11 November 2-8, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | Culture | Cafe | MusiC | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | Crystal Clear Don’t miss these ten hotly anticipated films at Gems 2023. BY TRAE DELELLIS AND DOUGLAS MARKOWITZ F all in Miami! The temperatures drop ever so slightly, hurricanes get stronger, and awards-season movies start rolling out. Septem- ber through December is high season for cinephiles as studios release their buzziest awards contenders in theaters and festivals. Luckily, the Magic City’s got a fall festival of its own. Miami Film Festival’s Gems is bringing more than two dozen pres- tigious pictures to Miami Dade College’s Koubek Center in Little Havana and Sil- verspot Cinema downtown from November 2 to 5. New Times combed through the lineup and picked the most-anticipated films screening throughout the festival’s four-day run. American Fiction First-time director Cord Jefferson pulls from his experience in the writers’ rooms — the ra- cial mythologizing of Watchmen, the upper- class lampoon of Succession — for his film debut. Jeffrey Wright plays Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a college professor and struggling writer whose nuanced literary ex- plorations of the Black experience go ignored by liberal white tastemakers — until, that is, he decides to play a little joke. He invents a new pen name, writes the most stereotypical, simplistic novel he can, and sends it off to publishers — who adore it. The book gives Monk the most success he’s ever had, but he soon finds himself doing whatever he can to keep the lie going. While the premise recalls films such as Spike Lee’s satirical Bamboo- zled, where a Black sketch comedy show wins rave reviews for a literal minstrel show, as well as the polite racism at the heart of Get Out, American Fiction may go in even more surprising directions. 7:30 p.m. Friday, No- vember 3, at Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St., Miami. Tickets cost $20. DOUGLAS MARKOWITZ The Boy and the Heron A new film from Hayao Miyazaki is the ani- mation equivalent of Beethoven returning for a tenth symphony. The legendary anime di- rector, who gives the likes of Martin Scorsese a run for his money as the greatest living film- maker, has been threatening retirement for decades. Yet, to everyone’s great pleasure, he can’t seem to stop from making movies. This time around, however, there’s an increasing sense of urgency. Miyazaki is 82 years old. His Studio Ghibli directing partner, Isao Taka- hata, has already died, and the firm sold to Nippon TV a month ago. Though he has dis- cussed returning for another film, his ad- vanced age means this new symphony could be his last. That alone should get you in the door. Beyond that, let’s not say much else. When the film debuted in Japan earlier this year, Ghibli instituted a blackout on market- ing, providing few, if any, details on what hap- pens in the film. The setting is wartime Japan. The main character is a boy. He meets a heron. Magic ensues. That’s all you need to know. 4:30 p.m. Saturday, November 4, at Sil- verspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St., Miami. Sold out. DOUGLAS MARKOWITZ Dream Scenario Ever dream of Nicolas Cage? If so, Gems has just the movie for you. In what Variety calls a career-best performance, the legendary actor stars in Kristoffer Borgli’s clever social satire as a mild-man- nered professor who suddenly appears in the dreams of every- one on Earth. In- stantly, Paul Matthews becomes a global celebrity, but as he quickly learns, being famous isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That goes double when Paul’s presence in people’s dreams goes from innocuous to threatening. After skewering “main character syndrome” in his 2022 film Sick of Myself, Borgli goes to strange new places in Dream Scenario, reminding us all that if there’s any- thing we’re less in control of than our subcon- scious minds, it’s other people. 8 p.m. Friday, November 3, at Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St., Miami. Tickets cost $12 to $13. DOUG- LAS MARKOWITZ Evil Does Not Exist Ryusuke Hamaguchi has emerged as one of Japan’s most accomplished new filmmakers. He won the Oscar for “Best International Picture” in 2021 for Drive My Car, an unbe- lievably great adaptation of a Haruki Mu- rakami short story, but his original films such as Asako I & II and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy are also satisfying, cataloguing a myriad of human relationships in a way that’s quietly enthralling and somewhat lit- erary in execution. While his previous films tended to revolve around the personal prob- lems of various urban dwellers in Tokyo and other cities, this time, the city slickers are the ones causing problems for a rural village where a certain company wants to build a glamping site. When two public relations reps from the firm arrive to smooth things over with the locals, they get the last thing they need when one local man, Takumi, raises concerns about what the project will do to the town’s water supply. Things spiral from there until the film reaches a shocking climax. Could it be that evil does exist after all? Only one way to find out. 1:45 p.m. Sun- day, November 5, at Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St., Miami. Tickets cost $12 to $13. DOUGLAS MARKOWITZ La Chimera One of the most enthralling and curious film- makers to come out of Italy in a long time, Al- ice Rohrwacher feels like the heir apparent to Federico Fellini. Her latest film, La Chimera, only strengthens the comparison and argues that she is one of our greatest contemporary directors. Recently released from jail, Arthur, a crumpled English archeologist — think a downtrodden Indiana Jones — is haunted by his long-lost love, Beniamina, while staying afloat by robbing Etruscan tombs. He is aided by a rag-tag team of tombaroli (tomb raiders) who feel ripped out of a Fellini film. Rohrwacher continues to mine the collision of past and present, rural and urban, and vul- garity and divinity to create bewildering and intoxicating films. In addition to the afore- mentioned performances, the film is rounded out with supporting performances by the icon Isabella Rossellini and Alba Rohrwacher, the director’s sister. If you enjoy a dirty brand of magical realism, you should get a ticket to La Chimera. 5 p.m. Saturday, November 4, at Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St., Miami. Tickets cost $12 to $13. TRAE DELELLIS Memory One of the festival’s more mysterious titles comes from Mexican provocateur Michel Franco, who shocked international cinema with his 2020 film New Order. Since that film, Franco has worked on the English-language production Sundown with Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg. His latest film, Mem- ory, debuted at the Venice Film Festival and won Peter Sarsgaard the “Best Actor” prize. In Memory, Sylvia (Jessica Chastain), a social worker, is followed home from her high school reunion by Saul (Sarsgaard) in a sur- prise encounter with overwhelming ramifi- cations on both their lives. This should not be missed if you are interested in the complexity and messiness of being human. 7 p.m. Satur- day, November 4, at Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St., Miami. Tickets cost $20. TRAE DELELLIS Monster After expanding geographically to France and Korea, filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda re- turns to Japan for his latest feature film, Mon- ster. He continues to bring his masterful humanist filmmaking to this film which won the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival this year. A tale of multiple perspectives, best intentions, and unavoidable misunderstand- ings, Monster ranks among the director’s best films. Each narrative shift excites as a new piece of the puzzle is revealed until you fi- nally see the complete image. The film fol- lows drama at a school where a teacher may be abusing a child, and Koreeda takes equal care, telling everyone’s side of the story: the mother, the teacher, and the child. The trip- tych storytelling has been easily compared to Rashomon, but Koreeda takes the idea of multiple perspectives somewhere fresh for his latest film. If you enjoy subtle edge-of- your-seat humanist tales, Monster should be on your list to see. 8 p.m. Saturday, November 4, at Silverspot Cinema, 300 SE Third St., Mi- ami. Tickets cost $12 to $13. TRAE DELELLIS ▼ Culture Hirokazu Koreeda’s Monster Nicolas Cage in Dream Scenario Miami Film Festival photos EVER DREAM OF NICOLAS CAGE? IF SO, GEMS HAS JUST THE MOVIE FOR YOU. >> p12
