Movie Shorts

A DECADE UNDER THE INFLUENCE

About as much fun, and as informative, as hearing your gramps reminisce about the good old days, A Decade Under the Influence takes a knee before the well-worn altar of the American films of the 1970s, informing us that, yes, Chinatown was a great film, and hey, how about that Godfather? Directed by Richard LaGravenese and the late Ted Demme, Decade aims to enliven the oft-mythologized decade by enlisting a handful of younger directors (Alexander Payne, Neil LaBute, Scott Frank) to interview its oft-interviewed subjects, but that minor tweak can't make up for its director's obvious lack of knowledge or imagination. The egregious lack of women and directors of color (no Melvin van Peebles?!?) just increases the repetition factor. Try amusing yourself by casting the film version: Matt Groening as Francis Ford Coppola! Pere Ubu's David Thomas as Paul Schrader! Bruce Dern as Robert Towne! Robert Towne as Bruce Dern! I can't wait for the remake.-- Sam Adams (Ritz Five)

LUMUMBA

Raoul Peck's film begins Jan. 17, 1961, the day Patrice Lumumba (Eriq Ebouaney), Prime Minister of Congo, was tortured and murdered. As the camera passes over his bloody, bruised body, his voiceover, narrated from a letter to his wife, ponders the motives and fears of his enemies. He observes that the Congolese soldiers who have been assigned to kill him, along with two compatriots, will make sure the corpses are never recovered or buried, for a public memorial will only bring upset and, potentially, outrage. Instead, his death will be mourned by his former allies, as if they didn't have a hand in it. 'Even dead,' Lumumba says, 'I was still a threat to them.' Indeed, details concerning Lumumba's 'threat,' the identities of those responsible for his death and the disturbing depth of Congo's political conflicts are still emerging. At this point, most analysts agree the assassination involved the Belgian government, the United States and, by extension, the United Nations, whose soldiers were assigned to protect the recently removed Prime Minister Lumumba, but did nothing to stop his murder. Peck's film pointedly accuses all these participants, but concentrates on Lumumba's emotional, interpersonal and political struggles, jumping back to the earliest stages of his career in Stanleyville in 1957 and '58, where he makes the leap from beer salesman to union organizer and member of the nationalist political party, the Congolese National Movement (MNC). Here he meets the volatile Joseph Mobutu (Alex Descas), who will mature into the infamous dictator. As these two men bond and fight during the lengthy process to free Congo from Belgian colonial rule (which has been in place since 1885), they reveal similarities as much as emphatic differences.--C.F. (Roxy)

THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST

Aki Kaurism…ki's wit is as dry as the tundra, and amply on display in this wry, bleak comedy. Markku Peltola plays a man who essentially has his identity beaten out of him; he's set upon by thugs, and awakes with no memory of his life before. Man Without a Past can be a bit rarefied at times, so restrained it almost dries up and blows away, but it leaves a pleasant aftertaste. --S.A.(Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

POKÉMON HEROES

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Pocket monster, right?

That meant something much different

when I was a kid.

(UA Riverview)