The Southern Highland Reader

Fans of Cormac McCarthy’s gruesome post-apocalyptic novel “The Road” — some of which is set in the Smokies — have hung on semi-patiently for the oft-delayed release of the film, directed by John Hillcoat and starring Viggo Mortensen.

Well the picture is out for the holiday season, and the New York Times‘ A.O. Scott has a review.

An excerpt:

The most arresting aspect of “The Road” is just how fully the filmmakers have realized this bleak, blighted landscape of a modern society reduced to savagery. A grimy, damp fog hangs over everything, and instead of birdsong there is the eerie creak and crash of falling trees. Vehicles sit abandoned on highways, houses stand looted and vacant, and what used to be towns are afterimages of violence and wreckage.

The only thing scarier than the empty, depopulated roads is the possibility of seeing people on them, who are more likely to be predators than possible companions. (However, since this is Cormac McCarthy country, we do meet an ancient, nearly blind man who speaks in riddles and is played by Robert Duvall.) The panic that must have attended the early days of destruction has long since given way, for the father and son, to weary anxiety and, in the boy’s case, constant fear. This is normal life: desperate scavenging punctuated by bouts of acute danger and occasional spasms of good luck.

Read the review and see slides and trailers here.

NATIONAL–Eric Fingerhut’s blog CapitalJ blog provides this anecdote about Rahm Emmanuel’s aggressive encouragement of 11th District Rep. Heath Shuler, when Shuler was mulling over a run for congress (this was while Emmanuel was still a congressman himself).

Emmanuel doesn’t easily take no for an answer.

Here’s an excerpt:

The most amusing part of the [documentary about Emmanuel] — the D.C. premiere of which I attended recently — was when Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) describes how he hesitated when Emanuel first recruited him to run, wondering if he would still have enough time to spend with his family. Emanuel tells him it’s really not that bad, and Shuler then starts receiving regular calls from the then-congressman.

“Heath, I’m just calling to say I’m on my way to school to take my kids. Health, I’m on my way now back to school, I think I’m going to eat lunch with the kids today. … Heath, we’re going to soccer practice …”

Incidentally, the film, “Housequake“, is directed by NC Rep. David Price’s daughter Karen.

More on the film, Emmanuel and Shuler here, from the New York Times.

HIGHLANDS–The lead from the Hollywood Reporter:

Collin Wilcox Paxton, who played the white-trash girl who accused a black man of raping her in the classic 1962 film “To Kill a Mockingbird,” died Oct. 14 of brain cancer at her home in Highlands, N.C. She was 74.

Paxton was a long time resident of Highlands, and was active in the arts community there.

Read the entire story here.

REGIONAL–Ken Wyatt, a New York native and a professor of communications at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, is wrapping up a documentary about Eric Rudolph.

Eric Rudolph

Rudolph, a “domestic terrorist” responsible for bombings at the Atlanta Olympics, abortion clinics and gay nightclubs, is a western North Carolina native. An outdoosman, he took to the back woods near Murphy to avoid capture, and was able to do so for many months.

Rudolph was captured rooting through a dumpster in Murphy in 2003, but not before he became somewhat of a folk hero. Wyatt’s goal was to learn something about that phenomenon, and the people of Cherokee County in general.

Here’s an excerpt from a story in the East Carolinian:

“The film will include where he is from, but the film is really not about Eric, it’s about the people in the area where he grew up. The film is about my neighbors. Who am I living amongst? I went to townspeople and did interviews. It is a beautiful area,” said Wyatt. Wyatt’s goal is to expose people to Western Carolina through his eyes. “I was on a journey to find out about my new neighbors, share this with an audience all around the world,” said Wyatt.

<snip>

“I learned a lot about my neighbors and North Carolina. I think people should be more willing to meet people face to face rather than going off of stereotypes. If we all did this, it will be a better place to live. North Carolina is really diverse,” said Wyatt.

Read the whole piece here.

REGIONAL–The death of film star Patrick Swayze leaves many western North Carolinians dating themselves, reminiscing about the year that “Dirty Dancing” was filmed in the mountains.

That was 1987, and Ashvegas was there.

Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers

CULLOWHEE – The Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers returns to Western Carolina University at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 24, with “Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records,” a trip into Los Angeles’ underground punk scene in the late 1970s.

This historical documentary profiles the Stern brothers, who at ages 19 and 20 organized what they hoped would be a more positive take on punk rock. They established a venue where punks ran the door, security, sound and lights, and worked the bar and restaurant. The venue’s success at attracting local, national and international acts helped grow the punk community and solidify the movement.

Shawn and Mark Stern eventually created their own record label and released their own album under the name Youth Brigade. The album earned rave reviews and today is considered to be one of the top 100 punk albums of all time.

Director Jeff Alulis graduated from the University of Southern California’s prestigious graduate screenwriting program in 2002 and shortly thereafter formed Emo Riot Productions alongside co-producer Ryan Harlin. “Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records” is Alulis and Harlin’s second feature-length film collaboration. Alulis will discuss the film with audience members after the screening.

Southern Circuit is the nation’s only regional tour of independent filmmakers, providing communities with an interactive way of experiencing independent film. The goal is to connect audiences with independent filmmakers and encourage them to talk with one another about the films and their meanings. The tour comes to WCU in conjunction with the 2009-10 Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions Series, which brings a dynamic mix of arts and culture to campus.

The next film in the Southern Circuit series will be “The Way We Get By” on Thursday, Oct. 29. Beginning as a seemingly idiosyncratic story about troop greeters — a group of senior citizens who gather daily at a small airport to thank American soldiers departing and returning from Iraq — the film quickly turns into a moving, unsettling and compassionate story about aging, loneliness, war and mortality.

Additional films in the Southern Circuit Tour are as follows: “Flying on One Engine,” Nov. 19; “TRIMPIN: The Sound of Invention,” Feb. 18; “God’s Architects,” March 25; and “Between Floors,” April 15.

All films are shown in the theater of A.K. Hinds University Center on the WCU campus. Admission is free.

For more information about the Southern Circuit Tour, visit www.southarts.org/southerncircuit and click on the programs and events tab. For more information about film showings at WCU, call (828) 227-3622.

Expanded WCU foreign film festival

CULLOWHEE – The 2009-10 Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions Series at Western Carolina University is expanding its popular Foreign Film Series with six more films than last year, featuring overseas classics such as 1979’s “Picnic at Hanging Rock” from Australia and the 1987 French motion picture, “Au Revoir les Enfants.”

All films will start on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. in the theater at the A.K. Hinds University Center. Cost of admission is $1.

The schedule is as follows:

Sept. 9: “Good Morning” (Japan, 1959). After constantly nagging their parents for a television set, two brothers are ordered to keep quiet by their parents. This order the two siblings take literally and, in spite, they give up speaking.

Sept. 16: “Au Revoir les Enfants” (France, 1987). Friars of a French boarding school stowaway a young Jewish boy during World War II.

Oct. 14: “Le Notti Bianche” (Italy, 1957). Mario, a shy man new to Venice, falls in love with a woman who has been waiting on her lover to return for more than a year.

Oct. 21: “Day of Wrath” (Denmark, 1943). Accusations of witchcraft and infidelity pit the people of this 17th- century Danish village against one another.

Nov. 11: “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (Australia, 1975). Three young women disappear after going for a walk on the outskirts of town in Victoria, Australia, in 1900.

Nov. 18: “El Amor Brujo” (Spain, 1986). After the killing of her husband, a woman is awakened every night to go to the spot of her husband’s death to dance with his ghost.

Feb. 17: “Beauty and the Beast” (France, 1946). A beautiful young woman falls in love with a monstrous beast who was at one time human.

Feb. 24: “Black Orpheus” (Brazil, 1959). A love triangle becomes dangerous in the streets of Rio de Janeiro during Carnival.

March 10: “Viridiana” (Spain, 1961). A young woman inherits a fortune and learns the responsibilities that come with wealth.

March 17: “Knife in the Water” (Poland, 1962). After picking up a young hitchhiker, tension rises as a man’s wife gradually becomes more infatuated with the young drifter.

