SAVE THE DATE: Two weeks from tonight – Wed., Feb. 15th – we’ll be holding a special launch party for SoKing Internet Radio, our new, locally-driven radio station, rockin’ the Tin Theater (at 923 SW 152nd in Olde Burien) from 5:30-7 p.m.!

The radio station will “go live” on the air in the theater at 6 p.m. sharp, so please arrive before then for the best experience – we’ll all gather around a computer, say a few words, acknowledge some peeps, perhaps do some weird chanting, then click a button and the station will magically come alive.

All our Readers and Advertisers are invited to this free event, which should be a blast – we’ve been working hard behind-the-scenes building this new media venture, setting up servers, learning new software, collecting and programming local music and beta testing the stream. So far everything’s working great, so we think it’s time to actually go live!

Some interesting anecdotes about this project:

• Far as we know, we’ll be the first local blog in the Northwest (perhaps the entire U.S.?) to have its own internet radio station! We’re doing this for a variety of reasons – because we love music, because we want to help local musician types, because nobody else is really doing it right, because we think it’s a great community service, and because it’s really flippin’ COOL to run your own radio station!!
• It’ll be available over the internet only, which means you can only listen to it through your computer, phone or mobile device. However, this also means that anyone anywhere in the world can listen. And just you wait – there will be a day not too far from now that you’ll have wi-fi internet in your car!
• It will feature all local music from area bands, musicians and songwriters like:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Castbound, a group of 15-year old guys from Normandy Park and West Seattle:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jordan Biggs, another local singer/songwriter:

Click here to view the embedded video.

BenniB, a B-Town boy turned rapper:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Treehouse Dreamers, which includes King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg (yes, that’s him singing in the video below):

Click here to view the embedded video.

KT & HOOPS, a local folk duo:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Trip Like Animals, a psychedelic/grunge band featuring Michael Molner, a bartender at The Tin Room:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Boomerang Summer, headed by Trevor Ras, a Highline High grad:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Noah Gundersen, another great Seattle songwriter:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lark vs Owl, an amazingly talented Seattle pop duo:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pacific Nomadic, a Seattle Indie rock band:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But wait…there’s more!

• DUI Joe, a Burien-based DUI Attorney that we bet you didn’t know could sing. Or talk – he’ll also be doing a talk show for us shortly!
• Kyle R. Andrews, a pop acoustic local singer
• Tupelo, a local, classic country rock band that has played Yo’s Bistro
• Morris Can Fly, a power-pop trio from Seattle
• The Thoughts, a thoughtful small band from Seattle
• Two Buck Chuck, a kitschy cover band with two brothers that plays Mick Kelly’s often
• Dirty Malkovich, aka Luke Krom, formerly of Skwish
• The Pink Torpedoes, which includes local Yellow VAN Handyman Roger Gee
• Manooghi Hi, a Seattle band that collides Indian music with Grunge
• Sly Mr. Y, a pop-influenced power singer aka Chris Yates
• Beau Robinson, another local songwriter/singer
• Classic northwest 80s music from The Heaters, The Cowboys (R.I.P. Ian Fisher), The Eagertones and even one of Scott’s personal faves – the late great Billy Rancher and the Unreal Gods (now out of print)!
• And there’s much much more, with new tracks being added every day!
• We’ll also feature regular “shows,” but when we launch it will be a mix of just great local music.
• We’re going to tie our six local blogs into it as well, so we’ll feature local news from our sites, and we’ll also feature local music on our blogs. That’s what the big media boys like to call synergy.
• The station will be fully ASCAP/BMI/SESAC/Soundexchange licensed through Streamlicensing.com, which means that we’ll be paying out royalties to affiliated artists.
• Listeners will be able to rate songs as they listen to them. We’ll also have a Top 20 chart of the highest-rated songs.
• We’ll do occasional newscasts, mostly when news warrants it. We’ll also do fun stuff like play computer-voiced versions of the best Comments from our blogs, just because we think that’d be a pretty fun thing to hear.
• We are planning on doing a Kickstarter fundraiser campaign to help us build a small radio studio in Burien where we can do interviews and perhaps even record live music. If you’ve got some spare audio studio gear to donate, or know where we can get some, please email us!
• This project was the brainchild of Publisher Scott Schaefer, who, upon seeing several great local bands at Burien’s Wild Strawberry Festival, thought that the area could use a “truly local” radio station that showcases local talent. He then ran this past his resident tech guru, who foolishly said “sure, sounds fun…why not…?”
• The station would not exist if it wasn’t for the expertise of said guru – Michael Brunk – who has spent countless hours setting up things, learning software, finding music and helping program it!
• Another shout-out is in order for biz partners Todd Christensen and Wendy Quesinberry of design firm Quesinberry & Associates, for designing the logo and helping find music.
• And even more shout-outs to the rest of our team, all of whom you’ll soon hear “on the air”:
• Joy Steele, Columnist/Sales Manager
• Ralph Nichols, Senior Writer
• Jack Mayne, Associate Publisher
• Mark Neuman, Writer/Sales
• Bryan Charles, Intern Animator

