Tribeca 2023 #3: Cinnamon, Break the Game, Animated Shorts Curated by Whoopi G
Genre pictures, documentaries, and animated shorts complete this year's Festival.
In my final Tribeca Festival 2023 round-up, I find one of my favorite movies of the year, add another documentary to the repertory, and explore some animated shorts.
Many thanks to the folks at Tribeca for an engaging and powerful fest.
Cinnamon
Two young lovers risk it all to chase their dreams. With great performances, including a menacing Pam Grier, Cinnamon deftly brings the Blaxploitation genre to the modern day.
One of my favorite movies of the year is a Tubi Original.
Dropping on Tubi later this week, Cinnamon is a genre-loving crime thriller that pays homage to the famous lovers-on-the-run films, blaxploitation icons, western tropes, and the great gangster movies.
Crime films often center around dirty money, it's the butter to the genre's bread. This money belongs to the family of Mama (Pam Grier*) and her bumbling boys. It's laundered in gas stations. It travels with cocaine. It's used for both the pizza and the paid sex with the delivery driver.
But when everybody wants a piece of that money, from their business partners to the girl who works at the gas station (and her criminal boyfriend), that money's going to end up filthy. And covered in blood.
Everyone is going to back-stab (or hand-stab, or cheek-stab) each other to get that money.
In just under 90 minutes, Cinnamon hits all the right beats. Using a mix of directorial styles and genre references, director Bryian Keith Montgomery Jr. has collaged together an excellent feature debut. The young lovers are played by Hailey Kilgore and David Iacono and although you know that no one gets away with stealing dirty money, you really want them to. Damon Wayans plays the biggest idiot of the bunch, a role he slides into with ease, and crime films need bumbling idiots. He's not the only one, however, and this comedy-of-no-manners will turn violent fast.
It's an excellent film and any more would give away its twists and turns. It's a highlight of the Tribeca Festival.
*This woman has been a blaxploitation icon for over 50 years and she's STILL appearing in the genre's best.
Break the Game
Record-breaking gamer Narcissa Wright grapples with her toxic obsession for attention and her space in the streaming community after coming out as transgender, all while attempting to set a new world record for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The internet can be a lonely place. Some know this, many find out the hard way. Narcissa Wright found out the hard way.
She used to be a world-record-holding speed runner - the pursuit of playing a video game faster than anyone else, in record time. Her Zelda runs were famous, but after coming out as transgender, her audience dried up.
When the documentary Break the Game starts, Nintendo is about to release Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Narcissa hopes that a return to form will bring a return of her audience. What used to be thousands joining her Twitch streams now only reaches double-digits, many who come to watch her depressive episodes, bully her during her frequent naps, and witness her only interaction with human beings. But maybe Zelda will help change everything...
The film portrays that exact change, from live streams that reach 1k viewers to a budding romantic relationship with a frequent viewer. Maybe she'll even get closer with her mom, if she can separate the real world and the Twitch world.
But it probably won't be that easy because Narcissa has an addiction - an addiction to attention. And speedrunning games on Twitch brings that attention. The documentary, directed by Jane M. Wagner, may or may not be misleading as a quick Google search shows that life wasn't sunshines and rainbows after the movie ends - something the movie seems to portray in a semi-ambiguous ending to a story that's still unfolding nearly a decade later.
On a technical level, it's largely compiled of clips from over 3,000 hours of Narcissa's streams and cuts and arranges those in order to form its narrative. It clocks in at just over 70 minutes, which surely rivals three-hour investigative amateur documentaries found on YouTube on the same subject.
Narcissa's story is a cautionary one, a story that cautions against fame and attention-seeking and loneliness and screen addictions and more. This doc does want to caution us, but doesn't seem to know how.
Animated Shorts Curated by Whoopi G
Imaginative storytelling and captivating craft.
American Sikh
The true story of an American-born, Indian-raised man (filmmaker Vishavjit Singh), who finds that the best way to pair both parts of his identity is to dress as a turban-wearing Captain America. Truth, justice, and the American way might be Superman's thing, but Singh's alter ego gives him a run for his money, showing that being from somewhere else doesn't make you an outsider. It's a powerful story.
Restless is the Night
2D animation from China, telling in four minutes what takes others many more: do what makes you happy.
The Night Doctrine
Journalism through animation is a powerful tool. When attempting to find out who murdered her family 30 years ago, Afghan journalist Lynzy Billing uncovers an American program that resulted in hundreds of Afghan deaths. I wish I could say, "You'll never believe what she discovers" but sadly, yes, yes you can.
Corvine
A wordless piece about a young boy obsessed with crows, often pretending to be one. His parents find a charming way to harness that kinetic energy, but at least he was playing outside before!
Witchfairy
Being a fairy is boring - being a witch would be way more fun! This Belgian film is the first of the bunch where I went, "Yep, I can see why Whoopi Goldberg likes this one." Being different is cool! I mean, have you seen Whoopi's shoes?
A Cow in the Sky
Beautiful animation is cut together with harsh footage of white supremacists, telling the story of a young Ethiopian man whose life was cut short. The harsh reality of tragedy staining beauty.
Starling (pictured)
Director Mitra Shahidi and other Pixar employees/alum put together this 10-minute, dialogue-less tale about the beauty of every day and the celebration of life after the passing of her childhood friend. Set in 1990's Istanbul, it's a story everyone can understand.
Media courtesy of Tribeca Festival.