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[Nd/Nf Review] Kill Me Please
54 minutes ago
Following in a wave of cerebral psychological horror films such as The Witch, It Follows, and The Babadook, Anita Rocha da Silveira’s debut Kill Me Please is the latest art-horror film that’s concerned with the internal repercussions of trauma. But unlike that series of films, Kill Me Please may be more effectively identified as a film about the end of the world.
Set in Rio de Janeiro’s paranoia-soaked Barra de Tijuca, it follows a series of tight-knit high-school girls against the backdrop of a series of young women’s murders. The murdered women are mostly anonymous, but their deaths loom over these girls like present-day, sexually charged ghost stories. These women all worry that each day will be their last, unable to stop a perpetual personal apocalypse.
And while this premise has the possibility to feel gratuitous, it remains grounded thanks to a perspective that always places the girls’ lives first. »
- Michael Snydel
[Nd/Nf Review] Kaili Blues
1 hour ago
At its heart, Gan Bi’s Kaili Blues is a meditation on the struggle between traditionalism and modernism. Through the story of one man’s journey through Chinese cities — Kaili to Zhenyuan — Bi focuses on characters who lament the people and ideas that they’ve lost as the world’s changed around them. But this is not just another screed against contemporary life; it finds a cruel beauty and gentle soul in the transition between elemental landscapes and the unfinished, industrialized future. And there’s personal serenity for some of these characters in being able to leave behind their old lives.
The cities of Kaili, Dang Mai, and Zhenyuan don’t look like man-made places as much as the inevitable outgrowth of the land. These places are littered with structures that meld organic and inorganic materials. They’re places of endless anachronisms as metal, earth, and wood glom together into an unholy mess. »
- Michael Snydel
[Nd/Nf Review] I Promise You Anarchy
22 hours ago
I Promise You Anarchy, by writer-director Julio Hernández Cordón, titillates equally with its queer sensuality and noirish crime, neither of which is entirely the point. In what plays like a modern take on The Godfather, queer sexual politics and Mexican machismo rasp upon each other, filing the young criminals at its heart into husks.
Miguel (Diego Calva Hernández), a big-fish-in-a-small-pond gangster, wears his racket around his neck. A necklace adorned with a set of plastic vampire teeth explains his blood-selling racket to corrupt paramedics while symbolizing a much darker thrall. Like any good local criminal, the youthful Miguel takes care of his own. From the skateboarders he rolls with to the old men who run the gay strip club in his area, everyone respects him.; people drop everything for him, and he knows who is worthy of his protection. His life is complicated by his relationship with Johnny (Eduardo Eliseo Martinez) — not just romantically, »
- Jacob Oller
[Review] Valley of Love
25 March 2016 1:18 PM, PDT
From Sophie’s Choice to My Sister’s Keeper, child loss has been the subject of everything from prestige Oscar pictures to Ya drivel. It’s an understandable focus, for there are few more intrinsically emotional narrative foundations than parents coping with the loss of a child. And whether those characters are together or separated, that loss serves as both a shared crucible and a uniting force.
Guillaume Nicloux’s Valley of Love pares this scenario down to its most elemental sediments, brings in two international superstars with a loaded onscreen history, and the rest nearly takes care of itself. Valley of Love lives and dies on the caliber of its actors, and the film is certainly in good hands with Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu, two performers who haven’t been together since Maurice Pialat’s Loulou but have careers that, together, span every major auteur constellation across the globe. »
- Michael Snydel
Everything Goes to Hell In U.S. Trailer for Jerzy Skolimowski’s Insane ’11 Minutes’
25 March 2016 10:31 AM, PDT
The last thing I saw at the 2015 Camerimage Film Festival was Jerzy Skolimowski‘s 11 Minutes, which I was fortunate enough to enter with almost no pre-existing knowledge of. The surprise, shock, and joy that came from this experience were all strong enough for me to recommend a) the film and b) entering said film with a similar lack of awareness.
