Star Trek Exploring New Worlds is a delightful exhibition that explores the quite relevant themes the series – in all its iterations – sought to explore. A history of the sci fi show’s production – we can thank Lucille Ball in part, for her belief in the project when others found it too costly or unappealing; costumes; culture; and various characters are all a part of a thoroughly engaging collection.
Costuming art Commercial conquests Props of all kinds
Props and artifacts, the storyline of each series and spin-off, and production models are all there. Delightfully well-curated, the exhibition treats the series and both its message and artistic design with both reverence and humor. Pose in the Captain’s chair or try out your prop phasers and get beamed up in a variety of video scenes you can watch enfold via Blue Screen magic.
As much fun as the exhibition is, it is the unfolding of its cultural impact, its messages of inclusiveness and kindness that both the Skirball, and the series itself, explores to purpose. To say that Star Trek the series went where no series had gone before is entirely true. It introduced many of the concepts we now discuss in daily life, as well as some classic catch phrases. It took an early look at the issues and understandings we now strive to reach, or at least attempt to do so, including equality between cultures and races as well as between men and women. One of the reasons for both the original series’ appeal and that of the iterations that came after it, is that the tenets it holds most dear, of learning to accept one another and our differences, never gets old.
Interactive Fun
Thematically, tolerance, reverent history, championship for those who need championing, and a willingness to explore are all inherent in the Skirball’s own mission, adding further resonance to the exhibition.
Both charming and informative, with savvy insider production knowledge and an intelligent look at the series’ impact on viewers and the entertainment industry, Exploring New Worlds offers a smart look at a pop-culture phenomena viewed through a lens of appreciation and the hope for a better tomorrow.
Heartily wishing the Skirball Cultural Center’s deeply enjoyable exploration of Star Trek will live long and prosper. The exhibition runs through February 20th, 2022, a space trip for all ages.
We reviewed a number of features at the 2021 Dances with Films – with more ahead – but the short film program is such a powerful part of Dances with Films, it’s time to take a look at some of truly terrific offerings we viewed this year before I return to the feature offerings we screened.
Outside the shorts program per se – a part of the Downbeat music selections – was the absolutely charming animated squirrels in The World’s Gone Nutz. This hilarious – and insanely catchy musical featurette is part of a series from animator Daniel Robert Cohn’s squirrel world. In this iteration, the first all-squirrel band, Squirrel Me Bad offers a pithy comment on politics and social mores over the past year. Seasonal squirrel offerings are also afoot on Cohn’s website which thanks to DWF 2021 I’m alerted to enjoy.
If you’ve ever flown in one of the great birds of the sky known as airplanes, there was plenty of fun to relate to in “Airway,” a smart, quick, hilarious fear of flying gone mad.
“Anniversary” is a visual and emotional stunner from writers and director Craig Ouellette & Neal McLaughlin that looks to be just the beginning of the road for this team. Subversive and strange. We were ready for more.
Generally creepy was the tension-filled and sleek “Black Hole.” “Bossbabes” was a ride with lots of humorous twists and turns to keep viewers guessing and laughing. Vibrant and compelling the music pulsed through the message of a powerful “Enough.”
“Georgia” was a heartbreaking and perfectly told story of parents seeking justice for their daughter’s tragic attack and death.
“The Huntsman and the Hound” created a brilliant atmospheric that anchored the tale of two hitmen at odds.
“Incognito” was a well-polished period story of forbidden love and secret consequences that offered a nice mix of the imagined and the real.
All nightmare was the mordantly funny, riveting, horror-tinged “The Jester’s Song,” offering the aftermath of a Rapture in which all the good people seem to have left the earth behind. But briefly, let there be music. Hope to see much more from writer/director Michael Woloson.
“Klutz” offered a happy ending to a sorrowful but sweet story of loss and spiritual connection in a tale of sisterly love and supernatural conversation.
More shorts coverage is coming, but for now –
Returning to feature selections at DWF…
New Year is an emotionally harrowing long night’s journey into New Year’s Day. Beautifully shot in black and white, the intimate cast moves from edgy friendship and sputtering marriage to confessional disaster. Director and co-writer Nathan Sutton keeps viewers as tense and involved as his characters celebration, as married duo Benjamin and Katherine, host a party with closest friends before moving from LA to NYC.
A sense of elegy also permeated Sing to Me Sylvie, in which former bandmates reconnect in Portland. One is married but still attached to her past, the other a surprisingly content homeless itinerant musician. This was one of the film’s that didn’t quite connect for me, but the turbulence of a touring performer’s life had undeniable appeal.
In another encore performance from the virtual 2020 fest, Take Out Girl pulls viewers into the nightmare that pursuit of the “American Dream” has often become. Here, the “take out girl” for her family’s struggling restaurant begins to deliver the goods for a drug kingpin as well, with potentially shattering results.
