The Reeler on Spout

Under discussion:

Numb  (2008)

In Search of a Midnight Kiss  (2008)

Autism: The Musical  (2008)

Take the Bridge  (2007)

A Slim Peace  (2007)

Good Time Max  (2007)

Matthew Perry, smoked out in Harris Goldberg's Numb

By Michelle Orange

From this afternoon’s random sampling one might deduce that, like slime mold, all the sad young men have picked up and headed for the water. California, to be exact. Numb, Good Time Max, and In Search of a Midnight Kiss all seemed to have a bizarre number of things in common: dysfunctional men who move to Los Angeles; mothers who are either cold bitches or fare-thee-well featherweight and fathers who are absent or oblivious; a woman who’s going to fix everything (OK, only two of them have that); and a key character reference made via masturbation (one wants to jerk off on a bunny rabbit, another to his roommate’s girlfriend and the third to a three-second snippet of porn on a loop). I’m not even sure what all of this means, but it was too obvious not to note. Especially that last one. I only know one guy in LA, and I feel like I should give him a call. Maybe I can tell him about slime mold, it’s about the grossest thing I’ve ever heard.

I have to admit I have always had a soft spot for Matthew Perry, and though I mourn the loss of his chin, I still find him a very appealing comic presence, one fizzing with the uncomfortable zetz of darker terrain. In Numb, a Canadian film directed and written by Harris Goldberg, Perry jumps at the chance to go deep, though the film keeps some softball humor at the ready. Perry plays Hudson, a moderately depressed screenwriter who (over)smokes a joint and is sent over the edge into what is diagnosed as “depersonalization disorder.” Desperate not just to feel like himself again but to feel anything at all, Hudson seeks out a variety of treatments, and a host of drugs, running the shrink circuit like the unholy gauntlet the filmmaker apparently believes it to be.

When Hudson meets Sara (Tori Amos look-alike Lynn Collins), the need to get better becomes imperative; they trade flaws (he compares her to a lion, she insists he looks like an owl), watch the golf channel and tiptoe around what is clearly Hudson’s crippling issue. The problem (other than the fact that if Perry resembles anything it is -– as I have maintained for over a decade –- Beaker from The Muppet Show) is not the warm zip of chemistry between the two leads, but the unsteady handling of what is being presented as a serious problem with serious ramifications on the one hand but possibly just a bad patch on the other. Goldberg works in some really funny moments with Kevin Pollak as Hudson’s writing partner, and a hilarious turn by Mary Steenburgen, and Hudson’s frustration, which leads him to extremes in behavior to feel normal, is credible, but the resolution seems to undercut Hudson’s struggle to have his suffering taken seriously. It felt too easy to me, possibly because I began to root for the film, which musters a fair share of charm nevertheless.

Charm is the operative trait of the title character in James Franco’s Good Time Max, despite said character’s frequent protestations of genius. Max (played by Franco) and his brother Adam (Matt Bell) are both bright boys, though Max is a natural, while Adam sweats for every half a grade. For some reason (cold bitch mother + oblivious father?) wunderkind Max turns cokehead almost out of middle school, and when his giant brain fails to keep him from getting in a shitload of trouble, he tags along with his brother, who is heading to LA for a medical residency.

The fantastically handsome Franco, in a pair of look-at-my-nerdy-glasses (Adam wears them too), still has that jumpy, obstinate teenaged quality that has recently mellowed in its last best incarnation, Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s fun to watch the new leaf Max try to hold down an engineering job, and the office scenes are unexpectedly fresh even in their staleness. “Drugs are bad,” Max says, when propositioned by a co-worker. Well, yeah. What else? In due time, however, Max is back on the crack (or rather, the brain-eating crystal meth), and though we are meant to feel a greater sense of tragedy in Max betraying his brother’s trust, their bond is not established strongly enough to allow for it. Franco is clearly an involved, energetic director, though he does fall prey to the young director’s penchant for rock-and-roll, druggy-wuggy sequences (a couple of them find the twittering high of a drug haze very well-observed). The performances and direction are strong, but the material doesn’t quite measure up; just when you are beginning to think the film is going nowhere and taking a long time to get there (drugs are bad), Franco has Dr. Adam and Max do a switcheroo that is an even harder pill to swallow (ahem) than what has come before.

