Brief thoughts on The Valley (2017)which opens today

When a man's daughter commit's suicide his quest to find out why sends him spiraling down.

Award winning drama is opening in theaters today is a good little drama but one that kept me largely distant for its entire length. I never really cared much for anyone on screen. I did want to know what happened and why, but I never really cared for anyone on screen. While I know that we are supposed to feel the distance that all the characters feel, at some point we really should be let in and care about the people on screen.

Simply put the film didn't work for me.

While I may not have been the audience for the film, the film may click with you if you like serious family dramas since the film has won top honors at several film festivals across the world.(The Valley has been awarded Best Feature Film and the Grand Jury Award, 2018 Portland Film Festival; Best Feature Film, Best Actress (Suchitra Pillai), Best Supporting Actress (Agneeta Thacker) and Best Original Score (Jacob Yoffee), 2017 Long Island International Film Festival; Best Feature Film and Best Director-Female (Saila Kariat), 2017 Out of the Can Film Festival; Best Original Screenplay (Saila Kariat), 2017 Madrid International Film Festival; Best Lead Actress (Suchitra Pillai), 2017 Milan International Filmmaker Festival; Best Film and Best Cinematographer (Paul Nordin), 2017 International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema Berlin; and Best Feature Film Jury Award, 2017 DC South Asian Film Festival.)

What Would Fred Rogers Do?

It’s more than a post-viewing icebreaker—it’s perhaps the central question one might ask of Morgan Neville’s smart, engaging, and inevitably touching doc Won’t You Be My Neighbor? : at what point did you cry while watching it?

Or, if you haven’t seen it yet, at what point are you pretty certain you’ll start bawling? I ask that on the chance that, like me, you watched and re-watched the trailer rather obsessively, becoming familiar with the ground covered by the film while perhaps also trying to build up a tolerance to the tear-jerking moments.

I have news for you if the latter is the case: it won’t work. Your face will be wet.

Or maybe not. Maybe you’re the inured-to-raw-emotion-and-sentimentality type; in which case, congrats, and by the way, the doc might still be of enormous value to you for reasons cultural and historical. And if you’re at all interested in children, childhood itself, media, and the place where all these intersect, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? casually offers up some riches. Yet it doesn’t often try to answer questions in these areas explicitly so much as raise them in passing. So despite its touching upon a range of socio-political points, the film is more like an old-style Hollywood biopic than an issue-oriented doc. It’s the story of a great man, pure and simple, with just enough cultural relevance to show why he was great, no more, no less. (You may have heard that Tom Hanks is playing Fred Rogers in an upcoming flick—frankly, I think I’d prefer Paul Muni.)

On second thought, asking when you cried, at what moment, is too easy. It just answers the question in the title of the film with another question. A better, more productive line of inquiry might be: What kind of crying did you engage in? An almost-suppressed roll of a single tear? Fluid, open weeping, perhaps with a smile on your face? Or full-on, noisy “ugly crying”?

Each betrays a relationship to the trigger, and so underneath all of them is a still more fundamental, if obvious, question: why did you cry? And, yeah, here’s the part where I’m going to answer for all of us, sorry: we’re letting the tears flow because of Everything We’ve Lost. And Fred Rogers is the patron saint of precisely that.

The downside of being the patron saint of anything, however, is that one must be dead. One gets reduced to symbol and song, to chant and relic, to idealization and reification. The living message of the saint—and it can be argued that saints have no message other than the lives they lead—becomes lost in the construction of, to use the phrase in its original meaning, an icon to which we bow our heads. And when more than one generation surrounds and bathes the saint with the sacred aura of Childhood, as we have here, then we run the risk of suffering from acute nostalgia. Maybe even toxic nostalgia. The death of the saint, or (less literally) the death of his or her work, can thus seal the past off from the present in ways that are dramatically and psychologically satisfying but which deny the very gift of spirit that the saint was only too happy to share.

Sure, there’s nothing wrong with admiring the America that produced a Fred Rogers and which he in turn shaped in profound ways. And there’s nothing wrong with recalling our own innocence and that of other children, elements that happen to launch the waterworks quite frequently in Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

The danger of such cathartic moments, though, is that they can be too powerful, almost unbearable. We go back to watching the moving instead of experiencing it, which is understandable. After all, you still have to pull yourself together and converse coherently with your date in the lobby afterwards. The result is that you end up touched but not moved, to coin a distinction. You get the tears out of your system, and then return to feeling alienated accompanied by all the sound reasons for feeling that way. If the world were just a bit different—that is, more like it used to be—than we ourselves could be differently. We forget that the world has always been in turmoil, although to Mr. Neville’s credit, he does do a good job of capturing the anguish and upheaval of the 1960’s.

