GEMS Days 01 and 02 (no. 22)
On war, new wave, creation and wearing bathrobes in 80 degree weather.
Technically this is the second day of the festival, but yesterday was my first day on the scene so I won’t count it on here. My soapbox, my rules.
Speaking of my soapbox, I wanted to mention one more thing about Castration Movie Anthology that I wasn’t addressed on my post. As much as I bitch and whine about spending so many hours watching it, I wanted to be clear about why I saw this film in the first place.
It was (entirely) because I had friends who’d seen it and recommended it to me, but moreso how rare it is to actually get a movie like this to play in my area. Traps was a kickstarted arthouse project that made broke through from word of mouth (and fans of Vera Drew and Jane Schoenbrun), and this sort of graphic, longing display of trans life, to me at least, wasn’t something you’d ever expect to see get a festival presence in Miami.
Up until recently it felt like a lot of the programming in the area felt too safe and conventional at times. It is a genuine surprise that we’d ever get something like this. I may still jokingly yap about its runtime, but this was a film that should be seen by more people regardless of whether you think it fits a festival title for you.
After a day filled with post-mortem talks in the office and trays of leftover Chicken Alfredo, I clocked out of work and started celebrating the three-day weekend the way I do best: getting milk from the nearby Publix for my dad.
I was already planning on camping out around work for the day anyway, as the festival organizers work quite literally a floor under me and the only films I really wanted to see were being screened here, so this request was easy to do by walking distance. No need to quote me on this cause it’s completely true, but you’ll never be in a city in South Florida and not find a Publix Supermarket within a five-mile radius. The rapture will arrive the moment these stores will start to dissipate, and I still think there’ll be a couple of ‘em left standing so Those Who Remain can buy their chicken tender subs.
The only reason I mention this little anecdote was because of the heavy ass Bob Ferguson costume I wore the whole day. Yes it felt like the normie choice to wear this season, but drip is drip and to my surprise I had a similar bathrobe hanging around the house for the longest time, so what harm is indulging on one Devil’s Night (Day?) gonna do? I could’ve just brought a change of clothes or drive back home and change, but why make the trip on rush hour when you can just chill in a bathrobe all day and be slightly sweaty and judged by people who don’t get it? I’d rather look like a himbo than waste my mileage like one.
S/o to the dude at rush line who freaked out over the costume. Turns out he was playing the long game to grab the One Battle After Another standee with the payphone after the AMC at Sunset didn’t need it anymore. It now lives in this kid’s dorm according to the photos he showed me, so that was fun to see.
Finally, after shitting on absent fathers nationwide by returning with milk and cigarettes (thank god for office fridges. I already look insane with a goatee, it’d be worse if I was carrying lukewarm milk around like a fucking idiot), I began my double-feature of the night, starting with…
It Was Just An Accident
Feels like Iranian New Wave is breaking out big this year, and how could it not with a film as good as Jafar Panahi’s Palm D’or winner for 2025?
The film follows five people who are brought together when one of them kidnaps a man who may-or-may-not-be their former torturer when they were imprisoned by the Iranian government. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like I know much about what’s happened in the country, but I will say that for a film about traumatized ex-prisoners figuring out if they should control the fate of their presumed abuser, it was pretty good, and funnier than I expected it to be!
I can see why a film like this has been on the run its been this year. To make a story so personal yet deeply relatable for anyone that’s been affected by an abusive regime, and have it juggle these ideas of capitalist-driven corruption and being moral in a world that’s nothing but is quite the order, but Panahi makes it look easy with his ensemble of fractured characters (specifically Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr as a crazy ex who’s toxicity might be justified) and attention to tone. Watching this felt like I was seeing something birthed from the energy of films like 12 Angry Men and (it makes comeplete sense to *me*) Weekend at Bernie’s. And to have this be a production that needed to be filmed as secretly as possible, in fear of being shut down by the country they’re filming in, makes the final result even sweeter for me. Are all people inherently bad, or is there something more in the life of a soldier following orders to consider sparing the life of yet another living person? I could go on, but I’d rather y’all who haven’t seen this form your own thoughts when it hopefully releases in your area (maybe at the Coral Gables Art Cinema starting November 14th!).
Good on Neon for distributing this good fucking movie. It’s yet another reminder that I should check out The Seed of a Sacred Fig when I have the chance.
Nouvelle Vague
The second and final film of the evening was one that I mistakenly walked into with mild hesitation.
