Month: April 2015

LFM Reviews Monty Python—The Meaning of Live @ Tribeca 2015

By Joe Bendel. The surviving members of Monty Python have little use for solicitors and lawyers, no matter how silly their walks might be. They have good reason, measurable in pounds. After fighting a nuisance suit for years, the Pythons found themselves holding a mountain of legal debt. Not getting any younger, they wanted to pay it all off as quickly and cleanly as possible. For Monty Python that meant returning to live performance. Roger Graef OBE & James Rogan document the preparation and behind-the-scenes camaraderie of their resulting sold-out stadium shows in Monty Python—the Meaning of Live, which screened as part of a Python celebration at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Meaning of Live should not be confused with The Meaning of Life or The Life of Brian (which also screened at Tribeca) and it certainly should not get mixed up with Douglas Adams’ The Meaning of Liff. This is strictly a fan’s eye view of the Pythons at work and in-performance. Fortunately, they are all still pretty funny, so you never know when they are going to unleash some of the old magic.

Yes, this is all about paying tribute and singing along to “Always Look on the Brighter Side of Life.” However, there are some interesting tidbits to be gleaned on the economics of a Monty Python farewell concert. Evidently, it is so costly to rent London’s massive O2 Arena, you really need to play for about a week to get into the black and you will not have the luxury of much tech rehearsing in the actual space. Hence, the Pythons signed on for ten shows. Frankly, they should have just added three or four shows in order to finally finance Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote.

From "Monty Python—The Meaning of Live."

Yes, even though Gilliam was never much of an on-camera guy, he does his part in classic skits as a full-fledged member. One-for-all, after all. Part of the fun of Live is watching the fun the Pythons are having being together again. That is more than a little fannish, but they’ve earned it. However, there are also a few notable cameos, ranging from the heart-warming (Carol Cleveland once again performing with the randy lads) detouring through the lameness (Mike Meyers taking a pointless walk-on) to the truly surreal (Stephen Hawking singing the “Universe Song” through his computer voice-box).

Of course, we also get plenty of bite-sized servings of classic call-backs. The parrot is still dead as a doornail and the lumberjack still likes to dress up in women’s clothing and hang around in bars—and it is all still good stuff. However, perhaps we had better enjoy it while we can. How long will it be before the professional comedy scolds tell us it is inappropriate to laugh at the lumberjack sketch or any of the dozens of other politically incorrect gags in the Python repertoire?

You sort of have to be a fan to appreciate Meaning of Live, but there are plenty out there. More consistent than A Liar’s Autobiography but not nearly as comprehensive and authoritative as Almost the Truth—the Lawyer’s Cut, Live is basically a breezy curtain call, but it will definitely tide fans over until their next absolutely final farewell project. Recommended accordingly, Monty Python—the Meaning of Live screens today (4/28), Saturday (5/2) and Sunday (4/3) at Hot Docs up north, following its international premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 28th, 2015 at 8:37pm.

LFM Reviews (Sex) Appeal @ The 2015 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. This Taiwanese film fully capitalizes on Taitung’s scenic backdrops and its protagonist is often seen listening to headphones. Superficially, it might look a lot like the popular and critical hit The Most Distant Course, but this is a radically different film. For one thing, the young woman in question is not trying to hear a human connection in mysteriously provided audio recordings. Rather, she is trying to blot out the outside world after suing the popular professor who raped her in Wang Wei-ming’s (Sex) Appeal, which screens tonight during the 2015 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

Even though Pai Hui-hua is from Taipei, she is one of the most innocent new arrivals at her Taitung liberal arts college. On the train, she meets cute with Wang Mu-hung, but she is not convinced he is serious enough for her. Like many freshmen, she is in awe of orchestra director Li Jen-fang, so she understandably accepts his potentially problematic lunch invitations. Unfortunately, Li soon forces himself on her in his office. Confused about her feelings for the married professor and ill-equipped to deal with his behavior, Pai lets the situation continue until she finally attempts suicide.

