Review: "Bettie Page Reveals All" is as Good as Her Looks

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 25 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Bettie Page Reveals All (2012)
Running time:  101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA – R for sexual content and graphic nudity throughout
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:  Mark Mori
WRITER:  Doug Miller
CINEMATOGRAPHERS:  Grant Barbeito, Angel Barroeta, Doug Miller, and Jay Miracle
EDITORS:  Julie Chabot, Douglas Miller, and Jay Miracle

DOCUMENTARY – Biography and History

Starring:  Bettie Page, Hugh M. Hefner, Paula Klaw, Greg Theakston, Harry Lear, Art Arnsie, Olivia De Berardinis, Steve Brewster, and Richard Bann

Bettie Page Reveals All is a 2012 documentary film from director Mark Mori.  The film is the life story of the late Bettie Page (April 22, 1923 to December 11, 2008).  It also examines Page’s cultural influence.  Page was famous in the 1950s for her pin-up photos, and she is still often referred to as the “Queen of Pinups.”

Considered by fans and admirers as “the world’s greatest pinup model,” cult icon Bettie Page recounts the true story of her sometimes drama and strife-filled life.  It is a story that took place in front of the camera, as Page’s willingness to model for racy fetishistic photos earned her a huge following of admirers and of those who collected pin-up photography.  Page battled censorship, including a United States Senate investigation.  Along the way, Page helped launch the sexual revolution in the United States.

Bettie Page Reveals All is an adoring documentary in which Bettie Page tells all.  She only appears on screen in archival photos and film footage.  Director Mark Mori conducted an audio interview of Page, and he used that as the film’s voice-over narration through which Page tells her story.

Bettie Mae Page was an American model whose career began in 1950 when she met Jerry Tibbs, a police officer with an interest in photography.  Tibbs took pictures of Page and also put together her first pin-up portfolio.  Tibbs suggested that Page style her hair with bangs in front, and those bangs soon became an integral part of her distinctive look.

Through “camera clubs,” Page entered the field of “glamour photography” and became a popular camera club model.  Her lack of inhibition in posing made both her name and image a hit in the erotic photography industry.  Images of Page soon appeared in men’s magazines such as Beauty Parade, Wink, and Titter, among others.

From 1952 through 1957, Page posed for photographer Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula Klaw.  The Klaws owned a mail-order business that sold photographs with pin-up and BDSM themes, and those photographs would also make Page the first famous bondage model.  Page continued to model and pose for other photographers, and attracted the attention of Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner.  Page was one of Playboy magazine’s earliest “Playmates of the Month” (“Miss January 1955”).

However, a Senate committee, an FBI interview, and an upsetting experience with a group of photographers seem to have led Page to retire from modeling and pin-up photography.  Her life out of the public eye was filled with bad relationships and divorce.  There were encounters with law enforcement officials that led to a stay in a mental institution.  Her conversion to evangelical Christianity also caused her some trouble.

Meanwhile, the Bettie Page that was an image in pin-up photographs retained a cult following.  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, various book companies published books that collected pictures of Bettie.  At the same time, cartoonists, painters, and other artists began to use Bettie Page as an inspiration for their work and some even started painting images of Bettie Page.

Perhaps, the person that really launched the Bettie Page revival in the 1980s was cartoonist and illustrator, the late Dave Stevens.  In 1982, Stevens introduced his comic book character, “The Rocketeer,” in a backup feature in issues #2 and #3 of the comic book series, Pacific Comics.  Stevens gave his star, Cliff Second a/k/a The Rocketeer, a love interest based on Bettie Page.  The Rocketeer, which would eventually be adapted into a film by Walt Disney Pictures, is how I first learned of Bettie Page.

Bettie Page Reveals All is like an open letter from Page to her fans, but the film is also like a love letter from director Mark Mori to both Page and to her fans and admirers.  Bettie stated that she wanted fans to remember her as the Bettie Page in the pin-up photographs taken of her in the 1950s, so we do not need to see her as a senior citizen in this film.  Pin-up Bettie was one of the most beautiful women ever to be photographed.  Her unique looks, curvy figure (measurements: 36-24-37), and innate sexiness and attractiveness practically shine in those photographs.  Even seeing the photos via a movie cannot diminish their power to attract both male and female admirers.

This is my recommendation for Bettie Page Reveals All.  See it because it is a unique story about someone who truly deserves to be described as an icon.  Most of all, see Bettie Page Reveals All so that you can see a matchless example of true physical beauty and perfection in American popular culture.

