Brick Lane Opens

Abuse stemming from arranged marriages in the Islamic world has been largely ignored by the media. Horror stories like that of Shafilea Ahmed are becoming increasingly common in Europe, so one would think the practice would offer powerful grist for cinematic drama. Despite some initial suggestions to the contrary, Brick Lane does not pick up that gauntlet. Opening Friday in New York, Lane is a very well acted, but confused and contradictory film that ultimately shrinks from causing offense to any inclined to take umbrage (trailer here).

As it opens, Lane, named for the London neighborhood traditionally home to successive immigrant communities, appears willing to honestly address the realities of life for Muslim women. Following her mother’s drowning suicide, teenaged Nazneen is sent from her idyllic Bangladeshi village to London in an arranged marriage with an older man she has never met. Director Sarah Gavron then flash-forwards sixteen years, finding Nazneen still married to Chanu, a corpulent blowhard, with two westernized teenaged daughters.

All the terms of the marriage, including those of their marriage bed, favor Chanu. She gives, he takes. However, when he rashly quits his position after being passed over for a promotion, he has difficulty holding up his minimal end of the bargain. As a result, she takes on piecemeal seamstress work to help make ends meet. In doing so, she meets the younger, passionate Karim, experiencing forbidden love at extreme risk to her position in the Bangladeshi community.

As Nazneen, Tannishta Chatterjee’s performance is flat-out remarkable. Unfortunately, the entire film comes crashing down around her. While Lane starts as a fairly eloquent portrayal of a lonely and loveless arranged marriage, a radical about-face comes late in the film, undermining Nazneen’s presumed motivations and making her final decision completely inexplicable.

When portraying Muslim characters, Lane treads ever so lightly, taking extreme pains to avoid offense. When the September 11th attacks occur, their only significance in the film is the admittedly legitimate concern about anti-Muslim backlashes. When Chanu challenges the rhetoric of the increasingly radicalized Karim at a meeting, the characters and film essentially just shrug it off. In the end, the very practice of arranged marriage is in effect exonerated, even glorified. Frankly, the only Islamic character Lane is willing to cast in a consistently negative light is the usurious Mrs. Islam—an evil capitalist.

Along the way Gavron and DP Robbie Ryan create some striking visuals. However, Lane is at heart the cinematic equivalent of an Oprah book (it is actually based on a novel by Monica Ali), boasting sensitivity to all, but deathly afraid of offending anyone, no matter how extreme. In the process, tremendous performances by Chatterjee and Satish Kaushik as Chanu are undercut by the weaknesses of the script. It opens Friday in New York at the Sunshine.

HRW: Letter to Anna

If ever there was a woman who personified strength, dignity, and a commitment to human rights, it was Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading Russian journalist assassinated for investigating the neo-Soviet Putin regime. Unfortunately, there is not much human rights watching going on at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, besides Letter to Anna, Eric Bergkraut’s dogged documentary investigation into her death (trailer here).

Of the thirty two films at the HRW Fest, five focus their fire on Israel and four concentrate on America, clearly safe targets to shoot at. Few films at the fest, besides Letter, tackle a government perfectly willing to murder those who questions its policies, as in the case of Politkovskaya in Putin’s Russia. (To be fair, it sounds like China’s Stolen Children also deserves recognition for taking on the country’s one child policy, but the fest completely ignores Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea.) However, the sins of the festival should not be held against Letter, a first-rate documentary.

When Politkovskaya looks into the camera and tells Bergkraut she expects to be killed, it is spooky. Obviously, she knew what she was talking about, having already survived a poisoning attempt (evidently no Polonium was available to those would-be assassins). Politkovskaya made her name exposing human rights abuses (real ones) in Chechnya, again nearly getting killed in the process. It was while filming a documentary on the Russian Dirty War that Bergkraut filmed hours of interview footage with Politkovskaya, which formed the backbone of Letter.

Although one could uncharitably characterize Letter as a film built around outtakes, much of that footage is quite insightful. Perhaps most controversial will be his decision to begin by taking the audience through her assassination step by step. As Bergkraut marshals the facts and circumstances around the event he makes a compelling case against the Putin machine. By American legal standards, he would probably have enough to indict, but not convict. Of course, on a common sense level, the notion that a free-agent in Putin’s Russia would take out a prominent Putin critic without the go-ahead from the highest levels, stretches all believability.

Things are bad in Russia—no question. Relatively few have been willing to publically challenge Putin’s authoritarian rule. Some of those who did join Politkovskaya, like democracy activist Garry Kasparov, participated in the film. We also hear from expat billionaire Boris Berezovsky, perhaps a problematic anti-Putin spokesman, but always a good interview.

Letter would make for good, if depressing, companion viewing with Poisoned By Polonium, as Litvinenko appears in the former and Politkovskaya is also featured in the latter. Politkovskaya had everything to live for, having just heard she was about to become a grandmother. However, she never backed down in her attempts to hold Putin’s government accountable for its crimes. If you want to see what “patriotic dissent” looks like, Politkovskaya is its human face.

Bergkraut makes another credible case against Putin’s criminal reign, and give Susan Sarandon credit for recording the English narration (and Catherine Deneuve for the French), but are people paying attention to the increasingly frightening developments in Russia? Letter screens only once during the fifteen day film festival, Thursday the 26th, at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater.

(Thanks again to La Russophobe for sharing this review with their readers.)

J.B. Spins Interview with TOMOKO

Today J.B. Spins inaugurates an occasional interview feature of emerging jazz artists, by immediately breaking format. I first heard TOMOKO sing at St. Peter’s, but strictly speaking, she is more of a soul and R&B vocalist. Her recent high-profile gigs include a booking at the Blue Note. To get a sense of her music, watch her video “Love Me” on youtube here.

JB: How familiar were you with New York before you moved from Osaka? How difficult was that transition? Could it be called a leap of faith?

T: My very first visit to New York was a one-week trip about a year prior to eventually settling down here. Osaka people are brave and relentless. The first night I went straight to 125th Street—the Apollo theater—and went into the Amateur night, it happened to be Wednesday. They had a Step-Up-to-the Mic segment, so I raised my hand and sang a song by Monica (popular R&B tune then), and had a great response.

My mentality was always different, and when I came to New York, I felt like this was my real home. Yes, I can call it a leap of faith because until I got here, I really did not have any particular person or place or business plan to count on, not to mention having just few dollars in my pocket. But I have done all I could do in Japanese show business till that point, and I totally felt the need to break free and expand myself in New York in order to become an authentic artist of this genre. And after I did so, I realized this was my destiny.

