Now Watching 2023

[Beltmann]

Never read your reviews, goes the old adage.

 

But maybe it’s not so easy for an actor to ignore a bad notice while being heckled by his own director during their movie’s hometown premiere.

 

“Boo!,” bellowed Mike Cheslik from the right aisle of the Oriental Theatre’s main auditorium, which was packed April 28 for the Milwaukee Film Festival debut of Hundreds of Beavers, a comedy made by a team with local roots. Cheslik’s jeers were aimed at lead performer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, and frankly, Tews had it coming. After all, in the middle of the screening the actor had climbed onto the stage, pointed at his own projected, jumbo-sized face and squealed, “It’s me!”

 

That anarchic routine was all part of the show, of course. Cheslik and Tews are born entertainers—they were also behind 2018’s cult favorite Lake Michigan Monster—and on this night their penchant for willful excess was apparent from the get-go. Filmgoers were greeted on the sidewalk by performers costumed as wolves and rabbits and Cheslik’s over-the-top introduction included an impromptu chant (“100 more years!”) beseeching the film gods to preserve the Oriental, a movie palace built in 1927, for another century. By the time the post-film Q&A devolved into a WWE-style brawl, the audience was primed to witness Tews splintering a wooden chair against an attacker dressed in a full-body beaver outfit.

 

While the evening blissfully channeled the showman instincts of William Castle, what happened on screen was closer in spirit to Chuck Jones. Set in a snowy, 19th-century forest, Hundreds of Beavers is a live-action cartoon starring Tews as a goofy fur trapper who falls for a merchant’s daughter and then must go to war against a beaver colony with grand plans for world domination. What if Elmer Fudd was humanity’s only hope? That madcap premise unfolds in a black-and-white, dialogue-free slapstick universe marked by artificial effects, copious green screens and scores of animals that are obviously just people wearing Halloween costumes. By converting his limited resources into a virtue, Cheslik has crafted an alternative visual style that plays like a wholly original, charming riposte to mainstream orthodoxy.

 

In other words, Hundreds of Beavers is both old-timey and forward-looking. The movie, which mines silent classics for inspiration and steals directly from Chaplin, certainly knows the past. My favorite homage comes courtesy of Doug Mancheski, who, as the crusty merchant, delivers an exaggerated performance that evokes James Finlayson, Hollywood’s mustachioed comic foil to Laurel and Hardy. But the vintage allusions are paired with ultramodern gags, including a sudden, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it recreation of the “Nodding Guy” Internet meme that doubled me over. Not everything in Hundreds of Beavers works—and it’s at least 15 minutes too long—but even in its slippery patches, the movie seems to tighten its raccoon-skin cap and continue trudging toward a new, weirder frontier.

 

 

[Beltmann]

Cinema is at a crossroads—theaters are dying, distribution models have collapsed, digital video has dented the gatekeepers—which means the time is ripe for filmmakers to challenge traditional notions of what movies “ought” to look like. During the festival, for example, I saw nearly a dozen titles presented in the boxy 4:3 aspect ratio (think of the shape of old tube TVs), including The Eight Mountains and Godland, two epics brimming with the kind of breathtaking vistas for which widescreen was invented. As our home televisions get bigger, it’s curious that the movies are deliberately shrinking in a way that was unthinkable even 10 years ago.

 

So commonplace has the narrower format become that when director Anthony Shim used 4:3 for his Canadian immigration drama Riceboy Sleeps, my mind barely registered the fact. That technical choice, though, was crucial groundwork for what would prove to be, for me, the festival’s most overwhelming third act.

 

Working from his own memories, Shim observes a Korean mother and her son as they struggle to assimilate to a Vancouver suburb in the 1990s. Riceboy Sleeps sidesteps potential clichés by focusing on the duo’s interior lives, conveying their private earthquakes through layered, mindful details captured on Kodak’s sensitive 16mm film. With idiosyncratic cutting, long takes and camera movements that often track, circle and pause with ethereal grace, the movie’s visual architecture has the net effect of drawing viewers closer. This adds epic emotional intensity to a story that is otherwise small in scope. The frame’s cage-like dimensions accentuate the characters’ sense of claustrophobia, but when Shim deploys a late pivot to the expansive 16:9 format, it’s not just a reprieve. It’s also a lush, exhilarating affirmation of identity, family and home.

 

“Wow,” said Matt Mueller, culture editor for OnMilwaukee. “Wow,” I replied, as we tried to process the movie on the sidewalk outside the Avalon Theater on South Kinnickinnic Avenue. There may be no greater testament to the power of Riceboy Sleeps than how it wrecked and rendered speechless two guys who are, um, professionally verbose.
 

 

[Beltmann]

Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake is another Canadian triumph photographed in 4:3 on 16mm that MFF slotted into its Teen Screen division (which was surprisingly excellent this year). It shares with Riceboy Sleeps a natural feel for adolescence, but here the vibe is decidedly more ominous, even when the vacationing central characters, a 14-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl, fumble their way through summer mischief. Punctuated by shivery landscapes, creeping sounds and local rumors of a haunted lake, this coming-of-age story solves a thought experiment: What if Éric Rohmer, the French New Wave poet of youth, leisure and seduction, made a cabin-in-the-woods horror movie?
 

 

[Beltmann]

Apprehension courses equally through No Bears, Jafar Panahi’s fifth clandestine feature since being banned from making films in 2010. It may also be his wisest. Playing a fictionalized version of himself, Panahi appears in the movie as an Iranian filmmaker remotely directing his actors, via subterfuge, while hiding in a rural village. Once again Panahi has made an allegory about imprisonment, but this time the anger and frustration have been absorbed into a larger, more philosophical quest for answers. This is a movie about confinement, both physical and psychological; borders, both real and imagined; and myths, both destructive and enlightening.

