Day: August 24, 2012

LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Atlantic: Robots Caring for the Elderly? A Sci-Fi Film Idea That’s Not So Far-Fetched

[Editor’s Note: the full version of the article below appears today at The Atlantic.]

By Govindini Murty. Jake Schreier’s debut feature Robot & Frank is a smart and funny look at serious issues: the ethics of caring for the elderly with robots, the dichotomy between nature and technology, and even the dangers of eliminating physical books in favor of digital media. Opening nationwide on August 24th, the indie sci-fi drama written by Christopher Ford is set in the near future and depicts a wily, aging con man (Frank Langella) who is given a domestic robot by his son (James Marsden) as a caregiver, only to use the robot to plan heists. The film also stars Susan Sarandon, Liv Tyler, and Peter Sarsgaard as the voice of the robot.

Robot and cat.

At Sundance earlier this year, Robot & Frank charmed audiences and was honored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “raising profound questions about the role of technology in our collective future.” I spoke with director Jake Schreier at the LA Film Festival this summer about some of those questions. The interview has been edited for length.

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What appealed to you about the subject matter of a relationship between a human and a robot?

On the surface level, it was the image of this old man in a rural environment with this very clean, white piece of technology. There’s a certain visual interest that this starts from that is pretty fascinating. Chris Ford, who wrote it, [got] the idea from this real technology that is being developed to deal with the Baby Boom generation that’s aging in Japan, and they’re looking to robots to take care of their elderly. That was the genesis of it, and Ford took it from there and really fleshed it out into the script.

And you mentioned that this was based on a short that you had produced back in film school with Ford.

[Laughs.] I used that term “produce” loosely because we shot it in my uncle’s cabin. Ford made the movie and I helped him out. We were friends in film school. We put [the short] away, and Ford and I had kept working together along with some other friends. Then about four years ago we were looking for something to develop into a feature and I just thought if there was any way he could write it into something longer it would be a great thing to work with.

Frank Langella did a fantastic job and he’s obviously the heart of the film. How did he work with the robot?

Frank doesn’t need anything. He’s such a pro. Not only does he have an amazing amount of talent, but he has the ability to shape that talent and modulate it. It was amazing to watch on set. And Rachael Ma—the girl who’s in the robot suit—went through hell to do that thing, and was there for all of it, but there were times when she didn’t need to be so he’d just be acting with the torso of the robot or an apple box in the foreground. It really didn’t matter. He was locked in, one way or the other. He said to me that he just had a thing that he’d pictured in his mind and he didn’t really want to say what it was but it was all that he needed to trigger the performance. So, I was very lucky to have that.

From "Robot and Frank."

>>>TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE, PLEASE VISIT THE ATLANTIC.

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:38am.

Drinking in The Wheel of Life: LFM Reviews Samsara

By Joe Bendel. Shooting footage in twenty-five countries around the world, documentarian-visual essayists Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson must have met thousands of fascinating people. Yet, you will not meet any of them on a personal level in their latest 70mm spectacle. Their aesthetic favors the people en mass and dehumanized over messily unpredictable individuals. As their follow-up to 1992’s Baraka, director-cinematographer-co-writer-co-editor Fricke & producer-co-writer-co-editor-co-musical director Magidson’s Samsara takes viewers to some awe-inspiring sites all over the globe, intending it all to signify the great cosmic wheel of life, as the title translates from Sanskrit. Those who want to see it should see in a theater, the way it was meant to be seen, when Samsara opens today in New York.

Think of this as The Wall for politically correct Volvo-driving health nuts. Deeply steeped in Eastern religious traditions, Samsara captures some amazing images, such as the opening Balinese dancers, the archaeological wonderland of Petra, and the Tibetan Buddhist monks of Thikse creating impermanent sand mandalas. It would probably deepen any viewers’ appreciations to hear the dancers discuss their incredibly disciplined collective choreography, or to have the monks explain what the mandalas symbolize according to their faith, but Fricke and Magidson are not going there. There will be no talking and no text in the film.

