The 38th annual Mill Valley Film Festival was a memorable 10-day celebration indeed. A few excellent films emerged as sure-fire Oscar contenders, like Tom McCarthy’s newsroom slow-burner Spotlight, Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s Netflix powerhouse Beasts of No Nation, László Nemes’ heartstopping Son of Saul, and Kent Jones’ incisive documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut.

Actors further cemented their cases for awards consideration as well: Michael Keaton again went toe-to-toe with last year’s Best Actor Oscar-winner, Eddie Redmayne, as their two films, Spotlight and The Danish Girl, took center stage on opening night; Brie Larson gives the best performance of her career in Lenny Abrahamson’s Room; and Sir Ian McKellen charmed festival-goers for two days, reminding us of his heartfelt, unforgettable turn as the aging Mr. Holmes.

Some under-the-radar films made lasting impressions as well, like Mitchell Lichtenstein’s gothic ghost story Angelica and Gunnar Vikene’s Nordic dark comedy Here Is Harold (my personal favorite of the festival).

My MVFF experience ended off as strong as it started, with two very different but equally spellbinding foreign features and yet another film that may be picking up a few golden statues come February.

Fight (And Burn Stuff) For the Right

With feminism becoming less and less of a dirty word as women and feminist allies become more and more galvanized around the fight for gender equality, Sarah Gavron‘s Suffragette looks back to the early feminists who sacrificed home and health to demand their right to vote in early 20th-century England. Carey Mulligan stars as Maud, a working-class wife and mother who gets swept up by the British suffragette movement, participating in explosive acts of protest alongside her fellow footsoldiers (played by the likes of Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, and Meryl Streep). The cost of Maud’s actions are steep, however; her husband (Ben Wishaw) refuses to abide her newfound passion for activism, kicking Maud out of their home, away from their son. Screenwriter Abi Morgan’s story is as rousing as you’d expect for such inherently inspirational subject matter, but the film’s real strength is in its humility and dignity; it’s a period piece brimming with stunning locations (it was the first production allowed to be shot in the British Houses of Parliament since the ’50s) and elaborate costumes, but never lets the production design take precedence over the characters’ plight unlike other, showier period pieces. Mulligan is typically wonderful though she doesn’t reach the emotional depth of some of her greater performances. Still, it’s a fine film all involved are surely proud to have been a part of.

Amazon Enlightenment

The most sublime, heart-achingly beautiful thing I saw at MVFF was an Amazonian upriver tale called Embrace of the Serpent, by Colombian director Ciro Guerra. It’s a magical, almost religious experience when a film breaks free completely from modern cinema norms and puts you in a state of mind you’ve never known, and that’s what Guerra does here. Shot on Super 35 black and white, the film follows two white scientists (Jan Bijvoet and Brionne Davis) as they scour the Amazon for a rare healing plant, their journeys separated by decades (one’s set in the early 1900s, the other 40 years later). The foreigners share a common guide, Amazonian shaman Karamakate (Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolivar). The story is a dirge-like lament on the soul-sucking effect colonization has had on the once pure Amazonian culture. Otherworldly and yet bound to the earth and all her natural glory, Embrace of the Serpent is as can’t-miss as they come.

Sin and Splendor

Inside a cozy little house lives a family fractured by sexual awakening, paranoia, and depravity in Tali Shalom-Ezer‘s bone-chilling Princess. A most unsettling topic—child molestation—is explored delicately and artfully by the Israeli writer-director, whose story gently unfolds in a series of quietly intoxicating, increasingly unsettling glimpses of domestic implosion. The protagonist is Adar (Shira Haas), a bright 12-year-old who lives with her mom, Alma (Keren Mor), and her mom’s boyfriend, Michael (Ori Pfeffer). Adar and Michael have fun horsing around at home while mom goes off to work, but Michael’s playing grows inappropriate before long (he starts calling her “little prince”). Adar’s new friend, a boy named Alan (Adar Zohar-Hanetz), bears a staggering resemblance to her, and when he’s invited to stay with the family for a while, he becomes the new object of Michael’s affections. Sumptuously-lit and fluidly edited, the film’s presentation is lovely, which is a nice counter-balance to the difficult subject matter. Like Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Princess creates a beautiful sense of dreamlike disorientation and mirror-image poetry that arthouse lovers will treasure.

Cary Joji Fukunaga has been steadily building an amazing body of work in his young career. His films Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre earned him the admiration of film critics across the world, and True Detective (a series of which he directed every episode) earned him a rabid fanbase of binge-watchers.

With all eyes now on the Oakland-bred filmmaker, he brings us Beasts of No Nation, a stirring story about a child soldier in West Africa named Agu (Abraham Attah) who’s ushered into manhood by Commandant (Idris Elba), a charismatic rebel leader, after his family is killed in a military raid on his village. The film is stunningly presented with lush jungle imagery and brutally realistic scenes violence that rattle the soul. The observations made on the lives of child soldiers are shocking, but Fukunaga approaches the subject matter with respect and empathy.

I spoke to Fukunaga recently during his visit to San Francisco for the Mill Valley Film Festival. Beasts of No Nation is out in theaters and on Netflix today.

People are very excited about your work and are now following your career very closely. You’ve set the bar pretty high for yourself—your work’s been excellent so far. Is there a lot of pressure now that so many eyes are on you?

Cary: There’s definitely pressure in the sense that expectation is always a pressure. It’d be nice if for every film you made no one knew who you were, took your work at face value and didn’t compare it to Sin Nombre or Jane Eyre. But comparison is also nice in terms of the body of work and seeing how a film fits into it. I’m pretty critical of my own work anyway. No matter what a critic says, I have my own feelings on my work. As much as I want people to like the film, I also know for myself what I’m striving for.

So when people are talking about your movies and shows and you’re all over the Internet all the time, are you so preoccupied with your own critiques of your work that you almost don’t think about external opinion so much?

Cary: No one likes a bad review. Me and all my friends who make movies like to pretend like we don’t read reviews, but we know when people write bad things about our work. It doesn’t matter how many nice things people say about your stuff—as soon as you read something bad, that’s the thing you want to hone in on. You take it personally. It’s also the nature of making something for public consumption. You put yourself out there for critique and evaluation and you have to grow a thick skin, I suppose.

I think you’re improving as a filmmaker with every project. Beasts of No Nation has been gestating for several years now. Was there a point when you almost held off on making the film because you knew working on other things first would benefit the final product?

Cary: Had I made Beasts of No Nation in 2009 or 2010 when I was planning on making it originally, it certainly would have been a different film. There probably would have been aspects of it that would have been better or different depending on my development at the time. Had I made the film ten years from now, it’d probably be different as well. When you make a movie, for better or for worse, that’s what it is. It’s a reflection of your craft, your voice, whatever it is you’re interested in at the time. When you’re writing, you’re so sensitive to your environment. Any little thing can inspire you. Your radar is up and you’re more receptive to things, and that affects what you’re making.

I think Beasts‘ sound design is terrific.

Cary: The sound design was a challenge because we lost our production sound designer about a couple of weeks before we started to mix. We had to start over from square one. Glen [Payne], our sound editor, went to work day and night, trying to put together the sound design. I had a lot of ideas I wanted to try out. For me, sound design is almost if not more important than visuals. It’s part of my fear that when people don’t watch this film at the cinema they won’t experience the film as it was intended to be on an auditory level. If you watch it on your laptop or iPhone, you’re definitely not going to get the sound. The sound was designed to be completely immersive and bring people into that experience of a war itself. To hear those bullets whizzing by, to hear those call-outs, to hear the jungle and the animals—it all gets weaved into it.

I like how surreal the film gets. You seem pretty comfortable going surreal.

Cary: I think True Detective was the first time I ever used slow motion. We did a lot of slow motion, and I was concerned that we were maybe doing too much. There’s objective and inflective camerawork, observational versus when style is implemented for an effect. I’ve always stayed back from doing too much inflective camerawork in my earlier films. Because of the nature of the subject in Beasts, I think you have to be surreal at times, otherwise it’s too brutal. Surreality helps you to not only take in and observe reality, but also not turn off your receptibility to it.

I love the way Idris moves and leans into people and sticks his finger into Agu’s forehead. He’s very imposing.

Cary: A lot of that came from his hairpiece. We tried to figure out a look for him that he’d never done before so that he could really start to disappear into the character. We weren’t going to use prosthetics or anything like that, though Idris even considered something like that. I think the heat of the jungle turned us off from skin prosthetics.

Prosthetics for his face?

Cary: Yeah. We ended up just going with a hairpiece on the back that accentuates the crown of his head. It made him look more like a silverback gorilla. We liked that. The gorilla is a very evolved animal in the jungle. There’s something sympathetic about a gorilla but also something menacing. You want to befriend the gorilla, but there’s not doubt that he’s the king of his domain. I think Idris liked that as well, using a gorilla as a spirit animal.

I like that Commandant and Agu’s internal journeys go in almost opposite directions, with Agu gaining more agency and Commandant losing control.

Cary: That was by design. For me, it was like the death of a father. Agu sees Commandant as he really is. As the influence of drugs and the manipulation of power over Agu becomes less imprisoning, he’s able to find his own voice again. If it helps bring us to his character’s full circle, we need Commandant to fall somehow. Agu needs to see him for who he is. It is a sort of trading of places, isn’t it? But as long as Commandant is out there he has a chance of resurgence.

What was the most challenging day of shooting?

Cary: Every day. [laughs] Every day was so hard. It was a challenge, definitely. It felt like we were compromising ourselves and what we do. It was pretty hard to keep the morale up. For as many unlucky things that happened, there would always be something that’d happen after that that would just bring us right out of the muck. It was very much an up-and-down experience.

You’ve said that you actually enjoy working with children.

Cary: Yeah, I love working with kids. I’ve worked with kids on all my movies, pretty much. There’s something so special about getting a performance out of a kid that’s so unaffected. Abraham in particular is of an age group I’ve only worked with once, in Sin Nombre. It’s a really interesting moment in their time, which is between innocence and awareness. There’s a crossover there where the awareness will continue to grow and the innocence will diminish. If you can catch an actor who has the abilities Abraham has in that moment of time, you get interesting performances.

What’s special about Abraham? What did you see in him?

Cary: It was the observer in him. You could tell that he was a quick learner and that he was always watching. It’s those wheels turning on the inside that you’re looking for. So often you look at somebody and it seems like nothing is going on inside their brain. If you can find an actor with that has that internal life, you can leave that camera on them as long as you want and it’s going to be interesting.

Joining the show this week is James Vanderbilt, a veteran screenwriter whose directorial debut, Truth, is out in theaters this weekend. The movie stars Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford and revolves around a the controversial report Dan Rather gave on 60 minutes in 2004 about the alleged fraudulence of George W. Bush’s military record, a piece that would lead to Rather (Redford) and his longtime producer, Mary Mapes (Blanchett) losing their jobs. Also on the show Bernard and CJ run their mouths (as always) about the Mill Valley Film Festival and festival fatigue as well as share their Indie Picks of the Week.

Topics

• Indie Picks (1:17)
• MVFF38 (7:18)
• Festival Fatigue (31:27)
• James Vanderbilt Truth Interview (39:57)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

MVFF38 Diaries
I Smile Back TIFF Review
Room TIFF Review
Son of Saul Cannes Review
The Forbidden Room Review

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A week has passed and I’m still right in the thick of the Mill Valley Film Festival, which so far has been the best I’ve attended to yet. The films have been mostly great and the vibe in Marin has stayed energetic (but not chaotic) since day one. I spent day seven, however, not in one of the festival’s designated theaters, but on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where I spoke to two directors whose films are wowing crowds at MVFF and are destined to be on myriad best-of-the-year lists for 2015.

Breaking Out

First up was a conversation with Room director Lenny Abrahamson, who the night before was presenting his film at MVFF with Brie Larson, who was receiving a Mill Valley Award. But he was a hair away from not making it to the event at all, he told me. “I was supposed to do the red carpet, present Brie with the award…everything,” the Irish filmmaker recalled. “There was an accident on the Golden Gate Bridge and we were stuck in traffic! I ran onstage in the middle of the Q&A.” Close call notwithstanding, the night went beautifully, with the typically receptive, inquisitive crowd of festivalgoers embracing the film fully, as have audiences across the country.

Based on Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel of the same name (Donoghue adapted the story to screen herself), the movie follows the journey of a mother (Larson) and her son Jack (Jacob Tremblay), who plan to escape from Room, the only world Jack’s ever known and the tiny prison Ma’s been trapped in for years. Knowing nothing of the film going in, I had a fantastic experience as the story unfolded and surprised me several times before the end credits with thought-provoking revelations and unexpected narrative wrinkles. Larson gives perhaps her strongest performance yet (that’s saying something) and Tremblay’s no slouch, to put it lightly.

Abrahamson was tickled by the fact that I didn’t know anything about the film going in. “In an ideal world,” he said, “everybody would walk into the theater without knowing anything about the movie they’re going to see.” Our conversation (which you’ll find right here on WTI in its entirety next week) enrichened my viewpoints on the film and has me now eagerly waiting to watch it again, the filmmaker’s fresh insights in tow.

Bay Area Son Returns

Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s career is blossoming at a startling rate. After directing just a handful of projects, he’s become one of the most talked-about young directors in the game right now. The quality of his work speaks for itself and explains all the excitement: his first feature, Sin Nombre, won heaps of awards and praise on the awards circuit and with critics in 2009; his second, 2011’s Jane Eyre, again garnered him critical praise; and in 2014 he directed every episode of the gigantic hit series True Detective (Fukunaga declined a return to the series for season 2).

I met with Cary to talk about the film, which was a true pleasure (come back to Way Too Indie tomorrow to read our full conversation). Cary’s from Oakland, CA (an East Bay boy like me!). It’s always heartening to see someone from your neck of the woods make an impact in the film industry, and I predict we’ll be talking about Cary’s work for years to come. It was clear from talking to him that he’s a thinking man’s director.

Set in an unnamed West African country, the film charts the journey of Agu, a young boy who loses his family in a military raid on his village. Lost and grieving, he’s recruited by a roaming group of rebels led by Commandant (Idris Elba), a charismatic leader who turns Agu into an indoctrination pet project. Surreal, powerful, and visually breathtaking, Beasts is one of the best things I’ve seen all year and showcases Cary’s skills as both a writer and visual storyteller (for the film he acted as cinematographer for the first time in addition to his writer-director roles). Better yet, it’s available on Netflix tomorrow, October 16th. As I type this, Cary is heading to Mill Valley to present the film to lucky festivalgoers who are in for a soul-stirring treat.

After I came down from the McKellen high that had overtaken my body for a good couple of days, I got back into movie-watching mode and watched a pair of very different documentaries MVFF had to offer. The first was a film I had a deep personal investment in, Kent Jones’ Hitchcock/Truffaut, based on the eminently popular interview book of the same name. The subject matter of An Act of Love struck a chord with me as well, dealing with the controversial Methodist Church trials surrounding Rev. Frank Schaefer’s officiation of his gay son’s wedding. Although I had emotional (and dare I say, religious) ties to both films, only one rang true on a cinematic level.

Master Meets Grandmaster

Occupying the bookshelves of most serious movie lovers, “Hitchcock/Truffaut” is indeed one of my prized possessions. It’s a print version of a week-long, in-depth exchange about the filmmaking process Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock shared in 1962 that’s influenced virtually every prominent filmmaker since the book’s release. The documentary based on the book, directed by Kent Jones, couples archival photos and audio from the interview and does its best to make us feel like we’re sat in the room with Hitch, Truffaut and their translator. It is a pleasure to hear the legendary filmmakers’ voices and laugh along as they share laughs with each other, and the insights Truffaut mines out of his hero are as enlightening today as ever. A highlight is a moment of master/pupil critique in which Hitchcock suggests a pivotal scene in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows would have been better played had the characters not said a word. To hear these two talk so candidly and in such detail about their craft is as big a thrill on-screen as it is on paper, and as a cinematic extension of the book, Hitchcock/Truffaut lives up to its name. Jones also interviews several big names in the industry (Peter Bogdanovich, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, and Richard Linklater to name just a few) about the genius of Hitchcock, and their words of adulation are terrific, extra perspectives on Hitchcock’s work that you won’t find in the printed version.

Love in a Loveless Place

Following the defrocking by the United Methodist Church of minister Frank Schaefer after officiating his gay son’s wedding, An Act of Love provides a thorough outlining of the political maneuverings, biblical technicalities, and emotional traumas that stemmed from the controversy (which wasn’t limited to Schaefer’s case). The divide in the church created by a fundamental disagreement about gay marriage and the personal stories surrounding it are heartbreaking and inspirational, but the presentation of these stories by director Scott Sheppard is decidedly uncinematic, with talking-head interviews and archival footage strung together in an unsurprising, textbook way. A greater sense of narrative propulsion and shape would have made the film a more engaging watch, though there are a few pleasant departures, like a scene in which Schaefer and his wife return to their old apartment in Germany and laugh about an old indoor palm tree they decorated with Christmas ornaments one year, to the confusion of his mother. The movie’s not flawed in any major way, and its subjects, while not especially charismatic, are impassioned across the board.

(Photo courtesy of Mill Valley Film Festival)

Day five of the festival was the culmination of a three-day Sir Ian McKellen celebration, both on the larger, festival scale and on a mind-blowing, personal scale for yours truly.

The legendary actor flew into the Bay Area to receive a lifetime achievement award at MVFF, but being the generous soul that he is, he gave much more of himself to festivalgoers and the film critic community than any of us could have expected.

Magneto-level Photobomb

Sir Ian arrived on Saturday to meet up with his good friend, author Armistead Maupin. As luck would have it, Mr. Maupin also invited the San Francisco Film Critics Circle (of which I am an unlikely member) to join in on the fun and celebrate Sir Ian’s career at the beautiful Parallel 37 restaurant at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

Needless to say, I was beside myself. Like most of us, I’ve grown up watching Ian McKellen on screen and have marveled at more of his performances than I can count on my fingers and toes. I couldn’t believe I was going to meet him, but my nervousness dissolved just as he walked into the room. Unlike some celebrities, especially ones of his stature and accomplishment, he actually looked thrilled to hang around and chat with our merry little group. There were about 25 of us in a room uncomfortably small for our number, but no one cared a bit—Sir Ian was happy, so we were happy, as you can see below.

He didn’t have to, but Sir Ian took the time to talk to each and every one of us, and he was as lovely as anyone you could hope to meet. I got so excited at one point that I started photobombing for no reason, one example of which you can see below. (He’s talking to excellent film critic Zaki Hasan of ZakisCorner.)

As you can tell, I was having a grand old time. It was an unforgettable experience and just the start of Sir Ian’s Bay Area takeover.

All Class

On Sunday, the celebration moved to the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael (one of the main MVFF sites, just up the road from Mill Valley), where McKellen was to receive a lifetime achievement award. I wasn’t able to watch the ceremony (I was upstairs watching the wild and weird Angelica), but I saw him step out of the car in front of the theater to the excitement of a raucous (but respectful) crowd of superfans. He signed autographs for two little girls (giddy as can be) and made his way through the flashing lights with his good friend Mr. Maupin (see photo below).

This next part I heard second-hand, but apparently when Sir Ian walked into the theater, he didn’t head straight for the green room as scheduled. Instead, he walked up to the young people working the concession counter and shook all of their hands.

I wish I was able to watch the award ceremony, but regret nothing (Angelica was awesome). I would, however, be in attendance for McKellen’s final appearance the next day, which was a big, big treat.

Longtime Ally

To cap off his visit to the Bay, McKellen gave a presentation called “Women I’ve Filmed With,” in which he celebrated some of the greatest women he’s, you know, filmed with. Sitting in front of an adoring, exceptionally knowledgeable crowd (they knew all his deep cuts), he guided us through his expansive career chronologically (via powerpoint, adorably), stopping along the way to talk about wonderful women like Ava Gardner, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Stockard Channing and Rachel Weiss, and spoke in-depth about lesser-known but equally monumental women like Lilian Baylis (who managed the Old Vic and many other famous theaters).

One of my favorite anecdotes was one McKellen shared about filming a movie called Scandal, which he did just as he’d completed his “coming-out journey,” as he put it.

“To show the world that I intended to carry on acting as I always have,” he remembered, “I thought it would be a rather good idea to play this part. He’s called John Profumo, an English politician and a raging heterosexual.” He recalled having to do a sex scene with Joanne Whalley and graciously confessed that he “didn’t know what to do.” He consulted with his friend actor Edward Petherbridge, who drew stick figures in curious positions on a scrap of paper. “I’ve still got (the paper),” McKellen admitted, to waves of laughter from the crowd. “I’m now an expert on the missionary position.”

One of the warmest bits of praise McKellen gave was in the direction of the great Dame Judi Dench. “Everybody Loves Judi Dench,” he said matter-of-factly, the audience nodding their heads in universal agreeance. “She’s loveable. She makes women smile and they want to be as gentle and forthright as she is, and all the men want to give her a hug. It’s alarming when you’re on stage with her because she has a direct link to the audience. If you’re not careful, you can’t get in there—there’s a lovefest going on.”

It was clear that McKellen’s career was shaped in no small part by his female colleagues and counterparts on the stage and screen. This year’s festival is in tribute to women in film, and the fact that McKellen so selflessly dedicated an hour-and-a-half or so to praising female artists was a staggeringly beautiful thing.

]]> http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-day-5-mckellen-mania/feed/ 1 http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-day-4-angelica-son-of-saul/ http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-day-4-angelica-son-of-saul/#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2015 17:34:32 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=41165

At this point in the festival, I was more than a little burned out on movies that made me feel down in the dumps. Every single movie I’ve covered so far has dealt with dark subject matter, from Spotlight‘s Catholic church scandal to Miss You Already‘s cancer coping, to I Smile Back‘s onslaught of misery and moping. Even Here Is Harold, while incredibly funny, follows a character digging himself out of a suicidal hole.

My dumpiness reached critical mass when I started day four with Son of Saul, a grimy Holocaust drama by debuting director László Nemes. Suffice it to say, I was not a fun person to be around following the screening. I dreaded heading into my next film, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Angelica, which was advertised as a “haunting tale of unfed appetites and the damage they can wreak.” That sounded like the last thing I needed to see at the time—but it turned out to be the best thing and my biggest surprise of the festival.

Right Behind You

Before we get to Angelica, I need to talk about Son of Saul, which was, as I alluded to, a devastating experience, and yet also a beautiful, unforgettable one. I’ve been wanting to see it since it won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and it surpassed my expectations. Géza Röhrig plays Saul, a Jewish prisoner of the Nazis and member of the Sonderkommando unit whose job is to stack corpses for incineration. When he finds a body he believes to be his son’s, he makes it his mission to arrange a proper burial while the rest of his unit plots a rebellion against their captors. Immediately striking is director László Nemes and cinematographer Mátyás Erdély’s camerawork, which for long stretches stays inches behind Saul, almost filling the screen with his back as he hurries around the camp, the world around him a literal blur of movement, shape, and color. The effect is astonishing and views the Holocaust in a nightmarish way I’ve never seen before. As you can imagine, an experiential Holocaust film is one of the hardest things one could sit through, but Son of Saul is an outstanding, transcendent work of art that, amazingly, came from a first-time director.

Mommy’s Mental

Heading into Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Angelica, I was a bit of a mess, still reeling from Saul. But my spirits were promptly lifted when the lights dimmed and I was treated to a wonderfully weird Victorian ghost story that had the audience cringing and gasping in the most fun, wickedly delicious way. The movie follows Constance Barton (Jena Malone), a mother forbidden to make love to her husband (Ed Stoppard) following the complicated, life-threatening birth of their daughter, Angelica. When sexual frustration and obsessive over-protectiveness of her daughter begin to wind Constance up beyond recognition, a spectre begins visiting the house, sexually tormenting her and threatening to do the same to young Angelica. Angelica is a deliberately paced mind-bender with exquisite cinematography (from the great Dick Pope) that gets more bizarre and frightening as it goes.

The film lifted me out of my emotional slump, and for that I’m thankful. I was also thankful to be in attendance for the subsequent Q&A with Lichtenstein and Malone, who made a surprise appearance. The audience and talent had a nice rapport, volleying ideas about the film’s rich themes and influences like Henry James and Edgar Allen Poe. Malone even went so far as to say it was the best Q&A audience she’d ever been in front of! My favorite insight came from Malone, who recalled her sister taking the film as a lesbian love story, an angle Malone hadn’t considered.

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Two female-centric features took center stage for day 3 of MVFF, further bolstering the festival’s women-in-film initiative with female talent both in front of and behind the camera. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was in attendance to present her new film Miss You Already, starring Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette. Also, making its world premiere at the festival was Valerie Weiss’ A Light Beneath Their Feet, starring Orange is the New Black‘s Taryn Manning. It feels like much of the excitement surrounding the festival can be attributed to this year’s strong female presence.

Best Friends For Real

Platonic love stories (particularly female ones) are seldom explored on the big screen for whatever reason, which makes Miss You Already feel fresh from the outset. Jess (Drew Barrymore) and Milly (Toni Collette) are longtime best friends living in the UK, the latter a posh, viciously self-centered socialite with a family, the former a soft-spoken housewife looking to start a family of her own. They’ve always done everything together, but when Milly is diagnosed with late-stage cancer, she falls violently out of sync not just with Jess, but with everyone around her. It’s a sweet friend-love story that never feels petty or sophomoric (like many male buddy movies tend to be) though the cutesy in-joke humor never clicked with me. Collette is ravishing, quick-witted, and tortured all at once, and Barrymore’s best moments are when she says nothing at all as she stares at her best friend with compassion and grace. It’s a solid, solid movie that should silence a few of Hardwicke’s critics.

Not Yet A Woman

In A Light Beneath Their Feet, Beth (Madison Davenport) is at the great crossroads of her life: She dreams of going to college thousands of miles away, but her bipolar mother (Taryn Manning) insists she stay and take care of her. Beth’s father, unable to cope with the difficulties of living with a mentally ill person, has been driven away and encourages her to follow her dream and leave her mother behind. There are some very good performances to be found here (Manning is in the prime of her career), but the story, while edgy by mainstream standards, never seems to push the boundaries or explore new territory we haven’t seen in similar pictures. A thread involving Beth pining for an outcast bad boy at school doesn’t take off either. With tempered expectations, however, A Light Beneath Their Feet is a well-told coming-of-age story that isn’t afraid to explore the darker side of teenage angst.

The second day of MVFF38 saw the arrival of Sarah Silverman to promote I Smile Back, the actress’ first dramatic lead. I had the pleasure of meeting Silverman during a private cocktail party set up for the San Francisco Film Critics Circle (of which I am inexplicably a member) and she was sweet as can be. Despite the film’s dark subject matter and the fact that she’s been receiving some serious praise from critics and moviegoers for her impassioned performance, she was all laughs and accepted the adulation with humility and self-deprecation.

Enter the Void

After watching I Smile Back, I came away with two main thoughts. a) Sarah Silverman is a real-deal actor who should do more dramatic work and b) I Smile Back is one of the cruelest, bleakest, most upsetting, unappetizing movies I’ve seen all year. Silverman plays a stay-at-home mom whose bout with chronic depression dismantles everything in her life and pushes her husband (Josh Charles) and two kids far, far away. Directed by Adam Salky, the movie is primarily concerned with exploring in upsetting detail the different effects and stages of depression, but the story feels like a bridge to nowhere. Chronic depression is serious business, but the material doesn’t have enough depth to warrant how borderline sadistic it is. Silverman’s character gets beat up, humiliated, abandoned, and everything in between, and while the actress fully embraces the role and all the challenges that come with it, the film provides little insight, making it feel more like a depression simulator than a work of art.

Built to Last

Nordic humor, in all its dry, dark, offbeat glory, makes me laugh harder than just about anything these days, and director Gunnar Vikene’s Here Is Harold is one of the funniest Nordic comedies you’ll find, period. It’s my favorite thing I’ve seen at the festival so far, and considering how much I loved Spotlight, that’s saying a lot. Bjørn Sundquist plays Harold, a furniture shop owner who gets driven out of business by the new IKEA across the street. Having lost everything, he hatches a half-baked plan to kidnap IKEA’s founder (Björn Granath) and force him to apologize to the world for selling them shoddy furniture. The snags, follies, and friends Harold meets on his journey are best left a surprise, but I will say that the story is surprisingly moving and soulful, with touching moments that blindside you in between the laughs. Nordic humor has an obsession with death and misfortune that allows it to couple beautifully with even the darkest material; look no further than Here Is Harold for proof.

Two heavy Oscar hopefuls opened the Mill Valley Film Festival last night as Tom Hooper‘s The Danish Girl and Tom McCarthy‘s Spotlight played to packed movie houses surrounded by towering redwoods in downtown Mill Valley and in San Rafael just a few minutes up the road. Both directors were in attendance to introduce their respective films and participate in Q&As before the crowds hurried to the open-air Opening Night party to pass around their thoughts on the films.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

The cast of Spotlight is arguably the best ensemble you’ll see in a movie all year. If the Oscars gave out Best Ensemble statues they’d have it in the bag, hands down. Starring Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci, and Liev Schreiber (whose top-notch performance will likely go unappreciated in the coming months), the film feels dynamic and alive and spontaneous despite its true-story roots. It recounts the breaking of the Catholic church child molestation cover-up by the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” news team, an investigation that shook Boston to its core. While reviews coming out of TIFF have gotten movie lovers across the country itching in anticipation to see Tom McCarthy’s latest, I feel compelled to offer a word of warning: This is an excellent movie that’s also decidedly humble; don’t expect any loud, earth-shattering performances or slow-motion, tearful eruptions meant to entice members of the Academy. Spotlight stays right in the pocket, which is exactly where it should be.

Butterflies Are Free To Fly

One of the big shockers from the Oscars last year was Eddie Redmayne‘s Best Actor win, as many expected Michael Keaton to go home with the prize (including Keaton himself). Well, the young British charmer is in the race again with The Danish Girl, the Tom Hooper-helmed historical drama about trans icon Lili Elbe (Redmayne) and her wife, Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander). Lili’s rebirth as a woman in the 1920s (she was formerly known as Einar Wegener, a successful painter) is a staggeringly beautiful story in real life, but Hooper’s picture is too glossy and overly poetic to be truly inspiring. Redmayne exudes femininity and is as good on-screen as ever, and Vikander is his equal, but the dialogue is so maudlin that many moments, especially later in the film, feel hollow and disingenuous. The actors are knockouts across the board, though. Matthias Schoenaerts, Amber Heard, and Ben Wishaw round out a wonderful supporting cast, though the film never provides a solid enough platform for them to look and sound their best.

The Mill Valley Film Festival, which kicks off tonight in Marin County, Calif., is the perfect place to movie lovers to collect their festival-season thoughts and look forward to the approaching awards season. Boasting a lineup of some of the best films that played at the likes of Cannes, TIFF and Sundance, MVFF38 is one of the best festivals on the West coast and has a long history of showcasing films that go on to win Best Picture prizes at the major awards shows.

I’ll be posting daily diaries from tomorrow until closing night on October 18th. Stay tuned for updates on the Oscar hopefuls as well as coverage on the festival’s particularly excellent foreign feature, indie and documentary lineups this year.

The festival opens with Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, which garnered considerable acclaim coming out of TIFF. Starring Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton, the true-story drama should continue to pick up momentum in Mill Valley. Co-headlining opening night is Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne in a role that could earn him his second-straight Best Actor win.

Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, starring Carey Mulligan, will close out the festival, capping off a program with a decidedly strong female presence. Spotlighted this year are Sarah Silverman and Brie Larson, who both give standout performances in I Smile Back and Room, respectively, as well as Suffragette‘s Mulligan. Receiving the MVFF award will be Catherine Hardwicke, whose female-friendship dramedy Miss You Already stars Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette.

The foreign feature lineup has got me particularly excited this year, with even the deepest cuts looking irresistible. A great example is Here Is Harold, from Norwegian filmmaker Gunnar Vikene, follows an aging furniture dealer who wages war against IKEA by kidnapping its founder. What’s not to like about that? Other foreign highlights include French director Malgorzata Szumowska’s Body, Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or winner, Deephan, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker, Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang, and Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams.

For more info on MVFF38, visit mvff.com

As we emerge on the other side of the long film festival season and move into awards season, Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash has been drumming up (sorry) so much good publicity that it isn’t crazy to think the 29-year-old filmmaker may be holding his first golden statue in a few months time. About an aspiring jazz drummer (Miles Teller) and his relentless, reprehensible teacher (J.K. Simmons), the film (out now in limited release, with a wider release this Friday) has been one of the most critically acclaimed of the year, and one of my personal favorites.

While in San Francisco for the Mill Valley Film Festival, I spoke with Damien about pummeling audiences into submission with drum solos; Teller and Simmons’ performances; films being too narrative-focused; what he’s doing next, and more. Check the full interview out below!

Whiplash Interview: Damien Chazelle

Three of our most anticipated films at the Mill Valley Film Festival played on Day 9 in the 11-day stretch, and they didn’t disappoint. From Bill Murray’s performance as the grumpy titular character in St. Vincent; to Steve Carell’s long-awaited dramatic turn in Foxcatcher; to Marion Cotillard’s incredibly vulnerable performance in the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days, One Night, the festival is still going strong as we approach the final days. Stay with us through the weekend as we continue to bring you more coverage from Mill Valley!

Patron Saint of Despicability

[Ananda]

Opening today in New York and Los Angeles, Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent is almost as quirky as the story behind its main star signing on. In a Q & A after the Mill Valley Film Festival screening, Melfi described what exactly is involved in getting Bill Murray to agree to do your movie. First you call his 800 number, leave a lot of messages, and hope he calls you back. Then you snail mail him a description of the film to a PO box provided by his attorney.  If you’re lucky, like Melfi, he might just call you out of the blue, tell you to meet him in an hour at LAX and proceed to drive you around for 6 hours into the desert to discuss the project, at the end of which a handshake seals the deal. And while Melfi has plenty of fun stories about Bill Murray — he demands avocados, chocolate, and Mexican coke in his trailer — anyone who has seen the movie will say whatever it took to get Murray, it was worth it.

Acting opposite Jaeden Lieberher as small-for-his-age Oliver, Murray plays Vincent, a curmudgeonly old alcoholic in Brooklyn with a load of debt, a gambling addiction, and a “professional” relationship with a pregnant Russian prostitute, Daka (Naomi Watts). Oliver and his mother Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) move in next door to Vincent, and due to her late working hours (necessary because of the custody battle she’s in) Maggie is forced to ask Vincent for help as Oliver’s babysitter. Only ever concerned with earning a spare buck, Vincent thinks very little of his duties, shlepping Oliver to bars, the race track, and to visit his alzheimer-consumed wife in the home she lives in. The film is funny, due in major part to Murray’s delivery, but much of the true cleverness is given to Lieberher, who holds his own with a skill much larger than his age. Somehow the film manages to avoid the typical conventions of the reverse parenting gimmick, focusing less on transformation and instead on forgiveness.

St. Vincent is warm and well-told, but it’s the excellent chemistry between Murray and Lieberher that makes it worth watching.

Gold Medal In Crazy

[Ananda]

We’ve seen some truly impressive performances this week. In fact our Oscar prediction list is getting so long that narrowing things down later in the year is going to be a serious challenge. But having seen many of our most anticipated films of the fall now, I think I can say with confidence one performance that will undoubtedly surpass any cut to that list is Steve Carell in Foxcatcher. Whether you know anything about the true story of Mark and David Schultz, the Olympic gold winning sibling wrestlers representing the U.S. in the ’80s, or whether you enter into a screening of Foxcatcher completely unaware of the history behind it, I guarantee the film will have you hanging onto every scene transition, wondering when it’s all going to cave in.

The Schultz brothers were two successful wrestlers in the ’80s, and after both winning gold in the ’84 olympics they went on to coach. In the film, Mark (Channing Tatum), the younger brother, was practically raised by his brother David (Mark Ruffalo), and, since David was the more sought after wrestler, Mark often interpreted his success as having some connection to his older brother. So when billionaire John E. du Pont (Steve Carell and a foreboding fake nose) reaches out to Mark wanting to hire him to help build an award winning wrestling team, Mark finally finds the attention he has been craving. Carell as du Pont is disturbing from the get go. While the transformation of his face is distracting at first, the perfect awkwardness of Carell’s delivery quickly becomes the focus. His shuffling gait, his too big smile, his lack of eye contact at times, all paint du Pont as a man whose subtle madness hovers just below his surface at all times. Whether by wealth, loneliness, bad parenting, or an innate mania, du Pont is a slow building volcanic eruption waiting to happen. And with the physicality of wrestling, it seems an obvious choice of obsession for a depraved and disconnected man. Just as compelling is the chemistry between Ruffalo and Tatum. As brothers, their connection is ever-present, driving the film forward, each each other’s motivation in life.

Bennett Miller seems to have followed a direct path from Capote to Moneyball to Foxcatcher. The first dealing in a murderous mind, the second in a competitive sport, and the third throwing the two together. While undoubtedly grim, Foxcatcher is historically-based filmmaking at its best. Providing a speculative insight into the lives and minds of people who have lived events so bizarre and tragic that no similar Hollywood fiction could be remotely plausible. It’s a hard watch, but the kind that reminds viewers that every person is a story unto themselves.

On Her Hands and Knees

[Bernard]

Like Vittorio de Sica’s Italian Neorealist classics Umberto D and Bicycle Theives, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night (one of my favorite films at Mill Valley) is so relevant, so aware of the socio-economic climate of its time that it’s hard not to surrender yourself to it completely. This is a film for those who struggle; it understands how money—or more specifically, the lack thereof—can trick us into becoming lesser people than we ought to be, forgetting that self-worth is the most invaluable treasure we own.

Marion Cotillard plays Sandra, a factory worker who’s been dismissed from work due to issues with depression. On a Friday, her 16 co-workers have voted to keep their bonuses rather than let Sandra keep her job. There will be a second vote on Monday, however, giving our heroine the weekend to convince her colleagues to forego their much-needed bonuses for the sake of she and her family. 

Cotillard is the biggest star the Dardennes have worked with yet, and she gifts them with one of the best performances of her career. She can be anything—glamorous, dangerous, sultry—but here, she bares her soul for all to see. Tremendously vulnerable and earnest, Cotillard has our vote from the beginning. As with the Dardenne’s other work, the plot and camerawork is elegant and simple, giving the actors all the room they need to tell their story. A bracingly truthful film.

Forget waiting for the weekend to bring in the heavy hitters, Mill Valley says “It’s Thursday. Let’s party!” And what better way to kick off an early weekend than with the stirring and emotionally sensational biopic of Stephen Hawking, The Theory of Everything. Already gaining significant accolade for his performance as Stephen Hawking, Eddie Redmayne was in attendance at the screening, and in the Q & A following the film was awarded the Mill Valley Award. The film comes to U.S. theaters November 7, and has already received our stamp of approval after seeing it at TIFF, but based on this early screening’s audience reaction, awards season competition should be plenty steep.

The Perfect Equation

[Ananda]

When the filmmaker of one of the best documentaries ever made, Man on Wire, decides to take on a narrative feature about one of the greatest minds of our time, viewers can breathe easy. There’s an appreciation for the full spectrum of a life story that a documentary director must possess, not to mention the patience that is requisite for such work. James Marsh does justice to not only Jane Hawking’s memoir, Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, but provides incredible insight into the mind of one of the consummate theoretical physicists and cosmologists in existence, while providing a stunning view into the life of an ALS survivor. You can keep your ice bucket challenges folks, just go see Theory of Everything and soak up the insight therein.

Eddie Redmayne is a pillar of disciplined acting, contorting his body, speaking with his eyebrows, and encapsulating the debonair nonchalance of pure genius. His Mill Valley award is well deserved and it’s practically a given he should expect more statues in the months to come. With an entirely different sort of performance that’s equally fantastic, Felicity Jones is the life and energy of many of the film’s scenes, depicting the determined young woman who fell in love with the mind of a genius and took on the challenge of ensuring he’d live long enough to continue his brilliance. It takes a special person to support a person of such intimidating intelligence. It takes a special person to care for someone with such a debilitating disease; it takes an extraordinary actor to depict all of that AND instill this person with true humanity and grace. Jones nails it.

This cast + this director + this story = an absolute success of a film. A perfect reminder of the limitlessness in all of us — those who are caretakers and those who suffer — and an ode to those who have the capacity for enormous thought in our society.

Long Distance Never Works

[Ananda]

It’s sort of hard to have sympathy for the relationship depicted in 10,000 Km after seeing a film like The Theory of Everything, where a couple is challenged by an absolutely crippling disease that will affect every day of their lives together. In Carlos Marques-Marcet‘s film the couple in question, Alex (Natalia Tena) and Sergi (David Verdaguer) are tested when Alex is offered a photography residency in LA, far from the couple’s established home in Barcelona. After much discussion, they decide the offer is too good to pass up, and it’s only for a year, so Alex heads to LA and the two maintain their relationship via the Internet.

The film made our Must See Indie list recently, and while Marques-Marcet proves his worth with some expertly crafted filmmaking — long takes with little editing, maintaining viewer interest for a movie that basically takes place in two apartments and the imagery of Google Maps — what the film lacks is some perspective. Alex and Sergi are clearly the passionate sort of couple who find their separation to be incredibly difficult based on the chemistry that has fueled their relationship (the film is bookended with some intense sex scenes). But that’s where the film goes astray. The implication of the film is that technology is an ineffective tool in maintaining a relationship — even one with years of history — and can indeed lead to further destruction when Facebook becomes a stalking mechanism and video sex isn’t personal enough. But in the case of this film it doesn’t seem that the technology is actually the destructive factor in Alex and Sergi’s relationship, instead its their own hubrises: Sergi’s controlling and insecure temperament and Alex’s inability to defend herself and communicate her wants. They end up where you’d expect, but not for the reasons the film tries to suggest.

Close Your Eyes And I’ll Kiss You

[Bernard]

Now, let’s brighten things up a bit after all that romantic tumult. A fun-loving road movie set on the beautiful coast of Spain in the ’60s, Living is Easy With Eyes Closed follows Antonio (Javier Cámara), an optimistic, compassionate school teacher on a quest to meet his hero, John Lennon, who’s reportedly filming a movie in Almeria. Winding down the picturesque coastal roads on his way to meet the Beatle he picks up two companions: Belén (Natalia de Molina), a pretty, pregnant twenty-something, and Juano (Francesc Colomer), a runaway teenager with a Beatles haircut. Together, the trio share good times as they make their way to a small village just outside the movie set, where the indomitable Antonio must figure out a way to infiltrate the set and meet Mr. Lennon.

Directed by Spanish filmmaker David Trueba, the film is exhilaratingly upbeat, a three-way buddy movie that doesn’t hesitate when it comes to being adorable. It would be a mistake to scoff at the film’s relentlessly positive energy; you must be willing to let go of pretension and open yourself up to the good vibes to get the fully appreciate the film’s message. Cámara, with his knowing smiles and gentle eyes, serves as the perfect tour guide for this sun-drenched Spanish adventure. Those expecting the film to be set to a playlist of Beatles songs will be slightly let down (this is an indie film, after all, and The Beatles equals big bucks), but may be surprised to find themselves having so much fun they won’t miss the Fab Four classics.

After five days of the typical film festival arthouse heartbreakers and soul-shakers, I began to feel a bit of emotional fatigue as I reached the halfway point of MVFF37. Mr. Turner, The Homesman, Clouds of Sils Maria–all fine films, but how much misery must a poor man endure! I’ve only so much to give! All jokes aside, I love a good understated film with slow-paced storytelling framed by painterly vistas, but after watching several of them in a row, I needed a good kick in the gut to wake me up. A jumpstart of sorts. That, my friends, is where Whiplash came to my rescue.

The Bald Meanie

Like I said, my gas tank was running on low on day 6 of the festival, but as I pulled up to Century Cinemas in Corte Madera, a few miles down highway 101 from Mill Valley, I knew I had a treat waiting for me inside the massive 600-seat theater. I’d seen Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash–starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons–a couple weeks prior and was getting pretty pumped up about watching the intense (I mean, intense) movie about a drummer’s devotion once again.

Chazelle was in attendance, posing humbly on the red carpet in front of the theater, as was Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who chose to present the film as his selection in the festival’s Artists In Residence program starring he and his fellow bandmates. As Ulrich took the stage in front of the buzzing sea of eager festival-goers, he clarified once and for all that he didn’t choose to present Whiplash because it was a “drumming movie”, but because it was “a fucking good movie that happens to be about drumming!”

Right he is. The staggeringly cinematic film follows a student jazz drummer named Andrew (Teller) as he gets bullied and berated at the country’s most prestigious music school by its most notoriously brutal instructor, Fletcher (Simmons). Is Fletcher’s unrelenting, savage style of teaching meant to help Andrew achieve his dreams, or is he trying to make his life a living nightmare for the hell of it? Andrew’s pushed beyond his limits as he fights to keep his spot on the jazz ensemble, sacrificing blood, sweat, and tears on his single-minded quest for greatness.

A large portion of Whiplash unfolds in the practice rooms at Shafer, an intimate space where musicians are simply practicing music. But Chazelle and his team use dizzying, breathtaking camerawork and editing to make these scenes as intense and brutal as any horror or action movie you’ll see all year. Simmons’ frightening presence and Teller’s blazing musical performance (he did about 90% of the on-screen drumming), combined with Chazelle’s bravura filmmaking, make for a film whose intensity level is ungodly high. The film’s finale is so electrifying I forgot to breathe.

Help Me To Understand…

At the end of the day, I guess I am a glutton for punishment. Whiplash was a blast, but now I think it’s time to talk about a film that pushed my buttons and wound me up so much I could hardly bear it. Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem takes place in modern day Israel, a place where there is no such thing as civil divorce. In order for a divorce to proceed, the man must give the final approval; the wife has no say. There are thousands of unhappy wives living in Israel today waiting for this law–which allows their husbands to essentially hold them hostage–to be amended.

Directed by siblings Shlomi and Ronit Elkabetz, who also stars as Viviane alongside Simon Abkarian in the role of her husband, Elisha, the film’s premise is simple: Viviane wants a divorce, Elisha says no. Almost the entire film takes place in a small court room in separate hearings that span five years, a brilliant device that engages the imagination (we never see their home life) and enrages to no end. Despite Viviane’s pleas and Elisha’s admittance to their marriage being unfulfilling, Viviane and the judges’ hands are tied by Elisha, whose refusals to grant divorce papers persist. The moral absurdity at play is infuriating, and with luck, Gett will help make change in Israels divorce policy. Fine performances and clever camerawork help to get across the important message at the film’s core.

Our last MVFF37 diary was all about Elle Fanning, who just days ago became the youngest ever recipient of the Mill Valley Award. The following day, Chinese-American chef Cecilia Chiang, at 95 years old, walked the red carpet herself en route to taking the stage at the Smith Rafael Film Center and joining filmmaker Wayne Wang in introducing his new documentary about her storied life and career, Soul of a Banquet. If you’re lucky enough to grow to be 95 years old, stand in front of flashing cameras, and have hundreds of people applauding your life…I’d say you’re almost as badass as Cecilia Chiang. Because, you know, she has that whole “legendary chef” thing going for her, too.

Soul Food

Wayne Wang’s tribute to chef Cecilia Chiang, Soul of a Banquet, isn’t your everyday food doc, giving you bits and pieces of a person’s entire life in 90 minutes. The film is patient, taking select stories from the chef’s life–told by Chiang herself, good friend (and fellow Bay Area culinary institution) Alice Waters, and others–and presenting them seemingly in their entirety, with very few edits. A heartbreaking story about the death of Chiang’s father on the streets of China is told by Chiang as she sits in a chair in a normal-looking room. No visual aids are utilized by Wang here, and his camera stands completely still, a respectful treatment of Chiang’s story, but one that is noticeably un-cinematic.

The film moves at the pace it wants, which is almost always slower than convention. It sits idle, asking that you come to it rather than meeting you in the middle. The film’s finale, however, is fantastic and certifies it as an authentic food film, not food porn. We see Chiang and a handful of assistants cook a grand meal of authentic Chinese classics (“beggar’s chicken”–chicken enveloped in clay and baked–was the most spectacular) for Waters and her friends, and we see every step. From the first chop to the table presentation, Wang cuts no corners and shows us every bit of flawless technique that went into making such sumptuous dishes. yes, the dishes look mouth-watering, but the real value here is that we learn to respect the hard work and skill it takes to bring them to the table.

The Punk and the Princess

In Frank Whaley‘s Like Sunday, Like Rain, Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl) and Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong play a couple in a crumbling relationship. On Monday night, however, the actor and pop-punk legend were all hugs and smiles as they posed with their director on the red carpet for the film’s screening.

In the film Meester plays Eleanor, a struggling musician in Manhattan who’s just dumped her loser boyfriend (Armstrong) after he got her fired from her barista job by causing a scene. Jobless and homeless, Eleanor miraculously lands a gig as an au pair for a 12-year-old boy-genius named Reggie (Julian Shatkin, terrific) and they form a tight, unexpected friendship as they spend their days together. Reggie’s mom (Debra Messing), tries her best to keep him in a bubble of affluence–hiring drivers to pick him up from school, having their maid cook his every meal–but with her gone on a business trip, Eleanor becomes his escape, and his first profound human connection.

Imbalance is the film’s main affliction, with some great performances (Meester, Shatkin) being brought down by mediocre ones (Armstrong), and some touching moments (Reggie and Eleanor laying on the grass, exchanging glances) stamped out by distractingly poor ones (every fake-sounding scene between Reggie and his one school buddy). The best thing the film has going for it is the chemistry between Meester and Shatkin, who work so well together that their age discrepancy melts away, and notions of romance don’t feel so irksome. The film isn’t nearly well-crafted enough to support their efforts, though.

Math Won the War

One of my most anticipated films of the festival, by far, was Morten Tyldum‘s The Imitation Game, which I saw just prior to the Like Sunday, Like Rain red carpet craziness. Needless to say, I was all smiles as I set up my camera for the step and repeat, as the drama–based on the late English mathematician Alan Turing–didn’t disappoint.

Turing (played by an incredible Benedict Cumberbatch) made history by cracking the Nazi wartime code during WWII, contributing greatly to the defeat of Hitler and his regime, his invaluable work going on to be known as a breakthrough in computer technology. Tragically, Turing went on to commit suicide following abuse by the British authorities, who persecuted him for being gay man. Tyldum’s focus, though, is on Turing and his contentious, sometimes hilarious interactions with his team of code-crackers. (Turing was notoriously anti-social, a trait Tyldum mines for comedy.)

Prestige pictures can often feel heavily biased or manipulated, and while The Imitation Game certainly injects many a fictitious incident to keep the drama flowing, it feels largely sincere. It’s an absolute thrill to watch Turing and his team–played by Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, and others–obsess over decrypting Germany’s impossible “Enigma” code: We delight in each ingenious breakthrough and hurt for them with each setback. Cumberbatch is fantastic as usual: We see the strain in his face as he fights desperately to find the words to defend himself as he’s attacked by those who don’t understand him. Mill Valley was yet another stop on the way to the film’s arrival at the Oscars next year, where it’ll surely be a favorite.

At just 16 years old, Elle Fanning has become the youngest recipient of the Mill Valley award in the festival’s 37-year history. Earning her the honor was her heartbreaking performance in Low Down, the feature debut of director Jeff Preiss in which she plays Amy-Jo Albany, the real life daughter of critically lauded, woefully drug-addicted jazz pianist Joe Albany (played here by John Hawkes).

Following a red carpet stroll by Preiss and Fanning (who was shockingly tall in person) at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, the director and his star sat in the audience, foregoing an onstage introduction to experience the film alongside everyone else. Fanning did take the stage after the screening to accept the award, presented by festival Executive Director Mark Fishkin and festival Director of Programming Zoë Elton, as well as participate in a Q&A, which Preiss joined in on as well.

Click to view slideshow.
Fanning was visibly giddy on stage (hell, I would be too if I were receiving an award the same year I got my driver’s license), overwhelmed by the crowd’s warm reception. As Elton said during the award presentation, the role seems to be a transitional one for the young actress, as the material is darker than anything she’s yet done. Joe Albany’s addictions ruled his life, consequently leading to him failing his daughter in many ways, on many occasions. But as Fanning’s Amy-Jo says in the film’s opening monologue, the girl loved her father “out of all proportion”.

“I think she’s the most incredible lady in the world,” Fanning said of Amy-Jo. “She [saw so many things living with her dad] that someone that young probably should not have seen, but dealt with it.” With her father hanging around with his druggy friends in their run-down Hollywood apartment, sometimes popping in and out of jail, and on one occasion abandoning her for two years as he traveled to Europe, Amy-Jo had every reason to resent him and his neglectful non-parenting. But her love for him never wavered, and she continued support him through all the pain he put her through. “Even though she hates him at times and is angry with his choices, there’s always the love there. If anyone said something negative about her dad, she’d stick up for him, even if she thought he was wrong.”

The complexity of Fanning’s role would be tricky for an actor three times her age, but she manages to rise to the occasion and outshine her cast mates. With Hawkes, Glenn Close (as her grandmother) and Lena Headey (as her awful, absentee mother) sharing the screen with her, this is no small feat.

The real life Amy-Jo was on set for the filming of the movie, making herself available to Fanning for reference. “With Amy, I was really nervous about asking questions. She said, ‘Ask me anything!’, and I’d just go blank.” Fanning did say that she’s now more comfortable asking questions of real life subjects (in her next film, Trumbo, she plays Nikola Trumbo, daughter of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo), a lesson she learned from Close on the set of Low Down. “Glenn would just pick Amy’s brain apart,” Fanning said of her veteran co-star. “I definitely learned a lot from Glenn. She even had some fake teeth made for the role.”

Set in the ’70s, the film utilizes that signature mustard color palette to convey the dusty, smelly Hollywood atmosphere. Though Fanning steals the show, the rest of the cast (which also includes Caleb Landry Jones, Flea, and Peter Dinklage) turn in excellent performances as well. Preiss and screenwriter Topper Lilien have fashioned a film that’s too meandering and one-note to be a worthy vehicle for the actors’ work. The film covers every trope in the drug-addition sub-genre, and while story’s authenticity is indisputable (the real Amy-Jo was heavily involve, after all), it nonetheless disappoints, cinematically.

Still, as an entry in Fanning’s filmography, Low Down is a watershed moment in her young career. She was all smiles as she received a standing ovation in the packed theater, holding her award in one hand. I predict we’ll see her holding many more shiny statues as her bright career unfolds.

Following a successful opening night at the Mill Valley Film Festival that offered red carpet glamour and a glitzy outdoor celebration, day 2 was all about the festival’s bread and butter: the movies. It started with a pair of meaty arthouse dramas harboring powerhouse performances and ended with a metal god presenting a cult horror classic to cleanse the palate and send us home smiling.

Clouds of Sils Maria and Mr. Turner both star brilliant artists playing…well…brilliant artists. Juliette Binoche stars in the former as an eminently well-respected actress wrestling with her past life, while Timothy Spall grunts and groans as he paints masterpieces in his turn as the eccentric 19th century British painter J.M.W. Turner. Both actors’ performances will stand amongst the best of their respective careers.

But before we get to the heavy stuff, let’s have some fun and talk about our first taste of what’s got to be the weirdest/coolest program at the festival.

Master of Metal, God of Gore

After two films that were rich experiences to say the least (emotionally draining is another way to put it), it was a treat to end the night with the first installment of the festival’s four-part Artists in Residence program, curated by the four members of legendary metal outfit Metallica (who also happen to be local legends). Lead guitarist and horror movie expert Kirk Hammett took to the stage (after a packed autograph session) to introduce one of his favorite horror B-movies, Dracula vs Frankenstein, a cheesy but charming relic from the psychedelic ’70s. An avid collector of horror memorabilia, Hammett discussed with festival Executive Director Mark Fishkin his deep love for scary movies, old and new.

Here’s what Hammett had to say about his obsession with horror:

Stewart Earns Her Stripes

Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria is a serene yet mighty film worthy of its wonderful and universally-adored lead, Juliette Binoche. It’s also one of those rare films that passes the Bechdel test (passed only if a film shows women talking to each other about something other than men) with flying colors: Binoche is paired with rising starlet Kristen Stewart for the majority of the film, and believe me, their conversations are endlessly fascinating, with little help from men at all.

Binoche plays Maria Enders, an actress who made a name for herself as a teenager, playing the role of an office assistant who seduces and emotionally torments her older female boss. Now, decades older, Maria has been asked to be in the play again, this time playing the older woman. With her hip, young assistant Valentine (Stewart), she travels to Sils Maria to rehearse for the part, hiking through the Alps and sipping tea in a beautiful estate as she runs lines over and over, trying to connect with her new role as the old one incessantly tugs at her psyche.

We expect greatness from Binoche, especially with ripe material like this, and she delivers in full. What’s surprising is how excellent a dance partner Stewart is, keeping up with her veteran counterpart beat for beat. Honestly, there are some scenes between the two that I can confidently say Stewart was the best part of. She’s so perceptive and intelligent and compassionate, and it doesn’t hurt that her mellow, under-the-radar vibe fits the role perfectly. Color me impressed.

Growl…Groan…Grumble

Timothy Spall isn’t the prettiest man in the world, but he may be one of the world’s most valuable actors. He plays Romantic British painter J.M.W. Turner, a toad-like, lumbering man who snorts and groans his way through conversations, in Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner. The performance won Spall a best actor award at Cannes, which is no surprise once you see it; it’s positively unpredictable and unforgettable.

Covering the final 25 years or so in the painter’s complex, strange life, the film is a visually stunning portrait of a physically undesirable–but ingenious–man. Cinematographer Dick Pope utilizes some of the prettiest lighting and compositions you’ll see this year to amaze our eyes as Leigh’s patient camera largely sits idle. It’s breathtaking to see Spall’s measured performance framed by such sublime imagery, and I implore you to rush out to theaters to catch Leigh’s latest masterpiece when it hits theaters this Christmas.

That’s it for day 2 of the fest, but stay tuned because we’ve got loads more coverage coming your way from Mill Valley. If you haven’t done so yet (shame on you), check out our coverage of day 1, which includes Hilary Swank and Jason Reitman talking about their new films, The Homesman and Men, Women & Children.

As far as film festivals go, The Mill Valley Film Festival is a uniquely soul-soothing affair. I’ve covered a fair amount of festivals since I started here at Way Too Indie, and they’re typically full of head-spinning commotion (especially when celebrity guests are involved), but it’s hard to get flustered when you’re surrounded by the gentle, towering redwoods and verdant scenery of Mill Valley.

When the festival’s Opening Night special guests, The Homesman‘s Hilary Swank and Men, Women & Children‘s Jason Reitman, arrived on the red carpet that sat under a beautiful acorn tree, the atmosphere was calm and breezy. Swank noticed immediately: “Well, this is different!”

Home on the Range, Graves in the Dirt

Following her photo op on the red carpet at the beautiful Outdoor Art Club, Swank crossed the street to the Sequoia Theater to introduce The Homesman to a packed house of eager festival-goers. As festival Executive Director Mark Fishkin welcomed Swank to the front of the room, he gushed about how he and his festival programmers saw the film at Cannes and decided they absolutely must showcase the film at the 37th iteration of the festival. Lo and behold, here they were.

A look at the dark side of mid-19th-century frontier America, The Homesman, directed by and co-starring Tommy Lee Jones, sees a stalwart, strong-willed pioneer woman called Cuddy (Swank) partner with a madman claim jumper named Briggs (Jones) to escort three mentally-ill women from Nebraska to Iowa in a sturdy wagon. The premise is straightforward enough, and the film delivers on the expectations of a trek-across-the-frontier Western, but the film’s third act takes a pleasantly unexpected turn that will leave you reeling and disturbed. Oscar talk surrounding Swank is deserved; her physically tough, emotionally vulnerable performance is terrific and one of her best. Jones’ painterly imagery is at times jaw-dropping, though his turn as Briggs isn’t as revelatory as Swank’s.

The film’s most intriguing element is its subtle messaging about gender roles, particularly those of women. Cuddy has money in the bank, owns land, works hard in the fields, and can sing a fine tune. The tragedy is, she can’t find a man to marry her. Hell, she can’t even pay a man to marry her, which she tries to early in the film. Despite her virtues and the townsfolk praising her as “as good as any man”, she’s just not any man’s idea of wife material. “Plain as a tin bucket”, Briggs calls her. The real tragedy is how women still deal with the same gender inequity today.

Intimacy in the Internet Age

At a press conference held prior to the screening of his new film Men, Women & Children, director Jason Reitman dispelled the notion that the film was about anything other than human connection in the digital age. “The film doesn’t deal with social media,” Reitman said. “It deals more with the way we text and the way we search the web. There are plot lines devoted to Ashley Madison; There are not plot lines devoted to Facebook.”

A sprawling cautionary tale about the evils of the internet, Men, Women & Children examines the ways in which the internet affects the way we connect as human beings. From a married couple who get their kicks on romance sites (Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt); to a teenager who quit football to hang out with his friends on an online role-playing game (Ansel Elgort); to a mother who goes to scary lengths to monitor her daughter (Jennifer Garner), the spectrum of sad stories is exhaustive. It all becomes a bit overbearing, though: Though the actors in the ensemble cast are wonderful and turn in good work, the characters are too simply-drawn to connect with on a deep level, ironically. This is an honest depiction of the dangers of the digital age, just not a compelling one.

Out on the Town (Center)

After a full night of screenings (which also included Lynn Shelton’s Laggies, which I missed because I have yet to acquire my dream superpower of splitting myself in two), the crowds drove over to Town Center Corte Madera a few miles away for the sparkling Opening Night Gala. There was delicious food (the ridiculous, giant wheel of grana padano cheese was my highlight) and booze, and some bangin’ bluegrass jams from local outfit The Brothers Comatose. I brought my wife with me (always nice to prove to her I’m not as uncool as I appear), and we had a rollicking good time meeting with friends and talking about how disturbing The Homesman was. If you’re in the Bay Area in the next 10 days, come out to Mill Valley and say hello. I’ll be at the movies. (Or at the Mayflower Pub down the road in San Rafael, depending on my mood.)

The 37th annual Mill Valley Film Festival is upon us, a festival with a reputation of showcasing future Academy Awards Best Picture winners (12 years a Slave, Argo, The Artist), but we’ve decided to highlight some of our most anticipated indies at the festival because, well, that’s sort of our schtick. There are dozens of independent films in the lineup worth your attention (check out the full program here), but these are ten that have got us excited to drive across the Golden Gate, plop ourselves down in one of Marin County’s beautiful arthouses, and enjoy the indie goodness.

Like Sunday, Like Rain 

Frank Whaley is more often known as an actor than a director – I will forever picture him as the fast-talking slacker in the ’80s film Career Opportunities – but his fourth feature film follows the themes his previous films seem to like explore, namely the struggle of being a young artist with the weight of responsibility pushing in. Like Sunday, Like Rain features Leighton Meester as a struggling musician suddenly assigned legal guardianship of a 12 year old boy – who happens to be a musical prodigy. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong plays her boyfriend, and Debra Messing plays the boy’s mother. Questionable casting choices, but the premise is indie-intriguing and ripe with dramatic opportunity.

10,000 KM 

Carlos Marques-Marcet’s first feature film has already received plenty of glowing reviews. His take on long-distance relationships, the technology involved, and the difficulty of maintaining closeness so far away is both timely and challenging. The film revolves around Alex (Natalia Tena) and Sergi (David Verdaguer), a couple in Madrid trying to decide how their future together will play out as Alex’s career as a photographer has not yet taken off and they contemplate having a baby. When Alex is offered a career-breaking opportunity in L.A. they decide to try and make it a year apart while she pursues her dream. This new development in their relationship, and the simultaneously helpful, yet prohibitive nature of online communication, sounds like it could make for a very intriguing drama.

St. Vincent 

Bill Murray. Let’s be honest that’s reason number one we want to see this hilarious looking film about a cantankerous man who is enlisted to help look after his neighbor’s precocious kid. Melissa McCarthy is the frazzled mother forced to work long hours and thus depend on the least dependable person available. Jaeden Lieberher is Oliver, the child Vincent forms an unlikely friendship with as he takes him on questionable adventures in babysitting. While the melting-heart premise of a gruff older person befriending a kid has been juiced dry, Bill Murray may be the only actor who is pretty much guaranteed to breathe some life into it. And with the onslaught of drama saturating fall films AND film festivals, we’re sure to be grateful for the break in monotony.

What We Do In The Shadows 

Much of our anticipation for this film stems from an undying love for the short-lived HBO comedy show Flight of the Conchords. Two of the film’s stars, Jemaine Clement and Rhys Darby, star in What We Do In The Shadows. Secondly, it’s a docu-styled vampire comedy. Yes there are too many vampire movies, yes there are too many faux-documentaries, but maybe the cocktail mixing them both will be an avenue to hilarity. The general premise of the film is that a house of vampires living together in New Zealand grant access (and safety) to a team of documentarists hoping to capture an annual masquerade ball in New Zealand attended by every manner of mythical monster, including werewolves, warlocks, and of course vampires. The four vampires are Viago (Taika Waititi), Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) a younger more rock-n-roll vampire, and Petyr (Ben Fransham) an older, scarier sort of vampire. It sounds ridiculous, and if it has even an ounce of the humor and charm we’ve come to expect from Clement and his gang, it should be a lot of fun.

Two Days, One Night

In Two Days, One Night, the Dardenne brothers, with their flawless technique and bare-bones storytelling, have teamed with Marion Cotillard, a mainstream star who can do anything, but shines brightest in roles that allow her to get her hands dirty. It’s a match made in heaven, really. If that isn’t exciting enough, the film’s outfitted with a boldly simple plot: Cotillard plays Sandra, an emotionally troubled factory worker who’s set to be terminated unless she can convince her co-workers to vote her back onboard and consequently forego their bonuses before the weekend is over. For the Dardennes, simple is better, and for Cotillard, simple material means open range to bare her soul and act her ass off.

After the Fall

Formerly titled Things People Do, After the Fall premiered at the Berlin Film Festival to favorable reviews and premiered in the U.S. at SXSW. Playing out like a condensed, less intense version of Breaking Bad, the film focuses on Bill Scanlon (Wes Bentley), an insurance sales man who loses his job and decides to become a robber rather than admit his situation to his wife. Word is that first time director Saar Klein has a quiet focused energy that sustains the film’s tension without too much need for action or violence. Clearly a skill he picked up as an Oscar-nominated film editor. Since we’ve been missing Breaking Bad pretty…well…badly, this nuanced suburban good-guy-gone-rogue tale sounds like it should hit the spot.

Imperial Dreams

Big things are on the horizon for British breakout John Boyega (Attack the Block), but before we get too excited about him leading the charge in next year’s Star Wars sequel, another performance of his deserves our undivided attention. In director Malik Vitthal’s Imperial Dreams, Boyega plays a reformed thug who, after discovering a passion for writing in jail, devotes his life to getting he and his 4-year-old son out of the hood and on to a brighter future where drugs and violence won’t find them. Vitthal and Boyega explore the sensitive side of street life, an approach that made Sundance audiences drum up a good amount of buzz, buzz which is likely to continue on as it passes through Mill Valley.

How I Came to Hate Math

In all of academics, few subjects strike fear in the hearts of men and women like mathematics. Long division, sines, cosines, complex numbers–it’s petrifying stuff (especially for lowly film critics like yours truly). But French filmmaker Olivier Peyon offers us a chance to re-familiarize ourselves with the art of numbers in his free-form, comprehensive doc, How I Came to Hate Math. From addressing the biggest misconceptions and myths about math; to chronicling its history; to explaining how it’s in its advanced forms a creative field; to exploring how a mathematician’s mind works, the film is dead-set on setting the record straight once and for all about everyone’s least favorite school subject. I’m open to have our minds changed about math, and though chances of that are slim (math was the bane of my existence for years), what’s more likely is that I’ll be treated to an entertaining, thought-provoking doc. That’s more than enough for me.

Soul of a Banquet

Culinary icon Cecilia Chiang had a huge impact on San Francisco food culture in the ’60s when she introduced the Bay Area to authentic Northern Chinese cuisine at her legendary Mandarin Restaurant. Over 50 years later, her influence reverberates throughout the city, and with the heartwarming homage Soul of a Banquet, filmmaker Wayne Wang chronicles the celebrity chef’s life and career while filming Cecilia in her element, cooking an epic meal for friend and fellow S.F. icon, Alice Waters. Food porn surely awaits, which is always a good thing, and there are sure to be some stories of culinary adventures woven in there as well. Just make sure you don’t watch on an empty stomach.

Living is Easy With Eyes Closed

Part of the festival’s “Viva El Cine” focus, Living is Easy with Eyes Closed is an uplifting road movie that comes to us from Spanish director David Trueba. Set in Spain in the mid-’60s just after the explosion of Beatlemania, the film follows a school teacher named Antonio (Javier Cámara) who teams picks up a runaway teen and a pregnant young woman on his way to meet his idol, John Lennon, who’s reportedly filming a movie in Almería. For those with a taste for adventure and whimsy, Trueba’s film will charm and delight–On the merry trio’s odyssey down the winding roads of Spain they find laughs, thrills, and romance. And strawberries. And fields. Together.

The Mill Valley Film Festival has built a reputation as a showcase for future Oscar winners and emergent independent and foreign filmmakers. The festival has hosted five of the last six Best Picture Oscar winners, rolling out the red carpet for A-list actors and filmmakers while heavily supporting local filmmakers as well. Nestled in one of the most beautiful places in the world, filmmakers, actors, and attendees alike are drawn to Mill Valley every year by the easy, low-stress atmosphere, the gorgeous surroundings, the varied special events and, of course, the films. In its 37th year, the festival looks to deliver everything loyal festival-goers expect and more.

“Variety has said once–probably more than once–that Mill Valley has the ambience of a destination festival and the clout of an urban festival,” said festival founder and director Mark Fishkin at yesterday’s press conference. “Change” is one of the themes of this year’s festival, with the folks behind the festival embracing the evolving landscape of film and film distribution. Said Fishkin: “For us, change is inevitable, but we are still part of a special division of the film industry, which is theatrical exhibition. We take our role as curators very seriously, whether it’s films that are coming from the Bay Area or films coming from Cannes.”

The Homesman

Tommy Lee Jones‘ latest offering, The Homesman, will open the festival, with star Hilary Swank set to attend. The film is a Western, following a claim jumper (Jones) and a young woman (Swank) as they escort three insane woman through the treacherous frontier between Nebraska and Iowa. Fishkin describes it as a “feminist Western” that is “extremely moving. We’re just so proud to be showing it in this year’s festival.”

Co-headlining opening night is Men, Women, & Children, Jason Reitman‘s new film starring Ansel Elgort, Adam Sandler, Judy Greer, and Jennifer Garner that explores the strange effect the internet age has on parents and their teens. Reitman will be in attendance to present. Lynn Shelton‘s Laggies will also play opening night, completing the killer triple-threat. The film, about a woman stuck in slacker adolescence, stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Keira Knightley, and Sam Rockwell.

The festival looks to finish as strong as it started, with Jean-Marc Valée‘s follow-up to Dallas Buyers Club, spiritual quest movie Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed, who embarked on a 1,100-mile hike to heal deep emotional wounds. Laura Dern also stars, and will be honored with a tribute.

French favorite Juliette Binoche stars across Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria. Binoche plays an actress who’s asked to return to a play that made her famous 20 years ago, but this time in an older role, forcing her to reflect on the young woman she once was and what she’s become since. Another French actress who can do no wrong, Marion Cotillard is outstanding in the Dardenne brothers’ new film, Two Days, One Night. Recalling the best of Italian neorealism, the film follows a woman who’s got a weekend to convince her co-workers to forego their bonuses to save her job.

The Theory of Everything

Two emerging young actors will be spotlighted as Eddie Redmayne and Elle Fanning will be in attendance to discuss their respective new films. Fanning stars in Low Down, which views the troubled life of jazz pianist Joe Albany (John Hawkes) from the perspective of his teenage daughter (Fanning). Set in the ’70s, the film also stars Glenn Close, Peter Dinklage, and Lena Headey. In a breakout performance, Redmayne portrays legendary physicist Stephen Hawking in the stirring biopic The Theory of Everything, which is quickly generating momentum on the festival circuit.

Several other films that have been building steam on the festival circuit will play at the festival as well. English landscape painter J. M. W. Turner is played brilliantly by Timothy Spall in Mike Leigh‘s Mr. Turner, which we loved at Cannes. Also portraying a significant real-life figure is Benedict Cumberbatch, who stars in The Imitation Game, the story of English mathematician Alan Turing and his groundbreaking intelligence work during World War II. Steve Carell‘s highly-anticipated turn in Foxcatcher as John Du Pont, the man who shot olympic great David Schultz, will surely continue to stir up Oscar talk as the film plays late in the festival. Robert Downey Jr. stars as a big city lawyer who returns home to defend his father (Robert Duvall), the town judge, who is suspected of murder.

Metallica is set to play a pleasantly unexpected role in the festival as his year’s artist in residence, with each of the four members of the band presenting a film. Drummer Lars Ulrich has naturally chosen to highlight Whiplash, Damien Chazelle‘s drama about a young aspiring drummer and his relentless instructor. Chazelle will also be in attendance. Lead singer James Hetfield has chosen to present a classic, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, while guitarist Kirk Hammett, one of the world’s foremost horror aficionados, will offer up Dracula vs. Frankenstein. Bassist Robert Trujillo is showing a sneak peek at a documentary he produced himself, Jaco, which tells the story of legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius.

On the local side of things is a special screening of Soul of a Banquet, a documentary by filmmaker Wayne Wang  about celebrity chef Cecilia Chang. Wang and Chang, who both have deep San Francisco Bay Area roots, will be in attendance to celebrate their storied careers and present their film collaboration. Chuck Workman, another Bay Area legend who’s best known for editing the clip reels at the Oscars, will be honored at the festival as well.

The California Film Institute screened 10 short films made by girls aged 11-14 at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael as a part of their “My Place/My Story” program.

Designed to familiarize the girls with digital tools like Final Cut Pro and Photoshop to tell a cinematic, autobiographical story, the program had fruitful results, as the ten films (made over the course of five days during the girls’ winter break) were varied, inventive, personal, and engaging. Covering themes of friendship, loss, and even suicide, the girls bared their hearts on the movie screen to the delight of the audience, filled with friends, family, and community members.

The young filmmakers who participated in the program were:

Madeline Crawford (14, Willow Creek Academy)
Ta’Naejah Reed (12, Willow Creek Academy)
Nancy Hoang (11, Martin Luther King Academy)
Yamaecha Davis (13, Marin Horizon School)
Aliyah Jackson (13, Lovonya DeJean Middle School)
Shira Loggings (13, Pinole Middle School)
Talaiah Louis (14, Lovonya DeJean Middle School)
Nylah Rose Moore (14, Manzanita Charter School)
Cameron Vickers(13, Mira Vista Middle School)
Terra Wilson (13, Manzanita Charter School)

“The place you call your home could be [anywhere]. Even though the image of Richmond is bad, where you call your home is a safe haven for you,” said Madeline Crawford, one of the young filmmakers, in response to a question about portraying her hometown of Richmond–typically viewed as one of the rougher cities in the Bay Area–in a positive light in her film.
Click to view slideshow.
The films are eligible for entry in the Mill Valley Film Festival’s Youth Reel program. The 2014 festival runs from October 2-12.

CFI Education runs several youth-film programs throughout the year. For more info about CFI and their programs visit www.cafilm.org/education

Mark Fishkin, California Film Institute (CFI) Executive Director and Founder, has announced that the 37th annual Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) will be held October 2 – October 12, 2014.

MVFF’s programming team, led by Zoë Elton, Director of Programming, also announced the Festival’s Call for Entries in all categories, including feature length films (50 + minutes) and short films in the following genres: Narrative, Documentary, Animation, Children and Family, Experimental and Youth Produced. Festival sections include Official Premieres, World Cinema, US Cinema, Valley of the Docs, Children’s FilmFest, and the popular “5@5” shorts programs.

MVFF’s regular submission period begins March 1 and ends May 16, 2014.

The Mill Valley Film Festival entry form is available for download at mvff.com. Preview formats for submissions are DVD (NTSC: Region 1 or Region 0). MVFF will also accept online submissions through Without A Box, withoutabox.com, as an economical, eco-friendly, and secure alternative to traditional hard-copy DVD submissions. Presentation formats for films accepted to MVFF include 35mm, DCP, and HDCAM.

Designated as one of the “20 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” by Moviemaker magazine, the Mill Valley Film Festival offers a high profile, prestigious, non-competitive environment perfect for celebrating the best in independent and world cinema. 

With a reputation for launching new films and creating awards season buzz, MVFF has a knack for spotting emerging talent as well as drawing legendary artists. Know as the filmmaker’s festival, MVFF welcomes more than 200 filmmakers and guests from around the world and has hosted such luminaries as Dustin Hoffman, Ang Lee, and Steve McQueen.

Last year, the festival featured 200 screenings, representing 49 countries with 43 official premieres and more than 40,000 audience members present.

[Pictured at top: Mark Fishkin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong’o, Steve McQueen, and Zoë Elton at the 2013 festival.]

In Along the Roadside, the debut feature by Zoran Lisinac, a young man from the Bay Area (Iman Crosson) and a colorblind German tourist (Angelina Häntsch) accompany each other on a road trip to a big music festival in Southern California, learning about themselves and each other as their vastly different cultural backgrounds clash.

The film made its North American premiere at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival, where we spoke with Zoran and his brother, Vladimir (who produced the film), about writing the screenplay at a hotel desk, moving to California from Serbia, the beauty of diversity, the advantages of casting Youtube stars in the film, how they plan to explore Youtube culture further, and more.

Along the Roadside screens this Saturday, November 23rd, at the Roxie in San Francisco as a part of the San Francisco Film Society’s ‘Cinema by the Bay’ series.

What inspired you to make Along the Roadside?
Zoran: We both grew up in Serbia during the wars and economic collapse, so coming here was a journey on it’s own. Once we got to California, I was completely fascinated by the diversity that I found here and the tolerance that is probably unrivaled in the world in terms of people who look, sound, think, and act different. Somehow, everybody seems to coexist and live in harmony. To me, that was a big internal motivator to come up with a story that exposes California, racisms ugly face, and kind of sends a message. We come from the Eastern Bloc, where there’s some serious growing up to do. That was one of the motifs.

So, you built the story around that idea.
Zoran: Yeah. The main character is a black guy from Oakland, and we pair him up with a colorblind German tourist. Her being colorblind is a metaphor; she’s the only pure character in the film. All these other characters that they encounter along the way kind of bite at each other, but that’s just one aspect of the story.

How long have you lived in California?
Zoran: 8 1/2 years. I didn’t speak much English when I came here, though.

You learn quick!
Vladimir: We learned to write in English, which is a whole different challenge! First, you need to learn to speak it, then you need to learn to write it. Then, you need to learn to write well, which is a whole new ballgame. I admire Zoran. He excelled fast and put in the time. Screenwriting is a process that takes work, dedication, and experience. It takes a routine, and I think he found it.

Zoran: I found it in a hotel. I wrote the script at the front desk of a hotel, while working. I had all this down time; on the busiest days, you’d put in about two hours of accumulative work. The guys next to you is on Facebook, the other guy is gambling online, so it’s like, “Fuck it.” I downloaded Final Draft and started banging away. The managers were super supportive and I didn’t have to hide anything.

How does it feel to have your film playing at the Mill Valley Film Festival?
Zoran: I love it, and I’m very honored. It legitimizes our effort, and it feels great to be in the company of these other films.

Vladimir: We’re extremely proud, because the film is very personal. We wanted to shed light on the place that we call home, Serbia. Like Zoran said earlier, it has a little growing up to do in terms of being progressive and liberal, accepting different cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, you name it. This is one place on our planet that has growing up to do, but we’re very familir with it and wanted to show our film with a Serbian star in it and how he understood where we’re coming from and came to America to work on the film for free. He really wanted to help us, understood our point of view, and understood the screenplay. He wanted to help spread the message in Serbia. I think his actions speak volumes. It all started with Zoran’s idea.

Zoran: That’s just one side of the whole story. Judging from what we’ve said, you’d think we’d made a fucking documentary! It’s just one of the layers. This is a story about two people from different parts of the world who cross paths on a journey of self-discovery to a big music festival in California. It takes place over the course of 48 hours, and it takes on issues, like taking life on it’s own terms. A lot of people seem to not do that, therefore, they escape it. They run away from it. I deals with that aspect of character internal conflict.

Living in the Bay Area all my life, it’s surprising to me how little this community is represented in cinema. No one shoots in Oakland. Hell, a lot of people have no idea what Oakland’s like. But, your main character is from Oakland.
Vladimir: Another underlying theme is fatherhood and what it really takes to want fatherhood. It speaks to the staggering number of single mothers, particularly in Oakland. That’s why we put our main guy there. He’s at a crossroads; he’s always wanted a certain lifestyle, and when this big news is broken in his face–that his girlfriend is pregnant–he completely flips and doesn’t know what to do. He wasn’t ready for that. He needs to let go, accept some responsibility, grow up, and want to become a father. It’s a big deal to me. I’m a father, and I understand that. We wanted to shed light on it. African-American culture in the States, especially in the city of Oakland…the statistics show that there are way too many single mothers struggling to bring up their children. Fathers are simply goners. We wanted to say, it doesn’t have to be like that. You can be present. You don’t have to marry the woman, you don’t have to be the greatest dad on the planet, but you need to be there.

Zoran: It comes down to accepting life on its terms, not trying to set your own rules. It’s kind of impossible. That’s summed up in the ending of the film.
This is a great moment for you guys, screening here at the festival. Looking forward, are you excited about your next project? Do you have a lot of ideas swimming around your heads?

Zoran: We stumbled onto this film with this unique (by other people’s account) situation where we cast a number of Youtube stars in the film along with some mainstream stars. It gives us a prominent social media presence. With today’s landscape of indie movies, that means everything. It’s really coveted to have 300,000 views on Youtube without spending money on advertising. It’s interesting. We dipped our toes into this Youtube culture, and in our second film, which we plan on hopefully shooting in January or February, we plan to cannonball into that sphere of digital media. As I like to say, bloggers are carving into digital stone for our descendants to interpret. At this point, they’re expressionists. People don’t know how to pin them. They’re not making short films, per se, and they’re not making features. It’s new. It’s driven by pure passion, and it’s definitely found its response globally. We think it’s precious.

So, your casting of Youtube personalities in this film was strategic, in terms of marketing.
Vladimir: Very much so. There’s only maybe one other film that’s done this, but it’s a horror genre film. It doesn’t have a social side to it, and it’s more for fun. But, it’s done well. What we’re trying to do is be very strategic with it, longterm. With this film and the following two films we have in development, we want to make a big splash with it. We want to shed light on the talent that aren’t mainstream actors in Hollywood. Folks on Youtube are extremely talented, not only at creating content, but at several other things: they’re courageous; they do editing; they do marketing; they do business. They do everything.

Zoran: Most importantly, they build a relationship with their fans.

Vladimir: Exactly.

Zoran: That’s the future.

Vladimir: We like the direction we’re headed, and we’re excited.

For more info, visit www.metakwon.com

At the 36th Mill Valley Film Festival last week, one of the biggest highlights in the festival’s stunning lineup was Steve McQueen’s  (Shame, Hunger) highly-anticipated new film, 12 Years a Slave (which opens today) see our review, based on the autobiography and life story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was abducted and sold into slavery in 1841. On what was perhaps the most emotional and moving night of the festival, McQueen and stars Chewetel Ejiofor (Children of Men) and newcomer Lupita Nyong’o took the stage to participate in a Q&A with the still-reeling audience.

12 Years a Slave is in theaters today.

On what sort of change has come from, or will come from, the film:
Nyong’o: Being in that woman’s world has changed my life. My understanding of slavery will never be the same, because I’ve had the opportunity to take that part of history so personally. I’m hoping that will be the case for everyone who gets to see it.

Ejiofor: I think there was a life before this experience and a life afterwards. Some of that has to do with nature and some of that is the process of making it and the way in which Steve works with actors and the crew. The way everyone is determined and allowed to gain their creativity through the process and are encouraged to give 100%. Everybody wants to do that, but it’s great to have somebody articulate that desire. The process has changed my relationship with the way I think. The overall theme and situation was directly personal for me as an actor.

McQueen: The whole point of me making this film was because of this book. I wanted to make a film about slavery because I felt–within the canon of film–this particular subject hadn’t been tackled. My wife found this book, I read the book, and I was astonished by it. I was astonished by two things: First of all, I didn’t know the book. I was ashamed of myself, angry at myself. How did I not know this book? Everybody knows Anne Frank’s diary, right? Every school should have 12 Years a Slave on their curriculum. That’s my aim with this film–every school should have this book in their curriculum. As far as change is concerned, that would be a big change, if that’s at all possible. It’s all about evidence and getting things done.

Ejiofor on McQueen’s process and getting to the core of the characters:
Ejiofor: We had this fundamental thing, that Solomon Northup had the ability and faculty to write about his experiences in this incredibly detailed way so soon after these things happened to him. He wrote about these things with a great amount of humility. The book cries out, “This is what happened”, and it has this power of its own reality. Going through it and being connected to that experience, which is Solomon and his journey, I was constantly reminded by the book and what Steve and John (Ridley) had done with the screenplay, that this was the truth. You could touch its tangible reality, that everything he describes is complex in the way that people are complex. Everything is three-dimensional in the way that people are. All the relationships, personalities, and characters involve you in the system of their society, and it is just a slice of their entire reality. That was the most powerful touchpoint for me when I read the screenplay. For a while, before I really engaged with the biography, I saw the story as a kind of overall story about something that happened to this man. I didn’t see it accurately until later, when I realized it was about this specific individual and his worldview that has made it possible for him to survive this experience with his mind intact.

On if there is an advantage to being non-American when telling this story:
McQueen: I’m not a nationalist, so I don’t really care. The only difference between me and a person born [in the U.S.] of African descent is that their boat when right and my boat went left. My parents are from the West Indies. My father’s from Grenada, my mother is from Trinidad. Malcolm X’s mother was born in Grenada. Stokely Carmichael, the man who coined the phrase “Black Power”, was from Trinidad. It’s much more complex to talk about American or British or European. It’s more complex than any sort of nationality. Talking to my grandmother who passed away recently, she spoke about how her grandmother was a slave. There’s no real difference other than our geography.

Ejiofor: I’ve never walked in another man’s shoes. I know that this story is about something very universal. It’s about history, and slavery is one aspect of that, but what Solomon’s story speaks to, to me, is something that involves everybody. It’s about the ideas of human respect and dignity, and how those things, in specific circumstances, are dealt with. 95% of the people working on this film, on every level, are Americans. It’s a very American story. There’s an international aspect because some of the people involved in making the film are from other countries, but that is also, to me, correct. It has an international reality.

McQueen: It’s like Harry Belafonte or Sidney Poitier, these Black American actors who are from the West indies. I remember a line by James Brown: “It’s not who you are–it’s where you’re at.”

On if the film was informed by cinema’s lack of stories about slavery:
McQueen: [12 years] wasn’t informed by cinema at all. It was informed by the book. I didn’t look at films or references. The book was enough. You turn the pages and you get images in your head. Filmic references weren’t necessary, because landscape is so rich–you just try to find stuff with the camera. Sometimes, having other people’s images in your head gets too busy as opposed to when something is right in front of you within reality. We looked at the book and found things as we were present in these plantations in Louisiana.

McQueen on the originality of his filmmaking process:

McQueen: For me, it’s like being blindfolded and thrown into someone’s apartment and having to negotiate around that particular space using your other senses: taste, smell, hearing. It’s a different way of navigating your way around the room, and when you do that, you bring a different set of sensibilities to certain things rather than the obvious ones, and that’s sort of interesting.

On what informs McQueen’s choices to shoot certain scenes as one-shot takes as opposed to shooting traditional coverage:
McQueen: I don’t do coverage. For me, it’s a waste of time because I know what I want. I was very fortunate to have been given a Super 8 camera when I was 18. That Super 8 camera was so expensive that I couldn’t just shoot willy-nilly like people do now. I had to be very precious with a shot, so I’d look into the lens and, when I found what I wanted, I’d shoot it. That trained me to look before I shot. I didn’t spray like an AK-47 everywhere. It trained my eye.

On what sort of discussions and reactions the film will spark:
Ejiofor: You can’t make films in terms of what reactions you’re going to get or what the wider objectives are, entirely. You try to tell a story that you think needs to be told, that you think is powerful. When I first read the script, I was very aware of what it would mean. I felt the weight of its responsibility. I felt the weight of the responsibility in terms of Solomon himself and his descendants, but also in terms of telling a story from inside the slave experience in a way I’d never seen done before and what that might mean. I had to take pause before I accepted the job.

McQueen: You said no.

Ejiofor: It’s been the subject of some debate (laughs). I couldn’t give an immediate “yes”, which is part and parcel of the nature of the story. The truth is, there’s a whole other thing that happens as well, which has nothing to do with the wider aspects of [the film]. There are personal things. I’m an actor, and I have my own senses of what my limitations are. They’re sometimes false, but I sometimes have that voice in my head. You wait all your life for these great scripts. You hassle your agent. Suddenly, you’re presented with something really remarkable, and your first instinct is to say, “I don’t know if I can do this, actually.” I was confronted with that reality, and it didn’t take anybody to convince me out of that, but I went back to the book and the screenplay and found a point of contact for me, which was, in the end, Solomon. In a weird way, I suppose that comes towards answering the question. The journeys that you make when telling stories are personal to you, and how you tell them is about what your heart tells you. What you feel. What your own journey is. I wasn’t considering [the project] in the sense of its wider reality. I knew that I felt it was important, and Solomon was somebody who was forgotten and shouldn’t be. Ultimately, that’s what I hope people take away from it.

Nyong’o: What I’m excited about when sharing this film is that it gives us a common story, a common reference point, to start talking about things. When I first watched this film, I watched it with my best friend who is half black, and my agent and manager who are both white. After about an hour of crying we went to a restaurant and had a conversation about our relationship with other races in a way that I don’t think would have happened without this film. Those are the kind of things that I’m excited are happening. That’s the power of film. What seems so distant in the past is brought to the present.

On MVFF’s gigantic penultimate day, a quintet of some of the industry’s most exciting directors gathered for a meeting of the minds, the stars and directors of At Middleton and Beside Still Waters unveiled their respective films to packed houses, and the whole lot of them partied it up in the beautiful town of Tiburon, right down the road.

Filmmaker Superfriends

To start off Day 10 of the festival, a killer lineup of directors gathered to participate in a panel organized by Variety, in which they discussed the industry and their filmmaking processes. In my previous festival recap, I mentioned that Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station) asked Steve McQueen a question during the 12 Years a Slave Q&A; McQueen didn’t seem to notice that the young buck was a talented filmmaker himself at the time, but when the two met officially for the Variety panel they became fast friends. Joining Coogler and McQueen for the panel was J.C. Chandor, who helmed the Robert Redford “man at sea” film, All is Lost and 2011’s Margin Call. We spoke to Chandor about the film, so keep an eye out for our interview next week. Also in attendance were John Wells of August: Osage County and Scott Coooper of Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace.

Click to view slideshow.

Andy Garcia’s Campus Romance

At Middleton,  directed by newcomer Adam Rodgers, focuses on a sporadic on-campus romance between George (Andy Garcia) and Edith (Vera Farmiga), who meet while accompanying their kids on a campus tour of Middleton University. A walk-and-talk rom-com cut from the same cloth as Richard Linklater’s Before series but with a more lighthearted flare, the film was received incredibly well by the Mill Valley audience at CinéArts@Sequoia, who expressed their enthusiasm during the post-screening Q&A with Rodgers, Garcia, and the films’ producers. “When you have a chance to play with [an actor like] Vera Farmiga,” Garcia gushed, “[the scenes] are all fun.” The chemistry developed between the accomplished actors, amazingly, took no time to develop at all. “We never even read the script together once,” Garcia said, to the surprise of the audience, who had been so taken by the screen romance. “We got to know each other as the characters did on camera. She’s incredible.”

Future BIG Movie Stars CHILL in Beside Still Waters

A few feet down from the At Middleton screening, another movie about people talking was pleasing a separate batch of MVFF-goers. Chris Lowell, an actor best known for his roles in Veronica Mars (the “kickstarted” film version is shooting now) and The Help, hops into the director’s chair for the first time with his nostalgia-driven hangout movie, Beside Still Waters. In it, a tragedy causes a group of old childhood friends to reconvene at the memory-filled cabin in the forrest they grew up playing around in (no, it’s not a horror movie). The cast, comprised of some of some of the prettiest rising-star actors in the game right now (just look a the pictures!), were all in attendance at the MVFF screening along with their incredibly excited director, who was all smiles during the audience Q&A. “I was really excited to direct [and] talk to actors the way I’d like a director to talk to me,” Lowell beamed. “That was probably the thing I was most thrilled about. That, and not having to go through hair and makeup in the morning.” Comparisons to the king of all hangout movies, The Big Chill, are inevitable, and Lowell didn’t shy away from acknowledging the influence of Kasdan’s film, which has a strikingly similar premise. “[My co-writer Mohit Narang] and I obsessed over every conceivable reunion [movie], to see what people did right and wrong. The Big Chill is obviously the big tentpole film for [this kind of movie], which is why everyone comes back to it. It’s a film that you watch when you’re sick because it makes you feel good and right about the world.”

Worlds Collide…Over Cocktails

After the dual screenings of At Middleton and Beside Still Waters, the buzzing crowds and proud filmmakers met again at the Tiburon Tavern just down the road to schmooze, booze, and enjoy delectable bites of delicious food (the coffee-coated cheese was curious, yet excellent). Andy Garcia and the Beside Stll Waters cast were happy to mingle, keeping the good vibes flowing along with the bubbly. Lowell and Rodgers, both elated to have their films so well-received, shared their experiences and a big, congratulatory hug.

Stiller Closes Out With Mitty

MVFF closed out big with what looks to be one of the most visually striking films of the year, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Ben Stiller unsurprisingly drew a blitz of media and fan attention when he arrived at the CinéArts@Sequoia theater to present his passion project, about an office worker (played by Stiller himself) who lives in picturesque fantasy worlds represented onscreen beautifully by Stiller and DP Stuart Dryburgh (The Piano). After the screening, Stiller was given the Mill Valley Award and then headed down the street to San Rafael’s beautiful Elk’s Lodge where everyone–from the hard-working festival staff, to the filmmakers, to industry people, to the excited festival-goers–celebrated as the wonderful 11-day festival came to a close.

But wait…that’s not all! We’ve still got a ton of content coming out of the festival, so stay tuned in the next few days for more MVFF goodness!

Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave, and the Unexpected Guest

Of all the films in the exceedingly strong MVFF lineup, none have generated the momentum and near-universal acclaim of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. McQueen and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (who plays Northup) and Lupita Nyong’o took the stage in front of a full house at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center to answer the questions of the audience, who were still reeling after seeing the gut-wrenching film.

“I wanted to make a film about slavery because I felt, within the cannon of film, this particular subject hadn’t been tackled,” professed a straight-faced McQueen. “Everybody knows Anne Frank’s diary. Every school should have 12 Years a Slave (the book) on their curriculum. That’s my aim with this film.”

During the Q&A session, something very special happened, though few noticed it. The mobile microphone that had been floating around the theater from person to person wound up in the hands of Fruitvale Station director and Bay Area native, Ryan Coogler, one of the brightest young directors in the game. Funny thing is, very few audience members seemed to recognize Coogler, though he didn’t seem to pay that any mind at all. With wide-eyed curiosity, eagerness, and humility, Coogler–amongst a sea of weighty questions about slavery–chose instead to ask McQueen about filmmaking technique, specifically his proclivity for doing one-shot takes as opposed to traditional coverage.

“I don’t do coverage,” McQueen explained to the intently focused Coogler. “For me, it’s a waste of time because I know what I want.” It’s this confident, assertive, no-bull attitude that so many great auteurs share, and in that moment between McQueen and Coogler, I could sense the future of cinema getting just a little bit brighter.

A Dark Teen Idol Returns with a Powerhouse Performance

No red carpet arrival at MVFF could match the energy of Jared Leto’s. The most likely explanation for the fervor is that he’s one of the dreamiest cinema dreamboats of the past 20 years, but in his new film, Dallas Buyers Club (his first film in four or five years), he proves once again that he’s much too talented to be reduced to just another pretty face.

Based on a true story, the film (you know, the one Matthew McConaughey lost a bunch of weight for) follows Ron Woodruff (McConaughey), a bull-riding man’s man who was diagnosed as being HIV positive and subsequently waged pharmaceutical war on the FDA and other companies in the ’80s in hopes to make alternative treatments available for HIV-positive patients. Leto plays Rayon, a transsexual, HIV-positive business partner of Ron’s who’s got sass and hustle for days. Though McConaughey is likely to get an Academy Award nomination for his turn as Woodruff, Leto is equally deserving of a supporting nod, with a performance so lived-in and remarkable it’ll make you wish he’d quit 30 Seconds to Mars (that rock band of his) and come back to acting for us full-time.

Leto stayed in character even when off-set, walking around with Rayon’s leggings, lipstick, and clothes on. “It was interesting how people treated me differently,” Leto said in the post-screening Q&A session. “Every glance somebody gave me, every time I had an encounter, every time a grip offered his hand when I stepped out of the van…it ultimately helped me deliver a much better performance.”

John Wells Turns the Tables

One of the best things about film festivals are the Q&A’s; everyday people like you and me get to pry the brains of some of the most talented filmmakers in the business. Director John Wells, however, flipped the script on the MVFF Q&A crowd–who had just finished watching his new film, August: Osage County–by asking them questions.

“Did you think it was funny?” Wells asked, earnestly, which was met by an emphatic, unanimous “yes” and a smattering of applause from the smiling festival-goers. Wells was likely concerned whether the film’s humor came through or not because the film–based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Tracy Letts, who also wrote the screenplay–revolves around a family tragedy and crises. The feuding women of the Weston family–played by Meryl Streep as the drug-addled matriarch, and Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson and Juliette Lewis as Streep’s daughters–are brought together after years of separation to their old Oklahoma home after receiving devastating news about their father, Beverly (Sam Shepard).

Wells went further with his questioning, asking the audience members who were familiar with the play if there was something they missed from the stage version that he cut from his screen adaptation. When several audience members voiced their preference for the play’s ending (which is only slightly different), Wells admitted their feedback could have an effect on the final cut of the film. “I actually have to lock the film by Monday or Tuesday next week, which is why I’m asking these questions!”

When asked about the on-screen relationship between Streep and Roberts and how they approached their roles as mother and daughter, Wells explained just how significant their mother-daughter chemistry is to the story. “One of the themes of the film is, for better or for worse, we become our parents. We reach a moment in our adult lives at which we have to decide what we’re going to use and what we’re not going to use.”

Blues Bad-Asses Rock Sweetwater

In celebration of late Blues guitar legend Mike Bloomfield and the new film detailing his life, Sweet Blues (which played at MVFF), music fans piled into Mill Valley’s historic Sweetwater Music Hall to listen to some of the baddest Blues on the planet played by some veteran virtuosos and some old friends of Bloomfield’s. Amongst the music marvels were Conan O’Brien cohort Jimmy Vivino, Bay Area Blues veteran Elvin Bishop, and harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite. The tiny, excellent-sounding venue was packed shoulder to shoulder with elated music lovers swaying as one, a perfect way to unwind and a perfect lead-in to what’s sure to be a killer final two days at the festival.

Stay tuned to Way Too Indie for all the news coming out of the festival this weekend, including coverage of the directors panel (Ryan Coogler, Steve McQueen, JC Chandor, Scott Cooper, John Wells), capsule reviews, interviews, photo galleries, and much more!

On day 4 of the Mill Valley Film Festival, Sean Penn made a rare appearance to support The Human Experiment, a new documentary by co-directors Don Hardy Jr. and Dana Nachman that Penn narrates and executive produced. The beautifully shot doc explores the adverse–and sometimes fatal–effects of toxic chemicals found abundantly in our households, the food we eat, the drinks we drink, and what we can do to help stop the distribution of them.

Hundreds of Star Wars fanatics gathered at the Century Theaters in Corte Madera to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi with a costume parade full of wookies, storm troopers, rebels, a certain chirpy, thimble-shaped droid, and a screening of the classic final (for now) chapter in the sci-fi fantasy saga.

Check out all the action below!

The New Environmentalists

This documentary takes you across the world from Iraq to Columbia to Indonesia and others to share six different stories from environmental activists who seek to improve the quality of life for all. Narrated by Robert Redford, The New Environmentalists not only reminds us how valuable our natural resources are, but that there are still people willing to stand up against greedy governments and corporations. Each story gives some quick background on the particular issue at hand, but dedicates most of its time showing the success story of the individual that fought for their community. One of the more interesting stories was about how a grade school teacher in a small town in Italy created a ground breaking recycling program that was adopted by several other surrounding cities. While it was encouraging to see these six courageous folks make an important change for their community, in most cases the documentary brought more awareness to the success of the activists rather than to the actual problem itself.

F-Line

The most brilliant part of Silvia Turchin’s short documentary is that almost the entire film is comprised of sounds and noises that you would hear on its subject; the historical streetcars of San Francisco. F-Line is a mosaic of shots of streetcars made up of time lapses inside the streetcar to a close up of its pealed paint exterior. This is a purely sensory-based experience that mainly explores former moving transit vehicles that now remain out of use and stationary. If you are a fan of abstract or experimental art, you will likely appreciate this eight minute short as it feels like it belongs in an art gallery.

At the Bar

At the Bar consists of three separate two minute acts that start in the same way, two men sitting at a bar. The first act entitled A Drink is about a fancy cocktail that is said to be life-changing. When one of the men takes a drink hilarity ensues as he is instantly transported to having loving newborn puppies surround him, an attractive woman suddenly drawn to him, and part of a judging circus act, all while energetic music plays in the background. When the other guy takes a sip he simples says, “Eh, it’s a little sweet.” Even funnier than the first act is the second called A One and a Two. Using the playbook from the classic “Who’s On First” routine from Abbott and Costello, At the Bar has the two men fighting over using the numbers one and two. The whole bit is filled with laugh out loud exchanges like one of the men stating, “One can’t do as do as many things with two as one can with one” and the other replies, “Yes, one can too.” The final act is about one man whose goal is to speaking French without actually knowing the language by making up French sounding words. At the Bar is able to achieve more laughs in six minutes than a typical comedy can in an hour. This is a highly recommended watch.

The Trouble with Bread

Considering bread has been a food staple for mankind for tens of thousands of years, it is actually pretty remarkable that only more recently has there been a massive spike of people that suddenly have gluten intolerance. The Trouble with Bread determines the reason for this might be in the way we refine the wheat we consume. Most of the wheat we eat has the two healthiest parts (the bran and germ) of the grain removed during the refinement process in order to extend its shelf life. It just so happens that the bran and germ are two parts of the grain that help us digest gluten in the first place. With the trend of people suffering from gluten at an all-time high, this documentary is both fascinating and relevant. The Trouble with Bread makes good use of its time dissecting the bread making process of the past and present. The subjects interviewed are fun to listen to though I wish the filmmaker’s own narrative voiceover was more effective because she answers some of her own questions which ends up being the weakest part of the documentary.

Finding Hillywood

Because of the success of large Hollywood films such as The Last King of Scotland and Hotel Rwanda, most people are now aware of the genocidal mass slaughter of Rwanda’s people back in 1994. A traveling film festival was born called Hillywood from some passionate filmmakers in the community, with the idea that film is an excellent way to educate people about genocide, domestic violence, and drug abuse. Thousands of people who may be watching film for the very first time gather around to watch local films on a large inflatable projection screen.

Hillywood is undoubtedly a very powerful asset to the community of Rwanda as it brings far more than just entertainment to the people, but educational information to young children. Finding Hillywood highlights the intense power that cinema can bring to audiences that no other media can. The documentary ends up relying a bit too heavily on showing clips from films that played during the festival. However, with a short runtime of just under an hour, Finding Hillywood is still a recommendable watch for those who love film.

Stick around for our full-length review of Finding Hillywood

On day 3 of the festival, rising teen idols and a CSI star flashed their pearly whites (for good causes), young songstresses made the crowd swoon at a legendary nightclub, and the classiest “madman” actor of all received a loving tribute (and a shiny award to go with it).

The Mill Valley Rush

The Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center was packed again after yesterday’s tribute to Costa Gavras, this time to pay homage to beloved Australian actor Geoffrey Rush. Back in 1996, when Shine–one of Rush’s first feature roles and one that won him an Oscar for best actor in 1997–premiered in the United States at Sundance, but Rush wasn’t in attendance. When the film screened at the Mill Valley film festival, however, he was all too happy to fly out to the Bay Area to make an appearance. Last night, in front of hundreds of Rush’s admirers and friends, Zoe Elton, MVFF’s director of programming, shared with Rush that a few of the staffers at the festival remember him visiting the “2AM Club”–one of Mill Valley’s oldest bars–after the screening of Shine. “I have no memory of this,” Rush replied, with the same charmingly dry wit he’s infused into so many of his roles over the years, drawing a wave of laughter from the crowd (including yours truly).

The Mill Valley Award was presented to Rush by esteemed director Philip Kaufman, who admitted he had a bit of stage fright prior to taking the theater stage, not because he was afraid of public speaking, but because he was to be followed by the enchanting Mr. Rush. As Rush joined him onstage, it was clear what Kaufman meant by the compliment–Rush’s personality is as magnetic in person as it is on screen. He speaks with his hands, exhibits a keen sense of humor, and exudes class with his low, round timbre. During the Q&A mediated by Elton, the two revisited Rush’s illustrious film career, in which he’s played every type of role imaginable, from eccentrics like Captain Barbosa (Pirates of the Caribbean), The Marquis de Sade (Quills), and Casanova Frankenstein (Mystery Men), to his powerful turns as Leon Trotsky (Frida), Philip Henslowe (Shakespeare in Love), and, of course, pianist David Helfgott in Shine.

Rush recalled his mindset at the time of Shine‘s American release, when he was still quite active in the theater in Australia. “I reached a point where I thought, whatever happens to  Shine–and it was an interesting journey for me to come to America and Mill Valley–I can always go back to a solid career in the theater.” Luckily for all of us, Shine did amazingly well here in the States, and we’ve been gifted some of the most unforgettable performances by one of the great actors of the past 20 years.

Anti-Bullying Message Delivered by Teen Dream Messengers

Earlier in the day, the cast and director of anti-bullying high school drama Contest were met at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center by a mob of adoring kids, eager to get autographs from the photogenic teen stars. The actors were all smiles as they posed for pictures, gave out big hugs, and chatted with the youngsters, all in the name of promoting the film’s anti-bullying message. “It’s about a high school kid who is a talented chef and has been bullied for three years by a jock,” director Anthony Giuda says of the film. “The two are forced to work on a project together, and though they’re reluctant to work together at first, they gradually form a friendship.”

Beautiful young actress Katherine McNamara plays the new kid in school. “I’m a bystander of the bullying situation. I’m the new girl in town, so I have a more objective view of things and can see through most of the games being played.” McNamara explained that the film “addresses every kind of bullying, from at school, to outside of school, cyber-bullying, bullying between siblings…everything is covered.” According to Giunta, the film has been received well by kids who’ve seen it, and the message is getting across loud and clear. “People gravitate toward this movie and think it’s going to help a lot of people.” The films airs Tonight at 6pm ET/PT on Cartoon Network.

Rescuing the King of the Jungle

Actress Jorja Fox, best known for her role as Sara Sidle on CSI, and directer Tim Phillips were on hand in Mill Valley with their new documentary, Lion Ark, following a team of animal activists trying to save lions from circus runners in Bolivia keeping them in captivity illegally. Film subject and President of Animal Defenders International, Jan Creamer, was also in attendance to introduce the film, which has generated quite a bit of buzz at the festival for its thrilling narrative storytelling and its fascinating interviews and footage.

At Sweetwater

Just down the street from the Lion Ark screening, at Sweetwater Music Hall (a tiny, historic night club with a long legacy), a smaller, more intimate crowd was gathered to listen to gorgeous songs played by young female talents. The nightclub–which for over 40 years hosted the likes of Carlos Santana, Bob Weir (who’s an investor of the venue), and Elvis Costello among many others–is a historical live music staple of Marin County with state-of-the-art sound (it really does sound great) and gourmet food.

Lily Kershaw, a 22-year-old folk songwriter with a smoky, tender, smooth-as-butter voice, played an intimate set of rich, well-crafted songs that had the club entranced. Her song “Promised Land” was a highlight, a song that begins with the line “I gave you my body”, which makes it all the more hilarious that it’s a favorite of Kershaw’s grandfather, which she revealed in the song’s introduction.

Following Kershaw, Jazz Mills of the band “Cowboy and Indian” took the stage and was supposed to be joined on stage by her fellow bandmate, actor Jesse Plemons of Breaking Bad and Friday Night Lights fame, but he had to miss the show because, well, his acting career is blowing up at the moment. Much to my surprise and delight, Plemoms was replaced by his Friday Night Lights co-star, Stephanie Hunt, who was a fellow member with him in the show’s fictional rock band “Crucifictorious”. As a big FNL fan, I could barely contain my excitement, though I thankfully was able to gather myself and keep composure. The impromptu duo of Mills and Hunt (whose voices melded together beautifully) came to the venue without a name, though they claimed that the band name was still “up for grabs”. Hmm…”Up For Grabs” would be a great band name…

As always, stay tuned to Way Too Indie for more updates from the festival!

After a jam-packed opening night full of excitement and energy, day two of the Mill Valley Film Festival was a day of more narrowed focus. At the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center (long name, but a simple, pristine little theater) in San Rafael, a packed house paid tribute to a beloved auteur known for making bold, inspiring political statements, Greek director Costa Gavras.

Wowing the Crowd With…Politics?

Gavras, has garnered international acclaim over his 45-plus year career, melding perfectly overt political themes with high-intensity, crowd-pleasing action. Putting international issues in the form of a commercial action-thriller, Gavras’ films are both politically critical and pulse-pounding.

1969’s Z, his third film and arguably his most lauded work, follows a judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) as he attempts to uncover the truth about the assassination of a leftist politician. As the judge delves deeper into the murder, the police and government officials involved do everything in their power to cover up their tracks–and cover their asses. The film was one of the highest-grossing films in France and the United States of that year, and also went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. “My feeling is not to start telling negative things about [people in power]. It’s important to explain to people that their propositions are not good.”

Following Z, Gavras kept fighting the good fight, making films like Missing, starring Jack Lemmon as a father looking to uncover the truth (sense a theme here?) about the disappearance of his Journalist son, and State of Seige, based on the killing of U.S. Embassy official Dan Mitrione in Uruguay in 1970. Most recently, Gavras stuck his finger in the chest of Catholicism with 2003’s Amen, a film that asserts Pope Pius XII was aware of the horrible acts the Nazis were committing, but did and said nothing to condemn the Holocaust.

A Tribute to the Man

The crowd at the San Rafael Film Center burst into warm applause as Gavras–introduced by veteran actor Peter Coyote, who was introduced by festival executive director Mark Fishkin–made his way to the stage. Mediated by Coyote, Gavras reflected on his illustrious career, exploring the works that made him a legend in the cinema world.

Though his films do often call attention to controversial or scandalous international issues, Gavras makes fair characterizations on both sides of the fence, always aware that people can’t be deduced to simply pawns of government. “I never separate people as left or right,” Gavras said about his filmmaking and personal philosophy. “I believe there are good people everywhere, and there are bad people [on the left] as there are on the right.”

His new film, Capital, which he brought to the festival, takes aim at the dangers of greed and power, following a young investment banker (Gad Elmaleh, Midnight in Paris) as he wades through the treacherous shark tank of international finance, pressured by the amorality of an American financier, Gabriel Byrne. “All of the bankers I’ve seen, their justification is, if we do something more human, the American [banks] will eat us,” Gavras says. “[American] banks are so big, so huge, that they can, really, eat everybody.”

To elaborate on the themes of Capital,Coyote recalled something Italian stylist Nino Cerruti said to him that he’ll never forget. “[Cerruti] said, [the Euro has] to stand. If it doesn’t stand, the only model for capitalism will be the American model, and that will be a disaster.” Gavras confirmed that that notion does live in the movie, but didn’t care to delve into the details before the movie began, wanting the movie to speak for itself. Coyote and Gavras left the stage, the lights dimmed, and the audience of long-time fans were treated to another riveting work by a filmmaker who hasn’t missed a beat in nearly 50 years.

Along the Roadside

Also screening at the film center (in a theater just above the Gavras tribute) was Along the Roadside, a philosophical road trip movie by first time director Zoran Lisinac. It follows a cynical San Franciscan named Varnie (Iman Crosson) and an Australian tourist named Nena (Angela Hantsch), paired together by fate, as they drive to the biggest music festival in California. Lisinac, Producer Vladimir Lisinac, and actor Daniel Grozdich (a charming, goofy fellow, as you can see in the photo above) were on hand to introduce the film.

Be sure to come back tomorrow for all the news from Day 3 of the festival!

Nestled in the green, redwood-populated hills of Mill Valley, the 36th Mill Valley Film Festival kicked off with a duo of gorgeous dramas: Alexander Payne’s Nebraska and Brian Percival’s The Book Thief. The arrival of several special guests from the films heightened the already high level of excitement. Nebraska stars Will Forte and Bruce Dern and The Book Thief stars Sophie Nelisse and Goffrey Rush, along with Percival, were on hand to discuss the films and pose for the cameras with the gorgeous Mill Valley scenery surrounding them at the festival pre-party.

Book Thieves, Young and Old

After the photo-op parade, everybody shuffled over to the press conference room. When asked if she’d read the book on which The Book Thief is based, Nelisse–a blonde Canadian teenager with a charming adolescent verbosity–explained why reading the source material was a quite difficult undertaking. “I started to read the first 20 pages of the book when we started to shoot, but I thought it would be a bit confusing if I read the script, shot the movie, and read the book at the same time.” She did finally read the book about a month ago, but reading it now posed a new challenge. “I see every scene when I read the book. I wish I had read it before I shot the movie, so I could [use] my own imagination.”

The film follows a little girl (Nelisse) who learns about the value of books and stories in the turbulent environment of WWII Germany. Percival, whose most recent acclaim has come from directing episodes of the hugely popular television series Downton Abbey, had nothing but praise for Nelisse. “Sophie was ideal,” he gushed. “There wasn’t anybody else to come close.”

Rush got cheeky when asked why he–a proven picky role-chooser–decided to join the project. “I was looking at joining an Australian pole vaulting team, then Brian called me” Rush joked, to waves of laughter. “I didn’t know about the book,” he continued, now speaking honestly. “It felt like for the first time somebody had bravely given me a fairly ordinary character. It wasn’t too eccentric or too off-the-planet like most of the other things I do. I wanted the challenge of, how mundane could I be in a film, but [still] interesting?”

A Nebraskan Love Fest

Forte looked physically overwhelmed with gratitude and humility as uber-experienced co-star and screen legend Dern gave him possibly the highest praise an SNL veteran has ever received. “I’ll give him a tie for 1st place with Jack Nicholson [for best acting teammate,]” referring to his turn with Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens. Dern poured the love on some more as Forte looked dumbfounded by the weight of the kind words. “[Will] was scared when we started shooting,” due, according to Dern, to the fact that the beginning of the film isn’t comedic. Dern admired Forte’s strength in the face of the challenge. “There were 80 people in the room who were waiting for him to be funny, because that’s how they know him. The fact that he overcame that…it’s tough to do.”

Anti-Bullying Passion Project to Premiere this Sunday

The stars of the two opening night films weren’t the only people at the pre-party with films at the festival. I ran into director Anthony Joseph Guinta and rising-star actress Katherine McNamara, whose anti-bullying high school drama, Contest, premieres on the Cartoon Network this Sunday, October 6th at 6pm. The film, which explores the evils and many different types of bullying from several angles, was an important project for both director and star. “I was bullied quite a bit growing up,” the strawberry blonde admitted. “I even had my face smashed into a water fountain once because somebody didn’t like me, for some reason.” Giunta believes that bullying is an entirely different beast from when he was a kid. “I could go home and close the door and not have to deal with it until I got to school the next day. Kids today live a 24/7 nightmare.” With hope, Contest will lend a helping hand to bullied kids and–more importantly–de-bully some bullies.

VIP’s and Conga Lines

After the films screened to hundreds of elated (but hungry) festival-goers, the lucky souls found mounds of yummy treats and artisan eats at the opening night after party, set in an “s”-shaped, blocked-off section of Town Center Corte Madera (an outdoor mall). As I weaved through the mobs of gleefully chomping cinephiles, I was led to a tent full of even more food and, excitingly, a terrific samba band that made the crowd move so hard they had no choice but to form an epic conga line.

In the closed-off VIP section of the party, legends of sight and sound were tucked away, having a blast meeting with their fellow-filmmaker brethren. Along with Rush and Dern, who were having a chatty good time, master craftsmen Andrew Stanton (Wall-E) and Phillip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) were mixing it up with the rest of the exclusive bunch. After the fanciful, delightful insanity of opening night, I shudder with joy at the thought of what the rest of the festival has in store. Stay tuned to find out!

Check back tomorrow for our Day 2 coverage!

Starting tonight, October 3rd and going through October 13th, the 36th Mill Valley Film Festival will be rolling out the red carpet for local Bay Area filmmakers, movie stars, and acclaimed directors from around the world in the gorgeous surroundings of Marin County. From a costume-friendly screening of Return of the Jedi, to live music performances, to screenings of some of the most buzz-worthy films in the cinemasphere, the festival has got a little something for everybody.

Way Too Indie will be there to give you updates on the myriad events and screenings going down at the festival, with photos galore, reviews, interviews, and more.

Here are some of the guests, screenings and events you can expect to see at the festival:

Alexander Payne’s highly-anticipated new film, Nebraska, will be opening up the festival, with stars Will Forte and Bruce Dern in attendance. A father-son Midwestern odyssey from Montana to Nebraska, the movie earned Dern a best actor award at Cannes.

Splitting opening night honors with Payne is Brian Percival, with his beautiful Nazi Germany-set drama, The Book Thief, starring Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson, and newcomer Sophie Nelisse, playing a young girl who discovers the power of storytelling.

At Middleton, a middle-aged romance between parents of college hopefuls set entirely during a campus tour, is director Adam Rodger’s feature debut and stars two seasoned, excellent actors in Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga. The film is making its premiere at the festival, and Rodgers and Garcia will be in attendance.Also making its premiere is Beside Still Waters, but writer-director Chris Lowell, who will be on hand to introduce the film.

One of the most highly-anticipated films of the year (especially for us) is Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. The film, following a free black man in 1841 who is stripped of everything when he’s sold as a slave, is undoubtedly one of the major highlights of the festival.

And that’s just scratching the surface. There will be screenings of Palme d’Or winner Blue is the Warmest Color, John Wells’ August: Osage County, the Matthew McConaughey breakthrough piece Dallas Buyers Club, Jan Troell’s The Last Sentence, the heartfelt Matt Shepard documentary Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine, Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, a children’s film program, and much, much more.

There will also be a closing night tribute Ben Stiller, who’s bringing with him his new film, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Also receiving festival spotlights are actors Jared Leto (Dallas Buyer’s Club) and Dakota Fanning (Effie Gray), and legendary auteur Costa Garvas (Capital, Z, State of Siege).

Stay tuned to Way Too Indie for updates on all the action going down in Mill Valley! For more info, visit mvff.com