Arts Express: Cannes Film Festival Wrap-Up Report, Bromancing Woody

**Cannes Film Festival Wrap-Up Report: Professor Dennis Broe on location for Arts Express, presenting among the best films, The Law Of The Market. A French workingclass drama about arresting poor people for stealing food, and the indignities visited upon these victims of a destroyed economy. And according to Broe, the best Dardennes brothers movie the Dardennes never made.

Also, a Cannes film crop this year summed up as Euro-Disney, auteur porn in 3D, the Chinese Balzac, global materialism and a son named Dollar, shoplifters in the supermarket, French luxury product placement, heelgate and female mannequins on the red carpet runway, and the screen staple of philandering males. And, Shakespeare demoted to 4th place writing credit behind three screenwriters of Weinstein's Macbeth - a tale signifying Oscar but little else.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**Bromancing Woody: Several guests this week inspired by Woody Allen. Including Woody scholar Alex Sheremet, in a conversation about his online anthology, Reel To Real: A Digi-Dialogue. And his introduction of an innovative concept online, the perpetual work in progress of e-books known as digi-dialogues, as a permanent construct.

And, filmmaker Quincy Rose phones in to Arts Express from LA to talk about his first dramatic feature, Miles To Go. A self-described 'voice from the modern manchild generation' - and he'll explain. Along with the influence on his work of Rose's actual godfather offscreen: Woody Allen.

Arts Express: The Book Of Negroes, Cannes Film Festival Report, Dolph Lundren Talks Skin Trade

The Book Of Negroes: The second secret American Revolution in 1776 that freed thousand of slaves, in this historical drama. And featuring that rare celebrated phenomenon, a female rebel leading a victory against human bondage in America. A conversation with the African Canadian filmmaker Clement Virgo and female freedom fighter on screen, star Aunjanue Ellis.

The Cannes Film Festival Report: Professor Dennis Broe reporting on location for Arts Express. And deconstructing the continued cultural imperialism of the cinematic marketplace, and the infiltration of the red carpet economy at all levels of the global film industry. And how Professor Broe accidentally wandered into a French street rally promoting fascism and monarchism.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

Skin Trade: A conversation with actor Dolph Lundgren. Delving into combating global sex trafficking as an action hero on screen, trading in brains for brawn as a former Fulbright Scholar, and how he got involved in movies by chance when asked to point a gun at Christopher Walken's head during a visit with girlfriend Grace Jones, to the set of her James Bond movie.

Prairie Miller

Arts Express: Most Dangerous Man In America, Drones, Secret Second American Revolution, Churchill The Play

Please tune in Thursday, May 14th 3-5pm ET to WBAI-NY 99.5FM or streaming and archived at wbai.org, to help support Arts Express and the station. You can call in then to pledge to Arts Express, to 212-2092950. Thank you!

Black Lives Matter: Past, Present, Future

Arts Express is offering:
*Pairs Of Tickets to Most Dangerous Man In America
*Plus Bonus DVD The Book Of Negroes.
*CD Of Most Dangerous Man In America Director Interview, Amiri Baraka Reading Excerpts From This, His Last Play Never Before Produced. And The Book Of Negroes Director, Star And Writer Interviews. And, Most Dangerous Man In America director Woodie King reflecting on the play's legacy for the Black Lives Matter struggles in progress. And, its significance for the 90th anniversary of the birth of Malcolm X on 5/19, and in connection to the 1981 biopic King wrote and directed in tribute, Death Of A Prophet, starring Morgan Freeman as Malcolm.

Most Dangerous Man In America is a dramatic reflection of one of the most traumatic events in the terrible period of McCarthyism. W.E.B DuBois, a co-founder of the NAACP, a scholar and political activist, known and recognized throughout the world, was indicted in 1951 by the US government at the age of 82 as "an agent of a foreign power." In the play, the focus moves back and forth between the Harlem community and their opinions, the witnesses' testimony and the courtroom battles. This is Amir Baraka's last play written just before his death, and never before performed on stage.

