NEW THIS WEEK May 24, 2024 (IN THEATERS AND ON HOME VIDEO)
NEW THIS WEEK (IN THEATERS AND ON HOME VIDEO):
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA--The first "Mad Max" movie without a Max, Australian visionary George Miller's follow-up to 2015's Oscar-winning "Fury Road" is an origin story for Imperator Furiosa, the one-armed rig driver introduced in that film and memorably incarnated by Charlize Theon. Spanning 15 formative years in the eventful life of Furiosa--played alternately by Ayla Browne and "Queen's Gambit" breakout Anya Taylor-Joy--and divided into five chapters, it's more interested in (occasionally labored) world-building than mind-blowing action setpieces. Evolving from a gender-bending orphan into a hellion of Max-ian proportions, Furiosa ultmately finds her loyalty split between dueling post-apocalyptic underworld leaders Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme). At two-and-a-half hours, it's the longest entry in the 45-year-old franchise, as well as the first to incorporate more VFX than practical effects. Not surprisingly, it feels more like a Marvel movie at times than any of Miller's previous (and better) MM actioners. (B.) https://youtu.be/FVswuip0-co?si=0dJ9JXXNO-aeINJh
THE GARFIELD MOVIE--This cookie-cutter CGI 'toon based on Jim Davis' long-running comic strip seems to exist solely to give the already overexposed Chris Pratt another potential movie franchise. After reuniting with his wastrel alley cat dad Vic (Samuel L. Jackson), lasagna-loving Garfield (Pratt) and beagle BFF Odie (Harvey Gillen) are suckered into joining Vic in the heist of 1,000 gallons of milk from a dairy farm. Naturally things end badly--but not as humorously as intended--for all involved. While Garfield survived two middling live-action/animation hybrids in the early aughts (Bill Murray provided sardonic vocal duties for the titular kitty), the latest incarnation just might close the chapter on any future big-screen outings. With Nicholas Hoult as Jon, Garfield's long-suffering human, and Snoop Dogg as "Snoop Cat" (that casting marks the quintessence of wit here), it's a movie only the youngest, least sophisticated viewers will embrace. (C MINUS.) https://youtu.be/S3XjsSvwSuU?si=k_obz2hxC7SKnzv7
THE LAWYER--Before commandeering a Dodge Challenger in 1971's "Vanishing Point," Barry Newman played the titular role of proudly Italian-American Harvard grad Tony Petrocelli in "Ipcress File"/"Lady Sings the Blues" director Sidney J. Furie's crackerjack courtroom procedural. Tasked with defending a hot-shot Colorado doctor (Robert Colbert) accused of murdering his pregnant wife (Mary Wilcox), Petrocelli must contend with both a dogged D.A. (Harold Gould) and an uncooperative, not particularly sympathetic client. Although the movie wasn't particularly successful with audiences or critics at the time (Judith Crist in New York Magazine complained that it was "about on par with a TV murder mystery"), it somehow managed to spawn a successful NBC series ("Petrocelli") that ran from 1974-'76 with Newman reprising his counselor-at-law role. Interestingly, producer Brad Dexter had originally intended to make a film about Sam Sheppard, the Cleveland osteopath who stood trial for the murder of his wife. (The same Sheppard who inspired long-running tube series, "The Fugitive," as well as the Oscar-nominated 1993 Harrison Ford blockbuster.) But when that didn't work out, he barreled ahead with this roman a clef version instead. My favorite scenes are the ones between Newman and Diana Muldaur as Petrocelli's wife/law partner. Muldaur, who could have been Charlotte Rampling's American cousin, was one of the sexiest, albeit most sadly underutilized actresses in late '60s/early '70s Hollywood. This was probably Muldaur's juiciest big screen role (she worked on television a lot more than she ever did in the movies, including memorable supporting roles on "L.A. Law" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), and she's wonderful here. The chemistry between her and Newman is so palpable that it's a major loss they were never re-teamed. The new KL Studio Classics Blu-Ray includes an audio commentary with historian Daniel Kremer and Canadian director Paul Lynch (with archival excerpts from Furie); separate (drat!) interviews with Newman and Muldaur; and the original 1970 theatrical trailer. (B PLUS.)
SIGHT--Ming Wang, whose journey from rural China to Harvard and MIT led to his spearheading of revolutionary laser eye surgery, is the focus of Andrew ("Paul, Apostle of Christ," "The Blind") Hyatt's boilerplate, Christian-proselytizing biopic. Played as an adult by Terry Chen (Ben Wang and Jayden Zhang assume the role in flashbacks which comprise more than half of the 100-minute run time), it's a movie you want to like because it was clearly made with the noblest intentions. But the filmmaking/performances are so rote--and the preachiness so off-putting for anyone who doesn't identify as an Evangelical Christian--that it feels like a missed opportunity. Dr. Wang's remarkable life and career deserved better. (C MINUS.) https://youtu.be/gn7TlzfNdzE?si=5OySQlh8a9wlkudb
THREE REVOLUTIONARY FILMS BY OUSMANE SEMBENE--Unlike most Third World films of the 1960-70's which were unrelievedly grim and barely disguised Marxist tracts (e.g.,"The Hour of the Furnaces" by Argentinean directors Octavio Gettino and Fernando Solanas), the works of Senegal's Ousmane Sembene were often warm, funny and satirical. Although Senegal--a former French colony which won its independence in 1960--has a population of just four million, it produced the most important movies of Black Africa, notably those of Sembene, the continent's best-known filmmaker. Three of Sembene's finest, most controversial and politically incendiary films ("Emitai," 1971; "Xala," 1975; and "Ceddo," 1977) have just been released in a Criterion Collection box set. For fans and initiates alike, it's a cause for celebration in helping boost the profile of World Cinema. Sembene, the unofficial "Godfather of African Cinema," has finally received his due.Set during World War II, "Emitai" depicts the clash between native Senegalese and French troops over forcible conscription, heavy taxation and dwindling rice supplies. Although it won prizes in the former Soviet Union (Sembene studied filmmaking in Moscow and briefly worked at Gorki film studios in the early 1960's), the movie provoked considerable resentment in France where it was deemed "politically objectionable."Spoken in French and Wolof, Senegal's native language, "Xala" (roughly translated as "the curse of impotence") uses the story of an aging businessman (Thierno Leye's El Hadji) unable to consummate his third polygamous marriage for an expose of the nation's ruling class whose members have eagerly embraced the culture of their white colonial predecessors/oppressors. Although it's easy to laugh at El Hadji's absurd Europeanization (always speaking French, drinking Evian water and driving a Mercedes), we ultimately grow to sympathize with his ultimate downfall at the hands of others who are even more corrupt. The East-West clash of cultures also figure prominently in "Ceddo" which depicts a Senegalese village sometime between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a heady microcosm of African political and social history. Set against the backdrop of an outsider community with animist beliefs, the narrative kicks into gear after the king dictates that everyone must convert to Islam. As retaliation, the king's daughter (Tabara Ndiaye) is kidnapped, triggering a series of cataclysmic, history-altering events.The Criterion set includes 4K digital restorations of all three titles; a dialogue between African Film Festival founder/executive director Mahen Bonetti and writer Amy Sall; Paulin Soumanou Vierya's 1981 documentary, "The Making of 'Ceddo;'" and a thoughtful essay by New York-based writer and film programmer Yasmina Price. (A.) https://youtu.be/JuutNTgYH24?si=1dNCbdNE5Sl4iDqJ
WILDCAT--This ersatz biopic about National Book Award winner Flannery O'Connor is also something of a family affair: Ethan Hawke directed, and his daughter Maya stars. Cross-cutting between life on the O'Connor family farm in Georgia and snippets of dramatized excerpts from Flannery's Southern Gothic novels, the film never truly finds a comfortable groove. Maya, who also appears in the fictional segments, cuts a striking figure as the devoutly Catholic authoress who longed for a spiritual grace ("I see it, I know it's there, but I can't touch it") that frustratingly eluded her in life. (She died from lupus at 39.) But if Ethan thought that thumb-nail sketches of O'Connor's bleakly comic work would somehow elucidate her life, he was mistaken. Instead of providing psychological insight, they're merely distracting. The best scenes in the movie are between Maya's Flannery and an excellent Laura Linney as her hard-nosed mother. But there aren't enough of them to auto-correct a stillborn project that badly needed a rewrite. (C.)
