Slurp! A rapt ode to noodles
Japan’s heartiest culinary export gets its worshipful due in director Koki Shigeno’s documentary “Ramen Heads,” a brisk if uneven celebration of the soup-and-noodle staple that will nevertheless have you scheduling a post-viewing trip to your closest bowlful.
Shigeno’s focus is on award-winning master Osamu Tomita and his wildly popular place in Matsudo, Japan. Famed for his gravythick pork-and-dried-fish broth blend (tonkotsu gyokai) and hand-made dipping noodles that use four different flours, Tomita is an instinctual, strict obsessive who attracts like-minded devotees from hundreds of miles away, lining up in the dead of night for one of 10 seats inside.
Both a long-form commercial and crampedkitchen stakeout of an eccentric, this extended portrait has its charms, although Shigeno’s artier touches — staged slo-mo reveries à la “Chef ’s Table” and a crudely animated history of ramen as a worker’s meal turned diverse canvas — don’t fare as well.
But, thankfully, there are also stopovers to check out other longstanding purveyors: a septuagenarian shoyu traditionalist whose tiny stall serves 700 bowls a day, the niboshi (sardine broth) specialist who kneads, monk-like, with his eyes closed, and Onishi Yuki, whose Tsuta became the first Michelin-starred ramen restaurant.
When it comes to eating in Japan, nothing may ever top the exquisite rush of “Tampopo,” but for a movie designed to honor the unexpected depths of a cultural hallmark, “Ramen Heads” does achieve, to borrow the ultimate standard of ramen quality, enough satisfying slurpability. — Robert Abele
“Ramen Heads.” In Japanese with English subtitles. Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes. Playing: Landmark NuArt, West L.A.
Hope, despair in lands in turmoil
As an exploration of the intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinian territories, “In the Land of Pomegranates” joins a long cinematic lineage. Like most of its forebears, it offers a few rays of hope along with profoundly dispiriting observations. What sets Hava Kohav Beller’s documentary apart is the intense colloquy at its disheartening heart: a series of discussions among young Palestinians and Israelis during a retreat in Germany.
There’s nothing feel-good about the group conversations, their bristling tension captured in intimate footage during the 2007 edition of a program called Vacation From War. Sitting in the same room, twentysomethings raised in political turmoil parse the difference between “terrorist” and “retaliatory” and express shockingly divergent points of view on the Holocaust. The searching complexity of the participants’ words is undeniable, but whether they truly see each other in a new, humanizing light is uncertain. And Beller never suggests otherwise.
The New York-based director — born in Germany, raised in Israel — spent a decade gathering material for the film, and as it leaps back and forth in time, it can feel disorganized and overlong. She intercuts the roundtables with a quartet of portraits, some more revealing than others. At its most hopeful, the film traces a story of medical diplomacy, involving a young Gaza boy’s life-saving surgery by an Israeli doctor. At its most searing, it illuminates the seeds of hatred and the depths of suffering and mistrust. — Sheri Linden
“In the Land of Pomegranates.” In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles. Not rated. Running time: 2 hours. Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills.
Joyful visit with violin prodigy
Itzhak Perlman’s musical gifts with violin and bow are legion, so any doc on him is sure to be fortified with performance pleasure. What’s especially appealing about Alison Chernick’s “Itzhak,” however, is how much time we spend with his personality, which radiates joy about art, thoughtfulness when he reflects on his life as the polio-surviving prodigy who made good, happiness around loved ones, and passion for teaching.
Less a standard biography run-through than a sprightly tag-along (with attendant archival clips), Chernick tries to keep up with the living legend as he travels the world performing and accepting awards. Trips to Israel spark rich conversations about the Jewish people’s history with the violin as an instrument of survival, struggle and spiritual emotion, and Perlman’s own upbringing there as the son of poor Polish immigrant parents who gave everything for his talent.
At home in New York, he relishes Shabbat dinner with his extended family, zips around on his scooter, rehearses with musicians (from classical to Billy Joel), kibitzes with friends and showers attention on students at Juilliard and the summer residency program he started with his wife of half a century, Toby.
In fact, Toby’s ebullient, fiercely intelligent and supportive presence is the movie’s other affirming force: as a portrait of a marriage forged in respect, love and companionship, “Itzhak” is in its casually wonderful way proof that life is rarely lived as a virtuosic solo. — Robert Abele
“Itzhak.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Royal, West L.A.; Laemmle Town Center 5, Encino; Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena.
A flawed portrait of ALS activist
With the Oscar-nominated “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me,” director James Keach shared the story of a towering figure’s fight against deterioration as Campbell battled Alzheimer’s. His latest Augie,” takes a similar approach toward business giant Augustine Nieto’s struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease). It doesn’t reach the heights of the earlier film — though no fault of its subject matter.
As the founder of gym equipment mainstay Life Fitness, Augustine “Augie” Nieto is a successful entrepreneur whose business was built on the health of others. But in 2005, Augie was diagnosed with ALS, upending his world and leaving him dependent on a modified wheelchair to move and communicate through a screen. Augie’s relationship with his wife, Lynne, drives the film as the couple invest their time, money and resources toward finding a cure for the fatal disease.
Augie’s challenges and efforts are moving, as is Lynne’s devotion to him. Unfortunately, the film lacks consistency in its structure, and it glosses over some moments and people without explanation. The treacly score doesn’t merely nudge viewers toward emotion, it shoves them.
Meanwhile, techniques like showing archival footage and interviews on Augie’s own screen serve only to distract. Keach should have trusted the power of Augie and Lynn’s story, rather than adding these unnecessary, ineffective flourishes. — Kimber Myers
“Augie.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills.
Not enough boo in this eerie tale
Zak Bagans’ documentary “Demon House” is essentially an uncensored, overlong episode of his long-running Travel Channel series “Ghost Adventures.” And while this particular “paranormal investigation” may terrify the more credulous among Bagans’ fan base, skeptics are likely to feel bored and confused.
The movie’s title refers to a Gary, Ind., home that Bagans bought after it became infamous for multiple eerie incidents. For the doc, he explores his new property with a film crew and interviews people whose lives have been in disarray since encountering this place.
“Demon House” leans hard on nonfiction TV techniques. Between the dramatic reenactments and the slick-looking establishing shots, Bagans plays and replays any scrap of footage that seems provocative or freaky. Any bold sound bite or unexplained shadow gets slowed down, enhanced and over-analyzed.
Given that this film was made by someone who has spent more than a decade in showbiz, the storytelling’s oddly muddled. There are pointless digressions and needless repetitions, and some of the sincerely concerned witnesses and commentators are undercut by scenes around the house that look staged — even if they may be real.
Worse, Bagans keeps insisting that events in “Demon House” illustrate how evil spirits pass from person to person, and he uses this hooey to explain actual human suffering. He even warns viewers not to watch if they’re concerned about demons reaching them “through electronic devices.”
Turning this movie off before it starts is actually a good idea: not because it’s dangerous, but because it’s lousy. — Noel Murray
“Demon House.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. Playing: Arena Cinelounge, Hollywood.