Sundance ’15: The 414s (short)

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

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

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

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

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

Sundance ’15: 6 Desires—D.H. Lawrence and Sardinia

There was a time when D.H. Lawrence’s travel writings were his best received work. Even before his sexually charged novels belatedly achieved widespread critical acceptance, Lawrence’s nonfiction did more than their share to promote Italian tourism. Over ninety years after its initial publication, his Sea and Sardinia continues to lure visitors from the UK to the Mediterranean isle. In this case it is Northern Irish documentarian Mark Cousins and his small intrepid crew, who will retrace the old man’s footsteps in the docu-essay-travelogue 6 Desires: D.H. Lawrence and Sardinia (trailer here), which screened during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Clearly, this will be a very personal and impressionist journey, considering Cousins starts his voiceovers by asking Lawrence (presumably in spirit) if he can call him Bert. At this point, the audience can envision the novelist looking down from somewhere, chillily replying: “that’s Mr. Lawrence to you.” Nevertheless, Cousins maintains the intimate, but one-sided dialogue, revisiting the sites from the book, but informing the film’s visits with their full historical and cultural context.

This will never be a breakout Sundance documentary hit like Searching for Sugarman, but it is pleasant enough for a while. Despite his libertine reputation, Cousins’ portrait emphasizes Lawrence’s conservative nature, including his categorical rejection of socialism and his contention feminism would largely emasculate males into what we would now call metrosexuals. Along the way, he offers plenty of tips for prospective tourists. The hearty Lawrence multi-course menu offered at one rustic restaurant sounds like it might be worth the trip by itself.

Strangely though, the film loses focus when Cousins hands over the third act narrating duties to a woman, for gender representational reasons Lawrence probably would have abhorred. It is sort of interesting to hear her contrast Lawrence with Grazia Deledda, Italy’s female proletarian Nobel Prize winner for literature, but the vague yet unmistakable implication he helped contribute to the Holocaust because he never criticized Italian fascists in-print is so excessive, it jeopardizes the entire film’s credibility. As points of reference, Sea and Sardinia was published in 1921 and Lawrence died in 1930, so please, get serious.

Frankly, 6 Desires is often doing odd little things to undercut itself. Many times, when Cousins has a lovely vista in his frame, he ruins it by sticking his arm out, selfie style, with a cheap laminated photo or a plastic overlay frame. These just look bad on-screen.

When the film actually focuses on its ostensive subject, it offers some intriguing insights that might lead to viewers to reappraise Lawrence and his work. To jolt everyone awake, Cousins also includes clips from Ken Russell’s adaptation of Women in Love, so you know what that means: Oliver Reed, full frontal. Unfortunately, this is about the time the film starts to founder. It has its moments, but 6 Desires really ought to have been chopped down to an hour and packaged specifically for television. Regardless, it will likely find more festival play following its screenings at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, thanks to the filmmakers’ reputation, but it is strictly for Lawrence and Cousins completists.

Sundance ’15: Cop Car

Seriously, does anyone still think keeping the car keys under the sun visor is a good idea? If anyone ought to know better, it should be a corrupt sheriff. Regardless, while burying a body, he leaves them in that conveniently obvious place for two mischievous ten year-olds. A dangerous joyride commences in Jon Watts’ Cop Car, which screened at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

When you see Kevin Bacon playing a sheriff, you have to think he ought to be out there arresting kids for dancing. Instead, Sheriff Kretzer is in bed with a number of dodgy underworld types. Travis and Harrison just happened to blunder along at the right time to take his cruiser for a spin. Obviously, this is trouble for Kretzer. He can hardly explain why he was in the middle of scrub grass nowhere in the first place, let alone how he could allow his wheels to be swiped out from under him.

However, by claiming a faulty radio, he can get dispatch calling in regularly on his cell, as he madly dashes home, while still pretending to be on patrol. Eventually, Kretzer starts tracking the kids in his own pick-up, but troublesome witnesses will inevitably cross their paths.

As Travis and Harrison, James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford really look and sound like real life kids (as they are), trying their darnedest to act tough through foul language and what they think is cool posturing. Watts taps into a sort of archetypal Stand By Me-Huck Finn youth-on-the-fateful-road vibe that gives the film more resonance than one might expect. Kevin Bacon is also entertainingly sleazy and cunning as Kretzer. Unfortunately, the film is more than a tad underwritten, with a fair amount of time-killing required in between its inspired scenes.

Camryn Manheim and Shea Whigham do what they can with their small, near cameo roles, but they do not provide much connective help in the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. Cinematographers Matthew J. Lloyd and Larkin Seiple capture the big expansive emptiness of the Colorado plains and highways. Frankly, we can understand how the boys could do something so rash and potentially hazardous out of unsupervised boredom. Despite pacing issues, Cop Car is recommended for its atmosphere and Bacon’s salty turn, following its recent premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: Station to Station

Where can hipsterdom and traditional Americana come together in common purpose? Evidently, along our nation’s railways. Neither wants to be tied down, nor are either in any particularly hurry. Collaborating with musicians who would feel at home either at Lollapalooza or on Austin City Limits, Doug Aitken documents a twenty-four day coast-to-coast train trip in sixty-one one-minute shorts films (plus beginning and end credits), assembling it all into the restless, slightly avant-garde concert doc, Station to Station (trailer here), which screened at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Granted, Aitken’s preferred term of “happenings” is pretty cringey, but the ten stops his transcontinental train made for multi-disciplinary performances mostly look like a lot of fun. It seems the music never stopped, as performer after performer gets their one minute feature spot, sometimes at the happening, other times on the speeding train.

