Fassbender, Arquette And Queen Mary (J. Blige): Jen Chung's Picks For The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival
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<br/>I'm the type of person who will rearrange plans in order to see a movie. It's possible that I got married with enough buffer time after the Oscars and I'm really glad my daughter decided to show up well before the Golden Globes. In fact, I once got mad at my husband for getting me a Tribeca Film Festival pass because we already had a trip planned, so that meant there would be some TFF movies left unwatched. <br/><br/>But that's just what happens: There are so many wonderful movies--some are making their U.S. premieres, others are the "it" films from Sundance or other festivals--to choose from at the Tribeca Film Festival that there's no way you're going to get to see all of them. (If you do, please tell me your cloning secrets!) <br/><br/>In addition to the exciting <a href="http://gothamist.com/2015/02/12/snl_documentary_tribeca.php">opening night film</a>, the <em>Saturday Night Live</em> documentary, <em>Live From New York!</em>; a <a href="http://gothamist.com/2015/03/11/monty_python_cast_reunion_for_tribe.php">trio of Monty Python films</a>; and a <a href="http://gothamist.com/2015/03/18/remastered_goodfellas_to_close_trib.php">remastered print of <em>GoodFellas</em></a>, here are some of my top picks for what to see at this year's showing--it's pretty eclectic, with films starring Oscar Isaac and Allison Brie, and documentaries about sake and a group of young siblings who rarely venture from their East Village apartment!
SLOW WEST: You know how there are actors who you'd watch reading a phone book? Michael Fassbender is one of them. In Slow West, he plays a frontiersman in the Wild West who finds himself becoming a protector for a young Scottish man, portrayed by Kodi Smit-McPhee, trying to find the woman he loves. Variety called writer-director John Maclean's debut feature "an intriguingly off-center Western."
MARY J. BLIGE: THE LONDON SESSIONS: All hail Queen Mary. The R&B superstar went to London to record her latest work and this documentary tracks the ten day affair of what would become a critically acclaimed album. There are interviews with Sam Smith, Jimmy Napes, Emeli Sande, Naughty Boy and more. And Blige is still the same girl from Yonkers, breaking barriers.American Express® Card Members: Tickets for this exclusive event are available for purchase now!
<br/><b>THE WANNABE</b>: Nick Sandow, who plays warden Caputo on <em>Orange is the New Black</em>, has written and directed <em>The Wannabe</em>, a weird 1990s tale of a man obsessed with John Gotti--so obsessed that he'll do anything to show he can be a mobster. Vincent Piazza plays the poor schmuck, while Patricia Arquette plays another dreamer who just wants to fit in. Martin Scorsese, no stranger to mob movies, produced the film.<br/><br/><a href="http://www.vulture.com/2014/07/nick-sandow-orange-is-the-new-black-wannabe-chat.html">Sandow told Vulture</a>, "I grew up in an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx, the world was infested with organized crime -- although we didn't consider it organized crime. We didn't even consider it Mafia. It was just Uncle Frankie and next-door neighbor Gino. Everybody was just making money however they could."
<br/><b>THE BIRTH OF SAKE</b>: There are a few foodie documentaries at TFF this year, like the Netflix-produced <a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/chefs-table-2015"><em>Chef's Table</em></a>, featuring interviews with chefs all around the world (including NYC's Dan Barber), and <a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/steak-revolution-2015">Steak Revolution</a>, but I'm more interested in <a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/birth-of-sak-2015"><em>The Birth of Sake</em></a>, an intimate look at a family-owned sake brewery, Yoshida Brewery. Making sake is a 2000-year-old tradition, and at the helm of the company are the 65-year-old brewmaster and the 27-year-old heir to the brewery. Director Erik Shirai followed the brewing process for six months to capture their art.
<br/><b>THE WOLFPACK</b>: Back in January, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/movies/the-wolfpack-tells-of-one-new-york-apartment-with-seven-children-locked-inside.html?_r=0">NY Times wrote about a film</a> at Sundance, "Seven children, all with waist-length hair, are raised on welfare in a messy four-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And they are almost never allowed to leave the house. For years. Their father has the only key to the front door, and he keeps it locked. In some years, they are allowed outside only a handful of times. In others, not at all. The kicker is that the story is true -- and all but one of the children still live there." And it's the documentary <a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/wolfpack-2015"><em>The Wolfpack</em></a>. <br/><br/>Director Crystal Moselle came across the six Angulo brothers when they were making a rare trip outside (sister Visnu wasn't there) and was welcomed into their home. The children's education is part homeschooling from their mother and part a movie diet--films by Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch and Christopher Nolan. And they reenact films too, interpreting movies into their own scripts.<br/><br/><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/26/sundance-2015-review-the-wolfpack-documentary-brothers">The Guardian's Jordan Hoffman declared</a>, "It has been a while since I've seen something that demands to be talked about with such urgency. In this regard, The Wolfpack is reminiscent of Capturing the Friedmans -- it's impossible not to have opinions."
MAN UP: There are a few rom-coms at Tribeca (like Sleeping With Other People with Allison Brie and Jason Sudeikis), but the one I'm most excited for is Man Up, starring Simon Pegg and Lake Bell. Bell plays a British woman (accent alert!) who is mistaken by Pegg's character as his blind date. You had me at Simon Pegg!
NECKTIE YOUTH: Twenty-five years after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Necktie Youth is a portrait of Johannesburg's young people, who drift through drugs, sex and talk. Twenty-three-old Sibs Shongwe-La Mer wrote, directed and stars in the film, which the Hollywood Reporter praised for its "raw energy."
<br/><b>ANESTHESIA</b>: Sam Waterston's avuncular mien makes him the perfect person to play a Columbia professor, but in <em><a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/anesthesia-2015">Anesthesia</a></em>, the professor is the victim of a brutal mugging. Tim Blake Nelson directs this drama, which delves into the events before the crime. It also stars Glenn Close as Waterston's wife, Kristen Stewart is a student, and Corey Stoll is an investment banker turned witness.
<br/><b>MOJAVE</b>: We'll have to wait until December to see Oscar Isaac in <em>Star Wars The Force Awakens</em>, so check out the intense actor in <em><a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/mojave-2015">Mojave</a></em>, William Monahan's second film. (Monahan wrote the screenplay for <em>The Departed</em>.) Garrett Hedlund also stars as an "on-edge Hollywood director [who] sets out to the Mojave Desert, where he finds a drifter brandishing a rifle and claiming to be the Devil." And the drifter is Isaac's character--intriguing!
THE CUT: I loved writer-director Fatih Akin's wonderful 2007, Edge of Heaven, so I'm very excited that his first narrative film since 2009, The Cut, is at Tribeca this year. It's a period piece, about a man who has become a forced laborer after surviving the 1915 Armenian massacre and who travels to America in hopes that his daughters are living there. Akin's characters are always true and memorable.
MISERY LOVES COMPANY: Actor Kevin Pollak gathered together some of the biggest comedians and comedic actors around--Larry David, Amy Schumer, Tom Hanks, Judd Apatow, Jim Norton--for his exploration on whether you have to be miserable to do comedy. Yes, it's called Misery Loves Comedy, and it's comforting to know that many got started because they didn't want to get picked on as kids!
IN TRANSIT: The great documentarian Albert Maysles died in early March, leaving behind his last film for the TFF. In Transit takes you on the Amtrak Empire Builder, "the busiest long-distance train route in America." And along the way, you meet different people, traveling through cities, oil fields and the plains. Maysles said in an interview, while making the film that he was working towards "the kind of closeness with humanity that is lacking in so much of the media. [Current media] is celebrities. It is war rather than peace. Conflict rather than solving problems. Love--true love--is almost not there at all. That is the element that I put into all of my filming: love and understanding. It generates a feeling in the viewer of what is actually going on in the lives of people. Their experience becomes the experience of the viewer."
SUNRISE: A psychological drama set in Mumbai, Sunrise follows a Social Service officer chasing a mysterious person through alleys. During the pursuit, the officer is reminded of his attempt to find his missing daughter. Variety wrote that the film "is an intense, very well-performed tale."
<br/><b>MAGGIE</b>: Forget the <em>Expendables</em> film series--the role we want to see Arnold Schwarzenegger in is the one of a farmer whose daughter becomes a zombie! That's <a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/maggie-2015"><em>Maggie</em></a> in a nutshell, which has Abigail Breslin as the brain-hungry spawn. It's directed by Henry Hobson from a script by John Scott 3, whose original <em>Maggie</em> script was on The Black List (aka the list of the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood).
<br/><b>VIRGIN MOUNTAIN</b>: This just seems like a sweet, funny movie. <em><a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/virgin-mountain-2015">Virgin Mountain</a></em> is about a shy, 43-year-old virgin, who still lives with his mother and is encouraged to venture out into the dating world via line-dancing classes.
IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE: Grammy-winning rapper Che Smith, who co-wrote Kanye West's "Jesus Walks," returns to his childhood Chicago home and tries to reconnect with his father. But the documentary In My Father's House finds that it's not so easy when Smith's father is homeless and a self-described "functioning alcoholic." Have your tissues ready.
ASHBY: This movie is for all the teenaged kids (or adults) who wish that Mickey Rourke was their wise neighbor. Ashby features the Oscar-nominated actor as the former CIA assassin that a teen (Nat Wolff) turns to for help fitting in. Hopefully, there's a dream sequence that takes place in a Russian boxing ring:
<br/><b>GRANDMA</b>: If you wanted to have a road trip with your grandmother, wouldn't you want your grandmother to be Lily Tomlin? The actress plays the titular <a href="http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/grandma-2015"><em>Grandma</em></a> who takes to the road with her granddaughter and "ends up rattling skeletons and digging up secrets all over town." Directed by Paul Weitz (<em>About a Boy</em> and <em>In Good Company</em>), the cast is very appealing--Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Laverne Cox, and Sam Elliott also star.
THOUGHT CRIMES: Three years ago, New Yorkers were riveted by the arrest of police officer Gilberto Valle, whose Internet dreaming about kidnapping women in order to kill and eat them earned him the tabloid nickname Cannibal Cop. Valle, who used NYPD computers to look up information about potential victims, was convicted by a jury, but his sentence was later overturned due to "lack of evidence." Filmmaker Erin Lee Carr looks at Valle in Thought Crimes--she had exclusive access to the now-disgraced cop--and wonders if you can be found guilty of something you never did.
Recommended reading: Rachel Aviv's fascinating New Yorker article about thought crime and sex abuse.GOOD KILL: Ethan Hawke is working with his Gattaca director Andrew Niccol again, and this time, he's playing a military pilot with a twist in Good Kill. He's fighting the Taliban--from Las Vegas, controlling a drone. Is this the future of what war looks like?