Screenpicks

by Sam Adams

P.O.V.: Take It From Me

(Tue., July 24, 11 p.m., WHYY-TV)

Okay, we’ve been a little lax in keeping up with this year’s crop of P.O.V. documentaries, but Emily Abt’s Take It From Me is a good place to jump on the bandwagon. The film’s premise is simple — to see whether those people who were supposedly moved "from welfare to work" in the late ’90s actually went anywhere but down. Unfortunately, the results aren’t much of a surprise: The women Abt follows have all "fallen through the cracks," in the words of one ex-caseworker. Perhaps most wrenching is the case of 20-year-old Abby, whose two children have been taken from her for lack of a home, but whose requests for government housing placement are routinely ignored — this, despite the fact that she has a tenacious ex-caseworker still trying to help her out. (Ironically, she probably has more time to attend to Abby than the faceless figure who’s actually assigned to her case.) Considering the success with which the scam of welfare "reform" was foisted on the American public — aided in no small part by misleading race-baiting (when, in fact, the majority of women on public assistance are white) — Take It From Me is a much-needed corrective, even if anyone with a small degree of cynicism will already suspect what it has to prove.

Secret Cinema: Trailer Trash

(Sat., July 21, 8 and 10 p.m., Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. 215-569-9700, www.princemusictheater.org)

See Mix Pick.

Lies the Radio Told Me

(Thu., July 19, 7:30 p.m., $5, Prince Music Theater)

The first feature from local writer-director John Draus, Lies the Radio Told Me has a sometimes grotty look, overly long and talky scenes and a plot that meanders without ever truly hitting its stride. That said, there’s an awful lot of truth in it, which ought to count for something. Dave (Jim Ireland) is a 28-year-old photographer who’s hit the wall in every way that counts. His four-year relationship with Jenny (Carol Anne Raffa) is foundering over his lack of commitment and direction, and he’s stuck photographing circuit boards for a living, though he still considers himself enough of an artist to turn down full-time work doing same. His 10-year high school reunion is coming up, and he’s still stuck on Ann (Bonnie Burgess), the unrealized crush of his teenage years. Dave is such a slope-shouldered schlub, it’s hard not to want to smack him in the mouth a bit — Ireland’s almost too convincing, with none of the buried pluck we’ve come to expect from your average movie loser. But while that makes for a fairly grim tale, it’s a bit courageous as well; it certainly flies in the face of conventional dramatic structure, even as it makes you wish for just a little bit of convention. The film’s title (which could have been better explained in the film itself) comes from Draus’ contention that romantic idealism, fueled by movies, art, pop songs and so on, can blind us when the real thing comes our way. In a sense, it’s the opposite of the famous "Which came first, the music or the misery?" passage from High Fidelity, but the sense is the same: getting your ideas about love from the radio can seriously fuck you up. Draus isn’t nearly as good with stability-seeking women as he is with stability-avoiding men — in the scene where Jenny seeks advice from her girlfriends, you can practically hear every line go splat — but the conversations between Dave and his best bud Al (Jim Chance) feel like they were lifted straight from life. Whether it’s a life that’s worth lifting from or not is another question.

Indie Sex: Taboos

(Thu., July 19, 10 p.m.; Sun., July 22, 2:45 and 5 a.m., 10 p.m.; Mon., July 30, 12:15 and 3 a.m.; IFC-TV)

Like more or less every movie with the word "sex" in the title, this hour-long doc reeks of ratings-grabbing; directors Lisa Ades and Lesli Klainberg spice up a fairly predictable recounting of taboo-shattering in independent film with often-unidentified (and sometimes indiscernable) clips of steamy scenes from various films, ostensibly to set the mood but more likely to save viewers the trouble of flipping over to Cinemax. It’s always good to hear from John Waters or Atom Egoyan (less so from Allison Anders), but the film’s reference points are so predictable — Videodrome, sex, lies and videotape— that there’s little new left to say on the subject. Breakthroughs in gay and lesbian cinema are almost totally ignored (except for the discussion of Waters, who deserves a category of his own) and there’s not much from the ’90s on either, apart from cursory attention to David O. Russell and Todd Solondz. An impassioned defense of Crash from the New York Daily News’ Jami Bernard heats things up for a bit, but then it’s back to dullsville.

Nora

(Fri., July 20, 9 p.m.; Thu., July 26, 1:30 a.m.; Sun., July 29 at 9 p.m., Sundance Channel)

Biopics are, generally speaking, a bad idea, and biopics of artists doubly so. And as for biopics of writers — forget it. It’s one thing to evoke the spirit of an author’s work (à la Naked Lunch), but the hopeless task of dramatizing an art form that’s entirely internal and inherently visually drab is a thankless, even pointless one. Luckily, Nora has at least a few other things on its mind. Adapted from Brenda Maddox’s biography, the film focuses on the life of Nora Barnacle (Susan Lynch), more than that of her husband James Joyce (gamely played by Ewan McGregor). Lynch, whose dogged determination was the best thing about the execrable Beautiful Creatures, plays the onetime chambermaid as a pit bull in a period frock, her unassailable self-assurance the obvious (and, it’s implied, necessary) foil to Joyce’s bourgeois confusion. Writer/director Pat Murphy relies too much on swelling music and predictable climaxes, but Lynch’s performance is well worth dialing up.