An image that capture the insidious nature of advertising

Though apparently there's one more episode in the current half-season of Mad Men, it's worth weighing in on a few points in episode 6, which, while not the best written of the series - it's a bit choppy and over-burdened with plot - does advance the story line in some significant ways. As we depart from episode 6 we see that Megan is moving ever farther, emotionally and professionally, away from Don: she doesn't seem to miss him all that much, and she's bring more and more of her "stuff" out to California. Suddenly, the character of Joan is revived in this episode, and she makes a rather beautiful confession: that she's truly for romantic love, for a man who will care for her, and, as she puts it, rather than accept a proposal of convenience (from a gay colleague who wants to be married for appearances, and will certainly treat her well every way but sexually and romantically) she would rather die at least hoping for that chance. This moment is significant largely because of its contrast with everything else in the MM world. As this season focuses increasingly on Don (with a little pull-back in this episode), we see a very beautiful scene in which he's working late at night or early a.m. even with Peggy and confesses to her that he feels his life is a failure - and we know how empty and alone she feels, how she feels she has driven men away from her - and then a Sinatra song comes on the radio and Don asks Peggy to dance, and he lightly kisses her hair, not at all as a come-on but almost paternalistic. He's still her mentor, and in this key scene, she is big enough to realize that he's the true genius and she wants to learn how he thinks. She does think: and comes up w/ the idea for their client, Burger Chef!, that at their restaurants "every table is a family table." She pitches that to Don and to the despicable Pete and in an incredibly poignant closing image we see the 3 of them sitting at a table in Burger Chef - and could there be any 3 people who are less involved w/ family? Each has spurred or destroyed a family, maybe several. Each is basically alone. They barely trust one another. But there they sit, talking about every table being a family table, and for us, it's a tableaux, like a renaissance painting perhaps, the annunciation of the insidious, deceitful, self-delusional nature of advertising - brilliant minds using words to ill effect. It's no wonder Don considers himself a failure - but what will he do?

Sad but true: Excellent documentary on adult students with disabilities

Best Kept Secret is a low-key and very sad documentary about a year in the life of a special-ed teacher in a Newark public school, JFK School, which describes itself proudly and oddly as Newark's "best kept secret." Though it's not made entirely clear, apparently this is a school for young adults with disabilities who are entitled to remain in the school system until age 21 - so itself those with profound or complex disabilities from ages roughly 18 through 21. The teacher, Ms. Mino, works with autistic students, but it's clear right away that her students have a wide array of issues; the term autism is kind of a catch-all, and these young people are far from being ready for a life with any degree of independence. The frustration for Ms. M., as for the entire system nationwide, is that the school services, publicly funded, end at 21; after that, the students become "consumers." The goal is very good - providing them with skills to live as independently as possible and with the possibility of earning a modest income. But immediately, through Ms. M's eyes, we see how far the reality is from the goal: the potential jobs awaiting these students are so meaningless and deadening that they actually regress and become far less verbal and communicative in the workplace. Or, as in the case of one of her students, the placement (he works in Burger King) requires so much one-on-one supervision that the employer either won't take them on or ends the relationship after a brief experiment. Or, the young adults are essentially warehoused - they're safe, clean, but essentially doing nothing. Or - there is one seemingly good program that offers many activities for the graduates - but it's expensive - i.e., not possible for the students in Newark - and in any case is just a glorified camp - not leading to independence financially or otherwise. Ms. M is incredibly devoted to her students - visits all of these potential placements on her own time - and we follow them all through the year, ending in a very touching graduation ceremony, which leaves us wondering, then what? The film is low-key in the manner of many of the best new documentaries: the filmmakers make no appearance, there is nothing scripted except for a few titles on the screen, no music except for an opening sequence showing scenes of blighted Newark - everything else just filmed live and edited into a coherent story, by director Samantha Buck

Stranger by the Lake - unwatchable

Not too much to say about the hyped but in my view un-watchable Stranger by the Lake - billed as a murder mystery, sure, and there is a murder - we see it about 25 minutes into the film - but in my view the first 30 minutes of the film are nothing more than gay porn - I have no problem with the fact that the murder takes place at a gay beach cruising spot and I have no problem with graphic sex in films if the sex scenes advance the plot or develop character in some way but in this film the plot and characters seem to be convenient vehicles to which to hitch the sex scenes. Maybe it's realistic, maybe not - I don't know and don't especially care - but by 30 minutes I knew I didn't care about the murder, the murderer, or how he'd be found out if at all.

The sound at the heart of rock n roll: Muscle Shoals

The best thing about the documentary Muscle Shoals is that it makes you want to go back and re-listen to so much of the great music that came out of the 2 rival recording studios in that small Alabama town; I'm sure there's a soundtrack, and it must be very good. The doc is a little too long - obviously because all of the archival footage, recording sessions and early performances from the Stones, Percy Sledge, and other greats - is so powerful that nobody had the will to cut or edit; the photography is beautiful, but there's probably too much of the talking heads interviews filmed explicitly for this documentary. The story line is pretty powerful - Rick Hall (corrected from first posting, thanks WS) was raised in extreme poverty in Muscle Shoals, had many tragic childhood events that were clearly traumatic, and with chip on shoulder he set out to make good, mostly through music - started off writing and recording and then set up his own studio, Fame, and had some major hits with early r&b - building the studio into a rock monument. One question is - why? Why at this studio? Several answers, I think: terrific studio band (the group, the Swampers, later broke away and opened its own studio in town), an uncanny ability to draw from various sources: country, r&b, jazz - mixing and blending white and black traditions; Hill's personal genius at mixing - he created a sound that some referred to as "funky" and I think, in this film, Bono expressed it best: there's a huge emphasis on base and drums, pumped way up. I would say that changes the way we hear music - the recorded sounds very different from how it were to sound if you were hearing the band live - and put an emphasis on rhythm and beat rather than on melody. Later, Hill got away from this - to less success - and he never fully adapted to the next phase of music, 60s psychedelic rock, with its focus on guitar. The three  members of the Swampers who participate in this are great - amazing how you see these three older men and would never in a million years believe that they are seminal figures in rock history; also surprising that an all-white backup band performed be hind Sledge, Pickett, A. Franklin and others. As a movie, this is good but not great, but as a look at rock history as seen from an entirely different angle, it's definitely worth seeing and enjoying.

A very dark and challenging film with a ridiculous title

The recent (2013) British indie film about two boys who steal copper wire has only one thing seriously wrong with it: the ridiculous title, The Selfish Giant, which would make anyone think this is an animated children's cartoon or something like that and in fact it's nothing like that at all - it is one of the darkest, most challenging films of recent years and a very sad and powerful look at extreme poverty and abuse in the north of England: "council" housing, families crowded into tight quarters, constant yelling at one another, fathers either absent or drunken abusers (verbal, not physical), few or no effective social services, no way out. The two boys are best friends and polar opposites, one a feisty and hyperkinetic kid constantly in trouble and the other a sweet and sensitive overweight kid, subject of bullying. Both boys get expelled from school and take on life on their own, thinking they can steal copper cable and sell to a scrap dealer and get enough $ to get their family lives back in order, to a degree. The scrap dealer takes advantage of them in all sorts of ways, and the two kids getting deeper into trouble and way over their heads, and nobody seems to know or care about them in the least. Some truly powerful scenes - all of the family outbursts in the tiny apartments, the illegal horse race on some sort of abandoned track, to name two - also some beautiful photography of English landscape scarred by industrial waste and huge concrete cooling towers. The film reminded me a little of Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner from two generations ago - similar themes and mood, though - and the other very dark, troubling, engaging films from the Scottish director - Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank). I will warn about the language, though - it's even more impenetrable than some of the gang-talk in The Wire; I could honestly understand only about half of what the characters say, like watching a foreign film w/out subtitles - but that said you can very well follow the story without catching every line of dialog and the impenetrable nature of the dialog actually adds to the mood: the kids and their families are isolated from their culture by the very nature of their language; in England much more than in the U.S., accent and regional dialect are still huge determinants of class.

