9-Man

9-Man is an impressive, local filmmaking effort from Newton native Ursula Liang. It explores the history and culture behind 9-Man, a Chinese-only sport played on blacktops and basketball courts across North America, usually within the confines of the local Chinatown. Liang’s direction shows an excellent sense of timing, knowing how long to stay with each subject and at what moments to move on or back and forth. This task isn’t easy for a first time director, especially when her subject traverses the history of racism against Chinese people in America, explaining a complicated sport, exploring its historical roots across Canada and on both United States coasts on what must’ve been a low budget, and enjoying a fun sports tournament. I don’t imagine all viewers will have as much fun with 9-Man as I did, given my personal fascination with Chinese-Americans and east coast Chinatowns (Montreal and Boston particularly), but I hope they will because it’s a great documentary.

The game of 9-Man is a variation on volleyball. It has 9 players on each side, while volleyball only has 6. Given the increase in players on the court and culture of being a gritty outdoor game, 9-Man is more chaotic and thrilling to watch than ordinary volleyball. Entrenched in the sport is the tradition of Chinese Americans, who have long been persecuted in the United States. As a response to cultural racism in the late 1800s, Chinese men found solace in this sport. Being extremely poor, they could only afford a net and a ball made of crunched together towels, which they had easy access to as they often worked in laundry. This occupation required many to work long hours with heavy irons, which built up their wrist strength, making them perfect for a volleyball type sport.

The sport is almost exclusively for Chinese males. A certain amount of players must be 100% Chinese, and the rest must be at least partly Asian. Women are not allowed. An intriguing racial element enters the thematic fray of the film, as 9-Man has partly become the kind of exclusionary racist institution that forced Chinese men into the back alleys in the first place. This of course opens up the classic American debate amongst minority groups: do ethnic groups preserve their culture through exclusion (the same kind of exclusion that ghettoized them in the first place), or do they let others into their culture and risk it being diluted?

I’ve seen a lot of films that overtly discuss race and bring very little to the table in terms of new or evocative ideas. 9-Man brings out the difficulty of this debate in full force, merely by existing in that world and letting the viewer fall for its charms. By virtue of loving that world, you empathize with both sides of the debate.

9-Man is a strong documentary from a new, exciting voice in documentary cinema. It’s not going to change the world, but it does an excellent job documenting its topic. As is mostly only seen at festivals, documentaries can be just that. I’m glad to say that I’m very impressed by another world premiere at IFF Boston 2014. Don’t be surprised if you find me wandering around the blacktops of Chinatown looking for a 9-Man game; too bad I can’t play.

Grade: B+/A-

Vessel

Vessel is a stellar new documentary that explores the global injustice of restricted or limited access to abortion-related medical care. Director Diana Whitten focuses on Rebecca Gomperts and her organization Women on Waves, whose main initiative is to circumvent local anti-abortion laws by performing abortions on a ship in international waters. Since, in their opinion completely restricted or limited access to abortions is a global injustice, their aim is to help women escape situations that are bad for not only them but also the children. If you don’t support the legalization of abortions, this film will not convince you of anything; it’s most successful at exploring the current legal and social situations regarding abortion as they relate to the actions of Women on Waves.

In this regard, the plot of the film is kind of messy. At first we’re exploring legal abortions at sea. Then we’re looking at legal ways to help women give themselves safe abortions using legal pills. Then we’re looking at Women on Waves starting social protests that create awareness and put pressure on governments to legalize abortion. Then we watch them train doctors to safely give abortions in poor countries. Some viewers found this confusing and frustrating, as it’s sometimes unclear why we’re learning what we’re learning or what exactly Women on Waves does or doesn’t do; I can understand that perspective, but I think Whitten’s whirlwind exploration is exactly what it needs to be. This film isn’t completely about nautical abortions, Women on Waves or even Gomperts; it’s simply a survey of the current state of abortion politics in a sampling of countries. Given the highly charged emotions and intrigue of the topic, this survey method is effective and engrossing.

