The Lie (2011)

Your sins will find you out.

(2011) Drama (Screen Media) Joshua Leonard, Jess Wexler, Mark Webber, Alia Shawkat, Kelli Garner, James Ransone, Jane Adams, Kirk Baltz, Gerry Bednob, Matthew Newton, Holly Woodlawn, Tipper Newton, Kandice Melonakos, Germaine Mozel Sims, Michael McColl, Gwyn Fawcett. Directed by Joshua Leonard

I was once told as a young man by a mentor that being young was easy; everything is simple – black or white, right or wrong, bad or good. There is no middle ground in youth, he told me, no grey areas. Accountability and responsibility are notions that don’t apply to the young. Sooner or later however, we all have to grow up whether we want to or not.

Lonnie (Leonard) is reaching a crossroads in his life. He and his wife Clover (Wexler) have just had a baby and their life of activism and living by their own rules has been turned on its ear as their idealism collides with the realities of raising a baby – particularly in regards to the expense. Clover is considering a job at a pharmaceutical company that as far as Lonnie is concerned is the anti-Christ but whose benefits will make the job of raising their new addition feasible.

But Lonnie, stuck in a job he hates, isn’t on board with this. He’s a hippie in an age of consumerism and in a different age would have found a commune to hang out in with his family. Lonnie is in a crisis and he needs a day off to clear his head, so he just tells his overbearing boss (Bednob) that his baby is sick. Lonnie, now free of any responsibility, gets hammered with his best friend Tank (Webber), smokes a lot of weed and records some really bad rock and roll in Tank’s trailer.

It turns out so well that Lonnie takes another day and another day and another – until he can’t use that fib anymore so in a fit of panic he blurts out that the baby died. Suddenly the little white lie isn’t so white and isn’t so little anymore. This is one he can’t walk away from and one that sooner or later he’ll have to face the consequences for.

Based on a short story by T.C. Boyle, the movie ostensibly debates the question of whether it is okay to compromise one’s principles in order to survive, although that really isn’t it at all. It’s a question of whether one’s responsibility to family outweighs a lifestyle choice.

Leonard, whom most will remember from The Blair Witch Project, is generally a fairly charming onscreen personality and there are elements of that here too, but one wonders about the underlying story going on with the character. Lonnie talks a good game about discovering who he is, but from his actions he appears to be a stoner and a slacker who just wants to get wasted and do whatever makes him feel good. In other words, a selfish prick.

Wexler, who was so delightful in Free Samples, is the polar opposite. She has a baby to consider and the realities of life in Southern California staring her in the face. She realizes that it is time to grow up and make sacrifices, which is why she considers a job at the Big Pharma company. Her moments to shine come towards the end of the movie when the truth inevitably comes out, but sadly, her character (who may go down in cinematic history as the most understanding woman ever) reacts in a way that is counterintuitive to who she seems to be all along.

Webber, as the stoner best friend, provides a lot of the comic relief but also a lot of the film’s center strangely enough. “Dude,” he tells Lonnie in a kind of ironic coda, “You’ve got to stop running away from shit.” Which is, of course, precisely what Lonnie does and the filmmakers seem to embrace that as a viable alternative to, you know, life.

I was once the age that Lonnie is and I will grant him that things are different now than they were then but FFS you’re a dad, you’ve got to man up and grow a pair. One of the things that disturbs me about what I see in the current generation is that there seems to be an unwillingness to sacrifice for the greater good – that self-gratification is the be all and end all of existence. Now I am willing to concede that much of that is simply the flaw of youth and that it’s possible that experience and wisdom will counteract it but I don’t recall ever seeing this self-centeredness to this degree in any generation before. Wow, I sound like my own Dad, don’t I?

The point is that the movie seems to take the point of view that it is more important to be true to one’s own needs whether they are selfish or not than to be responsible for the life that one brings into this world and I simply can’t agree with that point of view – which is why I hate the ending so much because it hints that is precisely what the filmmakers think. Perhaps it is old-fashioned of me but I can’t recommend a movie that condones self-interest over responsibility. If you’re comfortable with that, you are more than welcome to seek this movie out and draw your own conclusions.

WHY RENT THIS: Examines the age old question of freedom vs. responsibility. Wexler and Webber are magnificent.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Can’t get behind a film that preaches accountability and celebrates that its lead character has none. The ending is absolutely mind-numbing.

FAMILY VALUES: A fair amount of foul language and some drug use.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film’s official website gives visitors an opportunity to confess about a lie they’ve told which has been taken up by a number of people including at least one cast member.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $3,000 on an unreported production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Be Good

FINAL RATING: 4/10

NEXT: The Good Heart

Advertisement

Pride & Joy

 

Nothing says Southern cooking better than barbecue and few do barbecue better than Helen Sanders.

(2012) Documentary (Southern Foodways Alliance) Will Harris, Dori Sanders, Rodney Scott, Lee Ross, Kendall Schoelles, Thomas Stewart, Julian van Winkle, Ben Lanier, Allan Benton, Bill Best, Geno Lee, Rhoda Adams, Leah Chase, Martha Hawkins, Ida Mamusu, Earl Cruze, Helen Turner, Bernard Colleton, Red Coleman, Sam Jones, Bruce Jones, Gerald Lemoine, Ronnie Durand. Directed by Joe York 

Southern cuisine is much more than pork rinds, barbecue and deep fried. The South has always gotten a bit of a bad rap when it comes to food until the last decade or two when chefs have begun to discover that there is an abundance of fresh ingredients, delicious cooking that takes its cues from all over the world. Celebrity chefs like Emeril Lagasse, John Besh, Art Smith, Norm van Aiken and of course Paula Deen have been enthusiastic ambassadors for Southern cooking over the past decade and some of the best restaurants in the world come from the South.

But Southern cooking isn’t all about celebrity chefs. There are literally thousands of food producers who take great pride in bringing to market the finest of ingredients, the most delicious of finished products. Some are the latest in generations of people who have done the same thing, some preserving the timeless traditions of taking the time to do things right.

The Southern Foodways Alliance has been dedicated to preserving Southern food traditions and publicizing the best of the best – those who produce beautiful Georgia peaches, grass-fed beef, gulf oysters, sweet Tupelo honey, flavorful smoked Virginia hams, gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, potent Kentucky bourbon and of course the best barbecue there is. Some of these are sold directly to the public while others are available only through suppliers.

York, acting on behalf of the SFA and the University of Mississippi Documentary program has been traveling throughout the South from New Orleans to Memphis, from Georgia to Virginia and all points in between – not just sampling the ample variety of food but documenting it on a series of shorts that celebrate the passions of these producers – from oyster shuckers to caviar farmers to orchard owners to bourbon distillers to beekeepers to barbecue pit masters – who not only cook the food but those who produce the ingredients.

He’s gathered some of these shorts as well as several new ones in a feature length documentary that not only celebrates the food but those behind it as well. We get to see people who love the land and its bounty, some of them quirky (grass-fed beef producer Will Harris likes to end his day with a “700ml glass of wine”), some of them completely passionate (like Tupelo honey producer Ben Lanier who waxes rhapsodic over the superiority of his brand of honey) and some of them who are philosophical (peach grower Dori Sanders on how food “speaks to you” and tells you something about who you are). Not a one of these shorts are boring and every one of them will not only give you a different outlook on food and eating but will make you downright hungry in the process.

You get a sense of the modern South here, from rural South Carolina to metropolitan New Orleans. The beauty of the green pastures where cattle graze in the late afternoon sun – far from the steroid-injected factory farm cattle who live in stalls fed on corn and chemicals meant to create a greater meat yield – gives you a sense of why these people love the land they tend and love what they do. These are people I wouldn’t mind spending an hour or two just chatting about their products and about their lives, sitting on the porch with a cold frosty beverage or perhaps enjoying the fruits of their labors. Sadly, we only get five minutes or so with each one – I could certainly have enjoyed longer chats with each and every one of these people. That’s the mark of a great documentary.

Incidentally, you can see the shorts at the Southern Foodways alliance website here and to find out where you can get the products shown in the film go to the movie’s website by clicking on the picture above.

REASONS TO GO: Each segment is fascinating and there isn’t one I didn’t wish had lasted longer.

REASONS TO STAY: You’ll be real hungry by the time this is over.

FAMILY VALUES:  There are some animal carcasses that might upset the very impressionable young or militant vegetarians.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Much of the transportation was done through a Ford Taurus station wagon, affectionately nicknamed the “Schwagon” which York drove to the various locations throughout the South. The Schwagon was retired with honors shortly before the film was completed.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/12/13: Rotten Tomatoes: no score yet. Metacritic: no score yet; the film is mostly on the festival circuit and at one-off screenings throughout the Southeast; PBS will be airing it sometime in the fall.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Food Finds

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

NEXT: Year of the Living Dead and more coverage of the 2013 Florida Film Festival!