NewFest ’13: The Rugby Player

Arguably, he is the best known passenger of the most tragically famous commercial flight in American history.  He was one of the heroes (yes, that is the appropriate word) who sacrificed their lives to sabotage their hijackers’ heinous plan for United flight 93.  Yet, the example of Mark Bingham’s life continues to inspire Americans, beyond the fateful events culminating in that Pennsylvania field.  Not content to let one moment define Bingham, Scott Gracheff presents a comprehensive and highly personal documentary portrait of the increasingly symbolic man throughout The Rugby Player (trailer here), which fittingly screens this solemn day as part of NewFest 2013 in New York.

Bingham and close friend Todd Sarner (who served as Rugby’s technical advisor) often had video cameras on-hand to record life’s highlights and lowlights as they happened.  As a result, Gracheff had a wealth of candid footage of Bingham, from his middle school years up until his final weeks.  Raised by his single mother, Alice Hoagland, Bingham was a dutiful son, who always tried to shield her from the worst of his meatheaded student pranks.  In high school, he took to rugby like a fish to water, playing in leagues all his life.  During college, he was a reserve on Cal’s championship team and was elected president of his fraternity.  He was also gay, which is why Rugby screens as part of NewFest.

As an enthusiastic high school, college, and club rugby player, Bingham has become a role model for athletic GLTB community members, both in and out of the closet.  As a supporter of John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign, he has also become an inspiration to Log Cabin Republicans (a fact that does not seem to interest Gracheff much). Regardless, the film conscientiously maintains an intimate focus on Bingham and Hoagland, who tirelessly advocates for increased airline safety and GLTB rights.  As a result, audiences will feel they have a very real sense of who Bingham was as an individual.

Indeed, it is critically important to document the stories of 9-11 on a personal level.  Watching Rugby Player will help viewers understand the pain resulting from Bingham’s senseless murder.  Then multiply that by over 3,000.

Gracheff mostly but not entirely avoids current political controversies, while handling Bingham’s still grieving friends and family with appropriate sensitivity.  Although unjustly cut short, Bingham’s life was well led, easily sustaining the eighty minute documentary.  Stylistically straight forward and genuinely touching, The Rugby Player is recommended for those who insist on remembering and paying tribute to the lives lost on September 11^th.  The clear high point of this year’s NewFest, it screens tonight (9/11) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Harry Dean Stanton—Partly Fiction

He has some of the coolest credits ever, including Alien, Escape from New York, Red Dawn, Repo Man, and Wild at Heart.  However, appearing as himself is a role he is not so comfortable with.  As a result, Sophie Huber’s documentary treatment, Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (trailer here) is a rather impressionistic portrait that opens tomorrow in New York.

Stanton is not the sort of fellow to sit down in front of a camera and commence name-dropping, but Huber, his friend and colleague, knew that coming in.  Foregoing the conventional approach, she scored at least one coup.  Up until now, Stanton declined offers to record his traditional vocals and harmonica playing, but she was able to capture many of his intimate performances.  Frankly, that alone should constitute a respectable cinematic legacy for Huber.

Indeed, Stanton’s voice is truly mesmerizing on old time favorites like “Blue Bayou,” “Blue Moon,” “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” and the positively eerie closing rendition of “Danny Boy.”  Stanton’s clear affinity for songs of loneliness and loss marries up perfectly with Huber’s portrait of a haunted backwoods Zen master. 

Unfortunately, the scenes without music lack the same quiet power.  At times, Huber merely tries of soak up the ambiance of Stanton’s life, which gets a bit snoozy.  The lack of any standard biographical treatment also occasionally leads to frustration, as when Stanton off-handedly comments on the unforgettable wildness of his years living with Jack Nicholson and hanging with Marlon Brando.  Right, we can only imagine.

Huber incorporates some commentary from Stanton’s famous friends, perhaps most notably David Lynch, whom we see visiting with his chum.  She also includes some film clips, relying heavily on Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, openly inviting audiences to conflate Stanton with his pseudo breakout role.

There are few outright scoops in Fiction, aside from Stanton’s disclosure (now widely remarked upon) that he once dated Rebecca De Mornay, before she made Risky Business and got involved with Hollywood’s favorite Scientologist.  Who knew?  One gets a sense Stanton guards a treasure trove of such revelations, but Huber never tries to dig them out.  Still, the film has a stylishly evocative look, thanks to cinematographer Seamus MacGarvey’s striking black and white sequences.

Huber might leave many of Stanton’s fans scratching their heads, but at least they will know their man can sing.  Periodically beautiful, Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction is for diehard fans of Stanton and those who appreciate Americana folk songs when it inexplicably opens tomorrow (9/11, probably the last date anyone would want to go to the movies) in New York at the Village East.

Electric Man: the Comic Book Dreams Are Made of

Nobody opens a comic shop to make their fortune or impress women.  The co-owner of Deadhead Comics in Edinburgh is doing particularly poorly on both scores, but his knowledge of early superheroes will help him navigate a caper involving an ultra-rare comic in David Barras’s Electric Man (trailer here), which releases today on DVD, with a VOD launch to follow this Friday.

Jason “Jazz” Archer is the responsible one.  His partner Wolf is the unlikely goofball ladies man.  They were kind of sort of making a go of it with their comic shop, but now find themselves on the hook for 5,000 pounds worth of repairs.  That sum is simply beyond their means, but they carry on hoping will lightning strike out of the blue, which it does.

Electric Man (a.k.a. Edison Bolt) predated the Man of Steel by one year.  A gritty depression era hero (whose origin story is related in the cool motion comic opening credit sequence), his premiere issue regularly fetches 100,000 pounds at auctions.  At their latest comic show, someone stashed a stolen copy of Electric Man #1 in their boxes.  Hoping for a business-saving finder’s fee, Archer attempts to track down the rightful owner.  The trail leads him to Lauren McCall, the mysterious daughter of a wealthy collector, her thuggish uncle, and a slightly cracked American Electric Man fanatic.

Electric is an affectionately knowing valentine to geeky cult culture, choked full of clever references and a generous helping of local Edinburgh color.  Shot for pocket change, its cast is a bit of a mixed bag, but Toby Manley is engagingly earnest as Archer.  Likewise, Jennifer Ewing (online host of Crazy Sexy Geeks) has the right look and presence of a comic convention femme fatale.  As the scheming Uncle Jimmy, Derek Dick (a.k.a. Fish) looks and sounds like he could have stepped out of a Ken Loach movie, which is a good thing in this context.  Unfortunately, Mark McKirdy is rather annoyingly shticky as Wolf, never convincingly realizing his supposed scruffy charms on-screen.

Despite the occasional limitations of cast and resources, Electric is a light hearted romp that consistently inspires gentle chuckles rather than gut-busting laughs.  A refreshing respite from special effects, gross out humor, and grimy social realism, Electric Man should amply please its target ComicCon demographic.  Recommended for comic readers and fans of understated indie comedies, Electric Man is now available on DVD and hits VOD this Friday (9/13), via FilmBuff’s platforms.

Wadjda: It’s Tough to Be a Girl in the Kingdom

In a country where women are forbidden to drive cars and movie theaters are prohibited, this is obviously a significant two-fer.  Not only is it considered the first feature film produced entirely in Saudi Arabia, it was also directed by a woman.  (It should be noted the film was partly backed one of the prince’s companies, lest you suspect the Zionist conspiracy was working overtime.)  It might not drag Saudi Arabia into the modern world, but at least Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda (trailer here) is a good film well worth seeing when it opens this Friday in New York.

Ten year old Wadjda’s attends a hardline Islamist girls’ school that has little to teach beyond the Koran.  Bless her heart, she is a terrible student, but obviously much more interesting than her docile classmates.  Everyone is rather surprised when she enrolls in the school’s Koran reciting competition, but she has plans for the prize money.  She is determined to buy the sparkling new green bicycle that caught her eye.

Of course, biking is strictly not allowed for girls.  After all, those narrow seats might rob them of their virtue.  Seriously, that is the justification.  Nevertheless, Wadjda convinced her neighborhood friend Abdullah to secretly teach her how to ride his bike.  Thanks to the circumstances of her family life, she will have plenty of time to spend with him.  Her loving mother works on the other side of town, forced to rely on her surly driver to shuttle her back and forth.  In contrast, Wadjda’s father is an infrequent presence in her life.  He lives with his mother, who seems to be plotting a second marriage for her son.  Wadjda’s mother lives in fear of this nuclear option.

Wadjda is a gentle coming of age story, but it is bursting with telling moments.  Perhaps the greatest eye-opener is the extent to which women, such as Wadjda’s shrewish head mistress Ms. Hussa, enable and promote their society’s institutionalized misogyny.  Time and again, Wadjda’s mother faces major dramas over what would be mere day-to-day chores for women in the west, because of her gender restrictions.  It is also hard to see what use Wadjda’s Islamist education will ever be, but that is obviously the whole point.

Nonetheless, both Wadjda and Abdullah (played by Waad Mohammed and Abdullrahmin Algohani, respectively) represent the promise of youth.  Given her extensive screen time, Mohammed is particularly impressive, largely carrying the film with aplomb, but they are both immensely likable, blessed with natural screen charisma.  Watching their chemistry develop gives viewers hope, but they are only two kids.    

While Wadjda the film is understandably small in scope, there are considerable stakes involved for mother and daughter alike.  Monsour tells a timely and compelling story with a sure directorial hand and a sensitive touch. Indeed, the indomitable Wadjda is a remarkably engaging character who ought to win over art house audiences.  Highly recommended, particularly for those interested in global women’s rights issues, Wadjda opens this Friday (9/13) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

TIFF ’13: The Dark Matter of Love

Over 300 so-called “Pipeline Babies” have become the new face of Putin’s Russia.  Often special needs children, they had already met and begun forming relationships with their presumptive American parents.  However, as they waited for the paperwork to be finalized, the Putin regime banned American adoption as the latest salvo in his neo-Cold War.  With no realistic prospects of Russian adoption, it is the children who will suffer the most as a result, but looking after the weak and the vulnerable was never the Russian strong man’s priority. 

Admirably, the filmmakers behind a new film documenting the complicated adjustment process for three of the final (as of now) Russian orphans adopted by an American family are using the Toronto premiere of their film to shine a spotlight on the Pipeline Baby issue.  Masha, Marcel, and Vadim are not Pipeline children, but the Diazes might sometimes wish they were during the rocky course of Sarah McCarthy's The Dark Matter of Love, which screens during the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

Adopting one child is a considerable undertaking.  Taking on three at once is rather daunting.  Recognizing the potential challenges (at least on an intellectual level), the Diaz family enlisted scientific help.  Dr. Robert Marvin and his associate Nicole Millirin will monitor and counsel the family, reviewing video footage that would become part of this film.  Masha is a classic case of the emotionally guarded orphan who erects nearly impenetrable protective walls around herself.  In contrast, the younger twins, Marcel and Vadim, indulge in the sort of histrionic acting out also commonly observed in recently adopted children.  Altogether, they are quite a handful, leaving the Diaz parents little time for their biological teenage daughter, Cami.

Throughout much of the second act, viewers will be reminded of what they say about good intentions.  Nonetheless, Marvin and Millirin offer the family some very constructive feedback.  The authoritative Marvin also provides the audience a lucid thumbnail sketch of the evolution of developmental psychology over the last fifty-some years.  Looking a bit like Max von Sydow’s sensitive younger brother, Marvin is a reassuring presence, who adds quite a bit to the film.

Frankly, the documentary might have benefited from a bit more of Marvin and Millirin.  While the Diazes are clearly good people with strong values, ninety-three screening minutes is a long time to spend with them.  Indeed, Dark Matter could easily be whittled down to an hour for a later PBS broadcast.

Despite some painful moments, Dark Matter will leave viewers largely optimistic regarding the Diaz children’s future.  It certainly never offers any inadvertent justification for Putin’s iron-fisted American adoption ban.  Considering Masha and the twins were adopted just before the decree was passed, it is perfectly logical and appropriate for McCarthy and her colleagues to take up the Pipeline Baby cause as part of their awareness campaign.  Millirin has even sacrificed some privacy by announcing she happens to be a lesbian adoptive mother, in protest of both the Russian government’s adoption ban and their harsh new anti-gay laws.  It is rather incredible how much there is to be alarmed by in Putin’s Russia, such as the continuing persecution of dissenting activists, like Pussy Riot.  What a perfect spot to hold the Olympics. 

Recommended for those interested in its family development issues, The Dark Matter of Love screens again today (9/9) and Friday (9/13) as part o this year’s TIFF.  Concerned viewers can also sign an online petition on behalf of the over 300 affected children here.

KCS Movie Night: Secretly Greatly

In North Korea, loyalty is only for the little people.  In contrast, the state owes them nothing for their faithful service and sacrifice.  A trio of DPRK sleeper spies learns this lesson the hardest way possible in Jang Cheol-soo’s Secretly Greatly (trailer here), which the Korean Cultural Service will screen for free this Tuesday in New York.

Won Ryu-hwan is one of the most lethal commandos ever forged by the North Korean military.  Folks in a sleepy South Korean town know him as Bang Dong-gu, the village idiot.  To maintain his deep cover, Won follows a strict regimen, such as regularly being seen in public doing both number one and number two.  It is a real bummer for Won when the lovely Yu Yu-ran sees him doing his duty (if you will), but at least he will have some comrades to commiserate with when two new sleepers arrive in town.

Lee Hae-rang is supposed to be a hipster-rocker, but he cannot play the simplest of chords.  However, he is well connected as the illegitimate son of a high ranking general.  On the other hand, Ri Hae-jin makes a convincing high school student, because he is still a teenager.  Of the three, only Ri has seen any action, carrying out the assassinations of several defectors. 

With the change at the top of the regime, the sleeper agents suddenly look like a potential liability, resulting in a general self-termination order.  Of course, Won will do anything his government demands, but first he has the gall to ask for some assurance the Party will take care of the beloved mother he has not seen for years.  Right, do you want the bad news first or the really bad news.  Regardless, his old commander Kim Tae-won has been dispatched to personally handle the three newly dubbed “traitors.”

Based on a web-comic, Secretly is unusually forthright about the nature of the Communist North.  Characters often refer to work camps as a punishing fact of life.  Yet, it also portrays the soul crushing impact of the lifetime of propaganda Won has absorbed and still desperately clings to.  Nevertheless, the first half of the film mostly hits comedic notes, often approaching outright slapstick.

Of course, when the DPRK turns on its former heroes, the film pivots into much darker territory.  When it is finally go time, action coordinator Park Jeong-ryul delivers some spectacularly cinematic but seriously down-and-dirty fight scenes.  Bear in mind, Secretly was a blowout hit at the Korean box office, so you can also expect some tragedy down the stretch, but that is also rather realistic.  Pyongyang does not do happily-ever-afters.

Kim Soo-hyun fully commits himself to Dong-gu’s cringy humiliations, perhaps even overdoing it a tad.  Still, he is a credible action figure when Won gets down to business.  Park Ki-woong is a bit more restrained as would be rocker Lee, while Son Hyun-joo is all kinds of badness as the conspicuously scarred military heavy.  Although is a small supporting role, Lee Chae-young also has some fine moments as the town tramp, nicely bringing out Dong-gu’s inner tensions.

Secretly has no illusions about the dehumanizing nature of the DPRK, but it is not so crazy about the ROK government either.  Arguably, the most sympathetic figure of officialdom is Kim Soo-hyuk, the unreconstructed but fundamentally decent cold warrior charged with capturing the sleeper spies.  Altogether it is a strange mix of broad comedy, gritty action, and cynical intrigue that works far better than it might sound.  Recommended for fans of spy vs. spy beatdowns, Secretly Greatly screens this coming Tuesday (9/10) at the Tribeca Cinemas, free of charge, courtesy of the Korean Cultural Service in New York.

New York-Tokyo: The Apology King

Don’t call it kowtowing.  This is the “Dogeza,” a traditional form of Japanese apology that does indeed involve lowering one’s head to the ground.  Yuzuru Kuroshima knows it well.  As director of the Tokyo Apology Center, he counsels clients in need of forgiveness.  Business will be brisk in Nobuo Mizuta’s The Apology King (trailer here), which screened this week in Manhattan as part of the New York-Tokyo film program, in advance of its September 28^th Japanese opening.

Noriko Kuramochi had a fender-bender with the wrong people.  After compounding her problems, she enlists Kuroshima’s help apologizing to the yakuza. Having been saved from a life in the sex trade, Kuramochi enlists as Kuroshima’s assistant.  She might be considered an office manager, if Kuroshima had an office.  Instead, they work out of a coffee shop, which is very New York.  Frankly, it does not matter.  They will spend a great deal of time out in the field.

At first, King appears rather episodic, but eventually characters from one case will reappear in another.  With varying degrees of success, Kuroshima will coach a clueless junior executive in the lingerie industry accused of sexual harassment, a veteran actor and his ex-wife with a public embarrassment for a son, and a team of filmmakers who inadvertently shot footage of the crown prince of Mantan. 

Although a tiny principality, Mantan is a critical trading partner for Japan.  Unfortunately, they have very different cultural traditions.  Filming the royals is a big no-no, as are other common Japanese practices.  As further misunderstandings snowball, Kurosawa finds himself advising the government in the midst of a diplomatic crisis.

Mizuta and his frequent collaborator, screenwriter Kankurô Kudô, certainly are not afraid a little goofball humor.  It is frankly kind of amazing to see such distinguished looking cast members engaged in the climatic dogeza-trumping apology.  Mizuta must be one persuasive director.  He also handles the flashbacks and overlapping strands of narrative quite dexterously.  While King is out for shameless guffaws, it is oddly impressive how it all fits together.

The bowl cut sporting Sadao Abe is appropriately manic as Kuroshima, but he is never abrasive, pulling viewers in rather than pushing them away.  In fact, he displays understated sensitivity in his own backstory flashback sequence.  Likewise, as Kuramochi, Mao Inoue plays off and with Abe’s Kuroshima quite well.  Katsumi Takahashi fittingly hams it up as the hammy thesp Tetsuro Nambu and Yasuko Matsuyuki is wonderfully tart tongued as his Helen Mirren-esque ex.  However, Gaku Hamada is weirdly mannered and shticky as Wakbal, the Mantan translator from Hell.

Granted, much of King’s humor is so broad it requires little translation.  Yet, some of the material involving the more confused than remorseful undergarment client will fall flat for American audiences.  Aside from that misfiring subplot, King is a charmingly goofy with a nice heart.  As an extra added bonus, it ends with a music video style dance number, featuring Abe’s eccentric moves and the synchronized choreography of J-Pop girl group, E-girls. Recommended for those who appreciate screwball humor, The King of Apology opens the 28^th in Japan, following its Fantasia and New York-Tokyo screenings in North America.

Populaire: Love in the Time of Typewriters

It was a simpler, analog time when assistants were called secretaries.  They were always women, but they were considered “modern” women.  Régis Roinsard pays tribute to the women in the late 1950’s workforce and the romantic comedies of their era with Populaire (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Rose Pamphyle longs to leave her sleepy provincial village for a big city job as a sophisticated secretary.  She makes it as far as Lisieux, the nearest sizable city for any interview with Louis Échard’s small but respectable insurance company.  Frankly, she lacks most of the skills required for the position, except typing—sort of.  Even with two fingers she is a speed demon.

Recognizing Pamphyle’s raw talent, Échard decides to forgo her dubious clerical assistance so he can train her full time as a competitive speed typist.  Échard is considerably more intense as a coach than Pamphyle is as his protégée.  She has other concerns, inevitably developing strong feelings of attraction for the suave former resistance fighter.  Of course, he seems to have a hard time recognizing his perfect rom-com match.

Fully stocked with stylish circa-1959 trappings, Populaire is bound to be compared to Mad Men, but it largely replaces the zeitgeisty angst with old fashioned romance.  Still, it also provides a mostly affectionate time capsule look at a time when Pamphyle was considered rather bold for pursuing an office career and smoking in the office was no big deal.  Just seeing the cross-the-body manual return is a vivid reminder how much has changed in the last fifty-some years.  Frankly, for some younger viewers, Pamphyle might as well be chiseling in stone.

While Populaire is a bright and colorful period piece (thanks to first rate contributions from cinematographer Guilaume Schiffman, production designer Sylvie Olivé, and costume designer Charlotte David), but it has some real heart beneath the froth.  Déborah François brings an acute sensitivity to Pamphye.  Her romantic chemistry with Romain Duris’s Échard is believably awkward but still smolders.  Yet, perhaps the most emotionally resonate moments involve his scenes with The Artist’s Bérénice Béjo as Marie Taylor, the lover he pushed away during the war for reasons of self denial.  She is an unexpectedly deep character, fully brought to life by Béjo in her comparatively limited screen time.

Populaire is pleasing to the eye and the ear, including some charming cha-cha-chas about typing, as well as timeless standards, from the likes of Ella Fitzgerald.   It is not a big picture in any sense, but it goes down smooth and leaves audiences satisfied.  Recommended for a fans of French cinema and retro romantic comedies, Populaire opens today (9/6) in New York at the Village East.

Butcher Boys: a Steady Diet of Bad Taste

You might think a horror film that opens with a quote from Jonathan Swift might have the potential for some for some smartly executed scares.  Well, you would be wrong.  Duane Graves & Justin Meeks’ Butcher Boys (trailer here) is that film and it is a nasty piece of genre gristle, releasing today in select theaters and on VOD.

Through their unbelievably stupid actions, Sissy’s outrageously reckless and irresponsible friends manage to antagonize a gang of cannibals or something.  She was in the backseat, so she had nothing to do with the death of their pooch.  Of course, that hardly matters.  The pack of urban savages chases the privileged kids into an ominous industrial park, where they quickly dispatch her friends.  Sissy proves harder to kill, but not because she is especially intelligent or resourceful.  Instead, her tormentors are simply reversing the course of evolution before our very eyes.

Ironically, Butcher is the second release of the week shot in and around San Antonio, which must have the absolute worst emergency services of any large city to judge from this film.  As Sissy, Ali Faulkner freaks out fairly convincingly, perhaps out of genuine panic for what this cinematic outing might mean for her career.  However, the only person that truly distinguished themselves on this production was the location scout, who found some truly eerie demilitarized looking spots to shoot.

In contrast, Butcher’s cinematography is often incomprehensibly dark, but in this case that is more an observation than a complaint.  This really a gruesome film that might even be scarring if there were any reasonably life like characters to invest in. The assorted villains are an especially weak hodge-podge of American Psycho-esque himbos and circus freaks.

To be fair, there is a flash of inspiration during the climax, but it is far too little, far too late. Absolutely not recommended, Butcher Boys is now available on VOD and opens today (9/6) in limited theatrical release (presumably Texan markets).

Salinger: The Man, the Myth, the Recluse

There will be no movie adaptations of The Catcher in the Rye.  The terms of J.D. Salinger’s literary trust are quite clear on that score.  However, the eagerly anticipated documentary profile of Holden Caulfield’s creator might be the next closest thing, considering how legions of admirers often intimately intertwine the character with Salinger.  Shane Salerno takes a remarkably even-handed look at the reclusive author and the events that shaped his life in the simply titled Salinger (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Essentially, most of what you have heard is true.  Salinger did not stop writing in 1965.  In conjunction with the documentary’s publicity campaign, news of five new Salinger works to be published beginning in 2015 has already been released.  Yes, readers might recognize some of the characters, but there is still more to Salinger the man and the film than that.

There are two main threads to Salerno’s years-in-the-making documentary.  One explores Salinger the recluse, arguing the author knowingly fueled the mystique that surrounded his withdrawal from public life.  Concurrently, Salerno also documents Salinger’s life, including his formative years spent in the army during WWII.  Experiencing D-Day, the liberation of Dachau, and the de-nazification campaign, Salinger saw more horrors that he never shook off.

To his credit, Salerno never seeks to defend or condemn Salinger.  He simply explains.  Given the context of his military experience and painful early romances, viewers can better understand how Salinger became such a figure of thorny complexity.  By the same token, Salerno never excuses Salinger’s more problematic behavior, such as his history of pursuing highly impressionable and considerably younger women (girls, really), only to treat them with cool detachment once they commenced a relationship.

Despite the paucity of Salinger photos and video, Salerno constructs a fully balanced, multi-dimensional portrait of the author.  He incorporates scores of talking head interviews, but most participants are heard from only briefly.  However, Salinger’s former companions (or what have you) Joyce Meynard and Jean Miller have sufficient time to tell their very personal stories.  Yet, perhaps the best sequences involve Salinger’s army buddies, with whom he remained on good terms throughout his life.

There are some over stylized flourishes to Salinger, but the early caper-like sequences capturing the attempts of both fans and journalists to track down the elusive writer effectively establish a mysterious mood, thereby setting the stage for the revelations to follow.  Always highly watchable, Salerno’s Salinger never feels like it is trying to lead viewers to make any sort of conclusion regarding its subject.  Informative and entertaining, Salinger is recommended both for fans of the author and those who appreciative a real life literary tale with a few twists.  It opens tomorrow (9/6) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Mission Park: San Antonio Vice

To showcase San Antonio as potentially a third American “coastal” center of film production, executive producer Armando Montelongo (of A&E’s Flip this House) has shepherded to movie screens a tale of the city’s ruthless drug lords and corrupt cops.  There’s also the Alamo.  Viewers will see plenty of the cinematic city when two FBI agents go undercover to bust their childhood friends in Bryan Anthony Ramirez’s Mission Park (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

When they were about middle school age, Jason shot and robbed the owner of their favorite neighborhood restaurant, with Derek pretending to help, as Bobby and Julian stood around hoping he wouldn’t.  The quartet split in the duos, with Bobby and Julian going on to college and eventually the FBI academy and their former mates heading into a life a crime.  Upon graduation, the bureau capitalizes on those past friendships, sending first Bobby and then Julian out to infiltrate Jason’s operation.  Going home is strange for the undercover agents, particularly Bobby, who finds his old never-quite-got-over-her girlfriend, Gina, is now hanging on Jason’s expensively tailored arm.

Granted, the past weighs heavily on these characters (for good reason), but Ramirez takes over a third of the film establishing their backstories.  At least half an hour goes by before there is any real undercover business.  However, viewers get an in-joke cameo from Vivica A. Fox as Special Agent Montelongo.

Even when it finally gets going, Mission is pretty standard gangster stuff.  However, a consistently strong cast does its best to enliven and elevate the material.  Jeremy Ray Valdez makes a strong cop-on-the-edge, while Walter Perez matches him nicely, projecting Jason’s cool cunning.  However, Joseph Julian Soria (also a standout in the relatively okay All She Can) really brings some pop to his scenes as the insecure and resentful Derek.  While her character is not especially well delineated, Fernanda Romero (who showed some legit comic chops in Ghost Team One) still makes an impression as Gina, the deeply flawed ex.  For added cult film appeal, Boondock Saints’ Sean Patrick Flannery also shows up as the Captain.

Ramirez’s script is deadly serious in its respect for themes of family, sacrifice, and redemption, which is somewhat refreshing.  It just needed a bit more “Crocket & Tubbs” style action.  Earnest and well performed, Mission Park is a presentable outing on behalf of San Antonio’s budding film industry (Tonywood?) that ought to perform well within its target Southwestern geographical region.  For New Yorkers, it is mildly diverting, but not exactly worth the price of City movie tickets.  It opens tomorrow (9/6) at the AMC Empire in Midtown.

Adore (or Whatever it’s Titled Today)

English language Nobel laureates for literature have complicated relationship with cinema.  Arguably, Steinbeck has fared the best, providing the source material for masterworks from John Ford and Elia Kazan.  Ernest Hemingway films have been a radically mixed bag, including some gems and some clunkers.  Faulkner films have generally been an iffy proposition.  However, director Anne Fontaine and screenwriter Christopher Hampton will drastically lower the curve with their smarmy adaptation of Doris Lessing’s The Grandmothers, now known as Adore (trailer here) for its New York opening this Friday.

Lessing’s original title, The Grandmothers, obviously does not sound very sexy.  Hence, Fontaine’s film was known as Two Mothers at Sundance, where my colleagues in the press corps took the bullet to inform the world this was no art movie.  Six months or so later, it was re-titled Adore, right up there at the top of the alphabet, presumably to be VOD friendly.  No matter what it’s called, this film is sure to disappoint.

Lil’s husband never was much, so when he dies, she is able to carry-on raising her son Ian well enough on her own, with the help of her BFF Roz.  Roz also has a son, Tom, and a perfectly serviceable husband, Harold, who just does not seem to be the sort of doofus she wants anymore.  For most of the summer, the lads surf, while their mother booze it up on the shore, drinking up their lean frames.  Eventually, Ian puts the moves on Roz and Tom follows suit with Lil.

Oh gee, how scandalous.  At least, that is how the filmmakers would like us to react.  Frankly, it is not worth getting worked up over.  Never before has cougar-boy toy sex been so boring.  In lieu of substance, we get an interminable surfeit of morning after shots, following the characters walking on the beach, staring off into the horizon.  Yet, by far the gravest sin of Adore (Fontaine’s dubious English language debut) is Hampton’s ridiculous dialogue.  There is no way real people would ever talk like this.  However, it probably looked great on the page, eliciting all sorts of “edgy” compliments from Hampton’s screenwriter colleagues.

Indeed, there is a cynical laziness to Adore that assumes it merely needs to deliver the promised quota of taboo sex for critics and viewers to be intimidated by “provocative” nature.  The truth is there is no there there.  The characters are paper thin and not once do their reactions ring true.  Anyone who can tell Xavier Samuel’s Ian apart from James Frecheville’s Tom should win a cigar from exhibiting theaters.  Naomi Watts and Robin Wright have a few nice moments together, but evidently Fontaine and Hampton believe the world already had enough films about friendships between middle aged women.

Yes, Adore addresses sexual relations, but never with any kind of intelligence or maturity.  In truth, it lacks the depth and insight of an average Pia Zadora movie.  Slow, smug, and shallow, Adore is an absolute waste of the talents of Fontaine (whose The Girl from Monaco is far sexier and more emotionally complicated), Watts, Wright, and the normally reliable Ben Mendelsohn.  Not recommended, especially for those who think it might hold guilty pleasures, Adore opens this Friday (9/6) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Red Obsession: From Bordeaux to Shanghai

Evidently, “red” now has happier connotations in today’s go-go China.  As home to the most billionaires in the world, it is hardly surprising China has become an important market for the elite wines of the Bordeaux region. However, the voraciousness of Chinese demand is drastically reshaping the international market.  The business of the world’s most expensive wines is analyzed with a special emphasis on the high-flying Chinese market in Warwick Ross & David Roach’s highly entertaining documentary, Red Obsession (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The “First Growth” vineyards of Bordeaux have a formal status dating back to the era of the Second French Empire.  Roughly once in a lifetime, natural conditions produce a perfect harvest, resulting in an exceptional vintage, even by the First Growths’ lofty standards.  As Obsession opens, it appears lightning might just strike twice in back-to-back years.  Yet, some wine critics have mixed feelings about this unprecedented good fortune.  They worry the anticipated premium prices might further destabilize the market, essentially excluding many traditional customers.  Of course, there will be those still willing to buy.

After giving viewers a lucid thumbnail sketch of the Bordeaux micro-economy and soaking up the ambiance of the picturesque region, Obsession makes a dramatic pivot.  The scene changes to Shanghai, where viewers meet the nouveau riche entrepreneurs buying up Bordeaux at an extraordinary pace.  For many, it is a mark of status.  For them, nothing beats Latour.

Although its ostensive topic is wine, Obsession offers more insight into the contemporary Chinese capitalist class than any recent documentary.  As several commentators explain, many of China’s boldest venture capitalists were once on the business end of the Cultural Revolution.  They are now absolutely fearless in their business dealings because the prospect of financial ruin means nothing to them compared to what they have already endured.

Roach & Ross introduce viewers to many of the billionaires (with a “b”) who have priced America and Britain out of the market, giving them a human face.  We meet collectors like Peter Tseng, who made his fortune manufacturing items we cannot discuss in a family outlet. Some of them, like cosmetic mogul and TV presenter Yue Sai Kan are quite charismatic. A portrait emerges of conspicuous consumption and a near complete lack of risk aversion that provides tremendous context on China’s economic surge.

Of course, Obsession is still all about luxury wines.  The co-directors display good ears for soundbites, including several slyly amusing comments from their interview subjects on the pleasures of partaking.  They even scored an on-camera with vintner Francis Ford Coppola. 

It all looks great thanks to cinematographers Lee Pulbrook and Steven Arnold, who fully capitalize on the sweeping splendor of the Bordeaux vineyards and Shanghai’s brightly lit skyline. Russell Crowe is also in fine voice providing the film’s narration.  Smart, stylish, and sometimes rather witty, Red Obsession is a completely engaging documentary.  Highly recommended, it opens this Friday (9/6) in New York at the Cinema Village.

My Father and the Man in Black: Johnny Cash and His Manager

Hallmark ought to start making Manager’s Day cards.  The dealings between big name entertainers and their managers are often complex.  Saul Holiff was a difficult father, but he managed Johnny Cash’s career with fierce dedication, until the day he tendered his resignation.  Discovering his father’s archive, Jonathan Holiff would gain tremendous insight into his father’s relationships with his legendary client as well as himself.  Holiff draws upon that trove of primary sources for his documentary, My Father and the Man in Black (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

As a father, Saul Holiff was often dismissive and demeaning.  As a result, his son’s response to his suicide was rather confused.  Sometime later, his father’s storage locker came to light.  There the younger Holiff would hear his father tell his story, in his own words, left for posterity on his reel-to-reel diary.  A born salesman, Saul Holiff fell into promoting concerts in his native Canada.  That was how he met the young and relatively unknown Johnny Cash.

