Arts Express: Famke Janssen Talks From Bond Girl To Girl Bonding; She's Beautfiul When She's Angry; Policing The Police; Post-Traunatic Unemployment Disorder

      '...I know what love is, and I know what the loss of love is.'

**Famke Janssen: From Bond Girl To Girl Bonding. The actress is on the line to Arts Express to talk about her latest film, the unconventional family drama, Jack Of The Red Hearts. In which youth in social and economic crisis today converges with autism, and struggling to come of age in this troubled world. Based on the challenges of Jack Of The Red Hearts director Janet Grillo, raising her own autistic child. Additional topics on the table include losing the sex crazed femme fatale assassin in kick butt, toe to toe mode against James Bond in Goldeneye; embracing the dark side of life as creative inspiration; and her upcoming game show sinister satire This Is Your Life, directed by and co-starring Giancarlo Esposito.

**Peace Officer: Or maybe not. An explosive investigative documentary about the deadly militarization of police in this country. And one of its victims - ironically a Utah sheriff who first introduced SWAT teams into the state - phones in. An emotionally shattering revelation and extraordinary case of reverse rage literally policing the police. A March DVD release.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**She's Beautiful When She's Angry. A look at this March DVD release for Women's History Month, delving into the historic struggles of the Women's Movement of the last century. Where did the basic rights females young and old enjoy today come from, and what fierce struggles in the 20th century made them possible, and still relevant today.

**Writers Corner: Miguel Gardel reads from his short story, All The Books In The Library. Exploring life after the army as a Latino, and what might be termed post-traumatic unemployment disorder; the revolving door inner city existence of rooming houses, recruiting stations, landlords, unemployment lines, and armies addicted to young men. And formulating rebellion and giving it shape through poetry, and a novel's flush of eloquent words. Accompanied by the sounds of the late legend Louie Ramirez and his Latin Jazz Ensemble.

Prairie Miller

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

Arts Express: Jesse Owens, James Baldwin, And Fifteen Men Who Decide What Movies You See

**Aloe Blacc Talks Race: The Story Of Jesse Owens. Phoning in to the show from LA is soul artist, vocalist, songwriter, actor and performer Aloe Blacc, who wrote music for the Race soundtrack. Blacc describes in our conversation how he saw his contribution of the song, 'Let The Games Begin,' as an opportunity to be part of the Owens legacy. And the outstanding athlete who met the challenge, not only as a track and field legend, but in a faceoff historically, however fleeting, with Jim Crow at home and Hitler's Nazi Germany abroad at the 1936 Olympics. Blacc, the composer as well when finding himself jobless of  'I Need A Dollar' - which went on to become the theme song of the HBO series, 'How To Make It In America,' also contemplates how the sports icon has informed his own life as a Black man in this country.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**Danny Glover Weighs In On Bias Controversy At The Oscars: The actor and activist during a Sundance sitdown, traces the contentious racial exclusion issue to a much deeper dilemma plaguing the films themselves being made. And compound by "15 men who decide what you're going to see."

**The Last Interview And Other Conversations: Dennis Johnson of Melville House Books discusses his unique instant classic series highlighting the works of late iconic groundbreaker, edgy, offbeat and outsider writers who have passed on - from James Baldwin, Hemingway, Marquez and Vonnegut to Bradbury, Dick, Lou Reed, and others; the struggle of independent literary houses marginalized by corporate publishing takeover conglomerates; and the process of Johnson's intense labor of love in the journey tracking down and gathering the final works honoring the memory of these writing legends.


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

Arts Express: The Political Power Of Music; PTSD Fueled Psychological Crime Thriller Faceoff

**Thomas Jane Talks Standoff: And the Laurence Fishburne faceoff of damaged souls in this PTSD psychological crime thriller. As one struggles against his inner demons, and the other succumbs to the mental ravages of war. Jane, best known on screen as a different sort of madman, The Punisher, is on the line from LA to mull as well T.S. Eliot, Mickey Mantle, Neal Cassady, WWII atom bombs, Jaws, sci-fi and genetic engineering, Knocking On Heaven's Door - and why passersby gave him spare change to not sing it on the streets of Hollywood when he was homeless and begging, and living out of his car. And, his gig on Hung as an economic hard times call guy in the small screen sex for sale satire series - and that concerning Hung, he is actually not.

