Month: April 2013

Vegan Brunch Apocalypse: LFM Reviews It’s a Disaster

By Joe Bendel. The world will soon be destroyed, but annoying hipsters remain eternal, like cockroaches. A small circle of friends (or frienemies) will brunch on vegan stew and saran gas in Todd Berger’s It’s a Disaster, which opens today in New York.

Hamlet might say that the regular couples’ brunch hosted by Emma and Pete Mandrake is a custom “more honored in the breach than the observance.” Nobody really enjoys them, but they feel obligated to attend. Glenn Randolph is about to find out why. He is new to the group, having only dated the romantically luckless Tracy Scott for a few weeks. Before the scrupulously unidentified terrorists or whatever strike, the Mandrakes drop their own bomb, announcing their plans to divorce.

The already tense mood is hardly improved when cable, internet, and wireless service all go on the blink. Eventually, the self-absorbed couples get the inkling something might be amiss, leading to a mad search to find an old fashioned terrestrial radio.

Even though Disaster is essentially a comedic sketch drawn out to feature length, the first two thirds are consistently amusing. Berger wryly skewers his consumerist yuppie couples, walking a fine line in their characterization. They are neither too likable for the audience to be overly concerned about their impending doom, nor so unpleasant we resent spending eighty-eight minutes in their company.

Unfortunately, Disaster craters in the home stretch, mean-spiritedly bludgeoning evangelicals. Satire is only really funny when it is based on a thorough understanding of the subject getting the business. Frankly, it seems like all Berger knows about the Rapture he gleaned from a Left Behind trailer.

Up to a point, David Cross is quite amusing as Randolph and the persistently under-appreciated Julia Stiles displays some nice comic timing as Scott. Rachel Boston and Kevin M. Brennan also show an aptitude for broad, slightly risqué material. America Ferrera and Jeff Grace have plenty of shtick as the perennially engaged Hedy Galili and Shane Owens, but they never look or sound like a convincing couple and generally lack presence on-screen. On the other hand, Erinn Hayes and Blaise Miller are completely believable as the bickering Mandrakes, but Berger largely shortchanges them on zingers.

The unfathomable stress of Armageddon could be a telling crucible to examine human nature in all its extremes and banalities. Yet, like Abel Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth, Disaster largely squanders the potential opportunity. There are a fair amount of laughs and some clever gags in the film, but it will leave many viewers will a sour after-taste. Recommended only for full of themselves David Cross fans, It’s a Disaster opens today (4/12) in New York at the Village East and in Brooklyn (naturally) at the Nitehawk Cinema.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on April 12th, 2013 at 9:32am.

LFM Reviews Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder

By Joe Bendel. It seems eerily fitting that Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder would be the final film reviewed by the auteur’s longtime champion, Roger Ebert. It is rather more surreal to think Olga Kurylenko commenced production on Malick’s latest in 2010, the same year she worked on the forthcoming but already infamous mermaid potboiler Empires of the Deep. Yet, any new film from Malick is a cinematic event in its own right. The director’s admirers will find it is very much a Malickian statement, except perhaps more so, when To the Wonder opens tomorrow in New York.

Neil and Marina meet in France and fall deeply in love. He is a visiting American. She is a Ukrainian single mother. Intending to start a new life together, she and her daughter Tatiana move into his Oklahoma home, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. Their dreamy ardor persists for a while, but soon fissures develop in their relationship. Eventually, Marina and Tatiana return to Europe. She and Neil eventually feel compelled to make another try, but this time her daughter stays with her (unseen) father. Despite the support of the equally alienated Father Quintana, the couple’s issues persist.

Just under two hours, Wonder is practically a short subject by Malick’s standards. However, he makes absolutely no stylistic concessions. Frankly, it is more like a series of tableaux than a movie, even of the art house variety. Framing lovely images is a hallmark of Malick’s work, so his striking vistas should come as no surprise. Yet, at some point, moving pictures really ought to, you know, move.

Throughout Wonder, Malick’s favored perspective on Ben Affleck’s Neil is the back of his head, which is obviously deliberately distancing. Yet, in a way it suits the reserved and reticent Oklahoman. Even as Malick and his characters seemingly strain to shut viewers out, cracks of profundity occasionally open up in the film. In one particularly heavy moment, Father Quintana counsels Neil it is always difficult to be the one who loves less than their partner. Indeed, Neil has plenty of guilt to process without the consolation of Marina’s emotional reveries. There’s something for the daytime talk shows to chew on.

Naturally, Father Quintana has lost (or at least misplaced) his faith. Nonetheless, it is a deeply sympathetic portrait of a man of the cloth. Malick unflinchingly captures his loneliness and the imperfect solace he finds in service to others. Javier Bardem might not dig into such deep and dark places as he did for Biutiful, but he still conveys a sense of a man with a long, complicated history.

Since nobody is really granted a substantial backstory, it is incumbent on the cast to evoke the sense their pains and regrets are rooted in something real and universal. That is a real strength for Bardem. Whereas Affleck is supposed to be cold and aloof, Olga Kurylenko is also surprisingly effective and affecting as the passionately needy Marina.

Viewers who lose patience with Wonder are not shallow philistines. Malick de-emphasizes plot and character development in favor of imagery and in-the-moment impressionism. It is slow and at time pretentious. Yet, at the fleeting junctures where it all comes together, it is like the epiphany produced by an audacious free jazz performance. Dashed demanding, To the Wonder is mostly recommended for hardy Malick followers when it opens tomorrow (4/12) in New York at the Walter Reade Theater uptown and the Landmark Sunshine downtown.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on April 11th, 2013 at 10:29am.

Leonardo Decodes an Ancient Mystery: LFM Reviews Da Vinci’s Demons; Series Premieres on Starz, Friday 4/12

By Joe Bendel. Could Leonardo Da Vinci have been a member of a Persian mystery cult? The Sons of Mithras certainly seem to know him, even if he does not recognize them. The Vatican is also keenly aware of the Maestro, but he wants no part of the Church. However, it is not Da Vinci’s artistry that interests the Pope’s men. They believe he will lead them to the Book of Leaves, a mysterious volume of Faustian knowledge that serves as the MacGuffin of Da Vinci’s Demons, a new speculative historical series debuting this Friday on Starz.

Created and co-written by executive producer David S. Goyer (co-writer of the Dark Knight trilogy), Da Vinci’s Demons could be called a Da Vinci Code for Da Vinci. Throughout the series, he will be solving puzzles that are part of a larger ancient mystery. He must also navigate contemporary intrigues (circa 1476). Although hardly obsequious to the Medici family, Da Vinci is a proud Florentine, because the Republic is such an exemplar of Renaissance ideals. Of course, the Pope hates the city-state for exactly the same reason.

Seeing opportunity in crisis, Da Vinci offers his services to the Magnifico as a war engineer. Naturally, he makes all sorts of enemies in the process. He also accepts a commission to paint the portrait of Lorenzo’s mistress, Lucrezia Donati. She was already cheating on her husband with de Medici, whom she also starts to cheat on with Da Vinci. Indeed, there will be a fair amount of sneaking in and out of bedchambers and outright scandal in Demons.

Laura Haddock as Lucrezia Donati in "Da Vinci's Demons."

There are light fantastical elements in Demons, but it is closer in tone to shows like Rome and Spartacus, with a protagonist who could be the spiritual cousin of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes. We even see the world from a similar stop-time perspective through his eyes. Tom Riley takes a bit of getting used to as Da Vinci, but he grows on viewers (at least over the course of the first four episodes). He nicely captures that Sherlockian charismatic arrogance, which is quite entertaining when done right.

Demons also benefits from two attractive yet steely women characters to counterbalance its murderous cardinals and randy artists. Laura Haddock’s Donati brings a sultry noir vibe to the series, while Lara Pulver (Irene Adler in BBC’s Sherlock) is an intriguing master of realpolitik as Clarice Orsini, Mrs. de Medici. Despite his resemblance to Adrien Brody, Blake Ritson also makes a first class heavy as the Pope’s enforcer, Count Girolamo Riario.

