Theater Recommendation - HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE (dir. TAIKA WAITITI)

A few days ago, I went to a screening of Taika Waititi's newest film Hunt for the Wilderpeople at the 15th Tribeca Film Festival. I had previously mentioned this film on my post talking about this year's Sundance Film Festival, naming it one of the most intriguing films to premiere at the event. Luckily enough, I didn't have to wait too long to see it. 

This comedy centers on a national New Zealand manhunt for a young rebellious boy (played by the wonderful newcomer Julian Dennison) and his foster uncle (played by veteran actor Sam Neill). Waititi just really knows how to direct an extremely charming film! All of his previous films, including Eagle vs Shark, Boy, and What We Do In the Shadows, maintain a sweetness even though some fairly crazy shit goes down. Hunt for the Wilderpeople prominently features death, isolation, pig slaughterings, and car chases, but it so freaking cute!

I not sure how to really explain it... you sort of have to watch Waitit's films to really understand his voice. I'm incredibly curious to see what he brings to Marvel's Cinematic Universe with Thor: Ragnarok, his next project currently in pre-production with a November 2017 release date. 

At my screening, Taika Waititi sent in a taped opening message announcing that Hunt for the Wilderpeople will be released in theaters this June. He didn’t specify the exact date or anything, but I’d expect it to open limited it’s first June weekend and then continue to expand nationwide throughout this summer. So, definitely watch out for this one this summer!

Your Guide to the 2016 Festival de Cannes!!

The 2016 Cannes Film Festival has just released it's official lineup this morning, and I'm here to prepare you some of the films and directors who've earned a shot at the grand prize, the coveted Palme d'Or. 

Easily considered the most "prestigious" event of the festival circuit, this incredibly glamorous week-long showcase of international cinema is always host to a lot of drama and excitement. The Cannes audiences is notoriously vocal and difficult to please, and they will actively BOO a film if they feel negatively towards it (which happened to poor Matthew McConaughey and Gus Van Sant last year...)

The Festival is organized into multiple sections: "In Competition" (films that compete for the top awards, like the Palme d'Or), "Un Certain Regard" (the second tier of competition, which runs parallel to the Palme d'Or race), "Out of Competition" (often American/more mainstream films which help to build international buzz), Special Screenings, and Midnight Screenings (the last two seem self-explanatory, no awards are given). 

Every year, a "Jury" is formed and they vote on the films In Competition to determine who will take home the coveted awards. This year's Jury President will be Australian writer, director, and producer George Miller, whose last film, Mad Max: Fury Road, went on to win six Academy Awards and received high praise at last year's Cannes Film Festival, where it screened out of competition. The rest of his Jury will likely be announced some time in the next two weeks. 

And NOW... it's time to list the chosen films for this year's festival. The lucky participants are...

In Competition:

• Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
• Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar)
• American Honey (Andrea Arnold)
• Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)
• The Unknown Girl (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
• It’s Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan)
• Slack Bay (Bruno Dumont)
• Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)
• Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie)
• Aquarius (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
• Mal de Pierres (Nicole Garcia)
• I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)
• Ma’ Rosa (Brillante Mendoza)
• Family Photos (Cristian Mungiu)
• Loving (Jeff Nichols)
• The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook)
• The Last Face (Sean Penn)
• Sieranevada (Cristi Puiu)
• Elle (Paul Verhoeven)
• The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn)

Un Certain Regard:

• Inversion (Behnam Behzadi)
• Apprentice (Boo Junfeng)
• The Stopover (Delphine Coulin & Muriel Coulin)
• The Dancer (Stéphanie Di Giusto)
• Clash (Mohamed Diab)
• Red Turtle (Michael Dudok De Wit)
• Harmonium (Fukada Kôji)
• Personal Affairs (Maha Haj)
• Beyond the Mountains and Hills (Eran Kolirin)
• After the Storm (Kore-eda Hirokazu)
• The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (Juho Kuosmanen)
• Francisco Sanctis’s Long Night (Francisco Márquez & Andrea Testa)
• Dogs (Bogdan Mirica)
• Pericle Il Nero (Stefano Mordini)
• The Transfiguration (Michael O’Shea)
• Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross)
• The Student (Kirill Serebrennikov)

Out of Competition:

• Café Society (Woody Allen) [OPENING FILM]
• The BFG (Steven Spielberg)
• Goksung (Na Hong-Jin)
• Money Monster (Jodie Foster)
• The Nice Guys (Shane Black)

Special Screenings:

• The Last Resort (Thanos Anastopoulos & Davide Del Degan)
• Hissein Habré, A Chadian Tragedy (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
• Last Days of Louis XIV (Albert Serra)
• Le Cancre (Paul Vecchiali)
• Exil (Rithy Panh)

Midnight Screenings:

• Gimme Danger (Jim Jarmusch)
• Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-Ho)

The festival begins on May 11th. 

Click Read More to learn more about some of the films I'm most excited for (even though I'll probably have to wait until 2017 to actually see most of them...)

Theater Recommendation - NEON BULL (dir. GABRIEL MASCARO)

I'll just get this out of the way right from the get-go: this film is pretty much only for the "arthouse" crowd. That sounds super pretentious and obnoxious, but the reality is that unless you're into movies like this, films with virtually no plot, solely concerned with presenting characters in their natural environments within a strangely artistic lens, then you'll probably think this is the most boring and stupid movie I've recommended so far. Also, if you have difficulties with animals essentially being tossed around for "sport", this film could also be triggering for you...

But... with all that being said... I really liked it...

The film focuses on a group of Brazilian rodeo workers and cowboys who have formed a ragtag "family" of sorts as they travel wherever their rodeo work takes them. It's maybe the most nontraditional road trip movie I've ever seen, and that's not the only thing nontraditional about it. The main character, Iremar, played by Juliano Cazarré, may wrangle bulls by day, but his true love is fashion design. He makes costumes for exotic dancers and sketches clothes on the bodies of nude women in porno magazines. The film has very little intention or desire with sticking to typical, socially defined gender norms, and creates an environment which feels entirely foreign, but simultaneously ideal. 

There are a lot of really weird scenes in here that would likely make most audiences uncomfortable (a lot of bizarre horse imagery... that's all I'll say...), but I found the whole thing to be fascinating. This is certainly one of the most different film experiences I've had so far this year, and quite possibly one of my favorite. 

Click here for showtimes. 

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER!!!!!

Just fuck me up... Seriously, just take me away now. I don't care if I'm only supposed to be talking about indie films because the teaser for the new Star Wars spinoff was just released this morning and OH MY GOD IT IS BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! Plot details for Rogue One are scarce, but this anthology film takes place before the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope and focuses on a rebel Resistance group trying to steal the plans for the Death Star (so, most definitely expect a Darth Vader cameo somewhere in the final film).

The cast is amazing: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen... I mean, come on... this is all just too overwhelming.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will be released on December 16th.

Also, be sure to watch director Gareth Edwards' first indie sci-fi film Monsters, currently streaming on Netflix!!

Theater Recommendation - EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! (dir. RICHARD LINKLATER)

I love Richard Linklater... I love him, I love him, I love him!!!  Slacker, The "Before" Trilogy (Sunrise, Sunset, Midnight), SubUrbia, Waking Life, Tape, SCHOOL OF ROCK (!!), Bernie, Boyhood... I mean are you fucking kidding me?? He's potentially the most quintessential "Amercian" filmmaker working today, making each one of his projects from now on somewhat of an event, even if they're often extremely lax and almost completely unconcerned with typical film structure. His films simultaneously feel very "Texas" while remaining completely progressive and welcoming. He's just a goddamn master. 

Described as the "spiritual sequel" to the 1993 stoner classic Dazed and Confused (another masterpiece from the director focusing on high schoolers on their last day of school in 1976), Everyone Wants Some!! follows a group of college baseball players in 1980 partying nonstop the weekend before class begins. Obviously, they're machismo-fueled losers desperate to get laid, but they simultaneously recognize their own ridiculousness, are shockingly openminded, and are completely determined to enjoy themselves as much as possible anyway, while also finding plenty of time to have legitimate philosophical discussions about their futures and the unnecessary competitive nature existing amongst them. It's such a fucking delight! I’m not totally sure how to fully rationalize the overwhelming happiness I experienced when watching this, but what I do know is that I immediately wanted to watch it again as soon as the credits began to roll. 

This group of performers, including Blake Jenner, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell, Glen Powell, Temple Baker, J. Quinton Johnson, Zoey Deutch, and more, might just be the oldest looking group of "college students" ever assembled in film history, but you get over that so quickly because the writing is so enjoyable. 

It's easily my favorite film of the year so far, so definitely check it out ASAP!

Click here for showtimes. 

Viewing Log - March 2016

I saw A WHOLE LOT of really great movies this month, hence why the majority of the list is in bold...

(Strongly Recommended, Don't Bother...)

1. Shadow of a Doubt (1943, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) x 2 [YouTube Rental]
2. Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962, dir. Agnès Varda)
3. Taxi (2015, dir. Jafar Panahi) [Netflix]
4. Blade (1998, dir. Stephen Norrington)
5. Fucking Åmål (1998, dir. Lukas Moodysson) (AKA Show Me Love) [Netflix]
6. Together (2000, dir. Lukas Moodysson)
7. Knight of Cups (2015, dir. Terrence Malick)
8. Notorious (1946, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
9. Wadjda (2012, dir. Haifaa al-Mansour) [iTunes]
10. Cloverfield (2008, dir. Matt Reeves)* [iTunes]
11. The Battle of Algiers (1966, dir. Gillo Pontecorvo) [Hulu]
12. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016, dir. Dan Trachtenberg) [Click for showtimes]
13. River of Grass (1994, dir. Kelly Reichardt) [Fandor]
14. The Fury (1978, dir. Brian De Palma)
15. Sleeping Beauty (2011, dir. Julia Leigh) 
16. The Watermelon Woman (1996, dir. Cheryl Dunye) [Fandor]
17. The Panic in Needle Park (1971, dir. Jerry Schatzberg) [Netflix]
18. Je, tu, il, elle (1974, dir. Chantal Akerman)
19. Law of Desire (1987, dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
20. A Song of Love (1950, dir. Jean Genet)
21. Fireworks Wednesday (2006, dir. Asghar Farhadi) [Click for showtimes] 
22. Pee-wee's Big Holiday (2016, dir. John Lee)
23. American Gigolo (1980, dir. Paul Schrader)
24. Zootopia (2016, dir. Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush) [Click for showtimes]
25. La Haine (1995, dir. Mathieu Kassovitz) [Hulu]
26. Boys (2014, dir. Misha Kamp)
27. Midnight Special (2016, dir. Jeff Nichols)
28. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016, dir. Zack Snyder) x 2
29. Opening Night (1977, dir. John Cassavetes) [Fandor]
30. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, Robert Zemeckis) [Netflix]
31. Green Room (2015, dir. Jeremy Saulnier) [Opens on April 15th (NY + LA), goes wide on April 29th] 
32. Wayne's World (1992, dir. Penelope Spheeris)
33. Everybody Wants Some!! (2016, dir. Richard Linklater) [Click for showtimes]

* indicates rewatch