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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Capsule review: ‘Tenure’
Navigating the politics of college bureaucracy can be a tricky path. After bouncing around small liberal arts colleges in the Northeast, Charlie Thurber (Luke Wilson) finds himself nearing the end of yet another academic rope. He’s been at small Grey College for three years and his time to get tenure seems to be now or never.
Adrift in loneliness and dealing with a father waging a battle to be removed from his early placement in a retirement home, nothing seems to be going right for Thurber. When he is not agonizing over the future of his career at Grey or his family, he spends most of his spare time suffering his eccentric Bigfoot-chasing colleague (David Koechner).
When a cute, young, seemingly qualified professor, Elaine Grasso (Gretchen Mol), arrives from Yale, offering a threat to Thurber’s position in the English department and his White Whale of tenure, he goes into overdrive to protect his turf, haphazardly and comically plotting to keep his academic aspirations alive.
Wilson is likeable as the put-upon but charming Thurber trying to hold his family and career together, and Koechner successfully tones down and humanizes his over-the-top shtick in his role of lovable but hair-brained sidekick (think a more mellow and slightly less paranoid version of Walter Sobchak), but the film is a little too restless. Many of the scenes feature clever bits of dialogue, but they aren’t given time to develop, leaving a somewhat forced feel to the narrative.
Rosemarie DeWitt (“Rachel Getting Married”) steals a couple of scenes as Thurber’s rented date, and BobGunton (“24”) brings seriousness and heart to the role of Charlie’s dad, William Thurber, although his parallel story line at times seems contrived.
With his entertaining and at times touching feature debut, writer-director Mike Million shows promise as a filmmaker who understands the humor and heartbreak inherent in the human condition, although his first effort feels slightly too familiar to consider him a refreshingly unique voice.
“Tenure” screens again Wednesday night at 7 at the Arbor.
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Interview: ‘Pocket Full of Soul’ filmmakers Marc Lempert and Todd Slobin
Slobin: Mark and I were working a screenplay a while ago that had to do with some harmonica-related stuff. … As part of our research we ended up at this harmonica convention called the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica. We went in with a couple of cameras and realized that there was an amazing culture right there and just turned the cameras on them.
Lempert: It was really an accident. We set up a camera to ask maybe five questions and the next thing we knew we had something like 40 hours of footage. The questions that we originally asked turned out not to be the focus of what these people wanted to talk about. It ended up being this major passion play about the emotional connection to this instrument.
Slobin: I think we saw a unique passion in the players that was different than other instruments. The instrument is really a part of you when you’re playing the harmonica, which is what all these people kept telling us.
One of the things you bring up early on in the film is the fact that people don’t give the harmonica much respect as a musical instrument. Where does that come from?
Lempert: There is a certain degree of disrespect to the instrument, not so much the player, although when someone is associated with the harmonica it takes them down a peg. … They have to say “Hey, I’m a real musician, and this is not just a toy.”
Slobin: It wasn’t even classified as an instrument until 1948 when it was recognized by the musician’s union. In vaudeville it was a joke. People saw the Harmonica Rascals and thought it was just silly stuff with the harmonica. It wasn’t until the union realized that these guys were making money that the harmonica was taken seriously and these guys were invited to join the union.
John Popper really comes across as an encyclopedia of knowledge about the harmonica. Are all harmonica players that knowledgeable?
Lempert: I think almost all harmonica players that get to that level have really given a lot of thought to the instrument because of some of the negative connotations around it. They do this research because everyone who hears good harmonica playing wants to go talk to that person. It’s a phenomenon unto itself.
Slobin: Yeah, Popper was a great example. We actually recorded that bit with him here in Austin.
There are a lot of great harmonica players in the film, but the guy that impressed me the most was Jason Ricci. Where did you find that guy?
Lempert: We met him the second year we went to the harmonica convention. We had a camera set up, and as I’m panning around the room I see this young guy with bright red hair in the middle of all these older guys. Something told me we had to find out about this guy. … When he hit the stage that night, he was a mixture of Robert Plant and Jimi Hendrix with all this other stuff going on. He just oozes soul.
Popper also mentions in the film that harmonica players are notorious for wanting to battle each other. Is that true?
Slobin: It’s weirdly competitive. In America, the conventions usually don’t have a formal competition like they do in Asia, but when these guys gather around in circles you can see that it gets very competitive. … Some of these guys just start dueling. You don’t see that so much with guitar players for example.
