By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week I caught a few indies that’d been on my list for awhile in NYC, plus several SIFF documentaries.
310. The Accountant 2
I’m not about to tell you this is a good movie exactly, and I even found the first film fairly boring. This one doubles down on the odd couple chemistry of autistic Affleck and his semi-sociopathic brother played by Jon Bernthal, adds some bizarre Xavier’s School for Gifted Spectrum-Afflicted Youngsters bullshit, and then sets them all loose on all those child traffickers that very definitely exist and are bad news. It’s nonsense, but gloriously, entertainingly so. Three Beers.
311. Magic Farm
This Sundance film stars Chloe Sevigny as the face of some kind of internet travelogue webseries whose unfortunately incompetent staff land her in the wrong San Cristobal (an not uncommon town name in Latin America)- Argentina, not Mexico. Without the odd music scene they thought they were profiling, they try to convince the locals to put on a show. This is the kind of comedy where the the quirkiness seems to be both the point and the sole overbroad basis of humor. It has its moments, but never coheres. Four Beers.
312. Vulcanizadora
Joel Potrykus is a director who has crafted his own twisted, darkly humorous style across his oeuvre, often alongside lead actor and muse Joshua Burge. Here Potrykus himself stars as one half of a duo with Burge on a camping trip of sorts, although it’s one with a shocking purpose, and an even more shocking denouement. Potrykus is an auteur of a particular kind of modern American hopelessness, and this may be among his most emblematic works. Two Beers.
313. Freedom Way
I missed this Nigerian film at TIFF but was able to catch it at the start of the New York African Film Festival. This is one of those interlocking stories of normal folks drawn into difficult choices, here all provoked by the pervasive corruption that infects their beloved Lagos from top to bottom. This morality tale can play a bit broad at times, but you can’t have melodrama without drama, and it’s quite effective here. Three Beers.
314. Remaining Native
This documentary follows Ku Stevens, a 17 year old long distance runner who’s about to graduate from high school and hopes to attend the University of Oregon on scholarship. It’s hard getting noticed on the reservation, but he’s uniquely talented, and also keenly away of a family history that inspires his endurance- his great-grandfather once ran 50 miles after escaping from an Indian Boarding School. Two Beers.
315. Drowned Land
This documentary follows the struggles of Oklahoma residents, and primarily the Choctaw Nation, to preserve the Kiamichi River from development that would pollute and even eventually destroy it. Intertwined in this modern struggle is a history of a people who may have found and made a new home to protect, but who have never recovered from their original displacement via the Trail of Tears. Two Beers.
316. Tina
This winning New Zealand film sees a hard-assed teacher of Samoan descent agree to teach at a posh private school. There she wins over her students with tough love, and starts a choir that may in some small way help for the loss of her daughter in an earthquake years before. This follows a lot of the salty yet inspirational cross-cultural teaching story tropes, but when well-delivered, they’re a classic for a reason. Three Beers.
