Tribeca ’12: Wagner’s Dream

It is the epic tale of a powerful ring that brings misfortune to all who seek it.  Sound familiar?  After technology advanced to the point Peter Jackson could finally do justice to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, it is not surprising the opera world might hatch some new ideas for Wagner’s Ring cycle.  However, mounting a production on stage is a totally different proposition than making a film with extensive post-production effects, as renowned director Robert Lepage demonstrates with the Metropolitan Opera’s ambitious new production of the Ring.  Director Susan Froemke (with editor Bob Eisenhardt) captures the ensuing flirting-with-disaster exhilaration of live opera in Wagner’s Dream (trailer here), which had its world premiere at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, in advance of a special-event nationwide screening this coming Monday.

Reportedly, Wagner was not at all satisfied with the initial 1876 staging of his Ring cycle, but he died before he could implement any of the mysterious changes he promised.  As a result, the questions of what would Wagner do and what is feasible have bedeviled opera companies ever since.  Charged with developing something bold, Lepage did just that. 

His radical concept centers on what will be referred to as “the Machine.”  A series of interlocked, swiveling planks, sort of but not really resembling a double helix, the Machine will serve as the minimalist set for all four constituent productions of the Ring cycle.  When it works, it facilitates some truly epic grandeur.  Unfortunately, it is decidedly buggy.

Frankly it is quite cool and surprising the Met is so enthusiastically behind Dream, because it documents some embarrassing moments for the storied company.  Complications with the machine put a damper on more than one opening night, which is awkward for the professionals bluffing their way through on-stage, but makes for dramatic documentary cinema.

Arguably, Lepage’s Ring cycle production might be thought of as the Met’s Apocalypse Now, with Wagner’s Dream corresponding to Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.  Like screenwriter John Milius sent to retrieve Francis Ford Coppola from the jungle only to be convinced “this would be the first film to win the Nobel Prize,” every cast-member and tech-hand approaching Lepage or Met General Manager Peter Gelb with logistical concerns winds up doubling down on the Machine.  Again, just like Coppola’s film, the result is a sometimes flawed, but towering work of genius.

Dream is one of the few behind-the-scenes documentaries completely warranting the big screen treatment.  A sense of scale is important here.  Yet, it does not ignore the human element, following the challenges faced by the featured performers and sampling the reactions of loyal patrons.  Having helmed two previous docs about the Met, including the profile of Maestro James Levine relatively recently broadcast on American Masters, Froemke clearly had the trust and confidence of the opera company.  By now, many probably assume she is on staff there.

Even for opera neophytes, Wagner’s Dream is a fascinating film.  It is also a highly effective teaser for its special encore screenings of Lepage’s Ring cycle productions.  One cannot help wondering whether audiences will see the Machine cooperate or not.  Highly recommended beyond the obvious opera and theater audiences, it screens across the country via Fathom Events this coming Monday (5/7) and will also be shown at the BAM Rose Cinemas the following Saturday (5/12).

Tribeca ’12: Freaky Deaky

Starting out as a western writer but eventually hitting his stride with crime novels, Elmore Leonard has a reputation for his sharp dialogue and lethal characters.  Notable adaptations of his work include Out of Sight, Jackie Brown, Get Shorty, and 3:10 to Yuma.  Indeed, the bard of badaassery’s support for a new big screen treatment of his work factored prominently in the Tribeca Talks panel discussion following the special screening of Charles Matthau’s Freaky Deaky (trailer here) during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Originally set in the 1980’s, Matthau shifted Freaky to the groovy 1970’s at Leonard’s suggestion.  About to be transferred out of the bomb squad, Det. Chris Mankowski does not exactly kill himself trying to save a booby-trapped gangster.  Still, it looks rather bad.  Relegated to vice as a result, Mankowski takes the call when failed starlet Greta Wyatt files a rape report against wealthy creep Woody Ricks.  Talk about a discordant way to kick off a supposedly madcap romp.

Initially, Mankowski downplays the legal recourse available to Wyatt, but he decides to rattle the nutter’s cage anyway.  He is not the only one with his sights on the antisocial weirdo.  Demolitions expert Skip Gibbs and his friend-with-benefits Robin Abbot blame Ricks for their own scrape with the law, for reasons that are hazily glossed over.  To get to him, they will use his brother Mark as the tool he so obviously is.  Meanwhile, Mankowski develops a personal interest in Wyatt and a sort of-kind of professional rivalry with Ricks’ bodyguard-fixer, Donnell Lewis.

Once you get past the unseemliness of the film’s catalyst, it is a breezy enough distraction.  However, despite the vintage cars and occasional file footage of Viet Nam or Watergate, it never really gets inside the 70’s mindset.  This was a bizarre period of time, when millions of Americans were joining Est cults and taking Erica Jong seriously.  By comparison, though not exactly a classic, the film version of Serial (released in 1980) is far more successful capturing the vocabulary and attitudes of the era.  (It also offers the opportunity to see Martin Mull playing off Sir Christopher Lee).  Still, there is one appealing era-appropriate in-joke.    In a nod to the director’s father, every movie theater seen in Freaky is showing a Walter Matthau film, which might well have been possible in 1974.

Frankly, what distinguishes Freaky is the unusually eccentric cast it assembles, including Crispin Glover, Andy Dick, and Christian Slater.  It begs two questions: how did they manage to insure this production and where was Tom Sizemore?  Perhaps he was already locked-in somewhere else.  While it is nice to see blaxploitation veteran and former Bond girl Gloria Hendry, even in a small bone-thrown-to-genre-fans role and Michael Jai “Black Dynamite” White does his thing as Lewis, it is relative newcomer Breanne Racano who shines the brightest as femme fatale Abbot, clearly understanding villainesses should enjoy being devious.