I found this documentary riveting, especially with Gomperts being a fun, intelligent leader guiding the charge. In very special moments, usually pertaining to letters that women have sent to Women on Waves, Whitten touches on the heart of the injustice. To hear of a woman’s pregnancy by rape is always extremely painful, but to then add that her culture will force her to keep the baby and then condemn her for it is tragic. Vessel is a well-made documentary that understands the deeper heart of its subject and reveals it to the viewer. It touched me and I can’t wait for it to be seen more widely when it receives distribution.

Grade: A-

Starred Up

Starred Up comes to IFF Boston as part of its long run of festivals. It premiered back in 2013 at Telluride and continues to play the circuit including Tribeca and IFFB right now. I wasn’t familiar with Scottish director David Mackenzie until this film, but it’s time to explore his back catalog because Starred Up is a brilliant film.

It takes place in Northern Ireland at an adult prison where a young violent offender named Eric Love has just been transferred. The film begins with his initial examination, in which they check his body for any illicit items. We see him walked through the prison to his wing, getting a feel for the colors, sounds, layout and general culture of the prison. This is clearly important to Mackenzie, who forms the identity of his characters using the setting (ah yes, your classic setting as character kind of film). There’s a cold heartlessness to the whole setup; these prisoners are pawns in a game, not people being rehabilitated.

Eric spends the film getting acquainted with his new situation. His father, who has been in prison for all of Eric’s life, is one of the inmates. Typical father/son relationship drama ensues. More intriguingly, Eric becomes part of a discussion group run by a renegade Oxford graduate who volunteers at the prison. In the group, prisoners talk about their feelings and learn how to control their aggression. This kind of pursuit can fail miserably in a film by feeling overwrought and unrealistic, but Mackenzie succeeds following the minutiae of his institutions as to how a circumstance such as this would unfold and, optimistically, could be successful.

Starred Up has the scents of something you’ve seen before, but don’t be fooled; Mackenzie is doing his own thing here. Even if the ideas and situations aren’t new, it feels like the realized vision of a visually articulate filmmaker. Structure and pacing combined with outstanding acting from the lead, Jack O’Connell, makes Starred Up an early highlight of IFF Boston.

Grade: A-

David DeCoteau is a one-trick pony. I’m a little scared to call him that because it may be the impetus for another horrible pun-based film. 2012’s entry into DeCoteau’s mildy erotic 1313 anthology series, Cougar Cult, could either be about older women going after young guys or a large cat. Well, guess what? It’s about both! Ha! Get it? Because cougar means both things! So they make the sexy older women turn into cougars. Isn’t that clever? Isn’t that original? Isn’t it intriguing enough for you to want to watch this movie? If you answered “Yes” to one or more of those questions, seek help.

Cougar Cult is about three sisters who live in a large mansion and need to hire attractive college boys to keep up with maintenance and housework. Yes, it’s the exact same large mansion as A Talking Cat!?! and An Easter Bunny Puppy. I like to imagine that DeCoteau is trying to make films all set in the same location that kids can grow up with, like the Harry Potter series. They can learn all about morals and good decisions with A Talking Cat!?! and discover their sexuality with Cougar Cult, which to be clear would be a horrible idea. More on that later. Clara, Victoria, and Edwina spend their days lounging around their mansion in skimpy robes and dresses while Rufus, Darwin, and Coopersmith spend their summer as live-in aids. They are hired to cook, clean, run errands, and be personal masseuses. Subtle. It turns out that they need these boys as sacrifices to their goddess to maintain eternal life. Oh, and to eat them. Because they can turn into cougars. Like, actual cougars. 

