Starlet

(USA 2012)

After The Florida Project wowed me even more than Tangerine did two years ago (I liked that one a lot, too), I decided to check out what else Sean Baker has done. I didn’t know about Starlet. Written by Baker with frequent collaborator Chris Bergoch, it’s the first of three from them so far. It came out before Tangerine, so it seemed like a good place to start. I’m happy to report that Starlet is another winner.

In Starlet, Baker and Bergoch explore morality and female bonding in the context of a cross generational relationship. Jane (Dree Hemingway) is a nihilistic or simply oblivious 21-year-old aspiring actress who just moved to the Valley — the one on the other side of the hills from Hollywood — with her unnamed chihuahua (Boonee). She’s kind of a slacker, spending her days not unpacking her shit but getting high and playing video games with her housemates Melissa (Stella Maeve) and Mikey (James Ransone), a young couple not exactly in tune with each other. They let her stay with them in an extra bedroom that Mikey occasionally uses for “work.”

Jane is likable: she’s got a lot of idiosyncrasies but she isn’t helpless, she takes care of her pooch, and she seems like a nice person despite her aimlessness, lack of planning (like, anything), and the questionable career path she’s chosen to get her foot in the door of the film industry. I’m not spoiling anything when I reveal that she makes porn under her stage name Tess. One name, like Cher or Madonna (or Prince, for that matter). A few real life porn actors (Manuel Ferrara, Asa Akira, Jules Jordan, Kristina Rose) even appear as themselves.

Jane hits a yard sale at the home of crusty old lady Sadie (Besedka Johnson), who can barely be bothered to answer Jane’s questions about a thermos she spots and wants to buy (she thinks it’s an urn). Jane takes it home and is befuddled when she finds multiple rolls of cash stashed inside it.

Jane tries to return the money — after she spends some of it on a blingy harness for the dog (incidentally, it says “starlet,” which becomes his name). The problem is, Sadie doesn’t give her a chance; she won’t even let Jane talk, dismissing her with a “no returns” shutdown. So, Jane does what any reasonable person would: she stalks Sadie at the grocery store, in the diner, in her garden, and at her bingo games to become her friend and spend the money on her.

Starlet is unique in its pace and its narrative, perhaps even moreso than Tangerine or The Florida Project. It’s offbeat yet warm, and it beautifully captures the tempo of real life: mostly mundane stretches peppered with moments of excitement. Both Hemingway (yes, her great grandfather was the notable author) and Johnson in her only role are both mesmerizing. Radium Cheung’s cinematography is gorgeous; all sunbleached and perfectly framed, it gives Starlet a sunny hue that belies its melancholic sense that this is as good as it gets for these characters, not that anything — fame, fortune, love, a pornstar sex life, retirement, Hollywood itself — is as thrilling as the fantasy.

Starlet lacks the impact of the aformentioned films that follow it — the big reveal at the end is a bit of a dud. However, its real surprise is how damned sweet it is. Hemingway and Johnson interacting with each other are a joy to watch. My big question: what’s in the suitcase?

With Zoe Voss, Krystle Alexander, Jessica Pak, Jackie J. Lee, Dean Andre, Dawn Bianchini, Edmund C. Pokrzywnicki, Dave Bean, Eliezer Ortiz, Andy Mardiroson, Cesar Garcia, Heather Wang, Helen Yeotis, Dale Tanguay, Patrick Cunningham, Karren Karagulian, Michael O’Hagan, Amin Joseph, Cammeron Ellis, Nick Santoro, Joey Rubina, Cassandra Nix, Liz Beebe, Tracey Sweet

Production: Maybach Cunningham, Freestyle Picture Company, Cre Film, Mangusta Productions

Distribution: Music Box Films (USA), Golden Scene (Hong Kong), Rapid Eye Movies (Germany), Tucuman Filmes (Brazil)

103 minutes
Not rated

(iTunes rental) B

http://www.musicboxfilms.com/starlet-movies-44.php

It [It: Chapter One]

(USA 2017)

I’ve started a few Stephen King novels during my life, but I’ve never finished reading any of them. I have, however, seen enough movies based on his books to know what I’m getting into.

