2010-03-09 20:47:51

WINDRIDER – Now Playing: “Rocket Man”

Filed under: Featured, Film
Posted by: Craig

Now Playing: “Rocket Man”

“No longer a boy and yet still full of joy”…so states a narrator near the conclusion of Laurence Cohen’s ingenious, sci-fi-tinged short, The Rocket Man, whose title derives from lead character Benji’s favorite childhood book. This simple phrase sums up Cohen’s own philosophy about the role of cinema in his life, and what he hopes to share with the audience: a sense of wonder along with a healthy resistance to growing up and abandoning one’s dreams. 12-year-old Benji similarly hopes to defend against the encroachment of eventual adulthood when he chances upon a disturbing discovery in his father’s laboratory basement: a mute 12-year-old girl, caged and deprived of human contact, with whom Benji develops a bond.

Rich in allegory, the film presents two intertwining storylines: that of Benji and that of the rocket man in the children’s story. Cohen, who began making films in grammar school and who has won awards for his documentary as well as animated films, completed his B.A. in Film and Video at York University in Toronto. The Rocket Man, an Angelus live-action finalist, was named Best Canadian Short at the Okanagan International Film Festival and has screened at the Bridge Fest in Bosnia, the Mississauga Independent Film Festival and the Bay Street Film Festival.

CHILDHOOD: ON THE CUSP BETWEEN NEST AND LAUNCHING PAD

Short Synopsis:

It’s a sad day when imaginative BENJI FERRACE (12) is forced to accompany his father to work. His adventures lead him out of his father’s office, into the downstairs dungeons, where he makes his most surprising discovery to date. Locked up as an animal in a cage, is PHIVIE (12), a young, mute girl, deprived of all human interaction. The two lonely souls immediately strike a bond. Benji’s daydream world is shattered as he must come to terms with the moral complications of his father’s work and with his oncoming maturity.

About the Director: Laurence Cohen

Beginning claymation at the tender age of 8, Laurence had made 15 films by the time he was 16, and 25 films to date. Laurence’s work ‘Pop Wars’ at age 15 was nominated for ‘Best Computer Animated Film’ at the EyeLenz Film Festival. It was also nominated for ‘Editing’, which is rare since editing in animation takes place before production. Also, by the age of 15, he had won 12 awards for acting in the Calgary Kiwanis Festival including the gold medal in the ‘Duologue’ category for three consecutive years. In his graduating year of high school Laurence won ‘Best Film’ at the Western Canada High School Film Festival and was awarded scholarship entry into York University’s film production program.

Having interned at Aurenya Entertainment, Idea Machine, and New Machine Studios for multiple years, Laurence gained professional experience in animation and special effects including credits for “Raven Tales.” Raven Tales has, among other festivals, screened at Sundance and won the ‘Governor’s Cup’ at the Sante Fe film festival.

His 2nd year film ‘Left Hook’ won Best Documentary at the Young Cuts festival in Montreal in 2006. His 3rd year film is currently being considered by the Alberta Ministry of Education to be used in schools across the province as an anti-bullying film.

His most recent short film, ‘The Rocket Man,’ won ‘Best Canadian Short’ at the 12th Okanagan International Film Festival and has screened at BridgeFest (Bosnia) and at MIFF (Mississauga Independant Film Festival). It will soon screen at the Bay Street Film Festival and is also a semi-finalist at the Angelus Student Film Festival 2009.

His documentary ‘Life in a Day with Magen David Adom’ has been distributed by the head office of Magen David Adom Canada to all the country’s chapters.

He is currently preparing a short film on Esther Brandeau, the first Jewish girl to enter Canada.

Laurence loves to tell stories that take the audience on a journey. ‘The ultimate cinematic experience is in establishing an imaginative world and realizing its most creative, integral and powerful interaction with the characters.’

Click here to view the film.

