THE FLORIDA PROJECT: another small but strong movie from indie filmmaker Sean Baker

I've been following the films of Sean Baker since his 2004 sophomore effort, Take Out (you can find my review and Q&A with the filmmaker here) and finding that work evolving, growing richer and stronger with each new film. Baker has now made six full-length features, with his latest THE FLORIDA PROJECT, the most precious jewel in the crown. Word was out early regarding how special is this movie and, for those who love narrative films with a documentary feel, as all of his films have so far seemed, this one will not disappoint.

Mr. Baker, shown at right, loves children -- both of the small sort, and those who, though they may look like adults -- see Starlet and Tangerine for a couple of examples -- still mostly act like the kids they've never been able to move beyond. How they manage (or don't) to begin to make that move comprises the arc of those two films and their characters' stories. With The Florida Project, Baker gives the actual small kids their lead and lets them run with it. The result is initially bubbly, bracing and enormous fun, but as the movie moves along, its dark side surfaces almost equally. What's missing for most of these kids is not only proper parenting but the kind of safety net any decent society needs. The movie does not "tell" us this; it doesn't need to because it shows us so clearly everything we need to know.

The film takes place in the Orlando, Florida, area -- far enough away but also near enough to Disney World to make that place resonate without our ever actually having to see it (throughout most of the movie, at least). Instead we and our scrappy heroine, Moonee, played by a very young actress, Brooklynn Prince (shown above, center, and below, right), who makes an indelible impression here, hang out at the low-end motel in which the kids and their caretakers live. All the children are terrific and seem as real as kids get, but Ms Prince receives the major screen time, and she's worth every minute of it.

As her problemed mom, newcomer Bria Vinaite (above) is equally real and twice as troubling, as the character stumbles from one bad move to the next and yet keeps caring for her daughter as best she can -- which is, unfortunately, not really very well.

The filmmaker mixes professionals actors with non-pros and does this with such ease that if you did not already recognize performers such as Caleb Landry Jones, Macon Blair and especially Willem Dafoe (shown above, and who is as incredibly fine here, playing what you might call a "normal" character, as he has ever been), you would think them all just part of the real people Baker has recruited for his project.

Baker's choice of incident builds carefully and very well to what will be a turning point. We don't know quite in what direction it will turn, nor whether it will help or hinder, but by then we've spent nearly two breathless hours watching, smiling, wincing, frowning and feeling childhood, its joys and discontents, as strongly as you could want -- and all with characters from an economic/social class of which many of us don't rub up against at all often. When we do, we're likely to somehow discount them. Mr. Baker (as with all his films) makes certain that doesn't happen here.

The Florida Project, from A24 and running 115 minutes, opened on its home ground, Orlando, last weekend and will hit Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach this Friday, October 20, along with elsewhere throughout the country now and in the weeks to come. To discover the theaters nearest you, simply click here.

With CHRISTINE, Campos, Shilowich and Hall offer a genuine, deeply-felt and honorable memorial to a talented, troubled young woman

Coming as it does on the heels of a documentary -- Kate Plays Christine -- that seemed to prove above all else how difficult and sometime pointless documentary film-making can be, the new narrative movie CHRISTINE succeeds beautifully in bringing to life a life that most of us (if we'd heard of Christine Chubbuck at all) knew only for the single act that "put her on the map."

In that regard, this movie is not unlike another excellent film that opened earlier this year, The Witness, that managed, at long last, to give us a look at Kitty Genovese in a manner that opened up her life into something much richer than the mere victim she'd seemed to have been down the decades since her murder. Rather than exploiting, both films honor their subject.

As directed by Antonio Campos (shown at left), written by Craig Shilowich (shown below) and

starring an actress who's currently as good as anyone performing in movies and TV -- Rebecca Hall (shown on poster, top, and further below) -- in what is, so far, the role of her career, Christine succeeds in creating a time (the mid-1970s), a place (a local TV station in Florida), and people (workers, friends, family, interviewees) that come together to form the kind of spot-on reality that narrative movies rarely get near.

This is the first attempt at screenwriting for Mr. Shilowich (shown at right), and as such it is not simply good, it's rather phenomenal.

The writer has packed in so much, and all of it germane, fascinating, and very warts-and-all in terms of not only Christine herself but of those around her. This allows us to see the positives and negatives clearly and to come surprisingly close to understanding who Christine was and how her surroundings worked with her personality to determine what happened.

Over the course of the film we learn so much about Christine -- everything from her virginity status to her relationships with her mother, boss, co-workers and especially the co-worker for whom she feels more than the normal attachment (played with his usual skill and subtlety by that fine actor, Michael C. Hall, below).

Via all of this, we come to understand Chubbuck as a terribly troubled yet talented young woman with rather heavily under-developed social skills. And so very good is Ms Hall is delineating all this that we quickly and hugely feel the embarrassment and naivete of this woman as she tries to work her way around and through various situations. Hall handles all of this so skillfully than not a moment registers as false or overdone. She keep us in her corner, even as she allows us to understand how that corner is so thoroughly fencing her in.

Hall has a large and often glowing face, but here she keeps the muscles in that face tightly coiled. Only when she is putting on the charming social-service puppet shows for the children she works with does she relax into those "puppet" roles to leave her constrained self behind. What a joy it is to see her suddenly liven and embrace! (Christine is not the kind of movie our "Oscar" Academy usually embraces, but I dearly hope its members gird up their loins and take a look, because quite a number of people involved with it deserve nominations.)

Around halfway along this two-hour film, my spouse noted aloud, "This does not seem like a movie." (More and more often these days, Spousie uses the word movie to double for the word fake. After we've watched something or other, he'll shrug and exclaim, "Yeah -- it's a movie.") Regarding Christine, he is so right. This is about as real as it gets. Mr. Campos, a director whose past work (AfterSchool and Simon Killer) I've enjoyed, does wonders here, using a documentary style abetted by what seems like a near-perfect production design, including period costumes, hair styles and sets.

The manner in which Campos and Shilowich and their actors capture the little TV station and its workings (above) may but you oddly in mind of its polar opposite, that glossily entertaining cable series, The Newsroom. (Or even better, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which is used quite cannily and sadly here.) Campos' entire cast -- which include Tracy Letts (below, right) as Christine's adversarial boss, J. Smith-Cameron as her alternately helpful and trying mom, Maria Dizzia as her best friend who has her own necessary ambitions, and John Cullum, as the TV station's money man -- is first rate. There are no villains here, and no heroes, either. Just people living and working as best they can -- and doing a pretty good job of it, considering the circumstances.

In yesterday's New York Times there a fine article about Rebecca Hall and the making of the film, in which it comes out that Christine's brother refuses to see it because he feels that it is exploiting his sister. I wish he would reconsider, for this film is anything but exploitative. Christine is a movie that, during and after viewing, makes you look at things differently and understand them better. That's a tall order and it is served up here with intelligence, kindness and caring -- as expertly as you could wish.

The movie, from The Orchard and running 119 minutes, opens this Friday, October 14, in New York City exclusively at Film Forum. Elsewhere? Sure hope so, and as soon as further playdates becomes available, I'll post them here.

DVD/VOD debut: Florida seniors (ladies division) dance in Brian Lilla's BALLROOM CONFIDENTIAL

Initially, as you watch the new documentary about some ladies of a certain age in the waiting room of the after-life known as Florida, you may very well have a sense of déjà vu. Haven't we seen thee people (or some very much like them) already, perhaps many times in documentaries over the past decade devoted to seniors and their lives? Well, yes and no. Stick with this new doc for even a little while, and you'll find yourself surprisingly wrapped up in not only the old folk themselves but in the owner of the dance studio and his staff members who give these elderly women a chance at everything from finding a little happiness to getting some exercise to, yes, following their dream.

The title of BALLROOM CONFIDENTIAL, it turns out, is quite unlike other "confidential" movies. There's nothing salacious here. Rather, think of this more as delving into buried knowledge that gets you to the heart of things. As directed by Brian Lilla (of the excellent Patagonia Rising), the movie never pushes nor tries to turn either its seniors or its kindly dance instructors into marvels of perseverance or heroism. They're just who they are, but as we learn more about them, they become important individuals, each of whom has something worthwhile to say to us and do for her/himself.

Chief among these people -- literally and symbolically -- is Caleb (above, right), the dance instructor who organizes things and is currently rehearsing for a dance program (its theme based rather charmingly on a compilation of old "spy" movies) for his seniors that will give them each the chance to dance and individually perform, while also entertaining the audience. Caleb's story, which we learn in dribs and drabs, has brought him from NYC, post-9/11 and a lover lost to illness, back to his original home in Florida to pick up the pieces of his life and begin again. (That's one of his seniors (above, left), a feisty lady named Margaret, who lost her husband and dance partner of some 50 years to the dementia of Alzheimers and is now herself trying to grab whatever excitement she can find left in life.)

Above is Jean, a still very attractive woman who desperately wanted to take dance classes as a young girl. The three dollars per week it cost back then her parents could not afford. Today, Jean spends a lot more than three bucks but is finally fulfilled.  Lois, below and one of the oldest of our dames, designs her own dresses and does a damned good job it it. All of the women have a reason for being here and doing this, and one's turns out to be as good as another's. Yes: They dance (sort of). Yes: They're alive and kicking (showing us this fact seems to be the raison d'etre of many of the senior docs). Mostly though, they're having fun, and that's what keeps them and the movie going.

Of everything we discover here, for me, the most important and surprising are the statistics a propos the relationship between ballroom dancing and dementia/Alzheimers disease. (Second most interesting and surprising is the confession we hear from one of these woman regarding how she fell in love with Caleb and had to learn how to get over this and work it out. This provides one of the more remarkably honest sections I've seen in a documentary of late.)

We hear from Caleb's own parents who also dance, his dad coming late to the game and very definitely in his own good time. "Dancing is just too... gay for me."  (Director Lilla's mom dances, too, and she -- above -- was the prime force behind this documentary.) Some of the women, like Edna, below, may be a little heavy but they're very game, glamorous and fun to watch.

At one point in the film Caleb thanks Shirley, below, right, for making her initial gift to him of $1,000 so he could open the studio in which she now dances. From what we see in Ballroom Confidential, this was a terrific investment for all concerned.

The movie, running just 83 minutes, hits the streets on DVD and VOD (here's the link) this coming Tuesday, February 11.

Amy Seimetz's SUN DON'T SHINE proves a well-acted but tiresome road trip nowhere

Think of it as Double Indemnity for cretins. And without even any insurance policy! Amy Seimetz, recently so good as Upstream Color's leading lady, has here written and directed her first full-length narrative, the well-titled SUN DON'T SHINE. She has cast her movie with two good performers --multi-hyphen-ate actor/writer/
director/producer/editor Kentucker Audley and the alternately winsome and whiny Kate Lyn Sheil -- and filled it, plot-wise, with lies, deceit, betrayal and corpses. That ought to do it, right?

Wrong. What's missing from this mix is anything approaching believable characters. Despite the very game endeavors of Audley (below, right) and Sheil (below, left, and further below), who deliver moment-by-moment "truth," so ill-conceived are these two lame-brained clunks that the film comes as close to unintentional comedy as it does to anything else. This is too bad because, with a bit more effort in terms of plot and character in both concept and screenplay from Ms Seimetz, shown at right, the movie might have gone somewhere more believable and delivered something more genuinely appalling.

Instead we get a couple of lovers on the lam who are constantly at each other's throat, with momentary departures into oh-how-much-I-love-you territory that rings decidedly phony after a very short time. (If this is a couple who would kill for each other, it might be nice to see even a spark of the passion that ignites them.) Not only is our twosome tiresome, they also appear to be about as dumb as they come. The more we learn of them and their "plans," the more ridiculous their ideas and actions seem. It is not only difficult to render what we see happening as credible, the very idea that these two could have made it all the way to young adulthood without first self-destructing is pushing things.

I understand that, in movies such as this one, budget constraints are usually foremost. But Ms Seimetz errs in providing us two corpses without showing us either murder. Granted one takes place before the film begins, but the seeing the second one might have given us a bit more entrance into the character of the murderer. It's easier, though, to glide right past this, as happens here. And -- oh, yes -- we also get the kind of perfectly-timed coincidence in which one character manages to show up and look through the window at precisely the right moment to see... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There are some good things here, aside from the acting: Ms Seimetz's ability to begin in media res and grab us rather firmly; hints of a society (in the U.S. south) so enfeebled that the line, "It's not my fault!" (but of course, it is) echoes down the movie as a societal indictment; and a totally new (to me, at least) use of bleach as a deodorant for the dead.

Sun Don't Shine, from Factory 25 and running but 80 minutes, opens today, Friday, April 26, in Manhattan (at the Cinema Village) and Seattle (at the Grand Illusion Cinema). You can access any other currently scheduled playdates by clicking here and then scrolling down. Factory 25 will also be releasing the film digitally on April 26th via cable VOD, iTunes, Amazon VUDU, X-Box, Sony Play-station and other digital outlets, with a DVD arriving late summer.

Special Note: personal appearances and 

a Q&A will be made by the film's director and her 

 two stars at the Cinema Village this Friday and Saturday 

(at the 6 and 7:45pm showings) and Sunday at 6pm only.