Reel Geezers

Producer Marcia Nasatir and Screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. are The Reel Geezers. They post their YouTube movie commentary based on nearly a century of combined experience in the film game. Their Web site, ReelGeezers.com provides details on their careers and links to all of their current reviews.

Must see Documentaries...

Wired magazine called it, "The scariest movie at the Sundance Film Festival."

Irena Salina's award-winning documentary Flow, investigates what experts are calling the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st century - the world water crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply and a domineering water cartel. This film intelligently reveals the rapidly building crisis along with practical solutions which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic water turnaround.

Screen Actors Guild Factions...

"A breakaway faction within the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) has gained a foothold on its ruling body, a win that could help break the deadlock over contract talks." - Breakaway actors win union gains, BBC.

The two factions have neatly split SAG into almost equal parts... for the moment.

"The Unite for Strength group won six of 11 Hollywood seats up for grabs in the union's National Board elections. Membership First, the faction led by SAG president Alan Rosenberg, won just five seats but still holds a majority on the board's influential Hollywood branch.

Screen Actors Guild National & Hollywood Board of Directors 2007-2008 National & Hollywood Board Members in Alphabetical Order
AngelTompkins	Renée Aubry	Joe Bologna	Seymour Cassel	Joanna Cassidy	George Coe
Anne DeSalvo	Frances Fisher	Leigh French	Elliott Gould	Valerie Harper	Sumi Haru
Robert Hays	William Katt	Lainie Kazan	Diane Ladd	Piper Laurie	William Mapother
Kent McCord	Esai Morales	Barbara Niven	William Russ	Susan Savage	Nancy Sinatra
	Renée Taylor	Angela Watson	Jobeth Williams	Jenny Worman
Hollywood Board Members in National Alternate Order
Karen Austin	Peggy Miley	Scott Wilson	France Nuyen	Brett Cullen	Ron Harper
Jane Austin	F.J. O'Neil	Yale Summers	Anthony DeSantis	Paul Napier	Michael Bell
Steven Barr	David Jolliffe	Russell McConnell	Warren Berlinger	Terrence Beasor	Jeff Austin
		Justin Shenkarow	Joe d'Angerio

The Prisoner

OMG! After 40 years, The Prisoner is in remake in London as a TV mini-series with Ian McKellen playing "Two" and blogging about it at http://twurl.nl/a5ejrb The Village has been recreated in Africa, some say Namibia.
http://blogs.amctv.com/the-prisoner

A Single Woman

A Single Woman is the story of first US Congresswoman and lifelong pacifist, Jeannette Rankin (Jeanmarie Simpson). Her humble beginnings in Montana during the era of the Indian Wars awakened her deeply pacifist nature.

She ran for Congress in 1916 and won, against all odds. The subject of her first vote (against President Wilson’s WWI war resolution) set the stage for her destiny. Most of the Suffragists who supported her campaign turned against her, believing that her anti-war vote made women look weak and hurt the movement.

In 1920, Jeannette was founding vice-president of the American Civil Liberties Union who, in 1933, tried to persuade President Roosevelt to revise immigration laws and allow Jewish refugees into the United States.

Twenty-two years later, in 1940, Jeannette was re-elected as Congresswoman from Montana on a peace platform and once again voted against a world war, this time as the lone anti-war voice in the American Legislature. She was mobbed and vilified and spent the rest of her life traveling to India and studying the teachings and methods of Mohandas Gandhi and the effects of colonialism on peoples all over the world.

During the Vietnam era, she enjoyed a renaissance when the anti-war culture of the day celebrated her perseverance as a dedicated pacifist and human rights advocate. She died in 1973.

The film begins in 1972, when Jeannette Rankin is 92 years old and vigorously engaged in Second Wave Feminism as well as the anti-war movement. As the film moves backward in time through her years working as the first US Congresswoman, peace lobbyist, suffragist and labor advocate, a tale of an encounter between settlers and American Indians moves forward concurrently.

This pivotal story from Jeannette's childhood is told through a series of exquisite hand-drawn illustrations of the American frontier in the late nineteenth century and voiced by prominent actor/activists.

Cutting-edge filmmaking techniques coupled with the contributions of virtuoso artists such as Joni Mitchell, Patricia Arquette, Karen Black, Peter Coyote, Mimi Kennedy, Margot Kidder, Elizabeth Peña and Cindy Sheehan, elevates A Single Woman to transcend traditional biography.

Who won what at the Venice film festival

U.S. film "The Wrestler", directed by Darren Aronofsky, won the top prize at the Venice film festival on Saturday.

GOLDEN LION FOR BEST FILM:

"The Wrestler" (U.S.) by Darren Aronofsky

SILVER LION FOR BEST DIRECTOR:

Alexei German Jr. (Russia) for "Paper Soldier"

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE:

"Teza" by Ethiopian director Haile Gerima

SPECIAL LION FOR BODY OF WORK:

German director Werner Schroeter

BEST ACTOR:

Italian actor Silvio Orlando for "Il papa' di Giovanna" (Giovanna's Father)

BEST ACTRESS:

French actress Dominique Blanc for "L'autre" (The Other One)

BEST EMERGING ACTRESS:

U.S. actress Jennifer Lawrence for "The Burning Plain"

BEST SCREENPLAY:

Ethiopian director Haile Gerima for "Teza"

BEST FIRST FILM:

"Pranzo di Ferragosto" (Ferragosto's Lunch) by Italian director Gianni Di Gregorio.

The making of a film by consensus...

I am tracing a 2006 documentary directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr entitled, Ten Canoes. It was filmed entirely in an Indigenous Aboriginal language on location in the Northern Territory of Australia's remote Arafura Swamp. But, most incredibly it was created by Rolf de Heer and the people of Ramingining, working in consensus.

Click for a 22-page background PDF, well-worth reading. There is a YouTube short, non-embeddable, that provides a glimpse of the humor and authenticity of the production. Ten Canoes evolved out of another award-winning Australian film, The Tracker, produced in 2002, which starred Indigenous performer (dance, film, theatre), David Gulpilil.

"The Thompson Times," refer to the memories of the past, retained by the Yolngu people through a set of photos taken by Dr. Donald Thomson, an anthropologist who worked in central and north-eastern Arnhem Land in the mid-1930. The photos, including one of a group of ten canoeists on an egg-hunting expedition, became the means of creating the film's plot.

The backgrounder explains, "Nowadays life is very different for the people of Ramingining. There is a supermarket and a takeaway shop. People live in houses with plumbing and television, and do their banking over the Internet," but they remember and celebrate the Thompson times. Ten Canoes revives those memories, enabling a people to revive and reanimate their past through storytelling.

Both The Tracker and Ten Canoes are available from Amazon.