In Ira Sachs’ new film Little Men, you can see the gears turning and wheels spinning the whole time.
It’s a message-machine about gentrification, couched in a fleetingly charming story of youthful friendship, that never once feels effortless or honest.
In 1980, the British theologian John Hull began to lose his eyesight permanently. Having struggled with vision problems his whole life, the process had irrevocably started toward total blindness. As he grappled with all that this would entail, he began keeping an audio diary, titled Notes On Blindness and eventually encompassing hundreds of hours of material – thoughts, reflections, anxieties, loneliness and isolation creeping in, but also a stubborn insistence: “If I was going to be blind,” he says, “then blindness must be understood.”
Juan Francisco Olea’s feature debut is a curious and not entirely comfortable mix of tones and themes. Is it a “black comedy”? That’s what the promotional materials promise. Yet it is never funny, although plenty bleak. It has moments of levity, but veers more towards an existential examination of doubt, faith, and action.
Describing Sean Baker’s Tangerine is essentially making a list of dodgy propositions. It was shot entirely on iPhone 5s. It features two non-actors in the leads (though surrounds them with more established people like James Ransone, who played Ziggy on The Wire and will appear in the upcoming Sinister 2, and a whole cast of Armenian performers who are well-known abroad).
It’s only May, but the top contender for documentary of the year has already arrived. Jason Zeldes’ portrait of Richmond, CA and the struggles of its youth in an incredibly dangerous environment is a staggeringly emotional and moving film. It provides narrative context for its subjects, and is both visually interesting and accomplished, but it also has the good sense to let these kids speak for themselves.
Sometimes, movies are released at exactly the right time, gaining impact and resonance thanks to events in the offscreen world.
Stanley Nelson’s new documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is accomplished and compelling, if not particularly daring in any way aesthetically.