Category: 4. Joe Bendel

LFM Reviews the 2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action

By Joe Bendel. Last year, Luke Matheny won the best live action short Oscar for God of Love and delivered the best acceptance speech of the night. He had respectable competition for the former but practically none for the latter. This year’s field also looks relatively competitive, but viewers can judge for themselves when the Academy Award nominated live action shorts program opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

If this year’s Oscar nominated short form animation has a Canadian flavor, the live action shorts have a slight Irish disposition, at least according to some definitions. As it happens, one of the best contenders hails from North Ireland. Regardless of identity issues, Terry George’s The Shore (trailer here) is probably the film to beat. It hardly hurts that George is a highly regarded filmmaker, already twice nominated in screenplay categories. The Shore also stars an actor viewers will recognize: Ciarán Hinds, currently seen in finer theaters as “Soldier” in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Yes, The Shore addresses the troubles, but not in a polarizing context. Twenty-five years ago, Jim Mahon’s grandfather was spooked by the escalating violence and trundled the young man off to the American relations. He has finally returned with his grown daughter to make peace with his former best friend and the woman he jilted. Although it is more of a drama than a comedy, Shore has a wry, knowing sensibility that should appeal to popular audiences. Rather than dwell on Belfast’s battle scars, George captures the picturesque landscape of Northern Ireland. One of the great actors of our day, Hinds is perfect as the conflicted Mahon and Kerry Condon is appealingly smart and down to earth as his daughter.

Unfortunately, the proper Irish contender is not nearly as rich. An incompetent choir boy is offered a chance to redeem himself in Peter McDonald’s slight Pentecost. However, the big mass plays out as a childish rebellion fantasy at the expense of the mean old Catholic Church.

Though also relatively short, Andrew Bowler’s genre comedy Time Freak (trailer here) is easily the most entertaining live action nominee. An obsessive scientist has developed a time machine, but his regular guy best friend is alarmed by the self-defeating ways he has been applying his breakthrough. A very funny film, Freak is similar in tone to some of the original Twilight Zone episodes that played it strictly for laughs.

There are not a lot of laughs in Max Zähle’s Raju (trailer here). There are not a lot of surprises where this international adoption morality play is headed either, but it is executed quite well, especially for a student film. Shortly after Jan and Sarah Fischer adopt the title character, he disappears under mysterious circumstances. However, as the German would-be father searches for Raju, he learns troubling facts about Raju’s circumstances. Filmed on the streets of Kolkata (a.k.a. Calcutta), it conveys a sense of the city’s teeming poverty and sets up the protagonists’ ethical dilemma rather effectively.

Another international award winning student film, Hallvar Witzø’s Tuba Atlantic offers an Academy-friendly blend of quirk and heart-string pulling. Given exactly six days to live, grouchy old Oskar Svenning sets out to contact his estranged brother in America via the monster tuba they constructed on the shore. Although he stubbornly refuses help, a young Evangelical Christian insists on acting as his “angel of death.” While innocent Inger might sound like a hopeless caricature, Ingrid Viken plays her with a fair degree of innocent charm. Granted, it is unabashedly sentimental, but the unrestrained war Svenning wages against the pesky seagulls is frequently quite amusing.

Either Time Freak or The Shore would be deserving Oscar winners. Both are thoroughly engaging and satisfying films. If not at the same level of accomplishment, Raju and Tuba are certainly perfectly respectable, falling somewhere on the spectrum between good and nice. Altogether, the 2012 live action Oscar nominees are a strong group, mostly recommended as films in their own right as well as for their Academy Award interest. They open this Friday (2/10) in New York at the IFC Center as part of the annual showcase of nominated short films.

Posted on February 9th, 2012 at 10:55am.

LFM Reviews 2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation

By Joe Bendel. The Oscar field for best animated short film has a distinctly Canadian flavor this year. After Cordell Barker’s delightful short-listed Runaway fell short of a nomination in 2010, the National Film Board of Canada returned to Academy Award contention this year, netting two nominations for their short animated productions, bringing their grand total nominations to seventy-two in seventy-three years of operation. Both screen as part of the annual showcase of Academy Award nominated shorts, which opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

While nature plays a role in Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby’s Wild Life, as well as Patrick Doyon’s Diamanche (Sunday), they also share a weird, off-kilter sensibility. One of the strongest nominees, Wild Life is ostensibly a fish out of water tale about one of the many British ne’er do well gentleman who came to Western Canada to seek their fortunes as ranchers. Most of them made poor cowboys and Wild’s protagonist is no exception. While the culture clash themes are cleverly addressed, there is a subtle undercurrent of David Lynchian menace that really distinguishes the film.

Shifting regions, Quebecois Patrick Doyon tells a relatively simply tale of a young boy, once again enduring his family’s Sunday rituals in Dimanche (trailer here). However, it takes a trippy detour involving a bear. It is strange and somewhat sad, just like childhood.

Perhaps the strongest nominee, coincidentally considered the frontrunner, also has a very strong sense of place, but in this case it is Louisiana. Produced entirely within the state, William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg’s The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore begins in New Orleans with a scene clearly inspired by the recent hurricanes that have wracked the state. Like many New Orleanians, Morris Lessmore takes refuge, finding a new home in a literal world of books. Employing inventive fairy tale imagery, Flying is a sophisticated paean to literature, offering the greatest depth of the animated program.

In contrast, Grant Orchard’s A Morning Stroll (trailer here) is essentially a bit of hipster playfulness, but it is rather funny, depicting the changes wrought on New York City when a chicken takes his titular promenade in 1959, 2009, and 2059. While pleasant, Enrico Casarosa’s La Luna, from Pixar, is a rather standard fable about a young’s boy’s discovery of the family’s fantastical business. Indeed, this just does not seem to be the animation studio’s best year.

Ranging from nice enough to very good, the nominated animated shorts are a solid slate overall, with Flying Books and Wild Life ranking as standouts. In the past, the animated program has been supplemented with several films that made the shortlist, but did not ultimately get one of the five nods. Strangely though, this year instead of shortlisted films, several environmentally themed shorts will play along with the nominees. Frankly, unless the relevant rights were impossible to secure, this dilutes the “Oscar-ness” of the program and diminishes the value of the shortlist status. It also means a visually striking (and viscerally anti-war) film like Damian Nenow’s Paths of Hate was passed over in favor of the clumsily didactic Skylight.

Regardless, films like Flying Books, Wild Life, and Morning Stroll are definitely well worth seeing, especially on a relatively big screen. Recommended for at least four of the real Oscar contenders, the 2012 Academy Award Nominated Short Films open this Friday (2/10) in New York at the IFC Center.

Posted on February 9th, 2012 at 10:51am.

Still the Baddest: LFM Reviews I Am Bruce Lee

By Joe Bendel. Here’s a Chuck Norris fact: Bruce Lee laid a monster beat-down on him in Way of the Dragon. Frankly, it was a good thing for the then-reigning karate champion’s career. He was one of many world class martial artists who studied with Lee and were later recruited for roles in his films. There has only been one Bruce Lee, though. His friends and admirers pay tribute to the master in Pete McCormack’s I Am Bruce Lee, which has the first of two special screenings this Thursday throughout the country.

Lee was a man of destiny. A child star in Hong Kong, he learned the Wing Chun style of Kung Fu from master Ip (or Yip) Man, who has recently become the subject of a host of film treatments, including the internationally popular franchise starring Donnie Yen. Most viewers will know Lee’s story chapter and verse, but McCormack shoehorns in some interesting details. The 1957 Hong Kong cha-cha champion?  But, of course.

In terms of format, I Am is not all that different from Fuel-TV’s recent tribute series Bruce Lee Lives, mixing film excerpts with reminiscences from his family and colleagues, as well as commentary from contemporary mixed martial arts fighters, nearly all of whom revere Lee. However, the participation of Lee’s widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, and breakout martial arts movie star Gina Carano distinguish I Am. Nearly all of Lee’s films are discussed in length, but clips of Lee’s epic battle with Norris in the Roman Coliseum take pride of place.

While celebrating Lee’s mystique, I Am tries to put to rest many of the rumors surrounding his life, particularly notions that an ancient curse or the triads were responsible for his untimely death. It also attempts to minimize the non-dogmatic approach of Lee’s Jeet Kune Do as a forerunner to mixed martial arts, but apparently UFC founder Dana White did not get that memo.

Nonetheless, it certainly seems Lee inspired most of his fighters, including Cung Le, who also appears in the film. Yet perhaps the best advertisement for Lee’s Jeet Kune Do and related philosophy would be his friend and fellow teacher, seventy-something Dan Inosanto (the weapons master in Game of Death) who looks like he could be at least two decades younger in his I Am interview segments.

Built around Lee’s super cool “be like water” interview, I Am moves along at a quick pace, while emphasizing the spiritual aspects of his story. Just about every surviving figure in his life is heard from, except Norris. Granted, Lee fans have seen documentaries like this before, but we really cannot get enough of the icon. It might be hagiography, but it’s entertaining and appropriate. After all, this is Bruce Lee we are talking about. Proper respect must be paid. Recommended as a communal experience for fans (and isn’t that everyone?), I Am Bruce Lee screens this Thursday (2/9) and next Wednesday (2/15) nationwide, including the AMC Empire in New York and the AMC Metreon and 4 Star Theatre in San Francisco.

Posted on February 7th, 2012 at 11:35am.

Sundance 2012: LFM Reviews Grabbers

By Joe Bendel. Believe it or not, that last Guinness before you leave is the last best line of defense against alien invasion. Fortunately, the villagers of Erin Island are up to the demands of survival in Jon Wright’s Grabbers, which screened during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Garda Lisa Nolan is a workaholic who spends her vacation temping for the sergeant on the tight little island. Busy drowning a broken heart, local Garda Ciarán O’Shea is not impressed, at least not by her ambition. Fortunately, nothing ever happens there, at least until the aliens invade. At first, the only one to see the blood-sucking mollusks – at least, the only one who lives to talk about it – is the town drunk (and he’s not even O’Shea). After a bit of investigation, it turns out the aliens do not have a taste for .2 alcohol levels. With a storm fast approaching, there is only one thing to do: lock everyone in the pub and get them hammered.

Frankly, Grabbers is a surprisingly mild midnight selection at Sundance (particularly considering this is the year they launched V/H/S). Gentler even than Tremors, it is quite similar in tone to R.W. Goodwin’s unapologetically nostalgic Alien Trespass. Considering the central role played by public inebriation, midnight audiences were probably expecting liberal helpings of gross-out humor that never materialized. Indeed, Grabbers is more about soft chuckles than big belly laughs.

Granted, this is not the sort of film one looks to for rigorous logic, but it makes no sense that the alcoholic would be the only one to stay sober, beyond providing O’Shea with an opportunity for redemption. Still, Richard Coyle is reasonably charismatic as the formerly degenerate Garda. In contrast, Ruth Bradley does not leave much of a mark as Nolan, but David Pearse scores some of the film’s funniest moments as Brian Maher, the short-tempered barkeep.

Wright keeps things moving along well enough and the monster effects are realized quite well (arguably better than they should be in an old school creature feature). The results are all very pleasant, but never quite live up to the promise of its clever premise. Nice, but not crazy, Grabbers should nonetheless find an appreciative genre audience following its midnight screenings at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

SUNDANCE GRADE: B

Posted on January 30th, 2012 at 12:43pm.

Sundance 2012: LFM Reviews Bestiaire

By Joe Bendel. Zoos, farms, and taxidermy shops are good places for gawking at animals. French Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté essentially invites viewers to do precisely that. Supposedly, the clever part is that the animals will gawk back. However, they do not seem particularly interested in holding up their end throughout his non-narrative documentary Bestiaire, which screened as a New Frontier selection of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Côté’s title is derived from the medieval bestiaries, which evoke images of lavish illustrations on gilt-edged illuminated pages. He takes rather the opposite approach, de-emphasizing the exoticism of the animals, focusing instead on the drabness of their surroundings. Unlike recent animal documentaries, such as the Jouberts’ Last Lions, Nick Stringer’s Turtle: the Incredible Journey, and even Nicholas Philibert’s Nenette (a film much closer akin to Bestiaire in terms of tone), Côté discourages attempts to impose individual personalities on the animals by framing them from off-kilter perspectives and completely eschewing mood-setting soundtrack music.

A considerable portion of Bestiaire was shot at Quebec’s Parc Safari, whose animal handlers are likely to stoke the zeal of anti-zoo protestors with their dispassionate professionalism. Indeed, Bestiaire could almost be considered an expose for people who really need films to be about something. Regardless, less adventurous viewers will be decidedly uncomfortable during the sort-of observational doc.

If you want to learn something about the process of taxidermy, Bestiaire eventually delivers the goods. On the other hand, if you want to get to know some of the beasts, Côté will deliberately undercut any such attempts. There is no question the filmmaker accomplishes exactly what he set out to do. Yet it remains wholly fair to ask “so what?” Probably more interesting as a concept than as a viewing experience, Bestiaire was definitely for the New Frontier track die-hards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

SUNDANCE GRADE: C

Posted on January 30th, 2012 at 12:18pm.

Slamdance 2012: LFM Reviews The First Season

By Joe Bendel. There are far easier ways to go broke than opening a dairy farm from near scratch. However, if they work like dogs, Paul and Phyllis Van Amburgh might eventually break even. The ups and downs of their agricultural start-up are documented in Rudd Simmons’ The First Season, which screened during the recently wrapped 2012 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

The Van Amburghs’ new/old farm looks like it could have been painted by Andrew Wyeth, but as viewers watch the expensive refurbishing process, it is hard not to think there must be a reason the previous owners stopped farming there. Though hardly expecting to make a fortune, the Van Amburghs are still a bit surprised at how much it will all cost and how slim their margins will be.

Season will teach the audience quite a bit about modern dairy farming practices. One might come to suspect this is an industry that requires economies of scale as a result. Nonetheless, viewers have to root for the neophyte farmers as they grind away. They are hardly city-slickers bumbling about on their pretend farm. Instead, they appear to understand the process quite well and appear to be physically and temperamentally suited to such a life.

Indeed, the Van Amburghs should appeal to a wide spectrum of viewers. Their new venture partly reflects their desire to go back to nature, and a preference for reasonably pure, locally grown crops. However, they are also deeply family oriented and have relentless work ethics. If they were not already, they are now fiscal conservatives as well, at least in practice.

Clearly, Simmons (whose producer credits include Boardwalk Empire and Dead Man Walking) had constant access to the Van Amburghs. Yet, despite the mounting bills and taxes, the Van Amburghs never come across as whiny or resentful, which certainly helps maintain viewer sympathy. He also vividly captures a sense of the stark loneliness of their upstate New York farm and the surrounding environment.

Viewers who want to see a film about herd animals will find the Van Amburghs’ cows far more engaging than the beasts in Denis Côté’s Bestiary, which screened at the other Park City festival. For idealists, the Van Amburghs are also rather refreshingly no-nonsense people. While their film will probably dissuade others from following in their footsteps, audiences will certainly wish them the best. Considerably more involving than one might expect, First Season is well worth catching as it makes the festival rounds, having started strong at the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival, right on scenic Main Street.

Posted on January 30th, 2012 at 11:58am.