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Arise directors: world’s women heal the Earth

May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

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World women lead environmental justice in Arise, the new film directed by Lori Joyce and Candice Orlando. Joyce has independently produced nine documentaries over the last 20 years including the Emmy nominated and award winning The Journey of Sacagawea, which aired nationally on PBS.  Orlando worked as a production assistant on several award-winning productions. She hosted and narrated the PBS Peabody Award-winning Hearts & Minds: Teens and Mental Illness.

 

What was it like co-directing as mother and daughter? Did your relationship change or grow? What new perspectives have you gained?

CO:  My mother and I have always had a close relationship but this film brought us together in beautiful ways. I came into the project with an activist’s view of the world and mom more of a spiritual outlook. So together we were able to bridge that gap and make a film that encompasses both spiritual and activist yearnings. I learned a lot working on this film with my mother because she knows a lot about film making and that was incredibly valuable.

LJ:  Candice and I have a wonderful relationship as mother and daughter and as friends. We also connect very well creatively so co-directing was a pretty smooth collaboration. I do believe our relationship took on a new level of inspiration, courage and growth as we persevered through the many years it took us to get Arise to the screen.

I believe that worry is negative meditation & fear is a lack of faith. There were many times we simply had to push on, knowing that this film was extremely important and meant to be finished.

 

I was so inspired by the women in Arise. Has anyone sent you a progress update since the film was completed?

CO:  Jessica Posner with Shinning Hope for Communities is doing amazing. They keep growing their programs and are working on building schools in other places. Majora Carter started her own business called the Majora Carter Group and is working to build green jobs in the South Bronx. Winona LaDuke is traveling like crazy and spreading her wisdom throughout the world. Starhawk just returned from a trip to Italy, talking to people about Slow Food, the Transition Movement and permaculture.

LJ:  There is a page for our viewers to stay updated [and] get involved with the organizations founded by these amazing women.

 

Idanha Films2

 

The Guardian has reported that Ecuador plans to auction off much of its rainforest to Chinese oil firms. How do you hold on to hope and optimism when you hear news like this?

CO:  As Maggie Fox says in the film, with every source of bad news there are five to 10 organizations that emerge that stand up for the rights of Mother Earth and her people. So I believe that the people will rise up and not allow this happen. The Ecuadorian people we met were strong and defenders of their home. They will fight and the world population will need to support them.

LJ:  My hope comes from the knowledge that the people will rise up and not allow this to happen. We have done it before and we will do it again. Arise inspires people to take the kind of action needed to change themselves and the way we are living on the planet.

 

Cultures and customs are beautifully portrayed in Arise. What led you to take an ethnographic approach?

LJ:  We wanted to honestly portray the diverse cultures, beauty and wonder of all who share the abundant blessings of our Mother Earth as well as the connections we all have to the Earth for our survival.

CO:  Many documentaries focus on what the U.S. is doing to create change in response to climate change which allowed us to see the opportunity to show the world response to climate and environmental change and it is a beautiful one. I think when people see that people are creating change all over the world then they feel like they too can do something which is why we made Arise.

 

What new endeavors or films are you looking forward to? 

LJ:  It has been suggested by many audience members, distributors and our Executive Producer that there are more than enough stories of other amazing women working on environmental issues to create Arise 2. We also have enough footage from Ecuador that didn’t make it into Arise to make a short film. Right now, I am just really busy finding the right marketplace for Arise.

Filed Under: Character, Community, Compassion, Current Affairs, Ecoactivism, Interviews: Directors, Wisdom, Women Tagged With: , , , ,

Dakota 38: ride helps reconcile Native and non-Native Americans

October 8, 2012 By

 

Reconcile and forgive is the message in Dakota 38, a documentary healing for Native and non-Native Americans. Silas Hagerty directs. Dakota 38 is now streaming free at KarmaTube.

Each December since 2005, representatives of the Dakota people ride horses 330 miles from Crow Creek, South Dakota to Mankato, Minnesota. They commemorate the hanging of 38 ancestors in Mankato in 1862. It is the largest mass execution ever recorded in U.S. history.