Aside from having the most wonderfully awkward names in the history of cinema, Rufus, Darwin, and Coopersmith are also pretty ripped. We know this because almost immediately after they’re hired for the job, they stop wearing shirts for almost no reason. One of them is asked to strip down for his position as a masseuse (come on, DeCoteau), but beyond that, there’s no reason that the others have to be shirtless. Except for the 5-minute long shower sequences. There are long, long chunks of the movie that are made up of shots of a boy in a shower, taken from a single angle the entire scene, with the same Instagram-filtered footage of the sisters’ pagan cougar ritual. Each boy has a shower scene or two and several of them have a nightmare scene where they toss and turn in their beds with the same footage of the sisters in their heads. I saw Clara stick her tongue out to the camera by the pool way more times than anybody ever should. Maybe that was DeCoteau’s way of campaigning for syndication of his movies? “Look how good this holds up on multiple viewings!” Well, it doesn’t. 

The sad thing is that this probably could have been aired on TV. Cougar Cult is so tame that it’s almost upsetting that you’re putting up with such a lame plot for very little, shall we say, “payoff.” After doing lots of scientific research, I came up with a highly scientific and mathematically-sound concept called the Porn-To-Plot Ratio. Basically, the more aroused you get the viewer, the more ludicrous plot you can get away with. Remember the porno in The Big Lebowski? It doesn’t matter if the guy doesn’t fix the cable. But in Cougar Cult, there’s very little that’s sexy about anything that’s going on. Sure, the boys are in their underwear 90% of the film, but that only results in horrible double-entendres from the sisters. Yes, the whole cougar thing is clever, but there’s not enough payoff for anybody to want to sit through this garbage heap of a film to be aroused. Thankfully, that’s not why we’re here; there’s plenty to laugh at this movie about. 

The cougar sisters can control the boys’ minds when they want, so there are times when a boy is put into a trance while he’s asleep. He’s then stunned with some kind of magical amulet and has oil poured onto his unconscious bodies while the cougar sisters chant some kind of pagan ritualistic verse and rub the oil into the boy’s body. Aside from almost qualifying as rape, this strange ritual is done multiple times throughout the film, once to each boy. It’s not sexy, scary, or intimidating; it’s just bizarre. It’s shot in broad daylight with lots of natural sunlight coming into the room, it’s all made up of boring medium-angle shots from only one or two perspectives, the sisters’ voices are distorted in an Exorcist kind of way that’s impossible to understand, and, of course, they splice in the exact same goddamn Instagram-filtered footage from before. The best part is that at the end of the ritual, they turn into actual cougars and eat the boy. In the great tradition of David DeCoteau biting off way more than he can chew when it comes to animal effects, he literally photoshops a picture of a roaring cougar onto each sister’s face for a second as they lunge down towards their unconscious prey. It’s unintentional comedy gold. 

I’m starting to wonder what audience Cougar Cult is intended for. It’s not raunchy or bloody enough to be an adult movie, but it’s definitely too risqué to be geared towards anybody younger than 18. Its main focus is supposed to be the cougars, but there's more skin from the boys. David DeCoteau is openly gay and most of his other films are male-centric, but it feels out of place in a movie where the evil literal-cougars are the main focus. It seems like the only people who can appreciate this shitstorm are the bad movie fans. Sorry DeCoteau; we're all laughing at you, not with you. 


This article is part of NUFEC's Bad Movies series. Find 1313: Cougar Cult on Netflix here and Amazon here. 

Calvary

Calvary opens brilliantly, as a priest named Father James listens to an adult male in the confession; however, this man is not confessing his sins but rather indicting the church and religion. He tells Father James in upsetting detail of the many times his local priest molested him as a child. This anonymous man continues that he will kill Father James in seven days on next Sunday (of course Sunday); not because Father James is bad, but because he is the only one who is genuinely good.

Director John Michael McDonagh, whose debut feature The Guard is a personal favorite, spends Calvary following Father James around County Sligo in Ireland, as he mulls over his faith through encounters with his suicidal daughter, and the local townspeople. The film walks through the indiscretions of the locals through the perspective of Father James’ rapidly diminishing faith. By opening with a confession of child molestation, belief in God is immediately put into question. How can such a thing ever happen, especially in a church through an agent of God? At a certain point, I began wondering if the biggest sinner is the priest. He who implores adults, through guilt, to believe in a higher power who would allow such a horrible event to occur not once but many times. How can he use guilt to convince people to believe in the seemingly absurd fallacy of God?

