Beautifully filmed African (Ghana) picture “Children of the Montain” is Tribeca at its finest.
Spirited dramedy “Little Boxes” is a splendid fusion of inde art house and commercial entertainment.
Documentary on autism, “Life Animated” is one of Tribeca’s most irresistible and heartfelt works in the festival
Brooding and atmospheric dystopian romance “Equals” is one of the most underrated films in years.
by Sam Juliano
The eleven day Tribeca Film Festival ended yesterday, bringing final closure to a wild and exhausting ride, one that spurred Lucille and I to take in 35 feature films at three different locations. Our prime hot spot was the Bow-Tie Cinemas on 23rd Street, but we were also at the SVA auditoriums down the block and down at the Regal Cinemas multiplex adjacent to the World Trade Center Freedom Tower. Once again the annual fest included some outstanding documentaries and narrative works, many of which will surely secure commercial openings in the coming months. The most difficult challenge was to piece together a schedule that would include films about subjects we were greatly interested with some others that were highly touted in advance by critics and festival insiders. It was always tricky to schedule the screenings to coincide with the time windows that were possible to us. Even with the high total we managed there were still films we were unable to negotiate. We made of a list of those that we will watch for in theaters and on DVD release. Like all other festivals of high repute there were some forgettable titles and/or films we had less interest in, but this year’s venue includes a comparatively high number of good to excellent works.
Over the past seven days Lucille and I saw 22 films after having seen 13 last week during the abbreviated opening days of Tribeca. The full listing with star rating and screening locations are as follows:
Poor Boy * (Monday) Bow-Tie Cinemas
Burden ** (Monday) Bow-Tie Cinemas
Youth in Oregon ** (Tuesday) Regal Cinemas
Elvis and Nixon **** (Tuesday) Regal Cinemas
Children of the Mountain **** 1/2 (Tuesday) Regal Cinemas
Tickling Giants ** (Tuesday) Regal Cinemas
Equals **** (Thursday) Regal Cinemas
Solitary *** (Thursday) Regal Cinemas
Hunt for the Wilderpeople **** (Thursday) Regal Cinemas
Little Boxes **** 1/2 (Thursday) Regal Cinemas
High-Rise *** 1/2 (Thursday) Regal Cinemas
Mr. Church **** (Friday) SVA Theater
Obit **** (Friday) Bow-Tie Cinemas
Adult Life Skills *** (Friday) Bow-Tie Cinemas
Madly **** (Saturday) Regal Cinemas
Always Shine ** 1/2 (Saturday) Regal Cinemas
Magnus **** (Saturday) Regal Cinemas
Courted **** (Saturday) Regal Cinemas
For the Love of Spock **** (Saturday) Bow-Tie Cinemas
Midsummer in Newtown **** (Sunday) Bow-Tie Cinemas
Life Animated **** 1/2 (Sunday) Bow-Tie Cinemas
Here Alone * (Sunday) Bow-Tie Cinemas
On our single day off from the TFF on Wednesday Lucille, Sammy, Jeremy and I attended a Rutgers University concert that featured a central saxophone solo from our super talented nephew Eric Lampmann.
We have plans to attend a few features at the Montclair Festival which begins next week.
More reviews of the Tribeca Film Festival are upcoming.
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35 films is a pretty incredible Sam, but I know you’ve actually eclipsed this figure in past years.
Yes we have Frank. One year we did 52. But this was certainly a grueling venture, albeit one we enjoyed immensely. Thank you my friend.
HOLY TOLEDO! It’s a wonder you still had the wherewithal to type this post. I’ve printed your incredible list to reference for date nights with Len 🙂
Laurie, I hear ya! Ha! This present week has also been forged with a similar level of insanity as I will report on Monday! Thanks as always for that sterling measure of confidence and trust you and Len are having a great weekend!
Incredible stuff Sam. Once again, amazed at how you and Lucille manage to schedule all these films in. 35 is an impressive total! I am looking forward to seeing some of your fav films. Hope you get some time to relax and take a break from the cinema for a few days 🙂
Sachin, I most appreciate receiving your sentiments here my friend! Yes we were running back and forth from the downtown location within a stone’s throw of that Barnes & Noble you and visited last year, and the 23rd Street Bow-Tie which hosted most of our chosen venues. Seems like each year Tribeca’s programming is embracing more and more, and this year an impressive number of worthwhile films were offered. As to taking a break, the stars have not quite aligned on that front. Ha! We had a a classical concert last night at Rutgers, saw Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” on Broadway last night, have Tennessee Williams’ rarely staged play “Orpheus Descending” tonight (with “The Jungle Book” in a multiplex this afternoon) and then tomorrow two films at the Montclair Film Festival. I trust you are having a great weekend!
This is amazing and totally out of my concept range to grasp. What an experience. Like Laurie I copied your list in hopes that some of the films might come my way. Thank you for sharing your experience and ratings.
Patricia–Thank so very much for the flattering confidence and very kind words! Yes it was an experience for the record books, and we succeeded in coming upon a good number of fine to excellent films. We will also be dabbling with the local Montclair Film Festival tomorrow (Sunday) but nothing like what we accomplished at Tribeca. I trust you are having a great weekend my friend.
Hello Sam and everyone!
Wow, you just won me on my own game! Hahaha. Because I decided that this time I was going to live the “festival life”, and that doesn’t necessarily means watching more movies, my number considerably lowered when compared to other years in Buenos Aires. Nevertheless, here are the movies that I saw:
– Between Fences (2016, Avi Mograbi) **** It certainly isn’t Z32, and I don’t think Mograbi will ever go as original, bold and weird as in that film, but here he captures a situation that shouldn’t go unnoticed and that I had no idea about. Through performance and the constant reframing of his figure, either through his actual appearance or his voice behind the camera. Beyond that, the idea and the strength of the term “performance” is what drives this film, as well as the importance of the subject matter of immigration with the African people in Israel.
– Bone Tomahawk (2015, S. Craig Zahler) **** It would work much much better, and would’ve been a new favorite of 2015 if it played its “bait and switch” in a much more subtle manner, but this is pretty much gore and violence from its initial minutes with the genius Sid Haig all the way to the end. I like how it subverts our expectations pretty much all the way, but at the same time I do think that’s thanks to the script, as the direction is more lackluster than one would expect for such a visual genre as the western is. There are some pretty innovative shots and some beautiful things here and there, but the lack of sense of space and place is the main problem that this very fun and entertaining film has.
– Entrecampos (2013, Joao Rosas) *** Lacking short film that only appeals on a surface level, as it barely even goes near the depth of the themes that are put on every scene.
– The Son of Joseph (2016, Eugene Green) **** Maybe I’m not that smart, but I’m going to say that Green may, just *may* be a fan of Ozu. Constructed as both an academic essay, yet still so painfully sincere in its intentions as a Christian allegory, it still manages to put forward some ideas about what do we do with the concept of family, God and personal decisions on what to do with your life.
– Garoto (2015, Júlio Bressane) **** No, it’s not easy. No, it’s not bad. The Disappearance of (Almost) a Family.
– Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015, Kent Jones) ***1/2 Nicely edited version of this book, which remains essential. When I came out I bought my own copy of the book so I can read it when I come back.
– Hedi (2016, Mohamed Ben Attia) **** For like 30-40 minutes it felt like it’d be the best new film that I’d see at the Buenos Aires Film Festival. But then, it ended, and the ending was so bad, so really truly unfair and counterproductive that maybe if I ever see it again, I won’t like it as much as what I am rating it here. I don’t know, I can’t deny the fact that the movie almost made me cry in a number of scenes, as its concept of freedom was pure and its love for the character and his bravery to confront his own self was truly touching for me at this moment. But then, it ends, and fuck that ending, fuck it fuck it.
– Linda Linda Linda (2005, Nobuhiro Yamashita) ****1/2 I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy coming out of a film in a long time.
– Dragon Inn (1967, King Hu) ****1/2 No matter how much I tried to shake it off, all I could think of was The Hateful Eight, and that’s a good thing. I also want to live in this movie. I apparently want to live in the films by King Hu.This was my last film at Bafici, thanks to those that supported me in this trip.
– Despite the Night (2015, Phillipe Grandieux) *** A tough sit. For the first half it’s a dream state that verges into the nightmarish landscape of the inner feelings of all of us. But later turns into something nastier, harder to look at, and at times just exploitative of whatever it is that this film is tapping at. In a way, the closest thing that one can reference to it is Mulholland Dr.//Inland Empire in the idea of lighting/cinematography that I think is the only consistently good thing in this. Even some of the acting is kinda lackluster, but for those that want to watch what Grandieux is doing after Sombre, this is the one to watch, some will love it, while others will hate it. I’m in the middle.
– Maria Do Mar (2015, Joao de Rosas) **** Much better. Improvement, as the superficial elements here do have a reason to be superficial, and the visual world is much better constructed, more interesting and at the same time less ambitious, and thus more contained to the emotions that wants to achieve.
– La La La at Rock Bottom (2015, Nobuhiro Yamashita) **** Nobuhiro Yamashita is one of the most impressive filmmakers because of how easily he seems to conjure up emotions like happiness, warmth, kindness and humor. While not as succesful as Linda Linda Linda, it does follow a similar structure, as it mixes something like Oldboy with romantic comedies and other elements that turn it into something more predictable than we’ve already thought about. Still, every song and musical performance is a reveal in the character, and the weight in every one of them, as it turns characters around, it makes us know them better, instead of just being the entertainment that can be found.
– Le moulin (2015, Ya-li Huang) **** Complex, yet always beautiful, entrancing and even sleep inducing at times. The cacophony of the voices does help to give the idea that even if we are being witness of events of history curiously framed and meticulously done and constructed, they have the ambience and the feeling of the literature and poetry that the Japanese writers in Taiwan show. The dice, showing the random nature of the events that follow, the idea of how the characters aren’t seen, as the things that they do and how the documentary shows the objects is what ends up being loads more important. In a way this is like pornography for the people that like books and read them and just talk about how they smell, how they look, the way they sound and how ragged they could be. It’s a film about watching beautiful things happen, even if in the end, in the background, there might be only suffering.
– Stand by for Tape Back-up (2015, Ross Sutherland) **** This is maybe the most personal and affectionate film that I’ll see in this festival, and it’s a masterpiece… until he starts singing. It’s just too… how can I say this… “white”. But the rest of it is just entrancing, superbly edited, wonderfully told and highly interesting to see where this director could go, if he ever decides to continue on the path of filmmaking. It will be interesting because we might discover that he only had this on him or maybe he has more and this was just a trick. A double-edged sword if I’ve ever seen one.
– A Touch of Zen (1971, King Hu) ****1/2 I want to live in this movie. BTW: Either the DCP is really bad (I know it hasn’t looked this good before, but it’s still a badly digitalized DCP) or the projection was done wrong.
That’s all, have a great week everyone!
Jaimie, my performance is not a blip on your annual festival appearances, and neither is my slowly receding stamina a match for yours during your peak years! Sounds like you managed a windfall at Buenos Aires, and your report as always is wonderfully presented. I know Criterion is preparing their blu ray of ZEN and I will order my copy. I have only seen HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT of the ones you have seen, but have noted all the others! The Ross Sutherland film sounds fantastic, and THE SON OF JOSEPH really does intrigue me. Take a bow and a short rest my friend!
Are you and Lucille on withdrawal at this point Sam? lol. I can’t imagine seeing that many films in such a relatively short time span. I think the memories of one would bleed into the other. But I know you have no such problem. Looking ahead to more reviews of films you both caught there.
Ricky, as I just mentioned to Sachin above, we have not rested on our laurels so to speak, and this week are having just a torrid time as I will report on the coming MMD. Thanks for the very kind words my friend.
Sam, I like this post’s heading. It sounds like it has been very good “Tribeca Madness”. I love that Lucille and you are keeping the brisk pace year after year. It is remarkable and inspiring.
Still too quiet here. But did manage to see one of Stephen Frears’ earliest, Gumshoe, and another Ida Lupino film, The Bigamist. I am a big fan of Frears’ work, particularly Prick Up Your Ears and My Beautiful Laundrette, and have always wanted to see this early film of his. It was not top tier Frears but I am glad to have seen it and the Lupino, although impressive at times such as in the initial assault, seemed a bit less satisfying than some of her other work I have seen so far.
Hope you guys have recovered from the Tribeca madness!
Thanks so much for those fabulously supportive words my friend! Yes it was a frenzied time, but one I will always look back on with fondness. Oh I really do love Frears too, and greatly admire My Beautiful Laundrette and Prick Up Your Ears, even if the latter is most disturbing for obvious reasons. Great work with the Lupinos and thanks a million for your simply unbelievable friendship and encouragement! Have a great upcoming week!