In the constant upswing that is the age of digital innovation, there’s hardly a technological advancement portrayed on film that doesn’t seem moments from reality. Benjamin Dickinson’s Creative Control feels so near to today’s level of digital immersion, one has to wonder if some tech company isn’t using him to sneak-peak their product. Creative Control’s five-minutes-from-now future depicts a black and white filmed Brooklyn and the creative professionals who occupy it. The film follows David (Benjamin Dickinson also plays lead), a marketing professional pitching a new client on how to release their product. The product is Augmenta, a pair of glasses—hipster in design—that bring the virtual world and the real world together allowing a person to be almost constantly plugged in. In this near-future phones look like iPhones but see-through, finger movements across a desktop work in lieu of keyboards, and with the glasses on one could technically be working on as many things at once as they want.

Creative Control’s focus is oddly far less on technology and more on the enhanced ways technology allows an already emotionally unintelligent and self-absorbed yuppie to spiral further into self-destructive tendencies. Unfortunately, the crystallized mechanics of this classic music dubbed, slow-motion filled revery reduce down to beautiful packaging on a boring operating system.

Dickinson gently pokes fun at the creative class of New York City with his film’s opening. David helps his boss who can’t figure out his phone as they wait for their new clients then delivers a cocky modern pitch to Augmenta’s creator Gabe (Jake Lodwick, the real-life creator of Vimeo) suggesting they use a technologically-hip and out of the box artist to use the glasses to create his art, giving the product some needed street-cred. The techno-artist in question is Reggie Watts (playing a stylized version of himself and by far the film’s strongest comedic relief) and his out there, existential, video-making is an edgy risk. David’s risk is a success, the client approves and he gets his own pair of Augmenta glasses, he texts his girlfriend about his victory. His girlfriend, Juliette (Nora Zehetner), is a yoga instructor and her personality would appear in stark contrast to David’s, all naturalistic and socially minded, spending her weekends at hippie communes teaching yoga. But as the film continues it’s clear they are both consumers of modern popular theologies, he gets lost in his technology, she looks for escape in something resembling mindfulness, both accomodated by contemporary entitlement.

David’s best friend is Wim (Dan Gill), a modern asshole photographer surrounded by models and unabashed in his infidelities. His girlfriend, Sophie (Alexia Rasmussen), is another struggling artist, flirty and cute. David’s interest in her is obvious from the start, especially as he proceeds to find her a job at his company. She’s the first face his pair of Augmenta glasses see and David starts to use the glasses to create a virtual version of her. One night after a work event hosted by Reggie and fueled by psychedelic drugs, David walks Sophie home and ends up kissing her. They continue to flirt at the office. He and Juliette have a fight one evening, each taking jabs at the others values and judging their varied consumption of the mumbo-jumbo they’ve bought into. Juliette worries about the materials used to create Augmenta and the social conscience of the company. David criticizes her lack of a real job and constant need to focus on the world’s problems without offering solutions. He moves into a hotel and almost immediately tries to get Sophie to join him. She won’t, and his obsession with her grows and his virtual version of her gets more and more lifelike. Her digital avatar is a fine piece of special effects, distinctive from the rest of David’s world by being the only thing of color in the film.

From here relationship issues and career problems gather and gather crushing down on David’s growing obsessiveness and inability to focus on real life. Unfortunately, the more interesting angle would be to blame Augmenta and the virtual escape David uses it for, except that everything that ends up pushing David to his ho-hum conclusion is entirely to do with douche-y things he was likely to do anyway. From the film’s start, his inappropriate interest in Sophie is evident and there isn’t a single scene showcasing David being anything but a horrible boyfriend. It’s nice to know that even in this near-future the emotionally stunted and self-involved get their self-inflicted due. But the complete miss on an opportunity to delve into how virtual technology could create new possibilities, even new possibilities for douchebaggery, is just too transparent here. Like buying a huge chandelier and putting it in the guest bathroom.

Adam Newport-Berra’s cinematography is flawless, possibly even to the point of accenting the film’s story flaws. Depth of field can be made with a camera, depth of story cannot. The special effects blend seamlessly and are both subtle and enviable, this isn’t a future that is all that fear-inducing, it’s just close enough to the next step in technology some might find themselves wondering when we’ll get to try these things out for ourselves. Every other scene seems to include slow motion and classical music, a ploy that at first gives the movie an abstract sort of gravitas and then quickly becomes a worn out gimmick, though if it’s meant to accentuate David’s ridiculousness it’s not entirely unsuccessful.

It’s obvious that several of the film’s characters aren’t played by experienced actors such as Vice’s Gavin MacInnes as David’s boss, or Himanshu “Heems” Suri as David’s co-worker Reny, and even though Reggie Watts often plays some version of himself, even he could have gone bigger, though I will say they do bring a strange sort of natural element that feels weird enough to fit in. Dan Gill’s Wim is the most engaging to watch, owning his asshole-ish nature and being the most realistic in his use of the technology surrounding him. In one scene he sends David a video of himself having sex with Sophie, a natural sort of evolutionary upgrade on the classic dick pic that is both hilarious and ringing with truth. Nora Zehetner is well cast with her naively large eyes and sweet disposition, but Juliette is the most cartoonish of all the characters, given almost no realistic motivation for why she’d even be with a man like David or how it is she ends up on the path she takes in the film. It rather feels like another portrayal of a woman driven entirely by the men surrounding her.

In the end, Creative Control feels like a product of the introspective creative types it thinks its analyzing and breaking down. Unlike Spike Jonze’s Her, which also proffered a world where the technology feels imminent but with possible outcomes not yet explored, Creative Control neglects its primary plot device for its characters. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except that it’s not doing anything original with those characters. High-strung creative narcissists are gonna be self-destructive unless stopped by something, and Dickinson gives us nothing but the inevitable. Which leaves us with a sharp-looking future projection of people we already know and hate.

A.D. Calvo’s The Missing Girl is the unique kind of mystery film that gradually reveals itself to have no real mystery at all. That may sound like a disappointment, but in the hands of A.D. Calvo it’s quite the opposite. And while there is, in fact, a missing girl in the film (there are actually two), Calvo cleverly uses the old, familiar hook of a detective story to lure people into a character-based drama about letting go of the past and moving forward. The emphasis on character is there from frame one, but as time goes on Calvo deliberately downplays and removes his narrative strands established at the beginning to make the film’s major discovery more of an internal one for its central character. It’s the kind of low-key, diverting indie that uses its great cast to avoid falling into the clichés of a late coming-of-age tale, and it’s all elevated by an incredible lead performance.

The person at the centre of The Missing Girl is actually Mort (Robert Longstreet), a middle-aged owner of a comic book store in New London, Connecticut. He’s recently hired Ellen (Alexia Rasmussen), an aspiring graphic novelist hoping to get her work published. Mort’s attracted to the younger Ellen, but he’s too nervous to make a move. It’s soon revealed that part of Mort’s attraction to Ellen has to do with a dark memory from his past; she looks similar to his high school crush who mysteriously vanished years ago, with only her clothes and a lot of blood found underneath a bridge in a seedy-looking part of town. The unsolved mystery still bothers Mort for reasons beyond his attraction to the girl; his late father was a detective on the case and never solved it.

And then Mort’s reignited fascination with the case only gets stronger once the missing girl’s high school boyfriend Skippy (Eric Ladin) strolls into town for a few days to clean up his parents’ place after putting his dad in a nursing home. Skippy, now a rich businessman living in New York, shows he hasn’t really changed since his days in high school, coming into Mort’s shop and humiliating him in front of Ellen for his childish interests. Not too long after Ellen suddenly stops showing up for work, and when Mort goes by her place the TV’s on but nobody’s home. Suspecting that Ellen has fallen victim to a similar fate as Skippy’s former girlfriend, Mort starts investigating to find out what happened to her.

Calvo swiftly sets the pieces of his story in place, only to casually ignore the puzzle he’s laid out. Rather than add suspense by withholding the whereabouts of Ellen, Calvo leaves everything out in the open regarding her fate. It immediately deflates the sense of mystery, and by doing so allows Calvo to delve further into Mort’s life, whether it’s staying in contact with his mother (Shirley Knight), relying on his brother Stan (Thomas Jay Ryan) to help him out with his store’s finances, or getting help from his friend and local cop Fran (Sonja Sohn). Anyone familiar with these names should be aware by now that Calvo has assembled a terrific group of character actors for his film, and everyone brings their own unique presence to their roles. Even Kevin Corrigan—who’s been having a great year with roles in films like Results and Wild Canaries—shows up at one point, in what amounts to a glorified cameo.

But this is primarily a showcase for Robert Longstreet, and to say his performance makes The Missing Girl is an understatement. Longstreet, who’s been playing supporting roles over the years in films like Take Shelter, This is Martin Bonner and more recently in Josephine Decker’s Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, finally gets a chance to show off his incredible talent in a lead role. Longstreet played a terrifying, intimidating force in Decker’s film, and here, he goes in the opposite direction, portraying Mort as a meek, shy man whose obsession with comics and toys feels like a result of his inability to get over his father’s death. But Longstreet also taps into his more intense side, showing Mort as short-tempered with an ability to fly into a rage if he hears the wrong thing. It’s seriously impressive how much Longstreet transforms Mort from the standard image of a man in arrested development to a fascinating and complex person.

Behind the camera, Calvo and cinematographer Ava Berkofsky give the film a rare quality seen in recent indies that takes advantage of the film’s New London setting (or maybe it’s just refreshing to see something not in Brooklyn or Los Angeles). Michael Taylor’s editing is where The Missing Girl shows off some originality by using split screens and match cuts to make the screen reflect comic book panels, but its implementation is hit and miss (the first time it’s used might be the best part since the effect is somewhat disorienting). Similarly, Calvo’s brief glimpses into Mort’s brain through fantasy sequences also don’t land too well, adding a crudeness to the film that doesn’t match up well with everything else. But Calvo’s film is primarily a character study, and on that end it succeeds thanks to Longstreet. It’s a mystery movie with no real resolution, and in this case, there’s nothing wrong with that.

With its ethereal atmosphere and stunning vistas you can’t help but gawk at, it’s baffling that Lake Tahoe is so underrepresented in cinema. Co-directors Tom Dolby and Tom Williams’ debut feature Last Weekend gives the Northern California destination some much-deserved screen time, though the characters they choose to plop into the heavenly locale are far from angelic. It’s a film about miserable, self-centered people so obsessed with taking their frustrations out on each other that they take their beautiful surroundings for granted. If you’ve been to Lake Tahoe, you know that people like this are in great abundance. You also know that you probably wouldn’t want to watch a movie about their petty squabbles. Trust your gut.

The Green family is a perpetually dysfunctional clan of well-to-do yuppies who have been summoned to the family’s grand lakeside estate by their free-spirit matriarch, Celia (Patricia Clarkson). She along with her husband Malcolm (Chris Mulkey), who earned the family their wealth with his fitness center empire, welcome their sons Roger (Joseph Cross), a petulant investment banker, and Theo (Zachary Booth), a screenwriter. The boys are less than thrilled to obey Celia’s marching orders for different reasons, though Roger’s is the darkest: He made a multi-million dollar mistake and got fired by his firm, the news of which should be reported in the business papers shortly, surely spelling years of shame in the eyes of his father.

Theo’s brought along his boyfriend Luke (Devon Graye), who feels out of place in all the opulence, and another couple (Fran Kranz and Rutina Wesley, whose characters’ significance to the story is beyond me). His actor friend Blake (Jayma Mays) pops in later in the weekend. Roger’s brought his girlfriend Vanessa (Alexia Rasmussen), who’s stealthily trying to convince Malcolm to back her line of organic flavored water. (This mini-plot is genuinely funny.) Roger eventually fools around with starlet Blake on the lake, but this leads nowhere, like the rest of the film’s crises.

What he film boils down to is a maelstrom of unpleasant people slinging hateful barbs at each other over dinner tables, jacuzzis, king-size beds, and kitchen counters. The barrage of impoliteness is taxing. These people are so unsympathetic in their narcissism, bull-headedness, and obsession with their non-problems that it’s a challenge to want to stick around to see what becomes of them by the end of the weekend. Almost everything about the Greens is authentic to the idea of American affluence, but the film endeavors to do little more than observe the Greens and their idle bickering, which is so uninteresting you may feel more inclined to count the various tchotchkes peppered throughout the background. A handful of eye-rolling contrivances–a groundskeeper getting electrocuted, someone choking on food at dinner–do little to alleviate the monotony.

It’s a shame, because the cast is actually very, very talented across the board. Clarkson’s prowess is proven, and her scathing exchanges with Cross are wickedly intense and shocking. Mays takes a potentially cartoonish role and skillfully grounds it, and Graye provides the most fleshed-out, emotionally layered performance of the bunch. But the material is more sizzle than steak, giving excellent actors like Kranz and Rasmussen no room to flex.

The only nugget of thought the film offers is the reality that one day, the wealth and comfort the Greens enjoy will be gone. The bigger tragedy is that Theo and Roger have already slipped through Celia’s fingers, made clear by their venomous treatment of her. She and Malcolm secretly plan to sell the family vacation home, because there’s barely a family left to enjoy it. Clarkson elucidates this epiphany well, with her acceptance of loss acting as the film’s grand arc. But since Celia and her flock are long-since disbanded from the moment we meet them, it’s hard to identify the weight of what she’s lost, what she’s lamenting. The love is so anemic in Last Weekend that the film winds up being little more than a shapeless, cold family drama set in a pretty place.

Last Weekend trailer

A handful of siblings and their significant others gather at their wealthy parents’ home in Lake Tahoe for a weekend of awkward arguments, divulged dark secrets, and a couple of near-death experiences in Last Weekend, the debut feature by co-directors Tom Dolby and Tom Williams. The film stars Patricia Clarkson and Chris Mulkey as the parents, with the rest of the ensemble filled out by young stars on the rise: Zachary Booth (Damages), Joseph Cross (Lincoln), Alexia Rasmussen (Proxy), Devon Graye (Dexter) and Fran Kranz (Cabin in the Woods).

In a roundtable interview with other journalists, we spoke to Cross, Rasmussen, Graye, and Kranz about what drew them to the project, the restraint of the material, shooting in a beautiful place like Lake Tahoe, their “intimate” rehearsal process, learning from their more experienced co-stars, getting permission to jump over couches, and more.

What about the screenplay hooked your interest? What made you say, “This is a movie I want to do.”
Devon: I thought it was just so funny. I was doing another movie at the time, and I was laughing out loud in my trailer. I never laugh out loud. It’s taking real things, and it’s hard to do to make those things funny. It’s grounded so much in reality and almost doesn’t know it’s funny.

Alexia: It’s that acerbic wit that Patricia’s character has. And one has the feeling that every mother is a little bit like that, you know? [laughs] It was nice to see that portrait and to see all these different people’s feelings about her. Throughout the script you can tell that each person’s perspective on the house is very clear.

Fran: Definitely Patricia’s character was pretty fantastic. It’s weird, because someone gets electrocuted and there’s a helicopter and she jumps in a lake, but at the same time, I liked how it was very un-dramatic. It seems strange, because I say that a lot. “It’s really wonderful how it’s realism, and yet it’s not so overblown.” And yet, there are these really momentous occurrences that would be very extraordinary in a typical weekend. I just thought there was a lot of restraint in the script, which I think is different and unique. I was happy to be a part of it, and the cast is really excellent.

Joseph: I think it was Patty that made us all want to do the project. When the script came Patricia was already attached, so when you see in your email box a movie that has her in it, you just go all-out and try to do it. Usually with a movie, somebody who’s already in it has to be somebody you want to work with. Whether it’s the writer, the director or the actors.

Talk a bit more about the restraint in the script. Jayma’s character could have been a cartoon, but isn’t, for example.
Joseph: She did such an amazing job of rooting that role. She’s fantastic in that part, and across the board with all the actors, nobody was hamming it up or playing into anything silly. With family dramas, I feel as if any moment it could tip into melodrama, and I think you want to explore all the exciting drama you can without making it seem over-the-top. It’s always this funny balance.

What was it like living in such a beautiful place during shooting? Were you living near the house?
Joseph: Lake of the Sky Motel. It was beautiful. We were right across the street from the lake, and we would go swimming every morning. Lake Tahoe was too much fun.

Fran: We might as well have been living with each other. When we were working on set, we were in a house, so that’s where we all hung out. It was like summer camp. It was an incredible experience. It was also September, so it wasn’t the tourist rush of Tahoe. It was [really hot] out when we started, and we could jump in this cool lake or go on a boat.

Alexia: It was dream location time.

You all have intimate relationships in the film. How did you work on bringing that chemistry to set?
Joseph: We all made out all the time.

Alexia: A big orgy.

Joseph: It was a big orgy, all the time. [laughs] We all spent a lot of time together.

Devon: We had a rehearsal period before [shooting]. We had three days of rehearsals in L.A. We’d sit at the table and script-read through the scenes, and we kept finding [scenes] where we were like, “We’re going to ruin this. We’ve got to save it.” We had to rehearse a little bit, especially with my character and Zach’s being a new relationship.

Joseph: It’s a really funny thing about making movies, whether or not to rehearse.

Alexia: [Me and Joseph] would read lines a lot together. I hung out with him and his real girlfriend.

Joseph: I was like, “I’m really sorry, but my real-life girlfriend is going to be home.” [laughs]

Alexia: It was nice to get to know each other before we went up with the group. You’re so nervous. Am I going to hate these people?

Joseph: It was a good group of people.

Chris was very complimentary of you younger actors. You had these two veteran actors around in he and Patricia; did you try to pick their brains, or did you learn from them by simply being around them?
Devon: I worked with Patty before on another film where she played my mom, and I found that I was doing little Patty things a year later. On this film, with this being a very different character, she does things so well that you just have to find where you fit into that equation.

Joseph: You’re attracted to working with older actors like Chris and Patty because you can just let them set the tone and follow and learn from them as you go.

There were two directors, so how was it working with them on set?
Alexia: It was interesting, because Tom Dolby is the writer, so there was that authority on that end, and Tom Williams had a more practical authority on filmmaking. [It was] like a right-hand-left-hand thing where they needed each other, so I thought it balanced out really well.

Fran: Personally, I think all the input you can get is great. It didn’t necessarily bother me. You had two people you could talk to in a position of authority.

Joseph: It was almost like with parents: If you knew one was going to tell you no, you would go to the other one. [laughs] You knew who to go to for what you wanted to do. One time, I wanted to jump over the couch and Tom Dolby was like, “No! You can’t jump over these couches! These are very expensive couches!” And Tom Williams was like, “Maybe Roger would jump over the couch.” I was like, “Thank you, Tom. I’m jumping over the couch!”

A handful of siblings and their significant others gather at their wealthy parents’ home in Lake Tahoe for a weekend of awkward arguments, divulged dark secrets, and a couple of near-death experiences in Last Weekend, the debut feature by co-directors Tom Dolby and Tom Williams. The film stars Patricia Clarkson and Chris Mulkey as the parents, with the rest of the ensemble filled out by young stars on the rise: Zachary Booth (Damages), Joseph Cross (Lincoln), Alexia Rasmussen (Proxy), and Fran Kranz (Cabin in the Woods).

We spoke with Dolby and Williams in a roundtable interview about the history behind the house they filmed in, the strange effect the isolation of Lake Tahoe has on relationships, the serendipitous nature of the casting process, the deep roots of their partnership, and more.

The place where you filmed is exquisite. It’s significant not only in cinema, but for you personally.
Dolby: My parents bought the house in 1979. And, as you know, it was in A Place in the Sun in 1959, which is part of the amazing history of the house. There was a lot of restoration they had to do to it. There was some awful 1970s “casino carpeting” [as my mom called it]. They tore it up and found these amazing hardwood floors underneath. They found some vintage photographs and were able to restore it to what it was in 1930.

You called the house a crucible for what’s happening inside. Was that true in your personal experience, and was that what you used to propel your characters forward?
Williams: I’d been to the house a couple times before filming because Tom and I have known each other for about 20 years. It’s interesting and unique because of how isolating it is up there. When you’re in Lake Tahoe, you’re an entire world away from anything else. There’s a strange feeling you get there. You’re at a high altitude, you’re in a place where they had to carve out civilization from this really rugged landscape. There’s a sense that you’re sealed off from civilization and all outside influence, which can have an interesting effect on characters who know each other too well and characters who don’t know each other very well. You put them in almost a petri dish and watch the relationships unfold.

Dolby: It’s the fish tank effect.

Williams: You can’t escape, and there’s something great about that from a storytelling perspective. There are the literal gates within the film, but even if you got outside the gates, you’re so far from everything else.

Dolby: That’s what we love about the weekend form; whether it’s in novels or short stories or novels or film, you have this very limited amount of time. You have these people that are thrown together and suddenly put into this very intimate circumstance. A lot of characters in the film don’t know each other, so it’s just sort of seeing what happens in this great social experiment. For me, personally, it’s always been a very relaxing place. I’ve never had that dramatic a weekend there, thankfully, but that’s where the fiction part comes in.

Patricia and Chris have incredible resumes and have been doing great work in film for years, but this young cast is really savvy. Anyone who pays attention to the indie film scene knows they’ve done great work there and that they’re on the brink of coming into their primes as actors. Talk about assembling the young cast members.
Williams: We had three weeks of casting in L.A. and New York. We worked with a wonderful casting director called Mary Vernieu. She gave us some interesting people; there were some people who we asked to meet and some who came out of the woodwork. There were some people where, we had already cast certain actors, but they’d tell us to look at other actors who they knew personally, and we ended up casting them, too. Tom and I knew the characters so well. He’d written the first draft of the script about two years before we started the casting process, so we’d been living with these people for a while and had a good idea of what we wanted. When the people that we casted walked into the room…

Dolby: We knew that they were right. And they came to us through this wonderful sense of serendipity. We had obviously settled on Patty, and that was all set. The script went out to managers, and people started coming to us. Joseph Cross was actually one of the first people we met with, and we we said, “Oh my god, he understands this character so much. He’s Roger.” And then we had to go meet with 20 other people. [laughs] Devon Graye’s acting teacher in San Francisco is a friend of mine, and he had been telling me about Devon for two years. I asked our casting director if we could meet with him, and the second he walked in the door it was that same thing. We had a great conversation, and he totally understood who the character was. He actually helped us find our Theo. He recommended Zachary Booth.

Williams: And by the way, we talked to him on a Saturday and he was in Lake Tahoe with us two days later. Casting turned out to be an easy process.

What was it like working on a first feature together?
Williams: We were in boarding school together, we were at college together, we shared an apartment in New York…One thing that’s interesting about collaborating with someone you know so well is that you’re not worried about offending them. You’ve had every argument you could ever have about anything, from “What are we going to do today?” to “Why did you buy cilantro?” We go way, way back. There’s an honesty required amongst collaborators like that to where you don’t have to worry that anything you say will offend their sensibility. Any process of filmmaking is a collaboration, so to have the ability to both argue out ideas and take in ideas and do it all from a safe place where your ego isn’t on the line is important.

SFFS Awards Night

On May 1st, right in the middle of the 57th annual San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF57), the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) held and awards night gala, honoring some of the industry’s most vital filmmakers and contributors. It was a star-studded event, with Richard Linklater, John Lasseter, Jeremy Irons, screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, and more receiving awards presented by young stars including Zooey Deschanel, Josh Gad, and Parker Posey. Check out pics from the red carpet below:

The Skeleton Twins

On the same night, a few blocks away in Japantown, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig were in attendance to introduce their dramedy (heavy on the drama) collaboration with director Craig Johnson, The Skeleton Twins. Hader, ever the entertainer, had fun with the press on the red carpet, pretending to cough to screw with photographers (I still managed to snap a couple good ones), and even conducting almost an entire interview in an Australian accent. Check out the hilarity below:

Palo Alto

Adding to the illustrious Coppola family legacy at SFIFF57 was Gia Coppola, niece of Sofia and granddaughter of Francis, with her gritty slice of teen life Palo Alto. Based on a book of short stories written by James Franco (who also acts in the film), it’s the best representation of modern day teens I’ve ever seen, an impressive outing for a first time filmmaker. Coppola and star Emma Roberts made an appearance on the red carpet at the Kabuki, both looking gorgeous as usual. (Photo credit: Adam Clay)

Last Weekend

Taking over the red carpet this past weekend were the directors and stars of Lake Tahoe-set family drama Last Weekend, which made its world premiere at the festival. Many of the ensemble cast were in attendance, including Patricia Clarkson, Joseph Cross, Chris Mulkey, Alexia Rasmussen, Devon Graye, and Fran Kranz. First time co-directors Tom Dolby and Tom Williams (lovingly referred to by the cast members as “Tom-Tom”) celebrated the film’s successful launch on the red carpet with their stars, as well as on a second carpet at the film’s after party. (Photo credit: Adam Clay)

A 3rd generation filmmaker of one of cinema’s most lauded families, Gia Coppola impresses in her debut feature, Palo Alto, an adaptation of a book by James Franco (who’s also in the movie) that captures the listless, limbo-like haze of high school through interweaving stories of several troubled teens. While the film technically falls into the “teen drama” column, its authentic, unapologetically filthy depiction of adolescence sets it apart.

Click to view slideshow.
Photos Courtesy Adam Clay

Much of Palo Alto‘s authenticity stems from its cast, all appropriately aged (this is important) and all quite…normal looking. It’s a good thing, as most teen movies’ stars are too prettied up to be relatable. Jack Kilmer, son of Val (who makes a brief, comical appearance), and Emma Roberts lead the brilliant cast, who all convince as conflicted, bored, lustful youths partying, getting in trouble, and goofing around in parking lots. Coppola, a photographer whose work impressed Franco enough to entrust the stories of his hometown to her, has a natural eye for composition and color, capturing the intensity and urgency of teen life with her luscious, moody imagery. Each character is chaotically emotional and has a unique set of inner conflicts to reckon with. This is the best representation of modern teens in memory.

SFIFF57 offered up another debut feature, this time from co-directors Tom Dolby and Tom Williams with the world premier of the Lake Tahoe-set Last Weekend. A family drama about an affluent couple (Patricia Clarkson and Chris Mulkey) hosting their spoiled adult children and their significant others for a weekend in their home on the sparkling lake, the film has its moments but is hampered by a script that needs more sharpening. Watching entitled rich folk complain about everything while feasting in paradise is a joke that gets old quick.

Click to view slideshow.
Photos Courtesy Adam Clay

The film, which has almost zero plot to speak of (not a knock), is completely fueled by the contentious family dynamics. The savvy young cast, which includes Zachary Booth, Alexia Rasmussen (Proxy), Joseph Cross (Milk), Devon Graye (Dexter), and Jayma Mays (Glee), all approaching their prime, embody their bratty roles tastefully, never going overboard or outshining each other. Clarkson and Mulkey guide them along, and the fresh faces keep up without a stutter. Cross and Clarkson share some particularly venomous scenes together, epic mother-son spats that steal the show. Fran Kranz (Cabin in the Woods) and Rutina Wesley (True Blood) play nothing roles that amount to a well-acted waste of time.

Tsai Ming-Liang made a Miyazaki-like announcement at the premiere of his new film Stray Dogs in Venice that the stunning film about an impoverished family would be his last, to the sadness of many arthouse aficionados. The lauded auteur is leaving the cinema world on a high note, however, as Stray Dogs is as gorgeous, boundary-pushing, and incomparable as his previous work (What Time is it There?, The Hole).

As has become his signature style, Tsai presents his tale in a series of fixed, ultra-long shots whose uncompromisingly elongated form reveals intricacies and shifting emotion unseeable by way of conventional quick cuts or even shots like Scorsese’s Copacabana classic. Spectacle is not the objective here, with the shot lengths surpassing the ten minute mark in some cases. Tsai paints a dark, stark portrait of a family living in squalor on the streets of Taipei. We see the children bathe in a dingy public restroom, the father hold up advertising signs at a busy intersection in the pouring rain. It’s a haunting, gut-wrenching film, and one whose beauty lies not just in Tsai’s immaculately composed shots, but in the 4th dimension of time itself. And you don’t even have to shell out an extra ten bucks for 4-D glasses!

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the festival so far has been Craig Johnson’s The Skeleton Twins, which from movie stills ostensibly appears to be a star vehicle for SNL all-stars Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, but actually turns out to be an unexpectedly affecting sibling drama peppered with funny moments for the comedians to please loyalists. Hader and Wiig play the titular troubled siblings Milo and Maggie, each with self-destructive tendencies.

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After ten years of not speaking, Maggie invites her brother to stay with her after a suicide attempt. She’s in denial about her dissatisfaction with her marriage to the cheerful Lance (Luke Wilson) while Milo, an emotional wreck more aware of his fatal flaws, struggles to tie up loose ends in his past life while trying desperately to keep Maggie afloat in her failing marriage. It would be fair to categorize The Skeleton Twins as a dramedy, though the dramatic element is more intensified here than your average Apatow effort. It’s a dark movie, and Hader and Wiig’s comedic chops translate well to the emotional spectrum of acting (Wiig’s already proven this, but this is Hader’s first dramatic leading role). In fact, the laughs sometimes outstay their welcome, as the comedic scenes are egregiously tailored to the actors’ signature personas and distract from their better, dramatic character moments. This one’s definitely worth keeping on your radar.