Seymour: Ethan Hawke Makes an Introduction

Seymour Bernstein might have ranked alongside such classical pianists as Alfred Brendel and Van Cliburn. His recitals were glowingly reviewed and he had a highly supportive patron. Yet, at the significant age of fifty, he voluntarily withdrew from the world of public performance to concentrate on teaching. When it comes to piano technique and music theory he clearly has much to offer, but he also has insight into how one best pursues an artistic career in general, or at least that is what one future Oscar nominee thought we he happened to meet Bernstein at a dinner party. The music teacher gets a low-key but satisfying ovation in Ethan Hawke’s documentary profile, Seymour: an Introduction (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

Evidently, Hawke found in Bernstein an empathetic counselor-guru who could well understand his bouts of stage fright and the general career uncertainty that was currently plaguing him. Perhaps he was also frustrated about that film he had spent over ten years on, but had yet to come out. Regardless, Bernstein had a knack for saying reassuring things.

In a variety of master classes and private lessons, we observe Bernstein at work. He is indeed a calm and constructive instructor, but also firm and specific. If you have the talent, he will refine it. Should you doubt it, several of his former students, including pianists Joseph Smith and Kimball Gallagher, offer their reminiscences and insights into Bernstein’s lasting influence on their careers.

For his documentary directorial debut, Hawke was not out to rake any muck. While not exactly hagiography, his Introduction is unflaggingly nice and polite. Fortunately, Bernstein is a New Yorker (albeit a really pleasant one), whose experienced, down-to-earth personality keeps it all real and grounded.

Anyone who knows pianos will not be surprised to see the prime placement for American Steinway in Seymour. As always, their concert models look and sound lovely. It is also cool to see they still consider Bernstein a Steinway artist thirty-some years after his last public performance. Fittingly, Hawke coaxes Bernstein into a return performance in the Steinway Rotunda on 57^th Street, which naturally serves as the closing sequence for the film. Obviously, he still has his touch.

Seymour: an Introduction has surely received considerably more attention because of Hawke’s involvement than it otherwise would have, but that is a fine way for him to spend some of his accrued Boyhood and Before Midnight capital in a way that will generate further good will. It is a very refined and civilized film that will probably have a number of viewers checking out youtube for his original compositions (he has a number of them posted, including The Hawke). Respectfully recommended for classical connoisseurs, Hawke fans, and Steinway admirers, the Salingerishly titled Seymour: an Introduction opens this Friday (3/13) in New York, at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza.

The Wrecking Crew: Trust Me, You’ve Heard Them Before

They never had a hard and fast membership, but their big sound was immediately recognizable, especially for the record producers who kept them constantly gigging in the Los Angeles studio scene throughout most of the 1960s and 1970s. If you played a number of studio sessions with Earl Palmer, Plas Johnson, Al Casey, Carol Kaye, Hal Blaine, Don Randi, and Tommy Tedesco then you were probably a member—and you could surely lay down a killer groove. Filmmaker Denny Tedesco pays tribute to his guitarist father and all his friends in the hugely entertaining documentary, The Wrecking Crew (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The Wrecking Crew played with just about everyone, including the Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Monkees, Nat King Cole, Sonny & Cher, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Herb Alpert, and the Chipmunks. They were Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. They were largely unknown to the record buying public, but at least one Wrecking Crew veteran made good as a solo act: Glen Campbell. Naturally, whenever Campbell returned to the studio, he made sure his old pals were the ones backing him. His road band always resented it, yet he was really being true to his roots. They powered six consecutive Record of the Year Grammy winners, but they rarely saw their names on record jackets. In many cases, they were the recording industry’s equivalent of a ghost writer. Still, it was a pretty good living while it lasted.

For obvious reasons, the musical licensing was an absolute nightmare that has delayed the film’s release for years. It is a truly decades-in-the-making project that Tommy Tedesco (1930-1997) sadly never lived to see completed. Yet, the film is better thought of as an upbeat celebration of the musicians and their music than a bittersweet elegy. In fact, it is often wildly funny. These cats (and bassist Carol Kaye) can tell a good story, particularly the wickedly droll Blaine, who shows a drummer’s perfect sense of timing with one zinger after another.

There is nostalgia in Tedesco’s doc, but there is an even greater sense of camaraderie. It is also gratifying to see these unsung heroes of pop music finally getting their due. Hard core jazz record collectors will especially enjoy hearing from Don Randi (who recorded some excellent sessions for Pacific Jazz) and Plas Johnson, who might be the most widely heard tenor saxophonist in the world. Seriously, you know that “Pink Panther Theme?” That was him.

Wrecking Crew will bring to mind films like Standing in the Shadow of Motown and Muscle Shoals, which also paid tribute to some of the under-appreciated artists who helped make so many beloved hit records. They are all very good films, but Wrecking Crew is far more fun. Worth the wait, it delivers a lot of laughter and generous helpings of dearly licensed grooviness. It is just a blast from start to finish—and audiences will want to hang through the credits because there is a stinger worth sticking around for. Highly recommended for anyone who has ever listened to music recorded in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, The Wrecking Crew opens this Friday (3/13) in New York, at the IFC Center.

NYICFF ’15: Satellite Girl and Milk Cow

KITSAT-1 is sort of like Skylab, but when she fell to Earth, she turned into a girl. Kyung-chun used to be a boy, which would have made them a good match, but he turned into a cow, because that sort of thing regularly happens to the broken hearted in this world. So maybe she is a bit stiff and he is a bit bovine—love can still find a way in Jang Hyung-yun’s Satellite Girl and Milk Cow (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

KITSAT-1 was Korea’s first satellite, but hardly anyone notices when she goes on the fritz. After decades of observing Koreans from all walks of life, she wants to join in. She will have the opportunity thanks to Merlin, who has assumed the form of a roll of toilet paper, because he could. Suddenly Kyung-chun is sharing his apartment with Il-ho, as KITSAT-1 now calls herself, and the wizard himself. At least thanks to Merlin’s help, Kyung-chun is able to temporarily return to his prior human appearance in a magical suit that is logically made out of enchanted toilet paper.

It turns out Kyung-chun could actually use the help going incognito. Lately, he has been stalked by a shadowy poacher, whose employer covets the reputed power that comes from ingesting the organs of broken-hearted changelings like Kyung-chun. Fortunately, Il-ho is there to protect him with her Inspector Gadget-like projectile limbs, in between their bickering.

SG&MC sounds completely bonkers and it probably is, but it feels relatively normal in the moment. Things just work differently in its world—roll with it. In fact, the vibe is more closely akin to a Korean rom-com. It’s your basic satellite meets moo cow story. However, nobody dies from cancer at the end, so it stays safely in rom-com territory rather than taking on the tone of a tragically romantic blockbuster.

Throughout the film, Jang maintains an appealing mix of sweetness and goofiness. After all, it is easy to identify with Kyung-chun because everyone has had their hearts ripped out, stomped to pieces, and then kicked into their faces at some point in time. He gets a key assist from Hong Sang-soo regular Jung Yu-mi (Oki’s Movie, In Another Country), who charming voiceover performance brings the awkward but earnest Il-ho fully to life.

This is a gentle film that should be perfectly appropriate for kids of eight years and older (as per the festival’s guidelines), but it will be the parents and big kids who fully appreciate its wackiness and empathy for the lovelorn. Jang’s animation is not exactly Studio Ghibli quality (to which it has been compared), but it has a lot of character and a healthy energy level. Highly recommended for those who can get behind some idiosyncratically romantic animation, Satellite Girl and Milk Cow screens again this coming Saturday (3/14) at the SVA Theatre, as part of this year’s NYICFF.

The Returned: the Hit French Series Americanized

Generally, in the western tradition, rising from the dead is usually either something miraculous or horrifying. The jury is still out whether an isolated Pacific Northwestern community’s sporadic resurrections are a blessing or a curse. For two formerly grieving parents, it is certainly the former case when their youngest daughter literally walks back into their lives. However, she is not the only formerly deceased to reappear in The Returned (promo here), an Americanized remake of the French television show of the same name, which premieres on A&E this Monday.

Four years ago, Camille Winship perished with most of her classmates in a school bus accident that devastated the town. As the show opens, she comes to near the fateful scene and rather confusedly makes her way home, unaware of her temporary death and the subsequent passage of years. Her all-but-separated parents, Jack and Claire, had tremendous difficulty dealing with her loss, particularly her father. Understandably, they are not quite sure what it means for their relationship when she comes back, but they are instinctively protective and secretive. It is almost too much for her older sister Lena to take, considering she always suspected Camille was their favorite.

Quite faithful to the original source material in the early episodes, co-writer-showrunners Carlton Cuse and Raelle Tucker give us plenty of backstory for the Winships, but slowly dole out tidbits of history on the other once dead characters for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, probably the storyline getting the second most screen time after Camille Winship’s family involves the formerly dearly departed bar band bad boy Simon Moran and Rowan Blackshaw, the fiancée he stranded at the altar in the worst way possible. However, the most intriguing story arc follows Victor, a mysterious little boy given shelter by Dr. Julie Han. After four episodes, viewers will truly have no idea what to expect from him, unless they have seen the French show. However, it is safe to say one returnee is a seriously bad cat, but his secrets remain closely guarded.

Cruse and Tucker might be faithful to a fault adapting The Returned, but there are plenty of similar thematic precedents out there already, including the Canadian film also titled The Returned and the BBC America show In the Flesh, both of which chronicle the challenges of the formerly deceased in treatment for their zombie condition. However, A&E’s The Returned still mostly works, if you come to it without any baggage from its source material, because of the strength of its cast.

Mark Pellegrino is convincingly guilt-ridden and surly as Jack Winship and Tandi Wright is similarly engaging as the more stable but equally pained Claire. It is quite compelling to watch them process an unimaginable turn of events. Likewise, India Ennenga and Sophia Lowe truly look like sisters and share believably catty sisterly chemistry as Camille and Lena, respectively. As usual, Sandrine Holt’s sophisticated presence just generally elevates the proceedings and she sensitively expresses Han’s frustrated maternal instincts in her scenes with the squirrely Victor. Strangely though, Agnes Bruckner, who has a bit of a cult reputation for films like The Pact gets little work of substance in the first four episodes as busybody copper Nikki Banks. If only the same could be said of the quickly tiresome Blackshaw and Moran, played with excruciating angst by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (so much better in Faults) and Mat Vairo.

Over the course of the initial four episodes, A&E’s The Returned remains light on allegorical pretension and heavy on its extreme form of family drama, which is all for the best. In fact, the local pastor played by Carl Lumbly is unusual sympathetic and down-to-earth. When unknowingly challenged by a rather embittered returnee, his words on faith sound heartfelt rather than rote. He is one of many in the ensemble who inspire optimism The Returned will continue to be quite watchable. Highly moody but weirdly grabby, The Returned is worth checking out for fresh viewers in search of new genre television when it premieres this Monday (3/9) on A&E.

Midi Z at Asia Society: The Palace on the Sea (short)

Homecomings are important to Taiwan-based Burmese filmmaker Midi Z. For the Burmese diaspora, coming home is a rare luxury. Within the Evangelical and Holiness traditions, the term “coming home” has multiple meanings. Such also seems to be the case for an exhausted Burmese migrant worker, even though she adheres to Buddhist teachings. Time and destiny blur together for her in Midi Z’s short film, The Palace on the Sea (trailer here), which screens with his debut feature, Return to Burma, as part of the Asia Society’s new film series, Homecoming Myanmar: A Midi Z Retrospective.

It was once a grand floating luxury restaurant, but now it is a floating ghost ship. Sanmei has come there, acting on an uncanny desire for a homecoming. Inside, past and present will intersect when she dances with her former husband, who has since become a Buddhist monk. Frankly, Palace is not exactly a plotty film, but it is rich with symbolism and meaning.

In just about every way, Palace represents a pronounced departure from Midi Z’s feature films. Unlike the rigorous naturalism of Return to Burma and Ice Poison, Palace is experimental and expressionistic. In his features, Midi Z’s aesthetic sensibilities are closely akin to the work of the independent Chinese filmmakers loosely affiliated with the Digital Generation (dGenerate) movement. Midi Z largely forgoes stylistic flourish, for the sake of his features’ intimacy and immediacy.

In general, that is probably a wise strategy, but Palace is a different sort of project. Here Midi Z wows the audience with a number of stunning tracking shots that fully exploit the cinematic nature of the ghost ship. It is a great looking film that proves he has the chops for showier work as well as his socially conscious films.

Yet, just like his features, Palace stars his muse, Wu Ke-xi. Arguably, the role of Sanmei is more about serving the needs of the film than an acting showcase, per se. Nonetheless, the film certainly proves she can dance. In fact, she brings a sensitive, nuanced presence that helps viewers engage on an emotional level rather than just taking in the spectacle of it all.

Palace is a perfect example of how heavily symbolic filmmaking often works better in short forms. During its fifteen minute running time, receptive viewers are likely to think: “okay, I get it and it looks very really cool” whereas in a feature that same initial response can deteriorate into: “okay, I get it already.” Those who have previously seen Midi Z’s feature length work really should check out Palace on the Sea, because it shows a whole different skillset they wouldn’t know he had. It screens tomorrow (3/7) with the more-or-less clandestinely shot, already historically significant Return to Burma at the Asia Society, as part of their Midi Z retro.

NYICFF ’15: Secrets of War

You’re supposed to make mistakes when you’re a kid. That’s all part of the growing up process. Unfortunately, there is a much smaller margin for error when an oppressive foreign power occupies your country during a time of war. That is the environment two Dutch twelve year-olds face in Dennis Bots’ Secrets of War (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Initially, Tuur Ramakers and Lambert Nijskens are inseparable friends, but their families have already aligned on different sides of the war. Lambert’s politically ambitious father has become the town’s leading National Socialist collaborator. As a result, Tuur’s parents have largely cut their social ties with the Nijskenses. They might also be taking an even a more active role in the resistance, but they have shielded Tuur from any compromising knowledge. Naturally, he picks up on this and resents it. Nevertheless, young Ramakers and Nijskens largely carry on as they always did, thanks in part to the latter’s reluctance to join the Hitler Youth. However, everything changes when Maartje Holtermans arrives at school.

Supposedly, Holtermans is visiting her aunt and uncle from the north, as kids would do during the war. They live in a rather provincial town after all, but they are far from immune from air raids. Nevertheless, there is obviously more to Holtermans’ story than she lets on (but the audience should tweak to it right away). Of course, Ramakers and Nijskens are slower on the up-take, because they are kids. Regrettably, this will have dire consequences when three becomes a crowd. As feelings develop between the more sophisticated Holtermans and the bad boy Ramakers, the resentful Nijskens will do something impulsively rash.

Sure, most festival goers will have seen a fair number of thematically similar films—Martin Koolhaven’s occupation-set coming-of-age story Winter in Wartime being a particularly relevant comparative. However, Secrets is surprisingly smart and subtle showing how typically overheated adolescent drama could take on wider tragic implications. Things get dark and desperate, but in grimly logical rather than contrived ways.

The trio of young primaries are also quite polished and work remarkably well in-tandem. Maas Bronkhuyzen oozes mischievous charisma as Ramakers and Pippa Allen’s Holtermans could pass for a pre-teen Natalie Portman. Poor Joes Brauers is stuck with most of the film’s ignoble work, but he still manages to convey all of Nijskens’ humanizing insecurities and jealousies. Although far from a driving element, the white-haired local vicar is also refreshingly portrayed as a (much harassed) man of principle.

Karin van Holst Pellekaan’s adaptation of Jacques Vriens’ YA novel forthrightly addresses the realities of the Holocaust, but it stops short of showing viewers the actual horrors. Arguably, it could serve as an effective introduction to the National Socialist genocide without overwhelming young viewers. It definitely reflects a twelve year-old’s perspective, but that makes it quite touching for adult viewers. Recommended with a good deal of enthusiasm, Secrets of War screens tomorrow (3/7) at the IFC Center and Sunday (3/15) at the SVA Theatre, as part of this year’s NYICFF.

Hacker’s Game: Young Cyber Activists in Love

The internet is not forever, as a recent New Yorker piece on digital archiving makes abundantly clear. Yes, there is always the nefarious deleting, like the Russian-backed paramilitary commander, who tried to memory hole a tweet bragging about shooting down what turned out to be Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Yet, more often than not, it is a question of hosts going out of business and links becoming corrupted. BL Reputation Management can hasten the process with a little scrubbing and a bit of astro-turfing here and there. Their latest recruit is particularly skillful at navigating the twilight regions of the web, but one of the parties might be getting more than they bargained for in Cyril Morin’s Hacker’s Game (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Soyan did not hack into BL’s system cleanly enough to escape discovery, but his work was sufficiently skillful to convince the company to offer him a job in lieu of prosecution. Company chairman Russel Belial and his right hand femme fatale, Lena Leibovitz, will keep the hacker on a short leash, but it is not like he had much of a personal life anyway. The one promising development is his ambiguous friendship (and possibly romance), with fellow hacker Loise. They met on a rooftop catching open wifi signals. She has skills too, which she utilizes on behalf of human rights NGOs, but frankly she prefers ink-and-paper over digital alternatives. Yet, the somewhat immature Soyan manages to woo her (to an extent) with a virtual chess game.

