Month: April 2013

CIA Bingo: LFM Reviews The Numbers Station

By Joe Bendel. Forget about the jocks, the CIA prefers to recruit math geniuses. If they happen to be drop-outs with socialization issues, so much the better. Of course, they still need people who can kill – but any old losers can do that, even someone who looks like John Cusack. Unexpectedly, one such field agent babysitting a remote code transmitter will have to do what he does best in Kasper Barfoed’s The Numbers Station, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Short wave radio is untraceable, making it the perfect format to convey messages to operatives in the field. Periodically, conspiracy nuts and Democracy Now listeners get all worked up about mysterious “Number Station” broadcasts. Typically, they are simply a series of numbers that have no meaning to listeners without the code. After a dirty job gets downright ugly, Emerson Kent is reassigned to a station somewhere in the English countryside. He provides personal security to Katherine, who analyzes incoming code and reads out the resulting number sequences. Neither he nor she has any idea what any of it means.

Typically, they alternate with the other team every three days. However, when they arrive a few hours early in accordance with their new schedule, they find the station under siege. Thanks to Kent’s skills they are able to hole-up in the station. Ominously, though, they discover fifteen unauthorized messages have been sent.

A film like Numbers Station would do so much more business if it actually celebrated CIA agents’ service and sacrifice for their country. There are now 103 stars on the Memorial Wall in Langley commemorating officers who have fallen in the line of duty. However, screenwriter F. Scott Frazier is unmoved by that, preferring to represent as the Agency in the person of Kent’s boss, the ruthless Michael Grey, who constantly growls euphemistically about tying up loose ends. Those 103 stars deserve better than that, Mr. Frazier.

It is a shame too, because Numbers Station is a pretty tightly executed cat-and-mouse-game thriller. Barfoeld uses the claustrophobic constraints of the station bunker to build tension, shying away from conventional action sequences. Both couples’ developing extracurricular attractions also ring true, given the intimacy of their working environment.

Frankly, John Cusack is pretty convincing as the guilt-ridden, clinically depressed black ops agent. Perhaps Barfoed was reading a list of his recent direct-to-DVD credits to him off-camera. Likewise, Malin Akerman proves she can credibly play smart and attractive simultaneously, which should put her on a short list for bigger and better roles. Unfortunately, the usually super-cool Liam Cunningham is largely wasted as the generically villainous Grey.

Numbers Station features some better than average chemistry and respectable thriller mechanics. However, the constant demonization of the intelligence service is clumsy, didactic, and clichéd. Frankly, it is so familiar it makes a film with a few new ideas still feel old hat. The victim of its own self-sabotage, The Numbers Station opens tomorrow (4/26) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: C

Posted on April 25th, 2013 at 11:12am.

LFM Reviews Cycling with Moliere @ The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

From "Cycling with Moliere."

By Joe Bendel. L’Île de Ré is sort of like the French Martha’s Vineyard. It is pretty dead during the off-season, but if you wait long enough you are sure to spot someone famous. Gauthier Valence is such a celebrity. He hopes to recruit a retired colleague for a production of The Misanthrope in Philippe Le Guay’s Cycling with Molière (trailer here), which screens as a Spotlight selection of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

The success of his medical drama even embarrasses Valence. Serge Tanneur’s career went in the opposite direction following a legal spat with a producer. Retiring to his late uncle’s ramshackle house on the isle, Tanneur has given up all acting ambitions until Valence comes calling. Of course, the TV doctor wants to play Alceste. He is the star. Yet, when Tanneur balks, Valence suggests they alternate between the lead role and Philinte. Neither saying yes or no, and Tanneur keeps him on the hook during a week of trial rehearsals. Sometimes they click, just like the old days, but there will be complications.

The Misanthrope’s significance to Tanneur is so fitting, Le Guay barely gives it nodding acknowledgement. Instead, he concentrates on the actors’ craft and the demands of the verse. Frankly, even after watching the film it is hard to say whether Valence and Tanneur are friends, frienemies, or rivals, which is quite a rich ambiguity. There are some exquisitely bittersweet scenes, as when the old thesps do a reading with Zoé, the island’s young aspiring porn star. Yes, they even run lines while biking. That is how island folk seem to roll, after all.

While Cycling is extremely accessible, it is about as French as films get. Le Guay’s screenplay, based on an idea co-developed with co-lead Fabrice Luchini, has considerable wit, but it is defined by a sense of longing and regret. It also rather tastefully avoids big pay-off learning moments, instead remaining true to its characters’ flaws and foibles.

Luchini (whose recent credits include Laurent Tirard’s Molière and Le Guay’s charming Women on the 6th Floor) is overdue for a major American retrospective, but Cycling would be the perfect film to build it around. He is completely convincing as a frustrated actor doing a mostly convincing Alceste. His facility with language and brittle insecurities all feel right. Lambert Wilson is perfectly fine as Valence, playing off Luchini quite well in some key scenes. Yet, Maya Sansa nearly steals the show as Francesca, the Italian divorcee who attracts the attention of both men. Likewise, Laurie Bordesoules makes the most of her brief but charming appearances as Zoé.

Cycling never really reinvents the wheel, but it is a refreshingly elegant and literate film. The scenery is quite pleasant, while Luchini’s work still has real bite. Recommended for all regular patrons of French cinema, Cycling with Molière screens again tomorrow (4/25) and Sunday (4/28) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 24th, 2013 at 2:42pm.

Stephen Fung Brings the Family Values: LFM Reviews Tai Chi Hero

By Joe Bendel. “Pushing Hands” style kung fu is an important Chen family tradition. For complicated reasons, Chen village is forbidden to teach their kung fu to outsiders. While they do not break this rule, they bend it considerably in Stephen Fung’s Tai Chi Hero, which opens this Friday in New York.

Yang Lu Chan, “the Freak,” sought to learn Chen-style kung fu to balance his karma and counteract the mutant berserker horn on his temple sapping his vital energy. Of course, everyone said no, but the earnest plodder kept trying. However, when Yang nearly dies defending Chen village from invaders, the Master’s daughter, Chen Yu Niang, takes pity on Yang, marrying him into the clan.

Initially, it is not much of a marriage, but he sure takes to Master Chen’s instructions. Yang should most likely live and thrive, but the future of Chen village is soon threatened again. Teaming up with a rogue British officer and the Chinese Imperial army, Yu Niang’s ex Fang Zijing (a Chen village outsider himself) means to capture Master Chen and his daughter and son-in-law. They are willing to give themselves up for the sake of the village, but not without a fight, which is spectacular.

In his follow-up to Tai Chi Zero, Fung doubles down on the steampunk trappings, introducing Master Chen’s prodigal son Zai – who never properly paid his kung fu dues, but has these flying machine inventions, a la Da Vinci’s Demons. While Hero lacks the breakneck lunacy of Zero, it is surprisingly warm and endearing. This is the family values installment of the franchise, featuring reconcilements between fathers and sons and wives and husbands—and it all works somehow. Of course, there is also the massive showdown with the Imperial Army.

Jayden Yuan comes into his own as the innocent Yang this time around, nicely portraying the maturation of the Freak’s character and his kung fu. Angelababy does not quite have as much screen time in Hero, which is a pity considering how charismatic she is as Yu Niang. Still, she has some dynamic action sequences in the big battle and should become a truly international superstar on the basis of her work in the franchise.

“Big” Tony Leung Ka Fai keeps doing his Zen thing as Master Chen and he’s as cool as ever. Somewhat bizarrely, though, as Duke Fleming, Swedish actor Peter Stormare (who has been reasonable comprehensible in English language features like Fargo and The Big Lebowski) seems to be channeling the sort of weird, affected sounding white-devil heavies of kung fu movie tradition.

Tai Chi Hero is nearly as much outrageous fun as Zero, but it has more heart. With the final film of the trilogy in the pipeline, Fung’s Tai Chi series should become a fan favorite. Enthusiastically recommended for martial arts fans, Tai Chi Hero opens this Friday (4/26) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 24th, 2013 at 2:42pm.

LFM Reviews Fresh Meat @ The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Insert your own family dinner joke here.  Or don’t bother.  New Zealander Danny Mulheron’s fearless cannibal comedy will make them all for us.  Questions of good taste will entirely depend on the viewer’s palate when Fresh Meat (trailer here) screens as a Midnight selection of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

Rina Crane is a very proper young Maori lady who has come home from boarding school.  She is thinking it is about time to drop the lesbian bomb with her family, but they beat her to the punch, revealing the new family diet.  In hopes of finally achieving tenure, her academic father Hemi Crane has revived an ancient mystical cannibal cult.  Eating will flesh will give them supernatural powers or so the theory goes.  His new faith is about to be put to the test when a reckless gang of fugitives invades the Crane home.

For the freaked out Rina, this sudden turn of events is not all bad, largely because of Gigi, the ringleader’s less than enthusiastic girlfriend.  She happens to bear a strong resemblance to the fetish superhero character Rina created as a focus for her fantasies.  Clearly, the two share an instant attraction, at a time when Rina’s family loyalties are somewhat fraying.