JB: At your own gigs, you are essentially singing soul, but I have heard you perform in jazz contexts as well. Are you looking for opportunities to blend genre distinctions?

T: Such a timely question! I have always tried to present myself as an “R&B singer” only because our business requires and expects you to belong to one genre. It made me feel that it was important to declare my style and where I belong as an artist, and maybe it still is important. But in my opinion “rhythm and blues” lives in every musicians and singers hearts. And it has branched out of jazz, gospel, blues and rock, or maybe pop or even country music for that matter. And the branches have even expanded into hip hop.

I have always been a fan of all these genres, especially crossover jazz and smooth jazz, such as George Benson, Al Jarreau, Rachelle Ferrell, Anita Baker, George Duke, Natalie Cole, Sade, Joe Sample, Herbie Hancock, Lalah Hathaway, etc. And when my debut CD Organically Afro Asiatic released, so many people responded to what they called a “very jazzy smooth R&B feel.” So yes I recognize my niche, and am looking into the genre blending to some degree.

JB: The great jazz trombonist Wycliffe Gordon was the executive-producer of your CD. How did you first meet?

T: I met his younger brother who was at that time stationed in Navy in Tokyo, starting out as a rapper also, and we performed on the same stage at a hip hop showcase in Yokohama! He always told me about his big brother Wycliffe, and after I came to New York, I got to know him backstage, and the bond was instant and he treated me like family because of that.

He is very versatile. He's from Atlanta, his roots are also blues and R&B, and all that fusion. And you can say the same for my producer Jamba. Wycliffe is my executive producer along with me, but not on the creative side for this CD. But he did play trombone with other horn players on my tracks #1 and #4. And it was very natural to everyone not worrying about what particular genre we were playing. We were focusing on squeezing together a collection of tasty notes.

JB: To give readers a better sense of who you are, maybe we can close with your favorite CD, jazz CD, book, and film?

T: I honestly think that Stevie Wonder's trilogy: The Songs in the Key Of Life, Inner Visons, and Hotter Than July, are the best three albums in my collection, ever. My other favorite R&B CDs are gonna be difficult to narrow down.

First old school: Marvin Gaye’s What's Going On, Donny Hathaway (self titled), Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, Cheryl Lynn (self titled), Earth Wind & Fire (I just can’t mention only one, just too many), Stylistics Greatest Love Hits, Isley Brothers' Groove with You.

New school: Black Street (self titled), Kipper Jones' Ordinary Story, Total (self titled), Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Raul Midon's State of Mind, Billy Porter’s Untitled, Freddie Jackson's Transitions And oh, do you know the CD by Phillip Bailey Soul on Jazz? This is what we are talking about—blending the two genre, such a great CD.

My favorite jazz CDs: Nina Simone’s Broadway Blues Ballads, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, George Benson's Breezin,' but I love all of his CDs. All of them! Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington's Great Summit: the Master Takes, and Dee Dee Bridgewater's Live in Paris. And I have copies of all my favorite albums of Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan on cassette tapes.

Books: Conversations with God by Neal Donald Walsh, Ask and It is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle—the best book I have ever read!

Movies: All 6 films of Rocky series! Ultimate American Dream! And my most fav classic forever: The Way We Were!

JB: From a blogger known only by his initials, to the single-named TOMOKO (remember that’s all caps), thanks for taking the time to be the first interview here. You can often hear TOMOKO live in New York and you can purchase her CD here.

Jazz Score: Martial Solal

“If A Bout de Souffle didn’t exist, nobody would think its music was particularly interesting.” So Martial Solal says in the liner notes to a French collection of his film soundtracks. That film is known to English speaking audiences as Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, the watershed film of the French New Wave, regarded as much for its perceived revolutionary aesthetics as for its own cinematic merits. However, Solal himself played no originals, cinematic or otherwise, during his concert at MoMA last night as part of the Jazz Score series, opting instead for a program of standards.

Even though the recently arrived Solal explained it was 2:30 in the morning by his time, he was in the mood to play, performing approximately two hours, including a lengthy encore. He was truly in the mood to play “Caravan,” playing two significantly different versions in a row and later head-faking the audience with a sizeable quote from the Tizol standard before starting a completely different tune.

Solal is still at the top of his game, simultaneously playful and explorative. His approach to standards can be almost cubist, but he always brings things back into the pocket. He and bassist François Moutin were perfectly in-synch playing together, though at times Solal seemed to be changing things up to make things interesting. “He’ll get tired before I will,” he told the crowd.

Solal’s wit came through in both his music and his banter, delighting a sold out house. Those who return tomorrow can screen Breathless, Godard’s radically influential directorial debut (music-less trailer here). Loosely based on a treatment by François Truffaut, crediting Claude Chabrol as a technical advisor, and featuring Jean-Pierre Melville in a supporting role, Breathless is the end product of contributions from at least four major French directors, but Godard is the unquestioned auteur.

Breathless is nihilism triumphant, but fascinatingly so. In any other film, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s Michel Poiccard would be a pathetic jerk. For Godard, his accidental violence is his existential redemption. He apes the gangsters of American film noir, particularly Bogart, and after much effort, seduces the not very impressed American Patricia Franchini, played by Jean Seberg. He convinces her to accompany him on the lamb, until she betrays him more or less on a whim. Like Jean-Pierre Léaud’s Marc in Le Départ, Poiccard is an immature young man, who fancies himself a bad customer, but his posturing escalates into full-blown criminality. Solal’s music helps evoke the film noir that influenced both director and character, with themes that swing, but have a hint of menace. Indeed, his main theme, “La Mort” is classic crime jazz.

Breathless has been interpreted as an anti-American statement: a Frenchman seduced by Hollywood images into a life a crime is betrayed by an unfeeling American working for The New York Herald Tribune, an arm of the omnipresent American media. Knowing where Godard went in later films, it is probably a fair interpretation. It hardly needs be said that millions saw those same gangster movies without being similarly effected as Poiccard. They simply had stronger personalities and moral compasses. Of course, that makes them boring to Godard.

Breathless screens again at MoMA this afternoon, as part of the well programmed Jazz Score retrospective. MoMA’s concerts in the series have had a distinctly international flavor, with the French-Algerian Solal following that of Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko. Solal does not play in America that often, so hearing him live last night was a rare treat.

