| OHIOANA BOOK FESTIVAL
Marvin Brown will be at the Ohio HWA booth during the festival.
What: Ohioana Book Festival
When: April 20, 2024
Where: Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant Ave.
Time: 10:30-1 p.m.
COLUMBUS BOOK FESTIVAL
Marvin Brown will be appearing at the event.
What: Columbus Book Festival
When: July 15-16, 2023
Where: Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant Ave./Topiary Park, 480 E. Town St.
Time: 10-6 p.m.
Columbus Metropolitan Library
The Ohio HWA team
Copies of Covet and Jigsaw Man
Authors Marvin Brown and Mercedes Yardley
TAKING ON IVY LEAGUE: INTERVIEW WITH ‘EXCLUSION U’ DIRECTOR GINGER GENTILE
Activist director sets sights on elite universities
Ginger Gentile/Core Media
Spin the wheel and land on a current hot-button topic that incites anger on either side of the political spectrum and puts grass-roots activists on a collusion course with powerful, moneyed institutions: gun control, abortion, transgender intolerance, immigration, agenda-based news organizations, and of course evergreen racial dynamics.
Roiling in the margins awaits another issue destined for the center stage: the shocking and permissive financial shenanigans of institutions of higher education. Tangential issues—student loan forgiveness, the influence of “woke” progressive professors, the protests of ultraconservative guest speakers—already are popping up in headlines across the nation.
Ginger Gentile’s new documentary, Exclusion U, launches headlong into the controversies, hidden and no-so, of how universities, particularly the Ivy League, sit on billions of dollars while refusing to expand enrollments. It’s a topic ready-made for Gentile, who describes herself as an activist documentary filmmaker who prefers to take on “issues that people don’t want to talk about.”
Her previous documentary, Erasing Family (2022), explores trauma children of divorce suffer when a parent is erased from their lives. That film was financed through a crowdfunding campaign. Gentile also produced several independent films during her post-college stint in Argentina. Her experiences as a Jewish person living in Buenos Aires may very well inspire a future documentary about Jews in Latin America, she says.
When it comes to scandals within the corridors of higher education, Gentile, an Ivy Leaguer herself, knows of what she speaks. As a student at Columbia University, she had a love-hate relationship with her alma mater.
“The education was amazing,” Gentile recalls, but she didn’t cotton to some of the same institutional issues she takes on in her film. “I was always protesting. My time at Columbia informed my outlook on how Ivy League functions.”
Gentile’s film takes on myriad issues: economics, race, politics, legacy benefactors, beleaguered financial aid efforts, intentional exclusivity and even gentrification. But the centerpiece is certainly the issue of endowments. Exclusion U carefully lays out how Ivy League institutions hoard billions of dollars through financial set-asides. The endowments grow exponentially into a largess that rarely find its way back to those who need it most, low-income students and the communities that surround and support the universities.
“I always knew that schools had endowments,” Gentile says. But the extent to which donations and assets are funneled away was staggering to discover. “Everything is public, but not widely known. All these things they do are legal,” she adds.
In addition to students, Gentile’s documentary has many former educators, administrators and admission officials as talking heads. Was there a concern of upsetting the Ivy League culture?
“I only interviewed people who wanted to talk,” she said. “There was fear from students from Harvard compared to other universities. Harvard is such a powerful institution.”
She adds, “Everything is fact-checked. They may not like it but it’s all true.”
Looking to the future, Gentile has her eyes on the subject of math.
“I’d love to do a film about people’s fear and hatred of mathematics,” she says. “Also, I have an interest in the Manifest Movement,” as well as the previously mentioned exploration of Jewish people living in Latin America.
What does she hope viewers will take away from the film?
“That there are schools with a lot of money and power because we allowed them to have those things,” she says. “It’s time for us to do something about it.”
Exclusion U is produced by Veronica Nickel (Moonlight) and includes interviews with Davarian Baldwin (In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower), Tressie McMillan Cottom (Lower Ed), Anthony Jack (The Privileged Poor), Jeff Selingo (Who Gets In and Why) Dan Golden (The Price of Admission) Richard V. Reeves (Brookings Institution), Lauren Rivera (Northwestern University), and Deja Foxx (influencer/staffer for Vice President Kamala Harris).