While these intriguing thoughts were brought on by Calvary, it also contradicted them. McDonagh reifies religion and the notion of faith when Father James gives emotional support to a grieving woman whose loved one died tragically. The moment is a triumph for both of them, she is emotionally healed and strengthen by this moment. It is visually and sonically portrayed in a romantic, loving way (warm light, “heart-warming moment” music). Thus, the film seems to have affection for this moment and its implications. It could be McDonagh’s attempt to bring a rounded complexity and nuance to the film’s musings on the morality of the church, but it felt out of place and silly in a film that is mostly filled with overwhelming darkness.

Moments, like the opening, will stay with me and live in the darker part of my heart. And the direction is unsurprisingly strong, with a skillful sense of blocking, timing and poetic imagery (the ocean is depicted quite beautifully at times). However, McDonagh’s confusingly unclear intentions about the themes of the film keep me at a distance from Calvary.

Grade: B

One Cut, One Life

Two documentary filmmakers, Lucia Small and Ed Pincus, turn the camera on themselves when Pincus is diagnosed with a terminal illness. As many audience members remarked in the Q+A, this film is not about death; it’s about learning, or being reminded of, how to live. When the credits rolled, and as I typed these words, the tears are unstoppable.

This film isn’t just about Pincus’ slow death. Before he was diagnosed, Small had already experienced two sudden, violent deaths of friends. With these three life tragedies surrounding her, the film’s focus became the frailty of life. Small and Pincus then insightfully brought their camera down to the subway, visually illustrating their ordinariness by watching Pincus sit as just another passenger. Anything can happen to anyone, anytime. Perhaps someone else on that train is about to have a loved one commit suicide, or another may be abused by their spouse, or another may be showing early signs of cancer. As you watch the passersby on the subway, it doesn’t feel ham-fisted like you may be worrying, but like tragic moments of truth.

There are a lot of layers to One Cut, One Life, but I’m not going to go all through of them. I will tell you that Lucia Small’s individual introduction on stage will tell you where the film is headed, and when the moment comes, so do the tears of every loved one you’ve lost. However I must also tell you, that while there is darkness, the film leaves you with a rediscovered understanding of the beauty of life and how to live it with vigor.

This is why I go to the movies, to experience humanity in a way that is both authentic and illuminating. One Cut, One Life certainly brings that in spades.


Grade: A/A-

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter follows Kumiko, a single 29-year old Japanese girl who works in an administrative job. In Japan, to be without a career or a husband at such an age is uncommon and certainly frowned upon.  She quietly wanders around the streets of Tokyo in her bright red hoodie. Most typical females in Japan don’t wear such loud clothing, so she sticks out like a sore thumb. As Kumiko wanders, she ponders her obsession, which is that the Coen Brother’s film Fargo is actually a true story, and thus, there is a lost buried treasure in Fargo, North Dakota. I found Kumiko mostly inscrutable, so I’m not sure if she’s entirely delusional or self-deluded as a response to her life in Japan. Given my inability to connect with Kumiko, I found myself detached from the experience.

**Plot spoiler that occurs 45 minutes into the film, mentioned by about half the reviews I saw from Sundance** The one scene in the film that I keep going back to is when a middle-aged Minnesota resident who finds Kumiko walking alone in the cold on the street and helps her. This woman is an American foil to Kumiko; a relatively typical, simple female. The stark difference is the way their relative society’s treated them and the result of that treatment. Kumiko was pushed down to being an office lady who must marry. The Minnesota woman is an avid reader, who has traveled, is aware of world conflicts, and has built up much more personal strength, intelligence and agency as a human being.

Other than this single scene, I could’ve done without Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. However, I’m not entirely sure I’ll agree with that sentiment next year. I’d like to revisit this film, because I have a feeling that next time it might break through.

