Month: January 2013

Amish Country Noir: LFM Reviews Banshee on Cinemax

By Joe Bendel. Bufurd T. Pusser would appreciate the new get-tough sheriff of Banshee, PA – were the new sheriff not an ex-con, living under an assumed identity. It sounds like a clever Cornell Woolrich set-up, but Alan (True Blood) Ball’s new Cinemax series, created by Jonathan Tropper & David Schickler, is more about action than suspense. Whatever works. As it happens, the first two episodes of Banshee work pretty well. There will be plenty of mayhem for relatively grown-up audiences when Banshee premieres this Friday on Cinemax.

His name is not really Lucas Hood. That was the name of the honest loner who had accepted the position of Banshee’s sheriff sight unseen. The recently released thief on the run from a shadowy Ukrainian gangster happened to be on-hand when Hood met his untimely end. He even threw his lot in with the lawman. It was not sufficient to save the real Hood, but it means there will be no witnesses, aside from Banshee’s sympathetic barkeep and former Cruiser weight champion Sugar Bates.

Ivana Milicevic in "Banshee."

The man now masquerading as Sheriff Hood came to Banshee to confront his former lover and accomplice, now known as Carrie Hopewell, the wife of the crusading district attorney. Perhaps he will stay to take down Kai Proctor, the local slaughterhouse owner and vice kingpin, who happens to be the blacksheep son of an Amish patriarch. Meanwhile, the ominous Rabbit’s henchmen are hot on the trail of the ostensive Hood and his reluctant transvestite hacker accomplice, Job. (Who knew Harry Angstrom was a super-villain?) Potentially, Hood could find himself juggling two nemesis figures, while ambiguously pursuing his ex-lover and bedding all of Banshee’s willing party girls.

As set-ups go, Banshee’s looks solid enough to sustain at least a full season. The first episode origin-smackdown is particularly well executed, although it might represent some rather unfortunate product placement for A1 steak sauce. To judge by the first two installments, there should be plenty of Walking Tall style action. Cinemax’s horny teenager demographic will also appreciate Ivana Milicevic’s nude scenes as the presumed Hopewell.

Certainly looking the part, Milicevic does a nice job in the early going serving as both femme fatale and soccer mom. In the lead, Anthony Starr is surprisingly manly and hardnosed, especially by Hollywood’s standards. He could become a go-to guy for an industry suffering from a masculinity deficit. Although Ulrich Thomsen has played plenty of heavies in his American outings, he seems to enjoy Proctor more. The Amish angle probably helps. Ben Cross is certainly on familiar territory as the malevolent Rabbit, but Hoon Lee’s shticky Job trades on some tired stereotypes.

Banshee clearly has enough violence and mature stuff to keep it going for a while, but the underlying premise also shows considerable promise. It certainly has the right tone to appeal to fans of Cinemax’s breakout hit, Strike Back. Effectively cast and nicely paced by directors Greg Yaitanes (Episode 1) and S.J. Clarkson (Episode 2) Banshee is worth taking a shot on. It premieres this Friday night (1/11) on Cinemax.

Posted on January 9th, 2012 at 12:04pm.

LFM Reviews The Assassins on DVD/Blu-ray

By Joe Bendel. Though he died early in the third century, Cao Cao continues to be a potent figure in Chinese culture. To bolster his legitimacy, Mao invited open comparisons between himself and the legendary general. In 2009, Cao Cao’s tomb was supposedly discovered, but many archaeologists have questioned its authenticity. Viewers get a glimpse inside Cao Cao’s tomb-in-progress as part of Linshan Zhao’s late Romance of the Three Kingdoms epic, The Assassins, which releases today on DVD and Blu-ray from Well Go USA.

You didn’t unify a large swath of China while protecting arguably the worst (and last) emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty without making enemies. Cao Cao has plenty, some of whom are abducting orphans, training them to become assassins. Their only target will be the Chancellor himself. Young lovers Ling Ju and Mu Shun will have the best opportunity to complete the mission. She will serve as a consort in Cao Cao’s Black Sparrow Tower, while he will be placed as a eunuch in the Imperial court. Unfortunately, the shadowy cabal is willing to do what it takes to protect Mu Shun’s cover.

Ling Ju loves a eunuch, but she also begins to admire the crafty old general she is supposed to kill. The common people’s esteem for Cao Cao and the stability he preserves is eye-opening for her. She can also appreciate his knack for thwarting assassination attempts. He seems to make all the right enemies, including the ungrateful slime-bucket of an emperor. Yet, killing him might be the only way to free herself and Mu Shun. Adding urgency, a prophecy about the four stars coming into alignment would seem to foretell the fall of the Han Dynasty and Cao Cao’s rise as their successor.

