Culture Surfing

THE HORSE BOY: Rupert Isaacson (from left), Rowan and Ghoste in Mongolia

Medical narratives often depict ordinary people who turn to alternative healing methods when traditional Western health care fails. Seldom can you find families that go to the lengths of Rupert Isaacson and Kristen Neff, who traveled from Austin, Texas, to the steppes of Mongolia with the hopes of improving their son Rowan’s autistic condition.

Narrating the documentary The Horse Boy, Isaacson justifies the trip early in the film. At his worst, 5-year-old Rowan’s cognitive problems make him the equivalent of “a giant 18-month-old” with poor social skills, incomplete toilet training, and seemingly endless, inexplicable tantrums. Isaacson’s research into shamanism and Rowan’s affinity for animals, especially horses, inspire the father to see if the two in combination could have therapeutic value. He discovers that Mongolia combines shamanic traditions with horsemanship, so he, Neff and Rowan embark on a journey a world away.

Continue reading “Family goes to extremes to alleviate autism in The Horse Boy” »

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CL’s Chante LaGon and Curt Holman discuss movies opening this holiday season, including Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Road, Red Cliff and The Messenger.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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SPORTS AUTHORITY: Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock, right) coaches Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron)

The prologue to the warm-n-fuzzy sports story The Blind Side plays so well, it’s like seeing a team return an opening kickoff to score a touchdown. A Southern-accented Sandra Bullock narrates an insider’s perspective on the five fateful seconds that cost the Washington Redskins’ Joe Theismann his career. Michael Lewis’ book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game provides the film with tasty tidbits about football machinations on and off the field, but director John Lee Hancock fumbles the rags-to-riches story of Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron).

The film’s early scenes find mountainous Michael adrift in the impoverished corners of Memphis with a crack-addicted mother and no real home. When a Christian school bends the rules to enroll him, Michael attracts the notice of Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock), the take-charge socialite wife of a fast-food mogul (Tim McGraw). Leigh Anne whisks Michael to the family McMansion and offers him clothes, a Thanksgiving invitation, and even a strategy for success on the gridiron.

Continue Reading “Sandra Bullock Blind Sides Atlanta”

(Photo Courtesy Ralph Nelson/Warner Bros. Picture)

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CL’s Chante LaGon, Debbie Michaud and Curt Holman chat about this year’s Holiday Guide. Dubbed the Regression Issue, the guide revisits our childhood love for toys — with a few grown-up twists.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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BURN BABY BURN: Lily Morgan (left) and John Cusack

GENRE: Disaster movie on a planetary scale

THE PITCH: Technobabble about solar flares plus mumbo-jumbo about Mayan predictions equals catastrophes that could destroy all life on Earth, even movie stars. A White House science advisor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a novelist/limo driver (John Cusack), his ex-wife (Amanda Peet), and a shaggy conspiracy theorist (Woody Harrelson) all try to keep ahead of the fireballs and falling skyscrapers.

MONEY SHOTS: Director Roland Emmerich remains the John Holmes of disaster porn. Highlights include the heroes out-driving a Los Angeles earthquake; a volcanic eruption at Yellowstone; a tidal wave crashing over a Tibetan mountain range; and the Sistine Chapel ceiling cracking between God and Adam’s fingers. (Oh, burn!) A tsunami flattens the White House with the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, proving what you’ve always suspected: Bad weather has a sense of irony.

Continue Reading “Hollywood Product: 2012“

(Photo Courtesy 2009 Columbia TriStar Marketing Group, Inc.)

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BLAZE OF GLORY: Murder becomes reality-TV fodder in Five Minutes of Heaven.

Even if you’ve never heard the name Oliver Hirschbiegel, there’s a strong chance you’ve seen his work. The German filmmaker directed Downfall, the superb 2004 drama about the Third Reich’s final days. Last year, a clip of Bruno Ganz’s Hitler chewing out his underlings became a YouTube hit when an online prankster rewrote the subtitles so the scene depicted then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton raging against her campaign staff. Now you can find dozens of remixes that show Adolf hating on, say, the Avatar trailer.

Hirschbiegel can’t claim credit or blame for the pop appropriation of Downfall, but the original scene’s dramatic power no doubt supports its viral following. Downfall’s depiction of the besieged Nazis combined epic battle scenes with more soft-spoken moments that illuminated Hitler’s historical legacy, such as Frau Goebbels quietly killing her own children rather than have them see an Allied victory. Hirschbiegel’s latest film, Five Minutes of Heaven, treats a confrontation between two men as another kind of microcosm for a historic event: the violence in Northern Ireland.

