BFF ’20: Snaeland

Small Icelandic towns are a good place to keep secrets, because people do not talk much there. At least, they are pretty taciturn in this coastal village, as well as the one in the recently released A White, White Day. Disgraced German reporter has come to cover a long-rumored bacchanal, but that story is fake news. However, he might have a line on an explosive tabloid story (that would ironically rehabilitate his reputation) in Lise Raven’s Snaeland, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival.

After indelicately asking multiple residents, Haas accepts the town really doesn’t hold an annual midnight sun festival of drunken debauchery for his readers to gawk at. He stumbles across something more potentially scandalous. A notorious French au pair, who was convicted of murdering her Wall Street employer-lover’s baby, is alive and well, living in town, after apparently faking her suicide. She is now known as Melanie Clement, a bee-keeper married to the local cab-driver.

Rather conveniently, Oskar Hrafnsson thinks his wife’s bee-keeping would make a good story, so Haas opportunistically plays along. Of course, Clement is suspicious of him, but she still tries to humor her husband. There is definitely a test of wits going on, but descriptions of Snaeland as a thriller or noir are overblown. Even “psychological drama” overstates matters. It is really a dark morality play and a scathing critique of media voyeurism.

In fact, Raven and co-screenwriter Deborah Goodwin sort of over-play that hand by equating with Haas with the village peeping tom, whom he catches red-handed, so to speak. The distastefulness of his behavior rather distracts from and undermines the analogy. Still, you certainly cannot accuse them of pulling their punches, which is also true of Clement’s infanticide crime (although she is said to have claimed it was an accident).

Fantasia ’16: The Exclusive, Beat the Devil’s Tattoo

If you think journalists are interested in truth, you probably also still believe lawyers are only interested in justice. Let Heo Moo-hyeok dispel any lingering misconceptions you might have for the former. When he gets a life-and-death serial killer story wrong, he just keeps digging a deeper hole for himself in Roh Deok’s The Exclusive: Beat the Devil’s Tattoo (trailer here), which screened during the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Heo has just been pushed out from his hack journalist job at a low-rated television network and pretty much blacklisted everywhere else in town. Drunk and despondent, he plays his last card, following-up with the tipster who called in with a supposed lead as to the whereabouts of a serial killer stalking Seoul. In the dark of night, in his drunken stupor, the supposed lair looks frighteningly sinister. By break of day, he is back in his network’s good graces, working on his exclusive report. Unfortunately, when he returns to the scene, Heo realizes the supposed chamber of horrors is actually an actor’s workshop.

Obviously, his story is bogus, but it takes on a life of its own nonetheless. Every time Heo attempts some damage control, it backfires spectacularly. On the plus side, he career is on the upswing and he just might have an outside chance of patching things up with his mega-preggers estranged wife Soo-jin. However, his sudden notoriety also puts him squarely on the real serial killer’s radar.

For the most part, Exclusive is an insidiously clever one-darned-thing-after-another thriller, but it never has the massive third act crescendo we expect (like Confession of Murder or Broken). Still, it is bizarrely engrossing to watch the wildly problematic Heo make a hash of everything.

It will also leave viewers deeply disillusioned with respects to the state of journalism, thanks to some wonderfully arch supporting turns. Kim Eui-sung (the jerkheel businessman in Train to Busan) was apparently born to play sleazebag supporting characters and he chews the scenery with glee as the ethically challenged executive editor. However, the commanding Lee Mi-sook almost makes tabloid journalism look respectable as the network director. When she is on-screen, she takes the film to another level. Bae Sung-woo is also as reliable as ever playing CYA-ing Squad Chief Oh. They help a lot, given Cho Jung-seok’s clammy standoffishness as Heo.

Exclusive is a solid Korean thriller that earns extra bonus points for achievements in cynicism. It does not quite reach the over-the-top heights of some of the best in genre, but it is definitely a satisfying viewing experience. Recommended as an antidote to Spotlight and other nauseatingly self-important journalism movies, The Exclusive: Beat the Devil’s Tattoo had its Canadian premiere at this year’s Fantasia.

Tabloid Truth: The Rumor Mill Kills

It is downright ugly when the press and the government start colluding. When a well-connected corporation gets in on the game, it becomes a perfect storm of corruption. However, the world’s’ only honest talent manager will stand up to them in Kim Kwang-sik’s Tabloid Truth (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles and next Friday in New York.

