Trailers – Page 11 – LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

LFM Reviews Steve McQueen: the Man and Le Mans

By Joe Bendel. Steve McQueen helped finance and appeared in the Oscar-nominated On Any Sunday, which remains the preeminent motorcycle documentary to this day. He had something similar in mind for Le Mans. However, the rest of the cast and crew thought they were making a dramatic narrative. Those are what are generally termed creative differences. There were quite a few going on behind-the-scenes of the 1971 film. The difficult production process as well as the eternally cool actor’s passion for the sport are chronicled in John McKenna & Gabriel Clarke’ Steve McQueen: the Man and Le Mans, which opens this Friday in New York.

Le Mans is the oldest endurance contest in car racing—twenty-four hours circling the picturesque French village. As McQueen envisioned it, Le Mans would give viewers a vivid, tactile sense of what it was like to drive the course at speeds over 200 miles per hour. Like Paul Newman (who finished second at Le Mans in 1979), McQueen was a legit racer in his own right, but for insurance reasons, he was not allowed to compete in the actual race. However, much of what driver Jonathan Williams’ camera car recorded during that year’s Le Mans was incorporated into the film. They had the authenticity nailed down, but they lacked a script.

It quickly becomes apparent from the rediscovered “making of” footage and interviews with the surviving participants, Le Mans could be considered something like McQueen’s Apocalypse Now. It ballooned way over budget and severed several of McQueen’s professional relationships. During the chaotic shoot, McQueen’s marriage to cabaret-musical theater performer Neile Adams also collapsed. However, causal fans might be most surprised to learn McQueen was already under stress following revelations the Manson Family had specifically targeted him. In fact, he was expected to join his friend Jason Sebring at Sharon Tate’s home on that horrific night.

For a film about the need for speed, Man and Le Mans is surprisingly calm and contemplative, even with McQueen’s son Chad doing his best to liven things up with attitude and enthusiasm. Still, McKenna & Clarke include plenty of ironic anecdotes and fully capture a holistic sense of the actor, the race, and the challenging film. They even score a pretty significant scoop, vouched for by McQueen’s former personal assistant Mario Iscovich (a great interview) and Louise Edlind, the sort-of lead actress, who would later be elected to Sweden’s parliament.

It’s not Bullitt, but Man and Le Mans is still a good movie for auto enthusiasts. Arguably, McKenna & Clarke’s Zen-like approach works quite well, especially considering how their use of ghostly audio interviews recorded with McQueen shortly before his death gives the film such an elegiac vibe. If you like motor sports and classic Hollywood, Man and Le Mans would make a terrific triple feature with Winning: the Racing Life of Paul Newman and Weekend of a Champion, featuring Roman Polanski. All three are quite entertaining, even if you are more interested in the famous drivers than their fast cars. Recommended for McQueen fans, Steve McQueen: the Man and Le Mans opens this Friday (11/13) in New York, at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 11th, 2015 at 7:34pm.

LFM Reviews Mad Tiger @ DOC NYC 2015

By Joe Bendel. Despite what you may have heard, punk is not dead yet. It just needs a bit of theatrics and costuming to perk it up. The Japanese band Peelander-Z is all over that. Their music is whatever, but their ruckus stage shows combine elements of Jackass, Sun Ra, and the Power Rangers. They are definitely a cult act, but they have sort of made a go of it. However, they are about to experience a rocky patch of soul-searching in Jonathan Yi & Michael Haertlein’s Mad Tiger, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

Supposedly Peelander-Z hails from Planet Peelander. Why have they come to Earth? To rock, dummy. Peelander Yellow (a.k.a. Kengo Hioki, he’s the one with the bright yellow hair) has fronted the band since 1998, which is an eternity in punk time. For twelve of those years, Peelander Red has been their bass player and the go-to-guy for really off-the-wall physical stunts. When he decides to retire, Peelander Yellow quickly replaces him with Peelander Purple, his old friend from the dark side of Peelander. However, both Yellow and Red have trouble finding the closure they were hoping to reach.

Let’s be honest. Peelander Z is more punk than the old school punk of the late 1970s. Take for instance Peelander Yellow’s Letterman tooth gap. He originally broke his front tooth during a performance at Bonnaroo, but he gave up trying to replace it with a crown, because he kept breaking those as well.

Yi (who directed Peelander-Z’s “So Many Mike” video) and Haertlein vividly capture the bedlam of the Peelander experience, but they also document some backstage drama worthy of the old Behind the Music docu-series. They might be kind of nuts, but they have the same problems as more conventional bands. They also need more time for dying their hair, but fortunately they have a cool band stylist with a good sense of humor.

Mad Tiger is a ton of fun, but it also takes Peelander Yellow’s sudden feelings of spiritual emptiness seriously. Believe it or not, it might just include the most positive, sympathetic depiction of Christianity in any DOC NYC film this year, due to the scenes of Yellow reconnecting with his converted family in Japan. Sure, there are plenty of giant squids in Mad Tiger (named for one of their greatest hits), yet is also an acutely human film, in an intergalactic kind of way.

It is indeed a super film that comes fully loaded with energy, attitude, and lunacy. Very highly recommended for punk fans and Peelander expats, Mad Tiger screens Friday night (11/13) at the IFC Center, as part of DOC NYC 2015.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 12th, 2015 at 9:25pm.

LFM Reviews Bang Bang Baby

By Joe Bendel. The Top! Few crooners made it, because Bobby Shore pretty well had the big time teen idol racket sewn up. But from the North, there was a talented ingénue vocalist—and she had a dream. Perhaps all that didn’t make any sense to you, but it seems like a new Canadian retro sci-fi musical would dearly love to be compared to Jonathan Paizs’ Crime Wave, so there you have it. Of course, it cannot possibly match the indescribably bizarre vibe of Paizs’ cult classic, because how could it? Regardless, there ought to be more lunacy in Jeffrey St. Jules’ Bang Bang Baby, which just released on VOD.

Stepphy Holiday has the golden voice and the innocent look to go far, but she is stuck in Lonesome Pines, her nowheresville Canadian small town. She wanted to compete in a New York talent show, but her drunken codependent father wouldn’t let her leave. However, things might work out for the best when heartthrob Bobby Shore and his very German manager Helmut find themselves stranded in Lonesome Pines (but don’t count on it).

Like clockwork, Shore starts romanticizing Holiday and making her big career promises. Her embarrassing father is a bit of stumbling block, but they could probably work around him. Unfortunately, the town-wide mutations resulting from a chemical spill at the local planet will be a different matter. Rather awkwardly, Holiday will become macabrely preggers when she has no reason to be. On the other hand, it will probably be the best opportunity the torch-bearing Fabian will ever have to win her over.

BBB sounds like absolute lunacy, but St. Jules’ execution is not nearly as off-the-hook crazy as it should be. Frankly, he seems to have fallen in love with these characters, because he spends a disproportionate amount of time on their hopes, dreams, and personal relationships, while hardly ever showing us any mutants. Playing it straight is a defensible strategy, but he still needs to bring the madness. Instead, BBB just feels restrained.

From "Bang Bang Baby." — From “Bang Bang Baby.”

Nonetheless, Jane Levy deserves credit for her lead vocals and her earnest energy. Justin Chatwin’s Shore comes across like a refugee from a 1990s John Waters movie, but that’s not necessarily wrong. As Helmut, Kristian Bruun cranks the exaggerated German accent up to eleven in a performance that is refreshingly unrepentant in its snottiness, but Peter Stormare is largely underemployed as the self-pitying George Holiday.

The songs of BBB are surprisingly polished and era-appropriate, but none of them are particularly memorable. It is still impressive St. Jules was able to stage an entirely original movie musical. Nice, but not the knockout punch you’re hoping for, Bang Bang Baby is now available on most VOD platforms, including iTunes.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on November 12th, 2015 at 9:25pm.

LFM Reviews How to Win at Checkers (Every Time) @ The 2015 Hawaii International Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Thailand is one of the most tolerant Southeast Asian nations of same-sex relationships. They also have a long tradition of transgender acceptance, although redlight district stereotypes remain an issue. In 2005, the government lifted the ban on LGBT soldiers in the military. That sounds progressive, but Ek would have preferred the old, unenlightened system. As the primary support of his bratty younger brother, he cannot afford the honor of conscription. Nor can he bribe his way out, like his well-heeled boyfriend. Corruption rather than discrimination is the driving issue of Texas-born Josh Kim’s How to Win at Checkers (Every Time), Thailand’s official foreign language Oscar submission, which screens during the 2015 Hawaii International Film Festival.

The checkers-playing Ek and Oat were orphaned by their father’s untimely death, but they have each other. They also have a place to stay with their Aunt and her mischievous daughter Kwan, but she depends on Ek to cover the boys’ expenses. He is in a committed long-term relationship with his former classmate Jai, but if you think that is going to last, you haven’t seen very many social issue dramas. We can tell from the confusing framing device, something tragic will befall Ek, but an embittered Oat will survive and thrive.

The impending draft lottery looks like the destabilizing event. The stealthy Oat knows Jai’s parents have bought his way out of service, which means there will be one less black card in the hat for Ek to pick. If he pulls out red, it means two years fighting insurgents. Frankly, it is a bizarre ritual they presumably stage because of its ostensive transparency, but when the fix is in, everyone can tell.

It is interesting to see a film with LGBT relationships front-and-center, in which sexuality is not an issue. Even the crooked old officers running the rigged lottery seem perfectly accepting of Ek and Jai’s transgender friend Kitty (perhaps unfortunately so). Things might not be perfect, but Thai society certainly appears healthier than fundamentalist Iran, which the Obama administration seems willing to make a nuclear power, or notoriously homophobic Cuba, which it can’t wait to normalize relations with. Yet, the administration has put the deep freeze on U.S.-Thai relations following the military coup and partial power-sharing arrangement.

Regardless, the young cast is remarkably accomplished and utterly natural on screen. Thira Chutikul does a heck of a slow burn as Ek, while Natarat Lakha shows real star power as the protective Kitty. However, young Ingkarat Damrongsakkul really carries the dramatic load as Oat. It is his coming-of-age story, and he makes every wince-inducing moment of it all too believable.

Aside from the off-key wrap-arounds (the problem perhaps being all grown-up and jaded Oat looks like he is maybe thirteen years old), Kim’s execution is remarkably sure-footed. He clearly prefers small telling moments to big melodramatic explosions, for which we’re grateful. Kim also shrewdly employs and contrasts rural and urban settings for atmospheric effect. It is a nice film that should have more mainstream appeal than a thumbnail sketch would suggest. Recommended for those who appreciate the coming-of-age genre, How to Win at Checkers (Every Time) screens this Friday (11/13), next Friday (11/20), and the following Saturday (11/21) at this year’s HIFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 12th, 2015 at 9:25pm.

LFM Reviews Friends and Romans

By Joe Bendel. The great Charlton Heston played Mark Antony twice, in little seen film adaptations of Julius Caesar produced twenty years apart. That is all well and good, but Nick DeMaio is more interested in the 1953 Joe Mankiewicz version starring Marlon Brando. Not surprisingly, Brando is an icon for the blue collar Italian American actor, who specializes in extra work on mafia movies. DeMaio is determined to produce and star in a staging of Julius Caesar to broaden his acting horizons. However, along with his gangster extra cronies, he will unknowingly cast a real life Mafia boss and an undercover Fed in his very Italian-American Caesar. Complications will ensue, as they do, in Christopher Kublan’s Friends and Romans, which opens this Friday in Jersey and Long Island.

DeMaio was in Godfather III, Goodfellas, and The Sopranos, but he only had one slightly embarrassing speaking part. Nevertheless, the movie extra work has nicely supplemented his income as a wholesale produce deliveryman. Still, the broad ethnic stock characters are starting to bug him. He would like to be taken seriously as an actor, so he latches onto Shakespeare’s Caesar as the vehicle to make it happen.

As luck would have it, he rents the abandoned theater where real life mobster and aspiring actor Joey “Bananas” Bongano is hiding out. Even though he is wanted for murdering a Broadway producer (seriously, that is probably just a misdemeanor), he can’t stop himself from auditioning for DeMaio. FBI agent “Paulie” Goldberg also successfully auditions, suspecting DeMaio and his cronies are involved with the secretive Bongano, whose features and thespian pseudonym remain unknown to the Feds.

Granted, FAR is a bit sitcom-ish, but it is immensely likable. Kublan and co-screenwriters Michael Rispoli and Gregg Greenberg also incorporate a number of clever references to Shakespeare’s original text. Frankly, it is a much smarter film than one might expect, even though there are no shortage of jokes derived from Italian stereotypes.

