Beta Test: Game Hard

Andrew Kincaid is like the Mike Bloomberg of gaming companies. An ardent gun control supporter, he coins the slogan: “keep guns in games.” He is also determined to keep his company’s technology out of the hands of the military. Of course, it is all for the sake of preventing obstacles to his megalomaniacal quest for power. Unfortunately, his toughest critic will literally find himself playing the villain in Kincaid latest video game. The game’s repercussions on real life will also come as a nasty shock to the first test player in Nicholas Gyeney’s Beta Test (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New Jersey.

Max Troy has not left his house for the last two years. He obviously has issues, but also made bank testing and sometimes modifying Kincaid’s releases. The newest first-person shooter seems unusually real, because it is. Thanks to a chip implant, former Sentinel executive and all-around hardnose Orson Creed will helplessly embark on a Grand Theft Auto style crime spree, with Troy at the controls. However, Troy puts two and two together quicker than most movie characters, forcing Kincaid to dispatch a team of colorful henchmen to keep Troy playing the game at gunpoint. Unfortunately, the in-game premise—the abduction of Creed’s wife Abbie, who also happens to be Kincaid’s ex—is similarly all too true.

Gyeney and co-screenwriter Andre Kirkman are startlingly gutsy when they reveal Kincaid has forced a patsy to commit a Columbine-style school shooting to advance his agenda. However, they apparently felt the need to water-down the film’s Second Amendment implications with some clichéd rhetoric castigating Kincaid as a one percenter. It just sounds unnatural coming out of Creed’s rightwing-looking mouth.

At least Creed can fight. Creed is the first lead role in a film for Manu Bennett, best known as Crixus in Spartacus. He certainly has the physical presence and his weird growling voice is actually quite effective. Executive producer Kevon Stover, Edward Michael Scott, and Yuji Okumoto (from Karate Kid II and Awesome Asian Bad Guys) add energy and villainous verve as Kincaid’s hit squad. Linden Ashby is suitably slippery and slimy as the evil gaming tycoon, but unfortunately, Larenz Tate is rather bland and lightweight as the house-bound Troy.

In all honesty, Beta Test often looks like a B-movie in problematic ways. However, there are some impressively brutal fight scenes and it is almost hypnotically compelling to watch the bearded-up and bespectacled Bennett do his thing. Recommended as a guilty pleasure with some degree of implied support for personal liberties, Beta Test opens tomorrow (7/22) at the AMC Loews Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth.

AAIFF ’16: Crush the Skull

Aspiring young burglars should remember you should case the joint for at least two months before pulling a job and always try to get an inside look first. That might sound like misguided advice, but nobody should end up like the clueless thieves who blindly stumble into a serial killer’s tricked out house in Viet Nguyen’s Crush the Skull (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

Blair and Ollie’s last job was supposed to be their very last job, but it went spectacularly wrong. To get her lover out of prison, Blair goes deeply into debt with a ferocious loan shark. Like it or not, she and Ollie will have to sign onto her brother Connor’s dodgy home robbery plan. The secluded house looks like primo real estate, but Connor has no idea what awaits them inside. Someone hasn’t done his homework.

Of course, they find precious little furniture or valuables of any kind, but there are piles of grisly home movies lying about. They also find an apparent torture chamber and plenty of restraining devices. The doors are looked from the outside, the windows are shatter proof, and a cell phone jammer blocks all signals. Unable to reach the skylight they entered through, the dysfunctional band of thieves finds themselves in deep, dark danger.

Even though the implications of Skull are often profoundly disturbing, the film is tremendous fun, in the evilest way possible. The strong characters give Nguyen a solid foundation to build on. Katie Savoy and Chris Dinh have terrific chemistry as the bickering but devoted Blair and Ollie. We can really believe they are a couple with some intense history together that are still into each other. Chris Riedell unleashes industrial strength attitude as Connor, while Tim Chiou frequently upstages everyone as Riley, Connor’s dimwitted “crew,” who always manages to stay on the right side of shtick and ridiculousness.

Although the opening prologue is a bit grim, Nguyen follows up with a wonderfully outrageous, blackly comic sequence of misadventures. The house is also a minor triumph of production and art design that just spews out atmosphere and foreboding (even though it bears some surface similarities with the Rube Goldberg house in Adam Schindler’s Intruders, a.k.a. Shut-In). It is a creepy film, but it earns laughs more regularly than the Scream franchise. Highly recommended for horror movie fans (who will especially dig the final scene), Crush the Skull screens tomorrow (7/22) at the Village East, as part of this year’s AAIFF.

Japan Cuts ’16: Emi-Abi

In their Manzai comedy duo act, Jitsudo is definitely the Martin to Unno’s Lewis, but the straight man can’t even croon. Unfortunately, when his partner is killed in an auto accident, Jitsudo’s career starts to look just as dead. Of course, dealing with his complicated feelings of grief, guilt, and jealousy would be a good first step in Kensaku Watanabe’s Emi-Abi (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

Jitsudo was the preening Abbott while Unno was the goofy Costello. They were a natural pairing, but it was Kurosawa, the respected Manzai veteran, who brought them together. After retiring from the stage seven years ago, Kurosawa has developed a reputation for aloof eccentricity, perhaps not completely unlike Bill Murray. After weeks of feeling sorry for himself, Jitsudo is finally facing up to his pseudo-mentor, but it will be difficult, because Kurosawa’s beloved younger sister Hinako also died in the car with Unno.

That meeting will go spectacularly badly, but perhaps there is a method to Kurosawa’s madness. In any event, their encounter spurs flashbacks to Unno’s first datish night out with Hinako. It also took an ugly turn, but it vividly explains how they forged such a deep connection.

Emi-Abi sounds like a tonal mine field, but Watanabe (the award-winning screenwriter of The Great Passage) manages to scamper through unscathed. A good deal of credit goes to the uniformly understated cast. Surprisingly, this most definitely includes Tomoya Maeno’s poignant Unno. He might be rubber-faced when the footlights are on, but Maeno plays him as the grandpappy of all crying-on-the-inside-clowns off-stage.

To keep us off balance, Haru Kuroki periodically cold-cocks the audience with out of left field humor as Natsumi, Jitsudo’s long suffering manager. Kuroki is in the midst of an amazingly productive period, gracing distinctive and diverse films like Solomon’s Perjury, Nagasaki: Memories of My Son, and A Bride for Rip Van Winkle. Mari Yamachi is also wonderfully sweet and distressingly vulnerable as Hinako. Ryu Morioka nicely portrays Sanemichi’s late twenties midlife crisis, but as Kurosawa, Hirofumi Arai gets to drop all the film’s sly little surprises—and he makes the most of each one.

Man, if ever there was a bittersweet film, Emi-Abi would be it. Sometimes it is absolutely charming, but there are scenes that are downright painful to watch, involving predatory street violence and deliberate humiliation. That’s Manzai for you. Highly recommended for those who appreciate drama with heart and an edge, Emi-Abi screens this Sunday (7/24) at the Japan Society, as part of Japan Cuts 2016.

Fantasia ’16: Karaoke Crazies

In some countries, karaoke is looked down on, largely due to the red light districts they are mostly found in (and the activities that therefore often happen therein). On the other hand, it is a perfectly respectable pastime for families and co-workers in Korea. However, one struggling parlor will profitably re-establish karaoke’s naughtiness. Unfortunately, this will attract the attention of a serial killer in Kim Sang-chan’s Karaoke Crazies, which screened during the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Sung-wook’s provincial karaoke palace was built specifically to service a large factory. When it closed, business plummeted, but the suicidal Sung-wook hardly cares. He is too busy torturing himself and listening to (but not watching) hardcore dirty movies. In a half-hearted attempt to fend off creditors, he posts a sign for a singing helper. The obviously damaged Ha-suck applies. Frankly, she can’t sing a note, but she knows how to keep customers from complaining. Sung-wook pretends not to notice, until it just reaches a ridiculous level.

Such unprofessional behavior scandalizes Na-ju. She is a real deal singer’s assistant, who arrives like the wind to turn Sung-wook’s parlor around. Soon she is holding court in the “loud room” with respectable clients, while Ha-suck services the pervs in the “quiet room.” Of course, there is considerable crossover between their clientele. Sung-wook even hires the deaf homeless man apparently suffering from acute PSTD whom he found secretly living in the store room. The Karaoke parlor starts to function as going concern, with a bizarre sense of family. Yet, those ominous reports of the serial killer stalking the region will clearly amount to something in the third act.

K Crazies is the sort of film that you might call quirky if quirkiness didn’t have such a bad reputation. Perhaps the closest comparison would be some of the Coen Brothers films—think of a blending of Barton Fink and Fargo, with maybe a dab of Lebowski dolloped on top. It covers pretty much the entire emotional spectrum from laughs to tears to fears, yet you can never feel Kim Sang-chan switching gears.

As Na-ju. Kim Na-mi doesn’t just crank up the sex appeal. She also really knocks the wind out of viewers with a shockingly human and humane turn. Likewise, Bae So-eun is deeply compelling as the recovering Ha-suck. Lee Moon-sik ably holds it all together and directs traffic as Sung-wook, the world-weary everyman. It is not often that viewers engage with a genre film on such a personal level, but the ensemble truly pulls us in.

By the time K Crazies wraps up, you will feel like you went through a lot with the four primary characters and that you know every inch of the karaoke parlor by heart. Darkly stylish but also mature and forgiving, it really packs a punch. Very highly recommended, Karaoke Crazies should have a long festival life (including London’s FrightFest), after screening at this year’s Fantasia.

AAIFF ’16: Polis Evo

The cars are flashy, the bullets are plentiful, and the women are demurely veiled. Prepare yourself for some bickering buddy-cops, Malaysian style. At least those cars are fast. The same cannot be said for the wits of Inspector Sani, a conciliatory slacker on the Terengganu police force. His quiet life will be upended when he is partnered up with Inspector Khai, the notorious “Supercop” on assignment from K-L. When not bickering and bantering, they will work together to bring down a nasty meth ring in Ghaz Abu Bakar’s Polis Evo (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

First of all, we have to give Peninsular Terengganu credit for issuing some pretty slick wheels to their officers. Sani and Khai will put them to good use. Khai was dispatched to follow up a lead in Sani’s normally sleepy jurisdiction as a way to force him to slow down a little after his latest massive smackdown. Apparently, Sani’s old high school science teacher Adli Hashim went Walter White to pay off debts, but when he refused to cook up the lethally pure batch demanded by the gang leader, he turned up dead himself.

The stakes start to rise when the gang tries to knock off Adli Hashim’s daughter, for whom Sani long held a torch. However, things really start to get messy when the bad guys launch a full-scale attack on the hospital she is recuperating in. Even Sani will have to admit something is amiss given the level of destruction.

Fortunately, there are several spectacularly in-your-face action scenes that should be catnip for fans, because the corny dialogue is not going to get the job done on its own. Frankly, it rips off dozens of 1980s odd couple cop movies, successfully copying the energy, but not the wit. The opening gag in which Sani catches a beady-eyed peeper ogling his sisters without their headscarves is particularly clumsy, especially considering what the implications might be for all parties in real life. Conversely, when Khai and Sani’s oldest sister Anis start falling for each other, the film is rather sweetly chaste. Ain’t nobody jumping into bed together, that’s for sure.

