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The Person I am When No One is Looking (2019)

Unrated

An exploration into the aching desire for fame in the age of social media, The Person I am When No One is Looking gets a boost from its lead actor (and director Kailee McGee) and its meta-humor.

The short film is narrated in voiceover by the person we’re watching as she directly addresses the audience watching her. Kailee’s eager for stardom and boasts of her social media following—which isn’t really that large, but larger enough to give her hope. The back of her car is filled with empty cans of Lacroix, of course, and parking violations, but she looks and plays the part of a star.

We sense that looking and playing that part is an essential component. Kailee tells us how she fakes injuries for attention and regales us of her arbitrary tattoos and keepsakes. It’s funny stuff because it’s played straight and delivered precisely in continuous voiceover. We began to wonder why the voiceover is necessary when the actor can just talk directly into the camera, but then she tells us she want her story narrated like a movie. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s funny.

We’re swept along on this journey as we meet her equally vapid half-siblings and best friend. There are glamorous photo shoots and dueling bloggers and selfies overlooking L.A. at sundown. And let’s pause to admire an abrupt dance interlude that’s ridiculous for the character, but an impressive feat by the actor. Our star just can’t get enough traction on social media. Maybe a short film shown at a film festival (the one she’s living and we’re watching) can do the trick.

The film is a marvel of editing from Rich Costales: slyly making us believe it’s as capricious as most mishmash social media editing, but there’s real skill behind what we’re watching. Note the jilted girl montage. Even as she’s bummed by rejection from her crush, Kailee can’t help but to goose her followers stats by adding adroit posing and music to the proceedings. It’s real-deal filmmaking posing as slapdash social media shenanigans.

Kailee McGee is superb at blurring the line between documentary and fiction in a town where it doesn’t matter. Her quick wit and excellent delivery turn The Person I am When No One is Looking from a creative exercises into an insightful critique of our lust for fame. There is no person when no one is looking, McGee’s performance suggests. In this day and age, she may have a point.

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

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Philophobia (2019)

Unrated

Fablemaze

Deep longing permeates nearly ever scene of Guy Davies’ new film Philophobia. And why wouldn’t it? The drama details the coming-of-age of an assortment of teenagers in a small town in the English countryside. It’s well-trodden material that we expect to veer into either sex comedy, feel-good love tale or unexpected tragedy. We get a bit of all of that, but Davies’ velvet-hammer touch amplifies a raw, naturalistic depiction of withering adolescence; well-rounded, stirring performances further elevate the proceedings.

As the school year wanes, we follow several kids awaiting summer. Some, more than others, are ripe to escape not just the school year, but the provincial, listless town that’s squeezing the life out of them.

Kai (Joshua Glenister) certainly seems to have a bright future. He’s a writer with burgeoning talent, despite his fears of pushing through his insecurities. Kai hangs with and gets high with Sammy and Megsy. Sammy (Charlie Frances) drives a milk truck and initially seems to balance his dreams and reality. Megsy (Jack Gouldbourne) is the stereotypical foulmouthed, loud-speaking, trouble-seeker who seems to exist to constantly plunge his friends into unnecessary situations. It’s a testament to Gouldbourne’s performance that Megsy ultimately escapes the archetype foisted upon him.

The boys make up the heart of the film. There’s not a misstep in their performances. It’s interesting that each of the boys is being raised by single mothers. There are adult male influences—good and bad—to be found, including a fed-up policeman and a writing teacher who practices tough love with Kai.

The three main protagonists plug into a wider group of peers who are strategizing their senior prank. Despite various characters moving in and out of scenes, Davies connects us to them (and to a broader sense of longing youths) with strong dialogue and by resisting pushing them beyond their unfocused immature existences.

Into the mix tumbles Grace (Kim Spearman), a beautiful, pensive, mysterious girl who lives directly across the street from Kai. Of course he peeks at her through her window as she undresses. But it’s not simply lust. For quite some time Kai has loved Grace from a distance. She’s smart enough to be aware of his desire and talents, and insecure enough to be entangled in a relationship with the monstrous Kenner. Older, bigger, braver and crueler than the high schoolers around him, Kenner tears through the film like a bull in a teashop, leaving most scenes full of broken china by the time he’s done. Alexander Lincoln plays him with virtually no outward redeeming qualities. His relationship with Grace is one of dominance; with the boys one of neck-stomping Alpha-male humiliation. There’s some sad, distant longing within him, but Kenner’s not going to let us anywhere near it.

One other character is a stag. The majestic creature, usually only seen by Kai, shows up fleetingly at key junctures. I didn’t completely buy the intent of the stag; it seemed more a setup for a late scene of tragedy than providing any real connective tissue to the post-adolescence milieu so well constructed.

