Arts Express: Halloween Visitation, Yiddish Death Of A Salesman, Musical Muse On Stage

**Halloween Visitation: Cult Horror Director Sam Raimi Drops In. Delving into the various dark motives fueling his new small screen series debuting on Halloween weekend, Ash vs. Evil Dead And joined by the star and longtime collaborator, Bruce Campbell, as they hold forth on why movies should be hard to make; the joy and fulfillment of frightening audiences with the unknown; mirrors; pause buttons; and the art and challenge of leading actors off the cliff in movies.

**Death Of A Salesman In Yiddish: A radically new theatrical interpretation. This emotionally stinging story of a man caught up in the illusions of the American Dream, achieves a further resonance touching on the plight of immigrants, and performed with English super-titles projected on stage. Included in this segment are interviews with the current director and star of the Arthur Miller play, and a compilation of past clips of the various productions with recorded reflections and conversations with the late Arthur Miller, on this centennial commemoration year of his birth. And touching on his struggles against the Blacklist, and against Columbia Pictures as well in its McCarthyite attempt to bury the film and its anti-capitalist elements.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

** Music Corner: Multi-talented classical concert pianist, poet, singer and filmmaker Hannah Reimann performs her tribute to music legend Joni Mitchell, recreating her body of work on stage. Arts Express stopped by to catch the show, and talk to Reimann about why Mitchell resonates as her chosen muse; how the piano led her down the creative path to poetry, and raising awareness about Alzheimer's with a film she's putting together in tribute to her dad - My Father's House. And how of all this in one way or another helped her heal, and 'allowed me to feel whole again when I felt broken into a million pieces.'

Prairie Miller

Arts Express: Airing on WBAI Radio in NY and the Pacifica National Radio Network and Affiliate Stations.
 

Tab Hunter And the Hollywood Male Meat Market; Occupy The Red Carpets; Net Hotspots

**Tab Hunter Confidential: A conversation with the actor about surviving the rather tainted Golden Age of Hollywood, and the male celebrity meat market that is the subject of this big screen confessional documentary memoir. As the former fifties teen idol recalls his troubling memory lane identity crisis, being bought, sold and traded by Hollywood studios, in possession of nearly every aspect of his fabricated persona. And the rather strange ultimate emotional closure that 'I am happy to be forgotten.' Along with exhilarating memories of Gary Cooper, Sophia Loren, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Natalie Wood.

**The Refugee Crisis In Europe: A timely message from Storm Clouds Gathering, and what's really going down over there these days. Our Arts Express Best Of The Net Hotspot for this week.

**Occupy The Red Carpets: The insular world of film festivals and galas is being to crack lately, and most evident on those red carpets. More recently at the London premiere of Suffragette, as hundreds of contemporary female rebels, Sisters Uncut, protesting government withdrawal of funding of domestic violence programs with chants of 'dead women can't vote' staged a takeover of the proceedings. And with the surprising support of the Suffragette cast and filmmakers in attendance. Footage from the protest, and a conversation with Suffragette screenwriter Sarah Gavron.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**Michael Moore's Dissident Doc, Where To Invade Next. Or maybe not. A sociopolitical critique of the elusively titled entry into this year's NY Film Festival. 

**The Inhabitants: Sinister screen siblings Michael and Shawn Rasmussen phone in to Arts Express from Boston, delving into their latest Halloween supernatural invasion thriller. Touching on the Salem witch hunts and persecution of historically feared colonial era midwives revisited, along with burrowing into the dark side of moviemaking as apprentices to John Carpenter.

Prairie Miller

Arts Express: Airing on WBAI Radio in NY and the Pacifica National Radio Network and Affiliate Stations.

NY Film Festival 2015: Where To Invade Next: Benevolent Capitalism, A Love Story

NY Film Festival 2015: The Movie Where To Invade Next Coulda And Shoulda Been, And That The Measure Of A Man Was: Air France Bosses Clothes Ripped Off By Angry Laid Off Workers

It's clear that Michael Moore makes documentaries foremost, to inspire social change. But apparently criticism from a highly conservative American public regarding his blue collar class warfare approach in movies like Roger & Me, and advocating the benefits of socialism in Capitalism: A Love Story and  praise for the Cuban health care system in Sicko, have taken their ideological toll on the filmmaker. And subsequently seemingly more interested in the powers of persuasion than truth.

Moore remains adamantly in opposition to the inequality, injustice and oppression so endemic to US society as detailed in Where To Invade Next. But in his determination to raise the resistant collective consciousness in this country, the chosen method to his particular ideological madness is as misleading as the title of his latest documentary - which has little to do with US invasion and occupation around the planet.

LISTEN TO THE 'WHERE TO INVADE NEXT' NYFF PRESS CONFERENCE HERE

Instead, in a playful bait and switching about of conventional approaches to the criticism of US policies that are the basis of investigative documentaries, Moore sets out to metaphorically invade countries in order to steal, not their resources, but their ideas and policies that might improve the dismal socio-political state of affairs here. In other words, a sort of contemporary quest for the proverbial holy grail. But excuse me, Europe as the utopia of choice?

