Category: Trailers

LFM Reviews From Tehran to London @ The 2013 Noor Iranian Film Festival in Los Angeles

By Joe Bendel. It is not precisely finished, but it makes a cogent and compelling statement. Mania Akbari started shooting an intensely personal Cassavetes-style examination of a disintegrating marriage, but halted the production mid-way through when the Iranian government started arresting many of her prominent filmmaking colleagues. Relocating perhaps indefinitely to the UK, Akbari reshaped her footage into a more experimental-feeling long short film or short feature. There are rough edges to the resulting From Tehran to London, but they were both a choice and a necessity. A fascinating work on multiple levels, Akbari’s film screens during the 2013 Noor Iranian Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Ava is a poet and an artist who feels unfulfilled in her marriage to the well-heeled Ashkan. However, the way they bicker and grouse like a prematurely old couple suggests there must have been some feeling there originally. They certainly know each other very well, but neither suspects the other harbors deeper feelings for their trusted house servant, Maryam.

Eventually, scandal will shake their household, but viewers will not see it. Instead, Akbari resorts to straight out telling us what would have happened. Obviously, there are all kinds of abrupt tonal shifts and sudden temporal jumps. Akbari hardly had the luxury of returning for pick-up transitionals. Yet, her kit-bashing techniques speak volumes regarding the wider circumstances.

Frankly, from what viewers can tell, the story of Ava and Ashkan could only be considered political around the margins. Certainly, it would have (and does) address issues of gender roles and sexuality in contemporary Iran, but the Albee-like marriage is the centerpiece. In fact, the initial scenes of the couple sparring are surprisingly grabby. There is real bite to the chemistry shared by Neda Amiri and Bijan Daneshmand. Through the moody lightning and suggestive sound of rain outside, Akbari and her crew create a sense of foreboding that is unusually eerie.

Although quite accomplished as a director, Akbari is still probably best known as the nearly unseen driver in Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten. In front of the camera, she is quite convincing as Ava’s more conventional worrywart sister, Roya. She also deserves tremendous credit for her commitment to free expression, starting the film with a dedication to: “all those filmmakers in Iran, who have served a prison sentence and the ones who are still in prison.” That alone is worth seeing on the big screen.

At just over forty five minutes, Tehran easily pulls viewers in and leaves them wondering “what if?” Yet, it should be considered definitive, as the very particular product of its time and place. Challenging, intriguing, and maddening, From Tehran to London is a significant film that deserves greater attention. Highly recommended, it screens Tuesday (10/22) as part of the Noor Iranian Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 19th, 2013 at 11:55am.

Where Awesome Lives: LFM Reviews the Japanese Superhero Classic, The Golden Bat

By Joe Bendel. He has the looks of the Red Skull and the flamboyance of a Lucha Libre wrestler. The Golden Bat is Japan’s oldest superhero, dating back to at least 1930, nine years before Bruce Wayne repurposed his dungeon, so show some respect. This Thursday, Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater pays homage to the strange, caped avenger, who has constantly saved our butts in manga, anime, and motion pictures, with Hymns of the Golden Bat – a special one night only program of the Ōgon Batto’s greatest hits, culminating with Hajime Satô’s impossibly manic seventy-three minute live-action epic, The Golden Bat.

Right, the Earth is pretty much in for it. The planet Icarus (dig the mythological reference) is speeding towards us on a collision course, but the scientific establishment is too snobby to heed the warnings of Akira Kazahaya, a teenaged factory worker who dabbles in astronomy. Fortunately, the Pearl Research Institute has been on the case. Led by Dr. Yamatone, they too have tracked Icarus, developing a Dr. No-certified laser canyon to blow-up Icarus in the nick of time. They just need a lens strong enough to withstand the laser’s force, which is ironic, considering Pearle can usually craft your lenses in under an hour.

Seeking a natural lens, Dr. Yamatone and nearly the entire Pearl staff is lured to the long lost island of Atlantis, where the evil Nazo has the drop on them. Ah, but not so fast. Within the temple of Atlantis, they find the Golden Bat’s Egyptian sarcophagus, where his is re-animated by Emily Pearl, the granddaughter of the Institute’s founder. Good thing they thought to take a fourteen year old along on such a dangerous mission.

Needless to say, the Golden Bat pops-up and lays a proper beatdown on Nazo’s henchmen. Of course, they are not out of the woods yet. In fact, that is just the first ten minutes of Golden Bat’s mayhem. There will also be multiple doppelgangers to contend with and laser battles galore, accompanied by the Ōgon Batto’s ominous sounding laughter and big, brassy chorale theme music.

The Golden Bat is the kind of film that can make pedantic fussbudgets’ heads explode. You just have to toss logic to the wind and hang on as it careens from one spectacle to another, like a pinball. Where else will you find a super villain decked out in a fuzzy-wuzzy rat costume with four eyes? The plot rather defies description and the laws of science, but fortunately the title caped crusader constantly reappears to pummel bad guys with his Scepter of Justice.

Oddly enough, a young Sonny Chiba is present, but largely not a factor in the smack-downs as the Picard-esque Yamatone. Frankly, Emily Takami is much better than you would expect as her young namesake, hardly cloying or annoying at all as the teenaged world-saver. Whoever was sporting the Golden Bat costume was certainly physically energetic, while Osamu Kobayashi’s voice-overs are bizarrely distinctive.

Indeed, The Golden Bat is a thing of beauty to behold, from the trippy sets to the hyper action sequences. Satô, probably best known for helming the darker cult favorite Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell, clearly was not one to do things by halfsies. There is something for everyone here, including fans of Ultraman, Kaiju movies, alien body snatcher films, and men in capes.The Spectacle should be the perfect venue to appreciate his charms with a like-minded audience of any of the above. Highly recommended to all fans of cult cinema, The Golden Bat should be a fitting capstone to a mind-expanding night this Thursday (10/24) at the Spectacle in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on October 21st, 2013 at 11:52am.

LFM Reviews Dancing on the Edge; Premieres Sat. (10/19) on Starz

By Joe Bendel. Louis Lester’s band swings so hard, many of their fans assume he is an American, but he is really a born and bred British subject. Several high society types will take an interest in them, but that will not always be a good thing during the course of Stephen Poliakoff’s Dancing on the Edge, a six night mini-series beginning this Saturday on Starz.

Stanley Mitchell is a progressive jazz fan, but he is also a bit of an operator. He sings the praises of the Lester band, hoping his magazine Music Express will rise with their tide. While not to the manor born himself, Mitchell knows many of the right people, like Arthur Donaldson, a man of leisure who happens to appreciate real deal jazz. Through Donaldson’s connections and Mitchell’s glad-handing, the Lester band books some high profile gigs, eventually becoming the house band at the formerly staid Imperial Hotel.

For a while, it seems like everyone will enjoy the good life together, especially when the mysterious American tycoon, Walter Masterson, starts inviting the band to his lavish parties, along with the wealthy but somewhat emotionally codependent Luscombe siblings. The interracial romance brewing between Lester and Sarah, a photographer close to the Luscombes, obviously portends future trouble, but the erratic Julian Luscombe’s reckless pursuit of the band’s lead singer will lead to more immediate problems.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is about to become an Oprah superstar through 12 Years a Slave, but his turn as Lester is arguably his best work since Dirty Pretty Things. In many ways, it is a treatise on “cool” as a defense strategy and a personal aesthetic. Rigidly controlled, Ejiofor still shows us all the gears turning in his head. Arguably, the major historical influences on his Lester are the suave sophistication of Ellington (whose 1930’s small big band could be a model for the Lester outfit) and the not-so-passive aggressive aloofness of Miles Davis to come in later years.

In contrast, Matthew Goode gives Mitchell a slightly manic edge, nicely playing off the tightly wound Ejiofor in their smartly written scenes together. (If you’re asking whether he rings to someone who has written about and championed jazz, the answer is yes.) Probably nobody is more over-exposed for Anglophiles than Tom Hughes right now, but while he was conspicuously miscast in About Time, The Hollow Crown, and The Lady Vanishes, he is sort of perfect for the boyishly creepy Julian Luscombe. Like Hughes, John Goodman brings out the messy human dimensions of grandly indulgent Masterson, a role that could have easily descended into gross caricature.

From "Dancing on the Edge."

In fact, one of writer-director Poliakoff’s great strengths is the manner in which he preserves some degree of audience sympathy for all his characters despite their often horrid actions. Shrewdly, he also maintains considerable ambiguity regarding certain relationships, instead of beating viewers about the head, as a less artful production might. Dancing does right by the music as well, featuring a soundtrack of original era appropriate swingers and ballads, recorded by real life working jazz and studio musicians, who also appear in character as the Lester band. If jazz advocates will have any gripe with Dancing it will be the lack of development for the musicians, besides Lester and his two vocalists.

Like the best of television, Dancing quickly hooks in viewers and keeps them emotionally invested throughout. Poliakoff captures the exhilaration of the after-hours jam, but also incorporates pointed references to the ominous rise of National Socialism, Britain’s lack of military preparedness, and the rather dubious character of the future temporary Edward VIII.

Nicely crafted in all respects, Dancing on the Edge is recommended for fans of swing music and British television when it premieres this Saturday (10/19) on Starz. As a note, the fifth installment is technically the finale, but an epilogue follows the next week (11/23), which purports to collect Mitchell’s aborted interviews with Lester. Initially, it seems to be a DVD-extra kind of thing, but it might conceivably set up a sequel series in its final moments.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 17th, 2013 at 9:49am.

LFM Reviews As Time Goes By in Shanghai @ The Margaret Mead Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Jazz musicians are forward-looking by temperament, constantly anticipating the next gig or recording. For a group of elderly Chinese swing musicians who endured the Cultural Revolution, living in the here-and-now rather than the past is not merely an aesthetic choice, it is a survival strategy. The Peace Old Jazz Band is Guinness-certified as the oldest continually performing band and they will finally have their spotlight moment in Uli Gaulke’s As Time Goes By in Shanghai, which screens during the 2013 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

When five out of six band members are nicknamed “Old” (as in “Old Sun” or “Old Li”), it is pretty clear what you’ve got here. For the last twenty years, they have hit nightly at Shanghai’s Peace Hotel, following in the grand tradition of the big bands of the Swing Era. Accustomed to playing for dancers, most of the band is not inclined to start experimenting now. They might sound like “moldy figs,” but they have a right to stick to their thing. After all, the Cultural Revolution was a living nightmare for any musician performing decadent jazz and Western classical music.

When booked to play the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, the Peace Old recruits a younger vocalist to perform standards as well as a few jazz renditions of traditional Chinese songs. Naturally, they shamelessly flirt with Yin “Yasmin” Chen—we would worry about them if they didn’t. Clearly, this gig will be a career zenith for the band, but they seem to take it in stride.

At first, As Time Goes By seems to be another documentary chronicling the late life triumphs of a group of plucky oldsters. However, it progressively deepens over time. The Peace Old musicians are understandably reluctant to talk about their experiences during the Cultural Revolution (after all, it never officially happened), but when Gaulke catches them alone, they start to open up and when they do it is heavy.

Frankly, the Peace Old’s technique is just kind of okay overall, but Holy Cats, do they play with feeling. While it is difficult for them to talk about their experiences verbally, it all comes out through their instruments. Gaulke mostly has the good sense to focus on the band and stay out of the way, but his transition shots capture a sense of the less affluent side of go-go Shanghai. The Peace Old can relate to both worlds, but do not quit fit into either.

As Time Goes By is deeply moving, both in musical and personal terms. It is rare to find a film that speaks so directly to both the gigging life and the residual collective emotional baggage of the Cultural Revolution, but it certainly does. Gulke’s doc should particularly resonate with working musicians in any major city. Wonderfully wise and bittersweet, As Time Goes By in Shanghai is very highly recommended.  A highlight of this year’s Margaret Mead Fest, it screens this Saturday (10/19) at the AMNH.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on October 16th, 2013 at 10:25am.

LFM Reviews All is Lost

By Joe Bendel. There is an old man and the sea—sans marlin. There is no tiger, either. Instead, it is an errant workaday cargo container that leads to a mortal and existential crisis in J.C. Chandor’s All is Lost, which opens this Friday in New York.

“Our Man,” as he is simply billed, is in the midst of a solo cruise through the Indian Ocean when his small yacht is struck by said container. He wakes to find his boat taking on water and the electronics, including the radio, shorted out. He is able to patch up the gaping hole and bail out most of the water, but lasting damage has been done. Sailing blindly as a result, Our Man unknowingly proceeds towards a Sebastian Junger-level storm.

