People Before Profit blog

On FX’s “Tyrant” cruelty is normal

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 14:47:00 +0000

The first review I read said that "Tyrant" was overly cruel and sadistic. Isn't the justification for adult programs that go beyond normal bounds that all the mayhem is necessary to tell the story? Watch an episode and you decide.

Barry is a deeply tanned pediatrician with a pale blonde wife and two typical California teenage children. The family doesn't understand why their good and kind father doesn't want to make his first trip in 20 years back home to see his own dear old dad. Barry's secret is that he isn't Barry at all, but Bassam, and his dear old dad is the ruthless dictator of a Middle Eastern nation. Bassam's dear old brother, heir to the throne, is a sadist. Bassam and his family soon step off the plane into an incredible world that three of them cannot even imagine.

Of all the new TV programs since "Fargo" finished its season, this is the best executed.

To their credit, the actors are wonderful. Bassam's unease builds tension by the minute while his clueless California family enjoys the palace and the pool. It doesn't take a veteran TV watcher to figure out that they're not going back to California any time soon ...

"Tyrant," created by Gideon Raff, is on FX on Tuesdays.

Photo: Adam Rayner as Bassam "Barry" Al-Fayeed. fxnetworks.com

Poem: “Brown at the Brown Borders”

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 14:04:00 +0000

Brown at the borders

Are sons and daughters
of parents who have escaped
violence, wars, weapons, and
endless tears.

America fears children

Who crosses her borders
Believing that safety and
calm are here.

Year after year, "the browning

of America" is somehow a
threat. How could we ever
Forget that this land was
once inhabited by their Ancestors
first?

Brown at the borders, as

the President of the United States
orders billions from Congress
To deport thousands of children.

Children who have feelings.
Children who have emotions.
Children who seek better lives.

Brown at the borders

Running from ruins and relentless
pressure from rough gang leaders
They are being told, "America will

give you amnesty."

The children live in a hopeless land.

Will we take the time to understand?
From America, they will be shipped
and banned.

We have the upper hand, as they remain

brown at the borders. Brown at our mean,

politically motivated, heartless borders.

July 10, 2014

Reprinted with permission from the author.

Photo: Immigrants from Honduras and El Salvador who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally are stopped in Granjeno, Texas. Eric Gay/AP

"Buddy": The day the music… lived

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 12:43:00 +0000

Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story is a highly entertaining musical about the meteoric rise - and, alas, fall -- of the 1950s rock 'n' roll icon. Todd Meredith does a bravura acting job, singing and guitar playing as the Texan with the horn rimmed glasses who rose to the top of the charts with classics such as That'll Be the Day and Peggy Sue. Anybody who loves 1950s rock music will enjoy this crowd-pleasing dramatization. P&G Designs' sets, with Howdy Doody and Lone Ranger pop culture motifs, evoke a wistful '50s ambiance.

London-born playwright Alan Janes' 1989 musical is long on Holly's music but short on the drama. Act I depicts the struggles of the Lubbock lad and the Crickets (Logan Farine as drummer Jerry Allison, and Bill Morey as the upstaging, acrobatic bass player Joe B. Mauldin), who counter Texas' prevailing Country Western grain with their rockers' vibe. Their rockabilly sensibility and driving rhythms propel the group onto the hit parade. Soon they outgrow their Lone Star milieu and Norman Petty's (Nathan Yates Douglass) New Mexico recording studio, and they are New York bound.

The band's foray to the Big Apple helps to explain Buddy's departure from Country and Lubbock. These Texans get it into their noggins to perform at the Apollo Theater. Their appearance at the renowned Harlem palace of African American culture is a seminal cross-cultural experience. Not only for the musicians but for the Black theatergoers as well (we the audience become that Harlem house!) Look for James S. Patton as a hilarious Apollo emcee and piano player. At one point in the play some cracker remarks that the band is playing "colored music" and Buddy responds as if to ask, "And your point is?"

Although Buddy's songs are full of yearnings for love he has no romantic interests in the first act. However, in Act II Buddy meets, falls in love with, and marries Maria Elena (Jenny Stodd), a Manhattan music industry receptionist from Puerto Rico, an interracial marriage not only infrequent, but frowned upon in America -- and in the Alamo state.

Buddy comes across as one of those rare individuals with nary a racist bone in his body. He embraces Black music and audiences, and falls head over heels for a Puerto Rican woman he plans to have a baby with. He seems to be so full of love that there's no room for bigotry and hatred -- possibly a major source of Holly's loving lyrics and sound.

In the second act Buddy and the Crickets have differences of opinion that seem to emerge from nowhere, but Janes never develops this conflict. Never mind, the onstage rockers have yet another hit to belt out. The second half of Act II is essentially a reenactment of Buddy's final live performance with Ritchie Valens (the ebullient, kinetic Emilio Ramos lights up the stage) and the Big Bopper (a delightfully daffy Mike Brennan) at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

Clashing with capitalist Petty who refuses to pay Buddy (and apparently lives up to his name), with Maria Elena expecting, Buddy is forced out onto the road during winter weather in order to sing for his supper. Talk about class struggle! Knowing what's about to befall the characters may cast a shadow for some viewers, but aficionados of vintage rock of the era will enjoy themselves as the show devolves into more or less a gig.

During the Clear Lake grand finale, Buddy plays post-Cricket songs, including "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" and "Raining In My Heart," showing the path his music was moving on, with deeper, more complex orchestration. If not for the cruel intercession of fate, who knows where Holly's richer, fuller sound would have gone? What befell the pregnant Maria Elena is never mentioned [Maria Elena: My Life with Buddy, Interview by Don McLean].

Janes finesses "the day the music died" so as not to ruin the good vibes. Instead, this play with a large cast deftly directed by Steve Steiner leaves us with proverbial "Words of Love" and a nostalgic, upbeat rock 'n' roll concert -- a day the music lived.

Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story plays Wednesdays through Fridays at 7:30 pm, Saturdays at 2:00 and 7:30 pm, and Sundays at 1:00 and 5:30 pm through August 10 at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, CA 92651. (Note: An additional August 7 performance at 2:00 pm, but no 5:30 pm show on August 10.) For more info: (949) 497-ARTS; www.LagunaPlayhouse.com.

Photo: Cast photo from Laguna Playhouse.