While paying dues at a large agency, Lee Woo-gon instantly recognizes the raw talent of Choi Mi-jin, but his bosses prefer to push the questionable talent they already have under contract. Striking out on his own, Lee builds Choi’s career to the brink of superstardom. In a cruel twist of fate, a malicious rumor published in an e-newsletter for elites romantically links Choi to a much older congressman just as they start to enjoy real success. Lee struggles to control the damage, but the media has already cast its verdict. When Choi subsequently commits suicide, Lee vows to avenge her.

He starts with the e-scandal sheet, but the small staff led by Mr.Park are just lowly, resentful pawns in a much bigger game. After a rough introduction, Park and his lieutenant Miss Kim help trace to the source of rumor, eventually leading Lee to the national government’s Office of Planning and the O&C Corporation. Unfortunately, Cha Sung-joo and his private security firm seem to have the drop on the crusading manager, in a decidedly painful way.

There is definitely something Zeigeisty about the film’s portrayal of digital tabloid journalism and its obsequious relationship with government officials. The anti-corporate pivot is rather predictable and overplayed, but the film sort of lives in a paranoid place where Tea Party alarmism and Occupy thuggery intersect.

Tabloid is only Kim’s second feature as a director and his first crack at the thriller genre, but he shows a real command of pacing. Shrewdly, Lee is portrayed as a tough customer, but not a superman by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the film gets a lot of mileage out of the savage beatdowns he endures, out of sheer hard-headedness. Still, the chemistry shown in early scenes and flashbacks between Kim Kang-woo’s Lee and Ko Won-hee’s Choi is surprisingly touching.

Those familiar with Koran cinema will also recognize a host of familiar faces amongst the supporting cast, especially Ko Chang-seok (from Quick, Hello Ghost, etc), who supplies comic relief as Baek Moon, Mr. Park’s surveillance specialist, but keeps the shtick relatively restrained. Park Sung-woong is also effectively cold-blooded and serpentine as the ruthless Mr. Cha, whereas Jeong Jin-yeong convincingly plays Mr. Park as a man of somewhat more years and considerably more mileage.

Without question, Tabloid successfully taps into people’s frustration with all things big and overly collegial. Nevertheless, its thriller mechanics work to the extent they do because of the very human foundation laid down by the cast, particularly Kim Kang-woo and Ko Won-hee. Recommended on the basis of their work rather than any potential socio-economic implications, Tabloid Truth opens tomorrow (3/7) in Los Angeles at the CGV Cinemas and next Friday (3/14) in New York (Flushing) at the AMC Bay Terrace.

The Terror Live: The Scoop that Kills

Yoon Young-hwa is sort of like the Korean Dan Rather.  The disgraced former television anchor has been demoted to a lowly radio call-in host.  However, when a domestic terrorist calls into his show, the “journalist” tries to leverage his scoop into a career comeback.  Alas, nothing goes according to plan in Kim Byung-woo’s The Terror Live (trailer here), now playing in New York.

At first, Yoon assumes the caller is pesky crank, but for some reason his producer is unable to dump his call.  When the mystery man threatens to blow-up the nearby bridge, Yoon dares him to follow through—and he does.  Capitalizing on his direct line to the terrorist, Yoon negotiates a return to the anchor’s chair with the sleazy SNC news director.  However, he quickly realizes he is playing a far more dangerous game than he realized. 

For starters, there is the explosive device the mad bomber somehow slipped into his earpiece.  While the initial explosions scrupulously avoided human casualty, the second round left an isolated section of the bridge precariously listing on its caisson.  Amongst the bystanders trapped there is Yoon’s ex-wife, Lee Ji-soo, a fellow reporter.  Yoon finds himself caught between the news director, who orders Yoon to provoke a spectacularly tragic finish and Park Jung-min, the national security official imploring him to stall for time.

It is hard to judge from Terror Live whether Koreans have more contempt for journalists or politicians.  Probably the former, but it is a close call.  Neither displays much integrity throughout the film, but Yoon will find himself on the business end of some cosmic comeuppance as a result of his past sins.

Korean mega-star Ha Jung-woo (who was all kinds of bad in The Berlin File and Nameless Gangster) once again is quite the intense anti-hero as the existentially torn Yoon.  He largely carries the confined space-pressure cooker film singlehandedly.  Unfortunately, only Jeon Hye-jin provides him any measurable support as the tough but seemingly decent Park.  In contrast, Lee Kyoung-young is eye-roll worthy as the ridiculously oily news boss.  Still, he makes more of an impression than the rest of the blandly anonymous cast.

