Author: Joe Bendel

By Joe Bendel. There were at least three LPs and one movie inspired by the Synanon drug treatment center. Before Neal Hefti’s soundtrack album and a weird jazz-rock-chorale piece were waxed, a jazz combo consisting of Synanon patients released Sounds of Synanon, by far the best of the three. While it would launch the career of guitarist Joe Pass, trumpeter David Allan was the focus of a Drew Associates television documentary around the same time. Rarely seen since its 1961 broadcast, Gregory Shuker, D.A. Pennebaker & William Ray’s David screens as part DOC NYC’s tribute to Pennebaker.

In retrospect, it is strange to watch David for many reasons, particularly since its focus falls squarely on the now nearly forgotten Allan rather than the future superstar Pass. Of course, Allan’s surfer good looks probably made much more television sense at the time. Musically, Allan is also featured, sounding pretty good on “All Blues” during the opening and “Georgia on My Mind” (a somewhat ill-fitting thematic choice) over the closing credits. However, it is rather awkward to watch Allan frequently butt heads with Pass, when he really should have done his best to tie his wagon to the guitarist’s star.

Of course, Pennebaker and company’s intimate look inside Synanon is downright eerie, given its later scandals, including the attempted assassination of attorney Paul Morantz through the unlikely mechanism of a rattlesnake snuffed in his mailbox. We see founder Chuck Dederich still holding court before taking flight to Arizona as a fugitive from justice. In fact, his group encounter session with Allan appears to be a forerunner to the notoriously ruckus “Synanon Game,” in which patients tore into each where it would hurt the most, all in the name of therapy.

Given what we now know, it is easy to see warning signs throughout this scene. The insistence with which Dederich and fellow patients discourage visits from Allan’s wife and young child should have thrown up a red flag for viewers, looking dare we say “cultish” to contemporary eyes. In a way though, this demonstrates the merit of Pennebaker and Drew’s approach to documentary filmmaking. What happened, happened. We can see it just as clearly now as then, but the context we bring to it today is radically different.

David certainly makes viewers wonder whatever became of Allan. As a time capsule of early Synanon before it completely descended into bedlam and Pass before he became a mainstay for Pacific Jazz and Pablo Records, David is an enormously significant film that merits preservation on the National Film Registry. Pennebaker also documented another “if only” moment in jazz history when he recorded Dave Lambert’s unsuccessful audition for RCA with a prospective new group months before his accidental death. In fact, the two films would make quite a nice pairing at jazz and film festivals.

For now, anyone interested in the early 1960s Pacific Jazz scene should see David when it screens at DOC NYC, because it is likely to remain one of the scarcer obscurities in the Drew Associates catalog. Highly recommended as a fascinating jazz and cultural history curiosity, it screens this Sunday (11/16), with 2014 DOC NYC Lifetime Achievement honoree Pennebaker scheduled to attend.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 3:12pm.

By Joe Bendel. Li Ling’s social network is stuck in the Bermuda Triangle of friend zones. The interconnected group of former classmates have not just one but multiple ambiguous platonic friendships with each other. Unfortunately, none of it comes with benefits, despite the fact everyone is ridiculously attractive in Heiward Mak’s surprisingly grounded Uncertain Relationship Society, which screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s annual Hong Kong Cinema series.

Ever since high school, Lam Yat Min always had a talent for music and eyes for Li, an aspiring artist. It might be reciprocal, but neither ever takes a chance to find out. He has a similar long-term non-relationship with campus bombshell Kaman Kong, except maybe somewhat less so. For her part, Li has a parallel friendship, or whatever, with Lee Choi-wa, a formerly nebbish student who blossoms into a metrosexual apprentice hairdresser.

Lee’s barely closeted photographer roommate Ho Yip also seems to harbor complicated feelings toward him. At least he does not have an ulterior motive when he uses up-and-coming model Kong in his shoots. Instead, Lam’s not quite rival is her borderline abusive hipster boyfriend, Leung Wai On, whom she can never quite break up with.

So yes, it’s complicated, but somehow Mak avoids a host of potential tonal pitfalls. Her blueprint script and the cast’s largely improvisational method never come across overly glib like an episode of Friends or too precious in a Zach Braff-Noah Baumbach kind of way. Rather it all feels pretty real and even zeitgeisty. While never explicitly political, the main characters’ romantic frustrations are echoes by their professional disappointments and a sense that the system is stacked against Hong Kong’s Generation Y, who have been disproportionately drawn to the recent Umbrella Protests.

As Li, Venus Wong is impressive in just about every way, seamlessly depicting her evolution from a shy student to a mature (but still unfulfilled) woman. Playing it meta-style, HK model Kong is almost painfully vulnerable and emotionally exposed. HK pop idol Anjo Leung is relatively down to earth and musically credible as Lam Yat Min, but Cantopop star Eman Lam often steals scenes right out from under him as the boss of his boutique corporate jingle house.

Just about everyone has had their maddening uncertain relationship, but it is difficult to imagine balancing two of them simultaneously over five or six years. Nevertheless, Mak juggles the numerous characters and the frequent time shifts with relative ease. It is not the sort of annoying film that it surely sounds like on paper. Nonetheless, the constant hashtag commentaries are a mistake, already giving the film a dated time capsule vibe. Recommended for its overall vitality and the exiting work from its stars-in-the-making, Uncertain Relationship Society screens this Saturday (11/15) as part of the 2014 edition of the SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema series.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 3:12pm.

By Joe Bendel. Everyone is scared of something. In magician Antony Gerard’s case, it is the fire marshal. That local busybody shut down Phobia House, his popular Kalamazoo haunted house, on what would have been their ten year anniversary. Determined not to let that happen again, the Gerard family moves Phobia House and the dozens of temp jobs it creates out of the Kalamazoo inspector’s jurisdiction. Anthony Morrison follows their rocky rebound season in Haunters, which screens as a midnight selection of the 2014 DOC NYC.

The year before last, Phobia House was ranked #1 amongst regional Michigan haunted houses. Then the nanny state killed everyone’s fun. The Gerards have built sort of a mini-empire, but Halloween is crunch time for phobia house, their latex mask molding business, and the Timid Rabbit, their magic and costume supply store. They think they have found a suitable space outside of town in a shuttered paintball range, but it will take time and money to convert it.

There is a lot of passion that goes into creating an attraction like Phobia House. For an economically depressed community like Kalamazoo, it also happens to be a welcome source of seasonal employment. Yet, many of the entitled millennials Gerard hires blow off the job days before Phobia House re-opens.

To his credit, Morrison never mocks or gawks at the Gerards. This is a film that respects hard work, especially when it is performed in zombie make-up. It certainly gives viewers an appreciation for haunting as a calling. Frankly, it seems there should be some sort of agreement barring reviews during the first few days of operation, much like a Broadway show, because there will inevitably be kinks to work out.

Morrison also gives viewers an up-close-and-personal perspective on the scaring process through his inspired use of night vision. Phobia House looks genuinely intense, maybe even a little sick, particularly when they add the unsettling special attraction of a woman hanging from her impaled hooks, as a sort of goth geek act.

Essentially, Haunters is a film about blue collar Americana and its mounting economic anxiety, but it comes with some very creepy visuals and a bit of insight into why we like to be scared. The title is a bit pedestrian though and might be confused with another Haunters documentary about the haunted house business, as well as the Abigail Breslin supernatural thriller Haunter or the Jacki Weaver horror film Haunt.

It is always nice to see hard work rewarded in the movies and Morrison’s Haunters is no exception. Recommended for fans of live haunted houses, Haunters screens a stroke before the witching hour this Saturday night (11/15) at the IFC Center, as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 3:12pm.

By Joe Bendel. For millions of animation fans, Studio Ghibli is like Disney without the weird cryogenic baggage. Year after year, Hayao Miyazaki and his team of animators have produced absolute classics that transcend genre. He has now apparently, by-and-large, for the most part, more-or-less retired, but Mami Sunada documented the master at work on his final masterwork, The Wind Rises. Sunada quietly observes the Studio Ghibli comings and goings, but still captures plenty of drama in The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

Studio Ghibli might only continue as a licensing company, but it ended its original productions on artistic high notes. Both Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises and Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya are extraordinarily accomplished capstones to their legendary careers. While Miyazaki’s farewell film was a monster hit at the Japanese box-office, Takahata’s was not. They were also supposed to be released simultaneously, but even at the start of Kingdom, everyone realizes that is highly unlikely to happen.

While there is plenty of pencil-sharpening and studious sketching going on in Kingdom, real conflict emerges between the venerable Miyazaki and the largely unseen Takahata, who gave Miya-san his start in the business decades ago at the Tohei studio. They share an awful lot of history together, but their working methods could not be further apart.

Somehow, as Sunada illustrates in detail, Miyazaki is able to put inspiration on a timetable, which you have to respect, because he made Spirited Away. In contrast, it happens when it happens for Takahata, which you have to respect, because he made Grave of the Fireflies—unless you happen to be Miyazaki. Even though Sunada observes events almost entirely from Miyazaki’s perspective, it is clear their relationship is very complicated. While the film consistently shows how comfortable Miyazaki is in his role as part studio task-master and part twinkly-eyed ambassador of goodwill, whenever Takahata’s delays are mentioned, he sounds like Seinfeld cursing “Newman.” Yet, with his next breath, he is likely to praise his former mentor’s past achievements.

That strange dynamic truly elevates Kingdom above yet another dry process doc, like Farocki’s Sauerbruch Hutton Architects. It also helps that director-editor-cinematographer Sunada is a legit filmmaker with an eye for the telling moment rather than an overawed fan cranking out a DVD extra. As when she chronicled her father’s final days in Death of a Japanese Salesman, she is quite sensitively attuned to the human drama that accompanies any sort of finality.

There are very few animated clips seen throughout Kingdom, which speaks highly of Sunada’s confidence in her subjects. It is justified. Miyazaki is a thoroughly engaging presence, as are longtime producer Ghibli producer-peacemaker Toshio Suzuki and Evangelion animator Hideaki Anno, who gave voice to The Wind Rises’ idealistic protagonist. Sunada documents some true cinema history, ultimately marking the end of an era. A fitting coda to a great career, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness is recommended for all serious students of animation when it screens this Sunday morning (11/16) at the SVA Theatre, as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 11th, 2014 at 7:52pm.