TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2015 // A FILM REVIEW OF "MAN UP"

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...

I have officially found my new favorite romantic comedy. This film has all of the unfortunate circumstances of Bridget Jones's Diary, with all the discomfort of Meet The Parents and a dash of You've Got Mail sprinkled on top. That is to say that it's a perfect combination of awkward, heartwarmingly honest and tragically dysfunctional.

When single Nancy (Lake Bell) is gifted a self- help book from an annoyingly chipper 24 year old, Nancy accidentally steals a blind date meant for someone else. Every time she considers coming clean about the deception, Jack (Simon Pegg) says something that instantly makes her stop. Once her secret is revealed, the two are pushed together by fate and are forced to spend an entire night out. Every limit is tested. The two run into Jack’s cheating ex-wife, Nancy’s stalker from high school, bad traffic and wrong directions.

It has been a long time since I have been so connected and invested in a comedic story. The man next to me was literally laughing so hard he gave himself a coughing fit. However, don't think that this is only a comedy, because there is much more depth than the stereotypical rom-com. A moving monologue by both romantic leads actually had me surprisingly in tears. The entire film moved at a quick clip with farcical like pacing, but when these specific moments came, the entire film paused, allowing the authenticity carry the pauses.

The soundtrack was engaging and fun, the acting was both high energy and honest, and the story was interesting and my new favorite.

VERDICT: MUST SEE

DIRECTED BY Ben Palmer WRITTEN BY Tess Morris STARRING Simon Pegg, Lake Bell

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 "A BALLERINA'S TALE"

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...

 I have danced my entire life. I don't just mean for fun, I mean for a large portion of my middle school and high school years, I was training to be a professional dancer. I wanted to be a prima ballerina, and dance in New York City in a lovely white tutu and satin pointe shoes. However, to be a ballerina you must have certain physical attributes. Turned out hips, flexible shoulders, beautiful feet, strong ankles and you must be thin with no curves, long willow-like limbs and you must be pale. At least, that's the ideal.

Or it was. Misty Copeland is a legendary dancer. She is strong, muscular, talented and black. She has curves where Primas are flat, and color where there has only been starkness. And she is changing our ideas of what it should mean to be a ballerina.

This film begins with a crackly home video of Misty in a dance class. She is all arms and legs, but her extensions are seamless, her hands like doves attached to her wrists. She is amazing and soon her career takes off. She finally joins the American Ballet Theatre, but it isn’t a perfect fit. She talks about how she really didn’t fit in. She was the only African American dancer in the company, and she was being told for the first time in her life that she needed to lose weight. At this point in time, Misty spirals into a state of confusion and a lack of focus. She reminisces about ordering two dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts to her apartment and eating a dozen while in tears. She even talks about the guilt she felt about being different.

This is a raw part of her story that I’m so glad was shared. Even the best of the best have days, weeks, and months where they don’t feel as though they belong. When ABT sees Misty’s focus crumble they reach out for a support system for her.  Misty soon becomes friends with a long list of African American women who were trail blazers in their fields. This sisterhood strengthens Misty’s resolve to follow her reams with laser-like focus. In no time at all, Misty finally becomes a soloist, dancing the role of Firebird.

The film is not only a window into the trials and tribulations of a fantastic dancer, but it examines some extremely pertinent questions. Will Misty ever become a Prima? What will her struggles mean for all women with different body types, and different races? Is it possible that we can re-write George Balanchine’s version of a Prima Ballerina? Hopefully, Misty’s career will breathe life into an art form that is quickly losing its relevance.

VERDICT: If you love ballet it’s a MUST SEE.

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

DIRECTED BY Nelson George SCREENWRITER Nelson George FEATURING Misty Copeland

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 "A NAZI LEGACY: WHAT OUR FATHER'S DID"

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...

 It's halfway through the film A NAZI LEGACY: WHAT OUR FATHERS DID and I'm in tears for the third (more realistically fifth) time since the start of TRIBECA Film Festival. Three men stand in front of a monument that is surrounded by tall tangles of grass and weeds. None of them will raise their eyes off of the ground, and none seem to currently have the ability to talk. The monument resides in Poland on the outskirts of a town where hundreds of Jews were slaughtered and dropped into mass graves and then abandoned. The present day men all come from very different backgrounds. The youngest, is our film's narrator, Philippe Sands, whose ancestors perished in this meadow. The eldest two are older men now, just barely alive during the war. The first is Horst von Wachter, whose father was Otto Von Wachter. The next is Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank who was the Butcher of Poland.

The film begins the same way most visits to a grandparent might. Sands meets each gentleman one on one to look through photo albums and sift through hand written letters. The reminiscing usually ends with a walking tour of each older man's childhood home. The interviews are polite and respectful, but the subject matter is tricky. How can you ask about being raised by a monster in a polite way?

Somehow, Sands pulls off the initial interviews with calmness and distance. Then we see that each man had very different relationships with their fathers. Where Horst fondly remembers summers at the lake with his entire family, and how much his father loved his family, Niklas remembers his father as a horribly cruel and cold man, who never acknowledged his presence. Perhaps this is part of the reason why Horst cannot accept that his father, a high ranking Nazi official, was responsible for any of the evil deeds for which he is accused.

Sands quickly turns from polite and passive to determined and aggressive. He shows Horst documents that his father signed condemning Jews to their fates. Niklas reads a chilling speech his father gave to the Nazi party that jokingly asks Horst's father what he did with all of the Jews, "nothing nasty I hope". It still isn’t enough to convince Horst. He cannot see past the living father he knew as a child.

The film constantly tries to prove to Horst that his father was not innocent of these war crimes but actively guilty in murdering Polish Jews. It is difficult to watch this old man struggle with his ideas of his father as he is presented with all of the facts. The worst part of the story however, is that Niklas goes very far in the opposite direction, taking all of the guilt and burden his father left behind. This man can't remember a single good thing about his father, and even says that he feels ashamed to be his son. While it is understandable, it is difficult to watch a person who was an innocent child at the time of war, feel all the guilt for crimes he didn’t even understand at the time.

The film leaves me wondering which man I pity the most. The one who cannot accept the evils his father committed or the man who had a monster of a father, and who has no happy memories to speak of. This is an interesting and emotional voice on a subject that I had never stopped to ponder. What happened to the children of the Nazi leaders? But now the questions has been answered.

VERDICT: SEE IT

DIRECTED BY David Evans WRITTEN BY Philippe Sands FEATURING Philippe Sands, Niklas Frank, Horst von Wachter

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.