Liu Yifei in "The Assassins."

Frankly, Cao Cao is the best role Chow Yun-fat has had in years. At his best, he nicely conveys the regrets and isolation of the warlord at the end of his career, while projecting an appropriate sense of badness, like a revisionist Eastwood wuxia figure. He can be a bit stiff during the quiet scenes, though. In contrast, Zhang Fengyi is far more enjoyably villainous as Cao Cao in John Woo’s Red Cliff (which Chow reportedly bailed out of at the last minute). Yet Jiang Wen’s world-weary but still Machiavellian Cao Cao in Alan Mak & Felix Chong’s The Lost Bladesman remains the richest screen interpretation of the role in recent years.

While there are a few adequately staged large scale action sequences, Assassins really is more of a romantic tragedy. Zhao exercises surprising tear-jerking restraint, but Ling Ju and Mu Shun’s stolen moments together have real bite nonetheless. (Crystal) Liu Yifei plays the former with a porcelain-like fragility, while Hiroshi Tamaki broods effectively as the emasculated Mu Shun.

Thanks to accomplished contributors like art director Yohei Taneda and cinematographer Xiaoding Zhao (whose credits include Kill Bill and House of Flying Daggers, respectively), Assassins is quite an impressive looking period production. Although action fans might get frustrated with Assassins’ stately moodiness, there is something about Ling Ju and Mu Shun’s star-crossed love that resonates deeply. Recommended for fans of historical melodrama more than swordplay, The Assassin is now available on home viewing formats from Well Go USA.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 8th, 2012 at 11:14am.

Necks Don’t Get Much Redder Than This: LFM Reviews The Baytown Outlaws

By Joe Bendel. Speak & Spells must have trouble with the word subtle, because the Oodie Brothers are clearly not familiar with it. It doesn’t seem to mean much to director-co-writer Barry Battles either, but he certainly knows his Skynyrd and how to stage an over-the-top shootout. Viewers are in store for plenty of redneck exploitation action when Battles’ The Baytown Outlaws (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

The Oodies are good at killing. Of course, it helps not having to worry about getting collared. They are the secret weapon of Sherriff Henry Millard, who turns the boys loose on every other deadbeat criminal in his county, thereby keeping the crime rate impressively low. As the film opens, they have made a minor mistake, wiping out the wrong house full of thugs. It is nothing Millard cannot cover-up, but there is a witness. Duly impressed, Celeste Martin and her Daisy Dukes hire the Oodie Brothers to whack her gangster ex-husband Carlos Lyman and safely return her godson, Rob. Complications and bodies ensue.

It turns out Rob is basically a human bearer bond. Presumably developmentally disabled and confined to a wheelchair, Rob will soon inherit a sizable trust fund, which will be controlled by his guardian. He is more than the Oodies bargained for. Nonetheless, they quickly warm to the lad in scenes that play like the Sons of Anarchy version of Savannah Smiles. Have no fear, sentimentality is not Baytown’s priority. Frankly, one gets the feeling the set erupted in laughter as soon as Battles yelled cut on the film’s big emotional scenes.

Baytown really bares its soul when five suggestively clad biker assassin babes tangle with the Oodies. Ranging somewhere between a Southern-fried indie and an outright midnight movie, Battles goes for defiantly violent laughs and gets almost as many as Django Unchained in about half the time.

This is no classic, but everyone is game, particularly Billy Bob Thornton, obviously enjoying every word of Lyman’s shamelessly politically incorrect dialogue. Although he never speaks a syllable (relying instead on said Speak & Spell), Daniel Cudmore (Colossus in the X-Men franchise) has a real physical presence as Lincoln Oodie. Clayne Crawford and Travis Fimmel also exhibit admirable energy as Brick and McQueen Oodie, respectively (but sometimes it is rather hard to tell them apart). Eva Longoria does not have much to do beyond wear her short shorts and shoot a few guns, but her performance as Martin still represents some of her best screen work, maybe ever.

Eschewing the faux vintage grindhouse look done to death in films like Hobo with a Shotgun, Battles keeps the meathead fodder snappy. The occasional animated snippets lend Baytown additional character. An entertaining guilty pleasure, The Baytown Outlaws is recommended for those who can appreciate its slightly sleazy charms when it opens this Friday (1/11) in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on January 8th, 2012 at 11:13am.