Grade: B-/B

Fort Tilden

Fort Tilden is an indie drama about spoiled Brooklyn twenty-somethings who are selfish, ignorant and irresponsible millennials that beg their parents for money and look wearily at “ghetto people.” Yeah, that genre. On first glance, I wasn’t enthused, as it didn’t hold up to other strong recent examples like the first two seasons of Lena Dunham’s Girls or her previous film Tiny Furniture.  I’m not familiar enough with this sub-culture to truly appreciate nuanced differences in representations, so it grows a bit tiresome. That said, what began as an even split between cloying and enjoyably familiar, shifted towards intriguingly human.

The story follows the girls as they try to get from Williamsburg to the Fort Tilden beach on the other side of Brooklyn. They are meeting two attractive guys they intend to sleep with. Both avoid their life responsibilities like work and money, especially Allie as she ignores texts and calls from a Peace Corps adviser supervising Allie’s upcoming two years of service in Liberia. There are moments in this film, especially near the end, which feel very awkward and real. Allie’s moments on the beach in that last fifteen minutes make the whole film worth watching and remembering.

Writer/director team Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers play off the quirky Brooklyn stereotypes in a way that ultimately moved me. It’s not necessarily easy to be a spoiled kid, because eventually, you’re suddenly tossed into the difficulty of the real world without ever truly understanding what is ahead of you. Suddenly, the pool you’re swimming in has becoming an ocean, and the sharks may be nearby; you don’t know, you've never swam in the ocean before and the fear is soul-crushing. So when it can be avoided, people avoid it. All they are doing is prolonging the inevitable. Their reliance on their prolonged adolescence is like an addiction that they can’t shake. I’ve never quite seen it as an addiction until Fort Tilden revealed that perspective and I’m grateful for the insight.

Grade: B/B-

Riot on the Dance Floor

Riot on the Dance Floor is a pretty good documentary, but it’s disappointingly niche. It explores the world of the City Gardens, a music club in Trenton, NJ, that was frequented by a wide variety bands. The list is long and impressive with names like the Nine Inch Nails, New Order, Nirvana, Dead Kennedys, and Fugazi. As you can see from that list, the genres are all over the map but predominantly focused on punk rock, new wave, and reggae. City Gardens was a haven for outsider types and their music. As an alternative outsider type, I was hoping that while the film would focus on the community surrounding City Gardens, it would transcend that and be about what it means to be a haven for the weird kids.

Riot on the Dance Floor is not that, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good film. It is specific to its niche, and that’s okay. As one with loose familiarity with these bands and movements, it’s fun to hear about great bands and their experiences at a small dingy club like City Gardens. The film even directly speaks to some of the band members like Jack Irons from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam, Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys, and Henry Rollins from Black Flag. In an interview with one drummer who played at City Gardens, he recalled the filth of the dressing room and having his car stolen. This is clearly the type of environment that features great cult bands for cheap prices in a shithole, and that’s great. I went to those kinds of shows when I was in high school. It’s the ultimate unpretentious environment for open-minded fans looking to experience life outside the mainstream.  

It’s fun to hear from Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys, or even NJ-local John Stewart (The Daily Show with John Stewart), but I think Riot on the Dance Floor could’ve been more universal or at least leaner. At almost two hours, they could’ve lost 20-30 minutes and been just as good. It’s a film for people from that scene at that time and place. I enjoyed my glimpse of it, and if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dig out my old punk rock CDs (yes, I do own them).

Grade: B-

Leah Meyerhoff’s I Believe in Unicorns is a majestic beauty, much like it’s central image of a unicorn; it is mythical, vulnerable, weird, beautiful and deeply human. 

The film is about a teenage girl named Davina, played expertly by Natalia Dyer, who lives with her sick mother, modeled after and played by Meyerhoff’s mother with Multiple Sclerosis. Davina is damaged by her obligation to take care of the mother in a relatively dull and depressed area from Davina’s perspective. I Believe in Unicorns is not exactly an objective look at these people, but rather functions as a lens for her perspective: a light, airy, floating sense of wonder for the world, often basked in light blue.

