Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation’ Review: Friendship in Focus

      by

      The director deftly constructs a dialogue between Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams.Merging two biographies is a solid way to enliven the often-tedious genre of the literary documentary. But the connections drawn in “Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation” are sufficiently instructive that watching and listening to these writers is also, in a way, like hearing one author in stereo.The director Lisa Immordino Vreeland uses the friendship between Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams to construct a dialogue between them, using the writing and appearances they left behind. Jim Parsons reads Capote’s words in voice-over and Zachary Quinto reads Williams’s. (There is a lengthy list of sources at the end; all credit to a documentary that shows its work.) For the visuals, Vreeland relies principally on archival material. Her most striking conceit is to show the writers in separate but parallel interviews with David Frost.We hear the Southern-born authors on their writing habits, on how autobiography inflects their narratives, on their homosexuality and on substance abuse. They express disappointment with films adapted from their work: Williams felt the censorship was so heavy you often needed to see the stage version for comprehension. Capote says Paramount “double-crossed” him by casting Audrey Hepburn (whom he nevertheless praises) instead of Marilyn Monroe in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”There is some bite in stories of their rivalry. (Capote apparently stung Williams with his description of a Williams-like character in his unfinished novel “Answered Prayers.”) “An Intimate Conversation” never quite digs beyond the cultivated personas of either author — a drawback of the archival format. But for anyone invested in the writers, it offers a vivid sketch.Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate ConversationNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters and in virtual cinemas through Kino Marquee. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The French’ Review: A Candid Look at the French Open

      by

      This documentary by William Klein relies on the unspoken or spontaneous moments to tell the tale of the 1981 Open, off court and on.Bjorn Borg won the French Open in 1981. It was his 11th, and final, victory in a Grand Slam tournament — and the sixth time he won this particular event. An ordinary filmmaker constructing a documentary on the Open that year would likely structure its narrative around the implacable, cool Swedish player’s road to glory there.But the American-born photographer and filmmaker William Klein, who spent most of his career working in or from France, is no ordinary filmmaker or photographer. And he was the first director invited by the event to capture the French Open for a feature film. He and his crew took a fly-on-the-wall approach that captures, among other things, what professional tennis looked like before corporatization fully warped it into the glossy commodity it is today. This exceptional 1982 film is getting its U.S. debut this week.In the backstage areas of Roland Garros in Paris, tennis hardly seems a glamorous profession. There’s a lot of waiting around, one-on-one physical therapy, obligatory meet-and-greets, and more. On-court rivals Chris Evert and Virginia Ruzici unite in amusement over Ilie Nastase’s clowning. The future French champion Yannick Noah contends with a sprained ankle. There’s not narration and not much in the way of formal interviews. One of the most trenchant scenes focuses on Paul Cohen, coach of the player Harold Solomon, as he analyzes his charge’s loss in real time. Arthur Ashe and Patrice Hagelauer are seen and overheard watching Noah play Guillermo Vilas.The tedium of various rainouts is chronicled faithfully. Klein and company also catch John McEnroe complaining of having to play in wet weather and sniping at an umpire for good measure. Hana Mandilkova’s near-bemusement at winning the women’s singles is also memorable. Klein weaves all these moments into a story one could call spectacularly earthbound.The FrenchNot rated. In English and French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘A Crime on the Bayou’ Review: Race on Trial

      by

      Nancy Buirski’s documentary deals with a civil rights case in 1960s Louisiana that wound up before the Supreme Court.As a documentary, “A Crime on the Bayou,” directed by Nancy Buirski, is dryly told, but it has a potent idea, which is to show how even bureaucratic aspects of the legal system in the Deep South in the 1960s could be weaponized against Black Americans. To paraphrase Lolis Eric Elie, a son of a lawyer involved in the events in the film, part of what made Jim Crow totalitarian was its arbitrariness: A Black man never knew when he might suddenly be accused of a crime.The supposed crime here occurred in 1966, when Gary Duncan, a 19-year-old fisherman in Plaquemines Parish, La., intervened in a potential skirmish between two of his young relatives, who were students at a newly integrated school, and a group of white boys whom the relatives thought were trying to start a fight. Duncan says he touched a white boy’s arm. For that, he was charged with simple battery. The case wound its way to the United States Supreme Court, where Duncan won a right to a jury trial not previously guaranteed in Louisiana’s state courts.These events are recounted principally by Duncan himself and his lawyer, Richard Sobol, who died last year. Other major voices in the film are Elie and the civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner. Sobol, who was Jewish, recalls being targeted by Leander Perez, the parish’s racist and anti-Semitic political boss. And in covering the repercussions of the branching cases, “A Crime on the Bayou” shows how superficially straightforward, courageous acts — like refusing to plead guilty unjustly or defending the unjustly accused — are hard.A Crime on the BayouNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Summer of 85’ Review: Denim Embraces and Stolen Kisses

      by

      A gay teenagers’s fleeting romance goes off the rails in this coming-of-age story from the French director François Ozon.When the moody, baby-faced Alexis (Félix Lefebvre) capsizes while on a solo trek off the coast of Normandy, France, he looks up and sees lightning in the distance accompanied by a grinning, Adonis-like boy named David (Benjamin Voisin), his savior and the embodiment of the coming storm.The two teenagers throw themselves into an intense friendship that quickly blossoms into a passionate affair filled with blissed-out motorbike rides on country roads, denim-padded embraces and stolen kisses between work shifts. Frothy pop tunes by ’80s bands like the Cure and Bananarama place Alexis’s sweltering coastal romance in the realm of starry-eyed nostalgia.The prolific French director François Ozon wants “Summer of 85” to be more than a gay coming-of-age romance in the vein of “Call Me By Your Name.” With an elliptical narrative that jumps back and forth from Alexis’s summer fling to an unspecified future in which he is being interviewed by a suspicious caseworker about the death of David, the film also aims to be pulpy and provocative, teasing the idea that its lovesick protagonist turns homicidal with jealousy. It ultimately stumbles in this balancing act and loses sight of its emotional core, but its efforts remain compelling and delightfully bizarre.Loosely adapted from Aidan Chambers’s young adult novel, “Dance on My Grave,” “Summer of 85” sees adolescent romance as outrageous and suffocating in its hormonal potency, yet also fleeting and illusory.Less a character study than an exercise in genre, the film leaves Alexis’s working-class background and the nuances of his sexual awakening unconsidered and undeveloped. Scenes become increasingly bonkers as the film hurdles toward tragedy. For instance, David’s cool mom (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) cracks after his death and turns into a resentful, wild-eyed psycho-biddy. Alexis teams up with a flirty British au pair who gives him a drag makeover and smuggles him into a morgue. Alexis’s glib narration of the scene unintentionally heightens the absurdity.Yet unlike many recent L.G.B.T.Q. romances that deploy retrograde views on homosexuality as a convenient tool for conflict, “Summer of 85” uses its vibrant throwback aesthetic to situate two gay men in a cultural fantasy typically reserved for straight couples: the date at the carnival that ends in a fistfight with an embittered “ex,” the star-crossed lovers who sneak around and make morbid, lifelong pacts.Toward the end of the film, reflecting on his time with David, Alexis realizes how he has become a character in a fantastic story — a story full of intrigue and drama, yes, but also one that is light and joyous. Too few queer characters, who are often saddled with tragedy, are so capable of moving on.Summer of 85Not rated. In French and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Les Nôtres’ Review: Hidden Suffering in Plain Sight

      by

      In this moody film, a 13-year-old girl in a Quebec town hides her pregnancy, but her trauma deepens as the identity of the father emerges.Jeanne Leblanc’s “Les Nôtres” goes beyond depicting the pain of harboring a terrible secret and into the realm of the numbness that follows. The 13-year-old Magalie (Émilie Bierre) is hiding that she’s pregnant, and when her condition is found out, many in her small Quebec suburb suspect the father to be the boy next door, Manuel (Léon Diconca Pelletier). Gradually the film reveals her connection with another neighbor, Jean-Marc (Paul Doucet), the town’s mayor and an insidious predator.Magalie’s fairly clueless mother (Marianne Farley) is shocked to learn about her daughter, but the film’s strength isn’t the delayed suspense around unraveling the truth. It’s the sense of suffocation that Magalie feels while putting on the agreeable face of a child going about her school days. Leblanc and her cinematographer Tobie Marier Robitaille suffuse the film’s palette with tamped-down colors and send the camera creeping and looming around Magalie.“Les Nôtres” roughly translates to “Our Own,” which might suggest a condemnation of ineffectual communities. But any societal judgment is less notable than the mood (which feels filtered through Magalie) and the sheer ordinariness of the middle-class neighborhood. That extends to the banal manipulator-in-chief, Jean-Marc (so underplayed by Doucet that one nearly expects some twist).Magalie is able to vent some rage at a certain point, but the film’s drama wrestles itself to a standstill (along with leaving some characterization sketchy, like that of a concerned social worker). Yet Leblanc might come closer to the sensation of concealed trauma than movies with more familiar storytelling beats.Les NôtresNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Movies

      Sparks, a Musical Curiosity With a Big Following for Half a Century

      by

      Edward Wright knows Sparks and you will too, once you see his documentary about this singular cultural phenomenon.Sparks, the musical entity invented and fronted by Ron and Russell Mael, is sometimes rock, sometimes pop, sometimes art song, always idiosyncratic. They’re a cult band with an ever-renewing cult and a career that spans 50 years. “The Sparks Brothers,” an energetic documentary directed by Edgar Wright, explains their appeal in part by emphasizing how it cannot be explained.Sparks’s image is one of contrasts. In the 1970s, the lead singer Russell’s slim physique, bouncy hair and matinee-idol face made him prime rock star “snack” material. Hunched over a keyboard was Ron, the songwriting brother, spindly and pale, whose mustache has been described as uncomfortably poised between Charlie Chaplin’s and Hitler’s. Then there’s what came out of Russell’s mouth — an arch falsetto that might cause a dog to wince, singing ditties about Albert Einstein and breast milk (not in the same song), over precision-tooled guitar riffs and baroque song structures that evoked both Bach and a calliope.“I thought they didn’t really exist,” the musician Nick Heyward says, recounting his surprise when he saw them on the street. “The Sparks Brothers” humanizes the two, who, despite their Euro-vibe were raised in California. Russell was a high-school quarterback, even. Their adored father, an artist, instilled a love of both film and music in the boys. He died when Ron was 11 and Russell 8.Wright, the virtuoso director of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Baby Driver,” among others, and an ace soundtrack assembler, is uniquely suited to make this tribute. Both director and band revel in formal play. Their eccentricity doesn’t entirely shut out earnestness.About sex, the brothers keep relatively mum, although when the subject of Russell’s short-lived romance with his musical collaborator Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s comes up, there’s a bit of mutual humble-bragging by the still-friendly exes. As for drugs, they kept away. Rock ’n’ roll motivated them initially, but it’s something they now have an arm’s-length relationship with, in part because in its purest form it is not entirely hospitable to Sparks’s particular brand of irony.Does the movie slather on the contemporary celebrity love a little too thickly? Maybe. But even the contributions from arguable wild cards — Jason Schwartzman, Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, Neil Gaiman — are pertinent.The Sparks BrothersRated R, inexplicably. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘My Name Is Bulger’ Review: A Boston Saga

      by

      The documentary tells the tale of two brothers who rose to the top of very different professions: a politician, William, and a mob boss, Whitey.Few family sagas were as ready-made for Hollywood (“The Departed,” “Black Mass”) as the tale of the brothers Bulger: William, a titan of Massachusetts politics and university president, and Whitey, a crime boss and F.B.I. informant.“My Name Is Bulger” seems to attempt to exonerate William of guilt by association, but, almost amusingly, the director, Brendan J. Byrne, can’t resist fleshing out Whitey’s world.A sunny biography of William and his rise in the State Senate is punctuated by the downplaying of his involvement with Whitey by grown children and siblings from the bustling Bulger clan. William does hold the room in clips of breakfast roasts and news conferences, but my mind went blank after one chilling question-and-answer about shakedowns with an affable associate of Whitey’s, Kevin Weeks: “What were they giving you money for?” “For their life!”You can feel the Bulger family’s frustration at how William’s career in public service could be overshadowed by the activities of his brother. But the “nothing to see here” focus gives the homey-feeling film the whiff of a sanctioned production. Interviews with Massachusetts political figures (Michael Dukakis, Bill Weld) and journalists broaden the perspective, though the standout might be Whitey’s former girlfriend Catherine Greig, who went into hiding with him in 1995. (Whitey was caught by federal authorities in 2011, and beaten to death in prison seven years later.)Greig’s loving, tearful delivery suggest another thesis lurking beneath: the unknowability of certain relationships from the outside. That will remain true of William and Whitey Bulger — one living, one dead, but neither telling any tales.My Name Is BulgerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Discovery+. More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Sweet Thing’ Review: Little Caregivers, Little Fugitives

      by

      The filmmaker Alexandre Rockwell cast his wife as a negligent mother and his children as runaways in this shimmering black-and-white drama.In the glittering drama “Sweet Thing,” responsible, reserved Billie (Lana Rockwell) loves to sing. She imagines her namesake, the jazz legend Billie Holiday, as a companion and savior. Caregiving is familiar to Billie, who’s a teenager, because the role of protector is one she plays for her younger brother Nico (Nico Rockwell). The pair’s parents are separated, a state of affairs that has plunged their loving father Adam (Will Patton) into a booze-fueled depression. When Adam’s alcoholism lands him in a rehabilitation facility, Billie and Nico are forced to face the darker demons of their mother’s house, where Eve (Karyn Parsons) lives with her abusive boyfriend.Longing for escape, the children meet Malik (Jabari Watkins), a neighborhood boy with every hot-wiring skill an aspiring runaway could ever need. With Malik by their side, Billie and Nico take off from their mother’s home. For the first time, these little fugitives are responsible only for themselves.What makes this simple story special is the style that the writer and director Alexandre Rockwell brings to the screen. Rockwell cast his wife and two children as Eve, Billie and Nico, and their ease and familiarity lends the film naturalistic warmth. His high contrast black-and-white film photography captures the shimmer of light in Billie’s hair. The shadows of her mother’s home sink into oblivion. The movie’s eclectic soundtrack — with songs from Billie Holiday, Van Morrison and Arvo Pärt — sets a nostalgic mood.Here, there are no cellphones, no video games. Instead Rockwell intentionally reminds his audience of the rich history of American independent cinema, where filmmakers across decades have built dreamscapes out of the textures of everyday interactions.Sweet ThingNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters and in virtual cinemas thorough Film Movement. More