With festival offerings overall less lighthearted than some viewed in previous years, They/Them/Us with a zany blended potential family and kinky sex play offered a humorous perspective in this slice of the Brady Bunch life for modern times.
A festival standout for me was Voodoo Macbeth, a collaborative work by multiple directors and writers through the USC film program. This simply terrific film took on a true story and made it sing with heart and hope. Set in a beautifully realized 1936 Harlem, the first all-Black cast production of ‘Macbeth’ struggles toward opening night under the helm of an increasingly unhinged young director, none other than Orson Welles. Fascinating story, filmmaking, and a fantastic cast – it glued viewers to their seats. An incredibly fine film.
Black and white, Chaplinesque from its score to shooting style, What? offered an engaging look at today’s LA in silent-movie style. The fairytale-like quality of this story of a deaf actor tired of discrimination against him, the film is reminiscent of 2011 Academy Award winner The Actor, and equally lovingly-made.
Also calling back a previous film for me – in this case Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, was the extremely well done and haunting love story that marks the central tenet of the Russian film Dreamover. Mysterious and magical, a journey from loneliness into the the love language of the past proves a trip worth taking.
And, speaking of journeys, there’s Holidays at All Costs. This French comedy of errors takes viewers into an hilarious and harrowing vacation, hard earned by a loving father who has more than earned a far better resort stay than this one. Lots of fun.
More features and final words ahead and so many rising stars and smart screenings at DWF 2021.
Genie Davis; photos courtesy of filmmakers, also by Jack Burke
“Let’s Get Physical” was the catch phrase for the 24th annual Dances with Films festival at the TCL Chinese in Hollywood. Last year viewed virtually, this year it was time to don those masks and sit down to enjoy films on the big screen.
From shorts to features, there was plenty to see at the always-eclectic event. This set of reviews is not the last – this year the program ran an expanded number of days, from August 26 to September the 12th.
Voting this year for audience awards utilized a QR code, which was even easier than marking up a piece of paper with a pencil as in pre-pandemic times. Q and A’s were as lively as ever, and the mix of comedy, drama, horror, and even sci-fi invigorating.
Also new this year: the First Film Series, which served up some fascinating looks at the works of and discussions with honoree filmmakers including producer Michael London and director Paul Greengrass. Greengrass, the director of United 93 was a moving inclusion, a fitting tribute to both filmmaker and the somber anniversary of 9/11.
Rather than going in festival order, we’ll start with some features, and move on to the vibrant shorts programs.
As always offering a stimulating start, the opening-night film was the premiere of The Art of Protest, an exciting, kinetic documentary from Colin M. Day, packed with interviews from elite rockers and espousing power of music and protest. The film was a rousing success as both a galvanizing opener and an eye-opener about politics and change.
While I’d love to be as enthusiastic about the fest’s closer, Mars Roberge’s Mister Sister, despite allowing a fascinating look into NYC’s drag scene, the film felt more like a documentary hopeful than a narrative feature, and just didn’t register for me. The red carpet interactions with some of the film’s supporting players gave a tantalizing look at what could’ve been – maybe next time.
There were far more hits than near misses at the fest, no mean feat with a lineup that included over 250 varied films, from 350 filmmakers. I’ll take on the festival as best I can, starting out with an an alphabetical look at the feature films we had the pleasure to view.
Thematically, a number of films seemed to hit on moments of isolation, addiction, and recovery, but there were lighthearted moments as well.
Among the films that offered a taste of both, Addict Hal was a surprisingly fresh and moving take on addicts in a recovery program, viscerally plunging viewers into the harrowing road to getting – and staying – clean with humor and poignancy.
Likewise, Alex/October offered a mix of touching moment and dark humor in a film that explored a friendship evolving from a man’s Craigslist ad seeking a hired killer to end his own personal misery. Restless, curious, and unhappy, a young woman meets suicidal new BFF in a film that evoked memories of Harold & Maude without the whimsy and music along the way.
In a second look from last year’s fest, which I viewed virtually, a woman comes to terms with the loss of her marriage in before/during/after, a fine film that takes a wistful look at the life of an actress in emotional transition.
One of my very favorite films of the 2021 festival was the dark emotional world of Bone Cage. Pitch perfect in tone, beautifully acted, the tragic story of a lost soul in an economically devastated rural community was a fully successful film adaptation of a play by Catherine Banks. Written and directed by Taylor Olson, who also starred in the film, this one tore a hole in my heart.
The Catch was another dark and tragic film that resonated, a noir and haunting story from Matthew Ya-Hsiung Balzer. Redolent with the salt air of a small Maine fishing town and the desperation of a young woman returning home from an abusive relationship, Balzer took viewers on a dangerous, compelling journey.