The film will be released on June 23, and will be available on various on-demand platforms including iTunes, Amazon, and GooglePlay.
Official site here
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
“Hope” Inspires in Times of Struggle
Teen Director Kalia Love Jones seeks to empower with debut film ‘The Power of Hope’
Kalia Love Jones
These days, survival seems to be drawn down to basic actions—you’re either cordoning yourself off from a dangerous virus, taking care of those who have caught the virus, or deciding you’re not going to let something as annoying as a global pandemic get in the way of your summer thrills. Still, there are some who survive through their creative spirit, and choose to inspire through their art.
In any era, the arrival of a 12-year-old filmmaker is quite a feat; in the time of Covid-19, it’s a reminder of why we power through uncertainty and obstacles. It is, as Kalia Love Jones intends her film to be, empowering. So “The Power of Hope” arrives in time to inject a little motivation into our toughest days, and it comes from a preteen talent who is as inspiring as her tale.
In the animated short, we met a young black girl, not unlike the film’s director, with wide-eyed dreams. The girl wants to become an architect, but those dreams are jeopardized when her mother becomes very sick. The girl’s world spirals into uncertainly—about her mother’s health and about her own dreams. In this fearful time, the girl finds support from the words of Michelle Obama. Through the former first lady’s powerful speech, the girl is empowered to make her dreams reality.
The film, like most memorable animation, like the best of Pixar’s work, relies on strong visuals, sound and music to carry its story. The only dialogue we hear is Mrs. Obama’s stirring words
The Power of Hope
Kalia, who hails from Los Angeles and has an older brother and younger sister, undertook the project with the wind at her back—her talent to spare and the support of her parents. She saw “The Power of Hope” as an opportunity to combine two of her many passions, music and animation.
“I want to be an animator when I’m older,” says the girl who’s been drawing for as long as she can remember. “Animation is the best way to get people my age to pay attention.”
Kalia spends hours drawing and studying films. She says, “Live action is interesting, but animation is my calling.”
Filmmaking, even short films, is a marathon not a sprint. It’s not work for impatient folks. The motion picture was produced in laps. It took Kalia a month to write. Then the animation, which she supervised, took another six to eight months. She spent a month more working on the music.
Events in the film were fictional, even though the character was influenced by Kalia herself.
“I drew the story boards and made the character look like me,” she says.
Her father’s support for the project was particularly useful when it came to the film’s soundtrack. He put her in touch with Grammy-nominated producer Ben Franklin.
“He’s friends with my dad. He wanted to be a part of the film,” Kalia says. She and Franklin co-wrote the movie’s theme song, which is now available on all major music platforms.
“It was fun,” she recalls. Of course it was. Music is another of her passions. “I love music. Music is its own language.”
Kalia finds filmmaking and music production complementary art forms.
“They work well with each other.”
As for her first time in the director’s chair, it was challenging. “It was difficult at first,” she says of having to give order to adults. “Once we realized the whole team shared the vision, things got easier.”
If the rigors of filmmaking weren’t challenging enough, Kalia’s project came about during a pandemic. Doing promotional work for the film has been hampered by the outbreak. It’s prevented her from taking opportunities push the film, and limited meetings with people in the industry. And like many of us, quarantine has kept her isolated from many of her friends.
“I haven’t been able to talk with my friends,” she says. “I don’t really know how they feel about the film.”
Above all, like her film, Kalia is all about empowerment. “I want people to feel empowered, to feel the confident to overcome their obstacles.”
Her influences are rich with women of note: director Ava DuVernay (“Selma”, “A Wrinkle in Time,” “When They See Us,”), animator Rebecca Sugar (creator of “Steven Universe”), Michelle Obama and her mother.
“My mom influence is on more than the film,” Kalia interjects. “She influences my life. She’s a strong woman in my life who is very inspiring to me.” A little bit of her mother is drawn into the mother in the film.
Kalia had already been an admirer of Michelle Obama when she came across one of the first lady’s speeches while doing research for her film. “She’s always been an inspiration to me.” Mrs. Obama’s spoken words provide voiceover that punctuates the emotional visuals.
