Movies – Page 27 – The Movie Gourmet

Cinequest: EXILED

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

The gripping Latvian drama Exiled is one of the most emotionally powerful and visually arresting films at this year’s Cinequest. In the aftermath of World War I, a German military physician (Ulrich Matthes) arrives deep in the Latvian woods, at a sanitarium for shell-shocked soldiers. It is a terrifying place. The caretaker has been indifferent, even criminally negligent. Patients are howling and literally raving. It’s the kind of place where the patients are fed disgusting gruel, cower under beds and smear feces on the walls. A young boy lives in the woods as feral beast, and is hunted by the local peasantry. The squalor seems impossible to conquer.

The doctor crusades to bring compassion and decency to the place. But it is still a place where the patients’ heads are shaved and they wear night shirts all day and night.
Even the well-intended treatments, with their leather restraints, unsettle us.

Exiled is not what we think of as a horror film, but horror is at its core, in the form of humans who have been emotionally broken by experiencing horror. And the horror of inhumanity toward the broken and vulnerable. There’s also a flashback to the horrors of World War I combat that was experienced by the soldier patients.

Of course, there is terror in insanity itself. We find it disturbing to be amidst those whose realities are so disconnected from our own. And we worry, “There but for the grace of God…”

Ulrich Matthes, who played Joseph Goebbels in Downfall, delivers a charismatic performance as the doctor. His zeal to help his charges gleams, sometimes in desperation and sometimes in outrage. It is 1918. Warfare is brutal, the peasants are barbaric, psychiatric medicine is primitive and he has no resources. How much difference can he make? Will cruelty triumph?

Exiled is a striking first narrative feature by the documentarian Davis Simanis Jr. Visually astonishing, each shot is magnificent, whether in the fog shrouded woods or the oil lamp lit interiors. It is compelling from the get-go, with an eerie soundtrack that helps us imagine the terror of both the reasoning and the deranged. The final shot – a static long shot of very long duration is devastating. Keep your focus on the very center of the frame.

Exiled is an exquisitely haunting film.

Cinequest: CURTAIN CALL

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

In the madcap Korean comedy Curtain Call, a talent-challenged theater troupe is about to go under. The company specializes in soft porn, and they are so bad that – even though they are simulating sex on stage – they still can’t sell enough tickets. In desperation, they enter a competition to put on Korea’s best version of Hamlet.

It’s a motley crew. There’s the Bieber-coiffed millennial who thinks that he’s a method actor. One veteran suffers from being public recognized for his trademark “Shag Shag Shake It”. They add an aged career Shakespearean who can’t always remember which play he’s in right now. For personal reasons, the theater company owner foists upon them an inexperienced ingenue who refuses to speak anything except her lines. In a seemingly hopeless quest to master the elevated source material, these bottom feeders become scrappy underdogs.

Curtain Call is a pleasant enough diversion, with some happily ribald moments. Audience members who know their Shakespeare will find the Hamlet scenes even funnier. The trailer is in Korean, but you’ll get the idea.

Cinequest: ANISHOARA

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Anishoara is an art movie of breathtaking visual quality. It also has a remarkable sense of time and place and . That place is the rural back country of Moldovia, a small, impoverished country wedged between Romania and Ukraine. That time is now, although it could just as easily be in a past century.

The visual artistry comes from writer-director Ana Felicia Scutelnicu, a Moldovan director who studied in Germany. I saw her first 61-minute feature Panihide, at the 2013 Cinequest. In both Panihida and Anishoara, Scutelnicu demonstrates a fine eye both for landscape and human observation. However, her pace is sloooooow. Scutelnicu is so gifted as a visual director, I’d really like to see a movie that she directs from someone else’s screenplay.

Anishoara begins with an Icarus-like folk parable about a girl’s unsuccessful quest to love the sun deity. We then see that tale reflected in a girl’s daily life over a year, as she sequentially deflects three suitors. Anishoara’s star is the non-professional actress Anishoara Morari, who was about 12-years-old in Panihide and about 16 in Anishoara. Morari is beautiful, with an unusual directness of gaze, and exudes striking alertnesss.

Not everyone is going to be able to stay with a movie this (ahem) unhurried, but the whole thing is great to look at. I’m thinking of a nighttime scene where we see Anishoara sitting on the ground in her cobalt dress before the camera pans to the landscape across a valley and the dramatic sky above. Every so often there’s a shot like that makes you gasp.

Cinequest: ALOYS

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

The title character of the Swiss drama Aloys is a solitary and harshly anti-social guy who repulses all gestures of human kindness and interest by others. He is a private detective who specializes in documenting infidelity through undercover surveillance. Using hidden microphones and cameras, he is steadfast in always avoiding contacting with his subjects. Then, in a moment of recklessness, he allows someone to rock his life, which results in the riveting story of Aloys.

An unknown woman steals his surveillance tapes and taunts him over the phone. In a completely original twist, she teases him with what she calls “phone walking”, daring him to use aural clues to visualize himself in places and situations and, ultimately find her. At first, his desperation to find her creates an obsession worthy of The Conversation. But then his imagination is unleashed, and he creates fantasies at once both more real and more outlandish. This is not a movie that you’ve seen before.

Aloys is on a thrill ride that he can’t get off. What is real, and what is fantasy? Can we be what we imagine? Can someone trade in his own life for a more appealing fantasy life? Can the fantasy be sustained? Aloys delivers surprise after surprise for the audience.

Cinequest 2017 around the corner

February 24, 2017 by movie gourmet

Make your plans now to attend the 27th 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 2017 Cinequest is scheduled for February 28 through March 12 and will present 132 films and virtual reality experiences from the US and over twenty other countries. And, at Cinequest, it’s easy to meet the filmmakers.

This year’s headline events include:

Celebrity appearances by actress Jane Lynch (Glee, Best in Show) and director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult).
Opening night film The Last Word, with Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried;
Closing night film The Zookeeper’s Wife with Jessica Chastain.
Preview screenings of films planned for theatrical release later this year: Carrie Philby (Nathan Lane, Gabriel Byrne), Tommy’s Honour (Sam Neill, Jack Lowden, Ophelia Lovibond), The Promise (Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale), The Ottoman Lieutenant (Michael Huisman, Josh Hartnett, Ben Kingsley) and (Re)assignment (Michele Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver).
The silent Flesh & the Devil with Greta Garbo, projected in a period movie palace, the California Theatre, accompanied by its mighty Wurlitzer organ.
Ten programs of virtual reality cinema, accessible in nearly a hundred screenings.

This year, Cinequest presents the world or US premieres of sixty-two features. And of the feature and short films in the Cinequest program, films, 75 were directed by women!

I’m going to be strongly recommending at least two of these first features, the family dramedies For Grace and Quality Problems, along with the brilliant Czech drama The Teacher and the forehead-slapping documentary The Twinning Reaction. More on those to come.

Indeed, the real treasure at Cinequest 2017 is likely to be found among the hitherto less well-known films. In the past three years, the Cinequest gems Eye in the Sky, Wild Tales, Ida, The Hunt, ’71, Corn Island, The Memory of Water, Magallanes and Lost Solace Class Enemy, Heavenly Shift, Oh Boy/A Coffee in Berlin and The Grand Seduction 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 $165, 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 entire 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 tax-deductible $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. Bookmark my Cinequest 2017 page, with links to all my coverage (links on the individual movies will start to go live on Sunday). Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

FENCES: actors and their monologues

February 23, 2017 by movie gourmet

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in FENCES

Denzel Washington directs and stars in the movie version of the August Wilson play Fences, which manifests as an actor’s showcase. Set in post-World War II America, Fences is entirely character-driven, and revolves around its two main characters, the fiftyish sanitary worker Troy (Denzel) and his stalwart wife Rose (Viola Davis).

A prototypical alpha male, Troy is an entertaining motormouth, which is fun to watch and also initially masks the exceeding complexity of his character. He’s a proud man – fiercely proud of his paycheck and home ownership, but not above skimming from someone vulnerable to secure it. He is bitter that racism denied him a professional sports career, but when improved race relations give his son more opportunity, Troy’s impulse is to sabotage it. His chief identity is as the head of his family, but he can betray other family members. Living in a racist society has helped mold Troy, but so have his own gifts and flaws.

Rose is utterly steadfast, a woman devoted to making things operate smoothly – despite Troy – in their home and family. Deep waters run silent, and – at first – we don’t see that Rose has a mind and identity and pride of her own.

Viola Davis’s performance is brilliant and powerful. As an actor, Denzel is at the top of his game. Mykelti Williamson is especially good as Troy’s brother, a brain-damaged veteran of the Pacific war. Stephen Henderson also delivers a nomination-worthy turn as Troy’s neighbor and co-worker Bono.

Thoughtful and well-acted as it is, Fences is a filmed play, and it’s very stagey. Every so often, it’s time for a monologue and one really fine actor stands and declaims while the others watch and regard him/her. It’s really not cinematic in any sense.

The Wife was profoundly disappointed that I did not share her admiration for Fences. She thinks that Viola Davis’ performance and the growth of the character of Rose make this an excellent movie. She even directed me NOT to write about Fences, lest I “desecrate Viola Davis’ performance”.

Stream of the Week: THE HANDMAIDEN – gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot

February 21, 2017 by movie gourmet

After a few minutes of The Handmaiden, we learn that it’s a con artist movie. After 100 minutes, we think we’ve watched an excellent con artist movie, but then we’re surprised by a huge PLOT TWIST, and we’re in for two more episodes and lots of surprises in a gripping and absorbing final hour. It’s also one of the most visually beautiful and highly erotic films of the year.

Director and co-writer Chan-wook Park sets the story in 1930s Korea during Japanese occupation (Japanese dialogue is subtitled in yellow and Korean dialogue in white). A young heiress has been secluded from childhood by her guardian uncle, who intends to marry her himself for her fortune. A con man embarks on a campaign to seduce and marry the wealthy young woman to harvest her inheritance himself. The con man enlists a pickpocket to become handmaiden to the heiress – and his mole. I’m not going to tell you more about the plot, but the audience is in for a wild ride.

The Handmaiden takes its time revealing its secrets. Who is conning who? Who is attracted to whom? How naive is the heiress? How loyal is the handmaiden? Who is really Japanese and who is really Korean? What’s in those antique books? What’s in the basement? Is the uncle perverted or REALLY perverted? And what legendary sex toy will show up in the final scene?

Chan-wook Park’s 2003 US art house hit Oldboy is highly sexualized, trippy and disturbing. The Handmaiden is much more mainstream and accessible than Oldboy, but its sexuality packs a punch.

Gorgeous and erotic, The Handmaiden is one of the most gloriously entertaining films of the year. You can stream it on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

February 17, 2017 by movie gourmet

This week’s best choices in theaters are:

La La Land: the extraordinarily vivid romantic musical staring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Lion: an emotionally affecting family drama that makes the audience weep (in a good way).
The Founder: the enjoyably addictive story of how a the money-grubbing visionary Ray Kroc built the McDonald’s food service empire.
Hidden Figures: a true life story from the 1960s space program – a triumph of human spirit and brainpower over sexism and racism; the audience applauded.
I Am Not Your Negro, the documentary about the American public intellectual James Baldwin. It’s a searing examination of race in America as analyzed through Baldwin’s eyes and as expressed through his elegant words.
The Salesman is another searing and authentic psychological family thriller from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past).

My TV/Stream of the Week is Tower, a remarkably original retelling of the 1966 mass shooting at UT Austin. It’s playing on the PBS documentary series Independent Lens, and you can also stream Tower on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

This week Turner Classic Movies will present two of my very favorite Alfred Hitchcock films. First, on February 19, there’s North by Northwest, with perhaps the greatest ever collection of iconic set pieces – especially the cornfield and Mount Rushmore scenes, but also those in the UN Building, hotel, mansion, art auction and the 20th Century Limited train – they’re all great. Back in the days of the Production Code, some filmmakers could deliver sexual and erotic content without actually showing nudity or simulated sexual activity; one of the best examples is the flirtation between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint on the train (and it even culminates with the notorious allegory of the train penetrating the tunnel).

