After Time to Die, I grabbed a quick bite and went to see Stranded: I’ve come from a plane that crashed on the mountains–my fifth documentary of the week.
Once again, the director was there in person. But instead of bringing his star and cinematographer, Gonzalo Arijon brought his very young daughter, who shyly hung onto his leg as he introduced the film. I wasn’t able to stay for the Q&A afterward.
Stranded tells a story many of us have already heard, about the 1972 airplane crash that inspired the best-selling book and Hollywood movie Alive. The plane, carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and their friends and family, crashed into a glacier high in the Andes. The survivors endure extreme cold, hunger, an avalanche, the deaths of loved 
ones, and the necessity of eating those loved ones’ corpses. Finally, two of them make a stunning trek across the mountains to find help. Only 16 out of the 45 people on the plane survived the crash and 72-day ordeal.
Combining interviews with the survivors (all 16 are still alive), re-enacted sequences, and some photography from the actual events, Arijon recreates the harrowing experience with dramatic intensity. Despite the cannibalism, these young men don’t drop into Lord of the Flies savagery. They cooperate, help each other, and work for the common good.
Unfortunately, unless it gets picked up by an American distributor, you have no more chances to see Stranded: I’ve come from a plane that crashed on the mountains.
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Almost a monolog, Time to Die is primarily an old woman talki
ng to her dog, and it’s much better than any film that meets that description has any right to be. Szaflarska is wonderful in the role–wistful, bitter, demanding of respect, a little crazy, with a tendency to spy on her neighbors. Not that she doesn’t have reasons. The yuppies next door want to buy her property and tear down the once-beautiful house where she spent her life. Despite the title, the film is not so such much about death as about how one spends the last years of one’s life.
Institute called it, the greatest American film comedy yet made. But Billy Wilder’s farce about desperate musicians, vicious gangsters, and straight men in drag definitely belongs in the top 20. And its closing line has never been beat. On a United Artists 90th Anniversary Double Bill with Tom Jones–a movie I haven’t seen in a long time but recall liking a great deal.
out author/con-artist Norma Khouri justified them beautifully. None of the events recreated in the film actually happened, and Broinowski reminds us of that by showing us the freshly murdered girl, covered in stage blood, sit up and laugh with her “murderers” after a take. Not only is it just a movie, but it’s a movie about lies. Khouri became famous when she wrote a memoir about the honor killing of her best friend in Jordan. The trouble is that she grew up in Chicago, her real name is Norma Bagain, and she left the US one step ahead of the law, wanted for defrauding an old lady. Extremely entertaining, with jokes, old film clips, special effects, and rock and roll, Forbidden Lies takes on a journey with, and about, one hell of a con artist. Several times, even late in the picture, a new revelation would have me thinking “Maybe there is some truth behind what she said,” only to discover that no such truth exists.
human heart in Lance Hammer’s directorial debut. Set in a sparsely-populated piece of the Mississippi Delta, Ballast brings us into the lives of three troubled souls struggling with loss and a need for family. Hammer avoids professional actors, music, and artificial lighting, creating a reality that Hollywood could never match. Hollywood would have turned Ballast into an uplifting celebration of the human spirit (I can almost hear that line narrated in the trailer). That would have been a good movie, but Hammer made the story into a great one. This Film Will Have a Theatrical Release After the Festival.
filthy rich. We accept this empty and amoral theme because the movie is funny and visually pleasing, but even more because Ivan Barnev is engaging and likeable as the story’s ambitious waiter protagonist. But just as the fun and games begin to tire us, the Nazis arrive. Jan falls in love with a German girl, collaborates with the enemy, and shows us just how low he can go. Told mostly in flashbacks, I Served the King of England maintains its light tone throughout. This Film Will Have a Theatrical Release After the Festival.
version (and the Bay Area version) of Before Sunrise. A man and woman wake up together, hung over and embarrassed (they don’t even know each others’ names). We discover the two characters as they discover each other, maneuver around their mutual attraction, and talk about their very different attitudes about life and race. Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins make attractive and likable leads, and it works beautifully for the first hour before it runs out of momentum. Read my 
Although Kingsley gets top billing, Josh Peck plays the lead roll, a pot dealer fresh out of high school, and one of the doctor’s patients (he’s paying his shrink bills in marijuana). But while The Wackness entertains, it never quite jells. As a character, Josh lacks the depth and interest needed to fill a movie, while as an actor Peck lacks the charisma to carry one. Kingsley has the charisma, but his talent can’t raise Dr. Squires much above the one-joke character of the script. The Festival’s Centerpiece presentation. This Film Will Have a Theatrical Release After the Festival.
