Article contributed by Daniel A
An Uninvited Guest
A Black man (Richard Walters) approaches a house in which four people are eating dinner. He bewilderedly watches them as a police officer arrives and subsequently beats and shoots him. One of the guests, another Black man (Franckie Francois), approaches the window and watches. The police officer sees him and escorts him away in his vehicle.
Unnerving and intense, which is heightened further by its soundtrack, writer/director Richard B. Pierre presents a timely political commentary. It will be hard for some to watch, which exemplifies An Uninvited Guest insight into social injustice. The film ends using a classic sci-fi trope signifying the never ending cycle of racism and violence.
I Want To Be Like You
Two women (Brittany Driselle, Lorna Kidjo) look at themselves in their respective mirrors, focusing on features of themselves they don’t like. Finding photos of the women they want to look like, which turn out to be each other, they go to a plastic surgeon to have their ideal looks become a reality. After having the surgery, the pair once again look at themselves in their mirrors. They are initially happy, but soon after, they start seeing faults once again.
Writer/director Caitlyn Sponheimer presents a disconcerting story of how far people are willing to go to achieve their ideal body image. That plastic surgery is already so easily accessible is concerning enough, but the idea that technological advancements will allow it to become increasingly available is what makes I Want To Be Like You a foreboding film. A fear increased by the film’s well-known end lesson: the idea of the perfect body is unattainable.
Immortal (TOP PICK)
Anna (Laura Coover) cares for her elderly bed-ridden father (Doug Scroope) in his home. She has created a laboratory there, and is undertaking research. Her girlfriend, Harper (Meredith Casey), arrives saying that she went to the university to surprise her but that her grad assistant said he had no idea where she was. Anna explains that she is using an algae that can repair its DNA strands that usually unravel with age to perform successful experiments on rats – one of which has now lived three times longer than the average rat lifespan. Harper is upset that Anna has neglected their relationship, but more so concerned that Anna has become a mad scientist that is using her own father as a human guinea pig.
Coover plays Anna resolutely, her belief in her work convincingly blinding her to the ethical implications Harper is so concerned about. It makes Harper seem almost irrational, more focused on something as fleeting as a relationship when Anna has potentially discovered a cure for death. Writer/directors Robert Allaire and Natalie Metzger successfully shape the narrative so that Anna can do this with little doubt for herself and her research, and in the end leave it to audiences to ask whether or not they think she should question it.
In Hollywoodland
Zodwa (Yetide Badaki, who also wrote the film) is an aspiring actress who arrives at an audition. Her agent, Rabbit (Luke Youngblood), refers to her as Alice and informs her that she is very late. She tells him that Alice is not her name, but he says that they agreed that Alice is more digestible, and it’s clear she has fallen down the rabbit hole into a distorted version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland set in Hollywood. Zodwa is forced to endure a rude casting director (Karen David), a creepy producer (Dominic Burgess), and a demanding director (Jen Richards) as she tries to make it in Hollywoodland.
An inspiring retelling of a classic story, In Hollywoodland is a fun film with an important message. The supporting cast are scene-stealing, each revelling in the idiosyncrasies of their well-known characters. They are all kept grounded by Badeki, who starred, wrote and produced the film, which shares the story of her own struggles in Hollywood through the use of the popular tale.
Muse
An artist, Aderman (Paul Ready), shows his work to a gallery owner, Tina (Golda Rosheuvel) who likes his pieces but tells him to contact her in a year. He tries to convince her, asking Kay (Taj Atawl), his personal android and muse, to get them some more wine. Kay’s memory becomes distorted and time picks up much later. Tina is gone, and the police arrive saying they were informed about a disturbance at Aderman’s residence.
An intense psychological thriller, Muse is also a journey of self-discovery for Kay. An artificial intelligence programmed to serve, she learns not only of heinous crimes Aderman has unwittingly made her commit, but of her own amazing talent shadowed by her owner’s hubris.
Narrow
A screener was unavailable to view at the time of writing.
Polybius
A screener was unavailable to view at the time of writing.
Proxy
Proxies are real people trained to assume any persona needed for their clients. Victoria (Emma Booth) is a Proxy practising her session script before her first client, Christopher (Shaw Jones). She is tasked with reading him The Wizard of Oz, and it becomes apparent that she is portraying Christopher’s mother with whom he is trying to work out his childhood trauma with. Victoria becomes increasingly disturbed by her rich clients behaviour and often feels unsafe and demeaned during her sessions, leading her to hire her own Proxy to deal with her problems.
Dealing with your own psychological trauma is difficult enough, but Proxy explores the damaging results of trying to take on that of other people as well. Booth is stalwart as the professional Victoria who slowly starts to crack under the pressure of her disturb clients. The film crescendos in a potentially unnecessary act of violence, despite the plot clearly heading towards that point all along.
Snake
While working at her office alone late at night a woman (Ali Mueller) begins to experience strange phenomena. The phone rings with no one on the other end of the lone, and a stack of papers falls off a desk. The clock on the wall rewinds, and suddenly the woman finds herself reliving the previous minute, watching the past version of herself experience the strange phenomena over again.
Snake is an initially satisfying film to watch as the unexplained events start making sense as the woman loops back in time. As time passes though, the film, like the woman within it, becomes manic and hard to follow. While the ending fits the title, its suddenly dark turn leaves its themes underdeveloped.
Snake Dick
Two women, Jill (Poppy Drayton) and Julia (Sierra Pond) stop at a seedy gas station due to car troubles. As they fix their car, they are ogled and catcalled by two drunk men, Joe (Micah Fitzgerald) and Earl (Ross Francis). When one of the men makes Jill very annoyed, she pulls a gun on him, and from there, the situation escalates to its supernatural finale.
A perfectly cast film, Drayton is commendable as the unfaltering Jill, while Fitzgerald and Francis revel in their roles as sleazy hillbillies. It’s a tense story, subverting traditional character roles. And then Snake Dick literally lives up to the ridiculousness of its name, and you can’t help but smile as these empowered women make the men pay for their behaviour.
Speak Only Good Of The Dead
A mathematician (David Cope) is working on a military supercomputer called EPICAC, and is desperately in love with his co-worker Pat (Magaly Pefig). She refuses his advances, complaining that he is not romantic enough. The mathematician asks EPICAC what to do about this, and after teaching it about poetry, it begins producing poems. The mathematician woos Pat by passing off the poems as his own, but when EPICAC realises this it has disastrous consequences.
Speak Only Good Of The Dead is a twisted, bittersweet love story. The mathematicians’ relationship is built on a lie, acting more like a military supercomputer than EPICAC itself. He uses the machine for his own personal gain, and EPICAC’s uncharacteristic love grows as the contrasting mathematician’s coldness does too. The film ends on a sad note, the mathematician regretting making a machine sentinel for his own personal gain.
Toto (HONOURABLE MENTION)
An elderly woman, Rosa (Rosa Forlano), receives a large package, Toto, a digital companion. When Toto successfully cooks her sauce, the Italian grandmother warms to it, allowing it to help her cook pasta for her granddaughter who is coming to visit. While Rosa is sleeping, her granddaughter updates Toto, unaware that in doing so she is erasing the robot’s memory along with her grandmother’s recipe.
Writer/director Marco Baldonado casts his own grandmother as Rosa, giving Toto a loving sense of authenticity. The film inspires images of family and home, but also a sense of melancholy that comes with age and loss of family tradition. It also speaks of both the benefits and downfalls of modern technology in regards to these traditions, and how we must be careful of our use of technology in case we lose ourselves.
