This is by no means a “best of.” It is more a “best of” what fit into my schedule and had tickets available. The short reviews below include two really outstanding films, The Secret Agent and Creede USA. The Montclair festival often screens the movies that will be popping up in theaters and on streaming services over the next few eeeks. So you might want to look for a couple of these.

The Secret Agent ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A university researcher is pursued by a hit man hired by an unscrupulous corporate executive. That is the glue that holds together the plot, but there is oh so much more going on in this movie. There’s corrupt cops, corrupt government officials, bullying businessmen. There’s hired killers subcontracting to other hired killers. There’s a lovely refuge for the potential victims of all these predators run by a charming old woman. And last, but not least, there’s the mysterious story of the severed human leg discovered inside the body of a dead shark. Local media can’t get enough of that one and it finds its way into the dreams of young and old.

It’s Brazil in the 1970’s. Was the country really this dangerous and chaotic? It may well have been since it was in the throes of a military dictatorship. The movie takes place during Carnival time and the papers are keeping tabs on the fatality count. It hits 100.

The director of this movie, Kleber Mendonca Filho, won the best director award this year at Cannes. Easy to see why. One technique that he uses is to not spell everything out, leaving some questions unanswered. That may not always work but it does here. The loose ends of the story add a layer of mystery to the adventure. Wagner Moura, who played the lead role, was named best actor at Cannes.

This is by far the best fictional movie I saw at the festival. It’s nearly three hours, but it’s so engaging that the time flies by. It is Brazil’s entry in the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film.

The Secret Agent is scheduled to be released in theaters Dec. 5.

Creede USA ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Creede, Colo., was a mining boom town. They had silver. Now they have 257 people left. But Creede has one thing you wouldn’t expect to find in a remote outpost like this: a summer repertory theater company. And with the theater comes some people who don’t look like the descendants of the town’s rough and tumble miners. Some of them aren’t white. Some of them aren’t straight. Does it work? Well, the theater has been in business for 60 years since it was founded by some University of Kansas students in the 1960’s.

You will meet some people in this documentary who you wouldn’t expect to find in a place like Creede. Most notable is the loveable young teen (maybe 13?) Lexi, who is the first non-binary person to come out as such in Creede. There’s a interracial couple from Jersey City who headed west so she could take the theater director job. And at the theater we see a version of Cinderella with a heavy-set biracial woman in the lead role.

Creede is wrestling with issues that are contentious in many places. The school board is where we see these aired. There is a debate about arming staff at the school. And even more difficult is the issue of the health curriculum. Should there be sex education? How should it deal with gender identity? Can parents opt out?

What is most remarkable about this documentary is that at a time when there really aren’t very many uplifting things going on in this country, it offers hope. In this small town with few resources and not much education, people with very different views can not just co-exist, but respect and support each other. Oh, and by the way, there’s some really beautiful mountain scenery as well.

Creede USA is currently scheduled to be screened at several film festivals.

Hedda ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Two hours or so of a supposedly high society party in a mansion. And these are academics, so it’s surely not contemporary.  But because of that, a lost manuscript is a key part of the plot, that is, amidst the drunkenness, infidelity, lewdness and other forms of misbehavior that characterizes this shindig. Hedda Gabler, the evil mistress hostess, is the ringleader for most of it.

I have neither read nor seen the Henrik Ibsen play that the movie is based on so I can’t offer any comparisons. But I would think it’s a safe bet that the interracial and Lesbian trysts were probably not part of Ibsen’s 19th century work. The movie does borrow liberally from other classic pieces of literature, most notably the Great Gatsby from which both the party scene and the time frame seem to have been derived. It brings to mind a number of other books and movies about women trapped in marriages they don’t really want.

This is a story of a group of equally unlikeable people each self-destructing in their own way. As a genre, I have to say that total despair is not my favorite. That is not to say the acting isn’t excellent, the cinematography well done and the script cleverly put together.

Hedda is available on Prime Video. 

Dreams ⭐️⭐️⭐️

No one’s dreams are fulfilled here. Not the young Mexican illegal immigrant Fernando who dreams of making it as a dancer in America. And not Jennifer, the wealthy, older, American heiress with whom he has an affair and who finances his journey.

This is all very timely within the context of what is happening in America now. Though it is notable that the immigration agents who capture and deport Fernando are absolutely professional compared to Kristi Noem’s masked gestapo wannabes. As an immigrant saga, the film is divorced from reality, as this illegal seems to have access to unlimited resources, thanks to his lover.

Dreams are not fulfilled that are not pursued and no one in this tale can tow a straight line. The film is moving and emotional, but equally disturbing. It’s a plot dominated by bad choices and worse consequences.

Could not at this time find any availability.