Terence Nance turns an old movie new in AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY

Evidently there's another Nance around town, in addition to the Broadway show that recently opened to much acclaim. This Nance's name is Terence and he's got a new/old movie making its theatrical debut this week. AN OVERSIMPLIFICA-TION OF HER BEAUTY is its name, although right up front Mr. Nance tells us that it was formerly titled How Would You Feel? Sure enough, checking out Nance's IMDB page, you'll find that How Would You Feel? is indeed a film made a couple of years earlier that was not, evidently, much seen. This one, I think, will be -- at least by the cognoscenti who appreciate something new and a little different that explores the male ego's reaction when confronted with the female's failure to give over.

As the filmmaker (shown at left) explains early on, he's taken that older film, How Would You Feel? and spliced parts (many, from the looks of it) into his new work, which moves back and forth between old work and new. (The whole thing is divided into sections marked by both title cards and a blue screen that says "Eject" when it's time to troll between one and the other.) All this makes watching An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (from here on to be noted as AOOHB) both effortful and fun. Plus, Nance's movie is nearly nonstop full of questioning and philosophizing, lots of narration but little dialog, and, as it moves along, more and more animation at the expense of live action.

This is not your usual love story, character study, action/adventure, or most anything else you will have seen up to now. It demands a certain level of intelligence and the ability for self-examination on the part of the male viewer. This will cut down immensely on the number of today's youth able to sit through the film without wondering when the explosions and car chases will begin, but it should find a niche among film buffs and young people looking for a little intelligence with their visuals.

Nance's ideas, it must be said, are nothing new -- but, hey, neither is romance and disappointment -- and he does grow repetitive in ways that both help and hinder his film. Yet the narration is often clever enough to speed you by these small roadblocks. Initially, it looks like Nance, who also handled the film editing, will give over some of his film and its narration to the viewpoint of the woman in question, the very lovely Namik Minter (above). But then he reneges on this and sticks mostly to himself and his own thoughts and ideas. While these are often charming and funny, they are also, it must be said, sometimes juvenile and lacking in depth, so after a time they begin to pall.

The animation, below and at bottom, which is quite good and often varies in style from line-drawn to claymation, keeps us watching, as does the beauty of both Mr. Nance (above) and his several young women. The camera (and we) love watching these faces, along with Nance's wild, wooly and quite wonderful hair. Plus, whenever things get a little draggy, there's a smart/funny moment, as when the narration suggests taking a good look in the mirror "to see the unfiltered you." Or when one of the gals notes, "This is too much from one point of view." Amen.

AOOHB/How Would You Feel? -- from Variance Films and running a slightly overlong 93 minutes (Nance's earlier film lasted only 80) -- opens this Friday, April 26, in Manhattan at the Cinema Village and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and in Los Angeles on Friday, May 17, at the Downtown Independent.  After playing these two cities, the film will expand to others around the USA, and should find its way eventually to DVD and VOD, as well.

Danny Schechter goes after Wall Street in PLUNDER: THE CRIME OF OUR TIME

Anyone who saw investigative reporter Danny Schechter's documentaries Weapons of Mass Deception or In Debt We Trust will know that Mr. Schechter has a problem with our national media.  He finds it wanting: too easily misled by the powers that be (read government and money).  Many other of us, inclu-
ding TrustMovies, agree with him.

In his new documen-
tary PLUNDER: THE CRIME OF OUR TIME, Schechter again blames the collusion of media, government and money for the current crisis regarding Wall Street.

In fact, this filmmaker, as does many others, calls the place and its product criminal and wants the perpetrators brought to justice. From his 100-minute documentary -- full of interviews, talking heads, protests and more -- two themes emerge: that the current crisis (which just keeps growing, with more Goldman Sachs revelations daily) was indeed criminal, and that the media, in their usual, closed-ranks manner has approved the official and untrue line of something accidental happening and being then made worse by the happenstance of a "perfect storm" of problems.
Bullshit, says Schechter.

Further, he tell us, the national media has been much harder on the people who have defaulted on their loans than on the lenders who came up with the "crooked" deals.  One of Schechter's most salient points is that, our media is every bit as embedded with the financial industry (and its government counterpart) now as it was with the military (and its government counterpart) at the start of the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars.  In both cases, truth is the inevitable casualty.

There is plenty to make you angry here, although some of it has been seen else-
where (Leslie Cockburn's American Casino and Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, for instance).  Because Schechter (shown at right, with the golden calf -- whoops -- bull) is indicting Wall Street as criminal, it would have been good, I think, if he had stayed on-message a bit more and acted as a prosecutor might in piling up more and better evidence of criminality.  Instead he is all over the place -- from protesters out of work (and banks that will not honor their commitments) to homeowners evicted from their homes and Wall Street professionals talking about how they do their jobs.

Most of this will appeal to progressives, all right, and it's important that we hear it.  Particularly succulent are the filmmaker's points about our media -- which seem to be currently under attack from all sides, including the ever-strengthening internet -- being all too often in lockstep with power and money. Plunder is worth viewing, even if, on balance, you feel that Schechter might have put these 100 minutes to somewhat better use.

In his Q&A that followed the film's premier "theatrical" screening last Thursday, April 29, at the prestigious and lovably old-fashioned National Arts Club in Manhattan, the filmmaker reminded us that a major demonstration of thousands of protesters had taken place on Wall Street that very day. It will be interesting, he suggested, to see what the media makes of this.  TrustMovies could find nothing about this in the following days' edition of  The New York Times or The New York Post.  Maybe you had better luck.

Plunder: The Crime of Our Time is available now for purchase from its distributor, Disinformation Films, or via Amazon and elsewhere.  For rental, you can find it on Netflix (as of today: long wait) and Blockbuster (as of today: short wait) if not from your local video store (if that one's still around: We here in Jackson Heights just recently lost another). I believe the film is also available for download via iTunes.  In any case, you can click here to access the movie's official site and go from there....