NYAD (2023)

Written by Julia Cox



Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin



Where & When: Landmark Theatres Sunset, West Hollywood, CA. October 24, 2023 8:00 PM



Available to stream on Netflix on November 3, 2023



For the first narrative feature by the Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the married couple decided to continue in their fascination with themes involving intense sports and athletes. "Nyad" is an engaging yet safe recreation of Diana Nyad, the famed long-distance swimmer, and her dream of completing a treacherous sixty-hour, one hundred and three-mile swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida. Facing unpredictable weather conditions, fluctuating water temperatures, perilous marine life and her advanced age, Nyad had plenty of obstacles that made this extreme marathon seem virtually impossible to accomplish. Yet after several attempts, with fierce determination and a powerful ability to dissociate, Nyad was able to actually make the impossible possible.

We meet Nyad (Annette Bening) in 2010 on her sixtieth birthday and demanding to her friend, Bonnie (Jodie Foster) that she absolutely does not want a party. But having briefly been lovers and now her closest friend, Bonnie throws a thrilled Diana a surprise party, knowing very well what she really wanted. Aging also triggers in Nyad a strong desire to complete a swim from Havana to Key West she first attempted thirty-two years ago. Nyad begins extensive training and pushes a skeptical Bonnie into being her coach.

Hiring John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans), the captain of the fishing vessel who will follow alongside her as she swims, Nyad makes her second attempt a little over a year later escorted by a paddler in a kayak equipped with an electronic shark repellent. But ends the quest twenty-nine hours later after strong winds throw her off-course and begins to suffer some shoulder pain. Nyad attempts again a month later but is stopped once more after forty-one hours in the water due to multiple stings from jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-war when bad weather pushes her off-course. Nyad tries again yet is unable to finish although she covers more distance than her previous attempts. With Bonnie and the crew beginning to lose their patience, time and money on this more seemingly, crazy venture, Nyad knows she can do it if given one more chance.

Memory plays a large part of the film with Nyad continuously going over in her mind the errors that were made in her previous attempts to make the journey to Florida. She is also haunted by the abandonment of her father from the family and most troubling, the sexual abuse she suffered from her swim coach that Nyad had a crush on when she was a pre-teen.

One thing about Nyad is that she is no shrinking violet. Abrasive and demanding, this swimmer is confident in herself and her abilities and more than happy to share this information with anyone who will listen. Benning is a reliable commanding presence and delivers another terrific performance. Yet the four-time Oscar nominee still has some difficulty making the prickly Nyad an appealing protagonist and finding a way to make us really want to root for her. Luckily, Bonnie is around to try and soften Nyad's rough edges and lack of proper people skills. Playing her first queer character on screen, Foster comes across as jovial and relaxed, capturing a lighter side of the actor that has been rarely seen over her lengthy career. Together, these veteran performers make a great team, displaying genuine warmth and chemistry. 

It's clear that Chai Vasarhelyi and Chin are still trying to find their way to make a smooth transition from documentary filmmaking to narrative storytelling. They lean a little too much on actual footage of the real Diana Nyad and her journey throughout the film, undercutting the actors' achievements to some degree. The film is a solid debut feature film yet ultimately, "Nyad" feels conventional, never pushing to challenge us narratively or visually. We are left to be moved by the sheer will and determination of Nyad, trying to beat the odds of this incredible quest. And while the film certainly succeeds as an inspirational biopic, it's not really enough to keep "Nyad" afloat as a compelling drama.

2023 AFI FILM FESTIVAL

AFI Fest is the premiere event in Los Angeles that celebrates world cinema and this year's thirty-seventh edition will feature over one hundred and forty films from across the globe. The festival will once again be held in the heart of Hollywood at the historic TCL Chinese Theatres.

The Opening Night Red Carpet Film that is making its world premiere will be "Leave the World Behind", Sam Esmail's adaptation of the novel by Rumaan Alam. Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali and Ethan Hawke star in this dystopian thriller about two couples, who are complete strangers and holed up in a house in Long Island, having to decide how best to survive a mysterious disaster threatening the world.



The Centerpiece Screening is "Maxine's Baby: The Tyler Perry Story", a documentary by Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz that examines the complicated life and groundbreaking career of the African American actor, filmmaker and media mogul, allowing us access into the little-seen, inner world of Perry.



And the Closing Night Red Carpet Film selected is Bradley Cooper's latest turn as a director, "Maestro", a bio-pic in which he also stars as the composer Leonard Bernstein. This drama takes us on an emotional journey through this gifted musician's life, his artistry and complicated relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre, played here by Carey Mulligan.



There are various sections in the Fest that include World Cinema which will feature several films selected by their country to be the submission for this year's Oscars; Discovery which highlights new voices in contemporary cinema; Luminaries offers a selection of the latest films from important filmmakers; Documentaries; Special Screenings and a shorts competition.













This year's Guest Artistic Director is Greta Gerwig, the actor and director who was behind "Barbie", the summer blockbuster hit that became an unlikely cultural phenomenon. She has curated five films to be screened during the fest that had an impact on her as an artist and filmmaker. The classic films selected are "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" (1985) and "A Matter of Life and Death" (1946) (which Gerwig will be on-hand to do in-person introductions for these films); "All That Jazz" (1979), "An American in Paris" (1951) and "Wings of Desire" (1988).







For the complete list of films and to purchase tickets and passes, please click below:

2023 AFI Fest

WALT DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIOS @ 100

Warner Bros. is not the only movie studio celebrating a centennial. This year Walt Disney Studios came into existence on this day one hundred years ago. Far removed from the global media conglomerate that it has now become, Disney began as a scrappy, yet innovative animation company started by two midwestern brothers, Walt, who was the creative driver and Roy who handled the production side of the studio.

