Early in Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut, we are introduced to Slater King (Channing Tatum), a tech billionaire, via a television interview where he apologizes for an undisclosed offense. However, the unsaid transgression is no mystery. The setting—an influential, rich white guy in a confessional interview lamenting his behavior and promising to do better—is a familiar enough scenario that we can assume he weaponized his power in some egregious manner.
Slater hosts a gala where catering waitresses and best friends, Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat), are working. Halfway through, they ditch their white button downs for cocktail dresses in the hopes of schmoozing with the man of the hour. When Frida’s accidental faceplant draws his attention, the girls get exactly what they were hoping for. Spellbound by his handsome looks, status, and confidence, when he invites them to his island for a vacation full of lavish poolside partying, they jump at the chance.
Joined by his cabal of miscreants—Cody (Simon Rex), Vic (Christian Slater), and Tom (Haley Joel Osment), and their invitees, Sarah (Adria Arjona), Heather (Trew Mullen), and Camilla (Liz Caribel)—Slater boards a private jet for the supposed getaway of their dreams. With their cell phones collected by Slater’s nervous and neurotic personal assistant and sister (Geena Davis), everyone is left to revel in the indulgences the island has to offer, be it weed, bottomless champagne, or elaborate nighttime dinners. Yet as the boozy days blend together, a sneaking suspicion begins to arise that something isn’t right.
“Blink Twice” believes it has a point to make about the sinister capabilities of rich white men, but it does nothing more than call it out. The writing stops at square one. It doesn’t engage with its proposed thesis, but instead makes a chop shop of buzzwords and hot topics from #MeToo to therapy bros. When the reveal of “Blink Twice” enters via a split-second frame, the shock of the film turning on its head is not one of horrifying suspense, but rather, dejection. And as the quick frame devolves into extended sequences of brutality into a cutthroat race to the finish, the film becomes an affirmation of a tired, simple narrative toolbox being sold as unflinching feminist grit.
“Blink Twice” sucker punches the audience with its sexual violence and then fails to find intelligence or dexterity in its handling of it or any of the themes running adjacent. Even the stylistic choices, with which the film rides on, are simple. And as the film tries to balance its tone and events with humor, it only belies the success of itself further. It’s unfunny. “Blink Twice” doesn’t earn a laugh when it’s trying to be fun, nor does it elicit a chuckle when collating an act of brutality with a punchline.
Of all the film’s infractions, the impact of its sloppy logic isn’t primary, but worth noting. The laws by which Slater is able to weaponize his power are inconsistent and confounding once you dip a toe past the surface. If there’s anything to be credited here, it’s the performances from the cast. From his heartthrob origins to “21 Jump Street,” where Tatum debuted his comedic chops, “Blink Twice” shows he’s formidable at tackling darkness too, and that he can indeed be a feared presence onscreen. Ackie manages well in her starring role, with the expressiveness of her eyes locking us in, and her chemistry with Arjona’s Sarah giving us a crutch with which to limp to the film’s conclusion. Yet even with their best efforts across the board, “Blink Twice” has already failed on paper. It is homespun exploitation followed by a pretentious conclusion that smirks at the viewer, declaring prideful resolution.
Kravitz’s leap toward discomfortable should not be misinterpreted as an auteur’s valiance. If we as viewers equate the brazen with the brave, our expectations are far too low. Courageous storytelling requires thoughtful engagement and nuance. Kravitz displays neither, opting for textbook exploitation while feigning sharp wit. She wields her blade haplessly, drawing blood from the women that “Blink Twice” is supposed to (eventually) empower.
John Woo’s “The Killer” was a true gamechanger, at least for this critic. The one-two punch of Woo’s 1989 action masterpiece with his equally magnificent “Hard Boiled” changed the way I looked at the genre in my teens, and truly inspired hundreds of imitators. For anyone in my age range who can remember watching “The Killer” (likely on VHS) decades ago, the thought of remaking a flawless film feels cinematically heretical. And yet Hollywood has been circling such a project for decades with Richard Gere and Nicolas Cage once attached in the ‘90s. After years of false starts, a remake finally emerges, limping onto Peacock with almost no fanfare or promotion. Directed by Woo himself, the 2024 version of “The Killer” is obviously competently made–the Hong Kong director still knows how to stage an action sequence, well into his seventies—but the truth is that this version of the film does absolutely nothing better than the original. It’s a movie that’s generally watchable but almost instantly forgettable, which the best of Woo never is.
Nathalie Emmanuel (Ramsey from the later “Fast and the Furious” movies) plays the mysterious Zee, a stealthy assassin for a powerful organization run by the vicious Finn (Sam Worthington). The “Avatar” actor nails a certain kind of slimy power figure, the one who will pretend to have your best interests in mind but only as far as it suits him personally. When Zee gets a job that requires an assassination via samurai sword in a Parisian nightclub, the assignment goes sideways with the blinding of a singer named Jenn (Diana Silvers). Despite the fact that she can’t exactly point the finger at the killer, Finn insists that Zee take out the witness, leading to moral crisis for the murderer for hire. While Zee tries to keep Jenn alive, a Paris cop named Sey (Omar Sy of “Lupin”) gets this incredible case and crosses paths with Zee, giving “The Killer” most of its narrative thrust in that it’s a story of a criminal and a cop who may not be as different as they first believe.
Clearly, a lot of the narrative beats of the original remain, although the gender swap naturally makes a pretty big difference both in the Zee/Jenn relationship and the dynamic between Zee & Sey. The sort of dance between a killer and a cop, which many over the years even read as homoerotic in the original, has been shifted by the change but hardly anything has been done with that shift. Changing race, gender, and location should give “The Killer” a different flavor, but the truth is that there’s just no seasoning. It’s as if the writers (Brian Helgeland, Josh Campbell & Martin Stuecken) figured the swaps alone would be interesting enough that they didn’t have to do anything more. It also just reeks of a script that has been in development for so long that all of the passion has been drained from it with rewrites, producer’s notes, and focus groups. The original hums with energy in not just its ace filmmaking but its narrative structure, and there’s just nothing to care about here in terms of plotting, while additions, like a few flashbacks to Zee’s origin story, feel half-hearted and cheap.
Part of the problem here is that Emmanuel just isn’t an interesting enough performer to sell the strong, silent cipher that Zee needs to be. I’m not usually a critic who likes to judge the movie that isn’t there but knowing that Lupita Nyong’o was once attached to this before COVID shut down production reveals even more flaws in Emmanuel’s work. Nyong’o can do so much with body language and her amazing eyes that it feels “The Killer” needed to work, and Emmanuel simply doesn’t have the same skill set. Sy makes out much better, reminding viewers how charming he can be, but Silvers is a non-character, used almost entirely as a device.