**Writers Corner: Chilean New Song - The Political Power Of Music: A Conversation With Professor J. Patrice McSherry. The author's musical memory lane recollections of the fleeting triumph, ensuing terror and tragedy of the creative component to mass uprising illuminating Allende's Chile back then. While reflecting on popular aspirations, towards a creation of new forms of community and political solidarity arising spontaneously and organically from that generation of musicians. Pete Seeger performs from the work of one of those brutalized victims of the subsequent Pinochet dictatorship, Victor Jara. Chris Butters Reports.

**Poetry Corner: Jack Kerouac vintage reading, Sounds Of The Universe Coming In My Window, set to jazz.

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

Arts Express: Prescription Thugs, Native American Jim Crow; Workplace Satire On The Small Screen

**Prescription Thugs: A Conversation With Director Chris Bell. So what exactly is going on with the deadly prescription drug epidemic in this country. And the filling of overflowing prisons with the incarcerated serving draconian sentences for illegal drugs, seemingly to make way for the legal prescription thug peddlers - pharmaceutical corporations in league with doctors and drugstores - moving in and taking over the business. And raking in billions in the process. Filmmaker Chris Bell talks Prescription Thugs, taking it personally as well as publicly in this documentary, with the related tragic death of his own brother. Welcome to 'The United States of Addiction.'

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**Mark McKinney Talks Superstore, Saturday Night Live: The Canadian born actor, writer and comedian, best known for SNL and Kids In The Hall, is on the line from LA to talk about the working stiff audience appeal of stinging workplace comedy after hours, in Superstore. And a small screen satire in which he stars as a befuddled boss along with America Ferrara's department store drudge, and touching on hot topics including race, gender and labor unions. Also, terror and fear on SNL; differences between the American and Canadian sense of humor linked to geography;  The Sopranos and what led McKinney into acting; and depression in comedians connected to a broken world and possibly fascism.

**Nicholas Sparks Discusses The Choice: The popular novelist phones in to Arts Express to talk about the page to screen, latest adaptation of one of his books. Sparks also fields questions about his First Nation surrogate father, how that relationship has informed his life journey, and what he learned from him about Native American Jim Crow in this country. Also, why writing the last page of a book is always the most fulfilling moment of writing for him.

Prairie Miller

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

Arts Express - Star Wars: The Emperor's Old Clothes

                                           Banksy On Target

First, the disclaimer that no, I am not now nor have I ever been a Star Wars junkie. Which may make for a far less receptive critique in the face of those throngs of worshipful masses in question. But on the other hand, an exceedingly more impartial position viewing a film that should stand on its own merits, and not propped up by a built in fan base. Or for that matter, clearly intimidated critic colleagues who may say one thing publicly, but whisper something quite different off camera. Though which situates any neutrality in the discomforting position of say, an atheist taking to the podium at a church service.

Brandishing both a wand and a wink at audiences and splitting itself in catch-all mode somewhere between colossal and cartoonish, the latest, future ironically as past preaching to the choir Star Wars saga continues with this seventh entry billed as Episode VII - The Force Awakens. And the first financed by Disney.

Embarking as a brand new trilogy, and make no mistake with equal if not more emphasis on brand as in merchandising, The Force Awakens follows as aftermath to Return Of The Jedi.The inter-generational proceedings find Ford's Solo and Carrie Fisher's Leia mixing in with newcomers John Boyega as black intergalactic superhero combat soldier turned whistleblower Finn. And Daisy Ridley's fierce female insurgent Rey, with an obedient robotic boy toy following behind. Along with a hide and seek narrative as second fiddle to the main character centerpiece - war and weaponry - encircling a lost and found plot point quest for Luke Skywalker.

And though slim plot points are dangled before enraptured audiences who essentially need none because just being there is what it's all about, the real main attraction as the farce awakens so to speak, is blowing things up. And in more ways than one, whether the interminable explosions or offscreen blown out of proportion franchise collectibles to come. Or have very likely already arrived.

So what inevitably ensues is less of a focus on all the paradoxical cartoonish carnage and mayhem in progress on screen, than interest in what's up with the popcorn and Kool-Aid ingesting swooning audiences in the theaters. And the strange notion of this breathlessly anticipated theatrical event in a nation traumatized by endless wars in the real world - in a country that even before its founding has been at war for 214 out of the 235 years of existence. And with most in the audience never knowing a time in their own lives without US wars, assaults and invasions around the planet.

So why the massive flocking to theaters to pay for more war and massacre, military slaughter, fear and terror as spectacle - and dare I say, entertainment. Perhaps in bizarre, safe space psychological mode, akin to controlled demolition of buildings - as opposed to say, the helplessly unanticipated public trauma of 9/11.

And war itself, co-starring state of the art weaponry, as the biggest moneymaker for this country enriching both the military industrial complex and Hollywood. Along with the Pentagon's lucrative sideline as the major props department in movies, with inevitable final cut privilege over how they get portrayed. 

Okay, my two cents, there it is. And likely the fate that awaits this intrepid critic: Let the haters be with you. Bring it on.

Prairie Miller

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

*George Lucas Thumbs Down Review Of The Force Awakens - But He Won't Be Told Like Me, That His Vagina Hurts

The Dark Side Of George Lucas' $4bn Star Wars Sale: Filmmaker Compares Disney To 'White Slavers'...

Arts Express Global Television Beat: Paris, Copenhagen Phoning In

Director Joshua Oppenheimer Comforts Indonesian Victim Survivor At The Screening Of The Look Of Silence

**Broe On The World Television Beat: Professor Broe on location in Paris, is on the line to Arts Express conceptualizing how the post-9/11 world order is restored each week on the small screen. Broe also reports on updates regarding the fallout from the Climate Conference, French martial law, and the latest developments regarding the refugee crisis there.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

**Joshua Oppenheimer Talks The Look of Silence: The director phones in from Copenhagen to discuss the documentary followup to his provocative The Act of Killing. Naming the names of Indonesian genocidal anti-communist death squads and the shadow government there, enabled by CIA intervention. And this sequel focusing on the victims and survivors of the government sanctioned atrocities.

Prairie Miller

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

Women Film Critics Circle Award Nominations 2015

Carey Mulligan Nominated as Best Female Action Hero

The Women Film Critics Circle has announced its 2O15 unique nominations for the best movies this year by and about women. And outstanding achievements by women, who rarely get to be honored historically in the film world. The Women Film Critics Circle is an association of 75 women film critics and scholars from around the country and internationally, who are involved in print, radio, online and TV broadcast media. They came together in 2004 to form the first women critics' organization in the United States, in the belief that women's perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully. WFCC also prides itself on being the most culturally and racially diverse critics group in the country by far, and best reflecting the diversity of movie audiences. Critical Women On Film, a presentation of The Women Film Critics Circle, is their journal of discussion and theory. And a gathering of women's voices expressing a fresh and differently experienced perspective from the primarily male dominated film criticism world.

BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
Carol
Mustang
Suffragette
The Keeping Room

BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN
Diary Of A Teenage Girl: Marielle Heller
Mustang: Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Suffragette: Sarah Gavron
The Second Mother: Anna Muylaert

BEST WOMAN STORYTELLER [Screenwriting Award]
Carol: Phyllis Nagy
Mustang: Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Alice Winocour
Room: Emma Donoghue
Suffragette: Abi Morgan

BEST ACTRESS
Alicia Vikander: Testament Of Youth
Carey Mulligan: Suffragette
Cate Blanchett: Carol
Charlotte Rampling: 45 Years

BEST ACTOR
Abraham Attah: Beasts Of No Nation
Andrew Garfield: 99 Homes
Bryan Cranston: Trumbo
Eddie Redmayne: The Danish Girl

