Directed by Martin Scorsese
Produced by Graydon Carter, Fran Lebowitz, Scorsese, Margaret Bodde
Released by Rialto Pictures
USA. 82 min. Not Rated

Martin Scorsese seems to be in a compellingly productive stage in his career. In the past year or so since the release of Shutter Island, he has followed up with A Letter to Elia, the pilot episode of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, and now a bio-doc, Public Speaking, a generous portrait of literary personality Fran Lebowitz.

Most of the film takes place at Lebowitz’s table at the Waverly Inn, a Greenwich Village restaurant she frequents and one in which her likeness is included among other literati on the wall’s mural—not bad for an expelled high school student (she would later get her GED). In addition to the restaurant, we also follow her to a number of lecture dates where she’s clearly in her milieu. As she readily admits, she loves to talk and have others listen. There’s also a smattering of archive footage from her early days in New York, a city she describes as not yet a boring city for the wealthy. She compares the experience of running into a friend in Times Square today like the terror of bumping into someone you knew at a gay bar in the ’70s; you’re embarrassed by what that might mean to your reputation.

Fran Lebowitz was born in 1950. She grew up in Morristown, NJ, and in 1970 moved to Manhattan at the tender age of 20. As she describes it, she barely stepped off the bus before she was hired by Andy Warhol to write for Interview magazine. It was then on to a stint at Mademoiselle and the publication of two subsequent collections of essays, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies, that would lead her to a modicum of fame. Continue reading →

Produced & directed by Liz Canner
Released by First Run Features
USA. 78 min. Not Rated

Ultimately what comes to the fore of Liz Canner’s “Orgasm, Inc.” has less to do with sexual fulfillment and more to do with whether every impaired experience in life calls for a prescriptive solution. At the core of this documentary, one which straddles the line of humor and earnestness, is the very serious issue of greed at the risk of health. The prospect that the pharmaceutical industry sees enormous profits in (a) first convincing women that something is clinically wrong with them if they can’t achieve orgasm and then (b) providing a solution in the form of a pill, cream, or spray, is quite serious, indeed.

The film begins when Canner is hired by a pharmaceutical company to edit some erotic videos, which will ultimately be used to assist in a series of drug trials. During the course of her work at Vivus, she uncovers enough information to question whether there is any real condition at all. Thus, begins her nine-year odyssey in making this documentary.

While she challenges the industry, she doesn’t go far enough in hammering at the same people that hired her to edit the porn. Perhaps there was something of a conflict of interest which motivated Canner to remain a bit too moderate. The film is chock-full of interviews with sex therapists, pharmaceutical reps, frustrated women, and medical professionals, all espousing on whether or not there’s a medical cure for this problem or whether the issue is mostly conditional. The film’s most engaging moments involve the outspoken activist and psychologist Leonore Tiefer, who has been diligently attending and testifying at the Food and Drug Administration hearings for various pharmaceutical candidates. These procedures seem like they should be no-brainers since so much evidence is brought up showing potential dangers, like the altering of hormones, yet it’s disconcerting how close some of the medicines get to winning FDA approval. Another memorable moment is the filmmaker’s interview with an obviously conflicted saleswoman at a medical convention selling the procedure called a vaginoplasty (details of which may be Googled). She half-humorously requests that Canner hold off showing the film until she’s found a new job. Continue reading →

Produced &  directed by Zachary Levy
Released by No Props Inc.
USA. 113 min. Not Rated

After watching Zachary Levy’s provocative documentary, one can’t help but wonder how far his down-at-the-heels subject might have made out in life had he been born into better circumstances—an education and a solid family upbringing, at the very least. The fact that Stanley Pleskun, aka Stanless Steel, made it as far as he did only speaks to his tenacity and his survival instincts, mental and otherwise.

Here is a man, after all, who has made a living using his brawn. He’s officially described as the strongest man in the world at bending steel and metal. Yet the documentary, vérité style, shows a man who yearns for a richer spiritual and emotional life but who struggles to articulate it. Levy, who has a background as a cameraman and now makes his directorial debut with this film, understands the universality of his subject. Stan has made it to the other side of middle age fighting the thought that his best years are behind him, and he can still perform amazing feats of strength. During the course of the film, we tag along to a number of his performances, including a televised talent show in London (a la America’s Got Talent) and another at a local New Jersey kiddie birthday party. It’s to Stan’s credit that he performs at both gigs with the same level of determination and receives the same level of gratification. Never for a moment during the movie does he phone anything in. Continue reading →