Category: Watch Movies!

By Joe Bendel. Floral bouquets are associated love and death. They are the tools of both courtship and mourning. That Ying and Yang can clearly be seen in Spain’s official foreign language submission to the 88th Academy Awards, Basque filmmakers Jon Garaño & Jose Mari Goenaga’s Flowers, which opens this Friday in New York.

Ane Goñi has just been diagnosed with menopause, but she takes it rather stoically. It is just one more disappointment in life, like her husband Ander, to whom she will not bother passing on the news. However, shortly thereafter a big extravagant floral arrangement is delivered—and it is not from Ander. Every week, a new bouquet arrives, vexing her suddenly jealous husband.

Then one day, they suddenly stop, simultaneously with the death of Beñat, a crane operator with the construction company, where she works in clerical support. Of course, it takes a while for Goñi to figure out the connection, but when she does, she starts leaving weekly bouquets at the site of Beñat’s auto accident, even though she hardly knew the man. Eventually, Beñat’s widow Lourdes (now remarried) and his mother Tere discover Goñi’s weekly devotion, but their resulting reactions and assumptions are drastically different.

Rarely has a film about love and loss ever been so rigorously unsentimental. Frankly, Beñat’s anonymous flower deliveries were more than a little stalkerish, yet they did bring some color into Ane’s relentlessly drab life. Indeed, all the characters are acutely human, living in a world largely indifferent to their existence. Garaño & Goenaga even mark the passage of time through the disposition of Beñat’s body, which he donated to science, without consulting with his family. While this is a rather morbid strategy at times, it still heightens the sense of grand tragedy, somewhat in the tradition of the Japanese Oscar winner, Departures.

Granted, Flowers weaves together many tentative, almost fragmentary relationships, but Nagore Aranburu’s wonderfully subtle and complex performance as Goñi helps sell most of them. (The truth is, people can become preoccupied or even obsessed on the basis of very little.) Itziar Aizpuru is also terrific—and ultimately heartbreaking—as Tere, the dreaded mother-in-law who repents too late. However, the standoffish Lourdes is never fully fleshed out, leaving only bitterness for the valiant Itziar Ituno to work with. Generally, men do not get the prime cuts in Flowers, but as Ander, Egoitz Lasa has at least one well-turned scene that challenges many audience preconceptions.

As a Basque language production, Flowers might sound exotic, but the freeway interchanges and construction sites are as hum drum as any other western urban environment. Yet, they often look arresting thanks to Garaño & Goenaga’s dramatically cinematic sense of visual composition. Cinematographer Javier Aggire’s work is also truly awards caliber, using reflections, hazy precipitation, and the colorful contrast of the many titular flowers for striking impact. This is a mature and worldly film, in a scrupulously chaste way. It is also deeply humanistic, profoundly indulgent of human foibles, and unexpectedly moving at the most unlikeliest times. Highly recommended for sophisticated viewers, Flowers opens this Friday (10/30) in New York, as a bit of counter-programming for Halloween, at the Paris Theatre.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 29th, 2015 at 2:52pm.

By Joe Bendel. They will be known as “A” and “B,” which is much simpler than Mr. Blonde and Mr. Pink. They are still just as lethal, if not more so. They are straight-up hitmen, but their latest job was a set-up from the get-go. The question will be who is playing whom in Neil Horner’s The London Firm, which releases this week in the UK on DVD and VOD.

A has one rule: no killing women or children. Usually, that leaves him plenty of scummy targets to safely accept, but it complicated his last job for the Laurence Tierney-esque Mr. Fines. However, all will be forgiven if he takes an extra special assignment. The first drawback will be working with the young and brash B, whose style rubs A the wrong way. The second drawback is the required transportation: the back of a mini tractor-lorry. This turns out to be a real downside when A and B wake up in the back of the truck to find their employment broker murdered with B’s glossy magazine. It seems someone wants something from one of the hitmen—and they aim to get it.

Of course, multiple twists ensue, some of which are fairly clever. It also takes some surprisingly dark turns, but that is sort of necessary to force certain characters’ hands. The confined lorry setting creates a real rats-in-a-trap kind of atmosphere, but Horner cuts away to the femme fatale henchwoman in charge of the operation frequently enough so the audience does not feel trapped with them. In fact, the jumping around is a little herky-jerky in spots, but not overly distractingly so.

Frankly, it all works pretty well as a gritty noir, in good measure thanks to the under-heralded Vincent Regan. He is the sort of actor’s actor you will see in big films like 300, but then goes back to punching the clock with recurring or guest-starring work on British television. He has the perfect bloodshot look and world-weary bearing for a principled antihero like A. Stephen Marcus and Robert Cavanah chew all kinds of scenery as Mr. Fines, and his poker rival, Mr. Hyde. Seb Castang is pretty dashed annoying as B, but that is how he is supposed to be. However, the absence of Mem Ferda in a gangster film like this is absolutely baffling.