This, of course, means you’d be best-served avoiding everything until it arrives in just two weeks — including a U.S. trailer that gives away particulars of its amazing climax. (Just don’t click play! It’s that easy!) Or perhaps you’ll end up disliking it as much as our critic out of Venice, who said, “An emperor’s new clothes of technical virtuosity, veteran Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski’s latest is a frenetic, kinetic, but largely insipid speed through the lives of ostensibly random people in modern day Warsaw. »
- Nick Newman
New to Streaming: ‘The Revenant,’ ‘James White,’ ‘A Brighter Summer Day,’ ‘The Pearl Button,’ and More
25 March 2016 8:37 AM, PDT
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
It starts off with a late night dinner scene between a quintet of cops telling crazy stories and losing their temper with the help straight out of a Tarantino movie and continues on its descent to hell with a writhing, mashing, sexual bloodletting orgy calling to mind E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten. This is Can Evrenol‘s debut feature Baskin (adapted from his »
- TFS Staff
Listen to David Wingo’s Full Score For Jeff Nichols’ ‘Midnight Special’
25 March 2016 8:23 AM, PDT
While those in New York, Los Angeles, and Austin are lucky enough to get see Midnight Special in their local theaters, the latest feature from Jeff Nichols will finally expand a week from today. To help hold one over, today we have one of the film’s best elements: David Wingo‘s wonder-filled, otherwordly score.
“It’s ethereal,” he tells GQ, discussing the process of creation. “There is gentleness to the chord progression. The chord progression typical to a lot of church hymns. French horns. Long, held-out chords, with pauses in between. A stately, grand feel to it.” Check it out below, along with a 30-minute talk with Nichols and Jonathan Levine, and a scene analyzation from the director.
Midnight Special is now in limited release and expands on April 1st.
»
- Jordan Raup
[Review] They’re Watching
25 March 2016 5:41 AM, PDT
What do you get when you combine uninventive found footage, a location chosen specifically for its cheap production costs, and CGI the likes of which has not been seen since the mid-1990s? Such a recipe could only result in They’re Watching, a horror comedy whose filmmakers appear to have no basic knowledge of how either genre works.
In all fairness, the film does bait its hook with an auspicious premise. Set in the former Soviet republic of Moldova (it was actually shot throughout Romania), it captures the crew of a House Hunters International-type reality show as they return to a remote village to follow up on a money pit acquired by a wealthy American artist (Brigid Brannagh) and her Eastern European footballer husband (Cristian Balint). As expected, a classic rural vs. urban conflict begins when the outsiders crash and secretly film a sacred funeral, causing the deeply superstitious populace to become hostile. »
- Amanda Waltz
NYC Weekend Watch: Frederick Wiseman, Jack Fisk, ‘Weekend’ & More
24 March 2016 6:22 PM, PDT
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
Frederick Wiseman‘s High School begins a week-long run.
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” offers multiple titles this weekend, including Assayas‘ Boarding Gate, The Beguiled, and Nicolas Roeg‘s Bad Timing.
A 35mm print of Carol screens on Saturday night.
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne star in My Favorite Wife, playing this Sunday.
Museum »
- Nick Newman
Las Vegas’ Homeless Seek Impossible Dreams In ‘Above and Below’ Trailer
24 March 2016 1:18 PM, PDT
Advance word on Nicolas Steiner‘s Above and Below has been largely enthusiastic, which is all the more pleasing once one becomes intrigued by its premise. Part-documentary and part-sci-fi, it tracks Las Vegas’ homeless citizens, a man living in an abandoned military bunker, and at various points goes “to a place where Mars and Earth have become one and the same place.”
The what, how, and why of this approach won’t be expanded upon a great deal in the preview, instead teased with a series of images that range from more traditionally “documentary-like” to abstract and, given the nature of what’s displayed therein, staged. Regardless of specifics that may or may not be available at this very moment, signs point towards Above and Below proving a shocking experience.
See the trailer below:
Synopsis:
This not-quite-documentary takes place far away and out of sight, on the margins and off the grid of American society. »
- Nick Newman
Jonah Hill and Miles Teller Run Guns in First Trailer For Todd Phillips’ ‘War Dogs’
24 March 2016 1:13 PM, PDT
Also witnessed as The Hangover trilogy reached its conclusion, Todd Phillips is looking to inject some more drama into his comedies. For his latest project, he’s adapted Guy Lawson‘s Rolling Stone article (now book) titled Arms and the Dudes, centering on David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, both of whom were awarded a contract of $300 million by the Pentagon, which would be used to give munitions to American allies in Afghanistan.
