[Originally Published: April 19, 2011]

As the scene faded from view, I looked back and saw an enormous tree near the entrance of the obscure place.

Hidden in the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series, the Deathly Hallows, is The Tale of the Three Brothers. Ostensibly, the short story is about how one cannot conquer, trick or hide from Death. In the end, the piece, expertly written in a tight form by J.K. Rowling, would find its home in two other artistic locales, including a collection, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, published a year after the final novel in the Potter series, with net proceeds benefiting the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG), an organization helping promote children’s rights and enriching the lives of vulnerable young people.

But it is within the sinister, sprawling, and subdued Part I of the Deathly Hallows film, that one finds the other hidden gem amongst a formidable tale of courageous fortitude—a short sequence, a mere three minute-plus animated film directed by Ben Hibon—which is pondered in this edition, as we look at The Tale of the Three Brothers, the shadow puppet-inspired film in Hallows, Part I, and Hibon’s earlier conquest of MTV Asia with Codehunters, in another gaze behind the celluloid curtain in our Hidden Flick series.

Somehow, in my excitement at discovering such a weird and wonderful establishment, I missed its totem-like power.

The Tale of the Three Brothers excels because it stands alone as its own story betwixt the elaborate Potter structure penned by Rowling. Interwoven within her seven-novel tomes is the sense that Rowling also had a few moral and ethical dilemmas she’d love to address, but like any fine fiction writer, she played her cards with subtle grace, always allowing the actions and words chosen by her characters to dictate the flow of events.

READ ON

[Originally Published: May 31, 2011]

The old wizard turned away from his creation, and vanished beyond the veil of illusion. One wonders if the world would ever see him again, let alone have any sort of real discourse about his hidden knowledge. As he glanced back one last time in the darkness, there was a bemused sparkling look in his eyes.

John Boorman’s Excalibur came out 30 years ago in 1981. As one previews the current onslaught of action hero films based predominantly on Marvel Comic adaptations, one is apt to look back at the legends of old, especially as this is being written on Memorial Day, a day when our culture celebrates our fallen heroes—in and out of battle.

Excalibur is an excellent feast for the eyes—the battle sequences are superb, and the scenery is both rugged and beautiful—and the ears—the soundtrack is a combination of classic pieces culled from the archives of some of the legendary musical figures of our past, and newer motifs written by Trevor Jones. Excalibur faired well with film goers 30 years ago, but its selection here is more so because of its quest for hidden knowledge, that which can bond and unite a nation, and give it purpose, as well.

Therefore, we extend a warm salute to a film about a hero named Arthur, his wife, Guinevere, his not-so-loyal knight, Lancelot, a wizard named Merlin, and a sword called Excalbur in this edition of Hidden Flick, John Boorman’s classic take on a legendary tale.

READ ON

[Originally Published: September 14, 2011]

Inevitably, during our various existential journeys, we seek another earth, another space to explore, we wander amidst the gloom, and ponder it all, and face the reality that some one, some thing, controls our fate. The prospects of what we want to be are somehow always clouded by the ghosts of what we were, right? To change all of that is to see the world through a child’s eyes, a kid-like point of view, eh?

Talihina Sky. Kings of Leon. Final edition—#15, 75 in total—of season 5.

The documentary appears so innocent at first, even in light of the current drunken events which have played out as the band has seemingly imploded due to the abnormal rigors of success and the ever-dangerous life spent on the road, traversing from clubs to big marquee gigs in arenas and, gasp, stadiums. Yes, they may be back, even before Oasis, but does anyone venture to hold their breath? Watch this film, and decide for yourself.

I first saw the quartet in a small theatre several years back, and one could see and hear and feel the passion coming forth from the stage. What was ironic was that I stated in a show review, for either a site or a magazine, I don’t recall, and who really cares, that I felt the band was ready for bigger and more expansive venues. I didn’t really know how that would happen, and no one was more surprised than me that it really DID happen—the Kings of Leon became an arena rock staple, while garnering a fairly large fan base.

