Monthly Archives: July 2017

July 19, 2017

Filmmaker Interview: Harley McKabe

By michaelgloversmith

The following piece appeared at Time Out today:
Screen shot 2017-07-16 at 12.02.12 PM.png

Harley McKabe is a Chicago-based writer/director whose proof-of-concept short film The Other Guy will screen at Reggie’s Music Joint this Friday, July 21 as part of a concert featuring punk acts The C-Sides, StereoViolet, Butchered and The New Sex and Drugs, who wrote an original song for the film. McKabe is a transwoman who based this raunchy, Kevin Smith-influenced comedy on her own pre-trans life; the plot concerns Sean (David Weiner), a green-haired punk, who cajoles his wallflower roommate, Harry (Adam J. Rebora), into attending a party referred to as a “shirtless shindig.” At less than four minutes, this funny, no-budget DIY effort marks McKabe as a talent to watch.

MGS: How did you get involved in filmmaking?

HM: I actually have a background in print journalism. I worked as a staffer for a small newspaper in Alaska. But I’d always done film on the side – even if it was just writing scripts. Ever since I was a kid I was always interested in film. Whenever there were school projects and there was an opportunity, I’d go with making a film. The Other Guy script was in consideration by two producers and a director at one point and I was just going to stay on as a writer. But as I learned more about the actual (filmmaking) process, I decided that I wanted to get into directing myself.

MGS: The film is a traditional comedy in a lot of ways because it’s about two characters with contrasting personalities. Were they based on people you know?

HM: That is a very interesting question. A person I used to be rather close with suggested I write this film. It was pre-transition. The character Harry is loosely based on me. As I was beginning to decide to go through with this, I had some questions as to whether I wanted to continue that project – for obvious reasons. I do believe that there are a lot of universal concepts at play in the short. There have been plenty of times where people feel awkward at parties or are placed in uncomfortable situations by their good friends. Sean is also much more loosely based on me. But the idea was basically that there was this guy who thinks fate’s out to get him, that he’s never going to find a girlfriend because every woman he’s attracted to already has a boyfriend. It’s about him realizing the problem is really him; that he just has to get some self-confidence, stop being a wallflower and start going for the women who might actually be interested in him. It’s coming-of-age as if directed by Kevin Smith, that’s kind of what I was going for.

MGS: There’s a lot of good gross-out humor. I loved seeing the vomit because the texture of it seemed so authentic. I see big-budget Hollywood movies where the vomit looks less real. How did you make that?

HM: Thank you for the compliment. It’s actually not the first time I’ve thrown soup on a man. It was a mixture of vegetable soup and lentil soup with a fair amount of crackers. I put that together in a bucket the day of. It was referred to as the puke bucket. Adam later told me that he still smelled like puke two or three days later.

MGS: The band The New Sex and Drugs wrote a song for the film. How did you hook up with them?

HM: I met Adam, the front man for the band, through Craigslist. I posted an ad saying I was a screenwriter looking for someone to swap scripts with. He and I exchanged scripts and I ended up going to one of his concerts, and he and his band were kind enough to write the song “All Hipsters Must Die.” It’s pretty difficult to get music for a short film, let alone have someone offer to write an original. So I was like, ‘Yeah, fuck yeah. Absoluely!”

MGS: Last question: are “shirtless shindigs” a real thing?

HM: Pretty much the only reason I wrote the short was to have Sean say, “No shirt shindigs are the shit!” I’ve never been to a shirtless shindig. I do not know if they exist but it sounds fucking hilarious.

The Other Guy screens at Reggie’s Music Joint Friday, July 21. Doors open at 8pm for this 21+ show. More info can be found on the official Reggie’s website.

Advertisement

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Chicago Movies, Interviews

July 18, 2017

The Last Ten Movies I Saw

By michaelgloversmith

1. A Ghost Story (Lowery)
2. Porto (Klinger)
3. The Lost City of Z (Gray)
4. L’argent (Bresson)
5. Mildred Pierce (Haynes)
6. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
7. The Void (Gillespie/Kostanska)
8. Out of the Past (Tourneur)
9. In the Shadows (Arslan)
10. Eastern Promises (Cronenberg)

Leave a comment | posted in The Last Ten Movies I Saw

July 14, 2017

Twin Peaks: The Return – A Timeline

By michaelgloversmith

For the past two months I have obsessively watched and rewatched every episode of the still in-progress new season of Twin Peaks. I have seen each of the nine episodes so far either four or five times in full. I have also skimmed back through all of the episodes and watched them in pieces for the sole purpose of creating a timeline to determine exactly when each scene is taking place. Before the new limited series began airing this past May, many fans speculated that the show would be taking place in the year 2014 – in order for Laura Palmer’s promise to Agent Cooper in the Season Two finale (“I’ll see you again in 25 years”) to literally become true. As appealing as that notion might be, a close reading of the show – and Mark Frost’s accompanying Secret History of Twin Peaks novel – reveals that nearly all of the action of the new season actually takes place in September and October of 2016. (When I write “nearly all,” I am barring the major flashbacks to 1945 and 1956 New Mexico in Part Eight and the “extra-dimensional” scenes scattered throughout the season that may be seen as taking place “outside of time.”)