Rugged and taciturn works quite well for Shaheizy Sam’s Inspector Khai. He is the sort of hard-charging cop we can always appreciate. As his requisite opposite, Zizan Razak spreads the shtick around pretty thick, but he serviceably gets down to action business in the third act. Nora Danish is also appealingly upbeat as the assertive Anis. We just wish she could be even more progressive.

Ghaz (as he is largely known in the biz) has a knack for livening up car chases. If he ever teams up with a screenwriter who has a better ear for one-liners, he could make quite an international name for himself. PE has its weaknesses, but it is still definitely worth seeing for the tightly executed action sequences and the Malaysian flavor. Recommended with the above caveats, Polis Evo screens this Saturday (7/23) at the Village East, as part of this year’s AAIFF.

Train to Busan: Yeon Goes Live Action, but Stays Zombie

Busan is home to one of Asia’s most important film festivals. It happens to be a fest with a large midnight section, so they are probably no strangers to zombies. According to rumors, Busan handled the unthinkable catastrophe better than most Korean regional governments. Unfortunately, there are several train cars loaded with even more shuffling undead headed straights towards the city in Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

For those keeping score at home, TTB takes place one day after the events of Yeon’s animated zombie film, Seoul Station. The morning news is filled with mysterious reports of violent riots erupting, but the average citizenry is still unaware a full scale zombie apocalypse has broken out. Super-busy fund manager Seok-woo proceeds to take his unhappy young daughter Su-an to visit her mother in Busan, exactly as planned. Obviously, if any zombies get in, a speeding commuter train will be a terrible place to be cornered: a confined space, packed with people, but no guns.

Of course, one manages to jump on at the last minute, along with uninfected shellshock man. By the way, these are not slow zombies we are talking about. They happen to be really darn fast. As usual for Yeon’s films, crisis brings out the worst in humanity, especially the scummy transit executive Yong-suk. Despite his every-man-for-himself instincts, Seok-woo will start working with a handful of passengers to survive. The audience will especially care about working class hardnose Sang-hwa, his mega-pregnant wife Sung-kyung, high school baseball player Young-guk, and cheerleader, Jin-hee. Yes, they do have baseball bats, which will be put to good use.

So basically, TTB is like Under Siege 2, but with zombies instead of Eric Bogosian. Yeon unleashes a massive undead beatdown, but it never feels CGI’ed. Those zombies pile-ups look as real as you’re ever going to want to see them. There is wide-ranging wreckage and a good deal of gore, but the human emotions are also legit. There are several character sacrifices—and they are always heavy moments. Frankly, Yeon’s only real mistake comes in killing off too many major characters. While we respect him for respecting the principles of zombie cinema, TBB deserves to become a franchise, which would be easier with a few more returning faces.

Ma Dong-seok (a.k.a. Don Lee) is just plain awesome as the brawling Sang-hwa. His star has been steadily rising, but TTB should send it into the stratosphere. Likewise, An So-hee scores breakout turn as the resilient Jin-hee. Gong Yoo and Kim Su-an are certainly believable and ultimately quite poignant as the dysfunctional father and daughter, while Kim Eui-sung chews the scenery like Pac-Man as the odious Yong-suk. Yet, Yeon chooses to humanize him at the most unlikely moment. That is not like the frequently didactic filmmaker, but it sure keeps viewers off balance.

Yeon does not exactly reinvent zombie natural history, per se, but he gives the genre a few new tweaks. However, the pedal-to-the-metal execution will leave zombies fans in awe. It is easily the best zombie film since Sabu’s Miss Zombie, which was an entirely different cinematic creature. Very highly recommended for genre enthusiasts, Train to Busan opens this Friday (7/22) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

AAIFF ’16: 1000 Hands of the Guru

Some royals crafted humanitarian images for themselves simply by attending a few charitable cocktail parties and looking good in Versace. Her Royal Highness Princess Ashi Kesang Choden T. Wangchuck of Bhutan is different. The scholar and devout Buddhist practitioner works directly with monks and art restoration experts preserving her nation’s heritage as the executive director of the Thangke Conservation Center. It is a real job she is well qualified for, but it does not leave her any time for preening PR campaigns. Fortunately, the efforts of the Princess and her colleague and teacher, Ephraim “Eddie” Jose are documented in Tobias Reeuwijk’s 1000 Hands of the Guru (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

In past centuries, thangkas were essentially portable altars. They are sacred, but they are intended to be used rather than filed away. Over time, they absorb wisdom and holiness as the focus of meditation and rituals. They can never be disposed of like common detritus, but they become faded and threadbare. With the support of Bhutan’s royal family, Jose developed a systematized restoration regimen. At first, the monks did not get it, but the results were a revelation.

Beyond her royal status, the Princess Ashi Kesang was also western educated and tutored in Buddhist teachings by some of Bhutan’s most revered monks, making her a perfect choice to lead the Center. Frankly, she and the charismatic Jose should be a publicist’s dream, but the Buddhist nation is apparently a bit outside People Magazine’s beat.

In fact, the thoughtful and camera-friendly duo directly elevate the straightforward documentary. Despite capturing some striking images, Reeuwijk’s approach is largely reportorial, with maybe a pinch of advocacy thrown in. However, Princess Ashi Kesang’s narration lucidly (and compellingly) explains the higher spiritual principles informing the Center’s work. She might even help viewers prepare for death.

It is just nice to know the Thangke Conservation Center exists in our world—albeit in a distant corner. Reeuwijk addresses the pressures of globalization and modernization that challenge Bhutan’s traditional way of life, but there still seems be a considerable place for contemplation and faith in the Himalayan nation. Smart and sensitive to its subjects and surroundings, the sixty-five minute 1000 Hands of the Guru is educational in a relaxed, easy-going way. Highly recommended for those who care about the preservation of art and culture, it screens this Friday (7/22) at the Village East, as part of this year’s AAIFF.