Clearly in evasive cherry picking mode, Moore selects only positive examples of superior quality of life situations overseas. Including far more appetizing public school lunches in France, better working conditions and longer employee vacations in Italy, free higher education in Slovenia, an economy cleansed of corruption because women have become in charge as bankers in Iceland, and anti-war, anti-Nazi Holocaust remorse as a compulsory subject in German schools.

Well, just a minute. Benevolent capitalists in Europe? Don't tell that to the millions of masses on the continent currently suffering and demonstrating against joblessness, poverty, homelessness - and yes, suicide as a result of the drastic measures there known as austerity. And supposedly better societies because they're not warmongers like the US? Isn't that widespread adversity endured by the masses related to engaging in all those Middle Eastern wars over there, in league with the US through NATO coalition offenses?

And what about those cautionary history lessons in German schools. Well, they seem to exist simultaneously with a rising tide of fascism and anti-Muslim, anti-immigration racism among the youth as well there today, and across Moore's fantastical entire Euro-Disney theme park continent he seems to have crafted. And women as potential progressive saviors of a world ruined by men? Sure, if you don't examine the record too closely of say, Margaret Thatcher for starters. Or the many right wing Tea Party type women in politics here, ranging from Palin and Bachman to Fiorina, and including Coulter and all the news actresses at Murdoch's Fox television.

Then there's Moore's distortion of history, as he extols free higher education in Slovenia as somehow a novel idea floating around. Apparently distancing himself as much as possible from any notion of socialism which might heap criticism upon his approval-obsessed agenda, Moore seems to have 'forgotten' that free education, health care, shelter and guaranteed employment for everyone, were cornerstones of the socialist principles of the USSR - which happened to include Slovenia before the 'benevolent' capitalist overthrow of the Soviet Union. Moore then goes on to mock what he deems the indifference and passivity of American youth - while pretending the Occupy Movement and Black Lives Matter have never existed.

Well, why bother with those pesky facts, when your primary objective is a feelgood film for the frustrated US population back home. Karl Marx once said that it's not enough to be right, you have to be convincing. Apparently Michael Moore embraces the latter notion in his film, with far too faulty fact checking regarding the former.

Prairie Miller

More information about the NY Film Festival 2015 is online at: Filmlinc.org/nyff2015

Arts Express, Thursdays 2pm ET: Airing on WBAI Radio in NY 99.5 FM, and streaming live and archived everywhere at wbai.org.

Clutter: A Conversation With Carol Kane About The Dark Side of Consumerism - Hoarding

Carol Kane As Allison In Annie Hall 

**Clutter: A Conversation With Actress Carol Kane. What about stuff in our society today, and how capitalism pushes stuff in place of necessities in pursuit of profits, diminishing and devaluing what's really meaningful in our lives. A look at the bittersweet dramatic feature Clutter, starring Carol Kane. Touching on the stepchild of consumerism - hoarding - as an expression in this DVD release of abandonment, loss and the emotional meaning of things.

**Broe On The World Film Beat: Laws Of The Market Episode. Professor Broe is on location in Paris, covering the Air France worker protests ripping off the shirts of the airline bosses firing thousands of workers. And what it has to do with his assessment of the best movie at Cannes this year, the misleadingly retitled The Measure Of A Man. And, its rather ideologically confused press reception at the NY Film Festival in progress as well.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**Writers Corner: Miguel Gardel reads from his short story, The Man From Arizona. Touching on brutal garment center sweatshops as metaphorical human slaughterhouses; boarding room despair; surviving the monotonous machines by singing the blues; one fuzzy revolutionary goatee; and an abandoned prosthetic leg still wearing a sock and a shoe.

More information about the NY Film Festival 2015 is online at: Filmlinc.org/nyff2015

Arts Express: Airing on WBAI Radio in NY and the Pacifica National Radio Network and Affiliate Stations.
 

NY Film Festival 2015: Michael Moore's Daring Doc, Where To Invade Next

Arts Express Best Of The Net Hotspot: Michael Moore lifts the lid of secrecy and fields questions pertaining to his latest film taking on the military industrial complex, Where To Invade Next. 

Where To Invade next Trailer

The daring documentary delving into the most recent malevolent machinations going down at the Pentagon, will be unveiled at Toronto then proceed to the NY Film Festival in September.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

Djimon Hounsou Talks Air. Or rather, the lack of it on a poisoned planet destroyed by endless wars. As the Oscar nominated African born actor perhaps best known for his role as slave rebel leader Cinque in Steven Spielberg's Amistad, goes toe to toe with The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus in a bid to save the world, in this new sci-fi eco-thriller. Hounsou phones in to Arts Express to reflect on survival issues on and off screen as well, as an immigrant and actor of color who was once jobless and homeless in Paris, sleeping under bridges and hunting in trash cans for food; the refugee immigrant crisis in Europe today; and resisting stereotyping in movies of 'Africans in loincloths chasing gazelles.'

