Mill Valley Film Festival

FRANKIE: trying to wrap up loose ends

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Marisa Tomei and Isabelle Huppert in FRANKIE

In Ira Sachs’ Frankie, Isabelle Huppert plays the title character, a movie star who, having been diagnosed with a terminal illness, summons her family to a Portuguese vacation villa. She’s used to getting what she wants, and what she wants now is to wrap up some family loose ends.

The loose ends in question are, well, loose. There’s her son, still deciding on his path a little too close to middle age. There’s her husband’s daughter, struggling with her husband and their teen daughter. Her current husband is there, along with her first husband. And she’s invited a friend who happens to be her son’s age, and who lives in the city to which her son is moving… Her husbands are focused with what’s happening with Frankie, but the younger folks are all absorbed in their own crucial life decisions.

Isabelle Huppert and Jérémie Renier in FRANKIE

As one would expect, Isabelle Huppert is superb as Frankie, a woman who toggles between manipulating her clan and silently contemplating her own fate. The rest of the cast is excellent, too, especially Brendan Gleeson as Frankie’s loyal and observant husband and Marisa Tomei as Frankie’s younger friend who brings along a surprise guest. That guest is played by Greg Kinnear, with just the right mix of decency, earnestness and pathetic cluelessness.

Frankie is set (and was shot) in Sintra, Portugal, and what a beautiful place that must be, with its whitewashed villas, charming cobblestone streets and ocean vistas.

I watched Frankie at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and I really enjoyed it. But the festival audience was very indifferent at the screening; I’m guessing that folks failed to warm to an ambiguous ending that leaves some plot threads unresolved.

JOJO RABBIT: a joyous and hilarious movie about the inculcation of hatred

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JOJO RABBIT

Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. His protagonist is the ten-year-old German boy Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), growing up during the final years of World War II. Jojo lives with his mom (Scarlett Johansson) because his dad is away (and we learn that the father is likely dead), It’s a tough childhood in these conditions, and Jojo copes with the help of an imaginary friend, who happens to be Adolph Hitler, played uproariously by Waititi himself.

Waititi doesn’t play the historical Hitler; he plays a benign and reassuring figure that is imagined by a child brought up on Nazi propaganda. He fills that role that uncles and grandads get to be with kids – the cherished figure who is always on your side and never make you do your chores. Of course, a playful and nurturing Hitler is absurd, and Waititi is brilliantly funny.

Jojo tries to fit in with the Hitler Youth, and his hobby is innocently filling a notebook with illustrations of the most hideous Jewish stereotypes that he has been taught. What we understand but Jojo doesn’t, is that his mom is risking her life in the anti-Nazi Resistance. She’s also been hiding the Jewish girl Elsa (Thomasin Mackenzie) in the attic a la Anne Frank.

Thomasin MacKenzie in JOJO RABBIT

Jojo discovers Elsa, and , as is usually the case with a ten-year-old boy and a fifteen-year-old girl, she becomes the boss of him. He gets an up close lesson in Jewishness, and it’s a revelation to him. It’s also clear that Germany is losing the war, although Jojo, as a child, is slower to connect the dots about that than are the adults. As the propaganda is unpeeled, the absurdities of the hatred and scapegoating are revealed to Jojo.

Roman Griffin Davis is a perfect choice to play the relatable innocent Jojo. Thomasin MacKenzie, so genuine and ethereal in Leave No Trace, is wonderful here, too. The entire cast is good, especially Johansson, Sam Rockwell as a cynical army officer, Rebel Wilson as a Nazi true believer and Stephen Merchant as a grinning Gestapo goon.

Even more than most movies, this is a film of its time. Five years ago, we might not have seen the value of a movie discrediting the Joseph Goebbels approach – pounding outrageous lies into a mass audience made gullible by its own dissatisfaction, targeting the “other” as blameworthy for all ills. But here we are, 74 years after the destruction of the Nazis, once again watching blowhard demagogues drumming up hatred for minority groups and scapegoating immigrants – in the US and Europe and around the globe. With its skewering of manufactured hatred and the Big Lie, this witty and ultimately sweet film resonates.

I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter. This is going to be an audience favorite.

Movies to See Right Now

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Peter Sarsgaard in Michael Tyburski’s THE SOUND OF SILENCE. Courtesy of SFFILM

This week, I’ll be at the Mill Valley Film Festival: it’s an early look at the most prestigious movies of the year. Watch for my coverage of 63 Up, Jojo Rabbit, Frankie, Where’s My Roy Cohn? and Marriage Story. If you miss the big movies at the MVFF, you can at least stream some of the Best Movies of 2019 – So Far – The Last Black Man in San Francisco, They Shall Not Grow Old, Amazing Grace and Booksmart are all available to be streamed.

