Tribeca Film Festival

Tribeca Review: Jenny Gage's Raw And Heartwarming Documentary 'All This Panic'

Oktay Ege Kozak — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 18:05:00 GMT

Near the end of the documentary “All This Panic,” one of the handful of teenage girls we watched struggle with the first painful steps into adulthood laments the childhood tendency to be impatient when it comes to growing up. As soon as we’re 11 years old, we pretend to be teenagers already. When we’re 15, we want to be 18 so we can be taken seriously as legal adults. When we’re 18, we want to be 21 so we can legally drink.

Yet once we’re 21 and begin moving forward into the drudgery and mayhem of adulthood, we miss being 11, 15, and 18. Just like every generation before them, the girls in “All This Panic” have the chance to truly enjoy their carefree years, free from adult responsibility, yet the future cannot come soon enough for them. If only a lot of us could have tangibly realized that our youths wouldn’t last forever and have taken advantage of it while it lasted, instead of regretting that lack of perspective once it’s too late.

Perhaps that’s why we envy the freshmen college athletes in Richard Linklater’s invigorating “Everybody Wants Some!!,” not because they necessarily have more time to take advantage of their youth, but because they are self-aware enough to realize that the party won’t last. The weekend before freshman classes begin is their chance to live out the last days of their carefree youth before adulthood rears its ugly head, so they do their best to ride the irresponsibility train until the wheels fall off.

When we meet the girls in “All This Panic,” they are all around 17, and they either can’t wait to become their adult selves, or are forced into becoming adults by parents or outside circumstances. The first moments of this raw yet heartwarming film show the girls letting loose and throwing parties, but they’re also painfully aware that the innocence of childhood is fading more and more every day.

Director Jenny Gage followed this group of girls living in Brooklyn over a three-year period as she documented their day-to-day lives. By the time we near the end of their story as they approach their dreaded 20s, one of the girls confesses that she doesn’t want to become as sexually active and cynical as her peers because she wants to hang onto the simplicity of her childhood as long as possible. It’s a naïve sentiment, to be sure, but it’s hard not to sympathize with her.

Gage adopts an intimate and objective approach to her doc, one that’s reminiscent of the Maysles Brothers’ work. She places her camera intimately close to her subjects and stands back as she lets them express the many confusions, joys, and frustrations of being a late teenager. There isn’t any voice-over or expository text; we only get a brief text of the girls’ names when they’re introduced.

Similar to “Boyhood,” the passage of time isn’t clearly marked; rather, we experience the days and months passing by simply through the girls’ appearance and demeanor, which lets us remember how quickly we change during these important years in our development.

Gage does a remarkable job making the girls forget the presence of the camera as she captures some surprisingly personal interactions, like a moment where the father of one of the girls confesses to her that he wants her to stick around after high school so they can be friends again, since they spent her teenage years fighting with each other. Gage shows a close-up of the girl quietly crying, perhaps realizing that she spent a chunk of her childhood being angry at sheer triviality.

The central figure of “All This Panic” is Lena, a sweet and introverted girl who’s thrown into the responsibilities of adulthood far too quickly. Because her brother and father suffer from serious mental-health issues, and her mother can’t provide for her anymore, she has to fend for herself a lot sooner than she thought she would. Yet she finds a way to enjoy her life in the middle of her stressful existence, perhaps even more than the other girls who aren’t in as much of a grave situation as she is. She’s the kind of person you see in documentaries that you want to reach through the screen, give her a big hug while letting her know that this, too, will pass.

“All This Panic” doesn’t offer any revolutionary approaches to this type of intimate documentary, and the subject matter might be too broad for some, but it makes up for its lack of originality with heart and genuine emotion. It makes us realize that, regardless of which generation we belong to, we all go through the same growing pains. [B+]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

You Want To See More Women In Film? This Is How To Do It — Girl Talk

Kate Erbland — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 14:00:00 GMT

Girl Talk is a bi-weekly look at women in film — past, present and future.

The Tribeca Film Festival's origin story is memorable — created in the wake of 9/11, designed to reinvigorate downtown Manhattan via art, culture, and co-founder Robert De Niro. However, 15 years later, the festival may be best known for its struggle to find and maintain an identity. The festival has dug into new mediums, from television and virtual reality, to set itself apart, but this year it may have discovered the prime differentiator: female filmmakers.

They're hardly the first to identify the need; there are a number of festivals specifically dedicated to furthering female filmmakers including Bentonville, Athena and Maine's Bluestocking Film Series. However, most mainstream festivals struggle to effectively and satisfyingly build in female-facing programming picks and special events.

Tribeca, however, may have cracked the code. This year's festival includes its largest crop of female-directed films yet, almost a full third of the total lineup. And while those numbers are impressive, where Tribeca really excels is in creating a female-friendly, mainstream festival that goes far beyond programming. Do you want to see more women in film? Tribeca may have the answers for how to do it in a fun, creative, and organic way.

READ MORE: The 2016 Indiewire Tribeca Bible

1. Give female filmmakers the space to meet each other

One such event? The annual Female Filmmaker Lunch. Held on the first Friday of the festival, it provided an early opportunity for female filmmakers to meet and mingle before the festival got rolling. Started in the festival's second year, the event (buffet-style, with lots of passed cocktails, all the better to facilitate attendees' packed festival schedules) has become one of the best bonding venues for female filmmakers that Tribeca has to offer.

The event was attended by an impressive lineup, from first-timers like "All This Panic" helmer Jenny Gage and "Women Who Kill" director and star Ingrid Jungermann to established talents like Julie Taymor (at the festival as part of the Tribeca Talks series with another female filmmaker, Jodie Foster) and actress-turned-director Katie Holmes.

"This is my favorite event of the festival," Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal told the crowd in her introduction. "This is our community. It's a community of extraordinary women, and you should know who your sister is next to you. That's how we're going to keep the numbers growing."

"It's really about daring women and what we can all do together," Rosenthal added, neatly tying the event to another big, female-facing events: Tribeca's first annual Daring Women Summit.

2. Create and nurture special events for fans and filmmakers alike

Held on Wednesday, April 20 at the Festival Hub, the newly launched Daring Women Summit played to a packed audience of ambitious young women. The event's logline was a mouthful; it was billed as a "day of first-hand storytelling [that] celebrates today’s most influential women in arts and technology who have risen to the top of their respective fields by eschewing traditional career trajectories in creating their own paths." To put it another way: It was the chance for women to talk with other women about how it's really done.

READ MORE: Tribeca: 11 Female Filmmakers to Check Out at This Year's Festival

In her opening remarks, Rosenthal touted some of the more heartening demographics of this year's lineup. Thirty percent of the films came from women, including 38 feature directors and 19 short directors. Of that crop, 15 directors are first-timers. Rosenthal's announcement of each number was met with loud applause and cheers from an eager audience, women (and, yes, some men) happy to hear that change isn't just on the way, it's starting to show itself.

But the summit's real draw was the wallpapered notion that it was about women helping women.

"These speakers have not only created opportunities for themselves, but they have created opportunities for other women. They have supported each other and mentored the generations behind them," Rosenthal said as she introduced the summit's lineup, which included influential women like Samantha Bee, Donna Karan, and Mya Taylor.

That idea — that successful women can (and perhaps should) give a leg up to other women — was best exemplified by the first event of the summit, a behind-the-scenes look at Bee and her "Full Frontal," featuring late night's only female host in conversation with her producer Allana Harkin and TheLi.st co-founder Rachel Sklar.

3. Spotlight successful women who make a difference

For Bee and Harkin, walking the walk is just as important as talking the talk. "It's a mandate for the show to always be moving the needle forward," Bee said when asked about creating an environment where diverse voices could thrive. At "Full Frontal," women rule. Beyond Bee and Harkin (and, given the dearth of female voices on the late-night circuit, two high-ranking women would be more than enough for most shows) the show is rounded out with plenty of other female professionals, including their showrunner, their stage manager, and even their warm-up act.

Bee and Harkin are not only co-workers, they are best friends. Their relationship started in the late '90s, when Harkin hired Bee as a member of the all-female improv troupe The Atomic Fireballs. The two have been inseparable — both personally and professionally — ever since, and when Bee was tapped to host her own late night show for TBS, she knew only one person could be her producer.

"I couldn't do a show if Allana didn't work there," Bee said. "We go back so far, we trust each other so much."

"The opportunity to do your own show is one thing," Bee added. "But to fill the rafters with people that you love and trust, is the second part of that."

4. Provide a wide variety of voices to inspire

The summit also included chats with Hollywood mainstays like Rosie Perez, a section dedicated to the power of podcasting, and a segment about "Using Your Platform" for career advancement. That panel was powered by a variety of Hollywood talents who included "Tangerine" star Mya Taylor, fresh off her groundbreaking Independent Spirit win; she mentioned that she is working on creating a television series that will star another trans actress. For Taylor, her own success is only as good as the opportunities she can make for others.

READ MORE: Tribeca: 11 Potential Breakthrough Actors to Check Out at This Year's Festival (Springboard)

Co-panelist Kristi Zea, a long-time production designer on such classics as "Goodfellas" and "Silence of the Lambs," was at the festival to screen her documentary directorial debut, "Everbody Knows… Elizabeth Murray." Even Zea, a Hollywood mainstay who has worked on some of the industry's biggest films, felt inspired and invigorated after the summit.

"It just points to the fact that women, when they can get together and have good, constructive conversation, can come out with really great pieces of advice," Zea told Indiewire. "It's great to see the energy and the 'I'm not going to let this get me down' attitude that's coming out from everybody's mouth. It's like, 'I'm going to do this. I'm going to make sure that I get myself in a position of where I want to be.'"

Other Tribeca events leaned heavily on the idea that successful women could create real change in the lives of their younger counterparts. A special surprise screening of a pair of short films crafted around the music of Alicia Keys not only served to show off Keys, but to introduce a packed Highline Ballroom to the talents of director A.V. Rockwell. Keys, who stars in and produced both shorts, found Rockwell through another female friend, who introduced the songstress to the budding filmmaker, a female creator on the rise who is still perfecting her craft while she finishes her Masters at NYU.

Of her experience directing "The Gospel" for Keys, Rockwell told the audience, "It's not very often that [as] a filmmaker, when somebody asks you to come on board for something that they envisioned, it can be something that's personal for you as well. I feel so lucky that was this moment."

5. Keep logistics tight(er)

If there was one complaint of female filmmakers at Tribeca, it was logistics — a long-term issue for the notoriously spread-out festival.

"Tribeca’s weird because I don’t know logistically where I’m supposed to be,' said "Always Shine" director Sophia Takal. "I haven’t encountered that many women, but before the festival, a few women got in touch."

And yet, the day we spoke with Takal (who, incidentally, debuted a film at the festival that was entirely about what happens when two long-time friends start feuding over professional jealousies), she was eagerly anticipating a Film Fatales event later in the evening, where she did get to network with a number of other female filmmakers (including "AWOL" director Deb Shoval, Jungerman and "Equity" director Meera Menon). Even at an event not directly sanctioned by the festival, Tribeca's many female filmmakers still managed to find each other.

READ MORE: Alicia Keys Surprises Tribeca Film Festival With World Premiere of 'The Gospel'

"The Meddler" director Lorene Scafaria, who arrived late to the festival (her film premiered at TIFF in September and she was already gearing up for its release by the time it was listed as part of Tribeca's Spotlight section), was similarly confused about her place in the festival, even as she was hopeful about this year's lineup.

Scafaria told Indiewire, "I don't totally know what Tribeca has in store for me, but I'm excited about those numbers. And I'm so excited about female stories being told and certainly people behind the camera."

6. Utilize and champion other festivals doing similar work

Tribeca isn't the only mainstream festival pushing harder into debuting films helmed by women. This year's Sundance Film Festival featured an impressive lineup of features directed by women, most noticeably in the U.S. Dramatic section, where five out of 16 films came from female filmmakers.

Director Sophie Goodhart also noticed a change at SXSW, where her film "My Blind Brother" debuted before starting a festival run that included screenings at Tribeca. She told Indiewire, "At SXSW, they've had more female directors than ever before and I think it's amazing. I applaud them for pushing it and making sure that we, at least, have the opportunity to be seen." (At this year's SXSW, 22 percent of their narrative films came from female filmmakers and 31 percent of all their features were helmed by women, though its Headliners category did not include a single film directed by a woman.)

For Goodhart and other directors like her, the festival experience serves as an invaluable showcase for their work. "If you don't get an opportunity to show it, you're fucked, basically. There's no way to move forward," she said.

READ MORE: Girl Talk: Five Years After 'Bridesmaids,' What Does a Female-Led Comedy Look Like?

7. Never lose sight of the big picture

But festival representation isn't the only thing essential to bolstering the careers of some of Hollywood's rising stars who happen to be female. It all goes back to sticking together, at Tribeca and beyond. "It's so important that we support each other. It shouldn't event take a festival to do that," Scafaria said. "We really all have to hire each other and look out for each other and not be quite as competitive."

Zea feels the same way. "I just think it's about helping wherever possible. All the networking that we've been doing, all the people that we've been meeting, it's a very exciting time. It's not about competition. It's about support."

She added, "That's what I think is different about this festival. It's very definitely not about who's better than somebody else. It's about how can we help each other. That's fabulous."

Check out a trailer from one of Tribeca's many female-directed features, the documentary "Southwest of Salem":

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Tribeca Review: 'Mr. Church' Starring Eddie Murphy, Britt Robertson And Natascha McElhone

Kimber Myers — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 14:18:01 GMT

If you have been waiting almost three decades for a remake of “Driving Miss Daisy,” Bruce Beresford has the film for you (again). In the nostalgic weepie "Mr. Church," the director takes a number of elements from his aforementioned 1989 drama, with Eddie Murphy starring as a humble cook who helps out a single mother and daughter, developing a relationship that goes far beyond employee and employer. It’s unfortunate that with Murphy doing so little film work recently, this is one of the few projects he chose, as he delivers a largely warm and restrained performance that is definitely against type, and is far better than the material he's given.

“Mr. Church” begins in Los Angeles in 1971 with the unexpected arrival of the titular character (Murphy) in the apartment Charlotte (Natalie Coughlin) shares with her single mother, Marie (Natascha McElhone). “There’s a black man in our kitchen, cooking eggs,” Charlotte complains. Her mother explains to her — and the audience — that he is a gift from a rich man she was having an affair with. We learn soon Marie has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and has six months to live, and that Mr. Church is only meant to stay with Charlotte and her mother until she passes away. Charlotte knows neither of these key facts, and she is frequently kept in the dark by both her mother and Mr. Church, a feeling that the audience will share. There’s plenty that we never learn about Mr. Church, and it seems less like intentionally keeping the man a cipher and more like lazy storytelling.

The narration from older Charlotte (Britt Robertson) frames the film, with her purple prose coloring it with broad strokes. Young Charlotte dislikes Mr. Church's presence in their home, refusing to eat the food he makes, even though she finds it delicious. He offers her a library of books (which he oddly installs on their empty shelves without permission), and she sniffs that she hates reading. After revealing Charlotte to be less of a brat that we initially think, the movie jumps ahead to 1977, with Marie still alive, but struggling. Mr. Church has become an integral part of their lives, arriving every morning to make breakfast for them before they wake and staying until after dinner, taking care of both the meals and the ill Marie. But where Mr. Church goes after he leaves their home is a mystery, and any efforts from Charlotte to find out answers are met with gruff refusals from the normally affable cook. Despite his mystery, he remains a key figure in Charlotte’s life, continually addressed as “Mr. Church” even as he becomes a key member of their family.

Most of the film’s issues reside in its script from Susan McMartin, who has most recently worked on TV’s “Mom” and “Two and a Half Men.” There’s little in “Mr. Church” that makes sense or that it makes an effort to explain. Though it begins with the statement, “The following is inspired by a true friendship,” the basic premise seems difficult to believe. A dying married man wants to take care of his dying mistress, so he gives her his cook with exactly enough money to sustain her and her young daughter for six months? Additionally, Mr. Church appears almost too saintly, but his outbursts over his privacy — and the cause behind them — are never fully shared.

The dialogue is schmaltzy, with lines like “She’s my diamond,” from a mother about her daughter, while Charlotte describes Mr. Church by saying, “Even his weeping is graceful.” But the script’s worst offense is the voiceover from Charlotte. It sounds like what you’d read from a student in a high school creative writing class, filled with groan inducing clichés. Her character is an aspiring writer in the film, but if her narration is any indication, she should pick another career.

Race is less of a focus than it was in “Driving Miss Daisy,” partially due to its setting in Los Angeles in the ‘70s and ‘80s versus the South in the ‘60s. However, “Mr. Church” still presents a problematic view with a black leading character who seems to exist solely to serve a white family. He is largely identified by his sage advice, love of jazz and ability to cook grits. Mr. Church is ostensibly the heart of the movie, but he's depicted as little more than a rough sketch that presents him as the film’s magical black man.

With its vintage setting and outdated views on race, "Mr. Church" feels like the ghost of cinema's past. It flails for the heartstrings, but instead of reaching them, it only tugs at that muscle that makes you roll your eyes at its old-fashioned, melodramatic attempts at emotion. [C-]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

David Bowie & Freddie Mercury Rock Out in Amazing Vintage Photos From Mick Rock — Exclusive Pics

Michael Nordine — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 20:49:58 GMT

It's been a rough few months for iconic rock stars, with Lemmy, David Bowie and now Prince all departing this mortal coil to share their talents with whichever plane of existence comes next. Undoubtedly affected by these too-soon passings is photographer Mick Rock, who's made a career of capturing such legends as Iggy Pop, Freddie Mercury and Lou Reed. Rock is the subject of "Shot! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock," a new documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival over the weekend.

READ MORE: Why Has the Tribeca Film Festival Become Such an Important Platform for Docs?

Indiewire has exclusively obtained two photos from Rock's personal collection in conjunction with the film; in them, the photographer can be seen embracing Bowie (above) and Mercury (below). They're decades-old, off-the-cuff moments that if taken today and featuring equivalent stars would immediately go viral on Instagram. As artifacts of an era passed, they somehow feel rarer and more special.

READ MORE: The Critical Role Non-Profits Played in Getting This Year's Tribeca Film Festival Docs Made

"Shot! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock" is directed by Barnaby Clay, who's married to Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and has directed videos for his wife's band as well as TV on the Radio and Gnarls Barkley in addition to a number of short films. "Shot!" is his feature debut.

For more from Tribeca, watch a clip from "The Last Laugh" featuring Mel Brooks:

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Tribeca Review: Neo-Noir 'Detour' Starring Tye Sheridan, Bel Powley And Emory Cohen

Kimber Myers — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 20:47:50 GMT

If any one of the ‘90s Quentin Tarantino copycats remade “Sliding Doors,” this neo-noir would be the result, even down to the casting of John Lynch, who starred in the 1998 film. Filled with would-be-witty dialogue, “Detour” takes a Choose Your Own Adventure approach to its twist-filled narrative about a college student whose attempts for revenge go very wrong. Director Christopher Smith employs split screen to show what happens when his hero makes a decision and flips back in time when it wants to show the audience just how little they know.

“Detour” isn’t just notable for its structure and style, but for the casting of three promising young actors, even if it doesn't put them all to good use. This ‘90s throwback begins with a shot of Bel Powley ringing around a stripper pole to Goldfrapp’s “Stranger.” The camera is static, and Powley — one of last year’s most celebrated new stars for her role in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl" — simply twirls in slow-motion in her underwear. This sets the stage for the rest of her role in “Detour,” where all the award-winning actress gets to do is look pouty, get hit in the face and told to “fuck off.” Tye Sheridan stars as her savior, though he’s somehow given only slightly more to do on the acting front, given that most of his time on screen is spent thinking about which route to take. Only Emory Cohen gets to have fun here, trading in the romantic charmer of “Brooklyn” for a foul-mouthed, cruel criminal who reveals a weakness for Powley’s stripper. His character, Johnny Ray, is the type of guy who snorts coke with a $50 bill and says stuff like, “Where’s the shithole in this shithole?” and “Don’t regret the things you do, just the things you don’t.”

The latter statement plays into both the theme and form of “Detour,” and allows writer/director Smith to employ a narrative that turns and loops back on itself. After the strip club interlude, we begin the movie with Hunter (Sheridan) in a classroom, listening to his professor advise, “Know the rule of law and you can bend it.” Even though Hunter starts the story with the best of intentions, by its ending, he doesn’t bend the law so much as snap it and stomp on the pieces. His motivation for his actions lie in an event that happened before the film started: his mother and stepfather Vincent (Stephen Moyer) were in a car accident that left his mom in a coma. Hunter blames his stepdad and accuses him of having an affair in Vegas, while his mother is in the hospital on life support. When he meets bad boy Johnny Ray at a bar, he drunkenly wonders aloud how much money it would cost to exact vengeance on Vincent. The next morning, Hunter wakes up in a haze and finds Johnny and stripper Cherry (Powley) at his front door, ready to go on a road trip and kill Vincent. From there, each path Hunter chooses is shown to the audience, employing a split screen to show choices A and B simultaneously. Hunter shutting the door on Johnny and Cherry leads his day in one direction, while agreeing to join them on a trip to Vegas takes him in another. We’re supposed to believe that the direction of Hunter’s life is guided by the informed choices he makes, but his actions seem less like decisions and more like he’s being swept along by those around him. There are some surprises when it’s revealed that the viewer doesn’t know everything they think they do, adding an additional layer to the sometimes convoluted structure and the sometimes illogical story therein.

The alternate timeline gimmick is what makes “Detour” interesting, but its inventive approach to narrative doesn’t save it from being a mess otherwise. The script tries far too hard to be smart, updating the hardboiled dialogue of classic noir films but lacking the wit. Meanwhile, the twists in the finale feel hollow and would resonate more deeply if the audience were more invested in either the characters or where they’re going. However, it does take full advantage of its setting in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and the desert in between, with the cinematography from Christopher Ross making the most of the film's photogenic locations.

There's something fresh in "Detour," but it's buried underneath a largely unremarkable movie. With its split screen schtick, “Detour” should have cult appeal for those who aren’t bothered by the larger issues of character, dialogue and story. Those who discover it and find themselves riding its dark wavelength may find enjoyment in rewatching the film to fully explore the various storytelling paths, though multiple viewings may prove that not everything in its structure holds together. [C-]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

A Sit-Down With Former Lifer Bilal Chatman & Directors Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway on ‘The Return’, New Beginnings & Our Broken Criminal Justice System

Aramide A Tinubu — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 18:02:22 GMT

Our society likes to paint a certain picture of the incarcerated. They are likened to monstrous beasts that we are forced to lock up in cages. We’re told that they’re dangerous and irredeemable, not worthy of walking the streets among us. However, as those whose lives have been cruelly interrupted by the criminal justice system know, that could not be further from the truth. These men and women are our mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Our journeys have taken different paths, but sometimes those paths wind up merging once again.

In 2012, California altered its ruthless “Three Strikes Law” with the passing of Proposition 36. It was an amendment that suddenly freed hundreds of thousands of non-violent prisoners, who had previously been sentenced to life behind bars. Directors Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway followed this groundbreaking reform in their documentary film “The Return”. In the film, the filmmakers follow two newly released former lifers. Kenneth Anderson, a man who’d missed seeing his children grow up, and Bilal Chatman, a man determined to move forward despite the time he’d lost. In the gut-wrenching narrative, we watch as Kenneth desperately tries to reconnect with his family and his ex-wife, Monica Grier, while Bilal steadfastly moves to reintegrate himself into society.

During the Tribeca Film Festival, I got the opportunity to sit down with Bilal Chatman, as well as Directors Duane de la Vega and Galloway to talk about this long return home.

Aramide Tinubu: For over 15 years, your projects have focused on subjects that have profoundly affected our society. Did Proposition 36 inspire you to do “The Return”, or was it the criminal justice system in general that sparked your interest?

Kelly Duane de la Vega: What was really exciting about this story, was that for the first time in our history, voters voted to shorten the sentences of the currently incarcerated. It really was the first time we could really look at an implementation of reform. What does that look like? What can we learn from it? We wanted to follow the story through the institutions, the courtrooms, the prisons, but also on the outside. We wanted to look at the families, the people who have suffered and served time on the outside, while their loved ones served on the inside. We were eager to see what would happen. We had hoped that it would be a hopeful story, and I think it ultimately is a hopeful story; the recidivism rate is at a record low for this population. But, it’s also a heartbreaking story, because so many families have been broken and services are so few and far between.

AT: Bilal how did you get connected Katie and Kelly?

Bilal Chatman: Survival. My attorney knew them, and part of the three strikes law gave the judges the option of allowing you out or not. So the District Attorney used my case as a contested case. They were saying, “We do not what to let him out.” So with that, you also have to be able to be disciplinary free while you are in prison. You had to meet the criteria. Your crime had to be non-violent first, and then you couldn’t have too many disciplinary problems like fights or violence. In my case, I had a drug case, so what would it have looked like if I had drug sales or drug problems in prison? Knowing that, I made myself look more attractive to the courts because I did a lot of things while I was in there. I did anything that was possible, anything that was positive, anything that could have made me better. I went to everything, Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous. I made myself ready, and I should have been released, but they were like, “No”. So my attorney said, “I know these filmmakers who have been following Prop 36 and they’d love to interview you.” My attorney said, “We’re going to try to get them into the courtroom so that the judge can tell them, and you, and the world, that they aren’t going to let you out. He said, “The best thing that could happened is that they don’t let you out.” And at the time, I didn’t know what he was talking about. But he said, “That could be the best thing because then the world will see how terrible this system is.”

AT: Oh for sure.

BC: But at the same time, it can also open the door for the judge and the DA and everybody to say what they want to say on camera. Needless to say, they didn’t let [Kelly and Katie] into the courtroom, but I was fortunate enough to be released.

KD: And they knew we were watching.

BC: Absolutely.

AT: Bilal, going back to what you were saying about doing all of this important work before you were released, I read a 2011 interview that you gave about participating in yoga while you were in prison. Also, I know that you converted to Islam while you were incarcerated. Not ever knowing that you were going to be free, what inspired this profound shift in your focus?

BC: My first thought when I heard I was going to be in prison for the rest of my life was, I was going to thug out. I was like “I’m in prison that’s it. I’m just one of the guys, it doesn’t make no difference. Whatever comes my way, I’m going to hit it head on.” But then we had this big riot, and when we had the riot they put me in solitary confinement. I didn’t have any way of doing anything except for my big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Quran. I began to look at both, and I just had a time of reflection. I just thought that if I’m going to be here I don’t want to be a bad guy. I didn’t want to lose my morals, and I just didn’t feel comfortable being “that person.”

AT: So you really want to shed that persona because that’s not who you are.

BC: I wanted to stay who I was. You can easily go in and become a chameleon. People walk the same, talk the same, and hang around the same people. I wanted to be strong enough to just be me. I wanted to be kind to people, I wanted to be respectful to people, and I wanted to have manners. I wanted to continue down those lines. And yoga came, and I was like wow, I always wanted to do earthy stuff, I like earthy things.

AT: That’s right! I saw when you were on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” that you said you grow tomatoes.

BC: (Laughing) Oh, you saw that? I’m probably a more Berkeley person myself, so I like those things. So it was an opportunity. I thought, “Yoga why not?” It was something else that could broaden my horizons. It was something I could do to relax and meditate, and take me away from prison, so that’s why I did that. I’m also still in contact with my sensei, and I still talk to him. He was very instrumental in keeping me grounded. Also, all of the programs that you’re involved in while in prison, you have to be disciplinary free. You can’t be getting in trouble, making noise around the prison. I played baseball, I did yoga, I was a mentor, I was a facilitator.