Fantasia ’16: Fury of the Demon

It is a film so powerful, it causes disorientation, short-term psychosis, and violent rioting, but it is still more entertaining to watch than A Serbian Film. It is the oldest of old school horror films, helmed by the pioneer himself, Georges Méliès, or perhaps one of his sinister colleagues. Technically, the notorious lost film never really existed, but that does not stop the French genre cinema establishment from analyzing the heck out of it in Fabien Delage’s droll mockumentary, Fury of the Demon (trailer here), which screened during the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Every decade or so, someone stumbles upon a print of Fury of the Demon and screens it, unwittingly unleashing chaos. Eccentric American film collector Edgar A. Wallace (note middle initial) sort of knew what he had, but his private screening for French film scholars and journalists yielded similar results. Various French critics play it admirably straight for Delage as they describe the terrors of the experience. Frankly, they aren’t bad actors at all. For added genre appeal, Alexandre Aja and Christophe Gans also get in on the joke as talking head commentators.

Fury bizarrely taps into something that is hard to define. With over two hundred of Méliès’ five hundred film oeuvre missing, who is to say what we haven’t seen? After all, his Robinson Crusoe just turned up four years ago. Ironically, the universally ignored B-movie Playback, sort of used a similar Macguffin, but it that case it was Louis Le Prince (a.k.a. Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness). Although Playback’s riff on Le Prince lacked Delage’s erudite sophistication, it was still the best part of the film.

However, Fury really does it right. Delage cleverly assembles evocative Méliès clips and constructs an eerily believable alternate mythology in a mere sixty minutes. Did Méliès really have an occult-obsessed junior partner named Victor Sicarius, who secretly made early splatter-gore films on the side? It is doubtful, but if so, maybe its all real. In that case, could someone point out where Manhattan’s “historic Virginia Theater” stands?

When you watch Fury, you sort of want it to be true, even though it is basically horrifying and sometimes tragic. For genre fans with a sense of movie history, it is just a gas. Highly recommended for smart viewers, Fury of the Demon had its North American premiere at this year’s Fantasia and will screen later in August during FrightFest in London.

Japan Cuts ’16: The Shell Collector

Just when you thought it was safe to walk barefoot on the beach again, the cone snails attack. You have to pick them up first, but if you don’t know they carry a stinger, they might surprise you. It turns out the cone snails are particularly potent in Yoshifumi Tsubota’s adaptation of the Anthony Doerr short story, The Shell Collector (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

The blind-since-birth Professor has retreated from the world, preferring the company of his shells, just as the apocalyptic outbreak started. The degenerative disease causes paralysis of the extremities, but mostly leaves the mind intact. It is an awful curse for most of the afflicted, but particularly cruel for an artist like Izumi Yamaoka, whom the reclusive Professor finds washed up on-shore. While he nurses her back to relative health, she manages to get stung by a particularly nasty cone snail, but instead of killing her, the venom cures her.

Suddenly, Yamaoka is a brand new person, but not in a way that makes the Professor comfortable. Inspired by the visions she saw, Yamaoka wants to try the venom trip again, but he adamantly insists that would be a really bad idea. Eventually, she leaves, wiping out the subtle two-handed chemistry the film had built up. In her place slouch the thuggish island headman who strong-arms the Professor into curing his daughter, Tsutako Yuba. Next, it will be the Professor’s own son Hikari his Up With People colleagues at a suspicious NGO who start pestering him for the cure.

Doerr’s story might work on the page as an anti-science fable, but it is clunky and didactic on the screen, especially once Yamaoka makes her exit. Tsubota luxuriates in the coastal landscape, but his mood is not strong enough to overwhelm obvious pedantry, like why is it the only person who can find the life-saving shells is a blind dude who basically just sticks his hand under a rock less than a foot from the water-line, pulling them out like they were waiting for him.

At least for a while Lily Franky and Shinobu Terajima forge some mature and intriguingly complex chemistry as the Professor and the artist. Sosuke Ikematsu’s gee whiz vibe really clashes with the third act’s foreboding, but that is probably more on Tsubota than the actor. Ai Hashimoto only gets to walk around looking ethereal, but she certainly does what is asked.

Tsubota and company probably Life of Pi in mind as their benchmark, but it falls considerably short. Frankly, breaking up the delicate two-character balance simply sabotages the film. It isn’t really recommended, but it is sold out this Thursday (7/21) anyway, so skip the stand-by line and rest up for later screenings during this year’s Japan Cuts at the Japan Society, in New York’s fashionable Turtle Bay neighborhood.

One Night Only: There’s Always Something Left to Lose

Hong Kong cinema gave the world Ko Chun, the Mr. Lucky who can’t lose in the God of Gamblers/From Vegas to Macao franchises. Now Taiwan offers up a corrective in this new Chinese co-production. Gao Ye once had wealth and social position, but he lost it all and kept on losing. He will try to win back some redemption during a long dark night of the soul, but the game is rigged against him in Matt Wu’s One Night Only (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The audience will know within seconds Gao Ye has seen the inside of a prison cell and has some nasty credits on his case. At this point, he doesn’t much care. Being cashless, he is rather surprised when an attractive prostitute loudly knocks on his door, expecting to do business. Unable to shake the strangely innocent Momo, Gao Ye convinces her to stake him instead. That works out about as well as we expect. Thus begins a series of nocturnal misadventures in the tradition of Scorsese’s After Hours (a lesser work in his filmography), until things take a radically tragic turn.

