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alaffy · 2 years

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The Martha Mitchell Effect

The past eight weeks, I’ve been giving my thoughts on the Starz series “Gaslit”. I was pretty underwhelmed by the series as I thought it was supposed to be more about Martha Mitchell’s story then it turned out to be. I will say that Gaslit got a lot of the major points out, but didn’t focus on them as much as I thought they would.

Just as Gaslit ended, Netflix ended up releasing “The Martha Mitchell Effect.” It’s a short documentary, about forty minutes. I can’t say that a learned a large quantity of new information; but what I did learn was pretty surprising. First off, it was Helen Thomas who Martha Mitchell called when she was held hostage in California. Why did the writers change this fact? I know that, maybe in their minds, it was a good idea to change it to the woman who would eventually be Martha’s biographer as it seemed like a good way to establish a connection between the two; but it misses the point. At the time, Helen Thomas was the first and only female Whitehouse Correspondent. For Thomas to be the one saying she received this call, and that she believed it, that’s important. Especially considering that, because Thomas spoke out, news media went to find Martha. And when they did find her, she had clearly been beaten. God knows what would have happened to Martha if she hadn’t called a reporter that had serious clout at that time.

Secondly, we see that John and Martha live in the same apartment throughout the series. That is false. And it’s important. See, after John resigned, they moved back to New York. But when they lived in Washington, they had an apartment in the…wait for it…Watergate Complex. Again, I can see the show doing this in order not to build a second apartment later on, but what the hell? You really don’t think that the two of them living in the building, along with Nixon’s paranoia about Martha speaking out, might be part of the reason why they suddenly went campaigning in California? And, more importantly, why they didn’t want Martha to return home to where all these camera crews might be?

The thing is, Martha’s story is too important to be a side story (which, at times, it felt like that’s it was in Gaslit). And yet, her story is largely ignored today. All we hear about is Bernstein and Woodward (and to be clear, we should be hearing about them because Watergate would have died if they hadn’t continued to investigate). But Martha’s name should be brought up as well. Martha is the first one to tell the truth about Watergate. Martha was also held as a prisoner and abused. In an attempt to silence her, a bunch of men (including her own husband), set out to make her seem crazy to the rest of the world. The only reason why we know the truth is because of the Nixon tapes. Yes, that right, Nixon and Mitchell discuss the “Martha problem” in his office. Nixon is the one, with the help of her husband, that did this to her.

And I find it a shame that, so far, what Martha has gotten is a short documentary and a part of a show about her.

#the martha mitchell effect #martha mitchell

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greensparty · 1 year

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Green’s Party Guide to the 2023 Oscar Nominated Short Films

Every year the Academy Awards give out their annual movie awards, but all of the attention usually goes to the big categories. I am a longtime champion of the Short Film categories for Animation, Live Action and Documentary, mainly because I have made short films and I know how hard it can be to tell a story in a short amount of time. I am very excited to continue my annual tradition of showcasing the Oscar Nominated Short Films (read my 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 guides). This year’s nominated short films are available from ShortsTV both in theaters and online. I’ve watched all of them and here are my thoughts and predictions:

2023 Shorts TV poster

Best Live Action Short:

This year’s Live Action Short nominees are all from other countries. In addition to global diversity, they are all very diverse in genres too. In An Irish Goodbye (Ireland), two estranged brothers reunite after the death of their mother. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the similarities to multi-Oscar nominee The Banshees of Inisherin, with it’s rural Ireland setting, humor, and drama. Ivalu (Denmark) is about a young Inuit girl searching for her missing sister against the breath-taking backdrop of Greenland. It is co-directed by Anders Walter who previously won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short for 2013′s Helium. Disney+’s The Pupils (Italy) is about girls at a Catholic boarding school during Christmas time. Of all the nominees this has gotten the most attention because it was produced by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity and Roma) and if he wins for this that would be a 5th Oscar on his mantle. Night Ride (Norway) shows a woman with dwarfism who steal a tram and a series of unexpected events occur as she continues to make tram stops. In The Red Suitcase (Luxembourg), a young Iranian woman arrives in a new country for an arranged marriage and suddenly makes a life-changing decision.

2023 Live Action Short Film nominees

Will Win: The Pupils has name recognition with Cuaron as a nominee, but it is also the most uplifting of this year’s nominees. The fact that it’s on Disney+ doesn’t hurt either.

