Author: Joe Bendel

LFM Reviews The 2011 Oscar Nominated Animation Shorts

By Joe Bendel. It is quite the literate field for this year’s Oscar nominated short films. Two are based on acclaimed children’s books and one was inspired by the creator’s travel journal. All three are accomplished films, worthy of the ultimate prize. All five 2011 nominees along with two other shortlisted films screen as part of the program of Academy Award nominated shorts, which opened this past Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

If King’s Speech sweeps this year’s Oscars, perhaps it will pull along Jakob Schuh and Max Lang’s The Gruffalo along with it. After all, it features the voice talents of Helena Bonham Carter as a mother squirrel, who tells her children the tale of a rather resourceful mouse. The rodent-protagonist scares off various forest predators with tales of his supposed friend, the dread Gruffalo. Much to the mouse’s surprise, the Gruffalo really exists, looking pretty much as he described, but with the voice of Robbie Coltrane. While older viewers will probably have a good idea where Gruffalo is heading right from the start, it is a charming film with some rather clever bits of business, wholly appropriate for all ages.

While Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann’s The Lost Thing is also based on a children’s book (written and illustrated by Tan), it is told from the reflective perspective of a man of somewhat mature age wistfully looking back at a mysterious event from his childhood. Discovering some sort of alien or fantastical creature at the beach (apparently a mollusk in an armored tea kettle), the narrator tries to figure out what to do with this new friend the adult world tries its best to ignore. A strange but gentle fable, Thing is visually arresting and surprisingly meditative. It is easily the most substantive of the animated nominees.

Stylistically, Bastien Dubois’s Madagascar, carnet de voyage is by far the animated line-up’s most distinctive work. Employing watercolor and sketches of varying degrees of sketchiness, Dubois vividly brings his travel journal-scrap-book to life, animating episodes from his year-long sojourn through Madagascar. In terms of story, it is a wee bit thin. Indeed, it could easily serve as a promotional film for Madagascar’s tourism bureau, but its graceful élan and spirited vibe distinguishes Carnet apart from the competition.

The only real clunker amongst the nominated field is probably the leading contender, Geefwee Boedoe’s one-note didactic anti-capitalist polemic Let’s Pollute. This year’s Pixar slot was filled by Teddy Newton’s Day & Night, which is as safe and pleasant as one might expect. Rounding out the animation program are two shortlisted titles that did not make the final cut. Bill Plympton’s The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger was probably selected simply on the basis of the filmmaker’s reputation. By contrast, Moritz Mayerhofer’s archetypal Urs is a striking work that might have benefited from a bit more narrative muscle.

This is a stronger year than usual for Oscar nominated short form animation, with at least three very strong films still in contention. Indeed, the combination of Gruffalo, Thing, and Carnet (and to a lesser extent Urs) makes the animated program well worth seeing in New York currently at the IFC Center.

Posted on February 14th, 2011 at 10:42am.

LFM Reviews The 2011 Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts

By Joe Bendel. Between war, terrorism, and environmental degradation, this year’s Oscar nominated short documentaries have a nightmare scenario for just about everyone. However, the better nominees also find hope where they can. For the first year ever, the Academy Award nominated short film road show will also include documentaries, split into two program blocks, both of which open today in New York and Los Angeles.

Jed Rothstein’s Killing in the Name was born in tragedy. Co-produced by Carie Lemack, whose mother was murdered at the World Trade Center, Name profiles Ashraf Al-Khaled, her fellow terrorism survivor and co-founder of Global Survivors Network. Al-Khaled will tell you that Islam is the religion of peace, and he has earned the right to say it. On his wedding day, a suicide bomber targeted the Jordanian hotel hosting his reception, killing his father and in-laws. Since then, Al-Khaled has become an outspoken critic of Islamist terrorism, challenging other Muslims to speak out more forcefully. As he reminds them, it is their co-religionists who are most likely to be the victims of their attacks.

While outwardly unassuming, Al-Khaled will boldly confront anyone in his quest to de-radicalize Islam, even “Zaid,” an Al Qaeda recruiter. Not surprisingly, Zaid proves to be a craven coward, refusing to meet Al-Khaled, instead consenting only to answer his questions through Rothstein. Yet, it is not just Al-Qaeda that glorifies wanton killing. The attitudes of children at an Indonesian madrassa are downright chilling. Frankly, Al-Khaled sounds like he is kidding himself when he speaks of planting seeds of doubt in them, but again, he has earned the right to a little self-deception at that point. Though only thirty-nine minutes, Name is easily one of the most illuminating documentary examinations of terrorism to play the festival circuit.

Like Al-Khaled, Zhang Gongli also fights to make the world a safer place. A farmer in Central China, Zhang became a self-taught legal activist, who challenged the chemical plant poisoning his region as well as the local Communist Party authorities which protected it. Aided by an Chinese environmental NGO, Zhang’s struggles are documented in Ruby Yang’s The Warriors of Qiugang. Eventually privatized, the serial polluting began while the plant was a state enterprise. Indeed, it was the local Party that first turned a gang of thugs loose on the village in an attempt to intimidate the activists. It would be a strategy the plant would repeat, with the local authorities’ acquiescence.

Though largely compatible with the no-frills observational approach of the so-called Digital Generation of independent Chinese filmmakers, Warriors also features occasional grimly stylized animated sequences. It is a searing indictment of the Chinese government’s hypocrisy, not simply in terms of environmental protection, but even more fundamental human rights. While hardly concluding with everything happily resolved, it is definitely an encouraging David-and-Goliath story.

For inspiration, none of the nominees can compete with Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon’s Strangers No More. There is a country where immigrants fleeing war and civil strife finally feel safe enough to allow their children to enroll in school (in many cases for the first time ever): that country is Israel. Yes, the irony is not lost on the teachers of Tel Aviv’s Bialik-Rogozin school, where students from forty-eight countries find a safe harbor every day. Focusing on students from Ethiopia and Sudan, we see Bialik-Rogozin’s Hebrew immersion strategy pay dramatic dividends. Clearly, what they do at that school works. Though Goodman and Simon avoid making the obvious point, it is worth noting you will not find a comparable institution anywhere else in the region.

Inspiring and disturbing in equal measure, Name and Warriors are excellent films, highly recommended in any context. They play together as part of Program A, along with Jennifer Redfearn’s Sun Come Up. Following a group of South Pacific Islanders who must relocate due to rising sea levels, reportedly the result of global warming, Redfearn wisely does not overplay the environmental card. While it raises a few interesting anthropological-sociological issues, ultimately Sun’s POV figures simply are not as compelling as those of the other nominees.

Strangers is a totally grounded, legitimately feel-good movie, also enthusiastically recommended. Unfortunately, it plays with Sara Nesson’s Poster Girl, a film top-heavy with the director’s agenda. It profiles Sergeant Robynn Murray, who was once on the cover of ARMY magazine, thus making her the “poster girl” for the war, at least if you were a serviceman or retiree who saw the magazine and somehow still remembers it. While Nesson’s approach borders on the exploitative, it is certainly heartrending to watch as Murray learns first-hand how problematic government-run healthcare truly is. (In contrast, the Renaud Brothers’ Warrior Champions stands as example of how to sensitively address PTSD, without turning it into a political football.)

Three out of five is pretty good by Oscar standards.  Indeed, Name, Warriors, and Strangers each provide real insight into the state of the world and a small measure of hope that average people can have a constructive impact on big macro-level problems. Both Oscar nominated documentary short programs open today (2/11) in New York and Los Angeles.

Posted on February 11th, 2011 at 1:16pm.

Delivering the Goods: LFM Reviews American Grindhouse

By Joe Bendel. It seems like every hipster filmmaker wants to make a retro-grindhouse movie these days, but the results are usually pretty lame. The truth is, real-deal grindhouse auteurs did not have time for posing. They had to get their shots before the cops shut them down. The subversive attitude of their oeuvre flowed organically from their dodgy working environment, thoroughly infusing the zero-budget cult films Elijah Drenner lovingly surveys in American Grindhouse, which opened last Friday in New York.

“Exploitation” films were independently produced movies with some grabby element to “exploit” which audiences could not otherwise find from mainstream studio fare. Though not necessarily limited to sex and violence, those were certainly the biggies. Drugs and circus freaks were also reliable hooks. Such films were typically booked into seedy, pre-Giuliani-era Times Square-style theaters, often playing continuously without formal start times (hence the grind in grindhouse).

Drenner and his battery of film scholars start with the silent era, when Universal hit pay dirt with Traffic in Souls, a rather sensationalistic story of white slavery – carrying the fig leaf of a progressive reform message. It established the template many exploitation filmmakers would profitably follow for decades, including the so-called “Forty Thieves” emerging in 1930’s.

Grindhouse surveys a number of rather self-explanatory sub-genres, like “birth of a baby” movies, beach party movies, faux nudist documentaries, “nudie cuties,” “roughies,” women-in-prison films, Nazi-exploitation (exemplified with class and distinction by Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS), and the ageless blaxploitation picture. Amongst his many talking heads, Drenner notably scored sit-down interview time with Fred Williamson, of Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem fame, who looks and sounds as cool as ever.

While Grindhouse focuses squarely on the filmmakers, it is not a cheap tease. Indeed, many of the voluminous clips from the seminal classics under discussion are real eye-poppers. Still, Drenner maintains the right balance of (half-) serious cultural history and crowd pleasing naughty bits.

Well-stocked with wild stories and vintage scenes of pure lunacy, Grindhouse is a whole lot of fun, sort of like an old-school Hollywood Boulevard version of That’s Entertainment. Like the “birth of a baby” films it documents, Grindhouse is in fact educational, but its subject matter is definitely mature. Ultimately, it is a winning tribute to genuinely independent filmmakers, marginalized and even demonized though they might have been. Heartily recommended to those who already have a good idea what they will be getting into, Grindhouse opened this past Friday in New York at the Cinema Village.

Posted on Feburary 9th, 2011 at 11:41am.

ReelAbilities ’11: LFM Reviews My Spectacular Theater

By Joe Bendel. Film distribution is a tricky proposition in China. Strict regulations govern what constitutes a “film festival,” while some of the country’s most celebrated filmmakers are only screened through bootlegs. One dodgy hawker of pirate DVDs gains a fresh appreciation of the power of cinema in Lu Yang’s My Spectacular Theater, which screens during the 2011 ReelAbilities in New York.

On the run from the coppers (mysteriously interested in protecting intellectual property), Chen Yu stumbles into old man Gao’s theater. He even takes out a video of the movie playing, but the patrons do not seem to notice. They are either blind or severely vision-impaired movie lovers, who partake of Gao’s live description assistance. Recruited as Gao’s apprentice, Chen Yu does not see the specialized theater as a long term prospect. He needs something more corporate to satisfy his uptown girlfriend. Yet slowly but surely, he becomes involved with the lives of their patrons, especially, the cute Xiao Ow – a young student feigning blindness to attract his attention.

From "My Spectacular Theater."

Given its sociologically relevant subject matter, Spectacular certainly represents independent Chinese cinema. Particularly daring is the historical context of Gao’s backstory. Though Lu understandably refrains from graphic details, it is clear that the old man honed his descriptive skills in helping his wife, following an incident during what was obviously the Cultural Revolution (though those exact words are never uttered).

While the third act partakes of a misguided narrative indulgence, the film itself has plenty of heart. Liu Yuan Yuan is a genuine standout as Liu May, a luminously beautiful cinema patron. Her tentative relationship with a recently blinded photographer is quite honest and moving. In the romantic lead, Zhou Yiwei is more-or-less adequate as Chen Yu, but Yizha brings real spirit and verve to the film as his admirer, Xiao Ow. Perfectly understated and dignified, Jin Shijie holds it all together as old Gao, handling his ease into senility with grace and conviction.

Clearly, Spectacular fits the bill for ReelAbilities in several respects. While one wonders how accommodating Chinese society really is for its vision-impaired citizens, Lu and co-writer Chen Shu clearly do not exempt the go-go new China from criticism. Indeed, Gao’s theater is presented as an oasis of empathy and acceptance. A very strong feature directorial debut, Spectacular is highly recommended when it screens again today (2/8) at the Chatham Square Library, as the 2011 ReelAbilities concludes at points throughout the City.

Posted on February 8th, 2011 at 11:24am.

From Sundance to HBO: LFM Reviews Eugene Jarecki’s Reagan

By Joe Bendel. In an ironic way, President Ronald Reagan might have approved of the approach taken by his documentary profiler, Eugene Jarecki – at least in principle. While readily conceding Reagan’s personal virtues, Jarecki gives no quarter in the political arena. Such a strategy earned Jarecki Pavlovian praise for his ‘evenhandedness’ at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, but it contributes little to the public discourse. Instead, Jarecki essentially offers viewers the same old canned talking points in Reagan, which debuts on HBO tonight.

Reagan in Hollywood in the 40s.

Frankly, Jarecki’s polemical Reagan is best when covering the early Reagan years. A better actor than generally acknowledged, Reagan was eager to serve his country during WWII. Unfortunately, he was nearly as blind as a film critic, which to his genuine regret kept him out of combat duty. So the metaphor Jarecki ultimately latches onto is Reagan the lifeguard, the vision-impaired teenager who pulled seventy-seven floundering swimmers to safety.

By contrast, when addressing political issues, Jarecki is far from an honest broker. He only cursorily discusses Reagan’s time as the Screen Actor’s Guild President, largely to speculate on whether the future president named names. Had he delved deeper, he would have examined Reagan’s alarm at the extent to which Communist and fellow-traveling factions had co-opted Hollywood’s unions and progressive organizations. Of course, this would have challenged long held articles of faith regarding Hollywood and the HUAC committee, which Jarecki obviously was not about to do. Better to play it safe.

As a result, this omission leaves Reagan’s evolution from Roosevelt Democrat to Reagan Republican (if you will) largely unexplained. Context is not a priority here, though. All viewers are really told about his predecessor Jimmy Carter, for example, is that Carter had the ‘courage’ to make his ‘malaise’ speech. The word “stagflation,” however, is scrupulously ignored. The Iranian hostages are discussed, but apparently only to illustrate Reagan’s providential good fortune with their fortuitous release.

Jarecki interviews some Reagan insiders, but his editorial hand is always obvious. Peter Robinson has a chance to discuss Reagan’s frequently-lauded talents as a communicator, but policy analysis is reserved solely for the President’s partisan critics. So what do you suppose they say happened to ‘the rich,’ for example, during Reagan’s tenure?

Reagan on the campaign trail in the 60s.

One can also see this formal balance but practical bias in the appearances of Reagan’s family. Michael Reagan is only seen playing a cheerleader role while conducting a Reagan-themed tour (just long enough for the audience to suspect he might be trading on his father’s name). Conversely, Ron Reagan is allowed long, thoughtful camera time to whittle away at his father’s political legacy. It is worth noting, though, that Jarecki’s film directly contradicts the junior Reagan’s claim that his father exhibited symptoms of Alzheimer’s while in office.

Despite the near constant criticism of Reagan, Jarecki never comes close to suggesting that the iconic president ever acted out of self interest or cynical calculation. Even during the Iran-Contra affair, the ‘lifeguard’ metaphor is too hard for him to shake. Indeed, this is Reagan’s ultimate saving grace – or failure, depending on one’s perspective. Further diminishing the film’s seriousness, the constant use of vintage 1980’s pop tunes, like “99 Luftballoons” to underscore Reagan’s nuclear policy, is rather shallow and clichéd. (Sadly, it seems Jarecki was not able to clear the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” for a “Great Communicator” segment.)

Disappointing but not surprising, Jarecki’s Reagan does a disservice to its subject and to its audience. It airs tonight (2/7) on HBO, following its recent Sundance premiere.

Posted on February 7th, 2011 at 11:28am.


Frantisek Vlacil at The Lincoln Center: Sirius

Director Franstišek Vláčil.

By Joe Bendel. The story of a boy and his dog is a classic motif of children’s films. However, Franstišek Vláčil transformed this well-established convention into something sadly poetic, perfectly befitting the tenor of his time. As was the case with many artists, the post-Soviet Invasion years were not kind to Vláčil’s career, but by the mid 1970’s he was eventually allowed to take the reins of a smattering of short documentaries and films for young audiences. Though ostensibly one such children’s film, the adult world tragically intrudes in Sirius, Vláčil’s elegiac WWII-era coming of age film, which screens this Saturday afternoon as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Fantastic World of Franstišek Vláčil retrospective now underway at the Walter Reade Theater.

Sirius (or “Sir” as he is affectionately called) is not quite Lassie, but his ability to communicate and follow the instructions of his master is impressive nonetheless. Fascinated by the night sky, the director’s young namesake named the loyal canine after the Dog Star, the brightest star visible from Earth with the naked eye. Franstišek’s days appear to be filled with child-like wonder, as he and Sir commune with the nature. It seems their only cause for concern is the Bo Radley-esque forest-keeper who makes no secret of his ill will toward the animal. All that changes when a Nazi troop train blows up right before his eyes. Suddenly, the Germans are keenly aware of Franstišek’s station agent father as well as his spirited dog.

From "Sirius."

Though comparatively brief at a mere fifty minutes, Vláčil still takes his time establishing the rapport between boy and dog. Indeed, most of the film has a pastoral feel, though a sense of foreboding looms over the film. Clearly, there was a very competent dog trainer working behind the scenes, but Michal Vavrusa is also surprisingly understated and engaging as Franstišek.

Sirius could be considered an Old Yeller from behind the Iron Curtain.Yet, Vláčil slyly employs astronomical motifs to add a metaphysical-allegorical dimension unlike anything in Disney films. Though it burns brightly, we are told Sirius the star is due to temporarily disappear from the horizon. Likewise, the National Socialist occupiers may appear all-powerful, but they too shall pass (as their Communist successors did, as well).

Beautiful in its simplicity and directness, Sirus is a rewarding film for both smart kids and relatively smart adults. Not available on DVD here in America, it is highly recommended for all ages when it screens this Saturday (2/5) as part of the Vláčil series at the Walter Reade Theater.

Posted on February 4th, 2011 at 2:18pm.