Tribeca 2012 Daily Recap: April 20th

My Friday morning at TFF started off with more Magnum Ice Cream, of course. It doesn’t matter what time of the day, it is always a good time for free ice cream. After enjoying my super nutritional frozen breakfast, I walked over to Clearview Cinemas for one of my most anticipated films of the fest.

There are moments in TAKE THIS WALTZ that I absolutely loved and there are moments I was put off by the forced subtlety and repetition. That seems to be exactly how Margot (Michelle Williams) feels about her marriage in the film so this may have been a stylistic choice on the part of writer / director Sarah Polley. Or it could just be that I am not a fan of watching grounded-in-reality relationships where no one says what they actually mean. It is probably pretty telling that despite everyone’s fantastic emotionally charged performances, my favorite was Seth Rogen who seemed to be most at ease handling the intense mix of drama and comedy.

After dissecting (i.e., criticizing) the ending with some fellow press, I made my way over to the Filmmaker Lounge to meet up with Ala LaFave. I thought the press lounge was bad; the Filmmaker Lounge truly is a hike from the main festival venues. It is the perfect distance to make you question walking, but not far enough to warrant paying for a cab. Upon leaving the lounge, I noticed a table by the door full of postcards & posters for the films playing at TFF. Why is there nothing like this at the press lounge or at the theaters for the public to see?

Before making the trek back to the theater, Alan and I decided to grab a “quick” lunch at Shake Shack. I have heard constantly that it is the best burger in NY and despite being a New Yorker my whole life; I’ve never eaten there. Apparently the 1-hour wait is no myth. It took 55 minutes to order & another 10 minutes before the food was ready. We had to eat the food on the walk back to make the next movie on time. Sadly the food was good but definitely not worth the time or money. At least the movie that followed was quite entertaining and inspiring.

DON’T STOP BELIEVIN: EVERYMAN’S JOURNEY is nowhere near as cheesy as you might assume based on the title. The documentary covers the “journey” of Arnel Pineda from his beginnings as a poor musician in Manila to becoming the new lead singer of Journey. It is a thoroughly enjoyable doc that works for fans or even just casual listeners. After watching, I couldn’t believe how many of their songs I actually knew. It made me want to go pick up a greatest hits CD. Thankfully, my dad already had one for me to borrow. (Now that is a scary thought.) Even more shocking, this doc would be rated R due to language. Who knew the drummer from Journey cursed so much?

I talked a bit with Chris Bourne (@bournecinema) about the doc before heading right into my final flick of the day, RESOLUTION. I heard some great things from the pre-festival screening and I’ve been tweeting with co-director Aaron Moorhead leading up to the fest so I had high hopes for the film. It did not disappoint. RESOLUTION is a perfect blend of suspense and dark comedy, which concludes with perhaps one of the most fantastically meta endings in cinema history. Much like the spectacularly brilliant CABIN IN THE WOODS, this film works best knowing as little as possible about it. I genuinely found myself wondering what the hell was going to happen next and that is a rare feat to accomplish these days. I know it is still early but just like what happened with last year’s second day screening of RABIES, RESOLUTION has easily become my front-runner for best of the fest. I stuck around after the screening to tell that to Aaron personally and he invited me to the bar across the street with the cast and crew of the film. I said I’d come by for a few minutes. 3 hours later I went home.

Lesson of the Day: Apparently you really shouldn’t stop believin’

Jerry Cavallaro – @GetStuck – JerryCavallaro.com