Distilling The Soviet Experience: LFM Reviews How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire @ New York Jewish Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Who has a harder time adjusting to the capitalist system: a former Soviet republic or a documentary filmmaker? Needless to say, it is the latter, but he still has his mind set on importing Ukrainian vodka into the British marketplace. He feels a special connection to the distillery, because his family used to own it, up until the 1917 Revolution. Soviet, Ukrainian, and even Northern Irish history are explored from a decidedly personal perspective in Dan Edelstyn & Hilary Powell’s How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire, which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Edelstyn knew little of his father’s side of the family, because he died when the filmmaker was quite young. His first real introduction to his Ukrainian heritage came through the letters and journals of his grandmother, Maroussia Zorokovich, shunted away in his mother’s attic. He discovered his grandmother was the progressive daughter of a well-to-do land-owning family. Regrettably, all her efforts teaching the local peasantry to read and write meant little to the conquering Bolsheviks.

Zorokovich’s story is truly remarkable, including stints entertaining the White resistance forces as a dancer, which is how she met Edelstyn’s grandfather. From her diaries, Edelstyn gleaned a sense of the family’s house and sugar factory. Drawn to his roots, Edelstyn was disappointed to find them in a state of disrepair and off-limits. However, he discovered another family holding that was still up and running—a vodka distillery.

Zorokovich never mentioned the family vodka empire, but with good reason Edelstyn presumes. Communist propaganda often demonized Jewish Russians as predatory purveyors of alcohol, constantly tempting the stolid peasants into drunkenness. It would be a lot easier for the Jewish Zorokoviches to identify themselves with the sugar plant rather than with a booze pipeline.

Disurbed by the town’s economic stagnation in the wake of the sugar factory’s closure, Edelstyn takes it upon himself to become the vodka company’s British agent. Of course, he knows nothing about importing spirits, but how hard can it be?

Edelstyn might be ridiculously naïve throughout Empire, but his instincts on how to help his ancestral Ukrainian home are surprisingly on-target. It is too bad he and his wife Powell were the ones behind the camera, though, because there was probably considerably more comedy to be mined from his attempts to navigate British customs bureaucracy.

As a result, probably the strongest sequences involve Grandmother Zorokovich. Blending various styles of animation with family heirloom photos, Edelstyn & Powell craft some Guy Maddinesque dramatic recreations of Zorokovich’s life. To their credit, they bring home the fear and arbitrary violence of Lenin’s reign of terror (yes, Lenin’s – not that of the subsequent tyrant, Stalin) with full force, as well as chronicle the Zorokovich’s complicated years in Belfast. It is an epic story to which they do justice.

While Edelstyn undeniably went out on a limb on behalf of the former family vodka company, there is still an awful lot of him in Empire. He is not a bad chap at all, but he is not exactly a riveting cinematic presence.Regardless, How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire documents a fascinating intersection of commercial, political, religious, and family history that goes down rather smoothly.

It is preceded by Jack Feldstein’s brief but powerful Shards. An expressionistic, almost abstract representation of Peretz Markish’s similarly titled poem, Feldstein’s neon-animated short film serves as a stark elegy to the poet and to the other twelve Yiddish writers murdered by Stalin’s minions of terror in 1952. While only two minutes long, it powerfully conveys the essence of the Soviet experience. Both films are highly recommended when they screen this Thursday (1/10) and Saturday (1/12) as the 2013 NYJFF gets underway at the Walter Reade Theater.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on January 7th, 2012 at 1:56pm.

Bohemian Noir: LFM Reviews Beijing Flickers

By Joe Bendel. Like a put-upon Kafka character, San Bao has lost his voice. Life in go-go Beijing has not been kind to him. In relatively short succession, he lost his girlfriend, his dog, and his apartment. He really is not in the mood to talk, even as he silently forges unlikely new relationships. However, Zhang Yuan has plenty to say about the state of contemporary China in Beijing Flickers, which opens the 2013 Global Lens film series, once again launching in New York at MoMA, this Thursday.

It is hard to say whether getting dumped hurts more than his dog running away. And while it means little to him emotionally, San Bao’s eviction leads to the immediate issue of homelessness. He sort-of kind-of solves the problem short-term, by chomping down on a glass during a drunken bender. Of course, that also leads to hospital bills. Ironically, this turns out to be a good thing. The bar’s singer, You Zi, held onto his cell phone for safekeeping. When reclaiming it, he is struck by her ethereal voice and beauty. Somehow, a circle of friends develops around the two psueudo-lovers, incorporating her roommates – San Bao’s buddy from home, and the female impersonator with whom he is crashing.

