Macabro ’15: Ava’s Possessions

Maybe you do not feel like a twelve step program after having a demon exorcised from your body, but the fact that its run by the Catholic Church should give it credibility. After all, it’s a little too late for agnosticism. Those that do not enroll potentially face prosecution for the crimes their bodies committed while demonically possessed. Ava Dopkins pragmatically opts for group therapy in Jordan Galland’s Ava’s Possessions (trailer here), which screens as the opening night selection of this year’s Macabro, the International Horror Film Festival in Mexico City.

When Dopkins comes to, Father Merrino is praying over her and her mother is sporting a conspicuous eye patch. These are both bad signs. Despite the incredibleness of it all, she soon accepts the fact that she was possessed. Unfortunately, she has a lot of fence mending to do. Seeking amends is also part of the Church’s program. Tony, their street-smart hipster councilor also teaches them techniques to ward of re-possession. However, at least one of her fellow group-members misses the feelings of power and arousal that came with her demonic guest.

Although she really should know better, Dopkins will help her rebellious friend perform a wildly ill-advised ceremony. Unfortunately, the results will further complicate her efforts to find a mysterious older gentleman, who may or may not be the source of the unsettling blood stains in her living room.

Possessions sounds like another Exorcist spoof, like the amusingly meathead-ish Bad Exorcists, but Galland takes the clever concept and spins out a fully developed narrative, building up a serious head of paranoia in the third act. For a horror mash-up, it is pretty darned creepy, representing a dramatic step up from his inventive but inconsistent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead.

Galland gets a major assist from the perfectly cast Louisa Krause, who hits all the right sarcastic, confused, and angry notes as Dopkins. As an effective counterweight, Wass Stevens is all kinds of badness as Tony. Possessions also comes fully stocked with colorful supporting turns from the likes of William Sadler, Dan Fogler, and Carol Kane, as Dopkins’ father, her attorney, and a paranormal bookstore proprietor, respectively.

Somehow, Galland finds a way to make a case of demonic possession even more disturbing, while generating a fair amount of laughs. Frankly, Eva’s Possessions is probably the film that most closely approximates the vibe of the Buffy and Angel television series. It is witty and self-aware, but it is all business when the dark forces strike. Highly recommended for horror fans, Ava’s Possessions continues its festival run tonight (8/19) and Friday (8/21), as part of the 2015 edition of Macabro.

Gurukulam: Teaching Oneness in Southern India

Swami Dyananda Saraswati is exactly the sort of spiritual teacher most seekers hope to study under. He is witty, charismatic, and decidedly beyond worldly concerns. Yet, he functions in our terrestrial realm with quite a high level of competency. It is easy to understand why his Arsha Vidya Gurukulam ashram draws students from around the world for its celebrated five-week course—and he is a major reason why they keep coming back. They might not necessarily attain enlightenment, because that is the sort of thing you never find when you look for it. Nevertheless, the Swami’s diverse students will find some degree of illumination through his words in Jillian Elizabeth & Neil Dalal’s Gurukulam (trailer here), which fittingly screens this weekend at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea.

Advaita Vedanta is the oldest school of Vedanta, the Hinduist philosophical tradition to which J.D. Salinger subscribed to sometime after the publication of Catcher in the Rye. Frankly, Salinger was far more of a hermit or Stylite than the Swami ever was. Despite renouncing the world, he is quite sociable and gregarious. Clearly, enlightenment will not begrudge a little friendly conversation.

For obvious reasons, those most interest in Vedic and Hindu religious thought will get considerably more out the documentary than comparatively casual viewers. However, it is still rather intriguing as a work of non-fiction filmmaking. At various points, Elizabeth and Dalal essentially present the audience with a choice. They can either join in Swami Dyananda’s meditation and visualization exercises, or they can remain spectators. They are both valid choices, but you have to choose.

Of course, much of Gurukulam is devoted to quiet observation, but it is never as hushed as Into Great Silence (a not terrible comparative film). There is always plenty of life going on at the Arsha Vidya. In fact, even to shallow agnostics, it looks quite livable for an ashram nestled in the rainforests of southern India.

Indeed, this is an unusually transporting film, submerging viewers in the sights and ambient sounds of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam and its surrounding environs. Serving as cinematographer, documentarian J.P. Sniadecki (whose are films are screening throughout Manhattan this week) has a keen eye both for the big, symbolically loaded Samsara-esque shots, as well as the smaller, lighter moments of bonhomie.

Gurukulam will probably not inspire scores of new Vedic adherents to flock to the Swami’s ashram, but that means all of us unabashed materialists can feel safe watching it. It will definitely take you someplace you have never been before. Once there, Elizabeth, Dalal, and editor Mary Lampson show a shrewd editorial judgment focusing on telling details. It is a finely crafted film under any circumstances, but there will be no better venue to see it amongst a knowledgeable and sympathetic audience than the Rubin Museum. Recommended for those who enjoy meditative and immersive documentaries, Gurukulam screens this Saturday (8/22), Sunday (8/23), and Monday (8/24) at the Rubin Museum of Art.

Z Storm: Louis Koo vs. Crooked Hedge Funds

For the fortieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) David Lam and his all-star cast celebrated like it was 2008. Like Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in The F.B.I., Louis Koo’s William Luk will righteously crusade against crooked cops and shadowy financial conspiracies, but he will have the fringe benefit of investigating Dada Chan in Lam’s Z Storm (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay from Well Go USA.

Wong Man Bin is such a corrupt cop, he is even dirtier than some of white collar crooks he covers for, like the rather compromised accounting firm proprietor, who is quite surprised when Wong makes incriminating evidence disappear. Evidently, his paymaster, the extravagantly venal attorney Malcom Wu needs his house’s help to take the Madoff-esque Z Fund public. However, Wong’s recklessness also attracts the attention of Luk, who starts connecting the dots.

