Pat Tucker takes Koani and Indy for a walk in TRUE WOLF
TRUE WOLF: THE STORY OF KOANI AND HER UNUSUAL PACK (Rob Whitehair, 2012)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, August 17
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.truewolfmovie.com
In 1991, Bruce Weide and Pat Tucker were asked to help raise a gray wolf named Koani for a documentary about what they consider to be a largely misunderstood species. Weide and Tucker, who had started the organization Wild Sentry to educate people, especially children, about the real nature of wolves and battle negative stereotyping, ended up keeping Koani, treating it like it was a combination of a child and a pet. Over the years, they took Koani, who came to be known as the ambassador wolf, to schools across the country, all the while wondering whether they had done the right thing by domesticating her. Director and producer Rob Whitehair (The Little Red Truck) depicts the unusual relationship between Bruce, Pat, Koani, and their mixed-breed dog, Indy, in the intriguing documentary True Wolf. Reminiscent of Lisa Leeman’s One Lucky Elephant, about a man’s longtime friendship with a rather large circus animal, True Wolf brings up numerous questions regarding domestication and captivity, showing protesters who would rather see wolves killed than have them roam wild in parts of Montana while Bruce and Pat speak lovingly of Koani. They marvel at how much she enjoys going for long walks, yet seeing this remarkable animal on a leash just doesn’t seem right. “Could we live with this beast?” Bruce remembers thinking. “What do you do when you’ve fallen in love?” Pat adds. It’s a fascinating conundrum that doesn’t necessarily have any easy answers, particularly at a time when the wolf population is experiencing a serious decline. True Wolf opens August 17 at Cinema Village; the 7:35 screening on Friday night will be followed by a Q&A with Whitehair and members of the National Wolfwatcher Coalition, who will be joined by current ambassador wolf Atka.
That’ll be the day when someone tries to claim there’s a better Western than John Ford’s ethnocentric look at the dying of the Old West and the birth of the modern era. Essentially about a gunfighter’s attempt to find and kill his young niece, who has been kidnapped and, ostensibly, ruined by Indians, The Searchers is laden with iconic imagery, inside messages, and not-so-subtle metaphors. Hence, it is no accident that John Wayne’s son, Patrick, plays an ambitious yet inept officer named Greenhill. The elder Wayne stars as Ethan Edwards, a tough-as-nails Confederate veteran seeking revenge for the murder of his brother’s family; he’s also out to save Debbie (Natalie Wood) from the Comanches, led by a chief known as Scar (Henry Brandon), by ending her life, because in his world view, it’s better to be dead than red. Joining him on his trek is Debbie’s adopted brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), who wants to save her from Edwards. The magnificent film balances its serious center with a large dose of humor, particularly in the relationships between Ethan and Martin and Ethan with his Indian companion, Look (Beulah Archuletta). And keep your eye on that blanket in front of the house. The Searchers is screening August 18 & 19 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image See It Big! series, which continues this month with such other splendid films as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago.
Since their 1984 debut feature, Blood Simple, Coen brothers Joel and Ethan have tackled numerous genres with dazzling originality, resulting in such fresh, unusual, and intelligent fare as Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), No Country for Old Men (2007), and A Serious Man (2009). They’ve had some hiccups along the way, but their only true dud was also their only remake, 2004’s The Ladykillers, an unwatchable version of the 1955 Alec Guinness original. Now they’re revisiting the 1969 classic Western True Grit, which earned Johny Wayne his only Oscar and has held up poorly over the years. For the 2010 reboot, the Coens turned to Jeff Bridges to step into the Duke’s shoes as U.S. marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn, an aging lawman with a thing for the bottle, as well as for killing. He’s hired by determined fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) to hunt down her father’s murderer, a man named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), who’s also being tracked by ever-faithful Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) for other crimes against humanity. Instead of merely remaking the previous film, which was directed by Henry Hathaway (Kiss of Death, Airport) and also starred musician Glen Campbell as La Boeuf and Kim Darby as Mattie, the Coens went back to Charles Portis’s 1968 novel, with the most important difference being the change in point of view; the new True Grit is told from Mattie’s perspective, including voice-over narration from the adult Mattie (Elizabeth Marvel), which breathes new life into the tired old horse. While Wayne played Cogburn with his tongue firmly in cheek, adding bits of silly comic relief, Bridges imbues the marshal with more seriousness and less hulking bravado as he continually — and more and more drunkenly — tells stories from his past. By going back to the book, the Coens also get to add more violence, especially near the end, as well as a coda about Mattie’s future. While the original featured a bombastic, overreaching score by Don Black, longtime Coen brothers composer Carter Burwell ratchets things down significantly, using the old hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” as his central musical theme. As much as the Coens want the new film to be viewed in its own right, there are still too many similarities to avoid comparisons with the original, but their True Grit does turn out to be a better executed, less predictable, and more entertaining genre piece. True Grit is screening August 17 and 19 at MoMA as part of the series “A View from the Vaults, 2012: Recent Acquisitions,” which continues through August 19 with such new films in MoMA’s collection as Christopher Guest’s Best in Show, Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, and William A. Wellman’s Frisco Jenny.
Writer, director, poet, photographer, editor, graphic designer, and painter Abbas Kiarostami has been one of Iran’s leading filmmakers for nearly forty years, compiling a resume that includes such important international films as Under the Olive Trees (1994), Taste of Cherry (1997), and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999). Certified Copy is his first feature made outside of his home country, a dreadfully boring and annoying art-infused romantic comedy set in Italy. Juliette Binoche was named Best Actress at Cannes this year for her starring role as an unnamed single mother and antiques dealer who is obsessed with English author James Miller’s (British opera star William Shimell) book on the history and meaning of art replicas, Certified Copy. Inexplicably, the two strangers are soon on a bizarre sort-of date, driving through Tuscany and becoming involved in a series of vignettes about love and marriage, literature and art, and other topics. Both characters are seriously flawed and emotionally unstable in ways that make them unattractive to watch, especially in obvious set-ups that either go nowhere or exactly where you think they’re going. While Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke made the somewhat similar Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), in which two strangers from different countries spend a day together (but mostly by themselves), the sexual tension and excitement always building, Certified Copy is more reminiscent of Hans Canova’s ridiculous Conversations with Other Women (2005), in which Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter star as wedding guests with a past whom viewers can’t wait to just shut up and get off the screen. Don’t let the supposed adult dialogue of Certified Copy fool you into thinking it’s an intelligent, mature look at believable relationships; instead, it feels like a staid copy of other, better films you think you’ve seen but can’t remember — and won’t care. Certified Copy is screening on August 15 as part of Socrates Sculpture Park’s fourteenth annual free Outdoor Cinema summer series, with that night’s focus on France and Italy; in addition to the film, there will be live music and/or dance and local regional cuisine.