Thursday, October 08, 2020

Yellow Rose: As Country As It Gets

Rose Garcia sounds pretty Texan and she grew up loving country music, but she originally hails from the Philippines. She mostly grew up in the Lone Star State, but she is an immigrant—the undocumented kind. This inconvenient fact will cause her considerable hardship, but that in turn will be fodder for some legit old school country songs in director-screenwriter-producer Diane Paragas’s Yellow Rose, which opens in physical theaters tomorrow.

Garcia has been self-conscious about performing ever since some knuckle-dragging students called her “Yellow Rose” during a school talent show. Yet, she kept working on songs. That is how she caught the eye of Elliott Blatnik, an open-minded music store clerk. Unfortunately, Garcia must de-prioritize their budding romance when her mother is apprehended by the dreaded ICE and held for likely deportation.

At this point, Garcia feels culturally at-home in Texas, so she intends to stay, but it will not be easy. Since the Yankee husband of her aunt Gail makes it disgustingly obvious she is not welcome, Garcia finds shelter in the back room of Jolene’s small but authentic Austin club instead. However, when the club is raided by those dastardly ICE agents, Garcia starts crashing in country hipster Dale Watson’s Airstream trailer. The old cat is not about to pull any funny business, but he could become an unlikely mentor to Garcia.

Pretty much everything in
Yellow Rose proceeds according to the standard underdog-chasing-her-dreams formula, but the cast is so earnest, they make it work anyway. Broadway star Eva Noblezada easily transitions to the screen, doing some impressively expressive and engaging work as Garcia. She also develops some terrific protégé-teacher chemistry with Dale Watson (one of the stars of the Stephen King book musical, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County), essentially playing a boozily self-aware analog of himself. His earthy charisma really pops off the screen.

Wednesday, October 07, 2020

Woody Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York

Woody Allen is just as creepy now as he was when he won his fourth Oscar for Midnight in Paris. In recent years, he has been dogged by molestation accusations, but since Allen’s son Moses disputes his sister’s allegations and two investigations either found insufficient evidence for a charge or concluded the events in question did not happen, most sane people would be reluctant to offer an opinion of their own on such a murky, contested issue. However, these are not sane times. The truth is we have no idea whether Allen did what he is accused of and neither do you, (whereas we know with absolute certainty Polanski committed and pled guilty to the crime that made him a fugitive).

So, that’s all very awkward, but if you want to vent moral indignation, the concentration camps in Xinjiang or the abduction of the Hong Kong 12 are clear-cut targets of worthy outrage. Whereas, if you enjoyed Woody Allen films during less over-heated times, his long-delayed
A Rainy Day in New York is pretty much like all the other ones. After his first distributor caved to mob-pressure, Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York finally opens this Friday in the U.S., but not in Allen’s beloved New York, because theaters are closed here, perhaps permanently.

Allen-surrogate Gatsby Welles is a bright young man, but he had to transfer to Yardley, a sheltered liberal arts college, because Ivy League schools were too unstructured for him. (I was going to joke Welles was originally called Orson Hemingway in an earlier draft, but that actually sounds less pretentious.) Welles still isn’t studying much, but he gets by academically and enjoys romancing his naïve girlfriend Asheigh Enright, from the wild backcountry of Tucson, Arizona (believe it or not, they have a symphony and an opera company there, but this film was intended for Manhattan snobs, so it doesn’t matter).

When the campus paper assigns Enright an interview with tormented indie director Roland Pollard, Welles tags along, to show her the City. Inevitably, Welles gets frustrated and jealous when the smitten Pollard stretches out the one-hour interview with a special screening and a supplemental interview with his equally neurotic screenwriter, Ted Davidoff. Instead, Welles spends the day, off-on-on, with Chan Tyrell, the whip-smart younger sister of his old girlfriend. All those romantic cliches he wanted to do with Enright he does with Tyrell—and its not bad.

Timothee Chalamet apologized to everyone in Hollywood for making this film, but he really should have apologized to Allen for being so shticky and affected playing Welles. This character is supposed to be a Ferris Bueller of Park Avenue, but he is never comfortable in Welles’ retro hipster skin—and his crooning voice is pathetic. Likewise, Elle Fanning is downright cringe-inducing as the air-headed Enright. On the other hand, Selena Gomez takes command of every scene she has as Tyrell, through the warmth of her charm and her intelligent good humor.

Liev Schreiber (the scourge of auto-correct features) is drolly amusing portraying Pollard, the anxiety-ridden, self-destructive but prolific filmmaker. You have to wonder who he could have looked to for inspiration while filming his scenes. Jude Law nicely plays against type as the nebbish Davidoff. Yet, it is Cherry Jones who steals the picture with her unforgettable third act scene portraying Welles’ surprisingly cool grand society mother.

Tuesday, October 06, 2020

To Your Last Death: Animated Horror on DVD

It is your basic feel-good Hallmark family movie, except a gaggle of cosmic gamblers keep rewinding the narrative to make it bloodier. It is also animated. Regardless, Miriam Dekalb and her grown siblings will have to work together to survive the death-traps prepared by their evil father, or maybe they will just turn on each other in Jason Axinn’s To Your Last Death, which releases today on BluRay.

Arms-dealer industrialist Cyrus Dekalb always made his children miserable, so they returned the favor when he was nominated for Vice-President. Their tell-all press conference was the last time they were together. Now that old man Dekalb is facing his mortality, he naturally wants his revenge, so he called the family together, to bump them off, in spectacularly gruesome fashion.

Only Miriam survived, but that wasn’t sufficiently interesting for the mysterious Gamemaster. She gives the Dekalb “final girl” the chance for a do-over, to save her siblings and get her awful father, once and for all. However, the otherworldly game facilitator reserves the right to intervene in any way she sees fit, to keep the action interesting. This was all Dekalb’s idea, but it suits the all-seeing gamblers’ purposes just fine.

The way screenwriters Jim Cirile & Tanya C. Klein have their characters embrace outright sadism is really rather depressing. This is an animated film, but what it says about the human condition is sadly discouraging. Given the animated format, there is an obvious temptation to be edgy and take things over-the-top, but
To Your Last Death is just way too much at times. (As a point of reference, Joe Lynch managed to wring humor out of an office bloodbath in Mayhem without rubbing our noses in abject cruelty.)

Monday, October 05, 2020

Music + Film Brazil ’20: Beyond Ipanema

For a while, every desperate jazz A&R exec would force their artists to record a “with strings” album. Then the Bossa Nova record became the gimmick of choice. However, that opened up plenty of opportunities for Brazilian musicians and resulted in some truly classic records. The Brazilian Bossa wave helped revitalize jazz’s commercial viability, at least to an extent. Somewhat logically, it is through a Bossa Nova prism that Americans view Brazilian music (even non-jazz fans). Not surprisingly, Bossa anchors directors Guto Barra & Beco Dranoff’s survey of Brazilian music, as seen from abroad, but they widen the perspective to include other styles and genres during Beyond Ipanema, which screens for free today, as part of Cinema Tropical’s online 2020 edition of Music + Film: Brazil.