But along with turmoil, today we still have neighbors and neighborhoods. Nowadays we are more apt to use the word “community” instead, but the idea is just as powerful. It pulls us out of ourselves and, if we’re lucky, we become as unself-conscious as Fred Rogers was.

Indeed, this film probably would have embarrassed him. And what if he were aware of the extent to which we’ve made him the universal surrogate for a good neighbor—or, more precisely, someone we aspire to be a good neighbor to? He might feel his mission was not accomplished. That's because all of us still have neighbors, living, breathing ones. In fact, everyone around us who inhales the same air we do—professionally, geographically, culturally, socially—are our neighbors, or could be if we just treated them as such. All it takes is our popping Fred Rogers’s question, and meaning it when we do. Because if we’re not doing that then we’re mourning the loss of the messenger without honoring the message itself.

So please permit me to rephrase the earlier point: we weep during the film not because of everything we’ve lost but because of everything we think we’ve lost; they’re still there, still present, still extant, all those lost things. Your tears are proof of it, as are the tears of thousands of other moviegoers; together, they provide overwhelming confirmation of the presence of, as Rogers would put it, the ability to be loved and to feel capable of loving in turn.

###

Won't You Be My Neighbor? opens on June 8, 2018. You can find playdates here.

Hajji (2018) Dances with Films 2018

Two American soldiers run across the charred remains of a young girl. As things transpire the cycle of violence is revealed.

Disturbing and thought provoking film about the horrors of war and the evil that war unleashes is a neat little film. Carefully crafted for maximum impact the HAJJI is a film that haunts you and lingers on the fringes of your brain. I saw the film in a chain of several other shorts but found that I couldn't push it aside despite moving one. It hung with me and colored everything.

What makes the film stand out from being a simple war story is that the film is not just a film about the violence of soldiers on civilians but soldiers on each other as one soldier torments his partner by calling him Hajji. Clearly racism in the ranks isn't gone, even where the man you're belittling may be the one to save your life.

If you can catch HAJJI do so.

For more information and tickets to the Dances With Films screenings go here.

THE WORKERS CUP opens tomorrow

Portrait of life in the Qatar workers camps where men from all over the world live while they build the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup. As they build 24 companies field teams and set up a tournament for the workers.

Odd ball mix of middling sports doc about the teams and the games mixes with a semi social justice story that only touches on the horrible existence of the workers that results in a film that just sort of lays there.

If you aren't aware of the terrible situation of the workers in Qatar this film will give you only a hint of the bullshit that is going on. Effectively the companies are recruiting people from all over the globe- many being asked to pay fees to get the job- only to find slave like conditions when they get there. Work days are every day. Their papers are stolen, they can not leave the camps except to go to work and contact is limited with the outside. Many camps are over crowded. The men are effectively slaves with the inability to do anything even go home controlled by the companies and the Qatar officials. Little of that is really in the film which mentions it but focuses more on the men and the football matches. (if you want to know start with the HBO REAL SPORTS stories)

While the lack of information on what the workers actual conditions might have worked had the film been more adept at showing the football teams, their prep and the matches in anything remotely an exciting way. The sports footage in this film might actually be the least exciting I've ever seen. Its not bad, there simply isn't any emotion in it.

About half way into the film I suddenly started to wonder how Hubert Vigilla would describe the film if we were talking to each other about it. Hubert has this killer way of reducing everything down to laser simplicity. There is a genius to it. I keep hearing him say "There were these workers who were abused and then some football happened." Which kind of sums up my feeling.

I suspect that the reason the film is so odd is that the director had to promise certain limitations in order to get access and then had to cut around it.

Personally I found this film to be disappointing and not really worth the time- which kills me because the guys in the film deserve to be seen and heard

INSPIRATIONAL THERAPY (2018) Dances With Films 2018

Matt Vladimery is once again starring as Herbie in Ralph Bismargi's follow up to his screamingly funny short film HERBIE from last year's Dances with Films and the result is even more laughs.