Of course, most people aren’t here for performance, and they just want to know about the Woo of it all. He once again leans into his clichés—there will be churches, candles, birds, and slo-mo—but there are some undeniably nifty stunt sequences in the film, especially in the final act’s graveyard shootout. It’s nice to see real stuntpeople showing off what they do best under the direction of a genre master, even if it does feel like he’s lost a beat in terms of pacing, both in action scenes and overall. There’s huge mid-film sag in this too-long movie in which people banter about how to finish jobs during which it will be hard for Peacock viewers at home to put down their phones.
And that makes me a little sad. John Woo movies used to strap you into your seat, making the rest of the world fall away as you appreciated their action artistry. That’s just not the case here. And my biggest concern comes in the overall sunsetting of physical media and lack of curation on streaming. Want to watch the original “The Killer”? It’s not streaming for rental anywhere and costs about $50 on Blu-ray. And that means that this faded copy is now easily the most accessible, and there will certainly be people who don’t even know about the first film when they watch it. In that sense, it’s not just a remake but a replacement. And that kills me.
“Strange Darling,” J.T. Mollner’s self-consciously edgy gotcha of a serial-killer thriller, is so high on its own cleverness that it never stops to think about what it’s actually saying. A pithy way to summarize this movie’s whole vibe would be “If Quentin Tarantino tried to make a ‘#MeToo movie.’” But that’s not fair to Tarantino, who, for all his flaws, is at least somewhat self-aware.
To give Mollner the benefit of the doubt, he may have been so impressed with himself when he came up with this movie’s twist that he didn’t realize that he had written a scenario that reinforces misogynist beliefs about women being untrustworthy, heartless manipulators who take pleasure in destroying decent men for the fun of it. (Apologies for the spoiler, but it’s impossible to articulate what’s wrong with this movie without at least obliquely referencing its back half.) The way that this revelation is presented suggests that its more noxious overtones are truly unwitting. But that doesn’t make their aftertaste any less gross.
The reason “Strange Darling” gets a marginal pass is that the film seems to truly believe that its subversions are empowering. Its intentions—and its disruptions—are straightforward, and it seems unaware of the implications of the specific ways in which it turns the audience’s expectations upside down. It’s not that deep, in short, and there are some shallow thrills to be had along the way. Much of that enjoyment comes from watching star Willa Fitzgerald, who commits wholeheartedly to her unnamed character’s sudden shifts in mood and affect. She gives her more range and personality than she — or, rather, the man who wrote her—really deserves. It’s a bravura performance, one that’s wasted on this stylish, but ultimately thoughtless and self-indulgent film.
Speaking of indulgence: “Strange Darling” is shot in gorgeous, vibrant 35mm. But it can’t just let its visual beauty stand on its own, instead opening with a real eye-roller of a title card that reads, “shot entirely on 35mm film.” (It should have read “shot entirely on 35mm film by Giovanni Ribisi,” given that the prolific character actor does some impressive work here as the film’s DP. Now that’s a twist.) The chase and action sequences are thrilling, the blood is convincing, and Fitzgerald isn’t the only engaging actor in the film: Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey are also endearing in minor roles as a pair of aging hippies who open their door to the wrong stranger.
Nostalgic stunt casting is a Tarantino signature. And that filmmaker’s influence on Mollner’s film, from the pithy dialogue to the non-chronological structure, is difficult to overstate. “Strange Darling” is a pastiche of a pastiche, which speaks to how a movie that has so much going for it can end up ringing so hollow. It subverts tropes because that’s a clever thing to do, not because it has anything to say about what those tropes represent or how they play out in real life. It doesn’t have any new insights about gender relations, or about gendered violence, or about sublimating violence through sexuality, although it spends long stretches rat-a-tat-tatting about those very subjects. Handed a Rorschach test, it sees nothing but a blob of ink.
Movies won’t stop pursuing the next great one crazy night adolescent comedy anytime soon. You know, that “Superbad” formula obliquely indebted to much darker single-night films about hapless grown-ups, like “After Hours.” And in a way, cinema aimed towards young eyeballs is all the richer for it. Without that perpetual effort, we would have never gotten the uproarious and refreshingly sex-positive “Blockers,” the genially fun “Booksmart,” the high-adrenaline “Bodies Bodies Bodies” or the best of them all, “Emergency,” a thrilling college comedy that also had something substantial to say on race, gender and class in America.
“Incoming,” from the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” duo Dave and John Chernin as co-writers and directors, is the next entry in this subgenre, and it’s a pretty good one, too! The jokes are funny (sometimes, laugh-out-loud funny), mostly because they’re unafraid to rattle a little—a quality that many recent comedies overeager to pander to the audience inauthentically can learn a thing or two from. In that, the kids in “Incoming” are messy, sometimes even ill-mannered, mean and clueless like we all have been in real life.
But most importantly, “Incoming” scores points for its casting instincts. In the lead as Benjamin “Benj” Nielsen is Mason Thames, a floppy-haired, kind-eyed actor with the disarming disposition of a ‘80s teen movie star, who wouldn’t feel out of place in something like “Adventures in Babysitting.” (On that note, the film itself has healthy doses of nods to the more vintage teen fare, too.) Geeky and well-meaning, Benji has a crush on his misanthropic big sister Alyssa’s best friend Bailey (Ali Gallo and Isabella Ferreira, respectively). Meanwhile, dumped by her ex-girlfriend for another girl, Alyssa tries to get over her heartbreak in unorthodox ways and obsesses over her nose-job makeover, assuming that supposedly better looks might lead to a better life.
Elsewhere, Benj’s best friends Eddie, Connor and Danah “Koosh” Koushani—played by the delightful trio Ramon Reed, Raphael Alejandro and Bardia Seiri, respectively—have issues on the first day of the school, as well. The uber-rich Koosh is under the shadow of his older and more popular brother, desperately trying to co-host his annual back-to-school party—a boozy and druggy affair. Eddie and Connor, meanwhile are hoping to keep their head low to get through the year in one piece, with Connor especially struggling to sidestep a cruel nickname the school’s bullies have given him. There is of course a popular girl, too—in their school, it’s Katrina (Loren Gray), someone the boys would do anything to be cool enough to hang with.
Opportunity to overcome their insecurities presents itself when the quartet heads to Koosh’s party, only to be told that just one of them could stay as Koosh’s +1. Desperate to get with Bailey, Benj convinces the rest of the clan to be that guest, while Eddie and Connor embark on their own adventure across the city. Also in the mix is the kids’ fun-loving chemistry teacher Mr. Studebaker (a hysterical Bobby Cannavale), whose irresponsible actions throughout the film go from lightly questionable to highly inappropriate fast.
But the kids are the main attraction in “Incoming,” and they bring it. On one pretty corner of their mansion, the genial but frequently miscalculating Koosh gives a consenting girl a spa treatment as a result of a series of lies that she gets to the bottom of. Benj manages to impress Bailey on another corner, only to mess it up quickly. And running away with the film’s best story line (as well as most rewarding resolution), Connor and Eddie end up caring for a blind-drunk Katrina in the most gentlemanly way imaginable across one crappy (literally) night.