Bill Finegan, RIP

This week the Jim Flora online mafia (which I suppose I qualify for membership in) marked the passing of Bill Finegan, an arranger’s arranger and the co-leader of the under-appreciated Sauter-Finegan Orchestra (check out J.D. King and the Jim Flora blog for more information). During its five year run, the band recorded for the RCA labels, which is how Flora’s distinctive art came to grace their covers.

Finegan made a reputation selling arrangements to Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, two bandleaders who were dependent on quality arrangers to maintain their romantic and sentimental sounds. His future partner Eddie Sauter’s resume included work with Benny Goodman and Red Norvo. Together they created a distinctive big band sound, lauded for its aural colors and textures.

After disbanding, Sauter maintained the higher music profile. He is probably best remembered by jazz fans for his work on two classic Stan Getz albums, Focus and the Mickey One soundtrack. Finegan did contribute charts to Holiday with Mulligan, the only recorded collaboration between Gerry Mulligan and vocalist Judy Holiday, before her premature death from cancer. Released almost twenty years after her death, it is an overlooked minor classic, unfairly dismissed by the cynical, because Mulligan and Holiday were involved at the time (no Flora cover though). Bill Finegan 1917-2008.

Snowy, Sleep-Walking Winnipeg

It is not inappropriate that the production designer and cinematographer get their due before the actors in the opening credits of director Guy Maddin’s new so-called documentary. Maddin’s films have always reflected his distinctive style, but that keen visual sense is particularly effective in his bizarre love letter to his Manitoba hometown, My Winnipeg (trailer here).

Mixing fact and mostly fiction, with his own family history (the truth of which is anyone’s guess), Maddin creates a hypnotic vision of Winnipeg that is utterly convincing during the film, despite its highly stylized flights of fancy. When watching Winnipeg, you will believe that the city’s abnormally high rate of sleepwalking led to a municipal law requiring citizens to watch over somnambulists until they wake, should they let themselves into their former residences during their nocturnal ramblings.

In order to leave Winnipeg, Guy Maddin, played by Darcy Fehr, decides to cathartically recreate scenes from his childhood in the old family home. Playing Maddin’s supposedly real-life mother is cult-actress Ann Savage, best remembered for the cult-film Detour, in a performance that can only heighten her cult-following. However, the real star of Winnipeg is the deceptively prosaic Midwestern Canadian city itself.

North of Minnesota, but safely south of the Arctic, Winnipeg is portrayed as a mysterious city of perennial winter, taking on mystical power from its location near the geographic heart of the continent and the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Maddin often uses the image of the forked rivers to compare Winnipeg to part of the female body (if you’re not getting the picture, I can’t help you). Winnipeg is full of such weird sexual images and representations, but it is not prurient, just idiosyncratic.

What is really seductive about Winnipeg is the secret history Maddin concocts, presumably, but which always seems oddly plausible somehow. We see a séance performed through interpretive dance in the provincial capitol building. We visit a Winnipeg make-out spot, “the horseheads,” formed when spooked horses were freakishly frozen solid in the river, as they stampeded away from a racetrack fire. We watch an episode of Ledge Man, Winnipeg’s only locally produced television show, naturally starring Maddin’s mother, as a woman who talks her suicidal son off the ledge every weekday afternoon.

Ironically, it is only when Maddin shows us something of Winnipeg that is obviously real, in this case the beloved old hockey stadium that was demolished and the new corporate-sponsored facility that replaced it, that the film becomes unconvincing. It jars us out of our sleep-walk through the city’s hidden back alleys with commonplace complaints about the evils of modernism and corporate development. Unlike the rest of Winnipeg, this is something we have seen before, frequently.

Production designer Rejean Labrie and DP Jody Shapiro do indeed deserve credit for transforming Winnipeg into a surreal Neverland. Aside from maybe the last ten minutes or so, Winnipeg is a very funny, thoroughly entertaining film that totally pulls the viewer into its alternate reality, regardless of the constraints of logic and common sense. It opens today in New York at the IFC Film Center.

The Megumi Yokota Story

What does a so-called pariah nation have to do to be treated like a pariah? That is what the parents of Megumi Yokota would like to know. The North Korean regime admits it kidnapped their daughter and has never satisfactorily explained her fate, but has faced little or no consequences from the Japanese government as a result. The nearly forty year ordeal of the Yokotas is the subject of the heartbreaking documentary, Abduction: the Megumi Yokota Story (trailer here), airing on PBS’s Independent Lens on June 19th.

North Korea’s guilt in the Yokota case is not in dispute. Despite the initial denials of the state media, North Korea officially admits kidnapping thirteen Japanese citizens (the film estimates real number to be around 100), including the then thirteen year-old Yokota. However, what happened to her in North Korea remains shrouded in mystery, as the government’s official story constantly evolves.

According to “An,” a North Korean defector interviewed in the film, abductees were forced to teach spies in training the Japanese language and culture. He explains: “At that time, every North Korean spy who infiltrated Japan tried to kidnap someone.” Typically, they targeted victims in their early twenties. At thirteen, Yokota was actually a mistake, but her abductors never considered turning around to return her. As An describes the appalling treatment endured by the frightened girl during her transit to North Korea, it is both heartrending and infuriating.

As would be expected, her family also suffered greatly as a result of her abduction, with their marriage severely strained by guilt, uncertainty, and exhaustion. While her mother finds some solace in Christianity, her father appears to be a near shell of a man. It is impossible not to sympathize with them or to be moved by their daughter’s plight. By all accounts in the film, Yokota was a bright, happy young girl with a particular talent for music, heard taking a solo in Schumann’s “Gypsy Life” during a school production.

In response to revelations of the North Korean abductions, the Japanese government responded with some strongly worded statements and large shipments of food aid to the DPRK. That surely taught them a lesson. It is clear most Japanese politicians would like the abduction issue to simply disappear. When pressed by demonstrators, one arrogant LDP politician actually says: “Get elected and then come talk to me.” Exasperated with Japanese inaction after yet another incident of North Korean bad faith, her father complains at one point: “If this happened in America, they’d go to war.” (Though one fears our leaders would be just as inclined to policies of appeasement.)

Through news footage and interview segments directors Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim have assembled a documentary that is part spy mystery and part family tragedy. At crucial points in the narrative, they create real suspense through their careful presentation and editing. Executive-produced by Jane Campion of The Piano fame, Abduction had a long theatrical run in Japan, and now after making the festival circuit, will air on most PBS markets next Thursday (in New York look for it at 12:30 am on Saturday the 21st). It is an important film, revealing the very real human suffering deliberately caused by a thoroughly evil government.

Czech Beauty in Trouble

If you tour Prague with a local, they will periodically point out the waterlines from the 2002 flood, their first legitimate crisis post-Communism. The flood devastated many Czech families, including the highly dysfunctional married couple of Jan Hřebejk’s Beauty in Trouble (trailer here), opening in New York this Friday.

Even without the flood, Marcela and Jarda would probably be creating drama to strain their relationship, but it has added financial stresses. All that holds them together is their sexual codependence. When Jarda’s chop shop is busted, it presumably spells the end of their marriage. In probably the oddest “meet-cute” in film, Marcela attracts the attentions of Evžen Beneš, the wealthy older owner of the fateful car sending Jarda up the river, while both cool their heels in the police station.

Marcela also faces family issues, forced to move in with her mother and new step father, who can only be described as icky. His scatological and sexual preoccupations might not be outright dangerous, but are certainly creepy. Yet her mother remains willfully blind. Eventually, the disgusted daughter accepts the free use of an apartment in the Beneš family home, while he tends to business in his Tuscan villa.

The Beneš family, evidently taking a cue from the Hungarian Revolution, expatriated to Italy after 1956, where they obviously made good. Now he represents security for Marcela, but cannot match the sexual lure of her deadbeat husband. Inspired by the Robert Graves poem of the same name, Beauty is about Marcela’s uncertain choice between the financial and emotional stability of Beneš and the lustful chaos of Jarda.

The generous Beneš, played by Josef Abrhám looking like a distinguished Michael McDonald, often finds his trust betrayed by those around him, as Marcela is unable to resist Jarda’s charms, while another tenant attempts to swindle him out of his family house using a technicality in post-Communist reclamation laws. Not knowing how common the Beneš surname is in the Czech Republic, I cannot say if he is intended to recall Edvard Beneš, the democratic president emasculated by the Communist coup of 1948. It is safe to say Beneš the expat has been identified as a potential mark, too gentle and gentile to offer resistance to those looking to take.

Beauty is a very sexually frank film, but like Eyes Wide Shut, its sex scenes are only erotic out of context. Within the film their implications are excruciatingly uncomfortable, often leading to nervous laughter at the screening I attended. This is not Sex in the City, more like Last Tango, without the explicit excesses.

The noble Beneš is an easy character to like, even when pushed to his breaking point. The rest of the cast of characters, including Marcela, the Beauty herself, can be quite trying. As a result, Beneš’ continuing attraction is often difficult to understand. When the film does connect emotionally, it is usually with the help of Hřebejk’s shrewd use of music, particularly the songs of Glen Hansard, including the Oscar winning “Falling Slowly” from Once. However, Beauty is a surprisingly intellectual examination of passion, cold rather than hot-blooded. It opens at the Angelika on Friday.

Cultural Survival

Cultural Survival
By David Sánchez
Concord Picante

In a sense, jazz artists are in constant dialogue with their musical ancestors. In the case of David Sánchez’s new CD, Cultural Survival, inspiration from familial and historical sources dovetailed serendipitously, particularly on the cornerstone track: “La Leyenda del Cañaveral.” The resulting album is a searching session of hard to classify music, combining many influences into its musical melting pot.

Though Sánchez employs Latin rhythm and percussion throughout Survival, the overall session often has more of a hard-bop vibe, prominently featuring Sánchez’s heavy Coltrane-influenced tenor. Aside from two guest appearances by Danilo Perez and one from Robert Rodriguez, Lage Lund’s guitar provides Sánchez’s chordal foil in his pianoless group. This gives the musical a funky undercurrent, further contributing to the slipperiness of its genre classification.

Survival opens with “Coast to Coast,” benefiting from the presence of Lund’s guitar in the easy grooving introduction, before Sánchez delivers a surprisingly explorative solo. Perez joins the combo for “Manto Azul,” but blends with Lund quite effectively. The one standard of the session is Thelonious Monk’s “Monk’s Mood,” interpreted with respectful tenderness by Sánchez. Survival is richly textured throughout, but the concluding originals carry the greatest gravitas.

“The Forgotten Ones” is a mournful dedication to New Orleanians, featuring a ghostly melody and a passionate solo. Despite being the briefest track, it says a great deal. (It seems like the inclusion of a New Orleans dedication is becoming increasingly common on jazz releases, like Metheny’s recent Day Trip, but if the music is inspired as well as simply well-intentioned, as on Survival, than so much the better.)

The concluding “La Leyenda del Cañaveral” is an extended composition about the African diasporic experience in the Caribbean, sparked by his sister Margarita’s poem “Molasses.” It was performed live with poetic recitations at Zankel Hall, but on this recorded version, the vocal elements consist exclusively of opening and closing chants. It is a dramatic tour-de-force, evolving from one exciting sound to another. An early vamp motif emerges from the chanted prologue, segueing into thoughtful solos from Lund and Sánchez, moving through passages of turbulence and reflection, then reconciling back into the vamp, given a funkier hue from Rodgriuez’s shift to the Rhodes.

Sánchez dedicated Survival to the recently departed Mario Rivera and Cachao, again making an explicit connection between the work of the present and the legacy of those who came before. It is a worthy musical statement that rewards repeated listening.

BIFF: August

Indy filmmakers seem to share Hollywood’s contempt for the supposedly evil businessman, but if there is one exception to the stereotype, it is the tech guru. Internet start-up wizards who created business plans with no appreciable stream of revenue are not typically portrayed like the crass capitalist. A fresh example would be Josh Harnett’s Tom Sterling, a one-time Wired magazine cover-boy with an ugly neck tattoo, whose spectacular fall is told in the upcoming film August (trailer here), which screened at the Brooklyn International Film Fest.

Sterling capitalized on his younger brother’s innovations to create Landshark, the last of the tech start-ups to get Wall Street’s blessing. What they do is kept purposefully vague. Harnett tells a potential client: “We’re not the e-commerce, we’re the e.” So how is that “e” working out? Not well. After a blockbuster IPO, Landshark has come crashing down to Earth and desperately needs an infusion of capital to stay afloat.

Harnett’s Sterling is portrayed as a snake oil salesman without any oil. His brother’s breakthroughs are the real deal, but their revenue projections are not. There simply is no market for whatever Landshark has to offer—at least not yet. All Sterling really has to sell are image and rhetoric, running the company in his words: “on fumes.” When Sterling finally gets his comeuppance at the hands of old school moneymen, personified by David Bowie, it is stone cold business.

Sterling might be self-important, but he is also self-destructive, as witnessed by his sabotage of a second chance with Sarrah, an ex-girlfriend, played by Naomie Harris, who brings a distinct charm to a thankless role. He also has issues with his parents, former sixties radicals who sold out to academia, but cannot understand his dreams of capitalist glory. (They do listen to John Coltrane and Benny Goodman, so they can’t be all bad).

August moves at a lightning quick pace as the Landsharkers scramble against time to save the company, but it is hard to fully sympathize with Sterling along the way, due to the limitations of its lead. For his part, Hartnett is totally convincing as an arrogant jerk, but less so expressing more complex emotions, so director Austin Chick wisely plays to his strength.

When Landshark crashes, it is pretty dramatic, but August seems to keep it all in perspective. The title refers to the specific time in which it is set, August 2001, a month before September 11th. The implication seems to be that in a September 10th world, the doings of Sterling’s start-up could considered quite important, but in a post-September 11th world, much less so. In effect, August depicts an innocent time that thought it was cynical, as evidenced by clips of the moron media’s celebrity coverage and manufactured controversies.

August is pretty smart in its portrayal of the death rattle of the internet boom. Much of it will ring true to those who first heard constantly about stock options from friends at dotcoms, and then suddenly nothing, when their company’s stock certificates became cheap souvenirs of the late 1990’s. It effectively recreates a specific time and place, as well as the attitude that went with it. It opens in New York at the Village East on July 11th.

BIFF: Shorts

Film festivals are just about the only venue left for short films, aside from the occasional theatrical round-up of the year’s Oscar nominated shorts. Last week, BIFF held up its end with an extensive selection of shorts, which varied widely in every discernable measure. Three were particularly memorable, again for very different reasons.

The best single film of the festival had a mere thirteen minute running time, but each minute counted. In German director Jochen Alexander Freydank’s Toyland (Spielzeugland), an Aryan mother cannot bring herself to explain to her young son that his Jewish best friend will be imminently transported to a concentration camp. Instead, she tells him that friend is going to Toyland. Naturally, her son wants to go too, as the mother’s white lie leads to complications she had not foreseen. It is difficult to reveal much of the story given its brevity, but it well earns the emotional payoff of its elegant conclusion.

Toyland handles the subject of the Holocaust with respect and dignity. Unfortunately, The River of Copsa Mica, simply uses WWII and the Holocaust as window dressing for an allegory about environmental pollution and the military-industrial complex. Making a statement on current controversies is perfectly legitimate, but using such a significant event as a rhetorical device borders on the offensive.

Thabo Wolfaardt’s surprisingly intense Joburg (trailer here), though certainly self-contained, would be the one short film of the festival that most cries out to be expanded into a full feature. Filmed entirely in Johannesburg, it effectively captures the danger and squalor of the city. Tshepo, a newspaper hawker desperate to pay for his brother’s medicine and overdue rent, carjacks a pregnant woman having a very bad night. The relationship between these two characters is deftly handled, leading viewers to speculate about further dealings between them.

The best short films require the discipline of the short story and the imagery of poetry. Making a really good one is hard, but Toyland and Joburg are excellent examples.

BIFF: Panman

The drum has always held great spiritual significance beyond its ostensible role making music, particularly in the Caribbean. It inspired Duke Ellington to write A Drum is a Woman, the story of Carribee Joe and his personified drum Madam Zajj, for an installment of CBS’ the United States Steel Hour. It was a program that probably would have appealed to the lead character of Panman, Rhythm of the Palms (trailer here), which screened at BIFF this weekend.

The drum in question for Panman is the steel pan drum, which originated in Trinidad, but spread throughout the Caribbean, including the Dutch Antilles. It is the instrument that has given meaning to Harry Daniel’s life, but as the film opens, his traditional style of music has fallen out of favor. He labors through a demeaning resort gig, before his deteriorating body collapses, which cues a flashback of his musical rise and fall, told through the narration of his estranged student Jacko.

Though fictional, Daniel’s career follows a path recognizable to those who have seen a lot of musical biographies. As a young man, his musical talent initially makes him a star, but his business concerns are damaged by his troubled brother’s incompetence. Along the way, he meets the right woman, but his obsessive dedication to his music leads him to neglect his family.

Oddly, there is not a lot of steel pan in Panman. It seems more interested in using the instrument as a symbol—representing both the traditional music losing popularity to modern electronic forms, and African culture, as opposed to the Dutch, which many on St. Maarten persist in identifying with. Fortunately, Panman is relatively restrained when addressing issues of cultural identity. (It is considered the first film to be produced by St. Maarten, though directed by the Dutch Sander Burger.)

As a result, the individual drama has to carry the load in Panman, and to that end, screenwriter Ian Valz is quite credible as Daniel, giving the audience both rage and nuance. Frankly, the entire cast holds up well, considering there are not a lot of musical interludes to leaven the script’s trials and tragedies.

Although Valz’s Daniel avoided the cliché of self-destructive substance abuse, there is much in Daniel’s story arc which seems predictable. In a sense though, the lack of faith shown in pan music by the filmmakers undercuts their lionization of Daniel. However, things never get irreparably bogged down in melodrama, and Panman does convey a good sense of life on St. Maarten. Highly watchable, it still might disappoint hardcore steel drum enthusiasts.

Mongol from Kazakhstan

The Academy rules for what constitutes a foreign language film are sometimes controversial, but a film from Kazakhstan, by a Russian director, about Mongolia’s national hero, evidently qualified. That film, Mongol, the surprise best foreign language nominee, opens today in New York (trailer here).

If screening Mongol without the opening credits, one could easily be convinced it was a new subtitled blood-and-guts historical from Mel Gibson. Despite its exotic lineage, it has the elements of a traditional epic. The young Temudgin loses his father, but swears vengeance against his killer. He develops a Kane and Abel relationship with his childhood blood brother and future rival. Though often separated from his wife by the machinations of his enemies, he always finds her again, often pregnant with another dead husband lying at her feet. Characters from his past continually re-emerge to foretell his eventually greatness. Of course, they are not wrong, as Temudgin would eventually be known as Chinggis (or Genghis) Khan. Director Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol chronicles his early life, filling in some historical gaps with its own fictional speculation.

During the Soviet occupation, the Communists vilified the Mongolian hero, fearing his power as unifying symbol. (In 1962, they briefly flip-flopped on their anti-Khan propanganda, trying co-opt his national prestige.) Oddly, many in the west adopted Soviet characterizations of Chinggis Khan as a blood-thirsty savage, but his rule has been credited by scholars as the first anywhere to establish religious tolerance, women’s rights, the abolition torture, and lower tax rates for doctors, clergy, and teachers. To the pride of Mongolians, Khan was dubbed the “Man of the Millennium” by the Washington Post.

Some of the best scenes of Mongol show the seeds of Khan’s grand vision for a modern Mongolia in early germination. However, the film is really about sweeping historical drama, with many of scenes of armies clashing on the wind-swept steppe. There is plenty of hack-and-slash in Mongol, but action fans might feel cheated when the film’s mysticism trumps battle carnage.

Most of the Mongols in Mongol are played by Mongolians, but Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano plays Temudgin and Chinese actor Honglei Sun plays his one-time friend, Jamukha, with villainous relish. Probably the best performance comes from first-time Mongolian actor Khulan Chuluun as Temudgin’s resilient first wife and true love Borte. In many respects, Mongol is an old fashion epic love story, but it is a film Hollywood could not make these days because they do not have any young actors manly enough to play Temudgin.

Bodrov’s previous work includes co-scripting East/West, a critical examination of the Stalinist era. In a way, making Mongol can be seen as a further rejection of the Communist propaganda Bodrov grew up under. Granted, the constant parade of sufferings to be born gets exhausting, but the Twelfth Century was pretty much one darned thing after another. While sometimes the mysticism is laid on a little heavy, Bodrov keeps the action moving along at a good clip, showing a particular talent for grit and gore. It opens today in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

BIFF: Blue Hour

The Los Angeles River is probably best cinematically remembered in James Cameron’s Terminator 2. It plays a role of even greater significance in Eric Nazarian’s independent film, The Blue Hour (trailer here), a completely different undertaking altogether, which screened at the BKLN fest.

Nazarian’s film is a painfully personal examination of individual tragedy and alienation as seen through the eyes of several characters whose paths cross but lives do not intersect, in the Pulp Fiction style of overlapping narratives. Blue Hour in contrast, unfolds in a deliberate pace, making John Sayles look like the Wachowski Brothers.

Emily Rios plays Happy, an essentially unsupervised young teen, who uses the river embankment as her canvas. Avo and Allegra, played by Dutch actor Yorick Van Wageningen and Alyssa Milano, still mourn the death of their young daughter, as their relationship frays. Derrick O’Connor plays Humphrey, an old man going through the motions of life, still mourning his wife’s death. In an inspired act of casting, Clarence Williams III plays Ridley, a blues guitarist, staying in a low rent hotel while he tends to his dying mother wasting away in a hospital. These lonely, disparate lives are tied together by a few locations: the river, the cemetery, and a blues-rock bar, and a doomed homeless man.

This is not a talky picture. Nazarian’s isolated characters go for long stretches without speaking, but music does play an important role in the film. Happy takes inspiration from hip hop, and the blues supplies Ridley’s living, such as it is. Various characters drift into a lounge where Eric Burdon of the Animals leads the house blues-rock band. Their take on “Motherless Child” perfectly suits the film’s melancholy.

Burdon actually had personal significance to Nazarian, who was in fact named after the British invasion star. In the production notes he explains: “Burdon’s music was an escape for my father’s ‘Soviet hippy’ generation in the USSR. ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’ and ‘They Can’t Take Away Our Music’ were their anthems and battle cries against the oppressive years during Brezhnev’s era.”

Nazarian is a patient director, with a painter’s eye for composition. His cast is uniformly good, especially the great Williams. His character do experience redemptive moments, but they are subtle and fleeting (as in some Russian literature). Elegantly crafted, Blue Hour is a demanding film, which wins the respect of those who stay with it. Like the makers of The Collective, also screened at BIFF, he conveys a strong sense of his subject city, but unlike the dangerous (and by extension seductive) New York of the former film, it is a city of sadness that Nazarian portrays on- screen.

BIFF: Pang Nat Det (Punk Not Dead)

Given the political corruption of Indonesia’s political system and its traditional Islamic society, it is understandable how its younger generations, feeling repressed, would be so receptive to punk rock. Punk might be little more than a nostalgia trip in the West, but evidently Indonesia’s scene is thriving, which is why the long-in-the-tooth German punk band Cluster Bomb Unit periodically tours there. It is one such tour that Andreas Geiger follows in his documentary, Pang Nat Det (Punk Not Dead a.k.a. Punk im Dschungel), screening as part of the Brooklyn International Film Festival (trailer here).

Cluster Bomb Unit never really became huge, so do not be alarmed if you weren’t previously hip to them. Still, despite living quiet suburban and rural lives, they periodically get together for shows and tours. Before leaving Germany, they play a gig for a few hundred uninspired listeners. During the tour they play for thousands of Indonesians moshing and rioting in front of them, which explains why they come. It is not for the money. During the tour, they crash at local punk collectives and receive no upfront guarantees, but they get rockstar treatment, of a sort, from their loyal fans and friends.

We hear a whole lot of Cluster Bomb Unit in performance. If you are a German punk enthusiast, this is the film for you, but if you are not already a fan, their music might not win you over. In German, punk sounds even more severe, and translated for subtitles, their lyrics read like self-parody. However, the band members seem very down-to-earth and good-natured when interacting with Indonesian punks when off-stage. They also appear genuinely interested in all aspects of their host country’s culture, like guitarist Werner Nötzel, who buys some campy, but intriguing looking Indonesian pop on vinyl.

The initial set-up for Pang shows a lot of potential. Indeed, the visual images of big, grizzled German punks making their way through sleepy Indonesian villages are undeniably intriguing. Unfortunately, the film never really gets beyond the basic travelogue. Rather late in the film, Geiger does try to establish the local punks’ credentials as political activists, particularly as advocates of an anti-consumerist D-I-Y campaign. (Ironically though, the punks seem quite enterprising, coordinating ambitious tours for clueless European bands.)

Geiger also seems to want to position punks within the Indonesian mainstream, recording one punk’s Imam pronouncement that: “punks are good people.” It is great that he is so accepting, but one wonders what kind of responses Geiger would have received had he polled twenty or thirty more Imams.

