So many of us participated in “The Ice Bucket Challenge”. The real question is, how many of us took 60 seconds to Google why we were doing it? Patrick Sean O’Brien‘s inspirational documentary TRANSFATTY LIVES paints a stunning, incredibly raw picture of ALS.
At 30, Patrick Sean O’Brien was TransFatty, a New York City DJ, Internet personality, and filmmaker. He spent his days as a beer-drinking creative force, making art films about perverts, vulnerable souls, and Howard Johnson’s restaurants. Then his legs started shaking.
Defying sentimentality, TRANSFATTY LIVES takes you on an emotional roller coaster from Patrick’s wild, fun-loving days into the dark heart of ALS (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease). Given 2 to 5 years to live, Patrick first loses his ability to walk, then move his arms, then to swallow, and even to breathe. With the support of his bewildered friends and family Patrick braves the unthinkable and turns his camera onto himself.
As the director and star of his own documentary, Patrick films every step of his debilitating journey from first diagnosis through his current paralysis. Forcefully lacking self pity, he captures the emotion, humor, and absurdity of real life as he makes art, gets political, falls in love, fathers a son, and fights extreme depression and paranoia.
At 40, Patrick has completed this film by typing directions to his editors with the movements of his pupils. Miraculously, TRANSFATTY LIVES is not a movie about death. Because, while Patrick’s brain stopped being able to control his muscles, it remains brilliantly alive, allowing him to ask: “What if my diminishing physical abilities can be inversely proportional to my journey inward? And, more importantly, “will there be bacon and unicorns once I get there?”
Patrick’s film is moving, impactful, and funny. Narrated by Patrick, mostly through voice-to-text on his computer via eye movements, the structure of the film is high impact with footage from his previous quirky films, photographs of his adventures, and dairy entries starting from 2005, when he was diagnosed with ALS. Completely unafraid, what began as a film about Patrick’s love for Howard Johnson, soon becomes a film about his journey. His crew seem to become a huge part in his care-taking. Along with his family, they are totally immersed in Patrick’s world, as much as someone without ALS can possibly be. If you’re not crying half way through this doc, you may not actually have a soul. Patrick has created a lens through which the audience can begin to understand just how quickly this disease sucks the life out of you physically. Having Patrick as the center of this project is invaluable. Firstly, he’s intensely charming. Using humor and positivity, he is able to put us at ease. But, moments of extraordinary challenge break the surface at every turn, throwing reality back into our faces just as quickly. The film’s balance is sheer perfection. TRANSFATTY LIVES should be seriously considered as awards season ramps up in the coming weeks. Patrick Sean O’Brien is a brilliant filmmaker and one hell of a human being.
TRANSFATTY LIVES won the ‘Audience Award’ at The Tribeca Film Festival, Milano Film Festival, and American Film Festival in Poland. It was also a Top 20 Film at HotDocs International Film Festival.
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I’ve been a nanny and a teacher. We all know, even working outside early childhood education that some parents ans children are just plain weird. Yup. I said it. Weird. In Juanra Fernandez‘s new Spanish horror creation PARA ELISA, weird takes on a whole new meaning. 
In need of some quick and easy cash, Ana arrives for a job interview as a nanny. The mother of the house is an eccentric musician with a screw loose. One giant dilemma stands in Ana’s way; Mom is not only certifiably insane but her daughter, Elisa, is even more disturbed. Her sense of reality has been twisted by years of abuse combined with what seems like mental illness. Ana is made into a living doll for Elisa to “toy” with. 
Our heroine is played in realistic fashion by Ona Casamiquela. I do not know what I would do faced with this scenario but she fights her ass off. Scary mommy Diamantina is played brilliantly by Luisa Gavasa. Think Sunset Boulevard lost her mind. I would watch an entire film about her back story in a heart beat. Elisa is portrayed by Ana Turpin. She skillfully created a character you find yourself caring for and fearing. This is a fearless performance. I would seek out more work from her. Someone get Guillermo Del Toro in touch with Turpin, please? 
Not since Grand Piano have I been this unsettled by the sights and sounds of a piano in an opening credits sequence. This sets the stage for the entire rest of Para Elisa. Taking a page right out if Stephen King‘s Misery, add in a dash of People Under The Stairs parenting style and you’ve got yourself a rousing good time. The violence ramps up and up as the story progresses, all action occurring within one night, and at a tight 71 minute run time, Para Elisa is one satisfying nightmare.
Sex comedies are all the rage these days. Films like The Overnight and Sleeping With Other People, two of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival favorites will be coming your way in July and September respectively. Until then, The Little Death will fill the void, pun potentially intended. There are also lots of MILFs on the adult dating sites so you can easily 
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