David Elliott on movies: ‘Capitalism,’ ‘Whip It,’ ‘Coco’

“Capitalism: A Love Story”

If someone viewed Michael Moore’s provocative “Capitalism: A Love Story” and then read Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” they might have a brain seizure. Rand’s ideal inspired Alan Greenspan, a key architect of the hungry hyper-capitalism that slashed regulations, cut taxes on the rich and virtually co-opted government — everything that Moore loathes.

A canny “documentary” propagandist, Moore has given us another rage machine wired with comedy and oiled by his pokey, nice-guy voice (imagine kid TV’s Fred Rogers organizing a lynching party). For Moore, “capitalism is evil.” In the movie sad priests agree, and some economic experts, and fiery Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, who calls the huge bank bailout an insider coup by Wall Street. You may not leave singing the old anti-capitalist anthem “The Internationale,” but Moore does include a rather silly version of it.

Moore shows people being evicted from their homes, big companies taking out secret death policies on their employees, and suddenly radicalized workers in Chicago (this taps nostalgia for his family’s union history in Michigan). He asks how U.S. finance became a huge slot machine for balloon mortgages, “derivatives” and other scams which no one can explain to him, and ponders why the feds so quickly filled the platinum begging bowls of frightened Wall St. (Goldman Sachs serves as resident devil, though Moore will always give the throne in hell to Ronald Reagan).

If you like Moore’s message, what about his methods? Two decades after Pauline Kael knuckled him for slipping a few loose cards into the protest deck of “Roger and Me,” Moore (who does get a lot right) is still a flashy dealer. But by now we’ve seen enough peppy ’50s TV clips about the plastic Good Life, contrasted with modern families weeping on camera. Showing Reagan slapping Angie Dickinson in “The Killers” is a cheap shot, and Moore wastes time interviewing his chum, the actor and writer Wallace Shawn (it’s like a mint left from “My Dinner With Andre”).

Moore remains the altar boy who hoped to be a priest, a moralist who does not analyze. He laments, worries, scorns and warns. His moving climax shows the fragile but fearless FDR near his end, calling for a second, economic Bill of Rights (it never happened, even as we built progressive, social-net regimes in Germany and Japan). Moore lets Obama off the hook (for now), but the change he can believe in is far closer to Roosevelt’s old dream than anything now being manipulated through Congress. (Opens Friday; rated R) ★★★

“Whip It”

Drew Barrymore’s fabulous face is little seen in the roller-derby chick flick “Whip It” (a title certain to cause some bad shelving in video stores). But she directed Shauna Cross’ script about a small-town Tex teen named Bliss, who morphs into derby star Babe Ruthless. Ellen Page, who looks like she might have some trouble knocking a mouse off a cracker, is Bliss the Babe. The unintended joke is that she is supposed to be a threat to champ Iron Maven, acted by tall, kick-ass Juliette Lewis (who declares “I’m 36!” as if rebirthing Gloria Steinem).

This formula rouser is top-loaded with talent, including Marcia Gay Harden as Bliss’ controlling mom and Daniel Stern as her beer-gutted dad (his big reward is when darlin’ Bliss swigs, then belches). Alia Shawkat, Carlo Alban and Kristen Wiig are effective, and there is barbecue, skinny-dipping and gal-pal trash talk. Barrymore balances every stressed moment with two adorable ones. But Page, though adorable and spunky, isn’t a derby queen, nor quite the star she was in “Juno.” (Opens Friday; rated PG-13) ★★

“Coco Before Chanel”

Inevitably the fabled strings of pearls appear, but long before Coco Chanel achieves icon status on the mirrored staircase of her Paris atelier, we appreciate her style. Curiously, in “Coco Before Chanel,” that couture style echoes the austere mode of her humble clothes at an orphanage and then a sweaty music hall. For the greatest fashion figure of the 20^th century, this was roughly equivalent to being born in a log cabin.

Audrey Tautou, eight years beyond sweet “Amelie,” has matured into some Chanel gauntness. Her very bones demand that she streamline pre-WWI fashion. Little Gabrielle Chanel is brisk and acerbic, with an innate independence, living in a man’s world where women wear corsets, vast hats and lavish embellishment. Coco (seemingly nicknamed after a dog in a song) must find her way through men to power, even using the cut of male clothing to define a new paragon for women.

Anne Fontaine’s film is centrally about class. Coco, who is working class and not ashamed of it, keeps sewing as she rises from singing in dance halls. Her mentors are the rich and raffish Etienne, who accepts her at his country estate as a covert mistress, then as a virtual showpiece, and Arthur “Boy” Copel. He is English and sensitively acted by Alessandro Nivola as the sexy gent who can break Coco’s heart. The romance was hopeless but it helped liberate Chanel.

