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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230311T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230311T233000
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230224T152827Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230224T153041Z
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SUMMARY:Four Star Video Subscriber Drive Celebration Party at Four Star Video
DESCRIPTION:Throughout February\, Madison movie-rental institution Four Star Video Rental has been calling on customers to sign up for subscription plans\, which enable customers to check out three or more titles at a time for a flat monthly rate. It’s a continuation of the good work co-owner Lewis Peterson has done to keep Four Star alive through multiple twists and turns\, including a move that happened just before the pandemic hit home. (Full disclosure\, Peterson writes for Tone Madison\, as do two of the DJs playing this event.) \nAnd Four Star—always Four Star Video Heaven in my heart\, though the “Heaven” dropped out of the official name when the store briefly became a cooperative—is not an endling in the streaming-fueled extinction of video stores. It survives because it’s dedicated to maintaining a deep selection of DVDs\, Blu-rays\, and even some VHS tapes\, embodying an infectious love for everything from prestige cinema to the most unhinged genre gems. \nIf the movie you were planning to watch suddenly vanished from one of your streaming services\, or was never available on streaming or VOD in the first place\, you can probably find it at Four Star. In the meantime\, you should probably go sign up and subscribe. \nOn Saturday\, March 11\, hang around after Four Star’s usual business hours as they wrap up the subscription drive with food\, music\, and movie conversation. A true home for local weirdos\, Four Star has brought in Madison DJs Destructo\, Emili Earhart\, Evan Woodward\, and Mu to spin throughout the evening. Their selections run from post-punk to techno to far-flung ambient. Whatever they play\, it’ll be a fitting sonic companion to an eclectic Four Star browsing experience. \n—Scott Gordon  \n\nIllustration by Shasya Sidebottom.
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/four-star-video-subscriber-drive-celebration-party-at-four-star-video/
LOCATION:Four Star Video Rental\, 459 West Gilman Street\, Madison\, WI\, 53703\, United States
CATEGORIES:Film,Music
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230315T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230315T203000
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230310T175039Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T231855Z
UID:16925-1678906800-1678912200@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:Project Projection: Spring 2023 at Arts + Literature Laboratory
DESCRIPTION:Alex T. Jacobs colorfully modifies the halo of a streetlamp (with outward-moving reds\, greens\, yellows\, and blues) on a snowy night in the short “snow light” (2023). \nThe Mills Folly Microcinema series returns this week at Arts + Literature Laboratory for 2023’s first installment of Project Projection\, its wide-ranging\, seasonal showcase of film and video shorts by Madison-based filmmakers. This program’s 14 films fall roughly into two categories; the first of these is music videos\, and any fan of Madison music will find something to love in the selections’ diversity of musical genres and visual styles. ViBRATiONLAND’s video for “Stabacab” (dir. Eric J. Nelson) may take the cake for most ingenious of the bunch\, using everyday objects like a CPAP tube and silly putty to make an alternately adorable and horrifying piece of stop-motion creature horror. \nMoving further into pure abstraction\, B. Hayes’ video for “Ovation” (dir. Max Wasinger and Peregrine Balas) is similarly visually voracious\, with its collaged and datamoshed black-and-white footage smearing into gorgeous swirls. The only non-contemporary piece on the program\, Gretta Wing Miller’s Man In Space (1981) splits the difference between the musical pieces and the rest of the video work\, editing spacewalk footage to Beatles songs and reveling in nostalgia for the late ’60s. \nFor the other half of the works\, experimental video like David Boffa’s A Due Remembrance Of Wolves (2021) takes the mantle. This minimalist nature doc trains its eye on two wolves at their leisure for most of its runtime; a narrator reads 19th century texts on the danger of the animal\, usually offering bounties for hunters to exterminate the “vermin.” This penchant for appropriated text is shared by another standout of the program\, Chloë Simmons’ Passing Through (2020)\, with its short GIF-like loops that are littered with digital detritus as scrolling words recite the textbook definitions of broad concepts like cause and effect\, truth\, and signs. Simmons’ piece is  dense and heady\, but also one that skillfully explores its title’s double entendres with a thoughtful reflection on queer identity. \nSome other videos are more abstract\, content to explore an aesthetic for its own sake like in Alex T. Jacobs’ serene snow light (2023). As ambient-treated piano rolls underneath the eight-minute shot of a streetlight under snowfall\, Jacobs manipulates the footage so that the light’s halo expands into a dazzling pixelated rainbows. It’s one of the simplest works on the program\, but one that ties it all together in highlighting both the natural beauty and artistic skill that can be found in Madison. \n—Maxwell Courtright