The Report: A conversation with Fringe Festival playwright, Martin Casella. While much fanfare has been taking place this year remembering World World II during this 70th anniversary, there's been lots of forgetting as well, and much of it being covered on Arts Express. The Report is a new Lynn Redgrave Theater August production delving into yet another chapter in that buried history, the government culpability and coverup of the worst death toll in the UK, the Bethnal Green London East End underground tube tragedy crushing to death nearly two hundred civilians. Casella is on the line to Arts Express to talk about the implications of this production concerning human memory and all wars, what his play George Bush Goes To Hell is all about, and what led him to move on from Hollywood and working for Spielberg, Coppola, Disney, Universal and HBO to his labor of love in theater.

Writers Corner: A gathering of the contributors and creators of the literary magazine, And Then. Mitchel Cohen reports.

 
More information about the NY Film Festival 2015 is online at: Filmlinc.org/nyff2015

Prairie Miller

Arts Express, Airing On The WBAI/Pacifica National Radio Network and Affiliate Stations

NY Film Festival 2015: The Walk - 'And The Outside World Starts To Disappear.' Indeed...

               The Walk: Inches Away From Death - Literally

The magic of gravity defying 3D special effects may have initially amazed on screen. But through endless repetitive stunts and ongoing artificial green screen revelations at the plexes, what paradoxically results over the course of time and in this latest Robert Zemeckis extravaganza, is less digital dazzle than deja vu.

LISTEN TO THE WALK NYFF PRESS CONFERENCE HERE

And The Walk is no exception, an essentially seeing is not believing cinematic con playing out a mere short distance off the ground - and ironically far closer to earth than say, the elevated Imax theater seating in question - then wrapped in distracting hocus pocus layers of optical illusions. And likely astonishing only preschoolers and those who have never been to the movies.

So what remains is a concoction of dramatic digressions consisting of cartoonish caricatures and scenery chewing silliness, just in case everything else going on tends to dull audience senses. And primarily a perpetually grimacing Joseph Gordon-Levitt doing his hyperactive best to walk a more metaphorical tightrope, reenacting Philippe Petit's 1974 danger junkie high wire stroll between the World Trade Center Twin Towers.

And while the steadfast one dimensional focus remains on head in the clouds logistics for the duration, all sorts of more earthbound disappearing acts ensue. Including that tumultuous and traumatic historical moment in time witnessing the Vietnam anti-war protest movements, racial upheaval, and youth rebellion. And apparently juxtaposed here with the usual capitalist wet dream - whether in or outside of Hollywood. And not coincidentally promoting this economic crisis period movie tagline: Show the world that anything is possible.

Which lends a curious context to Petit's sort of celestial epiphany when the character takes time out momentarily from mime antics to exclaim, 'And the outside world starts to disappear.' Indeed...

Prairie Miller

More information about the NY Film Festival 2015 is online at: Filmlinc.org/nyff2015

Arts Express, Thursdays 2pm ET: Airing on WBAI Radio in NY 99.5 FM, and streaming live and archived everywhere at wbai.org.

Venice Film Festival 2015: Barefoot Refugees On The Red Carpet

WORLD FILM BEAT: Dennis Broe On Location Report

This is Broe on the World Film Beat, live from the Lido, with my coverage of the Venice Film Festival. The big story on the opening of the festival this year the way the rivalry between the major studios and the online services, becoming studios themselves, played out on the Lido. Venice had led off the last two years with the Academy Award Winners Gravity and Birdman, both of which were anointed at the festival and went on to easily sweep the awards. This year the major studio opening was Everest with Jake Gyllenhaal whose film Demolition also opened the Toronto fest. This alpine snoozer is not going to win the Academy Award, and even festival director Alberto Barbera described it as a film that had ‘great special effects,’ the kiss of death because it implies ‘and nothing else,’ which is the way most critics judged the film.

LISTEN TO THE COVERAGE HERE

Going head to head with the studio powerhouse opening was Netflix’s Beasts of No Nation. Netflix did not produce the film, merely picked it up for distribution as the majors often do, planning on distributing mainly not in theaters but to its 67 million subscribers. The mode of distribution is very different with the streaming service claiming it never looks at box office numbers.  The major theaters have refused to pick up the film for its October 16th release, judging it a threat to their industry but it will be released in Mark Cuban’s Landmark theaters where it will qualify for the Academy Awards....

CONTINUE TO READ COVERAGE HERE


...This is Broe on the World Film Beat signing off from the Lido. Next week, in time for their foray into cinemas this fall, I’ll be discussing my best and worst, including Tsai Ming Ling’s extraordinary bow out of filmmaking and the non-return of Johnny Depp.

Arts Express, Thursdays 2pm ET: Airing on WBAI Radio in NY 99.5 FM, and streaming live and archived everywhere at wbai.org.