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We're seeing the latter, during a day also occupied by The Favourite, Vox Lux, and Her Smell - all in a row at the same venue. Definitely going to be the standout day of the festival. It's just frustrating as someone who's been going to this festival for over a decade to see it take a step forward then a step back - they've routinely been improving their level of access to more buzzy or more interesting films and to see some maudlin pap that's got middling reviews kicking the fest off is a bummer.

From the non-obvious slate I would check out Galveston, an adaptation of the True Detective guy's book directed by Melanie Laurent, who made the quite good YA adaptation Respire a few years back

Another scheduling conflict, in this case with some real life stuff and not another movie - LQ is quite fond of Laurent, though, and we'll catch up with it, though the reviews leave something to be desired. A tortured Ben Foster + a young girl seems like a very popular combo lately.

Anybody seeing (or has seen) A Family Tour? I'm not familiar with Ying Liang's work, but it has gotten some high praise. (It's also his first film in six years of exile from mainland China.) It's playing at NYFF in about 90 minutes and I'm pretty bummed I can't make it.

For those in the Boston area: The Brattle theater in Cambridge has just announced that they will be hosting an incredible series of area premieres this coming weekend, being put on by the Boston Independent Film Festival. The lineup includes:

Friday Oct. 19: Wildlife, Border

Saturday Oct. 20: Cold War, Rafiki, Shoplifters, Vox Lux

Sunday Oct. 21: Roma, Non-Fiction, Burning, The Favourite

Tickets here. I'll be going to basically all of these...

The link does not work.

Here you go (there was a missing colon in the link): http://iffboston.org/fall-focus-2018/

It looks like I'll be posting up a residency on Sunday, perhaps Saturday too.

yoshimori wrote: Wed May 23, 2018 5:42 pm Not sure where to put this -- the search function doesn't seem to be working as my searches for "Hamaguchi" and for "Asako" both turned up zero results. Anyway ...

Was just forwarded this link and thought some here might be interested:

Hamaguchi Ryusuke's 38-minute 2016 "Heaven is Still Far Away"

Intriguing premise and a very-well performed scene in a cafe, but, like all his work (for me at least) muddled, ultimately unsatisfying. If interested, you should probably watch it today as it looks like it will leave the site on May 24 (tomorrow).

Watched this last night and I agree with your criticisms to a tee. It’s clearly constructed in a short story mold, but the bookending narration is unnecessary, and the last scene’s emotional confession is a near fatal error and seems like it came from a different movie (and the film already had a natural stopping point at the end of the interview!). I was impressed with the performances in the cafe scene as well, which handles the “reveal” with appropriate care, but by the time we got to the big centerpiece in the interview, I could not believe or buy into the unlikely reactions of either interviewer or interviewee(s?). I like the contradictory idea of a subtle high concept, and I saw a lot of filmmaking promise here that I assume/hope pays off better in his other more well-regarded works, but the more I think about this movie, the more I find it lacking