MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY examines the life and career of controversial African American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal
MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY (Stephen Vittoria, 2013)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, February 1
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.mumia-themovie.com
In Stephen Vittoria’s overly reverential documentary Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary, actors, activists, journalists, writers, and others celebrate the life and career of the former Wesley Cook, who changed his name to Mumia Abu-Jamal and helped found the Philadelphia wing of the Black Panther Party. The two-hour film begins with right-wing media mouths and the owner of Geno’s Steaks decrying the left’s embracing of Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Denied access to Abu-Jamal in prison, Vittoria uses staged re-creations, archival footage, radio interviews, and such actors as Giancarlo Esposito, Ruby Dee, and Peter Coyote reading from his many books in order to portray him as a dedicated and talented journalist who became a feared target of FBI head J. Edgar Hoover and controversial Philly mayor Frank Rizzo, ultimately being set up for a murder he did not commit. Vittoria does not delve into the details of the case, instead exploring the man himself, with stories from Abu-Jamal’s sister Lydia Barashango, comedian and activist Dick Gregory, wrongly incarcerated boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, philosopher Cornel West, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker, fellow investigative journalist Juan Gonzalez, radical activist Angela Davis, and radio host Amy Goodman, who has broadcast numerous phone interviews with Abu-Jamal, whose 1982 death sentence was commuted to life in prison last year. Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary is completely one-sided, showing anyone against the golden-throated Abu-Jamal to be crazy as the filmmakers glorify its subject. However, it does reveal the City of Brotherly Love to be a frightening hotbed of violence and racism, even if that is not necessarily news. “Philadelphia has a veneer of liberalism and this whole Quaker mystique,” explains Temple associate professor and journalist Linn Washington. “The reality is it has been this ruthlessly racist city — really from its inception.” Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary works better when it examines the social history of the civil rights movement and the Black Panthers as covered by Abu-Jamal but falters when it treats his writings as if they were Shakespearean soliloquies. Vittoria will be present at Cinema Village to participate in several Q&As opening weekend, following the 6:30 and 9:00 screenings on Friday and 4:00 and 6:30 shows on Saturday and Sunday.
Back in the 1970s and ’80s, writer and director Walter Hill displayed a knack for the buddy film along with works steeped in local atmosphere. The former was evident in Hard Times, a gritty bare-knuckle fight drama pairing Charles Bronson and James Coburn, and 48 Hrs., the action comedy that brought together cop Nick Nolte and convict Eddie Murphy, while the latter was exemplified by the highly stylized Streets of Fire and the New York City epic The Warriors. Hill tries to combine the two in his first feature film in a decade, Bullet to the Head, with ultimately disappointing results. Based on the graphic novel Du Plomb Dans la Tête written by Matz and illustrated by Colin Wilson, the action thriller teams a dour Sylvester Stallone as old-fashioned hit man Jimmy Bobo with Sung Kang as young by-the-book DC detective Taylor Kwon. The two men scour the streets of New Orleans as they climb the ladder of a well-connected criminal organization responsible for the brutal murders of their partners, with Bobo leaving behind a trail of dead bodies for which Kwon promises to arrest him once they solve the case. While Bobo’s favorite weapons are guns and violence, Kwon’s is his cell phone, as he regularly calls home base to get valuable information that his companion would rather just beat out of someone. As they continue to uncover a major conspiracy, they meet up with Christian Slater as a dirty lawyer and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Oz’s Adebisi) as a hobbled mastermind, but their most potent enemy is Keegan, a vicious mercenary killer played by Game of Thrones’ Jason Momoa. The first half of Bullet to the Head works pretty well as director Hill and screenwriter Alessandro Camon (The Messenger) establish the characters and set the stage for the big showdown, but the second half devolves into a complete mess, the story falling apart with gaping plot holes, nonsensical scenes that go nowhere, and far too much violence for the sake of violence. Bobo’s joking with Kwon grows more and more racist, and the subplot involving Bobo’s daughter, Lisa (The L Word’s Sarah Shahi), is seriously misused. Bullet to the Head could have been a whole lot of stupid fun; instead it just turns out to be a whole lot of stupid.
A bunch of people have a whole lot to say about Ed Koch in a new documentary about the charming yet irascible former three-term mayor of New York City, but none of them goes on quite so eloquently as Hizzoner himself. Longtime journalist and first-time filmmaker Neil Barsky delves into the man behind the legend, the upstart politician who helped save New York from the debt- and crime-ridden 1970s through, among other things, the sheer force of his immense will. Barsky combines new interviews with such political journalists as Michael Goodwin, Sam Roberts, and Wayne Barrett, along with former comptroller Carl McCall and the Rev. Calvin O. Butts, to paint a portrait of Koch as both mensch and meanie, a bully who always speaks his mind and never backs down from a challenge. Barsky and editor Juliet Weber include archival photographs and old film footage of Koch in the 1960s and early 1970s as he first takes on Democratic Party boss Carmine DeSapio, then runs for city council and Congress before getting into a heated seven-person race for mayor in 1977, continually asking along the way, “How’m I doing?” The present-day Koch is filmed tinkering around in his small kitchen, breaking the Yom Kippur fast with his family, and relaxing in his office, sharing his views on his legacy, his battles with the black community over Sydenham Hospital, and even questions of his sexuality — but only up to a point — that have followed him throughout his career. Although Barsky claims in his director’s statement that “with the exception of one former governor and one former mayor, virtually everyone we reached out to agreed to be interviewed,” the film suffers in that it does not exactly boast an all-star lineup of pundits talking about Koch — but it of course has Koch himself, and that is more than enough. And finally, in true Ed Koch fashion, the man who always had to be the center of attention has managed to do so one last time, passing away on the opening day of the film, dying at the age of eighty-eight on February 1.
Film Forum’s excellent “New Yawk New Wave” series, consisting of more than three dozen independent shorts, features, and documentaries made in and about the Big Apple, came to a close on January 31, setting the stage for one of the most influential and important — and vastly entertaining — works to ever come out of the city, 
“You call this a film?” Jafar Panahi asks rhetorically about halfway through the revealing documentary This Is Not a Film. After several arrests beginning in July 2009 for supporting the opposition party, the highly influential and respected Iranian filmmaker (Crimson Gold, Offside) was convicted in December 2010 for “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” Although facing a six-year prison sentence and twenty-year ban on making or writing any kind of movie, Panahi is a born storyteller, so he can’t stop himself, no matter the risks. Under house arrest, Panahi has his friend, fellow director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (Lady of the Roses), film him with a handheld DV camera over ten days as Panahi plans out his next movie, speaks with his lawyer, lets his pet iguana climb over him, and is asked to watch a neighbor’s dog, taking viewers “behind the scenes of Iranian filmmakers not making films.” Panahi even pulls out his iPhone to take additional video, photographing New Year’s fireworks that sound suspiciously like a military attack. Panahi is calm throughout, never panicking (although he clearly does not want to take care of the barking dog) and not complaining about his situation, which becomes especially poignant as he watches news reports on the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan. “But you can’t make a film now anyhow, can you?” Mirtahmasb — who will later be arrested and imprisoned as well — asks at one point. “So what I can’t make a film?” Panahi responds. “That means I ask you to take a film of me? Do you think it will turn into some major work of art?” This Is Not a Film, which was smuggled out of Iran in a USB drive hidden in a birthday cake so it could be shown at Cannes, is indeed a major work of art, an important document of government repression of free speech as well as a fascinating examination of one man’s intense dedication to his art and the creative process. Shortlisted for the Best Documentary Academy Award, This Is Not a Film is screening January 30-31 at the Maysles Institute as part of the “Oscar Buzz” series, which continues February 15-16 with the Oscar-nominated Detropia, followed by Q&As with codirectors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, and culminates with a free Oscar viewing party on February 24 that includes unlimited refills of organic popcorn
In June 2011, the Korean Cultural Service’s Korean Movie Night series presented Lim Woo-seong’s