Month: January 2014

LFM Reviews The Better Angels @ The 2014 Sundance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. That log cabin business was no joke. Abraham Lincoln’s formative years put the “hard” in hardscrabble. Yet, they also shaped him into the commanding and compassionate leader our nation needed. Young Master Lincoln comes of age in A.J. Edwards’ impressionistic The Better Angels, co-produced by Terrence Malick, which screens as a New Frontier selection of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Narrated by Lincoln’s cousin reminiscing shortly after his assassination, Angels chronicles three years of his life as a gangly youth in the back hills of Indiana. His devout but illiterate mother Nancy Lincoln recognizes her youngest son’s remarkable intellectual gifts, but his gruff father sees no value in a bookish education. Nancy Lincoln would die at a tragically young age, but her religious convictions clearly shaped her sensitive son’s ethical values. A short while later Tom Lincoln remarries. Sarah Lincoln also takes a shine to young Abraham, finally convincing her husband to support his education.

Throughout Angels, Malick protégé Edwards maintains a style consistent with that of his mentor, but scene after scene resonate with far greater emotion than the austere To the Wonder. This is a simple story, but it is deeply moving. Aside from the exquisitely beautiful opening shots of the Lincoln Memorial, Angels never leaves the Indiana Hill country, circa 1817. Yet, Lincoln’s later significance is unambiguously stamped upon the film.

Visually, Angels is a true work of art. Each and every frame of Matthew J. Lloyd’s black-and-white cinematography is suitable for framing. As sort of an illustrative tone poem-tribute to Lincoln, Angels fits comfortably enough in the New Frontiers rubric. Nevertheless, the film boasts several very fine performances. Diane Kruger’s turn as Sarah Lincoln is wonderfully sensitive and finely wrought, but Jason Clarke’s work as the demanding but ultimately loving Tom Lincoln sneaks up on viewers, landing a total knockout punch.

Yes, Angels is deliberately paced, favoring sensory stimulus over narrative drive. It is also an unusually powerful and evocative film. There will be plenty of people who just won’t get it, but they will be wrong. Elegantly crafted, it is one of the high-end high-points of this year’s Sundance. Enthusiastically recommended for patrons with adult attention spans, The Better Angels screens again Saturday (1/25) in Park City.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 24th, 2014 at 3:25pm.

LFM Reviews Memphis @ The 2014 Sundance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. They know the blues in Memphis. One star-in-the-making also happens to be particularly good at giving the blues. In fact, the blues are downright contagious in Tim Sutton’s Memphis, which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Willis Earl Beal essentially plays a fictionalized version of himself. His electric bluesman is poised to break out, yet he keeps self-sabotaging. When you get him talking, he has some colorful things to say. Unfortunately, like many characters in the film, he is prone to amble about deserted parking lots and other pretentious art cinema backdrops.

Granted, Memphis offers plenty of local color. Sutton often stops by the local Hallelujah church for a fix of gospel choir and ambiguous ruminations on the role faith plays in the lives of its average working class members. Clearly this is a depressed city (at least this is the case for the neighborhoods Sutton and Beal traverse), but to his credit, Sutton presents a nuanced portrait of the city’s economic and social realities.

Featuring Beal’s tunes and the supplemental music of Scott Bomar, Memphis gets the soundtrack right. However, you would be hard pressed to find a narrative in there. Still, Beal has two truly great scenes that might be cobbled together into a compelling short. In contrast, the rest of the film feels like snoozy filler.

Honestly, any film that looks and sounds as good as Memphis should never be such a chore to watch. Beal demonstrates his potential star power, but he needs more to work with than the skeletal bones of Sutton’s screenplay. Overall, it is a real disappointment. For blues diehards heedless of our warnings, it screens again Saturday (1/25) in Park City as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on January 24th, 2014 at 3:21pm.

LFM Reviews Dead Snow; Red vs. Dead @ The 2014 Sundance Film Festival

From "Dead Snow; Red vs. Dead."

By Joe Bendel. It turns out that old “fight fire with fire” idiom also applies to zombie uprisings. The National Socialist zombies are back and they are on the march in Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow; Red vs. Dead, which screens during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

If you forgot the intricate plot of Snow 1, Snow 2 is considerate enough to bring us all back to speed. Martin was the only one who survived when an army of Nazi zombies attacked his friends’ ski lodge. However, he did not make a clean getaway. A few days later, he wakes up in a hospital, finding himself an accused mass murderer, with the arm of the undead Standartenfuhrer Herzog mistakenly grafted in place of the arm he self-amputated, Evil Dead-style. To make matters worse, his new limb seems to have a homicidal mind of his own, further reinforcing everyone’s erroneous assumptions. At least it comes in handy during his escape.

Eventually teaming up with three American zombie hunters and a goth kid working at a provincial WWII museum, Martin hatches a daring plan to stop the Herzog’s zombies before they can fulfill their final orders: the mass execution of a defiant coastal town. Thanks to his zombie augmented arm, Martin can raise his own loyal zombie minions, so he heads into the mountains in search of the mass grave entombing Herzog’s Russian nemesis and his Red Army troops. That actually sounds like a workable plan, right?

With R vs. D, Wirkola proves there is still some life left in the Norwegian Nazi zombie genre after all. Frankly, part two far exceeds the original. While the first film was content to coast on the novelty of its premise, largely staging a conventional zombie siege, Wirkola’s follow-up more fully capitalizes on the possibilities of such a distinctive zombie apocalypse. Opening the film up to the wider world also raises the stakes and the body count dramatically.

From "Dead Snow; Red vs. Dead."

There are some big gory laughs in R vs. D and some clever hat-tips for fans. In fact, some of the bits might even break new zombie ground. Vegar Hoel is pitch perfect as Martin, the conscience-stricken zombie hunter. Jocelyn DeBoer and Ingrid Haas also bring a blast of energy to the proceedings as Zombie Squad members constantly arguing the age old question: Star Wars vs. Star Trek. They should make geeks very happy indeed.

Clearly, R vs. D has all the elements to be the feel-good hit of the year or at least the Little Miss Sunshine of this year’s Sundance. It is truly a triumph of the human spirit, with plenty of flying body parts as an added bonus. It is probably safe to say Thomas Edison invented moving pictures precisely so the world would have films like this. Highly recommended for zombie fans (considerably more than its predecessor), Dead Snow; Red vs. Dead screens again today (1/24) in Salt Lake as part of the Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 24th, 2014 at 3:17pm.

A Tribute to Donald Richie: LFM Reviews Himatsuri

By Joe Bendel. Tatsuo is a lumberjack, but he’s not okay. He does not live in harmony with nature or his neighbors. There will come a reckoning sometime soon from either karma or the village’s patron goddess in Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s Himatsuri, which screens during the Japan Society’s tribute to the late great film scholar, critic, and historian Donald Richie.

Tatsuo is the alpha male among the woodsmen working the rocky hills above the village. Openly defiant of propriety, the married man has recently relocated his not so former mistress Kimiko to the village. He mostly thinks of women in sexual terms, including the mountain goddess. Most villagers are anticipating a windfall from a proposed marine tourist park, but Tatsuo is the fly in their ointment, refusing to sell his land smack dab in the middle of the project. To make matters worse, he is the prime suspect in a rash of oil spills deliberately targeting rival fishermen. Then something significant happens to him during a storm in the woods.

Deeply steeped in Shinto symbolism, Himatsuri represents the Japanese art cinema tradition at its most rarified. Visually it is absolutely arresting, but the on-screen action, such as it is, can be hard to follow. Frankly, the celebrated Tōru Takemitsu’s score—characteristically straddling musical composition and soundscape—communicates most directly to viewers the uncanny malevolence afoot.

One of the younger filmmakers championed by Richie (who also helped translate Himatsuri’s subtitles), Yanagimachi is clearly inclined to leave much of the film’s mystery unresolved. Indeed, that uncertainty makes the shocking climax even more unsettling. However, the process of getting from point A to point not-A will tax many viewers.

From "Himatsuri."

Like a manly throwback to Mifune, Kinya Kitaoji gives a loud and lusty tour de force performance as Tatsuo, refusing to be dwarfed by cinematographer Masaki Tamura’s overpowering vistas. Between Kitaoji and the awe-inspiring wrath of nature, nobody else stands much of chance in Himatsuri. Nevertheless, Kiwako Taichi makes quite an entrance as Kimiko.

Do not wait for Yanagimachi to spoon feed meaning to viewers, because it will not happen. However, those who appreciate the experience of having a film wash over them will be enraptured by Himatsuri. It is a hot or cold proposition, with the hots largely bunched up towards the high end of the bell curve. Recommended for highly discriminating cineastes, Himatsuri screens Friday night (1/24) in New York, as part of the Japan Society’s Richie tribute.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 24th, 2014 at 3:13pm.

LFM Reviews Killers @ The 2014 Sundance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Presumably, this is not what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the internet. A Jakarta journalist obsessed with the death videos posted online by a Tokyo serial killer starts following suit when he crosses into vigilante slayings. Soon thereafter, they strike up an unlikely IM dialogue, but it is not what you would call a friendly rivalry. Things will get bloody in the Mo Brothers (Timo Tjahjanto & Kimo Stromboel)’s Killers, which screens during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Bayu’s unsuccessful attempts to bring down a well-heeled, politically connected sexual predator short-circuited his career and indirectly caused his separation from his wife. Watching the videos posted by Shuhei Nomura only further stokes his anger management issues. It all finally boils over during an attempted mugging (and worse). Suddenly, Bayu is in the Bronson business.

In contrast, the sadistic and precise Nomura is a cold blooded killer. He gets sick satisfaction from killing, but he plans each prolonged murder out to the last detail. However, Nomura will make an uncharacteristic mistake or two, making their months of correspondence a rather chaotic time for them both.

Frankly, Killers might be too much even for veteran midnight movie patrons. Some of the sequences with Nomura are downright scarring, as well as scary. Nevertheless, the Mo Brothers certainly know how to stage a hyper-violent action sequence. For instance, Bayu has a hotel getaway melee scene that ranks with the hallway fight scene in Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (the real one, not the cheap remake). About as tense as genre films can get, Killers is an unrelenting white knuckle viewing experience from the first frame up to the last.

From "Killers."

Despite its unseemly milieu, Killers features a top drawer cast working at the peak of their powers. Japanese TV heartthrob Kauzki Kitamura is disturbingly cold and creepy as Nomura, while Oka Antara’s Bayu broods like nobody’s business. However, the finely nuanced Rin Takanashi (so exquisitely vulnerable in Kiarostami Like Someone in Love) gives the film some heart and soul as the prospective victim who starts to awaken emotions in Nomura (which is definitely one of those goods news-bad news kind of things).

With Killers, the Mo Brothers definitely announce themselves as adrenaline charged filmmakers to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, long stretches of the film are just no fun to watch. Brutal but effective, Killers is specifically recommended for experienced cult film connoisseurs when it screens again this Saturday (1/25) in Salt Lake as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on January 24th, 2014 at 1:05am.

Vengeance is Shohei Imamura: LFM Reviews Vengeance is Mine @ New York’s Asia Society

From "Vengeance is Mine."

By Joe Bendel. Those who had a run-in with con man Akira Nishiguchi were fortunate if they only lost a few hundred thousand Yen. He also left behind a trail of bodies. It was precisely the sort of case that appealed to Shohei Imamura’s artistic sensibilities, inspiring his return to narrative filmmaking after a string of legit documentaries. Appropriately, Imamura’s Vengeance is Mine screens in New York during the similarly titled Vengeance is Shohei Imamura film series now underway at the Asia Society.

Henceforth known as Isao Enokizu, Imamura’s Nishiguchi proxy never had a good relationship with his devoutly Catholic father, Shizuo. He was somewhat closer to his mother, but her persistent health problems largely keep her out of the picture. He was a punk as a kid and graduated to full blown criminality as an adult. Nevertheless, his father convinces his wife Kazuko to remarry him during his first prison stretch, for religious reasons. Frankly, she will not see very much of him, even after his release.

As the audience witnesses in graphic detail, Enokizu will murder two former truck driving colleagues on their collection day, launching a seventy-eight day crime spree that will thoroughly embarrass the Tokyo police. Given the in media res opening, it is clear Enokizu’s luck will eventually run out. The question is how long he can last and how much damage he can do in the meantime.

As it happens, he finds the perfect hiding spot: a discretely tucked away suburban no-tell motel, run by proprietor Haru Asano and her mother, who specialize in procuring prostitutes for their guests. Posing as a visiting professor, Enokizu maintains a professional relationship with Asano during his initial stay, only becoming her lover later, when his secret is out.

Motivations are a strange thing in Vengeance. There is no accounting for them, beyond the usual lust, wrath, and resentment. While on the surface Vengeance functions as a manhunt procedural thriller, an atmosphere of moral decay hangs over the entire film. It opens with one of the messiest, clumsiest murder sequences perhaps ever and proceeds to show viewers several of Enokizu’s furtive assignations, where sex and violence are provocatively intertwined, so you should probably leave the kids home for this one.

In a career defining performance, Ken Ogata is convincingly seductive within Enokizu’s on-screen world, but he leaves viewers deeply creeped out. He is a pure sociopath, whose emotional range spans from cold blooded calculation to spitting rage.

From "Vengeance is Mine."

Ogata’s Enokizu is a practically a force of nature, like a hurricane, but his father and assorted lovers are not merely generic victims. Rentarō Mikuni expresses in vivid terms just how the elder Enokizu’s moral failings are exacerbated by the stress and disgrace generated by his son. Likewise, Mitsuko Baisho is achingly pitiable but still remarkably sensuous as his long suffering wife Kazuko. Mayumi Ogawa is also equally haunting as Asano, a woman condemned to a life of Dickensian struggle by the scandals of others.

Both in terms of its themes and scope, Vengeance is one of the great films of the 1970’s, sitting comfortably beside the likes of Coppola’s The Conversation and Polanski’s Chinatown. It is definitely a muscular noir, but it has a bitingly existential chaser. Highly recommended for all movie lovers, it screens free of charge this Friday (1/24) as part of the Vengeance is Shohei Imamura mini-retrospective at the Asia Society.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 24th, 2014 at 1:01am.