Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. Ironically, one of the most literarily significant lesbian novels of the pre-Stonewall era was written (pseudonymously) by a notorious anti-Semitic mystery and suspense novelist. Yes, the same difficult mind that created the talented Tom Ripley also gave birth to Carol Aird. Journey back to Manhattan in the early 1950s, when Madison Avenue wasn’t so mad yet. Lesbianism might have been a love that dared not say its name, but the sophisticated Aird is still not one to mince words in Carol, Todd Haynes’ adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, which screened as a Main Slate selection of the 53rd New York Film Festival.

Therese Belivet is a mousy but proper young woman working in a Manhattan department store, while secretly harboring ambitions of a photography career. When assisting Carol Aird schedule a delivery, she is quite taken by the older woman, in an uncertain kind of way. After she haltingly reaches out to Aird, she is surprised and pleased when Aird reaches back. Soon, they are spending more and more ambiguous time together. However, the development of their relationship is complicated by Aird’s messy divorce proceedings with her future ex, Harge, who still refuses to let go. (With a name like Harge Aird, he must be Ivy League, possibly even a future CIA director.)

In order to win her back, Harge is willing to play dirty. That includes calling out Aird’s past fling with Abby Gerhard, her childhood friend and now platonic confidant. Feeling overwhelmed by the tawdriness of it all, Aird packs up Belivet for an impulsive road trip. Naturally, further complications will ensue.

Cineastes generally get Haynes’ affinity for the era and its attendant angsts, but the quality of Carol’s period details are still impressive in their seamless accuracy. As we see, this is a time that predates the LP, when music stores stocked ten inch records in brown paper sleeves. The film also has the good taste to prominently feature Billie Holiday’s rendition of “Easy Living,” recorded with the great Teddy Wilson. In fact, Holiday is a rather fitting choice, given the film’s themes. However, it should also be noted the uncharacteristically lush orchestral score is one of Carter Burwell’s best.

Carol looks great and sounds great it is not quite the instant classic some represent it to be. Despite the breathless plaudits it has generated, there is something rather affected about Cate Blanchett’s performance as Aird. Instead of truly submerging herself into the character, she looks and sounds like she is doing Aird as if played by Joan Crawford or Rosalind Russell. Still, who wouldn’t like to see either of them dig into such a juicy role?

In contrast, Rooney Mara delves inward for an unusually brittle and disciplined turn. You would half expect her to shatter if she tipped over. However, Sarah Paulson steals scene after scene as the earthy, no-nonsense Gerhard, while Kyle Chandler manages to humanize square old Harge remarkably well.

As a recreation of the 1950s, Carol is richly realized, but it is less convincing as a relationship drama. Nevertheless, it takes viewers to a specific time and place, where it duly scores it points. Earning a moderate recommendation for its technical merits, Carol screened this past weekend as part of this year’s NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on October 12th, 2015 at 12:54pm.

By Joe Bendel. Camp Bloodbath is pretty much what it sounds like. The early 1980s slasher film has a loyal cult following, but nobody would want to become a part of it. After all, there will only be one young scantily clad woman who survives the massacre. Sadly, it is not the character played by Max Cartwright’s actress mother. That makes it even more disconcerting for her when she and her high school associates are swept into the vintage exploitation movie. Not even the Scream franchise was as satirically meta and self-referential as Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls, which opened last week in New York.

Max and her mother Amanda Cartwright were always scuffling, but at least they had each other—until the fatal accident. Her biggest part was Nancy the camp counselor who unwisely relinquishes her virginity in Camp Bloodbath. Unfortunately, its campy reputation was more of a hindrance than a help whenever Cartwright auditioned for parts. Therefore Max has rather mixed feelings towards the film. Nevertheless, she agrees to attend the anniversary screening organized by her best friend Gertie’s annoyingly Tarantino-esque step-brother Duncan, in exchange for help in the class she is failing.