Arriving in Los Angeles from Kansas City, MO in 1923, the brothers got their start producing a series of silent shorts that merged live-action and animation about a young girl named Alice and Julius, her cartoon cat. Another creation by Disney was "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" with the animated shorts were done for Universal Studios. But after a contract dispute over money and not owning the rights to Oswald, Disney began secretly working on a new character with a mouse named "Mickey".

The first Mickey Mouse short appeared in 1928 was silent and with sound on the horizon, the next film, "Steamboat Willie" was released later that year and became the first with synchronized sound. It became a major success and Disney began work on a second cartoon series, "Silly Symphonies" the following year. All of the initial animated films were in black & white and after the studio made a deal with Technicolor and their three-strip color film process in 1932, Disney made the first color "Silly Symphonies" short, "Flowers and Trees".

Walt Disney began considering a feature length animated film in 1934, deciding to base the story on the Brothers Grimm's German fairy tale. This expensive project, at over a million dollars and taking three years to complete, was extremely risky and if it failed could bankrupt the company. But "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" became a critical and commercial success, earning more than eight million globally during its initial release.

Disney would continue to achieve great success with other popular animated features ("Cinderella", "Bambi", "Dumbo", "Peter Pan", "Alice in Wonderland") and live action films ("Treasure Island", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Mary Poppins", "The Shaggy Dog", "The Parent Trap"). The company expanded to build a brand amusement park in Anaheim, Ca named "Disneyland" in 1950 and moved into television, offering such shows as "Walt Disney's Disneyland" and "The Mickey Mouse Club". Disney was in the process of developing a second theme park in Orlando, Fl and near completion of production on their nineteenth animated feature, "The Jungle Book", when Walt Disney, a heavy smoker, passed away from lung cancer in 1966.

The studio continued on, opening "Disney World" in 1971 and finding some success in live-action films and television yet struggled for a number of years in the animation division. But it was in the late 1980's with the release of "The Little Mermaid" that helped return Disney back into a reliable studio that created critically acclaimed and globally popular animated movies.



Disney’s 1937 animation classic, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" will be coming to Disney+ in a new 4K restoration that will premiere on Oct. 16th to celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary.

INVISIBLE BEAUTY (2023)

Directed by Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng

Where & When: Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles, CA. September 28, 2023 7:00 PM


You may not be familiar with the name Bethann Hardison unless you're really intrigued by the inner workings of the fashion world. And Hardison's story would be fascinating enough with her being an unassuming African American woman from Bed-Stuy who managed to beat the odds at the time by becoming a popular international model then going on to start her own successful modeling agency. But what the documentary, "Invisible Beauty", co-directed by Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng, brings into focus is what the former model has become best known and greatly admired for by many who work in the style industry: her outspoken activism in fearlessly challenging the status quo and being extremely vocal in regard to how the business over the years has inadequately dealt with race, more than willing to call individuals out by name when necessary.

Born and raised in New York City, Hardison attended FIT and NYU Tisch School of the Arts before landing a job as seller in the garment district. Her life would make a dramatic change after meeting designer, Willi Smith, the man behind the whimsical fashion line, WilliWear and would go on to be regarded as one of the most successful African American designers after his passing in 1987 from complications of AIDS. First becoming his fit model, Hardison smoothly transitioned into working in front of the camera.

A highlight of her modeling career came when she was a part of the largely African American models who came to France in 1973 for the Battle of Versailles Fashion Show, a fund-raising, face-off event between French and American designers. While the French had an elaborate yet stiff presentation, the Americans (which included Oscar de la Renta, Halston and Anne Klein) only had the models to display their clothes on the runway which they did with a carefree style and exuberance, bringing the audience wildly to their feet.

By 1981, Hardison changed her focus from modeling to becoming a model booking agent. Three years later, she formed the Bethann Management Agency which represented a diverse range of models that most agencies probably would never have considered. Some of the beautiful faces that Hardison repped included Roshumba, Kimora Lee Simons, Veronica Webb (who became the first African American model to land a major cosmetics contract) and Tyson Beckford, one of the world's most famous male models who enjoyed a long, exclusive contract with designer Ralph Lauren.

And it was around this time that Hardison went on to form Black Girls Coalition with fellow former model, Iman to celebrate these women, uplifting and guiding these models to give back to the community. Later she became a major force not long after the turn of the century when the industry went backwards by actively not using models of color. Hardison quickly went to work organizing a town hall meeting to address this lack of diversity in fashion and advertising.

Originally, Hardison wanted to make a film about the fashion industry but people around her wisely suggested she narrow her focus. She teamed up with Tcheng, who has a history of creating captivating documentaries on important figures in fashion (Valentino, Diana Vreeland, Halston) and together came up with the concept to shape "Invisible Beauty" around her struggle to write her memoir, allowing this film to organically reflect back on her life.

Hardison married young and briefly, having a son, Kadeem who would become known as an actor, appearing in "The Cosby Show" spin-off sitcom, "A Different World". She's aware that she never achieved a perfect balance between her career and motherhood, leaving her relationship with her son today complicated and, at times, strained. Yet Hardison is maternal and nurturing, caring for the young models that came her way, mentoring and offering her home as shelter when needed.

"Invisible Beauty" is an inspirational document which details of a life well-lived. Hardison is certainly filled with contradictions yet she's a generous spirit who offered her experiences and created opportunities to made sure that those who followed after her could also benefit to have an equal and fair chance to flourish in the arduous fashion business.