Category: Movie Reviews

By Joe Bendel. Imelda Nunez is the nicest sweatshop owner ever. Her Marikina garment factory is small enough for her to know all the employees, but industrious enough to have international customers and supply chain issues. In some ways, she learned from her father, Romeo Guevarra, who was a master shoemaker, but not such a hot businessman. His unexpected suicide will come at a precarious time for her factory, but it will lead to considerable soul searching in Milo Sogueco’s Mariquina, which screens as part of the 2015 edition of New Filipino Cinema at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Yes, Imelda is the daughter of a shoemaker and the namesake of the former First Lady, Imelda Marcos (who is still a political force to be reckoned with). This irony will become a running gag in the film, with a lookalike even professing her respect for Guevarra’s shoes. However, when she looks back on her early childhood, Nunez realizes neither she, nor her mother fully appreciated how much soul Guevarra put into his soles.

Frankly, for Nunez, this is a terrible time for reflection. She has a quality control inspection coming up and a machine on the fritz. Yet, as she searches for a traditional Marikina shoemaker to make Guevarra’s final wingtips, she cannot help revisiting her formative years. They were dramatic, especially when her mother left home, ultimately settling in Hawaii. Through her omniscient flashbacks, we can see how the young Nunez misinterpreted incidents to blame her devastated father and Tess, his business partner turned live-in lover, rather than the mother who simply grew tired of Guevarra and a life of shoes.

The list of potential shoe clichés is as long as your arm (walk a mile in someone’s shoes, etc.), but Sogueco never gets fatally caught up in any of them. Granted, Nunez is on a shoe quest, but it is presented in rather practical terms. After all, they need shoes for his funeral, since for some reason those that he was wearing that fateful night have gone missing. While going through the process, Domeng, Guevarra’s last real protégé, helps her get some perspective on her father.

Mylene Dizon is pretty much perfect as Nunez. She can be both tough and vulnerable. We see in no uncertain terms how tightly she has controlled her life, up until it is time to release the floodgates. She also develops some appealing platonic chemistry with Dennis Padilla as the older, more accepting Domeng. As Guevarra, Ricky Davao leaves no heartstring unpulled, but it is indeed difficult to withstand the power of his sad-eyed pathos. However, it is Bing Pimentel who will deliver the real emotional body blow as the achingly dignified Tess.

Granted, there is no shortage of melodrama in Mariquina, but Sogueco earns the unabashedly sentimental climax, fair and square. The down-to-earth ensemble led by Dizon looks at home in the Marikina workshops and showrooms, while being attractive enough to have private lives worth getting worked up over. There are dozens of points where it all could have gone off the rails, but the discipline of Sogueco and Dizon keeps it all on the straight and narrow. Recommended for those who appreciate tearful family dramas and popular Filipino cinema, Mariquina screens this Friday (6/12) and Sunday (6/21), as part of New Filipino Cinema 2015 at the YBCA.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 13th, 2015 at 11:52am.

By Joe Bendel. It will confirm the suspicions of parents who survived the Cabbage Patch riots of the early 1980s to learn those dolls were part of an evil scheme. Technically, these moppets are not called “Cabbage Patch Kids,” but the resemblance is striking. In all fairness, said dolls are all sweetness and innocence, but they come from a sinister factory. They are also flesh-and-blood, most of the time. One such doll will try to escape his evil overlord in Craig Goodwill’s self-consciously strange Patch Town, which opens today in New York.

Once upon a time, so to speak, Gregor, a well-meaning but short-sighted Russian inventor discovered there were real babies growing in his cabbage patch. He tried to adopt each and every one of them, causing considerable resentment with his biological son Yuri, but the volume was too great for him. Logically, he invented a machine that temporarily transformed the babies into dolls that were subsequently sent out into the world until they can be safely reclaimed. Tragically, Gregor soon dies, leaving the leaf babies entrusted to the cruel Yuri (a.k.a. Child Catcher). Yuri does indeed retrieve the dolls as the little girls they were entrusted to grow and forget about childish things, forcing the re-animated cherubs to toil in his Orwellian doll factory.

