It is highly unlikely Timofeyev, a mild-mannered Soviet mental patient,
could have assassinated both Tsar Alexander II in 1881 and the final Tsar,
Nicholas II along with his family in 1918, but the Soviet government heavily
censored discussion of such events. As a result, most Russians knew very little
about their respective deaths, even as late as 1991. Russian filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov
really had to scrounge for background information while preparing this film.
However, he had a big international star in Malcolm McDowell. Maybe he was not
as hot as he was in the early 1970s, but the Caligula thesp still
carried a good deal of cachet during the era of Glasnost. Regardless, McDowell
convincingly makes Timofeyev’s delusions contagious in Shakhnazarov’s The
Assassin of the Tsar, which premieres today on OVID.tv.
Assassin
of the Tsar was
produced at a time when Shakhnazarov was still an artist. Today, he is a
propagandist, whom Putin regularly trots out to endorse his war crimes in Ukraine.
Apparently, he forgot writing and directing this film, because its critiques of
violent extremism could apply just as well to Putin’s regime.
The
exact time period is hard to pin down, but references suggest Stalin is still
in power. Perhaps that is one reason Timofeyev politely declined his previous
doctor’s offers of increased freedom. As long as he remains an inmate of the
asylum, he is safe from the outside world and provided sufficient food. Dr.
Aleksandr Yegorovich has stepped back into a quasi-emeritus role, conceding
day-to-day responsibilities to his younger colleague, Dr. Smirnov, who was
specially recruited from the big city.
Smirnov
is struck by Timofeyev, particularly the way his body exhibits signs of psychosomatic
injuries on dates related to the assassinations. Of course, he assumes Timofeyev
could not possibly have committed either murder, so he decides to cure his
patient through confrontational role play therapy. However, instead of snapping
Timofeyev back to reality, the patient pulls his doctor into his delusional
visions of the past. Shakhnazarov realizes these scenes so subtly, they first
seem like historical flashbacks for context. Yet, the treatment steadily takes
a physical and emotional toll on Smirnov.
As
the film progresses, it grows steadily clearer how the abject horror of the
Romanov regicide hangs over the characters and Soviet society, like an evil
curse. It is sort of like the regime’s original sin and Timofeyev is the holy
fool, pointing out Banquo’s ghost at the banquet.
Two
versions of Assassin were produced, one featuring an undubbed McDowell performing
with the Russian actors phonetically delivering their lines in English and a
Russian version, in which the Yorkshire-born thesp is overdubbed. This review
is based on the subtitled Russian option, but OVID.tv offers both. Regardless,
McDowell is perfectly weird as Timofeyev. He can be suitably twitchy, but
somehow his moments of serene calm are more disconcerting.
Like the U.S. Merchant Marine, Norway's merchant sailors suffered astonishingly hifgh casualty rates during WWII. THE ARCTIC CONVOY grippingly recreates their service and sacrifice. EPOCH TIMES exclusive review up here.
The teens in RETAKE have difficulty figuring out the endings for the movie they are making and the film they are appearing in, but the bittersweet nostalgia and their youthful exuberance are more important than the narrative gamesmanship. CINEMA DAILY US Japan Cuts review up here.
TV Prime Minister Robert Sutherland outlasted Boris Johnson Liz Truss, and
Rishi Sunak. He might be the most reassuring PM since Jim Hacker on Yes,
Prime Minister. However, Sutherland could use a Sir Humphrey, because many
of his cabinet members follow their own agendas, often against the interests of
his administration. It gets so bad, his flamboyantly arrogant Conservative
Party rival Archie Glover-Morgan is more friend than foe this time around—or at
least it’s a close call. That will be a problem when the next crisis strikes in
the 6-part COBRA: Rebellion (a.k.a. season three), which premieres
tonight on PBS.
To
embarrass her father, Sutherland’s daughter Ellie joined an extremist
environmental group occupying tunnels under a contested construction site.
However, she needs daddy to save her when a freak sink-hole collapse traps her
underground. The disaster site turns into a crime scene when remnants of an
explosive device are discovered. Awkwardly, the activist trapped with her knows
an awful lot about it. Logically, suspicion also falls on Ellie, requiring her
father to maintain impartial treatment towards her.
That
does not sit so well with his wife Rachel, with whom his marriage was already
strained. Fortunately, he can finally count on the wise counsel of his chief of
staff, Anna Marshall. Like Lloyd Bridges in Airplane!, she picked the
wrong day to return from sick leave, after waking from her second season coma. Indeed,
she wants to be in the cabinet briefings (the so-called COBRAs) to support
Sutherland—and anywhere else he might need her . . . support.
Somehow,
a fictional Middle East kingdom that is absolutely not supposed to represent
Saudi Arabia is also mixed up in the expanding crisis. Apparently, they
kidnapped the dissident Princess Yadira, who was a women’s rights activist back
home and a legal resident of the United Kingdom. Sutherland is quite put out
that they would conduct such an operation on British soil, but the ruthlessly
ambitious Defense Minister, Victoria Dalton is determined to preserve British defense
contractors’ lucrative deals with the oil-rich kingdom.
Uncharacteristically,
Glover-Morgan, who ascended to the deputy PM position in season two, advises
caution to both. While he wants to preserve the defense contracts, he also wants
no part of the regime’s reported human rights abuses. In fact, the subtle evolution
of Glover-Morgan, from jerky to rather waggish, is one of the best developments
in Rebellion.
David
Haig practically chortles with delight firing off zingers and scheming behind-the-scenes.
He is like Frank Underwood or Francis Urquhart in either version of House of
Cards, except Glover-Morgan is more human, more principled, and arguably a
true patriot, despite his devious, roguishness. Honestly, if he were the lead
of the next season, it would be jolly good fun.
In
comparison, Robert Carlyle is still a bit bland as Sutherland, but he projects
a sense of sound judgement and temperament that frankly a lot of Americans are currently
yearning for. Lisa Palfrey is still appropriately shifty and morally ambiguous
as Intelligence Chair Eleanor James. Edward Bennett is also entertainingly
snide and pompous as Glover-Morgan’s former ally, press secretary Peter Mott,
who has turned against the Deputy PM. However, Marsha Thomason is dull as dish
water playing former Sutherland advisor and current Labour shadow minister,
Francine Bridge, whose duties apparently solely consist of walking about
looking heroically concerned. Similarly, a lot of viewers would prefer to leave
Holly Cattle’s character, nauseatingly petulant Ellie Sutherland buried in the
collapsed tunnel.