Otherwise, the film takes the characters through their paces—there’s a love triangle; a sociopath about to boil over; a make-or-break final exam; a school prank that’s constantly in flux; and a reckoning to grow up for each of the protagonists. We observe the youths at house parties, packed around lunch tables, scattered in classrooms; hiding out on rooftops, frolicking at the lake. All the while, the dialogue and performances pull us to invest in these gatherings. Davies has an ear for dialogue. I especially liked Kai’s moments of poetic voiceovers that speak not only to his worldview, but his knack for spinning words. His speaks to an inner boy who knows there’s a world waiting for the man he will soon become … if he can hold things together long enough to make it out of his town. He carries a dictionary with words underlined and his own notes scribbled in the margins.

Suspense comes in the form of afternoon getaway in which Megsy’s goaded into bringing along his deceased brother’s rifle, and when a senior prank seems to take a dark turn. Davies allows each scene to defy expectations by tweaking them with humor. The Kai-Grace love story is complex in the subtext of abuse, abandonment and self-loathing, but affecting in the outward attempts of the lovers to connect. We see possible redemptions for each of them in their coupling. Spearman and Glenister are excellent in all scenes together. We get a couple of dark turns in the finale I suppose we should have seen coming, but that ultimately reaffirms love and friendship.

We consider one of Kai words “philophobia,” the fear of falling in love. Late in the film we realize especially Kai and Grace, but most of the character, are locked in place by fear. The film seems to speak to the specific period of our youth when we confront and/or retreat from encroaching adulthood, knowing—as all teens do—that a better life awaits outside of our familiar spaces. If only we can summon the means to take the plunge.

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

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In a New York Minute (2019)

Unrated

A separate but interlocking tripartite exploration of loves and losses of Chinese and Chinese-American women in the big city, In a New York Minute works best when it draws us into the lives of it desperate characters. The plots themselves are warmed-over bowls of American rom-com soup. Thankfully, each tale, roughly 25 minutes each, lends most of its time to the development of the women, not the plot. And the three main actresses are more than up to the challenges of engaging the audience and carrying their stories.

Amy (Amy Chang) is an admired city food editor unable to eat in the wake of a devastating breakup. She skulks about her small apartment, goes through the motions of her job, which is admittedly more difficult now that she pukes anytime she tries to eat. She gets an unexpected opportunity to act on food-related television series and an unexpected suitor in a charming but relentless coworker. Despite his overbearing nature, Peter actually helps nurse Amy back to her appetite. He soon proposes, and poor Amy is so adrift she neglects to reject the offer. Chang’s performance is palpable. Her hangdog  Amy is crushed on the inside and Chang effectively plays her as a woman barely keeping herself together.

In the second story we met Angel (Yi Liu). Actually, we’ve already met her as she crossed paths with Amy in the first story—we just didn’t realize it at the time. Angel is an actress and wife of a much older American, Howard (Erik Lochtefeld), who seems to regard his Chinese wife and her culture as fascinating diversions, but doesn’t implore much effort to actually understand her or it. He nods through conversations while hardly looking up from his books. Note a key scene when Howard’s children from his previous marriage visit for dinner. Angel all but disappears amid their discussions about Japanese culture and cuisine. Liu is masterful at presenting Angel’s quiet devastation. In China, Angel had built a reputation as an actress. In New York, acting is a humiliating slog that Howard encourages mainly as a means to give his wife something to do with her time. It’s not hard to image why Angel turned to an affair with the young, handsome David (Ludi Lin), a writer. The lovers have afternoon and evening trysts at his apartment. Theirs are joyous couplings of sex and interesting dialogues and the unending possibilities of young love. Her time with David buoys her in her listless marriage, but Angel struggles to decide if she wants a future filled with love or security. Just as her acting opportunities pick up with a film that somewhat parallels her own life (and brings her in proximity of Amy), the results of a home pregnancy test threatens to derail all opportunities—marriage, affair and career.

Lastly, we meet Nina (Celia Au), an escort of sorts, whose services are bought by mostly older, moneyed men. She has eyes for Ian (Roger Yeh), a kind food-truck operator who dreams of opening his own restaurant, but can’t see a viable way forward in their relationship. Her father and stepmother run a small Pho restaurant (which also appears in Amy and Angel’s stories) and have paid a fortune to bring Nina to the U.S. She is indebted to the family that cares little about her life’s desires or opportunities. Au plays Nina as hard-edged, a survivor, who at first scoffs at the probability of real love, and later fights to embrace her chance at a life with Ian. In continuing the unnecessary crossover gimmick, two of Nina’s clients are Peter and David, from Amy and Angel’s stories respectively; worse is the home pregnancy test, which works its way into each tale, but is truly only important in Angel’s story.