The original film had a life coach wanna-be Herbie (Vladimery) in what should be a star making performance) trying to make a video to help people and it all goes wrong. This time director Bismargi has a series of of short episodes where Herbie is once again trying to shoot videos and as expected they all go off the rails. I loved every minute.

The arc of each episode is the same through all the current episodes, Herbie has some advice to impart and then something goes wrong that causes him to react in the exact way his lesson says he shouldn't. In theory the pattern should get tiring but in all the episodes every pay off resulted in laughter. That shouldn't happen  but it only goes to show you just how good director Bismargi and his star Vladimery  are because they make the joke work. (I should point out that while Dances is only showing a couple of the episodes, I saw all nine that have been produced and I laughed at them all.)

What an absolute delight.

While I'm not sure the series can survive ore of this exact pattern, I am really hoping that the series gets to go on and the mad geniuses behind the series get to take Herbie in some other direction.(Addendum: director Bismargi says more episodes are coming- yea!)

A must see at Dances With Films when they play this Saturday.

For tickets and more information go here.

Hereditary opens Friday

(This review may contain spoilers)

Like the saying goes, emotional problems do not run in Annie Graham’s family, they gallop. She always blamed her mother, perhaps with good reason. However, she starts to feel guilty about her long simmering resentments when the semi-estranged matriarch finally passes away. Yet, the full toxicity of Grandma’s legacy soon becomes apparent as the Graham family tragedies compound in Ari Aster’s Hereditary, which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Annie Graham lives with her family in a remote chalet-style home, where she works as a scale-model artist, thereby establishing a creepy locale and décor for Aster to build off. Their teen son Peter can’t even fit in with his stoner friends, but his younger sister Charlie is the real odd duck. Maybe not so coincidentally, Annie and her husband Steve allowed Grandma more access to Charlie, but they totally froze her out during Peter’s early years.

Alas, thanks to a freak accident, Charlie follows her Grandma into the after life soon thereafter. The blame falls on poor Peter, even though the exact circumstances are murky. Graham was already unsettled, but the death of Charlie sends her hurtling down to some dark emotional places. In some ways, Hereditary evokes the spirit of The Babadook as Graham’s relationship with her son becomes increasingly poisoned. Yet, there is also plenty of The Conjuring, when a member of her grief support group convinces Graham to try to reach Charlie through seances. This being a horror movie, her instructions turn out to be seriously flawed.

Hereditary is getting a lot of buzz, because its depiction of family dysfunction is nearly as harrowing as its supernatural horrors. As Annie Graham, Toni Collette gets frantic and feverish beyond on all reason. It is sort of a cross between Isabelle Adjani in Possession and a dramatically less shticky Meryl Streep in Ossage County. In a straight domestic drama, she would be excessively over-the-top, but in a claustrophobic horror film like this, she is just what the mad doctor ordered.

Aster’s narrative takes some shockingly dark and insidious turns, but it all seems believable, thanks to his masterful control of atmosphere. Each time he drops a revelation, it raises the hair on your arms. His horror movie mechanics are spot-on, especially in his use of Graham’s diorama models. Plus, there is an attic to the Graham house that you really wouldn’t want to rummage through.

Gabriel Byrne nicely counterbalances Collette as the painfully reserved Steve Graham. Milly Shapiro (one of four young actresses who originated the role of Roald Dahl’s Matilda on Broadway) gives a remarkably weird performance as Charlie, making the more conventional teen angst of Alex Wolff’s Peter, pale in comparison. Of course, Ann Dowd is rock solid as Joan, Graham’s séance buddy, in scenes reviewers will want to revisit after the fact.


Hereditary is an unusually good-looking horror film, thanks to Pawel Pogorzelski’s eerie cinematography and the richly-detailed, award-worthy work of production designer Grace Yun, art director Richard T. Olson, and the rest of the design team. This is a deeply scary film that fans of James Wan ought to flip over. Highly recommended

Thoughts on a bad film that I keep having pop up in my Internet timelines

I wasn’t going to write on THE TEXTURE OF FALLING but the film has been haunting me since I was sent it a few weeks ago. I can’t seem to shake it-but not in a good way. Honestly I didn’t like the film either time I watched the film, but circumstance keeps the film popping up back on to my radar despite my wanting to stake the damn thing and bury it.