There is a ton of backstory in Game, including the reported exploits of Angela King, a mysterious cyber activist who sounds like a cross between Edward Snowden and Neo in the Matrix trilogy. Somehow Soyan, Loise, and BL are all somehow involved in the wider intrigue, but Morin takes forever to close the loop—even though we can largely guess the broad strokes from the get-go. It just seems like an awful lot of the film consists of Loise and Soyan sitting next to each other, wearing VR visors, thereby preventing any real intimate chemistry from developing.

There are a few intriguing elements sprinkled throughout, including the highly ambiguous portrayal of Loise’s former do-gooder employer. Cinematographer Romain Wilhelm fittingly evokes the dark, murky look of the classic 1970s conspiracy thrillers. Strangely though, Morin’s screenplay never really taps into the current zeitgeist, mostly just feeling like another warmed over serving of anti-corporate paranoia.

Be that as it may, there is something strangely compelling about Pom Klementieff’s Loise. Even her halting delivery of the English dialogue seems to work in context. On the other hand, she and Chris Schellenger (with his anemic mustache and goat patch beard) never look like a believable couple. Prop specialist-turned character actor King Orba has some nice moments as Belial, the villain who maybe sort of believes his own rhetoric. However, the rest of the supporting ensemble gets to be quite a source of adventure, producing some awkward line readings and plenty of general dramatic clunkiness.

Arguably, Hacker’s Game would have been more interesting if it depicted BL in more ambiguous terms. In all honesty, it is not hard to think of circumstances for relatively decent customers to seek out there services, like the CEO who married a long retired porn star mentioned early in the film. A little over a century ago, people could restart their lives by moving to the frontier, but that is no longer an option in the digital age. Regardless, Klementieff is probably due to breakout internationally, but this just isn’t the film to do it. Despite some style points, it is just too slowly paced and too logically-challenged. For the hardcore net neutrality fanatics, it opens tomorrow (3/6) in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema.

These Final Hours: Australia Dies Last

James has mainly gone through life as a surly, self-absorbed slacker, but he is turning over a new leaf. Frankly, his efforts to reform his worthless life come in just under the wire. However, they still count for a lot in Zak Hilditch’s doomsday drama, These Final Hours (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The comet or whatever it was originally impacted in the North Atlantic. Western Europe was wiped out first and New York soon followed. We were probably fortunate in that respect. The apocalyptic shockwaves rippling across the globe will reach Western Australia last, giving the citizens of Perth enough time to anticipate the wrath about to hit them. They will deal with it in very different ways.

The immature James is determined to meet his end in a state of debauched delirium, so he leaves the lover he is with to join his even shallower girlfriend at a hedonistic end of the world party. In doing so, he fully realizes he is leaving the woman he always should have been with, in favor of the profoundly wrong one. Yet, fate intervenes when he observes two pedophiles abducting a young girl. Even after saving Rose, he is uncomfortable playing the role of her protector, but he eventually agrees to escort her to the aunt’s home where she hopes to meet up with her father. Of course, this trip becomes increasingly perilous, considering the end is nigh.

There is no doubt this particular apocalypse is a complete downer in every respect. Hilditch’s screenplay is nothing like cult favorite Night of the Comet, in which the end of the world was a total blast. Despite being a somewhat genre-ish film, TFH is emotionally heavy and deeply resonate. Yet, in a strange way it makes a hopeful statement, arguing redemption is still possible up until the very point we are engulfed in continent-buckling fireballs.

Nathan Phillips has kicked around for a while doing Australia TV and movies (such as the original Wolf Creek) and the odd Hollywood gig, but his work in TFH is next-level worthy. He convincingly establishes all of James’ considerable personality flaws, but he soon takes us to some genuinely raw and cathartic places. For the most part, Angourie Rice is respectable child thespian, but the character of Rose is problematically passive at times, like a garden variety horror movie child-in-jeopardy. On the other hand, Lynette Curran’s scenes with Phillips as James’ semi-estranged mother pack a real punch.

This is sort of film that does the little things right, such as the unseen David Field, who sets the perfect tone with some of the best voiceovers of the year as the intrepid radio broadcaster. Hilditch and his SFX team also pull off a fitting finale that feels appropriately all-encompassing without looking excessively 1990s Roland Emmerichian. This is a very well-crafted film that should generate positive attention for all involved, but you might want to follow it up with something more upbeat, like Comet. Recommended for fans of apocalyptic cinema, These Final Days opens this Friday (3/6) in New York, at the Village East.

Big Muddy: Getting Noir in Rural Canada

It is like a film noir in the middle of an Andrew Wyeth painting, except these are the plains of Saskatchewan rather than the hardscrabble fields of Maine. It is even as quiet as a canvas at times. That can be both good and bad, but at least it suggests some integrity of vision on the part of screenwriter-director Jefferson Moneo when giving his prior short film the feature treatment. Rural Canada gets dark and dangerous in Moneo’s Big Muddy (trailer here), which screens this weekend at the Catskills’ Mountain Cinema.

Martha Barlow and her current man, Tommy Valente, are no Bonnie and Clyde. Frankly, they are pretty crummy people, who specialize in liquoring up poor slobs, to set them up for subsequent home invasion robberies. At least, Barlow loves her moody son Andy. She just cannot help surrounding him with chaos. She ain’t seen nothing yet.

Unbeknownst to Barlow, her former lover Donovan Fournier is out to find her, having escaped from his prison farm. Even more ominously, Buford Carver, the horse race fixing gangster who came somewhere between Fournier and Valente, is back in town with a new horse and all kinds of bad intentions. Worried about the influence he exerts over her son, Barlow agrees to meet him at the track, but when Valente crashes the party with a gun and a poorly thought through plan things get very bad, especially for Carver’s prized horse. Suddenly, Barlow and her son are on the run, with a satchel full of Carver’s cash and a couple of highly irritated gangsters on their tail.

The two twains of Muddy will meet in Barlow’s rustic hometown, where she and Andy crash with her less than thrilled old man, Stan. In fact, Moneo handles the intersection of the two major plot lines quite deftly. However, he sure loves character-establishing scenes of Andy and Grandpa stringing up barbed wire fences. The truth is an editor with a free hand could easily trim fifteen or twenty minutes of Muddy without any ill consequences, but that is hardly unusual these days.

Happily, Muddy features the craggy gravitas of Stephen McHattie as Grandpa Stan. As usual, he commands the screen with his forceful badassery. On the other hand, Nadia Litz and David La Haye are not bad per se, but they make the strangest looking couple as Barlow and Fournier. James Le Gros is also reliably villainous, but his Carver seems a bit restrained when it comes to chewing the scenery and talking the trash.

Regardless, Moneo’s strong feel for the lonely, howling plains and Craig Trudeau’s stylish cinematography give Muddy a distinctive pastoral-noir vibe. It can be a bit slow, but it delivers when it needs to. Those who enjoy small town thrillers should find it worth seeing. Recommended accordingly, it has its premiere New York theatrical run this weekend (3/6-3/8) at Mountain Cinema and also just released this week on DVD.

Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island—the Next Case

Considering what debased currency did to the Roman Empire, the Joseon king is right to be concerned about an upsurge in counterfeit silver in circulation. However, it is highly debatable whether Kim Min, a.k.a. Detective K, and his shticky sidekick are the right people to investigate. They dive head-first into the case nonetheless in Kim Sok-yun’s Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Queens.

Even in the Joseon era, no good deed goes unpunished. As a reward for his brilliant service, Detective K has been banished to the provincial coast. He understands it is just a temporary political thing, but it provides a handy excuse to rebuff young Da-hae. Desperate to find her missing sister Do-hae, she swims the channel every morning to cook and clean for the so-called detective, hoping he will take on the case. Eventually, she sets out to find Do-hae herself. Unfortunately, by the time Det. K grows alarmed by her prolonged absence, he is so deeply embedded on our hate-list, he will probably never redeem himself.

Of course, it is the counterfeit silver that really motivates Kim Min to sneak away from his exile. Naturally, this leads to trouble with the authorities, but at least one high-ranking official will cover for him. His investigation soon brings him to the wild and woolly Japanese port colony that processes most of Joseon’s silver imports. There Detective K encounters Hisako, the femme fatale courtesan, who is either a lethal villain or an alluring ally. Only time will tell. However, the pressure and guilt will quickly mount for Detective K when he realizes the disappearances of Da-hae, Do-hae, and hundreds of other young nobi slave girls are somehow related to the silver counterfeiting ring.

There is something a little off about Lee Nam-gyu and Kim Soo-jin’s screenplay when it makes us despise the franchise character. It is really not Kim Myung-min’s fault, but he never conveys any spark of life as Detective K. For his part, the rubber faced character actor Oh Dal-su continues to be Michael Caine-level busy. Despite a little mugging, he is likable enough as the put-upon sidekick, Seo Pil. On the other hand, Lee Chae-eun and Hwang Chae-won are unusually charismatic and painfully heartrending as Da-hae and Do-hae, respectively. At least for pure entertainment, Lee Yeon-hee scorches up the screen as Hisako.

Nobody respects Korean cinema more than we do here, but the not infrequent habit of putting tiny little girls in positions of horrifying peril has become a too familiar custom better honored in the breach than the observance. It makes it difficult to enjoy the action and mayhem. Nevertheless, Detective K has some impressively mounted set piece sequences and several highly effective supporting turns. Recommended for those who enjoy broad comedy mixed with intrigue, Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island opens this Friday (3/6) at the AMC Bay Terrace in Bayside, Queens.

October Gale: Clarkson and Nadda Together Again

Imagine a Hallmark Hall of Fame production that breaks out into a thriller—eventually. Viewers should be advised: they will have to wait a rather long time. Dr. Helen Matthews has come to her family’s cabin to mourn her recently deceased husband and clear out the clutter. It is decidedly off-season in Northern Ontario’s Georgian Bay. That will be perfect for either cathartic meditation of criminal skullduggery in Ruba Nadda’s October Gale (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

Matthews’ son tries to dissuade her from moping about the cabin during the stormy season, but she is drawn to the place. Perhaps it is the solitude she really needs. Alas, her seclusion will be interrupted when a man with a conspicuous bullet-wound collapses in her cabin. Vague on the details, he is eager to be on his way once she has stitched him up, but that simply is not realistic. Even if he were strong enough, his dinghy could never navigate the mounting storm.

Of course, someone shot the man calling himself William. Turns out, one of them was an old neighbor of Matthews’ who comes calling. Belatedly, Matthews’ realizes the extent of their trouble and starts to prepare for his return. Fortunately, he will be bringing the man responsible for the violence with him. That would be the mysterious Tom, played by the ever-reliable Tim Roth, who delivers a much needed energy boost to the film.

It is nice to see Nadda working again with Patricia Clarkson, the star of her art-house hit, Cairo Time. Their first collaboration is a beautiful ships-passing-in-the-night romance. Nadda’s Syrian-set follow-up Inescapable had its heart in the right place and made some worthy points, but it just did not click as a thriller. Unfortunately, such is also the case with Gale.

Nevertheless, Gale is not a complete dead loss. In general, it is always refreshing to see a character like the intelligent and mature Matthews on screen. Medically trained and handy with firearms, she is the antithesis of a helpless victim, which is cool. The compulsively watchable Clarkson is instantly credible in the role. However, aside from Roth’s late arrival, she does not have much support. Scott Speedman, who must be the primary beneficiary of some sort of Canadian protectionism for thespians is so lifeless and wooden as William, you could almost confuse him with the dead parrot in the Monty Python sketch.

The thrills never really coalesce in Gale, but it has a strong sense of place (as was also true of Cairo). Cinematographer Jeremy Benning capitalizes on the striking scenery of the isles dotting the bay, conveying both the beauty and the ominous power of nature. Thrillers just aren’t Nadda’s thing. Best saved for cable or Netflix streaming, the uneven October Gale opens this Friday (3/6) at the IFC Center.

Road Hard: Maybe Sort of the Adam Carolla Story

Comedian Bruce Madsen is sick of going out on the road. The only consolation is he lives in Los Angeles. He is pretty sick of it too, but he stays because that is where his daughter and the business are. He grinds away hoping his agent will find a way to get him back on television, enduring the pettiest annoyances the club circuit has to offer in Adam Carolla & Kevin Hench’s Road Hard (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Madsen was once the co-host of the crude but popular Bro Show. His former partner is now the star of his own late night network talk show. Yes, there do seem to be some parallels between Carolla’s life and his on-screen character. Madsen is also divorced, living in the converted garage of his former McMansion, so he can be close to his adopted daughter, Tina—that is when he happens to be in town. Since Madsen was once on television, he can still draw relatively well at middling comedy clubs, but it is getting to be a drag.

Madsen perks up a little when he meets Sarah at a typically de-moralizing gig. Of course, she happened to be there through a strange set of circumstances. She certainly isn’t a fan, but they will somehow meet again. Will Madsen finally get off the show business treadmill or will his persistence finally be rewarded? Road Hard will answer those questions satisfyingly, but first Madsen’s ego will have to take a few beatings.

Road Hard is sort of like Scared Straight for anyone considering a career as a comedian, but it is consistently humorous, nonetheless. Clearly, Carolla can still do old school stand-up, because his bits are peppered throughout the film. He is also quite funny kvetching with his cronies Phil Rosenthal (essentially playing himself) and David Alan Grier (as Michael Gerard, a comic on an unlikely upswing). Yes, you read that here first—the words “David Alan Grier” and “funny” used in the same sentence. Howie Mandel also turns up for an unusually edgy and self-deprecating cameo, again as himself, but Larry Miller disappointingly resorts to a lot of shtick as Madsen’s sleazy agent (is there any other kind?), “Baby Doll” Weissman.

Yet, one of the nicest surprises is the easy-going chemistry between Carolla and Cynthy Wu and his former Loveline colleague, Diane Farr, as Tina and Sarah, respectively. These feel like believably imperfect but workable relationships. In fact, there are some moments down the stretch that are quite sweet, despite all the preceding masturbation jokes.

Yes, Road Hard works blue from time to time, but it has both an edge and a heart. Its show business insider stuff rings true and it delivers laughs at a more regular pace than the standard issue studio comedy. Recommended rather enthusiastically for stand-up fans and those of us who always wondered what went on behind-the-scenes at Loveline tapings, Road Hard opens this Friday (3/6) in New York at the AMC Loews Village 7 and also launches on iTunes day-and-date.

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken: Holland’s Most Notorious Abduction

Alfred Henry “Freddy” Heineken was sort of like the Netherlands’ Lindbergh Baby, except he was nobody’s victim. A desperate group of disenfranchised construction workers pulled off the truly daring abduction, but getting away clean turned out to be a trickier proposition. Nevertheless, their crime-of-the-century had considerable long term consequences that are duly revealed in Daniel Alfredson’s Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (trailer here), which opens this Friday.

Frankly, if Holland in the early 1980s had better respected property rights, Cor van Hout and his business partners might have never resorted to crime. They desperately needed a loan to keep their small construction enterprise afloat, but their only collateral was a building infested with legally protected squatters—not exactly a property the bank would be happy to assume should they default. Ironically, old man Heineken, a supporter of the Dutch People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, probably would have empathized. Regardless, when Van Hout and his hot-tempered mate Willem Holleeder resolve to follow Willie Sutton’s advice and go where the money is, it necessarily means Mr. Heineken.

Showing considerable patience, Van Hout, Holleeder, and their accomplices spend two years in planning, rather than rushing into the operation. They want the authorities to assume Heineken was grabbed by a well-funded international terrorist organization or the mob. Initially, it all goes according to plan, but old man Heineken is cool customer. His chauffeur Ab Doderer is a different story. Heineken tries to reassure his panicking employee through the walls of their makeshift cells, but the working class immigrant is not holding up well.

You can expect to see a lot of negative reviews of Mr. Heineken from those hung up on class warfare rhetoric because of its largely positive portrayal of Freddy Heineken. He is consistently calm, collected, and caring with respects to poor Doderer. It is also rich to learn how he responded to his kidnapping as a capitalist once he was released (no thanks to his captors).

In large measure, Mr. Heineken is the sort of caper film where the whole point is to watch it go spectacularly wrong. Getting the ransom is the easy part, as it usually is. The getaway is way more difficult. However, in this case, the endgame is especially long and twisty.

Screenwriter William Brookfield incorporates a number of fascinating historical details into the narrative and the mostly British Commonwealth cast looks appropriately continental and suitably beaten down where applicable. Of course, Sir Anthony Hopkins is totally credible as Freddy Heineken, instantly establishing his intelligence and charisma. Jim Sturgess does his best work in years as the angsty Van Hout, while Sam Worthington is reliably tightly wound as Holleeder (but not nearly as awesome-nuts as he was in the under-rated Texas Killing Fields).

Alfredson, who helmed the second two Swedish Lisbeth Salander films, keeps the action moving along and the tension cranked up, despite the fatalistic direction it must take. Cinematographer Fredrik Bäckar also gives it a gritty look that nicely suits the times. It is quite a well-produced period-thriller that does justice to fascinating real life events. Recommended quite highly, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken launches on iTunes and opens in select theaters this Friday (3/6), including George R.R. Martin’s Jean Cocteau Cinema in Albuquerque.

Faults: a Bargain Basement Deprogrammer in Over his Head

They do not use an initial article. Claire’s cult merely refers to itself as “Faults.” “From a fault comes a change” they like to say—and they seem to think a big apocalyptic one is coming. That is why they do not have time for children, or “parasites” as they call them. Okay, that sounds a little creepy, but it still isn’t as nuts as Xenu and the thetan madness. Her parents will hire a disgraced cult expert to deprogram her, but nothing will go according to his plan in Riley Stearns’ Faults (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Ansel Roth was once a bestselling cult investigator with his own television show, but a case that went sour cost him just about everything. He now lives a hand-to-mouth existence giving seminars in third-rate hotels, where he transparently hawks his self-published follow-up book, to pay back Terry, his loan shark-ish manager, who fronted the printing costs. Who would attend his speaking engagements? The truly desperate, like Claire’s parents, Paul and Evelyn.

Although Roth had essentially quit the de-programming business, he agrees to help the couple, largely due to the motivation supplied by his manager’s enforcer. Yet, as soon as he abducts the young woman and commences the process, strange complications start to arise. Claire is unusually calm and pre-possessed, answering his questions without a lot of rhetorical contortions. On the other hand, her parents start to acting in suspicious ways that might suggest a history of emotional and perhaps even sexual abuse. Nevertheless, Roth is under pressure to get this deal done, so he can pay off his overdue debt.

Given the potentially lurid nature of its subject matter, it is rather impressive how low-key and subtle Stearns’ treatment is. He takes his time establishing Roth’s bitter and nebbish character through some wickedly droll black comedy. The stakes are considerable throughout the chess game he plays with Claire (played by Stearns’ real life wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead), but when things take a macabre turn, it is more amusing than alarming. Granted, we have seen many variations on the film’s big twist before, but the smaller helper-twists are quite clever.

It is shame award season never seriously considers genre films, because Leland Orser’s lead performance merits that sort of attention, just like the dynamite Nick Damici in Late Phases. He masterfully alternates between comedy and tragedy, without breaking stride. He and Winstead crackle together in their sparring sessions. Lance Reddick (the hotel manager in John Wick) is also all kinds of hardnosed as Terry’s muscle, Mick, while John Gries chews plenty of scenery as his weird boss.

There are several spots in the third act Stearns could have played up much bigger, but that matter-of-factness makes the film quickly appreciate in viewers’ consciousness, in retrospect. Look, sometimes less really is more. In fact, Faults is a cool example of how a highly effective genre hybrid can be whipped up on a limited budget. Aside from maybe one sequence, the whole thing could have been shot in a low-rent motor lodge. The finished product is a great showcase for Stearns and his consistently strong ensemble of character actors. Highly recommended, Faults opens this Friday (3/6) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Grey Gardens: With the Beales and the Maysles Brothers

In 1978, the now defunct downtown cabaret booked probably the strangest act to grace its stage. “Little” Edie Beale was not very well reviewed, but she had a loyal following that delighted to be personally welcomed back into to her idiosyncratic life. You could argue she and her mother “Big” Edie Beale were the original “reality” stars, but instead of television, it was David & Albert Maysles’ documentary that introduced them into American pop culture. Nearly forty years after its initial release, a new 2K restoration of the Maysles’ groundbreaking Grey Gardens (trailer here) opens this Friday at Film Forum.

Grey Gardens (edited by Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, with whom the Maysles shared directorial credits, along with producer Susan Froemke) holds the distinction of being the first documentary adapted as a Broadway musical (but not the last, thanks to Hands on a Hardbody). Big Edie Beale and her daughter Little Edie Beale often had songs in their hearts, but there was little money in their bank accounts, which is why their titular Hamptons estate was in such a state of disrepair when the documentarian brothers started filming them. Frankly, it was shocking to people that residents of tony Georgica Pond could live like that, especially considering they were Bouviers—the aunt and cousin of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

What happens in Grey Gardens is not so very different from what happens in reality TV today. Big and Little Edie basically do their thing, which involves a good deal of bickering and the occasional song. Eventually, they host a rather awkward dinner party, despite the ever expanding holes in the walls, resulting from the constant gnawing of rats and raccoons.

When watching Grey Gardens for the first time, viewers should try to see it through 1975 eyes, as best they can. At the time, it was almost unbelievable how natural and unaffected the Beales are by the Maysles’ cameras. It is not that they are oblivious, because they openly address the filmmakers from time to time. They just seem to have a no inherent reservations with sharing the intimate episodes of their lives. Arguably, they were decades ahead of the wider culture in this respect.

For contemporary audiences, Grey Gardens still holds up, largely due to the singularly irrepressible personalities of its subjects. Intellectually, we might also well understand how influential Grey Gardens has been in shaping popular conceptions of the documentary. Yet on a baser level, four decades later, we still get that voyeuristic sense of peeking in on the dirty linen of the Kennedy-Bouvier family, with whom our collective fascination will probably never fully subside.

As cineastes will expect, the Criterion restoration looks terrific. In truth, the colors have probably never popped as much as they do now. Oddly, but appropriately, some of deep saturated hues (mostly supplied by Little Edie’s fashion creations) evoke sense memories of Bert Stern’s concert film Jazz on a Summer’s Day, which in its very different way also offered an ironic perspective on a privileged, old moneyed community—in that case: Newport, RI.

It is hard to imagine the contemporary documentary as we now know it without Grey Gardens. However, its considerable influence makes it easy to overhype in an era when online over-sharing is the norm and MTV’s The Real World is old hat. Still, those intrigued by the extreme mother-daughter relationship and the Beales’ high profile family connections will find Grey Garden remains a strange and beguiling place to visit. Recommended for anyone interested in the history and tradition of documentary filmmaking, the restored Grey Gardens opens this Friday (3/6) in New York at Film Forum.

Deli Man: Get a Load of that Pastrami

By now, many people do not realize at the time of the Civil War, Jews were largely more accepted by the South than the North. However, there was one Unionist who stood tall against anti-Semitism (Lincoln, of course). Maybe it should therefore not be so surprising one of the one hundred fifty-some surviving real deal kosher delis happens to be in Houston, Texas. Proprietor Ziggy Gruber (formerly of New York) will be our primary guide through the savory traditions of delicatessen cuisine in Erik Greenberg Anjou’s Deli Man (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Gruber was born into the delicatessen establishment, as the grandson of the owner of Broadway’s famed Rialto deli. He started working part-time for his beloved grandfather at an early age and absorbed all his traditional recipes and practices like a sponge. He now co-owns and operates Kenny & Ziggy’s New York Delicatessen in Houston, one of an estimated 150 legit kosher delis in America. To put things in perspective, there were over 1,500 certified kosher delis in New York City during the 1930s.

Anjou supplies some historical context (pastrami originally came from Romania) and offers some analysis of deli fare as a poignant cultural remnant of a shtetl world that no longer exists, but when you really get down to it, Deli Man is all about the food. The mountainous pastrami sandwiches are as mouth-watering as you would expect, but everything coming out of Gruber’s kitchen looks appetizing. In fact, he whips up some sort of roast shank that could probably justify a trip to Houston by itself.

Anjou could not have cast a more fitting central figure than the effusive Gruber. The man knows deli traditions through and through, yet he treats his staff and customers like family, regardless of their backgrounds. We also meet a representative sampling of other deli men and women, including Jay Parker of Ben’s Best in Rego Park, Queens, which is about as authentic as it gets. However, Anjou only peaks into the personal life of Gruber, who may have finally found someone willing share so much of his time with the corned beef. It is nice to see things working out for him, considering what he has done to keep his family and culinary traditions alive.

Anjou duly observe the irony that it was Jewish Americans’ successful acceptance and assimilation into suburbia that largely drove scores of neighborhood kosher delis like Ben’s Best out of business, without belaboring the point. Indeed, there is some serious substance to the film, but there is no getting around its food porn indulgence—and who would want to? Recommended for those who appreciate culinary cultural history on rye, Deli Man opens this Friday (3/6) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza uptown and the Landmark Sunshine, not so far from Katz’s on Houston Street.

FCS ’15: The World of Kanako

Showa Fujishima has made just about every parenting mistake a father can make and invented some that are uniquely his own. Not surprisingly, he really hasn’t been around much to see the results. At least that allows him to cling to a few willful misconceptions regarding Kanako. However, when his estranged ex-wife begrudgingly requests the ex-cop’s help finding their missing daughter, he learns far more than he bargained for in Tetsuya Nakashima’s The World of Kanako (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 edition of Film Comment Selects.

Prepare to have your head messed with. Nakashima will fracture his timeline nearly beyond recognition and do his best to represent Fujishima’s warped perspective. The former copper now working as a rent-a-cop always had anger management issues, which directly led to his personal and professional disgrace. He is supposed to take drugs for his temper and mood swings, but they do not seem to be working, even though they might somewhat skew his perception of reality.

Kanako has already been missing for five days before Fujishima’s ex finally asks for his help. Intuitively, he assumes her disappearance is linked to the punky gang kids she has been hanging with, which is largely correct, but his presupposition that Kanako is an innocent victim will be rudely disabused. He soon learns she is up to her neck in drugs and pimping out classmates to well-heeled pedophiles. She was also apparently somehow mixed up in the suicide of her classmate Ogata. We will learn just exactly how so in flashbacks seen through the eyes of Boku, a secondary POV character, whose experiences with Kanako will parallel those of poor Ogata.

Meanwhile, Fujishima’s hostile former colleagues are more than happy to treat him as a suspect in a gangland-style killing perpetrated at the minimart he was ostensibly guarding. It turns out Kanako’s world is a small world when links turn up suggesting a connection between the convenience store massacre and her disappearance. Fujishima is in for a lot of pain and humiliation, but he will deal out plenty more to anyone he considers a potential suspect or accomplice.

Man, Kanako is dark, even by the standard Nakashima set in his previous films, Confessions and Memories of Matsuko. However, unlike the seamlessly constructed escalation of Confessions, WoK is a bit of a rat’s nest, compulsively flashing forward and backwards and liberally tossing unreliable perceptions or downright hallucinations to the point where many viewers will just drop the narrative thread and stop caring altogether, despite the occasional tongue-in-cheek hat-tips to 1970s exploitation cinema. The form of the film is enough to give you a headache, separate and apart from the rampant cruelty it depicts. Based on Akio Fukamachi’s novel, WoK is a nihilistic indictment of just about everything—that’s nihilism spelled with a capital “F” and a capital “U.”

To his credit, Kôji Yakusho doubles down over and over again as the violently erratic Fujishima. It is a messy, let-it-all-hang-out performance, but Yakusho takes it to such dark places, it is ultimately rather soul-scarring. Nana Komatsu is ethereally evil as the deceptively innocent looking Kanako, while Satoshi Tsumabuki chews the scenery with swaggering glee as Det. Asai, the sucker-sucking cop who apparently thinks he’s Kojack. Ai Hashimoto manages to add a thimble full of humanity to the film as Kanako’s estranged and disgusted middle school friend Morishita, but such figures of decency are few and far between in Kanako’s world. Frankly, it is hard to fully judge Kanako’s former homeroom teacher, Rie Higashi, but (Matsuko star) Miki Nakatani’s performance is truly riveting and maybe even redemptive.

If this is what life is really like for Japanese middle and high school students, I would immigrate if I were a parent. It is hard to imagine a more exhausting film than WoK, for reasons of both style and content. It is clearly the work of a genuine auteur, who does not get his just international due, but Nakashima really demands a great deal of indulgence this time around. Lacking the tightness of Confessions and the pure gut-wrenching emotional payoff of Matsuko, it just starts to feel like it is piling it on after a while. For those who enjoyed cult hits like Confessions, Lady Snowblood, Audition, and the real Oldboy, but found them too artificially optimistic, WoK will give you the straight shot of bile you crave. Recommended accordingly for ardent Nakashima admirers, The World of Kanako screens this Thursday (3/5), at the Walter Reade Theater, concluding this year’s Film Comment Selects.