Randy Newman turned his satiric song “Short People” into a music video that appeared on MTV in the early 80s.  Not just short people make films; many people make short films.  In essence, a music video is just a new form of the short film, many of which — including those by Randy Newman — have been made by both short and tall people.  The short film is also a forgotten art form that deserves a return to mass-market theaters.  

In the days before satellite and pod casting, the only place to see moving images was at a theater where not only feature length films were shown but a variety of news, information and entertainment films — with the majority being short.  Many a Clark Gable picture would be preceded by a newsreel, a cartoon, or a non-fiction short, which in today’s media milieu would be analogous to a piece on a TV magazine show like 20/20.  When the medium of television infiltrated American living rooms, the short film slowly faded away as a theatrical presentation, turning into an Oscar category that pool players dread each year.  

What many people may not know is that the short film is as challenging to make as any feature or more so, whether a narrative or documentary.  The advent of cable TV has allowed for some new venues to show some short films, such as The Sundance Channel and the Independent Film Channel, and shorts have become the darlings — and saviors — of film festivals around the world.  Shorts have also become calling cards for unrecognized filmmakers that enable them to show off their abilities, even if those are shortsighted.

Having just finished presiding over a short film showcase in my small town of Moorpark, California, I have been reassured that our youth is still interested in making short films and are doing so in droves.  Of course, with technology making it easier for even Aunt Mabel to make, edit, and distribute a digital film, all from the comfort of the den, there’s also a lot of garbage that should never have been burned to a DVD, let alone shown to the general public. But the cream always moves to the top, as they say.

And speaking of cream, the short film thrives in the form of activist propaganda pieces, and I don’t mean that in a negative sense.  The short film allows the individual filmmaker or one representing a group to get out a point of view in a concise, viewable, and entertaining manner.  Case in point is a 14-minute film made by award-winning filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards, Tiffany Shlain called Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness.  The smartly made film uses a humorous approach to advocate the issue of a woman’s right to choose.  The film was an official selection of the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and finally has its television debut on The Sundance Channel this month (see below for dates).  I’m all for independent, artistic freedom of expression and know a film can be enjoyed even if the viewer does not totally agree with its politics, but all I ask of filmmakers is that they entertain, as well as advocate.  Ms. Shlain achieves this wholeheartedly, and like the old Michael Moore on the feature front, uses the form intelligently and without boring us out of our minds.  Not to be short, but you better not miss this great example of length-challenged filmmaking.  

Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness airs on The Sundance Channel on October 26 at 7:15 p.m., October 29 at 7:45 p.m., and October 31 at 10:45 a.m., all times Eastern. Check the schedule for other times.

Rich Burlingham

“I did not say, we Turks killed this many Armenians. I did not use the word ‘genocide.’”
— Orhan Pamuk, swiftly backtracking after he allegedly commented to a Swiss newspaper that “30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it,” referring to the contested Turkish killings of Armenians in 1915.  Pamuk faces trial and up to three years in prison for his remarks.  

Turkish and Armenian historians differ in their accounts of what happened in 1915. It is a fact that Armenians were driven out of eastern Anatolia, their ancestral homeland. It is also a fact that many Armenians died during this forced march out of Anatolia. The unresolved question is whether this incident — what amounted to a death march for the Armenians — was planned and orchestrated by the Ottoman government. The traditional Turkish answer to the Armenian accusations of state-sponsored massacre has been that the Armenians, with the backing of czarist Russia, rebelled against Ottoman rule. The deaths that resulted from the resultant conflict in 1915 must be placed in their appropriate historical context of World War I and the twilight years of the soon-to-be-abolished Ottoman Empire.

As Turkey looks towards the EU for prized membership in the European club, so too will the EU be looking towards Turkey and at Pamuk’s trial to determine the nation’s suitability for the EU.  
  

Mimi Hanaoka

When I was a kid during the 70s, the made-for-television film was in its infancy, having been developed by Barry Diller at ABC.  One of the earliest examples of a MOW (movie of the week) that was so popular, it spawned not only more MOWs but a series as well, was Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1972).  It was about a hack journalist Carl Kolchak who went about digging up the dirt on serial killers who often were of the paranormal variety, such as vampires, all while wearing a seersucker suit and straw hat — kind of like Harold Hill in a Wes Craven movie.  The series didn’t live up to the movies and Darren McGavin, who played Kolchak, himself closed the series down by asking out of his contract after 20 episodes because he saw the show was becoming a parody of itself.  Its legacy remains as the granddaddy of the genre that begat shows such as Twin Peaks and The X-Files decades after.

Now 30 years later, the powers at ABC looked to their vault for ideas since listening to any original stories must be too strenuous.  They resurrected The Night Stalker (Thursday, 9 p.m.), tapping producer Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files) to bring the series back from the dead.  From one who saw the original, the current The Night Stalker should not be borrowing the title because it resembles little from the original, a show that was adept at using humor to temper the more gruesome aspects, at least for 1970s audiences.  Through the genius of Darren McGavin’s melting skeptic performance, the show never took the paranormal and serial killer themes too seriously.  This new version axes the humor altogether and tries to sex it up with a hunk playing Kolchak (Stuart Townsend) and giving him a babe, Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union), as a new partner in covering crime.  After viewing the first few shows, it looks like Spotnitz is trying to rekindle that old Mulder-Scully, are-they-or-aren’t-they relationship that was strung out for years on The X-Files, but hopefully the Kolchak-Reed hook-up will be all business for quite some time.  It seems the network suits don’t think a Darren McGavin-type character would fly in today’s TV culture. His Kolchak was an almost comic throwback to the smarmy tabloid reporters of the 1950s; this Kolchak is a brooding, noted, maverick journalist with a crawl in his gut because the FBI thinks he killed his wife.  It is his quest to find out what or who really killed her.  Do I hear Mulder crying in the background?

I was all prepared not to like this incarnation of The Night Stalker, but after viewing the first three episodes, it has grown on me — and though I think they should have called it something else, I believe it deserves an audience.  It is more down-to-earth and real than The X-Files but still with shocks and twisty storylines to keep you watching.  I hope the relationship isn’t pushed between the two leads and they give more airtime to the supporting players, Jain (Eric Jungmann), the Jimmy Olsen-like photographer, and the newspaper editor Vincenzo (Cotter Smith).  Thursday is no “Must-See TV” anymore, but if you have nothing better to do, tune in to The Night Stalker for some small-screen thrills and chills.  If you were watching closely to the pilot, you may have seen Spotnitz’s homage to Darren McGavin as he digitally placed his Kolchak into a newsroom scene.  Nice touch.

The Night Stalker is worth a try.

Rich Burlingham

“It’s not something bad to have increased shopping in Ramadan. The more people buy, the more they share.”

—Mohammed Mahgoub, Advertising Committee Member

Giving new meaning to “ramadan kareem” (the traditional Ramadan greeting, meaning, “a generous Ramadan,” The New York Times reports today that the holy month of Ramadan is becoming increasingly commercialized in the Arab world.

—Laura Louison

llouison

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For the sake of protecting marriage, more and more states are making it illegal for gays to marry. If we allow gays to marry, we will be breaking down this historical institution. Now, marriage needs someone to rush to its defense. After all, over half of all marriages end in divorce. If a company produced a product that failed fifty percent of the time, it would go bankrupt, and we witness the bankruptcy of marriage. So in order to protect marriage, I pose the following possible solutions:

1)Make divorce illegal. What better way of protecting marriage than by not allowing citizens to get out of it except by death? We can take away everyone’s civil rights and protect marriage all at the same time!

2)Since marriage should create an environment for positive and healthy families, let’s allow only people of child-bearing age who are fertile to get married. Women with potential pregnancy complications need not apply.

3)Everyone is only allowed one marriage. If your first husband or wife dies or is abusive, well at least you got the one shot.

The point is that all of the laws we pass or policies we create are going to be as ridiculous as the last one. On September 29th, the Terminator terminated a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage in California—and maybe this is necessary. Perhaps the voters of California will vote for same-sex marriages, and Schwarzenegger’s veto will become a waste of media space.

Brett Currier

Terrible spelling and choppy, stuttering sentences no longer need to be restricted to teenagers and text messages; the Bible is now available in SMS text message format, replete with absurd spellings and, apparently, a very accessible message. The SMS Bible begins with the proclamation that “In da Bginnin God cre8d da heavens & da earth.”

The Bible Society in Australia has translated the Bible and all its 31,173 verses into text messages, after six weeks of labor on the part of Mr. Michael Chant, who translated the Bible into SMS messages.

Apparently the Bible can do with a little positive marketing and image re-appraisal, as it is now also available in camouflage. “The old days when the Bible was only available within a sombre black cover with a cross on it are long gone,” stated Mr. Chant, speaking about the Bible Society in Australia’s Bible designed and tailored specifically for the nation’s armed forces.

The SMS Bible follows in the wake of the recent innovative gimmick that is the 100-Minute Bible; Reverend Michael Hinton in England has, after years of work and vicious editing, edited and published the new Bible, miniature both in content and in style, for distribution in British churches and schools. The Bishop of Jarrow, Rev. John Pritchard, served as a consultant on the book and offered a rigorously non-theological take on the 100-Minute Bible, in which all 66 books of the Christian holy text have been condensed like a literary cheat sheet.  “This is an attempt to say, ‘Look, there’s a great story here — let’s get into it and let’s not get put off by the things that are going to be the sub-plot. Let’s give you the big plot,’” was the Reverend’s sunny outlook.  
  
While Mr. Chant insists that only the spelling of the Bible, and not its language, has been changed with the SMS Bible, one wonders if something doesn’t get lost in translation.  

Mimi Hanaoka

In the last hundred years of filmmaking, there have been different eras where a vast array of subjects, styles, approaches, and themes have been taken to new levels.  For instance, in the late 60s and early 70s, directors took on serious subjects and presented them in a very real, raw, and groundbreaking manner.  Films such as Midnight Cowboy, Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge exposed audiences to lifestyles and characters never before experienced.

Then came Jaws and Star Wars which brought on the blockbuster era of action and special effects, and the small film that took on real-world issues fell to the wayside.  During the 90s, the so-called independent movement took hold, fueled by an infusion of foreign cash and the desire by many filmmakers to take on serious subjects again which created an influx of films — some good, such as The Crying Game, and many not so good (you know who you are).  The “Indie” movement has cooled somewhat and now what you get are these small films that were good enough to win festival awards with great acting but stories that leave you empty.  That leads us to First Look Pictures’ Forty Shades of Blue, directed by Ira Sachs (The Delta), written by first-timer Michael Rohatyn and Ira Sachs, and starring Russian standout Dina Korzun, Rip Torn (Men in Black), and Darren Burrows (Ed in Northern Exposure).

Forty Shades of Blue is about a young Russian woman, Laura, who lives in Memphis (hometown of director Sachs) with a much older legendary music mogul, Alan James, and has a young son with him.  She’s the typical lonely trophy wife, beautiful and kept and expected to act accordingly.  Laura’s life would probably have continued without change if not for the intrusion of Alan’s estranged son from a previous marriage, Michael, who returns home to escape troubles with his wife.  Michael’s jealousy, anger, and resentment towards his father, fueled by an attraction to Laura, become the center of the film.  The story is simple, the characters are not, and that is what makes this Sundance Film Festival 2005 Grand Jury Prize winner worthy of viewing; but like some good Kung Pao chicken, it leaves you a little wanting by the end.  

I was mesmerized by the simple but affective performance by Dina Korzun, who really does show forty shades of blue (as well as other colors), but the script never allows her the full opportunity to win the audience over.  Much of the publicity has gone to Rip Torn for a part that many actors could have played stereotypically.  Torn, who has a long history of great stage and screen performances, brings a very three-dimensional depiction of a man who can have anything he wants and is adored by thousands but who can’t achieve the love and respect from those closest to him.  Darren Burrows brings the same understated performance that he gave to Ed Chigliak in Northern Exposure as the son who never achieved the same greatness as his father but has to fight all the same, inherited, bad traits.  Understatement can sometimes get in the way of great storytelling, and in this case, the key relationship between Laura and Michael becomes so under the wire that you end up not caring what the characters end up doing.  You just want to shake them into realizing that there are people with real problems in the world, and when you put them in perspective, their lives really aren’t that bad.  Forty Shades of Blue deserves a viewing, but unless you like dramatic films that drop you in the middle of character’s lives and then ends with just a splotch of enlightenment, then I’d wait for the DVD.
  

Forty Shades of Blue is now playing at Film Forum in New York and starts Friday, October 7 at the Landmark’s Nuart  in Los Angeles and nationally throughout October.

Rich Burlingham

A national study of high school English teachers conducted by Concordia College found that, overwhelmingly, English teachers believe that Biblical literacy is an advantage for students tackling advanced reading materials. Now, there’s a textbook to help them do it. The Bible Literacy Project, a non-partisan organization based out of Virginia, has developed a textbook to teach the Bible as literature in high schools.  Their tagline is “An educated person is familiar with the Bible,” and that’s hard to argue with given how frequently the Bible is referenced in Shakespeare, Hawthorne, or Faulkner — all canonized authors we expect well-educated men and women to be knowledgeable of.

In an age when the theories of intelligent design are encroaching upon classrooms, one would expect this new textbook to be attacked by liberals on the grounds that its inclusion in the curriculum violates separation of church and state.  And that’s where they’d be wrong. The Bible is already in English classrooms, and to cloak that in ambiguity only further positions the evangelical right in the position of wronged martyrdom they so adore. By shedding light on the Bible’s influence on literature, teachers can acknowledge the complex intersection of religion and history and arm their students with knowledge — far more powerful than censoring their reading materials.

llouison

There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, but the collective GDP of the 57 nations that are part of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, is a trifling five percent of the world total, even if you round up the numbers. The solution to this incongruity? An Islamic common market.
  
The Organization of the Islamic Conference — whose member nations include oil-rich Saudi Arabia with its GNI of $10,430 as well as the desperately poor Chad, with its GNI of $260, and the until very recently war-torn Sierra Leone, with its GNI clocking in at US $200 — convened in Malaysia for the first World Islamic Economic Forum (think Davos, transported to Kuala Lumpur). Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the OIC chairman and Prime Minister of the host country, touted the financial and political benefits that could be accrued from unfettered — or, at least, less bureaucratically hindered — free trade between the 57 nations.  

Should such a trade agreement come to fruition, the nations would no doubt benefit; even some of the poorest member nations, such as Chad and Seirra Leone, are rich in gold and diamonds, respectively. The hinderances are the breathtaking levels of corruption within the countries that are making the nations’ economies underproductive, not to say crippled.  

Mimi Hanaoka