Day: April 8, 2015

By Joe Bendel. He created a search engine more ubiquitous than Google, but he wants his employees to call him just plain “Nathan.” Of course, he is prickly, condescending, and ethically challenged, but few people have to deal with him, because he is also reclusive. However, Caleb, a bright-eyed coder, has won the opportunity to pal around with his company’s secretive founder in his remote Bond villain villa somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness. It was not a random drawing. “Nathan” has reason to believe Caleb is the right candidate to apply a history-making Turing Test in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, which opens this Friday in New York.

For Nathan, the challenge of creating an artificial intelligence that can pass the Turing Test is a sufficient reason to create a thinking android like Ava. Any moral reservations are lost on the arrogant and myopic genius. Caleb is a different story, but as soon as he lays eyes on Ava, his enthusiasm increases tremendously.

In seven sessions, Caleb will conduct interviews with Ava to determine if, when, and how her responses deviate from human norms. Granted, it is not a blind Turing Test, but subtleties of meaning that can only be picked up face-to-face are what really interest Nathan and Caleb. Of course, he will be watching through surveillance cameras, except when freak power outages cut the feed (is this Alaska or California?). Ava makes sure that happens regularly during their sessions, so she can warn Caleb not to trust Nathan’s motives or intentions. Thus begins a complicated battle of natural and artificial wits, as she Turing Tests Caleb right back.

Yes, Ex Machina closely follows in the tradition of Bladerunner and Automata, suggesting if the AI apocalypse is coming, humanity probably deserves whatever it gets. Nonetheless, the brainy simplicity of Ava and Caleb’ verbal sparring sessions and the who’s-playing-who drama are intellectually heady and legitimately suspenseful. Despite Ava’s revealing circuitry, it is the notable sort of science fiction film that is far more reliant on ideas than effects.

In his directorial debut, Garland (a frequent Danny Boyle collaborator) has an eye for the slightly surreal, but he keeps the sf speculation grounded in the believable and the foreseeable. Strangely though, Nathan’s mysterious Japanese-speaking house servant Kyoko is a more alluring figure than Alicia Viklander’s Ava, but maybe the Swedish thesp is just more compatible with the Nordic severity of the interiors (shot in the high-end Norwegian hipster Juvet Landscape Hotel).

Oscar Isaac channels the dark sides of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and John McAfee, delighting in his bouts of manic depressive hedonism and megalomaniacal paranoia. It is a great work of on-screen villainy. In contrast, Domhnall Gleason does his usual sad sack shtick as Caleb, but it suits the film’s needs. Viklander is disconcertingly awkward, like a new born colt of an android, but she and Gleason develop strong chemistry in their interview-and-seduction sequences. Likewise, Sonoya Mizuno’s Kyoko is rather creepy and vulnerable in an enigmatic, wtf kind of way.

Thanks to cinematographer Rob Hardy and production designer Mark Digby, Ex Machina always looks great. Every surface seems to gleam, reflecting the appropriately cool and antiseptic ambiance. It is a smart film that raises a number of issues, deliberately leaving several unresolved. Recommended for fans of intelligent, character (and AI) driven science fiction, Ex Machina opens this Friday (4/10) in New York, at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square and the Regal Union Square.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 8th, 2015 at 10:13pm.

By Joe Bendel. If Hsiao-kang is like Tsai Ming’s Antoine Doinel, than this would be his 400 Blows. However, unlike Truffaut’s pseudo-alter-ego, Hsiao-kang is already a completely disillusioned young man before we ever meet him Tsai’s feature debut. He is not alone. Just about everyone is disenchanted and dissatisfied with their lives, yet they continue in a hazy state of languor throughout Tsai’s breakout contemporary classic Rebels of the Neon God, which finally gets a legit theatrical release this Friday in New York.

It is 1992. You can still find phone booths and coin operated video game arcades in Taipei. In fact, boosting change from pay phones is a specialty of low life thieves Ah-tze and Ah-ping. They will unknowingly cross paths with cram school drop-out Hsiao-kang, who starts shadowing the former, after the surly punk intentionally bashes the side mirror of the cab driven by Hsiao-kang’s father.

Frankly, it is not as if the father and son are particularly close. In all honesty, their relationship is so strained, Hsiao-kang’s more indulgent mother becomes convinced her son is the reincarnation of Nezha, the Neon God, who tried to kill his adoptive human father. Needless to say, Hsiao-kang and his father do not see it that way. Nevertheless, when Hsiao-kang recognizes Ah-tze, he obsessively follows the sociopathic youth. Already living a marginalized existence, the petty thief crashes in a dingy flat that constantly floods and seems determined to sabotage his ambiguous romantic relationship with Ah-kuei, a pretty bowling alley attendant. Unfortunately, Hsiao-kang will bring a fresh serving of trouble at an especially inopportune moment for Ah-tze.

Appropriately filled with neon lights and rain-glistening streets, Rebels has a deeply urban sensibility. Ironically, Ah-tze never recognizes the nebbish Hsiao-kang, despite their frequently close proximity. Instead, it is Ah-tze who recognizes oblivious Hsiao-kang’s father when he forced to hail his cab under hectic circumstances, late in the third act.

Throughout Rebels, one can see Tsai’s kinship to fellow countryman filmmaker, Hou Hsiao-hsien. While Tsai’s cinema would get slower, certain hallmarks remain, including his touchstone character. As much an anti-hero as an everyman, Hsiao-kang would resurface in many subsequent Tsai films, including Vive L’Amour and What Time is it There?, which invites open comparison to the Doinel films with its frequent 400 Blows references and a genuinely touching rather than gimmicky cameo appearance from the distinguished Jean-Pierre Léaud, himself.

Rebels also represents the continuation of a beautiful working relationship between Tsai and actor Lee Kang-sheng, following his work in a short film the director made for Taiwanese television. In addition to his numerous turns as Hsiao-kang, he also appears as the monk in Tsai’s Walker experimental films, and directed his director in the best segment of the anthology film Taipei 24H. As Hsiao-kang, his signature role, Lee is weirdly disconcerting. He is shy in a passive aggressive manner. He is a put-upon sad sack, yet Lee always hints at something dark and dangerous buried deep within his psyche.

Despite her impossibly short Daisy Dukes, the emotional nuance and vulnerability of Wang Yu-wen’s performance as Ah-kuei is quite remarkable. While Tsai uses her as a symbol of neediness (decked out in striking red), Wang gives her soul and substance. Likewise, veteran martial arts character actor Tien Miao elevates Hsiao-kang’s father well above and beyond mere Freudian caricature, which also helps set up What Time is it There?, in which Hsiao-kang struggles to come to terms with his recent death.

Someone like Criterion really ought to collect all the Hsiao-kang films into a boxed set, as a means of calling them out. They represent some of Tsai and Lee’s most accessible and resonant work. Obviously, Rebels is a perfect film to start on. Combining street level grit with a dreamy nocturnal vibe, it is fully formed cinematic statement on youth angst and alienation. Highly recommended, Rebels of the Neon God opens this Friday (4/10) at the Quad Cinema downtown and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center uptown, and also screens during the upcoming Tsai Ming-liang retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 8th, 2015 at 10:12pm.

By Joe Bendel. Katherine is the doctor in her family and her husband Richard is the nurse. This is a fact she never lets him forget, especially when they disagree over the treatment of their congenitally ill son, Andy. It would seem Andy’s relentlessly domineering mother has lost sight of the forest for the trees in her zeal to care for Andy’s ailments, but their new pre-teen neighbor soon suspects Dr. K has a more sinister agenda in John McNaughton’s The Harvest, which opens midnight-ish this Friday in New York, at the IFC Center.

Recently orphaned, Maryann was forced to move in with her grandparents, who quietly reside in an exurban Upstate New York farm house. There are not a lot of neighbors around, so when she sees wheelchair-bound Andy through his window, she feels compelled to introduce herself, in reverse Romeo and Juliet style. Poor Andy is completely unaccustomed to talking with kids his age. Nonetheless, Maryann senses a kindred underdog spirit. While Andy’s father is willing to turn a blind eye to their friendship, his excessively controlling mother simply will not have it.

Frankly, at least half the film is devoted to the youngsters budding friendship and Maryann’s industrious efforts to circumvent Dr. Feelbad’s roadblocks. When Andy’s mother really starts playing hardball, it starts to ignite Maryann’s suspicions. After a little internet searching and a bit of snooping around the house, she becomes convinced Andy is in profoundly grave danger.

That patience is what really distinguishes the film. In all honesty, viewers should form a pretty accurate hypothesis simply from the film’s title and the general lack of agriculture depicted therein. However, the earnest and innocent chemistry of the two leads, Natasha Calis and Charlie Tahan, along with Samantha Morton’s absolutely ferocious turn as the monstrous mom are quite impressive. As usual, Michael Shannon is dependably understated as Andy’s conflicted father, instilling the film with further ambiguity. It is also rather mind-blowing to see Peter Fonda turn up as Maryann’s kindly grandfather, but he plays the part with suitably earthy dignity.

Maybe it is a little far-fetched to believe Dr. Katherine could take matters as far as she does in Harvest, but Calis and Tahan are completely believable together. Since we buy into them, we also get caught up in their peril. It might seem like an unlikely vehicle for McNaughton’s return to big screen horror, but he shrewdly de-emphasizes the genre aspects, in favor of the character and relationship development. Arguably, it is one of the more consistently watchable and strangely human films in a body of work that includes Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Wild Things, each of which is quite notorious in it is own way. Recommended for fans of horror and dark thriller films with mommy issues, The Harvest screens late nights this weekend (4/10 and 4/11) at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 8th, 2015 at 10:11pm.

By Joe Bendel. Their parents ought to be thrilled when five teenage girls swear off Facebook and social networking, but they react with the same suspicion and paranoia that sweeps through their Hudson Valley hamlet. For reasons only they understand, the girls refuse to explain themselves, leaving a void to be filled by the worst high school and the digital era have to offer. The Salem witch hysteria is revisited through the contemporary lens of cyber-stalking and conventional school bullying in Caryn Waechter’s The Sisterhood of Night, which opens this Friday in New York.

In retrospect, the pentagram-like insignia of the so-called Sisterhood of the Night was probably a mistake. It just makes it too easy for those so inclined to suggest they are some kind of satanic cult. Emily Parris will be their first accuser. She always yearned for social acceptance and envied Mary Warren’s outsider coolness. Unfortunately, when Warren starts recruiting members for her secret society, she decidedly passes over the desperate Parris. Instead, she picks unlikely candidates like Catherine Huang and Lavinia Hall.

Although the Sisterhood guards its secrets from the audience nearly as long as it does from the easily manipulated citizens of Kingston, New York, it seems obvious right from the start they are merely engaged in some ritualized forms of female bonding. Yet again, their midnight initiation ceremonies in the woods are ripe for willful misinterpretation. Hence, when Warren catches Parris enviously spying on them, the shunned teen starts making wild accusations online. Her blog quickly picks up followers, as she becomes a media sensation. Unfortunately, the story soon snowballs out of control, especially when other students start escalating the situation for their own amusement. Although their painfully slow-on-the-uptake counselor Gordy Gambhir tries to get them to explain themselves, the Sisterhood clings to their silence.

Granted, Sisterhood is far from perfect. Waechter’s execution has its share of tonal issues, including a bizarrely upbeat ending that seems more appropriate for an Up with People production. The periodic if-I-had-only-known narration from Gambhir and Lavinia’s mother Rose is often beyond heavy-handed. Yet, somehow none of that fatally detracts from the totality of the film. For the most part, screenwriter Marilyn Fu’s adaptation of Steven Millhauser’s short story is mysteriously allegorical, while evoking a sense it is based on very real incidents. It captures the madness of the media feeding frenzy, which has only been intensified by the internet, as well as timeless crumminess of peer pressure and teen alienation.

The young ensemble is also quite remarkable, starting with Narnia’s Georgie Henley, who is both fiercely intimidating and nakedly vulnerable as Warren. Yet, Willa Cuthrell is even more poignant, depicting Huang’s desperately confused responses to her family crisis. It is downright painful watching Kara Hayward’s Parris trying too hard, but in a way that is all too believable. Unfortunately, former Obama administration stone-waller Kal Penn is embarrassingly awkward as Gambhir, the wannabe cool hipster. Can’t we just send him back to White Castle?

Despite its zeitgeisty elements, Sisterhood taps into some deep archetypes. There is something powerfully unsettling about its vision of human natures, regardless of its closing musical flag-waving number. Recommended warts-and-all as a cautionary fable, The Sisterhood of Night opens this Friday (4/10) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 8th, 2015 at 10:11pm.

By Joe Bendel. The shooshing of wind turbines should be felt more than heard, but that is not the case with a rusty hulk rattling away outside the provincial Czech town of Crimeleva. It never worked properly, but the German power company has finally dispatched an engineer to fix it. Since Julius Schmitke practically invented the model, he ought to be able to fix it. However, it might not be a purely mechanical problem that plagues the turbine in Stepan Altrichter’s Schmitke, which screens as part of Kino! 2015, the festival of German Films in New York City.

Schmitke is temporarily on the outs with his boss and overdue for a midlife crisis, so he might as well be the one assigned to fixing the temperamental turbine. A quick break from the New Agey daughter recently returned from a commune will not kill him, either. Unfortunately, he will have to take his incompetent hipster colleague Thomas Gruber along for the ride, but the world weary Schmitke can put up with a lot.

However, the turbine turns out to be a trickier case than Schmitke assumed. Strangely enough, fans in heating and ventilation units all over Crimeleva have a tendency to break down. A rationalist like Schmitke is not inclined to blame the legendary Marzebilla spirit that supposedly inhabits the woods. Nevertheless, Schmitke finds himself slowly sinking into some kind of rabbit hole when the useless Gruber inexplicably vanishes.

Schmitke is a devilishly hard film to classify, because it starts out as sort of a quiet observational film about the modest challenges faced by a mildly quirky late middle-aged fuddy-duddy in the tradition of Alexander Payne, but deliberately evolves into an ambiguously eerie David Lynch film. For the most part, Altrichter sticks to Twin Peaks territory, but he sort of loses the handle on the excessively Lynchian conclusion.

Just like nearly every film, Schmitke slightly overstays its welcome, but it is still worth getting lost in its clever and mysterious mid-section. Veteran German thesp Peter Kurth perfectly anchors the film as the rigidly rational Schmitke, who can hardly believe the weirdness unfolding around him. He nicely counterbalances the restrained lunacy of the assorted villagers, especially the mystical geologist Kryspin, played with manic relish by Peter Vrsek. Helena Dvoráková also makes quite the impression on Schmitke and on-screen as Julie Řeřichová, the sophisticated resort owner, whose last name is an unpronounceable Czech in-joke.

For long stretches, it is unclear just what sort of film Schmitke is and how weird it might ultimately get. In this case, that is rather cool. It is even odder for local German and Czech audiences, who might find the rustic Czech villagers reportedly speaking flawless German another strong indicator something is off here. In fact, there are many subtle call backs and hat tips that Altrichter chooses not to belabor. It is a very EU film, shot in German, by a Czech filmmaker, but there is no mistaking the Teutonic reserve of the title character. Strange but intriguingly low key, Schmitke is well worth experiencing when it screens this Sunday (4/12) and Wednesday (4/15) at the Cinema Village, as part of the 2015 edition of Kino! in New York.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 8th, 2015 at 10:10pm.

By Joe Bendel. On the one hand, you have the Sondereinsatzkommando (the SEK), the German version of SWAT. On the other, you have neighborhood punks, who are barely organized enough to be considered a gang. Yet, they are both as tribal as they can be. They have socialized together in a drunken brawling kind of way, but serious hostilities will flare when an outsider plants the wrong gun on the wrong innocent suspect in Philipp Leinemann’s The Kings Surrender, which screens as part of Kino! 2015, the festival of German Films in New York City.

The SEK of an unnamed but clearly economically depressed German city are going through a rough patch. When raiding a drug dealer’s flat, an officer is badly shot. One of the presumed shooters gets away. This is particularly bad news for the SEK, because the local politicians are considering doing away with one of the squads, because the city is so obviously safe and secure. Bad press like this does not help. Nor does it lead to clear-headed decision-making by Kevin, the hot-headed squad leader.

Meanwhile, in a storyline soon to intersect with the SEK officers, charismatic Thorsten leads a group of local toughs that is nearly as much a social thing as it is a criminal enterprise. Let’s just say, they do a lot of drinking. For some reason, Nassim the son of an immigrant grocer idolizes Thorsten, despite being at least a full generation younger than his idol. To curry favor, Nassim arranges a job for Thorsten’s best bud Ioannis at his father’s store. Unfortunately, in a fit of juvenile jealousy, Nassim plants a gun he found in Ioannis’s locker and drops a dime with the cops. Yes, that would be the gun from before. Soon, both groups are caught up in a wave of vengeance-taking, while a few skeptical beat officers try to protect Ioannis from their more prominent colleagues.

Casting for Surrender probably included a mandatory swagger test. Yet, even with all the testosterone in the mix, the film’s vibe is more reminiscent of the moody thrillers of the 1970s that often featured morally ambiguous antiheroes and a preoccupation with institutional corruption. There is a lot of rottenness in Surrender, but there is no denying the gritty atmosphere and the power of the ensemble performances, particularly Ronald Zehrfeld as the unraveling Kevin and Samia Muriel Chancrin, as one of the few women characters of note—Nadine, the street cop who refuses to be intimidated by the SEK’s posturing.

Perhaps what most distinguishes Surrender is the way it depicts the full spectrum of police corruption, from just a smidge to absolute crookedness, representing just about every point in between. You could assign each character a unique number value for their individual level of moral compromise. Unfortunately, Leinemann gives audience far more of Nassim’s adolescent angst than we really need, but otherwise it is quite a compelling, far reaching copper morality play. Recommended for fans of Sidney Lumet’s New York movies, The Kings Surrender screens this Friday (4/10) and Monday (4/13) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s Kino! in New York.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 8th, 2015 at 10:09pm.