Movies – Page 26 – The Movie Gourmet

Cinequest Insiders Look at the 2017 Festival

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

The Movie Gourmet asked the folks who pick the movies at Cinequest about this year’s program.

MIKE RABEHL is Cinequest’s Director of Programming/Associate Director.

Is there any remarkable new filmmaking talent with a first or second film (like Lost Solace or The Center) that I should seek out?

Rabehl: Personally, I think there are so many discoveries this year, so it would be hard to pick just a couple, but if I have to give you just a few titles, I think I’d look at:

Aloys
All the Beauty
Exiled
Fixed
For Grace
Quality Problems
The Moderns
Painless
Seat in Shadow
Hunting Flies.

I know that is a few more than a couple, but seriously have a huge list of “favorites” this year.

What are your predictions for the biggest audience pleasers? Something like The Grand Seduction, Wild Tales/Batkid Begins? What might be the festival’s biggest surprise hit?

Rabehl:: I am almost always wrong on this, so if you quote me, I know something else is going to be the big hit, but I think: For Grace or Quality Problems.

Is there anything that we haven’t seen before in a movie?

Rabehl: I won’t say too much about them, but the films that are completely original and like nothing I, personally, have not seen before:

Aloys
Exiled
Menento Mori

Any Can’t Miss movies from the Spotlight films?

Rabehl:

Opening (The Last Word)
Closing (The Zookeeper’s Wife)
Carrie Pilby
Una
The Commune
Goldstone
(Re)Assignment (this one is a button-pusher and going to really stretch minds a bit).

I see that you’ve pulled in your usual haul from Belgium and Norway. Any Must Sees this year from those national film programs or other world cinema?

Rabehl: My personal picks…
King of the Belgians (Belgium)
Hunting Flies (Norway)
All the Beauty (Norway)
Past Imperfect (Belgium)
Flemish Heaven (Belgium)
Anishoara (Germany, Moldova)
The Citizen (Hungary)
The Nurse (Turkey)
Secluded (Denmark)
The Teacher (Slovakia, Czech Republic)
That Trip We Took With Dad (Germany, Romania, Hungary, Sweden)

I must say that this is really just a paired down list, and there are SOOOOO many others I could do in each genre, break it down by experience, etc… So, choosing favorites is not always my thing, because we’re fans of so many of them.

CHARLIE COCKEY is Cinequest’s International Film Programmer.

Some of Cinequest’s highlights always come from international cinema – IDA, of course, and THE HUNT, HEAVENLY SHIFT, IN THE SHADOW and the exquisite CORN ISLAND. What should we be looking for at Cinequest 2017?

Cockey: Five URGENTLY recommended, listed alphabetically. Don’t miss ANY of these!!

Aloys – Switzerland – 2016
Magical minimalist film that manages to breathe new life into a tired idiom. Visually riveting, it casts a truly unique spell with straightforward images and brilliant editing to convey its heart. That it is a first film makes it all the more remarkable. If you give yourself over to it I think you’re in for a wonderful experience.

The Citizen – Hungary – 2016
In my opinion, this one is a must. Suffice to say that I gave it a 9.75 rating. The non-professional actors bring a nobility to their characters that gives the film added weight. Really, don’t miss this one.

King of the Belgians – Belgium – 2016
Another wonderful one, another must-see. Plus which, it’s the perfect antidote to the cynicism and disappointment surrounding us these post-election days, a breath of fresh air equally welcome to the festival-goer. During festivals sometimes we NEED some light and freshness. This wonderful film has both in spades.

The Teacher – CR, Slovakia – 2016
Consider this a companion piece to “Identity Card”, the wonderful Czech film from several years back about the teenage boys in 1974. This one is set in the same year, but reveals a much darker aspect. A portrait of a schoolroom Stalin, it is a fine examination of manipulation and corruption whose parallels with Trump are inescapable. This must count as one of Hřebejk’s best films since his Oscar-nominated “Musíme si pomáhat” (the film during which I first met Helena – so of course this film is special for me). Don’t miss it. It’s really fantastic.