According to the post-screening discussion, there may in fact be a Black Dynamite sequel in the works.  Freaky Deaky actually compares reasonably favorably to White’s prospective franchise, but hardly so in the case of the senior Matthau’s gritty classics, like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.  Flawed but somewhat diverting, largely thanks to Racano’s head-turning work, Freaky Deaky has already had some rights announcements following its Tribeca Talks screening at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Chicken with Plums

Over an eight day period, Nasser-Ali Khan will become the anti-Scherezade.  As he wills himself to die, stories from his past, narrated by the Angel of Death, will explain how the musician reached such a state of profound melancholy.   Love and death become intimately intertwined in Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud’s Chicken with Plums (trailer here), their fantastical but sophisticated live-action follow-up to the rightly acclaimed Persepolis, which screened at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival and will also unspool today at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival.

Khan is widely regarded as the greatest Iranian violinist of his generation, but he has stopped playing.  On the surface, his silence appears to be the fault of his wife Faringuisse, who destroyed his prized violin in one of their frequent squabbles.  However, his depression is rooted in an elegantly tragic tale of love denied.

Technically proficient but never impassioned, Khan’s music took on uncommon richness after he was forbidden from seeing his true love Irâne, the traditional clockmaker’s daughter.  Music never has been considered a stable profession by protective fathers.  As Khan’s reputation rises, he acquiesces to his controlling mother’s wishes and marries Faringuisse. For him, it is a loveless union.  For her, it is a marriage based on unrequited love.

Frankly, Khan is a crummy husband and a negligent father, but it is difficult to condemn him after witnessing his compounded heartache.  Mathieu Amalric, with his big sad eyes, is perfectly cast as the exquisitely sensitive jerkweed.  Viewers will sympathize with him, even as they shake their heads at his casual cruelty to Faringuisse.  Likewise only more so, Maria de Medeiros (Bruce Willis’s girlfriend in Pulp Fiction) explodes the harpy exterior of his nagging wife, revealing the pain and vulnerability of Faringuisse.

Set in the late 1950’s pre-Shah, Western-leaning Iran, Satrapi and Paronnaud’s fable of star-crossed love would seem to hold limited political ramifications.  However, it is not an accident Khan’s forbidden love is named Irâne (as they confirmed in a post-screening Q&A).  That she is played by Golshifteh Farahani is also clearly significant.  The internationally acclaimed actress was barred from returning to Iran after (tastefully) posing nude in a French magazine to protest the Islamist regime’s misogynist policies.  A radiantly beautiful woman, she also invests her character (and the film) with a graceful sadness.

Visually, Plums is also quite arresting, incorporating brief animated interludes, expressionistic sets, and highly stylized design elements.  Their inspired technical team definitely creates a seductive atmosphere of magical realism that is a pleasure to get caught up in.  Highly recommended, Chicken with Plums was enthusiastically received by audiences at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.  For those in the Bay Area, it also screens today (4/30) and Wednesday (5/2)  as part of the 2012 SanFrancisco International Film Festival, concluding this week.

Tribeca ’12: Trishna

Social class is a hard immutable fact of life in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles.  Plunking the classic story down in contemporary America would be highly problematic, but India is a different matter.  Taking a few liberties here and there, Michael Winterbottom still captures the spirit of the original novel and its new setting in Trishna (trailer here), which screened at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, with further screenings coming up this week as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Jay will serve as both Trishna’s Angel and Alec.  Touring the off-the-beaten-path attractions of Rajasthan, his head is turned by Trishna, the primary provider for her large family.  The son of a British hotel mogul, Jay recruits the young woman for the resort he reluctantly manages.  Things are quite pleasant for Trishna, making considerably more than she ever could in her village, while Jay harmlessly pines for her. 

One night when her defenses are weakened, Trishna succumbs to Jay’s advances.  Instinctively realizing a Rubicon has been crossed, Trishna retreats, but Jay pursues, whisking her off to Mumbai, where they are socially accepted as a couple.  However, Trishna’s life and relationship will take a dark turn, paralleling Tess’s tragic history with men.

You never know what you’re going to get from Winterbottom, but he has emerged as the leading cinematic interpreter of Hardy’s novel, following up Jude and The Claim, very loosely based on the Mayor of Casterbridge.  He is clearly comfortable navigating the film’s sexually charged power dynamics, but Trishna also exhibits an affinity for India, even including musical montage sequences (with original songs composed by Amit Trivedi) that would not be out of place in high-end Bollywood cinema.

Winterbottom uses the subcontinent as a big canvas, covering a wide swath of geography, but his focus rarely strays from Frieda Pinto’s Trishna.  While some might find her maddeningly passive, she is a product of her environment.  Through Pinto’s haunted presence, viewers get a sense of the social and cultural weight crushing down on her.  Thanks to Winterbottom’s streamlining, Riz Ahmed’s Jay has to turn on a dime from leading man to a cruel exploiter.  Still, there are enough underlying consistencies in the impulsive, entitled persona he creates to maintain audience credibility.  Pinto and Ahmed really carry the dramatic load, but veteran character actor Roshan Seth (Chattar Lal in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) has some memorable moments as Jay’s stern but humanistic father.

