Category: 4. Joe Bendel

By Joe Bendel. For a while, Lisbeth Salander was like Scarlett O’Hara with a nose ring. Every actress claiming to be under thirty who was not in contention for the role should have fired her agent. Eventually Rooney Mara was chosen to follow in Noomi Rapace’s footsteps. It was one of several odd choices that produced David Fincher’s surprisingly straight forward remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (trailer here), which opened Tuesday in New York (a few hours earlier than first announced).

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Lisbeth Salander is a difficult woman to get to know. However, the hacker for hire can find out all there is to know about anyone else—for a price, of course. Her latest target she actually finds sort of interesting: Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist just found guilty of libeling a controversial businessman. Based on Salander’s vetting, Blomkvist has been hired by retired industrialist Henrik Vanger to solve the decades old disappearance of his favorite niece Harriet.

Still grieving the loss of the teen-aged girl, the old Vanger finds little comfort from the rest of his ghoulish clan, many of whom were (and continue to be) open National Socialist sympathizers. With a large, ugly family full of suspects to check out, Blomkvist has his work cut out for him, but he will find an unlikely ally in Salander, once she has dealt (severely) with some of her own personal issues.

As fans of the series already know, Blomkvist and Salander soon suspect the disappearance of the Vanger niece is part of a hitherto undetected pattern of serial killings. Indeed, anyone who has seen Niels Arden Oplev’s Swedish Tattoo will find no surprises in Fincher’s remake. All the villains and shocking revelations remain exactly the same.

Frankly, Fincher’s approach to the material is nearly identical as well, delving into lurid family secrets to find grisly thrills. Nor does he shy away from the forerunner film’s two infamous inter-related scenes involving Salander and her so-called legal guardian. Yet, despite the cool dark vibe, Tattoo is not particularly Fincheresque. Compared to Fight Club and even The Social Network, it is far more conventional than auterist.

In terms of casting, Daniel Craig is a perfect fit for Blomkvist, looking like the slightly younger and more attractive brother of his Swedish predecessor, Michael Nyqvist. He is very convincing as the world weary journalistic everyman with an edge. In contrast, Rooney Mara is impossible to buy into as Salander. To put it bluntly, she looks like a horrendously made-up little girl rather than a grown woman, which might be in keeping with the source novels, but simply does not work on-screen, especially in her more harrowing scenes.

If you are going to remake one of the Salander films, Tattoo is the one to do. It features the most intriguing mystery that best stands alone. Wisely, Steven Zaillian’s screenplay downplays Blomkvist’s leftist ideology, but it also waters down the subplot involving Sweden’s Nazi-sympathizing past, which gave Oplev’s version some of its distinctive seasoning. Still, when Blomkvist and Salander’s investigation starts humming along, it is easy to get caught up in the film’s energy.

Fincher’s Tattoo is certainly a professionally crafted film. Cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth gives the film an icy, grey look that perfectly represents Sweden. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s electro-industrial-ambient score is also eerily effective, largely establishing an independent identity for the film by itself. Still, considering how closely this Tattoo parallels the original, one wonders why they bothered to remake it. Critically miscast in a key role, Fincher’s Tattoo is a watchable but unnecessary remake. An acceptable compromise film during the holiday season but not worth standing in long lines for, Tattoo opened Tuesday in New York at the AMC Empire.

Posted on December 22nd, 2011 at 11:18am.

By Joe Bendel. Shakespeare famously wrote in As You Like It: “all the world’s a stage.”  That includes the “Roof of the World” as well. In an act of sheer cinematic bravura, Sherwood Hu moves the Danish tragedy to the high Tibetan mountains, taking invigorating liberties with the Shakespeare play in the process. Appropriately, Hu’s The Prince of the Himalayas (trailer here), will have its premiere American theatrical engagement exclusively at the Rubin Museum of Art (home to the largest collection of Himalayan art in the West and some of the City’s finest film and jazz programming), starting this Friday.

Returning from his studies in Persia, Prince Lhamoklodan is distressed to learn he just missed his father’s funeral. He is also put-off by the news his uncle Kulo-ngam will become the crown-regent by marrying his mother Namn. Indeed, one ceremony closely follows the other, as his school chum Horshu observes. However, it is the ghost of his father who confirms Lhamoklodan’s suspicions, setting him on a bloody course of vengeance.

