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BOFCA REPERTORY PICK: 8/8

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I’m in love with this combination of coming-of-age stories. Not only do they feature strong female leads coming to terms with their sexuality, but both of the films showing at the Brattle Theatre today are directed by women. It’s a rare empowerment on both sides of the camera.

GOODBYE FIRST LOVE is the more romantic of the two, following the trajectory of one’s first relationship, its passions, and the eventual heartbreak that follows. Camille is a reserved 15-year-old who falls in love with a goofy boy in class who dreams of traveling the world. Well, he sets off to to do so, leaving Camille behind in France with a broken heart. That first feeling of heartbreak is perfectly captured in a single scene: Camille looks devastated lying on the couch, so her mother asks if she’s okay. She responds, “I want to die.” It’s just the right amount of teenage melodrama, and as adults watching, we can both laugh at the naivety yet sympathize with her plight. Chances are, the same end-of-the-world feeling hit us at right about that age.

The movie continues to follow Camille as she moves on with her life. Her character is far from perfect and makes other romance-related missteps. Nonetheless she carries on, pursuing her interest in architecture and living away from the comforts of family. But no matter how independent and mature she becomes, she always remembers her first love. Don’t we all?

Not only is the premise relatable, but it’s beautifully composed in a nostalgic rose-tinted tone. Director Mia Hansen-Løve thoughtfully inserts shades of blue, red, and white (the colors of the French flag) throughout the movie. The colors are subtly incorporated, making the blue-tinted cityscape appear bleaker now that her love has left and the French countryside feel warmer when he vacations with her. Actress Lola Crèton plays Camille with incredible depth, especially impressive since her character is not the type to fly off the handle. Even when she suffers silently, it is more than apparent to the viewer. We cheer for her to get over him, like a friend on the sidelines of a post-breakup mess. But we’re left as helpless as she is in the matter. How could you ever forget your first love?

Following the French film about love is the Norwegian film about sex. Or at least, discovering the tricky situation of needing to hide one’s sexual urges. TURN ME ON, DAMMIT! follows 15-year-old Alma, a high school girl with a slight phone sex addiction and a very serious crush on a guy at school.

Well, word gets out that she has a sexual encounter with said boy, and all schoolyard hell breaks loose when he denies it ever happened. She’s ostracized and teased, with even the neighbor’s little girls calling her “Dick-Alma.” There’s a nice little subplot about escaping the remote village she lives in, but eventually she must deal with her high school scandal.

The spirit of TURN ME ON, DAMMIT! is much more rebellious than that of FIRST LOVE. Alma and her two friends ride the bus to school and flip off their town’s sign. The three girlfriends eventually erupt into a fight over the scandal; realistic in a movie about events getting blown out of proportion. Alma (Helene Bergsholm) has no reservations about saying what’s on her mind, and even goes so far as to profess her love for her crush out in the open (and of course, Mom isn’t thrilled when she finds the phone sex bills – but Alma takes it all with a surly scowl on her face.)

First-time director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen captures the social mess with a touch of absurdity. One of Alma’s friends has a prisoner pen pal. We watch some of Alma’s sexual fantasies, and eventually watch her get interrupted by her mother. It’s almost like a teen sex comedy for girls, set in a bleak (here, even the mountains look desaturated) trap of social isolation.

Although Alma is much more dissatisfied than Camille, both seek independence from their past mistakes. They both look towards a future in the city, the classic bastion of sin. They pursue who they like regardless of the romantic or social peril it may cause, and they’re allowed to explore sexuality in a way not often depicted in American films. These imported treats are a perfect double bill as part of the Brattle’s Recent Raves repertory series. – Monica Castillo

GOODBYE FIRST LOVE screens today, 8/8, at 3:15PM and 7:15PM. TURN ME ON, DAMMIT! plays at 5:30PM and 9:30PM. The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge MA. 02138.

BOFCA REPERTORY PICK: 7/9

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Following last week’s screening of Chaplin’s THE GOLD RUSH, the Brattle Theatre is screening Buster Keaton’s SHERLOCK JR. tonight and tomorrow as part of its repertory series based on the documentary, THE STORY OF FILM.

sherlock jr

As half of a double feature that covers the birth of cinema, SHERLOCK JR. is remarkably sophisticated. Clocking in at under an hour, our hero Keaton solves a mystery, falls into a movie, and must win back the hand of his love interest all before a fade to black. Its breakneck pace was standard for the era of short comedy features and one-reelers (around 20 minute shorts). The following year, Chaplin would release THE GOLD RUSH with a decadent 90 minutes in run time. However there’s no time for lulls in SHERLOCK JR., positioned from the start with jokes ready to set off a chain of events. Not a word is spoken (it’s a silent comedy), but it’s perfect this way. The audience gets to fill in what’s going on by context clues with the help of intertitles. It’s our own little mystery as a modern audiences unused to watching movies without dialogue.

But Keaton is a different comedic craftsman than Chaplin. He never smiles. His listless expressions are up to the viewer to interpret. Chaplin overacts: he cries, he laughs, he flirts, and there is no confusion or subtly about it. Both were meticulous about the gags in their films. Chaplin would often fashion ordinary items into different devices, but Keaton would construct elaborate mechanical gags with camera tricks. He does this in SHERLOCK JR. when he falls into the silver screen and into the throws of a movie, an action-packed mystery. It’s akin to a reverse on the plot of Woody Allen’s PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, and Keaton’s reality becomes that of the movies. Not to ruin the scene-changing gag, but remember that this was 1924 and the only tools Keaton had at his disposal were surveyor’s tools and scissors for editing by hand. The scene’s flawless appearance gives the impression that he does all the traveling in the movie within the movie. The movement from location to location doesn’t waver, which is even more impressive when you realize that  cameras were also hand-cranked at the time.

SHERLOCK JR. is a personal favorite of mine, and not just because the main character gets to fall into the world of movie magic. It’s charming as an antique piece (movie tickets at $.40!) and as a comedy. Much of the struggle Keaton experiences, like losing out to a competitor, is relatable. Most of us might not be as rich or powerful as the next guy over, but we are who we are. There’s something American about rooting for the underdog, even if it’s just to see him smile. -Monica Castillo

SHERLOCK JR screens tonight and tomorrow, 7/9 -7/10, at 5:30 PM and 9:15 PM. The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge MA. 02138

BOFCA INTERVIEW: 7/5

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Drew Goddard at SXSW 2012. Photo by Monica Castillo

Co-writer and director Drew Goddard’s THE CABIN IN THE WOODS returns for late shows July 5th through 8th at the Brattle Theatre. Last March, BOFCA’s Monica Castillo sat down with Goddard at the SXSW Film Festival. As a TV screenwriter, his name can be found in long-running series like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ANGEL, ALIAS, and LOST. Goddard made the leap to the big screen with a script for CLOVERFIELD before teaming up with BUFFY creator Joss Whedon for a thoughtfully spooky film that became THE CABIN IN THE WOODS.

Q: So CABIN was on the shelf for a while, wasn’t it?

A: Yeah, well, we were at a studio that went bankrupt. We got delayed a bit, but so did the last James Bond film, THE HOBBIT. But we’re out now!

Q: How did you come up with a horror story that weaved together pop culture and mythology?

A: We just love horror movies, so we started to explore why we loved horror so much. It started to suggest bigger things. Why do we like watch kids getting butchered on-screen? What is it that we enjoy about being scared? It just made us look beyond the horror movie and at the people we are. This sort of sacrificing of youth — that’s been happening forever and that bears a lot in the movie too. We have to go to the mythology because so many of our stories are based off of that. Those roots are very much a part of the horror genre.

Q: How about the basic idea of a house of horrors that other people controlled?

A: You know, it wasn’t a lot more complicated than, “You know what would be cool? This…” Joss had this original idea of people upstairs and people downstairs, and we just pitched that and said let’s explore this. That was fun to see where the story would take us. We didn’t do anything more than to set out to write a movie.

Q: What would you say were some of the horror movies that influenced you?

A: I didn’t try to get any one influence. I wanted to give the film a very elegant look to counteract the ridiculousness that happens. I wanted it to feel grown-up. I wanted to balance the mundane and the simple with the operatic.

Q: So this wasn’t your quick and dirty B-movie?

A: We shot for a while actually, about 40 days. It was some hard months in Vancouver, with a lot of rain and a lot of snow. It was not hard for the actors to look distressed.

Q: How did it feel to work with a cast of young, fresh actors and older, more experienced ones?

A: It definitely felt like I got to shoot two different movies. It was a totally different vibe. What was interesting is that the veteran actors were much more fun than the kids. The kids were way more serious. I think that comes with experience, they know how to let their hair down a little better. But I didn’t expect that.

Q: How was it collaborating with Whedon again?

A: We just got along right away. I love his writing, he’s my favorite writer in the world.

Q: With quite the cult following.

A: Oh my God, I was a part of that. I think that our voices are very similar. It’s very easy for us to write together because we just like each other. We had so much fun writing BUFFY and ANGEL; it felt like the next thing to do was to do when the shows had gotten out. Let’s write a movie. Let’s try to write something fun and fast. We had this original idea and we decided to write it for ourselves. Just a movie we’d like to see. We’ll figure out if anyone would let us make it later.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS shows Thursday, July 5th through Sunday, July 8th at 9:30 PM. The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge MA 02138

 

BOFCA REPERTORY PICK: 6/27

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It always surprises me when I can get away with making a Chaplin reference to friends or when I see them dressed as his Tramp character for Halloween. More often than not, my friends haven’t seen his films, but they know of him- the mustache, his duck walk, complete with bamboo cane and bowler hat. I’m lucky if any of them (outside of the film buff bubble) have seen him in any of his short films either.

If you fall into the category of “never seen a Chaplin film,” then consider tonight your night to trek out to the Brattle Theatre and catch one of his best.

THE GOLD RUSH follows Chaplin’s iconic Tramp character to the heyday of the Klondike Gold Rush. He’ll find competitive prospectors and perhaps a love interest, but first the Tramp will have to survive the treacherous snow storms and hunger pains in order to strike gold. It paints a pretty bleak picture of this chapter in our nation’s history, but in true Chaplin style, he takes in suffering with plenty of humor.

We don’t weep for him in THE GOLD RUSH in the same way we might for the THE KID or THE CIRCUS. Neither does this love story feel as deep as the ones in CITY LIGHTS or MODERN TIMES. And the political messages often seen in various other films are not as apparent in THE GOLD RUSH. The government is mostly absent in the frozen wilderness, so the strife the Tramp runs into comes mostly from the weather and the tough crowd that set up the mining town.

Chaplin’s creative gags set this film apart from others in his canon. Although a few of the jokes have not aged as well (for example, the chicken suit dream sequence), there are several memorable ones that can be found in recent movies. For instance, the famous dancing bread sequence Chaplin does at a dinner party to entertain his guests was redone by Johnny Depp for the movie BENNY AND JOON and by Amy Adams in last year’s THE MUPPETS.

Chaplin stuck gold with THE GOLD RUSH: it became the highest grossing comedy of the silent era. He claimed it as the film he wanted to be most remembered for. It’s a movie that for many people may seem oddly familiar: its images have been reprinted in movie and history books for decades. But for the chance to see it newly restored on the big screen? To me, that’s well worth the rush. – Monica Castillo

THE GOLD RUSH screens tonight, 6/27, at 8:00 PM. The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge MA. 02138

BOFCA REPERTORY PICK: 6/19

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Whether it be a student with an essay assignment, a screenwriter, an author, or a film critic trying to throw together 500 words by deadline on the latest summer dud—writer’s block is a familiar sensation for most of us. Some of us pace. Some of us procrastinate. Some of us sit in front of our computers or typewriters and rip our hair out from the roots.
 
Charlie Kaufman did all of this. And then, he made a movie about it.
 
ADAPTATION, which plays tonight at the Brattle as part of their phenomenal ‘Nicolas Cage: Greatest American Actor’ repertory series, is an ingenious film that stirs, teases, and explores the elements of creative development and human candidness via Kaufman boldly/neurotically placing himself into what began as an adaptation of Susan Orlean’s novel, “The Orchid Thief.”
 
This was back in the early-to-mid 90s, back when Kaufman was tapped to adapt the novel with Jonathan Demme on board to direct. But as Kaufman spiraled into a serious case of writer’s block, he found “The Orchid Thief” impossible to turn into an adapted narrative screenplay.
 
So he eventually wrote a film about his troubles. ADAPTATION has a grand, immersive quality to it, filled with actual quirkiness (before JUNO came around and ruined that word for everyone). Getting lost in these characters’ minds is something that Kaufman masters effortlessly in his script, and director Spike Jonze brings this scrutiny to the screen with an absolute craft for visual emotion.
 
And it all comes to life through a collection of brilliant performances—topped, of course, by Cage, who offers two performances for the price of one ticket with this particular film.
Playing both Kaufman and Kaufman’s fictional twin brother Donald, Nicholas Cage has the ability to bounce back and forth with Nicholas Cage while also lending individual gravities to each of these characters—with all their respective idiosyncrasies and psychological hiccups. It is arguably one of the best performances of his career.
 
The character of Donald, I suspect, is mainly a personification of everything Charlie Kaufman loathes about formula, Hollywood screenwriting. Charlie is shown in the movie speaking into tape recorders and fixatedly pacing around his room, while Donald attends screenwriting seminars held by Robert McKee (played by Brian Cox) and gets signed for his spec script for a hackneyed psychological thriller called “THE 3”
 
Kaufman throws these countless fictional plot points in with true stories and real characters. Donald isn’t real, but “The Orchid Thief” author Susan Orlean is—played here in a great performance by Meryl Streep. Kaufman layers his own troubles with adaptation and mirrors it with a fictional subplot involving Orlean’s relationship with John Laroche, the subject of her book and a character played with infectious tenacity by Chris Cooper.
 
Adaptation, relationships, the creative process but more importantly the human process—Kaufman has mastered the emotional and intellectual properties of his little meta-fueled mind to craft a truly individual screenplay with ADAPTATION which he humorously submitted officially as being penned by himself and his fictional brother.
 
Needless to say, ADAPTATION just might be the most daring, entertaining, and cerebrally unmatched thing to ever result from a case of writer’s block. – Greg Vellante and Donald Vellante
 
ADAPTATION screens tonight, 6/19, at 4:30, 7:00 and 9:30 PM. The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge MA. 02138