To an extent, you have to give Kim credit for not backing down.  He steadily raises the stakes and never shies away from the enormity of the terrorist attacks.  Frankly, the sight of bomb damaged buildings slowly teetering over might be too much for New Yorkers with particularly vivid memories of September 11^th.  Many more viewers will also find Kim’s third act nihilism—unsubtly implying a bombing spree is not such an unreasonable response to political opportunism—rather problematic as well.

Clearly, Kim understands how to stage a hold-the-line thriller.  His execution is strong, but his ethical implications and character motivations are questionable.  TV journalists might be pond scum, but the SNC network big wigs often just seem perversely villainous.  A frustrating example of a potentially taut terrorism drama that implodes on itself, The Terror Live is now showing in New York at the AMC Empire.

NYFF ’12: The Paperboy

In the Deep South, there is not much to do except have graphic sex and commit senseless acts of violence.  At least, that is the portrait Lee Daniels chooses to paint in The Paperboy (trailer here).  However, the biggest mystery of his adaptation of Pete Dexter’s 1995 crime novel is why anyone would screen it as part of a gala tribute to co-star Nicole Kidman.  Yet, that is what happened last night at the 50^th New York Film Festival.

It is the late 1960’s or so in Florida’s swamp country.  Tarty death row groupie Charlotte Bless has convinced a pair of Miami newspapermen to look into her “boyfriend” Hillary Van Wetter’s case.  Ward Jansen is actually coming home to the town where his father W.W. publishes the local birdcage liner and his younger brother Jack does not really do anything at all.  Of course, the junior Jansen will fall head over heels for sleazy femme fatale as he shuttles her, his brother, and Ward’s African American colleague Yardley Acheman about town.

There is a crusading journalist-legal thriller in Paperboy somewhere, but it often gets lost in Daniel’s heavy-handed but discursive narrative, told in flashback by the Jansen’s family maid, Anita Chester, who is never in any position to witness the events she relates.  Instead, we see Bless going number one on young Jansen’s jellyfish stings and sit through several scenes of autoerotica.  Eventually showing the audience Matthew McConaughey’s elder Ward Brother naked on the porcelain throne, Daniels will clearly spare us nothing.

This is bad movie, but Daniels does his best to dress up his lurid material with some visual flare and a soulful R&B soundtrack.  It helps, but only so much.  Too preoccupied with sex and race, Daniels often lets the crime story founder, distracted by his characters’ hang-ups.

Frankly, it is rather baffling why Kidman would accept the role of Bless.  Regardless of her box office track record, she is one of the few actresses in Hollywood who can play it smart and classy, as well as sexy.  However, the lingering aftertaste of Paperboy could damage that image.  In truth, she is not bad revisiting To Die For terrain, provided viewers are okay with the obscure motivations and rash decision-making endemic to all the film’s characters.

Zac Efron is also adequate enough as young Jansen, largely reprising his bid for respectability in Me and Orson Welles, but with more sex and less earnestness.  As the supposedly mercurial Van Wetter, John Cusack just looks like a sad Muppet.   Deep dark secrets notwithstanding, McConaughey does his regular Lincoln Lawyer thing as Brother Ward.  Most frustratingly, the great Scott Glenn is criminally wasted as old man Jansen.

Just a big humid mess, viewers will want to shower after seeing The Paperboy.  Yet, it is hard to turn away from it, like the sight of a wrecking ball demolishing a building.  Call it a career-wreck.  Not recommended, The Paperboy opens tomorrow (10/5) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine and AMC Loews Lincoln Square, following its gala screening at the 2012 New York Film Festival.

Safety Not Guaranteed: Best Temp Gig Ever

The cynicism of journalism is about rub up against the idealism of science.  However, the science practiced by Kenneth Calloway is a decidedly scruffy, DIY affair.  His unusual classified ad attracts the attention of a Seattle magazine writer, who brings along two lowly interns to help investigate Calloway’s time travel claims in Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York and the Pacific Northwest.

Based on a real classified that became a minor internet sensation, Calloway’s ad seeks: “Someone to go back in time with . . . You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.”  To Jeff Schwensen this sounds like the perfect set-up for a mock-the-rube piece (and also represents a good opportunity to hook up with an old summer fling).  At first, Darius Britt, an intern who makes Janeane Garofalo look upbeat, sees it pretty much the same way.  However, when Schwensen’s direct approach spooks the self-styled time traveler, he sends Britt in undercover to win their subject’s trust. 

Much to her surprise, she starts to like the guy—kind of a lot.  After all, Calloway is a socially stunted paranoid delusional—what’s not to like?  Of course, Derek Connolly’s consistently clever script leaves the door open just wide enough for viewers to consider the possibility Calloway is not so crazy after all.  Like they say, just because you’re paranoid . . .