It is director Andy Muschietti’s take on King’s 1986 novel, which incidentally came out on my 16th birthday. Scary. It tells the story of a group of bullied junior high outcasts who go after a deranged clown named Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) one summer, the Summer of 1989, after he kills stuttering Bill Denbrough’s (Jaeden Lieberher) little brother, Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott), the fall before.

Pennywise lives in the sewer of their small town (Derry, Maine) and resurfaces every 27 years to prey on children through their worst fears.

The screenplay, written by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman, is only part of the book — presumably to allow for a sequel. It starts out well enough in the same sweet nostalgic way as, oh, Stand by Me. Muschietti gets deatils of the time period mostly right: the Cure and New Kids on the Block were big in ’89 (even though the former’s “Six Different Ways” was two albums and a compilation earlier), and the reference to Molly Ringwald fits. He goes full on Steven Spielberg, however, about halfway through, turning It into The Goonies with the kids’ “losers club” and all the action switching to a dark cavernous underground sewer. This is to say, It gets cheesy after awhile.

The kids are all decent actors, and they keep It moving along. Sadly, though, there aren’t any real surprises here. More creepy and icky than outright frightening, Muschietti relies greatly on special effects; they’re good and a lot of work went into them, but they get tiresome after awhile. Plus, some editing would’ve been a good idea; It is too long.

As It is, it’s not a stinker. However, I wasn’t moved by It, either. It is a big budget Hollywood movie aiming to be a blockbuster, and that’s It.

With Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Beverly Marsh, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Nicholas Hamilton, Jake Sim, Logan Thompson, Owen Teague, Stephen Bogaert, Stuart Hughes, Geoffrey Pounsett, Pip Dwyer, Elizabeth Saunders, Ari Cohen, Anthony Ulc, Javier Botet, Katie Lunman, Carter Musselman, Tatum Lee

Production: New Line Cinema, Ratpac-Dune Entertainment, Vertigo Entertainment, Lin Pictures, KatzSmith Productions

Distribution: Warner Brothers

135 minutes
Rated R

(ArcLight) C

http://itthemovie.com

BPM (Beats per Minute) [120 Beats per Minute] [120 battements par minute]

(France 2017)

Ah, the early ’90s: I was in college, jeans didn’t fit right, George H.W. Bush was president, MTV was relevant, and AIDS was as deadly as ever. In the United States, the number of new cases peaked around 1993 (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5021a2.htm). During the 1980s, a slew of activist organizations sprung up in response to government indifference and inaction, largely but not exclusively that of the Reagan administration, and Big Pharma shadiness — organizations like the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queer Nation, and perhaps most famous (or infamous) ACT UP.

This is the backdrop of Robin Campillo’s BPM (Beats Per Minute), an imperfect yet captivating and rich period piece that portrays the AIDS crisis with accuracy, drama, a little humor, and the slightest bit of nostalgia — ill-fitting jeans be damned. BPM puts us smack in the middle of the Parisian chapter of ACT UP, which seems constantly on the brink of self-destruction with all the debating, infighting, and struggling for control among its members.

Campillo starts with a broad picture, introducing us to the group through hunky Nathan (Arnaud Valois), who joins ACT UP for reasons that he keeps guarded. Right up front, members of the group confront radical Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), a scrawny firecracker who favors the back of the room. He went off script during a botched protest involving balloons filled with fake blood.

Sean’s motive is soon clear: he’s running out of time and has none to spare for diplomacy. His impatience and prickliness are particularly acute when he’s dealing with the chapter’s leader, Thibault (Antoine Reinartz), and elder comember Sophie (Adèle Haenel), who tends to be the voice of reason.

Those in the group don’t shy away from saying what’s on their mind, and their debates are vigorous to say the least. Interestingly, there’s a lot of flirting and cruising going on. Nathan encounters some attitude, particularly from the poz members — he happens to be HIV negative. He and Sean hit it off, though. Campillo zooms in on them as they get intimate, letting their relationship take center stage. We get their backstories over pillow talk, and it makes for some of the finest moments in this film. They get closer as Sean’s health deteriorates. Campillo brings the group back to the fore by the end, displaying the strong sense of community that has been there all along. It outshines all the bickering and dysfunction.