Continue Reading “Five Minutes of Heaven goes mano a mano with Northern Ireland conflict”

(Photo Courtesy Reconciliation Limited 2009/An IFC Films release)

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If you were to hear opera singer David Daniels’ voice before you saw him perform, you might make a mistaken guess as to his gender. Countertenors such as Daniels sing in a vocal range usually associated with sopranos and other classical female singing styles. Daniels’ renowned approach has redefined the countertenor style for a new generation of opera audiences. The first countertenor to give a solo recital in the main auditorium of Carnegie Hall, Daniels sings the role of Orpheus in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo & Euridice at the Atlanta Opera, Nov. 14, 17, 20 and 22.

How young were you when you began singing as a boy soprano?
I think I remember singing when I was 3 or 4 years old. It was probably more like screaming and driving my older brother crazy. He plays the cello, so he’s the only one in my family who doesn’t sing. My mother was a soprano, my father a baritone, and they both taught voice at Converse College. My mother taught me to sing in my “head voice.” I sang professionally as a boy soprano probably from age 9 to 16. Even though my voice changed, I kept the ability to sing this way as a teenager. Now I’m 43, and I still sing this way.

Continue Reading “Speakeasy with David Daniels”

(Photo Courtesy the Atlanta Opera)

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TRANCE-PARENT STORYTELLING: Lyn Cassady (George Clooney, from left), Mahmud Daash (Waleed Zuaiter) and Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) in The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats begins with a wonderful disclaimer: “More of this is true than you would believe.” Most films use phrases like “Based on a true story” or “Inspired by actual events” as a fig leaf for outrageous liberties with little connection to reality. The real incidents behind The Men Who Stare at Goats indeed seem stranger than fiction, but the demands of formulaic three-act screenwriting sabotage the film’s mission.

Based on the book of the same name by Welsh journalist and documentarian Jon Ronson, the film completely reimagines Ronson as Michigan reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor). Personal crises inspire Wilton to attempt to cover the 2002 invasion of Iraq. While languishing in Kuwait City and envying the embedded war correspondents, Wilton meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). Cassady turns out to be a veteran of the U.S. Army’s First Earth Battalion, which attempted to train psychic soldiers.

Continue Reading “Too baaad Goats falls flat”

(Photo Courtesy Laura Macgruder/Westgate Film Services, LLC.)

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A LIFE IN THE THEATRE: Robert (André De Shields, from left) and John (Ariel Shafir) discuss their lives as actors.

In David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre, veteran actor Robert (André De Shields) asks rising newcomer John (Ariel Shafir), “Could you perhaps do less?” in one of their scenes together. Theater professionals and fans will immediately recognize the insult, scarcely disguised by the veneer of politeness.

“Doing less” isn’t a goal of the Alliance Theatre’s production of Mamet’s thorny bouquet to thespians and stage lovers. Challenged to expand an intimate two-actor drama for the Alliance mainstage, director Robert O’Hara turns the show, in part, into a satire of contemporary theatrical spectacle in which more is less. Many scenes take place in the actors’ dressing room, but in this spare-no-expense version, the dressing room set elevates out of the floor.

Continue reading “Spectacle upstages script in Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre“

(Photo courtesy Alliance Theatre)

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FAMILY JEWEL: Precious (Gabourey Sidibe, from left) and her oppressive mother Mary (Mo'Nique)

Though only 17 years old, Clareece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) suffers enough misfortunes for several Greek tragedies remounted in 1987 Harlem. Precious’ title character endures obesity, illiteracy, a baby with Down syndrome and a sociopathically hostile, selfish mother (Mo’Nique) — and those are just the preliminaries. When Precious gets warmed up, it becomes almost unbearably grim, but its passionate performances raise it above contemporary motivational melodrama clichés.

Though she can barely read, Precious exhibits a talent for math. When she becomes pregnant for the second time, a kindly teacher secures Precious a chance to enroll in an alternative school called Each One, Teach One. Under the tough but kindly tutelage of crusading Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious bonds with her boisterous female classmates and begins to respect herself.

Continue Reading “Grim Precious treasures passionate actresses”

(Photo Courtesy Lionsgate)

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LEARNING CURVES: Jenny (Carey Mulligan, from left) and David (Peter Sarsgaard) in An Education

The establishment seems more firmly established in England than anywhere else. Two terrific new British films depict prodigiously intelligent characters who challenge entrenched English institutions and nearly outsmart themselves along the way. The protagonists of the soccer movie The Damned United and the coming-of-age romance An Education fit in the rebellious, angry young man tradition of English drama — although Michael Sheen’s Brian Clough isn’t exactly young, and Carey Mulligan’s Jenny is most definitely not a man. Both learn the lesson that pride goeth before a fall.