Then TCM brings us Rear Window in February 21st. Here we have James Stewart playing a guy frustrated because he is trapped at home by a disability. When he observes some activity by neighbors that he interprets as a possible murder, he becomes more and more obsessed and voyeuristic. When it looks like he has been correct instead of paranoid, that business about being trapped by a disability takes on a whole new meaning.

Cinequest: THE MODERNS

March 22, 2022February 11, 2017 by movie gourmet

ES MUY COMPLICADO. In the Uruguayan dramedy The Moderns, Fausto (Mauro Sarser) is a free-lance film editor. Clara (Noelia Campo) is the producer of Uruguay’s most intellectually pretentious public TV talk show. They are working together on a documentary project – and dating each other. Fausto claims that Clara is pressuring him and dumps her. Fausto spots a New Shiny Thing in the form of the Argentine actress Fernanda (Marie Hélène Wyaux). Clara starts dating the beautiful lesbian Ana (Stefania Tortorella), which re-fascinates Fausto. Is Fausto confused, weak-willed or a selfish scoundrel? Who is going to end up with whom?

The Moderns is plenty funny. The fantasy scenes are uniformly LOL. And there’s a humorously unlikely impregnation. After watching the somewhat misleading trailer, I thought that I’d be starting this post with “Two Uruguayans walk into a studio and make a Woody Allen movie…” Indeed the white-on-black credits, the 1930s/1940s music in the score, the repertory cast and the black-and-white photography evoke Woody. But The Moderns is not an homage, but an original, character-based exploration

The Moderns is the first feature for co-writers and co-directors Marcila Matta and Mauro Sarser, and they show a lot of promise.

There’s an unexpectedly satisfying ending, and we are left with “We live our lives – and it’s complicated.”

https://youtu.be/_NYFY0rewS8

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO: searing thoughts in elegant words

February 1, 2017 by movie gourmet

The documentary I Am Not Your Negro centers on the American public intellectual James Baldwin. It’s a searing examination of race in America through Baldwin’s eyes and through his elegant words.

Those words are voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, and there is no third-party “narration”. The spoken words are Baldwin’s, either voiced by Jackson or spoken by Baldwin himself in file footage. Baldwin’s associates Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. are heard in file footage, but that’s it – the rest is all Baldwin.

The content of those words is about the African-American experience in America and Baldwin’s insistence on understanding and acknowledging the grievance and the moral imperative for remedy. The very last thing that Baldwin cared about was the comfort of his readers and listeners.

I Am Not Your Negro is an important film because Baldwin’s words today, stripped of their relation to temporal events, are stirring as we hear them again, naked and with urgency. Lest we fail to connect the dots to our current situation, snippets of current day events (Obama, Black Lives Matter, etc.) make it clear how relevant Baldwin’s thinking still is today.

The choice to present Baldwin’s thinking through only his own words, unadorned by talking heads is very successful. Director/co-writer Raoul Peck gets the credit for that, and the film that he has constructed with editor Alexandra Strauss is compelling.

It occurred tome that we really don’t have “public intellectuals” (thought leaders who were authors and columnists) as we did before cable television and Internet. Today we must make do with Talking (or Yelling) Heads on cable TV and bloggers (hey, I’m one of those); the current focus is more temporal and focused on instant reaction instead of presenting a coherent body of thought.

But, in the Good Old Days, book and newspaper publishers and network television producers were the gatekeepers of public discourse. Those gatekeepers in Baldwin’s time were older white heterosexual men, and even the well-meaning could not have shared his experiences. Given that, it’s surprising and fortunate that Baldwin’s words were able to become accessible to a wide audience.

Baldwin was living the life of an ex-pat in Paris until he watched the newscast of Charlotte, North Carolina, school integration with a lone African-American girl walking thru agitated and abusive racist mob. That’s what motivated him to return to his country and to try to fix it.