So there ya go – the brief history of SoKing Internet Radio in a nice bullet point presentation, including videos!

Oh, and be sure to “Like” SoKing Internet Radio on Facebook here.

We look forward to rocking out with you at the party! And thanks in advance for your support!

The Sea-Tac Airport Music Initiative, Experience the City of Music is a comprehensive program that enhances the traveler’s experience by utilizing speakers and screens airport-wide to feature a diverse variety of northwest music from the soulful sounds of Quincy Jones to the poignant lyrics of Eddie Vedder. Travelers will also hear artist-read public announcements, enjoy curated videos on terminal and baggage claim monitors, and listen to a multi-channel web radio player available through the free airport Wi-Fi network.

“The Port is pleased to be a leader in this effort to promote the region’s music industry and to increase the visibility of local musicians at the airport,” said John Creighton, Port of Seattle Commissioner. “From Jimi Hendrix to the Wilson sisters, Chris Cornell and many others, the Seattle area has a strong music heritage. Over 32 million passengers pass through Sea-Tac Airport each year, giving us a unique opportunity to introduce a new generation of local musicians to travelers and tourists.”

“Seattle is known around the world for its music culture, so it’s great to see this identity embraced and showcased to all the travelers going through the airport,” said Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn.  “Jet City, meet Music City.”

This campaign will launch dynamic media elements curated and developed by branded entertainment specialist PlayNetwork, including:

• Overhead  music featuring local emerging artists like Fences, Beat Connection and Allen Stone with legends like Ray Charles, Heart and Nirvana
• Overhead safety and informational announcements read by local musicians such as Ben Gibbard, LeRoy Bell, Macklemore, Jerry Cantrell and Sir Mix-A-Lot
• Video segments on terminal monitors throughout the airport featuring exceptional original content from KEXP, EMP, MTV, Chase Jarvis, the Seattle Channel’s Art Zone, Light in the Attic Records and The Seattle Band Map
• A web-based multi-channel music player available via the airport’s free WiFi
• An Android mobile app, developed by Front Runner, which will feature access to the PlayNetwork music playlist, videos and KEXP concert listings; iPhone, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry apps coming soon

Sea-Tac Airport will also be holding a Music Initiative Launch Party on Saturday, Jan. 28!

To kick-off and celebrate the Sea-Tac Airport Music Initiative, an Experience the City of Music Launch Party will be hosted on January 28, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific Time in Sea-Tac’s Gina Marie Lindsey Arrivals Hall at the south end of the baggage claim area. The event will feature live performances by Seattle artists including:

• 6 p.m. – Dusty 45’s (upbeat rockabilly, swing and jump blues)
• 5 p.m. – Fly Moon Royalty (electro-soul duo)
• 4 p.m. – Carrie Clark & the Lonesome Lovers (roots, Americana, sass-a-frass)
• 3 p.m. – Recess Monkey (catchy, energetic kids rock)

Additional performances by local musicians will take place onboard Sound Transit’s Link light rail trains from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Port of Seattle Commissioner John Creighton and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn will kick off the event alongside Seattle Music Commissioner Marcus Womack.  The event is free and open to the public. RSVP now for free.