Granted, everyone should have a pretty good idea where Trishna is headed.  After all, Hardy is not exactly famous for his happy endings.  However, Winterbottom’s treatment of Tess is boldly cinematic.  (Incidentally, Polanski’s Tess will screen as a classics selection at this year’s Cannes, so cineastes might want to break out their Cliff Notes.)  Literate and absorbing, Trishna is recommended for anglophiles and fans of Hindi cinema, alike.  A strong selection of the recently wrapped 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, it screens Wednesday and Thursday (5/2 & 5/3) during this year’s San FranciscoInternational Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: The World Before Her

Being crowned Miss India is a major deal.  It can lead to endorsements and career opportunities throughout India, the Mid East, Southeast Asia, and even England.  However, Hindu extremist mobs have violently protested many Indian beauty pageants, bringing with them members of the Durga Vahini, the women’s auxiliary of the movement.  Nisha Pahuja introduces viewers to two very different women who represent each side of India’s culture war in The World Before Her (trailer here), which screens today as the World Documentary Competition Award winner at the 2012 TribecaFilm Festival.

To put things in perspective, Aishwarya Rai took second place in the 1994 pageant.  Many winners and runners-up have gone on to lucrative modeling and Bollywood careers.  Ruhi Singh would like to follow in their footsteps.  As we watch her in the days leading up to the contest, it is clear the underdog from the provinces is in it to win it. 

Prachi on the other hand, will not be competing in pageants anytime soon.  The dread terror of Durga Vahini boot camps, she readily condemns them as decadent western cultural imports.  Though she chafes whenever her domineering father talks about marriage, Prachi wholeheartedly advocates such a traditional lifestyle for the young weapons-trained Durga Vahini girls.  It is a contradiction she has a difficult time reconciling, even when pressed by Pahuja.

World Before Her is more than a bit scary documenting violent Hindu extremist violence targeting women (more-or-less condoned by the Durga Vahini).  Frankly, it is hard to differentiate between the thugs who beat up female patrons for drinking in Bombay bars (nobody calls it Mumbai in Before) from the Islamists throwing acid in the faces of insufficiently veiled women on the streets of Pakistan.

To her credit, Pahuja never over-simplifies the circumstances facing her POV figures.  There is indeed plenty of sexist objectifying going on behind the scenes of Miss India.  Likewise, the undeniably abusive history of Prachi’s “traditional” father is well established.  However, one world view is clearly seeking to force all Indian women into conformity, whereas the other is not.  One insightful pageant contestant also challenges the overheated rhetoric regarding “westernization.”  As she points out, yoga practice has become widespread in America, but nobody talks about us becoming “Indianized.”  Score one for the beauty queen.

Much more timely and illuminating than other documentaries addressing gender issues at Tribeca this year (most definitely including the wildly unfocused Sexy Baby), Before even derives some suspense from the big climatic show.  Essentially, it combines women’s studies issues with a contemporary Hindu terrorism expose, while maintaining a sliver of Bollywood appeal.  Consistently interesting, it screens again today (4/29), when the winning films take their victory laps at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Pitch Black Heist (short)

Michael Fassbender is fully clothed, while Liam Cunningham is really drunk.  Together, they are a mismatched pair of crooks hired to pull off a very dark caper in John Maclean’s Pitch Black Heist (trailer here), the winner of the 2012 BAFTA Award for best short film, which screens today as part of the Status Update programming block at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Known simply as Michael and Liam, two safecrackers are meeting each other for the first time on a very unusual job.  They are two retrieve some item (it hardly matters what) from a safe with a light-sensitive alarm.  To prepare, they practice navigating a dummied-up room in complete darkness.  On the day in question, they meet in a quiet pub and wait for their employer to send them the all-clear.  However, they find themselves cooling their heels far longer than they expected, so they start doing what you’re supposed to do in a pub, lest they attract attention.

Pitch has a nice little twist at the end that Maclean adroitly lays the ground work for, without glaringly telegraphing it.  Frankly, this concept could be relatively easily expanded into a feature, which makes the economy of Maclean’s thirteen minute storytelling all the more noteworthy.  Still, the real entertainment is watching the boozy interaction between co-executive producers Fassbender and Cunningham.  Both actors have genuinely intense screen presences, perfectly suited to their roles in Pitch.

It all looks quite stylish as well, thanks to Robbie Ryan’s appropriately noir black-and-white cinematography.  A neat little ironic crime drama, Pitch Black Heist is one of the overlooked treats of the Tribeca line-up.  As per tradition, all short film blocks screen today (4/29), the concluding day of this year’s festival.

Tribeca ’12: BAM150

In 1962, Rudolf Nureyev made his post-defection American debut at the BrooklynAcademy of Music (BAM) in 1962.  However, the 1960’s would be a difficult decade for the performing arts institution.  Yet, it survived and eventually thrived, as James Sládek documents in BAM150 (trailer here), a portrait of the venue in its sesquicentennial year, which screens again tomorrow during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Originally founded to rival the concert halls of Manhattan, BAM had a difficult time establishing its own identity, notwithstanding the appearance of high profile artists such as Nureyev, Sarah Bernhardt, and even Mark Twain.  It was more in the business of leasing space than producing performances when Harvey Lichtenstein took the reins of leadership in 1967.

During his tenure, Lichtenstein dramatically raised BAM’s stock through the somewhat contradictory strategies of institutionalizing the avant-garde and pursuing big name performers.  Ironically, the economic growth of the 1980’s helped stabilize the venue despite the many theater pieces it staged protesting the very policies making it all possible.  However, it was nearly all undone by Lichtenstein’s disastrous attempts to establish a repertory company.