The first tip off that Twin Peaks: The Return begins in September of 2016 comes from The Secret History of Twin Peaks. Frost’s novel begins with a memo written by FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole (the beloved hard-of-hearing character played by David Lynch on the show) to Special Agent Tammy Preston (a new character played by singer Chrysta Bell) asking her to analyze a secret “dossier” that was recovered from a crime scene in July of 2016. This memo is dated 8/4/2016 and is followed by a notarized response from Preston dated 8/28/16. At the conclusion of Frost’s novel, after Preston has read and annotated the dossier and discovered that its mysterious “compiler” is none other than Major Garland Briggs, there is another notarized statement from her that she doesn’t know “what happened to either Major Briggs or Agent Cooper at this point.” It is not logical that Preston would make this claim in 2016 if the events of the new season had taken place two years previously: Preston, after all, learns a great deal about both Briggs and Cooper (and what happened to them in the 25 years between Seasons Two and Three) in Twin Peaks: The Return.

More evidence comes from the show itself: Bill Hastings’ driver’s license, which can be clearly seen in Part One: My log has a message for you, shows that his birthday is August 15, 1973. In Part Nine: This is the chair, during an instant-classic interrogation scene that is simultaneously both genuinely tragic and genuinely hilarious, Hastings tells Agent Preston that he is 43-years-old, indicating the show takes place after August 15, 2016. It is also during this scene that Hastings, at Preston’s request, writes the day’s date as “9/29,” which, if one counts the days backwards through each episode of the season, means that Bill was arrested on Saturday, September 24. Indeed, when Bill is first interrogated by Buckhorn cop Dave Macklay in Part One, he is asked to account for his whereabouts over the past “three or fours days.” After mentioning that he had been at work on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Bill, a high school principal, tells Dave that he had been at home “all day today,” indicating that Bill was arrested on a Saturday.

Contrary to rampant online speculation, Twin Peaks: The Return has so far followed a surprisingly linear chronology. The only times when there appear to be either flash-forwards or flashbacks are either at the very end or the very beginning of certain episodes. This makes sense given that Lynch has stated he had no clue how he was going to “break up” his 18-hour movie into hour-long segments until he and his editors actually started cutting it. The decision to give the series a sense of structural symmetry by ending most episodes with musical performances at the Roadhouse means that Lynch occasionally flashes forward to a nighttime scene at the Roadhouse before “back-tracking” to the afternoon of the same day in the episode that immediately follows. For whatever it might be worth, I hope some of you find this timeline useful:

twin-peaks-episode-1

Part One: My log has a message for you.
Day One: Wednesday, September 21
Cooper and ??????? in black-and-white room – ?
Jacoby receives shovels in Twin Peaks – Day
Sam watches glass box in NYC – Night

Day Two: Thursday, September 22
Ben and Jerry Horne and Beverly at the Great Northern – Day
Insurance salesman and Lucy in Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Mr. C goes to Beulah’s in South Dakota – Night
Sam and Tracy watch glass box and are killed in NYC – Night

Day Three: Friday, September 23
Buckhorn police discover corpses of Ruth Davenport and Garland Briggs – Day

Day Two: Thursday, September 22 (Cont’d)
Log Lady calls Hawk in Twin Peaks – Night

Day Four: Saturday, September 24
Constance and Macklay in Buckhorn police station – Day
Bill Hastings is arrested in Buckhorn – Day

Day Three: Friday, September 23 (Cont’d)
Hawk, Andy and Lucy in Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day

Day Four: Saturday, September 24 (Cont’d)
Hastings is interrogated in Buckhorn police station (and says it’s Saturday) – Day
Macklay searches Bill’s car in Buckhorn – Day

Part Two: The stars turn and a time presents itself.
Day Four: Saturday, September 24 (Cont’d)
Phyllis visits Bill in the Buckhorn jail – Night
Duncan and Roger in Las Vegas – Night

Day Three: Friday, September 23
Mr. C, Darya, Ray and Jack in a South Dakota diner – Night

Day Four: Saturday, September 24 (Cont’d)
Hawk at Glastonbury Grove in Twin Peaks – Night
Agent Cooper w/ Laura, MIKE and the Evolution of the Arm in the Red Room – ?
Mr. C gets a new car from Jack in S.D. – Day
Mr. C kills Darya in a S.D. motel – Night
Agent Cooper, Leland, MIKE and the Evolution of the Arm in the Red Room – ?

