Month: November 2014

LFM Reviews Brahmin Bulls

By Joe Bendel. Ashok Sharma once had grand ambitions of winning a Nobel Prize. Father of the Year, not so much. He came up empty on both counts. Sharma will try to reconnect with his grown architect son, but another face from his past will complicate matters in Mahesh Pailoor’s Brahmin Bulls, which opens this Friday in New York.

Sharma lives in Boston, but he doesn’t seem like such a bad guy. Nevertheless, Sid Sharma considers himself more of the heir to Richard Neutra than his father’s son. Unfortunately, that is not what clients are looking for, thereby causing him stress in his firm. (Frankly, he probably ought to feel a little heat, since it looks like he plays tennis all day and gets smashed in hipster bars every night). Dr. Sharma will use an academic conference as a pretext for visiting his more-or-less estranged son, but he might have an additional ulterior motive. It turns out his former mistress, Helen West, will be one of the conference speakers.

As viewers might expect, the reunion starts out massively awkward, but steadily thaws before getting predictably uncomfortable again. However, Pailoor skips the clichéd old world vs. new world clash of cultures. Frankly, the senior Sharma is just as westernized and modernized as his soon-to-be divorced son, if not more so. In fact, one of the most intriguing aspect of this film is the treatment of his arranged marriage (to Sid’s late mother, whom he cheated on). Obviously, it was a difficult marriage and he justly blames himself for the worst of it, but it is not like it was his idea in the first place. Indeed, it is rather complicated.

There is an awful lot of standard issue father-son melodrama in Brahmin (tennis, the game that pulled them apart might just bring them back together). Still, distinguished screen actor Roshan Seth (Nehru in Gandhi and villain Chattar Lal in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) is refreshingly dignified and understated as Dr. Sharma. He and Sendhil Ramamurthy play off each other rather well, as father and son. For comic relief, Michael Lerner is a lot of fun hamming it up as his formerly hard-partying academic colleague, while Mary Steenburgen also hits the right note of graceful resignation as West. On the other hand, Sid’s office and social network seems to be populated with an awful lot of boring characters.

Be that as it may, you have to give credit to a film that loudly proclaims it love for Neutra’s houses. Even if Brahmin follows a formulaic narrative, it is far less manipulative and sentimental than its themes would suggest. There is nothing particularly special about its technical package, but at least the admirably restrained Pailoor keeps it moving along, so it goes down relatively smoothly overall. No cause for fireworks, but those looking for emerging talent might want to check it out, because Pailoor could well be building towards bigger and better things with subsequent films. It opens tomorrow (11/14) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on November 13th, 2014 at 1:49pm.

LFM Reviews Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere @ DOC NYC

By Joe Bendel. It is not easy to recruit a theoretical mathematician to a small college nestled in the middle of nowhere. You would think the administration and the police would be somewhat alarmed when said math professor turned up missing. However, many of Dr. Steven Haataja’s friends and colleagues were troubled by a perceived lack of urgency during the early days of his disappearance. The mystery only deepened further when Haataja’s body was discovered. The case became the central strand of Poe Ballantine’s eccentric true crime ode to his adopted home town. Inspired by Ballantine’s pseudo-memoir, Dave Jannette’s investigates Chadron, Nebraska’s most notorious missing person case in Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere, which screens as a Midnight selection of this year’s DOC NYC.

Theoretical math is a young, socially awkward man’s game, so the forty-six year old Haataja was already over the hill when he arrived at Chadron State College. They were still lucky to have someone with his qualifications. In his short time in Chadron, Haataja seemed to be making friends, despite a history of depression. Then one day he vanished. Months later, he was discovered, bound to a tree and unrecognizably burnt to death. Naturally, the Chadron police eventually determined it was suicide.

Yes, Haataja’s hands were apparently free, but it still just did not add up correctly for Ballantine. In the film’s centerpiece sequence, the author retraces Haataja’s alleged final steps under similar below-freezing, nocturnal conditions, finding it hard going, even without a recently mended broken hip. Unfortunately, there will be no definitive closure, just more questions. There is also an awful lot of Ballantine and his family, who are all quite pleasant, but often feel like a bit of a distraction from the existential mystery at hand. Still, Ballantine obviously feels a kinship with Haataja as outsiders who found an unlikely home in off-the-beaten-path Chadron.

Jannette constantly plays up Chadron’s idiosyncratic characters, including some who have no apparent connection to the case, but look suitably exotic on camera. There seems to be an effort to play to the Twin Peaks audience, while leaving some issues underdeveloped. Frankly, the material presented in Howling raises a red flag regarding known victims of depression who subsequently die under suspicious circumstances. How diligently are they investigated or are they commonly dismissed as suicides for the sake of convenience?

From "Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere."

Although it would be quite a tangent to follow-up on, it is also rather disconcerting when a colleague explains his attempt to interest The Chronicle of Higher Education in the then missing Haataja was rebuffed because they constantly received similar reports of vanishing academics. You have to wonder just how many of them really do “turn up later.” Nonetheless, his use of the local newspaper’s Police Beat is undeniably funny and in its way, quite telling.

There is something about the Haataja case that is hard to shake off. It festers in the subconscious, crying out for a conclusive verdict, but remains maddeningly obscure. There is also a lot of anger in Howling that is not misplaced. Better as a true crime expose than an exploration of local color, Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere is recommended on balance when it screens this Saturday night (11/15) as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 3:13pm.

LFM Reviews David @ DOC NYC

From "David."

By Joe Bendel. There were at least three LPs and one movie inspired by the Synanon drug treatment center. Before Neal Hefti’s soundtrack album and a weird jazz-rock-chorale piece were waxed, a jazz combo consisting of Synanon patients released Sounds of Synanon, by far the best of the three. While it would launch the career of guitarist Joe Pass, trumpeter David Allan was the focus of a Drew Associates television documentary around the same time. Rarely seen since its 1961 broadcast, Gregory Shuker, D.A. Pennebaker & William Ray’s David screens as part DOC NYC’s tribute to Pennebaker.

In retrospect, it is strange to watch David for many reasons, particularly since its focus falls squarely on the now nearly forgotten Allan rather than the future superstar Pass. Of course, Allan’s surfer good looks probably made much more television sense at the time. Musically, Allan is also featured, sounding pretty good on “All Blues” during the opening and “Georgia on My Mind” (a somewhat ill-fitting thematic choice) over the closing credits. However, it is rather awkward to watch Allan frequently butt heads with Pass, when he really should have done his best to tie his wagon to the guitarist’s star.

Of course, Pennebaker and company’s intimate look inside Synanon is downright eerie, given its later scandals, including the attempted assassination of attorney Paul Morantz through the unlikely mechanism of a rattlesnake snuffed in his mailbox. We see founder Chuck Dederich still holding court before taking flight to Arizona as a fugitive from justice. In fact, his group encounter session with Allan appears to be a forerunner to the notoriously ruckus “Synanon Game,” in which patients tore into each where it would hurt the most, all in the name of therapy.

Given what we now know, it is easy to see warning signs throughout this scene. The insistence with which Dederich and fellow patients discourage visits from Allan’s wife and young child should have thrown up a red flag for viewers, looking dare we say “cultish” to contemporary eyes. In a way though, this demonstrates the merit of Pennebaker and Drew’s approach to documentary filmmaking. What happened, happened. We can see it just as clearly now as then, but the context we bring to it today is radically different.

From "David."

David certainly makes viewers wonder whatever became of Allan. As a time capsule of early Synanon before it completely descended into bedlam and Pass before he became a mainstay for Pacific Jazz and Pablo Records, David is an enormously significant film that merits preservation on the National Film Registry. Pennebaker also documented another “if only” moment in jazz history when he recorded Dave Lambert’s unsuccessful audition for RCA with a prospective new group months before his accidental death. In fact, the two films would make quite a nice pairing at jazz and film festivals.

For now, anyone interested in the early 1960s Pacific Jazz scene should see David when it screens at DOC NYC, because it is likely to remain one of the scarcer obscurities in the Drew Associates catalog. Highly recommended as a fascinating jazz and cultural history curiosity, it screens this Sunday (11/16), with 2014 DOC NYC Lifetime Achievement honoree Pennebaker scheduled to attend.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 3:12pm.

LFM Reviews Uncertain Relationship Society @ The SFFS’s HK Cinema Series

From "Uncertain Relationship Society."

By Joe Bendel. Li Ling’s social network is stuck in the Bermuda Triangle of friend zones. The interconnected group of former classmates have not just one but multiple ambiguous platonic friendships with each other. Unfortunately, none of it comes with benefits, despite the fact everyone is ridiculously attractive in Heiward Mak’s surprisingly grounded Uncertain Relationship Society, which screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s annual Hong Kong Cinema series.

Ever since high school, Lam Yat Min always had a talent for music and eyes for Li, an aspiring artist. It might be reciprocal, but neither ever takes a chance to find out. He has a similar long-term non-relationship with campus bombshell Kaman Kong, except maybe somewhat less so. For her part, Li has a parallel friendship, or whatever, with Lee Choi-wa, a formerly nebbish student who blossoms into a metrosexual apprentice hairdresser.

Lee’s barely closeted photographer roommate Ho Yip also seems to harbor complicated feelings toward him. At least he does not have an ulterior motive when he uses up-and-coming model Kong in his shoots. Instead, Lam’s not quite rival is her borderline abusive hipster boyfriend, Leung Wai On, whom she can never quite break up with.

So yes, it’s complicated, but somehow Mak avoids a host of potential tonal pitfalls. Her blueprint script and the cast’s largely improvisational method never come across overly glib like an episode of Friends or too precious in a Zach Braff-Noah Baumbach kind of way. Rather it all feels pretty real and even zeitgeisty. While never explicitly political, the main characters’ romantic frustrations are echoes by their professional disappointments and a sense that the system is stacked against Hong Kong’s Generation Y, who have been disproportionately drawn to the recent Umbrella Protests.

From "Uncertain Relationship Society."

As Li, Venus Wong is impressive in just about every way, seamlessly depicting her evolution from a shy student to a mature (but still unfulfilled) woman. Playing it meta-style, HK model Kong is almost painfully vulnerable and emotionally exposed. HK pop idol Anjo Leung is relatively down to earth and musically credible as Lam Yat Min, but Cantopop star Eman Lam often steals scenes right out from under him as the boss of his boutique corporate jingle house.

Just about everyone has had their maddening uncertain relationship, but it is difficult to imagine balancing two of them simultaneously over five or six years. Nevertheless, Mak juggles the numerous characters and the frequent time shifts with relative ease. It is not the sort of annoying film that it surely sounds like on paper. Nonetheless, the constant hashtag commentaries are a mistake, already giving the film a dated time capsule vibe. Recommended for its overall vitality and the exiting work from its stars-in-the-making, Uncertain Relationship Society screens this Saturday (11/15) as part of the 2014 edition of the SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema series.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 3:12pm.

LFM Reviews Haunters @ DOC NYC

From "Haunters."

By Joe Bendel. Everyone is scared of something. In magician Antony Gerard’s case, it is the fire marshal. That local busybody shut down Phobia House, his popular Kalamazoo haunted house, on what would have been their ten year anniversary. Determined not to let that happen again, the Gerard family moves Phobia House and the dozens of temp jobs it creates out of the Kalamazoo inspector’s jurisdiction. Anthony Morrison follows their rocky rebound season in Haunters, which screens as a midnight selection of the 2014 DOC NYC.

The year before last, Phobia House was ranked #1 amongst regional Michigan haunted houses. Then the nanny state killed everyone’s fun. The Gerards have built sort of a mini-empire, but Halloween is crunch time for phobia house, their latex mask molding business, and the Timid Rabbit, their magic and costume supply store. They think they have found a suitable space outside of town in a shuttered paintball range, but it will take time and money to convert it.

There is a lot of passion that goes into creating an attraction like Phobia House. For an economically depressed community like Kalamazoo, it also happens to be a welcome source of seasonal employment. Yet, many of the entitled millennials Gerard hires blow off the job days before Phobia House re-opens.

To his credit, Morrison never mocks or gawks at the Gerards. This is a film that respects hard work, especially when it is performed in zombie make-up. It certainly gives viewers an appreciation for haunting as a calling. Frankly, it seems there should be some sort of agreement barring reviews during the first few days of operation, much like a Broadway show, because there will inevitably be kinks to work out.

Morrison also gives viewers an up-close-and-personal perspective on the scaring process through his inspired use of night vision. Phobia House looks genuinely intense, maybe even a little sick, particularly when they add the unsettling special attraction of a woman hanging from her impaled hooks, as a sort of goth geek act.

From "Haunters."

Essentially, Haunters is a film about blue collar Americana and its mounting economic anxiety, but it comes with some very creepy visuals and a bit of insight into why we like to be scared. The title is a bit pedestrian though and might be confused with another Haunters documentary about the haunted house business, as well as the Abigail Breslin supernatural thriller Haunter or the Jacki Weaver horror film Haunt.

It is always nice to see hard work rewarded in the movies and Morrison’s Haunters is no exception. Recommended for fans of live haunted houses, Haunters screens a stroke before the witching hour this Saturday night (11/15) at the IFC Center, as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 3:12pm.

LFM Reviews Desert Lullabies @ MIX NYC 2014

Desert Lullabies Trailer-HD from Monely Soltani on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. It is tough to be a kid in Iran. It is also hard to live with dignity as a woman and hard to live at all as an LGBT Iranian. Human rights for everyone remains a serious issue in the country, but the potential wartime death of innocence has become an increasingly pressing and universal concern throughout global battlefields. However, California-based filmmaker Monely Soltani explores it from a distinctly Persian perspective in the narrative short film Desert Lullabies, which screens during MIX NYC: the 27th New York Queer Experimental Film Festival.

Tara’s mother Homa has a hard time explaining why her dissident father has not yet returned as he promised. She has an even harder time explaining why they must flee their home at dawn. She has just received a last-minute warning the government imminently plans to raze their rebellious village along with all its inhabitants, but that is an awful lot to burden a young child with.

As she slips into a feverish slumber, Tara will be visited by the spirit of her beloved grandmother and the goddess Anahita, but do not expect a happy ending, per se. Despite Desert’s fable-like vibe, reality still is what it is. Nonetheless, simply carrying on constitutes a victory.

Shot on location in Death Valley, but utilizing extensive green screen work, Desert seems to exist eerily out of time, like some sort of near future-Medieval dystopia. Some of the effects might somewhat reflect Soltani’s presumed budget constraints, but the evocative interiors of Homa’s modest home have a Spartan but tangibly lived-in feel.

While Desert is only fifteen minutes long, Shila Ommi’s performance as Homa packs quite a punch. Based on Soltani’s own mother, she vividly conveys all of Homa’s motherly courage and desperation. As Tara, Ariana Molkara’s work is also unusually sensitive and unaffected. Viewers will definitely believe they are family—a tragically incomplete family.

From "Desert Lullabies."

Soltani does not belabor the particulars of the current regime, but there are enough Iranian signifiers, starting with the Persian dialogue, to cue viewers’ pre-existing context. In fact, it could be seen as part the leading edge of an emerging Persian-American cinema, along with Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.

Although Soltani’s previous short documentary won an award from USC’s Lambda Association, Desert would not seem to be a natural fit for MIX NYC, but cheers to them for not being stylistically or thematically dogmatic. Highly recommended, Desert Lullabies also looks like one of the more accessible films in the Ancient Futures program, which screens tonight (11/12) at the 27th MIX NYC.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 1:16pm.