Director Ximan Li, though, slyly allows moments of crossover—Amy lives in the same apartment building as David, Angel’s lover; while filming the TV series, Amy is surreptitiously replaced by Angel—then pulls the threads together in a final act that allows plotlines to converge. Amy’s story is the strongest, with her quietly flailing under the weight of grief; Angel’s, which navigates a marriage, an affair, an acting career and a pregnancy is the most complicated; Nina’s is the most heartbreaking, with her dogged efforts for a life of independence and love crumbling before her eyes.

While the plot approach of In a New York Minute is nothing new, Li’s film nevertheless, transcends its soapy America episodic structure and allows the Asian cast, crew and writers to provide a refreshing cultural take on the material. Mego Lin’s camera gloriously captures New York cityscapes and charming neighborhoods. Like chapters in a book, each story is given lengthy first acts to allow us to imbibe the rhythms of the lives of these Asian characters. There are minutes worth savoring.

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

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Cleveland International Film Festival

Princess of the Row (2019)

Unrated

Big Boss Creative

 

A homeless war veteran with brain trauma spends most of his days lost within his mind and cared for by his 12-year-old daughter. But during a key scene in Princess of the Row, he finds a moment of lucidity and tells his daughter, who’s so full of potential, that one day she will have to choose a life that means letting him go and he’s okay with that. He assures her that making good choices for herself will likely mean they will be apart, but it will never keep him from being her father.

It’s crucial advice, even though daughter Alicia isn’t yet in a place to accept it; in the moment “Bo,” the shattered veteran in dirty clothes, ratty hair and mismatched shoes, rises to his responsibility as a father. It is, for me, the heart of this remarkable film: a broken man, who seems incapable of taking care of himself, finds a way to guide and protect his preteen daughter, who spends much of the film behaving as the adult.

Beautifully shot mostly on the tough streets of Los Angeles, Princess of the Row charts the courses of two people who disparately need and love each other, but are on paths separated by health issues, poverty, bureaucracy and opportunities. Undoubtedly, the film offers abundant ways to impact its viewers—through its gritty, evocative photography; its punishing plunge into the dirty, pitilessness of homelessness; the ever-present dangers lurking among the population of L.A.’s skid row; the powerful shield forged from the love of a father and daughter; the tiny seeds of hope sprouting up in unexpected places, like flowers through cracks in the asphalt.

Director Max Carlson doesn’t hesitate to use the many the tools at his disposal to immerse viewers into this world. He gets the biggest assist from the raw, pitch-perfect performances of his lead actors. Tayler Buck, in a star-making performance, constantly underplays Alicia. We hear Alicia’s thoughts and writings through voiceover, but she’s more a girl of action and not words. As Buck plays her, Alicia hardly has time to express emotion because she’s busy reacting to and controlling her situations or her environment. The weight upon her—taking care of her erratic father, moving from one foster home to the next, sleeping on the streets, skirting the dangers of the sex trade industry—is daunting, and makes us instantly protective of the character. Yet, Buck portrays Alicia as quietly confident and optimistic. Perhaps it’s because the skinny little girl with the natural hair is assured of her purpose—to get a job and take care of her father. We see her internal conflict on her face, but she doggedly handles each conflict as they come.

Edi Gathegi (the Twilight series) vanishes into the role of Bo. The man, ravaged by PTSD, injury and poverty, with one cataract-clouded eye, drifts through life muttering to himself. Gathegi allows Bo fleeting moments of lucidity which are often impressive and depressing – impressive, because they allows us a peak at the man he was and could have been; depressing, because they remind us of what has been lost to mental illness and circumstance. But it’s a restrained role, and Gathegi refuses to soften the character. (He brings quiet dignity in a couple of prewar flashbacks where we see him as a loving fable-spinning father.) But he remains detached for most of the film, and can be lethal in anger. It’s a heartbreaking performance in a film filled with heartbreaking performances.

Alicia’s in the foster care system, but her connection to her father keeps her escaping back to the streets. She’s remarkable and resourceful, but it doesn’t shield us from her somber situation. How brutally sad her circumstances that spending a night in a junkyard for her father’s birthday is considered respite from skid row.

Carlson manages to work in themes of homelessness, the state of veterans’ affairs (with a touch of needed humor) and the foster care system, as well as reveal hope that often resides in the margins.

One representation of hope are the Austins (Martin Sheen and Jenny Gago), the latest in a string of foster parents to come into Alicia’s life. He’s a successful author, which could open doors for Alicia, who has a knack and passion for writing and story-telling. But the Austins live 10 hours from the row. The couple live in a beautiful villa up in the hills, its quiet beauty is intentionally isolated from the loud intensity of the city. Alicia’s tight-lipped and cautious with the Austins; of course she is, she’s been down this road before. But her introduction to Ruby, their horse, taps into emotions borne of her fantasy life which involves a unicorn.

