She is here to give me an interview. I am here to meet the "Star Queen." Finally, after a wait, I am ushered into her royal chambers.
Film
BEHIND THE SCENES:
Interview with Lady Magdalene Nichelle Nichols
She is here to give me an interview. I am here to meet the "Star Queen." Finally, after a wait, I am ushered into her royal chambers.
Nichelle Nichols, the original Lt. Uhura from the very first “Star Trek” television series, was in town for the Backlot festival in Culver City. Her latest feature, entered in the Festival competition, was Lady Magdalene, which was directed by J. Neil Schulman, who co-produced it with Ms. Nichols. It is a blend of Comedy Sitcoms of the 50’s and 60’s, with a “Cold War” aura, which has been given a “terrorist” slant. Its convoluted plotline, combined with outrageous dialogue, results in a hilarious entertainment.
In it, Ms. Nichols plays a Madam of a House of Ill-Repute, humorously lording it over her sexy, young girls…and their “johns,” all the while holding “secret meetings” with the CIA and “tailing” one of the Gentlemen Callers for her Homeland Security Operative Boss.
Nicholle sits with a regal, electric, yet relaxed presence. Her still svelte dancer’s figure, smooth skin and composure are highlighted by a trim, tailored pair of pants with a pale, satin blouse, the hue of fine champagne uncorked at just the right moment.
Her smile glimmers as she speaks, matching the sheen of her blouse, radiating whenever she moves. Her words are wisely and carefully measured, like precious pearls on a Tiffany necklace. Yet her manner is warm and carefree.
Nichelle has four films being released this year, is happy with her life – and it shows. As well as singing in Lady Magdalene, she also has several sweet-voiced CDs coming out this year.
Lord knows how she finds time to accomplish so much, but you had better see this Lady soon – before those CIA agents break down her palace door!
NOW SHOWING:
The Dark Knight
Warner Bros.’ The Dark Knight is the first completely successful product of the New Cinema, a designation that requires a reunderstanding of production components. Impressively produced by Christopher Nolan, Charles Roven and Emma Thomas, it furthers the already-observed shifts in creative function, reprioritizing the filmmaking process, stripping film direction (here handled by producer Nolan) of its importance, reducing it to traffic management only.
For this film is not so much directed as it is designed and very heavily storyboarded; consequently, production designer Nathan Crowley is its true creator, moving us smoothly, through the work of visual effects producer Joyce Cox-Weisiger, visual effects coordinator Jennifer Middleton and visual effects editor Steve Miller, through what is a series of unfolding action sequences, one following the other (with an occasional pause) in whisking us through nearly 3 hours without noticing the passage of time. This reliance on non-stop action actually shifts the emphasis from functions featured in the main credits to the second unit work, such as the stunt work, which becomes of central importance.
As it is being reinvented by Hollywood, film has become, in large part, animated, and this Knight is the product of the State-of-the-Art CGI of Double Negative. Established crafts like cinematography and Art Direction are swallowed up by it, and the fact that much of what we are seeing is animated is betrayed by perpetually moving cameras (pans, cranes, tracks, dollies, 360, et al), which ingeniously disguises its presence, primarily inducing vertigo and fragmenting action through the use of strobe lights. This Knight is, in fact, one long visual sleight of hand.
Advanced as the production technically is, it also reveals how stunted cinema’s growth has become, for in key regards, it remains chained to the traditions and techniques established by D. W. Griffith in 1910, primarily in its employment of editing by Lee Smith, which cross cuts between scenes and in its priority of screenplay and acting, thus keeping film anchored in the legacy of Literature and the Theater, which restricts cinema, and makes of it a derivative art. Only in one shot of a cross dressing Joker blowing up a hospital behind him, is the surreal soul of cinema suggested.
The screenplay, by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, in true comic book fashion, touches on a dark ambiguity without ever exploring it. Although the symbiotic nature of Good and Evil, and the social alternatives of Order vs. Chaos, are established, and thereupon blurred (Batman becomes a criminal “who didn’t do anything wrong,” his romantic rival dies an “accidental” death, and, most glaringly, D.A. Harvey Dent becomes Two Face), moral dilemmas are presented and accepted, not given deep thought. The story is actually motored by vigilantism and vengeance; crime, on the scale that Joker perpetrates, is presented as a form of social terrorism. At its heart, the script lionizes unlimited private wealth, and it is interesting to view Bruce Wayne as a philosophical stepchild of The Fountainhead, in its entrepreneur as savior motif, as well as to muse that, in the new Hollywood, the vehicle of transportation has become the character of the one who rides it. In keeping with the cynicism of our time, financial institutions are fronts for criminal activity, while the vulnerability of our Superhero is not expressed emotionally, but visualized by the cuts and bruises he hides underneath his Bat Suit.