READ ON

The word family is an odd one as it can mean a genetic link, a gathering of like-minded souls, or quite simply, a pack of living beings that happen to occupy the same space at the same time. Perhaps, no one word can cause such a different definition from so many varying people from numerous cultures. In the end, what one makes of the term says just as much about that particular person as it does about the very word ‘family’.

In our special holiday edition of Hidden Flick, we ponder a film that was made by a comedian as he directed, produced and co-wrote a rather appropriate little statement about family, and the odd path one takes to define its elusive nature, whether through biology or other societal constraints. We sift through the evidence, as always, and we ponder that person of disinterest, that chap that no one bothers to notice sitting in a weird way in the corner laughing away, always laughing.

Ahhh, yes, the wayward comedian in our midst.

Born Joseph Levitch in Newark, New Jersey in 1926, the young Jewish comedian would become Jerry Lewis, team up with Dean Martin as one half of the Beatles of comedy, and ultimately become a solo act that has been unmatched for pure longevity, philanthropy and artistic vigor.

READ ON

[Originally Published: March 22, 2011]

- for those who have gone on ahead and for those left behind…

Reeling in the soft reverie of life, one gets caught up in what one should do and what one really must do. Feeling the pulse of everyday existence is not the same as actually having the nerve to seize its primal essence. Sometimes, a film can point the way towards that hidden fact, but, normally, a cinema patron is looking for escapism, not enlightenment.

Trapped within the heavy atmosphere of a samurai- and warrior-laden celluloid landscape, there lurk many other beacons of light amidst the Japanese film archives. Almost hidden, but not quite, is a masterpiece of quiet Buddha-like simplicity wrapped up in an honest bit of deception. And so we walk amongst the years, floating away into this edition of Hidden Flick, a life-affirming and character-driven tale of love and honor.

READ ON

The holiday season brings with it many things—friends, food, fun and a whole phantasm of events that seem to bury one in woeful debt, blurred memories, and a nagging sense of ‘what just happened there?’. Ahhh…but we often hear a sound, a faint sound in the distance, and know it to be true—the holidays always begin with a certain event. If you are a longtime music fan, that tradition opens with Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant, strings together some Band magic from The Last Waltz, and well, I’m sure there could be a 26-minute Halley’s Comet in that sweet mix, too. THE sound, indeed.

And that sound you hear isn’t a bowl of mashed potatoes splattered against the wall, or a brandy bottle breaking in the back alley, or even a dessert cart wheeled off the balcony. No, that’s the sound of the Great Beast Itself. Yep—the traditional Thanksgiving Turkey.

We skipped this particular edition last year, but brought the behemoth back in 2011. So get your forks, spoons, and knives out (hell, dig out the snow shovel, too), and get ready for this look at a turkey of the cinematic flavor with a look at Trapped in Paradise. The 1994 holiday film starred Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey. Ostensibly, a warm-hearted comedy with a fair dash of mild drama and some old-fashioned romance thrown in for good measure, the film was also a flop at the box office, while being scorned by the critics. Which, of course, is all just fine within the realm of Hidden Flick.

READ ON

for EMD, gatekeeper to hidden gems

Through five seasons of Hidden Flick, encompassing 75 editions, I searched for obscure films that may be of interest to the cinematically obtuse observer. Along the way, I also found that to seek what was hidden underneath the surface of things can often create another search, another adventure, another truth, and another, and another, ad infinitum.

In this special edition of our little column that could, outside of time and space and any particular season (hey, I’m supposed to be on hiatus, so shhh…), we take a look at not just one, but two films that have recently hit the streets on DVD. One is an intoxicating—literally, in some cases—look at the hidden relationship between humans and plants, and the other explores the hidden zone between reality and cyber space with those who live a vast majority of their life on the net. So, we awake from our Hidden Flick hibernation for a brief look at two documentaries worth checking out for their secret knowledge about some unknown person/place/thing, but should in some odd way. After all, to walk through the Dark Forest of the Great Unknown is the first step towards destroying fear and ignorance (he writes in some sort of wacky George Lucas/Clone Wars way, but, man, after 75 editions, I can quote the Bearded Skywalker even if he almost killed Star Wars).

READ ON

[Originally Published - April 5, 2011]

Hidden on the outskirts of town is another nether region, another place where mystery resides within riddles, a place so obscure and strange that one is tempted to call it the Twilight Zone, or the foggy sections of space best left unexplored, or uninhabited. Cars race by with their excited cinematic travelers, eager to drive through the gates. We dig a little deeper into the shadows, ponder the sights, ingest the sounds, eat a pizza slice or two, gulp a soda, catch some clips, and find that this isn’t exactly a foreign place at all, but instead, a friendly little gathering place we call the Rock ‘n’ Roll Drive-In.

The intriguing location has four screens playing eight films each night. At its central hub is a circular snack bar/munchie haven for the ADD-adled, socially-minded sections of the crowd; the key meeting place for cats after a long week of dodging assignments, phone calls and text messages, and a sane hang out to get away from it all. And thus, rolling our cars into view, we begin our special edition of Hidden Flick in this wondrous locale, which is lacking in neither a blitzkrieg of colorful imagery, nor thunderous volume. Films shown are not really hidden at all; some are borderline classics, but what distinguishes this edition is the hidden nature of the drive-in itself—there are no signposts to get there. One just travels along on a cinematic road looking for gold, and suddenly, here we are.

Each screen has a name plastered on a large neon sign at its particular entrance designating its distinct vibe. Screen #1 is labeled After Elvis Only Keith. This screen, on this specifically warm and wonderful evening, is showing the Paris Olympia Theatre appearance of the Rolling Stones on their 2003 tour, which appears in the four-DVD box set, Four Flicks. It is an intimate and intense performance, as the band roars through rare and more familiar material in a venue which harkens back to the band’s 1960s origins.

READ ON

[Originally Published: August 9, 2011]

Taking into account everything known about our planet, one would be hard-pressed to really sit down and try to explain it all, let alone understand what it has been through, and where it is going. Suffice to say, humans may not be a part of that Great Master Plan, after all, but one is optimistically hoping that there has been a purpose, a reason, a goal in mind. Otherwise, why get up in the morning? Why do anything at all? Why evolve?

Indeed. As we head into our descent towards the end of Season 5, we ponder a film that has been recently released about just those very concepts—flight, progress, abandonment. All hope is not gone, but the better phrase (or question, in this case) may be: is the idea of “hope” something created by humans to take flight through the bleakness of existence?

And I write all of that not out of any sense of pending doom—hey, like an automobile, once off the lot, the depreciation really starts to kick in—but out of a sense that what is happening around the planet Earth is NOT a part of some master plan. Instead, it is the Great Inevitable, as one will see in this week’s Hidden Flick, Vanishing of the Bees.

READ ON

[Originally Published: February 8, 2011]

We’re honored to have Randy Ray back to kick off the fifth season of Hidden Flick – a column which examines films you might not be familiar with, but certainly need to see.

Many too many have stood where I stand; many more will stand here, too…

Mirrors, like children, don’t lie. Well…that isn’t exactly true, is it? Those filthy little unwashed bastards can yak a yarn from here until doom’s gloom, but yet, you’ll never get them to admit it. Ahhh…but, we’ve driven far afield (or is it flown?), haven’t we? And that is the point, innit? We swoop down amongst the natives, concealing our celluloid chestnuts, and ponder. Oh, to ponder, perchance to dream of another life, brother.

And so we meet again. You dastardly mirror. Look away, will ya. It isn’t nice to stare. Then again…we gawk inside its depth to see not one, not two, but infinite possibilities of who we are, where we are, and, yes, what we are capable of doing in this timeline, or any other for that matter, in the opening of Season Five—gasp, indeed, number 61 in total—as we head into another twisted observation, another Hidden Flick, Los Cronocrímenes.

This 2007 science fiction gem featured numerous points of view, but all were coming from the same central character. Alas, the unfortunate chap leaps down a rabbit hole from whence all strange things come, and shoots into a surreal series of circumstantial events that he has either caused or been impacted by in a weird game of am I the victim or the crime?—inside out, backwards and forwards, and he maneuvers to and fro through time, there and back again, paralleling some sort of alternate temporal universe that neither appears to begin, nor end, but always hobs on its head in a round middle of circular events until he returns home, again, with tragic wisdom and blood on his hands.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

The water encapsulates so much of all that is life and all that dominates our planet and all that swallows up our existence and makes it pure and deep and real that one can easily forget that the sea is a very lonely place for a reason. Being at the top can have its misgivings as only those who have occupied its desolate throne can attest.

And the water runs through all, encapsulates everything that we are, and hope to be, runs around in circles, bends upwards, twists downwards, explores ‘neath the shallow waves until it stops somewhere for a brief moment before daylight, sunlight, washed-out light beckons from upwards (or is it down?), and life races forth, to replace the bends in the darkness, cradling one’s amnesiac head, searching for the limbs of some weird aura thief. Honey spills from the tree, onto a racing body of water, and it disappears like all life.

Up above on the surface, one dwells in the sense of self-importance, inner ambition, outer rage, in betwixt some sort of answer hiding in many questions. Meanwhile, in the deep blue sea, nothing seems to matter quite like that—as the universe expands outwards, inevitably to disappear, or, quite contrarily, to contract back into the Big Crunch, seeking nothing, pulling all that it once was into a singular focal point—OK Computer wedded with In Rainbows washes ashore to herald a twin-side masterpiece as time marches on—life serves no purpose whatsoever other than to see what can endure…and what cannot.

In Luchino Visconti’s La Terra Trema, a fisherman and his family, are washed ashore by reality, and within its 165 minutes of melancholic sorrow and remorse is the dawning specter of doom. But one would be hard-pressed to see the film as JUST that. And, considering that we are about to hit the end of a season in which every little hidden piece of the human soul has been dissected and tossed out like some giant whale carcass, one can see the light in the darkness, the glimmer of faith in something; indeed, some hope.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – La Terra Trema…

Crossing back into time, one feels an almost drifting sense of purpose; fleeting, at best, but often wandering outwards, amidst some other surreal force; constantly, persistently pulling and pushing one onto a destiny which is always in reach, but seems so far away.

The human pursuit for land and resources has reached an almost epic battle point, prefacing some sort of almighty negative spin which has neither a mysterious conclusion, nor seems inevitable. Let’s face it, in a conflict of species versus planet, well…species would lose, wouldn’t it? Is the earth a species? Are we? Or, are we some sort of hodge podge, some mixture of the tease, some amalgamation, a wolfman’s brother, forged by the mind, the third eye of some unseen extraterrestrial force? Is this land we inhabit real?

In Carroll Ballard’s modest 1983 masterpiece, Never Cry Wolf, one feels an almost intangible pull towards the truth on a journey of modern man versus ancient beast. Scripted by Curtis Hanson, Sam Hamm, Richard Kletter and Ralph Furmaniak, and based upon the autobiography by conservationist Farley Mowat, the power of the film rests in the formidable work of actor Charles Martin Smith. Smith has the unlucky task of making his performance blend with the natural skills of his non-human thespians, the wolves, caribou and critters, effortlessly telling their parallel tale along with the straight narrative. Smith also redefines what it feels like to be a stranger in a strange land. His epiphany, through his acting—spoken word, quiet gesture and dawning wisdom—of what humans have become, is sobering to the core in this edition of Hidden Flick. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Rain Delay: The current Hidden Flick edition was delayed two weeks due to an onslaught of rain: A ladder leading from a garden to a spring, we sit on a branch and ask questions to a pool of water: “In the whirlpool of darkness, can you see the light? Do you ever get thirsty? Do you love the fish? How old are you? Do you get younger each time it rains? Does the rain come from you, or back to you? Do you ever feel old? Are you fond of algae? Do you prefer fishermen or sailors? Are you open? Are you friends with the forest? Are you enemies of the night? Do you prefer bright or harsh? Do you write and sing? Can you hear music? Visions of Johanna? Do you play instruments that dance on the forest floor so the animals will be entertained? What came first—land, air, or sea? Are you an island onto yourself? Can you see me? Can you be like me? Can you go away when you dream, or are you always self-aware?”