Day Two: Thursday, September 22 (Cont’d)
Agent Cooper visits glass box / Sam and Tracy are killed – (explicit FLASHBACK to Day Two: Thursday night)

Day Four: Saturday, September 24 (Cont’d)
Sarah Palmer watches television at home – Night
The Chromatics play the Roadhouse – Night

Part Three: Call for help.
Agent Cooper, Naido and “American Girl” in purple purgatory – ?
Day Five: Sunday, September 25
Mr. C crashes car in Black Hills of S.D. – Day
Dougie and Jade in Las Vegas – Day
Drugged Out Mother and Son in Las Vegas – Day
Cops find Mr. C in Black Hills – Day

Day Six: Monday, September 26
Hawk, Andy and Lucy in Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Dr. Jacoby spray-paints shovels in Twin Peaks – Day

Day Five: Sunday, September 25 (Cont’d)
Jade drops Cooper off at Silver Mustang Casino in Vegas – Day

Day Six: Monday, September 26 (Cont’d)
Gordon, Tammy and Albert in Philadelphia – Day
The Cactus Blossoms play the Roadhouse – Night

Part Four: …brings back some memories.
Day Five: Sunday, September 25 (Cont’d)
Cooper at the Silver Mustang Casino – Night
Cooper gets a ride from casino to Dougie’s home in Las Vegas – Night

Day Six: Monday, September 26 (Cont’d)
Gordon Cole meets w/ Denise Bryson in Philadelphia – Night
Sheriff Truman, Andy, Lucy, Bobby and Wally Brando at Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Night
Cooper has breakfast with Janey-E and Sonny Jim – Morning

Day Seven: Tuesday, September 27
Constance and Macklay in Buckhorn – Morning
Gordon, Albert and Tammy drive from airport to Yankton jail – Day
Gordon, Albert and Tammy question Mr. C in jail – Day
Gordon, Albert and Tammy talk at a South Dakota airport – Dusk
Au Revoir Simone plays at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks- Night

Part Five: Case files.
Day Five: Sunday, September 25
Lorraine talks to hitmen in Vegas (it only makes sense that this conversation would follow the missed hit earlier that day)

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d)
Constance and Macklay in the Buckhorn morgue – Morning
Mr. C gets breakfast in jail in Yankton – Morning

Day Seven: Tuesday, September 27 (Cont’d)
Steven’s job interview with Mike Nelson in Twin Peaks – Morning
Sheriff Truman and Doris at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Morning

Day Six: Monday, September 26 (Cont’d)
Janey-E gives Cooper a ride to work in Las Vegas – Morning (this scene has to follow the breakfast scene in Part Four)
Cooper attends work meeting in Las Vegas – Morning
Mitchum brothers beat up the Supervisor of the Silver Mustang Casino in Las Vegas – Day
Car thieves attempt to steal Dougie’s car in Rancho Rosa in Las Vegas – Day
Jade mails Great Northern key from Las Vegas to Twin Peaks – Day

Day Seven: Tuesday, September 27 (Cont’d)
Becky asks Shelly for money in RR Diner in Twin Peaks – Day

Day Six: Monday, September 26 (Cont’d)
Cooper gets off work at Lucky 7 in Las Vegas at 5:30pm – Dusk

Day Seven: Tuesday, September 27 (Cont’d)
Hawk and Andy at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Night
Dr. Jacoby’s internet infomercial at 7:00pm – Night

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d)
Lt. Knox and Col. Davis at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA – Night
Trouble plays at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks – Night
Tammy studies fingerprints in Philadelphia – Night
Mr. C makes a phone call from Yankton jail – Night

Day Six: Monday, September 26 (Cont’d)
Cooper caresses shoes of statue outside Lucky 7 office in Vegas – Night

Part Six: Don’t die.
Day Six: Monday, September 26 (Cont’d)
Police give Cooper a ride from Lucky 7 office to Dougie’s home in Las Vegas – Night

Day Seven: Tuesday, September 27 (Cont’d)
Albert approaches Diane at Max Von’s Bar in Philadelphia – Night

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28
Red and Richard meet at a Twin Peaks warehouse – Morning
Carl and Mickey get a ride from the New Fat Trout Trailer Park into Twin Peaks – Morning
Miriam at the RR Diner in Twin Peaks – Morning
Carl witnesses a hit and run in Twin Peaks – Morning
Duncan Todd receives message from Mr. C in Las Vegas – Morning