That Trip We Took With Dad – Romania, Germany, Hungary, Sweden – 2016
Easily the best Romanian film I saw this year, it has a deftness similar to “Identity Card”, though of course, being Romanian, it’s completely different. A widower-father with a medical condition that needs attention sets out with his two sons head from Bucuresti headed for Germany. But it’s 1968, and just about everything that can go wrong does, including Russia sending tanks into Czechoslovakia, and our hapless family cannot help but fall afoul of just about every bump in the road they encounter. Done in a wonderful understated retro style, by film’s end EVERYONE has changed: grown, learned, gained, lost. A truly wonderful film

Cockey: These are STRONGLY recommended:

Anișoara – Germany, Moldava – 2016
This is the followup to Panihida, which I brought to Cinequest, and which I hope you saw. The same young woman, now some years older, is at the heart of this film as well. Though this one has more overt narrative than Panihida, it’s told in an elliptical, indirect fashion that sometimes seems almost without a story. As before, the sounds, rhythms of the village are at its heart, but here with a darker edge.

The Listen Project: The First Five Years – MULTI – 2016
A gathering of music from around the world, local musicians from all over. What comes across along with the joy of making music – and of hearing it – is how there are so many differences, so many varieties, and yet, underneath, how similar they are at their heart.

Loop – Hungary – 2016
Science fiction with almost no “special effects”, and none needed. See it for its mindbending clockwork aspects as our hero gets caught up in a sort of time loop, that gets pretty wild at times. Definitely great fun.

Cockey: And these are recommended as well.

Queen Anne’s Lace – USA – 2016
US Indie of lesbian interest.

Train Driver’s Diary – Serbia – 2016
I only saw the beginning of this and knew it was going to be something Cinequest would want. I sent it ahead, and it turns out I was right, since here it is!

And one SHORT film:

Urban Cowboys – Poland – 2016
A wonderful film – 30 minutes. It’s a very unusual subject, and a lovely treatment of it. In fact, I was profoundly moved watching it. I’ve no idea which shorts program has it, but it’s worth finding. [Note: Urban Cowboys is part of Shorts Program 2.]

SANDY WOLF is Cinequest Documentary Programmer.

Last year’s doc program was very strong, especially The Brainwashing of My Dad, Chuck Norris Vs. Communism, Dan and Margo and The Great Sasuke. What do you see as the strongest 2-3 documentary features this year?

Wolf: The first doc I am going to recommend is Shorts Series 6, which is the short doc series and includes Bayard and Me. That is the only short doc I have seen, and I can not only vouch not only for the film, which is coming directly from premiering at Sundance, but for the filmmaker himself, who goes by the name of Matt Wolf (and unless there is a change of plans, Matt will not be here, as he has a work commitment which conflicts with Cinequest). [Note: Sandy’s son is the noted documentarian Matt Wolf (Teenage).]

Wolf: The following two docs were my two favorites this year:

The Bullish Farmer
The Twinning Reaction.

Wolf: I am also recommending these other docs (there are a few other which I
haven’t seen):

New Chefs on the Block
Levinsky Park
Cradle of Champions
Honest Struggle.

Bookmark my Cinequest 2017 page, with links to all my coverage. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

Cinequest: THE TWINNING REACTION

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

The startling and moving documentary The Twinning Reaction tells the story of a Mad Men-era research project and its profound human impact. To perform a longitudinal study of nurture vs. nature, researchers INTENTIONALLY separated identical twins and placed them with families that the researchers kept in the dark. The placements occurred AFTER the twin babies had bonded together in the crib for many months. Legally and ethically sketchy at the time, this is monstrous by today’s standards, and, in fact, caused harm to the adoptees.

Somehow, some of these twins learned the truth as adults and located their birth siblings.
In The Twinning Reaction, we meet three sets of separated identical siblings. Because we meet the subjects of the study, the effects of separation are clearly apparent and highly personalized.