So far, so Shakespearean. Yet Hu has several surprises in store for viewers, most notably his decision to make the Himalayan Gertrude and especially its Claudius, the sympathetic core of the film. We learn rather early Kulo-ngam always loved Namn, but his not so dearly departed older brother cruelly intervened. As a result, Lhamoklodan comes across as one of the harsher, more spiteful Hamlets ever seen on-screen. Conversely, the ethereally beautiful Osaluyang is one of the most heartbreaking Ophelias. She also reaches rare heights of madness in a role often required to discretely slip into the water off-screen or off-stage in many conventional productions.

Borrowing elements from Macbeth and Sophocles, Hu’s adaptation of Shakespeare is inspired, but hardly slavish in its faithfulness. He arguably remains true to the spirit of the original play (although you probably would not want to argue the point with Harold Bloom). Without question, though, the Tibetan mountains and tundra must be the grandest, most expansive setting for any staging of Hamlet. If there is any misstep in the Himalayan Prince, it is that of over-scoring. The vast spaces of the Jiabo kingdom call out for eerie silence rather than prestige picture orchestrations. Continue reading Hamlet Reincarnated: LFM Reviews The Prince of the Himalayas

By Joe Bendel. She was a figure of anti-Catholic lore largely but not decisively debunked by Protestant scholars. For centuries millions truly believed in the existence of a legendary female Pope. Indeed, enough references could be found in various sources (before you ask, this definitely includes Martin of Troppau’s Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum) to provide Donna Woolfolk Cross the hooks on which to hang a speculative novel about Johanna Anglicus, the woman who would be Pope (allegedly). The most likely apocryphal and very definitely controversial story comes to television when director-co-adapter Sönke Wortmann’s Pope Joan (trailer here), debuted this past Sunday on ReelzChannel.

Like the other Joan, the life of Johanna (not yet known as Anglicus) will be short but epic. Her father is a priest from Britain who came to convert the godless Saxons. Unfortunately, most of his zeal is reserved for terrorizing his family. Despite her natural aptitude and general thirst for knowledge, he refuses to allow her any formal education. However, through the intercession of an unusually progressive Bishopric, Johanna eventually begins her studies at the Cathedral school, while staying as a guest of Count Gerold. She quickly forms a deep emotional bond with the Count, but not so much with the Countess.

War will soon disrupt their lives, but it offers Johanna the opportunity to assume her younger brother’s identity and take his place in a monastic order. There she will begin her ecclesiastic career, living in constant fear her secret will be revealed.

Pope Joan is not exactly a love letter to the Church (there was only one at the time), but not all of the clergy depicted are intolerant Savonarolas. In fact, at critical junctures of her life, Johanna is championed or protected by many men of the cloth, usually of the older and wiser variety. Frankly, one of the most sympathetic characters is Pope Sergius II, whom Anglicus (as he/she is then known) loyally serves. Still, her dogmatic father is so unremittingly abusive, it makes several of the early scenes punishingly difficult to watch.

Despite the gender-bending element of Anglicus’s supposedly suppressed story, Pope Joan is not really preoccupied with psycho-sexual issues. Instead, it is a more traditional feminist critique of an old world social order that afforded little or no opportunities to women. It does so with healthy doses of war, pestilence, and intrigue.

Having previously played an acting president on The West Wing, an unlikely British monarch in King Ralph – and the mother of all governors, Huey P. Long – John Goodman rounds out his resume with the portrayal of a Pope. While he somewhat stands out amid the European cast, his larger than life presence fits Sergius nicely.

Continue reading LFM Review: Pope Joan

By Joe Bendel. They said Prohibition could never work, because you cannot “legislate morality.” Try telling that to Iran’s Islamist government while you’re looking for a bottle of spirits in Tehran. Of course, a bottle can be found on the black market, but the risks are considerably higher and the costs are far greater than in New York of the 1920s. Still, a group of young Iranians keep the party going as best they can until the messy realities of life overwhelm them in Hossein Keshavarz’s Dog Sweat, which screens tonight during the 2011 New Orleans Middle East Film Festival.

Massoud and his cronies love their illegal hooch, or “dog sweat” as they call it. He sobers up quickly though, when his mother is critically injured by a driver who cannot afford to pay “blood money.” He is in no mood to hear how it is all one of the trials of life mandated by God, considering it more a test of Iranian society, which it fails miserably. Hooshang and Homan also enjoy the Tehran nightlife, but once the former gives into his wealthy family’s demands that he wed, the once constant companions no longer spend time together. Sweat never explicitly states why, but the implication is impossible to miss.

Hooshang’s new wife Mahsa also makes sacrifices to conform to the life expected of her. A talented underground vocalist, she must give up her forbidden musical career for the sake of married respectability. In contrast, Katie is involved in a more conventional love triangle, balancing the attentions of the impetuous Bijan and the older well-to-do Mehrdad, who also happens to be married, to her cousin. Held a virtual captive by her controlling mother, Katie bristles at the freedom allowed to her brother Dawood. Yet, he still cannot manage to find a place to be alone with his prospective girlfriend, Katie’s best friend Katherine.

Obviously produced without the official sanction of the Iranian film authorities, Sweat has much to say about gender inequality and the repression of sexual identity in contemporary Iran. It also addresses the lack of free artistic expression and the judgmental severity of religious fundamentalism. To top it all off, Mahsa’s mother Forough takes a pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq, Iran’s traditional rival, experiencing for the first time in her life a feeling of peace and spiritual fulfillment there.

Given such themes, it is a bit of a surprise the undeniably bold Sweat does not feel heavier. Indeed, some decidedly tragic events occur and nobody (aside from Forough) is ever really happy, but Keshavarz and co-writer-producer Maryam Azadi (who both served as associate producers on his sister Maryam Keshavarz’s Circumstance) never revel in the misery and meanness. Instead, he shows it all to viewers in a straightforward, direct manner and then rotates his focus to the next set of characters. Although a product of necessity, the guerilla vérité-style production gives the film a raw, intimate look that nicely fits the subject matter.

In fact, it is a tribute to the ensemble cast that we do not consider them actors, but authentic people, perhaps in some ominous version of Real World Tehran. Still, Shahrokh Taslimi’s animal intensity as Massoud stands out fiercely.

When watching Sweat one has the sensation of sharing in the lives of this generation of young professional Iranians, who navigate a world that is half underground and half above-board. Granted, it is not perfectly executed. Keshavarz leaves a lot of messy lose ends and unresolved questions, but he definitely takes viewers into the world and heads of these acutely human characters. Highly recommended, Sweat screens tonight (12/14) during the New Orleans Middle East Film Festival, as part of a slate of films varying widely in terms of quality and political sophistication.

Posted on December 14th, 2011 at 12:33pm.

By Joe Bendel. Roger Corman is the Elvis Presley of genre pictures. Before anyone did anything, he did everything—and he did it cheaper. So many stories about the man and his movies have become the stuff of legend, yet they are all true. Tribute is paid to the original independent filmmaker in Alex Stapleton’s affectionately uproarious Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Corman has made hundreds of films, anticipating major shifts in the cultural zeitgeist with atomic powered creature features, rebellious teenager melodramas, biker movies, and blaxploitation cult classics. He always brought his films in on-time and under-budget. The one exception came in 1962 with The Intruder, a moody issue-driven drama about school integration and white supremacy filmed on-location in the Deep South. Now hailed as a milestone of independent filmmaking (by those hip enough to hail), Intruder was Corman’s only film to lose money, but the indie mogul is justly proud of it anyway.

After the experience of Intruder, Corman resolved to return to his low budget genre roots, subtly but deliberately insinuating his political statements into his films, rather than trumpeting them from the get go. Once again, Corman blazed a trail the rest of Hollywood would eventually follow.

Corman has appeared in several grindhouse documentaries in recent years, including Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed!, which documented Corman’s love affair with the authentic locations and bargain basement production costs offered by the Philippines in the 1970s. Yet there is very little overlap between the films. Indeed, with literally hundreds of outrageous movies to chose from, Corman documentarians need not fight over material.

Corman’s record of mentoring up-and-coming filmmakers is a major reason why he won his honorary Oscar (a fact Exploits has a hard time accepting, preferring to think of him as an underappreciated B-movie auteur). Peter Bogdanovich explains it more in sink-or-swim terms, but an opportunity is still an opportunity. Stapleton scored some heavy-weight interviews, including Corman school of filmmaking graduates like Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, and Joe Dante. However, the marquee sit-down has to be the animated Jack Nicholson, whom only Corman would hire during his first ten years in the business. They clearly have a lot of history together, which makes for some of the more manic talking head footage you will see in a documentary.

There are plenty of juicy bits of trivia to be gleaned throughout Exploits, especially for those well versed in his filmography. We also watch Corman working behind the scenes of Dinoshark, one of his new Syfy original movies. Considering that network’s track record for original non-series productions, Corman actually represents a quantum step up in quality for them. Most importantly, there are generous clips from his oeuvre, in all their busty, blood-splattered glory.

Frankly, Stapleton probably could have made a film three times as long and the time would still fly by. Combining the joyous gusto of Corman’s films with top-shelf access to Corman and his celebrated alumni is tough to beat for sheer entertainment value. Easily the feel good film of the holiday season, Exploits opens this Friday (12/16) in New York at the Village East.

Posted on December 14th, 2011 at 12:29pm.