Harmony Korine, the writer of “Kids” and director of “Gummo” and “Julian Donkey-Boy” marks his return to filmmaking after a nearly decade long absence with “Mister Lonely.” And, put simply, there has never been anything quite like this story of celebrity impersonators living on a commune in the Scottish highlands (the main characters are a Michael Jackson impersonator played by Diego Luna and a Marilyn Monroe one portrayed by Samantha Morton). In what essentially amounts to a dramatization of celebrity theory, though one rendered with the poetry and grace of an artist and not the comprehensiveness of an academician, Korine captures an extreme facet of the obsessive cultural quest for ever more intimate familiarity with our icons.
His is a movie very much of the celebrity worshipping tabloid culture so rooted in modern life. Surprisingly, however, the film does more than simply critique that culture’s devaluing of “ordinary” personalities and experiences. Instead, Korine empathizes so firmly with each character’s desire to affirm his self-worth by personifying, to the fullest possible extent, his idealized sense of a specific celebrity that the movie becomes something richer and sadder than its premise might suggest. If you can’t make any of “Mister Lonely’s” Tribeca screenings don’t fret: it opens at the IFC Center and on IFC InTheaters this Friday.
Less a movie than an evocation, on a worldwide scale, of the idea that the best music is not that made in the recording studio, “Playing for Change: Peace Through Music” still contains many highlights throughout its 76 globe trotting minutes. Co-directors Mark Johnson and Jonathan Walls, inspired by a Santa Monica street musician’s version of “Stand by Me,” traveled the world to record an omnibus track of it featuring local musicians everywhere from France to Nepal. Structured simply, the picture opens with an impressively assembled montage in which the artists perform the song, before the filmmakers cede the rest of the time to onscreen renditions of indigenous music.
These are usually accompanied by slow-motion shots of happy children dancing and running through the streets, while the interview segments basically consist of the various musicians saying some variation of “I play music to bring world peace.” Things feel a bit preachy and aesthetically the film occasionally resembles one of those CD compilation infomercials. However, the musical performances are riveting and it grows hard not to be moved by the passion behind the project.
The same cannot be said of “War, Inc” The biggest misfire I’ve screened at the festival, this dystopic depiction of the waging of the United States’s first commercially outsourced war collapses amidst a heap of over conceived, underwritten moments. Co-produced, co-written by and starring John Cusack, in full tormented everyman mode, the picture falls victim to murky plotting and an inclination towards random narrative digressions.
Director Johsua Seftel has his characters tell us all about the film’s unique universe, rather than showing it to us himself, which leads to lots of long concentration challenging monologues and an almost total absence of visual or conceptual innovation. Co-star Marisa Tomei emerges unscathed. The same can’t be said for Hilary Duff as a hyperemotional, vampy Middle Eastern teen pop star. Nor can it for Ben Kingsley, who seems bent on sullying his reputation with every new mediocre project. The film opens May 23, likely with a thud.
All screening and ticket information can be found at www.tribecafilmfestival.org.
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