Chile Pages
BAND OF OUTSIDERS
Coming four years after his debut feature classic
Breathless, this 1964 film is the great Jean-Luc Godard when he was still in the mood to entertain, done in a way that feels irresistibly fresh. This tragicomic romantic film noir stars the young Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur as a couple of slackers given to joyriding and playacting movie stereotypes, until they meet Anna Karina, who tells them about some money hidden in her house outside Paris. Fantasy turns to real crime, but they still have time for some detours into silliness and romance, including a race through the Louvre and a classic dance in a café. The film owes a certain debt to Truffaut’s Jules
and Jim, and to the American movies Godard grew up loving. The movie has a refreshingly homemade quality, shot in the streets of Paris with such hands-on immediacy that you catch passersby glancing curiously at the camera. It’s Godard very near his best (Godard has called it one of his worst, but then he did turn grumpy). Part of the Auteurs series. Not rated. 95 minutes. In French with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)
GHOSTBUSTERS
The much-ballyhooed reboot of the Ghostbusters franchise finally arrives in theaters, so get your coveralls and proton packs, and prepare for busting to make you feel good all over again. This time, the Ghostbusters are played by women — Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy most prominent among them —an d the secretary is played by a man (Chris Hemsworth). The conflict is still the same, however: A bunch of angry spirits are terrorizing New York City, and there’s only one group to call. Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) directs. Rated PG-13. 116 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
THE INFILTRATOR
Bryan Cranston plays a federal agent in 1986 who goes undercover as a money launderer to take down a Colombian drug organization. As he becomes close with a top lieutenant in the drug ring (Benjamin Bratt), he must navigate a minefield of potential problems, in which his cover is constantly at risk of being blown. Diane Kruger and John Leguizamo portray his fellow agents. Rated R. 127 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
KAILI BLUES
Chen (Chen Yongzhong) is man with a criminal past, now a doctor who is on a mission to make up for past misdeeds by caring for his abandoned nephew. In the hands of first-time writer and director Bi Gan, Chen’s travels into rural China become an odyssey, a poetic journey that weaves its way through past and present, revealing aspects of China’s history and culture and Chen’s own past and future in dreamlike fashion. The film boasts one of the longest tracking shots in recent memory, mind-bogglingly choreographed and lasting more than 40 minutes. Kaili Blues observes people in their humble surroundings in a natural way, with a cast of mostly nonprofessionals. It’s a film of self-discovery, self-sacrifice, and possibility, as mysterious as it is beautiful, even if its meaning is elusive. This is one to be talked about. Not rated. 113 minutes. In Mandarin with subtitles. The Screen. (Michael Abatemarco)
LEONARDO DA VINCI: THE GENIUS IN MILAN
Framed around the packing and shipping of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting La Belle Ferronière from the Louvre to Milan’s Palazzo Reale for the museum’s major exhibition Leonardo 1452-1519, curators and Leonardo scholars Pietro Marani and M. Teresa Fiorio guide viewers through the life of Leonardo and offer insights into his brilliance. Not rated. 90 minutes. In Italian with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Not reviewed)
LUCHA MEXICO
Not rated. 105 minutes. In English and Spanish with subtitles. The Screen. See review, Page 54.
RAIDERS! THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE
In the summer of 1982, three grade-school kids in Ocean Springs, Mississippi — Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos, and Jayson Lamb — enlisted their friends for a shot-by-shot remake of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark called Raiders of the
Lost Ark: The Adaptation. By the time they graduated from high school, their film was complete except for one scene. Raiders! tells the story of their commitment to what began as a summer project and ended up consuming their lives and testing the bounds of their friendships. A copy of their film ended up in the hands of horror filmmaker Eli Roth and started playing at film festivals, leading to some fortuitous circumstances in the second half of the story. The documentary has two parallel narratives. One details the trials of the kids as they endeavor to complete the film using household items as props, performing their own stunts, turning their parents’ homes into sound stages — nearly burning them down — and filming on a real submarine. The other is about Eric Zala’s dream of finishing the film more than 30 years after he started. Inspiring, heartfelt, and moving, Raiders! is the kind of stuff that makes you want to make movies. Not rated. 95 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Michael Abatemarco)
TICKLED
Tickling, it turns out, is no laughing matter. David Farrier, a New Zealand journalist and documentarian, discovered this after he came upon an online video of something called “Competitive Endurance Tickling.” He sent an inquiring email to the listed California company, Jane O’Brien Media, and received at first homophobic insults and then legal threats in reply. Farrier and co-director Dylan Reeve pursued the story, which turns darker and more bizarre as they dig. They unmask David D’Amato, the former high school administrator behind the Jane O’Brien pseudonym (and several other female identities.) They discover a program luring buff young men into tickling videos, and a campaign of internet harassment, deception, betrayal, shaming, death threats, blackmail, and an obsessive fetishism that crosses more lines than you can imagine. Toward the end, the documentary takes on the nail-biting suspense of a procedural thriller. At the time this documentary wrapped, D’Amato’s tickling video empire was still going strong. You may not be tickled, but you’ll be fascinated — and appalled. Rated R. 92 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)
THE WAILING
In this Korean movie, which blends elements of horror, comedy, and police procedural, Do Won Kwak plays a somewhat buffoonish police officer who is new to a small village. He is immediately thrown into the fire when a freak virus infects the town, leading to gruesome murders. When his daughter (Hwan-hee Kim) becomes afflicted, he must race against the clock to find a cure. Writer and director Hong-jin Na first earned acclaim with 2008’s The Chaser. This movie continues
his exploration of policemen mired in horrible cases. Not rated. 156 minutes. In Korean with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Not reviewed)