In fact, that is when the film really starts getting good. Frankly, the first act is a bit of a slog, focusing on Gao Ye’s jerkheel behavior. Yet, Wu and screenwriter Ren Peng also lay the groundwork for future payoffs at this time. Of course, that also means the second act will get pretty darn dark, taking us through the world of indentured prostitution and underground cage-fighting. Still, it crescendos with a romantic crescendo worthy of Camille that miraculously ties up all the suspicious loose ends lying about.

Yang Zishan (who just so happens to be married to Wu) really breaks out of her rom-com So Young/20 Once Again pigeon-holing as the relentlessly sad yet hopeful Momo. This film just wouldn’t work without her. Of course, Aaron Kwok is plenty believable as the dissolute Gao Ye, but he also turns on the star wattage for the big redemptive moments. For extra added heartache, Hao Lei is deeply compelling as Gao Y’s long suffering wife, seen in flashbacks.

Although set in a fictional, gaming-inspired city, One Night Only practically reeks of low life atmosphere. Cinematographer Charlie Lam takes full advantage of all the neon to give it a stylishly urban noir look. It is the sort of film you have to stick with through a long set-up, but it is ultimately worth it. Recommended for those who enjoy gambling dramas and tearjerkers, One Night Only opens this Friday (7/22) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Fantasia ’16 The Unseen

Typically, movie invisibility comes in two flavors: would be world-dominating mad scientists and girls’ locker room hijinks. However, for Bob Langmore, it is a brutal curse. Consider the difficulties of day-to-day hygiene when parts of your body are turning invisible. Langmore left his wife and daughter to spare them the partial sight of him, but he will return fully bundled when the latter goes missing in Geoff Redknap’s The Unseen (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Once a promising NHL rookie, Langmore now punches the clock in a dilapidated Canadian mill, where protective clothing and head gear is required at all times. He is very sick, but he hides it with his abrasive personality. He is contemplating disappearing for good and final, but first he wants to see his daughter Eva one more time. Crisby, the local coke dealer will finance his road trip if he does a bit of courier work while he is in the big city. The whole thing smells like a set-up, but what does he care?

Inconveniently, suicide or death-by-drug dealer will have to wait for Langmore when Eva disappears under strange circumstances. She happened to be trespassing in the old sanitarium where her grandfather was once a patient. The increasingly transparent Langmore can barely stand upright, but he still has a hockey player’s fighting instincts, so he duly springs into action.

Unseen has a gritty, blue-collar sensibility that you rarely find so completely free of condescension in genre films. It is also very much a film about forgiveness and understanding. The Langmore family is definitely a mess, but the relationships that emerge are surprisingly poignant. Aden Young has a Viggo Mortensen sort of thing going on, except you can see the inside of his head. Julia Sarah Stone convincingly portrays Eva’s development from resentful punk to mature adult. Camille Sullivan also adds further humanist dimensions as Darlene, possibly the most sympathetic ex-wife in the history of cinema.

Unseen is very low key and small in scope, but it is refreshing to see genre films take this less traveled road. However, former special effects specialist Redknap still shows off his craft with through the progression of Langmore’s condition. It is a worthy film cult fans should consider when it screens again this Friday (7/22), as part of Fantasia up north.

For the Plasma: Speculative Micro-Budget Mumble-Nothing

Remember when the Wall Street Journal’s dart board regularly outperformed the professional stock-pickers? At least that is how we like to remember it. If theoretical blind monkeys hurling darts can pick winners, why not the trees of Maine? How would they do that? A researcher pretends to explain it all in Bingham Bryant & Kyle Molzan’s For the Plasma (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Helen has invited her old friend Charlie to help her manage an evolving research project. Initially, Helen’s job was to watch for forest fires through the closed circuit monitors conveniently located in her turn-of-the-century country home. So much for the old ranger’s observation tower. Over time, the monotony of staring at the same images repeatedly started to warp her perspective. However, she discovered if she switched her mental focus to the global financial markets while taking in visions of Maine’s verdant forests, she could detect statistically significant trends. Does that make any sense?  Hell no it doesn’t, but Bryant & Molzan stick with it anyway.

For reasons that are murky at best, Helen dispatches Charlie (evidently Bryant & Molzan don’t think women don’t need last names in Maine) to do on-site inspections of the trees that catch her attention. As a bit of kookiness, there are helpful frames hanging in the woods to define Helen’s field of vision for Charlie and the audience. They could be intriguing visuals, but Bryant & Molzan never really do anything with them.

That is true of just about everything remotely interesting in Plasma. Bryant & Molzan just assume they have an intriguing premise that will keep people hooked and then proceed to play keep-away with it. A Walk in the Woods had more narrative drive and truth-in-titling than this mumblecorish exercise in cinematic hipsterdom. Of course, they also suggest Helen and Charlie’s relationship was always problematic, allowing it to quickly fray. Why is it movies have such a problem portraying healthy friendships between grown women?

In any event, Rosalie Lowe and Anabelle LeMieux are suitably somnambulistic as Helen and Charlie, respectively. Tom Lloyd is either brilliant or ghastly embarrassing as Herbert the nutty lighthouse keeper, but you’re on your own deciding which. Either way, we can appreciate how he livens things up a bit.

Intimidated critics will heap laurels on Plasma and belittle detractors for “misunderstanding” the film, but there is no there there. There is no internal system of logic to carry us away and absolutely no attempt to raise higher philosophical issues. Telling, the best scene gives a partial cliff notes’ cribbing of Kobo Abe’s The Ark Sakura, but that only reminds us of the exponential superiority of a film like Teshigahara’s The Face of Another. At the end of the day, the film just has a lot of walking in the woods to show for itself. Not recommended, For the Plasma opens this Friday (7/22) in New York, at Anthology Film Archives.

