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By Joe Bendel. That log cabin business was no joke. Abraham Lincoln’s formative years put the “hard” in hardscrabble. Yet, they also shaped him into the commanding and compassionate leader our nation needed. Young Master Lincoln comes of age in A.J. Edwards’ impressionistic The Better Angels, co-produced by Terrence Malick, which screens as a New Frontier selection of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Narrated by Lincoln’s cousin reminiscing shortly after his assassination, Angels chronicles three years of his life as a gangly youth in the back hills of Indiana. His devout but illiterate mother Nancy Lincoln recognizes her youngest son’s remarkable intellectual gifts, but his gruff father sees no value in a bookish education. Nancy Lincoln would die at a tragically young age, but her religious convictions clearly shaped her sensitive son’s ethical values. A short while later Tom Lincoln remarries. Sarah Lincoln also takes a shine to young Abraham, finally convincing her husband to support his education.

Throughout Angels, Malick protégé Edwards maintains a style consistent with that of his mentor, but scene after scene resonate with far greater emotion than the austere To the Wonder. This is a simple story, but it is deeply moving. Aside from the exquisitely beautiful opening shots of the Lincoln Memorial, Angels never leaves the Indiana Hill country, circa 1817. Yet, Lincoln’s later significance is unambiguously stamped upon the film.

Visually, Angels is a true work of art. Each and every frame of Matthew J. Lloyd’s black-and-white cinematography is suitable for framing. As sort of an illustrative tone poem-tribute to Lincoln, Angels fits comfortably enough in the New Frontiers rubric. Nevertheless, the film boasts several very fine performances. Diane Kruger’s turn as Sarah Lincoln is wonderfully sensitive and finely wrought, but Jason Clarke’s work as the demanding but ultimately loving Tom Lincoln sneaks up on viewers, landing a total knockout punch.

Yes, Angels is deliberately paced, favoring sensory stimulus over narrative drive. It is also an unusually powerful and evocative film. There will be plenty of people who just won’t get it, but they will be wrong. Elegantly crafted, it is one of the high-end high-points of this year’s Sundance. Enthusiastically recommended for patrons with adult attention spans, The Better Angels screens again Saturday (1/25) in Park City.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on January 24th, 2014 at 3:25pm.

By Joe Bendel. This film would not have been possible twenty-five years ago. Without the advent of cell phones, a long dark night of the soul spent on England’s motorways would not offer much drama. Fortunately, Ivan Locke is a plugged-in guy, but he will suffer through a series of uncomfortable calls in Steven Knight’s Locke, which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Locke is a construction supervisor who takes pride in doing things the right way. However, he has made a mistake that will be hard to put right. Acknowledging his responsibility, Locke is driving to London, where a woman who is not his wife will soon enter into labor. This is a really bad time for it. In addition to fielding tough questions from his wife and their two sons, Locke is expected to oversee the pouring of the concrete foundation for a major new high rise. Having gone AWOL, Locke is pretty much fired, but he is determined to guide his loyal subordinate Donal through the process, for the sake of the project. Of course, complications arise, at the work site, the hospital, and the home front.

If nothing else, Locke should go down in history as the definitive film on the intricacies of concrete construction techniques. It really is educational. Happily, it also has Tom Hardy, putting on an acting clinic behind the wheel of Locke’s BMW. He goes through a full spectrum of emotions, but he never indulgences in cheap Streepian histrionics. This is a performance that pulls viewers into the man’s psyche, rather than obsessing over ticks and twitches.

Even though Locke is essentially a one man show, Hardy gets some nice assists from a talented voice cast literally phoning in their supporting turn. Andrew Scott (Moriarty in the BBC-PBS Sherlock) is a particular stand out as Donal, often delivering some welcome and effective comic relief.

Best known as the Oscar nominated screenwriter of Dirty Pretty Things, Knight deserved considerably more attention for his directorial debut, Redemption, starring a misty-eyed Jason Statham. Clearly he has an affinity for noirish tales of nocturnal angst and desperation. Indeed, Knight’s execution is surprisingly stylish, never feeling stagey or contrived. In fact, there is something rather hypnotic about the constant play of head lights and reflections captured by cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos’s three mounted digital cameras. Deceptively simple, Locke is a film of considerable depth and integrity of character. Recommended for general audiences, it screens again tomorrow (1/19), Friday (1/24), and Saturday (1/25) in Park City, as well as Thursday (1/23) in Salt Lake, as part of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 18th, 2014 at 5:48pm.

By Joe Bendel. Yesterday was a happy morning for a Belgian bear and mouse. Based on Gabrielle Vincent’s children’s books, it was always considered another serious animated Oscar contender from GKIDS – and on top of its Academy nomination, Benjamin Renner, Stéphane Aubier & Vincent Patar’s Ernest and Celestine now also holds the distinction of being one of the first two films selected for the inaugural Sundance Kids section at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, which kicked off  Thursday night in Park City.

Bears live above ground, in a human-like state of middle class respectability. The mice live below, toiling away in a Dickensian subterranean city. Neither Ernest the busking bear nor Celestine the artistic mouse fit comfortably within their respective communities. Like most mice, Celestine is expected to scavenge coveted bear’s teeth from the surface world for the mice dentists, who sit atop the social order down below. Naturally, she is terrible at it. However, a chance encounter with Ernest leads to some rare cross-species collaboration—teeth for Celestine and food for Ernest.

Alas, word of their scandalous association leads to pariah status for them both. Yet, for a while they live happily together as outlaws in Ernest’s remote forest bungalow. Of course, neither the world of mice nor bears will be content until they are apprehended. Still, that will be the best opportunity for E&C to teach them a lesson in tolerance.

E&C’s hand-drawn animation has an elegant, old European feel that is refreshingly nostalgic. While sometimes the message is laid on with a heavy hand, the vibe is usually quite gentle and sweet. Frankly, one would never expect such a graceful and well intentioned film from Aubier and Patar, the team behind the anarchic bedlam of the Town Called Panic franchise, but here it is—and it is indeed a fine work of animation. Their figures are expressive and endearing, but not cloyingly cute. Jazz cellist Vincent Courtois’s lightly buoyant score also reinforces the sophisticated atmosphere.

While only the celebrity English version of C&E will play at Sundance (featuring Forest Whitaker as Ernest), its announced March release will also include select subtitled screenings of the original French (with Lambert Wilson gruffly giving voice to Ernest). Visually it is an absolute charmer and the characterization is strong enough to overcome the not so subtle teaching moments. Recommended for all children and fans of animation, Ernest and Celestine screens this Saturday (1/18) and next Saturday (1/25) in Park City, as well as this Sunday (1/19) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 18th, 2014 4:17pm.

By Joe Bendel. Even though filming is not even wrapped on the questionable movie adaptation of Shades of Grey, Hitoshi Matsumoto has already mashed-up the S&M melodrama genre beyond human recognition. From Japan, we have a cautionary, surreal meta-meta postmodern bondage conspiracy tale, while Hollywood is banking on a dude who wears grey ties. How quaint. In the mean time, Matsumoto subverts perversion throughout R100, which screens during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Takafumi Katayama is a drab and depressed working drone who needs to unwind a little. He thinks he has found just the ticket when he joins a mysterious club for submissive men. At first, he gets the release he is seeking when the black-clad women meet him at their scheduled rendezvouses to beat him about and smash his sushi rolls (that’s not a euphemism). However, when they start showing up at his home and work, matters turn a distinctly charcoal shade of grey.

As each dominatrix escalates their encounters, Katayama starts to fear for his life and the safety of his young son and father-in-law. Then things get really weird, but not do bother complaining about logical inconsistencies. The film will provide that commentary itself.

Strictly speaking, there is no nudity or sex in R100, but it is absolutely, positively not for kids. The title is a play on the Japanese motion picture rating system that could be roughly translated as NC-100 for American audiences—and not for nothing. Yet, the film definitely seems to suggest you are begging for trouble if you go out looking for something on the deviant side of life.

Regardless, R100 careens so defiantly over the top, parsing its symbolic layers and potential take-away teachings becomes a head-spinning endeavor. If any of this film sounds problematic, then you should probably avoid R100 because there is way more of whatever it is that troubles you than we’ve covered so far. On the other hand, cult cinema connoisseurs looking for a new and distinctive head trip will find it here. Imagine Eyes Wide Shut transported to the world of Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber and you will start to get the idea.

Nao Omori perfectly anchors the film as the existentially put-upon Katayama. Just looking at him sort of makes you want to smack him alongside the head. However, he handles the character’s strange evolution with understated power. As his son Arashi, Haruki Nishimoto distinguishes himself as an unusually engaging young actor. Fortunately, his classmates will not be able to see R100 for a while and hopefully he will not have to take much taunting over it in later years.

R100 pushes the envelope, but it never skitters into irredeemably disturbing territory. Indeed, at some point the macro insanity trumps all of the dominant/submissive game-playing. Although decidedly one-sided, there is also some decent fight choreography in the first act for action fans. Recommended for exclusively adventurous viewers (but rather forcefully for them), R100 screens Sunday (1/19) and Tuesday (1/21) in Park City as well as this Monday (1/20) in Sundance Resort as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on January 18th, 2014 at 4:05pm.