Greenwich Entertainment Film Review - We Are As Gods

Stewart Brand was at the right place at the right time for the majority of his life. He has had a knack to sense, be first to a new frontier, then gone before the masses show up on to something more interesting.  His current cause is doing whatever he can to promote and champion reintroducing lost species to the planet. The one he is focused on is the woolly mammoth. Bringing them back using DNA to the Siberian tundra to slow down and eventually reverse the thawing of the permafrost and on a larger scale stop the release of greenhouse gases. Opponents will take the other view that man messing with nature always brings unexpected and unintended results. But even at 82 he is optimistic always seeing  the good in people. So it pains him visibly when he is on stage at various events promoting de-extinction often beside like-minded geneticist George Church from Harvard how people he respects and admires could have such strongly held and vigorously argued views that are polar opposites of his. His lifelong philosophy has been to try stuff early on before there are rules against it to be part of the new thing in the world. 

Stewart got his problem-solving gene from his M.I.T. educated engineer father and his love for books from his mother. She was also big on preserving nature. His best friend as a kid where chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, and opossums. From the homestead in Rockford Illinois, he went to Stanford where he moved in the direction of ecology and evolution. His biology training told him that taking species out of an ecosystem affects the evolution of every other thing remaining. His first adult job was a commission to photograph a tribe of Indians in Oregon. Through this project he met his first wife Lois Jennings. They put all of their stuff in a trailer and moved to San Francisco embarking on bohemian lifestyle and meeting Ken Kesey author of One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest. Kesey was the defacto boss of the Mary Pranksters. Stewart fit in perfectly fuelled by LSD. His biggest contribution was the Trip's Festival designed to Pass the Acid test as the Pranksters called it when one of the flock attempted to make the grade. It was very successful with bands like the Grateful Dead showing up to play. The birth of Height Asbury and the Hippie movement took shape.  

From there, his focus moved to Why haven't we seen a photograph of the whole earth yet? He lobbied everybody then NASA went and did it. The photo changes everyone's perspective. the earth is fragile and must be protected pushing the photo of the mushroom cloud the last dominant image to the side. Inspired by the image environmental movement was born.  Keeping to type Sturt was on to the next. thing  A catalogue to effect change by providing people with the tools. With that thought as a guide, he started the who Earth Catalogue in 1968 which Steve Jobs later described as google in paperback before google existed. In the catalogue's pages lies the title of this film under Purpose: We are as gods and might as well get good at it. Lois was the perfect foil to Stuart's devil may care unemployed artist mentality. She had a head for business. The catalogue was all the information in one place. Tools and technology on display for everyone to see. It won the National Book award and made Stewart Brand a household name. 

Two characters show up halfway through the film Sergey Zimov and his son Nikita. Both are in charge of Pleistocene Park in Siberia. The spot where Stuart and George Church want to put their de extinct Woolly Mammoths. The Zimovs are preparing the ecosystem for the Mammoths.  The plan is forming not too late as there are signs the permafrost is getting rapidly faster and melting. Nikita tells it in an underground ice bunker that the temperature has increased from -6 to zero since he was a kid. Melting leads to Carbon release leads to methane greenhouse gasses being released. Demonstrated by fire on the water. But Stewart was back on the wrong side of environmentalists. Intervention is bad as is technology nature is always right and humanity wrong. His clash back in the sixties and early seventies send him into a deep depression isolated and cut off. The catalogue went, his marriage went and Sturt spent most of the 70s alone. His next move was in the direction of personal computers. Stewart wrote an article for Rolling Stone and found himself again on the ground floor for the next big thing. He had a connection to the Homebrew Computer Club where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak met before they went on to start Apple. Stuart played organizer for them and in this forum, he met his second wife entrepreneur Ryan Phelan. Setting up a different event than he did in the sixties. The hacker's conference. Ideas were exchanged, codes shared and the plan was to free the tools from the likes of IBM and those buried in government vaults. The latest project that Stuart joined is the building of the 10,000 year clock that ticks once a century. The goal is to change the perception of time leading them to act more responsibility as the photo of the whole earth did 50 years earlier. 

**** Out of 4.

We Are As Gods | David Alvardo / Jason Sussberg | U.S.A. | 94 Minutes. 

Tags: Wholly Mammoth, De-Extinction, Stanford, Photography, San Francisco, Counter Culture, Hippies, Environmentalists, Depression, Pleistocene Park, Homebrew Computer Club, Conservationist, Technology, 10,000 Year Clock, American Chestnut. 

The whoe earth catalog descrid by Steve Jobs at Google in paperback Why haent ck from was a Brand creation. 