Day Seven: Tuesday, September 27 (Cont’d)
Dougie’s car is towed away from Rancho Rosa in Las Vegas – Day (This may be a flashback to Monday, September 26.)
Ike the Spike receives hit orders in Las Vegas motel – Day
Cooper meets Bushnell at Lucky 7 in Las Vegas – Day
Janey-E meets loansharks in park in Las Vegas – Day
Ike the Spike kills Lorraine in her office in Las Vegas – Day

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d)
Red cleans truck in Twin Peaks – Day
Hawk finds Laura’s missing diary pages in Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Doris visits Sheriff Truman at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Sharon Van Etten plays at the Roadhouse – Night

Part Seven: There’s a body all right.
Day Eight Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
Jerry, lost in the woods in Twin Peaks, calls Ben at the Great Northern – Day
Hawk meets Sheriff Truman at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Sheriff Truman calls Harry from the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Andy meets Farmer at 2:30pm in Twin Peaks – Day (Andy’s watch says it’s the 10th – could be a Flash-forward to October 10)
Sheriff Truman Skypes with Doc Hayward from the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Lt. Knox meet Macklay at Buckhorn police station – Day
Lt. Knox, Macklay and Constance in the Buckhorn morgue – Day
Gordon and Albert at FBI headquarters in Philadelphia – Day
Gordon and Albert visit Diane at home in Philadelphia – Day
Gordon, Albert, Tammy and Diane fly to Yankton – Day
Diane interviews Mr. C in Yankton prison – Day
Diane talks to Gordon outside of the Yankton prison – Day
Mr. C talks to prison guard in Yankton prison – Day
Andy waits for farmer in Twin Peaks at 5:05pm – Day
Mr. C meets Warden Murphy – Day

Day Seven: Tuesday, September 27 (Cont’d)
Las Vegas police interview Cooper at Lucky 7 office in Las Vegas – Day
Cooper fends off Ike the Spike outside Lucky 7 office in Las Vegas – Dusk
Las Vegas police interview witnesses outside Lucky 7 office – Night

Day Eight Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
Ben and Beverly at the Great Northern in Twin Peaks – Night (Cooper’s key arrives two days after Jade mailed it.)
Beverly and Tom at home in Twin Peaks – Night
Jean-Michel Renault at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks – Night
Mr. C and Ray leave Yankton prison – Night
Bing looks for Billy at the RR Diner in Twin Peaks – Night

Part Eight: Gotta light?
Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
Ray shoots Cooper in rural South Dakota – Night
The Nine Inch Nails perform at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks – Night
Flashbacks to New Mexico in 1945 & 1956

Part Nine: This is the chair.
Day Nine: Thursday, September 29:
Mr. C walks to a South Dakota farm – Morning
Gordon, Tammy, Diane and Albert fly from Yankton to Buckhorn – Day
Mr. C, Hutch and Chantal on a South Dakota farm – Day

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
Fusco brothers, Bushnell Mullins, Cooper and Janey-E in Las Vegas police dept. – Day
Fuscos arrest Ike the Spike in Las Vegas motel – Day

Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d):
Andy and Lucy at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Twin Peaks police visit Betty Briggs – Day
Philadelphia FBI agents visit Buckhorn morgue – Day
Jerry Horne wrestles with his foot in the woods of Twin Peaks – Day
Sheriff Truman, Bobby and Hawk at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Tammy interrogates Bill in a Buckhorn jail – Day
Ben Horne and Beverly in the Great Northern – Night
Hudson Mohawke and Au Revoir Simone perform at the Roadhouse – Night

Part 10: Laura is the one.
Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d):
Richard appears to kill Miriam in her Twin Peaks trailer – Day

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
Steven and Becky at the Fat Trout Trailer Park in Twin Peaks – Day
The Mitchum brothers and Candie at home in Las Vegas – Day
Janey-E takes Cooper to the Doctor in Las Vegas
The Mitchum brothers watch T.V. – Night (The extended weather forecast tells us it’s Wednesday then there is a story about Ike’s arrest, which a news anchor says happened “today.”)
Janey-E and Cooper having sex in their Las Vegas home – Night

Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d):
Nadine watches Jacoby’s video blog from her Twin Peaks drapery store – Night
Janey-E drives Sonny Jim to school and Cooper to work in Vegas – Morning
Jerry is lost in the woods of Twin Peaks – Day
Deputy Chad intercepts the mail at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Richard Horne robs Sylvia Horne at her Twin Peaks home – Day