Since the former government chairman is the Z Fund’s public front-man, investigating Wu’s operation is a touchy proposition. To make matters worse, a major public-private charitable account will go all in with the Z Fund, once it is successfully listed. As a result, Luk is given a hard six day deadline to take down the Fund before it lists. Past that point, he must close his investigation rather than risk sparking a crisis of confidence that might jeopardize the charity funds. Unfortunately, each of his leads meets a tragic end, accept perhaps the mystery woman associated with Wu, Angel Leung On Ying.

As Luk, Koo seethes like the old pro he is, but it is the bad guys that really make Z Storm work. Michael Wong does his gloriously hammy thing, except even more so, as the spectacularly villainous Wu. However, Gordon Lam Ka Tung nearly matches the scenery Wong masticates, stick for stick, as the profoundly underhanded Wong Man Bin. It is almost like they are facing off in some sort of evil-doers’ Olympics. 

Strangely, Dada Chan hardly has any time to establish Leung’s character, since about ninety-five percent of her screen time comes in the third act. However, the camera still adores her. It is also favorably inclined towards Janelle Sing, who inspires confidence as Tammy Tam, the ICAC’s brainy IT specialist.

There are a several nicely executed action sequences, but the many scenes of the ICAC arriving just seconds too late get a little frustrating. Still, the star power and the refreshingly complicated intrigue keep the film chugging along. Some occasional weird references also give the film idiosyncratic character. I’ll bet you didn’t know Zorro was a Spanish knight, whose weapon of choice was a sword. At least, that is what Z Storm thinks (evidently the Disney, George Hamilton, and Antonio Banderas incarnations never made it to HK). No matter, Chan and Koo are ridiculously attractive, while Lam and Wong are outrageously dastardly. Recommended for those who enjoy financial thrillers with a dash of flamboyance, Z Storm is now available on DVD, BluRay, and Digital HD, from Well Go USA.

Being Evel: His Landings were not Always Happy

If you were kid growing up in the late Seventies, you were probably all about Stars Wars, but if you were carrying a lunch box to school before 1976, there is a good chance Evel Knievel was on it. Subsequent decades were hard on the self-styled daredevil, but fans like skateboarding champion Tony Hawk and Jackass’s Johnny Knoxville still remembered the tarnished icon. Daniel Junge revisits the highs and lows of Knievel’s story in the Knoxville-produced Being Evel (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select theaters.

Butte, Montana was still a bit of a rugged frontier town when young Knievel grew up there, but their cops were pretty funny. According to legend, Knievel once spent a night in the holding cell with a fellow troublemaking named Knoffle, prompting a deputy to dub them “Evil Knievel and Awful Knoffle.” That worked for Knievel, after softening the “Evil” with a second e.

One can find barnstorming precedents for Knievel’s death-defying stunts, but Knievel came up at the perfect time to most fully exploit the media. There were only three real networks in the 1970s, so just about every sports fan watched the buffet-style coverage of ABC’s Wide World of Sports on Sunday mornings. Somehow Knievel talked his way on as the opener for a dirt track race and quickly became a media phenomenon.

Seeing docs like Being Evel reminds us just how much the media landscape has changed within our lifetimes. It also explains the influence Knievel had on the culture, inspiring the extreme sports movement of the 1990s and perfecting an unparalleled personal merchandising machine. You will not see a lot of documentaries co-produced by Knoxville and George Hamilton (who played Knievel in the John Milius-scripted 1971 film), but here it is.

While carefully tracking Knievel’s cultural significance, Junge never loses sight of the outrageousness of his stunts. Frankly, he crashed out more often than his fans probably remember, which still makes voyeuristically compelling viewing. Junge talks to just about all of Knievel’s surviving family and associates, including his much neglected first wife and his former promoter, Shelly Saltman. Despite being on the business end of Knievel’s notorious baseball bat attack, the latter is remarkably gracious, all things considered.

In many ways, Evel Knievel exemplified American self-invention. Being Evel clearly establishes his many flaws, but the risks he ran were still very real. Junge assembled some spectacularly dramatic and telling footage that evokes an era that is no so long ago, but feels so very far away. Briskly paced and stylishly constructed, it is one of the more watchable documentaries of the year. Recommended beyond the Knievel-extreme sports fanbase, Being Evel opens this Friday (8/21) in select theaters, including the Roxie in San Francisco, and also releases on iTunes.

Beltracchi: the Art of Getting Off Easy for Forgery

Family is important to notorious art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi. His closest accomplice was his wife Helene and his documentarian is the son of his lawyer, Reinhard Birkenstock. Beltracchi’s best forgeries were not copies of known works, but rather “newly discovered” works from important early Modernists, designed to fill holes in their oeuvres. This was not a new approach to art fraud, but Beltracchi was unusually successful at it. Even now, the art world still does not know how many of his “originals” have penetrated into museums and galleries. The rather unrepentant forger has no intention of revealing those secrets in Arne Birkenstock’s Beltracchi: the Art of Forgery (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York at Film Forum.

Thanks to a lenient work release program, the Beltracchis still enjoyed the fruits of their criminal endeavors during the day, puttering around their villa before returning to prison in the evening (supposedly they are employed by a friend’s photography studio). Wolfgang Beltracchi is now required to paint solely under his own name, but he shows Birkenstock how it is done, for old times’ sake. He is happy to explain the process, but plays it coy when asking for specifics on his past forgeries.

It is a shame Art of Forgery was not released while the Beltracchis were serving their sentences, because it could have spurred the court to revoke their privileges. Clearly, Birkenstock expects viewers to consider Beltracchi a roguishly jolly Falstaffian fellow, but instead we see someone who always manages to flaunt the rules. Frankly, it is annoying. There are also predictable questions raised regarding the fundamental value of art. Beltracchi and Birkenstock are definitely right about one thing, the current market climate gave experts every incentive to give his forgeries a pass, rather than digging into them with a fine tooth comb.

There is no question Art of Forgery would have been a more compelling film if it had taken a more narrative-focused true crime approach, in the tradition of Smash & Grab and The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne. Art and Craft, the documentary profile of the socially awkward forger Mark Landis might be an obvious comparative film, but filmmakers Sam Cullman & Jennifer Grausman give nearly equal time to Landis’s Javert, thereby establishing conflict. Instead, Birkenstock’s film is like one long boasting session for Beltracchi.

Between Beltracchi and Landis, it is hard to have confidence in the integrity of any art you might find in most respectable institutions. That is not good for fine art’s place in the wider universe. Beltracchi’s story is indeed fascinating, but Birkenstock never fully tells it, omitting for instance a former business partner’s allegations he burgled their gallery (a nice bit of sensationalism surely worth re-dredging). Unfortunately, Birkenstock is just too thoroughly charmed by his subject. Beltracchi: the Art of Forgery has its intriguing moments, but it is too much like an artist’s working process doc, like Gerhard Richter Painter, which is a tad problematic for a film about a convicted forger. A mixed bag best enjoyed by those who bear a grudge against the established art world, it opens this Wednesday (8/19) at New York’s Film Forum.

Cinema on the Edge: People’s Park

You have to dig Cinema on the Edge co-organizer J.P. Sniadecki’s style. Fluent in Mandarin, the American ethnographic documentarian quickly became a regular patron and guest of underground Chinese film festivals, as well as the even less formal film clubs (such as the one he presents his documentary Yumen for in Yijun He’s short doc, When You Can’t See the Film). His films seem to get steadily better and better, which bodes well for his next project, considering his latest film Iron Ministry was just terrific.

However, Patrons of Cinema on the Edge should somewhat temper their expectations for People’s Park, which he co-directed with Libbie Cohn, predating both Ministry and Yumen. It is definitely more of a formal filmmaking exercise than a statement of truth to power. Yet, it too was caught up in the Beijing Independent’s difficult history, when its 2012 screening was forced to move to the festival’s offices by a not-so mysterious power outage at the official venue. Fortunately, that sort of thing will not happen when People’s Park screens this Thursday at New York’s Asia Society, as part of Cinema on the Edge.

For seventy-eight minutes, Sniadeckie & Cohn will give viewers a continuous, unedited tracking shot tour of People’s Park in Chengdu, the capitol of Sichuan. They will capture plenty of life happening, but by its very nature, Sniadeckie & Cohn will not have the opportunity to make editorial judgements later. While the shoot was carefully planned, they were still trusting to providence to deliver interesting people into their field of vision. Sometime fate provides, sometimes it does not. Yet, what makes Iron Ministry so great are all the small but telling conversations and poignantly little moments Sniadeckie captures. That simply is not possible for Park, because it is so locked-into its preset course.

Nevertheless, viewers who are open to Park will still get something back from it, starting with the film’s distinctive rhythm. It is also fascinating to see how the various park visitors respond to Sniadeckie & Cohn’s camera. Some will clearly perform for it, while others are openly wary. After all, there is good cause for surveillance paranoia in the PRC, even more than in post-Snowden America.  Even so, Park does not have the same broad cross-section found in Ministry, because everyone who wanders into their frame has sufficient leisure time on a Saturday afternoon to be there.

People’s Park is certainly an accomplishment in street-level filmmaking all film students should have an opportunity to see. Still, for many it would be better appreciated as an installation one could duck in and out of than as a film to consume in one sitting. Regardless, that is how it was conceived and is usually presented, notwithstanding suspicious power failures. Recommended for patrons of experimental, non-narrative documentaries, People’s Park screens this Thursday (8/20) at the New York Asia Society, as part of Cinema on the Edge. Highly recommended for wider documentary and Chinese cinema audiences, Sniadeckie’s Iron Ministry also starts a week-long run this Friday (8/21) at MoMA.

Cinema on the Edge: Cut Out the Eyes

He is part ancient troubadour and part Andrew Dice Clay. Er Housheng is a rambling performer of Er Ren Tai “folk opera,” who has a something of a folk following in Inner Mongolia. The instrumentation is different, but American audiences well steeped in rap music should be able to relate to the sexually charged one-upping duets the blind Er performs with his ambiguous partner. Xu Fong follows Er through the unhomogenized, rough-and-tumble Northern Chinese province in Cut Out the Eyes, which screens as part of Cinema on the Edge, the retrospective tribute to the Beijing Independent Film Festival.

Before he was blinded, Er Housheng was apparently quite the ladies’ man. There was indeed a cause-and-effect relationship between these two states of being, as the title suggests and Er himself explains in a no-holds-barred closing performance. He is still a dirty old man, who excels at improvising lyrics so suggestive they really do not qualify as double entendre. He also talks pretty explicitly to his various lovers. His relationships are rather complex, but informal. That definitely includes the arrangements with his current duet partner, Liu Lanlan.

If Er Housheng were not such a salty old dog, one might be tempted to describe him as an inspirational figure. However, Er does not want anyone’s sympathy and he hardly sees himself as a role model. He is an unrepentant scoundrel and he is not done yet. One could probably make an epic Flashman-like film out of his exploits, but Xu opts for an intimate approach. Logically, it is through his revealing lyrics that we can best get to know the earthy raconteur.

Seriously, this is not a film for children or the easily offended. Er could go toe-to-toe with 2 Live Crew. Yet, his life of passion and lawlessness seems like a throwback to the Wild West. Some of his makeshift performance stages even have a medicine show vibe. Needless to say, Er might not be the most reliable of narrators, but the most significant parts of his story are obviously true.

Accompanied by the dizi flute, hammered yangqin, and sometimes the trumpet like suona, Er Ren Tai clearly privileges lyrical interpretation and extemporization over instrumental virtuosity, which is unfortunate for some of the very talented musicians who get brief solo spotlights in Eyes. World music listeners should nonetheless find plenty to enjoy, but Xu’s doc is more of a character study—and Er is quite the character.

It is hard to believe an itinerant musician and self-styled reprobate like Er can still exist in modern China. The fact that he does is strangely reassuring. It is a big country that remains highly diverse, despite the Party’s long campaign to wash away cultural differences. Xu documents the flinty edge and idiosyncrasies of Er and his Er Ren Tai colleagues with appropriate irony and sensitivity. Recommended for adventurous patrons of world music and music documentaries, Cut Out the Eyes screens this Tuesday (8/18) at the Maysles Documentary Center, as part of Cinema on the Edge.

Tashi and the Monk: A Problem Child in Tibetan Buddhist Orphanage

Lobsang Phunstok is sort of the Father Flanagan of Tibetan Buddhism. At the foot of the Indian Himalayas, he founded Jamtse Gatsal, or “The Garden of Love and Compassion,” an orphanage and school for abandoned children. He might be a former Buddhist monk, but he has the patience of a saint when it comes to difficult children like Tashi Drolma. However, you have to feel for the five year old, considering how much she has already faced up to in her young life. Lobsang Phunstok and his staff will help her find her place in Jamtse Gatsal and start to heal her trauma in Andrew Hinton & Johnny Burke’s Tashi and the Monk (trailer here), which premieres this coming Monday on HBO.

Drolma’s alcoholic father abandoned her sometime after her mother died at a tragically young age. That is more than any kid should have to deal with, so it is hardly surprising her behavior tends towards the aggressive. There is no question she is disruptive, but when you hear her make-up revealing stories about little girls just like her that are haunted by ghosts, it is easy to see she is hurting. Lobsang Phunstok understands only too well. He was also abandoned during childhood. That is why he will not give up on a trouble-maker like Drolma, even while he wrestles with difficult administrative dilemmas, especially his admissions process.

Clocking in well under an hour, T&M is comparatively brief, but it pummels viewers’ heartstrings. The disarmingly innocent looking Drolma will activate every protective instinct the audience might have, so it is rewarding to see her finally settle in, thanks in large measure to Raju, her “big brother.” However, the film also makes it painfully clear the good monk simply cannot save every child in need, showing us the tragic consequences for one child he was unable to admit.

We often think of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries as exotic places of spiritual sequestration. In contrast, T&M and Frederick Marx’s Journey to Zanskar paint a dynamic portrait of Tibet Buddhism as an activist faith, very much engaged with the welfare of the young and desperately disadvantaged. Both documentaries capture deeply moving human stories, while acting as a corrective to Lost Horizon-style exoticism.

After watching T&M for forty-some minutes, you will ardently care about what happens to both Tashi and her guardian. Hinton & Burke also have a good eye for visuals, giving viewers a vivid sense of the stunning Himalayan environs. It is a truly inspirational film that never feels saccharine or manipulative. Highly recommended for those interested in Himalayan culture and faith in action, Tashi and the Monk airs this Monday (8/17) on HBO.

Cinema on the Edge: Egg and Stone

Interrupting an intensely personal, deeply emotional film about sexual abuse with some organized thuggery would be embarrassingly crass and heavy-handed, but that is exactly what happened to Huang Ji’s film at the Beijing Independent Film Festival. Halfway through her screening, the power to the maverick-dissident fest was not so mysteriously cut. Inspired by her own unfortunate experiences, Huang Ji shines a spotlight on contemporary Chinese gender inequity in Egg and Stone (trailer here), which screens as part of Cinema on the Edge, the retrospective tribute to the Beijing Independent Film Festival.

Honggui was only supposed to stay with her aunt and uncle for two years, but she has spent the last seven in their hardscrabble Hunan village. Her aunt clearly resents her continued presence, but her uncle is suspiciously fine with it. The fourteen year-old is indeed pregnant, putting her in a precarious position within the judgmental society. However, if she has a boy, it becomes a marketable commodity.

For Honggui, life is profoundly complicated by two pernicious social dynamics, the illegal urban migration caused by extreme rural poverty and an intractable cultural preference for boys over girls. Of course, the Party is not eager to discuss any of this, particularly in light of their only slightly relaxed One Child policy.

Still, Egg is far from an overtly political film, yet it is still one of the bravest films programmed during Cinema on the Edge. Huang Ji shot the film on location in the same provincial town where she herself was sexually abused by her uncle. She also has a different uncle play Honggui’s predatory guardian in Egg.

There are powerful images in Egg, but the film’s preoccupation with menstrual blood becomes increasingly unsettling, in the wrong way. Frankly, it distracts from the viscerally honest performance of first-time thesp Yao Honggui as her namesake. She really looks like a barely teenaged girl who has had to grow up quicker than she should. Yet, despite everything Yao does to pull us into her heart and headspace, many of Huang Ji’s coldly severe stylistic choices push us away.

Egg and Stone is a challenging film in numerous ways. Arguably, it could very well be too oblique for its own good at times, but the film deserves an opportunity for viewers to fully process it. The Beijing Independent was precisely the right sort of venue for it, which is why it is so regrettably the festival could not indefinitely withstand the government’s pressure. At least adventurous patrons will have the opportunity to watch it uninterrupted when it screens this coming Monday (8/17) at the Made in NY Media Center, as part of Cinema on the Edge.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Rebooted with Style

In the 1960s, the MGM-produced Man from U.N.C.L.E. was one of the few TV shows that was successfully repackaged for American theatrical release. A little bit more action and seduction was added to two-part episodes that were then distributed in color, at a time when most televisions were in low def black-and-white. Frankly, it is rather surprising it has taken this long for the franchise to get the Hollywood reboot treatment. Happily, Guy Ritchie and co-screenwriter-co-producer Lionel Wigram harken back to the original first season more than the three shtickier years that followed. Nor do they attempt to update it for younger, dumber generations. The sixties are swinging and the Cold War is slowly boiling in Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (trailer here), which opens today nationwide.

Napoleon Solo is a suave as it gets. The roguish CIA agent reluctantly agreed to put his talents at Uncle Sam’s disposal, when his career as an international art thief was thwarted through dumb luck. His latest mission will be smuggling Gaby Teller out of East Berlin.

Illya Kuryakin is an ardent Communist. That means he is not suave at all, but as a KGB agent, he is decidedly lethal. His latest mission will be keeping Teller in East Berlin. He will fail, but he will soon meet Solo and Teller again in Rome, ostensibly working together.

In a rare case of Cold War collaboration, the rival intelligence services will combine forces to stop a rogue element from building a super potent nuclear weapon with the help of Teller’s long estranged scientist father (Teller is indeed a credible name for a nuclear physicist, after all). Of course, it will be every spy for himself when it comes to retrieving this Teller’s research.

Like the source television show, the new U.N.C.L.E. kind of-sort of represents an idealist manifestation of détente during the height of the Cold War. However, Kuryakin’s backstory of doggedly striving to compensate for his family’s fall from grace during the Stalinist Purges would hardly earn Alexander Cockburn’s seal of approval. However, it adds a note of clear-headed historical context and makes Kuryakin’s proletarian plugger considerably more compelling.

Frankly, he needs the help, because Henry Cavill’s Solo eats Armie Hammer’s Kuryakin for lunch time and again during the film. Cavill’s scenery chewing work represents a star-establishing turn that out-Bonds James Bond, without descending into outright camp. Further upstaging Hammer, Alicia Vikander finally lives up to her hype as the next big thing smoldering up the screen as Gaby Teller.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth Debicki and Deutschland ‘83’s Sylvester Groth are just okay as the standard issue Euro-villains, but Rome sure looks fab. Arguably, Ritchie is the most stylish director whom a major studio would trust with the keys to their shiny new prospective franchise reboot—and his sensibilities are perfectly attuned to the look and tenor of vintage Fellini Rome. His U.N.C.L.E. just oozes attitude and sophistication. He also has a hip ear for music (even though Les McCann & Eddie Harris’s rendition of “Compared to What” would have been even cooler for the opening titles than Roberta Flack’s).

Thanks to Ritchie’s disciplined flamboyance and key contributions from cinematographer John Mathieson and costume designer Joanna Johnston, U.N.C.L.E. is retro but not kitschy. Altogether, it is rather a good deal of throwback fun. Recommended for fans of the old school spy thrillers, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. opens wide today (8/14), including the AMC Empire in New York.

Amnesiac: Meet Your Strange Wife

Nothing gives neuroscientists fits like amnesia thrillers. They basically come in two speeds. Most of the films will devote much of their set-up to meticulous psychotherapy, but the third act inevitably down-shifts into a restorative bash to the noggin. Unfortunately, this beleaguered man with memory loss will not be receiving any of the former in Michael Polish’s Amnesiac (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

The unnamed man has a lovely wife, but her bedside manner is a little off. Apparently, she is a veterinarian, but that only partially explains it. He doesn’t really know what her problem is or what her name might be. However, he can still pick up on her bad vibes. She seems darned determined to start a new family, but the man has a feeling they already have a perfectly good daughter—or at least they did before the accident that put him in the position. He has a bad feeling about what happened that fateful day, but we expect the truth will be even worse.

While Amnesiac will never make anyone forget about Spellbound (a tough film to top, since Hitchcock and Dali will not be working on anymore collaborations anytime soon), it still manages to put a few new spins on the amnesia thriller, all made possible by one of the laziest cops you will ever find outside of New Jersey. It becomes more of a cat-and-mouse game than a psycho-babbling psychological thriller, but it has a potent trump cards stashed up its sleeve.

Amnesiac is worlds removed from Polish’s underrated Big Sur, which also co-starred his future wife, Kate Bosworth. Although it was written by screenwriters Amy Kolquist and Mike Le, Amnesiac seems like a strange project for a happily married couple to take on, but at least it gives Bosworth the opportunity to channel her inner early 1950s Bette Davis with a severely chilly lead performance. She sort of hits the same note over and over again, but it is an impressive note. Poor Wes Bentley just gets the living stuffing kicked out of him as the unnamed man, but he sells the big revelations relatively well.

Amnesia is a strangely disconcerting film that appears to exist outside of time thanks to the way Polish blends 1950s imagery with more contemporary trappings. Yet, somehow it seems to work in the context of the film. It is a nice bit of noir film making, but it is the sort of film the head appreciates more (for the ways it successfully plays the viewer) than the heart. Distinctive in its way, Amnesiac is recommended for psycho-captive thriller fans when it opens tomorrow (8/14) at the Arena Cinema in Los Angeles and also launches on iTunes.

Return to Sender, a Payback Thriller with No Pay-Off

A victim of a violent sex crime is dead set on vengeance. She is also determined to remodel her front porch. It is like Death Wish, with Bob Villa. Eventually, she will get down to the business of payback, but first, let’s match some paint chips with Fouad Mikati’s tone-deaf Return to Sender (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Miranda Wells is a slightly germophobic RN about to be promoted to the surgical team, until she is brutally raped by William Finn. The sociopath is not particularly bright, so he is quickly caught and convicted. However, Wells finds herself trapped in a spiral of depression. Then one day, she starts writing Finn in prison. Her first few letters are returned, marked you-know-what, but eventually they start corresponding and even meeting face-to-face during visiting hours.

Of course, as a model prison in what must be the speediest criminal justice system in the country, Finn is soon paroled. Naturally, he looks up Wells, who puts him to work erecting some flimsy lattice-work around her porch. Sure, she will get medieval on him, but not while there are still home improvements that need to be done.

Return is just a sad excuse for a vigilante movie. Inexplicably, after making us sit through the interminable carpentry scenes, Mikati keeps the actual pay-off entirely off-screen. Talk about having contempt for our time. To make matters exponentially worse, Patricia Beauchamp and Joe Gossett’s saggy script unambiguously suggests Wells is a bit of a sociopath herself, thereby implying her need for vengeance is somehow a misbegotten product of her extreme persona. One also sort of picks up on a misogynist vibe— one that kind of-sort of darkly insinuates she maybe had it coming, which is profoundly problematic.

