Fist of Fear, Touch of Death: Feel the Bruceploitation

Bruceploitation does not get much more exploitative than this. If you love Bruce Lee, chances are you hate this cash-in cobbled together by the [in]famous grindhouse distributor Aquarius Releasing. Problems of authenticity abound, but there is still something appealing about the hucksterism of Matthew Mallinson’s Fistof Fear, Touch of Death, which is coming imminently (due to a CCP-virus delay) on DVD and limited-edition collector’s Blu-Ray, from the Film Detective.

Frankly, the behind-the-scenes making-of story of Fist is probably more interesting than its actual narrative, or really narratives. While cataloging some film canisters for Aquarius, Mallinson unearthed The Thunderstorm, an early family drama the teenaged Lee made before he left Hong Kong for the U.S.A. The entertaining bonus feature, “That’s Bruceploitation,” refers to it as “Bruce Lee: Death of a Salesman,” because of its apparently similar family dynamics. Regardless, Bruce Lee had been dead since 1973, so any new footage was a boon to you know, exploit.

Waste not, want not, so Mallinson and screenwriter Ron Harvey were tapped to create a contemporary film around the footage. They were also allowed to plunder the Taiwanese Kung Fu film, The Invincible Super Chan for footage of what became flashbacks to Lee’s celebrated martial artist ancestor (said to be a famous “samurai” in ancient China, which is just so embarrassing for fans to hear).

The film starts out with the eternally cool Fred Williamson (who starred in many blaxploitation distributed by Aquarius), playing himself as he tries to make his way to Madison Square Garden, where he is supposed to do some color commentary for a match promoted by real-life New York dojo-owner, promoter, and minor exploitation star, Aaron Banks. Supposedly, the main event will crown Lee’s successor. To drum up further publicity, Banks holds press conferences claiming Lee was in fact murdered, by someone using the titular technique. However, Williamson takes issue with Banks’ presumptiveness and baseless speculation during his interview with Adolph Ceasar, the actor playing himself (more or less) as a sportscaster, who supposedly discovered Bruce Lee.

Ostensibly, Caesar tells us the Bruce Lee story in flashbacks to the black-and-white Thunderstorm, which then flashes-back to color excerpts of Invincible Super Chan, none of which make much sense. Without question, the best parts of the film were the original contemporary action sequences featuring martial arts-blaxploitation cult favorite Ron van Clief and Bill Louie, who was then a promising potential martial arts star, assuming the mask and mantle of Kato. Both involve the Bruce Lee-disciples saving joggers from predatory street gangs in Manhattan parks, so you cannot accuse Harvey’s screenplay of excessive originality.

I Led 3 Lives: Pilot

It is a shame William F. Buckley is no longer with us, for many reasons, but especially because he was so effective at ejecting fringe elements from the Conservative movement. He was decidedly critical of Joseph McCarthy, especially in terms of his strategy and demagogic style, but his judgement on the HUAC committee was much more measured. Even today, Buckley’s books are required reading for anyone looking to really understand the era now derisively referred to as the “Red Scare.” The truth many hoped to obscure was the fact there really were many active enemy agents under the direct control the USSR trying to infiltrate and sabotage American institutions. Herbert A. Philbrick became the FBI’s most famous counter-spy. He successfully infiltrated the infiltrators and lived to write a memoir about it. Since we’re all stuck inside, let’s binge something different, I Led 3 Lives, the syndicated 1950s TV show based on his book, which is currently available online (at least for now).

If you enjoy dramatic voiceovers, then the IL3L pilot will be your catnip or caviar. In it, we meet Herbert Philbrick, a mild-mannered ad executive, who is secretly a member of a Communist cell (it is pretty clear from documents declassified from the Venona Project and the old Soviet archives, members involved in political organizing for the CPUSA were also expected to serve intelligence gathering functions for the Soviet intel agencies). However, he was secretly spying on them for the FBI. His handler, Special Agent James Adams does not seem so protective, but he has knack for appealing to Philbrick’s sense of duty.

Frontline: China Undercover

Frontline calls the cultural genocide currently underway in East Turkestan “the largest mass incarceration of an ethnic group since the Holocaust.” The severity and pervasiveness of the CCP’s campaign against the Muslim Uyghurs they proceed to document justifies such a chilling statement. The world has no shortage of crises right now (again, thanks to the CCP), but the Chinese Communist government’s systematic human rights abuses demand the public’s attention and outrage. Therefore, PBS and Frontline deserve credit for producing and airing China Undercover, filmed, directed, and co-produced by Robin Barnwell, which is now available on the Frontline website and the PBS app.

Access to East Turkestan is tightly controlled by the Party, especially for foreigners and independent journalists. However, Barnwell and his colleagues were able to recruit an ethnic Han Chinese businessman living in Southeast Asia to be their secret eyes and ears in the locked-down region. Thanks to his Han heritage, the man they dub “Li” had much greater freedom of movement than native Uyghur citizens. Indeed, we see him cruise through security checkpoints that stop and invasively search Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs (who have it just as badly in East Turkestan).

Probably two million Muslims are imprisoned in re-education camps, judging from satellite photos of the massive detention centers. Also judging from satellite intel, it appears numerous mosques have been razed into rubble. However, it is hard for Uyghurs and Kazakhs to speak openly, because of the CCP’s Orwellian surveillance apparatus. It is so finely tuned, residents must speak in code over phone lines, because certain words and phrases will automatically alert the authorities. If someone is sent to the camps, they are said to be “studying” instead.

Sea Fever: Enjoy a Contagious Monster Movie

You would think superstitious sailors would never name their vessel after the legendary nymph Niamh Cinn Oir, given how tragically her romance with a mortal ended, but apparently this salty sea-faring couple did just that. However, everyone on-board seems to believe redheads are unlucky. That will make things even more awkward for their new passenger, a ginger-haired grad student. However, they will need her marine biology expertise when they encounter a strange mollusk creature in Neasa Hardiman’s Sea Fever, which releases today on VOD.

She prefers the lab, but Siobhan must conduct some field observation to complete her advanced degree. The Niamh Cinn Oir is not exactly a research vessel, but its owners, married couple Gerard and Freya need the money. The spectrum-ish Siobhan does not exactly endear herself to the crew, but her scientific knowledge and scuba diving talent will come in handy when the ship is thrown off course by a large mysterious object, damaging their radio and navigation.

It turns out the trawler is tied up by the tentacles of a large squid-like monster. Rather ominously, its secretions have a corroding effect on the hull. Even worse, it holds weird parasitic organisms that causes blindness, projectile-hemorrhaging, and madness. As a scientist, Siobhan understands the need to quarantine everyone on-board before they return home—if that will even be possible—but the rest of the crew doesn’t want to listen.

Sea Fever is an unusually moody monster movie that builds as much tension out of character-based conflicts as it does from the thing in the ocean. Most of the crew have very distinct personalities, including Freya & Gerard, as well as Omid, the Serbian engineer (who is nearly as standoffish as Siobhan) and gray-haired Ciara (who is not as kindly as she looks).

Although this is clearly a scrappy production (the polite way of saying “low budget”), the creature effects look decent. Admittedly, Hardiman tries to imply more than she actually shows, but that is usually a wise strategy, even when budget constraints are not an issue. Her screenplay also makes the underlying science sound credible and realistic. In some respects, the film evokes the vibe of vintage Doctor Who (in the best, nostalgic way), as well as the isolated alienation of John Carpenter’s The Thing remake.

Vinyl Revival: Celebrating the Record Shop Boom

Some people are missing restaurants and theaters, but a lot of us are feeling serious withdrawal for our favorite record stores. Of course, it is probably best that we are not pawing through grubby stacks of new arrivals right now. Yet, indie record stores have become important community cultural centers. Pip Piper analyzes the surprisingly robust state of the vinyl business (or at least it was then) in the short documentary, The Vinyl Revival, which releases today on DVD.

Of course, there should be an asterisk attached to this review, because absolutely none of the record store proprietors who appear in Piper’s film ever state a complete shut-down lasting well over one month would really help grow their businesses. With that caveat, things were surprisingly optimistic a few week ago. Piper informally surveys the field, using Graham Jones’ (then and hopefully now still) somewhat inaptly titled book The Last Shop Standing as a guide. Dozens of independent record stores were opened last year and the year before. While the “music industry” has been stagnant, the vinyl format has posted dramatic and consistent year-over-year growth.

Frustratingly, Revival is very indie-rock (or whatever) -centric, but many of the reasons cited for the format’s renewed appeal are consistent across genre. These include cover art you can actually see and enjoy, as well as the tactile please of holding a gatefold album while listening the music it holds. Nobody really goes into the superior sound of vinyl, but that is a very real thing.

We Summon the Darkness: Leave it Unbidden

In the 1980s, people still believed the word “evil” had tangible meaning. These days, people are embarrassed by the concept and increasingly resentful when anyone points out its manifestations. Hence, the mass murderers committed by the likes of Richard Ramirez and the Matamoros cult are dismissed with the pejorative term: “satanic panic.” This film takes matters a step further, using “satanic panic” to cast jujitsu-like shade on conventional Christianity in Marc Meyers’ We Summon the Darkness, which releases this Friday on VOD platforms.

Frankly, this film’s worst sin in its slow-as-molasses start. After nearly half-an-hour, the major characters are still farting around in the parking lot after a head-banging heavy metal concert. Metalheads Alexis, Val, and their new friend Bev invite three losers to come back and party with them, even though they could easily pick-up much better-looking guys, thereby making us instantly suspicious. Needless to say, it is not the women viewers should be worried for, but they are only using the trappings of Satanism, in what could be called a false flag operation.

Granted, Chelsea Stardust’s Satanic Panic got a little scoldy in its class warfare finger-wagging, but it was still consistently funny and enormously energetic. In contrast, Meyers and screenwriter Alan Trezza focus on literally demonizing Evangelical Christianity, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. Only the bloody over-the-top mayhem of the final twenty minutes makes any inroads towards redemption—so to speak.

Baptiste: The French Cop from The Missing

Julien Baptiste is a veteran cop, who specializes in finding missing persons, but not necessarily in securing happy endings. Of course, if were up to him every case would conclude with a joyous reunion, but things do not always work that way in the dark criminal underworld that he must navigate. After surviving a brain tumor, the French detective is not exactly retired, but he has something like emeritus status with the Amsterdam police force—even though his Dutch fluency is iffy. Unfortunately, the new case he agrees to take on will have many disastrous unforeseen consequences in co-creator-writers Harry & Jack Williams’ Baptiste, an original six-part series spun-off from The Missing, which premieres this coming Sunday on PBS.

Feeling lucky to be alive, Baptiste assumes he will mostly be a professional grandfather going forward. However, his wife would prefer to get him out of the house for a while, so as a favor to his old colleague Martha Horchner, Baptiste agrees to help the nebbish Englishman Edward Stratton find his niece, who has disappeared into Amsterdam’s murky world of sex-work and drug addiction—or so he says.

It turns out Stratton is not who he says he is—and neither is his niece. The reality is considerably more complex and subject to further revisions. Regardless, all the questions Baptiste asks draw the unwelcome attention of a Romanian human-trafficking syndicate known as the Brigada Serbilu. Presumably, the mysteriously vanished gangster Dragomir Zelincu (who has become a Keyser Söze-like legend for the Brigada) holds some answers, but finding him will only lead to more questions. Further complicating matters, there is business involving a considerable shipment of cash stolen from the Romanian gang.

Of course, it is all much more complex and perilous than that, but the Williamses manage to uncork several surprise game-changers at various stages, so let’s keep the details vague. This is definitely dark stuff. It is not as hard-boiled as Andrew Vachss novels, but the red-light district is definitely present throughout the series.

Joe Begos’ VFW

It is like Cheers, with attitude and veterans’ benefits. They aren’t getting any younger, but the patrons and staff can still fight as hard as they drink. Society is collapsing around this Veterans of Foreign Wars post, but the regulars still uphold standards of conduct. A pack of drug-crazed punks will learn that the hard way in Joe Begos’ VFW, which releases today on DVD (and is already available on VOD).

Nationwide, VFW posts are struggling because of the organization’s institutional difficulties recruiting veterans of Vietnam and later conflicts. However, Fred Paras and most of his cronies are ‘Nam vets. Doug McCarthy happens to be a Korean War veteran and Shawn Mason has freshly returned from the Middle East, choosing tonight of all nights to grab a beer at the VFW. He is a sharp-shooter—a talent that will come in handy.

The shots and salty talk are about to be interrupted by Lizard, a young street dweller, who stole a shipment of the designer drug “Hype” from Boz, the local gang-leader, to avenge her sister. Even though she rubs Paras and his comrades the wrong way, they still offer her shelter from Boz’s marauding “Hyper” hoards. Things will get bloody and tragic, but they still abide by a code of honor.

Although Assault on Precinct 13 is an obvious source of inspiration for this film, the attitude and razor-sharp dialogue is distinctively its own. This film respects veterans and demands the same of its audience. Of course, it is not exactly shy when it comes to gore either.

Camp Cold Brook: A Reality Show Gets Real (Again)

Maybe Network’s Howard Beale won’t be the only TV celebrity to lose their lives due to low ratings. The host of Haunt Squad, a fictional ghost-chasing reality show, is facing cancellation, but he convinces his boss to give them one last chance with a 90-minute summer special. They find someplace super-creepy that has not been trampled by every other paranormal investigation show. Of course, genre fans know what to expect when the crew arrives at the titular summer camp in Andy Palmer’s Camp Cold Brook, which is available on VOD and releases tomorrow on DVD.

Three seasons is a decent run these days, but Jack Wilson, the host (not the jazz pianist), has a family and a mortgage in arears. Through personal charm, he convinces the network head to give them one last chance, claiming they have a line on something big. Of course, he has no idea what that will be, but his shy production assistant Emma suggests Camp Cold Brook, near Wilson’s old childhood home in rural Oklahoma.

The camp has been shuttered since the atrocities and its remote location means it hasn’t been picked over by other paranormal shows. According to lore, a suspected witch caused twenty-eight kids at the Christian camp to go crazy and kill themselves, but she needed thirty to reincarnate her late daughter. Dead kids are always good for ratings, so off they go. It is only supposed to be an initial scouting trip, but weird, uncanny happenings soon complicate their plans.

You probably think you know how this goes—and you will be largely right. Yet, CCB proves how energetic execution and a game cast can still sell a familiar premise. It is hard to figure why the legendary Joe Dante signed up as executive producer and “presenter” based on Alex Carl’s screenplay, but the final product is surprisingly entertaining. The big twist has credibility issues, but the business involving creepy runes inscribed in each camp building is memorable and effective.

The Thing from Another World—The Original Classic

This might just be the U.S. military’s finest hour on film. They had already saved the world from the Axis powers during WWII and now only a small handful of officers and crew will stand between the world and a hostile alien invader. John Carpenter featured clips of this film in his classic slasher Halloween, before remaking it in 1982 (hewing much more closely to John W. Campbell’s original source novella, Who Goes There?). However, nobody has ever matched the authentic swagger and attitude of Christian Nyby’s The Thing from Another World (sometimes simply called The Thing), produced by Howard Hawks, which airs soon on TCM.

Captain Pat Hendry is the sort of leader who inspires confidence during times of crisis, but when it comes to romance, not so much. When the film opens, Hendry is taking a good deal of ribbing in the officer’s club over his disastrous date with Nikki Nicholson, a civilian employee in the Arctic research station Hendry’s crew often visits to resupply. It is there that he meets Ned Scott, a journalist and old friend of his co-pilot, Lt. Eddie Dykes.

Scott will hitch a ride with Hendry’s crew when they are ordered back to the Arctic station to investigate a mysterious crash site. It turns out the mysterious object was indeed a flying saucer. Rather unfortunately, the standard-operating salvage procedure results in the destruction of the craft (causing more grief for Hendry, especially from the research director, Dr. Arthur Carrington), but the alien occupant is preserved, frozen in ice. Hendry wants to keep him that way, but when it is accidentally thawed out, the Thing starts wreaking havoc. It turns out it is dashed hard to kill, because of its plant-like cell-structure, but fortunately the American military is endlessly resourceful.

The Thing (1951) is one of the greatest monster movies ever, not because of its special effects (which were really just okay for its era), but because of its superior characterization and dialogue. To this day, controversy remains regarding whether or not Nyby or Hawks really and truly directed the picture, with the rat-a-tat-tat pace of each exchange supporting suspicions of the latter (bringing to mind classics like His Girl Friday and To Have and Have Not, helmed by Hawks). In fact, both Hawks and Ben Hecht did uncredited punch-up work on Charles Lederer’s screenplay.

No matter who did what, The Thing (1951) perfectly captures the rhythms and cadences of military speech. It is all the more impressive, because Hawks and company were working around the Production Code. When Hendry tells Dykes and Lt. “Mac” MacPherson “just once I’d like to have a co-pilot and navigator who are wet behind the ears” we can tell he is really saying something much ruder and exponentially more explicit.

World on Fire: WWII Breaks Out, in 7 Episodes

They are called “world wars” because they swept across nations, continents, and social classes. It was pretty much all-hands-on-deck for the United Kingdom in 1939. Both the well-heeled Chase family and the working-class Bennett family will become deeply involved in the war and awkwardly intertwined with each other in the seven-part World on Fire, created and written by Peter Bowker, which premieres this Sunday on PBS.

Aspiring jazz singer Lois Bennett and Harry Chase met and probably fell in love as anti-fascist activists, despite his snobby mother Robina’s efforts to break them up. Instead, the Foreign Office severs their romance by posting Harry (a gifted linguist) in Poland. While in-country, he has a fling with Kasia Tomaszeski, a pretty waitress. Nancy Campbell, a hawkish American radio journalist in the Martha Gellhorn mold, convinces Chase to marry Tomaszeski, to save her from the brutality of the inevitable National Socialist occupation. However, she crosses him up, sending her little brother Jan in her place. That certainly surprises Mother Robina.

To further complicate matters, Bennett is pregnant with Chase’s child, but she wants nothing to do with him or his family. Her father, Douglas Bennett (who became an ardent pacifist after suffering PTSD during WWI) is more pragmatic. He also has a wayward son to worry about. To avoid prison time, punky Tom Bennett enlisted in the Navy, but that will soon bring him into harm’s way.

Meanwhile, Campbell returns to Berlin, where she starts investigating the National Socialists’ euthanasia policies, while chafing against the restrictions placed on her by her minder/censor. It is personal for Campbell, because of her affection for a neighbor’s daughter, who suffers from epilepsy. She is also concerned about the safety of her nephew, Webster O’Connor, a doctor at the American Hospital in Paris, who is in secret romantic relationship with Albert Fallou, a French North African jazz musician.

Phew, that pretty much covers the scorecard of principal characters. Of course, their lives will intersect in multiple ways, well beyond Harry Chase’s tomcatting. Frankly, the Harry-and-Lois sudsy angst gets tiresome fast. On the other hand, Campbell’s struggle to report the truth is really smartly written, high-stakes drama. It also suddenly holds real world relevancy, given Mainland China’s recent expulsion of American journalists.

Frankly, Helen Hunt does some of her best work (maybe ever) as Campbell. She plays her with appropriate Rosalind Russell sharpness, but also conveys her vulnerability in scenes where her character is trying not to be vulnerable. Zofia Wichlacz is also terrific as Tomaszeski, who will be profoundly changed by war. Fans of Polish cinema will also appreciate the presence and gravitas of Tomasz Kot (the tragic co-lead in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War) portraying Tomaszeski’s veteran father, Stefan.

Into the Dark: Pooka Lives

Forget Chuckie. Forget Annabelle. Forget those nasty little Nazi puppets in the Puppet Master movies. Pooka is the heavy-weight champion of monster dolls. You can blame the internet for that. Online weirdos just can’t get enough of Pooka urban legends in Alejandro Brugues’ Pooka Lives!, the first sequel of Blumhouse feature-length anthology series, Into the Dark, which starts streaming today on Hulu.

Nacho Vigalondo’s Pooka! was dark, twisted, and moody, making it perfect for Christmas viewing. Brugues, the Juan of the Dead director, moves the sequel in a hipper, more irreverent direction. As is always the case in horror movies, the internet is a destructive force, before it even latches onto Pooka. Derrick, an aspiring New York writer, has returned to his childhood home of Spring Valley, after an internet influencer’s minions wrecked his personal and professional lives. His now-married high school friends, Molly & Matt, take him in, even though he is still being trolled and harassed.

Derrick has accepted a copy-writing job at the company that manufactures Pooka dolls, where his ex, Susan just so happens to work in the marketing department. Although he is determined to return to the City, Derrick enjoys reconnecting with old friends, including the formerly fat Benny, who is now an impressively fit sheriff’s deputy. During their first night of drinking, they post a larky internet challenge to invoke Pooka—inviting his wrath if you have been “naughty.” Of course, it quickly goes viral once Derrick’s online tormentor posts his Pooka Challenge. Needless to say, he has been very naughty, so Pooka mercilessly carves up the loudmouth. Inevitably, Pooka will come looking for Derrick’s friends too, but he grows steadily more monstrous as the internet continues to embellish his legend (actually coming to look a lot like Frank the bunny in Donnie Darko).

It is generally smart of Brugues and Blumhouse to take a decidedly different tack for the first Into the Dark sequel, especially since screenwriter Ryan Copple so cleverly riffs on urban lore and internet memes. This is probably the geek-friendliest film in Into the Dark series, especially due to the casting of fan-icons Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton (in a smaller role).

The Other Lamb: Not-So Pastoral

The Shepherd is better groomed than David Koresh and softer-spoken than Jim Jones, but they are all cut from the same cloth. The Shepherd also adds bigamist and implied incestuous overtones to his collective flock-keeping. He is obviously bad news, but he keeps his wives and daughters enthralled with his words—until one of them starts to have doubts in Malgorzata Szumowska’s The Other Lamb, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

Other Lamb is the sort of film that will be particularly hard hit by the migration of theatrical releases to pure VOD, because the best things going for it—really the only things—are its dreamy vibe and hallucinatory visuals. This film would play better on a big screen in a darkened theater, but the narrative and overwrought drama are no great shakes, regardless of the distribution circumstances.

Selah didn’t join the Shepherd’s cult. She was born into it. She has only known life in his hippy commune, so she believes everything he tells her ardently—especially since she is his clear favorite. However, a series of strange observations and waking dreams plant her first seeds of doubts. They will start to germinate when her first menstruation forces her to spend time apart from the collective with the pariah wife.

All the visions and nightmares promise something heavy will eventually happen, but getting to that point is truly a feat of endurance. If you feel that your time spent self-quarantining is flying by too quickly than by all means watch this film. Of course, there are no surprises once the inevitable finally comes to pass. Basically, this film is made for gender-focused Social Justice Warriors who find the Handmaid’s Tale to be too subtle and ambiguous. The message here is pretty simplistic: men are bad and religion is even worse.

The Windermere Children on PBS

These children were survivors by definition. They managed to endure the National Socialist concentration camps, but the trauma was far from over. Yet, a special temporary refuge thrown together in an English country estate near Lake Windermere helped them transition from Hell on Earth to (in most cases) post-War British society. The four fateful months they passed at the Calgarth Estate are dramatized in the BBC-movie The Windermere Children, directed by Michael Samuels, which airs this Sunday on PBS.

Oscar Friedmann, a Jewish émigré child psychologist, convinced philanthropist Leonard Montefiore to fund the transitional school, believing the shared experiences of the students would help them process their grief and assist their integration into life after the camps. However, they only have two concerns when they first arrive: food and word from the Red Cross regarding relatives (who had mostly likely been murdered).

Although Friedmann dearly wants to counsel his charges, they are reluctant to open up to him. They are even more standoffish with Marie Paneth, a pedagogically rigid art therapist who is completely unprepared to confront the horrors the Windermere Children experienced. At least Jock Lawrence gets some of the older lads playing a bit of football. In fact, he quickly realizes teen-aged Ben Helfgott is loaded with natural talent.

In terms of screen drama, Windermere is pretty conventional, but well-intentioned stuff. The children are troubled, but fundamentally decent. Still, it is an aspect of the Holocaust we have rarely seen on film. There have been a number of films documenting the horrors of the camps and some like Sophie’s Choice that address the continuing ramifications years after the fact, but we rarely see the immediate (or mere weeks later) aftermath.

Windermere also has the distinction of featuring Thomas Kretschmann as the Jewish Friedmann, after he has portrayed dozens of SS officers and Stasi agents (true to form, you can see him portraying a Nazi agent again in the upcoming Penny Dreadful: City of Angels). He is really quite good as the humanistic but world-weary analyst-educator.

Tales from the Loop: Science Fiction Gets Moody and Thoughtful

This little Middle American community is a company town, but that plant where everyone works is an underground laboratory for cutting edge physics experiments known as “The Loop.” At its core is a huge Macguffin called “The Eclipse.” Think of it as three parts super-collider and one-part Obelisk from 2001. The Eclipse seems to make strange things happen for those whose lives revolve around—or maybe they just happen on their own in writer-creator Nathaniel Halpern’s sort-of science fiction sort-of anthology series, Tales from the Loop, which premieres Thursday on Amazon Prime.

Perhaps it is fitting Amazon supplied the press with non-sequential episodes, considering Tales addresses subjects like time-loops and alternate realities. Episodes 101: “Loop” and Episode 104: “Echo Sphere” pair up well together, because they closely follow the domestic dramas of the Willard, whereas Episode 106: “Parallel” could very well be the best of the series. Think of it as Somewhere in Time with more overt science fiction elements.

In contrast, the fantastical is decidedly dialed down in “Echo” and possibly intended as a matter for interpretation in “Loop,” despite the depressed looking robot constantly trudging across the background. The series starts with a suitably cryptic introduction from Russ Willard, the founder and director of the Loop. We then meet a little girl whose emotional disturbed mother works as a researcher at the Loop. She befriends Willard’s grandson, Cole, after her mother and all traces of the woman’s existence disappear after conducting an off-the-books experiment using a stolen fragment of the Eclipse. However, the well-meaning Cole has a hard time finding an adult who will bother to listen to them.

“Echo” is definitely the least genre of the episodes up for review, but it is definitely a showcase for Jonathan Pryce, portraying Russ Willard. It still features the same eerie retro-futuristic, post-industrial, alternate 1980s landscapes that distinguished Simon Stalenhag’s original conceptual art books, particularly the rusted out Echo Sphere itself. Supposedly, the number of times your voice echoes inside foretells the length of your life, so if it doesn’t echo at all, you can guess what that means.

Instead of the Willards, “Parallel” focuses Gaddis, the lonely and lonely-hearted security guard posted in a small booth outside the entrance to the Loop. He happens to find a tractor abandoned in the field behind the bungalow where he lives, which is interesting to us, because it appears to levitate like the landspeeders in Star Wars. However, it is interesting to Gaddis because he finds a picture of a man inside that becomes the focus of his romantic fantasies, much like Dana Andrews in Laura. When he finally fixes the tractor and fires it up, it returns through the wormhole it came through, where he finds his alternate, more sociable self is engaged in a relationship with the man in the picture.

ReelAbilities ‘20: Angel’s Mirror (short)

Despite some statutory reform (considered to be part of the Olympic hosting PR spruce-up), disability is still widely stigmatized in Mainland China. That is why a young boy who is new to the neighborhood cannot imagine why a pretty girl never comes out to play. A connection may or may not be forged in Cheng Chao’s short film, Angel’s Mirror, which “screens” as part of this year’s ReelAbilities Film Festival New York—now presented online.

Ironically, the only audible dialogue in Mirror are spoken by the boy’s mother, who sends him out to play with half a Yuan, while the adults unpack. He soon falls in with a pack of similarly aged boys, who congregate around the courtyard’s ping pong tables. At first, he is confused when they all stop and turn to stare in unison, but he quickly realizes they are gawking at Angel. When he pulls out a pocket mirror to signal her, he starts to communicate and interact with her—but he still doesn’t fully get it.

It is impressive how much Cheng’s film conveys without dialogue. It is a sensitive, classy production that looks and sounds great, thanks to Liu Lianjie’s child’s eye cinematography and the warm, delicate musical selections licensed from Motohiro Nakashima. Hao Yiming and Zhang Zhijing are both wonderfully expressive young actors, as the new boy and Angel, respectively. However, Cheng’s conclusion doesn’t really hit the inspirational note he is going for. In fact, it is a bit baffling.

ReelAbilities ‘20: Oliver Sacks—His Own Life

Oliver Sacks died in 2015, but watching a documentary profile at such times as these can only make us wonder of what he would have made of the age of the CCP-virus, a.k.a. COVID-19. The practice of social distancing probably would have pained him, but he would surely be doing his part as a medical doctor (thank you medical professionals and first responders). Sacks did not live long enough to witness the pandemic Xi-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed allowed to escape early detection in Wuhan to infect the world, but he had time to see his writings embraced by an initially skeptical medical community and to take stock of his life and career in Ric Burns’ Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, which “screens” as part of this year’s ReelAbilities Film Festival New York—now presented online.

Burns gives Sacks the full biographical treatment, tracing the psychological and emotional impact of his schizophrenic brother’s struggles during his formative years. His complicated relationship to his mother, who probably never really accepted Sacks’ sexuality, also features prominently. Although these issues clearly contributed to Sacks’ bouts with depression, they arguably helped make him such an unusually empathetic doctor.

Ironically, the book most responsible for Sacks’ fame, Awakenings, was initially a modest seller that made Sacks almost a pariah amongst the neurological establishment. His hide-bound peers simply refused to believe he had produced such dramatic results administering L-Dopa to patients in an apparent locked-in neurological state. They didn’t really change their mind until the Hollywood movie co-starring jazz legend Dexter Gordon was released.

Burns and Sacks’ colleagues do a nice job explaining how many of Sacks’ concepts and practices were so far ahead of his time. The study of what constitutes “consciousness” concerned Sacks long before Nobel Laureate Francis Crick started consulting him on the subject.

Self-Quarantine Viewing: The Mercenary

It is a terrible idea to leave a soldier-for-hire like Maxx for dead. His former comrades-in-arms do it twice. They are fortunate the first time, because a brave parish priest convinces the human weapon to renounce violence, but the bad guys are perversely determined to keep poking the bear. Sooner or later, Maxx is bound to start doing what he does best in Jesse V. Johnson’s The Mercenary, which is now available on DVD and VOD.

Eventually, the Islamist outrage industry will start protesting this film, because the opening action sequence features Maxx liquidating dozens of terrorists in a Mosque, which doesn’t seem to trouble the film in the least. It certainly shouldn’t trouble viewers either, but the world is insane. Things get a bit dicey on the next gig their team-leader LeClerc accepts from a Latin American drug cartel. When one of his colleagues tries to have his way with a village woman, Maxx intervenes, but almost gets killed for his efforts.

Kindly Father Elias nurses Maxx back to health and guides him back to the path of the righteous. Unfortunately, LeClerc and his mercs have taken over the local drug trade. Periodically, they abduct villagers to labor in their meth factories. At first, Maxx merely trains the villagers in self-defense, but when LeClerc learns he is still alive, all bets are off.

So, any questions? Nobody is likely to confuse The Mercenary with art cinema, but it is definitely a competent, self-aware direct-to-DVD action movie. Johnson is one of the best in the business at staging action on-screen (see for instance: Avengement, Debt Collector, and Accident Man). Former French Foreign Legion paratrooper Dominiquie Vandenberg does not have the star power of Johnson’s frequent protag, Scott Adkins, but as a former competitor in Thailand’s “Iron Circles,” he clearly has the skills, the physicality, and the street cred for a bad cat like Maxx. After watching The Mercenary, we’re frankly keen to see more of him.

ReelAbilities 20: Code of the Freaks (now online)

Anyone who has read David Skal & Elias Savada’s biography Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning knows how overdue we are for a documentary profile of the eccentric filmmaker. If any of film could sustain a feature-length examination, it would be his cult classic Freaks. This is not that film, but the controversial 1932 release is still an important touchstone in Code of the Freaks, a survey of disability in cinema, which screens as the “opening night” film of this year’s ReelAbilities Film Festival New York—now online for obvious reasons.

If you find the films discussed in this documentary “inspirational,” than the commentators largely think you are a shallow jerkweed. Frankly, it is rather rewarding to hear them torch the cheap sentimentality of films like Radio and Men of Honor. However, films you probably thought were quality, like Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot and Randa Haines’ Children of a Lesser God fare little better.

Admittedly, many of the clichés that are called out are rather problematic, like the prevalence of mercy killings as acceptable resolutions in films such as Million Dollar Baby. Still, this documentary just doesn’t have hardly anything positive to say about any film, except Browning’s Freaks. Their treatment of the Universal monster movies is rather unfair, because those films always humanized the monsters (especially so, given their era). Interpreting the Mummy’s wrappings as code for the bandages of disfigurement is really pushing it. Someone also misattributes Frankenstein to Browning, which will not help its case with old school horror fans.

Again, the film makes a legitimate point about representation, but it would be much cleverer if it singled out cases to praise. It would be great if more thesps of differing abilities could be cast in roles that are not defined by such status. Arguably, this film creates a disincentive to represent the disabled. Why would a filmmaker bother, if a doc like this will turn around and slam them for not getting everything absolutely perfect.

Resistance: Marcel Marceau Defies the German Occupation

During WWII, underground partisans had to keep their mouths shut to be effective, so yes Marcel Marceau was good at it. He already had ambitions to perform on stage, but his underdog humanist empathy compelled him to help guide refugee children to neutral Switzerland. The real-life Marceau’s filmography is a bit spotty (a small part in Barbarella, the only speaking role in Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie), but Jesse Eisenberg does a nice job portraying him in Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Resistance, which releases today on VOD (it would have opened in theaters too, but you know.)

Clearly, Marceau must be talented, because Gen. George S. Patton serves as his opening act in the flashforward prologue. When the proper narrative starts, Marcel Magnel is still working in his observant Jewish father’s Strasbourg butcher shop, but by night he performs Chaplinesque routines for unappreciative night club audiences. His father does not think very much of his performance art either. However, when Magnel agrees to help welcome a busload of newly arrived Jewish orphans to their new chateau sanctuary, he suddenly finds an appreciative audience for is gentle pantomime.

A bond quickly forms between Magnel/Marceau and the kids, which finally impresses his longtime crush, Emma. The local relief organization also starts noticing the supposedly irresponsible Marcel is around much more often than his self-proclaimed activist brother Sigmund. However, as the war starts to turn against free France, all three take leading roles teaching the children survival skills and then join the Resistance together—at the worst possible time. Yet, instead of seeking vengeance, Marceau (the name on his forged papers) prefers to embrace life, by saving as many of the refugee children as he can.

Although Eisenberg performs plenty of bits associated with Marceau and Chaplin, the film never wallows in the sad clown schmaltz of Life is Beautiful or the twee preciousness of Jojo Rabbit. Nobody needs to tell these kids about war or death. They understand just as well as the adults. It also helps that Eisenberg achieves a nice balance for Magnel/Marceau, depicting his artistic sensitivity just as well as his gutsy resolve.