"I just got home from the Seattle International Film Festival, where I saw 16 new movies of all types. Here are some of the standouts.
The festival opened with Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters, and like his 2018 film Sorry to Bother You, it’s an anarchic, try-anything satire, this time about a trio of couture Robin Hoods (Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie and Taylour Paige) thwarting the fortunes of a bloodthirsty fast-fashion mogul played by Demi Moore. The screening was hampered by a terrible sound mix at the Paramount Theater, but the movie’s visual invention is off the charts. I Love Boosters opens in Spokane next week — see it in a real movie theater.
Power Ballad is the latest slice of poptimism from John Carney, best known for Once and Sing Street, starring Paul Rudd as a cover band frontman. He meets a pop star played by Nick Jonas, who steals one of Rudd’s original songs and takes it to the top of the charts. It’s shamefully corny, but like a well-constructed pop single, it’s hard to resist. Power Ballad opens June 5.
Jay Duplass’s See You When I See You is an adaptation of comedian Adam Clayton-Holland’s memoir, set in the months following his sister’s suicide. It’s about how his family reacts to grief (or, in some cases, doesn’t react), and it’s headed by a solid ensemble cast that includes Hope Davis and David Duchovny as the parents.
The unusually titled Chili Finger is a Coen brothers riff that begins when a Wisconsin couple (Judy Greer and Sean Astin) find a severed human finger in their fast food chili. As they negotiate with the restaurant chain, the movie becomes an in-too-deep comic thriller, with amusing loose-cannon supporting performances from Bryan Cranston and John Goodman.
I also saw a strong slate of documentaries this year, including the absorbing and beautiful To Hold a Mountain. It follows a woman and her teenage niece as they run a farm deep in the Balkan mountains, until the modern world encroaches in the form of military forces who want to turn the land into a training ground.
Nuisance Bear is a nature documentary that centers on neighboring Canadian villages — one predominately white, the other Inuit — and their approaches to managing polar bears whose habitats and behaviors are unsettled by humans. The film avoids easy agitprop, presenting a complex situation and letting us form our own opinions. A24 will distribute it later this year.
When a Witness Recants is a gripping true-crime procedural, outlining the case of three Black teenagers who were wrongly convicted of murder in 1980s Baltimore. It effectively outlines all the ways this case was a miscarriage of justice, and then its coda, a scene of attempted reconciliation and brutal confrontation, knocks you sideways. It’s set to be released on HBO.
And finally, Boorman and the Devil, about director John Boorman’s nearly thwarted attempts to bring the notorious 1977 flop Exorcist II: The Heretic to the screen. Less a behind-the-scenes documentary than an exhaustive autopsy of a legendary failure, it’s weirdly inspiring and makes you realize just how timid so many modern movies are."