Considering it arrives so soon after Ang Lee’s Oscar winning Life of Pi, viewers might assume Lost is just more of the same. However, there is a muscular leanness to Chandor’s film that frankly compares favorably to its predecessor. All the New Age allegories and comforting sentimentality are stripped away, leaving a mere man to face the elements alone.

On one level, Chandor’s screenplay is relatively simple, with almost no dialogue to be heard from start to finish. Still, despite the limits of the water-bound location, Chandor dexterously introduces one darned thing after another to torment his sole character. Being the one and only face of a film is always a considerable challenge, but the shockingly haggard looking Robert Redford (showing his full seventy seven years) rises to the occasion. Rather than acting out and raging against fate, he vividly portrays the man’s slow deflation, which is far more compelling over time.

If not as visually arresting as Pi, Lost fully conveys the cold, damp, claustrophobic crumminess of Our Man’s precarious situation. Technically, it is quite an accomplished film, with particularly credit due to the Tahoe, the Tenacious, and the Orion, the three vessels that sailed their last as stand-ins for Our Man’s ill-fated Virginia Jean.

If nothing else, Lost should convince viewers not to look in the middle of the Indian Ocean if they want to go find themselves. It is surprisingly gripping stuff, buoyed by a remarkably disciplined performance from its craggy star. Recommended for those who appreciate a realistic man versus the elements survival story, All is Lost opens this Friday (10/18) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 15th, 2013 at 12:17pm.

LFM Reviews This Ain’t No Mouse Music @ The Margaret Mead Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Chris Strachwitz was born to an aristocratic family in Lower Silesia, but WWII drastically altered his destiny, turning him into the song-hunting heir of Alan Lomax. News that the advancing Soviet army was summarily executing “capitalists” convinced his family to emigrate west. Encountering New Orleans Jazz and Delta Blues as an American teen, he subsequently founded Arhoolie Records (named after a form of field holler Lomax recorded) to seek out and preserve the earthy sounds that spoke to him. Fifty years later, Strachwitz looks back on it all in Chris Simon & Maureen Gosling’s This Ain’t No Mouse Music, which screens during the 2013 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

“Mouse Music” is a vague term Strachwitz uses for the sort of slick, mass produced music he can’t abide. His musician friends cannot really define it either, but they know you don’t want to be it. Like Lomax, Strachwitz did much of his recording in the field, tracking down many of the real deal Blues, Cajun, Creole, Cajunto, and Appalachian musicians that had slipped through the modern world’s cracks. The first time out, he hit major pay dirt, “discovering” Mance Lipscomb. Thanks to Arhoolie, artists like Big Joe Williams, post-“Hound Dog” Big Mama Thornton, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Michael Doucet, and Clifton Chenier would find a dedicated national audience.

From "This Ain’t No Mouse Music."

During his travels, Strachwitz met and collaborated with filmmaker Les Blank (to whom Mouse Music is dedicated) and became a family friend to scores of musicians. Evidently, Strachwitz largely picked up the Bay Area politics surrounding him, but Simon and Gosling mostly steer clear of potentially divisive subjects. However, they cannot resist including the story of how Strachwitz obtained publishing rights to Country Joe McDonald’s “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag.” Evidently, the folk-rocker needed to lay down the future Woodstock ditty quickly and was referred to Strachwitz’ living room-studio by friends. In lieu of payment, Strachwitz accepted publishing rights, proving former Silesian aristocrats are better businessmen than hippies.

Simon and Gosling keep up with the only slightly manic Strachwitz quite well, conveying a good sense of the man and his label’s roster of artists.  While not everything Arhoolie releases will be to everyone’s tastes, the depth and breadth of it is quite impressive. Indeed, there is something very Whitman-esque about Strachwitz’s far-ranging pursuit of this roots music. The doc also provides a nice Blues fix, which is tough to get through mainstream media outlets. Recommended for fans of unvarnished musical Americana, This Ain’t No Mouse Music screens this Friday (10/18) as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival at the AMNH.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 15th, 2013 at 12:14pm.