BPM is an accomplishment on many levels. The historical perspective is solid, giving the whole thing an authentic feel, almost like a documentary. Cinematographer Jeanne Lapoirie’s faded color palette and lighting actually look like the ‘90s. Campillo and Philippe Mangeot’s screenplay is smartly written, loaded with sharp dialogue that engages even when the activity level drops. The narrative arc here is terrific. The end could use some minor editing, but otherwise the long scenes and slow pace work because we’re getting a lot of information. While each actor carries his or her own weight, Pérez Biscayart easily emerges as the star.

Politics, ideology, and HIV status all draw lines in this group, but its members are united by a shared mission. Plus, they’ve got lives to lead, however much time they have left. BPM is a gentle — and somehow very French — reminder that life goes on.

With Felix Maritaud, Médhi Touré, Aloïse Sauvage, Simon Bourgade, Catherine Vinatier, Saadia Ben Taieb, Ariel Borenstein, Théophile Ray, Simon Guélat, Jean-François Auguste, Coralie Russier, Samuel Churin, Yves Heck, Emmanuel Ménard, Pauline Guimard, François Rabette

Production: Les Films de Pierre, France 3 Cinéma, Page 114, Memento Films, FD Production

Distribution: Memento Films

143 Minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B+

Chicago International Film Festival

http://bpm.film

Tokyo Vampire Hotel

(Japan 2017)

This theatrical cut of director Sion Sono’s Amazon Prime miniseries Tokyo Vampire Hotel [東京ヴァンパイアホテル] (http://www.indiewire.com/2017/04/tokyo-vampire-hotel-sion-sono-amazon-1201808369/) is a fast-paced stylish and colorful bloodbath, something that wouldn’t be out of place in Quentin Tarantino’s oeuvre.

Manami (Tomite Ami) is a nice girl who shares a tiny apartment with her boyfriend (Saito Takumi) in Tokyo. Just after she arrives for dinner with her friends on the evening of her 22nd birthday, a crazy gun-toting assassin (Shoko Nakagawa) in a fuzzy pink mink shows up and takes out everyone in the restaurant — except Manami, whom she came to kidnap.

Manami flees, only to be picked up by another kidnapper, the mysterious K (Kaho). K in not so may words explains that Manami is a pawn in a war between two vampire clans, the Draculas and the Corvins, who have been enemies for centuries. Unbeknownst to Manami, she’s the target of a worldwide vampire hunt. K takes her to the glamorous Tokyo Vampire Hotel, which is run by a creepy geisha empress (Adachi Yumi) who needs blood.

The end of civilization is coming, but the empress has a plan: use the hotel to trap a healthy supply of humans to serve as food. Things don’t pan out as planned when the humans figure out what’s happening and the Draculas show up to crash the party.

This photo sums up what you’re getting into here:

Tokyo still.jpg

Tokyo Vampire Hotel is quirky, sexy, lavish, and fun. Sono serves up an imaginative feast of dazzling eye candy and nonstop action. His use of Christian symbols adds a nice touch. The sets are fantastic, and the action moves from the streets of Tokyo at night to inside the hotel to Bran Castle in Transylvania, and back. The editing works to make nine episodes flow seamlessly into a feature length film. However, the story wears thin after a little while, and it can’t sustain the interest I started out with. The gore gets old, too. The length, nearly two and a half hours, is a problem. It demonstrates why Tokyo Vampire Hotel is probably better in smaller doses.

With Mitsushima Shinnosuke, Yokoyama Ayumu, Kagurazaka Megumi, Shibukawa Kiyohiko, Takatsuki Sara, Tsutsui Mariko, Sakurai Yuki

Production: Amazon, Django Film, Nikkatsu Pictures

Distribution: Nikkatsu International Sales

142 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) C+

Chicago International Film Festival

https://youtu.be/2cJRq73BAhE

The Line [Čiara]

(Slovakia / Ukraine 2017)

Director Peter Bebjak’s The Line is an Eastern European testosterone flick, a less cheeky sort of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels set at the Slovakia–Ukraine border. It’s a genre flick, and a good one: excellent performances all around boost Peter Balko’s tight, vigorous screenplay.

A lot is going on with Adam Krajnak (Tomáš Maštalír), the head of both his household and a gang of organized cigarette smugglers. His oldest daughter, Lucia (Kristiná Konátová), is about to marry a clueless petty thief (Oleksandr Piskunov) he doesn’t care for. His Ukrainian partner (Eugen Libezňuk) is going weird, possibly on the verge of going rogue.

Then there’s ruthless Ukrainian gangster Krull (Stanislav Boklan), who’s co-opted Adam’s crew for a new product, meth. Adam wants no part of it. Things are heating up to a show down that crooked police chief Peter Bernard (Andy Hryc) facilitates. It all comes to a head during Lucia’s engagement party.

With far and few still moments, The Line grows increasingly complicated as its story progresses. This is a quick and constant thriller loaded with curve balls. A scene where the police raid Afghans illegally crossing the “green border,” a wooded area, is a standout. So are a few at a ravine where Krull dumps bodies; Martin Ziaran’s underwater shots are beautifully eerie.

With Emília Vášáryová, Géza Benkõ, Zuzana Fialová, Filip Kankovský, Milan Mikulcík, Veronika Strapková, Rimma Zyubina

Production: Wandal Production, Garnet International Media Group

Distribution: RTVS

Screening introduced by and followed by a live Q and A with Andy Hryc

108 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B+

Chicago International Film Festival

http://www.ciara.sk/en/

Mon Mon Mon Monsters [Bào Gào Lǎo Shī! Guài Guài Guài Guài Wù!]

(Taiwan 2017)

In his latest film, peer pressure horror comedy Mon Mon Mon Monsters [報告老師! 怪怪怪怪物!] [Bào Gào Lǎo Shī! Guài Guài Guài Guài Wù!], writer/director Giddens Ko takes us on a wild ride that leaves us pondering who the real mosters are. He subtly gives us his answer in the title.

High school student Lin Shu-wei (Deng Yu-kai) is a neo maxi zoom dweebie with a masochistic edge. Why else would he tolerate the constant flying bits of paper, chairs pulled out from under him, and general teenage tomfoolery directed at him?

Lin becomes the target of Bully Ren-hao (Kent Tsai), a closet psychopath who relentlessly dreams up new ways to torment him. Ren-hao has two flunkies, Liao Kuo-feng (James Lai) and Yeh Wei-chu (Tao Meng) who do his bidding. Ren-hao’s girlfriend, Wu Si-hua (Bonnie Liang), contributes to the hell — never removing her star-studded headset as she snaps photos with her iPhone.

A pacificst teacher (Carolyn Chen) has an idea to get the boys on common ground: she assigns the four of them to community service feeding senile elderlies at a decrepit old age home that looks like something straight out of Blade Runner. Lin has a bad feeling about it, and he’s right: in the process of robbing an old man, the boys corner and capture a flesh-eating female beast (Lin Pei-hsin) they find roaming around.

They take her to an abandoned recreation center, where they chain her up and torture her with light, fire, and starvation. Lin reluctantly goes along with it, but he reaches a point where he either has to put up or shut up. Meanwhile, the beast’s protective and pissed off older sister (Eugenie Liu) is looking for her. This is where Lin is put to the test: does he have any character, and can he stay true to it?

Despite inconsistent pacing, Mon Mon Mon Monsters is overall engaging. Ko has something to say about the moral fabric of today’s youth, but he says it in a mostly lighthearted way. The acting is solid all around, which is pretty amazing for a slasher flick. The “monsters” are sweet in their own way. It’s smart to show them right off the bat rather than let us wonder what they look like; they come off as more human than the teenagers in this movie.

The special effects are pretty good, and the way Ko plays with light and color is downright spectacular. Quite a few scenes here are magnificent even if they’re cheesy and gory (that scene on the bus is fabulous, as are the scene where the teacher ignites in the gym and pretty much any of the scenes in the recreation center). Underneath all the blood and hate is a truth about the social ladder.

With Kai Ko, Vivian Sung, Emerson Tsai, Phil Hou, Bruce Hung 

Production: Star Ritz International Entertainment

Distribution: Vie Vision Pictures

113 Minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B-

Chicago International Film Festival

They

(USA / Qatar 2017)

“You’ll never be a girl. You’re not a boy. So you’re probably nothing.”

— J

Writer/director Anahita Ghazvinizadeh’s debut feature film They delicately tells the story of J (Rhys Fehrenbacher), a quiet suburban Chicago teen transitioning from male to female. Along with therapy sessions and physician consultations for “puberty blocking” drugs and “bone density” test results, J is processing the social and psychological implications of their change. We know it’s happening, but we see it in action when J puts on a dress and goes outside, or when he explains to others how to make an introduction to a stranger and which pronoun to use (“they,” hence the title).

The process is awkward, particularly when older sister, Lauren (Nicole Coffineau), brings her fiancé, Araz (Koohyar Hosseini), home to meet the family. With mom (Norma Moruzzi) away caring for an aunt who has early onset dimentia, J is left to deal alone. Meeting Araz’s Iranian family in the suburbs seems to be a reckoning for J.

If nothing else, They is visually arresting, artfully shot with georgeous pans and closeups of buildings, walls, plants, and flowers. Ghazvinizadeh plays with reflections on glass and uses a muted color pallet that nicely underscores J’s fluid state of mind. It sets just the right tone: hazy and dreamy.

That said, both the narrative and the character development in They fall short. I’m not sure Lauren and Azaz are necessary, and I certainly don’t have more than a passing sense of who they are or why they’re here. The dinner at Araz’s family is dropped in clumsily, throwing off the trajectory of the story. The focus gradually and inexplicably shifts away from J, which I found strange.

Watching They feels voyeuristic, which isn’t a bad thing in itself. However, it feels like an obstacle — a transparent partition — keeps me from getting too close to the characters. That’s a shame because this is a film that demands an amount of intimacy that simply isn’t accommodated. On top of that, the actors’ naturalistic performances meander quite a bit, which made me zone out at times.

Overall, They could have been a much more powerful statement. Still, it’s a decent effort even with its shortcomings and a few dull parts.

With Diana Torres, Evan Gray, Drew Sheil, Leyla Mofleh, Mohammad Aghebati, Alma Sinai, Arian Naghshineh, Ava Naghshineh, Aerik Jahangiri, Farid Kossari, Kaveh Ehsani, Robert Garofalo, Eric Fehrenbacher, Vicki Sheil

Production: Mass Ornament Films

Distribution: N/A

Screening introduced by Anahita Ghazvinizadeh and followed by a live Q and A with Ghazvinizadeh, Rhys Fehrenbacher, and Rob Garofalo

80 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) C-

Chicago International Film Festival

https://www.massornament.com/they

La Chinoise

(France 1967)

“Okay, it’s fiction. But it brings me closer to reality.”

— Véronique

Set in the context of the New Left movement in late 1960s France, Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise is not really about the political ideas it raises — many of which seem relevant today. No, at its core is Godard satirizing the idealism of youth.

Structured as a mockumentary in what undoubtedly is an intentionally scrappy art school style, La Chinoise is a series of “interviews” of five middle class college students about their Maoist terrorist organization. Headquartered in a loft apartment in a suburb of Paris, they named their organization “Aden Arabie” after a novel by French communist Paul Nizan.

The apartment, all done up in primary colors like a Piet Mondrian painting, is owned by one of the members’ parents.

Véronique (Anne Wiazemsky, who sadly died exactly a week before the screening I attended) (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/obituaries/anne-wiazemsky-french-film-star-and-novelist-dies-at-70.html) is the bossy leader, a philosophy student from a family of bankers. She’s involved with Guillaume (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a “theatrical actor.” Yvonne (Juliet Berto) grew up on a farm and works as a housekeeper and occasional hooker. She’s involved with Henri (Michel Semeniako), a writer who protests and publishes essays. Serge Kirilov (Lex de Bruijin) is a Russian nihilist who is single and suicidal.

La Chinoise is dense with ramblings about social and economic philosophy, politics, and literature. However, Godard uses all of it to make his point: these are kids who are still naïve and don’t fully grasp what they say they stand for. He shows them running around with toy weapons, playing school, and acting out scenes from books in the apartment, often cutting to pictures of comic book and cartoon characters. The joke is pretty funny when you consider the bourgeois backgrounds of the kids.

A conversation between Véronique and French philosopher Francis Jeanson on a train best illustrates Godard’s point: he asks a series of questions challenging her proposal to blow up the university in an effort to expose the flaws in her plan — and maybe get her to question her motives and the depth of her conviction. It goes over her head. So much for carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.

Side note: Claude Channes’s song “Mao-Mao” features prominently here. It’s a nifty little earworm.

With Omar Blondin Diop

Production: Anouchka Films, Les Productions de la Guéville, Athos Films, Parc Film, Simar Films

Distribution: Athos Films (France), Pennebaker Films (United States), Kino Lorber

96 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) C+

https://www.kinolorber.com/film/view/id/1111

Tales from the Hood

(USA 1995)

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Rusty Cundieff’s anthology Tales from the Hood is a good idea: four vignettes of black life presented as horror stories — so, a horror flick with a message, more commentary than a “scary movie.” I see why Spike Lee attached his name to it (as executive producer).

Cundieff and cowriter Darin Scott pick material topics that still resonate more than 20 years later: racism, police brutality, domestic abuse, drugs, and black-on-black violence. The messages are strong, but unfortunately the writing always isn’t.

The best segment is “Hard Core Convert,” which is also the closer. Jerome a.k.a. Crazy K (Lamont Bentley) is a drug dealer shot in a gang hit. He wakes up in a Kafkaesue prison, where a stern nurse (Lira Angel) subjects him to rehabilitation methods straight from A Clockwork Orange. This particular piece and the way it’s executed are both powerful and memorable.

The second segment, “Boys Do Get Bruised,” takes on domestic abuse. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. The other two segments, “Rogue Cop Revelation” and “KKK Comeuppance,” fall flat.

Tales from the Hood targets the right notes, but it misses many of them. For one thing, the approach here is really heavy-handed. Plus, the impact is diluted by the silly bit that frames the stories: a funeral home in South Central Los Angeles run by weirdo Mr. Simms (Clarence Williams III). He tells the four stories to three “gangstas,” Ball (De’aundre Bonds), Bulldog (Samuel Monroe Jr.), and Stack (Joe Torry), who stumble into the home looking for drugs. I could have done without this device — it served as a distraction more than anything.

With Wings Hauser, Tom Wright, Anthony Griffith, Michael Massee, Duane Whitaker, David Alan Grier, Brandon Hammond, Rusty Cundieff, Paula Jai Parker, Corbin Bernsen, Roger Guenveur Smith, Art Evans, Rosalind Cash, Chris Edwards , Troy Cartwright, Brenden Jefferson, Tim Hutchinson, John A. Cundieff, Bobby McGee, Christina Cundieff, Ricky Harris, Darin Scott, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Scotty Brulee, Ryan Williams, Kamau Holloway, Tasha Johnson

Production: 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks

Distribution: Savoy Pictures Entertainment

98 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) C-

Music Box of Horrors

Hot Dog Hands

(USA 2017)

Part comedy and part horror, Hot Dog Hands by Matt Reynolds is a squiggly little story involving bullying and body issues.

A woman (Gillian Wallace Horvat) becomes a recluse when her hands sprout plump fingers that look like hot dogs — and they won’t stop. The boys on her street notice; they stand in a group outside her house and chant, “Hot dog hands!” It’s upsetting to say the least.

A piece of junk mail leads the woman to a cure, but it’s not what she (or I) expected. It’s a weird but cute and kind of sweet solution that made me smile. Stuck between features of a horror movie marathon during the wee hours of the morning, it also gave me a jolt of energy that perked me up and allowed me to move onto the next film awake. Bravo!

Production: Matt Reynolds

Distribution: Matt Reynolds

6 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) B

Music Box of Horrors

mattreynoldstreats.com