The Book Of Negroes Bonus DVD,* Limited Edition: The Canadian dramatic miniseries excavating the recorded buried history of the secret second American Revolution in 1776 this country has never been forthcoming about - 3,000 slaves who fought with the British to win their freedom and flight from bondage as liberated refugees  - something they knew would not be granted by the Americans, ironically even as they battled for their own freedom. And though the Americans demanded the return of their slaves as 'property' in conjunction with the Paris Peace Treaty and dubious Declaration of Independence, the British refused.

Also, Pledge gifts include Churchill on stage, Drones, and The Art Of Magic classes.

Stay tuned!

Arts Express: Russell Brand, Helen Hunt, Swoosie Kurtz, Subway Showtime, And Sexism In The Supermarket

**Tribeca 2015: The Long And The Short Of It.

The Emperor's New Clothes: Russell Brand political fashion statements in the Michael Winterbottom documentary delving into what is to be done about the One Percent. Or maybe not.

We Live This: The lives and struggles of the Showtime Kids, subway performer ghetto youth breakdancing underground for spare change, in this compassionately crafted short doc. Who are they and where do they live, after showtime is over. If anywhere.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**Mothers Day, Unconventional Mothering: Conversations with actresses Helen Hunt and Swoosie Kurtz. Touching on womanhood, work, family, Vietnam, McCarthyism, Melissa McCarthy and the new generation of funny women, Lillian Hellman, and sexism in the supermarket.

Arts Express, airing every week on the WBAI/Pacifica National Radio Network and Affiliate Stations.

Prairie Miller

The Emperor's New Clothes: Russell Brand Politically Fervent But Feeble Fashion Statement

While the corporate media, with its own conflict of interest stake in the entrenched status quo, is always insistent that communism doesn't work whenever issues within that structure arise, the same accusation would never be leveled against capitalism. However much mass economic suffering and imperialist military carnage that system as an always assumed given, has generated at home and around the world.

And though UK actor-comedian Russell Brand displays noble intentions in fixing that broken entity with selective repairs in Michael Winterbottom's documentary The Emperor's New Clothes, those simplistic sentiments however subversive are, sorry to say, not noble enough. Fashion statements aside, those emperor's duds, literally and figuratively, need long overdue discarding - along with whatever conniving and repressive emperor happens to be parading in them. Or not.

Borrowing generously but substantially ineffectively from Michael Moore with a bit of Brecht tossed in too, Brand mostly limits his bandit capitalism critique to a single diluted reformist issue - corporate and billionaire tax evasion. And tracing the economic dilemma back a mere seven decades to what he terms as the decisive scourge - free market fundamentalism. Which essentially lets off the hook any oligarchs exploiting and massacring the masses for centuries - and all the related misery, persecutions and assassinations in its wake into the present time.

What does come to light incidentally at one point, is Brand admitting though quickly brushing this particular personal detail aside, that he himself is a member of the one percent. And actually, along with director Winterbottom, no stranger to feeding at the lucrative trough of Hollywood.

So what remains of this ideological deviation, is a hunch that what both Brand and Winterbottom are after is a call to fellow one percenters to pay their fair share of taxes as they themselves do - rather than hiding billions in offshore accounts around the planet. And that somehow the disclosed money will trickle back into the system to provide for the poor.

Reality check alert: This proposal sidesteps that other invisible entity along with those regal garments in question - the elephant in the room known as lobbyists. The ones who ultimately control those pseudo-democratic capitalist governments through bribery, no matter who the masses vote for. And who will always protect the robber barons and their riches, no matter what arrangements have been made for hoarding their wealth.

So what remains in The Emperor's New Clothes, aside from Brand as anti-corporate court jester performing nonstop for an annoying nearly two hour stretch - an occasional mildly amusing agitprop moment like the masked billionaire fun bus aside - is essentially nothing new about that monarch makeover. And unlike most such traditional fairy tales, with conclusively no prospective happy ending in sight.

The Emperor's New Clothes is screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, which takes place through April 26th throughout Manhattan. The Festival will highlight hundreds of feature films, documentaries, shorts and special events. More information is online at Tribecafilm.com.


