December 11-17, 2003

screen picks

by Sam Adams

What I Want My Words to Do to You (Tue., Dec. 16, 10 p.m., WHYY-TV) Madeleine Gavin, Judith Katz and Gary Sunshine's documentary undermines its own reason for being, and is the better for it. Though it's subtitled "Voices from Inside a Women's Maximum Security Prison," it was surely the voices of stars, not inmates, that secured the shooting budget: Vagina Monologues playwright Eve Ensler, who teaches a writing class to inmates in the Bedford Falls, N.Y., prison, and the half-dozen actresses who swoop in, locust-like, to read pieces written by the prisoners in a climactic performance. But the longer you watch, the more you wish Ensler and her celeb cohorts would get off the screen, and just let the women talk.

A-listers notwithstanding, Ensler's writing group has plenty of star power, including Pamela Smart, whose story was (loosely) adapted for To Die For, and former Weather Underground members Kathy Boudin and Judith Clark, locked up for their participation in a post-Weathermen Brinks robbery that left two police officers and a security guard dead. In prison, no one asks about your crime, but Ensler focuses her students on facing their deeds, and the circumstances that led up to them. The movie doesn't question Ensler's therapy-lite approach, but it lets the inmates do so: When Clark reads a childhood anecdote that chalks her radical rebellion up to the lack of her mother's love, Ensler seizes the opportunity to spew pop psychology about how everyone in the room has grown up without a "core." (She presumably means everyone else.) When one student disagrees, Ensler arrogantly counter-argues, but Clark injects a much-needed sense of balance: "If you got a group of people together outside who were successful business people, they could have the same discussion."

The inmates' writing forces powerful self-confrontations, so much so that the actors' ersatz epiphanies pale in comparison -- a comparison the movie unfortunately forces by intercutting writers and actors reading the same pieces. Mary Alice's hambone theatrics would be embarrassing in any context, but Rosie Perez's teary recitation might pass muster if you weren't still in awe of the humble, stuttering confession that preceded it. Only Glenn Close, too rarely seen these days, does the material justice, honoring Cynthia Berry's outpouring of guilt by showing the quiet strength underneath it. Though inmates in such programs are likely to be the best-behaved, most well-adjusted of the lot, the movie doesn't downplay the severity of their crimes, or push for phony resolutions. At its best, it simply lets the women talk. Even they look surprised at what comes out of their mouths.

Afro-punk (Sun., Dec. 14, 8 p.m., free, The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St., 215-573-3234) Subtitled "The rock n roll nigger experience," James Spooner's documentary would have merit if it did no more than administer a richly deserved (if none too timely) backhand to Patti Smith (identified only as "a young white poet"). Where Smith embraced her inner outcast as a gesture of defiance, Spooner's subjects can't wash off their alienation like so much burnt cork. African American on one hand, punks on the other, they don't fit in even in a community of outcasts; the experience of being "the only one" at punk shows is a constant, as is the resistance to embracing the rarely seen brother or sister simply because of race. Though not listed as such, Afro-punk seemed like a work in progress when I saw it in Toronto, haphazardly organized and redundant (not to mention borderline inaudible at times), but if it's a rickety structure, it's still the only outpost on virgin territory. Perversely, the movie holds off identifying its subjects' band affiliations until the very end, but locals should have no problem picking out Ralph Darden (ex-Franklin) and Pure Hell's Tex Mosley, and fans will recognize members of the 90 Day Men, Afghan Whigs and Trenchmouth. Spooner will be present for the screening, which is followed by a performance by Darden's Jai Alai Savant.

The Two Towers Expanded Edition ($39.99 DVD; starts Friday at Loews Cherry Hill) The oft-repeated dodge, "It'll be on the DVD," is, in many respects, cheapening movies as we know them. Directors who might be inclined to resist compromise are bought off with promises that their unadulterated visions will be available to those who desire them, while the incessant versioning of treasured (and not-so-treasured) works obliterates a common experience or point of reference. As they are to so many other industry canards, the "expanded editions" (not, Peter Jackson insists, "director's cuts") of the first two Lord of the Rings are the exception to the rule. While none of the cut material is essential, it deepens and broadens the trilogy's epic sweep. There can be too much of a good thing, though, and the Two Towers expanded edition edges up on it: 43 minutes of added material, with the effect that more than half of the DVD's chapter stops are restored or expanded scenes. Gaps that intuition could only partly bridge are spanned in full (and you can't have too much wisecracking Gimli), but some fat has been restored along with the connective tissue: redundant jokes, a tediously long flashback exploring the fraternal tension between Faramir and Boromir and, worst of all, two misguided scenes that reduce warrior maiden Eowyn (Miranda Otto) to a google-eyed, Aragorn-besmitten chippy. (On the audio commentary, you can hear Jackson's female co-writers objecting to their inclusion.) Perhaps it's time to let copyright restrictions fall, and allow consumers to create their own personalized trilogies: more Gollum, please, and fewer cavorting Hobbits. (The bereft can stage their own Tom Bombadil scenes.) The multitudinous making-of material, which might take longer to watch than the movie did to make, should help you on your way.

Alice in Wonderland ($29.95 DVD) Directed by Beyond the Fringe vet Jonathan Miller, this 1966 BBC version emphasizes the dread and dislocation of Carroll's tale, a corrective to the Disney version that is more sophisticated, if no less one-sided, in its approach. Miller's fairly stunning cast -- John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, Malcolm Muggeridge, Peter Cook, Peter Sellers, Alan Bennett and Leo McKern -- nimbly handles Carroll's wordplay, though his sullen, petulant Alice (Anne-Marie Mallik) doesn't reflect the book's nimble tone. It says something about the cleverness of Carroll's two Wonderland books that adaptations are inevitably forced to choose between their wry wit and surreal leaps of logic; the books can be enjoyed by children and adults, while movie versions tend to aim for one or another. Jan Svankmajer's Alice better exploits the story's altered-state potential, but Miller's languorous black and white gets its distended, late-summer feel just right.

Misc. Picks Exhumed Films wishes you a very bloody Xmas with a double bill of Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night (Fri., 7:30 p.m., Broadway Theatre, Pitman, N.J.) Secret Cinema hosts an evening of exotica films, including clips featuring Korla Pandit and Yma Sumac (Sat., 8 p.m., Moore College of Art & Design). The Prince opens its doors to the Queer Filmmakers Collaborative (Fri., 8 p.m.) and the new Reelblack screening series, which kicks off with a video of Claudine (1974), starring Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones (Sun., 7 p.m.)