Category: 4. Joe Bendel

By Joe Bendel. In Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa, a petty criminal forms an ambiguous bond with the upscale prostitute he is hired to drive. It is a good movie, so try to forget it, temporarily. While their relationship is superficially similar, this tale of a working woman and her schlepper is all about pulp and revenge. Yes, the title character will unfortunately only be appearing in flashbacks throughout David Ren’s The Girl from the Naked Eye (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

A self-described hash-up, Jake is taking the death of his high class call girl associate Sandy rather hard. Deep in debt to the mob, he took a job with the Naked Eye, a strip club whose sleazy proprietor Simon makes his real money running the top girls as prostitutes. Jake used to be Sandy’s driver, but requested a new assignment right before her murder. His feelings for her will become clear from his series of ruminative flashbacks.

In the present day, Jake only has one concern: making the killer pay. Obviously, he wants to know who saw her last, but Simon will not willingly give up her client list. A savage beat-down later, Jake is on the trail, but he will have to contend with Simon’s thugs and his crooked cop partner, who is in serious damage control mode.

This must be strip club week for the indie movie release beat, with Eye hitting theaters along with Mathieu Demy’s more heralded Americano. Ironically, Eye’s lack of pretense earns it a limited nod over its self-serious French competitor. Though far from classic, at least it feels no need to apologize for a little sex and violence.

Indeed, action director-co-star Ron Yuan makes several key contributions, including an inventively staged (and decidedly un-Raid-like) fight sequence, in which Jake and four security guards all become increasingly battered and exhausted as it stretches on. He also gives the film a jolt of energy as Simon, delivering a surprising number of laughs and developing real anti-chemistry with Brandy Grace, who makes quite an impression as Angela, his caustic mistress and top earner.

Eye also features two entertaining more-or-less cameos, including Sasha Grey, appearing fully clothed as a bystander in Simon’s hotel for hookers. Dominique Swain has a bit more substantial role as Alissa, a not yet disillusioned lady of the evening, who gives the dense Jake a few helpful tips, via Nancy Drew. Both give brief lifts to the film’s moody luridness. Every bit helps, especially since leads Jason Yee and Samantha Street are bit bland in their dramatic scenes together as Jake and Sandy. Still, the former is quite convincing in his action scenes.

Trying too hard to be noir, Eye is weighed down by narration that would be over the top even for a parody (which it might possibly be). Nevertheless, the colorful supporting cast deserves props for embracing the grindhouse vibe. Clearly a B-movie best saved for late night cable viewing, The Girl from the Naked Eye nonetheless opens tomorrow (6/15) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on June 14th, 2012 at 11:28am.

By Joe Bendel. In addition to its now universally acknowledged literary significance, the effort to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses in the face of widespread censorship was the major publishing story of its day. Actually, the novel’s publishing history is still unfolding. Many scholars recently rejoiced when it – along with most of Joyce’s early works – went into the public domain, liberating them from what they considered an unreasonable and erratic estate executor. It should make this year’s Bloomsday celebration quite lively. Irrespective of Stephen Joyce’s controversial stewardship, Joyceans in Brooklyn will also be able to mark June 16th, that fateful day spent with protagonist Leopold Bloom, by attending the premiere theatrical engagement of Alan Adelson & Kate Taverna’s In Bed with Ulysses, which began this Monday at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema.

Throughout Bed, Adelson and Taverna celebrate Joyce’s language, but not necessarily his personality. Indeed, many leading Joyce scholars make no bones about the author’s self-centered neuroses. They certainly do not make him sound like a particularly pleasant husband, plundering his relationship with wife Nora for his autobiographical novels, while bizarrely prodding her to justify his extreme jealousies. Still, it provides good fodder for documentaries.

Fortunately, his work is something else entirely. In staged readings of Ulysses, performed by established legit actors, including Kathleen Chalfant (known for the original New York production of Wit) reading in the Molly Bloom persona, the film luxuriates in the rhythms and ribald tartness of Joyce’s language. While we do not hear anything to make the typical Brooklyner blush, there might be just enough to make a PBS broadcast, as is, a tad tricky.

All of the performers have a good feel for Joyce’s words and the archival images of 1904 Dublin that often accompany their readings give viewers a vivid sense of where the novel came from. Adelson and Taverna also incorporate a fair amount of focused and on-point expert interviews, the most notable being novelist and Joyce biographer Edna O’Brien, an impressive literary figure in her own right. Of course to nobody’s surprise, grandson-executor Stephen Joyce never makes an appearance.

In Bed with Ulysses is an easily digestible combination of Joyce biography and Ulysses crib notes, with fair servings of Irish history and theater arts mixed in. Obviously, Irish cultural institutions should be very interested in the film, but its exploration of Bloom’s Jewish heritage and the extent to which Limerick’s 1904 anti-Jewish riots and boycotts informed the novel should expand the demographic audience considerably. Yet, the Joyceans who continue to be intrigued by the literary icon’s revolutionary novels are the real target market.

Informative but never too heavy, In Bed with Ulysses is readily recommended for those who appreciate literary biography or looking for a way to ease into the somewhat intimidating novel. It is also a chance for borough loyalists to support Brooklyn filmmakers at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema, before the scrappy art-house goes into temp space while their current location is redeveloped. It runs there until at least Sunday (6/17), which indeed includes Bloomsday this Saturday (6/16).

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 13th, 2012 at 10:38am.

By Joe Bendel. Ho Kwok-fai is not living in a random universe. Accidents happen for a reason: money. He would know. He is the mastermind behind a team of “accident choreographers.” Unfortunately, they have apparently attracted the wrong sort of attention from a competitor in Accident (trailer here), Soi Cheang’s moody thriller produced by HK action legend Johnnie To, which releases this week on DVD and Blu-ray from Shout Factory.

Though not quite as Rube Goldbergian, Ho’s team are like a Final Destination movie unto themselves. Just ask the Triad boss in the opening sequence, while you can. “The Brain” runs the show with tick-tock precision, but a dark cloud seems to hang over their latest gig. “Uncle” starts to show signs of dementia and the necessary rain will not come. Then the wheels come totally off.

Going underground, Ho starts surveilling an insurance executive he suspects played a part in the disastrous non-accident. Already haunted by his wife’s fatal auto crash, his psyche will sink to some pretty low places. Rather than a standard hitman-on-the-run film, Accident treads a more existential path, in the tradition of Coppola’s The Conversation (granted, it is not exactly in the same league).

In the years since To’s Election epic most of what American audiences have seen of Louis Koo were romantic or comedic features, like Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, Magic to Win, and All’s Well Ends Well 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009. Nonetheless, he shows plenty of screen grit in Accident, brooding like mad, yet getting stone cold medieval when necessary. As a bonus, Lam Suet, To’s regular comic relief specialist, brings his usual energy, but plays Ho’s stout but not shticky henchman “Fatty” with considerable restraint.

Viewers who have seen a lot of Hollywood-produced thrillers will probably be downright shocked by Accident, precisely because of their preconditioning. Indeed, Cheang is willing to take it in a direction studio filmmakers never would, which is cool. Of course, knowing it is produced by To and his Milkyway Image team is something of a seal of approval in and of itself. Enthusiastically recommended for fans of noir thrillers and HK cinema, Accident is now available on DVD at online and quality brick-and-mortar retailers everywhere.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on June 13th, 2012 at 10:37am.