There’s also hope from a tireless councilor, Magdalene (a convincing Ana Ortiz), who pushes Alicia to give the new family a chance. Magdalene, time and again, fights for Alicia even when the girl is too stubborn or distracted to fight for herself. In a brief, remarkable scene she encourages Alicia’s creativity and individuality at the crucial moment of decision-making.

A harrowing scene at midpoint underscores the real-world dangers of a little girl in a land of sexual predators. Another reminds us of Bo’s quick-trigger as he explodes in anger in a small hotel room, endangering his daughter.

The camerawork in Princess of the Row is superb. It sometimes glides safety above the trash-strewn streets, other times, plunges into the grit and grime. It solidifies the film’s texture. We see dirty tents line city sidewalks as makeshift homes on the row, and vast maze-like junkyards that can provide a haven or become a deathtrap. We visit hotels rented by the hour and shelled-out buildings perfect for squatting. It all feels real. Carlson keeps the camera everywhere—weaving through and soaring above the wreckage and beauty of manmade structures, sometimes separated by mere city blocks. Julian Scherle score is elegant and ever-present. It lingers subtly over scenes of heartbreak and terror.

Raw, powerful, tender and hard as steel, Princess of the Row transports and transforms those willing to take the journey.

Check out the film now at the Cleveland International Film Festival.

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

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Impossible Monsters (2019)

Rated R

In the first scenes of Impossible Monsters, an attractive woman passes through a narrow alleyway, making her way to mysterious lounge and into a hidden room. The way the tracking-shot scene is lit and tightly framed, backed by a crescendoing soundtrack, evokes a creepy dreamlike quality. The scene that immediately follows is the opposite: clean and clear and shot close up. Now, the woman’s grooming herself before the bathroom mirror … until she gets the urge to start pulling out her teeth in a bloody mess. It’s soon revealed as a nightmare. So, we’ve gone from a dreamlike scene that was actually reality (we later learn), to a reality-like scene that’s actually the dream. This blurring of waking and dreaming moments will pervade this cerebral thriller. Characters often occupy scenes walking a knife’s edge between what’s real and imagined.

Director Nathan Catucci has seeded his film in those opening sequences. Now, we are introduced to other main characters.

Otis (Dónall Ó Héalai) is a brooding, laconic painter whose artwork seems borne from a landscape of nightmares. For me his work evokes body horror. He sits alone in a small diner that’s obviously influenced by Edward Hopper’s iconic “Nighthawks” painting, but this might be a dream. Otis is suffering from insomnia, you see, which is affecting his work. He’s referred to a second character, Rich Freeman (Santino Fontana), a college psychology professor specializing in sleep paralysis. Into Rich’s class walks Jo (Devika Bhise), the woman from the opening. Soon, Rich has secured grant money for a group study on the sleep disorder, which ultimately includes Jo and Otis.

Two important minor characters include, Charlie (Chris Henry Coffey) and Leigh (Natalie Knepp). He is a professional rival to Rich, who is revealed to have deeper, darker motivations as the film unspools. She is social worker, a quiet cutie who falls for Rich, and seems to harbor secrets.

With the characters in place, the plot begins to spin them in and out of each other’s orbits, even as reality and dreams began to overlap. We are certainly primed for a lover’s triangle, as each of the males are drawn to Jo; she too is attracted to Otis’ dark, reckless persona and Rich’s comforting intellect. Did I mention that Jo is a student by day and an escort by night? Or that there’s a possible serial killer on the loose in the city? Rich is repeatedly courted by another university through a former colleague. There’s a sense that this represents a road not taken by Rich, and in hindsight might have been his best bet.

Catucci’s film is mainly a psychological drama, but eventually its thriller aspects kick in when one of the characters is murdered and another is framed for the death. Indeed, all along there have been sinister character motivations beneath the proceedings, but only Charlie’s are made manifest. The other characters—often facing themselves in the mirror—remain ambivalent throughout, struggling with regrets or secrets that strike out at them from their dream states. A dogged detective on the case (Geoffrey Owens, The Cosby Show) may have bitten off more than he can chew.

The cast is very good, with each actor finding the right notes at portraying the duality of their characters’ beleaguered realities while toying with their darkest natures in the dream worlds. Fontana is particularly good as a seemingly stable, straight-laced man whose darker nature makes us bristle precisely because we buy into his fundamental goodness. Bhise’s Jo could have a movie of her own. Her character is smart, but reckless, icy, but vulnerable.

The sound and camera work are superb. The look of the film is exquisite. Whether it’s beautiful college campus architecture or slick art gallery fetes or ominous sex lounges, the cinematography shines. The beauty of reality is repeatedly contrasted with off-kilter atmosphere (desaturated tones, snakes, slow motion) of dream worlds.

You might not get all the answers you’re looking for, or even those the characters are seeking, but like a dream, Impossible Monsters has an intangible texture that lingers even after it has ended.

