Ken Burns
“The Central Park Five” Interview
with Kam Williams
Ken Burns has been making films for more than thirty years. Since the Academy Award-nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and to produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made.
The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of his films, “More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.” A December 2002 poll conducted by Real Screen Magazine listed The Civil War as second only to Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North as “the most influential documentary of all time,” and named Ken Burns and Robert Flaherty as the “most influential documentary makers” of all time.
In March, 2009, David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun said, “… Burns is not only the greatest documentarian of the day, but also the most influential filmmaker period. That includes feature filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I say that because Burns not only turned millions of persons onto history with his films, he showed us a new way of looking at our collective past and ourselves.”
Ken’s films have won ten Emmy Awards and two Oscar nominations, and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Here, he talks about his latest film, The Central Park Five, co-directed by his daughter, Sarah, and her husband, David McMahon, which premieres on PBS on April 16th.
Scary Movie 5
Film Review by Kam Williams
What do Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Mike Tyson, Katt Williams and Snoop Dogg have in common? They’re all celebrities whose names have been splashed across the tabloids in connection with controversy. But in a macabre gesture ostensibly intended to exploit their notoriety, this motley collection of the craziest people currently in the public eye was tapped to make cameo appearances in Scary Movie 5.
The picture was directed by Malcolm Lee (Undercover Brother) who opted for an overhaul of the series with a fresh set of characters rather than a sequel. That shouldn’t be a problem for purists, since each of the earlier installments has basically been a string of disconnected skits spoofing the latest horror movies.
Among the fright flicks lampooned here are Paranormal Activity, The Black Swan, Evil Dead, Sinister and Mama. However, this equal opportunity offender also takes potshots at offerings from other genres like The Help, Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection, Planet of the Apes and 127 Hours.
Unfortunately, the disappointing production is little more than a crummy appeal to the lowest common denominator employing generous helpings of scatological humor. Worse, none of the sketches elicited even a perfunctory pity laugh from the audience I watched the movie with.
The point of departure is a sex scene in which Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan are joined in bed by a colorful menagerie of oddballs, animals and objects. The kinky copulating is sped-up in corny fashion ala a typical Benny Hill episode, and the action’s even underscored by the familiar strains of that frenetic melody routinely employed on the classic British comedy show.
But Charlie fails to survive the session, leaving his three orphaned children to be raised by his brother (Simon Rex) and girlfriend (Ashley Tisdale), and their hairy-armed housekeeper (Lidia Porto). The bodily function fare that ensues around the premises includes sight gags involving farting, projectile vomiting, poop disguised as a banana, a monkey tossing feces at a mirror, a woman putting a urine-soaked cell phone to her face, a dog with a toothbrush stuck in its tush, a child playing with a vibrator, a dog licking his own gonads, and a gay man with the hots for a fifth grader.
This vapid, vulgar insult to the intelligence couldn’t possibly have been tested on any focus groups. Can we all now agree that we’ve reached the cinematic saturation point with this rapidly-expiring franchise?
Poor (0 stars)
Rated PG-13 for profanity, sexuality, gore, drug use, nudity, ethnic slurs, cartoon violence and crude humor
Running time: 85 minutes
Distributor: Dimension Films
To see a trailer for Scary Movie 5, visit
Herman's House
Film Review by Kam Williams
72 year-old Herman Wallace has been imprisoned at Louisiana’s infamous Angola penitentiary since he was found guilty of committing bank robbery back in 1967. His sentence was later lengthened to life after he was convicted of stabbing a prison guard to death solely on the testimony of a fellow inmate.
Was he a political prisoner who’d been railroaded on account of his membership in the Black Panther Party, or had he actually committed the murder? Unfortunately, that question is not the focus of Herman’s House, an unlikely-couple documentary directed by Angad Singh Bhalia.
Mr. Singh instead devotes his attention to the friendship forged between Herman and a woman half his age. “Jailbirds and the naïve girls who love them” has served as the theme of many a TV talk show, but rarely have any gangsters’ molls had the pedigree, sophistication or undying dedication of Jackie Sumell.
Sumell, an activist who once presented anti-abortion President Bush a quilt woven from hundreds of pro-choice feminist’s pubic hair, was a grad student in the Art Department at Stanford when she took an interest in Herman. What really rankled her was the fact that he held the record for solitary confinement in the country, currently at 40+ years and counting.
Over that period, he’s been cooped up in a 6 x 9 foot cell, which Jackie felt was a violation of the 8th Amendment’s sanction against cruel and unusual punishment. So, she struck up a long-distance correspondence with Herman via a combination of letters and phone calls.
And that led to a decision to draw attention to his plight by mounting an art exhibition featuring a full-scale replica of his prison cell. But this is where it gets weird. She also asked Herman what his dream home would look like, prior to then moving down to New Orleans, buying some land, and consulting architects to draw up plans for a place the two would ostensibly share should he ever be paroled.
Listen, this biopic basically revolves around Jackie’s earnest effort to turn Herman into a cause célèbre, but it carefully tiptoes around the more compelling elephant in the tiny cell, namely, whether there’s a romantic aspect to their relationship? A fascinating flick as much about a possible miscarriage of justice as about a case of arrested development who looks like a little girl playing house with an imaginary mate.
