Twittering Soul, in Stereoscopic 3D

The science of both photography and medicine have advanced enormously since the 1880s. This film will make you grateful on both scores. It might feature the most striking use of 3D ever, yet it also incorporates Nineteenth Century stereoscopic photographic techniques. If you want to watch it, see it now, because it is only intended for theaters. However, viewers should understand Deimantas Narkevicius’s Twittering Soul is a very different kind of film, which is now showing at Anthology Film Archives.

Narkevicius very literally transports viewers back to the 1880s in Southern Lithuanian. It is an era defined by folklore, before the rise of mass media. Consequently, characters discuss witches and fairies as if they are obviously real, even though the viewers never see them.

Frankly, it is hard to embrace any of the figures as characters, per se. Due to his stereoscopic techniques, Narkevicius was technical unable to film close-up shots. However, his masterfully composed frames often look like museum dioramas. You truly feel like you could reach in and pick up a cast-member, as if they were figurines.

Arguably, the closest comp film would be Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross, which translates the canvases of Pieter Bruegel into a film. Yet, Majewski still offered his cast greater opportunities for characterization (in fact, many viewers might have overlooked the excellent work of Michael York and Rutger Hauer in Majewski’s masterwork). Conversely, Twittering Soul is even more immersive—in the truest sense of the word. The 3D visions of hidden valleys and grottos vividly create a sense of depth that rivals full-fledged VR films.

Narkevicius also recreates the tactile sensations of nature, as if you were truly there. It is debatable how much drama viewers could take in, under such circumstance. In fact, there were even physical concerns for Narkevicius, who explained during the opening night Q&A, he deliberately kept the film relatively short (70-some minutes), because the stereoscopic process activates twice as many optical receptors, or something like that.

Nashville ’18: Found Footage 3D

How do you make found footage even more annoying? Adding 3D ought to do the trick (and vice versa). Granted, it would be hard to explain why anyone would shoot the footage to found in 3D, but that will not stop an aspiring sleazy filmmaker from staking his claim to the first 3D found footage movie. However, things get meta when the evil entity thingy at their remote cabin location starts responding to the 3D cameras in Steven DeGennaro’s Found Footage 3D (trailer here), which screens (in 3D) as part of the 2018 Nashville Film Festival.

Derek is the producer of Spectre of Death, which he “co-wrote” and will co-star in with his ex-wife Amy. Yep, already super awkward, even before you take into account his socially inept brother Mark (who serves as editor, camera man and director of the crowd-funder behind-the-scenes footage) has long carried a torch for Amy. Derek has hired Andrew, a reasonably legit director, but he constantly makes it clear he is the one calling the shots. Their sound guy Carl is also a pro, who happens to owe Derek money. Their PA Lily has never worked on a film before, but her job is obviously making Amy jealous, but she is really not that kind of person.

Of course, the cabin where they will be shooting and bunking looks all kinds of sketchy. There even seems be dried blood stains on the floor. Yet, the hardy crew persists. Admittedly, they should have left the first night, but all their bickering and in-fighting convincingly distracts them from the ominous dark something lurking in slightly out-of-focus in the corners of Mark’s frames—until it is too late.

FF3D is not quite as meta as it initially sounds, but that is not exactly a tragedy. The underlying concept still manages to breathe some life into found footage sub-genre. It also boasts more character development than nearly all of its found footage predecessors combined. There are some strong personalities in this film, starting with the spectacularly obnoxious Derek, but also including the sarcastic Carl, recovering-co-dependent Amy, and the increasingly exasperated Andrew.

As Derek, Carter Roy truly chews the scenery like madman. He really goes all out, but by doing so, he really sets up all the uncanny business that eventually goes down. Likewise, Alena von Stroheim (yes, the great granddaughter of the Greed director) makes Amy a remarkable bundle of hot mess neuroses. Scott Allen Perry counter-balances them quite drolly, as the acerbic but more down-to-earth Carl. Tom Saporito also serves as a partial audience surrogate as he becomes at first impatient and then thoroughly disgusted with Derek and Amy’s melodrama, as well as Carl’s attitude. Yet, perhaps the funniest turn comes from genre critic Scott Weinberg, playing himself, making an ill-advised set-visit to Spectre of Death (you just have to see it for yourself).

This is probably the most original true Blair Witch-style found footage film since the Dark Tapes anthology and the funniest since maybe the underrated V/H/S Viral. However, the considerable time admirably devoted establishing characters and setting the scene could have been pruned a little, because the legit horror movie business does not really get going until after the halfway point. Regardless, it is cool to see a genre filmmaker give a tired convention a fresh new spin and largely pull it off. Recommended with a fair degree of enthusiasm for horror fans, Found Footage 3D screens this Friday (5/18) and Saturday (5/19), during the Nashville Film Festival (and it also streams exclusively on Shudder).

NYICFF ’18: Zombillenium

Hector is becoming more human. He was a workplace safety inspector and now he is a zombie. It’s definitely an improvement. After years of bullying companies, he now finds himself at the bottom of the monster pecking order. However, Hector might just finally organize the passive walking dead in Arthur de Pins & Alexis Ducord’s Zombillenium (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New York International Children’s Film Festival.

As a widowed single father, Hector has not been doing right by his daughter Lucie. After promising to take her to the all-too-real monster-themed amusement park Zombillenium, he tries to wriggle out of it by shutting it down with workplace safety citations. However, the park’s general manager, Francis Von Bloodt will not stand for that, so he kills Hector and remands him into Zombillenium service as a zombie.

Oddly enough, it turns out Hector makes a good zombie. Thanks to his contributions, the zombie attractions start to gain popularity at the vampires’ expense. With the exception of the sympathetic Von Bloodt, this new turn of events does not sit well with the blood-suckers, so they start plotting, because they are monsters after all. Meanwhile, Gretchen the Nine Inch Nails-listening intern-witch (whose father is rumored to be quite an infernal one) will try to facilitate a reunion between the embattled Hector and his grieving daughter.