“We are incredibly proud of our city and it’s an honor to be working on a project that will touch the lives of 80,000 passengers every day,” said Nadine Zgonc, VP of Client Management for PlayNetwork. “From licensing to creative, our team is excited about the work we’re unveiling. It’s been an amazing opportunity to collaborate with such a talented array of community leaders that share our commitment to the region’s artistic culture.”

“This project has been so much fun to work on because of all the community support and excitement to show off our music culture in such a significant way,” said Seattle Music Commissioner Marcus Womack.  “I am proud to be on the Seattle Music Commission and drive this forward.”

Additional support for this project comes from The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and other valued Seattle-based organizations.

Click here to view sample audio and video elements.

Click here to learn more about the Sea-Tac Airport Music Initiative.

Here’s the video for the song, with lyrics to follow.  It’s the kind of song that those frustrated with City government might sing, metaphorically…

You ask me how I feel, well suddenly this is all for real
It hasn’t seemed like that till now, it’s as if you were still mine somehow
I hope you’ve realised just how I’m being so civilised
But it’s nearly time I went, we’ve got one last chance to have an argument

And watching you walk back to your car
Was the lowest point of my life so far

Don’t stare into my eyes, I couldn’t bear for you to realise
That I’m still desperately in love with you and darling that’s all I can think of
It’ll get easier every day, well I’ll be five thousand miles away
And I’m good at hiding pain but now I really should get on that plane

And watching you walk back to your car
Was the lowest point of my life so far

As if you still could ever do a single thing
That’d make me hate you

by Greg Wright

What new insight could I possibly add to your experience of Dead Poets Society?  Very little, I imagine.  My own history with this classic film is long and deep, having been a fan of both star Robin Williams and director Peter Weir long before they collaborated on this tale of an inspirational (if incautious) new professor and alum of a historically stuffy and conformist Ivy League prep school.

Most adults, of course, seem to have very little memory of what being a teenager is like; the normal result is a lack of sensitivity and understanding, much as we see with the parents of Neil and Todd in Dead Poets (played brilliantly by Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke).  However, in his passion for flipping that insensitivity the opposite direction, John Keating (Williams) equally forgets the impressionability of youth—and with tragic unintended consequences.  Keating is not the catalyst for the tragedy, of course; but he’s not entirely unaccountable, either.

Here’s a smattering of the historical critical consensus on Poets:

• Williams, who has comparatively little screen time, has come to act, not to cut comic riffs, and he does so with forceful, ultimately compelling, simplicity. (Richard Schickel, Time)
• Hurrah! Poetry and passion, comedy and tragedy are fused into one absolutely marvelous affirmation of independent spirit in Dead Poets Society. (Judy Stone, San Francisco Chronicle)
• The picture draws out the obvious and turns itself into a classic. (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker)
• Nothing about this film sounds, as described, novel. Yet it grips, because it has been made with plentiful feeling and vigor.  (Stanley Kauffman, The New Republic)
• Williams is impressively restrained as well as funny, so fans need not fret. It only means that instead of Good Morning, Preppies, we’re given a bittersweet, even eerie Goodbye, Mr. Hip. (Mike Clark, USA Today)

Now, this is not a perfect film.  It’s not even Weir’s or Williams’ best (those honors would probably go to (Gallipoli and The World According to Garp, respectively).  But both are at the top of their game here, easily overcoming the more maudlin and contrived aspects of the script.

And while there’s nothing new on the new Blu-ray release (all the bonus features have shown up on previous editions) a look behind the scenes gives some insight into the craft (and mindset) of Weir’s singular art.  As early as Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave, Australian Weir was establishing himself as an auteur of note—and his oeuvre backed up that promise.  Every element of a Weir film is both deliciously out of control yet precise: the perfect blend of Orson Welles’ anal retentive planning and Stanley Kubrick’s freewheeling unpredictability.  Sometimes the package didn’t work so well (Mosquito Coast or Master and Commander) but who can forget films like The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, Fearless, or The Truman Show?

