Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose

"Gef the Dalby Spook” was probably the most famous fictional mongoose after Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Supposedly, some people actually believed he was real, but seriously, a talking mongoose with clairvoyant powers? Nevertheless, well-known paranormal researchers of the 1930s duly schlepped out to the Isle of Man hoping to catch a glimpse of the conveniently illusive weasel-like creature. The Hungarian-American Nandor Fodor was one of them. His increasingly absurd investigation unfolds in Adam Sigal’s Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, which opens today in New York.

Lately, Fodor has been a bit out of step with his fellow paranormal investigators, because he has become more of a debunker. Nevertheless, his old friend and mentor Harry Price (famous for the Borley Rectory haunting, as seen in films like The Banishing) insists Fodor needs to check out “Gef.” Frankly, Price’s account of his own investigation is less than convincing. He admits he never saw the mongoose with his own. Oh, and by the way, the daughter of Irving family, who own the farm where Gef supposedly lives, just so happens to be a ventriloquist. Despite his skepticism, Fodor agrees to make the trek, bringing his long-suffering and possibly torch-carrying assistant Anne, with him.

It seems like Sigal is striving for ambiguity on the question of Gef’s existence, but he never earns our agnosticism. Frankly, it all looks like a fortuitously timed hoax that coincides with Fodor’s middle-life crisis and possible nervous breakdown. It is hard to tell just what kind of tone Sigal was going for, because the film slips and slides all over the place.

However, if it was indeed intended as a comedy, the funniest part (maybe the only truly humorous segment) is the stinger, featuring the cast and crew unloading on Sigal’s unprofessionalism. Anyone who endured Sigal’s previous film, the messy island-of-broken-toys Chariot, might like to add choice comments of their own.

By far, the best part of the film is Christopher Lloyd, who is charmingly eccentric playing Price. Poor Simon Pegg labors like a coal-miner working a double shift as Fodor, but Sigal’s script does not supply the material to support his conversion from Scully to Mulder. Minnie Driver always brings a lot of fresh energy to any film she appears in, but the role of Anne feels conspicuously tacked-on and tangential.

Frankly, the only reason many fans will be watching Nandor Fodor is to hear Neil Gaiman, supplying the voice of Gef. He does sound appropriately eerie. I suppose if a mongoose could talk, he might sound a lot like Gaiman.

Sigal just cannot fit these pieces together and even at what should be a manageable ninety-six minutes, his pacing drags. This probably sounds like an eccentric lark, sort of in the tradition of the 1980s films Michael Palin made without Monty Python, but it is weirdly flat and inert. Not recommended, Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose opens today (9/1) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

Tribeca ’18: Into the Void Shorts

For genre fans, the words “to be continued” are a real double-edged sword. It’s nice to know there will be more of something good, but frustrating that we will have to wait. Those words most likely apply to several, or nearly all of the shorts in the science fiction Into the Void short film programming block, which screens at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.

Many of the sf Void shorts sure seem like they were intended as proof of concepts for a prospective feature or series, but Andrew Bowen’s The 716^th is probably the second worst offender when it comes to cliffhanger endings. It is sort of like MASH in space, but with more shooting. The last human medics have been shunted off to what was a quiet corner of the war, but their quadrant has just heated up considerably. After a long day of triage, they naturally fix themselves moonshine highballs, but “Doc” rather impulsively decides to commandeer a shuttle to save the last human soldier on the planet and her battle android. Things do not go well for him, but it is not for a lack of brisk action and snarky humor. This is definitely enjoyable space opera—concept proved.

Zach Strauss’s Bad Peter is the most self-contained film in the program, yet it is also the least satisfying. Essentially, it plays like the What to Expect When You’re Expecting version of Stephen King’s short story Quitters Inc., but it should be fully stipulated Frankie Shaw from SMILF is absolutely terrific as the mega-pregnant Rachel.

Travis Bible’s Exit Strategy also tells a full and complete narrative, but it also gives the time loop movie a wildly original twist. The day starts innocently for Matt the fire-fighter, but his egghead brother Shane has been down this road many, many times before. He has to convince Matt to help him prevent a tragic forest fire, but time and fate keep conspiring against him, to bring about the same predestined result. The twists are impressive, but the film’s emotional heft is what really distinguishes it from the field of less engaging feature length films in the time travel/Groundhog Day sub-genres.

