Now in its seventh year, BAMcinemaFest is once again kicking off the summer season with a wide variety of independent cinema from this year. While film fests happen throughout the year, there seems to be a flood of festivals in the winter/spring (Sundance, Berlin, SXSW, Cannes) and the fall (TIFF, Telluride, Venice, NYFF), leaving the summer season wide open for the most part. That’s what’s so nice about BAM; it acts as a nice bridge between the two major festival seasons, providing a nice selection of this year’s biggest highlights in independent cinema so far.

This year, the festival has gotten a hold of some big titles that we’ve all been eagerly anticipating since their premieres earlier this year. Opening the fest is James Ponsoldt’s The End of the Tour, with Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth getting a Centerpiece slot and Sean Baker’s Tangerine closing the fest (keep reading to see our thoughts on two of these titles). But that’s only a small portion of the 35 films playing at BAM from this week until the end of June, and some of these films might be your only shot at catching them in theaters (but let’s hope they all get distribution of some sort!). The same goes for some of their excellent retrospective programming, which includes an outdoor screening of Richard Linklater’s Slacker and a 20th anniversary screening of Larry Clark’s Kids.

While we weren’t able to catch everything playing at BAMfest this year (we’ll see you soon enough, Queen of Earth and Krisha), we did get a chance to check out more than a few films that’ll be playing over the next two weeks. Read on to see our thoughts on what’s playing, and be sure to check out the full line-up and buy tickets over at the BAMcinemaFest website.

Call Me Lucky

For the first half of Call Me Lucky, Bobcat Goldthwait’s tribute to Boston comedy legend Barry Crimmins, it feels like a boilerplate documentary portrait. Complimented by talking head interviews with David Cross, Marc Maron, Steven Wright and Goldthwait himself, the documentary’s beginning details Crimmins’ roots as a rare liberal in his conservative upstate New York town to his status among the elite Boston comics and founder of the Stitches comedy club. Catalogued clips from Crimmins’ past shows a man whose timelessly hysterical satirical stand-up was far ahead of its time. Gradually, Call Me Lucky reveals its intentions to be significantly more altruistic, as it delves into a darker aspect to Barry Crimmins’ story. By the end, the film becomes a stunning look at a survivor’s story, and how a man changed his life to settle the demons of his past. This surprisingly emotional doc is not one to overlook. [Zach]

The End of the Tour

When iconic American author David Foster Wallace committed suicide in 2008, writer David Lipsky returned to the tape recorded interviews he conducted with Wallace for a planned 1996 Rolling Stone profile. Over the course of a few days at the end of Wallace’s book tour for Infinite Jest, the writers spent many long hours together in the snowy Midwest having a conversation that Lipsky would later describe as “the best one I ever had.” Indeed, their talks, as portrayed in The End of the Tour by Jesse Eisenberg (Lipsky) and Jason Segel (Wallace) are funny, poignant, and considered. Adapted from Lipsky’s 2010 book Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, The End of the Tour continues writer/director James Ponsoldt’s (Smashed, The Spectacular Now) streak of empathetic, humanist stories that explore people struggling to cope with internal pains. This new film is like the best, most analytical late night sleepover talk. The rich, dialog-heavy The End of the Tour is completely engrossing, occasionally profound, and deeply moving. [Zach]

The Invitation

As far as horror films go, Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation is one of the best slow burns I’ve seen in years. Will (Logan Marshall-Green), still grieving after a tragic accident that destroyed his marriage 2 years ago, gets an invite out of nowhere from his ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard) to join her and their old friends for a dinner party. Will hasn’t seen Eden or his friends since his marriage fell apart, but he goes with his girlfriend Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi), hoping to reconnect and move on from the past.

From the moment Will arrives, things seem off to him, and as the night goes on he suspects that Eden and her new boyfriend David (Michiel Huisman) have something sinister in mind for him and the other guests. Kusama thankfully doesn’t make the central mystery about whether or not Will’s suspicions are valid (this is, after all, a horror movie). This is more about how and when things will go terribly wrong, and Kusama (along with cinematographer Bobby Shore) masterfully dangles the other shoe over viewers’ heads as they wait for it to drop. Every scene leading up to the exhilarating final act—which had me so involved I started yelling at the screen any time I disagreed with a character’s actions—is meticulously composed to increase the paranoia and dread exponentially with each passing moment. And once things finally take a turn for the worse, Kusama and Shore brilliantly betray their own form from the first hour, relying on frantic, handheld camera work and jagged cuts to amplify the tension. Their method works extremely well, and turns The Invitation into one of those rare delights where the payoff works just as well as the buildup. [C.J.]

Jason and Shirley

This low-budget biographical drama focuses on the day in 1966 when Oscar-winning filmmaker Shirley Clarke invited black gay hustler and drug addict Jason Holiday into her room at the Chelsea Hotel. She filmed Holiday for several consecutive hours as he told the story of his life, and the result was Clarke’s daring documentary Portrait of Jason, which was both hailed for its uncompromising look at many of the period’s most controversial social issues, and criticized for its exploitative nature. Jason and Shirley is a recreation of this day, and it consists primarily of intensely personal interview segments between actors Sarah Schulman and Jack Waters, who play the documentary filmmaker and her subject. The film’s brief 77 minute runtime is also intercut with short skit-like portions alternating between surreal depictions of Holiday’s fragile, drug-induced mental state and interactions with his friends of the time, including a heroin dealer and a fellow male prostitute. The intimate exchanges between Schulman and Waters come across as surprisingly genuine, which can be a difficult feat for biographical films. This one manages to transport its viewers into the past, and into the minds of its characters, rather smoothly, even though the more experimental aspects of the film, such as the insert skits, don’t work quite as well. In the end, Jason and Shirley is certainly worth spending just over an hour with; it’s the graphic nature of the content, rather than the quality of the filmmaking, that may frighten off some viewers. [Eli]

Nasty Baby

Nasty Baby is a bait-and-switch kind of movie, one that offers up a perfectly adequate story, only to pull the rug out from underneath audiences at some point in the third act with a dark tonal shift. Starring writer/director Sebastián Silva as a gay Brooklyn-based multimedia artist working on an exhibit of adults as babies, Silva’s Freddy gets extremely excited about the idea of becoming a father by artificially inseminating his friend Polly (Kristen Wiig); however, when Freddy’s sperm won’t take, he and Polly attempt to convince Freddy’s boyfriend Mo (Tunde Adebimpe) to become the donor. Freddy finds himself caught between Polly’s anxieties about her ticking internal clock, and Mo’s hesitation to launch himself into fatherhood. As it develops and introduces outside unsettling elements, Nasty Baby subtly builds the tension in its subplot until a climactic moment. Silva’s film serves as an intimate portrait of a group of characters that grow into family unit just in time to face an unthinkable challenge. [Zach]

Pervert Park

“Because of its subject matter, Pervert Park is a challenging watch, but one very much worth the effort. Over the course of the film’s lean 77-minute run time, the filmmakers find success in presenting their subjects as honestly as possible. They don’t ask for sympathy, but they do ask for consideration, and they earn it.” Read our full-length review of Pervert Park from Hot Docs earlier this year.

The Russian Woodpecker

If The Russian Woodpecker doesn’t turn out to be one of the most talked about documentaries of 2015, it will be a shame. Fortunately, the fact that it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema at this year’s Sundance Film Festival will likely help spread the word about this courageous and well-meaning work of nonfiction. The focus of the film is a man by the name of Fedor Alexandrovich who uncovers a terrifying theory regarding the potential true cause of Ukraine’s 1986 Chernobyl disaster. However, this is less a film about conspiracies, and more about how the notion of “conspiracies” can impact a person’s relationship with their friends, their family, their country and even themselves. Throughout the duration of its concise runtime, The Russian Woodpecker shifts from being a detailed history lesson to a political mystery to a character study of a man, his paranoia and his national pride. Crisp cinematography and sharp editing aside, this film is essential viewing for anyone interested in international politics or, as Alexandrovich himself would describe it, the ever-present ghost of the Soviet Union. [Eli]

Stinking Heaven

Taking place in 1990 and shot on Betacam video, Nathan Silver’s experimental Stinking Heaven feels like an ideal guide for showing off how improvisation can help and hurt a film. Silver’s film takes place at a New Jersey home, where married couple Jim (Keith Poulson) and Lucy (Deragh Campbell) host a group of people who, like them, are trying to overcome their battle with addiction. From the outset, the living situation is a fragile one, and with the arrival of a new member named Ann (Hannah Gross), the group dynamic turns into a toxic one.

Silver actually had his cast live together on set during the entire length of shooting, and let everything play out through improvisation. When this method works, Silver and his ensemble produce some remarkable results, giving the film a visceral energy that couldn’t be created through more conventional means. But for every sublime moment, there’s another that feels like watching an awkward actor’s workshop. It’s hard to shake the feeling that a lot of Stinking Heaven is a work in progress, as if we’re getting a glimpse into the cast beginning to explore their own characters. It’s an interesting combination of intensity (some scenes here can give Heaven Knows What a run for its money) and uncomfortable histrionics, one that works in fleeting glimpses, but it’s enough to see that Silver is working towards something special. [C.J.]

Tangerine

Filmmaker Sean Baker’s third feature Tangerine is a hilarious, raw glimpse into the lives of characters rarely depicted with a comparable level of complexity. This chaotic, colorful, vulgar adventure through the grimy streets of Hollywood follows two transgender prostitutes, Alexandra and Sin-dee (Mya Taylor and Kiki Rodriguez, respectively), as they spend their Christmas Eve tracking down Sin-dee’s cheating boyfriend and pimp, Chester (James Ransone). It’s the day after Sin-dee’s been released from jail, and as soon as Alexandra lets Chester’s infidelity slip while the two eat donuts, Sin-dee is out the door pounding the pavement in search of answers. Baker swiftly cuts from scene to scene keeping the pace of his film at a dizzying high. It’s a ridiculous amount of trashy, lurid fun to spend time in the company of these precisely drawn characters. Their sharp quips and flair for melodrama make Tangerine consistently entertaining. [Zach]

Uncle Kent 2

Remember Uncle Kent? No? That’s understandable, considering it was one of six films Joe Swanberg made back in 2011. The film was a funny, melancholy look at its title character (writer/animator Kent Osborne, playing himself) as he spends an awkward weekend with a woman he met on Chatroulette. Now, over 4 years later, Osborne wants to make a sequel, and in a meta opening sequence—directed by Swanberg, with directing duties for the rest of the film handled by Todd Rohal—Swanberg rejects Osborne’s pitch because he hates sequels. Swanberg does allow him to find someone else to make the sequel though, and in a matter of minutes the aspect ratio changes (from full-screen to widescreen) and Osborne starts jiggling his man boobs over the credits.

If you’re like me and find the idea of making a sequel to a barely seen micro-budget indie funny (a decision made even funnier by its recklessness, considering it guarantees almost no one will want to release it), Uncle Kent 2 is the film for you. The fact that this sequel owes little to the original means that Rohal and Osborne (who wrote the film) have carte blanche, and they make the most of it. Uncle Kent 2 continually makes one surreal and hilarious turn after another, starting with a weird visit to the doctor (Steve Little, who seems incapable of being unfunny) before involving Ray Kurzweil, Comic-Con, simulation theory and an apocalyptic scenario where people get datamoshed to death. It all amounts to a bunch of zany, frequently funny nonsense that will probably end up being the best sequel of this year (a specific honour befitting a film that’s all about specificity). Uncle Kent 2 is the sequel none of us knew we needed, and even though I can’t believe I’m saying this, I can’t wait for Uncle Kent 3. [C.J.]

Unexpected

After seeing the absolutely embarrassing treatment of Earl in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl—a stereotypical African-American character whose only purpose is to help the white, male protagonist become a better person—Kris Swanberg’s Unexpected feels like a breath of fresh air. The film opens with Samantha (Cobie Smulders), a Chicago high school teacher whose workplace is about to shut down, discovering she’s pregnant. It’s unplanned, but she decides to keep it, and soon finds out that Jasmine (Gail Bean), one of the best students in her class, is also expecting. Samantha decides to help Jasmine try to continue pursuing college applications, and the two strike up a bond.

It sounds like yet another mushy white saviour story that Sundance audiences eat up, but Swanberg and co-writer Megan Mercier have enough awareness to call out and avoid the pitfalls their story could fall into. Jasmine doesn’t turn out to be the poor, helpless student Samantha thinks she is, and Swanberg goes a long way to developing Jasmine into a fully-rounded character who really doesn’t need Samantha’s help. Smulders gives a fine performance (although it doesn’t match her excellent turn in Results from earlier this year), but the film’s MVP is Bean, who has an electric presence any time she’s on screen. Unexpected’s low-key nature might make it come across as slight, but it’s a surprisingly accomplished and slightly subversive take on a story that could have easily turned into something far worse. [C.J.]

A Woman Like Me

“Describing A Woman Like Me to an outsider gets a little complicated. When put as simply as possible its a documentary made by director Alex Sichel, who upon receiving the news that she has metastatic breast cancer decides to process this information by directing a film about a woman facing the same diagnosis with as much positivity as she can…while simultaneously documenting this process and her own treatment for what would become this documentary. It’s not quite a movie within a movie so much as it is two movies playing out side by side with behind-the-scenes footage playing at the same time as well. Confusing? Yes. Meta? Maybe. Moving? Absolutely.” Read our full-length review of A Woman Like Me from SXSW earlier this year.

This is certainly not the first so-called movie rodeo for Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel Madame Bovary. The somewhat scandalous (at publication) realist novel has seen many film iterations. Sophie Barthes directs this latest attempt, written by first-timer Rose Barreneche (née Felipe Marino), and it’s rather a wonder that anyone felt that, one, what the world was lacking at the moment is another Madame Bovary adaptation, or two, that quite so much money and talent should be thrown into it. Considering the entire nature of the realism movement—gritty and hard perspectives on those in difficult or lowly situations, meant to show the truth of the human condition—this Madame Bovary is flat and unassertive.

By now Mia Wasikowska must be permanently corset-shaped. She has so many period-set films under her tiny belt. And more to come with this fall’s Crimson Peak . In Madame Bovary she is given some especially detailed, colorful, and decadent dresses to wear over those corsets, and the costuming of this otherwise droll film is quite possibly its most shining feature. But I digress, because despite the dated material they are given to work with, the performances of the film are quite strong. Wasikowska plays the Madame, Emma, who, at a young age, marries a country doctor, Charles Bovary (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) who loves her in an earnest, boring sort of way. Book-read and sheltered away in a convent school for years, Emma, finds married life to be more provincial then she perhaps anticipated. The more she learns of her unambitious husband, the more she finds herself easily distracted by the young law student Leon Dupuis (Ezra Miller looking distractingly pretty) who has captured her attention with his romantic notions and traveled experiences. When he declares his attraction to her, she rejects him but immediately laments that he leaves town.

Determined not to spend the rest of her life passionless, Emma is much more eager to engage in scandal when her next suitor comes calling. The Marquis (Logan Marshall-Green) is rich and red-blooded. They begin a steamy affair as Emma grows bolder, and yet more prone to escapism. With the help of smooth salesman Monsieur Lheureux (Rhys Ifans practically stealing the show), Emma misplaces her ambition into worldly decadence, filling her home with fancy home furnishings her husband can never dream to afford. But being the pushover he is, Charles remains oblivious to his wife’s misdemeanors and their growing debt. Meanwhile, Emma’s life plays out like a sad version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She tries out Charles (clarly a Mama bear) and he’s too soft. So she moves on to The Marquis (a definitive Papa bear) and he’s much too hard, leaving her broken. Finally she returns to Leon (whose baby-face isn’t the only thing defining him as Baby bear) and he is just right. But this is a morality tale, and we all know things don’t work out for Goldilocks. She needs to respect other animal’s property, and Emma needs to stop living in the 21st century when she’s clearly stuck in the 19th.

As is the case with many of these 19th century realist novels, the translation to film can be a bit drab. Mostly because the sorrows of the poor characters of the 19th century, rather than evoke sympathy in their plight, are often portrayed so pathetically, it rather feels like watching The Real Housewives of 19th Century Rural France. And in that world, no one gets a happy ending. Like last year’s In Secret, the adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist novel, cheaters (as justified as they may be) just don’t win. I won’t ruin the ending, though there’s so many version of this story floating around I doubt there are many of you out there who can’t guess. Interestingly enough Anne Fontaine’s Gemma Bovery is out now as well and is garnering positive reviews.

Barthes is an interesting choice of director, her most notable feature before this being the Paul Giamatti film Cold Souls. Which provides some explanation for his small role in Madame Bovary. The cinematography is reminiscent of Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice, minus the lens flares and warmth. Plenty of widely framed shots of the dreary French country-side. Emma in her colorful clothing shines among the blandness, but her smile-less face rather reminds us at all times of the film’s tone. Most puzzling is that Barthes chose to film so straightforwardly. There is very little deviation from the original story and yet no real emphasis on the naturalist/realist style of the novel. It all plays out with a restless predictability.

Considering the caliber of the ingredients—A-list actors, tried and tested content, gorgeous costumery—Madame Bovary is unexceptional and bland. While female inequity and subjection is still a relevant issue, and one Barthes could have played with more, the portrayal of one woman’s sexual dalliances and shopping sprees is not exactly empowering or modern. Most consider Emma Bovary to be a romantic, caught up in her fantasies, but this rendition offers very little of that starry-eyed quality. Without any emotional connection, its hard to root for or cry for Emma Bovary. And when sex and shopping can’t even spark the slightest of interest for this female reviewer, it doesn’t bode well for extended audiences.

Cold Comes the Night is the sophomore effort from indie director Tze Chun, who teams up with Nick Simon and Osgood Perkins on a screenplay about a single mother who is forced into criminal activities for the well being of her child. A brisk 90-minute runtime keeps the film from feeling overlong, however, characters are still allowed to make too many bad decisions within its duration. Cold Comes the Night remains mostly forgettable despite its efforts to be something a little more substantial.

Set in an isolated town near the Catskill Mountains, a single mother named Chloe (Alice Eve) prepares breakfast for her adorable daughter Sophia (Ursula Parker) in what appears to be just an ordinary kitchen. But as soon as the camera catches a glimpse out the window, it reveals that the two are actually living in a low-rent motel that Chloe manages. Because drug dealers and prostitutes mainly use this motel, social service decides to step in by threatening to take away her child if the two do not relocate to a safer environment within two weeks. Chloe is determined to keep her child and is willing to do whatever it takes to do so.

Enter Bryan Cranston as a Russian mobster named Topo. As fate would have it, Topo spends a night at the sketchy motel during a money-mule operation. An unexpected incident occurs overnight that threatens the operation when the vehicle carrying the large sum of cash ends up in the hands of a crooked local cop (Logan Marshall-Green). In order to help retrieve his money, the man sporting red shades forces Chloe to track down the vehicle and promises to split the money with her.

If this sounds like the setup for a standard crime thriller, that’s because it is. And when the film stays within those parameters it tends to work. There is absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to spice up a genre, but in some cases while doing so it comes across as trying too hard. Unfortunately, this is occasionally the case with Cold Comes the Night. It seems as if the film tries to separate itself from other crime thrillers by having one of its leads be damn-near blind (Cranston), but it only results in a gimmicky plot device. A couple other questionable choices were made such as needlessly showing the end of the film at the beginning.

Appearing in one of his first roles since retiring from one of the greatest shows in television (Breaking Bad), Cranston returns to a character here that is not completely different from Walter White. Specifically, he is a cold-hearted killer on a mission to accumulate money and just so happens to do some good deeds along the way. The major differences between his characters are his fake Russian accent and his inability to see clearly, which only enough make one wonder if these embellishments were simply done to distinguish him from the notorious character that he is most known for.

Cold Comes the Night is a B-movie by its very definition—a lower budgeted film with little publicity or intention to reach the widest of audiences—and the film works best when it stays inside the confines of the genre, even if it becomes predictable and contrived while doing so. Cold Comes the Night succeeds in capturing the dark and eerie mood not through the tinted lenses of Cranston’s character, but from the rundown motel milieu. Unfortunately, the film becomes it own worst enemy.

Cold Comes the Night trailer

At the very least, you must credit James Franco for even attempting to film what some consider to be a near impossible story to tell. William Faulkner’s classic 1930 novel, As I Lay Dying, features 15 different characters, each telling a part of the story in their point of view. Director James Franco does a marvelous job of recreating this by showing many parts of the film with a split screen that often shows one character speaking on one side and the reaction of the other character on the other side. Franco can now mark another tally under his growing collection of experimental films.

The overall plot of As I Lay Dying is a fairly simple one; a family travels on a journey to the town of Jefferson in order to fulfill the requests of recently deceased family member named Addie Bundren. The real story lies within all the details and burdens each character brings to the table. But the details are rather long-winded, which makes following what exactly is going on a bit challenging.

The biggest obstacle comes on the first day of their long-haul. The group must cross a river with their wagon that is carrying the coffin without the use of a bridge due to massive flooding. Their only option is to try crossing with the aid of an improvised ford, but it does end smoothly. One of the traveler’s leg gets badly injured during this mishap and requires some serious medical attention. I will spare some of the gruesome details that ensue when they attempt to treat the wound themselves.

I must confess that I did not read the novel before seeing the film and I think it was a real challenge because of that fact. There are indeed many films that you can get by just fine without having read the literature beforehand, however, I do not believe As I Lay Dying fits into that category. Not helping matters is a character named Anse (Tim Blake Nelson) who would give Bane (of The Dark Knight Rises) a run for his money at being more incomprehensible. The combination of his rotting teeth and extreme Southern drawl made it difficult to understand more than every tenth word he spoke. Even though As I Lay Dying is an English speaking film, the French speaking audience members at this screening likely better understood what was being said because they at least had subtitles to read.

James Franco came on stage to introduce the film at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and bluntly said, “This is a weird film.” Indeed it was. For better or worse, As I Lay Dying certainly felt like a literal interpretation of the novel, but as I mentioned before I have not read the book, therefore I cannot say that with absolute certainty. The acting in the film was very strong but the obvious standout is the film’s poetic and Malick like cinematography. Whether or not the film works may very well come down to one simple question, did you read the book beforehand?

Prometheus is an ambitious, entertaining film from Ridley Scott that ultimately falls flat due to an overextended plot that becomes convoluted in the second half of the film. The film is set in the same universe as Alien (1979), which Scott also directed, and contains many similarities (female lead, untrustworthy androids) but is more of a stand-alone film than a direct prequel. With expectations sky-high due to an intense trailer and Ridley Scott’s track record with science-fiction, Prometheus aimed to reach those expectations with a philosophical story that has potential, but is marred by an incomplete story, and uneven pacing.

Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) are archeologists that have recently concluded that a variety of different cave drawing portraying humans worshipping God-like figures pointing to the stars is a map to the home planet of some sort of alien race. Enter the dubious corporation of Weyland Enterprises to fund the voyage to the mysterious planet under questionable premises.

Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) is the corporate stooge who questions the point of the mission. It’s hard to describe too much more of the plot without giving anything away, but there are several plot twists (some interesting, some not) and, believe it or not, there are in fact aliens on this planet.

The main problem with Prometheus is that it tried to do too much on too many levels. It tries to tow the line of an entertaining thriller while still being taken seriously as an exploration of the deeper questions of life. Many pivotal scenes feel rushed and several plot points are unresolved in order to bring the film running time in at a marketable two hours.

Characters drift in and out, and there is no real connection. Michael Fassbender gives an excellent, interesting portrayal of David the android, but most of the other actors didn’t really get a chance to flesh out their characters. The existential parts of the plot, while interesting, seem forced and unsatisfying, it just never reaches that point where the film really drives home an interesting, original concept.

Prometheus is a good film, and definitely worth a watch if you are any sort of a science fiction fan. It does not meet the lofty expectations but still brings enough of the table to leave the viewer thinking about the film afterwards. I am really hoping there is an extended Directors Cut that possibly develops out the plot and characters a little more completely, but until that happens, this film gets a mediocre review.

Disclaimer: I am a huge Ridley Scott fan, and my expectations were through the roof for this film.