Very Good (3 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 81 minutes
Distributor: First Run Features
To see a trailer for Herman's House, visit
Lucky Bastard
Film Review by Kam Williams
Dave (Jay Paulson) thought he’d died and gone to heaven when he learned that he’d won the monthly “Lucky Bastard” contest run by the adult entertainment website. He was informed by the site’s owner, Mike (Don McManus), that his name had been picked from all the entries to sleep with his favorite porn star, Ashley Saint (Betsy Rue).
However, the prize came with just one hitch, namely, that he’d have to sign a release so that the lusty liaison could be videotaped from every angle. After all, the promotion was designed to give the site’s subscribers a chance to see an Average Joe enjoying a roll in the hay with a gorgeous goddess who would never normally give him the time of day.
Bespectacled Dave definitely fit the bill in that regard, between his awkwardness and anxiety attempting to perform on cue on camera, even with the woman of his wet dreams. However, the skin flick’s director (Chris Wylde) obviously had a lot more to worry about than a limp nerd in need of Viagra.
For, something else would go horribly wrong after Dave’s arrival and by the time the police arrived, they would find the dead bodies of numerous males and females slain either by gunshot or blunt force trauma. The investigating officer (Lukas Kendall) was grateful to discover that the walls had been outfitted with 18 cameras which not only recorded Dave and Ashley’s fondling, foreplay and frustrated fornication, but the ensuing slaughter which subsequently turned the den of debauchery into a bloody crime scene.
So, cracking the case simply involved rewinding the tapes, and watching what transpired from start to finish. And that’s precisely the point-of-view shared with the audience in Lucky Bastard, a found-footage flick which puts a salacious spin on the “no surviving witnesses” cinematic device first effectively employed by The Blair Witch Project back in 1999.
The movie marks the impressive directorial debut of Robert Nathan, who also co-wrote the cleverly-constructed script with Lukas Kendall. Their novel storyline unfolds like your typical horror film, except instead of taking place inside a Gothic haunted house it unfolds on a sleazy set inside the bedroom of a nondescript suburban home rented for the day from a realtor (Deborah Zoe) out to make a quick buck.
Besides Dave and Ashley, the suspects include director Kris, cameraman Nico (Lanny Joon), Ashley’s regular co-star, Josh (Lee Kholafai), producer Mike and his considerably-younger girlfriend, Casey (Catherine Annette), an aspiring porn star. However, the perpetrator might not be a cast or crew member, since Mike also has issues with the alarmed real estate agent as well as with his estranged ex-wife.
It’s no surprise Lucky Bastard landed an NC-17 rating, given the fairly-explicit displays of carnality, though the production is as much a riveting murder mystery as it is a raunchy sex romp. A compelling, high body-count whodunit for folks willing to watch a lot of kinky cavorting while trying to unravel clues leading to the killer.
Very Good (3 stars)
NC-17 for violence, profanity, full frontal nudity and explicit sexuality.
Running time: 94 minutes
Distributor: Vineyard Haven Films
To see a trailer for Lucky Bastard, visit
Not Today
Film Review by Kam Williams
Lucky enough to be born into a wealthy family, Caden Welles (Cody Longo) is living the American Dream. With money to burn at his disposal, the spoiled 20 year-old took off on a whim for a vacation in Hyderabad, India, along with some of his equally-irresponsible friends.
Before Caden left, his mom (Shari Rigby) packed a Bible in his suitcase with a note tucked in the pages asking God to help her son appreciate his blessings while on the subcontinent. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long for that prayer to be answered.
For, upon landing, Caden experiences quite a cultural shock when he finds himself in the midst of abject poverty he never knew existed. And instead of being able to participate in the non-stop partying they’d planned, he ends up feeling guilty about all the suffering he’s surrounded by.
He specifically regrets having cynically refused to help a beggar with a little girl claiming to be starving. In fact, he becomes so haunted that he goes back to look for them, only to learn that Kiran (Walid Amini) had reluctantly sold Annika (Persis Karen) into slavery to survive.
Determined to reunite father and daughter, Caden decides to try to track down the 7 year-old, a search which leads to the ugly underworld of sex trafficking. There, he discovers that Annika’s freedom will come at considerable cost, since the pimp who had purchased her expects to make a tidy profit to part with her.
Thanks to cell phone technology, Caden can both cry on the shoulder of his empathetic girlfriend (Cassie Scerbo) back home and ask his dad (John Schneider) to wire him $20,000 fast. There’s no hesitation, when the request is for such a worthy cause, as opposed to underwriting another one of the reformed slacker’s trademark self-indulgences.
Thus unfolds Not Today, a compelling, modern morality play marking the noteworthy directorial debut of Jon Van Dyke. Without getting too heavy-handed, the faith-based cautionary tale does a decent job of delivering its sobering message about a widespread form of exploitation of millions which no one ever talks about.
A searing indictment of India’s shameful caste system as a means of enslaving females based on the color of their skin.
Very Good (3 stars)
Rated PG-13 for mature themes
Running time: 103 minutes
Distributor: Lionsgate Films
To see a trailer for Not Today, visit