They might be moonshining siblings, but Joo Je-song and his two half-brothers
are no Dukes of Hazard. For one thing, there latest batch is legitimately
lethal and racking up a body-count among their regular customers. They try to
retrieve the bad brew, but that takes them to a small provincial town where a
doomsday religious cult has its own homicidal ideas in Hwang Wook’s Mash
Ville, which screened during the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival.
The
film’s early rhythms are somewhat unsteady, like the shambling of a stoner
zombie. Eventually, all these odd characters will come together in a small town
that is about to become a ghost town. Fortunately, Joo’s half-bro’s were drunk
on someone else’s product when he walked in on them, but their now deceased
friend was pounding their Moonlight Whiskey. Obviously, they need to recall
their bad batch, so they carjack Ms. Jeong.
At
least she had the good sense to decline the Moonlight Whiskey the bartender
pushed on her, during her latest bout of binge drinking. She got so drunk she
forgot to pick up a corpse dummy for her demanding producer. “Fortunately,” a
random woman decided to climb into her trunk, where she apparently died. The
producer is thrilled by the corpse’s lifelike qualities, but she is freaking
out trying to figure out what to do with it next.
Joo
and the Bros maybe solve her problem when they carjack her. They need to get to
the small town where they shipped their deadly stock. Meanwhile, a pair of
religious fanatics are killing townsfolk one by one, until they have a dozen
corpses, but not just any twelve. They need to have one that was born in each
calendar month of the year.
That
is the over-simplified version. Hwang and co-screenwriter Lim Dong-min have a
whole lot of weirdness going on in this film. A lot of it is amusing in a “huh,
wha…” kind of way. However, there are also times when it is just a lot.
It is basically the anti-Excalibur. You don’t possess this sword—it possesses
you. Wielding it necessarily entails a Faustian bargain. It is best possible
weapon for killing demons, but by doing so, the demon trapped within will eventually
build up enough power to break out. Old tipsy Tonho is no demon-slayer, but
somehow the blade finds its way into his hands in Fabio Powers’ The Old Man
and the Demon Sword, which screened at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival.
Initially,
the Demon Sword had a highly contentious relationship with its wielder, a fiery
padre literally crusading against demons. When he dies in battle, the sword
literally falls to Tonho. He might be drunk, but he is smart enough to resist
picking it up. Nevertheless, the Demon Sword marks him anyway.
Ironically,
Tonho is more devout than any of the film’s flawed clergy. The boozy widower
truly tries to hew to a righteous path, which clearly does not preclude the old
hair of the dog, at least in his judgement. That leads to constant squabbling
with the Demon Sword, whom he can hear in his head. Regardless, they must work
together eventually, when they enter a magically sealed-off Portuguese village
harboring demons.
Powers’
deliberately exaggerated, lo-fi grungy DIY style is amusing, at least for a while.
However, even the film’s relatively brief running time (a mere 64-minutes)
starts to wear out its welcome, especially when it resorts to overly-familiar
meta conventions. There is also a weird disconnect between the intentional
low-budget aesthetic (for comedic effect) and its half-serious discussion of
profound theological concepts. Frankly, this wild cocktail would have probably
worked better as a twentysomething-minute short film.
Nobody tells provincial police detective Ma Zhe to “round up the usual
suspects,” at least not in so many words, but that is clearly what his superiors
have in mind. Under a regime like the CCP, this strategy offers cops two
benefits. They can rid the regime of someone deemed undesirable and it makes
work easy for them. Yet, for some reason, Ma Zhe is perversely determined to do
things the hard way on this case—and it definitely makes life hard for him in
Wei Shujun’s Only the River Flows, which opens this Friday in New York.
When
a lonely granny’s body is found in the river, suspicion automatically falls on
the mentally disabled man who often accompanied her. Ever so charmingly, the
cops and villagers refer to him as the “Madman.” However, the discovery of a
teenaged girl’s purse leads Ma Zhe in a different direction. Then again, the
murder of her suspiciously older lover refocuses the local task force back on
the Madman.
Intuitively,
Ma Zhe doubts the Madman’s guilt. The situation also hits uncomfortably close
to home. He and his very pregnant wife Bai Jie soon learn their baby has a ten
percent chance of having some sort of developmental disability. Naturally, the
clinic strenuously recommends an abortion and he agrees. However, she is
determined to deliver their son and deeply resents any suggestions to the
contrary.
Although
Wei’s adaptation of Yu Hua’s novel, co-written with Chunlei Kang, adopts the
style and form of film noir, it de-emphasizes suspense and proceduralism. Instead,
it is most effective recreating the social and economic realities of
post-Tiananmen 1990s China.
Throughout
the film, it is unambiguously clear the police leadership have no real interest
in justice. They measure success in police league ping-pong championships and
checked boxes in bureaucratic reports. They want Ma Zhe to charge the Madman
and be done with it, regardless of the truth.
Again,
nobody uses the words “One Child Policy,” but they loom over all Ma Zhe’s
discussions with his wife. For him, the risk of having a child disabled in any
way is too great a risk. On the other hand, Bai Jie refuses give up a coveted
boy, knowing they might not be so “fortunate” with another pregnancy.
For
the role of Ma Zhe, Zhu Yilong did vintage Robert De Niro one better. First, he
gained weight appropriate to a shlubby cop with bad dietary habits and then he
lost the flab as the stress of the investigation took its toll on the honest
cop. It is an understated, but enormously gritty performance.
Since its a slow news day, here's a Japan Cuts review. KUBI has everything Takeshi Kitano fans associate with the master. It has brutal fight scenes, nefarious intrigue, and sly Kitano attitude. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.
Mooyoung High could use a substitute like Tom Berenger (or Treat Williams in the
sequels). Instead, it gets So Si-min, a former contender in Olympic
butt-kicking, as a probationary teacher. She might be enough to restore order
and decency in Park Jin-pyo’s Brave Citizen, which screened at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival.
As
a one-year “contract teacher,” So is constantly told to stay out of trouble if
she wants to be hired as a permanent faculty member. That means looking the
other way when Han Su-kang bullies his fellow students. As she quickly figures
out, Han really runs the school, thanks to his powerful and litigious parents.
Frankly, So only has her current position (ironically teaching ethics) because
Han drove her predecessor to commit suicide.
So
tries to look the other way, because she wants a permanent posting. She is
deeply in debt due to her deadbeat father, So Young-taek, who was also her
coach. However, she cannot ignore the savage bullying of Go Jin-hyung, who is
told to take it and like it, or Han and his running mates will kill his street
vendor grandmother. So refuses to stomach such injustice, so she dons a cat
mask and starts anonymously administering frontier justice when Han tries to torment
victims off-campus.
Brave
Citizen could
breakout in America if marketed correctly. If you believe the premise of a politically-connected
bully wouldn’t resonate here, think again. Could Jewish students relate after
enduring genocidal threats and harassment on campus, while university
administrators did nothing to discipline the bullying “protesters?” How about the
owners of small businesses that were looted during the 2020 riots, as the media
cheered them on and big city DAs refused to prosecute? As a result, there are a
lot of Americans who feel exactly like students at Mooyoung, who will applaud
So.
Korney Chukovsky's Doctor Aybolit is a beloved icon of Russian children’s lit,
but his similarities to Doctor Doolittle are so striking, it caused a scandal when
Lofting’s earlier work was finally translated into Russian in the 1990s. It
seems pretty clear Chukovsky ripped off Doolittle, so it is only fair that
Canada plundered Aybolit right back in 1971. Filmmaker Gerald Potterton
literally put new words in Dr. Aybolit’s mouth by redubbed the garish-looking Soviet
children’s movie Aybolit-66, much in the tradition of What’s Up Tiger
Lily or Fractured Flickers. Yet, that wasn’t even the weirdest part
of Gerald Potterton’s animated-hybrid freak-out Tiki Tiki, which screens
in its freshly restored weirdness at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.
In
a way, Tiki Tiki is like Planet of the Apes, if primates had
evolved to control the film industry. J.J. is a gorilla who runs the studio
founded by K.K. (do those initials mean anything to you?). The mogul signed
Dennis McShane, an up-and-coming hipster screenwriter (who is sort of equal
parts George Carlin, Dennis Hopper, and Kinky Friedman), to make a picture for
the studio. So far, he has spent a lot of money, but has no dailies yet to show
for it.
McShane
also has an experimental idea that scares J.J. He wants to use humans to play
apes. The crazy thing is Aybolit-66 features a lot of people playing
monkeys. The level of costuming is roughly on par with Santa Claus Conquers
the Martians and their respective color palettes are comparable.
Reluctantly, J.J. tags along with McShane in his special flying movie-camera
airship, to film the humans as they embark on improvised sea voyage to Tiki
Tiki, which is supposedly in Africa, even though the name evokes Polynesian
associations.
Frankly,
the Aybolit-66 footage is often painful to watch, like the toughest
films the ‘bots riff on in MST3K. However, the animated segments are
pretty cool, despite their counter-culture perspective. You can definitely see
stylistic similarities with Heavy Metal, which Potterton directed, as
well as Yellow Submarine and the bizarre Raggedy Ann & Andy movie,
on which he served as an animator. He also incorporates baroque interludes that
might remind fans of Terry Gilliams animated sequences for Monty Python.
Vespasian is considered one of the better emperors (especially compared to Nero),
but his death was fast approaching in the year 79 A.D. It will take almost 400
years for Rome to fall, but you might assume the Roman Empire’s days are also
limited from the riots and corruption plaguing Roman society. Fortunately for
the elites, blood sport still keeps the mob distracted, at least to an extent,
but that sure makes it rough to be a gladiator in creator Robert Rodat’s
10-part Those About to Die, which premieres today on Peacock.
Vespasian
subjugated Judea, but his oldest son and presumptive heir, Titus Flavianus, has
taken the Judean Queen as his consort. Rome has not exactly welcomed her with
open arms, but the locals are often hostile to new arrivals from the far-flung
corners of the Empire.
That
is even more true for Cala and her children from North Africa. When the
youngest daughter, Jula, is assaulted by a Centurion, her older sister, Aura
fatally defends her honor. Immediately, she is consigned into slavery as her
punishment. Their unfortunate older brother Kwame suffers the same fate when he
objects.
Off
to Rome they go, but Cala follows with Jula, determined to buy their freedom.
Unfortunately, Aura is purchased by the wife of Marsus, a powerful and perverse
senator, who covets the emperor’s laurels for himself. Ironically, Kwame opts
for a life as a gladiator, because they have a higher life expectancy than
slaves sent to the mines. Obviously, buying the freedom of either children will
not be an option in their current stations, so Cala’s bides her time working in
the gambling salon operated by Tenax, the focal anti-hero.
Tenax
has a plan to challenge Rome’s social and economic order by starting a fifth
chariot racing faction. He has the best driver, Scorpus a hedonistic but winning
charioteer based on a historical figure. He also has four deceptively small but
incredibly fast and strong horses, purchased from three Andalusian brothers,
who intend to stay in Rome to build careers as horse-trainers (at least that
was the secret intention of the elder two and they figure their baby bro will
reluctantly stay, despite his discomfort with Roman ways).
However,
Tenax needs a powerful silent partner to convince the Emperor to grant the Gold
Faction’s charter. Titus’s psychotic younger brother Domitian Flavianus is
perfectly placed to do just that. He resents his father designating Titus as
his heir. The younger Flavianus also needs money quickly, to cover his mounting
debts and the gold he embezzled from the treasury. Consequently, agrees to Tenax’s
proposal, but he makes no secret of his contempt for the grubby commoner.
Likewise, he clearly takes an instant dislike to Kwame when he observes the
gladiator in training.
Rodat’s
loose adaption of the book by Daniel P. Mannix (who also wrote the source novel
for Disney’s The Fox and the Hound), definitely leans into the decadent
and violent aspects of Flavian Rome. The scenes of gladiatorial combat are far
more graphic than anything seen in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, while the
many sex scenes (of multiple persuasions) leave nothing to the imagination. At
times, it almost feels like a starter kit for Caligula. However, it is anchored
by a powerful story of a mother fighting for her children’s freedom.
That
unironic pursuit of freedom makes Those About to Die superior to the Spartacus
series, which can never be forgiven for turning the iconic battle-cry of
solidarity, “I am Spartacus,” into a self-aggrandizing howl of personal
affirmation. However, the new series still represents a decidedly mixed bag.
One
of the best aspects of Rodat’s adaptation is the messy, overlapping, and
sometimes contradictory nature of the alliances. Sometimes, by working against
their sworn enemies, characters cause complications for transactional allies,
which leads to further problems down the line.
BOTTLE GEORGE and NEZUMIKO JIROKICHI are very different animated shorts, but Daisuke Tsutsumi's stop-motion medition on alcoholism and childhood trauma and Rintaro's rollicking tribute to the silent era of Japanese cinema are both highlights at the 2024 Japan Cuts. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.
It is time to twist again, like we did in 1996. Seriously, how could they
pass up licensing Chubby Checker for this soundtrack? Sure, the new film is set
in Oklahoma, so the country music makes sense, but still. They also could have been
more conceptual and included some Weather Report tunes from the Heavy
Weather album. Regardless, the Sooner State is definitely in store for some
heavy weather in Lee Isaac Chung’s sort-of-not-really sequel Twisters,
which opens Friday on almost every movie screen in America.
For
a movie like this, viewers should be trained not to emotionally invest too
heavily in the characters that appear in the prologue. Kate Carter survives,
but she retires from storm-chasing to monitor weather patterns on computer
screens, due to her paralyzing guilt and PTSD. Yet, Carter was clearly meant
for field work, because she has an almost intuitive sense of how storms will
behave.
Needing
her “tornado whisperer” skills, her old [still living] research teammate Javi
convinces her to join him for a week of storm-chasing. He claims the tech
developed by his new start-up, Storm-Par, will help the people of Tornado Alley.
Carter is a little rusty, but she quickly regains her storm-footing,
out-navigating Storm Par’s rivals, a group of YouTube influencers led by Tyler
Owens, a former bull-rider turned meteorology student-turned internet show-boater.
Owens’
temperament and style immediately rub Carter the wrong way, but he keeps trying
to charm her anyway. Clearly, Javi’s financial backer, a bottom-feeding real
estate developer is the real sleaze, but it will take a fair amount of time
arguing with Owens before she realizes it. Of course, if she decides to
dust-off her old Tornado-suppressing experiments, a swaggering storm-chaser
like Owens might be just the kind of cat who is crazy enough to help her.
As
was true for the previous film, the big swirling storms are the main attraction.
They are bigger than ever, thanks to advances in special effects technology
rather than any kind of climate-related trends. Yes, it is true: nobody
mentions climate change, but viewers can sometimes infer it being implied.
Regardless, the film’s reluctance to lecture the audience from its soapbox is
appreciated.
Indeed,
it is one of the ways that Chung, formerly an awards and arthouse darling for Minari,
proved to be such a good match for this material. Throughout Twisters (with
an “s”) you will not find any jokes about gun-racks in pick-ups or John Deere
ball-caps. Chung knows rural America, because that is where his family settled,
just like in the semi-autobiographical Minari, so he understands and
sympathizes with those who still live there. Plus, as a former Arkansas resident,
Chung might have more real-world research to draw from than he might have
preferred at the time. Regardless, that sensitivity really adds a lot.
If you grew up in the 1970s, you might remember a time when gas stations
ran out of gas. With all the talk about reviving various price controls, we
might just bring those bad old days back. For one “last chance” gas station,
that reality is already here. Their re-supply track is running late, unnerving
several dodgy characters who need to get out of town fast in Francis Galluppi’s
The Last Stop in Yuma County, which releases today on BluRay.
This
is a thriller in the tradition of The Petrified Forest, but the
characters probably feel like they are stuck in Sartre play. Vernon’s filling
station is out of gas, so his potential customers must wait for the truck to
arrive in Charlotte’s diner, where the air-conditioning is on the fritz. The
nebbish traveling salesman hawking knock-off Ginsu knives recognizes Travis and
Beau match the description of wanted bank-robbers, which is no coincidence.
Essentially,
the two fugitives hold them hostage, but they all try to act normal for all the
other customers coming into the diner, including Deputy Gavin. Charlotte tries
to send a warning through him to the Sheriff, her husband Charlie, but poor
Gavin is an exceedingly dim bulb.
Yuma
County is
a reasonably successful desert noir, mainly due to its colorful characters and the
experienced ensemble of genre-friendly thesps portraying them. On the other
hand, the execution and pacing are somewhat uneven. After fifty-some-minutes of
ever-so deliberately slow-building, Galluppi seems to say the heck with it and
unleashes total bedlam.
Regardless,
Richard Brake is appropriately sinister as Beau, the brains of the two-armed
robber-operation. Sometimes, Jim Cummings takes over-the-top a bit too far, but
he finds the right level of twitchiness for the knife salesman. The great
Barbara Crampton also gets a lot of laughs in her slightly larger-than-cameo
appearances as the Sheriff’s receptionist, Virginia.
It is that time of year again, so start boiling water for a steaming hot cup
of Nong Shim noodles (the kind of sponsor a festival can be proud to have). The Fantasia International Film Festival is back, bringing plenty of cinematic
weirdness to Montreal. Every year, they find out-of-the-blue discoveries as well
as eagerly awaited genre releases. Once again, you can look forward to coverage
here and also Cinema Daily US.
Considering
how the Hong Kong film industry has been so profoundly corrupted by Xi Jinping’s
puppet regime, genre fans need new sources of action and martial arts spectacles.
Happily, South Korea has been stepping up Brave Citizen looks like the sort
of over-the-top masked-vigilante riff on The Substitute that promises
thrills, as well as a much-needed cathartic release.