Rosamund Pike commands the screen as Wells, but she is definitely revisiting last year’s Amazing Amy terrain here. Unfortunately, the rest of the casting defies all logic. Frankly, it is hard to believe Pike and Nick Nolte exist in the same universe. As father and daughter? Sorry, just don’t see it. Similarly, it is hard to buy into the scrawny, vegan-looking Shiloh Fernandez as a terrifying sex criminal. Yet, it is probably most depressing to see indie icon Illeana Douglas completely wasted doing a walk-on as a crass realtor.

It is all just a bizarrely misconceived mess that somehow goes out of its way to alienate every possible audience segment. We don’t even get to see the final finished porch. Not recommended for anyone, Return to Sender opens tomorrow (8/14) in New York at the AMC Empire and also releases on iTunes.

Kingston ’15: Banjo Romantika

They were called “Tramps,” but you could say the post-WWI Czechoslovakian back-to-nature movement was somewhat Bohemian. In some ways, they were early outdoorsmen-environmentalists, but they also had an affinity for Americana culture. They were the closest things to cowboys in Eastern Europe, who formed the original nucleus of the most significant Bluegrass scene outside of the United States. Ethnomusicologist Lee Bidgood & director Shara K. Lange explore the continuing Czech Bluegrass tradition in Banjo Romantika: American Bluegrass Music & the Czech Imagination (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Kingston (NY) Film Festival.

Yes, Bluegrass was definitely associated with America—and yes, that was a little awkward during the Communist era. Nevertheless, local musicians and fans managed to hold the nation’s first international Bluegrass festival in 1972. These were hearty, hardy folks who often embraced American music and drove U.S. Army jeeps to express defiance. Not surprisingly, Bluegrass often accompanied the Velvet Revolution protests, particularly the music of Robert Křest’an, whom Lange films recording his latest album.

Thanks to American Armed Forces Radio, pioneers like Marko Čermák heard all the American greats. While they can do their share of fleet Scruggs-inspired picking, they processed the music into something very Czech, yet the affinity for the country hills remains. Frankly, there is an unexpected soulfulness to the music performed in Romantika that sounds wonderfully inviting.

As a documentary, Romantika offers a good balance of performance and cultural context. Lange’s interview subjects clearly establish Bluegrass’s Cold War significance as a symbol of freedom, without belaboring the point. East Tennessee State Prof. Bidgood serves as our guide through the history of Czech/Czechoslovakian Bluegrass, but he does all his talking on the bandstand, leading his combo through a set of the music under discussion. They sound great too.

If you have ever spent time in the Czech Republic, especially in the countryside, Romantika will bring back happy memories and make wish for a return trip, which is not something you would expect from a Bluegrass documentary. This is just a terrific, terrific film. Clocking in just under seventy minutes, it is on the short side but it is well worth every minute spent. Hopefully, it will eventually find a further audience on PBS (or somewhere), because it deserves a chance to be seen widely. Very highly recommended, Banjo Romantika screens this Friday afternoon (8/14) as part of the 2015 Kingston Film Festival in Ulster County.

AIR: A New Kind of Apocalypse from Robert Kirkman

In the post-apocalyptic future, two technicians will wrestle with some thorny issues of lifeboat ethics. They happens to be in charge of the lifeboat maintenance, but they are not as stable as you might hope. Complications will most definitely arise in Christian Cantamessa’s AIR (trailer here), the first theatrical release from Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman’s Skybound shingle, which opens this Friday in New York.

Due to war, pestilence, and plague, the Earth’s surface atmosphere has become toxic. An elite lucky few were sent into suspended animation in deep subterranean bunkers. In each lifeboat-like shelter, two not so lucky technicians are roused every six months to run diagnostics and check the sleepers’ vitals. They only have one hour and fifty nine minutes to get back in their pods before all the oxygen is sucked out of the bunker and back into the tanks.

Unfortunately, both Bauer and Cartwright are showing signs of stress. The former is becoming increasingly aggressive, while the latter is seeing visions of one of the suspended scientists he clearly fancies. However, his mental projection of Abby often manages to give him rather timely advice. He will need it when his personal pod suffers a malfunction.

The apocalypse is usually more compelling on a personal level than on a big macro plane—and AIR is a good case in point. There is something very effectively old school about the one set (albeit a rather complex one, impressively rendered by Brian Kane’s production team) and its two or three character dynamic, depending one’s point-of-view. Cantamessa has a firm handle on close-quarters action, dexterously slamming airlocks and sending Bauer and Cartwright shimmying through air-ducts. Despite its claustrophobic nature, AIR is still quite cinematic looking.

No stranger to Kirkman or playing twitchy survivors, Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus has instant credibility as Bauer, yet he still manages to keep the audience off balance with his erratic behavior. Djimon Hounsou is also well cast as Cartwright, the strong, silent, hallucinating type. Although nobody could really sink their teeth into a role like the apparitional Abby, Sandrine Holt still has the perfectly cerebral yet sensitive presence to memorably haunt Cartwright and the film.

AIR is another fine example of how inventive filmmakers can make tight, tense, relatively action-oriented science fiction with hardly any visual effects to speak of. Granted, it is small in scope, but frankly that is rather refreshing in such an overly bloated genre. Recommended pretty enthusiastically for fans of Kirkman and post-apocalyptic SF, AIR opens this Friday (8/14) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Paradise Broken: the Mean Streets of Waikiki

This is not Steve McGarrett’s Hawaii. Behind the luxury hotels, sex and drugs are openly sold, with nary a cop in sight. Even though they are locals, a junkie-pimp and his prostitute-girlfriend have a hard time making it on Waikiki’s mean streets in James Sereno’s Paradise Broken (trailer here), which MarVista Entertainment releases today on VOD platforms, including Vudu.

Ray Geronimo and Misha Domingo vaguely dream of owning their own beachfront bungalow, but their day-to-day concerns solely focus on their next hit of smack. Towards that end, Geronimo reluctantly started pimping Domingo out. It was really her idea. She thinks they can do better if they join forces with the Mainlander known only as “Pimp” (seriously, that is all it says on his business cards), but Geronimo sees him as just another outside exploiter. He would rather poach the gangster’s greenest new street-walker. However, Geronimo’s expansionist plans incite Domingo’s jealousy, leading to a messy split at an inopportune time.

