DREAMS REWIRED: Luksch, Reinhart & Tode's poetic & amusing look at communication and technology down the decades

The talk seems all about "now," and yet the visuals of DREAMS REWIRED offer up the past in all its bizarre splendor. The movie in question is a new documentary that wittily combines mankind's need for communication and entertainment with poetry, technology, philosophy, history and marketing. Add to this a splendid narration from none other than Tilda Swinton, who reads the cleverly allusive script with her usual panache, and you have a recipe for very smart art-house entertainment.

As written and directed by the trio of Manu Luksch (shown at right), Martin Reinhart (below, left) and Thomas Tode (further below, right) -- with some help in the writing department from Mukul Patel -- the documentary is immediately charming and challenging, as it plies you with information -- along with funny, unusual visuals -- so fast that you dare not blink. A collaboration of Austria, Germany and the UK, the doc's visuals -- even though they have most to do with movies, television, telephones, wireless and the like -- come

not from the usual Hollywood-laden archives of most American documentaries. No, these arrive in large part via Europe and the UK and so offer us Americans a distinctly different look at a subject we thought we knew all too well. All of this is also quite different in ways too varied and bizarre to describe in detail (which would ruin their surprise, in any case), and they impart not only a smart visual sense to the film, but a lot of humor and even occasional grace, as well. They also make quite a good match for the sometimes odd but always on-target narration, as voiced by Ms Swinton, whose

lustrous yet highly intelligent voice lends itself well to the often telling, wide-ranging implications of this tale of communication, entertainment, marketing and societal behavior. Dreams Rewired, you see, is not content to simply offer up a little history and a lot of fun, along with reams of archival photos coupled to a smart narrative that manages to be both thoughtful and poetic. It also wants to challenge us rather fiercely to put all this together and run with it to a genuine conclusion.  Unfortunately, it does not always make this so easy to manage.

For whatever reason (perhaps because some or even much of the archival material was itself undated?) , the filmmaker have seen fit to leave out any dates entirely. Consequently, my spouse and I found ourselves too often wondering (aloud or to ourselves), "What year was this?" Also, the film seems to go back and forth in time, covering the same technology but in perhaps different eras. (Television seems to rear its head as a "new" attraction multiple times.)

And yet, so unusual and imaginative are the visuals (and the use of these) and the ideas that constantly bubble up throughout the 85-minute movie, that I suspect you'll be happy to give it a pass regarding its odd time-line.

If only for the chance to see that early "cell" phone whose wires evidently had to be wrapped around a fire hydrant (something metal, at least), or the chic woman's garters that concealed an early form of radio, or a scene from an early (probably Russian) sci-fi movie (above), the wealth of fun to be found here -- and then somehow dealt with -- is extraordinary. (Snippets of over 200 films are said to have been used throughout the documentary!)

Dreams Rewired, released by Icarus Films, opens for its world theatrical premiere in New York City at Film Forum on Wednesday, December 16, for a one-week run; in Houston at 14 Pews on December 17, and in Chicago (at Facets Cinémathèque), Los Angeles, (at Laemmle's NoHo 7) and Santa Fe (at The Screen) on Friday, December 18. Click here, then scroll down to the correct movie to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Gordon & Neville's BEST OF ENEMIES tracks Buckley & Vidal and those infamous debates

Ah, the 1960s! What fun they were -- till they got kinda nasty. You know: Vietnam and all. The hippies and the Yippies. And the Chicago Democratic Convention riots. Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville's new documentary, BEST OF ENEMIES, takes us into those bygone times with flair, panache and no lack of intelligence, as the filmmakers concentrate on a series of televised debates between two very well-known intellectuals of their day -- right-winger William F. Buckley, Jr., and left-winger Gore Vidal.

Gordon and Neville (the filmmakers are shown at right, with Gordon on the left) lay out the framework for their film very well, carefully setting the time and place and taking us back into this era with an excellent eye for politics, culture, and especiallly television. ABC, on which the debates were shown, was the third-rated (out of three) network at the time (Fox had yet to exist), and the debates went a long way toward goosing ABC's ratings to a new high in which it beat out both CBS and NBC. The history we get of all this is solid, smart and telling.

We also get a good look at the two men involved, and this is where the documentary particularly shines. Instead of giving us the expected leaning toward the ultra-liberal Vidal (below, right) at the expense of the ultra conservative Buckley (below, left), the filmmakers give both men a decent shake, exposing their strengths as well as their weaknesses. All this leads to what one might indeed see as the climax of the debates (and the film), at whick point Gore calls William a "crypto-Nazi," and Buckley bangs back by outting Vidal as a "queer."

