Day: January 20, 2014

LFM Reviews Cold in July @ The 2014 Sundance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. In Texas, they do not need “stand your ground laws.” Instead, they apply the “did he have it coming” standard. As a result, not too many people are concerned when Richard Dane accidentally kills a home intruder, least of all the police. However, the deceased’s ex-con father seems somewhat put-out by it all in Jim Mickle’s Cold in July, which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Dane is hardly an action hero. He truly did not intend to kill Freddy Russell when he interrupted the burglar at work. The situation just made him understandably jumpy. Ray Price (the cop on the case, rather than the Nixon speechwriter) is happy to sweep the entire incident under the rug, but not Ben Russell. Released just in time for his estranged son’s funeral, he soon starts threatening Dane and his family. At first, Price assumes he is just posturing, but things escalate quickly.  Then the first game-changing shoe drops.

Adapted from Joe R. Lansdale’s novel, July starts out as a conventional home invasion-revenge thriller, but radically shifts gears in the second act, veering into Andrew Vachss territory. While it appropriately has the dusty noir look of Jim Thompson films, it is way darker than even The Killer Inside Me. There are scenes here that sensitive viewers might wish they could “unsee.”

Regardless, it is brutally effective when it gets down to business. The late 1980’s period details also help the film’s thriller dynamics, taking the internet and cell phones (aside from a running Gordon Gekko style gag) out of the picture. It all ends in a bloody and ironic place that should satisfy genre fans.

From "Cold in July."

Michael C. Hall does decent work as Dane, but he is simply overwhelmed by the seriously hardboiled Sam Shepard, seething like mad as the senior Russell. Yet, Don Johnson chews more scenery and out hardnoses everyone as Jim Bob Luke, a sort of gunslinger recruited into the bloody family feud. As a further bonus, Mickle’s co-writer Nick Damici adds some distinctively noir seasoning as Price, the shady copper.

Stylish, intense, and at times blackly comic, July is a slickly executed criminal morality play. However, it might be too strong for Lifetime and Hallmark Channel viewers. Recommended for hardy film noir connoisseurs, Cold in July screens today (1/20) in Salt Lake and tomorrow (1/21), Thursday (1/23), and Saturday (1/25) in Park City, as part of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 20th, 2014 at 9:25pm.

LFM Reviews Sepideh Reaching for the Stars @ The 2014 Sundance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. In the provincial Iranian foothills, an astronomy club sets up a portable telescope outside a skeletal observatory, abandoned halfway through the construction process. Meanwhile, it is full speed ahead for Iran’s nuclear reactors. Such are the scientific priorities in today’s Iran. For a teenage girl harboring astronomical dreams, the cultural climate is even trickier. Documentary filmmaker Berit Madsen quietly observes her subject plugging away in Sepideh Reaching for the Stars, which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Star-gazing has profound personal significance for Sepideh Hooshyar. It is a form of meditation and a way to commune with the spirit of her beloved late father. As an intelligent student blessed with an independent streak, she has been tapped as a leader of her extracurricular astronomy club. Naturally, her patriarchal deadbeat uncles do not think very much of young women practicing astronomy. For reasons of greed and pettiness, they have jeopardized the financial position of Hooshyar’s mother. Still, the young woman is not inclined to kowtow to anybody.

While Hooshyar never directly addresses any political or ideological controversies, it would still be fair to describe her as a free-thinker. Throughout the film, she addresses her diary entries to her muse, Albert Einstein, and takes inspiration from her idol, Iranian American astronaut Anousheh Ansari (whom she erroneously considers the “first woman in space”).

From "Sepideh Reaching for the Stars."

Intellectually, most viewers understand Iran is far from a progressive society, but there are scenes of unabashed misogyny in Sepideh that will drop their jaws and boil their blood. Clearly, young Hooshyar is nearly always the smartest person in the room, but her government, society, and extended family all seem determined to squander her talents.

Given her fly-on-the-wall style, Madsen never offers any commentary or context, but it is transparently evident where these attitudes come from. The men and assorted female authority figures are all swimming in Islamist rhetoric. Filmed in a rather flat, colorless HD, Sepideh is not particularly cinematic looking, but there are real stakes to the drama that unfolds.

In many ways, Sepideh could be considered a fitting documentary companion to Haifaa Al Monsour’s narrative feature, Wadjda. It is a timely film, but also a deeply personal story. Highly recommended, Sepideh Reaching for the Stars screens again tomorrow (1/21), Thursday (1/23), and Friday (1/24) in Park City, as part of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on January 20th, 2014 at 9:22pm.

LFM Reviews Goldberg & Eisenberg @ The 2014 Slamdance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. They sound like a law firm or an architectural partnership, but their relationship is far from collegial. It starts with revulsion on the former’s part and obsession for the latter, but quickly goes downhill from there. There will be plenty of stalking and assorted mind games in Oren Carmi’s Goldberg & Eisenberg, which screened last night at the 2014 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

Tel Aviv is a happening city, but you would hardly know it from these two very different losers. Goldberg is exactly the sort of awkward computer programmer he looks like, who spends all of his free time getting rejected on internet dating services. Eisenberg is just off. The slovenly thug just seems to loiter about Meir Park all day. When he sees Goldberg, he immediately wants to be friends, or perhaps something more.

Goldberg wants none of that. He is definitely straight. He just isn’t very good at it. Unfortunately, rejection only makes Eisenberg more aggressive and erratic. Things will get ugly and the cops will be as useless as all the other cops in previous psycho-stalker movies. Yet, to his credit, Goldberg plugs away in his search for Ms. Right.

Given the not so ambiguous nature of Eisenberg’s interest, it is highly doubtful G&E could be produced in America, lest GLAAD be offended. It is decidedly un-PC, but old school indie scenesters will dig its grungy 1980’s-Lower Eastside vibe. Cinematographer Ido Bar-On gives it a murky, dirty look, befitting the tunnel vision of its characters. Frankly, the first hour or so largely consists of standard cat-and-mouse stuff, but Carmi totally pulls the rug out from under the audience’s feet with an inspired third act. It goes from dark to pitch black, cranking up the macabre irony.

From "Goldberg & Eisenberg."

As Goldberg, Yitzhak Laor completely looks and acts the part of a nebbish, low rent Frasier Crane. Likewise, Yahav Gal’s Eisenberg is uncomfortably intense and clammy. They fit their roles perfectly, but you wouldn’t want to spend much time with either of them. On the other hand, the charismatic Ronny Dotan shines in her too brief appearances as Noa, Goldberg’s potential geekly chic girlfriend.

Initially viewers might think they have seen G&E many times before, but it is worth staying with it. While it does not have the same manic energy and sinister edge of Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado’s Big Bad Wolves or Rabies, Carmi proves he has plenty of filmmaking potential. Indeed, it should be the perfect film to see with an appreciative Park City crowd when it screens again tomorrow (1/21) during this year’s Slamdance.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 20th, 2014 at 9:19pm.