Category: Trailers

Life in a North Korean Sleeper Cell: LFM Reviews Secretly Greatly

By Joe Bendel. In North Korea, loyalty is only for the little people. In contrast, the state owes them nothing for their faithful service and sacrifice. A trio of DPRK sleeper spies learns this lesson the hardest way possible in Jang Cheol-soo’s Secretly Greatly, which the Korean Cultural Service will screen for free this Tuesday in New York.

Won Ryu-hwan is one of the most lethal commandos ever forged by the North Korean military. Folks in a sleepy South Korean town know him as Bang Dong-gu, the village idiot. To maintain his deep cover, Won follows a strict regimen, such as regularly being seen in public doing both number one and number two. It is a real bummer for Won when the lovely Yu Yu-ran sees him doing his duty (if you will), but at least he will have some comrades to commiserate with when two new sleepers arrive in town.

Lee Hae-rang is supposed to be a hipster-rocker, but he cannot play the simplest of chords. However, he is well connected as the illegitimate son of a high ranking general. On the other hand, Ri Hae-jin makes a convincing high school student, because he is still a teenager. Of the three, only Ri has seen any action, carrying out the assassinations of several defectors.

With the change at the top of the regime, the sleeper agents suddenly look like a potential liability, resulting in a general self-termination order. Of course, Won will do anything his government demands, but first he has the gall to ask for some assurance the Party will take care of the beloved mother he has not seen for years. Right, do you want the bad news first or the really bad news. Regardless, his old commander Kim Tae-won has been dispatched to personally handle the three newly dubbed “traitors.”

Based on a web-comic, Secretly is unusually forthright about the nature of the Communist North. Characters often refer to work camps as a punishing fact of life. Yet, it also portrays the soul crushing impact of the lifetime of propaganda Won has absorbed and still desperately clings to. Nevertheless, the first half of the film mostly hits comedic notes, often approaching outright slapstick.

From "Secretly Greatly."

Of course, when the DPRK turns on its former heroes, the film pivots into much darker territory. When it is finally go time, action coordinator Park Jeong-ryul delivers some spectacularly cinematic but seriously down-and-dirty fight scenes. Bear in mind, Secretly was a blowout hit at the Korean box office, so you can also expect some tragedy down the stretch, but that is also rather realistic. Pyongyang does not do happily-ever-afters.

Kim Soo-hyun fully commits himself to Dong-gu’s cringy humiliations, perhaps even overdoing it a tad. Still, he is a credible action figure when Won gets down to business. Park Ki-woong is a bit more restrained as would be rocker Lee, while Son Hyun-joo is all kinds of badness as the conspicuously scarred military heavy. Although is a small supporting role, Lee Chae-young also has some fine moments as the town tramp, nicely bringing out Dong-gu’s inner tensions.

Secretly has no illusions about the dehumanizing nature of the DPRK, but it is not so crazy about the ROK government, either. Arguably, the most sympathetic figure of officialdom is Kim Soo-hyuk, the unreconstructed but fundamentally decent cold warrior charged with capturing the sleeper spies. Altogether it is a strange mix of broad comedy, gritty action, and cynical intrigue that works far better than it might sound. Recommended for fans of spy vs. spy beatdowns, Secretly Greatly screens tomorrow (9/10) at the Tribeca Cinemas, free of charge, courtesy of the Korean Cultural Service in New York.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on September 9th, 2013 at 3:35pm.

Love in the Time of Typewriters: LFM Reviews Populaire

By Joe Bendel. It was a simpler, analog time when assistants were called secretaries. They were always women, but they were considered “modern” women. Régis Roinsard pays tribute to the women in the late 1950’s workforce and the romantic comedies of their era with Populaire, which opens today in New York.

Rose Pamphyle longs to leave her sleepy provincial village for a big city job as a sophisticated secretary. She makes it as far as Lisieux, the nearest sizable city, for an interview with Louis Échard’s small but respectable insurance company. Frankly, she lacks most of the skills required for the position, except typing—sort of. Even with two fingers she is a speed demon.

Recognizing Pamphyle’s raw talent, Échard decides to forgo her dubious clerical assistance so he can train her full time as a competitive speed typist. Échard is considerably more intense as a coach than Pamphyle is as his protégée. She has other concerns, inevitably developing strong feelings of attraction for the suave former resistance fighter. Of course, he seems to have a hard time recognizing his perfect rom-com match.

Fully stocked with stylish circa-1959 trappings, Populaire is bound to be compared to Mad Men, but it largely replaces the zeitgeisty angst with old fashioned romance. Still, it also provides a mostly affectionate time capsule look at a time when Pamphyle was considered rather bold for pursuing an office career and smoking in the office was no big deal. Just seeing the cross-the-body manual return is a vivid reminder how much has changed in the last fifty-some years. Frankly, for some younger viewers, Pamphyle might as well be chiseling in stone.

From "Populaire."

While Populaire is a bright and colorful period piece (thanks to first rate contributions from cinematographer Guilaume Schiffman, production designer Sylvie Olivé, and costume designer Charlotte David), but it has some real heart beneath the froth. Déborah François brings an acute sensitivity to Pamphye. Her romantic chemistry with Romain Duris’s Échard is believably awkward but still smolders. Yet, perhaps the most emotionally resonate moments involve his scenes with The Artist’s Bérénice Béjo as Marie Taylor, the lover he pushed away during the war for reasons of self denial. She is an unexpectedly deep character, fully brought to life by Béjo in her comparatively limited screen time.

Populaire is pleasing to the eye and the ear, including some charming cha-cha-chas about typing, as well as timeless standards from the likes of Ella Fitzgerald. It is not a big picture in any sense, but it goes down smooth and leaves audiences satisfied. Recommended for a fans of French cinema and retro romantic comedies, Populaire opens today (9/6) in New York at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on September 6th, 2013 at 1:34pm.

The Man, the Myth, the Recluse: LFM Reviews Salinger

By Joe Bendel. There will be no movie adaptations of The Catcher in the Rye. The terms of J.D. Salinger’s literary trust are quite clear on that score. However, the eagerly anticipated documentary profile of Holden Caulfield’s creator might be the next closest thing, considering how legions of admirers often intimately intertwine the character with Salinger. Shane Salerno takes a remarkably even-handed look at the reclusive author and the events that shaped his life in the simply titled Salinger, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Essentially, most of what you have heard is true. Salinger did not stop writing in 1965. In conjunction with the documentary’s publicity campaign, news of five new Salinger works to be published beginning in 2015 has already been released. Yes, readers might recognize some of the characters, but there is still more to Salinger the man and the film than that.

There are two main threads to Salerno’s years-in-the-making documentary. One explores Salinger the recluse, arguing the author knowingly fueled the mystique that surrounded his withdrawal from public life. Concurrently, Salerno also documents Salinger’s life, including his formative years spent in the army during WWII. Experiencing D-Day, the liberation of Dachau, and the de-nazification campaign, Salinger saw real horrors that he never shook off.

To his credit, Salerno never seeks to defend or condemn Salinger. He simply explains. Given the context of his military experience and painful early romances, viewers can better understand how Salinger became such a figure of thorny complexity. By the same token, Salerno never excuses Salinger’s more problematic behavior, such as his history of pursuing highly impressionable and considerably younger women (girls, really), only to treat them with cool detachment once they commenced a relationship.

Despite the paucity of Salinger photos and video, Salerno constructs a fully balanced, multi-dimensional portrait of the author. He incorporates scores of talking head interviews, but most participants are heard from only briefly. However, Salinger’s former companions (or what have you) Joyce Meynard and Jean Miller have sufficient time to tell their very personal stories. Yet, perhaps the best sequences involve Salinger’s army buddies, with whom he remained on good terms throughout his life.

There are some over stylized flourishes to Salinger, but the early caper-like sequences capturing the attempts of both fans and journalists to track down the elusive writer effectively establish a mysterious mood, thereby setting the stage for the revelations to follow. Always highly watchable, Salerno’s Salinger never feels like it is trying to lead viewers to make any sort of conclusion regarding its subject. Informative and entertaining, Salinger is recommended both for fans of the author and those who appreciative a real life literary tale with a few twists. It opens tomorrow (9/6) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on September 5th, 2013 at 9:15pm.

Johnny Cash & His Manager: LFM Reviews My Father and the Man in Black

By Joe Bendel. Hallmark ought to start making Manager’s Day cards. The dealings between big name entertainers and their managers are often complex. Saul Holiff was a difficult father, but he managed Johnny Cash’s career with fierce dedication, until the day he tendered his resignation. Discovering his father’s archive, Jonathan Holiff would gain tremendous insight into his father’s relationships with his legendary client as well as himself. Holiff draws upon that trove of primary sources for his documentary, My Father and the Man in Black, which opens this Friday in New York.

As a father, Saul Holiff was often dismissive and demeaning. As a result, his son’s response to his suicide was rather confused. Sometime later, his father’s storage locker came to light. There the younger Holiff would hear his father tell his story, in his own words, left for posterity on his reel-to-reel diary. A born salesman, Saul Holiff fell into promoting concerts in his native Canada. That was how he met the young and relatively unknown Johnny Cash.

Holiff was there, trying his best to cover Cash’s back during the worst of his years of drug-fueled chaos. He was also the one who brought Cash together with June Carter when Holiff recruited a female vocalist for a package tour. However, Cash’s embrace of Evangelical Christianity in the 1970’s clearly chafed Holiff on some level. Still, he did his duty, even appearing as Pontius Pilate in Cash’s Gospel Road, sort of a precursor to Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. (This could be a moving experience for those who watch it start to finish, but the clips Holiff includes suggest it ought to be playing at midnight screenings for lubricated heathens.)

While Holiff the filmmaking son obviously did not set out to burnish Cash’s image, his intimate examination of the Cash-Holiff dynamic might still interest the singer’s fans. To an extent, the doc functions as the revisionist alternative to Walk the Line, but in terms of filmmaking, it is a wildly mixed bag, featuring dubious dramatic re-enactments and far too much of Holiff fils.

Nonetheless, despite the stylistic and editorial missteps, there is an awful lot to engage with throughout My Father. Holiff addresses big picture themes – like paternal legacy, the significance of Judaism for secular Jews such as his father, and the nature of show business – with considerable time and insight.

Eventually, Holiff the filmmaker comes to general terms with Holiff the father. While it is not exactly a rosebud moment, it ends the film in a forgiving spirit. In fact, the film’s messy humanistic vibe is unexpectedly potent. As a film more for documentary watchers than music fans, it might have trouble finding a natural audience, but it has a bit of staying power. Recommended more for those concerned with its issues of family and identity than backstage revelations, My Father and the Man in Black opens this Friday (9/6) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on September 3rd, 2013 at 12:17pm.

The End of Days in Washington Heights: LFM Reviews 36 Saints

By Joe Bendel. According to mystical Judaic teachings, the Tzadik are thirty-six righteous men with no desire to sin, whom G*d loves so much, he spares the rest of the sinful world for solely for their sake. Technically, they are not part of the Christian tradition, but Lilith is still out to get them. If her minions murder each of the thirty-six in the manner their name saints were martyred, it will bring about the victory of darkness over light. However, it seems she could use a remedial theology course for her attempt to bring on a boneheaded apocalypse in Eddy Duran’s 36 Saints, which opens this Friday in New York.

There have been some rather disturbing murders in Washington Heights. Father Esteban is bludgeoned to death in the subway around the same time young Jesus Ochoa is crucified in his parish church. It quickly becomes apparent the victims are connected to an ill-fated youth group that perished in an airline accident (quick, name the twenty-some saints who were martyred in plane crashes). Ochoa and a handful of his friends survived that day, because they chose to attend an award ceremony honoring their public service instead. A year later, Lilith is finally mopping up loose ends.

Evidently, poor Mother Theresa was just wasting her time with all that ministering to the sick rigmarole. Merely patronizing the hipster nightclubs of Washington Heights is sufficiently saintly for the survivors of Ochoa’s youth group. Two cops will try to protect the Holy Club Kids, but Joseph and Michael are distinctly passive investigators, spending most of the film drinking coffee as they wait for more bodies to be discovered.

In terms of narrative, 36 Saints is beyond messy. Its third act has the sort of logical cohesion one typically sees when faded big name stars die while filming ultra low budget movies and the producers hack together the shards of a story around the scenes they managed to complete. Particularly problematic is the manner one of Lilith’s “shocking” sleeper servants recklessly kills people in very public ways that surely would reveal his identity, yet he somehow maintains his cover. Seriously, he isn’t even using a silencer.

When it comes to theology, 36 Saints is also a train wreck. Strictly speaking, Eve is not a saint and she certainly was not martyred by eating a poisoned you-know-what. Perhaps screenwriters Jeffrey De Serrano and Joey Dedio had her confused with Snow White, who is not a saint either. Or maybe they were thinking of Eva Marie Saint, who is not a saint in the sacred sense (as least not yet), or even an “Eve,” but she made vastly better movies than 36 Saints.

Regardless, considering the breadth of the Catholic world (growing by leaps and bounds in China and Africa), it seems rather puzzling each and every saint would be hidden in Washington Heights. Talk about gentrification. This definitely constitutes a case of putting all the world’s eggs in one basket. At least stash a few in Inwood. There is no way Lilith would ever go up there—it just takes forever on the A train.

For some reason, Donna McKechnie, the original Cassie in A Chorus Line, appears in 36 as the club kids’ teacher, Ms. El (a suspiciously made-up looking name, if ever there was one), lending some presence to the otherwise drab film. It just does not seem right to call out the young cast for not bringing their empty characters to life, but that does not leave viewers much to work with. 36 probably sounds kind of cool, like the sort of religiously themed horror films Max von Sydow or Jürgen Prochnow used to turn up in, but it is a profound disappointment. Not recommended for anyone, 36 Saints opens this Friday (9/6) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: F

Posted on September 3rd, 2013 at 12:10pm.

LFM Reviews The Newly Restored Enter the Dragon @ BAM Cinematek’s Wing Chun Classic Film Series

By Joe Bendel. It is the first true martial arts film selected for the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Bruce Lee’s first Hollywood star vehicle and his final fully completed film represents kung fu cinema at its most cross-overiest, yet it is still legit to the bone. In honor of Ip Man and Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, Bruce Lee & director Robert Clouse’s Enter the Dragon begins a week of restored DCP screenings today, as part of BAM Cinematek’s Wing Chun classic film series.

Lee’s namesake is a Hong Kong Shaolin standard bearer knocking on the door of complete martial arts enlightenment. While glory in the ring hardly interests him, he agrees to compete in the triannual martial arts tournament sponsored by Han, an international vice lord and general megalomaniac. Sent in by British Intelligence sans back-up, Lee is to reconnoiter around Han’s pleasure palace and hopefully fight his way out of any trouble he might encounter. It is not much of a plan, but it will suffice.

The stakes turn out to be unexpectedly personal for Lee. Shortly before embarking, he learns Han’s thugs were responsible for the death of his sister, Su Lin. As one might expect of Lee’s kin, she put up a heck of a fight. Han’s chief enforcer O’Hara still bears his scars from the encounter. He is due for some more pain. However, Lee will meet some friendly Americans en route, such as the well heeled Roper, who is looking to hustle some action to pay off his gambling debts, like a kung fu Fast Eddie Felson. In contrast, Roper’s former Army buddy Williams seems more interested in hedonistic pleasures supplied nightly to the fighters.

Enter might not sound earthshakingly original, but that is partly a function of how widely imitated it has been, especially the iconic hall of mirrors climax. Scores of movies have copied its general template of the ostensibly upright kumite going on above ground, while armies of henchmen in color-coded gis labor towards nefarious ends below. Without it, there is no way we would have guilty pleasures like the Steve Chase beatdown, Kill and Kill Again, which is a thoroughly depressing thought to contemplate.

All the elements come together, but there is still no question this is Lee’s show. Almost supernaturally intense and charismatic, Lee was clearly at the peak of his powers throughout Enter. It is a massively physical performance (featuring some impressive acrobatic feats), yet Lee still takes care to convey the philosophical side of Wing Chun. The restored print includes more scenes of Lee as a spiritual teacher that work quite well.

Even with Lee’s overpowering presence, Enter is the film that really put Jim “Black Belt Jones” Kelly on the map. As Williams, he contributes attitude and energy that further distinguished Enter from its genre predecessors. In fact, the cast is loaded with notables, including John Saxon, hamming it up with relish as Roper. Fans often wonder why so little was subsequently heard of Betty Chung, but she has some nice rapport with Lee as Mei Ling, a fellow undercover operative.

There are also plenty of established and future action stars, most notably Angela Mao absolutely crushing Su Lin’s brief but pivotal flashback scene. Bolo Yeung also appears in exactly the sort of role that would make him famous. Sammo Hung has a briefer turn as a Shaolin martial artist who fairs poorly against Lee—but not nearly as badly as blink-and-you-missed-him Jackie Chan, whose meat-for-the-grinder henchman gets his neck snapped by our hero.

But wait there’s more, including a classic funky eastern fusion soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin that opened up a lot of ears up to the Argentinean composer and former Dizzy Gillespie sideman. Without question, this is a historically and culturally significant film, well worthy of being selected for the National Film Registry. Logically, it anchors BAM’s Wing Chun series in honor of Lee’s revered master, Ip Man. Highly recommended beyond martial arts enthusiasts, Enter the Dragon begins a week long run (8/30-9/5) today at the BAM Rose Cinemas.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on August 30th, 2013 at 1:24pm.