AT: As a Black man in America, do you feel as if the system, especially the three strikes law failed you?

BC: I think that the three strikes law was literally created for Black men. It was literally created for people of color. And I say that because I believe that in the ‘80s when the crack epidemic came, it was vicious. I’m taking about burglaries, robberies, carjackings and assaults. All of that was just common because the drug was so strong. It didn’t matter what it was, anybody would do anything to get it, including myself. There are some things that I did that were horrendous. I stole money out of my mother’s purse, something that I would never do, ever. I stole my mother’s car in the middle of the night. It was so strong and pure that there’s no way anybody should have had that. But even in those days, you would get four years for a robbery; you could get two years and be out in a year and half, so we were just doing time. No one was afraid of prison. And most of the time we took plea bargains, nobody really went to trial. So all of that time that was happening we were getting strikes. I believe they already had a plan that in ten or fifteen years they were going to put a law in place that made everything that we were doing come back to haunt us. Because literally after 1994, the robberies went down, carjackings were almost unheard of, the home invasions and kicking down doors, all that stuff stopped months and years ago. But all of those crimes that we had committed, we were still getting convicted of. In my case, my strikes were over 16 or 18 years old. I hadn’t done anything in that time, and I sill got six life sentences and 150 years. I was still sentenced to die. I think the three strikes law was indentified for people of color; I think it was indentified for people who had gotten away. It went on for twenty years, dismantling families, taking people out of communities There are people in today’s society that have never met their family

AT: Kate and Kelly, speaking of all of these incarcerated people, how did you both determine which subjects to follow closely? I know in the trailer we saw several subjects that were not actually in the film.

KD: Some of the people in the trailer are part of what we call The Return Project, which is part of our larger campaign. We did a series profiling non-violent offenders prior to the passage of Prop 36. We ran one in the “New York Times” and several others on “Mother Jones”, profiling women. Essentially we spent a lot of time inside of prison. We went to Soledad Prison and met a lot of prisoners, and also family members. We were looking for people who we felt were representative of the three strikes population; the population that was eligible under Prop 36. We felt that the Anderson family was such an amazing family because of their love and their strength. Monica talks about serving the time on the outside, and we felt that it was really important to show that. Ultimately, we met a lot of people that we connected with, but I would say the Anderson family and Bilal we connected too most deeply. And also, their stories we felt resonated in a way that went beyond. There are 2.3 million people serving time or that have served time in prisons or detentions centers in the United States, so we know millions of Americans have been touched by incarceration. There’s also a large portion of the population of people in power who haven’t’ been touched, and haven’t come into contact with people who have served time; or they haven’t knowingly.

AT: Oh I never thought of it that way.

KD: We wanted to find characters whose stir arcs had a really powerful universal way of touching people. For example, Bilal’s connection to his mother, almost every human being has had an experience or thought about what it means to have a relationship with your mother or an aging parent. Kenneth is a father; his ability to parent was interrupted but the criminal justice system. For so many people, parenting is a human desire, and that was cut off. So we wanted our characters to touch people that have never been touched by the criminal justice system, and we also wanted to find people that felt representative of the population. We wanted to lift up the voices of the people who’ve had this experience, allowing them to share their stories. So many of these stories are not shared with the public, and these two stories we felt best embodied that for us. And, we were also carful to include Mike Romano and Susan Champion, the lawyers who helped pass Prop 36 and were instrumental in creating a structure of reentry for hundreds of the thousands. We wanted to tell a meta story; who is affected by mass incarceration, and what reform looks like.

KG: The other reasons I think we wound up settling on our main characters was that as Bilal said, three strikes was designed for Black men. If you look at the numbers there’s just no question about the racial disparities.

AT: Oh without question.

KG: And beyond that something that doesn’t often get noted but, the harsher the punishment, the more likely the numbers are to skew towards Black and brown people.

KD: Also, the mentally ill and that’s important to bring up.

KG: So basically, Black men are overrepresented at every level, but I think it’s important to say that the harsher your sentence, the more likely you are to be African-American or Latino, but especially African-American. Even though the Black population in California is 11% they are nearly half of the three strikers, if not half. So these are most of the people we have coming out. The other thing to point out as Kelly alluded to are the other big issues that we feel are problematic in the way that we criminalize. We knew that Kenneth was struggling with some type of mental health issue, and we didn’t know whether it preceded his going in to prison, we weren’t sure about that. However, there’s no question that it was exacerbated by bis being in. So it was important to show someone who had really struggled and suffered with that, and also who didn’t have the services coming out that would’ve helped him deal with that, despite his loving family. With Bilal, we could tell that this was a person who was going to fight tooth and nail, to find success. I think that from the time he came out, he was thinking about himself, his own success, and his plan. But, he was also thinking about how that would reflect on prisoners at large. He knew it was important not to forget the people inside, and to be an example for the public about the positive things that can happen when you make this choice to give people another chance.

KD: I do think it’s important to acknowledge that in the film, there is a white man named Shane.

AT: Oh yes, the guy on the farm.

KD: We did want to represent the poor white, rural communities that have also been affected by these laws we didn’t want to ignore that.

AT: Well, I think what was so important in the film was the Susan Champion saying that sometimes people don’t even have a chance.

KD: Yes, and it really is, it’s like a postindustrial story which we refer to as the “New New Deal”. It is true that by the age of twenty-three, 49% of Black men, 47% of Latinos and 40% of White men have gone to jail. So, that’s a very high number and they’re not getting the same duration of sentencing generally speaking, but as some prisoners say, “They are Black men, brown men and white boys who get in the way.” But that is largely a story of post-industrial society and not having jobs. And Mike Romano says in that little scene, “For decades our answer to poverty, mental illness and drug addition, has been to just throw people in prison.” That has been the solution, and that is a nationwide story. That is what we’ve been asking people to reckon with now. We feel like that narrative is very problematic and gets recapitulated all the time, “Can these people finally get their acts together and finally make?”

AT: But we are the ones who have failed them.

KD: Exactly.

KG: If you look at the school to prison pipeline there is an expectation that those bodies are going to prison. At the rate that incarceration is rising, 50% of our youth will be incarcerated by 2050. And that for me was absolutely horrifying.

BC: Without question.

AT: Bilal, what do you think the most important steps that ex-prisoners coming out of the system should take?

Bilal: I think what is detrimental is the celebration when you come home to the neighborhood. When you come home, it’s like this rite of passage, and people start sliding you stuff, like here ‘s twenty bucks. Here’s some weed or some drugs, come see me, and so forth and so on. So what I wanted to do was remove myself from that. I didn’t want to be celebrated. I wanted to go straight to the halfway home. Well, actually I wanted to go to Starbucks, I had never been to Starbucks. (Laughing) And then I went straight to the home. I had a plan, I had a 24 hour plan because I had been to jail before, and I’d come home and go straight back to my mom’s house or a friend’s house or my girlfriend’s house, where there was alcohol and weed and things I just didn’t want to be apart of. So, what I had to make clear to me was I had done all that other stuff before. I have a loving family, I knew they would take care of me, but I didn’t want any parts of any of that. So I wanted to take the steps. I didn’t have a driver’s license, so I got that. I didn’t have a social security card, so I went and got that, I didn’t have an actual résumé, and in the film you see me putting that together. They had resources and welfare and I said well, “I’ve never been on welfare, I’m going to get on welfare for a minute because I’m not going to get any money any other way.” That’s what worked for me. I could have went home, my family was there, my brother would have had money for me, my mom would have been very happy to have me there everyday with her. But I couldn’t do that right then. Instead I just said, I will support financially, I will come over all the time, I will even mediate when anything is going on. That’s why I love them so much because they allowed me to do that.

AT: What do you want your legacy to be?

BC: That I tried very hard and I never gave up, I had people that surrounded me and gave me opportunity, and I want the guys to know that yes, it’s sad that when I was sentenced to die in prison society said, “I’m done with you. You’ve lived your life, were just waiting for you do die.” I think that’s sad, and economically, I think that’s bad. Now, economically I’m putting into the community, and I’m assisting the system. I have people that I mentor, I make my family stronger, I make my company much better with me there. I want my legacy to be that I tried hard, I set goals and I just wanted to get there.

AT: Thank you all so much this was wonderful.

"The Return" will be broadcasting on PBS May 23rd launching POV’s new season. Also to learn more information about The Return including how to host a screening, please visit http://www.thereturnproject.com/

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Aramide A Tinubu has her Master’s in Film Studies from Columbia University. She wrote her thesis on Black Girlhood and Parental Loss in Contemporary Black American Cinema. She’s a cinephile, bookworm, blogger, and NYU + Columbia University alum. You can read her blog at: www.chocolategirlinthecity.com or tweet her @midnightrami

Tribeca Interview: Director Deb Shoval And Lola Kirke Talk 'AWOL,' Authentic Locations, Building A Love Story, And More

Katie Walsh — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:15:00 GMT

The Tribeca Film Festival wrapped up this weekend, and we’ve caught quite a few great films at the fest this year. One of our favorites was “AWOL,” from Deb Shoval, making her directorial feature debut. The film stars Lola Kirke as Joey, a young woman from a small, economically depressed town in Pennsylvania, who has dreams of escaping for a better life through the Army. Her plans get complicated when she becomes entangled in a torrid love affair with the married mom of two, Rayna (Breeda Wool), which lead to life changing decisions. Our review called the film an “arresting love story,” that’s “thematically rich, and confidently directed with a clear point of view, set against a backdrop of relevant socioeconomic and cultural issues.”

READ MORE: Tribeca Review: Deeply Affecting Love Story 'AWOL' Starring Lola Kirke And Breeda Wool

We had a chance to sit down with director Shoval and star Kirke during the festival to talk about the film, including an exploration of the characters’ internal motivations, the cultural background that informs the love story, and their future plans. Kirke also shared one of her acting tips, and what Shoval’s got on deck for her next project.

The Playlist: Deb, what was the initial spark for this movie?
Deb Shoval: I made a short film, which we shot during this blizzard in January in 2010, which was also called “AWOL,” about the character Joey coming home from the Army for a few days at Christmastime, with big dreams of running away with her married girlfriend. It was very much an exploration of what became the feature. I was just doing a small project looking to tell a story to capture this sense of place, the world that I'm from, which is this post industrial meets rural part of Pennsylvania.

I started to research young women in the military, with questions about why young people are still joining the military all these years after September 11th, and then why are some of them choosing to leave before their time is done. I started interviewing people, so fictional Joey is very much based on some of the people I interviewed.

READ MORE: 2016 Tribeca Film Fest: Demetri Martin’s ‘Dean,’ Drake Doremus’ ‘Equals,’ & Ben Wheatley’s ‘High-Rise’ Highlight Opening Line-Up

Lola, what was it that drew you to the role when you read the script?
Lola Kirke: I'd never read a character like that, particularly a female character. It’s a role which is generally reserved for boys, but I think that there's also something incredibly feminine about Joey. She's not simply just a tomboy, and that's what I liked about her. She's very dynamic.

I really connected with her on the level of her music. I really wanted to sing in a movie without being in a musical, because I don't like musicals. I'm really glad this isn't a singing soldier film. It was the character, it was that she was a musician, but also beyond that it was the socioeconomic and political landscape the film is set against that I found really compelling. I too was very curious to see why someone joins the military, and what you make of your life when you have very few options and there are limitations around it.

One of the things I love about the movie is that it's not just a lesbian story, but it also has all these other elements — the economy, the political landscape, where they're from — that influences their decisions. How did you try to establish a sense of place?
Shoval: We did shoot in and around Wilkes-Barre, PA. For me, it was more than anything about authentic locations. If we get the right locations in the first place, first of all it makes the production designer's job much easier. Also, sometimes people would say when they read the script, how are you gonna show this? We just need the authentic locations and it'll be very clear. Outside of New York, people love having you shoot in their ice cream parlor or country fair.

READ MORE: The 22 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival

Lola, what was it like to shoot there and be in that town?
Kirke: Being in that town, it's very evident that it's the remains of a booming coal industry. It's either strip malls or very old fashioned little village streets. The people were really, really welcoming, wanted us to be there, and excited that we were making a movie. I'm from New York City, and I've never lived in a place like that, but getting to shoot there was incredibly helpful because it was very immersive.

What's your take on the characters’ internal motivations as the story progresses, with the love story taking a turn?
Kirke: Joey wants to do the right thing until she falls so in love that doing the wrong thing becomes really appealing. That's happened to me and everyone I know, because the most important thing, suddenly, is this other person and not herself. I was so happy that we got to do that in a film because I think lots of people can really relate to that experience. She wants Rayna more than she wants herself for awhile. It's so first love to me. You forget that you're 21 years old and you've got so much else to do.

Shoval: Joey is through and through a good girl, she's so loyal. Once her loyalty becomes to Rayna, she has to do whatever's the most helpful thing in the situation, which is something I love about her. Growing up in a place like that, she knows that there's something better for her, being in the band with the older guys is her first wave of trying to get out, and then joining the Army is another attempt. Ultimately she is a character who is gonna get out of that town and be something more.

With Rayna, she's a very complicated person. In that little 900 person town where she lives, she's definitely the most beautiful girl in the town, everybody knows her, everybody had a crush on her at some point. There's something really safe in that — the idea of leaving is petrifying. So she tries to create situations that lock her into a certain reality.

How did you create the on screen romantic chemistry?
Kirke: There's an inevitable bonding that happens between people on a film set. Breeda and I really get along, and I love Breeda, so that helps, as far as establishing a romantic connection. We didn't really do anything to do that — you do what's in the script. We were lucky to actually love one another. If the script says run you run, if the script says fuck, you pretend to fuck.

