Telluride Film Festival 2015

There was a great lineup of films at this year’s Telluride. Among them were two music documentaries that were filmed in the 1970’s but have barely seen the light of day in the forty-some years since. One of them vanished back into the darkness on opening day however. At the press conference at 1:00 pm on the Friday before Labor Day there was a question about how the festival would handle the fact that Aretha Franklin was suing to stop the presentation of the performance-documentary “Amazing Grace”. The answer: “Lawyers”. It was in their hands and the film was slated to be shown at Telluride on that Friday and later in the Toronto International Fest (which was also being sued). This film, made in 1972, directed by Sydney Pollack, has been blocked by Ms. Franklin for years. Apparently the issue is whether she would be compensated. Alan Elliot of the UCLA School of Music claims to have the rights to show the film – which is of a single performance of the music from her album of the same name. By 5:00 pm a Colorado judge had granted the injunction to block the screening of ‘Amazing Grace’ at Telluride. The documentary ‘Sherpa’ was substituted. I was sad not to see either of these. There was only one showing of ‘Sherpa’ and it was reported to have some amazing footage of the ridiculously hard job and life of the people who make it possible for elite westerners to climb that peak.

The other music doc was ‘C**ksucker Blues’ – this one about the Rolling Stones and their first tour of the US since the tragedy of Altamont. This one has legality surrounding it as well. The Stones didn’t want it shown because the debauchery pictured within made them look bad. Reports from those who had seen it said that may have been the case at the time, but in this day and age there’s nothing much we haven’t seen elsewhere. In this case the long standing legal ruling is that it can be shown as long as director Robert Frank is present at the showing. Telluride made that happen but we couldn’t get to this one. Too many movies and not enough time as usual. It was a trip to hear so many people mentioning the title of this – it’s not a word you hear much in polite company.

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If you are thinking of going to this awesome weekend in the mountains, get your pass early. The passes are selling out regularly these days and it is happening earlier and earlier.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

As usual, Telluride had many Oscar contenders to show and we got to most of them. Many will be in theaters soon or already by the time you read this. Enjoy!

Black Mass

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Before the Telluride screening of this film, director Scott Cooper said that as he saw it, an American mob movie could only fail because the bar was set so high (Godfather, Goodfellas etc). Well, he doesn’t have to exceed the quality of those movies in order to make a winner and, if you are ok with the violence, this movie wins. The story is public knowledge – the movie is based on a book about Bulger by the same name – but is still hard to believe.

James Bulger was a small time criminal in south Boston while the major crime families dominated from the north part of town. Jimmie’s childhood friend John Connolly) is an FBI agent. Bulger and Connolly cooperate to bring down the dominant mob family, leaving Bulger and his gang as the dominant crime family. Oh, did I mention that Bulger’s brother was a prominent state senator? You can’t make this stuff up. Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent as the Senator-brother. Kevin Bacon received an extra round of applause for his role as Connolly’s boss in the FBI. Quite a cast already. Then there’s this other guy: Johnny Depp, as usual, transformed for the role. Wasn’t there some idea going around that Depp’s star was on decline? Critics’ noses are about to be rubbed in it.

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In citing the other American crime movies the director didn’t mention ‘The Departed’, the Scorsese remake of the Hong Kong film ‘Infernal Affairs’. Scorsese set that film in Boston and morphed it into the Bulger story (Jack Nicholson played Bulger). Scorsese won best picture with that film in 2006. I don’t think this one will match that feat but there’s really not much space between the two films. This one stays true to the facts of Bulger’s life and that is plenty scary. Director Scott Cooper said before the screening that he wasn’t interested in making a movie about criminals who happened to be human, but he was interested in making a movie about humans who happen to be criminals. We see in the film how Bulger goes from bad to worse at certain, all too human, turning points in his life (such as the death of his mother). But, there is still a core of violent disregard for other humans that sets these people apart. Why do mobsters think that a parking lot, in broad-daylight, is the place to gun down your rivals?

While waiting in line for a bathroom at another film I talked to a Bostonian who had seen both this movie and ‘Spotlight’ which was also set in Boston. In ‘Spotlight’ it seemed to me like the cast made a mild and cautious attempt at Boston accents, to the point where it was like no accent at all much of the time. In this movie however, the accents were thick throughout. The Bostonian I talked to said that in ‘Black Mass’, they were trying too hard. It was making her ill. But to my ear, her accent sounded just like those in this movie. It will be interesting to see how the movie is received in Boston. Not just for the accents but also because many people there knew or had unfortunate dealings with Bulger.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Steve Jobs

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Type ‘Steve Jobs’ into IMDB and two movies with that title come up. One is a documentary by veteran doc maker Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology the Prison of Belief) and the other is simply ‘Steve Jobs’ which is the movie that played at Telluride. The doc opened in theaters more or less at the same time as the festival; ‘Steve Jobs’ the feature film opens in theaters October 9 and is directed by Danny Boyle (‘Trainspotting’, ’Slumdog Millionaire’ and so many more). Boyle was also the subject of a Tribute at Telluride.

This movie, written by Aaron Sorkin (‘The West Wing’), is meant to be an “impressionistic portrait” rather than a biopic. The difference being that some of the depicted events are imagined but meant to portray the person. The three acts of the film are three Apple product launches: Macintosh in 1984, the NeXT cube in 1988, and the iMac in 1998. In each of the launches, Jobs (Michael Fassbender) is visited by Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogan) and former Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels). In each case Jobs is aided by Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), former marketing chief of Macintosh. Aside from the Apple crew, the key figure is Jobs’ ex-girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, bringing her young daughter, appealing to Jobs who she claims is the father.

All of the performances are fantastic, and Winslet will likely receive an Oscar nomination as she is transformed for this role. It takes a powerful actor to stand toe to toe with Fassbender and she’s quite up to the task.

Aside from portraying Jobs as the consumer-product hero of all time, the film’s main driver is the relationship between Jobs and his alleged daughter. The real attraction of the film though is Sorkin’s dialogue. The fast paced and multi-faceted lines fascinate and draw you in. Many people I talked to at the festival wanted to see the film again to make sure they got all of what was being conveyed. After reading the press kit, I want to see the movie again because of a technical detail that I had missed. The first act is shot in 16mm, the second in 35mm and the final act (launch of iMac) is shot with an ALEXA digital camera.

Boyle wanted it to be known that the editing is not yet done, the final version will be different in some ways. What we saw though was more than a rough cut. In fact it seemed quite polished except for some digital distortion that shows up at one point. In any case, the difference in recording technologies for the three acts wasn’t obvious enough for me to catch it on the first viewing. I would like to see it again just to appreciate that artistic touch.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

He Named Me Malala

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Telluride Film Festival 2015

I’ve seen a lot of people cry in movies at Telluride, especially in the Chuck Jones Theater. Don’t know why emotions run stronger at that theater except perhaps for lack of oxygen – the theater is at 9500 feet. Just a theory. During ‘He Named Me Malala’, it wasn’t a few tears, it was sobbing. Not for the sadness of this story, it’s because this young girl is a treasure of humanity. In 2012, 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head on a school bus near her home in the idyllic Swat Valley in Pakistan. This of course because she proclaimed the radical and dangerous idea that girls should receive an education. It happened in the midst of a Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley. But it’s what happened since then that got the tears flowing (When I went to pick out photos for this review, I started crying all over again).

What has happened since? Malala’s Nobel Peace prize seems the least of her accomplishments. This girl is a worldwide champion for girls’ education and what is most inspiring, is vigorously pursuing her own college degree (tears again). If we could tap her father’s pride as an energy source there would be no motivation for exploiting Middle Eastern countries for their (other) resources. Indeed, the true subject of this movie is the father-daughter relationship. Politics and regional history are in there just enough to tell the story. I talked to at least one person at the festival who was disappointed in the film for that reason. But, we know about the politics and history already don’t we? This is a personal story. Anyone with a teenage daughter, or son, should watch this movie with them. I would keep younger children away though. It’s a beautiful story but it starts with some of the worst that humanity (lack thereof) can dish out.

