Category: 4. Joe Bendel

By Joe Bendel. It is like Banquo’s ghost appearing forty-five years after Macbeth’s crime, except Geoff Mercer has nothing to feel guilty about. Right? That is exactly the question his wife Kate will wrestle with when word arrives of the discovery of his tragically deceased former girlfriend Katya’s body. The fact the she died before the Mercers even met is a crucial detail. Frankly, all the details are important in 45 Years, Andrew Haigh’s rigorous examination of an ostensibly comfortable marriage under sudden stress, which opens today in New York at the IFC Center.

The fact that she was named Katya is almost too much. She and Geoff Mercer were quite the item but she got too close to the edge while hiking in the Alps and over she went. After all these years, she has finally been found, perfectly preserved in an ice crevice. Initially, Geoff Mercer tries to shrug with “oh, surely I mentioned her” prevarications, but his distracted manner speaks volumes. Still, Kate tries to allow him a little melancholy nostalgia as she finalizes the plans for their forty-fifth anniversary party. Despite never having children, she always thought they had built something solid and meaningful. Yet, the absence of photos documenting their life together takes on nagging significance, especially since old Geoff still has pictures of Katya.

He does indeed, but audience members should not expect to see them. Shrewdly, Haigh only allows us oblique and obscured glimpses of the eternally young and vivacious Katya. How we see the Mercers seeing her is more important than getting a good gander at the spectral home-wrecker.

Casting 1960s era icons like Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay is almost too on-the-nose, but their considerable chops casts aside any gimmicky casting reservations. Courtenay no longer looks anything like a long distance runner, as we can plainly and shirtlessly see, whereas Rampling is still ramrod straight and naturally elegant. Yet, they still feel like a couple that is well familiar with each other. They are still two of the best in the business, who say more with silence and restraint than someone like a Meryl Streep ever could with all the shtick and histrionics at her disposal. There is just something uncomfortably honest about their performances. Just watching the film feels like an intrusion into a very private drama.

Haigh almost overdoes matters with references to the 1960s, but those clichéd pop songs Kate Mercer choses for the party rather underscore the generic nature of their relationship. They do not really have a song. She just picks something that fits. She and Geoff listen to the popular songs of their day, read the right books according to the right reviews, and hold properly reflexive left wing opinions to mark them as products of their generation, but none of that means anything. That truth and the other doubts it fosters are what makes 45 Years so potent. It is a mature, uncompromising film likely to earn (further) award notice for its two accomplished stars. Recommended for sophisticated palates, 45 Years opens this today (12/23) at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on December 23rd, 2015 at 11:08am.

By Joe Bendel. His name is Sun Wukong. He is better known as the Monkey King and he means business. Unfortunately, nobody else does. When he loses his powers through a wacky chain of events and his loser companions are magically trapped, Stone Ox village will have to rely on the over-confident but underachieving Wang Dachui, who always finds ways to misuse the thimble full of magical powers he possesses. Journey to the West takes a detour through Zucker Brothers territory in Surprise, which is now playing in New York.

Technically, Stone Ox village already has a mystical protector, but “Mr.” Murong has not been himself lately. The supernaturally imprisoned evil force his descendants swore to maintain watch over has really been giving him the full court temptation press. Wang Dachui, a sort of wuxia analog of the popular Chinese webisode slacker, thinks he is the man, but he is no match for the cat demon looking to plunder the village’s secret weapon. Fortunately, Murong saves his bacon, but the ensuing battle greatly weakens the guardian, leaving Stone Ox vulnerable as a result.

Feeling unappreciated, Wang decides it might be best to get out of Dodge for a while. He temporarily hooks up with the Monkey King, who has been separated from his colleagues: the monk, Tang Seng (a.k.a. Xuanzang), Zhu “Pigsy” Bajie, and Sha “Sandman” Wujing. Sun is now mostly mortal, but he still has considerable anger management issues and a wicked facility with the quarter staff. However, he is no match for the temper of Su Xiaomei, the rice cake vendor, who reluctantly employed Wang as a delivery boy. Nevertheless, the clumsy would-be-hero will return to Stone Ox to save her from the dark whatever it is that is up to no good (frankly, it is never very clear, but it is definitely bad news).

Whether as director, screenwriter, or co-star (appearing as Sandman), Yi is never intimidated by broad, over-the-top humor. This will be “Chinese humor” an audience member warned me before the screening—and she was right. Yi and rubber-faced star Ke Bai have no time for subtlety or sophisticated word play. On the other hand, few comedies can boast so many earth-shaking cataclysms, aside from Stephen Chow & Derek Kwok’s Journey to the West. Funny how that works.

Ke Bai certainly has no reservations when it comes to realizing the humiliations meted out on Wang. He takes a pasting and keeps on preening. As Su, Yang Zishan (recognizable from So Young and 20 Once Again) probably gets biggest, most exportable laughs cutting Wang down to size. Liuxun Zimo also makes a surprisingly credible action figure as the Monkey King. In fact, there are some pretty respectably choreographed action sequences, especially those involving the cat demon.

Although it is a goofball comedy, Surprise brings plenty of cosmic chaos. If there is another special effects spectacular opening this weekend, they have sure kept it quiet, so fantasy buffs really ought to consider checking out the exploits of Wang Dachui and the Monkey King. It has its charms, like watching the Three Stooges running amok through The Lord of the Rings. Recommended for fans of screwball genre films, Surprise is now playing in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on December 23rd, 2015 at 11:08am.

By Joe Bendel. Dany Dorémus could be a serious femme fatale, but she lacks the confidence. Perhaps it is because of her glasses. Her parents probably did not help, either. Apparently, in French author Sébastien Japrisot’s source novel, they were rather notorious during the German occupation, but that subtext is completely buried in Joann Sfar’s The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, which opens today in select theaters.

Dorémus is bizarrely mousy given her movie star looks, but the audience is immediately given reason to believe she is not quite right in the head. Regardless, she will gamely agree to do a favor for Michel Caravaille, the boss she has long carried a torch for, despite his marriage to her former business school classmate, Anita. While they attend a party, Dorémus types up his urgent report and will then drive them to the airport next morning for their weekend of business and pleasure.

She was supposed to take Caravaille’s Ford Thunderbird straight home, but instead the devil on her should tempts her into taking a joyride down south to see the sea. However, Dorémus is baffled when everyone along her impulsive route insists they saw her drive through that way the day before. A black-clad Giallo man even seems to assault her in a service station restroom in order to give her a wrist injury to match her doppelganger. At least that is how it appears from Dorémus’s POV, but her grasp on reality could be somewhat problematic.

Sfar, the graphic novelist and director of the animated Rabbi’s Cat embraces the foreboding visual élan of the Giallo genre and the groovy 1970s period trappings. It is always great fun to watch, even when the film appears to be barreling off the rails. At times, it feels like a marginally more grounded Mortem or a dramatically more grounded Lost Highway, but Sfar brings it all together down the stretch. Along the way, he does his best to dazzle with split screens, flashbacks, and noir mood lighting.

The Scottish Freya Mavor is terrific as Dorémus, the sexually charged naïf-waif. Similarly, Benjamin Biolay has the appropriate upper-class swagger for Caravaille. Frankly, Mavor and Biolay could easily pass for the daughter and son of Samantha Eggar and Oliver Reed, who first played the roles in Anatole Litvak’s1970 adaptation of Japrisot’s novel. As Anita the entitled trophy wife, Stacy Martin more or less picks up where she left off in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac. Frankly, Sfar’s cast looks almost as good as the beautifully sinister cinematography of Manuel Dacosse (who also lensed Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani’s neo-retro Giallos, Amer and The Strange Color of Your Bodies Tears). Costume designer Pascaline Chavanne’s chic threads also directly contribute to the dangerously seductive vibe.

There are definitely shades of Hitchcock in Car, but it is steamier than anything Hitch could ever get away with, except maybe the first act of Psycho. Clearly, Sfar is definitely riffing on the masters, which makes it quite a lot of fun to watch. Highly recommended for fans of psychological thrillers, The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun opens in a handful of theaters today (12/18), including the Gateway Film Center in Toronto, releasing simultaneously on VOD platforms, like iTunes.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on December 18th, 2015 at 1:47pm.

By Joe Bendel. Tess’s father has been deployed to Middle East. At least he will be safe there from the malevolent power apparently possessing his daughter. Tess’s young mother Jessica will be the unfortunate one stuck dealing with her erratic behavior. Unfortunately, the teen’s long history of emotional problems will delay a more supernatural diagnosis until it is almost too late. There are indeed trying times ahead in screenwriter-director Sonny Mallhi’s Anguish, which opens today in select theaters.

It is easier for Jessica to deal with Tess when her husband is around to teach her how to play guitar and skateboard. The teen is more than a little socially awkward, but it is not her fault. All her life, her brain chemistry has worked against her. She has responded positively to her latest dosage, so her parents hope and pray she has turned a corner. However, things take an ominous turn for the worse when Jessica relocates them to a sleepy burg in Illinois. It seems the spirit of Lucinda, the teenager killed in the film’s prologue, might have some kind of dark hold over her.

For a horror film, Anguish is remarkably grounded and stylistically Spartan. Clearly, Mallhi understands parents and teens are often scarier to each other than anything that goes bump in the night. Of course, Tess’s painful history and awkwardly reserved demeanor make her especially vulnerable to possession. In a way, Anguish is not unlike The Babadook, but the difficult child is older and the beleaguered parent is younger. Yet, instead of kicking around fairy tales tropes, Mallhi taps into the primal fears and puritan anxieties that make classic supernatural horror so unsettling.

Being moody and gritty is all very fine as an aesthetic choice, but it does not give the cast the sort of overblown effects and an exploitative excesses they could hide behind. Fortunately, they are all quite down-to-earth and credible as average, overwhelmed people, especially Annika Marks, whose work as Jessica is uncompromisingly honest. Granted, we sometimes want to shake Ryan Simpkins’ Tess by the shoulders, but that is sort of the whole point. Ryan O’Nan’s Father Myers is also refreshingly sympathetic and decent, even though Mallhi ultimately takes the film in a different direction than the classic Blattyesque priest-versus-evil spirit climax.

Anguish is a very good horror film that is on par with the unjustly under-appreciated The Diabolical and superior to the over-hyped Babadook. Despite some vaguely New Age elements, Mallhi has a good sense of what everyday life is like for God-fearing, military-serving working class people. He also delivers some well-timed jolts in the early going and some serious dread during the third act. Highly recommended for horror fans, Anguish opens today (12/18) in Los Angeles, at the Arena Cinema and also launches on VOD platforms.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on December 18th, 2015 at 1:47pm.