Mark Jenkins

'We Steal Secrets': A Sidelong Look At WikiLeaks

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:48:00 +0000

Current-events buffs probably think they know the tale of WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. Prolific filmmaker Alex Gibney may have thought the same when he began researching his film We Steal Secrets. But this engrossing documentary soon diverges from the expected.

Even the movie's title, or rather the source of it, is a surprise. Not to spoil the fun, but it's neither Assange nor one of his allies who nonchalantly acknowledges that "we steal secrets."

Assange himself, currently in self-imposed exile at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, didn't speak to Gibney.

'Bidder 70,' Still Raising His Hand To Be Heard

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:03:00 +0000

In its final months, the George W. Bush administration hastily organized a mineral-rights auction for federal land in Utah, much of it near national parks. Environmentalist and economics student Tim DeChristopher attended the sale and — impulsively, he says — bid on and won 22,000 acres he had no intention of exploiting.

The feds came down on him like a ton of oil derricks.

'Augustine' And Her Diagnosis Get Another Look

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:03:00 +0000

Onstage, in front of an audience, the young woman seemingly goes into a trance, overcome by a power that shakes and contorts her. The commotion appears profoundly sexual; she grabs at her crotch as she writhes. When the woman reaches some kind of release, the spell is broken, and she becomes calm. She leaves the stage to enthusiastic applause.

This isn't one of those New Vaudeville acts; it's what passed for medicine in 1870s France.

'In The Air,' A Sense Of Stakes For A '70s Youth

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:03:00 +0000

In the opening minutes of Something in the Air, the protagonist carves an "A" (for anarchy) into his school desk, and participates in a street demonstration that ends in a punishing flurry of police billy clubs.

Building A Home For A Client Who Can't Live In It

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:03:00 +0000

The off-screen protagonist of Herman's House, Herman Wallace, already has a dwelling for his body: a 6-foot-by-8-foot cell at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, aka Angola. But the documentary's on-screen protagonist, Jackie Sumell, wants him also to have a place for his soul: a dream house for a man who desperately needs dreams.

Sumell's project, like the movie that recounts it, mingles art and politics. The Brooklyn-based conceptual artist first contacted Wallace in 2001, after hearing a talk by Robert King, Wallace's friend and colleague.

A Hazy Ode 'To The Wonder' Of Hidden Worlds

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:03:00 +0000

Pretty but inert, To the Wonder is a vaporous mystery wrapped in a gauzy enigma — a cinematic riddle that'll appeal principally to those eager for another piece, however tiny, of the puzzle that is Terrence Malick.

To the Wonder continues in the lyrical-to-a-fault mode of the writer-director's The Tree of Life; in fact, this film includes some footage originally shot for that one.

Robert Redford Keeps Revolutionary'Company'

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:03:00 +0000

Crisp in execution and classic in ambiance, The Company You Keep is star Robert Redford's most persuasive directorial work since 1994's Quiz Show. It's a pleasure to watch, even if the payoff is rather less substantial than the backstory.

The latter is established by an opening flurry of real and simulated TV news clips about the Weather Underground, the early-1970s leftist group. In this fictionalization, three former members are still wanted for a Michigan bank robbery.

'The Place Beyond The Pines': It's A Far Piece

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 21:03:00 +0000

There are moments, as Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine informed us, when the barely controlled rage that is masculinity can be tempered by feelings for woman and child. But eventually the male Id will erupt, and everything will go to hell.

That happens more than once in Cianfrance's new The Place Beyond the Pines, a would-be epic that shifts from character to character and story to story to show how fury passes from fathers to sons.

'Retaliation': Harsh Payback For Poor G.I. Joe

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 21:03:00 +0000

What's the difference between an action figure and an action star? Very little in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which features no performances of note, even from such combat-tested thespians as Bruce Willis, Jonathan Pryce and Dwayne Johnson.

The sequel to 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the latest Joe is a near-surrealistic mashup of serious themes and juvenile humor, realistic locations and cheesy CGI.

'No Place On Earth': Underground, A Story Of Survival

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:03:00 +0000

Christopher Nicola, the avid spelunker who introduces No Place on Earth, has an appetite for the dramatic.

"Every cave I enter has a secret," he intones, as the documentary cuts between Nicola's New York City home and his progress through tight underground passages.

In 1993, while exploring a 77-mile-long gypsum cave in Ukraine, Nicola found a secret that had nothing to do with geology: a chamber where 20th-century people had clearly lived for some time. The locals Nicola asked about the discovery had little to say.