BAM150 is a perfectly respectable survey of the hall’s history.  Sládek has a nice approach to the material, smoothly blending moments of quiet Wiseman-esque observation with more conventional talking head sequences.  The combined effect gives audiences a pretty good feel for the rapidly expanding institution.

After previously profiling Mark Kostabi, a somewhat dubious artist more famous than he should be, Sládek has shifted gears, shining a spotlight on an arts organization that ought to be more widely recognized.  It is also a rather shrewd filmmaking decision, since his documentary is a lead pipe cinch to be screened at BAM’s Cinématek.  Still, he faced a bit of a challenge, considering dance and theater performances are fleeting by nature.  As a result, viewers must often settle for descriptions rather than video documentation.  Fortunately, the quality of interview participants helps to compensate, including the likes of Steve Reich, Peter Brook, Alan Rickman, and Isabella Rossellini.

Clearly produced in a celebratory spirit, Sládek never pushes or prods his subjects into any news-making revelations, but he keeps it all moving along briskly.  Most likely destined for an engagement at the BAM Cinématek and an eventual PBS broadcast life, BAM150 is basically pleasant and informative.  Modestly recommended for proud Brooklynites and those fascinating by the performing arts world, BAM150 screens again tonight (4/28) as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival enters its concluding weekend.

Tribeca ’12: Postcards from the Zoo

The Ragunan Zoo is a slightly run down Eden.  The city around it is jungle.  One innocent young woman will learn the nature of the world outside in the singularly named Edwin’s Postcards from the Zoo (clip here), which screens today at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Abandoned in the zoo as a young girl, Lana simply stayed there, falling in with a group of itinerant workers who do odd jobs around the park and sleep on the premises.  Growing up amongst the animals, she seems to have special bond with them, particularly the giraffe.  However, her sheltered existence is turned upside down when word comes of the migrant workers’ imminent eviction from the zoo.

Fascinated by a mysterious street magician dressed as a cowboy, Lana is lured out of the park, becoming his assistant and ambiguous companion.  While she acclimates to their performance routines, it is not long before she is working at a massage parlor in an even more ambiguous capacity.

Like Lana, Postcards should have never left the zoo.  In those early scenes Edwin and cinematographer Sidi Saleh create a breathtakingly delicate fable-like environment.  It is fascinating to watch the quietly subtle ways Lana interacts with the animals.  The Ragunan Zoo is also a truly wonderful setting, looking a bit wild and over-run by forest, in a way that further heightens the fantasy atmosphere.

However, once she leaves the idyllic zoo, Postcards becomes a largely by the numbers end-of-innocence tale.  While there are arresting visuals to be found throughout the film, usually involving return trips to the zoo, we have been down this road hundreds of times before.  Yes, it reflects the reality of Jakarta, which is why it clashes with everything special in the film.  It is also getting emotionally exhausting to see yet another little girl abandoned or abducted in a film from the region.  The filmmakers ought to start picking on someone more their size.

Even if Postcards is undermined by its second half, it is impossible to take your eyes off Ladya Cheryl’s Lana.  Her earnest engagement and exquisite vulnerability gives the film an emotional center of gravity, preventing it from becoming a mere exercise in archetypal tropes.  It is haunting work.

There were obviously some crack animal trainers contributing their talents to Postcards.  Cheryl is also an absolutely luminous presence.  However, viewers are more likely to fall in love with her or the Ragunan Zoo than Edwin’s movie.  Richly crafted but somewhat disappointing, Postcards from the Zoo screens again today (4/28) as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival enters the home stretch.

Tribeca ’12: The Fourth Dimension

Representing the fourth dimension in 2D is quite the daunting challenge.  Fortunately, none of the filmmakers participating in a new hipster sci-fi anthology take it seriously.  Nor will annoying glasses be necessary when watching The Fourth Dimension (trailer here), three short films produced and assembled by Vice and Grolsch Film Works (cheers, mate), which screens again this afternoon as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

In the opening The Lotus Community Workshop, Harmony Korine (yes, but don’t panic) takes us to a world much like our own, where Val Kilmer plays a low rent motivational speaker named Val Kilmer.  Addressing church groups in roller rinks, he passes off ego-centric tripe as New Agey pearls of wisdom.  Occasionally hinting at the metaphysical, Lotus seems more like a confessional piece from Kilmer, admitting to his fans: “I realize I was once Iceman in Top Gun and now I’m kind of a slob, but at least I still don’t have to work at a real job.”  This is a case where brevity is definitely Korine’s ally.  Given the relatively short running time, the self-referential joke maintains its novelty better than one might expect.

Making a bit of a concession to the film’s umbrella premise, Alexey Fedorchenko’s Chronoeye involves indirect time travel.  Employing some analog-style technology, a misanthropic Russian scientist (is there any other kind?) is able to glimpse into the past.  However, there is an attractive neighbor above him to remind viewers not to lose sight of the present.  Fedorchenko (probably best known for the strikingly austere road movie Silent Souls) maintains a fable-like vibe, preventing Chronoeye from descending into the realm of romantic cliché.

Jan Kwiecinski’s Fawns might come closest to revealing the fourth dimension, since it induces Armageddon.  Much like Abel Ferrara’s meandering 4:44 Last Day on Earth, doomsday vaguely involves global warmish-ing, but here it is more Biblical.  A cataclysmic flood has led to worldwide evacuation, but a group of Polish slackers are too cool to pay attention.  Instead, they careen about a provincial town, hinting at the sexual tensions within their group.  Suddenly though, the end of the world takes a serious turn for the aimless youth.  Frankly, none of the Kwiecinski’s characters are particularly well defined, but as a mood piece, it is quite eerie.

