Right Foot, Left Foot

filmthreat.com review

An office drone's midlife crisis is examined in this thoughtful, bittersweet short film. Adam LeFevre is the ordinary, overweight everyman who considers himself to be youthful in his middle age, but worries that his life is following no set path, that he's just taking "baby steps toward the big nothing." His relationship with his wife is stagnant, he's bullied by a beautiful but shrewish boss, and his son is a juvenile delinquent whose disrespect knows no limits. He can't even remember what he does for a living anymore, even after twenty years of the same job. Director Daniel Poliner takes the viewer into the subconscious of this weary character, and what we find isn't heroic, but it is very human.

"Right Foot, Left Foot" (subtitled “The Daring Young Man in the Cubicle”) is built with the logic of a dream, a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of memories and fears that folds in and out on itself. Our hero has imaginary conversations with a friend who died three years earlier ("it was more painful than they said it would be"), endures humiliating fantasies of schoolyard trauma and experiences flashbacks to the days when the love of his wife was fresh and exciting. Nothing is resolved, because as each question is posed, another one is drifting by right behind it. There are no answers anyway, only submission to fate and the search for some kind of truth in that acceptance.

Some may roll their eyes at the trials of a well-fed middle-management type, but anyone who has worked in an office for any length of time will recognize the ennui that cubicles, fluorescent lights and goal-setting workshops breed. It can be as numbing and dehumanizing as any factory and the work even more pointless when there's nothing of physical weight to show for it at the end of the day. "Right Foot, Left Foot" is hilarious, heartbreaking, confusing and enlightening all at once, a terrific achievement that never condescends to its subject, the workaday schlub who gets by, but doesn't know why. - Fred Beldin

Gallowsbird's Bark - Fiery Furnaces

The Stranger review

Lazy music writers can't resist comparing this sister-brother duo to another hipster "sibling" combo (the Carpenters), but while there might be a similarity in the art-school blues cut-ups and arch poetics, the Fiery Furnaces deserve more thoughtful press. Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger have crafted a timeless record, piecing together familiar scraps of the Velvets (guitarwise), Bowie (music hall piano burble) and Royal Trux (second-hand Stones blues), with a result as mysterious as their influences. Guitars mimic tambourines, assorted keys trickle over in carnival cascade, and it's cool as Vicks on a fevered chest. She's the lead voice, untrained but sweet and strong, singing inscrutable, endearingly awkward lyrics about married men, plagues and intercepted phone threats. He's the primary guitar, wringing out loose, rubbery riffs over swinging piano, delicate jangles and coarse wah-wah pedal workouts. It's an eccentric travelogue of antique landscapes, mapped out by devoutly modern children. - Fred Beldin, 11-2003

Full of Life

All Movie Guide review

Though novelist John Fante thought his literary career was over and forgotten by the time he started writing screenplays for Hollywood, his work gained critical prominence in the years following his death in 1983, and those who appreciate the pithy textures of his classic books will find similar qualities hiding in the corners of this domestic comedy. Adapted from his 1952 book, Fante is once again exploring his own life in a semi-autobiographical setting, this time the days leading up to the birth of his first child, when he is forced to reckon with the family heritage he had abandoned after leaving home. It's certainly lighthearted Hollywood fare, but Full of Life is also full of earthy edges, supplying gentle laughs and warm homilies without ignoring the realities of living. As Emily Rocco, Judy Holliday is fully pregnant in a film era that was squeamish about such blunt depictions of the "condition," and though her hormonal craziness is played for laughs, it isn't exaggerated for comic effect. Richard Conte, as Fante alter ego Nick Rocco, pigheadedly rejects his family's old world values in a desperate battle against his ethnicity. Salvatore Baccaloni is outlandishly Italian as Nick's hard-drinking father, boiling over with emotional hand gestures and broken English, but in his hands Papa never feels like a stereotype. The arguments over Catholicism which form the backbone of the story deal with the complicated reasons behind people's decisions to believe or not believe, and Nick's return to the church feels natural. The climactic childbirth doesn't shy away from Emily's pain and exhaustion, and modern viewers might be shocked by her casual cigarette and wine consumption while carrying the baby. Full of Life was a hit and Fante's screenplay won the Writers Guild of America Screen Award for Best Written Comedy the following year, but the writer never found the same satisfaction with his script work that he did with his novels. While not nearly as raw and truthful as books like "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" or "Ask the Dust," Fante readers should find interest in this big screen adaptation. - Fred Beldin

Janus - Sun Ra

All Music Guide review

This compilation of rare material from the Sun Ra Arkestra draws from tapes recorded between 1963 and 1970, and the space-age jazz shaman conjures up a variety of styles and moods along the way. A balmy tropical vibe greets the ears with the opener ("Island in the Sun"), but it doesn't take long for Ra to set his controls for the stratosphere, and soon, distorted gongs, haunted house organ, and homemade instruments are exploring African mysticism on the title track. "Velvet" is a more traditional hard bop cut, but some gleefully manic saxophone and French horn work lends a cartoonish anarchy to the tune. Chaos is certainly the form for the finale, "Joy," as Ra directs his boys to get free, and the musicians coast through gale wind discord into a calm, disturbing breeze. It all winds down to a lonely drummer whose solo (and the album) meets an abrupt end mid-lick. Taken from both live and studio performances, the tracks may once have been intended as a complete album, but they haven't been available previously except scattered between a few rare Saturn sides. Janus is hardly essential for anyone still combing through Ra's voluminous catalog of unique releases, but the hardcore contingent won't be disappointed. - Fred Beldin

Hey Jude! Hey Bing! - Bing Crosby

All Music Guide review

With a title track that was inevitably destined for camp irony, this pop music cash-in finds Der Bingle haphazardly wrapping his sonorous tones around a set of country and Top 40 standards with nary a relevant moment to be found. "Hey Jude" is delightfully clueless and secured itself a spot on two of the future Golden Throats compilations (a series of ironic packages of kitschy celebrity recordings) for Crosby's off-handed delivery and awkward revision of the song's climactic melody (the soulful "nah-nah-nah" becomes the mannered "pom-pom-pom"). It's a moment that certainly begged for ridicule from contemporary rock audiences, not to mention the jaded few who mine the past for cynical cultural missteps. The most appropriate number on Hey Jude/Hey Bing! is the album's other Apple-related track, "Those Were the Days," where the nostalgic longing for a lost age seems to suit the then-66-year-old vocalist. The rest of the album is filled out with limp country-pop numbers that range from passable ("Little Green Apples") to absolutely awful ("Lonely Street"), and producer Jimmy Bowen's syrupy strings and glossy background chorus do nothing to enliven the singer's apparent disinterest in the material. Crosby walks through every tune like a rehearsal, lending none of his classic warmth to these mismatched numbers. Reportedly, Crosby himself considered the album to be one of his worst, an opinion not likely to be disputed by anyone who explores this audible generation gap. - Fred Beldin