Cinequest

FALLEN DRIVE: revenge noir with complications

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Jakki Jandrell and Phillip Andre Botello in FALLEN DRIVE. Courtesy of Cinequest.

The neo-noir thriller Fallen Drive begins with some 20-somethings congregating in a suburban Airbnb ranch house, having returned to their hometown for a high school reunion. It looks like the successful Liam is really more interested in reuniting with his mysteriously estranged younger brother Dustin. Tightly wound Charlie (Jakki Jandrell) and her boyfriend Reese (Phillip Andre Botello) arrive, and it’s apparent that they have an agenda that could be more grim than drinking with high school buddies.

Soon we are enmeshed in revenge noir, in a variation of the perfect crime film. Things get more intense – and more unpredictable – as the story evolves. There are Hitchcockian touches – he suspects us.

Fallen Drive is written and directed by Nick Cassidy (who also plays Liam) and David Rice; it’s the first feature for both. A very strong screenplay elevates Fallen Drive from the paint-by-numbers thriller we see so often. Here Cassidy and Rice have made the characters complicated and added some ambiguity to the back story. There are subtle hints about the relationships of Liam and Dustin and of Reese and Charlie, and the audience is asked to fill in the blanks. You’ll never guess the two characters driving off together at the end.

There’s also a minor character who still parties too much, who could have been written merely for comic relief; but Cassidy and Rice make it clear that his alcoholism has left him immature – that’s why he behaves like a jerk.

The performances are strong. Jandrell is superb as the coiled Charlie. Donald Clark Jr. is also excellent as Dustin, who the others have always found creepy. Cassidy makes for a sufficiently smirky Liam.

An uncommonly textured revenge thriller, Fallen Drive should be a crowd-pleaser. Cinequest is hosting the world premiere of Fallen Drive.

NO RIGHT WAY: no good deed…

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Chelsea Bo and Ava Acres in NO RIGHT WAY. Courtesy of Cinequest.

In Chelsea Bo’s affecting family drama No Right Way, Harper (played by Bo herself) is a 27-year-old go-getter in LA. She gets a call from child protective services in Las Vegas, informing her that her 13-year-old half-sister Georgie (Ava Acres)can no longer stay with her mother. Because their father is away on a work assignment, Harper drives to Vegas to pick up Georgie herself.

Harper finds that Georgie’s mother Tiffany (Eliza Coupe of Happy Endings) is a hot mess. There may be no one right way to raise a child, but there are wrong ways, for which Tiffany is the poster girl. Addled by a serious drug addiction, Tiffany runs with scary men and can’t even manage to kep the electricity on; as a result, Georgie, very smart with a big personality, is essentially feral.

A fundamentally decent person, Harper is appalled by Tiffany’s failure to provide Georgie with guidance and stability, let alone a safe environment. The dad is comfortable with his current hands-off parenting and gun shy of engaging with Tiffany, so Harper sees herself as Georgie’s last chance and tries to get custody of Georgie from Tiffany.

But Harper is out of her depth dealing with an addict’s denial and sociopathy, and doesn’t reckon that Tiffany, who has no boundaries at all, will explode in manipulative drama and involve Georgie herself in the vortex. Harper makes a mistake that keeps her from gaining control of the situation, and soon Harper is getting a big dose of no good deed goes unpunished. Even neglected kids often prefer to stay with the parent they know, and teenagers relish the freedom of an unengaged guardian.

Chelsea Bo wrote and directed No Right Way, and the exceptionally smart screenplay indicates that she is a perceptive observer of human nature, and her characters are authentically complicated.

Harper is responsible, but she’s naïve and a little judgy. When she observes the untidy household of Tiffany’s friend Amy, we can see Harper aghast at both red flags (the littlest kid is encamped in a closet) and Amy not meeting middle-class norms (we can see her thinking OMG she’s smoking in front of the kids!); but Amy’s teenagers happily play games with the family after dinner – an accomplishment most American parents would envy.

Amy (Sufe Bradshaw of Veep) naturally relates more to Tiffany than to the privileged Harper. But Amy has seen some bullshit in her day, and her sympathy to Tiffany is tempered by a focus on Georgie’s welfare.

Coupe is brilliantly twitchy and volatile as Tiffany, who, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, erupts to make everything someone else’s fault.

Both lead actors – Bo and Ava Acres – are believable and relatable. Acres, who already has 57 screen credits on IMDb, is a force of nature as Georgie.

No Right Way is compelling without any tinge of soapiness. A scene where the dad reams out Harper on the phone as disfunction swirls around her is especially strong. This is a remarkably promising debut feature for Chelsea Bo. I screened No Right Way for its world premiere at Cinequest.

