12th Nov2017

The Florida Project (Film)

by timbaros

The_Florida_ProjectIt was always going to be for filmmaker Sean Baker to top 2015’s critically acclaimed film ‘Tangerine.’ But now he’s back with ‘The Florida Project,’ and it’s a winner!

‘Tangerine,’ which was shot on iPhones, told the story of two transvestite hookers surviving by any means possible in Hollywood. ‘The Florida Project,’ shot on 35mm, has a similar trajectory involving a single mother and her adorable 6-year old daughter surviving by any means and barely eking out a living in a rundown motel on the tacky fringes of DisneyWorld in Orlando, Florida. It’s an area filled with cheap motels (with tacky names such as Futureland Inn) and even cheaper and tackier gift shops and fast food restaurants (Orange World). And like in ‘Tangerine,’ Baker uses non-professional actors in this film.

Bria Vinaite is excellent as Hailey, a single young mother who struggles to find money to pay the weekly rent and to care for her very adorable six-year-old daughter Moonee (an excellent and natural Brooklynn Prince). Moonee has made friends with all of the little children at their motel complex (appropriately called The Magic Castle) in an area where Disney did not sprinkle magic dust on. The children spend their days getting up to no good, causing mayhem whereever they go, much to the annoyance of the motel manager Bobby (Willem Dafoe – in an award worthy performance). Hailey’s downstairs neighbor Ashley (Mela Murder) works at the nearby Waffle House and gives them free food, but after an incident that involves her son and Moonee, she forbids her son to hang out with Moonee, and severs her friendship with Hailey. One thing leads to another and slowly the magic seeps out of The Magic Castle.

‘The Florida Project’ is just fantastic. While it doesn’t quite come close to ‘Tangerine’ with it’s sarcastic and biting humor, it nonetheless is a cute and charming movie of childhood through a little girl’s eyes and the hard truths that reality will eventually rear it’s ugly head. And the cast are just superb. Baker, who co-wrote the script with Chris Bergoch, has another winner on his hands.

Trailer:

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12th Nov2017

Body Electric (Film)

by timbaros

BodyElectric_EC1069_AdditionalImage2Life is one big party for the characters in the new film ‘Body Electric.’

Elias (a sexy Keiner Macedo) is the assistant manager in a factory somewhere in Brazil. He’s only 23 and quit young to hold such a responsible job, but his female boss, who is always jetsetting from here to there on business, trusts Elias completely to run the factory while she’s gone. It’s a factory that makes clothes, and Elias sees his fellow employees not just as co-workers but as friends, and they all spend lots of time hanging out with each other after work and on weekends, They’re all friends, very close friends. And when a new employee starts work at the factory, a West African man called Fernando (Welket Bungue), Elias welcomes him into the fold and nothing much changes for these happy-go-lucky group of people who work hard and play much much harder.

And play is just what Elias likes to do. He’s openly gay at work and in his personal life, and there appears to be no issue with his colleagues when he takes up with fellow young feminine co-worker Wellington (Lucas Andrade). Wellington introduces Elias to a gaggle of drag queens with a queen bee who wonders out loud where all the fabric Wellington and Elias brought to them comes from. But it doesn’t matter for these folks, life is one big party, and with that comes alcohol and sex. In ‘Body Electric,’ director Marcelo Caetano relies on lots of lingering shots to portray his cast in ways that make them look and feel so real it’s at times make you feel like you’re eavesdropping on their lives, and loves. But ‘Body Electric’ is all about Elias and how happy he is, and how happy his co-workers are who toil away at the factory day in and day out, and we are very happy for all of them.

Category : Film
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