The 10th Annual Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) which ran from April 23rd – 30th was more than I expected: lots of glamour, evening parties galore, expensive food, and plenty of popcorn to eat on. While I’m still fighting off on popcorn withdrawal symptoms (kidding), here are some of the post-highlights:
Lymelife – a nice opening movie to this festival as it stars Scott Barlett (Rory Culkin) playing a fifteen year old boy living in the suburbs of Long Island during the late 1970’s with his overly-ambitious father (Alec Baldwin), high-tempered mother (Jill Hennessy) and older brother (Kieran Culkin). Also starring is Adrianna (Emma Roberts), daughter of the Bragg family and Melissa Bragg (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlie Bragg (Timothy Hutton), mother and father. This story follows both families as they adapt to new changes – scares of Lyme disease spreading across town and real estate.
This movie was well-made from the start. I had a chance to talk to one of the producers after the opening night and he mentioned highly of Alec Baldwin in a way that his character was written around him since he can easily relate to the sceneries of Long Island. Emma played well as her role as the witty but honest girl in the movie who explores what’s really going on with her life and her troubles with her own family. Rory’s character as Scott portrays the main plot of the story – his dad overly obsess with his real estate company as it’s going through an steep incline of house sales while his mother isn’t really a good mother but yet she tries to be one. We soon realize that the father has a secret that even the sons don’t know but, somehow the mother knows but seemingly acts naïve about it. Overall, I find this movie – comedic, interesting, and yet powerful to the end. Lymelife was directed by Derrick Martini.
Wake – a movie where Wedding Crashers meets “Funeral Crashers”…well sort of since in this movie, the main character, Carys Reitman (Bijou Philips) goes to one funeral without knowing anyone, then pretends to know the person who just passed away and finally meets a cute man. Her friend, Shane (Danny Masterson), works at the mortuary and advises against going to random peoples funerals. Anyway, the main story follows Carys and Tyler (whom they both meet at the funeral).
It’s a nice sort of love story between the two – Carys and Tyler but a problem in the beginning of the movie where Carys accidentally takes the ring from the dead person’s funeral bed but somehow the notion of making it a big deal bothered me a lot throughout the movie. I was wondering, “Just return it…” Anyway, this movie was alright overall. The acting from the characters was good overall. I’d pass on watching this movie again. Wake was directed by Ellie Kanner.
Our Time – is the young generation of today ‘spoon-feed’? Not according to this movie. “Our Time” is a raw and honest interpretation about this young generation of people. Are they lazy in general? How come they don’t work as much harder than their older peers from time before? Questions like these are answered in this movie.
A movie consisting of interviewing people from all over the United States, the audience also gets to know who they are as individuals. Though this movie was an hour long, I realized the movie’s overall message halfway through the movie. Even though I sound hard-headed, this movie was a fair demonstration of the young generation of today. The director’s overall message – “the young generation is a diversity.” No argue there.
Beautiful – a movie of following rumors of abducted girls in their neighborhood, Daniel (Aaron Jeffrey), a quiet fourteen year old boy decides to follow these leads along with Suzy (Tahyna Tozzi), the cute sixteen year old neighbor. These leads to more surprises along the way.
Daniel has two obsessions: one is photography and the other is of course Suzy, the cute girl from across the street. But I later noticed he also missed his biological mother for which he’s never seen what she looked like. All that remains are baby photos of him with her (but the faces of the mother are ripped off). How this movie unravels is amazing and at the end, what drives Daniel to find answers, one answer remains: are they really true or not? I would see this movie again once it becomes a theatrical release. Beautiful was directed by Dean O’ Flaherty.
(500) Days of Summer – the closing movie to NBFF, I actually enjoyed this movie as a way to end this festive film festival. In this movie, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and then the story starts where Tom goes through the process of wooing Summer. There’s definitely uncertainty on Tom’s face as he wonders how this relationship might turn out.
Zooey’s performance in this movie is very subtle and carefree as her character is the new girl at work and becomes easily attracted by Tom. This movie is no traditional love story as Zooey’s character doesn’t like to get held down by a relationship while Tom thinks the total opposite. Definitely this movie takes on a different taste of the traditional love story. I’d see it again. (500) Days of Summer was directed by Marc Webb.