The Mill Valley Film Festival is the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the prestige films that are scheduled for release during Award Season.. My choices for the most promising entries among the Big Movies:
- Arrival stars Amy Adams as a linguist dispatched to communicate with alien lifeforms Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Incendies – my top movie of 2011, Prisoners, Sicario).
- La La Land is a big studio musical a la Singing in the Rain with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
- Loving tells the story of the Virginia couple whose 1967 US Supreme Court case overturned state laws banning inter-racial marriage. Stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. Directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, all three of which made my Best of the Year lists).
- Buzz is trending for Lion, with Dev Patel starring as an Australian adoptee returning to India to search for his biological parents.
- And the big family hit of the Holiday season may turn out to be, of all things a documentary about a Mongolian girl – The Eagle Huntress; reportedly it’s both a crowd pleaser and spectacular eye candy.
One MUST SEE at the fest is Toni Erdmann, from writer-director Maren Ade. You might not expect an almost three-hour German comedy to break through, but I’ve seen it, and I think that it’s a lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Ade gives us a woman’s perspective of a father-daughter relationship, creating a totally original and unforgettable father character that takes prankstering into performance art. This is a movie with the funniest nude brunch you’ll ever witness that still will leave you choked up at the end.Toni Erdmann leads a roster rich with future art house hits from some of the world’s leading filmmakers:
- The Handmaiden from Chan-wook Park of Oldboy.
- Julieta, Pedro Almodovar’s latest),
- Aquarius, starring Sonia Braga, still luminous 40 years after Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands.
- The Salesman from Asghar Farhadi of A Separation.
- Certain Women from Kelly Reichardt of Wendy and Lucy, starring Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern.
- Paterson from Jim Jarmusch with Adam Driver; Jarmusch’s Iggy Pop doc Gimme Shelter also screens at MVFF.
- Frantz from François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Potiche).
- Elle from Paul Verhoeven with Isabelle Huppert in, what else?, a psychological thriller with disturbing sex.
Jeff Nichols, Kelly Reichardt and Asghar Farhadi will be presenting their films in person.
The 2016 MVFF also features a solid lineup of documentaries, including Tower, a highly original look at a mass shooting, and Death by Design, an important environmental exposé on the toxic impact of our favorite electronic devices.
This year’s MVFF runs from October 6-16, mostly at the Sequoia in Mill Valley and the Rafael in San Rafael, but also at three other Marin venues. Check out the program and tickets. I’ll be adding more festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
