Category: Watch Movies!

StoryCorps for Thanksgiving: LFM Reviews Listening is an Act of Love

By Joe Bendel. Think of it as the less noir version of Naked City with its eight million stories. Dave Isay founded StoryCorps in the belief that there were real life stories out there from everyday people that deserved to be recorded for posterity. For ten years, StoryCorps crews have collected oral histories across the country. Sometimes the stories were funny and sometimes poignant, but their inherent drama has become a source of constant inspiration for the Rauch Brothers. Their short animated adaptations of StoryCorps transcripts have become staples of short film festivals and have regularly been peppered throughout seasons of POV. Fittingly for Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah, POV will premiere its first ever animated special, Mike & Tim Rauch’s Listening is an Act of Love on PBS stations nationwide.

As a wrap-around framing device, Isay’s young nephew Benji interviews his uncle to find out just why he does all this anyway. He has a memorable answer that nicely establishes the theme of Listening: family. The POV special includes four new stories, but begins and ends with two old favorites—and it is not hard to understand why those two struck such a chord with audiences. In the gleefully funny Miss Devine, two cousins swap memories of the titular Sunday School teacher who was a stern, unyielding presence during their summer vacations. Both James Ransom and Cherie Johnson are natural storytellers and the way they crack each other up is appealingly infectious.

Things get more serious and more family-focused during Listening’s debuts, starting with Making It, a simple but inspiring story of the American dream. On the eve of becoming the first in his family to go to college, Noe Rueda reflects on the difficult jobs he held to help his single mother make ends meet. It is probably the most touching segment of the POV segment, even if it is somewhat open-ended. The following Marking the Distance tells the story of a brain tumor survivor, who lost her short term memory, but has since become an accomplished marathoner thanks to the support of a boyfriend. It is a nice, feel-good story, but perhaps the least distinctive of the special.

Arguably, The Road Home gives Listening its greatest emotional pop. Eddie Lanier tells his story of how he went from being the privileged son of a prominent North Carolina mayor to a skid row drunk, until a good Christian Samaritan took him into his home. Wider in scope than the rest of the special, Lanier’s unabashedly redemptive story would be perfect for a Hallmark original film. There is also unexpected power in the twist to the tale Jackie Miller tells her adopted son Scott in Me & You, which has something for pro-life viewers and fans of Modern Family, alike.

Listening concludes with an encore appearance of No More Questions! Kay Wang was not one to suffer fools gladly, but her son Cheng and granddaughter Chen had learned to appreciate her forceful personality. Somehow, they managed to get her to sit for a StoryCorps session, laughing their way through her uncooperative responses that so aptly reflected her personality. In fact, they are probably rather glad it turned out that way in retrospect, judging from the bittersweet postscript.

The Rauch Brothers have a real facility for matching the expressions of their animated figures to the recorded interviews. In fact, they have been known to nail the likenesses and mannerisms of the speakers without having anything to model them on, besides their spoken words. Frankly, it is always reassuring to see a StoryCorps film in a festival’s shorts programming block, because of the Rauch Brothers’ commitment to quality. Recommended for post-turkey family viewing, Listening is an Act of Love airs on most PBS outlets this Thursday night (11/28) as part of the current season of POV.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 26th, 2013 at 2:31pm.

Korea Takes a Stab at Time Travel: LFM Reviews 11 AM

By Joe Bendel. Woo-seok’s shady Russian oligarch patron named his prospective time machine “Trotsky” in the belief history would have turned out radically better if he had bested Stalin in their power struggle. They should have called “Ice-Pick,” considering the mayhem it will cause Woo-seok’s research team. They will struggle to cheat fate in Kim Hyun-seok’s 11 A.M., which opens this Thanksgiving Thursday in Los Angeles.

Everyone knows Woo-seok’s obsession with time travel stems from the untimely death of his wife, regardless of what Hawking says about it. Likewise, many suspect his protégé Young-eun hopes to meet her late theoretical physicist father in the future. His chief deputy Ji-wan is more skeptical. Nonetheless, their wheelchair-bound benefactor ponied up the funds for their undersea facility for his own personal reasons. Unfortunately, the financial spigot will be cut-off unless Woo-seok produces results fast. Against Ji-wan’s advice, he and Young-eun embark on a journey to tomorrow, at 11:00 a.m.

The good news is Trotsky works. The bad news is they discover the lab has been (or will be) destroyed by a series of explosions. As they investigate, Woo-seok is attacked by a mysterious assailant. Whisked back to the previous (current) day without Young-eun, Woo-seok and his crew must determine the source of the impending disaster, as the clock ticks down.

As time travel films go, 11 AM’s internal logic holds together fairly well, explaining its big head-scratching twists in due time. It also has a patina of credibility in the way it acknowledges Hawking’s event horizon. Yet, despite the sci-fi MacGuffin, it is human nature rather than science that poses the gravest danger in Park Su-jin’s screenplay.

From "11AM."

Frankly, Korean film fans will be surprised to discover Kim Hyun-seok, previously a specialist in jaunty rom-coms like Cyrano Agency, had this in him. He nicely balances the more macabre Final Departure-Then There Were None elements with the cerebral scientific speculation. Production designer Kim Minio’s team also creates a credible sci-fi environment, before it all gets blown to smithereens.

The cast goes to piece rather effectively, as well. As Woo-seok, Jung Jae-young is wound wickedly tight, while still exhibiting the intellectual facilities of a man of science. Likewise Kim Ok-bin makes the most of Young-eun’s big revelation scenes, the likes of which actors only get in genre films.

Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes is still probably the gold standard of contemporary time travel movies, but 11 A.M. is a smart and grabby addition to the sub-genre canon. Sort of a SF chamber drama, but with first rate production values, 11 A.M. is recommended pretty enthusiastically for time travel fans when it opens this Thanksgiving (11/28) in Los Angeles at the CGV Cinemas.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on November 26th, 2013 at 2:27pm.

LFM Reviews Inside the Mind of Leonardo in 3D @ The 2013 DOC NYC

By Joe Bendel. Probably the best established fact of Leonardo da Vinci’s mysterious life is his brilliance. It is hardly surprising that he has inspired quite a few speculative novels, films, and television shows from the likes of Dan Brown, Ron Howard, Roberto Benigni, and David Goyer. His art is instantly recognizable, but there are plenty of holes in the historical record, where stuff can be safely made up. Of course, that just won’t do for DOC NYC or the History Channel. Scrupulously adapted from da Vinci’s notebooks, Julian Jones gives viewers an impressionistic, 3D portrait of the great Renaissance artist in Inside the Mind of Leonardo, which screened on the final night of this year’s DOC NYC.

Raised by his single servant girl mother, Leonardo had little formal education, but maybe that was just as well, sparing him the burden of a lot of false preconceptions. Verrocchio certainly recognized his young apprentice’s talents. However, he was not nearly as prolific a painter as one might assume (or hope). His journals are another matter. The extensive da Vinci notebooks offered Jones and his co-screenwriter Nick Dear a treasure trove of material. With Oxford Professor Martin Kemp vetting for accuracy, they give viewers a good nutshell overview of the original Renaissance man’s life and abiding ambitions.

Forgoing familiar imagery, like Vitruvian Man, Jones and the animation team render da Vinci’s muscular sketches of birds in flight and humans in motion in evocative 3D, while Peter Capaldi performs extracts from the various codexes in the manner of a one-man stage play. Periodically, Jones also indulges in slow panning shots of modern day Florence and Milan, presumably to anchor the film in its specific locales. Unfortunately, these often feel like travelogue interludes that get a little snoozy at times.

From "Inside the Mind of Leonardo."

On the plus side of the ledger, Capaldi is perfectly cast as da Vinci. He has always been a reliably intelligent presence, but here he vividly projects both the polymath’s arrogance and his melancholy world-weariness. When watching him in Inside, it is easy to see why he was selected to be the next Doctor Who. Once he has finished his run as the timelord, he should be able to take a da Vinci show on the road, much like Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain.

Eschewing jerkins, Capaldi’s modern dress actually heightens the film’s intimacy. (He rather looks like he might be in his Doctor Who wardrobe, complete with a stylish scarf, but not the full Tom Baker, mind you). Inside works quite well when it really does go inside—either into da Vinci’s chambers or into the pages of his notebooks. When it goes outside, soaking up Tuscan landscapes and bustling Florentine street scenes, it waters down its atmosphere and character. Still, it is an interesting docu-hybrid and an unconventional (but sometimes effective) use of 3D. Recommended for art and history buffs, Inside the Mind of Leonardo is destined to have a limited theatrical release and an eventual airdate on the History Channel, following its premiere at DOC NYC 2013.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 25th, 2013 at 9:46pm.

The Philosopher Reports: LFM Reviews Hannah Arendt; Now on Blu-ray/DVD

By Joe Bendel. In her landmark book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt examined the close kinship between Stalinism and National Socialism. Surprisingly, it did not cost her many friendships amongst the intelligentsia. Of course, her think-piece reporting on the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem would be a different matter entirely. The defining controversy of the philosopher’s career is logically the focus of Margarethe von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt, which just released on DVD and Blu-ray from Zeitgeist Films.

As the film opens, Arendt has settled into a relatively comfortable life as a naturalized citizen, teaching at the New School and tolerating her husband Heinrich Blücher’s discrete infidelities. The Mossad has just captured Adolf Eichmann—news that electrifies Arendt’s Jewish colleagues. Intrigued by the implications of the trial, Arendt offers her services to New Yorker editor William Shawn as a correspondent, which he accepts because she is Hannah Arendt.

To the bafflement of old friends, the frustrated Arendt becomes preoccupied with Eichmann’s bureaucratic blandness and his willingness to surrender his status as an individual. It seems rather strange how divisive her resulting theory of the “banality of evil” was at the time, considering how thoroughly it now informs our collective impression of Eichmann and other war criminals of his ilk. Perhaps even more contentious, her critical observations regarding the miscalculations of some National Socialist appointed “Jewish Councils” to engage in some forms of temporary tactical acquiesce are not as widely held, but they are far from uncommon complaints today.

Von Trotta’s Arendt captures the intellectual swagger of Arendt and her circle, as well as the still relatively buttoned down tenor of the very early 1960’s. The New School still looks much the same from the outside, but chain-smoking is most likely frowned upon in lecture halls. It is a quality period production that looks true to the era during the scenes in both New York and Israel.

Frankly, von Trotta and co-writer Pamela Katz are not above playing favorites, portraying Norman Podhoretz as a knee-jerk hyper-ventilator, whereas Mary McCarthy is faultlessly down-to-earth and sympathetic. Still, the depiction of Arendt, as written by von Trotta & Katz and played by Barbara Sukowa, is remarkably complex and even-handed. Viewers fully understand just how thoroughly Arendt’s emotions are subservient to her intellect. What was once a defense mechanism becomes problematic, preventing her from anticipating the furor stemming from her articles. Von Trotta shrewdly resists the lure of an easy ending, ending the film on a decidedly ambiguous note.

Sukowa is admirably restrained as Arendt, to a degree approaching the tragic. Yet, she has some deeply human moments, particularly with Klaus Pohl as her disgraced former mentor-lover, Martin Heidegger. Cerebral and literate, yet rather forgiving of human foibles, Hannah Arendt is a compelling portrait of a difficult figure to do justice on-screen. Respectfully recommended for those who appreciate intellectual history, Hannah Arendt is now available for home viewing from Zeitgeist Films.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 21st, 2013 at 2:18pm.

Violent Accordion Music: LFM Reviews Narco Cultura

By Joe Bendel. It makes gangster rap sound polite and progressive. Narcocorrido is a virulent cousin of cajunto, lionizing the drug traffickers and assassins terrorizing Mexico. Banned in their home country, narcocorridos are largely based in American border cities and do a brisk business through legitimate American retailers. (Indeed, Sam Walton would not be happy to hear what his stores now carry.) Shaul Schwartz observes the state of underground narcocorrido culture and the violence it celebrates in Narco Cultura, which opens this Friday in New York.

Raised in Los Angeles, Edgar Quintero fetishizes narcoterrorism on stage as the front man of up-and-coming narcocorrido band BuKnas de Culiacan. Riccardo Soto sees the fruits of narcocorrido culture every night as a crime scene investigator. On the plus side, Soto’s skills are in high demand. Unfortunately, he and his colleagues must wear balaclavas to protect their identity when responding to a call. For obvious reasons, the dedicated family had tendered his resignation, but his sense of duty compelled him to return six months later.

Almost entirely observational in his approach, Schwartz never asks Soto for a review of Quintero’s latest CD. Nor does he confront Quintero with crime scene photos of the latest innocent bystanders cut down by his idols. Presumably, Schwartz was concerned about preserving his subjects’ trust and access, as well as maintaining a consistent tone. However, this obvious avenue of inquiry forgone casts a long, distracting shadow over the film.

At one point, Schwartz revisits the blinged-out cemeteries previously seen in Natalia Almada’s El Velador, but Cultura has considerably more get-up-and-go than its defiantly oblique predecessor. Things definitely happen in Schwartz’s film, but it is dominated by the bloody aftermaths of the cartels’ ruthless business rather than action per se.

The picture that emerges of a Mexico plagued by bloodshed and corruption is not pretty. Frankly, it would have been an important wake-up call, but it may have come too late. Watching the reckless aggression of the narcos, clearly abetted by crooked government officials, it appears Mexico is teetering on the brink of becoming a failed state. Schwartz never bothers to seek any elusive solutions. Who knows, maybe France can re-install the heir of Emperor Maximilian.

Narco Cultura is fully stocked with dramatic images, many of which approach the threshold of outright shocking. Yet, the film is essentially a cinematic shrug, taking it all in, but never delving too deeply into the dysfunctional pop culture it documents. Far superior to El Velador, but not nearly as emotionally engaging as Bernardo Ruiz’s Reportero, Narco Cultura is still eye opening stuff, recommended for Lou Dobbs watchers when it opens this Friday (11/22) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on November 21st, 2013 at 2:15pm.

LFM Reviews The Road to Fame, China in Three Words @ The 2013 DOC NYC

By Joe Bendel. In years past, if you had to describe China in one word, it would not be “fame.” State ideology demanded the individual merge into the collective. Only high ranking Party leaders were to be venerated above the masses. However, the culture is changing in China, even if the Party is not. In a groundbreaking collaboration with Broadway, Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama stages the stage musical Fame as an ambitious senior project. Hao Wu follows the production from rehearsals to the closing curtain and beyond in The Road to Fame, which screened during the 2013 DOC NYC.

Everything bad about show business in America applies in China as well, except maybe more so. Cronyism is rampant in the entertainment industry, so a potential showcase like the Fame show can make the difference between a going career and graduating into has-been status. The first cut will be brutal, when the faculty determines the “A” and “B” casts. Naturally, the students desperately want to make the former rather than the latter. Beyond the obvious stigma, it has yet to be announced how many performances the “B” cast will be allowed, but assumptions are pessimistic.

Much to viewers’ surprise, the clear can’t-miss-born-to-be-a-star prospective Carmen Diaz finds herself assigned to the “B” cast. Likewise, the front-running Tyrone Jackson is edged out by a more self-effacing schoolmate. As representatives of the Nederlander organization take charge of the production, the disparity between the A’s and B’s becomes a sore issue.

On the surface, Road is a Fame-like documentary about the mounting of a Fame production, but it reflects some deep cultural currents. As astute viewers would expect, all of the POV students are only children. The one-child law was still in full effect at the time. As a result, every student is highly conscious of their status as the sole repository of their parents’ hopes, dreams, and retirement plans. Likewise, the corrupt intersection between public and private sectors has led to widespread disillusionment amongst their generation. Frankly, the level of irony in a film ostensibly about young people pursuing their dreams speaks volumes.

Hao Wu is rather circumspect in addressing specific political and economic controversies, but Vanessa Hope’s short documentary, China in Three Words (which preceded Road, trailer here) is brimming dysfunctional case studies. Based on Yu Hua’s book China in Ten Words, Hope examines contemporary China through the writer’s framework. Yu (whose novel To Live was adapted for film by Zhang Yimou) explains the word “leader” was once solely reserved for Mao, but has now become ubiquitous. “Revolution” has a heavy history that hardly needs explaining, while “disparity” is the country’s new fact of life. As a bonus, Yu offers “bamboozle” as a fourth word, but it arguably relates to all three that came before.

Despite its brevity, Three Words is brimming with material that deserves the full feature doc treatment. Hope’s expose of how corruption and ideology caused the Wenzhou bullet train collision is grimly fascinating and her footage of Gov. Jon Huntsman returning to China with his adopted daughter Gracie Mei to revisit her former orphanage is unexpectedly touching. It is rather amazing how much Hope crammed into fifteen minutes. In fact, the films relate to each other quite directly, with Words providing much useful context for Road.

It is a shame Road and Words only had one screening at this year’s DOC NYC, because both have a lot to say and together they played to a sold-out house. Hao Wu’s feature is an intriguing generational study that captures some very personal drama, while Words helps explain the macro circumstances making it all so acute. Both are highly recommended as they make their way on the festival circuit, while DOC NYC continues through the 21st at the IFC Center and the SVA Theatre.

Road to Fame LFM GRADE: B+

China in Three Words LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 19th, 2013 at 11:56am.