Samsara brings to mind an old airline commercial from years ago, in which a charming old Southwestern artist tells viewers that the young painters who move to New Mexico and are blown away by the landscape are missing the point—it is the people who are really interesting. Fricke & Magidson are like those landscape painters, duly filming the sweeping awesomeness of nature. Yet, in a way, this makes things so much neater and tidier. When images of the disfigured are contrasted with scenes of armament factories, we cannot help but get the unsubtle message. Yet, the more we knew about individual cases might make it far harder to indulge in sweeping generalizations.

From "Samsara."

Some of the sequences in Samsara are absolutely arresting, like the shots of the Bagan temples in Burma, which did indeed grant the filmmakers access, after quite a bit of diplomatic and bureaucratic hoop-jumping. Sadly, when North Korea said “no,” Kim really meant “no,” so Fricke and Magidson were unable to film one of the giant choreographed stadium airangs. That’s too bad, because it would have fit right in with the rest of Samsara.

Without question, Samsara is lovely to look at (except when it is being deliberately ugly). There was obviously a conscious intent guiding the assemblage of the images, but they are still just images. Ultimately, the film is all surface and precious little substance. Any deeper meditations it might spur are solely due to viewer’s highly individualistic responses to the natural, sacred, and profane visuals it presents. Recommended just for those who enjoyed previous wide-screen picture books, like Baraka and Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi (on which Fricke served as cinematographer), Samsara opens today (8/24) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

LFM GRADE: B-/C+

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:37am.

LFM Reviews Manhunt @ The 2012 World Film Festival of Montreal

By Joe Bendel. Corporal Wydra is the designated executioner in his Polish resistance unit. He is a sensitive soul, yet very good at his job. This is the contradictory nature of war and it will only get more treacherous for the soldier in Marcin Krzyształowicz’s Manhunt, which screens today and tomorrow as part of the 2012 World Film Festival of Montreal.

Captured National Socialists are lucky if Wydra is the man taking them out. He is not a sadist or a vengeance taker. He is a freedom fighter with a grim task to complete. We get a good feel for the complicated man at work as the film opens. His next assignment, though, will be considerably thornier. He is to go into town and bring back a prominent businessman turned informant, the hard way or the easy way, for trial and presumed execution. However, Wydra has some decidedly personal history with the thoroughly compromised Henryk Kondolewicz.

Meanwhile, a member of the unit has betrayed Wydra’s comrades, funneling information through the very snitch he has been dispatched to deal with. The Corporal will be too late to help his fallen brothers-in-arms, but he will be able to put together the pieces and possibly dispense some retribution.

From "Manhunt."

In fact, Manhunt is a bit of a narrative jigsaw puzzle, constantly flashing backwards and forwards, providing more context with each successive time shift. Actually the crosses and double-crosses are relatively straight forward, but the existential depth of Wydra’s character really distinguishes Manhunt from thematically related WWII dramas.

While not completely dissimilar to the grizzled Home Army veteran he played in Wojtek Smarzowski’s Rose, Marcin Dorociński is riveting nonetheless as the massively brooding Wydra. Chillingly convincing when getting down to business, he also quite compellingly hints at the pain eating his Wydra’s soul. He dominates the film and that’s fine.

In the tradition of Melville’s Army of Shadows, Krzyształowicz’s screenplay explores the moral ambiguity and constant uncertainty of the resistance milieu. Like Melville, he understands and even pardons his characters’ betrayals. Aptly suiting the tense vibe, cinematographer Arkadiusz Tomiak’s dark, musty look vividly suggests the sense of trooping through a dank forest. This is definitely war cinema, gritty and unromanticized. It is also a very good film, well worth seeing when it screens twice today and once on Saturday (8/25) during the World Film Festival in Montreal.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:36am.

Michael Biehn Goes Grindhouse: LFM Reviews The Victim

Michael Biehn in "The Victim."

By Joe Bendel. People say they love nature, but do you know who actually lives out in the wilderness? Freaks, that’s who. Nonetheless, a woman running for her life in the middle of nowhere can hardly be choosey about where she finds refuge. Proudly self-identifying as a retro grindhouse movie, Michael Biehn’s The Victim (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

In Victim’s world, women like Annie and her friend Mary can only be one thing: strippers. They are not bad people. They just enjoy the fast life. Unfortunately, when they start “partying” with two crooked cops, Mary is killed in a Very Bad Things-style mishap. Of course, Cooger the narc, and the super-connected Henderson, now have to shut up Annie – permanently.

Tearing through the woods, she ends up at the cabin belonging to Kyle, a smart, but seriously twitchy middle-aged anti-social loner. As you might guess, this dude seems to be hiding something. Yet, against his better judgment, he becomes Annie’s protector. At least she is nice enough to throw herself at him during quiet moments.

The truth is The Victim’s big twist is so deliberately obvious, it almost forgets to reveal it. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the film is not nearly as violent as one might expect. Kids still have no business watching it, though. Not a slasher film nor torture porn, The Victim is basically a coke and moonshine fueled cat-and-mouse thriller with a rather sinister shoe constantly poised to drop. Yet, it sort of works on its own sleazy terms.

Jennifer Blanc and Danielle Harris in "The Victim."

Kyle the misanthrope is basically the kind of role writer-director Biehn now specializes in, and indeed he does his thing with plenty of grizzled attitude. He certainly looks like a cat to avoid, whereas Jennifer Blanc and Danielle Harris certainly look like strippers, for what that’s worth. However, their frequent flashback scenes ring with the thudding sound of unintentional comedy. Yet that is nothing compared to some of the cheesy, over-produced pop songs inappropriately strewn throughout the soundtrack.

The Victim openly invites bad karma by liberally quoting from Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven—not a comparison they should invite. To be fair, though, there are a few cleverly written bits of dialogue. Basically, this film is for everyone who wants to see Michael Biehn and two other scumbags go at it like old school hill people. Entertaining in a way, but impossible to recommend to anyone accept hardcore fans of hermitsploitation, The Victim opens today (8/24) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: C

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:36am.

LFM Reviews The Revenant

From "The Revenant."

By Joe Bendel. If a stoner rises from the dead as a zombie, would anyone notice the difference? Two slackers try to carry on as usual when one suddenly finds himself undead and rather parched, but the constant proximity with death has serious repercussions in D. Kerry Prior’s meathead buddy horror mash-up, The Revenant (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Bart Gregory would like to think he shipped off to Iraq for idealistic reasons, but the truth is he was trying to avoid making a commitment to his longtime girlfriend Janet. Thanks to a rather murky ambush, he won’t have to. It would seem Gregory is dead as a doornail, but he is actually undead. Staggering out of his grave and into his loser best friend Joey Leubner’s crash pad, Gregory struggles to come to terms with his new existence as a “revenant.” He can no longer keep down solid food, but it seems vast quantities of pot and booze are A-OK. For sustenance, though, he will need human blood.

No problem—this is Los Angeles. There is an unlimited supply of violent low-lifes in need of killing. Suddenly, the boys are vigilante media sensations. Unfortunately, Gregory and Leubner are really sloppy about their hunting practices, leading to all kinds of bad karma—and of course, gore.

Though it opens in Iraq, Prior largely resists the urge to pontificate on current events. These are not allegorical zombies. That’s the good news. However, The Revenant really does not have any ideas to take the place of didactic soap-boxing. Prior offers several scenes of truly inspired gross-out humor, but the in-between periods are rather slack and dreary.

From "The Revenant."

Still, David Anders plugs away admirably as the nice guy walking dead, keeping viewers somewhat invested in the grisly story. On the other hand, before it is over, the audience will be ready to rise up collectively, like pitchfork wielding peasants, to put a stake through the heart of Chris Wylde’s annoying as all get-out Leubner.

The Revenant built up quite a rep with cult movie fans through a series of well received midnight festival screenings. Frankly, that is the best venue for the film, catering to lubricated crowds primed to laugh and holler. It simply will not hold up as well for comparatively staid regular theatrical audiences. The Revenant has its moments, but not nearly enough for a ringing endorsement when it opens today (8/24) in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:35am.