66th & Broadway: Jennifer Sheehan on the Upper Westside

Happily, there are a number of artists keeping the Great American Songbook alive, but parts of those standards are falling into disuse. We still get to hear those hummable, catchy choruses, but many verses have all but disappeared from regular performance. Molly Lyons tried to reverse the trend with her 1964 debut LP, Verses Only that was exactly what it sounds like. It was quite pleasant, but not surprisingly, she is mostly remembered today as the wife of guitarist Joe Puma. Jennifer Sheehan does not go that far, but she includes many verses you might not be familiar with in her Songbook concert launching the premiere season of 66^th & Broadway this Friday night on New York’s Thirteen, recorded live overlooking Lincoln Center traffic on Manhattan’s fashionable Upper Westside.

Sheehan’s set opener “All the Things You Are” is a perfect example of how the initial verses can help a performer make a tune their own. This is a tune many of us know so well from Dave Brubeck and Dizzy Gillespie, but initially we can’t place “Time and again I’ve longed for adventure.” Sheehan takes it at a slower tempo, but it is a lovely interpretation.

Tracing the development of the American Songbook, Sheehan proceeds to rewind back to what many scholars consider the first canonical American popular song, the Sophie Tucker hit, “Some of These Days.” Again, the opening verses might throw some listeners, but Sheehan attacks the chorus with appealing sassiness.

In appropriate cabaret-style, Sheehan often incorporates her life story into the show, explaining each standard’s personal meaning to her. “How Long has This Been Going On?” made quite an impression on her when she heard Andrea Marcovicci perform it at an early age. Similarly, she first encountered Cole Porter when performed with a youth ensemble. After a somewhat perfunctory melody, she segues into the serious Porter business with an achingly slow and sensitive rendition of “In the Still of the Night.”

She sings “I’ll be Seeing You” as a showstopper in a similar vein, explaining its transformative effect when she performed it for the Alzheimer’s ward of a nursing home. Indeed, Sheehan shows a remarkable grasp of each tune’s dramatic possibilities. Although nearly half her set was penned about one hundred years ago, she widens her focus to include contemporary songwriter Susan Werner’s jazzy “I Can’t Be New,” which is a nice change-up in her program.

While Sheehan regularly plays rooms like the Metropolitan and Feinstein’s, she was classically trained at Julliard—and you can hear a bit of those opera chops come out in her closer “Our Love is Here to Stay.” She has a strong voice, a charismatic stage presence, and a solid grounding in the American Songbook, so she was a shrewd choice to kick-off 66^th & Broadway, the newest Tri-State PBS performance series. There’s always room for more Songbook programming. Ably and tastefully supported by pianist-musical director James Followell and bassist Jered Egan, Sheehan puts on a stylish show. Cabaret and American Songbook fans are sure to enjoy it when 66^th & Broadway premieres this Friday (2/20) on WNET Thirteen.

Digging Up the Marrow: Don’t Call It Found Footage

Thanks to the found footage sub-genre, the horror movie community hardly knows what to do when the real thing comes along. At least that it sort of the premise of the new meta-meta mock-and-shock doc from the team behind the Holliston television series. Director Adam Green, playing himself and riffing off his Holliston persona, starts to suspect monsters are real, so naturally he sets out to film them in Digging Up the Marrow (trailer here), which launches on VOD and opens in select theaters this Friday.

Green really does get a great deal of intricately constructed fan fiction sent to him, in some cases much like the incredibly detailed but presumably barking mad missive that starts his on-camera excursion down the rabbit hole. A retired Boston cop named William Decker claims a secret band of the freakishly deformed live in a subterranean world he calls the Marrow. The entrances are closely guarded, but he has discovered one, logically located in an out of the way cemetery. Thus begins a series of futile stakeouts, with his reluctant cinematographer Will Barratt (played by cinematographer Will Barratt) in tow.

Of course, just when Green decides Decker is a complete nut leading them on a wild goose chase, they finally see something that changes everything. However, they still have to convince their colleagues to take their footage seriously. Green’s real life editor Josh Ethier (who also played the killer lumberjack-alien in Joe Begos’ Almost Human) is particularly skeptical, but he is perfectly willing to cut Green’s stolen shots. “It’s not found footage, it’s . . . footage” he insists.

Frankly, this is one of the best postmodern self-referential genre films since Wes Craven turned his signature franchise on its head with New Nightmare. It is light-years better than the Vicious Brothers’ knowing but disappointingly flat Grave Encounters 2. While there are plenty of creepy moments, the film is more about exploring how the horror industry and sub-culture would respond when confronted with possible evidence that maybe some of this stuff might just be real.

In a pleasant turn of events, Ethier and Hatchet star Kane Hodder (best known for his stint as Jason in the old school Friday the 13^th films) are totally hilarious playing off each other and Green. They give the film a major energy boost during their scenes. Green himself is a good sport as the straight man for their quips and all of Decker’s macabre madness, whereas Ray Wise, the only cast member assuming a fictional personal, is reliably looney as the unreliable Decker.

Inspired by the Alex Pardee’s monster art, Marrow is a strong creature feature that might even be more interesting when it operates in the ostensibly real world. Sadly, the film also marks the last screen appearance of Green’s late series co-star Dave Brockie. Green also was disciplined enough as a director to keep the scenes of actress Rileah Vanderbilt playing his actress-wife Rileah, even though she would now have to play his ex-wife should there ever be a sequel.

Given all that seems to transpire, fans will not be expecting a third season of Holliston anytime soon after watching it, but they should enjoy appearances from leading genre filmmakers like Don Coscarelli, Mick Garris, and Tom Holland. Highly recommended as a clever, fully developed, ironically meta genre film, Digging Up the Marrow hits iTunes this Friday (2/20).

DF ’15: Haze and Fog

A community is not just an assemblage of condos. Frankly, the complex in question is more of a concentration of angst than a communal body. Notions of community and the lack thereof feature prominently in Cao Fei’s hybrid documentaries, with the emphasis placed squarely on the “hybrid.” Contemporary Chinese life gets a strange but true-in-spirit genre spin in Cao’s Haze and Fog (trailer here) and iMirror, which screen together during MoMA’s 2015 Documentary Fortnight.

Initially, Haze feels very much like a standard aesthetically severe observational documentary, except Cao seems to have an eccentric knack for focusing on dark, uncomfortable moments. We see a prostitute going about her 50 Shades business with clients in the building, security guards peeping on tenants, and a pregnant housewife engaging in self-destructive behavior. Perhaps Cao’s cast really is part of the building’s universe, but hopefully they are playing fictionalized roles.

Clearly, everyone is alienated to some extent, despite their close proximity. Gao uses their daily frustrations to critique an increasingly fractured Chinese society and the continuing conflict between empty consumerism and traditional values. Then Haze turns into a zombie film. For real. It is all part of the allegory, but the zombies do what zombies do.

This is a strange film—and a bold pick for Doc Fortnight. It clocks in just over an hour, but it is unlikely Cao could have sustained the weird, anesthetizing vibe and frequency of understated, untelegraphed WTF moments much longer. It is a masterful piece of filmmaking that keeps the audience off-balance from start to finish, but Cao also gets some notably sensitive performances from Wang Chenxu as the young single woman and Liu Lu as the expecting housewife.

iMirror also falls a good deal outside the traditional bounds of Fortnight selections, but it is more deliberately doc-ish. Cao, billed as “China Tracy,” her virtual handle, chronicles a relationship she had with the avatar of an older man from San Francisco, within the virtual reality world of Second Life (SL). It is not really a catfish story, because he was more-or-less who he claimed to be and it is understood that everyone constructs idealized versions of themselves. Yet, it got pretty real, even though it wasn’t.

The second part of iMirror focusing on China Tracy’s virtual something with the younger and then older looking Hug Yue is considerably stronger than parts one and three, which mostly just establish the issues and environment of SL. Naturally, the animation looks very computer generated, as it must, because that is SL. Nevertheless, the film raises a number of questions for offline viewers, especially given the apparent freedom Cao found there. Is this a place where connected Chinese citizens can go to escape government censorship and surveillance? If so, why the hammer-and-sickle decorative motifs? Is a utopian ideologue inherently attracted to the presumptive perfectiveness of SL’s virtual world?

Given their genre elements, Haze and iMirror fit together rather easily, but the former is the far more challenging and inventive film. If you are a MoMA member you should drop in and see it when it screens, because love it or hate it, you will not see anything like it anytime soon. Highly recommended, Haze and Fog screens with iMirror next Thursday (2/26) and Friday (2/27) as part of this year’s Documentary Fortnight at MoMA.

The Interview: Kim Jong-un is Still a Nasty Little Dictator

It has generated more irony than a hipster gathering at Cracker Barrel. Perhaps the biggest head-scratcher was the AWOL administration’s belated decision to respond to the Sony hack by cutting North Korea’s internet access, right when the studio was negotiating its availability on every digital VOD platform they could find. Perfect—for Lil’ Kim. Finally, you can take home a physical copy of Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen unlikely free speech cause célèbre, The Interview (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay.

If you haven’t heard about a jillion times already, James Franco (or Flacco as our super in-touch president knows him) plays a shallow celebrity chat show host who scores an interview with Kim Jong-un, but the CIA convinces him and his responsible producer to use the opportunity to assassinate the dynastic Communist dictator. Hilarity then ensues, but The Interview’s humor has taken it in the shins from cultural commentators who are uncomfortable defending the free expression of scatological jokes.

Yes, Rogen’s Aaron Rapaport, the loyal producer of the Dave Skylark show, sticks a metal tube up his butt. It is kind of an uncomfortable scene. However, the good news is The Interview is funnier than it has been cracked up to be, but it is easy to see why a lot of media people were not laughing. Most of the jokes come at their expense. Sure, Skylark is an over the top caricature of the most superficial red carpet stalker, but his differences with the coach sitters on the morning “news” shows and The View are only of degrees and not of kind. Dave Skylark more or less is the media, except he is not a bad person. We know that because he loves puppies.

Through Rapaport, The Interview establishes the general reality of North Korean prison camps and famines, but it stops short of a categorical indictment. It fully admits (and the Dennis Rodmanesque Skylark eventually accepts) the fact an appalling number of North Koreans have been sentenced to concentration camps, but it never delvees into the standard practice of condemning entire families, two generations in each direction, for dubious crimes against the state. Admittedly, that would be a real buzz kill for a comedy.

In a weird way, Skylark is the dark flipside of the media-obsessed sociopath Flacco plays in True Story. It is a fitting role for the compulsively publicized actor-student film director. Rogen largely assumes the straight man duties, but he shares decent buddy chemistry with Flacco. Randall Park probably earns a more villainous feature spot in the next Awesome Asian Bad Guys with his highly Freudian portrayal of Kim Jong-un. He certainly undermines the lofty stature of Kim, but the film never invites outright sympathy for his insecurities. However, the real breakthrough has to be Diana Bang, who exhibits nimble comic timing and solid action chops as Sook, the lads’ minder and unlikely ally.

The Interview’s reportedly draggy midsection really is a fair rap, but the last half hour just might be worth balloon-dropping over Pyongyang. The tone is pretty much what you expect, but it is not as dumb as you’ve been told. Arguably, it should have been even more explicit explaining the crimes of the Kim Marxist Monarchy. Honestly, it would have been a shame if they self-censored themselves, because what more could have possibly gone wrong?