Defiantly disregarding the theme ostensibly holding it together, The Fourth Dimension lurches all over the place, but it is not without merit.  Indeed, there should be enough eccentricity in each constituent short film to satisfy some strange subset of cult film fandom out there someplace.  Recommended for those in search of a bit of bemusement, it screens again this afternoon (4/27) as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Jackpot

Jo Nesbø is best known for his gritty detective Harry Hole, but film adaptations of his work have largely focused on the criminal and the compromised.  Just as Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters begins its American theatrical run here in New York, Magnus Martens’ even better and bloodier Jackpot (trailer here) screens tonight as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Oscar Svendsen is not a criminal, but the artificial Christmas tree factory he works at specializes in hiring released convicts.  According to the detective interrogating him, this means he is used to thinking like a crook.  Be that as it may, Svendsen certainly has some explaining to do, such as how he came to be found clutching a shotgun beneath a rather large dead woman, amid a bloodbath at a strip club.  Let the flashback carnage begin.

Reluctantly, Svendsen agreed to enter a betting pool with three of his scariest co-workers.  Against all the odds, their dubious betting system produces a twelve-game winning ticket.  Everyone should be happy, but when Svendsen returns to his apartment, he finds a dead body.  Supposedly, their late colleague got greedy and attacked the other two, who killed him in self-defense.  Or so they tell Svendsen.  True or not, there is a corpse to dispose of.  This will get messy.  Not for nothing, Svendsen wonders if he will be next.

Based on a Nesbø story, Jackpot is a lot like early Coen Brothers, but with a greater body count.  Evidently, the process for fabricating fake Christmas trees is a lot like sausage-making, so you know what that means.  The pieces are sent flying almost as fast and furiously as the constant double-crosses.  Indeed, Martens is not exactly shy in his approach to the material, but he keeps a tight rein on the narrative, never letting the proceedings descend into absolute bedlam.

As Svendsen, the game but unassuming Kyrre Hellum resembles a rag doll being tossed about.  However, that works rather well in the context of the film.  In contrast, Henrik Mestad displays mucho screen presence, supplying much of the film’s mordant wit as the investigating Detective Solør.  Yet, even more laughs come from blood-splattered slapstick gags that would make the re-launched Stooges blanch.  Still, Svendsen’s three knuckleheaded co-conspirators are all rather generic.  Indeed, that lack of a flamboyant villain is the only real knock on the film.

You should probably know by now if Jackpot is your cup of tea.  Frankly, the execution (so to speak) is superior to many other films in what could be considered the recent Scandinavian noir invasion, but it definitely makes the typical Tarantino impersonating film look rather sedate in comparison.  For those looking for some good chaotic fun, it definitely fits the bill.  Recommended for connoisseurs of outrageous crime drama, Jackpot screens again tonight (4/27) as the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival enters its concluding weekend.

Tribeca ’12: Deadfall

A prodigal son plows through a blizzard to make it home for Thanksgiving dinner.  However, this will not be the stuff of a Norman Rockwell painting.  Instead, his fate will become intertwined with that of two wanted fugitives in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Deadfall, a chilly thriller from the Academy Award winning director of The Counterfeiters, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca FilmFestival.

Having endured a traumatic childhood together, Addison and his sister Liza are now hopelessly codependent.  He also has a propensity for violence.  They just knocked over a casino, but a freak accident mars their getaway.  Splitting up (for reasons driven more by the narrative than survival considerations) an exhausted Liza is rescued from the frozen roadside by Jay, an ex-con former Olympic boxer, who through a complicated set of circumstances already suspects the law is after his dumb hide.

Liza knows the cops are looking for her and Addison, so his parents’ home near the Canadian border sounds like the perfect rendezvous.  Much to her surprise though, she quickly develops intense feelings for the dumb palooka, which she can tell are mutual.  Liza does not yet know Jay’s father is the former sheriff and his successor’s unappreciated deputy-daughter is a close friend of the family, but she will learn when Jay’s Planes, Trains, and Automobiles story turns into The Desperate Hours.

There are an awful lot of contrivances in Deadfall.  Indeed, Jay and Liza fall for each other faster than light-speed.  Still in his case, it might be rather believable, considering he just got out of prison and she is played by Olivia Wilde.  In fact, for the most part, Ruzowitzky’s energetic pacing and the conviction of his cast largely overcome the credibility gaps.

Most importantly, Addison and Liza make an excellent villain-femme fatale tandem.  Eric Bana compellingly brings out Addison’s avenging angel complex, while Wilde nicely balances Liza’s cunning and vulnerability.  Though Charlie Hunnam is not exactly a great thespian, the audience can certainly believe his ex-boxer has taken a number of blows to the head.  Not so surprisingly, Sissy Spacek adds a real touch of class to the film, playing Jay’s mother with grace and intelligence.

