GO MIRAGEMAN (Chile) When soft-spoken but hard-bodied strip-club bouncer Maco (Marko Zaror) happens upon a home invasion, he grabs one of the perpetrators, appropriates his ski mask and saves the day. TV news reports end up capturing the imagination of Maco’s handicapped brother, who lives in a mental home, and thus Maco decides to push things further by donning a superhero costume and putting his self-trained karate skills to work. The LAFF program notes call Mirageman “the most exciting actor-director team-up since Chow Yun-Fat first met John Woo,” a braggadocious comparison that does nobody any favors; better to think of it as a cinematic indie comic that critiques the tropes of its bigger-budget antecedents. (Regent, Sun., June 22, 9:45 p.m.; The Landmark, Thurs., June 26, 10 p.m.) (LYT)
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GO MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH (USA) Writer/artist/musician Morgan Dews is clearly a creative fellow, but he didn’t have to use much imagination in crafting his first feature — it turns out that his grandmother had saved hours upon hours of recordings and home movies in a collection whose size was only revealed after her death. Those films paint a dark portrait of a 1960s family gradually deteriorating under an alcoholic patriarch and the psychiatric misdiagnoses of the children. Dews has edited that raw material into a 76-minute sorta-narrative, embellished with a haunting, ambient score by Albrecht Kunze Paul Damian Hogan. Hard to focus on at times but a work of art for sure. (The Landmark, Fri., June 20, 7:15 p.m.; Regent, Sat., June 21, 4:30 p.m.; Italian Cultural Institute, Wed., June 25, 4:30 p.m.) (LYT)
GO PAPER OR PLASTIC? (USA) In America, there’s a contest for everything, including fastest grocery-store bagger. Held each year in Las Vegas, the three-day event brings together state bagging champs, eight of whom are the subjects of this irresistible documentary from co-directors Alex D. da Silva and Justine Jacob. The contestants, all (with the exception of a 50-year-old Minnesota man) in their late teens and early 20s and completely charming in their naiveté, are so enthusiastic and serious about grocery-store life that one feels cynical and hardened by comparison. Despite what the papers say, there apparently are happy people out there in America. (Regent, Fri., June 20, 7:30 p.m.; The Landmark, Sun., June 22, 1:30 p.m.; Mann Festival, Wed., June 25, 4 p.m.) (CW)
THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED (USA) There’s nothing pleasurable about this (barely) feature-length, self-consciously retro debut by writer-director Josh Safdie, which suggests what might happen if you took the navel-gazing American indie movement known as Mumblecore (e.g., Funny Ha Ha, Hannah Takes the Stairs) and reduced it to the point where all that remained was some navel lint. Safdie’s girlfriend and muse (and the film’s alleged co-writer), Eléonore Hendricks, stars as a free-spirited young woman who wanders the streets of Manhattan engaging in random acts of kleptomania (including the theft of a car) and bedding down with a sorta-kinda boyfriend (played by Safdie). A movie this thin needs lots of charm to get by, but The Pleasure of Being Robbed has none to burn. (The Landmark, Sun., June 22, 4 p.m.; Regent, Tues., June 24, 4:30 p.m. and Wed., June 25, 9:45 p.m.) (SF)
THE POKER HOUSE (USA) In her feature-film directing debut, actress Lori Petty taps the autobiographical to craft a coming-of-age tale set in 1976 small-town Iowa. Co-written by Petty and David Alan Grier, The Poker House is a day in the life of high school basketball star and soul-music fanatic Agnes, as she flirts with her addict mom’s abusive pimp/lover, tries to take care of her younger sisters and comes out on the other side of a brutal attack. Unfortunately, this glimpse into poverty’s myriad tolls is unevenly written (from self-consciously poetic voice-over to stilted dialogue) and features too many embarrassingly broad performances (including ones by Grier and Selma Blair). Fantastic soundtrack, though. (Mann Festival, Fri., June 20, 7:30 p.m.; The Landmark, Mon., June 23, 4:30 p.m.; Majestic Crest, Wed., June 25, 7 p.m.) (EH)
PRESSURE COOKER (USA) “Break the mentality of the McDonald’s palate!” is among the tough-love advice dispensed by culinary-arts instructor Wilma Stephenson, whose inner-city Philadelphia high school students have racked up millions in prestigious trade-school scholarships. It’s too bad that co-directors Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker haven’t taken more of their subject’s advice to heart, shoehorning Stephenson’s story into the “contest documentary” mold that already seemed tiresome back when Spellbound and Mad Hot Ballroom were making a mint peddling it. Can I get fries with that? (Mann Festival, Sat., June 21, 7:30 p.m.; The Landmark, Tues., June 24, 7:15 p.m.; Regent, Wed., June 25, 1:45 p.m.) (SF)
PRINCE OF BROADWAY (USA)“Will you stop mumbling?” This, to leading man Prince Adu, the most garrulous (though not necessarily the least inspired) of the improvisers who populate Sean (Greg the Bunny) Baker’s sentimental echo of the Dardennes brothers’ The Child. Adu plays Lucky, the West African street hawker of designer knockoffs on whose doorstep is dumped the awesomely cute little snot-nose who sets his paternal heart thumping. Along the way, disjointed subplots threaten to intersect, a handful of New York types undergo cursory development along predictable lines, and rare, muted snatches of real poetry manage to filter through the incessant histrionics. (Regent, Sun., June 22, 7 p.m. and Mon., June 23, 1:45 p.m.; The Landmark, Thurs., June 26, 4:30 p.m.) (RS)
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