Gratifyingly, Chris, the classmate she is most definitely interested in, comes to offer moral support. Less agreeably, his codependent ex also tags along to gum up the works as best she can. Somehow, when disaster strikes they are all supernaturally transported into the world of Camp Bloodbath. Of course, it takes a while to figure out where they are and what are the rules that apply to them. Fortunately, Duncan knows precisely when and where bullied camper turned savage serial killer Billy Murphy will strike. They assume if they stick close to surviving “final girl” they should be fine. However, that will not be Nancy, whom Cartwright cannot help relating to as her mother.

Without a doubt, Final Girls is the best horror send-up since the original Craven-era Scream films. While there are a decent number of laughs, it is more about visual inventiveness than set-ups and punchlines. The world of Camp Bloodbath is actually a closed ecosystem that strictly follows its own rigid logic. Frankly, it all makes perfect sense if you are a horror movie fan.

Final Girls also features an unusually big named cast for a horror spoof-nostalgia trip. Honest to goodness, Malin Åkerman is shockingly sweet and poignant as Amanda Cartwright and the character of Nancy as played by her. She also has some really nicely turned scenes with Taissa Farmiga, who makes a worthy prospective “final girl” as Max. As Gertie, Alia Shawkut is sort of doing her Arrested Development shtick again, but it works pretty well in the film’s context. However, Angela Trimbur and Tory N. Thompson steal scene after scene as Tina the nymphomaniac counselor and Blake the ultra-New Wave counselor.

It will probably be a cold day in the netherworld before production designer Katie Byron, art director Alexi Gomez and the rest of the design team get the awards recognition they deserve for Final Girls, but they make the film look terrific, in an eccentrically macabre way. Movie fans with any love for eighties horror will find it seriously stoked by M.A. Fortin & Joshua John Miller’s thoroughly clever screenplay and Strauss-Schulson’s high energy level. However, viewers should be cautioned to look for that plural “s.” The recently released Final Girl singular is an entirely different film. Highly recommended for retro genre connoisseurs, The Final Girls opened last week in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 12th, 2015 at 12:53pm.

By Joe Bendel. Yakuza and vampires depend on carefully balanced ecosystems that are not so different from Social Security. There absolutely must be more people bleeding money and plasma into the system than sucking it out. Due to his inexperience, a freshly turned Yakuza vampire threatens to upset the long term equilibrium, but he will have more pressing concerns when three agents of doomsday start wreaking cosmic havoc in Takashi Miike’s Yakuza Apocalypse, which opened last week in New York.

Genyō Kamiura is a benevolent Yakuza boss and a vampire, who refuses to drink civilian blood, even though it is sweeter and more nourishing than the bitter swill running through Yakuza veins. He has taken earnest Akira Kageyama under his wing, even though the lad’s skin is too sensitive to tattoo. They see eye to eye when it comes to giving civilians a fair shake, so when Kamiura is fatally jumped by Kyoken, a martial arts maniac and his boss, a Spanish priest carrying a disintegration ray in a casket, the last thing his severed head does is turn Kageyama into a vampire. Unfortunately, the unprepared Kageyama then accidentally turns a civilian, who immediately turns another, and so on. Soon nearly the entire town consists of vampires sporting supernatural Yakuza tats.

Obviously things are a mess, but they will only get worse with the arrival of the third representative of the cosmic syndicate. Kaeru-kun might look like a guy in a fuzzy green frog costume, but he is as lethal as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. What part of this being a Miike film didn’t you get?

Yakupoc has been dismissed as a Miike greatest hits package and there is a kernel of truth in that. One might have thought he worked through all his Django riffs in Sukiyaki Western Django, but apparently not. However, Miike is such a gleefully kitchen sink kind of filmmaker he constantly throws in inspired bits where you least expect them. Indeed, the audience’s introduction to Kamiura, in which a small army of earthly Yakuza learn the folly of trying to whack a vampire is truly vintage Miike. There are also a number of wonderfully droll lines sprinkled throughout the film and without question, it features some of the best fight choreography ever conceived for a dude in a downy soft animal costume.

