REVIEW: Gloria

14 09 2014

GloriaIn a recent article published through Variety, David S. Cohen recounts a story told to him by a film editor.  He was frustrated with the dailies, lamenting that the leading actress wasn’t giving him much of a performance.  In the end, however, she won the Oscar for the part.

Speculate away on who that might be, but the anecdote highlights a truth that many movie lovers often ignore.  In film, we tend to give all the credit to the actors in crafting their role as if they were on the stage.  Yet in this medium, an editor is every bit as crucial in getting their character across to an audience.

If you have any doubts about this, I recommend you check out “Gloria” and see how film editors can create the most memorable moments of a movie by the shot of an actor they choose, where they position it in the story, and how long they choose to hold it.  The inserts of leading lady Paulina García are more interesting than any acting she ever does or any storytelling that writer/director Sebastián Lelio ever attempts.

I’ll give Lelio credit for trying to explore a subject that isn’t particularly commercial, that of a 58-year-old woman’s love life.  (As Tina Fey quipped at the Golden Globes, “Meryl Streep, so brilliant in ‘August: Osage County,’ proving that there are still great parts in Hollywood for Meryl Streeps over 60.”)  Furthermore, he does it with all the candor towards sexuality and nudity that makes Lena Dunham’s “Girls” such a lightning rod for controversy.

Unfortunately, García’s Gloria just isn’t a very interesting or complex character to follow.  The film is further hampered by an unclear and vague romantic conflict at its core.  Though Lelio gives the film a fun ending, the journey there is rather dreary and insipid.  García’s performance isn’t much to impress on the way, either.

Save, of course, the occasional shot of her hungover head in a purse or lying back on a couch in anguish.  But saying that’s great acting is a stretch.  Your kid can scribble lines on a page, but you wouldn’t hang it next to Jackson Pollock, would you?  Intent separates artists from average joes, and editors can manufacture that in place of an actor if need be.  C / 2stars


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REVIEW: Child’s Pose

13 09 2014

Child's PoseMother-son conflicts have been a consistent source of compelling drama in storytelling.  Be it Oedipus the King, Hamlet, or “Psycho,” the primal tensions never seem to stop inspiring writers and entertaining audiences.

Add another to the pile with “Child’s Pose,” a Romanian film by Calin Peter Netzer that explores rather familiar territory, but put it far away from the aforementioned classics.  It recalls the 2009 drama “Mother,” by Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, in particular as both follow cryptic mothers determined to keep a beloved son from facing judicial consequences for committing a crime.  (Here, it’s vehicular manslaughter.)

Luminita Gheorghiu’s matriarch Cornelia is part Eleanor Iselin from “The Manchurian Candidate” and part Claire Underwood from “House of Cards,” an interesting combination that makes her character worth following down this strange path.  It’s clear from the outset that she’s doing this largely for self-preservation, although her character does have some nice complexity.

The film drags on for nearly two hours towards a very predictable end, largely gliding by on the strength of Cornelia alone.  “Child’s Pose” falters mainly because the tensions with her son, Barbu,  never really reach a satisfying boil.  That might have to do with the fact that Barbu is so pathetic that we never quite understand why he’s worth protecting.

This “slice of crisis” piece is very much in line with the tenets of the Romanian New Wave, though if you’re seeking to learn about the country’s emerging cinematic presence, don’t start here.  Go to something like “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days,” where you’ll get all the stylistic elements of “Child’s Pose” but with the addition of a compelling narrative.  C+ / 2stars


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (September 12, 2014)

12 09 2014

True Adolescents

Though the world of a great movie may feel hermetically sealed while you watch it, all sorts of factors outside of it have decided the manner in which you get to experience it.  I’ve made the argument before that the 2008 financial collapse has infiltrated the content of films, yet it probably exerted an even greater influence by limiting our access to a whole world of independently created cinema.

Back in 2009, a small dramedy by Craig Johnson called “True Adolescents” played the SXSW Film Festival.  It was well-received and went on to play some smaller local festivals, but it sat around for three years waiting for theatrical distribution.  Before the economic malaise (or even now in our platform-agnostic present day), this is the kind of film that would be a no-brainer for a company like Fox Searchlight to pick up.  Due to the unfortunate timing of its release, however, it wound up getting a minuscule release thanks to Cinedigm.

Perhaps with “The Skeleton Twins,” Johnson’s second feature which is getting a much wider rollout courtesy of Roadside Attractions, people will begin to discover the joy of which they were robbed years ago.  While the production is small-scale, the film pays off big with its richly observed script and properly defined characters.

The man-child is getting a little tired thanks to brute repetition by Seth Rogen and friends, but it feels good as new in “True Adolescents” thanks to a very authentic incarnation by Mark Duplass.  His Sam has clearly blown past the twentysomething mark and is well into his thirties, hapless and essentially hopeless.

Hoping for some easy sympathy, he goes to crash with his aunt (played by a pre-Oscar win Melissa Leo) and winds up being forced to work for her charity.  Sam gets the distinct pleasure of taking his teenage cousin Oliver and his friend Jake on a camping trip.  I’m not too far removed from that adolescent mindset to know that it takes a special kind of person to handle boys of that age; suffice to say, Sam lacks the requisite saintliness.

As with any narrative centering around a journey in the great outdoors, an inner journey takes place in the characters.  But that’s pretty much where “True Adolescents” stops falling in line with what you expect it to do.  Writer/director Craig Johnson provides a surprising amount of depth within the familiar framework, opting to explore deeper into the complex characters at every turn where melodrama or clichés would be easier.  It’s a real treat to watch him embrace the true in the title of his film rather than the latter word.


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REVIEW: Joe

11 09 2014

JoeDavid Gordon Green’s “Joe” gets off to a slow start, prompting me to initially wonder if it was going to be a complete non-starter like his prior directing effort “Prince Avalanche.”  He takes his time giving us the lay of the land and introducing us to the characters, a lax unraveling that teeters close to tedious.

It also doesn’t help that the premise feel quite similar to that of Green’s film school buddy Jeff Nichols’ recent success “Mud.”   A troubled man played by an actor looking to show off a more serious facet of his talent befriending a rough-hewn yet good-hearted teenager played by Tye Sheridan?  “Joe” feels like the younger brother of “Mud,” although perhaps only little due to the order in which it was released.

By all accounts, though, “Joe” is the better realized film.  It’s more emotionally charged and features more dynamic, complex characters.  Once Green kicked the film into gear around the 40-minute mark, I couldn’t take my eyes off the action.

After winning an Oscar, Nicolas Cage shouldn’t technically have to prove anything, so perhaps it’s best to say he reminds us that he is so much more than a meme.  As the eponymous ex-con Joe, he bares the bruises of his past with startling vulnerability.  While some might chuckle at the possibility of the same actor from the infamous “The Wicker Man” screaming video conveying a convincing paternal aura, Cage embodies and exudes a worn-down wisdom that feels completely authentic.

And Tye Sheridan as teenaged Gary, desperately in need of someone to look up to instead of his abusive alcoholic father, forges an entirely believable connection with Cage’s Joe.  Once again, Sheridan completely nails all the frustrations of adolescence.  He’s always remarkably in the moment on screen, which comes in handy when Green needs to communicate the urgency of the story.

We really feel the dire need for Gary to save his family before his father ruins it for good (credit the late Gary Poulter in an unhinged performance as the frighteningly destructive Wade).  Moreover, we see the need for Joe, flaws and all, to save the day.  It might take some time to reach that point, but “Joe” is worth watching for its gripping back half that leads up to an extremely intense conclusion.  B / 2halfstars


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REVIEW: Borgman

10 09 2014

BorgmanIn Alex van Warmerdam’s “Borgman,” a mysterious figure rises from underground to perniciously infiltrate the home of an upper-class Dutch family.  His name is Camiel Borgman, and he’s played by Jan Bijovet (looking like a bearded Christoph Waltz) with a sort of pleasant warmth that intoxicates yet harms.  And over the course of nearly two hours, he completely turns the tables on his marks.

We see that he insidiously disrupts the dynamics, but what we don’t get is quite how … or more importantly, we never really get a hint as to why he does this.  Perhaps there’s something culturally assumed in the Netherlands that I am simply losing in translation.  The film feels like a regional parable about the chickens coming home to roost for the ignorant wealthy, yet it’s lacking a certain punch to really drive home a message.

There seems to be an almost supernatural power that Borgman possesses, and I’ll give van Warmerdam credit for keeping this strange effect a rather understated facet of the character.  But without any sort of explanation or tip-off, “Borgman” feels a rather tedious and frustrating watch.

Furthermore, we’re never clued into the film’s internal logic.  It’s as if all the scenes that make the parts of “Borgman” cohere were removed in the editing room, leaving behind a movie that’s just smugly enigmatic.  van Warmerdam’s emotionally detached filmmaking style means that we’re not entering the film emotionally through the charaters.  We’re just observers, watching a steady simmer of a movie that never feels like it’s going to reach a boil.

“Borgman” has its fair share of memorable images (heads in buckets of cement, anyone?) as well a sizable enough body count to keep our curiosity.  But once it ends, we’re left with precious little to hold onto.  I’m not quite sure what I was supposed to take away from the film other than Alex van Warmerdam wanting me to think he’s Michael Haneke and this is his “Funny Games.”  He’s a cold, calculating filmmaker, but what exactly he wanted the parts of “Borgman” to add up to is beyond me.  C / 2stars


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REVIEW: Ida

9 09 2014

IdaRiverRun International Film Festival

Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida” is most certainly going to be one of the most gorgeously shot films of the year when all is said and done in 2014.  Each black-and-white frame is composed with a striking incredible attention to detail that they feel worthy of commemorating in a textbook.

His choice of imagery, though, is rather one-note.  Pawlikowski loves placing the characters in the bottom third of the frame, their heads dwarfed and engulfed by their surroundings.  It’s often as if the characters are shot in proportion to their importance.  At some points in “Ida,” this fixation gets to the point where the subtitles have to be placed at the top of the screen instead of their customary resting place at the bottom.

Once we get the hang of the film’s visual language, it feels like we’ve taken cinema’s equivalent of an Ambien.  “Ida” is but 80 minutes, but I wondered if I would be 80 years old by the time it concluded.  (For those who don’t know, I’m 21.  Hopefully that metaphor makes a little more sense now.)  The cinematography is stunning, but it eventually is not enough to carry the snail-paced story of the film.

The characters lack the development to sustain the film as well.  The titular character, Ida, begins the film as a Polish nun in the 1960s who goes by Anna.  She was removed from her Jewish roots at an age too young to remember them but receives a rude awakening when her biological aunt Wanda reveals this hidden past.

Ida is too painfully stoic – think more stone-faced than Ryan Gosling in “Only God Forgives” – and Wanda is not nearly colorful enough to make the journey worth investing in.  Pawlikowski doesn’t initially make the purpose of their voyage evident, leading to frustration right out of the gate.  Everything’s in its right place in “Ida,” except maybe some storytelling fundamentals.  B- / 2stars


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REVIEW: The Imitation Game

8 09 2014

Telluride Film Festival

As if the subject of “The Imitation Game” – a tender British soul misunderstood as an incompetent and bumbling fool – weren’t enough to draw comparisons to “The King’s Speech,” the film seemingly invites the parallel in its opening credits.  It’s only faintly discernible, but audio from none other than King George’s climactic speech at the dawn of World War II plays diegetically in the background.

To those who might recognize the snippet, it serves as a perfect barometer for the ambitions of “The Imitation Game.”  With maybe a dash of brash mathematical genius of “A Beautiful Mind,” Morten Tyldum’s film is very much this year’s “The King’s Speech.”  For those unaware of the construed meaning of 2010’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture, that means the film is an engaging and entertaining biopic made with high production values all around yet does not aspire to anything groundbreaking.

Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game

Maybe I can only give such an unabashed endorsement of the film from my privileged subject position of being one of the first audiences to see the film or because I saw it before the glut of prestige films later in the fall.  Indeed, I can already see myself holding truly great movies against “The Imitation Game” and wondering how on earth anyone could think so highly of it.  At least for the moment, however, I choose to see the film as it is: a quality piece of cinema that is not trying to reinvent the wheel.  It’s simply trying to turn some wheels in my head, and I thoroughly enjoyed it on those terms.

Certainly a film has some merit if it can collapse a two-hour act of viewing into feeling like an experience lasting half that duration.  “The Imitation Game” flew by, largely because of how engrossed in the story and the characters I became.  Benedict Cumberbatch turns in inspired work bringing the film’s subject, Alan Turing, to life.  His performance alone is worth the price of admission.

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REVIEW: The Look of Silence

7 09 2014

Telluride Film Festival

When I was in eighth grade, I had the remarkable opportunity to hear a Holocaust survivor recount his experiences surviving the cruelty of the Nazis.  After his speech was over and the whole room was crying, he stood at the front of the room and received hugs and other warm gestures from anyone who wished to embrace him.  No gesture of kindness could erase all the pain he endured, but it somehow felt like the only possible way to end the session.  The hug became a sort of promise to bear witness moving forward.

I had never seen anything like it again until I left my screening of “The Look of Silence” at the Telluride Film Festival, which the documentary’s protagonist, Adi Rukun, attended.  After a brief Q&A following the film, the crowd somberly filed out (appropriately, in silence).  And when the bright sunlight entered my eyes, I noticed a sight both moving and surprising: a queue had formed to embrace Adi.  One man seemed to clutch him firmly for well over a minute.

“The Look of Silence” is the kind of film that can inspire such a deep outpouring of emotion with its brutally pared-back power.

The Look of Silence

In the film, documentarian and humanitarian Joshua Oppenheimer revisits the subject of the 1960s Indonesian genocide that made him an Oscar nominee last year with “The Act of Killing.”  That film, as profound an impact as it had upon release, rubbed me the wrong way as it allowed (at least in my audience) repeated instances of laughter at the excesses of men who took joy in murdering large quantities of people.  “The Look of Silence,” its companion piece, thankfully operates under the appropriate sense of solemnity and reverence that is rightfully due to the victims of the extermination and their families.

The narrative journey Oppenheimer fashions in his second take on the subject is assuredly less flashy and entertaining.  It moves slowly and episodically towards its conclusion, never quite signaling where it will eventually deposit us.  “The Look of Silence” occasionally frustrates with its gentle, slow pacing, yet the periodically interspersed revelations more than redeem any plot sluggishness.

To elaborate on Adi’s travails in any great detail would only rob you of experiencing the intellectual and emotional impact of the film.  With Oppenheimer’s help, he embarks on a dangerous and painful quest for answers about the killing of his brother, Ramli, at the guns of a death squad.  What the two uncover is far more than just textbook examples of the social construction of morality or the banality of evil.

That the killers boast of their exploits is hardly news to anyone who saw “The Act of Killing,” but “The Look of Silence” still finds new ways to explore how that past continues to loom large over the present in Indonesia.  The perpetrators continue to perpetuate their revisionist narrative of history, not only by making ludicrous claims as “some of the communists wanted to be killed,” but also through more insidious means of controlling thought and expression.

Ultimately, the film is not about the killers, though; it is about Adi – and subsequently every other Indonesian citizen in his position.  Oppenheimer frequently circles back to a scene of Adi watching a video of two military men detailing how they committed Ramli’s murder.  The camera often lingers on his calm gaze, which contains so much more than merely the look of silence.  The same subterranean power gives haunting resonance to every moment in “The Look of Silence” on the whole.  B+ / 3stars


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REVIEW: Dancing Arabs

6 09 2014

Dancing ArabsTelluride Film Festival

NOTE: This film has since been retitled “A Borrowed Identity,” a moniker somehow both more generic and indicative of the content.

“Dancing Arabs” begins with some profound quote musing on the nature of identity that flashed on screen far too quickly for me to transcribe accurately.  But it seemed to foreshadow a profound discussion on the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and for that reason, I was quite intrigued.

What unfolds over the subsequent hour and 45 minutes never really fulfills the intellectual depth promised before the action even begins.  With the exception of a tacked-on, unearned conclusion, “Dancing Arabs” remains squarely in the realm of entertainment.  Any statement it tries to make about larger issues feels rather obvious or uninspired.

While the collaboration between Israeli director Eran Riklis and Palestinian screenwriter Sayed Kashua is certainly a commendable step towards reconciliation and understanding, their film does little to further their mission.  “Dancing Arabs” is a disjointed middlebrow drama, comprised of two essentially separate narratives tenuously tied together by a single character.  Riklis never provides any dramatic escalation, either, so the whole enterprise lands rather flatly.

The forbidden romance of protagonist Eyad, an Arab living within the state of Israel, with his Jewish schoolmate Naomi comes across as a slightly more serious retread of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”  Their relationship dominates the first half of the film, and then “Dancing Arabs” inexplicably forgets Naomi nearly altogether.  The focus shifts towards Eyad and his friendship with muscular dystrophy-stricken Israeli teen Jonathan, whose deteriorating condition is not entirely bad news for Eyad.

Perhaps each would be more interesting or enlightening if given feature length to develop.  But their loose connection and juxtaposition makes for an dissatisfying union.  In the words of “Parks & Recreation” scene-stealer Ron Swanson, “Never half-ass two things.  Whole ass one thing.”  C+ / 2stars


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REVIEW: Mr. Turner

5 09 2014

Telluride Film Festival

When I spent last fall in London, I often found myself wandering the halls of art museums (largely since they boasted free admission).  Quite often, I would walk past a painting on the wall without giving it much thought, admiring its remarkable craft but feeling rather unmoved emotionally.  One painter whose work struck me on a deep and profound level, though, was J.M.W. Turner, whose work with light and shadow predated the renowned Impressionist movement.

I was hoping that Mike Leigh’s “Mr. Turner,” a film who places J.M.W. Turner in the subject position, would stir me similarly.  Unfortunately, I can’t really say that I felt the same pull to Leigh’s film as I do to Turner’s paintings.  But simply because I did not respond deeply to it does not mean the work is entirely void of merit.  I simply appreciate it more than I like or enjoy it.

Timothy Spall as Mr. Turner

With the exception of 2011’s “Another Year,” I seem to be rather immune to being swept away of Mike Leigh’s uniquely derived products.  (For those who don’t know, Leigh formulates his screenplay in tandem with the efforts of his actors in a lengthy, laborious rehearsal process.)  The characters all seem well-formed, and the dialogue always feels quite natural.  It just never feels exciting to watch.

In a sense, though, that’s kind of the point.  “Mr. Turner” is a biopic in the sense that it covers the life of J.M.W. Turner, but Leigh resists all the clichés and conventions we are normally conditioned to expect from a movie about a true-life creative mind.  Turner has no flashes of mad inspiration, nor does every word he utters ring with capital-I “importance.”  In fact, we rarely get to see his creative process at all.

Leigh uses “Mr. Turner” not to show how his subject is extraordinary, but rather the many ways in which he is ordinary.  It’s a biopic hiding inside an ensemble drama where Turner happens to have the most screen time.  Timothy Spall, a consummate character actor perhaps best known for his turn as Peter Pettigrew in the “Harry Potter” series, certainly makes the most of the attention given his grimacing genius Turner.  It’s a physically committed, emotionally potent performance that gives him a much-deserved moment in the spotlight.

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REVIEW: Rich Hill

4 09 2014

Rich Hill“We’re not trash – we’re people,” utters Andrew, a teenager growing up in the kind of town you’d only stop in to top off your gas tank.  He forms one portion of the triptych that is “Rich Hill,” a documentary that takes a startlingly unidealized look at what it means to grow up in the eponymous small rural community.

For all those who think the Hollywood intelligentsia do nothing but sneer at the flyover states as they peruse their box office reports, think again.  Directors Andrew Droz Palermo and Tracy Droz Dragos provides an extremely fair snapshot of their three young subjects, and they present it without the benefit of easy irony.  When prohibited from looking down on the boys of “Rich Hill,” we can look inside of them far more meaningfully.

The film peers in on life in progress, although not all the narrative threads inspire like innocent and good-natured Andrew.  “Rich Hill” also follows Appachey, a heavily medicated troublemaker who lights his cigarettes in toasters, as well as juvenile delinquent case Harley.  How to feel about them isn’t exactly straightforward since the directors avoid discussing the issue of societal forces battling personal agency.

Save for a brief interlude of waxing political on the nature of the prison system, “Rich Hill” steers clear of sweeping social statements altogether.  (You’ll certainly never hear the term “culture of poverty” being thrown around here.)  The documentary opts not to didactically tell us what to think, instead opting to show us something as it is and allowing our own thoughts to arise organically.

This method is certainly not the easiest way to consume factual information.  It may be, however, the most rewarding way to gain insight into a way of life.  “Rich Hill” pulls no punches when depicting the bleakness of poverty, and it can be gut-wrenching to watch these children get dragged through the mess of their parents’ lives.  Yet it also does not deny us the chance to see these young children enjoying the simple pleasures of life, such as the wonder of a firecracker on the Fourth of July.

These contradictions are at the very heart of the film, which toggles freely between a tone of hope and hopelessness.  As Palermo and Dragos refrain from large value judgments, we’re largely left to extract our own grand takeaway from “Rich Hill.”  No matter what you take away from the film, though, it would be nearly impossible to leave without a little bit more compassion for the kinds of people portrayed.  B+ / 3stars


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REVIEW: Alive Inside

3 09 2014

Alive InsideIn what appears to be the consensus pick for the favorite tearjerker of the past decade, “The Notebook,” audiences empty their tear ducts watching an Alzheimer’s patient momentarily regain touch with her lost memory.  That film features no “fantasy” elements, so to speak, but it feels like the kind of ending that could only occur in Hollywood.

The documentary “Alive Inside” proposes that the emotional experience of “The Notebook” doesn’t have to be relegated to the realm of fiction, however.  Social worker Dan Cohen, with nothing more than an iPod and a set of headphones, shows how music can reawaken long-dormant memories in Alzheimer’s patients.  Science has never felt so magical.

Cohen’s process isn’t just some funny mistake, though.  It’s rooted in neuroscience, which has shown that our capacity to process elements of music is one of the first things formed in an embryo … and also one of the last things to be effected by degenerative neurological diseases.  Time and time again, Cohen shows how music can resurrect the soul to moving effect.

Oddly enough, his process has not seemed to catch on with the retirement home industry, only finding use in roughly 0.19% of facilities.  Perhaps there are some potent naysayers that “Alive Inside” chose to exclude, but from this documentary alone, employing music for the dignity of these patients seems rather obvious.

Director Michael-Rossato Bennett does a less successful job lobbying for macro-scale change in the way that we treat our aging population and the manner in which retirement homes are run.  It’s not that he doesn’t make good points about them; “Alive Inside” just doesn’t feel like a documentary well-equipped to push for sweeping social reform.  The film is at its best when simply documenting these undeniably sweet and touching micro-level interactions between Alzheimer’s patients and the music that once moved them.  Because, as Cohen demonstrates, that music is inseparable from emotion and still capable of moving them.  B / 2halfstars


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REVIEW: Night Moves

2 09 2014

Night MovesLondon Film Festival, 2013

Kelly Reichardt’s ecoterrorist drama “Night Moves” starts off with all the right moves.  As she details the steps that a group of activists take to blow up a hydroelectric dam, the film holds us with the firm grip of a well-crafted procedural.  Reichardt never has to resort to the usual arsenal of cinematic tricks to create suspense because it arises organically from her laser-like focus on presenting the reality of the scene.

The film’s style works at first because we get a sense of who the characters are based on the way they act and react.  There’s no clunky exposition to give us an abundance of background information on them, yet these three resolute and very different figures just seem to make sense as they plot towards their bold action.

That’s largely due to the actors filling the nuances left by Reichardt’s script.  Jesse Eisenberg (yet again) plays the silent and bitterly angry type well, but “Night Moves” is more exciting for its surprising performances.  Dakota Fanning as a zealous untested college dropout and Peter Sarsgaard as a confident but somewhat shady ex-Marine make far more compelling characters because we aren’t sure the depths they can reach.

Once their planning is done and the deed is carried out (notice I didn’t say how successfully), the three split ways.  This occurs between a third and half of the way through the film, a rather odd structure given that we expect blowing up the dam to be the climax.  The unexpected plot development portends an exciting departure when it begins, but “Night Moves” sadly becomes an entirely different movie afterwards.

Reichardt, so ably steering clear of genre cliches at the start of the film, sets a course straight into them at the back half.  As the three characters struggle with guilt, responsibility, and many other feelings, “Night Moves” assumes the tenor of formulaic melodrama. Though this conventional chapter of the story ultimately caps off with a surprising plot development, the familiar waters taint the powerful experience of riding through such uncharted ones.  B / 2halfstars


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Telluride Film Festival Diary, Day 4

1 09 2014

9:30 A.M.: Nothing says “Happy Monday morning!” quite like a film on genocide in Indonesia!  Time for Josh Oppenheimer’s “The Look of Silence,” his follow-up to the Oscar-nominated documentary “The Act of Killing.”

11:40 A.M.: Well. That was heavy. Need something to cheer me up ASAP. Found “The Look of Silence” a more appropriate, solemn look at the massacre than “The Act of Killing.”

11:55 P.M.: Werner Herzog might have just cut me in line for lunch.

Sophie Barthes and Ramin Bahrani

Sophie Barthes and Ramin Bahrani

3:30 P.M.: After a nice Q&A with Oppenheimer, I dashed across Telluride on my bike to make the 3:30 showing of “The Imitation Game.” I’m going to be panting for the next 30 minutes, but it’s going to be totally worth it!

6:05 P.M.: Just got back in line at the same theater, now to see “Rosewater” (Jon Stewart’s directorial debut).

8:35 P.M.: And now it’s time for my final film at the festival, “Wild” (starring Reese Witherspoon!). I only got halfway through the book before coming here, so that’s going to be interesting watching the movie.

Also, “The Imitation Game” was solidly good, and “Rosewater” was a nice film if not particularly great.

12:59 A.M.:  Well, folks, that’s my first Telluride Film Festival in the books!  Closed out on a good note with “Wild,” which was a very pleasant surprise.  Depending on how you want to count, I saw roughly 15 films in 4 days.  So a lot of reviewing will be coming up in the next few days!

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Telluride Film Festival Diary, Day 3

31 08 2014

8:30 A.M.: Up early to talk with Mike Leigh and then hit up one of my most anticipated films of the festival –  the Marion Cotillard-starring “Two Days, One Night.”

11:30 A.M.: Floored by “Two Days, One Night.” A fascinating look at the internal tussle between self-interest and self-sacrifice. Now headed to the noon panel!

1:00 P.M.: Ugh, nothing worse than having to leave an incredible panel that featured Jon Stewart, Gael Garcia Bernal, Bennett Miller (director of “Moneyball” and “Foxcatcher”), and Jean-Marc Vallee (director of “Dallas Buyers Club” and “Wild”). But now I’m about to see an obscure silent film with live accompaniment, which is certainly a cool thing. Even if the movie is a dud, it is certainly a unique experience to cross off the cinematic bucket list.

5:30 P.M.: Well, the silent film was a pretty neat thing to see. I was not entirely in the right mindset to watch that kind of a film, so I didn’t necessarily engage with it on a level I’d hoped.

Then we had student Q&A sessions with the Dardennes (who directed “Two Days, One Night”) and Morten Tyldum (who directed “The Imitation Game,” which I did even get to see). I told the French-speaking Dardennes bonjour, which was sadly all the interaction I had with them. I had a great question for them, but I didn’t get called on. The conversation with Tyldum was surprisingly interesting, considering that none of us saw the film.

Now, on to “Dancing Arabs,” an Israeli-Palestinian film that I know absolutely nothing about. And sometimes, that’s not a bad thing.

8:45 P.M.: GOT INTO “FOXCATCHER.” Festival = made. And James Gray, the director of my favorite 2014 film “The Immigrant,” is sitting two rows behind me!

Also, I ran into Ramin Bahrani, the director of “99 Homes,” while in line for the bathroom today. I told him how much I enjoyed the film, and he replied in astonishment that I was able to stay awake. I also chatted him up about Winston-Salem, where he filmed a short that played before the presentation last night. Pretty cool stuff!

Oh, and “Dancing Arabs” was mediocre, in case you were wondering.

12:11 A.M.:  Back from “Foxcatcher.”  What a cerebral, brooding film.  Definitely going to spend some time in deliberation on this one.  Reminds me of how I felt emerging from “The Master.”

Anyways, tomorrow is the day when the festival reprograms the films that had lots of turnaways – so wish me luck as I attempt to catch “Rosewater” and “Wild.”  So now I’m going to try to finish the book of the latter … which I doubt will happen.


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Categories : Festivals, Telluride 2014

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