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/project-projection-spring-2023-at-arts-literature-laboratory/
LOCATION:Arts + Literature Laboratory\, 111 South Livingston Street\, Madison\, WI\, 53703\, United States
CATEGORIES:Culture,Film
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230317T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230317T202500
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230309T063401Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T231839Z
UID:16920-1679079600-1679084700@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:Invaders From Mars (1953) at UW Cinematheque
DESCRIPTION:The amphibious-looking Martians cradle an incapacitated David (back left) and Dr. Patricia Blake (center). \nInvaders From Mars (1953) follows one of the biggest trends of 1950s horror films\, reflecting the fears of Communist invasions and rampant McCarthyism of the era. Directed by William Cameron Menzies and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox\, it clocks in at just under 80 minutes\, which is a beautifully approachable length for a B-movie. \nPredating even The Twilight Zone series\, the film opens with narration over footage of the cosmos\, which declares that\, thanks to science\, we know more about the other planets in our solar system. Science is still breeding curiosity about the likelihood of other forms of life. \nFollowing this\, the camera follows young David (Jimmy Hunt) after he sees a flying saucer crash in a sandpit. The nameless town’s residents\, including his parents and classmates\, start acting strangely when they investigate the crash site. They all soon begin disappearing into a mysterious butthole in the sand. The multicolored backdrops here in the shots of the elusive sandpit evoke similar images of scenes of the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard Of Oz\, while other sets use exaggerated proportions\, stark symmetry\, and geometric framing ripped from German Expressionism. Filmed with Eastmancolor stock\, initial prints of the film used SuperCinecolor\, which is showcased towards the end when the townies eventually explore underneath the sandpit. \nAfter David’s parents fall under the influence of the invaders\, David gets taken in by two scientists as his surrogate parents (Dr. Stuart Kelson and Dr. Patricia Blake\, played by Arthur Franz and Helena Carter)\, the only two adults who believe something funny is happening in their town. One of the scientists gets the U.S. Army on the horn and convinces them to send in the troops. \nDuring the climax of the film\, David and Dr. Blake plummet through one of the sand’s many buttholes and into the arms of the Martians\, whose costumes look more like frogs than creatures from another world\, only adding to the tonal whimsy. Luce Potter\, the actor playing the Martian inside the glass (as seen gracing the front cover of the latest paper edition of the spring Cinematheque calendar)\, had previously played a Munchkin in The Wizard Of Oz\, which perhaps implies the similarities to the classic film were intentional. \nSeeing the new restored 4K version of this film with all its vivacious colors and practical effects on the big screen is guaranteed to be a delight! \n—C Nelson-Lifson
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/invaders-from-mars-1953-at-uw-cinematheque/
LOCATION:UW Cinematheque\, 821 University Ave / 4070 Vilas Hall\, Madison\, WI\, 53706\, United States
CATEGORIES:Film
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230323T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230325T221500
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230317T181455Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T231826Z
UID:16971-1679598000-1679782500@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:"Animation Is Film!" Festival at Union South Marquee