"Lucy" evokes Kubrick, visually visionary

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 11:48:00 +0000

Writer/director Luc Besson's Lucy is arguably the most visually visionary science fiction movie since Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Scarlett Johansson portrays the title character, a foreign student studying at Taipei who is ensnared in a bad drug deal with Taiwanese mobsters. This leads to her ingesting a high dose of a chemical substance called CPH4 that causes Lucy to become hyper-intelligent.

This extraordinarily optically opulent film combines two of Besson's obsessions: Powerful female protagonists and sci fi. Besson's previous films include The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita, and The Lady, the biopic about Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Besson's graphic depiction of Lucy's state of extreme ultra-cosmic consciousness is highly cinematic in this film full of stunning cinematography and Sergei Eisenstein-like montage sequences (not so much in terms of their timing but in regard to associational editing). It's interesting that the more intelligent Lucy becomes the more violent she is -- one of the movie's many Kubrickian references. (In 1971's A Clockwork Orange the thuggish droogie Alex [Malcolm McDowell] may behave like a soccer hooligan, but he's highly intelligent and a fan of Ludwig van Beethoven.)

Lucy is -- as Johansson's character is reminded -- also the name of our oldest human-like ancestor, who is glimpsed onscreen at various points in the movie. Her name may also be a reference to the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," especially given the film's psychedelic cinematography. Lucy becomes a character similar to the savior-like "star child" Dr. Dave Bowman is transformed into at the end of 2001; during Lucy's end credits (which, remarkably, include the names of every musician who contributed to the movie's soundtrack) the lyrics of a song are about a "messiah."

Besson has previously helmed action-packed flicks such as Nikita (about a female assassin), and unfortunately Lucy is full of screeching car chases and blazing gunplay. Although Besson has demonstrated a penchant for violent films, this may be intended as box office insurance to lure the multi-plex and male adolescent crowds to buy tickets and popcorn. Given its sidewalk cafes, bookstalls and roundabouts, Paris is the world's worst city for driving at high speed on the streets (especially since this is the first time Lucy has ever driven a car, as she tells detective Pierre Del Rio, played by Cairo-born Amr Waked). Besson should leave the mindless explosions to lesser directors like Michael Bay. They intrude on and mar what could have been a more philosophical sci fi cinematic treatise on the nature of knowledge, which, as Lucy shows, is flawed if not accompanied by compassion -- therein lies true wisdom. The movie's negative depictions of Asians also leaves much to be desired.

Scarlett Johansson is fine as the CPH4 amped-up action star and genius who uses 100 percent of her brain power. Morgan Freeman co-stars as a scientist and it's fun to see Danish actor Pilou Asbæk -- who plays the troubled spin doctor in the superb Borgen TV series about Denmark's first woman prime minister and co-starred in the 2012 movie A Hijacking -- in a smarmy cameo role as Lucy opens. Lucy is for fans of Johansson, female action parts, sci fi and, above all, ecstatic cinema that imaginatively uses the attributes of the motion picture medium to the max.

Summer fruit crumble

Tue, 29 Jul 2014 16:27:00 +0000

The famous "Commie Chef" at Britain's Morning Star newspaper shares this easy, ever popular recipe. Enjoy!

The French have really taken our crumbles to heart, and the classic apple crumble can be found on many posh restaurant menus throughout the country. I hasten to add that I know this only because they tend to post their menus outside.

I like to cook and my wife flatters me that I'm the best, though in my heart I know that this is something to do with the fact that I do all the cooking and she is definitely chair of our finance committee.

In any case, nothing could be easier to make than crumble.

As well as apple and rhubarb, there are, in Britain as well as France and elsewhere, crumbles for every season, as the topping goes well with just about anything.

Having a garden which produces waves of soft fruit from late May almost into December, this adaptable recipe is one of my favourites.

Taste some of the fruits raw before using. If they seem a little sour, add more honey, but remember the pleasing contrast provided by a sweet topping.

For the flour, use all white or all wholemeal if you prefer - both work well. I use a mixture, half and half.

Serve with plain yoghurt, cream or ice cream.

750g/1lb10oz fruit in season (stoned cherries, red, black or white currants, raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries etc - singly or any mixture)
Tablespoon liquid honey, or to taste
140g/5oz flour
55g/2oz sugar
110g/4oz butter

Preheat the oven to 210ºC/400ºF/mark 6.

Rub almost all of the butter into the flour to form a large-breadcrumb-like consistency, then stir in the sugar.

Grease the inside of a baking tin or pot with the bit of butter you have left from making the topping.

Put the fruit into this, and pour the honey over it.

Top with the crumble mixture, and bake until the top is golden brown.

Check after 20 minutes. It should be done in 25 at most.

Reposted from Morning Star.

Photo: Apple and Blackcurrant crumble. Goddards Pies Ltd. CC 3.0.

Poem: “The Detroit Water Crisis”

Mon, 28 Jul 2014 14:25:00 +0000

Who would be considered the nicest,

After shutting off people's water

causing a crisis?

Using the devices of power

Hour after hour

To sour the living conditions

of so many.

Three thousand households a week

are facing shutoffs. Can you imagine

how much those bills cost?!

Babies need water.

Children need water.

Youth need water.

Adults need water.

But it's money over people.

This is a Human Rights issue.

This is a Right to Water issue.

And if this continues imagine

how many lives will be affected.

I've heard that gentrification is

connected to these shutoffs.

So it's about money and land.

Resources changing from hand

to hand. An American pastime

That many poor and people of

color can understand.

Water is in demand.

But shutting it off in

Detroit is their plan.

July 8, 2014

Reprinted with permission from the author.

Photo: Mary Ellen Kavanaugh, and her children Abby, second from left, Grace and Owen, right, of Windsor, help carry water jugs to St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Detroit, July 24, for a water station being set up to help Detroit residents who need water. A small group of Canadians brought 1,000 liters (264 gallons) of water from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit to protest thousands of residential service shutoffs by Detroit's water department. (AP)

"We Will Rock You": Screaming Queens

Fri, 25 Jul 2014 14:49:00 +0000

"We Will Rock You" the musical, is a sheer delight for lovers of the British band Queen in particular and of classic rock in general. Like "Mamma Mia!" which features Abba's disco music, "We Will Rock You" creates a story to cleverly wrap around Queen's songs. However, director Ben Elton's book conjures and weaves a saga far more imaginative than Mamma's rather trite one. "We Will Rock You" is set in a dystopian future, where instead of book burning, "Globalsoft's" totalitarian state led by Big Sister Killer Queen (the hilarious Jacqueline B. Arnold, who spoofs Black stage and screen stereotypes) has-horror of horrors! -- banned rock 'n' roll music!

