Emjay Anthony and Jon Favreau live the food truck life in “Chef.”
Credit: Open Road Pictures
There’s only a few more days left in this year’s sprawling Tribeca Film Festival. Consider these for your weekend moviegoing (and get tickets and more schedules here):
‘Chef’
A foodie wet dream, Jon Favreau’s culinary opus features dishes and Cuban sandwiches lovingly prepared, which frankly is enough. The story — in which his hotshot chef recreates himself on the food truck scene, and bonds with his son — is stock but given just enough personality that cliches can be let to slide. It’s a film that genuinely, passionately loves food as art, not as a mere commodity. Sun., April 27, 9 p.m., SVA Theater
Credit: Alison Rosa
‘Every Secret Thing’
Written by Nicole Holofcener (“Lovely & Amazing,” “Enough Said”), this layered drama finds the filmmaker in a more grave key, exploring child abuse and kidnapping. A case of a missing child in a small town reignites interest in two high schoolers (Danielle Macdonald and Dakota Fanning), who accidentally killed an infant when they were little girls. There’s a few too many half-started subplots and characters, plus a questionably smug conclusion, but its dense depiction of how the past haunts the present remains elegant. Sun., April 27, 6:30 p.m., SVA Theater
Credit: Corey Walter
‘Goodbye to All That’
A companion piece-of-sorts to “Hello, I Must Be Going,” complete with the same ex-wife (the terrific Melanie Lynskey), the directorial debut of “Junebug” cowriter Angus MacLachlan takes the dude’s side. Paul Schneider is an oblivious man-child who’s shocked when his spouse announces their divorce. He mostly throws himself back into dating, which in our tech world means flings with crazy women (Heather Graham, Anna Camp, etc.). There’s a distasteful entitlement to some of his conquests, but MacLachlan doesn’t side, necessarily, with his bro hero. He keeps reminding us he’s living in a bubble; there’s a more serious movie going on outside his microcosm, one that subtly reveals that he’s at fault for his crumbled marriage and life. Sat., April 26, 6 p.m. Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea
The cast of “Intramural” helps mock the usual underdog sports movie cliches.
Credit: Ryan Green
‘Intramural’
Proceeding through an inspirational sports spoof as though “Dodgeball” doesn’t exist, Andrew Disney’s comedy still finds its own absurdism. A motley crew faces off against a team run by a crypto-fascist (Ben Stiller — I mean, Beck Bennett), while the boring lead guy (Jake Lacy) woos a free-spirit (Nikki Reed). A mix of current “SNL” members and up-and-comers, they pull their resources and fire off some invented gags — as well as non-inventive ones about gay panic and butch lesbian athletes. Fri., April 25, 11:30 p.m. Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea; Sat., April 26, 6 p.m., Tribeca Cinemas Center
Jesse Eisenberg broods in the dramatic thriller “Night Moves.
Credit: Tipping Point Productions
‘Night Moves’
The great Kelly Reichardt (“Wendy and Lucy”) is a leftist filmmaker, albeit one prone to sometimes brutally honest introspection. Her latest, loosely adapted from Edward Abbey’s “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” watches as three environmentalists (Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard) take an act of protest too far, possibly resulting in innocent deaths. Like her character’s acts, Reichardt’s film gets away from her; suffice to say she’s not the director to stage acts of violence. But the guilt and fear is deeply, achingly felt. Sun., April 27, 6 p.m. AMC Village 7
Emma Roberts plays a disaffected, bored teen in “Palo Alto.”
Credit: Tribeca Film
‘Palo Alto’
Films about youth tend toward the condescending and vaguely pervy; a film that does Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” on a short story collection by James Franco should be no different. But throw in debuting feature film director Gia Coppola, and you have a film that smoothes over the problems with the source. It helps that this is a refreshingly rare youth film that’s not about nerds. One (Jack Kilmer) is a mathlete, but he’d rather bro down with his self-destructive bud (Nat Wolff). But most have modest ambitions that don’t extend past high school, including the athlete (Emma Roberts) who divides her time babysitting for and sleeping with her coach (Franco). The main comparison point here is “The Virgin Suicides,” by Coppola’s relative Sofia, though her style is grounded where that was dreamy, though both capture a time of life when blinders are firmly on. Fri., April 25, 2:30 p.m., AMC Loews Village; Sat., April 26, 9:30 p.m., SVA Theater
A firebreather is one of the many gorgeous sights in “Tomorrow We Disappear.”
Credit: Josh Cogan
‘Tomorrow We Disappear’
Seeking to preserve on film a pocket of the world — the bohemian Kathputli colony in Delhi — before its bulldozed for high-rises, Jim Goldblum and Adam Weber soak up a culture, and with appropriately striking camerawork. In fact, it’s sometimes too pretty; stretches of the film fetishize poverty while (very American) sad-triumphant music blares. Those onscreen, though, are strong enough to withstand how outsiders exoticize them, much as they do try. Fri., April 25, 9:30 p.m., Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea
Mathieu Amalric plays submissive to Emmanuelle Seigner in Roman Polanski’s “Venus in Fur.”
Credit: Sundance Selects
‘Venus in Fur’
Roman Polanski is too versatile a director to be stuck making stage adaptations, but both “Carnage” and especially his follow-up show that he can bring out the nerve-racking in the relentlessly chatty. Once again tackling a New York-set play — namely David Ives’ acclaimed two-hander — but moving it to Paris, he snoops in on a mysterious sparkplug of an actress (Emmanuelle Seigner) as she undoes a director (Mathieu Amalric) mounting a play of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s S&M-themed “Venus in Furs.” Roles reverse, the play is dismantled and put back together again, and Polanski generally has more fun depicting the slide into genuine madness, while his actors do the same. Sat., April 26, 7 p.m., AMC Loews Village
Also consider: “Time is Illmatic” (Fri., April 25, 4 p.m., AMC Loews Village 7), “Regarding Susan Sontag” (Fri., April 25, 6 p.m., AMC Loews Village 7), “This Time Next Year” (Fri., April 25, 9:30 p.m., SVA Theater), “Love is Strange” (Sat., April 26, 12 p.m., AMC Loews Village), “Five Star” (Sat., April 26, 2:30 p.m., Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea), “When the Garden Was Eden” (Sat., April 26, 2:30 p.m., Tribeca Cinemas), “About Alex” (Sun., April 27, 10 p.m., AMC Loews Village 7), “Iverson” (Sun., April 27, 9:30 p.m., SVA Theater)
Follow Matt Prigge on Twitter @mattprigge
