Month: October 2013

Where Awesome Lives: LFM Reviews the Japanese Superhero Classic, The Golden Bat

By Joe Bendel. He has the looks of the Red Skull and the flamboyance of a Lucha Libre wrestler. The Golden Bat is Japan’s oldest superhero, dating back to at least 1930, nine years before Bruce Wayne repurposed his dungeon, so show some respect. This Thursday, Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater pays homage to the strange, caped avenger, who has constantly saved our butts in manga, anime, and motion pictures, with Hymns of the Golden Bat – a special one night only program of the Ōgon Batto’s greatest hits, culminating with Hajime Satô’s impossibly manic seventy-three minute live-action epic, The Golden Bat.

Right, the Earth is pretty much in for it. The planet Icarus (dig the mythological reference) is speeding towards us on a collision course, but the scientific establishment is too snobby to heed the warnings of Akira Kazahaya, a teenaged factory worker who dabbles in astronomy. Fortunately, the Pearl Research Institute has been on the case. Led by Dr. Yamatone, they too have tracked Icarus, developing a Dr. No-certified laser canyon to blow-up Icarus in the nick of time. They just need a lens strong enough to withstand the laser’s force, which is ironic, considering Pearle can usually craft your lenses in under an hour.

Seeking a natural lens, Dr. Yamatone and nearly the entire Pearl staff is lured to the long lost island of Atlantis, where the evil Nazo has the drop on them. Ah, but not so fast. Within the temple of Atlantis, they find the Golden Bat’s Egyptian sarcophagus, where his is re-animated by Emily Pearl, the granddaughter of the Institute’s founder. Good thing they thought to take a fourteen year old along on such a dangerous mission.

Needless to say, the Golden Bat pops-up and lays a proper beatdown on Nazo’s henchmen. Of course, they are not out of the woods yet. In fact, that is just the first ten minutes of Golden Bat’s mayhem. There will also be multiple doppelgangers to contend with and laser battles galore, accompanied by the Ōgon Batto’s ominous sounding laughter and big, brassy chorale theme music.

The Golden Bat is the kind of film that can make pedantic fussbudgets’ heads explode. You just have to toss logic to the wind and hang on as it careens from one spectacle to another, like a pinball. Where else will you find a super villain decked out in a fuzzy-wuzzy rat costume with four eyes? The plot rather defies description and the laws of science, but fortunately the title caped crusader constantly reappears to pummel bad guys with his Scepter of Justice.

Oddly enough, a young Sonny Chiba is present, but largely not a factor in the smack-downs as the Picard-esque Yamatone. Frankly, Emily Takami is much better than you would expect as her young namesake, hardly cloying or annoying at all as the teenaged world-saver. Whoever was sporting the Golden Bat costume was certainly physically energetic, while Osamu Kobayashi’s voice-overs are bizarrely distinctive.

Indeed, The Golden Bat is a thing of beauty to behold, from the trippy sets to the hyper action sequences. Satô, probably best known for helming the darker cult favorite Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell, clearly was not one to do things by halfsies. There is something for everyone here, including fans of Ultraman, Kaiju movies, alien body snatcher films, and men in capes.The Spectacle should be the perfect venue to appreciate his charms with a like-minded audience of any of the above. Highly recommended to all fans of cult cinema, The Golden Bat should be a fitting capstone to a mind-expanding night this Thursday (10/24) at the Spectacle in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on October 21st, 2013 at 11:52am.

LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Gravity: A Triumph for Women, Science, and 3D Cinema

From "Gravity."

[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post.]

By Govindini Murty. Gravity is the number one movie in America for the second week in a row and has just passed the $200 million mark at the worldwide box office. It’s a triumph for star Sandra Bullock and for the cause of women in film – and it’s also a triumph for real science-based movies and 3D cinema technology.

Let’s start with the first point: it’s truly refreshing that Sandra Bullock’s character, Dr. Ryan Carter, is depicted in Gravity as an intelligent professional. I recently wrote that we needed more movies conveying ambitious visions for women – movies in which women have the opportunity to carry out significant deeds of intelligence, creativity, and heroism. Gravity is exactly this kind of film.

Gravity establishes from the beginning that Bullock’s character is in space because she has invented a groundbreaking medical imaging technology that NASA has decided to install in the Hubble Space Telescope for astronomical use. A medical doctor and not a trained astronaut, Dr. Carter’s skills are considered so integral to the mission that she has been given six months of astronaut training and has spent a full week in space in order to install the delicate technology in the multi-billion dollar Hubble.