The Damned United ostensibly recounts the David-and-Goliath rivalry between soccer division cellar-dwellers Derby County and England’s crowning team, Leeds United. Rather than focus on triumph-of-the-underdog clichés, screenwriter Peter Morgan cuts back and forth between Clough (Derby’s manager) leading the team from obscurity to soccer glory beginning in 1968, to Clough, flush with victory, taking over as Leeds’ manager in 1974. Morgan wrote The Queen and Frost/Nixon (which also starred Sheen) and ignores biopic stereotypes in lieu of small but telling historical tipping points.

Continue Reading “Damned United and An Education pit youthful smarts against English establishment”

(Photo Courtesy Kerry Brown/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)

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THE PAINS OF BEING RAW AT HEART: Willem Dafoe as He (from left) and Charlotte Gainsbourg as She in Antichrist

I can’t truly say I enjoyed watching a man nail his penis to a wooden board in the 1997 documentary Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist. I can’t even truly say I saw more than brief glimpses before I averted my eyes, as if confronted by a solar eclipse. Nevertheless, the close-up atrocity summed up the obsessions and life experiences of a self-punishing performance artist with a fatal case of cystic fibrosis and a surprisingly tender marriage.

Lars von Trier’s Antichrist eventually reveals how unguarded genitalia hold up against carpentry utensils, but without the justification of Sick’s humanism or thematic clarity. An instantly notorious award-winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Antichrist proves to be an alternately draggy, repellant and opaque cinematic experience, while clearly representing devoted efforts from several master screen artists. Were Antichrist a piece of hackwork, so to speak, it’d be easy to dismiss.

Continue Reading “Antichrist canonizes genital mutilation”

(Photo Courtesy Trust Nordisk ApS/An IFC Films release)

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About five years ago, the Alliance Theatre asked me, possibly due to a clerical error, to take part in a panel discussion with the winner and runners-up in its first Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. The clear winner for “funniest person in the room” that day was Megan Gogerty, whose Kendeda contender Love Jerry was produced — to no little controversy — at Actor’s Express in 2006. Gogerty returns to Atlanta to perform her one-woman show, Hillary Clinton Got Me Pregnant, at Synchronicity Theatre Nov. 5-22. A professor at the University of Iowa, she recently recorded an album of songs about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

What are the origins of the show?
It’s a sort-of true story. I take some liberties with my life. It’s about two things. The first is my journey as a Democrat wandering through the Bush years, which coincides with a personal narrative about me deciding to have a family. It began when I was in Iowa City at a theater company that does a monologue festival. I performed one that I’d written a while back about meeting Hillary Clinton at a book signing. It went over super well. I used to do stand-up years and years go, so I thought maybe I should expand the monologue. Riverside Theatre said, “Do it! Great!” It had a short turnaround time, so I came up with a generic title, Megan Gogerty Loves You Very Much, which is true. I am Megan Gogerty and I do love you very much. And I decided to do Hillary Clinton.

Continue Reading “Speakeasy with Megan Gogerty” »

(Photo © 2009 Megan Gogerty)

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Zombies have become so popular that the corridors of our pop culture resound with ravenous moans for “Braaaiinns!” White Zombie, screening Saturday at the Plaza Theatre’s Silver Scream Spook Show, offers a kitschy reminder that the living dead weren’t always the decomposing cannibals of George Romero.

Follow the trail of body parts back a few decades, and you’ll find the origins of zombies in Haitian folklore. White Zombie shouldn’t be mistaken for a documentary about voodoo traditions, though. Filmed in 1932 to ride the horror trend established by Frankenstein and Dracula, White Zombie fudges the detail as to whether zombies are walking corpses or living people enthralled by drugs and hypnotism.

Victor Halperin’s film begins with a painfully white engaged couple, Neil and Madeline (John Harron and Madge Bellamy), stumbling across a burial ceremony shortly after their arrival in Haiti. They plan to marry as soon as possible at the estate of their new, wealthy friend Charles Beaumont (Robert W. Frazer), having forgotten the old adage, “Don’t talk to strangers because they might try to zombify your fiancée and raid her coffin.” Desperate to steal Madeline for himself, Charles enlists the aid of a sinister plantation owner with the nefarious name of Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi, of course). Though Madeline seems to die on her wedding night, she’s actually become enthralled by Legendre.

Continue Reading “Campy White Zombie harks back to pre-Romero living dead”

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