Jesse Atlas’s Let Them Die Like Lovers could go either way. It would be relatively easy to expand this story of a body-hopping La Femme Nikita, but he still ends it at a logical stopping point (how novel). Like his deeply resonant Record/Play, Like Lovers is a psychologically and emotionally sophisticated film. It turns out, jumping into the bodies of trusted loved ones to assassinate their nearest and dearest takes a toll on Alexa’s psyche, even though her targets are some decidedly bad cats. It is a well-made, handsomely crafted film, but it doesn’t have Record/Play’s profoundly romantic and tragic sensibility.

Johannes Mücke & Patrick Sturm’s UI—Soon We Will All Be One looks completely amazing, as you might expect from a collaboration between a special effects specialist and a graphic designer. For this cryptic alien invasion tale, they create some of the most striking alien architecture since 2001, but the narrative comes across like a mere sketch to introduce the world. Still, it is worth seeing, literally for the spectacle, especially on the big screen.

Jocelyn Stamat M.D.’s Laboratory Condition is by far the best short in the Void block (with Exit Strategy coming in a strong second), but it has the most intense and maddening cliffhanger ending since maybe The Italian Job. It also boasts one of the eeriest and most inventive concepts since the original Flatliners. Dr. Holloway is an emergency room doctor, whose recently deceased patient has been purloined. It turns out he was dubiously requisitioned by Dr. Marjorie Cane, a senior researcher at the university. Her project hopes to document the exit of the soul from the lonely old man’s body. However, their completely sealed observation tank has trapped his soul, preventing it from going where it must. Yet, only Dr. Holloway can see his frantic desperation. Then things get really, really sinister.

This film gives goosebumps, both because it is pretty darned scary and the execution is so crisp and smart. It also has an amazing cast for a film of any length, most notable including Marisa Tomei as Dr. Holloway and Minnie Driver, who is absolutely fantastic as the curt and high-handed Dr. Cane. Obviously, this is intended as a proof of concept for a feature that is proved several times over. With this nifty Macguffin, the first-rate cast, and the wickedly impressive production design, it can’t miss,

Laboratory Conditions is very highly recommended, but once you see the short, you will want to watch the rest of it. In fact, the entire Into the Void is recommended with a good deal of enthusiasm, especially for Exit Strategy, The 716^th, and Let Them Die Like Lovers. 

Science Fiction fans might also be interested in Steve Kenny’s short film, Time Traveler. Even though it has no science fiction elements, it quite affectionately pays tribute to Back to the Future. Barry Ward proves he could well be the next Michael Fassbender with his sensitive portrayal of an Irish Traveler father of a young boy building a scale replica time machine, whose caravan-home is being evicted from their longtime camp site. Gritty and bittersweet in the right ways, it screens tomorrow (4/27) and Saturday (4/28), as part of the Make or Break shorts program, while the Into the Void program also screens on the same days.

The Crash: Hacking the Markets to Save the Markets

As a private citizen, J.P. Morgan quelled the Panic of 1907 and basically saved the American financial system. In 1910, he participated in the Jekyll Island meetings that ultimately led to the creation of the Federal Reserve, so he wouldn’t have to go through that hassle again. Ever since then, the Fed has been the focus of conspiracy theories from the right and the left. Fuel will be added to the Occupy-Birchian flames when Aram Rappaport’s The Crash (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

The markets have been hacked—all of them, even the Miami MIAX. Thanks to the gloating terrorist chatter, the Treasury Department knows they only have a few days to avert a market meltdown. Out of desperation, Sec. Sarah Schwab (now there's a financial name) cuts a deal with bad boy money man Guy Clifton to save our butts. He was once the golden boy for bailing out the city of Chicago, but he is currently facing prosecution for hacking the NYSE, which indeed he did.

Of course, he didn’t do it alone. With the government’s blessing, Clifton recruits the same team of programmers, coders, and magical typists to put together a similar operation, but on a grander scale. Technically, it often his wife Shannon who does the recruiting, because many of his former associates are not too keen to work with him again. She is not thrilled with him either, but it would not help their critically ill daughter Creason’s survivability chances if her father went to prison.

We quickly learn the mastermind behind all the hacks is none other than Fed Chairman Del Banco (his name is literally “the Bank”), his own oily self, in cahoots with the big banks that took bailout money. In fact, the whole scheme is really TARP II. The bailed-out banks will short everything including the kitchen sink leading up to the crash, after which they will bargain hunt like mad. In return, they agree to keep interest rates low and credit flowing. It is an intriguing scheme that arguably makes the film hard to pigeon-hole in traditional right-left terms. It is also great fun to watch the reliably entertaining Christopher McDonald chew the scenery as Del Banco.

Proving good guys can be colorful too, Frank Grillo and Minnie Driver share some terrific tart-tongued chemistry as Guy and Shannon Clifton. They are almost Nick & Nora-like. However, the whole subplot involving the terminally ill daughter (who naturally starts a relationship with Clifton’s resentful ex-protégé is needlessly manipulative). John Leguizamo is just cringe-inducing as the wheelchair bound cyber-jockey George Diebold (just like the voting machines) and Maggie Q is scandalously wasted as his long-suffering nurse.

In the closing titles, The Crash reminds us there has been a financial crisis approximately every ten years since the Fed was established. That is technically true, but aside from the Great Depression, we haven’t seen bank runs and chaos like the Panic of 1907 since then. Regardless, Grillo, Driver, and McDonald elevate the paranoid LaRouche-Democracy Now subject matter. It is sort of all over the place, but it is always watchable. For fans of Paul Erdman thrillers (whose faults it shares), The Crash opens this Friday (1/13) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Stage Fright: Break a Leg, Campers

These drama camp kids might as well learn the hard truths of show business at an early age. They will watch as the seniors deal with the casting couch, a manipulative producer, and a psycho-stalker. Nonetheless, they keep singing and dancing all the way through Jerome Sable’s musical horror mash-up, Stage Fright (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

The Haunting of the Opera would have been a triumph for its star-diva Kylie Swanson, had she not been brutally murdered by a knife wielding maniac dressed as the Phantom after her opening night performance. It’s a setback. Roger McCall, Swanson’s producer and one-time lover takes in her young children, Camilla and Buddy, but falls on hard times after the show’s closing. He tries to make a go of it as the director of the Center Stage Camp for Performing Arts, where the siblings work as kitchen staff. Yet, despite a loyal student body, the camp is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

In a last ditch comeback attempt, McCall decides to stage the Andrew Lloyd Weber-ish Haunting as their annual production. In violation of camp policy, Camilla auditions for her mother’s part. Naturally, she nails it, but she will still have to finesse the lecherous student director. News of her involvement even attracts the interest of a career-making producer, but once again a psycho in a Phantom mask starts carving up cast-members. Yet, the show will go on, don’tcha know.

Sable and musical collaborator Eli Batalion were team behind the musical horror short The Legend of Beaver Dam, which is rather amusing, largely because the brief format allows it to just hit-it-and-quit-it without a lot of phony drama. Frankly, Sable might be too pre-occupied with the psychological angst. Yes, character development is generally a good thing, but Camilla’s little orphan complex is not very deep or compelling. Yet, it takes space that could otherwise be used for gory gags.

None of the individual tunes are particularly memorable either, but they are performed by the cast and company with admirable conviction. Fright will probably hold considerably more novelty appeal for midnight movie fans outside of New York, because we can see legit stage productions in this spirit Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway fairly regularly. (In fact, it might have helped Sable to have someone like Rachel Klein on-board as a consultant or whatever.)

Still, when Fright goes all in, Grand Guignol style, it is a pretty awesome spectacle. Essentially, the opening and closing deliver on its promise, whereas the long midsection merely serves to get us from here to there. For Rocky Horror fans, it also has Meat Loaf (Aday) singing and thesping as McCall. While her character is not long for the world, Minnie Driver dies great in the prologue. Unfortunately, the twentysomething cast playing teenagers are largely undistinguished. Arguably, the best numbers feature the full company rather than the solo spotlights.

The film has its moments, but there should be more subversive glee, so to speak. Recommended eventually as a VOD or DVD pick for horror fans who do not have a lot of genre theaters options in their hometowns, Stage Fright opens today (5/9) in New York at the Cinema Village.

I Give it a Year: Marriage and Naughty Jokes

In a way, Josh and Nat are perfect for each, because it would be a crying shame if a healthy person were attached to such whiny, self-absorbed tools.  She is a hard-charging professional.  He is a slacker would-be novelist.  Despite their differences, they will knuckle down and try to power through the first 365 of their marriage in Dan Mazer’s I Give it a Year (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

In the opening montage viewers see how spectacularly cinematic their courtship was, helping us to suspend our disbelief these two could ever be a couple.  However, as soon as they day “I do,” everything else seems to say: “you shouldn’t have.”  Soon, Josh is pining for his former girlfriend Chloe, who is trying to make a go of the platonic best friend thing.  Meanwhile, Nat is swooning over her new rich American client, Guy.  The once happy couple will bicker like grumpy old men, while steadfastly denying their attraction to other people.  Yet, they soldier on, perhaps because so many of their friends and family never thought they would make.

