Day: October 23, 2014

LFM Reviews Night of the Living Dead @ The Anthology Film Archive

By Joe Bendel. It was the very last film ever screened at the late, lamented Two Boots Pioneer Theater. Obviously, they had no intentions of going quietly. It was also one the few films broadcast on MTV at the height of its 1980s cool cachet and now holds a richly deserved spot on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Yet, the auteur who would inaugurate the zombie genre spent years whipping up commercials for Pittsburgh television as one of the principals of the Latent Image production house. Rightly and necessarily, George A. Romero’s The Night of the Living Dead screens together with a selection of his commercial work as part of Anthology Film Archive’s Industrial Terror film series.

Somehow this film is just as potent the twentieth or thirtieth time around. As you really ought to know, at least according to the LOC, the original Living Dead follows the plight of a group of strangers stranded in a farm house during a mysterious zombie apocalypse. Yet, despite the peril outside, they end up turning on each other.

It is a simple formula many have tried to replicate, but never with the same success. Romero masterfully doles out information via the unreliable media, using zombies sparingly in the second act. Instead, he relies on human nature to build the tension. Of course, he delivers the zombie cannibalism when he is good and ready.

On yet another repeat viewing, a few things jump out about Living Dead. After witnessing her brother’s death, the character of Barbra spends the rest of the film in a state of shock, which we rarely see in horror movies, but it is a much more believable response than dropping a series of ironic pop culture references.

While it has been said before, Duane Jones really should have become a much bigger star. He immediately instills viewer confidence as Ben and the subtle manner in which he takes a protective interest in Barbra is quite touching. A few more of him and things might have turned out better.

Keith Wayne’s Tom also serves as an effective audience surrogate. He is the sort of conciliator you want in your life boat and he is handy with tools. Yet, it is probably Bill Hinzman who truly made the film. As the first zombie in the cemetery, his gaunt face has become an iconic image of cinematic zombies.

Decades later, Living Dead’s conclusion remains the same stinging slap in the face. Indeed, it all holds up remarkably well. You have seen it before, but this is the perfect venue to see it again, along with some apt commercial selections, including a groovy riff on Fantastic Voyage for Calgon and a racially-themed presidential campaign spot, which should scare the willies out of everyone with the prospects of a McGovern administration. Highly recommended under any circumstances, the original black-and-white (non-colorized) Night of the Living Dead screens this Saturday (10/25) and Tuesday (10/28) at Anthology Film Archives, as part of Industrial Terror.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on October 23rd, 2014 at 3:50pm.

LFM Reviews The Return @ The 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. There are those who use the term “right of return” as a holy mantra, but if it were ever granted to the Jewish diaspora in every country that ever dispossessed their Jewish citizenry, nearly all of Europe and the Middle East would face serious legal implications. However, at least one nation would readily welcome them back. That would be Poland, which has embraced its Jewish history in recent years, even though its Jewish population remains small. Nevertheless, there are a significant number of Poles who belatedly learned of their families’ secret Jewish heritage in the post-Communist era. In very different ways, four such women will chose to embrace their Jewish roots in Adam Zucker’s The Return, which screens during the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

During the National Socialist occupation, anyone whose family was the smallest part Jewish had every reason to keep it secret. The circumstances were somewhat less dire under Communism, but it is important to remember the atheistic Party periodically launched its own anti-Semitic campaigns. However, in a modern Poland shaped by Walesa and Wajda, attitudes are dramatically different. In one scene, we see a long abandoned provincial synagogue with the words “Jews, we miss you” scrawled across it, in a weird but affecting graffiti tribute.

Tusia and her boyfriend are scouting that building, hoping they can repurpose it into some sort nonprofit that will serve both the local town and pay tribute to those who once worshipped there. However, their future is uncertain, because they both feel the lure of Bushwick, Brooklyn (there’s no accounting for taste). In fact, all four women profiled share a common dilemma. Do they stay in Poland to rebuild the Jewish community or do they go abroad for the sake of their families and careers? Both Kasia, a leftwing activist, and Maria (who alone among Zucker’s subjects was born and bred Orthodox) find the grass is greener in Israel, either for academic research or raising children. Similarly, Katka, a Slovakian Orthodox convert, will debate where she should pursue her studies.

From "The Return."

One of the great ironies of Return is the sort of ambiguous state Kasia and those whose mothers were not Jewish find themselves in. While not technically considered Jewish, they would have been more than Jewish enough to be persecuted under the previous regimes. It is a thorny question that the Kasia and Katka resolve in their own ways.

Together with films like 100 Voices: a Journey Home, Return presents a more complete portrait of the tolerant, modern day Poland that deeply mourns its Jewry lost to National Socialism and further repressed by Soviet Socialism. It even has some celebrity cachet, thanks to Matisyahu, whose performance at the Krakow JCC clearly held a great deal of personal significance for the performer. However, the film’s POV figures are maybe not as consistently riveting as one might hope. Nonetheless, it is a laudably optimistic film that offers a lot of helpful context and food for thought. Respectfully recommended, The Return screens this Saturday (10/25), as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 23rd, 2014 at 3:50pm.

LFM Reviews Viktor

By Joe Bendel. Perhaps for his next action picture, Gérard Depardieu could team up with fellow friend-of-Putin Steven Seagal to fight for lies, injustice, and the Neo-Soviet way. Best of all, he would not pay any French taxes on his earnings. Another strange chapter in the Depardieu saga opens with Philippe Martinez’s bizarrely watchable Russian payback thriller Viktor, which opens tomorrow in New York.

After doing a seven year stretch in his native France, expatriate art thief Viktor Lambert has returned to Russian to get to the bottom of his son Jeremy’s murder. Plutova, a hot Russian copper, immediately puts him on notice not to try any gangster stuff. She also requests his “assistance” tracking down a still missing masterwork heisted from the modern art museum. Of course, Lambert has different ideas.

With the help of his old art thief-choreographer crony Souliman, Lambert figures out his son was killed by an elite gang of gem smugglers, in about fifteen minutes of highly motivated asking-around. However, before he can go on the offensive, Lambert will need a place to stash his son’s pregnant girlfriend. Fortunately, his old flame Alexandra Ivanov has a country home and a couple of loyal retainers to spare. There will also be a day trip to Chechnya, where Jeremy Lambert is inexplicably buried.

From "Viktor."

Granted, Martinez rather forthrightly presents the gangsterism running rampant in Putin’s Russia, but watching Depardieu stomp through the streets of Moscow just makes the head spin. Wisely, most of his action scenes have him hunkered down behind the wheel of a speeding car or trading gun shots from a fixed cover position. At least we cannot hear him audibly wheeze, like in Chabrol’s Inspector Bellamy.

Regardless, nobody should ever doubt Elizabeth Hurley’s acting chops ever again, because as the sultry Ivanov, she never busts up laughing during her romantic afterglow scenes with Depardieu. In fact, she brings some spark and presence to the proceedings. Likewise, Eli Danker’s Souliman is hardly shy when it comes to fretfully chewing the scenery and Evgeniya Akhremenko is appealingly cool and severe as Plutova. Unfortunately, the villains are a rather dull, forgettable lot.

Technically, Viktor is perfectly presentable, sporting a suitably noir sheen thanks to cinematographer Jean-François Hensgens (whose credits include the super-charged District 13: Ultimatum). Still, it is awfully hard to get one’s head around Depardieu, the action hero, in Chechnya. Recommended for members of the U.S.-Putin Friendship Society, Viktor opens tomorrow (10/24) in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: D+

Posted on October 23rd, 2014 at 3:49pm.

LFM Reviews Revenge of the Green Dragons

By Joe Bendel. The 1980s were glory days for Queens, especially 1986, unless you were working in virtual slavery to pay off the human trafficker who brought you into the borough illegally. Sonny and his adopted brother Steven will be two of the ostensibly lucky ones who are recruited by the Green Dragon street gang, but their life expectancy will be limited. Survival of the fittest comes with a code of silence in Andrew Lau & Andrew Loo’s Revenge of the Green Dragons, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Nobody has to tell Sonny life is not fair. When his mother died during the harsh passage over, the traffickers forced Steven’s mother to take him in. They never warmed to each other, but the boys became fast friends and sworn brothers. For years, they were relentlessly bullied, until a Green Dragon leader intercedes. Soon they are rising through the ranks, especially the even-keeled Sonny.

There are many Asian gangs in 1980s Queens, but the Green Dragons are the most sophisticated and badassedest. Paul Wong, their benefactor, represents the Dragons in the board room, but in the backroom, they are led by Snakehead (who is presented like she is Fu Manchu’s daughter). Wong has engineered a grand scheme that will give them a stranglehold on the Queens Heroin trade, but Steven jeopardizes the established order when he kills a white guy by mistake.

Sadly, Andrew Lau does not replicate the magic of Infernal Affairs in Queens. There is a fair amount of violence, but the film is caught betwixt and between an issue-driven immigration morality tale and a gangster thriller. Frankly, it is spectacularly tone-deaf, constantly interrupting the action with loaded video snippets of Presidents Reagan and Bush I. It is not just heavy-handed. It also confuses the narrative thread by cutting away to a Reagan speech on immigration during the early 1990s.

The FBI agent Michael Bloom is another case in point. Presumably, he represents the racist Federal government, constantly issuing dire warnings about the Asian mobs, but since he is played by Ray Liotta with his usual energy and attitude, he comes to be an audience favorite, since he at least relieves the boredom. Indeed, even though the film wears its immigration heart on its sleeve, it is hard to envision many viewers walking out of a screening convinced we need a “pathway to citizenship” after watching the Green Dragons racketeering, raping, and murdering with abandon.

From "Revenge of the Green Dragons."

It is a shame Green Dragons wastes a likable lead like Justin Chon. Some will know him from the Twilight franchise, but AAIFF patrons will recognize him from festival fare like Innocent Blood and the excellent short Jin. He develops some finely wrought chemistry with Shuya Chang’s Tina, the daughter of a former HK celebrity now beholden to Wong’s patronage. Unfortunately, the film cuts them off just as they are getting started. It also completely wastes Eugenia Yuan (Cheng Pei-pei’s daughter) as Snakehead.

Admittedly, Lau and Loo turn a heck of a twist down the stretch, but it feels like it takes much longer than the film’s ninety-some minutes to get there. Despite some nice performances, it is an awkward mishmash that is too heavy on message and too light on fun. Disappointingly not recommended, The Revenge of the Green Dragons opens tomorrow (10/24) in New York at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: D

Posted on October 23rd, 2014 at 3:48pm.

LFM Reviews Vultures of Tibet @ The 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. If ever there was a documentary short that cried out for the IMAX treatment, this would be it. The expansive vistas are truly breathtaking, but this is not merely travelogue. It is a scathing critique of cultural insensitivity and exploitation, shot guerilla style without the sanction of the Chinese authorities. That is usually a promising indicator and Russell O. Bush’s Vultures of Tibet is no exception. Indeed, it is a particularly fitting selection of the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival, which screens the twenty-one minute documentary this weekend.

The Tibetan “Sky Burial” represents a supreme act of Buddhist charity, in which the body is offered to the great Griffon Vultures, closing the great cycle of life. However, photos and videos of the vultures devouring bodies of the devout have become a crass internet sensation, inspiring a cottage industry of wildly inappropriate tours.

Although Westerners also come to gawk, it is the Chinese sightseers who seem to be particularly invasive. Clearly, there are multiple meanings to the titular vultures, who become a metaphor for a metaphor. Obviously, the Chinese tourists are vulture-like intruders, but they are really manifestations of a wider, more insidious cultural and political exploitation.

From "Vultures of Tibet."

For greater perspective, Bush interviews several Tibetans, maintaining the integrity of their commentary, but re-recording their responses with the voices of Tibetan exiles to preserve their anonymity. Like the best Iranian films, much of the credits are simply ascribed to “anonymous,” which says quite a bit about the human rights situation for average Tibetans.

Vultures is a particularly effective film, because it is not overtly political, per se, but the implications are inescapable. It is also quite impressive on a technical level, with considerable credit due to cinematographer Drew Xanthopoulos for the incredible shots he captured. It is a challenging work that ought to strike a nerve with festival patrons. Highly recommended, Vultures of Tibet screens this Saturday (10/25) with Tender (an Australian funerary-themed feature doc), as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on October 23rd, 2014 at 3:47pm.