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
Anthony Sinclair visits Duncan Todd’s Las Vegas office – Night

Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d):
Albert has a dinner date with Constance in Buckhorn – Night

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
Anthony Sinclair visits the Mitchum brothers at the Silver Mustang Casino – Night
The Mitchum brothers at home – Night

Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d):
Albert and Tammy visit Gordon in his Buckhorn hotel room – Night
Ben Horne takes a call from Sylvia at the Great Northern Hotel – Night
The Log Lady calls Hawk at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Night
Rebekah Del Rio performs at the Roadhouse – Night

Part 11: There’s fire where you are going.
Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d)
Kids discover Miriam still alive in Twin Peaks – Day

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
From her trailer Becky calls Shelly at the RR Diner – Day
Becky, Shelly and Carl in the Fat Trout trailer park – Day
Carl calls the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. while giving Shelly a ride – Day
Becky shoots holes in Gersten’s apartment door – Day

Day 10: Friday, September 30 (Cont’d)
Hastings takes the FBI to the “vortex” in Buckhorn – Day

Day Eight: Wednesday, September 28 (Cont’d):
Bobby, Shelly and Becky at the RR Diner – Night

Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d):
Hawk shows Truman his map in the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Dept. – Night (Hawk says, “The major also gave us a date, the day after tomorrow,” putting this scene on the same day as the Twin Peaks scenes in Episode 9)

Day 10: Friday, September 30 (Cont’d)
The FBI agents and Macklay in the Buckhorn police station – Night

Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d)
Bushnell and Cooper at the Lucky Seven office in Vegas – Day
The Mitchum brothers at home in Vegas – Day
Bushnell escorts Cooper to the Mitchum brothers’ limo – Day
Driving through Vegas montage – Day
Cooper meets the Mitchum brothers in the desert – Dusk
Cooper and the Mitchum brothers in a Las Vegas restaurant – Night

Part 12: Let’s rock.
Day 10: Friday, September 30 (Cont’d)
Gordon and Albert initiate Tammy into the Blue Rose Task Force at a Buckhorn hotel – Night
Jerry makes it out of the woods in Twin Peaks – Day
Sarah Palmer shops for liquor at a Twin Peaks grocery store – Day
Carl Rodd talks to Kriscol at the Fat Trout trailer park – Day

Day 8: Wednesday, September 28? 
Cooper and Sonny Jim play catch in their backyard in Las Vegas – Day (this has to be a flashback; we learn in Part 13 that Cooper didn’t come home the night he went out with the Mitchum brothers; this brief scene was almost certainly inserted here so that Kyle MacLachlan would be able to have one scene in this episode.)

Day 10: Friday, September 30 (Cont’d)
Hawk visits Sarah Palmer at home – Day
Miriam at the Calhoun Memorial Hospital – Day
Diane in a hotel bar in Buckhorn – Night
Sheriff Truman visits Ben at the Great Northern – Day
Albert visits Gordon’s hotel room in Buckhorn – Night
Hutch and Chantal kill Warden Murphy in Yankton – Night
Nadine watches Jacoby’s video blog from her Twin Peaks drapery store – Night
Audrey talks to her husband Charlie in his home office – Night (Charlie says, “It’s a new moon tonight, it’ll be dark out there.” The lunar calendar confirms there was a new moon on September 30, 2016.)
Diane in a hotel bar in Buckhorn – Night
The Chromatics perform at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks – Night

Part 13: What story is that, Charlie? 
Day 10: Friday, September 30 (Cont’d)
The Mitchum brothers and Dougie bestow gifts on Bushnell at Lucky 7 – Morning
Anthony Sinclair calls Duncan Todd in his Las Vegas office – Morning
Movers deliver gym set/BMW to Janey-E in her Vegas home – Day
Sonny Jim plays on his gym set – Night
Mr. C kills Ray in a warehouse in western Montana – Day
Detectives Fusco/Anthony Sinclair/Det. Clark in the Vegas police dept. – Day (Fuscos reference Mr. C escaping prison “two days ago.”)
Chantal and Hutch drive through Utah – Night

Day 11: Saturday, October 1
Janey-E drops Cooper at work/coffee w/ Anthony Sinclair – Morning

Day 10: Friday, September 30 (Cont’d)
Becky calls Shelly at the Double R (says Steven hasn’t been home for “two nights.”) – Day

Day 11: Saturday, October 1
Anthony Sinclair confesses to Bushnell Mullins at Lucky 7 – Day

Day Nine: Thursday, September 29 (Cont’d)
Bobby, Norma, Big Ed and Walter at the Double R – Night (Bobby says “We found some stuff that my dad left today.”