Horse ceremony honors 38 + 2

The 16-day journey is a vision quest based on the 2005 dream of Jim Miller, a Native spiritual leader and Vietnam veteran. Riders carry an eagle staff to honor the 38, plus two Dakota warriors hanged at Fort Snelling two years later.

Miller asked Hagerty to make the film. Everyone on the production team donated his or her time. Proceeds from Dakota 38 support Native American healing initiatives.

Peace, harmony begin within

Dakota 38 documents the 2008 ride to Mankato. When Europeans settled in what is now the United States, they forced millions of indigenous people onto reservations. Mutual violence erupted.

A horse nuzzles the camera as the film opens. The gentle animals bless the film. Many participants yearn to bring healing back to their reservations where poverty, drugs, depression and suicide prevail.

“I love you very much,” Miller tells the riders. “We can’t blame the wasichus [white men] anymore. We’re doing it to ourselves. We’re selling drugs. We’re killing our own people. That’s what this ride is about, is healing.”

Supporters welcome riders

Blizzards and below zero temperatures don’t discourage them. The group grows from about 25 to nearly 100 by the journey’s end.

Natives and non-Natives offer food and shelter to the travelers. “Who you are is good,” co-director Sarah Weston tells one group. A member of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, she urges: “Be proud to be Native, no matter what tribe you’re from. We are an awesome people.”

John Brady, the mayor of Mankato, proclaims December 26 “Dakota Reconciliation Day.” When Jim Miller receives a key to the city, he jokes about opening a few prison doors.

The power of the six directions

The six directions bring in sacred energy, or Wowakan, says rider Mikey Peters, the great-great grandson of Medicine Bottle. The horse’s legs symbolize East, West, North and South. His head and ears point upwards to Wakatahe (the Great Spirit). His tail points downwards to Mother Earth.

Native Americans believe this creates a sacred center where the rider sits. Some experience what the ancestors felt as they ride. Bald eagles fly low over the procession, and lead the way to Mankato.

Final victory

The narrative is intercut with original, silent footage of the hanging. The Dakota are marched up the steps of a wooden scaffold. Hands are tied. Faces are covered with sackcloth.

As their women wailed, the warriors sang of victory. About to face death, Tazoo (Red Otter), announced: “I expect to travel directly to the house of the Creator, and to be happy when I get there.” The names of the 38 plus 2 appear in the end credits.

Gift economy film graced

Hagerty told works & conversations that some riders did not welcome a non-Native filmmaker. Each night the group assembled, sometimes holding “talking circles.” “We’re all equal,” Miller reminds them. “Remember there is only one race – the human race.”

As soon as Hagerty decided to offer Dakota 38 free to viewers, he received unexpected creative and financial support to complete this six-year project.

To buy a DVD, host a screening or become a backer of the film, visit SmoothFeather Productions.

If you like Dakota 38, you might enjoy:  2012 The Mayan Word.

 

Dakota 38   2012  /  NR  /  1 hour, 18 min

Cast Overview:  Jim Miller, Peter Lengkeek, Mikey Peters, Tolly Estes, Alberta Iron Cloud Miller, Isaac Miller, BillyRay DuMarce

Director:  Silas Hagerty

Genre:  Documentary

Filed Under: Awaken, Character, Documentary, Forgiveness, Healing - Traditional, Native & Life Wisdom, Top Films, Transformation, True Stories, Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This Sacred Earth: how to reconnect with Nature and one another

April 22, 2012 By

This Sacred Earth: The 2012 Phenomenon shows you simple ways to reconnect with Nature and others as humanity’s Golden Age unfolds. Shamans and scholars participate. Billie Dean and Andrew Einspruch direct this uplifting documentary.

The film is now streaming on various platforms as 2012: This Sacred Earth. The DVD is available at the film’s website.

Befriending Nature

“Nature is really, fundamentally, a relationship,” says Andras Corban Arthen, founder of the EarthSpirit Community.

