Category: Tribeca Film Festival

LFM Reviews Human Highway

By Joe Bendel. It is the end of the world, but everyone feels fine. Linear Valley is pretty much devastated from the radiation spewing from the nearby nuclear power plant and outright nuclear war is imminent. However, burning down the local diner for the insurance money is still a viable scheme for the new owner. Too stoned-out to even be considered satire, Neil Young’s pseudonymously directed apocalyptic musical Human Highway finally gets a proper New York release, starting today, as part of the IFC Center’s new film series, Bernard Shakey Retrospective: Neil Young on Screen.

Co-directed under Young’s Shakey alter-ego with co-star Dean Stockwell, Highway also features Dennis Hopper (in dual roles), Russ Tamblyn, and Mark Mothersbaugh with Devo, so that should give you a general idea what’s on-tap. Young plays earnest loser mechanic Lionel Switch, who harbors dreams of rock & roll stardom, but every year the nuclear power plant’s garbage men win the radio station’s talent show. This morning he has brought along his pal Fred Kelly, whom his boss, Old Otto has promised a job.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t known as “Old Otto” for nothing. Sadly, the town benefactor has passed away and his money grubbing son, Otto Quartz has inherited the diner and garage. He has some new policies that will not go over well with the staff. Yet, it may not matter very much, judging from the ominous radio reports.

It is hard to apply any rational critical standard to such a manic exercise in DIY spit-ball shooting and general tom-foolery. Frankly, the reason most people will want to see it would be Young’s hard-edged rendition of “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” with Devo. Arguably, Highway is even more a curio for Devo fans than admirers of Young (who has been quite well documented on film, by Jonathan Demme).

As Switch, Young is pretty shameless mugging for the camera. Likewise, Stockwell is not exactly shy about chewing the scenery while playing the villainous Quartz. What would you expect from a film conceived as a lark and fueled by peyote and transcendental meditation, or who knows what?

This is the sort of film you watch just to confirm it exists. Some see seeds of The Simpsons in its wacky nuclear waste handlers, but you could probably find crude analogs for just about every subsequent surreal vision quest within Linear Valley. For fans of Young, Devo, and anarchic micro-budget slapstick allegories, the director’s cut of Human Highway opens today (4/17) at the IFC Center.

Posted on April 20th, 2015 at 3:26pm.

LFM Reviews Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: the Story of the National Lampoon @ Tribeca 2015

From "Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead."

By Joe Bendel. Fortunately, they did not make sex jokes and potty humor respectable, because then they wouldn’t have been fun anymore. However, this crude band of brothers were able to move them out of the frat houses and onto our newsstands and movie screens. War stories are told and the thanks of a grateful nation is expressed throughout Doug Tirola’s Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: the Story of the National Lampoon, which screens during the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

It all started with two slightly off-center Harvard students. The Harvard Lampoon was considered the nation’s oldest humor magazine, but it was usually more about racking up extracurriculars than being funny. Editors Doug Kenney and Henry Beard were the exceptions. Together with fellow alumnus Robert Hoffman they took the Lampoon national. It took a while to catch-on, partly due to the underground comix look of the early issues. However, their tastelessness and contempt for authority soon found an appreciative audience.

From the vantage point of the internet age, it is hard to imagine the vastness of the Lampoon’s comedy empire at its height. In addition to the magazine, there were books, radio shows, stage productions, records, and of course films. Naturally, Animal House is chronicled in fitting detail. While Van Wilder fans might be upset over the franchise’s snubbing, Tirola and the surviving Lampoon staffers own up to the notorious head-scratcher that is Disco Beaver from Outer Space.

Happily, former editor P.J. O’Rourke gets substantial screen time, but Tirola never plugs the national bestsellers that came after his magazine stint, like Holidays in Hell, which made his reputation and had a considerable influence on the prose you read here every day. Indeed, Tirola scores interviews with just about everyone still living you would hope to hear from, including John Landis, Tim Matheson, and Chevy Chase.

From "Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead."

However, there is no getting around his Tony Hendra problem. He can hardly ignore Hendra’s long association with the magazine, but he never acknowledges his personal controversies. The problem is, Jessica Hendra’s memoir How to Cook Your Daughter, in which she accuses her father of sexual abuse, takes its title from a now notorious Lampoon piece Hendra wrote, so the subsequent media frenzy becomes part of the magazine’s extended story, regardless how uncomfortable it makes us. By not addressing it in some fashion, Tirola risks being told he has a Hendra problem by internet know-it-alls.

Regardless, Drunk etc is a fun documentary that reminds us how different the state of entertainment looked in the 1970s and 1980s. In today’s world Funny or Die wishes it were National Lampoon, but it is so not. Highly recommended as a nostalgia trip, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead screens again this Tuesday (4/21) and Friday (4/24) as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 20th, 2015 at 3:25pm.