DESCRIPTION:In the black-and-white “Persepolis” (2007)\, a young Marjane Satrapi is reprimanded by two lanky Islamic fundamentalists for wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words “Punk is not ded.” \nAs a festival title\, “Animation Is Film!” reads like a resounding call to action. There’s an urgency embedded into its exclamatory nature\, as if the organizers are fighting an uphill battle for the medium to gain respect and recognition. They shouldn’t have to\, but the hierarchical structure of the film world continuously suggests—especially at the most visible levels—that animation isn’t worthy of the respect afforded to “traditional” film. Fortunately\, for the sake of discerning viewers everywhere\, events like Animation Is Film actively combat depressingly regressive viewpoints. \nFrom March 23 to March 25\, WUD Film will host five free screenings at Union South\, featuring modern or established animated classics. Leading things off on March 23 at 7 p.m. will be Don Hertzfeldt’s recent World Of Tomorrow trilogy\, which stands apart as both an existential masterpiece and one of the greatest short film runs in cinematic history. On March 24\, Brad Bird’s debut feature The Iron Giant will screen at 6:30 p.m. The Iron Giant‘s legacy\, impact\, and influence still resonates across today’s animation\, nearly 25 years after its release. Directly following The Iron Giant will be Fantastic Planet\, René Laloux’s experimental—and occasionally brutal—sci-fi parable for respectful coexistence. The film is also celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023\, and its central plea for societal peace still carries weight. \nAnimation Is Film will close on the 25th with another double-feature\, starting at 6:30 p.m.: Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue. Both features are united by way of adaptation: Perfect Blue‘s source material is the novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis while Persepolis has Satrapi adapting her original graphic memoir of the same name (alongside co-director Vincent Parronaud). Both films share other commonalities but are visually and thematically distinct. Persepolis‘ wars are both literal and figurative\, while Perfect Blue‘s are cultural and internal. Each remains essential viewing more than a decade after their respective releases (Perfect Blue in ’97\, Persepolis in ’07). \nAll five films feature protagonists who undergo a coming-of-age—or\, in the case of World Of Tomorrow\, coming-to-age—and learn extraordinarily harsh lessons about the nature of their surrounding world. Through their trials\, an element of profound humanity emerges even in the most fantastical circumstances. Above all\, these are films about hope\, about perseverance\, and\, importantly\, about animation’s transcendental power. All of the screenings will impart instrumental lessons about what can be accomplished within the medium. It’s up to us to continue to champion and celebrate those accomplishments\, and Animation Is Film is a perfect means to do just that. \n—Steven Spoerl
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/animation-is-film-festival-at-union-south-marquee/
LOCATION:The Marquee Cinema\, 1308 W Dayton St #245\, Madison\, WI\, 53715\, United States
CATEGORIES:Film
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230325T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230325T220000
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230315T201517Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T231740Z
UID:16959-1679770800-1679781600@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:The Godfather at UW Cinematheque
DESCRIPTION:The Corleones pose for a photographer at the wedding of Constanzia “Connie” Corleone (Talia Shire) and Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo). Don Vito (Marlon Brando) stands in the middle. \nReviving cinematic magic is one of the many things UW Cinematheque does best. Not only do they bring rare screenings to our increasingly small film market\, but they present unique opportunities to see classics on the big screen—like Francis Ford Coppola’s seminal epic\, The Godfather (1972)\, screening here in a new 4K digital restoration. \nA cherubic Al Pacino stars as Michael Corleone\, the youngest son of the Corleone mafia in New York City in the mid-1940s. Having just returned home from WWII as a decorated vet\, Michael has rebuffed a great deal of his father Don Vito’s (the brilliant Marlon Brando) guidance through the years and never really considered himself the type to take over the family business. His oldest brother Sonny (James Caan) is next in line\, or so he believes\, to take over. But after an attempt on the Don’s life\, Michael is forced to show his gall and mettle\, and has a chance to run things his way for the extended crime family. \nCoppola adapts the essence of the Mario Puzo novel\, with its prevalent themes of loyalty\, love\, sibling rivalry\, and unfiltered violence. Watching Pacino struggle internally between his personal and family values demonstrates what Coppola saw in him after his daring performance in The Panic In Needle Park (1971). \nThe Godfather ended up garnering numerous nominations for its cast and crew\, and won Oscars for Best Actor\, Best Screenplay\, and Best Picture. Consistently in top-10 lists for the greatest films of all-time\, The Godfather is a masterstroke in the categories of writing\, editing\, acting\, and production. The film remains one of the most influential of the “gangster” genre\, spanning over 50 years. Once Upon A Time In America (1984)\, Goodfellas (1990)\, and The Sopranos (1999-2007) all imitated its exploration of how the business of la cosa nostra and big business in America are often two sides of the same coin. \n—Edwanike Harbour