A pair of flamenco dancers, an old school western auctioneer, and the Kansas City Marching Cobras are particularly fun to watch, because they have tons of talent, but they are hardly recognizable celebrities. However, big name recording stars like Beck and Thurston Moore bring their A-game, perhaps even winning over new fans. Of course, nobody can out power soul legend Mavis Staples. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the appearance of Giorgio “Flashdance” Moroder, but it is pretty cool to see him do his thing on the synthesizer.

Despite its linear direction and the imposed limits of the train, Station is a largely shapeless film. However, it has a lot of energy and it is visually quite stylish. Whether it be the lonely desert vistas, the warm glow of an electronica performance, or the evocative sight of Aitken’s movable light show of a train hurtling through the night, he and co-cinematographer Corey Walter always make the rapidly changing visuals look great. On the other hand, when he invites spoken word commentary from the likes of Gary Indiana, we mostly get annoyingly folksy dialectics.

Frankly, Station to Station probably isn’t experimental enough to sit comfortably in Sundance’s New Frontiers section, but it is hard to see where it would more easily fit. It certainly moves along at a good clip. Like Midwest weather, if you’re not digging it, just wait a minute and it will change. Rather pleasant overall, Station to Station is recommended for listeners of Sonic Youth and Patti Smith, as well as the sort of neo-roots artists profiled in No Depression. Having just notched a number of international sales, Station to Station should find its audience after world-premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: Knock Knock

Eli Roth digs Chile and they dig him back. He’s like Hasselhoff over there, so its not surprising he shoehorned in some Chilean references, shot in Chile (Santiago doubling for the Hollywood Hills) and featured two Chilean actresses (one being his wife, Lorenza Izzo) in his latest film. However, the love affair might end once they get a load of his new psycho-sexual home invasion thriller, Knock Knock (trailer here), which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Evan Webber is an architect and a committed family man, but he still remembers his glory days as a DJ. He is home alone working on a commission while his artist wife and kids spend the weekend at the beach. Unfortunately, Webber’s dope smoking is soon interrupted by a fateful knock at the door. That will be Genesis and Bel Who, two party girl flight attendants who got lost in the rain looking for a friend’s bash. At least that is their initial story.

As Webber lets them in to dry off, they start flirting hard. Honestly, flirting is not a strong enough term. They practically wrestle him to the ground and have their way with him. Yet, the opening act is surprisingly effective pitting his awkward attempts at evasion against their sexed-up seduction techniques. There is a sly give-and-take or ebb-and-flow to this first half hour or so, but unfortunately it is completely jettisoned once Webber inevitably succumbs to temptation.

From here on out, Genesis and Bel become moralizing fatal attractions, who declare Webber must pay for his transgressions. Suddenly, Webber is fighting for his life and the well-being of his family, but he never stands a chance. The ladies just keeping beating him down at every turn. Perhaps this constitutes some sort of subversive feminist statement, but as dramatic arcs go, it is pretty darn flat.

One of the biggest disappointments of Knock Knock is the speed bump it drops in front of the Keanu Reeves comeback express. Everyone primed for more badassery after John Wick and Man of Tai Chi, will be let down by this Nic Cage-ish turn. Let’s face it, we don’t want to watch Reeves losing his cool. We want him to be silent, but violent. Still, Izzo and Ana de Armas are sufficiently ferocious and they look good soaking wet, so at least they keep their end up, in exploitation terms.

Knock Knock is largely based on-inspired by the 1977 cult exploiter Death Game, which featured producer Colleen Camp and executive producer Sondra Locke tormenting Seymour Cassel, so there is precedent for everything that feels like a misfire. It is a bit of a departure for Roth, but despite the lack of gore, it still really doesn’t work. It is all cat-toying-with-the-mouse with no promise of table-turning to keep things interesting. Regardless of its shortcomings, Knock Knock was picked up by Lionsgate, so expect to hear more from it following its midnight screenings at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: Hellions

One of the nice things about Manhattan walk-ups is trick-or-treaters never knock on your door. Instead, it is the local businesses that have to deal with them. Sure, you might think you would miss the little dears until you see Bruce McDonald’s Hellions (clip here), which screened during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Dora Vogel just got the super exciting news that she is pregnant—on Halloween. Seriously bummed out, she mopes around the house waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up, so she can spring the good news on him. However, he is running suspiciously late. With her mother and obnoxious younger brother out trick-or-treating, Vogel is stuck dealing with the persistent little buggers who keep coming to the door. They just aren’t satisfied with the dregs of her candy. When they show Vogel the head of her baby-daddy in their trick-or-treat bag, she realizes these little monster are as evil as they seem.

Of course, any horror fan knows the demonic trick-or-treaters really want the baby growing at a supernatural rate within Vogel. It turns out carrying a Halloween baby is a dangerous proposition in this paganistic neck of the woods. The creatures seem to be able to summon all kinds of elemental and inter-dimensional forces to help terrify Vogel. Somehow, the previously calm and rational Dr. Henry and Corman the local copper manage to reach Vogel, but they are essentially ineffectual dead meat. At least Corman brings guns, but they won’t be enough to stop the maniacal moppets. Only salt seems to do the trick.

