Past seven days

The Chicago International Film Festival begins in October! Check out the schedule here. Also coming up right afterwards is the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.  Chicago is a city with a constant flow of mini festivals from every culture, social cause or just every day topics.  This past week though, some on DVD:

Baggage Claim
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
Enough Said
The Inheritance (1962)
The Last Elvis
Paprika

Afternoon Delight

The premise of Afternoon Delight has some seedy elements because it is about a wife and mother befriending a young stripper. A review I read called it an "uneasy comedy" and I agree about the uneasy part which relates equally to the stripper character as well as how the main character sees her.

The story is about a 30-something Jewish wife and mother who has become uninterested in sex with her husband. Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) has had a dry spell for some months and sees a shrink (Jane Lynch) for her problem. Her husband, Jeff (Josh Radnor), has created some popular apps so they are pretty comfortably set--not "rich" but above a normal paygrade, that's for sure. Rachel's lifestyle among some other Jewish wives is one where they do charity work and go for massages while their kids are in school, but Rachel considers herself a step or two above them intellectually as she once had aspirations to be a war correspondent (an intelligence we see little of, frankly).

A friend suggests the couple go to a strip club to get their juices going. Rachel and Jeff do so, and Rachel gets a lap dance from McKenna (Juno Temple), a young stripper. Although we can tell Rachel is somewhat and reluctantly aroused it does not solve her problem. Later Rachel sees McKenna by chance in the street and pretends to bump into her and starts a conversation.

McKenna is pretty open about her way of life and non-judgmental and Rachel likes to think that she herself is too. She invites McKenna back to the house and tells her friends she is the new nanny, and Rachel's husband is not sure where she is going with this. McKenna is physically more confident than Rachel as well. She touches her in friendly ways that makes Rachel, as in the strip club, both uneasy and aroused, yet not wanting to admit she has these sexual appetites because that would mean her marital problem is hers and nothing to do with sex. Rachel appears to think McKenna needs some salvation and she, Rachel, is the one to provide it, and this setup proves poisonous, mostly due to Rachel's misguided actions. Due to a badly phrased and probably condescending comment about her, McKenna purposely does something which breaks Rachel's social circle apart, but forces Rachel and her husband to come to terms with the larger meaning of their marital problems.

Past seven days

Fall is definitely here! The cooler weather is not conducive to enjoying the outdoors, but funnily enough I have only been in the mood to re-watch old stuff. Nothing too new this week.

Best of the Fest: Chicago International Children's Film Festival
In Transit
The Loveless
The Student

The Oscar Nominated Short Films (2012)

This compilation of Oscar-winning short films was put together by Shorts International, which also has a cable tv channel. They are the group who in the past few years have theatrically screened Oscar short film programs a few weeks just prior to the Oscar telecast, a few of which I've been able to attend. I have additionally seen a few of these at the Chicago International Film Festival or in other places. At one time cable tv channels such as HBO used shorts to either fill up an hour after the end of a film, or an established program such as Exposure, a science fiction and fantasy-based short film program hosted by Lisa Marie, would appear on the Sci Fi Channel. Now we get a whole channel devoted to shorts, in addition to many online portals one can find shorts on! Overall the films on this DVD are pretty good, a selection of live action and animated shorts from about the last ten years, and I can see why they were chosen as winners.

Films include:

God of Love (2010, U.S)
The New Tenants (2009, Denmark)
Toyland (2007, Germany)
West Bank Story (2005, U.S.)
The Lost Thing (2010, Australia)
Logorama (2009, France)
The Danish Poet (2006, Norway/Canada)
Ryan (2004, Canada)
Harvie Krumpet (2004, Australia)

Synopses and reviews after the jump!

Past seven days

Highlight of the week is Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds, a Turkish film about two youths who dream of opening a cinema and making films.  I learned a little about Mexican corridos in El Otro Lado, a documentary.  Skip Cold Prey, a run of the mill horror movie about college-aged friends trapped in an abandoned winter resort--it pays some homage to The Shining but the story is pretty unoriginal and I didn't understand who the killer was supposed to be.

About 111 Girls
Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds
Cold Prey
Off the Map
El Otro Lado
Short Term 12
Swirl

Wizards

After an apocalypse, humans are now dead or mutated from the nuclear fallout.  The real ancestors of humans, creatures such as fairies and dwarves rise up to live in peace.  After several millenia, their queen births twins, Avatar (voiced by Bob Holt), the one still using magic, and Blackwolf (Steve Gravers), who has found a way to use technology against the wizards, hoping to lead the mutants into a revolution. An animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi.

Past seven days

A long holiday weekend means lots of tv watching.  Although I didn't watch too many movies, I did watch some tv series on Netflix Instant:  House of Cards (2013), Top of the Lake, and Ripper Street.  I also tried Spiral, a French series (take a pass); and Rock Slyde, a comic film noir (looks like a small budget film and it shows).

Afternoon Delight
Ain't Them Bodies Saints
A Useful Life