It’s crucial to heal our relationship with Nature, Arthen says. Humankind’s problems originate in “the deliberate separation of human beings from direct participation in the natural world,” he believes.

“Mother Nature is yearning for us and we are yearning for her,” says Karen Ward, author and Irish-Celtic shaman. “We just have to get out and be. It’s that simple.”

Walking outdoors every day, sending love to the sun every morning and evening, and thanking the plants and animals that make up our meals are simple ways to begin. Irish-Celtic shaman John Cantwell notes that Nature can help us heal depression, stress and overweight.

Down to earth

Connecting with tree, animal and plant spirits has been “incredibly practical and useful,” says scholar and Celtic shaman Dr. Geo Athena Trevarthen. She feels she’s become a better mother, wife and friend.

Living simply doesn’t mean moving into a cave. It means living with less. Buying more “stuff” doesn’t bring happiness or fulfillment, insists author and past life regressionist Dolores Cannon. Watch less television, advises druid author Philip Carr-Gomm.

Grow a garden and share with others, suggests Lucy Cavendish, Australian author and white witch. “It’s a fantastic opportunity for us to fall back in love with this planet, our home, to fall back in love with each other,” she adds.

The New Human arrives

“Homo Luminous is the new human that’s appearing today. We’re taking a quantum evolutionary leap,” shaman and author Dr. Alberto Villoldo believes.

He sees our natural human lifespan as 150-200 years. The new species will grow, heal and die differently. We will create “psychosomatic health” rather than psychosomatic illness, he says. Extraordinary relationships, spirituality and psychic abilities will become commonplace.

Villoldo recommends that we live peace and joy as a daily practice. “You act from courage not from fear. You act from love not from reactivity or rage. You act from truth, and not from a set of lies that we’ve internalized and confused with reality,” he explains.

“For me it’s like being rewired,” says Ward. The way we think, feel, live and love are continuously evolving.

 Preview of the Golden Age

The world after December 21, 2012 will still contain horror and beauty, says Haleaka Solari Pule Dooley, a Hawaiian Kahuna. We each decide what to tune into. It’s a time when “our true priorities will be brought forth,” she says.

“Inner change is happening today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow,” says Villoldo. The New World will be as different from this world as this world is from Neanderthal times, he notes.

The Golden Age will be filled with “spontaneous mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart communication, anticipating events before they occur, living synchronistically so you’re living in the symphony of creation,” he notes. Negativity and trauma will be replaced with beauty and wonder, says Cannon.

Co-creating a new world

The 2012 turning point gives us “a deadline to make important changes, and to change how we’re relating to the Earth,” says Lucy Cavendish, Australian author and white witch.

“With awareness, I think this truly is the Golden Age,” says Trevarthen. “What we focus on expands,” according to Billie Dean, shaman, author and co-director of the film. “So if we want a different kind of world, then we have to think about the sort of world we really want.”

Spiritual practice

Ward envisions accessing our ancestors’ wisdom, knowledge and ancient ways. “Bring it into a modern context, evolving as a spiritual community.”

Praise and bless what’s true and beautiful in the world now, advises Trevarthen. Shamanic ceremonies are shown in beautiful, natural surroundings.

Embrace and create change

We can turn our world around with a light heart, creativity, imagination, pride and audacity, Cantwell notes. Optimism and hope comprise this world view.

Grassroots people create change by following their hearts. World people are already standing up to injustice by saying: “We won’t allow this.”

Life as spiritual art form

“Doing your work is about forgiveness,” Dean notes. It’s about loving yourself, loving others and the Earth. It means walking the Earth with impeccability and “making life a spiritual art form.”

Aliens won’t be swooping in to save us, says photojournalist and investigative reporter Paola Harris. Meaningful change must come from within.

We must live with intention and reverence. Those who don’t change will simply become extinct, Villoldo cautions.

 

Be peace

Overall This Sacred Earth is very mature, heartfelt and insightful. It simplifies spirituality with humor. It opens with a remarkably clear summary of the 2012 galactic alignment and related issues. Excellent music includes the song Spiral Dance by David Pendragon and Tribe World Ensemble.

“Be peace. Be love. Be beauty. And walk in beauty,” says Dean. (4.5 out of 5 stars)

If you like This Sacred Earth: The 2012 Phenomenon, you might enjoy:  Earth Whisperers; 2012: The Odyssey; Anima Mundi.

 

This Sacred Earth  /   2009  /  NR  /  53 min

Cast Overview:  Dr. William Bloom, Dolores Cannon, John Cantwell, Philip Carr-Gomm, Lucy Cavendish, Andras Corben Arthen, Billie Dean, Haleaka Solari Pule Dooley, Paola Harris, Anne Hassett, Minmia, Janet Ossebaard, Dr. Geo Athena Trevarthen, Dr. Alberto Villoldo, Karen Ward, Robert Wakeley Wheeler, Angelika Whitecliff

Directors: Billie Dean and Andrew Einspruch

Genres:  Documentary, Nature, Spirituality

Filed Under: Awaken, Community, Compassion, Documentary, Forgiveness, Heal, Healing - Traditional, Learn & Grow, Native & Life Wisdom, Spirituality, Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dalai Lama Renaissance: leaders and thinkers realize compassion

January 30, 2012 By

In Dalai Lama Renaissance, a synthesis group of world leaders meet with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to solve world problems like poverty and resource depletion. Khashyar Darvich directs.

The film is available at their website.

The mission

Some 40 leaders and activists travel to the Dalai Lama’s home in northern India for five days. They aim to transform their separate ideas into “a new and higher level of truth.”

New thought leaders

Participants represent “a tremendous synthesis of music, art, media, all the fields of knowledge, of spirituality,” says the late Brother Wayne Teasdale, a friend of the Dalai Lama who suggested the event.

A who’s who of spiritual superstars appear: quantum physicists Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Goswami (What the Bleep Do We Know); Dr. Michael Beckwith (The Secret); national radio host Thom Hartmann; conscious evolution author Barbara Marx Hubbard; revolutionary social scientist Jean Houston; and author and environmental activist Vandana Shiva (The Corporation).

Egos clash

A few champion their own ideas. The same happens in small groups. Unrest and division arise. It’s tempting not to take sides.

As the conference closes, tempers flare. They still have not achieved a synthesis of ideas, a grand plan to save the Earth.

Turning point

The Buddha of Compassion, as the Dalai Lama is called, leads the group in a one-minute meditation. Each one experiences being compassion.

The entire group changes. People cry, laugh and hug. They line up to give the Dalai Lama a personal gift and receive his blessing. Genuine personal transformation is captured on film.

What really happened

“What [the Dalai Lama] was really concerned about was, did people open their hearts?” says organizer Brian Muldoon. “That was his entire measure of success.”

His Holiness giggles and tells simple stories. “What people really want is to be happy,” he says. “Compassion will bring you happiness.” With a story about mosquitoes, His Holiness eases tensions. His childlike innocence touches many.

Compassion unfolding

Teasdale realizes that the group didn’t have to develop a single, grand plan. “That’s a task that we’re always working towards.”

As participants return to their countries and their work, he believes, Spirit “will start breaking down barriers between and among nations and cultures” as it impacts the “have/have not dichotomy.”

What can you do now?

“When you call upon that energy, that spiritual wisdom, that consciousness, it’s always available to us. It will come,” Teasdale notes. Spirit “will give you the insights and the vision.”

“Most extraordinary” experience

Meeting the Dalai Lama was “one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had,” says Muldoon. “He walks in this bubble of grace.… He sees you completely without any judgment.”

Renaissance: a new birth

Darvich distilled 140 hours of film into this 80 minute documentary with 105 minutes of special features. Harrison Ford’s narration and original music by Michael Tyabji, Henry Reid and others soothes anger and dissolution.

Teasdale maintains that spirituality is “who we are.” “We are not compassionate,” he says. “Human beings are compassion, they are love, they are mercy, they are kindness.” (5 out of 5 stars)

If you like Dalai Lama: Renaissance, you might also enjoy: Thrive; 2012: Time for Change; 2012: The Odyssey.

 

Dalai Lama Renaissance  2007  /  NR  /  1 hour, 20 min

Cast Overview: The Dalai Lama, Harrison Ford, Amit Goswami, Vicki Robin, Fred Alan Wolf, Michael Beckwith, Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Vandana Shiva

Director:  Kashyar Darvich

Genre:  Documentary, Spirituality, New Thought

 

Filed Under: Awaken, Compassion, Documentary, Heal, Learn & Grow, Spirituality, Transformation, Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Descendants: George Clooney braves hell in paradise

January 9, 2012 By

Crisis breaks George Clooney’s heart open in The Descendants, a family movie where tragedy is touched by humor and grace. Alexander Payne directs.

Matt King, back-up parent

Hawaii’s no paradise for Matt King (Clooney), a real estate lawyer whose wife Liz (Patricia Hastie) lies in a coma after a waterskiing accident. “Hell, I haven’t been on a surfboard for 15 years,” he gripes.

Matt has been busy earning a living. He also serves as trustee of his family’s 25,000 pristine acres on Kauai’s South Shore.

Clooney is intelligent, vulnerable and charming as “the back-up parent, the understudy” who now must step up for his daughters.

Family, community and nature

Director Alexander Payne weaves the trouble in paradise theme into a personal journey that embraces family, community and the Earth. With satisfying plot twists, the story shows Matt, Alex and Scottie begin to live more from the heart, and less from the mind.

Alex (Shailene Woodley) is an angry 17-year-old who finds compassion. Scottie (Amara Miller) is a tender, volatile 10-year-old eager to grow up.

Transforming pain, loss

When Alex tells her dad that Liz was cheating on him, horror and disbelief are accompanied by upbeat ukulele music. He dons his flip-flops and runs to a neighbor’s house to find out “who my wife was … seeing.”

Elizabeth is never going to wake up, Matt learns. He must transform his own pain and sorrow, and guide his daughters through their impending loss. Sometimes falling flat as a parent, he perseveres. He genuinely loves his girls.

Matt confronts Brian

Urging extended family and friends to say goodbye to Liz, Matt hatches a plan. He and Alex track down Elizabeth’s lover, realtor Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard). They discover the unexpected. Matt confronts Brian.

Impressive growth for Clooney

Clooney’s fully dimensional character is wounded but spunky. He reveals your own foibles and makes you laugh at them.

The actor played a “termination specialist” in Up in the Air; a repentant assassin in The American, and an escaped con in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Hawaiian treasure

Matt presides over motley relatives who vote to sell the family land. Hippie cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges) urges him on. Among the bidders are a ritzy condo chain and a Hawaiian developer. A local mother asks Matt not to move forward with the sale.

Hawaii is a land of natives and newcomers, of privilege and struggle. Matt’s ancestors were among the islands’ first white settlers. Surveying the family photos on his office wall, you realize that his actions reflect on all of them, including a Hawaiian princess by marriage.

NextGen spunk

Woodley (The Secret Life of the American Teenager) is memorable as rebellious Alex. Slowly she begins to accept her dad and take better care of herself. Nick Krause is engaging as Alex’s dude friend Sid. Matt must come to terms with Sid and see him as more than a loser. It’s one way he learns to grow as a father.

The excellent cast includes Judy Greer, heart-tugging as Brian’s wronged wife Julie. Robert Forster plays Elizabeth’s belligerent father.

Payne assembles great team

Payne last directed the film Sideways (2004). He’s also known for Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt. His next project is a father-son drama Nebraska.

Payne, along with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, wrote the first-rate script based on Kaui Hart Hemmings’ novel. Cinematography by Phedon Papamichael and editing by Kevin Tent marry drama and comedy. Voiceovers, so easy to overdo, are well executed by Clooney.

Family comes together

“My family seems exactly like an archipelago, always drifting apart,” Matt observes. By the end of The Descendants, Matt, Alex and Scottie achieve wholeness. (5 out of 5 stars)

If you like The Descendants, you might enjoy:  Win Win; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

 

The Descendants    2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 55 min

Cast Overview:  George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Nick Krause, Amara Miller, Mary Birdsong, Rob Huebel, Patricia Hastie 

Director:  Alexander Payne

Genre:  Dramedy, Drama, Family

Filed Under: Awaken, Character, Community, Compassion, Forgiveness, Heal, Healing - Traditional, Inspiration, Learn & Grow, Nature, Transformation, Wisdom, Youth Tagged With: , , , , ,

2012: Time for Change advocates “evolve to solve” strategies

January 9, 2012 By

In  2012: Time for Change, Daniel Pinchbeck investigates how to survive and thrive during changing times. Joao Amorim directs.

Thoughtful, visionary documentary

Pinchbeck walks his talk as he shares ways to live consciously so that all can thrive on earth. The founder of the Evolver social movement and editorial director of Reality Sandwich interviews scholars and leaders around the world.

Animation is also used to investigate spiritual practices, sacred activism and new technologies for surviving change with grace and ease.

Functional design, habitat restoration, ecological detoxification, intentional community, aquaponic agriculture, wind power, open source currency and diverse currency tools are among the ideas examined.

Time to take action

This film is similar to the post-modernist documentary Thrive and surpasses Armageddon dramas like Battle Los Angeles.

Amorim’s film transcends apocalypse hype by advocating action.  “Apocalypse” means “uncovering,” and doesn’t necessarily signal doom, according to Pinchbeck.

Asking forward-looking questions

“Focusing on what will happen in 2012 may just be the wrong question,” Pinchbeck told a meeting of the Left Forum in New York City.

Instead we should ask “‘What type of change can we bring about?’ It’s going to be up to individuals and then communities to make a profound shift,” he says.

Archival footage of the “Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century,” design scientist R. Buckminster Fuller, is shown.

New technologies emerge despite resistance

Groundbreaking technologies for sustainable energy, health and farming have already been developed, says Pinchbeck. These advances have been suppressed by powerful special interests time and again, he maintains.

Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard cites Fuller. “We now have the resources, technology and knowhow to make the world a 100% physical success for everyone without taking it away or destroying our environment,” she says.

Many cultural creatives have planted “seed ideas” to help humanity, Hubbard says. These are quietly growing and taking root.

Love one another

“The only way to get to the future [Fuller] was seeing was about completely transforming your consciousness, loving one another as yourself,” she says.

Hot button issues like water scarcity and depleted soil are reviewed. Michael Dorsey, Ph.D. of Dartmouth College notes that current economic and social systems do not deliver justice, environmental protection and human rights. “The system is broken,” he believes.

Water: the next oil

“Water’s the next oil,” warns Maude Barlow, Senior Advisor on Water Issues to the United Nations. “Water scarcity has already reached a dire limit for two billion people in the world,” she says.

“As water becomes more corporately controlled, as water becomes more expensive because it’s controlled for profit, it’s going to be denied to people who can’t afford it. It’s already happening now in communities in the global south where water metering is going on,” according to Barlow.

“Green Revolution” a scam

The “Green Revolution” has led to “dependency on corporations to supply seed, to supply chemicals,” says Penny Livingstone-Stark, a permaculture designer. Monoculture farming, she says, serves to “disconnect people from their land, pollute water systems, deforest the earth.”

Livingstone-Stark explains how using soil biology sustainably perpetuates living systems and increases crop yields.

Reclaiming our nature connection

Reclaiming our lost connection to nature is the key to healing individuals, societies and the planet, Pinchbeck concludes.

Policarpo Chaj, activist and executive director of Maya Vision, explains how past and future are cyclical in Mayan thought. The 2012 prophecy of earth changes and economic downturns is already happening, Chaj and other scholars say.

Spiritual practices endorsed

Filmmaker David Lynch, who has practiced Transcendental Meditation for almost 35 years, tells Pinchbeck that he overcame anger shortly after he began meditating. Looking within helped him “find infinite intelligence, creativity, bliss, energy, love, power,” he adds.

Pinchbeck uses the psychoactive root bark ayahuasca to more deeply perceive reality.

British rock singer Sting, who co-founded the Rainforest Foundation and practiced Ashtanga yoga, notes that he also took ayahuasca. Fasting and meditation are also effective ways to connect with the Divine, he adds.

Welcome to the global tribe

Pinchbeck sees an empowered “global tribe” replacing poor, suffering masses. This film is based on his book 2012: The Return to Quetzalcoatl. His essay collection Notes from the Edge Times has just been published.   (4.5 out of 5 stars)

If you like 2012: Time for Change, you might enjoy:  Thrive; 2012: The Odyssey; Dalai Lama Renaissance.

 

2012: Time for Change    2010  /  NR  /  1 hour, 40 min

Cast Overview:  Daniel Pinchbeck, Mitch Horowitz, Michael Dorsey, Ph.D., Gaspar P. Gonzalez, Penny Livingston, Maude Barlow, Bernard Lietaer, Joel Kovel, Michael D. Coe, Ph.D., Policarpo Chaj, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Terence McKena, Steven Colbert, Sting, Dennis McKenna, Barbara Marx Hubbard, R. Buckminster Fuller

Director:  Joao Amorim

Genre:  Documentary, Spirituality, Science & Nature, Current Affairs, Animation

Filed Under: Awaken, Character, Community, Compassion, Ecoactivism, Environment, Heal, Learn & Grow, Native & Life Wisdom, Nature, Nature and Science, New Economy, Transformation, Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , ,

Splice: hotshot splicers spawn troubled new life form

January 7, 2012 By

In the sci-fi shocker Splice, the spawn of Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley takes after her two lab nerd parents. Vincenzo Natali directs.

Cooking up danger

Genetically concocted Dren – loopy, endearing and freakish – has the smarts of both rebellious scientists Clive (Brody) and Elsa (Polley).

Dren inherits her mother’s unpredictable, relentless will, and her father’s soulfulness. Brody and Polley are spot-on as hotshot splicers who are romantically involved.

Splice soon immerses us in the ethical drama created by the two scientists.

Nerds rule

Chafing at the restrictions set by the pharmaceutical company that sponsors them, Elsa and Clive have set up their own lab called “Nerd,” (which is Dren spelled backwards). It is here where Dren is born.

Like E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, Dren wants to phone home. Unfortunately she has no home except where she finds herself now, in the spooky land of her creators.

Chaneac delights as Dren

Delphine Chaneac is a pleasant surprise as Dren. Her complex performance rivals her computer generated chicken legs and barbed tale.

Chaneac is all yearning and devilish mischief. Howard Berger crafted the special effects.

Oscar winner Brody is the conscience of the film. Exasperated, he reminds Polley about right and wrong even while he crosses that line himself.

Big Pharma seeks genetic cures

The plot is predictable as genetically engineered creatures run amok. The puzzle of Dren’s fate is a smart, perplexing understory.

Dizzying wealth drives the company’s research while remaining its ultimate motive in creating genetic cures.

Polley apes Dr. Frankenstein

Polley renders a particularly cold, hungry, vulnerable genius in Elsa. Elsa’s mother was insane. While she risks passing along insanity to Dren, her creature will yield precious cures for chronic diseases.

Violent scenes become gratuitous later in the film.

Splice chills you to the very end. You’ll wonder whether creatures like Dren already exist. (4 out of 5 stars)

If you like Splice, you might enjoy: Shutter Island; Apollo 18.

 

Splice 2009 / R / 1 hr, 44 min

Cast Overview: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chaneac, Brandon McGibbon, Simona Maiconescu, David Hewlett

Director: Vincenzo Natali

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Suspense/Thriller

 

Filed Under: Awaken, Character, Compassion, Heal, Sci-Fi, Transformation, Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , ,

Red Riding Hood: Seyfried strong in Grimm-inspired update

January 2, 2012 By

Red Riding Hood grows up as Amanda Seyfried plays the maiden who carries both dagger and picnic basket.

Catherine Hardwicke directs this fanciful reimagining of the Little Red Riding Hood fable by the Brothers Grimm.

Brave maiden meets wolf

Seyfried (Letters to Juliet; Dear John; Chloe), wide-eyed and bosomy, wears womanhood well with her hypnotic screen presence. Valerie is a strong heroine as she follows her heart and confronts a werewolf.

Fear and superstition, honor and bravery hold sway within her forest village of Daggerhorn. The people know the ways of herbs, hunting and gathering. They revel in bacchanalia, festivals of dance and drink.

Wild spirit personified

The Wolf is no legend.  He haunts the community at the blood moon. The people have appeased him with animal sacrifices for years. Without warning, he strikes down another villager, Valerie’s own sister.

A purple-robed werewolf hunter arrives with a small army who vow to root out evil within any and every villager. Gary Oldman plays Father Solomon with cut-throat fervor.

Like Grendel, the Wolf has his own story to tell, but that’s not revealed until the ending.

Whimsical coming of age

Hardwicke (Twilight) delivers her whimsical, solemn coming of age tale with beautiful set design and good special effects.

A massive, bloodthirsty Wolf speaks in desperate, guttural tones. Dismembered limbs and knife wounds abound. Still the effects are muted with much left to your imagination.

Building a contemporary feel are riffs of musical score by Alex Heffes and Brian Reitzell.  Heffes, whose film credits include The Last King of Scotland and BAFTA-winning Touching the Void, is known for his modern, experimental style with grand overtones.

Plot keeps you guessing

Trite, stale dialogue mars what could have been a better film. Still, Red Riding Hood casts a spell with gorgeous aerial photography of the landscape and Valerie, her crimson cloak floating on the wind over white snow.

Best of all is a plot that keeps us guessing. Anyone could be the Wolf as the terrified group descends into petty accusations and witch hunts.

Shiloh Fernandez (Red; Deadgirl) plays Peter, an orphaned woodcutter and Valerie’s true flame.  Max Irons (Dorian Gray; Unrequited Love) – son of Jeremy Irons – plays Valerie’s honorable betrothed.

Primeval teen scene

Hardwicke captures the ripeness of youth, beautiful and handsome, tentative and impetuous, obedient and rebellious.

The three young stars really deliver what it’s like to be young. There’s a strong desire to take on romance, a poignant tenderness towards the elders who love and guide them.

Wise women help Valerie

Julie Christie is fascinating as Grandmother, a shaman-like herbalist who concocts hearty stews in her own secluded cabin. Christie’s delivery and sense of drama are wonderful.

Wearing dangly baubles and earthy shawls, Grandmother weaves Valerie a bright red cape (an early wedding present).

Billy Burke (Twilight) and Virginia Madsen (Monk; The Event) protect their daughter. Mama is eager to marry Valerie off to well-to-do Henry, who she doesn’t love.

Howl of being

Valerie’s independent spirit lives throughout the film and its surreal, seductive ending. (3 out of 5 stars)

If you like Red Riding Hood, you might enjoy: Hanna.

 

Red Riding Hood     2011  /  PG-13  /  1 hour, 40 min

Cast:  Amanda Seyfried, Megan Charpentier, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Shiloh Fernandez, DJ Greenburg, Max Irons, Virginia Madsen, Lukas Haas, Julie Christie

Director:  Catherine Hardwicke

Genre:  Thriller, Supernatural Thriller, Horror, Romantic Drama

Filed Under: Awaken, Character, Heal, Healing - Traditional, Inspiration, Learn & Grow, Nature, Transformation, Wisdom Tagged With: , , ,