As she carries out this mission and deals with its harrowing aftermath, Bullock’s character repeatedly displays a strength that is of the inner type. She has no superpowers or super-weapons: she is a real human being and when she is faced with extraordinary danger, she finds a stoic, inner self-sufficiency to survive. This is why the film has proven so inspiring to audiences.

Sci-fi has been dominated for some time by monsters, robots, clones, and caped superheroes – but these sorts of movies have underperformed lately and it seems that what audiences may be looking for now is not just surface spectacle (though there is impressive spectacle in Gravity), but inner character. The fact that Gravity has made over $200 million at the box office in under two weeks by devoting itself to the close examination of a female character’s emotional journey is a victory for strong women’s roles in science fiction.

The Hubble Space Telescope.

Second, Gravity is a triumph for sci-fi movies based on real NASA science. NASA and JPL’s programs have proven highly popular with the public, yet Hollywood has made few real astronomy-based movies in recent years. Director Alfonso Cuarón has found a smart way to use NASA’s real space efforts (including the genuine collaboration between medical imaging and space science) as the catalyst for a poignant human story. He and his team have done this through realism: realism in depicting cutting-edge space technologies, realism in crafting detailed, pristine special effects, and most importantly, realism in the film’s characters.

I recently spoke about Gravity with NASA/ JPL Public Services Representative Marc Razze on the occasion of the Theodore von Kármán lecture at JPL. Razze told me that Gravity had proven popular with the scientists at JPL for capturing the emotions that they experience in their own research and missions to outer space. Razze noted: “From the folks I’ve talked to, including myself, we all enjoyed it …[in particular] the psychological component everybody seemed to really enjoy – it puts you in that place, where, if that happened, what would you do?”

And while Razze acknowledged the debate over the location of the Hubble and the space stations in the film – “all of those spacecraft don’t necessarily orbit in the same orbits” – he added that the movie did hew to realism by depicting the lack of sound in space. “I love the way they really made it silent, the way they emphasize that.”

Finally, the enormous success of Gravity shows that 3D cinema is here to stay. Over 80% of Gravity‘s box office on its first two weekends came from 3D screenings – an even higher percentage than Avatar. 3D is clearly the wave of the future and is being integrated into the next generation of consumer technologies and much more. News even came out recently that Disney researchers are developing a tactile 3D technology that will allow people to “feel” textures and shapes on flat screens. Continue reading LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Gravity: A Triumph for Women, Science, and 3D Cinema

LFM Reviews Dancing on the Edge; Premieres Sat. (10/19) on Starz

By Joe Bendel. Louis Lester’s band swings so hard, many of their fans assume he is an American, but he is really a born and bred British subject. Several high society types will take an interest in them, but that will not always be a good thing during the course of Stephen Poliakoff’s Dancing on the Edge, a six night mini-series beginning this Saturday on Starz.

Stanley Mitchell is a progressive jazz fan, but he is also a bit of an operator. He sings the praises of the Lester band, hoping his magazine Music Express will rise with their tide. While not to the manor born himself, Mitchell knows many of the right people, like Arthur Donaldson, a man of leisure who happens to appreciate real deal jazz. Through Donaldson’s connections and Mitchell’s glad-handing, the Lester band books some high profile gigs, eventually becoming the house band at the formerly staid Imperial Hotel.

For a while, it seems like everyone will enjoy the good life together, especially when the mysterious American tycoon, Walter Masterson, starts inviting the band to his lavish parties, along with the wealthy but somewhat emotionally codependent Luscombe siblings. The interracial romance brewing between Lester and Sarah, a photographer close to the Luscombes, obviously portends future trouble, but the erratic Julian Luscombe’s reckless pursuit of the band’s lead singer will lead to more immediate problems.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is about to become an Oprah superstar through 12 Years a Slave, but his turn as Lester is arguably his best work since Dirty Pretty Things. In many ways, it is a treatise on “cool” as a defense strategy and a personal aesthetic. Rigidly controlled, Ejiofor still shows us all the gears turning in his head. Arguably, the major historical influences on his Lester are the suave sophistication of Ellington (whose 1930’s small big band could be a model for the Lester outfit) and the not-so-passive aggressive aloofness of Miles Davis to come in later years.

In contrast, Matthew Goode gives Mitchell a slightly manic edge, nicely playing off the tightly wound Ejiofor in their smartly written scenes together. (If you’re asking whether he rings to someone who has written about and championed jazz, the answer is yes.) Probably nobody is more over-exposed for Anglophiles than Tom Hughes right now, but while he was conspicuously miscast in About Time, The Hollow Crown, and The Lady Vanishes, he is sort of perfect for the boyishly creepy Julian Luscombe. Like Hughes, John Goodman brings out the messy human dimensions of grandly indulgent Masterson, a role that could have easily descended into gross caricature.

From "Dancing on the Edge."

In fact, one of writer-director Poliakoff’s great strengths is the manner in which he preserves some degree of audience sympathy for all his characters despite their often horrid actions. Shrewdly, he also maintains considerable ambiguity regarding certain relationships, instead of beating viewers about the head, as a less artful production might. Dancing does right by the music as well, featuring a soundtrack of original era appropriate swingers and ballads, recorded by real life working jazz and studio musicians, who also appear in character as the Lester band. If jazz advocates will have any gripe with Dancing it will be the lack of development for the musicians, besides Lester and his two vocalists.

Like the best of television, Dancing quickly hooks in viewers and keeps them emotionally invested throughout. Poliakoff captures the exhilaration of the after-hours jam, but also incorporates pointed references to the ominous rise of National Socialism, Britain’s lack of military preparedness, and the rather dubious character of the future temporary Edward VIII.

Nicely crafted in all respects, Dancing on the Edge is recommended for fans of swing music and British television when it premieres this Saturday (10/19) on Starz. As a note, the fifth installment is technically the finale, but an epilogue follows the next week (11/23), which purports to collect Mitchell’s aborted interviews with Lester. Initially, it seems to be a DVD-extra kind of thing, but it might conceivably set up a sequel series in its final moments.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 17th, 2013 at 9:49am.

LFM Reviews As Time Goes By in Shanghai @ The Margaret Mead Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Jazz musicians are forward-looking by temperament, constantly anticipating the next gig or recording. For a group of elderly Chinese swing musicians who endured the Cultural Revolution, living in the here-and-now rather than the past is not merely an aesthetic choice, it is a survival strategy. The Peace Old Jazz Band is Guinness-certified as the oldest continually performing band and they will finally have their spotlight moment in Uli Gaulke’s As Time Goes By in Shanghai, which screens during the 2013 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

When five out of six band members are nicknamed “Old” (as in “Old Sun” or “Old Li”), it is pretty clear what you’ve got here. For the last twenty years, they have hit nightly at Shanghai’s Peace Hotel, following in the grand tradition of the big bands of the Swing Era. Accustomed to playing for dancers, most of the band is not inclined to start experimenting now. They might sound like “moldy figs,” but they have a right to stick to their thing. After all, the Cultural Revolution was a living nightmare for any musician performing decadent jazz and Western classical music.

When booked to play the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, the Peace Old recruits a younger vocalist to perform standards as well as a few jazz renditions of traditional Chinese songs. Naturally, they shamelessly flirt with Yin “Yasmin” Chen—we would worry about them if they didn’t. Clearly, this gig will be a career zenith for the band, but they seem to take it in stride.

At first, As Time Goes By seems to be another documentary chronicling the late life triumphs of a group of plucky oldsters. However, it progressively deepens over time. The Peace Old musicians are understandably reluctant to talk about their experiences during the Cultural Revolution (after all, it never officially happened), but when Gaulke catches them alone, they start to open up and when they do it is heavy.

Frankly, the Peace Old’s technique is just kind of okay overall, but Holy Cats, do they play with feeling. While it is difficult for them to talk about their experiences verbally, it all comes out through their instruments. Gaulke mostly has the good sense to focus on the band and stay out of the way, but his transition shots capture a sense of the less affluent side of go-go Shanghai. The Peace Old can relate to both worlds, but do not quit fit into either.

As Time Goes By is deeply moving, both in musical and personal terms. It is rare to find a film that speaks so directly to both the gigging life and the residual collective emotional baggage of the Cultural Revolution, but it certainly does. Gulke’s doc should particularly resonate with working musicians in any major city. Wonderfully wise and bittersweet, As Time Goes By in Shanghai is very highly recommended.  A highlight of this year’s Margaret Mead Fest, it screens this Saturday (10/19) at the AMNH.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on October 16th, 2013 at 10:25am.

