TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2015 // A FILM REVIEW OF "BAD HURT"

BY CHRISENA RICCI

The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, runs April 15th-26th and features hundreds of features, documentaries, short films, and special events all throughout downtown New York City. The ArtsWire Weekly's three featured reviewers Mateo, Derek, & Chrisena are hitting the festival and bringing the reviews right to you! What you should see and what you should skip...

First of all, I don’t think an unluckier family was ever created on screen. This film begins by showing us a normal day in the life of the Kendall family. Between a son who is a drug addicted, has-been baseball star, who was recently dismissed from the marines and a daughter who has a mental disability with a boyfriend who doesn’t understand boundaries, this family has it all. Mother Elaine and father Ed are officially not sleeping in the same room, and tend to argue about everything. The youngest son is a “wanna-be” cop who is trying to help hold his family together but lacks the authority and respect to do so.

This jumble of issues is overwhelming, and honestly confusing. It took me way too long to decipher what the relationships were between all of the characters. After I had that all figured out, the next problem was that I didn’t know where to put my feelings. Should I be more worried about the son with the addiction, the daughter who is getting potentially sexually assaulted by her boyfriend, or the last son who tends to stare at his police reserve pistol a bit too long each night before bed?

After what seems an eternity, the film decides which issue boils over first. Then the really depressing stuff starts. In one excruciatingly painful, yet incredibly well-acted scene, Ed Kendall (played by Michael Harney) dresses son’s dead body in his marine blues and weeps the whole time. After the funeral, father and remaining son split some whisky and get into a very violent fist fight. Things continue to stay bad, and get worse and worse and worse.

Then with only about 25 minutes left, the film does a 180 and becomes a redeemingly charming film about a family coping. We discover that the daughter has not been the victim of sexual assault and she and Willie are brought together for the box factory’s Christmas dance. Elaine turns into a funny woman, cracking jokes with her dry humor, and Ed turns into a family man.  It comes out of nowhere, and it happens all too late in the game.

Dad gives a monologue to daughter DD, about what ‘shock’ is. He goes on to explain that shock is what happens when a person gets put through too much pain. At some point shock hits, and that person can’t feel the anything anymore.  That is sort of how I feel about this film. At some point, it was so much despair that I couldn’t feel the weight of it anymore. It lost its impact because there was simply too much sadness. The narrative arc stayed on the same depressing level for too long and left me feeling exhausted and in need of a hug.

VERDICT: SKIP IT

DIRECTED BY Mark Kemble STARRING Karen Allen, Michael Harney, Theo Rossi, Johnny Whitworth, Ashley Williams and Iris Gilad

Playing as part of The 2015 Tribeca International Film Festival. For tickets & schedules: http://www.tribecafilm.com

CHRISENA RICCI once went to a costume party dressed in an all black dress and black wig. No one there could guess who she was. So she shouted out, "I'm Christina Ricci, without the T or I and add an E!" Everyone stood there confused, she was annoyed, so she stormed off. She never returned to that apartment ever again. Which is fine, because she later realized she was at the wrong party. She now lives in New York City.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2015 // A FILM REVIEW OF "FASTBALL"

BY W DEREK JORDEN

The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, runs April 15th-26th and features hundreds of features, documentaries, short films, and special events all throughout downtown New York City. The ArtsWire Weekly's three featured reviewers Mateo, Derek, & Chrisena are hitting the festival and bringing the reviews right to you! What you should see and what you should skip...

 FASTBALL, the new documentary from director Jonathan Hock captures the spirit of one of America's favorite pastimes. Fastball traces the trajectory of baseball's most legendary pitch from the earliest measurements of its speed off the hand of Walter "The Big Train" Johnson to the present, when Arnoldis Chapman from Cuba is throwing beyond 105 mph for the Reds.

Between then and now baseball has evolved. Uniforms, bats and ways to measure the speed of a pitch have all become more high tech. Through each era, however, there has been the guy that every batter feared most, the hardest throwing man of the time. Fastball compares some of the greats and provides awesome graphics to illustrate the simple science of hurling a 5-ounce ball 60'6" accurately across homeplate. Along the way there have been amazing feats of human prowess--honestly any time a batter connects with a 90+mph ball it's amazing--and moments that inspired the nation, like Sandy Koufax's perfect game pitched in LA in 1965. In the end, there is a guy who has thrown (according to science) the most heat. And his name is...

VERDICT: MUST SEE

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Jonathan Hock FEATURING Rich "The Goose" Gossage, Craig "The Closer" Kimbrel, Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Steve Delkowski, Hank Aaron, Derek Jeter, Aroldis Chapman, Brian McCann, and many more.

Playing as part of The 2015 Tribeca International Film Festival. For tickets & schedules: http://www.tribecafilm.com

W. DEREK JORDEN is an actor currently living and working in New York City. He and his wife live on a Spaceship on the top of a building, which makes for some interesting dinner parties.

TRIBECA FILM FEST 2015 // A FILM REVIEW OF "COME DOWN MOLLY"

BY W DEREK JORDEN

The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, runs April 15th-26th and features hundreds of features, documentaries, short films, and special events all throughout downtown New York City. The ArtsWire Weekly's three featured reviewers Mateo, Derek, & Chrisena are hitting the festival and bringing the reviews right to you! What you should see and what you should skip...

Gregory Kohn's latest feature, Come Down Molly, tells a simple story of new mom Molly who feels trapped in the house and in life with her infant son while her husband's gone every day earning an honest living. One day she takes off to meet a group of high school friends, all guys, at a cabin in the mountains. Their reunion begins by reminiscing about old times when they all had the hots for tomboy Molly, but takes a turn to much deeper reflections when the group consumes a ziploc full of psychedelic mushrooms. The vast natural setting of the film, maybe somewhere in the foothills of the Rockies, is appropriate and adds to the grandiosity of the existential concepts the friends banter about. So does the Ken Burns music.

The film is unique in its casualness. For starters, a large number of the characters go by their actor names. It was certainly fun to watch these people have fun, and lots of it. How much of the dialogue was scripted and what was the result of improv is anyone's guess, as it seemed these words were genuinely rolling right off the tongue of the performers. It gave a feel that I would call hyper natural realism, meaning very naturally real. A majority of the film took place in a meadow in the valley, amongst amazing golden grasses and a picturesque creek, while both loud, large beasts and small, colorful insects made appearances on screen that added to the awesomeness and naturalness of the trip.

Come Down Molly is fun to watch, and though a simple movie, drifts into some complex ideas. It at once made me, often feeling trapped in the concrete jungle; yearn for a trip out west and a trip...just...out. Into nature, into the cosmos, into the meaning of life. How did those actors prepare for this role, I wonder?

VERDICT: ON THE FENCE

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Gregory Kohn STARRING Eléonore Hendricks, Kentucker Audley, Lindsay Burdge, Jason Shelton, John Anderson, Jason Selvig

Playing as part of The 2015 Tribeca International Film Festival. For tickets & schedules: http://www.tribecafilm.com

W. DEREK JORDEN is an actor currently living and working in New York City. He and his wife live on a Spaceship on the top of a building, which makes for some interesting dinner parties.