When Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy team up, comedy magic happens. Bridesmaids was comedy gold. And they’ve even brought back Rose Byrne as Melissa’s foil in Spy, as Rahna Boyanov.
The fun begins with the opening credits which spoof every James Bond film, both in look and in the music. Melissa plays Susan Cooper, who works in the CIA basement as the the voice in the ear of super spy Bradley Fine, played by Jude Law. The film works so well, because it has great action scenes spiked with incredibly funny laughs. So, Susan is the ultimate Miss MoneyPenny, in love with her Bradley Fine, of course, working as his analyst as well as picking up his dry cleaning. She hears him get shot by Rahna who gloats over killing Fine.
Rahna also boasts that she knows all the identities of the top CIA spies, so Alison Janney, the CIA director takes up Susan Cooper’s offer to go track Rahna down. And this meeting is our introduction to Jason Statham as a hilarious parody of every action hero he’s ever played. “I’ve swallowed enough microchips to shit a computer!” He can’t believe that Alison Janney is sending Susan into the field and not him.
I loved, loved, loved Susan’s relationship with her best friend at work, the hilarious British actress Miranda Hart.
Really, that was one of the key strengths of this movie. All the relationships between the women. Once Susan goes undercover, in one embarrassing cat lady type get up after another, she worms her way into Rahna’s company by claiming to be a bodyguard Rahna’s father hired. And then Susan and Rahna trade insults at each other for the rest of the movie, but in a very affectionate joking way. It was wonderful. (Rahna’s hair is so big it’s almost a credited cast member by itself.)
Of course Jason Statham doesn’t trust Susan to be competent, and follows her, but this again is another brilliant move by writer/directer Paul Feig. Susan is extremely competent. The male spies, one by one, screw up, and she saves the day at every turn. There’s a big twist towards the end that I won’t spoiler. It’s just a wonderful blend of great action with even better comedy. All the actors involved looked like they had just a blast making this movie. Highly recommend. Four out of five stars.
I saw Charlie back in January when it came to one theater in Chicago. My first Malayalam film on the big screen. I give it three and a half stars out of five. But definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of Parvathy or Dulquer.
This is possibly the most quirky Indian film I’ve seen yet. I didn’t loveCharlie. I’ll admit it. It was like Dulquer Salmaan was the ultimate manic pixie dream guy. That the heroine searches for the whole movie, and doesn’t actually meet until the last five-ten minutes. So, I went in wanting the big romance, and it was — in a way. I appreciate the role reversal, because I’ve seen this movie, and read this book the other way many a time.
She rents a room and the previous tenant has left all his very, very weird artsy stuff. She finds a portion of a graphic novel he drew, and has to find out what happened next. She looks for all the people that he drew in the pictures he left, and asks them about what happened next, and where he is. And she discovers a string of stories of this character do-gooding, and him not being able to stay in one place longer than a day, it seems. But she is also a free spirit — on the run from an arranged marriage to the brother of her brother’s fiance.
I think it was another example of me going in with expectations of Bangalore Days or OK Kanmani, and it is quite a different kettle of fish altogether. It’s a good movie, but not great. Very quirky by Indian movie standards. I felt like we didn’t really get to know Charlie, he really stayed a mystery up until the end. There was one absolutely incredible fantasy song sequence (he left a Polaroid selfie of himself in the apartment) .
The subtitles of the song basically were that he is like a mirage. I enjoyed Dulquer in the pirate get up and the flowing mundu skirt!
One of the final scenes was filmed at some real life festival (Find me in the crowd!) with these two rows of elephants facing each other and enormous crowds. It was a real WOW moment.
Evidently, Charlie’s a big hit in Kerala, and Dhanush has already bought the Tamil remake rights. This is a film I could totally see Ranveer doing if it was remade in Hindi.
Prior to 1: Nenokkadine, my Telugu film watching has pretty much been limited to everything starring Prabhas I could get my hands on (post Baahubali!) and anything by S. S. Rajamouli (Eega, Maghadeera, etc.) I could get my hands on.
1: Nenokkadine (1: Alone) opens with a young boy running through a forest being chased and shot at by gun-toting goons. (I learned later the young boy is lead actor Mahesh Babu’s son.) He runs into a road and into the arms of the police but someone explains it away – “Oh, he has mental problems. He imagines his parents were killed and he’s being chased by the killers.” This is the first of many psych outs in this thriller.
1: Nenokkadine is my first Mahesh Babu film, and from the opening number, I could tell Mahesh is a STAR. He plays Gautham, a rock star.
Mahesh has charisma. He has screen presence. Not the most notable dance talent, at least from what I saw in this movie, but he makes up for that by looking exceptionally cool in all the action scenes. And this movie has a LOT of action scenes.
After the Who Are You rock number above, Gautham thinks he sees one of the killers from his dreams/visions in the audience and runs after him. He believes he ends an elaborate motorcycle chase and fist fight by killing the man. But then – PSYCH – Sameera ( Kriti Sanon, in her debut) has videoed the whole thing, and there wasn’t anyone else there at all! There is no body because he was fighting air.
WTF? From this point, you realize nothing you see can you rely on to be real. Because our hero has mental issues. Is he schizophrenic and seeing hallucinations? My subtitles didn’t tell me, but he has missing brain cells or something on a scan, as a doctor tries to explain to the journalist Sameera in the hospital after the imaginary fight. Why is the doctor telling all this to a journalist? (I really don’t understand health privacy laws in India, I’m just saying.)
Gautham decides to go to Goa for some R&R, but who appears on his yacht but that dogged journalist, Sameera. She then proceeds to Gaslight poor Gautham by approaching him multiple times in the same situations so that he isn’t sure what is real and what is not in their relationship. I read later that this was Kriti’s first film, and I’m sorry, but it shows. Yes, she’s pretty enough, but I was not buying the instant love between the characters. And I really couldn’t get past the plot point that she was milking his mental illness for her own ends. How did Gautham get past that so quickly? Don’t question, it’s luuuurve. I didn’t find her funny, and this was the comic relief segment of the movie. I just didn’t think she had good chemistry with Manesh. Manesh was also not really that charismatic in the rom com portion. I reserve judgement if he can pull that off and will try some other movies of his, hopefully where he is paired with a better co-star actress with some sparkle to her.
(Loved Mahesh in the glasses look, though)
So, at this point, the plot becomes very convoluted. We’re not sure if killers are after Gautham or after Sameera, or both. Gautham is convinced Sameera is in danger, and unfortunately beats up a bunch of her friends who were planning a surprise birthday party.
The action moves to London, and there are some fantastic action set pieces. One really intense scene has Gautham killing someone in a public bathroom because he thinks it’s a hallucination that he just wants to go away. But it was real. There are so many twists and turns, and because of Gautham’s condition, and his loss of childhood memories, we as the audience never know what to believe. I’m not sure the logic of the whole movie really works out if you analyze it afterwards, but it’s an exhilarating roller coaster ride of a movie. I was watching most of it on a plane on my iPad with headphones on, and I probably amused my seatmate by gasping out loud at several points. The ending scenes when Gautham regains his childhood memories were really emotionally touching.
I really liked the catchy soundtrack, too. Just try to get the London Babu item song out of your head. I wish I could find this with subs as the lyrics were pretty funny:
I watched this movie becauses it was recommended over and over on my Quora post about why I love Indian cinema as a Telugu movie to try. Prabhas is still my first love Telugu star, but I will definitely be checking out more Mahesh Babu movies. This guy just oozes cool, like a much taller Jason Statham kind of action guy.
Four stars out of 5. Worth a rentMal! (I rented it on Google Play which had English subs, of a fashion at least.)
I watched Madhavan’s recent boxing movie, Irudhi Suttru (The Snob) in Tamil. It was released and filmed at the same time as the Hindi Salaa Khadoos. I watched it in the original Tamil because that was the version available on Google Play, and I wanted to download it to watch on a flight.
Irudhi Suttru had a woman writer/director, Sudha Kongara, which I don’t think I knew going in. I learned from Wikipedia that she was an assistant director to Mani Ratman for 7 years. Maddy was really good, and it’s so great for him to come back with a dramatic role like this. The newcomer Ritika Singh, the young woman boxer was also great. It got a bit trite in the dialogue in the second half, but was still quite good.
Madhavan’s character Prabhu had been a talented boxer, but his temper and lack of finesse with the politics of the boxing federation has left him sent to the backwater of Chennai to train women boxers. Our introduction to Prabhu has him kicking out a married woman he’s having a sexual affair with out of his bed. We learn that his wife has left him, and he has had a string of these affairs.
After he arrives in Chennai, he watches and assesses the talent of the young women being trained by the local coach (played by Nasser), when he spots the sister of one of the boxers attacking and punching to the ground the boxing judges she feels didn’t give her sister a fair shake.
Prabhu tracks down Madhi at the fish market because he is much more interested in training her, than the sister Luxmi who has been already been training for years. He offeres her money to come train every day with him, to replace the family income she would lose by giving up her day job.
This causes jealousy with the older sister Luxmi, and at one point Luxmi does something that injures Madhi before an important fight. We’ve seen the journey, setbacks and comeback fights in boxing movies before, but here we have a young female boxer who gets a huge crush on her coach, who she calls, “Master.” He shuts that down immediately, not in an unkind way, but a matter of fact, “it happens” kind of way.
The setup first half of the film was very good, but the dialogue in the second half got a bit predictable and trite. The songs were okay, but not outstanding. My favorite was probably this one with the two sisters celebrating having some spending money for once:
I don’t know what to think about the ending. The writer/director left it ambiguous as when the young woman wins her final bout, she runs to her coach and flings herself at him and wraps her arms and legs around him. Is this still just a coach/student relationship? You can view it both ways.
When Prabhu gives up his position in the boxing federation so that she can fight, Madhi says to Prabhu, “Is that not love?”
And then when she jumps in his arms at the end, but he doesn’t initially put his arms around her. I think he awkwardly sort of hugs her back, but it could be left for either interpretation. If you want to think, since she had gone back to always calling him, “Master” that it was just a student/coach relationship, you can think that. If you want to think it had gone beyond, you could read that in, too.
And I don’t know what I want it to be. I guess I lean towards the coach/ student bond.
The one scene that bothered me, was when he thought she threw the national finals fight (when her sister broke her hand) and he throws her to the ground, and then kicks her. I know Prabhu’s supposed to be this volatile character, but the kick really bothered me. The yelling I could deal with, even though he was really harsh. He’s supposed to lose it. A friend told me she viewed it that it showed how he viewed the girl just as he would have a male boxer, and treated her just the same.
I loved that the actress playing Madhi was so athletic. I learned later that she is a MMA star in India, and had never even acted before. I think that was smart of the filmmaker to choose someone so believable in the training and fight sequences. I can’t believe she didn’t know Tamil and learned all those lines phonectically! She was great! Now I’m sort of wondering if she was more natural in the Hindi version of the film. I haven’t seen Mary Kom yet, so I can’t compare this film to Priyanka’s performance.
But Maddy! Oh my gosh, it was great to see Madhavan be a bad ass bad boy at the beginning especially. And then I loved how he was this great coach, and just dealt with her crush — hey, it happens, don’t worry about it, now go put on your track suit and let’s get to work. He is a flawed character. I contrast it to SRK in Chak De! who seemed more saintly than this.
And he looked AMAZING! I wasn’t sure about that whole longish hair and beard when I first saw the trailer, but man, did I love it. He was so big and buff!!
With a plot like this, you can’t help but think a lot about the Clint Eastwood film Million Dollar Baby. Now obviously, Clint Eastwood is a million years old in that film. But it’s also a boxing coach relationship with a young woman, and how intimate and close it is, even if it’s not sexual at all. Maddy wasn’t QUITE old enough to be fatherly. At least not in an Indian film world. (And thank god he didn’t have to kill her in the end!)
I give three and a half stars out of five. Definitely worth a watch.
On a complete side note I feel like I have been seeing the actor Nasser EVERYWHERE recently. He was the Dad in Jeans which I recently watched.
And then he was a supporting coach in Irudhi Suttru
Then he was the villain in the Telugu movie I just watched!
In looking up his name, I discovered he was in Baahubali!! Mind BLOWN.
When I first saw the trailer for Fan, I was frankly creeped out by the look of the character Gaurav (the Fan). Through the use of prosthetics and major CGI, the filmmakers have made Shahrukh look just similar enough, and just different enough that it’s eerie. The eyebrows are straightened out of their normal “S” shape. The cheeks are too wide and the teeth different, and mostly, he looks so young!
But once you watch the film, it’s great, because Shahrukh Khan the actor has been able to create two distinct characters in this film. Aryan Khanna is for the most part the real SRK, a little more arrogant and less warm maybe. And Gaurav is the young obsessed fan from Delhi. The prosthetics and CGI let you see them as two different people immediately.
I was fortunate to see Fan before I really read any reviews or saw anything about the plot. Of course, I had my suspicions that this would be a darker psychological thriller, and it most definitely is. I was traveling for a conference in Las Vegas on Friday, and asked at an Indian restaurant which of the total two theaters in town showing Fan would be a safer neighborhood to take an Uber. Totally worth it to see it the first night! I knew a bit what I was getting into, that there would be no songs, but I think the audience I was seeing it with really didn’t know. As the end credits started, the guys behind me said out loud, “What, no song?” The tone and moment that the film ends with, I’m glad that we didn’t have that peppy Fan Anthem song over the credits. It would have been jarring. (Like the credit song was for Badlapur!)
I don’t want to spoiler the movie at all. I’m just going to tell you that you should really see this film. It is a return to Shahrukh the actor, which I had been hoping for! This is acting of a level with Darr, with Swades, or Chak De! Yes, it really is that good. It’s up with all the great performances.I’ve already seen the film twice and I plan on seeing it again in a few days with a friend. For a Shahrukh Khan fan, there is so much to delight in references to real past movies of SRK’s. Real old interview footage, footage from his SLAM! Tour in the US in big stadiums – they even filmed at his home Mannat on his birthday to capture the craziness.
You can guess from the trailer that it’s about a super star, and an obsessed fan, and things are going to get crazy. I’m giving it four and a half stars out of five, because I loved it that much, but there were a few logical leaps in the second half. I’m not sure the logic of the thriller completely worked, but I just loved watching it unfold before my eyes anyway. The action set pieces are really good, and Dubrovnic is gorgeous!! (That’s the rooftop chase from the trailer.)
I’ve seen people say this is a copy of the Robert DeNiro/Wesley Snipes film The Fan, and it really isn’t. Yes, you have an obsessed fan in both thrillers, but that’s where the similarity really ends.
None of the other actors in the movie are big names. There’s another rival “star” in the film named Sid Kapoor that I think is supposed to be a take on Hrithik. I recognized the character actors playing Gaurav’s parents, but really the movie is Shahrukh vs. Shahrukh. I also admire Shahrukh for poking a little fun at his own stardom. There’s a scene where Aryan is performing for a wedding for a huge fee, and even him punching the star Sid Kapoor at a party could be reference to real dustups that Shahrukh has had in his own life. Aryan is an aging star, who has declining box office for his films, and Gaurav at first won’t stand for any rival to take his God, HIS star’s place.
What is fantastic in this double character study is that your sympathies go from one character to the other and back and forth again. There are shades of gray to both characters, and I lovedthat. This was writer/director Manesh Sharma’s dream project for years. Yash Raj had him prove himself with a few other films first, and he started with Band Baaja Baaraat, and what a debut that was! He had to wait fot the timing to be right for Shahrukh to be involved — really I don’t know if I can think of any other Bollywood actor more perfect for this dual role. It’s a triumph for Shahrukh, Manesh Sharma and the VFX team.
Fandry was my first Marathi film. It was recommended by several people on my Quora post about why I love Indian cinema. I foolishly asked for recommended films of the commenters, and the list is well over 300 films long now.
I was delighted to discover that Fandry, a film festival favorite, was available on Netflix streaming.
Jabya is an untouchable. He’s the sweetest, most adorable intelligent 7th grade boy who is in love with a fair-skinned higher caste girl. He can’t even bring himself to speak to her. His family are the poorest in the village, and his father and the rest of the family are expected to do all the menial work in the village that no one else will do. The title means “pig” because chasing and killing the wild pigs that live around the village is something no one else will do. Anyone else who is even touched by one of the pigs is defiled.
Your heart bleeds for this boy, and his dreams. His father doesn’t want him to go to school, just wants him to help earn money for the family. Jabya is mortified that his classmates see him having to do horrible jobs, and in the end climax, the verbal abuse piled on him by other men and boys in the village becomes overwhelming rage in Jabya. The final moments of the film left me stunned with my hands over my mouth. So powerful, so heartbreaking.
This is the director’s debut film. No one else was telling his story, so he made this film to tell it. I highly recommend Fandry. It is an incredible parallel cinema film giving you the perspective of an untouchable young boy.
On my Quora post, over and over again, the Kannada commenters listed Lucia by Pawan Kumar as a recommended film. I watched the trailer here and the film is a total mind f*ck kind of trip. Watch the trailer, and you’ll get a taste of what I mean!
First, the way the film got made is totally interesting on its own It was crowdfunded! One of the production thingies at the beginning is “Audience” films, and then they show a grid of like 100 youtube videos of people holding signs. 110 people contributed to make the film, for like $70,000. It won the audience award at the London Indian film festival, where it premiered, and was short listed for the Oscars film from India.
YES, it’s that good!!
It’s a micro-budget film, but one of those indie feeling films where they were super creative and did a LOT with very little. It would totally fit in at Sundance.
So, what’s it about? Lucia is the name of the Lucid dream drug. The movie starts with policemen investigating why a certain patient is in a coma — and news TV debates whether euthanasia should be allowed.
The movie is very non-linear. We flash from color scenes of Nikki, a “torch-shiner” or usher in a tiny little theater in Bangalore, who lives in a shack with 4 other guys. He’s an insomniac, and a local drug-peddler gives him a sleeping pill, Lucia, that will give him dreams so real, he’ll feel that he lived them. But if he stops taking the pills, the dreams become nightmares.
The dreams are in black and white, and suddenly Nikki is Nikhil, a movie star! It’s like Wizard of Oz in reverse, as all the people in his humble life are in the movie star life, which is black and white. His uncle the little theater owner, is now his trusted manager. The pizza parlor waitress girl he’s crushing on as Nikki, is his item number girl in the movie he’s filming.
Lots of meta commentary on the value of the little tiny one screen theaters. And life as a movie star in India, etc.
The main actor, Sathish Ninasam, who plays Nikki/Nikhil is amazing. He is this humble sweet poor schlub Nikki, who doesn’t even think he deserves a cute pizza parlor girl and then he has this amazing confident movie star air as Nikhil. The main actress who plays the pizza parlor girl and the item number girl, the love interest in both worlds, is pretty good. I especially love her as the spunky pizza parlor girl. She tries to get Nikki to learn English and get a job at a multiplex, which leads to some very humorous scenes.
The film has sweetness, and a very filmi romance while also being a near Matrix level psychological — which-world-is-real kind of sci-fi plot. This is an Indian film where the script is truly king. It is quite the story — certainly not like anything else in Indian film, and yet, with the dual role, so very filmi at the same time!
I now feel like I have to go back and thank each of those people who recommended this on the Quora post. So good and so interesting! I really enjoyed the roller coaster ride. The director’s next film, U-Turn, is evidently about to come out. Lucia got rave tweets from Irrfan Khan and Anurag Kashyap tweeted “My birthday gift to myself would be lucia…”
Highly recommend this quirky strange wonderful Kannada film. 4 1/2 stars out of 5.
The first thing you need to know is that I find Arjun Kapoor adorable in just about anything. And I’m one of those people who enjoyed Tevar. Still love Superman!
I had big hopes for Ki & Ka. We haven’t seen Arjun in a film for over a year. But Ki & Ka, while it had some enjoyable moments, was a disappointment.
I liked the chemistry between Arjun and Kareena, and am glad she broke her “no kissing” pledge. I feel like this is a film that had an interesting concept, but the script still needed work. And maybe a woman’s perspective on the script.
Kareena is Kia, a very ambitious marketing executive. She meets Arjun’s Kabir on a plane when he is sobbing over his late mother’s birthday. They go out for a drink after the flight and he stuns her during a date by telling her he wants to be a housewife just like his mother. His father is a very wealthy builder, and Kabir has been a “topper” in an MBA program, but has no interest in the rat race.
He proposes they marry after a very brief courtship. He’ll create the home she’s never had (her single mother sent her to boarding schools), and she can pursue her career with no barriers.
Arjun’s character is just tooperfect. There was really no comedy of him dealing with learning to manage the house. He’s a master chef. He redecorates (with model trains!!). He manages Kia’s mothers sugar levels by cooking healthy food. Kia gets home late, and rather than complain, he just massages her feet and covers her with a blanket. The conflicts are pretty predictable in their marriage, and are resolved very quickly.
Maybe it’s the Indian cinema thing about having a hero be perfect with no flaws. While advantageous in a crime fighting supercop, in a domestic drama it’s not quite as interesting.
This movie is not helped by the fact that I’ve just seen Kapoor and Sons twice. Now THAT is a domestic family drama where everyone is complex and has flaws.
The couple also don’t have children by the end of the movie. That’s the kind of thing that could have provided comedy by upsetting his perfect routine. There is a pregnancy scare, and you can see Kareena added layers to her reaction that were probably not in the original script. Kudos to her for trying to add depth. But once the scare is over, the issue is never dealt with again. Yet another missed opportunity. So many directions this plot could have taken, that were just left hanging. Balki, the writer/director is evidently known for these high concept films, but not great follow through. Having more subplots and side characters would have helped this film, too.
That said, Kareena and Arjun give it their all, and I did like their chemistry. It was a pleasant timepass, but not the deep social commentary it was preaching to us about. The cameo by Amitabh and Jay Bachchan, though, was a delight!
I do enjoy this song! But the rest of the soundtrack was just okay.
Kathy Gibson of AccessBollywood.net and I saw the film at the same showing. She really hated it. Margaret of DontCallItBollywood.com goes in depth into the missed opportunities in the film. And gives a full summary here comparing it to a sitcom!
Sometimes there are movies you have been anticipating for months and you do a little prayer before it starts that it lives up to your hopes for it. This is a movie that not only exceeded my every expectation – it blew me away it was so excellent. I’ve seen the movie twice now.
I don’t want to spoiler this movie, because I really enjoyed going into it guessing what might happen in this intense family drama, but not knowing. I laughed, I cried, I gasped in shock at more than one point. This film puts you through the emotional wringer. I really cried at more than one moment in the film.
This is an incredible ensemble of actors. Rishi Kapoor was a hoot as a fun loving 90 year old grandfather whose sudden heart attack brings home the two brothers, played by Siddarth Malhotra and Fawad Khan. There are tensions and secrets that burst out over the family coming together again. The trailer plays up the romantic angle with Alia Bhatt’s character, but that’s just a small part of the drama.
I do love Siddarth, but he is the lesser actor of this stellar cast. The stand out, by far, is Fawad Khan. This Pakistani actor had his Bollywood debut in Khoobsurat in 2014, and I’ll admit it, I caught Fawad Fever. I watched his entire Pakistani soap Humsafar (on Watch Bollywood Movies Online – Eros Now), and this guy can ACT. He’s also incredibly generous with the actors sharing the screen with him. What a choice of a sophomore Bollywood role. It has felt like it’s been forever since Khoobsurat came out, but this film was so worth the wait. When the movie was over I wanted to watch it all over again!
I have attended Sundance since 2008, but this year we were able to attend the entire festival, so we saw quite a few films. I saw 22 feature length films, and several shorts.
This year was special because our friend Tahir Jetter‘s How To Tell You’re A Douchebag, his first feature, premiered at the fest. It’s a romantic comedy set in Brooklyn.
I’m biased, but for a very limited budget, I thought it was great. Here’s a balanced review from The Guardian.
It’s difficult for me to name just one film as my favorite from this year, because there were several standouts for me. For my full list with reviews, here is my Letterboxd list for Sundance 2016
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Captain Fantastic — “Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father (Viggo Mortensen) devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and re-enter society, beginning a journey that challenges his idea of what it means to be a parent.” Viggo is AMAZING in this film as an extreme home schooling dad, in probably my favorite film. I can’t think of anyone else more perfect for this role. The young actor who plays the oldest son is also incredible. A ★★★★½ review of Captain Fantastic (2016)
2. Manchester By The Sea – Kenneth Lonnergan’s film stars Casey Affleck and Michelle Wiliams. Affleck has to return to his home town Manchester By The Sea when a family member suddenly dies. You gradually learn why he is so reluctant to be the guardian for his 16 year old nephew. Searing film that we will be seeing come Oscar time, to be sure. Five stars!! Lucas Hedges is great as the young nephew, but Casey Affleck’s melancholy superb acting had me sobbing — not just tears down my face but holding my hand over my mouth to keep quiet in the theater sobbing. This is a masterful movie about real people and their grief. A ★★★★★ review of Manchester by the Sea (2016)
3. The Birth Of A Nation – Nate Parker’s slave drama about Nat Turner’s revolt in 1831 deservedly was the most talked about film at the festival. It won the audience and grand jury prize. I expect it to win Best Picture at the Oscars. Just an incredible film. Nate Parker choked up with tears at our screening talking about how hard it was to get his film made, and it received standing ovation after standing ovation at the fest. A ★★★★★ review of The Birth of a Nation (2016)
4. Ali and Nino – I LOVED this sweeping romantic epic set in WWI era Azerbaijan. Ali is a Muslim prince who falls for the aristocratic Christian Nino. Mandy Patinkin plays Nino’s father. The director, Asif Kapadia, just won the Oscar for his documentary film Amy, and I loved previous Sundance doc Senna. So glad to see a new narrative feature from him. A ★★★★★ review of Ali & Nino (2016)
5. Hunt for The WilderpeopleA hilarious comic romp by director Taika Waititi. (I have great hopes for the next Thor movie after seeing this movie, and laughing through Taika MCing the Sundance award night.) Sam Neill is more curmudgeonly than ever, and has a fantastic reluctant relationship with his foster son played by newcomer Julian Dennison. The film is out in New Zealand already, so you can see for yourself in the trailer below:
6. Other People – A gay writer son comes home to help take care of his mother when she is diagnosed with cancer. Molly Shannon is the mother, and you’ve never seen her like this. She’s fantastic.
7. Green Room – Patrick Stewart as the villainous owner of a Neo-Nazi punk rock club. I don’t need to say anything more. Anton Yelchin and his punk band have to escape a green room at the club after they witness a murder. There’s a trailer already for this incredibly intense thriller.
Now we get down in the list to films that were good, but not my favorites.
8. Belgica – Two brothers run a hip nightclub in Belgium. Predictable what happens, but the music was particularly good on the soundtrack. Many parallels to the refugee crisis.
9. Morris From America – Craig Robinson and his son, played by Markees Christmas are the only black people in their entire German town. Markees young 13 year old character loves rap and is incredibly sweet.
10. Southside With You – This is the story of Barack Obama and Michelle’s first date when she was his mentor at his summer job at the law firm, Sidley Austin in Chicago (my husband’s firm.) I really liked this film, even if you couldn’t even tell it was filmed in Chicago.
11. Sand Storm – set in a Bedouin village in Israel. Everything changes when the father in this family drama decides to marry a second wife. Really compelling story, with a debut Israeli director. This clip shows the moment the first wife must welcome the second bride:
12. Halal Love – Four tragicomic interconnected stories about how devoted Muslim men and women are trying to manage their love life and desires without breaking any religious rules. This film set in Lebanon was really entertaining and super interesting. I did not know before this film about “temporary” halal marriages.
13. Brahman NamanA raunchy sex comedy set in the ’80s in Bangalore. The film is in English and is sort of an Indian American Pie. Naman and his friends are all on their college quiz team, which evidently was a huge thing. Was not expecting an Indian movie where the opening scene has Naman masturbating in the door of a fridge!
14. Mapplethorpe: Look At the PicturesThis fascinating documentary just started airing on HBO this week. I really didn’t know that much about him, other than remembering Jesse Helms ranting about him in the ’80s.
15. Holy Hell was an amazing documentary filmed inside a cult. The director was the official videographer of the cult for years, and had incredible footage. The Q&A with several former members of the cult who were in the documentary was particularly powerful.
16. Life Animated – moving documentary about a family with an autistic son, who they finally are able to reach through his love of Disney animated movies.
And now the disappointing films on the list.
17. Love and Friendship – Based on an unfinished novel by Jane Austen. Had some really hilarious zinger lines, and it was very fun to see Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale in this movie. But it dragged and could have used tighter editing. Hopefully they tightened it up for theatrical release.
18. Certain Women – Three stories of women in the modern AmericanWest. Performances were great, especially the acting of the Native American lonely rancher (Lily Gladstone). But oh, my, god was this movie like watching grass grow. So slow.
19. Yoga Hosers – Midnight movie starring Kevin Smith and Johnny Depp’s daughters as clerks of a Canadian convenience store. It was worth seeing just to see Kevin Smith choke up talking about coming back to Sundance with this movie. It was amusing and silly, but Brat Nazis? Really?
20. Jaqueline (Argentine) – decidedly quirky doc film within a film. I fell asleep during it to be honest.
21. Swiss Army Man – I have NEVER seen so many people walk out of a movie at Sundance! People in the 4th row walked out 1/2 an hour in! This was my 23 year old son’s favorite movie, and my husband hated it. But it’s like a train wreck that you can’t help but watch. Daniel Radcliffe is a farting corpse that Paul Dano rides like a jet ski to escape a deserted island. And that’s just the first 10 minutes. The trailer just came out, so you can see for yourself with this truly bizarre film. I shouted “WHAT?!!!” when “The Daniels” won the jury prize for directing at Sundance.
But Swiss Army Man is a screening I will NEVER forget. It was worth it just to say I was there!
22. Christine – Rebecca Hall plays Christine Chubbock, a Tampa TV reporter who committed suicide on air. The acting was very good, but again, the tempo of the film was slow for me.
Overall, a very strong year at Sundance. Again, here’s my full list with reviews, here is my Letterboxd list for Sundance 2016, including the shorts.
(Loved Mahesh in the glasses look, though)
Pardesi Reviews 