To hear Radioactive Gavin's latest No Country For Young Men radio show, from Wednesday morning Dec. 8th, CLICK HERE. This week's show featured cinema coverage about Tamara Drewe, playing at The Varsity Theatre in downtown Davis. Read what big-name critics had to say about it after the jump. November turned out to be the lowest ticket sales in 15 years at the
movies, and it looks like the next Academy Awards will be hosted by young stars James Franco and Anne Hathaway. My live guest this week was Moe Golshani,
the owner of Radio Bamdad, which airs on 1690 AM weekday mornings from 7-10, and online 24/7. They are the only Farsi-language radio operation in Northern California, and will soon begin their third year on the air. On the night of Thanksgiving, their radio studio was robbed of all equipment, and two weeks later there seem to be no leads from the Sacramento County Sheriff's office. The station was able to replace their gear quickly, and got back up on the air last Tuesday. I had intended to ask Moe more about Persian pop music, but we kept it short because he was hosting his show live during our phone interview! I squeezed 16 songs into the hour as well, including a Johnny Cash cover by Red Crow Westerman, who passed away three years ago this week. So check out the playlist if you like what you hear, by clicking HERE. Tamara Drewe was much more feminist than most Hollywood romantic comedies these days. Thank the British. I was unfamiliar with the source material, a graphic novel, as was Roger Ebert
who calls director Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, The Queen) "a master of many genres. Here he knows exactly what he's dealing with: foolish and flawed people who harbor desires that may not be good for them." Legendary Village Voice critic J. Hoberman writes, "Frears might have accelerated the comic pacing, but the story is a good one and events come nicely to a boil. There have been far worse literary chick-flicks." His synopsis of the plot, in case you're curious: "Comely, independent, willful young lass returns to collect family inheritance in rural England, drives the local men wild, makes several misalliances, and inadvertently precipitates a catastrophe before nature finally takes its course." A.O. Scott of the New York Times is less enthusiastic. "The narrative is a grab bag of bedroom shenanigans, knockabout gags, sparkling chatter and, at the climax, a violent and gruesome death, all of it somehow tied together with the bright ribbon of a happy ending. But there is something shallow and cautious about this film, which strains to maintain a glib, cheery demeanor that is not always appropriate to the details of the story." However, he does agree with me on the feminist foundations of the story: "No commercial Hollywood romantic comedy, starring Katherine Heigl or Amy Adams or Jennifer Lopez, is likely to allow its heroine to go to bed with three different men, and though this movie may leave you wondering what Tamara sees in any of them (even the hunky farmer), it spares her the lash of judgment. Disapproval is reserved for actions that betray trust or cause pain to others." Ebert adds: "I find myself growing weary of the overgrown adolescents who impersonate adult characters in too many recent American films. Even a jolly comedy like this has characters with more depth." If you're longing for a silly, intellectual retreat in rural England, check out Tamara Drewe, which continues at The Varsity for a second week. I mentioned a few local news stories on the show. UC Davis is consolidating the Techno-Cultural Studies program and the Film program. Both are limited to undergrads, and The Aggie seems to think that the move has some potential upshots despite "distinct theoretical differences between film and techno-cultural studies." I also noted in the same issue of The Aggie I picked up downtown, that Davis People's Free School is planning to get back into action next month. Workshops will include "Solar Cooking" and "Persian Conversation." (Is it a coincidence, or are you hanging out at The Domes, Moe?) Last but not least, The Onion is franchising out the newspaper printing side of their business and hoping to expand into more cities. I personally think Sacramento and Davis would be a prime location, if some entrepreneurs want to take it on. The Davis Enterprise has their own printing press, and I think most of us have room for more humor in our news diets.
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