Deb, what other kinds of films do you want to make? Do you want to continue in a personal vein?
Shoval: I'm working on an eco-thriller love story. It's also very personal for me, I did a lot of environmental activism, and it's very much set in this world. The main characters meet in the tree tops, they're tree sitters fighting the bulldozing of old growth forest. It's very much about landscape and really beautiful, but I am excited to challenge myself to something that's faster-paced, and much larger in scope, many locations.

Lola, you're such a chameleon in your film roles. What's your approach to getting inside these characters and inhabiting them in the very specific physical way?
Kirke: I don't have anything specific, and I want to. I'm working now on a way of going into work and spending time with myself and my instrument — my body and voice. I want to find a way to ground myself when I go to work because it's a very un-grounding thing, in different locations, it's 4:30 in the morning and you're pretending it's not.

I try and be as faithful as possible to the text, and collaborate with the other actors, collaborate with the director. If there’s an accent or a very specific place, doing research about those places and listening to accent tapes. There are accent tag videos on YouTube, they're amazing. I highly recommend watching them. I'm very grateful to all of them. Shout out to the accent taggers.

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Watch: Francis Ford Coppola Explains His "Live Cinema" Project ‘Distant Vision’ And More In 57-Minute Talk

Kevin Jagernauth — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:24:00 GMT

“We’re not gonna talk about wine,” legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola quipped at the Tribeca Film Festival where he sat down for a wide-ranging Storytellers talk moderated by author Jay McInerney. And it was an appropriate setting for the man who gave the world “The Godfather,” as he’s now embarking on another epic story.

“Distant Vision” is a massive undertaking that Coppola has been working on for a while now. In 2014 he described it as "a multi-generational saga about an Italian-American family not unlike his own" and later explained the unique approach he was going to take with it.

"It’s sort of like [Thomas Mann's] 'Buddenbrooks' because it’s about three generations of a family,” Coppola said in 2015. “It happens during the birth of television; the growth and omnipresence of television and finally the end of television as it turns into the internet. Then I decided that I wanted to do it as live television.”

Noting that the script for “Distant Vision” is now running around 500 pages, Coppola explained at Tribeca that he’s planning shorter "proof of concept" productions to work out the technical hurdles before diving into it fully, describing the combination of live performance and traditional moviemaking as the “holy grail.” He also points to recent live TV productions of “Grease” and “A Few Good Men” as similar to what he’s going for, but Coppola is working on a much, much bigger scale.

You might think that the multiple Oscar winner doesn’t have anything to prove, but Coppola has always been willing to take things to the next level. Even if it means literally throwing his accolades away.

“I had won five Oscars and no one would let me do ‘Apocalypse,’ ” Coppola recalled. “I was so mad that I took the five Oscars and I threw them out the window of my house. And they landed down in the garden, all mangled. They’re just dross, by the way.”

So it’ll be interesting to see if Coppola can pull this off. His ambitions don’t always work (see the plans to take “Twixt” on a live remix tour around the country) but his desire to move ahead of the curve is admirable and inspiring. Check out the full talk below.

Tribeca Review: HBO Miniseries 'The Night Of' Starring Riz Ahmed And John Turturro

Kimber Myers — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 16:36:12 GMT

If the first two hours are any indication, HBO’s upcoming miniseries presents a return to dramatic form for the network. With a pedigree that includes names like Richard Price, Steve Zaillian and Robert Elswit, “The Night Of” is a compelling drama that sounds great and looks even better. It explores exactly how much can go wrong in a single night and how the flaws in our justice system risk long-lasting consequences.

We’re introduced to Naz Khan (Riz Ahmed), an adorably nerdy student who gets invited to a party in New York’s Lower East Side by a basketball player he tutors. When his ride falls through at the last minute, Naz takes his father’s cab without asking and drives from his home in Jackson Heights, Queens, into Manhattan. A beautiful young woman gets into the cab and asks for a ride, derailing his plans and beginning the fateful evening of the title. Naz is later accused of a crime he says he didn’t commit, and he experiences the disorganization and manipulation of the legal system from the inside. His plight is further influenced by his appearance and status as the son of two Pakistani immigrants.

READ MORE: 'Vinyl' Loses Its Groove And Why HBO Is Struggling In The Era Of Peak TV

While Ahmed was a key element in what made “Nightcrawler” so compelling, he’s even better here. In the first two episodes (presented as a single unit at Tribeca), he’s tasked with showing a variety of emotions, with fear and uncertainty chief among them. He’s immediately likable and sympathetic, even though the details of the night aren’t yet clear to the audience. In a role initially to be played by James Gandolfini before his death, John Turturro stars as Jack Stone, an ambulance-chasing lawyer who agrees to represent Naz. He's out of his league with the severity of the crime, but he shares insight into Naz's plight that the naive young man doesn't see as he claims his innocence. Turturro's presence adds dry wit and a bit of quirk to the proceedings, which would otherwise lean crushingly dark. And though Bill Camp (“Midnight Special,” “12 Years A Slave”) is a smaller name, he should see his profile rise in his portrayal of Detective Box, who tries to manipulate Naz in attempting to close his case.

“The Night Of” has a remarkable sense of place. It was shot entirely in New York — and feels like it — and it pays equal attention to the smaller geography of individual locations including a police station and an Upper West Side apartment. It doesn’t cheat the audience or its setting; instead, it does an excellent job of letting the viewer know exactly where you are now in relation to other spots you’ve seen and how that plays a role in each scene and the series overall. That approach resembles another powerhouse, “The Wire,” which did similar work in Baltimore. It’s too early to make definitive comparisons, but "The Night Of" is more similar in feel to David Simon's landmark series as well as “Show Me a Hero” than to other procedurals currently on TV. Co-creator Price wrote for the "The Wire," and though this show has a similar slow burn in its first segments, it picks up momentum and what ultimately happens to Naz in the first two hours feels inexorable.

READ MORE: The 25 Most Anticipated New TV Shows Of 2016

With Paul Thomas Anderson favorite Elswit for episode one and “House of Cards” DP Igor Martinovic for episode two, “The Night Of” somehow seems at once modern and like a throwback to ‘70s crime films set in New York. It begins with a gorgeous black-and-white credits sequence with an emphasis on the city’s grids and lines. From there, it presents a look that falls in line with the quality audiences have come to expect from an HBO prestige drama.

Through Turturro’s lawyer character Stone, “The Night Of” hammers home the idea that truth and justice aren’t always interconnected. It’s a message that will appeal to fans of “Serial” and “Making A Murderer," but it has the dramatic weight to find a bigger audience as well. Co-written by Price and Oscar-winner Zaillian, this miniseries may be fiction, but it presents a dramatic New York world that feels very real. [A-]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Tribeca Review: Michael Shannon Shines In Basketball Drama 'Wolves'

Kimber Myers — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 13:03:03 GMT

As coaches say in off-the-court motivational speeches and books, character matters most (on the court, it’s winning that reigns, obviously). It’s also the most important element of Bart Freundlich’s coming-of-age basketball film. Removing the sport from the equation still leaves a solid if predictable drama about the pressures of growing up and the challenges of a complex family dynamic, boosted by yet another great performance from Michael Shannon.

Named for a New York City Catholic school team, “Wolves” centers on Anthony Keller (Taylor John Smith). Graduation looms for the star basketball player, who is captain of the team, gets good grades, and has a beautiful girlfriend, Victoria (Zazie Beetz). As his senior year advances, however, he faces struggles, both at home and at school. His tuition hasn’t been paid, while his father Lee (Shannon) has a gambling addiction that is beginning to place a strain on Anthony’s mother, Jenny (Carla Gugino), while Anthony’s uncle Charlie (Chris Bauer) steps in to try and help. There’s a growing pressure on both Anthony and Lee throughout the film, culminating in a climax that is at once standard within the sports-movie genre and goes well beyond the tropes audiences are used to.

“Wolves” invests heavily in character, creating an emotionally involving narrative. As Anthony, Smith doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but he is able to communicate volumes with his eyes. He’s a smart kid whom we identify with as he makes mistakes both on and off the court, and he’s an easy presence to root for. By contrast, his father is believably monstrous, mostly thanks to another stellar turn from Shannon. Lee is a complex character that receives a layered portrayal from the actor, who exhibits charisma that points toward why his wife fell for him and stays despite his issues. He feels pride and affection for both Jenny and Anthony, but because of his gambling addiction and insecurities, he often behaves cruelly. It would be easier to turn away from this unlikeable character if played by a lesser actor, but you're always curious about what Shannon will do next.

The tone gradually changes as the film goes on, moving from hopeful to tense. Pressure mounts on the Keller men in parallel with the running time. Anthony's time on the team — and time to impress scouts — is growing shorter as the season approaches its end. He is encouraged by his coaches to be more aggressive, but he struggles in clutch moments. Meanwhile, the debts his father has amassed around town are due to be paid, with three bookies harassing him at both his job and the bars he frequents. The drama is balanced by funny moments early on, particularly thanks to the efforts of Anthony’s friend Gil (Jake Choi) and some light humor and charm from Shannon’s Lee. As “Wolves” progresses and things get more serious for our protagonist, Freundlich seems to forget about Gil, only to have him reappear as the picture is winding down. Taking over is Socrates (John Douglas Thompson), an aging black sage that Anthony meets on the rough courts at West Fourth Street. Without insight from either his father or his selfish coach, Anthony relies on often-too-predictable wisdom from Socrates to advance his game with little insight into Socrates’ character beyond that name.

Freundlich made a splash in the indie world with his 1997 debut “The Myth of Fingerprints,” but he’s failed to replicate that success in the two decades since. This is an imperfect film, but it’s the closest he’s come to redemption after making “Trust The Man,” “World Traveler” and “Catch That Kid.” Like his first film, “Wolves” is boosted by excellent performances that help to cover some deficiencies in this script. Having Anthony attend Saint Anthony's and earning the nickname "Saint" as a result feels like a cutesy contrivance. And Anthony also probably could've done with a few less problems to overcome, with the screenplay feeling somewhat overloaded at times.

“Wolves” somehow manages to combine two disparate, often cliché-driven stories — the sports narrative and the addiction tale — into a film that is slightly more than the sum of its parts. Freundlich mostly succeeds in the genre mash-up approach to his film, and fans of sports movies will be able to cheer for the on-court action that is coupled with off-court drama. But delivering another nuanced role, Shannon is the film's MVP. [B-]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Tribeca Review: 'A Kind Of Murder' Starring Patrick Wilson, Jessica Biel, Eddie Marsan And Vincent Kartheiser

Kimber Myers — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 12:30:39 GMT

At first glance, this melodramatic noir is a gorgeous period picture, echoing the vintage visuals of Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” and Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven” and “Carol.” Given this movie’s origins as a Patricia Highsmith novel like Haynes’ most recent work, that early impression initially seems merited. Unfortunately, as “A Kind of Murder” progresses, it becomes clear that it resembles those films in look only. The fine cinematography, set design and costumes only serve as a distraction from the sparsely drawn story and uninteresting characters.

With “Elizabeth Taylor in ‘Butterfield 8’” on a theater marquee and '60s dresses to die for, “A Kind of Murder” immediately establishes its setting in its opening scene, before it dives into parallel storylines. On one side, Newark bookstore owner Kimmel (Eddie Marsan) is grieving the loss of his wife after her murder, and he’s the prime suspect in the investigation led by Detective Corby (Vincent Kartheiser). Meanwhile, New York architect and part-time mystery writer Walter Stackhouse (Patrick Wilson) wishes his troubled wife Clara (Jessica Biel) would disappear. “What’s the difference between wishing someone dead and actually doing it?” he wonders. His desire to see her gone escalates when he meets the lovely Ellie (Haley Bennett).

Directed by Andy Goddard, “A Kind of Murder” eventually sees its separate plots dovetail, but it jumps awkwardly from scene to scene, sometimes skipping information that feels pertinent. Running a slim 96 minutes, the film feels trimmed down, with some of the important story beats edited out. Not everything needs to be spelled out for the audience, but the flow here feels choppy, as though you fell asleep and missed crucial bits of information or even whole scenes. The script from first-time screenwriter Susan Boyd seems to provide only a bare sketch of the story, and while the film has a chilling concept with a similar feel to “Strangers On A Train,” it never fulfills on the promise of its premise.

“A Kind of Murder” lacks a single sympathetic character or even one that’s interesting in their flaws. The closest we come is with Ellie, who seems unaware of what she’s gotten herself into. Even Kartheiser’s cop is impossible to root for; he’s smug, dumb and abusive. And while Wilson is charming at times, his character certainly earns the original name of Highsmith’s book, “The Blunderer.” He makes terrible decisions for equally terrible reasons, with each wrong move putting him into deeper jeopardy.

From its opening moments, “A Kind of Murder” captures the period nicely with vibrant primary colors playing well off each other. Varying shades are used with intention, whether it’s the bright reds of Clara’s dress and bedroom or the layers of blue in Walter’s car, his shirt and the door frame, all in a single shot. Coupled with the efforts of costume designer Sarah Mae Burton and production designer Pete Zumba, the cinematography from DP Chris Seager is the highlight of the film, providing a number of artful individual frames.

However, the performances are all over the place, with some of the actors seeming to be in a totally different movie than their peers. Wilson’s old Hollywood good looks fit the setting, but his Walter leans toward monotony. As his depressed wife, Biel’s intentional flatness works within her character’s emotional range, but it doesn’t make for enjoyable viewing. Meanwhile, Kartheiser seems to have fun with his smarmy detective who can’t understand why no one else suspects Walter for murder. Only Marsan’s restrained performance as the fidgety and tightly wound Kimmel fits perfectly in the middle.