A confrontation like this one was "hot shit" in its day, and in fact still has the power to shock us, due to the livid anger we see expressed via both men. By the time it arrives, however, we've gotten to know the guys a little too well. Both were entitled and rich, and while Buckley tried to hide this, Vidal was perfectly happy to admit it, even as he condemned wealth and class in our country. Yet if Buckley proved his ususal sneering and obnoxious self, Vidal, too, seems awfully self-satisfied. One of the points the film brings home is that these two pretty much deserved each other.

Along the way we get some smart commentary from the likes of Frank Rich ("ABC was the Budget Rent-a-Car of the news programs"), Dick Cavett, Andrew Sullivan, Ginia Bellafante and Christopher Hitchens (among many others), with all of this edited down into a fast-paced, sleek and entertaining 87 minutes. Old-timers will relish having a re-look at one of the major cultural events of its day, while youngsters may get a taste of what television's past had to offer before those dreary, dreaded reality shows took over.  

From Magnolia Pictures, Best of Enemies begins its theatrical run this Friday, July 31, in New York City, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver, with openings in dozens more cities across the country in the weeks and months to come. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates with cities and theaters listed.

Now at NYC's Maysles Cinema: Des Doyle's SHOWRUNNERS: The Art of Running a TV Show

We've heard the word bandied about a lot lately, where network and cable TV series are concerned, but what exactly is a Show-runner? According to SHOWRUNNERS: THE ART OF RUNNING A TV SHOW (written and directed by Des Doyle, shown below), which defines the term upfront before the movie begins, the word -- which is a relatively newly-coined one -- offers "an industry term describing the person and/or persons responsible for overseeing all areas of writing and production on a television series and ensuring that each episode is delivered on time and on budget for both the studio that produces the show and the network that airs it." OK: Fair enough.

What this has come to mean for the industry, however, seems to be that, for TV series, this showrunner (often doubling as the major writer) has taken the power place at the head of the table. (We almost never think of the director of these TV series because that director is likely to change, maybe several times, within the course of a series, even within a single season of a series. What a director has historically been seen to represent for a movie, the showrunner now represent for the TV series. Further, as TV series grow ever more talked-about and popular with both mainstream audiences and our cultural gatekeepers, the showrunner is very likely to eventually eclipse everyone else regarding the power place, both critically and economically, in Hollywood's and the media's hierarchy.

Sure, this day may be aways away, but it does appear to be coming. Which makes the debut of Mr Doyle's quite interesting film worth noting and the film itself worth seeing and thinking about. In it has been collected quite a number of "showrunners." How these were chosen is not addressed. Only two of them, Janet Tomaro, and Jane Espenson, are women, and I dearly wish the film had included Theresa Rebeck, showrunner (for a time) on the ill-fated series, Smash. I think Ms Rebeck might have had some smart and telling stuff to add. What's here, however, provides plenty of fodder to give the faithful a pretty good idea of what goes into being a showrunner. As one of this chosen group explains, "You know that you’re doing something right if just about everyone connected with the show is annoyed with you."

Among the chosen, Matthew Carnahan (above, of House of Lies and Dirt) gets a lot of screen time, and he proves worth it, as he is smart and funny and seeming pretty honest. He turns out to have been a protégée of  Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. "They didn’t want any of their protégées moving to Hollywood and working out of TV. But of course nearly all of us did." Also along for the ride is actor Anthony LaPaglia, who has some funny things to say about actors reacting to these writers/producers (and vice versa).

While many of the shows mentioned or described -- such as Bones -- sound like soap operas, you'll realize once again why, for all their "pushing the envelope," it's often the tried and true that brings home the bacon. Popular showrunner Joss Whedon explains why he will protect “moments’ at all costs but give up a good “move” in a heartbeat: “A move is ‘Oh my god, it was his evil twin!’ which gives you nothing. A moment is that something relatable that all of us have gone through and that you can mine in regard to the evil twin: that’s your moment.”

And if the film is mostly talking heads, at least they’re saying some interesting stuff. Early on, Ronald D. Moore (above, and a staple from the days of Star Trek: The Next Generation up through the current Outlander) realized that he had killed off his lifelong hero (from Star Trek), while Ms Tamaro talks about how she went from a job with ABC News to being a scriptwriter.