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/the-godfather-at-uw-cinematheque/
LOCATION:UW Cinematheque\, 821 University Ave / 4070 Vilas Hall\, Madison\, WI\, 53706\, United States
CATEGORIES:Film
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230407T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230407T205500
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230331T161740Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T231656Z
UID:17135-1680894000-1680900900@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:Throne Of Blood at UW Cinematheque
DESCRIPTION:Samurai warrior Taketoki Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) brutally murders an innocent castle guard (Takeshi Kato) with his sword after assassinating his lord in his sleep. \nAmong the countless cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth over the years\, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne Of Blood (1957) stands out as the most unorthodox\, transplanting the bard’s classic fable of ruthless political ambition from medieval Scotland to feudal Japan. In conjunction with University Theatre’s upcoming production of Macbeth (April 20 through 30)\, UW Cinematheque is theatrically presenting this atmospheric\, dreamlike\, and visually striking period drama on 35mm. \nThe legendary Toshiro Mifune portrays a seasoned samurai warrior\, Taketoki Washizu\, who finds himself entangled in a self-fulfilling prophecy after securing an important victory on the battlefield. Upon returning to their lord’s castle through Spider’s Web Forest\, Washizu and his friend\, Yoshiaki Miki (Minoru Chiaki)\, encounter a spectral soothsayer who portends their futures. As in the Scottish play\, Kurosawa’s retelling follows a decorated soldier who reluctantly murders his sovereign and ascends to power at the behest of his shrewd\, manipulative spouse (Isuzu Yamada). \nKurosawa was especially attracted to Macbeth\, once calling it his “favorite Shakespeare.” He preserves the essence of the bard’s play\, while elevating it to new aesthetic and cultural heights. Shot on Mount Fuji\, Throne Of Blood conjures a timeless\, otherworldly landscape enshrouded in mist and dense fog as the tragedy of its antihero unfolds. Intricately weaving the literary source material with stylized elements of Noh theater\, exquisite attention to historical detail\, and modern filmmaking techniques\, Kurosawa creates a poetic\, universal meditation on the human condition. With regard to his cinema\, the director has stated\, “When I look at Japanese history—or the history of the world for that matter—what I see is how man repeats himself over and over again.” \n—Jason Fuhrman
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/throne-of-blood-at-uw-cinematheque/
LOCATION:UW Cinematheque\, 821 University Ave / 4070 Vilas Hall\, Madison\, WI\, 53706\, United States
CATEGORIES:Film
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230412T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230412T201500
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230407T022440Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T231622Z
UID:17194-1681326000-1681330500@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:Terra Femme (with live narration by Courtney Stephens) at Arts + Literature Laboratory
DESCRIPTION:A blemished celluloid shot of one of many international waterways that Courtney Stephens has collected in “Terra Femme.” \nCourtney Stephens’ new documentary-performance Terra Femme (2021) seeks out the female gaze in films and literature about travel. Following a troubling diagnosis several years ago\, Stephens left an industry job to focus on her own projects\, which led to several years’ worth of archival exploration of early travel films by or featuring women. Stephens outlines these adventures in voiceover (live at this Mills Folly Microcinema event)\, with the archive-digging itself as a kind of travel as she globe-hops to flesh out the lives of the sometimes-anonymous camera operators. \nThe footage runs the gamut of the banal to the beautiful. Landscapes from vastly different parts of the world alternate with more casual verité shots of people coming and going\, walking and talking. Stephens’ reflections are wide-ranging\, as she considers the micro-narratives as well as what they may tell us about women’s filmmaking as a whole. She notes the demystifying experience of looking at all of this material back to back\, seeing so many valuable pieces of personal history from a vantage point that most often reveals their redundancies. \nStephens calls the film a work of “feminist retrieval\,” with the hope that by digging into each story\, “a nobody becomes a somebody.” Traveling with the film herself seems like a necessary way to complete the project—to have some element that can react and change as she moves the piece from city to city. It’s a rare opportunity for a screening\, not just to see a unique version of the film with live voiceover but to maybe—by virtue of being part of the filmmaker’s journey—be part of the project’s development itself. \n—Maxwell Courtright
