Author: Joe Bendel

By Joe Bendel. Geologist Dr. Scott Tinker is serious about charting a rational energy policy for the future. You can tell this because he can envision a positive role for both nuclear power and hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. fracking). Visiting diverse energy-producing sites around the globe, Dr. Tinker looks for a balanced menu of options to replace so-called “legacy” fuels in Harry Lynch’s documentary Switch (trailer here) , which opens in New York today.

It seems Dr. Tinker largely accepts the current terms of the global warming debate, but he never really belabors it in Switch. He just starts from the premise sending a lot of emissions into the atmosphere is generally a bad idea. Fair enough. However, he is level headed enough not to endorse anything along the lines of the Kyoto Protocols. According to Dr. Tinker, the West really is not going to be the problem in the future. At current rates, China and India will be releasing far more emissions than America and Europe combined—and they are not going to stop unless they determine it is in their economic interests.

He is also honest enough to admit the advantages of petroleum. This is not something the evil oil industry forced onto reluctant consumers – you can fill up your tank and drive for miles, yet it never leaves behind any soot or residue. That is why replacing it is quite the trick.

Lynch follows Tinker as he visits some remarkably photogenic power plants, but he never really finds any one panacea. Ocean and geothermal power are great if you happen to be in the perfect location, like Norway or Iceland, but not practical for a country the size of America, let alone China. Solar and wind can be nice supplements, but they are intermittent. Electric cars are cool, but they are still electric, which largely means more demand for coal.

Some unexpected dark horses emerge from the pack, like natural gas. Yes, it is a fossil fuel – but a remarkably clean burning one. Addressing the media scare campaign around hydraulic fracturing, Tinker’s experts flatly state there have never been documented cases of ground water contamination, arguing the greatest potential hazard would be spills at surface level. Of course, this is not risk-specific to fracturing, but applicable to just about every commercial endeavor.

Post-Fukushima nuclear power also factors into the mix. While the media focuses on Fukushima and Chernobyl, it has ignored France – where eighty percent of electricity is nuclear generated, without incident. As Tinker and his colleague crunch the numbers, it is hard to see how the world would wean itself from fossil fuels if nuclear is not part of the calculus.

Dr. Tinker is a smart and engaging presenter, who is undeniably far more knowledgeable about energy than the ideologues typically populating documentaries. Nonetheless, Switch gets a bit repetitive, showing scene after scene of Tinker touring big shiny installations, asking just what exactly does that valve-thingy do?

Be that as it may, Switch will definitely sharpen your thinking on energy. It offers a pretty comprehensive Cliff Notes for all forms of energy generation, scrupulously free of bias. While obviously part of a larger media campaign (just like Lee Hirsch’s Bully, a.k.a. The Bully Project, and a host of other theatrical docs), Switch will still reward open-minded viewers. Recommended for slightly wonky types, it opens today (9/21) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

LFM GRADE: B

September 21st, 2012 at 12:59pm.

By Joe Bendel. Is it the altitude sickness making Michael Lau nauseous or is it love? Whichever, the binge drinking is not helping much. Nevertheless, the heartbroken superstar might pull himself together and find real love with the help of a former fan. Action auteur Johnnie To takes another Mainland-pleasing foray into relationship drama territory with Romancing in Thin Air (trailer here), which screens this weekend as part of the San Francisco Film Society’s crowd-pleasing second annual Hong Kong Cinema Festival.

Michael Lau is coincidentally a lot like Louis Koo, the actor who plays him. Both are popular HK romantic leads with a background in music. Lau is going through a rough patch, though. He was to marry his co-star in an ultra-glitzy ceremony, only to be very publicly dumped at the altar. Lau takes refuge in the bottle—hard. Stowing away in Sue’s vintage army truck, Lau finds himself at her rustic mountain lodge, way above sea level and sick as a dog.

Sue is a widow who will not allow herself to mourn. One night her sensitive mountain man husband went out into the forest in search of a lost child, but never returned. Yet, Sue keeps the lodge exactly as he left it in the unrealistic hope will eventually walk through the front door. Of course, these two broken hearts are perfect for each other, but they will have to learn that the hard way.

Johhnie To can kick it in any genre, but his previous rom-com (heavier on the rom), Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (which screened at the SFFS’s HK fest last year), travels better. Frankly, it is hard to believe that some of the things Lau does to win over/back Sue do not have the opposite effect. However, the first two acts put a nice twist on the Notting Hill concept, establishing Sue as former Michael Lau fan club member and revealing the role the idol’s career played in her courtship with the missing Tian.