Strictly speaking, on a technical level, the script adroitly sidesteps the bathetic, while flirting with it, and blasts past the staginess of some scenes. The film puts great emphasis on its acting, which is mostly expressed through pose: the ageless Morgan Freeman is quietly humorous and authoritative as Lucius Fox, who “spies on 30 million people” while deliciously under acting. As Bruce Wayne himself, Christian Bale is more stoic than wooden as he rasps through his role, without betraying any discernable emotional turmoil as he loses his girl to another. As that girl, Rachel, Outlook Award winning actress Maggie Gyllenhaal is flirtatious and professionally savvy, before ending up as a damsel in distress “with a little fight in her.” Despite some spunkiness, her main purpose in life seems to be to offer Batman his “only hope for a normal life” while betraying him with another. As that other, Aaron Eckhart turns fruity as Two Face. In lesser roles, Gary Oldman is earnest as Lt. James Gordon; as Lau, Chin Han is “a glorified accountant,” and Eric Roberts as Maroni is cut from the stereotypical crime boss’ cloth.
But the film is elevated by the staggeringly scary creation of the Joker, as interpreted by Heath Ledger. His businesslike pose camouflages an inner pain the Ledger miraculously makes palpable. And Ledger doesn’t leave it at that: he brings the vicious and the psychopathic to life, and confronts us with madness and evil. But at what a cost. It is a truly frightening performance and there is genius in it.
Also crucial to the success of the production is the alternately suggestive and gruesome makeup work of Peter Robb-King, and costuming by Lindy Hemming that is mostly understated. The soundtrack by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard was underemployed for dramatic effect and atmospherics only.
What the cinematic reprioritizing that The Dark Knight represents is, at worst, a return to its roots as a superficial entertainment, one peopled by sideshowish “freaks” (Batman and Joker), and, thus, after more than a century, still grounded in the nickelodeon, but, at best, it rescues us from the pretentious and resituates the Art to grow anew, as Art arises out of craftsmanship, and The Dark Knight is nothing if not superbly crafted.
It is distributed by Warner Bros.
Wedding Bell Blues
Written, edited and directed by Jonathan Morgan, his newest release, Wedding Bell Blues finds him in classic form. Deceptively laid back and relaxed, his mise en scene actually is quite flexible and adventurous, alternating as it does between snippets of affectionate domesticity (inserting what is epilogue footage as a prologue), symbolically representing the transfer of sexual power through the transfer of a hat, and employing pole dancers as visual interference.
The script is vintage Morgan: the humor is basically broad, and begins with a dialogue between a “raving bitch” and her “wonderful friend.” Its humor actually camouflages philosophic questions (is marriage the end of freedom, or a “new beginning?”) and interjects wisdom in its recognition of a “(sexual) fantasy life as an enhancement,” while voicing a psychological truism in a scene where “danger and fear” are a “turn on” for a female character, thus particularizing the general in regard to female sexual response. Cleverly, Morgan’s script employs sex scenes as a way of either establishing character (Mom) or as a remembrance or as a fantasy. In almost all cases, sex is a mental activity.
What most impresses about this film, however, is the exquisite quality of its images. The videography of Francois Clousot is balanced in composition, prowls in familiar fashion and slowly zooms in and out. The lighting of gaffer Frank Booth is rich and flavorful; its blue hues are luminous and the greens are nearly phosphorous. His work is vibrant and plastic.
Beyond this, the art direction of Jay Jordan is atmospheric, particularly in his evocation of a Strip Club straight out of the collective subconscious. The editing by Morgan himself is smooth, and the soundtrack is always scene appropriate, be it funky or spooky.
It is sadly ironic that this concluding film with Kirsten Price is about getting into a marriage. Her bride is “getting cold feet,” as she prepares to “give away a piece of myself” with “impure thoughts.” Though she herself “likes it both ways,” she learns more about her mother than she ever wanted to know. There has never been an actress who personified the gamine more naturally and completely than Price, and she will be missed.
