Another AFI Wrap: I Carry You With Me, One Night in Miami, etc.

by Christopher James

The gay romantic drama "I Carry You With Me"

AFI Fest has always been one of my favorite times of the year. As an LA-based critic, it’s my chance to catch up on all the big movies that premiered at Venice, TIFF, NYFF and Telluride. Some of my personal favorite memories from attending the festival the last five years include watching Roma at the legendary Egyptian Theater and attending an afterparty for Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool with Annette Bening and Jamie Bell in attendance. With the pandemic, a lot of the pomp and circumstance has been taken out of the film festival. That absence has been replaced by greater accessibility to some of the great films chosen for the festival. No more rushing across Hollywood Boulevard to get in line for a third film in a day. All the bingeing can be done from the comfort of my couch. Many film festivals have found a positive way to adapt to the pandemic.

Chris’ 'Jury-of-One' Top Five AFI Fest 2020 Films...

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AFI Fest: (Second Opinion) "Nine Days"

AFI FEST (Virtual) Presented by Audi runs October 15th-22nd.

by Abe Friedtanzer 

The meaning of life is something many have sought to define over the course of history. One of the central problems with making an argument for what life means is that it’s only possible to observe it while living. It would theoretically be easier to appreciate what life offers in some sort of separate space or place. That’s part of the premise of Nine Days, which made its world premiere back in January at Sundance and is now screening at AFI Fest.

Will (Winston Duke) is a man who was once alive. Now, he sits in a house surrounded by nothing in a desert watching old-fashioned TV screens and rewinding VHS tapes. He is watching people’s lives, apparently recorded from their perspectives...

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Sundance Review: Nine Days

by Murtada Elfadl

There’s a very fine between profound and superficial, what is genuinely revelatory and what is obvious. It’s a line that writer / director Edson Oda straddles in his sweeping drama about the meaning of life (yep, I know), Nine Days. Unfortunately to these eyes he ultimately falls on obvious and unearned, while asking the audience to believe it’s profound.  

Oda pulls us into a world wholly conceived by him. A man named Will (Winston Duke) who used to be alive now watches VHS tapes of people going on about their lives. When someone dies he gets nine days to interview unliving souls for the vacant position of a new life on earth...

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