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2010-03-04 01:09:37

OSCARS 2010: Old School Storytelling

Filed under: Environment, Faith, Featured, Film
Posted by: Craig

Plenty of Oscar prognosticators turn the nominations into a horserace.  They assign odds to the various nominees based upon timing and the mood of the Academy voters.   Will an Oscar win cap a career or launch a new star?  Is it payback for a previous snub or an outstanding anomaly within an otherwise obscure body of work?     I asked my sharp students at Pepperdine University to get behind the Oscars, to investigate how the ten nominees for Best Picture got a greenlight.   Who had to believe in the film to get it made?   What allowed these movies to rise to the top of a considerable heap?    Screenwriters should be encouraged.   The ten contenders for Best Picture are built upon the foundations of drama—characters, stakes, and story arcs.

CHARACTERS:   The most memorable films revolve around fascinating characters.  The Hurt Locker rises above all other movies about Iraq because of its focus on the soldiers.   It takes us inside the experience of an Army bomb squad, especially Staff Sergeant William James.   We walk a nail-biting mile in his shoes.   How haunting to be drawn into the volatile battlefield of Precious.   We come to understand why she is so withdrawn.    Her circumstances would easily crush our spirits, too.   The Blind Side revolves around a gentle giant, Michael Oher, and the suburban Mom who opens up her home.   As Lee Anne Tuohy, Sandra Bullock storms through public housing and Memphis country clubs like a force of nature, fighting for Michael.  He finds a safe place he desperately needs.

Sometimes, a safe place can hinder our growth.    An Education demonstrates how too much comfort can numb us.   As a smart teenager, Jenny is so eager to escape her mundane home and school surroundings that she falls for the alluring David.   Mystery is preferable to rote certainty.   In Pixar’s entrancing animated film Up, a thick crust has formed around Carl Fredricksen.   The loss of his beloved Ellie has crushed his ambition and dreams.  Until an eager explorer scout, Russell, knocks on his door.    Of course, Pixar also makes us love Dug, a talking dog and Kevin, the faithful mama bird.

Only Inglourious Basterds offered more colorful characters.   Brad Pitt ramps up his Southern accent as Lt. Aldo Raine.   The rage pouring from Sgt. Donny Donowitz is channeled into his baseball bat.   The cool reserve of Shosanna Dreyfus and Bridget von Hammersmark covers up a furious deserve for revenge.   Cruel Nazi Colonel Hans Landa remains the most memorable screen character of 2009.   No one else holds the screen with more menacing force.    These vivid characters embody the edges of human experience.

When screenwriters create powerful characters, they also generate star-making vehicles.   Relative newcomers like Carey Mulligan (An Education), Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) and Gabby Sidibe (Precious) have been swept onto the red carpet.  Supporting players like Christopher Waltz as Hans Landa and Monique as Precious’s mother were also thrust into the spotlight.    The strong female roles offered to Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side and Vera Fermiga and Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air cut through the usual Hollywood clutter.    For Oscar voters, characters still matter.

STAKES:    Enduring stories involve high stakes and riveting risks.    In A Serious Man, professor Larry Gropnik endures the sufferings of Job.  Life as he knows it is unraveling.   And his problems are much larger than questions of tenure.   A tornado builds in the background of all our lives.    Precious must navigate deadly circumstances.   The film is almost a theater of cruelty, from one horrible test to another for the teen mother.    Her situation makes the homeless, fatherless life of Michael Oher seem almost simple.    Will Michael rise above a rough upbringing to guard others’ Blind Side?  The open arms of the Tuohy family pave his path to the NFL.    Up in the Air offers the most prescient take on our economic circumstances.   Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) holds disproportionate power over desperate employees—the ability to fire them.   Yet, he manages to distance himself from his HR job.    His feelings are far removed from the intense realities he encounters in terminating workers.

The Hurt Locker spells out its stakes in stark terms.  Sanborn describes their job to Will, “You realize every time you suit up, every time we go out, it’s life or death. You roll the dice, and you deal with it. You recognize that don’t you?”  Will James assesses his assignment, “There’s enough bang in there to blow us all to Jesus. If I’m gonna die, I want to die comfortable.”    In Up, Carl has to leave his comfort to truly live.    Carl and Russell are literally dangling from a string, balloons popping as his house travels to Paradise Falls.