Although
based on a popular manga franchise, Don’t Call it Mystery sounds like it
evokes the spirit of vintage Japanese mysteries set within powerful and
mysterious families, like Kon Ichikawa’s The Inugami Family (both of
them). Sorry Maxwell Smart, I guess I wasn’t supposed to call it “mystery.”
Every
year, Fantasia always brings in terrific animated films. Ghost Can Anzu is
about a big, mystical cat, so how can it go wrong? Kizomonogatari: Koyomi
Vamp is a revised, reworked, and re-edited relaunch of 2016 films that
essentially raises beloved (but intense) horror franchise from the dead.
The
story of Mantra Warriors: Legend of the Eight Moons might be familiar,
but this Thai science fiction re-imagining of The Ramayana promises to
be very different from Koichi Sasaki & Yugo Sako’s classical
Japanese-Indian co-production Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, so it
should be fun to compare and contrast.
Those are just a few promising
selections. There is always plenty of good stuff to watch at Fantasia, so keep
an eye out for reviews.
IBM's Tom Watson, Jr. said: “good design is good business.” His old Army
comrade Eliot Noyes convinced him that was true. Following that maxim, Watson
Jr. built the company his father founded into a titan. Sadly, those who
appreciate good design do not always recognize the value of good business. Arguably,
Noyes was a visionary, who bridged the artistic and corporate mindsets. Viewers
get a sense of how he shaped the look of the 20th Century in Jason
Cohn’s Modernism, Inc: The Eliot Noyes Design Story, which opens this
Friday in New York.
Noyes
trained and worked as an architect, but his lasting influence lays in the field
of design. Yet, the intriguing discussion of his military service almost
demands a documentary of its own. At the time, Noyes was attached to the Army
Air’s little known glider program. Gliders might be largely obsolete today, but
their silence offered a potential advantage during WWII.
A
few years after returning home, he crossed paths again with Watson, Jr., who
wanted to put his personal stamp on his father’s company. Using the elegant
Olivetti showroom as an example, Noyes convinced him to spruce-up and
standardize all graphical presentations of the company. As a consultant, he
also played a leading role in product design, including the classically
modernistic blockbuster-selling IBM Selectric typewriter.
Noyes
is exactly the sort of figure whose contributions to our collective cultural lives
has been criminally under-acknowledged. It is rather fitting if his career
brings to mind Charles and Ray Eames, who designed the molded Eames chair,
because he contracted the Eames to produce educational science films sponsored
by IBM. (Probably not so coincidentally, Cohn also previously co-directed Eames: The Architect and the Painter.)
Noyes
had a successful career, but the documentary is not all sunshine and success.
Late in his life, the designer was deeply embarrassed when New Left activists
invaded and disrupted the annual International Design Conference Aspen, which
he had founded, to turn it into a stage to make political proclamations. They behaved
disrespectful and chaotically, but decades later, the extremist conference-crasher
Cohn interviews remains proud of his actions. Yet, this episode truly reveals how
the New Left tried to impose its will, by intimidating others into silence.
The aspiring manga artist-characters in LOOK BACK (screening at Japan Cuts) will resonate on a deep emotional level with manga/anime fans. It also has a particularly lovely piano-with-strings score. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.
The disingenuous act like the tiktok divestment bill is an attack on the
Interstate Highway system, but apps come and go all the time. When did you last
check your Myspace page? In this film, the Mimi app is already past its prime,
but one of its most viral users still pulls a frustrated office drone into the
mystery of her life in Takamasa Oe’s Whale Bones, which screens today
during this year’s Japan Cuts.
Poor
tragically-average Mamiya is blindsided when his fiancée dumps him, so he goes
on a traditional hook-up app, where he meets the woman whom he will know as
Aska. This film really is not about that app. Instead, it is all about who Aska
is, or was. Even though he quite likes her, their date takes a surprisingly
dark turn, leaving him wondering about her.
Aska
explained her status as one of the top users of Mimi, which is sort of like
tiktok, except each video is geo-synched to a particular location. To see the
video, you must be at the spot where it was “buried.” To sleuth out the truth
of Aska, Miyami must discover all the videos she buried. Some are well known by
her followers, who still revisit them often, but others remain largely secret.
In
some ways, Whale Bones (a terrible, misleading title for an otherwise
very smart film) feels more speculative than it probably is. Quite strikingly, Oe
stages each buried video as if Aska is in the room talking to Miyami, like a
full-size hologram, even though she is really just a video on his smart phone. As
a dramatic technique, it is brilliantly effective—sometimes devastatingly so.
It also would make an amazing double feature with Morel’s Invention,
which would be spoilery to that Italian film to explain.
It's a classic question: “who was that boxed man?” It turns out, it is considered
bad form to ask, at least according to this Box Man. Although there is not a
similar racial component, Kobo Abe’s character shares the nihilistic
existentialism of Ellison’s Invisible Man. He also has a bit of Holden
Caulfield and Oscar the Grouch in him. He might be an anonymous drifter, but
people are weirdly fascinated with him in Gakuryu Ishii’s The Box Man, based
on the Kobo Abe novel, which screens today as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.
According
to the man who only calls himself “Myself,” you can see the reality of society
from a box. He knows we’re all a bunch of phonies. Yet, he claims: “those who
obsess over the Box Man, become the Box Man,” and he should know, because he is
the Box Man.
The
nefarious “General” and his accomplice, the “Fake Doctor,” are the latest to get
fixated on his peculiar vagrancy. His box is a bit like Snoopy’s dog house. He
managed to stash a lot of stuff in there, but like a Scot’s kilt you don’t want
to look underneath his box. The General’s interest stems from a murky criminal
plot, wherein he will assume the Box Man’s identity to evade justice. However, Box
Man’s eccentric lifestyle appears to slowly seduce the Fake Doctor.
Meanwhile,
the Box Man might be feeling something remotely human for Yoko, the Fake Doctor’s
fake nurse. Apparently, her checkered past gives the Fake Doctor the leverage
to force her to do his bidding. Of course, her shame only creates a stronger
sense of kinship with the Box Man.
Before
his death, Abe gave Ishii his blessing to adapt The Box Man, which means
this film has been twenty-seven years in the making. It is easy to understand
why it was long considered unadaptable. Clearly, Abe was addressing issues of
identity and epistemology in a very postmodern fashion. However, Ishii manages
to bring it to the screen in a way that still gives us something to watch, which
is appreciated. In fact, it often has the flavor of an obscure Borgesian caper.