Should Win: The Red Suitcase truly stayed with me for days after watching it. It told a highly emotional story with high stakes in a very short amount of time and left me in awe.

Best Animated Short:

I always enjoy animated shorts because this category is always showcasing various styles of animation from all over the world. Apple TV+’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (U.S. / U.K.) is based on a children’s book about, well, a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse who travel together in the boy’s search for a new home. This one boasts the star power of voices Tom Hollander, Idris Elba and Gabriel Byrne as well as star producers J.J. Abrams and Woody Harrelson. In The Flying Sailor (Canada), it shows a sailor who goes flying after an explosion (based on a true story from 1917). It is co-directed by Amanda Forbis, who was nominated twice before for Best Animated Short, and Wendy Tilby, who was nominated three times before for Best Animated Short. Ice Merchants (Portugal / France / U.K.) has been getting a lot of attention because it is the first Portuguese film to ever be nominated for an Oscar. It shows a father and son who jump with a parachute from their house to go to a village and sell ice. FX and Hulu’s My Year of Dicks (U.S.) is about a 15-year old girl who is determined to lose her virginity in early 90s Houston. Based on Pamela Ribon’s memoir, it is animated but has moments of live action interspersed as well. There are five different guys she is with in this time period and there’s different styles of animation throughout. In An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It (Australia), a telemarketer is confronted and told that the world is stop motion animation and now he needs to convince his colleagues.

2023 Animated Short Film nominees

Will Win: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse boasts star power and it’s on Apple TV+, but more than that, it feels like an animated feature in 32 minutes.

Should Win: I am rooting for The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse also because it was produced by someone I interned for a while back. But I will say this: a case can be made for My Year of Dicks for using animation to tell her personal recollection...and let’s face it, it would be wildly entertaining to see a presenter on the Oscar telecast say “and the winner is...My Year of Dicks” and not get censored.

Best Documentary Short:

This year’s Doc Shorts are all completely different in their subjects and in their approaches to documentary. In Haulout (U.K.) a lonely man waits on a remote coast of the Siberian Arctic for an ancient gathering. There is a powerful environmental message to this, even if it is slow moving and has very little dialogue. Netflix’s The Elephant Whisperers (India) also has an environmental message in it to: an Indigenous couple fall in love with an orphaned elephant and work for his survival. Both have breath-taking cinematography! HBO Max’s How Do You Measure a Year? (U.S.) is a doc 17 years in the making: The director had a ritual with his daughter Ella every year on her birthday from age 2 to 18, he filmed an interview with her being asked the exact same questions each year. Director Jay Rosenblatt was nominated for Best Documentary Short last year for When We Were Bullies, my favorite of last year’s nominees. Netflix’s The Martha Mitchell Effect (U.S.) is a historical doc about Martha Mitchell, the whistleblower who was married to President Nixon’s attorney general John N. Mitchell. She was gaslighted by the Nixon Administration to keep her quiet and today through the lens of 2023, we see she was speaking the truth even though she was told otherwise. The New Yorker’s Stranger at the Gate (U.S.) is about a U.S. Marine who plots a terrorist attack on a mosque in Muncie, Indiana. But in the process of doing so, a surprising turn of events occur for all involved.

2023 Documentary Short Film nominees

Will Win: This is a hard one to predict. Sometimes the Academy goes for environmental or socio-political subjects, but recent years it has been introspective human interest stories. A case could literally be made for any of these to win, but if I had to predict I’d go with The Elephant Whisperers. It had the backing of Netflix, but more importantly it’s cinematography can’t be denied and neither than the endearing story.

Should Win: Even if the haters are going to say How Do You Measure a Year? is just a gimmick, I really liked it. Sure, we’ve seen this approach in the Up series and to an extent Boyhood did something similar in it’s narrative approach, but the way we are seeing this girl grow and mature through the annual interview tradition was intriguing and introspective. I do have to say a close second would be Stranger at the Gate based solely on the unbelievable twist and sense of surprise you don’t always see in documentaries.

