On the whole, the 35th Starz Denver Film Festival was a success. The first year away from the screens at the Tivoli could have proved problematic but wasn’t. The use of screens at the UA Theatres at the Pavilions worked fairly well. Certainly the seats were more comfortable.
The newly named Sie Film Center (and permanent home of the Film Society) continues to be a terrific venue not only during the Film Festival but year-round. The use of L2, across the street however is not a good venue to screen films. One thing about not being at the Tivoli anymore is the inability to use the King Center. I don’t know that there is an alternative to L2 but going forward, the Film Society needs to take a serious look at the viability of this venue. If an alternative cannot be found make certain the schedule does not require its use.
Another positive is the expansion of the schedule to include weekday matinees. The ones I attended had reasonably good sized audiences. Final tallies by the Society will show how well they were actually attended and indicate whether continuing with weekday matinees makes sense. From my personal standpoint, I hope it is possible to keep them. Among other things it eliminates some viewing dilemmas: do I see this film or that?
Volunteers. The Festival has always relied on a good core of volunteers – producing an 11-day festival is just not possible without them. I saw a lot of newer and younger faces in the volunteer core this year and that is a good thing, however it seemed to me that volunteers were in shorter supply than in past years (I have been attending the festival since 1990). Not sure if that is really the case or my perception.
The focus on Argentinean Film had one real high point for me: Family Law. This film was the 2004 Argentine submission for the Foreign Language Film Oscar. It was great fun and poignant with a terrific performance by Daniel Hendler as the University law professor struggling with family life and a relationship with his lawyer father.
I am a fan of eastern European film (in which I often include Germany). I saw another fine example in the 2011 Polish film Rose (or Roza). It is one of the films from this year’s festival that haunts me. I cannot get it out of my mind. Rose is a Masurian woman at the end of WWII. Masuria was a region of East Prussia that became part of Poland as a result of the Potsdam Agreements forged at the end of the war. There is tremendous animosity and outright hatred by the ethnic Poles and the invading Russians for the Masurians. This hatred takes the form of cruelty and the worst kind brutality to the Masurians. The worst kind of brutality takes the form of rape as a weapon of war. It was practiced by the Germans on the Poles and now is practiced by the Poles and the Russians on the Masurians.
This is a harrowing story of Rose’s attempts at survival. Her husband is dead, killed in the war and she is left on their farm trying to endure. A refugee, Tadeuz, a Pole from the Warsaw Uprising, arrives at the farm. He had been with her husband when he was killed and had brought pictures and other mementos to her. Wounded at the time, he had also watched as a German officer raped and then murdered his wife.
The two find common bond. The invading Russians are out to arrest and torture members of the Polish Home Army (part of the underground) instigators of the Warsaw Uprising. Stalin feared any nationalist movement (of which the Home Army was a part of) and wanted to destroy any elements in order to establish a satellite state in Poland. Thus Tadeuz is hunted and tries to hide his past.
Another film that is staying with me is the 2011 Chilean film Violeta Went To Heaven about the singer and artist Violeta Parra who died in 1967. It was Chile’s submission for the 84th Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film. It was not nominated. It did, however win the World Cinema Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. It is a terrific film with a terrific performance by Francisca Gavilan as Violetta.
So the 35th has come and gone. Here’s to next year.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Foreign Language Oscar Possibilities screened at Denver Film Festival
Four films that screened at the 35th Starz Denver Film Festival are also submissions for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. They are: Barbara from Germany, Sister from Switzerland, Headshot from Thailand and Caesar Must Die from Italy.
Sister, which was named the Kryzstof Kieslowski Best Feature Film at the Festival, has a shot at making the actual nomination list. 71 countries have submitted films to the Academy for consideration. Those films will be pared down to the final five nominations. More about Sister.
There is no guarantee that Sister, or any of these other films, might actually make the short list but it has a real chance. It is a very compelling and troubling film about a complicated relationship between a 12-year old boy and his 'sister'. It takes you places you may not want to go and with which you are not very comfortable but it does it in a way that is powerful and involving. You won't soon forget this film and the two principal characters.
Barbara is also a terrific film, though it is probably a longer shot to make the final five. It takes place in East Germany in 1980. Barbara is a woman doctor, recently released from prison, though we don't know why exactly, we are left to suspect that she may have been political prisoner – she was trying to obtain a permit to leave the country and is now under constant surveillance. She is clearly a very well trained and competent physician but ends up in the 'provinces' at a hospital where she meets another doctor who seems to be out of place in this backwater.
This is a tightly crafted drama, whose 'slice of life' almost leisurely pace belies the tension underneath. Nina Hoss, of the incredible eyes, plays Barbara. Ronald Zehrfeld, in an engaging performance plays the other doctor, Andre.
It is interesting that Sister could be considered a French film except for the fact that Academy rules stipulate that the creative talent (writer, director, producer) have to hail from the submitting nation – in that case this is Switzerland. France already has a submissions that is not only very likely to make the final five, but has a good shot at picking up the Oscar: The Intouchables.
The documentary, Caesar Must Die, is also a long shot despite being an excellent film and winning the Golden Bear at this year's Berlin Film Festival. It's makers, brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani received the Maria and Tommaso Maglione Italian Filmmaker Award.
Sister, which was named the Kryzstof Kieslowski Best Feature Film at the Festival, has a shot at making the actual nomination list. 71 countries have submitted films to the Academy for consideration. Those films will be pared down to the final five nominations. More about Sister.
There is no guarantee that Sister, or any of these other films, might actually make the short list but it has a real chance. It is a very compelling and troubling film about a complicated relationship between a 12-year old boy and his 'sister'. It takes you places you may not want to go and with which you are not very comfortable but it does it in a way that is powerful and involving. You won't soon forget this film and the two principal characters.
Barbara is also a terrific film, though it is probably a longer shot to make the final five. It takes place in East Germany in 1980. Barbara is a woman doctor, recently released from prison, though we don't know why exactly, we are left to suspect that she may have been political prisoner – she was trying to obtain a permit to leave the country and is now under constant surveillance. She is clearly a very well trained and competent physician but ends up in the 'provinces' at a hospital where she meets another doctor who seems to be out of place in this backwater.
This is a tightly crafted drama, whose 'slice of life' almost leisurely pace belies the tension underneath. Nina Hoss, of the incredible eyes, plays Barbara. Ronald Zehrfeld, in an engaging performance plays the other doctor, Andre.
It is interesting that Sister could be considered a French film except for the fact that Academy rules stipulate that the creative talent (writer, director, producer) have to hail from the submitting nation – in that case this is Switzerland. France already has a submissions that is not only very likely to make the final five, but has a good shot at picking up the Oscar: The Intouchables.
The documentary, Caesar Must Die, is also a long shot despite being an excellent film and winning the Golden Bear at this year's Berlin Film Festival. It's makers, brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani received the Maria and Tommaso Maglione Italian Filmmaker Award.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet Author Darynda Jones
New York Times best-selling author, Darynda Jones’ previous Charley Davidson books combine mystery with the paranormal; demons and ghosts paired with murder, robbery and even more heinous crimes. Her latest, Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet, published by St. Martin's Press October 30 – appropriately the day before Halloween - is no exception.
Charley (Charlotte) Davidson is a private investigator in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She often works as a consultant for the Police Department and also just happens to be a Grim Reaper – a portal for the departed to pass through to the other side. She is conversant with the dead and may be in love with Reyes who may be the Son of Satan.
Charley is not your average PI.
Ms Jones has an engaging, friendly laugh – not at all what you would expect from someone writing about mayhem, murder and maniacal demons. I spoke with her recently.
I asked if she set about to write crime fiction with a paranormal twist, or was her interest the paranormal, and crime fiction seemed a good vehicle. She told me she was interested in both and that originally she didn’t want the novels to be ‘super paranormal’, just a ‘little bit’ paranormal but now she thinks her writing is about 50-50 straight crime fiction and the paranormal. Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet has plenty of each.
She told me her attraction to the paranormal goes back to her childhood.
“One Halloween I was scared to death by this guy dressed up like a vampire and I have loved it ever since – just always been fascinated.”
The stories are set in Albuquerque, New Mexico and that is perhaps appropriate since New Mexico is The Land of Enchantment and there is a long strain of Native American and other mysticism in New Mexico.
Beginning in High School, Jones had always wanted to write and did, but without any real success. Then in 2002 she decided to start writing seriously with the goal of being published.
She wrote a historical romance, which she says will stay forever hidden underneath her bed, she wrote a piece of young adult fiction, Death and the Girl Next Door (which would also, eventually be published), then First Grave on the Right her third completed manuscript and the one that began the Charley Davidson series. It is interesting that First Grave began life as a ‘Romance’ not necessarily as a crime novel.
Darynda joined The Romance Writers of America (RWA) in a quest to learn the business of writing and publishing. She says she learned so much about what to do and what not to do and that she was able to take the rejections that came before her success because of what she learned: that the rejections were not personal, that it was just business.
“It wasn’t just learning the craft of writing I was also learning about the business. Once you come at it from the angle, that this is a business and that if you want an agent you need to understand that if they want you it is because they believe frankly that they can make money off you because it is a business, then you don’t take the rejections so hard.”
In 2009, she submitted the manuscript for First Grave on the Right for a Golden Heart Award as a paranormal romance. Golden Hearts are awards given annually by the RWA.
She was selected as a finalist and garnered so much attention as a finalist that she was able to acquire an agent. Then, she actually won a Golden Heart and shortly thereafter had a book deal with St. Martin’s Press. First Grave on the Right was published in early 2011.
Three other books featuring Charley followed in fairly rapid succession, about every six months. One of the books, For I Have Sinned, is actually a short story or novella. She said she didn’t realize St Martin’s was going to publish it in book form. It is the only book without Grave in the title.
Darynda also has a Young Adult series published by St. Martin's.
Fourth Grave has Charley still recuperating physically and emotionally from the torture and near-murder she suffered at the end of Third Grave Dead Ahead. She can’t bring herself to leave her apartment and spends her time buying stuff (that she can’t afford) on a home shopping network. But circumstances change that. A new client comes to Charley for help: someone is trying to kill her. Soon Charley is back at it again, not only with this new case, but others that come her way as well, in what seems like a flood of cases to solve.
Ms Jones is working on the next in the series, Fifth Grave Past the Light, due for publication next year. I asked if there was any chance that Charley could show up in a movie or on television. She told me that CBS had bought the rights to First Grave, even before publication as a possible series on The CW channel. CBS has renewed the option, so perhaps.
Darynda Jones will be at the Tattered Cover Bookstore, Highlands Ranch on November 12 to read from Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet and sign books.
Charley (Charlotte) Davidson is a private investigator in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She often works as a consultant for the Police Department and also just happens to be a Grim Reaper – a portal for the departed to pass through to the other side. She is conversant with the dead and may be in love with Reyes who may be the Son of Satan.
Charley is not your average PI.
Ms Jones has an engaging, friendly laugh – not at all what you would expect from someone writing about mayhem, murder and maniacal demons. I spoke with her recently.
I asked if she set about to write crime fiction with a paranormal twist, or was her interest the paranormal, and crime fiction seemed a good vehicle. She told me she was interested in both and that originally she didn’t want the novels to be ‘super paranormal’, just a ‘little bit’ paranormal but now she thinks her writing is about 50-50 straight crime fiction and the paranormal. Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet has plenty of each.
She told me her attraction to the paranormal goes back to her childhood.
“One Halloween I was scared to death by this guy dressed up like a vampire and I have loved it ever since – just always been fascinated.”
The stories are set in Albuquerque, New Mexico and that is perhaps appropriate since New Mexico is The Land of Enchantment and there is a long strain of Native American and other mysticism in New Mexico.
Beginning in High School, Jones had always wanted to write and did, but without any real success. Then in 2002 she decided to start writing seriously with the goal of being published.
She wrote a historical romance, which she says will stay forever hidden underneath her bed, she wrote a piece of young adult fiction, Death and the Girl Next Door (which would also, eventually be published), then First Grave on the Right her third completed manuscript and the one that began the Charley Davidson series. It is interesting that First Grave began life as a ‘Romance’ not necessarily as a crime novel.
Darynda joined The Romance Writers of America (RWA) in a quest to learn the business of writing and publishing. She says she learned so much about what to do and what not to do and that she was able to take the rejections that came before her success because of what she learned: that the rejections were not personal, that it was just business.
“It wasn’t just learning the craft of writing I was also learning about the business. Once you come at it from the angle, that this is a business and that if you want an agent you need to understand that if they want you it is because they believe frankly that they can make money off you because it is a business, then you don’t take the rejections so hard.”
In 2009, she submitted the manuscript for First Grave on the Right for a Golden Heart Award as a paranormal romance. Golden Hearts are awards given annually by the RWA.
She was selected as a finalist and garnered so much attention as a finalist that she was able to acquire an agent. Then, she actually won a Golden Heart and shortly thereafter had a book deal with St. Martin’s Press. First Grave on the Right was published in early 2011.
Three other books featuring Charley followed in fairly rapid succession, about every six months. One of the books, For I Have Sinned, is actually a short story or novella. She said she didn’t realize St Martin’s was going to publish it in book form. It is the only book without Grave in the title.
Darynda also has a Young Adult series published by St. Martin's.
Fourth Grave has Charley still recuperating physically and emotionally from the torture and near-murder she suffered at the end of Third Grave Dead Ahead. She can’t bring herself to leave her apartment and spends her time buying stuff (that she can’t afford) on a home shopping network. But circumstances change that. A new client comes to Charley for help: someone is trying to kill her. Soon Charley is back at it again, not only with this new case, but others that come her way as well, in what seems like a flood of cases to solve.
Ms Jones is working on the next in the series, Fifth Grave Past the Light, due for publication next year. I asked if there was any chance that Charley could show up in a movie or on television. She told me that CBS had bought the rights to First Grave, even before publication as a possible series on The CW channel. CBS has renewed the option, so perhaps.
Darynda Jones will be at the Tattered Cover Bookstore, Highlands Ranch on November 12 to read from Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet and sign books.
Friday, November 9, 2012
"I, Anna"
There have been two spellbinding thrillers at this year’s Starz Denver Film Festival: Shadow Dancer" and "I, Anna" starring Charlotte Rampling and Gabriel Byrne.
Rampling is Anna, a lonely divorced woman taken to attending speed dating sessions. At one she meets George Stone (Ralph Brown) and goes home with him to his sumptuous apartment. Later, George is found murdered, bludgeoned to death.
Gabriel Byrne is Detective Chief Inspector Bernie Reid. DCI Reid is separated from his wife, lonely and an insomniac taken to roaming around London late at night. While out on one of his nocturnal wanderings he hears a call about a dead body. Realizing he is close by the address he responds.
By chance, he encounters Anna, innocently retrieving her umbrella from the elevator of the building. Something about her intrigues him, not because he connects her to the crime he is about to investigate but because there is something captivating. Watching her leave, he makes a mental note of her license plate – perhaps he will seek her out.
This psychological thriller is very ‘film noirish’ and is set in a seedy London, not the London of Mayfair and the West End.
Anna lives with her daughter Emily (Hayley Atwell) and Emily’s toddler. There is a serene, almost vague quality to Anna and while we think she must know something about the murder, she doesn’t seem to; she seems not to remember anything about that night.
"I, Anna" is directed by Barnaby Southcombe, who also happens to be Rampling’s son from her marriage to Bryan Southcombe. Barnaby Southcombe also wrote the screenplay which is based on the novel of the same name by Elsa Lewin.
Southcombe keeps us guessing about what happened – feeding us flashes and tidbits of information: who may have murdered George Stone, and what exactly Anna’s part in all of this is?
DCI Reid's investigation focuses on George Stone’s troubled and out of control son, Stevie (Max Deacon), who is known to be in the apartment the night of the murder. In all this he continues to be attracted to the woman he only met in passing, Anna.
He tracks her down, learning that she attends speed dating sessions. He attends a session as well and the two meet at the bar. They talk, there is a rapport, but she has no memory of meeting him before. They agree to see each other again. They do, but as they do some of Anna’s memories begin to resurface.
Rampling and Byrne's maturity and talent make the film work wonderfully. Rampling, at 66 years of age is still breathtakingly beautiful with that enigmatic, other-world quality it is very believable that the ruggedly handsome Byrne would fall for her.
His attraction to her complicates his investigation though and maybe even his ethics. As more secrets are revealed, the ending starts to bear down on us and Anna and Reid like an on rushing train.
The film screens again Saturday. No US commercial release has been announced.
Rampling is Anna, a lonely divorced woman taken to attending speed dating sessions. At one she meets George Stone (Ralph Brown) and goes home with him to his sumptuous apartment. Later, George is found murdered, bludgeoned to death.
Gabriel Byrne is Detective Chief Inspector Bernie Reid. DCI Reid is separated from his wife, lonely and an insomniac taken to roaming around London late at night. While out on one of his nocturnal wanderings he hears a call about a dead body. Realizing he is close by the address he responds.
By chance, he encounters Anna, innocently retrieving her umbrella from the elevator of the building. Something about her intrigues him, not because he connects her to the crime he is about to investigate but because there is something captivating. Watching her leave, he makes a mental note of her license plate – perhaps he will seek her out.
This psychological thriller is very ‘film noirish’ and is set in a seedy London, not the London of Mayfair and the West End.
Anna lives with her daughter Emily (Hayley Atwell) and Emily’s toddler. There is a serene, almost vague quality to Anna and while we think she must know something about the murder, she doesn’t seem to; she seems not to remember anything about that night.
"I, Anna" is directed by Barnaby Southcombe, who also happens to be Rampling’s son from her marriage to Bryan Southcombe. Barnaby Southcombe also wrote the screenplay which is based on the novel of the same name by Elsa Lewin.
Southcombe keeps us guessing about what happened – feeding us flashes and tidbits of information: who may have murdered George Stone, and what exactly Anna’s part in all of this is?
DCI Reid's investigation focuses on George Stone’s troubled and out of control son, Stevie (Max Deacon), who is known to be in the apartment the night of the murder. In all this he continues to be attracted to the woman he only met in passing, Anna.
He tracks her down, learning that she attends speed dating sessions. He attends a session as well and the two meet at the bar. They talk, there is a rapport, but she has no memory of meeting him before. They agree to see each other again. They do, but as they do some of Anna’s memories begin to resurface.
Rampling and Byrne's maturity and talent make the film work wonderfully. Rampling, at 66 years of age is still breathtakingly beautiful with that enigmatic, other-world quality it is very believable that the ruggedly handsome Byrne would fall for her.
His attraction to her complicates his investigation though and maybe even his ethics. As more secrets are revealed, the ending starts to bear down on us and Anna and Reid like an on rushing train.
The film screens again Saturday. No US commercial release has been announced.
The Sapphires - There is the music, There is Chris O'Dowd, There are the four incredible women
In Wayne Blair’s The Sapphires, three of the young women, they are sisters and cousins, go to a local club in a rural part of Australia, to perform in a talent contest. This is a ‘whites’ only process and the Aboriginal women are rudely treated but they perform nonetheless. The MC, Dave (Chris O’Dowd), a down on his luck, boozy musician, scuffling to get by, is very taken with their singing. He persuades them that if they will only give up the Country and Western songs they want to sing and take on American Soul music they can be successful – but probably not in Australia because they are Aborigines and this is the sixties. Vietnam is where they need to go to get their big break.
Dave says they need to be a quartet – there is another sister. She is now living in Sydney, one of the ‘light-skinned’ ones taken at an early age and being raised by a white family.
The history of racism in our own country is matched by that of Australia in its treatment over the years of its indigenous population, the Aborigines. While it wasn't quite the Apartheid of South Africa it was brutalizing to the Aborigine nonetheless. One aspect was the taking of young Aborigine children who were light skinned and could pass for white. They would be raised 'white' would marry white and in theory diminish the indigenous population by selective breeding
There is not total agreement among the other three sisters about the need for the fourth to join them – this tension, among others, runs through most of film – but in the end they are indeed a quartet and are off to Vietnam.
This comedy/drama has so much going for it: the script is delightful, O’Dowd (in a tour de force turn) is wonderful, and there is the music and the women – wow.
The four Sapphires are played by Deborah Malman, Jessica Mauboy Miranda Tapsell and Shari Sebbens. They are the real deal. Close your eyes and you will swear you are listening to the Supremes at their best. In fact, you won’t want the music to stop (there is a soundtrack available).
The film is based on a stage play/musical written by Tony Briggs, the son of one of the real Sapphires and who also co-wrote the screenplay with Keith Thompson.
And while the music is wonderful and this is in essence a comedy, the script deals with the underlying racism, cruelty and bitterness the women face in their real lives.
And as we learn in the credits, the real woman have gone on, not to musical careers but making a difference in the lives of their community.
This film got a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival (a remarkable achievement) earlier this year. It screened over this past weekend at the Starz Denver Film Festival and was a huge hit. It has three more screening this coming Sunday night, the last night of the Festival.
Dave says they need to be a quartet – there is another sister. She is now living in Sydney, one of the ‘light-skinned’ ones taken at an early age and being raised by a white family.
The history of racism in our own country is matched by that of Australia in its treatment over the years of its indigenous population, the Aborigines. While it wasn't quite the Apartheid of South Africa it was brutalizing to the Aborigine nonetheless. One aspect was the taking of young Aborigine children who were light skinned and could pass for white. They would be raised 'white' would marry white and in theory diminish the indigenous population by selective breeding
There is not total agreement among the other three sisters about the need for the fourth to join them – this tension, among others, runs through most of film – but in the end they are indeed a quartet and are off to Vietnam.
This comedy/drama has so much going for it: the script is delightful, O’Dowd (in a tour de force turn) is wonderful, and there is the music and the women – wow.
The four Sapphires are played by Deborah Malman, Jessica Mauboy Miranda Tapsell and Shari Sebbens. They are the real deal. Close your eyes and you will swear you are listening to the Supremes at their best. In fact, you won’t want the music to stop (there is a soundtrack available).
The film is based on a stage play/musical written by Tony Briggs, the son of one of the real Sapphires and who also co-wrote the screenplay with Keith Thompson.
And while the music is wonderful and this is in essence a comedy, the script deals with the underlying racism, cruelty and bitterness the women face in their real lives.
And as we learn in the credits, the real woman have gone on, not to musical careers but making a difference in the lives of their community.
This film got a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival (a remarkable achievement) earlier this year. It screened over this past weekend at the Starz Denver Film Festival and was a huge hit. It has three more screening this coming Sunday night, the last night of the Festival.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Starlet - Another Hemingway Woman stands out
Update: Starlet opens today, Friday December 7, at the Chez Artiste.
There must be something in the genes, at least for the women, descended from Ernest Hemingway.
Ernest's great granddaughter, Dree Hemingway is the latest to display wonderful acting talent.
In Sean Baker's Starlet, which screened this week at the Starz Denver Film Festival, Hemingway plays Jane, a 21 year old - flaky in a Legally Blonde kind of way - Porn Queen living on the edge in the 'beautiful' west San Fernando Valley. She and her chihuahua named Starlet, share an apartment with a drugged-out fellow sex worker, Melissa (Stella Maeve) and Melissa's porn-promoter, wannabe boyfriend, Mikey (James Ransone).
Wanting to fix up her room (she needs to make it feel more like a home?) she stops at a yard sale, where she buys a beautifully decorated thermos that she thinks is a vase. When she gets back to her room she discovers several tightly wrapped rolls of hundred dollar bills inside.
Ambivalent about what exactly to do about the money but curious, she returns to the site of the yard sale. She asks the elderly woman, Sadie (Besedka Johnson) from whom she bought the thermos about it. Sadie, caustic and suspicious, says that there is no refund. Jane, trying to not be too forthcoming, says she doesn't want a refund she is just curious. She finds excuses to linger around the house - “Can I have a glass of water? -exasperating the old woman.
As time goes on, Jane finds ways to run into Sadie, at the grocery store, at Saturday bingo sessions, etc.
An unlikely friendship develops between the lonely, widowed Sadie and Jane who is craving family - after finding the money she calls her mother in Florida telling her she will pay to fly her to California so the can see each other, her mother refuses.
Dree Hemingway, the daughter of Mariel and niece of Margaux is wonderful in this low-budget ($250,000) SAG Indie film, as is Besedka Johnson in a debut performance. The 87 year-old Johnson was 'discovered' at a YWCA and thought the casting was a joke. Her performance is no joke.
While there is a very explicit sex scene - Jane, shooting a porn-video - the characters' involvement in the Adult film industry is incidental to the story. It is a very sweet, naturalistic film about human wants and needs. It is about the secrets we all harbor, which often enhance and strengthen the sometimes odd friendships that can sustain us.
Sean Baker's direction and the performances of Hemingway and Johnson draw us in and make us care about these people and what happens to them. The supporting cast is terrific as well.
Starlet, from Music Box Films is scheduled to open in Denver December 7 at a Landmark Theatre.
SAG Indie is an organization devoted to facitlitating the use by low-budget film makers, of SAG (now SAG-AFTRA) professional actors It is supported by the Screen Actor's Guild-Producers Industry Advancement & Cooperative Fund.
There must be something in the genes, at least for the women, descended from Ernest Hemingway.
Ernest's great granddaughter, Dree Hemingway is the latest to display wonderful acting talent.
In Sean Baker's Starlet, which screened this week at the Starz Denver Film Festival, Hemingway plays Jane, a 21 year old - flaky in a Legally Blonde kind of way - Porn Queen living on the edge in the 'beautiful' west San Fernando Valley. She and her chihuahua named Starlet, share an apartment with a drugged-out fellow sex worker, Melissa (Stella Maeve) and Melissa's porn-promoter, wannabe boyfriend, Mikey (James Ransone).
Wanting to fix up her room (she needs to make it feel more like a home?) she stops at a yard sale, where she buys a beautifully decorated thermos that she thinks is a vase. When she gets back to her room she discovers several tightly wrapped rolls of hundred dollar bills inside.
Ambivalent about what exactly to do about the money but curious, she returns to the site of the yard sale. She asks the elderly woman, Sadie (Besedka Johnson) from whom she bought the thermos about it. Sadie, caustic and suspicious, says that there is no refund. Jane, trying to not be too forthcoming, says she doesn't want a refund she is just curious. She finds excuses to linger around the house - “Can I have a glass of water? -exasperating the old woman.
As time goes on, Jane finds ways to run into Sadie, at the grocery store, at Saturday bingo sessions, etc.
An unlikely friendship develops between the lonely, widowed Sadie and Jane who is craving family - after finding the money she calls her mother in Florida telling her she will pay to fly her to California so the can see each other, her mother refuses.
Dree Hemingway, the daughter of Mariel and niece of Margaux is wonderful in this low-budget ($250,000) SAG Indie film, as is Besedka Johnson in a debut performance. The 87 year-old Johnson was 'discovered' at a YWCA and thought the casting was a joke. Her performance is no joke.
While there is a very explicit sex scene - Jane, shooting a porn-video - the characters' involvement in the Adult film industry is incidental to the story. It is a very sweet, naturalistic film about human wants and needs. It is about the secrets we all harbor, which often enhance and strengthen the sometimes odd friendships that can sustain us.
Sean Baker's direction and the performances of Hemingway and Johnson draw us in and make us care about these people and what happens to them. The supporting cast is terrific as well.
Starlet, from Music Box Films is scheduled to open in Denver December 7 at a Landmark Theatre.
SAG Indie is an organization devoted to facitlitating the use by low-budget film makers, of SAG (now SAG-AFTRA) professional actors It is supported by the Screen Actor's Guild-Producers Industry Advancement & Cooperative Fund.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Liv & Ingmar
Liv & Ingmar, the documentary, is really, as Ron Henderson says, a love letter from actor Liv Ullman to the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. It screened for the last time Monday night during the Starz Denver Film Festival.
Ullman and Bergman met in 1964 when he cast her in his film Personna – She would go on to act in ten films for him – and during the next five years they would live together in a relationship which was intimate, passionate, emotional, loving, creative and ultimately heartbreaking and anguished. The secondary title of the film reads: Painfully Connected. That describes it.
In Dheeraj Akolkar’s 75 minute documentary, Ullman returns to the house and the island where they lived during that five years and where Personna was shot, to reflect on their 42-year relationship (Bergman died in 2007). Though Ullman eventually left Bergman the bond between them was still there. They became, if anything, even better friends.
Beautifully shot in rich color by Hallvard Braein it also features archival footage and stills as well as footage from some of their films. It is poignant and insightful. The film is told from Ullman’s point of view. She is frank and open in talking about her feelings and their relationship. We only hear Bergman's words from his love letters to her.
Ullman had a daughter, Linn, by Bergman during this time but eventually it was not enough to keep them together.
They were both married to other people in that summer of 1964 (Ullman would divorce her husband) but their passion for each other drew them together.
Bergman built a house for her on the island but soon it became almost a prison. Bergman was prone to turbulent rages and psychological violence. He wanted solitude while he was writing but extended that solitude to isolating her; he built a wall around the house to keep others out and her in; he demanded that she be home at certain times and dictated which days she could leave the house. This all became too much for her to bear and, now with a child, she left.
Though the romantic relationship ended, the creative collaboration continued.
Ullman would go on to be a major Hollywood star and Bergman continued making films, some with her.
While Ullman does not speak much in the film about her daughter Linn’s relationship with her father, the relationship did exist. Bergman was very proud of her. Linn in the last years of his life spent time with him on the island.
Linn Ullman is a very successful writer and novelist. She also is co founder and former Artistic Director of the International Artist Residency Foundation at The Bergman Estate on the island.
I am a fan of both Bergman and Ullman and the films they did together. Woody Allen, also one of my favorite filmmakers, and he a fan of Bergman as well, has called him, "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera," Allen was introduced to Bergman by Ullman.
I remember when Allen’s Bergman inspired film Interiors was released in 1978, there was a hue and cry from Woody’s fans – “it isn’t funny” they complained (not unlike the reaction from Bob Dylan fans when he showed up at Newport with an electric guitar). Woody would go on to make more films in the spirit of Bergman and other European directors so that now, people speak of making ‘Woody Allenesque’ films.
It may be easy for many to focus so thoroughly on Bergman’s artistic genius and lose sight of the artistic genius of Ullman herself. Bergman called Ullman ‘his Stradivarius’ – the music from a musician on a lesser instrument would not be the same. As she has so thoroughly demonstrated, she is an actor and film artist (she directed two films which Bergman wrote, the only woman to have directed a Bergman film script).
In addition to screenings at the Starz Denver Film Festival, the film has played other film festivals, this year. It has been officially released in Norway, but to date, no US release or distribution has been announced.
Ullman and Bergman met in 1964 when he cast her in his film Personna – She would go on to act in ten films for him – and during the next five years they would live together in a relationship which was intimate, passionate, emotional, loving, creative and ultimately heartbreaking and anguished. The secondary title of the film reads: Painfully Connected. That describes it.
In Dheeraj Akolkar’s 75 minute documentary, Ullman returns to the house and the island where they lived during that five years and where Personna was shot, to reflect on their 42-year relationship (Bergman died in 2007). Though Ullman eventually left Bergman the bond between them was still there. They became, if anything, even better friends.
Beautifully shot in rich color by Hallvard Braein it also features archival footage and stills as well as footage from some of their films. It is poignant and insightful. The film is told from Ullman’s point of view. She is frank and open in talking about her feelings and their relationship. We only hear Bergman's words from his love letters to her.
Ullman had a daughter, Linn, by Bergman during this time but eventually it was not enough to keep them together.
They were both married to other people in that summer of 1964 (Ullman would divorce her husband) but their passion for each other drew them together.
Bergman built a house for her on the island but soon it became almost a prison. Bergman was prone to turbulent rages and psychological violence. He wanted solitude while he was writing but extended that solitude to isolating her; he built a wall around the house to keep others out and her in; he demanded that she be home at certain times and dictated which days she could leave the house. This all became too much for her to bear and, now with a child, she left.
Though the romantic relationship ended, the creative collaboration continued.
Ullman would go on to be a major Hollywood star and Bergman continued making films, some with her.
While Ullman does not speak much in the film about her daughter Linn’s relationship with her father, the relationship did exist. Bergman was very proud of her. Linn in the last years of his life spent time with him on the island.
Linn Ullman is a very successful writer and novelist. She also is co founder and former Artistic Director of the International Artist Residency Foundation at The Bergman Estate on the island.
I am a fan of both Bergman and Ullman and the films they did together. Woody Allen, also one of my favorite filmmakers, and he a fan of Bergman as well, has called him, "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera," Allen was introduced to Bergman by Ullman.
I remember when Allen’s Bergman inspired film Interiors was released in 1978, there was a hue and cry from Woody’s fans – “it isn’t funny” they complained (not unlike the reaction from Bob Dylan fans when he showed up at Newport with an electric guitar). Woody would go on to make more films in the spirit of Bergman and other European directors so that now, people speak of making ‘Woody Allenesque’ films.
It may be easy for many to focus so thoroughly on Bergman’s artistic genius and lose sight of the artistic genius of Ullman herself. Bergman called Ullman ‘his Stradivarius’ – the music from a musician on a lesser instrument would not be the same. As she has so thoroughly demonstrated, she is an actor and film artist (she directed two films which Bergman wrote, the only woman to have directed a Bergman film script).
In addition to screenings at the Starz Denver Film Festival, the film has played other film festivals, this year. It has been officially released in Norway, but to date, no US release or distribution has been announced.
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