Obviously,
The Box Man is not for everyone. If you are unsure, consider it a “no.”
As a point of reference, it is somewhat more grounded than the films of
Robbe-Grillet, but also less stylish. Ishii’s adaptation is deeply grounded in existential
and post-structuralist philosophy, but Michiaki Katsumoto’s jazzy score is a
blessing that greatly aids the film’s watchability. However, the deliberately
elusive payoff is intentionally frustrating.
If you want to make something sound scary and evil, call it a project, like
the Blair Witch Project, Colossus: the Forbin Project, or the
1619 Project. This project is also similarly sinister. It should have been
called the “Cujo Project.” Any genre fan could have warned these government
researchers that mutating dogs into assassins was a really bad idea, but they
did it anyway. Unfortunately for Cha Jung-won, the dogs of war slip loose on
the airport bridge he and his daughter find themselves trapped on in Kim
Tae-gon’s Project Silence, which opens today in theaters.
Even
though he is the deputy intelligence director in the current administration, Cha
had no knowledge of Project Silence, until he gets stuck in the middle of it.
Due to several Rube Goldberg-esque pile-ups, traffic on the bridge is blocked
in both directions. Inconveniently, the super-secret military transport
carrying the killer canines is part of the wreckage, which you know, lets the
dogs out.
Initially,
Cha believes he can coordinate a rescue operation from the ground, with the
help of his boss, Jung Hyun-baek, the intelligence director, who happens to be
their party’s presidential nominee. However, he eventually figures out what the
rest of us knew from the start. Jung knew about Project Silence and he wants to
bury the truth on the bridge.
Obviously,
Project Silence cannibalizes elements from many other films. In some ways,
it is Universal Soldier for dogs. It is also very a frustratingly dark
film, not in terms of tone, but with respects to the actual lighting.
However,
it is cool, in a decidedly bittersweet way, to see the late Lee Sun-kyun playing
a morally complex action hero. He is rock-solid as Cha, but any fan of action
movies or thrillers should catch out his brilliantly funny work in A Hard Day.
The original, real-deal blues musicians made vast fortunes possible, because
R&B, rock & roll, and soul were built on top of their music. Yet, they
often lived modestly, sometimes even in poverty. It is clear poverty was part
of what Greek-born French documentarian Roviros Manthoulis was looking for when
he started filming his blues documentary in America. To make his point
regarding the underclass, Manthoulis added a fictional hybrid component, but
the music he documented is the reason to rediscover the newly restored The Blues
Under the Skin, which starts its first proper American theatrical release
today in New York.
Freddy
and Hattie Feester could be considered Manthoulis’s ill-fated Frankie and
Johnny. After his release from prison, Feester wants to go straight, but nobody
will give the ex-con a chance. Living off his wife so damages his pride, he
slowly turns abusive. Neither are musicians, but they are certainly familiar
with the blues world. He spends most of his time drinking in neighbor dive-clubs
and, awkwardly, they both live with his mother, who was once a blues piano
player, somewhat in the mold of Sweet Emma Barrett (who was more jazz, but you get
the idea).
Although
the grim Feester vignettes are filmed in color, they are stylistically
reminiscent of Shirley Clarke’s The Cool World, but less compelling. If
anything, these segments come across as somewhat condescending. Many black
Americans struggled like the Feesters, but they carried on anyway, rather than
lashing out in acts of domestic violence. Fortunately, the music makes up for
the dramatic misfires.
There
are some terrific performances from true legends, including Sonny Terry &
Brownie McGhee (the greatest duo in American music, who tower over the likes of
Sonny & Cher, Jan & Dean, and Hall & Oates) who deliver two
standout performances, including a “John Henry” that is somehow profoundly bluesy and infectiously finger-snappable. Yet, nobody
is as eerily powerful as Mance Lipscomb, whose “All Night Long” instantly transports
viewers to the lonesome fields and railroads tracks of rural Texas.
Furry
Lewis and Bukka White, whom some fans might have recently seen in The Blues Society also appear here—and it is always a pleasure to hear them. It does
not get more legendary than B.B. King and Buddy Guy, but Manthoulis captured
them in performance before they were nationalized recognized institutions, with
clubs named in their honor. Plus, Roosevelt Sykes delivers the barrelhouse side
of the blues with his rollicking “Runnin’ the Boogie.”
Forget lawers—happily. Cleaning ladies are the new go-to profession for TV
series. This one is working on the right side of the law. Morgane Alvaro is
also about the make the step up to lucrative consultant gigging when she helps
point a police investigation in the right direction. Getting respect of her
reluctant partner will be harder in co-creators Stephane Carrie, Alice
Chegaray-Breugnot, and Nicolas Jean’s French series High Intellectual Potential,
which premieres tomorrow on Hulu.
Alvaro
has a high IQ, but her EQ is questionable. That is why she constantly gets
fired from dead-end jobs. As the pilot episode, “West Wind,” opens, she is
cleaning the Lille police station, where she notices Adam Karadec’s investigation
is way off-base. Having a compulsive need for order, she ill-advisedly re-organizes
his bulletin board. At first, he and his boss, Celine Hazan, throw her in jail,
but of course, she is right.
Jeanne
Levasseur was Karadec’s prime suspect, but Alvaro deducts from a quick perusal
of the crime scene photos that she is a victim—and presumably in grave peril.
Obviously, this makes Karadec look like an idiot, so he resents working with Alvaro
when Hazan hires her.
Even
after the third (of three episodes provided for review), Karadec and Alvaro
still aren’t clicking as a team and she keeps showing him up. For their second
case, “Malagasy Customs,” the bickering pair face a locked hotel room mystery,
once they eliminate the victim’s lover, the last person seen leaving his room,
as a suspect.
Once
again, Karadec is woefully unobservant and not so inclined to reflect on his
failings. However, the procedural takes sone interesting turns and it showcases
Alvaro’s empathy. Far from unfeeling, she just has problems with authority, anger
management, and impulse control. So, maybe she would not be super-fun to work
with.
The
second episode also introduces what will presumably the first season’s
continuing story-arc, when Hazan agrees to investigate the disappearance of Alvaro’s
first husband. The world assumes he absconded, but she believes he was the
victim of foul play. As it happens, Karadec turns up something suspicious that hits
close to home for Alvaro in the third episode, “Blind Man’s Bluff.”
The
episode’s primary investigation focuses on the abduction of two young girls.
The mother’s well-heeled parents initially suspect her ex-husband, but Alvaro
quickly clears his name when she discovers his dead body. Lucky him.
Regardless, the actually procedural and criminal business in the installment,
written by the trio of creators, are probably the most suspenseful of the first
three episodes.
In one way, the timing is good for a busker like Luca (a.k.a. Kyrie),
because she might find fame on privacy-invading, spyware-infecting,
propaganda-spewing tiktok. However, the timing of the 2011 earthquake and
tsunami during her childhood was absolutely tragic. The resulting trauma
clearly persists in director-screenwriter Shunji Iwai’s Kyrie, which
screens during the year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film.
When
Maori first met Luca, the orphaned girl could not speak, but she could sing.
That is still true when she encounters a decade or so later, performing on the
street, but they now call themselves Ikko and Kyrie. The former Luca has talent
and Ikko still feels protective urges towards her, so she volunteers to manage
Kyrie’s career.
Kyrie
needs some help and Ikko’s intentions are honest, but there is something dodgy
about her new manager. Not so surprisingly, Kyrie is too naïve to see that. For
a while, Ikko’s street smarts serve them both well, but she clearly appears to
be running from a mysterious man.
Frankly,
Kyrie/Luca’s backstory is not so difficult to anticipate, but Iwai still takes
great pains to tease it out across the film’s somewhat excessive three-hour
running time. Yet, it should be fully stipulated when the film finally revisits
the fateful day of March 11th, it is agonizingly tense. Many viewers
will be holding their breath, like they never have in any horror movie, even
though they know what is coming.
Iwai
can make viewers passionately love him and viscerally hate him, all in the same
film. Kyrie is a perfect example. There is suffering and there is catharsis,
but in this case, the synthesis of the two is somewhat off. The tunes are also
integral to the story, but only Kyrie’s closing song really lands, either melodically
or emotionally.
The 1980s were an unusually good time to be a jazz musician in America.
Wynton Marsalis made acoustic bop commercially successful again and the
venerable Blue Note Records was re-launched. Evidently, in Japan, the jazz
scene more resembled 1930s Chicago. Most musicians played in Ginza clubs that
were clearly controlled by the Yakuza, at least according to musician Hiroshi
Minami. He survived to write about those times in his memoir, but
director-co-screenwriter Masanori Tominaga splits his persona in half in the
appropriately syncopated and stylized adaptation, Between the White Key and
the Black Key, which screens as the opening night film of the 2024 Japan Cuts.
Hiroshi
yearns to play jazz, but his hip teacher knows he needs some seasoning, so he recommends
gigging in the seedy Ginza cabarets. Sure enough, Hiroshi quickly gets an
education. Fatefully, a mysterious Yakuza freshly released from prison requests
Rota’s “Love Theme from The Godfather.” Hiroshi obliges, even though the
leader on the gig freaks out six ways from Sunday.
It
turns out only Kumano, the boss known as “the King of Ginza” can call that tune
and only Minami (Hiroshi’s future self, who coexists in the same time-frame)
can play it. Fortunately, Hiroshi’s gig was at a club where musicians
traditionally wear masks, because news of the transgression spreads quickly.
As
it happens, the artistically frustrated Minami intends to desert Ginza to study
real jazz at the Berklee School of Music. He only confides his plan to Chikako,
who agrees to aid his getaway. That means they will need a sub to cover for
him, so she recruits Hiroshi, an old friend from school.
Even
though Tominaga and co-screenwriter Tomoyuki Takahashi have that Lynchian
looping time thing going on, it is not what defines the film. Questions of
artistic integrity and compromise are more important (and timeless) themes.
Having played in Al Capone’s clubs, Armstrong would well understand Minami’s relationship
with Kumano.
Even
though little is done to physically distinguish Hiroshi from Minami, Sosuke
Ikematsu is so good at creating such ying-and-yang personalities and carries
himself so differently, viewers might start to wonder if he is the same thesp
(which indeed is the case). Go Morita is also a wild chaos agent as the
mysterious Yakuza. Whenever he shows up, the audience knows there will be
trouble.
What is the representative national food of Finland? Ruisleipa rye bread? Does
that make this a Ruisleipa Western? Regardless, even though it was shot in the
U.S., this film might have more Finnish crew in its closing credits than any
other Western you might have seen. It also has Eric Roberts as a villain. That
is definitely something. Bloody Tom waits for the third act to make his grand entrance,
but he lives up to his name in Joey Palmroos (Finnish) & Austen Paul’s The
Outlaws, which releases Friday on VOD.
Four
hard-bitten outlaws just pulled off a daring train robbery, but the getaway
will be the tricky part. They ditched their horses to mislead the posse, but
they might just kill each other waiting for the boss, Bloody Tom, to bring
fresh mounts. Or maybe they won’t. Palmroos, Paul, and co-screenwriter Anders Holmes
(Danish) show viewers what could have happened, in between the various
characters’ flashbacks.
John
“JT” Tulsa, whom nobody really believes hails from Oklahoma, has good reason to
keep his past secret. Henriette Parker is probably the craziest of the bunch,
but we come to understand how life as a female outlaw took its toll on her
emotional stability. William Higgins is supposedly the other “Wild Bill,” but
he too carries a lot of baggage. Despite his prosthetic leg, Boone Collins is a
creepy sociopath, so yeah for representation.
As
B-movie Westerns go, the generically titled Outlaws is appealingly
gritty and competently executed. It leans a little too heavily on the
flashbacks, but whatever. Roberts is reliably and charismatically crafty as
Bloody Tom, like you would expect. Celeste Wall and Jonathan Peacy are also
both appropriately fierce and nutty.
Obviously,
Outlaws is all about the villains—its right there in the title. However,
Dallas Hunt offers a nicely understated counterpoint, as Tulsa, who is the
closest thing the film has to a good guy. Plus, Sterling Scott has some
interesting moments as the Preacher in Tulsa’s flashbacks.