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

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The Magical Mystery of Musigny (2018)

Unrated

Here we have a beautiful, simple black and white animated short film codirected by John Meyer and Emmett Goodman. Meyer, whose voice was made for audiobooks, also narrates. Every word is annunciated with the precision of an orator.

An award-winner on the film festival circuit, Magical Mystery is cleverly inked on cocktail napkins. Every now and again we get a pull-back that reveals the napkins among an arrangement of plates and utensils on a table.

The wonderfully descriptive language is sure to please oenophiles: “the angle of the vineyard hill (of limestone soil) provides excellent drainage.”

A turning point for John arrives at a wine-tasting event, when he imbibes the perfect vintage 1969 Musigny Burgundy. The sip transports him to a shimmering riverbank in Russia as colorful “onion spires of a Russian church” pop up around him. The transcendent serenity of the experience is lost on John’s wife, Suzie. Of course it would. She finds John’s musings on wine pretentious—and the wine itself a nonstarter for his attempts at lovemaking.

A turning point for Suzie comes during dinner at a bistro. She tries the special, a Auxey-Duress, and has an epiphany of her own—scored by the “1812 Overture,” and conducted by Serge Koussevitzky! Ah, finally, a meeting of minds. John gets the last laugh and, it seems, some overdue loving.

The film is wonderful in its construction, execution, scoring and narration. It leaves you with a smile on your face and an urge to reach for the vino.

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

 

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Cleveland International Film Festival

China Love (2018)

Unrated

Media Stockade

China Love begins by fastidiously documenting the phenomenon of elaborate pre-wedding photography in modern-day China. We’re introduced to dozens of brides-to-be shot in unbelievable gowns surrounded in unbelievable settings. We witness elaborate underwater setups, shots where couples are made to seem like they are floating in air, and every kind of fantasy made real. The film immediately springs to life, aided by bouncing editing, upbeat tempos—I thought of the kinetic energy of box-office smash Crazy Rich Asians.

Soon, through and around its steady stream of beaming brides and dapper grooms, a richer film flows. The contemporary flash is contrasted with 40 years earlier, when marriages were arranged and nondescript. Elderly couples reflect on a time when it was unthinkable to allow such grandiose celebrations of marriage. They don’t speak with outrage, mind you, but of sadness or regret that their weddings lack such … romance? Fantasy?

Directed by Olivia Martin-McGuire, herself a professional photographer, China Love suggests a better understanding of Chinese culture might be gleaned through this look into how fantasies are served through the ritual of elaborate pre-wedding photos. In addition to elder couples reminiscing on a bygone era, Martin-McGuire documents young Shanghai and Beijing couples caught up in the pre-wedding-photo frenzy. Some do it to walk lockstep with this contemporary trend, others because of pressure to honor tradition.

In the documentary we meet Allen Shi, the young entrepreneur who has ridden this industry into the Billionaire Boys Club. It’s an industry that flourishes in China to the tune of $80 billion. Allen has a stable of photographers, clothing makers, makeup artists and set designers who churn out movie-quality pre-wedding photo fantasies. Allen, with his American personal assistant Eric in tow, speaks the usual billionaire bromides of how anyone can have his level of success if they work as hard as he works. Allen, though, is more than an outsized stereotype. He’s come from stark poverty, and despite his humble beginnings, has amassed 7,000 employees and more than 300 studios across seven countries. Eric nods approvingly. Eric had originally planned on living in China for a year. His connection with Allen put him on a five-year trajectory that shows no signs of slowing down. Is it ironic that Eric chases his American Dream by peddling American fantasies in China?

Later, we learn of Allen’s disturbing and exacting standards when he fines employees for the slightest deviations from his formula of “perfect” pre-wedding photos. If a hair is out of place, if skin tone is not just right, if lighting is off, there are financial consequences—up to dismissal. It’s startling to see the nitpicking when very similar photos are place side by side. Big business means tough standards, I guess. But it’s more than financial success; Allen’s reputation is at stake.

We also meet Kim, one of Allen’s senior photographers. The often-giggling Kim is a skilled cameraman on autopilot. He knows his stuff, knows his clients and the market, and—along with the upscale capital provided by Allen’s deep pockets—delivers with precision.

The director’s experiences as a photographer and her apparent love of China inform the film with it astonishing look. Beautiful vistas abound. The Shanghai skyline with its regal, futuristic-looking skyscrapers; the bustling China streets, the corning stores and restaurants, clothesline between apartments, beachfront glory. As her film goes on, Martin-McGuire digs deeper into the material.

Eventually, we get a peek into “marriage markets,” where desperate “aging” women are paired up with potential spouses. In China, unmarried women run the risk of isolation. Men are advised not to become engage without at least owning an apartment. The pressures of matrimony are tremendous. In one sad interlude we see the divorced mother of featured bride Viona. The older woman, Han Pan, regards an elegant photograph of herself in a wedding dress. Han Pan had the photo taken after divorce, as single woman, wanting her keepsake of the fantasy. Late in the documentary, there is an echo of this moment as her now-married daughter Viona laments returning to China from her post-wedding life in Australia because of a lack of job opportunities for her husband. Viona seems to fear becoming her mother.

I can’t say enough about the photography of the film. Despite countless depictions of pre-wedding photos, the film’s look is forever beguiling and never seems redundant. The director (and her subjects) keep coming up with ways to dazzle us with costuming, set design and lighting.

Through it all there’s something more important emerging in the margins of the film. The older couples recall limited resources, and censured speech. The younger couples hardly seem to live in a time of restrictions. Things within their grasp couldn’t be consider before the Cultural Revolution. Yet, now, they can have their imagination’s and heart’s desires—provided they have the financial resources. It’s interesting that even though the older couples mostly admit they didn’t marry for romance and pageantry, the younger couples don’t really seem enveloped in romance either. There’s a sense of securing stature, of relieving pressures placed on them to marry—but no real efforts for the sake of romance.

A marvelous sequence late in the film involves elderly couples having an opportunity to take the pre-wedding photos they were never able to have. Seeing an 80-year-old woman don makeup, a crown and an off-the-shoulder dress is truly moving. The husbands too find themselves in the makeup chair and rendered dapper in nice suits! And in a moment, the importance of the pageantry of putting on elegant dresses and tuxedos transcends all the expensive glamor that has come before it.

China Love is an oddly compelling—and sometimes sad—look at the culture and commodity of marriage frozen in moments of unrelenting photographic beauty.

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

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Capturing the Flag (2018)

Unrated

Volunteer voter protection worker, Brooklyn-based entertainment lawyer and producer of Capturing the Flag, Laverne Berry. Photo credit: Nelson Walker III

New York attorney Laverne Berry, saw something at an election polling site years ago that jolted her from her comfortable contribution of driving people to the polls. When one of her charges had trouble walking, a janitor on site took it upon himself to use a pushcart and chair to get the woman to the polling booth.

“If he could do that on a day when that’s not his job,” Berry determined, “I can take some time off every election to do something.”

In Capturing the Flag, Berry and three other “voter protection volunteers” are documented during the lead-up to and through the 2016 election from their on-the-ground perspective in Fayetteville, North Carolina, polling districts. Director Anne de Mare’s fascinating and sober documentary fights an undercurrent of foregone conclusion, but provides pointed insights into our election system and the soldiers who take up the challenges of making votes count.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR ANNE DE MARE

De Mare and her cast navigate subject matter that should be important to not simply those still distraught about the results of the 2016 election; setting aside partisanship to fairly critique our voting process should matter to every citizen.

Joining Berry on her quest is volunteer Steven Miller, an attorney and longtime friend. Miller, a white man, and Berry, a black woman, communicate with an ease certainly found in lifelong friends. En route to North Carolina we meet volunteer Claire Wright, an attorney and recent naturalized citizen. This is her first U.S. election and her first visit to North Carolina. Writer Trista Delamere Mitchell eagerly joins the group on the ground.

De Mare, along with animator Sean Donnelly, use visual aids to provide an “election day” sense of urgency to the documentary. A graphic counter along the bottom of the frame tick off months, then days, then hours before election results.

Almost immediately the team runs into an ongoing controversy at an early voting site in Fayetteville. The local NAACP has accused the state board and three county election boards of illegally removing thousands of people from voter rolls. The purge, they say, is primarily affecting voters of color.

Berry laments the inconsistent voting rules and methods from state to state. It makes protecting voter rights “daunting.”

A 2013 Supreme Court decision invalidated Shelby County v. Holder, a provision of the Voter Rights Act of 1965. That 2013 decision limited supervision by the Justice Department over states that had demonstrated relentless efforts to curtail black people from voting. Within weeks of the ruling, several states began establishing new voting restrictions—more stringent photo ID laws, limits on third-party voter registration, limited rights for those with past criminal convictions, shuttering polling locations across states. The very day of the decision, Texas began efforts to redraw boundaries for congressional and state house districts.

We watch as Berry bravely heads alone into the breach—a polling site in an all-white community littered with yard signs for Republican candidates. Yet, she reminds herself that her mission is to insure fair voting, regardless of party affiliation. She is regarded with caution at first, but her eagerness to help, earnestness and time pushes her through resistance. Miller, at different polling site, faces similar challenges from black people.

For a time, then, the film becomes a microcosm of the passions, absurdities and contradictions of the U.S. election system. A young polling judge at a precinct is initially curt and forceful with Miller, who’s assisting folks outside the polling site. The young man regards the older one as an outsider, a troublemaker. But as the day goes on, and both men doggedly undertake their responsibilities, they seem to accept each other’s roles. The strident young judge in fact, is revealed to may have overreacted due to the stresses of heading up a polling site for the first time. In the end, Miller joins him inside the now-closed precinct as polling officials search for an errant ballot.