April 7: “Sisters of Gion” (Japan, 1936). After leaving his wife, losing his job and becoming bankrupt, a businessman is forced to move in with his increasingly disinterested mistress.

April 1: “Lost Honor of Katarina Blum” (Germany, 1975). After a passionate night with a stranger, a woman is treated as a terrorist because of her lover’s past.

For more information about the Foreign Film Series at WCU, call (828) 227-7206.

CULLOWHEE--As part of its “Cold Case” series, which is “dedicated to rediscovering underrated and undervalued films and those who made them”, Movieline.com ran a June feature on The Hidden, a 1980’s “schlocktail” about L.A. cops in hot pursuit of a body-swapping alien.

Jack Sholder, head of the Motion Picture & Television Production program at Western Carolina University, directed the film. He did the work hot on the heels of his success with the lucrative A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, and he told Movieline.com what drew him to the script for The Hidden: “It had a wicked sense of humor, the cop thing going, and it had some heart to it,” Sholder said. “And there were sequences I just wanted to see.”

Here’s how Movieline describes the film:

Our antagonist is a slimy spider-slug who finds cardiac patients and bouffanted strippers the warmest place to hide, and who delights in shooting the shit out of police stations. Earth’s only hope is Michael Nouri’s take-no-crap homicide detective and Kyle MacLachlan’s oddball FBI agent, a character he’d later refine in Twin Peaks. Their tongue-in-cheek rapport and the film’s raucous energy make The Hidden an intoxicating schlocktail, but the movie was a box-office non-starter in the year of Predator, Lethal Weapon… and the Wall Street crash, which happened the week it released.

Another excerpt:

While The Hidden struggled theatrically, the industry loved it. “I became a hot commodity for a while,” Sholder remembered. But he still played hard-to-get, culminating in his declining the sequel to Gremlins, then Warner Bros. highest-grossing film. “I would’ve been in the big-time studio business,” he said. “I kick myself for not doing it but… I had so little passion for it that I might’ve made a completely rotten movie.”

Read the whole piece here.

View a trailer and the well-remembered car chase from The Hidden below.

CASHIERS--The Telluride MountainFilm Tour touches down for two days in Cashiers this weekend, offering shows from 7 until 11pm Friday and Saturday.

Read more here, from the Telluride organization.
Read more here from the organizers in Cashiers.
Read a release here in The Smoky Mountain Hiking Blog.

Here’s a trailer from one of Friday’s films, “Pickin’ and Trimmin’”:

PARKER COVE-Russell Crowe hasn’t showered in days, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea. His new political thriller State of Play, in which a hard-boiled, unkempt Washington reporter looks for connections between big business and a Congressional sex scandal, seems bent on being ugly, unfashionable, and, well … a bummer.

Normally, I love ugly, unfashionable bummers. I spend lots of time cruising the “cerebral” category in Netflix (yes, they really do have one), which is filled with movies about dorks on unsuccessful crusades.

Moreover, I love newspapers. Love ‘em. I still read them at the breakfast table, and I know how hard it is to be a good print journalist. Gone are the days of hassling a source in a smoke-filled back room, gone the editor’s pencil, the clacking of Underwood keys. The world is losing its patience with newsprint, and I get truly despondent when I imagine the info-tainment future, when we’re stuck reading gossipy threads on The Huffington Post, our fingers free of black smudges, our minds empty of thoughts provoked by true-blue investigative reporting. As much as you may love the blogosphere, that’s not really journalism, now is it?

State of Play, however, doesn’t help me convince my friends to head to their local newsstand. I think that’s because it tries to do too much. First and foremost, this movie has the insurmountable task of reducing a lengthy, beautifully-realized BBC miniseries into a 2-hour Hollywood punch. That means dumbing down the plot, which was so convoluted in the original version that it nearly gave me whiplash. Much has been removed or reduced to essentials, which is a shame. And apparently, the Hollywood version isn’t dumb enough. If the whispers I overheard in the theater last Saturday were anything to go by, you will have absolutely no idea what’s happening. But maybe that’s not the movie’s fault. Most theatergoers are appallingly stupid when it comes to plot twists.

