Category: Watch Movies!

By Joe Bendel. Where would you rather live, a far future apocalyptic dystopia or Brooklyn today? A time traveler chose the latter, but she is having understandably mixed feelings about it. Yet, just as she starts to restart a life in our presence, her future past complicates matters in Alexis Boling’s Movement + Location, which is now playing in New York.

Kim Getty is reluctant to make attachments, because she understands how awkwardly she fits into this era. Once she traveled back in time, there was no going back. Time travel technology only goes one way. Typically, people travel back by themselves, but Getty thought she had a way she and her husband could back the jump together. Somehow they were separated, but on the first day of each month she visits the arrival point, hoping he will finally appear.

Getty’s only real contact is with her coworker Marcel, with whom she does field work for a homeless outreach service. During their rounds, she notices a homeless fifteen year-old girl has the same markings of a future time traveler. Through a lot of fast talking she manages to get Rachel back to her place, but she found herself agreeing to a date with Rob, the earnest beat cop in the process. Amber, her BKLN party girl roommate is rather surprised to learn Getty has a “sister,” but Getty is just as surprised to find she might be falling for Rob. Unfortunately, Rachel’s teenaged naivety threatens to call attention to the deliberately low profile Getty, in precisely the wrong ways.

With its Brooklyn setting, you could almost think of M+L as mumblecore science fiction, but it is much more substantial than that. However, it is definitely a quiet, character-driven piece. There are no scenes of naked Terminators arriving through a portal of lightning bolts. Time travel just somehow happens off camera and we just need to accept it. Instead, screenwriter (and lead) Bodine Boling focuses on the psychological repercussions of such an extreme, irreversible situation.

Boling duly impresses as the brittle and reserved Getty. She also develops some refreshingly sweet romantic chemistry with Brendan Griffin’s Officer Goodguy. In fact, it is Griffin who really grounds the film and gives it heart. Likewise, the commanding screen presence of theoretical physicist Haile Owusu brings to the table as Marcel contributes further depth and integrity to the unusual character study.

There are times when you might forget M+L is a speculative fiction story. Still jazz musician Dan Tepfer’s evocative minimalist score gives it a vaguely disconcerting, science fiction vibe, while subtly underscoring the intimate dramatic action. Like so many genre films, the Bolings sort of lose control of the conclusion, but at least ninety-five percent of the film is remarkably assured, which is more than good enough for a high passing grade. Recommended for those receptive to a mature, emotionally realistic science fiction chamber drama, Movement + Location is currently playing in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on September 20th, 2015 at 2:23pm.

By Joe Bendel. If you want to generate an avalanche of email, some of which speculating on the nature of your parentage, then merely point out somewhere online that the Muslim Ottoman Empire essentially invented genocide in 1915. No serious historian disputes the Armenian Genocide, but the denial reaches levels well past the absurd, approaching outright lunacy. Therefore it is somewhat encouraging to see hardcore leftist Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin seriously address the subject. His reference point is more The Searchers than Schindler’s List, but there is no denying the enormity of the events of 1915 in Akin’s The Cut, which opens this Friday in New York.

In his Armenian enclave bordering Syria, Nazaret Manoogian can tell an ill wind is blowing from Constantinople, but he hopes the worst of it will be the impressment and slave labor endured by the village’s able-bodied men. Alas, true horrors await when they finally finish the highway for the military. The entire work party is then massacred by a group of convicts specifically liberated for such duties. However, Mehmet the thief has no stomach for mass murder. At risk of death he slices Manoogian’s throat, but only cuts deep enough to sever his vocal chords, rather than a major artery.

The resuscitated Armenian and Mehmet soon fall in with an apolitical group of Turkish deserters, but Manoogian subsequently lights out on his own after hearing survivors have congregated in Ras-al-Ayn, essentially to wait for death. From there, Manoogian will follow an epic trail that leads through Syria, Lebanon, Cuba, Florida, Minnesota, and North Dakota, in search of his surviving twin daughters, Lucinee and Arsinee.

Akin deserves credit for fully facing up to the Armenian Genocide in the Ras-al-Ayn sequences, as well as the brutal mass murder of his fellow villagers, but it clearly makes him uncomfortable. Arguably, the film’s emotional power peaks in the Ras-al-Ayn dying fields. For the next two acts, Akins seems to be desperately searching for “righteous” Muslims to protect Manoogian and thuggish Americans to torment him as he pursues his quest.

Nevertheless, Akin absorbed plenty of the right lessons from John Ford. The vistas do indeed sweep. Alexander Hacke’s muted electronic soundtrack is also quite effective, creating an appropriately otherworldly vibe. Truly, there are times when Manoogian might as well be on Mars. However, the narrative’s Homeric episodic nature is inevitably uneven. Some scenes just work better than others.

Still, Tahar Rahim nicely anchors the film with necessarily quiet power. He is acutely expressive without ever indulging in exaggeration or Streep-like excess. Once again, the Cecil B. DeMille-worthy supporting cast is a decided mixed bag, with Bartu Kucukcaglayan and Kevork Malikyan earning notice as Mehmet and the Cuban barber who befriends Manoogian, respectively.

When Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide,” he did so specifically in response to the systematic Ottoman massacre of Armenians. Frankly, the denial is becoming toxic for the deniers, so if someone with Akin’s ideological standing acknowledges the historical record, it might just help dilute some of the vitriol. The Cut is not perfect but it towers above his unsoulful Soul Kitchen. Recommended on balance for those interested in the Armenian Genocide (a tragedy scarcer than albino elephants in cinema), The Cut opens this Friday (9/18) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on September 18th, 2015 at 2:33pm.

By Joe Bendel. It’s tough working a fruit cart in Oakland. Juana would know. She is about to be held-up and roughed-up by the thugs targeting cart workers. Frankly, it is hard to make a go of anything in the economically distressed city, but its sushi restaurants seem to be uncharacteristically healthy. Juana will still have to create her own opportunities to become a sushi chef in Anthony Lucero’s East Side Sushi, which opens today in Los Angeles.

Even before the robbery, Juana wanted a better way of life. She thinks she might have found it in one of the Japanese restaurants owned by Mr. Yoshida. You could say he is reasonably progressive in that all kitchen employees receive health benefits, but he has very definite ideas about who can prepare sushi up front. They have to be male and Asian, preferably Japanese, or at least trained in Japan. She is neither, but as she learns from Aki, the talented but timid sushi chef, she starts to harbor ambitions. She also makes her new found passion for sushi relatively palatable for her daughter and father by incorporating poblanos and jalapenos. Maybe she’s onto something there.

East Side is a hard film to take critical stock of, because it takes absolutely no risks, but there is no denying its earnestness and the charisma of its principles. If enough people see it, East Side could be a word of mouth smash, precisely because its predictable arc is like comfort food. Still, there are moments that stay with you. Lead Diana Elizabeth Torres truly brings tears to viewers’ eyes when she desperately declares “I deserve an opportunity.” You can just hear centuries of the American dream welling up under her.

Likewise, Yutaka Takeuchi is terrifically understated as Aki. Roji Oyama also brings unexpected nuance to Mr. Yoshida. However, old Pops is an annoying combination of bluster and soft cultural prejudice. In general, the restaurant ensemble is much better than the home ensemble, but Torres is terrific working with both.

Maybe the big sushi roll-off does not completely follow the standard issue template, but it does not deviate too far. Yet, there is no denying the film takes you to a satisfying place. All kinds of nice, East Side Sushi is recommended for people who do not go to the movies very often and want to see something a lot like the last thing they really enjoyed when it opens tomorrow (9/18) in Los Angeles at the NoHo 7.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on September 18th, 2015 at 2:32pm.

By Joe Bendel. It’s good for a lad to aspire to a career. Young Montana thought he was apprenticing to be a drug dealer, but when his bosses double-cross him, the adolescent learns the assassin’s trade instead. Revenge will be had by mentor and protégé alike in Mo Ali’s Montana, which opens this Friday in limited release.

Dimitrije was a Serbian assassin during the Balkan Wars, but there were things even he wouldn’t do. He tried to escape with his wife and son, but they were captured by an especially vicious militia leader. Dimitrije escaped, but not before his family was killed by the man now known as the London drug kingpin Lazarus. Bent on revenge, Dimitrije has tracked Lazarus’s operations, taking out pawns at strategic moments. Thus far he has spared Montana.

Montana wants to rise through the ranks of the gang, like the henchmen he looks up to. He no longer attends school, but he still has one straight friend, Jess, a prospective girlfriend. Yet, unbeknownst to him, it was Lazarus’s men who killed his father. Therefore, they consider it only a matter of time before they have to rub him out as well. That day will come sooner rather than later. Needless to say, he survives long enough to hook up with Dimitrije, who will become his personal Miyagi for assassination and urban warfare.

So maybe Montana is not blazingly original, following in the tradition of Leon, the Professional and scores of deadly apprentice films, but the execution is impressively crisp. There are some nifty action sequences and the payback is duly cathartic. It might be a B-movie, but Lars Mikkelsen deserves credit for bringing his A-game. As Dimitrije, he gives the film tragic gravitas, as well as borderline psychotic tendencies. Young McKell David also shows tremendous promise in the title role. Even when Montana is acting out, he is relatively easy to take. He also develops some appealing ambiguous chemistry Sinead Michael’s Jess.

Looking distinctly Mem Ferba-ish, Darrell D’Silva appropriately chews all kinds of scenery as Lazarus. However, British TV star Ashley Walters and Game of Thrones fan favorite Michelle Fairley are strangely underutilized as Lazarus’s duplicitous lieutenant and the DCI incredibly oblivious of her massively corrupt Detective Constables.

Granted, Ali and screenwriters Jeremy Sheldon and Peter Lowe are following an established formula, but they clearly recognize the elements that make it work. Thanks to an engaged cast it clicks together quite competently and satisfyingly. Recommended for fans of gritty, action driven revenge dramas, Montana opens this Friday (9/18) in Los Angeles, at the Arena Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on September 18th, 2015 at 2:31pm.