De Pins and Ducord cast the zombies-versus-vampires struggle in unsubtle class warfare terms, yet the militant labor rights messaging rather clashes with wonton abuse of government regulatory power displayed by Hector while still in human form. At least nobody sings “The Internationale,” but the filmmaker clearly would not mind if little ones in the audience jumped up to yell “¡no psaran!,” while pumping their fist. It’s a shame, because it drags down the fun quotient of an otherwise charming animated film.

If you can overlook the forays into propaganda, Zombillenium is an entertaining monster movie that tweaks the traditional legends and movie conventions in clever ways. The father-daughter relationship is rather sweet and touching, while the ambiguous chemistry that develops between Hector and Gretchen pays off nicely.

As a side note, Zombillenium had its only 3D screening at the festival last Sunday. Ordinarily, we consider 3D an underwhelming cash-grab, but in this case, it works unusually well. A good deal of the story involves the park rollercoaster and Gretchen’s witchboard, so there is all kinds of swooping and swooshing, which makes for a richer, fuller 3D experience than someone pointing a sharp stick at the camera.

Zombillenium is definitely a film for older kids, because there are some intense scenes, including the downtrodden zombies laboring like Sisyphus on the Conan wheel in H-E-double hockey-sticks. However, fans who know their Famous Monsters of Filmland and Drak Pack will get a kick out of seeing the classic monster archetypes updated for the postmodern era. Recommended despite its didactic excesses, Zombillenium screens again in 2D this Saturday (3/17), as part of the 2018 NYICFF.

Patrons of French cinema might also be interested in Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Romain Segaud’s Two Snails Set Off, a three-minute animated adaptation of the Jacques Prévert poem. It is more about creepy-crawly critters than creatures, but it displays the same Baroque-level of detail seen in Jeunet’s features, such as Delicatessen. It also features the voice talent of a platoon of famous French screen thesps, including Audrey Tatou and Irène Jacob. Brief but still recommended for the auteur’s fans, Two Snails screens as part of the Heebie Jeebies short block this Sunday (3/18).

Time Raiders: Another Tomb Raiding Franchise Gets the Feature Treatment

This excursion into the haunted tombs of western China ought to scare the willies out of Hollywood. It grossed $70 million in its opening weekend, but for added international attraction it looked to Bollywood rather than Tinseltown. For the record, it is not also based on the Ghost Blows Out the Light franchise. Instead, it is adapted from Xu Lei’s Daomu Biji novels, which has also spawned the competing television series The Lost Tomb. Officially, the supernatural does not exist in China, but it sure makes a lot of noise anyway in Daniel Lee’s Time Raiders (trailer here), which is now playing in New York.

In China, being in the “antiquities” business can be dangerous, especially the way Wu Xie’s family practices it. His Uncle Three desperately wants him to excel in a straighter line of work, but tomb raiding is in his blood. The title refers to them as “Time Raiders,” but all their raiding takes place in tombs. Of course, it would be a gifted scholar like Wu who unearths clues to the location of the fabled Snake Empress’s tomb.

Unfortunately, they have unwanted company on this expedition. They will be relentlessly pursued by a rival team of mercenaries led by Captain Ning A, retained by Hendrix, a shadowy western jillionaire. Zhang Kylin, a strong silent member of Wu’s party has some bitter history with Hendrix dating back fifty years, when the Himalayan martial artist last foiled the super-villain’s plans. Despite all his efforts, Hendrix has not aged well since that day, whereas Zhang has apparently not aged at all, so don’t scoff at the benefits of virtuous living.

Of course, when everyone gets where they are going, there will be a lot of shooting, crashing through crumbling floors, evading swarms of flesh-eating insects, and dodging the arrows of a marionette army. That is the good news. The bad news is the connective narrative is definitely on the ragged side. The third act is basically a logic-free zone, punctuated by some remarkably awkward dialogue exchanges. Frankly, Time Raiders makes Mojin look like Citizen Kane and Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe look like The Magnificent Ambersons, but if you dig huge set pieces and over the top spectacle, it is still good clean fun.

In fact, it is a minor triumph for the set design team (in collaboration with the SFX team). For the most part, the 3D is unnecessary, but it does gives viewers an eerie sense of the vastness of the underground caverns. We are talking big here.

For Chinese audiences, former EXO boy band member is also a huge marquee name, but not so much here. Jing Boran is better known in the West (probably for Monster Hunt, but Lost and Love is a far better showcase for his talents). He is actually pretty credible as the hardnosed, severely-tempered Zhang, sort of resembling a younger Chen Kun. However, Luhan is so delicate looking, their bromance scenes take on sexually ambiguous overtones that are assuredly completely unintentional, given the state’s frequent censorship of homoerotic subject matter.

However, Ma Sichun makes a convincing bid for international breakout superstardom as the steely Ning A. Her action chops are first-rate and her attitude is appealingly barbed. She is the one viewers will remember, not Bollywood star Mallika Sherawat, who basically just serves as an anchor for a swirling mass of CG effects as the Snake Empress.

It is strange that books and films about tomb plundering are so popular in China, given the government’s hardline against the practice. You could almost call it cultural appropriation, since American filmmakers essentially invented the genre with Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. Yet, Hollywood rarely makes such cliffhanger adventures anymore, so it is up to China to fill the vacuum. Mojin is still the best (probably since The Last Crusade), but at least Time Raiders is eager to please, putting it all up there on the screen. Recommended as slightly nutty, popcorn entertainment, Time Raiders is now playing in New York, at the AMC Empire, via distributor Magnum Films.

Comin’ at Ya! in 3D (or 2D, Depending on Man-Cave)

It launched the mini-3D boom in the early 1980s, but it was also the last gasp of the Spaghetti Western. It seems like the least likely of hits in retrospect, but its timing was perfect. Apparently, the world was ready for another round of 3D gimmickry and a band of American expats and Italian filmmakers were just the folks to deliver it. Prepare for a barrage of sundry items falling towards the camera in Ferdinando Baldi’s Comin’ at Ya! (trailer here), which is now available on DVD and 3D BluRay from MVD.

