Category: Tribeca Film Festival

LFM Reviews In Order of Disappearance @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. If revenge is a dish best served cold, then provincial Norway is the perfect place for it. Technically, Nils Dickman is Swedish and he will serve up payback with Ikea-like efficiency in Hans Petter Moland’s comic noir In Order of Disappearance, which screens during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Dickman (yes, there are comments made regarding his surname) is not a gangster, he is a snowplow driver, but he becomes a very put-out snowplow driver when his son is murdered by a drug gang. Maybe it is in his blood. His older brother was once a gangster, nick-named “Wingman” in honor of Top Gun. Dickman’s anger and initiative are sufficient to ice the low level lackeys who administered his son’s fake overdose, but he will need some help getting to their boss, a legacy kingpin known as “The Count.” As Dickman works his way up the food chain, The Count responds by igniting a gang war with the Serbian mob he assumes is responsible for his underlings’ disappearances.

For some reason, Tribeca programmers have a soft spot for films about snowplow drivers. Even though Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais’s Whitewash won last year’s best new narrative director award, Disappearance is the film to see. Screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson (who also wrote the radically different Perfect Sense) neatly balances moody revenge drama (in the tradition of the original Death Wish) with generous helpings of dry, black comedy. In fact, there is a running visual gag that gets funnier and funnier through repetition.

On the other hand, Stellan Skarsgård plays it scrupulously straight as Dickman. He is about as Nordic as a vigilante can get. Despite his severe reserve, viewers get a sense he is so tightly wound, he might shatter if he tipped over. It takes a couple beats to realize the ever-reliable Bruno Ganz appears as the grieving Serbian godfather (known simply as Papa), but his sly turn adds the icing to this frozen ice-cream cake.

On paper, Disappearance would sound like a grim and slightly gory story, but it is great fun on the screen. Moland’s subtle touch and Aakeson’s inventive but rigorously logical plot developments keep the audience locked in every step of the way. Highly recommended for fans of gangster movies with a sardonic attitude, In Order of Disappearance screens again Sunday (4/20) and Wednesday (4/23) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 18th, 2014 at 11:11pm.

LFM Reviews Super Duper Alice Cooper @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. It was a band that became an individual persona. Subsequently, that persona nearly overwhelmed the person who adopted it. Vincent Furnier was a preacher’s son, but as Alice Cooper, he toured with Vincent Price, appeared on The Muppet Show, and had his own Marvel comic book. Yet, Cooper’s rock & roll lifestyle nearly killed the flesh and blood Furnier. Furnier/Cooper and those who knew him take stock of his long, strange trip in Reginald Harkema, Scot McFadyen, & Sam Dunn’s Super Duper Alice Cooper, which screens during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Dubbed a “Doc Opera,” Super Duper eschews staid talking head shots, in favor of disembodied voice-overs, archival footage, idiosyncratic animation, and of course a steady stream of music. The film immediately introduces its Jekyll and Hyde theme with mood setting clips from vintage horror films. However, Furnier/Cooper’s own words will drive the point home. Furnier had come to Los Angeles with his high school garage band to find their fame and fortune. They were not overnight successes. However, a late night Ouija board session inspired the band to rename themselves Alice Cooper in honor of Furnier’s past incarnation as a Salem witch. This being the 1960s, the unconventional name stuck.

Eventually, Frank Zappa signed Alice Cooper as sort of a male glam-rock band, but that was not their destiny. Managed by Shep Gordon (who is also the subject of another Tribeca doc), Alice Cooper slowly but steadily built a rabid following as a live band, incorporating elements of horror movies into their stage shows. Increasingly, Furnier became identified as Cooper, maintaining the identity when the band broke up. All the usual crazy rock star stuff applied to the macabre rocker—raised to the power of ten.

