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Your Discerning Guide to Modern Culture

The Bestest 2018: Filmmage

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Sundance

If you have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, Showtime and HBO, you can see almost every film on this list today. In fact, well over half of these films are already free on some combination of the above networks. Because small indie films no longer have theatrical screens, they end up streaming almost immediately. And the bigger ones … well they deserve to be seen at the theater, so perhaps maybe it’s all working out. I still prefer the focus that a distraction free theater provides, but you can’t always get there. I did miss a few (Green Book, Beale Street, Can You Ever Forgive Me?), but here’s what I saw and loved.

  1. Leave No Trace – Dir. Debra Granik (Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie)

Like director Debra Granik’s breakthrough “Winter’s Bone,” this small and patient film’s setting (a cold and bleakly beautiful Oregon and Washington) plays as central a character as the other remarkable performances in the film. A damaged, PTSD stricken veteran father, played with excruciating sadness, by Ben Foster, is trying to raise his teenage daughter off the grid in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

There is no doubt that this life is not the right life for a child, but the love they share is as believable as almost any you are likely to see this year. Eventually the wonderful Thomasin McKenzie finds the courage to tell her father that his problems are not her problems, and you see a connection as naturalistic as the film itself. The final scene of the film will leave you devastated, but will have you thinking about it long after the credits roll.

  1. Free Solo – Dir. Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi (Alex Honnold)

A film this big deserves to be seen on a big screen. I was lucky enough to see it on IMAX with an Alex Honnold Q&A afterwards, but even if I had seen it at home on Netflix, it would still be one of the best films of the year, even though you know how it is going to end. Most often predictability is a bore, but here the only outcome you want is the one that you know you’ll get to see. Despite this, the film maintains an almost relentless and gripping sense of suspense. Honnold isn’t so much a character whom you understand as much as he is a person who defies any and all reasonable questions, and exudes a kind of mechanical confidence and precision of thought and mind. Wrap this in some of the most beautiful shots of El Cap and Yosemite, and you have something truly extraordinary.

  1.  The Favourite – Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos (Olivia Coleman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz)

Following up on two broadly inaccessible works of genius (“Lobster” and “The Killing Of A Sacred Deer”) director Yorgos Lanthimos has finally delivered a more linear historical drama that allows just the right amount of comic modernity to elevate it well beyond the genre. He cast a dream trifecta of female leads, where Coleman, Stone and Weisz are each perfect in their portrayal of a certain kind of person in a certain kind of circumstance.

“The Favourite” intimates that all the cattiness, scheming, self absorption and competition that seems the fabric of today, is a human instinct that has always been there. The film is both laugh out loud funny and tragically real, and deserves this kind of art-house break out status in a age dominated by superheros and sequels!

  1. Roma – Dir. Alfonso Cuaron (Yalitza Aparicio, Andy Cortes)

There is no doubt that this film is a genuinely unique cinematic milestone. From the exquisite black and white cinematography that helps frame the time and place so effortlessly, to the way the story is more observed than staged and acted. The camera seems almost like a welcome voyeur following an endlessly moving and chaotic naturalistic childhood remembrance.

It is as much about the texture pace and setting as it is about any sort of linear plot line, but the emotional journey of the Cuaron’s childhood nanny is what keeps things tethered. She is both loved and appreciated but also hopelessly anchored to her place in society. Both nothing and quite a lot happen along the way, but in the end the world keeps turning just like the way the camera keeps rolling.

  1. Sorry to Bother You – Boots Riley (Lakeith Stanfield, Danny Glover, Tessa Thompson)

The first two thirds of this film is a surreal romp through the ironic hipsterism of gentrified America. Set in a kind of alterna-Oakland, the story follows the charmingly sarcastic Cassius “Cash” Green, from unemployment to the top of a bizarre telemarketing scheme selling a “Worry Free” life. If, perhaps, this sounds straightforward, it doesn’t take long before you begin to see director Riley’s vision and politics run wild.