Fantasia ’16: Bad Cat

Shero makes Grumpy Cat look like a pretentious poser. He is an animated feline in the tradition of Fritz the Cat and Bill the Cat. The Turkish tabby is a foul-mouthed lecher, but the most subversive thing about him might be his resemblance to Garfield. Shero will duly provide plenty of swearing and cartoon violence in Mehmet Kurtulus & Ayse Ünal’s Bad Cat (trailer here), which screened during the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Frankly, it really is all Shero’s fault. He tried to put the moves on a hot little Siamese while her cartoonist owner was out, but inadvertently killed both the cat and the returning human. However, the cartoonist just won’t stay dead. Each time he is resuscitated, the increasingly zombie-like human returns more determined to have his revenge on Shero.

Of course, the orange tabby hardly gives the incident a second thought. His attention has shifted to Misscat, the seductive new Turkish Angora in the neighborhood. When not berating Riza the rat and Rifki the seagull for not purloining any booze, Shero is also busy getting his ostensible owner evicted from their shabby flat and avoiding Taco, the son he never knew he had. Various such episodes are essentially strung together into a loose, mangy plot.

Bad Cat could have been amazing, but instead it is just amusing. As it is, it would probably be a “soft” R-rated film if picked up for American distribution, but that hardly registers in a post-South Park world. The film feels like it is stopping short of the gleeful subversion it calls out for—and it over-promises and under-delivers when it comes to the naughty bits.

On the other hand, Kurtulus & Ünal maintain the energy and attitude with admirable consistency. In fact, some of the action sequences are rendered with cinematic boldness. Frankly, the 3D computer animation is way better than viewers will expect. They could have easily gotten away with far less. The characters are expressive and the backgrounds are reasonably well detailed. The film just never fully gets its claws into the workaday narrative.

Still, it is minor miracle an animated film as edgy as this could be released in Turkey. You have to wonder how much the newly emboldened Erdogan will allow going forward. After all, Shero’s values are definitely not consistent with Islamist principles, starting with the defiant binge-drinking. That’s right, lets blame the cat for the coup attempt. Regardless, it is entertaining but never remotely scandalous. Recommended for animation fans who enjoy moderately off-color humor, Bad Cat helped get the party started at this year’s Fantasia in Montreal.

Japan Cuts ’16: The Projects

Japanese Danchi housing complexes are sort of like old school Czech[oslovakian] Panelák buildings. During the immediate post-war years, there were the place to be, but now they just look old and shabby. For this building, the emphasis should definitely be on old. It is about half empty and most of those who live there are retirees. Of course, that gives everyone even more time to gossip about their neighbors. The Yamashitas will give them plenty to talk about, thanks to their new visitors in Junji Sakamoto’s The Projects (a.k.a. Danchi, trailer here), which screens during this year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

The Yamashitas moved into the modest Osaka Danchi after precipitously closing their herbal medicine store. They had their reasons for wanting privacy. Nevertheless, their former customer Takashi Mashiro manages to track them down and convince Seiji Yamashita to keep supplying him with treatments. Fortunately, the depressed old herbalist still has most of their old stock stored in their crawl space. He is always inclined to be helpful, but Mashiro is also oddly insistent, even with his wacky Japanese syntax.

Things take a rather odd turn when Yamashita loses the building association election that he was only reluctantly dragged into in the first place. Feeling tired and unappreciated, he decided to climb in under the floor boards with his herbal stock, only coming out for meals and to prepare Mashiro’s deliveries. Naturally, this leads to rampant speculation Hinako Yamashita has murdered her husband. Basically, her response to this chatter is a healthy “sod off.” As the dramatic arc demands, gossip reaches and fever pitch just as Mashiro reveals his true nature and places a whopper of an order.

At the risk of being spoilery, we can easily compare The Projects with Cocoon (or Heaven forbid Batteries Not Included), except it is less cutesy and more down-to-earth. There are no montages to be found here. However, viewers will learn how a good deal about how Chinese herbal medicine is made.

Ittoku Kishibe and Naomi Fujiyama are also terrific as the Yamashitas. His permanent air of melancholy is pitched just right, while she is an impressively forceful and defiant. Together, they really seem like a couple with years of difficult shared history. The same is also true of Renji Ishibashi and Michiyo Ookusu as Shozo and Kimiko Gyotoku, the Mertzes of the Danchi. As a further plus, Takumi Saito’s wonderful awkwardness as Mashiro never comes across as schticky, which really helps make the film.

The Projects is exactly the sort of film that wins audience awards, but in this case it would not be inappropriate. It is a film with tremendous heart, but it has no time for cheap sentimentality. Highly recommended, it screens this Tuesday (7/19) at the Japan Society, as part of Japan Cuts 2016.

Japan Cuts ’16: Three Stories of Love

These distantly inter-related characters are all in various states of love. Therefore, they are all also profoundly miserable. Of course, their cold modern urban environment has no time for their feelings, so they will have to hold onto whatever consolation they can find in Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s Three Stories of Love (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

Nobody understands how cruel love can be better than Atsushi Shinozuka. The schlubby bridge inspector never thought he would get married, until his wife came along. Yet, she was cruelly taken from him by a knife-wielding maniac in a random incident of street violence. When the killer was sentenced to three years in a mental hospital by the liberal courts, Shinozuka’s grief, guilt, and anger became cancerous. He has struggled to find a lawyer willing to press his lawsuit, while his emotional and physical health have deteriorated.

The latest lawyer to give him the runaround is Shinomiya, a young hotshot so detested by his colleagues, one of them actually pushes him down a long flight of stairs. Unfortunately, that precipitates an incident with the young son of Satoshi, his old college friend and secret crush that will be willfully misinterpreted by the boy’s mother. Meanwhile, neglected housewife Toko Takahashi begins an ill-advised affair with Fujita, the grifter-poultry deliveryman she met through her part-time job making bento boxes. (Shinozuka’s understanding boss Daisuke Kuroda happens to be a customer.)