Having already proved to be a successful box-office pairing, Koo and Sammi Cheng indeed have some nice chemistry together. Conversely, the supporting characters do not have a lot of meat to them, seemingly existing just to bring the two together. That includes Li Guangjie’s impossibly taciturn Tian.

Clearly, both To and cinematographer Cheng Siu-keung love the mountain backdrop, luxuriating in its harsh snowcapped beauty. Guy Zerafa’s lyrical piano score was probably supposed to be syrupier, but is actually quite elegant and evocative. Despite some over-the-top elements here or there, Thin takes its central relationship seriously, which is endearing. It is also an example of a genuine leading man turn from Koo, yet he is also obviously and deliberately having some fun with his own image. Recommended for sentimental romantics, Romancing in This Air screens this Sunday (9/23) as the SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema Festival continues at the New People Cinema.

Ann Hui’s understated but emotionally powerful A Simple Life also screens earlier that same day (9/23). Based on a true story, it follows a decent but hardly heroic movie producer as he tries his best to look after his family’s elderly servant after she suffers a stroke. An actors’ showcase for Andy Lau and Deanie Ip, it is a tearjerker with too much self-respect to jerk tears. Highly recommended, a full review can be found here.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted September 21st, 2012 at 12:58pm.

By Joe Bendel. Children of the 1980’s might recognize Dot and the Bunny from its cable broadcasts. That was the work of Polish-born animated filmmaker Yoram Gross, who is best known in his adopted Australian homeland (by way of Israel), for his Blinky Bill series. The story of the beloved children’s book character has deep personal resonance for the animator that he explains to his family and to viewers in Tomasz Magierski’s documentary-profile Blinky & Me (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Gross was born to a well-respected Jewish merchant family in 1926. Blinky Bill is a koala bear. However, both lost their fathers at a young age and would spend years separated from their mothers. Gross and his mother would survive the war thanks to fellow Poles who sheltered them, but the years apart were difficult. Immigrating to Israel soon after liberation, the Gross family was essentially spared the repression of the Communist era, but they were not immune from personal tragedy.

Though a difficult period, Gross’s international reputation blossomed during his Israeli years. Having seen enough of war, Gross immigrated once again to Australia, where he would create his best known work, featuring the likes of Dot and Blinky Bill, drawn from the country’s favorite children’s literature. For those unfamiliar with Blinky Bill, the clips Magierski shows look like a budget version of Don Bluth’s Secret of NIMH, but they are clearly quite heartfelt. Presumably Gross engendered the sort of trust with Australian parents their American counterparts once invested in the Disney name.

In established documentary tradition, Gross revisits Poland for the first time since the war with his large brood of children and grandchildren. Although these scenes are undeniably well intentioned, they do not break any new ground, at least for those who have seen more than one Holocaust related documentary over the last two or three years. However, Gross’s animation could serve as the thin edged of the wedge, introducing some legitimate oral history of the National Socialist occupation to younger or otherwise resistant viewers. (Sadly, it is still hard to envision Ahmadinejad watching B&M, even if he knew there were animated koalas in it.)

B&M will surely spur interest in Gross’s films, particularly his breakout Joseph the Dreamer, the first animated feature produced in Israel. While unflaggingly respectful, Magierski’s straight-forward approach looks a bit workaday. Nonetheless it is accessible as a survivor’s testimony and a profile of a prolific filmmaker. Recommended for animation fans and as a teaching tool for parents ready to start explaining the horrors of WWII to their children, Blinky & Me opens this Friday (9/21) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on September 18th, 2012 at 2:22pm.

By Joe Bendel. George Lam is like the Kurt Wallander of the Hong Kong police force. At least this inspector has good reason for being moody. Still grieving his wife’s unexplained suicide, Lam will tackle a deeply disturbing case in Roy Chow Hin Yeung’s Nightfall (trailer here), which screens on the opening night of the San Francisco Film Society’s eagerly anticipated second annual Hong Kong Cinema Festival.

Eugene Wang has just been released from prison. Convicted for the murder of a famous opera singer’s teenage daughter, he had to drastically harden himself to survive his sentence. When said opera singer, Han Tsui, is discovered brutally beaten to death, suspicion naturally falls on Wang. It is pretty clear, though, that Tsui’s death is no great tragedy for his younger daughter, Zoe, who has grown to become the spitting image of Eva, the older sister she never knew she had.

Of course, Lam is the best and worst detective for a case like this. A habitual scab-picker, he cannot help delving into the darker corners of the human psyche. If you consider passing out dead drunk in the middle of the afternoon hard-boiled, than he is amongst the hardest boiled. He is not much of a father, though, nor is he a good candidate for romance. Yet, his younger, cuter partner Ying Au-yeung still has eyes for him – probably because he is played by Simon Yam.

Basically, Nighfall is a contest between Yam and Nick Cheung to see who can be more intensely wound up. Cheung’s Wang probably wins that one, but Yam also brings an appealingly rumpled charisma to the party. As a mystery, Christine To Chi-long’s script telegraphs every revelation well in advance, but it is a dynamic showcase for the antagonists, eventually going mano-a-mano on a sky-gondola to Lantau.

Yam versus Cheung is definitely the main event here, but there are some fine contributions from the big name supporting cast. Cantopop superstar Kay Tse is an energetic and realistically grounded presence as Ying, whereas the Shaw Brothers veteran Gordon Liu adds even more grizzle as an old corrupt copper. Janice Man looks exquisitely ethereal as Zoe and Eva, but she never has much to express besides vulnerability. However, Michael Wong’s turn as the late Tsui is in a category by itself, beyond over-the-top.

Cinematographer Ardy Lam has a knack for shooting scenes at great heights while maintaining the noir vibe. Frankly, the film might actually peak with the first scene—an adrenaline charged throwdown in a prison shower room, but Yam is always compulsively watchable and especially so here. In fact, one can easily see his George Lam becoming a franchise character. Very satisfying for fans of HK movies, Nightfall screens this Friday (9/21) at the New Peoples Cinema in San Francisco as part of the opening night of their 2012 Hong Kong Cinema Festival.

Also screening Friday night is Pang Ho-cheung’s Love in the Buff, a well written look at the pitfalls of romance with a highly attractive cast and an appealingly swinging soundtrack. Recommended for movie-goers looking for something smart but not too heavy, it also screens Sunday (9/23).  See the full review here.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on September 18th, 2012 at 2:18pm.

By Joe Bendel. Batko Stamenov is like a character in a Samizdat novel come to life, but not necessarily in a good way. The former informer is a figure of existential absurdity rather than defiance. He is still dangerous, though, but to whom is the question in Emil Christov’s The Color of the Chameleon (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

On her deathbed, Stamenov’s mother confesses she really is his mother, whereas he had always been told she was his aunt and adoptive-mother. This does little to develop his sense of belonging. Stamenov is ingratiating by nature, but also reflexively deceptive—swell traits to the secret policeman who recruits a student as an informer and agent-provocateur. Stamenov’s first assignment has him infiltrating a literary club obsessed with the underground novel Zincograph. Like the fictional Samizdat protagonist, Stamenov also takes work in a state zinc etching plant, which happens to be a fine place to pick up some chemical know-how.

Stamenov commits many questionable acts, beginning by signing up as an informer in early 1989, when the writing was already on the soon to be toppled Wall. He has two eggs containing secret instructions should Communism fall in either Bulgaria or the Soviet Union. This is not a good sign. Yet, the task just seems to appeal to Stamenov for non-ideological reasons. When terminated by the official intelligence service, he starts recruiting his own informers for a phony agency just like the protagonist of Zincograph.

Adapted from screenwriter Vladislav Todorov’s real life novel titled Zincograph, Stamenov’s anti-heroics could easily lend themselves to an outrageously over-the-top big screen treatment, but Christov’s approach is rather severe and chilly. Frankly, it takes a while for the film to come together, as Stamenov largely creeps about unappealingly. However, the third act is an intrigue-fueled doozy, making some razor-sharp points about the state of post-Communist Bulgaria, in between the twists and turns.

Chameleon is a film for everyone who enjoys movie references (remember the Bulgarian couple in Casablanca?), thinly veiled critiques of politicians you will never recognize, and liberal helpings of paranoid gamesmanship. There is also an unhealthy preoccupation (as if there were any other kind) with the evil effects of “onanism.” Such is Communism’s continuing legacy for Stamenov.

Looking a lot like a Bulgarian Jude Law, pop star Ruscen Vidinliev’s Stamenov is one cold fish, but he is convincingly calculating and sociopathic. He keeps the film moving along well enough, while the supporting cast provides plenty of color. Rousy Chanev brings the right sort of Machiavellian charisma to bear as Stamenov’s former handler, while Deyan Donkov is notably intense and just plain interesting looking as the Mr. Clean hardball fixer pursuing the freelance saboteur.

The politics of Chameleon are rather ambiguous, particularly for viewers not deeply steeped in the Bulgarian scene. Yet the lingering toxicity of the old regime is unmistakable. Clearly, it spawned a culture of lies and deception that Todorov and Christov argue cannot be easily shrugged off. A slow starter very much worth sticking with, The Color of the Chameleon is recommended for literate, “free-thinking” viewers when it screens again this coming Sunday morning (9/16) as part of this year’s TIFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on September 17th, 2012 at 10:25am.