Showing posts with label Sundance Film Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sundance Film Festival. Show all posts

Monday, January 29, 2024

Sundance Film Festival 2024

I was so happy to be back at the Sundance Film Festival again this year!  Just like last year I got a Salt Lake City pass and I recognized quite a few pass holders from last year!  I'm usually really wary of talking to people I don't know but, for some reason, I love talking to people at Sundance about independent film and I had so much fun!  I was able to see 21 films (which beats the record of 18 set last year) and I liked almost all of what I saw (I only disliked one).  My first film was How to Have Sex which was one of my most anticipated films because I had heard so much about it.  It begins as a fun and lighthearted look at three young girls on holiday in Greece after taking their exams but then it suddenly becomes more sinister as it explores themes of peer pressure and consent.  I was very impressed with Mia McKenna-Bruce's performance because it is so raw and powerful.  My second film was Eno, an innovative documentary (it uses an algorithm to change the sequence of scenes and the footage used so every screening is different) about the innovative record producer Brian Eno.  I loved the deep dive into his creative process and, as a huge fan of U2, I especially enjoyed his discussion about producing the song "Moment of Surrender" (Bono also wrote about recording this song in his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story).  My third film was Frida.  This documentary about the painter Frida Kahlo is incredibly compelling because her own words from letters, interviews, and diaries are used to tell her story and I loved the beautiful animations created from her paintings.  My fourth film was Out of My Mind which, as a former teacher, I absolutely loved!  Melody Brooks (Phoebe-Rae Taylor) is a non-verbal sixth-grader with cerebral palsy who fights to be placed in a mainstreamed classroom because, even though she cannot speak, she has a lot to say.  This is such a powerful film that, in my opinion, should be seen by every educator because more often than not the education system fails students who are different.  Taylor, who has cerebral palsy, gives an authentic and affecting performance that moved me to tears at times.  The audience gave her a standing ovation when she appeared on stage for the Q & A after the film!  My fifth film was The Greatest Night in Pop which is a behind the scenes documentary about how some of the greatest pop stars of the day came together to record "We Are the World" to aid those suffering from famine in Africa during the 80s.  I remember when this song was released so this was very nostalgic for me.  I especially enjoyed the contemporary interviews with some participants, such as Lionel Ritchie, Huey Lewis, Bruce Springsteen, and Cyndi Lauper, because they all mention feeling intimidated by all of the talent in the studio!  My sixth film was Thelma and it is both delightful and heartwarming!  When 93-year-old Thelma Post (June Squibb) is scammed out of $10,000 by someone impersonating her grandson, she is inspired by the Mission: Impossible movies to go on a quest to get her money back!  Squibb (who is 94) is so charming as an unlikely action hero and the packed crowd at my screening howled with laughter at her antics!  My seventh film was Love Me, which was another one of my most anticipated films (I’m a big fan of Kristen Stewart).  After humanity has been annihilated, a smart buoy and a satellite make contact and interact as Me (Stewart) and I Am (Steven Yuen).  As they get to know each other, they access the internet to learn what it means to be human and adopt the personas of Deja and Liam, a popular influencer couple, but in order to love each other they both must eventually learn to be their authentic selves.  It features live action, motion capture performances, as well as animation and I think it is incredibly clever.  It meanders a bit but I really dug it!  My eighth film was The American Society of Magical Negroes and this satire is hilarious but also very thought-provoking!  A mild-mannered Black artist named Aren (Justice Smith) is recruited by Roger (David Alan Grier) to be a member of a secret society dedicated to making white people comfortable around Black people (referencing the "Magical Negro" movie trope involving a Black character who only exists to advance the arc of a white character).  However, it is only when he realizes that he has been doing this his whole life that he begins to assert himself.  I was a bit uncomfortable because I recognize the reality being satirized but there were lots of moments when I laughed out loud!  My ninth film was Sasquatch Sunset which I found strangely compelling.  It chronicles a year in the life of a Sasquatch family (portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough, David Zeller, and Christophe Zajac-Denek who are very expressive even though they are covered in makeup and fur) as they eat, vomit, defecate, urinate, copulate, give birth, and die (very realistically).  They periodically encounter civilization as man encroaches on their environment and the film ends with a powerful visual.  It was weird (is it even Sundance if you don't see something really out there?) but I couldn't look away.  My tenth film was Presence which is another film I was eagerly anticipating because it is directed by Steven Soderbergh.  A family in turmoil, including Chris (Chris Sullivan), Rebecca (Lucy Liu), Chloe (Callina Liang), and Tyler (Eddy Maday), moves into a suburban house hoping for a new start.  However, their chaotic relationships with each other are not improved when Chloe begins feeling a presence in the house.  This is more of an atmospheric psychological thriller than the horror movie I was expecting (a good thing) and I loved all of the camera work because it shows the POV of the ghost for the entire film.  My eleventh film was Winner which tells the true story of how Reality Winner (Emilia Jones) leaked information about Russia's involvement in the 2016 election to an online publication.  I've seen several versions of this story before but I really liked the use of dark humor in this one.  My twelfth film was Love Lies Bleeding which was the one I was most hyped for because, as a fan of director Rose Glass and of Kristen Stewart, I was excited to see a collaboration between them.  Jackie (Katy O'Brian) is an ambitious bodybuilder who stops in a small town in New Mexico on her way to a competition in Las Vegas and becomes involved with Lou (Stewart), the manager of a gym.  Her life becomes increasingly chaotic when Lou introduces her to steroids and to her dysfunctional family, including her gunrunning father (Ed Harris) as well as her sister (Jena Malone) and her sister's abusive husband (Dave Franco).  This is sexy, violent, and absolutely bonkers and I loved it but not as much as I thought I would because the ending didn't quite work for me.  My thirteenth film was Between the Temples and it was my only big miss at the festival.  Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) is a grief-stricken cantor who is brought back to life when his former grade school teacher (Carol Kane) comes to him for instruction before her bat mitzvah.  I liked the story and the performances but I hated how it was shot and edited because all of the extreme closeups are incredibly jarring.  My fourteenth film was A Real Pain and I really loved it!  Two cousins, outgoing and charismatic Benji (Kieran Culkin) and uptight and reserved David (Jesse Eisenberg), take a guided tour through Poland to see where their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who has recently died, came from.  They come face to face with the tragedy of the Holocaust (scenes where they visit a concentration camp are incredibly poignant) but they also feel the pain of realizing that, even though they were once close, they have drifted apart.  Kulkin gives a brilliant performance that made me laugh out loud but a monologue by Eisenberg had me in tears.  This was definitely my favorite of the festival.  My fifteenth film was DEVO and, while it is pretty straightforward documentary, I did learn a lot about a band I loved in my youth.  They formed during the aftermath of the Kent State massacre in an attempt to combine music, performance art, and their philosophy about the de-evolution of mankind and unexpectedly rose to prominence with the song "Whip It" which they say was misunderstood.  My sixteenth film was Your Monster and this screening was the most fun I had at Sundance!  Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) is an actress in the middle of a cancer diagnosis when her boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) breaks up with her and gives the part in a Broadway musical that he wrote for her to another actress.  As she wallows in self-pity, the monster (Tommy Dewey) she banished to the closet in childhood appears again to help her find love, and revenge, again.  I laughed and laughed at this musical theatre, romantic comedy, and horror mash-up and so did the entire audience (much to the delight of the producers who were there for the Q & A).  My seventeenth film was Girls State which is a documentary about a program run by the American Legion Auxiliary for high school girls to participate in a week long immersive simulation to learn about the workings of government.  It follows several girls from Missouri and I found all of their stories to be compelling but my favorite was about a girl who investigates the disparity between Boys State and Girls State (Fun fact: I applied to participate in Girls State when I was in high school but I wasn't selected and I am still bitter!).  My eighteenth film was Super/ Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.  I didn't necessarily learn anything new about the actor but I liked the structure because it emphasizes that Reeve became Superman when he was cast in a movie but he became a real superhero after his paralysis.  It includes lots of footage from his personal home movies and it is incredibly moving (lots of people near me were wiping tears from their eyes throughout).  My nineteenth movie, Hit Man, was another one I was really hyped to see!  Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a mild mannered psychology professor and amateur bird watcher who sometimes provides technical support for the police.  He is roped into going undercover as a hit man during a sting operation and, because he uses psychology to appeal to the would-be criminal (and some hilarious disguises), he is very successful.  Complications ensue when he falls for a woman who hires him (Adria Arjona).  This is wildly entertaining and I predict it will be a big hit when it streams on Netflix.  My twentieth film was The Outrun which was another one I was excited to see because I am a huge fan of Saoirse Ronan.  Rona (Ronan) is an alcoholic who attempts to get sober by returning home to the Orkney Islands where she is inspired by the beautiful but wild landscape.  The non-linear narrative didn’t always work for me but Ronan gives a brilliant performance.  My twenty-first (and final) film was My Old Ass which I decided to see because I am a fan of Aubrey Plaza.  Eighteen year old Elliott Labrant (Maisy Stella) is restless and eager to leave her small rural town for the big city but, when she is visited by an older version of herself (Plaza), she learns to appreciate the life she has now.  This is a fun YA romantic comedy and I really loved the message about labels.  Whew!  I loved every minute of Sundance this year and I am already looking forward to next year!