Without Comin’ at Ya! there would probably be no Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone or Treasure of the Four Crowns (also from Team At Ya!), so let’s thank our lucky stars this film exists. Kind of known for the “Stranger” films, Tony Anthony knew his way around a Spaghetti western, so he had street cred with the core fan base, despite looking a bit soft around the edges for a stone-cold killer like H.H. Hart. Presumably, Hart is a former desperado of some sort, but he had resolved to settle down with Abeline, his newlywed wife as of just after the opening credits (and what credits they are, featuring no end of falling dry goods.

Unfortunately, the Pike and Polk Thompson, a pair of Mexican white slaver brothers crash the ceremony to abduct the bride and leave the groom for dead—but not nearly dead enough. With the help of a drunken old Scottish former seminarian (they are always handy in a tight spot), Hart will ride south to rescue Abeline and serve up some payback. It quickly becomes personal for the Thompson Brothers too, especially Pike, the mastermind. As a result, all sorts of lethal weapons will be hurled at the screen.

Anthony is no Clint Eastwood or Franco Nero, but he has a pretty good badass strut. Victoria Abril (now most famous for her work in Pedro Almodóvar’s Kika and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) is more than sufficient as the woefully helpless Abeline (watching her and the captive women shriek at a laughably fake bat attack is pretty cringey). However, Gene Quintano, who was later celebrated as the genius responsible for writing Police Academy 3 and 4, is quite decently dastardly as Pike Thompson.

Baldi throws everything at the lens except the kitchen sink, but frankly that blatant ridiculousness is the whole reason to watch it. On the other hand, the level of violence directed towards women is a bit eyebrow-raising. Well beyond lax Spaghetti Western standards, it approaches Giallo levels. In fact, the entire film is wildly politically incorrect, allowing Hart full license to kill Mexican and Native American white slavers without a twinge of guilt. It is impossible to imagine to imagine Hollywood distributing At Ya! today, so it is nice to have its shamelessness preserved for posterity. Recommended for fans of Spaghetti Westerns and 1980s nostalgia, Comin’ at Ya! is now available on 3D BluRay and regular DVD from MVD.

The Monkey King 2 in 3D: Aaron Kwok Wears the Monkey Suit

After causing an uproar in Heaven, Sun Wukong needs to repent. However, monkeys are not good at contrition, nor are kings or demigods. Nevertheless, the Monkey King agrees to do penance by protecting Buddhist monk Xuanzang on his pilgrimage in search of scriptures. Unfortunately, a seductive demoness will try to end the epic Journey to the West prematurely in Cheang Pou-soi’s The Monkey King 2 in 3D (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

The Goddess Guanyin offers the Monkey King an offer he cannot refuse. In exchange for his freedom, Sun Wukong will loyally protect and serve Xuanzang during his journey. Of course, this will be easier said than done. To restore her demonic life force, the wicked White Bone Spirit is determined to eat the monk, thereby ingesting his spiritual essence. As a result, Xuanzang’s party is constantly surrounded by minor demons in human guise, but the monk remains obstinately blind to their true nature.

The two constantly argue over Sun Wukong’s apparently groundless fighting and killing. The Monkey King’s comrades, Zhu “Pigsy” Bajie and Sha “Sandy” Wujing find themselves stuck awkwardly between the monkey and the monk, but they have a sinking feeling the hairy demigod is more right than wrong.

Unlike Surprise, Monkey King 2 largely plays it straight, or at least as straight as possible when the protagonist is hyperactive primate. This time around, Aaron Kwok steps into Donnie Yen’s monkey suit and just basically goes nuts in a way we never knew he had in him. Watching him zip around in the hirsute makeup sort of brings to mind Robin Williams. Frankly, it is kind of stunning that he can bring this kind of chaos. Reportedly, Kwok trained hard for the role, but the physical is the least of it. Still, he definitely looks good performing Sammo Hung’s zippy, otherworldly action choreography.

While Kwok is a minor revelation, Gong Li re-confirms she is one of the best in the business as White Bone Spirit, a.k.a. Baigujing. She has to be the most alluring and sophisticated supernatural temptresses perhaps ever seen on-screen. She brings all kinds of sinister élan, yet drops subtle hints of her long buried humanity. In contrast, William Feng Shaofeng is a bit wooden as Xuanzang, but it is hard to compete with Kwok and Gong.

Monkey King 2 is so frenetically supercharged, it sort of leaves viewers dazed. At times, the gravity-defying Sun Wukong looks more like a character in a video game than a movie. However, you have to give Kwok credit for pushing himself. As crazy as it gets, Gong still classes up the joint and even manages to outright steal the show. Recommended for fans of big, bold wuxia madness, The Monkey King 2 in 3D open tomorrow (2/5) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

The Mask, in All its Restored Anaglyphic Glory

If you grew up in the 1980s, you remember when 3D was considered a tacky down-market gimmick. Local stations used to distribute cardboard red-and-blue glasses for the “special” weekend 3D “extravaganzas.” Thanks to the anaglyphic process it employed, Julian Roffman’s weird tale looked relatively presentable when broadcast on television. It also happens to be considered the very first Canadian horror movie (and one of the few not starring Stephen McHattie). Acting out of patriotic duty, TIFF spearheaded and premiered a loving restoration of Roffman’s cult favorite, The Mask (trailer here), which screens this weekend at Anthology Film Archives.

Archeologist Michael Radin has just stalked and murdered a young woman while under the influence of a sinister ritual mask. Perhaps it was a dream, but don’t count on it. Regardless, the mask is tearing apart his soul and unhinging his mind. His new shrink, Dr. Allan Barnes is no help, because he assumes Radin’s obsession with the mask is just a symptom of a larger issue, as most psychologists would. However, Radin shows him just how wrong he was by mailing him the mask just before committing suicide.

Naturally, Barnes sticks the ominously evil but not particularly comfortable looking mask on his head, at which point he gets the first of several massively bad trips, for which the film kicks into 3D gear (the more “grounded” parts being conventional 2D). Filled with surreal, more than slightly outré images of skulls, death’s heads, floating eyeballs, temptresses, and sacrificial altars, these hallucinatory interludes are arguably well ahead of their time. They are nearly as memorable as the dream sequences in Rosemary’s Baby and Spellbound (which were a collaboration between Hitchcock and Dalí.

Needless to say, the good doctor is not himself from this point on. His faithful fiancé and mentor will try to save him, but he is obsessed with the mask’s power to tap into the human subconscious. Unfortunately, his torch-carrying secretary is most at risk from his violent, mask-dominated new persona.

The Mask might not necessarily be scary, but it is still weird as all get out. Barnes’ feverish visions while wearing the mask have lost none of their what-the-heck power. They are just bizarre. Although they are credited to Serbian expatriate filmmaker and montage-specialist Slavko Vorkapich, his concepts were so prohibitively over-the-top, Roffman had to devise the more practical and macabre phantasms that torment Dr. Barnes. Yet, somehow he was able to tap into something way out there and deeply messed up.

As an added bonus, the acting is not bad. Paul Stevens, who convincingly loses his marbles as Dr. Barnes, would have notable roles in Patton, Advise & Consent, and Exodus, in addition to about a jillion TV guest appearances. Future director Martin Lavut is also spectacularly snide and antisocial as the imploding Radin. But wait, there’s more, including legendary PR huckster Jim Moran claiming to be a mask collector while serving as the film’s Criswell in the hyperbolic cold intro.

Whether you classify it as horror, dark fantasy, or a psychological thriller, The Mask could easily sustain dozens of film studies theses. This is how 3D was meant to be—deliriously nutty. If you haven’t caught up with it yet, its mini-run at Anthology is the perfect opportunity. Highly recommended for cult film fans, it screens this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (1/15-1/17).

Goodbye to Language: Same Old Godard Agenda, Now in 3D

Jean-Luc Godard might be using the latest in 3D technology, but it is in the service of his decades old ideological and aesthetic program. He will strip away bourgeoisie affectations, like plot and characterization, in favor of wordplay and collage. However, all viewers are left with is Godard’s dog Miéville (playing Roxy) in Goodbye to Language (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York.

A single man and a married woman commence an affair. It is passionate at first, but eventually turns violent. It is a familiar story, but still promising dramatic grist in the right hands. Of course, Godard cannot be bothered to develop it. Instead, he will simply dole out fragments of the mercurial relationship, in between episodes of linguistic gamesmanship.

As is usually the case with recent Godard films, viewers had better come prepared to read, because the auteur will explicitly tell them just what and how they should think. That might sound problematic in a 3D film like Language, but Godard uses the effect to privilege certain words above others. It might be the only clever aspect of the film.

Much has been made of the superimposition of 3D images in one sequence, in which different scenes can be seen out of either eye. Unfortunately, neither is particularly interesting. Indeed, the film’s drably pedestrian visuals are arguably its greatest sin. For all of its gamesmanship, it looks stylistically similar to early 1980s experimental films, like Joan Jonas’s Volcano Saga or Double Lunar Dogs, but without similar hooks for the audience to grab onto.

Arguably, we are not supposed to luxuriate in lush imagery, because that too would be bourgeoisie. Godard would rather goad us with dashed off would-be profundities, such as the observation Hitler fulfilled all his promises (except, presumably that 1,000 year Reich thing), which only a Parisian Maoist could find provocative. There is so little in Godard’s kit bag this time around, he frequently resorts to the oldest, cheapest trick in the book: sudden deafening blasts of noise.

Frankly, this film has no reason for being, because Godard and his fellow traveling poststructuralists won the philosophic day decades ago. Language represents the state of critical and aesthetic thinking in today’s academia, chapter and verse. They just never had a plan for winning the peace, so the old discredited forms still hold sway over the popular culture. As if on cue, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley (she wrote Frankenstein, get it?) pop up as representatives of the old order to be swept away. Yet, each has more currency to the lives of ordinary proletarians than any of Godard’s films have, since at least the 1980s.

3D aside, there is nothing in Language that has not been done before and done better. It is possible to jettison narrative and still produce something intriguing. Whether they speak to readers or not, the novels of Alain Robbe-Grillet are impressive, because he removes narrative and character, yet they still retain the form of mystery novels. In effect, he pulls the tablecloth out from under the place settings, without upsetting a glass. In contrast, with Language, Godard simply kicks over the table and then takes an ostentatious bow.

As a work of cinema, Language is dreadfully slight, but that is not really how it should be judged. It is really part of a wider piece of performance art, in which Godard keeps testing the limits of how little he can give the film festival intelligentsia while still maintaining their adulation. You’re being punked, so stop encouraging him. Not recommended, Goodbye to Language opens this Wednesday (10/29) at the IFC Center.

Cameron’s Deepsea Challenge 3D

The Deepsea challenger submersible is a marvel of engineering. It can withstand the pressure diving to the lower depths of the Mariana Trench, while still containing James Cameron’s ego. The Oscar winning filmmaker follows his passion to the remotest corner of the ocean floor in John Bruno, Ray Quint, and the late Andrew Wight’s Deepsea Challenge 3D (trailer here), which opens this Friday nationwide.

To avoid confusion, the film is title Deepsea Challenge 3D, the expedition is the “Deepsea Challenge” and the craft is named “Deepsea Challenger.” Clearly, all the inventiveness was saved for the engineering. To a large extent, all three were made possible by Titanic and Avatar. Cameron was no mere figurehead attached to the project. He cut checks and pilots the Deepsea Challenger during its historic dive, which is not so crazy given his short stature and long enthusiasm. However, he comes across as quite the demanding taskmaster during the extensive development process. Tragically, the entire project is temporarily called into question when Wight and underwater cameraman Mike duGray perish in a helicopter accident.

You cannot say Cameron never put his money or the rest of his body where his mouth is. In fact, one gets the sense his wife, former model and actress Suzy Amis would just as soon see him collect vintage cars, like Leno. Still, Cameron’s evangelical zeal for deep sea exploration is admirable. In fact, the best sequences in Challenge 3D revolve around the research vessel Trieste’s previous voyage to the depths of the Mariana in 1953. Subsequently overshadowed by the Moon landing and Jacques Cousteau, the Trieste fired young Cameron’s imagination, directly inspiring The Abyss.