Mark Duplass’s beefy Calloway (somewhat resembling Lon Chaney, Jr. before his transformations) and Aubrey Plaza’s much younger and very petite Britt look like a wildly mismatched couple, but the way they click as kindred outsider spirits makes perfect sense in the film’s’ dramatic context.  Frankly, their romance-in-denial chemistry is shockingly endearing.  Meanwhile, Jake Johnson delivers generous helpings of outrageous humor, of both the politically incorrect and ribald varieties.  You know that obnoxious guy you put up with because he is so unfiltered you want to hear whatever crazy thing he says next?  Johnson nails that vibe as Schwensen (sort of like a Tom Hanks circa Bachelor Party).  Poor Karan Soni is also good sport playing the Arnau, the nebbish straight-man intern, looking appropriately lost amid all the bedlam.

Helmed with sensitivity rarely seen in a genre send-up, Trevorrow nicely balances the comedic bravado with a humanistic sensibility.  Indeed, Safety never moderates Calloway’s twitchiness, nor does it judge him.  Yet, the film offers an unmistakable rebuke to the urban hipster condescension for small town America.  Don’t let the “from the producers of Little Miss Sunshine” copy line set off your quirky indie alarm bells.  It is a film with a sharp edge and a big heart, but it always stays true to its geek roots.  Thoroughly satisfying, Safety Not Guaranteed is enthusiastically recommended for general movie-going audiences when it opens this Friday (6/8) in New York, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle.

NYAFF ’11: The Recipe

Rosebud is a bowl of stew. Kim Jong-gu is no Charles Foster Kane though. He was a serial killer fugitive. His dying words were not of defiance or regret, but of the doenjang (bean paste) stew he was relishing when the cops finally collared him. Rediscovering his journalistic curiosity, a jaded television news producer (is there any other kind?) sets out to discover if the stew really is that good in Lee Seon-goon’s The Recipe (unrepresentative trailer here), which screens during the 2011 New York Asian Film Festival.

The stew in question was the specialty of a rustic mountain lodge. Evidently, its savory flavor held Kim in thrall as the law encircled him. Unfortunately, recreating the stew in all its glory will be a bit tricky. The enigmatic cook Jang Hye-jin has disappeared (well after Kim’s capture), leading hack newsman Choi Yu-jin to fear the worst.

Essentially, Recipe is the foodie version of Eddie and the Cruisers, with a Silence of the Lambs prologue. Yet, despite the serial killer catalyst, Recipe is an unapologetically sentimental tear-jerker in the tradition of Il Mare, the Korean weeper remade by Hollywood as The Lake House with a bogus happy ending. As Kim tracks down the exquisitely pure beans, salt, yeast, and water Jang patiently collected, he pieces together her backstory. There was indeed a tragic romance, with the strong but silent vintner the villagers affectionately called the “Mountain Goblin.”

In keeping with Recipe’s elegiac romanticism, Lee Seon-gong (a.k.a. Anna Lee) maintains a mysterious and ever so slightly mystical atmosphere throughout, letting the puzzle pieces elegantly fall into place. As a culinary procedural, it is rather tightly constructed, but the star-crossed love is the real meat of its stew.

As Jang and “the Goblin” respectively, the lovely Lee Yo-won and scruffy Dong Wook-lee nicely project a contradictory blend of earthiness and ethereal allure. Unfortunately, Ryoo Seung-ryong’s Choi indulgences in a few too many rubber-faced reactions shots that clash with the film’s overall dreamy vibe. Frankly, we could use more shots of his back, like William Alland in Citizen Kane.

Regardless, Lee Seon-goon has a strong command of the material, avoiding cheap sentimentality in favor of the hard earned kind. Na Hee-suk’s gauzy cinematography also perfectly serves the film’s swooning spirit and soft fantastical elements. Even the hopelessly cynical should get a tad choked up at the end. Lee’s adroit genre hopscotching also makes Recipe a natural fit for NYAFF, where it screens this coming Tuesday (7/5) and the following Saturday (7/9) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Kurosawa Centennial: Scandal

It could be considered Akira Kurosawa’s Christmas movie—sort of. Partly set during the Christmas season, there are Christmas trees, caroling, and plenty of old fashioned tear-jerking in Scandal (trailer here), an early postwar melodrama screening during Film Forum’s twenty-eight film retrospective of the Kurosawa centennial (1910-2010).