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/terra-femme-with-live-narration-by-courtney-stephens-at-arts-literature-laboratory/
LOCATION:Arts + Literature Laboratory\, 111 South Livingston Street\, Madison\, WI\, 53703\, United States
CATEGORIES:Film
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230413T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230420T223000
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230413T052857Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230417T212124Z
UID:17242-1681412400-1682029800@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:2023 Wisconsin Film Festival at multiple venues
DESCRIPTION:The film festival guide’s cover art by Christina King shows a wildly decadent (and filmic easter egg-stuffed) birthday cake to commemorate the festival’s 25th year. \nThis year is a milestone for the Wisconsin Film Festival in a few ways. First\, 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of a festival that reliably comes through with considerable heft. Second\, this will be the festival’s last time holding a large portion of its screenings at Hilldale\, so next year’s event will likely be a very different experience from those of the past decade. Amid all this\, the festival is also taking new risks\, this time in the form of a sold-out “secret screening” on April 14 at the Marquee in Union South. Programmers have kept the details of this firmly under wraps\, even publishing a playfully redacted entry for the screening in this year’s festival guide. \nMost years\, the festival boasts more than 150 titles spanning international cinema\, narrative features\, documentaries\, “Wisconsin’s Own” films\, restored classics\, experimental short films\, and even some kid-friendly selections—all programmed with an eager embrace of both prestige and sleaze. Tone Madison‘s film team has been digging into the highlights over the past month\, so please make sure to catch up! If you appreciate their work\, help us do more of it by donating to Tone Madison. Your contributions literally help us pay these excellent writers. \n\nTreat yourself to the 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival\nWe like movie posters: A 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival gallery\nThe dead ends of language in the open-ended short film\, Noise\nTrying to reconcile the irreconcilable in Beyond Human Nature\nYoung French Cinema illuminates modern familial complexities\nForm follows function in Geographies Of Solitude and The Tuba Thieves and their sensory studies of the natural world\nThe flourishingly bittersweet I Like It Here captures the golden essence of humanity\nSearing themes and fleeting presences in five 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival selections\nNick Prueher of Found Footage Festival stomps baskets and lawsuits in Chop & Steele\nChandler Levack’s I Like Movies reaches through personal history to find reconciliation\n\n—Scott Gordon
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/2023-wisconsin-film-festival-at-multiple-venues/
LOCATION:WI
CATEGORIES:Culture,Film
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230428T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230428T204000
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230420T182801Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T231556Z
UID:17311-1682708400-1682714400@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:Police Story III: Supercop at UW Cinematheque
DESCRIPTION:Inspectors Jessica Yang (Michelle Yeoh) and Chan Ka Kui (Jackie Chan) stand side by side with fists and a gun at the ready. \nAlthough both are wonderful in their own rights\, there’s really no need to watch Police Story (1985) or Police Story II (1988) in order to enjoy the standalone speedway of antics and action in Stanley Tong’s Police Story III: Supercop (1992). \nAs the second to last screening in the 2x series at UW Cinematheque this spring\, Police Story III will have you double-pumping your fists in excitement at Michelle Yeoh\, who plays Inspector Jessica Yang\, and Jackie Chan\, who plays Inspector Chan Ka Kui\, narrowly escaping a room full of ready-to-explode ammunition. A familiar cast also returns to support Chan—the titular “supercop”—including his sometimes-supportive supervisor\, “Uncle” Bill (Bill Tung)\, and his sweet and somewhat impulsive wife\, May (Maggie Cheung). \nThe film’s plot is wrapped up with Inspectors Yang and Ka Kui’s undercover infiltration of a drug ring\, which takes them around mainland China and eventually into Malaysia. Through their earnest displays of fighting prowess\, grit\, and some clever disguises\, Yang and Ka Kui work their way up and eventually earn the respect of the ruthless and Tetris-obsessed crime boss\, Chaibat (Kenneth Tsang). More trouble ensues\, and the charismatic duo fights their way through with acrobatic flips\, high kicks\, and sometimes-borrowed guns. The story is fast-paced and frantic\, but the precise details of it melt away when the action and explosions start up; all that matters are Yeoh and Chan’s increasingly death-defying stunts. \nPolice Story III feels like a feature-length version of catching motorcyclists pop wheelies while riding down East Wash on a warm summer evening. Whether you’re like me\, and relatively new to the joys of the action genre\, or you are a seasoned Jackie Chan fan\, this film (screening here in its original international version) is a surefire good time. \n—Hanna Kohn