It is hard to believe it has been six years since Hashiguchi’s last film All Around Us played at NYAFF. That was the first film to really feature artist and memoirist Lily Franky in a lead role, but he has since gone on to be a fixture in Japanese cinema. Bringing it full circle, he has a cameo appearance in Three Stories as a dubious fiend trying to encourage Shinozuka.

Three Stories will likely act as a similar launching pad for Atsushi Shinohara, who has already won awards for his devastating work as Shinzuka. You are not likely to see a better performance all year. It might just be the definitive portrayal of grief on-screen. In fact, he might be too good and too real, because the other Short Cuts-ish narrative strands suffer in comparison.

Frankly, most viewers will never much care for Ryo Ikeda’s Shinomiya and they will start to actively dislike him after he blows off Shinozuka. Whenever he re-enters the film, the audience will start looking for more staircases. To her credit, Toko Narushima gives a boldly honest performance as Takahashi, but her relationship with Fujita and his former beauty pageant winner accomplice never rings true.

However, Shinozuka’s story will continue to reverberate for viewers. It is by far the most deeply felt and features several exquisitely sensitive turns, including Daisuke Kuroda, who is a real standout as his humane namesake. This is a case where less would have been more, but it is still worth sticking with Hashiguchi’s film, for Shinozuka’s sake. Recommended on balance, Three Stories of Love screens tomorrow (7/18) at the Japan Society, as part of Japan Cuts 2016.

Fantasia ’16: Bed of the Dead

Dr. Drew could have told them it would end badly, but even he would be surprised by the chaos wrought. A horny man-child convinces his girlfriend, his best bud, and his gf to join him for a four-some in the private room of a sketchy sex club. Sounds like a plan, right? Unfortunately, a demonic piece of furniture ruins all the fun in Jeff Maher’s Bed of the Dead (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Its Ren’s birthday so put on your party hat or whatever. After taking in a burlesque show with Sandy, Fred and Nancy, he wants to celebrate in a private room. It rather aptly looks like something out of a Hammer Horror film, but it has a bed big enough to accommodate them all.

Right, so about that bed. When the other three admit they just aren’t feeling it, they try to simply crash-out, but the bed has other ideas. It starts sending them twisted visions, killing them off one by one. Presumably, it gets the entire quartet, plus a spare in the hallway, because Canada’s most disgraced cop has five charred bodies on his hands. He quickly learns the room has a tragic history—and then things get really complicated in term of both narrative and genre. There just might be someone for him to save after all.

Given the premise and setting, it is remarkable how little sexification went into Bed. Apparently, Maher and co-screenwriter Cody Calahan preferred to focus on plot and characterization. Go figure. As a result, Bed is solidly above genre average on both counts. Arguably, it becomes as much science fiction or urban fantasy as it is horror down the stretch, but that unexpected turn is a good thing.

Alysa King gives Sandy, the possible final girl real dimension and emotional cred. Colin Price also grows into the hardboiled role of Det. Virgil quite nicely, while Dennis Andres has a Vince Vaughn thing going on as Ren that works in context.

If you can stifle your pedantic impulses, Bed is a surprisingly satisfying fantastical film. Fantasia is probably the best possible venue for it, because it straddles genre boundaries, but it is definitely not the sort of film you will see on Lifetime TV anytime soon. Recommended for fans of dark strangeness, Bed of the Dead screens again August 1^st during this year’s Fantasia in Montreal.

Japan Cuts ’16: Bakuman

The teen Manga-creating manga characters Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi are so popular, one of their fictional series has been novelized in real life (under their own pseudonym, of course). They are young, but the competitive atmosphere of Shonen Jump magazine will not cut them any breaks. In fact, it might be particularly hard on them when they develop an intense rivalry with another high school phenom. However, they have love and friendship on their side and that counts for a lot in Hitoshi One’s winning adaptation of Bakuman (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

If you know your manga, you will pick up on plenty of in-references in the live-action Bakuman. If not, you will still come to appreciate what it took for the original manga series (co-written by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the creators of Death Note) to thrive at Shonen Jump. For series to continue at the manga magazine, they must rank highly in the weekly readers’ survey, which falls somewhere between American Idol voters and The Hunger Games in its unforgiving brutality. Nobody understands this better than Mashiro. He saw how the system broke his beloved late uncle, who maintained a long-running Shonen Jump series.

Despite his uncle’s fate, Mashiro still has a deep love for manga. He also has talent. When aspiring manga writer Takagi notices his skills, he suggests they team up and go pro. Initially, Mashiro is reluctant, but when he discovers his class crush Miho Azuki has started pursuing a career as an anime voice-over artist, he fully commits to the manga dream. He and Azuki are both so awkward whenever they try to talk, the communication is decidedly strained, but she more-or-less offers to marry Mashiro when she finally lands a leading part in the anime adaptation of his manga series. This is motivation. So is beating the arrogant and freakishly anti-social Eiji Niizuma, Shonen Jump’s teen sensation currently ensconced at #2 in Shonen Jump’s internal standings.

Bakuman might just be the best film about comic and manga artist perhaps ever. It certainly lays a beat-down on Chasing Amy. There is comedy and there is romance, but the tone is sort of like The Great Passage reconceived for the manga world. Bakuman (in all its incarnations) is also often ruthlessly frank in its depiction of Shonen Jump’s inner editorial workings. It is a bit surprising the magazine allowed so much sausage-making to be exposed to public view, but it seems when you are riding high in the ratings, you can get away with anything.

Co-leads Takeru Satoh and Ryunosuke Kamiki have terrific geeky underdog chemistry together, transcending the obvious easy stereotypes. Nana Komatsu just seems to glide through the film on gossamer wings, sort of like the more innocent and endearing analog of her title character in The World of Kanako. Kenta Kiritani, Hirofumi Arai, Sarutoki Minagawa, and Takayuki Yamada nicely flesh out the film as the lads’ friendly manga colleagues and their editor, Akira Hattori. Shota Sometani is also weirdly effective as their squirrely nemesis, Niizuma. However, Lily Franky really supplies the film’s X-factor with his wonderfully subtle turn as Sasaki, the dreaded editor-in-chief.

Bakuman is an absolutely terrific film that avoids every anticipated rom-com cliché, yet still ends on a wildly crowd-pleasing note. It celebrates ambition and artistic integrity, while vividly portraying the potential costs of both. Most importantly, it has a big heart and a fanboy’s enthusiasm. Very highly recommended, Bakuman screens tomorrow (7/17) at the Japan Society, as part of Japan Cuts 2016.

Japan Cuts ’15: Nagasaki: Memories of My Son

During WWII, Kokura was a major center of munitions production, but it dodged the mother of all bullets twice. It was the back-up target for Hiroshima and the primary target for the mission that ultimately switched to the secondary target of Nagasaki. That was profoundly tragic news for Nobuko Fukuhara. She would survive, but her son Koji was incinerated without a trace. Three years later, she will try to move on with a little help from his ghost in Yoji Yamada’s Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (a.k.a. Living with My Mother, trailer here), which screens during this year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

Fukuhara’s husband was never a factor and her eldest son was killed in combat, but she soldiered on well enough, because Koji was truly the apple of her eye. As a medical student, he had a draft deferment, which seemed fortunate at the time, but his medical college was pretty much dead center in the blast radius. It was hard for Fukuhara to let go, but she finally gives up her last false hopes during his three-year memorial ceremony. Yet, that was exactly what was needed to allow Koji’s spirit to approach her.

It is clearly a bittersweet reunion, but it definitely provides Fukuhara some solace. However, his still grieving fiancée Machiko Sata is still not ready to move on and he is not ready to let go of her. Despite her mixed emotions, Mother Fukuhara will try to convince them both to release each other.

Frankly, Yamada is about the only filmmaker working today who can craft such an achingly sentimental drama without taking a single falsely melodramatic step. Clearly, Nagasaki is a natural companion film to Yamada’s Kabei: Our Mother, but somehow it manages to be less dark and more tragic.

Once again, Sayuri Yoshinaga quietly devastates us over and over again as Fukuhara, just as she did in Kabei. If anything, she is even sadder and more humane this time around. Kazunari Ninomiya is strangely chipper for a dead person, but he actually helps shake off the film’s inherent moroseness, dialing it down and locking-in when it matters. Haru Kuroki is also quite touching as Sata, developing some truly touching surrogate mother-daughter chemistry with Yoshinaga. To completely rip out our heartstrings, Kenichi Kato and Isao Hashizume add memorable poignancy as Yoshinaga’s discouraged black marketeer suitor and Koji’s even less fortunate professor, respectively.

Unlike Kabei, Nagasaki does not offer much explicit criticism of the Imperial war machine, but the grim costs of war are always obvious and inescapable. Although it earns major tears down the stretch, it is never a downer film. In fact, it is unusually warm and lovely. Highly recommended, Nagasaki: Memories of My Son screens this Sunday (7/17) at the Japan Society, as part of Japan Cuts 2016.

Rebirth: Its What You Need On Netflix

Any self-help book that is actually legitimate should be the first and last one you’d ever need to read. Likewise, going through a process called “Rebirth” definitely sounds like a one-time only experience. Yet, apparently many followers keep getting Rebirthed over and over again. It is hard to understand why, given how harrowing the process is for a reluctant new initiate in Karl Mueller’s Rebirth (trailer here), a Netflix original movie that starts streaming today.

Kyle Something is a striving yuppie with a wife and kid, who has made peace with his conversion to bourgeoisie respectability—mostly. Then along comes his long-lost, off-the-grid, counter-culture college roommate Zack to rock his world with an invite to some sort of Kumbaya retreat called “Rebirth.” Against his better judgement, Kyle agrees to attend, but then feels rather put out when it looks like he already missed the whole show.

It turns out, they are just going to make him work for it. Yet, even when he follows the clues, everyone makes him feel distinctly unwanted, especially the cult’s high-ranking femme fatale, Naomi. She has a habit of answering questions even more pointed questions, which will have viewers pulling their hair out in exasperation, along with Kyle, but that strong reaction is sort of the whole point.

As Kyle wanders through the cult’s complex, he will stumble into 1960s encounter groups from Hell, hazy, drugged-out orgies, and some Medieval genre business. However, something about the Rebirth shtick keeps him from taking flight. Indeed, Mueller is absolutely spot-on identifying the manipulative methods cults use to control people. Frankly, the wilder Kyle’s Rebirth gets, the more believable the film becomes.

Fran Kranz is cringe-inducingly perfect as the gawky, out-of-his-depth Kyle. You can see how uncomfortable he is in his own skin. He just has potential cult victim written all over him. Frankly, he is probably just lucky Rebirth got to him before Scientology. Nicky Whelan, resembling an aloof Robert Palmer back-singer, just makes him look small. Adam Goldberg is also surprisingly sinister channeling his inner New Age puppet-master as the slogan-spouting Zack. For extra added genre cred, Pat Healey eventually turns up in a cult-related role. However, nothing is scarier than Harry Hamlin playing a touchy-feely love guru.

Mueller’s execution is tight and tense, bearing out the promise of his unjustly under-rated Mr. Jones. He seems strangely comfortable navigating the terrain between psychological thriller and horror movie. It all works so well, you will rush to re-read Eric Hoffer’s True Believer and Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear after watching it. Recommended for fans of cult films about cults, Rebirth now streams on Netflix.