Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco hosts “We Can Love It Together,” a festival of short films made over the last two decades by artists from Creativity Explored — a San Francisco–based nonprofit that helps artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities to create, exhibit, and sell their work — on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Visit ybca.org.
Kent Jones (“Diane”) makes modest character-focused, credibly plotted, emotionally genuine movies. “Late Fame,” now in Bay Area theaters, a drama starring Willem Dafoe as a long-forgotten poet who finds himself touted as a rediscovered genius, is Jones’ latest gem.
Dafoe plays Ed Saxberger, a postal worker who, five decades ago, wrote an acclaimed poetry volume called “Way Past Go” before fading from Manhattan’s literary scene. One day, Meyers (Edmund Donovan), an eager 20-something, approaches Ed and proclaims “Way Past Go” a masterpiece. Myers, part of a group of privileged young creatives, invites Ed to attend their gatherings. Ed is especially intrigued by Gloria (Greta Lee), a talented, alluring actress and singer. Intoxicated by the attention, Ed agrees to participate in a reading and write a new poem. The task proves daunting. Ed, who no longer considers himself a writer, is unfamiliar with the current publishing world, which sees him as potentially bankable. Experiencing writer’s block, he abandons his working-class buddies, deeming them lowbrow but later realizes his new friends aren’t as authentic as they seem.
Save for a subplot involving Ed’s dying brother, the drama unfolds naturally. Jones and screenwriter Samy Burch, adapting an 1895 novella by Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler, wisely remain focused on Ed’s quiet dignity. Dafoe is convincing; a passage in which Ed reads one of his poems aloud, exhibiting the depth and passion of his 1970s self, alone makes the movie worth seeing. Lee, who performs a Brecht-Weill number, makes Gloria a captivating, almost too mysterious, presence.
“American Doctor” addresses the ongoing genocide in Gaza by showing a besieged hospital filled with casualties and by demonstrating humanitarianism in action. Directed by Poh Si Teng, making her feature debut, this essential documentary opens in Bay Area theaters Friday. Teng focuses on Israel’s deliberate bombing of hospitals in Gaza — a violation of international humanitarian law — and on the killing of Palestinian children at a rate that far exceeds that of the toll in Ukraine.
Viewers meet physicians Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian American from Chicago; Dr. Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish American from North Carolina; and Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an American of Pakistani Zoroastrian ancestry from California. All are dedicated to saving lives in Gaza and to bringing to light the truth about crimes against humanity they see. Teng follows the doctors into Gaza — Ahmad has some difficulty, because of his Palestinian heritage — and into the Nasser Medical Complex operating room, where they save and lose patients, many of them children. Amputation is common.
Back at home, the film follows the doctors as they do interviews and speak to politicians, saying that the Israeli military is killing children and wiping out a population, and that the United States is funding a large percentage of Israel’s war effort. The response is discouraging. The mainstream media remains soft on Israel. In Washington, Ted Cruz’s staff doesn’t even bring the senator the notes from a meeting. Perlmutter, who is Jewish, disputes a remark made by a defender of Israel’s government that “Judaism is Zionism.” Right through to its violent ending — a deadly strike on the hospital — “American Doctor” is devastating. But it needs to be seen, and the doctors’ compassion keeps it accessible and affecting.
“The Magic Faraway Tree,” a whimsical family adventure based on the 1943 Enid Blyton novel, is in Bay Area theaters. Directed by Ben Gregor (“Fatherhood”) and adapted by “Paddington 2” cowriter Simon Farnaby, it centers on a contemporary London family — inventor Polly (Claire Foy), househusband Tim (Andrew Garfield), and three technology-hooked children (Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Phoenix Laroche, Billie Gadsdon) — who are forced to relocate to a dilapidated rural home.
Without wi-fi, the kids explore a woodland where an enchanted tree transports them to worlds inhabited by colorful fantasy characters. Their adventures culminate in a race-against-time effort to reverse a nasty spell, and the experience of unplugging and collaborating brings the family together. While an excess of eccentric characters nearly dooms the movie, and too many jokes fall flat, the film has a fun production design, and audiences can also enjoy winning performances, especially by Garfield as an upbeat tomato-growing dad, Nicola Coughlan as a chipper fairy, and Rebecca Ferguson as an evil headmistress.
“The Last Blossom,” an animated drama from director Baku Kinoshita and writer Kazuya Konomoto in Bay Area theaters on Aug. 30-31 is about a dying former yakuza who looks back at his criminal past and at his life with the woman he loved and her young son, in conversations with his sole companion — a talking balsam flower. Part gangster picture and part domestic drama, presented in Japanese with English subtitles, it’s about crime, sacrifice, redemption, love and the true meaning of family.
The post Movies: Creativity Explored short films, ‘Late Fame,’ ‘American Doctor,’ ‘Magic Faraway Tree,’ ‘Last Blossom’ appeared first on Local News Matters.