TRIBECA FESTIVAL PART - 2

Pop Culture Weekly Round-Up 25/06/2021

Hello Everyone. I hope you guys had a great week and are ready to enjoy your weekend. My last seven days or so were filled with great films that I had a chance to watch at Tribeca 2021. I had a lot of fun covering the festival and I hope I will have the chance to travel to NYC to cover it in person next year. For now, I will share 5 films that I think you guys should check out when they have a wide release. There’s also a playlist of five songs I enjoyed last week. 

POSER

Lennon exists timidly on the sidelines of the thriving Columbus, Ohio indie music scene. She always craved for a personal connection that would lead her into the inner sanctuary of warehouse concerts, private backstage, house parties, and the cutting-edge art scene. Lennon finds motivation for her own musical goals when she starts a podcast combining live music and talks with the musicians she so strongly admires.

The directors Ori Segev and Noah Dixon (who also wrote the script)  populated their features with several real-life figures from the burgeoning Columbus art scene. which I thought was really cool.

The film has a slow build. It patiently introduces the audience to Lennon’s creepy quirks while also layering on the laughs thanks to a slew of uncomfortably funny podcast interviews. 

The main performances are fantastic. Bobbi Kitten of “Damn the Witch Siren”, is playing a version of herself, a mysterious, beautiful, and brilliant half of a successful indie-pop duet. She takes Lennon under her wing and unintentionally becomes entangled in a sinister infatuation. Newcomer Sylvie Mix plays the aspiring podcaster and is super charismatic. She expertly handles the challenging parts that make POSER charming, incredibly engaging, and disturbingly enjoyable.

Mix and Kitten are a formidable duo but the film also offers beautiful cinematography, great music, and in the closing 15 minutes things got really intense. 

THE ONE AND ONLY DICK GREGORY

This excellent documentary which was written and directed by Andre Gaines, explores the career of Dick Gregory, the legendary comedian, and activist who was at the forefront of the fight for civil rights.

Gregory was a persistent disruptor who went on hunger strikes and was jailed numerous times for opposing institutional racism and the Vietnam War. He died of heart failure in 2017. But his voice appears in the documentary since he started to work on it before his death. The film establishes Gregory amongst the most influential personalities in American comedy history, while also holding him accountable for many missteps during his life.

THE ONLY AND UNIQUE DICK GREGORY is a great documentary that honors its subject while also presenting him to a new generation of people who can understand what humor can do.

THE SCARS OF ALI BOULALA

Sixteen-year-old Ali Boulala got into the global skateboarding scene when he was recruited onto a professional crew in the mid-1990s. He spends a decade touring the world with his teammates and living a life without limits. Everything changed in 2007 when Ali was involved in a tragic accident. Ali now lives a quiet life in the suburbs of Stockholm. He carries scars on his body and in his psyche – a constant reminder of the accident that still haunts him.

I'd never heard of Ali Boulala before watching this movie. Maybe because I stopped paying attention to skateboarding exactly when he started to shine. But I learned that he was one of the most exciting skaters of his time in this film.

I found this documentary to be intriguing enough to hold my attention. It has numerous nuggets of archive footage and well-produced interviews. However, it lagged at times, especially in the beginning. But the pace picks up when Shane is introduced and the accident, the aftermath, and the repercussions are explored. 

Overall the film has an intriguing, tragic, and also divisive narrative.

FALSE POSITIVE

FALSE POSITIVE is a genre-bending film about the perils of parenthood. The cast, including writer/producer Ilana Glazer, Sophia Bush, Zainab Jah, Josh Hamilton, and Sabina Gadecki

Glazer is most remembered for her exquisite, absurdist comic work, which she showcased on her now-defunct Comedy Central series BROAD CITY. Here she explores the dark side of pregnancy in the age of fertility treatments.

At the very least, the premise is intriguing. Lucy (Glazer) and Adrian (Justin Theroux), an affluent Manhattan couple, come to John Hindle (Pierce Brosnan), a classy fertility specialist with a sinister attitude, after two years of trying to conceive.

We know from the mysterious tone in the first three-quarters of the movie, that something more wicked, perhaps even mystical, will happen. The groundwork is in place to take it much deeper turn. But it never really happens. Maybe because the purpose of FALSE POSITIVE is that we must not get numb to the all-too-real monsters who walk among us and sometimes, are even celebrated.

DESERT DOGS

Aya and Ibrahim both live from one moment to the next, far away from Moroccan conventions. They've figured out what makes them the happiest: a wooden board with wheels on it.

I really enjoyed this short film. Perhaps because I appreciate documentaries on skate culture. But I also loved how the film emphasized women choosing their own route. Giving us an impression of how significant it is that Aya is into skating and making her own decisions.

This is a brilliantly crafted documentary. The cinematography is gorgeous. And it also has a  very interesting cultural perspective.

Top 5 songs

These were the 5 songs on my heavy rotation this week. You can listen to them on Spotify and YouTube.

1 - DE'WAYNE - Super 8

2 - Chad Tepper - Never Moving On

3 - Jutes - Wiped Out

4 - Tai Verdes - A-O-K

5 - Data Animal - Death Racer