Despite the ragged edges, Deadfall is an easy man vs. man vs. the elements thriller to get caught up in.  Sure to become a family Thanksgiving tradition, it screens again this afternoon (4/26) as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Cheerful Weather for the Wedding

In 1932, the British economy was also rather depressed, but appearances had to be kept up, nonetheless.  A well-to-do widowed mother is determined to see her eldest daughter married in proper style, even if it kills the rest of her family in Donald Rice’s Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (promo clip here), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Dolly Thatcham became re-acquainted with her rich, twittish fiancé during a grand tour of Albania.  She was most definitely on the rebound, following the end of her affair with Joseph Patten, a promising young academic.  He was somewhat self-centered, but there was real passion between them, as the audience sees in multiple flashbacks.  Her controlling mother could make the rest of the family sufficiently miserable on her own, but when the sullen Patten shows up at the house, it puts everyone further on edge.  The fact that the bride has locked herself in her dressing room with a bottle of rum hardly helps matters either.

Based on the novella by Julia Strachey, a member of the Bloomsbury Group whose work has gained popularity in recent years, Cheerful Weather could be considered a lite beer version of Downton Abbey, but Rice and Mary Henley Magill’s adaptation clearly lacks Sir Julian’s delicious wit.  Of course, the presence of Elizabeth Montgomery in the rather thankless role of Thatcham’s overbearing mother further invites such comparisons.

Still, Cheerful Weather offers a number of memorable moments, largely courtesy of its snappy supporting cast.  Indeed, Mackenzie Crook and Fenella Woolgar steal scene after scene as the bickering Dakins, who largely reconcile through their shared distaste for his family.  Julian Wadham also adds a humane touch to the film as the not-as-dumb-as-he-looks bumbling Uncle Bob, while Zoe Tapper brings considerable allure and even a bit of depth to Evelyn Graham, Thatcham’s fortune hunting maid of honor.

Unfortunately, Cheerful Weather’s weak romantically-doomed leads undermine the audience’s investment in the actual wedding.  Looking rather dazed, even in the flashbacks, Felicity Jones’ turn as Thatcham is a pale shadow of Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary Grantham.  More baffling is the complete lack of screen presence displayed by Luke Treadaway as the morose Mr. Patten.

Frankly, it is hard to understand why Thatcham or Patten would pine for each other, but it is easy to see how this family would annoy the Dakins.  Yet, viewers can enjoy elements of the picture once they have shifted their sympathies accordingly.  An okay but hardly exceptional period drama, Cheerful Weather seems best suited for PBS’s Masterpiece.  For diehard Anglophiles, it screens again this Saturday (4/28) as this year’s Tribeca Film Festival enters its final weekend.

Tribeca ’12: Baseball in the Time of Cholera (short)

The United Nations has long acted like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  In the case of Haiti, it is pestilence.  Allegedly thanks to the UN peacekeeping force, a deadly wave of cholera has swept the dysfunctional country.  Viewers witness the epidemic from the vantage point of a young ball player in David Darg & Bryn Mooser’s short documentary, Baseball in the Time of Cholera (trailer here), which screens as part of the Help Wanted programming block during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Joseph Alvyns and his friends should simply be spending an innocent summer on the baseball diamond.  They play as often as they can, but it is impossible to ignore the post-hurricane chaos around them.  Yet, when Alvyns sees the devastation of the 3/11 hurricane and tsunami in Japan, he is compelled to reach out in a spirit of solidarity.  His efforts attract international attention, even earning him a VIP trip to Toronto, courtesy of the Blue Jays.  Unfortunately, when he returns, cholera strikes at the heart of his family.

Technically, Darg and Mooser do not conclusively establish the Nepalese “peace-keepers” are the source of the cholera outbreak.  Still, the sight of raw sewage spilling from their latrine into Haiti’s central river coupled with the Heisman the Nepalese commander gives their camera man constitutes a pretty convincing circumstantial case.  The film also asks legitimate question: why are there peace-keepers stationed in a country that has not been at war for centuries?  However, they largely let the successive authoritarian and socialist governments off the hook for bringing the Haitian state to the brink of complete failure.

Time boasts some unusually big names behind the camera, including executive producers Olivia Wilde and Tesla Motors entrepreneur Elon Musk, one of three POV figures in Chris Paine’s Revenge of the Electric Car, which screened at last year’s Tribeca.  To its credit, the film community has rallied to Haiti’s aide, yet there has not been a similar celebrity rush on behalf of Japanese recovery efforts.  Therefore, it is worth taking the time to note those wishing to follow Alvyns’ example can also donate to the Japan Society’s relief fund (details here).

For a short documentary, Baseball in the Time of Cholera nicely balances muckraking and heartrending tragedy.  It should screen at Turtle Bay, but instead it will screen again in lower Manhattan this Friday (4/27) and Sunday (4/29) as the Tribeca Film Festival continues throughout the weekend.

Tribeca ’12: Journey to Planet X

If Ed Wood finally had an epiphany telling him to step up his technical game, imagine what he would have produced.  That is sort of-kind of the challenge two amateur filmmakers looking to go pro (or at least semi-pro) set for themselves.  The production of their ambitious new zero-budget science fiction short film is well documented in Myles Kane & Josh Koury’s Journey to Planet X (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Eric Swain and Troy Bernier are genuinely credentialed, buttoned-down scientists.  Like many of their colleagues, they have always been attracted to science fiction.  For years, Swain was essentially a hobbyist filmmaker, employing cheesy 1990’s technology.   An invitation to appear in one of Swain’s films led to a fast friendship and a close creative collaborative relationship between the two.  However, cognizant of the advances in digital technology, Bernier is no longer content with their current level of professionalism.  He convinces Swain it is time to produce a film that can compete on the film festival circuit.