There is a question of whether Malala’s father was too willing to put his daughter in harm’s way. She was a BBC radio-blogger well before the shooting. It’s a valid question and the doc deals with it to some extent. Even the title of the film revolves around that question. I would point out that had this courageous young girl stood up to the nut-bags without getting shot, the question would not have come up. We’re trapped on a ball in space with a bunch of crazy people. What should we do?

Malala’s father Ziauddin, was present at the screening but Malala herself could only join by satellite link. She’s busy preparing for college entrance exams.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Room

Telluride Film Festival 2015

If the official/unofficial theme for this year’s Telluride wasn’t clear before, with ‘Room’ it was: parent-child relationships. Some people at the festival already knew the story of this one because it is based on a novel by the same name. Other people could guess the story and so wanted to stay away. They missed out.

There are two distinct halves. In the first half ‘Room’ is all that five year old Jake (Jacob Tremblay) has ever known. Well almost, there’s also the wonderful, nurturing, relationship with his mother and fellow captive. They are together in the roughly 12 foot square room. They receive regular visits from “Old Nick” (Sean Bridgers) the man who abducted “Ma” (Brie Larson) five years earlier and impregnated her. The depth of realism and feeling between Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay is astonishing.

The second half of the film deals with the more complex parent-child relationships between Brie Larson’s character and her mother and father. How can a family cope with such a horrible thing as a twelve-year-old child being taken away from them for the sexual pleasure of a mad man? Maybe they can’t. See the film. I expect it will be in the running for an Oscar. At least the performances of Larson and Jacob Tremblay will have to be considered.

In spite of the brutal-sounding premise this film will move you in unexpected ways. In the Q&A after the first showing in Telluride director Lenny Abrahamson pointed out the universality of the story – how for any parent, at the start, the relationship with the infant and young child is so claustrophobic. The demands are relentless and often you might not be the parent that you wish you could be. “Then, subsequent to that, themes of survival, love and thriving in this story that begins in such a dark place – if it’s possible to find a resolution in such a story, then there are deep, positive, hopeful and robust things in all families and in all relationships. “

Director Lenny Abrahamson was at Sundance in 2014 with the wonderful, sensitive, comedy ‘Frank’. For this one at Telluride he brought the future film star Jacob Tremblay. If any hearts were left un-melted by the movie, that was taken care of in the Q&A.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Beasts of No Nation

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Telluride Film Festival 2015

This movie starts with incredibly sweet scenes of modern village life, somewhere in West Africa. Young Agu is narrating. “Since there is a war in our country, the schools are closed, we have to find ways to keep busy.” Agu and his friends commandeer the frame of an old TV and put on short skits, dance or mimic kung-fu movies in the view of what would be the screen – “Imagination TV”. They bring their show to various people in the village, trying to get them to buy the Imagination TV. This portion of the movie would make an incredible short film. As it is, it’s an incredible contrast with the subsequent horror.

‘Beasts of No Nation’ , the latest movie from ‘True Detective’ director Cary Fukunaga, tells the story of child soldiers in West Africa. I probably don’t have to tell you much more, the movie covers the bases that you might imagine. We watch as Agu becomes part of an SBU (Small Boy Unit) in a band of soldiers fighting as rebels against the government’s army. I don’t want to scare anyone off this film – there is some redemption. There are recovery efforts and programs underway for these boys and you will see this as well.

As usual Fukunaga overflows with ambition – traveling to Ghana for filming for example. The first reward for filming in Ghana are the amazing nature scenes in this film. An early scene with a wide angle shot of a meadow will mesmerize you. I want to see the movie again just for this scene. As Agu enters the meadow from the left, an enormous white bird (a stork perhaps) gracefully lands on a tree on the right.

The second reward for taking this enterprise to Ghana was the opportunity to use local actors and actual former child soldiers for all but three roles. At the Q&A after the film Fukunaga told the story of a man known as “Anointed.” Anointed played the role of “Tripod” in the film. He was a child soldier in the Lord’s Resistance Army (Charles Taylor) from the age of 10. “At one point during the shooting someone had robbed him of some money, and he was ready to kill that person. In his mind, killing is a perfectly great solution. In one second he went from a huge smile, singing, to a completely different look in his eyes.” Fukunaga said that aside from the fear of unstable behaviors, working with these guys was fantastic. After some training on how to emote on camera, everyone knew what to do, even when they were on the periphery of a scene. Working with Abraham Attah (who played Agu) was a little like the movie ‘Bowfinger’. Chances were slim that Attah would have ever even scene a movie set in his life in Ghana but he was plucked from a soccer field and asked to audition. “By week four or five he would come to the set and was asking about camera placements and blocking etc.”

I wonder about the ethics of having child actors do this kind of movie however. Of course it’s good that the story of the real kids that have endured this stuff gets out there, but at what cost? Attah sat in front of us at the Q&A and seemed to be quite well so I’ll just continue to wonder. In a better world however, we wouldn’t ask kids (or adults for that matter) to play-act violence for our education or entertainment.

‘Beasts of No Nation’ is receiving significant publicity for something unrelated to all of the above – the distribution model. It will be released simultaneously in theaters and online. Watch on Netflix or go to your local cinema, you choose (release date October 16). Netflix financed the film so you can see how this came about. Netflix has 65 million subscribers – a very appealing number if you want people to see your film. But Cary Fukunaga hopes that people will see it in theaters. If you create images for the big screen, you want to show them on the big screen. I would suppose that each ticket sold means more money for Fukunaga and other producers as well. It will be interesting. Theater owners aren’t happy, they are used to the traditional 90-day “theatrical window” before movies are available on disc or online. Presently, four of the largest theatre chains in the US have announced a boycott of ‘Beasts of No Nation’. Honestly I don’t know that it’s the kind of movie they would show anyway, the rough content makes it an art-house movie.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Suffragette

Telluride Film Festival 2015

There was one showing of this film with Q&A at the festival and it was nearly impossible to get into. Not “nearly impossible”, it was impossible. Meryl Streep was there and so festival patrons (owners of the expensive passes) crowded out the regulars. As long time festival-goers we knew that this represented a unique opportunity to get into *other* movies without the usual stress. We then saw ‘Suffragette’ later in an almost-full theater even without a Q&A.

Meryl Streep has a small part in this film even though she plays the person labeled as the historical leader of the movement, Emmeline Pankhurst. Should we call this the “woman’s right to vote” movement? Is “suffragette” a sexist term? No issues using it for the title I would think, even if the term is sexist, the movie is about exposing the ridiculous, humanity-defying sexism of the time. If the title can carry that meaning all in one word, all the better.

We did get an intro from director Sarah Gavron and she told the audience that the goal was to tell this story through the lives of lesser-known or unknown women of the time. Carey Mulligan plays Maud Watts, a woman whose life portrays all of the indignities (abuse, no rights in her marriage) that go hand-in-hand with denying women the vote. It’s hard to watch, but this is another one that should be shown to teenage daughters.

The film does an excellent job of making a movie out of historical events. Fed up with inaction by the British government, suffragists take the course of civil disobedience. Brendan Gleeson (‘Calvary’, ‘The Guard’, ‘Edge of Tomorrow’) playing Inspector Arthur Steed, pursuing the women. This man can convey about half a script on his face in any given scene. How does he not have an Oscar? Carey Mulligan will very likely get her second Best Actress nomination (first was for ‘An Education’ which also debuted at Telluride). The film as whole may get costume and set decoration nominations. The period depicted is turn of the century London and that depiction seemed flawless.

The history lesson of this film is obvious, there are some parts of that, all true to actual events, which are fascinating. The police crackdown included the use of surveillance cameras. In 1912! We’ve come a long way baby.