“A Kind of Murder” attempts to distinguish itself in its approach to style, but leaves much to be desired in its story and character. It lacks a compelling, well-developed mystery as well as any level of suspense that could classify it as a thriller. Highsmith fans will be disappointed as the gorgeous visuals make it a far better coffee-table book than a feature-length film. [C-]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Tribeca Review: Mike Ott & Nathan Silver's 'Actor Martinez' Is A Fascinating And Experimental Meta-Movie

Katie Walsh — Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:50:54 GMT

Prolific indie filmmakers Mike Ott and Nathan Silver team up for the experimental and meta “Actor Martinez,” an exploration into the oftentimes difficult process of unearthing the honesty in acting. They take an interesting route to the truth, deliberately obfuscating the line between fiction and nonfiction in a film within a film, lulling the audience into one reality and then abruptly jarring you out of one scenario and into another.

It’s a process that mirrors the psychological journey of the subject/protagonist, Arthur Martinez. The premise is that Ott and Silver are making a semi-autobiographical film about Martinez, who is a Denver-area actor/local film promoter/computer repairman. The film nested inside “Actor Martinez” follows the life and routine of Martinez, until Ott and Silver decide to push their performer by casting him a girlfriend, in order to draw out any residual emotions about his ex-wife. They land on Lindsay Burdge (“Mistress America,” “The Invitation”) whom they cast for her “name.”

Ott and Silver appear often onscreen, usually to needle Martinez about his lack of emotional honesty or to discuss the direction of the film. They become increasingly caustic, smoking and drinking their way through the process, and getting more and more hostile with Martinez and even Burdge. Are they asshole directors, or are they just performing the role of asshole directors? Is Lindsay performing the role of the overly sensitive actress? What is Arthur performing? These are the questions that power the project, and are never answered.

It’s an experiment and it’s never really clear whether Martinez is a willing participant, though it's discussed ad nauseam, and Burdge herself brings up the question of exploitation in Martinez’s company. The most fascinating parts of the film are when Ott, Silver, Martinez, and sometimes Burdge practice a kind of radical honesty with each other over jars of whiskey, while ostensibly discussing the filmmaking process.

Martinez also serves as a kind of foil to the indie ethos of the filmmakers, or at least an antagonist against which they can verbalize and assert their beliefs about filmmaking. As a local film promoter, he describes himself as a producer, and when he argues for the “marketable” choice (in casting actresses or anything else), it provides an opportunity for Ott or Silver to argue against that idea in favor of making the best or most pure film.

In reality (your grasp on which might be tenuous at best after watching this film), “Actor Martinez” is intentionally un-marketable, wallowing in its own ambiguity and awkwardness. But Silver and Ott have never been in the business of intentionally trying to please wide audiences, instead creating truly independent oeuvres that cater not even to a niche audience but to their own impulses, pushing the boundaries of the style and storytelling of independent film, more often making the idiosyncratic choice instead of the popular one.

“Actor Martinez” is a fascinating collaboration between these two filmmakers, who seem willing to pillory their own image and dissect the nature of moviemaking in order to uncover real cinematic truth. Probably the closest comparison would be Agnès Varda’s 1988 collaboration with Jane Birkin, “Jane B. Par Agnès V,” which uses a similar disruptive pattern to call attention to the relationship between the camera and the muse, blurring the subject and the object. Ott, Silver, and even Martinez embrace this blurring and disruption, but they’re smart and self-aware enough to call themselves out in the process too. [B+]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Tribeca Review: Infectious And Joyful Dance Documentary 'Contemporary Color' Featuring David Byrne, St. Vincent, And More

Kimber Myers — Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:16:08 GMT

It may reflect my personal biases, but I didn’t expect to happy-cry my way through this exuberant color-guard documentary from Bill and Turner Ross. But from its early minutes through its triumphant finale, “Contemporary Color” brings the audience into its celebratory world that fuses music, dance, sports and pure happiness in a way that is impossible to resist.

For the uninitiated, color-guard teams put on synchronized routines to songs that have them twirling and throwing props like flags, rifles and sabers in unison. After being wowed by a color-guard performance, Talking Heads frontman David Byrne organized the titular massive concert at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center that matches up 10 musical acts with 10 color-guard teams from the United States and Canada. Each piece of music is written expressly for the event, with the color-guard performers only hearing the song live for the first time on the morning of the concert in the summer of 2015. The groups each have directors who create complex choreography that prances between gymnastics and both traditional and interpretive dance, resulting in an epic production whose size is often too big to practice in high-school gyms. Byrne is a champion for them, advocating for it as an art form, and it’s difficult to disagree. I spent most of the film trying to blink back tears, close my gaping mouth and smile all at the same time, a combination that seems far less impressive when you’re watching the coordination of these multi-talented performers. It’s gleefully overwhelming for those who aren’t familiar with it, but the filmmakers do a solid job of directing your attention to the right place, though there’s always more to see.

“Contemporary Color” winds through Barclays’ labyrinthine backstage, giving audiences a peek at the teenage performers’ nerves and excitement before they go on. The documentary intercuts between performances and the elaborate preparation involved, sharing interviews with the musical acts, the team members and their families. This event marks not only the last time the groups will be performing not only the routine they’ve prepared, but also the last time in their current incarnations as members graduate and new students join. The temporal nature of the moment only adds to the emotional swells.

In addition to performing himself, Byrne recruited a variety of acts to provide backing for the color-guard teams: Nelly Furtado, How to Dress Well, Devonté Hynes, Money Mark and Ad-Rock, Zola Jesus, Lucius, Nico Muhly and Ira Glass, St. Vincent and tUnE-yArDs. Most of the collaborations are art-rock songs that seem ready for a hipster’s Spotify playlist, but there are a few exceptions to provide additional variety. Muhly provides the music behind a vocal arrangement that finds Glass editing together snippets of interviews he did with a color-guard team, who then coordinate their movements to their own descriptions of their experience. These musicians appear genuinely excited for the opportunity to perform alongside the students, and participating in the event, often leaving backstage to watch the show.

The Ross brothers change the directorial and editing style for each performance, allowing the cinematic techniques to match the style of music and dance. With cinematographer Jarred Alterman, their cameras ably capture both intimate moments where they zoom in on a performer’s huge smile or offer overhead shots that see the teams’ synchronized work as a whole from above. They overlay shots of the singers and bands with those dancing on the floor. A breathless sequence finds color-guard team members racing up to the Barclays’ rafters to get the birds’-eye view of their peers’ work.

Throughout the documentary, infectious joy leaps off the screen with the same energy the color-guard teams display. At the beginning of the film, a young woman gushes, “I love color guard! So much!” with an enthusiasm normally relegated to pop stars. And it’s hard not to share her sentiment by the time the exciting, eye-opening “Contemporary Color” ends with a shot of a rainbow-confetti-strewn floor. [A-]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Tribeca Review: 'The Ticket' Starring Dan Stevens, Malin Akerman And Oliver Platt

Kimber Myers — Sat, 23 Apr 2016 19:49:35 GMT

What would you do if you were blind and suddenly regained your sight? Director Ido Fluk's drama inspires a number of questions for its audience, particularly around their own reactions in this hypothetical situation. By allowing viewers to see through the eyes of its protagonist, “The Ticket” gives them deeper insight into the experience of living as a blind person, as well as what choices they might make if given a new chance at life.

Blind since childhood, James (Dan Stevens) awakens one morning to discover that his sight is slowly coming back to him. A pituitary tumor has begun shrinking, and he is able to see his wife Sam (Malin Akerman) and son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) for the first time. His joy at his new opportunities quickly grows into a hunger for more. He outgrows his job as a telemarketer at a realtor, alongside blind employees like his friend Bob (Oliver Platt), and his ambitions take him toward a management position. His wife begins to put more emphasis on her appearance, wearing lipstick and dresses when she realizes that her husband can now see her. But his eyes begin to wander elsewhere, toward coworker Jessica (Kerry Bishé), and he wonders what else might be out there in his new life with sight.

READ MORE: 2016 Tribeca Film Fest: Demetri Martin’s ‘Dean,’ Drake Doremus’ ‘Equals,’ & Ben Wheatley’s ‘High-Rise’ Highlight Opening Line-Up

“The Ticket” offers a unique representation of blindness through some unexpectedly beautiful cinematography and graphics. Seeing through James’ eyes gives the picture far more depth than if he were merely describing his evolving situation. We experience full blindness with him during the opening credits, as we hear James speaking in voiceover to his wife and son. Shards of light go through an iris as names appear and disappear on screen. It’s as dynamic and interesting as a Marvel or Bond credit sequence, but far more low key. Cinematographer Zachary Galler offers gorgeous images throughout the film, playing with light and focus in a manner that works both visually and thematically.

James’ shift into a greed-driven and appearance-obsessed man after he regains his sight happens a bit too quickly, without much in the way of motivation to explain the big shift in his values. Rather than responding with gratitude for the unearned gift he receives, he begins to behave as though he deserves more in every aspect of his life. Even though he recites a daily prayer both before and after his change, he doesn't see his newfound sight as evidence of divine grace. Though we don’t get to know him before the event, this turn in personality doesn’t seem fully credible. The indications that his perspective has changed aren’t exactly subtle either, from his newfound love of treadmill running and his obvious ogling of his colleague’s cleavage.

READ MORE: The 22 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival

With that in mind, “The Ticket” exists better as a parable than as a true-to-life drama. From the story James tells that inspires the film’s title to frequent scenes in church, there’s an emphasis on spirituality and the role belief plays. The recovery of James' sight is ostensibly a miracle, even if it's one that can be explained by science. These elements aren’t always subtle, but what holds the movie together beyond its questions and its cinematic depiction of blindness is a credible performance from Stevens. He charmingly delivers speeches that have echoes of a preacher’s sermons, but he also shares James’ pain and doubt at various points throughout the narrative. His voice cracks as he recites a familiar prayer, and the actor's expressiveness goes a long away in highlighting the inner workings of the character.

However, playing as a parable, it does mean there is less emotional attachment to the characters and their experiences. Though the performances (especially from Stevens and in the fine supporting turn from the always-welcome Platt) ring true, the film creates an emotional distance that makes it challenging to fully connect with the story.

Faith and belief are so rarely part of secular cinema that it’s refreshing to see a small drama asking big questions that are often ignored. It examines the concept of grace and how our response to it can prove us ever less worthy of receiving the original gift. “The Ticket” isn’t always successful in its search for answers to those questions, but it provokes a dialogue with the viewer against the backdrop of impressive visuals and excellent performances. [B-]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Tom Hanks Says He 'Peaked in the 90s' and 7 More Takeaways From His Career

Graham Winfrey — Sat, 23 Apr 2016 01:22:29 GMT

Tom Hanks is nothing if not modest.

The two-time Academy Award winner for Best Actor is also a writer, producer and director, but during a panel conversation with John Oliver at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, Hanks told Oliver (and an audience of 1,200 people) that he "peaked in the '90s."

Oliver vehemently disagreed, calling Hanks an "American national treasure," and proceeded to coax out of Hanks some of the best anecdotes from his 36-year acting career. Here are the highlights from their conversation.

On Hanks' secret formula for every movie:

This is what goes into every movie: Hard work, blind luck, serendipity, bitter compromise, frustration, the crazy blessings from the goddess Caligula, and this great X- factor of, is anybody going to care at all?

On the unpredictability of making a hit:

Probably the most heralded movie I’ve ever been in was "Forrest Gump." While I was sitting on the park bench, I asked [Robert Zemeckis,] 'Is anyone going to care about this guy?' He said, 'I don’t know Tom. It’s a mine field. It’s a fucking mine field.' So when it works, you just say, 'We dodged all the mines.'

On the funniest thing that’s ever happened on a movie set:

On "Apollo 13" Ron Howard said, 'What should the shot be?' Kevin Bacon said, 'I don’t want to boss you around, but I think this shot really should be a B.F.C.U.K.B.' Ron said, 'What’s a B.F.C.U.K.B.?' Kevin said, 'Just a Big Fucking Close Up of Kevin Bacon.' Bill Paxton and I went berserk. We were talking in that same acronym for the remainder of the movie. God bless Kevin Bacon.

On his proudest moment in film:

With "That Thing You Do," when the band hears their record on the radio for the first time, Bruce Springsteen said 'I liked that moment when they heard their record on the radio. The same thing happened to us. We were all in cars and we pulled over on the side of the road to listen to it.'

On how he chooses movie roles:

You just have to kind of love them and want to see the movie. At one point in my mid 30s I was making a lot of movies about the goofy-headed guy who can’t get laid and wants to get laid. I realized then that I had to start saying a very difficult word to people, which was no. Saying no means you’ve made the choice of the type of story you want to tell and they type of character you want to play.

On which of his characters he’d like to have a beer with:

I’d go out with Charlie Wilson from "Charlie Wilson’s War." Charlie Wilson was the most fabulous party animal there ever was. He was a sitting congressman for the United States of America and he was naked in a hot tub with strippers in Las Vegas…on a congressional fact-finding job.

On what it means to be an actor:

The world is divided into two very distinctive groups: people who will always be self-conscious and will never be actors and the people who have defeated their own self-consciousness and can be actors. Now you take that half, and that group is divided into two distinctive halves as well: those that can persevere and artificially produce the wherewithal to continue for another day, and those who have met so much rejection that they can’t take it anymore and they walk away.

Watch the trailer for Tribeca entry "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" below.

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Tribeca Review: Robert Schwartzman's 'Dreamland' Starring Johnny Simmons, Amy Landecker, Jason Schwartzman, And More

Katie Walsh — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 19:44:42 GMT

It seems almost inevitable that Rooney frontman, Coppola scion, and Jason Schwartzman brother Robert Schwartzman would eventually make a movie, and he makes his directorial debut with an earnest, musically themed take on the Mrs. Robinson myth with “Dreamland." Co-written with Benjamin Font, the film stars the endearing, almost cherubic Johnny Simmons as Monty Fagan, a struggling piano player who becomes entangled with an older lover/benefactress, Olivia (Amy Landecker), while trying to sort out his life.

