NY Latino Film Fest ’12: 180 Seconds

Evidently, Colombia is now more concerned with armed robbers than Marxist terrorists or drug cartels.  Sounds like progress to me.  It is still a dangerous country though, especially for a gang of takers about to be taken in Alexander Giraldo’s 180 Seconds (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New York Latino Film Festival.

Zico is planning a major heist on the day of an all important World Cup qualifying game against Uruguay.  Viewers know from the flashback structure, both will end badly for the home teams.  It seems Zico’s gang got played, but Giraldo keeps the details sketchy, hop-scotching back and forth along the timeline, often replaying several key scenes, but backing up successively further each time to supply more context.

Zico’s outfit is a family affair, including his beloved hacker sister Angelica and their lifelong boon companion, El Guajaro.  Rincon is the only outsider in the mix, hired on the advice of their nicked pal.  He seems to fit in, because strong sullen types always do.  However, when he catches Angelica’s eye, it causes a bit of friction between the new guy and her suspiciously co-dependent brother.  Zico acts like things are cool, but you never can tell with him.  Regardless, things will get bloody when it is finally go time.

With its time-shifts and a plot often paralleling Reservoir Dogs, 180 owes an obvious debt to Tarantino.  Still, Giraldo gives it a hedonistic club kid vibe totally unlike the talkie lowlife gangster milieu of indie dweeb-god’s films.  Though the constant flashes forwards and back sound annoying as a migraine, Giraldo handles them quite deftly, often focusing on some nice character establishing bits, while supplying more pieces to the narrative puzzle.

Manuel Sarmiento Vallejo gets it, playing Zico, the unstable mastermind, to the hilt.  Angelica Blandon is also pretty spot on as her namesake, the flirtatious and petit pseudo-femme fatale.  Conversely, though he might be playing the muscle, Alejandro Aguilar is a weak presence as Rincon, which is a drawback, considering he has the heaviest character development arc.

Nonetheless, Giraldo packs a lot of style and energy into 180, but never to the point that it substitutes for substance.  In recent years, some of the best Latin American films have come from Colombia, such as Ciro Guerra’s The Wind Journeys and Jorge Navas’s dynamite noir morality play Blood and Rain.  While not quite at the level of the latter, 180 is still an impressively executed crime drama.  Recommended for those who appreciate the grittier side of the heist genre or closely follow Colombian cinema, 180 Seconds screens this Friday night (8/17) at the Chelsea Clearview as part of the 2012 NY Latino Film Fest.

DocuWeeks ’12: Out of the Clear Blue Sky

A prestigious Wall Street firm specializing in Treasury securities, Cantor Fitzgerald suffered more losses on September 11^th than any other organization, including the New York Police and Fire Departments.  The numbers are staggering: 658 of their 960 New York employees died that morning.  However, Cantor’s story did not end there.  Filmmaker Danielle Gardner, whose brother Doug was one of the 658, documents CEO Howard Lutnick’s efforts to support the anguished Cantor families while desperately working to keep the firm afloat during its darkest hours in Out of the Clear Blue Sky (clip here), which is currently screening as part of the 2012 DocuWeeks New York.

Had it not been the morning of his young son’s first day of school, Lutnick surely would have been at Cantor at the time of the attack.  With offices several floors above the initial impact zone, Cantor employees never had a chance.  Rushing to the scene only to witness the Towers’ collapse, Lutnick and a handful of senior staff began scrambling to determine who survived.  With the enormity of their loss weighing on him, a distraught Lutnick became the public face of the tragedy.  Yet, as some family members lashed out Lutnick in frustration, the media turned on Cantor, hard.

Blue’s stories of grief and remembrance are truly heartrending.  Surprisingly though, it is also a compelling business documentary, providing an inside account of Cantor’s fight to survive during the precarious days following the fateful Tuesday.  Their resourcefulness is quite extraordinary, conducting Twenty-First Century financial transactions with scrounged office supplies.  Of course, the stakes were high.  Had the firm folded, Lutnick’s ability to help Cantor families would have been severely limited.  Indeed, that behind-the-scenes look Cantor’s tenacious rebound is what sets Blue apart and above other well meaning 9-11 documentaries.

As a member of their ranks, Gardner clearly earned the trust of Cantor families, eliciting some unusually eloquent testimony from her interview subjects.   While there are many emotionally charged scenes, the film never feels intrusive or exploitative.  (The only exception might be Lutnick’s tearful television interviews recorded within days of the attack, which have already been replayed innumerable times in the media.)  Indeed, Gardner deftly walks the tightrope, directly conveying the rawness of survivors’ pain, without reveling in it.

While the media does not cover itself in glory for uncritically recycling complaints against Lutnick, the overall film is scrupulously nonpartisan.  Too many misguided people would prefer to forget or deny the horrific events of September 11^th.  Worse still, some might even be inclined to dismiss Cantor as an instrument of the “1%” amid the current polarized climate.  Blue acts as a valuable corrective to such impulses, reminding viewers the Cantor employees lost at the World Trade Center were all individuals from diverse backgrounds, who left behind friends and loved ones.  Poignantly engaging but also quite an enlightening portrait of corporate resiliency, Out of the Clear Blue Sky screens through Thursday (8/16) at the IFC Center in New York, with a week’s run at the Laemmle Noho to follow (8/17-8/23) in Los Angeles, as part of this year’s DocuWeeks.

Sophia Loren and her Stage Mother

It is hard to imagine the golden age of Italian cinema without the great films Sophia Loren did with Carlo Ponti, Vittorio De Sica, and Marcello Mastroianni.  She made plenty of history in Hollywood as well.  Recently, the still glamorous Loren has increasingly found Italian television a hospitable place for her diva turns.  In fact, it has offered her not one but two opportunities to place her sainted mother.  In 1980, Loren played herself as well as Romilda Villani, arguably Italy’s most celebrated stage mother.  Thirty years later, Loren leaves the role of her ingénue-self to an up-and-comer, content with to play Villani in Vittorio Sindoni’s two part mini-series, My House is Full of Mirrors (trailer here), now available on DVD.

