Tribeca: "Glass Chin," A Glossy Neo-Noir

Here's Diana with our final Tribeca Film Festival 2014 review

It’s a chilly, damp night in a small urban city. On a nightly jog, a sweatpant-outfitted man and his dog trudge and bound respectively through the empty streets, with rain-drizzled lampposts to light the way and Laura nyro’s “Gonna take a miracle” playing to set the mood (both diegetic and nondiegetic). The pair slow down at a red-lit alleyway and stop at a hole-in-the-wall bakery. After a breather on the song’s bridge “It’s gonna take a miracle, yes, it’s gonna take a miracle,” the man takes out his earbuds to order a pain au chocolat. The shop owner tells him it’s the last one on the house and the jogger assures him that he’ll pay up soon. He is a man on-the-outs, not truly desperate but not nearly satisfied with the cards he was dealt and picked up along the way.

Bud “The Saint” Gordon (Corey Stoll) is a former professional boxer, whose post-retirement restaurant flopped and who didn’t have a Plan C lined up. [More...]

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April Showers: The Paperboy

waterworks at eleven, here’s Andrew with a brief one

Would anyone be willing to stand with me when I declare The Paperboy to be the best thing Lee Daniels has done? The movie is undeniably crazy, out-of-control, off-centre, you name it. But, it’s this very tendency for excessiveness and divergent tones that makes it such a fine representation of Daniels’ skills as a filmmaker. The Paperboy, from its most hilarious moments to its most obscene, is completely a Lee Daniels in the best way possible. It has as many important things to say about race and social constructs in its era as much as Precious or The Butler but uses pulp, the ridiculous and even the improbable to tell its story. Sometimes with pit-stops at randomness for the hell of it.

Case in point, this evening’s shower about midway through the film. Important moment of character development, or just a chance for a fun, rainy dance with Zac Efron in underpants? You decide.

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Mean Girls (2004)

For this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, we're reairing one of the earliest of episodes. We invited new readers to select a shot if they weren't around in 2010 when "Best Shot" first began so this survey of Mean Girls best shots, as chosen by each participant (click on the link for the corresponding article) is an fusion of old and new pieces 'round the web. Here's my choice:

And what I originally wrote:

The camera tracks Regina through the hallway after she's hatched her brilliant revenge plan. She's regained control of the screaming rage we saw in the prior scene and she's just gliding through the hallways, with a neat hint of actressy athleticism. Gone is the sex kitten and in her place the marathon runner. 

The shot functions like a reverse Hansel & Gretel; the witch leaving a bread crumb trail. In the bookend shot that follows the camera is still moving, gliding away from her, but the witch isn't. Witness her hungry self-satisfaction while she watches the children gobble up the crumbs; They're already baking in her oven!

So, that's my choice. What's yours?

14 MORE BEST SHOT(s)
as chosen by 16 of the greatest people you'll ever know
click on the image for the corresponding article 

a blink-and-you-miss moment in the film... absolutely hilarious."
-Sorta That Guy 

The best performance of her career..."
-Coco Hits New York 

The conspicuous gap between them...
-Antagony & Ecstasy

No shot in the film makes me bust out loud laughing more..."
-Best Shot in the Dark 

I love to think about Regina...
-Intifada 

Each of "The Plastics" has great lines, but Karen takes the cake"
- Dean A 

This could not be more on point."
- I Want to Believe 

...captured the insanely fun spirit of the film but also encapsulated the plot really well."
- Awkward is What We Aim For 

And she's not just maintaining a place among North Shore royalty, she's threatening to take over..."
-Cinemamelie

She even describes herself as 'a woman possessed'..."
-Film Actually 

...a wicked Madonna from a Renaissance tableaux."
-Movies Kick Ass

The queen of the jungle..."
-The Entertainment Junkie 

Daniel Franzese, far and away the funniest part of Mean Girls"
- Serious Film 

Her flock who've come to worship..."
-Musings and Stuff 

 

My pick for Best Shot has actually accrued more meaning over time....
-Dancin Dan

 

Oh you girls keep me young I luv ya..."
-The Film's The Thing 

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Next on 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' - JOIN US
05/06 Altman's strange / wonderful Three Women (1977) with Shelley Duvall & Sissy Spacek
05/13 Antontioni's mod classic Blow-Up (1965) Vanessa Redgrave and a mysterious murder 
05/20 Choose any or multiple Batman films. Pick and post your fav shot for his 75th

Tribeca: The Best Film I Saw Was "Bad Hair" (and Other Oscar-Related Thoughts)

I hope this is Venezuela's Oscar entry!

This article is an expansion of a brief piece originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

The best of the LGBT lot at Tribeca this year was surely Love is Strange, which I reviewed at Sundance. I didn't see all the gay titles but that's a safe assumption since Ira Sach's drama about newly married seniors (John Lithgow & Alfred Molina) who lose their longtime apartment is already feeling like a future classic. But though the other titles I took in were lacking, Mariana Rondón's spanish-language Bad Hair is a worthy runner-up to Love is Strange's crown.

The film opens next month in Venezuela and it would be a worthy Oscar submission from that country which has yet to secure a Best Foreign Language Film nomination. A submission is certainly possible as Rondón was submitted once before for Postcards from Leningrad in 2007 and most countries tend to favor directors they've previously embraced with submissions. [More...]

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Tribeca: How To Recover From A Breakup, Indie Style

Diana reporting on a thematic trend at Tribeca

Relationships end. Goodbyes, no matter how “amiable,” are awkward and feelings are hurt or mangled. We have all been there and survived. Like the worst of hangovers, there are still no sure-fire recovery cures and you’re frequently left with a ringing noise in your ears, whether it’s nagging self-doubts or ongoing pangs of heartache. Some turn to binges and purges (booze, food, etc.), others break out the self-help books and get a new haircut, and a very small few release public statements involving a new buzz phrase (looking at you, Gwyneth). At this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, many films tackled the issue head-on and their protagonists dealt with heartbreak to varying degrees of success, involving alcohol, rebounds, and even some zombie beavers (and we’re not talking about undead sex lives).

four movies after the jump

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