2016

Like Crazy [La pazza gioia]

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(Italy 2016)

The festival program called Paolo Virzì’s Like Crazy a “hysterical, edgy comedy,” which is not entirely accurate (http://www.chicagofilmfestival.com/film/like-crazy/). For sure, the premise is fun: two female mental patients escape on a city bus and head for an adventure that includes shopping, stealing cars, gambling, clubbing, and getting a sort of revenge on some of those who did them wrong. Plus, the patient who instigates the caper, MILFy Beatrice (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), is a hilarious character: an imperious namedropping motormouth who fabricates lie upon lie to get herself into (and out of) one shady shenanigan after another, she steamrolls everyone in her path for frivolity—more medication, booze, food, attention—and then condescends to them like they’re peons. Think of an Italian version of Patsy, Eddie, and Newhart‘s Stephanie rolled into one. Beatrice’s mere presence puts everyone on edge, not the least of whom are the nuns who run Villa Biondi, the mental hospital where she’s admitted indefinitely. The film is loaded with funny moments that poke fun at sex, religion, family, age, society, and status. There’s also a clever reference to Thelma and Louise.

For all its humor, though, Like Crazy has a sad underlying story: Donatella (Micaela Ramazzotti), a fragile wounded bird whom Beatrice drafts into her escapade, has a terribly dark past that includes trying to kill her infant son. The film takes a serious turn when Beatrice sets out to reunite him with Donatella. The two women become a support system, with the former serving as the latter’s rock until she discovers that she’s stronger than she thought even with her imperfections. Bruni Tedeschi and Ramazzotti are equally strong, and they operate with a nicely calibrated balance of outrageous and desperate. Aside from a rather random interlude with Beatrice’s ex-husband (Bob Messini), the story plays out damn near perfectly. Like Crazy is a joy but also very touching. My eyes were moist by the end—that caught me off guard, in a good way.

Side note: Vladan Radovic’s cinematography is gorgeously warm, bright, and summery throughout the film—a contrast that becomes more apparent as the mood here gets heavier. It’s a very nice touch.

116 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B+

Chicago International Film Festival

Christine

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(USA 2016)

“In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in ‘blood and guts’ and in living color, you are going to see another first—attempted suicide.”

—Christine Chubbuck

During the summer of 1974, local television reporter Christine Chubbuck shot herself in the head on the air while presenting a live news segment at a small station in Sarasota, Florida. I’m not spoiling anything by saying Christine leads up to this jarring moment, but screenwriter Craig Shilowich and director Antonio Campos apparently aim to demonstrate why it happened. A dispositive answer never comes—it could have been a number of reasons, as the film suggests—but that’s because no one but Chubbuck knows for sure. Christine isn’t really about this singular moment, anyway—it’s an intense, sometimes humorous but thoroughly wrenching character study of the solitary woman behind it.

The first time we see Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall) is, appropriately, on a TV monitor: she’s alone in a room interviewing an imaginary Richard Nixon, aggressively grilling him on Watergate. She watches herself, taking notes on how she looks and sounds. She asks a passing colleague about her performance, probing as to whether she comes off as warm and human. This scene succinctly sets up Chubbuck’s dilemma: she wants to be a real journalist going after important newsworthy stories, not the fluff pieces about chickens she usually covers. The problem is, she doesn’t come off quite right: she’s awkward, brusque, combative, and not particularly “feminine,” characteristics that she’s all too aware thwart her chances of improving her lot with a spot as an anchor in a larger market.

Chubbuck lives with her mother (J. Smith-Cameron) and pines for a colleague, anchorman George (Michael C. Hall). She’s an idealist who fights her toxic boss (Tracy Letts) as he pushes to sensationalize the news for the sake of higher ratings. She’s obsessed with her work, which is increasingly unfulfilling. She’s also privately coming undone, something crystal clear from her depressed tendencies, wild mood swings, and bitter resentments toward others she thinks have it better in one way or another than she does.