In a massive conflict of interest, the campus victims’ advocate happens to be Li’s wife, criminal law professor Lin An-ni. Instead of representing Pai, she will essentially prosecute the damaged student when she finally presses charges. Frankly, her attorney is also somewhat problematic. Fang An-yu is something like a Taiwanese Gloria Allred, who has been opposing the university in a murky land use litigation that is never coherently established. She only took the case at the insistence of Pai’s counselor, Wang Wen-hui, a former friend with whom she had a falling out years ago.

Aside from Fang and Wang’s overly melodramatic spats, (Sex) is an unusually mature and challenging drama. Granted, there is never any question Li is guilty, but it vividly demonstrates how ordinary human weaknesses can be exploited after the fact. Pai becomes a victim several times over, pushing away Wang Mu-hung (whom viewers become rather attached to), because that is the sort of thing that happens in such situations.

From "(Sex) Appeal."

Those who primarily know Amber Kuo from the Tiny Times franchise will be floored by the power and vulnerability of her performance as Pai. She has some tough scenes with no place to hide, but she forces the audience to watch and feel her torment. Likewise, Vivian Hsu is terrific as Fang, at least when she is not clawing with counselor Wang. Yet, it is TV star Yuan Huang’s Wang Mu-hung who serves as the conscience of the film. His sensitive portrayal makes it impossible to dismiss (Sex) as some sort of anti-male polemic. Indeed, it is about a host of unequal power relationships, starting with teachers and students, but also incorporating the popular versus the unpopular and the well-connected versus the socially marginalized.

(Sex) features some very big names (Kuo and Hsu) working at the top of their games. It is hard to watch at times, but it deftly reflects the manner in which insanity is apt to run unchecked through university campuses. Highly recommended, (Sex) Appeal screens tonight (4/28), as part of this year’s LAAPFF.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 28th, 2015 at 8:37pm.

LFM Reviews Far from Men @ Tribeca 2015

By Joe Bendel. Nobel Prize Laureate Albert Camus is associated with existentialism, but he was really a determined foe of all totalitarian “isms.” He is also closely linked to his Algerian birthplace, with good reason. In addition to his celebrated novels The Plague, The Stranger, and the posthumously published but still quite good The First Man, Camus’s most anthologized short story, “The Guest,” is also set in Algeria. Screen-writer-director David Oelhoffen thoughtfully but not entirely faithfully adapts Camus’s story as Far from Men, which opens this Friday in New York, following its U.S. premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Daru is a former military officer trying to make amends for his mysterious past by serving as a school teacher in a remote village. The meditative life seems to suit him, but it will be rudely interrupted by Balducci, the gendarme. Whether he wants to or not, Daru has been tasked with escorting Balducci’s Algerian prisoner to the nearest French outpost in Tinguit, where he will likely be executed. That night, Daru makes it clear to the man named Mohamed, he is welcome to escape at any time. However, the admitted murder seems perversely intent on facing French justice. He does indeed have his reasons, which constitute some unusually smart writing on Oelhoffen’s part.

Unfortunately, Mohamed’s family did not have the blood money to buy peace after he justifiably killed his cousin. As a result, Daru will find himself in the middle of an intra-family feud, as well as increasingly violent uprising led by many of his former Algerian army colleagues. Fortunately, Daru is a crack shot with a rifle, because he will have to shoot his way out of a lot of trouble.

Essentially, Oelhoffen trades the icy cold irony of the Camus story for the tragic sweep of a revisionist Algerian western. Cinematographer Guillaume Deffontaines fully exploits the craggy terrain’s epic big sky country possibilities. After playing the Gloomy Gus in self-consciously arty films like Jauja and Everybody has a Plan, Viggo Mortensen finally finds the right vehicle for his simmering tough guy intensity. It also further burnishes his polyglot chops, this time showcasing him in French. Reda Ketab’s performance as Mohamed is almost too impassive as Mohamed, but it still sort of works for a pseudo western, in the moody Anthony Mann tradition.

Frankly, Far from Men is exactly the kind of film the pretentious Jauja should have been, but so wasn’t. It critically engages with a lot of hot button issues, including colonialism and tribalism, but never at the expense of its lean and mean narrative. Visually striking and tightly disciplined, Far from Men is recommended for fans of Mortensen and historical drama when it opens this Friday (5/1) in New York at the Cinema Village, following hard on the heels of its well-received screenings at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 27th, 2015 at 1:22pm.

LFM Reviews Lost Child: Sayon’s Journey on PBS

By Joe Bendel. By now, everyone should fully understand the Khmer Rouge killed approximately two million Cambodians (maybe more) in their attempt to create an agrarian socialist utopia. However, there are thousands of forgotten victims of Pol Pot’s reign of terror. They are the child soldiers who were abducted by the Khmer Rouge and forced to commit atrocities (sometimes against their own families). One former child soldier finally returns to Cambodia in search of his long lost family ties. Filmmaker Janet Gardner documents Sayon Soeun’s homecoming in Lost Child: Sayon’s Journey, which airs this Thursday on New York’s Thirteen.

Abducted at the age of six, Soeun arguably got off easier than many child soldiers, both in terms of what he was required to do and the punishments he suffered. Nevertheless, it was all more than sufficiently brutal to cause long term psychological scarring. Again, Soeun was comparatively fortunate to be adopted by an American family. Effectively denied the basic coming of age process in Cambodia, the teenaged Soeun would emotionally mature in tandem with his new two year-old sister.

While Soeun had a spot of trouble in his early adult years, he soon settled down into a stable and productive life as a social worker and family man. Just as the limited genocide trials began to make international news, Soeun gets word he might just have surviving family after all. In fact, it would be quite a large, extended family. Although skeptical, Soeun hastens to investigate, bringing along his sister-in-law, co-producer Sopheap Theam, while his wife remained to care for their newborn.

In many ways, the tone of Lost Child is not unlike various survivor homecoming documentaries, such as Blinky & Me and Here I Learned to Love. Unlike Thet Sambath in Enemies of the People, he is not searching for cathartic confrontation or higher truths. He would simply like to feel a familial connection again.

Despite references to terrible crimes against humanity, Gardner and Theam only focus on good, decent people. Granted, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the memories of Soeun’s prospective family, but that is not so unusual given the extreme circumstances they endured. Viewers can be assured there will be some closure at the end of Lost Son.

Marking the fortieth anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh and the start of the Killing Fields era of mass murder, Lost Child is a timely reminder of the dangers of utopian collectivist movements. While it is intimate in scope, Soeun still speaks frankly about the horrors he witnessed. Indeed, viewers can directly see how macro events devastatingly impact discrete macro lives. Recommended for mainstream documentary watchers, Lost Child: Sayon’s Journey airs on WNET 13 this Thursday night (4/30) and on Boston’s WGBX44 this Saturday (5/2). Check local listings for further dates nationwide.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 27th, 2015 at 1:22pm.

LFM Reviews Democrats @ Tribeca 2015

From "Democrats."

By Joe Bendel. The notion of a country still governed by a Politburo sounds ominously anachronistic, but such is very definitely the case in Zimbabwe. Deliberately following the old Soviet system, Robert Mugabe and his oligarchical socialist ZANU-PF party have maintained a stifling hold on power in the African nation, since 1980. The only hiccup in Mugabe’s dictatorship happened in 2008. Outraged by blatantly rigged elections, the international community forced Mugabe to form a coalition government with his chief opposition, the MDC-T. Even though Mugabe and his party clearly consider this a coalition in name only, they agree to participate in the drafting of a new constitution. Camilla Nielsson documents the fraught negotiations of the rival co-chairs in Democrats, which won the Best Documentary Feature Award at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Paul Mangwana is the ZANU-PF co-chair, who expects to win over the opposition with a smile and a handshake. After all, he has always gotten his way through charm before. Of course, being an influential member of the ruling party hasn’t hurt either. In contrast, Douglas Mwonzora is a human rights lawyer who has already seen the insides of Zimbabwe’s most appalling prisons. In fact, he will find himself back behind bars on trumped up charges during crucial stages of the drafting process.

For obvious reasons, the two appointees begin their co-chairmanships very wary of each other. Nonetheless, familiarity slowly builds camaraderie. Eventually, they start to agree on ostensibly nonpartisan building blocks. Unfortunately for Mangwana, when a misunderstanding angers his ZANU-PF patrons, the respective co-chairs experience a drastic reversal of fortune. For a while, Mangwana was literally afraid for his life. Frankly, he probably still should be.

If you outlined the structure of Democrats, it would look like an inspiring story, in which former adversaries come together to craft an agreement for the national good. However, the film’s last fifteen minutes completely undercut any possible uplift. It is made abundantly clear to both Mangwana and the audience constitutional democracy requires more than just a paper constitution. If the powers that be refuse to accept legal curbs on their powers than where are you? Possibly Zimbabwe.

From "Democrats."

Yes, Democrats gives the audience a bitter pill to swallow, but there is something both chilling and electrifying about Nielsson’s truth telling. Through her direct style of filmmaking, we see Mugabe’s evil nature for what it is, because he never hides it. There are no voiceovers or academic commentators in the film, but Nielsson and editor Jeppe Bødskov shape it into a tight, tense, easily-followed narrative. There is no sitting around waiting for things to happen and the stakes steadily rise throughout.

Somehow Nielsson and cinematographer Henrik Bohn Ipsen were unobtrusive enough to film some bombshell moments. This is definitely political sausage-making, but with life-and-death consequences. Don’t forget, Mugabe’s notorious Fifth Brigade was trained in North Korea. There is very little of that sort of background in Nielsson’s doc, but it would be inconsistent with its conscientiously observational approach. Recommended for viewers concerned with human rights (and the lack thereof on the African continent), Democrats next screens at the 2015 San Francisco International Film Festival, following its award-winning North American premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 27th, 2015 at 1:21pm.

LFM Reviews Angry Sky @ Tribeca 2015

By Joe Bendel. There are good reasons why Nick Piantanida did not factor in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, but it was not due to a lack of guts. Arguably, the amateur skydiver put together history’s first private space program, but he fell short in his attempts to break the world record for highest parachute jump. Needless to say, falling short is a dangerous prospect when jumping from over one hundred thousand feet in the air. Jeff Tremaine chronicles Piantanida’s bid for glory in Angry Sky, which screens during the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Piantanida was a restless non-conformist with a taste for adventure. He had quite the reputation as a basketball player in New Jersey, but he refused to sign a pro contract because he was more or less uncoachable. Thanks to his natural physique and swagger, Piantanida became the first climber to scale Angel Falls, despite his lack of mountaineering experience. He applied the same attitude to his parachuting career, but the results were not so happy.

In the mid-1960s, skydiving was quite the exotic pursuit. Naturally, Piantanida took to it like a fish to water. Before long, he became preoccupied (obsessed might be more accurate) with breaking the record for the highest jump. Technically, the title was held by a Soviet. However, USAF parachute-specialist Joseph Kittinger had successfully completed higher jumps, but intentionally declined to participate in the record-certifying process. Piantanidia meant to break both the official and unofficial records, but he would need to appeal to Space Race fervor to raise the necessary support and sponsorship.

There was a time when Piantanida was quite the national celebrity, but for most viewers who grew up after the Moon landing, his story will be a revelation. Tremaine presents a scrupulously balanced portrait of Piantanida, suggesting he is a figure of classically tragic hubris. Indeed, those who knew him well, including his widow and brothers, remember him as both courageous and irresponsible. Frankly, it is a far more nuanced and cautionary perspective than viewers might expect from Tremaine, one the co-creators and directors of the Jackass franchise. However, his interest in Piantanida makes sense, given his editorial background in extreme sports.

From "Angry Sky."

Tremaine uses some brief recreation sequences, which always risk riling up the documentary police, but in the case of Angry Sky, they are easy to identify as such and help convey the tenor of the era. He also scored extended interviews Piantanida’s wife Janice and Kittinger, who intuitively recognized the daredevil’s Achilles Heel. Without question, Kittinger, an eleven month Hanoi Hilton POW, deserves his own documentary, but it is nice to see aspects of his career acknowledged on-screen here.

There are moments in Angry Sky that will have viewers shaking their heads in disbelief, even though Tremaine maintains a sensitive tone throughout. It is downright strange it has taken so long for Piantanida to get the documentary treatment, since his story so nicely compliments that of test pilots like Chuck Yeager and the Mercury Seven astronauts. Give Tremaine credit for recognizing the void and filling it with a compelling film. Highly recommended for fans of extreme sports and The Right Stuff, Angry Sky screened as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 27th, 2015 at 1:21pm.