Starring: Julia Roberts, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ayo Edibiri, Andrew Garfield, Chloë Sevigny
Grade: C
Luca Guadagnino has been a hard-working director for the past couple years. Having three films released within two years of each other, he is putting out films at a rate unlike most filmmakers working today. His latest, After the Hunt, sees what is possibly his biggest and most ambitious film yet, unabashedly delving into modern-day topics with honesty that many filmmakers have yet to do.
Below is my conversation with Lauren Z. Ray, the director of Winter Fantasy, a documentary about the small town of Logansport, Indiana, and the theater program that forms a kind of backbone throughout the community for its young artists. The film is making its World Premiere at the Heartland Film Festival. We discuss her thought process behind inserting herself in the film, the universality of small-town theater programs, and life in the arts post-high school. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Ben Sears: Logansport is such a unique place, and the film really captures that nicely.
Lauren Z. Ray: That was part of the goal. I always wanted to showcase Winter Fantasy, but I wanted to make this film very Logansport and very Hoosier as well. I kind of had this bucket list of items that I wanted to include, whether it’s a quick B-roll shot or a scene, just to give that texture and vibe to everything. In Indiana, I always think they have fantastic sunsets, so I wanted to include that, or a bonfire, which were very special to me when I was growing up.
BS: Did you have a goal in mind when you first conceived of the film, besides featuring the program? Did the story change at all throughout production?
LR: Totally, the initial idea was a micro-doc, under 20 minutes. I just wanted to showcase what Winter Fantasy is, and that’s it. But I hadn’t really been back to my high school, or talked to anybody in 10 years. But upon arriving, as I started setting up interviews and going through all my old things, I didn’t even really think of myself at first, but I started getting nostalgic.
My first interview is with the manager of McHale, and after that interview, I wanted to just explore everything with high school and Winter Fantasy, so I went through everything in my bedroom. That’s when I realized how much of my story needed to be included in this story in order for it to make sense. From there, I also wanted to include the stories of people who went on to become professionals after going through Winter Fantasy. Every documentary I’ve done is like detective work, it’s journalism. You learn more about the story through the interviews you do; it became a lot longer in the process of all the interviews and learning everyone’s stories. I initially wanted it to be just about Winter Fantasy, but it ended up being about my acting career, Winter Fantasy, and all the decades of people who have done the show.
BS: It’s interesting that you never even considered inserting yourself into the story because it helps to ground the story through your eyes.
LR: That’s how it felt at the time. It became more of a first-person documentary, which I had never done before. That really challenged me because I didn’t know how I could make it happen. Normally I’m the one behind the camera, so I knew I’d have to allow someone else behind the camera and help them to understand my vision. I hadn’t seen too many first-person documentaries, so I watched a lot, and I had to learn how this style is done. It was definitely a big process.
BS: You stay focused on Logansport and this specific program, but do you see this program as a microcosm of similar small town arts programs? Do you think there are similar stories like this across the country?
LR: I think so, I think it’s totally relatable. I remember when I did my first documentary, which was about a small town in Indiana, and I thought ‘this town’s really quirky and unique.’ And then everyone who saw it had a relationship to a small town across America somewhere, and it was relatable to a lot of people, even if they weren’t from this particular town. I think with this one, it was the same thing. People had either gone through their own musical theater program, or someone they knew went on to become someone from their theater program. Any time I’ve explained to someone what I was working on, people say they relate to it and they tell me stories about their programs, or their experiences with it. People totally understand that theater kids and staff tend to be very quirky by design, so I definitely think it’s a relatable topic, even though it’s just about Logansport, Indiana.
BS: You also have, later in the film, the experiences from you and your friend in Chicago, and the struggles with finding work in the arts after high school. Was that another avenue that was unplanned as well?
LR: Yes, actually, I was hoping I could get a hold of Dannie Smith. She didn’t know who I was, but I knew who she was because I went to all of her Winter Fantasy shows. I was absolutely obsessed! [laughs] I had never met her before, and the conversation we had on her couch was so crazy because of how similarly our stories had aligned. I had no idea, when I had called her initially, that she had retired from acting; I thought she was still acting. To learn that it was for similar reasons to me was really interesting.
BS: A development like that could be seen as a kind of mood killer, but in Winter Fantasy, it’s kind of hopeful, and a celebration of theater, and what people can do when they work together.
LR: I think a lot of people can relate to that as well. I know a lot of people that pursued theater after high school but couldn’t find any success, so I hope they can find something relatable in that. I think, accidentally, I always try to make my stories a feel-good story of some type. Those are the types of stories that I prefer to see, myself.
BS: Have you shown the film to the Logansport community at large yet?
LR: I haven’t. I’m very excited to do that, though. In January of this year, literally a week after I had finished, I had the cast come and see the film. Heartland is taking place during the school’s fall break, so that didn’t work out for them to screen it. But on November 8th, I’m going back to Logansport again, and I’ll do a public screening at McHale auditorium. I’m very excited, and this year’s Winter Fantasy is the following weekend, so I’m hoping it’ll hype up the town to show up and support that show this year.
Winter Fantasy will have in-person screenings at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, and will be available to stream online throughout the festival.Buy tickets here.
Starring: Aziz Ansari, Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer, Sandra Oh, Stephen McKinley Henderson
Grade: B-
Actors becoming directors has become a more common trend in recent years. With Scarlett Johansson’s debut film, Eleanor the Great, releasing only a couple weeks ago, and Bradley Cooper set to release his third feature, Is This Thing On?, in December, actors have been inspired by their on-set experience to direct their own movies. Aziz Ansari is the latest actor-turned-director with his film Good Fortune, an absurd comedy that nails the current state of America.
There are over 300 companies today throughout Japan employing actors, not for film or television roles, but as ordinary people helping other ordinary people to get through the day. Rental Family explores the almost too bizarre to be true phenomenon and the emotional toll it takes from both sides. It’s a slam-dunk premise for a weepy dramedy, but director Hikari’s film is too unfocused to be as resonant as intended.
If nothing else, The Dating Game is a welcome reminder that I’ll be eternally grateful for meeting my wife before the advent of dating apps. Violet Du Feng’s documentary may take place in China, but the issues present feel universally relevant. The film follows Hao, one of China’s leading “dating experts” as he tries to coach a group of young men into finding a match by any means necessary. Though, as the documentary quickly reveals, he’s far from knowledgeable in the ways of love, and much less in understanding women and what they want. His advice tends to boil down to buying new wardrobes, looking cool via profile photos to add to a dating profile, and boasting about life accomplishments and experiences, whether they’re true or not. This leads to some of the cringiest comedy of the year, especially once the clueless men are wrangled into meeting women in the real world with next to no preparation.
Besides the small group of men, Du Feng eventually expands to show the larger cultural attitude towards dating in modern China. One fascinating segment shows a large gathering of middle-aged parents in a park, so desperate to find matches for their children, that they essentially LARP as dating profiles on their behalf. Also crucial is the opening statement that, after China’s end of the One Child policy, the country was left with an imbalance of men and women. But one of The Dating Game‘s most surprising developments comes as Du Feng spends time during Hao’s personal life to show that not only is he married, but his wife is also a dating coach with a much different approach to her female clients. Though this avenue provides some fascinating dramatic developments, one almost wishes the entirety of the film was centered around their relationship. Regardless, The Dating Game is an engrossing reflection of modern dating culture, toxic masculinity, and the eternal quest for companionship.
Life on the open range has been romanticized throughout cinematic history in the Western genre, but Land With No Rider shows the harsh realities that modern ranchers face. Director Tamar Lando zeroes in on a group of cattle farmers in New Mexico as they eke out a simple existence trying to survive in spite of all the hardships faced amongst modern independent farmers. The biggest challenge lies in climate change, and the lack of viable vegetation for their cows to eat.
Much like the existence it depicts, Land With No Rider treads along at a leisurely pace, often to its own detriment. Of course, this shouldn’t discount the harrowing material seen, but the film could use some additional speed to get through its (admittedly brief) runtime. Farmers inarguably play a critical role in the stability of the country, yet they’re frequently overlooked or oversimplified. Lando’s film is gorgeously lensed, taking full advantage of the New Mexican expanse, and showing every crag in its aging subjects’ faces. It’s hard to find too many faults with the film overall, but one can’t help but wish it moved at a more urgent clip to match its subject matter.
I first watched Natchez in June as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, but it’s stuck in my memory in the intervening months as a vital and visceral look at America’s past and present. The antebellum south has always felt like it comes from another plane of existence entirely with its outlandish traditions and personalities. Susannah Herbert’s documentary feels less like a history lesson and more like a tour through how those traditions and personalities reckon with the titular Mississippi town’s dark history.
Like most southern cities in the pre-Civil War era, Natchez relied heavily on the slave trade and slave labor, and many large plantations still stand today. This is the backbone of Herbert’s film, as she follows a select number of individuals who rely on telling the town’s history through their own perspectives. There’s one charismatic, Black tour guide who makes no attempt to sugar coat the painful experiences of so many Black men, women, and children who made their way through Natchez. Many of the film’s most difficult moments come as fellow residents confront him through thinly-veiled racial means to let him know they don’t approve of the stories he tells or how he depicts the town. On the other side, there’s the White tour guides, who mostly show off the plantations and simply gloss over – or, in at least one case, defend and ridicule – the presence of slaves. The result is an often shocking, yet sad reality of modern America and certain groups’ views on race, and one of the year’s best documentaries.
Starring: Idris Elba, Rebecca Fergason, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke, Kaitlyn Dever
Grade: B
Since beginning her career as an action director, Kathryn Bigelow has garnered considerable acclaim with recent films that delve into more dramatic territory. Since becoming the first woman ever to win the Best Director award at the Academy Awards for The Hurt Locker, she has become a filmmaker whose films are on the Oscars’ radar. Seven years after her last feature film, Detroit, her upcoming movie, A House of Dynamite, appears to be her next film aiming for Oscar nominations, and focuses on the dangers of nuclear weapons in a fast-paced and digestible manner.
Starring: Frank Dillane, Megan Northam, Shonagh Marie, Harris Dickinson, Joel Lockhart, Diane Axford, Angela Bain
Grade: B+
It’s always a risky gamble when a prominent actor tries their hand behind the camera for the first time; for every Good Night, and Good Luck, there’s a hundred other Leatherheads. There’s no clear recipe for success, but first-time writer-director Harris Dickinson’s clearly defined vision is what makes Urchin an impressive statement. In fact, Dickinson avoids many of the fatal pratfalls which often lead to actor-directed projects.
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson
Grade: B
Paul Greengrass, Hollywood’s most efficient auteur of ripped-from-the-headlines dramatizations, returns with one of the most harrowing and stressful films of the year in The Lost Bus. Aside from his work on the Bourne franchise, Greengrass’s greatest successes have come from films about real people overcoming the odds to survive, like Captain Phillips and United 93. His latest covers a recent, well-publicized event, and though the life-or-death stakes are often enough to sustain the film for long stretches, it’s not enough to overcome its limitations.
Boxing is an inherently cinematic format, a sport where one man or woman puts their mind and body on the line in a quest for glory. Mixed martial arts cranks the sport and its stakes up exponentially, and writer-director Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine spares nothing to show the inherent brutality and all its costs. Here is a sport where blood, sweat, tears, and a broken bone or two literally comes with the territory. But it takes more than raw physicality to make an enduring MMA film, and it requires a deeper story worth telling to break the mold of the typical sports drama.
As an actress, Scarlett Johansson has proven to be a visionary in film throughout the past couple of decades. With roles in movies like Marriage Story and Her, she has shown herself to push film to emotional heights that not many other actors could achieve, so it is no surprise that she has finally taken on the role of director in her debut, Eleanor the Great.
The Movie State 