Vortex Media Film Review - Carmen

The Catholic church has many ingrained traditions. Many of which lead to a quizzically raised eyebrow at the least in 2022. One of them is if a son becomes a priest and has an unmarried sister. She must follow him to his posting and care for her brother while he performs his priestly duties. This was the reality for director Valerie Buhagiar's elderly Aunt Rita and the inspiration for her version of Carmen. When Buhagiar told others the story she discovered that similar events occurred in different cultures around the world. Hearing about all of these women fueled her need to tell the story. 

Carmen (Natascha McElhone) is a forlorn solitary figure occupying the back pew clad in black at her brothers church. The townsfolk believe that she is basically already dead walking around with a with a frozen lamb in her heart. Her brother the priest then dies suddenly and she has no idea what to do having been his servant for the past 34 years. She hides in the bell tower for a bit then wanders into the priest's side of the confessional box coxed by a guardian angel pigeon and begins to give beneficial advice to the townsfolk. She is caught out by the new caretaker Rita (Michela Farrugia) awaiting her brother to come to replace Carmen's. Cast out with a small suitcase in hand she first gets her hair cut. sells some church trinkets of questionable ownership on the other side of the island and buys a bright red dress. Carmen is finally expressing herself drawing the attention of Men for the first time in a long time.

Director Buhagiar who was born in Malta but grew up in Toronto is very at home on the island. The villages, landscape and blue waters were all accented by cinematographer Diego Guijarro's well trained lens. The viewer can almost feel the cool breeze, the rocks under your feet, and sense the warmth of the Mediterranean Sea. As writer as well the long time screen actor wanted to tell the tale of a woman that was pushed aside seemingly invisible to the townspeople slowing coming back to life, getting her colour back, and beginning to live for herself again. Natascha McElhone is strong in the title role. She learned some Maltese and transforms right before the viewer's eyes as the film progresses. The ratty hair gone, a carefree attitude bubbles to the surface willing to go wherever the day may take her. Buhagiar's decision to set the film in the 80s adds to the adherence to tradition as it was a simpler time.  We are on Island time here where things move at a much slower pace, people are generally happier and things still get done. Michela Farrugia is a fiery equal to McElhone as Rita the new caretaker for her never arriving brother. She holds Carmen to account for her reckless actions, has a strong romantic interest in Tonio (Andre Agius) that she will have to abandon when her brother arrives as she is dedicated to the rules and tradition of the church. Despite Rita's hostility towards her Carmen does not want Rita to suffer the same fate as she has encouraging Rita to follow her heart. 

*** Out of 4. 

Carmen | Valerie Buhagiar | Malta /Canada | 2022| 87 Minutes.

Tags: Malta, Catholic Church, Rectory, Lost Love, Caregiver, Housekeeper, Servant, Absolution, Offerings, Tower Bell, Suitcase, Pigeon. 

Vortex Media VOD Digital Release Film Review - The Legend of Molly Johnson

The Australian outback can be a tough place at the best of times. Image it in colonial times of the 1890s. Your a wife at home with no one around for miles raising four young kids with another on the way. Unpredictable wildlife surrounds your isolated cabin with ne'er-do-wells roaming about. This reality for  Molly Johnson (Leah Purcell) as she waits for the return of her husband Joe from up in the hills herding sheep. The nearest town Everton is just getting off the ground. Her oldest 12 year old Danny (Malachi Dower-Roberts) is the defacto man of the house looking out for his younger siblings. Danny is inquisitive and looks at his Mom with awe. Especially at how proficient she is with a rifle. Their new lawman Sargent Nate Clintoff (Sam Reid ) and his activist writer wife Louisa (Jessica De Gouw) arrive at the Johnston cabin exhausted and hungry having underestimated the Outback almost to their peril. Molly offers them food from a recent to wild boar killing. In exchange, they take Molly's four children to town while she remains at home set to give birth on her own. Yada (Rob Collins) an escaped Aboriginal prisoner arrives on the scene to assist with the birth in exchange for food and shelter. Joe's colleagues soon show up looking for him and their interaction with Yada does not go well. 

This film is a passion project for Leah Purcell. Her involvement began with a stage play followed by a  novel then this screenplay reimagined from a female Aboriginal perspective. The outback itself serves as a main character as it often does in these Australian colonial Westerns. The harshness and unpredictability of the land itself and the widely varying weather are all participants in the story. Cinematographer Mark Warham takes full advantage of the expansive canvas at his disposal. The original source material is Henry Lawson's 1892 renewed novel The Drover's Wife. In Lawson's book, the settlers are the heroes beating back the Indigenous Peoples who are depicted as dangerous heathens. Purcell changes the focus here  bringing  in the feminist point of view though Louisa who big on exploring the trauma caused to women who regularly suffer beatings from their husbands.

Sargent Clintoff is fresh in town when he has a case of a murdered family to solve. Yada's picture is posted as a wanted fugitive as the Sargent also has to navigate the politics of Everton. Clintoff worried about Molly being on her own with a killer loose sends his timid Trooper Leslie (Benedict Hardie) down to her cabin. Another encounter that doesn't go well follows. The plot begins to clear with the future looking murkier for our protagonist. She is on the receiving end from just about everyone that passes through. The main exception is Yada who the authorities would consider a dangerous element. Molly is a fierce frontierswoman who is well equipped to survive off the land. Her ferocity is captured completely by Purcell. It's the multiple interlopers and combative relationships that are the source of her problems that eventually become insurmountable in the end. 

*** Out of four. 

The Legend of Molly Johnson | Leah Purcell | Australia | 2021 | 109 Minutes.

Tags: Outback, 1890s, Drover, Aboriginal, Fugitive, Child Birth, Rape, Physical Abuse, Wild Boar. 

Iambic Dream Films Film Review - Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes

 A living breathing catalogue of Jamaican music is on display in Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes. Vincent Randy Chin took a job repairing jukeboxes in the '50s. As the records changed out the company usually just threw the old ones away. Vincent asked if he could buy them which he did and started a store with his soon to be wife Patricia selling used records at a discount. The set up at 17 North Parade street right in the centre of the downtown Kingston, Jamaica music scene. Artists would come in, talk music exchange stories eventually leading to a studio upstairs where every major artist passed through at some point. There was a buzz around the place and a specific sound was generated in the studio ala Muscle Shoals in Alabama or Stax Records in Memphis Tennessee. Plus session musicians hung around downstairs, out front, and next door at a local spot known as Idlers Rest. The guest producer was Lee Scratch Perry arranging, and orchestrating in his unique way. Perry would bless the studio using his flask of white rum splashing all four corners of the studio moving in his herkie jerky fashion. Perry felt his job was to bring people together, find solutions and destroy problems. Scratch felt the studio had pure sound while others had a hum, woooh or a shhh  sound. Main sound engineer Errol Thompson had a habit of letting the meters creep into the red. The sound got very heavy and identifiable under Errol. The jump from two to four tracks helped as well. As long as there was no distortion the sounds were left peeking. 

History is mixed into the story voiced by narrator Levi Roots. Starting with the milestone of August 12, 1962 Independence of Jamaica. An initial bump and flourish followed but the film does not shy away from depicting the decline, violence , poverty, and political corruption that took hold of the country no more than 15 years later. The underground method of distribution is  also highlighted. Reggae was not played on the radio. Instead, artists went door to door to sell their music. Pat tells it that they offered the musicians money if they left their goods at Randy's taking away their individual leg work that was not producing much. The performers working upstairs in the studio could record and press their records come downstairs to listen to the product then sell it all in one spot. Archivist Melody Kenneth and picture producer Sarah Wells deserve special mention for gathering, sorting and ordering old clips, and photos  to bring the Kingston Downtown parade back to life. Editor Paul Burgess then performed the difficult task of putting it all together is a tight 85-minute package. 

Clive Chin the next generation moves to the centre as the story progresses. He learned at his father's knee plus a keen ear for sound engineering working hand and glove with Errol Thompson. His first big splash was working with Augustus Pablo alongside Thompson on Java creating the Dub sound. Heavy roots under Pablo's melodica. An echo reverb sound between drums and base where the main vocal, doubles back different and complements itself underneath; the early stages of what would grow to become drum and bass. The family had to flee Jamaica in the late 70"s due to all of the political violence. They fled and left everything behind where it stood setting up anew in New York on Jamaica avenue rebranding as VP Records. Clive eventually rescued the master tapes from Kingston transferring them to digital after the tragic shooting death of his firstborn son Joel who returned to Jamaica to get a better sense of the artist the family worked with. Joel's death inspired Clive to get the digital transfer complete brining back memories, hearing live raw footage including background chatter of some long lost friends. A bonus was finding some unfinished unreleased tracks like Kissing by Lord Creator and When You Get Right Down To It by Dennis Brown. The Brown track leads to a compelling third act segment where a 16 year old protegee of Dave Stewart, Hollie Stephenson at the same age as Brown was when he recorded the song finishes the vocal. 

**** Out of 4.

Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes | Mark James | U.K. | 2019 | 85 Minutes. 

Tags: Jamaica, Independence, Calypso, Ska, Dub, Reggae, Kingston, North Parade, Lee Scratch Perry, Errol Thompson, Lord Creator, Augustus Pablo, Dennis Brown, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley & The Wailers, Brian & Wayne Jobson, New York City.