It is definitely fascinating to see this Indonesian sub-culture based on western music survive and even thrive. It is also encouraging to see Cluster Bomb Unit can still bring it loud and rude, but once you have those points, you largely got the entire film. It screens again as part of BIFF on Saturday at the Brooklyn Lyceum.

Jazz Score: Jazz in Genre

Jazz is not usually thought of in conjunction with genre films, but it does turn up in the odd (or very odd) sci-fi or horror picture. British tenor star Tubby Hayes appeared as himself and played on the soundtrack for one story in the Amicus horror anthology film Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, which also featured the sophisticated gruesome twosome of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (in separate story arcs). Moon Zero Two, a rare Hammer Films foray into sci-fi, has not aged well, but at least boasts a pretty cool Don Ellis score. Add to their ranks some of ultra low budget auteur Roger Corman’s films, including Bucket of Blood (trailer here), screening at MoMA as part of the Jazz Score retrospective.

Bucket is probably most notorious for the film it spawned: Little Shop of Horrors. As the near-legendary story goes, after wrapping Bucket, Corman realized his sets were paid up through the next two days, so why not crank out another picture in that time? Both films also feature a score by the same composer, jazz cellist Fred Katz.

The onetime musical director of the Chico Hamilton Quintet, with whom he is seen in Sweet Smell of Success, the cerebral Katz might seem an unlikely associate for the camp king Corman, but he scored several of his pictures. Katz’s score often swings in a crime jazz mood, while at other times it reflects the goofy whimsy of Charles B Griffith’s beanik spoof. Katz’s fellow Hamilton alumnus Paul Horn (before his defection to New Age music) also appears in the opening scene, accompanying an over-top pretentious poetry recital, in the spirit of the jazz-and-poetry performances of the era.

Cult actor Dick Miller plays busboy Walter Paisley (a sad sack character he would revive for future Corman productions), slaving away for unappreciative beatniks in a hipster coffee house. By accident, he kills his landlord’s cat, which he conceals by disguising the body as a statue. When his “Dead Cat” is received as a work of genius, he logically starts escalating with humans.

Many Corman enthusiasts prefer Bucket to its more famous offspring. The story might be ridiculous, but it has its clever moments. In particular, Julian Barton is spot-on as the pontificating poet Maxwell Brock, looking like an unkempt Theodore Bikel, while Katz and Horn, perhaps the greatest talent attached to the film, lend it a touch of class. Clearly a product of its time and budget, Bucket still has an undeniable charm. It screens at MoMA this Thursday.

Wendo Kolosoy On the Rumba River

We generally envision riverfront views being quite picturesque and desirable, but the Congo River presents an ugly sight, blighted by half-sunken vessels, emblematic of the waste and corruption of the Congolese government. At least that is how Antoine “Wendo” Kolosoy sees the river that launched his musical career, and his perception is backed up the visuals of director Jacques Sarasin in his documentary profile of the Congolese Rumba musician, On the Rumba River, which opens in New York this Friday.

In 1948 Kolosoy, a vocalist and sometimes guitarist, scored a monster hit with “Marie-Louise,” a song reputed to have supernatural powers. Yet despite general acknowledgement as the godfather of Congolese Rumba, Kolosoy’s musical career went through extended periods of obscurity, and still has not really received the international recognition afforded to musicians from the succeeding generation, like Tabu Ley Rochereau. Years after his initial “Marie-Louise” success, Kolosoy had to labor on the Congo River as a sailor and mechanic, until his fairly recent musical renaissance.

Rumba wisely starts with “Marie-Louise,” one of a dozen or so of the best looking musical performances put on film, perhaps since Fernando Trueba’s Calle 54. Often shot in extreme close-up, Sarasin and cinematographer Remon Fromont convey the passion of the music from the point-of-view of a bead of perspiration on a musician’s furrowed brow. These scenes look gorgeous and sound terrific.

When Kolosoy and his band play, Rumba is a joy. There are also the requisite interviews that provide some context, but probably will not particularly stand out for those who see a lot of music documentaries. The strongest non-musical scene comes late in the film, as Kolosoy visits some of the rusting wrecks strewn throughout the river, criticizing the government and society that allows such waste, leading into “Kinshasa,” an a cappella song of protest. It is a moment that effectively underscores Sarasin’s depiction of the river as a metaphor for the country’s neglect for its musicians (especially Kolosoy himself) as well.

Kolosoy’s Rumba shares the same Afro-Cuban heritage that also fertilized Latin Jazz, usually employing combos consisting of guitars, percussion, and small horn sections, making it easily accessible to jazz ears. They also share an improvisational spirit. In fact, one track on the soundtrack is simply titled “Improvisation,” featuring Antoine Moundanda’s infectious thumb piano, accentuated by short brass punctuations. Indeed, Kolosoy’s working band acquit themselves well throughout the film, particularly trumpeter Alphonse “Biolo” Batilangandi and saxman Joseph “ Maproko” Munange.

Rumba has a strong sense of place capturing the often squalid environment of D.R. Congo (formerly Zaire, formerly The Congo). However, the best story it has to tell comes through the music, lovingly shot and recorded, setting it above other music docs. It opens Friday in New York at the Village East.

Opening Tomorrow: Operation Filmmaker

Watching MTV can be a bad influence. Just ask actor Liev Schreiber, who got more than he bargained for when he flew Muthana Mohmed, a young Iraqi film student, to Prague to intern on his film Everything is Illuminated after seeing him on an MTV program. The rocky relationship between Mohmed and the Hollywood crew and his subsequent efforts to avoid returning to Baghdad are chronicled in Nina Davenport’s documentary, Operation Filmmaker , opening in New York tomorrow.

From the first day of production, it becomes clear that Mohmed and his Tinsel Town patrons just are not coming from the same place. When a condescending assistant to producer Peter Saraf explains her boss’s vegan diet: “no milk because cows make milk, no cheese, no eggs, because, you know, chicken,” the young Iraqi can barely hold in his “wtf.” Even greater are their differences of opinion on Operation Iraqi Freedom. Saraf is stunned to hear Mohmed say: “I love George Bush, he changed my life.” Mohmed asks the producer if he is disappointed to which he responds, "no," in one of the least convincing screen performances in film history.

There seem to be a number of reasons Mohmed has difficulty fulfilling his duties on the set, including cultural stereotypes about what constitutes men’s work. At an immature twenty-five, he has never really worked or taken care of himself, so he often acts like an incoming college freshman, blowing off work for parties. He is also understandably distracted by the barrage of reports from his home generated by a hostile media intent on producing defeat in Iraq.