Lempert: It happened a lot on the streets in Chicago in the ‘50s, Maxwell Street in particular. Guys like Little Walter, Big Walter and James Cotton were around … these guys would whip out their harmonicas and see who could do it better; who could get a bigger crowd gathered around them.
Was it hard to get these people to tell their story, were they open to the idea at first?
Lempert: The first year they were feeling us out, but by the second year we were brought into the inner circle.
Slobin: There definitely was a brick wall when we started this thing, but we came in and established a credibility with them and maintained contact, giving updates as to what we were doing. We not only broke down that wall, but we made a ton of friends.
What we found a little bit different was there are some people want to let the harmonica grow, to develop it, but there a lot of people who want to keep it to themselves. Most of these people didn’t have someone teaching them to play and didn’t know any other harmonica players. So when they get together at these conventions, some of them are very protective of their craft.
Lempert: There’s a gentleman in Chicago named Joe Filisco. He’s kind of the keeper of the faith of the harmonica trust and he was very hard to get through to. We finally went up to Chicago to interview him in this dark room, and halfway through the interview he turned the light on and says, “You guys have really done your homework. I’m proud of you. Let’s keep going.” Then he turned the light back out and let us continue the interview. So it was tough to convince some of these people, but I’m glad we stuck with it.
Do either of you of you play now?
Lempert: I do.
Nice. Can you bend a note? After watching the film, I went home and pulled an old harmonica out a drawer and tried. Nothing doing.
Lempert: It will happen for you some day. People talk about the day that they first learned to bend a note as the moment they really started playing. But, yes, I can bend notes. Not very well, but I can.
“Pocket Full of Soul” screens again Thursday at 10 p.m. at the Texas Spirit Theater.
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Live Webcast of premiere of Michael Jackson movie, ‘This is It’
Can’t wait until Wednesday to get a taste of the Michael Jackson concert documentary, “This Is It”? You’re in luck.
The movie premiers in Los Angeles on Tuesday, and the event will be streamed live on Thisisit-movie.com and crackle.com at 6:30 p.m..
According to a release, “viewers can interact by commenting and discussing on these pages during the live coverage.”
The U.S. coverage will be hosted by radio personalities Big Boy and Luscious Liz.
More on the movie from the release:
Michael Jackson’s “This It,” to be released on October 28th, will offer Jackson fans and music lovers worldwide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place beginning this past summer in London’s O2 Arena. Covering the months from March through June, 2009, the film is produced with the full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson and drawn from more than 120 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing numerous songs for the show. Audiences will be given a privileged and private look at Jackson as he has never been seen before. In raw and candid detail, Michael Jackson’s “This is It” is the last documentation of Michael Jackson in action, capturing the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius, and great artist at work as he and his collaborators move toward their goals of London, the O2 arena, and history.
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TXMPA’s big fall bash
Update: This event has been postponed until December. We’ll have new details later.
Live music, dinner, drinks, dessert, a silent auction and hobnobbing with local film folks animate the Texas Motion Picture Alliance’s second annual Spaghetti Western Fall Fundraiser Party at sunset Sunday at Star Hill Ranch in Bee Cave.
Dubbed the biggest local party of the year for film, TV, commercial and video-game makers, the soiree boasts music by The Tiny Tin Hearts and Erik Larson & Peacemaker, dinner by Ciao Chow and a big crowd of industry pros and state leaders.
Tickets are $60 general, $50 for TXMPA members. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
Details and tickets HERE
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Wednesday free screening: ‘An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story’
Earlier this fall, the University of Texas announced that the acquisition of Pulitzer Prize-winning photo-journalist Eddie Adams.
Adams made history with his 1968 photo of a South Vietnamese general executing a Viet Cong prisoner. “Saigon Execution” is widely considered one of the most influential images to come out of the Vietnam War.
The continuing story of the Saigon photograph became the subject of “An Unlikely Weapon,” directed by Susan Cooper and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. A free screening of the film will be offered Wednesday followed by remarks by photojournalist David Hume Kennerly Alyssa Adams (Adams’ widow).
‘An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story’
6:30 p.m. Wednesday
Blanton Museum of Art Auditorium, Congress Ave. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Free
See a slide show of UT’s Eddie Adams collection.