I was originally made aware of the film when it was sent my way by a PR person who usually sends me excellent films. I have loved many of the films she sends my way so if I she sends me something I’ll automatically say yes. It was with that in mind I original decided to watch TEXTURE. However when I watched the film the first time I really didn’t like it. I wasn’t sure if it was a bad film or if it just wasn’t clicking for me so I decided not to review the film and let the PR person know I was taking a very rare pass on a film.

Time passed and it faded from my memory. I largely let the film fall away. The name stuck with me as something I wasn’t going to review but nothing else.

And then the film started to show up in my Twitter time line. The Cinema Village in New York was tweeting the trailer and as a goof I took a look and was shocked because the film looked really good. I became completely confused because if the film was as good as the trailer I would had to have written it up. And then I ran across another mention or two and I began to wonder why, exactly, I didn’t review it. Was this because it didn’t click? Was it like a couple of recent films simply not having anything to say about the film? Or was it because it was a bad film and I just didn’t know. So I went back to see if I still had access to the film, and finding I did and decided to take a second look.

My mistake, it’s a bad film.

The film is essentially the story of two married men who take up with single women and crash around their romances deciding how to proceed.

It’s full of stilted dialog, arty slow motion, weak performances and tons of clichés. The promotional material and trailer make it seem like there is a mysterious or thriller element to it all but none of it is there. Yes there is a hint of B&D in the relationship between Benjamin Farmer and writer director Maria Allred but that seems to be there simply to titillate and no give insight into anyone. I was bored early on but hung on the second time largely to see if it got better the second time through. It didn’t. Even the ultimate denouncement didn’t made me shake my head, even knowing what it was didn’t make the film play any better the second time.

On a certain level the film suffers from the feeling that Maria Allred is showing off. Yes, she has enough talent to pretty much do everything related to the film and while I admire her ability, I just wish she had given us a film that was more focused on real characters and not on being a show reel. We don’t need the arty angles, the slow motion or the stilted dialog. What we need was real characters who speak and behave like real people and not ones that are in a movie, even if they are in a movie in a movie.

No, I don’t like his film. While clearly it is a labor of love and clearly shows Maria Allred has talent, it also shows she needs to work with a better writer and someone who can tell her the slow mo and certain other flourishes need to go.

Not worth you money or time, first second or anytime.

Now that I've written about it perhaps I can truly have it fade from my memory.

The Way It Begins (2018) Dances With FiIms 2018

Utterly charming dance film has two people meeting as they get off  subway and falling in love as they dance across New York City

This is a winning through back to the golden age of musicals. Its a a ten minute dance routine with a weepy moment at the end and smiles all through it. Its the sort of film that will make you fall in love with the idea of falling in love.

A joy and highly recommended when it world premieres at Dances With Films Friday

For tickets and more information go here

Hearts Beat Loud (2018)

Written by director Brett Haley specifically for Nick Offerman. HEARTS BEAT LOUD is an absolute charmer. It’s a feel good film that really does make you feel good.

Offerman plays the owner of Red Hook Records. There is nothing he likes more than listening to music other than playing it with his daughter who is getting ready to move across the country to go to UCLA. When they put together a lovely little song Offerman puts it on Spotify, and it unexpectedly takes off.

This is a charming little film about fathers and daughters and what’s important in life. It’s a sweet little empty nest comedy that made me smile and feel warm. I really can’t say enough good about this film.

The reason the film works so well is the cast. Offerman is stunning in the lead. He’s so good that it makes you want him to do more leads. Kiersey Clemons is his equal if not better as Offerman’s daughter. She is incredible and her voice is lovely. Also sterling is Sasha Lane as Clemons‘ girlfriend, and Blythe Danner as Offerman’s not always lucid mother. I also love that both Toni Collette and Ted Danson take what could have been thankless roles as the token love interest and best friend and turning them into something truly special through talent, force of personality and glorious chemistry with Offerman. I have no idea if they are friends in real life but it feel like it.

This is a great little film.

This is a must see when it hits theaters on Friday.

Afghan Cycles (2018) Brooklyn Film Festival 2018

Afghan Cycles is a look how some women in Afghanistan are taking to the streets in an expression of freedom. Focusing on a group of women who ride together and hope to compete around the world. We watch as they go through their lives including dealing with the displeasure that some traditionalists throw their way.