Along the way we get some funny gems:  “More serial killers have been caught in a single season of TV that ever actually roamed the streets.” As to helpful hints, there are a number of these offered: "Choose your battles carefully: Is this the hill you want to die on?" is one of the smartest. "The single thing that makes TV show take so long to get done is … meetings!" And here's Mr. Carnahan on Dirt: "The pilot and first season were great." The second season? "I’ve never seen it and I don’t want to.” We even get a Les Moonves story, but come on now, he can't really be that dumb...?!

There's an interesting discussion of Cable vs Network and where you want to work and why. Is there actually more freedom on cable? "Well, you've really got to take this on a case by case basis," notes one fellow. Managing is so important to showrunning that some showrunners split the duties into two jobs. "Writing and managing take such different skills," explains one fellow. "Sometimes it doesn't pay to try to do both yourself." Concerning contemporary shows vs period stories: "With period tales, you have to realize things like 'Every actor and every extra will need a special haircut.' There are all kinds of stuff you don’t usually think about."

Mike Kelley of Revenge says some smart things (some of it funny and knowingly hypocritical) about ratings and how and if one should even pay attention to them. Interestingly, this job, while too good to quit, is also too hard to do. "Almost all showrunners stop in their 50s," we're told. "It’s just too much." On that subject, Josh Whedon (below) talks about having to run three shows simultaneously. Actor Jason O’Mara (Terra Nova, The Good Wife) explains his theory about the actor being the guardian of the character, and one of the showrunners gives a smart timeline for how, eventually, the actor finally controls the character.

Race and color comes to the fore with Ali Le Roi (Are We There Yet?), who admits, "Sure the white suits think I’m going to bring in the colored audience. But really, I would just like a shot at bringing in 'the audience'." here comes the importance of ComicCon (for some shows), how smart content is now appearing on The Web, and -- oh, yes --  failures, too, as J.J. Abrams and others confront their own. "Even showrunners on the successful shows," one points out, "sometimes leave -- or are asked to....
Paging Ms Rebeck!

Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show -- an Ireland/USA co-production running 90 minutes -- after a successful run and return engagement at L.A.'s Arena Cinema has now opened in New York City this past Thursday and will continue through this coming Wednesday, April 29, at the Maysles Cinema. Click the link above for further information and then click on the particular date you want to procure tickets. (Note: If you can't get to the Maysles, the movie is now available via Netflix streaming.)

Dan Gilroy's dark 'n devious NIGHTCRAWLER offers Jake Gyllenhaal's best performance yet

A just-about-perfect (if awfully long) double bill of current movies might be Gone Girl and NIGHTCRAWLER, the two films offering the most sociopathic leading characters in many a moon. If these two were married, whom do you think would survive? I'd bet on Jake Gyllenhaal's Louis Bloom. This is both a character, and the perfor-mance of that character, that is bizarre and memorable -- like just about nothing you will have seen previously. In retrospect, you might have some questions (few, I think, that you won't be able to answer on your own), but while you're watching, you're absolutely in thrall.

Writer/director Dan Gilroy (at right) is best-known for his screenplays (The Bourne Legacy, The Fall and the highly under-rated Two for the Money).This is his first directing job, and he does his own screenplay proud. Nothing showy, mind you, but all is in its place. This is also a long film -- coming in three minutes shy of two hours -- but it moves so quickly and interestingly that you don't realize the length. And Mr. Gyllenhaal, below and further below, is giving such a rapturous performance -- strange yet graceful, measured, and as real as you could ask for -- that he, in one scene, almost brought me to tears.

This is doubly odd, since his character is such a sociopath, and though we know this from the initial scene, we don't learn the extent of it until the movie gets much further underway. How this character discovers his metier, as it were, and what he does with it, make for the most fascinating tale movies have told us this year.

Into that tale arrive two important characters. The most important is a woman (played exceptionally well by Rene Russo, above, right, who I'm told is the filmmaker's wife) in charge of news programming at an up-and-coming local TV station in the Los Angeles area who gloms onto Louis' video work. The other is the younger man (a fine Riz Ahmed, below, center, and minus his British accent) whom Louis hires as his assistant.

All the other characters, many of whom die or are already dead when we meet them, are important to our protagonist only in so much as they can be of use to him. And as the tale proceeds, this use becomes more and more shocking, though it never leaves the realm of believability.

Nightcrawler is dark, certainly, and unsettling too, but it is so well conceived and executed that it is impossible not to recommend. Its plotting is also more believable than some of the twists and turns taken by Gone Girl, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed but found wanting in the mystery department, though not at all in terms of its being a crackerjack exploration of today's 30-somethings -- so entitled and narcissistic.

Released via Open Road, the film is currently playing in theaters across the nation. I recommend a visit; failing that, be sure to stick it on your must-see list for Blu-ray, DVD or streaming.

Des Doyle's SHOWRUNNERS: The Art of Running a TV Show opens in L.A. at the Arena Cinema

We've heard the word bandied about a lot lately, where network and cable TV series are concerned, but what exactly is a Show-runner? According to SHOWRUNNERS: THE ART OF RUNNING A TV SHOW (written and directed by Des Doyle, shown below), which defines the term upfront before the movie begins, the word -- which is a relatively newly-coined one -- offers "an industry term describing the person and/or persons responsible for overseeing all areas of writing and production on a television series and ensuring that each episode is delivered on time and on budget for both the studio that produces the show and the network that airs it." OK: Fair enough.

What this has come to mean for the industry, however, seems to be that, for TV series, this showrunner (often doubling as the major writer) has taken the power place at the head of the table. (We almost never think of the director of these TV series because that director is likely to change, maybe several times, within the course of a series, even within a single season of a series. What a director has historically been seen to represent for a movie, the showrunner now represent for the TV series. Further, as TV series grow ever more talked-about and popular with both mainstream audiences and our cultural gatekeepers, the showrunner is very likely to eventually eclipse everyone else regarding the power place, both critically and economically, in Hollywood's and the media's hierarchy.

Sure, this day may be aways away, but it does appear to be coming. Which makes the debut of Mr Doyle's quite interesting film worth noting and the film itself worth seeing and thinking about. In it has been collected quite a number of "showrunners." How these were chosen is not addressed. Only two of them, Janet Tomaro, and Jane Espenson, are women, and I dearly wish the film had included Theresa Rebeck, showrunner (for a time) on the ill-fated series, Smash. I think Ms Rebeck might have had some smart and telling stuff to add. What's here, however, provides plenty of fodder to give the faithful a pretty good idea of what goes into being a showrunner. As one of this chosen group explains, "You know that you’re doing something right if just about everyone connected with the show is annoyed with you."

Among the chosen, Matthew Carnahan (above, of House of Lies and Dirt) gets a lot of screen time, and he proves worth it, as he is smart and funny and seeming pretty honest. He turns out to have been a protégée of  Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. "They didn’t want any of their protégées moving to Hollywood and working out of TV. But of course nearly all of us did." Also along for the ride is actor Anthony LaPaglia, who has some funny things to say about actors reacting to these writers/producers (and vice versa).

While many of the shows mentioned or described -- such as Bones -- sound like soap operas, you'll realize once again why, for all their "pushing the envelope," it's often the tried and true that brings home the bacon. Popular showrunner Josh Whedon explains why he will protect “moments’ at all costs but give up a good “move” in a heartbeat: “A move is ‘Oh my god, it was his evil twin!’ which gives you nothing. A moment is that something relatable that all of us have gone through and that you can mine in regard to the evil twin: that’s your moment.”

And if the film is mostly talking heads, at least they’re saying some interesting stuff. Early on, Ronald D. Moore (above, and a staple from the days of Star Trek: The Next Generation up through the current Outlander) realized that he had killed off his lifelong hero (from Star Trek), while Ms Tamaro talks about how she went from a job with ABC News to being a scriptwriter.

Along the way we get some funny gems:  “More serial killers have been caught in a single season of TV that ever actually roamed the streets.” As to helpful hints, there are a number of these offered: "Choose your battles carefully: Is this the hill you want to die on?" is one of the smartest. "The single thing that makes TV show take so long to get done is … meetings!" And here's Mr. Carnahan on Dirt: "The pilot and first season were great." The second season? "I’ve never seen it and I don’t want to.” We even get a Les Moonves story, but come on now, he can't really be that dumb...?!

There's an interesting discussion of Cable vs Network and where you want to work and why. Is there actually more freedom on cable? "Well, you've really got to take this on a case by case basis," notes one fellow. Managing is so important to showrunning that some showrunners split the duties into two jobs. "Writing and managing take such different skills," explains one fellow. "Sometimes it doesn't pay to try to do both yourself." Concerning contemporary shows vs period stories: "With period tales, you have to realize things like 'Every actor and every extra will need a special haircut.' There are all kinds of stuff you don’t usually think about."