8 of 10
A

Sunday, May 18, 2014

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Review: Shohreh Aghdashloo's Dazzling Memoir

THE ALLEY OF LOVE AND YELLOW JASMINES
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

AUTHOR: Shohreh Aghdashloo
ISBN: 978-0-06-200980-7; hardcover (June 4, 2013)
288pp, B&W with 8-page color photo insert, $26.99 U.S.

Shohreh Aghdashloo is an Iranian-American actress. She is probably best known for the Oscar nomination she earned as “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” for portraying Nadereh “Nadi” Behrani, the wife of Ben Kingsley’s Colonel Behrani in the 2003 film, House of Sand and Fog (76th Academy Awards). In 2009, Aghdashloo won the Primetime Emmy Award for “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie” for portraying Sajida Khairallah Talfah in the BBC/HBO miniseries, House of Saddam (2008).

Superhero fans may remember Aghdashloo for portraying Dr. Kavita Rao in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). In the film, Dr. Rao is a scientist working at Worthington Labs on the “mutant cure,” an inoculation (or shot) that will suppress the X-gene that gives mutants their abilities and makes them different from other humans.

Now, Shohreh Aghdashloo is sharing her journey from a childhood in Iran to the red carpets of Hollywood in her new memoir, The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines. The actress tells stories of family, faith, revolution, and hope.

She was born Shohreh Vaziri-Tabar on May 11, 1952 and grew up in affluent Tehran in the 1950s and 60s. However, Shohreh begins her story on Sunday, February 29, 2004 – the day of the 76th Academy Award ceremony. That day and the beginning of the night take up the first chapter, in which Shohreh even tells us about the two big Hollywood stars that snubbed her.

Afterwards, Shohreh, the author and storyteller, returns to her youth. Shohreh dreamed of becoming an actress, despite her parents’ more practical plans that she study to become a doctor. Shohreh was enchanted by the movies she watched while growing up in affluent Tehran in the 1950s and 60s. She fell in love and married her husband, Aydin Aghdashloo, a painter twelve years her senior and from whom she got her professional name. Shohreh made him promise he’d allow her to follow her passion.

The first years of their marriage were magical, as Shohreh began to build a promising acting career on screen and stage. Meanwhile, Aydin worked at the royal offices as an art director, exhibited his paintings in Tehran, and collected calligraphy. However, in 1979, revolution swept Iran, toppling the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s regime and installing an Islamic republic ruled by the former exiled cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini. Shohreh, alarmed by the stifling new restrictions on women and art, decided to escape the new regime and her home country. She began a journey that would eventually lead her to Los Angeles, to a new home, to a new family, and finally to the Hollywood career of which she’d always dreamed.

The most surprising thing about The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines is how well-written it is, and I say that because the tale Shohreh Aghdashloo tells is occasionally mesmerizing. Shohreh the acclaimed actress becomes Shohreh the acclaimed author with this dazzling effort. Not every celebrity can pull off a well-written opinion piece, let alone an entire book. Is there anything that has come out of Charles Barkley and Bill O’Reilly’s mouths that makes you think they are actually articulate and literate enough to have written the books credited to them?

Shohreh’s prose is impressive and especially vivid. Readers will imagine that they are experiencing the sights, sounds, and sensations Shohreh describes, as if her memories are also their memories. Speaking personally, when Shohreh wrote of her time as a young fashion model, her words made my imagination work to envision the clothes and fashions she wore so many decades ago.

Iran comes to life for me as it never has before, because I was seeing a place where people lived and not as an enemy state, which is how Iran is so often portrayed in Western media. I think the most important thing, however, is that the reader comes to feel and to understand Shohreh Aghdashloo’s desire to be an artist and an actor.

I do think that Shohreh is vague in some spots. She really only scratches at the surface of her political and social activism. It is almost as if it is something she does not want to hide, yet is forced to leave out details in some instances.

Shohreh is relatively unknown to American audience, even with her success. The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines, this book written in such a dazzling and colorful manner, will make you want to know her. This is one book written by an actor about her life that is certainly worth reading.

