Film Festivals

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2014 Tribeca Film Festival | Review | Loitering With Intent

Film Festivals Tribeca TriBeCa Film Festival 2014

LOITERING WITH INTENT is a light-hearted lark of a film.

It is a film about film. If it comes off a bit lighter than expected, it is only because one expects a film with Marisa Tomei and Sam Rockwell, two of the more woefully underemployed actors in Hollywood, to be outright implosive. The film is going for a gentle, messy, wistful, stage comedy-like affect.

Publicity still from LOITERING WITH INTENT

Directed by Adam Rapp, the film is about Dominic and Raphael, your prototypical out of work New York actors (played by Michael Godere and Ivan Martin) who head out to the countryside quiet of Upstate New York to churn out a script in ten days in order to get funding for the resulting film they can also star in. But silent respite is not theirs for the taking. Dominic’s force-of-nature sister (Marisa Tomei) descends upon the place licking her wounds from having separated from her unstable boyfriend. Other unexpected guests include a free-spirit bombshell (Isabelle McNally) and the said boyfriend (Sam Rockwell) who shows up with a buddy (Brian Geraghty, making good of the best lines from the script). And you know that this being a particular kind of film, old grievances will surface, new alliances will form, and everyone will get drunk one night and do things they will eventually regret. It is all out of the standard film script playbook. But these actors, seasoned and newcomers alike, are an inherently likeable lot and they keep the goings-on reasonably grounded. If anything I wish the film had a stronger, heftier emotional pull.

The script is ‘in the know’ about the New York film scene, and there are cinema references aplenty, and even though the writing is occasionally uneven, the whole enterprise makes for an engaging overall product. It’s the sort of film you watch with a smile on your face the entire time.

2014 Tribeca Film Festival Dispatch

Competition Film Festivals Moviewallas Tribeca TriBeCa Film Festival 2014

One shows up at the Tribeca Fim Festival not knowing quite what to expect. And then like any other festival, one gets their bearings in the next couple of days.

One finds out, for example, that none of the three venues where festival films are screened are actually in Tribeca (two are in Chelsea and a third in East Village). One expects the general sensibility of the festival to be like that of the city it is in, hectic and impatient, and no-nonsense and talky. But I am a bit surprised, if pleasantly, to find that the festival is actually rather laid-back and matter of fact. Without exception, the screenings occur like clockwork with nary a hitch. Nobody hyperventilates at the sight of celebrities, and the voices of filmmakers do not crack with nervous gratitude when introducing their product before the start of a screening. Maybe its just that New York crowds are so inured to celebrity run-ins that nothing would be more gauche than to get excited upon seeing Sophia Loren or Mark Ruffalo.

The Tribeca Film Festival was founded by Robert DeNiro and producer Jane Rosenthal in 2002 at a time when Tribeca was an oft ignored neighborhood of the city. Things have come a ways in the thirteen years since during which more than 1500 films have been screened. Created initially as a salve to the 9/11 events and to foster recognition for the Tribeca area, the festival has now evolved into a full-fledged player in the big festivals film circuit.

I will be posting reviews of films I saw at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival in the coming days.

2014 San Diego Latino Film Festival Finds

Film Festivals Moviewallas Review San Diego Latino Film Festival (SDLFF)

One of the best our city has to offer, the 2014 San Diego Latino Film Festival (SDLFF) is here.

Running across two weekends, the fest features an impeccably curated selection of movies that are likely to suit every taste. Whether you like mainstream cinema, or have an affinity for smaller independent films, or if you prefer documentaries, you will find all manner of gems. And that doesn’t even include the short films program, the Cinegay selection, or the special program of films from Chile that are being highlighted at this year’s SDLFF.

Some people give me a funny look when I mention film festivals. If the idea of seeing a movie at a film festival seems too particular, or too intellectual, or too fringe, can I please assure you that it is none of those things. You show up and buy a ticket just like you would for any other film. You are more than likely to have the filmmaker or cast members in attendance. And a Q&A session with them at the end of the screening. Where else can you get the opportunity to hear directly from the creators of a film you have just seen. In many instances, this may be the only opportunity to watch the film because it may not get subsequent distribution. Also if you tell yourself that none of the films will be of interest to you since you are not latino, then you will be dead wrong. Three of the films screening here are already on my list of the best of any films I have seen so far this year.

Below are some of the films that are playing at this year’s festival. It is only when I listed together here that I realized that all of them are strangely, in one way or another, about brothers and sisters.