This year’s Oscar Nominated Short Films can be seen online from ShortsTV and in movie theaters, including Somerville Theatre, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema and Coolidge Corner Theatre in the Boston area. For tickets and info: https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/tickets/

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dweemeister · 1 year

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Best Documentary Short Film Nominees for the 95th Academy Awards (2023, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages – a personal tradition for myself and for this blog. This omnibus write-up goes with my thanks to the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California for providing all three Oscar-nominated short film packages (in previous years, I had to view the documentary shorts in two separate screenings due to theater policy!). Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Documentary Short Film at this year’s Oscars. The write-ups for the Live Action and Animated Short categories are coming later this week. Films predominantly in a language other than English are listed with their nation(s) of origin.

How Do You Measure a Year? (2021)

If the name Jay Rosenblatt rings a bell, that is because he was responsible for one of the most ethically questionable nominees in this category (at least for as long I’ve been regularly seeking the documentary shorts out) in recent times. Though How Do You Measure a Year? is far more ethical and more enjoyable a watch than When We Were Bullies (2021), this is the equivalent of sharing a polished home movie with your friends. Deriving its title from “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent, How Do You Measure a Year? splices together footage of an annual Rosenblatt tradition. Every year, on his daughter Ella’s birthday, he asks Ella a series of questions – most are the same, year-by-year (e.g., what does she think of their daughter-father relationship, what “strength” is, what does she wish to be when she grows up, etc.) – and Ella answers. The first time this tradition appears is on Ella’s second birthday, and it concludes on her eighteenth, just before heading off to university.

There is no denying that this is an intensely personal project for the Rosenblatt family. Ella speaks fondly of this tradition at the conclusion of the final interview, and one can only imagine how loving a document it is for her parents. Yet in this short film format spread across seventeen interviews, How Do You Measure a Year? cannot hope to provide any insight about children and a child’s growth and maturation that audiences do not already know. Lacking the innovation and vision from other similar cinematic projects such as Michael Apted’s Up series (1964-2019), the latter stages of Rosenblatt’s film cannot stave off its repetitive structure and the director’s self-admitted realization that, perhaps, his questions are not as profound as he originally thought (reminding me of his former teacher’s belief in When We Were Bullies that people might not want to see his film). Rosenblatt is unfortunately correct. This film – however meaningful to the Rosenblatts and however enjoyable it might be (I am not often subject to pictures or videos of other people’s children, so my tolerance for this film was high) – sets an unwanted precedent in this category. At its core, How Do You Measure a Year? is a home movie, and should have remained so.

My rating: 6/10

The Elephant Whisperers (2022, India)

Deep in southern India in the state of Tamil Nadu lies Madumalai National Park, set aside as a wildlife reserve in 1940. There lives an elderly couple – Bomman and Belli – of the indigenous Kattunayakan tribe. Bomman and Belli, as well as elephants Raghu and Ammu, are the stars of Kartiki Gonsalves’ The Elephant Whisperers, a Netflix production. The Kattunayakan have been caring for elephants for generations – Bomman and Belli claim that their parents, grandparents, and their ancestors have grown and worked alongside elephants – and have always felt great emotional bonds with their pachyderm friends. With a forty-minute runtime whittled down from greater than 450 hours of footage, this is a gorgeously shot documentary that knows when to pull back to show us the park’s lush landscapes (one particular moment of cliffside beehives is a stunning use of drone-enabled camerawork) and the expressive and playful interactions between humans and elephants.

Gonsalves – a wildlife and cultural photographer who has dedicated herself to share stories from India’s indigenous populations – found the idea for this film during a chance encounter with Raghu in October 2017. She states in interviews that her aim with The Elephant Whisperers was to break down the perceptions that elephants are “others” to humans. In that, this film is a total triumph. What one wishes is that Gonsalves expand upon Bomman and Belli’s valuable insights into how climate change and human encroachment into natural spaces are affecting the lives of Asian elephants and the ecosystem they inhabit. In addition, it is evident that the elephants play a notable role in the spirituality of the Kattunayakan, who practice Hinduism. Though Gonsalves captures some fascinating footage of these religious ceremonies involving the elements, some context there would have helped deepen our understanding to how the likes of Bomman and Belli feel connected to Raghu and Ammu. Any attempt to help Westerners learn more about non-Abrahamic religions is always valuable, but Gonsalves elects not to do so here. The Elephant Whisperers occupies a space as neither a fully observational documentary nor a strictly educational one, satisfying only parts of both ends of that spectrum. With the characteristic Netflix digital gloss, the film remains a worthy document, but this could have used more educational and contextual substance.

My rating: 7.5/10

Stranger at the Gate (2022)

Joshua Seftel’s Stranger at the Gate has a story worth telling, but it is plagued by its focal imbalance and its incuriosity towards its main subject’s prior Islamophobia. Following twenty-five years of service in the U.S. military and multiple deployments to the Middle East during the ongoing War on Terror, Richard “Mac” McKinney returned home to Muncie, Indiana wracked with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), injury, alcohol abuse, and hatred towards Muslims. The timeline of Mac’s thought process is disappointingly unclear, but he decides to detonate an improvised explosive device (IED) at the Muncie Islamic Center during Friday prayer – fully expecting arrest, ready and raring to denounce Muslims in court. Noticing a threatening-looking Mac staking out the building, several members of the mosque’s congregation keep their friendly wits about them, and welcome him instead. This changes Mac’s mind, and he eventually converts to Islam.

Credit to Mac, an almost-mass murderer, for confronting the hatred that years of warfare in the Middle East inculcated in his psyche. And further plaudits must go to the congregants of the Muncie Islamic Center for their charity and neighborly warmth in the face of someone who, by their very admission, looked to cause harm to them. The failure of Stranger at the Gate lies not with any of the interview subjects, but the filmmaker, who fumbles the themes of the film and how to approach this story. Stranger at the Gate is primarily a dual account of how a man plans for a potential mass murder and how a collection of Indiana Muslims show kindness to prevent that mass murder from happening. This film has little to say about Mac’s racist beliefs, forged during his time in the military, and how he confronted his hatred. Stranger at the Gate almost plays into the idea that it is incumbent upon the mosque’s congregants to show kindness to a bigot in order to avoid a mass killing. The responsibility of avoiding the would-be tragedy falls primarily on the would-be terrorist, not the would-be victims. That we learn so little about the former – Mac’s unpackaging of his Islamophobia and more nuances in how he considers believes the mosque’s congregation to be his friends – severely weakens Seftel’s movie.

My rating: 6/10

Haulout (2022, Russia/United Kingdom)

On the banks of the Chukchi Sea, in far northeastern Siberia, is the simple home of Maxim Chakilev. The ocean’s mist lingers on the shore, and darkens as one gazes northward. Everything seems to be a shade of gray. Chakilev, the main subject in husband-and-wife team Maxim Arbugaev and Evgenia Arbugaeva’s Haulout, is a marine biologist who has been studying walruses and their migratory practices. For the film’s opening six minutes, we observe Chakilev go about a routine as if he is waiting for something or someone. One morning, he opens his window to find thousands of walruses on the beach, as far as he can see. It is, according some text at the film’s end, the largest walrus haulout in the world. With, at its peak, tens of thousands of walruses in close proximity to each other, there is a sense of danger that is fleeting – Chakilev goes about his research by staying in his humble abode, his protective fortress from the wildlife, and observing from his rooftop. Once the walruses leave after more than six weeks later, Chakilev emerges from his home to study the remains of deceased walruses spread across the beach.

Of this year’s slate of nominees, Haulout is the most naturalistic of the five, to the point where Arbugaev and Arbugaeva’s directorial hands are almost invisible. There are no interviews, no overt moments of directorial intervention or artistic self-consciousness. It feels, especially in its most breathtaking shots, as if it is a narrative film rather than a documentary. Haulout’s detachment from any sort of directorial artifice or messaging raises questions about its epilogue-like text before the end credits, explaining to the audience the images they have just seen. This film should be a meditation on climate change – as the melting polar ice is forcing an increasing amount of walruses to beach on Siberian shores every year, resulting in worse conditions and the greater possibility of stampedes and fighting. Instead, the film’s climate change arguments and information blurbs are relegated to a few seconds at the end. It is more a sensorial experience than an educational one. But what sights and sounds it contains.