McDonald certainly sets the creepy scene in Hellions, but compared to his cult classic Pontypool (arguably the best zombie film since the original Night of the Living Dead), it feels rather conventional. Granted, he opens it up rather well, turning the Vogel house into a surreal nightmarescape. Still, the film always fundamentally boils down to Vogel getting chased kids wearing burlap sacks.

Robert Patrick (T2, The X-Files) is still pretty awesome, delivering instant genre credibility as Corman. Rossif Sutherland also helps flesh out the good doctor, beyond being mere meat for the grinder. Unfortunately, Chloe Rose is a bit of a dull scream queen.

McDonald and cinematographer Norayr Kasper give the film an eerie, otherworldly look. Arguably, the implications of the film also support gun-ownership rights, because you never know when your home will be overrun by hellions. It gets the job done, but Pontypool admirers will be disappointed it isn’t more ambitious. Recommended for mostly fans of Patrick and evil children horror movies, Hellions is sure to make the genre festival rounds after premiering as a Park City at Midnight selection of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: Listen to Me Marlon

Let’s be honest, the notion of Marlon Brando talking to himself probably isn’t that shocking. You might not have guessed it was through self-hypnosis tapes, but that probably still feels like it fits. They happened to be part of a large collection of private Brando recordings preserved by his estate. With its blessing, director-editor Stevan Riley has shaped this archive into a ghostly first-person confessional narrative, “written by” and “starring” the famous actor. The Brando that emerges is exactly what we expect, yet deeper and surprisingly revealing throughout Riley’s Listen to Me Marlon (clip here), which screened during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, in advance of its future Showtime debut.

Through audio diaries and rarely seen interviews, Brando pretty much covers all his big career milestones (like Streetcar, Waterfront, Last Tango, and Godfather) as well as his more notorious misfires (Guys and Dolls, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Countess from Hong Kong). He also opens up regarding his troubled childhood and the profound influence of his acting teacher Stella Adler. Yet, as if often the case, some of the best sequences are relatively small moments, like his shameless flirting with a series of female interviewers during an early 1960s press junket.

Yes, Brando loved Tahiti, which he speaks of with deep affection. In fact, Brando is quite eloquent on his private tapes. Clearly, he is not speaking with an audience in mind, because he definitely lets his public mask slip. He is often painfully honest in his assessment of his own character and rather dismissive of much of his own work. His curt appraisal of his Oscar winning turn in On the Waterfront will be especially vexing to some fans, but it contains a real nugget of wisdom when recommends giving the audience the space to create a performance themselves. (Don’t you wish Meryl Streep had given us more of that kind of space in Osage County?).

Riley’s only real misstep is the overuse of a disembodied head, generated from a laser scanning session Brando consented to. It sort of breaks the intimate mood, evoking a Max Headroom vibe instead. However, the archival news reports of Brando tragic family scandals feel shockingly honest and raw. We get a sense the Brando on television and the private Brando were essentially one and the same.

For those of us who grew up when Letterman was still funny, it is strange to realize how spot-on Chris Elliott’s impersonations on the Late Show really were. All those Brandoisms are true, but we can understand better where they came from. Listen is the rare bio-doc that might make more fans for its subject, because it allows Brando to humanize himself. Recommended for fans of 1960s and 1970s Hollywood, Listen to Me Marlon was a hot ticket at this year’s Sundance Film Festival that should soon find a wide audience on Showtime.

Sundance ’15: Cartel Land

Dr. Jose Mireles is like a kindly Mexican Marcus Welby, except he also happens to be the leader of a group of paramilitary vigilantes. Tim “Nailer” Foley more looks the part of a border militiaman, but he shares a common enemy with Mireles. It is not the illegal immigrant per se that concerns him, but the drug cartels running the human trafficking business. Matthew Heineman documents the full scale breakdown of law and order south of the border and some of the resulting implications for American border towns in Cartel Land (teaser here), which screens today as an award winner at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about “El Doctor” Mireles’ Autodefensas organization is that they operate in the central state of Michoacán, far away from the border. Although Mireles originally attended Autodefensas organizing meetings wearing a mask, he was so recognizable, he simply chose to embrace his role as the group’s public face and spiritual leading. Under his guidance, Autodefensas has been on a roll, liberating town after town from their cartel occupiers. If that sounds like a military campaign, it darn well should.

Meanwhile, Nailer and his Arizona Border Recon group patrol what is known as “Cocaine Alley,” scouring the hills for the cartels’ spotters and traffic directors. Yes, they are also heavily armed. You do not challenge the drug cartels with good intentions and optimism.

Although Cartel Land started out as a project solely about American border patrol groups, Mireles and Autodefensas completely took over the film once Heineman widened the scope. Frankly, it seems like the film is not sure what to make of the Arizona scenes in light of the chaotic drama it documents in Mexico. You can practically feel the film shrug, as if to admit they might have a point.

In contrast, the sequences in Mexico are absolutely harrowing and massively telling. Early on, there is a mind-blowing scene in which an exasperated village rises up against a military unit trying to disarm the Autodefensas. They make it clear, in no uncertain terms, they consider the government to be in league with the cartels. They therefore put their trust in Autodefensas rather than the military. It is stunning stuff, but it should be noted not every village shares this sentiment.

No matter how you feel about the film, you have to give Heineman credit for making it under genuine battle conditions. He was there filming during live firefights, when nobody really knew who was shooting at whom or from where. This is legit war-reporting, just like Sebastian Junger’s Restrepo films.