Hilarity ensues, but so do the lessons. From Alyssa to Mr. Studebaker, everyone in “Incoming” gets what they deserve, good or bad, as the Chernins’ film is one that neither panders in an overtly preachy manner, nor lets its players off the hook easily. In this raunchy little escapade, actions have consequences.
Still, you do wish that they’d let Benj win a little something—perhaps forgiveness, or a possibility towards a pardon. Without that, you can’t help but feel that “Incoming” doesn’t quite arrive in its finale in the big way that it’s earned. But thankfully, friendships survive, along with the undying tradition of teen comedies. And perhaps that’s all that matters at the end of the day.
Good movies always have integrity, but not-good movies can have integrity, too. “The Crow,” about a man who is murdered along with the love of his life and comes back from the dead to avenge her, is an vivid example of this principle. It has a lot of elements that don’t work (including a symbolism-laden recurring flashback to a childhood trauma that landed the hero, Eric Draven, in a mental institution) and you sort of just have to accept that the central love story is powerful because the film needs it to be, and because the actors are likable. Zach Baylin and William Schneider’s script takes a while setting up the horrifying central event that drives the rest of the story, and the movie doesn’t get to the point where the hero becomes The Crow, a self-painted, faintly Joker-esque angel of death, until the final stretch.
But it has a low-key confidence about its identity and methods, including an entire metaphysical system supporting the plot, that’s unexpectedly persuasive by the end. This film is not, as reality show contestants like to say, here to make friends, but to be true to itself, and it walks a righteous path in that regard, all the way to its ending, which is true to the spirit of John Keats and Edgar Allan Poe as well as the source material, James O’Barr’s graphic novel. The violence is staggeringly brutal even by revenge-thriller standards—flamboyantly, consciously excessive in the manner of an art-house/grindhouse thriller like “Drive” or “Only God Forgives“—as if the movie is going all out to shock an audience that fancies itself un-shockable.
And the decision to spend so much time showing us big-eyed sad-sack Eric Draven (played by Bill Skarsgård) prior to his supernatural transformation, and to develop Eric’s lover Shelly (musician FKA Twigs), a woman on the fringes of the goth underworld who’s running from a dark secret, as a person with her own identity and backstory, pays off fairly deep into the story, even though it can be a little frustrating early on. Post-Shelly’s death, the movie takes a turn that, without revealing anything specific, is so rock-solidly capital-R Romantic, in an “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” kind of way, that in an age where any form of sincerity is reflexively dismissed as “cringe,” the movie deserves applause for even going there, and more applause for following the decision to its dramatically inevitable conclusion and giving audiences the ending that feels right, even if it’s not the one that’ll send viewers home with smiles on their faces.
It’s true that there’s no universe in which it can be called a great movie, or even an inherently commercial one. Twigs is likable but gives a rather thin performance, and Skarsgård doesn’t fare much better, despite their apparently complete investment in the love story. It might’ve helped if the characters didn’t seem stoned even when they aren’t doing drugs. Director Rupert Saunders (“Snow White and the Huntsman,” the live-action “Ghost in the Shell“) relies too much on stereotypical “lovers frolicking” montage material that seems to want to be charged with secondary meaning (Eric kisses Shelly through a sheer white curtain that suggests a burial shroud, and after her death, there’s a “Titanic“-y image of her sinking into the murk of a harbor despite Eric’s outstretched hand) but these really could’ve been more productively swapped out for, you know, actual scenes where the two behave like, you know, actual people. If only for a few minutes. All that plus the extreme violence and the not-upbeat ending probably explain why “The Crow” is being dumped by its studio, Lionsgate, without any press screenings and (seemingly) little advertising or marketing.
But this still feels like a mistake, because for all its disappointments and missteps—including a lack of imaginative compositions, and some muddy or milky nighttime photography—the movie’s got something—a specialness, an aura, or maybe just an obvious purity of intent—that ought to inoculate it against charges that it’s just a cash-grab remake. Nobody who’s in showbiz solely to make money would commit to a movie like this version of “The Crow,” which has a 19th century, wearing-black-and-kneeling-by-the-tombstone definition of True Love. And it has gone to the trouble of developing a detailed cosmology to put character motivations in context and let the movie build to a statement that goes beyond “bad guys kill hero’s girl, hero comes back to kill bad guys,” which is pretty much what Alex Proyas (“Dark City“) did when he first adapted James O’Barr’s source comic thirty years ago.
The villain in this one, Roeg (presumably named for the great director Nicolas Roeg, and played by go-to bad guy Danny Huston) is not just a garden variety human criminal, but a vile and powerful creature who, by his own description, has been around a long time, and has the ability to corrupt mortals. Unlike previous screen telling of the legends of The Crow, this one is thoroughly steeped in the supernatural beyond the trope of resurrecting a dead protagonist. As in horror films about devils, demons, and stolen souls, this one portrays evil as a physical force that can be carried and used like a weapon, transforming and despoiling people. This brings the story closer to the story of Orpheus, who goes into the underworld to save his wife Eurydice, although this “Crow” spends most of its metaphysical development scenes in a kind of purgatorial in-between space.
Proyas’ version was probably always going to end up an example of a film in which style was substance (the characterizations were flat/iconic, and the look was modeled on then-contemporary music videos, album covers, and comics art), and it had to embrace that aesthetic much harder after its star Brandon Lee was killed by a prop gun before he was done filming his scenes. The production team had use artfully silhouetted body doubles and then-crude compositing during editing to cobble together something releasable. The result was a death-haunted film in more ways than one. Hopefully enough time has passed to be able to say that the result, though better than it had any right to be, got extra love and affection because audiences knew so much about the trauma that birthed it. (For what it’s worth, I gave Proyas “The Crow” a rave review when it came out, and wore out the soundtrack on cassette.)
This new version isn’t as focused, propulsive, and fleet-footed as the ’94 film. It’s a mournful wallow with a tinge of Northern European horror films and fables. It’s a neo-noir big-bad-city movie, with buckets of rain pouring down. The ripped, buff Skarsgård doesn’t have Lee’s dancer-like grace and doesn’t try to approximate it; if Lee’s Eric Draven was a trickster imp, Skarsgård’s is more of a brooding clay golem, a demon hunting down monsters.
And that’s OK. It’s a different approach, and in the end, it not only works, it’s moving. The film seems to understand itself most strongly when it’s showing us how Eric, retooling himself into a killing machine in the name of love and justice, has chosen to become what he beheld, and empty himself of the very love that transformed him for the better when Shelly was alive. The onscreen effect is reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe line, “Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.” Every scene, especially in the second half, seems to be taking its creative orders from some secret coded frequency that only the filmmakers can hear, and that no other mainstream movie this year has access to. Even when the film wasn’t quite “working” in any conventional sense, there were moments that raised the hair on the back of my neck.