Even amidst concerns of the outbreak, it would be hard to miss the surge of protests and activism against racial inequality, particularly the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. The shocking death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer has lead to a hot summer of marches and clashes. Kalia support the protests. “One of the reasons I made the film was to give more representation to our stories,” she says. “Our stories are valuable and black lives are valuable.”
She is a girl full of passion. Some of her other passions include piano, honors band, where she is first chair flute, and gymnastics. She’s an eight-year gymnast who trained with former U.S. Olympian Chris Waller at his gym in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Kalia plans to continue perfecting her crafts while she deliberates on her next project. As the dust settles on a year of illness, death and protest, it’s comforting to know the creative spirit is alive and well, and particularly that it resides in our youngest, a soon-to-be 13-year-old brimming with passion and not willing to wait or settle in presenting ideas that inspire.
Learn more of Kalia Love Jones’ “The Power of Hope” at the film’s website: www.thepowerofhopefilm.com
| Marvin Brown’s Director Interviews
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The Person I am When No One is Looking (2019)
Unrated
An exploration into the aching desire for fame in the age of social media, The Person I am When No One is Looking gets a boost from its lead actor (and director Kailee McGee) and its meta-humor.
The short film is narrated in voiceover by the person we’re watching as she directly addresses the audience watching her. Kailee’s eager for stardom and boasts of her social media following—which isn’t really that large, but larger enough to give her hope. The back of her car is filled with empty cans of Lacroix, of course, and parking violations, but she looks and plays the part of a star.
We sense that looking and playing that part is an essential component. Kailee tells us how she fakes injuries for attention and regales us of her arbitrary tattoos and keepsakes. It’s funny stuff because it’s played straight and delivered precisely in continuous voiceover. We began to wonder why the voiceover is necessary when the actor can just talk directly into the camera, but then she tells us she want her story narrated like a movie. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s funny.
We’re swept along on this journey as we meet her equally vapid half-siblings and best friend. There are glamorous photo shoots and dueling bloggers and selfies overlooking L.A. at sundown. And let’s pause to admire an abrupt dance interlude that’s ridiculous for the character, but an impressive feat by the actor. Our star just can’t get enough traction on social media. Maybe a short film shown at a film festival (the one she’s living and we’re watching) can do the trick.
The film is a marvel of editing from Rich Costales: slyly making us believe it’s as capricious as most mishmash social media editing, but there’s real skill behind what we’re watching. Note the jilted girl montage. Even as she’s bummed by rejection from her crush, Kailee can’t help but to goose her followers stats by adding adroit posing and music to the proceedings. It’s real-deal filmmaking posing as slapdash social media shenanigans.
Kailee McGee is superb at blurring the line between documentary and fiction in a town where it doesn’t matter. Her quick wit and excellent delivery turn The Person I am When No One is Looking from a creative exercises into an insightful critique of our lust for fame. There is no person when no one is looking, McGee’s performance suggests. In this day and age, she may have a point.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Two new stories in the pipeline:
“Wondrous and Monstrous Ways,” a tale of grief and revenge involving a woman on the edge of the abyss, arrives in late April. The story appears in Ghost, Spirits and Specters, Vol. 2 from HellBound Books Publishing. The anthology is edited by Xtina Marie.
“Remnants of Worship” follows a film critic on the hunt to screen the most terrifying movie ever created. The story will appear in The Blood Tomes, Vol. 3: Nabu Carnevale, a festival-themed anthology from Tell-Tale Press. Slated for a June publication, the book is edited by Andrea Dawn.
And be warned: a chilling new novel is in the works.
Philophobia (2019)
Unrated
Fablemaze
Deep longing permeates nearly ever scene of Guy Davies’ new film Philophobia. And why wouldn’t it? The drama details the coming-of-age of an assortment of teenagers in a small town in the English countryside. It’s well-trodden material that we expect to veer into either sex comedy, feel-good love tale or unexpected tragedy. We get a bit of all of that, but Davies’ velvet-hammer touch amplifies a raw, naturalistic depiction of withering adolescence; well-rounded, stirring performances further elevate the proceedings.
As the school year wanes, we follow several kids awaiting summer. Some, more than others, are ripe to escape not just the school year, but the provincial, listless town that’s squeezing the life out of them.