Of these three films, none show off Los Angeles to the (haunting) extent of In Search of a Midnight Kiss, a film I was ready to lose my patience with early on, but that settled into a less congratulatory, astringent tone as it progressed. Writer/director Alex Holdridge’s obvious love/hate relationship with LA comes through in the creepy, beautiful and creepily beautiful exteriors shot in Woody Allen black and white; the script is more Before Sunset, minus the charm and the rapport. But that seems to be the point, at least initially, for Wilson (Scoot McNairy), another down and out screenwriter bonging the days away in his shitty flat. On New Year’s Eve he is goaded into putting an ad on Craigslist for a date, and a shrill, psycho actress takes him up on it. The two are all corners for a while, walking and driving through LA and exchanging deadly trite dialogue and wondering who will be first to beg off; romance, it seems, is dead, and Wilson in particular is prone, even in his loneliness, to move straight to vulgarity. As the night goes on (will they make it to midnight, is the question), Holdridge begins to try to cash emotional checks that are unsigned, but the actors seem to get their footing as the material warms up -– perhaps just as two strangers might. I enjoyed seeing that strange, picture postcard LA light subverted in the black-and-white photography, and the conclusion does manage a rather nice melancholy high.

If the idea behind Yael Luttwak’s documentary, A Slim Peace, seems outrageous –- uniting Arab and Jewish in Jerusalem in the common goal of a smaller ass –- the execution is nuanced with wit and passion. Luttwak convinced Israelis, Palestinian, a Bedouin and two settlers (some of the women were religious and some not) to join a sort of weight watchers group, though her disingenuous claim that the group will not be political is immediately questioned by the Bedouin woman, who agrees to it nevertheless. Those there women all live quite close to each other, some of the Jews claim to have never met an Arab, and vice versa. In the run-up to and aftermath of the Palestinian election, which saw Hamas put into power, tensions ranneth over the ostensible chatter about fiber grams and calorie counts. Luttwak’s subjects are staunch women, fascinating subjects all, especially when, after the group disbands, most of them acknowledge that their superficial commonalities will never bridge their deep divides. This is a rare look at how life is lived by the middle class in this region; the native Israeli woman was surprised to find that she had more in common with the Arab from Ramallah than the humorless American Super-Jews from the settlement, and you might be too.

Autism: The Musical (yikes) is Tricia Regan’s documentary about one woman’s vision for a host of autistic children, including her son, to put together a musical performance, against the odds. Following five children from their homes to the rehearsal space and back again, the faces of the parents are uniformly heartbreaking, but even the slightest sign of a child emerging from the locked in chambers of their brain provides immense relief. The statistics on autism are beyond alarming, and hopefully works like this (flashy title and all) will bring attention to the ramifications not just for the families but society at large.

In Take the Bridge,Sergio Castilla’s intent debut, four young people attempt suicide in New York’s highly Dominican Washington Heights neighborhood, and are rather crudely united at the hospital. Unlikely friendships form, along with alliances in the struggle for a better life. The blocky dialogue of what seem to be reenactments (the film is narrated by a Dominican woman who shows up intermittently as a talking [gossiping] head in black and white) work against the game cast and heartfelt look at the fight to get out of (or fit back into) the hood.

Discuss these and other Tribeca titles at Spout:

Numb
Good Time Max
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
A Slim Peace
Autism: The Musical
Take the Bridge

Under discussion:

Live!  (2008)

Earlier in the festival we had the chance to check in with Eva Mendes, the star and co-producer of the scathing television satire Live! The narrative directing debut of Oscar-winning documentarian Bill Guttentag, Live! traces the efforts of a bloodthirsty network executive (played by Mendes) who seeks to up the reality-TV stakes by broadcasting a Russian roulette program. Mendes spoke with us about transitioning as a producer, the dearth of good women's roles in Hollywood and how to use the phrase "Red Bull" as a verb.

Watch this and more Tribeca coverage on ReelerTV
 

Discuss Live! and other Tribeca titles at Spout.

Under discussion:

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man  (2008)

Havoc 2: Normal Adolescent Behavior  (2007)

Watching the Detectives  (2007)

The Optimists  (2006)

The namesake of Stephen Kijak's documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

By Vadim Rizov

If you're not a music geek and the thought of watching Jarvis Cocker issue a string of bons mots doesn't get you all hot and bothered -– especially if you don’t know or care who Jarvis Cocker actually is -- you might as well skip down to the rest of the reviews. Like most music docs, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man preaches to the converted, rolling out a seemingly incongruous coalition of musicians and music geeks united only to praise its subject as one of the most influential. Musicians. Ever. Other highlights of the film include: listening to excerpts from Walker's songs; watching goofy screen-saver-ish illustrations accompany Walker’s songs; and listening to Walker talk about his songs. In other words, pure cinematic value disassociated from the subject is at a low premium, although the doc is as well-assembled as these things get.