There’s a scene in the movie where Eric and Shelly are walking across a bridge and Shelly not-really-jokingly talks about jumping, and they envision a double-jump ending in their deaths, and Shelly imagines that teenagers would make shrines to them. I think teenagers will make their own shrines to this movie, in their own ways. It’s the kind of movie where, if you saw it when you were maybe 14, you’d see it twenty more times and be inspired to check out books from the library. That’s not nothing.
Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Edward Kelsey Moore, “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” is a throwback movie to those comforting, star-studded dramedies that used to be box office bread and butter. Mostly set between 1968 and 1999, the film follows best friends Odette (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Kyanna Simone), Clarice (Uzo Aduba and Abigail Achiri), and Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan and Tati Gabrielle), dubbed The Supremes, through the ups and downs of their adult lives, including marriages, children, careers, illness, and even death.
Originally developed for the screen by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the filmmaker passed the project to her long-time mentee Tina Mabry, who wrote her own draft of the script before stepping behind the camera to direct as well. This is Mabry’s first feature film since her auspicious semi-autobiographical debut film “Mississippi Damned,” the 2009 festival darling that helped launch the career of its star Tessa Thompson and cinematographer Bradford Young. The film went on to win three awards at the Chicago International Film Festival, including the Gold Hugo for Best Film. After languishing in limbo for six years, “Mississippi Damned” was finally picked up for distribution by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY in 2015. Mabry has since directed episodes of “Queen Sugar,” “Insecure,” “Pose,” and “Women of the Movement.”
A native of Indiana, author Edward Kelsey Moore began his professional life as a classically trained musician and has played with several orchestras in the Chicagoland area. Although he had written fiction since his youth, he didn’t focus on writing until his late-thirties. His first short stories were published when he was in his forties, with his debut novel “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat,” published when he was fifty-two. He has since written a sequel entitled, “The Supremes Sing the Happy Heartache Blues.”
A few weeks ago in Downtown Chicago, RogerEbert.com spoke with Mabry and Moore about adapting the novel to the screen, bringing Earl’s diner to life, and what it takes to recreate the emotional chaos leading up to Y2K.
I love “Mississippi Damned” and have followed your career since that film. You’ve spoken a lot about how in college you saw “Love & Basketball” and that film really inspired you to become a filmmaker. Obviously, you’ve directed Sanaa Lathan in this film, so I wondered if that was a full-circle moment for you.
Tina Mabry: Yeah. This entire film, “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat,” has been a full circle moment from that moment when I decided to give up law after seeing “Love & Basketball.” But the big, important thing for me was seeing Gina Prince-Bythewood’s name and seeing that a Black woman was actually able to be a director and a writer. Coming from Mississippi, that was just not a possibility. I didn’t have anything in front of me directly, and I was just a novice. I didn’t know about Julie Dash at the time. I didn’t know about Neema Barnette. I wasn’t educated in film in that way. So for me, I ended up “stalking” Gina when I went to film school.
When I finally met her, I completely cried because of the power of what cinema can do and that one film that changed my life. She became a mentor. So to come back several years later – she had adapted the very first version of “The Supremes” – and she’s like, “Hey, do you want to direct this? Do you want to take over the script? I want to recommend you Searchlight.” I was like, “Oh, God, yeah.” What are the chances of that? Then, I ended up landing the gig. Coming back around and working with Gina through this process was amazing. People don’t know the phone calls we have had going through all of this and the advice she gave me when I was younger that got me started in my career. I mean, she was even why I thought that this was a possibility. So to work with her on this project was a dream come true.
Then to have Sanaa Lathan on my set, who I’ve been watching since I was 22 years old, everything she’s done, every move she’s made in her career. To be able to sit with her and have her trust me with the guidance of her performance and support her performance. It takes a lot for an actor to be vulnerable, which is built upon the environment you create for them, ensuring they have trust in themselves. I tell them all, “You cannot fail on my set; it’s not even a possibility. So you can always feel free to do and be who you are. I want that thespian to come out.” So for me, knowing that “Love & Basketball” changed my life so greatly as a 22-year-old kid, and to now be in a more mature age and have all of this happen, has been something that has fed that little younger, 22-year-old self in me. But it’s given a lot of hope to who I am now for where my future will continue to go.
Also, I am grateful for all of the other women who wanted to work with me in front of the camera and that I got the chance to direct Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Uzo Aduba as well. And please don’t let me forget my guys. You know, Russell Hornsby, Mekhi Phifer, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Julian McMahon. To work with all thespians, who’ve been doing this for 20-30 years, at the top of their game. I mean, this really, truly is a dream come true for me.
You mentioned Mekhi Phifer, who was in “Soul Food,” a film whose tone I felt in “The Supremes,” along with something like “Waiting to Exhale,” which I know Edward has mentioned was similar to the tone of his novel. Were those films from the late ’90s, those warm, ensemble dramedies, an inspiration in this adaptation of the book?
TM: Absolutely. It’s funny that you said “Waiting To Exhale” because that was one of the comps, as well as “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “Steel Magnolias.” Those kinds of films that we actually made in the ’90s and allowed to flourish, where you had a lot of female empowerment, where you got a chance to tell the stories of what real life looks like for women in all iterations, from all socioeconomic backgrounds, but also showed that there was a commonality. This commonality of women needing a sisterhood to help get through the throes and the blows of life. And to not only be able to laugh, but to cry with these people and feel safe and supported. And at the same time, have someone call you out of your stuff when you need it. You need to call stuff out if you are truly a friend, but also be supportive.
I think it’s that honesty that Edward put on the page to start with, which meant that my job was already three-quarters of the way done because I already knew who these women were. These are my aunts; they are part of me, too, or my mom and my granny. These are the women in my life. So to take these real human beings who are going through these things, who power through the situations, or who sometimes will ignore a situation until life makes you with a knock, knock, knock, come and greet it at the door. It was something that was just really groundbreaking and was something I wanted to translate to the screen as best and honestly as I could.
Edward, you are from Indiana. Do you feel that this story has a deeply Midwest take on life? Do your Midwest roots come through in it a bit?
Edward Kelsey Moore: When I wrote the novel, I thought, “I’m writing about these very specific people, this very specific place, and who knows if anybody else will ever read it.” But fortunately, a number of people did read it, and what they keep telling me is that, no, it has nothing to do with Indiana. It’s just that this novel is about human relationships. I’m thrilled about that because that is, of course, what I wanted. As a writer, the more specific I am about the characters, the more universal they are. Because there are only so many ways we human beings feel, and ideally, if you’re a writer, you can get some of that down for people to get in touch with.
Earl’s diner is such a communal space. Was there something that inspired the feeling of Earl’s, or was there literally an Earl’s in your life?
EKM: Not completely literally, but my dad was a preacher, and we would go to the same buffet place after church. You’d see all these other people from our church and other churches. It was just, I don’t know, the second act of church. Certainly I was evoking that feeling of the place where you go to see all the people you know again. So, yeah, I did go to a place very much like Earl’s.
Tina, as you were creating the actual Earl’s that you filmed in, was that a place you found? Were you looking for something specific you wanted to evoke visually?