The cast is spectacular, but it’s no surprise that Hall (Rebecca, not Michael C.) carries Christine—she has to. Hall owns the role: her performance is flawlessly mesmerizing. Resembling a severe Olive Oyl crossed with Wednesday Addams, she deftly uses body language and posture to convey Chubbuck’s uneasy and awkward intensity. Hall slowly and deliberately brings Chubbuck’s frustrations—with her boss, her career, and herself—to a rolling boil. The tone here is clinically journalistic, with the facts of Chubbuck’s situation laid out one by one and offered into evidence for the viewer to make what he or she will of them.

As I watched, I expected Christine to make some profound statement—something about the integrity of “news” in America, gender equality, idealism versus reality, mental health, all of the above. It plants the seeds, but it doesn’t quite get there—it’s either noncommittal or too subtle, I can’t tell which. About halfway through, I realized I wasn’t catching a clear message or a moral. Maybe there isn’t one. A reference to The Mary Tyler Moore Show can be interpreted as irony or cynicism, and it exemplifies Christine‘s ambiguous motive. The film has the feint whiff of exploitation, yet it still tells a lot about Christine Chubbuck and what pushed her over the edge. Christine is respectful to who she was, depicting her as far more than her final moment: she was smart, her peers respected her, she volunteered as a performer at a children’s hospital, and she struggled with many demons. If the actual event played out the way it does in this film, it was a chillingly snarky, mean way to make a point. If nothing else, Christine shows what depression can do to a person.

115 minutes
Rated R

(AMC River East) B

Chicago International Film Festival

Are We Not Cats

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(USA 2016)

Focused on romance, pleasure, and pain, screenwriter and director Xander Robin’s feature length debut, Are We Not Cats, is a stylishly edgy, wry, and quirky delight. Eli (Michael Patrick Nicholson) is neither ambitious nor grounded. In the span of a few hours, he loses his girl (really his f-bud, but he didn’t quite get that), his job as a garbage collector, and his home when his Russian immigrant parents abruptly inform him that they sold their house and are moving to Arizona. “Visit us!” his mother chirps right after his father bribes him with a delivery truck to get out that night.

After moving into the back of the truck, crashing and showering wherever he can, and driving around aimlessly, Eli picks up a one-off job delivering a motor to a junkyard. There, he stumbles upon knitcapped Kyle (Michael Godere), who introduces him to a toxic elixir, a feral underground scene in a basement, and his impish feline girlfriend, Anya (Chelsea LJ Lopez). Eli is smitten. He stalks Anya, who doesn’t seem to mind. He discovers that they share a similar nervous habit: he pulls his hair out and she eats hair. Anya’s magnetism pulls Eli down a dark path he isn’t quite equipped to travel.

Are We Not Cats is uneven, but what it lacks in consistency and depth it makes up for in style. Robin has a wicked dark, offbeat sense of humor. His camerawork is sharp, nimble, and has a certain momentum to it. The locations—a junkyard, a disused barn, an empty diner—work beautifully with the bleak, snow covered landscapes to underscore Eli’s resigned state of mind. Robin contrasts this with colorfully vivid and cozy scenes with Anya, who possesses a flair for clutter. Matt Clegg’s druggy, dreamlike cinematography is flat where it should be, and brighter and more dimensional where it needs to be. The story sags a bit toward the end, but the film’s brevity mitigates this problem. Nicholson’s passive and forlorn take on his scruffy character is deftly balanced; somehow, he keeps Eli sympathetic despite the fact that his hapless demeanor, lack of social skills and boundaries, and sleepy purposelessness are turnoffs. The soundtrack, consisting almost entirely of old Seventies soul tunes, is as much a character as anyone; the music contributes its own warmth and personality that literally makes this film sing.

Screening followed by a live Q and A with Xander Robin and Michael Patrick Nicholson.

78 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B-

Chicago International Film Festival

http://www.arewenotcats.com

La La Land

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(USA 2016)

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, the opening night presentation for the Chicago International Film Festival. I like its stars—Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are great in just about everything they’re in; in fact, they both have the rare ability to elevate even superb material. I adore Los Angeles, too. I figured at worst, I’d have some decent eye candy and some lovely scenery to take in.

