Month: November 2014

LFM Reviews Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile @ DOC NYC

By Joe Bendel. For ten years and counting, second and even third generation exiles have competed in a beauty pageant to represent a country they have never lived in. That nation is Tibet, still held captive by their Chinese Communist occupiers. Obviously, this is no ordinary beauty contest. While their numbers are small, their consciousness is high. Documentarian Norah Shapiro follows Tibetan-American Tenzin Khecheo as she competes for the tenth annual Miss Tibet crown in Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

When most people think of Tibet, their mind’s eye pictures monasteries, temples, and snow-capped mountains—but glamor, no so much. Enterprising “impresario” Lobsang Wangyal sets out to change that with the Miss Tibet pageant, envisioning it as a means of empowering young women and providing a focal point for national pride. Despite his obvious slickness, the pageant seems to be taking hold, even though there is often controversy surrounding the swimsuit competition.

Much of Exile explores that tension between tradition and modernizing influences through Khecheo’s eyes. Initially insecure about her rusty Tibetan, she dramatically reconnects with her cultural heritage. One of the cool aspects of the Miss Tibet contest is the extent to which Tibetan music, customs, and history are integrated into the program. However, there are problems with the pageant that will come to light, adding a note of unexpected ambivalence to the third act (but be assured, all of the contestants are clearly a credit to Tibet).

In contrast, there is no equivocating in Exile when it comes to the realities of China’s occupation. Shapiro’s historical context might come from an illustrated children’s book (quite an elegant one, really), but it is still right on the money. In fact, part of the impetus for the pageant in general and Khecheo’s personal participation is to raise international awareness, since conventional protests have produced no results to speak of. Let’s be honest, how much do you think Obama had to say about Tibet during the APEC summit in China?

Khecheo’s personal development arc and the cultural synthesis the pageant represents are all strong stuff that easily sustain the relatively short (a hair under seventy minutes) Exile. Yet, it raises issues of double standards that could have been explored further. At one point, we learn a previous Miss Tibet might have been allowed to compete in an international pageant, but China insisted “Miss Tibet, China” must have been emblazoned on her sash. She refused. You wonder how often that sort of thing happens. For instance, if a fictitious country like “Palestine” is allowed to submit films for best foreign language Oscar consideration, Tibet should have the same right. Yet, if they put Pema Tseden’s latest film into contention, would the Academy accept it or bow to Chinese pressure? How many other such instances might there be?

Regardless, Exile does what it does quite well. It follows a highly engaging and likable POV figure in Khecheo through a surprisingly dramatic journey. Perhaps most valuably, it offers a fuller, more diverse picture of Tibetan identity, while also providing a timely reminder of Tibet’s captive nation status. Highly recommended, Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile screens this Sunday (11/16) and Monday (11/17) as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on November 11th, 2014 at 7:52pm.

LFM Reviews The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness @ DOC NYC

From "The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness."

By Joe Bendel. For millions of animation fans, Studio Ghibli is like Disney without the weird cryogenic baggage. Year after year, Hayao Miyazaki and his team of animators have produced absolute classics that transcend genre. He has now apparently, by-and-large, for the most part, more-or-less retired, but Mami Sunada documented the master at work on his final masterwork, The Wind Rises. Sunada quietly observes the Studio Ghibli comings and goings, but still captures plenty of drama in The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

Studio Ghibli might only continue as a licensing company, but it ended its original productions on artistic high notes. Both Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises and Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya are extraordinarily accomplished capstones to their legendary careers. While Miyazaki’s farewell film was a monster hit at the Japanese box-office, Takahata’s was not. They were also supposed to be released simultaneously, but even at the start of Kingdom, everyone realizes that is highly unlikely to happen.

While there is plenty of pencil-sharpening and studious sketching going on in Kingdom, real conflict emerges between the venerable Miyazaki and the largely unseen Takahata, who gave Miya-san his start in the business decades ago at the Tohei studio. They share an awful lot of history together, but their working methods could not be further apart.

Somehow, as Sunada illustrates in detail, Miyazaki is able to put inspiration on a timetable, which you have to respect, because he made Spirited Away. In contrast, it happens when it happens for Takahata, which you have to respect, because he made Grave of the Fireflies—unless you happen to be Miyazaki. Even though Sunada observes events almost entirely from Miyazaki’s perspective, it is clear their relationship is very complicated. While the film consistently shows how comfortable Miyazaki is in his role as part studio task-master and part twinkly-eyed ambassador of goodwill, whenever Takahata’s delays are mentioned, he sounds like Seinfeld cursing “Newman.” Yet, with his next breath, he is likely to praise his former mentor’s past achievements.

From "The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness."

That strange dynamic truly elevates Kingdom above yet another dry process doc, like Farocki’s Sauerbruch Hutton Architects. It also helps that director-editor-cinematographer Sunada is a legit filmmaker with an eye for the telling moment rather than an overawed fan cranking out a DVD extra. As when she chronicled her father’s final days in Death of a Japanese Salesman, she is quite sensitively attuned to the human drama that accompanies any sort of finality.

There are very few animated clips seen throughout Kingdom, which speaks highly of Sunada’s confidence in her subjects. It is justified. Miyazaki is a thoroughly engaging presence, as are longtime producer Ghibli producer-peacemaker Toshio Suzuki and Evangelion animator Hideaki Anno, who gave voice to The Wind Rises’ idealistic protagonist. Sunada documents some true cinema history, ultimately marking the end of an era. A fitting coda to a great career, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness is recommended for all serious students of animation when it screens this Sunday morning (11/16) at the SVA Theatre, as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 11th, 2014 at 7:52pm.

Jason Momoa Smells Fresh Blood: LFM Reviews Wolves

By Joe Bendel. Evidently, werewolves can be as snobby as anyone. Sure, some humans are turned through bites, but hereditary lycanthropes look down their snouts at them. You will find a large concentration of pure-bred wolves in Lupine Ridge. It might look like hill country, but it is the Philadelphia Main Line for werewolves. It is there that Cayden Richards will go searching for answers in David Hayter’s Wolves, which opens this Friday in New York.

Richards never knew he was adopted until he heard it on the TV news. Having discovered his parents ripped apart wolf-style after an inconvenient black-out, it is now too late for him to ask them any questions. Resigned to live as a fugitive from justice, Richards simply roams the highways, trying to keep his inner beast in check. However, a chance encounter with Wild Joe, a fellow pure-bred werewolf outcast, points him towards Lupine Ridge.

As soon as he blows into town, he seems to rub Connor, the town’s alpha-male/alpha-wolf, the wrong way. However, a wiry old farmer by the name of John Tollerman offers to take him on as a farmhand, no questions asked. Even the television reports about Richards’ previous misadventures do not seem to throw the good-hearted Tollermans. Nor does it scare off Angelina Timmons, who ought to be too young to tend the bar she inherited if she is roughly as old as Richards, the high school senior-dropout. Of course, the authorities never come to Lupine Ridge, because aside from a few humans like Mrs. Tollerman, they are all werewolves.

In terms of tone, Wolves aims to be something like the lycanthropic equivalent of The Lost Boys, with hit-or-miss results. On the plus side, Jason Momoa’s Connor makes a terrific hairy heavy and Stephen McHattie has the perfect Lance Henriksen-esque weather-beaten gravitas for Tollerson. Both come into Wolves with genre cred that they only further burnish.

From "Wolves."

The problem is that Lucas Till is horribly dull and awkwardly light weight as Richards. It is hard to see him as a high school quarterback—drama club president, maybe. Hayter had to notice how much verve Momoa and McHattie brought to the table (which they then proceeded to chew) and how slight Till’s presence is in contrast. Granted, dull horror movie heroes are a tradition dating back to mild David Manners in the original Dracula. However, in this case, the film depends on Richards’ fierceness, but it isn’t happening.

Despite the weak vanilla lead, there is a lot of fun stuff in Wolves. The werewolf makeup is not bad and the southern rock soundtrack nicely amplifies Momoa’s super-bad attitude. Unfortunately, too many of Till’s scenes feel like something out of Twilight instead of a werewolf movie with hair on its chest. If only there were less of him and more McHattie, but it is still kind of entertaining in a guilty pleasure sort of way. Recommended for fans of Momoa and McHattie, Wolves opens this Friday (11/14) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on November 11th, 2014 at 7:51pm.

LFM Reviews The Midnight After @ The SFFS’s HK Cinema Series

By Joe Bendel. It turns out a web novelist by the name of Pizza has captured Hong Kong’s current uneasy zeitgeist with a tale of the Armageddon. As adapted for the big screen, it also involves the challenges of commuting and David Bowie. Hang on tight, because Fruit Chan’s The Midnight After is one heck of a wild ride that screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s annual Hong Kong Cinema series.

Most of the twenty-two Hong Kongers aboard the fateful mini-bus were not planning to be there. Suet, the driver, is covering for a colleague whose wife went into labor. You Chi-chi was anticipating a date with his girlfriend, but she canceled at the last minute. Junkie Blind Fai got on the wrong bus by mistake, whereas the distraught Yuki left a work social outing early after her lecherous boss summarily fired her. Hong Kong is bustling as ever leaving Kowloon, but when they drive through Lion Rock Tunnel towards the New Territories, the teeming masses and incessant traffic mysteriously vanish.

It seems they are the last people left in Hong Kong and the four students who got off at the first stop probably will not last long judging from their sudden symptoms. Trading cell numbers, the core group agrees to reunite in the morning to take stock of the rather dire situation. Soon they are simultaneously receiving bizarre calls that turn out to be the lyrics of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in Morse Code. Then things really start to get strange, as the apparent apocalypse takes on both metaphysical and science fictional dimensions.

Frankly, we never figure out what is going on with absolute certainty, but we get a pretty good lesson in Hong Kong geography before the zombies show up. Reportedly, the film is also loaded with vernacular puns and wordplay that would even be lost on Mainland audiences, let alone Yankees, but it hardly matters. As it is, Midnight is absolutely bursting with madness.

It is also fully stocked with big named stars, including Simon Yam, naturally playing Wong Man-fat, a low level gangster who more or less assumes leadership of the ragtag group, with characteristic flair. Johnnie To repertory player Lam Suet is also perfectly cast as Suet the driver. Ironically, he probably gets bloodier in Midnight than in his recent To outings. Janice Man (or JM as she is also known, catchy that) is by turns vulnerable and unnerving as the seemingly innocent Yuki. Kara Hui still looks great and maintains plenty of edginess as Mak Sau-ying, a fortune teller-slash-insurance agent determined to do some post-apocalyptic business one way or the other.

From "The Midnight After."

Throughout Midnight Chan creates an uncomfortably realistic sense of what the end of the world might really feel like, but unlike Abel Ferrara’s cratering 4:44 Last Day on Earth, he uses it as the foundation of a tense and compelling (though admittedly logic challenged) narrative. Chan Fai-hung and Kong Ho-yan’s adaption of Pizza’s descriptively titled Lost on a Red Mini Van to Taipo nicely balances pitch black humor with moments of deep-seated anxiety-ridden existential drama.

Midinight is unremittingly dark, yet somehow it is still wildly entertaining. It represents a triumphantly off-kilter return to form for Chan, a former stalwart of indie HK cinema who found success producing rom-coms. He certainly doesn’t end the world with a whimper. Highly recommended for a broad cross section of cult cinema fans, The Midnight After screens this Saturday (11/15) as part of the SFFS’s 2014 edition of Hong Kong Cinema.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on November 11th, 2014 at 7:51pm.

From Frogmen to Seal Team Six: LFM Reviews Navy SEALs—Their Untold Story

By Joe Bendel. Although it mostly involved Army Rangers and Air Force support teams, four Navy SEALs also saw action during the Battle of Mogadishu—all four of whom would be awarded Silver Stars for their valor under fire. Perhaps you also heard it was a SEAL Team that dispatched bin Laden to a fiery eternity. With the first-time-ever support of the Naval Special Warfare Command, the history and service of the Navy’s commando force is chronicled in depth throughout Navy SEALs—Their Untold Story, which premieres on PBS this Veterans’ Day.

Conceived in conjunction with the companion volume co-written by former SEAL Dick Couch and co-producer William Doyle, the nearly two hour PBS special features a wealth of on-camera interviews with SEAL veterans who do not ordinarily do this sort of thing. They were there in the jungles of Viet Nam saving “Bat*21” and they have been all over Iraq and Afghanistan. Why would a division of the Navy be in a land-locked country such as the latter? They simply developed the expertise for covert missions.

Director-producer-writer Carol Fleisher takes a comprehensive approach, devoting considerable time to the SEALs’ WWII predecessors, the Naval Combat Demolition Units created by future Rear Admiral Draper Kauffman. For a while, they were generally known as just “Frogmen,” especially with the release of 1951’s The Frogmen, starring Richard Widmark, one of several touchstone films referenced in Untold. However, the SEALs were officially inaugurated during the early days of Viet Nam, to fulfill JFK’s prescient call for a flexible fighting force that would specialize in counter-guerilla insurgencies.

From "Navy SEALs—Their Untold Story."

As viewers would expect, there are some extraordinary stories of courage in Untold. Frankly, it is amazing how often SEALs have successfully completed their missions, despite logistical snafus outside their control. Indeed, it is always respectful of the SEALs themselves. You would expect nothing less, especially since dedicated military supporter Gary Sinise serves as narrator. Strangely though, it seems to uncritically swallow most of the criticisms of the Iraq War, especially the highly debatable claim that Saddam Hussein had no relationship with Al Qaeda whatsoever. Of course, it is on PBS, so apparently certain articles of faith must be respected.

Untold probably features more original interviews with Congressional Medal of Honor recipients than any other television program up until now. That alone makes it worth seeing. It is also a timely corrective to all the controversy surrounding the decision of the fateful former SEAL Team Six member to go public. Regardless of the current media firestorm, Untold reminds viewers of the SEALs peerless decades of resourcefulness and sacrifice. Recommended as appropriate viewing for Veterans’ Day, Navy SEALs—Their Untold Story airs on most PBS outlets this Tuesday (11/11).

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 11th, 2014 at 7:05pm.

LFM Reviews Every Last Child @ DOC NYC

EVERY LAST CHILD TRAILER 2014 from Image Nation Abu Dhabi on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. It is a subject that the Taliban and Jenny McCarthy agree on. They both oppose vaccinations. Of course, the Taliban take it a bit further. In 2012, they declared war on the public health workers conducting Pakistan’s Polio vaccination campaign—and lo and behold, Polio contraction skyrocketed among Pakistani children. Threatened health official try to reverse the tide in Tom Roberts’ Every Last Child, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

There is no excuse for the volume of Polio cases sweeping Pakistan, but there is an explanation. Claiming it sterilizes boys and hastens the maturation of girls, the Taliban launched a perverse misinformation campaign against the national Polio vaccination program, finding an all too receptive audience amid the drone-obsessed fundamentalist population. As a result, Pakistan became an incubator of Polio, spreading the water-borne disease to neighboring countries through contaminated rivers.

Roberts takes the observational approach throughout ELC, so he rarely challenges anyone directly. It would be nice to see him confront smug vaccination opponents with the fruits of their demagoguery, but he presumably wanted to live. However, he never shies away from documenting the catastrophic repercussions. We watch an anguished father taking his Polio-stricken son for physical therapy and witness the vaccination volunteer mourning her assassinated sister and niece.

There is no shortage of galling human tragedy in ELC, but some of the most compelling sequences capture the World Health Organization point man’s attempts at crisis management. In a mind-boggling turn of events, they decide to drop the “discredited” word Polio, re-branding their campaign “Justice for Health,” which might be a winning strategy, but represents a crime against syntax.

The Pakistani and NGO health workers are remarkably brave and dedicated, but it would be nice to hear just one of them state the obvious: Islamist ideology is dangerous to public health. Despite the hopeful conclusion, the underlying dogma that precipitated the crisis has not gone away. In a way, Roberts focuses on a particularly problematic symptom rather than the disease. Still, it is a timely reminder why all children should be vaccinated (that’s something we shouldn’t need in contemporary America, but apparently we do). Recommended on balance for those concerned about anti-vaccination hysteria, Every Last Child screens this Friday (11/14) as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on November 11th, 2014 at 7:05pm.