Category: Narrative

LFM Sundance Review: Another Earth

By Joe Bendel. What if Star Trek got it wrong? Suppose there really is an alternate Earth, but instead of a world full of evil Kirks and Spocks, it is pretty much like our own. It’s hard to say for sure, but this seems to be the case in writer-director-editor-cinematographer Mike Cahill’s Another Earth, a quiet character drama subtly built around a durable sci-fi device that screens during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

The astrophysics are a bit sketchy, but it seems an identical Earth has always existed, hidden from view by our mutual sun. One fateful night, our orbits shifted and Earth 2 suddenly appeared in the sky. It is exactly the sort of phenomenon Rhoda Williams looks forward to studying at MIT. Tragically, however, it is not to be. Craning to get a glimpse of the new Earth, the drunk-driving Williams slams into another car, killing composer John Burroughs’ pregnant wife and their young son. She spends the next four years in a juvenile prison, while he descends into an alcohol-fueled depression.

From "Another Earth."

Though eventually released, Williams remains a captive of her own guilt. She even approaches Burroughs to apologize, but the words will not come. Instead, she pretends to be from a cold-calling maid service. Much to her surprise, Burroughs (unaware of her identity due to their local juvie offender laws) hires Williams for a much needed weekly house cleaning. Slowly, a relationship develops between the two, but their fates still seem to be intertwined with Earth 2.

At this risk of sounding nauseatingly condescending, Another Earth is a film that shows tremendous promise. Cahill’s use of sf elements to tell a fundamentally human story is smart and ambitious. Particularly intriguing is the premise that the moment of awareness led to a break in the two Earths’ synchronization. Like the best of old-fashioned speculative fiction, this opens up the door for redemptive possibilities. However, AE is stylistically over-baked, indulging distractingly odd camera angles and visual tableaux more appropriate to Deep Thoughts with Jack Handy. Oddly though, though, the periodic portentous narration from Dr. Richard Berendzen (director of NASA’s Space Grant Consortium) fits into the flow better than one might expect.

Despite a reasonably large cast, AE is essentially a two-hander, with co-writer-co-producer Brit Marling and William Mapother impressively carrying the load as Williams and Burroughs, respectively. They consistently feel like real people struggling with real pain. While their budding romance is a tough sell given the context, they pull it off quite credibly.

A filmmaker with a background in documentaries, Cahill does a lot right in AE, but also a fair amount wrong. The net effect is a surprisingly memorable film, marking him as a filmmaker worth tracking. A selection that really fits the Sundance mission, AE screens again during the festival today (1/29).

[EDITOR’S NOTE: According to Deadline, the budget of Another Earth was apparently only around $150,000 – and the film was just acquired by Fox Searchlight for around $3 million. Not bad!]

Posted on January 29th, 2011 at 10:13am.

LFM Sundance Review: Hobo with a Shotgun

By Joe Bendel. Trailers are considered the movie industry’s most important marketing tool, but does it really make sense to start with a clever teaser and re-engineer an original film from there? Much like Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun started as a gag trailer for a fictitious grindhouse film submitted to a contest co-sponsored by Rodriguez. Unlike Machete, at least Eisener’s Hobo (trailer above) makes no pretensions to socio-political relevance, simply delivering sleazy action at its Park City at Midnight screenings during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Like the high plains drifter or Sanjuro, a mysterious hobo rides into town on the rails. He has a past that we will never know, but he has a dream—to buy a mower and start his own lawn care company. He is in the wrong town for that. This vaguely Midwestern burg is owned lock stock and smoking barrel by Drake, a poor man’s Joe Pesci kingpin, and his two sadistic idiot sons, Slick and Ivan. The Hobo gets a taste of how things work in town when he foils an attempt to kidnap the local hooker with a heart of gold, earning himself a beat-down at the hands of the crooked cops. However, the Hobo comes back for more, this time with a shotgun in hand.

As titles go, Hobo with a Shotgun certainly represents truth in advertising. Initially, it also has the vintage grindhouse look down cold. However, as the film progresses it veers closer in tone to 1990’s Troma than 1970’s exploitation. Not only is the violence ridiculously over the top, the villains (particularly the evil twins) look like they walked straight out of a 1980’s world of Dippety Do hair gel and cheesy metal bands with flying V guitars.

Casting Rutger Hauer as the Hobo was an inspired choice. Shotgun essentially tries to invert the classic 1980’s schlocker The Hitcher, inviting audiences to root for Hauer’s drifter killing machine rather than for another boring first-initial Thomas Howell character. Unfortunately, the Hobo is absolutely riddled with angst, adding a layer of grimness to what is intended as a blackly comic romp.

In truth, like Machete, a trailer’s worth of this Hobo might be just about right. The opening credits hit the perfect nostalgic note and there are three or four meathead-pleasing action sequences. The rest of the film’s brutal and nihilistic connective tissue simply gets tiresome. Be that as it may, those looking for gory laughs will probably find them in Shotgun, but legitimate grindhouse connoisseurs will more likely be disappointed. It screens again today (1/28) and Saturday (1/29) during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on January 28th, 2011 at 8:01am.


LFM Sundance Review: The Legend of Beaver Dam

By Joe Bendel. What is it outdoorsy types say: “take only memories, leave only blood spatter.” Something like that, right? There are definitely plenty of campers and hikers here in Park City, making Sable & Batalion’s musical horror short The Legend of Beaver Dam a perfect selection for the Sundance Film Festival, where it precedes Jason Eisener’s neo-exploitation film Hobo with a Shotgun.

Danny Zigwitz is not a born scout. Annoyed by the sensitive young geek, the troupe leader humiliates him while telling the story of Stumpy Sam, a figure of campfire lore somewhat in the tradition of Candyman. However, when the murderous bogeyman actually shows up, Zigwitz has a chance to shine while belting out a rock opera anthem that sounds as if it were lifted straight from Rent. Or perhaps not.

Bloody, profane, and subversive, Beaver is considerably funnier than the feature film following it. While you might not leave the theater humming Zigwitz’s big show-stopper, Sable & Batalion’s music is frankly better than it has to be. Midnight movie regulars will also be happy to see makeup specialist Hugo Villasenor’s gore is professional grade.

In truth, Beaver’s humor often works better in a short form than as a full feature, where the need for filler often kills the energy level. For those who do not mind piles of dead kids here and there, it is a pretty funny little horror short. Destined to be a cult favorite, it screens with Hobo today (1/28) and Saturday (1/29) during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on January 28th, 2011 at 7:18am.

LFM Review: The Fighter

By Patricia Ducey. The Fighter opens with two brothers mugging their way through the streets of their working class neighborhood against the defiant wail of “How You Like Me Now,” and I’m hooked. I grew up in an Irish neighborhood, and I know this place. We had the fight in us too.

Director David O. Russell pays homage to all that life-affirming fight in his raucous, memorable The Fighter, the story of how one man comes into his own against all the odds, great and small. “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) lives in the shadow of half brother Dick Eklund (Christian Bale), once a champion boxer, now a crackhead and neighborhood goof. Micky, an up and coming fighter himself, trains with Dick, still an able coach (when he shows up), while mother Alice (Melissa Leo) manages his budding career along with Dickey’s “comeback.” Not surprisingly, the chaos of his dope-addled brother, grasping mother and passel of sisters drowns out Micky’s own aspirations.

The movie opens as Dickey, partying at the crackhouse, almost misses the flight to one of Micky’s out-of-town bouts. Micky and his mother drag him to safety, again. Alice treads lightly on his drug problem, however, hoping he will just get over it–an HBO crew is filming a documentary on Dickey’s comeback and she doesn’t want to jinx it. She also needs Micky’s career to save Dickey; and, for now, dependable, stalwart Micky accepts his role as actor on Dickey’s stage.

But then he falls for sexy redhead bartender Charlene (Amy Adams), and she eventually for him. After he takes a bad beating in a mismatched bout his mother and brother set up, she is the one to voice what he cannot: he has to stop allowing his family to wreck his life. When Micky and Charlene take the first steps away from the family, this sparks the conflict that forms the rest of the film. Gone is the “ticket out of poverty” meme and the class struggle meme. It’s not about race either, as Russell notes with humor: as Dickey negotiates an alliance with a Cambodian clan in some petty criminal enterprise, the Cambodian spokesman accuses him of cheating him because of race. “No, no,” Dickey’s associate assures him, “We don’t hate Cambodians. White people do this to other white people all the time.”

Mickey is simply a man who must put his own life in order. He has to be willing to fight for his independence from anything that will drag him down – even a beloved brother. He is not a victim of drug abuse or of political oppression or the church or the mob or anything else outside of his own self-doubts. His family uses him because he lets them. Micky has to earn his freedom himself—and this is a deeply conservative, even ‘objectivist,’ narrative. Russell and his actors keep that idea at the forefront with ruthless precision.

The Fighter, as a boxing movie, is refreshingly absent the sentimentality of Rocky or the chilly artiness of Raging Bull. Micky and his brother simply love their sport, and are good at it. They have the physical strength to overpower and the mental acuity to out-strategize their opponents. Boxing is their work, and Russell thus limits the boxing scenes to two pivotal fights and does not fetishize the physical spectacle. As an aside: boxing, in my mind, does not glorify violence so much as the sense of fair play and courage that help restrain violence. Yes, boxing (like all sport) is ritualized mayhem, but it’s a celebration of a process that marks civilization’s triumph, however temporary, over our animal natures.

Russell also comments on a predatory media’s exploitation of people outside the intellectual space of the upper classes. He frames the story with an HBO crew filming a documentary about Dickey. The family think it’s about a fighting comeback, but that’s subterfuge. Eventually they see, to their horror, that it’s a cautionary fable about another lower class guy’s fall from grace into addiction. It “fits the narrative,” and Russell rightly mocks the media’s condescension.

Mark Wahlberg moves in for the knockout punch in "The Fighter."

The cast excels. Christian Bale transforms himself (without going overboard) into the part as big brother, part-crackhead Dickey, and a bleach-blond Melissa Leo terrifies us with her tiger mother Alice. At first, next to these two wild and voluble characters, Mark Wahlberg’s performance may appear muted, but suddenly we realize we can’t take our eyes off him. That’s how he catches and holds our attention—by whispering, by making us come to him. His small smile, for instance, when he finally convinces Charlene to give him her number, lights up the room.

But the script by 8 Mile’s Scott Silver (and three other WGA-credited writers) and director Russell’s work gave them the goods. Russell has said he wants to grab you by the throat and heart at the beginning of this movie, and he accomplishes his mission.

We recognize Micky’s conflict; we know it and feel it in our gut because it is so essentially human. We are almost afraid to root for him, let alone his brawling kin, but we watch and hope still. Filled with humor and pathos and a winning cast, The Fighter’s “message,” if there is one, is: stay off the ropes, get in the fight.

Posted on January 24th, 2011 at 11:56am.

LFM Sundance Review: In a Better World

By Joe Bendel. For one young boy, it’s tough being the Swedish kid in his Danish school. While his father is an advocate of turning the other cheek, his new friend is a proponent of more direct action. As a global meditation on bullying, Susanne Bier’s In a Better World (trailer above) should probably be considered a leading contender amongst the nine shortlisted films for the best foreign language Oscar. Its chances will probably be further bolstered when it screens this week during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival now underway in Park City, Utah.

Swedish plus conspicuous retainer equals frequent poundings for Elias, a good kid struggling with his parents’ separation. He idolizes his father Anton, an altruistic doctor often absent volunteering his services at a free African medical clinic. One fateful day, the new kid Christian intervenes in a bullying session, walloping his tormentor with a bicycle pump before pulling a knife on the larger boy. Problem solved.

Christian has a few issues himself, including a deep-seated resentment of his father following his mother’s untimely death from cancer. Though their fast friendship should represent healthy socialization for Elias, Christian proves to be a nakedly manipulative little wretch. Better is also not exactly subtly hinting at his self-destructive impulses, portraying him like Poe’s Imp of Perverse, constantly haunting the roof of a hulking old factory while brooding darkly. Yet, it will be Anton’s conflict-avoidance strategy when encountering a grown-up bully in front of the boys that serves as a catalyst for Christian’s potentially tragic plans.

Better is sort of like a Nordic Crash, with the teachable moments coming at a regular clip. Unfortunately, the film often confuses earnestness with profundity, offering plenty of the former, but not nearly as much of the latter. In fact, it seems like Bier somewhat loses control of her message. Comparing the brutality Anton witnesses in Africa with Christian’s escalating anti-social behavior, she clearly implies the tendency towards the animalistic is present in all of us, even ostensibly civilized Scandinavians. Yet, one could easily conclude within the context of the film that a little fight out of Anton might have been more productive, preventing considerable tragedy in both settings.

Though laboring under Better’s self-conscious serious-mindedness, much of the ensemble distinguish themselves rather well. As problematic as his character seems in retrospect, Mikael Persbrandt brings a compelling dignity to Anton, largely selling his Gandhi routine in-the-moment.  After accepting too many villainous roles in English speaking productions, Ulrich Thomsen redeems himself with a deeply humane supporting turn as Christian’s grieving father Claus. Amongst the young actors, William Jøhnk Nielsen’s work is particularly notable, projecting the full range of emotions roiling within the understandably pained Christian.

Even if Better’s “so there” takeaway really is not there, it is the kind of prestige picture that perfectly suits the Academy’s sensibilities.  Indeed, cinematographer Morten Søborg captures the harsh beauty of the African landscape, bringing to mind many past Oscar favorites. Clearly tremendous passion went into Better, but it falls short of its ambitions. While not an out-and-out failure, it should not be a priority for those making the Sundance scene when it screens again on Wednesday (1/26), Saturday (1/29) and Sunday (1/30).

Posted on January 23rd, 2011 at 10:02pm.

LFM Sundance Review: Abraxas

By Joe Bendel. This might be the quietest film about punk-rock ever produced. Sure, Jonen could peel the paint off the walls when he was shredding, but his subsequent gig as Buddhist monk is much more sedate. Yet there is a connection between the two that screen writer-director Naoki Katô intriguingly explores in Abraxas (trailer above), which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Abraxas will likely shatter most viewers’ preconceptions of Buddhist monks. In addition to his punk-rock past, Jonen is a bit of drinker with a cute but increasingly exasperated wife Tae and young son Riu. Genshu, the resident temple priest, also has an attractive younger wife, making Abraxas quite the recruitment film for Buddhist religious service. Genshu however, is at peace with his path. Jonen by contrast, hears the siren call of the extreme music he used to make. Yet it is not the past glory he misses, but the oneness with sound. He is not looking to fill a void, rather he seeks the void.

Indeed, the punk-rock playing monk might sound precious, but there is nothing cutesy about Abaraxas. To his credit, Katô never dumbs down the material, crafting one of the more thoughtful and thought-provoking films about Buddhism (or any religion) in quite some time. Despite the importance of punk, it is only heard sparingly in Abraxas. Instead, it is the sounds of rain and even more prominently silence that Katô shrewdly employs to set the tone throughout the film.

Still, Katô ‘s film is hardly the cinematic equivalent of a scholarly religious treatise. Dealing with universal issues like loss and the need for belonging, Abraxas would be an excellent companion film to Yojiro Takita’s Oscar-winning art-house breakout hit Departures.

Appropriately Zen-like, the entire ensemble demonstrates ease and restraint in their parts.  Though Japanese alt-rocker Suneohair (a.k.a. Kenji Watanabe) gets to rock-out and act a little crazy from time to time, it is still a very grounded and sincere performance. In many ways, Kaoru Kobayashi quietly supplies the heart and soul of the film as Jonen’s senior Genshu, expressing wisdom and tolerance while sounding like a fully dimensional character instead of a cliché in the Kung Fu tradition. Manami Honjo brings a warm, smart presence as Genshu’s wife Asako – while as Tae, Rie Tomosaka supplies surprising depth and nuance in what could have easily been a standard issue nagging wife role.

Abraxas may very well be too subtle to generate the heat it merits in Park City. Yet, it is a richly accomplished film that deserves to find audience (and an American distributor). Highly recommended, Abraxas screens again on Tuesday (1/25), Wednesday (1/26), Thursday (1/27), and Friday (1/28) as part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Posted on January 23rd, 2011 at 10:01pm.