Thankfully, La La Land is far better than the worst case scenario I imagined: it’s glossy, colorful, and pretty, even if it’s not Moulin Rouge. It starts out strong with a vibrant dance number that takes place in a traffic jam on a freeway, probably the 101. The scene reminds me of a more exuberant version of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” video. Attention grabbed! This is where our heroes meet, one flipping the bird at the other.

We soon learn that both Mia (Stone) and Sebastian (Gosling) are trying to make it, she as an actress and he as a jazz pianist. She puts herself out there; he doesn’t. They cross paths over the course of nearly a year, flirting and pulling back then flirting some more. Some of their interactions are hilarious, like Sebastian’s stint in an ’80s cover band playing at a party that Mia happens to attend. They finally click; it’s exciting to watch them come together. They have a real chemistry. They also have dreams and goals that require sacrifice. Sadly, nothing is what it’s built up be—neither dreams coming true, fame, nor love. At its heart, La La Land is a relationship film, and a tragically decent one at that.

Undeniably well-done, La La Land definitely has a certain magic to it. Linus Sandgren’s cinematography is gorgeously eye popping; of all the films I’ve seen that came out this year, it’s second only to Hell or High Water. Some songs are better than others, but the acting all around makes up for it. John Legend has a role that turns out to be more than a cameo, and he’s actually pretty good. Essentially a love letter to Los Angeles, there’s no shortage of romantic moments here, not the least of which takes place floating midair under the stars at Griffith Observatory after closing time. Or in a movie theater for Mia and Sebastian’s first kiss.

The story is an emotional roller coaster that pulled me along through its ups and downs. The final scene got to me in a way that no film has in awhile—it actually fucking hurt. So in that sense, La La Land surely stands on its own. I question how memorable it will ultimately prove to be, though. I can’t put my finger on exactly what, but it lacks that extra element that would make it a truly great film. Perhaps its story is conventional, or perhaps its execution is too restrained and not over the top enough. I don’t know. As much as I enjoyed it, I can think of other movies the actors have done that are better. Time will tell where this one lands, but for now it’s worth the investment to see it.

128 minutes
Rated PG-13

(AMC River East) B

Chicago International Film Festival

http://www.lalaland.movie

My Blind Brother

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(USA 2016)

Robbie (Adam Scott) and Bill (Nick Kroll) are brothers. Robbie is an overachieving athlete—attractive, admired, and blind. He’s also kind of a dick in private. Bill dutifully assists Robbie with his athletic endeavors, holding a string to guide him as he runs marathons and rowing in front of him with a blowhorn as he swims. Admittedly lazy, Bill fantasizes about being disabled and having everyone wait on him while he watches TV all day.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead!

One night while their parents are fawning over Robbie after a race, Bill goes out by himself for a drink at a local bar where unbeknownst to him a memorial is being held for a guy who was killed when a bus hit him. Bill meets Rose (Jenny Slate), who’s crying because she feels guilty about it—she dumped him right before it happened. They introduce themselves: she’s a “superficial narcissist” and he’s “lazy and judgmental.” They talk, and she tells him she wants to be a better person—maybe helping baby elephants in Africa or something. Rose ends up going home with Bill. In a very uncomfortable scene, she extricates herself from his room and takes off the next morning, roughly declining Bill’s request for her phone number.

Soon after, Robbie hooks up with a volunteer to help him with swimming, something Bill doesn’t want to do. Turns out, there’s a spark between Robbie and this volunteer—who Bill discovers is Rose.

Writer and director Sophie Goodhart does a capable job on both fronts, even if My Blind Brother takes a little while to get its stride and feels a bit like a TV show. The story moves steadily once it gets going, though the ending is predictable—including its reveal of how Robbie lost his sight. There are more than a few genuinely funny moments here. I love that all of the characters are detestable, or at least nothing to aspire to, for one reason or another—even Robbie, who from an outside perspective seems inspirational with his fundraising through athletics. It doesn’t take long to see that he’s lame, right down to the same flimsy joke about looking beautiful that he repeats to every woman (because he’s blind and can’t see, get it?). Slate does neurotic frazzled really well. Charlie Hewson as blind stoner GT and Zoe Kazan as Rose’s quick and loyal but cynical roommate Francie both add a breath of fresh air. Filmed in and around the West Side of Cleveland, Ohio—where I grew up—I immediately noticed exterior shots in Tremont, Lakewood, and I’m pretty sure Rocky River.

85 minutes
Rated R

(Facets) C+

Goat

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(USA 2016)

Son of Saul remains one of the more memorable films from last year, and it’s because of how it was done: it’s harrowing to watch because it shoves the viewer front and center into its violence—physical and psychological. Goat, the film adaptation of Brad Land’s memoir about his experience with fraternity hazing, deals with a different subject altogether but works the same way: it’s difficult to watch, and it makes its points exactly because it’s difficult to watch.

High school senior Brad (Ben Schnetzer) is sensitive, naive, and kind of aimless. After leaving a party at his older brother Brett’s (Nick Jonas) frat house because it’s “getting weird”—he wants no part in pounding booze, snorting blow, or watching a live sex show—Brad agrees to give a lift to a sketchy townie (Will Pullen) who approaches him as he’s walking alone to his car. It’s just up the street in a small college town, so what can happen? Sketchy townie has a friend (Jamar Jackson), and the encounter goes somewhere Brad wasn’t expecting: they make him pull off the road, beat the shit out of him, and run off with his ATM card and his car.

The investigating officer (Kevin Crowley) is skeptical when Brad reports the incident—he suspects Brad is not telling him the whole story. The experience doesn’t sit well. On the fence about college and feeling like a self-described “pussy,” Brad decides to enroll at the school where Brett goes—and pledge his fraternity, Phi Sigma Mu. The guys in the house talk a lot about brotherhood, but something is off. Brad goes forward with rush week, anyway—and even motivates his dorm roommate, Will (Danny Flaherty), to rush (a.k.a. pledge) along with him. They become “goats,” which we learn is another word for pledges. Led by their “master” Dixon (Jake Picking), things get increasingly degrading and barbaric for the goats as they move through “hell week.” What is Brad trying to prove, and to whom?

Goat is brutal. With the opening shot—a pack of shirtless college boys jumping up and down in slow motion, participating in some fraternity ritual and looking more like a troop of apes than a group of students—director Andrew Neel sets the tone and sticks to it all the way through. The hazing rituals involve a slew of nastiness: face slapping, mudwrestling, and cages are the least of it. James Franco, one of the film’s producers, makes an appearance as Mitch, an older Phi Sig alum who never left town. Amusing on the surface, it doesn’t take long to see that Mitch is pathetic. The best thing about the film is Brad and Brett’s relationship, which becomes strained once the latter sees the former going through hell week. The whole cast is impressive—particularly Jonas, who’s made some strides since his stint on last season’s Scream Queens.

Goat emits a whiff of Reefer Madness sensationalism—I was never in a frat so I’ve never gone through anything like hell week and can’t speak to it with any personal experience (though I have friends who were in fraternities, and most of them withdrew for one reason or another). Regardless, I found Goat provocative not so much for taking on hazing and asking why anyone would put up with it, but for raising questions about bigger and broader things like groupthink and pack mentality, societal permissiveness, what “brotherhood” means, masculinity, and how it all interacts with the primal instinct inside each of us. If nothing else, Goat serves as a springboard for discussing a number of topics after the show.

96 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) B+

Holy Hell

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(USA 2016)

In “The Blank Stare,” a two-part installment of Amy Sedaris’s classic TV series Strangers with Candy, Jerri Blank joins a cult. “I’m gonna sit at the welcome table,” she sings along with its members, holding flowers in the back of a van in one scene and squat-walking around like a chicken in another. “I’m gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days, Hallelujah!” The whole thing is ridiculous—I was stunned to learn that the song is real and has some interesting religious and social history. I guess I hoped Will Allen’s Holy Hell, a documentary of his days with the Buddhafield, a Los Angeles “spiritual group,” would dispel the kooky image a cult conjures up for many—i.e., me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

Juxtaposing old footage he took back in the day with current filmed interviews of former members, Allen puts together a vivid picture of what life in a cult is like. Some of it is silly—one member discusses making fruit arrangements—but most of it is at least mildly interesting. Allen’s focus is decidedly on the group’s mysterious leader, Michel, an uncomfortably odd and almost permanently shirtless guy from Latin America. Michel, who looks like he was plucked fresh from a Pierre et Gilles photo, resembles an early ‘90s gay porn star with his perfect tan, well-developed abs, Speedos, and sunglasses. He used hypnosis, “therapy,” and ballet as a means to spiritual enlightenment. Perhaps it’s not surprising that this man they all called “teacher” was nothing like he seemed—to the group’s members, at least.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead!

It took almost 20 years, but Michel became increasingly demanding, vain, psychologically abusive, and creepy as he got older. He insisted that members not have sex, and even went out of his way to sabotage budding relationships. He got women in the group to have abortions when they transgressed his “no sex” policy. He convinced members not only to pay for his plastic surgery but also undergo their own. This was all self-serving, we learn—big shock. Many but not all of his followers lost faith when an email sent to Buddhafield members revealed that Michel, who actually did some porn in the past, had been sexually using many of the group’s young men—the ones he selected to personally “serve” him—for years.

It’s crystal clear that Michel’s actions hurt his flock, and you can’t help but feel for some of them. A lot of tears and anger surface here. Considering the subject matter, maybe it’s not fair to expect objectivity. Nonetheless, my issue with Holy Hell is that it seems to avoid painting the whole picture—a lot of detail is conspicuously missing. It isn’t a probing piece, either on a personal level—Allen’s own story of what led him to join—or on a grander scale. I don’t find Michel to be a decent person, but the story would have been far more compelling had Allen shown more than former member after former member repeating how Michel ruined his or her life. If the takeaway is that Michel is a bad guy—I didn’t need to sit through the whole film to figure that out.

The story could have benefitted from some distance and a little more audacity. A confrontation with Michel in Hawaii, where he relocated to start over, toward the end of the film hints at a great climax. It’s not—it’s a dud of an ending. No one really confronts Michel or gives any revelation about their own role in what played out. Frankly, I’m at a loss as to how any of them could have taken him seriously in the first place. Sadly, Holy Hell comes off more as a sensationalist Dateline exposé than an unbiased or informed account. Nothing about Michel or his group’s members surprised me, and I walked away with no more insight about cults than I had when I sat down to watch it. Buddhafield doesn’t seem very different from Safe Trap House, the cult in the aforementioned Strangers with Candy episode.

103 minutes
Not rated

(CNN) C-

http://www.holyhellthedocumentary.com

Hell or High Water

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(USA 2016)

“I’ve been working here since 19 and 87. Ain’t nobody ever ordered nothing but a T-bone steak and baked potato. Except one time, this asshole from New York ordered a trout. We ain’t got no goddamned trout.”

—T-Bone Diner waitress

I must admit: I got good and liquored up before I saw Hell or High Water. Fortunately, my buzz did not ruin the movie—or vice versa.

Hell or High Water is a richly layered, rather cerebral Western heist film. Two brothers, cool and brooding Toby (Chris Pine) and impulsive ex-con Tanner (Ben Foster), systematically hold up various branches of Texas Midland, a bank in rural west Texas. Initially, the series of robberies comes off as a mindless crime spree for two punk cowboys in ski masks and a shitty car. It turns out to be much more complicated: Toby has a week to come up with thousands of dollars to pay off the mortgage on the family ranch, or shady Texas Midland will foreclose on it. The brothers attract the attention of sheriff Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and his partner, Alberto (Gil Birmingham), who follow their trail patiently and methodically with good old-fashioned horse sense.

Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay is thoughtfully tight and complex, loaded with plot turns and moral questions. He raises provocative points about capitalism and the American finance system. All of his characters are flawed but sympathetic, making Hell or High Water more than a simple good-versus-evil story. There is no real hero here. Director David Mackenzie maintains a really nice balance of tension, drama, and humor without relying on gunfire and chases (though both of those are in the film). The acting is superb—I can’t think of a single performance that isn’t stellar. The multitude of minor characters—waitresses (Margaret Bowman and Debrianna Mansini), townsfolk, bank employees (Dale Dickey and Joe Berryman)—give the film its color. Hell or High Water has a major Coen Brothers vibe to it—think Blood Simple or No Country for Old Men. The pace is painfully slow at points, but it works. Giles Nuttgens’s sunbleached cinematography is nothing short of stunning, and it beautifully captures the ominously vast and barren landscape that seems to suffocate everyone in it.

102 minutes
Rated R

(ArcLight) B+

http://www.hellorhighwaterofficial.com

Don’t Think Twice

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(USA 2016)

I heard a lot of good things about Mike Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice, and the previews intrigued me. I expected a riotous, vicious comedy about fame and its effect on those who want it—and those who watch their colleagues achieve it while it somehow eludes them. Sounds interesting, but it doesn’t quite play out so.

Miles (Birbiglia), Jack (Keegan-Michael Key), Samantha (Gillian Jacobs), Bill (Chris Gethard), Allison (Kate Micucci), and Lindsay (Tami Sagher) are members of the Commune, an underground improv group in New York City. They schlep through menial jobs by day but excel in their own world by night. When casting agents for iconic latenight staple Weekend Live (an alternate universe SNL) attend a show and express interest in some members, it threatens the future of the group.

Co-produced by Ira Glass, Don’t Think Twice is a coming-of-age drama about comedians. Each character is forced to sink or swim as he or she faces personal change. The charatcters are all likable, and the cast works well as an ensemble. Ben Stiller makes an entertaing cameo. There are some really funny and poignant moments, especially between Jack and Samantha. In the end, though, I’ve seen this before. Too sentimental for my taste, it would have benefitted from a little bite. As it is, Don’t Think Twice is okay but not something that will cross my mind again.

92 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) C

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Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You

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(USA 2016)

“Do you know how hard it is to make people laugh, to tackle big issues and get big ratings? It’s so hard that people don’t do it anymore.”

—Amy Poehler introducing Norman Lear at the PEN American Center Lifetime Achievement Awards

One commentator asserts that American television consists of two periods: before Norman Lear, and after. He’s got a point. It’s easy to spot Lear’s impact: simply go to All in the Family at the dawn of the ’70s, and look backward then forward. A marked shift to socioeconomic realism is undeniable. It isn’t fair to credit him alone with that pivotal movement—James L. Brooks and Allen Burns hit the air with The Mary Tyler Moore Show four months before All in the Family—but Lear definitely ran with the idea and pushed it farther than anyone else. As the creative force behind shows like the aforementioned All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, Good Times, The Jeffersons, even One Day at a Time and the controversial subjects they tackled, he was prime time’s Martin Scorsese to, say, Gary Marshall’s Steven Spielberg. That’s a huge accomplishment when you stop to consider that the only TV show ever to deal with abortion head-on was one of Lear’s sitcoms, and that was more than 40 years ago.

With Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady assemble a captivating picture of the man behind the curtain through clips, behind-the-scenes footage, his own readings of excerpts from his memoir Even This I Get to Experience, and an interview just for this film. Lear, who recently turned 94, is fascinatingly open and candid about the highs and lows of his personal life, his career, and what inspired him. In the film’s most touching moments, he discusses his father, what it felt like to hear an anti-Semitic speech on the radio when he was a kid, his admiration for Carroll O’Connor, and a sad incident involving his strong-willed wife. He also sings a ditty with buddies Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, which is priceless. In its most interesting moment, Good Times star Esther Rolle confronts him about his depiction of black Americans. It is, to say the least, dy-no-mite.

Comments from a number of celebrities like Jon Stewart, George Clooney, Rob Reiner, and John Amos add depth and demonstrate the reach of Lear’s work. The highlights, however, come from Lear himself. It would have been nice if the directors pushed things a little farther and did away with the dramatization of Lear as a young boy, but I can only hope I live to see the future like he does: clearly, these are the days.

91 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) B

http://www.musicboxfilms.com/norman-lear–just-another-version-of-you-movies-137.php

http://www.normanlear.com