If you enjoy gritty London-based noirs, like London Boulevard, 44 Inch Chest, and the Pusher remake, than London Firm delivers more of what you like. It is also a good example why Regan has worked so steadily since the early 1990s. A pleasantly overachieving little hitman morality play, The London Firm is recommended for thriller fans who happen to be in the UK, where it releases this week on DVD and VOD.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted October 29th, 2015 at 2:51pm.

By Joe Bendel. Anarchy was all very well for the UK, but not for the Captive Nations of the Warsaw Pact. Of course, that only made Hungary’s early 1980s underground punk movement embrace the music and its nihilistic ethos with ever greater fervor. Having secretly documented them in their prime on Super 8, Lucile Chaufour returned three decades later to see how angry and rebellious they still were in East Punk Memories, which screens during the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

The Communist authorities did not like punk—and the feeling was mutual. Homegrown Hungarian punk bands verbally smashed the state every night with politically charged lyrics, such as: “you’re just a street kid, you’ll never be party secretary” and “Communist drug, no seduction needed.” You sort of need to hear them in the original Hungarian for the full effect.

Several of the survivors of the Hungarian punk scene speak without nostalgia for the frequent feeling they experienced during the Socialist era that they were being followed (which they often were). Nobody is ready to shed a tear for Communism, but many are pointedly disappointed with the austerity and rising nationalism that followed. One former punk probably speaks for them all when he tells Chaufour he would not want to relive the Soviet years or the current era.

Yet, indirectly but unmistakably, Chaufour and several interview subjects hint that the punk movement might be partially responsible for the current state of things. It seems a legit skinhead faction eventually split off from the Hungarian punk scene, apparently reading too much into Sid Vicious’s swastika. You have to wonder if the current public discourse would be better if they had focused more on the black flag.

Perhaps, it is also telling that nearly every former punker is holding a beer in their “after” interviews. That is the Eastern Europe I know and love. Introspection and candor are also healthy, so maybe the former punkers are ready to help Hungary take the next step. The depth of their insights is somewhat inconsistent, but it is still an intriguing and appropriately grungy film. Recommended for Cold War punkers, the fifty-one minute East Punk Memories screens this Friday night (10/23), as part of the AMNH’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 23rd, 2015 at 11:37pm.

By Joe Bendel. What Julia Shames really needs is some firearms training from an old school vigilante like Death Wish’s Paul Kersey. Instead, the rape victim is recruited by a vaguely satanic, crypto-feminist cult. Sexual politics take a sinister turn, possibly even trumping revenge in Matthew A. Brown’s Julia, which opens today in select cities.

This Julia should absolutely not be mistaken for the 1977 Lillian Hellman film, although she might approve of the later film’s sentiments. Mousy Shames (how’s that for a heavy-handed name?) is brutally raped and left for dead by a former co-worker and his three thuggish friends. However, she survives because the reluctant one feels a last minute pang of conscience. Walking through Brooklyn in a daze, she is quickly identified and recruited by Dr. Sgundud’s cult-like organization.

He promises empowerment and revenge against the testosterone-driven rape culture, but his rules are rigid. First and foremost, she must forgo personal vengeance, in favor of waging a broader campaign against aggressive and entitled men. During her probationary period, the mysterious Sadie will be her coach and minder. Soon, they are also lovers. However, Shames is about to break Sgundud’s cardinal rule, because what’s the point of revenge, if it isn’t personal?

By genre standards Julia is unusually stylish, particularly Frank Hall’s electro-minimalist score. Unfortunately, the film is an absolute traffic jam of half-baked revelations and awkwardly didactic plot points. Rather than thrilling or scaring, the most applicable adjective-verb is “frustrating.”

Right from the start, Brown makes it clear there will be no vicarious satisfaction allowed from Shames’ vengeance-taking, which is problematic for a revenge thriller (Reversal, now known as Bound to Vengeance is an example of how this is done right). Instead, there are horror movie trappings mixed with a hallucinatory psychological drama, overlaid by a lesbian co-dependent morality tale. Even more distracting, Brown opens a huge can of worms with Sgundud’s big reveal, without ever really dealing with the implications.

Frankly, this film often feels like it is at war with itself, which is a shame, because Human Centipede’s Ashley C. Williams really is quite good as Shames. Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson’s eerie urban cinematography is also quite effectively disorienting, like prime David Lynch or Fabrice du Welz’s Alleluia. Yet, Brown keeps pulling the audience out of the action, making a point of showing us exactly what Julia is not. Not really recommended despite its technical merit, Julia opens today (10/23) at the AMC Burbank Town Center 8.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on October 23rd, 2015 at 11:36pm.