Prairie Miller

Arts Express: Office Politics: Power, Class And Race; Euro Anti-Diversity at Cannes; Lost Lives At the Terminal Bar

**The Screening Room: Last Call. Lost lives from the other side of the bar through the bartender's eyes. In the Tribeca excerpted short,  illuminating snapshots of the Port Authority desolate, desperate, and down and out regulars and drifters passing through the seedy, aptly named Times Square purgatory of the Terminal Bar across the decades.

**Cannes Reflections, Future Cinema Prospects: Professor Dennis Broe on location in Paris, delving into emerging themes this year connected to Euro anti-diversity and anti-immigration; Tamil Tigers and the Lakota First Nation on screen; Shakespeare snubbed; and out of work journalists for hire on a movie.

**Office Politics: Pondering power, class and race on stage and in the toxic workplace. A conversation with playwright Marcy Lovitch.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**Poetry Corner: What Memphis Needs, Valium Blues by Alexis Krasilovsky, and a reading by the late African American poet Wanda Coleman. Known in her lifetime as the LA Blueswoman and the unofficial Poet Laureate of LA.

Prairie Miller

Good Kill Review: Bad Logic, Even Worse Convictions, Droning While Drunk

  Good Kill Plays Good Cop, Bad Cop. Good US Military, Bad CIA

Though the anti-drone warfare psychological drama Good Kill may have its heart in the right place, its morally ambivalent head may be another matter. Dabbling first of all, in a contradictory duality of concepts when it comes to the courage of one's convictions concerning Good Kill's ironic title. And intimating unfortunately multiple unintended meanings regarding the conflicted remote control US military warrior in question, and New Zealand writer/director Andrew Niccol's motivations as well.

Ethan Hawke is Tom Egan, an Air Force war pilot redeployed to the Nevada desert - unbilled birthplace of the atom bomb many weapons of mass destruction moons ago - to more modern warfare drone duty. That is, the remote control, video game derived bomb blasting alleged Taliban warriors in Afghanistan.

But Egan is peeved about assorted stuff that has little to do with murdering far flung suspects on the other side of the world, without benefit of judge, jury or perish the thought, legal representation. Egan apparently resents being relieved of his war plane, where, as he explains, there was a much more satisfactory visceral sense of killing anonymous perps up close and personal,and  simply because one is ordered to do so.

And Egan, increasingly self-medicating and essentially droning while drunk, resentfully but dutifully goes along to get along. That is, until a last straw change of plans when the CIA steps in to direct the drone strikes by double remote - from DC. And via the anonymous phone-in barking of orders from code name Agent Langley (Peter Coyote). Much to the dismay of the military and local commander Jack Johns (Bruce Greenwood), with the implication, according to this film, that when the military instead of the CIA was droning Afghans to death, those massacres were logical, justified and humane. Huh?

Good Kill does present what the filmmaker seems to believe is somehow a balanced - and less challenging - view. Or at least what may make the movie appear as less than a blatant infomercial for the US military. The drone operators do wince a bit to demonstrate their humanity, when a woman reaches to retrieve a stray severed arm out of a tree following one of their bombings. Then there's Zoe Kravitz, who gets to be the drone killer eventually most appalled politically by the entire business. But she's also hey, a female. You know, the sort of gender based character driven by emotions, and in that regard with seductive designs on Egan, married or not.

And Egan comes to be plagued by second thoughts about all of this business as well. But not necessarily in a way you might think, by denouncing the entire questionable moral and ethical empire building that ultimately constitutes this country's engineering of endless wars on the planet, remote and otherwise.

So what in the end is that preemptively cautious Good Kill, having it both ways, joint pro and anti-war concept all about? For starters, bad working conditions, by being relegated to a physically stress inducing, claustrophobic container in the Nevada desert. Then there's Hawke's character endlessly whining about the loss of somewhat more direct, in your face enemy extermination as a previous old school war plane bomber. Along with 'good kill' US military remote 'warheads on foreheads' assassinations, until the presumably indiscriminate preemptive CIA meddling kicked in. And essentially, ironically, the drones pretty much getting a pass. Or rather, perhaps, the filmmaker.

Good Kill is screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, which takes place through April 26th throughout Manhattan. The Festival will highlight hundreds of feature films, documentaries, shorts and special events.
More information is online at Tribecafilm.com.


Prairie Miller