Cartel Land does not necessarily endorse taking the law into one’s own hands. In fact, many of the scenes in Mexico illustrate the ethical perils of doing so. However, it leaves viewers with no illusions about the complete absence of the rule of law in Mexico today. You can question their on-the-ground tactics, but why it is painfully obvious why Dr. Mireles and his comrades joined together in Autodefensas. Arguably, the film might have been tightened up by editing out more of the Arizona material, but who would want to tell them they ended up on the cutting room floor?

Regardless, Cartel Land is quite an eye-opener as it is. (Since the current president refuses to visit the border, perhaps a private screening can be arranged for him). Recommended for anyone concerned affairs in our hemisphere, Cartel Land screens today (2/1) as a U.S. Documentary Competition winner at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: The Hallow

Blame the Euro. Since Ireland no longer controls its own monetary policy, it has been forced to sell off its national forest to pay down its budget deficit. To facilitate the sale to a lumber concern, a young forester has temporarily relocated his wife and infant son to remote cabin in the woods. The fae people are none too happy about it, but they would probably be after their baby anyway, because that’s what they do. Dread runs like thick goey sap in Corin Hardy’s The Hallow, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

The forest is deep, dark, and verdant. Adam Hitchens thinks he is in his element, so he has no qualms about tromping about with his rug rat strapped to his back. Gee, that dropped pacifier sure looks ominous though. Seriously, why doesn’t he just put in ad in the Faery Times that says: “plump baby available for abduction.”

Hitchens hardly has time to toke up at home before things start going bump in the night. Initially, he and his wife Claire assume it is the work of angry farmer Colm Donnelly, who bitterly resents Hitchens’ reason for being there. However, things escalate to a level that is difficult to ascribe to a human agency. Of course, by this point, Claire has already pried the iron bars off the windows. You might wonder why the previous tenant of Victim Cottage felt compelled to put them up in the first place, but not these Londoners. Similarly, he does not think twice about bringing some cool “zombie” tree fungus into hearth and home.

Hardy and cinematographer Martijn van Broekhuizen are strong on atmosphere, so it is a bit of shame the film rushes so quickly into supernatural bedlam. A slower build would have yielded stronger results. He and co-screenwriter Felipe Marino promise a lot of ancient archetypal folklore, but aside from some changeling business, they keep the night terrors relatively conventional. Hardy is also a bit too frugal with Michael Smiley, whose craggy badassery livens up his one scene as Davey, the local Garda (“I’m from Belfast, we had a different sort of bogeyman there”).

Still, the locations and set design are massively creepy and the ectoplasmic body horror is suitably grotesque. As the Hitchens, Game of Thrones alumnus Joseph Mawle comes across as a bit of a pathetically underwhelming environmental hipster (is there any other kind?), while Bojana Novakovic flashes some welcome assertiveness. Much like Smiley, Michael McElhatton also adds some memorably cranky local color as the sour Donnelly.

For genre fans, The Hallow gets the job done, but it raises expectations early on that it will be somewhat more than it is. Ticket holders should note, rather than a stinger per se, a long parting sequence runs throughout the closing credits, building to a final, quiet gotcha shot. An okay excursion into the evil woods, The Hallow is recommended for those who want to maximize the “Park City at Midnight” experience when it screens tonight (1/31) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: Meru

You could call it the extremely scenic route. In the alpinist world, the forbidding Shark’s Fin route up Mount Meru was one of the last great conquests. Three climbers came maddeningly close in 2008, but fell short. Filmmaker-alpinist Jimmy Chin and his producer-co-director wife E. Chai Vasarhelyi document the 2008 expedition, their 2011 return, and the dramatic intervening events in Meru (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Located in the Northern Indian Himalayas, Meru had been summited before, but never via the Shark’s Fin. It is an arduous field of ice obstacles, frozen sheer, offering precious few footholds or crevices. So why climb it? Presumably, because it is there. As one of the most respected alpinists climbing today, Conrad Anker was an obvious candidate to finally lick the Shark’s Fin. Chin also had extensive experience as a climber and photographer. Renan Ozturk was the junior man on the team, but the trio meshed well together. They just didn’t quite make it on their first attempt.

Frankly, Chin and Vasarhelyi do not spend must time establishing the significance of Mount Meru or the Shark’s Fin, pretty much launching into the climbing right away. Similarly, we do not get much sense of the three climbers’ personalities, until about halfway through. However, when two of the three are sidelined by misfortune, we start to get a better sense of who they are and what Meru means to them.

Anker had previously lost one regular team-member (ultimately marrying his widow), so he already knew tragedy first hand. Nevertheless, the time between Meru expeditions was comparatively less eventful for him. In contrast, after Ozturk barely survives a spectacular accident, it is unclear how much basic mobile function he will regain. Initially, the notion of mountain climbing in general seems awfully ambitious, let alone attacking the Shark’s Fin. Somehow, Chin also survived a freak avalanche. He is relatively unscathed physically, but clearly quite shaken, emotionally and spiritually.

By the time the three men launch their second campaign against the Shark’s Fin, the audience is thoroughly primed for a feast of redemption. Frankly, everything about the 2011 just sort of boggles the mind, especially some of the jury-rigging we see them do with faulty equipment. Co-cinematographers Chin and Ozturk capture some absolutely awesome shots, particularly given the circumstances they were working under. Indeed, the film looks incredible and it eventually delivers the comeback satisfaction it promises.

