The great photographer Robert Capa once said, ”If your pictures aren`t good enough, you aren`t getting close enough,” and since Capa was talking about the pictures of war, the consequences of getting closer could be deadly. The first of two films being presented in the latest edition of
”P.O.V.” (10:30 p.m. Monday, PBS-Ch. 11) deals with the images of war and of the consequences of getting them.
”Last Images of War” is the work of filmmakers Stephen Olsson and Scott Andrews, free-lance journalists who went to Afghanistan in the early `80s to chronicle the invasion by Soviet troops.
Inspired by the death of a photographer friend named Jim Lindelof, Olsson and Andrews have made a moving and insightful film that is a homage to the courage of those who risk their lives for the sake of capturing war`s images and an exploration of what drove Lindelof and three other photojournalists to get so close to the battle that they were willing to risk their lives-and to lose them.
The principals are a fascinating bunch: Lindelof, a California paramedic who went to Afghanistan to minister to the wounded; Andy Skrzypkowiak, the English-bred son of a Polish refugee who had been persecuted by the communists; Naoko Nanjo from Japan, a young woman from monied circumstances whose camera was drawn to the suffering of people around the world; and Sasha Sekretaryov, whose assignment from the Soviet government to photograph soldiers returning from the war turned into a dangerous investigation of the real war his country was waging.
The motivations of these brave-some would say foolhardy-people were vastly different and, told against a backdrop of the Afghan people and their struggles, tremendously compelling.
”The Longest Shadow,” by filmmaker Kalina Ivanov, makes the second half of this intriguing package.
It takes place in 1990 when Ivanov returned to her native Bulgaria after a 40-year absence to record the country`s first free elections in nearly a half-century.
Although we get fine documentary footage of the events surrounding the elections, the film increasingly starts to strongly echo the past, as Ivanov`s tough and hard-nosed style eventually allows her to unravel the mysteries behind the 1951 disappearances of her grandfathers.
”The Longest Shadow,” a story of families and politics, fascinates.
– It is amazing to me that Howie Mandel is not only surviving in TV, but thriving.
”Howie,” his latest effort, is the awkward and distasteful result of four half-hour comedy-variety specials taped a couple of weeks ago at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim, Calif., and fashioned into a summer series that plays for the next three Wednesdays at 7 p.m. on WBBM-Ch. 2.
A shameless mugger and shrill performer, Mandel provided a number of reasons not to watch his show during the premiere last week.
He runs from a plane with a woman we are led to believe is his mother and who he makes bump into things and fall down. There`s a stupid monologue. He plays his whiny alter ego Bobby on roller skates; and has his real-life 7-year-old daughter say, ”Thank you all for buying a ticket to my daddy`s show, because without you my mommy wouldn`t be able to drive a Mercedes-Benz.”
The ”Howie” blend is a mess, a painful combination of standup stuff;
strained acting; and performance tape mingling with comedy sketches, celebrity guests and variety show-like shtick.