Day 10: Friday, September 30 (Cont’d)
Dr. Jacoby visits Nadine at “Run Silent, Run Drapes” – Night
Sarah watches boxing on T.V. – Night
Audrey talks to Charlie in their home – Night (This is a continuation of the conversation between these characters from the previous episode albeit in a different room of their home. They are wearing the same clothes.)
James Hurley performs at the Roadhouse – Night
Big Ed eats soup in his Gas Farm – Night

Part 14: We are like the dreamer.
Day 11: Saturday, October 1 (Cont’d)
From his Buckhorn hotel room, Gordon calls Sheriff Truman in Twin Peaks – Day
Albert, Tammy, Gordon and Diane in the Buckhorn hotel – Day
Truman, Hawk, Bobby and Andy arrest Chad at the T.P. Sheriff’s Dept. – Day
Truman, Hawk, Bobby and Andy visit Jackrabbit’s Palace – Day
Andy, Lucy, Chad, Naido and Drunk in the T.P. Sheriff’s Dept. jail – Night
James and Freddie at the Great Northern Hotel – Night
Sarah at the Elk’s Point #9 Bar – Night
Lissie performs at the Roadhouse – Night

Part 15: There’s some fear in letting go.
Day 11: Saturday, October 1 (Cont’d)
Nadine visits Ed at the Gas Farm – Day
Ed and Walter visit Norma at the Double R – Day

Day 10: Friday, September 30
Mr. C visits Phillip Jeffries above the convenience store – Night (Mr. C asks Jeffries if he called him “five days ago.” This makes sense if the phone call scene from Part 2 took place on Sunday the 24th after midnight.)

Day 11: Saturday, October 1 (Cont’d)
Steven, Gersten and Cyril in the woods – Day
Cyril and Carl Rodd at the Fat Trout Trailer Park – Day
James and Freddie visit the Roadhouse – Night
Chantal assassinates Duncan Todd and Roger in Las Vegas – Night
Hawk and Bobby lock up James and Freddie in the Twin Peaks jail – Night
Chantal and Hutch eating fast food in their van – Night
Cooper eats chocolate cake and watches Sunset Blvd. in his Las Vegas home – Night
The Log Lady calls Hawk from her log cabin – Night
Hawk informs Truman, Bobby, Andy and Lucy of the Log Lady’s death – Night
The Veils play at the Roadhouse – Night

Part 16: No Knock, No Doorbell 
Day 11: Saturday, October 1 (Cont’d)
Mr. C and Richard check out the coordinates in Twin Peaks while Jerry observes – Night
Day 12: Sunday, October 2
Chantal and Hutch and Las Vegas FBI stake out Dougie and Janey-E’s home – Day
The Mitchum brothers, Bushnell, Janey-E and Sonny Jim visit Cooper in the hospital – Day
Gordon in a Buckhorn hotel – Day
Phil Bisby calls Bushnell in Cooper’s hospital room – Day
A Polish accountant in a fit of road rage kills Chantal and Hutch – Day
Cooper wakes up in the hospital and calls the Mitchum brothers at home – Day
Cooper drives Janey-E and Dougie to the Silver Mustang Casino – Day
Diane receives a text from Mr. C in a Buckhorn hotel bar – Day
Diane visits Gordon, Tammy and Albert in their room – Day
Diane and MIKE in the Red Room – ?
Cooper says goodbye to Janey-E and Sonny Jim at the Silver Mustang – Day
Cooper rides with the Mitchum brothers and “Andie” sisters to their jet – Day
Audrey and Charlie in the Roadhouse/Audrey in a white room – ?

53 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Odds and Ends

July 13, 2017

Elevated Films Kicks Off Summer Series with PERSON TO PERSON

By michaelgloversmith

The following piece was published at Time Out Chicago today.

PERSON_TO_PERSON_STILL_1..

Elevated Films, the outdoor independent movie series that supports cinema and local youth arts programs in Chicago, has announced its first summer screening: a sneak preview of Dustin Guy Defa’s Person to Person. The film, which stars Michael Cera (fresh off of his God-level cameo as Wally Brando in Twin Peaks), was well-received at its Sundance World Premiere and will be distributed later in the year by Magnolia Pictures. The ensemble drama has been described as following a “variety of New York characters as they navigate personal relationships and unexpected problems over the course of a single day.” Person to Person co-stars Bene Coopersmith, Broad City‘s Abbi Jacobson and Chicago native Tavi Genvinson.

