Category: Watch Movies!

Playing Liars’ Poker in Hong Kong: LFM Reviews Supercapitalist @ The Asian American International Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Like a financial Luke Skywalker, Connor Lee is about to assume his destiny as the son of a legendary trader. He will find his destiny in Hong Kong. His Chinese is limited, but he speaks money. That will be all he needs in Simon Yin’s $upercapitalist, the centerpiece selection of this year’s Asian American International Film Festival, which opens this Friday in New York.

Lee regularly predicts the unthinkable, yet is never able to adequately capitalize on his foresight. That may soon change. He has caught the eye of hedge fund master of the universe Mark Patterson, who dispatches him to Hong Kong. His assignment is to mount a takeover of Fei & Chang, a hidebound family run conglomerate in which they already own a minority stake. This does not sit well with the ruling Chang family, especially the heir apparent son, Richard, who is spearheading a top secret project afoot to radically re-engineer the company’s ailing import-export division.

Will Lee facilitate the revitalization or the liquidation of the company? This depends on who gets the final word: the devil or the angel sitting on his shoulders. The devil is Quentin Wong, Lee’s colleague and mentor in the HK fast life. The angel is Natalie Wang, a corporate publicist working with Richard Chang and his IT guru.

From "Supercapitalist."

Once again, $upercapitalist portrays an American hotshot who must go abroad to get a lesson in business ethics. At least it is HK rather than the CP dominated Mainland doing the teaching this time around. However, the supposed killer app for employee motivation Richard Chang’s team is developing sounds highly dubious. Essentially, their plan to increase productivity involves an intra-company facebook, in which workers try to amass attaboys from their peers. I think I’d rather start the day with a dozen lashings.

Conceived as a star vehicle for himself, screenwriter Derek Ting has a few nice moments in $upercapitalist as Lee. Mostly though, his character follows the old school Tom Cruise template of a humbled young Maverick finding redemption through the help of a more emotionally mature love interest. Kathy Uyen holds up her end well enough as the virtuous publicist, but it is not a particularly well fleshed out role.

However, as Wong, Darren E. Scott clearly enjoys playing the villain, bringing a nice infusion of energy to his scenes. Still, for those who follow Asian cinema, the real highlight of $upercapitalist is seeing veteran HK actors Richard Ng (a Jackie Chan alumnus also seen in Detective Dee) and Kenneth Tsang (recently in Starry Starry Night, as well as John Woo classics like Once a Thief) do their thing as Chairman Donald Chang and his board member brother Victor, respectively.

$upercapitalist is not a bad boardroom soap opera, but it falls in too easily with the lazy Bain Capital attacks currently circulating in the media. Frankly, if Fei & Chang’s import/export division is dragging down the entire company, they have a responsibility to all their employees to fix the problem. Of course, why worry about the complexity of reality in a film when simplistic stereotypes are so much safer? A decent showcase for some fine supporting work, the flawed but still quite watchable $upercapitalist opens this Friday (8/10) in New York at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: C

Posted on August 6th, 2012 at 12:57pm.

Women’s Rights & Islam: LFM Reviews Invoking Justice @ The Asian American International Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. They are called Jamaats. In Muslim areas of Southern India, these neighborhood old boys’ networks supposedly apply sharia law. However, in practice, they regularly provide cover for abusive and even homicidal husbands. At least, such appears to be the case based on the evidence presented to the upstart women’s Jamaats. Deepa Dhanraj documents the efforts of the women’s Jamaat leaders to redress gender based injustices in Invoking Justice, which screens during this year’s Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

As per Indian custom, Islamic law officially supersedes secular law in the provincial south. It is a nice set-up if you are a man, particularly if you and your cronies are on the community Jamaat. If you are a woman, though, the system is literally rigged against you. However, a small but growing number of Muslim women have challenged the institutionalized misogyny by forming alternative women’s Jamaats. While their legal standing is rather iffy, especially by the local standards, the civilian police force has to deal with them. This often means the men’s Jamaats must as well, albeit rather grudgingly.

From "Invoking Justice."The kinds of cases women’s Jamaat activists investigate are frankly shocking, including several cases of spousal murder and one abused wife and mother desperately trying to divorce her pedophile husband. The women’s Jamaat founder Sharifa Khanam clearly knows the Koran and uses it to shame their male counterparts. Yet, on a fundamental level, they still acknowledge the primacy of Islamic law over civilian authority. Indeed, this begs an obvious question Dhanraj does her level best to ignore: is religious-based law compatible with any meaningful notion of justice? Indeed, viewers might well wonder if non-Muslims living in Tamil Nadu have any recourse for legal redress, whatsoever.

To be fair, Dhanraj largely adopts the observational approach, only sparingly mixing in traditional on-camera interview sequences. We see the Jamaat case-workers do the leg work and build the trust of families seeking their assistance. Tellingly, it is not just women who petition the women’s Jamaats for help, but often the male relatives of women who have been battered and even killed.

Invoking is certainly eye-opening stuff. However, if ever there was a film that could have benefited from a little confrontational showboating, it would have been this one. Ultimately, viewers will feel justice is not being served in Tamil Nadu and may well suspect the situation is even worse than it appears in Dhanraj’s documentary. Still, capturing courage on-screen is always a worthy endeavor. Earning a moderate recommendation for those concerned about the state of women’s affairs in the Islamic world, Invoking Justice screens this coming Saturday (8/4) at the Chelsea Clearview, as part of the 2012 AAIFF.

LFM GRADE: B-/C+

Posted on August 3rd, 2012 at 11:35am.

La Femme Sofia: LFM Reviews Assassin’s Bullet

By Joe Bendel. Someone is killing Europe’s top Islamist terrorists. This is a problem for American intelligence bureaucrats, because it makes them look bad. The vigilante has taken out priority targets they could not even find – and therefore must be stopped, post-haste. That assignment falls to a former FBI agent assigned to America’s Bulgarian embassy in Isaac Florentine’s Assassin’s Bullet, which opens this Friday in New York.

Still wracked with guilt over his wife’s death, Robert Diggs is taking a timeout from life in Bulgaria. Happy overseeing on in-country educational initiatives, Diggs is reluctant to get back into investigative work. However, Ambassador Ashdown is a political appointee very aware he is in over his head and in need of Diggs’ services. Reluctantly Diggs starts tracking the vigilante, who is obviously also the English teacher at the Embassy-sponsored high school, as well as the belly dancer who has been come-hither dancing for Diggs at his favorite night club.

The good news about Bullet is that it has no tears for the vigilante’s prey. Her motivation is clear: terrorists murdered her family. Had they lived, her targets would have only spread more death and misery. It even unambiguously associates the keffiyeh scarf with terrorism, which makes it a pretty dumb choice of accessory for Diggs during the climatic third act. The bad news is a spoiler that will not be much of a surprise: there is some shadowy villainy going on at the highest levels of the American diplomatic-intelligence services.

So Bullet isn’t really a great movie, but it is sort of a shame you can hardly see serviceable B-movies like this in the theaters very much anymore. Back in the day, this totally would have been worth a trip to the drive-in or the bargain cinema. In fact, on a technical level, Bullet is a surprisingly polished production. Florentine stage-manages a couple of nifty little fight scenes. Of course, that is his specialty, having previously helmed the Scott Adkins Undisputed series and the Power Rangers, for both the big and small screens (don’t scoff at that gig; they don’t entrust important franchises like that to hacks). Shot on location, Florentine made the most of the exotic Sofia sites and cinematographer Ross W. Clarkson gives it all a moody, mysterious sheen.

The real mixed bag here is the cast. Christian Slater is more or less okay as the earnest Diggs and co-scenarist Elika Portnoy is sort of/kind of okay as the mystery woman. At least Donald Sutherland does not disappoint doing his stately roguish thing as the Ambassador. Yet, the high point might be Timothy Spall, clearly enjoying the ambiguity of the friendly but inscrutable Dr. Kahn, a part that would have had Donald Pleasance’s name all over it in years past.

As it happens, Bullet’s DVD release is already scheduled to follow hard on the heels of its New York opening. Make of that what you will. Frankly, it ought to find an audience through more affordable means of distribution. It is not classic, but some considerable filmmaking talent went into it (most definitely including the contributions of Florentine, Clarkson, and Spall). Eventually recommended for B-movie lovers at B-movies prices, Assassin’s Bullet opens this Friday (8/3) in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on July 30th, 2012 at 12:44pm.

LFM Reviews Easton’s Article @ The 2012 Fantasia Festival

By Joe Bendel. It is 1997. The internet bubble has yet to burst and dial-up is still commonplace. Easton Denning is an internet expert who has seen the future. Unfortunately, he is not a part of it. Time will bend as the computer wonk challenges fate head on in Tim Connery’s high concept, low-gloss science fiction drama Easton’s Article, which screens at the 2012 Fantasia Festival.

After high school, Easton left Iowa and never looked back, until now. He had his reasons, which will be revealed as he deals with his current crisis. One night, his internet spiders retrieved a massive data dump. Most of it was just corrupted files and the like, but there was one document that spooked Denning: his future obituary.

Along with his death notice, the scanned file includes hand written notes instructing him to be at certain places at certain times. He will know why when he gets there. Obediently, Denning returns home, duly encountering the father and girlfriend of his close high school friend, who died under murky circumstances their senior year. Somehow, karma appears to be using the internet to do its thing.

Frankly, the time travel elements in Article are basically hocus pocus, likening a digital information deluge to a flood of water, effectively spilling over into the past. However, the characterizations and the overriding vibe of tragically unfinished business are strong enough to overwhelm logical pedantry. Perhaps the closest comparison film would be John Weiner & Danny Kuchuck’s clever Cryptic, which deserved more attention when it played the festival circuit.

Indeed, Article represents the road not taken often enough in the science fiction genre, telling an intimate yet speculative story, with little or no special effects required. Connery’s completely linear script fits together the pieces without any distracting seams, while fully immersing viewers in his characters’ lives and Midwestern environment.

Looking like everyday regular people, the small ensemble is smart and engaging throughout Article. Given the anti-social protagonist’s myriad flaws, Chad Meyer has a somewhat tough road to hoe, but he portrays Easton as a haunted, fully dimensional human figure. Likewise, Kristina Johnson brings substance and sensitivity to Hayley Reed, Easton’s potential love interest. A more sharply drawn role than typically expected in low budget genre fare, Reed is a refreshingly active participant here and not simply stuck on the sidelines wringing her hands.

Easton’s Article might just be the definitive Iowan science fiction film. Moody and thoughtful, it is definitely for the high end of science fiction fandom’s bell curve, but by the same token it is also quite accessible to non-genre audiences. Recommended accordingly, Easton’s Article screens this coming Wednesday (8/1) at this year’s Fantasia Festival up north.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on July 30th, 2012 at 12:41pm.