This world is lightened by the entry of a cute skateboarder, who she photographs (stunning, I might add), named Sterling. He sees her taking photographs and skateboards up to her, suggesting that they meet the next day. He takes a brown marker and draws a map to a storefront nearby. Yeah, he’s damn charming, which is only possible because Peter Vack plays the role incredibly well. Don’t be mistaken, this is not the means to a puffy, meatless endeavor of quirky, indie fun. Davina’s sense of wonder is a response to her pain.

Davina and Sterling’s relationship or, rather, the impact of this relationship on Davina becomes the focal point of the film. You should experience the rest without foreknowledge, so I must simply allude to the brutal honesty of the events that unfold. This film takes you to Davina’s world. It’s gorgeous, both in its surface level beauty and the humanity it depicts. It feels pointless trying to explain I Believe in Unicorns; Meyerhoff is so astutely aware of Davina’s feelings and how to manifest them visually that any description feels like a foolish misstep. Using the moving image, color, sound and brilliant actors, Meyerhoff communicates exactly what she wants to. She has said that Davina is a fictionalized version of herself, which is unsurprising. A major aspect of the aesthetic is a faded look, conveying a complicated nostalgia for a time in her past and a time period (water hand guns, roller blading – this isn’t exactly 2014). I Believe in Unicorns is vulnerable, exciting, unique and delicate, crafted with extreme care and affection.

Please just do yourself a favor and watch this stunning piece of cinema.

Grade: A

Bruce Garrett loved to dance salsa as a child. And he was really good at it, too. That is, until some bullies broke his teenage spirit and he quit dancing. Fast forward 20 years or so, and an adult Bruce Garrett (Nick Frost) is a lathe salesman who gets constantly shit on by his superior/co-worker (Chris O’Dowd). However, both of them find themselves competing for the affections of their new boss (Rashida Jones), who just happens to have a very specific interest: salsa dancing.

If you think the plot is a bit contrived and kind of ridiculous, you wouldn’t be the only one. But Cuban Fury largely rides on the charm of Frost, who has proven himself to be quite the leading man. I couldn’t help but compare his role here to his fantastic turn as the straight businessman in The World’s End. He’s introverted, self-conscious, and holds it together—that is, until someone just sends him over the edge. And he has a real sense of charisma and is very relatable. You can’t help but root for the guy, and he’s as funny as ever given the script he has to work with—which, unfortunately, has far too few jokes. O’Dowd was so convincing as the asshole of the office I wanted to just punch him in his stupid British face. On the other hand, any actress could have played Rashida Jones’ part with similar results in the final film. That’s not knocking Jones’ acting—the character just never takes off.

I can say the same for the supporting cast as well. The only three supporting characters that really jumped at me were Bejan, a very flamboyant and passionate salsa dancer Bruce meets at salsa lessons, played excellently by Kayvan Novak; Sam, Bruce’s sister and former dance partner, now 35 and still working at a Hawaiian bar, who comes to life at the hands of Olivia Colman; and Ron, Bruce’s old, washed-up, alcoholic salsa mentor, who, really, is just Ian McShane being Ian McShane, but I don’t have a problem with that one bit. He can tell me to get smashed and play board games any day.

Despite generally average filmmaking, there’s an immaculately choreographed dance/fight scene in a parking garage between Frost and O’Dowd that goes on far longer than it had any right to and it’s just fantastic. Everyone in this movie has some serious dancing chops, especially Frost. It’s like if The Office had a West Side Story-themed episode. It’s so nuts, and it’s the best part of the movie.

Overall, Cuban Fury is enjoyable but inoffensive, which is a shame for a film about something as vibrant and flashy as salsa dancing. Its cast of characters is fine and they fill their duties, but I don’t remember most of them. Nick Frost is a damn fine leading man, but he’s not enough to hold the entire movie together.

Grade: B

Carter Sigl: This films seems very much based on the kind of people we all know (or are ourselves). Are Harper, Allie, and the others based off specific people, or are they entirely fictional?