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Eileen

I enjoyed the psychological thriller Eileen at Sundance this year so, now that it is in wide release, I decided to see it again with my nephew after he suggested it last night.  Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie) is a lonely and repressed young woman working a thankless job as a secretary at a juvenile detention center in a small town in Massachusetts during the 1960s while caring for her alcoholic and abusive father Jim (Shea Whigham).  Her drab and dreary world is transformed when she meets and becomes infatuated with Dr. Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway), the alluring new prison psychologist.  Rebecca draws Eileen into her orbit but the balance of power shifts between them when they take an interest in Lee Polk (Sam Nivola), an inmate convicted of stabbing his father to death.  This is an atmospheric and stylish slow-burn with a wild twist in the third act (it happens so suddenly that I was shocked the first time I saw it because I had no idea where the narrative was going and several people in the audience last night audibly gasped) but the abrupt ending left me wanting more.  Both Hathaway and McKenzie are outstanding and have great chemistry, especially as the intense connection between their characters is explored with lingering close-up shots of their faces, but Maren Ireland steals the show with a brief but devastating monologue.  I loved the score by Richard Reed Parry because it really adds to the tension and the cinematography brilliantly highlights the desolation all around.  I would ultimately recommend this because it is incredibly unnerving and compelling but I wish that it had gone a little further.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

You Hurt My Feelings

The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway last night was You Hurt My Feelings, another favorite from Sundance this year.  This is a simple, funny, and honest exploration of the ways in which we deceive the ones we love in order to spare their feelings.  Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Don (Tobias Menzies) are a loving and devoted couple living in NYC.  He is a therapist and she is an author who has just finished her latest novel but, because she is feeling insecure about it, he gives her encouraging feedback.  However, she and her sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) overhear Don tell Sarah's husband Mark (Arian Moayed) that he doesn't like her work and she is understandably devastated.  She is not appeased when he explains that he was just trying to be supportive but then she realizes how often she has been guilty of telling little white lies to those around her, particularly her son Eliot (Owen Teague).  She also realizes that she doesn't appreciate the unvarnished truth her mother (Jeannie Berlin) tells her.  The dialogue is sharp and very witty and I laughed out loud several times, especially in the scenes involving Don's bickering patients (real-life couple David Cross and Amber Tamblyn) who are juxtaposed with Don and Beth.  The cast is wonderful (I really enjoyed the interactions between Louis-Dreyfus and Watkins because they actually seemed like sisters) and the situations are very relatable because we have all told a little white lie to avoid hurting the ones we love.  This reminded me of the kind of character-driven slice-of-life comedies about quirky New Yorkers that Woody Allen used to make.  It is charming little gem and I highly recommend it.

Past Lives

Not only is Past Lives my favorite from Sundance this year, it is my favorite movie of 2023 so far!  I had the chance to see it again last night as the first in a double feature at the Broadway and I loved it even more!  I can't imagine that another movie will overtake it (but you never know!).  Na Young (Seung Ah Moon) and Hae Sung (Seung Min Yim) are childhood sweethearts (and rivals for the best marks in school) in Seoul, South Korea.  They are separated when Na Young's family emigrates to Canada and she leaves without saying goodbye to him.  Twelve years later Na Young, who has changed her name to Nora (Greta Lee), is in college in NYC studying to be a playwright when she discovers that Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) has been trying to find her on social media.  They happily reconnect and begin spending all of their time talking and reminiscing with each other via Skype.  They eventually discuss the possibility of visiting each other but, because Nora has been accepted to a writing retreat and Hae Sung is about to do a language course in China, she thinks it best that stop talking in order to concentrate on their studies.  Twelve years later Nora is married to Arthur (John Magaro) and working as a playwright in NYC.  Hae Sung has just ended a relationship because he cannot commit to marriage and decides to vacation in NYC as an excuse to see Nora.  They spend several days together and their undeniable connection leads them to speculate about their destiny.  This is a beautiful story about two people who yearn for the past and the life they might have lived together but understand that the lives they now lead are the ones they are meant to have.  Lee and Yoo give highly nuanced performances where just a glance expresses more emotion than pages of dialogue and I especially loved a scene where Hae Sung is nervously waiting to meet up with Nora because you can see everything he is feeling from just a few gestures.  This is definitely a love story but I felt a deep emotional connection to Nora's experience as an immigrant (I even had a childhood friend that I had to leave behind in Canada and I've always wondered about him) and two incredibly poignant moments brought me to tears.  The first is when Nora tells Arthur that she is where she is meant to be because it is where she ended up and the second is when Nora tells Hae Sung that the twelve year old girl he knew was left behind in Korea.  I sometimes wish that I had stayed in Canada but I know that I am who I am today because I left and seeing Nora eventually come to the same realization was extremely cathartic for me.  The hype I felt for this at Sundance is real and I cannot recommend it enough!