Somehow, although it's never explained why or how, classic rock songs and lyrics filter through the mind of a teenager called Galileo Figaro (Brian Justin Crum), who teams up with another social misfit he dubs Saramouche (Ruby Lewis). They make common cause with keepers of the flame, the Bohemians-aged outsiders who remember rock and the day the music died-in their crusade and rebellion to revive, rehabilitate, and resurrect rock 'n' roll. (The musical playfully panders to its audience, many of them hailing from the generation that came of age during Queen's heyday and are roughly the same age as the Bohemians.)

No Brechtian agitprop play, "We Will Rock" You soft peddles its anti-censorship, antifascist pop politics, which are mostly played for laughs in this rather humorous show. There's even a droll torture scene that makes witty use of Queen's "Flash Gordon" number.

The two-acter has a multi-media vibe and two-level stylish set with an eight-piece orchestra sporting dual drum sets belting out the live tunes from above. Architect Mark Fisher is the original production designer and video director, with Arlene Phillips' frenetic choreography rousingly hoofed by a large cast accompanied by fabulous singing. At the Bohemians' lair is what's presumably a replica of the Freddie Mercury statue located near the Charlie Chaplin statue at Switzerland's Lake Geneva. (Here's the fun fact of the day: According to a plaque on that Swiss sculpture, four-octave Freddie Mercury was actually born in Zanzibar.)

There's just one flaw in this overwhelmingly enjoyable production: While the Globalsoft dictators suppress rock, they themselves perform rock 'n' roll numbers, which sort of undercuts their point. But this is a mere quibble: A splendid time was had by all as the musical transformed the Ahmanson into a joyous Radio Ga-Ga-palooza. To paraphrase that enlightened philosopher Jerry Lewis: "You're only young once, but you can stay immature forever."

Now, here are two hints from your humble reviewer to enhance your theatergoing experience to the fullest: See/hear this merry madcap melodious musical with a kindred spirit who enjoys Queen music and having a good time. And although I'm loath to spoilers, let's just say that when you think the play is over, DO NOT LEAVE. Stay put for a grand finale that's, well, sure to rock you!

We Will Rock You is playing Tuesdays through Fridays at 8:00 pm, Saturdays at 2:00 and 8:00 pm, and Sundays at 1:00 and 6:30 pm through Aug. 24 at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012. For more info: www.centertheatregroup.org/; (213) 628-2772.

L.A.-based reviewer Ed Rampell co-authored "The Hawaii Movie and Television Book." (See: http://hawaiimtvbook.weebly.com/.) Rampell and co-author Luis Reyes will be signing books at the Egyptian Theatre on July 27 at 4:00 pm, at 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028. (See: http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/don-the-beachcomber-the-origins-of-the-american-tiki-bar-enchanted%E2%80%88island.)

Photo: Ruby Lewis and Brian Justin Crum in the national tour of Queen and Ben Elton's "We Will Rock You," which will play at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre, July 15 through August 24, 2014. Photo by Paul Kolnik.

Cult film's John Waters gets "Carsick"

Wed, 23 Jul 2014 16:21:00 +0000

Cult film director John Waters' new book, Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, proves once again Waters is not afraid to go out and confront the real America and turn it into his own special blend of honesty and humor.

Waters always seems up for a challenge, whether in cinema or on the written page. Beginning with his breakthrough feature film, Pink Flamingos (1972), Waters has thrived making independent movies for a core audience. The filmmaker has observed the more outrageous and darker areas of American culture over the years and translated it into his unique visions on the big screen. Now, he does it again with Carsick.

Waters actually did thumb rides, departing on a rainy afternoon in 2012 from his native Baltimore, all the way to his apartment in San Francisco. But hold on ... this is John Waters we are talking about, and the first half of his book presents various hitchhiking scenarios from his fertile imagination. These speculative adventures are divided evenly into "good rides" and "bad rides." The liberal-minded Waters has fun sharing these imagined rides, while throwing in some humorous social commentary about the times we live in.

One story involves a woman named Kay-Kay who locks a radical pro-life driving instructor in her trunk because he continues to preach to her as she is attempting to learn to drive. Another surreal tale involves Waters becoming a circus attraction for all to marvel at, simply because he doesn't have a tattoo nowadays! These fantasized road trips set the stage for the second half of the book, which reveals what really happened when Waters took the plunge and raised his thumb.

The real hitchhiking adventure involved nine days and 21 rides. Waters describes the people and places he encountered along the interstate highway system during his journey. The rides were at times very difficult to come by, but when vehicles did stop, they provided experiences which he colorfully describes. The drivers ranged from a minister's wife to a coal miner to a Vietnam veteran. One memorable ride involved a rock band called Here We Go Magic that picked him up in their van on their way to a gig in Bloomington, Indiana. He spent six hours with the band, and news of his road trip went viral as band members began to tweet that John Waters had hitched a ride.

Another interesting ride came from a 20-year-old Republican town council member from Myersville, Maryland, driving a Corvette. Waters describes the friendship that formed between himself, a 66-year-old liberal gay man, and a 20-year-old conservative heterosexual. Waters and the "Corvette Kid," as he is called in the book, agreed they would head-butt on some social issues, so they wisely avoided political chat. The young man added that potholes and how to fill them were town council subjects he had to deal with, and they were not exactly Republican or Democrat issues. The two formed an unlikely bond, and they amazingly meet up again in Denver later in the book.

Some drivers immediately recognized the flamboyant movie director, while many others had never heard of him or his cinematic achievements - a true reflection of America out on the highway. His biggest challenge was the long hours in between, waiting for someone to stop as he held up a homemade cardboard sign. He did carry credit cards and a cell phone, and also a tracking device in case of an emergency. Unfortunately, one may think of other hitchhikers on the road every day without those convenient options to rely upon.

The book reveals many pleasant, kind people along the way. Waters describes a Hispanic woman at a rest stop who insisted on giving him a $20 bill, believing him to be homeless. In a small Ohio town, a true homeless man walks by and becomes the only one there who takes the time to say hello to the hitchhiker Waters.