Strictly speaking, the 3D adds very little to the viewing experience, even when the mission is underway. On the other hand, it is so unlikely most viewers will ever find themselves exploring the Mariana Trench, it makes sense to replicate the experience as fully as possible, much like the Chauvet Cave in Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Of course, it also necessarily comes with 3D pricing, which many audience members may not believe is warranted for a film produced very much in the style of a National Geographic television special.

Regardless, Challenge 3D should be considerably informative for most layperson viewers and they way it captures the team’s spirit of innovation and derring-do is certainly appealing. It just lacks the “wow” moments Cameron fans might expect. Recommended for aquatic-fascinated audiences of all ages, Deepsea Challenge 3D opens this Friday (8/8) nationwide.

NYICFF ’14: House of Magic 3D

Even animators in France understand the Massachusetts economy is on life support. Forced to vote with their feet, the owners of a plucky kitten abandon him on the street when they move from their suburban Boston home. However, he will find a more distinctive abode in Ben Stassen & Jeremy Degruson’s Studio Canal-produced (English language) House of Magic 3D (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Thunder is not cut out for a stray’s life, but nobody seems to be eager to adopt a cat in the residential neighborhood he finds himself stranded in. There is also a rather inhospitable dog, but he will not follow Thunder onto the grounds of the big spooky house on the hill. That would be the home of Lawrence, a.k.a. Lorenzo the Magnificent, an elderly but still spry magician.

Lawrence evidently has a soft spot for cats, but Jack, his rabbit-in-the-hat and Maggie the mouse are not so welcoming. In fact, they are determined to send Thunder packing.  Still, Lawrence’s doves and his assorted sentient mechanical gizmos are happy to share their home with Thunder. Despite their scheming, Jack and Maggie will not really be House’s villains. Those duties fall upon Lawrence’s slimy realtor nephew, who wants to get his hands on his uncle’s prime real estate.

House is one of the more conventional programming selections at this year’s NYICFF, but for kids who dig kitties and bunnies, it is pretty sure fire stuff. Both Thunder and Jack are quite expressively rendered and there is nothing remotely objectionable to concern parents, unless they are realtors too.

Yes, it is all very cute and furry, but for older animation fans the real story is the quality of House’s 3D. Clearly conceived with the process in mind, the various scenes of swooping doves, leaping kitties, and skittering critters are conducive a far more dramatic and immersive experience than the occasional pointy object jutting out from the screen. Quite superior to most tent-pole 3D fixer-ups, House ranks somewhere just below the awesome spectacle of Tsui Hark’s Flying Swords of Dragon Gate.

While the 3D experience will impress viewers of all ages, the humor is definitely aimed at a younger demographic. For the record, it killed at its first NYICFF screening. Recommended for youngsters who love kitties, bunnies, and hocus pocus, House of Magic 3D screens again on Saturday March 29^th at the Village East, as part of this year’s NYICFF.

Stalingrad: The Russians Still Win (This Time in 3D)

Those who question Russia’s commitment to sustainability should at least give them credit for recycling their titles. In 1989, Fedor Bondarchuk received one of his earliest acting credits in Yuri Ozerov’s Stalingrad. Twenty-some years later, the thesp-turned-director has helmed Russia’s first film produced entirely in 3D IMAX—and it happens to have the same title. It essentially ends the same way too, but some weird editorial choices distinguish Bondarchuk’s Stalingrad (trailer here), Russia’s reining box office record holder, which opens today in New York.

In large measure, Bondarchuk’s Stalingrad is inspired by the heroic exploits of Pavlov’s House, the strategically located apartment complex doggedly defended by Sergeant Pavlov and his men. In this case, it is Captain Gromov and his comrades who have dug into a reinforced tenement right across from pretty much the entire German army. While most civilians have evacuated, the elfin Katia has defiantly remained, to stoke jealousy amongst Pavlov’s men and to give them something personal to fight for.

A few steps away, Captain Peter Kahn is tasked with crushing all pockets of Russian resistance. However, National Socialist war atrocities have dampened the Prussian elitist’s morale. He is more concerned with Masha, another Russian women stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the tradition of bodice rippers, he initially “ravishes” her, but then starts to fall in love with the Russian beauty. She also seems to warm to him as a protector, but fears for the consequences if and when the Soviets expel the Germans.

Perhaps the weirdest element of Bondarchuk’s film is the framing device, in which a Russian emergency responder tells a group of Germans trapped in the rubble of the Tōhoku earthquake how his mother met his five fathers during the siege of Stalingrad, because nothing is more reassuring than episodes from the bloodiest battle in human history. Dude, next time, don’t help. Frankly, the way the film exploits Japan’s 3-11 tragedy would be deeply offensive, if it were not so ludicrous. Seriously, Russian rescue workers digging out Germans in Sendai?

On the plus side, Bondarchuk makes stuff blow-up really well. Obviously, he did not intend to waste his blank check in the IMAX store.  He devises all sorts of dramatic perspectives on the action, while vividly capturing a sense of the claustrophobic nature of close quarters fighting. He is also either surprisingly fair to the Germans or simply lets Thomas Kretschmann run circles around the rest of the cast as the ethically nuanced Kahn.

Frankly, he represents the film’s most believably complicated character and develops some powerfully ambiguous chemistry with Yanina Studilina’s Masha. In contrast, Gromov and the other four fathers are all either colorless Reds or borderline war criminals. Either way, they make little lasting impression. It almost makes a viewer wonder if Bondarchuk set out to be deliberately subversive.

It seems unfathomable that a Russian WWII epic can make audiences sympathize with the Germans. Yet, if you close your eyes and think of Stalingrad a few days after taking it all in, it will be Krestchmann and Studlina whom the mind’s eye will recall. Nevertheless, Russia duly submitted Stalingrad as its official foreign language Oscar contender. Perhaps it is still preferably in Russia to declare a dubious victory than admit an obvious defeat. Sort of recommended in a confused way for those who appreciate battlefield spectacle, Stalingrad opens nationally today (2/28) including in New York at the AMC Empire and Lincoln Square theaters.