It’s funny, or not, how inevitably success and money often brainwashes people into believing their own bullshit (a not so subtle jab at tech culture). The final third of the film watches like a kind of tripped out “The Shape of Water” complete with bizarre creatures trapped in a world run by humans. In the end the film is really a love story, a story about gentrification, and taking stereotypes and tipping them over until almost nothing makes sense but everything is crystal clear. Make sense? Probably not. See the film. [Read more…]

The Bestest 2017: Filmmage

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The Bestest 201FB840C69-E70F-4D3F-994E-679438A899D9-1505-000000DAC02522E87: Filmmage

This year was a strange one for films. There were plenty of great ones, but it’s proving impossible for a truly small film to find a theatrical word of mouth success in the way that there used to be in the past. In the end it doesn’t really matter, all of these films will be available in your living room within a few months (if not weeks) of theatrical release anyway. Great TV continues steal to talent, economics, attention and audiences from the theaters, but in the end there will always be movies, even if they end up as an 8 hour film released directly to your favorite streaming services.

1. Brigsby Bear– Dir. Dave McCary (Kyle Mooney, Greg Kinnear) 

Like most of my favorite Sundance Films (quirky black comedies, with homemade sets and lovably endearing characters) “Brigsby Bear” ticks all the right boxes. The film starts with a cringeworthy premise –a child (Kyle Mooney) is abducted as a young child and spends most of his first 25 years locked in an underground bunker with two seemingly loving parents. The couple make and allow him to watch a weird lo-fi looking educational TV show captured on VHS tapes starring an old-school Barney/Banana Splits character named Brigsby Bear.

At 25, Mooney is suddenly freed from the bunker (he didn’t even realize he was captive), and returned to his natural parents. The real world doesn’t resemble much of anything he had learned from Brigsby, but it is that naiveté and the wonderfully innocent optimism of an internet and pop-culture free human that makes you rethink everything. This film is pure joy, and strangely family friendly.

2. Dunkirk– Dir. Christopher Nolan (Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance)

In that very long list of great directors who have made truly great war films or films about war, Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” will go down as one of the greatest. The film is also yet another example of why some films need to be seen on a giant screen with incredible sound. “Dunkirk” is neither a character study, nor a reinterpretation of historical events, “Dunkirk” focuses on pushing the limits of what film can be.

We see the evacuation of Dunkirk by land, sea and air, immaculately stitched together and bound by the harrowing score that seems to be ebbing and flowing without ever stopping. All the performances are near perfect (Tom Hardy, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branaugh) but there is no star, this film is all about mood and craft. War is always chaotic, disorienting and ultimately unnecessarily destructive, but Nolan puts you right in the middle of this one in a way you have never been before.

3. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Dir. Martin McDonagh (Frances McDormand

This is probably the timeliest and cynically piercing look at the racial and misogynistic violence that seems to be seeping out of every nook and cranny of America these days. Take police brutality, racial hate crimes, rape and harassment, and drop them into the beautiful black comedy mind of non-American Martin McDonagh and you get a violently funny stunner of a film.

If you didn’t know any better you’d assume this was another Coen bros masterpiece, informed in part by another Oscar quality performance by Coen regular (and wife) Frances McDormand as the angrily grieving mother and cancer-stricken police chief Woody Harrelson. This film plays out like an absurdist nightmare, but grounded in the kind of mid-bending headlines that we glaze over every day.

4. Mother! – Dir. Darren Aronofsky (Javier Bardem, Jennifer Lawrence) 

Unlike almost any film this year, ‘mother’ is a polarizing, hot mess of cinematic creativity, depravity, and allegories wrapped in obtuse enigmas. Aronofsky’s filmic “Garden of Earthly Delights” riff is a trip through a brief heaven into a long descent into hell. There is rarely a quiet moment, as the camera is a frenetically moving chronicler of the chaos and ambiguity that corners Jennifer Lawrence like a wounded animal.

But if you like films that furrow under your skin like a cuddly tick, where you find yourself half lost in a kind of waking dream this is one to grind out. The film, which is either a thinly veiled mediation on climate change, a more biblically derived narrative, or just a contrived but madly creative piece of pop art, it is an infuriating masterpiece that hangs around your head much longer than you’d expect.

5. Patti Cake$  – Dir. Geremy Jasper (Bridget Everett, Cathy Moriarty)

If a film this weird, creative and funny doesn’t have a chance to cross over and become widely seen, we need to continue mourning the end of the true independent film. I can all but guarantee you haven’t seen a film like “Patti Cake$” or a performance quite Danielle McDonald’s as the aspiring rapper Patti Dombrowski in quite a while.