I wish that Fontaine had hired Fabrice Luchini from her amusing “The Girl from Monaco” to play Etienne, but Benoit Poelvoorde (much changed since 1992’s “Man Bites Dog”) is very good: a suavely spoiled playboy with a witty love of horses, parties and Chanel. The perfume here, if not quite Chanel No. 5, is the film’s soberly tasteful appreciation of Coco’s inner growth, framed by trappings worthy of Proust. Fontaine’s excellent  helpers are costumer Catherine Leterier, photographer Christophe Beaucarne and composer Alexandre Desplat. They do cut a pattern. (Opens Friday at Landmark Hillcrest; rated PG-13). ★★★

“Amreeka”

Inevitably some Palestinian Arabs, having contended with the British and Turkish empires and now Israel, have trickled to the oasis of freedom called Amreeka (America). In “Amreeka” the divorced bank teller Muna takes her teen son away from the constant anxiety of their ancestral land, only to find herself working at a White Castle outlet near Chicago.

Nisreen Faour, as appealing Muna, is hefty. That means a steady flow of humor about weight, dieting and White Castle burgers. Meanwhile her son (Melka Muallem) endures teen “patriots” who don’t really care that the bilingual, hard-working newcomers are Christians, not Muslims. They simply want some “A-rabs” to harass as the Iraq war heats up. But Muna is the kid’s rock, his Ma Joad.

Director and writer Cherien Dabis, a beautiful American (Nebraska-born) of Palestinian-Jordanian background, has a grasp of her subject and an engaging cast. Her visual sense only has life in the film’s early part, before the vivid West Bank gives way to mundane  blocks of Chicago suburbia. What matters, in this decent plodder, is human pride in valid survival.  (Opens Friday at Landmark La Jolla Village; rated PG-13). ★★

STARS: FOUR (ace), THREE (worthy), TWO (involving), ONE (dud), ZERO (nil)

RECOMMENDED (and current): “Capitalism: A Love Story,” “Bright Star,” “Coco Before Chanel,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Paris,” “The September Issue,” “Whiteout”

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NEWS Etc.

For Manny: Long-time San Diego resident, UCSD teacher and esteemed painter Manny Farber died last year at 91. Although never so famous as James Agee, Pauline Kael or Roger Ebert, Farber was a tough, maverick film critic for New York publications from the ’40s to ’70s, often a vociferous and witty champion of what he called “termite-tapeworm-fungus-moth” art. Fans will want the new Library of America volume, “Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber,” subject of a talk at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 9, by the book’s editor Robert Polito and Patricia Patterson (Mrs. Farber and long his collaborator). At D.G. Wills Books, 7461 Girard Ave., La Jolla (858) 456-1800; www.dgwillsbooks.com

Fest wrap: “According to feedback it was by far our best festival yet,” says Robin Laatz-Kozak, founding director of the eighth San Diego Film Festival, which concluded its five downtown days and nights on Sunday. “The number of new people far exceeded expectations.” Attendance was over 15,000, up about a thousand from 2008, and capacity crowds filled Gaslamp 15 venues for a number of events beyond those with such stellar visitors as Richard Dreyfuss, William Shatner and Ron Perlman. 350 moviemakers and cast members attended, and the party scene boomed.

SDFF award winners are Adam Kane’s “Formosa Betrayed” (best feature); Mira Sorvino (best actress) for “Like Dandelion Dust”; James Van Der Beek (best actor) for “Formosa Betrayed”; Shem Bitterman (best screenplay) for “The Job”; Angus James’ “American Harmony” (best documentary); Peter Besson’s “True Beauty This Night” (best short); Chris Morrow (best San Diego filmmaker) for the short “Wyland Earth Day”; David Altrogge’s “Sunlight” with The Reilly Band (best music video). Audience Choice awards went to “Reach For Me” (best feature) and “Jesse’s Story” (best documentary).

A QUOTE (not a blurb!): “I grew up in the days when the movies never stopped, screens (were) always filled. Something very beautiful about that constant flow of images.” — Manny Farber recalling (to interviewer Ed Crouse, 1999) the era when movies really saturated American dreams.

David Elliott is the SDNN movie critic.

Tags: Anne Fontaine, Audrey Tautou, Capitalism: A Love Story, Cherien Dabis, Coco Before Chanel, Coco Chanel, D.G. Wills Books, Drew Barrymore, Ellen Page, Juliette Lewis, Manny Farber, Michael Moore, Nisreen Faour, Patricia Patterson, review Amreeka, review Capitalism, review Coco Before Chanel, review Whip It, Robin Laatz-Kozak, San Diego Film Festival, SDNN, Whip It

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