Led by Jonah Hill and Miles Teller, the first trailer has now dropped, set to be attached to WB’s Batman v Superman this weekend. Packing a good amount of bro-heavy laughs, perhaps this will be one of the recent war-centered dramedies that actually works, even if it looks a bit Wolf of Wall Street-lite. Also starring Ana de Armas and Bradley Cooper (who serves as a producer), check out the trailer and poster below.
Based on a true story, »
- Leonard Pearce
The Reality of ‘The Southerner’ and Absurdity of ‘Death by Hanging’
24 March 2016 12:33 PM, PDT
As a supplement to our Recommended Discs weekly feature, Peter Labuza regularly highlights notable recent home-video releases with expanded reviews. See this week’s selections below.
After a decade of the Dust Bowl destroying crops while rich land owners exploited every little farmer there was, making a film that naively bought into the American dream would seem foolish for any filmmaker. But Jean Renoir could only see hope in the plains, having fled his home to exchange the dreams of Fascism for the dreams of celluloid. While Renoir struggled in Hollywood during the war period, his break came as he went north to Millerton Lake to make The Southerner in 1945. The resulting film follows doe-eyed Zachary Scott, exuding his common-day presence, as Sam Tucker. Tucker, gullible for the promises that hard work means a better life, moves his family from a proto-Days of Heaven cotton-picking existence to a farm of one’s own, »
- Peter Labuza
Watch an Eleven-Hour Documentary on the History of Silent Cinema
24 March 2016 11:36 AM, PDT
Whether you don’t feel like paying the steep price for a film-school degree, found your own has grown a little rusty, or just feel like boning-up on the medium’s early days for the hell of it, may I suggest an eleven-hour documentary? Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film, aired on the U.K.’s ITV in 1980, mixes a wealth of archival material with interviews featuring cinema’s then-living pioneers. Now you can watch (excepting one part) the whole thing.
Running through a gamut of names, faces, films, and innovations, it is — from what I’ve seen; admittedly the whole thing hasn’t been ingested by yours truly — an admirable distillation, as much entertainment as education. But take from any project this large what you will; it gets more people to watch unseen silent classics tonight and many nights into the future, this is a wortwhile investment. »
- Nick Newman
[Review] April and the Extraordinary World
24 March 2016 11:34 AM, PDT
Most writing on Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci‘s April and the Extraordinary World speaks as though they’ve adapted one of revered Frenchman Jacques Tardi‘s graphic novels. This isn’t quite the case. What they’ve actually done is bring his unique “universe” to life with help from previous collaborator Benjamin Legrand (writer of Tardi’s Tueur de cafards) instead. Legrand and Ekinci crafted this alternate steampunk version of Paris as something inspired by the artist’s work rather than born from it. Tardi in turn helped by drawing original work later brought to life by Desmares’ animation team. The whole is therefore a culmination of its six-year production schedule populated by multiple creative minds working in tandem throughout. It may look familiar, but it’s very much brand new.
Their world is built on steam and coal because the best scientific minds have disappeared. Electricity wasn’t »
- Jared Mobarak
[Review] Alienated
24 March 2016 11:29 AM, PDT
Who isn’t self-centered? If you find someone, please let me know, because I don’t think that person exists. Even when we are at our most compassionate, empathetic, or charitable, our actions are still our own. We do what we do out of love — molding our lives as society or religion deems moral. Action or inaction is a choice no one can make for us. Our weakness or strength allows us to be manipulated or stand tall, not the other person’s ability to sell. And this fact is only amplified with marriage. We go in believing love to be a great unifier, erasing the board on individuality so a team can take its place. Instead, doing something for your spouse may actually be the most selfish act of all.
With a central conceit revolving around a possible alien invasion, it’s easy to perhaps be disappointed to learn »
- Jared Mobarak
Ewan McGregor Plays Jesus and the Devil in First Trailer For Emmanuel Lubezki-Shot ‘Last Days in the Desert’
24 March 2016 10:05 AM, PDT
Coming off his hat trick of consecutive Oscar wins — yet somehow not for any Terrence Malick films — Emmanuel Lubezki‘s next project finds him returning to a spiritual story, easily the most distinctively so of his career. Last Days in the Desert follows Jesus (and Satan), both played by Ewan McGregor, as he’s in the final steps of his contemplative 40-day journey before returning to civilization in Jerusalem. Directed by Rodrigo Garcia, the film’s first trailer has arrived ahead of a summer release from Broad Green.
I said in my review, “By keeping characterization and plotting to a minimum, García has crafted a film in which he invites his audience to bring their own interpretations to the pensive story. Taking a few exceptional, daring leaps in the drama’s final moments, Last Days in the Desert portrays Yeshua at his most relatable even if the story provided is unequivocally opaque. »
- Jordan Raup
Ricky Gervais and Eric Bana are ‘Special Correspondents’ in First Trailer
24 March 2016 8:22 AM, PDT
If there was any question of Netflix’s increasing reign in the current media landscape, a few new developments will surely sway you to one side. They recently ponied up over $90 million to fund the David Ayer-directed, Will Smith and Joel Edgerton-led sci-fi cop thriller Bright, and just last night they acquired Cary Fukunaga‘s next project, the 10-episode series Maniac starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, who have certainly come along way since Superbad. With the Beasts of No Nation director helming every episode, it’ll follow the story of a mental patient who lives in a fantasy world.
Before those two projects, they’ll debut the latest film from Ricky Gervais, Special Correspondents. Directing, writing, and starring in the feature, he joins Erica Bana as the two team as a struggling radio journalist and hapless technician who fake frontline war reports from a NYC hideout. Coming to Netflix on April 29th, »
- Leonard Pearce
The Dark Knight Returns in First Trailer For ‘The Lego Batman Movie’
24 March 2016 6:03 AM, PDT
In the last few days it’s become abundantly clear that we won’t be getting an even remotely decent Batman movie this year, but in early 2017, it’s looking much more promising. Instead of following up The Lego Movie with a direct sequel (that’s coming in May 2018), Warner Bros. went ahead and produced a spin-off surrounding Will Arnett‘s angsty, hilarious Batman character. Aptly titled The Lego Batman Movie, the first trailer has now arrived, which shows off our lead character in his lonely existence in the Batcave.
“Batman is an island onto himself, the only thing he doesn’t have is relationships. We’re making About a Boy as directed by (action director) Michael Mann,” director Chris McKay tells USA Today. “We thought if we can tell a well-rounded, funny story that’s action-packed, we can build a big movie around this character. This is the movie we would want to see. »
- Leonard Pearce
[Review] My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
23 March 2016 12:21 PM, PDT
There’s one point late in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 that stands out — nay, is almost stunning — for actually being underplayed. Ian (John Corbett), in the middle of a utilitarian exchange of pleasantries with his ultra-reserved Wasp father (Bruce Gray), tentatively reaches for a deeper connection, offering to be available to “just talk or whatever” if he ever wants to. It’s left unsaid but obvious that spending so much time around the extraordinarily close family of his wife, Toula (Nia Vardalos), has made Ian long, at least a little bit, for that kind of casual intimacy with his own relatives. It’s a nice little exchange that speaks better for this film’s affectionate vision of Greek family life than most of its boisterous comedy scenes.
The weird thing is that, though written by the Greek-descended Vardalos, most of the aspects of Greek identity on display in »
- Daniel Schindel
Watch Video Essays on Alfred Hitchcock’s Blocking and Manipulation
23 March 2016 11:53 AM, PDT
It was only last month when we shared a mega-post of materials regarding Alfred Hitchcock, so even if he weren’t among the most widely viewed and discussed artists in cinema history, you might think it’s a little soon to be sharing something else. But two video essays recently caught our attention: one weighs a familiar aspect of the director’s oeuvre; the other considers a key formal building block, certainly no stranger to examination, in a more directly visual way than one might be used to.
The latter examines how blocking during Vertigo‘s key exposition scene will lay out many of its dramatic and power dynamics, making use of a handy side-by-side mapping and effective voiceover by creator Evan Puschak. (We’ve previously featured his work.) The former concerns Psycho‘s shifting perspectives and their use as tools of manipulation, with citations of previous Hitchcock films offered to support its argument. »
- Nick Newman
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