TM: We were shooting in Wilmington, North Carolina, which does not look like the Midwest. So we’ve already got a structural building issue based on how it’s constructed in the book and what we were looking for. We needed a house above and across the street. So, how do we construct this building? What we ended up filming in, our production designer, Kara Lindstrom, styled. It’s so funny what you said about church because we said that Earl’s is a church without the pews. That was the vibe we were going for. Also, we put up a lot of pictures of people over the years to show what was going on. All of that populates, and it grows. Of course, once we get to the ’90s, you see even more, but we wanted it always to be the story of everyone who’s come through there. It’s a family. It is a church where you come together. So it’s very interesting that you said that because I didn’t know that was the origin of Earl’s.
EKM: The place that I went to was not at all like the Earl’s of the movie, but it’s also not the place that I described in the novel. The place that I went to after church was a very sterile kind of modern place. You know, it’s just buffet tables and booths
TM: Ooh, you got booths? Lucky.
EKM: We were fancy. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the movie set, and I thought, “Okay, well, this is like they pulled it right out of my brain.” It was exactly what I pictured. I was just blown away. I was shocked. I didn’t describe it that well in the book, but it was exactly what I wanted, exactly how I saw it in my head.
The film is a period piece, starting in the 1950s, going through the late-1960s and part of the 1970s, then ending in 1999, which you would think is not a period, but was actually 25 years ago, which is horrifying. How do you evoke a period that doesn’t necessarily feel like it should be historical?
TM: I graduated from high school in 1996, so this is my era of the film. It was not a hard thing to be able to know that, yes, this was almost 25 going on 30 years ago and that this is where we were, but also where the music was going to be, the fashion, the cars. But let me tell you, from a production standpoint, this is the hardest era actually to try to replicate. This is the hardest one. It’s much easier to do the ’80s, ’70s, ’60s, ’50s, believe it or not. To find ’90s stuff is impossible, so it was definitely a feat for us to take on.
But what I always remembered was how we felt before Y2K and how we were going into a new century. What does that feel like? We were scared. We just thought we were all going back to zero. It was gonna be a whole fight club moment starting all over. What is gonna happen? We had all of these things about what we expected and how we wanted to step into this new generation. So to have a film like this, where you have these three women at a very pivotal point in their lives, and also society as a whole, gearing up for something completely new, very foreign, very unknown and scary, I think it was the perfect time period to see what they were going through as characters in their individual arcs and to be equated with this particular time with human history. It hit exactly where it needs to be.
I think that’s the beautiful thing about each of the time periods we were dealing with in this film. They each have a distinct feel in how we approached it. Even from how our young ladies, our young Supremes, are in the ’60s, with that joy, that optimism, even though life is coming at them. Then you get a little bit more of a reality that’s grounded in the 70s, as they are learning to deal with what grief really is and how it’s something that you cannot put into words, especially with the specific loss that happens. You know, think I heard once that God has a name for everything else but for losing a child. That it’s maybe too difficult and too horrible of a word even to have a word that can describe what that means for a parent.
And then, when we get to the ’90s, age is a factor for us. Their bodies are changing, but the relationships, especially with Clarice, are something that have remained stagnant and toxic, so she’s very much muted. She is a musician who can work through her art, and I think that’s how she speaks. However, that’s something at this point in her life that has been truncated as well. We get to watch her character go back and find out what her passion is, to find out who she is. We all have the same soul that we had when we were younger, and even if we have evolved into different people, we’re not the same as when we were 17, but we must discover that. For Odette, the opportunities that were missed while she’s been a savior for everyone else is something that also showcases the burden that women as a whole, often take upon themselves. We hold the world up, never complain about the weight on our shoulders, and keep going.
All of these things transfer into the universality of the story that Edward created. That’s why it goes further than its geography. It’s very universal. It’s not just a story for Black women or women of color. No, this is a story about us as women trying our best to make it through a male-dominated world, seeing the boxes that this world has set out for us and deciding, “Do I fall into what the pattern is, or do I try to make my own way?” In the journey that each of our Supremes goes through, there’s something that we can see in ourselves. We see a bit of Odette. We see a bit of Barbara Jean, we see a bit of Clarice. Once you walk out of this film you feel an inspiration. You feel a joy and an uplifting. I always like to think of this film as being the embrace that you didn’t know you needed. This is a film that gives you that.
What happens when you take DIY auteurs and put them on a professional movie set? That was what happened when Toby Poser and John Adams traveled to Serbia to make “Hell Hole,” the latest film from half of the team known as the Adams Family.
For those who haven’t met them yet, the Adams are a literal family of four who have spent the last decade or so developing a unique, intuitive style of filmmaking that embraces serendipity and works with the natural surroundings of their home in upstate New York. Handling every aspect of the production themselves—one family member will hold the camera, another will run sound, while the rest perform in an improvised scene—they’ve made a handful of horror movies like “The Deeper You Dig,” “Where the Devil Roams,” and “Hellbender.” That last film was a breakout indie-horror hit, one that landed them a profile in The New York Times and a guest spot on “The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs.”
The latter appearance led to a deal with Shudder and production company Not the Funeral Home, which allowed Poser and Adams to make “Hell Hole” in the conventional style. It was their first movie with a standard screenplay, and their first shoot with a full crew of technicians—not to mention artificial lighting. Being true-blue horror filmmakers, the first thing Poser and Adams decided to do when given a (relatively) big budget was to amp up the gore by bringing in veteran effects artist Todd Masters. The result is a wild ride of a monster movie about two Americans (Poser and Adams) who unearth an ancient evil while working on a fracking site in Serbia.
We spoke with Poser and Adams about combining nuanced character work with outrageous splatter in this grand experiment, and what it was like to have someone else handling the details for a change.
The biggest difference with this movie is that you shot it in Serbia, rather than your usual locations in upstate New York. Did you tailor the story for that location?
Toby Poser: In some really cool ways. Once we knew we were going to shoot there, it became less of a small, intimate family story. We added more characters. And then, when we got there, we sat down with people who helped us translate [the script] so that it would make sense within the Serbian community. They weren’t perfect translations, more like something that’s funny there. For instance, there’s a line where [a character] says “he exploded a tomato” in English. In Serbian, it’s “he exploded like ajvar,” which is a red pepper paste [popular in the region]. It was fun playing with things like that.
You also made great use of abandoned Soviet-era industrial buildings. Were those part of the original plan?
John Adams: The original script was more family based. It was going to take place on an oil field in Canada, actually. Then when we got to Serbia, we changed it to a Russian mine. We’re Americans talking to Serbians and they’re talking to French people, and there’s Russians there, and everybody’s miscommunicating and everything’s wild and wooly. Toby wrote that into the script really well.
It was really smart the way you incorporated the Slovenian scientists not always being able to communicate with the American characters very articulately.
TP: It became kind of like an alienation soup, which plays in with the body horror, the social differences, obviously the international differences. So I think it really enriched the story that we got to shoot there.