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/police-story-iii-supercop-at-uw-cinematheque/
LOCATION:UW Cinematheque\, 821 University Ave / 4070 Vilas Hall\, Madison\, WI\, 53706\, United States
CATEGORIES:Film
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230513T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230518T174500
DTSTAMP:20260404T002035
CREATED:20230513T202907Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T231450Z
UID:17456-1683997200-1684431900@tonemadison.com
SUMMARY:Fool's Paradise at Marcus Point Cinema
DESCRIPTION:Wearing a blazer and fedora\, Latte Pronto (Charlie Day) sits in an office and stares forward with a confused look on his face. \n“Fool’s Paradise” is also screening at Marcus Palace Cinema and AMC Fitchburg. \nFool’s Paradise\, the newly released comedy written\, starring\, and directed by It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Charlie Day\, plays against Day’s strengths so much that you have to wonder if it’s some kind of meta-prank on the public. Maybe Day is just seeing if he can garner praise from Sunny loyalists for a movie that isn’t funny at all\, despite much of the dialogue having at least the rhythm of jokes. It’s currently getting a fairly sizable theatrical push nationwide; and\, while it’s hard to endorse rushing out to the theater to see it\, you may get the chance to commiserate with other Sunny superfans\, and hopefully give Day the chance to get another swing that will connect next time\, or simply see a beautiful face\, huge. \nThe premise is a mix of The Prince And The Pauper and Being There (1979) (which Day freely admits to stealing from): a mute\, institutionalized man (Day) is dumped on the streets of Los Angeles\, and immediately is recognized as identical in appearance to huge movie star Sir Thomas Billingsly (also Day). He’s immediately whisked onto a movie set by an impatient producer (the late Ray Liotta)\, and begins his ascent to stardom despite not uttering a word\, unable to discern acting from reality or stop himself from looking directly into camera at all times. He’s accidentally dubbed Latte Pronto\, and a sweaty and desperate publicist Lenny (Ken Jeong) immediately latches onto him. \nEvery character Latte encounters is too self-involved to notice that the guy is completely blank;  they just project whatever else they think is needed onto him. Here\, Day is robbed of his signature\, manic line deliveries\, and prevents himself from making any facial expressions beyond bewilderment or a weak smile\, which leave the whole affair completely flat. (For a better use of silent-film era acting in a more modern context\, I’d recommend 1989’s Sidewalk Stories.) The initial setup gives a vague promise that Latte’s mute condition will be explained\, but that scene must have been left on the cutting room floor (to use a somewhat hackneyed phrase in keeping with a hackneyed movie). \nThe film was apparently filmed pre-pandemic\, and has been languishing in post-production since then. The extended editing time results in many scenes that have the bizarre feeling of comic staging\, but with the punchlines excised. The cast is stacked with celebrities that Day surely had to cash in some favors to get: Kate Beckinsdale\, Adrien Brody\, Jason Sudekis\, Edie Falco\, Jason Bateman\, Common\, and John Malkovich all make appearances. And of course Sunny regulars like Day’s wife Mary Elizabeth Ellis\, Jimmi Simpson\, Artemis Pebdani\, Lance Barber\, David Hornsby and Glenn Howerton round out the who’s who. \nDay has certainly had the most successful film career of the four main Sunny cast members (and recently voiced Luigi in the Super Mario Bros. Movie)\, but Fool’s Paradise feels closer in tone to Howerton’s appearance in the abysmal Coffee Town (2013) than something that plays to his strengths. After 18 years on TV\, presumably Day knows what he does well\, so it remains a mystery as to why he would write a vehicle for himself that does none of that. Without the mean streak that presumably rests more with Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney than Day (on Sunny)\, you get something so toothless you can feel some very sentimental gums nibbling your ear. \n—Lewis Peterson
URL:https://tonemadison.com/event/fools-paradise-at-marcus-point-cinema/
LOCATION:Marcus Point Cinema\, 7825 Big Sky Drive\, Madison\, WI\, 53719\, United States
CATEGORIES:Film
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