The Great Dictator

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible—Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man"—not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Sarasota Film Festival 2009 Shorts 1 Reviews

Second Guessing Grandma (dir. Bob Giraldi)
This was about a young Jewish guy coming out to his family and focuses primarily on the reaction of his grandmother. The dialog is witty and comedic and story has some heart to it, but the scene cuts are fast and the camera is a bit too close up on the subjects with a lot of hand-held camera bobbing. ■■■□

Trece Años (dir. Topaz Adizes)
A very short story of a young man who returns to Cuba to visit his family after spending most of his life in New York and the familial conflict that surfaces. The presentation of both sides―struggle, tears and a mother's broken heart―is sincere and well done and the shots of Cuba are impressive, though the subject itself is depressing. ■■□□

Countertransference (dir. Madeleine Olnek)
A brilliantly-acted comic character study of Carla Carthrop, a fidgety and reserved woman trying to change her circumstances. We watch her personal battles against her domineering boss and totally insane therapist. I guess you would call this surreal absurdism. The dialog was weak in a few places leaving me to wonder how much was scripted versus improvised, but overall the short is hilarious and highly recommended. ■■■■

Nowhere Kids (dir. Eric Juhola)
Nowhere Kids follows a homeless teenage girl and her dog as she tracks down her mother. Along the way she falls in with a small group teens in the same situation and the audience gets a view of their grim existence with little hope and no real home or connection to the world, emotionally broken. With costuming a little too stylish and makeup a bit too gritty the realism gets hindered, but overall the storytelling is good and the acting and subject matter commendable and evocative. ■■■□

The New Yorkist (dir. Dana O'Keefe)
I'm not sure what to make of this short. It's what looks like an abstract first person delusion of grandeur. The story is told silent film-style as Alexander studies history, fights ants and eventually becomes Alexander the Great as he "conquers" Kyrgyzstan (represented with a disused airport terminal) by simply showing up. Strange stuff. ■□□□

I Am So Proud Of You (dir. Don Hertzfeld)
This new Don Hertzfeldt short was the main draw of the short film collection and didn't disappoint. For those who don't know, Hertzfeldt is known for his stick figure drawing style and his 2000 comic short Rejected. Over his past three short films he's been shifting from comedy to drama, or a kind of "dramedy". The second chapter in what Hertzfeldt has said will be a three part series follows Bill one year after his recovery from an undisclosed illness in Everything Will Be OK (trailer). The story starts with memories of Bill's childhood and a pastoral look at his (comically) mentally ill family's past. The funny and creative presentation works towards profound ruminations on time and death. Meanwhile Bill learns that at the same time he is improving, everything is not ok. The core of the story is the one certainty in life, "You will only get older."

Hertzfeldt has a real focus on sound and music in his short films, for example see the shot of sound files used in the 2005 short The Meaning of Life above. In Proud Of You you can hear this focus in the family history portion, and in the impact of Richard Wagner's "Vorspiel" near the end. As for animation he really surpassed himself. Hertzfeldt has always strictly limited his films to hand-drawn effects and animation with no computer assistance. In Everything Will Be OK he experimented with some animated photography and does even more here to great effect. There's a lot of humor and philosophy packed into this 22 minute short, most of it subtle but all of it pleasing and worth a look. ■■■■

The Road Trailer

The Road is the epic post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his young son (newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee) across a barren landscape that was blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and most life on earth.

In theaters October 16. Can't wait.

Sarasota Film Festival 2009 Preview

The 2009 Sarasota Film Festival starts tomorrow, March 27 and runs through Sunday, April 5.  Here are the films and shorts I’m going to watch in the order I plan to see them:

	Shorts 1 (for “I Am So Proud of You”) : A lonely stick-figure, Bill, experiences life at its most bittersweet, humiliating, glorious, and sad. Directed by Don Hertzfeld, creator of “Everything is Going to Be OK”, “The Meaning of Life”, and “Rejected”. (reviews)
	Tokyo Sonata : The story of a family on the ropes; when Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) discovers his job has been outsourced to China, he begins an elaborate charade to keep up familial appearances. But he's not the only one with a secret; his young son Kenji (Kai Inowaki) wants to become a classical pianist. How can the family find peace and still keep all of their dreams alive? Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
	We Live in Public : Internet pioneer Josh Harris, founder of Pseudo.com, one of the first online media companies, never saw himself as a dot-com tycoon. Instead, Harris used his growing fortune to explore the artistic implications of emerging technology, creating two prescient projects that would come to shape the future of the Internet forever. Directed by Ondi Timoner.
	Shorts 5 (for “Treevenge”) : Fans of B horror films rejoice: the trees are angry, and they want revenge! Directed by Jason Eisener.
	Examined Life : How can philosophy answer the ethical concerns that dominate our times? Interviewing some of the most profound thinkers of our times, director Astra Taylor explores a wide range of issues, from the ethics of consumption and ecology to the questioning of the limitations of the physical body in determining our identities. Interviewees: Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Žižek, and Judith Butler.
	Treeless Mountain : Jin, a carefree elementary school student in Seoul, South Korea, is the older sister of Bin, a precocious toddler who follows her sister’s every cue and direction. When they and their mother are evicted from the family apartment, the girls are left with their reluctant aunt, a small town hustler whose resentment of the girls is matched only by her negligence. Directed by So Yong Kim.
	Trust Us, This is All Made Up : Hailing from Chicago and the famous Second City comedy theater, TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi create absolutely hilarious hour-long improvisational pieces that are almost too polished to believe. The film features one of their wild and hysterical New York performances from beginning to end, and they promise, it’s improv, so it’s all made up. Directed by Alex Karpovsky. (review) (site)

