SNEAK PEEK of TANGERINE at Film Society of Lincoln Center thrills SOLD OUT audience Q&A w/Sean Baker director and guests

the Film Society of Lincoln Center held a sold out sneak of Sundance Film Festival's breakout film TANGERINE opening 7/10/15 .Set in the West Hollywood  in a community of "tranny hookers" Shot on an IPHONE with mostly first time actors it follows one 24 hour day in a tight knit group of "working girls" whose survival depends on how many  tricks they can turn  lubricated by drugs and full of novella-ish high drama of romance, betrayal, friendship and survival.

The casting of first time actors Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor

not only brings an authenticity to the roles but because of the iPhone use are able to bring remarkable immediacy and intimacy to their performances  .Baker also has a few of his professional actors from  previous films (Prince of Broadway , Starlet)  including Karren Karagulian and James Ramson . One subplot involves a married taxi driver with a taste for quickie tranny sex and his Armenian wife, mother-in-law (played by the most famous actor in Armenia  and wife all played by superstars back in Armenia .. What baker has accomplished is to humanize people, particularly trans of color who representations are usually silent and    one-dimensional stereotypes. The glue that holds the film together and turns a steamy slice of survival by the underclass is a wild streak of non-self deprecating bumptious  humor that laces the film .. Baker could be the US indie version of the British film maker Mike Leigh  mashed up with the sensibility and humanity of John Waters . Not since andy Warhol have we seen such vivid and individual representations of gender variant individuals. GO ..  

Film Society of Lincoln Center sneak peek TANGERINE Q&

Trailer

Sean Baker and James Ramson talk about shooting with

Jim Fouratt's IndieWire-CriticWire ballot Sundance 2015 + comments

For those film buffs who care about these things: Here is my IndieWire/ Criticwire ballot for Sundance 2015. In my comments I disagree with some of the awards . I suggest you place this somewhere and refer to it as these films become available for viewing. some times this takes a year, or only on vod.I will give expanded reviews when they become available: (go to Sundance Film Festival Guide online read more about film IndieWire/CriticWire ballot Sundance 2015
Jim Fouratt Westview News (NYC), Reel Deal: Movies that Matter, Framework,
BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE
1. The End of the Tour
2.Take me to the River
3. Tangerine
4. Princess
5. The Summer of Sangaile

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
1. Dreamcatcher
2 .Black panthers Vanguard of the Revolution
3.the hunting ground
4.Cartel Land
5 Going Clear

BEST DIRECTOR
1.sean baker tangerine
2. Matt Sobel Take Me to the River
3 kim longinotto Dreamcatcher
4.james ponsoldt The end of the tour
5.tali shalom ezer PRINCESS

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE
1. jason segel The End of the Tour
2.jesse eisenberg The End of the Tour
3.Jermale Clementi People Places and things
4.Zachary Quinto I am Michael
5. regina casse the second mother

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
1. jeremy chabriel - partisan
2.michael chernus people places and things
3. joan cusack end of the tour
4.Connie Britton Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
5.

BEST FIRST FEATURE
1. princess
2.(t)error
3.the witch
4 diary of a teenage girl
5 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.alfonso Gomez - Regon

BEST SCREENPLAY.
1: People Places and Things
2. The End of the Tour
3.The Witch
4.Take me to the River
5. tangerine

BEST ENSEMBLE
1.Ivy
2. Tangerine
3. Take me to the River
4. Partisan
5. eden

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Comment: I have been attending Sundance for over 20 years. I have seen it split into 2 Sundances : the One on Main Street .. stars . parties, music etc. and the authentic Sundance that Robert Redford envisioned when he stated it.John Cooper has returned Sundance to the original concept while at the same time recognizing Hollywood independent movies. The addition of the NEXT and New Frontiers categories takes Sundance into the future/

My film viewing criteria at Sundance is this: US docs. World Docs, World Narrative, NEXT, US Narrative, New Frontier and SHORTS. I do not go see films with stars that will open somewhere in the next year. My job as critic is to ferret out those films that in the current distribution crisis need to be seen and written about … above any other concern. I did go to The End of the Tour because of the subject matter and it turned out to be one of the best films I saw this year.

I do tape many of the post screening public Q&A's and be viewed on my youtube channel reeldealmovies

I saw 58 features in the 10 days at Sundance. . I did little other than be in a darken room with light splashed across a screen

The documentary category both US and World was full of worthy films and to limit to five was very difficult :The Chinese Mayor,The Masks you live in, What Happened Miss Simone, Welcome to Leith, The Amine Project. Censored Voices, Best of Enemies all were deserving.

I am Michael : I thought it was the best critique of Queer Theory I have ever seen. When you have no identity you are vulnerable to the dominant cultures seduction. Religion and spirituality are two very different things . Quite frankly I am tired of seeing James Franco's thick 40 year old body flesh out characters younger than himself. The dazzling smile works but it is for me wearing thin.

Grand Jury prize documentary winner Wolfpack is full of holes ...you can do that in an experimental narrative … and you can’t in a documentary.. You can have an experimental arc such as in Iraq In Fragments . But you can not have basic connecting information left out . The filmmaker says she saw these boys on the Street and followed then. She was seduced by the image but fails to have the skills to go underneath that seduction. That is what a good documentary filmmaker does.

jim fouratt in transit and sick with what may be the flue .