Readers of actors’ memoirs must have The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Review: Great Performances "Walk the Line" (Happy B'day, Joaquin Phoenix)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 177 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Walk the Line (2005)
Running time: 135 minutes (2 hours, 15 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some language, thematic material, and depiction of drug dependency
DIRECTOR: James Mangold
WRITERS: Gill Dennis and James Mangold (based upon the books The Man in Black by Johnny Cash and Cash: An Autobiography by Johnny Cash and Patrick Carr)
PRODUCERS: James Keach and Cathy Konrad
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Phedon Papamichael
EDITOR: Michael McCusker

DRAMA/BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC-SONGS with elements of romance

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick, Dallas Roberts, Dan John Miller, Larry Bagby, Shelby Lynne, Tyler Hilton, Waylon Malloy Payne, Shooter Jennings, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, and Dan Beene

Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic, chronicles Cash’s beginnings as the son of Ray Cash, (Robert Patrick), a poor Arkansas cotton farmer, his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, and his early status as a rock and country music star with Columbia Records. Along the way, Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) battles an addiction to pills, struggles with his first marriage to Vivian Cash (Ginnifer Goodwin), and meets the true love of his life and his soul mate, June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), a singer Cash admired when he was a poor Arkansas boy and she was a child star singer on the country music circuit of the 1940’s.

Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash is the primary reason Walk the Line succeeds. He plays Cash with equal parts mad abandon and quiet intensity. His Cash is one moment a wild man and the next moment a vulnerable soul desiring an intimate connection with June Carter or perhaps seeking reconciliation with the past. A film biography usually can’t give us the interior substance of the man a book could. However, a film biography can give us some kind of emotional and visual approximation of Cash. That’s what Joaquin does in Walk the Line.

Sadly, the film’s (almost) fatal flaw is the script because it’s shallow. The writers, Gill Dennis and director James Mangold, rely on several elements to give the film its emotional impact. One of them is Cash’s drug use, but the film takes a very surface look at it. Cash uses drugs; he becomes addicted, acts like an ass to his friends and family, and breaks things. That entire sub-plot comes across as what it is – old hat. It’s more annoying than interesting.

Two other important sub-plots are Johnny’s relationship with his father, Ray, and his wife Vivian. Robert Patrick gives a good performance as Ray Cash, but Mangold and Dennis mishandle the relationship (or misunderstood it while doing research for the film). It’s a clunky bit of writing that usually has a strung-out Cash staring oh-so-intensely staring at Papa Cash while Ray simply acts like a mean sumbitch. The film doesn’t need the father-son dynamic to be touchy-feely, but that relationship has no heart, is paper-thin, and the resolution is tacked on for a feel-good ending.

Vivian Cash, expertly played by the stunningly gorgeous Ginnifer Goodwin, gets the same dismissal. Mangold and Dennis once again rely on an old film stereotype, one especially big in biopics – that of the shrewish wife. Vivian is more whiny than happy, and the marriage is more or less played as being misbegotten from the get-go. That’s inaccurate (certainly by the accounts of Cash’s four children by Vivian), and if the filmmakers intended to play the marital strife for dramatic effect, they failed, instead ruining a good character.

The biggest waste in Walk the Line is Reese Witherspoon’s June Carter. As written here, the part isn’t a co-lead; it’s a glorified supporting role. Ms. Witherspoon and Phoenix certainly have some serious screen chemistry. They butt heads, stare deeply at one another, and bicker like siblings – or like longtime lovers. Ultimately, however, the story plays June Carter as being only important because she is something Johnny has to have. Of course, this isn’t really June’s story, but it’s obvious to anyone who sees Walk the Line how important June was to Johnny, though we only get a tantalizing piece here and there.

In Ray, the Ray Charles biopic, actor playing important supporting characters get at least one scene to define his characters both as an individual and as a larger part of the narrative. Walk the Line doesn’t allow this except for June Carter’s part. We also get very little of Johnny Cash’s backup band and or of his industry collaborators and acquaintances. Ray also gave the viewer numerous looks at Ray Charles’ creative process of songwriting, performing, and producing. Other than the concert scenes, Walk the Line gives us very little of Johnny Cash’s creative process.

Still, I found myself getting emotional during much of Walk the Line. There are some powerfully emotional scenes here (for instance, when Johnny first performs for Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records). Add such magical moments to Joaquin Phoenix and, to a lesser degree, Reese Witherspoon’s performances, and Walk the Line is a special biographical movie.

7 of 10
B+

Monday, November 28, 2005

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Reese Witherspoon); 4 nominations: “Best Achievement in Costume Design” (Arianne Phillips), “Best Achievement in Film Editing” (Michael McCusker), and “Best Achievement in Sound Mixing” (Paul Massey, Doug Hemphill, Peter F. Kurland), and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Joaquin Phoenix)

2006 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Reese Witherspoon) and “Best Sound” (Paul Massey, Doug Hemphill, Peter F. Kurland, and Donald Sylvester); 2 nominations: “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (T-Bone Burnett) and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Joaquin Phoenix)

2006 Golden Globes: 3 wins: “Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” (Cathy Konrad and James Keach), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” (Joaquin Phoenix), and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” (Reese Witherspoon)

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Review: "Tupac: Resurrection" is the Story of Tupac by Tupac (Happy B'day, Tupac)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 14 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Tupac: Resurrection (2003)
Running time: 90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong language and images of drugs, violence and sex
DIRECTOR: Lauren Lazin
WRITER: Lauren Lazin (treatment)
PRODUCERS: Karolyn Ali, Preston L. Holmes, and  Lauren Lazin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jon Else
EDITOR: Richard Calderon
Academy Award nominee

DOCUMENTARY

Starring: (voice) Tupac Shakur (archival)

Released theatrically in late 2003, the Lauren Lazin-directed documentary Tupac: Resurrection earned a 2005 Oscar nomination in the category “Best Documentary, Features.” The film is a look at Tupac Shakur’s life, especially his time in the public eye, and the story is told through Tupac’s own words. Ms. Lazin and her fellow filmmakers compiled the Tupac: Resurrection from home movies, photographs, and video and film footage from interviews, concerts, and news stories, as well as images and video recordings taken behind the scenes on video shoots, on film locations, and any place Pac went, lived, and played. Tupac: Resurrection’s narration is provided by Tupac himself via archival audio from the video and film footage used for this film, as well as from interviews, journal readings, poetry recitations, etc.

Tupac was a compelling figure and remains so even after his (some would say alleged) death, murdered by an unknown gunman. The film is riveting precisely because Tupac was and still is hard to ignore and an extremely controversial public personality. Tupac often said he’d be shot and murdered, so he often seemed to be speaking as if he were observing a life already lived. That makes listening to the archival audio eerie because it really seems as if he is speaking from beyond the grave, but Ms. Lazin deserves the credit for pulling off this kind of posthumous autobiography.

Tupac narrating his rise to fame is entrancing; he seems so ambitious and hopeful in spite of his early poverty and surroundings. It is, however, disappointing to watch fame turn him into a paranoid and arrogant celebrity jerk. When he was on the rise, the contradictions of his embrace of violence and misogyny and hope for peace and respect can be viewed as the inconsistencies of a young man struggling to form a philosophy or an ideology for his life. Later, when his legal troubles mount, and he publicly feuds with enemies, both real and imagined, he just seems sad, lost, and without an adequate support system – destined for an extra tragic end.

Still, Ms. Lazin should be commended for this fine film. It’s amazing both that every bit of this film is archival material and how she is able to give such a complete picture of the public figure that was Tupac. In fact, many public figures probably don’t realize how complete a portrait of their public lives can be made from publicly available visual footage and how those portraits of them may not be how they want to be remembered. Ms. Lazin, however, made an honest documentary in which the filmmaker really allows the subject to reveal himself… even from beyond the grave. Would Tupac like what he sees, or would he even care?

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2005 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Documentary Features” (Lauren Lazin and Karolyn Ali)

2004 Black Reel Awards: 3 nominations: “Film: Best Theatrical” (Paramount Pictures); “Film: Best Song” (Tupac Shakur-performer and The Notorious B.I.G.-performer for the song "Runnin' (Dying to Live)"), and “Film: Best Soundtrack”

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Review: "The Motorcycle Diaries" Reveals a Land and its People (Happy B'Day, Gael Garcia Bernal)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 27 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Diarios de motocicleta (2004)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA, Brazil and others; Language: Spanish and others
The Motorcycle Diaries (USA)
Running time: 128 minutes (2 hours, 8 minutes)
MPAA – R for language
DIRECTOR: Walter Salles
WRITER: Jose Rivera (from the book Notas de viaje by Ernesto Guevara and Con el Che por America Latina by Alberto Granado)
PRODUCERS: Michael Nozik, Edgard Tenenbaum, and Karen Tenkhoff
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Eric Gautier
EDITOR: Daniel Rezende
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/ADVENTURE/BIOGRAPHY