One of the coolest things about
Beyond is the credit it bestows Carmen Miranda, for making it big in Hollywood, while staying true to her Brazilian roots. For a time, she was the highest compensated woman in America, so she had the clout to insist on real-deal samba and Portuguese lyrics in her studio films. It is indeed refreshing to see the likes of Caetano Veloso remind us of who she really is, correcting the media’s corny image of her.

Of course, a good deal of
Beyond focuses on Bossa Nova, chronicling touchstone events, like the release of Black Orpheus and its smash hit soundtrack album, as well as the chaotic but groundbreaking 1962 Carnegie Hall all-star concert. Joao Gilberto is not inappropriately identified as the Bossa Nova pioneer, but viewers also hear from Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, and Oscar Castro Neves. We also get commentary from Bud Shank and Clare Fischer, legit jazz musicians who recorded legit Bossa Nova albums.

Strangely, Tropicalia and MPB are rather cursorily discussed, but Gilberto Gil and Marcos Valle have some screen time. Os Mutantes also get their due representing rock and funk. Many Brazilian music fans will be surprised how much time is granted to the sampling of Brazilian music, but it makes sense for Bebel Gilberto to serve as the face of this section.

Devils (Pilot)

We have a way of “loving to hate” villainous captains of finance like Gordon Gekko and Billions’ Bobby Axelrod so much, we actually start to dig them for real. That could be the case for Dominic Morgan. He talks a good game and he is a master manipulator. Massimo Ruggero should know. The head of the NYL investment house has a talent for “motivating” his protégé, but it still isn’t exactly a trusting relationship. Ruggero will have to look out for himself if he wants to get ahead, but safety really isn’t a concern for double-dealing schemers in the pilot episode of Devils, which premieres this Wednesday on the CW.

Ruggero was the only trader in London’s financial district smart enough to “short” Greece. He made NYL pots of money and should earn himself a plum promotion. Unfortunately, it is not entirely his mentor Morgan’s decision to make. As a striving immigrant from a hardscrabble Italian fishing village, Ruggero has the wrong background as far as the upper-crust directors are concerned. However, the blue-blooded faction is up to their necks in a deal with a considerable downside. It would definitely help Ruggero’s prospects if the deal went south, so maybe he will just help it along.

Presumably, the body we see plunging to its death in the flashforward prologue is somehow related to all this skullduggery. Naturally, there is a fair amount of expository business in the pilot, but intrigue holds plenty of promise. Plus, the clear implication that a Wikileaks-style group is just as morally compromised as the investment bankers opens up some very interesting dramatic avenues to explore. However, the emerging subplot involving Ruggero’s wayward ex-wife feels unrealistically contrived.

Ruggero’s informal kitchen cabinet includes two promising supporting characters, Wade, a professor at the London School of Economics, and Oliver Harris, his brilliant but financially-challenged student, who will be doing most of Ruggero’s off-the-books research and legwork.

Sunday, October 04, 2020

Swamp Thing, Now on the CW

The battle of the comic book bayou beasts was really no contest. Marvel had Man-Thing, who is still best remembered as an associate of Howard the Duck. DC published The Swamp Thing, which was written for several years by a young Alan Moore and inspired Wes Craven’s cult-favorite film. A campy sequel and an early 1990s cable series eventually followed. Given DC’s current success with episodic television, it made sense for them to take another whack at the character for their streaming service, but they announced the first season would also be the last, shortly after its premiere. Yet, somewhat appropriately, Xi’s Covid epidemic prompted an opportunity for the mucky brooder to rise again, when the CW picked up the network broadcast rights to season one of Gary Dauberman & Mark Verheiden’s Swamp Thing, which premieres on free TV this Wednesday.

CDC field investigator Dr. Abby Arcane has returned to her hometown of Marais, LA, where some strange viral outbreak has rattled the community (can we relate?). Her teenaged years there were difficult, for tragic reasons we will soon discover, so she is less than thrilled to be back. However, the nature of the pestilence is so severe, she accepts the inevitable awkwardness. Consulting with Alec Holland, a talented but somewhat disreputable scientist hired by local big-wig Avery Sunderland, proves illuminating. He was hired to track the accelerated growth effects of a “mutagen” Sunderland’s business is developing, but he discovered illegal mega-dumpings of the serum have been systematically released into the swamp.

There seems to be a connection between the mutagen and the virus, but the nature of the latter remains unclear. Sadly, Holland winds up dead for his efforts, but not dead enough. Somehow, the mutagen transformed him into a big hulking plant creature—or something like that. His cellular structure is radically altered but he still has his memories and continues to carry a torch for Arcane, who in turn yearns to cure the man she was developing feelings for.

This review is based on the episodes that are available on DVD and VOD, which will be slightly edited for length and content when they air on the CW. That means they will be a bit shorter and slightly less fun, because one of the best aspects of this
Swamp Thing are the macabre mutant-plant effects and the wild body horror they often produce.

Regardless, the way the latest
Swamp Thing series embraces the horror elements of the franchise is quite effective (logically so, given James Wan’s executive producer imprimatur). The effects really do work and the Southern Gothic elements compliment the mad science quite nicely (from a fan’s perspective). Yet, one of the biggest discoveries is how cool the relatively minor DC Universe super-hero The Blue Devil turns out to be, when given an unexpected supporting role. We’d rather see a spin-off series for him, rather than a second season for Swampy.

Be that as it may, Dauberman & Verheiden’s
Swamp Thing earns a lot of good will for showcasing some talented 80’s and 90’s-era character thesps, including 90210’s Ian Ziering, who constantly gives the show a jolt of energy as Daniel Cassidy, who is and will become the Blue Devil. Likewise, it is always entertaining to see Will Patton do what he does best as the villainous Sunderland. Virginia Madsen constantly forces viewers to re-evaluate their assumptions regarding Maria Sunderland, the evil big-shot’s profoundly grieving wife. Yet, it is Jennifer Beals who constantly surprises as the cynical and decidedly unpredictable Sheriff Lucilia Cable.

Crystal Reed manages to project all of Arcane’s guilt-ridden angst without taxing viewer patience, which really is quite an accomplishment. She also forges some genuinely credible chemistry with Andy Bean as the flesh-and-blood Holland and Derek Mears as his giant fungal analog.

For true-green fans, Mears has big, muddy shoes to fill, since the late Dick Durock portrayed the monstrous super-hero in both films and the previous TV series, but he really gives the show tortured soul, very much in the Universal monster tradition. However, there are times when Kevin Durand is maybe a little too campy as the arrogant and untrustworthy scientist, Dr. Jason Woodrue. In contrast, Macon Blair chews the scenery with just the right level of hamminess as the Phantom Stranger.

Reportedly, DC Universe cut their order from thirteen episodes to ten after production commences, so it only stands to reason that plenty of loose ends remain unresolved. Fans should know Anton Arcane, Louis Jordan’s character in the Craven film does not appear in the first and presumably only season, but Adrienne Barbeau chops poor Abby Arcane off at the knees in a special appearance as the CDC’s assistant director. The series gets that kind of fan service right and also offers up a lot of creepy ambiance and macabre imagery. Some of the conspiratorial themes are rather shopworn and conventional, but the supernatural and super-hero elements blend quite smoothly. Recommended as a horror show that carves out its own hybrid-space,
Swamp Thing starts its broadcast TV run this Tuesday (10/6), on the CW.

Saturday, October 03, 2020

COBRA, on PBS

It is a sad state of affairs when neither major party presidential candidate will condemn extremists on their sides of the political spectrum. Genuine moderates are rare these days, but there is still one in the UK. That would be fictional Prime Minister Robert Sutherland, a very David Cameron-esque Conservative. Frustratingly, extremist partisans on both sides will take advantage of a natural disaster to undermine his government in writer-creator Ben Richards’ six-part COBRA, which starts tomorrow night on PBS.

Technically, COBRA is not an acronym. It is really a bit of a misnomer for the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, but it is a catchy term. In any event, there will be a COBRA convened to prepare as best they can for a sudden solar event that could possibly wreak havoc on the power grid and communications network. At first, blowhard Brexit Home Secretary Archie Glover-Morgan is more concerned about his snake-in-the-grass protégé getting sacked, but things suddenly get serious when everyone realizes this disaster is actually happening.

It could have been worse. Four regional transformers were fried, but most of the nation still has power. The bad news is they only have three spare transformers available. As Fraser Walker, the administrator of their rough equivalent to FEMA explains, transformers are an industrial-sized item that you can’t just stash in a drawer for a rainy day. A fourth is quickly procured, but while it is in transit, one region must endure sustained darkness. Northumberland logically draws the short straw, because a jetliner crash on the highway has temporarily cut off ground transportation.

However, mounting frustration will give rise to a nativist militia uprising, who will challenge Chief Constable Stuart Collier’s efforts to maintain safety and stability. The resulting anarchy is also a golden opportunity for the Home Secretary to undermine Sutherland, which only gets riper when the PM’s daughter becomes embroiled in a tragic scandal.

Although Richards takes every cheap shot possible at Tory policies,
COBRA inadvertently illustrates how the worst impulses of demagogues on both sides are cynically egged on by the media. Sutherland faces some agonizing choices, but he invariably makes the best possible decision, yet he is vilified in the press and opportunistic extremists, who use violent revolutionary rhetoric when calling for his ouster. The ironic parallels between the show’s riots and the chaos on the streets of Portland and Kenosha is awkwardly glaring. It probably wasn’t what Richards was intending, but it makes COBRA uncomfortably timely.

Of course, the site of Robert Carlyle in Number 10 will inevitably make viewers think: “no wonder there’s trouble, they elected Begbie from
Trainspotting.” Nevertheless, he plays Sutherland with a steeliness that inspires confidence. When he vents, it is beautiful, but he also has some finely turned moments of compassion.

Friday, October 02, 2020

A Call to Spy: The Brave Women of Churchill’s SOE

One out of every three British SOE agents smuggled into France was killed by Germans or their Vichy collaborators. To reward them for their service, newly elected Labour PM Clement Atlee sacked the entire agency 48 hours after taking office. Women agents faired just about the same. 13 of Vera Atkins’ 39 “special recruits” never returned from occupied France either. Yet, their service and sacrifices were quite remarkable. The true stories of Atkins and her two most celebrated agents, Virginia Hall and Noor Inayat Khan are told in Lydia Dean Pilcher’s A Call to Spy, which opens today in select theaters and on VOD.

Clandestine warfare was going badly for Britain, like everything else during the early stages of WWII. It was the job of Col. Maurice Buckmaster and his civilian colleague, Vera Atkins, to change that. They were in charge of training and strategy for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Despite Atkins’ protests, they initially only recruited men, but their hidebound superiors relented as SOE casualties mounted. As a Romanian immigrant of Jewish descent, the war was particularly personal for Atkins, but it also made her a figure of suspicion for many of her less enlightened colleagues.

Hall and Khan had one advantage. Neither of them fit the profile of a likely spy. Hall was an American, who relied on a prosthetic leg. Khan was born in Russia to an Indian Muslim father, who was revered teacher of Sufism (which actually meant they were quite moderate and tolerant). Hall proved to be a gifted organizer, who built an extensive network throughout Vichy, whereas Khan had what was considered the most dangerous assignment in France. She was one of several “wireless” operators, who were constantly tracked and triangulated by the Gestapo—and also rather conspicuous, since they were tethered to their bulky radios.

If Noor Khan sounds familiar, perhaps you saw the PBS profile,
An Enemy of the Reich, which aired six years ago. She was definitely a heroic woman, but there is more to Hall’s exploits, for unfortunate reasons you should be able to guess. In fact, it is truly criminal Hall is not widely celebrated in our history books. After the SOE extracted her from France, she returned with the American OSS and then served with Central Intelligence during the Cold War—so remember her service next time a Hollywood film denigrates the CIA.

Hosts: Horrible Christmas Horror

Body-snatching movies are particularly insidious, because they make us ask if our loved ones have been podded by an outside force or if they have just been corrupted by an evil ideology, like Communism. However, there is not a lot of ambiguity when the snatched bodies have glowing red eyes and they act like homicidal maniacs. Frankly, Michael shouldn’t have never let his Christmas Eve guests through the door, but he does and it turns out horrendously in screenwriter-director Adam Leader & Richard Oakes’ Hosts, which releases today on VOD.

Michael has befriended Jack and his girlfriend Lucy, because unbeknownst to them, he abandoned the former and his mother, shortly after his birth. Subsequently, Michael settled down with Cassie and had a family with her that he was more emotionally prepared to support. Part of Michael wanted to come clean with Jack during the holiday get-together, but that won’t be happening now. Quite unfortunately, Jack and Lucy are possessed by some sort of sinister agency before leaving for the dinner party, where they soon start committing acts of shocking violence.

Leader & Oakes leave the exact nature of the badness annoyingly vague. There are good reasons to think it is demonic, given the evil Lucy turns pictures of Jesus face-down. On the other hand, media reports drop ludicrous hints that this is all somehow related to fracking, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

In all fairness,
Hosts probably works best as an in-person midnight movie, screening at a theater that serves beer—a whole lot of it. The whole film essentially hinges on an explosively brutal timing joke. Maybe it works in a theater full of drunk fans, but at home, it just seems cruelly unfair. Regardless, it certainly sets the tone for the rest of the picture. Honestly, most viewers will just feel relieved when it finally ends.

Thursday, October 01, 2020

The Rising Hawk: Ukrainian Historical Action, with Robert Patrick

Back in the 13th Century, a hearty community of Ukrainians faced an invasion from the east. In this case, it was a Mongol army rather than the ununiformed troops of Putin’s moribund Russian regime, but the implications were pretty much the same for the invaded. However, the rough-hewn highlanders faced adversity before, so they are not afraid to fight for what’s theirs in John Wynn & co-director Akhtem Seitablaev’s The Rising Hawk, an English-language, Ukrainian-American co-production, which releases tomorrow on-demand.

Zakhar and Rada’s older son Ivan is the brawny one, but his younger brother Maksim is the really tough one. Zakhar understands how that works. He looks like an old farmer, but when outside forces threaten their peaceful valley, he will be the one to rally their defenses. In contrast, Tugar, the warlord who appointed himself “Boyar” of the region, will cave and capitulate when confronting Burunda Khan’s army. That is endlessly embarrassing for his crack archer daughter Myroslava, who is unambiguously encouraging Maksim’s romantic advances.

Things really come to a head when Maksim kills the Khan’s son while rescuing women abducted from the valley. Zakhar’s community will have to stand alone, along with two notable allies: Myroslava and Bohun, an unstable warrior Maksim also freed from the Mongols, who holds a deeply personal grudge against his former captors.

The first forty minutes or so are a bit slow, but
Hawk gets pretty cool when the fighting starts for real. The hack-and-slash action is often brutally realistic, but also impressively cinematic. Wynn and Uzbek filmmaker Seitablaev give the film epic scope, capitalizing on the mountain vistas (the Carpathians, they’re not just for Dracula movies anymore), while keeping the action gritty and viscerally personal.

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

The Antenna: The Horror of Turkish Propaganda

Regardless of genre or cultural biases, creeping black slime is always a bad thing. The same is also always true of all-encompassing state propaganda. A dingy Turkish high-rise apartment complex will have to contend with both. Rather logically, they are most likely related in Orcun Behram’s analog dystopian horror film, The Antenna, which releases virtually this Friday.

This is an auspicious day according to Cihan, the bullying building manager, because the installation of the oppressive government’s new communications system will allow residents to receive propaganda bulletins whenever the government wishes. However, the downtrodden look of his nightwatchman-handyman Mehmet is much closer to expressing reality. Most people would consider it a bad sign when the state engineer installing the antenna plunges to his death, but the demoralized and desensitized residents just shrug.

Cihan is suspiciously keen for all residents to listen to the inaugural midnight broadcast, but Mehmet is not particularly curious, especially since he has been so busy with repairs related to the black sludge oozing into the pipes and electrical system. Even though it doesn’t make sense, it seems like it is emanating from the regime’s new ballyhooed antenna.

Behram’s film has the astringent aesthetics of an art film and the gooey grossness of an alien horror movie. Obviously, the film is a not-so veiled allegorical critique of Erdogan’s increasingly Islamist authoritarian rule. However, Behram still takes care of the genre business. There are some truly disgusting scenes in
Antenna, but they make an important point, besides grossing the heck out of everyone. The vibe is a lot like The Eyes of My Mother or The Lighthouse, but the stakes are higher, since all the micro-creepiness is most likely a by-product of the dystopian macro-conspiracy.

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Music + Film Brazil ’20: Gilberto Gil Anthology Vol. 1

He was there on the Bahia Tropicalia scene with Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethania, and Gal Costa. Gilberto Gil would also join Veloso first in prison and then in exile. Fortunately, it didn’t last forever. Gil even became the Brazilian Minister of Culture, even though he was underwhelmed by what he felt was a paltry salary (by his standards). Now a revered Brazilian musical figure, Gil looks back on his early recordings in Lula Buarque de Hollanda’s Gilberto Gil Anthology Vol. 1, which screens as part of Cinema Tropical’s online 2020 edition of Music + Film: Brazil.


The only commentary we hear during
Anthology (the first of three projected volumes, intended to culminate around Gil’s 80th birthday) is that from Gil himself. His reminiscences are intimate and relaxed. At times, he addresses politics, especially “Lingua do Pe,” the song he wrote in hipster “Pig Latin” as a means of circumventing the military’ censorship (to keep things simple, they banned the entire tune), but he never leans in too deeply. Frankly, the biggest news for real deal Brazilian music fans is the revelation Gil wrote “If I want to Talk to God” for Roberto Carlos, but he declined to perform it. (For those who do not know the Brazilian crooner, this would sort of be like Wayne Newton turning down a song from Prince.)

Monday, September 28, 2020

Music + Film Brazil ’20: Where are You, João Gilberto?

The late João Gilberto was like the J.D. Salinger of Bossa Nova. He was one of the founders of the musical movement and recorded its biggest hit album, the multiple-Grammy-winning Getz/Gilberto, but he had not been seen in public for years. Even his manager and closest family had intermittent contact and only over the phone. Marc Fischer, a German musician, was so fascinated with Gilberto and his music, he wrote a book about his fruitless quest to meet his idol. Georges Gachot, an established documentarian of Brazilian music, retraces Fischer’s steps in Where are You, João Gilberto?, which screens as part of Cinema Tropical’s online 2020 edition of Music + Film: Brazil.


According to legend, Gilberto used to woodshed in his tiny bathroom while he still lived in Minas Gerais, because he thought the acoustics were optimal (both Fischer and Gadot made their pilgrimages there). He recorded some of Bossa Nova’s biggest hits, with Tom Jobim, Stan Getz, and his first wife, Astrud Gilberto. However, as his fame increased, he became increasingly demanding regarding recording and concert conditions, like a Bossa Glenn Gould. Then he disappeared from view. Even his daughter Bebel Gilberto and her mother Miucha (the second wife Gilberto was relatively amicably separated from) only received sporadic calls from the iconic musician.

In a way, that only increased Gilberto’s allure for Fischer. Yet, shortly before the publication of his book, Fischer apparently took his own life. Using Fischer’s book as a road map, Gachot tries to make some sort of connection with Gilberto, for his own fannish satisfaction and as a sort of tribute to Fischer, making the resulting film even more poignant (especially since Gilberto was still alive during its production and initial festival screenings). In fact, Gachot’s journey becomes something like the music writer’s analog to
Searching for Sugarman.

Of course, there is plenty of wonderful music to hear along the way, including archival recordings of Gilberto (and maybe, just maybe something more), as well as laidback performances from Miucha, João Donato (Gilberto’s friend and collaborator), Roberto Menschal (friend and colleague), and Marcos Valle (who didn’t really know Gilberto, but was influenced by him and had a memorable conversation with the elusive “O Mito”).

Tar: It Came from La Brea

The La Brea tar pits are like ultimate primordial burial ground and the city of Los Angeles was basically developed right over them (and you know what happens to people who build over ancient remains in horror films). From time to time, the pits have appeared in movies, typically of the disaster variety. In this one, the evicted tenants of a down-market office building will not be lucky enough to have a conventional natural disaster to contend with. Instead, they must fight off something monstrous that has survived below in Aaron Wolf’s Tar, which opens this Friday in drive-ins and a few of those places where they project movies.


Things were strained between Zach Greenwood and his father Barry, even before their scummy landlord Sebastien Stirling terminated their decades-old lease with one day’s notice, forcing them to vacate, clean, and repaint by 6:00 am, or face $100K in penalties. Suddenly, they are scrambling to save the family repair business, as is the neighbor, accountant Diana Dunder of DD Accounting (if you don’t get the joke now, you’ll know it when you see it).

Of course, Greenwood’s slacker pal Ben is too busy not helping Dunder to do anything for him and his dad. At least their palm-reading assistant Marigold is an efficient packer. However, when the power is suddenly cut, it really sets them back—and then the mysterious “Tar Man” creature attacks.

Initially, Wolf creates a terrific group dynamic for the hodge-podge office mates and effectively establishes the tar-thing’s back-story through the legends told by “Carl,” the homeless La Brea story-teller. However, he relies a little too heavily on Greenwood family flashbacks and lets the attitude dissipate somewhat during the second half, as the monster-stalking-his-prey business overshadows the characters’ snarky arguments and horny double-entendre. In fact, viewers will probably be surprised how upset they get when supporting characters start to meet their genre-mandated fate.

Indeed,
Tar has an unusually strong ensemble for a tongue-in-cheek monster movie half-spoof. Tiffany Shepis, Nicole Alexandra Shipley, and Dani Fernandez all earn big laughs as Marigold, Dunder, and her assistant, Carmenia. Stuart Stone oozes slime as Stirling, while Max Perlich projects flinty grit and wiry strength as Greenwood’s flashback grandpa. Similarly, Timothy Bottoms personifies world-weary regret as Barry Greenwood.

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Wives of the Skies (short)

It is a cardinal law of publishing that ghost-writers should never call attention to themselves. Yet, the true author of the 1967 smash bestseller Coffee, Tea or Me? did just that when he took credit for it in his memoir. Yes, it turns out the sexy flight attendants’ tell-all really was an airline guerilla marketing campaign. Exploitation masters like Roger Corman and Al Adamson rode the resulting wave with the air-bound sex comedies. There is still a weird fetishistic interest in 1960s stewardesses (as they were then called) that inspired and gets lampooned in Honey Lauren’s short film, Wives of the Skies, which releases Tuesday on VOD.


Clearly, bottom-feeding British journalist Derrick Wooder has ogled stewardesses in airports and consumed media like “Trudy Baker & Rachel Jones’”
Coffee, Tea or Me. Having completed an assignment in America (circa 1965), he hatches a plan to shoot a brief documentary about the women who work as “wives of the skies.” As luck would have it, two women staying in his hotel look like they would be perfect subjects: Fran Baxter and Marcy Carter, who both work for Fine Air. Baxter and Carter have a way of acting simultaneously innocent and saucy that quite stimulates his imagination. However, his mind will be completely blown when he arrives at their room for his first interview session.

Although Lauren obviously set out to subvert the male-gaze-blah-blah-blah, she does so in a way that is refreshingly gentle and endearing. Rather than setting up Wooder as an object of contempt and scorn, she makes us rather like the fellow. Ironically, he turns out to be the most naïve character of the film. In fact, she gives us unlikely but genuine feel-good resolution to her naughty tale.

Saturday, September 26, 2020

The Price of Fear: Theater of Blood

Among his many talents, Vincent Price was quite renowned as a chef. He must have enjoyed the chance to employ his culinary skills in this film. Admittedly, it is for a macabre meal inspired by Titus Andronicus, but it is still cooking. Reportedly, this was one of Price’s favorite films and also a favorite of his co-star, the late, great Diana Rigg. Fittingly, Douglas Hickox’s Theater of Blood is one of five films coming to Shudder as part of their “Price of Fear” collection.


The late Edward Lionheart was a classically trained traditionalist, but he was also terribly corny, at least according to the dismissive London drama critics. They panned his performances and then humiliated him when he inexplicably got the idea in his head that he was due to win their annual award. That would make him the logical suspect when someone starts murdering members of the drama circle in grisly ways inspired by Shakespeare’s bloodiest scenes, except Lionheart is dead—or rather presumed dead.

For a while, plodding Inspector Boot focuses on Lionheart’s loyal daughter Edwina, but she has no intention of cooperating and no sympathy for the fools who belittled her father. Despite their police protection, Lionheart and his accomplices, a gang of homeless crazies and a creepy hippy, keep cutting through the critics. It rather alarms Peregrine Devlin, the arrogant chair of the critics’ association, who was the first to suspect Lionheart.

Theater
is a wonderfully macabre but erudite film that offered Price a chance to perform some of the greatest Shakespearean speeches, while still giving people what they wanted from a Vincent Price movie. It is easy to see why the film was adapted for the legit London stage in 2005, with Rigg’s daughter Rachael Stirling taking on her role as Lionheart’s daughter. It certainly worked out for Price too, since he met his third wife Coral Browne while she was playing one of the ill-fated critics.

In fact, Price and Rigg were right.
Theater is a very distinctive horror film that combines the baroqueness of The Abominable Dr. Phibes with the tragic heft of Shakespeare and the grittiness of Death Line (a.k.a. Raw Meat). Lionheart’s Shakespearean death traps are wonderfully theatrical, but Price’s performance is often surprisingly poignant, especially his ostensive suicide scene, involving Hamlet’s soliloquy. He and Rigg are terrific together. Frankly, fans had never seen Rigg as she appeared in Theater—you sort of need to see it to understand why.

Friday, September 25, 2020

Utopia, from Gillian Flynn & Amazon

So many people are asked “where is Utopia” in this series. At least one of them should have said Utopia doesn’t exist. It is a false temptation that inevitably leads to totalitarianism. Seriously, “Erewhon” is nowhere spelled backwards (almost). However, in this case, Utopia is a thing and maybe something more. It is the sequel to an underground graphic novel titled Dystopia that many geeky conspiracy theorists believe holds portents of an impending apocalypse. Unfortunately, these motley nerds are more right than wrong in the eight-episode Utopia, created by Gillian “Gone Girl Flynn (adapting Dennis Kelly’s UK series of the same name), which premieres today on Amazon Prime.


A young couple finds what looks like page proofs of a bizarrely baroque allegorical dystopian comic book. Through a little bit of internet research, they determine it is the mysterious, long-awaited sequel to
Dystopia, a cult phenomenon with a rabid fanbase—so it is probably worth something. They decide to auction it off at a local comic convention. Wilson Wilson and his fellow Utopia chatroom friends will have to be there, so they can bid, pooling their resources. It will also be there first opportunity to meet in real life.

The last part will be the part for the fellow fans. There is definitely a budding romantically attraction between the sweet-tempered (but ailing) Becky and the nebbish Ian. Wilson is also duly impressed to discover Samantha’s obsessive interpretations of
Dystopia rival his own in their wild paranoia. However, they have yet to discover their fifth member, Grant is actually a tough street kid.

Unfortunately, the get-together takes a dark turn when a creepy duo of killers starts snuffing out everyone at the convention who had contact with the pages of
Utopia. Suddenly, the fans are on the run from a shadowy cabal, very much like the one in the pages of Dystopia/Utopia. Things really get surreal when they are forced to make an alliance with an unstable but highly lethal young woman who claims to be Jessica Hyde, the hero of the fateful comics, who has her own reasons for wanting Utopia.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates-like Big Pharma tycoon Dr. Kevin Christie is bedeviled by media speculation his new synthetic meat has caused a deadly viral outbreak among school children. Mild-mannered academic Dr. Michael Stearns suspects it might be the rare bat virus he discovered in Peru. What do these characters have in common? Surely, it is all explained in the pages of
Utopia.

So, who’s in the mood for an apocalyptic viral thriller? Obviously, there are plenty parallels between the crisis facing the world in
Utopia and the real-life pandemic that is still persistently hanging around. However, the real point of the show is its geeky meta-ness. The in-film reality blends and overlaps with the comic duology’s mythology in ways that are often quite clever. Flynn relentlessly raises the stakes with each episode, which she invariably ends with a wicked cliffhanger.

It is easy to get hooked by
Utopia, even though you might not always enjoy watching it. This series and its characters have some serious mean streaks. Frankly, there is more stone-cold cruelty depicted in Utopia than nine out of ten randomly selected slasher horror movies. The violence can be overwhelming and counter-productive. Early in the series, a major character does something so egregious, it is hard to sympathize with them later, even though we are clearly intended to.

Thursday, September 24, 2020

OVID.tv: Akerman’s From the East

It was Chantal Akerman’s “End of Communism” Rock & Roll-All-You-Can-Drink-Late-Night-Road-Trip-Party. Actually, it is an experimental non-narrative 16mm docu-essay, but the precipitating event is the same. Inspired to document the Communist East while it still existed (or at least before the old way of life changed for average citizens), Akerman essentially filmed whatever caught her eye during her journey through East Germany, Poland, and Russia. There are no talking heads to provide context. Instead, Akerman takes us to the cold, damp streets behind the former Iron Curtain in From the East (D’Est), which premieres tomorrow on OVID.tv.


Although
D’Est was originally conceived as a stand-alone film, Akerman later incorporated it into a special installation. Frankly, that might be the best forum for it. It is rather hypnotic to watch her restless camera scan the weary faces of the innumerable by-standers queueing around street corners and packed into train stations, staring out blankly at the audience. It would probably be even more so as part of an immersive destination exhibit. However, casual viewers should be forgiven if they lose patience with it at home.

Regardless,
D’Est is very much a time capsule that transports us to a very specific place, at a very specific time. Of course, much has changed in Germany and Poland since Akerman shot her footage in 1992. Russia—maybe not so much. The babushkas are different (presumably), but the crumbling edifices are the same (if not worse).

Frankly, if you took a similar journey east today, you would suddenly find yourself in the West when you hit the Baltic Republics, where they uphold democratic values and observe their NATO commitments. Poland has made great strides, but recently they have taken a bit of a detour through populism—it happens to the best of countries. However, Russia is practically back to where it started, passively standing in line, waiting for change, but acquiescing to the status quo, out of fear things could get worse.

LX 2048: A Dystopian Future We Already Sort-of Recognize

It is a work-from-home future, for those who still work. Productivity has nose-dived, because most people are heavily medicated (on Lithium x) and largely live in a virtual entertainment network called “the Realm.” Adam Bird is literally last person who still physically commutes to his brick-and-mortar office. That adds unexpectedly eerie echoes to director-screenwriter-editor Guy Moshe’s LX 2048, which releases on-demand tomorrow.


Bird does things the hard way, much to the constant frustration of his estranged wife Reena. He is one of the few people who still does business during daylight hours, despite the heavy hazmat suits required by the sun’s heightened radiation. He is dying and so is his soon to be obsolete gaming company. As a result, he is quite concerned for his family’s future.

Thanks to their insurance, Bird will be replaced by a clone once his heart finally gives out. However, he is increasingly concerned his replacement will find himself unemployed. Of course, he is not too thrilled about by the prospect of a clone taking his place. Increasingly desperate, Bird tracks down Donald Stein a brilliant but disgraced inventor. He might be able to help, but not in the way Bird originally anticipated.

Moshe’s screenplay swings wildly back and forth from fascinating and inspired examinations of the nature of humanity to some rather awkwardly over-melodramatic family angst. It is like the best parts of
The Matrix mixed with the worst parts of Kramer vs. Kramer. However, when Delroy Lindo enters the picture as Stein, all bets are off. He gives the film a blast of hip, snarky energy, while also expressing many of the film’s philosophical insights.

Presumably, Moshe conceived of
LX 2048 long before Covid-19 was a glimmer in some Wuhan bat’s eye (or whatever), but it is impossible not to see parallels when Bird drives through empty freeways to reach his lonely office. Such scenes are eerily executed and they gain in resonance, since they are suddenly so much more believable. However, some of the drama involving Bird and his wife feels over-blown. Frankly, it seems hard to believe the scrupulously off-line Bird could get so caught up in a relationship with an online avatar.

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Tehran: Apple TV’s Israeli Pick-Up

For an Israeli Mossad agent, Tehran is one of the most dangerous assignments to expect. Given the Iranian regime’s insanity and deep-seated anti-Semitic hatred, it is also one of the most likely, especially for a recruit of Persian descent. Such is the case for Tamar Rabinyan, whose parents immigrated to Israel so she could grow-up with a future. Now she is back in her homeland and running for her life in the eight-episode Tehran, created by Moshe Zonder, Dana Eden & Maor Kohn, which premieres this Friday on Apple TV.


The first phase of the operation went pretty smoothly. The Jordanian airliner bound for India was forced to land in Tehran for emergency repairs. During the layover, Rabinyan was able to trade places with an Iranian who was desperate to leave the country and had an identity that would be helpful to her mission. However, an Israeli couple who booked last minute tickets unexpectedly complicated the mission. While understandably freaking out, she recognized Rabinyan from their military service and Iranian counter-intelligence officer Faraz Kamali noticed her noticing.

Assuming Jila Gorbanifar’s identity, Rabinyan gains entry to Tehran’s power station, where she intends to tap to the air defense system, through a back-door. However, her hacking excursion quickly goes sideways. Soon, Rabinyan is in the wind, with her identity burned. Going off the gird and way underground, Rabinyan contacts Milad, a.k.a. “Sick-Boy,” a dissident Iranian hacker, whom she had established a flirtatious relationship over the dark web. To accomplish her objective, she needs Milad’s help, but she will be constantly conflicted regarding how much she can trust him and how much information she should withhold.

Tehran
vividly captures a sense of how scary the city could be for a fugitive outsider. It feels a lot like the Vienna of The Third Man, but with the creepy trappings of an Islamist theocracy layered on top. Even though it is Israeli-produced, Tehran is definitely le Carré-esque in the way it depicts both sides ruthless realpolitik machinations. Still, the intrigue and duplicity are fun to follow.

In fact, Shaun Toub is one of the most attention-grabbing cast-members as the shrewdly intelligent Kamali. Even though he faithfully serves an oppressive regime, he is definitely an improvising cowboy-type. Likewise, Navid Negahban (who was the husband in
The Stoning of Soraya M) is terrific as Masoud Tabrizi, an Iranian working as a Mossad sleeper agent. He is also a loving family man and an Iranian patriot, who believes his work with the Israelis is the best way he can also serve his country, which probably makes him the series’ most compelling character.

Menashe Noy and Liraz Charhi also bring a lot of grit and nuance to
Tehran as Meir Gorev, the Mossad operations commander and Yael Kadosh, Rabinyan’s handler (also Persian). The relative weakness of Niv Sultan and Shervin Alenabi (arguably the leads, playing Rabinyan and Milad) might sound like a significant undermining flaw, but everyone else is so compulsively watchable, we can sit through their hackers-with-sexual-tension melodrama, waiting for the show to switch back to the good espionage stuff.

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

OVID.tv: Silent Shakespeare

There was a time when playing the piano and reading Shakespeare were a typical evening’s entertainment for average families. A special night out might involve watching a traveling Shakespeare performer. It really wouldn’t have mattered if the earliest Shakespearean films were silent, because most of the audience would be familiar with the stories and a good deal of them would know the dialogue. These days, a lot of viewers don’t just need a soundtrack—they could also use Cliff Notes. At least most film lovers can appreciate the spectacle and inventiveness of the early Shakespeare films the BFI has assembled into an hour-long That’s Entertainment-style program, Silent Shakespeare (a.k.a. Play On!: Shakespeare in Silent Film), which premieres today on OVID.tv.


It seems weird the very first Shakespeare film was
King John from 1899. Yet, even though it is not a contemporary favorite, it was one of the Bard’s biggest hits in his lifetime. “Gilding the Lily” sort of comes from it, via a lumped together paraphrase. Originally, it ran four minutes and consisted of four scenes, which was certainly economical filmmaking, but only the King’s death scene survives. Of course, it is grainy, but also rather spooky looking.

In addition, curator Bryony Davis scoured the BFI vaults for probably a dozen or so distinctive-looking Shakespeare silent films that editor Becci Jones stitched together for dramatic effect. Several are still quite striking looking. In fact, the
Othello from 1922 looks stylistically and aesthetically similar to Orson Welles’ 1951 Othello. The visual trickery 1908’s The Tempest and 1909’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream are still amusingly mischievous. There is even the star-power of Sir John Gielgud appearing as the young Montague in the surreal one-minute Living Paintings (Romeo and Juliet).

Yet, the most intriguing clips hands-down come from Svend Gade & Heinz Schall’s
Hamlet of 1920 (a.k.a. Hamlet: The Drama of Vengeance). Following in the tradition of Sarah Bernhardt, this Hamlet is played by Danish thesp Asta Nielsen as a woman secretly passing for a man, which really was a very Shakespearean twist.

Monday, September 21, 2020

Jay Sebring … Cutting to the Truth

Jay Sebring didn’t just cut men’s hair—he styled it. He should sit next to his friend and admirer Vidal Sassoon in the public consciousness, but instead, he is best known today as one of the people who was murdered with Sharon Tate at the Cielo Drive house. First, he was killed by the Manson cult and then the media assassinated his character. After years of resenting the way pop culture marginalized his uncle, Anthony DiMaria tells his story and sets the record straight in Jay Sebring . . . Cutting to the Truth, which releases tomorrow on VOD.


Whatever preconceptions you might have regarding hairdressers, Sebring was probably something quite different. His imdb credits include
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bullitt, and The Great Escape, the latter two starring his close friend Steve McQueen, who gave the eulogy at Sebring’s funeral. When he was murdered, Sebring had made his name with a saloon and product line that were poised to take off like Sassoon’s. Yet, he was probably even more established with Hollywood studios and record labels as an image maker.

The divorced Sebring had also been romantically involved with Sharon Tate before her marriage to Polanski. In fact, they had remained close friends and were evidently on the verge of something more, as DiMaria reveals late in the doc, making
Cutting to the Truth a newsworthy event.

DiMaria re-establishes his uncle’s identity apart from the Cielo Drive atrocity, chronicling his rebellious youth and Navy service, as well as his rise to prominence in Hollywood. Yes, maybe Sebring enjoyed the party scene, but he still worked hard. He was truly a trailblazer, establishing himself as a name-brand men’s stylist. That is why the specious trash supposedly reputably media outlets like
Time and Life Magazine spewed over Sebring after his murder were so painful to DiMaria and his family. Telling, nobody put their names to the hit pieces describing Sebring as a violent, racist pervert—and nobody at Time Warner responded to DiMaria’s inquiries. Everyone who knew Sebring calls such descriptions ridiculous (including Quincy Jones, on-camera), but the mud lingered on his name.

Beyond the sadistic Manson family, two cowardly villains emerge in
Cutting to the Truth. One is Vincent Bugliosi, the former Manson prosecutor, who recycled the lurid rumors regarding Sebring in his bestseller, Helter Skelter. Today, Bugliosi loves lecture public figures on ethics, but he declined DiMaria’s interview requests, clearly lacking the courage and character to defend his characterization of Sebring. The other is Polanski, who also declined DiMaria’s interview requests, but is heard happily trashing Sebring under police questioning. Shame on them both.

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Back to School: The Loyalist (short)

As more countries belatedly adopt Magnitsky-style sanctions, the question will start to arise regarding how the families of serial human rights abusers should be treated. They might technically be innocent of their parents’ crimes, but they still stood to benefit from their corruption. In most cases, they knew well enough. However, it is not clear just how well a North Korean music student studying in Switzerland understands her father and the regime he serves. He has come to test her loyalty and perhaps vice versa in Minji Kang’s short film, The Loyalist, which is available on Omeleto, as a potential supplement to that curriculum on North Korea you’re whipping up for your kids (like the NY Board of Ed would do it for you).


For years, Gen. Roh’s daughter Shilla has studied at a Swiss boarding school, where her angelic voice has garnered praise and encouragement. Frankly, it might be too angelic, since she has often been featured as a soloist in chorale performances of “Ave Maria.” Being nestled away in Freiburg has protected her from the insanity of her homeland, but it has also raised suspicions. The doctrinaire officer has come to verify she hasn’t shaken off her brainwashing and started to question the Kim dynastic regime and its Communist ideology. Rather awkwardly, she plans to ask permission to follow her musical dreams, no matter where that might take her. Obviously, something or someone will have to give here.

You might want to watch
Loyalist before you program it for your teens and pre-teens, because there is a brief but shocking incident of violence. If you are not trying to shelter them from such imagery (rather excessively in our view), the film raises a host of important themes for discussion, first and foremost being the nature of totalitarian regimes. It helps personalize the dehumanizing demands made by collective ideologies for individual sacrifice, through the eyes of a teenaged character most kids should identify with.

Saturday, September 19, 2020

Back to School: I Was There—Kate Adie on Tiananmen Square


BBC reporter Kate Adie filed eye-witness reports of the Tiananmen Square Massacre directly from the scene, but she won’t be returning anytime soon, because the CCP has banned her from re-entering the country. You would be correct to take that as a testimonial to the accuracy and integrity of her reports. Decades later Adie remains justifiably proud of her reporting. Now retired from the Beeb, Adie returned to the network to look back at the fateful events of 1989, adding personal and historical context in I Was There: Kate Adie on Tiananmen Square, directed and edited by Andy Webb, which would be a suitable video supplement to your pandemic-home-schooling lesson plans.

Hope was in the air during the year of 1989, unless you were a hardline Communist apparatchik. Gorbachev’s Glasnost reforms had spun out of his control. Ordinary citizens of Eastern Europe were demanding (and taking) greater freedoms. The same seemed poised to happen in China, but Deng and the CCP were more determined to maintain their hold on power and much less concerned with world opinion. Tragically, this became much more obvious in retrospect.

For a step-by-step chronicle of the demonstrations and subsequent brutal crackdown on Tiananmen Square, the definitive
Tiananmen: The People vs. the Party is probably your best option. However, I Was There provides a good hour-long overview (the perfect length if you need to play a video for while you take a meeting). Adie also adds the perspective of a journalist who had to work around CCP censorship. Frankly, the mass killings at Tiananmen Square might be considered the stuff of rumor had Adie’s colleague not been able to successfully smuggle her footage out of China (they made five copies, four of which were intercepted at customs).

In fact,
I Was There is better than most Tiananmen Square documentaries at covering the wider scope of the pro-democracy protests outside Beijing. Shortly after the massacre, Adie traveled to Xian in Shaanxi Province, where she found lingering physical signs similar protests had met a similarly violent fate, but people were only willing to talk about it in whispers, off camera.

Friday, September 18, 2020

Mambo Man: Scuffling in Cuba

Most films you should want to watch closely, because that is the whole point of the medium. However, sometimes there are films you can enjoy listening to, but you might prefer to give only cursory attention to the events on the screen. This is definitely a “listening movie,” thanks to the wonderful Afro-Cuban soundtrack. The story that goes with it is pretty thin, but you can’t have everything, especially in Cuba. An impresario-farmer-get-rich-quick-schemer probably should just stick to music in Mo Fini & Edesio Alejandro’s Mambo Man, which releases virtually today.


JC (not a very Communist name, is it?) is the beloved godfather of the East Cuban music scene, even though we never see him pick up an instrument. Regardless, he is just wrapping up an album with music producer Mo Fini, playing himself. Thanks to unseasonable weather, he is sweating out his crops, but he still finds time to host shows for European music tourists on his farm. Then one fateful day, his childhood friend Roberto returns from Ecuador, offering JC a golden opportunity. The matriarch of a family he knows needs to sell a fabulous collection of jewelry to pay for her transit to Miami, the promised land—at the low, low price of $50K.

Sadly, because Cuba is a closed, oppressive pariah state, JC has never seen George C. Scott in
The Flim-Flam Man or any other scam artist movie that would have warned him any deal too good to be true is precisely that. We can see it coming from way down the Malecon, but screenwriters Fini and Paul Morris stretch out their simplistic cautionary morality tale until the seams practically snap.

Thursday, September 17, 2020

No Escape (from Russia’s Sickos)

Modern Russia has only two significant economic sectors: fossil fuels (currently in the dumper) and gangterism. Still, that is two more than they had under Communism. Regardless, an extreme adventure Vlogger should have been a little more suspicious when he was invited to try his luck in a hardcore escape room being produced in a former KGB dungeon. Anything for clicks and likes will not be such a wise policy in director-screenwriter Will Wernick’s No Escape, which releases tomorrow on VOD (like pretty much everything does these days).


Cole Turner is celebrating ten years of shallow internet fame, so his friends arrange for a special trip to romantic and luxurious Moscow. It is all being coordinated by Alexei, who is presumably the privileged scion of a fabulously wealthy oligarch. His obnoxious sidekick Dash vouches for the Russian fuerdai, even though he hardly knows him. After some sight-seeing and a little alone time with his ever-patient girlfriend Erin, Turner’s adventure will culminate in an unusually intense escape room experience, set in an abandoned secret Communist prison. What could go wrong? Oh right, probably everything.

Basically,
No Escape starts out as an Escape Room-style thriller and evolves into a Hostel movie. A good deal of this film involves Turner being chased by large, shirtless Russian men wearing S&M masks and leather aprons. Well, when in Moscow.

No Escape
is essentially what you expect it to be, but Wernick’s execution is slicker, tenser, and generally better than it needed to be. Just about everyone who knows their way around horror and genre thrillers will be able to guess the big twist, but Wernick puts a little extra English on it that is rather effective.