DOC NYC ’20: Do Not Split (short)

Are you healthy enough to live in Hong Kong? That was a painfully legitimate question to ask before the advent of the CCP-Covid virus. When 80% of the populace is exposed to military-grade tear gas, it is certainly no city for asthma sufferers. You also better be strong enough to take a beating from the cops, should you be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can see a lot of these things happening in Anders Hammer’s short documentary, Do Not Split, which received the Special Jury Recognition for Courage Under Fire during the 2020 DOC NYC.

Do Not Split premiered at this year’s Sundance, but it has clearly been revised and updated to address the CCP-Covid outbreak (which conveniently halted protests) and the draconian national security law that effectively criminalizes any deviation from Beijing’s line. It is sort of a chronicle of the movement and the violent police response, touching on big events, like the siege of HK Polytechnic University and the Legco elections that represented an overwhelming rebuke of the CCP and its puppet government. Yet, the reason to really watch DNS is some of the most viscerally intense footage of the protests and the police brutality collected in any documentary thus far.

It is also nice to see student democracy activist Joey Siu get screen time and recognition for her dedication and courage—or at least in would be in civilized world, where she would not have to worry about reprisals. Like most of the young protest leaders, she is very composed on camera. However, another thing that distinguishes DNS is the level of profoundly felt anger that is expressed toward China and the CCP. Judging from Hammer’s reportage, Hong Kongers are clearly bitter, in a way that cannot be alleviated simply through time and material comfort. These wounds run deep.

DOC NYC ’20: A La Calle

Oil and gold-rich Venezuela's dire poverty should prove once and for all that natural resources are almost inconsequential when it comes to average people’s standard of living. Far more important are the rule of law, transparent governance, and a market economy. None of these things exist in the Venezuela of Nicolas Maduro and Hugo Chavez. Filmmakers Maxx Caicedo & Venezuelan Nelson G. Navarrete chronicle the grassroots resistance to the oppression and privation of the Chavist regime in A La Calle, which screens as part of the 2020 online edition of DOC NYC--now screening through the 11/20-11/29 encore.

Filmed surreptitiously on the streets of Venezuela, from 2014 to 2019, A La Calle chronicles the rise of the regime, starting with its glory years under Chavez to its current state of international disrepute. Navarrete & Caicedo largely follow events from three perspectives: formerly imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, street-level activist Nixon Leal, and Randal Blanco, an average citizen struggling to get by (with Juan Guaido, the interim President recognized by nearly every real democracy, playing an important role in the third act).

For those unfamiliar with the ongoing Venezuelan tragedy, A La Calle documents step-by-step how Chavez and Maduro eroded constitutional checks-and-balances, criminalized the opposition, and rigged the electoral system in their favor. For a while, they were able to placate the populace with massive, irresponsible public spending binges, but when petroleum prices started falling, the stagnant economy completely cratered. Soon, all the people had left was a dictator who jealousy clings to power.

It is hard to imagine a socialist declining free stuff, but Maduro did exactly that when he perversely refused to allow emergency relief supplies to enter Venezuela, despite the critical shortage of food and medicine. As a result, Venezuelans have launched what one of the film’s experts calls the largest ever collective exodus from a country not currently waging war.

No Man’s Land, on Hulu

This is a good series, but we would have survived without it. Unfortunately, in our haste to withdraw from Iraq, we created a vacuum ISIS/Daesh was delighted to fill. From there, they advanced into Syria. However, the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (the YPJ, previously documented by Bernard-Henri Levy) shocked Daesh and the world with their tenacious resistance. They are particularly feared by Daesh, because death at the hands of a woman does not entail martyr status—hence no paradise and no virgins. Average Frenchman Antoine Habert suspects his estranged sister Anna has joined the YPJ, so he ill-advisedly travels to Syria to find her in co-creator-writers Amit Cohen, Ron Lesham, Eitan Mansuri & Maria Feldman’s 8-episode No Man’s Land, which premieres today on Hulu.

Habert kept trying to reach out to his sister after she fell out with the family, until she was killed in a random terrorist attack in Cairo. He always had his suspicions about the official story, but Habert still went on with his life. Then he happened to see some footage of YPJ soldiers in Syria. Something about the body language of a western volunteer reminded him of his sister, even though her face was not visible. He becomes so obsessed, he crosses over the Turkish border into Syria, making him a target for Daesh and opportunists who would sell him out.

Meanwhile, three British Daesh recruits, Nasser Al-Shammri, Iyad Bel Tagi, and convert Paul Wilkins are steadily building their reputations within the terror group’s ranks. The latter two are blind believers, but Al-Shammri is more skeptical of their brutal excesses. Yet, as British military veteran, his skills are more valuable to the organization. Further complicating the unstable mix, “Stanley,” a suavely British secret agent with clandestine ties to several players, is also operating in the region.

The deeper Al-Shammri penetrates into the heart of Daesh’s so-called caliphate, the scarier it looks. Cohen and company do not sugarcoat the horrific implications ISIS-occupied territory. No Man’s depiction of Islamist terror is not as viscerally intense as Sissako’s Timbuktu, but the series is intended as an entertaining thriller (and it is rather grabby).

Asylum: Twisted Horror and Fantasy Tales

You have to give Nicolas Onetti (one half of the Onetti Brothers) and his producing partners credit for being good delegators (somewhat unusually in genre cinema). As they did with A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio, they took another batch of short films that already had festival cred and shoehorned them into an anthology. There is no real theme encompassing their latest feature collection either, which is why the subtitle is even broader. However, you can still be assured there will be plenty of nightmarish mayhem in Asylum: Twisted Horror and Fantasy Tales, which releases today on VOD.

Brandon will be our evil clown stand-up-comic-from-Hell master of ceremonies for this evening’s entertainment, from an asylum where the inmates are apparently in charge and putting on a show. Supposedly, each tale relates somehow to his slowly revealed backstory, but do not beat yourself up if you can’t see the connections.

It is a bit ironic the “tales” kick off with Damien LeVeck’s The Cleansing Hour, since it has already been fixed-up to a full feature in its own right. Regardless, even though the concept of a phony exorcism web-series that suddenly finds itself dealing with a genuine demonic possession might not be so original anymore, LeVeck’s execution is tight and brisk, while his game cast keeps things snappy and sharp. It is followed by Kheireddine El-Helou’s slasher short, Drudge, which is certainly intense, but never offers any new twists or spins on the familiar material.