Second, State of Play is aching, so obviously yearning to be as resonant as All the President’s Men was thirty years ago. And despite good performances, a few directorial choices that are actually better than the BBC original, and a very intimate approach to lighting and design, it’s just…. not. It’s too complicated to explain here, but director Kevin McDonald simply can’t convince us to subscribe to the Times the way classic newspaper movies used to. McDonald has tousled up Russell Crowe, shot every scene in half darkness, and designed sets that look like relics, where we can almost smell the dust and obsolescence. That’s intentional, I know; newspapers are dying, and we’re being asked to watch their last breath here. But if McDonald wants us to appreciate print journalism’s tragic end, why make it look like such a worn-out spinster? Tragedies happen when something beautiful dies. Give us some peppy music, throw a police car’s blue light over things… help us to say, “She may be gone, but she sure was a firecracker back when.” In other words, Lighten up, dude.

Lastly, State of Play neglects to ask questions any good cub reporter would, which digs the hole even deeper. The film does not discuss the impact of corporate news on editorial freedom. It ignores the insidious, lesser known problems with the military industrial complex. And it ends without epilogue; we never get to find out what happens after Russell Crowe’s story finally makes it to press. This is the biggest sin of omission. Without the aftermath, how are we supposed to value the pain, poverty, and perseverance of good reporters? What matters about print journalism is what it contributes to our collective conscience. What matters, or should have, about State of Play is what it tells us about ourselves the next day, when all the blogs and cable news channels pick up the story they couldn’t be bothered to get themselves, but will happily steal (and oversimplify) from print.

As the credits roll on the newspaper industry, you might be thinking I hated this movie. Or maybe I loved it, but I just wish it hadn’t been so damn sad. You probably want a letter grade, a rotten tomato, or a smiley face emoticon so you know whether to spend eight bucks on a ticket. Well, you’re not getting it here. For State of Play, I’m kicking it old school, just like the papers.

You want the story? Pay the price and decide for yourself.

Nobody has heard of this movie, so I’m reviewing it to let you in on a nice little secret. Click “Save” in your Netflix queue, or dash to Asheville, or do just about anything to check out the delightful, hilarious Sunshine Cleaning.

The premise is simple: Struggling single mom decides to start her own business, with the help of her dysfunctional sister and slightly wacko dad. What makes this movie deeply satisfying is her choice of venture… Crime scene cleanup.

Ever wonder what happens to those chalk lines after they take away the bodies? Apparently, it’s big business scrubbing out all that evidence. With the help of some comfy plot devices, Adams and her crew wind up polishing houses after people die in them. It gets pretty gruesome; included in their escapades are several bloodstained mattresses, two messy suicides, and a gross of disposable rubber gloves.

You might think this sounds ridiculous and decidedly unfunny. But I can’t remember the last time a feel-good romantic comedy opened with a guy blowing his brains out in a hardware store, so that has to count for something. Think Little Miss Sunshine meets Silence of the Lambs. Add a helpful one-armed storekeeper/mentor and a couple of rusty Caprice Classics. Ridiculous, maybe, but undeniably watchable.

The acting is also highly watchable; casting director Avy Kaufman deserves major kudos for finding and exploiting the innate quirkiness of these actors. I fell in love with Amy Adams in Junebug (which should also be in your Netflix queue, you dolt), and she has yet to disappoint me. Adams is cute and sweet — two things I hate. But she also has that Mary Tyler Moore thing, which gives her cuteness a touch of true class, and tempers her sweetness with some really good dirty jokes.

Adams is joined by Alan Arkin, who has apparently decided to spend the twilight of his impressive career playing curmudgeonly, loveable grandfathers. Sure, Arkin is capable of more, but he’s done his time. He’s got this curmudgeon thing in the bag, and it is velvet lined. This is certainly not Important Film, but it’s perfect for date night and a guaranteed laugh. Let an old man have his (profitable) fun.