Charles Rogers and Sarah-Violet Bliss: Allie and Harper are the culminated best hits of people we love, people we keep at a distance, and a little bit ourselves.  There's some fiction thrown in as well.


Carter Sigl: In a similar vein, is the journey of self-discovery that Harper and Allie go through auto-biographical in any sense?

CR and SVB: As anyone who has ever tried to get to Fort Tilden may know, it can be very difficult.  Or not that difficult, but a big inconvenience, nonetheless. So that was certainly an autobiographical starting point.  When you write satire, you step back and identify the contradictions in yourself and the world that you live in, and the objectivity required in doing so forces you to admit aspects of yourself that you don't always share with others.


Carter Sigl: Both of you have made a number of short films in the past, but this is your feature film debut. What was it like transitioning from making short films to making a full-length film?

CR and SVB: When making short films you have to be very economical in the storytelling and that principle stays true with writing feature films.  There's more breathing room allowed in the structure of a feature length film and that affords the writer the ability to have a little more fun.  It's also nine times more work than a short.


Carter Sigl: Why make a comedy film to tell this story? Why not an ordinary drama?

CR and SVB: Individually, most of our work has been comedic, even though we both employ dramatic elements and a love for uncomfortable situations. This story started with the premise of two naive hipster girls trying to get to the beach and the inherent comedic potential in that was exciting to us. We conceived it in a way that the comedy subtly enhances the dramatic moments, and many of our favorite films are a blend of both.


Carter Sigl: What do you think your artistic statement with this film is? What are you saying to society using it?

CR and SVB: We are telling society to rise up, be violent, and don't look back.  Was that not obvious?


Carter Sigl: Can you give me any hints to what upcoming projects may be?

CR and SVB: We are developing our own separate feature films as well as collaborating on an idea for television. They all involve helicopter shots.

Starfish Throwers

Starfish Throwers is a film about three tremendously compassionate and hard-working individuals. Narayanan Krishnan operates a service in India with the tagline “Destitute Feeding” for which he drives around the streets of India and hands homeless individuals a fresh meal. Katie Stagliano is a 13-year-old gardener who organizes dinners to feed the hungry in South Carolina. Allan Law focuses on feeding the hungry of the streets of Minneapolis, but also provides counsel, guidance, hope and attention to those people who desperately need it. All three of these people spend a lot of time, money and energy trying to help those that need their help. In classic documentary structure, Starfish Throwers lets you get to know them, what they do and why they do it.

In his Kickstarter for the film, director Jesse Roesler said that Starfish Throwers and its stories can “…help us to rediscover our own potential to affect positive change.” That notion that we can all do this, and be the change that the world needs, is apparent throughout the film. Narayanan, Katie and Allan are wonderful human beings doing what they can to help. Though the sea of problems is unsolvable, we can still help some; even one is everything. After all, every single emotion you’ve ever felt, every moment of love, of hate, of kindness, or hurt, is just one person. You are one person. To help one person is to help a being with the same complexity and depth of feeling as you. Even if the problems are endless, each resolution is magnificent.

I wouldn’t call Starfish Throwers the most enthralling and original film. It is yet another story of hard work aimed at helping people. It is yet another documentary trying to bring social change. And thus, it’s not going to blow you away with new insights on the world. However, it is yet another poignantly human story that we need to hear over and over again.

Twice they tell the story from which the title Starfish Throwers comes. You won’t forget it.

Grade: B+/B

A for Alex

A for Alex is a blend of nonfiction and sci-fi that explores director Alex Orr and his wife Katie’s pregnancy. The film is a typical mix of comedy and drama, being mostly comedic with few but important moments of serious drama. It’s delightfully aware of its silliness, which is laugh-out-loud funny at times. Its aims at genuine emotion fail because the film is too silly to feel real.

A for Alex is not the greatest film, but it’s an enjoyable digression. The film is not going to stand out at IFF Boston, but it’s better than a lot of the schlock Hollywood puts out. If you’re looking for something lighter, with worthwhile mild enjoyment, check this out.