The greatest legacy of Dead Poets, of course, is that it is the contemporary standard by which all ensemble-cast prep/high school films are judged.  Weir’s casting and direction of the Welton Academy kids was uncanny, and beyond Leonard’s and Hawke’s stunning turns, characters like Knox Overstreet and Charlie Dalton are forever etched in a generations’ memory.

“Gotta do more.  Gotta be… more!”

Seize the day.  Seize the Blu-ray.

Rated PG.  128 minutes.  Directed by Peter Weir.  Stars: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke. Dead Poets Society is now available at Netflix and Amazon.

by Greg Wright

Ultimately, I think will stand by my original assessment that Roland Joffe’s latest feature film is “a somewhat stylized cross between Doctor Zhivago and, well, Fried Green Tomatoes”… as long as you understand that the latter reference is not intended as complimentary.  And it’s worth noting that I might well have said “Fried Green Rotten Tomatoes,” as the film has been blasted with a rank 11% fresh critic’s rating on the tomatometer (though it fares much higher with audiences at 68%).

“It aims for epic scope in its ill-fated romance between a communist partisan and right-wing spy,” I wrote in June last year, “and it succeeds admirably, coming off on that score much like a rather less poetic Atonement.”  I elaborated:

Like Becket, the film really works not because its core is polemic, romance, politics, or teaching, but because it pits two charismatic characters against each other.  …  Subplots are all relevant, casting superbly highlights all the right characters with all the right beats, and Joffe never pursues any particular story thread past its welcome.  I was deeply moved by this film, and even provoked intellectually and theologically to consider to what extent I have harbored or released resentment toward my Heavenly Father for the perceived injustices in my life.

What I didn’t mention in my review (because other critics had not yet weighed in) was my suspicion that the film would get largely panned by reviewers and audiences alike—and not because it’s a bad film per se, but rather because it’s far too ambitious, complex, and challenging for its own good.  A great many things about the plotting and construction are out-and-out confusing—and without the awkward and stilted voiceover/montage sequences that intrude in the late going (and which are frankly never a good sign), audiences would likely miss a great deal of the film’s symbolism and meaning.  And that presumes that audiences have even stuck with the slowly-paced film long enough to get that far.

I dropped a great number of film titles in my original review as points of comparison, but I missed probably the most relevant touchstone: Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, which was butchered upon its initial theatrical release in the U.S.  The home video release of Dragons comes equipped with a literally almost endless collection of deleted and alternate scenes, and it’s not hard to see that Joffe intended Dragons to play something like Once Upon a Time in Spain—a detailed saga of boyhood friendship resentment gone epically awry—and that the film’s producers were as impatient with Joffe’s vision as Leone’s producers were with him.  As filmed, There Be Dragons is a sprawling tedious mess, and a screening of the deleted material yields a great deal of insight into the finished film’s deficiencies.

They also almost make me want to reneg on my original review of the film.

Almost, but not quite.  And here’s why.  Even though Joffe overreached himself here, and made it nearly impossible to patch together a coherent cut of the film, what Joffe was aiming for was so much more worthwhile than films like Avatar, The Dark Knight, or Inglourious Basterds—to name just a few.  And while those films are ultimately far more finely crafted (and, uh, successful) than Dragons, ultimately empty, self-referential, pseudo-profound popcorn flicks like those don’t hold a candle in my book to less successful films that are about ideas that really matter.

Josemaría Escrivá didn’t infiltrate romanticized blue-skinned alien cultures, deal with his inner demons by donning a cape and mask in highly improbable fashion, or work out the problem of evil in a violent alternate-reality fetish fantasy.  No; in the context of the very real Spanish Civil War, which literally pitted brother against brother, Escrivá worked out his commitment to “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” in a practical and lasting fashion.  And Joffe tells that story in a way that just might—just might, mind you—radicalize your faith just a little.

So I’ll still recommend the film… but also recommend you skip the deleted scenes!

Released to home video January 10, 2012. Starring: Dougray Scott and Charlie Cox. Director: Roland Joffe. Genre: Drama. 122 Minutes. There Be Dragons is available at Amazon, Netflix, and Redbox (come February 7).

Submission date is Monday, January 23, 2012, from 2-5:30 p.m. at City Hall.

The Des Moines Rotary Club will be presenting the 8th annual Poverty Bay Wine Festival from March 2-4, once again in the historic and grand Landmark Event Center in Des Moines.

Guests will enjoy live music and great food while tasting wines from 20 Northwest wineries.

The festival kicks off on Friday, March 2 at 5:00 p.m. The fun continues on Saturday and Sunday, with more wine tasting, food, and live music.

Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 at the door. Tickets can be purchased at Corky Cellars in Des Moines (206-824-9462) or at www.dmrotary.org.

All proceeds fund the service projects of the Des Moines Rotary Club, including college scholarships, grants to local schools, safety and recreation programs for children, yard projects for elderly residents, support for the local food bank and the homeless, and projects to assist needy people as far away as South Africa and the Philippines.

HOURS:

• Friday: 5:00 PM – 10:00 PM
• Saturday: 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM
• ?Sunday: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM

MUSIC:

• Uncle Ernie – Friday, 6:30-9:30
• All Stars No Stripes – Saturday, 3:30-6:30
• Ambience – Sunday, noon-2:00
• Stephanie Porter – Sunday, 2:30-4:30

For more information, please visit www.dmrotary.org.

But what do you do with all the spare time you wind up with when things go smoothly?  Well, luckily for SeaTac travelers, the airport’s merchants sponsor plenty of entertainment.  We’ve posted some YouTube clips, below, of what you can expect if you’re headed to the airport today… courtesy of both the Port of Seattle and regular travelers like you!

The full schedule of today’s performances is included at the end of the post.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Bronwyn Edwards Cryer on Piano – in the Central Terminal Atrium​    5 a.m. – 11 a.m.​
• Geoffrey Castle – in the Central Terminal Atrium​    Noon – 4 p.m.​
• ​The  Starlight Carolers​    6:30 – 10:30 a.m
• Santa Claus and Marty The Elf​    6 a.m. – noon
• Santa Claus and Rachel The Elf​    Noon – 6 p.m.​
• Eric Haines Roving One Man Band and Stilt Walker​    6 a.m. – 10 a.m.​
• Roberto The Magnificent Roving Comedy​    6 a.m. – 10 a.m.​
• Henrik Bothe International Comedy and Juggling​    8 a.m. – noon
• Wild Bill Robison  Roving Comedy with Floaty Boat and the Mimic ​    8 a.m. – noon​
• The Holiday Winter Princess​    6 a.m. – 10 a.m.​
• Frosty the Snowman​    6 a.m. – 10 a.m.​
• Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer​    8 a.m. – noon
• The Wandering Living Christmas Tree    ​    8 a.m. – noon​
• The Holiday Game Team​    6 a.m. – noon​

Usually, we’ll take “another look” at a film because of some unique angle that warrants further discussion—and with The Help, I’ll get to that.  But first I’m going to spend some time simply talking about why it’s important to get a second go at certain films.

I know some reviewers who proudly declare that they never watch films a second time.  And I can understand why that can happen.  After all, if you’re reviewing films regularly, the theatrical release market alone can keep you busy with an average of four or five screenings a week—peaking during the holiday season with as many as a dozen in the span of a few days.  I know that back in the 1990s, John Hartl of the Seattle Times (who was also contributing to Premiere, as I recall) was averaging nearly ten films screened a week.  And that kind of load doesn’t include film festivals, screenings for pleasure… or the home video market—which is now roughly triple the size of the theatrical release market.  A reviewer can keep so busy that there simply isn’t enough time (or desire) to watch a film twice.

But there’s the actual rub.  Except for the rare, extremely astute, and attentive reviewer, one screening is simply not sufficient to form an authoritative (or even fully-informed) opinion of a film—much less offer incisive commentary on how, exactly, a filmmaker achieved a certain effect or assembled a scene or sequence.  A reviewer might have a visceral reaction to the “Odessa Steps” sequence in Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables, for instance.  But the technical direction there is so dense that an opening-day reviewer couldn’t offer much of an analysis beyond a quick reference to Eisenstein and The Battleship Potemkin.  So most reviewers (and this is the somewhat arbitrary line between reviewers and actual “critics”) owe it to themselves to see culturally significant films more than once.