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo De la Serna, Mercedes Morán, Jean Pierre Noher, and Lucas Oro

Before he was Che Guevara, the legendary Cuban revolutionary who also fought in the Congo and Bolivia, 23-year old Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Gael García Bernal) and his older friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo De la Serna) traveled across South America on Alberto’s beat up late 30’s model motorcycle, “The Mighty One.” The duo’s adventures are sometimes comic (wooing women and numerous episodes of falling off their bike or pushing it for miles), suspenseful (fighting Ernesto’s asthma), or serious (volunteering to work at a leper colony). As the film progresses, we see the journey, which lasted over a year from 1951-52, have a profound effect on Ernesto as he saw the people of South America as one people rather than as a collection of provincial states. The journey would lead him to become the revolutionary, “Che” Guevara, who would have a huge impact on many nations.

Diarios de motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries) is a subtle travelogue that shows us how our surroundings can shape who we are, as we see Ernesto Guevara’s long journey change him, or at least make him no longer be the person he was when he left home. Gael García Bernal and Rodrigo De la Serna give delicate performances that resonate over this stirring, yet quiet film. The actors seem to have a real friendship that carries over to the characters and vice versa. Rodrigo’s Alberto is the jolly free-spirited, womanizing clown who keeps Che from going to deep into himself and disappearing from us. Bernal gives us an Ernesto/Che who shows his intellectual and spiritual awakening in his smooth gaze and facial expressions.

Director Walter Salles and cinematographer Eric Gautier create a layered film by allowing the wonderful and diverse settings and exotic locales to permeate the film story. The Motorcycle Diaries literally reeks of being a foreign movie. Of course, there is the language, but unlike many American films, there is no sense of forcing genre conventions on this tale of how the land transforms the soul of a man. Sometimes, Diaries is too low key, but its power comes from its visuals. Every frame and each scene is like a magical symbol simultaneously telling a story and taking us on a journey that might mean spiritual transformation. It’s a film for those who are interested in seeing a movie that reveals the heart and spirit of the land and its people.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2005 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song” (Jorge Drexler for the song "Al Otro Lado Del Río"); 1 nomination: “Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay” (Jose Rivera)

2005 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (Gustavo Santaolalla) and “Best Film not in the English Language” (Michael Nozik, Edgard Tenenbaum, Karen Tenkhoff, and Walter Salles); 5 nominations: “Best Cinematography: (Eric Gautier), “Best Film” (Michael Nozik, Edgard Tenenbaum, and Karen Tenkhoff), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Gael García Bernal), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Rodrigo De la Serna), and “Best Screenplay – Adapted” (José Rivera)

2005 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Foreign Language Film” (Brazil)

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Negromancer Movie Review: "Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 180 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004)
Running time: 78 minutes
PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS: Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Judy Hoffman
EDITOR: Deb Ellis

DOCUMENTARY/BIOGRAPHY/HISTORY

Starring: Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Marian Wright Edelman, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden, Alice Walker, and Matt Damon (narrator)

Author, historian, and activist Howard Zinn is probably best known for his landmark 1980 book, A People’s History of the United States. However, he has been anti-war, civil rights, and labor activist for decades, and he has been on the forefront of progressive thought in America for as long. Through archival film footage and photos and with commentary from Zinn himself, the documentary film, Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, chronicles this influential thinker’s life as an activist committed to social change. The film also includes interviews with Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden, Marian Wright Edelman, and Alice Walker (Edelman and Walker were students of Zinn’s when he taught at Spellman College in Atlanta in the early 1960’s.).

Howard Zinn has taken the position that the American Revolution has served the interests of an elite ruling class and that the resulting U.S. government is as tyrannical (perhaps at least as tyrannical as the British government it replaced). Over time, our governing class and our laws have largely protected the wealth and property of a rich, right wing elite and large corporations. As a historian, Zinn has examined our past from the point of view of the poor and the disenfranchised, and his books on history reflect that. Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train gives us a nice overview of Zinn’s life, work, and beliefs.

However, the life and work of such an activist and intellectual requires a much longer film and certainly a more impassioned one. This is kind of like a class lecture on Zinn, narrated by actor Matt Damon doing his best solemn monotone. Still, this documentary is required viewing for people who want to learn about someone who has revealed the dark side of our democracy.

6 of 10
B

Thursday, August 17, 2006

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