Avatar revolves around nothing less than the destruction of a civilization.   The attack on the Na’vi’s  sacred tree echoes the collapse of the World Trade Center.    Will resolute survivors rebuild?    District 9 suggests how deep our self-destructive prejudices may reside.    Must we always find an ‘other’ to blame for our problems?   Inglourious Basterds wades into genocide, rewriting a horrific history.  It is the ultimate revenge film—the Jews take out Hitler—only at or in the movies.    Will we rally together to resist injustice before we perish from our foolishness?   In the finest films of 2009, the survival of civilization depends upon it.

STORY ARCS:  Classic movies take audiences on a ride.  We get invested in the characters, their dilemmas, and root for them to overcome obstacles.  They must shore up their weaknesses and recognize their blind spots.  In my book, Into the Dark, I studied the top rated films of the 21^st century according to Internet Movie Database users.    Amidst mind-bending films like Memento and Eternal Sunshine, I found common themes of dislocation.  We seem to have forgotten who we are and whose we are.   We are cut off from ourselves, isolated amidst rapid social change.    I traced the themes from the top films back to the garden of Eden, where God asked Adam a simple question, “Why are you hiding?”   We must our tendency to withdraw.

The most important movies of 2009 involve characters who are also hiding. The bomb squad in The Hurt Locker has ample reasons to cover up.  There is far too much shrapnel exploding around them.   In Avatar, a paraplegic soldier has nothing to lose from taking on a new identity, descending into a giant blue body.   It is an improvement over his trying circumstances.   District 9 tries to keep aliens at bay.   But sequestering them will not work.   We are all inextricably intertwined.

In Inglourious Basterds, frightened family shudder under floorboards, hiding from the Nazis.   Like Precious, they may run to a fantasy version of their lives to retain a sense of hope.     In An Education, Jenny refuses to see how David pays for their weekend forays.  She’s blinded by style.    Up in the Air’s Ryan Bingham allows the soothing sounds of the airport to insulate him from serious relationships.   He aims to keep his backpack empty.   Will he end up like Pixar’s Carl, locked in his own private universe, refusing to recognize the world around him?

These characters need to come out of hiding, to join the human race, to live in community.    Avatar and District 9 are about our interconnection to each other and our surroundings.    The Hurt Locker shows how radically dependent we are upon each other.  When one person suffers, we all suffer.    How do we carry on?   With the legacy of family expressed by Sgt. J.T. Sanborn, “I want a son. I want a little boy, Will.”

Our birth families may not always provide safety and comfort.  A Serious Man like Larry Gropnik discovers there are no guarantees, even in the suburbs.    We may be abused like Precious or abandoned like Michael Oher.  We need people like the Tuohys to intervene, to adopt us.   We may have to find alternative families like Carl and Russell, an unlikely but dynamic duo.    In Avatar, Jake Sully changes teams, throwing his allegiance toward Neytiri and the Na’vi.    Is that a betrayal of his roots or the evolution of his character?   The story arcs in the best films take us out of hiding, making us more human.

We retain our compassion and humanity under circumstances that test our convictions. Despite our efforts to remain isolated islands, we’re still called to community.   The finest films of 2009 echo the second question God poses in Genesis.   Elohim asks Cain, “Where is your brother?   As a murderer, Cain attempts to reframe the question, dodging responsibility with another question:  “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  The answer found in the Bible and in these haunting films is “Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.”   We are all Precious in God’s sight.

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2010-03-03 11:26:45

WINDRIDER – Now Playing: “Hearts of Darkness”

Filed under: Featured, Film
Posted by: Craig

Humor Sheds Light into the Darkest Heart

by John Priddy

We are proud to present the next Windy Wednesday short film in our Windrider WinterFest film series: Hearts of Darkness, from Zac Streich.

Zac Streich’s hilarious animated short Hearts of Darkness, an Angelus finalist, presents a pastiche-like send-up of epic movie references from Apocalypse Now to The Titanic, with a side of Steamboat Willie thrown in for good measure. A comically disaffected take on the film business, this visually compact short packs plenty of punch per pixel into its South Park-ian characters, an all-too-familiar, self-important film director and his disobliging cast. Streich, a film student at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia , has screened Hearts of Darkness at the Philadelphia Filmathon, among other festivals.

Filmmaker Bio:

Zac Streich graduated from University of the Arts with a BFA in animation in May 2009. He lives in the Philadelphia area.

Click here to view the video.

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