To be fair though, Schreiber and Saraf probably should have been more specific about the less than glamorous nature of interning Hollywood-style. Saraf’s description of a good assistant is frankly cringe-inducing: “learn what kind of coffee the director likes and have it waiting for him and bringing it to him in the middle of meetings really discretely.” Reluctant to return home, Mohmed is able to stay in Prague to work on Doom, starring The Rock. Mohmed seems to become more of Saraf’s kind of assistant, forging better relations with the cast and crew of the meathead movie than he had on Schreiber’s prestige picture.

Most of the celebrities in Filmmaker, including Schreiber and Elijah Wood, appear to be shallow, self-centered, and dumb. Ironically, the Rock’s publicist will probably be happiest with the finished film. Getting sucked in to Mohmed’s drama, director Davenport becomes a reluctant character in her own film, as the expat starts to lean on her for financial and legal assistance. Clearly, he becomes extremely manipulative in the course of the film (at least as shot and cut by Davenport), but her “exit strategy” metaphor becomes tiresome.

However, Filmmaker is fascinating look at the dark side of documentary filmmaking. Like Saraf, it is pretty obvious Davenport is not a supporter of Operation Iraqi Freedom, frequently relying on CBS News for their “Iraq as quagmire” coverage, with good news, like the historic election, given short shrift. She does get credit though for including some scenes that do not conform to her world view and for not protecting the image of liberal Hollywood.

Ultimately, there are aspects of the film partisans on either side of the political spectrum will find uncomfortable. Given the ambiguity of Mohmed’s character and the circumstances of the film, it is unlikely Filmmaker will change anyone’s perception of events in Iraq. Often darkly comic, Filmmaker is really more of a cautionary tale for aspiring documentary filmmakers. This is not the film Davenport set out to make, but it is what she ended up with and it is engaging to watch. It opens in New York at the IFC Film Center tomorrow and on the Island at Cinema Arts Centre on the 10th. (Photos courtesy of First Run/Icarus Films)

BIFF: The Collective

A thriller that starts with a quotation from Reinhold Neibuhr deserves some kind of style points. In this case, it is a particularly apt quote: “Evil is not to be traced back to the individual but to the collective behavior of humanity,” foreshadowing the sinister nature of the cult at the center of Judson Pearce Morgan and Kelly Overton’s The Collective, and supplying its title. Screening at the Brooklyn International Film Festival, The Collective (trailer here) is a surprisingly effective thriller that really captures the feel of life in New York City.

Tyler Clarke has rushed to New York City to help her sister Jessica after receiving a disturbing late night phone call. A stranger to the City, Clarke finds her sister has quit her job and moved out of her apartment. Her only initial lead is the number of the cell phone her sister called from, which automatically goes to voice mail in a foreign language. Eventually, she meets some of Jessica’s creepy new friends, who tell her Jessica is fine, but cannot see her right now, so please go home. For obvious reasons, she is not buying it.

Soon she discovers Jessica has fallen in with the Collective, a bizarre hipster cult based in a deconsecrated cathedral, inspired according to the filmmakers, by the notorious Limelight club. Informed by such City lore, Collective is a real New York film, with locations ranging from the immediately recognizable Times Square, to Chelsea, Gramercy Park, and Brooklyn. (Of course, it must have been happenstance that while shooting a film about an evil cult, the directors briefly caught some footage of the Scientology building.) While viewers will probably see at least one of the big plot twists coming down Park Avenue South, the film’s great strength is capturing the sense of alienation felt when alone in New York—the menace beneath the bright lights.

Co-writer-co-producer-co-director Overton is also on-screen for at least ninety percent of the film as the responsible Clarke sister, and she carries the film well. Her Tyler is likable and believable, aside from occasionally not asking a few obvious questions. The supporting cast is also strong, particularly Laura Allen, as the Collective’s ruthless Clare. Consisting of working New York actors largely known for television and theater work, the cast has been all over the Law & Order franchise. Overton also appeared in the Kathleen Turner production of The Graduate and Donnie Keshawarz, who was also appearing in Disney’s Tarzan during filming, plays the evil cult master Rost.

While very New York savvy, The Collective says much about the importance of family during times of crisis, as well. The film is also notable for casting its villains as cafeteria New Agers, rather than fundamentalist Christians, making this a film that both evangelicals and downtown denizens could probably enjoy. The HD cinematography actually looks great and it is briskly paced, but what really makes the film is its sense of the City. So far, it has been the surprise of the festival. It screens again at the Brooklyn Lyceum on Thursday. The co-producers also announced at the festival that they had reached a distribution deal, so those outside of New York may eventually have a chance to see it too.

BIFF: Apollo 54

No publishing house will ever crank out a book about the science of Apollo 54. That is because anyone with a third grade education could tell there isn’t any. Embracing its low budget with crude but inventive effects, director Giordano Giulivi’s Italian sci-fi spoof Apollo 54 (trailer here) is not exactly going for realism. Screening this week at the Brooklyn International Film Festival, A54 is an odd little film in search of a weird cult following.

As A54 opens, the Earth’s television and computer screens have been taken over by a mysterious signal broadcasting cryptic symbols (except for the television set showing the news broadcast which provides this exposition). Walking through the countryside, slovenly scientist Bobby Joe discovers a giant interstellar cable, which might be the source of the disruptive signal. Instead of telling somebody, he fashions an interstellar sky-gondola to follow the cable, evidently adapted from his house. Together with his sidekick Jim Bob, they set off to find the source.

Frankly, it is unnecessary to go any further into the storyline, and don’t even waste your time poking holes in the plot. Yes, the whole orbit and rotation of the Earth would make it impossible for it to be attached to other planets by a taut line of cable. Just like opening a spaceship’s hatch while in hyperspace would probably not be a wise idea. A54 is for those who want to revel in its grade Z goofiness, without the constraints of killjoy logic.

At times A54 is very funny, with a bizarre eye for detail—the table lamp on the spaceship dashboard is a particularly homey touch. However, it gets a little repetitive in the second half, and the final revelations borrow heavily from the Matrix trilogy. Yet for a certain geek audience, this film can’t miss. You already know if you are one of those people.

Adventurous but not demented audiences might enjoy A54 too, if in the proper mood. It screens again as part of BIFF on Saturday at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema.