Tribeca 2023 #1: Chasing Chasing Amy, Rather, Songs About F---ing, Smoking Tigers
Documentaries lead this first slate of reviews.
The 2023 Tribeca Film Festival kicked off a few days ago with their usual slate of world premieres, international cinema, bold debuts, documentaries, shorts, and more. Here are a few reviews from the first few days of the Festival:
Chasing Chasing Amy
When a young filmmaker sets out to understand the ’90s LGBTQ+ rom-com that saved his life, he is forced to confront complicated truths of his own, that will change who he is forever.
Chasing Amy, Kevin Smith's 1997 indie rom-com, is basically impossible to examine in the Year of Our Lord 2023. Some find it to be a foundational text for gay cinema and representative of their own personal and sexual journeys, while others find it to be a Weinstein-produced outlier in the truth of LGBT life.
Chasing Chasing Amy, the documentary from Sav Rodgers about his personal journey with the film, lands squarely in the camp of it's okay for things to be complicated. Especially when, as in Rodgers' case, the movie does more to speak to one person's sexual and gender identity than representing an entire community's politics. When Rodgers first watched his parents' VHS copy of the film, he didn't know how it would speak to him or that he would watch it over 200 times or that he would set out to make a documentary charting his gay and transgender life in America's heartland.
The documentary doesn't end up the way he expected, however, as the discovery that it's okay for things to be complicated extends far beyond a Kevin Smith movie. Rodgers learns that while the film was a career launching pad for Smith, the film represents a dark time in the life of star Joey Lauren Adams, rehashing her personal struggles, from the difficult conversations with then-boyfriend Smith being rewritten (largely in a revisionist history) to fit the narrative of the film, to her interactions with Weinstein, Miramax, and the 1997 Sundance Festival that Rose McGowan's testimony has made infamous. Chasing Amy represents something different for everyone involved, from those who made it to those who watched it regularly on VHS, and as Adams points out in the difficult and defining interview of the film, it's not fair to push your feelings on another.
What can be beautiful and religious for one person can be sanctimonious and painful for another. No one person is wrong as it's okay for things to be complicated, but that discovery is a necessary one in the filmmaker's life. The documentary's documentation of that journey is powerful, contemplative, and nothing less than intriguing.
Rather
For decades, Dan Rather delivered the news with authenticity, integrity and courage. RATHER chronicles his rise to prominence, sudden downfall, and re-emergence as voice of reason to a new generation.
In his 2012 autobiography Rather Outspoken, longtime journalist and former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather wrote, "Much of my career has been dedicated to what we call 'investigative reporting.' In general, I find that phrase to be redundant: Any worthwhile reporting needs to be, at least on some level, investigative."
Cut to the new documentary Rather, directed by Frank Marshall (Arachnophobia, Eight Below). It's Mississippi in 1962, Dallas in 1963, Vietnam in 1966, Chicago in 1968, China in 1972, Watergate in 1974, Cuba in 1974, Afghanistan in 1980, Berlin in 1989, Iraq in 2003 - all in a Forrest Gump-esque highlight reel of national and international politics of over four decades.
One could argue that any journalist worth their salt would be in those places at those times or that Rather seemed to often be in the right place at the right time. But few could argue that Rather made it his mission to be in those places come hell or high water. Or, as this excellently comprehensive biographical documentary shows, that the investigative reporting synonymous with his name is no less than a public service and essential to our democracy. As Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush and Fox News fought back on his life's work, Rather never stopped his attempt to document the truth, from the Zapruder film to zings on Twitter. It didn't always work out well for him - the documentary doesn't shy away from his 2005 outing at CBS after the controversial report of George W. Bush's military service, (in that same book, Rather wrote, "Why was I out at CBS? Because I reported a true story) - but it was always rooted in one moral belief: courage. Courage to get the truth and tell the truth.
Songs About Fucking
In the fall of 2021, filmmaker James Gallagher rode across the country with Marc Rebillet on his sold-out Third Dose Tour to capture what it was about the artist, showman, and robe-clad musical alchemist that brought thousands of people out of their homes for the first time.
"One of my favorite things in the world to do is have sex...I feel like I've just had two months of incredible bliss," says musician Marc Rebillet in the waning moments of the documentary that followed his 2021 Third Dose Tour. This should come as a surprise to no one who watched the 90 minutes that preceded that statement, as Songs About Fucking is all about Rebillet singing songs about fucking. He's a performer that lets it all hang out (literally - he performs in boxer briefs, bras, and bathrobes) on stage as he improvises songs about "big booty black girls" ("Work That Ass For Daddy") and reenacts his own birth, through the legs of a "pregnant man" pulled from the front row.
This may seem weird to anyone unfamiliar with Rebillet before the documentary (and that's okay, it is weird), but this is just a Thursday night in Kansas City for his loyal devotees. And this film, the feature film directorial debut of James Gallagher, will be most appreciated by those folks. It follows the melodious loop-machine lovemaker as he travels the country and does so at what was probably the perfect time to make the documentary as he's famous enough to be a sold-out sensation, but still open to honesty, complete behind-the-scenes access, and personal discovery, (there's a particularly touching moment where he reflects on his relationship with his recently-passed father.) His fans will also appreciate the up close, onstage moments from the tour, especially as these largely-improvised shows would only exist in memory otherwise. He'll also make a few new fans from this strong documentary, as it's hard not to respect his vulnerability, honesty, and musical prowess.
Smoking Tigers
Staggered by the separation of her parents, a Korean-American girl struggles to find herself. Caught between supporting both parents in their work while longing for their old life together and burdened by the responsibility of a younger sibling, few things seem to be falling into place. Upon starting a new year of high school among wealthy elites, she also has to balance the duality of her new friends and low-income reality.
Not enough coming-of-age films show the main character dealing with one of the worst things about coming-of-age: the SATs.
Hayoung’s grades are fine, but not good enough for anything more than a state school - something that would fall way below her mother’s plans for her. Unfortunately, her mother’s plans for herself have fallen apart (she and Hayoung’s father are separated, they can only afford a cramped apartment, and she’s having to take on odd jobs) and she needs things to go right for her oldest child. As a result, Hayoung is enrolled in a high-intensity (and expensive) academic boot camp, or hagwon, where the wealthy student populace only makes her feel more like an outsider.
In 2022, writer/director So Young Shelly Yo and producer Guo Guo pitched Smoking Tigers to Tribeca and AT&T’s Untold Stories initiative, winning the $1 million funding to produce the film and the opportunity to premiere at this year’s festival and the chance to land on Max.
With what seems like a pretty speedy turnaround time, the filmmakers have put together an impressive debut. It’s easy to make films about teenagers that spend time at prom or show them wrecking their first car or packing up for college. It’s a lot more difficult, and commendable, to make a movie about the SATs or taking care of a younger sister or daydreaming of a better life. In fact, that’s my favorite thing about Smoking Tigers - there’s a scene where Hayoung (an interesting Ji-young Yoo) sneaks into a house much nicer than the crappy apartment she hates (a house that compares to those lived in by the hagwon’s other students) and literally dreams of a better life. Her parents are not only together, but cuddling up. Homemade haemul pajeon is on the dinner table. The house is bright and joyful and filled with a loving family. It all plays out in front of her as if it was real.
I think anyone whose teenagehood consisted of worries usually reserved for adults will understand this feeling. That's what Smoking Tigers gets right.
Chasing Chasing Amy media courtesy of Sicily Publicity.
Rather media courtesy of Tribeca Festival.
Songs About Fucking media courtesy of Falco Ink.
Smoking Tigers media courtesy of Tribeca Festival.