Category: Sundance Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. It is a documentary, but it could have played in the Park City at Midnight section, because it is a little scary at times. Alex Gibney’s Scientology documentary is pretty much everything you think it is, except it maintains a considerably higher standard of proof than his silly Eliot Spitzer conspiracy theory film. In fact, a considerable number of former high-ranking Scientologists go on-the-record and on-camera to explain how the IRS-designated church stifles dissent in Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Fortunately, Gibney had producer and lead talking head Lawrence Wright’s nearly identically titled book to serve as a blueprint. Although Wright claims he never intended to write an expose that is essentially what he ended up with once he started digging. Gibney and Wright chronicle the Scientology creation story, going back to L. Ron Hubbard’s early years as an incompetent military officer and prolific science fiction writer, shining a light on his increasingly abusive relationship with second wife Sara Northrup Hollister. However, the biggest news in Clear may very well be the extent to which Oscar winning filmmaker Paul Haggis assumes the role of the leading public critic of his former “religion.”

Those who have read Wright’s book (or the excerpts that were released at the time of publication) will be generally familiar with the “alleged” harassment tactics unleashed against critics, but the totality of Gibney’s presentation is quite damning. Wright scores one of the film’s best lines marveling at the chutzpah it takes to launch a “war” against the IRS. Of course, the war is now over. Scientology won, gaining official tax-exemption and wriggling off the hook for a potential billion (with a “b”) dollar tax bill.

It is important to emphasize every allegation in Clear comes from a former member, speaking of what they witnessed firsthand and directly participated in. Yes, they could all be lying, but their consistency and Occam’s Razor finds that unlikely. In contrast, no loyalists agreed to participate in the film, most notably including the best known celebrity adherents. Frankly, it will probably be Tom Cruise’s reputation that takes the biggest hit from the film, but Gibney and his assorted experts leave open the possibility that John Travolta might be something of a victim of various controlling tactics himself.

It is extremely disturbing to see bogus anti-Semitic rhetoric about Jews controlling Hollywood seep into the mainstream media, while the Scientology organization’s deliberate strategy to target the entertainment industry has been largely ignored. Surely, there are many well-meaning Scientologists (although the film estimates the ranks of active members have fallen to approximately 50,000), but they are not served by the leadership’s best-defense-is-a-good-offense policy. Gibney’s bracing documentary should be a wake-up call for them. Going Clear might be “controversial” (with air quotes), but it is authoritative and fully sourced. Highly recommended, it screens again this Saturday (1/31) in Park City and Sunday (2/1) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is eerily fitting that Hong Kong’s democracy activists chose the umbrella as their symbol. After all, they are now most definitely facing that proverbial rainy day. Aside from our colleagues at the Epoch Times, the largely AWOL American media did a terrible job of covering the Umbrella Protests. In contrast, HK filmmaker Flora Lau was there, capturing the images of a movement that deserved better in the brief but potent short, I Am Hong Kong, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Based on her unusually subtle and nuanced narrative feature debut Bends, Lau will be a filmmaker to be reckoned with, assuming I Am Hong Kong does not cause her bureaucratic trouble down the line. Her approach for the short is elegantly simple, matching striking black-and-white stills with voiceovers from diverse protestors explaining what contemporary Hong Kong means to them, in either practical or metaphorical terms.

These are the faces we have not seen—the mothers with young children, the senior citizens, and the attractive young college students, who surely would have had plenty of other requests for their time, were they not demonstrating for meaningful democratic reforms. Indeed, their signs are quite telling, proclaiming “No party, no karaoke, fight for democracy,” and “Keep calm and carry an umbrella.”

While Lau was there more to observe and report than to make a statement, just being there and recording it all faithfully is significant. Clocking in shy of the five minute mark, it is definitely a shorty, but visually it is powerful, almost overwhelming stuff. Very highly recommended, I Am Hong Kong is a work of journalistic art that screens again with the documentary feature The Chinese Mayor today (1/28), Friday (1/30), and Saturday (1/31) in Park City and Thursday (1/29) and Friday (1/30) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: A+

Posted on January 28th, 2015 at 4:54pm.

By Joe Bendel. Irina Nistor was the voice of the Romanian revolution. The brawn was supplied by Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone, and the rest of their 1980s action movie colleagues. Together they were an unbeatable combination—just ask Ceauşescu. Oh, but you can’t. Wildly popular but strictly forbidden, American action movies (thousands of which were dubbed by Nistor) directly undermined the Communist regime, as Ilinca Calugareanu chronicles in Chuck Norris vs. Communism, a World Cinema Documentary Competition selection at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Just when you thought films like Missing in Action couldn’t get any cooler, Calugareanu’s documentary comes around. Ceauşescu kept Romania even more isolated than the rest of the Warsaw Pact nations, and his censors were relentlessly thorough—to an almost comical extent. As a result, Nistor was pretty disgusted with her work translating for the censorship authorities, so she jumped at the chance to dub illegal American VHS tapes, often mastered from second or third generation copies, regardless of the risks.

Her boss was the mysterious Theodor Zamfir, who identified an unmet demand and spread around enough bribes to keep the tapes flowing. Of course, there were still dangers, especially for Nistor working in the lair of the beast. Fortunately, many high ranking Party members were also hooked on Zamfir’s tapes, because what else would they watch?

As films go, Chuck just about has it all. It is an inspiring story of courage and defiance in the face of oppression that takes some truly ironic twists and turns. It celebrates free expression, while also serving up a healthy dose of pop culture nostalgia. It is strange to think Romanians were watching kick butt Cannon films on VHS at the same time we were, but they were risking imprisonment and who knows what else by doing so.

We do hear from the real life Nistor and Zamfir, but the film is also interspersed with interviews featuring former customers, who really sound a lot like us or our friends at Unseen Films. In a potentially risky move, Calugaranu utilizes extensive dramatic recreations that make it a bit confusing when the actual historical figures finally appear on screen. However, they convey a vivid sense of the era and the paranoia that went with it.

Nistor and her associates were true heroes who made the world a better place, both in the short term and the long term. While the film is wildly inspiring, it also makes you wonder if the films produced in this day and age would have the same efficacy undercutting repressive regimes. Regardless, the fascinating and wholly entertaining Chuck Norris vs. Communism is very highly recommended when it screens again tomorrow (1/27) in Salt Lake and Thursday (1/29) and Friday (1/30) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 26th, 2015 at 5:58pm.

By Joe Bendel. Don’t say payback is a you-know-what and whatever you do, don’t say it wasn’t personal. Eve is in no mood to hear it. After months of captivity, she has turned the tables on her sex fiend tormentor. However, her revenge gets a little more complicated when she gets a sense of the scope of his operation in José Manuel Cravioto’s Reversal, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

The odious Phil always said Eve was special, but he never knew how right he was. After cold cocking him with a loose brick, Eve fashions a choker-noose to keep him controllable, but at arm’s length. She nearly capped him right then and there, but held off once he revealed the existence of other women at various hiding places. Fueled by outrage, Eve forces the sexual predator to take her to each one of them, but every successive trip never turns out to be as simple as she hopes.

You have to give Cravioto credit for understanding the point of a vicarious revenge thriller. We don’t want to mention any names, like Eli Roth, but there are a number of frustrating films playing in Sundance in which we wait for the poor central characters to turn the tables on their tormentors, but the sadistic antagonists just keep batting them down at every turn. That’s just no fun to watch.

In contrast, Reversal starts with the table-turning and follows Eve’s efforts to maintain the upper hand going forward. Granted, it is a dark and disturbing milieu to wade through, but the resulting comeuppance is undeniably satisfying. Thankfully, Cravioto never cheapens the proceedings with a lecture on violence or a lame ironic ending.

Frankly, it is also rather meta-creepy that Richard Tyson, the star of Zalman King’s 1980s softcore sex dramas plays the thoroughly gross Phil, but he is effective in the part. Likewise, Tina Ivlev is pretty awesome as the empowered and embittered Eve. There are too many flashbacks mixed into the action and none of its third act reveals are remotely as surprising as screenwriters Rock Shaink, Jr. and Keith Kjornes think they are, but the film delivers what it promises.

Frankly, Reversal is exactly the sort of film the Zoë Bell vehicle Raze and the I Spit on Your Grave reboot should have been. Yes, it is a sleazy exploitation film, but it brings female victimization to an abrupt halt. If you want to see some payback, it has your payback right here. Recommended for fans of grindhouse vengeance, Reversal screens again tomorrow (1/27) and Thursday (1/29) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 26th, 2015 at 5:57pm.