Showing Afghan society in ways we have not seen before Afghan Bicycles is a bittersweet gem. We know it’s going to be not be all sunny days at the outset when in present day Nice France we meet one of the women as she reflects on what has transpired. The film then flashes back four years to show us all the women together.

What makes this film so special is that it is not just another film about Afghanistan full of soldiers, radicals and destruction. Here is life beyond the typical media portrayal. While the film is the battle between fundamentalism and modern thought the film opens everything up to show us life lived. We see life in the country as it is truly lived. There are bright colors and laughter. We see points of view that are not just one thing or another.

As a former bicycle enthusiast this film made me smile. The joy and freedom the women experience while riding is one that is not unfamiliar to me. I was delighted at wachingthem ride. I was also delighted at seeing the country without guns everywhere.

This is a super film. I don’t know what else to say beyond that except buy a ticket for when it plays at the Brooklyn Film Festival on June 7 and 8. For more information and tickets go here.

Essential Liz June 20-29 at the Quad Cinemas

The Quad announces a 20-film retrospective celebrating the dazzling two-time Oscar-winning actress and bonafide superstar Elizabeth Taylor

With sixteen 35mm prints, highlights range from classics like National Velvet, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butterfield 8, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, to the rarely screened Ash Wednesday, The Comedians, The Sandpiper, and more!

An actor first and then foremost a star, Elizabeth Taylor reached highs throughout—and well beyond—the Golden Age of Hollywood. Possessed of striking beauty including but hardly limited to, as cartoonist Garry Trudeau aptly wrote, “violet eyes to die for,” Taylor made her debut in 1942 at age 10. Her talent was evident and her impact upon audiences and industry was instantaneous, inviting choruses of “Who’s that girl?” Soon she was renegotiating her contract with MGM and America’s exhibitors had named her a Star of Tomorrow; by 1961, she was the theater owners’ choice as Top Box Office Star. Taylor’s dramatic screen performances (which earned her two Best Actress Academy Awards) riveted the world, which hungrily consumed gossip on her personal life of multiple marriages, infidelities, divorces, remarriage, births, losses, AIDS activism, and much more. Through it all, she forged a filmography that spanned the sublime to the ridiculous. This retrospective includes a number of rarely screened works and offers proof aplenty that great performances and movie stardom need not be mutually exclusive.

Image courtesy Everett Collection
Ash Wednesday
Larry Peerce, 1973, U.S., 99m, 35mm
Boom!
Joseph Losey, 1968, UK, 113m, 35mm
Butterfield 8
Daniel Mann, 1960, U.S., 109m, 35mm
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Richard Brooks, 1959, U.S., 108m, 35mm
Cleopatra
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963, U.S./UK/Switzerland, 192m, DCP
The Comedians
Peter Glenville, 1967, France/Bermuda/U.S., 150m, 35mm
The Driver's Seat
Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 1974, Italy, 102m, 35mm
Father of the Bride
Vincente Minnelli, 1950, U.S., 93m, 35mm
Giant
George Stevens, 1956, U.S., 201m, DCP
National Velvet
Clarence Brown, 1944, U.S., 124m, 35mm
The Only Game in Town
George Stevens, 1970, U.S., 113m, 35mm
A Place in the Sun
George Stevens, 1951, U.S., 122m, 35mm
Reflections in a Golden Eye
John Huston, 1967, U.S., 108m, 35mm
The Sandpiper
Vincente Minnelli, 1965, U.S., 116m, 35mm
Secret Ceremony
Joseph Losey, 1968, UK, 109m, 35mm
Suddenly Last Summer
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959, UK/U.S., 114m, DCP
The Taming of the Shrew
Franco Zeffirelli, 1967, Italy/U.S., 123m, DCP
The V.I.P.s
Anthony Asquith, 1963, UK, 119m, 35mm
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Mike Nichols, 1966, U.S., 130m, 35mm
X, Y and Zee (aka Zee and Company)
Brian G. Hutton, 1972, UK, 110m, 35mm

The wonderful ZOO opens Friday

I saw ZOO during this year's New York International Children's Film Festival. It was one of the great discoveries of the festival and the year. With the film opening Friday I'm reposting the review.

After his father, the zookeeper, signs up to serve in the army and heads off to war, Tom decides to keep an eye on things. However when Belfast comes under air attack the government orders that the animals be killed Tom manages to get a baby elephant out of the zoo and hide it.

Based on a true story most people have ever heard, ZOO is a wonderful feel good family film. Beautifully acted and wonderful to look at, this is a film you fall into and go to another time and place. This is also one of those films that will make the kids in the audience bounce at the end and the adults wipe a tear or two from their eyes.


While most assuredly a film for the whole family the film does not shy away from the darkness. While we do not see the actual destruction of the animals, we see enough to know exactly what happens and it breaks your heart. Also heartbreaking is as a result of this being set during war time. And if I say the turn may upset some smaller kids, it's only because I groaned "oh god no" loudly.

Ultimately I love this film. Its just a wonderful little story that is going to delight everyone of every age. Highly recommended

NEMTSOV BRIDGE (2018) Brooklyn Film Festival 2018

On the bridge where Russian political activist Boris Nemtsov was killed a small shrine to his memory has sprung up.Putin and his political followers would like it removed because it is a reminder that Russia is not a free country but one where political violence rules. Over three years we spend time with one of the care takers who prevents the shrine from being destroyed.

Solid and sober short doc is wake up call that how bad Russia really is. It is a stark warning of what can happen when a demagogue takes control of a country and becomes a tyrant. While not the be all and end all portrait of the situation in Russia is a wonderful look in through a window at the country our Preisdent colluded with.

For more information and tickets to the remaining Brooklyn Film Festival screening go here.

Open Roads 2018 Capsules : EQUILIBRIUM, RAINBOW:A PRIVATE AFFAIR, EQUILIBRIUM and MARCO FERRERI: DANGEROUS BUT NECESSARY

BEAUTIFUL THINGS
Must be seen big docu-essay about four people living in a kind of isolation. We see their homes, and listen to them talk about their lives. Beautiful and meditative film is full of heady thoughts and stunning images that will delight the eye.  While the film may not be for all people, it's deeply introspective tone may bore some people, those willing to go with it are going to be richly rewarded.

RAINBOW: A PRIVATE AFFAIR
Final film from Paolo & Vittorio Taviani has a young partisan fighter battling the fascists and himself when he finds himself in a triangle with a friend for the affections of the same girl.  Not a war film but a romantic/personal drama as our hero, Milton, has to battle the feelings kicked up when he discovers that his girl has loved another.  While perhaps not a grand as some of the Tavianis other films, it is a lovely small scale gem that is worth a look for anyone who has enjoyed their film for the last six decades.

EQUILIBRIUM
A newly transferred priest gets involved with the local battle to clean up the buried toxic waste and the the Comorra. Okay drama just sort of is. While not bad on it's own terms it kind of suffers in comparison to some of the other films playing at Open Roads

MARCO FERRERI: DANGEROUS BUT NECESSARY
Excellent portrait of the writer director and agent provocateur who for years rattled the cages of the film community. Filled with clips of the man and his films, we are treated to recollections by his friends and admirers who put his life and work into context.  In an age where Ferreri's work is slowly being eclipsed by time and lack of discussion , at least it seems here in the US, this film is a brilliant reminder of a man who shook the pillars of the film world with his larger than life  persona and need not to shy away from life as lived.  this is a must see for any film fan, especially if you don't know who Ferreri is.

OKAASAN (MOM) (2018) Brooklyn Film Festival 2018

This is director Kana Hatakeyama's love letter to her mother. It is a wonderful little film.

A young woman goes home to spend New Year's with her mom after her grandmother had passed away. We watch as the two women spend time together  before the daughter leaves once more.

The film starring the director and her mom is just lovely. I love that we get to see all different sides to the women and that we watch as the depth of true love and affection between them is revealed. When the final line was spoken I found myself tearing up.

I can't recommend the film enough.

And let's put Kana Hatakeyama on our "people to watch out for list" because if she can make a short this stunning what is going to happen when she is turned loose on a feature?

For ticket and more information on the remaining Brooklyn Film Festival screening go here.

Asian Girls (2018) Brooklyn Film Festival 2018

Creepy worldless horror film about a young woman who has nightmares about here neighbor...who has nightmares about her.

Stunning mood piece is a perfect short film filled with terror. Unsettling and disturbing this is a perfect eample what short films are supposed to do- naely chill you quickly and effectively, giving you no time to think only enough to scream.

Highly recommended.