We salvage an answer or three, and wander onwards, climbing further, always climbing, down dark, treacherous paths, sifting through false clues, rummaging through the dreams of yesterday, swimming in the daunting mists of the abyss; lost, we wander downwards, ever onwards, wandering spirits as we gaze below, down into the valleys of the soul.

Sifting through the wreckage, we ponder a thousand barefoot children, bereft of disease, but waiting for opportunities that never come. Privilege is not always a given in this life, and when one seeks to understand why some children persevere and conquer life’s challenges, while others fail, and fall from grace, never to rise again, one must comprehend the simple truth that, whereas the rain does come down, shooting water bullets in torrential sheets of violence, it isn’t necessarily always such a bad thing.

In Cary Joji Fukunaga’s seminal 2009 film Sin Nombre, or Nameless, as the title is translated in English, the young step away from the machine, and create their own society based on a strict allegiance to brotherhood, a code of honor and an unbreakable bond. Alas, even a close-knit group of like-minded individuals cannot save all the children from the paths that either define or deflect the growth of their individual characters.

READ ON for more about Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre…

In the end, it is not our minds that fail us, but our hearts.

Indeed. The resolve to hold onto one’s convictions can be a very tricky thing. Once faced with death, one is apt to just give up, and run towards safety. After all, isn’t life itself preferable to certain dissolution? But what if one has had a vision? Ahh…tricky, yes. This little Flick ditty is dedicated to those who must do something, never expecting to get paid, or rewarded in any way, but doing it because they have to, they must, they need to fulfill some sort of higher purpose—indeed, the resolve to hold onto one’s convictions.

In Carl Theodor Dreyer, the cinema gained not only an original visual eye, but one gained a sometimes rather surreal look at what drove motivations, what kept focus, what swelled the heart of the beast within. Floating away, skin is temporary, but the soul shows the true power, does it not? Or, is that an illusion, too? Idea to material mist to oblivion?

Dreyer’s greatest treat for the mind’s eye may have been Vampyr with its otherworldly imagery and performances, but nothing can quite compare to his tour de force, which is rightfully heralded as one of the outstanding works of the silent film era. Released in 1928, it was almost lost to the hourglass of the modern age, but has avoided complete obscurity. The film also contains the hidden secret for all truth-seeking thespians—an ethereal and beautiful performance comes from within; specifically, the eyes.

READ ON for more about this week’s Hidden Flick…

We enter, yet again, the Hidden Theatre to see a special edition of Hidden Flick: Intermission – Parts IV and V. Once in a while, one must sit back in a mysterious locale, and gaze upon some celluloid that has sunk into the sands of time, and yet, it lingers…

Well…time for more popcorn, Red Vines, Raisinets and a refill of that 97-ounce soda. We take a break from our regular look at obscure films with another edition of Intermission, which means another look at a cinematic chestnut that may have been lauded or groundbreaking in the past, but has since been forgotten in history’s hourglass.

Part IV – The Hit Man

It was an old amphitheatre that was going to be torn down and replaced with gawdknowswhat—the owner just couldn’t say. “I had a few offers to do something with the place, but I couldn’t part with her. She’s special,” said…well, the owner just prefers to remain anonymous, almost like the Stranger, aka the Cowboy Narrator, played by Sam Elliott, in the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski. “Sarsaparilla for all my friends,” as Elliott channels Barfly’s Mickey Rourke in another cinematic dimension.

Sidney Pollack’s 1975 thriller Three Days of the Condor featured a man who reads lots of books, magazines, newspapers, anything written on any surface anywhere at any time. Like everything written—past or present and yet to come. Within the pages, he researches possibilities, yes, the very possibilities that some one, some entity, some secret organization can use against another group, another nation, another person secluded out of view, but somehow important to the inner working of something.

READ ON for more of this week’s Hidden Flick…