Day: April 6, 2012

Parka Dude Attacks! LFM Reviews ATM

By Joe Bendel. Brace yourself for Parka Dude. The latest would-be horror movie franchise figure is so bland and boring he does not even have a name or a face. However, he will thoroughly terrorize three young corporate drones stranded inside a stand-alone automated teller in David Brooks’ ATM , which opens tomorrow in New York at the IFC Center.

David Hargrove always feels like a pathetic loser at his firm’s annual Christmas party, because he never can work up the courage to talk to his big time crush Emily Brandt. Yet, since this is Brandt’s final day with the company (and perhaps on Earth in general), his loud mouth buddy Corey Thompson successfully goads him into making one last try. However, just when Brandt agrees to let Hargrove drive her home, Thompson decides to play third wheel, insisting they drop him off too, but first stop for a slice of pizza. Of course, he has to hit a cash machine on the way, potentially signing their death warrant in the process.

Some large cat in a hooded parka evidently has a thing about terrorizing people in remote ATM islands. He has all the blueprints for the fateful kiosk Thompson chooses, but he does not have a bank card to get inside. Thus begins a game of cat and mouse, as Parka Dude lays siege to the ATM.

Naturally, everyone’s cell phone is either out of juice or out of reach. Still, that’s more or less an acceptable horror movie convention. How sad is it, though, that three able-bodied grown-ups cannot rush one faceless dude with a hooded coat and a tire iron? Instead, they stand around in said ATM, letting hunger and the freezing temperatures do Parka Dude’s work for him.

The most irritating thing about ATM is that is does not bother to give us the smallest pretense of resolution. Instead, after a climax involving a ludicrously contrived set of circumstances, we are assured Parka Dude is out there planning his next industrial park ATM outing. Maddeningly, screenwriter Chris Sparling gives viewers absolutely no reward for sitting through this exercise in stupid stalking, except the promise of more of the same to come.

As Brandt, Alice Eve nicely turns the film’s one well written scene. Before the entire mess comes crashing down, she attempts to alleviate Hargrove’s guilt over getting her into this fix. Rather philosophically, she argues it was a myriad of decisions she made over the course of years that led her to be in that ATM on that night. It might be a valid point, but viewers will not be pinning the responsibility on Hargrove. We blame Thompson, just for being such an annoying jerkheel.

This is the kind of film that makes an audience audibly groan in frustration. However, it does not have enough character to at least be campy. In fact, both the lead protagonist and his malevolent nemesis are irredeemably generic. Completely unsatisfying, ATM should definitely be skipped when it opens tomorrow (4/6) in New York at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: D-

Posted on April 6th, 2012 at 2:35pm.

Alien Warfare! New Clips from Battleship and Falling Skies, Plus a New Image from Halo 4

Cortana and Master Chief in "Halo 4."

For those of you following Earth’s seemingly endless conflicts with alien invaders, a new clip of Battleship just went online featuring alien ‘shredders’ attacking a Marine base (see above), plus there are some new promos out for the next season of TNT’s Falling Skies (including the first 3 1/2 minutes of the Season premiere). Battleship opens May 18th (Men in Black 3D opens a week later, btw), while Falling Skies Season 2 debuts June 17th.

There’s also a new image out today of Master Chief and Cortana from the forthcoming Halo 4. Cortana’s certainly looking sexier than ever.

For the real die-hards, you can also check out the new production blog for Ender’s Game.

Posted on April 6th, 2012 at 2:34pm.

The Legacy of Communism: LFM Reviews The System

By Joe Bendel. Communism ripped apart scores of German families. Perhaps the Hillers were one of them. Aimless twentysomething Mike Hiller cannot say, because his mother refuses to speak of his late father’s shadowy past. The murky ambiguity of the former East German elites’ post-reunification experiences are explored in Marc Bauder’s intriguing thriller The System (trailer here), the opening film of Disappearing Act IV, the annual New York showcase of European films unjustly overlooked after their well received festival runs, co-presented by the Czech Center, the Romanian Cultural Institute, and the Group of European Cultural Institutes.

Mike Hiller suspects his father’s death was no ferry accident and his mother’s silence only stokes his resentment. Still, as a former low level Stasi clerical worker, she has her reasons for reticence. She was married to Rolf Hiller, a hotshot confidential operative charged with acquiring hard currency for the state through dodgy international transactions. Ironically, he would have been one of the few East Germans well positioned to prosper after the fall of the Wall, just like his ex-partner, wheeler-dealer Konrad Böhm. When through the machinations of fate Böhm interrupts Hiller and his punk buddy burglarizing his home, he decides to take the young underachiever under his wing, out of respect for his late father. Or perhaps he is just playing Hiller.