Writer-director Lori Shinseki has found an amazing story and source material to match. She weaves it into a coherent and compelling story. Only 52 gripping minutes long, The Twinning Reaction’s world premiere is at Cinequest.

Cinequest: THE TEACHER

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

In the superb drama The Teacher, it’s the mid-1980s and the Iron Curtain is still defining Czechoslovakia; (The Teacher is a Czech movie in the Slovak language). The title character’s position as a high school teacher makes her a gatekeeper to the children’s futures, and she’s unaccountable because she’s a minor Communist Party functionary. Wielding blatant academic favoritism and even overt blackmail, she uses the advantage of her political status for her own petty benefit – coercing shopping errands, car rides, pastries and other favors from the parents of her students. Finally, she causes so much harm to one student that some of the parents rebel and seek her ouster.

Will the other parents support them? What of the parents who benefit from the regime? And what of the majority of the parents who must decide whether to risk their own futures? The risk is real: the regime has already reassigned one parent, a scientist, to a menial job after his wife had defected.

The Teacher benefits from a brilliant, award-winning performance from Zuzana Mauréry in the title role. What makes this character especially loathsome is that she’s not just heavy-handed, but grossly manipulative. Mauréry is a master at delivering reasonable words with both sweet civility and the unmistakable menace of the unspoken “or else”.

The acting from the entire company is exceptional, especially from Csongor Kassai, Martin Havelka and the Slovak director Peter Bebjak as aggrieved parents. Writer Petr Jarchovský has created textured, authentic characters. Director Jan Hrebejk not only keeps the story alive but adds some clever filmmaking fluorishes as he moves the story between flashbacks and the present.

The Teacher is one of the highlights of Cinequest 2017.

Cinequest: PRODIGY

February 26, 2018February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

The psychological thriller Prodigy begins with a psychologist (Richard Neil) being brought to a secret government “black site” to interview a dangerous prisoner. When he receives an orientation, he and we expect to see a superhuman sociopath like Hannibal Lector. But he enters the secure room to face a freckled-face nine-year-old girl (Savannah Liles). Her arms are pinned to her chair with restraints. We learn that there is an understandable reason for this.

She is abnormal in every way – in her super intelligence, in her telekinetic powers and in her capacity for performing monstrous and lethal acts. The two embark on a game of wits with very high stakes. There’s a deadline (literally) so the game is also a race against the clock.

It’s the first feature for writer-directors Alex Haughey and Brian Vidal, and Cinequest hosts Prodigy’s world premiere. Haughey and Vidal have bet their movie, in large part, on the performance of a nine-year-old actor. Savannah Liles is exceptional as she ranges between a very smart little girl and a monstrous psychopath and between a vulnerable child and a person who has made herself invulnerable. It’s a very promising performance.

In the Cinequest program notes, Pia Chamberlain describes Prodigy as “reminiscent of a cerebral episode of the Twilight Zone“, which is pretty apt. Just like the best of Rod Serling, Prodigy’s compact story-telling takes us to an environment that we can recognize, but which has different natural laws than the ones under which we operate.

Filmmakers have shocked us before with the juxtaposition of innocent looking children and their heinous deeds Sometimes those children have been created fundamentally evil (The Bad Seed, Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen) and sometimes possessed by evil (The Exorcist). Prodigy takes a different tack – exploring how a trauma can produce monstrous behavior and whether evil behavior is reversible.

Prodigy is a thinking person’s edge-of-the-seat thrill ride. I’m looking forward to the next work from Haughey and Vidal. Note that this trailer is in color, but the version of the movie that I screened is in black and white.

Cinequest: PAINLESS

February 26, 2017February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

In writer-director Jordan Horowitz’ first narrative feature, Painless, he brings us a wholly original premise – a man who cannot experience physical pain. And here’s another twist – freedom from pain is a BAD thing. Pain does serve an important purpose by alerting us to our own injury and illness. The protagonist, Henry (Joey Klein) is obsessed with finding a solution to his condition.

Henry lives a solitary existence as an underground scientist, who makes his living by manufacturing recreational designer drugs. Self-taught, he has become a genius at diagnostics, and the audience will enjoy the Sherlock Holmes moments when he surprises someone by correctly nailing their medical condition. His obsession drives him to traffic with a disgraced medical researcher, and risk a sketchy drug trial. Along the way, he meets a very appealing free spirit (Evalena Marie) who seeks to distract him from the totality of his obsession.

Of course, the idea of a character obsessed with finding a cure for NO pain, when the global pharmaceutical industry is basically built on the quest for the opposite, is brilliantly absurdist. But Horowitz, as the director, gets the audience to buy in right away.

Joey Klein superbly brings alive both Henry’s eccentricities and the drive that masks his loneliness. It’s an excellent performance.

Desperation leads to obsession and, finally, to self discovery. Cinequest hosts the world premiere of Painless.

Cinequest: QUALITY PROBLEMS

February 28, 2017February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

The remarkably successful dramedy Quality Problems plunges us into a contemporary world that most of us in the sandwich generation recognize – a life so busy that the relative importance of our stress-inducers can blur. Something like the cake for your kid’s birthday party can seem as important as paying the bills or dealing with an aging parent. Until cancer reshuffles the deck. Quality Problems‘ insights in navigating modern life are accessible because it’s so damn funny.

Bailey (Brooke Purdy) and Drew (Doug Purdy) are a couple in their early forties with two school-age kids. Each is comfortable taking on one child-rearing or domestic task while handing off a competing responsibility to their partner. Each knows – and accepts – what the partner is – or is NOT – good at. Both have wicked senses of humor, and they are affectionate and even playful. Their relationship has weathered the usual financial and parental challenges, along with an episode where Bailey beat back breast cancer.

Brooke Purdy wrote the screenplay and also co-directed with Doug Purdy. The breezy banter between characters is often flat-out hilarious. This is not sitcom-grade humor, it’s much closer to a Hawksian screwball comedy. The characters deal with cancer and parental dementia with a dark humor that is realistic and funny.

Bailey’s single neighbor and bestie Paula (Jenica Bergere) is an essential member of the family’s support structure, but Paula and Drew loathe each other. Chained together because of their attachment to Bailey and the kids, every interaction sparks a new round of insults. This isn’t good-natured teasing – the jibes, in particular about his job and her reproductive health, are aimed to hurt. The Paula-Drew relationship adds some edginess to the mix and contributes to the film’s authenticity.

Watch for an uncredited cameo by the prolific and versatile character actor Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Love Is Strange). Veteran Chris Mulkey is excellent as Bailey’s dad, who is sinking into dementia.

Quality Problems is the directing debut for Brooke and Doug Purdy, and its world premiere is at Cinequest, where I expect it to be an audience favorite.

Cinequest: NEW CHEFS ON THE BLOCK

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

In the pleasantly addictive documentary New Chefs on the Block, we follow the course of two restaurant start-ups from financing and the initial lease, through remodeling and set-up, hiring staff and opening for the public and for professional food critics. One start-up is a trendy fine dining establishment in Washington, DC, and the other is a pizza place in the DC suburbs. It’s the movie equivalent of a page-turner – we’re always wondering what will happen next.

Both chef-owners are passionate and driven, and the restaurants are manifestations of their dreams. Each has bet his family’s prosperity on the endeavor, and the high stakes fuel the drama.

The stories of both restaurants take dramatic turns – and one is wholly unexpected. It turns out that writer-director Dustin Harrison-Atlas set out to document the journey of his brother-in-law’s new pizza restaurant. That guy is a remarkable subject. But his choice of the other aspirational chef was an act of either genius or stunning good luck – wait until you see how that story comes out!

In his first feature, Harrison-Atlas shows a gift for creating vivid portraits of his subjects. We come to know the two chefs and a remarkable number of their family members and employees

Harrison-Atlas also brings us some talking heads to provide an inside perspective on the business. I’ve watched more than my share of restaurant make-over reality television, and I know some real life restauranteurs, so I’ve understood that it’s hard to start a restaurant and easy for one to fail. Intelligent, personal and genuine, New Chefs on the Block is among the best treatments of this subject matter.

Cinequest hosts the world premiere of New Chefs on the Block.

Cinequest: MEMENTO MORI

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Memento Mori can be translates as “remember that you die”. This documentary about organ donation must be the most emotionally shattering film at Cinequest. In Memento Mori, the stories of the donor families are woven into those of the recipient families. Filmmaker Niobe Thompson tells us at the outset that the specific donors are not actually linked to the specific recipients on a one-to-one basis; but the device of braiding these two threads delivers a powerful impact.

We all understand that people get sick when their organs fail and that their lives can be saved by switching in the organs from other people who have recently died. But that understanding takes on a new dimension when we see HOW SICK people are before the transplant and how vibrant they can be post-surgery.

And to make this all happen, someone has to die. And that person’s family – in their moment of deepest grief and shock – needs to find the donation of his organs acceptable. Accompanying a family through the death of their loved one is excruciating.

Memento Mori is also an insightful procedural about organ transplants. We see the organs harvested, transported and then implanted. A surgeon tell us how he finds it thrilling every time that he sees a brown organ turn red after he has connected it to a blood supply – essentially bringing life back to a human organ.

Memento Mori is the first feature as solo director for Niobe Thompson, and the US premiere for this Canadian doc is at Cinequest.

Cinequest: KING OF THE BELGIANS

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Peter Van den Begin (right) in KING OF THE BELGIANS

In the deadpan mockumentary King of the Belgians, the King of Belgium, along with his royal handlers, is visiting Istanbul for a ribbon cutting. They are accompanied by a gonzo Brit who is a former war reporter; he’s been hired to film a puff piece documentary on the King. A constitutional crisis erupts back home and, at the same moment, a cosmic event grounds all commercial travel. The King is determined to make his way back to Belgium via ground transportation. This involves escaping Turkish security and traveling incognito through the Balkans, which creates all sorts of comic opportunities.

It’s the kind of dry comedy where a character says, “I trust fruit”. The band find themselves in Bulgarian folk singer drag, on a Balkan yogurt jury and on the run from a Serbian war criminal. We learn why it’s best not to let a King drive an ambulance. There is even a random appearance by the Bulgarian folk monsters featured in Toni Erdmann.

The King’s destiny is a life of routine, empty ceremony, and he (Peter Van den Begin) is chronically bored. When he might be really needed to unite his country, he instinctively plunges ahead to fulfill his duty, but it’s one that he and his crew of shallow shills are unequipped to handle. With very little dialogue, Van den Begin nails the role – both the dissatisfaction with his usual life and his earnest desperation to become relevant and helpful.

King of the Belgians is a gentle, thoughtful and appealing frolic.

Cinequest: GOLDSTONE

February 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Aaron Pederson and Jacki Weaver in GOLDSTONE

The Australian crime drama Goldstone is writer-director Ivan Sen’s sequel of sorts to the 2014 Cinequest film Mystery Road. Both films feature Sen’s wholly original protagonist Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pederson), an indigenous police investigator who must face racist locals and his own demons. Pederson’s performances in both movies are very strong, bringing out the inner conflict within a guy who needed to leave his hometown and his marriage but is tormented by the consequences of those decisions. In Goldstone, Swan is still reeling from a family tragedy when he finds a dark personal tie to the latest crime scene. Alcohol doesn’t help.

In Goldstone, a missing persons case brings Detective Jay Swan to a remote mining outpost. There’s a young local cop of ambiguous motivation – will he obstruct Swan, compete with him or become an ally? The local cop is working a human trafficking case, and the two cops pursue their investigations on dueling separate tracks until they inevitably converge.

Once again, the great Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook) plays a peppy, ever-pleasant cutthroat as only she can.

The dialogue and most of the plot in Goldstone are pretty paint-by-the-numbers, but just as with Mystery Road, the character of Jay Swan and the performance by Aaron Pederson, along with the Outback setting, make Goldstone very watchable.

(Mystery Road is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and can be streamed from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.)