Although the film pulls every emotional punch possible to support its underdog plotline, the story and its colorful cast of misfits and societal cast-offs, is far enough out there that the clichés just melt away quietly. Lacking exactly the kind of self-awareness that sometimes enables people to succeed, Patti Cake$ just tends to bounce off the massive walls of rejection, eyes set on a ludicrous prize because .. well .. why not.    [Read more…]

Culture in Silicon Valley

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brokenbellsWhen I arrived in San Francisco from New York at the beginning of the end of that first glorious Internet era in April 1999, I had in my mind’s eye a place teeming with culture junkies. Hyper-literate music- and arts-loving people, drawn to the Bay to be part of a kind of acceptably commercial counter-culture.

Although I had spent time in SF before becoming a resident, I mostly had images of the time-adjusted Grateful Dead-Summer of Love city by the Bay. I imagined sunsets falling behind the Golden Gate Bridge, with distant music coming from the Haight and films being cut at Skywalker Ranch. After all, the area was home to George Lucas, Francis Coppola, Michael Chabon, Michael Lewis, Sean Penn, Neil Young, Bob Weir, Carlos Santana, and hundreds of other notable creative legends.

But over the next 15 years I would find a sharp and surprising paradox about the Bay Area and its strangely collective apathy about the arts. It took a while to truly understand all the reasons, but when I really thought about the why, the reasons seemed quite logical.

To be clear, I am speaking mostly about the tech community, which has, for the most part, become the vocal majority throughout the Bay Area. For such a liberal and progressive city, with such a young and highly educated population, I am always surprised at how disinterested most young techies are about music and film. Sure there are a few thousand of them who head out to the desert for a week of bacchanalia at Burning Man, but ultimately you won’t see many of them at Coachella, Sundance, or even the San Francisco Film Festival. But why not? [Read more…]

The Bestest 2013: Filmmage

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Despite the current state of independent film (increasingly fewer screens, economically challenging business models, compressed distribution windows) 2013 proved to be one of the best years in a decade for films large and small. In some ways almost every film I loved was a new take on an old subject (horror, spring break, slavery, the 60’s, the 70’s). The actors and actresses we love continued to reinvent themselves, trumping everything that has come before with performances seemingly inspired by the past and the future.

1) Inside Llewyn Davis – Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen (Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan)

A Coen brothers film about a folk singer is still a Coen brothers film. Llewyn Davis is a perfectly crafted moody time-bomb of a character, drifting from couch to couch in the cold winter of 1963 New York. As in all  their films, the Coens here cover quite a bit of ground in what seems like a simple story. It is both an examination of the West Village folk scene right before Dylan changed the game completely, and  also an uncannily authentic look at New York intellectuals and their blue collar counterparts.

But like many of their most recent films, “Llewyn Davis” is a film where the music itself is an important leading character. Oscar Isaac gives an award caliber performance both playing a folk singer and performing as one. He carries a kind of fragile humanity right behind the surface of a loathsome exterior. Less accessible, or perhaps just less upbeat than many of their films, “Llewyn Davis” is a patient, incredible precise slice of a time and place, and even greater gem for fans of new and old folk music.

2) Her – Dir. Spike Jonze (Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansen)

“Her” is easily one of the most creative romantic films in eons. Like “500 Days of Summer,” “Upstream Color,” “Like Crazy,” and “Eternal Sunshine,” but obviously something completely different, Spike Jones has crafted one of the weirdest, but most genuine love stories of all time. In his semi-futuristic world, true love is neither physical nor it is even reciprocal in the truest sense of the word. It is more of a state of mind, or state of intellectual compatibility.

It would be hard to imagine this film without the effortless vulnerability of Joaquin Phoenix, and the seductiveness of Scarlett Johansson who exists only as a voice through an earpiece. To fall for an operating system is really no different than falling in love with a character from a book, a voice on the radio, or a picture in a magazine, except that the idea also understands you. Like a dream captured on film, “Her” falls like fresh snow, slowly, beautifully and ephemerally.

