Seth Rogen wants to teach you a lesson about movie marketing...
This is going to create some serious issues for many people, primarily because the brilliant marketing campaign for Observe and Report - especially the trailer - is selling it like a sequel to Paul Blart: Mall Cop, if not an outright spoof of it. Not surprisingly to those who are familiar with Hill, it's neither, and the references you may have heard to Taxi Driver are accurate. It's a crude, crass, crazy comedy starring a bipolar version of Seth Rogen's character from Pineapple Express, and it will chew up the unsuspecting viewer and violently spit them out.
They'll deserve it, of course, for not heeding the warning signs plastered all over this movie, starting with the name of its writer and director. Jody Hill hasn't sugarcoated anything about his style of humor: "I don’t find much in the comedies I’ve been seeing to get excited about. I’ll watch ‘City of God’ and laugh more...Comedy, for some reason, it’s the most dangerous cinema out there," he said in a recent interview. Danny McBride added, "“That’s what’s going to throw people. I think they’re going to be expecting punch lines, and instead they’re going to get a dark, crazy, awesome journey.” And the star of the movie, Seth Rogen?: "“It’s my own personal joke, to see how people freak out."
Sorry, Seth, but I suspect the joke is going to end up being on you guys, box-office gold not withstanding. Jody Hill's humor is, well, a little out there, and I highly doubt people will understand that Rogen is trying to make a departure into a different style of comedy. They'll hoot and holler about the drug use and alcoholism and feigned rape and the crazy minorities and the unforgettably graphic nudity and the bone-crushing and bloody violence and the overall tastelessness of everything. But they're not going to get the "joke" or take any meaning from the movie, and most of them will walk out afterward with a huge grin on their face, privately trying to understand how they could have been so hoodwinked.
The only thing worse than thinking that Hollywood treats us moviegoers like oblivious sheep is realizing that we are, in fact, oblivious sheep. We'll see anything, laugh at anything, pay for anything, and come back asking for more, never questioning... anything in the process.
After weeks of private stewing and public grumbling on other local blogs about the lack of information available on the 27th Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival (MSPIFF), I can now stop whining and start planning. As always, MSPIFF is happening despite the annual doubts that it wouldn't. Click here for the schedule.
Granted, the titles and brief synopses of the movies have slowly trickled onto the website since mid-March, and I've also known about a number of the titles because I've been writing a few reviews of them for the Strib. But to acquire the interest of the general public it's a bit of a close call to get this out so late again this year, especially when the festival starts in just nine days. I'll admit, however, that releasing the schedule so late hasn't seemed to affect audience turnout in years past.
And, while the schedule is important for getting people to show up, the quality and diversity of films is even more so. Glancing through the titles and countries it appears that this year is again heavily loaded with European (especially Icelandic?) films, but it's still an interesting bunch. Let's take a look at some highlights:
Opening Night: World's Greatest Dad (note that this isn't actually on the schedule, but it's based on something I read on, you know, the internet, so chances are it's true).
UPDATE: The new opening night film will be the Sundance darling romantic comedy, 500 Days of Summer.
Other highlights: There are a number of movies that will likely be opening nationwide later this year. Here are a few to keep an eye on:
Tokyo Sonata
Trust Us, This Is All Made Up
The Country Teacher
Rumba
Rudo y Cursi
Food, Inc.
Lemon Tree
Seraphine
Song of the Sparrows
Three Monkeys
Rough Aunties
The Necessities of Life
Moon
Tyson
Il Divo
Directors are also going to be present at a handful of these - never an opportunity to pass up if you can help it.
Global Lens 2009 Films: I reviewed a couple of Global Lens 2008 films last year as the played at the Walker Art Center. This year they're going to be folded into MSPIFF, and you can preview the whole "class" here. I recommend Mutum and Song From the Southern Seas, and on recommendation from Kathie Smith I'm planning to see Sleepwalking Land.
Other Randoms: I really want a page of indexed films like you can find in the hard copy of the program each year. But since that isn't out yet, all I can do is glance over the schedule and photos online and make guesses on what I haven't already seen that might interest me:
Munyruangabo
Salt of This Sea
Marcello Marcello
Los Bastardos
Shultes
The Mermaid
Oblivion
One Man Village
Heart of Fire
The Chaser
Secrets of the Grain
Jerichow
King of Ping Pong
American Violet
Breaking Upwards
The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World
The Infinite Border
Blind Loves
A Walk to Beautiful
Personal Che
Living in Emergencies: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
Letters to the President
Wow. That's plenty, isn't it? Nice job by MFA chief Al Milgrom and MSPIFF programmer Ryan Oestreich in getting this many potentially great movies lined up. It will be tough to top the quality of last year's festival (my recap), but I think there could be some nice surprises in this list.
And finally, no MSPIFF would be complete without the popular trailer that plays before each screening. Thanks to Euan Kerr, I've found what appears to be a completed version of this year's trailer, created by Mojo Solo/Jesse Roesler. It's not embeddable, but you can click here to see it.
More to come on the festival in the next week...
They'll be out of the gate in February pretty soon...
I've mentioned before my desire for an official Movie Offseason: a five or six week period between Oscar night and a predetermined spring date in which no new movies would be released. While I have several arguably sound reasons to support this idea, there's zero chance it will ever happen since the reasons are clearly in the interest of us, the moviegoing audience, and not them, the studio executives.
But now, before I could even prepare the submission of my proposal, Hollywood's movie calendar has been turned on its ear, and we're going in the opposite direction. On a completely unremarkable April weekend, millions of people around the world paid to watch the same movie they lined up to see less than eight years ago.
Fast & Furious (ugh...that title) violently shattered all box office expectations over the last three days, in the process potentially changing movie releases forever. As far as blockbuster openings go, Easter weekend has become the new Memorial Day weekend. From this point onward, each year's Big Summer Movies aren't going to open on Fourth of July weekend (though that hasn't been the case for some time). The first Big Ones won't open in the middle of June, the end of May, or even the beginning of May. Spring has turned to summer as far as Hollywood is concerned, and April is now the new hot month.
The success of Fast & Furious, however, wasn't really expected this April. It was originally scheduled for June (when all three of its prequels opened), but last December Universal Pictures moved its release to April. The weekend report on Box Office Mojo explains: "We're very aggressive with our release dates," said Nikki Rocco, Universal's president of distribution. "Our group spends a lot of time looking at the competitive environment. We originally had The Wolfman on April 3, and when that wasn't ready, we convinced all involved to move Fast and Furious there. [This weekend]'s precedent-setting, it opens horizons and shows that if you build it, audiences will come."
Evidently so, but four months ago Fast & Furious was still probably just considered the movie that would knock Watchmen out of the top spot. That bust disappeared from the top ten less than a month after opening, however, and which movies are going to have legs has been anyone's guess lately. Box office business has been so strong in 2009 (attendance is up 12% and revenues are up a jaw-dropping 68% from the same time last year) that nearly every movie in every month is primed to become a potential smash hit. Indeed, at this pace 2009 will be the most profitable year in Hollywood history.
Ignoring the fact that Netflix is also signing up thousands of people a day, conventional wisdom says the unstoppable flow of money is, ironically, on account of the recession. People are looking to escape and movies are relatively affordable family entertainment and we're suckers for shrewd marketing and blah blah blah.
I have another theory. Studio executives simply looked at a calendar and hatched a brilliant plan: move a couple of their summer movies from July and August into the typically quiet months of March and April. While it's true Warner Bros. attempted this with Watchmen, that was primarily because Zack Snyder's 300 set the March record three years ago, not because they were looking to take over the month. But last year, after Iron Man opened to a huge box office in May (and shockingly positive reviews, if I may say so), Paramount announced Iron Man 2 would open in - you guessed it - April of next year. That has since changed to May 7, but considering the accidental success of Fast & Furious, I'd bet money that date is returned to mid or even early April 2010.
And with that, the move will be official. Summer will creep into April and March and eventually February, but by then of course we won't be talking about seasons at all. The whole year will be a free-for-all and my official Movie Offseason will be an embarrassingly quaint idea. Studios will fight to secure the weekend immediately following the Oscars (which incidentally are being held in March next year), and the ceremony will turn from less of a celebration of the past year into a preview of the upcoming one.
And so it goes in Hollywood, always looking for the easiest buck. It's just a surprise it took them this long to discover where it was hiding - and even then by accident.
While watching Sita Sings the Blues I was again revisited by a question that pops up everytime I see an animated movie: have computers completely taken over the realm of animation? If so, is that for the better or for the worse? If not, where does the imaginative human input end and the calculated computer software begin?
Let me clarify that I'm not criticizing Nina Paley's film. Quite the opposite - it's the most creative experiment I've seen in a long time, and it would be great if more filmmakers and artists let loose their imaginations in this way (many amateurs already do so in the form of YouTube mash-up videos, but they're never this witty or polished). But while acknowledging the brilliant style of Sita Sings the Blues, is there room to question the operational process of making animated films?
Paley, an accomplished cartoonist, reportedly worked alone on her Mac for five long years to develop Sita into a living, breathing feature-length film. There is evidence of this painstaking work in the perfect interplay of shapes and silhouettes and figures and lines and photos and music. But there's also evidence - obvious, glaring, undeniable evidence - that these elements were composed using Apple editing software. The lines measure a perfect 180 degrees, the circles an exact 360 degrees. The shapes move within and between frames smoothly as they expand and contract in the foreground and background. Eventually it all just looks too...well almost too perfect for my taste.
Consider the following stills from the film (a number of stills are available on the website):
(click to enlarge)
It's clear that Paley had to do a lot of detailed work in the top frame - five different figures of different shapes and sizes, as well as a variable background. My guess is that this particular segment of the film took a lot of time to design.
Conversely, in the bottom frame it's obvious that Paley simply cut and pasted the monkeys and the temples and the trees. Is this a cheating "shortcut"? Of course not - animated figures have been cloned for at least the past decade in all kinds of movies and TV shows, from "The Simpsons" to Shrek to "South Park" to WALL*E. That's the whole reason to use a computer in the first place.
But is something lost in translation when figures and backgrounds and shapes are perfect and symmetrical in every frame? In most cases I would say no, because in 2009 there is enough detail (look at any Pixar movie) to distract from noticing. But Sita Sings the Blues is 2-d animation, opaque and austere, and the clean choreography unfortunately reminded me of an iPod commercial, as well as a much more disastrous experiment: Tim Burton cloning Oompa-Loompas in his unforgivably bad Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The personality of the Loompas, and thus the spark of life within the factory, was completely lost from the original film (and from the book, for that matter).
I'm not saying that Sita Sings the Blues is lacking personality - that would be absurd. I'm just saying that while I loved Paley's creative use of music and figures, the animated sequences of her own life (below) actually felt much more alive to me. The crooked lines and uneven squiggly figures and funny dancing cat and sketched out city scenes popped off the screen, making the emotional bent in the story of her break-up that much stronger.
Sita Sings the Blues is an astoundingly animated, amusingly articulated film. It's brilliant. Paley's vision comes to the screen wonderfully, and she uses the "camera" like a skilled cinematographer, panning across reflected waters, utilizing fog and sunlight and moonlight, and in one of my favorite sequences, following Rama's arrow as it speeds toward its target, reminiscent of the same scene in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
But is that praise of the animation or the storyboarding? Would Sita Sings the Blues be any better if every frame were hand-drawn? Probably not in this case, and maybe it's a moot point anyway considering Paley created the entire movie without assistance from anyone; had she not taken any shortcuts it would have taken 10 years instead of five.
So where does that leave the future of animated films - will this December's The Princess and the Frog really be the last hand-drawn animated film ever? Perhaps, but while that may not be a bad thing (just imagine if WALL*E had been attempted without the power of animation software), somewhere down the road I fear we're going to lose the human element to animation. In a worst case scenario, future animated films will lack the warmth and personality of the "blemished" ones that are tucked away in my head, such as Pinocchio (incidentally the first movie I remember seeing in a theater). There's plenty of praise to sing about Sita right now, but the I wonder if blues really might be more appropriate in 15-20 years.
In the meantime, judge for yourself: Sita Sings the Blues can be legally viewed (and downloaded in high-res) in its entirety here.
The Underrated Movie of the Month (MOTM) for March is a hit from the good old days of legal thrillers: the early 90's, when characters didn't preach (Michael Clayton), the bad guys weren't based on reality (Michael Clayton) and the stories didn't take themselves so seriously (Michael Clayton). The Firm is a commercially packaged blockbuster that doesn't try to be anything else. It's the anti-Michael Clayton in that respect and it's all the better for it.
Cashing in on the popularity of young novelist John Grisham, The Firm became the first - and, in my opinion, the best - of nine film adaptations of his books, the last being, of course, 2004's Christmas With the Kranks...?!
Opening in the summer of 1993, The Firm was an immediate hit with audiences, many of whom likely saw it multiple times out of devotion to Tom Cruise at the peak of his career. Critics weren't as kind as Joe and Jane Public, and even the few who praised the film complained about its 154-minute running time. In his middling review, Vincent Canby of the New York Times said it was "so slow that by the end you feel as if you've been standing up even if you've been sitting down." Rick Groen of the The Globe and Mail was more blunt: "it's long, it's cluttered, and it's trite."
Maybe it's long, but cluttered and trite? Well, not anymore than Grisham's novels were. That you could tell any of them apart in the first place was an accomplishment to be proud of, but that fact somehow never prevented me from picking up his "new" book every year. So why would the public reaction to the film adaptation be any different? Like all of Grisham's stories, The Firm offered a likable character in the midst of a struggle (Mitch McDeere), nasty villains out for blood (the partners at the firm), a sympathetic antihero (Avery Tolar), and colorful supporting characters (Tammy Hemphill and Eddie Lomax). The late director Sydney Pollack knew that it couldn't be considered "too long" if he was faithful to the novel, since viewers, like voracious readers, would follow the story intently to the end (Owen Gleiberman of EW even admitted, "The problem isn't so much that we can't deduce what's going on as that we aren't given time to enjoy it.").
But therein lies one minor problem: Pollack wasn't very faithful to the book. All of the characters were still in place but their motivations were different and the ending was accordingly changed. Instead of McDeere being a shrewd, morally unpredictable hotshot who retires to the Caribbean, he became in the movie a kind of Boy Scout, returning to Boston to presumably begin a career in pro-bono work for a nonprofit firm. This grated on a few critics ("Very little of what made the written version so enjoyable has been successfully translated to the screen," complained James Berardinelli), but I was fine with it. As with Jurassic Park later that summer, I found myself able to enjoy the entertainment value of both the novel and the book, despite their obvious differences.
Even conceding the issues with the length and the complaints about the modified plot, the one aspect of the movie that cannot be criticized is the acting. This is a top-notch cast firing all cylinders, completely committing to their characters in a movie that they must have known wouldn't receive award consideration. Tom Cruise gives one of his best performances as McDeere as he allows himself to explore a range of emotions apart from his typical pride and tenacity. He churns one of these out every 2-3 years (and he's due now, the last one being Collateral), but this is one of my favorites because it came during a time when he knew could have just as easily taken any action or romantic comedy script.
The supporting cast was terrific as well, notably Gene Hackman and Jeanne Tripplehorn (what happened to her?), but also Ed Harris and Hal Holbrook. Holly Hunter was good enough to earn a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work as Mitch's confidante Tammy Hemphill (she would later win Best Actress that year for The Piano), and don't forget memorable roles played by David Strathairn, Wilford Brimley, and Gary Busey.
Not to be thought of as an important movie from the 90's or a symbolic indictment of the American legal system, The Firm is good enough as it is: a commercial suspense thriller with great entertainment value and a star-studded cast. I would take that over a self-important (Michael Clayton) message movie (Michael Clayton) with cheap suspense (Michael Clayton) any day.
The inaugural (in its current form) Beyond Borders Film Festival wrapped up tonight with a Q & A period with directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck following the screening of their fantastic new film, Sugar. Overall it was a smoothly run and thoughtfully programmed festival, so hats off to co-directors Jennifer Manion and Robb Quast, as well as head programmer Jim Brunzell. I think I sensed some disappointment in the audience numbers coming through the doors (and even if they weren't disappointed - I was), but I'd rather focus on the fact that those who did attended enjoyed themselves, which should come as no surprise considering the quality of the films Jim secured for the festival. From what I observed everything really well managed, and I hope this team is willing and able to start planning for another go at it next year.
Because I back-loaded my festival viewing into the last 30 hours, my head is currently swimming in images, characters, countries, and languages. Best throw some notes out while they're still fresh...I'll just record some brief thoughts on the six films I saw yesterday and today and see if I can build reviews from these over the next month. And since most if not all of these movies will be on their way around to other festivals soon, I'd like to make some immediate recommendations even if I'm finding it difficult to frame thoughtful reviews in my head right now (and to make things even more confusing I had to squeeze in two viewings on Saturday of screeners that are going to play at MSPIFF in a couple of weeks).
More thoughts on some of these hopefully soon:
Sita Sings the Blues: What do an artist's failed marriage, jazz recordings from 1920's singer Annette Hershaw, and the Ramayana all have in common? Absolutely nothing, which makes the animated union between the three elements an amusing site to behold. Writer/director/editor/animator/everyperson Nina Paley spent five years making this film on her Mac, which, aside from serving as an 86-minute advertisement, should also give you an idea of how painstakingly crafted every frame is. Incredibly (and I think for legal reasons), after all that work Paley has essentially released full rights to the film to anyone and everyone, anywhere and everywhere. That's right - you can legally watch and download the film and freely distribute it as you please. Legally! In fact she encourages it! Find a copy of it here.
*Recommended for creative minds and anyone who loves mash-up videos.
Revanche: Tightly wound and unpredictable, yet in hindsight exactly what I expected from a European thriller. It's light on plot but dripping with character, particularly from the weighted performance by Colin Farrell lookalike Johannes Kirsch. Having just seen the trailer for the first time I have to report that the action and gunplay don't arrive in the waves you might expect, but the tension - the tension is frequently unbearable. It's a moody drama layered with complex emotions and uneasy suspense.
*Highly recommended, especially for anyone considering committing murder out of revenge ("revanche"), which I hope excludes everybody who ever has or will read this.
Big Man Japan: I have no problem at all calling this the strangest movie I've seen in years, and I think that would hold true even if I hadn't missed half of the references to Japanese pop culture history. Hilarious when you get it and overwhelmingly baffling when you don't, it's like something you would find on an obscure cable channel at 3:00 AM (a time amusingly relevant to the story). The humor is so dry that you could either cackle and hoot throughout the whole thing or not chuckle even once - it has to be experienced to be explained. *Recommended for...well, I guess anybody who digs the trailer.
Art & Copy: Doug Pray's documentary about the advertising industry didn't dig as deeply into the psychological and sociological aspects of marketing as I would have liked, but it pretty much confirmed what I thought beforehand: ad creators a.) take themselves way too seriously, and b.) are a lot more sure of their own genius than they are of the values that I hold dear. I was surprised that nearly all of of the executives arrogantly declared, "only a few brilliants minds can do this well and do it responsibly", but I just couldn't believe how many of them admitted that so many successful campaigns ("Got milk?"; "Just do it.") were basically the result of pure luck: "Yeah, we had this idea but nobody really took it seriously at first, and then, hey! It worked". Really?
*Nevertheless, recommended for anyone with an interest in advertising, marketing, or pop psychology.
Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love: Most people who don't have a pulse on the world music scene will still recognize N'Dour's distinctive voice from the end of a popular version of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes". For others, and for much of Africa, N'Dour has been a star for decades, and in recent years an outspoken activist for human rights. The documentary primarily chronicles the challenges he faced in releasing his ode to Islam, "Egypt", the album which he hoped would assuage fears about his religion in a post-9/11 world.
*Obviously essential viewing for fans of N'Dour, but also recommended for those with an interest in the influences of world music.
Sugar: Lived up to every great expectation I had of it as the second feature from Half Nelson filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Thoughtful writing, a devotion to character and a stubborn refusal to submit to convention make the film a must-see for baseball fans in particular, but indie film lovers in general. First time actor Algenis Perez Soto delivers a tremendous performance as the title character, and it will be difficult to think about the careers of Dominican ballplayers the same way again (which for many of us will be the first time we're thinking of them anyway). I absolutely loved this movie.
*Highly recommended.
Were you there this weekend, or have you already seen any of these? Feel free to share your thoughts, and don't forget to vote for the films you saw on the Twin Cities Daily Planet website.
I'm not sure where I first heard about Man Push Cart, Ramin Bahrani's breakthrough feature film, but whatever positive buzz I'd read led me to the "old" Parkway Theater in the fall of 2006. It was a weeknight, cold, quiet. I might have been the only person in the theater.
Man Push Cart didn't bowl me over as I left the Parkway that night, but after it marinated for a few days my initial appreciation for it developed into a lasting admiration. It's a disarmingly simple film, enough so that most people probably think, "What was that about? Did I miss something?" (and I can't deny those thoughts occurred to me as well) upon first seeing it.
Fast forward to the spring of 2008, a couple weeks after MSPIFF wrapped. Again, I'd heard quite buzz about Bahrani's next film, Chop Shop, and again I found myself at the Parkway Theater (by now the "new" Parkway) at a weekday afternoon screening with no more than four people in the theater. This time, I think I got it. From my May 2008 review of Chop Shop:
"There's no way to really qualify this statement, but I want to call Ramin Bahrani one of the most daring filmmakers currently working. He pulls out stories and characters that we have no way of identifying with and inexplicably puts them into situations we've never come close to experiencing. He doesn't use musical scores. His films don't really have a beginning or an end. He doesn't even use actors. Yet somehow, and perhaps as a consequence of his method, his films come together as honest, beautiful, neoreal glimpses into the lives of Americans that most of us haven't - and probably won't - ever get to know."
That's what I love about Bahrani's films: how he allows me to see the world through the perspectives of others. Chop Shop came and went and it was one my favorite movies of last year. I thought it would be another couple of years before Bahrani returned with a new movie, and again I expected to have to seek out a limited screening to see it.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago. I'm scanning through the Walker Art Center's calendar looking to update my sidebar/release schedule, and along pops up Under the Radar: The Films of Ramin Bahrani. "That's cool," I thought, "people can check out Man Push Cart and Chop Shop. But wait, what's this - a new movie? And he's going to be here to give a master class about his filmmaking?!"
I immediately made a mental note to keep April 3rd open on my calendar.
Then Matt Lucas said Goodbye Solo was the best movie he's seen in 2009. Then A.O. Scott gushed about Bahrani and Goodbye Solo in the NYT essay that I discussed earlier this week. Then, today, none other than Roger Ebert declared Bahrani "the new great American director" in a long profile piece on his blog (from my memory it's the first-ever post he's devoted to a working filmmaker). So in less than a year, Bahrani has gone from indie film obscurity and empty screenings at the Parkway to being a critical darling on the rise, filling theaters and auditoriums everywhere he goes.
I have no filmmaking experience whatsoever, but I'm still crushed that I'll miss the master class he's giving at 1:00 PM that afternoon. Hopefully he'll stick around to introduce Goodbye Solo at 7:30 PM. Here's the full schedule for the series, which is worth your attention especially since the first two screenings are...how you say? FREE:
Thursday, April 2: Man Push Cart 7:00 PM (FREE)
"Bahrani’s debut feature film shows how economic struggle can cause one to lose direction. After his career as a Pakistani pop star has dried up, Ahmad leads an anonymous life as a bagel seller in New York. Two strangers he meets may be the key to changing his grim circumstances. The film made Roger Ebert’s Top 10 list for 2006 and was selected for his Overlooked Film Festival. 2005, 35mm, 87 minutes."
Thursday, April 2: Chop Shop 8:45 PM (FREE)
"Delivering a fresh and charismatic performance, first-time actor Alejandro Planco embodies the entrepreneurial homeless 12-year-old who hustles his way into a job at an auto body shop. Streetwise, but desperate to be part of a family, he is preyed upon by his troubled sister and his sidekick, who see him as their meal ticket. The New York Times praised the film’s “lyricism at its heart, [the] unsentimental, soulful appreciation of the grace that resides in even the meanest struggle for survival.” Bahrani was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his direction of this film. 2007, U.S., 84 minutes."
Friday, April 3: (Lecture) Master Class with Ramin Bahrani 1:00 PM ($10/$12 - Buy tickets)
"Columbia University professor Bahrani leads a breakdown of key scenes in Chop Shop, providing details about his role as director, operating on a shoestring budget, and the complications of working with child actors and realworld locations."
Friday, April 3: Goodbye Solo 7:30 PM ($6/$8 - Buy tickets)
"The differences in age and family culture create an interesting conflict in Bahrani’s latest film. While Senegalese taxi driver Solo’s winning joie de vivre is embraced by everyone he meets, he can’t charm 70-year-old William, a mysterious fare he picks up late one night in Winston-Salem. When he asks to be taken to a location where many suicides have taken place, Solo attempts to discover why the man is so troubled. 2008, 35mm, 91 minutes."
The lecture and all three screenings take place in the Cinema theater at the Walker Art Center. Parking is available in the underground heated garage (still necessary in April, of course), but you can usually find free street parking on the street or up the hill.
P.S. Also note that Steve McQueen's critically acclaimed Hunger is also going to have an exclusive engagement at the Walker on select dates, April 10-26. Showtimes and tickets here.