Mike Kelley of Revenge says some smart things (some of it funny and knowingly hypocritical) about ratings and how and if one should even pay attention to them. Interestingly, this job, while too good to quit, is also too hard to do. "Almost all showrunners stop in their 50s," we're told. "It’s just too much." On that subject, Josh Whedon (below) talks about having to run three shows simultaneously. Actor Jason O’Mara (Terra Nova, The Good Wife) explains his theory about the actor being the guardian of the character, and one of the showrunners gives a smart timeline for how, eventually, the actor finally controls the character.

Race and color comes to the fore with Ali Le Roi (Are We There Yet?), who admits, "Sure the white suits think I’m going to bring in the colored audience. But really, I would just like a shot at bringing in 'the audience.' The importance of ComicCon (for some shows), how smart content is now appearing on The Web, and -- oh, yes --  failures, too, as J.J. Abrams and others confront their own. "Even showrunners on the successful shows," one points out, "sometimes leave -- or are asked to....
Paging Ms Rebeck!

Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show -- an Ireland/USA co-production running 90 minutes -- open tomorrow in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema in Hollywood. Elsewhere? Who knows? But it will certainly make it to DVD and streaming eventually, we hope.

In TV MAN: The Search for the Last Inde-pendent Dealer, filmmaker Steve Kosareff does exactly that -- with surprising results

Nostalgia's a funny thing, for sure, and it comes in all kinds of shapes and forms. One look at the poster art for the new documentary TV MAN: THE SEARCH FOR THE LAST INDEPENDENT DEALER, and plenty of us who remember the early days of television will be immediately hooked. And yet the movie and the man who made it are interested in more than merely looking at or addressing early TV per se. Instead, Steve Kosareff and his oddball little film take a look at, first, some of the guys who sold -- and serviced -- those original TVs and then move on to the few remaining "independent dealers," mostly in the Pacific Northwest, who continue to do so -- at no little peril to their pocketbooks and, consequently, their lives.

Mr. Kosareff (shown at right), who wrote, produced and directed this film -- his first -- is also said to be a TV expert and author of the book Window to the Future: The Golden Age of Television Marketing and Advertising. His ostensible reason for making this movie was to find a present-day dealer who could repair the first TV set he owned: a 12-inch black-and-white portable "Jetline" made by Zenith that Kosareff has his hand through the handle of, at right. The set no longer works, but for nostalgic reasons, he wants it to. Clearly, he could not actually watch much of anything on it, since, these days, reception is received digitally and shown on wide-screen flat-screens.

So bear with the filmmaker and his odyssey, please, because it very soon becomes a genuinely fascinating look at a few of the folk, shown above and below, who still run (or in some cases ran: We learn updates as the end credits roll) independent shops where televisions are sold and serviced. Service, in fact, is key to why most of them still survive.

These people are fun, funny and sometimes unintentionally but beautifully moving, and Kosareff allows them to explain their lives as best they can, which is often quite well. He also seeds his film with some wonderful archival footage, below, of some early television, and also of some early TV-set salesmen, like the guy in that American Indian headdress (so not-at-all politically correct for our day).

We see everyone from comedian Jonathan Winters to early Sally Field (below), find out why women were so important to TV manufacturing (small hands!), learn about how the barter system worked for early TV repair ("One day I came home with a load of pigs....") and so much more that's sweet, charming, nostalgic and, considering where we're headed, sometimes unbearably sad.

To hear these workers talk about their customers and their lives is something we don't get much of these days. The movie is a paean to small retailers, and some of you will wish that you could visit their stores, rather than walk into yet another Best Buy or Walmart.

As a filmmaker, Kosareff is functional but occasionally surprises us with some treats: using that old TV "snow" to cut between scenes and offering us some wonderful old artwork from the 1950s where it seems that couples got dressed in their finest attire -- to sit down and watch their tiny little black-and-white TVs! He even has one set of dealers view clips (above) from the old Frank Sinatra thriller, Suddenly, that features a terrific little section all about a repairman and electrocution via TV!

So does our traveler ever get his little old Zenith repaired?  You'll find out, and the moment when you do will produce, for anyone old enough to remember a few decades past, a frisson of delight and déjà vu. (Zenith's own story is here, too, which, different from Detroit's, seems to have more to do with America's view of fair trade and less with a product that was inferior or non-competitive.)

TV Man -- running 82 minutes -- turns out to be a rich combination of nostalgia and present-day concerns. It's unlike any other documentary out there, and so deserves to be seen, enjoyed and mulled over. It opens this Friday, September 6, in Los Angeles for a week's run at Laemmle's Monica 4. What about New York City? A film this good and this different ought to have a run here, too. So let's hope. If I discover another opening, here or elsewhere, I'll update this post to include it.