Although not a musical per se, Flickers is like a Chinese version of Rent, in which dispossessed and Bohemian Beijingers band together to face the trials and tribulations of a highly stratified society. Much like his thematically similar Beijing Bastards, Zhang also includes plenty of music, including You Zi’s haunting signature number, further supporting the comparison.

Li Xinyun lights up the screen as You Zi.

It is doubtful very many Brooklyn hipsters could cut it in Zhang’s Beijing. On one hand, this is a predatory system of have’s callously exploiting the have-not’s. Yet, it is also a lawless environment, where the slightly less than stable San Bao periodically lashes out physically, with little fear of repercussions. It is like the worst of both worlds.

Granted, Flickers might sound grim (okay, it is grim), but Li Xinyun truly lights up the screen as You Zi. In addition to her distinctive look and sound, she brings dignified resiliency to the alt-torch-singer, rather than overly cute pluckiness. While she has far less screen time than the rest of the principals, Han Wenwen is also quite powerful as You Zi’s roommate Su Mo, giving the audience a bracing slap during the film’s one big jaw-dropper scene. As the more-silent-than-strong San Bao, Duan Bowen lends the film commendable cohesion, interacting with each member of the large ensemble with subtly different shades of either fierceness or sensitivity.

Although Zhang’s recent films have clearly been more pleasing to China’s popular audiences and government authorities, Flickers is very much a return to his in-your-face Bastards roots. Yet, the noir-ish style and seductive soundtrack make it a considerably more polished viewing experience. Basically, that is a win-win combo. Enthusiastically recommended for China watchers and aspiring bohemians, Beijing Flickers begins a week long run at MoMA this Thursday (1/10) as the opening selection of the year’s Global Lens (which also includes the highly notable Cairo 678).

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 7th, 2012 at 1:53pm.

LFM Reviews The Ballad of the Weeping Spring @ The New York Jewish Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Musicians hate requests. Yosef Tawila is particularly disinclined, but he cannot refuse the dying wish of his former friend and band-mate. However, he will have to recruit some high caliber Mizrahi musicians to play the ambitious title symphony and time is running short in Beni Torati’s The Ballad of the Weeping Spring, which screens during the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival, co-presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Tawila has not touched his guitar since his glory days in the Turquoise Ensemble. Riddled with guilt, he is not a man who wants to be found. Nonetheless, Amram Mufradi tracks him down, bearing the Weeping Spring score. His father Avram is quickly succumbing to lung cancer and wishes to finally hear the extended composition he co-wrote with Tawila, as it was meant to be performed.

Unfortunately, Tawila cannot simply get the old band together again. Two members died in a car crash he was found responsible for. Their singer Margaret is now confined to a wheel chair, but she passed on her talent to Tamara, the daughter Tawila never knew. That is a hard recruiting stop for the absentee father to make, but Mufradi and the young singer hit it off rather well. For the rest of the band, it just a matter of haunting the right dive bars and red light districts. In one case, they will have trouble with a blind flutist’s Fagin, but people just seem to want to help the Tawila level his karma.

From "Ballad of the Weeping Spring."

While not essential for cineastes, Weeping Spring could easily be the biggest hit at this year’s NYJFF. There is plenty of camaraderie, redemption, and some elegant music, but Toraty never excessively milks the sentiment. In fact, the father-daughter rapprochement is surprisingly matter-of-fact and the attraction between the second generation Turquoise musicians is mostly hinted at. Of course, it ends with a big emotional concert, but again Toraty resists overplaying his hand.

Looking like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders, Uri Gavriel (the blind prisoner of the pit in The Dark Knight Rises) has gravitas to spare as Tawila. Established Israeli pop-star Ishtar displays a warm cinematic presence as Margaret and her voice nearly steals the entire show during the big climatic concert. For the most part, the large supporting cast of actor-musicians look appropriately colorful and slightly seedy, except for Dudu Tassa (seen during last year’s festival in Iraq ‘n’ Roll), here very earnest and clean-cut as young Mufradi.

While dubbed a Mizrahi Magnificent Seven, Weeping Spring actually includes an obvious riff on Marion Ravenwood’s drinking contest from Raiders of the Lost Ark, so it has that going for it. A modest but appealing drama with a striking soundtrack, Ballad of the Weeping Spring should have a long and fruitful life on the festival circuit and in specialty distribution. Sure to be a crowd pleaser, it screens this Saturday (1/12) and Thursday (1/24) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of this year’s NYJFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 7th, 2012 at 1:51pm.