3) 12 Years A Slave – Dir. Steve McQueen (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender)

In sheer contrast to Tarantino’s “Django,” McQueen’s masterpiece is a brutal, but beautiful reflection on our shameful past. There is nary a smile or laugh to be had, just an endless sea of largely horrible masters and powerless defeated slaves. As in his previous films (“Shame” and “Hunger”) McQueen can’t help but make you confront history and suffer through long, graphic reenactments.

Every character is clearly defined, most of the time without words, but with angry or hopeless expressions. This is not really a film to enjoy so much as to confront, endure and then ultimately appreciate. Although filled with cameos from everyone from Brad Pitt to Paul Giamatti, the film belongs to Chinwetel Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender. Good and evil personified. Although not for everybody, perhaps it should be required viewing for everybody.

4) Fruitvale Station – Dir. Ryan Coogler (Michael B. Jordon, Octavia Spencer)

There is no waste in “Fruitvale Station,” it is a perfect little film based on a totally avoidable tragedy. In his directorial debut, Ryan Coogler was able to tell a story that took place in his hometown, and approach it with the kind of unemotional distance you wouldn’t have thought possible. Michael B. Jordan, whom we have watched grow up on “The Wire” and “Friday Night Lights” is Oscar caliber playing the real life Oscar Grant who was shot to death by BART police on New Years Day 2009.

Like Cassavetes, Coogler’s debut is a subtle hand held masterpiece, as he manages to get close enough to Oscar Grant to expose him as a massively flawed but hugely empathetic person. In lesser hands this story becomes a racial-political statement that exposes history yet again repeating itself shamefully. But somehow the story just flows along so quickly and easily that before you have time to poke holes it is over. Simplicity in filmmaking is the hardest thing to accomplish, but here it is impeccably executed.

5) Before Midnight –Dir. Richard Linklater (Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy)

Beyond the “Godfather” trilogy I can’t think of another trio of films that I have loved as consistently. Where the Godfather films are sprawling epics, Linklater’s films are precious- basically just one long rolling conversation between two people who think and speak as cleverly as most people wish they could, and have a relationship both as fleeting and occasionally perfect as any.

In this chapter Delpy and Hawke are now married with children and living in Europe. At this point we know both characters quite well. We both love them and hate them. They bicker and spat, hold hands and kiss, reminisce and dream, and then start all over again. Like the previous films nothing much happens, except of course one of the most curious and naturalistic modern love stories of our time. [Read more…]

The Bestest 2011– Filmmage

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Some have argued that 2011 was a terrible year for films. Perhaps they should clarify that it was the Hollywood system with its upside down economics that massively under-delivered, leaving room for little films, documentaries and comedies to shine through. I was able to see most of these films at festivals or stream them on Netflix or Amazon not long after they had quickly come and gone in theaters. Which invites the question, when will theaters follow the book and record store path, and become unnecessary? I’d like to think that films are always better on a big screen that forces you to put away your phones, tablets and remote controls and tune off the internet and tune into the movies themselves. That said, it seems incredible that even now certain films find themselves without an easy way of being seen. There still exists a kind of limbo where films leave a theatrical run and exist, but are inaccessible on pay-per-view, streaming, iTunes or even DVD. Perhaps this is the real problem. Why shouldn’t people be able to choose what they want and where and when they want it if they are willing to pay. Perhaps a year from now there will be a solution; until then it is somewhat reassuring that films’ loss has been usurped by an increasingly more sophisticated television marketplace where the best talent has come to work.

1) Tree of Life – Dir. Terrance Malick (Brad Pitt, Sean Penn)

This is not a movie for the masses, but it is one for the ages. Beautiful, sweeping, serene, explosive, pretentious, chaotic, non-linear, heart-wrenching, uplifting, metaphoric, and nostalgic- all of these words help describe the most challenging and provocative film of the year. “Tree of Life” is a masterpiece that is equal parts “2001”, “Koyaanisqatsi” and “Stand By Me,” mixing images, emotions and glimpses of a time gone by.

To enjoy this film it is helpful to prepare yourself for it emotionally. Far from your typical Pitt-Penn Hollywood fare, auteur Terrance Malick, who has only made 5 films in four decades, has created a visual, sensual film that relies on mood and images far more than on dialogue or plot. Ultimately it is the story of a family in Waco, Texas who experiences a tragedy that is described only vaguely, but expressed metaphorically as merely a part of the cycle of life, the randomness of nature, and the unpredictability of the human experience.