Friday, February 3, 2023

Living

The second movie in my double feature yesterday was Living.  I saw this virtually at Sundance last year and it was so lovely that I decided to see it on the big screen now that it is in wide release.  The always wonderful Bill Nighy is Rodney Williams, a paper-pushing bureaucrat at the ministry of public works in post-war London.  He is mild-mannered, set in his ways, and largely ineffective at his job.  When he receives a terminal diagnosis he chooses not to tell his son (Barney Fishwick) and daughter-in-law (Patsy Ferran) and, instead, withdraws a large sum of money and travels to Brighton where he hopes to live a little but doesn't know how.  He takes a dissolute writer (Tom Burke) that he meets by chance as his guide through the unseemly but this proves unsatisfactory.  Upon returning home he forms an unlikely friendship with a vivacious young woman (Aimee Lou Wood) from his office because he is attracted to her zest for living but this relationship becomes fodder for gossip.  Ultimately, he decides to use the time he has left to make a difference and returns to work to see a project long buried in paperwork to fruition which inspires a young colleague (Alex Sharp).  This is a very subtle character study of a man living with regret about the way in which he has lived his life and it might be too subdued for many but I was incredibly moved by it.  This is due, in large part, to the quietly powerful performance by Nighy (who is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor).  He conveys more with just a minute change of expression than many other actors do with pages of dialogue, especially in a scene where he reacts to flashbacks from his life.  The production design, costumes (I love that a hat is used as a symbol of transformation), and washed out cinematography are brilliant because this actually looks like it could be a film from the 1950s, particularly the opening credits.  I really enjoyed this exquisite little gem and I highly recommend seeking it out.

Infinity Pool

I had a strange (thematically) double feature at the Broadway yesterday starting with Infinity Pool.  I recently saw this at Sundance but I decided to take another dip because I was really curious to see the differences in the theatrical release (also because I am a freak).  James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are vacationing at a luxurious resort located in a developing island country.  They are advised not to leave the compound because the island suffers from abject poverty and has a high crime rate with inhabitants who often target wealthy tourists.  However, fellow guests Gabi (Mia Goth) and Alban Bauer (Jalil Lespert) convince them to leave the resort with them in a hired car for a day at a secluded beach.  On the way back to the resort James accidentally hits and kills a local resident with the car.  He is eventually arrested and, according to custom, the victim's next of kin is allowed to kill him for the sake of the family's honor but there is an alternative, offered to tourists and diplomats, which allows him to avoid the execution for an exorbitant fee.  This alternative is reprehensible but he takes it and soon learns that many of the other guests at the resort, including Gabi and Alban, have had the same experience and return to the resort year after year for the freedom it allows them.  James is titillated by what he has done and is soon drawn into the violent and hedonistic exploits of his fellow guests because there are no longer any consequences for his actions.  Even with several scenes edited from the version I saw at Sundance (yes that scene), this is incredibly shocking and disturbing with some really trippy cinematography but it has a lot of interesting things to say about both privilege and morality and I found it very compelling.  Both Skarsgard and Goth, who is completely unhinged in the best possible way, give fully committed performances and you simply cannot look away from them but there is such a feeling of escalating dread, even upon a second viewing, that I often wanted to.  This definitely won't be for everyone but I loved it and recommend it to fans of Brandon Cronenberg.

Monday, January 30, 2023

Sundance Film Festival 2023

I am so happy that I got to attend the Sundance Film Festival in person this year!  I really missed the excitement of seeing a film on the big screen with a large and enthusiastic crowd as well as all of the wonderful conversations with people who love independent film as much as I do!  I was able to see eighteen films (at the Grand Theatre and the Rose Wagner Center for the Performing Arts) which is my record for in-person screenings!  My first film was Sometimes I Think About Dying.  Fran (Daisy Ridley) is a lonely young woman in a mundane job who struggles to make connections with people because she thinks that her life isn't interesting enough.  To compensate for her boring existence she has elaborate daydreams about dying.  She eventually finds a reason to engage with life when she meets a new co-worker (Dave Merheje) but can she overcome her anxiety to have a relationship with him?  I loved Ridley's restrained, yet highly nuanced, performance and I laughed out loud at Fran's awkwardness because it is such a realistic portrayal of an introvert.  My second film was the psychological thriller Run Rabbit Run.  Sarah (Sarah Snook) is disconcerted when her daughter Mia (Lily LaTorre) turns seven and seems to become possessed by Sarah's sister who mysteriously disappeared when she was seven.  Mia's behavior brings up a repressed childhood trauma for Sarah and, eventually, the audience is left to wonder if she needs protection from Mia or if Mia needs protection from her.  There is such a sense of foreboding (the sound design is brilliant) but the filmmakers can't seem to commit to it because just when the tension is at its peak it is dialed back and I found that incredibly frustrating.  My third film was The Pod Generation where a couple (Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor) living in the near future decide to have a baby using an artificial womb.  I loved the world-building (especially the A.I. psychologist) and the message about becoming too reliant on technology but it does go on a bit.  My fourth film was Other People's Children.  A 40-year-old teacher named Rachel (Virginie Efira) fears that she is running out of time to have a child but things become complicated when she grows attached to her partner's four year old daughter.  I really loved Rachel's character arc (especially since I am a teacher and an aunt who doesn't have children) as well as Elfira's luminous performance.  My fifth film was Magazine Dreams, which was one of my most anticipated because I really like Jonathan Majors.  After surviving a childhood filled with violence, Killian Maddox (Majors) channels all of his obsessive energy into bodybuilding and his highest aspiration is to be on the cover of a magazine so he will be remembered.  However, anger management issues, setbacks in his personal and professional life, and disillusionment after meeting his bodybuilding hero cause Maddox to contemplate another way of achieving fame.  This has some really heavy themes that won't be for everyone but Majors delivers a brilliant performance. My sixth film was Birth/Rebirth which is a horror film based on Frankenstein involving a pathologist (Maren Ireland) and a labor and delivery nurse (Judy Reyes) who conspire to bring a child back to life.  Both Ireland and Reyes give captivating performances that explore the lengths to which one will go for science and the other for the love of a child.  It is plenty gory but I also enjoyed the dark humor.  My seventh film was Theater Camp and this screening was the most fun I had at the whole festival!  This is a feel-good mockumentary about saving a theater camp after the owner has a seizure and her clueless son takes over.  It stars Ben Platt, Molly Gordon, and Noah Galvin who give hilarious performances.  The audience in my screening laughed out loud through the whole thing!  My eighth film was The Deepest Breath which was my first documentary of the festival.  This is about the extreme sport of freediving which follows Alessia Zecchini and Stephen Keenan in their quest for her to complete a notoriously dangerous dive.  I found it interesting, engaging, and emotional with stunning underwater photography.  My ninth film was the noir thriller Eileen.  A repressed young woman named Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) becomes infatuated with the new psychologist, Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway), at the prison where she works.  They begin a relationship but the balance of power shifts in one of the wildest third act twists I've seen!  It is stylish and atmospheric with fantastic performances from McKenzie and Hathaway.  My tenth film was Infinity Pool which was the film I was most excited to see when the festival program was announced and the late night crowd was absolutely wild!  While on vacation at an exclusive resort located in a developing country, a wealthy couple (Alexander Skarsgard and Cleopatra Coleman) discovers that the consequences of their actions can go away for the right price but this discovery leads the husband on a path to hedonism, violence, and, eventually, madness (with the help of an unhinged Mia Goth).  It is shocking and disturbing (I've heard that the theatrical release has been cut) but I really dug it!  My eleventh film was You Hurt My Feelings which is a light and breezy comedy about the little white lies we tell people to spare their feelings.  It is pretty insubstantial but I did laugh out loud many times and the cast is great, particularly Julia Louis-Dreyfus.  My twelfth film was My Animal which blends the coming of age genre with horror.  Heather (Bobbi Salvor Menuez) is an outsider in her small town but her secret is harder to hide when she becomes infatuated with Jonny (Amandla Stenberg).  The werewolf mythology is just a metaphor for Heather's sexual awakening but I wanted a bit more bite in the third act after all of the build-up.  My thirteenth film was It's Only Life After All, a documentary about the Indigo Girls that details how Amy Ray and Emily Saliers became one of the most influential folk-rock duos despite the backlash about their gender, sexuality, and political activism.  I am a casual fan but I loved this intimate, and often humorous, portrait (I had to laugh when Ray gets embarrassed by the angst in “Blood and Fire” because I love that song).  My fourteenth film was Shortcomings which was another one of my most anticipated.  Ben (Justin H. Min) is an aspiring filmmaker who is forced to recognize his insufferable behavior when he loses his job and his girlfriend Mika (Ally Maki) and best friend Alice (Sherry Cole) move to New York.  Despite a few *ahem* shortcomings, I enjoyed the commentary on race and identity as well as the humor.  My fifteenth film was Past Lives and I really loved it because it struck a chord with me.  Childhood friends Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) are separated when her family emigrates from South Korea to Canada.  Twelve years later they reconnect on Facebook but lose touch again and move on with their lives.  After another twelve years, Hae Sung visits her in New York and they speculate about what their lives would be like if she had stayed in South Korea or if they had kept in touch.  This film is about idealized memories of people and places and I could really relate to this theme as someone who left a childhood friend behind after emigrating to the U.S.  This is my favorite film of the festival and will probably be one of my favorites this year!  My sixteenth film was the hip romantic comedy Rye Lane.  Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah) meet and spontaneously spend the day walking through various London neighborhoods while commiserating about their recent break-ups and helping each other get revenge on their exes.  There are lots of fun and surrealistic flashback sequences and some great cameos.  My seventeenth film was Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie and I really enjoyed this documentary about Fox's rise to fame and diagnosis with Parkinson's Disease.  Archival footage and reenactments are edited together very effectively and I loved the needle drops.  My eighteenth and final film was Flora and Son and I definitely picked a good one to end with!  This is another feel-good movie about the power of music from John Carney (the director of Once and Sing Street) with a great performance from Eve Hewson as a single mom trying to find a connection to her delinquent son (Oren Kinlan).  I loved the chemistry between Hewson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who plays her guitar teacher) and the original songs are fun and catchy.  There you have it!  I declare the festival a success because I had so much fun watching some great films and meeting some wonderful people!

Sunday, June 19, 2022

Brian and Charles

Another favorite from Sundance that is now playing at the Broadway is Brian and Charles and it was the second film in my double feature last night.  This is a mockumentary about Brian (David Earl), a lonely and eccentric handyman in a small village in Wales, who has a penchant for inventing unusual items which sometimes work but mostly do not.  One day he finds a head from a mannequin in a pile of rubbish on the side of the road and decides to make a robot by attaching it to an old washing machine and using other sundry parts found in his cowshed.  The resulting robot, named Charles Petrescu (Chris Hayward), comes to life during a thunderstorm and he and Brian become the best of friends.  Trouble arises when Charles wants to explore (he is especially keen to see Honolulu after watching a travel program on the telly) but Brian wants him to stay at home to keep him safe from the harsh world.  Charles ultimately plays matchmaker between Brian and a lonely woman (Louise Brealey) who lives with her mother, helps Brian find the courage to stand up to a bully (Jamie Michie) who has been terrorizing the village, and convinces Brian to let him live his dream of traveling the world.  This might not be everyone's cup of tea but I absolutely love British humor and I think it is hilarious.  It reminds me of all of the old British comedies that I used to watch on PBS when I was a teenager and I laughed out loud through the whole thing.  I am so glad that I decided to see this on the big screen (Sundance was completely virtual this year) because it was definitely a lot more fun watching it with a crowd that was laughing as much as I was!  It is as heartwarming as it is funny and I highly recommend it!

Note:  Stay through the credits to hear Charles Petrescu rapping!

Cha Cha Real Smooth

The Broadway is currently showing two of my favorite films from Sundance this year so I decided to see them both as a double feature yesterday.  I started with Cha Cha Real Smooth, which was the darling of the festival, and I think I enjoyed it even more the second time.  After graduating from college, Andrew (Cooper Raiff) is at loose ends because his girlfriend has moved to Barcelona to study and he living at home in the suburbs with his mom (Leslie Mann), stepdad (Brad Garrett), and younger brother David (Evan Assante) while working a dead end job at the food court in the mall.  When asked to drive David to a Bat Mitzvah, he crashes the party and eventually gets everyone dancing.  He meets Domino (Dakota Johnson) and impresses her when he is able to get her autistic daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt) out on the dance floor.  All of the other mothers are impressed with his energy and enthusiasm so they hire him to be a party starter for all of their upcoming Bat and Bar Mitzvahs which keeps him in frequent contact with Domino.  They eventually form a complicated friendship.  Domino flirts with him because, even though she is engaged, he makes her feel young and carefree and he believes that he is in love with her because he feels needed by both her and Lola.  Their relationship eventually runs its course after Domino finds the courage to commit to her fiance and Andrew finds some direction in his life.  This is a heartfelt and charming coming of age story with incredibly appealing performances from Raiff, who is as irrepressible as a puppy, Johnson, who is absolutely luminous, and Burghardt, who steals every scene she is in.  Even though I am a bit older (ahem) than the target audience I really related to the main character because I also felt completely lost during this period in my life.  I loved everything about this film (the attention to detail with all of the Bat and Bar Mitzvah themes is a highlight) and I left the theater with a huge smile on my face.  Go see it!

Sunday, February 20, 2022

The Worst Person in the World

One of my very favorite films at the Sundance Film Festival this year was The Worst Person in the World so I was really happy to be able to see it again at my favorite art house theater last night.  I think I loved it even more upon a second viewing!  Julie (Renate Reinsve) changes majors, boyfriends, and, rather amusingly, hairstyles several times before deciding to leave school to pursue photography.  She takes a temporary job in a bookstore and moves in with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a comic book artist who is several years her senior, after meeting him at a party.  She is ambivalent when Aksel presses her about starting a family and, even though she loves him, her dissatisfaction with the direction of her life causes her to question their relationship and whether she is ready to make a commitment.  She becomes infatuated with Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), a man she meets when she crashes a wedding, and eventually leaves Aksel to move in with him but he also proves to be a disappointment.  She continually wonders when life will begin but it takes a tragedy for her to realize that she has been living all along.  I love the character of Julie so much because, even though I am a bit (ahem) older than she is, I can really relate to feeling like you should have life figured out by a certain age and I definitely appreciate the message that there is not necessarily a timeline for doing so.  Reinsve give an absolutely captivating and moving performance (I think she deserved a Best Actress Oscar nomination), particularly in an emotionally charged but incredibly honest scene in which she breaks up with Aksel.  Danielsen Lie is also outstanding, giving a powerful monologue in the third act about the things we hold on to in life.  Trier uses the time of day (and the city of Oslo) very effectively in three brilliant scenes depicting Julie's state of mind.  First, she walks home wistfully at dusk feeling disillusioned with life until she is distracted by a party.  Next, she is giddy as she runs through the streets during the day, while time stops for every one else, to follow a sudden impulse.  Finally, she is heartbroken as she wanders the city in tears all night before she finds some peace at sunrise.  I love the imagery of these scenes because they are all so evocative and the time of day is a great metaphor for the ebb and flow of life.  I laughed out loud multiple times and I shed a tear or two!  This is one of the best romantic comedies that I've seen, mostly because it subverts the genre, and I highly recommend it!

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Sundance Film Festival 2022

I didn't participate in the Sundance Film Festival last year because it was completely virtual and I prefer seeing films on the big screen and I really enjoy interacting with film aficionados from all over the world.  When I heard that the festival would be in-person this year, I immediately bought a Salt Lake City package which entitled me to ten tickets rather than access to every film screened in SLC as in year's past.  It seemed like a lot of money for only ten tickets but I eagerly selected my films and began anticipating an experience that I really love.  Then came the disappointing news that, due to the surge in Covid cases from the Omicron variant, the festival was canceling all in-person screenings in order to be completely virtual once again.  I assumed, incorrectly, that refunds would be issued to those who didn't want to watch films on their computers but festival organizers insisted that all packages were non-refundable and refused.  I was really angry about this but, since my only other option was to donate the cost of the tickets to the festival, I decided to make the best of it and I eventually picked 21 films.  My first film was The Princess and I was really excited about this documentary because I have been fascinated by Diana ever since I got up early to watch her wedding.  This is a story that has been told many times but the use of archival footage without any narration or contemporary interviews provides an intriguing new take on the Princess of Wales and I really enjoyed it.  There was even footage that I, a self-avowed expert on the Royal Family, had never seen before!  My second film was The Worst Person in the World and this was, without a doubt, my most anticipated film of the festival (it will have a wide release in theaters in a few weeks and I will definitely be seeing it again).  Renate Reinsve is incredibly appealing as an aimless young woman who drifts from relationship to relationship, first with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) and then Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), in order to discover that you don't need to have life figured out yet.  As someone who does not even remotely have life figured out yet, I loved this film!  My third film was Good Luck to You, Leo Grande and, even though it was not at all what I was expecting (I thought it would be a lot funnier), I loved Emma Thompson's brilliant, and incredibly brave, performance as a widow who has a sexual awakening after hiring a male prostitute.  I also loved her chemistry with Daryl McCormack.  My fourth film was Summering, a coming of age story about four girls who have an unexpected adventure the weekend before they start middle school.  It reminded me of Stand By Me but it wasn't nearly as endearing.  I enjoyed the magical realism but the story doesn't really go anywhere with too many unresolved plot points.  My fifth film was A Love Song.  This is a subdued (maybe too subdued?) but moving portrait of grief and loneliness with fantastic performances from Dale Dickey and Wes Studi as former high school sweethearts who meet each other once again.  My sixth film was Emergency and it is another festival favorite for me.  Two Black college students, along with their Latino roommate, are forced to take racism into account when deciding how they will respond to an emergency.  It brilliantly combines comedy, suspense, and biting social commentary to create a thought-provoking and entertaining film that I absolutely loved!  My seventh film was FRESH and it gives new meaning to the term "meat market."  Daisy Edgar-Jones plays a woman fed up with dating apps and Sebastian Stan is the charming but psychotic man she falls for after meeting him in the produce section.  It is a gruesome dark comedy but I loved the killer soundtrack.  My eighth film, 892, was another one of my most anticipated.  It is a tense and heartbreaking true story about a former marine who holds up a bank for the $892 disability check that is owed him but is caught up in the bureaucracy of the VA.  It features a riveting and powerful performance by John Boyega.  My ninth film was Living and I selected it because it stars Bill Nighy and I will see anything he is in!  He plays a paper-pushing bureaucrat in post-war London who decides to live a more meaningful life after receiving a terminal diagnosis.  It is very slow but charming and features a lovely performance by Nighy, especially in a scene where he sings on a playground swing that he helped build.  My tenth film was Call Jane, the first of two films I saw about a real-life underground collective that helped women have access to abortions in the late 1960s.  This is a fictionalized account about a suburban housewife (Elizabeth Banks) who finds the group when she needs a life-saving abortion and the hospital refuses to perform it.  The lighthearted tone didn't quite work for such an important and timely subject, although I really enjoyed Sigourney Weaver's irreverent performance.  I got a last minute ticket to my eleventh film, After Yang, because it received such glowing praise and it definitely didn't disappoint.  When an android companion malfunctions, his owner accesses his memories and they cause him to reevaluate the nature of humanity.  This is beautiful, contemplative, and moving with lovely performances from the whole cast.  I loved it!  My twelfth film was Master which follows the recent trend of using the horror genre to explore the theme of racism.  A young Black student at an elite New England college is haunted by an incident from the past and plagued by an ongoing problem in the present.  In my opinion the social commentary works better than the supernatural elements do but they both contribute to a very palpable sense of dread.  My thirteenth film was Dual and I chose it because I absolutely loved The Art of Self-Defense and was eager to see another film by Riley Stearns.  I am a huge fan of dark absurdist comedies and this is a fantastic satirical exploration of identity in which a woman is forced to fight her clone in a duel to the death.  Karen Gillan's deadpan delivery as both characters really worked for me because it emphasizes the dehumanization they both experience.  My fourteenth film was Resurrection and I don't know what this says about me because it is absolutely bonkers but I loved it.  Rebecca Hall is brilliant as a woman who comes undone when an emotionally manipulative former lover suddenly reappears in her life and it is her committed performance that makes the bizarre twist in the third act seem completely plausible.  My fifteenth film was Lucy and Desi, a touching portrait of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz that emphasizes their enduring legacy.  It is a very straightforward documentary but it is at its best when it utilizes their own voices culled from hours of audio tapes provided by their daughter Lucie Arnaz.  My sixteenth film, Cha Cha Real Smooth, was one of the biggest crowd-pleasers of the festival and I was lucky enough to snag a ticket when more were released.  This is a heartfelt and charming coming of age story about a recent college graduate trying to navigate life and love and features incredibly appealing performances from Cooper Raiff and Dakota Johnson.  Even though I am a bit older (ahem) than the target audience I really related to the main character because I also felt completely lost during this period in my life.  I loved everything about this film!  My seventeenth film was Brian and Charles and this put a huge smile on my face.  It is a hilarious mockumentary about an eccentric inventor in Wales who builds a robot to be his friend and it reminded me of the British comedies I loved as a teenager.  My eighteenth film, Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul, was another mockumentary this time about a pastor of a megachurch and his wife as they attempt to rehabilitate their tarnished image after a scandal.  It is laugh out loud funny but it is also a scathing indictment of the hypocrisy so often found in the megachurch culture.  Regina Hall is fantastic, especially when the cameras stop rolling and the mask drops.  My nineteenth film was LAST FLIGHT HOME and it was incredibly difficult for me to watch having recently lost my own father.  This documentary is a beautiful and moving tribute from a daughter to her extraordinary father as he ends his life on his own terms.  I cried through most of it.  My twentieth film was The Janes and I was really eager to see this having watched Call Jane.  This documentary explores the same underground collective that helped women gain access to abortions in Chicago during the late 1960s but it is much more compelling because it puts the real names and faces to the characters in the fictionalized story.  My final film was the funny and delightful Am I OK?  I loved this story about friendship and self-discovery with yet another fantastic performance from Dakota Johnson.  It was nice to end on such a lighthearted note after so much heavy content.

Monday, August 9, 2021

Nine Days

Not only was Nine Days my favorite selection at the Sundance Film Festival last year, it was my favorite movie of 2020.  I absolutely loved this beautiful exploration of what it means to be alive the first time I saw it and I think I loved it even more when I saw it again yesterday!  On an alternate plane of existence, Will (Winston Duke), a man who was once alive but had a difficult life experience, is tasked with choosing which souls will get the privilege of being born and then monitoring and recording the details of their life experience.  He is assisted by Kyo (Benedict Wong), a soul who is in limbo, and the two of them watch video footage from the POV of each person Will selected on vintage TV screens.  He is worried about a young man who is being bullied by his classmates and a veteran who has suffered a disabling injury but he takes great pride in a violin prodigy named Amanda.  On the day that she is about to perform a concert, she has a fatal car crash that is presumed to be a suicide.  Will is devastated by this loss and obsessively searches through his video archives to look for a sign as to what went wrong.  In the meantime, he must select a soul to replace her and several candidates arrive at his door to be interviewed over a period of nine days: Maria (Arianna Ortiz), Mike (David Rysdahl), Alexander (Tony Hale), Kane (Bill Skarsgard), and Emma (Zazie Beetz).  Afraid of making another mistake, Will tries to determine which candidate will be tough enough to handle all of the hardships and miseries of life.  When a candidate is dismissed, Will creates elaborate simulations of a life experience chosen by each one before he or she disappears from existence.  The final candidate to be dismissed asks for the experience that made Will feel the most alive which, ultimately, teaches him that life is also filled with joy.  Once again, the final scene brought me to tears because it is such a thought-provoking and poignant moment.  I loved the message that happiness can be found in the simplest of moments and that we shouldn't take any of our time on Earth for granted.  I also enjoyed all of the philosophical discussions that Will has with all of the candidates about the nature of humanity, particularly the question about the Holocaust.  Duke gives a phenomenal performance as a man afraid of life who eventually learns to live.  I cannot recommend this movie enough and it is definitely worth seeking out.

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Dream Horse

I had the chance to see Dream Horse with a group of my students (and Sean) last year at the Sundance Film Festival and we all loved this inspiring true story!  I saw it again last night now that it is in wide release and I had just as many goosebumps as I did during my first viewing.  Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) lives in an economically depressed mining village in Wales with her unemployed and unmotivated husband Brian (Owen Teale).  She works as a checker at a co-op during the day and as a barmaid at the local pub in the evening as well as caring for her aging parents.  She feels that her life has become stagnant and yearns for a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  One night at the pub she overhears Howard Davies (Damian Lewis) brag about owning a winning racehorse with a syndicate of investors (he fails to mention that this venture nearly bankrupted him) and decides that she wants to own a racehorse.  She uses her savings to buy a bad-tempered mare who came in last in every race she ran and enlists Howard's help in recruiting a group of friends, including the town drunk (Karl Johnson) and a lonely widow (Sian Phillips), to form her own syndicate to pay the stud fee of a champion.  They name the resulting foal Dream Alliance and raise him on their small allotment in the village.  Philip Hobbs (Nicholas Farrell), a well-known trainer in England, decides to work with Dream because he thinks the horse has spirit but he doesn't have much hope for his prospects.  Nonetheless, Hobbs enters Dream in a local race and the syndicate is elated when he comes from behind to win.  As Dream wins more and more races against all odds, he becomes a symbol of hope for Jan, Brian, Howard, and the entire village.  This is a stand-up-and-cheer movie about doing whatever it takes to achieve a dream and I found it to be incredibly moving even though I knew the outcome!  The racing sequences are exhilarating but my favorite moments are when the ragtag group of misfits in the syndicate watch Dream's first race in the owners' box with the other wealthy and aristocratic owners (it is hilarious) and when the entire village welcomes the syndicate home with a victory parade.  I highly recommend this feel-good movie (stay through the credits to see the actors and their real-life counterparts singing in the pub).

Note:  This story is also the subject of fabulous documentary called Dark Horse.  I recommend it as well.

Saturday, March 20, 2021

The Courier

I saw The Courier at the Sundance Film Festival last year (although when I saw it the name was Ironbark in reference to the code name used by the Soviet agent) and I really enjoyed this taut and suspenseful spy thriller so I decided to see it again last night.  Tensions are escalating between the United States and the Soviet Union over the build up of nuclear weapons.  Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), a high-ranking science officer in the Soviet government, believes that Khrushchev is erratic and looking for any excuse to go to war with the U.S. so he goes to great lengths to contact the West about providing secret intelligence.  Because Penkovsky is so prominent, Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan) of the CIA and Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) of MI-6 don't want to compromise him by using known agents.  They recruit Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), an unassuming middle-aged businessman with accounts in Eastern Europe, to make contact with him.  After meeting with Wynne, Penkovsky is impressed with his grace under pressure and insists that the CIA continue to use him as a courier even though he is an amateur.  Wynne is initially reluctant because it will be dangerous and, more importantly, his behavior will make his wife Sheila (Jessie Buckley) suspicious because of a previous infidelity but, after a crash course in spy craft, he eventually smuggles in thousands of pieces of intel and develops a close friendship with Penkovsky.  The stakes are raised significantly when Khrushchev places missiles in Cuba and when Penkovsky comes under suspicion.  I really love spy movies and this is a good one because it focuses on the humanity of both characters and their desire to make the world a better place by their actions.  It is moody and atmospheric with lots of Cold War intrigue that had me on the edge of my seat (even upon a second viewing).  Cumberbatch gives a riveting performance (one of his best) that is sometimes amusing, especially when he attempts to get in shape, and sometimes quite affecting, especially in a late scene with Ninidze.  The fact that this is based on a true story makes it even more compelling and I highly recommend it, especially to fans of the genre.

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Promising Young Woman

I saw Promising Young Woman at Sundance this year (that seems like such a long time ago) and it was definitely one of my favorites from the festival so I was really excited to see it again last night now that it is in wide release!  Thirty year old Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) is still living at home with her parents and working at a dead-end job in a coffee shop.  She is clearly troubled and spends her weekends dressing provocatively, going to bars, pretending to be drunk, and assaulting the men who try to take advantage of her.  It is eventually revealed that her life was derailed by a traumatic incident when she was in medical school and that it caused her to drop out.  It seems that her life has been in limbo ever since but everything changes when she has a chance encounter with Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham), a former classmate.  She begins a relationship with him and starts to take an interest in life again but, when she learns of his involvement in the incident, she becomes intent on exacting revenge.  You think you know where the action is going and then there is a major twist and, while you are still processing what just happened, there is another one (which made the crowd in my screening at Sundance cheer out loud).  It is absolutely brilliant!  I love a good dark comedy and this is a quirky and subversive take on the traditional revenge story.  Carey Mulligan gives one of the best performances of her career as a woman who is broken but also angry.  She is scary when she lashes out against men who seem nice but are not and she shows vulnerability when she finds one who actually is.  All of writer/director Emerald Fennell's choices are so specific and stylized, from the decor in Cassie's house, which seems to belong in another era, to the clothes and hairstyles Cassie wears, which are more appropriate for a teenager, and they serve to emphasize the fact that time has stopped for Cassie and that she can't put the incident behind her.  The needle drops are also incredibly clever, especially "Boys" by Charli XCX, "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)" by Carmen DeLeon, an instrumental version of "Toxic" by Britney Spears, and "Angel Of The Morning" by Juice Newton (in the aforementioned pivotal scene which prompted applause and cheering).  There are some jarring tonal shifts but the whole movie is so audacious that it is best to just go along for the ride.  I loved it and I recommend it to fans of dark comedies.

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Sundance Film Festival 2020

The 2020 Sundance Film Festival has concluded and, even though I am incredibly sleep deprived, I had such a great time!  I was able to see 16 films in 10 days at five different venues and I really enjoyed all of them.  My first film was The Perfect Candidate which was filmed in Saudi Arabia.  Despite many restrictions on her freedom, a young woman (Mila Alzahrani) practices as a doctor in a small clinic but access is difficult because the dirt road leading to it frequently floods.  She tries to get the road paved but no one pays attention to her.  When she accidentally signs up to run in a municipal election, she decides to pursue it, against all odds, in order to get the road paved but, instead, she earns the respect of everyone in her life.  I thought this film was a very charming story of female empowerment and I really enjoyed the amusing scenes where her sisters help her with her campaign.  My second film was Worth which is a true story about the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.  Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) is a powerful New York lawyer tasked with assigning a value on the lives lost in the 9/11 terror attacks for compensation purposes to keep families from suing and potentially crippling the U.S. economy.  At first he uses an actuarial formula and then he realizes that he needs a more personal approach when he begins meeting with the families.  Keaton gives a very affecting performance, especially when he is sparring with Charles Wolf (Stanley Tucci) who lost his wife in the attacks.  My third film was Promising Young Woman which I really liked.  Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) is a med school drop-out who now lives with her parents and has a dead-end job in a coffee shop.  When a former classmate (Bo Burnham) comes back into her life, he stirs up memories of the incident that derailed her and awakens a need for revenge.  The ending is not at all what I was expecting but it had the crowd at my screening cheering out loud.  It is a quirky and subversive take on the traditional revenge story and, even though it has some bizarre tonal shifts, it is fantastic.  My fourth film was Dream Horse with my students (go here for my review and here for a review written by one of my students).  My fifth film was Surge which was difficult to watch but, upon reflection (and a Q&A with the director Aniel Karia), I have decided that it is brilliant.  Joseph (Ben Whishaw) is an airport security officer who lives alone in London.  Living in an urban environment has anesthetized and isolated him and, after an incident with his parents and an incident at work, he experiences a psychotic breakdown in which he wanders the city without inhibition.  The tension builds and builds with hand-held camera work, pulse-pounding sound design, and a frenetic performance from Whishaw (it reminded me of something the Safdie Brothers would do).  My sixth film was the documentary Time which tells the heartbreaking story of a woman named Sibil Fox Richardson who fights for over twenty years to get her husband released from a life sentence in prison (it is implied that the excessive sentence was imposed because he is black and poor).  Home videos of family life recorded for her husband over twenty years are interspersed with her tireless crusade to free him.  The interviews with their six sons are incredibly poignant, especially since they all grew up to be stellar young men despite their hardships.  At first I felt like Sibil was playing to the cameras but a moment of vulnerability after a court clerk informs her that a judge hasn't had time to write the decision brought me to tears.  My seventh film was the documentary Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.  This is a loving tribute by Natasha Gregson to her mother with newly discovered home videos and interviews with close friends and family members.  Both her personal and professional lives are explored and the overwhelming message for me was that her death left an incredible void in the lives of those who knew her best.  My eighth film was the documentary Coded Bias and I was able to take my nephew Sean to see it with me.  Joy Buolamwini, a woman of color, was working on a project at MIT and discovered that the facial recognition software she was using had difficulty recognizing the faces of females and people of color.  Upon further investigation, she discovered that many algorithms used as "gatekeepers" for getting approval for a loan, applying for college, or getting an interview for a job are similarly biased and, even worse, erroneously track people perceived to be a threat.  This documentary is incredibly thought-provoking and a little unsettling.  My ninth film was another documentary called Spaceship Earth.  This tells the story of the Biosphere 2 experiment where eight scientists attempted to live in a self-sustaining environment for two years with the hope of possibly using these structures in space.  I found it fascinating how a group of idealistic people came together to try to improve the world and how they were undermined by their own publicity.  My tenth film, Nine Days, was definitely my favorite of the festival.  It is a beautiful and thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be human.  On another plane of existence (an isolated house in a desert), a man who was once alive (Winston Duke) interviews a group of souls given temporary existence over a period of nine days in order to choose one of them for the privilege of being born.  He tests them to see if they can handle the pain and sorrow of life but he is ultimately reminded by one of the candidates (Zazie Beetz) that there is also happiness and beauty to be found in life.  I loved this film so much and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I saw it!  My eleventh film was The Glorias which I also really enjoyed.  It is a biography of the feminist Gloria Steinem but what sets it apart is that there are four actresses who portray her at various times in her life (Ryan Kiera Armstrong as a child, Lulu Wilson as a teenager, Alicia Vikander as a young adult, and Julianne Moore as an older adult) who frequently interact with each other while traveling on a Greyhound bus through her memories.  The inside of the bus is filmed in black and white while the world outside is in color (an homage to The Wizard of Oz).  I think this motif works very well and I was captivated by the performances of Vikander and Moore.  My twelfth film was Sylvie's Love, a lovely old-fashioned movie about a romance between a woman engaged to someone else (Tessa Thompson) and a Jazz musician (Nnamdi Asomugha) in the 1950s.  They go their separate ways but, when they are unexpectedly reunited later in life, they realize they still love each other.  Thompson and Asomugha have great chemistry and the soundtrack is fabulous!  My thirteenth film, Tesla, was my most anticipated film in the festival because I find Nikola Tesla to be endlessly fascinating and I was excited to see Ethan Hawke portray the enigmatic genius.  It begins by telling the same story as The Current War, but from Tesla's point of view, and then it portrays his obsession with developing wireless technology and even inserts smartphones and google searches to emphasize that he had envisioned the future we live in now.  It gets pretty weird (Tesla sings a karaoke version of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears) with dramatic low lighting, theatrical backdrops, and a narrator (Eve Hewson) who breaks the fourth wall but I found it intriguing and I suspect it will become a cult classic.  My fourteenth film was The Go-Go's, a very straightforward biopic about the first all-female band to play their own instruments and have a number one record (this is mentioned multiple times), including their meteoric rise, pressure to duplicate the success of their first record, drug addiction, and squabbling over publishing rights.  As a child of the 1980s, I loved the Go-Go's and it was very nostalgic hearing this music (I tried not to sing) once again.  They've still got the beat!  My fifteenth film was Ironbark, a true story about a Soviet spy starring Benedict Cumberbatch.  Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) is a high-ranking science officer in the Soviet Union who is horrified by the build-up of nuclear weapons and wants to give classified information to the West.  Because Penkovsky is so prominent, the CIA and MI-6 don't want to compromise him by using known agents so they recruit businessman Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch) who knows very little about spy craft.  It is very atmospheric with lots of Cold War intrigue and Cumberbatch gives a riveting performance.  I am a fan of spy thrillers so I loved it!  My sixteenth and final film was the Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana.  I am a huge fan of Taylor Swift and, even though this was already streaming on Netflix by the time of my screening, it was so much fun to watch this with a large and rowdy crowd!  This documentary chronicles a transformative period in Swift's career in which she sheds her "good girl" persona, makes her voice heard about social and political issues, and writes the music for her album Lover.  I really loved the image of a 13-year-old girl squaring her shoulders to walk out on to a stage for the first time at the beginning juxtaposed with her confident return to the stage after the album release at the end.  Whew!  It was a crazy ten days but I loved seeing movies that might not necessarily get made without this festival and I loved talking about these movies with people from all over the world (I talked to a family from London while in line for Ironbark!).

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Sundance Student Screening 2020

Yesterday I got to take a group of my students to see Dream Horse as part of the Student Screening Program with the Sundance Film Festival.  Even though arranging field trips is equal parts planning the D-Day invasion and herding cats, this particular field trip always ends up being an amazing experience and yesterday was no exception!  I absolutely loved the film we saw and, more importantly, so did my students!  It is a true story (which is also told in the documentary Dark Horse which premiered at Sundance in 2016) about Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) who lived in an economically depressed village in Wales with her unemployed husband Brian (Owen Teale).  She worked two dead-end jobs, as a checker in a big-box retail store during the day and as a barmaid in the evening, and cared for her elderly parents.  She longed for something to inspire her to get out of bed every day.  One night a man in the bar named Howard Davies (Damian Lewis) brags to the crowd that he was once part of a syndicate that owned a racehorse.  Jan decides that she wants to own a racehorse and recruits Howard to help her.  She uses all of her savings to buy a mare that came in last in every race she ran and then creates her own syndicate of friends from the bar (including the town drunk and a lonely widow) to help her pay the stud fee of a champion.  They name their foal Dream Alliance and keep him on their small allotment of land.  They eventually convince a well-known trainer (Nicholas Farrell) to work with Dream Alliance and, when he begins winning races against all odds, he becomes a symbol of hope for the whole village.  I loved the scenes where the eccentric syndicate members watch the races in the owners' boxes with the aristocracy and I really enjoyed the racing sequences because they are so exhilarating (the students cheered out loud multiple times).  This is such a feel good movie about doing whatever it takes to achieve your dreams and it was perfect for my students!  There was a Q&A after the film with Euros Lyn, the director, and he told the students that despite what people tell them they should always follow their dreams no matter how out of reach they might appear to be!  I loved that!  One student asked him how the people of Wales have responded to the film and he answered that Sundance audiences are the very first to see it but he hopes that all of the audiences respond the way that we did!  This will be my final student screening and I'm glad that I picked a good one to end on!

Monday, September 16, 2019

Brittany Runs a Marathon

Another movie that I absolutely loved at Sundance this year was Brittany Runs a Marathon (it won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award) so I was very excited to see it again yesterday.  I loved it just as much, if not more, upon a second viewing.  Brittany Forgler (Jillian Bell) drinks too much, smokes too much, arrives late to her dead-end job every day, and has one night stands in bathroom stalls at clubs every night.  She is the life of the party but she doesn't have any real friends.  She pretends to have ADHD so a doctor will prescribe her Adderall but, instead, he gives her a wake-up call about her health and admonishes her to exercise and lose 50 pounds.  Because a gym is too expensive she challenges herself to run just one block (in an absolutely hilarious scene).  Soon she joins a Saturday running group, runs her first 5K, and trains for the New York Marathon.  What I loved about this movie is its authenticity because we see Brittany's setbacks as well as her triumphs.  Even though she loses weight and achieves many of her fitness goals, she must learn to love herself in order to be successful and that is what makes her story so meaningful to me.  Bell gives a fantastic performance as an unsympathetic character that you end up rooting for (I love movies that feature flawed characters finding redemption).  It is a feel-good movie that will have you laughing out loud but it is also quite heart-warming and I had tears in my eyes during an especially poignant scene.  This movie includes a bit of profanity and the realistic depiction of questionable behavior but it is so inspiring and I highly recommend it!

Friday, September 13, 2019

Official Secrets

I had the chance to see Official Secrets at Sundance this year and it was one of my favorites of the festival.  I decided to see it again last night now that it is in wide release and, once again, I thought it was a taut and suspenseful political thriller.  It tells the true story of Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), a translator at GCHQ (a British intelligence gathering agency) who leaks a top-secret memo from Frank Koza of the NSA asking for intelligence which could be used to blackmail smaller countries into voting for a U.N. resolution supporting the invasion of Iraq to the press in 2003.  Once the story is published in The Observer, she confesses and is charged with violating the Official Secrets Act.  She pleads not guilty and her lawyers argue that she acted to prevent the imminent loss of life from an illegal war, a defense which could potentially be embarrassing for the British government.  I found the story to be both fascinating and compelling because it profiles an ordinary woman willing to face extraordinary consequences in order to follow her conscience.  Knightley gives an absolutely riveting performance, especially in a powerful interrogation scene where she tells investigators that she doesn't work for the British government but for the British people who are being lied to by the government.  The movie also features an impressive all-star cast including Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, and Rhys Ifans as the reporters who break the story, Ralph Fiennes as a defense lawyer, and Jeremy Northam as a Crown prosecutor.  The movie is fraught with tension (even on a second viewing), particularly during a sequence surrounding the deportation of Gun's husband in retaliation for her actions.  I enjoyed this movie (again) and I recommend it highly.

Saturday, July 6, 2019

Ophelia

Two years ago I had some seniors who loved the play Hamlet more than any other other group I've ever taught.  We had some amazing discussions, most of which centered on whether or not Gertrude was complicit in the king's death and whether or not Ophelia deserved her cruel fate.  Because they were so interested, I brought my copy of Ophelia by Lisa Klein to class to see if anyone was interested in reading the story of Hamlet told from Ophelia's perspective and it was so popular that I eventually bought several more copies to keep up with the demand (one student asked for her own copy of it for Christmas).  When I got the information for the Sundance Film Festival that year, I was thrilled to see that an adaptation of Klein's novel had been made and that it was one of the films available for a student screening. So many students wanted to see this film that I eventually had to request more tickets and I even had to turn some of them away.  The students absolutely loved this film and cheered out loud at its conclusion!  It was so much fun for me to see their enthusiasm.  I enjoyed it as well so I was very excited to see it again last night now that it is in wide release.  In this version of Shakespeare's classic tale, Ophelia (Daisy Ridley) is an independent young woman who is ultimately able to triumph over what is rotten in Denmark.  I think this version of the story is entirely plausible with, as my students pointed out to me after our first viewing, lots of textual evidence to support it.  I especially enjoyed the characterizations of Hamlet (George MacKay), Gertrude (Naomi Watts), Claudius (Clive Owen), and especially Ophelia.  Hamlet is usually portrayed by an older actor with the gravitas to pull off such a demanding role but, according to the text, he is a young university student who is highly emotional over his father's death and his mother's remarriage.  McKay is the first age-appropriate actor I've seen in the role and I liked his melodramatic take.  Gertrude is one of the most enigmatic characters in literature (I've told my students that when I retire I want to write the story of Hamlet from Gertrude's perspective) and her motivation in this adaptation, namely that her fear of losing her youth and beauty is what makes her susceptible to Claudius' charms, really rings true.  Watts does a good job of showing her desperation and vanity.  There are hints in the text that Claudius is a duplicitous character even before the death of the king and Owen's portrayal is so menacing.  Ophelia is a pawn used by Polonius, Claudius, and Hamlet for their own ends in the play but there is a brief spark of rebellion when Laertes gives her advice about her relationship with Hamlet and she calls him a hypocrite for his own unscrupulous behavior towards women.  This rebellious spirit is emphasized in Ridley’s nuanced portrayal.  Many of Ophelia's most pivotal scenes in the play take on a new meaning and make more sense, most notably in the "get thee to a nunnery" scene and Ophelia's mad scene.  Finally, this movie is beautiful with visuals that evoke the classic painting of the drowned Ophelia by John Millais.  If you are a fan of Hamlet, I am sure you will find this movie quite intriguing and I recommend it.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...