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.

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.