Swain and Bernier (or Bernier and Swain) proceed to make that film, to the best of their abilities.  The plot of Planet X (a.k.a. Planet X: The Frozen Moon, a.k.a. Planeta Desconocido, a.k.a. who knows what) remains rather baffling even after watching the co-directors shoot nearly every scene.  However, they do seem to improve on a technical level, upgrading to HD and switching from an old blue screen to the more digital friendly green.  They have a legitimate casting call and hire a small but professional crew.  Whether they pull it off or not, they are really going for it, which is cool to witness.

Simply the notion of producing a feature length documentary about the behind the scene making of an upstart short film will sound odd to many people.  Frankly, it also rather sporting of Tribeca to select Journey, considering both co-directors are co-founders of the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival and Bernier’s efforts courting South Florida’s Geek Film Festival factor prominently in the third act.  Good for them, but they are missing out by not scheduling a special screening of Planet X (or whatever it’s called now) as well, because anyone who sees Journey will immediately want to watch Swain and Bernier’s film, on the big screen, in all its raging glory.

 

Kane and Koury (or Koury and Kane) capture a lot of drama in Journey, but it is the right kind of drama.  The audience sees a lot of lunacy going down, but it never feels intrusive or voyeuristic.  Ultimately, it is a film about two only slightly mad filmmakers’ friendship and their shared passion for sci-fi and movie-making.  An endearing documentary, Journey is enthusiastically recommended for genre fans and those fascinated by the filmmaking process when it screens again this Saturday (4/28) as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Whole Lotta Sole

If you haven’t heard, there are a fair number of Catholics in Belfast who are serious about their faith.  As a result, a couple of luckless lowlifes think it would be a good idea to hold-up the fish market on a Friday night.  Naturally, the caper quickly descends into chaos in recent Academy Award winner Terry George’s thoroughly entertaining Whole Lotta Sole, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

It was Joe Maguire’s profound misfortune to marry the manic daughter of a Boston mobster bearing a strong resemblance to Whitey Bulger.  Fearing for his life, he is hiding out in Belfast, minding his uncle’s antique shop.  Though still quite jumpy, he starts cautiously courting Sophie, a beautiful Ethiopian refugee managing the record store across the street.  Sad sack Jimbo Reagan thinks Maguire might be a figure from his past, but he is more concerned with the 5,000 pounds he owes the local paramilitary turned gangster Mad Dog Flynn.

Out of desperation, Reagan holds up the fish market, Whole Lotta Sole, but this turns out to be a bad idea.  If you remember the Fulton Fish Market’s pre-Giuliani reputation, you will get the idea.  With both the cops and Flynn out to get him, Reagan takes Maguire and Sophie hostage.  From there, plenty of complications and miscommunications ensue.

Like Goldilocks, George (who just walked away with the Oscar for his gently forgiving short film, The Shore) maintains a tone than it light but not inconsequential.  He injects plenty of humor into the story, but resists saccharine sentiment and self-conscious quirkiness.  His sensitive treatment of Maguire and Sophie’s budding relationship is particularly refreshing, keeping them fully clothed throughout, while generating real sparks between them.

As Maguire, Brendan Fraser looks a wee bit young for the part, but he exhibits a kind of world weary everyman presence (really not seen in his prior films) that works quite well, nonetheless.  Indeed, he establishes some genuine chemistry with the luminous Yaya DaCosta, whose smart, down-to-earth turn as Sophie ought to bring her to a new level of international recognition.  Capping the picture off, Colm Meaney is perfectly cast as cranky but honest and decent Det. Weller.  Sure, he has played many roles like this before, because he has such a flair for them.

Whole Lotta Sole is just a pleasure to watch.  For a pure broad-based crowd-pleaser, it is probably the pick of this year’s Tribeca.  Highly recommended, it screens again tomorrow (4/25) and Saturday (4/28).

Tribeca ’12: Francophrenia

Prepare yourself for an act of slumming as performance art.  If you were somewhat bemused by James Franco’s decision to play a recurring guest-starring role on the soap opera General Hospital, you will wonder why you wondered after watching Francophrenia (Or: Don’t Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is), the actor’s latest extended middle finger to his ever more beleaguered fans, co-directed with Ian Olds, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Evidently, a baby has been kidnapped from the famous fictional hospital, but Franco (and presumably Olds) considers that plot line too trite to bother explaining for Francophrenia’s audience.  All we need to know is that James Franco magnanimously lent his prestige to the soap, as long as he played a killer also called Franco.  Ostensibly, Francophrenia documents the production of an extra special episode filmed on location at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, but anyone expecting a candid behind-the-scenes look at the show will be sorely disappointed.

Instead, we watch long sequences of the clearly disinterested subject signing autographs and sitting in make-up, while voiceovers try to pose a dichotomy between Franco the actor and Franco, the character, calling into question which is ascendant in any given scene.  The problem is neither Franco is sufficiently established to create any dramatic or aesthetic tension between the two.  All we know is Franco the construct is a murderer, whereas Franco, the NYU film school grad, co-directed Francophrenia, which is absolute blue murder to watch.  Essentially, this film is like the old Airplane! sunglasses gag.  When you peel away one Franco’s smirk, you only find another smirk underneath.

Frankly, Francophrenia never deconstructs or subverts soap operas (or documentaries) in any meaningful way.  We simply watch Franco float above it all on his cloud of hipster superiority.  While allegedly an experimental film, Francophrenia suggests the co-directors have only a cursory familiarity with the genre.  The mere fact that Franco would deign to associate with such low brow daytime dramatic fare is thought to be sufficiently intriguing in and of itself.  Indeed, the only real take-away from the film is the nauseating contempt Franco (the actor or the construct, it hardly matters which) so obviously has for fans of the show.  However, he might just miss those rubes when they are gone.

 

Ultimately, Francophrenia is not a film, nor is it a concept.  It is simply another manifestation of Franco’s continuing fascination with his own celebrity.  Franco’s fans should be strongly dissuaded from seeing it, because it might be a rather bitter experience for them.  They will find the joke (if it can be called that) is at their expense. Of course, there is no reason for the rest of us to endure it either, but for those looking to masochistically stoke their anti-Franco resentments, Francophrenia screens again tonight (4/24) and Saturday (4/28) as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: Headshot

This Thai anti-hero’s career trajectory follows quite a circuitous course, starting as a cop, next becoming a hitman, only to later seek peace as a Buddhist monk.  It is safe to say his perspective changes dramatically in Pen-ek Ratanuang’s karma noir Headshot (trailer here), one of the clear highlights of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Keep an eye on Tul’s hair.  It will serve as a telling indicator during Headshots many flashbacks.  Indeed, Tul will have much reflecting to do.  When viewers first meet him, he is preparing for his latest hit.  Tul kills his target.  He always does.  However, he takes a bullet to the head in the process.  It turns out to be one of those freak events.  Tul survives, but he now sees the world upside down.

As we learn during his reveries, Tul was an honest cop who was framed for crossing a crooked politician.  Upon his release, he is recruited by a sketchy doctor with weird eugenic-like theories on the nature of evil to serve as the assassin for his secret cabal.  Now that his vision is inverted, Tul wants to retire.  Right, good luck with that.

Headshot has all the film noir elements, including two beautiful femme fatales, one hard-boiled killer-for-hire, venal public officials, mysterious grudges, a lot of rain, and a fair helping of Buddhist theology.  Pen-ek (sometimes billed as Tom Pannet) has crafted a slick, cerebral thriller, dexterously slipping some curveballs past viewers caught up in the nefarious on-screen business.  Even though the constant flashing backwards and forwards can be a bit confusing at times, he steadily cranks up the tension, while maintaining an ominous sense of fatalism.  It should also be noted, the majority of the film is seen right-side up, with only a few brief scenes representing Tul’s new POV, so potential viewers should not fear leaving the theater with a monster headache.

Nopachai “Peter” Jayanama is an absolutely dynamite seething anti-hero with serious action cred.  His Tul broods like nobody’s business.  Celine “Cris” Horwang is also a smart and dynamic screen presence as Erin, the innocent bystander repeatedly pulled into the ex-assassin’s murky morality play.  Likewise, Chanokporn “Dream” Sayoungkul is appropriately alluring and vulnerable as the woman initially sent to ensnare Tul.

 

Headshot is the rare film that should thoroughly entertain gangster genre movie fans and also satisfy art-house crowds.  In short, it is the complete package.  Very highly recommended, Headshot screens again this Thursday (4/26) as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Tribeca ’12: High Tech, Low Life

The internet scares the willies out of the Chinese Communist Party.  As a result, they have devoted tremendous resources to censoring underground journalist-bloggers. Yet, their biggest challenge is not technological, but the sheer size of China’s discontented population.  Huge numbers of average Chinese citizens have turned to the web as a source of unvarnished news and a means of exposing official corruption.  Stephen Maing follows two very different but very independent bloggers in High Tech, Low Life, the best non-music related documentary screening at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Twenty-seven year-old Zhou Shuguang, better known as Zola, will not deny he likes to get attention online.  Posting candid photos of himself is part of his shtick.  Whether he stirs up positive or negative comments hardly matters to him.  It would be easy for some to dismiss the vegetable hawker, until he breaks the story of a middle school girl, whose rape and murder, allegedly at the hands of a local official’s son, was covered up by the authorities.

While Zola largely fits the merry prankster revolutionary template, Zhang Shihe, a.k.a. Tiger Temple, is more akin to traditional anti-Communist dissidents.  The son of a prominent Party leader purged during the Cultural Revolution, Tiger Temple has witnessed Communist oppression up close and personal throughout his life. 

A more reflective blogger, Tiger Temple has documented the destruction of small provincial communities by rampant unchecked pollution, including the illegal dumping of raw human sewage.  Not just raking the muck (and foul muck it is), Tiger Temple helps small overwhelmed village councils draft complaints and package NGO presentations.  Frankly, it is a leadership role that makes Tiger Temple a serious threat to the authorities.

While not as extreme as the circumstances facing dissident artist Ai Weiwei, both bloggers find themselves on the business end of Communist harassment as the film progresses.  Obviously, these are disturbing developments, particularly for Tiger Temple, but it clearly indicates Maing chose his POV-figures wisely.

By documenting the bloggers’ work, Maing has produced an expose of the pervasive graft throughout all levels of Chinese government by osmosis.  It is also a profile of courageous truth-tellers (again, especially so in Tiger Temple’s case).  If anything, the film might be slightly out of balance, seemingly granting more time to the admittedly attention-seeking Zola than Tiger Temple, who radiates hard-earned wisdom and gravitas.

 

Whether viewers are China-watchers concerned about the fate of citizen journalists such as Zola and Tiger Temple or Wired readers intrigued by the secret information war raging between dissenting bloggers and the Chinese authorities, HT,LL is a fascinating, alarming, and inspiring film, all at the same time.  Clearly the best current events documentary at this year’s Tribeca, it screens again this Wednesday (4/25) and Saturday (4/28) as the festival continues in New York City.