Month: May 2015

By Joe Bendel. Let’s face it, the terrorists are way more unified than we are. When there is an opportunity to strike a blow against the ever-tolerant West, they will put aside doctrinal differences to make it happen. In contrast, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are much more concerned about politics, turf management, and general career CYA-ing. At least that is the timely picture that emerges in James McTeigue’s Survivor, which opens today in New York.

Kate Abbott has only been stationed in London for five months or so, but it is clear the Foreign Service security specialist is really good at her job—too good, in fact. When she discovers Bill Talbot, the head of the visa department, has personally intervened to admit several dubious chemical specialists into the country, he quickly arranges to have her killed in a bombing, along with the rest of the visa section. Naturally fate dictates she will be away from the table at the critical moment. That means the assassin, a veteran terrorist known simply as “the Watchmaker” will have to finish her off personally, spy-versus-spy style.

Of course, suspicion immediately falls on Abbott, with the American ambassador and Inspector Paul Anderson, the Scotland Yard point man, being especially obtuse about it all. Only Sam Parker, the senior political officer, believes in her glaringly obvious innocence. Unfortunately, as the Yanks and the Brits chase Abbott, the Watchmaker and his allies have an open field to finish the last stages of their grand WMD conspiracy.

Having helmed the radical favorite V for Vendetta, it is rather odd to see McTeigue associated with a film that considers the mass murder of innocent civilians a bad thing—one to be avoided if at all possible. The credit is probably due to screenwriter Philip Shelby, who co-wrote the second novel in Robert Ludlum’s Covert One series. There are some flashes of inspiration to be found within, particularly with respects to the disturbing but seemingly unrelated prologue, but the film soon settles into a by-the-numbers “Wrong Man” style thriller. It is also disappointing to see Survivor wimping out in terms of the ultimate villains, who are mere schemers hoping to make a fortune selling short.

However, as Abbott, Milla Jovovich is a surprisingly credible presence. After ten or twelve Resident Evil films, we know she has action chops, but she is also convincing playing a smart, reserved character. A Lindsay Lohan or a Megan Fox just couldn’t carry it off. Strangely though, the film does not fully capitalize on her hardnosed potential, forcing her to be a little damsel-in-distress-y at times.

Of course, Pierce Brosnan is no stranger to international intrigue, but he cruises through Survivor on auto-pilot. It is hard to forget how much better he was as a ruthless assassin opposite Michael Caine in The Fourth Protocol. Still, Robert Forster is reliable as ever humanizing the treasonous Talbot (he has his tragic reasons), but James D’Arcy’s unintuitive Inspector seems to be hinting at every repressed, twittish cliché about British public school civil servants.

To its credit, Shelby’s screenplay acknowledges some important realities, such as the events of September 11^th, which were Abbott’s motivation for her current line of work. Survivor makes a strong case Jovovich has been grossly underemployed by Hollywood, but as a big picture thriller, it is rather routine. Perhaps worth a look streaming or on cable, Survivor opens today (5/29) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: C

Posted on May 29th, 2015 at 9:25pm.

By Joe Bendel. This could be the Korean Rom-Com Sigmund Freud never had the chance to write. It’s all about dreams, suicide, and overbearing mothers. Yet, the vibe is feathery light and strangely sweet throughout Lee Kwang-kuk’s A Matter of Interpretation, which screens at the 2015 Seattle International Film Festival.

With not one single solitary ticket buyer ponying-up for the matinee performance, Choi Yeon-shin pulls a vintage diva move, storming out of the avant-garde play, after giving her fellow cast-members a good piece of her mind. Unable to convince her friends to come meet her, Choi starts pounding the Soju by herself, on a park bench. Detective Seo will start to roust her, but they wind up talking instead.

Not so good with CSI sort of stuff, Seo fancies himself an interpreter of dreams. Choi happened to have a rather baffling one the night before. Remember that crummy white compact car, because it will turn up in other people’s dreams and also in ostensibly real life, often carrying the implements used in the suicide Seo was investigating before meeting Choi.

Structurally, Interpretation is a time-warping, reality-problematizing Borgesian puzzle box of a film, with events in waking life repeating dreams, repeating life, repeating dreams. Lee’s film is a feat of reprise and variation, echoing line after line and incident after incident, but giving each new take its own sly twist. He addresses some dark subject matter (after all, somebody ended it all in the white car), but keeps the mood upbeat and playful.

As clever as Lee’s screenplay is, it is Shin Dong-mi who makes it sing. Even Det. Seo notices how well her Choi curses—with style and attitude rather than cheapness. It is a gutsy sort of part to play—the still attractive but past her professional prime actress struggling with life’s disappointments. She nails it will a dynamite performance that is sexy and sarcastic, yet kind of-sort of down-to-earth.

Yu Jun-sang nicely plays with and off her as the preternaturally unintuitive detective, while Kim Gang-hyeon is believably nebbish as her ex-boyfriend, Shin U-yeon. However, young Kim Dan-yool thoroughly upstages the latter in his brief but memorable scenes as the boy whose street art both Choi and Shin appreciate far more than his tiger mom.

Every scene in Interpretation rings with call-backs and foreshadowings, but it never feels forces or excessively gamesterish. In fact, it goes down quite smoothly, ambling along at its own pace—a healthy trot, really—representing a considerable step up (particularly in terms of tempo) from Lee’s already impressive feature directorial debut, Romance Joe. Highly recommended, A Matter of Interpretation screens this Thursday (5/28), Friday (5/29), and Sunday (5/31), as part of this year’s SIFF.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on May 29th, 2015 at 9:25pm.

By Joe Bendel. One of Johnny D’s greatest accomplishments as a night club promoter will be drumming up business on Tuesday nights. Funny, those of us who went to school in Ohio might just remember Tuesday as a traditional going out night, but evidently Manhattan hipsters needed more convincing. Viewers get a sanitized behind-the-scenes peak into the ins-and-outs of night club promotion, based on the real life experiences of co-star-co-screenwriter Danny “A.” Abeckaser in Fabrizio Conte’s Club Life, which opens today in New York.

Believe it or not, getting beautiful women to your club is a top priority for a veteran operator like Mark Cohen. If you comp enough models, the prospective sugar daddies and horn dogs will follow. It turns out “Johnny D,” as he will soon be known, has a talent for it. He could use the money, too. The independent limo driver’s father has had a massive stroke and the family has no insurance.

Starting with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend and her hot friends and quickly graduating to bored junior models living in agency apartments, Johnny D brings a steady stream of investment banker bait to the club Cohen promotes. However, Johnny D (or is that D Train) grows tired of lining the pockets of the sleazy owner. With Cohen, he launches “Tuesday, Baby, Tuesday,” taking over a club on the dead night by guaranteeing a minimum dollar volume at the bar. Of course, it is only a matter of time before someone as ambitious as Johnny D clashes with someone as territorial as Cohen.

Frankly, Club Life should have been way more hedonistic than it turned out to be. For some reason, Conte is just as interested in Johnny D’s strained relationship with his judgmental mother as he is in the sausage making of the night club business. While it might imply Cohen’s boss is a bit of a shady character, organized crime plays no appreciable role in the film, which will probably strike seasoned New Yorkers as rather Pollyannaish.

Despite the risk of accentuating the negative, a little more gangsterism could have worked wonders for Club Land. After all, the best aspect of the film is the attitude delivered by Abeckaser as Cohen and Robert Davi as his demanding client. Listening to them sneer and jeer is a lot of fun. On the other hand, Tovah Feldshuhh is routinely great on stage, but she is a real wet blanket as the charmless Mother D. Still, Entourage’s Jerry Ferrara makes a believable enough hustler, but the film has him spinning his wheels in too many tractionless scenes.

There is enough New Yorkiness in Club Land to keep it watchable, but it is hard to shake the suspicion Conte, Abeckaser, and company have watered-down the real story, for someone’s benefit. No match for Last Days of Disco or 54 (theatrical or director’s cut) Club Land might eventually be worth a stream when people start getting nostalgic for the late-aughts club scene. It opens today (5/29) in New York, at the AMC Empire (and launches on iTunes).

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on May 29th, 2015 at 9:24pm.

By Joe Bendel. Iran might have an Islamist government, but notwithstanding the revolution, average Iranians have never been generally inclined towards fundamentalist orthodoxy. This disconnect will deeply confuse a young devout Muslim woman in Canadian-Iranian filmmaker Parisa Barani’s short Ablution, which screens during the eighteenth Dances With Films, in Hollywood, California.

Neda Enezari’s mother Afsenah makes no secret she was a “mistake,” whereas the pious twenty-something regards Afsenah’s second marriage as a sin. Neda’s brother Omid reluctantly serves as a buffer between them. He is also much more modern in his thinking, but he respects his sister’s religious devotion. Tensions are already high, with the Iran-Iraq War rudely interrupting everyday life on a regular basis. Resenting her unhappiness, particularly since she represents the Islamic Revolutionary ideal better than nearly everyone around her, Enezari will start to make a series of unfortunate decisions.

It should be clearly noted Ablution portrays the fundamentalist Enezari in profoundly respectful terms. It also finds considerable value in religious observance. However, it is hard to think the ruling theocrats would consider the film to be good for business. Rightly or wrongly, Enezari’s ardent faith is isolating and alienating in practice. The symbolic interludes inspired by Sufism probably would not sit well with the Shia powers-that-be, either. Although not a primary focus of the film, Barani and her co-writer-co-stars Melissa Recalde and Amin El Gamal also give viewers a sense of the intrusive fear and paranoia begot by the state and its feared Basij morality militia.

Recalde plays Enezari with admirable restraint and sensitivity, but it is Amin El Gamal who probably earns the “breakout” honors as the conflicted Omid Enezari. More than just a nice guy (always a tricky role to play) or an audience entry point, he really embodies the heart of the film’s religious and social anxieties.

Barani’s short offers an intimate look inside a middle class Iranian home, challenging some preconceptions and confirming others. Indeed, it is provocative in ways we can only obliquely hint at here. Highly recommended for those who appreciate Iranian cinema and Persian culture, Ablution screens this Saturday (5/30) as part of Competition Shorts: Group 3, at DWF18.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on May 29th, 2015 at 9:24pm.

By Joe Bendel. Juli Toma’s provincial town is desperately depressed, even by Albania’s standards. Of course, she is not really from there. She and her family were interned there during the Communist era and, one way or another, they have been stuck there ever since. The past is like a millstone holding down the present in Iris Elezi & Thomas Logoreci’s Bota, which screens during this year’s Panorama Europe, at the Museum of the Moving Image.

Toma is a waitress at Bota (meaning the world), her cousin Beni’s coffee shop that draws a decent clientele, considering it is literally in the middle of nowhere. That is exactly why the old regime deposited its so-called “state enemies” there. Beni is an operator who has plenty of dodgy dealings with underworld types, but Toma is more-or-less resigned to a futureless future. At least, she will make no plans while caring for Noje, her beloved grandmother, who is increasingly succumbing to the ravages of age.

We soon learn Toma was done wrong by both the Communists and Beni. Her supposed best friend Nora knows it full well, but she keeps quiet hoping Beni, her illicit lover, will leave his unseen wife for her. Eventually, the truth will out, to an extent, but at a great cost for the Bota trio.

Frankly, Bota is so intrinsically bound up in the lingering corrosiveness of the Communist Party and the successive government’s problematic response, Elezi & Logoreci hardly bother to address politics directly. After all, the results are as plain as day. Instead, they focus like a laser-beam on Toma.

Fortunately, lead actress Flonja Kodheli survives and thrives under their potentially withering gaze. With quiet but forceful understatement, she personifies everyday resiliency. Artur Gorishti and Fioralba Kryemadhi are both fine and good as Beni and Nora, but we have seen their like before. However, there is something about how Kodheli’s Toma expresses both naivety and world-weariness that is quite moving.

As inviting and lived-in as the Bota café looks (with considerable credit due to the detailed work of art director Shpetim Baca), Bota the film hardly serves as a tourism commercial for Albania. In a way, it is like the dark flip side of the Central Perk coffee house in Friends. Although there are a few references that will be lost on non-Albanians (for instance, The General of the Dead Army, a celebrated Ismail Kadare novel about an Italian officer commissioned to locate war remains), the larger truths are easy to grasp. Well worth seeing for its discreet tragedy and the power of Kodheli’s work, Bota screens this Sunday (5/31) as part of Panorama Europe, at MoMI in Astoria, Queens.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on May 29th, 2015 at 9:23pm.

By Joe Bendel. Gustave Flaubert was an exacting writer who often spent days perfecting a handful of lines, making him a fitting literary idol for a fussbudget like Martin Joubert. As a result, when an English woman named Gemma Bovery (mind the “g” and the “e”) moves to his Rouen village, he quickly fixates on her similarity with Flaubert’s Emma Bovary. Her curviness does not exactly dampen his interest either. Literary obsession will have comedic and tragic implications in Anne Fontaine’s Gemma Bovery, which opens this Friday in New York.

Joubert was once a miserable editor for a Parisian publishing house, but he has been much happier since he returned to Normandy to take over the family bakery—up until now. It was Charlie Bovery’s idea to move to France. Even though his somewhat younger wife Gemma does not speak French, the antiques restorer thought the charms of provincial life would be a healthier environment for them. However, as Joubert immediately suspects, small town life is rather stifling for the passionate namesake.

As part narrator and part Iago, we watch the story unfold through Joubert’s jealous eyes. He is perfectly positioned for spying, since the Boverys moved in right across the street from the Jouberts. Despite his obvious infatuation, the curt Valérie Joubert is not particularly concerned about anything happening between them, for obvious reasons. However, when Bovery commences an illicit affair with the shiftless son of the wealthy Madame de Bressigny, Joubert’s rash petulance will set in motion an unfortunate but perhaps inevitable series of events.

With her adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel (with co-screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer), Fontaine completely redeems herself for the cringing smarminess of Adore. This is a wickedly droll film that saunters towards its sad end with a strangely carefree but knowing vibe. Frankly, the final ten or fifteen minutes are just about brilliant.

Of course, Fabrice Luchini is perfectly at home with Martin Joubert’s literate humor and angst-ridden yearning. He plays a darkly comic figure, but one that is dashed easy to relate to. Frankly, someone like Film Forum or MoMA ought to program an overdue retrospective of his films. Gemma Arterton alos brings an earthy sensuality to the film as Bovery and earns credit for her diligence learning French. Yet, one of the film’s most notable surprises is Jason Flemyng’s dignified, humanistic portrayal of Charlie Bovery, who is quite the far cry from the put-upon cartographer of the recent chaotic Russian maelstrom that is Forbidden Empire.

Although Fontaine’s film certainly has a smart sensibility, it is never too clever for its own good. Its sly literary parallels, allusions, and foreshadowing emerge organically from a wholly satisfying narrative. There is not one scene that feels forced (but there are plenty of times Joubert will have viewers wincing at his recklessness). Very highly recommended for fans of French cinema and French literature, Gemma Bovery opens this Friday (5/29) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza and Landmark Sunshine theaters.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on May 28th, 2015 at 9:54pm.