Chaos

Movies to See Right Now

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LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION at Cinequest

We’re now in the final two days of San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival.  It’s been a good year for thrillers at Cinequest, and you can still see Lead Us Not Into Temptation, Dose of Reality and Chaos, as well as the German dark comedy gem Oh Boy.  Check out my CINEQUEST 2013 page for comments on these films, plus another 20 or so that I’ve seen.

In the theaters, I recommend The Gatekeepers, a documentary centered around interviews with all six surviving former chiefs of Shin Bet, Israel’s super-secret internal security force; these are hard ass guys who share a surprising perspective on the efficacy of Israel’s war on terror.  The Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) documentary
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is now playing on HBO; it explores the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of priest abuse from a Wisconsin parish to the top of the Vatican (and I mean the top).  I admire Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects, starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances. The charmingly funny Warm Bodies has made my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies. The drama Lore is about the innocent children of monstrous people, but its intensity is so unrelenting that it wearies the audience.

I haven’t yet seen the Chilean historical drama No (with Gael Garcia Bernal), which was nominated for the 2013 Foreign Language Oscar and opens widely today. Nor have I seen Emperor, with Tommy Lee Jones as Gen. Douglas MacArthur leading the American occupation of Japan. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

You can still catch the Academy Award winning Argo, as well as Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook. To ride the momentum of director Ang Lee’s surprise Oscar win, Life of Pi is now out again in 3D, which I recommend. The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Picture, Amour, is brilliantly made and almost unbearable to watch.

My DVD of the week is still Undefeated, last year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary.

Cinequest at Mid-Festival

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Fairuza Balk in DOSE OF REALITY

Here are my top picks from San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival so far.  I’ve updated my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which includes comments on all nineteen films that I’ve seen to date at the fest.

Topping my list so far is the inventively constructed French thriller Lead Us Into Temptation.  A middle-aged married man does a good deed for a beautiful young woman and finds himself the pawn in a dangerous game.  Lead Us Not Into Temptation plays again on March 1 and March 9.

The American thriller Dose of Reality packs wire-to-wire intensity and a surprise ending that no one will see coming. Dose of Reality is playing Cinequest again on March 5 and 9, and will release on DVD and VOD on March 26.

The deadpan American comedy Congratulations! sends up the police procedural and will screen at Cinequest again on March 5.

The very dark and suspenseful French Chaos is centered on a creepy character that you know is up to no good, but the audience has to wait to find out what he plans and why.  You can see Chaos at Cinequest on March 7.

The compelling The Deep tells the fact-based survival story of a shipwrecked Icelandic fisherman’s ordeal in frigid waters.

In The Shadow is a Czech paranoid thriller that won Best Film at the Czech Film Critics’ Awards and was the Czech submission to the Academy Awards. It plays at Cinequest on February 28, March 6 and March 8.

In the Belgian drama Offline, we meet a character struggling to redeem himself.  You can see Offline at Cinequest on March 5 and 7.

In the solid American drama Solace, three stories are interlinked.  Solace plays Cinequest again on March 6.

In the documentary We Went to War, the filmmaker goes to small town Texas to revisit the Vietnam vets who were the subjects of his 1970 I Was a Soldier.    It’s a poignant snapshot of a 40-year-old war that is still going on for the participants and their families.  We Went to War is told successfully in a style that contrasts from other talking head docs.  We Went to War will be screened again on March 5.

The documentary Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself shares the extraordinarily rich life of the Zelig-like George Plimpton.  He was somehow able to marry the most highbrow literary world with cheesy TV celebrity.  You can see Plimpton! at Cinequest on March 8.

I haven’t yet seen it, but the Danish drama The Hunt (plays on March 6) has been univerally acclaimed at other festivals.  Mads Mikkelsen (After the Wedding, Casino Royale, A Royal Affair) stars as a teacher wrongly accused of child molestation, spurring hysteria in his town. Mikkelsen won the Best Actor award at Cannes.

I’ve also heard credible good buzz on two other films that I haven’t seen:  the Turkish comedy One Day or Another and the American comedy The Playback Singer.

After seeing Lawrence of Arabia digitally restored in the very impressive Sony 4K, I wanted to point out that, also recently restored in Sony 4K, Taxi Driver plays on March 6 and Dr. Strangelove plays on March 9.

And again, you can always check my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which also includes comments on Aftermath, The Almost Man, I Am a Director, The Sapphires, Panahida, Pretty Time Bomb, Welcome Home and White Lie.

Cinequest: Chaos

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Niels Schneider in CHAOS

In the unsettling and suspenseful French Chaos (Désordres), a teacher moves to a rural area only to have his family stalked by one of his new students.  It doesn’t take too long for us to figure out that the student Thibault is up to no good, but we can’t guess his plans or his motivation.  Writer-director Etienne Faure has created a story that grips the audience as Thibault is revealed to be more and more twisted and dangerous.

In a performance reminiscent of Robert Walker’s Bruno in Strangers on a Train, Niels Schneider plays Thibault.  The always reliable Isaach De Bankolé (Night on Earth, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 24) plays the teacher who seeks his bliss but who underestimates the kid’s weirdness.  Sonia Rolland (Josephine Baker in Midnight in Paris) plays the teacher’s wife; so beautiful that she can make your teeth hurt, Rolland is excellent as a woman who moves from aggrieved to reckless with breathtaking speed.

[BTW later this year Sonia Rolland joins Niels Arestrup (A Prophet, Sarah’s Key, War Horse) and Julie Gayet to star in 72-year-old director Bernard Travenier’s political dark comedy Quai d’Orsay, filmed at the real UN Security Council.]

Chaos will play again at Cinequest on March 7.