Carsick will keep readers entertained, presenting what it's really like these days to hitchhike across the United States. We must give Waters credit for having the courage to do what many people would not consider doing nowadays. He trusted rides from strangers, made some new friends, and realized how open-minded and helpful Americans truly are. One element missing from this book is photographs of his adventures. Waters mentions various pictures taken along the way with drivers and passengers. Some of these would have been a nice addition to these real-life tales of the open road. Regardless, after finishing this book, I dare say many readers will have the notion to hit the road and raise a thumb ... or two ... for John Waters!

Book information:
Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America
2014, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, hardcover, 336 pages, $21.59; Kindle $12.99

In "Snowpiercer," classes struggle on a train

Mon, 21 Jul 2014 12:23:00 +0000

After global warming threatens all life on Earth, scientists let loose a cooling agent that relieves global warming so effectively that it freezes everybody to death. The only survivors live on a train that, for unexplained reasons, is hurtling over and over around a worldwide track, like a Lionel train set, only covering all the continents.

Since there's ice and snow everywhere, the train has a specially created front that can crash through all obstacles. The master and inventor of the perpetual train lives in the engine, while subsequent cars are filled with succeeding levels of privileged people. Our heroes barely survive in the back.

Snowpiercer is a film comic book, or I guess graphic novel, of course. The people in the back are asked to accept their lot and remain peaceful, but they have other ideas. If they are going to improve their situation, they are going to have to fight their way through the incredibly long train. About 120 of the film's 126 minutes, then, are violent hand-to-hand fight scenes. The filmmaker uses every trick to keep them from getting monotonous, but it doesn't always work.

A lot of political activists are going to be drawn to this metaphorical tale, as I and my companion were. Whether or not they come away with a clearer understanding of class struggle and what has to be done is undetermined. Chop-sockey fans of movie violence, especially if they don't care what all the splatter means, are going to love it. There's also some good acting and interesting character development. Then there are people like my movie buddy, who just like trains.

Even though the film seems to have been made outside the U.S., there's a Teamster union logo in the final frame.

Movie information:
"Snowpiercer"
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
Starring Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer
2013, South Korea/Czech Republic/U.S./France
126 minutes, rated R

Metropolitan Opera unions say they are being forced to strike

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 14:27:00 +0000

NEW YORK (PAI) -- Deep salary cut demands, which its unions say are unjustified, and a company threat to close down at least temporarily, are combining to force members of the 16 unions at New York City's Metropolitan Opera to plan to strike, if necessary.

And with contracts expiring July 31, it's increasingly looking like it may be necessary.

One Met union, the American Guild of Musical Artists, is warning its members the Met may lock workers out if it doesn't get its way.

Met General Manager Peter Gelb demands $180 million in pay cuts from the unions, including AGMA, Musicians Local 802 and Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) Locals 794 (broadcast technicians), 1 (carpenters and stage hands), 829 (artists and designers), 751 (ticket sellers), 764 (costume shop workers) and 798 (stylists).

Gelb says the $180 million equals a 16 percent pay cut. In radio interviews, he portrays the unions as refusing to give back even a penny of pay. And the Guardian reported another Gelb threat: That the Met would have to file for bankruptcy protection within three years unless it got its way. And the paper quoted British opera general managers as refuting Gelb's stands.

The unions reply they're willing to sit down with Gelb to discuss cost-cutting measures. The Met ran a $2.8 million deficit last year, on a $311 million budget. But they say cuts can easily occur elsewhere. They cite Gelb's high pay and the $169,000 he spent on one set of painted poppies for a production of Prince Igor as examples of inflated costs.

Local 1 also noted its members' workload multiplied due to new requirements for the Met's HDTV broadcasts nationwide, while its labor costs have risen 2.1 percent annually since 1997. The 1997 Met budget was $190 million, Local 1 noted.

Joe Hartnett, director of the stagecraft department and spokesman for all the IATSE locals, noted Gelb himself just turned back 10 percent of his most recent compensation hike. The hike was 26 percent, the Met's tax forms, which are public because it is a non-profit organization, show. Gelb made $1.8 million in pay and compensation before his turnback.

"We don't see how you save the Met by cutting the onstage and backstage talent responsible for presenting the greatest operas in the world, while avoiding all discussion of bloated management salaries, repeated cost overruns, failed productions and poorly executed marketing and sales strategies," Hartnett added.

"The real issue isn't worker compensation; the real issue is a management team with big dreams and a credit card that has no limits," the IATSE unions said in a joint statement.

"We agree" that "to save the Met Opera, Gelb and our unions will have to sit, talk and compromise. Our members are more than ready to do our part. We understand that the audience, cost structure and commercial environment in which the Met operates has changed.

"It is a challenge, however, to negotiate with a general manager who vastly increased spending but whose grand opera experiment has not only failed to increase attendance, but has failed in the process to retain the audience committed to live operas," IATSE unions said.

Musicians President Tino Gagliardi said other Met giveback demands - sharply higher payments for health insurance and work rule changes - would, with the pay slashes, produce real cuts for Met orchestra members ranging from 25 percent to 38 percent.

Photo: Metropolitan Opera musicians pass out leaflets describing management's plans for pay cuts of at least 16 percent to concertgoers at New York's Lincoln Center. Courtesy IATSE New York locals.

Correction:

Musicians Local 802 in New York has advised PAI, the union news service from which Peoplesworld.org received this story, that the last two sentences of an earlier version we printed required clarification.

The union notes the avant-garde operas the Met general manager champions have not done as well at the box office, but they are not "failed experiments." It says neither its president, Tino Gagliardi, nor the opera orchestra have issues with avant-garde operas in principle. "We have a problem with simply the spending on new productions, which has almost tripled since Peter Gelb took the helm, based on their consolidated financial statements, from approximately $7 million to $24 million, without a significant return on that investment at the box office," AFM says. A slight cut in the number of new productions and their inefficient rehearsal time are "examples of simple cost-saving measures that could easily be implemented with managerial oversight, adding up to $5 million-$15 million in savings," the local adds.

We regret that this was not reflected clearly in the original version.

"Begin Again" features music industry and people

Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:36:00 +0000

"Begin Again" stars Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, and several products of Apple, Inc. It's about producing and distributing music without the overhead costs or help of the traditional industry. How anybody gets paid for their work isn't clear, except for Apple.

People who are taken with Keira Knightley, and feel that she doesn't get enough face time in most of her films, are going to like this movie. She's in almost every close-up and remains watchable all the way through. She plays a singer/songwriter who wants to remain true to the original feelings that created the songs. She wants everybody else to remain true, too, even if the money, the fame, and the booze make it a challenge.

Ruffalo is a time-worn record producer who is dragging tons of problems that have long ago disfigured his original intentions. He hits bottom at the start of the film, then "begins again" when he first hears Knightley perform. Other characters are a disillusioned wife, a disaffected teenage daughter, and the roaring two-timing rock and roll star that used to be Knightley's true blue boyfriend. A number of smaller roles, mostly musicians with their own interesting relationship to music, populate the rest of the film. All of them sum up to a view of an industry under siege from technological change, and a view of people still striving to be true. Some of the pop songs are pretty good.

At the end of the credits, there are two union logos: SAG-AFTRA and Teamsters.

Movie information:

"Begin Again"
Directed by John Carney
Starring Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, Yasiin Bey, Catherine Keener, James Corden
2014, rated R, 104 min.

Photo: A scene from "Begin Again."

“Pleasures of Being Out of Step”: Nat Hentoff, music, politics

Wed, 16 Jul 2014 15:27:00 +0000

According to production notes for producer/director David L. Lewis's well-made documentary The Pleasures of Being Out of Step: Notes on the Life of Nat Hentoff, the longtime, former Village Voice columnist, now pushing 90, was the first non-musician to be named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. A renowned First Amendment champion for more than half a century, Hentoff has also been a prolific chronicler and advocate of jazz, from liner notes to newspaper and magazine articles to radio and TV.

Even if its subject is unconventional, Step is conventionally crafted, including archival footage and photos, as well as original interviews with a colorful cast of characters who have encountered Hentoff throughout his career. In audio and visual clips (many never publicly seen) we see some of the cultural and political titans Hentoff met, including Charles Mingus and a young Bob Dylan, as well as Lenny Bruce and Malcolm X. Interviews apparently conducted for this documentary include the poet/playwright Amiri Baraka, fellow critic Stanley Crouch, and constitutional attorney Floyd Abrams, as well as Nat's wife, Margot Hentoff. It's compelling viewing.

Although the film celebrates its title character, it is not without criticism. Some interviewees are none too enamored of the irascible Hentoff, or some of his stances on issues. Former VV editor Karen Durbin takes him to task for his anti-abortion views. Also, while the Boston-born Hentoff, long a Manhattan fixture, has been a civil rights stalwart, the same cannot be said about his stand on gay rights and the AIDS crisis. As Lewis demonstrates, it is dubious when self-proclaimed "libertarians" somehow deny to those with alternative sexual orientations the freedom of expression they espouse for others.

It's refreshing to have naysayers included amongst the interviewees: Too often biodocumentaries are hagiographies. But shouldn't detractors be included to give a better-rounded picture of the subject?

The documentary includes brief interviews with current VV boss Tony Ortega, who comes across like a hatchet man shamefully doing the bidding of the new owner of what was once a lefty press bastion.

One suspects that Hentoff relishes the fact that some of his opponents have their say about him in Step. After all, Hentoff is nothing if not a contrarian. At least their criticism is still about - himself! Nat's wife Margot suggests that the diffident Hentoff is predisposed to go against the prevailing wisdom simply to be different, perhaps to stand out from the crowd. He seems constitutionally ingrained to go against the grain, whether on behalf of misunderstood musicians and oppressed minorities or, among the New York left, opposing feminism and gay rights.

Hentoff's response to his critics is simply to allow them their say, and for him to reply in kind. He'd never call to curtail their right to say what they want.

I knew Hentoff (telephonically) when I was the features editor for a national magazine where I brought him onboard - at first, to write an article, and then as a monthly columnist. Nat was a royal pain in the ass: Very old school, he insisted on typing his pieces on one of those typewriter thingamajiggies and then faxing it across the continent. Of course, his disinclination to use computers and email was a generational holdover. But however hard it was to work with this curmudgeonly "Thoreau-back," it was well worth bending over backwards for him (especially as monthly deadlines loomed) because he wrote so well and about such important topics. His byline conveyed the prestige of more than half a century of (generally) fighting the good fight.

Step is at its best and most creative when it shows Hentoff's advocacy of free speech in his articulate writings both on First Amendment issues and on jazz as an improvisational art form that relies on free expression. Insightful comments liken jazz to our constitutional liberties. It is truly odious what the penny-pinching Village Voice did to one of its original writers in his old age, a columnist who earned that once alternative newsweekly so much prestige and money over the years. At least we have this documentary to remind us.

The Pleasures of Being Out of Step: Notes on the Life of Nat Hentoff is playing at the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills, Calif. Watch for local distribution.

Movie information:
"The Pleasures of Being Out of Step: Notes on the Life of Nat Hentoff"
Directed by David L. Lewis
Narrated by Andre Braugher
2013, 86 minutes

“We Are the Best!”: Little anarchists start a band

Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:39:00 +0000

Clearly, We Are the Best! is a remembrance of someone's 1982 life on the cusp of womanhood. It was originally a graphic novel by film director Lukas Moodysson's wife Coco Moodysson. The story and the way it's presented in this film probably bring us as close as any of us will ever come to understanding seventh grade girls.

It starts with two seventh-graders who agree to love each other and hate everything else. Their passion for both poles of emotion is almost more than we, or they, can handle. To express their mutual and universal disgust, they agree to start a punk band, even though their knowledge of music goes no further than banging things together. Eventually, they recruit a third girl who can actually play the guitar. "What's a chord?" they ask her, not that they care.

The girls' songs, and most of their conversations, begin with the same word: "hate." Other children are deliberately mean to the little outsiders, and they're treated as enemies. As for the well-meaning teachers and parents that trespass into the girls' world, they're mostly buffoons and they're in the way.

I laughed and cried all the way through the movie as the skyrocketing, nose diving, unfathomable hormones tortured the squealing, screaming, hating, loving nearly-women up and down through their perpetual crises.