The stakes have increased for subsequent mountaineering documentaries following the release of the very good to great The Summit, Beyond the Edge, and K2: Siren of the Himalayas, but Meru finds something new to say (and ends on a considerably different note than the first and third films). It seems like a particularly fitting Sundance film, incorporating elements of previous selections, like The Summit and The Crash Reel, but ending with considerably more uplift. Highly recommended for fans of outdoorsy cinema, Meru screens again today (1/31) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: Turbo Kid

We might as well keep plundering the Earth and maybe the current administration is right, we can just relax and stop worrying about the Iranian nuclear program. After all, the late 1990s apocalypse our 1980s exploitation films warned us about never came to fruition. Take a sentimental journey back to those more innocent, alarmist times in Anouk Whissel, François Simard & Yoann-Karl Whissel’s Turbo Kid (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

In the not too distant future, 1997 A.D. to be precise, a handful of BMX bikers roam the wasteland, clashing with the mutant lackeys of the overlord Zeus. The Kid tries to keep to himself, scavenging comic books and Viewmaster slides. At first, he is a bit annoyed when a girl named Apple starts tagging along with him. However, he soon finds he enjoys her sweetly looney company, even when he learns she is a robot. He duly fashions her a garden gnome club as a weapon, but it cannot compare to the turbo powered gauntlet he salvaged from a crashed government transport. Unfortunately, just as they become an effective dynamic duo, Apple is damaged in a dust-up with Zeus’s goons, forcing them on a perilous detour in search of spare parts.

Basically, there are just a few really big laughs in Turbo, unless you dig on ridiculously gory slapstick violence in the Troma tradition, in which case it is fully loaded. You’ll lose track of how many bodies are cleaved apart in bizarre and unlikely ways. It is so over the top, you have to just buy into it on its own terms. As a result, it is almost impossible to envision Turbo playing in a normal neighborhood theater on a sleepy Wednesday afternoon.

Basically, you know Whissel, Simard & Whissel came to play when cult superstar Michael Ironside shows up as the eye-patch wearing Zeus. MacLeod’s Daughters star Aaron Jeffery is also acceptably grizzled as the Kid’s ally, Frederic the Arm-Wrestler (but don’t get too attached to his paws, so to speak). However, you really have to give credit to Laurence Leboeuf for going all in as the super chipper Apple.

If you have a problem with severed limbs and spurting blood than you are way too sheltered for Turbo Kid. However, if you appreciate retro cheesy nostalgia than you will dig the clever details sprinkled throughout the madness. By now, you should know full well whether it is your cup of tea or not (if you’re still unsure, the answer is probably no). For those who enjoy campy gore, it is a lot of good clean fun. Recommended for serious cult film fans, Turbo Kid screens again tonight (1/31) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: The Visit

It is depressing to think we might be better prepared for first contact with extraterrestrial life than the next terrorist attack. Still, if the aliens ever do come, we will be glad these academics and bureaucrats put some thought into our response. Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen puts them through a dress rehearsal of sorts in his documentary-essay The Visit, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

So here is the hypothetical: aliens have finally arrived and announced themselves. Madsen has his various expert commentators talk into the camera as if they were greeting and/or negotiating with the extra-worldly beings. Some of them make a lot of sense, such as the biologist maintaining quarantine until each species can determine the threat levels of the opposite race’s bacteria. Of course, this is just as important for the Visitors, considering what happened when they landed at Grover’s Mill in 1938.

The philosophers want to know whether they understand the concepts of good and evil as we know them, which might be practical information, particularly if they do not. Meanwhile, the British press and security officers are not so subtly trying to determine their intentions and agree on some sort of joint statement that will not cause panic. Finally, the former director of the UN’s Office of Outer Space Affairs is delighted to finally have something to justify the agency’s budgets.

Despite the subject matter, there are not a lot of call backs to science fiction in The Visit. However, you can hear echoes of 2001: a Space Odyssey when one commentator gives an imaginative description of his journey inside the alien capsule, somehow decked out to resemble the great entry hall of a European Museum. It is a striking sequence, veering close to outright speculative fiction.

Viewers should be warned, The Visitor shares the same austere aesthetic sensibility of Madsen’s previous documentary, Into Eternity, a tour of the state-of-the-art, subterranean Onkalo nuclear waste storage facility, before it was sealed off from all human contact for the rest of infinity. It should also be rather telling that auterist documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter served as a co-producer. Madsen stages some grand set pieces and cinematography Heikki Färm give them all a glossy sheen, but the net effect is often as lulling as it is transfixing.

There is a weird ambition to The Visitor that is quite impressive and it offers some provocative points of discussion. Nevertheless, the languid pace and defiantly ambiguous takeaways seem perversely designed to frustrate all but the most cerebral audiences. It is conceptually fascinating, but most viewers would get what they need from it in a few short excerpts and a handful of insightful reviews. Recommended mostly just for those with a taste for contemplative hybrid documentaries, The Visit screens again this morning (1/31) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: The Nightmare

It is not a good idea to nod off during this film. You might encounter one of the subjects. Fortunately, it will be very difficult to drift off during one of the scariest documentaries you will ever see that isn’t about Scientology. Shaking it off at bed time will be a different matter. Filmmaker Rodney Ascher documents the very real phenomenon of sleep paralysis and the terrifying figures often seen by those who suffer from it in The Nightmare, which screens tonight during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Like his interview subjects who agreed to appear on camera, Ascher (the co-director of Room 237) has personally experienced sleep paralysis. Medical professionals generally acknowledge it involves the conscious sensation of rigid immobility, until the afflicted sleeper manages to rouse themselves out of it. Of course, there is more to the story. Those who have endured persistent sleep paralysis often report seeing and sometimes hearing dark, menacing figures. Typically, these are the “Shadow Men,” often observed acting under the direction of the “Hat Man.”

This might sound fantastical, but Ascher has multiple sources attesting to these demonic dream stalkers. Indeed, there is something deeply archetypal about them, especially Hat Man, who can be seen as a forerunner to Freddy Kruger buried deep within our collective subconscious.

While Nightmare adheres to the standard accepted form of documentary films, Ascher’s dramatic recreations of participants’ nightmare encounters are genuinely frightening. Everything about them represents superior horror film mechanics, from the eerie lighting to the evocative set design. This film will scare you in the moment, but it will also challenge your safe assumptions regarding the nature of reality. Clearly, Hat Man is real enough for a considerable number of people out there, so what does that mean for our world view?

Yet, Ascher does not leave us bereft of hope and deprived of sleep. Surprisingly, Nightmare will hold considerable interest for Evangelical audiences, who are not likely to be amongst the film’s target demographic. Nonetheless, one subsequently empowered Christian discovered she could vanquish her sleep demons by invoking a name. No spoilers, but his initials are “J.C.”

This is the rare sort of film that really gets under your skin and stays there. Ascher takes familiar New Age tropes and transforms them into something profoundly dark and threatening. The suggestion that sleep paralysis can be transmitted from person to person, essentially through the telling, is particularly disturbing for obvious reasons. Conveniently, nobody has time to sleep at Sundance. Presumably, Nightmare harbors no long-term ill effects, but it is exceptionally creepy. Very highly recommended for brave genre fans, The Nightmare screens again tonight (1/30) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: Mississippi Grind

Apparently, Gerry never heard the old Kenny Rogers song. He is the sort of gambler you bet against and feel fine about doing so. He might win for a while, because he spends every spare moment studying various games of chance, but he reeks of losing. However, he believes his fortunes have turned when he teams up with a younger, luckier gambler in Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck’s Mississippi Grind, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Curtis is just passing through. That’s what he does. Gerry really ought to be leaving soon. He owes a lot of people a lot of money, but just keeps digging a bigger hole for himself. Strangely enough, he wins when playing at Curtis’s table, but he promptly blows all his takings on an ill-advised bet shortly thereafter. When fate subsequently brings them together again, Gerry recognizes a good thing. Determined to keep it going, Gerry convinces Curtis to join forces to play regional games and hole-in-the-wall casinos as they work their way down the Mississippi towards a high stakes poker game in New Orleans.

It sounds like a winning proposition, but the “sign”-obsessed Gerry cannot change his spots. He is still a crummy person and when Curtis is not around, he keeps finding ways to lose. In contrast, Curtis might be slightly commitment-phobic, but he is dramatically healthier than Gerry, often preferring to visit the local blues club over a tacky gambling den. It is really quite considerate of him, since it justifies Grind’s savory blues soundtrack (and some original themes scored by Scott Bomar).

Although Gerry, the aggressive screw-up, is the flashier role, Grind still might prove to be a career pivot for Ryan Reynolds. As Curtis, he plays with and against his pretty-boy type-casting, showing surprising grit down the stretch. Although Ben Mendelsohn is relatively restrained compared to some of his scenery-chomping villainous turns, he fully embraces Gerry’s pathetic, self-deluding, self-centered nature. Frankly, sometimes it is painful to watch his debasement.

Granted, anyone who has seen a gambling road movie will have a general idea where Grind is headed, but Fleck & Boden give the material a few nice twists, including the ironic but wholly fitting third act source of the title. They exhibit a strong sense of place, grounding the film in picturesque Southern-border state locales. It is also certainly safe to say they never glamorize gambling. In fact, the film could almost be a PSA for Gamblers Anonymous and a seedier, more naturalistic corrective to noir-ish The Gambler and Chow Yun-fat’s heroic God of Gamblers franchise. Recommended for fans of gambling films with local flavor, Mississippi Grind screens again tomorrow (1/31) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: The Witch

If you want to psychoanalyze a culture, look at the horror movies it produces, because that will show you what really scares them. Consider this the exception that proves the rule. In writer-director Robert Eggers’ period chiller, early 1600s Puritan New Englanders feared the Devil could have designs on their souls. Worse still, they might be tempted to deal it away. These are not baseless anxieties in Eggers’ The Witch, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Thanks to their father’s zealous pride, Thomasin’s family has been expelled from their Puritan community to an isolated hardscrabble farm, where they must fend for themselves entirely. It has not been going well. Their crop failure is bad news in strictly economic and sustenance terms, but it is even more ominous as a sign or portent. Poor teenage Thomasin becomes the family scapegoat after her infant brother uncannily vanishes while she is minding him. Her father is relatively forgiving, but her mother is witheringly judgmental.

Of course, the grieving parents are understandably disturbed, since they believe their unbaptized baby is now surely damned. Unfortunately, Thomasin’s bratty young sister and (now) youngest brother mischievously or perhaps maliciously seem to do everything possible to cast supernatural suspicion on Thomasin, yet they seem to be the ones who are inexplicably drawn to the family goat, Black Phillip.

