Day: May 2, 2015

LFM Reviews Peggy Guggenheim—Art Addict @ Tribeca 2015

By Joe Bendel. Without Peggy Guggenheim, there would be no Jackson Pollock, at least not as the modernist icon as we have come to know him. Dozens of important Twentieth Century artists were supported and nurtured by Guggenheim. She was the preeminent American gallerist before the term came into vogue and amassed a personal collection that would rival the Barnes. Her passionate career is chronicled in Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s Peggy Guggenheim—Art Addict, which had its world premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Amy Madigan played Guggenheim in Ed Harris’s Pollock bio-picture, so you know it had to be an important role. By Gilded Age standards, her branch of the Guggenheims was not so fabulously wealthy, but it would be a gross understatement to call them “comfortable.” Her family life was somewhat problematic, considering her father perished on the Titanic, but his mistress survived. Awkward, right? Supposedly not exactly a great beauty, Guggenheim never looked for high society validation, but she had a keen interest in grubby intellectuals and a true eye for beautiful and/or provocative art.

In addition to Pollock, Guggenheim was an important early collector and exhibitor of artists like Clyfford Still and Robert De Niro, Sr. (and ever so coincidentally, her documentary screened at Tribeca). At one point, she was married to Max Ernst, but their union sounds like a bit of a train wreck. Regardless, she fortuitously collected early works from towering figures of modern art, much like Albert Barnes. Frankly, it would be prohibitively expensive to amass equivalent collections in today’s market.

It is just jaw-dropping to see the collected pieces now ensconced in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, idyllically located in Venice. Originally, it was not affiliated with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on 89th Street, but a joining of forces would launch the Guggenheim as perhaps the first truly multinational museum. Plus, she reportedly took scores of lovers, which Vreeland’s experts allude to, without getting excessively gossipy.

Art Addict is an appropriately classy package that moves along at a brisk pace. J. Ralph’s upbeat soundtrack also keeps the energy up, sometimes evoking the spirit of the Hot Club era. After watching the film, audiences just have to give Guggenheim credit for doing it her way and snagging the best pieces. Not to belabor the point, but Vreeland (granddaughter-in-law and documentarian of Diana Vreeland) clearly understands the social eco-system in which Guggenheim rebelled and thrived. The result is a well-balanced, nicely contextualized portrait. Highly recommended for art lovers, Peggy Guggenheim—Art Addict screens next month at the Nantucket Film Festival (exact dates tk), after premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on May 2nd, 2015 at 11:38am.

LFM Reviews Over Your Dead Body @ The 2015 Stanley Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. If you are playing the part of an unfaithful lover who meets a grisly supernatural end opposite your real life lover, it is bad karma to betray her off-stage, especially if she arranged the gig for you. Unfortunately, Kousuke Hasegawa is exactly that sort of cad. Life will duly imitate art in Takashi Miike’s Over Your Dead Body, which screens during the 2015 Stanley Film Festival.

Hasegawa and Miyuki Goto have the leads in the classical macabre kabuki drama Yotsuya Kaidan, adapted for the screen many times, including as Nobou Nakagawa’s pretty awesome The Ghost Story of Yotsuya. As the cast rehearses, a great deal as meta-ness unfolds backstage. Like his character, the sociopathic ronin Tamiya Iemon, Hasegawa is cheating on Goto (cast as the tragically trusting Iwa) with the younger actress playing her younger on-stage rival, Ume.

Iemon will do cruel and evil things to destroy Iwa to be with Ume. In ostensive real life, Hasegawa is maybe not as proactively duplicitous, but he clearly has no regard for Goto’s feelings. However, there are ominous portents of a malevolent force afoot. Eventually, even Hasegawa starts to pick up on the bad vibes.

Despite the bring-it-on title, OYDB is a remarkably restrained horror film, especially from a master of mayhem like Miike. In truth, it represents a return to the austere elegance displayed in his moody Jidaigeki tragedy Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. That might disappoint the faithful at the Stanley, but it certainly constitutes distinctive filmmaking.

From "Over Your Dead Body."

Indeed, the play within the film would be well worth seeing in its own right. Watching the massive sets created by co-art directors Yuji Hayashida and Eri Sakushima rotating on and off the stage is quite an impressive sight. There is also a really creepy doll used as a surrogate for the play’s infant. Frankly, it is surprisingly easy to get caught up in Iwa and Iemon’s story.

Kô Shibasaki scores a knockout punch as Goto, coming undone like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, but with far greater subtlety. Likewise, well-regarded kabuki actor Ebizô Ichikawa is appropriately reptilian as Hasegawa and Hasegawa in the role of Iemon. There is a cast of dozens on the set within the film. Yet, only Miho Nakanishi gets much screen time of substance, but when her entitled Ume gets caught up in Iwa’s wrath, it is a great scene.

Miike has probably already made ten films since wrapping OYDB, but it would be an awful shame if it was lost in the shuffle. It is one of the most darkly sophisticated life-parallels-art films you will see, easily putting to shame Polanski’s overhyped Venus in Fur and the very odd but well-intentioned 1915. Highly recommended, Over Your Dead Body screens tomorrow (5/2) and Sunday (5/3) as part of this year’s Stanley Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on May 2nd, 2015 11:38am.

LFM Reviews Ladies of the House; Now on VOD

By Joe Bendel. These strippers really enjoy serving their customers—preferably with some melted butter and a side of potatoes. Yes, Damon Knight’s pun is still zingy sixty-five years later. However, these exotic dancers are not aliens. They are as earthy as it gets. Usually, they have to lure men (who really ought to be more suspicious) back to their (charnel) house, but this time dinner will unexpectedly delivery itself in John Stuart Wildman’s Ladies of the House, which releases today on VOD.

A relatively nice guy like Jacob never should have taken his slightly addled brother Kai to a strip club for his birthday, but their obnoxious friend Derek always has to get his way. When the club scene turns sour for them, Derek decides to follow home (i.e. stalk) one of the dancers. That would be Ginger, Lin’s newest housemate. There are rules to living in her house. Dinner rituals are a big deal, but Ginger has not fully acclimated. When the three lads try to invite themselves in she unwisely agrees. After a lot of boozing, the three amigos find themselves in a sticky Very Bad Things situation.

At this point, Ginger’s housemates arrive, locking in the intruders rather than calling five-o. They are pretty much done for, especially if Getty, Lin’s lover with anger management issues, gets a hold of them. Things are going to get ugly for the intruding trio, but at least their experiences will help kids learn proper strip club etiquette.

Known for his Utilitarian concept of filmmaking, John Stuart Wildman also happens to be a film publicist for some of New York’s more prestigious screening events, whom we all know and like quite a bit, so you can now consider yourself fully informed. However, House delivers the kind of grindhouse love any cult film fan can appreciate. Yet, this feels like an intensely personal film, almost like Blue is the Warmest Color, but with more cannibalism.

Shrewdly, Wildman and co-writer Justina Walford follow the EC Comics playbook, meting out gory payback for the appalling displays of loutish behavior. By the time we get to the third act, absolutely no one will want to see Derek the pond scum walk out of the house under his own steam. Indeed, Samrat Chakrabarti clearly enjoys playing that kind of a jerkweed character, which helps make House so subversive.

Still, Gabriel Horn’s Jacob is convincingly contrite enough to keep our loyalties divided between cannibals and the meat for their grinder. Farah White and Melodie Sisk convey a strangely legit sense of long-term couplehood, leaving us intrigued for more back story. Michelle Sinclair also comes across appropriately down-to-earth and slightly naïve as Ginger. Evidently, she has a lot of fans who know her for her work under the name “Belladonna,” but surely nobody here knows what that might be.

Frankly, it has been a while since we’ve had a good lesbian cannibal movie, so House arrives just in the nick of time. Wildman has a knack staging the blood-and-guts business of Lin’s food preparation without making the audience feel gross on a personal level (unlike a nasty piece of gristle like Butcher Boys, for instance). Not afraid of its exploitation elements, Ladies of the House is easily recommended for retro genre fans, now that it is available via iTunes and VOD platforms.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on May 2nd, 2015 at 11:38am.