Year: 2016
Happy Birthday: Carly Rae Jepsen
Carly Rae Jepsen
Born: November 21, 1985 in Mission, British Columbia, Canada
The red carpet is so unlike anything ever. You stand there and have a bunch of photographers yell at you, and you have to pretend to still be smiling, even though it’s horrifying. But it’s really kind of cool to be there and get to see everybody dressed up and feel like, I don’t know, like how could this be real life?
There’s a moment, right before every award show so far, where I actually ultimately wish and pray that I don’t get called up, because I’m afraid that I’ll have to talk afterwards. But I think, for the Grammys I’ll make an exception. And it’ll be worth the humiliation if I do.
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Film Review: THE BIRDWATCHER (Canada 2015) ***
Director: Siobhan Devine
Writers: Roslyn Muir, Roslyn Muir
Stars: Camille Sullivan, Gabrielle Rose, Garwin Sanford
Review by Gilbert Seah
THE BIRDWATCHER is a film where the characters are almost all women. They are strong women, normal women, trying to live out their lives, mistakes and all. But before males can dismiss the above lines as a feminist film to be avoided, Vancouver-based director Siobhan Devine’s female film, based on a script by Roslyn Muir is that rare female film with good strong and smart male characters.
A social worker, Saffron (Camille Sullivan), dying of cancer knows the state-sponsored fate that can await orphaned older children. She is driven by desperation and determination to find her mother and leave a family legacy to her temperamental teen daughter Lucy (Matreya Fedor) and enthusiastically precocious eight-year-old son Jonah (Jakob Davies). Online investigation turns up Birdy (Gabrielle Rose), a famous ornithologist (THE BIRDWATCHER of the film title) as her birth mother.
Birdy has created a blog as a way of connecting with admirers while avoiding human contact. Her quirks are patiently abided by her devoted and more social husband Finch (Garwin Sanford) an artist who shares her life of birdwatching in the B.C. forest while living out of an R.V. in a camping park. So, Saffron and children arrive at Birdy and Finch’s self-contained, somewhat hermit-like paradise. Saffron eventually reveals to Birdy the reason she is there.
Muir’s script is manipulative at times. When Birdy’s publisher, Matt shows up unexpectedly during the camp buffet, it dos not take a genius to guess that he does not bring good news. This also makes the perfect time for Birdy to be confronted with her birth daughter and for the audience to cheer that Birdy’s pompous world will fall apart. It is also predictable who will end up adopting Saffron’s children after she passes on.
The best lines in the film are Birdy’s mutterings about the birds and their habitats and behaviour. They seem too perfect, like quotations right out of a birdwatcher’s manual.
Despite its flaws, director Devine’s film has a strong female perspective. The women in the film and their relationships are laid out bare – Saffron and her birth mother and Saffron and her own feisty daughter, Lucy. All these are on full display without having to trivialize the male characters – a trap that most female directors with female content films fall into. Saffron’s younger son Jonah is a smart, sensitive kid. Devine spends time writing some fine (and humorous) lines for him, making his character stand out besides being Lucy’s obnoxious younger brother. Birdy’s husband Finch is kind, also smart and a sensitive man.
THE BIRDWATCHER has already been widely acclaimed, with various awards – best film, director, actress and supporting actress awards and nominations at the Indie Gathering Independent Film Festival in Ohio, Toronto’s Female Eye Film Festival, the U.K.’s Southampton Film Festival, B.C.’s Leo Awards and the UBCP/ACTRA Awards. A small film that will likely draw a small audience, THE BIRDWATCHER is by no means a perfect film, but director Devine certainly deserves credit for her debut feature. The film begins a limited run at the Carlton Cinemas, Toronto.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/120997445
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Special Film Review: THE BIRTH OF A NATION (USA 2016)
Directed by Nate Parker
Starring: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Penelope Ann Miller
Review by Gilbert Seah
Writer/director Nate Parker debut drama uses the same title of one of the most instrumental films in early cinema history. D.W. Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION was considered one of the best films in early cinema and one that would influence filmmakers everywhere and at any time. But Griffith’s film was racist against the African American and boosted white supremacy and the KKK Ku-Klax clan. Parker uses the same film title hoping it to be a corrective reclamation of cinematic history. This is all very ambitious, especially for a young filmmaker, and even more so for one that has been accused, though acquitted of the rape of a fellow student.
Whether one can argue that an artist should be separated from his work and real life, it is difficult to care for the words of an accused rapist – guilty or not. The result is that the film will likely be ignored by the Academy during Oscar season.
Born into slavery in Virginia’s Southampton County, young Nat (Nate Parker) is given to dreams in which his African ancestors anoint him a prophet. He is favoured by his masters, learns to read, and is given a Bible. By the time he is an adult, Turner has become a preacher capable of rousing oratory. He convinces his master Samuel Turner (a barely recognizable bearded Armie Hammer) to purchase Cherry (Aja Naomi King), whom Turner eventually weds. Their romance proves a fleeting idyll, however. Turner is rented out to preach at other plantations where, after years of relatively humane treatment, he becomes fully aware of the depravity and torture wreaked upon slaves — and decides that sermons are no longer a sufficient response to such appalling injustice.
Finally Nat leads a slave revolt. It lasts 48 hours but the result is disastrous. The Whites retaliate by hanging 200 innocent slaves. Nat turns himself in, and is hung.