 

 

[Beltmann]

No Bears signals how some stories exist in the zone between what’s real and what’s true. In fact, the two best documentaries I saw at the festival transcended the genre’s tired sit-and-get machinery to become something more adventurous.

 

Constructed largely out of decade-spanning home videos, Sam Now starts with Sam’s mother Jois vanishing without a trace. But the more compelling mystery lies within Sam: How will his mother’s absence affect him? In this three-paneled character study, Sam authentically moves from a carefree 11-year-old to an awkward 17-year-old searching for his mom to a damaged, introspective 36-year-old man. When Jois enters the documentary, she remains an incomprehensible “character” because, the viewer suspects, she is reluctant to present her true self to her family and their camera. Still, the honesty gap between Sam and Jois doesn’t matter very much, because both, in their own way, furnish complex insights about intergenerational trauma.

 

 

[Beltmann]

The term “documentary” may be insufficient to describe Alison O’Daniel’s The Tuba Thieves, a listening experiment that incorporates elements of nonfiction, narrative, video art and the kind of essay film for which Chris Marker was known. Most of all, it is an experiential work about sound and the loss of sound. As with Duchamp’s conceptual art, the object we see is rarely the point; for O’Daniel, the sounds embedded inside the images are her main subject. The movie teaches you how to watch and listen as it goes, which is endlessly exciting. Boundaries are also obliterated, including the distinctions between instruments, voices, highway growls, ocean waves, etc. According to The Tuba Thieves, it’s all music. And it’s all cinema.

 

At the Milwaukee Film Festival, good movies are a dime a dozen. The special movies, though, often expand our notions of what movies can be. This year, The Tuba Thieves radiated such restless curiosity—but so did a frostbitten farce about hundreds of beavers.

 

 

[chuckrh]

[Albert Tatlock]

Jojo Rabbit

 

 

The Stones and Brian Jones

 

 

Half way through each. The first is different to say the least, and pretty funny. The second is in contrast to the set of Stones bio-flicks last year that practically ignored Brian and Bill. Bill talks and seems to be involved in this one.

[chuckrh]

[u2roolz]

This was quite the film to experience in a theater. I found myself alone in the auditorium and was completely entrenched in the story, even if some of it lost me several times throughout. However, this type of film is just what I needed to exercise that part of my “cerebrally ambitious film” muscle that hasn’t had much to do in the past decade or so. I think it hasn’t had a work out since Charlie Kaufman came onto the scene. I’m sure I’m forgetting some recent examples, but the whole experience was a breath of fresh air amongst the endless superhero films (which I love) & neverending bland Netflix Originals that become quite forgettable. 
 

I will say that I truly loved the first 45 minutes or so of this one. It felt like a modern day After Hours (Scorcese). [side bar: check out Marty moderating a discussion of the film with Ari Aster, the director, after a screening. It’s up on YouTube.] 

 

Being forced to sit through the whole duration was a true test of patience. I found myself having to get up and walk around at some point. It’s a good thing I was by myself. The anxiety it makes you feel is legit. I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack or a stroke. It became too much, but once I left the theater I had realized that no film has done that to me in a long time. I certainly don’t feel this way when a superhero has to face the villains because we always know what’s going to happen….for the most part. 
 

Joaquin Phoenix turns in another fantastic performance. Ari Aster made a remarkable film here that is sure to polarize folks. Geez, there are parts in here that I don’t like, but I’ll see how it is on a second viewing at home. I won’t spoil the overall theme(s) of the film, but some of it is quite hilarious. That ending though…wow! I saw it two weeks ago and it’s still lingering in my mind. 

(It hits PVOD on Tuesday June 13th.)

[Beltmann]

On 6/7/2023 at 5:25 PM, u2roolz said:

This was quite the film to experience in a theater. I found myself alone in the auditorium and was completely entrenched in the story, even if some of it lost me several times throughout.

 

When I saw it,  there were only two other people, a couple presumably on a date, in the theater. At the end the guy turned to me and sincerely asked, "What the hell was that?" We laughed, I stayed for the credits, and then ran into the same guy in the bathroom. Upon seeing me, he said, "Seriously, what the HELL was that?!?"

(I liked it a lot.)

[chuckrh]

Quite good with excellent soundtrack. I couldn't sleep so I just binged half the new season. A certain band we all like is featured & lots of Replacements as a cherry on top.

[Chez]

I just finished Season 2 of "The Bear" last night.  Highly recommended - a huge leap forward from Season 1.  The Christmas episode was one of the best hours of television I've ever watched. And Chuck is right about the soundtrack - excellent use of some great songs.

[chuckrh]

A most welcome return!

[u2roolz]

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing this masterpiece in IMAX today. I was only

6 when it came out, so huge thanks to A24 for bringing it back! I hadn’t watched it in a long time, so that was nice. 
 

Run to it! At my local megaplex, it’s sharing the IMAX auditorium with Barbie this weekend and The Creator is coming on Friday the 29th in IMAX, so it looks like a 1 week IMAX engagement around where I am. However, it is getting a wider release on the 29th on regular screens, as I’m sure you’ve read.
 

Nice to check something off the bucket list…

[Albert Tatlock]

RWC of course.

 

So Wales dominated Australia. That makes it Wales and our spirit brothers Fiji qualifying from our group in the dream scenario for the quarter finals in 3 weeks (couple more rounds of group games to go - 1 more versus Georgia for Wales which is inconsequential to our qualification).  Happy days.

 

P.S. Especially since Fiji will play England in their quarter final (and they beat them at Twickenham just before the RWC in a warm up game).