Holiff was there, trying his best to cover Cash’s back during the worst of his years of drug-fueled chaos.  He was also the one who brought Cash together with June Carter when Holiff recruited a female vocalist for a package tour.  However, Cash’s embrace of Evangelical Christianity in the 1970’s clearly chafed Holiff on some level.  Still, he did his duty, even appearing as Pontius Pilate in Cash’s Gospel Road, sort of a precursor to Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.  (This could be a moving experience for those who watch it start to finish, but the clips Holiff includes suggest it ought to be playing at midnight screenings for lubricated heathens.)

While Holiff the filmmaking son obviously did not set out to burnish Cash’s image, his intimate examination of the Cash-Holiff dynamic might still interest the singer’s fans.  To an extent, the doc functions as the revisionist alternative to Walk the Line, but in terms of filmmaking, it is a wildly mixed bag, featuring dubious dramatic re-enactments and far too much of Holiff fils. 

Nonetheless, despite the stylistic and editorial missteps, there is an awful lot to engage with throughout My Father.  Holiff addresses big picture themes, like paternal legacy, the significance of Judaism for secular Jews such as his father, and the nature of show business, with considerable time and insight.

Eventually, Holiff the filmmaker comes to general terms with Holiff the father.  While it is not exactly a rosebud moment, it ends the film in a forgiving spirit.  In fact, the film’s messy humanistic vibe is unexpectedly potent.    As a film more for documentary watchers than music fans, it might have trouble finding a natural audience, but it has a bit of staying power.  Recommended more for those concerned with its issues of family and identity than backstage revelations, My Father and the Man in Black opens this Friday (9/6) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

36 Saints: The End of Days in Washington Heights

According to mystical Judaic teachings, the Tzadik are thirty-six righteous men with no desire to sin, whom G*d loves so much, he spares the rest of the sinful world for solely for their sake. Technically, they are not part of the Christian tradition, but Lilith is still out to get them.  If her minions murder each of the thirty-six in the manner their name saints were martyred, it will bring about the victory of darkness over light.  However, it seems she could use a remedial theology course for her attempt to bring on a boneheaded apocalypse in Eddy Duran’s 36 Saints (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

There have been some rather disturbing murders in Washington Heights.  Father Esteban is bludgeoned to death in the subway around the same time young Jesus Ochoa is crucified in his parish church.  It quickly becomes apparent the victims are connected to an ill-fated youth group that perished in an airline accident (quick, name the twenty-some saints who were martyred in plane crashes). Ochoa and a handful of his friends survived that day, because they chose to attend an award ceremony honoring their public service instead.  A year later, Lilith is finally mopping up loose ends.

Evidently, poor Mother Theresa was just wasting her time with all that ministering to the sick rigmarole.  Merely patronizing the hipster nightclubs of Washington Heights is sufficiently saintly for the survivors of Ochoa’s youth group.  Two cops will try to protect the Holy Club Kids, but Joseph and Michael are distinctly passive investigators, spending most of the film drinking coffee as they wait for more bodies to be discovered.

In terms of narrative, 36 Saints is beyond messy.  Its third act has the sort of logical cohesion one typically sees when faded big name stars die while filming ultra low budget movies and the producers hack together the shards of a story around the scenes they managed to complete.  Particularly problematic is the manner one of Lilith’s “shocking” sleeper servants recklessly kills people in very public ways that surely would reveal their identity, yet said minion somehow maintains their cover.  Seriously, the evil lackey isn’t even using a silencer.

When it comes to theology, 36 Saints is also a train wreck.  Strictly speaking, Eve is not a saint and she certainly was not martyred by eating a poisoned you-know-what.  Perhaps screenwriters Jeffrey De Serrano and Joey Dedio had her confused with Snow White, who is not a saint either.  Or maybe they were thinking of Eva Marie Saint, who is not a saint in the sacred sense (as least not yet), or even an “Eve,” but she made vastly better movies than 36 Saints.

Regardless, considering the breadth of the Catholic world (growing by leaps and bounds in China and Africa), it seems rather puzzling each and every saint would be hidden in Washington Heights.  Talk about gentrification.  This definitely constitutes a case of putting all the world’s eggs in one basket.  At least stash a few in Inwood.  There is no way Lilith would ever go up there—it just takes forever on the A train.

For some reason, Donna McKechnie, the original Cassie in A Chorus Line, appears in 36 as the club kids’ teacher, Ms. El (a suspiciously made-up looking name, if ever there was one), lending some presence to the otherwise drab film.  It just does not seem right to call out the young cast for not bringing their empty characters to life, but that does not leave viewers much to work with.  36 probably sounds kind of cool, like the sort of religiously themed horror films Max von Sydow or Jürgen Prochnow used to turn up in, but it is a profound disappointment.  Not recommended for anyone, 36 Saints opens this Friday (9/6) in New York at the AMC Empire.

La Maison de la Radio: Behind the Scenes at Radio France

It looks like a massive government building, because it is.  The imposing headquarters of Radio France, known as “La Maison de la Radio” is home to the various networks, programs, orchestras, and chorale groups administered by the national broadcaster.  Documentarian Nicholas Philibert allows interested viewers the opportunity to roam through its curved halls in La Maison de la Radio (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday at Film Forum.

This is not exactly a day in the life of Radio France.  Filmed between January and July of 2011, Philibert nonetheless presents the constituent programs roughly in their proper daily order, throwing in some Wiseman-esque observational details for good measure.  Viewers will be a fly on the fly watching a rookie news brief reader gets his head handed to him by a veteran editor and listen in on various editorial meetings, one of which inadvertently gives the game away.  Should they discuss the “Justin Beiber Phenomenon?”  Maybe, but only if they can book a “leftwing sociologist.”  Ha ha, everyone laughs, because its true.

There are plenty of snoozy NPR moments in Maison, but from time to time, they are interrupted by intriguing cultural soundbites.  Partly recorded during the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami, we hear at least one insightful commentary on the events in Fukushima.  Likewise, Umberto Eco on the publicity circuit is definitely documentary-worthy.

Nonetheless, the best material in Maison involves music in some way or another.  Without question, the film’s most engaging talking head is the classical music host, discussing his role as a cultural caretaker, while peeking over his piles of CDs. 

There are also two terrific musical performances from distinctly French but hard to classify artists.  An unusual vibes-marimba-glockenspiel percussion ensemble (consisting of Cecile Beune, Emmanuel Curt, Francois Deforges, Jean-Baptiste Leclerc, Catherine Lenert, and Gilles Rancitelli) contributes the wonderfully textured “Transphère.”  Shortly thereafter, stylistically idiosyncratic vocalist Antonio Placer performs his striking “Republicana,” accompanied by jazz pianist Jean-Marie Machado.  Reflecting a sense of his good taste, Philibert also licenses a brief excerpt of the MJQ’s ever elegant “Odds Against Tomorrow.”

Frankly, Philibert does not serve his own interests particularly well as an editor.  Far too often, he cuts away from promising sequences to return to the same workaday business that started the film.  Quiet yet scattershot, Maison might charm hardcore Radio France listeners, but it is likely to frustrate everyone else.  At least there is some rewarding music for diehard Francophiles and fans of Philibert’s previous docs (such as Nénette) when La Maison de la Radio opens this Wednesday (9/4) at New York’s Film Forum.

Frank Riva: Alain Delon vs. the French Connection

He is a narc of Dickensian dimensions.  After undercover detective Frank Riva dealt a staggering blow to the French Connection, he had to permanently disappear.  Dead to the world, he retired to his own island paradise.  However, he is recalled back into service to investigate a case that hits very close to home in the French television series Frank Riva, now available in a complete DVD collection from MHz Networks.

Riva was his mother’s maiden name.  The not-so ex-copper adopted it while infiltrating the Loggia mafia clan and kept it during his exile.  He was always very close to two fellow officers: Marc-Antoine Rezzoni and Xavier Unger.  The latter is now the Chief Commissioner of Police, whereas the former has just been shot, probably fatally, while leading an off-the-books operation.  Intimately aware of Rezzoni’s backstory, Riva will take over his squad to investigate the shooting.  It will get complicated quickly.

Many of Riva’s former underworld associates are quite surprised to see him.  So is his ex, Catherine Sinclair.  She also has one for him—he’s a father.  Not with her, but with one of Loggia family’s professional women, whom Riva became involved with as part of his cover.  Essentially growing up an orphan, Nina Rizzi only had Sinclair looking out for her, as a way to feel closer to her vanished father.  Unfortunately, the young woman still got mixed up with Maxime Loggia, the possessive nephew and presumptive heir of the recently deceased Loggia godfather.  As one might expect, the succession within the rebounding Loggia clan turns out to be a trickier matter that will have repercussions throughout the series—as will the circumstances surrounding Sofia Rizzi’s murder.

Series writer-creator Philippe Setbon sensitively conveys a sense of lives interrupted and time lost, which differentiates Frank Riva from the field of other gangbuster shows.  While this occasionally leads to the odd melodramatic excess (largely in during the second season), Setbon and series director Patrick Jamain balance the micro and macro stories relatively well.  Riva is a compelling noir-ish character, precisely because he always seems to have one foot out the door.

Indeed, this is a perfect TV gig for associate producer, Alain Delon.  The contrast between the older, weathered Delon and pictures of his 1960’s dashing self (circa Joy House and Le Samurai) add further poignancy.  While certainly still distinguished looking, his Clint Eastwood-like power to attract much younger women seems somewhat dubious.  Evidently, it is good to be the star and producer.

Regardless, Delon is appropriately steely in the lead.  Riva is also notable for re-teaming him with Mireille Darc (co-star of Godard’s Le Weekend) with whom he had formerly been personally and professionally associated.  After a rather overwrought introduction, her Sinclair eventually evolves in mature and convincing ways. 

Boasting quite a cinematic cast, regular Costa-Gavras collaborator Jacques Perrin goes toe-to-toe with Delon, painfully expressing many of the series’ themes of regret and the corrupting power the past.  Frankly, the series actually picks up some of its best supporting characters as it goes along, including Jimmy Esperanza, a Colombian cop assigned to Riva’s unit, played with hardboiled understatement by Eric Defosse.  Géraldine Danon also lends the proceedings a striking corporate femme fatale presence as Swiss mob lawyer, Alberta Olivieri.

Setbon’s compulsive need to romantically match-up Riva’s subordinates stretches credulity, but one can understand the impulse.  Whether or not it is wholly believable, Frank Riva ends with a sense of family and shared experience.  Although it is a French series, it has a pronounced Italian flavor (for obvious reasons) that should widen its appeal.  Regardless, it is just great to see Delon doing his thing.  Yet the music might be nearly as cool.  Largely consisting of variations on Julien Chirol and Pierre-Luc Jamain’s title trumpet theme composed, it has a funky but lyrical sound that could have been inspired by “Time After Time” era Miles.

Tightly focused, there are no one-off cases in Riva.  Setbon usually has at least one big revelation for each episode that often drops just before the credits roll.  It pulls viewers in quickly and builds steadily, making it a good candidate for holiday weekend binge viewing.  Recommended for fans of Delon and double-crossing police dramas, Frank Riva is now available on DVD from MHz Networks.