Regardless, it is still worth seeing as a way of making a personal statement. Of course, watching documentaries like Red Chapel, Kimjongilia, Yodok Stories, and The Secret State of North Korea with it or in its place makes an even stronger statement. Reasonably amusing as a dumb comedy, The Interview still carries wider significance, so it is duly recommended as a way to annoy Kim the Third when it releases today (2/17) on DVD and BluRay.

FCS ’15: Electric Boogaloo—the Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

They were decades ahead of the curve, making profitable films about terrorism long before it became an overriding concern for Americans. Of course, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus happened to be Israeli, so they understood how dangerous the world could be. Unfortunately, they were not as canny judging the American marketplace with the releases that followed Invasion U.S.A. and The Delta Force. Mark Astley compiles a breezy oral history of their rise and fall in Electric Boogaloo: the Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (trailer here), which opens this year’s 2015 Film Comment Selects.

Yes, Hilla Medalia’s Cannon doc The Go-Go Boys just played the New York Jewish Film Festival, but there is always room for more Cannon. Reportedly, Go-Go is considered the B-movie moguls pre-emptive attempt to tell their side of the story. Hartley’s film even acknowledges the competition, comparing it to the dueling lambada films the former partners rushed to the marketplace after their contentious split. While Medalia spends more time on their early days in Israel, Hartley delves further into the early history of Cannon before Golan and Globus acquired it to serve as their Hollywood beachhead.

Plenty of the executives, writers, and directors associated with Cannon fondly remember the duo’s eccentricities, but there is not a lot of nostalgia coming from Frank Yablans, the former MGM studio head, who was contractually obligated to distribute their mid-1980s output. Hartley, who previously documented the Australian exploitation cinema of the 1970s and 1980s in Not Quite Hollywood and surveyed the low budget foreign and domestic action movies filmed in the Philippines with Machete Maidens Unleashed, not surprisingly shows an affinity for the nuttier movies in their filmography, like the notoriously spaced out futuristic rock opera The Apple and Tobe Hooper’s sci-fi grand guignol, Lifeforce.

Of course, it was their ill-conceived bids for Hollywood blockbuster respectability with the peacenik Superman IV and the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling epic Over the Top that would be their undoing. Frankly, it seems they never really understood their true comparative advantage: action cinema. Cannon really did take Chuck Norris to the next level and they substantially prolonged Charles Bronson’s career. They also discovered a Belgian waiter named Jean-Claude Van Damme. Unfortunately, they never really figured out what to do with their potential breakout star Michael Dudikoff, beyond the completely awesome American Ninja franchise and never recognized the untapped star-power of frequent supporting player Steve James (who frustratingly goes unmentioned again, after being overlooked by The Go-Go Boys).

Hartley marries up generous helpings of off-the-wall clips with some hilarious commentary (it is especially nice to see Catherine Mary Stewart remembering The Apple with self-deprecating humor). However, some of his talky head witnesses suggest some of the Hollywood resentment of Golan and Globus was a dark product anti-Israeli, anti-immigrant sentiments, which is a place Medalia’s film never treads. Boogaloo (taking its title from their ill-advised break-dancing sequel) also gives the almost-moguls credit for successfully backing a number legit art films, but it is less interested in this side of their business than Go-Go Boys.

Go watch The Delta Force (with Chuck Norris, Lee Marvin, and the late Steve James) and try to pretend it doesn’t hold up today. The best of Cannon really defined the 1980s. Even after two documentaries, the full importance of those action movies still has not been fully explored. For instance, James may well be the first African American cult actor whose fan-base at the height of his productivity was nearly entirely white (and probably right-of-center). That seems culturally significant, but nobody wants to pick up on it. Regardless, Electric Boogaloo delivers plenty of entertaining nostalgia and attitude. Recommended for genre fans, it kicks off the 2015 edition of Film Comment Selects this Friday (2/20), at the Walter Reade Theater.

Sundance ’15: The 414s (short)

They did in the CBS show Whiz Kids before it even started. Developed before WarGames was released, the young computer prodigies of the sixty minute drama only used their skills to aid law enforcement. Nevertheless, the media was predisposed to be critical following the feeding frenzy ignited by a group of teen hackers who cracked the systems of Los Alamos and the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Now all grown-up and reformed, the first generation hackers look back at their brief notoriety in Michael T. Vollman’s short documentary, The 414s: the Original Teenage Hackers, which screened at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Milwaukee’s real deal gangs took their names from the numbered streets that defined their territory, so the 414s adopted the local area code in a similar spirit. Frankly, nobody ever claimed they were malicious. They were just fooling around, trying blindly to gain access to any system that acknowledged their random calls. When their breach of the Los Alamos network was finally discovered, the FBI and the media basically freaked.

While some of the 414s who were old enough to be prosecuted had to shut up and do their best to look innocent, Neal Patrick was still under-age and more than willing to talk. In fact, he became a minor media sensation, before tiring of controversy and computers.

Even if you weren’t trying to cold call NORAD, there is a lot of nostalgia in The 414s. It will remind you there was a time a strange cat named Phil Donahue had a talk show that some people took half-seriously. The old hardware is also a blast from the past. Yet, it is also an uncomfortably timely film, arriving at Sundance in the wake of the Sony hack. You would think the Feds would have seriously stepped up there cybersecurity game since 1983, when it was literally nonexistent, but you have to wonder.

The 414s is the sort of short that seems to beg to be expanded into a feature. The participating 414s are all smart and compelling screen presences, who have interesting things to say. Clearly, their influence is still being felt, in ways that could easily be explored in greater detail. Regardless, the short that screened with the terrific Chuck Norris vs. Communism is quite informative and unexpectedly fun. It also got sold, which is something for a short film. It went to CNN Films for some kind of prospective digital platform, but it still counts. Highly recommended, The 414s should have some sort of digital life ahead of it, following its screenings at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

American Songbook at NJPAC: Maureen McGovern

Maureen McGovern was the Celine Dion of the early 1970s. She recorded the definitive version of the Academy Award winning song from The Poseidon Adventure, “The Morning After,” and performed the Oscar winning “We May Never Love Like this Again” on-camera in Irwin Allen’s The Towering Inferno. Mercifully, she spares us an interpretation of Titanic’s “My Heart Will Go On.” Instead, McGovern stretches the definition of American Songbook standard with a set of tunes penned by the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s. Fortunately, it mostly works throughout her very cabaret-ish set (based on her autobiographical stage show) for this week’s installment of American Songbook at NJPAC, premiering this Wednesday on NJTV.

McGovern opens with Paul Simon’s S&G hit “America,” but her treatment is a bit more up-tempo, as befitting its lead-off spot. It is rather nice, but her later rendition of “59^th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” is even better. That tune really is a standard. If you doubt it, check out Paul Desmond’s lovely instrumental version.

Jeff Harris, her musical director-accompanist, arranges many of the tunes in interesting ways, while playing to McGovern’s strengths. Dylan’s “The Times They are A-Changing” is a prime example, nearly giving it the vibe of a military anthem. McGovern adds a vaguely Celtic flavor that mixes terrifically with his insistent piano. Unfortunately, everyone was evidently too intimidated to try to punch up the dreary melody of “We Shall Overcome” leading off a Pete Seeger melody. At least they return to “Times A-Changing” bag for the rousing “If I Had a Hammer.”

Perhaps McGovern’s most personal performance of the night is her take on Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game.” It is a sensitive interpretation that should make listeners appreciate the poetry of the tune’s lyrics and the delicacy of its construction, even if they are not great fans of Mitchell (whose music McGovern credited with helping her through her divorce). (For a good jazz cover of a Mitchell tune, check out Dizzy Gillespie’s tight, stratospheric recording of “Both Sides Now.”)

McGovern also performs a Jimmy Webb medley, including “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” which had no connection to Robert Heinlein, beyond the Grandmaster giving his okay for the songwriter to use his Hugo winning title. It is pleasant grouping, but it might have benefited from more contrast between the individual songs.

Even though it is not exactly a singer-songwriter composition, McGovern concludes the evening with Al Kasha & Joel Hirschhorn’s “The Morning After,” as she probably did at every other concert since May 1973. It is a solid pop song that sounds better with the more intimate accompaniment. It maybe isn’t quite a standard, but it certainly was a hit. Clearly, it was a fitting closer to a set that nicely broadens the focus of the American Songbook at NJPAC series. Recommended for singer-songwriter fans, McGovern’s NJPAC concert premieres this Wednesday (2/18) on NJTV, with a later airdate scheduled for April 11^th on WNET 13.

(Photos: Daniel Cardenas/NJTV)

DF ’15: Father and Sons

It is yet another example of the appalling lack of free speech and press protections in contemporary Mainland China. Documentarian Wang Bing had intended to follow the lives of subsistence laborer Cai Shunhua and his two tweener sons Yongjin and Yonggao in his typically in-depth, observational fashion, but threats from the father’s landlord-factory owner forced the filmmaker to halt the project after a few days of shooting. It is therefore hard to really judge the resulting film, but at least Wang gives the world a good hard look at the mean living conditions the exploitative boss presumably wanted to keep under wraps in Father and Sons, which screens during MoMA’s 2015 Documentary Fortnight.

We have no idea where their mother is or whether there might be anymore extended family back in the countryside. Since 2010, Yongjin and Yonggao have lived with their migrant worker father in a four meter square single room occupancy. There is a stove and you had better believe they have a TV, but that is about all the amenities life affords them. Watching them carefully allot squares of toilet paper before leaving for whatever outside facilities are available to them should give you an idea of the scarcity of their resources.

Wang Bing has certainly never been intimidated by long takes in his previous documentaries, but they usually framed considerable real life drama. Fengming: a Chinese Memoir simply focuses on an elderly survivor of the Cultural Revolution telling her story on-camera, but her oral history is absolutely riveting and heavy with historical significance. Three Sisters is an absolutely heartbreaking record of the difficulties faced by the titular rural siblings, particularly the eldest. ‘Til Madness DoUs Part might not have been as emotionally engaging, but its unvarnished look inside a provincial Chinese mental asylum is often quite shocking.

In contrast, the majority of the shots in F&S capture Yongjin and Yonggao watching television—ironically, they are usually watching something more interesting than we are. Wang seems to be trying to convey a sense of the indolence that comes out of a sense of hopelessness, but a little of this goes a long way, especially in a ninety minute film. Still, it is not fair to criticize Wang for the static repetitiveness of the film.

Frankly, it is admirable he was able to keep faith with the Cai family and cobble together a film representative of their hardscrabble lives from the limited footage he was able to shoot. We can look at Three Sisters and imagine what could have been had Wang been allowed to observe his subjects as their lives developed over time. Father and Sons is probably best seen and programmed in conjunction with other Wang films, so it can serve as another small piece in his overall documentary mosaic of contemporary Chinese life. On its own, it is not an especially rewarding viewing experience, but it is still cool that MoMA selected it for this year’s Documentary Fortnight, because of the wider circumstances surrounding it. For those who understand what to expect, Father and Sons screens this Tuesday (2/17) and Wednesday (2/18) as part of this year’s Documentary Fortnight.

DF ’15: Hotel Nueva Isla

In Cuba, every building is dilapidated, but Jorge de los Rois’ home is particularly so. Perversely, he keeps making it worse and worse. Formerly one of Havana’s most exclusive luxury hotels, it is now a battered shell not even fit for squatters. However, de los Rios finds his reason for being bashing away at the walls and moldings in the dubious belief the pre-revolutionary owners left some great treasure somewhere within the guts of the structure. It is an increasingly lonely and Sisyphean existence documented (for lack of a better word) in Irene Gutiérrez Torres’ Hotel Nueva Isla (trailer here), which screens during MoMA’s 2015 Documentary Fortnight.

Once the Nueva Isla was a magnet for the city’s homeless population, but the unsound building has become too dangerous for all but the most desperate or committed squatters. Yet de los Rios continues to whack away. It is hard to speculate how monomaniacal he really is, given the narrative elements incorporated by Torres and her co-screenwriter and cinematographer Javier Labrador. Hopefully, the one-sided pillow talk mostly featuring de los Rios’ somewhat younger lover is entirely fictional, since he cannot be bothered to throw her the scantest of emotional bones. Still, the is something tragically compelling about him, sort of like Rinko Kikuchi’s character in Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, but about a thousand times less moving.

  

The symbolism of the broken down de los Rios and his broken down hotel are hard to miss. Betrayed by false promises and lean from poor nutrition, he is Cuba personified. There is simply no way to spin this fly-on-the-wall visit to the Nueva Isla as a positive for the genre. Yet, despite the added fictional veneer, HNI is a defiantly static film. Sometimes, it feels like watching the worst PBS handyman show ever: The New Socialist Workshop, starring Jorge de los Rios. This week, Jorge busts up debris with a hammer, just like last week, and the week before.

Without question, HNI makes Cuba look like an unremittingly crummy place to live. Since Torre and Labrador confine themselves to the Nueva Isla and rarely leave de los Rios’ side, the film necessarily feels claustrophobic. Nevertheless, wider concerns (such as the fate of his estranged son keen to try his luck with the desperate Florida crossing) occasionally manage to creep in.

Ironically, the treasure of Nueva Isla is right in front of his eyes, but de Los Rios cannot see it. The hotel once employed dozens if not hundreds of people and was a major multiplier for the neighborhood. It was something very valuable for many people, but now it is a wreck. Castro and his murderous ideology destroyed it well enough, but de los Rios keeps piling on.

Regardless, there is an awful lot of reality in HNI, but not much energy (you might wonder why Torres would compromise its vérité purity in a way that does not add much cinematic get-up-and-go). Honest in spirit with regards to the big picture, but more interesting in principle than as an actual viewing experience, Hotel Nueva Isla screens this Monday (2/16) and Tuesday (2/17) at MoMA, as part of this year’s Documentary Fortnight.

DF ’15: Storm Children, Book One

You can tell Haiti has a better lobbying arm than the Philippines. Five years after the 2010 earthquake, international aid is still flowing into the island nation, while filmmaker and former Culture Minister Raoul Peck wonders where all that money is going. In contrast, Typhoon Yolanda barely cracked the news cycle in late 2013. As a result, there has been precious little rebuilding in coastal communities like Tacloban. Three children will guide auteur Lav Diaz through the watery streets and dilapidated slums of their post-typhoon world in Storm Children, Book One, which screens during MoMA’s 2015 Documentary Fortnight.

Perhaps only Diaz could make images of privation and hopelessness so arrestingly beautiful. Arguably, Storm Children might easily play in a loop as an installation or to accompany a fund-raising soiree for typhoon relief. His characteristic long takes are as long as ever. As a result, it takes a bit of time (perhaps an hour) before we start to recognizing the recurring focal figures Diaz ostensibly follows. However, the neighborhood’s three-legged stray dog will start to look familiar somewhat sooner.

Diaz could still get elected mayor of Slow Cinema City, but at just under two and a half hours, Storm Children is a veritable short subject by his standards. It is not until late in the film that Diaz starts to ask questions of the kids, in a traditional documentary kind of way. Sadly, they will confirm many of our worst suspicions, such as why there seem to be so little adult supervision in their world.

Without question, Diaz has an eye for visuals, but the spectacle of the huge rusted-out freighters beached throughout the Tacloban coastline and amid the ruined smithereens of their tightly packed houses is hard to miss. It looks like a post-apocalyptic Lord of the Flies, except the atmosphere is remarkably quiet and still.

At times, Diaz’s visuals are so striking, we can understand why he holds them so long. Serving as his own cinematographer, supplemented by his son Sultan, Diaz demonstrates how artful documentary filmmaking can be. Nevertheless, at some point quietly observing these children orphaned and essentially rendered destitute by Yolanda becomes increasingly problematic over time (and there is always a lot of time to think in a Lav Diaz movie). There can be a thin line between conscious-raising and exploitation—and it is not always clear which side the film is on. Powerful, demanding, yet sometimes discomfiting in the wrong way, Storm Children still must be considered a major work from a prestige filmmaker. Recommended for those who appreciate slow cinema flavored with a guilt trip, Storm Children, Book One screens tomorrow (2/14, perfect for Valentine’s Day) and Monday (2/16) at MoMA, as part of this year’s Documentary Fortnight.

HRIFF ’15: Kill Me, Deadly

It debuted at the scrappy forty-three seat Theater of NOTE in Los Angeles, but you would be surprised how many high schools and colleges have subsequently mounted productions. It was exactly the sort of hardboiled film noir send-up they were looking for. It turns out Bill Robens’ stage play is so durable, it can even be adapted as an independent film. Danger is Charlie Nickel’s business in Darrett Sanders’ Kill Me, Deadly (trailer here), which screens tomorrow during the 2015 Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival.

Nickels thought there was something funny about his new client and his judgment is sort of vindicated when Lady Clairmont is mysteriously murdered. Naturally, there are no shortage of suspects, including the servants she did wrong, Clive, the man-child son she belittled, and Veronica, the daughter who makes Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep look demur and responsible. Lady Clairmont’s missing cursed diamond also suggests a potential motive.

Rather belatedly, Nickels takes on the Clairmont case in earnest. Fortunately, that means his considerably more resourceful secretary Ida is also on the job. He might not like what she turns up, particularly when he gets personally involved with torch-singer Mona Livingston, a potential “witness.”

Brought to the big screen by the teams behind the original stage production and the Euro-spy spoof Scream of the Bikini, KMD has a terrifically rich film noir look and it offers plenty of hat-tips to classics of the genre. It is also something of a Criminal Minds reunion featuring series stars Kirsten Vangsness as Livingston, Joe Mantegna in a small but significant role as Bugsy Siegel (even winning him HRIFF’s pre-announced best supporting actor award), and Shemar Moore making a cameo appearance as Livingston’s piano accompanist. Plus, the previously recurring Dean Lemont returns to the role of Nickels, which he originated on stage.

Although KMD is technically a spoof film, the entire ensemble prefers to dig into the genre for all its worth, rather than mug for the camera and troll for cheap laughs. There is plenty of scenery chewing, as well there should be, but Lemont plays it scrupulously straight, in a Robert Stack kind of way. Both Vangsness and Raleigh Holmes (as Veronica Clairmont) embrace their femme fatale-ness to the hilt, but nobody can out noir-diva Lesley-Anne Down as the still seductive but not long for the world Lady Fairmont. Yet, one of the more subtly shaded turns comes from Sanders, the helmer himself (prominently featured in Bikini), who brings a nice world-weariness to in-demand freelance enforcer Louie Shorts.

It is clear everyone involved with KMD loves film noir and wanted to make one just as much as they set out to satirize them. Robens’ adaptation of his play hits all the bases. Mainly, he and the game cast score knowing chuckles from appreciative fans, but there are some big laughs down the stretch. Even though it was shot in a mere twenty-six days, spread out over five years, Sanders and cinematographer Nicholas Trikonis makes it look seamless and stylishly era-appropriate. Recommended for film noir lovers, Kill Me, Deadly screens tomorrow night (2/13) as part of this year’s Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival.

Girl House: Not Why Al Gore Invented the Internet

It is like a digital update on the J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold,” but with a psycho killer. A nebbish college student’s high school crush is now an “angel” in a twenty-four hour live-cam website. Appearing in a secret hedonistic McMansion, she will naturally attract the wrong sort of attention in Trevor Matthews’ Girl House (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in select markets and launches on VOD, where it logically belongs.

Strictly speaking, the Big Brother-style pad Kylie Atkins is about to move into is not one hundred percent porn. There is also a heavy girlfriend-experience component. That is why her boss is so sure the naïve country girl will be such a hit. Of course, he is right, but one of her biggest fans is a mentally disturbed IT guy known by his screen name, “loverboy.” Actually, his first choice was psychostalker666, but that handle was already taken.

Meanwhile, thanks to a horndog roommate who thinks he’s Jamie Kennedy, mild mannered Ben Stanley learns his former infatuation is now naked on the internet. Since they both go to college in the North Carolina hills (that well known hub of porn production), he contrives to run into her and ask her out. Despite some uncomfortable conversations about her afterschool job, romance starts to blossom, but it is only a matter of time before loverboy traces the secure location of Girl House and heads off on a murderous rampage.

Girl House is the sort of film that pretends to give us a stern talking-to regarding our porn-obsessed voyeurism, but really offers a transparent promise of naughty gawkery it never fully delivers on. At least as slasher films go, it is consistently professional, with no distractingly awkward line readings or woefully cheesy effect stinking up the joint.

Ali Cobrin is reasonably competent and likable as the white bread Atkins, while Adam DiMarco’s Stanley is predictably but annoyingly clueless and ineffectual. Likewise, as the maniac, white Boston rapper Slaine really just serves as a poor man’s Pruitt Taylor Vince or Vincent D’Onofrio. Frankly, Chasty Ballesteros is criminally under-employed as Atkins’ new housemate Janet. With her martial arts background established, she would have been a more credible and empowering opponent for loverboy—and there are also her obvious strengths in front of the camera.

So here it is: Girl House. It is not as lurid as you either fear or hope it is, but it shares the sins of most slasher films when it gets down to business. The characters have the intuition of burnt toast and the mostly off-screen authorities are woefully incompetent. It is what it is, but you’re probably going to dial it up anyway, in spite of yourself, when it hits iTunes tomorrow (2/13).

What We Do in the Shadows: When You Can’t Kill Your Roommates, Because They’re Already Undead

Viago definitely needs a laundry detergent that gets out blood stains. Even though his housemates are just as apt to cause them, he is the only one who is really good about doing the chores. Mundane Real World-ish conflicts get bloody in Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement’s sly spoof What We Do in the Shadows (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

With a firm agreement and the traditional protections against vampires in place, a crew from the New Zealand Documentary Board will produce a vérité record of the goings-on inside a vampire house somewhere in the suburbs of Wellington. Viago, a natty Eighteenth Century gentleman, will be the most welcoming and loquacious. We will also get to know Vladislav, an eight hundred year-old torturer and impaler, who has mellowed and recent years, and the relatively young Deacon, who is still trying to forget an ill-advised dalliance with the occult-obsessed National Socialists. They also live with the 8,000 year-undead Petyr, who has pretty much gone the full Nosferatu by now. He doesn’t do chores—and nobody hassles him over it.

Deacon has a human familiar who periodically brings over prospective victims, but when Petyr accidentally turns Nick, they reluctantly welcome him into their lair. They quickly tire of his crass and obnoxious behavior, but continue to cut him slack for the sake of his human Stu. They all grow quite fond of the computer-consultant human, even though it was strictly against the rules to tell him about the whole vampire thing.

Although Waititi and Clement worked from a broad outline, the film is essentially improvised. It is entirely understandable if that puts you on your guard, but Shadows is consistently funny, probably because it never feels like it is trying too hard. They just let the humor flow naturally from the vampire Big Brother house situation. Whenever it starts to slacken, Waititi & Clement splatter about some blood and the film is back in business.

Waititi (a.k.a. Taika Cohen) perfectly sets the tone as the guileless and old-fashioned Viago. Despite his ghoulishly predatory nature, he is strangely likable, as is the entire film. Clement appropriately hams it up as the gothy Vlad and Ben Fransham’s desiccated Petyr is creepy as heck, but the film is really about friendship and acceptance of others’ differences.

Eventually, Wellington’s zombie population turns up, but it is really the pack of werewolves who steal the show. Just about every monster movie convention gets tweaked here and there, but it never feels like Shadows is forcing the issue to tick off another box. It is relaxed filmmaking in a way that really works. Highly recommended for vampire fans. What We Do in the Shadows opens this Friday (2/13) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

C’est Si Bon: The Stuart Sutcliffe of Korean Folk Music

Just imagine if Peter, Paul and Mary started out as a quartet with a dude named Billy Bob singing baritone. That never happened and the Korean folk duo Twin Folio were never part of a trio, but a new behind-the-music drama will suppose they were for the sake of “what if?” Considering most of Twin Folio’s greatest hits were sad love songs, it only stands to reason love played a role in breaking apart their fictional precursor trio in Kim Hyun-suk’s C’est Si Bon (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

In the 1960s, South Korea lagged a bit behind the American Folk Revival, but they tried to make up for lost time in the trendy Mugyo-dong neighborhood. The C’est Si Bon club was like the early Village Vanguard, except it was all folk, no jazz. During the regular amateur nights, Yoon Hyeon-ju and Song Chang-shik regularly battle each other for victory, developing solid fan-bases and a pitched rivalry. Impresario Kim Choon-sik wants to combine their talents to launch his folk label, but wants an easier going third member to act as a buffer between them. His prospective producer-songwriter Lee Jang-hee just happens to cross paths with Oh Geun-tae, a naïve scholarship student from the sticks, with a perfectly complimentary baritone for the envisioned C’est Si Bon Trio.

Initially, Yoon and Song vibe Oh pretty hard, but their voices just fit together. Although they accept him professionally, they all compete for the attention of Min Ja-young, the queen of the C’est Si Bon social scene, who is struggling to make it as an actress. Surprisingly, Oh seems to have the inside track to Min’s heart, but if you think they will ride off into the sunset together, you haven’t heard a lot of folk songs or seen a lot of tragically romantic Korean box office hits.

It seems strange to make a film about the creation of Twin Folio in which the duo plays such a tangential role, while still forthrightly addressing the marijuana scandal that put their careers on ice for years. Regardless, Kim includes plenty of music for their fans, inventing new backstories for their most popular tunes. It will surely be much more meaningful to the faithful, but those not deeply steeped in the Korean folk scene will still be able to pick up on the film’s shout-outs and call-backs.

The musical numbers are organically integrated into the narrative and the candy-colored 1960s-1970s period details look great. It also should be admitted Oh’s early bashful courtship of Min is appealingly sweet. Unfortunately, an extended third act denouement set forty-some years later rather unsubtly drives the film’s points into the ground. Nevertheless, Jang Hyun-sung almost single-handedly saves the contemporary flashforward as the older, but wiser and hipper Lee.

Frankly, as the young Oh and Min, Jung Woo and Han Hyo-joo are so cute and earnestly sensitive, it is hard to believe they could let contrivances tear them asunder. Yet, such are the demands of Korean tent poles. It works for what it is, sort of like Iain Softley’s Backbeat, but with more yearning and crying. A can’t miss for Twin Folio fans and a guilty pleasure for those who secretly enjoy a shamelessly sentimental movie musical, C’est Si Bon opens this Friday (2/13) in New York, at the Regal E-Walk.

Slamdance ’15: They Look Like People

Who is more delusional, the dude who sees aliens or the compulsively self-helpy would be career-climber? Its close, but we should probably give it to the guy prepping for Armageddon on the basis of a few inexplicable, but admittedly terrifying phone calls. Together, this damaged duo might just have all the problems the world can offer in Perry Blackshear’s impressively grungy, horror-ish They Look Like People, which screens at the 2015 SF Indie Fest after being recognized with the Jury’s Honorable Mention for Dramatic Feature at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival.

Wyatt just sort of turned up in New York, running into Christian, his somewhat estranged childhood friend. Both have been dumped by long-term girlfriends, but each has their own special issues to deal with. Christian struggles to get ahead in his hipster firm, despite his low confidence and self-esteem. He is also very interested in Mara, a fast-tracked colleague, but he has a knack for saying the wrong things to her. As for his unexpected house-guest Wyatt, he hears voices.

Late at night, he gets calls from someone like “Deep Throat” in The X-Files, warning him of an imminent battle with the aliens. So far, he and Christian are okay, but the invaders have infected much of the human race, taking them over, mind and body. Fortunately, Christian’s building has the creepiest looking basement you will ever see, where Wyatt can set up his doomsday workshop.

In a way, Like People is the darker but more grounded flip-side of John Carpenter’s They Live, even echoing the title. Blackshear fully recognizes every shoe the audience expects to drop, but somehow he keeps them all dangling precariously for an awfully long time. Frankly, the film is such a slow (but effective) build, it almost defies genre categorization. It starts with general awkwardness, becoming steadily more awkward, while something seriously ominous percolates in the background. Yet horror fans should take note, the sequences depicting Wyatt’s presumptive mania are absolutely chilling.

Co-producers Macleod Andrews and Evan Dumouchel have the oddest, saddest pseudo-buddy chemistry one can imagine, but it feels very real. Dumouchel is also convincingly uncomfortable putting the moves on Margaret Drake’s Mara, while Andrews goes nuts like a champion. As a bonus, the character of Mara and Drake’s portrayal are a nice departure for the typical victim roles for women in horror movies. Frankly, she is more assertive than either of the guys, which is a source of their angst in the first place.

Director-screenwriter-cinematographer-editor-one-man-band Blackshear maintains a tense vibe and an almost claustrophobic focus on his flawed characters. He inspires a lot of audience wincing, but takes the emotional climax in a direction less traveled in horror films. It is quite a micro-budget accomplishment that was the hit at this year’s Slamdance. Recommended for those who enjoy horror, psychological thrillers, and sinister slacker dramas, They Look Like People screens again this Friday (2/13) and the following Wednesday (2/18) during SF Indie Fest.

Brotherhood of Blades: the Imperial Assassins Do What They Do

Would you feel confident throwing your conspiratorial lot in with something called “the Eunuch Clique?” Maybe not now, but the late Ming Dynasty were far different times. Senior Eunuch Wei Zhongxian was thought to control seventy percent of court officials, the so-called Clique. The new emperor is determined root out the eunuch’s influence, but that will be easier said than done for the three Jinyiwei imperial assassins in Lu Yang’s Brotherhood of Blades (trailer here), which Well Go USA releases today on DVD and BluRay.

The trio of Jinyiwei are so scruffy, their new commander Zhao Jingzhong is confident they have not been corrupted. It also means they could use a windfall. Shen Lian yearns to buy the freedom of Zhou Miaotong, a courtesan he has long visited, but it is unlikely to happen on his Imperial salary. The older and gaunter Lu Jianxing covets a promotion, but that will require bribes beyond his means. Meanwhile, the consumptive rookie, Jin Yichuan makes regular blackmail payments to an older associate from his criminal past.

Since they all need money, Shen Lian makes an executive decision to strike a deal with Wei. In exchange for a considerable sum of gold Taels, the Jinyiwei assassin lets Wei escape, delivering the charred body of a servant in his place. The three are hailed as heroes, but Wei’s followers are already conspiring to eliminate the only witnesses who know the powerful Eunuch is still alive. Unbeknownst to them, Zhao is part of the cabal. It turns out he is Wei’s secret foster-son. As the leader of the Eastern Depot, Zhao will give the three assassins assignments specifically intended to silence them permanently. When they manage to live anyway, things really start getting complicated.

In a way, Brotherhood is like a gangster movie decked out as a wuxia epic. Everyone is on the take to some extent. The question is how morally compromised are they? Like a good Triad or Yakuza film, it a heavy with themes of loyalty and betrayal, with personal allegiances frequently trumping concern for corps, dynasty, and nation. Of course there is also plenty of hack-and-slash action, featuring more crimson blood splatters than typical of the genre.

Taiwanese superstar Chang Chen, whose credits go back to Edward Yang’s masterpiece A Brighter Summer Day is perfectly suited for the tightly wounded Shen Lian. He broods hard and when he loses his cool, it is serious business. Frankly, it is one of his best performances in years. Likewise, Wang Qianyuan is appropriately world weary and a bit vinegary as old Lu Jianxing. However, Ethan Li largely fades into the background as the young, sickly Jin Yichuan.

Brotherhood is fully loaded with colorful supporting turns, but it strangely shortchanges Dani Zhou’s screen time, even though she seems quite promising as Wei’s butt-kicking daughter, Wei Ting. On the other hand, Cecilia Liu totally looks the part and delivers the aching tragedy in spades as the more-substantial-than-you-expect courtesan.

It is hard to believe Brotherhood’s robust action and intrigue comes from the same director who helmed My Spectacular Theater, a sensitive drama about empathy and accommodation, but here it is—and it is jolly nice to have it. Recommended for fans who like their wuxia on the bloody, morally ambiguous side, Brotherhood of Blades is now available on DVD, BluRay, and digital platforms, from Well Go USA.

American Songbook at NJPAC: Nellie McKay

Probably the last political song to stake a claim to a place in the Great American Songbook was “Brother Can You Spare a Dime,” because an awful lot of people were able to relate to it. To become a standard, a song should speak to universal experiences and it doesn’t hurt to have a catchy melody. Unfortunately, the latest installment of American Songbook at NJPAC featuring Nellie McKay is a bit of ringer that features mainly originals that will appeal to a deliberately narrow audience when it premieres this Wednesday on NJTV.

As it happens, McKay’s set starts quite promising, showcasing her boppish chops on the piano. Her forays into the Great American Songbook are largely novelty-esque numbers, such as a nicely arranged “Knock on Wood” and “The Gentleman is a Dope,” but they seem to suit her impish stage persona.

Of her originals, the up-tempo Latin-flavored love song “Bodega” is by far the best, most in terms of musical interest and performance energy. However, the politically motivated songs are more about the message than getting toes tapping. Frankly, the supposedly ironic critique of feminism ostensibly performed in Michelle Bachmann’s voice already sounds dated, since she is no longer a member of congress. Likewise, “One’s on the Way,” dedicated to Planned Parenthood, is more of an arrogant satire caricaturing twangy music and barefoot-and-pregnant white trash.

McKay is backed by some talented musicians and she seems to have a nice rapport with them, so it is frustrating they are never credited. Unlike the Pizzarelli and Osnes & Fontana episodes, we never hear McKay introduce the band. Most likely this was an editing decision beyond her control, but it is still aesthetically unappetizing for regular jazz and songbook listeners.

Arguably, McKay must be an acquired taste for those who are already on her side of the mountain. As a thespian, she never really made an impression in David Grubin’s Downtown Express and her best moments in the NJPAC concert are at the keyboard or harmonizing with her band. More standards also would have helped. They will be coming next week, when American Songbook at NJPAC gets back on track with Maureen McGovern. For McKay fans, her concert premieres tomorrow (2/11) on NJTV, with a later airdate scheduled for April 4^th on WNET 13.

(Photos: Daniel Cardenas/NJTV)