Frankly, Da Vinci’s Demons seems to have about as low an opinion of the Church as Reelz’s World Without End, but at least the nefarious clerics enjoy their villainy. In contrast, the Ken Follett’s evil Brother Godwyn always looks slightly nauseous. Indeed, a little moustache-twisting and teeth-gnashing is always enjoyable. Combined with a Dan Brown-esque mystical backstory and some almost steampunky set pieces, Da Vinci’s Demons brings a lot to the table. It is an entertaining series that picks up steam, becoming more addictive as it progresses. Recommended for fans of Rome and The Da Vinci Code, Da Vinci’s Demons premieres this Friday (4/12) on Starz.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 10th, 2013 at 12:39pm.

LFM Reviews Erroll Garner: No One Can Hear You Read, Now on DVD

By Joe Bendel. It is easy to do the jazz dichotomy thing for Erroll Garner. He was nicknamed “The Elf,” but he had a giant sound on the piano. During his lifetime, he was one of the most visible jazz artists on television and in concert halls, yet he has been largely overlooked by recent filmmakers attempting to tell the jazz story (do the initials K.B. ring a bell?). For a documentarian, the latter point is a golden opportunity. Atticus Brady capitalizes on the wealth of archival footage and the admiration of friends and colleagues the pianist-composer left as his legacy in the documentary-profile Erroll Garner: No One Can Hear You Read, which releases on DVD today from First Run Features.

In the latter half of the Twentieth Century, if you had only one jazz LP in your collection, it was probably Brubeck’s Time Out, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, or Garner’s Concert by the Sea (all released by Columbia, by the way). He was enormously popular, playing venues like Carnegie Hall, paving the way for Wynton Marsalis and the rise of curated jazz programming in the 1980’s.

Read nicely establishes Garner’s remarkable success and his roots in the Pittsburgh jazz scene that also produced Ahmad Jamal, Mary Lou Williams, and Stanley Turrentine. However, with his very title, Brady emphasizes Garner’s status as perhaps the last great ear-trained, non-music reading jazz greats. It is true, but it hardly seems like the fundamental essence of the man. Indeed, Steve Allen argues Garner had a remarkable harmonic sense and was woefully underappreciated as a composer. Of course, just about everyone knows at least one Garner standard: “Misty,” the inspiration for countless romances and Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, Play Misty for Me (which happens to be screening this Friday and Saturday at the IFC Center).

Jazz great Errol Garner (left).

Brady talks to a number of colleagues and experts with both musical credibility and name recognition, including Jamal, Allen, the other Allen (Woody), former Garner sideman Ernest McCarty, and Dick Hyman. More importantly, Brady has confidence in his subject, letting clips of Garner in action play for considerable lengths of time. That is the good stuff, after all.

Granted, Read never reinvents the jazz documentary, but who really wants that anyway? Brisk and entertaining, the hour-long Erroll Garner: No One Can Hear You Read is recommended for jazz lovers and general audiences as an introduction to the man and his music. It is now available for home viewing from First Run Features.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 10th, 2013 at 12:35pm.

Super Wuxia Cops: LFM Reviews The Four, Now on DVD/Blu-ray

By Joe Bendel. Yes, they have exotic super-powers, but they really just have massive chi. They are members of the Divine Constabulary, tasked with fighting crime during the late Song Dynasty. Unfortunately, their more conventional colleagues in Department Six are less than thrilled to have them as competitors. There is also a super-villain to contend with in Gordon Chan & Janet Chun’s The Four (see clip here), which releases on DVD and Blu-ray today from Well Go USA.

Although based on a series of popular 1970’s novels, The Four will not escape comparison to the X-Men, especially considering the wheelchair-bound Emotionless’s Professor X-like psychic abilities. However, she is not running the show. The Divine Constabulary loyally follows her adoptive father, Zhuge Zhengwo, who reports directly to the Emperor.

Emotionless guides their inquiries and Iron Hands, a flesh-and-blood Colossus, works in the field, tapping into his network of underground contacts. He needs some back-up though, so Zhuge recruits Life Snatcher, a preternaturally spry debt-collector, and the lycanthropic Cold Blood, a former member of Department Six. One of many characters playing a double game, Cold Blood is actually working as an inside informer for Department Six’s head, the Sheriff King. Constable Ji Yaohua is supposed to be his back-up, but she is actually a mole planted by the evil mastermind An Shigeng (a.k.a. the God of Wealth).

Liu Yifei in "The Four."

The Four starts with a counterfeiting investigation, quickly escalating into a geopolitical conspiracy and eventually presents viewers an army of risen zombies. Instead of cheap scares, the latter are employed as shambling grist for the Four’s martial arts mill. This is definitely a kitchen sink movie, not particularly concerned about narrative detail. At one point, An Shiqeng tells Ji: “You can spend the rest of your life trying, but you’ll never guess what I’m up to.” Well, thanks for the warning.

Indeed, part of the charm of The Four is how wildly overstuffed it is with wuxia superhero steampunk elements. Action director Ku Huan delivers some gravity defying smackdown spectacle, relying more on leaping and kicking than chi-fireballs. Already the subject of several Mainland and HK television series, The Four was a couldn’t miss box office hit in China with sequels already announced. The superstar cast did not hurt either.

Anthony Wong does his Obiwan thing as Zhuge—and it is still kind of awesome. [Crystal] Liu Yifei and Jiang Yiyan (who look a bit like sisters, which is a blessing for them both) burn up the screen as Emotionless and Constable Ji, knowing rivals in both the machinations afoot – and for the affections of the brooding Cold Blood. For Jiang (who made such an impression with relatively little screen time in The Bullet Vanishes), it is a real star-making turn as the ruthless yet sensitive femme fatale.

Featuring zombies, uncanny martial arts, and a wonderfully ambiguous villainess, The Four has just about everything one could ask of a big popcorn movie. Wildly confusing fun, The Four is recommended for martial arts and superhero genre fans.  It is now available for home viewing from Well Go USA.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 10th, 2013 at 12:34pm.

Skate or Die in East Germany: LFM Reviews This Ain’t California

By Joe Bendel. The architecture of East Berlin was a crime against art. Yet, for skateboarders, all that monstrous concrete was practically a workers’ paradise. The East German skater subculture gets the full documentary treatment and then some in Marten Persiel’s This Ain’t California, which opens this Friday in New York.

Athletics were a big deal in the GDR, but a scruffy skateboarder like Denis “Panik” Paraceck was nobody’s idea of a Katarina Witt. He was supposed to be an Olympic swimmer, but his rebellious nature and flair for daredevil stunts drew him to the skater scene. Although the Stasi constantly spied on Paraceck and his cronies, the East German sports bureaucracy eventually tried to co-opt the movement when they discovered the burgeoning sport had its own circuit of international competitions. It seems Paraceck initially tried to play ball, but he quickly chafed under their authority. However, there is also a strong likelihood he never existed in the first place.

While TAC is structured as an elegy to Paraceck, a little digging raised serious questions about the film’s cross-its-heart-and-swear-to-die veracity. Evidently, Persiel now uses the term “documentary tale” and speaks of the broadening meaning for the genre. This is not an isolated case. After garnering considerable festival attention, Michal Marczak admitted At the Edge of Russia was kind of, you know, staged. (Considering I noted how surprising it was Russia granted a Polish filmmaker access to a remote military base as well as the cinematic look of his subjects, I would argue my review holds up pretty well in retrospect).

Regardless, the underground East German skater community is an established fact. It seems safe to assume they were on the business end of Stasi surveillance and the PR conscious Party probably did try to recruit them for propaganda purposes. As for the rest of TAC, you tell me.

In fact, some of the animated interludes are obviously intended to instill a fable-like vibe. Had Paraceck really burned down the GDR’s skater training facilities, it is doubtful he would have lived to see unification. Rather, Paraceck functions as a scapegoat-like creation myth of unification. Supposedly locked in a Stasi prison cell when the wall came down, he missed all the festivities. By the time he was released, Persiel and their cohorts had already moved on with their unified lives, leaving him behind.

There is definitely a measure of truth to TAC, but it is a fair question to ask how much. If nothing else, Persiel captures the milieu of the GDR era. Paraceck or those for whom he serves as a composite did not want to become political activists. Nonetheless, they became de-facto dissidents simply by careening about atop a small board with wheels. Visually striking, TAC combines talking head reminiscences, stark animated sequences, and some impressive archival skating footage (that may well have been recreated by Persiel and a cast of contemporary skaters). Recommended for those fascinated by the failed Communist experience (but as what I have no idea), This Ain’t California opens this Friday (4/12) in New York at the Maysles Institute Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 8th, 2013 at 9:11am.