Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. There is no greater public health crisis than a zombie apocalypse. In this case, it is directly linked to a contaminated water supply, but high population density, unprotected sex, and some wicked strong weed are also contributing factors. Once infection takes hold, it runs like wildfire through a Lagos slum in C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s Ojuju, which screens during the 2015 New Voices in Black Cinema at the BAM Rose Cinemas.

People think Romero (hat tip intentional) is a little strange, because the slacker actually seems to be serious about fulfilling his obligations to his highly pregnant girlfriend, Alero. Nobody is more confused by this then his former hook-up Aisha, but his buddies Emmy and Peju also have a hard time adjusting to his domestic bliss. Alas, it is not to last.

The first victim we see fall prey to the shufflers will be Fela, the local drug dealer, who has been selling some particularly potent product lately. He also samples the wares more than he should, so the strange figure staggering towards him just doesn’t set off the alarm bells it should. Inevitably infected, he and his crony begin the feverish process of transformation, despite the local prostitute’s efforts to care for his mystery illness. Soon, nearly the entire neighborhood except Romero, Emmy, and Peju are part of the shuffling horde. Unfortunately, there are limited egress points for the largely self-contained slum, so getting out of Dodge will be a tricky proposition.

Those who might be expecting the weird evangelical perspective often reflected in Nollywood films can just forget it. Ojuju will not begrudge its socially disadvantaged characters a little sin while the sinning is good. Everyone tokes up a little to get by, even the incredibly foul-mouthed adolescent known simply as “the Kid.” What really makes the zombie (or ojuju) outbreak so devastating are the hard facts of life in a Nigerian slum. Obasi gives us a vivid sense of what they are like, including the bottleneck exit and the razor wire encircling it.

While Ojuju was obviously shot on a micro-budget, the gritty, low-fi aesthetic nicely suits the zombie genre. Obasi delivers enough gore to mollify genre fans, but the sweaty, claustrophobic vibe is what really generates the mounting dread. He also tacks on a long, almost entirely unrelated coda, but it largely works as a short film in its own right, so just consider it a bonus.

Perhaps Ojuju’s nicest surprise is the ensemble’s professionalism. Ranging from solidly presentable to legitimately polished, they are consistent in a good way, with Gabriel Afolayan and Chidozie Nzeribe particularly intense standouts as Romero and Fela, respectively. Making a virtue of its rough edges, Obasi exceeds expectations for his scrappy upstart zombie film. Recommended for undead fans, Ojuju screens this Friday (3/27) at BAM, as part of this year’s New Voices in Black Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on March 27th, 2015 at 12:45am.

By Joe Bendel. Seriously, why bother assassinating a government official of a failed state? A small team of mercs will do so anyway, because a job is a job. Unfortunately, the shadowy outfit managing the contract has started tying up loose ends. Those would be Jim Terrier and his former comrades-in-arms. He just might be the only left who isn’t part of the conspiracy, but he should be enough to bring them all down in Pierre Morel’s The Gunman, which opened this Friday in New York.

For a while, Terrier was really enjoying the Congo assignment. While secretly working for Lawrence Cox’s death squad, he volunteered as a relief coordinator by day to maintain his cover. That is how he met and fell hard for Annie, the professional do-gooder. Unfortunately, just when both their romance and the country’s civil war are heating up, Terrier is assigned to the team taking out an uncooperative natural resources minister looking to renegotiate terms (in real life, the mining companies would just say fine, call us when you have a working legal system). Since he will be the trigger man, Terrier will have to vanish afterwards, leaving Annie to the creepy advances of Felix, his smarmy corporate contact.

Haunted by his collective guilt, Terrier returns to Congo, hoping to do penance, like Jack Bauer in the two-hour special 24: Redemption. However, when an unusually well-equipped hit squad shows up gunning for Terrier, he realizes someone is out to get the old gang, but they all seem to be dead, except for him and the suspiciously chipper Cox. Felix also seems to be acting excessively obnoxious, but that is just sort of how he is. For understandable reasons, his wife Annie has mixed emotions seeing Terrier again, but the sparks are still there. She tries to guilt trip him, pointedly asking: “what did you expect showing up after all this time,” but since they just slept together, things are probably exceeding his expectations (but not necessarily ours).

Frankly, the early scenes of the hard-bitten assassins doubling as relief logistical specialists are rather intriguing and hint at dramatic possibilities the film opts not to take. Of course, we have to deal with the film as it is and not what it might have been. Granted, the narrative drive and internal logic start to sag in the second act, with the former rebounding and the latter utterly imploding down the stretch, but nobody can blame Sean Penn. Gunman is really his coming out party as a middle aged action figure, where he indeed shows he has the chops and the presence. He also clearly put in the time at the gym.

However, Idris Elba is even more impressive, getting second billing over Javier Bardem for maybe two days of work, tops. Appearing as DuPont, the Interpol agent, he just drops in, makes an extended treehouse analogy and then disappears until it’s time for the mopping up. Yet, he is still totally badass. Ray Winstone does his old hardnosed thing as Terrier’s trustworthy associate Stanley and Mark Rylance’s Cox chews on a fair amount of scenery. Frankly, it is hard to know what to make of former Bond villain Bardem, but at least he isn’t playing it safe as the whiny, petulant Felix. On the other hand, it is safe to say Jasmine Trinca (so subtle and earthy in Valeria Golino’s Honey) is woefully wasted as the problematically passive Annie.

There are some nicely executed old school actions scenes in Gunman, but some sequences are undermined by questionable editing. On several occasions it looks like Terrier is in the immediate path of assorted perils, only to find him safely outside the line of fire an abrupt cut or two later. Taken helmer Morel gets the attitude right, but he largely keeps the film on a medium tempo rather than a break neck speed. You just leave the theater suspecting in most alternate universes, this movie is totally awesome, but the one we get is just okay. It will satisfy hardcore Penn fans, but the rest of us should feel no urgent need to rush out to see it when it opens this Friday (3/20) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on March 22nd, 2015 at 1:18pm.

By Joe Bendel. Pay attention children. Taylor Lautner will demonstrate why you should stay in school. He is a bike messenger who keeps losing his bicycle. That is a shame, because he owes a lot of money to a loan shark. Most unfortunately, he did not borrow enough to save his dying mother’s house, so he is now practically homeless and on the hook for the principle and the fast compounding vig. This poor kid is so dumb, the shadowy leader of a gang of parkour thieves figures he might as well start exploiting him, too in Daniel Benmayor’s Tracers, which opened this Friday in New York.

Cam, the sullen bike messenger, needs all the runs he can get. He owes big time to the Chinatown mob and he is behind on his rent to the single mother whose garage he is crashing in (maybe he has a room as well, but he never seems to use it). Unfortunately, his livelihood gets irreparably banged up when he swerves to avoid Nikki, a parkour chick falling out of the sky. Naturally, he responds to this crisis by obsessively watching parkour videos on his smart phone.

Nikki has no interest in a loser like him (and neither do we), but she feels guilty enough to drop off a new set of two-wheels for him at the messenger center. Logically, he has that one stolen out from under him when he sets off in search of her. After a few beatings administered his loan officer’s thugs, Cam manages to talk his way into Nikki’s gang. Her colleagues are pretty impressed, considering he developed some mean parkour skills in about twenty minutes. Miller, the mastermind, also sees a sucker he can use. However, Cam is always causing trouble, pestering him for dough and making swoony eyes at Nikki, who is stuck being Miller’s woman, whether she likes it or not.

Eventually, everyone in this line has to cover a Taylor Lautner film, so it might as well be something as innocuous as Tracers. Essentially, it starts out trying to be the old Kevin Bacon vehicle Quicksilver and then attempts to morph into a parkour thriller in the tradition of the Luc Besson produced B13 franchise. Sadly, it lacks the catchy 1980s soundtrack of the former and the pedal-to-the-metal energy of the latter. Even though parkour is the reason for Tracers’ being, the action is just sort of okay. To give an example, at one point Benmayor prominently frames the Empire State Building, getting our hopes up that the film will finally go for it like Remo Williams at the Statue of Liberty—but no, it’s just there for background color.

It is hard to really see why Lautner has a movie career from Tracers. He exhibits absolutely no charisma, but to be fair, he seems inoffensive and mostly rather polite. As Nikki, Marie Avgeropoulos is blandly attractive in much the same way. There are other members of the gang, but they hardly merit individual names. They just run, jump, and die, when necessary. On the other hand, Adam Rayner makes a reasonably competent lead villain as Miller and Johnny M. Wu serves as a relatively entertaining supporting villain as Jerry the loan shark.

Somehow Benmayor managed to find all the gritty, post-industrial riverfront locations left in New York. He has a decent eye for urban blight, but he lets the teeny-boppish melodrama intrude too much on the action. Nevertheless, the film ends with a surprisingly satisfying turn of events, but calling it a “twist” would be too strong a term. In all honesty, Tracers just isn’t worth your movie ticket dollars. Parkour fans are much better off revisiting the B13 movies, but it might suit the needs of DirecTV subscribers who want to turn off their brains and zone out in front of something harmless. Regardless, it opens theatrically this Friday (3/20) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: C

Posted on March 22nd, 2015 at 1:17pm.

By Joe Bendel. Obviously, editors are important to horror movies. They get to do all the cutting. Of course, these days, it is mostly done digitally, but for 1970s Italian giallo movies, it was all about sharp cutting implements. Unfortunately, journeyman editor Rey Ciso has somewhat lost his touch since a mysterious accident left him with four wooden fingers. In accordance with giallo genre conventions, Ciso will find himself tipped as the logical suspect when a psycho stalker starts knocking off cast-members of his latest film in Astron-6’s spoof, The Editor, directed by Adam Brooks & Matthew Kennedy, which screens during this year’s Atlanta Film Festival.

After his freak accident, Ciso either spent time in a private clinic or a looney bin. He and his doctor apparently have very different memories of that time, but that does not necessarily mean Ciso is wrong. Regardless, his new student-intern Bella worships the editor. His past her prime actress wife, not so much. She seems somewhat obsessed the up-and-coming star, Claudio Calvetti. Inconveniently, he is also very dead, along with his frequently naked co-star, Veronica.

Since the killer hacks off the same four fingers from his victim that Ciso has lost, the violent but incompetent Det. Peter Porfiry naturally settles on him as the prime suspect. To make matter worse, the killer has taken an unhealthy interest in Ciso, sending him tapes of his work. At least good Father Clarke believes in his innocence, not that a sexually confused materialist like Porfiry takes much stock in what priests have to say.

The Editor might be a comedic send-up, but it outdoes Cattet & Forzani’s Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears with its loving attention to giallo production details. It looks and sounds terrific, incorporating the sinister Goblin-esque soundtrack, over-the-top bloodletting, and plenty of gratuitous nudity. The way Ciso and Porfiry never change their hideously 1970s outfits is also a nice touch. Clearly, co-writers Brooks, Kennedy, and Conor Sweeney understand what makes giallos tick, right down to the bafflingly incomprehensible finale.

Brooks also serves himself well as Ciso, the cracked up everyman. He is sort of like a straight-man for the gags, except he constantly gets to freak out. Kennedy’s Porfiry also gorges on plenty of scenery, looking like an appropriately low rent Donald Sutherland. Tristan Risk (a.k.a. burlesque performer Little Miss Risk) and Sheila E. Campbell duly vamp it up like good sports as the ill-fated Veronica and Porfiry’s ex-wife Margarit, respectively. Laurence R. Harvey scores some of the biggest laughs as Father Clarke, while the appearances of Udo Kier and Crime Wave’s John Paizs need no explanation.

In terms of tone and substance, The Editor is maybe seventy percent giallo and thirty percent Troma, so it is certainly not for the overly sensitive or easily offended. However, it makes you want to go back and re-watch classics of the genre, which attests to its legitimacy and the cleverness of its satire. Shamelessly lurid, The Editor is quite enthusiastically recommended for giallo fans when it screens this Saturday (3/21) at the 2015 Atlanta Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on March 22nd, 2015 at 1:17pm.

By Joe Bendel. Andrei Chikatilo was an ardent Communist and a serial killer with over fifty confirmed victims. As a small child, he lived through the famine years of Stalin’s punitive collectivization of Ukrainian agriculture, so many have speculated the widespread suffering and rumors of cannibalism profoundly twisted his psyche over time. Ominously, just like the Soviet Russian Army, it seems the malevolent spirit of Chikatilo has returned to torment the Ukrainian people again in Petr Jákl’s Ghoul, which opened this Friday in New Jersey.

Three Americans have come to Ukraine to finish their spec documentary on twentieth century cannibalism. Initially, it is not exactly Chikatilo’s story they have come to tell, but that of Boris Glaskov, a local man who was convicted but leniently sentenced for committing an act of cannibalism, while supposedly possessed by Chikatilo’s spirit. Through their dodgy fixer Valeriy and Katerina, a more trustworthy interpreter, they arrange to interview Glaskov in the spooky old farmhouse where it all went down. Naturally, he never shows, but for some reason Ina, the village “witch,” tagged along, thinking she might be needed.

By the time the crew realize Glaskov stood them up, it is quite late and everyone is rather drunk. Resigned to the situation, they resolve to spend the night there, so they can chase him down in the morning. Needless to say, a lot of weirdness happens that night. They do not necessarily remember most of it, but the cameras recorded it all. While they try to dismiss the psychic’s spooky talk, they will eventually accept her diagnosis of the situation—they will have to placate the vengeful spirit haunting the house if they ever hope to leave.

Reportedly, Ghoul had the highest opening gross for a horror film in Czech history. It is definitely informed by the tragic weight of Soviet history but some might find its use of archival images from the Great Ukrainian Famine to be problematically exploitative. One simply cannot picture an American horror film using photos of the Holocaust in a similar manner. Still, the Chikatilo and Ukrainian angles are what really distinguish Ghoul from the crowded field of found footage horror films. Jákl also skillfully utilizes some creepy sets and props, but that and the intriguing backstory are about all it has to offer.

In truth, the entire cast is pretty generic, but at least nobody stands out in a bad way. Perhaps Alina Golovlyova makes the strongest impression as the demure Katarina, but Ghoul is hardly a star-making vehicle. Rather, it is the eerie looking work of cinematographer Jan Šuster and the entire design team that earns the most props. Granted, horror connoisseurs have seen far schlockier found footage films, but it is disappointing Jákl started with such a genuinely intriguing premise, only to settle for so much mediocrity. Mostly just a standard time killer for genre fans, Ghoul opens this Friday (3/20) at the AMC Loews Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth, NJ.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on March 22nd, 2015 at 1:17pm.

By Joe Bendel. When the end of the world comes, it will hit Buenos Aires just as hard as New York—maybe even worse, because we are more accustomed to grand scale emergencies. As social order starts to break down, they might start to miss the military junta. A group of schlubby middle class survivalists do not intend to wait that long. They will enroll in a post-apocalyptic training camp—just in the nick of end times. Prepare yourself for an aesthetically severe Armageddon in Lukas Valenta Rinner’s Parabellum, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Alarmed by the constant reports of civil strife, Hernan Oviedo the unassuming office drone is going off the grid. After cutting his utilities, he heads off for his preparedness boot camp. He is a scrawny cat, but he is still fitter than some of his more obese colleagues. Nevertheless, they have come to learn skills that will soon be necessary – like camouflage, explosives, hand-to-hand combat, and marksmanship. Rinner observes them going about their drills with a tone of quiet mockery, but his motley characters will have the last laugh before they even get to the third act. It seems their preparations are not simply physical. They are also ready to become ruthless predators for the sake of survival.

It is hard to believe a film about a cult-like paramilitary organization running wild during the apocalypse could be so quiet and narratively diffuse. Granted, plottish kinds of things do happen, but Rinner de-emphasizes them, often relegating them to the distant corner of the screen, where they are easily overlooked. He certainly shows no interest whatsoever in his characters’ personalities and interior lives, but he loves his wide shots.

Pablo Seijo totally nails Oviedo’s world-weariness and existential disillusionment, doing the best that he can in what is far from an actor’s showcase. To put it in perspective, Rinner is far more likely to shoot his cast from behind rather than face forward, by at least a ratio of two-to-one in favor of the backs of their heads. That is immediately distancing and it gets rather dull over time.

Ironically, Parabellum initially appears to ridicule its paranoid characters, but largely vindicates their paranoia at a relatively early stage. Roundabout or even openly experimental approaches to apocalyptic subject matter can yield fruit, but it seems they are better suited to short films, like Andreas Bolm’s The Revenants. In truth, Parabellum is a tough slog with a miserly payoff. Recommended for the small handful of admirers for conceptual filmmakers like João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata, it screens this coming Monday (3/23) at MoMA and Tuesday (3/24) at the Walter Reade, as part of the 2015 ND/NF.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on March 22nd, 2015 at 1:16pm.