Mark Duplass Recommends 5 Films on Angelika Anywhere
Filmmaker Mark Duplass presents his top 5 film picks on Angelika Anywhere!
From director/writer Stanley Tucci, Film Independent Spirit Award winner BIG NIGHT is set in 1950s New Jersey, and centers on two brothers who run an Italian restaurant. With their business on the brink of collapse, they plan one big night of incredible food in a final effort to save the restaurant. “As delicately and deliciously prepared as the dishes it features, Big Night is a lyric to the love of food, family and persuasive acting” (Los Angeles Times).
With Sundance Film Festival Official Selection SOME KIND OF HEAVEN, first-time feature director Lance Oppenheim cracks the manicured facade of The Villages, America’s largest retirement community — a massive, self-contained utopia located in Central Florida. Rated 95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and bolstered by strikingly composed cinematography, this candy-colored documentary offers a tender and surreal look at the never-ending quest for finding meaning and love in life’s final act. “Those nostalgic for the fond portraits of eccentric Americana in Errol Morris’ early work – and pretty much everyone else – will be delighted by SOME KIND OF HEAVEN” (Variety).
“Let yourself be enveloped by a modern cinema classic” (Rolling Stone). Pawel Pawlikowski (COLD WAR, MY SUMMER OF LOVE) revisits his roots with IDA, an empathetic, enchanting film that earned the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as the International Critics Award (FIPRESCI) at the Toronto International Film Festival. Rated an impressive 96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, it centers on a novice nun about to take her vows, who uncovers a family secret dating back to the German occupation.
Jillian Schlesinger’s debut feature took home the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival. It follows 14-year-old Laura Decker, who sets out on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. Heralded as “potent” and “inspiring” by Time Out New York, it eloquently amplifies Laura’s brave, defiant voice through a mix of Laura’s own video and voice recordings at sea and intimate vérité footage from locations including the Galapagos Islands, French Polynesia, Australia, and South Africa.
Produced by Jay and Mark Duplass, this charming coming-of-age story is about two high schoolers who fall into first love, only to discover life is a lot more complicated than they could ever imagine. “[YOUNG HEARTS’] use of representation, its delicate, quiet sweetness and its telling of a story that is often told, but not often told well, has the special ability to show us something that we haven’t seen before,” states Mark Duplass. Sarah Sherman and Zachary Ray Sherman’s film gives audiences a nuanced and authentic look at Generation Z, eschewing the extreme gloss (or despair!) that we often see in its portrayal. Anjini Taneja Azhar remarkably embodies the lead role using a mix of warmth, confidence, and uncertainty to convey her complicated and evolving truth, and Quinn Liebling portrays Tilly with a thoughtfulness and unique sense of awareness that invites us to reconsider teenagers (in particular, budding young men) and what they have to offer in these highly digitized and socially disconnected times.