As “Mom,” Nicolette Sheridan turns in a high velocity performance as a MILF who “needs sugah” and has an “unquenchable thirst for dark meat.” A mother capable of this sort if sex would certainly intimidate her daughter. Samantha Sin gives a great performance as the bride’s gal pal, spending “$300 on a dress” and engaging in girl talk. Finally, as a delectable customer, Ann Marie Rios displays her tight abs.
As usual, the male performers bring the most character to their parts: As the groom Kevin, Chris Cannon “never said partner before” and is “not the superstitious type.” It was intriguing to see a real life decent guy play a fictitious decent guy on film. Randy Spears appears as a priest with a past…and an Irish brogue. (He likes to role-play as an “Adult Baby.”) Sean Michaels “starts the Revolution as Mustafa, baby,” Dane Cross hikes the wild outdoors, and Justice Young offers “the easy way or the hard way.”
The sumptuous technique of this film aside, Wedding Bell Blues is ultimately a reaffirmation of marriage that is intelligent and funny, two qualities that define Jonathan Morgan at his best.
It is distributed by Wicked Pictures.
X Files: I Want to Believe
Well, I wanted to believe, too…that they could make a successful film out of the premise of the hit TV Show and segue from small screen to the big screen. But, instead of seizing the opportunity the cinematic format offered the franchise, this production imploded on itself and simply regurgitated stylistic formulae we have seen before. Not only was the direction, cinematography (which shifts focus pointlessly) and editing the definition of Conventional, we had technically been there and done that with all phases of the production, save the production design of Mark S. Freeborn, which created ice cold environs convincingly.
This just left the screenplay by Frank Spotnitz and series creator Chris Carter to interject some originality, but their script was ridiculous, instead. Carrying over a theme of the television show, it accepts the Psychic as forensic science, a science where one “feels” evidence. The Psychic that the F.B.I. follows is a pedophilic priest who functions as their divining rod. Women abductees are confined like dogs, and castration is shown to be a sure fire solution for deviant “sexual hungers.” There is a laughable, totally off-the-wall equation that the script postulates: same sex marriage + Russians = criminal activity, although, to the Russians, serial killing is “God’s work,” at least, according to the Psychic.
While the script basically is paranoia for its own sake, it is also distinctly fascistic. Consider this: not only is one immigrant trying to save the life of another immigrant by murdering All-American Anglo women, but one pederast is trying to save the life of another pederast by murdering women and placing female livers into men (talk about adding insult to injury.). Dogs who howl at the moment of murder, later, when dispatched on women, give the term “dog meat” a whole new meaning. The screenplay parodies the series’ own formula, and the product ends up delirious and out of control, over relying on situational coincidence to move its plot forward (And Mulder just happened to turn the corner when…).
Which brings us to the “acting.” As Fox Mulder, David Duchovny had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, and, thus, his performance, as an agent in distress, is winnable. But his co-star, Gillian Anderson, has all the appeal of Janet Reno: her Scully is unfeminine, unpleasant and unattractive – how would Mulder ever end up in bed with her? As a surgeon who Googles, she declares that stubbornness is a good reason to fall in love. A do-gooder with attitude, her role is absurd and aggravated by the seriousness with which she takes it (“I’ve got work to do!”).
While the female victims are…er, going to the dogs, Billy Connolly as Father Joe (“clearly a very sick man”) is having post-castration visions that Mulder believes in…and says that he “can prove.” The saccharine, uplifting music that accompanies Mulder’s announcement only makes it ring even more false. The same could be said about the production’s use of Catholic imagery (if I were Benedict, I’d sue for slander.).
Although the ludicrous script informs us that, each in their own way, Mulder and Scully do not “want to give up” (on each other? Father Joe? Christian Fearon?), as their comically digitalized avatars rowed off into the sunset, it was abundantly clear that that is precisely what Fox should do with this series.
It is distributed by 2oth Century Fox.
Public Service
Watching Public Service is like watching a train wreck. You see everything go terribly wrong, cannot prevent it, yet, you cannot divert your eyes. Suffice to say, it is one of the least successful films I have ever seen.
The fault for this mishap must come to rest on the shoulders of its creator, David Stanley, who both wrote the script and directed it. We use the word directed advisedly, as he never really seemed to take charge of it, resulting in a film, which was, at best, muddled, haphazard and completely illogical. Amongst chaotic close ups, Stanley inserts totally arbitrary video tech footage. But, conversely, those images that are coherent get lingered on so long that we are left to question them (just why was that overhead lamp swaying?), although we do get images catering to shoe and foot fetishism rubbed in our face.
Clinical psychiatrists will tell you that male masochism harbors a secret hatred of the women it worships, and this observation is certainly voiced by Stanley’s script, which is very slow to unravel and, then again, does so in very choppy fashion. On the one hand, Stanley sets the scene for the fierce interrogation of males by a female (undercover) cop, yet ultimately condemns this same cop as a mad killer. If one is going to do a film on the subject of such a policewoman, then the homework should be done to familiarize oneself with the subject. But clearly this film was not researched. We get a ridiculous soliloquy about evidence (as opposed to “gut feeling”); No detective would be allowed to live with – let alone mate with – the prime suspect, married to him or not. Such a compromised detective would not be assigned to the case in the first place. The script is the product of a very confused mind.
The technical side of the production suffers from the lack of coherent direction. The camerawork of Francois Clousot, at best, gives us some interesting compositions that are not explored, in certain shots shows us impressive depth of field, and, at times, makes cramped quarters breathe. But the images he delivered ultimately just get jumbled together in the editing, which is done mostly through dissolves by Alex Sanders (then again, what did he have to work with?). The lighting by Lance Boyle is his usual highlights and latticework, but, when jumbled together, isn’t given a context to explain it. The coup d’etat is the art direction by Jay Jordan, which is threadbare.
The thankless task of starring in this mess is assigned to jessica drake, in the role of Monica, for whom murder is a “jealous overreaction.” To her credit, Ms. drake conveys a subtle weariness in her character, and explodes in interrogational outbursts (interrogation as a pipe dream of female domination). Yet, the actress’ basic sweetness peeks through, even when least expected, and, for such an undercover Top, she sure takes orders well. drake isn’t given a character to work with. As Monica, she simply is a male submissive’s daydream. Consequently, in the final analysis, her part doesn’t add up or make anything approaching logical sense.
The character of her husband, Jack, bequeathed to Barrett Blade, isn’t any better. As written, the part is mostly defined by situations, so in truth, there is no character there for the actor to grasp. Blade has literally almost nothing to work with.
The rest of the cast do scene work. As “poor little Mindy,” Dana Dearmond spits and gets a face full of Jessie, played by Kelly Skyline. As Alexa, Darryl Hanah “changes quick” and “knows what you like.” As Rainbow, Lindsay Meadows “gets the stain out” and “forgets the rules.”
The male talent is more well rounded; Chris Cannon is a debonair big spender, who inexplicably turns out to be the establishment’s owner. Eric Masterson gets to “see downstairs” and gives the word audition a whole new meaning. Randy Spears, as homicidal Gerald, puts his tie to good use and “wants to come all over you.” In cameos, David Stanley himself uses coupons, while F. J. Lincoln is wholly inappropriate as a Chief of Police (an old Hell’s Angel, maybe).
The whole enterprise suffers from being out of control, letting increasingly improbable action ramble on, and ending without resolution because it doesn’t know where it should go. This film is no Public Service. It is a shambles.
It is distributed by Wicked Pictures.
FROM THE VAULT:
Symbiotic Cinema
In cinema, the audience sometimes sees what is unseen and this has never been better illustrated than in the intense chemistry apparent in films made by Andrew Blake and featuring Dahlia Grey in the period from 1995 to 2005.
This almost tangible chemistry was the product of a psychologic binding, a reciprocal addiction between the two parties, which unraveled due to the very different origins of it. Grey’s was simpler; as Blake later ruefully remembered, “she was a whore through and through,” one who wanted “to get as much out of me for as long as she could.”
Yet there was more to it than that: Blake had glamorized a common stripper to the point of mythologizing her. In a manner reminiscent of Dietrich with von Sternberg, Grey realized no one could enshrine her as well as Blake, so following her breakup with him, she faded back into the obscurity from whence she came rather than attempt to replicate her glory.
This chemistry was volatile: Spats on the set would culminate in her onsite termination and her tearful apology, frequently offered when nude, would follow, resulting in her immediate reinstatement. Similarly, Grey’s moodiness, hinting at the bipolar, ultimately caused a rupture in the professional relationship and necessitated that she begged to be recontracted in 2002. Yet from start to finish, her dependency on Blake was primarily financial and essentially calculating. (One aspect of the make-believe world of Andrew Blake that is not often commented upon is its monetary unreality. Wealth and privilege is an unspoken subtext in his work and Grey, a mulatto, who considered herself “to be Black,” may have felt that she would financially exploit the privileged, as it were.)
Blake’s addiction was considerably more complicated and more multi-faceted. One may safely say that for Blake, filmmaking itself is an addiction and that his own commercial and artistic success enables it. Concurrent with the ascension of Grey in his work, a certain substance abuse was recklessly accelerating in his private life, which clouded his judgment. It reflected a weakness that Grey, intentionally or not, exploited. In such a compromised capacity, Blake created his own Galatea out of Grey and confused fiction with reality. He had the fictional Grey mouth his self-scripted words to his camera: “I love you.” And he believed it.
It is intriguing to interpret this not merely as a willful, self-delusional artist and his malleable flesh-and-blood material; it invites us to consider the subsequent surrender of creative control to the object of his obsession as if a duality within the artist was having a conversation with itself.
In the beginning Grey’s first appearance in Blake’s cinema was incidental and almost innocent. She willingly submitted on camera to Blake’s softened sadism in Captive Beauty and was contained and objectified in a short feature at that time, Dahlia Fetish, but once under contract to Blake, beginning with Wet, the director began to lose control of his protégé and as a substance began to take control of him, so did Grey, who went from fulfilling a function in his films to converting the act of filmmaking into a maze of productions wherein she was, for all intents and purposes, worshipped by other women and by Blake’s lens. This redirection of his cinema reached its nadir in 1999’s Aroused.
During this period, Grey dominated “her” filmmaker, restricting personal interaction with him to the set. All the while, while submitting to “his” vision in front of the lens, she was dictating what she would or would not do behind the scenes, Topping, as it were, from the Bottom.
By the time Blake filmed another featurette, Dahlia in Bondage, with her, he had been reduced to a virtual milquetoast, obediently following her around the set, while she told him what “they” had decided to do.
In 1999, in a pique, Blake severed the arrangement and, in the ensuing years, reasserted himself with some of his finest work, such as Aria, Justine, Adriana, and his finest film to date, Blondes and Brunettes. He rediscovered his focus and reestablished creative control.
So when Grey, pleading, returned in 2002, Blake’s work did not subsequently reflect a relinquished control. Indeed, Grey’s primary presence in the films that followed in this period was to be seen in the featurettes that accompanied them, none more tellingly than Gold Boots or String Tied. Especially in Gold Boots, but also in other scenes from this period, there is a palpable sense of inflicting willingly accepted punishment on Grey for her transgressions, not so much through corporality, but through the emotional force of the scenes.
After being chastised in this very public manner, Ms. Grey reassumed her throne – briefly – in Naked Diva and shot some scene work which was released eventually as Teasers, with outtakes compiled for Teasers 2 in 2005.
By this point in time, Studio A, alarmed by the financial extravagance Grey incurred for the company, as well as certain creative co-contributors vital to the creation of Andrew Blake products, whose professional function Grey had encroached upon, raised strenuous objections to continuing the association with Grey. Thus, the association with Grey was severed a second time, not to be reinstated, her pleas to Blake notwithstanding.
Despite perpetually, in codependent fashion, misbehaving, being fired, apologizing, and abasing herself, despite her petulance, it is beyond question that this woman, partially by keeping herself unavailable to the filmmaker, unleashed an emotional cauldron in Blake which, when viewing the films featuring her together, creates a powerful cumulative effect. In the onscreen Dahlia Grey, Blake created a fiction, fell in love with it, responded emotionally to and reacted to his own Illusion, which was a strongly subconscious, yet conversely outward, manifestation of a life, which was, at that time, spinning out of control.
The entire catalogue of films featuring Dahlia Grey by Andrew Blake is available exclusively through Studio A Entertainment. To put it mildly, they make for compelling viewing.
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