At the end of the film a list of countries and the dates at which women were granted the vote scrolls by. Some notables: France – 1949, Switzerland – 1973, Saudi Arabia… still waiting.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Spotlight

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Another film with an astonishing list of places in closing credits was ‘Spotlight’. In this case, it was a list of cities and countries that have had major Catholic priest abuse scandals revealed since the Boston one. I think there were three full screens of American cities and two more of countries around the world.

A key turning point in the reckoning with this horror was the 2002 coverage of the scandal by The Boston Globe. Their reporting on the issue revealed the extent of the abuse, and the cover-up. It could no longer be dismissed as a few isolated cases.

This film follows the reporters assigned to the ‘Spotlight’ team – the paper’s investigative journalists. The cast is top-tier: Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schrieber, Billy Crudup, Stanley Tucci. Tucci is such a chameleon, it took me a long time to recognize him in the role of Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer who pursued these cases on behalf of victims long before it was a widely known phenomenon. Someone should cast him as the twin (good or evil) of Kevin Spacey.

The film does an excellent job with that part of the story – the fact that, had people been willing to look, this issue was plainly visible from long before and for all of the time that the story was not properly reported, the abuse continued unabated.

I talked with a young man attending the festival for the first time, he’s a film teacher in community college in Los Angeles, and he remarked that ‘Spotlight’ is an example of Hollywood doing what it does best. Indeed, with a big budget and great actors, a great movie can happen, even if the subject matter is so awful.

I hope a lot of people see ‘Spotlight’. While you’re at it, watch ‘Calvary’ which debuted at the 2014 Sundance festival and stars Brendan Gleesan. Perhaps even harder to watch in some ways, it attempts to depict the shards of society we are left with in the wake of this scandal.

Anomolisa

Telluride Film Festival 2015

This is a film by Charlie Kaufmann. For many that will be enough to get them to go and that is how it should be. It’s awesome (as usual). Might as well skip the rest of this to avoid the minor spoilers present in reviews (more on that at the end).

The other distinguishing feature of this movie is that it is made in stop-motion animation and, true to the stage play that it is based on, uses only three voice-over actors. David Thewlis is the voice for Michael Stone, a world-renowned guru in customer service. Jennifer Jason Leigh is the voice for Lisa and the great Tom Noonan provides the voice for all of the other characters – male or female, young or old.

Michael Stone, despite being a hero to customer service professionals the world over is tired of his life. While at a convention in Cleveland, Stone has an erotic encounter with Lisa, she’s different somehow. No need to tell you too much more except that it’s another great Kaufmann movie and that the hotel details are awesome. For example, the multiple attempts required to get magnetic key cards to open a hotel door are recreated perfectly here. Like any Kaufmann movie there are rich intricacies that will deepen with repeated viewings. The hotel manager has his office in the basement of the hotel… representing the unconscious we guess. But why is the conference room sunken into the floor of the basement, a beacon of beauty and light emanating from the otherwise drab concrete?

This is as funny and great as anything Kaufmann has done. The most fun however might be picturing the Motion Picture Ratings Association’s machinations over how to rate a sex scene that in animated form is funny, sweet and light but had it been done by live actors would get the film an NC-17 rating.

A note on the festival experience: Going into the movie, no one in the audience knew that a single actor would be voicing 99% of the characters. It took a while to discover this surprise. I considered trying to hide that fact in this review so that you could discover it for yourself in the film. But the basis of a film review is to tell you enough of what a film is about to entice you to go (or stay away), and all the other reviews and maybe even the ads for the movie will reveal this fact. Maybe I can entice you to see films at festivals. It’s just more fun and one of the reasons is you will know less about the movies as you walk in.

At the Q&A Mr. Kaufmann was asked if he would do this again and he wasn’t so sure actually. It’s a sad commentary on Hollywood that Charlie Kaufmann doesn’t have a blank check to make movies. He doesn’t make expensive movies, he does make great movies. What is the difficulty?

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Carol

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Telluride Film Festival 2015

The Telluride festival has become a key launching pad for Oscar contending movies. ‘Carol’ is one of those. It won’t be in theaters till Dec 18 but by playing it here the buzz campaign can begin.

This is a still-timely period piece depicting the plight of lesbians in 1950’s America. The legal tag of “immoral behavior” gave society, husbands, bosses, license to destroy people’s lives. Cate Blanchett plays Carol, a moneyed wife and mother while Rooney Mara is Therese, a young and inexperienced department store clerk.

Director Todd Haynes (‘Safe’, ‘I’m Not There’) is in his element here, women afflicted by an unfeeling society has been the subject of many of his films. The 1950’s costumes and sets are well done (but probably not up to the standards of ‘Brooklyn’ which is due in theaters November 6) and Blanchett and Mara do a great job. It’s a very good and polished film which, due to subject matter, will be embraced by the LGBT community. The intense displays of longing, which can barely be spoken, not to mention fulfilled, are a large part of this movie. Even as we feel for these characters, it doesn’t make for the most exciting movie making.

Carol is certainly buzz-worthy and is likely to win something. Lead actress Rooney Mara was the subject of a tribute at Telluride and she has already won the Best Actress award for her role in ‘Carol’ at this year’s Cannes festival. She is the youngest actor to receive a Telluride tribute that I know. In the tribute they featured ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ and Mara’s intense scene as the girlfriend who stands up to Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and his relentless social climbing in ‘The Social Network’. In the tribute interview Rooney revealed that the filming for the four minute/seven page intense bar scene took two days of filming, this was after some days of rehearsal.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Son of Saul

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Telluride Film Festival 2015

When we heard that ‘Son of Saul’ was a holocaust movie playing at Telluride we thought, sight unseen, it was an Oscar contender. This film is not aimed at the Oscars. It is about as high-brow as can be imagined however.

The goal was to show life, and death, inside Auschwitz. To show what it was actually like. For much of the film the camera is looking over the shoulder of Saul (Géza Röhrig). The violence, the executions, happen in the near background. Showing the gore was not what the director was after but the place was violence, plenty of it is visible in the film.

The origin was a book, “Voices from Beneath the Ashes” which is made up of testimonies from the Sonderkommando – prisoners forced to do the dirty work at concentration camps (typically for only a few months before their own eventual execution). Saul, a member of the Sonderkommando attempts to preserve a tiny amount of dignity for himself and his people by working to secretly perform a proper Jewish burial for a young boy that was killed in the camp. A boy that he believes is his son.

The movie was shot, processed and shown in 35mm with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. No bits involved whatsoever. Even the muted colors that went along with these awful events looked unlike (and better) than anything I recall seeing from a digital film. There were issues in projection though – a missed reel change that resulted in a half minute delay and later a botched reel change that resulted in re-showing a part of the film for a minute before switching to the proper reel.

In the Q&A the director quoted Stanley Kubrik on holocaust movies: “The holocaust was about 6 million people who died, ‘Schindler’s List’ is about 1000 people who lived”. ‘Son of Saul’ asks us to spend 107 minutes at the ugly center of the ungodly machine that took 6 million. Saul’s humanity is the buoy that keeps us afloat and lets us walk away from this film uplifted ever so slightly.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Time to Choose

Telluride Film Festival 2015

A documentary about the environmental crisis, specifically catastrophic climate change. This one is not all doom and gloom however. Just pick up your local paper to see how bad things are. Rather, filmmaker Charles Ferguson is making the case that we can reverse climate change. He cites the tremendous progress made already and the economic forces that will make renewable energy so much cheaper than oil and coal that in just a few years, the fossil fuels will quickly go the way of the… dinosaur. (Sorry, had to do it).

The case is compelling and to paraphrase some of the economic experts in the film: “You’re an idiot if you don’t see this one coming”. That is some great news for sure. What the film doesn’t say much about is what to do about the carbon that is already out there. There was a mention of how quickly South American rain forests would come back if we allowed it. Not sure that’s going to be enough, nor is it clear that it would be allowed. In the film we see some of the awful truth of what goes on. The rain forests in Brazil are being destroyed to build the wealth of a small handful of men (as in, you could count them on one hand). These men grow soybeans which are shipped to China as feed for pigs. We don’t see anything in the pipeline that would stop what they are doing.

All in all it’s not nearly as compelling a doc as ‘Inside Job’. Ferguson’s last film about the financial crisis where he used his contacts to get an ambush-interview with a banker. The banker admitted on film that he was part of an academic propaganda campaign meant to discourage rational investigation or commentary on what the banksters were (and still are) doing.

We got a notice that ‘Time to Choose’ would be projected in 4k. Director Charles Ferguson certainly favors high res. In ‘Inside Job’ there are helicopter shots of NY that are simply stunning. I remember thinking that I had never seen images so crisp on any screen.

This film does not yet have distribution. Looking at their website I think this one might become the subject for DVD sales and home theater showings in an effort to build the political grass roots.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

45 Years

Telluride Film Festival 2015

45 years of a happy and intimate marriage are suddenly in question after the receipt of a letter. It’s not from a former flame, rather it announces that the body of a former lover has at long last been found.

This movie does not feature amazing cinematography or much of anything art-film related, except the acting. The two leads just knock it out of the park. Tom Courtenay is a beloved English actor from way back. His first films included ‘Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’ and ‘Doctor Zhivago’. He has spent most of his career as a theater actor. Charlotte Rampling’s first film acting role came about at about the same time. Her first role was as the uncredited water skier in 1965’s ‘The Knack… and How to Get It’. This one, ’45 Years’, is her 108th film or TV series since then. She’s presently also in the TV series ‘Broadchurch’ and has parts in six other films coming out in the next year.

Everyone I talked to at the festival who had seen this, loved it. Just watching these two is enough but the film subtly brings questions and reminds us of the delicacy with which we all navigate through life. There was a lot of discussion about a key scene which is done rather subtly such that a key bit of information goes by quickly and was missed by some. It didn’t matter, those who missed it still loved the movie.

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Viva

Telluride Film Festival 2015

An Irish director, with funding from Irish film board makes a film in Havana, Cuba featuring drag queens. How does this happen exactly? This was the first question in the Q&A after the film. Director Paddy Breathnach had traveled to Cuba and saw a family build a theater in their back yard in support of their son who wanted to perform as a drag queen. This moved him to such an extent he felt like he had to make this movie. See, there’s always an explanation. It is amazing though that the Irish Film Board was willing to fund a film not shot in Ireland. They had some well-placed confidence in this director.

Except for the performances by the drag queens, ‘Viva’ is a quiet film, with a very Cuban flavor. Héctor Medina plays Jesus (Hey-Sus), living alone in the heart of Havana. His father, an ex-boxer shows up unexpectedly after an early release from prison. The movie is shot in just a few places.. Jesus’s apartment, the streets around there, the bar where he performs and a little bit at a boxing club. The timeless quality of Havana spills over into the film. This is one our last chances to see Cuba before its expected transformation in the coming years so is worth a look just for that.

It’s not just a travelogue however, there is a story here, about family, and that is what drives it. This was the last film we saw at Telluride this year. It played in a small theater at about 6:00 pm on Monday night (Labor Day). It used to be that theaters would be about half full (or less) at this time but that isn’t the case anymore. People stay for the duration. In this case the packed theater was pleasantly surprised that the director and cast had also stayed. Not a thing to do, except talk to us about the movie. Jorge Perugorría who plays the father of Jesus told us: “Kate Winslet is here at Telluride, her 1997 movie ‘Titanic’ won an award for special effects because the scene where the enormous ship was sinking was incredibly realistic. Paddy’s film deserves an award for special effects because with his film you can see how an island manages to stay afloat in spite of all the poverty and difficult circumstances.”

Telluride Film Festival 2015

The Labor Day lunch time picnic found Room’s Brie Larson next to Viva’s director Paddy Breathnach. Can’t wait till next year!

Telluride Film Festival 2015

Festival Photos by Ray Keller