A solid slate of WUD programming, Boy and the World and 2016’s first hot mess
Thursday
“The Video Works of Tony Cokes” (7:00p — Union South Marquee)
Tony Cokes has earned an M.O. in avant-garde circles for getting his audience to think twice. Re-examining existing messages — be they commercials, music video snippets, or broadcasts — Cokes, who also enjoys a post at Brown University, wants us to recognize the often uncomfortable notion that the products we consume can turn us into commodities, too. WUD Film will present three reminders of that for FREE.
All freakin’ weekend
Boy and the World (Sundance)
Combining the stream-of-consciousness flow of open world gaming with charming canvas-style animation, Boy and the World blends media and diegesis into a journey rife with whimsy and brightness — as well as the quagmires of industry and unchecked greed. Alê Abreu’s Brazilian language surrealism has a Best Animated Feature nomination in this year’s Oscars, which is probably why Sundance is able to roll it out now. Our own Grant Phipps caught it at last year’s Wisconsin Film Festival:
Director Abreu wants his audiences both young and old to consider the impact of the demanding and ultimately empty modern lifestyle’s stresses upon the well-being of the planet and various laborers throughout the world. While this film is isolated to a region of Brazil, the maligned workers could easily double as overworked men and women in a Chinese Apple factory.
Gods of Egypt (AMC Star, Point)
A hot mess in Hollywood is always fun when schadenfreude is involved (After Earth, anyone?), but the best cinematic disasters are the films that aim for the heavens — and fail spectacularly. Enter Alex Proyas. The once-vaunted director’s esteem has plummeted several stories since his days impressing Roger Ebert with his neo-noir Dark City, placating audiences with 2004’s i, Robot and then befuddling them with 2009’s Nicolas Cage stoner conspiracy, Knowing. Well, Proyas is going all out with his first film in six years in this garish, gaudy, and unabashedly CGI-driven actioner that fuses a “loose” Egyptian mythology onto Hamlet, basically. With a purported $140 million budget and movie circles already ablaze with bad buzz and push-back on its whitewashed cast, Gods of Egypt may go down as this year’s Jupiter Ascending: Terrible in its self-destruction and impossible to look away.
Friday
James White (7:00p — Union South Marquee)
Fans of Girls will know Christopher Abbott for Charlie, Marnie Michaels’s on-again off-again boyfriend. In Josh Mond’s critically acclaimed debut, Abbott’s still in New York City but he’s less a successful entrepreneur so much as a wayward burnout. But as White, Abbott has to quickly turn his life around when his mother’s health (Cynthia Nixon) starts failing to cancer. Inspired by both Mond’s proximity to terminal illness — his own mother passed away in 2011 — as well as discography of Kid Cudi — take that however you may, but Cudi co-stars, too — James White looks to be an astonishing showcase of its two leads and a promising first step for its director. We weren’t able to include this in the “Missed Madison” film festival, but WUD Film is finally giving Madison its local premiere (FREE).
Golden Dream (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
Cinematheque will close out its string of UCLA archive restorations with John Ford, so now is as good a time as any to dive into their next series. Partnering with UW’s Department of Latin-American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies, their annual spring LACIS program is good for shining a light on forgotten Latin American language fare or, in this weekend’s case, pumping up recent international stuff. Christening this year’s loose inspiration “Four From Mexico,” this 2013 effort tells a harrowing story of four immigrants, traversing by boat, train, and foot from Guatemala to the United States, where they can only hope to find a better life. Diego Quemada-Diez has yet to produce a follow-up, but today’s xenophobic rhetoric and threats of deportation make this sound relevant now more than ever (FREE.)
Saturday
Speedy (2:00p, 7:00p — Overture Center, Capitol Theater)
The Overture Center’s Duck Soup Cinema continues their “The Raucous Sound of Silence” program with this capper on Harold Lloyd’s silent cinema career. The silent comedy legend would only make seven more features between 1928 and 1950 but Speedy shows just how entrenched in the times Lloyd was at his peak. Under the direction of Ted Wilde, Lloyd stars as “Speedy” Swift, enraptured by baseball’s golden age and going up against New York’s mobsters as they try to squash an old man’s horse-drawn streetcar operation. Featuring Ann Christy (whose career effectively ended after this), a Babe Ruth cameo (hot off the “Murderer’s Row” championship and one of his best seasons in the majors) and in-person organ accompaniment by Jelani Eddington. Complete ticket information can be found at overturecenter.org
Wednesday
The Mask You Live In (7:00p — Union South Marquee)
It’s not often that male-driven well, anything is worth trumpeting these days. The Mask You Live In however looks closer at a reality that’s still very much in favor of people with penises. A kind of “quarter quell” against masculine constructs and the damaging expectations they can instill, Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s documentary progresses her later career shift away from direct-to-video genre junk and (yes really) Something’s Gotta Give to more serious fare (FREE).