Monty, peddling piano lessons for $25 bucks a pop, dreams of opening his own piano bar, but he settles for a replacement gig filling in at the swanky La Petit Bel Ami hotel. It’s where he meets Olivia, an older woman who actually wants to have sex with him, unlike his longtime girlfriend Lizzie (Frankie Shaw). Their mojo has fizzled, partially thanks to her mom (Beverly D’Angelo), whom they live with. So when Olivia turns up, worshipful and libidinous and with plenty of “funny money” to invest in him, Monty willingly plays the gigolo.

READ MORE: The 22 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival

“Dreamland” is literally that: a fantasy, a fairy tale that takes place in the real world but isn’t realistic in the least — which is not to say that it has to cling to realism. The film even starts with a failed sexual fantasy between Monty and Lizzie. It’s the type of movie where Monty seeks a small business loan from a “bank” that is more the abstract idea of a bank — a place where loan officer Jason Schwartzman never takes off his headphones, and props his Timberlands up on his desk to blab about million-dollar deals. Or where Lizzie cheats on Monty with a plumber (Nick Thune) in a scene that seems scripted right out of an '80s porno (and would be sexual harassment in any other, non-porno world).

But reality or plausibility doesn’t have to be the standard by which we judge “Dreamland.” It’s a light whiff of a coming-of-age tale, but tonally, the film is all over the place, moving from dreamy Hollywood fantasy to millennial romantic comedy to relationship drama, and it doesn't always blend. Its influences show, including, most obviously, “The Graduate,” but there are also shades of Max Winkler’s great 2010 film “Ceremony.” But though we’re supposed to be aligned with Monty’s experience (particularly since there’s an ostentatious male-gaze device introduced at the outset), the film often wanders away to other perspectives from the women in his life, Lizzie and Olivia, and the shifting viewpoints don't work.

Soundtracked by Monty’s own tickling of the ivories and the director's own energetic, synth-heavy work, the score itself is great, though it's only intermittently successful when applied to the film. Sometimes it seems like a soundtrack to “Drive,” but instead of cool Ryan Gosling in a vintage whip, it’s Johnny Simmons navigating the mean streets of K-Town on a motorbike that’s a shade too small for him. The music pumps energy into the film, sometimes underlining the 1970s vibe, but it can also seem wildly at odds with the content.

READ MORE: Hope You Like Synths: The Best Scores & Soundtracks Of 2011

Lynn Shelton’s DP Benjamin Kasulke lenses the film with a muted '70s/'80s retro style, which pops to fantastical life when Landecker is onscreen, all red lipstick and pearls and gleaming white teeth. Landecker is one of the best parts of the film, a total seductress looking for a no-strings-attached boy toy, but one who unexpectedly ends up with feelings and attachments and complicated emotions of her own.

Flaws and all, “Dreamland” feels very much like a first feature. The appealing surface elements are all there — style, music, star power — but the story itself is one we know well, and there’s a lack of control over the consistency of storytelling or tone. Schwartzman has a predilection for experimenting with layers of sound, which has mixed results. It creates a richness of atmosphere and a seamlessness from scene to scene, but the extreme temporal shifts are jarring — why is there piano music playing when there’s no one sitting at the piano?

But there are a lot of ideas and a strong energy in “Dreamland,” which bodes well for Schwartzman’s future filmmaking endeavors. He’s got an eye for quirky and interesting moments in life, and if he can synthesize all of his ideas into a better-modulated and consistent whole, he'll be a director to look out for. [B-]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Tribeca Review: 'The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea' Starring Jason Sudeikis, Maisie Williams, Jessica Biel, And More

Kenji Fujishima — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 18:28:49 GMT

Two recent films are bound to come to viewers’ minds while watching Bill Purple’s feature debut “The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea,” one more obvious than the other. The less obvious point of comparison is “Demolition,” Jean-Marc Vallée’s recent seriocomic examination of a man’s eccentric (to put it mildly) expressions of his grief over his wife’s sudden death. Though the grieving husband in Purple’s film, Henry (Jason Sudeikis), doesn’t have the same obsession with destroying physical objects in order to better understand their inner workings as Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Vallée’s film does, Henry — also a successful middle-class type with a penchant for caution that is shattered by his personal loss — similarly finds himself developing a mania that seems crazy to most outside his usual circles: an obsession with helping a homeless girl, Millie (Maisie Williams), fulfill her dream of building a raft to sail to the Azores, in order to escape from an abusive uncle (Jayson Warner Smith). To make the comparison even more pointed, Henry even knocks down a wall in his house like Davis does, though the former stops short of full-on destruction, because he’s only doing it in order to get better wood for Millie’s raft.

A more obvious point of comparison for “The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea” is Benh Zeitlin’s “Beasts Of The Southern Wild.” That film, a Sundance sensation in 2012, attempted to turn the very real traumas New Orleans residents faced during and after Hurricane Katrina into a magical-realist fable of coming-of-age empowerment. Its beautiful cinematography and acting wasn't enough to offset its political incoherence, however, one that verged on dubious libertarianism especially in its villainous presentation of FEMA-like white figures trying to rescue the refugees of the Louisiana bayou community in which six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) and her sick father Wink (Dwight Henry) reside.

With its focus on white characters in a post-Katrina New Orleans, no such tricky racial tightrope-walking exists in Purple’s film, save for a black sidekick (Orlando Jones) who is given the oh-so-cute name of “Dumbass.” There aren’t any beasts to be seen here either. But Purple recalls “Beasts Of The Southern Wild” in many other ways. For one thing, there’s Millie’s platitude-ridden voiceover narration, which, like Hushpuppy’s in Zeitlin’s film, attempts to ground “The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea” in the realm of myth, especially with its rampant use of sea and travel metaphors to not only help explain Henry’s irrational behavior, but set out a worldview that preaches openness to life’s unpredictable directions. Heavy-handed Hurricane Katrina references also abound: Henry’s late wife, Penny (Jessica Biel), is described as a “hurricane,” while Millie says her late father “left her behind,” perhaps just like the way the U.S. government could be said to have left some New Orleans residents behind during the storm.

To the “Beasts Of The Southern Wild” formula, Purple and co-writer Robbie Pickering add heaps of saccharine whimsy that even Zeitlin and his Court 13 collaborators were canny enough to sidestep. Having a character named Dumbass is the least of its sins. The eye-rolling whimsy meter goes right off the charts immediately in its characterization of Penny as a free-spirited Manic Pixie Dream Girl who apparently thinks nothing of buying purple — or rather, as Penny is quick to correct Henry, magenta — sneakers for her husband to wear at a major meeting at his architectural day job. But then, there are no real people in “The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea,” only archetypes that we are meant to buy as instantly iconic, whether through exaggerated Southern accents (Biel’s and Williams’) or outsize quirks (Henry’s boss Wendell’s (Paul Reiser) frequent use of Japanese metaphors, Dumbass’ co-worker Pascal’s unintelligible Creole speech that only Dumbass can understand). All of this is made even more insufferable by Justin Timberlake’s goopy score, laying on the cloying strings and piano in order to make everything even more syrupy than it already is.

This penchant for mushy sentimentality sinks whatever good will one might have been willing to grant the film based on its intentions alone. It’s all well and good to try to make a fable about seizing life by the horns and truly living it, with both Penny and Millie intended as symbols of the kind of bold risk-taking that the buttoned-up Henry only finally decides to do after Penny has died. But the characters’ thinly drawn nature creates a void that no amount of insistent feel-good sentiment can fill. Purple’s film aims for mythical uplift, but in trying to inspire all of humanity, he appears to have forsaken the human beings at the heart of his own story. [D+]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Tribeca Film Fest Awards Rachel Tunnard, Ingrid Jungermann, Priscilla Ananay and More

Casey Cipriani — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 18:00:00 GMT

Tribeca Film Festival has announced the award winners for its 15th annual run. The fest is still running until April 24, and you can read all of our interviews with female filmmakers at Tribeca here.

Some of the notable female winners include Rachel Tunnard, who took the fest's coveted Nora Ephron Prize. Her film "Adult Life Skills" opens in the U.K. in June, but has no U.S. release date yet, though that status may not be for long. Ingrid Jungermann won the Best Screenplay award for her film "Women Who Kill," which will certainly take its place among fans of "Serial" and "Making a Murderer."

"We are proud to celebrate the winning filmmakers, artists and creators from our 15th edition," said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder, Tribeca Film Festival. "Their stories have entertained, inspired and challenged us to think about the world and we are grateful to them for sharing their work with us."

U.S. Narrative Competition:

Best Actress in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film
Mackenzie Davis in "Always Shine." The award was given by Mya Taylor.
Jury Comment: "For the unapologetic, fierce, brave, compelling and vulnerable portrayal."

Best Screenplay in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film
"Women Who Kill" written by Ingrid Jungermann.
Jury Comment: "As Miles Davis said, 'The hardest thing is to be original.' This unique and deftly hilarious tale told in Brooklyn is from a fresh voice and a true original."

International Narrative Feature Competition:

Best Actress in an International Narrative Feature Film
Radhika Apte in "Clean Shaven," a part of "Madly."
Jury Comment: "This award goes to an actress who has conveyed bravery and emotional depth in different relationships around her. A contemporary story that breaks through established culture."

Best Screenplay in an International Narrative Feature Film
"Perfect Strangers" written by Filippo Bologna, Paolo Costella, Paolo Genovese, Paola Mammini and Rolando Ravello.
Jury Comment: "This award goes to a well-crafted, entertaining scenario, with deep character development. It's an original story about private lives and hidden secrets."

Best New Narrative Director Competition:

Best New Narrative Director
Priscilla Anany, director of "Children of the Mountain" (USA, Ghana).
Jury Comments: "So many of the films we had the pleasure of viewing were expertly directed and worthy of recognition. The winning director presents a fearless and heart wrenching tale of an embattled mother's high stakes journey to heal her sick child and ultimately herself. The film delicately and powerfully directs us through an emotionally resonant story that is dark for truthful reasons and simultaneously hopeful. The best new narrative director award goes to Priscilla Anany for 'Children of the Mountain.'"

Short Film Competition Categories:

Best Narrative Short
"Hold On" (Houvast), directed by Charlotte Scott-Wilson (Netherlands).
Jury Comments: "The jury was moved by one particular film because it is simultaneously about the price of performance, and the entirely unique idea that the protagonist’s musical performance itself succeeds on the back of her own self-doubt, torture and anxiety. We were also blown away by the remarkable performance of the lead actress in both her emotional depth combined with her musical proficiency."

The Nora Ephron Prize

Rachel Tunnard, director, writer and editor of "Adult Life Skills" (U.K.).
Jury Comments: "We selected someone whose originality of voice, deft handling of tone, assured visual and editorial style, and moving poetic screenplay combined to make us feel from the opening sequence that we were in good hands. She made a tiny -- even miniaturized -- world, seem vast. She handled grief in a wholly unique way. Using wit and emotional restraint to pull the audience in. And make us root for our protagonist to blow up the shed!"

[via Tribeca Film Festival]

What Does the Future of Film Festivals Look Like? (Analysis)

Eric Kohn, Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich and Liz Shannon Miller — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 15:34:47 GMT

With the Tribeca Film Festival wrapping up this weekend, Indiewire reflects back on the fifteenth year of one of New York City's marquee film events. Three members of Indiewire’s film team — deputy editor and chief critic Eric Kohn, senior film critic David Ehrlich and film editor Kate Erbland — along with TV Editor Liz Shannon Miller, traded emails this week to share their thoughts on this year's festival, and what the future holds for Tribeca.

ERIC: While much of the moviegoing world has debated Tilda Swinton's questionable decision to play an Asian character in "Doctor Strange," or whether they should bother with "The Huntsman: Winter's War," we've...well, we've been asking those questions, too. But we've also been juggling dozens of films at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, which we debated last week from a bunch of different angles. But here's one we didn't discuss before: How does a festival of this scale, irrespective of its quality, provide a contrast to mainstream moviegoing options?

This week, I was pleasantly surprised to find a few examples: "Women Who Kill," Ingrid Jungermann's horror-comedy about a bunch of neurotic Brooklyn lesbians, isn't exactly the kind of popular entertainment one would expect at the box office. But it's a zillion times better than the market standard. What sort of contrasts did you find in this year's lineup — and in the film-festival scene in general?

READ MORE: Why You Should Care About the Tribeca Film Festival (Analysis)

DAVID: The advantage of scheduling your film festival in the middle of April is that the contrasts between the Tribeca slate and the public box office kind of make themselves. This is perhaps the most dire time of year for audiences, particularly now that Sundance titles have started to pile up in the summer months and even the dog days of August have their fair share of exciting new releases. Neither large-scale anomalies ("10 Cloverfield Lane") nor indie success stories ("Green Room") can distract from a box office that’s crowded with cynical filler like "Batman v Superman," "The Divergent Series: Whatever" and approximately 42 different movies about the holy trinity of God ("Miracles From Heaven"), Jesus ("Risen") and their fanboys ("God’s Not Dead 2: Not Dead and Loving It").

In other words, it’s hard not to appreciate how Tribeca offers a brief escape into a world where movies are allowed to take chances, contradict themselves and ignore Cinemascores. Irrespective of quality, it’s nice to be reminded that movies can surprise you. That may sound like faint praise, but my favorite stuff from this year’s slate each delivered a real "We’re not in Kansas anymore" vibe. From the fearless and incisive psychodrama of "Always Shine" to the utterly bonkers third act of "Vincent N Roxxy," there were a handful of films that truly made me feel like I was watching someone walk a tightrope without a wire. It was there in the docs as well — "Keep Quiet" hinges on a truly jaw-dropping reversal, while each new morsel of information in "Untouchable" (a hard look at how America treats convicted pedophiles) lands like a bombshell. It was great to see these films play to packed houses — if only audiences could adopt the same spirit of adventure when they go to the multiplex.

Kate, what kind of surprises did you encounter? Did you hear someone say anything at the talks or lunches that made you think about the immediate future of film in a different light?

KATE: One trend I've been pleasantly surprised by are movies that aren't afraid to inject some real pathos and pain into inherently comedic situations, from "Don't Think Twice" to "Dean" or "Folk Hero and Funny Guy." I very recently wrote about how the legacy of "Bridesmaids" isn't the sudden creation of a bunch of films with women behaving badly, but women mixing emotion and humor in equal parts, but this year's Tribeca featured a number of male directors and stars also doing that same thing. It's great to laugh (obviously), but it's also nice to have that edged with some bigger questions and deeper meanings. Like David, I also loved the complexity and cattiness of "Always Shine," and "My Blind Brother" feels like a movie that was made exactly for me. There have certainly been some very pleasant surprises during what has been a somewhat uncharacteristically rushed and packed festival.

Although we previously talked about the future of VR and how Tribeca has dug into it, a number of the talks I've attended — like at Wednesday's full-day event, the Daring Women Summit — have talked extensively about how social media is impacting the way our entertainment is delivered to us. Seems pretty canny then that Tribeca actually hosted a Snapchat contest this year for literally snappy little shorts.

ERIC: I'll embrace Snapchat as the future of cinema as soon as I can figure out how to use it. In the meantime, it's worth noting that the director of "Women Who Kill" produced two successful web series prior to making her debut, which points to a fascinating new paradigm in which movies bleed over into all kinds of different viewing experiences. Mostly, though, the elephant in the room with this conversation is television. So let's acknowledge it. Tribeca, like Sundance, SXSW and Toronto before it, now has a dedicated TV section celebrating the medium from a bunch of different directions. And our TV editor, Liz Shannon Miller, came to town to explore the lineup.

So, Liz, tell us: What does this year's Tribeca Film Festival have to say about the modern state of TV?

LIZ: When I first saw the lineup of programming Tribeca had planned, I was pretty impressed, because it had a great deal of range to it — at least two documentary series, some very high-profile premieres and some smaller/less star-powered shows that deserve some attention. Heck, thanks to "The Good Wife," tribute was even paid to broadcast networks (which at times feel like television's sad great aunt who can't stop talking about her glory days in the chorus line).

And so as a Tribeca newbie, I stepped up to see how these shows played in this context — so far, the screenings and talks I've attended have been packed, with extremely engaged audiences. Having been observing the state of TV in a festival context for awhile now, I've been questioning what a fest premiere means for these shows, given that with only rare exceptions, the shows being screened all have secured distribution within the US; this isn't a marketplace. And the biggest values, at this stage, seem to be attention and prestige, which everyone in the TV landscape is desperate for these days due to the impossibly large amount of shows out there. Any opportunity a network can take to get some extra press or some extra eyeballs, it'll go after, which is why TV's spread to unconventional realms like festivals has been so aggressive. But I wonder — from the film side of things, David, is there any resentment over the encroachment of these new mediums? Do you think Robert De Niro wishes that Tribeca could go back to just featuring films?

DAVID: Liz, after the whole "Vaxxed" brouhaha, I can make no claim to understanding what’s going on in Robert De Niro’s head (that "TODAY" interview was some of the most distressingly compelling documentary footage I’ve seen in the last two weeks). But, strong attendance notwithstanding, I do think that Tribeca has a hard time figuring out what to do with the TV stuff — most festivals do. It doesn’t do much good to play an episode of a show that’s premiering a few days later; it’s a very literal application of Tarantino’s soundbite about digital projection being the equivalent of watching television in public.

On the other hand, I applaud Tribeca’s efforts to spice things up and create unique live experiences. You couldn’t pay me to listen to Alan Ball talk over the finale of "Six Feet Under," but an event like that has gotta be a religious pilgrimage for fans of the show. By the sound of it, it transformed the episode by reimagining it as a uniquely collective experience, not just blowing it up to a bigger screen.

READ MORE: The 2016 Indiewire Tribeca Bible

KATE: I think this echoes our previous chat about what exactly the Tribeca Film Festival is these days, as it expands out into new mediums like VR and other avenues of entertainment. While I do think there is something a bit muddled about its current slate and its mixed offerings of seemingly everything, I admire that Tribeca is so engaged with finding what's new and next and, moreover, what of that might work for them in the festival context. In five years, I suspect Tribeca won't be quite so diversified, but I hope that this mixing bowl of projects allows them an in-roads to whatever that future festival will look like.

ERIC: My own experience with VR at this year's festival has led me to wonder if this technology deserves a separate showcase. Preferably a cabin in the woods where one can commune with the meditative experience of wearing a headset that introduces you to a new world. David was right when he suggested last week that VR's non-geographical properties make it somewhat disconnected from the communal vibe of a festival.

I love the prospects of a 360-degree immersive narrative experience, but am less enamored of the queasy feeling I experienced after enduring several installations in a row. "Allumette," a touching 20-minute animated tale about a young girl in the clouds, exists a world away from the non-fiction experience of diving with dolphins in "The Click." They do not benefit from being experienced side by side, even as both have their merits. While film festivals must acknowledge the changes impacting moving images in a general sense, I doubt that VR will supplant storytelling as a whole in the immediate future. Movies are still movies.

Ironically, while I'm impressed with VR, my recent encounters with it leave me confident that moviegoing purists have nothing to worry about — for now, at least. Film festivals remain an alternative showcase for cinema, so that people who have little interest in the same old routine can discover something different. VR is the newest member of the household, but will need more time to earn its place at the table.

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Alicia Keys Surprises Tribeca Film Festival With World Premiere of 'The Gospel'

Kate Erbland — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 15:30:15 GMT

Alicia Keys has something to preach. During a surprise event held by the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday night at New York City's Highline Ballroom, Keys debuted a pair of brand new short films set to her music, loosely arranged as "The Gospel." Invited guests were told little about the event before they arrived beyond hints that it would include both a special screening and a performance. That the Highline Ballroom is not a venue that typically plays home to film screenings was a nice bit of misdirection, but the event was as much about cinematic creativity as it was about musical inspiration, and Keys and the festival utilized the space for both.

Paula Weinstein, the EVP of Tribeca Enterprises, was on hand to introduce Keys and the surprise program, promising that the event would see the presentation of art "that represents what [Keys is] thinking and feeling as an artist and an activist." Keys, clearly energized by the audience and the secretive nature of the event, told the crowd, "I promise you, this night is likely not going to happen again in this way." As had been vaguely promised, "The Gospel" played out as a combination of visual offerings (including new shorts from rising star A.V. Rockwell and Jonathan Olinger, the founder of the New York-based media company HUMAN) that tap into both Keys' music and her involvement with a multitude of charitable organizations.

READ MORE: The 2016 Indiewire Tribeca Bible

The event took its name from Keys' new track "The Gospel," previously described by Vibe as a "soundscape that talks about the family dynamic of those living in underprivileged communities." (The song is expected to appear on her forthcoming new album, which still does not yet have an official title or release date, though Keys' upcoming performance on the May 7 episode of "Saturday Night Live" indicates that might be changing soon.) That spirit especially ran through Rockwell's series of vignettes, also presented as "The Gospel," which Keys explained featured original music that she views as "the prequel to my first record."

For Keys, Rockwell's "Gospel" "really represents the New York that I grew up in, and the New York that I saw." A four-chapter series of "vignettes of stories about coming of age in New York City," the film follows a loosely connected group of young people growing up in New York City (Keys also appears in the short), taking them through a series of events billed under titles like "All God's Children" and "Young Love." Told in artfully rendered black and white, Rockwell's high energy offering was the highlight of the evening, a very auspicious start for the young filmmaker, who is still in school at NYU.
Keys discovered Rockwell though mutual friends, and told the audience that, after seeing Rockwell's series of shorts "Open City Mixtape," she "knew this was the person that I had to collaborate with." For Rockwell, the experience wasn't just professionally exciting, but personally satisfying as well. "It's not very often that [as] a filmmaker, when somebody asks you to come on board for something that they envisioned, it can be something that's personal for you as well," Rockwell said. "I feel so lucky that was this moment."

Rockwell's own "Gospel" was followed by an offering from Olinger, a filmmaker who channels his charitable leanings into both his work with HUMAN and his film projects, entitled "Let Me In." Partially set to Keys' song "Hallelujah," the ten-minute short also stars Keys, and aims to imagine the refugee crisis through the eyes of American citizens who have never been directly impacted by such concerns (it's set in a world where Southern California is besieged by violence, forcing citizens to flee to Mexico). Following the debut of both shorts, Keys took to the stage for that promised performance.

Despite the mostly jovial nature of the event, Keys made a point to note the passing of Prince earlier in the day. "We have lost one of the most prolific artists of our time. I know he means something special to each and every one of us, a soundtrack to our lives in many ways," she said. "To me, he was one of my greatest, greatest inspirations. He showed me what it is to be an artist, and to put art first." Now that's something to preach.

"The Gospel" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

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For more from Keys' cinematic career, check out the trailer for "Jem and the Holograms," in which she played herself, below:

Tribeca Film Festival Announces 'Dean,' 'Junction 48' and Other Award-Winners

Michael Nordine — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 22:00:19 GMT

The 15th annual Tribeca Film Festival has announced its winners, with top honors going to "Dean," "Junction 48" and "Do Not Resist." Cash prizes totaling $155,000 were given in the following categories: US Narrative, International Narrative, World Documentary, the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director and the Nora Ephron Prize, among others. The winners were chosen from a field of 102 features and 74 shorts.

READ MORE: The 2016 Indiewire Tribeca Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival

Writer/director Demetri Martin's "Dean" took home the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, with the jury commenting that the film "manages the near impossible task of breathing new life into a well-worn genre, balancing humor and pathos with an incredibly deft touch, and offering a unique perspective on the way we process loss.” Anne Carey, James Le Gros, Chris Nashawaty, Mya Taylor and Jennifer Westfeldt served as jurors for the Narrative Competition.

"This award goes to a phenomenal, stand-out, powerful, thoughtful movie," said the jury of "Junction 48," which won the Best International Narrative Feature. The august body was composed of Hany Abu-Assad, Jean Reno, Lydia Dean Pilcher, Sam Taylor-Johnson and Danny Glover.

Laura Poitras, Douglas Tirola and Roger Ross Williams headed the World Documentary jury, remarking of Best Documentary Feature winner "Do Not Resist" that it "shines a light on the frightening story of the militarization of the police. In an impactful way the director uses his amazing access to look at power and force from the inside.”

Full list of winners:

The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature: "Dean"

Best Actor in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film: Dominic Rains, "The Fixer"

Best Actress in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film: Mackenzie Davis, "Always Shine"

Best Cinematography in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film: Michael Ragen, "Kicks"

Best Screenplay in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film: "Women Who Kill"

Best International Narrative Feature: "Junction 48"

Best Actor in an International Narrative Feature Film: Alan Sabbagh, "The Tenth Man"

Best Actress in an International Narrative Feature Film: Radhika Apte, "Clean Shaven"

Best Cinematography in an International Narrative Feature Film: Kjell Vassdal, "El Clasico"

Best Screenplay in an International Narrative Feature Film: "Perfect Strangers"

Best Documentary Feature: "Do Not Resist"

Best Documentary Cinematography: Jarred Alterman, "Contemporary Color"

Best Documentary Editing: Bill Ross, "Contemporary Color"

Best New Narrative Director: Priscilla Anany, "Children of the Mountain"

Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award: David Feige, "Untouchable"

Best Narrative Short: "Hold On (Houvast)"

Best Documentary Short: "Extremis"

Student Visionary Award: "Ping Pong Coach (乒乓)"

Storyscapes Award: "Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness"

The Nora Ephron Prize: Rachel Tunnard, "Adult Life Skills"

Tribeca X Award: “Hearing Colors”

READ MORE: Robert De Niro's Anti-Vaccine Controversy: When Did Tribeca Screw Up?

Audience Award-winners will be announced on April 23. Screenings of the award-winning films will take place on April 24, the last day of the festival.

For more from Tribeca, watch the "Southwest of Salem" trailer:

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Tribeca Review: 'Between Us' Starring Olivia Thirlby, Ben Feldman, Analeigh Tipton & Adam Goldberg

Kimber Myers — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 20:29:31 GMT

“It’s so raw and honest to the relationships and couples, it almost makes you cringe that you can see yourself in it...It’s those little moments that we’ve all been through.” This isn't a quote describing writer-director Rafael Palacio Illingworth’s drama, but it might as well be. Instead, it’s from a character describing the unseen film-within-a-film of Henry (Ben Feldman), who has been with Dianne (Olivia Thirlby) for the better part of a decade. "Between Us," which details the struggles of long-term relationships that begin to atrophy over time, gets intimate with Henry and Dianne in their best and worst times, as they both grapple with how to define their love in the face of internal and external expectations. Henry’s next project is a science-fiction film about time travel, and the movie flirts with the idea of time, stretching and condensing it to explore their relationship in an interesting, though not always successful way.

We enter the lives of Henry and Dianne six years into their romance. They’re living together in a Los Angeles apartment, but they are unmarried, which shouldn’t be such a big thing in 2016. Her parents (Lesley Ann Warren and Peter Bogdanovich) offer to help them pay for a down payment for a sun-filled place, but Henry is particularly hesitant. A mortgage is a bigger indication of commitment than a marriage certificate to the couple, who view the move as a daunting, big step. They hastily agree to marry, to get rid of the pressure, and once the initial celebratory mood fades, both Henry and Dianne begin to question their decision and their role in each other’s lives. Their interactions move from sweet to ugly and back again, making choices that could threaten their relationship. A musician (Analeigh Tipton) Henry meets at an event for his film poses a particular sexual temptation, while Dianne encounters several men (Scott Haze, Adam Goldberg) who make her consider her past and future.

While Feldman, and particularly Thirbly do the best with the uneven, sometimes melodramatic material they are given, "Between Us" is an undeniably realistic film about love and commitment, as well as the push and pull dynamics of those two concepts against each other. Early on, there’s a brief sex scene between Dianne and Henry on a wooden floor, which earns points for not being overly made up or stylized. Blushing skin, glowing sweat, and grasping hands mingle in a way that doesn’t feel inauthentic. The script is permeated with unflinching honesty through both dialogue and voiceover from Dianne and Henry. But for all the serious talk — and there is so much State-of-the-Union-type conversation that it is almost exhausting — there are a few moments of levity or joy that give the audience insight into what the pair initially saw in each other or how the couple interacts when there’s no one else around.

After only one other feature film, 2009's “Macho,” Illingworth has already defined a style and directorial voice. “Between Us” could have been a fairly standard exploration of a single couple’s potential unraveling, but he adds a number of elements that mark the film as his own. Cinematography from Todd Banhazl adds to the unique, lived-in feeling, with plenty of unexpectedly framed shots and camera angles throughout the film. And the pacing is unique; the first half of the film taking place with brief scenes that occur over months and then the movie skips ahead, leaving the audience to fill in the ellipses. The second half of the film while not entirely successful plot wise, retains the sense of authenticity, and while voiceover can be a cheat to offer internal insight, Illingworth layers it over the visuals in an inventive manner that doesn't detract from the experience.

But ultimately, what keeps “Between Us” from being entirely successful is its depiction of the love between Henry and Dianne. We’re shown plenty of scenes and snippets that make us question the connection between them, but there are fewer instances that demonstrate their love and affection. Meanwhile, the chemistry between Feldman and Thirlby is also lacking compared to other on-screen pairings, but that feels more like an intentional choice to demonstrate their characters’ current relationship status. Where the film fundamentally trips up is failing to invest the audience in the couple emotionally so they can root for them to overcome their various obstacles or weep for them when they cannot.

While they don't always work, Illingworth makes fascinating directorial choices that keep "Between Us" from being a standard anti-romance indie. And like a potential partner, the flaws here are part of what makes it interesting, but that doesn't mean that it's a film you want to fully commit to. [C+]

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

Watch: 74-Minute Tribeca Talk With J.J. Abrams And Chris Rock

Kevin Jagernauth — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 15:50:00 GMT

The Tribeca Film Festival has been host to some great conversations this year (check out the hour long talk with Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo), and one of the most surprising pairings saw J.J. Abrams and Chris Rock brought together for a wide-ranging discussion. While Abrams' comments about the similarities between "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope," as well as his tease about Rey's parentage, have been widely reported, that was just a small taste of what he touched upon with Rock.

Throughout their conversation, Abrams was candid about his various missteps over the years, and once again fessed up that on "Star Trek Into Darkness," he went overboard with the lens flare.

READ MORE: Tribeca Review: Tom Tykwer's 'A Hologram For The King' Starring Tom Hanks

“I’m over that,” he said of the technique. “For a period of time, on ‘Star Trek,’ there was this idea we had that the future was so bright that it just couldn’t be contained. I overdid it, then I went further, and then on the second ‘Star Trek’ movie I went nuts. We all make mistakes. Mine were with light. We literally had flashlights. The flares weren’t put in in post. We had these flashlights and we aimed them right at the lens.”

And while you might think the super busy filmmaker could hardly have time to watch TV, he shouts out two shows in particular — "Transparent" and "Togetherness."

“I think it is just an incredible show and there’s a specific tone and cast, and I think Jeffrey Tambor, they’re all amazing I think in the show.” he said, adding: “I’ve loved 'Togetherness.' The Duplass brothers, by the way, are involved in both those shows in some way, and they’re amazing.”

The talk even took the turn toward the serious, with Abrams sharing his observations of sexism in the industry when it came to casting Jennifer Garner in "Alias."

“My wife said, ‘You’ve got to write something for her, she’s got such a spark,” he said. “So I wrote 'Alias' for her. She came in and nailed it and was amazing. And someone at the network was like, ‘I don’t know — is she hot enough?’”

Sit back and dive into the full conversation below.

Watch: 62-Minute Tribeca Talk With Joss Whedon & Mark Ruffalo

Edward Davis — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 20:05:00 GMT

"It's not too late to recast — you know I have Joaquin Phoenix on speed dial,” Mark Ruffalo would say at the end of each day to director Joss Whedon early into production on “The Avengers.” And reunited for a conversation at the Tribeca Film Festival, it was that kind of talk: loose and fun, but also addressing seriously their craft, methods, history and more.

As the man behind "Firefly," "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," "Cabin In The Woods," and more, it may not surprise you that Whedon has little interest in doing a straight drama.

“I’m always doing something large and dire in my scripts and in my ideas,” Whedon said. “It’s always genre. There’s always some big concept I can build off of. The world is often threatened or the lives of people. It’s not very Sundance-y. Nobody’s going to go on a road trip and talk about family. Unless it’s an evil road trip.”

READ MORE: Watch: Joss Whedon On Leaving Marvel, "Complicated Response" To 'Avengers: Age Of Ultron,' & More

And while you might point to "Much Ado About Nothing" as evidence of Whedon going indie, he cites the Bard as a long-standing influence on his work. “There’s no way that Stan Lee and those guys weren’t influenced. Shakespeare, he’s everywhere. He has invented a lot of the structures and rhythms that we understand and that we’ve built off of,” he said. “Shakespeare was like, let’s take this grand spectacle of theater, which is about kings and gods and fairies, and let’s bring this down to earth. Let’s humanize this and tell stories about ourselves and pretend that they’re kings and queens.”

Of course, it wasn’t always smooth sailing for Whedon. He admitted in the talk that his negative, self-critical comments about “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” created an unfair narrative that followed the film and didn’t help it. But he's dusted himself off and is now working on something new, but isn't quite ready to reveal what it is just yet — though he teases it brought him to literal tears.

“I wrote all the way through to the end of the movie and was crying, in public,” he said. “The restaurant closed. The valet guy came to me and then just turned around and went the other way. And I don’t like to make a spectacle of myself, but I had to take off my shirt and blow my nose into it because they had taken away all the napkins. I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t stop crying, and then I got in a car — luckily somebody else was driving — and kept crying for about 20 more minutes.”

Whedon and Ruffalo also talked about the troubled 1997 sci-fi sequel “Alien: Resurrection" which the director wrote, the aforementioned 'Age Of Ultron,' and much more. Watch below.

Browse through all our coverage of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival by clicking here.

How 'Holidays' Producer John Hegeman Finally Got His Clever Horror Anthology Feature Made After a Decade

Kristy Puchko — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 19:48:11 GMT

Be it through producing, acquisition or marketing, John Hegeman has had a hand in such genre-defining horror films as "The Blair Witch Project," "Saw," and "Silence of the Lambs." After decades in the bizarre business of scary cinema, he's finally brought forth his personal passion project, the anthology horror offering "Holidays."

Making its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival as part of the Midnight slate, "Holidays" serves up eight disturbing vignettes, each celebrating a different holiday with a unique tale of terror. It's an idea Hegeman has been pursuing for a decade, and has made real with the contributions of up-and-coming directors like Sarah Adina Smith ("The Midnight Swim"), Adam Egypt Mortimer ("Some Kind Of Hate") and Nicholas McCarthy ("The Pact") as well as more storied helmers like Scott Stewart ("Legion," "Priest") and Kevin Smith ("Red State," "Tusk").

READ MORE: Tribeca Review: 'Holidays' Is A Seasonal Horror Anthology That Thrives From Energy of Depraved Directors

Indiewire sat down with Hegeman to discuss his career, his attraction to horror, and all the things that makes "Holidays" so unique.

You've worked in aspects of marketing and producing and acquisition–

Yup, marketing, producing, acquisitions. They're all the same.

How are they all the same?

It's all sort of on this level of connecting to the material, whether you're producing something, acquiring something that's already finished, or whether you're marketing. The key is trying on the most visceral level to a core and understand what that movie's trying to be, and then understand the audience for it. So whether you're the producer making the movie, you're acquiring a movie that's already made or you're marketing the movie that's been made, really it's all still the same.

Like if someone asked me to produce a romantic comedy, it would probably be the worst thing in the world because from the start point I would never connect to the material. I think that's the key. For me, I connect to something on a visceral level, and after that it's just like, "What step are you trying to do? Are you trying to make it? Are you trying find it? Are you trying to share it with an audience that will engage with it?"

How did "Holidays" come together?

I've been trying to do it for about ten years. I made a movie about fifteen years ago called "Darkness Falls" about the tooth fairy. And the thought there was, "Let's put a dark turn on one of the most benevolent characters that exists." I always wanted to do short form, but back then it was more (considered) a development tool. With the digital world that we live in and people consuming short film entertainment as much as they do, it's just so much more acceptable now. A movie doesn't have to be 90 minutes. It can be five minutes. It can be ten minutes. And that's this huge opportunity for filmmakers in general.

So, I think what happened was when the first "V/H/S" came out a couple of years ago, and then the second ("V/H/S/2"), and then "ABCs of Death," I think it created an acceptability of the anthology subgenre of horror. It took that long to get talent excited about it and then get financiers excited about it.

I couldn't do this five years ago, two years ago. It was actually still hard as it is. You still had to talk people into it a little bit, not the filmmakers, more the distributors or the people had to put up money. Whenever you're doing something different than the norm, there's a level of trepidation with anyone that wants to support that because of the fear of failure.

Did you approach the writers and directors with the holiday you wanted them to tackle or did they get to pick?

I identified 32 holidays that I think are ripe for a dark spin version. I took that list and culled it down to 12. And then, you let the filmmakers choose which ones they wanted. We only wanted to make 8. We were hoping there wouldn't be too much overlap of the directors wanting to do the same holidays. We wanted to make sure whatever we got felt pretty spread out in the calendar year, so it wasn't all compressed in one quarter. So it would allow the audience to take this crazy journey throughout the year and makes little stops in each holiday.

How did you decide which directors to bring in on "Holidays"?

About two years ago when were serious about "Okay, we're going to make this," there were just a bunch of films I was watching from young filmmakers that I was blown away with. Sarah Adina Smith make "Midnight Swim," and (Dennis) Widmyer and (Kevin) Kolsch who did "Starry Eyes." There were others too, who I just watched their movies and thought, "Man, these are unique voices. I got to work with these guys."

Some of the directors I already knew. Others we approached because I thought their work was just fantastic. And then others came from our relationship with XYZ Films, who is our foreign sales agent as well as producer on the movie.

We do have Kevin Smith on the one hand, who is very established. And then you have someone like Sarah, whose made one movie is on her way to her second. So, it's a nice mixture of voices, both in what they've done in the past and what they're about. We wanted to have a nice eclectic feel to it. And also we looked for directors who are – I don't want to say "cerebral" because that's not the right word – but we didn't just go for shock and exploitation. There's some clever, sharp filmmakers out there and we were able to get a few of them to work with us.

"Holidays" folds in allusions to iconic horror movies like "Carrie" and "Rosemary's Baby." Were these kind of creepy Easter Eggs something you encouraged?

No. Honestly, these people has just a love affair with the genre in general. All of them paid homage to different movies in their favorites, but we didn't encourage anything at all except for them to be as creative as they wanted to be.

With the critical acclaim for movies like "The Babadook," "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" and "The Witch," there's been a backlash from some horror fans claiming these aren't horror movies. First of all, I'm curious if you consider art house horror a viable form of horror, and why do you think the genre is questioned on this level?

Jealousy. It is! It's ridiculous. "Babadook" is one of the best movies in the last decade. "The Witch" that just came out is an awesome movie. A long time ago I released a little movie that we picked out of Sundance called "The Blair Witch Project." That was an art movie. It opened up at the Angelika, downtown Manhattan.

There's all different types of horror. I think that for one group to sort of be divisive on horror…I don't think anyone should be looking down or saying "That's not horror." If you get a visceral reaction that upsets you and scares you, where does it matter what you're seeing it in? Or how slow or how fast or how gory or how cerebral it is? If it's connecting with you in that way, it's horror.

The flipside to that something I've seen a lot as a horror fan, where people who don't like horror movies will try to claim that critically heralded horror movies are not really horror.

That's because they don't want to say that they actually likes the movie if it's horror. There's people that are like, "I hate horror." And then they get turned around and they see something that's unbelievable and they're like, "That's great." I think that's why they came up with the term "psychological thriller," right? They didn't want to say it's horror. I think if you enjoy something because it gets you that unsettled feeling, it's horror. No one owns the definition of horror. So if they're out there saying, "That's not horror because it's good," I don't know. I think they should go watch comedies.

"Holidays" taps into a common horror theme of people – most often women – being punished for sex or sexual desire. Why do you feel that is such a popular trope within the genre?

(Long pause.) In a way, I think it's not just in horror. I think it's at different levels presented in a way in every single form of entertainment, and almost life. It's just the way society is. I think it's going to become less and less believable as a trope as we continue to evolve as a society…I don't know why, but scared dumb girls looking distressed on posters and trailers have sold horror for the last forty years. I think the world's a lot different now. I think even in our movies there's the scope of how characters are portrayed. I hope we didn't fall into that very old-fashioned traditional horror trope in any way.

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As you pointed out, it's often a female protagonist being tormented. But horror is a genre – like most of film frankly – dominated by male directors. As someone who is worked in horror for years, are you seeing a shift in that at all?

Yes, I do. I think Sarah Adina Smith (who directs "Holidays" Mother's Day segment) is a perfect example of an unbelievably strong director who happens to be female. When we did it, it's not like we thought, "Let's watch a movie that a female horror director directed." It was more about this movie that I had seen, and it was amazing. The same thing with "The Babadook."

I just think in general the movie business follows a lot of other parts of society. It probably trails them a lot. I think women are much more accepted CEOs and everything else, and finally in horror women are getting chance to present themselves as strong individuals voices. I personally don't think anyone in the horror world right now would say, "Oh they're a good director, but they're a guy or girl or whatever."

I do think it's changing. I think it's changing rapidly. And it started I think about two years ago or three years ago. But right now, there's no, "Oh, you're a girl and you direct horror?"

"Holidays" premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

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