How was the original more family based?
JA: We had a love story, actually, in the first run through of the script. We’re used to — obviously, we always make movies as a family. So we’re more used to the insularness and the love of a family. So there was more of a love story at the fracking camp. But when we got to [the set], we took most of the family stuff.
It’s still in there, a little bit.
TP: We still have a nephew and an aunt. We’ve often made stories about mothers and daughters, and [this time] I really wanted to make a story that’s about a woman who has no interest in motherhood whatsoever. It was really important to me that she’s like, “I love you. I’m your aunt, but I don’t want to be your mother. Don’t call me that.” And it worked in tandem with this particular story.
How about casting yourselves as the ugly Americans, and writing dialogue where you’re rude and crude? How was that?
JA: That part was easy. [Laughs]
Was it fun?
JA: Oh, of course. I mean, look, I love America. America is beautiful and America is ugly, and that’s what makes us Americans. And I think the Americans in it are both beautiful and very ugly.
I thought your character in particular was interesting, Toby, because she says she’s a hippie at heart, but she runs a fracking company.
TP: That wasn’t in the original [script] as much. We loved playing up the brutal cynicism of Americans. In America, we think fracking is violating the earth, so we go to another country and go drill on their property.
JA: The other thing that was important to us was there is no political statement about who’s right and who’s wrong. [Toby’s character] turned to fracking because windmills and solar panels weren’t working out for her.
It’s more character based.
JA: They’re human beings that are in a fix. Even the environmentalists make some pretty big mistakes.
And selfish decisions.
JA: So everybody’s in the same soup.
TP: The young scientist, she says, “this is what I do, but I find it interesting what you do.” She’s acknowledging that there are lots of angles to this conversation about how we get our energy.
I want to talk about conceptualizing the monster and the gore sequences in the film. Did you go in wanting to do something goopy and fun? There’s some gore in your other films, but it’s really played up here.
JA: This was our chance to make a monster movie. Working with Shudder and [production company] Not the Funeral Home let us do things that we would never be able to do as a family. And so when they approached us, we said, “Let’s make a monster movie because we cannot do that without outside help.” Then they approached Todd Masters, who’s a master at the most beautiful effects in the business.
I was going to ask how you got hooked up with him.
JA: Not The Funeral Home did all that. The producers hooked that up, and he’s the sweetest human being. And then we brought our effects guy [makeup artist Trey Lindsay] to be the bridge between us and Todd, to give it that Adams sauce. Monsters are great, but there can be difficulties in it because they’re not real organisms. You have to give them life. So [Trey] added stop-motion sequences and puppetry and made it all work.
The thing that stuck with me were the piles of gore. Like when your character dies, John, there’s a little puddle with an earring in it.
JA: That’s hilarious to us. We made this movie so we could all laugh together.
Were you influenced by other creature features? It made me think about “Alien” and “The Thing” with the coworker relationships and enclosed environment.
TP: We both love “The Thing” for sure. It was impossible not to pay homage to that.
JA: We also love “Creature from the Black Lagoon” and 1950s, early ‘60s monster movies. And they all have science. They all have the monster, and then a young female scientist. What we wanted to do was change that aspect of it a little.
How would you articulate the difference?
TP: I think for us, [the monster] is not sexual whatsoever. It really is just flipping the conversation about whose body’s going to get more attention. Because for decades, we’ve seen the story of women’s bodies being violated. And in this case, we thought, let’s put the focus on men. This creature has no interest in women. It’s functional.
JA: It’s fun to think of men’s bodies as the soil for fertility.
Yeah. Being colonized by these outside forces.
TP: Especially with everything that’s going on in the news in America. We didn’t want to bang anyone over the head with a massive hammer. We wanted this to be fun. But it was really important for me to have those nuggets of considerations about bodily autonomy. I’m not going to deny that.
Where and how do those themes emerge?
TP: We don’t usually work with full screenplays. We’re usually discovering our films while we’re making them. We take massive cues from whatever the universe is dropping into our laps, whether it’s a rainstorm or a dead deer in the woods. Our typical films are very organic, in the moment, living, breathing things.
Do you write outlines usually, or is it truly just going scene by scene and seeing what comes out?
TP: An outline, and maybe a template for a scene. In this case, we needed a full script.
Because you were working with other people?
TP: Yes. We were really thinking about that. It was a great exercise for us.
Normally you do everything yourselves. What was it like to give the technical aspects over to other people?
JA: That was a wild experience, but it was a wonderful time because it helped us grow as storytellers and filmmakers. Because what you find out when you’re working with the industry, I would say, is that there’s rules. The only way it works is if you follow the rules. And we’ve grown up making movies with no rules.
So now we see the rules, and we can apply any rules we like, but we can also go back to the way we make films with no rules and beside what we’re consciously keeping out or adding. For example, we’ve never used lights in our entire career, but [on “Hell Hole,”] day one, there’s lights and it’s like, “oh my God! Lights!”
I remember noticing the natural light in “The Deeper You Dig.”
TP: And the camera wasn’t in [John’s] hands, which was very new.
JA: And we usually paint with the camera. We use natural light. If it’s a cloudy day, it’s a cloudy day [in the film]. You figure out how to make it look great. This was a different experience. It was something that we never could have learned on our own.
TP: I was honestly a little overwhelmed at first, just because there were so many people. If you’re usually one to four people, and then you have 50 people on a set, it’s a different dynamic. I was a little shell shocked, but I’ll be honest, it only made me stronger. And I loved the education. I valued it. And there were things that were really fun, like, “oh, I don’t have to lug that into the woods?”
[Laughs] Yeah, someone else carried the heavy stuff.
TP: “I’m not allowed to touch it? No problem.” [Laughs] I’m not going to lie, I was happy about certain things. But it is a lesson when you learn how to collaborate with people, which I’m sure it is for people who’ve been doing it forever, too.
That brings up something interesting. Usually you’re shooting around your house, and you’re really intimate with that landscape. But this is a totally different landscape — literally another country, one that I assume you had never been to before?
JA: Correct. We did have the Russian mine as a background, so that was one thing that was very lucky.
Did you get to do any location scouting?
JA: No, the [production company] did that. We showed up and we’re like, “okay, this is what we have to work with. Let’s go.” We couldn’t go roam the woods and find the moss and the cliffs and all the streams that we know. We got to concentrate on the gore and these great Serbian actors and actresses. It became less about the [intuitive] way we work and more about finding what was beautiful about these people [we were working with].
TP: That was my favorite part, hands down.
Yeah? Why?
TP: It’s fun to work with people who are “yes” people. They were wonderful. A lot of them were theater actors, total professionals and fun and loving and lovable. I think that shines through. They were like, “oh, is that what you want? Okay, great. Let’s do it.”
JA: They didn’t do slapstick, even though the movie is outrageous. We told them, “don’t play it like an ‘80s movie. Play it honest and genuine, don’t nod and wink. Believe it.” And they believed it. It was really cool.
Toby, you have a background in acting — how did that influence the way that you have worked in the past, and also working with other actors for the first time?
TP: It’s funny. Even though theater is different from film, I take a lot of what I learned with me in directing and with other actors because it’s about listening and responding. It’s just about being in the moment. Even little technical things — I remember my teachers telling me something that I always use about how you choreograph who sits down at what time. And so I bring a lot of that with me. I love working with actors.
JA: It was fun watching you direct them. Toby sat with them and talked with them, she had a great rapport with them. I was more “go from here to there,” and Toby explained how to go from here to there. They loved her.
TP: Well, they loved working with you, too.
As you said before, your daughter Zelda [who co-starred in “Hellbender”] is away at college right now, but you did work with your daughter Lulu on this film. What was her contribution?
TP: She really got it in motion. We’re indebted to her, she wrote the first draft.
JA: It changed a lot. Her script was a real romance, it was very fun and sexy.
TP: Which is fun.
JA: It had sex scenes and things like that.
It’s so funny to go from romance in Canada to a gory monster movie in Serbia.
TP: It still had the tentacles, so imagine that. The tentacles were a source of humor.
Every afternoon, as Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) pulls into his driveway after work, one of his neighbors, like clockwork, walks by his home talking on his cell phone. Sometimes they greet each other, others they simply perform this unspoken, synchronized ritual we can assume has happened for years. Each instance of this interactions is shot from the same angle to visually reaffirm the notion of a treasured routine—which becomes even more noticeable when absent. Partly a tribute to the routine occurrences that collectively make a place feel like one belongs, Monica Sorelle’s delicately galvanizing slice-of-life debut “Mountains,” set in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, overflows with such details.
Reserved but never one to stand for injustice, Xavier finds himself in a compromised position as he works demolishing properties that will be turned into luxury homes not intended to house locals. The operations have gotten too close to his own doorstep for comfort. Nearby, a new, more spacious home for sale catches his eye. Could it be time for a new start? Without calling much attention to them, the filmmaker makes clear who the desired prospects to inhabit it are, and they certainly don’t look or sound like Xavier and his wife Esperance (a radiant Sheila Anozier), both working-class immigrants from Haiti.
Picking up gossip along the way, Esperance walks around the neighborhood exchanging pleasantries with people who have for long been fixtures in her life, just as she has been one in theirs. But for as much Sorelle and cinematographer Javier Labrador Deulofeu revel in immortalizing the colorful, lived-in streets of this community, she also engages with the nagging feeling of impermanence all immigrants share, being in another country while thinking about the one left behind. For Xavier, the bridge between him and Haiti is a radio program on news from his embattled Caribbean homeland. The body language and stoic demeanor of Nazaire (an actor who’s previously had small roles in TV and film) transmit an imposing fortitude, and at times inflexibility, while still allowing for gentleness.
Sorelle’s “Mountains” joins other recent American productions such as “On the Seventh Day,” about Mexican immigrants from the state of Puebla in New York, or “Menashe,” following a Hasidic Jewish father, that document ethnic enclaves existing parallel to the country’s mainstream society where life often unfolds in a language other than English. These universes full of stories refuse to be homogenized into an indistinct mass, straddling a degree of inevitable assimilation with a resilient conviction to maintain their identity.
Though “Mountains” spends most of its time grappling with the quiet worries of its immigrant characters, Sorelle eventually turns to their son Junior (Chris Renois), an aspiring standup comedian still living at home whose chosen career path doesn’t align with what Xavier envisioned for him. His perspective on his parents’ rigid mindset, and how it clashes with the idea of pursuing one’s “dreams,” enrich this layered appreciation of this household, a proxy for countless others in any diaspora. The perceptive writer-director further balances the scales through a scene where Xavier himself is looked down on by his wealthy brother-in-law for what the latter deems a lack of ambition. That Sorelle’s co-writer Robert Colom is Cuban may contribute to the honesty on display when Xavier’s Cuban boss utters openly racist remarks about him and another Black employee, confirming such attitudes prevail even among groups that have more in common than not.
Soon, corporate vultures, eager to buy homes for cheap, begin to circle the family, banking, likely, on how unwelcoming the new developments will make the area for the immigrant population. What’s more insidious is that they tacitly force those who live there to partake in their own displacement: when Xavier and Esperance attend the open house for the residence they dream of owing, the person assisting the agent whispers to them in Creole—she is also of Haitian descent—not as a reassuring gesture, but with an undertone of condescension that Esperance doesn’t appreciate. Slowly, their acquittances will be replaced with people new to the neighborhood who act is if it has always belonged to them. That’s how gentrification operates, turning spaces that once held significance for the marginalized into bland playgrounds for outsiders who can afford them. It’s a mentality of ruthless appropriation with no interest in fostering community. The strength of Sorelle’s storytelling hinges on how she divulges these points not in verbose dialogue or force confrontations, but through the ambivalent emotions that coat all human drama.
There, among the ruins of a vibrant community under siege, Xavier stands tall taking claim to the place where he’s built a life, humble and hard-fought but his and his family’s. To leave would mean to migrate again, to be uprooted and stripped from any semblance of home, all for the benefit of neo-colonizers whose economic prowess inflicts pain guised as opportunity. Xavier’s mere presence means resistance, as do the boisterous sounds of his people’s festivities and of their language. And though the bulldozers may rip windows and walls apart, it’s the intangible that’s unmovable. They, indeed, can’t move mountains.
The opening twenty minutes of “Close Your Eyes,” the third fiction feature from Spanish director Victor Erice, and his first film in thirty years (his documentary, “The Quince Tree Sun,” came out in 1993; the debut feature that made his reputation was 1973’s “The Spirit of the Beehive”), are as quietly spellbinding as anything you’ll see this year, or decade, or century.
The time is 1947, shortly after the Second World War, and the Spanish Civil War as well; the setting is an estate outside of Paris called Triste Del Rey—the sadness of the king—and the characters are an older man and a Spanish man in middle age. “Chess is a reflection of the world,” the older man says before he tells the younger of his plight, the disappearance of his now-teenage daughter, thought to now be in Shanghai. He refers to a movement made by this loved one as her “Shanghai gesture,” and real heads will know. This movie is threaded through with cinematic allusions. And this scenario isn’t even the actual movie—it’s two-thirds of the extant footage of a never-finished movie called “The Farewell Gaze.” Its lead actor, Julio Arenas (José Coronado, a relatively assured figure when we first see him), walked off the set one day after a cut was called, and was never seen again.