The screening will take place on the roof deck of Columbia College’s Media Production Center at 1600 South State St. and Chicago filmmaker Joe Swanberg, who executive produced, will moderate a post-screening Q&A with director Defa and star Coopersmith. “I’m incredibly proud to be involved with Person to Person, it’s a really funny, warm, uplifting film, and I can’t wait to share it with the Chicago audience on a summer night,” says Swanberg. Tickets for PERSON TO PERSON can be purchased for $10.00, while students may attend for free. Doors open with cocktails at 7:30pm and the screening begins at 8:30pm. For more information, visit the Elevated Films website.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Chicago Movies

July 1, 2017

The Last Ten Movies I Saw

By michaelgloversmith

1. The Autopsy of Jane Doe (Ovredal)
2. Offside (Panahi)
3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Lynch)
4. The Awful Truth (McCarey)
5. 12:08 East of Bucharest (Porumboiu)
6. M (Lang)
7. Baby Driver (Wright)
8. Distant (Ceylan)
9. Man with the Movie Camera (Vertov)
10. Memories of Murder (Bong)

2 Comments | posted in The Last Ten Movies I Saw

July 1, 2017

The Best Films of the Year So Far

By michaelgloversmith

Now that we’ve reached the half-way point of 2017, it’s time to post a list of my favorite films of the year so far. A cursory glance at the list below should tell you that we’ve seen an uncommonly good six months of cinema. As is customary with all my lists, I’m only including films that first premiered in Chicago in 2017. This means I’m including titles that opened elsewhere in late 2016 (Silence, Toni Erdmann) while not including other worthy titles that had their first theatrical runs in 2017 after playing festival screenings here last year (A Quiet Passion, Raw). It will be yrev, very interesting to see what the next six months bring.

25. Silence (Scorsese, USA/Japan) – Music Box

silence
“Scorsese is one of America’s greatest living filmmakers and probably only he would have been capable of getting a big-budget art film like this financed by a major studio like Paramount.” Review here.

24. 76 Minutes and 15 Seconds with Abbas Kiarostami (Samadian, Iran) – Annual Festival of Films from Iran (Siskel Center)

76_minutes_and_15_seconds_-_still_-_h_-_2016
Farewell, maestro.

23. Rat Film (Anthony, USA) – Doc10 Film Festival (Davis)

ratfilm
More docs like this please.

22. Such is Life in the Tropics (Cordero, Ecuador) – Chicago Latino Film Fest

such-is-life-in-the-tropics-2
“A superb political thriller that intertwines several compelling storylines set in Guayaquil, Ecuador.” Capsule review here.

21. Beach Rats (Hittman, USA) – Chicago Critics Film Fest (Music Box)

beach_rats_still03-1024x683
I really enjoyed this for the naturalistic performances and as a piece of “sensory cinema.” Still not sure about the contrived climax.

20. Shelley (Abbasi, Denmark) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

shelley-still-two
Not only well-crafted as horror, this Danish movie made by an Iranian writer/director in exile also succeeds as sly political allegory in the way it examines the unconscious xenophobia of a rich, ostensibly liberal hippie couple through their subtle mistreatment of a Romanian housekeeper.

19. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Anderson, USA/UK) – Wide Release

resident
No one does 3D like W.S. Here I am getting ready to watch it the way it was meant to be seen.

18. Lost North (Lavanderos, Chile) – Chicago Latino Film Fest

CHILE_-LOST-NORTH
“The film’s clever dual road-trip conceit allows Lavanderos to create a compelling Murnau-like dichotomy between city and country, past and present, and man and woman, but there’s also welcome humor in the characters’ differing attitudes towards ‘unplugging’ and letting go of the modern world.” Capsule review here.

17. Ethel & Ernest (Mainwood, UK) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

ethelandernest_0
“The voice work of Jim Broadbent and Brenda Blethyn as the central couple is magnificent and cinephiles should especially appreciate that their first date involves taking in a screening of John Ford’s Hangman’s House.” Capsule review here.

16. Personal Shopper (Assayas, France) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

1200
“Stewart’s unique, sometimes controversial brand of ‘underplaying’ has rarely been used to better effect than here.” Capsule review here.

15. Get Out (Peele, USA) – Wide Release

getout
Jordan Peele uses the conventions of the horror film to comment on the horrors of racism in contemporary America. Sharp debut.

14. Louise by the Shore (Laguionie, France) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

louise-by-the-shore
No one does animation like Jean-François Laguionie.

13. Baby Driver (Wright, USA) – Wide Release

baby-driver-1
Baby Driver has a lot of virtues. Chief among them is the way it expresses a love for the simple act of listening to music.

12. Austerlitz (Loznitsa, Germany) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

AUSTERLITZ_02
“Austerlitz is a provocative and challenging German documentary on the subject of ‘Holocaust tourism’ by the Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa.” Capsule review here.

11. Lucky (Lynch, USA) – Chicago Critics Film Fest (Music Box)

lucky-e1489183818574
“Harry Dean Stanton is a national treasure.” Capsule review here.

10. It’s Not the Time of My Life (Hajdu, Hungary) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

its_not_the_time_of_my_life_still
Brilliant Hungarian comedy about a dinner party with the in-laws gone wrong. More people need to see this.

9. The Death of Louis XIV (Serra, France) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

louis_XIV_3
“The formal control of Serra’s precise compositions and exquisitely candle-lit interiors, which resemble 18th century paintings, is impressive but don’t let the somber veneer distract you from the movie’s most appealing aspect: its bizarre, poker-faced sense of humor.” Capsule review here.

8. Death in the Terminal (Shemesh/Sudry, Israel) – Doc10 Film Festival (Davis)

film-death-in-the-terminal-1140x610
“This incredibly complex and disturbing documentary by co-directors Tali Shemesh and Asaf Sudry does more to explain the culture of violence in the Middle East today than any other single work of art I know of.” Capsule review here.

7. The Beguiled (Coppola, USA) – Wide Release

1492574153_focus-features_the-beguiled_sofia-coppola_colin-farrell_nicole-kidman_kirsten-dunst_elle-fanning_trailer2a-1194x539
“Viewers looking for an alternative to mindless summer blockbuster fare can do no better than to check out this visually sumptuous and surprisingly funny Civil War-era melodrama, which boasts a raft of great performances.” Review here.

6. The Son of Joseph (Green, France) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

joseph
“A masterful comedy/drama about a teenage boy (Victor Ezenfis) searching for the identity of his birth father (Mathieu Amalric), a journey that ends up taking on parallels to the Biblical stories of the birth of Christ and Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac.” Capsule review here.

5. The Ornithologist (Rodrigues, Portugal) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel Center)

ornithologist
“The homoeroticism and mystical-jungle imagery may put one in the mind of Apichatpong Weerasethakul but the Catholic symbolism and meditation on solitude vs. companionship are distinctly Rodrigues’ own.” Capsule review here.

4. Slack Bay (Dumont, France) – Chicago European Union Film Fest (Siskel)

slackbay
“As if the positive response to Li’l Quinquin has given him confidence, Dumont also successfully turns the wackiness here up to 11; Slack Bay is one of the funniest and craziest films in recent memory.” Capsule review here.

3. The Lost City of Z (Gray, USA) – Wide Release

lost
“Many critics have noted this thrilling adventure film is a ‘departure’ for Gray, although the classicism of the filmmaking and the focus on family dynamics make it all of a piece with his earlier New York-set dramas.” Interview with director James Gray here.

2. Toni Erdmann (Ade, Germany) – Music Box

tonierdmann_02
“The poignant father/daughter relationship at its core is as universal and timeless as that of Yasujiro Ozu’s Late Spring (although it is also given a refreshingly female-centric spin by its female writer/director).” Review here.

1. Twin Peaks: Parts 1 – 8 (Lynch, USA) – Showtime

twin-peaks-episode-1.jpg
It’s darker, scarier, stranger and funnier than it was the first time around. It eschews the warmth and softness of the original’s 35mm film textures for a visual style that deliberately leans into the cold, hard, clean lines of high-definition digital (including a brilliant and extensive use of CGI). The long-awaited third season of Twin Peaks has been nothing short of a miracle for its first eight parts. Coming off of an 11-year filmmaking hiatus (his last major work being 2006’s sublime INLAND EMPIRE), David Lynch’s new incarnation of Twin Peaks feels so far like he fully intends it to be his magnum opus; there are times when watching it has put me in the mind of watching each of his 10 feature films, including Dune, even while the end result ultimately feels like he’s striking out in bold and exciting new directions.

Before the first two “parts” (he doesn’t like to call them episodes) aired on May 21, Lynch repeatedly referred to this limited series as an “18-hour movie.” Few had any clue at the time what that meant but six parts later, it’s obvious: the series’ gradual unfolding of its impossibly mammoth scope, in which 200+ characters are introduced in glacially paced scenes taking place in locations all over the world, has resulted in something both structurally and aesthetically radical: the masterful way Lynch has been carefully and slowly bringing these various narrative threads together forces viewers to completely rethink how a T.V. show should be watched and processed. In so doing, he’s created a work for the “small screen” that dwarfs all of the other “big screen” experiences on this list and cements his place alongside Ford, Hitchcock and Welles in the pantheon of the all-time greats of the American cinema.

2 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Film Reviews

%d bloggers like this: