Telluride ’18: Non-Fiction

September 3, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Telluride

Tell18nonfiction

**½/****
starring Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne, Nora Hamzawi
written and directed by Olivier Assayas

by Walter Chaw The questions asked in and by Olivier Assayas's Non-Fiction are slippery and at times satisfying for that. This is his Hong Sang-Soo following a pair of Apichatpong Weerasethakuls (though he would say his films owe a bigger debt to Bresson)–a movie, in other words, involving the intricacies of relational dynamics, shot on what appears to be a shoestring and a lark over a long weekend among friends. Probably it's what one of his characters calls "auto-fiction," a blurred line between memoir and pure fiction, with the tension being that maybe there's not much of a difference after all between what's true and what's made up in the pursuit of truth. It's one of those movies that seems like a defense of concept, a response or an invitation to conversation for critics. (Assayas himself was one, once upon a time.) Even more, the picture suggests an auto-critical confession of sorts, yet I'm not sure of what. Past or present infidelities? A declaration that he's found peace at last? An apologia for indiscretions and a pathway to a more authentic life? Whatever Non-Fiction is, it's maybe just a little too clever for its own good.

Telluride ’18: The Front Runner

September 2, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Film Festivals, Telluride, ZERO STARS

Tell18frontrunner

ZERO STARS/****
starring Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, J.K. Simmons, Alfred Molina
written by Matt Bai & Jay Carson & Jason Reitman
directed by Jason Reitman

by Walter Chaw In 1988, Gary Hart, the democratic former senator from my home state of Colorado, was the front runner for the Presidency of the United States. About a week before the primary, which would have cemented his ascendancy to a post seemingly all but preordained, this guy–classically handsome, tall, masculine, progressive–did what powerful men in privileged positions sometimes do: he slept with a young woman who wanted a job with his campaign. That’s a problem, but the problem is he dared the WASHINGTON POST to follow him; he touted his ethics and morals as a foundational plank to his platform, and when the MIAMI HERALD took him up on his dare, they discovered that he was maybe a serial philanderer who in those last halcyon days before the Internet, hadn’t learned the voracious appetite the public has for a good, sleazy story concerning the tragic fall of kings. It’s hardly ever the crime–it’s almost always the cover-up. And in 1988, Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner says, politicians weren’t very good at the cover-up. Largely because the press was complicit in helping politicians, athletes, and other powerful men in powerful spheres keep sexual dalliances and abuses quiet. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, after all.

Telluride ’18: The Old Man & the Gun

September 1, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Film Festivals, Telluride

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½*/****
starring Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, Sissy Spacek
written and directed by David Lowery

by Walter Chaw David Lowery follows up his enigmatic A Ghost Story with this slobbery, open-mouthed kiss to Robert Redford, in his alleged swan song to screen acting. Redford plays real-life bank robber Forrest Tucker, who, in a blue suit and stupid hat, resumes his long career of traumatizing tellers and imparting folksy aphorisms after escaping from San Quentin. Seeing this life as his calling, Tucker was oft-described as seeming "happy," and so that's the tactic Lowery and Redford take towards this material, presenting everything as this bucolic Americana bullshit of the variety the elderly and the elderly-at-heart, especially, get off on and which Redford has made his stock-in-trade in his dotage. The only thing missing is an early-bird buffet as patrons enter the theatre. Tom Waits and Danny Glover play Tucker's sometime-partners in crime and poor Sissy Spacek is enlisted as his gal Jewel ("Well, y'sure look it!") to deliver "good-natured" to the assembled. Yes, Redford, one of the most exceptional and brilliant actors in film history, is now delivering the patented Robert Duvall elderly performance: repeating phrases, smiling in a non-specific way, and patting people's hands as they talk, complete with a wired hearing aid dangling from his ear.