DOC NYC ’13: Inside the Mind of Leonardo 3D

Probably the best established fact of Leonardo da Vinci’s mysterious life is his brilliance.  It is hardly surprising he has inspired quite a few speculative novels, films, and television shows from the likes of Dan Brown, Ron Howard, Roberto Benigni, and David Goyer.  His art is instantly recognizable, but there are plenty of holes in the historical record, where stuff can be safely made up.  Of course, that just won’t do for DOC NYC or the History Channel.  Scrupulously adapted from da Vinci’s notebooks, Julian Jones gives viewers an impressionistic, 3D portrait of the great Renaissance artist in Inside the Mind of Leonardo, which screened on the final night of this year’s DOC NYC.

Raised by his single servant girl mother, Leonardo had little formal education, but maybe that was just as well, sparing him the burden of a lot of false preconceptions.  Verrocchio certainly recognized his young apprentice’s talents.  However, he was not nearly as prolific a painter as one might assume (or hope).  His journals are another matter.  The extensive da Vinci notebooks offered Jones and his co-screenwriter Nick Dear a treasure trove of material.  With Oxford Professor Martin Kemp vetting for accuracy, they give viewers a good nutshell overview of the original Renaissance man’s life and abiding ambitions.

Forgoing familiar imagery, like Vitruvian Man, Jones and the animation team render da Vinci’s muscular sketches of birds in flight and humans in motion in evocative 3D, while Peter Capaldi performs extracts from the various codexes in the manner of a one-man stage play.  Periodically, Jones also indulges in slow panning shots of modern day Florence and Milan, presumably to anchor the film in its specific locales.  Unfortunately, these often feel like travelogue interludes that get a little snoozy at times.

On the plus side of the ledger, Capaldi is perfectly cast as da Vinci.  He has always been a reliably intelligent presence, but here he vividly projects both the polymath’s arrogance and his melancholy world-weariness.  When watching him in Inside, it is easy to see why he was selected to be the next Doctor Who.  Once he has finished his run as the timelord, he should be able to take a da Vinci show on the road, much like Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain.

Eschewing jerkins, Capaldi’s modern dress actually heightens the film’s intimacy.  (He rather looks like he might be in his Doctor Who wardrobe, complete with a stylish scarf, but not the full Tom Baker, mind you).  Inside works quite well when it really does go inside—either into da Vinci’s chambers or into the pages of his notebooks.  When it goes outside, soaking up Tuscan landscapes and bustling Florentine street scenes, it waters down its atmosphere and character.  Still, it is an interesting docu-hybrid and an unconventional (but sometimes effective) use of 3D.  Recommended for art and history buffs, Inside the Mind of Leonardo is destined to have a limited theatrical release and an eventual airdate on the History Channel, following its premiere at DOC NYC 2013.

Pacific Rim: Kaiju vs. Jaegers

At least, they do not destroy New York City.  For an apocalyptic film that constitutes real restraint.  The bad news is it is only a matter of time before all of mankind finds itself on the business end of the next major extinction event in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (trailer here), which opens today nationwide.

In the not too distant future, way down in Deep Thirteen . . . a mysterious alien race has begun rising through a breach in the Earth crust, sending gigantic monsters up to ravage Pacific coastal population centers.  They become known as “Kaiju” in honor of the great Japanese genre monster movies.  To combat this threat, the frontline nations joined forces to create giant Iron Man-like fighter-crafts they call “Jaegers” (the German word for hunters).  For a while, the Jaegers were taking care of business, but the Kaiju evolved, becoming bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.

Nobody understands this better than Raleigh Beckett.  Siblings like Beckett and his brother Yancey were often recruited as Jaeger pilots, because they are highly “drift compatible,” meaning they can form a strong neural bond with each other to control their massive fighting machines.  Unfortunately, when Yancey dies in battle his surviving brother shares the experience.  Shortsightedly, the Jaeger Project is discontinued in favor of a public works boondoggle of a barrier wall.  When that predictably fails, Beckett’s former commanding officer Stacker Pentecost rounds up all the mouth-balled Jaegers and a motley crew of pilots for a last stand.

There are the odd environmental implications to Rim, but frankly the film only mentions the ozone depletion mumbo-jumbo explanation in passing.  Of course, in old school Kaiju movies, the atomic bomb was always responsible for creating the monsters.  Ironically, a nuclear warhead might represent humanity’s salvation in Rim, if Pentecost’s team can slip one past the goalie, deep enough down the breach.

Even if it is an effects driven tent-pole, most cineastes will be interested in any film starring Idris Elba and Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi.  As one would expect, Elba is one of the very few name actors who has sufficient presence and masculinity to pull off the gruff on the outside, but slightly less gruff on the inside Stacker Pentecost (by the way, is del Toro’s Ronco character name-generating machine still under warranty?). 

Yet, the real breakout star is Kikuchi, who exhibits both acute sensitivity and legit action cred as rookie Jaeger pilot Mako Mori.  Charlie Hunnam is basically adequate as the out-for-redemption Raleigh Beckett, but that constitutes a significant improvement from his embarrassing turn in the laughable atheism advocacy potboiler, The Ledge.  Mana Ashida also deserves great credit for her tremendous green screen work as the young Mori, but viewers will start to absolutely despise del Toro for making her look so terrified.

Obviously, Pacific Rim is inspired by Kaiju classics, like the Godzilla and Daimajin franchises, but in terms of tone, the film feels more closely akin to anime, with its battling bots and angst-ridden crews.  In fact, the Jaegers bear a distinct resemblance to the Eva units in the Evangelion series. Frankly, a cheesy j-pop theme song would have come as a welcome relief from Ramin Djawadi’s ridiculously ominous score.

The visual effects are suitably impressive, particularly when rendering a sense of the enormous mass and scale of the Jaegers and creatures.  Still, it is too dark overall, never really giving viewers a good daytime shot of the Kaiju.  You start to wonder if they are allergic to Vitamin D.  As usual, the 3D adds little to the experience.

Frankly, the 3D surcharge might just price Rim out of a recommendation.  Kikuchi and Elba are excellent and the concept of a big budget, updated take on the Kaiju genre is pretty cool.  However, the script is rather workaday and a little of the bickering scientists’ comic relief goes a long, long way.  For Kaiju fans looking to beat the heat, Pacific Rim opens today (7/12) nationwide, including the Regal Union Square in New York (screening both the 3D and glorious 2D versions).

The Great Gatsby: Luhrmann “Punches Up” Fitzgerald

This is not the Long Island of Ed Burns movies.  As everyone should remember from high school English class, East Egg is where the old money elite are ensconced and West Egg is where the nouveau riche frolic the nights away.  They are so close yet so far away.  This is still the case in Baz Luhrmann’s brassy 3D adaptation of Fitzgerald’s moody classic, The Great Gatsby (trailer here), which opens across the country today.

Mystery man Jay Gatsby throws extravagant parties in his West Egg mansion in hopes his old flame will someday wander in.  Daisy Buchanan now lives with her husband Tom, an old moneyed philandering bully.  Gatsby hopes her nebbish cousin Nick Carraway, living in the hobbit cottage next to his estate will help him woo her back.  A lot of drinking ensues as the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s faded billboard look down on man’s folly.  At least it’s a heck of a party.

Let’s be frank, Luhrmann is a West Egg filmmaker if ever there was one.  Once again he empties his kit bag of ostentatious razzle dazzle, anachronistic music, and a singular fusion of pop culture irony with syrupy melodrama.  To his estimable credit, Luhrmann never tries to crank up the novel’s modern “relevancy.”  Gatsby and his gangster associate Meyer Wolfshiem are not reconceived as sub-prime lenders, nor do any characters’ untimely deaths coincide with the 1929 stock market crash. 

Instead, Luhrmann is the sort of director who might step on the set and proclaim: “you know what this scene needs? More dancing flappers.”  To an extent, we should all be able to buy into that.  You can dismiss Luhrmann’s style as shtick, because it is, but it is his shtick.  However, on some level, he still has to hold together a narrative and guide his cast.  The latter is rather problematic, starting at the top.

Aside from his gloriously over the top entrance, set to the crescendo of Rhapsody in Blue, Leonardo DiCaprio is profoundly wrong as Gatsby.  This is the great Byronic brooder of proper upstanding American literature, but you would hardly know it here.  Chipper and shallow, DiCaprio’s Gatsby is like the Gatsby Gatsby always wanted to be.  This is rather disastrous given Luhrmann’s surprising faithfulness to Fitzgerald’s storyline.

Perhaps even more head-scratching is the choice of Carey Mulligan to play Daisy Buchanan, due to her eerie resemblance to DiCaprio.  Is Luhrmann offering a subversive commentary on the characters’ narcissism when they stare into their beloved’s eyes and see themselves reflected back?  Or is it just a case of careless casting?  Regardless, it is quite creepy to watch them rekindling their romance.  Far from a femme fatale, her Buchanan is just plain mousy.

On the other hand, poor Tobey Maguire has been taking it in the shins from critics, but his “gee whiz” persona is perfectly suited to Nick Carraway.  Likewise, many were thrown for a loop by the announcement the great Hindi actor Amitabh Bachchan would play Wolfshiem, but that voice could sell anything.  Next time, let’s make him Gatsby.

Who would have been better suited for the title role?  Seriously, how about Robert Downey, Jr.?  Take into account the similarities between Tony Stark and Jay Gatsby.  Both are conspicuous consumers and relentless re-inventers.   They have rather ambiguous wartime experiences and are smitten with ghostly pale blondes.  Of course, we can instantly believe Downey has been to some very dark places.  DiCaprio, not so much.

For his next project, Luhrmann ought to do a legitimate Busby Berkeley musical.  His big sprawling musical bacchanals really are a lot of fun to behold.  Unfortunately, the rest of the film is sabotaged by the inappropriate leads and a complete abandonment of the novel’s dreamy ambiguity.  Big and loud, Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is what you would expect, never transcending the Moulin Rouge! template. For those who want to see Fitzgerald this way, it is now playing pretty much everywhere with a movie screen, including the Regal Union Square in New York.

Sundance ’13: Charlie Victor Romeo

This is a rather bold programming choice, considering how many attending Sundance have flown in from New York and Los Angeles.  Originally, it started as an Off-Broadway theater production, based on the real life transcripts of black boxes recovered from plane crashes.  Though it retains the potentially stagey single cockpit set and the revolving ensemble, Robert Berger & Karlyn Michelson’s Charlie Victor Romeo holds the distinction of being Sundance’s first 3D film, screening as part of the 2013 New Frontiers track.

For a film entirely depicting systems failures, it is ironically fitting CVR’s Monday night screening had to be presented in 2D due to technical difficulties.  While some of the schematics incorporated into the film might look cool in 3D, it is hard to see how the film lends itself to the process.  The real story is the impressively realistic sound, designed by Jamies Mereness, recorded and edited by Kevin Reilly, and mixed by Joel Hamilton.  The theatrical nature of the solitary set also becomes quite cinematic, thanks to the eerie lighting.

The constituent stories of CVR are a bit bracing, since in each case a plane is going down.  The only question is how bad will it be?  In general, the short ones are more disturbing.  However, the clear dramatic highpoint of the film recreates efforts to save a Peruvian flight that lost all instrumentation, including velocity and altitude, soon after take-off.

The cast-members are all quite strong in their various roles, particularly Patrick Daniels (the director and co-writer of the original stage version) in the Lima installment.  They quickly create convincing working relationships amongst the flight crews, which are almost immediately tested in crisis situations.

CVR is kind of like the parts of Zemeckis’s Flight audiences really want to see, played repeatedly with key variations each time.  An intriguing application of technology to film (which is why it is a New Frontiers selection), but also an unusually faithful adaptation of a stage piece for the big screen, Charlie Victor Romeo is recommended for fearless flyers when it screens again today (1/24) and Monday (1/28) at Park City’s Prospector Square Theatre (the designated 3D venue) as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.  Travel safe everyone.

The Hobbit: Peter Jackson Cranks Up the Frame Rate

Does this sound familiar?  A little dude with big feet saves the world.  A magic ring is involved.  Welcome back to Middle Earth.  After the complete triumph of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a big screen treatment for The Hobbit was almost inevitable.  Fortunately, after a complicated development process, Peter Jackson retook the reins of what is now a prequel trilogy.  As most anyone remotely connected to the media culture knows, Jackson’s The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey (trailer here) opens today, just about everywhere.

Blink and you might miss him, but Frodo appears in passing early on.  Of course, The Hobbit is Bilbo Baggins story, which he is writing out for Frodo’s edification.  In his younger years, Baggins was recruited by Gandalf the Grey to aid a company of dwarves reclaim their ancestral home from an ancient dragon.  A bookish homebody, Baggins cannot fathom what he would bring to the expedition, but Gandalf just seems to think it will be helpful to have a hobbit along.  Thorin Oakenshield, the fiery heir to the Dwarvish throne, is openly contemptuous of Baggins, but several of his compatriots eventually warm to their halfing compatriot.

Thorin also makes no secret of his resentment for the Elvish kingdom, whom he blames for turning their backs on the Dwarves in their hour of need.  However, Gandalf insists they will need their assistance deciphering a certain magical map.  They could also use a hand with the Orc hordes pursuing them through the mountains.  Frankly, there should not be so many trolls and goblins roaming about the foothills.  There seems to be an evil agency at work, with most signs pointing to the former Dwarvish homeland.

Considering The Hobbit is just one average sized book and The Lord of the Rings is a fat trilogy, one would expect a lot of filler in Unexpected Journey.  Yet, since about seventy-five percent of the film consists of the orcs chasing or battling the dwarves, it’s nearly three hours do not seem so excessively padded (as long as you enjoy fantastical action).

All that melee looks great in 3D.  No lame 2D fix-up (like Clash of the Titans), Journey was clearly conceived for the format.  However, the High Frame Rate (HFR) gimmick is another story.  Frankly, the super sharp clarity of image often makes the effects look more fake rather than the opposite.  Conversely, the early scenes in Bag End lack the warm cozy vibe one would expect.

Even if HFR is more of a distraction than an attraction, Jackson gets the bigger Tolkien picture.  He understands and always remains true to the series’ themes of sacrifice, faith, courage, and humility.  Fans trust him adapting this world, with good reason, so if the HFR experiment is the price to pay for Jackson’s return to Middle Earth, it is probably worth it.

Journey might not be as epic as its LOTR predecessors, but it does not disappoint.  Martin Freeman (Sherlock’s Dr. Watson) has the right everyhobbit presence and looks quite credible as Sir Ian Holm’s younger analog.  Most importantly, Sir Ian McKellen is back as Gandalf, a role he was probably born to play.  Hammer fans will also be pleased to see Sir Christopher Lee return as Saruman the White.  It is sort of more of the same, but Jackson makes it feel right even when it looks a little weird.  Recommended for fantasy fans, The Hobbit is now playing on over 4,000 screens nationwide, including the AMC Loews Lincoln Square in New York.

A Liar’s Autobiography: Monty Python’s Graham Chapman is in There Somewhere

He was the one with the pipe.  Graham Chapman could be as silly as any of the Pythons, but only he had the noble bearing to portray King Arthur, the would-be messiah Brian Cohen, and a battalion of aristocratic British military officers.  He also played the title role in Yellowbeard, but nobody’s perfect.  Indeed, that could be the mantra of Bill Jones, Jeff Simpson & Ben Timlett’s A Liar’s Autobiography: the Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman (trailer here), a hyperkinetic kitchen sink of an animated biography, which opens in 3D this Friday, day-and-date with its 2D premiere on Epix.

Viewers of Jones (son of Terry) & Timlett’s Monty Python: Almost the Truth will know Chapman was the tragic Python, who struggled with substance and sex addictions, before succumbing to cancer at the terribly early age of forty-eight.  Chapman was also perfectly open, if rather ambivalent, about his sexuality.  Such a dramatic life offers plenty of grist for a biopic treatment and it all in Liar’s Autobiography—somewhere.

Fourteen different animation houses using seventeen different animation styles illustrate the events of Chapman’s life, as narrated by the subject himself from the memoir that would inspire the film.  Given the relatively brevity and rapid succession of each constituent episode, it is hard to keep them all straight. At least, they proceed in a somewhat orderly narrative fashion, depicting Chapman as a rather macabre baby (not unlike Seth Macfarlane’s Stewie), a precocious student, and as one of the gaggle of monkeys co-founding Monty Python. 

The thread is easier to follow in his early years, though Autobiography is still prone to distraction, even dramatizing one of the Biggles war stories (strikingly rendered by Made Visual Studio) that captivated young Chapman.  However, by the time Autobiography reaches Treat Studios’ Space Pods, the connection to reality has been gleefully severed.

The greatest irony of Autobiography is that its biggest laughs and greatest emotional payoff comes from the real-life-honest-to-gosh video of John Cleese’s eulogy for Chapman, in which he promises to avoid “mindless good taste.”  Most of the Pythons are represented in Autobiography, playing themselves as well as other co-conspirators and innocent bystanders.  Fans will be delighted to hear honorary Python Carol Cleveland turns up for old time’s sake too.  Bizarrely, Cameron Diaz, who also used to famous once, supplies the voice of Freund.  However, Eric Idle is MIA, though his song “Sit on My Face” gets the full “Blame Canada” Busby Berkley treatment.

You don’t walk out of Autobiography, you stagger.  While the 3D is characteristically hit or miss, the film[s] bombards the audience with wacky, tripped out imagery.  At times, it is almost too much, but it least it scrupulously observes Chapman’s wishes regarding gratuitous good taste.  You have to give its spirit proper due.  Recommended more for the fanatical Python fan than the causal viewer (quick, what is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?), A Liar’s Autobiography will be the first 3D release to play at the Angelika Film Center when it opens this Friday (11/2) in New York, simultaneous with its 2D broadcast on Epix.