Jump Scares Don’t Cause Nightmares: 10 Horror Films that Use Atmosphere Over Jolts

Living in Birmingham, I tend to see wide releases only after they hit theaters, so I keep an ear out for any unlikely multiplex film to earn positive buzz. Chief among recent, surprising critical darlings is a horror film released in the middle of summer. James Wan’s “The Conjuring,” out today, arrives on a wave of critical praise rare for a horror film. Michael Phillips calls it “an ‘Amityville Horror’ for a new century” before comparing Wan’s direction to Robert Altman’s, while our own William Goss says that though “we’ve seen swarms of birds, levitating furniture and chaotic third-act exorcisms before, even down to its very last shot, “The Conjuring” demonstrates a scary — and welcome — amount of care.” It all sounded too good to be true, until I noticed a recurring tidbit in the reactions. Whether negative or positive, the buzz for “The Conjuring” has made special note of its volume of jump scares.

Most eye-catching was Calum Marsh’s article for this site, in which, as the title claims, he argues that the film is simply too scary. Admitting he found the film terrifying, Marsh goes on to say that the film “makes every gesture a fatal blow, paying off each moment of suspense almost the second it is established. Its most radical quality isn’t the extremity of any of its single scares…but rather its overall guiding principle, which is that no moment should go to waste.” But that same overwhelming asset ultimately becomes “exhausting,” a horror film comprising only a string of jump-scares that gives the audience no reprieve.

For a horror film to be described, whether by Marsh of the MPAA itself, as “too scary” is certainly a dream problem for a filmmaker, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sound appealing. But even the praise for “The Conjuring” has started to make the feature sound like its own YouTube compilation of “Best Scenes from ‘The Conjuring,’” like a horror version of “The Raid.” Where at least “The Raid’s” counterproductive distillation of the action genre to a constant movement between setpieces at least had the advantage of well-choreographed fighting, “The Conjuring’s” vaunted series of expert jump scares are hobbled in one respect: jump scares suck.

Well, that’s not fair. Some jump scares are so ingeniously executed they take on a life of their own. The hand in “Carrie.” The blood test in “The Thing.” The homeless “monster” appearing behind the diner in “Mulholland Dr.” Even James Wan’s earlier “Insidious” shows a flair for setting up such payoffs and ably knocking them down, and by all accounts “The Conjuring” improves on that film’s strengths. But to excel at crafting films of nothing but scares is like being a master of cotton candy, putting great care into something that instantly dissipates. Deafening noises, bursts of music, faces materializing from nowhere can make the heart skip, send popcorn flying from tubs and reduce one to watching a screen through woven fingers, but after going home and surviving the night, all the just-a-cat moments and demon faces and gore slip from the mind.

Perhaps I should clarify that I’ve often delineated scariness, which describes an emotional reaction and is most susceptible to sudden frights, to horror, a method and focus of storytelling that, at its best, brings out one’s fears less for a quick scare than for a more sinister confirmation of the justifiability of those phobias and anxieties. To scare is not necessarily easy, but often it lacks the haunting power of great horror. In the moment, “The Conjuring” may be the most unbearably tense experience I have all year, but if it’s anything like “Insidious,” I’ll be going to Wikipedia the next time Wan makes a film to look up details just to remind myself what happened. Even Sam Raimi’s parody of this approach, “Drag Me to Hell,” worked a little too well at aping its targets’ mannerisms: nowadays, I remember only white noise and its meaningless twist ending.

For various reasons, horror is often compared to comedy: both deal in cathartic releases and are judged by the intensity of vocal responses to those releases. The volume of laughs and screams, then, becomes the yardstick for measuring a film’s success. But to equate the two is to miss how differently the genres work: comedy lives on surprise, where the outcome of an unexpected punchline is the reward. Horror, though, works through anticipation, through the unnerving setup of a person, place, even world that subtly turns against a character until hope is lost. In other words, comedy, no matter how long-winded and carefully ordered the setup, is about the end, while horror is about the means.

Atmosphere, then, gives horror its power, from Edgar Allen Poe’s stories through the Brontë sisters’ demented romances through H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic doom. The best horror films, likewise, do not treat the act of unsettling an audience as a mere primer for the eventual spooks as an ongoing process of warping not just the world within the film, but the one outside the theater. Images, and, more importantly, moods, stay in the mind for days, weeks and occasionally even a lifetime after experiencing them. These movies may not be “scary” in the sense of eliciting screams, but they live on like Poe’s beating heart, or the impenetrable moors of “Wuthering Heights.” Below are 10 such films, a sampling of features spanning from the studio system to the present day, that may not send you running from the theater in terror like “The Conjuring” but may just come back to unnerve you later. By no means the last word on great horror, these films mark a good starting point to finding horror movies that work in mysterious ways.

“Diabolique” by Henri-Jacques Clouzot (1955)

“Diabolique” is a colossal horror fake-out, an entire plot structured on the “just a cat” principle as a trio of closely linked but secretly combative teachers plot to off each other and disguise their own duplicity as death. This is a film where the absence of a corpse scares more than the sudden appearance of one, and when one “reanimates,” Clouzot’s filming of the scene in silence and slow-motion flies in the face of generic expectation and is all the more frightening for it. The reversals continue all the way until the end, in which the monsters themselves are shocked with a normal person walks out from the shadows to defeat them.

“Night of the Demon” by Jacques Tourneur (1958)

Tourneur’s three films for Val Lewton (“Cat People,” “The Leopard Man” and “I Walked with a Zombie”) pretty much throw down the gauntlet for atmospheric horror, but not to be forgotten is this lesser remarked-upon feature, in which Tourneur goes against his ambiguous early horror to clearly show the existence of a monster at the top of the film. That makes the film more outwardly jolting than the eerily absent terrors of Tourneur’s other genre work, but Dana Andrews still plays things as if the looming demon might be a feverish hallucination that he can will out of existence. And even when the demon fills the frame, Tourneur’s vast gulfs of space remain unparalleled for the sheer discomfort and foreboding: in showing huge frames with nowhere to hide, Tourneur somehow only enhances the feeling that something will pop out from nowhere.

“The Haunting” by Robert Wise (1963)

The haunted house film naturally lends itself to atmosphere, what with the “monster” being the mise-en-scène, but Robert Wise’s 1963 masterpiece sets a standard few can meet. Before unseen forces pound at doors and lost visitors pop out of trap doors, the film sets its mood with brilliantly curved frames, warping perspective and confounding one’s sense of space at all times. No monster ever materializes from the shadows, but Wise’s meticulous tension building makes what most horror films would consider spooky setups (disembodied laughter, the turn of a doorknob of its own volition) act as effective payoffs. Wise cut his teeth on Val Lewton movies, and no film made since Lewton’s death so thoroughly demonstrates the knowledge of what made the producer’s work great.

“Repulsion” by Roman Polanski (1965)

This writer’s favorite horror film of all time is something of a haunted house movie, but only in the sense that the house (well, apartment) is both the vehicle for supernaturally grim manifestations and the victim of same. Cathereine Deneuve’s shut-in anthrophobic projects cracks and decay upon the walls as she stews in paranoid energy in her sister’s absence, and the apartment retaliates by materializing the sources of her deep fears. Polanski plays out the socio-sexual undercurrents of the film’s horrors through his camera, using his mastery with unorthodox, teasing compositions and undulating focal lengths to visualize not merely paranoia but a female perspective as it navigates a world aligned against it. The shot of arms reaching out from the walls to grope Carol, violating her in what should be her private sanctuary, is one of the great horrific images for its surreal shock, and its deeper implications.

“Don’t Look Now” by Nicolas Roeg (1973)

Nicolas Roeg’s elliptically ordered chamber horror tilts off its axis so rapidly that the spill of red ink on a photograph at the top of the movie proves a scarier use of red goop than the goriest pictures. As soon becomes clear, the monster of the film is grief, the destabilizing effect of losing a child on parents whose broken spirits lend the movie its erratic structure. The most accomplished horror features provide a keen sense of place, but “Don’t Look Now” is the rare film that benefits from obliterating any foothold for the audience to orient themselves, its looping movement only clarifying place and time in retrospect, and after several viewings.

“Possession” by Andrzej Zulawski (1981)

If “Don’t Look Now” consumes itself in agony over a lost child, “Possession” puts forward a strong case for never having kids in the first place. Zulawski mines Lovecraft for an extreme take on miscarriage, postpartum depression and more, with Isabelle Adjani’s powerful performance rooted in melodrama as much as terror. Images from the film linger for years: Adjani collapsing in a puddle of spilled milk and uterine blood, a double take of her rebelling on the street against Sam Neill’s abusive husband, and the final image of a monster’s hands slowly beating on a frosted glass door as bombers circle overhead. All monsters are grotesque expressions of inner human fears, but few feel as palpably connected to internal madness as the creature Adjani births.

“Prince of Darkness” by John Carpenter (1987)

Just about any Carpenter film deserves a mention when it comes to finely constructed, precision-timed horror, but in atmospheric terms, he tops himself with “Prince of Darkness.” From the moment that Donald Pleasence (in his most fear-stricken but least panicky role for Carpenter) confesses to a long-standing Church conspiracy to conceal pure evil with a mixture of disgust, resignation, and the quiver of deep fear, a pall of gloom is cast over the proceedings that mutes even the handful of jolts into something more cosmic. Interdimensional mirrors, a mass of zombified homeless, the slow dissolve of a possessed colleague into a mound of ants never overstep the film’s limited scale, but they all suggest a much larger presence that can only be directly seen in such minor visions because the full thing would be incomprehensible to us.

“Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” by David Lynch (1992)

David Lynch is the greatest horror director of non-horror films, though if he ever did make an outright entry into the genre, it was with his maligned masterpiece “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.” With the actual mystery of Laura Palmer’s death solved, for better or worse, on the show, this quasi-prequel narratively covers trod ground. Emotionally, however, this is as harrowing and devastating and unrelenting as anything to ever be foisted on an unprepared public, in which a town so friendly to an affable male outsider turns toxic and unpitying for a girl who grew up there. The longer format and ongoing weirdness of the show put the focus on its supernatural elements, but “Fire Walk with Me” makes the likes of BOB seem more like coping mechanisms for blotting out the more sadly common horrors of rape, incest and murder. “Fire Walk with Me” forces the viewer to see the world through the eyes of someone who can find no solace in it, where even the spinning of a ceiling fan or a creepy painting contain a sense of danger.

“Pulse” by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (2001)

“Pulse” could have gone so wrong (just look at the American remake). A film directly tied to an emerging technology will instantly date itself, but “Pulse,” released before the widespread adoption of high-speed internet, the rise of social media and various other developments of Internet life, only seems to get more relevant. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s chiller finds ghosts in the machines, which crawl out slowly, not suddenly, and bring with them less a sense of terror than abject melancholy. The subtext of the Internet uniting people through a false sense of presence as it isolates mankind is hardly original, but Kurosawa suffuses the film with such rich despair that the viewer’s own life force threatens to turn to ash. Even the insistent score only spikes after a ghost has appeared, or a person has reacted extremely to loneliness, turning even the one truly clichéd element on its head.

“Halloween II” by Rob Zombie (2009)

For someone who so gleefully trades in throwback schlock, Rob Zombie admirably avoids the easy reward of jump scares. (Even his most jump-ridden feature, his recent “Lords of Salem,” puts its surprises in deep background rather than the fore.) His finest outing, “Halloween II,” finds its true monster less in Michael Myers than in the PTSD triggered in survivors from his first spree of terror. In both the theatrical and especially the director’s cuts, Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) rips apart bonds with friends and surrogate family as the agony of her survivor’s guilt proves too much to bear. So frightening is Laurie’s self-immolation that when her brother returns, one is tempted to see him only as a manifestation of Laurie’s fear, as well as a now-necessary agent for her release. The film asks what happens to the Final Girl after she becomes the Final Girl, finding no victory, only a mere prolonging of torture that ends only when recurring monsters, or new forces, finish the job only just started with a franchise’s first entry.

Categories: Features, Lists

Tags: Diabolique, Halloween, Horror Movies, Jake Cole, James Wan, Jump Scares, Night of the Demon, Repulsion, Rob zombie, The Conjuring

The 10 Most Beautiful Animated Films Ever Made

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Frankly, this is so true I’m inclined to not even consider it a cliché. This is why every Top Ten list is a little bit silly to begin with, and most of them aren’t even about beauty, per se. To sit down and write a list of the ten most aesthetically beautiful animated feature films of all time seems, well, impossible. Yet here at Film.com we do not believe in “impossible” (in fact, we don’t even believe in “The Impossible”), so I’m going to give this a shot anyway.

While it would be ridiculous to assert that a list like this is definitive, I have tried to make sure that it is at least representative. The greatest works of animated cinema are not all hand-drawn, nor are they all computer-generated. Animation is almost as old as the medium itself, starting (perhaps) with “Fantasmagorie” in 1908. Since then there have been a whole slew of techniques, more than a few of which I’ve made an effort to highlight here. Moreover, the international dimension of the art form shouldn’t be overlooked. Animation is more than Disney and the Hollywood studios, more than even Studio Ghibli. And with with the somewhat garish “Turbo” racing into theaters (read our rather positive review here), it’s important to remember that animation is a lot more than what most audiences are sold these days.

Finally, I’d like to stress just how fantastic animated films actually are. That, again, sounds silly. But animated features don’t show up on Sight and Sound lists, they rarely get nominated for Oscars outside of their own category, and many critics seem to assume that the art of animation is only for children. Theoretically, the absolute freedom of animators to do whatever they want with any frame should excite film nerds, rather than bore them. Consider this list a little bit of a wake-up call.

10. “Grave of the Fireflies” by Isao Tokahata (1988)

When discussing beauty in animation, we usually think of the pleasant stuff. Breathtakingly pristine landscapes, warm colors, every Disney princess’s perfectly painted hair. Yet there’s an artistic achievement in the design of tragedies as well, even the most horrific ones. Isao Tokahata’s “Grave of the Fireflies” is a stunning example, a touching portrait of two children caught in the extended bombing of Japan’s cities by the United States in the last months of World War Two. This association of fire bombs with fireflies taps into both the innocence of children in wartime and the grandiose destruction inflicted on so many Japanese cities (even before the last, nuclear assault). It has a beauty that brings tears.

9. “Waltz with Bashir” by Ari Folman (2008)

Ari Folman’s documentary about his own experiences during the 1982 Lebanon War is even more gorgeously made, though in a very different way. Folman’s technique seems like rotoscoping, but is actually a unique combination of traditional and computer animation. The result is a virtual reality that filters the true-to-life horrors witnessed by its director/protagonist through the waves of the mind. Somehow the resulting images present beauty within catastrophe, portraying the vivid potential of memory without trivializing the massacre deep in Folman’s past.

8. “Coraline” by Henry Selick (2009)

Four of the films on this list were made within the last ten years, which I understand probably invalidates it to many of you. I want to stress that the most exciting time for animation wasn’t the Hollywood Golden Age of the 1930s-1950s, but rather may very well be happening right now. It isn’t just CGI, either. Laika arrived on the feature filmmaking scene in 2009 with “Coraline,” an exquisitely dark fairy tale in stop motion, adapted from Neil Gaiman’s novel. It haunts in the best way, and with the triumph of “ParaNorman” last year, Laika is well on its way.

7. “Fantastic Planet” by René Laloux (1973)

“Fantastic Planet” is deeply strange, in that wonderful 1970s science fiction sort of way. René Laloux’s film is a masterwork of cutout stop-motion, the kind that many of us associate most strongly with Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python antics. This film raises the bar, tapping into a weirdness that is cool but not cold, otherworldly but not too distant. It may not be the most intricate of allegories, but its images are exactly what I’d hope to find on any faraway planet.

6. “Paprika” by Satoshi Kon (2006)

Satoshi Kon’s layered and lunatic masterpiece makes “Inception” look dumb, or at the very least too dour. The manic procession that marches through the collective dream at the center of “Paprika” is probably more visually interesting than anything in Christopher Nolan’s filmography, but that’s a conversation for another time. The layers of consciousness in Kon’s extraordinary universe expand with gusto and a multitude of bold colors, richer than your wildest dreams.

5. “WALL-E” by Andrew Stanton (2008)

The opening scenes of “WALL-E” may very well be the culmination of all CGI animation, at least for now. So what if it takes place on and around an enormous heap of garbage? That’s a crucial part of its beauty. Its embrace of simplicity is its triumph, an intensely complex technical effort required to produce something so humble, but with great artistic ambition. This mastery of contradiction, a space epic about two robots who don’t speak, is Pixar’s magnum opus.

4. “Princess Mononoke” by Hayao Miyazaki (1997)

Now, picking a single Hayao Miyazaki film is not easy. “Spirited Away” is formidable, and has more than a few times been called the greatest animated feature ever made. Yet “Princess Mononoke” might just have the edge in purely stunning artwork. It’s a redefinition of the word lush, with the goal of making every prior depiction of a forest in cinema look like a parking lot. It comes pretty close. The Deer God in particular is a stroke of genius, but everything around it fits right in to this uncompromising insistence on total natural beauty. It also makes “Avatar” look pretty foolish, which we can all enjoy.

3. “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” by Lotte Reiniger (1922)

The third most beautiful animated feature of all time is also the earliest surviving. One is hard-pressed to find anything in this world more perfect than Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette puppetry. The color-tinted prints are so intricate, so masterfully constructed that it seems impossible this work could be so old, so rudimentary. It is, in a way, the first superhero movie, and does not slouch when it comes to the requisite visual bravado. If you have an opportunity to catch this on the big screen, with live accompaniment, pounce on it. It will be one of the defining cinematic experiences of your life.

2. “Fantasia” by Walt Disney (1940)

There are other breathtakingly beautiful Disney feature films (obviously). None of them, however, are about beauty in the way that “Fantasia” is. Walt Disney set out to bring the titanic works of classical music to the public accompanied by cartoons both clever and foreboding. The very idea is deeply in love with art itself. The Night on Bald Mountain sequence is a nightmare come to life, while the flowery Nutcracker sequence might be the best use of Tchaikovsky on screen. As for the Rite of Spring, it makes The Land Before Time look like cheap TV. Each of these sequences could stand on their own among the best cartoons ever made – together, they are unique.

1. “The Thief and the Cobbler” by Richard Williams (1964-1993)

This could probably be considered cheating. “The Thief and the Cobbler” is the great unfinished masterpiece of Richard Williams, the Oscar-winning animator behind “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” the 1971 “A Christmas Carol” and countless classic title sequences. He began working on his passion project in 1964. It was to be a chef d’oeuvre, the culmination of a whole career of experience. Yet the money wasn’t there, and production was on and off for years. In 1988 Warner Bros. decided to give him the backing he needed, but Williams went over budget. The film was eventually finished by producer Fred Calvert for a completion bond company, and the version that finally made it to theaters was less than stellar. For more, track down the new documentary on the subject, “Persistence of Vision.”

Now, what survived Calvert’s hack job is extraordinary. The mangled plot isn’t, and much of the changes ruin the film as a whole. Yet now we have another option. Artist Garrett Gilchrist has spent years working on the “Recobbled Cut,” restoring the original work print. He is now in the midst of Mark 4, and has put his works in progress on YouTube. The film’s opening zoom in to the Golden City remains breathtaking, an introduction to a setting with bombast in spades. Its inhabitants, meanwhile, lilt with an uncommon grace. Every frame is beautifully arranged, the whole film choreographed with effortless fluidity. It is the rarest of accomplishments, somehow both rigidly geometric and liberated from form, brilliant even in its unfinished state.

Categories: Features, Lists

Tags: Animated movies, Animation, Coraline, Disney, Dreamworks, Grave of the Fireflies, Henry selick, Paprika, Prince Achmed, Satoshi Kon, Turbo, Wall-e, Waltz With Bashir

July at the Movies: The 10 Must-See Films of the Month (and the 1 to Avoid at all Costs)

Oh hai! July here, presenting you with the five indies and five studio flicks to consider checking out this month, for better or worse, and one movie to avoid at all costs, for better x1000. This month, we have the movie that won Sundance, the one that got booed at Cannes and, because it’s July, the one with the monsters fighting the robots. Don’t cancel the apocalypse quite yet, it’s time for a look at the best movies to see this month.

THE WAY, WAY BACK (July 5) // READ OUR REVIEW

This Sundance hit that closed the Los Angeles Film Festival last week comes to theaters riding all sorts of hype. Although ads tout the film as being from the “studio that brought you “Juno” and “Little Miss Sunshine”", “The Way Way Back” is more similar in tone to directors Jim Rash and Nat Faxon’s Oscar winning screenplay “The Desendants”, leaning heavily towards the genuine rather than the quirky.

“The Way Way Back” is firmly grounded in reality (although Steve Carrell playing such a horrible human being does take some getting used to), as it tells a classic coming of age tale surrounding a 14 year old boy as he starts working at a water park and finds a mentor in Owen, the enthusiastically loquacious man in charge, portrayed with usual vigor by Sam Rockwell. Don’t wait too long to catch this one, as it might seem rather slight when held up against its early praise. Ultimately, “The Way Way Back” has its heart in the right place and is worth a watch, even if it might not be the sleeper Oscar darling Fox Searchlight is hoping it will be.

PACIFIC RIM (July 12)

Already stirring up controversy due to low tracking numbers, Guillermo del toro’s $200-million robot vs monster action extravaganza finally hits theaters a full year after fanboys and girls lost their collective s**t at the Warner Brothers panel at Comic-Con 2012. In this action movie set in the near future, monstrous creatures known as Kaiju have begun emerging from beneath the ocean, causing chaos and destruction everywhere they go. Naturally, the human race develops giant robots called Jaegers to fight back. “Pacific Rim” specifically chronicles the end of this war, as hope begins to wane and few options remain, but somehow the secrets to victory involve Charlie Day, Ron Pearlman AND Idris Elba. Expect dymaic fight scenes and appropriately bizarre B-movie humor, plus all of the conventions in place you would expect from a movie of this size, but without the cynicism evinced in blockbuster fare like the Transformers series.

CRYSTAL FAIRY (July 12) // READ OUR REVIEW

In this indie flick that made the festival circuit rounds to relatively positive reviews earlier this year, Michael Cera plays an American on vacation in Chile determined to have a hallucinatory cactus trip on the beach. In a bold move, Cera portrays his most unlikeable character yet as Jamie, a self-involved, judgmental twenty-something in desperate need of redemption. The stand out here, however, is Gaby Hoffman, as the titular free spirited woman who Jamie encounters along the way. It’s questionable whether or not this arthouse flick would have seen the light of day without the attachment of Cera, but if you’re willing to go on the journey, you may find that “Crystal Fairy” has lot to say about how and why we look inward and outward, playing with notions of perception and introspection in an easy, hands-off sort of way.

FRUITVALE STATION (July 12) // READ OUR REVIEW

Keep an eye on director Ryan Coogler’s Sundance Grand Jury and Audience Award winner. If you want to be in on this conversation early, before the hype becomes too much to live up to, head to a theater this weekend to catch this fictionalization of the last day in the life of Oscar Grant (an outstanding Michael B. Jordan), the young man infamously and unjustly killed at Oakland’s Fruitvale Station by police officers in 2009.

THE CONJURING (July 19) // READ OUR REVIEW

This horror flick from James Wan (“Saw”, “Insidious”) has been appearing on the genre convention circuit since last year’s New York Comic Con, where its debut footage had 3,500 people audibly squirming and screaming. The film, based on the true story of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) who take on the case of a family allegedly being terrorized by dark forces, is apparently so scary, it received an R rating despite having absolutely no gore, intense violence, nudity, or harsh language to speak of. Early reviews have praised the old-fashioned effectiveness of thoughtful, visceral scares that rely more on tension and imagination than blood and guts.

R.I.P.D.  (July 19)

Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges star in this adaptation of the popular Dark Horse title, “Rest In Peace Department”, about deceased cops who carry their jobs over in into the afterlife, catching and returning souls who try to escape death by disguising themselves as ordinary people on Earth. The first footage, which debuted at Cinema Con 2012, looked pretty fun and humorously on the nose coming off of Bridges’ performance in “True Grit”. But can Reynolds, whose last credited live action role was February 2012's “Safe House”, still draw blood at the box office? Do we even care?

Director Robert Schwentke certainly has a strange enough track record as the man responsible for “Flightplan”, “Time Traveler’s Wife”, and “Red” (the sequel for which is coincidentally opening opposite “RIPD” this weekend) and critics are already worried as the film isn’t screening until the night before opening. But…Jeff Bridges! Don’t suck. Come on. Ugh. This is totally going to suck.

Available in probably unnecessary 3D.

ONLY GOD FORGIVES (JULY 19) // READ OUR REVIEW

Warning: Nicholas Wending Refn’s next movie, the most anticipated of his career following break out hit “Drive”, is not a crowd pleaser. “Only God Forgives” is strange, slow, violent, morbid, disturbing, and absolutely nothing like “Drive” beyond the fact that Ryan Gosling stars in both and, for the most part, speaks in neither. It follows a mother (a deliciously diabolical and undeniably fantastic Kristen Scott Thomas) seeking revenge for her eldest son’s murder, and the role her youngest son (Gosling) plays in this misguided mission. “Only God Forgives” is a full sensory experience that Winding Refn himself likens to an acid trip. It may fascinate you, bore you, piss you off, or some combination of the three.

Not in 3D. Thank god.

THE ACT OF KILLING (July 19)

This unsettling documentary first made its mark at last years Toronto and Telluride film festivals and further demonstrated its popularity with sold out screenings at SXSW and LA Film Festival in 2013. This month is your chance to finally see this powerful, surreal and chilling doc in which Indonosian death squad leaders reenact the mass killings they themselves have committed, in the style of their beloved American movies. To further the strangeness, these men are considered heroes in their country, a notion fundamentally counterintuitive to what we as a people believe and are capable of perceiving. But if you have ever wanted to see the perpetrator of mass genocide star in his own western/musical/gangster flick about committing said atrocities, well hey, now is your chance! Do not miss your opportunity to catch this brilliant piece of filmmaking while it is in theaters and don’t be surprised to hear of it a hell of a lot more come Oscar season.

Film.com recently premiered a series of exclusive images from this astonishing film.

THE WOLVERINE (July 26)

Hugh Jackman returns to what he does best in this non-sequel to “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (which was itself a prequel to “X-Men”), this new film taking place directly after the events of “X-Men: The Last Stand”, that also might be universe crossing with “X-Men First Class”, a prequel to this entire universe, which has a sequel on the way that further crosses over with the later “X-Men” and “Wolverine” movies. What? You asked. This particular arc is based on the time Wolvie went to Japan and fell in love and crap, based on the 1982 arc “Wolverine” by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, a story that Guillermo Del Toro considers his personal favorite. The film doesn’t seem poised to be a critical success, but with director James Mangold (“3:10 to Yuma”) behind the camera, you have good reason to keep your fingers crossed.

Yes, it is in 3D, but post converted and eh.

THE TO-DO LIST (July 26)

In a move sure to rock indie romantic comedies everywhere, Aubrey Plaza makes the jump from quirky supporting character to quirky lead character in the feature length directorial debut of Maggie Carey, Funny or Die writer and wife of Bill Hader. Plaza plays a straight A square in the early 90s who decides she must become more sexually experienced before beginning college. Everyone ever who is funny appears in this movie, ranging from the Derrick Comedy boys (who Plaza worked with on 2009's “Mystery Team”) to Bill Hader, natch, to Clark Gregg to Adam Pally to Andy Samberg to Alia Shawkat and okay, maybe not everyone funny EVER, but lots of them, certainly.  Definitely go see it on a date with a fellow high schooler you hope to lose your virginity to.

TURKEY OF THE MONTH:

GROAN-UPS 2

Too easy, you say? Why this when “Turbo” and “Smurfs 2? and “Pacific Rim” (SHUT UP ALREADY!) are also opening? Because. This represents all that is sad about everything. Four comedians past their prime doing something stupid for money.  Not into it. And if it beats my baby “Pacific Rim” at the box office like everyone is predicting, I’m gonna have the biggest sad since “White House Down” opened nationwide at #3. We tried, Chan. We tried.

Ed note: Um, also there’s a new Woody Allen film this month! “Blue Jasmine” opens on July 26.

Categories: Features

Tags: Crystal Fairy, Fruitvale Station, July at the Movies, LoquaciousMuse, Only God Forgives, Pacific Rim, RIPD, The Conjuring, The Wolverine

Ranked: The Films of Pedro Almodóvar From Worst to Best

Ranking filmographies is a little silly and a lot impossible. Ranking the films of Pedro Almodóvar is particularly fraught, in part because they are so different. In a career that has spanned over three decades, he has made quite the complex stylistic journey from his rough and rebellious Movida comedies to his polished art house achievements.

At the same time, however, comparing his films is troubled because of how much they share. The performances of his usual actors and actresses build off of each other, from decade to decade and from film to film. His greatest masterpieces are not individual works, rather but the larger ideas that he’s engaged with over the years.

That being said, ranking is all sorts of fun. Here are all 19 feature films directed by Pedro Almodóvar, listed in increasing order of magnificence. (Also be sure to check out our new interview with Almodóvar, in which he discusses “I’m So Excited!” and compares disco to The Bible).

19. “I’m So Excited!”

Well, this is depressing. Almodóvar’s newest feature is his first bad film, the lone flat work in a career of quirky underrated gems and universally hailed masterpieces. The comedy doesn’t quite work, the drama is oddly structured, and it has none of the punk fun of the auteur’s earlier efforts at ribaldry. It’s a disappointment, through and through.

18. “Broken Embraces”

With its director protagonist, “Broken Embraces” could ostensibly be seen as Almodóvar’s most personal film. It certainly takes liberally from his filmography, simultaneously spoofing and paying homage to “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” Yet it doesn’t have much bite, and in some ways has the blandest approach to character of any of his dramas of the last decade.

17. “Kika”

Of course, “Broken Embraces” is still a good movie. So is “Kika,” which includes some of Almodóvar’s most interesting ideas regarding the media. It’s particularly prescient around the role of reality television, and the constant obsession we have with the more violent of criminal acts. Victoria Abril is excellent, as a sort of sexed-up Nancy Grace with more guts. Calling it a “minor work” would be silly, but also not inaccurate. Track it down anyway.

16. “Pepi, Luci, Bom”

“Pepi, Luci, Bom” is a terribly solid first film. It’s a wonderful early example of Almodóvar’s impish and freewheeling sense of morality, in this case driving straight at the militaristic heart of the culture of Franco’s Spain. It may not necessarily deserve to be on a list of the top debut features of all time, but it’s an awful lot of fun. It’s also a must for fans of Carmen Maura, though leading Movida musician Alaska steals the show.

15. “Live Flesh”

Others absolutely adore this one, and I can’t really blame them. It opens with one of Almodóvar’s best sequences, a very pregnant Penélope Cruz trying to find her way to a hospital to give birth on Christmas Eve, 1970 in the middle of a Franco-ordered state of emergency. The resulting baby grows up to be Victor, played unsettlingly by Liberto Rabal in the role of a lifetime. It’s perhaps the director’s most direct exploration of masculinity, most astutely through Javier Bardem’s character. Yet there’s something missing here, and it seems to take place slightly outside of Almodóvar’s world.

14. “Dark Habits”

“Dark Habits” is like “Sister Act,” but so much better. There are nuns doing drugs, nuns raising a tiger, lesbian nuns and nuns who write pornographic novels. The ensemble of actresses is an Almodóvar dream team, the key element to most of his better films. At times it almost feels too irreverent, a little obvious in its lampooning of organized Catholicism. Yet in the end it wins you back with some bongos and a fabulous nightclub act.

13. “High Heels”

Film scholar Linda Williams has addressed “High Heels” as the ultimate female Freudian myth, a tale of mother and daughter that dives right into the inherent sexual psychological tension therein, and replaces Oedipus. I’m not sure about that, but it’s certainly one of the more interesting mother-daughter films out there. With Bibi Andersen, Luz Casal, and Chavela Vargas along for the ride, “High Heels” is a drag “Stella Dallas” for the ‘90s.

12. “The Flower of My Secret”

Marisa Paredes is an immensely talented actress, and is the sole reason that “The Flower of My Secret” is this high up on this list. True, there’s nothing particularly irritating about this tale of a romance novelist sick of her repetitive trade. There just isn’t anything extra-compelling about it either. Yet Paredes turns it out, bringing the sort of frantic urban life crisis a kind of realty that most narratives of this sort don’t even touch on.

11. “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”

Blending the shell of an Italian Neorealist film with Almodóvar’s ridiculous flare for the comic (and a plot point stolen from Alfred Hitchcock Presents), “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” is among the director’s stranger projects. Maura is, as usual, on the top of her game, and the film’s gleeful lack of regard for any common standard of morality makes it both brilliant and hilarious.

READ THE TOP 10 ON PAGE 2.

Categories: Lists

Tags: Antonio banderas, Daniel Walber, I'm So Excited, List, Pedro almodovar, Penelope cruz, Ranked, The skin i live in

June at the Movies: The 11 Films You Must See this Month

Maybe it’s the beautiful spring weather, maybe it’s the fact that we need some semblance of hope after this week’s episode of Game of Thrones, but we’re feeling pretty positive this month, electing to give you a preview of eleven movies to keep an eye on and no recommendations to avoid anything! Optimism! We even see the good in “The Internship”! $12 for two hours of air conditioning? Sounds like a good deal to us.

JUNE 7TH

“The Internship“

GGOOOOOOGLLEEEEYYY. Director Shawn Levy’s track record may be anything but comforting, but this movie was shot AT GOOGLE HEADQUARTERS so honestly who cares. I have strange criteria. No, but truthfully it seems as though the story behind the scenes here is way more worthwhile than the movie itself, which is already receiving poor reviews. Google agreed to let the film use its HQ and branding in order to appeal to a mainstream audience outside of the tech community. As the LA Times notes, Google perks including nap pods, beach volleyball courts, and free gourmet food all make appearances on screen. Since the movie is pretty much “The Wedding Crashers”, but Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson crashing Google instead of a wedding, the real appeal here is solely the Google element and might literally be the only reason anyone ever bothers to see it.

“Much Ado About Nothing”

Joss Whedon’s highly anticipated adaptation of the beloved Shakespeare play finally comes to theaters and the Whedonites of the world rejoice! This excellently executed take on the play emphasizes the dark, sensual side of the comedy and showcases another side to a slew of Whedon regulars, including Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Fran Kranz and Sean Maher and introduces the striking Jillian Morgese as Hero. The movie is everything you want it to be, regardless as to whether you see yourself as Shakespeare Fan, a Whedonite, both or neither. Enjoy.

Read our full review.

JUNE 14

“Man of Steel“

Zack Snyder directs this reboot of the Superman series, produced by Chris Nolan, starring Henry Cavil and Amy Adams as Supes and Lois Lane. Snyder has a lot to make up for in the fan community after “Sucker Punch” (although I liked it just fine WHATEVER) – could it be his sensibility paired with the serious, grounded tone of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy that brings Snyder back into the genre fan’s good graces? Luckily, early word is that the film delivers. Please oh please be true.

“This is the End”

How awkward is it that in a month with a new Superman movie, the sequel to my favorite Pixar movie and “World War Z”, my most anticipated studio film is a random end of the world comedy? The conceit is just too enticing: Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride and James Franco play themselves, trapped at James Franco’s house as the world comes to an end. Sure, the subject matter was recently (and successfully) tackled by “It’s a Disaster”, with a serious take hitting the big screen in “Goodbye World” at LA Film Fest this month, but the meta aspect takes this well-tread concept to a whole new level. It’s a fascinating idea to have a film starring characters we think we know already, playing on our expectations of celebrity and eliminating the need for much if any exposition and back story. How can this movie not be at least a little bit awesome?

Read our full review.

“The Bling Ring“

Some love it, many don’t, but what else is new, Sofia Coppola? Being described as the slightest and therefore most accessible of her work, Coppola fans may find themselves somewhat disappointed, but perhaps it also means the film may become more of a commercial success than her previous outings. Mainstream appeal and Sofia Coppola are somewhat diametrically opposed – much like “Spring Breakers”, the cast may attract an audience expecting something a little less artsy, so keep an eye on the film’s Cinema Score and make sure to be following your teen during the film’s rollout! Reaction should be interesting to say the least. But hey, at the end of the day, the film didn’t get booed after its Cannes premiere, unlike Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”, so, victory!

“Call Me Kuchu“

One of my favorite movies from LA Film Fest last year hits theaters in very limited release and it is your duty as a human to go see it. “Call Me Kuchu” chronicles the life and death of David Kato, gay rights activist in the startlingly homophobic country of Uganda. Filmmakers Katherine Wright Fairfax and Malika Zouhali-Worrall happened to be in Uganda following Kato and his movement when the activist was murdered for his beliefs. The film is difficult but powerful, moving and necessary viewing.

Read our full review.

JUNE 21

“Monsters University“

Sully and Mike are back on the big screen, 12 years after their first outing in “Monster’s Inc”, my personal favorite of the Pixar canon. In “Monster’s University”, we learn how the two expert scarers met and eventually became friends. This is director Dan Scanlon’s first time with a Pixar feature, and luckily for him, early word is positive (though one must remember that early word was similarly positive for last year’s “Brave”, and we all remember how that turned out. Poorly, guys. Poorly is how it turned out. In case you don’t remember).

“World War Z“

Brilliant book by Max Brooks. Epic, seemingly interminable production mired in problems. What happens when the two come together? Directed by Mark Forster, starring Brad Pitt, and partially re-written by love him or hate him Damon Lindelof (with help from Drew Goddard….based on drafts by J. Michael Straczynski and Matthew Carnahan…featuring on set doctoring by Chris McQuarrie…oh boy) this adaptation has become notorious for its countless reshoots, budgetary problems and poorly received original ending. Will it all be worth it? The film was received well enough by UK critics at its London premiere, but it ain’t over till the fanboy sings and our brethren is very protective over the source material.

JUNE 28

“The Heat“

Real talk time. Are we still trusting Melissa McCarthy’s taste in material after “Identity Thief”? On the plus side, “The Heat, starring McCarthy and Sandra Bullock as an awkward FBI agent and equally awkward Boston cop partnered together, is directed by Paul Feig, who brought McCarthy to stardom in the first place (though she’ll always be Sookie St. James to me), and written by Katie Dippold, producer/writer on the always lol worthy “Parks & Recreation”. Not to mention, we’re always down to support a giant studio movie starring two women. So let’s all just pretend “Identify Thief” never happened and look forward to “The Heat,” shall we?

“White House Down“

The “Fast and Furious Six” of June! Is there really any other explanation required? More?! Fine. Policeman Channing Tatum is on a tour of the white house when armed invaders attack and it’s up to Policeman Tatum to protect President Jamie Foxx and save the day. Directed by Roland Emmerich because duh. Fact: You’re either super excited for this movie and have been since it was announced or you are going to half-watch it on HBO sometime in 2014 after having your wisdom teeth and/or appendix removed.

“I’m So Excited”

Pedro Almodovar’s latest and the opening night film of this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival finally hits American screens (in limited release) at the end of the month. The film is a comedy about the people on an airplane after a technical failure endangers all of their lives (also, massive doses of peyote are involved). Current reviews for the broad romp are mixed, and compare it to Almodovar’s earlier work, which could be seen as either a good or bad thing. Just don’t go in expecting “Bad Education”, “Talk To Her” or “The Skin I Live In” and you should be okay.

Categories: Features

Tags: At the Movies, Call Me Kuchu, I'm So Excited, LoquaciousMuse, Man of Steel, Monsters University, The Bling Ring, The Heat, The Purge, This is the End, White House Down, World war z

The Films of M. Night Shyamalan Ranked from Best to Worst

The only potentially surprising thing about the ending to “After Earth” is the first given credit: “Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.” A name that would have once been the main draw for a moviegoing audience just a decade ago, the director is now being downplayed in the marketing so as to not set up potentially toxic expectations for the project. In honor of his tenth feature film, let’s take a good, hard look back at the tense highs and terrible lows that have made up (and brought down) Shyamalan’s career to date.

1. “The Sixth Sense” (1999)

Shyamalan’s Oscar-nominated breakout hit is still his most masterful movie, concerning Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a young boy who can see ghosts, and Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), the child psychologist meant to help him. But TWIST! The boy is actually helping the psychologist… namely in that Crowe’s been dead all along and needs a hand in moving on from this unfortunate predicament. “Sense” maintains a great sense of classical tension, but even more vital is the undercurrent of melancholy that elevated this above your usual supernatural mystery and generally separates Shyamalan’s better films from his more simplistic, Serling-worthy (or worse) endeavors.

2. “Unbreakable” (2000)

Following up “The Sixth Sense” is no small feat, but this inspired origin story for an everyman-turned-superhero has aged about as well, anchored once more by Bruce Willis as David Dunn, a Philadelphia security guard who survives a catastrophic trainwreck unscathed and is encouraged by fragile comic-book die-hard Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) to consider his particular knack for invulnerability as a sign of Something More. But TWIST! Elijah is responsible for outing David by causing many a local disaster and considers himself the inevitable archnemesis, a tragic arc sold beautifully through Jackson’s performance.

3. “Signs” (2002)

The box-office receipts for “Unbreakable” failed to support Shyamalan’s plans for a trilogy, and so the writer-director skirted sci-fi territory by pitting another dysfunctional Pennsylvania family against an impending alien invasion. Mel Gibson delivered his last great pre-tabloid turn here, and I dare say that the nerve-wracking and slyly funny first hour or so compensates for — TWIST! — the film’s divisive denouement, in which every character’s particular advantage in defeating the aliens had been anticipated in the final words of Gibson’s dying wife as all part of God’s Plan.

4. “The Village” (2004)

Unfortunately, the twist-happy auteur had begun to pigeonhole himself as exactly that, and what came after the nerve-wracking first hour or so of his “Signs” follow-up — in which the residents of a monster-menaced village fear that their long-standing truce with the creatures in the woods has elapsed — finally proved too far-fetched for many moviegoers to accept. (TWIST! The “village” exists as an isolated present-day experiment in crime-free, self-sustainable living.) For all of Shyamalan’s formal chops behind the camera, his screenwriting sensibilities were proving to be their own seemingly insurmountable problem.

5. “Wide Awake” (1998)

Shot in 1995 but not released until three years later, Shyamalan’s first studio effort shares a kinship with his directorial debut, “Praying with Anger,” as an earnest exploration in faith. Set at the same Philadelphia Catholic boys’ school that Shyamalan himself attended, “Awake” sees fifth-grader Joshua Beal (Joseph Cross) questioning his faith after the passing of his grandfather (Robert Loggia). More than anything else, it exists as a proto-“Wimpy Kid” flick with a religious bent: our neurotic lead has quirky friends, tidily episodic adventures and a crush on a girl his age at the neighboring girls’ school, narrating every shenanigan and soul-searching detour by way of diary entries. The result is corny as hell, but at least consistent in that regard. TWIST! That mute kid roaming the halls throughout the school year is actually an angel keeping an eye on young Josh. (No, really.)

6. “After Earth” (2013)

In the wake of his recent follies, this big-budget father-son sci-fi adventure has no mind-blowing, game-changing twist in store — if anything, I’d argue that it’s straightforward to a fault — but it sees Shyamalan returning to a safe, if wholly unremarkable, level of filmmaking, although his tendencies towards spirituality still manage to inform the story to an extent. Our official review will be up soon.

7. “Praying with Anger” (1992)

In addition to writing, directing and producing, Shyamalan starred in this semi-autobiographical story of an Indian teen raised in America reluctantly returning back to India as part of a student exchange program. The usual culture-clash and coming-of-age clichés ensue, and while Shyamalan is an able performer, some of his co-stars are more stilted in their delivery of his regrettably typical dialogue. It’s a first film all around, offering little early evidence of the filmmaker’s eventual talents, but when taken with “Wide Awake,” it’s an indication of the cornball helmer Shyamalan might have become had “The Sixth Sense” not landed with such force.

8. “The Last Airbender” (2010)

This live-action adaptation of Nickelodeon ‘toon “Avatar: The Last Airbender” saw Shyamalan returning to family-friendly fare with a much bigger budget, but his take was greeted with hostility, both from purists over story changes and casting choices (namely, the minimal inclusion of Asian or Asian-American actors to play beloved characters) and from newcomers, who found that his early finesse with child actors had waned as evidenced by the wooden performances. Chief among the film’s offenses, though, is the simple fact that — TWIST? — “Airbender” ultimately plays out as an unforgivably dull and derivative special-effects showcase.

9. “The Happening” (2008)

While comparisons to the signature suspense stylings of Alfred Hitchcock ran rampant after Shyamalan’s initial success, only this film so clearly modelled itself on a particular predecessor: “The Birds,” but with — TWIST! — killer wind inexplicably punishing a whole new wave of Philly residents. Despite some striking deaths in the first act, the eerie mood soon dissipates in the face of an inherently uncinematic foe (I’d suggested post-screening that the exhaustively expository film would’ve worked better as a radio play, a theory since been proven correct), and beyond that, the uniformly tone-deaf performances combine with some of his silliest dialogue yet to form an unintentional comedy of the highest order.

10. “Lady in the Water” (2006)

The eccentricities of “The Happening” were only outdone by this high-minded fairy tale, in which a Philadelphia handyman (Paul Giamatti) rescues a water nymph (“The Village’s” Bryce Dallas Howard) from the apartment pool and has to assist her in finding an author whose forthcoming work will better humanity. Sure enough, that writer is played by Shyamalan himself, a character who comes to learn that he will be martyred for his controversial, world-changing ideas. It’s a breathtaking feat of ego amid so much other nonsense (example: a young boy decodes hidden mythology from the backs of several cereal boxes), topped off with the proud slaughter of a snobby film critic (Bob Balaban) who leads his neighbors astray when trying to predict the formula of their own story. Right, because it’s not like “The Sixth Sense” had a lick of critical support…

Categories: Lists

Tags: After Earth, M. night shyamalan, Ranked, The happening, The sixth sense, The village, Unbreakable

Why ‘School of Rock’ Is One of Richard Linklater’s Best Films

Richard Linklater’s new film “Before Midnight”, which opens this weekend after premiering at Sundance this Spring, arrives nine long years after its predecessor, “Before Sunset”. But we’re actually a little closer to the ten year anniversary of another, less beloved Linklater film, the light musical-comedy “School of Rock”, which, if you can believe it, turns a full decade old this October. At first blush, “School of Rock” seems like a decidedly minor effort, and accessible commercial effort not unlike his much-maligned remake of “Bad News Bears”, made just two years later. For a filmmaker of some prestige, Linklater is wildly inconsistent—like another of the early-90s indie breakouts, Steven Soderbergh, he is both prolific and not especially discriminating—and, following two low-budget formal experiments (“Waking Life” and “Tape”), “School of Rock” seems like a concession to the system to justify his continued personal outings, which had seen varying degrees of acclaim and success. It isn’t exactly the film most representative of Linklater’s interests and talents.

And yet, in its own way, “School of Rock” is one of Linklater’s strongest films to date. As one might expect, part of the appeal is the charismatic performance of its star, Jack Black, who here plays an unsuccessful musician named Dewey Finn posing as a substitute elementary teacher at a haughty private school. But the most compelling aspect of the performance is restraint, which Linklater draws out of Black in a way that nobody else had and nobody else has done since. (They did it again last year, with “Bernie,” though the second time around won both actor and director considerably more acclaim.)

It’s one of Black’s best turns precisely because Linklater reigns him in, refashioning an actor known for his manic juvenile energy as an aging loser holding desperately onto that element of his youth—and while the result is often funny, what’s more surprising is that it’s also quite sad. “School of Rock” is ostensibly a movie about buttoned-down schoolchildren learning the liberating effect of rock music, but at its heart it’s also a movie about an overly liberated man-child learning to appreciate the need for responsibility and structure. And it does all of this under the guise of family-friendly fun.

It’s easy to get the sense, with Linklater, that he is very consciously deciding to alternate between commercial and personal projects for the sake of his own continued viability as a filmmaker, as if agreeing tacitly to make “one for them” at least for each he makes for himself. This is the essence of directorial compromise, and it usually results in a pretty clear distinction between meaningful films and more superficial ones. “School of Rock” clearly belongs to the commercial side of this equation, but what’s interesting about the film is how deftly it weaves personal ideas into its essentially mainstream mechanics.

Though it bears all of the hallmarks of good PG-rated mainstream cinema—broad humor, adorable children, a tidy redemption narrative—it also manages to deal in earnest with many of the themes Linklater’s most personal and expressive films have often taken as their focus, like adolescent aimlessness and the desire for director or purpose. Much in the same way that “Before Sunset” builds and expands on the ideas brought into play by “Before Sunrise”, “School of Rock” looks back and the basic building blocks of “Slacker” and “Dazed and Confused” and tries to assemble them into something more mature a decade-plus on.

Who is Dewey Finn, the struggling stoner at a loss for a dream, but one of the kids from “Slacker” seen a few years down the line, no longer wandering the streets in summer but forced to actually find a job? And what, after all, becomes of the highschool kids of “Dazed and Confused” after a decade of good times but no life plan? It’s a stretch to say that “School of Rock” actively follows up on either of these stories, such that they are, but surely it’s significant that Linklater made “Rock” at the same time as he made “Sunset”—it suggests his interest not only in returning to material he’d worked over as a younger filmmaker but, more broadly, it makes the case that aging and development and a sense of lost youth were very much on Linklater’s mind at the time.

What makes “School of Rock” such a hopeful movie isn’t that the young kids learn the meaning of freedom or how to let loose on the guitar, but that the loser at the center of the story is able to find something to latch onto after his extended adolescence, something which, if it isn’t quite “meaning”, at least puts him on course toward getting there. That’s not kids stuff.

“School of Rock” is playing at Manhattan’s Film Forum this weekend, the screening of which will be preceded by an air guitar contest.

Categories: Features

Tags: Before Midnight, Calum Marsh, Jack black, Richard linklater, School of Rock

10 Great Black & White Films From the Last 20 Years

The upcoming Spring releases of two much-hyped black-and-white movies – Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha,” starring co-writer Greta Gerwig as an aspiring dancer, and Joss Whedon’s barebones stab at “Much Ado About Nothing” – left us wondering what modern movies have succeeded without the benefit of a full palette. So, with that in mind, here’s a look back at ten gloriously colorless (or largely color-deprived) movies from the last two decades.

“SCHINDLER’S LIST” (Steven Spielberg) 1993

The most famous director of all-time has loads of classics under his belt, including “E.T.” “Jaws” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” but most critics view “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg’s deeply personal Holocaust drama, as his masterwork. Speilberg used color only sporadically through the film, most memorably on a small Jewish girl’s red coat as she attempts to navigate the chaos of the Krakow ghetto, and in the final scene as Schindler Jews are shown at Oskar Schindler’s grave site in Jerusalem.

“ED WOOD” (Tim Burton) 1994

Before he viewed powdering and propping up Johnny Depp as passable filmmaking, Tim Burton was was crafting some of the most entertaining movies of the late eighties and early nineties, including “Beetlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands.” But Burton’s best examination of outsiderdom might have been “Ed Wood,” his biopic of the “Plan 9 From Outer Space” director, with Depp shining in the titular role. Burton returned to black-and-white with last year’s stop-motion fantasy “Frankenweenie” — a well-received return to form for Burton that was quietly one of the most fun-to-watch animated movies of the year.

“CLERKS” (Kevin Smith) 1994

In 2013, Kevin Smith has his fair share of detractors, and his directing career has proven to be a case of diminishing returns. But love him or hate him (and certainly you do one of those two things) Smith’s crudely acted, shoestring-budget debut “Clerks” has been hugely influential on the modern comedy scene, paving the way for mumblecore and the Apatow empire by making aimless dialogue about sex and “Star Wars” totally kosher, just so long as it’s entertaining. The movie also went on to inspire a (colored) sequel and a highly underrated animated television spin-off. Smith recently announced he will round out the “Clerks” saga as a trilogy, and make “Clerks 3? his final film.

“FOLLOWING” (Chris Nolan) 1998

Christopher Nolan’s first feature, made for a nearly unfathomable $6,000 dollars, feels like a $250 million universe from “The Dark Knight Rises.” But the twisty neo noir is still a Nolan flick through and through, featuring a meticulous plot, non-linear narrative, and obsessive characters with motivations you can’t quite pin down until the end. Nolan scores craftiness points not only for his clever story, which revolves around a shifty loner who begins to follow strangers, but also his ability to pull it off on an essentially non-existant budget.

“THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE” (Patrice Leconte) 1999

Patrice Leconte is one of the few filmmakers whose range and restlessness might put Steven Soderbergh to shame. This glisteningly monochrome 1999 charmer about a knife-thrower (the great Daniel Auteuil) who uses suicidal young women as targets for his circus act plays like a mad French emulsion of a Federico Fellini film. Starring the gorgeously gap-toothed Vanessa Paradis as a girl with all the love in the world but no one on whom to pin it, this woozy romantic does more with shades than most movies could with a full Technicolor palette.

“THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE” (Joel and Ethan Coen) 2001

Buried in the shadow of three better-known Coen Brothers works (“Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou”), the often-overlooked “The Man Who Wasn’t There” is among the two-headed directing monsters’ best. As usual, the Coens were none too kind to their protagonist, sending the reticent Ed Crane (an exceptional Billy Bob Thornton) on a bottomless downward spiral following a failed blackmailing scheme. The neo noir throwback features appearances from Coen regulars Frances McDormand, Jon Pilito, and Richard Jenkins, as well some inspired villainy from James Gandolfini, and a pre-stardom Scarlett Johansson.

“SIN CITY” (Robert Rodriguez) 2005

Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel was just as entertaining as it was uber-violent, and brought Mickey Rourke back onto the Hollywood map with his memorable turn as the murderous, damn-near unkillable Marv. The gory neo noir, which also starred Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Rosario Dawson, and Bruce Willis, opened the door for more R-rated graphic novel adaptations – including “The 300? “The Watchmen” and Kick-Ass” – to make it into theaters. The long-anticipated sequel, “A Dame to Kill For,” is due out later this year.

“GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK” (George Clooney) 2005

George Clooney established himself as serious filmmaker with “Good Night and Good Look” a behind-the-scenes look at hard-smoking, no-nonsense Edward R. Murrow’s toe-to-toe face-off with Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare. It didn’t hurt that Clooney put together an impressive cast that included Robert Downey Jr., Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels and an unforgettable David Straitharn as the stone-faced Murrow. Serving as a slick criticism of the Bush administration’s War on Terror, “Good Night and Good Luck” made a compelling case for television – probably our most sneered-at medium – to be used in an ongoing battle against dishonesty and injustice.

“PERSEPOLIS” (Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi) 2007

Part coming-of-age tale and part exploration of the complex effects of United States interventionism, Marjane Satrapi’s animated adaptation of her autobiographical graphic novel suited the screen every bit as well as it suited the page. Satrapi’s tale of growing up amidst the political turmoil of 1980s Iran served as a touching reminder that while the grown-ups of the world grapple with religion and geopolitics, kids everywhere mostly just want to wear sneakers, drink a little booze, and listen to Michael Jackson. Strapi credits the movie’s black-and-white luck to her background in underground comics.

“THE WHITE RIBBON” (Michael Haneke) 2009

Michael Haneke is one of the few foreign directors regularly recognized in the United States, and for good reason: his work, from “Cache” to “Amour,” is consistently beautiful and wrenching. “White Ribbon,” his bleak examination of oppressive rural life in pre-World War I Germany, is just as haunting and heavy as his better-known works, and almost impossible to imagine in color. ‘The White Ribbon” went somewhat under the radar in the US, but took home the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2009.

Editor’s note: I’d add “Tabu,” “Lake of Fire,” “The Day He Arrives,” and pretty much everything made by Béla Tarr and Guy Maddin. What are some of your favorites, or films that we’re forgetting? Let us know in the comments section below.

Categories: Features

Tags: Black & White, Ed Wood, Frances Ha, Much Ado About Nothing, Schindler's list, The White Ribbon

Tribeca: Two Foreign Films Offer New Perspectives on the LGBT Experience

Coming out is old news. American and British gay cinema has, on the whole, largely moved past the coming out narrative. Over the last couple decades gay characters have not only become more prominent in the mainstream, but gay films have had quite the thematic evolution. Tragedies like “Brokeback Mountain” and “Boys Don’t Cry” and coming-out stories like “Get Real” and “Beautiful Thing” are still loved, but if they were to be made now the reaction might be less enthusiastic.

We no longer want to see idealized gay characters in stories that revolve around their being gay. Yet sometimes we forget that in many parts of the world, well beyond the gay-friendly movie metropolises of London, Los Angeles and New York, things are different.

Tomas Wasilewski’s crepuscular and deeply affecting “Floating Skyscrapers” comes to Tribeca from Poland, a deeply Catholic country where homophobia remains prevalent. Progress is being made, of course, and in 2011 the first gay MP was elected to parliament. Yet their cinema is only beginning to deal with homosexuality in a meaningful way, and Wasilewski’s new film is therefore a major contribution.

Of course, to view “Floating Skyscrapers” solely as a work of social politics would be a disservice. It’s artfully told and brutally honest, an almost ethereal tale of star-crossed lovers whose union is undercut by their recklessness and made impossible by a homophobic environment. Kuba (Mateusz Banasiuk) is a talented swimmer, training for national competition. He lives with his mother and his girlfriend, Sylwie (Marta Nieradkiewicz). She takes him along to an art gallery opening with some friends of hers, including Michal (Bartosz Gelner). The two young men hit it off, and the sexual tension begins to boil up under Kuba’s typically placid demeanor.

Sylwie begins to suspect something is wrong. Kuba spends more time with Michal. Kuba begins to lose interest in swimming, and Michal decides to come out to his family. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, only simple plot points that win us over with authenticity rather than ingenuity. All of the actors are performing to the best of their ability, fully entering into characters that require not only emotional veracity but also real physical presence. “Floating Skyscrapers” is about the human body, the way that Kuba stretches himself into a tryst with Michal or scrunches down in his continued dalliances with Sylwie.

Yet before the film becomes so corporeal, Wasilewski links sexuality and emptiness. The very opening shot features the stalls of the men’s locker room at Kuba’s swimming pool, accompanied by the sound of moaning. There is nothing but sex and anonymous space. Wasilewski uses this void throughout the film, eventually to express the isolated world that Michal and Kuba inhabit. The men are often framed by enormous urban monstrosities, highway and apartment complexes that throw their loneliness into relief against an unfeeling city.

The most striking metaphor for their passion is found in a couple of sequences in a parking garage, stealing moments of intimacy in Michal’s car. Wasilewski places the camera on the dash and drives through the empty concrete structure, accompanied by a throbbing pop song. This is their bliss, in the most hidden environment possible.

Its interruption is inevitable, though perhaps not quite in the way one might expect. Meanwhile, Wasilewski makes sure not to leave Sylwie in the lurch. Michal and Kuba may brush her off and treat her as irrelevant, but she is not portrayed as such. This empathy for the women in the situation, equally victimized by a society that forces men to remain in the closet, is the difference between a small-minded coming out narrative and a real work of art. Thankfully, it is an attribute shared by Tribeca’s other international gay narrative feature, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”

Other than that, these two films have absolutely nothing in common. Arvin Chen’s follow-up feature to 2010’s “Au Revoir Taipei” is a broad romantic comedy featuring three couples, only one of which is a same-sex pair. The central character is Weichung (Richie Ren), a 30-something optometrist with a wife and young son. He used to be gay, but once he reached a certain age the pressure to settle down was too much and he proposed to Feng (Mavis Fan), a childhood friend. Now his feelings have been re-awakened by a Cantonese flight attendant in need of a good pair of glasses.

Meanwhile, his sister Mandy is engaged to San-San, a somewhat useless romantic. They’re in love but she’s nervous about married life, so she panics and moves back to her old apartment to eat ice cream and watch soap operas. It’s pretty standard romcom fare, as is the final arrangement – the obvious pairing of Feng and her doting young boss. We know from the very beginning how things will turn out.

The subversive element here is its very blandness. The happy ending depends upon the break-up of a marriage, and a marriage that has already produced a child at that. While Chen reinforces the institution with Mandy and San-San, he chooses to undermine it as well by wiling the audience into rooting for Weichung and Feng’s divorce. The trouble this causes Feng does not evaporate under the weight of comedy. In fact, her pain at her husband’s infidelity becomes the stylistic centerpiece of the film in a campy karaoke sequence to the title song by The Shirelles. But that only furthers our desire to see her divorced, and Chen seems to suggest that it will be an outright joyful conclusion, rather than a bittersweet resolution of terrible mistakes.

This is hard to grasp from an American context, the ease with which the Taiwanese context accepts false marriages and the cheer with which it breaks them up. In the same way, the gloomy style of “Floating Skyscrapers” adds another dimension to a story we’ve already seen told by Anglophone films. Now more than ever, we should be looking to international LGBT cinema for new ways to look at genres we think we already know.

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Tags: 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, LGBT, TFF2013, Tribeca film festival, WIll You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Floating Skyscrapers

Ranked: Counting Down Michael Bay’s Films from Worst to Best

“I make movies for teenage boys. Oh dear, what a crime.”

People tend to hate Michael Bay for what he represents, and the fact that he represents it so unrepentantly. His is a cinema of crass excess – a perma-pubescent who doesn’t know how to love anything without fetishizing it, he’s the Yasujiro Ozu of “vulgar auteurism” (don’t hurt yourself trying to unpack that one).

A graduate of Wesleyan University who got his start shooting commercials for the likes of Coca-Cola, Bay inserted himself into the movie business when he teamed up with Jerry Bruckheimer for “Bad Boys.” Yes, “Bad Boys” was his FIRST. FILM. That’s like showing up for your driver’s license test in a fighter jet. From there, Bay blew up, eager to bring his particularly destructive brand of cinema anywhere that could sustain an explosion. If you can name it, Bay can nuke it.

Bay’s persona is staunchly unapologetic, which makes it that much stranger and unappreciated that yesterday he apologized for “Armageddon,” which we’ll soon learn is hardly the worst film that he’s ever made. He’s also one of the few iconic auteurs of the last 20 years whose entire body of work has probably been seen by huge swaths of the American public – simply by virtue of going to the biggest new movie in town, even casual moviegoers might unknowingly be familiar with the complete output of Michael Bay.

With that in mind, and with his latest (and perhaps smallest) film “Pain & Gain” opening on Friday, hopefully you’ll all be able to form your own opinions on our rundown of Michael Bay’s directorial career, ranked from worst to best. Feel free to rant and rave about our choices in the comments section, it’s what Bay would want.

9.) TRANSFORMERS (2007)

“What are you rolling? Whippets? Goof balls? A little wowie sauce with the boys?”

A tonal nightmare that remains the only “Transformers” film to make the cardinal sin of trying to tell a coherent story, Bay’s most toxically stupid blockbuster set the tone for the franchise but failed to find its rhythm. Bay has been raked over the coals for his supposedly choppy and inelegant action sequences, but utter incoherence would have been better than the noncommittal stabs at middle ground that drive the set pieces here.

The problem with “Transformers” is that it doesn’t do anything enough – much like the alien robots that lend the film its title, the first installment of Bay’s most massive franchise can’t commit to any particular form, and settles for artlessness. It’s as crass as either of its sequels (the bit in which a Transformer “pees” on John Turturro is a low point for human / machine relations), but lacks the one thing that no Michael Bay film can survive without: reckless confidence.

8.) TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009)

“That’s old school, yo. That’s like… That’s Cybertronian.”

So yeah, conventional wisdom is that this sequel is and always will be Michael Bay’s greatest offense, but the untethered madness of the whole thing earns my most begrudging respect, the insane spectacle of its climactic battle on the Great Pyramids as hard to follow as it is to ignore. “Revenge of the Fallen” is a film in which Bay’s resources have clearly outpaced his vision, the divots left by the writers’ strike filled with shamelessly racist caricatures and useless sidekicks.

The college shenanigans are enjoyably out of their mind (Isabel Lucas’ robot sex tail is a classic, but a classic of what I’m not so sure), and the towering IMAX presentation was certainly the overload the first film was lacking. But when the story is that bad, a little incoherence goes a long way.

7.) THE ISLAND (2005)

“That tongue thing is amazing!”

The first half of Bay’s most high-concept film uses wet gloss and ripe body horror to varnish over the fact that it’s dystopian story of simple-minded clones (being harvested to supply organs for their real-world equivalents, natch) is the kind of thing that Rod Serling could have written over the course of a single cigarette. Scarlett Johansson is perfectly cast as the bashfully naive Jordan Two Delta, her round features and flawless skin used to subvert her lab-grown celebrity image.

It’s all compelling enough until the clones escape and become the targets of a hugely destructive manhunt across a bland cityscape, the chaos merely serviceable when compared to the full-throated action sequences of Bay’s other films, which are not similarly burdened by the demands of such a wild premise. The third act’s inevitable return to the farm is as flat and perfunctory as anything Bay has ever shot, interesting only in how it lamely evinces a boneheaded pro-life argument.

6.) PEARL HARBOR (2001)

“I joined the army to do MY patriotic duty… AND… to meet guys.”

It was probably inevitable that “Pearl Harbor” would eventually be regarded as Bay’s most awful disasterpiece, as it pulverizes one of the most violent days in American history in an orgy of plastic pop culture. Bay’s ego is notoriously bombastic, and his cinema only works because he enters every room a couple seconds ahead of his feet, but a different kind of gall is required to turn tragedy into spectacle, memorializing a generation of Americans while selling their grandkids duffel bags full of popcorn.

There’s a Fordian “aw shucks” mentality to this love triangle between two good midwestern boys and the gal they both loved (there’s also a Fordian racism to the portrait of the Japanese), but the pop smear of Bay’s approach conflates the greatest pre-9/11 foreign attack on American soil with a tawdry romance that shamelessly targets modern teens by aping another international event, “Titanic.” It’s like doing brain surgery by going through the groin. Ben Affleck kickstarted a decade of irrelevance with his wooden flyboy, and Bay decided that he’d be better of focusing on box office history.

THE COUNTDOWN CONTINUES ON PAGE 2!

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Tags: Bad boys, Michael bay, Pain & Gain, Ranked, The rock, Transformers

Don’t Fear the Reaper: Why Horror Films Love Pop Music

In Rob Zombie’s newest film, “The Lords Of Salem,” vinyl brings evil into the world.

The title refers to a witches’ coven that was burned alive during the town’s famed witch trials by a preacher incensed by all aspects of their dark magick, including their “blasphemous music.” Appropriately, the witches choose to announce their return by mailing an LP to a radio station. The song itself (co-composed by Zombie’s bandmate John 5 and Griffin Boice) isn’t too captivating — grindingly repetitive rock with just three grudging bass notes instead of the usual minimum three cords. The equally abrasive vocals signal the return of Satanic witches and bad news all round.

Zombie’s soundtrack lavishes the most attention on the Velvet Underground. Early on, heroine Heidi Hawthorne (Sheri Moon Zombie) dances in her apartment after work with radio co-host Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips) to “Venus In Furs,” turning a song about “shiny whips and leather” into an excuse to prance around waving scarves. That’s just a teaser for the climax, a full-on mass Satanic ritual with the main female sacrifice offered up to the VU’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” Avoiding spoilers for a film not yet opened, the lyrics take on a grimly ironic, black comic aspect in this final context. Said Zombie during an interview at SXSW: “I always like to find songs that can represent the film, so there’s at least one song in every movie that when you hear it, it brings back the imagery of the film.” (The most memorable example is the climax of “The Devil’s Rejects,” set to “Freebird”; the first time I saw it, the crowd went nuts watching anti-heroes gunned down in slow-motion to the song.) “Sometimes you just hear a song and you go, ‘This song sounds like how I want the movie to feel.’”

Zombie was a musician before he eased into directing, and his attention to soundtrack choices can be accordingly meticulous beyond the norm (he co-produced an entire fake country greatest-hits collection by “Banjo & Sullivan” for “The Devil’s Rejects”). His songs are used for ironic purposes or to heighten lurid emotions, one of many ways a horror film can use a pre-existing tune. All movies have editorial rhythm, of course, but this genre’s especially reliant on precise attention to cutting: the longer a shot during a tense sequence, the greater possibility it’ll end with a) something horrible coming at us from the left, right or back of the frame with no warning b) a sudden cut to something horrible happening.

Songs serve as a sonic safety buffer that could be punctuated by sudden noise at any moment. Indeed, the tension between the ostensible security of pop music and the underlying terror implicit to scary movies is so rich and immediate that it’s even come to influence the trailers for horror films (i.e. this great preview for ”You’re Next”).

Here’s a look at how five different horror films used pop music to deepen their dread.

Blue Öyster Cult, “Don’t Fear The Reaper” from “Halloween,” 1978

“Halloween” didn’t invent the unseen-/masked-man-kills-people slasher formula, but it codified the genre’s structure and look, including one possible use for pre-established pop songs. 40 minutes in, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is in the passenger seat when friend Annie (Nancy Kyes) pulls out a joint. Behind them, a car emerges — driven by the unseen Michael Myers — but Laurie and Annie don’t notice the vehicle ominously tracking them. The radio’s trying to warn them via Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper” that they should very much be afraid of imminent death, but they don’t pick up on the threat. The scene ends without incident, though Annie will later meet her gruesome end in the same vehicle (on the way to pick up a boy, naturally).

Stevie Wonder, “Superstition” from “The Thing,” 1982

Director John Carpenter composed the score for “Halloween,” and the theme’s ubiquitously recognized still. His 1982 “The Thing” features another deathless sound of the ’70s-and-onwards, the 100-million-plus-units selling Stevie Wonder. The tune is 1972's “Superstition,” listened to by the cook in the kitchen. “Will you turn that crap down?” a cranky Arctic base resident yells over the intercom. “I’m trying to get some sleep. I was shot today.” “Will do,” says the cook and cranks it up. (Wonder was a racial radio uniter, but the fact that a white man’s yelling at a black guy who’s asserting his independence through volume doesn’t seem incidental.) The camera moves from the kitchen to an empty room, the song’s heavy irony inviting us to realize that the crew’s fears aren’t based in irrational superstition but on a real threat, ending with a dog being lured into a room where The Thing lurks in shadow. Picture fades to black, sound to nothingness, the scene’s potential scare realized only in the static shadow’s head abruptly turning; the audience, suitably keyed up, will have to squirm longer before the first Big Jolt.

Nick Cave, “Red Right Hand” from “Scream,” 1996

Remixed for “Scream 2? and re-recorded by Cave himself for “Scream 3,” “Red Right Hand” is the series’ unofficial theme song. Its first appearance in the initial installment leaves a strong impression, even though it plays for barely a minute. Woodsboro’s under curfew to foil the Ghostface killer as Cave rumbles “You’ll see him in your nightmares/You’ll see him in your dreams,” linking Ghostface with director Wes Craven’s earlier “A Nightmare On Elm Street.” parents bustle their children along sideways, people grab their last brews from closing coffee shops, and the streets are deserted. The ominous music deflates the series’ constant wit and cleverness, a brief injection of unmediated menace.

Joanna Newsom, “The Sprout And The Bean” from “The Strangers” (2008)
One of the odder and certainly less populist horror music cues, Joanna Newsom’s “The Sprout And The Bean” nonetheless serves a textbook literal-minded function in this relentless slasher film. “Should we go outside?” Newsom asks as Liv Tyler sulks alone in her isolated house, her decidedly acquired taste vocals hovering over harp and strings. The obvious answer to even inexperienced horror viewers is “NO,” but Tyler answers the door anyway when someone asks “Is Tamara here?” The record player (vinyl again!) will recur throughout, its sudden bursts into sound not cued by Tyler or luckless boyfriend Scott Speedman signaling another imminent burst of homicidal mayhem.

The Fixx, “One Thing Leads To Another” from “The House Of The Devil” (2009)

Unlike the other songs on this list, the lyrics of The Fixx’s “One Thing Leads To Another” have no bearing on the scene it’s heard in. Two things matter here: Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue) is listening to the song on her Walkman (an outdated, nostalgically regarded object from the movie’s vague early ’80s setting, just like the tune itself), and she’s got her headphones on while bouncing around a big, creepy house. The audio goes from just-song-with-no-ambient-context to a tinnier version heard from Samantha’s headphones in different rooms. Every time The Fixx become just part of the overall soundscape, we’re aware that something loud and homicidal could (and inevitably must) burst onto the screen, but it never does, not this early. Samantha dances on, oblivious to all menace.

Categories: Lists

Tags: Halloween, Horror films, Joanna newsom, Lords of Salem, Music, Rob zombie, Scream, The Strangers

The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival: Our 20 Most Anticipated Films

The 11th annual Tribeca Film Festival kicks off this evening, bringing more than 150 films from every corner of the globe to downtown Manhattan over the course of the next 11 days. Launched by Robert De Niro (and pals) in order to help revitalize New York City in the wake of 9/11, the Tribeca Film Festival has since struggled to maintain an identity as we’ve moved forward from the tragedy that initially provided its purpose. A massive cornucopia of movies large and small that isn’t curated so much as it’s contained, TFF seemed to think that a festival could be as big as its wallet, ignoring the fact that these things take years to cultivate. A heavy corporate presence and a notoriously substandard lineup have hindered the fest from becoming an invaluable event on the cinematic calendar – it’s as expansive as the Toronto International Film Festival, with just as much to watch but precious little worth seeing.

Be that as it may, the folks behind the festival have remained admirably determined to make it a true New York City institution. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when things began to change, but most repeat attendees would agree that TFF recently turned a corner. With every passing year, TFF is more seamlessly woven into the fabric of this city, and with every passing year it becomes more of a viable place from which to launch a major film (it helps that Tribeca Film has become a serious player in the industry, and that fest premieres like “War Witch” have earned meaningful acclaim). In 11 short years, TFF has evolved from a statement to a joke to an increasingly indispensable event, and the apparent strength of this year’s (remarkably diverse) lineup suggests that things are only getting better.

Still, with approximately three billion movies playing in the next 11 days, it can be tough to know what to see. So, after scouring the line-up and hearing as many informed opinions as possible, I present to you Film.com’s 20 Most Anticipated Films of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. It’s gonna be a good one.

ALMOST CHRISTMAS (Spotlight)
Directed by Phil Morrison

Historically, it’s not always the best sign when a movie loaded with familiar faces makes its world premiere at Tribeca, the conventional wisdom suggesting that both Sundance and SXSW have passed on the chance to debut it. Nevertheless, as TFF continues to grow in esteem and proves itself as a capable launching ground for major works (“War Witch” comes to mind), the alarm bulls are growing quieter. As far as “Almost Christmas” is concerned, such fears are allayed even further by the fact that director Phil Morrison was responsible for the wise indie charmer “Junebug.”

“Almost Christmas’ tells the story of two heavily bearded French Canadian schemers (Paul Rudd as Rene and Paul Giamatti as Dennis) who travel to New York City with a surefire plan to get rich by selling Christmas trees. Complicating matters is the fact that Rene recently stole Dennis’ wife (played by the indomitable Sally Hawkins). A brittle buddy comedy with a compulsively watchable cast, “Almost Christmas” should enjoy wide exposure so long as it’s even moderately entertaining.

ADULT WORLD (Spotlight)
Directed by Scott Coffey

You had me at “Emma Roberts is an aspiring poet who gets a part-time job working at a sex shop.” A world premiere from polymath Scott Coffey (who played Wilkins in “Mulholland Dr.” and made his directorial debut with “Ellie Parker” back in 2005), “Adult World” seems like a sly black comedy that could definitely find an audience, particularly with John Cusack finally having some fun, again, here playing a reclusive writer for whom Roberts is hoping to intern.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT (Spotlight)
Directed by Richard Linklater

This might be a bit of a cheat (I’ve already seen it twice), but I’m more excited to revisit the third chapter of the cinema’s greatest evolving romance than I am to see almost any other film at the fest for the first time. I’ve been almost pathologically militant about people revealing any details about the film’s plot or the circumstances in which it unfolds, but I’m convinced that “Before Midnight” is Richard Linklater’s masterpiece, a genuinely perfect thing that stands toe-to-toe with the likes of “Certified Copy” and “Journey to Italy.” As excited as I am for additional opportunities to see the movie, I’m even more jazzed about the Tribeca Talk that the festival is hosting on April 22, during which Linklater will moderate a panel with collaborators Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

BEFORE SNOWFALL (World Narrative Competition)
Directed by Hisham Zaman

A Kurdish film by way of Germany, Norway and Iraq, Hisham Zaman’s “Before Snowfall” is a severe drama that examines the the moral crises involved in the practice of honor killings. Beginning in Kurdistan, where a young boy watches his older sister abscond from an arranged marriage, and heading towards Istanbul, where the boy is forced to make amends for his sibling’s perceived slight, “Before Snowfall” is a portrait of a life-defining tradition as it’s stretched across borders and generations.

Variety’s review wasn’t especially kind, but the unfortunately urgent subject matter should warrant a look.

BIG MEN (Documentary Competition)
Directed by Rachel Boynton

“Our Brand is Crisis” established Rachel Boynton as one of the world’s foremost cinematic muckrakers, and her raised profile has allowed her access to stories that might otherwise be impossible for her to capture on camera. Leveraging her past success, Boynton’s new film (which is enjoying its world premiere at Tribeca) lifts the lid on the massive oil companies that fuel Africa, investigating the greed that drives their profits and the extensive toll that it has levied against the continent and its people.

Executive produced by Brad Pitt, “Big Men” could be one of the documentaries that we’re talking about for the rest of the year.

THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN (Narrative Competition)
Directed by Felix van Groeningen

Felix van Groeningen’s “The Misfortunates” premiered to rave reviews in Cannes at 2009, but unfortunately it never picked up much traction on these shores, and remains a woefully under-seen gem. Now, van Groeningen returns to prove once again that the Dardenne brothers aren’t the final word in Belgian cinema, “The Broken Circle Breakdown” offering a foot-stomping blast of raw heartbreak.

After receiving strong reviews from the Berlin Film Festival, this hip contemporary story of a musician and a tattoo artist trying to save their faltering marriage comes to Tribeca with a sizable head of steam (I’m tempted to think of it as “Bluegrass Valentine”). Allegedly broad, effective and enjoyable from start to finish, “The Broken Circle Breakdown” could be one of the festival’s breakout hits.

A CASE OF YOU (Spotlight)
Directed by Kat Coiro

The multitalented Kat Coiro was at Tribeca last year with her sensuously sad monochromatic drama “While We Were Here,” which is still awaiting the attention she deserves. Apparently not one to rest on her laurels, Coiro is already back with her third feature, “A Case of You,” a romantic comedy about a writer (Justin Long) who tries to woo the barista of his dreams (Evan Rachel Wood) by creating a fake social media profile (in other words, he Catfishes her?). Boasting a mess of cameos from the likes of Peter Dinklage and Sam Rockwell, “A Case of You” has as much breakout potential as any film at the festival, and the early buzz is trending towards the positive.

CUTIE AND THE BOXER (Viewpoints)
Directed by Zachary Heinzerling

A unique portrait of the modern muse (to say the least) and the extent to which a relationship between artists is always subservient to the art it inspires, “Cutie and the Boxer” is a candid documentary about 80-year-old “boxing” painter Ushio Shinohara, who the film finds hoping to reclaim the zeitgeist with his latest exhibition. Ushio’s long-suffering wife Noriko is not only his reluctant assistant, but also his inspiration, their marriage completely dominated by the massive paintings that distill and preserve its beauty.

Early reports indicate that Zachary Heinzerling’s first feature-length film is one of the fest’s best.

THE ENGLISH TEACHER (Spotlight)
Directed by Craig Zisk

Judging by his IMDB page, Craig Zisk has directed an episode of every TV in the history of TV shows (give or take). Most importantly, he recently stepped behind the camera for an episode of “New Girl,” which – as far as I’m concerned – makes him one of the most important artists currently living. His debut feature certainly has a pedigree worthy of its experience, as it stars Julianne Moore as the eponymous educator whose dull life is ruffled by the return of a former student and his deadbeat dad.

Billed as “an insightful comedy about self-discovery,” “The English Teacher” also reunites “Mirror Mirror” co-stars Nathan Lane and Lily Collins. On a slightly more troubling note, the film also stars the Kiss of Death himself, Greg Kinnear. However it turned out, “The English Teacher” is already available to rent on iTunes, so feel free to see for yourself whether or not the film deserves a pass.

HAUTE CUISINE (Spotlight)
Directed by Christian Vincent

A bon mot for foodies, Christian Vincent’s “Haute Cuisine” premiered to rather tasty (ohmygodhedidnot) reviews at last year’s Venice Film Festival. Based on a true story, “Haute Cuisine” is a warm and effervescent comedy about the cook (Catherine Frot) who was plucked from obscurity and hand-picked to work as the personal chef for French president François Mitterrand (who served from 1981-1995). Reportedly a parade of mouth-watering dishes the likes of which the movies haven’t seen since “Big Night” or “Babette’s Feast” before that, Vincent’s film strikes me like the kind of film that could earn major traction with niche audiences. The Weinstein Company seems to agree, as they’ve picked it up for a release later this year.

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Tags: 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, Before Midnight, Emma roberts, Julianne moore, Julie Delpy, Justin long, Paul giamatti, Paul rudd, Preview, Richard linklater, Some Velvet Morning, Tribeca film festival