Jon and Mary are two such doll prols. They are timid by nature, yet they still managed to adopt a little baby girl, in clear violation of Patch Town law, because they are so full of love. When Yuri ominously sniffs them out, the terrified new parents have to make a break for our world. During the escape coordinated by Sly, the dodgy people trafficker and part-time department store Santa’s elf, Jon’s repressed memories come flooding back. He becomes convinced Bethany, the little girl he knew as his “mother,” can help if he can find her.

So yeah, Patch Town sounds like a cult film to beat the band, which is why it is so annoying that it never takes flight. Did we mention it is also a musical? It sort of is, but you will be hard-pressed to remember any of the tunes. The film apparently assumes the very fact that they are there is enough. Goodwill’s screenplay, co-written with Christopher Bond and Trevor Martin is even more problematic. Despite the strange universe they create, the narrative follows a disappointingly predictable pattern, with learning moments inserted in exactly the spots screenwriting handbooks say they should go.

With their rosy cheeks, Rob Ramsey and Stephanie Pltiladis look perfect as Jon and Mary, but they are wilting roses on the screen. As Yuri (and Gregor), Julian Richlings looks like he is trying to bulge his eyes so far out, he might have a stroke at any time. At least Zoie Palmer stays grounded and shows a respectable range as Jon’s grown mother, Bethany. Still, Suresh John’s Sly is the real saving grace, cutting through the film’s self-seriousness and heavy-handed messaging with tartly delivered sarcasm.

Patch Town is definitely a kitchen sink movie, but somehow Goodwill forgot to cram in the fun. The design team created an impressive looking dystopian urban fantasy world, but the confused anti-corporate soapboxing and blatant manipulation grow tiresome. It is the sort of film that looks so promising cult cinema connoisseurs will still want to judge it for themselves when it opens today (6/5) in New York, at the Cinema Village (but We Are Still Here should be a much higher priority).

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on June 5th, 2015 at 2:51pm.

By Joe Bendel. Whether you believe or not, demonic possession is simply no business to trifle with, but kids will be kids. These kids in question are especially inept in social situations. The three high school chums hope to raise their place in the pecking order by taking the grand prize at their local horror film festival with real life exorcism footage. Unfortunately, it all gets more real than they bargained for in Kyle Steinbach’s Bad Exorcists, which screens during the eighteenth Dances With Films, in Hollywood, California.

The nebbish Charlie is being led-on by a chick who really isn’t his girlfriend, but she lets him think she is when she wants to exploit his good nature. He also happens to have a crush on the popular and reasonably together Lisa, who has just returned from her junior exchange year abroad. Matt is the Jewish kid at their Catholic school, who often serves as the devil on his friends’ shoulders. As for Dana, he is just a mess.

They have DIY horror movie aspirations, but not a lot of talent. However, Matt is convinced if they steal Sister Helen’s ancient exorcism manual and chant some of the incantations within, the authenticity will take them to the next level. Much to Charlie’s surprise and nervous excitement, Matt even recruits Lisa to star in their film as the victim of possession. Of course, as we can all see coming, by incompletely reciting the powerful texts over Lisa, they actually help facilitate her demonic possession.

There have been no shortage of horror comedies in recent years, but many have been rather darned amusing, by cranking up the energy level and avoiding Friedberg & Seltzer’s painfully stupid level of humor. Happily, Exorcists is one that makes the grade. There is nothing truly jaw-dropping or gut-busting about it, but the film is clearly in touch with both the horror and teen movie traditions, knowingly observing and tweaking their respective conventions. Steinbach keeps it all moving along at a healthy gallop and stages scenes of demonic horror that should satisfy genre diehards (that kid in the barn is pretty darn creepy).