Kai (Joshua Glenister) certainly seems to have a bright future. He’s a writer with burgeoning talent, despite his fears of pushing through his insecurities. Kai hangs with and gets high with Sammy and Megsy. Sammy (Charlie Frances) drives a milk truck and initially seems to balance his dreams and reality. Megsy (Jack Gouldbourne) is the stereotypical foulmouthed, loud-speaking, trouble-seeker who seems to exist to constantly plunge his friends into unnecessary situations. It’s a testament to Gouldbourne’s performance that Megsy ultimately escapes the archetype foisted upon him.
The boys make up the heart of the film. There’s not a misstep in their performances. It’s interesting that each of the boys is being raised by single mothers. There are adult male influences—good and bad—to be found, including a fed-up policeman and a writing teacher who practices tough love with Kai.
The three main protagonists plug into a wider group of peers who are strategizing their senior prank. Despite various characters moving in and out of scenes, Davies connects us to them (and to a broader sense of longing youths) with strong dialogue and by resisting pushing them beyond their unfocused immature existences.
Into the mix tumbles Grace (Kim Spearman), a beautiful, pensive, mysterious girl who lives directly across the street from Kai. Of course he peeks at her through her window as she undresses. But it’s not simply lust. For quite some time Kai has loved Grace from a distance. She’s smart enough to be aware of his desire and talents, and insecure enough to be entangled in a relationship with the monstrous Kenner. Older, bigger, braver and crueler than the high schoolers around him, Kenner tears through the film like a bull in a teashop, leaving most scenes full of broken china by the time he’s done. Alexander Lincoln plays him with virtually no outward redeeming qualities. His relationship with Grace is one of dominance; with the boys one of neck-stomping Alpha-male humiliation. There’s some sad, distant longing within him, but Kenner’s not going to let us anywhere near it.
One other character is a stag. The majestic creature, usually only seen by Kai, shows up fleetingly at key junctures. I didn’t completely buy the intent of the stag; it seemed more a setup for a late scene of tragedy than providing any real connective tissue to the post-adolescence milieu so well constructed.
Otherwise, the film takes the characters through their paces—there’s a love triangle; a sociopath about to boil over; a make-or-break final exam; a school prank that’s constantly in flux; and a reckoning to grow up for each of the protagonists. We observe the youths at house parties, packed around lunch tables, scattered in classrooms; hiding out on rooftops, frolicking at the lake. All the while, the dialogue and performances pull us to invest in these gatherings. Davies has an ear for dialogue. I especially liked Kai’s moments of poetic voiceovers that speak not only to his worldview, but his knack for spinning words. His speaks to an inner boy who knows there’s a world waiting for the man he will soon become … if he can hold things together long enough to make it out of his town. He carries a dictionary with words underlined and his own notes scribbled in the margins.
Suspense comes in the form of afternoon getaway in which Megsy’s goaded into bringing along his deceased brother’s rifle, and when a senior prank seems to take a dark turn. Davies allows each scene to defy expectations by tweaking them with humor. The Kai-Grace love story is complex in the subtext of abuse, abandonment and self-loathing, but affecting in the outward attempts of the lovers to connect. We see possible redemptions for each of them in their coupling. Spearman and Glenister are excellent in all scenes together. We get a couple of dark turns in the finale I suppose we should have seen coming, but that ultimately reaffirms love and friendship.
We consider one of Kai words “philophobia,” the fear of falling in love. Late in the film we realize especially Kai and Grace, but most of the character, are locked in place by fear. The film seems to speak to the specific period of our youth when we confront and/or retreat from encroaching adulthood, knowing—as all teens do—that a better life awaits outside of our familiar spaces. If only we can summon the means to take the plunge.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
In a New York Minute (2019)
Unrated
A separate but interlocking tripartite exploration of loves and losses of Chinese and Chinese-American women in the big city, In a New York Minute works best when it draws us into the lives of it desperate characters. The plots themselves are warmed-over bowls of American rom-com soup. Thankfully, each tale, roughly 25 minutes each, lends most of its time to the development of the women, not the plot. And the three main actresses are more than up to the challenges of engaging the audience and carrying their stories.
Amy (Amy Chang) is an admired city food editor unable to eat in the wake of a devastating breakup. She skulks about her small apartment, goes through the motions of her job, which is admittedly more difficult now that she pukes anytime she tries to eat. She gets an unexpected opportunity to act on food-related television series and an unexpected suitor in a charming but relentless coworker. Despite his overbearing nature, Peter actually helps nurse Amy back to her appetite. He soon proposes, and poor Amy is so adrift she neglects to reject the offer. Chang’s performance is palpable. Her hangdog Amy is crushed on the inside and Chang effectively plays her as a woman barely keeping herself together.
In the second story we met Angel (Yi Liu). Actually, we’ve already met her as she crossed paths with Amy in the first story—we just didn’t realize it at the time. Angel is an actress and wife of a much older American, Howard (Erik Lochtefeld), who seems to regard his Chinese wife and her culture as fascinating diversions, but doesn’t implore much effort to actually understand her or it. He nods through conversations while hardly looking up from his books. Note a key scene when Howard’s children from his previous marriage visit for dinner. Angel all but disappears amid their discussions about Japanese culture and cuisine. Liu is masterful at presenting Angel’s quiet devastation. In China, Angel had built a reputation as an actress. In New York, acting is a humiliating slog that Howard encourages mainly as a means to give his wife something to do with her time. It’s not hard to image why Angel turned to an affair with the young, handsome David (Ludi Lin), a writer. The lovers have afternoon and evening trysts at his apartment. Theirs are joyous couplings of sex and interesting dialogues and the unending possibilities of young love. Her time with David buoys her in her listless marriage, but Angel struggles to decide if she wants a future filled with love or security. Just as her acting opportunities pick up with a film that somewhat parallels her own life (and brings her in proximity of Amy), the results of a home pregnancy test threatens to derail all opportunities—marriage, affair and career.
Lastly, we meet Nina (Celia Au), an escort of sorts, whose services are bought by mostly older, moneyed men. She has eyes for Ian (Roger Yeh), a kind food-truck operator who dreams of opening his own restaurant, but can’t see a viable way forward in their relationship. Her father and stepmother run a small Pho restaurant (which also appears in Amy and Angel’s stories) and have paid a fortune to bring Nina to the U.S. She is indebted to the family that cares little about her life’s desires or opportunities. Au plays Nina as hard-edged, a survivor, who at first scoffs at the probability of real love, and later fights to embrace her chance at a life with Ian. In continuing the unnecessary crossover gimmick, two of Nina’s clients are Peter and David, from Amy and Angel’s stories respectively; worse is the home pregnancy test, which works its way into each tale, but is truly only important in Angel’s story.
Director Ximan Li, though, slyly allows moments of crossover—Amy lives in the same apartment building as David, Angel’s lover; while filming the TV series, Amy is surreptitiously replaced by Angel—then pulls the threads together in a final act that allows plotlines to converge. Amy’s story is the strongest, with her quietly flailing under the weight of grief; Angel’s, which navigates a marriage, an affair, an acting career and a pregnancy is the most complicated; Nina’s is the most heartbreaking, with her dogged efforts for a life of independence and love crumbling before her eyes.
While the plot approach of In a New York Minute is nothing new, Li’s film nevertheless, transcends its soapy America episodic structure and allows the Asian cast, crew and writers to provide a refreshing cultural take on the material. Mego Lin’s camera gloriously captures New York cityscapes and charming neighborhoods. Like chapters in a book, each story is given lengthy first acts to allow us to imbibe the rhythms of the lives of these Asian characters. There are minutes worth savoring.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Bloghouse- Ohioana Book Festival| OHIOANA BOOK FESTIVAL Marvin Brown will be at the Ohio HWA booth during the festival. What: Ohioana Book Festival When: April 20, 2024 Where: Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. …
- Book FairCOLUMBUS BOOK FESTIVAL Marvin Brown will be appearing at the event. What: Columbus Book Festival When: July 15-16, 2023 Where: Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant Ave./Topiary Park, 480 E. …
- Interview with Ginger GentileTAKING ON IVY LEAGUE: INTERVIEW WITH ‘EXCLUSION U’ DIRECTOR GINGER GENTILE Activist director sets sights on elite universities Spin the wheel and land on a current hot-button topic …
- Ohioana Book Festival