This, we learn, was in 1990; the movie cuts ahead to 2012, and its director Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo, whose deep-set eyes convey universes of worry and sadness) is approached by a Spanish television series called “Unresolved Cases”—yes, the “Unsolved Mysteries” thing is worldwide—to discuss the movie and his missing friend. He’s not sure about working with these people, but they seem to have integrity and they’re offering him some money, which he can use. The “Farewell Gaze” experience put him off directing—you can see why it might—and after writing a novel or two he’s barely scraping together a living as his dotage approaches. Researching on behalf of the program takes him into some storage facilities, and even another part of Spain altogether (the movie begins in Madrid). He consults his adult daughter (played by Ana Torrent, the little girl beguiled by the image of the Frankenstein monster in “Beehive”), an old girlfriend, and his former film editor. All through his journeys the movie retains a quiet tone, one that grows ever more contemplative as the story inches forward. This nearly three-hour film is likely to be checked off as “slow cinema” by some, and the descriptor is correct. But Erice’s deeply personal style isn’t tied to anything resembling a trend.
The movie’s central mystery is solved about two-thirds of the way into the film’s running time. It’s not paradoxical in any way that the film becomes even more enigmatic after that. “Close Your Eyes” is about seeing, and about recording what you see, and it’s also about what you can’t see even when you’re looking. That is, a reintroduced character does not convey to the viewer anything definite in terms of what’s going on inside them, what they recognize or what they don’t. We have an epistemological puzzle here that you may or may find the film’s finale, in which the last ten minutes of “Farewell Gaze” are screened for an invitational audience in the hopes of unlocking something for one of its viewers, solves. Or, again, not.
The movie’s senses of cinema are never present for self-consciously clever, self-referential reasons. Rather, they’re deeply intertwined with considerations of age and mortality. The searching of a now-84-year-old maestro of cinema is exquisitely moving and speaks with an urgency that isn’t at all undermined by the films languid pace.
On a rainy weekend in Chicago, MUBI, the indie film streaming powerhouse that champions both emerging and established filmmakers, launched MUBI FEST, an international film festival. MUBI FEST is about building community around the love of film, transcending the limits of streaming to bring audiences face-to-face with the raw essence of cinema. Chicago, known for its resilience and creativity, is the perfect home for a festival that feels like a love letter to the city and its vibrant culture. The birthplace of house music, gospel, urban blues, and modern jazz, Chicago has a legendary musical heritage. With major artists like The Smashing Pumpkins, Rise Against, and Chance the Rapper emerging from the third coast along the Rust Belt, it’s clear why the MUBI team chose this city to launch their U.S. festival, themed around music. With a robust lineup of films like “Nashville,” “Babylon,” “All That Jazz,” and “Mo’ Better Blues,” MUBI FEST had a lot to offer.
As the rain drummed on the concrete, the Red Line train buzzed by, and the smell of popcorn filled the streets, I began my two-day journey at the Music Box Theatre, a beloved local venue renowned for its passion for indie films and filmmakers. I was there to witness the MUBI Podcast Live with Thrill Jockey, hosted by Rico Gagliano, in which he explored the power and influence of music on culture and its inspirations, both in Chicago and nationally. Using Thrill Jockey’s release, Looking For a Thrill: An Anthology of Inspiration, as a framing device, Gagliano embarked on an electrifying conversation with director Braden King and local musicians Janet Beveridge Bean and Doug McCombs about music’s impact on film and culture. The podcast was a brilliant entry point into the festival in that it encapsulated the festival’s themes of movies and music and unpacked Chicago’s history as a hub of creativity. As McCombs described it, “Chicago [art scene] is like a fungus. There’s not just one central point—there are many points of creativity.” His words sparked a deep sense of Chicagoan pride in me, and I felt a warm Midwestern smile and nod ripple through the room. In an instant, MUBI FEST had captured Chicago’s heart.
Next, I found myself rushing through the downpour toward the Gene Siskel Film Center, eager to catch the premiere of director Zia Anger’s cinematic retelling of her lost and abandoned project, “My First Film.” Excitement buzzed from the theater. I arrived just in time for Rico Gagliano’s rousing introduction, and then the lights dimmed. As the silver screen illuminated the room, a sea of heads filled the space in front of me—the screening was packed, and Anger had undoubtedly earned her audience.
Premiering on MUBI on September 6th, “My First Film” is a must-watch for every filmmaker, whether seasoned or new, young or old. The film follows Vita (Odessa Young), a fictional representation of Anger herself, as she recounts her journey to make her first feature. Serving as a diary, Anger takes us on an emotional journey where past, present, and future seamlessly blend together. Watching a film is easy; making one is incredibly difficult. Anger masterfully captures the frustrations and desperations of a first-time director grappling with a failed project and the weight of self-imposed expectations. I wish I had seen this film ten years ago at the start of my filmmaking journey. I left the screening with two powerful lessons: “Failure happens to everyone, but no one talks about it,” and “You will make movies again.” Anger truly nailed it with this one.
Energized and supercharged from the film premiere, I began my voyage back up north to the Music Box. As day turned to night, the scent of rain and dew permeated the streets. The rain left puddles in the road, reflecting the glow of city lights. The Music Box’s neon sign beckoned in the distance, cutting through the darkness like a beacon, inviting all movie lovers to its doors. When I stepped inside, it was clear that MUBI had made its mark. The red carpet lining the multicolored tiled floor, the pale yellow walls, and the red chandeliers above were all cloaked in shadow as MUBI’s deep blue color scheme lit up the space. I arrived at the tail end of happy hour, the theater bustling with cinephiles, MUBI members, and locals alike. It was a warm and lively atmosphere that carried into the screening of Spike Lee’s 1990 classic, “Mo’ Better Blues.”
This film follows jazz musician Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington) as he navigates career, love, and friendship under the weight of a bad contract at a rundown nightclub. Seeing Washington on the big screen is always a treat, but seeing him in his prime was even sweeter. Denzel does what Denzel always does: steal the show. His character was magnetic, and his supporting cast was exceptional – from Charlie Murphy to Robin Harris, the audience regularly erupted with side-splitting laughter. Lee’s writing and direction are unparalleled, making it the perfect way to end my first day.
Day two greeted me with sunshine and a clear sky as I made my way to my final destination: the Salt Shed, an entertainment venue in Goose Island. I arrived in the middle of the U.S. Girls performance, where Meg Remy commanded the small stage, her voice reverberating through the venue. The crowd stretched as far as I could see, with cheers and screams echoing around me. After a powerful performance, Chicago music journalist and filmmaker Jessica Hopper took the stage to interview Meg Remy. Their conversation covered everything from musical inspirations to the influence of music in film, including tonight’s main event, Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth.”
This 1986 fantastical adventure follows Sarah, played by a young Jennifer Connelly, as she has 13 hours to navigate a mysterious labyrinth and rescue her baby brother from the clutches of the Goblin King, portrayed by David Bowie. Bowie’s lyrical mysticism is unmistakable. The audience and I hung on his every word, feeling as though we were witnessing Bowie’s magic live on stage, not on a screen.
And just as quickly as MUBI FEST began, it ended. There was a magic in the city that only rises when artists collaborate and appreciate art together. It’s a feeling I hope every Chicago-based filmmaker experiences, and one I’d love to relive. I hope MUBI FEST returns to the third coast. We need it.
