Look for social themes at the Oakland International Film Festival, neon signs on the Roxie screen, a sparkling romantic dramedy, and other new releases this week.
The 23rd Oakland International Film Festival opens Wednesday, presenting dozens of films and events over 11 days at the Grand Lake Theater, Northeastern University Oakland and Geoffrey’s Inner Circle. The event showcases global cinema, celebrates Oakland as an arts city and addresses social issues affecting Oakland and other places. Opening the festival is “From Here/From There (De Aqui/De Alla),” Marlene “Mo” Morris’ documentary about Luis Cortes Romero, the first undocumented attorney to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Also on Wednesday is “Beyond the Headlines,” James Franklin Blue III’s documentary about the 50-year-old National Association of Black Journalists. Accompanying short films include, on day nine, “If We Don’t Work,” Kevin Epps’ 20-minute doc about Hunters Point activist James Richards. Additional offerings include Yuji Kakizaki’s “Seppuku: The Sun Goes Down,” a Japanese period drama; Miguel Duran’s “Adventure Tom,” an American road tale; Angelina Lee’s “Making a Mini-Forest,” about a tree-planting movement that addresses climate change; and “Through the Body,” Andrew Reissiger’s documentary about the Oakland-born International Body Music Festival. The Oakland International Film Festival is presented by the Oakland Film Society.
Visit oiff.org for details.
As part of its “City of Neon” series, the Roxie Theater hosts SF Lost Neon Landscapes, a curated program of short films featuring neon signs and landscapes from San Francisco’s past at 4 p.m. Saturday. The hourlong program, part of the Neon Speaks festival, includes well-known feature-film scenes, home-movie clips, and a presentation of digitalized found footage put together by Megan Prelinger of the Prelinger Archive.
Jay Duplass, known for the low-fi gems (“The Puffy Chair,” “Baghead”) he created with his brother Mark in the early 2000s, returns to the big-screen directorial arena with “The Baltimorons,” an exquisitely down-to-earth walking-and-talking romance. Cowritten by Duplass and lead actor Michael Strassner, the Baltimore-set movie begins with a botched suicide that Duplass has the tragicomic chops to bring off. The survivor of the incident is 30-something Cliff (Strassner), who, when we next see him, is newly sober and trying to regain his groove as an improv comedian. Cliff is about to spend Christmas Eve with his family and fiancée (Olivia Luccardi), when a tooth emergency lands him in the office of older, divorced, workaholic dentist Didi (Liz Larsen). A towed car gives rise to an adventure for Didi and Cliff, who explore Baltimore, break a law or two, and connect humorously and meaningfully. The movie is less about plot than about character and feeling. Working in his naturalistic, life-embracing style and deftly weaving serious subjects into the sunniness, Duplass, with humanity and simplicity, has made one of the year’s must-sees. Strassner (“Young Rock”), a wonderful comic leading man, and Larsen (“Madoff”), equally resonant, supply chemistry to spare.
“The Baltimorons” opens Friday at Bay Area theaters. Rated R.
Filmmaker and Oakland native Anthony Lucero, who made the winning indie “East Side Sushi,” tells another upbeat story about people with underestimated capabilities in his heartfelt “Paper Bag Plan.” Oscar (Lance Kinsey) is a Bay Area father and high-functioning alcoholic who, diagnosed with cancer, worries about his physically disabled 25-year-old son, Billy (Cole Massie), who needs to become more independent. Realizing that Billy can learn to bag groceries, he trains Billy to be a skillful bagger and helps him land his first job. While the film has a movie-of-the-week quality, it tells a crowd-pleasing, novel story that you won’t soon forget.
“Paper Bag Plan” opens Friday at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland and screens on Sept. 18 only at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. Lucero appears at the Grand Lake on Friday and Saturday after the 6:45 p.m. screenings and Sept. 18 at the Smith Rafael after the 7 p.m. screening.
The kids exude spirit amid sterile walls in the surveillance-monitored high school in “Happyend,” Japanese filmmaker Neo Sora’s restrained but immersing coming-of-age tale and condemnation of authoritarianism. Sora (“Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus”) sets this narrative feature debut in a near future where Japan has become a surveillance state and a potentially devastating earthquake is predicted regularly. Protagonists Kou (Yukito Hidaka) and Yuta (Hayato Kurihara) are best friends who attend a conformist Tokyo high school anhd, joined by pals, engage in minor mischief. A playful prank pulled on the principal prompts school officials to install a draconian surveillance system on the campus. Students disagree about whether they should fight the system. When the politically energized Kou wants to do so and Yuta is uninterested, the boys’ friendship erodes. The school is clearly a microcosm for Japanese society, and it would have been helpful if Sora had provided viewers with a more concrete picture of the national situation. But Sora’s semi-dystopian world and current realities have unignorable similarities—repressive technology; colonial history; anti-immigrant sentiment; power-mad leaders who fabricate threats to democracy. As cautionary fiction both informed and entertaining, the movie impresses. It is also a poignant portrait of the teenage psyche. It’s hard not to be charmed by the joyful energy that the young characters, despite their bleak outlooks, display. Sora’s depiction of how political awakenings can ruin childhood friendships, meanwhile, is bittersweetly affecting.
“Happyend” opens Friday at the Roxie. Not rated.
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