Telluride ’18: First Man

September 1, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Drama, Film Festivals, Spielberg, Telluride

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***/****
starring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Pablo Schreiber, Christopher Abbott
screenplay by Josh Singer
directed by Damien Chazelle

by Walter Chaw Damien Chazelle’s First Man is the Super 8 shrine for Terrence Malick that Oscar voters never knew they needed. It’s a mutant clumping-together of The Tree of Life (all the sad Texas scenes) and Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (all the astronaut stuff), mixed in with a few scenes that are gritty and true (most of them involving a frankly extraordinary Claire Foy), even if Chazelle remains overly fond of snap zooms and the handheld aesthetic in long shots. It’s best, even exceptional, when it’s not hagiography and passing fine when it’s doing what it “ought” to be doing. Like playing a classical music waltz when stoic-to-the-point-of-deranged astronaut/engineer Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) initiates the first-ever orbital docking manoeuvre, because 2001: A Space Odyssey; or doing a little riff on Bill Conti’s amazing score for The Right Stuff right before the first closed-cabin testing. Could be homage. Could be the movie just doing what seems right as a shorthand for emotional engagement. If that’s the case, more’s the pity, as Chazelle proves in the first thirty minutes or so of his film–which revolve around an orbital “bounce” for a test plane and the death of Armstrong’s toddler daughter to cancer–that he’s capable of evoking real emotion, and employing smart contrasts in style and action, if he would only let go of the desire to impress.

Telluride ’18: An Introduction

August 31, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blog, Film Festivals, Telluride
 

To Telluride. 2018.

A post shared by Walter Chaw (@mangiotto) on

by Walter Chaw After a decade's absence, give or take, I started coming up to the Telluride Film Festival again six years ago at the urging of good friends whom I otherwise hardly see. I was in a bad place and they knew it. They didn't offer platitudes, they offered a challenge, and so one year I accepted it. The hardest thing to do for someone who's depressed sometimes is to accept help. I have come to find that the best gift you can give your friends who worry about you is to ask for help. The problem with depression is it tells you that you are a burden. It's exhausting.

FrightFest ’18: A Young Man with High Potential

August 31, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Germany, Thriller

Frightfest18youngmanwithhigh

***/****
starring Adam Ild Rohweder, Paulina Galazka, Pit Bukowski, Amanda Plummer
written by Anna de Paoli & Linus de Paoli
directed by Linus de Paoli

by Walter Chaw The storyline goes like this: Rey, the young woman in the new Star Wars trilogy, is a "Mary Sue"–a term used to describe a female character who is born fully-formed and, therefore, undeserving of her status as the hero of the story, any story. It's an argument made by mediocre men, usually mediocre white men, who have gathered together over social media to share their frustrations about how, essentially, their own worthiness has never been recognized by a world designed, now, to overlook and disdain them. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The parallel storyline is that women are usually murdered by men they know–ex-lovers or spurned would-be lovers–and that the best indicator for murderous gun violence is a history of domestic violence. We hold these truths now to be self-evident. And suddenly these mediocre men who used to get pushed into lockers and demeaned for their solitary interests are the masters of our culture, our industry, our government. There were warnings about this in films like The Last American Virgin and Revenge of the Nerds, remembering that the triumphant happy ending of the latter entailed one of the nerd heroes raping the girlfriend of the lead jock…and the girlfriend liking it a lot. Masculinity has always been this mash of the tragic and the toxic. It's irresolvable, though at least there can be better awareness.

FrightFest ’18: “‘Night’ Moves” – FFC Interviews ‘The Night Sitter’ Filmmakers Abiel Bruhn & John Rocco

August 31, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Interviews

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by Walter Chaw The Night Sitter is awesome indeed. Partially crowdfunded via Kickstarter, it represents the feature debut of writing-directing duo Abiel Bruhn and John Rocco and their filmmaking collective Roller Disco Massacre. Just a couple of guys who love '80s horror and know how to use it in a sentence, Bruhn and Rocco were kind enough in the heat of this year's FrightFest to answer a few pressing questions. We started off talking about practical details of shooting The Night Sitter:

FrightFest ’18: The Night Sitter

August 30, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Christmas, Comedy, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror

Frightfest18thenightsitter

***/****
starring Elyse Dufour, Jack Champion, Jermaine Rivers, Amber Neukum
written and directed by John Rocco and Abiel Bruhn

by Walter Chaw From the first synth chords of Rob Himebaugh's awesome '80s-inspired score; from the first glimpse of DP Scotty G. Field's gorgeous, neon-soaked lighting schemes; from the first look at world-weary heroine Amber (Elyse Dufour), herself a feat of lighting and colour coordination, The Night Sitter announces itself to be a major player. Filmmakers Abiel Bruhn and John Rocco's feature debut, it covers one really bad night in the life of poor, terrified Kevin (Jack Champion). His dad (Joe Walz) a wannabe reality-show host of one of those paranormal shows, hires Amber to sit for him and his girlfriend's (Deanna Meske) horrible kid, Ronnie (Bailey Campbell), leaving them alone with a locked door, behind which are all the demonic artifacts dad's been hoarding throughout his misspent career. That he's a loser is never a question (he times his reel to "accidentally" play for the benefit of pretty Amber), but he's a rich loser–meaning that as soon as dad is gone on his date, Amber calls her friends (Jermaine Rivers, Amber Neukum, J. Benedict Larmore) to come help her loot the place. Unfortunately, Ronnie has found where dad keeps the key to the demon room.

FrightFest ’18: The Golem

August 29, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror, Israel

Frightfest18thegolem

***½/****
starring Hani Furstenberg, Ishai Golan, Brynie Furstenberg, Lenny Ravich
written by Ariel Cohen
directed by Doron Paz & Yoav Paz

by Walter Chaw Hanna (Hani Furstenberg, The Loneliest Planet) is listening in while a council of elders gives her husband Benjamin (Ishai Golan) the option of leaving her for being unable to provide a son for years after the loss of their child. It's 1673 Lithuania. There's a plague, so there's a lot of death, and there's palpable fear in the air. Fear, among the other things it attracts, is irresistible to religion, and one day in this small Jewish community in the middle of a wilderness, the villagers discover that the plague has returned to the countryside and is encroaching on their isolation. Naturally, they retreat into religion. Ted Chiang has a short story called "The Seventy-Two Letters". It takes Hebrew mythology and wonders what it would be like if religion were treated as science. (And maybe, you know, it is.) The seventy-two letters are the name of God. You write them on a small piece of paper and roll that tightly into a little scroll. Insert it in the mouth of a mud effigy to infuse it with life. What materializes is a guardian, a protector, a golem that can be guided to the extent your id can be guided. Dario Argento played with a version of this in Phenomena; George Romero did, too, with Monkey Shines. The Golem is the true fana.

FrightFest ’18: Secret Santa

August 29, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Christmas, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror
*/****screenplay by Adam Marcus & Debra Sullivandirected by Adam Marcus by Walter Chaw There's a line between homage and rip-off and I think you cross it when you quote lines in their entirety, without a lot of irony, from better movies. The "insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase" from Raising Arizona, the entreaty to be untied from a chair lest they spend the winter there from Carpenter's The Thing, dropped from the mouths of a terrible family drugged with an id-freeing cocktail during Christmas dinner as punchlines and, I think, probably, in-jokes for the…

FrightFest ’18: Incident in a Ghostland

August 29, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, Film Festivals, France, FrightFest, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

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Ghostland
**½/****
starring Crystal Reed, Anastasia Phillips, Emilia Jones
written and directed by Pascal Laugier

by Walter Chaw Pascal Laugier, if he had made no other film than Martyrs, would still have made Martyrs: the cornerstone picture of the short-lived New French Extremity and one of the most startling (and nigh-unwatchable) films about faith ever made. It would be remarkable as the second half of a double-feature with Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc–maybe as part of a trilogy with Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. Mad Mel’s Passion of the Christ would fit in there, too. Make a weekend of it with Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew–martyrdom and ecstasy and the cinematic arts. Laugier’s follow-up, The Tall Man, failed in comparison to Martyrs, as it must. He was briefly attached to a Hellraiser reboot with Clive Barker’s blessing (of course with Barker’s blessing: Martyrs is a film made by a Cenobite), but the franchise is cursed and it fell through. Folks have been waiting for Laugier to make another masterpiece. Incident in a Ghostland isn’t it, but like The Tall Man it’s a strong, technically-proficient genre exercise that deals in an interesting space with at-times striking images. Laugier is one of the only filmmakers who makes me queasy. His films aren’t kidding around.

FrightFest ’18: The Dark

August 28, 2018Posted in2018, Austria, Authors: Walter Chaw, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror
**½/****written and directed by Justin P. Lange by Walter Chaw What Justin P. Lange's hyphenate debut The Dark, a variation on Let the Right One In, lacks in freshness it makes up for in look and vibe. Better, probably, as a short film, it opens strong with a bad man on the run, Josef (Karl Markovics), stopping at a convenience store, where he gets the usual warning about going into the woods. Lange subverts convention immediately, and then goes to the remote house in the wood where the monster lives. Said monster, a little-girl ghoul named Mina (Nadia Alexander), has…

FrightFest ’18: The Witch in the Window

August 28, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror
**/****written and directed by Andy Milton by Walter Chaw Life as a House as a different kind of horror movie, Andy Milton's The Witch in the Window is an allegory for marriage, attachment, fatherhood tied up with restoring an old house in the country that appears to be haunted by a witch. Half of it is pretty scary, half of it is an overwritten, mawkishly-sentimental, and slow-moving drama between estranged dad Simon (Alex Draper) and his delinquent son, Finn (Charlie Tacker). It seems that Simon has bought a flipper and invited Finn to come over to help restore it, the…

FrightFest ’18: The Night Eats the World

August 27, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Film Festivals, France, FrightFest, Horror

Frightfest18nighteatsworld

La nuit a dévoré le monde
***½/****
starring Anders Danielsen Lie, Golshifteh Farahani, Denis Lavant, Sigrid Bouaziz
screenplay by Guillaume Lemans, Jérémie Guez, Dominique Rocher, based on the novel by Pit Agarmen
directed by Dominique Rocher

by Walter Chaw A spiritual companion piece to “The Twilight Zone”‘s “Time Enough at Last,” in which a bookish, harried loner survives a nuclear holocaust (to his delight), gathers all the books he wants to read, and then accidentally breaks his glasses, Dominique Rocher’s The Night Eats the World has angry, awkward loner Sam (Anders Danielsen Lie, who broke my heart in Oslo, August 31) find a little safe space only to discover that the zombie apocalypse has happened. It opens at a party thrown by his ex-girlfriend Fanny (Sigrid Bouaziz), where he’s come to collect a box of tapes she’s accidentally taken with her upon her departure. He’s irritated that her attention’s divided and that she’s invited him to get his stuff during a party. Her public displays of affection with a new, aggressive boyfriend (David Kammenos) seem calculated, too, to make him uncomfortable, small. The first ten minutes of the film see Sam floating through the party, nursing his drink, trying to get Fanny’s attention. Hours pass with Sam on the periphery of every interaction. In a very real, visceral way, The Night Eats the World is a character study of introversion and depression. Fanny, frustrated instantly, asks Sam why he can’t just mingle, meet some new people, “try for a change.” It’s clear why they’ve broken up. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to be depressed. He doesn’t understand what it’s like not to be. She tells Sam to go in a back bedroom for his things and stay there because it’s quiet. They’ll talk later. She does understand at least that Sam might have some audio processing issues related to his overlapping conditions. Yeah, don’t we all.

FrightFest ’18: St. Agatha

August 27, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror
*/****written by Andy Demetrio, Shaun Fletcher, Sara Sometti Michaels and Clint Searsdirected by Darren Lynn Bousman by Walter Chaw The title music announces a debt to Rosemary's Baby and indeed Mary (Sabrina Kern) is with child and at the mercy of a religious cult. Her boyfriend Jimmy (Justin Miles), however, is a decent fellow for 1957, nothing like Rosemary's husband. The only hint he's a beatnik is that he likes to blow that horn. There are a few problems with St. Agatha: it's overly familiar, it's tame as nunsploitation goes, and its twist is obvious and unimaginative. Before long, Mary's…

FrightFest ’18: Ghost Stories

August 27, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror, UK
**/**** written and directed by Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman by Walter Chaw A throwback anthology film that alas plays more like a Cat's Eye or a Trick 'r Treat than a Dead of Night or a Black Sabbath, Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson's Ghost Stories is a handsome, safe-feeling prestige-horror production that trods no new ground, though it trods old ground pretty well. Paranormal debunker Professor Goodman (Nyman) needs a good knocking off his high horse and gets it in the form of three supernatural occurrences he's tasked with explaining. Three tales--the first a haunted hospital/factory thing, the second…

FrightFest ’18: Tigers Are Not Afraid

August 26, 2018Posted in2017, 2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Coming of Age, Fantasy, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror, Mexico

Frightfest18tigers

Vuelven
***½/****
starring Paola Lara, Hanssel Casillas, Rodrigo Cortes, Ianis Guerrero
written and directed by Issa López

by Walter Chaw Estrella (Paola Laura) is just a little girl. Her mother's been disappeared by a local drug cartel and she's living by herself in their tiny apartment. She has three pieces of chalk that a teacher's given her to represent the three wishes little girls without mothers sometimes get in fairy tales about abandonment in times of great evil. She uses the first one to wish for her mother to return, and so her mother does. But her mother's dead, of course, and now Estrella is living on the roof with a small band of other young orphans led by Shine (Juan Ramon Lopez) in hopes that the gangster from whom Shine has lifted a gun and cell phone don't find them. It's W.W. Jacobs's "The Monkey's Paw" set against the backdrop of the troubles plaguing modern Mexico, and while it's not entirely clear to the children if Estrella's wishes are actually coming true, it's never really a question for writer-director Issa López, who manifests the subjects of the kids' hopes and fears as animated street graffiti and the sudden animation of a stuffed animal. There are echoes of a lot of things: of Stephen King's short story "Here There Be Tygers", of Isabel Allende's City of the Beasts, and most of all of Guillermo Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone, to which it owes its structure and allegorical strategy. But Tigers Are Not Afraid is most of all its own lyrical thing.

FrightFest ’18: Lasso

August 26, 2018Posted in2017, 2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Disability, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror, Thriller
***/****written by Roberto Marinasdirected by Evan Cecil  by Walter Chaw Trish is the star of Lasso. Ostensibly a secondary character, she's played by trans activist Skyler Cooper (who identifies with masculine pronouns) with confidence, beauty, and strength. After the initial "is she a boy or a girl?" question asked by congenital screw-up Simon (Andrew Jacobs), Trish is just accepted as this embodiment of strength and empathy. When Simon beats himself up for causing the death of a few of his buddies, it's Trish who recognizes the importance of preserving his confidence for the long night ahead. She takes the lead.…

FrightFest ’18: The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot

August 26, 2018Posted in2018, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Film Festivals, FrightFest
*½/**** written and directed by Robert D. Krzykowski by Walter Chaw Sort of like The Age of Adeline where the gimmick isn't immortality, but rather a guy who killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot, Robert D. Krzykowski's The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot is ultimately an elegy for a certain kind of heroism embodied by Sam Elliott, arguably the only actor who could perform the high-wire act of this high-concept movie. The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot has a definite Bubba Ho-Tep vibe, especially in the moments where it uses a sting like Bill…

FrightFest ’18: F.U.B.A.R. (2018)

August 25, 2018Posted in2018, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Film Festivals, FrightFest, Horror, UK
**½/**** written by Ben Kent & Joel Wilenius directed by Ben Kent by Walter Chaw A lark, and often a good one, in the Very Bad Things vein where murder spoils an evening of debauchery, Ben Kent's feature debut F.U.B.A.R. offers up a twist by setting its shenanigans at one of those paintball courses where people pretend to be zombies for the pleasure of the armed guests. It's a bachelor party for nebbish Sam (Sean Verey), who, saddled with his obnoxious chums, hopes the weekend goes well so he can impress his future father-in-law, Gerald (Mark Heap)--Gerald being an ex-Navy…