In many ways, House is a valentine to Villani and an extended middle finger to her absentee father.  At least the slimy Riccardo Scicolone acknowledged her.  In contrast, he steadfastly refuses to own up to her younger sister, Maria.  However, she would have the last word, writing the book on which House is based.  In fact, House is as much her story as it is her sister’s, particularly when the freshly minted movie star disappears with her producer-lover Ponti for months at a time.  It makes mother Villani feel downright unappreciated, over-sheltering the younger sister to compensate.

In fact, one of House’s best scenes is the meeting between Maria Villani (Scicolone) and Romano Mussolini, one of post-war Italy’s top jazz musicians and her future husband.  Yes, he was the youngest son of that Mussolini, but he did not share his father’s politics (or at least had the good sense to keep his mouth shut about it).  Unfortunately, he turns out to be all too Italian in other ways.  Regardless, it is nice to hear the “In Other Words” motif during their courtship.

Loren still has a forceful presence as Villani and Margareth Madè smolders up the screen as her legendary co-star (talk about an intimidating gig), but the RAI production often looks terribly TV.  (By comparison, season one of Don Matteo appears more polished.)  You would think they would want to step up their game for a screen legend like Loren, but no, evidently Euro-austerity strikes again.

Nonetheless, the novelty attraction of Sophia Loren appearing in her life story (again) will appeal to a number of movie buffs.  For many Americans, the last time we saw her was in Rob Marshall’s not as bad as you might have heard Nine, which shrewdly uses Loren as the film’s sure-fire applause generator, but does not give her very much to do.  Indeed, it is nice to see Loren is still as sharp and elegant as ever.  While House is pretty darned melodramatic, it gives Loren a meaty showcase for the acting chops that she has kept up quite nicely. 

Despite the underwhelming technical package, it is rather fascinating to watch Loren/Lazarro/Villani/Scicolone tell her story, in the persona of her mother, relying on her sister’s text.  Recommended for die-hard Cassandra Crossing-loving Sophia Loren fans, My House is Full of Mirrors is now available on DVD from Vanguard Cinema.

2 Days in New York: This is Why People Hate The City

At least it is not a three day weekend.  However, a handful of aging smug hipsters can make forty-eight hours feel like a month of Mondays.  Viewers should be forewarned, the fake banter flies fast and furious in writer-director-star Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in New York (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Delpy’s Marion has dumped Jack from 2 Days in Paris and moved to New York, where she took up with Mingus, a professional Obama apologist on a hip hop radio station.  It must have been because of his cool name, rather than his self-absorbed personality.  Regardless, they seem to be happy raising their kids together, until her daft father Jeannot, nymphomaniac sister Rose, and Rose’s stoner ex-boyfriend Manu pay a visit.  Each has their own aggressively irritating foibles guaranteed to stretch Marion’s relationship with Mingus to its snapping point.  Adding further stress, Marion’s gallery show is fast approaching, where she is scheduled to sell her soul as an exercise in performance art at the opening.

Have you ever been stuck in a queue behind an annoying couple that takes advantage of their captive audience to loudly “perform” their cleverest repartee?  2 Days in New York is like ninety-one minutes of that sort of material.  There are precisely two very funny bits, because they each contain more than a kernel of truth.  In one scene, Marion’s family scandalizes Mingus’s friends when they proclaim they like Obama because he is a socialist.  Later, in a truly inspired sequence, Marion meets with Vincent Gallo (playing himself), who bought her soul and is ready to take possession.  It is the sort of thing one can see Gallo doing, which is why it is so hilarious.  It is not enough to justify a ticket though, especially here in the City.

2 Days proves simply acting neurotic does not automatically make you funny—just irksome.  As Mingus, Chris Rock displays no edge whatsoever.  It is an embarrassing screen turn, largely defined by his star-struck hero-worship for the current Oval Office occupier.  Likewise, Delpy’s hot mess shtick gets old quick.  2 Days might have actually worked on a subversive level, if the French invaders were interesting enough to root for, but they are not.  Frankly, even Jeannot, played by Delpy’s real life father Albert, is little more than a grouchy grandpa run amok.

2 Days could be considered an Olympic showdown, in which Upper Westsiders compete against the French for the gold medal in neuroses.  Of course, Vincent Gallo wins anyway, by virtue of his vastly superior coolness.  Despite the occasional clever moment, 2 Days in New York is not recommended when it open tomorrow (8/10) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza and Angelika Film Center.

It is No Dream: The Theodor Herzl Documentary

Theodor Herzl once advocated mass Jewish conversion to Christianity, but would become a unifying leader for the Jewish Diaspora.  Profoundly concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism, his fears would be dreadfully justified in the years soon following his death.  Yet, they provided the early impetus for the Zionist movement that ultimately led to the founding of the State of Israel.  His life and mission are documented in Richard Trank’s It is No Dream: The Life of Theodor Herzl (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Herzl believed if a wave anti-Semitic could sweep across France, the cultural capitol of Europe in the 1890’s—and it was—it could happen anywhere.  Never particularly religious, covering the Dreyfus Affair as a journalist forced Herzl to take stock of his own Jewish heritage and seriously address the increasing volume of European anti-Semitism.  His early ideas proved impractical on further reflection, but the notion of a sovereign Jewish state (not original to Herzl) remained a viable option.

For the remaining years of his life, Herzl became the preeminent leader of the movement forge a Jewish homeland, making his case to some of Europe’s most influential power brokers, including the Kaiser.  For Herzl, the only question was where.  Eventually, the colonial territory entrusted to England by a League of Nations mandate, known at the time as “Palestine,” became the obvious choice, given the Jewish people’s deep roots to the region.  However, Herzl was appalled by the backwardness and poverty of the British Mandate during his first visit.  Still, this did not disqualify the small tract of land from consideration.  Arguably, it made even more sense on several levels.

Produced by Moriah Films, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s film production subsidiary, Dream is a welcome and necessary antidote to malicious attempts to make “Zionism” a dirty word in the media.  Trank and co-writer-co-producer Rabbi Marvin Hier clearly illustrate the alarming nature of anti-Semitism during Herzl’s lifetime, largely leaving unspoken (but ever-present in viewer’s minds) the enormity of the Holocaust, which would tragically vindicate all his fears.

Narrated by Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley, with fellow Oscar winner Christoph Waltz giving voice to Herzl’s letters and writings, Dream has a fair amount of star power for a serious historical documentary.  With an elegant score composed and conducted by the Emmy winning Lee Holdridge (whose credits including Moonlighting), Dream is a pretty prestigious package, but the real attraction is Herzl’s short but epic life-story, which will probably come as a revelation to many viewers outside the Jewish faith.  Though perhaps not the target market, it is those viewers of good will not especially schooled in Jewish history who would get the most out of the film.

Consistently fascinating and never dry, Dream tells a compelling story that remains only too timely for the world today.  Well paced and informative, It is No Dream is recommended for general audiences, regardless of religion or political affiliation, when it opens this Friday (8/10) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

Red Hook Summer: Bring Your iPad

For the final cut of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino deleted a scene of Uma Thurman talking to John Travolta through the lens of a camcorder.  It was already too clichéd.  That was nearly twenty years ago.  In his latest film, Spike Lee heavily relies on a similar device, hoping the upgrade to an Apple iPad makes it seem fresher.  Such a strategy perfectly represents the tired blood of Red Hook Summer (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Colleen Royale can hardly stand her father, Enoch Rouse, introduced to viewers as “Da Good Bishop” of the Little Piece of Heaven church, or his old time religion.  Nonetheless, she deposits her anti-social suburban son Flik in her father’s Red Hook housing project apartment for the summer.  Like a little Spike Lee, Flik has a compulsive need to film the world around him, but no faith.  Thus begins a generational cold war, with the minister determined to bring the young cuss to Jesus.

Frankly, Hook’s first two sluggish acts are downright laborious, but grandfather and grandson seem to be building a relationship by meeting each other halfway.  That would be a worthy enough lesson we could all stand to be reminded of again, if the film followed through on it.  Instead, Lee foists one of the laziest, most obvious third act revelations on viewers, completely undermining any good will he might have built up thus far.  Remember Enoch Rouse is a man of the cloth.  Anyone who has seen a Hollywood film in the last twenty years should be able to guess the rest.

Yet, since Hook clearly implies Rouse’s daughter has a good idea what her father’s deep dark secret is, it is absolutely baffling why she would send her son to stay with him unsupervised, with only his annoying sense of entitlement for protection, unless she is just understandably sick of the sullen brat.  No matter, Lee is determined to pull Rouse through the gauntlet, which he does in punishing Grand Guignol style.

To be fair, Clarke Peters does his best to maintain Rouse’s basic humanity, working like his soul depends on it, but Lee stacks the deck against him.  Nonetheless, his performance stands head and shoulders above the rest of the cast.  That includes Lee himself, briefly appearing in the guise of Do the Right Thing’s Mr. Mookie, clearly hoping some of viewer’s enthusiasm for his defining film will rub off on this wan return to the County of Kings.

Hook is a bad movie, but it is not the fault of the musicians.  New Orleans’ Jonathan Batiste performs some stirring Hammond B-3 solos and brings some refreshing energy to film when appearing in character as “Da Organist” TK Hazelton.  Likewise, Bruce Hornsby draws on his jazz chops for a pleasing gospel influenced instrumental soundtrack.

Yes, Hook sounds great, but the paucity of originality is honestly depressing.  Perhaps it is time for Lee to follow Woody Allen’s lead and leave their beloved New York to make a psychological thriller with social climbing Londoners.  At least then he would not have the overpowering temptation to fall back on his predictable Spikisms.  Not recommended, Red Hook Summer will disappoint even Lee’s most dogged champions when it opens this Friday (8/10) in New York at the AMC Empire.

Sunny Goes to Bollywood: What was that Title Again?

Yes, it means “body” in Hindi, but c’mon.  It’s not like they don’t understand the possible English meanings in Bollywood.  Factor in the “mainstream” Bollywood debut of western porn star Sunny Leone and you’ve got the perfect storm of exploitation.  However, nothing is perfect in Pooja Bhatt’s utterly tame J2 (as we shall call it) that nevertheless should not be allowed to ignominiously slink out of theaters unremarked upon (disappointingly safe for work trailer here).

Dear me, where to start.  Perhaps with the plot that can be rather easily dispatched with.  Sunny Leone plays Izna, a porn star (shockingly), who is recruited by a double secret counter-terror agency to lure the dreaded assassin Kabir into a trap.  She had a steamy relationship with Kabir back when he was a crusading cop, but he threw her over when he defected to the dark side.  Needless to say, their feelings for each other remain unresolved.  Simultaneously, Izna’s handler, the tightly wound Aayan Thakur, falls for her hard.  Thus begins a love triangle that endlessly repeats itself, like a turntable needle skipping on a scratch.

Even though she is playing a porn star, Leone is not very convincing as Izna.  Perhaps she was confused by how early all the love scenes ended.  It is not like she isn’t trying.  When called on to act scared, she shivers like she has hypothermia.  Maybe Bhatt had her stand in a walk-in freezer before filming big dramatic sequences.  Okay, so she’s not great, but she knows how to jut.

Frankly, the real embarrassment in J2 is Arunoday Singh’s ridiculously over the top turn as Thakur.  It may well be the most overwrought, awkward screen performance of the post-Ed Wood era.  While he torpedoes his dignity, somehow Randeep Hooda manages to keep his intact as Kabir.  It helps to have that piercing psychopathic stare to fall back on.  It means he can shut the heck up for a while.

J2 commits many cinematic sins, but over economizing is not one of them.  At one hundred thirty minutes, it will tax the indulgence of those who ordinarily dig on bad movies.  Clearly no expense was spared on lush sets, exotic locations, and curve hugging costumes.  However, about twelve cents were spent on script development, relying instead on some of the most shopworn clichés.  The pacing is rather poky, but cinematographer Nigam Bomzan seems hell-bent on recreating the vibe of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” video.

The dirty little secret of J2 is that it is not that dirty at all.  Keep in mind, India has a strict censorship board.  Had it been submitted for a rating here, it might have earned an R, but would have had a puncher’s chance at a PG-13.  That is all well and good for us, but it is profoundly unsatisfying for the film’s target market.  Sorry dudes.

It is not like there is much to miss out on here.  Yet, like a clumsy child, it is hard to judge J2 harshly.  The plain truth is it was just made by people who have no business being on either side of a (mainstream) camera.  Those who know their Bollywood will not be surprised.  The J franchise was written by Bhatt’s father Mahesh, who has a rather sensationalistic rep he has apparently passed along to his daughter.  In case you were worried about not having seen the first installment (wisely re-titled Body for its American DVD release) the films are only thematically related and stand alone, such as they are.  Evidently, the Bhatts figured why let deceptively racy title go to waste.  Not really recommended, but for those who want the weird bragging rights of seeing it in a real honest to gosh theater, J2 plays through Thursday (8/9) at the AMC Empire in New York, after which time they will presumably bounce it out of there, post-haste.

This Time: Show Business is a Grind

It is hard to be talented, at least in show business.  As mediocrities rise, worthy artists often languish in near obscurity, especially if they have a style slightly difficult to package for mass market consumption.  Victor Mignatti follows six performers who have had just enough success to keep plugging away at their careers in This Time (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

At one time, the Sweet Inspirations were a top act on the so-called “chitlin” circuit.  They were on a major record label and charted fairly often.  Things slowed down for them somewhat when Cissy Houston left to pursue a solo career, but they were still heard by millions when they became Elvis Presley’s regular back-up singers.  They still love the King and pay the bills through their performances at tribute shows.  However, they are hoping to get back on the charts and into the spotlight with a new album.

Peitor Angell is a busy man.  He is producing the Sweet Inspirations’ album as well as comeback projects for one-time soul diva Pat Hodges, the former member of Hodges, James & Smith (HJS).  He also has his own solo projects.  The audience will see a lot of his townhouse, which serves as his informal studio, where the Inspirations and Hodges lay down their tracks.

Meanwhile in New York, Bobby Belfry pays his dues as an aspiring cabaret singer, while mostly working at the Upper Eastside piano bar Brandy’s.  He has no connection to Angell (as for as viewers know), self-producing his own CDs.  Frankly, he would like to find producer willing to take him on, but cabaret is a specialized field, misunderstood by many.  Nonetheless, Belfry has an opportunity to make a statement when he books a CD/DVD release gig at Feinstein’s, arguably the country’s premiere room for cabaret performance.

Mignatti somehow gives each their due as they strive for their next and/or first big break.  For some, their drive to advance in the business starts to flag during this time, while the Angell, the uncanny multi-tasker produces a rap label’s guest vocal track by original and defining Sweet Inspiration Cissy Houston, only to be robbed of his credit in an act of supreme (but not inconsequential) pettiness.

This is why Hollywood often portrays businessmen as villains.  It does not acutely reflect the character of the overall private sector, but it holds a mirror up to the ethically challenged entertainment field.  Should my publishing company ever fabricate excuses to withhold royalties, they would become a pariah, yet such practices were commonplace in the recording industry for decades—and probably still are.  Such is the business the This Time artists are trying to make it in.  It certainly is not easy.

While stylistically, the Sweet Inspirations and Belfry do not necessarily clash, per se, they are not an obvious tandem.  Hodges on the other hand, could easily share a playlist with the Inspirations.  Still, Angell’s own project, leading a Jackie Gleason-style lounge band under his “Monte Carlo” persona, is not so far removed from Belfry’s act.  So maybe they all fit together, but the film still feels like it whipsaws about a bit.

Regardless, This Time is a sympathetic and engaging boots-on-the-ground look at music as an unforgiving business.  It should be an eye-opener for many viewers, especially those who have ever stiffed a band’s tip jar or make a practice of illegally downloading music.  This film puts a human face on such boorish behavior.  That is a worthy enough endeavor, right there.  Recommended with some affection, This Time opens this Friday (8/10) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

DocuWeeks ’12: Defiant Requiem

A Catholic requiem in a concentration camp might sound like a problematic endeavor.  So it was, but not necessarily for the reasons one might assume.  It was actually the programming choice of a group of prisoners, led by a remarkable maestro.  The story of the Terezin performances of Verdi’s Requiem and the subsequent on-site re-staging for survivors decades later are documented in Doug Shultz’s Defiant Requiem (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 DocuWeeks in New York and Los Angeles.

Verdi’s Requiem is a draining chorale work, in many ways.  It would not seem like a natural piece of music to unwind with after a hard day of labor—slave labor to be more accurate.  However, these were far from normal times for the Terezin (a.k.a. Theresienstadt) concentration camp captives.  These Czech citizens had been swept up by the conquering National Socialists and held at Terezin until they were deported to a death camp.  Nonetheless, many died at Terezin due to the inhuman conditions, but a determined young conductor harnessed the power of music to keep their spirits up.

Gathering those interested around an old upright providentially discovered in the basement of his barracks, Rafael Schächter started his make-shift chorus off with Czech popular songs and Smetana operas, but he eventually coaxed them into the Requiem.  The key might have been his translation of Verdi’s Latin into Czech.  As Murry Sidlin, the conductor of the commemorative Requiem concerts observes, the Requiem’s lyrics hold tremendous meaning for anyone unjustly denied their liberty and dignity.  Rife with prophesies of judgment from above, Verdi’s opus is not just a requiem.  It became a J’Accuse—an indictment of the National Socialist crimes so bold, only the International Red Cross inspectors could miss its significance.

Yes, the Requiem was performed at that Terezin, the concentration camp temporarily remodeled into a Potemkin village to fool the Red Cross.  It was there that Sidlin brought members of Catholic University of America chorale ensemble and a full orchestra, for an emotional performance.

In fact, mounting Verdi’s Requiem and telling the story of Schächter has become a mission for Sidlin, who serves as the film’s musical director and one of its primary commentators.  It is an important story, but the film also fosters a greater appreciation for Verdi’s work.  Wisely, Shultz takes a rather traditional documentarian approach, largely approximating the shape of Sidlin’s music-with-historical-context concert presentations of the Requiem, filling in here and there with tastefully recreated scenes in the rehearsal cellar and some animated sequences adapted from surviving Terezin drawings.  This is hardly the place to get experimental, after all.

Granted, anyone who knows anything about the Holocaust and the fate of the Terezin prisoners in particular will sadly know exactly what to expect from the film.  Nonetheless, it deepens our understanding of life at Terezin and offers up an example of music as an instrument of survival.  Frankly, hearing some of the stormier passages promising divine justice will likely make viewers’ hair stand on end.  Highly recommended precisely for such memorable moments, Defiant Requiem screens through Thursday (8/9) in New York at the IFC Center as part of DocuWeeks New York as well the week of August 17-23 during DocuWeeks LA.

Supercapitalist: Playing Liars’ Poker in Hong Kong

Like a financial Luke Skywalker, Connor Lee is about to assume his destiny as the son of a legendary trader.  He will find it in Hong Kong.  His Chinese is limited, but he speaks money.  That will be all he needs in Simon Yin’s $upercapitalist (trailer here), the centerpiece selection of this year’s Asian American International Film Festival, which opens this Friday in New York.

Lee regularly predicts the unthinkable, yet is never able to adequately capitalize on his foresight.  That may soon change.  He has caught the eye of hedge fund master of the universe Mark Patterson, who dispatches him to Hong Kong.  His assignment is to mount a takeover of Fei & Chang, a hidebound family run conglomerate in which they already own a minority stake.  This does not sit well with the ruling Chang family, especially the heir apparent son, Richard, who is spearheading a top secret project afoot to radically re-engineer the company’s ailing import-export division. 

Will Lee facilitate the revitalization or the liquidation of the company?  This depends on who gets the final word: the devil or the angel sitting on his shoulders.  The devil is Quentin Wong, Lee’s colleague and mentor in the HK fast life.  The angel is Natalie Wang, a corporate publicist working with Richard Chang and his IT guru.

Once again, $upercapitalist portrays an American hotshot who must go abroad to get a lesson in business ethics.  At least it is HK rather than the CP dominated Mainland doing the teaching this time around.  However, the supposed killer app for employee motivation Richard Chang’s team is developing sounds highly dubious.  Essentially, their plan to increase productivity involves an intra-company facebook, in which workers try to amass attaboys from their peers.  I think I’d rather start the day with a dozen lashings.

Conceived as a star vehicle for himself, screenwriter Derek Ting has a few nice moments in $upercapitalist as Lee.  Mostly though, his character follows the old school Tom Cruise template of a humbled young Maverick finding redemption through the help of a more emotionally mature love interest.  Kathy Uyen holds up her end well enough as the virtuous publicist, but it is not a particularly well fleshed out role. 

However, as Wong, Darren E. Scott clearly enjoys playing the villain, bringing a nice infusion of energy to his scenes.  Still, for those who follow Asian cinema, the real highlight of $upercapitalist is seeing veteran HK actors Richard Ng (a Jackie Chan alumnus also seen in Detective Dee) and Kenneth Tsang (recently in Starry Starry Night, as well as John Woo classics like Once a Thief) do their thing as Chairman Donald Chang and his board member brother Victor, respectively.

$upercapitalist is not a bad boardroom soap opera, but it falls in too easily with the lazy Bain Capital attacks currently circulating in the media.  Frankly, if Fei & Chang’s import/export division is dragging down the entire company, they have a responsibility to all their employees to fix the problem.  Of course, why worry about the complexity of reality in a film when simplistic stereotypes are so much safer?  A decent showcase for some fine supporting work, the flawed but still quite watchable $upercapitalist opens this Friday (8/10) in New York at the Village East.

Sautet at FSLC: Max et les Ferrailleurs

Most Americans would consider it entrapment.  One unyielding Parisian Detective would say it is just “pas de chance.”  He is determined to catch his man red-handed, so if he has to help matters along, then so be it.  However, things do not go strictly according to plan in Claude Sautet’s Max et les Ferrailleurs, which starts its premiere American theatrical run this Friday in conjunction with the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s The Things of Life: Claude Sautet retrospective.

Max has issues, but money is not one of them.  Like a French Milton Hardcastle, the well-heeled crusader was once a judge, but became a cop after he was forced to free too many criminals on technicalities.  His obsession with iron-clad proof stems from this experience.  It has not been working out well lately though.   This will indeed be bad luck for Abel Maresco, a petty lowlife and onetime comrade-in-arms with Max, who has the misfortune of crossing the copper’s path. 

Maresco is on the lowest rung of the criminal ladder.  He is a junkman, who literally lives of the metal and junked cars castoff by serious crooks.  Basically deciding he looks guilty, the anti-hero plants the suggestion that it is time for Maresco and his crew to pull a real job.  To nurture this seed, he starts visiting Maresco’s streetwalking girlfriend Lily, in the guise of Felix, a neighborhood branch banker who regularly receives large deposits from the wholesale meat market.

Ferrailleurs is a fascinating film in Sautet’s canon, because it incorporates elements of both his early noirs (like the briskly entertaining Dictator’s Guns) and his late period intimate character studies.  Beginning in media res, and proceeding to tour through the dodgy corners of Nantes, it observes most of the noir conventions.  Indeed, Max is certainly one cold fish of an anti-hero.  Yet, the scenes of the emotional distant older man developing an ambiguous relationship with a younger, more passionate woman prefigures several of his career defining masterworks, such as Un Coeur en Hiver and Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud.

Frankly, it is downright bizarre it took so long for Ferrailleurs to get a proper American release, given the combination of Sautet and its stars, Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider.  The title is an obvious suspect, usually translated as Max and the Junkmen, unfortunately suggesting a Francophone Sanford & Son.  Nonetheless, it is anything but.  In fact, it represents one of Schneider’s sultriest turns, giving her the opportunity to rock some Klute-like threads—again, all very noir worthy.  She also plays off Piccoli’s ultra-reserved protagonist quite effectively.   His Max is a bit of a cipher, but he clearly suggests a tightly wound man about to snap. 

Though it ends in a rather shocking (but oddly logical) place, Ferrailleurs is ultimately quite satisfying.  While its characters are thoroughly compromised, it serves as a sharply delineated morality play, featuring a funky soundtrack from the great Philippe Sarde.  Must viewing for Schneider fans and Sautet appreciators, Max et les Ferrailleurs opens this Friday (8/10) at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, in tandem with the FSLC’s continuing The Thing of Life: Claude Sautet retrospective.

AAIFF ’12: Pearls of the Far East

The women of Viet Nam are resilient.  They have had to be.  Yet, wars and ideologies are not among the troubles faced by seven diverse Vietnamese women and the men who are close to them.  The trials and tribulations associated with each stage of life are enough to challenge the characters of Minh Ngoc Nguyen’s stories, collected together in Cuong Ngo’s discrete (non-intersecting) anthology film, Pearls of the Far East (trailer here), which screened at this year’s Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

In “Childhood,” Tho is a little girl with affluent but absentee parents.  She lives with her grandmother near the delta, but most of her time is spent with a servant’s adoring son.  Eventually, this idyllic interlude will end for Tho, which is bittersweet in the film’s dramatic context, but even more so in retrospect, when viewers consider what might be in store for her as the child of wealthy landowners.  Indeed, they are likely to remember young Phuong Quynh, who is a natural on-screen, instantly earning audience sympathies.

East’s second chapter, “The Message,” is one of its strongest and one of two with the most genre appeal.  A colleague of a colleague has died.  Since Thiet Thanh will be passing by his mother’s house on her return trip home, she agrees to break the tragic news to the woman.  However, the well-to-do old woman misunderstands (perhaps deliberately) the nature of her visit, assuming she is her son’s fiancé.  Thus begins a subtle paranormal romance.  Yes, maybe there is a ghost in this story and also a deeply compelling performance by Anh Hong.

According to director Ngo’s post-screening Q&A, “Blood Moon,” the Blue Lagoon-ish story of a man and woman living alone on a desert island was the most challenging to get past Viet Nam’s censors because of the proposed nudity.  That is a shame for viewers, because it stars international action superstar Thanh Van (Veronica) Ngo.  Frankly, this couple is exactly what you will suspect they are, but Ngo’s exquisitely sensitive performance makes it work nonetheless.

It is followed by the standout “The Boat,” another chapter the state censors found problematically steamy.  Also ambiguously fantastical, it captures the fleeting romance between an artistically inclined man and a woman who claims to lead an “ephemeral” life.  Things get somewhat empowering when the author herself takes the screen in “Awakening” as Mi, a sort Vietnamese Coco Chanel.  Engaged many times, the fashion designer never ultimately tied the knot.  Fed up with fate, she finds catharsis in one of East’s odder but visually striking scenes.

“The Gift” is the subsequent tale of a middle-aged wife’s frustration with her husband’s inattention and infidelity, featuring some of the film’s most spectacular scenery, but also some of its most conventional dramatic situations.  However, revered Vietnamese actress Kieu Chinh really lowers the boom in the concluding “Time,” playing a Norma Desmond-style actress betrayed by time’s passage, bravely inviting viewers to read autobiographical significance into her role.

Deliberately taking viewers on a south-to-north tour of the country, East looks absolutely gorgeous.  Mikhail Petrenko’s cinematography is a feast for the eyes, well matched by Alexina Louie’s score, evocatively mixing western and eastern classical elements.  However, some viewers might be put off by the film’s lack of inter-connectedness.  This is not Short Cuts.  Nobody will pop-up later in someone else’s story.  The only commonalities for the various chapters are thematic.  While that does make it something of a narrative hodgepodge, at least it frees Ngo from the pressure of contriving excuses to make characters’ paths cross.  Elegant and sometimes kind of hot, Pearls of the Far East definitely deserves to find an art-house audience following its well received screening at the 2012 AAIFF, which wraps-up this weekend at the Chelsea Cinema.

Sautet at FSLC: The Dictator’s Guns

You see a lot of life and death at sea.  Skipper for hire Captain Jacques Cournot is about to see more of both in The Dictator’s Guns, a hardboiled caper which screens as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s nearly complete retrospective for Claude Sautet, who is probably best known to most cineastes for his highly intimate late career dramas.

Cap. Cournot has been hired by playboy businessman Hendrix to acquire a sailboat in Santo Domingo from a little old lady in Pasadena who only sailed her once.  However, as soon as Cournot kicks the tires and telegrams her his offer, the good ship Dragoon disappears under criminal circumstances.  It turns out his boss is not who he thought he was, nor is his boss’s boss.  As for the American widow—she’s no lady, she is a femme fatale.

Making haste to the DR, the Widow Osborne more or less clears the captain with the coppers so she can retain his services tracking her boat.  Unfortunately, he does so in rather short order, bringing them face-to-face with a desperate gang of gunrunners, including Hendrix, her gutless ex-husband #1, in the cabin of the listing ketch.  From here, they are off to Key Largo territory, as the Cap and widow play the wait-to-pounce game.

Frankly, this is not a very well thought through scheme, boiling down to the reluctant Cournot ferrying crates of munitions from the off-kilter boat to a nearby sandbar on the dinghy.  Still, the noir works like a charm.  Hollywood character actor and onetime San Quentin resident Leo Gordon is like a walking Sam Fuller movie as the ringleader Morrison.  In the lead, Lino Ventura is like a Lino Ventura character, except perhaps more likable.  Indeed, his Cournot is not a world-weary drifter.  He seems to quite enjoy flirting and partying with the other carousers flocking to Santo Domingo’s night spots.  His expatriate life actually looks like fun, except for the part where he is held captive by arms smugglers.

Sylva Koscina (veteran of a legion of sword & sandal flicks) adds a bit of nostalgic appeal as the Gabor-ish Osborne, also getting down to business rather gamely in the big shootout-siege.  Walter Wottiz’s moody black-and-white cinematography is a pleasingly noir, as is the crime-jazz soundtrack co-composed by big band leader and record producer Eddie Barclay (for whom Quincy Jones once worked) and his label’s music director Michel Colombier.

There are plenty of Bogartian influences in Arms, but it all comes together rather nicely.  Like most of the Nouvelle Vague that never really embraced him, Sautet clearly appreciated American film noirs and had a good understanding of their mechanics.  It all makes for fun, moody stuff and a real change of pace from his later masterpieces, like Un Coeur en Hiver, screening Sunday (8/5) and Thursday (8/9).  Definitely recommended, The Dictator’s Guns screens today (8/3) at the Walter Reade Theater as the Things of Life retrospective continues, culminating with the premiere American theatrical engagement for his 1971 classic Max et les Ferraileurs, starting next Friday (8/10).

Free Radicals: the Shaggy Avant-Garde

They have contempt for your bourgeoisie aesthetics and crass box office concerns.  They are experimental, non-narrative filmmakers and Pip Chodorov knows them well.  After all, he is one of them.  Yet, he takes a more traditional approach singing his colleagues praises in his documentary survey, Free Radicals: a History of Experimental Films (trailer here), which opens today at the Anthology Film Archives, New York’s home for avant-garde cinema.

As viewers see in the opening segment, even Chodorov’s family home movies were experimental.  His father Stephan was the long time host of one of the few broadcast television showcases for experimental film.  Not surprisingly, the son did not grow up to be a stockbroker.  Those family connections clearly came in handy when Chodorov assembled Radicals.  Indeed, most of his talking head sequences were interviews either he or his father had previously filmed.

Fortunately, this includes movement luminaries, such as Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, Ken Jacobs, Len Lye, and Mr. Anthology himself, Jonas Mekas.  However, this also means a figure like Maya Deren gets relatively short shrift (and no love for Shirley Clarke).  Still, Chodorov hits most of the bases and shows plenty of representative clips.

Essentially, Chodorov acknowledges the persistently limited audience for the films and filmmakers he champions.  Indeed, experimental film makes jazz look like a booming mass market commodity.  Yet, he never really makes a case on behalf of the experimental ethos.  These films are important because they simply are so.  After all, they are the water he has been swimming in, nearly all his life.

Granted, anyone should be able to appreciate some of the more striking images created by avant-garde filmmakers.  Shrewdly, Chodorov uses the geometric shapes of Hans Richter’s easily accessible Rhythmus 21 as a thin-edge-of-the-wedge introduction to non-narrative filmmaking.  He also trenchantly explains the financial and professional challenges facing such filmmakers, as the only visual artists without institutionalized gallery support.  Nevertheless, Radicals never really tries to win converts to the experimental cause, preferring to address the choir instead.

Radicals is a reasonably informative overview of avant-garde cinema that moves along at a healthy pace.  To Chodorov’s credit, he largely avoids the political diatribes that have contributed to the movement’s marginalization (except of course, Ken Jacobs’ interview segments, which should surprise no one).  Nonetheless, there is an inescapable shallowness to his collection of greatest non-hits and personal reminisces.  (For a more engaging and inclusive look at the genre, keep an eye out for Chuck Workman’s Visionaries.)  A film for the faithful, Free Radicals opens tonight (8/3) at AFA, with a special live performance by Black Lake, who composed the film’s soundtrack, during the 7:00 screening.

AAIFF ’12: Invoking Justice

They are called Jamaats.  In predominantly Muslim Southern India, these neighborhood old boys’ networks supposedly apply sharia law.  However, in practice, they regularly provide cover for abusive and even homicidal husbands.  At least, such appears to be the case based on the evidence presented to the upstart women’s Jamaats.  Deepa Dhanraj documents the efforts of the women’s Jamaat leaders to redress gender based injustices in Invoking Justice (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

As per Indian custom, Islamic law officially supersedes secular law in the provincial south.  It is a nice set-up if you are a man, particularly if you and your cronies are on the community Jamaat.  If you are a woman though, the system is literally rigged against you.  However, a small but growing number of Muslim women have challenged the institutionalized misogyny by forming alternative women’s Jamaats.  While their legal standing is rather iffy, especially by the local standards, the civilian police force has to deal with them.  This often means the men’s Jamaats must as well, albeit rather grudgingly.

The kinds of cases women’s Jamaat activists investigate are frankly shocking, including several cases of spousal murder and one abused wife and mother desperately trying to divorce her pedophile husband.  The women’s Jamaat founder Sharifa Khanam clearly knows the Koran and uses it to shame their male counterparts.  Yet, on a fundamental level, they still acknowledge the primacy of Islamic law over civilian authority.  Indeed, this begs an obvious question Dhanraj does her level best to ignore: is religious-based law compatible with any meaningful notion of justice?  Indeed, viewers might well wonder if non-Muslims living in Tamil Nadu have any recourse for legal redress, whatsoever.

To be fair, Dhanraj largely adopts the observational approach, only sparingly mixing in traditional on-camera interview sequences.  We see the Jamaat case-workers do the leg work and build the trust of families seeking their assistance.  Tellingly, it is not just women who petition the women’s Jamaats for help, but often the male relatives of women who have been battered and even killed.

Invoking is certainly eye-opening stuff.  However, if ever there was a film that could have benefited from a little confrontational showboating, it would have been this one.  Ultimately, viewers will feel justice is not being served in Tamil Nadu and may well suspect the situation is even worse than it appears in Dhanraj’s documentary.  Still, capturing courage on-screen is always a worthy endeavor.  Earning a moderate recommendation for those concerned about the state of women’s affairs in the Islamic world, Invoking Justice screens this coming Saturday (8/4) at the Chelsea Clearview, as part of the 2012 AAIFF.

Fantasia ’12: Attack of the Brainsucker (short)

It is tough having a sci-fi fan for a kid.  They are always going on about alien invasions and the like.  One little girl’s parents lose patience with her crazy Mars talk in Sid Zanforlin’s short film, Attack of the Brainsucker (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Fantasia Festival.

Samantha Delormier enjoys giving herself paranoid nightmares, like the one that opens the film.  After all, that is exactly what monsters from space are good for.  Her parents do not share her enthusiasm.  Frankly, they are getting rather tired of her oddball expressions of fandom.  In truth, their discontent stems from a dirty family secret.  It was Samantha’s older brother Robbie who first introduced his sister to the world of cult sci-fi.  The senior Delormier sibling no longer lives with the family.  He has been put away someplace out of sight.  However, he has come back this dark and stormy night to look after his beloved sister.  Or has he?

Brainsucker’s dirty little secret is that it is a really a social issue film masquerading as a retro genre pastiche.  It might be a particular downer for Fantasia patrons, considering how likely they are to identify with little Samantha.  At least it looks great.  Production designer Katka Hubacek’s team must have called in favors with all their geek-collector friends, filling every nook and cranny of Samantha’s bedroom with vintage 1960’s-era memorabilia.

Young Keyanne Fielding’s performance as Samantha is also quite impressive, but the film is rather dark and even somewhat heavy-handed.  That will make it a bit of a tough lead-in for Jon Wright’s enjoyably easy-going monster movie Grabbers this Saturday (8/4).  It also screens as part of the Déclarations short film programming block on the same night.

Love & Protest: Girlfriend Boyfriend—GF BF

In the 1980’s, student protesters across Taiwan started demanding a more democratic form of government.  By 1997, the country functioned much like our own duly elected but media-driven dysfunctional system.  While historic events unfold on a macro level, three classmates struggle with their own messily intertwined lives and loves in Yang Ya-che’s Girlfriend Boyfriend—GF BF (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

High school magazine editor Aaron is passionate about Mabel and the democracy movement.  She likes him well enough and supports the cause, to an extent, but she really has eyes for Liam.  Though he has affection for her too, it is definitely of the “just friends” variety.  He pines for Aaron instead, but realizes that simply is not to be.  Eventually, Aaron wins Mabel over, at least temporarily, but the three keep in close contact for the next decade or so, which leads to considerable pain and complications for them all.  Meanwhile, they watch from the student barricades as political reform sweeps across Taiwan.

Granted, GF BF’s premise certainly lends itself to melodrama, but Yang’s approach to the material is unexpectedly restrained.  Frankly, he passes up several golden opportunities for tearjerking.  Similarly, he consistently eschews didacticism when depicting the student movement.  In fact, the orderly, matter-of-fact manner the film portrays Taiwan’s revolutionary liberalization is rather surprising (and telling).

Nonetheless, GF BF has a wistful air of innocence lost that leaves quite an impression.  Cinematographer Jake Pollock’s early candle-lit night scenes are particularly evocative.  There is a real sense of time passing in the film, even though its ridiculously attractive cast never seems to age a crow’s foot over a dozen or so trying years. 

Who would want to see Gwei Lun Mei age anyway?  As Mabel, she vividly projects earnest sensitivity, without degenerating into an emotional basket case.  It is a perfect starring vehicle for her.  Likewise, Joseph Chang is also a pretty effective tortured slow burner as Liam.  However, Rhydian Vaughan never really gets inside Aaron, leaving viewers with the impression of a rather shallow opportunist.

It is hard not to favorably compare the response to the Wild Lily Student Movement with the Tiananmen Square protests just one year earlier, but that is hardly GF BF’s central point.  It is sort of like a Taiwanese Jules & Jim, intensified by tumultuous social change and the closeted homosexual dynamic added to their mismatched love story. 

Like the lives it presents, GF BF can be a bit unwieldy, but it is consistently engaging viewing and also fascinating as a reflection of current Taiwanese socio-political attitudes.  Recommended for those who enjoy a love triangle with a very definite sense of time and place, Girlfriend Boyfriend opens this Friday (8/3) in New York at the AMC Empire and Village 7, as well as in San Francisco at the AMC Metreon and Cupertino Square, courtesy of China Lion Entertainment.