Month: March 2015

By Joe Bendel. Captain Harlock was the original libertarian space pirate, inspiring a small but hearty band of followers, such as L. Neil Smith’s Henry Martyn. Harlock and his crew still sail for freedom’s sake exclusively, but he now has an apocalyptic environmental axe to grind. Leiji Matsumoto’s brooding hero of the anime of your youth gets a motion-capture computer-generated reboot in Shinji Aramaki’s Harlock: Space Pirate, which releases today on DVD.

In the far future or long, long ago, humanity is toast. We spread like roaches across the galaxy, until malaise and resource depletion set in. Recognizing the end is nigh, most colonists decided they wanted to return to their spiritual home: the Earth. Of course, the little blue planet could not sustain the billions of prospective home-comers, so the ruling authorities revoked the welcome mat. After the resulting Homecoming War, the Gaia Coalition emerged, declaring the Earth off limits. However, this did not sit well with Captain Harlock and his crew, who take every opportunity to harass Coalition ships.

Clearly, Harlock has been quite successful at this piracy thing, considering how long he has been at it—reportedly a century, give or take. It is his ship’s Dark Matter engine that keeps him so young and elusive. The Arcadia is the product of alien technology developed by the willowy, but sadly nearly extinct Juran beings. The mysterious Mimay might just be the last of her kind. She might also be Harlock’s mistress, but that remains ambiguous.

Ezra, the Coalition’s wheelchair bound fleet commander is so determined to capture Harlock, he sends his younger brother Logan on a mission to infiltrate the Arcadia. If Harlock should happen to kill Logan instead, Ezra is pretty much okay with that too. However, Harlock is onto Logan from the start, but he sees potential in the lad.

Frankly, this film represents some of the best mo-cap animation yet produced. The figures are life-like, but not slavishly so. Indeed, they often defy physics in the grandly cinematic action sequences. As it often the case with sf and fantasy anime, there is a little too much cosmic swirling in the third act, but Aramaki’s otherworldly vistas look very cool. Unfortunately, devotees of the original series will be disappointed the libertarian-resistance-to-oppression themes are largely back-burnered in favor of some over-population gobbledygook. (Can you relate, Jericho fans?)

Still, the Arcadia crew are still an appealingly colorful and dangerous lot, including the head-turning but deadly serious Kei Yuki, as well as the slovenly but resilient First Mate Yatteran. There is some suitably complex intrigue and Harlock diehards might be interested to see what aspects of the series mythology screenwriters Harutoshi Fukui and Kiyoto Takeuchi keep and what they discard. Considering the original far-flung manga and anime reached back to the American old west and 1930s Europe, you can hardly blame them for narrowing the scope somewhat.

Even if you have never seen Captain Harlock in any of his incarnations, he is immediately recognizable as an anime archetype. He is a powerful symbol, having served as an introduction to space opera for many Japanese and American kids. It is good to see him sail again, under any circumstances, but next time around Aramaki (or his successor) should really let the Arcadia crew enjoy their piracy more. As a result, it is exactly the sort of film we go into hoping to rave about, but leave with mixed feelings. Visually impressive on the outside, but a tad cold on the inside, Harlock: Space Pirate will likely divide the pre-existing fan-base when it releases today on DVD.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on March 31st, 2015 at 4:07pm.

WORLD OF TOMORROW : Teaser trailer from don hertzfeldt on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. In Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, generations of human cloning leads to a steep decline in creativity and problem solving skills. Side effects for late generation clones also includes a potential romantic attraction to inanimate objects, like rocks and fuel pumps in Don Hertzfeldt’s latest short film. After winning the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Hertzfeldt’s thought-provoking World of Tomorrow, launches today exclusively on Vimeo VOD.

Emily is playful, good-natured kid. The grown clone of her clone of her clone is not. She is a rather dreary, socially awkward killjoy. What went wrong? Clearly, the deterioration process took its toll. Unfortunately, it seems this has happened on a planetary scale. Humanity is pretty much done for—and it is hard to mourn for such drab and morose lot. Time-travelling Cloned Emily will explain it all to Emily Prime, but the girl is too young and healthy to get most of what she says. Instead, she appreciates the interstellar spectacle of their journey.

World is a smart and ironic excursion into the sort of eon-spanning science fiction H.G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon created and largely still dominate. Strangely enough, it also makes a fitting thematic companion to Hertzfeldt’s special Simpson’s intro, the longest and most conceptual couch gag in the show’s history. It is very funny at times, but it also poses some rather pointed questions about cloning and the nature of what it means to be human.

Despite their simplicity, Hertzfeldt’s figures are rather expressive, particularly the endearing Emily Prime, while his cosmic backgrounds are truly cinematic. Quite substantial as a seventeen minute short, World really combines distinctive animation with challenging science fiction filmmaking. Hopefully, Hertzfeldt will eventually integrate it into a larger feature as he did with It’s Such a Beautiful Day, because there should be considerably more material for him to explore in this apocalyptic cloned far future. Regardless, World of Tomorrow is recommended for all animation and science fiction fans when it releases today exclusively on Vimeo VOD.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on March 31st, 2015 at 4:07pm.

By Joe Bendel. Thanks to Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, art lovers around the world will instantly recognize Maria Altmann’s beloved aunt and her iconic choker necklace. After the annexation of Austria, Bloch-Bauer’s necklace found its way into the possession of Herman Goering’s wife, while her stunning portrait was plundered by Vienna’s Belvedere Gallery. For years, it was the cornerstone of their collection, but Altmann filed a restitution claim as the last surviving Bloch-Bauer heir that ultimately forced Austria to confront its National Socialist past. Altmann’s dramatic early years in Austria and her protracted legal battle are chronicled in Simon Curtis’s The Woman in Gold, which opens this Wednesday in New York.

The Bloch-Bauers were a wealthy, assimilated Jewish Austrian family with a reputation for supporting the arts. This was especially true of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Altmann’s childless aunt. The Bauer sisters had married the Bloch brothers, so the entire family lived together in their elegant Elisabethstrasse home during Adele’s lifetime. Sadly, Adele Bloch-Bauer died tragically prematurely from meningitis in 1925, but she would be spared the horrors that her family would face. She also made quite an impression on young Altmann, which is why her portrait meant more to the niece than its mere one hundred million dollar-plus estimated value.

For years, the Belvedere simply dubbed the painting “The Woman in Gold” to disguise its Jewish provenance, but the world knew it for what it was. Eventually, Austria announced a new restitution process, in hopes of improving its post-Waldheim image, but it was mostly just for show. Altmann and her initially reluctant lawyer Randol Schoenberg (grandson of the composer) make a good faith try to work within the Austrian legal framework, but soon find a more hospitable reception in the U.S. Federal court system. Whether or not Altmann even has standing to sue the Belvedere, an agency of a foreign government, becomes the crux of the litigation dramatized in the film.

Curtis and screenwriter Alexi Kaye Campbell nicely illuminate the various legal technicalities of the case without getting bogged down in excessive detail. Curtis also juggles the 1938 Austrian timeline with the more contemporary legal drama rather adroitly. He was particularly fortunate to find such a convincing younger analog for Dame Helen Mirren in Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany, who grew up listening to her German language speaking parents in their Canadian household.

Of course, Dame Helen dominates the film and she is terrific as usual. She projects Altmann’s regal bearing as well as her no-nonsense pragmatism. While Schoenberg’s character is somewhat underwritten in the first two acts, Ryan Reynolds capitalizes on some crucial humanizing moments down the stretch. He gives some bite to what might otherwise been a relatively milquetoast role.

On the other hand, Katie Holmes really has nothing interesting to do as Schoenberg’s wife, Pam—and never elevates the thankless part either. However, Jonathan Pryce absolutely kills it in his too brief scene as Chief Justice William Rehnquist, portraying the jurist as quite a witty and gracious gentleman, which is rather sporting of the film, considering he ruled against Altmann in his dissent.

With Gold, Curtis does justice to a fascinating story with far reaching political and cultural implications. He helms with a sensitive hand, while maintaining a healthy pace. Frankly, it represents a marked improvement over My Week with Marilyn, which always seemed to focus on the blandest actor in any given scene. That never happens in a Dame Helen film. Still, the documentary The Rape of Europa remains the most authoritative and comprehensive cinematic word on the disputed ownership of Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer and the systematic National Socialist looting of Jewish property in general (catch up with it now, if you haven’t already). Highly recommended (in its own right) for general audiences, Woman in Gold opens nationwide this Wednesday (4/1), including the venerable single-screen Paris Theatre in New York.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on March 31st, 2015 at 3:34pm.

By Joe Bendel. In 1998, people still talked about independent filmmaking as a movement, while keeping a straight face. You could also get away with characters named “Henry Fool” and “Simon Grim” without being dismissed for clumsy pretension. It was therefore the perfect time to release Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool, which remains his biggest hit to date. The dramedic fable hardly seemed to lend itself to a sequel treatment, yet Hartley delivered Fay Grim anyway. The Grim family is now a full-fledged franchise, with Hartley’s third installment, Ned Rifle opening this Wednesday in New York.

If you remember the first Fool, but skipped the second Grim, you are not alone. Apparently, at the end of her eponymous film, Fay Grim was unjustly convicted of terrorism and her son, Ned Rifle as he is now known, went into witness relocation. Needless to say, this fine state of affairs is all the fault of her husband, Rifle’s father, the jerkweed literary poseur and degenerate drunkard Henry Fool. After seven years, Rifle is finally allowed to see his mother. Aging out of witness protection, he will soon leave Rev. Daniel Gardner’s family to set out on his own. His plan is simple. Kill Henry Fool for ruining his mother’s life.

This would seem run somewhat counter to the Christian faith Rifle adopted under Rev. Gardner’s tutelage, but sometimes a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. To find Fool, Rifle will drop in on his uncle, Nobel Prize winning poet Simon Grim. That is how he crosses paths with Susan Weber, a graduate student sort of stalking Grim. However, as Weber attaches herself to Rifle, it becomes clear she has her own mysterious reasons for wanting to track down Fool.

Despite Rifle’s rather problematic mission, Hartley treats his Evangelical faith rather respectfully. It is very clear he and Rev. Gardner are flawed, but we are supposed to consider them basically good people nonetheless. Fool on the other hand, remains an intentionally Mephistolean figure, as well as an annoying blowhard. Again, there is something hugely compelling about Simon Grim’s idiosyncratically humanistic perspective, but Hartley shortchanges him on screen time this go round.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to take one’s eyes off James Urbaniak when he is on screen. He continues to deepen Grim’s cynical but forgiving everyman persona. Martin Donovan is suitably earnest as Rev. Gardner, while Thomas Jay Ryan continues to be wildly obnoxious and somewhat menacing as Fool. Parker Posey makes the most of her limited scenes, playing Fay Grim like a jailhouse Norma Desmond. However, Aiken (who has played Rifle since he was a mere lad of seven years) grows into the neurotic lead role quite nicely. He also develops some appealingly off-kilter chemistry with series newcomer Aubrey Plaza, who manages to be simultaneously awkward and sultry as Weber.

The problem with the misconceived war-on-terror middle film is that the Grim family is now stuck with a lot of clunky mythology. Hartley does his best to minimize it, reaching back to a scandal furtively referenced in the first film for the film’s big shocking reveal. It all works better than you might expect, even though the characters all seem slightly embarrassed by their continuing longevity. After all, Henry Fool was the sort of you want to seal into a climate controlled vault, lest it be contaminated by a stray ironic remark from outside its ecosystem.

Although billed as the final chapter, if there is a fourth film, it has to focus on Urbaniak again and be called Simon Grim. Of course, we have to deal with what we have before us—Ned Rifle, which manages to get into your head thanks to some eccentric but forceful performances and Hartley’s soothing electric soundtrack. Recommended for fans of Hartley and Plaza, Ned Rifle opens this Wednesday (4/1) at the IFC Center, in New York.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on March 31st, 2015 at 3:33pm.

By Joe Bendel. As a former firefighter, Jeon-mo was briefly famous for saving a group of children. Even though he now runs a florist shop, he still likes to think of himself as one of the good guys. However, when his daughter is abducted, her captor’s ominous demands will push him to his breaking point and fundamentally shake his comfortable self-image. Instead of ransom, Jeon-mo is instructed to kidnap another child to exchange for her in Yoo Won-sang’s Guardian, which screens this Tuesday as part of the free Korean Movie Night series at New York’s Asia Society.

Jeon-mo and his wife are generally happy managing their shop and running a singing telegram business on the side. He dotes on his bratty young son and frets over his older sister as she approaches middle school years. Initially, a strange caller claims to have snatched their son, but it turns out the cruel game-player actually has their daughter. After stringing Jeon-mo along on a ransom drop that never happens, the kidnapper final reveals his real demand. Jeon-mo is to take a very specific little boy who will be at an appointed place at a certain time and wait to swap him for his daughter.

Given no choice by the kidnapper, Jeon-mo is forced to take the frightened boy to his home for the night. He was already feeling profoundly guilty, but matters get even more complicated when his son recognizes the boy as one of his classmates. However, Yoo has an even more sinister twist in store for viewers.

Kidnapping thrillers tend be rather murky affairs, but Guardian takes its long dark night of the soul to new levels of blackness. Characters in the film do some truly awful things, but it is difficult to pass judgement, given their circumstances. Perhaps most disturbing is what happens when they try to do the right thing. Still, Yoo does not leave the audience completely bereft of consolation, but he hardly ties the film up a neat sentimental bow.

It is pretty unsettling to watch Jeon-mo fall from a position of domestic tranquility and rectitude to utter desperation and self-loathing, but Kim Su-hyeon makes every step believable and painfully compelling. Likewise, Lee Joon-hyeok is quietly forceful as another player caught up in the game. However, the genuinely terrified-looking performances from Yoo Hae-jeong and No Kang-min as the young respective victims are what will really disturb viewers.

Guardian is a tough film with a decidedly dim view of human nature, but it reflects an uncompromising aesthetic vision from Yoo in his impressive feature directorial debut. He grabs the viewers by the lapels and drags them through the film at breakneck speed. Still, his decision to hint at but never fully explain the kidnapper’s motive is a mistake. After what he puts us through, he owes us some answers. Nevertheless, those who can digest a thriller marinated in bile will be impressed with his chops. Recommended for emotionally strong fans of Korean cinema, Guardian screens (for free) at the New York Asia Society this Tuesday (3/31), co-presented by the Korean Cultural Service.

Posted on March 31st, 2015 at 3:33pm.