Movie information:
"We Are the Best"

Directed by Lukas Moodysson
2013, Swedish with English subtitles
102 minutes

Photo: Liv Lemoyne, Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin in "We Are the Best!." Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

"Death Blow to Jim Crow" comes highly recommended

Tue, 15 Jul 2014 12:36:00 +0000

At its peak, the National Negro Congress (NNC) included over 3,000 civic, religious, fraternal, labor and community organizations representing millions people. It came to be recognized as one of the most important African American-led civil and workers' rights organizations of the Popular Front period, and ultimately laid the groundwork for what would eventually become the modern civil rights movement of the 1960's.

Erik S. Gellman's "Death Blow to Jim Crow: The National Negro Congress and the Rise of Militant Civil Rights" details how an unlikely convergence of interests brought mainstream, moderate and radical African American leaders together to form the NNC.

Born out of a 1935 meeting at Howard University, initiated by John P. Davis - a communist - and attended by Communist Party leader James W. Ford and socialist A. Philip Randolph, along with about 150 other, more moderate African American leaders from the NAACP to the Urban League, the NNC soon became a force to be reckoned with.

In 1936, the NNC held its founding convention attended by 750 delegates from 28 states and elected Randolph as NNC president and Davis as executive secretary.

Gellman briefly describes the founding of the NCC, then quickly moves forward to analyze specific NNC-led campaigns and struggles in Chicago, IL, Richmond, VA, Washington, D.C., New York, NY and Columbia, SC. The author also includes a brief chapter on the 1940 NNC Convention and Randolph's ignominious departure from the NNC, as well as a conclusion on the NNC during the post-WWII period, its dismantling and eventual merger with the communist-led Civil Rights Congress.

From its inception, the NNC had a uniquely working-class character and approach to organizing, especially union organizing. "The NNC sought to cross-pollinate its labor approach by highlighting the history of the black working class through cultural means," while holding steadfast in the "belief that justice came from economic power."

To that end, Davis met with CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) leaders to "persuade" them to "coordinate with the NNC to get African American workers into this larger coalition," as we "needed to avoid the disastrous racial splintering" that had doomed earlier labor organizing campaigns and strikes.

Roughly one month after its founding convention, the NNC, with CIO help, had seven full-time organizers dedicated to building the movements for racial equality and workers' rights. Eventually, the NNC would grow to about 70 chapters nationwide.

The NNC, however, did not stop with simply organizing African Americans into unions. They aggressively fought for equality within unions, while articulating a larger vision of social movement unionism that included community activism and municipal politics.

Davis wrote: "Once Negro workers are in the union...it must be our task and theirs to see to it that there is complete trade union democracy," a sentiment that would soon put the NNC - and its communist leadership - at odds with more conservative elements within the CIO's white leadership who were happy to welcome NNC organizers and members, as well as communists, as long as they didn't go too far.

"...[A]s early as 1937, the goals of SWOC [the Steelworkers' Organizing Committee of the CIO] and the NNC clashed. Davis hoped for SWOC members to lead civil rights campaigns beyond the shop floor, but SWOC's [leadership] thought that type of activity would endanger the goal of organizing workers." SWOC members were even told "that they should not attend meetings of other organizations...'Forget [the] Spain situation, auto situation, and other world problems' and spend '24 hours a day' organizing steelworkers," they were told.

The NNC also pushed the AFL (American Federation of Labor) "to stop discriminating against black workers" by sponsoring the "Randolph Resolution," named after A. Philip Randolph, which "demanded that AFL unions comply with antidiscrimination measures, to which they had long paid lip service."

The chapter titled "Negro Youth Strike Back against the 'Virginia Way' in Richmond, 1937-1940," details the founding of the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), considered by many the youth section of the NNC, and its largely communist leadership - James Jackson, Esther Cooper, Edward Strong, Christopher Columbus Alston, among others.

The SNYC, like its parent organization, wasted little time in confronting Jim Crow and capitalism head-on. Shortly after its founding the convention, SNYC started organizing Richmond's tobacco workers and after a wave of strikes helped form the Tobacco Stemmers and Laborers Union (TSLU), which would grow to about 5,000 mostly African American women members and was led by communist Christopher Alston.

"Death Blow to Jim Crow" tells an important story of the long civil rights movement, a story largely forgotten, and a story too big and nuanced to tell in a short review. Suffice it to say, I have only scratched the surface of what "Death Blow to Jim Crow" has to offer.

My only criticism: Early in "Death Blow to Jim Crow" (p 55), Gellman draws a largely superficial - and I would argue, petty - distinction between the role of Communist Party leaders as opposed to rank-and-file CP members in the building of the NNC. That CP leaders, like Ford, could not be everywhere at all times, and ultimately relied heavily on rank-and-file CP activists at the grassroots to build the NCC, should be seen as a strength, not a weakness of the CP's overall approach to Popular Front unity. That the Party as a whole - and especially, its African American base - could take credit for and be proud of their role in building the NNC, is obscured by Gellman's distinction and adds little to what is otherwise an objective study that tells a very important story.

For anyone interested in the National Negro Congress and its work, "Death Blow to Jim Crow" comes highly recommended.

"Death Blow to Jim Crow: The National Negro Congress and the Rise of Militant Civil Rights"

By Erik S. Gellman

University of North Carolina Press, 368 pages, 2 maps, notes, index

Available in Hardcover, paperback, an Kinle edition

Cirque Du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE Show

Tue, 15 Jul 2014 11:39:00 +0000

Las Vegas is, after all, one of America's top showcases of live entertainment. Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE is a combination of the cinematic, operatic, and theatrical, along with the acrobatic, aerial, ballet, puppetry, projections, lighting, costuming to put Liberace to shame, and more, all presented with circus-like panache. As soon as you get into the uniquely designed Mirage Theater in the round, with its scrims and screens for projecting 100-foot digital images, you can, like "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies."

Once the show begins, "somebody calls you... A girl with kaleidoscope eyes," into a production that's more an experience and evocation of the Beatles, their music and philosophy, than a chronological narrative of their lives and careers. The Fab Four's longtime producer Sir George Martin and his son Giles culled cuts from Abbey Road Studios' master tapes which accompany the visual storytelling of 60 performers and projections on huge front and back screens, played on a panoramic surround sound system.