The team’s journey is intercut with efforts from the local branch of the NAACP, including a press conference by chapter President Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. Barber and others are pushing back against subtle and blatant attempts to suppress the minority vote.

Amid these early voting machinations, President Obama visits Fayetteville for a rally that for me stood as a contrast to the divisive rallies that have sadly become the norm. When an elderly man wearing a military uniform riles up the crowd with his Trump sign, Obama playfully admonishes the agitated crowd and reminds it that, 1) free speech should be respected in the U.S., 2) veterans deserve our respect, 3) elderly people should be respected as well. He famously concludes: “Don’t boo, vote!”

Meanwhile, foreign-born Wright registers disappointment, having recalled practicing law in post- Apartheid South Africa when that country’s courts looked to U.S. law precedents as a guide to building South Africa’s new constitution. “I thought that the U.S now, after the civil rights movement, was an egalitarian society,” she says. “Living here has made me realize it is not at all.” It is crushing to watch Wright trying to help an African-American woman, having been referred to a third precinct and still not able to cast a ballot, who throws up her hands and says she has to get back to work instead.

I like that de Mare allows her subjects to display their professional and ethical commitment to their tasks, while reminding us that they are also citizens, party affiliates, who care not just about voters but the outcome of the election. Since we already know the fateful outcome of the 2016 race, it’s with some dread (or joy, if Trump was your guy) that we relive the day while Berry and the team face it for the first time: the certainty that the math is in Hillary Clinton’s favor, the surprise that Donald Trump is doing better than predicted, the rising suspicion that the calculus was wrong, that working-class sentiment was misjudged; the shock and disbelief of the results.

We’ve walked with Miller as he remained level-headed and professional throughout the day. Not until the night of election results, when he explodes into anger, confusion and disappointment, do we see the partisan side he’d left off the field while attending to his duties.

De Mare, an award-winning director (The Homestretch, 2014), has taken us back to a fateful moment in U.S. history to allow us to relive it at the ground level and in personal terms. With cases before the courts (including our top court) on issues of gerrymandering, alleged attempts to manipulate the upcoming census, as well as looming critical midterm elections, de Mare’s film couldn’t be timelier.

Capturing the Flag has its world premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2018.

 

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Maynard (2017)

Unrated

Auburn Avenue Films

On the night Barack Obama was elected president of United State of America I remember looking at my sleeping infant daughter while processing my unique place in time where I stood at an exact moment of before and after. The morning before, I awoke in a country in which it was improbable to think the 44th person elected to the highest position in the land could be anything but white and male. The morning after, my daughter and I awoke in a country that would be lead for the next eight years by someone who looked like us.

I thought of this moment as I watched Maynard, a documentary of the first black mayor of a major southern city. The parallel of Maynard Jackson’s and Barack Obama’s moments certainly isn’t lost to history or the filmmakers.

Helmed by editor-turned-director Sam Pollard, Maynard is refreshingly uncluttered, a straight through-line depicting Jackson’s early academic successes; his civil rights linage (his grandfather was famed movement leader John Wesley Dobbs); his foray into law and politics; his rise; his retirement; his comeback and untimely death. To be sure, we get standard archival footage, still photographs, newspaper headlines and talking heads, but the film vibrates with a sense of the era—its roiling racial politics, its music, the clothes.

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SAM POLLARD

Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr., tall and broad, uses carefully chosen words, commands audiences with his articulate speeches and forthright assertions. Sound familiar? He graduated from Morehouse Collage at 18 and eventually earned a law degree. Although he was delivered an early election defeat in his run for the U.S. Senate, Jackson dusted himself off and become vice mayor of Atlanta, eventually repositioning himself for a mayoral run. Maynard offers a unique look into southern politics. As vice mayor, Jackson’s run for mayor pit him against incumbent and colleague Sam Massell. It was a bruising affair that ended with Jackson’s election as mayor of Atlanta. That Massell is still alive and Pollard gets him on camera to relitigate the race is astonishing. Some resentment bubbles up right before our eyes.

There’s fantastic footage of a portly Jackson in the ring with Muhammad Ali for a promotional boxing match. News footage and interviews of the Atlanta child murders that rocked Jackson’s second term remain potent. And Jackson’s legacy-burnishing renovation of the Atlanta airport into an international hub truly speaks to his lasting accomplishments.

Of course the path to legend can be littered with sacrifices: a divorce, a seeming disconnect from his only son, health issues and political disillusionment.

The documentary brings in heavyweights to tell the tale—famed mayors Andrew Young and Shirley Franklin, civil rights authorities Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, former President Bill Clinton and attorney Vernon Jordan—but it’s the voices of Jackson’s family that wring true intimacy from the proceedings. The Jackson family brought the project to Pollard and is well-represented here. Daughters Elizabeth, Brooke, Valerie and Alexandra, son Maynard III, widow Valerie and former wife Burnella all add layers to Maynard’s portrayal.

Son Maynard III is presented with sad dignity; we infer a boy trying to exist in the shadows of a mythic-like father, and a man who has fought his demons to arrive as a proud survivor. Jackson’s daughters, beautiful each, project strength and intelligence and yet, sweet vulnerability as daddy’s girls. The women who were married to Jackson provide a dignity that elucidates their critical roles in supporting Jackson’s destiny.

When we arrive at the details of Jackson’s final hours, the documentary gains power. The scene in which the news of Maynard’s untimely death reaches each of his family members is masterfully filmed and edited.

In a time of political calculations of what a legacy means and of whether it can be undone by successors, Pollard’s film assuredly reminds us that the true caretakers of a legacy can keep the flame burning.

 

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Video review

Kept Boy (2017)

Unrated

Breaking Glass Pictures

Kept Boy steadily endeared me to its character as it rolled along. The gay romantic comedy is definitely funny, and its breezy pace kept me involved despite my initial reservations with the clichéd characters: the rich, aging sugar daddy; his buff mindless kept man-child; his brash male housekeeper; and the new stud who lobs himself into the mix like a live grenade.

Out now on DVD and VOD, the film, director by George Bamber (a veteran assistant director, moving to the big chair here), won me over despite its expected love triangle; it gets a mighty lift from humor and his actors.

We meet Farleigh (Thure Riefenstein) and Dennis (Jon Paul Phillips) during what must be a routine house party. We sense they’ve been living this way for years: the swimming pool fetes, limitless bottle of wine and champagne, flashy name-dropping guests. The men seem tired, disconnected, and suspicious that something’s changing between them.

Farleigh is the celebrity breadwinner, the aging host of a once-popular home-design reality TV show. In his tailored suits, deliberate speech and accoutrements of importance, Farleigh plays his role of parent/husband/alpha male in a house of flighty men. Dennis is the kept boy of the title, having long been faithful in his role of eye candy companion (his skills are working out and pouring drinks). Not to be forgotten is Javi, the multiple hyphened helpmate who, Dennis learns belatedly, was the previous kept boy. Javi (Deosick Burney) could be the stereotypical funny black guy, but the script gives Java a couple of nice scenes to discuss his role in Farleigh’s life and Burney elevates the character.

How long was this makeshift family going to last? Fading youth and stagnant routine have a way pecking at longtime lovers, doesn’t it? When Farleigh urges Dennis to get a job and announces he’s selling the Porsche (ostensibly Dennis’ car) Dennis draws out of his lover that their halcyon days may be waning. Farleigh’s carrying massive debt and his ratings-challenge TV show appears to be in its final season.

More troubling to Dennis, who’s completely without job skills, is Farleigh’s interest in the younger, handsome Jasper (Greg Audino), Farleigh’s pool boy turned sudden assistant for the TV show.

Farleigh and Jasper seem to flirt in plain sight, which Dennis absorbs with brutal dignity. But Dennis is not without weapons in this battle. He knows Farleigh’s weak spots and can intuit his sugar daddy’s reactions like nobody’s business.

The film grows interesting because Farleigh, Dennis and Jasper are as self-aware of their roles as we are. Farleigh and Dennis each seem to realize what they had for years is coming to an end—or a transition neither wants to face. They’re playing their roles, but also preparing for life without each other. Beefcake Jasper, more calculating than we initially expect, has sincere motivations. The lovers’ triangle is put through its sexual paces; each combination gets a shot at getting busy.

Bamber’s film has a couple of surprises up its sleeve. A getaway island trip—make or break, as far as Dennis is concerned—teeters fascinatingly between slapstick and drama, culminating in abrupt violence and gunplay. A sweet, quiet, honest long-in-the-coming discussion between Farleigh and Dennis ends with a turn that deepens the proceedings. The island drama notwithstanding, much of the film flows by on strong currents of humor, aided by the likability of the characters. Speaking of likable characters, let’s give shout-outs to Dennis’ lonely-hearts kept-mates, Lonnie (John-Michael Carlton) and Paulette (Toni Romano-Cohen): he, hanging on to his rich-widow sourpuss; she, bemoaning her lot as an aging trophy-gal. The trio slurps mixed drinks in various lounges while strategizing—with well-timed, hilarious dialogue—their next moves as the users who have become the used.

Dennis, most importantly, takes on unexpected dimensions from Phillips’ assured performance, and final scenes between he and Javi, then he and Jasper, really feel authentic, taking the film farther away than expected from its opening scenes of debauched cliché.

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