LFM Reviews Romancing in Thin Air @ The San Francisco Film Society’s Hong Kong Cinema Festival

From "Romancing in Thin Air."

By Joe Bendel. Is it the altitude sickness making Michael Lau nauseous or is it love? Whichever, the binge drinking is not helping much. Nevertheless, the heartbroken superstar might pull himself together and find real love with the help of a former fan. Action auteur Johnnie To takes another Mainland-pleasing foray into relationship drama territory with Romancing in Thin Air (trailer here), which screens this weekend as part of the San Francisco Film Society’s crowd-pleasing second annual Hong Kong Cinema Festival.

Michael Lau is coincidentally a lot like Louis Koo, the actor who plays him. Both are popular HK romantic leads with a background in music. Lau is going through a rough patch, though. He was to marry his co-star in an ultra-glitzy ceremony, only to be very publicly dumped at the altar. Lau takes refuge in the bottle—hard. Stowing away in Sue’s vintage army truck, Lau finds himself at her rustic mountain lodge, way above sea level and sick as a dog.

Sue is a widow who will not allow herself to mourn. One night her sensitive mountain man husband went out into the forest in search of a lost child, but never returned. Yet, Sue keeps the lodge exactly as he left it in the unrealistic hope will eventually walk through the front door. Of course, these two broken hearts are perfect for each other, but they will have to learn that the hard way.

Johhnie To can kick it in any genre, but his previous rom-com (heavier on the rom), Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (which screened at the SFFS’s HK fest last year), travels better. Frankly, it is hard to believe that some of the things Lau does to win over/back Sue do not have the opposite effect. However, the first two acts put a nice twist on the Notting Hill concept, establishing Sue as former Michael Lau fan club member and revealing the role the idol’s career played in her courtship with the missing Tian.

From "Romancing in Thin Air."

Having already proved to be a successful box-office pairing, Koo and Sammi Cheng indeed have some nice chemistry together. Conversely, the supporting characters do not have a lot of meat to them, seemingly existing just to bring the two together. That includes Li Guangjie’s impossibly taciturn Tian.

Clearly, both To and cinematographer Cheng Siu-keung love the mountain backdrop, luxuriating in its harsh snowcapped beauty. Guy Zerafa’s lyrical piano score was probably supposed to be syrupier, but is actually quite elegant and evocative. Despite some over-the-top elements here or there, Thin takes its central relationship seriously, which is endearing. It is also an example of a genuine leading man turn from Koo, yet he is also obviously and deliberately having some fun with his own image. Recommended for sentimental romantics, Romancing in This Air screens this Sunday (9/23) as the SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema Festival continues at the New People Cinema.

Ann Hui’s understated but emotionally powerful A Simple Life also screens earlier that same day (9/23). Based on a true story, it follows a decent but hardly heroic movie producer as he tries his best to look after his family’s elderly servant after she suffers a stroke. An actors’ showcase for Andy Lau and Deanie Ip, it is a tearjerker with too much self-respect to jerk tears. Highly recommended, a full review can be found here.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted September 21st, 2012 at 12:58pm.

The Few, the Proud, The Knuckleballers: LFM Reviews Knuckleball!

By Joe Bendel. The last two years have been tough for Mets fans, but there have been a few bright spots. They have had the pleasure of watching Bobby Valentine “manage” another team and R. A. Dickey has posted All-Star worthy seasons on the mound. When he signed with the Mets, he was one of two knuckleball pitchers in Major League Baseball. And then there was one. Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg follow Dickey as he works to make a name for himself, while his knuckleball-throwing colleague Tim Wakefield chases a series of career milestones in the thoroughly entertaining documentary, Knuckleball!, which opens this Thursday at the IFC Center.

Tim Wakefield did just about everything you can do as a member of the Boston Red Sox, an often overlooked Northeastern team best known for trading away Babe Ruth, including giving up the eleventh inning walk-off home run in game seven of the 2003 ALCS. Honestly, that was something of a fluke. Wakefield always had success against the Yankees, which made the Red Sox’s decision to banish him to the bullpen rather baffling. In a year when the Sox were largely out of contention, beating the Yanks whenever possible would have been a logical fallback goal. Nonetheless, Wakefield saw little meaningful time on the mound at the start of the 2011 season, despite the tantalizing closeness of his 200th win.

A journeyman pitcher who stunned the baseball world – particularly including the Amazin’s, by winning a spot on the rotation – R.A. Dickey finally signed a guaranteed contract. However, a nagging injury threatens to put a damper on the party. Fortunately, Dickey can call on the knuckleball support network – especially his mentor, veteran knuckleballer Charlie Hough, for advice.

Some of Knuckleball!’s best scenes capture the get-togethers of this knuckleball fraternity, including Hough, both active proponents, and Wakefield’s early guru, Phil Niekro. As one might expect, they have some funny stories to tell. Wakefield and Dickey do a fine job explaining what the knuckleball pitch does and does not do. However, all knuckleballers are at a bit of a loss to explain the deep-seated disdain for their bread-and-butter pitch. Considering how radically different it looks to batters, one would think every club would want one knuckleballer on staff – but no, not by a long shot.

Stern and Sundberg do something rather remarkable in Knuckleball! by building to a big, satisfying emotional crescendo, even though they are following two pitchers whose respective teams were a country mile away from the pennant chase. It comes through loud and clear that Wakefield and Dickey are not just concerned with their individual stats. They are representing their pitch, like faithful practitioners of an esoteric martial art. Yet, this is exactly what baseball is all about: tradition.

Dickey and Wakefield are consistently likable subjects – and the old school knuckleballers, including Hough, Niekro, and Jim Bouton, are even more so. Prolific documenterians, Stern & Sundberg’s best known work is probably Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and their most important project is easily Burma Soldier, but Knuckleball! is by far their most enjoyable. Non-sports viewers will still find it completely engaging, but for baseball fans, it is like a bag of salted peanuts at an office getaway game (that’s a good thing). Enthusiastically recommended to general audiences, Knuckleball! (with exclamation point) opens this Thursday (9/21) in New York at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on September 18th, 2012 at 2:24pm.

New Trailer, Poster for Special Forces; Film Opens Oct. 12th

Apple is exclusively hosting the new trailer for Special Forces, starring Djimon Hounsou and Diane Kruger, and you can also find the film’s new U.S. poster over at the Apple site, as well. Special Forces dramatizes the story of a French special forces team (led by Hounsou) sent to Afghanistan on a rescue mission to save a kidnapped news reporter (Kruger).

Special Forces opens in theaters on Oct. 12th, and will also be available through iTunes. One hopes there won’t be any rioting.

Posted on September 18th, 2012 at 2:23pm.

An Animator’s Holocaust Survival Story: LFM Reviews Blinky & Me

By Joe Bendel. Children of the 1980’s might recognize Dot and the Bunny from its cable broadcasts. That was the work of Polish-born animated filmmaker Yoram Gross, who is best known in his adopted Australian homeland (by way of Israel), for his Blinky Bill series. The story of the beloved children’s book character has deep personal resonance for the animator that he explains to his family and to viewers in Tomasz Magierski’s documentary-profile Blinky & Me (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Gross was born to a well-respected Jewish merchant family in 1926. Blinky Bill is a koala bear. However, both lost their fathers at a young age and would spend years separated from their mothers. Gross and his mother would survive the war thanks to fellow Poles who sheltered them, but the years apart were difficult. Immigrating to Israel soon after liberation, the Gross family was essentially spared the repression of the Communist era, but they were not immune from personal tragedy.

Though a difficult period, Gross’s international reputation blossomed during his Israeli years. Having seen enough of war, Gross immigrated once again to Australia, where he would create his best known work, featuring the likes of Dot and Blinky Bill, drawn from the country’s favorite children’s literature. For those unfamiliar with Blinky Bill, the clips Magierski shows look like a budget version of Don Bluth’s Secret of NIMH, but they are clearly quite heartfelt. Presumably Gross engendered the sort of trust with Australian parents their American counterparts once invested in the Disney name.

From "Blinky and Me."

In established documentary tradition, Gross revisits Poland for the first time since the war with his large brood of children and grandchildren. Although these scenes are undeniably well intentioned, they do not break any new ground, at least for those who have seen more than one Holocaust related documentary over the last two or three years. However, Gross’s animation could serve as the thin edged of the wedge, introducing some legitimate oral history of the National Socialist occupation to younger or otherwise resistant viewers. (Sadly, it is still hard to envision Ahmadinejad watching B&M, even if he knew there were animated koalas in it.)

B&M will surely spur interest in Gross’s films, particularly his breakout Joseph the Dreamer, the first animated feature produced in Israel. While unflaggingly respectful, Magierski’s straight-forward approach looks a bit workaday. Nonetheless it is accessible as a survivor’s testimony and a profile of a prolific filmmaker. Recommended for animation fans and as a teaching tool for parents ready to start explaining the horrors of WWII to their children, Blinky & Me opens this Friday (9/21) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on September 18th, 2012 at 2:22pm.

Stories from the Khmer Rouge’s Killing Fields: Watch Enemies of the People Now for FREE

Snag Films recently made the extraordinary documentary Enemies of the People, about the Killing Fields of Cambodia, available for free viewing.

Calling the film “[t]houghtful and legitimately bold,” here’s what Joe Bendel said of this film in his original LFM review of Enemies: “Beyond its potential relevance in the Cambodian Tribunal, Enemies is highly significant as a pioneering Cambodian documentary inquiry into the Khmer Rouge’s crimes.”

We encourage LFM readers to take a look at this important film, now available for free viewing in its entirety.

Posted on September 18th, 2012 at 2:21pm.

LFM’s Govindini Murty on Lars Larson’s National Radio Show

LFM Co-Editor Govindini Murty was on Lars Larson’s national radio show Friday talking about The Master and the re-releases of Finding Nemo and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Special thanks, as always, to Lars and his staff for inviting Govindini on. She always has fun appearing on his show.

Lars’ show is broadcast on over 200 stations nationwide, and runs at different times across the country, so to find his show be sure to check out his website here.

Posted on September 18th, 2012 at 2:20pm.