And here are other films playing I’m interested in but can’t attend for one reason or another:

Kimjongilia : North Korean émigrés uncover the harrowing secrets of a closed country in their own words, and discuss the painful and traumatic division between North and South after the Korean War. Using images from North Korean films and propaganda, this explosive documentary examines the workings of the powerful machine that is the North Korean dictatorship. (trailer) (review)

The Missing Person : In a pitch-perfect interpretation of the classic private detective, Academy-Award nominated actor Michael Shannon plays John Rosow, a struggling alcoholic who is hired to tail a man on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles. Before long, Rosow realizes that he’s been deceived about the job and the identity of the man who he is following, and the new evidence chillingly evokes some of Rosow’s own demons. (trailer)

Old Partner : Documentary about the final days of a long, happy friendship between a South Korean rice farmer named Mr. Lee and his faithful ox. Under the watchful eye of his ever-present wife, Mr. Lee embarks on a daily journey to his small patch of land in his ox cart. Soon, as age catches up with the animal, Mr. and Mrs. Lee must confront the issue of mortality head-on; how could they continue on without the partner who has served them so well? (trailer)

Sorry, Thanks : Kira (Kenya Miles) is in between jobs and in between boyfriends when she has a one-night stand with Max (Wiley Wiggins). Max, who has a steady job and a steady relationship, recognizes his moral digression but can’t help viewing Kira as a much-needed spark. Kira and Max realize that they are still figuring it all out when it comes to love, and to their dreams. (trailer)

Stingray Sam : Sci-fi western rock-and-roll musical, a journey into a world of space travel, male cloning and comedy that borrows equally from John Ford’s The Searchers and the classic Flash Gordon serials of the 1940’s and 50’s. Watch as Sam and his partner The Quasar Kid span the galaxy in search of a kidnapped child! Thrill as Sam and Quasar battle the evil forces of Fredward! (trailer)

Winnebago Man : In the world of viral video, “Winnebago Man” Jack Rebney is the height of celebrity. Rebney’s disintegration into a torrent of expletives during a Winnebago corporate marketing shoot became famous when this footage was released and duplicated onto VHS. Rebney became an underground celebrity whose fame only took off further with the advent of the internet. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer set out to find the real Jack Rebney and discovers that this living internet star was surprisingly difficult to uncover. (review)

An interview with one of the victims of Bernie Madoff. Ronnie Sue Ambrosino had all of her retirement funds invested with Madoff. Now, all she and her husband have to their names is a mortgaged motorhome.

Madoff has plead guilty and faces up to 150 years in prison.

Five Word Review: Let The Right One In (■■■■)

trailer · rottentomatoes · metacritic · imdb

Beautifully grim adolescent vampiric love.

"Please Oskar... Be me, for a little while."

Five Word Review: Synecdoche, New York (■■■■)

trailer · rottentomatoes · metacritic · imdb

"There are millions of people in the world. And none of those people is an extra. They're all leads in their own stories. They have to be given their due."

Five Word Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (■■■□)

trailer · rottentomatoes · metacritic · imdb

Best tale since Big Fish.

"We're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?"

Five Word Review: The Dark Knight

trailers · rottentomatoes · metacritic · imdb

Redefines "You complete me." Scorseseazing.

( ++ )
(double-positive)

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button Teaser Trailer

I caught this before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last month and was stunned. I haven't been as captivated by a teaser like this since Lady In The Water. David Fincher directs, and so confident of the impact of the cinematography his name doesn't even appear in the teaser.

Starts December 19. Based off of a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The music is "Aquarium" from composer Camille Saint-Saëns's The Carnival of the Animals. Here's a version performed by the Esso Trinidad Steel Band.

(via /Film)

UPDATE: The trailer is now available in HD on Apple.