One of the Scary Season’s Best: LFM Reviews Haunter

By Joe Bendel. Imagine watching the same episode of Murder She Wrote over and over again. If that isn’t Hell, it is probably close enough. Maybe a Columbo wouldn’t be so bad, but Lisa Johnson’s parents have pretty vanilla tastes. Do not judge them too harshly for being stuck in the 1980’s, because they are sort of dead. Recovering awareness of their eternally looping existence, Johnson will reach out to other girls like her in hopes of breaking a pernicious supernatural cycle of terror in Vincenzo Natali’s Haunter, which opens this Friday at the IFC Center.

The Johnson family was murdered in 1986. Every day since, they relive that fateful Sunday, unaware of their paranormal condition. At least they still have a cool President. Somehow, their daughter has awakened, to some extent. Cognizant of the wicked déjà vu happening, she starts having what might be described as ghostly experiences. Soon she suspects other families are trapped in a similar stasis within the house, but in different time periods. Eventually, she will make contact with teen-aged girls in both the past and the future, but her consciousness does not go unnoticed.

Haunter is easily one of the best horror films of this Halloween season. Natali maintains an overwhelming vibe of creeping dread, while Brian King’s screenplay ranges into surreal, mind-bending territory. The closest comparison film would probably the metaphysical horror of H.P. Mendoza’s ambitious indie I Am a Ghost, but Haunter has a more mainstream, Nightmare on Elm Street dimension to it.

Regardless, Haunter is the freshest horror outing probably since Mendoza’s film. It delivers about a half dozen game-changing twists and they each work surprisingly well. There is no padding in King’s script. Everything happens for a purpose. Perhaps most importantly, it keeps viewers on edge from start to finish.

From "Haunter."

As Johnson, Abigail Breslin is on-screen front-and-center more or less the entire time, so the film largely depends on her. Fortunately she is convincingly smart, resilient, and increasingly freaked out as the young protagonist. Stephen McHattie also brings a fittingly severe presence as the mysterious figure simply billed as the “Pale Man.” However, if there is one misstep in Haunter it comes in showing too much of him. More mystery is always better.

Frankly, this is a perfect example of the direction more indie genre films ought to take. There is hardly any gore or special effects to speak of in Haunter, yet it completely gets under your skin. Smart and tightly focused, Haunter is easily the horror movie pick of the month. Highly recommended for fans, it opens Friday (10/18) at New York’s IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 16th, 2013 at 10:21am.

LFM Reviews All is Lost

By Joe Bendel. There is an old man and the sea—sans marlin. There is no tiger, either. Instead, it is an errant workaday cargo container that leads to a mortal and existential crisis in J.C. Chandor’s All is Lost, which opens this Friday in New York.

“Our Man,” as he is simply billed, is in the midst of a solo cruise through the Indian Ocean when his small yacht is struck by said container. He wakes to find his boat taking on water and the electronics, including the radio, shorted out. He is able to patch up the gaping hole and bail out most of the water, but lasting damage has been done. Sailing blindly as a result, Our Man unknowingly proceeds towards a Sebastian Junger-level storm.

Considering it arrives so soon after Ang Lee’s Oscar winning Life of Pi, viewers might assume Lost is just more of the same. However, there is a muscular leanness to Chandor’s film that frankly compares favorably to its predecessor. All the New Age allegories and comforting sentimentality are stripped away, leaving a mere man to face the elements alone.

On one level, Chandor’s screenplay is relatively simple, with almost no dialogue to be heard from start to finish. Still, despite the limits of the water-bound location, Chandor dexterously introduces one darned thing after another to torment his sole character. Being the one and only face of a film is always a considerable challenge, but the shockingly haggard looking Robert Redford (showing his full seventy seven years) rises to the occasion. Rather than acting out and raging against fate, he vividly portrays the man’s slow deflation, which is far more compelling over time.

If not as visually arresting as Pi, Lost fully conveys the cold, damp, claustrophobic crumminess of Our Man’s precarious situation. Technically, it is quite an accomplished film, with particularly credit due to the Tahoe, the Tenacious, and the Orion, the three vessels that sailed their last as stand-ins for Our Man’s ill-fated Virginia Jean.

If nothing else, Lost should convince viewers not to look in the middle of the Indian Ocean if they want to go find themselves. It is surprisingly gripping stuff, buoyed by a remarkably disciplined performance from its craggy star. Recommended for those who appreciate a realistic man versus the elements survival story, All is Lost opens this Friday (10/18) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 15th, 2013 at 12:17pm.