.edu/3news_events/b_featured_events/featured_events_wi06/week_movies.htm

Thursday February 2, 2006

12:30-2:00 Pimp My Shorts: An Eclectic Screening of Cutting Edge Videos from the Past that Still Possess the Ability to Shock, Provoke, and Entice
Co-hosts: Clay Lowe & John DeSando, "It's Movie Time," WCBE 905 FM

Program:

American Time Capsule, 1968
Charles Braverman condenses two hundred years of American history into three volable minutes. Made for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, CBS-TV.
The brothers' choice of guests, predominantly antiwar, left-wing, and outspoken; their fights over material; and their repeated failure to deliver finished programs early enough in the week for the censors to get them edited by air time on Sunday were all advanced as reasons when the series was abruptly canceled. There was a good deal of furor over freedom of speech and the like, but the CBS decision stuck. The Smothers Brothers were replaced by Hee Haw.
--Tim Brooks, Earl Marsh,The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946-Present, 1979

Media Burn/Cadillac Ranch (Excerpts), 1974-75 by ANT FARM
The Cadillac Ranch Show is a tribute to the rise and fall of the tailfin. Ten Cadillacs are buried, fins up, in afield near Amarillo, Texas.Media Burn is a live performance transformed by TV into a media event. It becomes a potent mixture of America's love affair with the automobile and its addiction to TV. Considered a modern classic.

The Cadillac Ranch Show and Media Burn were re-edited in 1980, and are now available on one thirty minute cassette. Selected for retrospective screening at the American Film Institute's first Video Festival, Washington, D.C., 1981.

Magritte Sur La Plage, 1977, 14 minutes by Ros Barron
Had Surrealist painter Magritte chosen video instead of paint as his medium, he may well have made a program like this.

Ros Barron became active in television production in 1970 at WGBH, Boston where she worked under a Rockefeller Artist-In-Television Grant with the New Television Workshop. Her work was presented at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, in February 1981 and shown at the Helen Schlein Gallery in Boston. WGBH recently produced a documentary on Barron's work to be aired on PBS.

Battleground OSU: The Campus Unrest of 1970, 1985, 30 minutes
By Gary Cook & Jose Cardenas, Department of Photography and Cinema, The Ohio State University

On May 1, 1970 a group of student demonstrators closed the iron gates that barred access to Neil Ave. at 11th, than a major entrance to the OSU campus. The State Highway Patrol was called in to disperse the protestors and re-open the gates. This incident touched off a wave of violent unrest in which 7 people were shot and countless others injured. The events of the week that followed were to alter the perception of a nation. This tells the story as seen by the eyes of 6 people who lived it. The video features never before seen archival footage that for many years, was feared lost when confiscated by the Ohio National Guard.