But the problem goes deeper than that: reviewers and audience members alike go into every screening with a certain set of expectations that color the cinematic experience.

For regular reviewers, I’d warrant that the two primary expectations are either a Norbit-inspired dread or an overweening pants-peeing fanboy admiration for Scorsese, Tarantino, the Coens, von Trier, or whoever the auteur du jour happens to be.  (On the flip side of that coin, I must confess to a horribly unjustified bias against the films of Steven Spielberg and Julia Roberts.) Such expectations are further complicated by how much sleep one got the night before, which loudmouthed journalist happens to be within earshot, which other film one just got done screening or reviewing, how much of the film’s publicity materials one has read, or how much fan hype has crept through one’s defenses.  Then one has to actually pay attention to the film in detail while trying to take some kind of useful and legible notes.  And when this job has to be conducted in the context of promotional screenings, like the abysmally-facilitated showing of Spielberg’s War Horse last week (which left me, and scores of average joes, in a foul mood before the film even started), the level of distraction rises exponentially.

Audience members face their own unique distractions: semi-informed nonsense, puff, and sharply accurate recommendations (or insults) the aforementioned reviewers have written, plans for after-screening dinner (or romance, or both), squirmy children, neighbors texting during the film, nacho cheese dripping on their shirts… you get the drift.

So much for actually paying attention to an incredibly complex art form.

Every once in a while, then, in light of all such difficulties, I find it worthwhile to deliberately revisit films that I was lukewarm about—to find out how much my own personal biases and professional hazards interfere with my ability to really watch a film.  I rarely sit down, in fact, for the sole purpose of enjoying a film the first time I see it.  I simply have a hard time dropping the lens of a reviewer and former aspiring filmmaker.

The Help, which was enormously successful in its theatrical release, is a perfect such test case for me: I enjoyed it well enough in the theater (particularly because I didn’t have to review it), but it didn’t captivate me.

The film tells the fictional story of an aspiring white journalist who enlists the help of black maids in Civil-Rights era Jackson, Mississippi to compile an anthology of first-person accounts titled The Help, which gets successfully published by a New York firm.

Right there in that extremely abbreviated synopsis are two red flags which throw up critical roadblocks for me.  First, this is a fiction about true stories—a gimmick which is designed to help us lower our guard and more easily enter the “secondary reality” of a story.  (The effect is alternately referred to as “the willing suspension of disbelief.”)  The second red flag is also built in: a story about the black experience compiled by a white protagonist.  And Skeeter is so doggone cute and feisty, too—sort of the white correlate to Minny’s finger-waggling renegade housekeeper.

So as I watched The Help the first time, I was paying attention to the ways in which those two conventions and artifices were being employed to manipulate my emotions.

How much of Aibileen’s and Minny’s “reality” was being informed by my experience and memory of cinematic conventions about black women?  The script even mentions the legacy of Gone With the Wind; “the help” figures in favorite films like It’s a Wonderful Life; Cicely Tyson of Sounder fame is cast as Skeeter’s nanny Constantine; and in this genre, you can’t help but invoke the hokum of Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of The Color Purple.

Skeeter’s cuteness and spunk aside, how realistic is it for a white woman to have associated with and helped black women in 1963 Jackson—and lived to tell about it?  How is it that Aibileen has never had white visitors in her home, but Constantine has Skeeter’s growth chart in hers?  Minnie’s pie for Hilly is also a tremendously entertaining storyline; but how does that jive with what we know about lynchings, assassinations, and general race-baiting?  Does all this illuminate the problems of racism, or soft-peddle them?

You can see what kind of a pain in the backside I can be when it comes to watching movies.

But I hope you can also see, perhaps, how uncritical your own thinking may be about what you read in reviews—and about your own response to films.  The only stark difference between you and me, I suspect, is a wide gap in our levels of consciousness when it comes to these influences.  I think about them too much… and you likely think about them too little.

So what did I find when I revisited The Help on Blu-ray?

Well, some day we’ll stop writing about the crispness and clarity of big-screen home theater presentations of Blu-ray discs—and the publicists will stop asking us to.  But of course, that’s one thing still worth mentioning.

What I really noticed, though, was the high-class craft exhibited by virtual first-time director Tate Taylor.  Yes, all the requisite script beats are there—and while not every script writer masters them, most big-budget films follow the formula pretty straightforwardly.  But Taylor adds some very subtle touches that can’t exactly be scripted.

Like most contemporary filmmakers schooled in the Steven Spielberg Formula for Succcess, Tate knows that “show them, don’t tell them” can be distilled down into efficient single shots that convey as much as a page or two of dialogue.  So, for instance, when we are first introduced to Aibileen at the Leefolt’s place, Tate sneaks in a shot of the “L-shaped scratch on the dining room table.”  But it’s not just a plot point for later reference; it’s also, as Aibileen slides a serving dish over the scar, symbolic of the hurts that are covered up and glossed over in the Leefolt household… and in Jackson, and the South, and America.  But unlike Spielberg, Tate doesn’t telegraph the shot, as Spielberg the Master is wont to do.  Tate is content to let such things work on the subconscious, and be found out with more attentive later viewings.

Similarly, I’ve often thought about Tate’s shot of Aibileen that closes the film.  It’s wonderful how Aibileen’s tears change from heartbroken to hopeful as she leaves the Leefolt’s house for the last time; but I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that some sleight of hand was at work in a single shot that takes us from a closeup of Aibileen’s tears and concludes with a near “God shot” as she continues through the Leefolt’s white suburb.

This time, I was able to see what Tate did—and it’s really quite remarkable.  As Aibileen’s narration modulates into her post-retirement plans and dreams, and as Tate’s camera pulls back from its subject, Aibileen does not walk past the camera, turning her back to it; no—she turns to her left at a crossroads.  Tate doesn’t have to swing the camera around as Aibileen passes it: he simply has to pull back… as Aibileen symbolically turns a corner.  Nice.  And again, without showy flourishes.  Just well thought-out images and compositions rife with meaning and import.

So I enjoyed The Help much more the second time around, and was once again pleased to find that I’m still able to watch movies as movies when given half a chance… and find deeper and richer enjoyment in the process.

The Blu-ray experience is also richer, of course, because that’s the format of choice these days for bonus content—more deleted scenes than the DVD counterpart, the traditional “making of” feature, and interviews with actual “help” from that period.  And what the Blu-ray tells about the making of this particular film is very enlightening… and answers a lot of those very pesky questions that nit-picking reviewers like me scribble on their notepads!

If you’ve been waiting to see The Help, wait no further.  Just remember, to paraphrase Ingmar Bergman: when you sit down to watch a film, you’ve signed an implicit contract to turn your will and intellect over into the hands of a master craftsman.  Keep your eyes peeled and your wits about you!

Director: Tate Taylor
Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Jessica Chastain
Rating: PG-13 for thematic material
Length: 137 Minutes

The Help is available at Amazon, Netflix, and Redbox.

Two years ago, as my wife lay dying (both as a manner of speaking, and rather literally, too), I wrote the following about Enya’s …And Winter Came:

The good news for Enya fans is that this disc is not all cheer and gladness.  The holidays are also an intense season of sadness for all of us at some point in our lives, as family gatherings remind us of those we have lost, and those we are in the process of losing.  Ryan’s lyrics and Enya’s music and vocals lend just the right touch of both poignancy and hope to the darkness that surrounds all that star-studded Christmas winter whiteness.

As it happens, Enya’s CD is playing as I write this review, as well.  And Jenn is still very much alive and kicking.  Woo hoo!