Moody in black and white, Ghostwriter explored the mentor/mentee relationship, the meaning of family, and creativity. In this four-hander character study, ghosts can be composed of words, or memories or the fading reach of fame.
Evan Wood gave viewers another look at addiction – a sister coming to terms with the mental unbalance and addiction of her brother following the death of their grandmother.
Beneath the Banyan Tree explored another family’s coming-to-terms, here with generational family ties, the difficulty of immigration and assimilation, and the even greater difficulty of self-acceptance in the relationship between a mother and daughter.
Family ties were also a strong focus in Last Night in Rozzie, a Boston set story of a dying friend’s wish for his estranged son, and the traumas of the past in a poetic and graceful character study.
Generation Wrecks was another film I loved. But, unlike the harrowing filmic knife-thrusts of my other favorites, Bone Cage and The Catch, this was a lighthearted coming of age film, filled with great performances, an unbelievably terrific soundtrack, and a fully realized, touching and funny story of revenge, forgiveness, and growing-up. A bit of both the Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink infused the spirit of this winning, heart-melting film. Writers and co-stars, as well as the film’s director, below.
It was great to be back in the theater – and even better to be viewing the program from Dances with Films. There’s more alphabetical feature viewing/reviewing pleasure ahead…and then the powerhouse short films.
Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke and Dances with Films
Mammoth Lakes Film Festival founder Shira Dubrovner has created a new film festival with Eastern Sierra Arts Alliance (ESAA) for which she is the executive director.
Just in time for Earth Day weekend, in conjunction with Eastern Sierra Earth Week, she’s debuting the Eastern Sierra Mountain Film Festival April 23-25.
The virtual festival is viewable via free tickets at the EasternSierraArts.org website. Films are available for an extended viewing window once selected to watch, making them as eminently easy to view as they are timely and compelling projects.
Here’s a quick rundown of the environmentally prescient and visually astonishing films screening
Opening Night – Friday April 23, 7pm
KIFARU
Director – David Hambridge (Run Time 80 mins)
Kifaru follows the lives of two young Kenyan recruits that join Ol Pejeta Conservancy’s rhino caretaker unit – a small group of rangers that care for and protect Sudan, the last male northern white rhino or kifaru in Swahili.
The feature is accompanied by a 12 minutes short film following a group of local Maasai rangers educating their community about the importance of elephants, James Martin’s Being with Elephants.
Shorts Block – Saturday April 24, 7pm
THE PRODIGY
Director – Lewis Rapkin (Run Time 3 mins)
Tyler “The Prodigy” Lau set out to be the first person of color to complete what’s known in hiking as the Calendar-Year Triple Crown, the 8000 mile journey of the Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail and Appalachian Trail all within a year.
ADA BLACKJACK RISING
Director – Brice Habeger – (Run Time 6 mins)
In the pre-dawn twilight of an Alaskan shore, a young Native woman reflects on the story of Ada Blackjack, the sole survivor of a disastrous 1921 Arctic expedition, and the loneliness she must have felt waiting for a rescue through the months-long polar night.
ALPHA MARE
Director – Victor Tadashi Suarez & Mimi Wilcox – (Run Time 10 mins)
A dreamlike meditation on mental health and the search for self-love, Alpha Mare is the story of Karin Dilou,a sage elderly woman who lives a solitary life above the Nicasio Reservoir in California with a herd of Danish Warmbloods, told from the horses’ perspective
MOTHERLAND
Director – Emily Mkrtichian & Jesse Soursourian – (Run Tim 19 mins)
The documentary short focuses on the the women who shake tradition to rid their country of landmines leftover from a devastating ethnic war.
LOVE IS THE WAY
Director – Jeremy Là Zelle – (Run Time 45 mins)
Love is the Way brings together the voices speaking in defense of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, highlighting the generations of stewardship by Gwich’in and Iñupiaq people inspired in part by footage of the late photographer Michio Hoshino.
From Anchor Point
Closing Night – Sunday April 25, 7pm
ANCHOR POINT
Director – Holly Tuckett – (Run Time 90 mins)
Women have been a force in wildland firefighting since 1942. Still, they remain outnumbered 10-to-1 on the fire lines and do double-duty battling both the infernos that scorch public lands and the smoldering embers of discrimination, misogyny and sexual harassment. Told in cinema verité, ANCHOR POINT chronicles the 2019 fire season through the eyes of two women, generations apart, as they push to change the culture of wildland fire. Much of the film was shot in and around the Eastern Sierra.
Watch the Eastern Sierra Mountain Film FestivalFriday, April 23 through Sunday, April 25 at 7 PM by reserving tickets on the Eastern Sierra Arts website, www.EasternSierraArts.org
Genie Davis, images and film information provided by Easter Sierra Mountain Film Festival