this week in film and television

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION — FOREIGN OSCAR HOPEFULS: THE GRANDMASTER

Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi) and Ip Man (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) battle it out in Wong Kar Wai’s THE GRANDMASTER

THE GRANDMASTER (Wong Kar Wai, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
Friday, December 27, 9:00, and Tuesday, December 31, 8:00
Series runs December 27 – January 2
212-875-5601
www.thegrandmasterfilm.com
www.filmlinc.com

Hong Kong Second Wave grandmaster filmmaker Wong Kar Wai once again chooses style over substance in his latest work, the visually sumptuous but ultimately confusing martial arts drama The Grandmaster. Wong regular Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Days of Being Wild, Ashes of Time, In the Mood for Love) stars as Ip Man, the real-life Wing Chun master who eventually taught such students as Bruce Lee. The film follows Ip Man from his early days in Foshan, where he is chosen to defend the south against the more famous masters of the north, through the Second Sino-Japanese War and his move to Hong Kong. Along the way there are gorgeously filmed fight scenes (shot by cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd and choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping) involving “The Razor” Yixiantian (Chang Chen), Ma San (Zhang Jin), and, most intimately, Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi), daughter of retired master Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang), as challengers to Ip Man display their martial arts disciplines in attempts to defeat Wing Chun. An early battle in the rain is particularly breathtaking, bathed in alluring silver tones. But the screenplay, written by Wong with Zou Jingzhi and Xu Haofeng, never really delves deep enough into Ip Man’s character, giving especially short shrift to his relationship with his wife, Cheung Wing-sing (Song Hye-kyo), and children.

Ip Man (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) defends Wing Chun against all comers in martial arts drama

The choppy narrative makes it feel like The Grandmaster was supposed to be a much bigger, more expansive historical epic, and indeed the Chinese version is twenty-two minutes longer, so the 108-minute U.S entry seems lacking. It also comes at a time when the story of Ip Man has been experiencing a major revival, as there have been numerous productions about him over the last few years, including the theatrical releases Ip Man and Ip Man 2 starring Donnie Yen, Ip Man: The Final Fight with Anthony Wong, and The Legend Is Born — Ip Man with Dennis To as well as the television series Ip Man starring Kevin Cheng, so it’s possible that Wong’s film will ultimately get lost in the mix. Although there is still much to admire about The Grandmaster, it follows his disappointing 2007 English-language My Blueberry Nights and the head-scratching 2004 futuristic drama 2046, so it’s been quite a while since the masterful Wong’s heyday of the 1990s, which included such dazzling works as Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, and Happy Together before concluding with the lush, unforgettable In the Mood for Love in 2000. Here’s hoping his next film will be more than a series of stunning set pieces that make the story secondary. The Grandmaster is screening December 27 at 9:00 and December 31 at 8:00 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls,” which runs December 27 – January 2 and consists of ten features that have a shot at being nominated for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award, including Gilles Bourdos’s Renoir, Barmak Akram’s An Afghan Love Story, Amat Escalante’s Heli, and Danis Tanovic’s An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker.

FAMILY FILMS: THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T

THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T is the only live-action film written by Dr. Seuss

THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T (Roy Rowland, 1953)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
144 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
December 26-28, 11:00 am
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

Advertised as “the first Wonderama,” The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is also the first — and only — film written directly for the screen by Ted Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss. Geisel famously disowned it upon its release, declaring it a “debaculous fiasco” and refusing to discuss it in his memoir. But the Technicolor fantasy is actually far from a fiasco, although it is surreal, bizarre, and very, very strange. Tommy Rettig (Lassie) stars as Bartholomew Collins, a young boy who hates taking piano lessons from the awful Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried, who played Uncle Tonoose on Make Room for Daddy and voiced such animated villains as Captain Hook and Snidely Whiplash). In his dreams, Bart finds himself trapped at the Terwilliker Institute, an evil place where Dr. T has hypnotized Bart’s widowed mother, Heloise (Mary Healy), into being his assistant and eventual bride, and where the Collins’s friendly plumber, August Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes, who was married to Healy in real life), is installing sinks in cells to be occupied by five hundred kids who are being forced to perform by Dr. T on an enormous winding piano that has 480,000 keys. Meanwhile, musicians who play other instruments are imprisoned in the dungeon, leading to one of the film’s best production numbers. Lost in a German Expressionist-type world, designed by Rudolph Sternad (Judgment at Nuremburg), filled with long shadows, tilted buildings, and evil lurking around every corner, Bart tries desperately to save his mother, the plumber, and himself — and once again be part of a “normal” family. Geisel came up with the story and wrote the screenplay with Allan Scott (So Proudly We Hail); Geisel also wrote the lyrics, with music by Frederick Hollander. However, most of the songs ended up on the cutting-room floor, with only six appearing in the film, which might actually be a good thing, because the musical numbers, save for “Dungeon Shlim Shlam,” are the weakest part of the movie (even if it got nominated for an Oscar for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture). Directed by Roy Rowland with a strong hand from producer Stanley Kramer, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T also features some ingenious set pieces and engaging contraptions among its overall weirdness. The film is screening December 26-28 at 11:00 am as part of the “Family Films” series at Lincoln Center, which concludes December 29 – January 1 with Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION — DOCUMENTARY OSCAR HOPEFULS: THE ACT OF KILLING

Proud mass murderers envision themselves as movie stars in Joshua Oppenheimer’s THE ACT OF KILLING

THE ACT OF KILLING (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
Thursday, December 26, 1:30
Series runs December 20-26
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.theactofkilling.com

Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is one of the most disturbing, and unusual, films ever made about genocide. In 1965-66, as many as a million supposed communists and enemies of the state were killed in the aftermath of a military coup in Indonesia. Nearly fifty years later, many of the murderers are still living in the very neighborhoods where they committed the atrocities, openly boasting about what they did, being celebrated on television talk shows, and even being asked to run for public office. While making The Globalization Tapes in Indonesia in 2004, the Texas-born Oppenheimer met some of these self-described gangsters and, struck by their brash, bold attitudes, decided to create a different kind of documentary. In addition to following them around as they go bowling, play golf, sing, and dance, proudly showing off how happy their lives are, Oppenheimer offered them the opportunity to tell their story as if it were a Hollywood movie. The men, whose love of American noir and Westerns heavily influenced the stylized killings they perpetrated, loved the idea and began to restage torture and murder scenes in great detail for the camera, getting in period costumes, putting on makeup, going over script details, reviewing the dailies, and playing both the violent criminals and their victims. The leader is master executioner Anwar Congo, who is perhaps the only one haunted by his deeds; although on the surface he is proud of what he did, he is tormented by constant nightmares. Such is not the case for the others, who laugh as they go over the gory details, especially paramilitary leader Herman Koto, Congo’s protégé and a man seemingly without a conscience. Meanwhile, fellow executioner Adi Zulkadry wonders whether telling the truth will actually negatively impact their legendary status. “Human rights! All this talk about ‘human rights’ pisses me off,” Congo says in one scene. “Back then there was no human rights.” Oppenheimer also depicts how frighteningly powerful the three-million-strong, government-connected Pancasila Youth is, ready to fight for the very same things that led to the genocide in the first place. It’s hard to comprehend how these men continue to walk free, and one can argue whether Oppenheimer should indeed be giving them the platform that he does. Watching these gangsters — or “free men,” as they like to call themselves, since the Indonesian word for gangster is “preman,” derived from the Dutch “vrijman” — artistically re-create scenes of horrific violence is both illuminating and infuriating on multiple levels that will leave viewers angry and incredulous. A selection of this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, The Act of Killing is screening December 26 at 1:30 as part the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Documentary Oscar Hopefuls,” which consists of all fifteen nonfiction features that have made the Academy Awards short-list; the festival will be followed December 27 – January 2 by “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls,” comprising such international fare as Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION — DOCUMENTARY OSCAR HOPEFULS: DIRTY WARS

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill uncovers some frightening secrets in DIRTY WARS

DIRTY WARS: THE WORLD IS A BATTLEFIELD (Rick Rowley, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
Thursday, December 26, 6:30
Series runs December 20-26
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.dirtywars.org

In 2007, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill published Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, which detailed his reporting for the Nation on the controversial private military force hired by the U.S. government to fight in Iraq. Six years later, Scahill has written Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, a scathing indictment of another secretive fighting force, the Joint Special Operations Command. Director Rick Rowley (The Fourth World War, This Is What Democracy Looks Like) follows Scahill through Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Washington in this eponymous documentary accompanying the book as Scahill uncovers startling information about JSOC and the White House involving kill lists, mysterious night raids and drone strikes, attacks on U.S. citizens, and other controversial elements of the War on Terror. Rowley meets with former operatives who discuss JSOC’s rising power, villagers in Afghan and Yemen who claim U.S. forces murdered innocent women and children based on faulty intelligence, the father of targeted Islamic militant Anwar al-Awlaki, and U.S.-backed warlords who have no regard for the international rules of engagement. Every time Scahill appears to have reached a dead end in his investigation, he uncovers something that keeps him going, knowing it could get him into deep trouble. At one point a clip shows Jay Leno asking Scahill on Bill Maher’s Real Time, “Why are you still alive?” As inappropriate a question as that is, it is loaded with truth. No matter what your political bent, it is extremely difficult to watch Dirty Wars, as it reveals many unsettling facts about America and the War on Terror that will have even the most left-leaning viewers wondering whether Scahill should just have just left well enough alone. Photographed by Rowley and written by the director with Scahill and David Riker, Dirty Wars is screening December 26 at 6:30 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Documentary Oscar Hopefuls,” which runs December 20-26 and consists of all fifteen nonfiction features that have made the Academy Awards short-list, including Blackfish, The Act of Killing, Life According to Sam, The Crash Reel, First Cousin Once Removed, and Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The festival will be followed December 27 – January 2 by “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls,” comprising such international fare as Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda.

Nominated for one Academy Award: Best Documentary Feature

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION — DOCUMENTARY OSCAR HOPEFULS: BLACKFISH

BLACKFISH

BLACKFISH (Gabriela Cowperthwaite, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
Tuesday, December 24, 5:00, and Wednesday, December 25, 4:00
Series runs December 20-26
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.blackfishmovie.com

Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish is a deeply disturbing, immensely heartbreaking, and intensely maddening documentary that looks into the deaths of several orca trainers killed by Tillikum, a six-ton killer whale who has been performing in captivity for a quarter of a century, at such locations as Sealand in San Diego and SeaWorld in Orlando. Inspired by Tim Zimmerman’s “The Killer in the Pool” article in the July 2010 issue of Outside magazine, Cowperthwaite meets with current and former SeaWorld trainers, OSHA representatives, family members of the trainers who were killed, and men who helped capture orcas in the wild, painting a stunning portrait of mistreatment and straight-out cruelty of the highly intelligent and sensitive mammals who have been put on display for decades, continuing to perform for tourist audiences even after they kill. No one blames Tillikum for what happened; it’s the brutal system, and SeaWorld’s lack of response, that is called into question. “A lawyer for OSHA asked me what I thought we’d learned, and I’m sitting in the courtroom, and I’ve got the Kelty Byrne case file in one hand and I’ve got Dawn Brancheau in the other and they’re almost to the day twenty years apart and I’m looking at these two things and my only answer is nothing,” OSHA expert witness and whale researcher Dave Duffus tells Cowperthwaite. One of the most heart-rending parts of the film occurs when diver John Crowe, choking back tears, relates the story of capturing orcas in Puget Sound in 1970, stealing the young ones away from their crying mothers. Cowperthwaite (City Lax: An Urban Lacrosse Story) includes promotional videos, news reports, court transcripts, and new and old interviews, getting every side of the story but one — SeaWorld refused to make any statements on camera, although the company has publicly disputed many of the claims following the film’s release. The controversy is far from over, as such musicians as Barenaked Ladies, Cheap Trick, Trisha Yearwood, Willie Nelson, Heart, and others have recently canceled concerts at SeaWorld Orlando in support of the film, which also features a mournful, elegiac soundtrack by Jeff Beale. Blackfish is not an easy film to watch, centering on humanity’s needless inhumanity to fellow mammals, all in the name of the almighty dollar. Blackfish is screening December 24 at 5:00 and December 25 at 4:00 as part the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Documentary Oscar Hopefuls,” which runs December 20-26 and consists of all fifteen nonfiction features that have made the Academy Awards short-list, including The Act of Killing, Life According to Sam, The Crash Reel, First Cousin Once Removed, and Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The festival will be followed December 27 – January 2 by “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls,” comprising such international fare as Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda.

THE CONTENDERS 2013: COMPUTER CHESS

Humans and machines do battle in Andrew Bujalski’s fun throwback, COMPUTER CHESS

COMPUTER CHESS (Andrew Bujalski, 2013)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday, December 23, 7:00
Series continues through January 16
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.computerchessmovie.com
www.moma.org

Earlier this year, the Park Ave. Armory was home to The Machine, a high-tech live drama depicting the 1997 battle between chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and IBM’s Deep Blue computer. Andrew Bujalski takes viewers back to 1980, the very early days of man vs. machine, in the decidedly low-tech indie flick Computer Chess. Shot in grainy black-and-white in sixteen days by Bujalski regular Matthias Grunsky (Nights and Weekends) using the early analog Sony AVC 3260 tube video camera, the very funny comedy follows a weekend chess competition hosted by grandmaster Pat Henderson (Gerald Peary), who has invited a group of computer programmers to play one another, with the winner getting the opportunity to match up against him in the ultimate challenge. Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation), Grunsky, and production designer Michael Bricker get the era just right as a bunch of nerdy dudes, including Patrick Riester as perpetually nervous virgin Peter Bishton, Wiley Wiggins as pompous Martin Beuscher, Robin Schwartz as mousy Shelly Flintic, Gordon Kindlmann as the worshipped Tom Schoesser, and Myles Paige as Michael Papageorge, the anticorporate independent programmer who can’t find anywhere to sleep, interact over games of chess that show while they deal well with computers, they have a lot to learn about real life. Throw in an EST-like sexual reawakening seminar led by guru Keneiloe (Tishuan Scott) at the same low-rent hotel and things start getting even further complicated. Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at Sundance, Computer Chess is a splendidly rendered cinema vérité mockumentary about making, and not making, connections, both human and mechanical, preprogrammed and improvised, a fun trip back to a more innocent time before the digital age took over. (Anyone remember MS-DOS?) And it’s particularly riotous seeing these old computer beasts being lugged, pushed, pulled, and carried, somewhat larger and heavier than today’s laptops and handheld devices. Computer Chess is screening December 23 at 7:00 as part of MoMA’s annual series “The Contenders,” which consists of exemplary films that MoMA believes will stand the test of time, continuing with such works as Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s Leviathan, Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, and Destin Cretton’s Short Term 12.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION — DOCUMENTARY OSCAR HOPEFULS: THE SQUARE

Ahmed Hassan fights for a better future for Egypt in THE SQUARE

THE SQUARE (AL MIDAN) (Jehane Noujaim, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
Sunday, December 22, 4:00, and Monday, December 23, 8:15
Series runs December 20-26
212-875-5601
www.thesquarefilm.com
www.filmlinc.com

“During the early days, we agreed to stay united no matter what,” Ahmed Hassan tells those around him in Jehane Noujaim’s powerful and important documentary The Square. “When we were united, we brought down the dictator. How do we succeed now? We succeed by uniting once again.” But Ahmed, one of several Egyptian revolutionaries who Noujaim follows for two years in the film, finds that it is not that easy to bring everyone together, as the government leaders continue to change and factions develop that favor the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Putting her own life in danger, Noujaim (The Control Room, Startup.com) is right in the middle of it all as she shares the stories of Ahmed, a young man who is determined to see the revolution through until peace and justice prevail; Magdy Ashour, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who must choose between his own personal beliefs and that of his power-hungry organization; and Khalid Abdalla, the British-Egyptian star of The Kite Runner and United 93 who becomes an activist like his father, serving as the revolution’s main link to the international community through the media and by posting videos. In The Square, a 2013 New York Film Festival selection, Noujaim also introduces viewers to human rights lawyer Ragia Omran, protest singer Ramy Essam, and filmmaker Aida El Kashef, none of whom is willing to give in even as the violence increases.

Massive crowds of Egyptians occupy Tahrir Square to demand freedom and democracy in THE SQUARE

Documentary offers an inside look at the occupation of Tahrir Square by Egyptians demanding freedom and democracy

In the documentary, Noujaim includes footage of televised political speeches and interviews that contradict what is actually happening in Tahrir Square as elections near. Reminiscent of Stefano Savona’s Tahrir: Liberation Square, which played at the 2011 New York Film Festival, The Square makes the audience feel like it’s in Tahrir Square, rooting for the revolutionaries to gain the freedom and democracy they so covet. The film also features several stunning shots of the massive crowds, most memorably as thousands of men kneel down in unison to pray to Mecca. Among its many strengths, The Square personalizes the revolution in such a way as to reveal that a small group of people can indeed make a difference, although sometimes they just have to keep on fighting and fighting and fighting. The Square is screening December 22 at 4:00 and December 23 at 8:15, both followed by Q&As with Noujaim, as part the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “For Your Consideration: Documentary Oscar Hopefuls,” which runs December 20-26 and consists of all fifteen nonfiction features that have made the Academy Awards short-list, including Cutie and the Boxer, Dirty Wars, Stories We Tell, Blackfish, and 20 Feet from Stardom. The festival will be followed December 27 – January 2 by “For Your Consideration: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls,” comprising such international fare as Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda.