The Movie Gourmet

Cinequest: ASPIE SEEKS LOVE

February 24, 2015 by movie gourmet

In documentarian Julie Sokolow’s suprisingly moving Aspie Seeks Love, we meet a geeky guy named David Matthews, and we can immediately tell that he has really bad social skills. He’s initially off-putting – he has a robotic speaking voice, he’s bringing up the wrong conversational subjects and any woman he meets can safely be predicted to run, run, run away. Then we learn that David (now age 47) was diagnosed with Asberger’s at 41. (Aspie is a self-descriptive term used by some folks with Asperger’s syndrome.)

David is determined to overcome his Asberger’s and find love. We follow David with his support group, his therapist and even along on some dates. We’re with him when he’s hanging around a pool table with three Aspie buddies; they’re talking about how difficult it is to navigate courtship rituals when you don’t have the ability to pick up cues – for example, whether a woman is ENCOURAGING or DISCOURAGING an escalation in physical contact. I really felt for these guys – non-verbal communication while dating can be hard enough to decipher without the handicap of an autism spectrum disorder. It’s heartbreaking that David spent 41 years (before his diagnosis) with people thinking that he was just a weirdo.

Small talk is a challenge, too. David says, “I’m a vegan”, which draws some interest. But he doesn’t understand why you shouldn’t follow that up with “It makes my body smell clean”.

Despite his disorder, David is really smart, artistic, and enjoys an ever present sarcastic sense of humor. I’m no softy, but I found myself really rooting for this guy. Okay – so he’s socially awkward, but he’s employed and stable, lives in his own house, is about to become a published author, is impeccably clean, doesn’t smoke drink or do drugs, has no criminal record – he must be right for SOME WOMAN out there. I live in Silicon Valley among engineers and David really isn’t THAT socially inept by comparison.

Possibly because David doesn’t really GET awkwardness, writer-director Julie Sokolow is able to follow him into situations that normal folks might find intrusive. Sokolow also edits, and the editing choices are just about perfect. Aspie Seeks Love is a gem.

Cinequest hosts the world premiere of Aspie Seeks Love on February 27, and it plays again on March 1 and March 4, all at Camera 12.

Cinequest: MEET THE HITLERS

February 24, 2015 by movie gourmet

In the documentary Meet the Hitlers, we are introduced to those few people who choose NOT to change their birth name of “Hitler”. And it’s a varied bunch. We meet a delightfully confident Missouri teen girl, a workaday Ecuadorian whose parents didn’t know who Hitler was and an affable Utah oldster who might be the most jovial fellow ever to brighten up a chain restaurant. And there’s an Austrian odd duck burdened with enough personal baggage that he surely didn’t need this name. Do they see the name as a curse, and how has it affected them? It’s a theoretical question to us in the audience, but it’s compelling to see the real world responses of the film’s subjects.

And then there’s a mystery about three Americans who HAVE changed the name – because they are the last living relatives of Adolph Hitler. We follow the journalist who has been tracking them down for over a decade. (Documentarian Matt Ogens makes a great editorial choice as to whether to reveal their current names.)

Finally, there’s the disturbing saga of a New Jersey neo-Nazi who is NOT named Adolph Hitler but WANTS to be. Of course, anybody can choose to adorn themselves with a Hitler mustache and swastika tattoos and spew hatespeech, but his choices are affecting not just himself, but his children.

Some of these threads are light-hearted and some are very dark. Meet the Hitlers works so well because Ogens weaves them together so seamlessly. It’s a very successful documentary.

You can see Meet the Hitlers at Cinequest on March 1, 2 and 7 at Camera 12.

Cinequest: FEVER

February 24, 2015 by movie gourmet

In Fever, we meet two teen thrill killers (a la Rope and Compulsion). What makes Fever unique is the introduction of a third character – a woman who may have witnessed their getaway. She doesn’t immediately grasp the connection, but we then watch the story threads (hers and the boys’) get nearer and finally intersect. In another twist from the Leopold and Loeb set-up, the two boys are classmates who come from very different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Even with two killers in the story, the most compelling character is the woman, played with immediacy by Julie-Marie Parmentier. At first blush, she’s just a workaday optician who is gradually becoming less satisfied with her boyfriend. But, watching Parmentier’s sharply observant eyes, we soon become aware that there’s much more going on inside her.

Fever is the first time feature from writer-director Raphael Neale, and it shows that Neale is capable of inventing an unusual take on a familiar story and effectively pacing the tension in a thriller.

Fever gets its title from the Little Willie John song popularized by Peggy Lee, and there some very cool renditions of it in the movie. (And Fever is another of those French movies that make me so impressed with the intellectual content of some French public high schools.)

Cinequest will host Fever’s US premiere on February 26 at Camera 12, and it plays at Camera 12 again on February 28 and at the California Theatre on March 2.

Cinequest: HEART STRING MARIONETTE

February 24, 2015 by movie gourmet

The animated Heart String Marionette allows us to see what would happen if the Wallace and Gromit filmmakers remade Metropolis as Noh theater. Highly stylized, with the animated characters are often masked as in Noh, Heart String Marionette is an epic that addresses themes of independence and authority. Auteur M Dot Strange effectively uses color, with much of the film in cold blue hues that evoke a brooding menace; splashes of red bring up the action scenes. The music by Endika is essential to the film.

Watch the trailer and ask yourself if you would enjoy this for another 119 minutes. I didn’t, but I’m not the audience for this film.

Cinequest: DIRTY BEAUTIFUL

February 24, 2015 by movie gourmet

OK – so down-on-his-luck guy meets a potty-mouthed vixen when she LITERALLY jumps into his car. But Dirty Beautiful is NOT your run-of-the-mill mumblecore romantic comedy!

What elevates Dirty Beautiful is that writer-director Tim Bartell has invented two characters that we’re not used to seeing. The guy and the gal each has a unique neediness that drives this offbeat battle of the sexes.

The guy is really a talented storyboard artist, but he THINKS that he is a screenwriter, which means that he spends his days not actually screenwriting, but shuffling and reshuffling his notecards. He’s drawing just enough storyboards to afford food, an apartment next to the garbage, a couple of unwashed t-shirts and a car that can’t even “make it to the 405”. And he’s oddly yearning to HAVE a girlfriend (but not prowling for sex with a woman who could turn into a girlfriend). Instead he aches to have a girlfriend primarily for the status of having a girlfriend.

She has been homeless, would mainline tequila if she could, and is, well, a HANDFUL. She’s been damaged by experiences in her past, and brings extreme volatility into his all too predictable lifestyle. And she exposes the fantasy that is trapping him in professional and personal limbo.

All in all, Dirty Beautiful is a hoot. Plus there’s the occasional memorable dialogue, like “Hey, girls that give hand jobs can be great moms. God!”

Cinequest is hosting Dirty Beautiful’s world premiere on Saturday night February 28 at 9:30 in Camera 12 with additional screenings on March 1 and March 3.

[MILD SPOILER: When the relationship becomes belligerent, each tries to hunker down and try to outlast the other. That’s not just for the plot, it’s because there’s something about each character ’s neediness that makes them dig in.]

Cinequest: LOS HAMSTERS

February 24, 2015 by movie gourmet

The Hamsters (Los Hamsters) is a delightfully dark social satire about a riotously dysfunctional Tijuana family. The dad, mom and two teenagers are going to such lengths to hide secrets from each other that they are completely oblivious to the drama in the others lives. In his first narrative feature, writer-director Gil Gonzalez has crafted a comedy that is completely character-driven, compressed into a very fun 71 minutes.

This family is in the upper middle class and the dad is desperately trying to stay there, the mom is denying any signs to the contrary and the kids are too spoiled and self-absorbed to notice any odd behavior by the parents. The acting is strong, especially by Angel Norzagaray, who plays the weary but driven, hangdog dad.

And here’s a bonus – Los Hamsters was filmed in Tijuana, and it’s great for a US audience to see this city as it is seen by its residents, not by its visitors.

Los Hamsters will have its North American premiere on February 27 at the California Theatre and plays again on March 5 and 7 at Camera 12.

Cinequest: ANTOINE ET MARIE

February 24, 2015 by movie gourmet

In the French-Canadian drama Antoine et Marie, a woman’s life is changed by an event. What happens to her is something that Marie herself must figure out, as must the audience. When we meet her, Marie is a forty-two-year-old clerk at an auto-repair business with a lust for life. She’s living with a guy who adores her, and she enjoys socializing with her with her work buddies. But something makes her unsettled and gradually sucks the spark out of her life. Will she find out the cause and decide what to do about it?

Antoine et Marie is extremely topical, but revealing that topic would be a significant spoiler, so you’re just gonna have to take my word for it.

Martine Francke delivers a superbly modulated performance as Marie. Sebastien Ricard is equally compelling as a repressed and dissatisfied blue collar husband and father.

This is writer-director Jimmy Larouche’s second feature film, and he has delivered a brilliantly constructed story with two unforgettable characters – and performances to match. Antoine et Marie is an unqualified success, tense and riveting all the way through.

Antoine et Marie’s US premiere will be February 28 at Cinequest, and it plays again on March 2 and 4, all at Camera 12.

One last glance at the Oscars

February 23, 2015 by movie gourmet

The Academy has just gotta do something because this show is becoming more and more unwatchable every year. The three hours and 9 minutes of this year’s extravanagnza had only seven memorable “Oscar moments” and six of them were not in the script – the heartfelt acceptance speeches of winners J.K. Simmons, Patricia Arquette, Pawel Pawlikowski, Common, Graham Moore and Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The ONLY brilliant moment in the telecast that had been planned by the producers was John Legend’s performance of the song Glory from the movie Selma.

But, generally, the Best Song category chews up way too much time and is often a buzz kill. Except for Legend, it was bad this year, too – and the Everything Is Awesome number was hallucinogenicly bad.

In the last two years, the Academy has even ruined the Memorium montage – usually one of the most moving and evocative moments. This year, the producers didn’t even show any stills or clips from the artist’s cinematic work, and they bracketed it with an acting school emoting lesson by Meryl Streep and an irrelevant song by Jennifer Hudson.

The worst of the broadcast, of course, was the serious of forced gags like the one about Octavia Spencer guarding the Neil Patrick Harris’ Oscar predictions; unfunny the first time, it wore and wore until Harris’ and Spencer’s dignity were completely eroded. Horrible.

As to the awards themselves? I was deliriously happy that Ida got its due as Best Foreign Language Picture, a choice that proved that some taste and decency lingers in the Academy. I was sorry that Boyhood – the best movie of the decade, let alone the year – didn’t win Best Picture, but Birdman is pretty special, too.

Coincidentally, I was recording the 2006 Children of Men during the Oscar broadcast, so afterwards I could revisit the amazing 8-minute battle scene shot by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (deserving winner for Birdman). One of the greatest single shots in cinema. Felicidades, Chivo.

Oscar Dinner 2015

February 22, 2015 by movie gourmet

Here’s our Oscar menu for 2015:

Table decorations

Camellias – In Birdman, Riggan (Michael Keaton) asks for camellias for his dressing room and wants anything except roses; his daughter later brings him lilacs. (We could have also gone with the theater critic’s martinis or the sliced lunch meat in Riggan’s dressing room.)

Beverages

Pub pints of beer – Frequently consumed in pub scenes in The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything.

Starter

Pizza – from Andrew and Nicole’s pizza date in Whiplash.

Hummus – Chris Kyle and his buddies share a family meal at the Iraqi home of the guy hiding a cache of arms in American Sniper. (With so many excellent recent movies set in the Middle East, we’ve had Hummus before along with Kabob Koubideh, Khoresh Ghormeh and Fatayer bi Sabanekh.)

Graduation party appetizers – from Boyhood , a movie with MANY unforgettable scenes (lots of family dining, snacks and the diner scene), but with pretty unmemorable food choices. We thought that tortilla chips with a five layer bean and guacamole dip would fit with this Texas graduation party.

Main Course

Fried chicken and fixins – requested by the appreciative Southern Christian Leadership Conference team upon their arrival at their hostess’ home in Selma.

Dessert

Courtesan au chocolate – the elaborate filled pastry smuggled to Gustave (Ray Fiennes) in The Grand Budapest Hotel.

On my Oscar Dinner page, you can see past menus and some photos of past Oscar Dinners, including the famous Severed Hand Ice Sculpture for 127 Hours and Winter’s Bone.

planning the annual Oscar dinner

February 20, 2015 by movie gourmet

Every year, we watch the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees. For example, we had sushi for Lost in Translation and cowboy campfire beans for Brokeback Mountain – you get the idea.

On my Oscar Dinner page, you can see past menus and some photos. In 2009, Frost/Nixon and Milk were stumping me until I realized that they were all set in the 1970s. So we had celery sticks stuffed with pimento spread, pigs in a blanket and Tequila Sunrises. And we’ll never top the Severed Hand Ice Sculpture for 127 Hours and Winter’s Bone (above).

Anyway, here’s our menu for 2015:

Table decorations

Lilacs – In Birdman, Riggan asks for camellias for his dressing room and wants anything except roses; his daughter later brings him lilacs. (We could have also gone with the theater critic’s martinis or the sliced lunch meat in Riggan’s dressing room.)

Beverages

Pub pints of beer – Frequently consumed in pub scenes in The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything. (I drink Ballast Point Sculpin, but we’re going to pretend that it’s Newcastle.)

Starter

Pizza – from the pizza date in Whiplash.

Graduation party appetizers – from Boyhood , a movie with MANY unforgettable scenes (lots of family dining, snacks and the diner scene), but with pretty unmemorable food choices.

Main Course

Fried chicken and fixins – requested by the appreciative Southern Christian Leadership Conference team upon their arrival at their hostess’ home in Selma.

Dessert

Courtesan au chocolate – the elaborate filled pastry smuggled to the Ray Fiennes character in The Grand Budapest Hotel.