Grade: B-/C+

Fat

Fat deals with the topic of food addiction from the perspective of an obese male named Ken. Director Mark Phinney aims to show viewers the common conflicts a fat person must face internally and externally. As a fat person, this topic is familiar and I’ve been thirsty for an effective film that explores these conflicts. Echoes in my head of people wondering “why can’t fat people just eat less?” reminds me that we need such a film. For many, it’s an addiction and the problem usually isn’t really about food.

Unfortunately, Fat is not the film I hoped for. Somehow, despite being fat, I often felt like I couldn’t relate. It’s less that it’s missing the right moments but more that it just plays them in a way that didn’t feel true. The things people say to Ken and the things he proclaims to feel are very relatable. But while Phinney dissects the issue well, the acting often felt too unreal. The acting reminded me of a slightly overdone school play exploring an important issue. It’s unfortunate, because this might have been something special with a better cast. What’s missing from Fat is the humanity.

Grade: B-

Project Wild Thing

Project Wild Thing is a bit silly and over-the-top, but I appreciate its endeavor to “advertise” nature like a business advertises its product (think McDonald’s commercials but for nature… like trees, forests, animals, rivers, air). The film is directed by and stars David Bond, who literally introduces himself to people as the Marketing Director of Nature. As a modern British citizen, he noticed the extreme attachment of citizens to their devices, especially children, which resulted in far less time outdoors. He wondered: why don’t they like to go outside and how can we get them to embrace the outdoors? Thus, he decided to “market” nature. Yeah, I cringed at his marketing ploy as well, and I studied marketing in college.

In the film, Bond speaks with advocates for nature, marketers, and children to figure out why people don’t love nature, why it’s such a great thing, and how to market it to children. The whole notion of treating nature like a product quickly grows tiresome. It’s cute at first but not much more than that. That being said, it’s still an admirable pursuit resulting in some worthwhile moments; especially when he’s speaking with his “target market” of children about nature. David is right that nature is amazing. I wish he’d spent more time exploring why children don’t take to nature, or relishing in nature’s amazingness, and less time on speaking with advertising executives. This film isn’t great, but it is of interest. Maybe wait for a home video release.

Grade: B-/C+

I followed the production of Boyhood for about six of its twelve-year history. Director Richard Linklater embarked on this incredibly long production process to follow the real-life aging of boy actor Ellar Coltrane for this fiction film about childhood. Despite this extreme attempt at finding authenticity, I found much of Boyhood put on and staged. The acting is unimpressive, often feeling unnatural, and the writing is frustratingly on the nose. The classic moments of childhood are covered but in a way that evoked the classic notion of those moments, not the specific way that an actual human being encounters them in real life. That said, it’s not all artificial.

There are moments of Boyhood that are pure magic; the moments that make us fall in love with cinema. Near the beginning of the film, Coltrane’s character Mason must paint over his and his sister’s height marks on the wall of their home as they must move elsewhere. The camera sits on Mason’s hesitant brush strokes that illustrate their family’s presence being erased as they move on to another town. I cried. Later, Mason and his sister must listen to their mother and her boyfriend scream at one another. Anyone who has experienced the shock of such a moment will be shaken, brought back to notions of inadequacy wondering: “Is it my fault?” Another striking moment is when Mason and his sister come home to a confrontation between their mother and her current husband. Domestic abuse has occurred, and the ensuing family dinner is brimming with tension.

However, these moments of magic are too few and far between. Their sincerity is interrupted by an over-reliance on tired tropes like the previously mentioned falsely classic moments, music that awkwardly attempts to evoke the time period, and one atrocious and unforgivably bad plotline involving a Hispanic male (you’ll understand what I mean if you see the film, while squirming in your chair). At first, I did my best to give my heart to the moments in Boyhood, to find myself in them, but at a certain point I had nothing left to give; characters don’t have to be typical to be relatable. This is a very good movie, but the flaws are too gaping to be forgiven.

Grade: B