Notes from
Under the
Ground:
Part Three

Click here
for part two

FAREWELL
(Pacific Place, 5/10)

Cold War drama set in the 1980s.

Two directors [as stars]..."To our babuschkas"...East German
wife, works as an engineer...Niels Arestrup (A Prophet)...[Fran-
çois] Mitterand..."decadent Western music"..."Keen" (Queen),
"Waving your banner all over the place"..."Johnny Walkman"...
more intrigue than thrills; about marriage, relationships...Pier-
re [Guillaume Canet] and Sergei [Emir Kusturica]...Westerner
and Easterner become emboldened...Burn after Reading...not
pro-communist, not pro-Western-style democracy either.

Farewell opens in Seattle on 8/6 (venue TBA).

CASINO JACK
(Seven Gables, 5/10)

Alex Gibney takes on Jack Abramoff.

Pest control business, DDT...DEA, HUD..."self-centered jerk"
with a "special genius for finding money where no one else
thought to look"...Saipan sweatshops..."if you could make ev-
erybody poor so you could be rich"...House Majority Lead-
er [Tom DeLay]...Ralph Reed = Pete Campbell (Vincent
Kartheiser)...tribal money...restaurateur..."fucko, bitch
ass" [email]...Metallica, Talking Heads, Le Tigre...AIC,
Scanlon...lifeguard...Malaysia...off-shore gaming.

Click here for finished review.



FISH TANK
(Metro Cinemas, 2/09)

Andrea Arnold's follow-up to Red Road.

Watches girls dance...tries to free a horse...headbutt, "cunt"..."I
wonder what's wrong with you?" "You're what's wrong with me"...
cider, hip-hop dance, abandoned flat...dog on leash...Conor O'Reil-
ly, dirty-blond hair..."I'm a friend of your mother's"..."You dance
like a black. That's a compliment"...female gaze..."fuckface," "cunt-
face"...squatters...Puts to bed, takes off pants..."You've got some
weird shit"..."How can you call Bobby Womack 'weird shit'?"...
Kind, patient, attentive, catches fish with bare hands...James
Brown...narcissistic...Tilbury, gated community, princess,
razor scooter..."Life's a bitch, and then you die. That's
why you never know when you gonna go."



Endnote: Christian Carion directed Farewell. Kusturica directed
Underground; Canet directed Tell No One (among several other
films). Image from Radio Station EXP (© Nord-Ouest Production).