The beginning references the quartet's famous outdoor, impromptu performance on the rooftop of the Abbey Road Studio in 1969, with "Get Back" from the "Let It Be" album. But the unfolding spectacle becomes far more than a reimagining of this concert. Soon the gigantic twin screens are filled with imagery of the Battle of Britain, and for the first time it dawned upon me that the Lads from Liverpool were all children born during World War II; indeed, both Ringo Starr and John Lennon were born while the Nazis blitzed England. LOVE made me realize that this played a huge role in their subsequent antipathy toward war. It gives greater depth to Lennon's antiwar anthem, "Give Peace a Chance."

The show doesn't shrink from other specifically political references: There's a great flower power sequence, which leads to hippies fighting riot police as "Revolution" blares. Another one of the Beatles' explicitly political songs, "Blackbird," is also played as clips of Dr. Martin Luther King appear onscreen and Black performers take the stage.

There was much more to the Beatles than countercultural politics. LOVE was very much their concern; there's an exceedingly evocative conjuration of "Something" from the "Abbey Road" album. Female aerialists elude an earthbound male, who reaches out for them as if he's seeking love, perfectly expressing the romantic longings of a young man in search of a partner to soothe a seething soul and end his solitude. The piece has the grace of a Nijinsky or Nureyev ballet.

Along with all the big hit numbers, Love includes some lesser-known Beatles tunes. Everyone knows "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," but do you remember "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" from the same LP? This track is ideal for Cirque, which launches into full raucous circus mode in evoking this perhaps forgotten song about a festive fair. There is also a powerful version of "A Day in the Life," complete with a car onstage, from the same album.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is appropriately psychedelically rendered, complete with flying trapeze artiste. But I didn't get all of Cirque's interpretations. After a while I picked up that the four boys who were recurring stage characters represented the future Beatles during their childhoods. Other recurring figures, I'm not so sure. Somehow this only enhanced the magical, mystical nature of this tour through the artistry of what is arguably rock's all-time greatest band. (Has it really been half a century since they stormed The Ed Sullivan Show during the British Invasion of 1964?!)

The ensemble work bubbles, with all the theatrical skills and tricks on display. Above all, the Grammy Award-winning soundscape rendered by George and Giles Martin, sound designer Jonathan Deans, and last but not least, by John, Paul, George, and Ringo, is nothing short of exquisite.

There is one moment when Cirque does something startling with the set (which of course I wouldn't reveal) to make the audience and performers "Come Together" and attain a sense of the oneness and cosmic consciousness the Beatles strove for. Never has Sin City seemed so blissful. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

The Beatles LOVE is at: The Mirage, 3400 Las Vegas Blvd South, Las Vegas, NV. For info and tickets: http://www.mirage.com/entertainment/love.aspx, (702) 791-7111.

Jan Ole Gerster's award-winning feature debut, A Coffee in Berlin

Fri, 11 Jul 2014 15:47:00 +0000

It's a surprising delight to discover a bittersweet sensibility in German writer/director Jan Ole Gerster's award-winning feature debut, A Coffee in Berlin (originally titled Oh Boy). This dramedy stars Tom Schilling as 20-something Niko Fischer, a nebbish who is a cross between Woody Allen's earlier screen incarnations and Jean-Pierre Leaud's Antoine Doinel character in François Truffaut's 1960s-'70s series of semi-autobiographical films. And like several of Woody's films, notably Manhattan, that 1979 love letter to New York, Coffee is in black and white (although minus equally luminous shots of Berlin), and the soundtrack is decidedly jazzy.

A scene near Coffee's opening sets the stage, as Niko nearly misses an appointment with a state psychiatrist who will determine whether or not he should lose his driver's license. (Guess how that turns out?) In this cinematic slice of life Niko is a ne'er-do-well who, in the immortal words of "Love Potion Number 9," has "been a flop with chicks since 1956," as well as: a fare beater who tries riding Berlin's subway without purchasing a ticket; a law school dropout; and so on. How this unemployed layabout manages to survive by scamming his businessman father Walter (Ulrich Noethen) is droll, as is most of the movie.

A Bunuelian leitmotif that runs throughout A Coffee in Berlin is Niko's thwarted repeat efforts to score a cup of java (hence the title) that is humorously reminiscent of Luis Bunuel's 1972 The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie [A film about a group of upper-class people attempting - despite continual interruptions - to dine together]. The scene where Niko tries to order a plain coffee in a fancy schmancy coffeehouse will strike a chord with many of us sick of Starbucks-like pretensions and prices. (It's a bean, not a Picasso, for God's sake!)

The characters Niko meets along the way are artfully drawn in vivid vignettes. Most memorable is Julika Hoffman (Frederike Kempter), a former classmate whom Niko had teased back in the day because she was overweight. But now "Roly Poly Julie"-who accidentally bumps into her former tormentor at a restaurant-is a grown-up, slim blonde actress who gives Niko comp tickets to the premiere of the new avant-garde play she co-stars in.

Of course, he arrives after the curtain has been raised, and complications ensue, resulting in a clash with the pretentious playwright Phillip Rauch, wryly played by Arnd Klawitter in another perfectly cast cameo. Julika shows herself to be a complex individual who is hell-bent on overcoming a tortured adolescence ruined by Niko and other insensitive schoolmates. Kempter received a well deserved nomination for a 2013 German Film Award for her insightful, poignant performance and is one of the best things about Coffee. Her character deserves a film all her own.

As you may recall, anti-Semitism is a recurring theme in Woody's oeuvre, whether it's his complaints that someone saying "Wouldn't you?" deliberately sounds like "Wouldn't Jew?" or Grammy Hall's imagining of him as an ultra-religious Hassidic Jew in 1977's Annie Hall. In a similar way-but with the jackboot on the other foot -ethnicity haunts Niko, who visits a WWII-era movie set where a hammy, costumed actor in a Nazi uniform greets him with a hearty "Heil Hitler." The movie-within-a-movie's plot revolves around the forbidden love between this German soldier and a Jewish woman.

The Hitler salute is repeated towards the end when Niko, who has a drinking problem, stumbles upon an older Aryan who recounts his childhood hard times under the Third Reich. Here, the bitter overtakes the sweet and the comedy takes a turn towards the dramatic, as Germany's past overshadows its present. Will this encounter be a life-changing moment for the lost, floundering Niko? We stereotypically think of Germans as hard working, but does Niko's confused slacker symbolize 21^st-century Germany?