The cinematography is brilliant, with lush bucolic domestic small town USA serenity and other-worldly natural and scientific images that convey the interconnectedness of life. Brad Pitt’s strict, dominating father is as compelling as anything he has ever done, but exposes the tension between a parent’s desire to impose morality and the constraints of being human. In the end this film is the ultimate exploration of what it is to live a life in a world filled with natural and omnipotent forces well beyond our comprehension.

2) Drive – Dir. Nicolas Winding (Ryan Gosling, Albert Brooks)

Over the past decade Ryan Gosling has emerged as the undisputed king of cool, a real life chameleon of an actor who most likely picks the best movies and the broadest range of characters.  In “Drive” he blends the icy cool of Steve McQueen with the understated sparseness of Brando. This is a film, however, with everything: violence, stylized cinematography, incredible chase scenes and a rich cast of colorful supporters.

At its core “Drive” is an action film, but it is also a drama. Gosling’s mechanic/stunt man has wheels that never stop turning, and a plot that never slows down. There was not another film this year that moved so quickly, but lingered just long enough to capture every detail.

3) The Trip – Dir. Michael Winterbottom (Steve Cooghan, Rob Brydon)

Like a bromance for Ivy leaguers, “The Trip” is a relentless romp through the English countryside where two friends trade impersonations, eat wonderful meals, and reassess the current state of their respective lives. The always wonderful Steve Cooghan plays a version of himself, a still single playboy on hiatus from his much younger American girlfriend. Buddy Rob Brydon fills in for her on this magazine-sponsored foodie tour.

For Byrdon, with two kids and a loving wife at home, the trip is a much needed break, and although he has no real complaints, there is the nagging envy of his single friend and his life of freedom. Of course the fundamental irony is that Cooghan longs for the boring familial existence of his friend. Shot across the beautiful English countryside, and filled with a relentlessly clever script, “The Trip” is a trip through the adolescent preoccupations that fill the male mind.

4) Martha Marcy May Marlene – Dir. T. Sean Durkin (Elizabeth Olson, John Hawkes, Hugh Dancy)

There was not a more beautifully creepy film in 2011 than this one. There was also no more surprising and seductive a performance than that of Elizabeth Olson, the younger sister of her more famous twin sisters. The story begins as a disoriented Marcy (Olson) flees a rural farm, and stumbles into town where she frantically calls her older sister from a pay phone.

Alternating between an initially peaceful seeming commune in Upstate New York, to an opulent and tranquil lake house in rural Connecticut, the film is a puzzle that leaves you unsettled and mesmerized at the same time. But the core beauty of the film is in its infinite ambiguity. Something tragic happed to the siblings while growing up, but it is never clear. What happened to their parents? What else happened on the commune? How did she get there? This film is a dreamy mediation on how life just tosses us around leaving us no choice but to keep moving.

5) Win Win – Dir. Thomas McCarthy (Paul Giamatti, Bobby Cannavale)

No matter how many times I see Paul Giamatti play the same sad-sack depressive, I still can’t help but like him even more. Like Nicholson or DeNiro, he has a very specific presence that draws you in immediately. For most actors such a distinct persona relegates them to recurring character acting bits. But Giamatti is a star, the anti- Tom Cruise in every way. The film is directed by the criminally underrated auteur Tom McCarthy whose “Station Agent” and “The Visitor” are among the finest independent films of the decade, and whose delicate touch and understanding of human nature exude a kind of beautiful realism throughout “Win Win.”

In the film, he plays a floundering small town lawyer who moonlights as a wrestling coach for a hapless bunch of losers. Then in walks a small miracle in the form of a damaged teenage boy who has shown up in town to stay with his grandfather, whose estate Giamatti is “managing.” Despite appearances, this film is very much a comedy but does so with a subtlety that creates a different kind of texture. It is a film about the infinite gray areas that defines modern life and how right and wrong they are and rarely so simple. Many lives are saved in this film, but mostly it is about the title that reminds us to do the right thing.

6) Cedar Rapids – Dir. Miguel Arteta (Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche)

It is hard to imagine a better John C. Reilly performance than what he did in “Cyrus” last year, but in “Cedar Rapids” he officially one-ups himself by playing  an even more amped-up caricature of his everyman personna. Here he plays an oafish insurance agent letting it all hang out at a conference held at a cheesy Cedars Rapids business hotel.  Tthe film really belongs to Ed Helm’s beautifully naïve and somewhat tragic hero. His character has literally never been out of his small town, and to him Cedar Rapids represents not only the big city, but the moment when the picket fences give way to the real world.

Although there is a serious thread that lurks just below the hysterical surface of “Cedar Rapids,” there is as much humanity in this film as in  any of the more serious films that were released this year. In between endless comedic innuendo, ace director and true master of the indie dramedy, Miguel Arteta, explores loneliness, escapism and the massive walls people create to keep others from knowing who they really are. You will just as easily laugh as cry as pump your fist rooting for the underdog to wake up and grab life by the horns.

7) Margin Call – Dir. J.C. Chandor (Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Spacey)

You’d be hard pressed to find a better cast and a more topical film than the shockingly under-seen Wall Street fiction “Margin Call.” Set over a twenty-four hour period, it chronicles the discovery of and reaction to the impending Armageddon of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown at one venerable Wall Street firm (insert whichever: Goldman, Lehman, Morgan …).

But unlike the glitz of “Wall Street,” this film is shot in dark saturated tones, and despite its blue chip cast, it is performed with thoughtful restraint. What “Margin Call” manages to capture is the pervasive schizophrenia that drives Wall Street. On the one hand greed, while not good, is more the evil that drives the capitalist system than it is an inherent quality of the people who work there. In the end you realize that modern capitalism has become an untamable monster that has evolved uncontrollably over hundreds of years. To unwind the problem seems impossible, but something has to change.

8) Midnight in Paris – Dir. Woody Allen (Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams)

Prolific, profane, provocative, and occasionally prophetic, Woody Allen seems nowhere close to having said everything that he has to say. In his finest film since “Deconstructing Harry,” Allen cast Owen Wilson as himself, to explore the timeless question of whether or not every past generation lived in an era more romantic than the ones that followed. Nostalgia here is a drug that is both blinding and euphoric, yet necessary and unavoidable.

Set in and elegantly filmed in Paris, Wilson plays a writer engaged to a woman he doesn’t really love, in a city that he loves for what he imagines it to be. Most Allen films rely on a gimmick, but in “Midnight in Paris” it is a time warp that allows you to look back to a time with both a longing and logic that suggests the importance of living in the now. Wilson has never been better and more authentic than he is here, McAdams plays her prissy idealist perfectly, and Allen is  at peace as both a realist and a cynic for the ages.

9) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Dir. Tomas Alfredson (Gary Oldman, Colin Firth)

Most Le Carre novels and films rely on keeping very close track of the details and paranoia of the complicated spy business of the Cold War. Although I’ll admit to being lost for large chunks of the film, the gray-toned cinematography and ambiguous calm and texture of this film is mesmerizing. Gary Oldman’s M16 agent George Smiley is the perfect manifestation of  clever bureaucratic competence that drives the workings of multi-national geo-politics.

The plot, if you can follow it, is oddly straightforward. There is a Russian mole in the British secret service. With a broad cast of potential infiltrators, Smiley is tasked with flushing out the rat. The film captures the colors and nuance of the era effortlessly, creating a familiar yet disorienting feeling that makes the film compelling despite its complexity. If there is  a film that deserved to be seen more than once this year, it was this one. Sometimes history plays like fiction and modern society seems much more complicated than yesterday’s.

10) The Arbor – Dir. Clio Bernard (Andrea Dunbar)

You have never seen a documentary as creative and unusual as “The Arbor.” Based on and incorporating the stage play of the same name, written by a 15 year old girl from the projects outside of Manchester, the film takes archival footage of the young Andrea Dunbar and mashes it up with reenactments of the play itself and lip-synced performances by actors of  real interviews with the late Dunbar’s family and friends. The play feels like Bukowski or R. Crumb as told by a young girl.

As hard as it is to imagine, the film flows fluidly, creating a lovely distance from the heartbreaking reality of the actual story. Dunbar’s working class roots, and self-destructive short life, create a gritty tragic backdrop against which to explore the lives of the children she left behind. History and self abuse repeat themselves here, but even on the dingy streets and neglected buildings of Manchester there is hope, redemption and forgiveness. [Read more…]