THE LAST MOUNTAIN / Staff Review by Dave Paiz

"The epicenter of the climate change battle in the United States is Appalachian coal, and the epicenter of the battle around Appalachian coal is Coal River Mountain."
- Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council

In the opening moments of Bill Haney's new documentary, "The Last Mountain," the president of the West Virginia Coal Association makes the snide and vaguely contemptuous assertion that most Americans don't know where their electricity comes from, and that they even see it as some kind of entitlement.

While there may be a kernel of truth embedded in that statement, that hardly justifies the ongoing destruction of the Appalachians by those who value profits more than people. Once you blow off the top of a mountain, it ceases to be a mountain. And once you blow the top off an entire mountain range, all that's left is a desolate field of rubble and a variety of health and environmental woes that didn't exist before. And situated in the center of a field of toxic rubble that used to be mountains lies West Virginia’s Coal River Mountain, the titular focus of the film.

"The Last Mountain" is easily one of the most compelling environmental documentaries I've ever seen, and makes a strong case that the war between Big Coal and average citizens struggling to preserve their environment, their health, and a sustainable future for their children, has implications that concern us all.

The key to making a really good documentary is to present the subject from as many different angles as possible, and Haney manages to present the fundamental views of all parties that have a stake in this fiercely heated conflict.

Currently, nearly half of America's electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants, and roughly 1/3 of the coal needed to keep those plants running comes from the Appalachian mountains.

The coal industry has determined that the fastest, cheapest way to extract the coal is by literally blowing the tops off the mountains, using enough explosives each week to equal the bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Unfortunately, in their relentless pursuit of short-term profits, they've largely ignored the long-term damage done to the environment by way of flooding and pollution of area waterways, as well as numerous accounts of cancer and other insults to human health many believe are directly associated with the coal industry's practices.

What began as a local struggle has grown into something much bigger, and become a major focus of longtime environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who features prominently in the film.

As the debates surrounding climate change and corporate control of our democracy grow louder with each passing day, "The Last Mountain" couldn't be more timely. It's a classic David vs. Goliath story that pits ordinary citizens from all walks of life against a monolithic and seemingly implacable foe with the power to buy off politicians at the highest levels, break the law, shape the scope of public debate and manufacture consent as it deems fit.

If you’re not already dead inside, the film will shock, sadden and enrage you, before finally showing an inspirational glimmer of hope offered by sustained, non-violent civil disobedience and the transformational long-range potential of renewable energy sources.

The Last Mountain plays Wednesday, August 24th at 7:30PM only, as part of our ongoing One Hit Wonders series.  This screening is co-presented by The Southern Arizona Green Chamber of Commerce.  A post-film panel discussion will take place with the following local environmental experts:

ARDETH BARNHART, Program Director of Renewable Energy at UA, formerly with AzRISE
PABLO GARCIA-CHEVESICH, researcher/consultant in watershed management specializing in land reclamation & erosion control
VINCENT PAWLOWSKI, 27 years in engineering, holder of a new degree in Sustainable Community Development from Prescott College
DAVID SCHALLER, President of his energy & climate consultancy after a lengthy career with EPA, specializing in Sustainable Development & Climate Change
KATHERINE KENT, owner of the Solar Store, will moderate the panel.

POETRY / Staff Review by Evan Salazar

The reason Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING is so scary is because the Overlook Hotel is perpetually saturated in light, never allowing the Torrance family to escape the terrors that haunt its walls. The twins don’t hide in dark shadows – they are fully visible. Even when Danny does his best to shut his eyes and wish them away, they stay in full light, their terror un-obscured and completely unhinged. When what scares one the most is partially hidden, the full picture never materializes and one is allowed to not face all of its cruel characteristics; but when one’s fears are in the open, dosed in bright light, the terror is inescapable.

Reflections on Kids' Fest / By Peggy Springer

The 2011 Tucson International Children’s Film Festival, or Kids Fest for short, began Saturday, July 23 with the Annie Sing-A-Long and ended Sunday, July 31 with Babe.  During those nine days of fun, movies, prizes, popcorn, kids, babies, grown-ups who came as parents, and grown-ups who came just to see the films, we saw many of the same faces just about each day, and some faces we saw everyday.  Thank you for coming to the movies with us.  See you next year!

THE TRIP / Staff Review by Evan Salazar

Michael Winterbottom is one of the few directors who deserves the title of “eclectic” or “quirky.” You’d be hard-pressed to find one of his films that is much like the others, as he jumps freely from the quasi-documentary to the full-on documentary to thrillers and then to, at its core, artful pornography (lets be honest, 9 SONGS is not much more than porn intercut with some live music and strained attempts at plot – which is by no means a bad thing, you know, it just is what it is). In the vein of continuing to do what absolutely no one expected him to do next, Winterbottom directed a six episode British miniseries called THE TRIP, which brought back Steve Coogan (TROPIC THUNDER, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, HAMLET 2) and Rob Brydon’s fictionalized portrayals of themselves from an earlier Winterbottom film, A COCK AND BULL STORY. The miniseries was then edited into a feature-length film and brought over here to the States, and that is what we are presented with here.

The Loft's FAVORITE FANTASY FILMS

Of all the genres, one could argue that Fantasy is the most open to interpretation.  Typical Fantasy plots tend to involve either children or the mentally unsound (or both), and feature supporting characters like goblins, faeries, and the like.  But beyond such limited conventionalities, Fantasy is what film is all about; when we walk into a theater and watch frozen images moving at 24 frames per second, watch actors reading lines from a script in manufactured rain or sunlight, we pretend for a little while that it's "real."  In honor of the new film THE TROLL HUNTER, which opens today at The Loft, here are our favorite films that we deem Fantasy.

AMERICA, F**K YEAH! THE "TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE"

SING-A-LONG 

AND CURSE-A-THON!

AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY - Staff review by Dave Paiz

In 1994 the savagely funny bundle of energy and awareness known as Bill Hicks left this mortal coil to rejoin the cosmos in the Arms of the One True God That Is Love and await the moment when All will again become One. I was going to open by stating the obvious - in this case, the fact that Bill Hicks was a truly gifted standup comic that died way before his time - but opted for something more or less in line with what Hicks himself might have penned for himself, had he been given the chance.

If you're like me, then you totally missed out on Hicks' all-too-brief rise and fall and continue to mine the depths of your skull trying to figure out what freaking planet you were on back then. I don't know about you, but for me, the window of time between the late '80's and early '90's was a bit of a fugue state, and many of the details of that era have mercifully been lost to the ravages of time and good, old-fashioned American hedonism. So on second thought, it's probably a good thing you're not like me, because I did a great many irretrievably stupid things back then, not the least of which was never getting into Bill Hicks when he was in his raging, stomping the mf'ing terra prime.

More than just a comic, Bill Hicks was arguably the sharpest satirist and social critic of his generation and a fiery intellectual who made gelatinous potted meat product out of many of America's most cherished sacred cows. As it turned out, I was first introduced to his ideas by way of the industrial/psychedelic art-metal band Tool, whose epic 1996 release "AEnima" was dedicated to the late comic genius. Those who'd like to know more about Hicks without braving Tool's darkly beautiful, brain-melting musical stylings would do well to check out American: The Bill Hicks Story, a solid new documentary from directors Matt Hartlock and Paul Thomas.

Inspired early on by the likes of Woody Allen and Richard Pryor, Hicks' dreams of comic stardom initially took root in Houston, where he quickly made his mark on the local comedy scene while still in high school.  Drawing initially from his strict Southern Baptist upbringing, Hicks poked fun at his family life and the various absurdities he observed during his weekly comic adventures in the so-called adult world.  His act soon became wildly popular, but Hicks, perhaps sensing on some level that he didn't have much time on this earth, set his sights much higher, and he soon left the stagnant confines of Houston for Los Angeles and the all-encompassing nexus for standup comedy in the known Universe - The Comedy Store.

It's always seemed to me that once comics establish their voice, their shtick, they tend to stick with it throughout their career and never change. That was never the case with Hicks, who always felt that he was destined to shake up the status quo and constantly pushed himself to break new ground. This is where Hicks' story takes a familiar turn. Feeling like he'd hit a mental wall, and with his competing dreams of rock versus comic stardom stalled on both fronts, Hicks began to experiment with alcohol and psychedelic mushrooms with mixed results that forever changed his outlook on Reality.

And as anyone who's spent a fair amount of time jabbing their Third Eye with a cattle prod will attest to, once you hop on the Magic Bus, your ideas start getting, shall we say, more and more out there.  Predictably, Hicks' material started veering off the beaten path, and mutated from observations about his family, to commenting on America and the nature of Reality itself.  Largely relying on a dynamic visual style that combines still and moving images, the film also brings Hicks' story to life via interview footage from friends and family and a lot of great standup footage from Hicks himself. Rather than a distraction, the animation really enhances the film, most vividly during the hallucinogenic sequences.

Bill Hicks broke a lot of boundaries in a painfully short period of time, and we're left to wonder about what he'd be like today had he not succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. The time since he's been gone has seen the birth of the Internet and Facebook, the Bush v. Gore debacle, and cultural excreta like Reality TV and Fox News. Every day seems to bring with it some new conspiracy theory or brain-jarringly weird belief. Politicians on both sides routinely embellish reality to suit their own ends. In the midst of endless war and economic stagnation, we appear to be at a crossroads and enmeshed in fierce debate over what kind of nation we want to be moving forward in a post-911/post-Osama world.  While he'll live on through his recorded material and this lovingly crafted documentary, it's a damn shame Bill Hicks didn't live long enough to lend his voice to the chorus of those now challenging us to throw off our assumptions, truly think for ourselves, and find a better way to live on this earth.



Review by Dave Paiz, Loft Cinema Facilities Manager and host of "Bat Country Radio" Saturdays from 2-4 a.m. on 91.3 FM KXCI.

AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY starts Friday, June 3rd at The Loft Cinema.  ONE WEEK ONLY!