Month: August 2015

By Joe Bendel. They still wear turtlenecks in the future. In fact, the retro-1960s fashion and décor are rather reassuring. The passengers on this exploratory vessel will take their comforts where they may. They do not know where they have come from or where they are going, but at least the canteen is fully stocked in Philippe Fernandez’s boldly philosophical Cosmodrama, which screens today during the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal.

The travelers aboard this generational spaceship have just been awakened from their cryogenic slumber to find they are all suffering from amnesia. They have no idea what they are supposed to be doing, but more or less find their assigned roles through instinct. By far, the Astronomer is the most productive among them. He quickly traces their trajectory and analyzes their apparent destination. To find out where exactly they are headed, he will determine where they have come from, but in this case, he means the point at which life in our universe originated eons ago.

As the Astronomer announces his findings, the Reporter sends them back through space in his dispatches. Everyone seems to acknowledge his research into the very nature of existence should be the focus of their mission, even though the Psysiologist and the Semiologist have had great success teaching a primate to communicate with flashcards. Except for the increasingly erratic Psychologist, everyone settles into their routines fairly smoothly, even when forced to cohabitate with doppelgangers created by time-shifts.

It might take years for Cosmodrama to reach the audience it deserves, but eventually it should be hailed as a classic. Fernandez takes all the familiar science fiction tropes and turns them into a unabashedly cerebral philosophical inquiry. Think of it as the Star Trek episode Umberto Eco and Carl Sagan never collaborated on. It looks just as trippy-groovy as the mildly disappointing Space Station ’76, but it pitches its material at an infinitely higher level. You really need to see it a few times to absorb all the conjecture, but even if it is all gobbledygook, it sounds absolutely convincing.

Yet, there are also very strange psychological dramas percolating below the surface. Despite the lack of conventional genre conflicts, there are real stakes involved, as well as some seriously chewy dialogue. Jackie Berroyer is terrific as the Astronomer (and his double), completely selling some heady speculation. Bernard Blancan also makes a compelling everyman as the Reporter, while Sascha Ley further piles on the braininess as the Biologist. If anyone overplays their hand, it is Emmanuel Moynot doing the Full Monty as the Psychologist.

This is genuinely virtuoso filmmaking in the fullest sense. Eventually, Cosmodrama will be a Criterion Collection title and a mainstay on critics’ lists. It is like all the really inspired scientific bits from the last twenty years of SF film and television seamlessly assembled into a mastercut. Very highly recommended, Cosmodrama is a must-see film when it screens tonight (8/3) and tomorrow (8/4), as part of this year’s Fantasia.

LFM GRADE: A+

Posted on August 3rd, 2015 at 5:42pm.

By Joe Bendel. Provincial West Yorkshire is a tough area to find work, but it ought to be the perfect spot to lay low. Unfortunately, it is not far enough off the grid for one Pakistani woman and her Scots boyfriend. When discovered by her family and its hired thugs, they have no other options except desperate flight in Daniel & Matthew Wolfe’s Catch Me Daddy, which opens this Friday in metro Los Angeles.

Maybe Aaron is not the world’s greatest catch, but you cannot question his willingness to commit. By continuing his relationship with Laila, he is knowingly risking his life. As the film opens, he is far stricter when it comes to security than the somewhat in-denial Laila. Of course, his concerns will be vindicated when her brother Zaheer catches her flat-footed in their trailer. She barely escapes in the subsequent struggle, rendezvousing with Aaron in town. Her father’s associates and a pair of Anglo strong arm men follow hot on their heels, looking for any weakness they might exploit.

Rational parents simply endure it as best they can when their daughters get involved with disappointing boyfriends, whereas Muslim fundamentalists, like Laila’s restauranteur father, plot to murder their daughters and their forbidden significant others. These are called “honor crimes,” but there is nothing honorable about them. Although systemically under-reported, the number of recently recorded honor crimes committed in the UK is significant enough for even the BBC to take notice. Not surprisingly, Catch touched a bit of a nerve with British audiences, even though the Wolfe Brothers scrub the film of any references to Islam, leaving viewers with the impression this must be some sort of dark manifestation of Punjabi culture.

On the other hand, the warts-and-all depictions of Laila and Aaron are shrewdly effective. Hardly idealized martyrs for pluralistic tolerance, they are realistically messy and flawed, which is precisely why they do not deserve what lies in store for them. Sameena Jabeen Ahmed’s lead performance is quite remarkable. At times she is almost childlike, yet she must deal with some absolutely horrific realities. As her less showy partner, Connor McCarron does yeoman work, keeping their relationship and the film completely grounded. Gary Lewis also adds some potent vinegar to the film, keeping the audience off balance with his portrayal of Tony the cocaine addicted ruffian, who passes for the voice of reason amongst Laila’s pursuers.

Catch is a strange film, in that it wants to spotlight the prevalence of honor crimes, but it does not want to address why they happen. Yet, it is hard to completely sweep the 800 pound gorilla under the rug. Indeed, the implications of Laila’s situation speak for themselves, thanks to some extraordinary performances.

It is all wrapped up in a grittily striking package, thanks in large measure to Robbie Ryan, who has already amassed a filmography that suggests he will be one of the few cinematographers whose work will become the stuff of future retrospectives. Catch just might be his best film to date (or at least the equal of Wuthering Heights). He vividly captures the desolation of the Yorkshire moors evoking a sense of moodier, revisionist westerns. It is an aesthetically severe film, but it has considerable merit and great urgency. Highly recommended overall, Catch Me Daddy opens this Friday (8/7) in LA (Beverly Hills) at the Laemmle Music Box and it screens this Saturday (8/8) in Williamsburg at Videology. Also note, a VOD release is scheduled for 9/1 from Oscilloscope Laboratories.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on August 3rd, 2015 at 5:42pm.

By Joe Bendel. This college coed’s pathological aversion to men is not the product of freshmen indoctrination programs (although that probably did not help matters). She is quite literally insane, but do not judge her too harshly. Maniacal killing runs in her family. Montreal’s loutish frat boys are in for the slice & dice treatment in Nathan Oliver’s satirical Lady Psycho Killer, which screens today during the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in that very same Montreal.

Ella is suspiciously naïve and socially stunted. It is not just because she was home-schooled by her clingy mother. There is something off about her that her “edgy” psych professor will inadvertently turn loose. The only assignment of Prof. Douglas’s introductory class is to do something outside your normal bounds of behavior and write a paper about it. Ella decides to go to a strip club. Good choice.

Of course, when the manager inevitably starts sleazing on her, Ella ends up offing the creep. There is a lot of blood, but she likes it. Soon, she starts prosecuting her private war on the sexes, one sexually overbearing scumbag at a time, or in some cases, two at a time. However, she is not sure what to do with Daniel, the lacrosse-playing frat boy. He seems to genuinely like her—and he might be even shier than her. Eventually, her mother realizes what Ella is up to, but she understands. Her long absent father was the exact same way.

Somehow Oliver and co-screenwriter Albert I Melamed pull off quite a nifty trick in LPK. They have written a film all about gender politics that touches on just about every hot button social issue you can think of, yet it never comes across as didactic or hackneyed. The gory humor undoubtedly helps a lot. The crazy casting is also sure to please genre fans. If you have Michael Madsen, Malcolm McDowell, Daniel Baldwin, and Ron Jeremy on your Rotisserie B-movie team, than LPK will score you a lot of points, including a bonus for McDowell serving as executive producer.

The idea of Michael Madsen as an aging hipster freshman psych professor should unnerve any parent. Even though he tries to play it straight, it is hard not to laugh during his scenes. Be that as it may, nobody can top Kate Daly’s big screen debut as Ella. She is over-the-top nuts, but still projects a sense of pathos, while also nailing some wickedly droll narration. It is sort of like Reese Witherspoon’s arrival in Legally Blonde, but with buckets of blood.

To its credit, the humor in LPK is consistent funny and it flows organically from the dramatic situations, reflecting a fan’s appreciation of the slasher genre. Despite its themes and motifs, it never feels like a Ms. Magazine article grafted onto a psycho killer story. It gets everything right that a film like Girls Against Boys gets wrong. In fact, it is quite a bit of fun in a grisly, blood-splattered kind of way. Recommended for fans of sardonic horror films, Lady Psycho Killer premieres this evening (8/2), after services, at this year’s Fantasia.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on August 2nd, 2015 at 6:39pm.

By Joe Bendel. Evidently, humanity is a lot like Microsoft Windows. Future editions might have new features that sound really cool, but they are far less stable. In the 1990s, two very different secret experiments attempted to hasten the next stage of human evolution. Both endowed their test subjects with super-powers, but left them with drastically shortened life expectancies. One group faithfully serves as the project leader’s clandestine task force, while the other went underground, but they will face their destiny together in Takahisa Zeze’s Strayer’s Chronicle, which screens today during the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal.

Based on Takayoshi Honda’s novel, Strayer will be inevitably compared to the X-Men no matter how strenuously it objects. The similarities are obvious, but there is a dramatic difference in tone. While the Marvel franchise uses mutants as a metaphor for intolerance, often lurching into ham-fisted didacticism, Strayer is more concerned with its heightened sense of mortality. These super-heroes will all die soon, but straight-laced Subaru’s government-aligned team appears to be doing better than Manabu’s outlaw Ageha group.

Subaru has loyally served Koichiro Watase, the scientist responsible for his condition, but he is concerned about the recent “burn-out” of a team member. Their next assignment will be protecting a prominent molecular scientist and ethicist, whose insight into their condition attracts the attention of Ageha as well. Naturally, they mix it up during their initial encounters, but their attitudes towards each other soften as both factions get a fuller sense of the big picture. In fact, Manabu will send one of his members to Subaru’s group, because they will be better able to protect her. Having determined Aoi is able to reproduce, unlike her sterile comrades, she might actually have a future to protect.

Even if Strayer “borrows” some concepts here and there, it develops plenty of cool twists of its own, like Subaru’s power to see a few seconds into the future, which means he always knows where and when to move in a fight. On the other hand, the power stealing abilities of Shizuka (played by Sara Takatsuki, who does not get enough screen time) closely resemble those of Rogue. The multi-leveled government conspiracy also has no shortage of forerunners, but it takes on eerie apocalyptic and existential dimensions in Strayer.

Perhaps Zeze and co-screenwriter Kohei Kiyasu do not reinvent the mutant wheel, but they stage some wildly cinematic action scenes. What really distinguishes Strayer from the rest of the super hero pack are the very real stakes involved. Far from invulnerable, any character could go at any time, as if they are on Game of Thrones. After all, they are literally dying before our eyes. Featuring some vividly realized special effects and a popular youthful cast, Strayer is an impressively ambitious foray into superhero movie making by Zeze, the former indie auteur. Recommended for fans of near future science fiction and conspiratorial thrillers, Strayer’s Chronicle screens tonight (8/2), as part of this year’s Fantasia.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on August 2nd, 2015 at 6:39pm.