Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. Just imagine if Peter, Paul and Mary started out as a quartet with a dude named Billy Bob singing baritone. That never happened and the Korean folk duo Twin Folio were never part of a trio, but a new behind-the-music drama will suppose they were for the sake of “what if?” Considering most of Twin Folio’s greatest hits were sad love songs, it only stands to reason that love played a role in breaking apart their fictional precursor trio in Kim Hyun-suk’s C’est Si Bon, now opening in New York.

In the 1960s, South Korea lagged a bit behind the American Folk Revival, but they tried to make up for lost time in the trendy Mugyo-dong neighborhood. The C’est Si Bon club was like the early Village Vanguard, except it was all folk, no jazz. During the regular amateur nights, Yoon Hyeon-ju and Song Chang-shik regularly battle each other for victory, developing solid fan-bases and a pitched rivalry. Impresario Kim Choon-sik wants to combine their talents to launch his folk label, but wants an easier going third member to act as a buffer between them. His prospective producer-songwriter Lee Jang-hee just happens to cross paths with Oh Geun-tae, a naïve scholarship student from the sticks, with a perfectly complimentary baritone for the envisioned C’est Si Bon Trio.

Initially, Yoon and Song vibe Oh pretty hard, but their voices just fit together. Although they accept him professionally, they all compete for the attention of Min Ja-young, the queen of the C’est Si Bon social scene, who is struggling to make it as an actress. Surprisingly, Oh seems to have the inside track to Min’s heart, but if you think they will ride off into the sunset together, you haven’t heard a lot of folk songs or seen a lot of tragically romantic Korean box office hits.

It seems strange to make a film about the creation of Twin Folio in which the duo plays such a tangential role, while still forthrightly addressing the marijuana scandal that put their careers on ice for years. Regardless, Kim includes plenty of music for their fans, inventing new backstories for their most popular tunes. It will surely be much more meaningful to the faithful, but those not deeply steeped in the Korean folk scene will still be able to pick up on the film’s shout-outs and call-backs.

The musical numbers are organically integrated into the narrative and the candy-colored 1960s-1970s period details look great. It also should be admitted Oh’s early bashful courtship of Min is appealingly sweet. Unfortunately, an extended third act denouement set forty-some years later rather unsubtly drives the film’s points into the ground. Nevertheless, Jang Hyun-sung almost single-handedly saves the contemporary flashforward as the older, but wiser and hipper Lee.

Frankly, as the young Oh and Min, Jung Woo and Han Hyo-joo are so cute and earnestly sensitive, it is hard to believe they could let contrivances tear them asunder. Yet, such are the demands of Korean tent poles. It works for what it is, sort of like Iain Softley’s Backbeat, but with more yearning and crying. A can’t miss for Twin Folio fans and a guilty pleasure for those who secretly enjoy a shamelessly sentimental movie musical, C’est Si Bon is now playing in New York, at the Regal E-Walk.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on February 18th, 2015 at 11:08am.

By Joe Bendel. It has generated more irony than a hipster gathering at Cracker Barrel. Perhaps the biggest head-scratcher was the AWOL administration’s belated decision to respond to the Sony hack by cutting North Korea’s internet access, right when the studio was negotiating its availability on every digital VOD platform they could find. Perfect—for Lil’ Kim. Finally, you can take home a physical copy of Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen’s unlikely free speech cause célèbre, The Interview, which releases today on DVD and Blu-ray.

If you haven’t heard about a jillion times already, James Franco (or Flacco as our super in-touch president knows him) plays a shallow celebrity chat show host who scores an interview with Kim Jong-un, but the CIA convinces him and his responsible producer to use the opportunity to assassinate the dynastic Communist dictator. Hilarity then ensues, but The Interview’s humor has taken it in the shins from cultural commentators who are uncomfortable defending the free expression of scatological jokes.

Yes, Rogen’s Aaron Rapaport, the loyal producer of the Dave Skylark show, sticks a metal tube up his butt. It is kind of an uncomfortable scene. However, the good news is The Interview is funnier than it has been cracked up to be, but it is easy to see why a lot of media people were not laughing. Most of the jokes come at their expense. Sure, Skylark is an over the top caricature of the most superficial red carpet stalker, but his differences with the coach sitters on the morning “news” shows and The View are only of degrees and not of kind. Dave Skylark more or less is the media, except he is not a bad person. We know that because he loves puppies.

Through Rapaport, The Interview establishes the general reality of North Korean prison camps and famines, but it stops short of a categorical indictment. It fully admits (and the Dennis Rodmanesque Skylark eventually accepts) the fact that an appalling number of North Koreans have been sentenced to concentration camps, but it never delves into the standard practice of condemning entire families, two generations in each direction, for dubious crimes against the state. Admittedly, that would be a real buzz kill for a comedy.

In a weird way, Skylark is the dark flipside of the media-obsessed sociopath Flacco plays in True Story. It is a fitting role for the compulsively publicized actor-student-film director. Rogen largely assumes the straight man duties, but he shares decent buddy chemistry with Flacco. Randall Park probably earns a more villainous feature spot in the next Awesome Asian Bad Guys with his highly Freudian portrayal of Kim Jong-un. He certainly undermines the lofty stature of Kim, but the film never invites outright sympathy for his insecurities. However, the real breakthrough has to be Diana Bang, who exhibits nimble comic timing and solid action chops as Sook, the lads’ minder and unlikely ally.

The Interview’s reportedly draggy midsection really is a fair rap, but the last half hour just might be worth balloon-dropping over Pyongyang. The tone is pretty much what you expect, but it is not as dumb as you’ve been told. Arguably, it should have been even more explicit explaining the crimes of the Kim Marxist Monarchy. Honestly, it would have been a shame if they self-censored themselves, because what more could have possibly gone wrong?

Regardless, it is still worth seeing as a way of making a personal statement. Of course, watching documentaries like Red Chapel, Kimjongilia, Yodok Stories, and The Secret State of North Korea with it or in its place makes an even stronger statement. Reasonably amusing as a dumb comedy, The Interview still carries wider significance, so it is duly recommended as a way to annoy Kim the Third when it releases today (2/17) on DVD and Blu-ray.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on February 16th, 2015 at 10:05pm.

By Joe Bendel. Thanks to the found footage sub-genre, the horror movie community hardly knows what to do when the real thing comes along. At least that is sort of the premise of the new meta-meta mock-and-shock doc from the team behind the Holliston television series. Director Adam Green, playing himself and riffing off his Holliston persona, starts to suspect monsters are real, so naturally he sets out to film them in Digging Up the Marrow, which launches on VOD and opens in select theaters this Friday.

Green really does get a great deal of intricately constructed fan fiction sent to him, in some cases much like the incredibly detailed but presumably barking mad missive that starts his on-camera excursion down the rabbit hole. A retired Boston cop named William Decker claims a secret band of the freakishly deformed live in a subterranean world he calls the Marrow. The entrances are closely guarded, but he has discovered one, logically located in an out of the way cemetery. Thus begins a series of futile stakeouts, with his reluctant cinematographer Will Barratt (played by cinematographer Will Barratt) in tow.

Of course, just when Green decides Decker is a complete nut leading them on a wild goose chase, they finally see something that changes everything. However, they still have to convince their colleagues to take their footage seriously. Green’s real life editor Josh Ethier (who also played the killer lumberjack-alien in Joe Begos’ Almost Human) is particularly skeptical, but he is perfectly willing to cut Green’s stolen shots. “It’s not found footage, it’s . . . footage” he insists.

Frankly, this is one of the best postmodern self-referential genre films since Wes Craven turned his signature franchise on its head with New Nightmare. It is light-years better than the Vicious Brothers’ knowing but disappointingly flat Grave Encounters 2. While there are plenty of creepy moments, the film is more about exploring how the horror industry and sub-culture would respond when confronted with possible evidence that maybe some of this stuff might just be real.

In a pleasant turn of events, Ethier and Hatchet star Kane Hodder (best known for his stint as Jason in the old school Friday the 13th films) are totally hilarious playing off each other and Green. They give the film a major energy boost during their scenes. Green himself is a good sport as the straight man for their quips and all of Decker’s macabre madness, whereas Ray Wise, the only cast member assuming a fictional persona, is reliably looney as the unreliable Decker.

Inspired by the Alex Pardee’s monster art, Marrow is a strong creature feature that might even be more interesting when it operates in the ostensibly real world. Sadly, the film also marks the last screen appearance of Green’s late series co-star Dave Brockie. Green also was disciplined enough as a director to keep the scenes of actress Rileah Vanderbilt playing his actress-wife Rileah, even though she would now have to play his ex-wife should there ever be a sequel.

Given all that seems to transpire, fans will not be expecting a third season of Holliston anytime soon after watching it, but they should enjoy appearances from leading genre filmmakers like Don Coscarelli, Mick Garris, and Tom Holland. Highly recommended as a clever, fully developed, ironically meta genre film, Digging Up the Marrow hits iTunes this Friday (2/20).

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on February 16th, 2015 at 10:04pm.

By Joe Bendel. What was an ancient civilization doing in the northern most regions of the Yukon’s Taiga Cordillera? Not much, at least not anymore. However, their stag-headed demigod might be up to some bad supernatural business in writer-director Nick Szostakiwskyj’s Black Mountain Side, which screens during the 2015 SF Indie Fest.

Although there are indigenous peoples in the Taiga Ecozone, by the time you reach the research station commanded by Myles Jensen, civilization thins out to pretty much to nothing. That is why the discovery of a Mesoamerican monument (or rather the visible tip of it) is such a significant surprise. The more academically respectable Peter Olsen is flown out to inspect it, unfortunately for him. He agrees, it is the darnedest thing, but it is not Mesoamerican.

Soon thereafter, the camp cat is found murdered at the excavation site, like a sacrifice at an altar. The next day, the outpost’s indigenous workers have all taken to the wind. With the weather getting even worse, the men are cut off from the world, struggling with each other’s increasingly violent, delusional behavior, diagnosed by the camp doctor as the result of exposure to an ancient but still potent virus.

Frankly, Szostakiwskyj’s surprisingly subtle script allows for the possible the bedlam might just as easily be the product of an all-too human psychosis brought on by stress and isolation as it is the result of a killer virus or the work of a malevolent entity. We can probably safely assume all three are a factor in the ensuing chaos.

Despite the severed body parts, Mountain is remarkably restrained for a horror film. Much like the original Howard Hawks produced The Thing, it features some unusually smart dialogue, particularly the speculation regarding the vanished civilization that left behind the ominous artifact (someone should have thrown a bone up in the air in front of it to see if it would turn into a space station). This film was not exactly a bumper crop of opportunities for actresses, but Szostakiwskyj deals pretty forthrightly with both sides of masculinity—the cerebral reserve and the arm-chopping violence.

Arguably, Mountain is a little too quiet, soaking up atmosphere when it should be getting somewhere quicker. The primary characters are also a bit tricky to differentiate from one another. Mostly, they are smart, intense, and liberally appointed with facial hair. Still, Michael Dickson makes all of Olsen’s anthropological speculation sound cool.

While its horror movie mechanics are a tad off, the creepy vibe and distinct sense of place elevate Mountain above most indie genre outings. It the sort of film that makes viewers feel chilly in the moment and inspires gratitude as they live in major metropolitan centers after their screenings. Recommended for fans of naturalistic horror films, Black Mountain Side screens this Sunday (2/15), and the following Wednesday (2/18), as part of this year’s SF Indie Fest.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on February 9th, 2015 at 8:59pm.

By Joe Bendel. The title of Jamie Wellerstein’s bestselling debut novel sounds nauseatingly pretentious, but Light Out of Darkness happens to be a hat tip to Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, so all is forgiven. Regardless, his remarkable early success will put a strain on his marriage to a would-be Broadway actress. We know it will not last, because he walks out in the first scene. We will subsequently see how it all unraveled in Richard LaGravenese’s adaptation of Jason Robert Brown’s Off-Broadway musical, The Last Five Years, which opens this Friday in New York.

Wellerstein is leaving and it looks like he is never coming back. Cathy Hiatt is obviously devastated, but it gives her the first opportunity to show her range with the nakedly revealing feature spot, “Still Hurting.” There is more to this story than first appears. Wellerstein was once reasonably in love with Hiatt. It was he who first suggested they live together, before he eventually proposed. Yet, Wellerstein’s immediate success caused friction. Yes, it brought him into close proximity of literary groupies and trampy editorial assistants, but it is really caused more of a psychological disconnect between the brashly confident Wellerstein and the increasingly despondent Wellerstein née Hiatt.

Although the original stage production somewhat resembled Love Letters in its stripped down, dueling song-and-monologue structure, LaGravenese opens it up quite nicely. He brings it out onto the streets of New York and transforms the musical numbers into dramatic exchanges.

Frankly, the real issue with LFY is common to many new book musicals today. You might consider it the Rent effect. There simply is not enough emotional diversity to the score. Each number requires the cast to start at practically a crescendo level, maintaining the notes and the soul-baring wails. Even the show’s “novelty song,” “Shiksa Goddess” requires Wellerstein to belt out at the top of his lungs. It is more effective when a show goes up and down the scale. Give us some slow groovers and easy loopers, but with catchy melodies. Then hit us with the show-stopper.

Be that as it may, Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan do everything that is asked of them and then some. As a veteran of Broadway (the way better than you’ve heard Bonnie & Clyde) and Smash, Jordan exhibits the chops you would expect, but the strength and clarity of Kendrick exceeds the expectations established by Pitch Perfect and her Tony nomination for High Society at the precocious age of twelve. They also have appealing chemistry together in the early days and convincingly push each away during the later bad times. Together, they make the arc of the relationship feel true.

Much of LFY’s narrative context and on-screen communication is delivered through song, often giving it a rock opera-ish vibe. Necessarily, one song often leads into another, reinforcing the samey-ness of the score. Nevertheless, Wellerstein’s climatic “If I Didn’t Believe in You” stands out as a dramatic equalizer, largely regaining the audience sympathy he lost in the opening scenes. Cinematographer Steven Meizler makes it all sparkle in a way that subtly evokes the big colorful Golden Age musicals, but in a way the still feels contemporary. If you like the sound of most post-Rent Broadway musicals that are not period productions, LaGravenese’s adaptation should be like catnip. For the rest of us, the two leads manage to carry the day through sheer gumption. Recommended for fans of movie musicals, The Last Five Years opens this Friday (2/13) in New York, at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on February 9th, 2015 at 8:58pm.

By Joe Bendel. There is one area where Israel should find common ground with its radical neighbors: its rabbinical system of divorce that applies to all, regardless of faith or lack thereof, and invariably favors men. Of course, women’s rights are assiduously protected in other spheres of life, so that compatibility extends only so far. Nevertheless, for an emotionally neglected wife desperate to move on with her life, divorce proceedings are unbearably unjust, absurd, and protracted in Ronit & Schlomi Elkabetz’s Golden Globe nominated Gett: the Trial of Viviane Amsalem, which opens this Friday in New York.

Amsalem has not lived with her husband Elisha for years. All that time, she has stayed with her grown siblings, dutifully sending meals home to Elisha and their children every night. She has never been unfaithful or in any way brought shame on the family—aside from the scandal of their separation. She simply had enough of his passive aggressive cruelty and the isolation imposed by his anti-social Puritanism.

In an American court, this would be an open and shut case, especially when her husband contemptuously disregards notices to appear in court. Despite his recalcitrant behavior, the law remains on his side. As long as he continues to deny her long-sought after divorce (or gett), nobody can force him to change his mind. Viviane Amsalem’s decidedly unreligious attorney Carmel Ben Tovim will continue to file objections and call witnesses, but the institutional fix is in. Yet, like some sort of Kafkaesque Sisyphus, she continues to press a case that will be observed in months and eventually years.

Gett paints a traumatizing portrait of divorce, but unlike L.A. Law or American exposes like Divorce Corp, the Elkabetz sibling filmmakers never accuse the attorneys of exploiting the proceedings for financial gain. Frankly, everyone in this film is abjectly miserable, but the three-judge panel refuses impose a sensible gett, due their overriding doctrinal concerns.

Ronit Elkabetz (so seductively earthy in the Oscar disqualified The Band’s Visit) is quite remarkable as Ms. Amsalem. She viscerally conveys a sense of her bitter exhaustion, but can still shock us with eruptions of repressed emotion, manifesting as rage or inappropriate laughter. Simon Abkarian plays Mr. Amsalem with rigid discipline, coming off cold, clammy, and callous. Yet, he adroitly reveals aspects of the husband “defendant” that explain and somewhat humanize his actions to some extent, but not at the expense of viewer sympathy for his embattled wife.

In terms of themes, tone, and intensity, Gett most closely compares to Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, but it probably does the Iranian filmmaker no favors to liken his film with an Israeli work. Regardless, they are both seamlessly exhausting viewing experiences. Arguably, it is the mark of a healthy society that can forthrightly address its faults through cultural and artistic statements. Frankly, you will not see Arab cinema tackle gender inequity so candidly. Of course they also have even more fundamental issues than biased divorce law to contend with, like honor killings and female genital mutilation. No doubt that is slim comfort to the Viviane Amsalems, but worth noting nonetheless. Recommended for the sheer power of its performances and the Elkabetzes’ almost unbearably intimate dramatic focus, Gett: the Trial of Viviane Amsalem opens this Friday (2/13) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on February 9th, 2015 at 8:58pm.