Some cast members look a tad old for high school, but they all exhibit a natural facility for the American Pie-style humor. As Lisa, Claire Berger shows a particularly impressive range, earning laughs with deadpan sarcasm and totally going Regan MacNeil in the third act.

Yes, Bad Exorcists is definitely a bit of a meathead movie and the sexually voracious depiction of Sister Helen is highly problematic and may ultimately lead to a few days in Purgatory for the filmmakers (if demons are real, there is no reason to think it no longer exists). However, for horror fans it is just a fun film to watch, which is more than enough for a Saturday night in June. Recommended for midnight movie regulars, Bad Exorcists screens tomorrow, as part of DWF18.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 5th, 2015 at 2:50pm.

By Joe Bendel. Those wondering just how much Jackie Chan has shifted his focus from Hong Kong to the Mainland need only look at the evolution of his hit Police Story franchise. What started as comedic action romp revolving around Chan’s Royal Hong Kong Inspector Chan Ka-kui is now a moody thriller-morality play that might just break its anti-hero-ish Beijing Police Captain Zhong Wen. Chan is older and wearier, but it is still nearly impossible to keep the old cat down in Ding Sheng’s Police Story: Lockdown, which opens this Friday in San Francisco.

Old Zhong is already nearly done in when meets his daughter Miao Miao at a hipster night club. Their relationship has been strained since her mother died. Frankly, this get-together is not even her idea. She agreed to set-up the meeting to humor her older pseudo-lover, the club owner Wu Jiang. In retrospect, that was a mistake.

When he comes to, Zhong learns in no uncertain terms he and his daughter, along with twenty-some other patrons and employees are hostages in Wu’s concrete fortified club. Thanks to his modifications, it will be hard for Zhong’s colleagues to shoot their way in. Instead of ransom, Wu offers a baffling ultimatum, demanding small time criminal Wei Xiaofu be brought to the club. Zhong was the responding officer who arrested Wei, so this case is clearly personal, especially since several witnesses to the incident (in which a young girl died) are among Wu’s other captives.

Frankly, Zhong blames himself so much, he just might be the only cop Bill de Blasio would approve of. Needless to say, the events of that fateful night are considerably murkier than Wu realizes, but rightly or wrongly, Zhong still carries around a mountain of guilt. Lockdown is a drastic departure from its predecessors (arguably, this is more of a title appropriation than a reboot), but it is still a reasonably effective showcase for Chan’s mature acting chops. Yes, there is still more spring in his step than most fifty-nine year olds, but the centerpiece action sequence mostly involves him getting pounded by Wu’s Filipino henchman.

While Chan and Jing Tian forge some respectable father-daughter chemistry, the latter is never given a chance to exercise the monster action skills she displayed in Special I.D., which is a most unfortunate lost opportunity. It is a real shame, because most genre fans would be totally psyched to watch the extremely telegenic newcomer fighting side-by-side with the old rubber-boned veteran.

Although Liu Ye was impressively fierce as the Emperor in The Last Supper, he is frustratingly bland as the tortured and tormenting Wu. Despite their diverse nationalities, none of the secondary villains are distinctive to any appreciable degree either. However, Zhou Xiaoou adds a surprising potent element of pathos as the sad sack Wei.

Everyone will duly note Lockdown’s “Die Hard in a night club” concept, with liberal elements of Lethal Weapon’s Sgt. “Too Old For This” Murtaugh thrown in for good measure, but its borrowings were maybe not be so conspicuous in its target market. That is fair enough, considering Hollywood’s magpie tendencies. In fact, it is a slick looking production, thanks to the metallic neon set design and Yu Ding’s noir-ish cinematography. The weak bad guys are a drawback, but action fans will still enjoy watching a new and largely credible outing from Chan. Recommended for his fans, Police Story: Lockdown opens this Friday (6/5) in San Francisco at the 4-Star Theatre and in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on June 3rd, 2015 at 2:47pm.