Drawing ‘Zodiac’ back out
Shane West and Leslie Bibb play floundering fortune-hunters who find a valuable reel of film in “Awakening the Zodiac,” a solid mystery-thriller that takes advantage of the public’s ongoing fascination with a never-caught ’60s/’70s serial killer. True-crime obsessives may be disappointed that most of this film is fiction; but fans of grubby B-pictures should appreciate how assured the movie is.
Director/co-writer Jonathan Wright emphasizes character over kicks. West and Bibb play Nick and Zoe Branson, spouses who eke out a living buying abandoned storage-lockers and selling anything valuable inside. The costars have good chemistry and bring a sense of desperation to their roles that animates a thin plot.
When the Bransons inadvertently purchase POV footage of one of the Zodiac Killer’s murders, they ask for help decoding it from their crackpot junk-dealer friend, Harvey (Matt Craven). Before long, they’re close enough to the truth to attract the interest of the actual Zodiac (Stephen McHattie).
Most of the running-time is spent on clue-tracking and mysterious threats. Only during a tense climactic sequence (followed by a confusing coda) are the heroes in real danger.
Nothing here approaches the brilliance of David Fincher’s classic “Zodiac” (or the Zodiac-inspired “Dirty Harry”), but “Awakening the Zodiac” is well-acted and surprisingly nuanced. It’s a cautionary tale of how a lack of cash puts two amateur sleuths in a sicko’s gun sights. — Noel Murray “Awakening the Zodiac.” Rating: R, for violence and language. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles; Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena.
‘Radio Dreams’ dials in Metallica
Set at a small Farsi-language radio station in San Francisco, the culture-clash comedy “Radio Dreams” could have been called “Waiting for Metallica” as the film essentially marks time until the iconic heavy-metal band’s drummer, Lars Ulrich, shows up for the eleventh-hour visit that propels this offbeat story.
Still, if little of great consequence happens here, in the hands of Iranian British director Babak Jalali, who co-wrote with Aida Ahadiany, the quirky setups, oddball interactions and erratic conflicts that precede Ulrich’s arrival provide ample doses of amusement and provocation to keep things afloat.
Wild-haired singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjoo (a.k.a. the “Bob Dylan of Iran”) plays Hamid, a volatile émigré novelist working as program director for station PARS-FM, who’s in a constant art-versus-commerce battle with the station’s obtuse owner (Keyumars Hakim) and his managerial daughter (Boshra Dastournezhad).
But when Hamid arranges an on-air jam with Afghanistan’s first rock band, Kabul Dreams (real-life members Sulyman Qardash, Siddique Ahmed and Raby Adib enjoyably play themselves), and the visiting Metallica, it triggers far more angst than joy in Hamid and his eccentric staff. An Iranian American beauty queen, pizza commercials and even wrestling also factor in.
Jalali peppers this darkly funny, often absurdist piece with enough socio-political messaging to add heft but not didacticism. It all makes for a singular, well-observed balancing act. — Gary Goldstein “Radio Dreams.” In Persian, English, Assyrian NeoAramaic and Dari with English subtitles. Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Ahyra Fine Arts, Beverly Hills; Laemmle Town Center, Encino; Edwards Westpark 8, Irvine.
Immigrant takes a dangerous path
An ethnically diverse cast and authentic New York locations help to effectively ground “Lucky,” a palpably gritty, if familiar, take on the immigrant experience.
Hustling up just enough work — legit and otherwise — to save up for a green card marriage and send a little money to his mother back home each month, soft-spoken Lucky (the film’s writerdirector Bari Kang) is just another of the immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, struggling to live the dream.
But he soon finds himself heading down an increasingly slippery slope when he takes a job as a driver for a slick, coked-up drug dealer (Alfredo Diaz) following the disappearance of his gambling addict business partner (Daniel Jordano).
While you might know from the get-go where this is heading — the promise of a shortcut to a better life has provided the ill-fated temptation for many similarly themed dramas — Kang, in his filmmaking debut, proves adept at capturing background detail with a close-up, hand-held authenticity.
Quietly taking in life through the rear-view mirror of his cab, Lucky can come across as a little too virtuous to be true in his compulsion to serve as protector for the various women in his orbit.
It’s largely a reactive role but one that allows plenty of dramatic grist for others, especially Diaz and Natalia Zvereva as a good-hearted hooker with a keen survival instinct, to strut their stuff. — Michael Rechtshaffen “Lucky.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills.
Dark comedy misses the joke
“Parks and Rec” nice guy Jim O’Heir goes to the dark side in the pitch black comedy-and-crime noir “Middle Man,” a scathing takedown of the often cursed pursuit of fame and fortune, written and directed by Ned Crowley.
O’Heir plays Lenny, a straitlaced CPA who hits the road with his inheritance from his deceased mother — a ’53 Oldsmobile — with dreams of achieving stardom as a standup comedian in Las Vegas. But with one fateful misjudgment, he picks up a stringy-haired hitchhiker named Hitch (Andrew J. West, certainly committed to the role), which leads to Lenny’s big break and his breakdown.
Hitch happens to be a talent manager, a side hustle to his main gig of robbery and murder. Soon, Lenny’s carefully rehearsed act is out, and he finds himself taking the stage in a blood spatteredshirt and shakily describing the heinous acts he’s committed under Hitch’s management. His deadpan description of the depraved acts mixed with his nerdy demeanor turns out to be comedy gold because no one believes him. The crowd loves it — one could even say he “slays.”
Crowley relies far more on extreme violence than actual jokes, and after all the gruesome gore, salacious splatter and deadpan dehumanization, the point of it all becomes lost in the mess of severed limbs and pools of blood. It commits the worst comedy crime of all — there’s no punchline. — Katie Walsh
“Middle Man.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills; AMC Universal Citywalk; AMC Burbank.
There was no boys team to join
Writer-director Nathan Adloff ’s slight coming-of-age dramedy “Miles,” takes us back to a distant era — 1999. It was a time of dial-up modems and AOL Instant Messenger, and in this story, the archaic Internet access functions as a lifeline for a gay, movie-obsessed teenager, Miles (Tim Boardman), who can’t wait to bust out of Springfield and make his way to the big city: Chicago.
When his stern father (Stephen Root) suddenly passes away, leaving Miles and his mom, Pam (Molly Shannon), penniless, his dreams of film school and urban living are suddenly jeopardized. He isn’t willing to give up and joins the girls’ volleyball team (he’s talented, and there isn’t a boys’ team) in the unlikely hope of scoring an athletic scholarship. That endeavor sends him down an unexpected path as he faces down the school board and fights to keep his spot on the team.
Boardman and Shannon make for a winning duo as mother and son. Miles is steadfast in who he is and where he wants to be, but the rest of the film seems in search of an identity.
This movie doesn’t quite know what it wants to be — it can’t pull off the civil rights/ sports drama theme and is far stronger when musing on the high-stakes if small-scale drama of high school life. At times “Miles” feels a bit rickety around the edges, but the character at the center is instantly relatable and has a relaxed charm that makes the story compelling. — Katie Walsh “Miles.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes. Playing: AMC Dine-In Sunset 5, West Hollywood.
“Random Tropical Paradise” features a scene where best friends Harry (Bryan Greenberg) and Bowie (Brooks Wheelan) are trying to flush large blocks of drugs down a toilet while using a sex toy as a plunger. It’s a moment of ineptitude equaled only by the film itself. This mess never knows whether it’s a mob movie or a raunchy comedy, as this idiotic scene exemplifies. “Random Tropical Paradise” would be a waste of film if it were made in the medium. Luckily, the advent of digital limits the misuse of materials.
How the best friends got to shoving drugs down a toilet begins with a called-off wedding. After finding his fiancée cheating, Harry goes on what would have been his island honeymoon with his pal Bowie instead. While on vacation, they meet a group of women that includes Colette (Spencer Grammer), a possible match for Harry, and Angela (Brittany Furlan), the wife of a mobster (Joe Pantoliano), who exist only to extend the film to feature length.
Written and directed by Sanjeev Sirpal, “Random Tropical Paradise” has an abrasive tone and a nonsensical plot. If it were actually funny, these sins could be forgiven, but its only laughs come from Wheelan’s performance. With great comic timing and delivery, he is at his best in scenes that feel improvised. Based on everything surrounding these moments, it doesn’t seem like they could have been scripted. “Random Tropical Paradise.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica.
A picture of his living love dead
First-time feature director Aaron B. Koontz’s sci-fi splatter picture “Camera Obscura” has a premise so deliciously wicked that it’s a shame the movie smothers it in “relevance.” What should be a lean, mean genre exercise overloads on context.
Talented young character actor Christopher Denham stars as Jack Zeller, a former war-zone photographer. When his partner Claire (Nadja Bobyleva) buys him a vintage camera, the first photos Jack takes mysteriously appear to show dead bodies — including Claire’s. When the scenarios in the snapshots begin coming true, a panicked Jack arranges to put another corpse in her place … only to see her bloodied image pop up in another crime-scene pic.
This a great idea for a horror film: a troubled soul forced into a string of terrible misdeeds, in the name of saving the woman he loves. But Koontz takes too long to kick the plot into gear, spending almost half of his running time exploring Jack’s PTSD.
“Camera Obscura” remains largely ambiguous about what’s happening to the hero, asking the audience to consider how the horrors of war can alter a man’s perceptions and opinions — which is a worthy theme.
But Koontz lets the message drive how his story gets told. “Camera Obscura” lurches between gory thriller sequences and dreary character development, and never develops any momentum. The movie gets in its own way — burdened with meaning. “Camera Obscura.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. Playing: Arena Cinelounge Sunset, Hollywood.
Campers get killed. Got it?
With movies as small as “Capps Crossing,” it’s often unfair to pick on production values, location or even the acting. Independent filmmaking means small budgets, and audiences shouldn’t expect that they look and sound like big studio films. Unfortunately, the worst fault in this horror movie isn’t the amateur performances, beginner-level editing or the special effects; it’s the dreadfully dumb script.
Set in the California campground of the title, “Capps Crossing” begins with David (Brian Cory) murdering a few lonely geocachers as they hike through the forest in search of their treasure. A year later, three couples camp in an isolated area of the woods and David chooses them for his next victims. He begins taking them out in a manner that won’t be surprising to anyone who has seen a horror movie before.
Written, directed and produced by Mike Stahl, “Capps Crossing” does feature a bit of nicely disgusting gore and some interesting camera angles from cinematographer Alejandro Guimoye.
However, the script’s pacing is off, with the long break between the initial violence and the later killings creating boredom rather than tension. Stahl’s expository dialogue has his unlikable characters constantly reminding viewers of their relationship to each other, with “bro” and “sis” being said more frequently than characters’ names. Regardless of these connections, we can’t care about the people on screen, which makes their inevitable demise even more pointless. “Capps Crossing.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes. Playing: Arena Cinelounge Sunset, Hollywood.