Frankly, IGIAY would have been more fun if it had been less about Nat, Josh, and their respective rivals, focusing more on the folks in their calling circle.  Both Stephen Merchant and Minnie Driver supply the lion’s share of the laughs as Josh’s wildly inappropriate best friend Danny and Nat’s tart tongued sister. Their energy and sharp delivery are certainly welcomed, but it makes the blandness of the primary and secondary leads (the mix-and-match Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Anna Farris, and Simon Baker) all the more conspicuous.  Unfortunately, the same Olivia Colman who was so powerful in Broadchurch and Tyrannosaur is also terribly shticky as their ill-tempered marriage counselor.

IGIAY seems to think of itself as the British equivalent of Judd Apatow and Todd Phillips movies, freely blending rom-com elements with liberal samplings of naughty humor.  Unfortunately, the results play more like a collection of hand-me-down gags rather than parody or pastiche.  Awkward threesome sequence—it’s in there.

Oddly enough, the klutzy IGIAY bears surface similarities to Hsu Chao-jen’s elegantly mature Together, but it wilts in comparison.  The extended joke regarding explicit honeymoon pictures blatantly lifted from the Danish gross-out fest Klown hardly helps matters.  There are humorous moments here and there, but never without Merchant or Driver.  Not a good date movie for narrative reasons, I Give it a Year is best saved solely for mind-numbing Netflix streaming.  It opens today (8/9) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Hunky Dory: Shakespeare Glammed-Up

Remember those high school teachers so desperate to be popular they insisted everyone call them by their first name?  Viv is not quite that bad, but she is obviously uncomfortable serving as an authority figure.  Although she has given up on her acting career, the new drama teacher still has not quite worked the show business out of her system.  As a result, she plans an ambitious glam-rock production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in Marc Evans’ period high school musical, Hunky Dory (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The 1970’s were not such a bad decade for music as people might recall—at least until white leisure suits and strobe lights hit the scene.  David Bowie is a prime example of the era’s good stuff and Hunky Dory might just be his best album.  Naturally, “The Man who Sold the World” shows up in Vivienne Mae’s production (familiar to many thanks to Nirvana’s Unplugged cover) and “Life on Mars?” (again, a popular choice).  It is a shame though that he did not offer “Kooks” because it would have been perfect thematically for this Welsh tale of teen love, angst and music.  On the other hand, several ELO tunes are along for the ride, which is cool.

The year is almost over, but “Viv” wants the seniors’ last big show to have special meaning for them.  Music will play a major role.  Bowie, ELO, and Beach Boys tunes will all factor into her musical version of The Tempest.  Unfortunately, her afterschool rehearsals have major competition from the local swimming pool (“the lido”) and general teenaged hook-ups.  One by one, cast members drop out, most notably her sensitive but disturbed Caliban.  Eventually, she is forced to recruit the headmaster to play Prospero.  Of course, the show always goes on, even when apparent disaster strikes.

We are honest-to-Betsy assured Evans and his producer were working on this concept well before Glee came around.  Fine, but comparisons will be inevitable.  In truth, Hunky stacks up rather well.  To its credit, it avoids preaching politics, except perhaps for the hammer & sickle clearly visible in the assembly hall mural.  Dude, what’s up with that?

As Viv, Minnie Driver is relentlessly likable and resilient in the face of life’s bummers.  She is pretty much right on target for a lightweight musical soap opera.  One of the film’s nice surprises is the sympathetic treatment of Bob Pugh’s headmaster, an old military veteran who turns out to be far more kind hearted and understanding than we initially expect.  His deepening professional relationship with Viv is one of the film’s more pleasant subplots.  However, the teen drama is pretty standard issue (the closeted Bowie fanatic, the sensitive working class kid spurned by the school princess, the garage band struggling to stay unified, etc, etc).

Evans (who previously helmed Patagonia, the UK’s best foreign language submission two Oscars ago) stylishly stages the climatic pageant.  The kids’ “Life on Mars?” is particularly cinematic.  Frankly, the Hunky Dory Orchestra consistently sounds full bodied and rather groovy.  The resulting cumulative impact is appropriately bittersweet and nostalgic.  Modest but endearingly earnest, Hunky Dory wears its niceness on its sleeve.  Moderately recommended for children of the 1970’s out for a trip down memory lane, Hunky Dory opens this Friday (3/22) in New York at the AMC Village VII.