Quickly Hiller is immersed in the world of Russian pipelines, kickbacks, and blackmail. Yet, it is clear East Germany’s corrosive Communist past eats away at the characters in the present, like a lingering toxin. Intelligently written by Dörte Franke (who will take Q&A with Bauder after the screening) and Khyana El Bitar, System’s storyline is often murky and morally ambiguous, but never overly complicated in the obscure Le Carré tradition. Frankly, it critiques crony capitalism as much as it does Soviet era socialism, explicitly linking the two.

From "The System."

Jacob Matschenz (outstanding in the inter-connected Dreileben trilogy) is certainly convincingly petulant and rebellious as Hiller, sometimes at the risk of overdoing the Holden Caulfieldisms. However, Bernhard Schütz is totally riveting as the manipulative and mercurial Böhm. Watching him spar and toy with Matschenz’s Hiller is jolly good cynical entertainment. Yet, there is an ethical center to the film represented by Jenny Schily, quite compelling as Hiller’s widowed mother, always a victim of circumstances beyond her control.

It is rather bizarre this will be The System’s premiere American screening, because it is the sort of smart, sophisticated political thriller that ought to have been a cinch for mucho festival play. Of course, Disappearing Act is all about catching up with such inexplicably neglected films. Enthusiastically recommended, The System will be the only paid admission during Acts IV when it opens the festival-showcase this coming Wednesday (4/11) at the IFC Center. All other selections are presented free of charge, including Mila Turajlic’s Cinema Komunisto, a fascinating documentary survey of Yugoslavian cinema under Tito, screening at Bohemia National Hall this coming Thursday (4/12).

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on April 6th, 2012 at 2:33pm.

LFM Reviews Keyhole

By Joe Bendel. It was a dark and stormy life. Just as the Pick family was haunted by their psychological torments in life, so are they still in death. Yet, their gangster father Ulysses Pick has returned to his haunted home for a sort of exorcism/intervention – and perhaps a spot of redecorating – in Guy Maddin’s Maddinesque Keyhole (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The police have the house surrounded, but the Pick Gang shoots their way in anyway, much to the consternation of his henchmen. Their griping means little to Pick, arriving through the backdoor with Denny, a waterlogged psychic slung over his shoulder. She is to help him reach some sort of spiritual rapprochement with the ghost of his wife Hyacinth haunting the floor above with the spirit of her naked father chained to her bedpost.

To reach his wife Pick will have to pass through door after door of their Escher house, accompanied by Denny, while dragging the man his gang just kidnapped, lashed securely to a chair. That would be Pick’s youngest son Manners, but for some strange reason he does not recognize him as such, despite the efforts his increasingly restive men made to get him. Then things get a little surreal.

From "Keyhole."

Keyhole is definitely a Guy Maddin film, which is cool, because the Canadian auteur might be the single most distinctive visual stylist working in film today. True, events in Keyhole do not always make strict logical sense, but it is consistently rewarding just watching Maddin subvert and reinvent Old Dark House movie motifs. Even Manners Pick’s name pays homage to David Manners, the blue-blooded Canadian actor remembered as the ineffectual protagonist of Universal’s original Dracula and The Mummy features.

Considering how important the look and atmosphere is to Keyhole’s overall viewing experience, Maddin’s’ gets some critical assists from his crew. Benjamin Kasulke’s shimmering black-and-white cinematography is quite Maddin-worthy, but also true to the wonderful 1930’s and 1940’s bump-in-the-night films that inspired Keyhole. Production designer Ricardo Alms and set decorator Matt Holm have also created a richly detailed and thoroughly spooky environment, generously appointed with Freudian knickknacks throughout.

Jason Patric plays the Homeric gangster with perfectly steely resolve and world-weary resignation. However, it is a bit difficult to see him and Isabella Rossellini as a couple, though their awkward chemistry is rather appropriate given the dramatic context. Frankly, by its nature Keyhole is not an actor’s film per se, largely using its supporting cast more as props than as flesh and blood characters. Yet Brooke Palsson somehow conveys something human and vulnerable about Denny, before Maddin completely pulls the rug out from under everyone. To the joy of genre fans everywhere, Lars Von Trier and Uwe Boll regular Udo Kier is also on-hand, actually taking a straight and effective dramatic turn as the grieving Dr. Lemke.

If you like Maddin’s work (and you should), than you will like Keyhole. However, it is probably not the best starter film those previous unfamiliar with his bizarre quasi-genre fabulations (check out the often brilliant My Winnipeg first). Maddin is one of the few filmmakers with a genuinely unique vision and there are an awful lot of his visions in Keyhole. There is plenty of storyline as well, that is mostly linear and easy to follow, even if it does not completely fit together. Still, audiences should not sweat the details here. Keyhole is enthusiastically recommended to anyone looking to take a fever-trip on a cold winter’s night. A film for a real movie screen, Keyhole opens this Friday (4/6) in New York at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on April 6th, 2012 at 2:32pm.