Hayato Ichihara is shockingly engaging portraying Kageyama’s maturation process from awestruck henchman to hardnosed vampire. Largely playing against his usual hound dog type, Lily Franky is off the hook awesome as Kamiura. Unfortunately, Yayan Ruhian (the unrelated Mad Dogs in the Raid films) does have much of a character to work with in Kyoken, or much room to chew scenery. At least he still has all kinds of moves. The rest of the Yakuza underlings largely blur together.

When Miike is working in his chaotic one-upsman bag, his films are sort of like the weather. If it isn’t working for you, just wait ten minutes and it will change. Yet, even it clicks in fits and starts, it is exhilarating to watch him embrace the bedlam. His prolific work ethic is also pretty darn impressive. Recommended for Miike fans, but maybe not the best starter film for the uninitiated, Yakuza Apocalypse opened last week in New York, at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on October 12th, 2015 at 12:52pm.

By Joe Bendel. He was a horrible boss and a problematic parent. Even by his own admission, Steve Jobs’ greatest talent was for using people. Yet, probably no other corporate executive ever enjoyed such an intense popular following. He has become iconic through his celebrated product launches, which in retrospect were just as effective at crafting Jobs’ image as they were at introducing new Apple products. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin starts with the familiar image of Jobs the showman, but pulls back the curtain to show all the personal and professional chaos roiling in his wake throughout Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, the Centerpiece selection of the 53rd New York Film Festival.

It turns out Ridley Scott has two films at this year’s festival. In addition to the sneak peak of The Martian, we will also see his celebrated 1984 Apple commercial heralding the coming of the Macintosh personal computer, in its entirety. It has just caused a sensation airing during the Super Bowl and it duly whips Jobs’ audience into a frenzy. However, the backstage vibe is hardly one of triumphalism. We quickly learn technical problems threaten to sabotage the Mac’s unveiling, but when informed of the glitches, Jobs is his usual motivating self.

To be fair, he is under a great deal of pressure. He has had a rough time of it in the press recently, thanks in large part to Chrisann Brennan, the high school girlfriend who recently won the paternity suit she filed against him. She is also present, with Lisa, the daughter he still refuses to recognize in tow, hoping to secure greater financial support. At least the new Apple CEO John Sculley has his back, right?

Boyle and Sorkin then flashforward to 1988. Ousted by Apple, Jobs is about to launch the first cube-like personal computers of his new venture, NeXT. Jobs needs to make a perfect pitch, because the word on the street is spectacularly bad. Yet, he seems to have a secret ace up his sleeve, which both encourages and irks his loyal marketing director, Joanna Hoffman. Once again, like Scrooge on Christmas Eve, Jobs is visited backstage by ghosts from his past, including Sculley and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, as well as Lisa and Chrisann Brennan.

This pattern will repeat again in 1998. Through a combination of luck and guile, Jobs returned to Apple just in time to right the sinking ship. He is about to introduce the iMac, sparking one of the greatest corporate comeback stories in business history. However, the indulgent Hoffman finally puts her foot down, insisting Jobs man-up and set straight his messy personal life.

Probably no screenwriter has as many annoying hang-ups as Sorkin, but his triptych take on Walter Isaacson’s biography is kind of inspired. He literally takes the image of Jobs the pitchman that we have in our mind’s eye and turns it inside out. While everything in the film is constructed around the three big media events, we never actually see them happen. After all, they are just elaborately orchestrated hype sessions. The real drama Jobs cannot control—and it clearly vexes him.

Although he is hardly the spitting image of Jobs, Michael Fassbender connects with the arrogant, insecure, borderline Asperger’s essence of the man. It is a cold, clammy performance, yet we can see how Jobs maintained such Svengali-like control over everyone in his orbit. His emotional detachment makes everyone crave his approval even more. This probably goes without saying, but he puts Ashton Kutcher to shame.

Frankly, Steve Jobs the film deserves to be in the running for every best ensemble award because it is fully loaded with rich supporting turns, starting with the selflessly glammed-down and spot-on Kate Winslet as Hoffman. She lives up to Hoffman’s reputation as the only Apple employee who could stand up to Jobs. Getting serious, Seth Rogen aches with geeky dignity as Wozniak. Working as a battery of Lisa Brennans, Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo, and Perla Haney-Jardine all withstand Fassbender’s withering Mephistophelean presence, each developing some intriguing chemistry with his Jobs. You might expect these sequences to be hopelessly manipulative, but they are quite the contrary (at least until late in the third act).

However, probably nobody does as much to rebuild their characters’ reputations as Jeff Daniels, who elevates Sculley’s stature to tragic levels nearly commensurate with that of Jobs. Again, their ruptured surrogate father and son relationship might sound like cheap armchair psychiatry, but the restraint of Daniels’ performance and the sharpness of Sorkin’s writing makes it work relatively well.

Given its structure, Steve Jobs could easily be reconfigured into a stage production, but Boyle’s dynamic visual flair prevents it from ever feeling stagey. While it is light years removed from hagiography, it is still rather hard to fathom why current Apple CEO Tim Cook felt compelled to engage Sorkin in the press. Despite the character flaws it so deliberately establishes, the film is ultimately quite forgiving of Jobs. Smart and bracingly honest, it is the best shake the Apple co-founder has had from the cinematic world since Noah Wylie played him in the TNT movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, but Boyle incorporates it in a much more stylish and sophisticated package. Recommended for old school Mac partisans and Fassbender fans, Steve Jobs opens this Friday (10/9) after playing to packed houses as the Centerpiece of the 2015 NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 6th, 2015 at 11:35pm.

By Joe Bendel. In 1986, Soviet Refusenik Natan Sharansky gained his freedom through the final Cold War exchange conducted on Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge. Brooklyn attorney James B. Donovan found himself negotiating the first. At trial, he had represented convicted Soviet spy Col. Vilyam Fisher, a.k.a. Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent, who had narrowly escaped Stalin’s purges during his time with the NKVD. Presumably, the Russians will want him back, just as America wants Francis Gary Powers safely returned. To negotiate the deal in his unofficial capacity, Donovan navigates the murky political waters of Berlin during the final days of the construction of the Wall in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, which screened as a Main Slate selection of the 53rd New York Film Festival.

Donovan is the kind of stickler lawyer you do not want to be haggling with. Since he was also a junior member of the Nuremberg prosecution team, the Brooklyn Bar helpfully nominates him as Abel’s attorney. Although not thrilled, Donovan does his duty more diligently than anyone anticipates. Nevertheless, Abel is convicted, but conveniently not sentenced to death.

Sometime after U-2 pilot Powers’ capture and show trial, Donovan receives a strange overture from East Germany. With the CIA’s blessing but no official portfolio, Donovan tries to negotiate an Abel-for-Powers deal, but it is complicated by the arrest of American economics student Frederic Pryor on transparently bogus espionage charges. Suddenly the dodgy Wolfgang Vogel representing the GDR wants to swap Pryor for Abel, while the Berlin KGB station chief is willing to deal Powers for Abel.

While there is a bit of le Carré equivalency baked into screenwriters Matt Charman and Joel & Ethan Cohen’s depiction of the respective intelligence agencies, there is no denying the oppressive bleakness of East Berlin. Production designer Adam Stockhausen’s team vividly recreates the rubble strewn streets, bombed out blocks, and ominously imposing Berlin Wall. To his credit, Spielberg also shows exactly what happened to those who tried to scale it.

Of course, Donovan is exactly the sort of exceptional everyman that has become Hanks’ specialty. While he brings an instant credibility and a certain comfort level to the character, he never delivers any surprises—only sniffles as Donovan endures an awful cold. On the other hand, Mark Rylance is weirdly mesmerizing as the off-center Abel, precisely because of his restraint. It is like his face is a Rorschach test, which you cannot stop staring at.

For traditional villainy, Sebastian Koch chews plenty of scenery as Vogel, but he gets somewhat shortchanged on screen time. However, nobody is as embarrassingly unnecessary as Amy Ryan, playing an underwritten Mary Donovan, whose sole function in the film is to hassle her husband to bring back Harrods marmalade from his supposed fishing trip to Scotland.

Thanks to Stockhausen and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, Bridge looks terrific, but it is relentlessly over-scored by Thomas Newman. Instead of evoking a noir atmosphere, he indulges in symphonic sentimentality. Granted, it is a Spielberg movie, but it sounds too much like a Spielberg movie. Just imagine what could have been if someone like the great Tomasz Stanko (a Krzysztof Komeda protégé) had composed its themes instead. Regardless, there is plenty of striking work on view, including that of Mr. Dreamworks himself, who still has eerily keen instincts for maximizing the emotional impacts of his shots. Recommended reasonably enthusiastically for fans of Spielberg and espionage movies, Bridge of Spies screened again last night at Alice Tully Hall as part of the 2015 NYFF, in advance of its October 16th theatrical release.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 6th, 2015 at 11:34pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is like Hitchcock’s Rope on MDMA. It is 4:30 in the morning, but the day is not over yet. There is still plenty of hedonism to indulge in and crimes to commit. Unfortunately, one Spanish expat will ill-advisedly become involved with the latter in Sebastian Schipper’s legitimate, no-cheating one-take feat Victoria, which opens this Friday in New York.

After an aimless night of clubbing, Victoria intends to get a quick rest and then report for work at the organic coffee shop around the corner. However, her plans will be fatefully derailed when she runs into Sonne and his three rowdy friends, Boxer, Blinker, and Fuss. Despite her better judgement, she drinks with them, engaging in a minor bit of delinquency. His three amigos are definitely knuckleheads, but there is a real attraction developing between her and Sonne. That is why he is so reluctant to ask for her help when the dead-drunk Fuss is unable to hold up his end of a dodgy bargain—and why she is willing to agree.

While in prison, Boxer enjoyed the protection of the gangster Andi, who has suddenly called to collect. He has a job for Boxer and the lads—a bank job. He happens to know of an early opening branch office with a stash of cash in a safety deposit box. If you think the heist sounds poorly planned, wait till you see the getaway.

Considering it was shot in twenty-two centrally situated locations in uninterrupted real time, Victoria is an absolute marvel of organization. Yes, they stay within a tight geographic perimeter, but the cast and crew were still covering a great deal of ground, running up and down staircases, in and out of buildings, executing chase sequences that bring to mind Run Lola Run, in which Schipper had a supporting role (some might also recognize him as the strongest co-lead of Tykwer’s 3). That is a whole lot of logistics that all came together perfectly.

Frankly, the first act set-up takes a surprisingly long time, but it convincingly establishes Victoria’s budding relationship with Sonne. After the time we spend with them, we can fully accept her decision to serve as their getaway driver. Of course, from that point on, the film is off to the races.

Laia Costa and Frederick Lau are terrific as Victoria and Sonne, while Franz Rogowski and Burak Yigit are all kinds of bad news as Boxer and Blinker, but in a flamboyantly colorful way. Yet what really defines the film is its evocative sense of place (slightly sketchy, hipsterish Berlin) and the after-hours vibe. Schipper perfectly captures that slightly alienating feeling of being awake when all respectable people are safely asleep.

In addition to running his butt off following the action, cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen gives everything a properly disorienting haze, reflecting the influence of the drugs, alcohol, and trance-inducing club music. Arguably, he also serves as the film’s editor, making editorial decisions on the fly, through his framing. In fact, some of his choices are remarkably astute.

Although the dialogue is largely improvised, there is real substance beneath Schipper’s flashy style. Audiences will not resent investing in his characters. Still, let’s not kid ourselves. The frenetic one-take style is the reason to see his grittily fatalistic caper and it is impressive. Highly recommended for heist movie fans and anybody who just wants to see a filmmaker pull off something cool, Victoria opens this Friday (10/9) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 6th, 2015 at 11:34pm.