Juiciest of fruits at 2016 Tribeca Film Festival

As the Tribeca Film Festival, which plays out for 10 days in mid-April, takes place mainly in the Tribeca district of Manhattan -- said in real estate argot to stand for Triangle Beneath Canal, but in fact a neighborhood carved out in the shape of a trapezoid -- one would assume the festival would be filled with all the glamour, crush and adulation bestowed upon its birthplace, but you would be happily wrong.

Despite its location, and being under the aegis of one Robert De Niro, who helped found the festival back in 2002 as an artistic response to the economic chaos to the area brought about by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Tribeca has long slid mostly under the radar of the fulcrum of domestic cultural heavy-hitters and the international press.

Part of the reason lies in its acquisition strategy. The festival largely leaves the big-deal films to Cannes, Toronto International Film Festival, and, naturally the New York Film Festival, focusing instead on bringing in a bevy of all sorts of things. There's no one pervading philosophy or methodology, Tribeca showcases films that a) their talented curators and programmers think will be of most interest, and b) that they can secure.

The result, admittedly, is a bit of an artistic mishmash: You might watch three pretty lousy films in the morning and afternoon, only to find an unheralded triumph that night. For the press, whose nonpublic screenings all take place at a multiplex in the Financial District, it also means no exhausting lines, no furious tweeting the second a film's end credits begin to crawl, and absolutely no pressure to catch anything other than what strikes your fancy, which, after the brute, hierarchical savagery of Sundance, or the hopelessly enormous slate at Toronto, is a most welcome relief. It's like a day-spa for film critics.

In a mixed bag, here are the films and festival elements that made the most impact on us over a single long weekend:

Funniest moment: The police beatdown scene in Nerdland. The animated film from director Chris Prynoski, from a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker (yes, the slapstick, happy-go-lucky writer of Se7en) is pretty much a gross-out raunch fest about a pair of loser friends (voices of Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt) who attempt to become famous in an era of short attention spans and ubiquitous self-promotion. Funny throughout, as long as you can stomach it, the high-point is a scheme they hatch whereby the skinny, neurotic screenwriter (Oswalt) attempts to goad a group of cops into attacking him, therefore providing his friend, an aspiring actor (Rudd), with a chance to video the event and have it go viral. Unfortunately, things go terribly wrong, and the scene, played absolutely deadpan, made me giggle the rest of the day.

Distressing documentary theme: The takeover of the military/martial forces by shadowy interests. How's this for a lineup of depressing depictions of absolute systemic failure? Sonia Kennebeck's National Bird, a documentary about the military's drone program and the fall-out over its impact on innocent foreign citizens and the men and women who pilot the crafts from the safety of an office park half a world away; Do Not Resist, a documentary from Craig Atkinson about the increased militarization of local police forces, many of whom are endowed with advanced level military grade weapons and transport furnished to them by Homeland Security and a military that appears to have more of a budget than they know what to do with; and Kristi Jacobson's Solitary, concerning the practices and failures of a single super-max prison in rural Virginia, condemning many of its prisoners to a life utterly devoid of human contact, and any access to the outside world for 23 hours a day. Depressed yet?

Most beautiful backdrop: Literally all of Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Taika Waititi's adventure yarn about a foster kid no one else wants (Julian Dennison), and the crabby naturalist woodsman (Sam Neill) who eventually takes him in as they go on the lam from the law in New Zealand's gorgeous North Island forests, leans heavily on the easy, predictable comedy of a family friendly film, but the land is absolutely mesmerizing in its stunning, green glory. There's a reason it's the perfect stand-in for Middle Earth.

Disney's branding dream: Sweet Owen Suskind is a man with autism who was able to connect to the outside world via the magic of Disney animated films in Life, Animated. Owen, who the film follows as he begins the arduous process of leaving his parents' home and fending for himself at a special apartment complex, is thoroughly winning and charismatic, and his love of Disney's "timeless classics" such as The Lion King and The Hunchback of Notre Dame is infectious and authentic. In short, there's nothing wrong here, except for the fact that Owen's story could simply not play any more perfectly for the Giant Mouse. Their heartwarming films were what young Owen based his entire understanding of the outside world upon. It should shock absolutely no one that one of the film's primary production companies is A&E IndieFilms, a subsidiary of, among others, Disney.

Quickest character turnaround: Dan Stevens' once blind but now sighted husband and father in Ido Fluk's drama The Ticket. Stevens plays James, a sweet, humble man who lost his sight as an adolescent, but found a wonderful, caring woman (Malin Ackerman) with whom to fall in love and have a son. He works for a nefarious realty company, cold-calling homeowners to try and convince them to sell their houses. When, one magic morning, his sight suddenly returns, he very quickly jumps from joyous rapture to egomaniacal dirtbag, rising quickly through the company, dropping his wife for a younger, hotter model, and pretty much ruining his life in the process. It works far better as a kind of biblical parable than a straight drama, but even then, James' 180-degree heel-turn seems faster than that of a WWE wrestler.

Most expensive apple: The single, reasonably fresh honeycrisp I bought at Le District grocery across from the theater that retailed for a cool $2.84. How do you know you've been to New York? Because no matter what you started out with, every last dime has been emptied out of your pocket by the time you leave.

Most grating film: The cloyingly fanciful "dinner party of mystery" film, Perfect Strangers. Italian director Paolo Genovese sets his slick drama up as a dinner party between old friends who supposedly know one another very well. One of them suggests a "game" whereby they each put their cellphones on the table in front of them and, during the course of the meal, any calls, texts, Instagrams, etc., they receive will be revealed to the entire party. Naturally, everyone's life falls apart, marriages are dissolved, sexualities questioned, friendships destroyed, and everyone ends up despising everyone else. Had this been a jet-black comedy, it might have been fine, but as a drama, it just made me gnash my teeth.

Best documentary: Burden, about the late performance and conceptual artist Chris Burden, who emerged out of the early-'70s Los Angeles scene as a formidable force in the art world. Best known for a piece of performance art where he let himself get shot (in the arm), Burden spent years challenging the notions of what art could (and should) be, creating in his spectacles a sense of expectation that converted many a critic (including, it must be noted, the late, great Chicago Sun Times' Roger Ebert). By the time he moved from performances to intricate, beautiful installations -- check the work he did for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and be prepared to be blown away -- Burden had mellowed his particular construction, but still carried the banner of provocative, absorbing cultural icon. The doc covers the entirety of his career, from art school iconoclast to beloved SoCal installationist, and is a fascinating exploration of the mind and process of a singular provocateur.

Best Film: Always Shine, a captivating and unsettling film about two actress friends alone in a beautiful getaway house for a weekend that is part Single White Female and part Persona. Sophia Takal's film is smart enough to assemble a hodgepodge of horror tropes -- two beautiful women (Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin FitzGerald) alone in the woods, a sense of dread and discomfort in the hum of the ambient soundtrack and series of jarring jump-cut edits -- without ever succumbing to predictable resolutions. As the film progresses, things become more unclear and esoteric until you have no choice but to accept it on its own terms. It manages to be an engaging portrait of young actresses attempting to carve out their careers, and something much more deep and foreboding: the limits of envy, and the uniquely perverse way one can never know the truth about anyone else until it's quite possibly too late.

MovieStyle on 05/06/2016