Thursday, April 27, 2017

2017 Tribeca Film Festival

We've been going for several years now. You get an 8-pack, and that entitles you to 4 films (2 tickets to each). You try to spread them out, one movie every couple of days, reasonable screen times for a working stiff, and pick films that are radically different from each other (as they were this year).

This year's haul: (1) Flower, somewhat dark indie film, adolescent & family dysfunction, 3-1/2 stars out of 4.

(2) Blurred Lines, only 2 to 2-1/2 stars, arts world documentary, too predictable, the basic critique is fine but it ought to have been more original and insightful.

(3) Newton, 3-1/2 stars but possibly our favorite of the group (although Flower was close), drama/comedy from India, sociologically interesting to an Amurrican.

(4) The Circle, 3 stars, liked it but shouldn't have picked it given forthcoming multi-screen commercial release, great atmosphere and good performances by Emma Watson and especially Tom Hanks, (he plays a great quasi-villain, her character as written was a bit incoherent), had some credibility and melodramatic shortcut problems. I haven't read the novel but am curious re. how similar it is or isn't (Eggers did co-author the screenplay).

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