As DeMaio, Rispoli balances goofiness and earnestness rather well, never overindulging in either. We just so get exactly who he is supposed to be, but he still wears well over the course of time, like a broken-in pair of shoes. Annabella Sciorra is grossly underemployed as Angela DeMaio, but at least she develops some pleasant chemistry with Rispoli. It is also nice to see her character support her husband’s eccentric ambitions right from the start, rather than merely serve as an emasculating dream-deflator.

Almost by necessity, most of the gangster-looking supporting cast is serving up shtick of some kind, but Paul Ben-Victor’s shtick is funnier and flashier than the rest as Dennis Socio, DeMaio’s limo driving buddy, who agreed to direct because he once did a limited run of Tony & Tina’s Wedding on the Island.

FAR is not exactly getting over-distributed this weekend, but it is destined to become a word of mouth sleeper hit on DVD and VOD. It gently spoofs gangster movie conventions, before tying everything up in a big “feel good” bow. You can be snarky all you want, but it works at the audience level. Recommended for fans of backstage comedies, the entertaining, low stress Friends and Romans opens this Friday (11/6) in the Tri-State Area.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on November 5th, 2015 at 3:16pm.

LFM Reviews Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom

By Joe Bendel. Until the Yanukovych’s regime’s brutal assault on the peaceful Maidan protests, St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery had not rung all its bells simultaneously since the Mongol invasion of 1240. Of course, this fact comes with an asterisk. Technically, the Soviets destroyed the Kiev landmark in the 1930s, but it was subsequently rebuilt following independence. Appropriately, the working Orthodox monastery played a significant role in the events that unfolded on and around Maidan Square. Russian-Israeli filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky captured history in real time, documenting step by step how the demonstrations evolved into a revolution. Rightfully considered an Oscar contender, Afineevsky’s Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s Doc Stories—and also streams on Netflix.

The Euro-Maidan movement and its supporters have been well documented by filmmakers such as Sergei Loznitsa, Andrew Tkach, and Dmitriy Khavin, yet the Western media still gives credence to Soviet propaganda claiming the popular uprising was merely a prolonged tantrum thrown by skinheads and neo-National Socialists. However, with the exposure granted by Netflix’s platform, those lies should finally be permanently put to rest.

In fact, one of the big “scoops” of Afineevsky’s film is the extent to which Kiev’s Major Orthodox Archbishop, Catholic Archbishop, and the Islamic Mufti of Religious Administration supported the Maidan activists. Their early blessings (literally) were important, but it is impossible to overstate the leadership of His Eminence, Agapit, the Vicar of St. Michael’s and Bishop of Vyshgorod. It was he who approved the tolling of the bells and gave shelter to protestors fleeing from steel truncheon-wielding of agents of the Berkut, Yanukovych’s personal shock troops, who were truly the barbarians at the gates.

Unlike Loznitsa’s film, Afineevsky takes the time to single out individual protestors. While this gives the film greater emotional resonance, it is also necessary in some respects, for viewers to fully understand the dynamics in play. One such protestor we meet is the popular but self-effacing Serhiy Nigoyan, whom many fellow Maidan activists identified through social media as an inspirational figure for them all. When Nigoyan became the Berkut’s first gunshot fatally, his face began appearing on makeshift shields across the Square.

Working with twenty-eight credited cinematographers, Afineevsky captures just about everything that transpired, including the savagery Yanukovych and his Russian puppet-master so strenuously denied to the world media. Viewers should be warned, Afineevsky will introduce them to Ukrainians who will be murdered in the ensuing assaults and sniped attacks. Yet, he and editor Will Znidaric whittled and stitched the voluminous raw footage into a tight, cogent, and cohesive narrative.

Another aspect of the Euro-Maidan that comes through more clearly in Winter than prior documentaries is the genuine grassroots nature of the revolution. It was truly bottom-up rather than top-down. In fact, opposition leaders (including Vitali Klitschko) are often seen trailing after movement, earning jeers for their parliamentary caution. It is probably the most cinematic document of the Maidan protests to-date and perhaps also the most damning of the Yanukovych regime (and the big boss Putin, by extension). Very highly recommended (especially for Academy members), Winter on Fire screens this Thursday (11/5) as part of the SFFS’s Doc Stories.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on November 3rd, 2015 at 6:45pm.