Intergalactic drama
Firesign Theatre’s Philip Proctor and Peter Bergman on Wednesday will present their affectionate and hilarious “J-Men Forever†(1979) at 7 Dudley Cinema, the periodic film series at the Sponto Gallery in Venice.
“J-Men Forever†is a wacky and inspired compilation of clips from Republic serials accompanied by their own dialogue to reveal the secret war to wipe out schmaltzy music and replace it with rock ‘n’ roll. Leading the war is the Lightning Bug, who is represented by a plethora of masked villains. Naturally, the Lightning Bug will stop at nothing to saturate the world with rock, even if it involves enlisting aliens, provoking intergalactic battles and, heaven forbid, the proliferation of marijuana.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Dec. 4, 2003 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday December 04, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 40 words Type of Material: Correction
Union name -- The Screening Room column in last Thursday’s Calendar Weekend mistakenly referred to Frank Little as having been a union organizer for the International Workers of the World. The union was called the Industrial Workers of the World.
Attempting to defeat the Lightning Bug are legions of stalwart, strong-jawed Republic heroes, all of them known as J-Men and committed to keeping America strong in peace and war. Bergman plays the chief of the J-Men and Proctor his key agent in scenes that match the vintage footage to perfection in their noirish lighting, period costumes and sets.
Culling painstakingly from numerous serials to create an inspired and coherent spoof, Proctor and Bergman have transformed Tom Tyler’s Captain Marvel into the Caped Madman and Kane Richmond’s Spy Smasher into the Spy Swatter, and they’re no match for the Lightning Bug. It’s amusing to see hissable villains transformed into heroes in the name of rock ‘n’ roll, and in the process Proctor and Bergman have drawn from such cherished serials as “The Black Widow†and “Federal Agents vs. Underworld, Inc.â€
“J-Men Forever†is a special treat for anyone old enough to have grown up with Republic serials, yet Proctor and Bergman give younger audiences a clear idea of all the resourceful ingenuity, brisk pacing and nonstop action that endeared Republic to audiences so long ago.
Where the love is
Christophe Honore’s tender yet unflinching “Close to Leo,†showing as part of the Outfest Wednesdays series, ranks as an accomplished work deserving of a regular release. Honore introduces us to an exceptionally attractive and loving family living in a beautiful Brittany coastal town. The family is composed of barely-40 parents (Marie Bunel, Dominic Gould) and their four sons, Leo (Pierre Mignard), Tristan (Rodolphe Pauly), Pierrot (Jeremie Lippman) and Marcel (Yannis Lespert), ranging in age, respectively, from 20 to 11.
The three older sons are very close in age, and it has been agreed upon by one and all that Marcel is too young to deal with news that Leo, who is gay, has tested HIV-positive, with its full implications yet to be ascertained through additional tests. Yet the consequences of this attempt to shield Marcel prove to be as crucial as how Leo handles his plight, which builds to a moment of truth while he takes his youngest brother for a visit to Paris. It’s a film of much perception in illuminating the complexities of truly loving relationships.
Mines, mortality
The UCLA Film and Television Archives’ “This Is Not Your TV,†a series of recent political documentaries, continues Sunday at Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater with Travis Wilkerson’s “An Injury to One†(2002). Distinctive and devastating, the film probes the brutal history of copper mining in Butte, Mont., where the ultimate supremacy of Anaconda made for working conditions so horrendous that by the time of World War I the mortality rate in the mines exceeded that in the trenches of Europe.
It was in 1917 that fearless International Workers of the World union organizer Frank Little arrived to lead a strike. After he was lynched, his funeral drew 8,000 mourners, still a record for the town.
Butte has long been abandoned by Anaconda, having extracted $25 billion from its mineral deposits and leaving it the most polluted community in the nation.
Is it any wonder that capitalism at its most rapacious provoked such radical, though ultimately squashed, responses? In any event, Wilkerson takes an appropriately radical stylistic approach in his documentary, which draws upon images both vintage and contemporary -- but very little moving imagery -- and incorporates them with strong design elements. Images are often boldly cropped to share the screen with printed passages, including several miners’ songs.
As a sidebar, Wilkerson refers to Dashiell Hammett’s landmark 1929 novel “Red Harvest,†drawn from his experiences as an operative for Pinkerton, hired by Anaconda to put down the IWW “Wobblies.†(Hammett’s longtime companion, Lillian Hellman, once said that Hammett had been offered $5,000 to execute Little.) No one was ever arrested for Little’s lynching, and all official records pertaining to his murder have vanished. From this extreme instance of history being written by the victors Wilkerson raises the larger question of how true freedom of expression can possibly exist under capitalism at its most unaccountable.
*
Screenings
“J-Men Foreverâ€
Sponto Gallery, 7 Dudley Ave., Venice. Wednesday, 8 p.m.
(310) 306-7330
“Close to Leoâ€
Village at Ed Gould Plaza,
1125 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. (213) 480-7090
“An Injury to Oneâ€
James Bridges Theater, UCLA. Sunday, 7 p.m. (310) 206-FILM
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