Earnest as Parker’s film may be, its is an ambitious fone – and too ambitious to a fault. At times, Parker does not know where to go, just as his main character is lost after his initial revolt. The character Nat Parker has failed to realize the consequences of his actions – how much more firepower and strength the Whites have. Even if successful, where are all the freed salves going to go? And where to work and live and survive in a blackless commercial world. There is also one scene with a slave cutting the beard of Samuel Turner with a pair of very sharp scissors with Nat looking on. A puzzling scene which appears to be a nod to the Oprah Winfrey shaving scene in Steven Spielberg’s A COLOUR PURPLE.
The transition from one period to another in a character’s is often difficult. The transition of young Nat to Nat the adult is observed in the fade out and in of a cotton plantation where Nat re-appears as an adult.
The film though jolting at times (Nat’s lashing after baptizing a White; the violent slave uprising; the hanging), Parker’s film is a
conventional told tale, chronologically laid out and inevitably offering audiences what is expected from such a film (wealthy white folk living in a big white mansion in a plantation; cruel slave hunters;
insufferable slave living condition et al.). One would expect more from a film with an ambitious a title like THE BIRTH OF A NATION. Still, it is a story, well told and challenging enough transmitted through Parker’s craft.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezWiUTXB11A
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Died Today (November 20th): Robert Altman (1925–2006)
Robert Altman (1925–2006)
Born: February 20, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Died: November 20, 2006 (age 81) in Los Angeles, California, USA
Married to: Kathryn Reed (1 April 1959 – 20 November 2006) (his death) (2 children)
Lotus Corelli (21 November 1952 – 1959) (divorced) (2 children)
LaVonne Elmer (8 June 1946 – 1951) (divorced) (1 child)
I probably am a lazy artist and probably don’t control things as much as some people would like- but that’s my business. And if my style is too loose or improvised for some people’s taste, that’s their problem- totally. The fact is, I’m not the greatest Hollywood director and that bullshit, but I’m not the opposite either. And I am not careless. I may be irresponsible, I may strive for things and not always succeed. but that’s never the result of sloppiness. Maybe it’s lack of judgment.
| MASH 1970 dir. Altman Starring |
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Happy Birthday: Sean Young
Sean Young
Born: November 20, 1959 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Was cast as Vicky Vale in Tim Burton’s version of Batman (1989) but was replaced with Kim Basinger after an injury sustained riding a horse.
Was originally cast as Tess Trueheart in Dick Tracy (1990), but was replaced after several days filming by Glenne Headly.
[Talking about Harrison Ford during the filming of Blade Runner (1982)] Harry [Ford], he was never happy on that film. The only time he was happy was when they told him it was over.
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Happy Birthday: Nadine Velazquez
Nadine Velazquez
Born: November 20, 1978 in Chicago, Illinois, USA
I want to move people, stir something within them that makes them feel. That’s what a movie should do and an actor should do, make you feel something. I think that’s why people love films so much.
I would love to have a drink with Meryl Streep or Prince. Those are my top two people I would love to talk to.
When you’re rehearsing, you get really inspired in the beginning, but then it becomes repetitious and you lose the magic. How do you get the magic again? The magic happens when you’re not pushing it.
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Happy Birthday: Andrea Riseborough
Andrea Riseborough
Born: November 20, 1981 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, England, UK
[on working with Madonna in W.E. (2011)] She always said, “I’m here if you need anything from me”, but she gave us a sense of freedom in regards to embodying the characters. When it came to shooting, she’s a very visual, detailed director. She loves blocking things out. Before I walked on-set, she would choose my shoes and jewelery. It was her little ritual.
 W.E. dir. Madonna Stars: Abbie Cornish Oscar Isaac |
 MADE IN DAGENHAM2010 dir. Nigel Cole Starring: Sally Hawkins Jaime Winstone |
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OBLIVION
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Happy Birthday: Joel McHale
Joel McHale
Born: November 20, 1971 in Rome, Lazio, Italy
Married to:
Sarah Williams (20 July 1996 – present) (2 children)
[on The Soup’s mascot dog, Lou] I didn’t like Chihuahuas very much before I met Lou, I thought they looked like big-eyed rats, but now I’m in love.
Every parent should thank God for the gift that is their children’s health, and shower them with love.
I loved New Jersey. I thought it was the greatest place in the world because on Halloween kids could start trick or treating right after school. Isn’t that great?
| THE BIG YEAR dir. David Frankel Stars: Owen Wilson Jack Black |  Spider-Man 22004 dir. Sam Raimi starring Maguire Alfred Molini James Franco |
 SPY KIDS 4: All the Time in the Worlddir. Robert Rodriguez Stars: Jessica Alba |
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Happy Birthday: Ming-Na Wen
Ming-Na Wen
Born: November 20, 1963 in Coloane Island, Macau
Married to:
Eric Michael Zee (16 June 1995 – present) (2 children)
Kirk Aanes (19 May 1990 – 1993) (divorced)
I’m trying to show I’m a trained actress – I can transform myself into different characters. I’m not just an ingenue.
I’m as proud to be Chinese as I am American.
I’m not one of those actresses that’s going to feel like I never achieved my dreams and goals and just get disgruntled and hate everything about the business. I’ve had so much fun.
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Festival Reviews 