I love Richard Linklater. I really REALLY love Blue Moon. But for some strange and unintelligible reason, I was not as excited for his other new film this month: Nouvelle Vague.
I’d heard mixed things from some of the critics I trust when it premiered at Cannes, which in hindsight might not mean shit depending on the film; something that this film already had to be ready to deal with.
An American auteur from Texas making a film about Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave, this revered era of international filmmaking, while framing it around the making of Breathless, one of the greatest French films ever made? Depending on the cinephile, they’d read a pitch like that with either anticipated curiosity or the snuffy-est levels of disgust.
But this is Richard Linklater we’re talking about here. Expecting anything less from the writer/director behind Dazed and Confused, Hit Man, The Before Trilogy is like getting worried that the five-star steakhouse you’re eating at won’t have any beef to serve. A shite comparison but my point still stands: that’s a stupid thing to worry about.
Nouvelle Vague plays like the A-side for Linklater’s double offering of historical non-fiction films for 2025. While Blue Moon is a story about a person that was overlooked in the impetus of 20th century musical theatre, Nouvelle Vague is the more cheerful, youthful inversion of seeing history change forever. It’s filled with immortalized caricatures of the most important figures in cinema, led by a perfect encapsulation of what Linklater views the movement and its drive to make it livelier in Guillaume Marbeck’s interpretation of Godard. There’s shades of something private gleaming shining through his performance, but it’s surrounded by this persona of a stubborn mad genius who knew that everything he was doing was going to lead to something legendary. He and Zoey Deutch’s enrapturing turn as Jean Seberg are but a crucial yet equal part in what makes the film so joyful to watch.
For filmmakers and lovers of film, it’d be stupid to disregard something as effective like this French hangout movie about why these people make them in the first place. While Blue Moon is story about seeing change happen and knowing you’re not a part of it, this is a film about change already bursting through for everyone who’s game to get on the ride. And for that, what’s not to like?
Day 02: Frankenstein and Wynwood parking
After a brief night of catching up with friends and flirting with women over cigarettes I wouldn’t smoke following the pair of screenings on Thursday, I took Halloween proper to myself at home to clean around the house and enjoy the bit of leisure I had left before returning to the city for more, this time with more people in costumes or normies who just throw up some shit from the house and pretend they’re somebody for the night. No heavy shade there, it’s just funny to spot sometimes. I’m still sweating from the bathrobe the other night.
Only one screening this night, which was appropriately…
Frankenstein
My thoughts on this one are a little undercooked considering I ran of the theater to go find something to do downtown1, so I’ll try to be as effectively brief and concise as possible as I type this on an early Saturday afternoon (and hour before I need to leave again to go watch Left-Handed Girl).
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is almost exactly what you’d expect from the modern master of horror, although not as complete as you’d initially think. Without spoiling, this is a noticeably loose adaptation of Mary Shelly’s gothic classic, but still centered and well-anchored by the humane aspect that drives this tragedy of creation and death. Jacob Elordi and Oscar Issac are really great in this, and their chemistry (along with the score and moments of its set design felt like I was watching the best Tim Burton film in years) is very entertaining. But for me, there was something odd in how direct the script felt in over-emphasizing the intentions of what you’re currently seeing.
For another auteur who’s known from creating subtlety in his creations, Frankenstein is the first from del Toro’s current run that felt way less so. As I said on my Letterboxd capsule, maybe that was always supposed to be the case (we’re talking about the granddaddy of monster stories here), but it caught me off guard to hear variations of the same ideas repeated throughout this girthy adaptation. Everything else surrounding it made up for that to me, but as I speculate into the void, I hope this was a deliberate choice from the director, and not another reported mandate from Netflix execs trying to rewrite dialogue to sound more direct when viewers are doing laundry instead of watching the fucking movie.
Still love the guy and a lot of this film, though! I hope he doesn’t stay in Netflix for long like David Fincher. This is yet another movie that’s just better to see with a well-intentioned crowd on a large screen.
Tomorrow (today?): Left-Handed Girl and Sentimental Value
I ended up staying for a few hours of Gramp’s final Halloween party before closing down in January, before suffering through almost three hours of walking to another spot (Las Rosas) seeing the huge line there, hitching a ride on another friend’s car to park nearby me, and leaving the car because he was understandably exhausted over the lack of parking at 1:30 AM, and told me it was okay to enjoy the night without him. S/o to you, my friend. I’m sorry you couldn’t stay. I hope you get your day to perrer, solider.