BEST YOUNG ACTRESS
Bel Powley: Diary Of A Teenage Girl
Brie Larson: Room
Dakota Fanning: Effie Gray
Saoirse Ronan: Brooklyn

BEST COMEDIC ACTRESS
Amy Schumer: Trainwreck
Greta Gerwig: Mistress America
Maggie Smith: Lady In the Van
Melissa McCarthy: Spy

BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
Difret
Dukhtar
Mustang
The Second Mother

BEST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
Suffragette
Testament Of Youth

WORST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Everly: All the women
Jurassic World: Bryce Dallas Howard
Fifty Shades Of Grey: Dakota Johnson
Trumbo: Helen Mirren

BEST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Bridge Of Spies
Lady In The Van
Mr. Holmes
Trumbo

WORST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Magic Mike XXL
Steve Jobs
Suffragette
The Big Short

BEST THEATRICALLY UNRELEASED MOVIE BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
Bessie
Sworn Virgin
The Book Of Negroes
The Dressmaker

WOMEN'S WORK/BEST ENSEMBLE
Carol
Grandma
Suffragette
The Second Mother


SPECIAL MENTION AWARDS

*COURAGE IN FILMMAKING:
Angelina Jolie: By The Sea
Sarah Gavron: Suffragette

*COURAGE IN ACTING [Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]
Brie Larson: Room
Julianne Moore: Freeheld

*THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD: [Performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]
Julianne Moore: Freeheld
Alicia Vikander: The Danish Woman

BEST DOCUMENTARY BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
Amy
He Named Me Malala
India's Daughter
What Happened, Miss Simone?

BEST SCREEN COUPLE
45 Years: Charlotte Rampling/Tom Courtenay
Freeheld: Julianne Moore/Ellen Page
Iris: Iris Apfel/Albert Maysles
Room: Brie Larson/Jacob Tremblay

BEST FEMALE ACTION HERO
Mad Max: Charlize Theron
Sicario: Emily Blunt
Suffragette: Carey Mulligan
The Keeping Room: Brit Marling

MOMMIE DEAREST WORST SCREEN MOM OF THE YEAR AWARD
Cinderella: Cate Blanchett
Diary Of A Teenage Girl: Kristen Wiig

*ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women
He Named Me Malala
India's Daughter

*JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: For best expressing the woman of color experience in America
The Keeping Room: Muna Otaru
What Happened, Miss Simone?

*KAREN MORLEY AWARD: For best exemplifying a woman's place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity
Learning To Drive
Suffragette


ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: Adrienne Shelly was a promising actress and filmmaker who was brutally strangled in her apartment in 2006 at the age of forty by a construction worker in the building, after she complained about noise. Her killer tried to cover up his crime by hanging her from a shower rack in her bathroom, to make it look like a suicide. He later confessed that he was having a "bad day." Shelly, who left behind a baby daughter, had just completed her film Waitress, which she also starred in, and which was honored at Sundance after her death.

JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: The daughter of a laundress and a musician, Baker overcame being born black, female and poor, and marriage at age fifteen, to become an internationally acclaimed legendary performer, starring in the films Princess Tam Tam, Moulin Rouge and Zou Zou. She also survived the race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois as a child, and later expatriated to France to escape US racism. After participating heroically in the underground French Resistance during WWII, Baker returned to the US where she was a crusader for racial equality. Her activism led to attacks against her by reporter Walter Winchell who denounced her as a communist, leading her to wage a battle against him. Baker was instrumental in ending segregation in many theaters and clubs, where she refused to perform unless integration was implemented.

KAREN MORLEY AWARD: Karen Morley was a promising Hollywood star in the 1930s, in such films as Mata Hari and Our Daily Bread. She was driven out of Hollywood for her leftist political convictions by the Blacklist and for refusing to testify against other actors, while Robert Taylor and Sterling Hayden were informants against her. And also for daring to have a child and become a mother, unacceptable for female stars in those days. Morley maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.