Whether together or apart, Geronimo and Domingo will do junkie things as junkies do, which isn’t very pretty to watch, but it is relentlessly honest. Similarly, Sereno is determined to reinforce the notion of two radically different Hawaii’s, immediately following up every glamour shot of the coast line or the night club with an up-close-and-personal look at the underclass squalor of Dante’s life.

As Geronimo, Dante Basco (a veteran of the Awesome Asian Bad Guys) is a tightly coiled spring, always ready to explode with rage. Nadine Nicole Heimann is also plenty erratic as Domingo, while Katherine Emily Mills is a disturbing picture of innocence as the girl he tries to recruit. However, the demonically charismatic Khalil Kain steals scene after scene as Geronimo’s more ruthless rival. Some might consider it a dubious honor, but Kain’s nameless antagonist might be the most distinctive movie pimp performance since Morgan Freeman’s Oscar nominated turn in Street Smart.

Although there is a bit of an over-reliance on flashback devices, Sereno’s execution is still pretty smooth and the ensemble performances are faultless. Still, there is no getting around the fact this is one downer narrative. Nevertheless, it is genuinely a film of and by Hawaii, featuring some breakout-worthy work from its principals. Recommended for those who appreciate gritty, street smart dramas, Paradise Broken launches today (8/11) on VOD, from MarVista Entertainment.

Paulette: Beats Being a Greeter at Walmart

She is like the Archie Bunker of Paris. Don’t give her your hipster-Brooklyn complaints about gentrification, because she does not want to hear them. She has seen the exact opposite happen in her outer Parisian neighborhood. As more and more immigrants moved in, her once quaint patisserie went under, ultimately causing her beloved husband to drink himself to death. The resentful old woman has trouble making ends meet, until she finds her niche in the narcotics economy booming around her in Jérôme Enrico’s Paulette (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Paulette’s son-in-law Ousmane (or Osama as she calls him) and her parish priest are of African descent, but that does not stop her from making the rudest racist remarks in their presence. She is even frosty to her grandson Leo, for the same reason. She is also broke, so she gleans some information from Ousmane and approaches Vito, the drug captain for her housing project for work. She starts out as a street pusher, but quickly develops a loyal clientele who feel more comfortable buying from her than a young unsavory gangster. However, she really hits her stride when she starts whipping up hash baked goods. Business is so brisk she soon recruits her card playing cronies. Of course, she will not be able to keep her drug business on cruise control indefinitely.

If merely seeing a French granny pushing dope holds sufficient novelty for you than Paulette will not disappoint. However, films like Pushing the Elephant and the Fantasia-selected Ryuchi and His Seven Henchmen are far superior films about senior citizens going (or staying) gangster. Hmm, do you suppose Paulette might warm to little Leo once she starts mixing with more diverse associates? Frankly, the film works best when it shows the unreconstructed Paulette venting her spleen. At least, these darkly comic scenes have an edge and some integrity. Once lessons start to be learned, the film simply craters into sentimentality and shtick.

The late great Bernadette Lafont was a Nouvelle Vague veteran, probably best known for her work with Claude Chabrol. This probably is not the film to remember her by, but it still shows flashes of her greatness, especially in her early, flintier scenes. It is sort of mind-blowing to see Carmen Maura, the frazzled Pepa in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown getting cast as frumpy seniors, but Enrico and his battery of co-screenwriters (Laurie Aubanel, Bianca Olsen, and Cyril Rambour) could have at least given her a more sharply defined character. Unfortunately, except for Lafont, everyone is merely playing types.

Despite all the safe and easy choices Enrico makes, there is still some substance to its portrait of a woman embittered but not defeated by life in today’s Paris, which is nicely served by Michel Ochowiak’s peppy yet bittersweet score. Frustratingly, the film is mostly harmless, when it could have been lethally cutting. Okay for patrons of French cinema looking for something non-threatening, Paulette opens this Friday (8/14) in New York at the Paris Theater.

Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism

If you don’t work in publishing, you might not realize how many Harry Potter wannabes have been pitched, published, and forgotten since the series started hitting bestseller lists. It is easy to lump Lady Georgia Byng’s Molly Moon series in with the rest of the field of imitators, but at least they have a cute dog. They also have a nice theme of empowerment for young girls judging from Christopher N. Rowley’s big screen adaptation of her first adventure, Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select cities.

Molly Moon is an orphan, whose pluck rubs Miss Adderstone, the mean-spirited headmistress decidedly the wrong way. Fellow orphan Rocky Scarlet is her best friend and probably future boyfriend, but they’re only eleven, so that will have to wait. Adderstone is so strict, Moon can only read quietly to herself when she sneaks off to the village library. It is there she happens across a rare hypnotism instructional book. This antiquarian volume really works, which is why bumbling smalltime crook Simon Nockman is so desperate to find it.

Experimenting with her new powers, Moon first mesmerizes Miss Adderstone’s snarly pug Petula with great success. She soon follows-up by hypnotizing Edna, the dreadful orphanage cook and Miss Adderstone. Life is suddenly livable in the waifs’ home, but when she neglects the high maintenance Scarlet, he up and gets himself adopted. Moon follows him to London, where things get even more complicated, thanks to Nockman.

Moon’s first outing is much more modest in scope than the Potters, but they skew towards a younger audience. Frankly, the closer you are demographically to Mademoiselle Moon, the more you are likely to enjoy her film. Still, grown-ups can at least appreciate her resiliency, as well as her aversion to self-pity and habit of accepting responsibility. Basically, she is a good kid who gets caught up in some unusual situations.

Young Raffey Cassidy is quite well cast as Moon, displaying an appropriately winning screen presence and plenty of energy. In contrast, Dominic Monaghan (from Lost and Lord of the Rings) would probably prefer to forget the shtick and pratfalls that were required of him as the nebbish Nockman. Emily Watson has probably never been as mousey and milquetoast as she is as Miss Trinkleberry, the only kind-hearted orphanage staff-member, which is certainly saying something. However, Joan Collins’ scenery-chewing appearances as Nockman’s villainous mother are rather amusing in a nostalgic kind of way.

