Phil
Mann’s Tips
For
the 2012 Key West Film Festival
The
2012 Key West Film Festival opens with a welcoming party at the Hemingway House
on Thursday afternoon at 5:30pm (Tix at Keystix.com) followed by a
screening of While We Were Here at
the San Carlos that night. On Friday through Sunday more than 33 films will
unspool at the Tropic (on all four screens) and at the San Carlos. For a grand
finale, there'll be a free screening of Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on the beach in front of Salute.
The
full schedule and info is at KeyWestFilmFestival.com. Tickets can be
bought there, or at the Tropic Box Office, for all films. To help you sort
through them, here’s a quick summary.
ALL
TOGETHER- Moving and comedic story of aging friends who
decide to share a communal home, starring Jane Fonda and Geraldine Chaplin (in
French w/subtitles).
ANY
DAY NOW – In
the 1970’s a gay couple fights the legal system to keep custody of an abandoned
mentally handicapped teenager. Starring Alan Cumming, with locals including
Randy Roberts, Randy Thompson and Annie O’Shea. “Laugh out loud funny and
heartbreaking without resorting to neat Hollywood set-ups or resolutions.” Eye
For Film
BETTIE
PAGE REVEALS ALL
– Bettie narrates the story of her life, with a light touch and humor.
BIG
VISION EMPTY WALLET COMEDY SHORT FILMS- The best of the films submitted in this
year’s shorts competition.
BORN
AND RAISED - A
coming-of-age drama about a teenager in the Florida panhandle who begins
considering venturing out of his small town to escape his interpersonal
conflicts. From Rome Film Festival.
CALIFORNIA
SOLO – A
British rocker faces deportation from the U.S., and confronts his past. “Robert
Carlyle's layered performance as an embittered musician facing his demons gives
this fragile drama some emotional heft.” Hollywood Reporter
CLOUDBURST-
A Lesbian couple escapes from a nursing home
and go on a road trip to Canada to get married, with Olympia Dukakis and Brenda
Fricker. “This crowd-pleaser from writer-director Thom Fitzgerald brings
campaign-season relevance, geriatric glamour and Oscar clout.” Memphis Commercial
Appeal
COMING
UP ROSES – Young
Alice (Rachel Brosnahan) and her fading-actor mother, Diane (Bernadette Peters)
desperately hold onto each other and the fantasy of a better life.
DEADFALL
- Two
siblings (Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde) on the run after a casino heist. “A
highly satisfying Western-cum-noir in the old tradition.” Variety
EL
MEDICO: THE CUBATON STORY - Like Buena
Vista Social Club it combines the personal story of a Cuban musician with
plenty of his music and dancing. Is he El Medico – the doctor his mother wants
him to be, or Cubaton -- the reggae singer his Swedish music producer is trying
to develop? “Takes us on a wonderful authentic trip into the heart of Cuba.”
(Linda Sweatt, SBCC Film Reviews)
THE
FALLEN FAITHFUL-
Thriller about a religious man, searching for a profound and meaningful
connection with God, who is also a man of violence, a hired killer.
GAYBY is one of several
LBGT-themed films at the Festival. This one’s a comedy about a straight girl
who wants to get pregnant, and her male gay best friend who helps her “the old
fashioned way.” Sharp and witty, and set in Brooklyn, you’ll be reminded of
Lena Dunham’s Girls, with cameos from
her cast-mates Adam Driver and Alex Karpovsky. “Like Dunham's show, Gayby draws zeitgeist-y,
situational laughs from the lives of people it seems to know, rather than
straining to position itself as a hip authority…. If it's not the best comedy
of the year, it's easily the best to transcend the comedy formula.” (R. Kurt
Osenlund, Slant Magazine)
HEAD
GAMES – A
stark, unflinching examination of contact sports and the self-inflicted
injuries the participants take as "part of the game." (Documentary)
HORS
SATAN - Enigmatic
drama about the relationship between a woman and a mysterious outsider on
Northern France's Opal Coast. Is he the Second Coming, or the Devil? (in French
w/subtitles)
IN
ANOTHER COUNTRY
presents us with three overlapping small love stories, all featuring the same
cast headed by the well-known French star Isabelle Huppert. It’s directed by
Sang-soo Hong (known as Korea’s Eric Rohmer) and set at a seaside town in his
home country. “While it doesn’t shy away from telling moments of harshness,
it’s for the most part bright and breezy viewing, matching its picturesque and
sunny seaside scenery with mischievous insights.” (James Mudge, Beyond Hollywood. com) Nominated for the
Palm d’Or at Cannes, this is a must for fans of French cinema. (Despite its
foreign aspects, the movie’s language is English. How else can the French and
Koreans communicate?)
JOURNEY
TO PLANET X
– Two young filmmakers make a movie about making a sci-fi movie… and having
fun. From Tribeca Film Festival. Cast and crew will be there for a Q & A.
KINDERBLOCK
66: RETURN TO BUCHENWALD - The story of four men who, as young boys, were
imprisoned by the Nazis in the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp and who,
sixty-five years later, return to commemorate the sixty-fifth anniversary of
their liberation. (Documentary)
LET
MY PEOPLE GO is
another LBGT-themed comedy. Reuben is a French-Jewish gay working as a postman
in Finland (after completing his degree in comparative sauna cultures). It’s “a
hectic, colour-saturated Euro farce that sends up a multitude of stereotypes.”
(Craig Takeuchi, Straight. com)
NOT
WAVING BUT DROWNING- A
chronological look at growing up, formed from two different stories. The two
sets of friends represent the American dilemma between what you have known and
what you hope to know; the split between longing for the past and the desire to
explore.
THE
PLAYROOM features
another appearance for the versatile John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone, The Sessions) now as a parent carousing downstairs
while his four children invent a game of their own in the attic playroom. “An
emotionally rich drama set in suburbia in 1975. Gathered around a candle to
simulate a campfire setting, they improvise a tale about four orphaned kids who
escape from their lonely castle and set out for adventure.” (Eric Snider, Film. com)
QUARTET
is
Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut. The foursome of the title are retired opera
singers, Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay among them, sharing digs at a
retirement home and finding a way back to their glory days. “Quartet has a warmth and
charm that'll likely make it a firm hit with the same crowd that turned out for
The
Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” (Simon Reynolds, Digital Spy)
THE
SAPPHIRES follows
an Aborigine girl band as they go on a tour of American troops in Vietnam. “A
jewel-bright charmer about four spunky indigenous women whose powerhouse voices
catapulted them onto the 60s-era world stage as Australia's answer to the
Supremes.” Hollywood Reporter.
SHADOW
DANCER is a spy thriller featuring Andrea
Riseborough (Made in Dagenham) as an
IRA turncoat double agent and Clive Owen as her MI5 handler. “A labyrinthine
tale of cat and mouse, of deception and double cross, of betrayal and confused
allegiances.” Observer (UK)
SOMEWHERE
BETWEEN is
a documentary about four international adoptees, “Chinese girls emotionally
divided between the Asian country in which they were born and the America in
which they were raised... you’d have to be a stone not to be moved.” Kenneth
Turan, Los Angeles Times
STARLET-
about
the moral dilemmas raised when an aspiring and often stoned actress discovers a
stash of cash in a Thermos she buys at a yard sale. The movie was featured at
the SXSW Festival, and won the Breakthrough Performer Award for Dree Hemingway
(granddaughter of Papa) at the Hamptons Film Festival.
STRUCK
BY LIGHTNING –
An outspoken gay teenager narrates his own funeral. Laugh aloud high school
comedy with Allison Janney, Rebel Wilson & Allison Janney “The characters
are likable, the jokes are spot on & it's an all-around good time.” Movies. com
TIGER
EYES is
the first-ever feature film adaptation of a Judy Blume novel, written by Judy
with her son Lawrence, and directed by him. It’s the story of a teenager coming
to terms with the sudden death of her father and an unwanted family relocation.
“The rarest of family films, smart and nuanced, with an attention to detail in
images that mirrors what is Ms. Blume’s strength with words.” Filmmaker
Magazine. Judy will be there for a Q and A after the film.
TIME
ZERO: THE LAST YEAR OF POLAROID FILM – Documentary that captures the passion of
photographers who loved Polaroid film, and what they went through to save it.
UNFIT:
WARD VS. WARD – Expose
of bias against lesbian mothers via a documentary on case of convicted murder
husband awarded custody. (Documentary)
VIOLETA
WENT TO HEAVEN – A
portrait of famed Chilean singer and folklorist Violeta Parra filled with her
musical work, her memories, her loves and her hopes.
WHILE
WE WERE HERE – A
married American woman (Kate Bosworth) has an affair with a younger man on an
Italian island. With Claire Bloom.
THE
WISE KIDS – A
low-key drama about questioning kids in a South Carolina Baptist church. “A
guileless exploration of the growing pains of sheltered innocents whose
reticence and sincerity evoke 1950s small-town values.” NY Times
YOSSI
– “Yossi
(Ohad Knoller) is a thirty something doctor in Tel Aviv who hides the fact he
is gay from all around him…. a lovely story full of emotions that build to a
crescendo.” Flickfeast
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