My rating: 7.5/10

The Martha Mitchell Effect (2022)

Also on Netflix is Anne Alvergue and Debra McClutchy’s The Martha Mitchell Effect. One can find numerous pieces of cinema and television on the Watergate scandal, which toppled the Richard Nixon presidential administration. But few of them ever mention the presence of Martha Mitchell, the wife of Attorney General John Mitchell. Told entirely through archival footage and audio clips, The Martha Mitchell Effect documents Martha’s support for her husband and President Nixon as a garrulous, press-loving socialite (and the press loved her back; one imagines Martha’s talkativeness gave Nixon and his press team migraines aplenty). On the day of the Watergate break-in, Martha is ditched by Nixon and her husband while in Newport Beach, California for a campaign event. Incensed, her outspokenness about what unfolds next is Icarus-like. The Nixon administration’s attempts to silence her and the general public’s initial outrage towards her truth-telling is a media sensation, a compelling side narrative to the Watergate scandal. In an era in American politics when women were frowned upon by speaking about politics at all (and this remains to some extent), Mitchell is a firebrand. Her death shortly after Nixon’s resignation has mostly consigned her story to contemporary obscurity.

If one is looking for a hellraising liberal truth-teller, look elsewhere. Mitchell is staunchly a Nixonian Republican, and I would question the analytical skills of anyone who thinks otherwise after seeing this film. With enough material for a documentary feature, The Martha Mitchell Effect moves at a breakneck pace, and it has little time to explain the Watergate scandal to anyone without a scant idea about its implications. The absence of present-day voices reflecting upon Mitchell’s de facto role in the Nixon administration and that in Nixon’s downfall leads to a rather abrupt conclusion and no modern-day perspectives (an aside: I struggle to think of anyone occupying an analogous position in American politics today). The Martha Mitchell Effect’s editing is perfunctory, without surprises – a shame for a film relying so heavily on archival material. Instead, the film gets by mostly on the force of Martha Mitchell’s personality and screen presence. She is incandescent as a politico; a pity that the filmmaking cannot rise to such levels.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

From previous years: 88th Academy Awards (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), 91st (2019), 92nd (2020), 93rd (2021) and 94th (2022).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

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oscarspiel · 1 year

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THE MARTHA MITCHELL EFFECT

#The Martha Mitchell Effect #Kurzdoku 23 #Youtube

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allycat75 · 6 months

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For those trying to convince us there is more to the Boston Dumb Fuck-Fish Mouth saga, let me remind you...

Whether this is Megan, a family member or friend, or one if the main players themselves, you have lost all trust and credibility by doing an incredibly bad job, then blaming us for not believing you. We dont even know for exactly how long, because you keep changing the timeline on us.

Of course we know there is more going on behind the scenes. Of course we know Hollywood is a cesspool and will make its minions do things they don't not want to do. But that is still a choice. And there are still laws regarding cohersion, intimidation and blackmail (and worse, if that is what is going on). And there are glasses that can be used to read contracts, or at least just to skim for words like "marriage" or "morality clause" or 'damage to one's reputation" or "emotional and physical injury".

BDF, nothing is going to end up looking good for you after this, it just comes down to how much you are willing to sacrifice and how much you are willing to learn in order to grow. As I see it these are your options (I don't give a fuck about anyone else in this nightmare- they can all pound sand, for all I care):

Give up and accept you are married to an arrogant, racist, antisemtic, fatshaming Lolita who you will be connected to forever, regardless if and when you get divorced; no decent woman would want to be second place to that, and you will continue to have to compromise on your choices, never realizing you are the problem to begin with

Divorce her as soon as possible, but of course the little wifey will probably play the victim card because you do hold more power and are older and look like the creepy uncle next to her. Oh and all that work you did to show us this was all fake and you don't like her will be used against you, showing how emotionally cruel you were to the poor girl

Tell everyone you lied and were never married in the first place, but that will probably piss off the general public for making them look like fools and making you even less popular than ever

BEST OPTION- lay out, with evidence, why you lied. What was the reason for this madness. Show what it did to your body and mind. Partner with a good documentary crew to bring these bastards down. You are a private person, I know, but that went out the window as soon as you signed your life away. Make us all understand. Make this make sense. You will make some powerful enemies, but they weren't going to give you what you wanted anyway. You would just continue to be their puppet until the felt ran thin and they tossed you in the garbage, picking up a new one on the way without a second thought.

You may think there is something to save, but it's all burning down around you. Best we can hope for is to get you out of the smoke and ashes safely and clear the land so you can build something much stronger. Can you do that? Or are you too busy shushing your thoughts away and smoking weed to notice or care?

#brian wilson vibes #Ai in human form #martha mitchell effect #liars suck!#i hate manipulation #don't piss on my leg and tell me it is raining

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