Those who enjoy sophisticated cinema should find A Coffee in Berlin to be their cup of tea. Coffee is being served for a week starting June 27 at L.A.'s Landmark Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Boulevard; (310) 473-8530. Watch for local distribution.

A Coffee in Berlin

Director:

Jan Ole Gerster

Writer:

Jan Ole Gerster (screenplay)

Stars:

Tom Schilling, Katharina Schüttler, Justus von Dohnányi

83 mins., unrated but not for kids

Hymn to the Community Garden

Mon, 07 Jul 2014 16:06:00 +0000

This poem is a collaboration and was recited in Providence, Rhode Island at a workshop entitled "This Is What Love Looks Like."

David:

Mary, Mary, quite communitary-

ian, how does your community

garden grow?

With some compost in a vacant lot,

that's how our community

garden grows.

Christopher:

With community gardens/

The people won't be starving/

Higher prices, the stores are charging/

What their putting in the food these days is alarming/

I am arming myself with the knowledge to grow my own/

Healthy food, community, and love in all U.S. time zones/

What else do we need: cleaner water and air to breathe/

David:

Mary, Mary, quite communitary-

ian, how does your community

garden grow?

With lots of hard work

in a vacant lot

and no empty lots

to mow!

That's how our community garden grows!

Christopher:

Community gardens bring the people together/

Community gardens helps us eat and do better/

It's a natural, holistic way to cooperate and be/

I open my door, walk outside, and join in unity/

David:

Mary, Mary, quite Unitary-

ian (Universalist), how does your

community garden grow?

With lessons in growing

and nutritious food, that's how our

community garden

grows.

Christopher:

We're talking tomatoes, squash, bell peppers, and greens/

Planting, nurturing, and growing those nutritious things/

We attend potlucks and farmer's markets seeing our neighbors/

The food is good whether we eat it now, or save some for later/

The farm to table movement is what we can once again enjoy/

The youth in my city are growing food, becoming employed/

For this way of life, there is no harm or no pressure/

We can use this knowledge and love for the land to end food deserts/

David:

Mary, Mary, quite communitary-

ian, how does your community

garden grow?

Buy into our CSA

-Community Supported Agriculture!-

that's how our

community garden

grows.

June 4, 2014

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

Photo: College of Agriculture Communications' photograph of an Atlanta garden taken during an October 2011 Urban Ag Tour. (April Sorrow/CC/Flickr)

“Last Days in Vietnam”: propaganda flick by JFK’s niece

Wed, 02 Jul 2014 14:01:00 +0000

As U.S. foreign policy in Iraq faces its biggest defeat since the Indochina Wars, the niece of President Kennedy - who escalated the U.S. presence in Vietnam - has directed Last Days in Vietnam, the cinematic equivalent of putting a blossom on a turd. Rory Kennedy's film is so shamefully one-sided that it's hardly a documentary - rather, it's pure propaganda.

As the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident nears this August - that fabricated hoax LBJ exploited to further escalate U.S. military activities in Vietnam - and the 40^th anniversary of Vietnam's liberation approaches next April 30, Last desperately tries to find something positive to say about the role the American military and diplomats played as the "Yankees go home" scenario unfolded and the communists took over what was then Saigon.

According to the film, U.S. soldiers and State Department officials took great pains, at grave personal risk, to evacuate thousands of the Vietnamese, including military, who had worked for and married U.S. personnel, as well as the up to 5,000-7,000 Yanks still "in country."

The filmmakers willfully expunge history and all context from their one-dimensional exercise in disinformation. For example:

It's alleged that during 1968's Tet Offensive the communists executed thousands of South Vietnamese at Hue. However, the countless war crimes committed by Washington are never mentioned. Ever hear of the My Lai Massacre? How about the 1972 bombing of Hanoi - during Christmas!? Or the mining of Haiphong Harbor? The list of American atrocities committed against the Indochinese is endless: intervention in nations that never attacked the USA, millions murdered by carpet bombing, land mines, Agent Orange, etc., that would require an entire series of documentaries to record. But Kennedy goes out of her way to vilify the Reds (remember, her father, Bobby Kennedy, served on anti-communist Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunting Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations).

Simplistically depicting the Vietnam War as a conflict between north and south, Kennedy neglects to mention the National Liberation Front, the resistance fighters in the south. According to the Pentagon Papers, 300,000 people belonged to the NLF by 1962, when Ms. Kennedy's uncle was president. Millions of people in the south must have supported the NLF in order for the Tet Offensive to have been carried out in 1968, let alone for the south to be liberated seven years later, beating both the Americans and the army America supplied and funded. The South Vietnamese army "eroded" in 1975, but Kennedy never ponders why the North Vietnamese Army and the "Viet Cong" didn't.

This agitprop pic never makes any effort to show the other side of the story because the "Viet Cong" - the NLF - were the south's real patriots. There's something even Kennedy can't hide: Look closely at the newsreel clips as the North Vietnamese Army tanks roll into Saigon (later renamed Ho Chi Minh City). Not only are the soldiers jubilant, but look at the smiling faces of the Vietnamese masses as they are freed from decades of Japanese, French, and Yankee occupation.

The jury is still out as to what JFK would have done in Vietnam if he had a second term. Some, like Oliver Stone, contend he planned to pull out of Vietnam (which Stone and others believe is a major reason why he was liquidated). And Rory's father, Bobby Kennedy, did run as a peace candidate in 1968, although again, bullets cut short his life. Who knows how a possible Bobby presidency might have ended the war? Instead we got Tricky Dick's ascension to the presidency in 1968.

The U.S. military is arguably the most destabilizing force on Earth, with bases straddling the globe and troops forever intervening in other countries. Meanwhile, Washington's empire is bankrupting our country, that can't even take care of those hapless soldiers whom politicians and corporations casually send abroad for foreign misadventures - should they eventually make it back home outside of body bags.

Rory Kennedy's despicable flick might be called Last Days in Vietnam, but these are certainly not the last days of Vietnam. The Vietnamese won the war and they are winning the peace.

Last Days in Vietnam will premiere on PBS (your tax dollars at work!) American Experience in Winter/Spring 2015.

Photo: Some of the victims of the My Lai massacre. Photo taken by United States Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle on March 16, 1968, in the aftermath of the massacre, showing mostly women and children dead on a road. Wikipedia