For more information and tickets to its remaining screening at the Brooklyn Film festival go here

Working in Protest (2017) Brooklyn Film Festival 2018

Working in Protest is a collection of documentaries and clips that Rumur has put together over the last 30 years charting the course of social protests. Filmed in a verite style, the clips put us into the various protests…

.. or is it one continuous protest? I ask this because as you watch the film you get a sense that not a whole lot has changed. People are still unhappy regarding social inequality and bigotry. If you didn’t look closely at the details you’d kind of think the fight had never ended. Watching the film I felt kind of sad as result because so little seems to have changed.

This is quietly important documentary charting the good fight. If it really doesn’t emotionally peak and valley it’s okay simply because the weight of what we are seeing takes it’s toll.

Recommended for anyone interested in the history of social protest in America.

The film plays June 3 and 4 at the Brooklyn Film Festival. For tickets and more information go here

You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet (2012) plays MUBI June 4

One of Alain Resnais's final films, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET is playing on MUBI on Monday along with LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (Saturday) and STAVITSKY...(Sunday). Since I'm guessing most of you haven't heard of the film, much less have actually watched it I'm reposting my review fro 2012's New York Film Festival.

To see YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET go here.

Alain Resnais who had a film in the first New York Film festival returns with on in the 50th. This digitally shot film is a love letter to the power of acting and the theater.

The film has a plethora of great French actors (all playing themselves and too many to name)being told that a playwright that they all worked with and love has died. He wants everyone come to his house for the reading of the will. His last request is that he would like all of the actors watch a video of his play Orpheus and decide if it is worth being staged once more. As they watch the film, the actors begin to recite lines and actually perform the play themselves in conjunction with what is on the TV. The walls melt away and we are watching them live the play.

Highly theatrical film, it's based on two plays and is often shot as a play including several very long single takes that show you just how good the actors are. Its a film that is very much a melding of stage and screen in a manner that I've never seen before.

How you react to the film will be determined by to the answer two questions:

First will you by into the conceit of the actors performing the play while watching it? Will you buy into as many as three actors playing the same role as the film drifts in and out of settings? Its more than a bit strange,but if you click with it it will thrill you.

Secondly do you go crazy for great acting? I mean GREAT acting? Alain Resnais has created a love letter to all of the actors in this film, and perhaps actors in general. If you have any love for anyone in the cast you will be in heaven watching them go to town. Best of all they do it without tricks, props or cut aways. This is real movie magic.

As I said to a friend who asked about the film, your mileage will vary. I mean this in all seriousness since the reaction in the audience I was part of went from walk outs, to snoring, to orgasmic raves.

My reaction was initial a broad smile at the mixing of theater and film. It then drifted into complete bliss at watching the cast do their work... and then about the time the play gets to the end of act one the film slipped from being one of the best films of the year to being just a good one. For me the problem is that the conceit, as good as it is, can only carry the film so far. Yes the acting carries it all the way to the end, but some of the shine was off the film.

I do really like the film, but I think I admire it more than I love it.

Ultimately, if you love movies, if you love theater, if you love great acting, if you want to see a singular cinematic experience you must see this film.

Don't forget the Brooklyn Film Festival animated films

Just a quick note on the animation at the Brooklyn Film Festival- there is a lot of really good stuff playing so if you like animation buy a ticket and take the ride.

You’ll forgive me for not writing on them in details simply because many of the films are so short that to do so would ruin the small gems. I do want to put GENTLE MENTALS at the top of your list. It’s a stunning little film about damaged animals and will make you laugh out loud.

Also recommended is HURRY UP, HEROLD! is a about a superhero over coming 13 obstaces to get a birthday gift home for his daughter, which is ultimately charming , and PRESCHOOL POETRY which has some killer animation to go along with pre-schoolers poetry

For more information and tickets go here

The Doctor From India (2018)

Portrait of Dr. Vasant Lad, a holistic health teacher and advocate who has brought Ayurveda from India to the west. It is a way of looking at health and living that helps one cleanse the body and become centered.

Good but incredibly hagiographic look at Lad and his teachings is going to delight many and make others shake their heads at what is very much a 90 minute commercial. Put me in the latter group, since after about a half an hour I was ready to check out and go on to something else. Don't get me wrong, this really is a good film, but at the same time it is so loving that it kind of feels like a recruitment video. While I am fascinated by his teachings there is too much love for the man my taste.

Worth a look for those interested in alternative ways of living, though you might be better served reading one of his books.

THE DOCTOR FROM INDIA  opens in select theaters today