Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  The phrase ‘showing up’ has multiple connotations. You can show up unannounced – uninvited and imposing. Your reluctant host eagerly anticipates your departure. Showing up also means humiliation, casting shade. You might be competent but someone in the room grabs the attention, letting off fireworks. Moreover, they get a catalogue. Your relatives can show you up too, behaving in your presence in such a way that you become responsible for their actions, or at least you feel that way. You show up for work, but are you really there? Presenteeism is a problem, colleagues being reluctant to do admin. Showing up can also be a good thing. The person you thought who was lost finally appears. Does it really matter if they eat all the cheese? A friend can show up; their timely intervention can put everything into perspective. Director Kelly Reichardt explores all of these meanings in her seemingly low-stakes drama, Showing Up , which she co-wrote with her frequent writing partner Jon Raymo...

Pictured : Art graduate J.B. Mooney ( Josh O'Connor ) cases the Framingham Museum of Art in writer-director Kelly Reichardt 's 1970-set American crime drama, ' The Mastermind '. Still courtesy of Mubi. What use is an art degree if you are not driven to create? This is a question partly answered by writer-director Kelly Reichardt’s 1970-set film, The Mastermind . Artists are by their nature divergent personalities with a reflex for expression who question society and our relationship to others. In the narrative arts, they explore questions of morality, confronting divergence that is destructive in nature. Narrative artists are less concerned with ‘good verses evil’ than societal benefit verses narcissism. However, a creative urge is also narcissistic, venerating the self. Against that is the belief that art can foster curiosity about others. By contrast, narcissists are only curious – nay, paranoid – about how others perceive them. Reichardt’s protagonist, art graduate...