Rounding out the cast is Emily Blunt as Amy Adams’ sister, arguably the most likeable aspect of the whole movie. Anyone who purposely freaks other people’s kids out with creepy bedtime stories is cool in my book. Blunt’s epic tale of Lobster Man causes her nephew to lick everything in sight, including his uptight second-grade teacher. Needless to say, said nephew is also adorably weird.

Meanwhile, lots of people are being murdered, and that’s good for business. As Adams, Blunt, and Arkin struggle to make rent, they mosey around the greater Albequerque area cleaning up other people’s death juice. Along the way, we learn a lot about grieving and rebirth. And state regulations for the disposal of biohazards. I’m sorry, but how can anyone NOT find that funny?

Leah Hampton is a professor in the English Department at Western Carolina University. She and her husband Joel live on Speedwell.

In celebration of Earth Week, Southwestern Community College’s Green Team /Environmental Club will present the “11th Hour“, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio.

“Our planet is on a convergence of crises- all of which are a concern for life,” DiCaprio narrates in the film that will be shown on the Jackson Campus Monday, April 20, at 3 p.m. and Tuesday, April 21, at 2 p.m. Both locations will be Oaks Hall 104. Free food and discussion follow the show.

Drought, famine, flooding, hurricanes, acid rain, global warming- are these incidents isolated or pieces of a global puzzle? The 11th Hour explores the state of our planet and how we all could become environmental refugees, said Rudy Beharrysingh, SCC math instructor and head of the college’s green team.

“The 11th Hour could be mankind’s finest hour,” said Beharrysingh. “The purpose of the film is not only to raise awareness but to spark action. Ways are shown how each of us can help create change- and hope- for our planet.”

CULLOWHEE – Classic movies from around the world will show on select Thursdays through April as part of a foreign film series at Western Carolina University.

The films, sponsored by WCU’s Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions Series, will begin at 7 p.m. in the theater of the A.K. Hinds University Center. Ticket prices are $4 for the general public and $2 for WCU students, faculty and staff.

The schedule is as follows:

• March 26, “The Sword of Doom” (1966, Japan). A sociopathic samurai collects enemies with his unscrupulous ways, including a man bent on avenging his brother’s wrongful death.
• April 30, “All’s Well,” or “Tout Va Bien” (1972, France). Set in 1972, the film focuses on the consequences of political turmoil on the French population.

NATIONAL–Raleigh’s Independent Weekly asked its writers to pick the worst films of 2008. As any observant visitor to a video store knows, movie badness is a mineshaft with no visible bottom, so it was kind of Indyweek’s editors to provide a “control”: “[we targeted] only movies that had pretensions to quality,” they wrote.

Indyweek’s choices?

• 27 Dresses
• American Teen
• Changeling
• Chapter 27
• The House Bunny
• Miracle at St. Anna
• Righteous Kill
• WALL-E
• The Women

Read the reviews here.

PARKER COVE–Ah, vanity. Of the handful of gin-u-wine American truths, Ed Harris’ latest film exemplifies two. Both are rooted in old-school machismo, and both make Appaloosa a rough ride.

Deputy Everett Hitch, played by Viggo Mortensen, left, and Marshal Virgil Cole, played by Ed Harris, move in on an outlaw in Appaloosa, which also stars Renée Zellweger and Jeremy Irons.

First Truth: All actors want to direct. Few stars manage this transition easily. In his second outing as a director, Harris casts himself, I think justifiably, in the lead. He is without question an exceptional actor. As for his management skills, this film is, at the very least, presided over with great care.

But at the center of every actor’s directorial aspirations is a self-centered world view, a presumption to the throne of Master Story Teller. Heck, in Appaloosa (a microcosm, it would seem, of our fair nation), Ed Harris even wants to be sheriff.

Herein lies our first problem. Appaloosa is Ed’s baby, and despite some inspired performances and nuanced visual poetry, the film suffers under Harris’ introverted vision. The western is a tough genre. The format is set, the conventions mandatory. At the same time, however, it’s gotta show us something new. Westerns must constantly reinvent themselves to comment on present day America, or cast a keener eye on her past, or both.

Appaloosa is not without some innovation. Some of its best elements come from the liberties Harris takes.  Our female lead is neither a hooker nor an innocent angel, for example. Renee Zellweger’s character has a brain, a healthy sex life, and no gun. Yee haw. Harris also toys with our expectations of music, landscape, and time transitions in the film.

