In a Dream: Jeremiah Zagar

and Ross Kauffman, executive producer (Born into Brothel)
A family saga featuring, wife, two sons and the "famous father" who plays himself. Anal expulsive man brings life, color. texture, images into consciousness if we want it or not.

Participate in the launching of the film, the magic garden tour and extravaganza. Become a member of the family or feel as if you are and be grateful that you can walk away, even if you can't forget.

FRIDAY, APRIL 17TH, 2009
"In A Dream" opens at the Landmark Ritz at the Bourse in Philadelphia The Magic Garden Party commences
April 18th! and April 18, 2009
12:00pm
The South Philly Mosaic Walking Tours
April 18th, 12 – 4 pm
Food, music, crafts and more!
$4 entry; $6 for tour
And I am certain there will be more to follow.

This is a film that reflects the mind set of a man who is not shy with self advertisement, with spreading the word, with getting the self displayed in all its ugliness and all its beauty.

Personally i could not live with this man/artist Isaiah Zagar His work over whelmes me. I need peace and quiet and blank white walls to feast my eyes upon. Isaiah knows no quiet and yet he seldom talks except to his cement.

But when he does speak, the people in his inner circle (of which there are few) listen, obey, take note with more than a passing fancy and perhaps you will too.

The music is special, the art is fantastic, the love of texture, color, feel, is great. The connection to people is slime but Isaiah holds on, keeps going and I guess that is what he wants to inspire in others. To persevere in this moment called life.

Note: There is a strong similiarity between this film and the work of Ross Kauffman(executive producer) of "Born into Bothel" fame. A similarity in the love of art and art shows and the predominance of confusion, the almost 'too much'. For me these films create an intensely interesting experience until I shut down. Stimulous overload and i give up and walk away.

The best moment in In A Dream was when Isaiah brings out an orange cavas folding chair, a color he does not work with. An obvious addition from his wife. He opens it up in the middle of an empty oversized room replete with walls filled with his artistic creations and sits down. He is smling. So am I.


If you are a art lover, a lover of documentary film, this film is for you. And the Magic Garden party? It promises to be an extra family delight.


LindaZises
WBAI Women Collective

WBAI Discussion: The downside of the Women Revolution

WBAI Women Collective:
On the air discussion can be heard on the internet at WBAI.Org

On March 9th Linda Zises hosted two guest, Andrea Fishman from the Local Station Board and LaVarn Willians, the financial officer from the Pacifica foundation in Berkeley California. Pacifica is the parent organization of which WBAI is one of its five member stations.

The guests spoke to particular issues of concern to WBAI listeners which is of particular importance as
WBAI radio(99.5 F.M. N.Y.) is operating at a deficit that is threatening its continuation as a radio station and internet community voice


Linda Zises spoke on the topic: Rethinking women liberation. The downside of liberation

Who is doing the work women used to do? Women in the armed forces raises the question, who is taking care of our children?


Who does the in the house tasks, the "untouchable" work. Whose voice is behind the man who goes to work and makes a public reputation for himself

Clearly this question can not be adequately answered in the brief format of an half hour radio program however............

The point is to raise consciousness about women and the women movement; the personal price of success for women, for their families and for society.

In particular, without volunteer women groups and work to keep WBAI fluid, WBAI has been pauperized both in quality of WBAI work environment and its financial health.

Who brings food into the the station when needed, who answers the phones and fills out pledge cards? Who sends out the premiums, who cleans up paper clips and rubber bands. And who has the time to conduct a detailed examination of phone usage, the cost of supplies and the value of the products purchased.

The loss of "women work" as it was once called translates into money lost, and an atnosphere of all stars or masters of the art of radio and no one to do the work needed to continue to put the WBAI voice into the ears of community listeners

What do you think?

Is there a backlash, a downside to the women revolution.

LindaZises
WBAI Women Collective

Twilight: DVD......... Supremely enjoyable but............

Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Written by: Melissa Rosenberg, based on the book by Stephanie Meyers
With: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Peter Facinelli.

Twilight is the perfect teenage coming of age film
a date flick that informs on how to relate to temptation, to love,
to those who see you as different, not fitting in.......

this is a film that honors yet separates the teenager from his/her parents
this is a film so beautiful in scenery, photography It is splended, breathtaking
this is a film where the shining knight on a white horse goes beyond the superman of yesteryear
to the vampire, who want your blood, not your body, but learns self control for the good of persevering his love ideal, the girl with a heart and adult intelligence way beyond her years.

this is a film that pits bad guys against good guys(no guns used in combat) that flies you into the air, defying gravity to show your superiority amidst us, the limited mortals.
The chase scene replicates the video car scenes upon which many a teenager today has spent the better part of their free time and Google is prominent in helping to understand the world.

this is a film that couldn't absorb more of what parents want for their children.
Children love it, adults love it. It is done with such care and understanding.

the only problem is, what world are they addressing. Is it the ideal film for the world before the economy turned sour and kind/helper big brother loomed large in our imagination or is it a relic of the past projected into a future that is no more.

In either case,it is supremely entertaining nostalgic or not.

LindaZises

WBAI Women Collective
Criticalwomen.net

Gigantic: Matt Aselton’s debut feature

Wins Top Prize at AFI Dallas

Starring Zooey Deschanel, Paul Dano (Now shooting “The Extra Man” with Katie Holmes, “There Will be Blood”, “Little Miss Sunshine”)
Edward Asner, Jane Alexander & John Goodman
Written and directed by Matt Aselton

An unmarried, (and uninvolved) working class man of twenty something in search of a life's fantasy/mission/goal; to adopt a Chinese baby.

Gigantic is an empty fantasy style film that can proudly boost about its extraordinary acting. But why these great performers decided to take the job remains unclear.

For starters, what does the title signify? That an immediate comprehensible answer does not come to mind even after one lives through the film experience is a serious problem. The second problem is with the "attacker". Is he real, a fantasy, a product of drugs too many, a rip off of one of the brothers? That said.........


John Goodman is so so so funny The Chinese baby at the end of the film is a delight, a wonderful memorable character but what is the film about?

I loved Jane Alexander, how could I not. The only down moment was again the woman, the mother John Goodman's former wife who was so out of it, such a downer. Why is it always the women who miss the boat, who cause the real pain and irreparable problems in film plots.

In my opinion what is wrong with this film is the private references and important personal memories that somehow never rise up to public comprehension.
What is right with this film is the fun in the making that comes across the screen and the acting. The acting and character stretches are well worth seeing.

Opening Today in NYC

LindaZises
WBAI Women Collective

OBLIVION;: FUNNY, YET SAD, AND BEAUTIFUL

El Olvido

Heddy Honigmann, Director:

"All my films are about fighters, people putting up resistance. Against oblivion and loss"

Oblivion is no exception.

Heddy Honigmann's extraordinary ability to capture the essence of her subjects, the layer upon layer of meaning, of progression from one moment to the next, her images that speak volunms to the narrative, spoken frankly, often emotionally, always directly into the camera and into our hearts and our minds creating an impression that lingers. I feel as if I know these people. I am there with the camera talking, listening, learning and laughing. This film has humor. It is not depressing, It is illuminating and that is what makes it so enjoyable, so worthwhile.

By the end of the documentary I am almost convinced that I now know the history of Peru, a brief history, not going all the way back but the history that spans the latter 1900's into 2000; the history of corruption, of insidious poverty side by side, moment by moment of footage.

Oblivion chronicles the life of a people who somehow find a way to survive, to keep going even as their ranks swell into the millions of inhabitants in Lima and the politicians, the men in charge continue to be baboons, murders, the worst of human kind. The use of food as a way to learn the customs, the way of life in Peru is wonderful.

And the children!

Heddy Honigmann brings the children into focus again and again. They are, for the most part, happy with little to nothing of their own. Education is not within their grip and yet, they survive seemingly without anger. They toil with a smile, they beg with a casual acceptance of being ignored. It is almost as if the entire notion of failure escapes them.

This is a film that brings life in Lima Peru into our hearts and minds, a work of distinction that only Heddy Honigmann could do with such aplomb.

http://www.heddy-honigmann.nl/hhonigmann/films/elolvido
Opens April 15th at Film Forum in New York City.

LindaZiawa
wbai women collective

The Class

Esmeralda Ouertani as Sandra and Rachel Regulier as Khoumba in The Class

The Class is the story of a high school teacher working in a tough Paris neighborhood where ethnicities, cultures and attitudes often clash in the classroom as it does in the world beyond the school environment.

What is the job, the chances of success of a well meaning teacher who wants to foster the student's potential to become part of main stream society where they and their families are marginalized?

That is the question posed in this autobiographic film.

It is a quiet film with few special effects or profound and alarming stressful moments as it poses a gentle yet provocative confrontation with our wish to help others despite insurmountable obstacle to this goal.

It isn't clear if the teacher Francois Begeaudeau succeeds or whether the children's resistance to change wins the day, but the struggle is certainly worth the price of admission.

See another side of Paris, the "charming" European city

Now playing at the Cobble Hill theater Brooklyn New York


Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective

SUGAR

Written and Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson)

Plot:
Sugar is a film about a Dominican pitcher from San Pedro De Macorís' struggle to make it into the big American leagues At age 19 he advances to the United States’ minor league system; but when his play on the mound falters, he begins to question the single-mindedness of his life’s ambition

Commentary:
Sports drama, immigrant journey, and coming-of-age story, summed up in a self discovery drama WoW
What more could a child want, what more could a mother struggling to convince her son that maybe being single minded in his thirst for baseball fame and fortune might not be the way to go.

The problem is this film is not truly suitable for children. It isn't robust enough to hold an adults unwavering attention and it's too sophisticated for a child. It is one of those in between films that I want to recommend whole heartedly to my son, but can't.

Sony Pictures Classics will release “Sugar” in April 2009

Linda Z
WBAI Women's Collective

LIVE AND BECOME: On DVD

Radu Mihaileanu

Can Love conquer Fear and Hate?

Live and Become is a love story and a history lessen with up to date scenes from Israel, where I have never been. It is based on the story of the people who were airlifted from a Sudanese refugee camp to Israel in 1984 during Operation Moses.

This film is a tour de force that opens the viewers eyes to what it is like to be a nine year old orphan, to be different in color and experience from those we live with, and to feel the weight and pressure of unconditional love in spite of the gulf that defines and divides us.

This is a film for the romantic, for the intellectual, for those who might not know about the Ethiopian migration into Israel where the politicians wanted the immigrants to boost their number of citizens but the Israel people were afraid of the color of their skin, the spread of potential desease from AIDs or worse and the possibility that these foreigners were in fact posing as Jewish people but were not Jewish and never had been.

Beautifully acted, the story unfolds slowly with particular attention to detail and the translation, the subtittles were way above average.

Enormous in scope.
Live and Become covers a multitude of issues that most of us would rather forget but can't.

On DVD


Linda Z(ises)
WBAI Women's Collective
Criticalwomen.Net

WENDY AND LUCY: Intensity without glitter

Kelly Reichardt

Jonathan Raymond (writer)
Kelly Reichardt (writer)

Michelle William Wendy
Will Patton Mechanic

Wendy and Lucy is a coming of age film, an adolescent girl has elected to take a car trip with her dog Lucy up to Alaska where she hopes to find a summer job and reach adulthood en route.

This is an intensely moving film, its emotional worth is achieved through the excellent acting of Wendy, (Michelle Williams), in her most subtle yet striking performance, and with the slow-elongated scenes reflective of the way most working class and bohemian people think and live their lives. There is always a palpable undercurrent, of disaster, an outbreak of over powering destructive force because of the steady course Wendy tries to steer. Her failures are many and yet in the end her achievement is remarkable.

An American 2008 film without glitter, without intensity of action without super this or super that and without the introduction of state of the art animation is a film to cherish, to support and to hope, that the human experience that allows the audience to feel what they want without being told through music or action is a delight. A relic of the past that will hopefully grow stronger, more plentiful next year

Linda Zises
WBAI Women Collective

Forbidden Lie$

Anna Bronowski
"We are never deceived, we deceive ourselves" Goethe.

Story line:
The film's subject is Norma Khouri, a Jordanian woman who has a perfect American accent that could only have been developed in a non English speaking person under the age of seven.
Khouri found fame and fortune in 2001 with the publication of her book Forbidden Love, said to be a biographical story concerning a Muslim coming of age girl and friend of Norma Khouri who was brutally murdered (stabbed to death) by her family for having a relationship with a Christian man.
A few years later journalists started poking holes in the story, leading the public to question the veracity of the story told.
Forbidden Lie$ covers this statement of fact quickly but thoroughly in the beginning of the documentary, and from there we spend most of our time in the company of Norma Khouri as she tries to convince us that her novel is more than fiction. Thankfully she fails.

Reviewer Comments:
Director Anna Broinowski has found a truly fascinating woman to study. She conducts endless interviews with Khouri as she seeks the truth. As in life, the truth is not so easy to find.
Norma claims she fears for her life, worried about violent backlash over the unsavoury portrait her novel paints of Jordanian Muslims. She refuses to return to Jordan and show us the facts. Broinowski is not deterred however, and slowly puts the pieces together in front of us.

The documentary is done with a great deal of good feeling towards Norma Khouri who continues to spin a deceit upon her viewing/reading audience.

But at the core of this very well done, entertaining documentary is a fundamental ethical question, one that might be lost in the moment as we are taken from one journey to another in search of Truth. To entertain has its limits. To feed off of current prejudice to compose a supposedly true story that takes these erroneous and deleterious ideas to an extreme is immoral. To allow ourselves to be taken into the criminal world of a woman who dumps her children on a single woman of limited resources, emotionally and financially. and justifies her lack of honesty by siting former president G.W. Bush as her moral authority, is reprehensible.

To smile at a job well done by Anna Broinowski without the proper perceptive compromises the appeal of her work.
With that in mind, if you want pure entertainment and know what the film is about, then by all means, enjoy the moment.

Linda Z
WBAI Women Collective