Indie Focus: Taking it higher with ‘Woodshock,’ ‘Battle of the Sexes’ and ‘Stronger’
Hello, I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
Last week, we featured Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” and it has accomplished what is now an all-too-rare feat for a movie: People are talking about it. A lot. The movie has leaped into a love it-hate it cultural conversation like few others in recent memory.
And one of the people doing quite a bit of talking has been Aronofsky himself. Jen Yamato wrote an essay about how he may, in fact, be digging himself further into a hole with his explanations, rather than letting the film’s enigmatic storytelling speak for itself. (There’s a video conversation between Jen and Justin Chang too.)
As she wrote, “Because when the makers of an unapologetically intentioned film like ‘mother!’ are forced to dole out meaning and interpretation to quell the angry hordes, we risk losing the intangible alchemy between audience and art created by such a provocation in the first place.”
And as part of the larger multivenue Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA program, the UCLA Film and Television Archive has launched “Recuerdos de un cine en español: Latin American Cinema in Los Angeles, 1930-1960,” including a number of new restorations. Screenings will be both at the Archive’s Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood and, in the spirit of the program, at the Downtown Independent, once known as the Azteca.
Kenneth Turan surveyed the program, noting, “Los Angeles has been many things cinematic, but one of the most important is one of the least known: the 30-year period when a multitude of downtown theaters functioned as ‘the undisputed capital of Latin American cinema culture in the United States.’ ”
Filmmaker Sean Baker has long been a favorite around these parts, so we are especially excited to be screening his latest film, “The Florida Project,” this Wednesday. That we will have the iconic actor Willem Dafoe, one of the film’s stars, for a Q&A actually has us a bit giddy. Keep an eye on this space for updates on future events, or go to events.latimes.com.
‘Woodshock’
Sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, who design together as the fashion label Rodarte, have long talked about cinema as one of their key influences, from hosting a screening of Dario Argento’s stylish horror gem “Suspiria” to featuring iconography from “Star Wars” in one of their collections.
So it makes perfect sense that the duo should make a film of their own, but no one may have quite predicted that film would be quite as unusual as “Woodshock,” starring Kirsten Dunst as a woman named Theresa alongside Danish actor Pilou Asbaek. Boldly impressionistic, the film is based around a pot dispensary in Humboldt County, adding up to something like a hallucinatory melodrama.
Reviewing the film for The Times, Sheri Linden said, “With its gauzily surreal touches, ‘Woodshock’ reflects the Mulleavys’ romantic flair for texture and embellishment. But as Theresa’s guilt and self-medication mount, along with the film’s profoundly muddled ideas about assisted suicide, the curated trance grows mind-numbing. It’s a death trip with pretty lingerie.”
Amy Kaufman spoke to the Mulleavys about what they hoped to achieve with the movie. Kate said that anyone who claims they made a sensual, beautiful-looking film only because they are fashion designers is not only wrong but sexist.
“To make a film that looks like this takes ingenuity, a lot of hard effort, and it has meaning,” she said. “Visual signs and codes have meaning. They have importance in artistic expression and film. If someone says that’s not valuable or worth anything, it’s because they’re trying to put it in a feminine space instead of looking at it as creative.”
At Vulture, Emily Yoshida said the project “doesn’t feel like a fashion movie, perhaps until its closing moments. This is a full-blown art movie by first-time filmmakers, with all the positive and negative connotations that status comes with.”
‘Battle of the Sexes’
The highly publicized 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs is the focal point for “Battle of the Sexes,” but the movie is about much more than that. The film, directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, also focuses on the personal stories of King (Emma Stone) and Riggs (Steve Carell) while also exploring the event’s larger cultural significance regarding relations between men and women.
For The Times, Kenneth Turan said, “With gifted and innately likable actors like Emma Stone and Steve Carell as the stars and an audience-friendly script by Simon Beaufoy (‘Slumdog Millionaire’) as the starting point, ‘Battle’ is most involving when it deals not with sports or society but the personal struggles both players, especially King, were going through in the run-up to the match.”
Manohla Dargis at the New York Times said of Stone’s performance: “She’s unsurprisingly good and often moving, although the best thing about the performance is that Ms. Stone hasn’t been asked to play the girl who seduces us with big eyes and a smile. Billie Jean is a woman, and that’s a win.”
At the Washington Post, Anne Hornaday noted, “Therein lies the touching subtext of ‘Battle of the Sexes,’ which is almost remedial in its timeliness, given last year’s political grudge match. It gives audiences a glimpse of where we’ve been, how far we’ve come and, soberingly, how far we’ve yet to go — especially when we’re with her.”
‘Stronger’
“Stronger” stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany in the true story of Jeff Bauman and Erin Hurley. Bauman lost his legs following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, as he was there waiting for Hurley, who was running in the race. As directed by David Gordon Green, their story becomes one of love, determination and rebirth.
Reviewing the film for The Times, Justin Chang wrote: “One of the best things about ‘Stronger,’ which Green directed from a script by John Pollono, is that it doesn’t shy away from, much less attempt to stifle, the anger, despair and terrible loneliness that Bauman experienced during his long, painful rehabilitation. … It doesn’t make the mistake of assuming that your tears are its natural entitlement, which is precisely why you might find yourself shedding a few before it’s over.”
Amy Kaufman spoke to Green, Gyllenhaal and Maslany. The film became personal for all involved. Green noted how he wasn’t looking to make a serious drama when the script came to him, but he couldn’t turn it down.
“The script made me think: What if I break all my rules?” Green said. “Every movie I do, I try to take a step forward. Sometimes I need to enjoy life more. Sometimes I need to put money in my pocket. Sometimes I need to vent about a relationship I’ve been through. Here, it was like, let’s leave everything I know behind and take that step forward.”
Amy also spoke to the real Jeff Bauman.
At the Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips added, “ ‘Stronger’ is a movie you need to see, no matter how much you think you don’t need to see it.”
As Glenn Kenny at the New York Times noted, “ ‘Stronger’ takes more artistic risks than any other American-made ‘inspired by true events’ picture I can recall.”
Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus
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