Yesterday afternoon, however, we were listening to Matthew West’s latest release, The Heart of Christmas—and while the above sentiment may also be expressed about West’s CD, Jenn and I actually burst out laughing at the rather absurd lyrical bats which were beating about our ears.  I mean, we really do get it: people die at all times of the year, and that includes Christmas.  How could we not?  But seriously: Do you really need to begin a Christmas song by singing, in essence, “THIS IS A SONG ABOUT DEATH. I’M GOING TO YANK TEARS OUT THROUGH YOUR EYE TEETH.  JUST SAYIN’.  MERRY CHRISTMAS.”

West will no doubt chafe at such rough treatment for something I find laudable in Enya.  But hey.  Art is in the eye of the beholder.

So Jenn and I were rather flummoxed to sit down last night to screen the film The Heart of Christmas, which also features West’s song… only to discover that the screener was blank.  So instead we popped in Snowmen… and right there, up front, the narrator announces that he’s a dead kid.  Merry Christmas!

But I’m a reviewer, you know, and I only review movies I’ve seen all of, and I rarely give up on a movie once I’ve started it.  After all, I’ve watched many masterpieces that I thought were total dogs through the second act.  As one of my old church chums liked to iterate at the drop of a gospel hat, “This is not the end of the story!”

So we stuck it out, in spite of the fact that I really didn’t want to watch a Christmas film about a dead kid… that also features snot bubbles, bullies, and a Jamaican tot in what I was thinking would amount to the film’s Jar Jar Binks role.

But really—Snowmen is probably the closest thing I’ve seen to The Wonder Years or Stand by Me since, well, the last time I watched Stand by Me!  Prior to sitting down at my keyboard a few minutes ago, I knew absolutely nothing about director Robert Kirbyson—but I would have bet those proverbial eye teeth that his original script for Snowmen was somewhat autobiographical… at least in the same sense that A Christmas Story was Jean Shepherd’s own story, or that Truman Capote wrote about himself in A Christmas Memory.

And what do you know?  I was right.  Cynthia Ellis interviewed Kirbyson a year ago for The Huffington Post:

Snowmen, writer and director Robert Kirbyson’s first feature film, is based on Kirbyson’s actual childhood in Winnipeg, Canada. … The real life circumstances behind Snowmen were somewhat tragic. There was the loss of Kirbyson’s father to Leukemia at age 13 and the death of Howard, the young son of their Jamaican friends who lived across the street. However, Kirbyson wanted to make an inspirational film, reflecting the togetherness and beauty that he found in people and in the town following these losses. Kirbyson wanted to show “the innate ability of children to find joy in all circumstances.”

So that just about kicks my cynic/reviewer’s butt.  ’Cause if anything, Kirbyson tones down the tragedy of this tale, and takes the story of Billy Kirkfield in all kinds of interesting and entertaining directions.

In short, Billy’s a bullied gradeschooler who is double-damned because he’s also being treated for cancer—and, well, kids will be kids: all they know is that Billy’s bald, sick, and dying… and they don’t want to, uh, be caught dead in his company.  But when Billy, his buddy Lucas, and his new neighbor Howard (the Jamaican lad in this otherwise snow-white tale) find a dead guy’s foot in their snowfort, they become minor (and short-lived) celebrities.  This only whets Billy’s appetite to make a lasting impression… and all this is where the titular snowmen come in.

Kirbyson lands big names such as Christopher Lloyd, Doug E. Doug (yeah, Cool Runnings!), and Ray Liotta for supporting and cameo roles—but he finds gold with his juvenile leads, who are the real stars here.  I’ve heard their names before, so I know they’re all tenured even at this young age: Bobby Coleman as Billy, Bobb’e J. Thompson as Howard, Christian Martyn as Lucas, Josh Flitter as bully Jason.  And I’ve got to say that I’ve never enjoyed the company of cinematic rugrats more.  Ever.

What’s really great, though, is that this really isn’t a Christmas film.  It’s simply a winter film for the small-town boy in all of us, one that would be great to watch anytime between Halloween and, say, Valentine’s Day—making it a viable part of anyone’s stable of Holiday films.

This is an offbeat film, but not in the over-the-top sense of a Jean Shepherd yarn.  I’m not guaranteeing you’ll like it—but it’s pretty real, it’s pretty funny, and it definitely doesn’t go where you expect it to.  In my book, that’s cinematic success.