Basically, Fresh combines elements of Desperate Hours with We Are What We Are, adding all kinds of politically incorrect humor.  At one point Hemi Crane declares: “we are not Maori cannibals, we are cannibals who happen to be Maori.”  Whew, feel better everybody?  The treatment of Lesbian themes is about as sensitive, with scenes clearly included for maximum leer value.  Oh right, there’s plenty of gore too.

You have to give Briar Grace-Smith’s screenplay credit for jumping on every third rail it could find.  Likewise, Temuera Morrison embraces the gleeful mayhem wholeheartedly as Hemi Crane.  As Rina, Hanna Tevita keeps her head above water amid all the bedlam, even conveying a measure of sensitive teen alienation.

If you don’t know by now whether this blood-splattered teen lesbian cannibal comedy is your cup of tea or not, I really can’t help you.  For what it’s worth, Mulheron maintains a brisk pace, allowing little time for the wrongness of it all to sink in.  Recommended for anyone out for some good clean fun at the movies, Fresh Meat screens again this Friday (4/26) and Saturday (4/27) as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 24th, 2013 at 2:40pm.

LFM Reviews Reporting on the Times: The New York Times and The Holocaust @ The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. In the 1930’s, Walter Duranty, The New York Times man in Moscow, systemically misreported or ignored Stalin’s crimes, including the notorious show trials and the Ukrainian famine. He is considered an unfortunate but isolated case. Yet, throughout the war, the Times consistently buried stories about the Holocaust. Emily Harrald examines the “Paper of Record’s” questionable coverage (again as a discrete phenomenon) in the documentary short Reporting on the Times, which screens as part of the History Lessons short film program at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

Harrald’s opening graphics speak volumes. From 1939 to 1945, the Times ran 23,000 front page stories—11,500 of which were about World War II. 26 were about the Holocaust. What is most disturbing is the nature of the coverage that did run, typically relegated to the middle of the paper. Midway through European round-up pieces, the Times would matter-of-factly report on the “liquidation” of the ghettoes, with no illusions regarding what that euphemism meant.

Rather bizarrely, Harrald spends a good portion of Reporting excusing the Times’ dubious Holocaust reportage. Viewers will never forget publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger was himself Jewish, but presented a fully Americanized and secularized image to readers and the press, partly out of concern over the rise of anti-Semitism. Perhaps this explains why he would be personally reluctant to run front page stories on the plight of European Jewry. However, he employed a full editorial staff to make sure the paper did not bury its lede.

Throughout Reporting, moral clarity is provided by a Holocaust survivor whose mother was convinced the world would come to their aid once they knew the magnitude of the National Socialists’ crimes. For whatever reason, the Times obviously did not do its part. Yet, when considered in light of Duranty’s Moscow dispatches, the under-reporting of the Holocaust appears more systemic than Reporting would like to consider. Harrald’s film earns credit for beginning the conversation, but its interpretations of media history are far from definitive. It screens again today (4/23), Friday (4/26), and Sunday (4/28) as part of the History Lessons short film block at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: C

Posted on April 23rd, 2013 at 1:42pm.

LFM Reviews Taboor @ The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

From "Taboor."

By Joe Bendel. It is the near future, but you will not see any flying cars. Instead, it is a world of technological stagnation and social isolation. For the unnamed Iranian protagonist, the future is now in Vahid Vakilifar’s Taboor, which screens as a Viewpoints selection of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

Forget the tinfoil hat. Concerned by electromagnetic waves, the solitary man has tailored himself a tinfoil hazmat suit and lined his bedroom with aluminum. By night he plies his trade. He is an exterminator—not euphemistically, but in the Burroughs tradition. At each stop, he hardly talks to his clients, despite the odd events that happen. He seems to be a decent person, considering he always acts in a helpful manner. However, good karma has yet to come back around to him.

Consisting of a long quiet takes with almost no dialogue, Taboor is driven more by image than plot or character. In fact, it rather invites viewers to impose their own narrative on Vakilifar’s loose narrative structure. Granted, that is not what most folks go to the movies for, but it can be a convenient strategy for a film produced under a rigid system of social controls. Still, the weird developments at each stop almost echoes Léos Carax’s Holy Motors, but without the sense of playful gamesmanship.

This is definitely a film for self-selecting festival regulars. However, they will be intrigued by Vakilifar’s visual sensibilities.The coolly detached way he films contemporary Iranian locations (tunnels, boiler rooms and the like) gives them an otherworldly vibe, not unlike some scenes in Godard’s Alphaville.

Taboor is a striking portrait of a man’s nearly absolute alienation in a dystopian world. Hmm, one wonders where Valikifar gets his ideas. This is unquestionably a demanding film, but there is a there there. Recommended for the hardiest of cineastes, Taboor screens again tonight (4/23) and Saturday (4/27) as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 23rd, 2013 at 1:40pm.