With tributes to a bevy of great
filmmakers, all here with new work – Edward Norton (Stone), Julian
Schnabel (Miral) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Biutiful) – and
a judicious selection of award season treasures, the 33rd Mill
Valley Film Festival (October 7th through the 17th at
Mill Valley’s Sequoia Twin Cinemas and San Rafael’s Smith Rafael Film Center)
offers 85 feature programs, a renowned short film showcase: the 5@5 series
weeknights at both venues, a children’s festival and good parties. Info at: www.mvff.com
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Patagonia: Nahuel Perez Biscayart, the
sensationally expressive young Argentine actor -- whose loose limbed dancing to
music by the Violent Femmes helped win Frameline’s Best First Feature Jury
Award for the Patagonian horny teens drama Glue -- returns with a
restrained but equally touching performance as a boy asked to escort an aging
neighbor to a medical appointment in Buenos Aires. The widow surprises the kid
with a plan to fly to her native Wales – she wants to see the farm where she
was born once more before she dies. This tale, featuring beats familiar to fans
of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, is coupled with a Welsh born
woman’s romantic misadventures in Patagonia’s achingly lovely landscape. Marc
Evans bases his rambunctious dueling road stories on the legends attaching to
Argentina’s Welsh minority, who fled from the hard scrabble poverty of 19th
century Welsh coal mines. The awesome beauty of both lands provokes life
altering angst for the characters and will be an eye popping big screen treat.
(Rafael 10-9 & 14)
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The King’s Speech: Imagine a kindle that
emits the smell of an expensive book. No? Well, I don’t think any scrolling
reader will hit me with the fantasy inducing odors of my British father’s 1947
copy of Queen Elizabeth’s wedding photos. A close movie equivalent is Tom
Hooper’s irreverent behind the throne peek at how an agonizingly shy Duke of
York – another peerless piece of observational non-method acting from Colin
Firth, last year’s peerless A Single Man – overcomes a paralyzing speech
impediment in a age where even a hereditary ruler had to slip into his
subjects’ living rooms via the “wireless.”
Although not your usual “two-hander,” The
King’s Speech gets a huge boost from the odd couple chemistry of the future
monarch and his unorthodox therapist, Oscar winning Best Actor Geoffrey Rush.
Upending centuries of royal prerogatives, Rush’s Lionel Logue insists on seeing
the future king in his very modest lodging and on addressing the uptight prince
as “Bertie,” a privilege only other “royals” could claim. This Oscar bait tour
de force should leave you laughing, and perhaps shedding a tear for a very
human monarch. (Opening Night/Rafael/10-7)
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Fair Game: While this nimbly performed political spy
thriller will have many reaching for their Bush bashing software, for those who
remember post-Watergate efforts to reform the CIA, it’s a little annoying to
find ourselves rooting for a CIA operative as the hero of a tangled story about
the hotly contested Iraq invasion. That said, English born, Aussie raised Naomi
Watts hits all the right American accented notes as veteran spy, Valerie Plame,
who finds herself caught between the Chaney/Bush disinformation machine and her
excitable ex-diplomat hubby, Joe Wilson’s (Sean Penn), penchant for turning the
battle over Saddam’s WMD’s into a personal pissing contest with Bush bloggers.
Watts and Penn nimbly get to that excruciating moment when a private marriage
goes toxic in the full glare of our 24/7 age news cycle. (Rafael/10-15
& Sequoia/10-17)
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The Housemaid: Trust it to the Koreans to give us an Upstairs/Downstairs
revenge fueled melodrama that climaxes with a very troubled family getting
a flaming floor show at their exclusive country hideaway. Laced with very hot
master/servant sex between the title character and her very tacky boss, this
one puts your faith in the New Korean Cinema to an ultimate test.
(Sequoia/10-15)
Heartbeats: If you were foolish enough to miss Quebec
queer boy auteur Xavier Dolan’s first feature, I Killed My Mother, don’t
pass on his Cannes heralded follow up where reportedly the twenty-one-year-old sensation
– deliciously bratty in his debut feature’s bitch slap to the coming out story
– produces a combustible ménage that may finally get him a US distribution
deal. (Sequoia 10-14 & 17)
5@5 Shorts: Gayby: Jonathan Lisecki’s droll short has a queer man and his “fag
hag” friend deciding to procreate without kitchen utensils. With dialogue that
sparkles with the wit and insight of good fiction, a roof top smoke break,
prior to consulting a home pregnancy kit, turns into a funny/sad meditation on
the passing of youth and the onset of life changes transcending the needs of
bringing up baby.
Quality Time: Marin’s plucky Miller twins make a silly costume cameo in
James Redford’s seriously over scheduled modern clan comedy.
Git Along, Lil Dogies: Montana resident Kate Lain brings a rebellious wit to a
tomboy’s refusal to bow to puberty’s unwanted gifts.
Capture the Flag: A teen girl’s enthusiasm for a peculiar family ritual,
despite a friendly warning by her cute male cousin, results in an unsettling end
to a summer in the woods in Lisanne Skyler’s astutely emotive short. (Plays
with Nobody Told Me Program/Sequoia 10-14 & Rafael 10-15)
The Crocodiles: Christian Ditter pushes beyond Disney
Channel hyper-cutesy tweener codes with a well shot juvenile caper spotlighting
diversity in modern Germany. Based on a popular novel about a cusp of puberty
boys’ gang that finds room for a plucky tomboy, a stuttering boy, a weight
challenged angry kid, an undersized kid helping a single mom, an unruly
immigrant kid and a lonely wheelchair bound rich boy whose expensive telescope
prompts their most perilous adventure. (Throckmorton 10-10 & Rafael 10-16)
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Stone: Edward Norton, Robert De Niro and Milla
Jovovich bring their “A” games to this prison thriller where a young convict –
sentenced for a crime resulting in the immolation of his grandparents –
alternately provokes and tempts his close to retirement parole officer with an
ethical dilemma that only begins with sexual favors from his amorally
flirtatious wife. John Curran’s taut direction underscores the moral sucker
punches hidden in Angus MacLachlan’s (Junebug) unbearably suspenseful
script. A religious parable ranking with James Marsh’s The King. (Rafael
10-9)
Child of Giants: My Journey with Maynard Dixon & Dorothea
Lang: Tom Ropelewski’s multi-layered doc on the lives of two giants of the
American art world, as seen by their troubled first born son, provides fresh
evidence why a close brush with genius can be unsettling to those not so
blessed. Gives insights both inspiring and harrowing into the passions and work
habits of two artists, who as much as anyone taught us how to view America’s
Great Depression. (Sequoia 10-9 & Rafael 10-11)
William Vincent & 127 Hours: For those desiring a
post Howl double dip of Palo Alto native James Franco, the festival
mixes a hip post modern thriller (William Vincent/Sequoia 10-16 &
Rafael 10-17) with the Danny Boyle helmed true life story of a mountain climber
faced with a horrific choice: based on the memoir Between a Rock and a Hard
Place, 127 Hours plays Rafael 10-16.