There is nothing objectionable in screenwriter Chris Hurford’s adaptation of Byng’s children’s book and there is a good deal of merit to its spirited protagonist. With its respectable production values and Rowley’s healthy pacing, it makes a decent programming choice for kids (but it will not overwhelm their parents). Recommended accordingly, Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism opens this Friday (8/14) in theaters and also releases on iTunes.

To the Fore: Dante Lam Hits the Track

Probably no sport has had a rougher decade than pro-cycling. With most of its recent champions disgraced by doping scandals, there should at least be opportunities for young emerging cyclists. Unfortunately, three former teammates cannot all be champions. However, the sport itself should definitely benefit from the treatment it gets from Hong Kong action auteur Dante Lam in To the Fore (trailer here), which Magnum Films just released in New York.

Chiu Ming has power. Qiu Tian is a plugger who can climb. Together they are perfectly matched “lead-outs” who should be able to guide the Taiwanese Team Radiant’s star Korean sprinter Ji-won to victory. Unfortunately, just when they start gelling as a team, their sponsor leaves their owner-manager high and dry. Suddenly free agents, they each sign on as sprinters for competing teams. Ji-won is already on the verge of advancing to next professional class, but Qiu is physically unsuited to his new role, while Chiu has trouble controlling his emotions. In between some spectacularly cinematic races, Chiu and Qiu will also compete for the affections of Shiyao, a Mainland indoor track racer recovering from a pulmonary embolism.

If you enjoy cycling, Lam brings the goods with authority. Although there is no fighting per se, his action chops still serve the racing sequences remarkably well. Lam makes it easy to follow the team strategy as it unfolds, while cinematographer Pakie Chan captures the in-race events with remarkable clarity. Lam and co-screenwriter Silver Lam Fung also shrewdly vary the competitions, making their way through the streets of Kaohsiung City, the Italian Alps, a mobbed-up betting track in Busan, and the Tengger Desert. Naturally, each course has its particular challenges.

Somehow, Lam and company manage to steer clear of most of the moldiest sports movies clichés. The interpersonal stuff is still fairly workaday stuff, but Wang Luodan elevates the material as the reserved but engaging Shiyao. Eddie Peng does his cocky Taiwanese Tom Cruise thing as Chiu, but it fits the part. Choi Si-won has the least room to stretch as Ji-won, the Iceman to Peng’s Maverick, but he certainly has the appropriately cool look. However, Shawn Dou manages to scrape out a rather impressive character development arc as Qiu.

Regardless, To the Fore is really all about the cycling. Despite the potential repetitiveness, Lam keeps the energy level cranked up and establishes meaningful stakes for each and every race. It is a great looking film that fully capitalizes on its diverse panoramic locales. Recommended for fans of cycling and sports films in general, To the Fore is now playing in New York at the AMC Empire.

Cinema on the Edge: Ping’an Yueqing

Experts contend the greatest degree of corruption in American government happens at the local level, because that is where most land use decisions are made. Apparently, it is the same in China, but more lethally so. The late Qian Yunhui was a rare breed—a village chief who actually protested the government’s land appropriation schemes. That may very well be why he is now the late Qian Yunhui. Ai Weiwei and his filmmaking team investigate the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death in Ping’an Yueqing (trailer here), which screens as part of Cinema on the Edge, a retrospective tribute to the Beijing Independent Film Festival now playing in New York at Anthology Film Archives.

If you were still unclear how independent the Beijing Independent festival was and why the Communist government so resented their maverick programming, just start watching Ping’an Yueqing. Sadly, the village of Yueqing is anything but “peaceful.” Qian was imprisoned for over four years, but the village refused to elect another headman, because he was faithfully representing their concerns. Then one morning, Qian was conveniently struck and killed by a heavy truck owned and operated by the local power authority.

After an unseemly short investigation, Qian death was ruled an accident and his two deputies were arrested for obstruction of justice. Sensing a cover-up, the internet quickly took up the case. As the citizen investigators explain to Ai Weiwei, the traffic surveillance camera was ever so strangely offline for maintenance exactly during the so-called accident. However, video recorded by Qian’s smart-watch device (like his own, personal Zapruder film) did not match the description of the scene in police reports. The few eye witnesses willing to testify also contradict the official story in various ways. Yet, perhaps the most damning circumstantial evidence is the pattern of troublesome Zhejiang officials who were previously done in by similar traffic accidents.

Teacher Ai and his team do their best to put the dissembling officials on the spot. It is not always pretty, but the state mouthpieces generally conduct themselves more shrewdly than the apparatchiks in his classic Disturbing the Peace and So Sorry. However, the most disturbing sequences are the dozens of Yueqing villagers who tell Ai’s camera crews “if I talk to you, they will make me disappear tonight,” in exactly those terms. Regardless of the Qian case, this is obviously a profoundly ailing community, suffering from oppressive corruption.

Ping’an uses the same straight, unfiltered approach as seen in other Ai Weiwei documentaries, but in this particularly complicated case, it would have been helpful to have an on-camera presence to help marshal the often contradicting testimony and to occasionally provide context. Of course, Teacher Ai would have been perfect for such a role, but he is not inclined to inject himself into other people’s stories.

Regardless, Ping’an is a courageous example of independent filmmaking and investigative journalism. It shines a searing spotlight on a tawdry episode the Party would love the world to forget. Yet, thanks to Ai Weiwei and the Beijing Independent fest, cineastes who have never heard of Qian Yunhui will keep revisiting the events in Yueqing. A bold and chilling work of non-fiction filmmaking, Ping’an Yueqing is highly recommended for anyone who really wants to see what speaking truth to power really looks like when it screens tonight (8/9) and Thursday (8/13) at the Anthology Film Archives and as part of the forthcoming tour of the Cinema on the Edge retrospective.