SOMBRAS DE AZUL (Shades of Blue, Mexico): A young girl shows up in Havana for the first time, and settles down to spend a few days in the city. As she starts to roam the Cuban sights, you realize from her mental conversations (directed to a lover? father? friend?) that she has run away from her past life. She frequents the city attractions, spends time with another resident at the lodging house she is staying at, and finds herself surprised at developing a friendship with a local man who she first met when he tried to steal her camera. Part travelogue, part confessional, and altogether authentic, the experience of a person in a strange new land amounts to a film of unexpected depth. This is assured, confident filmmaking, characterized by remarkable acting. An example of how the honest and truthful telling of a personal story is all it takes for a movie to hum with universal truths. What a remarkable achievement this quietly devastating film is.

STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS (USA): This film is another stellar example of an immersion in the lives of a few individuals that results in a greater understanding of what it means to be human. Mariana is a single parent who makes a living cleaning homes. At the end of each school day, her daughter is entrusted with bringing her autistic younger brother Ricky back home. One day, Ricky wanders off after school and doesn’t return home. How does a parent deal with the nightmare of a lost child, as hours slip into days? How is a mother to forgive her daughter for the consequences of her carelessness? How is a severely autistic child to come home when he isn’t wired to be able to do so? Who can you truly rely on in a difficult time, particularly if you are stationed close to the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder? Austere, stark, and almost documentary-like in its quiet observations, this film demonstrates that the best cinema places you squarely in the shoes of someone else and lets you feel that person’s existence. And by doing so, moves you to contemplate your own place in the world. It absolutely breaks my heart that a film as unquestionably brilliant as this one will not get a hundredth of the exposure that it deserves. At the film’s conclusion, the audience I saw it with leapt into applause. I couldn’t join them because I was too choked up to respond. This film is the reason we bother to watch movies at all.

LES ANALFABETAS (The Illiterates, Chile): This film is a character study of the kind of person we seldom see films pivot around: an irritable, impatient, prickly, and proud individual. The kind of person who has decided that they will not (can not?) play by the rules of society. The kind who is deeply, resolutely set in their ways. And then consider the plot: an illiterate individual learns how to write. This could have been the sort of soggy, insufferable dredge that this premise might dictate, but the movie completely bypasses that trap. After her sublime turn in GLORIA, here is Paulina Garcia again in a completely different incarnation, shorn of all vanity and playing an individual that is instantly recognizable. The film also has the good sense to not provide every answer, leaving it up to the audience to contemplate the reasoning behind certain actions in the film. A movie will stay with you longer if you are left with just enough ponderables to keep you wondering.

HELI (Mexico): This film nabbed the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year. And I can see why: it creates some of the best sense of foreboding that I have seen in a movie in some time. It is that feeling that something truly awful is going to happen any moment – that is sustained through much of the narrative. This film will resonate with those who admire darkly bitter, deeply violent films. From the very first scene that elicited a gasp from the audience in the screening I attended, this film is unrelenting in its single-minded pursuit of exploring the worst in human behavior. Set in a deeply rural Mexico where government and lawlessness coexist as one, the film revolves around a family whose lives implode when the teenaged daughter has the misfortune of falling for a young army cadet who tries to get away with a stolen batch of cocaine from his superiors. Pulpy and gonzo, the film may not be for everyone, but there is no denying the high voltage charge it carries.

LEVANTAMUERTOS (Death Strokes, Mexico): This films clocks a few days in the life of a man who works in the coroner’s office. Frequently dispatched to take care of bodies of the recently deceased, things get into a tailspin when he is forced to use many of his vocational skills to conceal a death that has occurred at this hands. Like HELI, this film carries a foreboding air that is heightened by a morbid tone and dark humor. Set amongst the inhabitants of a small town in Mexico that is cooking under the relentlessly brutal summer heat that almost justifies the extreme actions of many of its characters. Had this film been able to build on the rich characters and setting, it would have been a great Lynchian outing. But even though it diffuses in the last act, it makes for a good ride to the dark side.

MY SISTER’S QUINCEANERA (USA): A latino family in a small American town is the focus of this film which observed them in the week leading up to the quinceanera of the oldest daughter. What is refreshing about this film is that everyone in is inherently decent; there are no bad characters here. The younger sister feels a little left out since her turn for a quinceanera is yet to come. Her older brother hangs out with his best friend and is trying to hold off the onset of adulthood and responsibility as much as possible. This is one of the better depictions on film that I have seen of the struggle to decide whether to stay in the same small town one has grown up in versus getting away from home for college. The film has a wonderful, gentle understatedness about it; there is nothing overly dramatized or shrill in the movie. Also there is a naturalness about the actors, maybe because many of them are related in real life. This is a quiet gem of a film.

SXSW 2014 – Photoset

Film Festivals SXSW 2014

Writer/Director - Lena Dunham — Writer/Director – Lena Dunham

The Mule | SXSW 2014

Film Festivals Moviewallas News Opinion Predictions Review Sneak Peek SXSW 2014

What would make you carry twenty condoms full of narcotics in your stomach? My automatic answer to this question was “Nothing”, but what if your families’ life was at risk if you didn’t? Welcome to the movie The Mule.

Written, directed and starring Angus Simpson with the help of a few others, The Mule set in an 80’s Australia is based on a true story that tells of an innocent rather stupid and simple man called Ray Jenkins (played by Angus Sampson) who gets caught up in a drug smuggling scheme after he wins a yearly award at his local football club

Swallowing around 20 condoms full of narcotics, Ray almost makes it home before he nervously loses his cool in front of security, landing him in a nearby motel so the drugs can flush out of his system. Under the watchful eyes of Detective Croft and Detective Paris, Ray struggles to keep his secret hidden, inflicting bodily harm by avoiding deification. Can Ray keep himself out of jail by swallowing more than his pride, or will the drugs make their appearance in the filthiest of ways?

Regular listeners of the Moviewallas podcast will know that some of my favorite movies are Australian; indeed I own my own copies of Strictly Ballroom and Muriel’s Wedding which are well worn by now. So it stands to reason that I was equally fascinated, disgusted and thoroughly entertained by the movie The Mule. Beware though; the toilet humor in this movie is like none that I have ever seen before and definitely not for the faint hearted.

Brilliant acting by an incredible cast including Hugo Weaving, Leigh Whannell (who also shares writing credits) and Ewen Leslie elevate this movie from a good black comedy to an incredibly smart and surprising dramedy which will have you sitting on the edge of your seat as you try to figure out how it will all end for poor Ray. The twists and turns are not predictable and the story is original, if it wasn’t based on a true story, I would think it was unbelievable. This mule is definitely worth a ride if you can get your hands on it.

SXSW 2014 IS IN FULL SWING AND I’M LOVING IT

Competition documentary Film Festivals Moviewallas Opinion Reviews Sneak Peek SXSW 2014

SXSW is now in full swing and as a result, we have been soaking up atmosphere, good barbeque and above all else MOVIES!!!

SXSW Film has grown year-upon-year and this year over 130 movies were on offer to us. Expertly chosen and programmed, the festival brought together small and large studios, independent and mainstream films, first time directors and seasoned veterans of the industry. To be honest, it was difficult to choose what to see, but I’m happy to say of the Seventeen movies I watched, all offered something unique and memorable. One of the most memorable things for me though is always the opportunity to interact with the moviemakers themselves which always provides depth and dimension to what you’ve just watched

WILD CANARIES: When their elderly neighbor suddenly drops dead, a newly engaged couple investigates signs of foul play.

Barri (Sophia Takal) and Noah (writer-director Lawrence Michael Levine), a newly engaged Brooklyn couple, are disheartened by the death of their elderly downstairs neighbor, Sylvia. Though Noah sees nothing unusual about the old woman’s death, Barri suspects foul play and sets out to investigate, enlisting her roommate Jean (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT’S Alia Shawkat) to join her on a reconnaissance mission to trail a possible suspect. Tensions mount, however, when the investigation uncovers unsettling secrets throughout the building—including in their own apartment—and suddenly everyone seems like a reasonable suspect. Boasting a stellar supporting cast including Jason Ritter (PARENTHOOD), Kevin Corrigan (THE DEPARTED), and Annie Parisse (THE FOLLOWING), WILD CANARIES is a freshly comedic take on classic film noir. This movie had a lot of promise that didn’t unfortunately deliver. Disappointing for a number of reasons including a confusing and overcooked plot made this difficult to watch and follow. The tonality changed from scene to scene giving me whiplash at times and the hammy dialogue and rather poor overacting made me feel like I was watching a first year film school project.
You know you should leave the theatre when one of the main protagonists wears a large hat and even larger sunglasses and thinks they are unrecognizable in modern day New York. Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murders did this way better and testament to the fact that if you can’t do it better, leave it alone.

VESSEL vessel : A fearless sea captain sails a ship through loopholes in international law, providing abortions on the high seas, and leaving in her wake a network of emboldened activists who trust women to handle abortion on their own terms.

Vessel begins with a young doctor who lived by the sea, and an unlikely idea. Rebecca Gomperts, horrified by the realities created by anti-abortion law around the world, felt compelled to challenge this issue; her method: provide abortions on a ship in offshore waters.

Her project, Women on Waves, begins as flawed spectacle, a media frenzy, faced with governmental, religious, and military blockade. But with each roadblock comes a more refined mission, until Rebecca has the revelation that she can use new technologies to bypass law – and train women to safely give themselves abortions using WHO-sanctioned protocols with pills.

From there we witness her create an underground network of emboldened, informed activists, working at the radical cutting edge of global reproductive rights, who trust women to handle abortion themselves. Vessel is Rebecca’s story: one of a woman who heard and answered a calling, and transformed a wildly improbable idea into a global movement.

This is a must see documentary not only because the subject matter is so polarizing but because this really is about a remarkable woman who wants to change the world and is doing so for the thousands of women who she provides assistance to. A well-made account over a period of years, Rebecca Gomperts resolve is unfaltering and enviable. In person, she is as enigmatic and convincing and received a standing ovation at the end of the movie. I’m not sure that the movie will change your mind or position on abortion, but it will prove to you the difference that one person can make and the lengths that people will go to in order to stand up for what they believe in. What I liked most about this movie was the fact that people on both sides of the argument chose to march to the steps of Austin’s parliamentary building following the movie

PRINT THE LEGEND: 3D printing is changing the world – from printing guns and human organs to dismantling the world’s industrial infrastructure by enabling home manufacturing. It’s “the next Industrial Revolution.”

For the first time in history, the stories of the human beings building an industry have been filmed. The result: Print the Legend which follows the people racing to bring 3D printing to your desktop and into your life. For the winners, there are fortunes – and history – to be made.

Print the Legend is both the definitive 3D Printing Documentary – capturing a tech in the midst of its “Macintosh Moment” – and a compelling tale about what it takes to live the American Dream in any field.

Hands down, this was one of my favorite documentaries of the festival. It even feels strange seeing that in print (uh no pun intended). No really, who thought that a documentary about 3D Printers would rise to the top of my must see list? Well, its because Print the Legend is more than just a movie about the 3D printer itself, this documentary expertly explores a number of themes like friendship, the race for market domination and what happens when a bunch of enthusiastic young extremely clever young men become poisoned by investors and narcissism and we are able to watch the pollution of an American dream. I’m not sure any of us could imagine what it feels like to have to fire your best friends and former co founders, yet we follow this very thing happening and the impact it has on all of those involved. Better than most soap operas, this documentary really will have you on the edge if your seat wondering which company and technology will reign superior in the end. Add to this a charming and controversial fellow who creates videos showing step-by-step instructions to print your very own 3D gun. An explosively smart and engaging look at an industry that is still in it’s infancy and the way in which it may change our world forever with a colorful and entertaining cast of characters who are forerunners in the race. It’s true, Nerds will rule the world but whilst we wait for that to happen watch Print the Legend which will be available on Netflix in 2014. In addition this movie won the 2014 SXSW Film Festival’s special jury recognition award for editing and storytelling in the documentary feature category.

I BELIEVE IN UNICORNS: Davina is an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl who often escapes into a beautifully twisted fantasy life. Having grown up quickly as the sole caretaker of her disabled mother, she looks for salvation in a new relationship with an older boy. Davina is swept into a whirlwind of romance and adventure, but the enchantment of her new relationship quickly fades when Sterling’s volatile side begins to emerge. I Believe in Unicorns takes us on a road trip through the stunning and complex landscape of troubled young love.

It would be easy to dismiss this movie as yet another coming of age movie but there is a tragedy and sweetness about the way in which this particular coming of age movie is executed that I haven’t seen often and a depth that is seldom seen as we follow a young girl caring for her very disabled parent. The movie is elevated by two great performances by the two main protagonists played by mesmerizing Natalia Dyer and Peter Vack who capture the impetuousness of young love so perfectly. Yes, there are some huge plot holes and we are asked to take some huge leaps of faith in order to make it to the end of the movie but I think this movie will stay with you long after the credits have run