Month: January 2015

By Joe Bendel. It’s the spigot theory that says a developing nation is better off without the discovery of a precious natural resource like oil, because it allows a corrupt central government (is there any other kind?) to control all economic activity at the source. That is sort of what Jeta Amata’s newly revised agit-prop film argues, but it is more interested in assigning blame. Yes, the multinational oil companies are at fault and so is our government and the Nigerian government, as well as the former regime it replaced. However, you are most to blame as an American consumer guzzling Nigerian oil, so go hang your head in shame—and don’t even bother with Amata’s Black November (known in a previous incarnation as Black Gold), because it is not worth your guilt-tripping time when it opens tomorrow in New York.

Oil executive Tom Hudson must be evil, because he is played by Mickey Rourke. However, the tables have just been turned on him when a group of one-man’s-terrorists take him hostage, demanding he use his influence to save their spiritual leader Ebiere Perema from the noose. If you are expecting a tense kidnapping film, then just move along, because November is really just one interminably long flashback, allowing the men with guns to explain how special Perema is, starting with her birth, of course. Mercifully, Amata spares us the Michenerian prologue explaining how geological processes formed the oil deposits in the river delta. Still, at least that would have been educational.

It is possible for nakedly didactic films to engage the audience on a cinematic level. Iciar Bollain’s Even the Rain is not exactly subtle, but it is still a distinctive work. On the other hand, you can safely say Black November is no Battleship Potemkin. Frankly, it is simply not professional grade. Amata may have come out of the Nollywood scene, but the handful of Nollywood films covered here all feature sharper character development and more polished scripts than November, and there is little difference in the quality of performances.

Embarrassingly, that includes a number of formerly big-name Hollywood actors turning up in small marginal roles, presumably so they could participate in a few press conferences to show they care. Nevertheless, November is notable for reuniting 9½ Weeks co-stars Rourke and Kim Basinger (playing “Kristy,” the journalist unwittingly filming Hudson’s kidnapping). One can imagine their on-set reminisces: “So, remember those ice cubes? Good times.”

According to the poster, Anne Heche is also in this movie. This is a pure guess, but maybe she plays one of the federal agents, as does Viveca Fox who briefly appears as “Angela,” the scoldy anti-terror agent constantly passing judgment on her superiors’ crassly Machiavellian ways.

November is counting on viewers cutting it a lot of slack, because of its supposedly good intentions, but when you are sitting through it, there is no getting around its low level of competency. It even fails on the fundamental level of propaganda. Perhaps out of some odd notion of narrative balance, Perema and her allies are constantly making inexplicably dubious decisions, but their cumulative effect is downright exasperating.

By the time it wraps up, the only lasting take-away from the film is the fact the hostage takers smuggled themselves and their guns up from Mexico, so it would seem the film is really advocating for increased border security. Black November is not recommended. It is not even presentable to a ticket-buying public, but it opens tomorrow (1/9) nonetheless at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: F

Posted on January 9th, 2014 at 10:08pm.

By Joe Bendel. If you have read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, you know Robert Heinlein was more than willing to consider unconventional relationships. Still, the strange bonds holding together the characters of his story “All You Zombies” is definitely not what one would expect from the author of military science fiction like Starship Troopers and popular juveniles such as Space Cadet. Nevertheless, the Spierig Brothers (Michael and Peter) have faithfully adapted it for the big screen. After garnering nine Australian Academy Award nominations, the Spierig Brothers’ Predestination opens this Friday in New York.

A man walks into a bar in the 1970s, but the bartender is actually a Temporal Agent, charged with fighting crime across time. The man is a “true confessions” columnist who writes under the pen-name “The Unmarried Mother.” It turns out, he used to be one. The agent has been assigned to recruit the writer to help catch the Fizzle Bomber, a time terrorist who will perpetrate a horrendous attack sometime in the current time period, unless they can stop him in the past. As a bonus, the writer will get the opportunity to confront the man who abandoned her, before medical circumstances forced his transformation. The agent will also take time out to save himself from the Fizzle Bomber, which he obviously does, since he is able to go back and lend himself a hand.

That is nothing compared to how complicated things get when the characters’ backstories start unraveling and intertwining. In a way, part of this explanatory set-up is not really accurate, but it would be unforgivably spoilery to be scrupulously honest. Frankly, this is a devil of a film to write up, but the Spierigs somehow keep all the interconnected balls in the air. If one domino fell out of place, the film would be a train wreck, but they maintain the complicated narrative machinery with energy and style.

Ethan Hawke also provides an invaluable assist with his unclassifiable turn as the agent. It is rather fitting Predestination is a top Australian contender while Boyhood is considered an Oscar frontrunner, since both deal with time in very different ways. In fact, his two performances could be compared and contrasted for other murkier reasons. Regardless, it is superlative genre work, as is Sarah Snook’s breakout performance as the writer and his earlier self.

There are not a lot of special effects per se in Predestination, but production designer Matthew Putland’s team and costume designer Wendy Cork do a fantastic job recreating and exaggerating the swinging 1960s and gritty, grungy 1970s New York. Clearly, this is a scrappy little film, but it looks great and it lives up to Heinlein’s big mind-blowing ideas. In fact, the Spierigs add a clever wrinkle to make it even twistier. Highly recommended, Predestination opens this Friday (1/9) in New York, which means it will have to wait for the next award season go-round here in the U.S.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on January 8th, 2014 at 9:44pm.

By Joe Bendel. The very thought his ancestors might have been Unionists during the Civil War is almost too much for a rural white slacker like Travis Shelton to process. Yet, he slowly comes to learn family and land holdings (or lack thereof) had as much to do with one’s wartime alignment as geography for 1860s Appalachian citizens. In fact, he becomes preoccupied with a notorious Confederate massacre of Union POWs while getting ensnared in a contemporary feud during the course of David Burris’s The World Made Straight, which opens this Friday in New York.

Shelton’s prospects are limited, so when he stumbles onto a secluded marijuana grove in the backwoods, he foolishly decides to start harvesting it himself. He manages to sell one uprooted shrub to Leonard Shuler, a disgraced former school teacher who now deals dope for Carlton Toomey, the plant’s “rightful” owner. Despite Shuler’s warnings, Shelton pushes his luck, blundering into the bear-trap laid out for him.

To avoid trouble, Toomey spares Shelton’s life, but a cold war soon develops between them. Moving in with Shuler, Shelton becomes something of his student, learning the tragic local Civil War history, as well as the particulars of drug dealing. For a while, Shelton seems to reassert control over his life, but Shuler’s drug addled girlfriend Dena is a destabilizing wildcard, whom he knows will always betray him for a fix.

Despite all the guns and drugs, Straight offers a considerably more nuanced portrayal of the hardscrabble South than you typically see on film. It has a strong sense of the region and the 1970s era, forgiving most of its characters’ sins as products of their depressed economic circumstances and the depressing environment. It is also rather tricky to categorize, consisting of maybe three parts naturalistic drama and one part thriller. Regardless, it never feels exploitative, even when rather disturbing things happen on-screen.

After watching Noah Wylie mug through the Librarians series openers, it is nice to see he still has something like this in him. He is terrific as Shuler, convincingly balancing grit and nebbishness. Frankly, it is also somewhat remarkable how completely English actor Jeremy Irvine disappears into the role of Shelton. Since he is sometimes irresponsibly impulsive and other times passive, Shelton is a tough protag to get one’s arms around, but Irvine always comes across quite genuine, nonetheless. Still, he understandably wilts when confronted with the intense villainous force of Steve Earle’s Toomey. He conveys some frighteningly human dimensions to the hill country kingpin, who could have easily descended into caricature.

In fact, there are a number of cards screenwriter Shane Danielsen’s adaptation of Ron Rash’s novel might easily have overplayed, such as vaguely ghostly influence the historical massacre exerts on Shelton, but he maintains a balanced hand instead. As a result, it is a much better film than most viewers will expect. Recommended for those who appreciate dark Southern morality tales, The World Made Straight opens this Friday (1/9) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 8th, 2014 9:44pm.

By Joe Bendel. In this case, that number does not refer to the number of keys on a piano. It could well be the number of times director-co-screenwriter April Mullen flashes forward or backward along her temporally fractured narrative. The number also seems to hold some significance for the black-out prone heroine of Mullen’s 88, which releases on DVD this week from Millennium Entertainment.

Her name is Gwen or perhaps Flamingo. She has just come into a roadhouse diner in front of a huge plate of food. We soon learn Gwen/Flamingo was on the warpath a short while ago, looking for some payback from the men who killed the love of her life. She knows her gangster employer Cyrus is somehow behind it all, but the exact details are sketchy. However, once she reached the diner, a switch was flipped in her head. She is now completely lost and confused, especially when she discovers the local sheriff’s deputies are highly upset with her. Ty, her apparent accomplice, will try to keep her at-large and on-target, as she waits for the world to start making sense again.

When a complicated time-skipping narrative structure works, it can be mind-spinningly rewarding, as with the Spierig Brothers’ Predestination, opening this week. When it doesn’t, it can be an awful headache. Admittedly, 88 sort of comes together down the stretch, but most of the film feels forced and unnecessarily convoluted. Even though it mostly makes sense at the end, Mullen and co-writer Tim Doiron lose sight of the whole point of a revenge thriller, denying us the vicarious satisfaction of vengeance taken good and hard. Frankly, the implications are rather messagey, making you wonder if Mike Bloomberg underwrote the film.

A simpler approach probably would have borne greater fruit, especially with up-and-coming cult star Katharine Isabelle (American Mary) as the traumatized vigilante. Keep it simple. Point her and Ty towards the bad guys and let them go. Indeed, you can see why Isabelle’s geek fanbase continues to grow. She is quite effective in both her assertive and passive timelines, while looking good in tight, bloodstained wardrobe.

Doiron might have over-complicated the script with Mullen, but he gives the film regular energy boosts as Ty. Likewise, Mullen chews the scenery quite enjoyably in her too brief appearance as Lemmy, the illicit gun dealer. Of course, Christophe Lloyd is no stranger to playing heavies, once again maintaining his standards of bug-eyed, erratic villainy as Cyrus. It is also cool to see Michael Ironside do his thing as the world weary sheriff.

There are a number of cleverly realized scenes in 88, but it labors under the weight of its temporal shifts and ultimately takes itself too seriously. Still, it has enough fan favorites, like Isabelle and Ironside, to justify some time-killing on Netflix, but it is not something you will feel compelled to add to your collection of physical media. For the faithful and the curious, 88 is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Millennium Entertainment.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on January 8th, 2014 at 9:43pm.

By Joe Bendel. Salvo Mancuso is not what you would call talkative, but he is a direct communicator. He is a mafia hitman-driver, because it suits his skill set and social aptitude. Any possible relationship with blind Rita is probably therefore destined to fail, especially since he is out to kill her brother in Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza’s Salvo, which releases on DVD this week from Film Movement.

Times are tough for the Sicilian mob. Mancuso’s boss is not exactly in hiding, but he is definitely hunkering down. Someone also decided it was a good time to try to take out Mancuso and his associate. He was wrong. After coolly dispatching the hit squad, Mancuso heads after the name they give up: Renato. Slightly complicating matters, the treacherous money-handler lives with his blind sister, who helps manage his back-office operation—but only slightly.

Salvo begins with a stone cold action sequence and segues into a virtuoso one-shot spectacle, following Mancuso as he stalks through the Renatos’ home, while Rita slowly realizes she is not alone. In a further twist, the extreme nature of Mancuso’s violent presence apparently gives her uncanny bouts of sightedness. It is inspired filmmaking—sort of like watching Wait Until Dark from the drug ring’s perspective. Grassadonia & Piazza masterful direct the intricate traffic patterns and cinematographer Daniele Ciprì captures it in all its claustrophobic glory.

Unfortunately, neither Mancuso the character nor the co-director-screenwriters really know what to do with Rita once he stashes her in an abandoned factory rather than killing her, as protocol would demand. As a result, the midsection gets rather bogged down, before everyone rouses themselves for a respectable climatic showdown.

As Mancuso, Saleh Bakri broods and glowers like nobody’s business. Even with his minimal dialogue, he commands the picture. (Frankly, Bakri does not look Texan, but the press materials say he is Palestinian, so he must be.) Arguably, Sara Serraiocco has an even trickier part, portraying Rita from moments of unguarded vulnerability through her strange pseudo-empowerment. Nobody really talks much in Salvo, but Mario Pupella’s mob boss clearly relishes delivering all the best lines.

Hailing from Palermo themselves, Grassadonia & Piazza capitalize on the city’s depressed, post-industrial backdrops, using them to mirror the spiritual rot of their characters. It basically does for Sicily what Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah did for Naples, but Salvo is considerably grabbier. While undeniably uneven, it is exactly the sort of film that is well worth catching up with on DVD. Recommended as the first feature from a conspicuously talented filmmaking partnership, Salvo goes on-sale this week.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 8th, 2014 at 9:42pm.

By Joe Bendel. Old European feudalism is about to get a taste of revenge, served up in vintage American Western style. A stranger has come to a remote town high in the Austrian Alps and that means what it always does. Someone will pay for something in Andreas Prochaska’s Dark Valley, which releases on DVD this week from Film Movement.

Greider is an American, but he learned fluent German from his mother. He has come to the inhospitable town with his daguerreotype camera and an equalizer. He would have the locals believe he is an early forerunner of Ansel Adams, there to photograph nature, but they are not buying it. Nonetheless, he finds lodging with the reluctant Luzi and her widowed mother for the winter (which will be long, everyone ominously assures him). The entitled Brenner sons quickly key in on Greider as a target for their bullying. However, he also seems to take an interest in them, asking questions like “if someone were to start killing old Brenner’s sons, how busy would they be?”

Soon, a couple of Brenners turn up dead and Greider is not exactly disavowing responsibility. It turns out Brenner and his sons enforce the old feudal custom granting them wedding night privileges with all brides in the valley. That is why Luzi’s impending nuptials with the earnest but mild-mannered Lukas are more of a source of angst than joy, despite their mutual love for each other. Greider is familiar with the tradition and he has had enough of it.

So evidently you have to go to Austria to get a credible western these days. In fact, Austria selected Valley as its official foreign language Oscar submission, but it did not make the shortlist cut. Prochaska definitely understands the genre conventions, even though he realizes them in an austerely chilly, Teutonic style. Frankly, he executes a darned good shoot-out down the stretch, while capitalizing on the awesome Alpine backdrops (shot with fittingly dark majesty by cinematographer Thomas Kiennast).

Sam Riley hardly looks like a killing machine, but his pale clamminess works well in context, nonetheless. Evidently, the crew referred to him as “Pale Greider” during shooting, in reference to the Eastwood film, which is not wholly inappropriate. Valley has a similar vibe to Eastwood’s later, slightly revisionist westerns. Regardless, the Brenners still need killing and when Greider obliges it is pretty satisfying.

Even though she is stuck with some plodding narration, Paula Beer is relatively forceful and dynamic as Luizi. Let’s be honest, this is not exactly the sort of premise that is conducive to strong female characters, but she does rather well given the circumstances. On the other hand, Tobias Moretti really cuts loose with the moustache-twisting villainy as the elder Brenner Brother, Hans.

Frankly, the Austrian Alps make a nice change of pace from Monument Valley. It is also good to see some life left in the western genre. Anyone who enjoys a rugged revenge tale should appreciate Prochaska’s Strudel Western. Highly recommended, Dark Valley launches on DVD today, from Film Movement.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 8th, 2014 at 9:42pm.