Tribeca 2022: "The Lost Weekend: A Love Story"

by Jason Adams

Time is a funny thing, slippery. An elastic band behind our eyes that can stretch as far back as we can remember before snapping us back to here and now -- sometimes gentle, sometimes with centrifugal violence like a start. There's no logic to what lingers longer than it lasted, and to what whooshes by -- the best moments a single glance etched in stone, while the worst nightly nestled beside us. To John Lennon his eighteen month romance with his personal assistant May Pang circa a 1973 split with Yoko Ono he called it "a lost weekend" -- meanwhile for Peng here she is fifty years later recounting the experience for the documentary called The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, premiering this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival.

That slippery sense of time weaves its way through directors Eve Brandstein, Richard Kaufman, and Stuart Samuels' fascinating ninety-seven-minute doc...

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Tribeca: Jon Hamm Gets a ‘Corner Office’

By Abe Friedtanzer

 

Offices in movies and television are typically represented in a stark and uninteresting way, where joy goes to die and monotony rules each boring day (even in comedies like The Office). That’s certainly the case in Corner Office, a Tribeca entry that casts Jon Hamm as Orson, a new employee who is intent on following a carefully-set schedule that ensures no time for shenanigans and nothing more than a five-minute break each hour for any sort of non-work activity. While Orson is dull and has no ability to read social cues, he too finds his time in the office draining, until he discovers a door to a large and old-fashioned office that no one else seems to know exists…

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Judy Garland @ 100: "I Could Go On Singing"

Team Experience revisited nine Judy Garland movies for her Centennial. Here's Nick Taylor on her final film.

Judy’s last film was always going to be an event. Released six years before her death to positive reviews but poor box office, I Could Go On Singing plays like a morbid echo of her final months. But for all the film’s metatextual readings into Garland’s life and career, this isn’t a self-conscious reckoning or farewell from a beloved star to her audience. Her regular talk of staging yet another comeback, even after her brief and very publically heralded casting in Valley of the Dolls before being canned by the studio, gives I Could Go On Singing an aura of lost time and unrealized potential heavier than the film’s bittersweet ending implies. I Could Go On Singing leaves Garland as alone as she’s ever been but still singing with all her heart, and it’s a shame she never got to strut it for the camera again...

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Fire Island (2022)

by Nathaniel R

It did occur to us that a visual series stopping to center on a new rom-com would be a risk. The romantic comedy genre doesn't tend to scream "visually interesting!" (though obviously it can be). But we knew most of our readership would be watching so... why not? As it turns out, though, with a true filmmaker at the helm (Andrew Ahn of Spa Night and Driveways) it wasn't a risk at all as a Best Shot discussion. Fire Island isn't just funny -- the "Heads Up" game scene snapped above is only one of many hilarious bits in the excellent screenplay from Joel Kim Booster -- but a real movie-movie, too. In short, it's one of the year's best films and we are blessed to have it.

While you'd probably prefer a "ten funniest moments" or "five sexiest guys" list -- hey, we can do those too if this gets engagement -- the visuals are more than worth discussing! Conversations about visual storytelling are ironically in short supply on the internet whenever movies are discussed. The focus is always on acting/casting and screenplay/messaging. And there's a LOT to say about those of course but the internet is already handling that so we're here to talk visuals. Here are the three overall smartest choices director Andrew Ahn,  cinematographer Felipe Vara de Rey, and editor Brian A Kates make in telling this particular story...

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Review: "Jurassic World Dominion" Proves Franchise Charms Are Near Extinct

By: Christopher James

The wonderful teaser moment of a dinosaur walking through a drive-in... not in the final film.All that’s old is new again at movie theaters this summer. However, not all nostalgia plays are created equal. Top Gun: Maverick has successfully delighted audiences old and young, marrying nostalgia with strong storytelling and jaw-dropping stunts. The final chapter of the new Jurassic World trilogy tries to do the same hat trick. Bringing back the original trio - Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum - checks off the 90s nostalgia box. A doomsday plot around terrifying dino-locusts eating crops acts as the great thread bringing all our characters together. Finally, is there any spectacle quite as jaw-dropping as dinosaurs?

Unfortunately, all these elements sloppily come together in this letdown of a final chapter. Though it comes alive in fits and starts, the result is far less than the sum of its parts...

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