Yes, there is a feast of Behind the Music-style chaos in Super Duper, but it does not glamorize any of it. Instead, it suggests there is nothing wrong with being the child of a minister. In fact, it is rather a good thing to have a forgiving family support system to fall back on. Clearly, Furnier and the filmmakers suggest it is more rewarding to be a father and a husband than a rock star, but playing sold-out stadium tours sure helps pay the bills. The question of how you keep your inner monster contained in its box is a compelling one that Super Duper duly explores in great depth.

From "Super Duper."

Nevertheless, the Doc Opera is still a lot of fun. If ever a public figure left a trail of intriguing visuals it would be Cooper. His music might not be to all tastes, but how many other music docs incorporate footage of horror icons like Price and Dwight Frye? At some point, you just have to tip your hat to his incredible longevity, especially considering the extreme demands of being Cooper.

Fans will get plenty of attitude and head-banging in Super Duper, but responsibility and family values ultimately trump addiction and hedonism. Ironically, many of the viewers least likely to see it would probably appreciate Super Duper the most, including those who self-identify as Evangelicals. Fast-paced and entertaining, but also surprisingly mature and thoughtful, Super Duper Alice Cooper is highly recommended for both Furnier/Cooper’s loyal groupies and his fellow Born Again golfers when it screens again tomorrow (4/19) and Saturday (4/20) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 18th, 2014 at 11:03pm.

LFM Reviews Art and Craft @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

From "Art and Craft."

By Joe Bendel. Mark Landis is not all bad. After all, he regularly shops at a great American retailer like Hobby Lobby. He just happens to be one of the most notorious art forgers of our day. However, he never made a dime off his impressive fakes. Instead, the high functioning schizophrenic indulged his “philanthropic” impulse, to the embarrassment of many of the nation’s most respected museums. Landis and his nemesis will take stock of his strange career in Sam Cullman & Jennifer Grausman’s Art and Craft (co-directed by Mark Becker), which screens during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Clearly, Landis has difficulty relating to people. Yet, we cannot automatically blame his mother and father, since the master forger describes them as gregariously social and indeed loving parents. Landis lived with his widowed mother for years, so he is understandably still struggling with her somewhat recent death. He has a unique coping mechanism. Even as a child, Landis always had a talent for the mechanics of art, but he lacked either the vision or the confidence to produce originals. However, regional museums throughout the country rolled out the red carpet for him, thanks to his facility for forgery.

It is still unclear whether Landis’s fraudulent donations were all for the sake of a massive ego boost or the misguided product of a compulsion to please. Regardless, shockingly few institutions did the sort of “due diligence” practiced by former museum registrar Matthew Leininger. Having discovered several of Landis’s “gifts” offered to his museum suspiciously listed in press releases and websites of other institutions, Leininger sounded the alarm bell in the museum world. Yet, Landis remained at liberty and continued his “giving,” because no money ever changed hands, relegating his activities to a persistently gray legal area. At an obvious cost to his career, Leininger became the Javert to Landis’s Valjean, dogging the former in the press and through his professional networks.

From "Art and Craft."

What happens when Landis and Leininger finally come face-to-face? It is a rather interesting moment. To the credit of the battery of directors, A&C is very understanding of human frailty and presents both pseudo-antagonists in a sympathetic light. In a sense, the two men represent polar extremes, with Leininger arguing for truth above all, while Landis points to the immediate gratification produced by his gifts. Most viewers will line-up somewhere in the middle, alongside the curator organizing a display of Landis’s work. Duping museums is obviously problematic, but we still recognize a good story when we hear one.

In fact, the entire film sounds great, thanks to a swinging soundtrack composed by Stephen Ulrich to evoke big band music of the 1930s and 1940s (particularly Artie Shaw, but you will also hear echoes of “The Moche” in there), as well as the solo guitar work of Eddie Lang. Although it has the fullness of more modern recording technology (and takes occasional liberties with instrumentation), there is something wonderfully appropriate about Ulrich “forging” a vintage swing era sound.

At times, A&C raises questions about the nature of art and creativity, but Cullman, Grausman, and Becker never belabor the point, squarely maintaining their focus on the personalities involved. It will be fascinating to see how the film is received as it screens across the country, near museums that were taken in by Landis (many of whom remained in denial, even when confronted with Leininger’s evidence). Highly recommended for general audiences, Art and Craft screens tomorrow (4/19), Wednesday (4/23), and next Saturday (4/26) as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 18th, 2014 at 10:58pm.

LFM Reviews Traitors @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. So far, the Arab Spring has hardly trickled down at all for women. Malika and her bandmates know this only too well. They are punk to the bone and have plenty to say about their country’s corrupt patriarchal society, but they need cash to express it. More specifically, they must cut a professional grade demo to keep a prospective producer interested. There are ways to make quick money in Tangier, but the drawbacks are considerable, as viewers will witness during Sean Gullette’s Traitors, which screens during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Malika and her band, Traitors (with no “the”) might sound vaguely familiar to hip readers, because it grew out of the similarly titled short film that played at the 2011 New York Film Festival. Gullette reprises many scenes in the feature version, but there is a new focus on Tangier’s increasing importance as an international drug trafficking hub.

As befitting any self-respecting punk rock diva, Malika has a strained relationship with her parents, particularly her good for nothing father. Thanks to his gambling debts, they are facing the very real possibility of eviction. Plus, she must raise funds for her band’s studio time. Of course, she gets fired from her French call center job around this time, as well. However, she has caught the eye of Samir, a drug dealer with a proposition. Although she more or less knows better, she still accepts his offer to act as a drug mule. As she talks to her traveling companion, the very pregnant Amal, Malika comes to understand the magnitude of her mistake.

In a strange way, Traitors the feature suffers a bit in comparison with Traitors the short. While the former segues into an impressively tight and tense crime drama, its predecessor was a powerful indictment of the everyday misogyny (and even violence) faced by Moroccan women, particularly non-conformists like Malika. Frankly, many viewers (especially those in the know) will want to see more of the rest of Traitors and less of Samir’s thuggish associates.

Still, both incarnations of Traitors prove that Chaimae Ben Acha is a future superstar poised to breakout globally. The camera loves her and she can belt them out like Joan Jett in her prime. This is a richly layered performance, bringing to life a deeply complex character. Malika is unusually intelligent and creative, yet also seriously self-destructive. Artists, you know.

Gullette (co-writer and star of Aronofsky’s Pi) maintains a brisk pace and a nervy vibe, but there is no question this is Ben Acha’s show (although Mourade Zeguendi has his moments as Samir, the complicated drug dealer). Traitors the feature is a good film, but it leaves us wanting to see and hear more from Traitors the band. Maybe that is all part of the master plan. Recommended with conviction for viewers with a punk heart or an interest in women’s rights in North Africa and the Middle East, Traitors screens Sunday (4/20), Tuesday (4/22), Thursday (4/24), and Saturday (4/26) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 17th, 11:02pm.

LFM Reviews The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. He is the French contemporary equivalent of the kid from “The Ransom of Red Chief.” He smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and is a massive hypochondriac. Frankly, even Michel Houellebecq cannot imagine who would pay to get him back, but that seems to be the only detail his abductors have nailed down in Guillaume Nicloux’s The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq, which screens during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Although Houellebecq translations have been published in America, he has never really caught on in New York literary circles. Charges that his novel Plateforme was anti-Islam probably did not help (these were real legal charges, on which Houellebecq was ultimately acquitted). It also spurred wild rumors that Houellebecq had been abducted by Al-Qaeda when he abruptly disappeared during a book tour. That did not happen. Neither did the narrative written by Nicloux.

When we first meet Houellebecq playing himself as he goes about his daily business, he strikes us as a massively self-absorbed bundle of tics. This impression only grows stronger when he is kidnapped by a trio of cut-rate gangsters. At first he resents the intrusion into his life, but he soon seems to appreciate having his captors at his beck and call. Luc is nominally in charge, but he clearly answers to people above him. He has stashed Houellebecq at his parents’ home, where he is watched over by Maxime the bodybuilder (played by French bodybuilder Maxime Lefrançois) and MMA fighter Mathieu (played by Mathieu “the Warrior” Nicourt).

Much to Luc’s frustration, Houellebecq largely wins over his parents and associates, despite his frequent demands for cigarettes and his favorite Spanish wine. Perhaps their greatest bone of contention is Luc’s refusal to let the writer keep his cigarette lighter. It seems like a small point in the larger scheme of things and an understandable position for a kidnapper to take, but it becomes symbolic of Houellebecq’s efforts to reassert his control.

Although more scripted than mumblecore, there is enough improv room for Houellebecq to put his stamp on the film. Nobody can accuse him of being overly concerned with his public image. It might be a great comedic performance, but it certainly feels like it has the ring of truth. He also develops some truly bizarre but effective screen chemistry with Nicourt, Lefrançois, and Luc Schwarz.

Kidnapping deftly skewers notions of the public intellectual and sends-up Houellebecq’s iconoclastic image, but the humor is of a decidedly dry variety. Houellebecq’s future biographers will surely have a field day with it, but it requires a post-modern sensibility to appreciate its docu-fictional games. Recommended for highly literate Francophiles, The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq screens this Friday (4/18), Saturday (4/19), Wednesday (4/21), and next Friday (4/25) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 17th, 2014 at 10:51pm.

LFM Reviews The Bachelor Weekend @ The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

From "The Bachelor Weekend."

By Joe Bendel. Ever noticed how those crunchy granola camper types are lousy in a crisis, especially in the great outdoors? If you ever have an emergency in the forest look for the city guy. Oh, but “The Machine” is something else entirely. Outdoorsmen and urban sophisticates alike will shrink before his chaotic power in John Butler’s The Bachelor Weekend (a.k.a. The Stag), which screens during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Fionnan is sort of a Groomzilla. Finding him bizarrely interested in their wedding details, Ruth the bride-to-be presumes on best man Davin to take him on a stag camping getaway. Although Davin knows his chum is hardly the outdoorsy sort, he complies anyway. After all, as everyone but Fionnan knows, he also once went out with Ruth and never really recovered when she dumped him.

However, both men utterly dread her borderline psychotic brother, known simply as “The Machine.” They try to make it look like they have invited the hard-charging U2 fanatic, while holding back key info, like where and when. Nonetheless, The Machine still manages to find his way to the party, arriving in a wickedly foul mood. Let the celebration begin.

Weekend is not exactly a staggeringly original concept, but it is considerably gentler and less raunchy than The Hang-Over franchise and its copycats. Even The Machine turns out to be a reasonably grounded character. In fact, Butler and co-writer Peter McDonald (who also co-stars as the prospective brother-in-law from Hell) pull a bit of jujitsu, shifting viewer sympathies from the uptight Fionnan to the madly roguish The Machine.

From "The Bachelor Weekend."

Frankly, the biggest question Weekend answers pertains to Andrew Scott’s viability as a comedic leading man. Best known as Jim Moriarty in PBS’s Sherlock (and one of the memorable voices calling in during Locke), Scott fares rather well as Davin. He brings a sad dignity to the film that holds up quite nicely over time. McDonald brings the heat as The Machine, but also throws an effective curve ball or two in the late innings. In contrast, Hugh O’Conor is annoyingly nondescript as Fionnan.

From time to time, Weekend offers some humorous commentary on Irish cultural identity amid the bromance. It is good-hearted and reasonably amusing, but not earthshakingly memorable. A pleasant diversion, The Bachelor Weekend screens this coming Tuesday (4/22), Wednesday (4/23), Thursday (4/24), and Sunday (4/27) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on April 17th, 2014 at 10:46pm.