KAYMAK: ménage à trois times two

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Sara Klimoska in KAYMAK. Courtesy of Kaymak.

Kaymak follows the relationships of two couples in the same apartment building in teeming Skopje, North Macedonia. Eva (Kamka Tocinovski), a rich banker, lives in the penthouse with her husband Metodi (Filip Trajkovic), who wants a child; Eva, not a candidate for Mother of Year, doesn’t want her life disrupted by the bother of pregnancy and childbirth, so she plucks a young relative, Dosta (Sara Klimoska), from the countryside to serve as a surrogate. Dosta is developmentally disabled and lives with her family in an impoverished, backward village. Soon, Eva and Metodi are getting more than they expected and more than they can handle.

The other couple lives in a modest ground floor apartment. Caramba (Aleksandar Mikic ) is a goofy security guard; Danche (Simona Spirovska) is always exhausted from pulling double shifts at a bakery. Day to day drudgery has drained their relationship of passion, and Caramba is always on Danche’s very last nerve. When Caramba meets the comely and oversexed cheese vendor Violetka (Ana Stojanovska), their lives, too, are upended.

The characters have lots of sex, both joyously kinky and cringingly transgressive. It gets very funny, and Manchevski even drops in a delicious nod to the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.

Ana Stojanovska and Simona Spirovska in KAYMAK. Courtesy of Kaymak.

However, Manchevski imbues Kaymak with more meaning than a mere sex romp, exploring both the imperative to parent and the elastic strictures of of monogamy. There’s tragedy (and apparent tragedy) here, amid all the absurdity. Manchevski told A Good Movie to Watch, “People usually want their films to have a consistent and predictable tone. Now, my preference as a film viewer, but also as a filmmaker, is more adventurous. I don’t mind disruption. On the contrary, I cherish it.“

All the characters, rich or not, enjoy kaymak, a versatile creamy milk reduction used in the Balkans as an appetizer, a condiment and a fast food breakfast. 

Manchevski was Oscar-nominated for his acclaimed 1994 Macedonian feature Before the Rain. That Manchevski debut won the Golden Lion at Venice and was singled out as a masterpiece by Roger Ebert and The New York Times.  Since then, Manchevski has been teaching in New York and directed an episode of The Wire. 

Kaymak is his third film to play Cinequest, after Bikini Moon, my choice as the best film of the 2017 Cinequest, and Willow, a triptych that plumbs the heartaches and joys of having children. Kaymak is the raunchiest and most overtly comedic of the Manchevski films I’ve seen

The performances in Kaymak are all excellent. (Klimoska bears a passing resemblance to Kristin Stewart.)

Cinequest is hosting the US premiere of Kaymak. Find the trailer on the Cinequest Kaymak page.

DEALING WITH DAD: two serious topics in an ok comedy

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Peter S. Kim, Ally Maki and Hayden Szeto in DEALING WITH DAD. Courtesy of 1091 Pictures.

Dealing with Dad is a topical family comedy with an Asian-American cast. Three adult siblings – the super-achiever oldest sister, the passive middle brother and the infantilized youngest brother, a gaming slacker – meet at their parents’ home. The dad, whose harsh and never-bending expectations battered them as kids, has become paralyzed (and defanged) by severe depression.

Although Dealing with Dad is a comedy, its strengths are in addressing two serious subjects – depression and the issues that many second-generation Asian-Americans face because of their immigrant parents’ parenting styles.

The differences between the siblings spawn lots of laughs, but I found the banter a bit too sit-commy for my taste.

Bay Area audiences will appreciate that Dealing with Dad is set in MILPITAS.

I screened for the 2022 Cinequest. It started rolling out in theaters on May 19.

I’M AN ELECTRIC LAMPSHADE: the final score is Doug 1, Expectations 0.

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Photo caption: I’M AN ELECTRIC LAMPSHADE. Courtesy of Cinequest.

In the winning and surprising documentary I’m an Electric Lampshade, we meet the most improbable rock star – a mild-mannered accountant who retires to pursue his dream of performing.

60-year-old Doug McCorkle is fit for his age and has an unusually mellifluous voice, like a late night FM DJ or the announcer in a boxing ring. Other than that he looks like a total square.

There may be no flamboyance about Doug McCorkle, but it thrives inside him. His own artistic taste is trippy, gender-bending and daring. Think Price Waterhouse Cooper on the outside and Janelle Monáe on the inside.

We follow Doug as he goes to a performance school in the Philippines (where most of his classmates are drag queens) and the montage of his training resembles those in Fame and Flashdance. Doug is a good enough sport to wear MC Hammer pants in a bizarre Filipino yogurt commercial. It all culminates in a concert in Mexico.

Doug’s quest would be a vanity project except he has no apparent vanity. He must have some ego to want to get up on stage, but compared to subjects of other showbiz documentaries, he is most humble, emphatically not self-absorbed and low maintenance. We can tell from how his co-workers, friends and wife react to him, that he is just a profoundly decent guy.

Eminently watchable, this is a successful first feature for writer-director John Clayton Doyle. The stage-setting profile of one of the Filipino artists could have been trimmed, but Lampshade is otherwise well-paced.

The final score: Doug 1, Expectations 0. I screened I’m an Electric Lmpshade for its world premiere at Cinequest, and it made my Best of Cinequest 2021. It’s now available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

Wrapping up Cinequest’s Cinejoy

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CATCHING THE PIRATE KING. Courtesy of Cinequest.

Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy ran through March 12. Here are the films that in the program that I hadn’t posted about yet:

Egghead & Twinkie: In this remarkably funny, sweet and genuine coming-of-age film, high school senior Twinkie (Sabrina Jie-A-Fa – real talent) is trying to navigate her sexual awakening as a lesbian, and goes on a roadtrip with her lifelong bestie, the neighbor boy who is now sweet on her. Perfectly paced, with just the right amount of whimsical animation sprinkled in, Egghead & Twinkie is an impressive debut feature for writer-director Sarah Kambe Holland. IMO this is one of the best coming-of-age films of the decade.

Catching the Pirate King: The enthralling Belgian documentary is two movies in one. The first is a play by play of the hijacking of a Belgian ship by Somali pirates and the negotiating of their ransom. The second is about the Belgian law enforcement’s dogged campaign to bring the pirates to justice – in Belgium. We meet the ship’s captain and crew, the shipping company’s negotiator, the cops and prosecutors and even some pirates. Absorbing, exceptionally well-sourced and very well-crafted.

Under Water: This dark Dutch dramedy (or extremely dark Dutch comedy) starts out as the insistent effort of a pushy woman and her estranged husband to get her aged mother into residential care. The mother, a paranoid survivalist, resists every entreaty by the woman and her estranged husband to leave her isolated, condemned house – and even imprisons them in her basement. The husband’s role evolves, and we eventually see that this is a portrait of generational mental illness.

Sweet Disaster: This zany German comedy is driven by the protagonist’s ever-unleashed impulsiveness and utter lack of boundaries. Frida (Friederike Kempter) encounters and falls for an airline pilot and audaciously charms him into a relationship; their affair lasts just long enough for her to become impregnated and for him to abandon her for his ex. Consumed by the urge to win him back, Frida throws propriety to the winds. Frida’s zany roller coaster is tempered by sweet relationships with her apartment neighbors, a precocious teenage neighbor and a Greek Chorus of card-playing older women.

Sloane: A Jazz Singer: This is another laudatory doc on an overlooked musical artist. Now 82, she’s a lot of fun. I wasn’t wowed by an advance version that I screened, but I understand that revisions have since made this film very strong.

The Secret Song: This doc is an uncomplicated movie about a visionary and saintly public school music teacher. He has touched hundreds of lives; this movie won’t.

SHARE?: bread and circuses

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Melvin Gregg in SHARE?

In the very funny sci fi think-piece Share?, an unnamed Everyman (Melvin Gregg) finds himself locked up in his civvies in a high tech cell – and he’s on camera. Through trial and error, he learns that he can acquire necessities – and also on-screen social interaction with other captives – by performing for the camera; the currency is not unlike the likes and follows of social media. There are many layers of metaphor in this exploration of human behavior and the human appetite for bread and circuses.

Our protagonist is able to connect through his screen with others in his situation. One veteran (a great Bradley Whitford) is jaded and burnt out, sometimes a sage life coach and sometimes bursting into a nihilistic frenzy. Another noobie (Alice Braga) is a brilliant, driven strategist who immediately turns to organizing their escape; she proves that rage and fear are clearly the most effective motivators of human behavior (Fox News essentially runs on this fuel), but is the trade off in mental health worth it? A third star of the computer screen (Danielle Campbell) advocates for complacent acceptance and exudes a creepy serenity.

So, how about our current addiction to social media? Is it all one big Distraction that steers us away from addressing real challenges, like injustice, socioeconomic inequality and planetary survival? It’s great to see sci fi that is once again about ideas, not just about blowing shit up in space.

One of the wry ironies in Share? is that the force that is sufficiently technologically advanced to have captured these people without their knowledge and imprisoned them in high tech cells employs a clunky user interface that resembles (and may even be) MS-DOS.

Here’s a novelty – all of Share? is entirely shot from one static camera position. As convenient as this must have been in working from a low budget and perhaps pandemic-driven restrictions, it figures to pose a challenge in keeping the audience interested. But, thanks to the collaboration between director Ira Rosensweig, Assistant Editor Peter Szijarto and Gregg (who’s on screen 99% of the time), that’s not a problem.

Melvin Gregg, with his energy and relatability, does an excellent job carrying the movie. The rest of the cast – Bradley Whitford, Alice Braga, Danielle Campbell – is great, too.

Share? is the first feature for director and co-writer Ira Rosensweig and the third feature for co-writer Benjamin Sutor. Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy is hosting the world premiere of Share?, which tops my Best of Cinejoy recommendations. You can find the trailer and tickets at Cinequest.

DADDY: four guys, four chances to fail

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A scene from DADDY. Courtesy of Cinequest.

The dark sci fi comedy Daddy: is set in a future where only a limited number of men are approved by the government to father children. Four guys apply for the privilege and are isolated in a mountain lodge to wait for the expert evaluator, who doesn’t immediately show up. As they try to figure out what’s going on and what they should do, they succeed only in demonstrating how unfit they would be as parents – until things get all Lord of the Rings. It’s a very funny skewering of both male overconfidence and male angst.

Finally, the guys get an unexpected visitor, who may or may not be the evaluator that they expect. What’s impressive about this episode is how each man’s instinctual reaction, different from each other’s, can be so profoundly wrongheaded.

The mountain lodge is equipped with an artificial baby model (a doll). Co-writers Neal Kelley and Jono Sherman refrain from overusing this prop in slapstick. It’s far funnier to glimpse the doll as it seems to silently rebuke the foolhardiness around it.

Daddy is the second feature and first feature, respectively, for for co-directors/co-writers Kelley and Sherman, who also play two of the guys. Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy hosts the world premiere of Daddy.

BROTHERS BROKEN: it was the cult

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The Levin Brothers during their time with People! in BROTHERS BROKEN. Courtesy of Cinequest.

The documentary Brothers Broken contains a singularly refreshing aspect on a familiar phenomenon – the breakup of a 60s rock band. But here, the band breaks up, not because of drugs or ego, but because of a cult. And the estranged band members are brothers. The band doesn’t last long, but the brothers’ arc covers a 58-year arc.

Those brothers were the creative force behind the San Jose band People!, which was poised for future success after their hit I Love You in 1967. But at that point, one brother joined Scientology, and was forbidden to have contact with the rest of the band, including his own brother.

That former Scientologist brother, Geoff Levin, has co-directed Brothers Broken and says, “This has been a 75 year journey. 8 years ago I was on the verge of death. A deep depression caused by close to fifty years in Scientology almost ended my life. I came out of the cult and I am very grateful to my family and friends who have helped me recover. “

People! band members today in BROTHERS BROKEN. Courtesy of Cinequest.

There have been excellent Scientology documentaries, most notably Alex Gibney’s Going Clear: The Prison of Belief. Here, the Scientology aspect benefits from the brothers’ relatability and authenticity.

Not all is happy in Brothers Broken, because Geoff’s decision is still costing him dear family relationships. But Brothers Broken is an audience pleaser.

Brothers Broken is the first feature for co-directors Geoff Levin and Lily Richards. Cinequest’s online-festival Cinejoy hosts the US premiere of Brothers Broken. Fitting for Cinequest, the brothers and the band are from San Jose!

DESTINY ON THE MAIN STAGE: anything but exploitative

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Photo caption: DESTINY ON THE MAIN STAGE. Courtesy of Cinequest.

In the brilliant documentary Destiny on the Main Stage, a female director (and almost all-female crew) chronicle three years in the lives of Dallas-area strippers – and it’s authentic and NOT sensationalist or exploitative. The strippers include both a 20-year veteran very comfortable in her vocation and a former stripper organizing to help women exit the business. And, of course there are the very young women who are puddles of bad choices. Over the three years, the subjects’ lives take some very gripping turns.

This is not an advocacy film that seeks to criticize or promote the industry. This is cinéma vérité, and the pivotal events in the women’s lives are depicted as they happen. Hearing the strippers’ voices through a female lens/gaze/perspective is both novel and insightful. Director Poppy de Villenueve says, “These events are revealed as part of life, filmed in a nuanced way, reflecting something these women rarely are given the opportunity to have revealed.“

What Destiny on the Main Stage is filled with, instead of titillation, is humanity. De Villenueve says, “It is difficult to find real intimacy and connection these days, but by highlighting it in the darkest environments, I believe we move the world towards a better, kinder place.”

This is a serious film that could become an audience favorite, too. Destiny on the Main Stage is the second feature for director Poppy de Villenueve. Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy hosted the world premiere of Destiny on the Main Stage, and it’s playing the in-person Cinequest in August..

DESTINY ON THE MAIN STAGE. Courtesy of Cinequest.

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