Month: January 2015

LFM Reviews True Story @ The 2015 Sundance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Who is the bigger user, the disgraced journalist or the alleged family murderer? It is a close call, but the “journalist” has no competition when it comes to willful self-deception. Mike Finkel’s strange and problematic relationship with Christian Longo provides the dramatic grist for British theater Rupert Goold’s ripped-from-the-tell-alls feature debut, True Story, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

For a while, Finkel was the golden boy at the New York Times, scoring numerous Sunday magazine covers. Then he was busted for “compositing” victims somewhat haphazardly in a human trafficking story. At least Christian Longo was still a fan. While on the lam, he used Finkel’s name as an alias. Intrigued by the connection, the real Finkel pays a jail house visit to the man accused of killing his wife and three children. Recognizing a story that could salvage his career, Finkel agrees to co-author a book with Longo. Of course, he assumes it will be exculpatory, but early trial developments leave him feeling confused and betrayed.

Clearly, this is not a film looking to rehabilitate the NYT’s scandal-plagued image. Gretchen Mol plays Finkel’s editor as an ice cold CYAing Machiavellian, which might be the truest aspect of True Story. The ironic postscript also serves as a final middle finger to the Gray Lady. However, Goold and co-screenwriter David Kajganich are not trying to do any favors for Finkel or Longo, either. In all honesty, everyone comes out of it looking badly, but that makes it fascinating to watch.

From "True Story."

Longo, the media savvy sociopath, just might be the role James Franco was born to play. He is so frighteningly convincing turning on the charm and manipulating everyone around him, it makes you wonder. Although it is a far less showy role, Jonah Hill’s Finkel is also believably slow on the uptake (so much so, it also makes you wonder). Mol is suitably severe, but True Story is not a great vehicle for actresses, completely wasting Felicity Jones as Finkel’s more guarded but nearly personality-less girlfriend.

Franco and Hill’s scenes together have fair degree of crackle, but the suspense never really rises above room temperature. Frankly, there are no miscarriages of justice in True Story, unless you count the Times getting off easy after yet another journalistic scandal. Yet, it is strangely refreshing to see a film that is not out to gin up cheap outrage. Recommended for those who appreciate adult drama, True Story screens again this Thursday (1/29) and Saturday (1/31) in Park City and Sunday (2/1) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:54pm.

LFM Reviews I Am Hong Kong @ The 2015 Sundance Film Festival

From "I Am Hong Kong."

By Joe Bendel. It is eerily fitting that Hong Kong’s democracy activists chose the umbrella as their symbol. After all, they are now most definitely facing that proverbial rainy day. Aside from our colleagues at the Epoch Times, the largely AWOL American media did a terrible job of covering the Umbrella Protests. In contrast, HK filmmaker Flora Lau was there, capturing the images of a movement that deserved better in the brief but potent short, I Am Hong Kong, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Based on her unusually subtle and nuanced narrative feature debut Bends, Lau will be a filmmaker to be reckoned with, assuming I Am Hong Kong does not cause her bureaucratic trouble down the line. Her approach for the short is elegantly simple, matching striking black-and-white stills with voiceovers from diverse protestors explaining what contemporary Hong Kong means to them, in either practical or metaphorical terms.

From "I Am Hong Kong."

These are the faces we have not seen—the mothers with young children, the senior citizens, and the attractive young college students, who surely would have had plenty of other requests for their time, were they not demonstrating for meaningful democratic reforms. Indeed, their signs are quite telling, proclaiming “No party, no karaoke, fight for democracy,” and “Keep calm and carry an umbrella.”

While Lau was there more to observe and report than to make a statement, just being there and recording it all faithfully is significant. Clocking in shy of the five minute mark, it is definitely a shorty, but visually it is powerful, almost overwhelming stuff. Very highly recommended, I Am Hong Kong is a work of journalistic art that screens again with the documentary feature The Chinese Mayor today (1/28), Friday (1/30), and Saturday (1/31) in Park City and Thursday (1/29) and Friday (1/30) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: A+

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:54pm.

Paginini at the Crossroads: LFM Reviews The Devil’s Violinist

By Joe Bendel. Niccolò Paginini was the Robert Johnson of classical music. His ferocious technique and unparalleled popular success were seriously considered the fruits of a Faustian bargain. The talent was always there. Getting people to listen was the hard part. In fact, it was such a tricky proposition, the materialist maestro gladly makes that deal in Bernard Rose’s The Devil’s Violinist, which opens this Friday in New York.

Sulfur has not numbed the Mephistophelean Urbani’s nose for talent. He immediately recognizes the gifts of an aspiring Don Juan violinist scuffling in grubby music halls. He pledges to guarantee Paginini’s career and serve as his personal servant in this world, if Paginini agrees to do the same for him in the next. Shortly after signing a contract he probably should have read more closely, Paginini’s career ignites. He becomes a figure of dark romance and veiled controversy, like an early nineteenth century heavy metal rock star.

Eventually, Paginini gets bored with it all, spending long hours brooding in the tub, doing his best to resemble The Death of Marat. Fortunately, Paginini somewhat snaps out of his lethargy when he accepts upstart promoter John Watson’s offer to produce and conduct his London debuts concerts. However, Paginini’s demands will stretch the limits of Watson’s resources. Met by a mob of moralizing progressive protestors, Watson and his diva mistress Elisabeth Wells are forced to quarter Paginini and Urbani in their home. Of course, Watson’s daughter Charlotte immediately catches Paginini’s eye, but she is not inclined to swoon over the maestro, at least not yet.

We always thought Jared Harris just might be the Devil, so Violinist practically feels like a confirmation. He is delightfully sinister chewing on the scenery. Yet ironically, Urbani (who seems to be more of a minion than Old Scratch himself) is not infrequently portrayed as a more empathetic fellow than Paginini. Regardless, it is great fun watching him lurk and glower.

From "The Devil’s Violinist."

Violin prodigy and classical crossover artist David Garrett can certainly play. Acting is a little iffier. Perhaps the many scenes of his Paginini huddling in bed sheets in a state of near catatonia was a shrewd strategic decision on Rose’s part. Fortunately, Harris has some terrific supporting players to engage with, including Christian McKay, unflaggingly earnest as Watson, as well as Joely Richardson suggesting Eliza Doolittle’s morally flexible cousin as tabloid music critic Ethel Langham.

In a way, Devil’s Violinist reconciles the classy Jekyll films Rose has helmed, such as the Beethoven bio-pic Immortal Beloved and the superior Sophie Marceau version of Anna Karenina, with his Hydish scare fare, like Candyman and SXTape. For obvious reasons, he leans towards the former, depicting Urbani more as a Svengali than a figure of satanic horror. It works relatively well, despite Garrett’s awkwardness, which sometimes even feels fitting in context. Harris certainly does his thing and Garrett’s musical chops are also quite cinematic. Recommended for classical connoisseurs who appreciate a bit of uncanny garnish, The Devil’s Violinist opens this Friday (1/30) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on January 28, 2015 at 4:53pm.

LFM Reviews Darkness on the Edge of Town @ The 2015 Slamdance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Young Cleo Callahan might not look like a vigilante, but she has the right skills. She is crack sharpshooter, particularly with a rifle-scope. Arguably, her investigative talents are somewhat subpar, but in such a small provincial village she is bound to find her sister’s killer sooner or later. However, the guilty party is closer than she could imagine in Patrick Ryan’s moody revenge drama Darkness on the Edge of Town, which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Since the death of their parents, Callahan’s relationship with her older sister Aishling has been strained. She now lives with Foster parents, while Aishling lives the wild life—or at least she was. Although we see full well who the killer is, it feels like the sort of thing that should be held close to the vest. Regardless, Cleo Callahan soon sets out to even the score, presuming the murderer is one of the dodgy characters in her sister’s social circle.

Technically, they are innocent, but it is clearly implied they did sister Aishling wrong in more conventional ways, so there is no need to feel sympathy for their sorry hides. However, it is a different story when suspicion falls on Virgil O’Riley, the brother of her profoundly troubled best friend Robin.

The tone of Darkness is so dark, it is like Milton’s darkness visible. You do not want to know what goes on behind closed doors because it is sure to be awful. This is not a wish fulfillment vigilante movie like the later Death Wish films. It is scrupulously serious, even though there is a good deal of blood down the stretch. At times, Ryan plays with the themes and visual language of the western genre, but it is really more closely akin to a film like Heavenly Creatures, but executed in a drastically more naturalistic style.

From "Darkness on the Edge of Town."

Be that as it may, Darkness heralds the arrival of Emma Willis as a major new screen talent to watch. Her performance as Robin O’Riley is truly harrowing, riveting, and downright scary. It is bad luck for Emma Eliza Regan, whose intense slow-burning work as Callahan is likely to be overlooked, even though it is excellent, as well.

It is hard to classify Darkness as a thriller, because of its deliberate pacing and thoroughly realized sense of hardscrabble place. Still, this film has grit in abundance. Definitely recommended for patrons of Irish cinema and violent contemporary tragedies in general, Darkness on the Edge of Town screens again today (1/28) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:53pm.

LFM Reviews Female Pervert @ The 2015 Slamdance Film Festival

From "Female Pervert."

By Joe Bendel. Some things sound sexier in theory than they frequently turn out to be in practice, like Murakami book clubs and dirty talk. Phoebe will learn both these things first hand. She would really like to make a connection, but she is her own worst enemy in Jiyoung Lee’s Female Pervert, which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.

Phoebe works for a boutique PR agency and develops video games on the side. She is cute and hip, so you would think she would have no trouble attracting guys, until she starts talking. Frankly, the term pervert might be a bit harsh. It is like she has a form of sexual Tourette’s that compels her to make creepy, mood-killing comments.

Clocking in just over an hour, FP is relatively brief and a tad repetitive, as Phoebe falls into a predictable pattern of initially attracting guys with her idiosyncrasies and then repelling them with her inappropriate weirdness. However, there is a lot of sly satire directed at Nabokov-reading pseudo-intellectual hipsters, the shallow feel-good liberal activism of millennials, conspiracy theorists with a religious-like faith in cheaply produced documentaries, and organic-food-eating environmental paranoids. None of them can withstand Phoebe’s caustic attitude.

From "Female Pervert."

That necessarily means Jennifer Kim is the key to whether it all works and to what extent. Fortunately, she is absolutely terrific as the exquisitely problematic Phoebe. Her comic timing is pitch perfect and she radiates an eccentric charisma that truly lights up the screen. You cannot help falling for her, despite all the whacked out things she says and does. She somehow conveys a real heart underneath all the acting-out, which comes through clearly in Lee’s sweetly subtle closing sequence.

Even knowing full well how much trouble she is, you’d be tempted to try to make something work with Phoebe, which is sort of the acid test for a character like this. While a lot of critics have bought into Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behavior, because it tries to milk some rather gross sexual situations for laughs, it utterly lacks the warmth and vulnerability of the imperfectly titled Female Pervert. Recommended for fans of edgy but still kind of sweet relationship comedies, Female Pervert screens again today (1/28) at Treasure Mountain Inn, as part of this year’s Slamdance.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:52pm.

LFM Reviews Chuck Norris vs. Communism @ The 2015 Sundance Film Festival

Chuck Norris.

By Joe Bendel. Irina Nistor was the voice of the Romanian revolution. The brawn was supplied by Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone, and the rest of their 1980s action movie colleagues. Together they were an unbeatable combination—just ask Ceauşescu. Oh, but you can’t. Wildly popular but strictly forbidden, American action movies (thousands of which were dubbed by Nistor) directly undermined the Communist regime, as Ilinca Calugareanu chronicles in Chuck Norris vs. Communism, a World Cinema Documentary Competition selection at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Just when you thought films like Missing in Action couldn’t get any cooler, Calugareanu’s documentary comes around. Ceauşescu kept Romania even more isolated than the rest of the Warsaw Pact nations, and his censors were relentlessly thorough—to an almost comical extent. As a result, Nistor was pretty disgusted with her work translating for the censorship authorities, so she jumped at the chance to dub illegal American VHS tapes, often mastered from second or third generation copies, regardless of the risks.

Her boss was the mysterious Theodor Zamfir, who identified an unmet demand and spread around enough bribes to keep the tapes flowing. Of course, there were still dangers, especially for Nistor working in the lair of the beast. Fortunately, many high ranking Party members were also hooked on Zamfir’s tapes, because what else would they watch?

As films go, Chuck just about has it all. It is an inspiring story of courage and defiance in the face of oppression that takes some truly ironic twists and turns. It celebrates free expression, while also serving up a healthy dose of pop culture nostalgia. It is strange to think Romanians were watching kick butt Cannon films on VHS at the same time we were, but they were risking imprisonment and who knows what else by doing so.

From "Chuck Norris vs. Communism."

We do hear from the real life Nistor and Zamfir, but the film is also interspersed with interviews featuring former customers, who really sound a lot like us or our friends at Unseen Films. In a potentially risky move, Calugaranu utilizes extensive dramatic recreations that make it a bit confusing when the actual historical figures finally appear on screen. However, they convey a vivid sense of the era and the paranoia that went with it.

Nistor and her associates were true heroes who made the world a better place, both in the short term and the long term. While the film is wildly inspiring, it also makes you wonder if the films produced in this day and age would have the same efficacy undercutting repressive regimes. Regardless, the fascinating and wholly entertaining Chuck Norris vs. Communism is very highly recommended when it screens again tomorrow (1/27) in Salt Lake and Thursday (1/29) and Friday (1/30) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 26th, 2015 at 5:58pm.