Ichirô Aoye is a talented painter of some renown. Miyako Saijo is a beautiful, camera-shy singer much in demand by the press. They would make a perfect couple, but they are not together. So when scandal sheet paparazzi capture them in an innocent but suggestive looking situation, the outraged Aoye files suit. Unfortunately, he hires Hiruta, a compulsive gambling lush of an attorney to represent him. Though hardly blind to his counsel’s faults, Aoye retains him out of sympathy for his angelic bed-ridden daughter, Masako. Needless to say, this is a bad legal strategy.

Obviously, there is something brewing between the not-lovers, but Kurosawa is more interested in Hiruta’s loathing self-contempt. As Masako’s growing suspicions of her father’s corruption weaken her condition, Scandal definitely heads into hanky territory. Like a true melodrama, it all heads towards an emotional courtroom showdown.

While Aoye probably was not the character Toshirō Mifune was born to play, he at least exudes a certain square-jawed likability. Likewise, singer-actress Shirley Yamaguchi (born Yoshiko Yamaguchi in China to Japanese parents before eventually becoming a member of Japan’s Parliament) is appropriately glamorous and her voice is indeed quite lovely in the underwritten role of Saijo. However, most of the heavy-lifting acting falls to Takashi Shimura as the sharply-drawn Hiruta. Though he conveys a compelling sense of pathos, the cringe-inducing self-hatred becomes somewhat repetitive after a while.

Yes, Scandal gets more than a little corny, but that sentimentality gives it an old-school Hollywood sweetness that is refreshing in a way. Though not particularly remarkable, it is an interesting commentary on Japan’s emerging tabloid journalism. Ultimately, Scandal’s somewhat quirky charm adds another dimension to the Film Forum’s impressive Kurosawa survey. It screens this coming Sunday (1/24).

Teen Angst: What Goes Up

A burned out New York Times reporter falsifies a series of stories out of whole cloth—not exactly a shocking premise. Yet we are not supposed to judge Campbell Babbitt too harshly, because his motives are noble, well sort of. Aside from the fact that he has one of the greatest movie names in recent years, it is hard to get a handle on the troubled and troubling protagonist of Jonathan Glatzer’s pseudo-comedy What Goes Up (trailer here), opening this Friday in New York.

Babbitt has broken one iron-clad rule of journalism after another. The first was falling in love with a woman he was covering: “Angela,” the anonymous mother of young son murdered in a senseless street crime. When the crusading Angela takes her own life out of despair, Babbitt cannot bring himself to report the truth, fabricating multiple stories about her campaign against crime.

A complete basket case, Babbitt’s irritated editor assigns him the kind of human interest story he seems to specialize in: New Hampshire’s Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space. However, in this fictionalized treatment, McAuliffe’s high school has already suffered the untimely loss of one teacher when the broken-down Times scribe arrives. In a twist of fate, the late teacher was Sam Calalluci, an old friend of Babbitt’s.

Sensing a story, Babbitt exaggerates his relationship to Calalluci to win the trust of his grieving homeroom class. It works only too well, as his class of misfits adopts the morally comprised reporter as their new mentor figure. However, he is only too willing to get close to one student, Lucy Diamond, played by teen-aged “It-Girl” Hilary Duff, in one of Up’s several highly questionable subplots.

Up sees itself as a meditation on the reality and perception of real life heroes, which becomes painfully obvious from the ubiquitous presence of David Bowie’s “Heroes” in the soundtrack. Of course, the inevitable fate of Christa McAuliffe and the rest of the shuttle crew hangs over the film, putting a damper on the would-be comedic moments. It is a reality Glatzer never brings himself to deal with, ending the film shortly before the tragic launch.

Clearly, Glatzer and co-screenwriter Robert Lawson want to say much about the nature of heroism, but Up’s tone is so wildly inconsistent, the picture is ultimately a complete muddle. Steve Coogan seems to specialize in films that feature pivotal high school stage productions, but unlike Hamlet 2, he is allowed to keep his British accent here. In fact, he is quite convincing as the world-weary Babbitt. Unfortunately, he is often forced into smarmy situations which border on the outright criminal. Aside from Coogan and a surprisingly effective Duff, Up’s promising cast is largely wasted on stock characters, like the shrewish Penelope Little, played by SNL alumnus Molly Shannon.

At times, Up tries to be a thoughtful examination of the need to be inspired, particularly at a young age. However, it often degenerates into exploitative scenes of teenaged sexuality. While it has one or two interesting moments, Up just does not work as a film. It opens this Friday (5/29) in New York at the Quad.