Don Draper comes to terms with his life: Mad Men final season

I guess Mad Men has always been about Don Draper but the (final) current season (7?) is really the story of Don - he's a much more prominent figure here than in any of the preceding: his "first family" barely plays a role in the first 3 episodes, except for daughter, who by the way has blossomed into a terrific teen actress - and one of the best segments of the first 3 episodes was Don's struggle with her and his gradually winning her over through not bullying but caring and communication. The preceding season ended with Don's Hershey meltdown, when he told the sordid story of his life, more of less, during a horrifyingly wrong pitch; final moment was his taking his kids to the dilapidated house where he was born - at last he is opening up to others about his difficult childhood. But those themes have not precisely been picked up in the final season; rather, we see other ways in which Don tries to know himself and be a good man: he turns down opportunities for gratuitous sex, he truly seems to want to get back to work, in particularly at Sterling (spoiler: at end of 3rd episode he does go back, accepting, or at least so it seems, very unfavorable and constricting terms). Again and again I'm impressed with the writing - as in the great The Wire, there's not a line you want to miss, everything that's said adds some to plot or character or both. As Don gains his stability, the agency seems to be reeling - and if I have any quibbles about the top of season 7 it's that we don't really see enough about the ad business: in earlier episodes, it seemed most episode was based on a single pitch, but we've moved off of that by now and the story is more about the characters, which leads to the danger of the plot veering toward soap or melodrama. That hasn't happened - yet - and Don's return to the office may bring us more about the business life, and it's obvious that office politics here are a blood sport. The wild card now is Don's relationship with Meghan, who is in LA and trying to make it as a TV actress, with some - but not complete - success. In episode 3 their relationship seems very endangered - and Don may ultimately have to decide between building his profession in NY or moving out to LA to save his marriage. Is he married to Meghan or to his work? I suspect the latter - but that will have to evolve. Betsy's ominous presence in the 3rd episode might also be a looming plot element - is it conceivable that Don would get back with her in some way? She remains the iciest of ice queens, and we have to wonder how long 2nd husband will put up with her, too.

The simplest and most elegant prison-escape movie: A Man Escaped

I'd say Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped is not as fine a movie as Pickpocket, in part because of the strict limitations of place and the narrow, almost obsessive focus of the protagonist - a French resister imprisoned by the occupying Nazi army, who does everything in his power to figure out how to escape from the prison in Lyon. As many have noted, Bresson uses amateur actors and almost no dialogue (the narration is voice-over - as it's based on true events, perhaps drawn from a book or memoir?). Within its tight confines - which appropriate do build in us a sense of gloom, imprisonment, and entrapment - the movie is quite inventive, including some really fine scenes as the protag manages to smuggle out messages, hide contraband, carve away an opening in his cell door, build an alliance with a fellow prisoner. The opening sequence, when he tries to escape from the car taking him to prison, is extremely powerful; Bresson also does a great job building tension and doubt - we never quite know which if any of the fellow-prisoners is a stoolie, likely to rat out the protag in return for favored treatment. After the initial sequence, there's very little violence and in fact very little contact between the prisoners and their Nazi guards; it seems surprising how easy it is to smuggle in contraband and to smuggle out letters - but the presence of the Nazis is eerily conveyed by the sounds of occasional blasts from firing squads. It's a stark, simple movie - not nearly as rich as another great French resistance movie, Army of Shadows, but it's a very clean narrative with a limited cast (no women at all), but which, like the protagonist, has a single point of view and never wavers. It's less an action drama and more of a psychological drama and logistical puzzle, probably the simplest and most elegant of the many prison escape movies.