OUT NOW

  • Downtown Abbey is a satisfying wrap-up for fans of the beloved PBS series.
  • The Sound of Silence is an engrossing character study starring Peter Sarsgaard as a man confident in his obsession until… It’s had a limited run at San Jose’s 3Below, and you can stream it on Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the evocative and thought-provoking German drama Western. Western can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On October 5, Turner Classic Movies will air the 1950 version of M, directed by Joseph Losey. This is a remake of Fritz Lang’s great 1931 M with Peter Lorre. The Losey version is not a masterpiece like the original, and I find it pretty odd. However, Los Angeles’ storied Bradbury Building, which has been in many a movie, was never been as gloriously revealed from basement to roof as in M. The Bradbury Building and the film as a whole benefit from the cinematography of Ernest Laszlo; Laszlo also shot D.O.A., The Well, The Steel Trap, Stalag 17, The Naked Jungle, Kiss Me Deadly and While the City Sleeps, before being Oscar-nominated eight times for more respectable, but lesser films. The cast is filled with film noir faves – Raymond Burr, Norman Lloyd, Howard Da Silva, Steve Brodie and Luther Adler.

Joseph Losey’s M

63 UP – the next chapter that we’ve been waiting for

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The Mill Valley Film Festival will be screening 63 Up – the latest in Michael Apted’s Seven Up series. Apted himself will appear at the screening. The Seven Up series is one of the great achievements in cinema history, certainly the greatest documentary series ever ,and on my list of Greatest Movie of All Time. Since 1964, we’ve had to wait seven years for each new chapter, and the latest is finally here.

Starting with Seven Up! in 1964, director Michael Apted has followed the same fourteen British children, filming snapshots of their lives at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 – and now at age 56. Choosing kids from different backgrounds, the series started as a critique of the British class system, but has since evolved into a broader exploration of what factors can lead to success and happiness at different stages of human life. (Apted was the hands-on researcher, not the director on Seven Up! and then directed the next eight films in the series.)

We have seen these characters live roller coaster lives.  The surprise in 56 Up was how contented they seemed to be.  They seemed to have independently reached a stage in their lives where they live with acceptance and satisfaction.  Accordingly, it makes for mellow and pleasing viewing for us.

Michael Apted is a big time director (Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist).  It is remarkable that he has returned so faithfully to his subjects in the Up series. 

Because Apted includes clips from earlier films to set the stage for each character, you don’t need to watch all nine movies.  Because there is so much turbulence in the earlier films and so little conflict in 56 Up , it would be ideal to first screen an edgier film like 35 Up or 42: Forty Two Up.  The earlier films are difficult, perhaps impossible, to find streaming, but the entire series {Seven Up!, Seven Plus Seven, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up, 56 Up} is available on Netflix DVDs. 56 Up stands on its own, and it’s streamable on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Kanopy.

The MVFF will screen 63 Up on October 8, and you can read more and buy tickets on page 15 of the MVFF program.

63 UP

Movies to See Right Now

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Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn in WHERE’S MY ROY COHN?

The upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival is the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies. Check out my list of Best Movies of 2019 – So Far – The Last Black Man in San Francisco, They Shall Not Grow Old, Amazing Grace and Booksmart are all available to be streamed.

OUT NOW

  • Downtown Abbey is a satisfying wrap-up for fans of the beloved PBS series.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and is there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best.
  • The family dramedy The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • Bay Area filmmaker John Maringouin’s inventive satire Ghostbox Cowboy, skewers white entitlement and sneaks a peek inside the shadiest corners of the Chinese boom economy. Ghostbox Cowboy earned a NY Times Critic’s Pick and can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime).

ON VIDEO

The Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace is, at once, the recovery of a lost film, the document of an extraordinary live recording and an immersive, spiritual experience. Amazing Grace can be streamed on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play; the DVD can be rented from Redbox.

ON TV

On September 25, Turner Classic Movies will present the groundbreaking French comedy La Cage Aux Folles – a daring film in 1978, when few were thinking about same-sex marriage. A gay guy runs a nightclub on the Riviera, and his partner is the star drag queen. The nightclub owner’s beloved son wants him to meet the parents of his intended.  But the bride-to-be’s father is a conservative politician who practices the most severe and judgmental version of Roman Catholicism, so father and son decide to conceal aspects of dad’s lifestyle. Mad cap comedy ensues, and La Cage proves that broad farce can be heartfelt. Michel Serrault is unforgettable as Albin/Zaza – one of the all-time great comic performances. (La Cage was tepidly remade in 1996 as The Birdcage with Robin Williams, but you want to see the French original.)

Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL: see ’em here first

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PARASITE, one of the prestige offerings at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival

The Mill Valley Film Festival always showcases the prestige films that will be released during Award Season. It’s the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies. Don’t wait until Thanksgiving – head to Marin in early October.

For example, last year’s festival featured Roma, Green Book, Shoplifters, If Beale Street Could Talk and Cold War. Those five films combined for 28 Oscar nominations and 7 Oscars. You get the idea.

THREE of the movies I am expecting to be the year’s best are playing at this year’s MVFF:

  • Parasite – This year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes. A family of poor scoundrels and a rich family become entangled in a thriller dramedy. Writer-director Bong Joon-ho is one of my favorite filmmkaers (Memories of Murder, Snowpiercer, Mother, Okja).
  • The Whistlers – from Romanian writer-director Corneliu Porumboiu (Police, Adjective), this is a fish-out-of-water crime comedy that won’t be released in the US until February 2020.
  • Jojo Rabbit – the anti-hate satire about a young boy and his shocking inappropriate imaginary friend. From the unpredictable director Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople).

Other highlights include:

  • The Irishman – Martin Scorsese’s latest gangster saga, with Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci; the film employs innovative anti-aging effects for the flashback scenes.
  • The Truth – Master director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) first non-Japanese film, with Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke.
  • The Lighthouse – Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are on a remote island in the 1890s. Major festival buzz about this contemplative movie.
  • 63 Up – the latest in Michael Apted’s Seven Up series, one of the great achievements in cinema history (and Apted himself will appear at the screening).
  • Frankie – the always discomfiting Isabelle Huppert takes her family (Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear) on a roller coaster.
  • Ford v Ferrari – a Hollywood audience-pleaser with Matt Damon, Christian Bale and Tray Letts.
  • Seberg – Kristen Stewart stars as Jean Seberg (and will appear at MVFF). Also stars Maragret Qualley (Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Novitiate).
  • Pain and Glory, the latest from Pedro Alomodovar.
  • Just Mercy – Southern justice with Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Tim Blake Nelson and Brie Larson. Major Oscar bait from Short Term 12’s Destin Daniel Cretton.
  • Knives Out – currently my favorite trailer, this is Rian Johnson’s (Brick, Looper) star-studded take on the English country home murder mystery.
  • Motherless Brooklyn – the neo-noir from Edward Norton, who also stars.
  • Marriage Story – could be a career-topper from Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale).

Plus there’s a very special event for cinephiles – a screening of the 1988 art house classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being with director Philip Kaufman and star Lena Olin in attendance.

This year’s festival runs October 3-13 at four different Marin County venues (plus BAMPFA in Berkeley),. You can peruse the program and buy tickets at Mill Valley Film Festival.

SHOPLIFTERS: The closest families are chosen by each other

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Ando Sakura, Sasaki Miyu, Jyo Kairi, Lily Franky, Matsuoka Mayu and Kiki Kirin in SHOPLIFTERS, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Shoplifters is a witty, and finally heartbreaking, look at a family that lives on the margins – and then is revealed to be not what it seems. Everyone in this contemporary Japanese family – dad, mom, teen girl and even grandma – has some shady job or outright scam. The dad has taught the 10-year-old boy to become a skilled shoplifter and tells him that he isn’t sent to school because he’s too smart. The dad and son rescue a lost and neglected four-year-old girl from a harsh winter night; the family decides to adopt her into the family. Of course, we wonder if the little girl’s biological parents will report her missing and whether the authorities will track her down.

Other than informally adding a child, not much seems to happen as the family goes on with its daily life – “work”, “shopping”, meal prep, bedtime and the rest, even a beach excursion. These lovable scoundrels are a hoot, and Shoplifters is very funny.

Writer-director Hirokazu Koreeda reveals – character by character – how each came into the family. Eventually that becomes critically important to the family’s survival – and leads to an emotionally powerful ending. The closest families are chosen by each other.


Lily Franky and Jyo Kairi in SHOPLIFTERS, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Shoplifters features a magnificent performance by Sakura Andô as the family’s mother figure – pretty understated until she gets to a knock-your-socks-off seduction scene. Her two jailhouse interviews at the end of the film are heartbreaking.

Jyo Kairi, with one of the best child performances of the year, is also superb as the boy.

Shoplifters just won the Palm d’Or, the top award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Koreeda is known for the 1995 art house hit Maborosi, one of the best movies of 2008, Still Walking and this year’s The Third Murder. I saw Shoplifters in early October at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

MUSEO: portrait of alienation in the form of a heist

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MUSEO

The true life Mexican heist film Museo is really a portrait of alienation – and immature alienation at that. It’s about a young middle class guy in a third world country, and he has first wold problems; his prospects are not unlimited, but he’s way better off than his less educated compatriots. So he and his weak-willed buddy pull off an audacious art theft.

Unusually, and perhaps uniquely, among heist films, hardly any time is invested in assembling the team (here it’s the guy and his buddy) or in the heist itself. The guys steal the most famous ancient Mexican artifacts from the National Museum, essentially the heart of the nation’s heritage. The theft becomes a sensation that dominates the national zeitgeist, triggers an all-out manhunt and a political scandal. How could this have happened?

Of course, there can’t possibly be any buyers for such high visibility objects (just like in this year’s other real life slacker heist film American Animals). Most of the film is figuring out what to do next – and good options are non-existent.

The protagonist is played by the fine actor Gael Garcia Bernal. Unfortunately, this character really isn’t that interesting; I think that is because his alienation is based on petulance and not on rage (see the great Jack Nicholson ragingly alienated roles of the 70s).

Museo does a good job of evoking the Mexico City and Acapulco in the mid 1980s. But without the central thrill of a heist, we are left with an unsympathetic protagonist and his predicament, and that’s really not enough for a two-hour movie. I saw Museo at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

https://vimeo.com/287000720

Movies to See Right Now

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Lady Gaga illuminates Bradley Cooper’s triumphant A Star Is Born.  Don’t bring a hankie – bring a whole friggin’ box of Kleenex.  For an under-the-radar pick at the Mill Valley Film Festival , check out one of the most optimistic movies I’ve recently seen, the documentary One Voice: The Story of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir on October 13.

OUT NOW

  • Spike Lee’s true story BlacKkKlansman is very funny and, finally, emotionally powerful.
  • The first-rate thriller Searching is more than just a gimmick (it entirely takes place on computer screens) and is filled with authentic Silicon Valley touches.
  • Jane Fonda herself spills her most intimate secrets in the irresistible HBO biodoc Jane Fonda in Five Acts.
  • Crazy Rich Asians is wildly popular for a reason – it’s damn entertaining and probably the year’s most appealing date movie. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll wait for the chance to see Awkwafina in her next movie.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the alternatively jaw-dropping and visually amazing documentary Brimstone & Glory, about fireworks manufacturing and the National Pyrotechnical Festival in Tultepec, Mexico. Brimstone & Glory can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes and Vudu.

ON TV

On October 14 Turner Classic Movies presents the John Sturges masterpiece Bad Day at Black Rock with Spencer Tracy investigating a disappearance in an especially hostile, racist and sinister town. Besides having Tracy at his best and being a great looking movie, Bad Day at Black Rock is notable for its menacing crew of Bad Guys – Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin.

Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK
Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK

ONE VOICE: uplifting and optimistic

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ONE VOICE

The documentary One Voice: The Story of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir is my under-the-radar pick at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Suffice it to say, when I screened this film, the very first thing I did (while still on the couch with the credits rolling on my screener) was to buy online tickets for a live performance of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir.

Gospel music is generally thought of as a Protestant, and especially a Black Protestant, form of worship and art, but the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir is unusually inclusive. Members come from all ethnicities and sexual preferences and from up to 14 faiths. Even predominantly Black church audiences that are initially skeptical of an interracial gospel group appreciate their chops.

The Rainbow makeup of the choir, with folks from all backgrounds so passionately working together in the cause of gospel music, is the core of the movie. The warmth and authenticity of the diverse OIGC members are in sharp contrast to the current atmosphere of suspicion and hate in our national culture. As such, this is a powerfully optimistic and uplifting film.

That’s not to say that it’s saccharine Happy Talk. Artistic Director Terrance Kelly and the OIGC don’t sugarcoat the historic origin of the old spirituals.

The music in the film ranges from infectious to profoundly moving. The performance highlight of the film is soprano Nicolia Bagby Gooding’s solo on Lawd, How Come We Heah?.

Documentarians Spencer Wilkinson (director) and Mark R. DeSaulnier (producer) have created a crisp (64 minutes) and intoxicating film. One Voice will have its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival on Oct 10 and 13.

ONE VOICE: The Story of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir from Endangered Ideas on Vimeo.