LFM Reviews Live from New York @ Tribeca 2015

By Joe Bendel. Having featured Ornette Coleman as a musical guest, Saturday Night Live has a claim to coolness nobody can ever take away from it. Unfortunately, the show is a pale shadow of what it once was. Where did it go wrong? Do not look for an answer from Bao Nguyen’s documentary, since it refuses to acknowledge any slippage in the show’s cultural currency. Instead, expect several rounds of back-patting when Live from New York! screens at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Live duly chronicles the show’s creation story, largely from Lorne Michaels’ perspective and spends a fair amount of time with the surviving original cast-members. However, the only skits they really analyze are Chevy Chase’s bumbling Gerald Ford impressions. Julia Louis-Dreyfus then apologizes for how bad the show was during Michaels’ five year absence—before the film hastens to celebrate Dana Carvey and Will Farrell’s impressions of the respective Presidents Bush. Eventually, it stutter-steps to the one high-point: the first show broadcast after September 11th, as remembered by Michaels and Giuliani. It shows how SNL can capture the sentiments of the City when it tries.

Frankly, Live is not merely shallow. It is a nauseating combination of self-congratulatory narcissism periodically interrupted by bouts of self-flagellation for not being more racially and ethnically inclusive over the years. Of course, they take great self-serving efforts to call out their new and improved line-up, but the obvious lack of a Hmong cast-member suggests they still plagued by extensive institutional racism.

To give you an idea of the film’s editorial focus, its de facto centerpiece sequence revolves around the twitter reaction to Leslie Jones jokes about her hypothetical sex life if she were a slave. Right now, you’re probably wondering who is Leslie Jones? To put this in perspective, the doc has nothing to say about the Coneheads, the Killer Bees, the Wild and Crazy Guys, Mr. Bill, Father Guido Sarducci, Deep Thoughts, Buckwheat, Ed Grimley, the Liar, “You Look Marvelous” Fernando, Charles Rocket dropping the F-bomb, or Elvis Costello pulling a set-list switcheroo, whereas Jones’ twitter feed represents the show’s defining moment. That’s just sad.

Live would be a disappointment as a DVD extra, but it was inexplicably chosen to open this year’s festival. The fact that it presents Brian Williams as an authority on the show’s wider significance without a trace of irony is tragically embarrassing. Yet in a way, it is so politically incorrect and deeply in denial, it is exactly the sort of docu-treatment the current incarnation of the show deserves. Not recommended, Live from New York! screens again next Friday (4/24) and the following Saturday (4/25) as part of this year’s Tribeca. Watch the 1979 show surreally featuring Coleman as musical guest and Milton Berle as host, instead.

LFM GRADE: D-

Posted on April 20th, 2015 at 3:25pm.

LFM Reviews Supermensch @ Tribeca/SFIFF

By Joe Bendel. You have to have a real Zen-like attitude to successfully manage Alice Cooper. The drugs did not hurt either, at least in the early years. Starting with Alice Cooper (the band), Gordon expanded his roster to include clients like Anne Murray. You could call that a career. It certainly provides plenty of anecdotal grist for friend-of-Shep Mike Myers’ affectionate portrait Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, which had a special Tribeca Talks screening at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

In true 1960s fashion, Gordon started managing Alice Cooper as a cover for his causal but considerable drug-dealing income. When law enforcement started getting nosy, he decided to make management a full time gig. The early years were tough, but Cooper (the man) gives Gordon credit for eventually making good on all the motel bills they skipped out on.

Eventually, Gordon’s long-term strategy—make parents hate Alice Cooper—paid off handsomely. Gordon would subsequently manage Murray, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, and Groucho Marx (the latter more as a fan’s act of devotion than as a money-making concern). Perhaps the most eye-opening sequence explains Gordon’s role in kicking off the celebrity chef phenomenon, making Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck rich and famous in the process. Of course, Cooper plays a central role in Myers’ profile, which makes sense both from a biographical standpoint and as an endless source of good material.

From "Supermensch."

As it happens, Supermensch is one of three interconnecting docs that played at this year’s Tribeca. Obviously, Gordon appears in Super Duper Alice Cooper and vice versa, but Cooper also briefly appears An Honest Liar, explaining the Amazing Randi’s role devising the guillotine routine for his stage show. All three are entertaining, but Super Duper’s rock & roll attitude combined with its Jekyll & Hyde psychoanalysis is ultimately more compelling than the breezy show biz vibe of Supermensch. By the way, if Gordon and Cooper had a connection to Bob Weir it did not come up in The Other One.

Regardless, the first-time director clearly had no trouble getting his fellow FOS’s to talk. Just about all of it is pretty funny stuff. Occasionally, Gordon gets serious, but Myers never lets that last, keeping things snappy throughout. For the post-screening discussion, Michael Douglas (another FOS) interviewed Gordon, eliciting more reminiscences. Frankly, a good number were repeats from the film, but you could say they were observing rock & roll’s “greatest hits” tradition. A pleasant source of bubbly, low calorie laughs and nostalgia, Supermensch is recommended for Boomer rock fans and aspiring talent managers. A crowd-pleaser at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon also screens tonight (5/2) during the San Francisco International Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on May 2nd, 2014 at 11:28pm.

LFM Reviews Bright Days Ahead @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Caroline looks considerably younger than her husband Philippe, but he still practices dentistry, whereas she has retired. That means she has time on her hands. Much to her surprise, she will find things to do at an upscale senior center that happens to employ a much younger but surprisingly receptive personal computing teacher. Fanny Ardant takes a diva turn in Marion Vernoux’s adultery drama Bright Days Ahead, which screened during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Caroline is not adapting well to retirement. When her grown daughters buy her a trial membership at the Bright Days Ahead senior’s club, she nearly has a fit. You can hardly blame her—a name like that sounds like some sort of rehab clinic. Reluctantly, she starts going to Julien’s computer classes when their home PC goes on the Fritz. Before long, some cougar-himbo hanky-panky commences. Unfortunately, her increasing recklessness leads to inevitable exposure.

Even with the not exactly jaw-dropping age difference between the not-so secret lovers, Bright is a pretty standard exercise in cinematic infidelity. Yes, Ardant still has it, but what distinguishes Vernoux’s otherwise conventional screenplay (co-written with Fanny Chesnel) are a handful of blisteringly honest scenes and a quiet gut-check performance from Patrick Chesnais as the wronged husband.

Philippe is indeed wronged, a fact that Vernoux and Chesnel do nothing to water-down. Refusing to be conveniently submissive, he is a dignified yet emotionally messy rebuke to the of pat empowerment themes often bandied about by adulterous wife movies. Similarly, Caroline goes into the affair remarkably clear-headed, even helping Julien keep up appearances with his younger lovers. However, you might have to be a sixty-some year old French woman to appreciate the charms of Laurent Lafitte’s Julien.

Without question, it is the veterans Ardant and Chesnais who make Bright work to the extent it does, particularly in their scenes together. Rather undistinguished looking, it still has enough incisive moments that pop to make the whole worthwhile. Recommended for Francophiles, Bright Days Ahead has already opened in New York at the Quad Cinema, following its American premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. It also screens this Sunday (5/4) at the Montclair Film Film Festival in Jersey.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on May 2nd, 2014 at 11:21pm.

LFM Reviews Point and Shoot @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Matthew VanDyke’s only formal military training came while he was an embedded reporter with the American military in Iraq. There were those in the Libyan rebel army who had far less, but they were not a sheltered twenty-seven year-old living with a conspicuous case of OCD. Relying on travel and combat footage shot by VanDyke himself, Marshall Curry documents his journey from a homebody who had never even done his own laundry to a POW of Gaddafi’s notorious Abu Salim prison in Point and Shoot, which won the Best Documentary Feature Award at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Partly at the prodding of his girlfriend Lauren Fischer, the underachieving VanDyke set out to remake himself into a sort of gonzo travel journalist motorcycling through the Middle East. It worked to some extent. By virtue of proximity, he was able to cover Iraq for a local Maryland paper. Not surprisingly, he got along famously with the troops he followed, most of whom he still considers friends. The instruction they gave him on the shooting range would also serve him well.

Through his travels, VanDyke also made fast friends with hippie Libyan tourist Nuri Funas, whose home he illegally visited before the war erupted. When the Arab Spring reached Libya, VanDyke also returned, determined to fight for and alongside his new friends. Unfortunately, he was captured during an ambush shortly thereafter, but that would hardly be the last word on his warfighting experiences.

Hipper readers might recognize VanDyke as the director of the short but intense documentary, Not Anymore, which dramatically captures the boots-on-the-ground reality in Syria (now available on-line). It is safe to say recent years have been eventful for the filmmaker, considering Curry only takes viewers through VanDyke’s Libyan period.

From "Point and Shoot."

He tells the story well, framing VanDyke’s footage with a confessional interview—he is almost like the twenty-first century equivalent of a Joseph Conrad narrator, except he has the video to verify his narrative. For obvious reasons, VanDyke has no footage from his time held in solitary confinement, but Curry compensates with Joe Posner’s stark 3D animation sequences, modeled from the very walls of VanDyke’s former cell.

VanDyke’s chronicle is pretty darn dramatic (and still developing). While just about everyone with a handheld device might be recording the world around them, you have to be in a warzone to shoot a battle selfie. Indeed, the filmmaker-freedom fighter captures some powerful and illuminating images. Altogether, it celebrates freedom and human dignity for all, as well as the very American practice of self-reinvention. Highly recommended, Point and Shoot is sure to have a long festival life after winning the World Documentary Competition at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. It is already scheduled to screen this Wednesday (4/30), Thursday (5/1), and Saturday (5/3) during Hot Docs in Toronto.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 30th, 2014 at 11:33pm.