Cinequest

DVD/Stream of the Week: THE HUNT

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THE HUNT

In honor of the opening of this year’s Cinequest, this week’s pick is the Danish drama The Hunt from the 2013 Cinequest.  Mads Mikkelsen plays a man whose life is ruined by a false claim of child sexual abuse. You’ll recognize Mikkelsen, a big star in Europe, from After the Wedding and the 2006 Casino Royale (he was the villain with the bleeding eye). He won the 2012 Cannes Best Actor award for this performance.

The story is terrifyingly plausible. The protagonist, Lucas, is getting his bearings after a job change and a divorce. He lives in a small Danish town where everyone knows everyone else, next door to his best friend. The best friend drinks too much and his wife is a little high-strung, but Lucas embraces them for who they are. He’s a regular guy who hunts and drinks with his buddies and is adored by the kids at the kindergarten where he works. He’s not a saint – his ex-wife can get him to fly off the handle with little effort.

A little girl hears a sexual reference at home that she does not understand (and no one in the story could ever find out how she heard it). When she innocently repeats it at school, the staff is alarmed and starts to investigate. Except for one mistake by the school principal, everyone in the story acts reasonably. One step in the process builds upon another until the town’s parents become so understandably upset that a public hysteria ensues.

Director Thomas Vinterburg had previously created the underappreciated Celebration (Festen). The Hunt is gripping – we’re on the edges of our seats as the investigation snowballs and Lucas is put at risk of losing everything – his reputation, his job, his child, his friends, his liberty and even his life. Can Lucas be cleared, and, if he is, how scarred will he be? The Hunt is a superbly crafted film with a magnificent performance by Mikkelsen.

The Hunt is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and PlayStation Video.

Cinequest: DAN AND MARGOT

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DAN AND MARGOT
DAN AND MARGOT

Margot is a vibrant and salty 27-year-old Canadian woman. She suffered a schizophrenic break when she was away at college. Now she’s medicated, and fighting to resume her life. Margot is the subject of the documentary Dan and Margot, and I’ll leave you to find out who Dan is or is not.

How do we think of schizophrenia?  We often visualize the feral-looking guy ranting to himself outside the 7-11. But how about those who are just slipping into a schizophrenic break or those medicated – with the disorder under control?  In this very personal look examination of one person’s illness, Margot and her friends and family share how the disorder can sneak up on not only the individual, but their support system, as  well.

Filmmakers Chloe Sosa-Sims and Jake Chirico parachute themselves and their camera into Margot’s life and take advantage of the access without sensationalizing her life. Dan and Margot is a solid and thought-provoking movie.

[Note: there is a little animation in Dan and Margot, but most is live action and almost all of that is Margot herself. The trailer is more representative of the film than is the still image above.]

Cinequest: PARABELLUM

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PARABELLUM
PARABELLUM

The Argentine drama Parabellum is a trippy movie unlike anything that you’ve seen.  Set in a pre-apocalyptic near future, cities are crumbling into disorder and meteors are plunging into the Earth with alarmingly increased frequency.  Clearly everyone should be panicking, but no one is.

Instead, the characters in Parabellum don blindfolds and are motored up a jungle river to a secret adventure resort where they learn survivalist skills – kind of Camp Heart of Darkness.  The most life-and-death exercises are addressed matter-of-factly, with an absurdly calm determination that makes Parabellum seem like something out of Buñuel.

Parabellum’s measured pace seems so at odds with the impending disaster (whatever it will be), that it’s part of the joke.  What the hell is going on and what are these people thinking?  Beautifully shot, engrossing and witty – Parabellum is a wacky treat.

Cinequest: DEMIMONDE

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DEMIMONDE
DEMIMONDE

Sex, intrigue and murder – the atmospheric Hungarian drama Demimonde has it all.  It’s just before World War I in Pest, and we meet a wealthy kept woman (Patricia Kovács), her longtime housekeeper (Dorka Gryllus) and the new maid (Laura Döbrösi). Indeed, the movie’s title describes the professional courtesan,  shamelessly successful as a professional mistress that she can dare to seek riskier and riskier gratification.  Mustering more poise, dignity and sexiness than anyone else,  she utterly flouts all the conventions of respectability.  I don’t need them to respect me, she says, I just need them to be fascinated.  Indeed, she fascinates so many of the characters, that the sexual entanglements pile up until there are grave consequences.

All of the characters are hungering for something – sex and status, lost love, new love, sustenance, amusement.  The three lead actresses and all the supporting cast are exceptionally good.  Director Attila Szász convincingly takes us to the period and keeps the surprises coming.

With all the misbehavior, someone is sure to be punished and, when that happens, Demimonde becomes operatic. It’s one of the most satisfyingly entertaining films at Cinequest, and it plays the festival on March 2, 3, 9 and 10.

help get a Cinequest star to the festival

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THE PROMISED BAND
THE PROMISED BAND

The thought-provoking documentary The Promised Band has its world premiere next week at Cinequest. It’s about a group of Israeli and Palestinian women seeking to fight through the cultural, legal, political, military and security barriers between them (by forming a girl band).   I’ve seen it, and it effectively brings the audience into the Israel-Palestine border situation and the isolating effects on both Israelis and Palestinians.  The Promised Band is one of the 129 woman-directed films at this year’s Cinequest.

The most compelling subject of the documentary is the main Palestinian character, the charismatic Lina. There’s now a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to bring Lina from Ramallah to San Jose for Cinequest: Let’s Get Lina to California . I’ve kicked in a little, and I’d appreciate it if you would consider helping out, too.

Movies to See Right Now

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Saoirse Ronan in BROOKLYN
Saoirse Ronan in BROOKLYN – it ain’t going to win an Oscar, but you should see it while it’s on the big screen

Here’s your last chance to watch the Oscar nominees before the awards broadcast:

  • 45 Years with Charlotte Rampling’s enthralling Oscar-nominated performance.
  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN. I predict that The Revenant will be the biggest winner at the Oscars.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.

The Coen Brothers’ disappointingly empty comedy Hail, Caesar contains some cool Hollywood parodies.

Silicon Valley’s own film festival Cinequest is around the corner – make plans now to attend between March 1 and March 13.

My Stream/VOD of the Week is DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: The Story of the National Lampoon, which takes us through an engaging and comprehensive history of the groundbreaking and seminal satirical magazine. You can stream it from iTunes or the Showtime VOD service (and you can catch it on the Showtime channel).

The Movie Gourmet features Overlooked Noir, but Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity is anything but overlooked – it’s justifiably recognized as one of the two or three most iconic film noir. I’ve included it as the prototypical noir in my A Classic American Movie Primer. It’s about a guy who is just selling insurance until he meets a woman he can’t resist…Double Indemnity plays on Turner Classic Movies on February 28.

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY
Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Check out her ankle bracelet.

Cinequest around the corner

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cinequest

Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY
Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY

Make your plans now to attend the 26th edition of Cinequest, Silicon Valley’s own major film festival. By some metrics the largest film festival in North America, Cinequest was recently voted the nation’s best by USA Today readers. The 2016 Cinequest is scheduled for March 1 through March 13 and will over 100 feature films from the US and over twenty other countries.  And, at Cinequest, it’s easy to meet the filmmakers.

This year’s headline events include:

  • The Helen Mirren thriller Eye in the Sky on Opening Night.
  • A pre-release screening of the major studio The Little Prince, already spoken of as a contender for the 2017 Animated Feature Oscar.
  • James Franco’s appearance to present his film The Adderall Diaries.
  • Rita Moreno’s attendance at the world premiere of her movie Remember Me.
  • The Australian drama The Daughter on Closing Night (I’ve seen it – and it packs a punch!).

This year, Cinequest presents the world or US premieres of sixty features and sixty-nine shorts. And of these 129 debut films, 64 were directed by women!

I’m going to be strongly recommending at least two of these first features, the psychological thriller Lost Solace and the character-driven drama Heaven’s Floor.  I’ve already screened over a dozen Cinequest 2016 movies, and I’ve already also found an excellent period romance, some thought-provoking documentaries and even a satisfying low brow comedy.

Indeed, the real treasure at Cinequest 2016 is likely to be found among the hitherto less well-known films. In the past three years, the Cinequest gems Wild Tales, ’71, Ida and The Hunt all made my Best of the Year lists.

Cinequest is on my list of Silicon Valley’s Best Movie Deals.  You can get a pass for as little as $155, and you can get individual tickets as well. The express pass for an additional tax-deductible $100 is a fantastic deal – you get to skip to the front of the lines!

Take a look at the program, the schedule and the passes and tickets. (If you want to support Silicon Valley’s most important cinema event while skipping the lines, the $100 donation for Express Line Access is an awesome deal.)

As usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. I usually screen (and write about) over thirty films from around the world.  I’ll soon have up a Cinequest 2016 page. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

LOST SOLACE
LOST SOLACE

 

2015 at the movies: most fun at the movies

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Deenis O'Keefe and Ann Sheridan in WOMAN ON THE RUN
Deenis O’Keefe and Ann Sheridan in WOMAN ON THE RUN

My favorite movie-going experiences in 2015:

  • San Francisco’s Noir City film fest, with the double feature Woman on the Run and Born to Be Bad.
  • Cinequest, especially seeing the raucously funny Wild Tales with The Wife and friends  at a packed California Theatre and seeing the exquisite and lyrical Georgian drama Corn Island on the recommendation of international film programmer Charlie Cockey.
  • Turner Classic Movies’ Summer of Darkness, program of film noir, which allowed me to discover two new noir favorites: 99 River Street and Witness to Murder.
  • Discovering the wretchedly bad and unintentionally hilarious An American Hippie in Israel on TCM – a new addition to my Bad Movie Festival.
  • The wonderful surprise of the very funny and family centric documentary Meet the Patels at a Camera Cinema Club, complete with a Skype interview with the Patel family itself.
  • A particularly strong program at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where I saw The End of the Tour, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, The Look of Silence, Listen to Me Marlon, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead and Very Semi-serious.
  • The Wife taking me to a luxurious screening of Spectre at the Los Gatos Theater with its black leather sofas and ottomans.
  • Happening to be in Spain during the first weekend of the Sevilla European Film Festival, and getting to catch Mustang with The Wife and my niece Maeve.
MEET THE PATELS
MEET THE PATELS

DVD/Stream of the Week: WILD TALES

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WILD TALES
WILD TALES

Okay, here’s the first Must See of 2015 – the hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales. Writer-director Damián Szifron presents a series of individual stories about revenge. It’s still high my list of Best Movies of 2015 – So Far.

We all feel aggrieved, and Wild Tales explores what happens when rage overcomes the restraints of social order. Think about how instantly angry you can become when some driver cuts you off on the highway – and then how you might fantasize avenging the slight. Indeed, there is a story in Wild Tales that has the most severe case road rage since Spielberg’s Duel in 1971. Now Wild Tales is dark, and you gotta go with it. The humor comes from the EXTREMES that someone’s resentment can lead to.

One key to the success of Wild Tales is that it is an anthology. In a very wise move, Szifron resisted any impulse to stretch one of the stories into a feature-length movie. Each of the stories is just the right length to extract every laugh and pack a punch. The funniest stories are the opening one set on an airplane and the final one about a wedding.

The acting is uniformly superb. In one story, Oscar Martínez plays a wealthy man in a desperate jam, who buys the help of his shady lawyer fixer (Osmar Núñez) and his longtime household retainer (Germán de Silva) – until their prices get just a little too high. The three actors take what looks like it’s going to a thriller and morph into a (very funny) psychological comedy with a very cynical view of human nature.

One of the middle episodes stars one of my favorite film actors, Ricardo Darín, who I see as the Argentine Joe Mantegna. I suggest that you watch Darín in the brilliant police procedural The Secrets in Their Eyes (on my top ten for 2010), the steamy and seamy Carancho and the wonderful con artist movie Nine Queens.

Wild Tales has been a festival hit (Cannes, Telluride, Toronto and Sundance) around the world and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar. I saw Wild Tales at Cinequest 2015. It’s now available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

’71: keeping the thrill in thriller

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'71
’71

The title of the harrowing thriller ’71 refers to the tumultuous year 1971 in Northern Ireland’s Troubles. An ill-prepared unit of British soldiers gets their first taste of action in Belfast, and the rookie Private Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell) gets inadvertently left behind in hostile territory. Private Hook races around an unfamiliar and dangerous city at night. He is being hunted by his own regular troops, a shadowy and sketchy military intelligence unit, the regular IRA, the hotheaded Provisional IRA and Ulster paramilitaries – all with their own conflicting agendas. Any civilian who helps him will be at direct and lethal risk from the partisans.

In their feature debuts, director Jann Demange and cinematographer Tat Ratcliffe take us on a Wild Ride, with just a couple of chances for the audience to catch its collective breath. Importantly, the way Private Hook gets left behind amid the escalating chaos is very believable. Then there’s an exhilarating footrace through the alleys and over brick walls. Every encounter with another person is fraught with tension. Finally, there’s a long and thrilling climactic set piece in a Belfast apartment block.

O’Connell is in 90% of the shots and carries it off very well. All of the acting in ’71 is excellent. Corey McKinley is special as the toughest and most confident ten-year-old you’ll ever meet. Barry Keoghan takes the impassive stone face to a new level. And I always enjoy David Wilmot (so hilarious in The Guard).

I thank the casting and the direction for making it easy for us to tell all of these pale, ginger characters apart. To the credit of writer Gregory Burke, the beginning of the film economically sets up Private Hook as having the fitness and stamina to survive what befalls him throughout the night.

With all the different sides playing each other, the action (and the action is compelling) is set in an especially treacherous version of three-dimensional chess. Some of the double- and triple-crossing at the end is breathtaking. But what ’71 does best is putting the thrill in a thriller – keeping the audience on the edge of our seats for all 99 minutes.

’71, which I saw at Cinequest, makes my list of the Best Movies of 2015 – So Far. It’s now available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.