Who would have thought a moody, suggestive period horror film would be the hot ticket at Sundance, but it clearly pays to have a p&i screening on the first full day of the festival. Regardless, it is an unusually effective and historically accurate film. Those are wooden trunnels holding the farmhouse together, not nails. Throughout the film, you can feel a palpable sense of physical and spiritual isolation that malevolent powers may or may not be exploiting. There is indeed a fair degree of ambiguity in The Witch, but it is still safe to say evil is afoot.

The cast also looks and sounds perfectly in keeping with the times. There is no hamming it up or hinting at contemporary ironies. As Thomasin, Anya Taylor-Joy comes across as a genuinely tormented soul, while Ralph Ineson and his rich, commanding voice seem to carry the historical weight of Puritanism and all its collected hypocrisies. These are haunted people in more ways than one.

In the movies, good things rarely happen in the deep, dark woods. The Witch is no exception. It is a visually arresting film, sensitively lensed by Jarin Blaschke with a suitably Puritanical, washed-out color palette, but in a way that pulls viewers into the world and intensifies the mounting dread. Enthusiastically recommended for fans of high end genre films, The Witch screens again today (1/29) and Saturday (1/31) in Park City and tomorrow (1/30) in Salt Lake, as a U.S. Dramatic Competition title at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: The Forbidden Room

It is like Guy Maddin put his collection of vintage silent and early talky prints through a blender and then screened the puree, except none of these films ever existed before. Unlike his Séances project inspired by lost films, these odd (odd is indeed the right term) film fragments are entirely the product of Maddin, his co-writers: co-director Evan Johnson, poet John Ashbery, and co-conspirators Robert Kotyk and Kim Morgan. Yet, as is often true with Maddin’s work, they feel like they must be real on some alternate plane of existence. Prepare for a trip when Maddin’s The Forbidden Room screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

It is a tall order to summarize Room and it would be impossible to do the many plot strands justice. Just so you know you you’re in the right film (not that you couldn’t tell immediately), Room starts with a lesson on how to take a bath. It then segues into a submarine disaster film, which is interrupted by a woodsman, who has come to tell the suffocating crew his tale, as if he were the Ancient Mariner. Like Thomas Pynchon on speed, Room thus proceeds on tangents to tangents, as each flashback and incidental anecdote begets more of the same.

Eventually, we will meet Mathieu Amalric playing a collector who lives in a swanky elevator and the train psychiatrist working on the Berlin-Bogota Express. In one story arc, a man meets his doppelganger, while Udo Keir continually pops up as different characters in various sub-films, because he’s Udo Keir.

Trying to track the film from point A to point B is a losing proposition. It could almost play in a continual loop as an installation piece, except viewers would miss the realization of the moment Maddin opens up the final “Russian doll” (to use an apt term from the press notes) and begins to re-pack them again.

The real point of Room is the mind-blowing artistry of it all. Each constituent film begins with its own credits sequences, which are graphically striking and perfectly representative of their respective eras and genres. Likewise the work of cinematographers Stephanie Weber-Biron and Ben Kasulke is never less than stunning, flawlessly evoking the look of noir black-and-white as well as that early nitrate color. It really is like walking through a cinematic dreamscape.

Granted, Room will baffle less adventurous viewers, even though it has an excess of narrative coming out of its ears. This is truly Guy Maddin raised to the power of Guy Maddin. Without question, it is the work of a genuine auteur who has no close comparison. Highly recommended for fans of the unusual and the aesthetically daring, The Forbidden Room screens again tonight (10/29) and Saturday (1/31) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: The Russian Woodpecker

If anyone has a right to be obsessed with Chernobyl, it would be filmmaker-set designer Fedor Alexandrovich. As a four year old child, he was evacuated from what is now the Exclusion Zone—and he has the radioactive material in his bones to prove it. Through his research, Alexandrovich pieced together a theory hypothesizing Chernobyl was not an accident, but a deliberate act of Soviet sabotage. At a time when the Russian military and their proxies are once again committing crimes against the Ukrainian people, Chad Gracia documents Alexandrovich’s deductions as well as the increasingly precarious state of Ukrainian national security in The Russian Woodpecker, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

The titular woodpecker was a rhythmically regular radio signal that was thought to emanate from the old Soviet over-the-horizon radar station Duga-3, known to locals simply as the Duga. The Duga was massive and expensive, but it did not work very well. According to Alexandrovich, it would have failed a planned inspection, thereby causing great inconvenience for its high ranking sponsors, had events at Chernobyl not intervened. Can you see where he is going with this?

The Woodpecker ceased with the fall of Communism in 1989, but Ukrainians have recently started picking up an eerily similar signal. Like a prophet in the wilderness, the wild eyed and unruly coifed Alexandrovich had warned anyone willing to listen about the dangers of a resurgent neo-Soviet Russia. Unfortunately, his prophecies have been more vindicated than he would ever wish.

For obvious reasons, it is nearly impossible to untangle the tragic past from the perilous present in Woodpecker. While originally conceived as a short doc on the Duga and its annoying signal, the project expanded in scope due to the magnitude of Alexandrovich’s contentions and the relevance of current events. Those in Park City associated with the film are particularly worried about cinematographer Artem Ryzhkov, a war correspondent by trade, who was embedded with the unit hardest hit by the latest Russian orchestrated attacks.

The heavy significance that looms over Woodpecker makes it difficult to really enjoy Alexandrovich’s undeniable eccentricity, even before the multi-hyphenate artist starts to feel the heat as a high profile critic of Putin’s Russia. Essentially, Woodpecker begins as an idiosyncratic character study, evolves into a visually stunning tour of the Duga and the surrounding off-limits environs, and whipsaws into a real life chronicle of paranoia and defiance.

There are precious few documentaries that can compare to Woodpecker’s unclassifiable tone or its sense of urgency. Even if you do not fully buy into Alexandrovich’s theories, he and Gracia provide a great deal of Chernobyl background and context that will be new to most viewers. Highly compelling in an absolutely chilling kind of way, The Russian Woodpecker is definitely recommended for anyone interested in a fresh look at Ukrainian current events and recent history, The Russian Woodpecker screens again tomorrow (1/29) and Friday (1/30) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: Advantageous

Technology can make a dystopia look like a utopia. As the spokesperson for a major cosmetic engineering firm, it is Gwen Koh’s job to convince consumers to buy into this brave new world, but she is not getting any younger. This fact of life has serious economic and social repercussions in Jennifer Phang’s Advantageous, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

In the near future, Koh has already beat the odds finding high profile employment as a single mother. Inconveniently, her luck is about to run out at the worst possible time. Her thirteen year old daughter Jules has been turned down by her preferred prep school, but she was accepted by her nearly as prestigious but twice as expensive second choice. She should also attend a pricey summer camp for incoming students or risk losing ground before classes even start. However, Koh’s employers have just declined to renew her contract, opting to replace her with someone younger.

Koh will try reaching out to estranged family members, but her best hope might entail returning to her former employers as the guinea pig-public face for their newest, most radical procedure. Unfortunately, the process might not be exactly what they report it to be. Koh is clearly willing to sacrifice for her daughter, but it might cost her far more than will be immediately apparent.

Expanding her ITVS Futurestates short to feature length, Phang and lead actress-co-writer Jacqueline Kim create a compellingly personal vision of a futuristic dystopia. Frankly, some of their contentions fly in the face of recent trends, such as disproportionately high unemployment for women, when middle age men have been hit the hardest in recent years. Nevertheless, they evoke a compelling sense of economic vulnerability.

Regardless, Advantageous is truly relationship-driven science fiction, especially Koh’s overriding love for her daughter. As Gwen and Jules Koh, Jacqueline and Samantha Kim will pretty much break your heart as their drama plays out. Frankly, once circumstances remove the former Kim from the picture, Advantageous loses some of its bite. Indeed, the third act largely feels like an overlong epilogue, except for a key scene with James Urbaniak (Simon Grim in Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool and its sequel). While he initially comes across like just another corporate suit, his relationship with Gwen Koh evolves in an intriguing way, further deepening the film.

Although Advantageous scrupulously maintains its micro focus, it still presents an impressive looking vision of the future. It is a lot like our world, but one or two steps closer to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Its anti-corporate, feminist biases can get a little clunky, but the performances of Kim, Kim, and Urbaniak (helmed with remarkable sensitivity by Phang) more than compensate. Recommended for those who appreciate science fiction with psychological complexity, Advantageous screens again this morning (1/28), tomorrow (1/29), and Friday (1/30) in Park City, as well as this Saturday (1/31) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’15: The Chinese Mayor

Mayor Geng Yanbo’s re-election is guaranteed, but that does not mean his position is secure. Such is the nature of power in the Chinese Communist Party. His vision for the northern Shanxi city Datong is grandly ambitious, but his intraparty people skills are a little iffy. That is a combination that leads to conflict in Zhou Hao’s The Chinese Mayor, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

When we first meet “Demolition” Geng, he has already resettled tens of thousands of families to make way for his large-scale construction plans. To restore the city’s centuries old glory, Geng has been razing the old, economically depressed neighborhoods to build a brand spanking new “ancient” quarter, including an imposing city wall. It is a development program that drips with irony. There was a time the CCP tore down cultural landmarks out of ideological zeal, but now they are building up replicas of imperial glory.

Geng’s scheme to convert Datong’s stalling industrial sector into a hub of culture and tourism might be debatable, but his constituents seem to appreciate the fact that he has a plan. Likewise, much can be said for and against his leadership style. He can be high-handed and severe, demonstrating a true Communist’s regard for property rights, but he is also unusually accessible for petitioners with a grievance against the city government. When he dresses down subordinates, they mostly have it coming. In fact, one sequence in which he chastises a contractor for sub-standard cement work brings to mind the shoddy construction techniques revealed in producer Zhao Qi’s Sichuan earthquake documentary, Fallen City.

Arguably, Zhou’s strictly observational approach leaves viewers somewhat unprepared for the third act surprises, even though Geng clearly comes across as the kind of politician who makes enemies. It is hard to fully take stock of his administration, but it is probably safe to assume he is preferable to the alternatives. Yet, some of the film’s most revealing scenes document his sham re-election at a local Party conference. It was certainly an economical process: one single candidate for each office. Of course, that is exactly the sort of meaningless democracy the Hong Kong Umbrella movement was protesting against, making Zhou’s Chinese Mayor a fitting feature to screen with Flora Lau’s short film, I Am Hong Kong.

Geng does not exactly have JFK levels of charisma, but he is probably the only Chinese government official willing to let a documentary film crew follow him for months at a time. In the process of documenting Geng’s tenure, Zhou captures some revealing behind-the-scenes glimpse at CCP political sausage-making. Recommended for those fascinated by the corruption and dysfunction of the secretive Mainland government, The Chinese Mayor screens again this morning (1/28), Friday (1/30), and Saturday (1/31) in Park City and Thursday (1/29) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance.