Photo caption: Don Lee as Detective Ma in THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT. Courtesy of Capelight Pictures
Sometimes we just need an unapologetic gene movie, and the Korean action comedy The Roundup: No Way Out is just that. Our burly hero, detective Ma Seok-do (Don Lee), is a loveable lug with a gift for the one-punch knockout. Ma is also the smartest cop on the force and must suffer the fools around him. But it’s his singular physicality that makes for bull-in-the-china shop mayhem when he is forced into violence.
The Roundup: No Way Out is the third movie in the Detective Ma franchise, following The Outlaws (2017) and The Roundup, Korea’s #1 hit film of 2022.
Don Lee (right) as Detective Ma in THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT. Courtesy of Capelight Pictures
I think that much of Detective Ma Seok-do’s appeal is that, as determined as he is to get the bad guys, he doesn’t have any of the meanness, bitterness or alienation of a Dirty Harry-type cop hero. Interestingly, the character’s name resembles Don Lee’s non-stage name, Ma Dong-seok.
The plot of The Roundup: No Way Out involves the interruption of a designer drug deal, which results in two gangs racing the cops to find a missing $30 million drug stash. Each villainous gang leader villains is more ruthless and cruel than the last. This time, for a little added umami, one of the gangs is from Japan.
The charm of The Roundup: No Way Out is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. There are no deep themes to explore here and no message – just an amiable protagonist, some laughs and almost non-stop action.
Photo caption: Aline Kuppenheim in CHILE ’76. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.
Chile ’76 is a masterfully understated thriller set in the first days of Pinochet’s coup in Chile and the resultant reign of terror.
Carmen (Aline Kuppenheim), the wife of a prosperous Santiago physician, is away at the family’s beach house when she is approached by the small coastal town’s priest. Knowing that she has medical training, the priest asks her to secretly nurse a young man (Nicolás Sepúlveda) with a gunshot wound. The priest says that he is hiding the young man because he had become a petty criminal through hard luck and deserves a break; but Carmen is savvy enough enough to know that the young man must be a leftist who is hunted by Pinochet’s secret police. To care for the young man would be taking a grievous risk. If discovered, the consequences for Carmen, and perhaps for her family, would be unspeakable.
Carmen embraces the risk, and the tension simmers. The audience follows her, knowing that her secret could be uncovered at any moment. All the time, she is carrying on the appearance of a privileged matron, directing servants and focused on interior decorating and the children’s birthday cakes.
Chile ’76 is the first feature for director and co-writer Manuela Martelli. What Martelli achieves in Chile ’76 is a remarkably subtle suspenser, without jump scares or on-screen violence. Instead, Martelli builds tension in the minds of the audience, as we wonder if her phone is tapped and if she is being followed. Carmen’s each chance encounter becomes more sinister. Even the meticulous tissue wrapping of new store-bought shoes is chilling. Without seeing it, we are ever conscious of the horrors of merciless repression.
Aline Kuppenheim and Nicolás Sepúlveda in in CHILE ’76. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.
Aline Kuppenheim is excellent as Carmen, a cipher who seems so confident in her role as affluent doctor’s wife and grandmother. She likes her cigarettes and a drink, and lets others lead the cocktail party banter. Her family takes her presence for granted and would never suspect her of going on a potentially deadly secret mission.
So, why is Carmen doing this? There are clues. Although she is not overtly political, she doesn’t embrace the rightwing sentiments of her peers. She is a bit of a do-gooder, volunteering to read to the vulnerable. Because of her gender, she wasn’t able to choose a career more important (or dangerous). The answers are behind Carmen’s impassive affect. Still waters run deep.
Chile ’76 is all about how Kuppenheim’s Carmen navigates her situation. In deciding “where to look from”, Martelli says that she and cinematographer Yarará Rodríguez adopted a “rule…to always be with her, sometimes to look at her, and sometimes to look at what she was looking.”
(Back in 2004, Martelli was one of the kid actors in the fine coming of age film Machuca.)
Chile ’76 is now playing in select theaters, including in LA and the Bay Area.
Photo caption: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart in PERSIAN LESSONS. Photo courtesy of Cohen Media Group.
The Holocaust thriller Persian Lessons walks a tightrope of tension, and the ending is very emotionally powerful. Gilles (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) is a Belgian Jew sent to a German concentration camp. He seeks to avoid death by claiming to be Persian named Reza. He is not anticipating that a Nazi officer will demand to be taught Farsi. That officer, Koch (Lars Eidinger), aspires to a postwar future as a Tehran restaurateur.
Gilles/Reza, who doesn’t know ANY Farsi, must invent an entire faux Farsi language, word-by-word, and remember it. All the while, he’s sweating out the likelihood that his ruse will be discovered.
The blustery Koch, with his Persian fixation, is an oddball. A chef when he opportunistically joined the Nazi Party, he’s not a True Believer, although he is very comfortable with genocide. In another time or place, he could have easily been a corrupt official or a mafioso. While Gilles/Reza is the protagonist, the story rises and falls on Koch’s whims, and Eidinger’s performance is excellent.
Nazis were bullies at their core, and some of Persian Lessons’ lighter moments are when Gilles/Reza is offscreen and the Nazis’ own foibles, with their sexual peccadilloes and their petty internal power plays, are on display. There’s an especially funny scene when Koch gets a leg up on his boss, the camp’s Commandant.
Nahuel Pérez Biscayart and Lars Eidinger in PERSIAN LESSONS. Photo courtesy of Cohen Media Group.
Persian Lessons was directed by Ukrainian-born Vadim Perelman (2003’s Oscar nominated House of Sand and Fog). Belarus tried to submit Persian Lessons for an Academy Award, but it was too international to qualify as a Belarus film. IMDb catalogues it as a Russian/German/Belarus film; Biscayart is Argentine, Eidinger is German, and screenwriter Ilja Zofin is Russian.
I screened Persian Lessons for its North American premiere at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in July 2021. It opens June 9 at the Laemmle Royal in LA and more widely on June 16, including San Francisco’s Opera Plaza and the Landmark Pasadena.
Reed Harkness in SAM NOW. Courtesy of HA/HA Productions.
In the surprisingly complex documentary Sam Now, two brothers go on a road trip to solve a family mystery – but that’s only part of the story. Beginning as a teenager, writer-director Reed Harkness spent his teen years shooting movie projects that starred his younger half-brother Sam. Reed and Sam grew up in a blended family of spirited brothers, a family with one striking anomaly – Sam’s mother had suddenly vanished.
Shortly after the disappearance, the family learned that the mom was alive, having left of her own volition. She was choosing to live elsewhere secretly, severing all contact with her family. Reed and Sam’s family went on with their lives, and the subject of the missing mom was no longer discussed.
Years later, as young men, Reed and Sam decide to get in the car with Reed’s cameras and track down Sam’s mom. Will they find her? Why did she abandon her children? Can they resume/salvage their relationship or work out a new one?
The subject Harkness famiy in SAM NOW. Courtesy of HA/HA Productions.
Those are compelling questions, but the quest to find the mom isn’t the whole movie. Once the initial mystery is solved, Reed Harkness kept his camera focused on the participants over the next decade.
Beginning with home movies when the brothers were kids, Sam Now documents 25 years of family life and individual personal growth. It’s all complicated, as we might expect with multigenerational trauma.
Reed Harkness’ use of music in Sam Now is particularly strong. Reed and Sam’s rowdy boyhood and the brother’s road trip is accented with boisterous garage rock. More contemplative music accompanies the personal reflections later in the film.
Sam Now garnered various film fest awards, aired on PBS’ POV, and releases on streaming platforms, including Amazon and Vudu, on June 6.
The documentary 32 Sounds strives to be an immersive dive into sounds of all types and the impact of sounds on humans. It’s an anthology of 32 bits, each related to sound in different way.
The immersive quality is where 32 Sounds falls short. After seeing the trailer, I made an effort to see 32 Sounds in a theater with surround sound. But, after the filmmakers address the audience at the beginning, the surround sound is not really necessary to enjoy (or, in my case, NOT enjoy) the film.
The two most powerful scenes don’t have much to do with the technical or artsy stuff that comprise much of 32 Sounds. In one, a scientist listens to a long-forgotten letter to his future self that he taped as an 11-year-old. Later, a man muses on “ghost voices” – how he can ALMOST recall the voices of his dead loved ones.
Overall, the 95 minutes I invested in slogging thru 32 Sounds was wasted, except for the ten minutes that I drifted into a deep, blissful nap.
Peter S. Kim, Ally Maki and Hayden Szeto in DEALING WITH DAD. Courtesy of 1091 Pictures.
Dealing with Dad is a topical family comedy with an Asian-American cast. Three adult siblings – the super-achiever oldest sister, the passive middle brother and the infantilized youngest brother, a gaming slacker – meet at their parents’ home. The dad, whose harsh and never-bending expectations battered them as kids, has become paralyzed (and defanged) by severe depression.
Although Dealing with Dad is a comedy, its strengths are in addressing two serious subjects – depression and the issues that many second-generation Asian-Americans face because of their immigrant parents’ parenting styles.
The differences between the siblings spawn lots of laughs, but I found the banter a bit too sit-commy for my taste.
Bay Area audiences will appreciate that Dealing with Dad is set in MILPITAS.
I screened for the 2022 Cinequest. It started rolling out in theaters on May 19.
Photo caption: BEING MARY TYLER MOORE. Courtesy of HBO.
The showbiz biodoc Being Mary Tyler Moore traces the career and life of an important trailblazer who captivated American TV audiences for decades. The ever-relatable Mary Tyler Moore pioneered the fictional single woman on TV, an important cultural moment.
While she was playing the archetypal single career woman, Moore was a wife and mother. She and husband Grant Tinker created some of the best TV ever – The Bob Newhart Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, Hill Street Blues, and St. Elsewhere – and pioneered the TV spinoff with Rhoda. It bears remembering that CBS’ Saturday evening 8-11 pm slate in the fall of 1973 was the best nightly TV lineup ever: All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show.
Being Mary Tyler Moore traces the lesser known aspects of Moore’s life, including her childhood and retirement years. Of course, there’s a clip from the Mary Tyer Moore Show’s unforgettable Chuckles the Clown episode.
Incidentally, I highly recommend Joan Jett’s version of the MTM Show theme Love Is All Around, which you can find on YouTube.
Being Mary Tyler Moore is streaming on HBO, beginning May 26. I screened it for the SFFILM in April.
Photo caption: Petri Poikolainen in THE MAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO SEE TITANIC. Courtesy of Cinedigm Entertainment Group.
Wow. The Finnish indie The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanicis a rare nugget of complete originality that takes us into a unfamiliar world filled with unexpected laughs, suddenly turns into a thriller, and finishes as a moving love story. It’s unlike any movie I’ve seen.
Our protagonist, Jaako (Petri Poikolainen), is blind and confined to a wheelchair. Writer-director Teemu Nikki tells his story, in that most visual of media – cinema, from the perspective of a blind person. We either see Jaako’s face or the blurs that Jaako sees.
Jaako is a movie nerd, secure in his cultural taste. He rejects pity and strives to maintain his dignity with his sarcastic humor. (He has renamed his caregiver after two sadistic movie nurses – Annie Wilkes and Nurse Rached.) He’s a very, very funny guy.
Jaako has a girlfriend, Sirpa (Marjaana Maijala), that he’s never met. She is also housebound with a disability, but in another city. Sirpa has a sense of humor that can match his, and the two bond on the telephone, each bringing the other some delight each day. One day, Sirpa is devastated by some bad medical news, and Jaako resolves to travel by himself, unaided, across Finland to comfort her. Jaako and we go forth on an eventful journey. I don’t think that a person can display real courage until they are really afraid, and Jaako learns this. too.
Like Jaako, lead actor Petri Poikolainen is also a blind man with multiple sclerosis.
What Teemu Nikki has created here is astounding. There are layers upon layers of newness and originality in The Blind Man, etc: the character of Jaako, the procedural of living independently with both MS and blindness, and cinema from the POV of the blind person. The film’s overriding achievement is empathy.
The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic won an audience award at Venice Film Festival. It’s one of the Best Movies of 2023 – So Far. The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic is available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
Photo caption: Julie Ledru in RODEO. Courtesy of Music Box Films.
In the ever-kinetic Rodeo, a remarkably fierce young woman invites herself into a crew of dirt riders. Rodeo is set with remarkable verisimilitude in a subculture of young bikers from France’s hardscrabble immigrant communities. It’s an edgy scene, and Julia (newcomer Julie Ledru) penetrates it only because she’s a little scary herself.
Julia is a force of nature, and she is able to back off guys with an explosive hostility. When she is ready to adopt a dangerous new passion on two wheels, no one can stand in her way. Off she rides, on a journey with life-and-death stakes.
Rodeo is the first feature for French director Lola Quivoron, who is the real star of this roller coaster of a movie. If she wants to, Quivoron will be making big Hollywood action films like The Fast and the Furious.
Rodeo won the Un Certain Regard coup de coeur prize at Cannes, and I screened it for the SLO Film Fest. Rodeo is now available to stream from Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu.
Photo caption: Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.
Fanny: The Right to Rock documents the first all-female rock band to get signed by a major record label and churn out five albums. Fifty years ago, the band Fanny was breaking ground for women musicians – and for lesbians and Filipinas. Women rockers were a novelty in the early 1970; imagine layering on LGBTQ identity and Asian-American heritage.
Although you probably haven’t heard of them, this was no garage band. They had a major label record deal, European tours, and hung out with big name peers. Unlike many male bands of the period, Fanny didn’t crash and burn due to drug use or clashing egos. They just never caught on with record-buyers.
FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.
It’s pretty clear that sexism in the music industry and media, combined with maybe being a little ahead of their time to deny Fanny stardom. Too bad – I would have loved to listen to them in their heyday.
Their music fits right into the stuff I was listening to in the 1970s. I’m guessing that the reason why I hadn’t heard of them is that they didn’t get played on FM radio in the Bay Area.
These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot. Tomorrow night, May 17, they’ll perform for one time at the Whisky A-Go-Go to commemorate the 50 year anniversary of their now infamous club performance at the Whisky.
Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.
Fanny: The Right to Rock is filled with colorful anecdotes from back in the day. Todd Rundgren, an important early associate of Fanny, and Bonnie Raitt appear as eyewitnesses. Cherie Curry of the Runaways, Cathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Kate Pierson of the B-52s testify to Fanny’s trailblazing status.
I screened Fanny: The Right to Rock last year at the Nashville Film Festival. On May 22, you can watch it on your very own television when It will be broadcast on PBS and begin streaming on on PBS.ORG and the PBS APP.