Our director/star also keeps most of the right essentials.  Sunsets, saloons, and saddles abound. The production design is shockingly good, and Viggo Mortenson, who looks like he just stepped out of a gilt-framed daguerreotype, handily steals the movie as Harris’ devoted sidekick. An accomplished horseman, Viggo’s riding sequences are inexpressibly sublime. Oh, if only they gave Oscars for authenticity!

Alas, the final mix of inclusions and omissions adds up to big ho-hum. We’ve seen most of Harris’ risks before, and this film feels like a sluggish, humorless hybrid of Unforgiven and Support Your Local Sheriff.

More importantly, for every convention he keeps, there’s a big, fat hole where a standard should be. Thanks for the gunfights and solitary lawmen (complete with moody backlighting), but come on, Ed…. No broken whiskey bottles?  No climactic poker game?  No gay subtext??!

Instead, we get BB-gun clichés, including laughable lines like, “I’ve known you a long time, Ring. As long as you’ve known me.”

What really interests me about Appaloosa are Jeremy Irons and Viggo Mortenson. While we’re stuck watching Harris and Zellweger flirt (badly), the supporting actors are telling the real story. But Harris’ camera doesn’t linger to find out what these two are playing at. It’s too busy capturing his personal fantasy of beating the shit out of Dick Cheney.

Which brings me to the second Truth in this mixed bag: Every one-horse town needs a two-bit tyrant to keep things running.

The reality of the old West (and, Harris argues, of the new America) is that a mean, unrepentant Boss often finds his way to the top. Once he’s there, he makes himself essential, and we find we can’t live without him. Appaloosa argues this Truth while trying to upset the order of things. Harris takes down the big fellers with the gold watch-fobs, but he neglects the aftermath of such anarchism.

Follow the allegory, replacing Jeremy Irons with any incarnation of the Gool Ol’ Boy Network, and you get very, very lost. The resolution of the film does not restore order, and Harris seems oblivious to the flaw. If anything, he creates more chaos than he started with.

In his egocentric vision of our mythic West, Ed Harris advocates emotional, violent regime change in America. But if Harris gets his wish, after the dust settles, what is this one-horse town supposed to do with itself?

CULLOWHEE–Well, I have been accepted as an undergraduate student at Western Carolina University. I will begin classes in the fall as an upper-twenty-something freshman in the music department.

I have often encountered the opinion that formal education ruins a folk musician’s ability to truly ‘feel’ his connection to folk music.

The idea, I guess, is that if you want to play the music of historically illiterate dirt farmers you ought to be trying your darnedest to live that life yourself. Well, I’m thinking there were more than a few dirt farming fiddlers who scraped together enough schoolhouse dances and county fairs and grand ol’ opry appearances and recording contracts so as to move beyond the constant threat of sunstroke, foreclosure and finger-crushing farm machinery accidents.

Not that a degree in music is a surefire ticket to fame and fortune. No sir. Likely, I’ll just add enough
knowledge to make freelance jazz gigs and symphony work possible.

And of course I still want to compose the film soundtrack for that Cormac McCarthy movie that Hollywood will have to make after the success of “No Country for Old Men.” Anybody out there hiring opinionated musicians to write shuddery, rough-hewn, folk music oriented film scores? Or ballet music? Or pop music ditties?

And there we have it – the true motivation for my further musical education: I think the music of dirt-farmers, whether they be farming Appalachia, or the Levant, or Uganda, or Amazonia, deserves to be recognized and engaged by the world at large. The dominant culture has tried so hard to distance itself from dirt, and from the people that grow their food, that the music you hear on the radio, in the movies and down each aisle in the grocery store is reflective of it: it sounds plastic and rootless and disinfected and hollow.

Hopefully, a music education is not somehow guaranteed to inflict that curse upon one’s sensibilities but may instead enable one to transmit it more effectively. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.

Ian Moore is a musician who lives in Sylva. He was featured as a part of our “Southern Highlanders” series, here.