The Blues Revival was one thing the hippies got right—pretty much the only
thing. Technically, the young fans who started the Memphis Country Blues
Festival considered themselves more bohemians and beatniks than hippies—at least
until they got into LSD. They admit that eventually made them hippies. They
were still right about the music. Augusta Palmer, the daughter of music
journalist Robert Palmer, chronicles the festival her father helped produce in The
Blues Society, which releases tomorrow on VOD.
They
were not particularly well-organized, but somehow the rag-tag Memphis Blues
Society produced five years of the Festival, which had a special revival (of
the revival) in 2017. A lot of amazing musicians performed during the original
Revival years, including Mississippi Joe Callicott, Skip James, Nathan
Beauregard, Piano Red, Booker T. Washington “Bukka” White, and Mississippi Fred
McDowell.
Obviously,
a lot of deep Memphis Delta Bluesmen had roots in Tennessee. However, probably
the two most important artists in the Blues Society story are Furry Lewis and Rev.
Robert Wilkins, who played with his son, Rev. John Wilkins, who also headlined the
2017 show (before tragically dying of Covid complications). The story fittingly all unfolds with the help of Robert Palmer’s writings, read by
the Eric Roberts.
The
music in Palmer’s documentary is amazing. Lewis’s rendition of “Let Me Call You
Sweetheart” is an especially beautiful standout. Unfortunately, Palmer wastes a
lot of time on “appropriation” grievances. Admittedly, the hippy fans maybe
were not as sensitive to appearances of paternalism. However, they were the only
valuing this music at the time. It was
the Blues Society and similar groups that generated gigs for these old school,
real deal Bluesmen, so cut them some slack.
In Japan, their favorite Jetson must be Rosey, the family’s robotic maid.
That is just a guess based on recent pop culture trends. In a few days, Apple
TV+ viewers will meet Sunny, the Housebot, in the Japanese-set series named
after her. Nanako is an autoboot, but she largely has the same functions.
However, she has a much more sci-fi destiny in Tomoyuki Kurokawa’s Break of
Dawn, which is available on American Airlines international flights (it
never ceases to amaze what you can find on international in-flight
entertainment systems).
Yama
is crazy about space, but not so enthusiastic about robots, at least judging by
his treatment of Nanako. His parents insist she is one of the family, but he
acts like she is merely a kitchen appliance. Annoyingly, his friends like her
too, because it is advantageous to play video games in “autobot mode.”
Suddenly,
while retrieving the errant Yama, Nanako’s system fails. She successfully
reboots, but then February Dawn, an alien AI, takes control over her body. As
Yama and his friends, Shingo Kishi and Gin Tadokoro, soon learn, his ship
crashed on earth over 10,000 years ago. Fortunately, he has gleaned some useful
intel from an errant satellite that took on a mind of its own, after colliding
with a comet. If Yama and his two cronies can retrieve a missing crystal, they
can help him power-up his craft, before it is destroyed, along with the old
Stuytown-like apartment building scheduled for demolition, where it is perched,
apparently invisible to the naked eye.
When
Nanako comes to and beholds the VR-visions February Dawn projects for Yama and
his friends, she agrees to help, even though she is not programmed to deceive
his parents. That might become an issue later. For the meantime, they need that
crystal. They soon discover it is in the possession of Kaori Kawai, an
upperclassman at their school, bullied by Kishi’s mean-girl older sister, Wako.
That too will be an issue. However, the most surprising revelation for Yama
will be the discovery her father and his parents were previously acquainted.
They may even know something about February Dawn.
Maybe Asimov's "Law of Robotics” will be more of a suggestion in the future. For Suzie
Sakamoto’s husband Masa, it was just something to code around. Supposedly, he
and her son “Zen” died in a plane crash, but his code is still out there. Much
to the American expat’s surprise, Masa also left behind a specially programmed
homebot (robotic housekeeping assistant) that will introduce herself to the
grieving Sakamoto in creator Katie Robbins’ 10-part Sunny, which
premieres this coming Wednesday on Apple TV+.
Sakamoto
always resented robots, because her mother was killed by a self-driving car.
She had been led to believe her late husband worked in the refrigerator
division of his technology company, so she is shocked to learn he oversaw their
robotics.
Masa’s
mother Noriko Sakamoto is obviously Japanese, but she is also a classic
mother-in-law. Consequently, Sakamoto would rather drink than deal with her.
She also has little patience for the annoyingly chipper homebot delivered by
Masa’s senior colleague, Yuki Tanaka. Sunny, as Masa named her, tries to help Sakamoto
process her grief, but she is having none of that. However, Sakamoto discovers
Sunny has other talents, so she recruits the bot to investigate the accident. The
more she learns of her husband’s secrets, the more determined she is to recover
the secret memories buried within Sunny’s directories.
Sakamoto
does not make friends easily and she alienates them quickly. However, she somehow
also recruits Mixxy, a part-time mixologist at her local cocktail bar, to help
her investigation. She soon starts suspecting the involvement of a Yakuza clan currently
mired in a power struggle. Hime’s cousin expects to succeed her father as
chairman, but she has different ideas. To out-maneuver him, she must find the long-rumored
codebook for reprogramming robots in illegal and potentially dangerous ways.
The
robotics in Sunny represents comparatively light science fiction, but it
is integral to Robbins’ story, based on Colin O’Sullivan’s novel. The humor is
largely tied to Sakamoto’s incredibly profane mouth, but it is frequently
amusing. It might have grand ambitions, but it is no Severance. Yet, Sunny
is engaging and not overly taxing sf-dramedy, which is rather impressive when
you consider it is centered around a grieving mother.
It
turns out Rashida Jones can curse like a sailor. She needs to, because Sakamoto’s
swearing plays an important role in the story. She gets a lot of laughs as a
result and has some spectacular meltdowns. Judy Ongg’s Noriko is a lot to
handle, but she humanizes her and ultimately flips viewers’ assumptions and
sympathies in later episodes. Plus, veteran Japanese character actor Jun Kunimura
is wonderfully wise and sly as old Tanaka.