Movies to change the world

Recently, I've watched three films from the library collection which unashamedly advocate for social change on a global scale. Two were documentaries and one an affecting pointed story. One was also a library program and another one was almost a program last year, but we couldn't arrange rights.

Nobelity is a personal reflection by film-maker Turk Pipkin, who interviews nine Nobel Prize laureates about problems affecting our world. While far from objective, as one could probably cherry-pick living Nobel laureates to support a wide variety of views, it is moving and ultimately surprisingly cohesive. Loosely divided into segments entitled: Decision, Challenges, Disparities, Change, Knowledge, Persistence, Peace, Reason, and Love. Each section features an interview with a Nobel laureate, juxtaposed with contextual scenes of areas of the world and montage sequence illustrating issues. The final montage, leading up to the interview with Bishop Tutu, is breathtakingly fast and emotional.

Showing this film would make a great public library program, as it lends itself well to discussion. Unfortunately last year, it was in limited release and the distributors did not really want to see it shown for free in public libraries, but were interested in university venues and non-profit groups that would share admission revenues. Now that the DVD is widely available, public performance rights may be easier to come by.

Girl in the Cafe has a screenplay by Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral). It features the wonderful Bill Nighy playing the sort of uncertain bloke that Curtis has so often created as a Hugh Grant character. Grant is till too young to play this role, as Nighy portrays an aging civil servant who may have just found love but has a part to play at the G8 summit in Reykjavik. The film asks good questions about doing the right thing and being willing to sacrifice for the greater good, as Nighy's personal and professional dilemmas run tangled parallel courses. A terrific, sweet and moving story. Unsurprisingly, an extra on the DVD is the video for one.org ("the campaign to make poverty history") that aired on TV last year.

An Inconvenient Truth is the film we showed at the library last week, and needs little introduction or explanation, since Al Gore's campaign on global warming has been high profile. We had about sixty people attend, and the film was followed by a lively discussion, moderated wonderfully by Joanne Kleussendorf of the Weis Earth Science Museum at University of Wisconsin - Fox.

This is the sort of program I would like to see our library do more often, combining education, community development, library media and a social issue.

DK Eyewitness Travel Guides

I have become a big fan of the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides; Marsha and I have used them for Italy, Greece, Ireland, and Great Britain. They're generally well organized, well-indexed, easy to use, and fun to look at and chockful of information both helpful and interesting. This last factor makes them useful for travel planning, time on the ground at the destination and for reminiscing. They're so good for reminiscing that we bought the Denmark book years after being there.

The only drawbacks are the cost -- you're buying for high quality paper and high quality color photography, the weight, and the fact that they're not available for more countries. After you've been walking for hours, you can feel the weight of heavy books, but I was disappointed that they don't publish one for Romania, where I'm headed in a couple months.

When we were talking yesterday with friends planning an Italian vacation, we recommended the books. Unsurprisingly, they were already familiar with the series and didn't need to borrow our Italy volume, as they're already intending to pick up their own copy.

Padua / Padova

You mean I don't know Dick?

One of my dream library programs would be a Philip K. Dick film/book festival. I think we've now reached critical mass of worthwhile Dick films. Were I to plan a Dick film series, I would include:

• A Scanner Darkly
• Blade Runner
• Minority Report

...and if I wanted to get into "guilty pleasure" territory:

• Total Recall

I'd most likely take a pass on:

• Paycheck
• Impostor

And films I haven't seen include:

• Confessions d'un Barjo
• Screamers
• The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick [documentary]

The thing that prompts me is seeing the recent video release of A Scanner Darkly, which was both well done and appropriately disturbing. Director Richard Linklater's approach of rotoscoping live actors and producing a photorealistic animated film is uniquely appropriate to Dick's surrealistic story-telling. Linklater smoothly layers multiple realities, leaving the viewer to question the differences between reality and perception. Characteristic themes of drugs and paranoia get worthwhile and serious treatment from start to finish. A difficult but worthwhile film, and Robert Downey Jr. is a standout in an excellent cast.
There's also the forthcoming major release of Next, based on "The Golden Man" story. Now if somebody would just film The Man in the High Castle, and if I could just figure out how to get enough of a decent audience to a Dick film series at the library...

Tezuka strikes again -- Ode to Kirihito

Just finished reading Ode to Kirihito, the big Osamu Tezuka novel I got for Christmas. At almost 900 pages, its a substantial piece of work and a good read, though not among his best. Though fairly long for a manga, the total reading time was probably only four or five hours.

The story describes the stuggle against a disfiguring disease, complicated by a corrupt medical establishment. The plot is a fairly standard medical potboiler, though a bit on the dark side and with the interesting addition of many explicit Christian elements. One of the characters is a nun struggling with disfigurement and disgrace. There are a couple of disturbing rape scenes and occasional nudity, so the book is not one for kids, though older teens should have no problems handling the subject matter. Beyond that, much of the book reads like an extended episode of Black Jack, Tezuka's medical genius character. As usual in Tezuka, most of the drawing is clear if workmanlike, while landscapes are often lovingly detailed.

While the book is dark in tone and makes good points about the effects of pollution, the indifference of some in the medical community to societal problems, and the dangers of scentists' politics interfering with scientific practice, the overall impression is melodramatic. Still, this is a good addition to any library collection serious about manga or where Tezuka's other serious works have found readers.

Anime lately

It's been awhile since I've seen a really good piece of anime. There are a few to look forward to, though. Paprika, the latest feature by the always-worthwhile Satoshi Kon, is being touted as an Oscar contender, so it should be out soon. And there's a lot of teasing information about the U.S. release of the hot series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya, but it could be months before Bandai gets it in stores (and libraries).

In the meantime, there's a number of interesting, if not great series available via Netflix. I've started both World of Narue and Gantz, but I'm not sure if I'll be back for the second disk. The nice thing about Netflix is the ability to try lots of things without a big financial or time commitment.

In the meantime, it looks like a long time until the next Studio Ghibli DVD...

Planetes, vol. 4

This fourth volume of Planetes continues the solid job of story-telling and animation. As with earlier volumes, there are some similarities to the terrific original manga, but also some unique features to the anime. This volume covers the changing relationship between Hachimaki & Tanabe, and introduces the Jupiter expedition and Hachi's father.

A particular strength is the ongoing development of the minor characters. Several supporting players receive some good character development, sometimes in the foreground and sometimes in the background, adding to the richness of the story. The writing and directing uses a broader range of character development than the manga, and also uses a variety of comic, dramatic and suspenseful storytelling and pacing to sustain and build the long overall narrative. The animation features some nice grace notes supporting the character development.

While the single DVD in this package has fewer extras than some of the earlier two-disk sets, there is still a nice group of features, including an audio drama, a brief documentary from NASA and a deconstruction of the opening credits, with scenes from the history of space flight. This series continues to impress and is becoming one of my favorites. The respect that the creators give to both the material and the audience is notable.

Review originally posted on Amazon.com

Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent- promise fulfilled

Satoshi Kon's 13 episode series comes to a satisfactory conclusion, weaving the final story from several characters introduced in the first few episodes. Along the way, Kon gives at least a passing node to most of the major characters.

How you view the series overall will depend on your taste and point of view. What appears to some as meandering and unfocussed can appear to others as a real tour de force. The series comprises a variety of animation styles and even narrative styles. It was always a bit of a hodge-podge: Kon said at the start that he wanted to use a number of ideas that had come up during his feature films but that did not fit into the narratives. The series form gave him a great opportunity, as some episodes seem to digress, illustrating a point rather than moving the overall narrative forward. Nevertheless all the stories carry the common thread, and in the final analysis the work stands as a unified whole. The overall form becomes one of a themed anthology.

That being said, the end of the series on this volume is strong. Once I started watching, it was hard to stop. The storytelling is compelling, and the animation was well done in a variety of styles, the two-dimensional world being particularly enjoyable. There's intelligently-written action along with moments of fear, humor and pathos. The commentary track by creator-director Kon, along with the screenwriter and producer, is frosting on the cake. Overall, this disk and this series demonstrate again why Kon is one of the greatest animators out there.