Director Stephen Kijak's main task is to locate the roots of Walker's formerly deep-buried sadness and weirdness in his pop-star days with the Walker Brothers, and he succeeds admirably. There's no messing about in the interviews with said admiring subjects (who include Cocker, Damon Albarn, David Bowie, and, uh, Sting), just quotable bits, and the archival footage is all on point. Kijak moves swiftly from Walker's early days with the Walker Brothers to his first interpretations of Jacques Brel, making him look positively foolish by intercutting between footage of a sweaty, consumptive-looking Brel contrasted with Walker at his '60s sex idol prime singing the same songs. But the heart of the documentary –- the entire latter half -- is about the last 12 years and the ultra-controversial Tilt and The Drift (the latter of which my sophomore year roommate claimed to dislike because it was just too frightening). To ease the transition, Kijak offers generous strong excerpts with goofy CGI that seems like a third-grader's attempt to imitate 2001. This actually turns out to be a good idea, forcing viewers to actually focus on the songs rather than try to process visuals at the same time. I can’t recommend the film to all but the most hardened music geeks, but I had more fun watching it than the vast majority of the slate.

Watching The Detectives is as inoffensively middling as would-be quirky indie comedies get, but its premise is extra-special-annoying. Video store clerk/owner Neil (Cillian Murphy) is the archetypal stunted geek, obsessively watching movies and passing time with a bunch of equally amiable stunted co-workers. Enter Violet (Lucy Liu), a cute Asian hipster who comes into the store and wins Neil over with her apparent hostility. Neil and Violet become a couple, but he can never get comfortable. Violet is a role-player (non video-game/sexual category) who doesn't watch movies, sports or generally engage in any kind of passive activity; instead, she pranks her boyfriend(s). Her less innocuous pranks drive Neil to the brink of insanity, but of course the audience is supposed to find it endearing and fascinating, and the inevitable happy ending awaits.

Even by the low standards set by Natalie Portman in Garden State, Violet doesn't just strain credulity, she breaks it. Her stunts play like particularly cruel episodes of Punk'D, like when she sends in two of her friends dressed as cops to interrogate and threaten to rape Neil. If the romance made up the main plotline, the movie would be tolerable; at least it has a decent feel for what it's like to work in the kind of video store that's perpetually about to go under and seems to be populated by the weirdest film geeks in the world. (At one point, Neil's friends have a long argument about the merits of Japanese snuff anime vs. Korean torture anime.) No, what's really annoying is that Violet's frustration with Neil's film obsession turns into a long lesson about how you should stop watching so many movies and just "live life," whatever that means. (Like all magical indie pixie girls, Violet appears to have no job or commitments to detain her from constant game-playing.) Why in the world would you make a movie about how you should be less passive and watch fewer movies? And for the love of God, why would you screen it at a film festival, let alone host a press screening? I mean, Jesus.

After viewing more than three dozen movies, I sat down to carefully examine Beth Schacter’s Normal Adolescent Behavior and provide the same reasoned, measured judgments as for the last 41. Ha. Ninety minutes later, I still didn’t know what it was about. I can’t think of a way to summarize it without making it sound ridiculous, so: This is a film about six BFFs who have group sex. Repeat: not about a casual group of friends who hook up on and off, but who deliberately exclude everyone not in their club (three guys, three girls) and copulate exclusively with each other. Their reasoning actually makes a lot of sense: They’re not interested a world of drunkenly hooking up at parties and scheming for casual sex. Or, as Wendy (Amber Tamblyn) puts it, avoiding “texting some guy who’s gonna *** on my shirt.” Wendy loses the faith fast, though, falling for new jock in town Sean (Ashton Holmes) and getting torn between the potential disillusionments and pitfalls of monogamy and sticking with her friends.

In a weird climate that simultaneously markets and condemns teen sex depending on who’s watching, most films that try to take the subject seriously lapse into hysteria and unintentional camp. Which is to say that Normal Adolescent Behavior isn’t Thirteen Pt. 2 –- it’s far too becalmed and boring for that -– but it doesn’t cohere tonally. Is it a satire of the modern teen world, where girls who want to have relationships that involve first kisses and the innocent holding of hands are reviled as unnatural? The title’s would-be irony points in that direction, but it ultimately seems like the group has a point -– that is, until Wendy asks Sean to spank her and he freaks out. So is the message that teenagers need to be more open-minded about sex and less scared of their own desires? No clue. The movie itself is dull, filmed in would-be artful long takes that enable thespian showboating, but the implications are fascinating, as with any film that tries to seriously address a semi-taboo. The premise is ludicrous, but trying to figure out if it’s a satire of what adults think kids are doing or just a metaphorical way of dealing with high school sex could keep you up all night.

If you were thinking that a Serbian film titled The Optimists might be ironic in its intentions, you would be correct. Goran Paskaljevic's omnibus is divided into five vignettes reflecting his view of humanity, and -- for reasons too complicated to delve into here -- his vision of us is summarized in a final image of a bunch of people wallowing in a filthy lake and covering their bodies with mud, trying to convince themselves that this will cure cancer. At first, Paskaljevic seems to be hedging his bets, mixing tepid satire with pieties; the second segment tries to depict a brutal rape and follow it up with a scathing depiction of how the rich perpetually screw over the poor. The result is -- not to be impolite –- is a little too heavy on the rape emphasis to succeed as satire and a little too smirky to be taken seriously.

Soon, though, Paskaljevic takes the leap from realism to sheer absurdity. The best episode concerns a traveling cardiologist called in to the farm of a pig slaughterer whose son is a compulsive killer of animals, so much so that he's been locked in the room. You haven't lived until you've seen a pre-pubescent child informing his dad, "I can take over the business for you. Don't worry, you can die." The Optimists is, to be sure, heavy-handed in its persistent emphasis on the gap between rich and poor, but it's bleakly assured in its jokes. Filmed in another tone, it might be insanely depressing; as it is, it's kind of bracing, if only 60 percent successful. Three out of five ain’t bad.

Takva: A Man's Fear of God has heavy-hitter Fatih Akin (director of Head-On) as a producer, but it's a non-starter. Every year, American films demonstrate repeatedly that anyone devoutly religious is a hypocrite at best, and probably some kind of rapist or murderer in the bargain. Takva's main achievement is to extend that characterization to Islam, giving us Muharrem (Erkan Can), a devout and celibate Muslim whose sinful dreams consist of regular wet dreams and near-rape fantasies. But it's not just Muharrem who's denying his own true nature: his religious sect adopts him as their go-to financial manager, sending him out to collect rent and balance the books. Of course, Muharrem soon goes crazy when he discovers that the sect is perfectly OK with leasing out spaces to non-religious afternoon drinkers but simultaneously not OK with placing their money in a bank, because the interest raised might be sinfully contaminated. Someday, someone will make a movie about people of faith who aren't terrible human beings and/or aren't driven insane. It will not be a smirkingly liberal indictment of the hypocrisy of religion (always a known given in this type of film). This is not that movie.

The Man From the Embassy is the rare movie that is so low-key it actually has no impact. Herbert Neumann (Burghart Klaußner) is a mid-level German bureaucrat wh works in the Georgian embassy. Herman is only half-dysfunctional by arthouse standards: He spends most of his evenings staring blankly at RPG games on his LCD projector, but he's also carrying on an affair with a married co-worker (Marika Giorbani). Still, not being completely sexless isn't enough for Herbert, who strikes up a friendship with 12-year-old Sashka (Lika Martinova) and puts her up at his place. Herbert seems to be interested in playing a benevolent paternal role with Sashka -- whose mom spends her days discussing how easy it is to turn tricks as a hooker -- but the world understandably assumes pedophilia is involved.

The real problem with this movie isn't its low-key mode, but the fact that Herbert acts in a completely implausible manner. Emotionally constricted movie characters are typically reticent in disclosing key information, but Herbert's refusal to simply explain why he's hanging out with a 12-year-old is beyond the pale. His friendship with Sashka steers admirably clear of cranky old man redeemed by cute child cliches -- neither half of the pair actually fits into that sub-genre -- but its hero's unnatural silence eventually incites active annoyance. Being victimized by a cruel and non-understanding world is one thing; being downright clueless and helpless is another.

Discuss these and other Tribeca titles at Spout:

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
Watching The Detectives
Normal Adolescent Behavior
The Optimists
A Man's Fear of God
The Man From The Embassy