Sean Baker

Anora

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Ivan and Ani

A fable, a thriller, a subdued comedy and a cryptic love story, Anora is also the winner of five Oscars and confirmed the arrival of Sean Baker at the top of the film-making tree. This appeared to have started with his breakthrough, 2015’s Tangerine – the one shot on an iPhone – but in fact got going 15 years, four features, a couple of shorts and several episodes of TV earlier. Note to self, having seen all the post-Tangerine stuff (The Florida Project, Red Rocket and now Anora) isn’t it time to have a look at Baker’s earlier work? One of those Oscars went to Mikey Madison, a firecracker as a lapdancer with … Read more

Red Rocket

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Strawberry and Mikey on a fairground ride

Red Rocket is the latest news bulletin from Scuzzville USA by Sean Baker, who gave us bitching transexual sex workers in Tangerine (the one “shot on an iPhone”) and the travails of motel-dwelling poor white trash in The Florida Project. Both of those flirted with poverty porn and so does Red Rocket, more literally this time with the story of busted porn star Mikey Saber (Simon Rex), who returns to his Texas hometown to re-ingratiate himself with his his estranged wife Lexi, who lives with her mother in however you designate a dwelling that’s one up from a trailer. Constant background noise, or something big and ugly hovering at the edge of the … Read more