Mat Johns’ Father’s Day is a somewhat revisionist and sometimes poignant zombie story that would probably pay-off on a deeper level, if we witnessed the characters during the “before times.” Still, the implied suggestion these zombies still have a glimmer of their memories and feelings could easily support further exploration.

Without a doubt, Caye Casas & Alberto Albert Pinto’s RIP is definitely the high point of Asylum. The macabre tale of a nebbish sad sack miraculously resurrected just before his funeral recalls vintage Nacho Vigalondo, even more so for its subversive humor than the fact it is a Spanish language production. The practical effects are just a delightful bloody mess.

Ale Damiani’s dystopian anti-Trump screed M.A.M.O.N. just seems hopelessly dated now, unless you secretly believe the current Prez’s election challenges might have merit (you don’t, do you?). At least its short.

The second highpoint comes with the charmingly dark animated fable, The Death, Dad and Son, directed by Walgenwitz & Winschluss (a.k.a. Denis Walgenwitz and Persepolis co-director Vincent Paronnaud). The titular Grim Reaping personification of death happens to have a bratty son at home, who creates all kinds of supernatural havoc when he intervenes with the natural order of things. Their animation is wonderfully twisted, as is their idea of a happy, lessons-learned ending. Good stuff.

DOC NYC ’20: Some Way Out of Here (short)

In all fairness, the American media has done a decent job of covering events in Hong Kong—when they have bothered. Unfortunately, they have been more interested in reporting on Teddy Roosevelt statue controversies than seven million people losing their freedom. It is the exact opposite for the Mainland Chinese state-controlled media’s constant, heavily biased, widely inaccurate coverage. The exception would be Boning Li, a Chinese NYU film student, who did a terrific job documenting the protests in the short film, Some Way Out of Here, which screens as part of the 2020 (online) DOC NYC’s NYU short doc block.

Li was already sufficiently cognizant of CCP propaganda, to understand how heavily subjects like the Tiananmen Square Massacre were censored in his homeland. As a result, he could “get” Sanmu Chan’s Tiananmen-themed protest art. He was struck by the power of his work, as well as the artist’s grizzled charisma, so he started recording his activities as the leader of a drum band attending the protests.

Chan’s gallery Green Wave Art, was a hub for dissident art, a safe haven for protesters fleeing abusive cops, and the headquarters of a volunteer first-aid team, but its days were numbered. For blatantly political reasons, the local puppet government suddenly informed him his gallery required an “entertainment license.” As Li captures the gallery’s final days, he concurrently records the increasing tensions on the street and the escalating violence from the HK cops and their allies, the white-shirted Triad-affiliated thugs, who perpetrated the now infamous Yuen Long train station attack, while the police stood idly by.

American journalists could learn a lot from Li’s film. He does not simply ask Chan softball questions. He challenges him with the conduct of some protesters. Yet, he follows the story where it takes him: squarely in the line of fire, choking on tear gas that cops deliberately directed towards reporters.

DOC NYC ’20: Nasrin

This is a film that will put to shame the spate of recent legal documentaries to shame glorifying groups that have narrowed the definition of free speech and broadening the grounds to restrict it (looking at you, ACLU). In contrast, Iranian attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh represented women, censored artists, and the most vulnerable defendants facing the death penalty in Iran. For her efforts, she has been imprisoned twice and awarded the EU’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Human Thought. Filmmaker Jeff Kaufman follows the busy Sotoudeh as she navigates Iran’s kangaroo courts on behalf of her clients and documents her second arrest and imprisonment in Nasrin, which screens as part of the 2020 online edition of DOC NYC.

Who are Sotoudeh’s clients? They are the Baha’i, who are denied all legal rights in Iran due to their faith. They are minors facing execution after the police tortured murder confessions out of them. They are the desperate mothers of children that are being sexually abused by their fathers, whom have all custody rights under Iran’s Islamist law. Increasingly, they are also women, like Sotoudeh herself, who have defied Iran’s headscarf laws. In her case, Sotoudeh did so while serving time in political wing of Evin Prison, where she refused to wear the institutional chador.

Sotoudeh never did it alone. She was always part of a network of human rights activists (we hesitate to use the term “human rights,” since the regime has done its best to demonize it as a Western, anti-Islamic construct). Yet, she is always the first to credit her husband Reza Khandan for his support and commitment to a freer society. Her supporters also include the great, state-blacklisted filmmaker Jafar Panahi (who probably understands what she has endured better than anyone). He even gave her a part in his charming guerilla film, Taxi.

So, do you want the good news or the bad news first? Recently, well after Kaufman locked Nasrin, Sotoudeh was provisionally released from prison. Unfortunately, she subsequently tested positive for Covid, which isn’t surprising. The Iranian government was warned their prison were a perfect incubator for Covid, but they obviously did not care. Regardless, Sotoudeh is still hardly free now. As she herself says in a speech following her first release, she went from “the small prison to the big prison.”

Vanguard, Starring Jackie Chan

China must be feeling the heat from their genocidal (so-called de-radicalization) policies in Xinjiang, because their loyal cheerleader, Jackie Chan is now fighting Islamist terrorists. In this case, it is the super-Middle Eastern-sounding terror group, the Arctic Wolves. They are really more of mercenary gang, but at least they operate from a subjugated ancient walled city inspired by Timbuktu. Fortunately, Tang Huating heads a London-based Treadstone-like security firm that can take them down in Stanley Tong’s Vanguard, which opens this Friday in actual theaters.

In the opener, family man Zhang Kaixuan and his fellow Vanguard agent Lei Zhenyu must leave their Chinese New Year banquet to save a kidnapped client. He happens to be the former business partner of the Arctic Wolves’ chief financial backer. He had a crisis of conscience, right before finalizing a significant arms deal. The wolves want that mega-weapon, so they need the funds he hid from them.

Saving the client is the easy part. They also need to secure his daughter Fareeda, who made plenty of enemies of her own exposing poachers in Africa. Conveniently, the Wolves will hire them as subcontractors. From there, the action shifts to the Middle East, where Vanguard must rescue one of their own, before traveling on to Dubai (where everyone is eager to tell Tang how great China is, even though he lives in England), for the final showdown.

So, there is a lot of globe-trotting in Vanguard, as well as several elaborate action sequences. Wisely, Tong, the HK action veteran (who directed Chan in the Supercop I & II, Kung Fu Yoga, and several others) takes it easy on the Chinese propaganda this time around. Westerners are not the bad guys. Instead, it is the vaguely Arabic Wolves who are threatening world peace. However, there is one conspicuously unnecessary, momentum-killing scene, in which Zhang and his little boy talk about how vastly superior “Captain China” is to Captain America. Yeah, whatever.

DOC NYC ’20: Smog Town

Anyone skeptical of Biden advisors’ plan for a two-track relationship with China, one pushing back against human rights abuses, while the other seeks cooperation on climate change, should consider themselves largely vindicated by this documentary. The film quietly observes the work of the local regulatory authorities in Langfang, China’s smoggiest, most polluted city. It turns out environmental protection is a dirty business in HAN Meng’s Smog Town, which screens as part of the 2020 online edition of DOC NYC.

Although we are not trained in environmental science, we would guess the colossal industrial behemoths Han periodically shows belching emissions into the air could be a good place to cut Langfang’s air particulates. Instead, the local regulators raid a neighborhood garage that specializes in spray-painting cars. It is a highly telling incident, especially when the proprietor shows up at their offices, hoping he can save his business with the right permits, only to be bounced up and down the hall, in a truly Kafkaesque exercise in bureaucratic absurdity.

Supposedly, China’s big cities are under strict orders to clean up their act. In Langfang, Li Chunyuan (“Uncle Smog Buster”) is in charge of implementing the get-tough policies. He talks green in his public appearances and preachy books, but in meetings, he and his staff only care about their relative standing in the Party’s spreadsheets. They frequently raid poor neighborhoods cracking down on coal stoves, even though one inspector casually admits he uses one himself. The entire third act is dedicated to their emergency efforts to lift themselves from the bottom of the list, but it is all short-term gimmicks, like road blocks banning outside automobiles and nothing will really address systemic problems.

Remember what you see in Smog Town next time you hear Xi or Mike Bloomberg touting China’s environmental progress. Yet, the doc is even more damning as an expose of how government regulators operate and the callous disregard they have for small businesses and mom & pop proprietorship. We see Li’s inspectors putting such establishments out of business, but it clearly does not help the quality of life in Langfang.

DOC NYC ’20: Ronnie’s

Howard Rumsey's old Lighthouse Café is still sort of around, but it is no longer a full-time jazz venue. It has had a good run, but most musician-owned and operated clubs are fondly remembered, because they were short-lived (like Shelly’s Manne-Hole). Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club is the towering exception. They have regularly presented some of the biggest and most exciting jazz artists, from their 1959 founding to their recent post-Covid re-opening (they plan to reopen again 12/2, after the 2nd UK lockdown). Oliver Murray chronicles the history of the man and his club through the words of those who knew them best in Ronnie’s, which screens as part of the 2020 online edition of DOC NYC.

The late, great Ronnie Scott came up playing in British swing bands, but he really wanted to play bop-style jazz in his own small groups, which usually included his future partner, Pete King. Together they launched Ronnie Scott’s, with Scott serving as the public face and master-of-ceremonies, while King assumed most of the back-office responsibilities. Somehow, the tenor player was able to charm London gangster Albert Dimes and AFM union boss James Petrillo, who agreed to the terms demanded by his British counterparts, allowing the club to book the top American talent they needed to draw patrons. (The film makes the important point British musicians were hurt the most by their union’s protectionism, because it denied them the opportunity to hear and learn from the Americans who were revolutionizing jazz.)

The honor roll of musicians who played Ronnie Scott’s is long and impressive. Just in Murray’s film alone, we see Miles Davis (with Wayne Shorter), Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Oscar Peterson, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ben Webster, and Buddy Rich. Logically, we also hear quite a bit from Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine, the first couple of British jazz. Occasionally, the club broke format, but when they did, they still kept things pretty bluesy, as we can hear from the bootleg tapes of Jimi Hendrix jamming with Eric Burdon and War at the club, the night before his death.

Manoel de Oliveira’s Francisca

The late Manoel de Oliveira was the perfect filmmaker to adapt Augustina Bessa-Luis’s novel Fanny Owen, because he could probably remember the 19^th Century scandal it was based on. Oliveira started his career acting in Portuguese silent films, but he had some of his most productive years as a director after his centennial. Back in 1981, his international stock shot up dramatically with the international release of his austere historical masterwork, Francisca, which releases virtually today in its freshly restored one-hundred-sixty-six-minute glory.

It will be a battle of the moustaches for the heart of Francisca “Franny” Owen, the daughter of an elite English officer now residing in Portugal. Self-consciously Byronesque Jose Augusto Pinto de Magalhaes has the inside track in his rivalry with his ostensive friend Camilo Castelo Branco, the revered author of Mysteries of Lisbon. Unfortunately, Jose Augusto’s severe intimacy issues and innate misanthropy inevitably leads to a deeply dysfunctional, codependent relationship. Yet, despite Branco’s somewhat self-interested warnings, Owen willingly embraces Jose Augusto’s chaos, more or less realizing it will all end in tears—which it does.

With Francisca, Oliveira is clearly working towards the deliberately mannered, post-modernist style that would reach its full flowering in his epic adaptation of Claude Claudel’s Satin Slipper. He still stages the drama with traditional period trappings, but strips down the sets and locations (which probably makes them more historically acutely than the typically lush costume romance). There is also an artificial theatricality that is maybe not as extreme as that seen in Slipper, but a lot of viewers will still need time to acclimate themselves to it, especially the way dialogue is often repeated for effect.

Indeed, it is easy to admire the auteurist vision of Francisca, but it is not exactly a film you would want to curl up with on a cold winter’s night. Oliveira’s adaptation is certainly not plot heavy, but it steadily builds to a climax that rings with significance for viewers who have properly invested in the film. Instead of sweeping passions, Francisca is all about bitter ironies.

DOC NYC ’20: Universe

Those of us who discovered jazz in the 1990s remember Wallace Roney as the up-and-comer who graduated to being an in-demand leader. He was never part of the “Young Lions,” but came to prominence around the same time. Consequently, many fans always thought of him as “young,” so his death from Covid (at a mere 59 years of age) was deeply upsetting for the jazz world. Yet, before he left, Roney completed his most ambitious project. In a way, Roney brought his career full circle when he premiered a Wayne Shorter orchestral suite originally composed for his mentor, Miles Davis. Sam Osborn & Nick Capezerra documents Roney as he rehearses his band and takes stock of his career in Universe, which screens as part of the 2020 online edition of DOC NYC.

Wayne Shorter might be the only NEA Jazz Master who has also written a science fiction graphic novel. It rather follows that he drew on cosmic inspirations for The Universe Compositions. Miles Davis intended to record them during the era of the “2^nd Great Quintet,” but the band broke up and the icon moved onto other styles before the complicated sessions could be arranged. Somehow, the score was considered lost for years, until it was re-discovered in the Library of Congress. Shortly before his death, Davis encouraged Shorter to record the suite and recommended Roney for the trumpet chair.

Roney really was the only true protégé Davis ever took on. That association would be a double-edged sword for Roney. It brought him to the attention of record labels and clubs, but critics constantly compared him to the trumpet icon. Throughout Universe, Roney wrestles with the implications of this legacy, while still paying tribute to Davis.

Osborn & Capezerra shot Universe in a stark black-and-white that, in retrospect, gives the film an eerie, elegiac tone. Roney is very forthcoming on the subjects of music, Miles, and his career. However, he never addresses his late ex-wife, Geri Allen, who was a jazz musician of equal stature. In addition to Roney, we also logically hear a good deal from bassist Buster Williams and drummer Lenny White, who both performed extensively with Davis and Roney (including the approaching Universe concert).

Regardless, the rehearsal sequences are often brutally uncomfortable. Even the musically untrained can tell Shorter’s score is immensely challenging just by looking at it. Roney drives his musicians hard, because time is short before the premiere, so there is actually a fair degree of suspense, whether or not they will be ready.

Alex Rider, on IMDb

He is a lot like 003½, the hero of a fondly remembered licensed 1960s YA ancillary novel, by the name of James Bond Jr,, who was actually the iconic spy’s nephew, rather than his son. Such is also the case for master Rider, who was unaware his Uncle Ian was not really a banker, until he was murdered in the line of duty. The resourceful teen continues the family business in Alex Rider, Guy Burt’s 8-episode series adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s YA novels, which premieres tomorrow on IMDb’s streaming app.

Alex Rider is still shy when it comes to girls, but he has self-taught himself capery skills, like lock-picking. After the tragic backstory death of Rider’s parents, his stern but loving uncle looked after him, with the help of housekeeper-surrogate auntie Jack Starbright. When Uncle Ian is murdered by the shadowy mystery villain, Rider sees through the agency’s bogus cover story. However, old school spymaster Alan Blunt is not upset when Rider crashes their secret headquarters. Instead, he recruits Rider for a special assignment.

Evidently, Uncle Ian was killed because he started asking questions bout Point Blanc, a highly elite and remotely isolated prep school that specializes in the troubled offspring of industry titans. Obviously, only a teenaged plant could infiltrate the school, so Blunt arranges a cover from a British food magnate, who already has a tabloid fodder daughter. When Rider arrives, he finds some of his classmates are hip and punky, but others are suspiciously Stepfordish.

Although the series is based on a series of teen novels, Alex Rider should not be too cute or too mild for most adult espionage genre fans. Burt combines elements of the first two books in ways that make sense and should satisfy the pre-existing base of readers. Directors Andreas Prochaska (who helmed Dark Valley and the Das Boot series) and Christopher Smith keep things snappy. Plus, the show sports a wildly cool opening credit sequence (featuring Samm Henshaw’s “The World is Mine”).

Shudder: Lingering

Gyeong-seon's hotel is like the Overlook of Korea. It is bustling during high season, but there isn’t enough business to keep it open during the off-season. That makes it quite a creepy place to crash, but Yoo-mi and her little sister do not have many options. They come seeking shelter but find terror instead in Yoon Eun-kyung’s Lingering, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Yoo-mi tried not to think of her unstable mother since her suicide, so she is stunned when the social services forces her to take custody of her little half-sister Yoon Ji-yoo. Being unemployed, with aher own history of mental instability, Yoo-mi is not exactly prime guardian material, so she reaches out to her mother’s longtime hotelier friend “Auntie” Gyeong-seon for help. Auntie seems delighted to have them, but her bitter, binge-drinking maid Lee Ye-rin, the only employee still on-staff, is less than welcoming.

Little Ji-yoo soon claims to meet a mystery woman in Yoo-mi’s old room, but the older sister foolishly dismisses her reports. However, she too starts experiencing strange phenomenon, often in close proximity to that room. Meanwhile, the local police department is preoccupied with the search for a missing North Korean defector, now suspected dead.

Comparisons between Gyeong-seon’s faded resort and The Shining’s Overlook are apt (especially the hall carpeting), because both have a very distinctive look and vibe. Gyeong-seon’s atrium is particularly striking and the complex sub-basements are all kinds of ominous—so much so, it is easy to envision K-horror fans holding conventions at the filming locations.

Screenwriter-director Yoon crafts a massively creepy atmosphere and a nerve-rattling sense of foreboding. Frankly, the narrative itself is nothing special, like a cafeteria tray loaded with elements cribbed from “Angry Ghost” K-Horror & J-Horror, as well as V.C. Andrews gothic family novels. However, they all seem new again, thanks to the taut and effective execution.

Last Three Days: Time Gets Tricky

Reaver is the sort of new designer drug that would give Timothy Leary remorse for promoting the drug culture. It will knock a rookie plain clothes cop for a loop, so to speak, but it also might just offer an opportunity for him to undo his mistakes. Of course, as he tries to fix the chaos, he finds more lurking dangers in director-screenwriter Brian Ulrich’s Last Three Days, which releases this Friday on VOD.

Jack and Beth were just so darned perfect together when they met in college. Unfortunately, they have already hit a rough patch early in their marriage. He is a cop and she is a RN on the graveyard shift, so they hardly see each other anymore. Jack’s cynical partner Dave is also more jealous and demanding than any mistress. Unfortunately, he is still Jack’s partner, so when Dave hatches a wild cowboy plan to bring down a new Japanese gang operating in town, the married cop reluctantly follows his lead.

Of course, Dave’s play turns out spectacularly badly. Jack can’t remember how, but he wakes up three days later with a nasty reaver hang-over, covered in blood, near Dave’s dead body. Suddenly, he is a fugitive on the run and Beth is ominously missing. Thanks to the reaver, Jack starts experiencing time in a displaced, non-linear manner, which is disorienting, but possibly offers a chance to change things.

DOC NYC ’20: The Jump

It was called the U.S. Coast Guard's “Day of Shame,” but it brought out the best in America. Appalled by injustice, average people with no political experience mobilized to rescue Lithuanian sailor Simas Kudirka after his failed attempt to defect on the USCG Cutter Vigilant. Kudirka and the senior officers of the Vigilant look back on that fateful day and its aftermath in Giedre Zickyte’s The Jump, which screens as part of the 2020 online edition of DOC NYC.

Kudirka was a sailor, who was not allowed a passport. He always identified as Lithuanian, rather than Soviet, especially since he had already been interrogated as a relative of a Lithuanian Partisan. He was serving on a Soviet fishing vessel that was scheduled to participate in a summit with American fishery authorities off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Kudirka felt greater camaraderie with the American seamen waving from the Vigilant, so he made the literal jump to the Vigilant and the proverbial jump to freedom.

Unfortunately, the officers were not prepared for such a development. Rather understandably, the captain requested guidance from his chain of command during the twelve-hour stand-off. When ordered by Rear Admiral William B. Ellis to return Kudirka to the Soviets, who had already savagely beaten him onboard the Cutter, the Captain obeyed—in tears. Much to the compliant Admiral’s chagrin, the nation exploded in outrage when the full story was reported.

In many ways, The Jump is a testimonial to the average Americans who refused to forget about Kudirka, even after he was convicted of treason and condemned to some of the USSR’s harshest gulags. Doggedly, ordinary citizen activists like Barbara Koran and Ann Ingham kept protesting on his behalf. Sadly, Kudirka’s most prominent champion, U.S. Rep. Robert P. Hanrahan (R-IL) is no longer with us to discuss his efforts—but his example proves how much even a one-termer in the minority party can accomplish. Notably, Pres. Ford also gets credit (notably from Kissinger himself, in an on-camera interview), for pressing the Soviets for Kudirka’s release.

Kudirka’s case takes some intriguing twists and turns. It really was a real-life Cold War thriller (that was dramatized in a 1978 TV movie). Yet, what might be most surprising is the level of pre-internet celebrity Kudirka reached at the time, when he busy on the lecture circuit. It is a shame we need Zickyte’s doc to reintroduce him to the nation, especially since his message exposing life under socialist tyranny is suddenly timely again.

Recon: Warfighting in Cassino, with Franco Nero

During WWII, the Italian campaign had its own special challenges. It was hard to tell friendlies from enemies, because Italy changed sides in 1943, but not every Fascist was on-board. That risk of ambushes was a constant fact of life for reconnaissance patrols. One sneak attack precipitates a tragic cycle of retribution, guilt, and angst in Robert Port’s adaptation of Richard Bausch’s novel Peace, retitled Recon, which has a special Fathom Events screening today, ahead of its theatrical release this Friday.

When a fanatical officer ambushes the unit, their sergeant remorselessly guns down his unarmed lover as well. The incident obviously bothers Corporal Marson, as well as the street-smart Private Asch. In contrast, country-poor Pvt. Joyner is more troubled by the extent Marson is troubled. Shortly thereafter, in what might be an act of reprisal, the Sergeant dispatches them on a dangerous recon mission, up the mountain in search of the hiding German army.

They have either a stroke of good or bad luck when they encounter Angelo, a grizzled old villager, who agrees to lead them to the Germans. However, none of the GIs trusts the Italian, including Marson, but he insists they follow him anyway.

Recon is definitely a revisionist World War II film, which makes its release timed around Veteran’s Day a little awkward. Nevertheless, it is an earnest film of decent quality that should never seriously disparage anyone’s opinion of WWII-era veterans. Both intellectually and emotionally, we should all accept the fact war forces people to do terrible things. The fact that the “Greatest Generation” survived the sort of circumstances depicted in Recon to become productive citizens is one of the reasons they were so great.

Arguably, the Chris Brochu and Sam Keeley, as Asch and Joyner, make that point quite dramatically with their memorable performances. The ill-will between the two enlisted men runs so strong, they are often on the brink of fisticuffs, yet when tragedy strikes, their antagonism is jettisoned. Consequently, their late scenes together are indeed quite poignant.

Mel Gibson is the Fatman

You're not wrong about the apparent decline of society. Santa can confirm it numerically. He knows when you’ve been good or bad, but these days, folks are more likely to be bad, which reduces Santa’s government toy production subsidy and increases his unit costs. Yet, more people want something for nothing, or in this case, presents, despite some very naughty behavior. One particularly rotten kid even puts contract out on Santa’s life in Eshom & Ian Nelms’ Fatman, which releases in actual theaters this Friday.

It was a rough Christmas for Chris Cringle. Present delivery hit an all-time low and coal was higher than ever. Evil little entitled Billy Wenan is definitely part of the problem. He has a long-standing professional relationship with “the Skinny Man,” an embittered assassin, to intimidate his middle school rivals. Naturally, when Wenan gets a well-deserved lump of coal, rather than looking within and examining his own behavior, he lashes out, hiring his regular hitman to kill Santa. It turns out the ruthless killer also deeply resents Santa, so he is more than willing to accept the contract.

Meanwhile, Cringle is suffering from a unique form of post-Christmas depression. To keep the workshop in business, he will have to accept a military contract delivering control panels. That means Captain Jacobs and his men will have added security in place, but they still aren’t expecting the kind of trouble the Skinny Man represents.

Fatman is definitely not a family movie, but it offers up a pretty amusing twist on the Christmas action movie tradition. In a brilliant casting move, Mel Gibson and his Unabomber beard play Cringle, drawing on all our fond Christmas season memories of the original Lethal Weapon. He looks appropriately weathered, but still tough as nails.

He also shares some terrific on-screen chemistry with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, playing Ruth Cringle. There have been a lot of movie Santas, but she might be the most memorable Mrs. Cringle. On the other hand, Walter Goggins basically just makes a serviceable villain as the assassinate, but Chance Hurstfield’s Wenan really is a nasty little kid.

Transsiberian, Hitting Sundance Now

These days, traveling from China to Russia is like climbing out of the fire and into the frying pan. About ten years ago, it was considered the opposite. Regardless, most rational Americans would be leery of taking the Transsiberian from Beijing all the way across Siberia, but for some reason it sounds fun to a train nut like Roy Nusser and his wife Jessie is willing to humor him. Guess what? They encounter corruption and danger in Brad Anderson’s Transsiberian, which starts streaming tomorrow on Sundance Now.

A French businessman warns the naïve Nussers how crooked Chinese and Russian cops are, but they really aren’t listening. Instead, he is totally fascinated by the train and she is perversely interested in their romantic but slightly sketchy traveling companions, Spanish Carlos Ximenez and American Abby. She is both jealous and somewhat disdainful of their free-spirited lifestyle. However, when klutzy Roy is left behind during a layover, she is initially grateful when the more experienced travelers accompany her as she waits for her wayward husband at the next stop.

Unfortunately, when Ximenez shows his true criminal colors, it leads to all kinds of complications. Nusser would prefer to forget the whole incident, but she is alarmed to discover the backpacker stashed a shipment of drugs in her camera bag—and their new cabin mate is Ilya Grinko, a senior officer with the Russian DEA.

Anderson’s genre films are often all over the place and Transsiberian is no exception. Honestly, the first two acts are bizarrely slow and traveloguish. However, third act cat-and-mouse game, back aboard the train with Grinko is tense, nerve-jangling stuff. Not surprisingly, Sir Ben Kingsley is far and away the film’s MVP, portraying Grinko with chilling ruthlessness. (Arguably, it hardly matters whether he is crooked or not, since he is serving a rotten regime.) Thomas Kreschmann is almost unrecognizable, looking very Russian and very sinister as Grinko’s thuggish partner Kolzak.

The Informer Finally Releases

Now that Pres. Trump is most likely exiting public service, will Republicans go back to supporting the FBI and Democrats revert to hating the Feds? It seems like we’ve all been switching back and forth every four years. Seriously, aren’t we due to swing back to our more natural defaults? Regardless, this film will not inspire much love for the Bureau on either side of the aisle, but of course its fiction. When senior agents burn their deep uncover mole for reasons of expediency, he does his best to burn them back in Andrea Di Stefano’s The Informer, which just released on VOD and in select theaters.

Pete Koslow is a decorated blue-collar veteran, who regrettably killed a biker in a bar brawl he did not start. He was also Polish, so Special Agent Erica Wilcox arranged for his speedy parole, once he ingratiated himself with the Polish mob. He thought he was at the end of the tunnel when he is sent to pick-up a substantial drug shipment, but the operation turns sour when he witnesses the murder of an undercover cop.

To “protect” him, the Polish syndicate orders him to violate his patrol, so he can take command of their prison drug trafficking operation. That is also fine with Wilcox and her boss Montgomery, because they would love to expose the gang’s prison network. However, when cowboy NYPD cop Edward Grens starts asking questions, the secret op becomes too hot to handle, so they throw Koslow to the wolves.

Covid and the CCP really did a number on this film’s release. It has probably been bumped two or three times, which must be frustrating for everyone invested in it. Honestly, it deserved to have a respectable theatrical opening, because it really not bad at all. The first hour or so is pretty conventional, but Koslow’s climatic last stand is tightly executed and tensely gripping.

Common also helps liven up the slow parts, because he is terrific as Grens (a name that is obviously a holdover from Roslund/Hellstrom’s Swedish source novel). It is a lot of fun to watch him charge through scenes like a bull in a china shop. Joel Kinnaman is one of those thesps who keep getting work even though they never seem to make a strong connection on-screen, but it should be stipulated he broods hard as Koslow and his size and intensity gives him strong credibility during the action sequences.

Schwochow’s The German Lesson

The National Socialists were harsh art critics, whose tastes were highly suspect. Now it is a badge of honor, but the artists whose work they dubbed “Degenerate” faced professional hardship and even personal peril. Max Ludwig Nansen is one such artist. He has been officially prohibited from painting and his old friend Jens Ole Jepsen willingly enforces the edict. The resulting resentment, tragedy, and bad karma will envelop everyone close to them, especially Jepsen’s son Siggi, in Christian Schwochow’s English language adaptation of Siegfried Lenz’s classic post-war novel, The German Lesson, which releases digitally today.

The war is over and twenty-something Siggi is undergoing some strict rehabilitation. As part of the program, he must write an essay on the joys of duty, with respects to German citizenship (hence the title). The disgraced Siggi embraces the task, with excessive and obsessive zeal. Most of the film flashbacks to the war years, to explain how he reached this point.

As a child, he considered Nansen, the gifted but suspiciously bohemian artist more of a father-figure than his own martinet father, a true-believing local National Socialist official. Nansen was once close friends with his father. The artist even saved the latter’s life years ago. However, the elder Jepsen almost fetishizes authoritarian conceptions of duty and loyalty, so he consequently turned against his friend. Yet, in their small northern coastal town, it is hard to avoid each other, especially when the rest of Jepsen’s family maintains bonds of friendship with Nansen and his ailing wife. Of course, bitterness builds in all quarters when the elder Jepsen suspects the Nansens of harboring his oldest son, an army deserter.

At various junctures, young Siggi’s naivete and carelessness make matters worse for Nansen. Yet, he retains a love of art (especially the modern variety) instilled in him during their painting lessons. He is not his father’s son, so to speak, but his dysfunctional formative years take a toll. Frankly, he could probably use some kind of rehab.

Lenz’s source novel enjoys a lofty reputation in Germany, but it is not so well-known here in America, giving us a fresher slate to judge Schwochnow’s adaptation, written by his screenwriter mother, Heide. In terms of theme and subject matter, German Lesson sounds comparable to Never Look Away, with a Max Beckmann-figure (at least in terms of  style) replacing the Gerhard Richter-Sigmar Polke composite, but Donnersmarck’s film was grander and far more emotionally resonant.

In contrast, German Lesson is a darker, murkier exploration of the German national character, during its worst historical moments, like The Reader, but with a better developed moral-ethical sensibility. There is never any sympathy expressed for the abusive elder Jepsen. Indeed, the film’s depiction of censorship and the confiscation of art produces visceral outrage.

Hamaguchi “at” Japan Society: Heaven is Still Far Away

There really isn't a precise word to describe Yuzo’s relationship with Mitsuki. At least there isn’t in English and probably not in Japanese either. In fact, this film is all about revealing their significant but unconventional connection. You might guess the first big revelation, but there are more layers of the onion to peel back in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s thirty-eight-minute (and one second) Heaven is Still Far Away, which screens as part of the Japan Society’s virtual film series, Three by Hamaguchi.

We’re not judging, but as one of the free-lance engineer pixelating the dirty parts in Japanese adult movies, Yuzo might have frustrated you in the past. Regardless, it does not seem to shock Mitsuki, the high school girl he lives with. They have an odd relationship, but at this point, they are clearly comfortable with each other. However, they have a bit of an argument when Satsuki, a film student, requests an interview for a film she is making about her murdered sister. Yuzo is reluctant to participate, because he never really knew her, but Mitsuki adamantly insists he should.

Spoiler: it is a bit of a surprise that Hamaguchi (the epic chronicler of human relationships in Happy Hour and Asako I & II) would produce a ghost story as a crowd-funding reward, but indeed he did. Yet, it still reflects his keen sensitivity and sincere compassion for his characters. Despite its supernatural themes, it is an intensely humanistic film.

Bertino’s The Dark and the Wicked

It is a hard fact of horror husbandry that goats portend bad things (check out The Witch or the insane Night Gallery episode with Vincent Price and Bill Bixby). Louise’s farmer parents probably raise more sheep, but you know where lambs are led, right? That is pretty much what a mysterious malevolent force intends for her family too in director-screenwriter Bryan Bertino’s The Dark and the Wicked, which releases in theaters and on VOD tomorrow.

Reluctantly, grown siblings Louise and Michael have returned home to help their mother care for their essentially comatose father, but they are more alarmed by her state of mind. She is depressed, delusional, and ultimately (successfully) suicidal. The discovery of her diary only raises more questions.

It seems their mother was desperately trying to protect their father’s soul from some sort of vaguely defined, but tangibly demonic evil. Initially, they assume she was not in her right mind, but they soon experience enough sinister visions and freak incidents to make them believers. They are further rattled by a visit from a mysterious preacher, who claims to be their atheist mother’s spiritual advisor. He makes the “Reverend” from Night of the Hunter look like Mr. Rogers.

D&W is a stylish exercise in dusty, wind-swept Americana terror, like a horror movie breaking out amid Wyeth’s Christina’s World. Just as he did with The Monster, Bertino has crafted an unusually moody and dread-infused film. Viewers will practically choke on the stifling atmosphere. In this case, never fully spelling out just what the heck is going on only heightens the feeling of unease. This is impressive genre filmmaking on every level, but it is also exhausting.

Moonbase 8, on Showtime

Since the 1960s, astronauts have always topped the list of the most respected people. The reasons are obvious: their spirit of exploration and their call to serve. Neither are much in evidence anywhere in this new workplace sitcom. That wouldn’t be so bad, if it were funny, but it isn’t. Anyone who still has good feelings for NASA and the space program should take a hard pass on Moonbase 8, created by the small caucus of Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, Jonathan Krisel & John C. Reilly, which premieres this Sunday on Showtime.

Captain Robert “Cap” Caputo, Dr. Michael “Skip” Henai, a Prof. Scott “Rook” Sloan, (played by co-creators Reilly, Armisen, and Heidecker, respectively) and a rotating guest fourth crew-member are prospective astronauts for a future Moon colony. Moonbase 8 is sort of a Big Brother-style audition, but with more science experiments. None of the three regulars inspires much confidence, except maybe Henai, who is technically solid and has the advantage of being the son of a revered Apollo-era scientist.

In contrast, Cap Caputo is a former helicopter pilot, whose Hawaiian tour company went belly-up, whereas Rook is an Evangelical, who signed up for the tryout mission, because his pastor convinced him it would be an excellent way to spread the Gospel. Each episode, they face a crisis they must scramble to fix, manage, and generally cover-up, without NASA knowing, to keep their Moon dreams alive.

Fellini’s Toby Dammit

There is a long and fruitful tradition of not particularly faithful Poe adaptations. Best exemplified by Roger Croman and classic Karloff & Lugosi vehicles at Universal, scores of filmmakers took just enough from Poe to create something interesting. In 1969, some of the top auteurs in Europe got in on the fun, contributing to the Poe anthology film, Spirits of the Dead. In honor of his centennial, Federico Fellini’s 43-minute segment, Toby Dammit releases virtually this Friday, “at” Film Forum.

Ostensibly, Fellini adapted the story “Never Bet the Devil Your Head,” but don’t get hung up on the details. The titular Toby Dammit is still a h-e-double hockey-sticks-raiser, but this time around, he happens to be an angry-not-so-youngish, classically-trained British actor, badly in need of rehab (ever so appropriately played by Terence Stamp).

Dammit has come to Italy to star in an allegorical spaghetti western funded by a Catholic arts agency, solely because he was promised a snazzy red Ferrari. Dammit is already in bad shape when he arrives and the boozy reception only makes him worse. Clearly, Dammit has not handled fame well, but he is also trying to self-medicate away hallucinatory visions of the devil chasing him in the guise of a little girl.

Toby Dammit might be a relatively short genre film, but it is vintage Fellini all the way. Right from the start, he capitalizes on the postmodern dystopian vibe of the airport’s 1960’s space-age-chic décor to create a disorienting vibe. Arguably, this film could easily serve as a color addendum to 8½, because it presents the trappings of fame in similarly caustic and chaotic ways. If anything, Dammit is a more intense viewing experience, in accordance with Poe’s maxims.

Ray Bradbury Theater: Usher II

How much time do we have left to read Edgar Allan Poe before the Cancel Culture comes to censor him? Don’t think it couldn’t happen, because they’ve already declared H.P. Lovecraft off-limits. As a dissolute self-styled Southern gentleman, who lived and died in Maryland before the Civil War, it is only a matter of time before they target Poe too. Can you imagine how impoverished American literature would be without Poe? William Stendahl doesn’t need to. The futuristic reader of supernatural literature lived to see Poe forbidden by law, in Ray Bradbury’s classic short story, but he intends to give the censors a taste of Poe’s medicine in “Usher II,” a macabrely heart-warming episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater, which airs on Comet TV this Sunday.

Twenty years ago, Stendahl watched helplessly as agents of the Department of Moral Climates burned his beloved library, very much in the style of Fahrenheit 451. Since then, the wealthy bookworm contented himself with a crazy boondoggle: rebuilding the spooky old House of Usher. Of course, Investigators of Moral Climates do not take kindly to eccentricity, so as soon as he has taken possession, Mr. Garrett comes calling, with the intention of declaring Usher II morally unacceptable.

However, this time Stendahl is ready for him. He and his loyal assistant, Pikes, a former Lon Chaney-like actor, murder Garrett and replace him with an android. The phony book-burner subsequently reports to his Moral Climates associates, Stendahl has finally seen the error of his ways and invites the committee to a party to mark the end of Usher II. Of course, the festivities are inspired by the great Poe stories that none of the censors will be familiar with.

While Bradbury’s story was technically set on Mars (and included in the Martian Chronicles), the RB Theater version, directed by Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors & The Devil’s Double) and adapted by the man himself, seems to imply an earthly setting. In all other respects, it is quite faithful to the story.

Alice Winocour’s Proxima

Hopefully, thanks to SpaceX (and no thanks to NASA or the previous administration), American and European astronauts soon won’t have to go to Baikonur to travel into space. Unfortunately, for now, all roads to manned space travel run through Star City and Kazakhstan, so that is where French astronaut Sarah Loreau must go. As a result, she will be forced to spend a great deal of time away from her daughter at an awkward period of her development in Alice Winocour’s French-language production Proxima, which releases digitally this Friday.

It is a coup for Loreau and the French space agency when she is selected as a last-minute replacement for the Proxima mission. Conceived as dry run for a future Mars mission, Proxima will be captained by the American Mike Shannon and piloted by Russian Anton Ocheivsky. They are relatively okay with Loreau joining them, but she chafes at their low expectations. Unfortunately, Loreau’s expedited training schedule and the distraction of her daughter Stella’s angst leave her so exhausted, their concerns are sometimes justified.

Granted, Loreau will return while her daughter is still young, but the film is at its best when capturing the wistful feelings experienced by the astronauts (especially Loreau) during their final days on Earth. Some scenes were indeed filmed on location, but presumably the design team (production designer Florian Sanson and art director Anja Fromm) still had to recreate Star City and the Baikonur Cosmodrome locations, after the fact. Regardless, Proxima really gives viewers a keen sense of place—so much so future astronauts should probably watch the film before traveling there.

On the other hand, Loreau’s long-distance drama with her daughter eventually grows tiresome. Her ex-husband’s ambivalence particularly strains credibility, since as an astrophysicist with the French space program, he should be professionally invested in Loreau’s success (and therefore ought to be acting like more of a team-player).

They Reach: Nice Nostalgia Horror

1979 was a great year for genre movies. That was the year Alien, Phantasm, and The Black Hole (amongst others) were released. A geeky science-obsessed teen like Jessica Daniels would have been interested in all three. Unfortunately, 1979 is a tragic year for the Daniels family, but an evil force unleashed a decade earlier is about to make it even harder for them in Sylas Dall’s They Reach, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

In the prologue, a paranormal investigator and his son examine an apparently possessed boy, but the case is way out of their league. Flashforward to 1979. After the funeral for her big brother, the star quarterback at her high school, Daniels absent-mindedly starts browsing at a local junk shop, walking away with a box loaded with remnants from the not wholly-successful exorcism. Most notable is the reel-to-reel player that will act as a doorway for the malevolent entity as soon as it comes into contact with blood, which indeed happens when Daniels starts fiddling with it.

At first, she just has some very bad visions, but then terrible things start befalling the Daniels family. Of course, the dumb cops just want to throw her dad in jail, so Daniels will have to rely on her geeky pals, Sam and Cheddar when she faces the sinister demon. A few adults, like a hippy-dippy librarian will offer help, but when push comes to shove, it will really just be up to the kids.

If you are thinking Stranger Things and Summer of ’84, you have the right idea, but They Reach still feels fresh because our intrepid trio of youthful demon-busters are so strongly drawn. Dall and co-screenwriter Bry Troyer give them dialogue that is smart, snappy, and fannish, but still sounds appropriate to their age and era.

44th Mostra: The Earth is Blue as an Orange

Living in a war zone definitely makes you improvise, so maybe it is good training for an independent filmmaker. At least making a movie is something to do for single Ukrainian mother Ganna [Anna] Gladka’s family that maybe also holds therapeutic value. As the Russian invaders and their mercenaries shell her Donbass neighborhood, Gladka’s four children record and process the events through the lens of a camera. It is a process documented in turn by Iryna Tsilyk in The World is Blue as an Orange, which screens online for São Paulo film fans as part of the 44^th Mostra festival, following its premiere at this year’s Sundance.

It has long been the dream of Gladka’s eldest daughter Myroslava Trofymchuk to be a professional cinematographer. Her mother admirably supports her, enrolling Trofymchuk in filmmaking camps (like the one where she met Tsilyk) and assisting with film school scholarship applications. One could say she also assumed most of the producer duties on 2014, Trofymchuk’s personal documentary, recording her family’s day-to-day life under wartime conditions.

Trofymchuk’s doc is about as indie as film gets, but she capitalizes on some rather unique opportunities that arise, like passing Ukrainian tank, whose crew agrees to serve as extras in one scene. Yet, the real drama comes when Trofymchuk’s siblings explain how the war has altered their lives and personalities.

Blue as an Orange is a terrible title [a poetic reference], but it is a valuable record of the impact of Russian aggression on average Ukrainians. For those of us who see a lot of documentaries, it also stands a sharp rebuke to Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack, in which the filmmaker recorded a film-making family that was entirely home-schooled and forbidden to leave their Lower Eastside apartment, by their controlling father, who is never seen on-camera (making it impossible for viewers to judge his state of mind).