https://youtu.be/FvYkEpDlqlQ?si=8L8qg8aEp3ihNNrb
NOW AVAILABLE IN THEATERS, ON HOME VIDEO AND/OR STREAMING CHANNELS:
BACK TO BLACK--Director Sam Taylor-Johnson, who proved her musical biopic chops with 2009's excellent "Nowhere Boy" (starring future husband, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a pre-Beatles John Lennon), lucked out when casting Marisa (HBO's "Industry") Abela as Amy Winehouse in her latest film. Abela, while more conventionally attractive than Winehouse, really nails her characterization, capturing every nuance of the rock-jazz chanteuse who died in 2011 at the age of 27. The fact that Abela also did her own singing just makes the performance all the more impressive. Growing up Jewish in North London, young Amy was essentially used as a pawn by her divorced parents. (An excellent Eddie Marsan plays her cabbie dad, Mitchell.) Amy's toxically co-dependent relationship with Blake Civil-Fielder (Jack O'Connell) is the major focus of the movie, but this is no "Sid and Nancy" despite the obvious parallels. And while Taylor-Johnson's movie isn't remotely in the same league as "Amy," Asif Kapadia's brilliant Oscar-winning 2015 Winehouse bio-doc, it's a damn sight better than some recent rock-and-roll biopics, including February's somnambulant "Bob Marley: One Love." Among the film's many revelations is discovering just how autobiographical Winehouse's 2006 "Back to Black" album was: it essentially told the entire story of her tumultuous relationship with Civil-Fielder. As Winehouse's 1950's night club singer nan, Cynthia, the wonderful Lesley ("Phantom Thread") Manville steals every scene she's in. (B.)
DOGFIGHT--Nancy Savoca made three wonderful movies with producer/co-writer husband Richard Guay between 1989-'93 then essentially disappeared. In the process, the American cinema lost one of its most singular and distinctive voices. The fact that Savoca is largely unknown today, despite this being an era which purportedly champions female directors, makes her relative obscurity both depressing and infuriating. Fortunately, Criterion is doing their part to help auto-correct that grievous injustice by releasing "Dogfight," Savoca's greatest film, on Blu Ray for the first time. (In a happy coincidence, Kino Lorber just released Savoca's two other masterworks, "True Love" and "Household Saints," on home video as well.) Savoca's only major studio production, "Dogfight" was badly marketed and barely released by Warner Brothers in the fall of 1991. I remember driving three hours round trip to see it when a single Pittsburgh theater finally opened it months after the New York premiere. Part of a sub-genre I like to refer to as the "Doomed Love Love Story"--other exemplars include Elia Kazan's "Splendor in the Grass," Alan J. Pakula's "The Sterile Cuckoo" and John Sayles' "Baby, It's You"--"Dogfight" tells the heart-wrenching story of an impactful San Francisco night shared by an 18-year-old marine (River Phoenix's Eddie Birdlace) ready to be shipped off to Vietnam and waitress/folk singer aspirant Rose (Lili Taylor) in November 1963. After impulsively inviting Rose to be his plus-one at a party (the titular "dogfight") in which the grunt with the ugliest date wins a cash prize, Eddie tries to make amends by taking her on a real date. During the course of their enchanted evening, the two find themselves connecting in ways neither could have ever anticipated. Phoenix, who was on the cusp of officially becoming "The Actor of His Generation" before his untimely death two years later, gives a performance of such aching, lacerating vulnerability that he literally takes your breath away. (Amazingly, Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho," with an equally remarkable Phoenix performance, opened the same month.) And the mercurial Taylor, in an exquisitely modulated turn, matches her co-star's brilliance every step of the way. Extras include Savoca/Guay's audio commentary recycled from a no-frills 2003 DVD release; "American Psycho"/"I Shot Andy Warhol" director Mary Harron's 32-minute interview with Savoca and Guay; a 2024 featurette in which Guay interviews the film's cinematographer, production designer, script superviser and editors; and an insightful essay, "Love and War," by critic Christina Newland. (A PLUS.)
THE FALL GUY--After a work-related injury that nearly cost him his life, stunt man Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) reluctantly goes back to work as the stunt double for Tom Cruise-y superstar Tom Ryder's new action blockbuster, "Metal Storm." The fact that "Storm" is also the directing debut of the ex (Emily Blunt's Jody Moreno) Colt still pines for also factors into his decision to accept the gig. But when Tom (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) mysteriously disappears in the middle of the shoot (some shady mobsters are involved), Jody tasks Colt with helping locate her MIA lead actor. A glossy, big-screen spin-off of the long-running 1980's Lee Major tube series, director/former stunt man David ("Bullet Train," "Deadpool 2") Leitch's film has pacing problems, especially in the first half, and is maybe a half hour too long. But Gosling and Blunt evince beaucoup chemistry and their rom-com screwball banter helps you get over some rough patches. As Jody's conniving producer, Hannah ("Ted Lasso") Waddingham steals every scene she's in. (B.)
IF--Venturing beyond his hugely successful "Quiet Place" sci-fi-ers--a third entry is due this summer--director John Krasinski gives family fare a try with this only fitfully charming fantasy flick. After developing a superpower that allows her to see imaginary friends abandoned by their human pals after growing up, Tweener Bea (Cailey Fleming, best known as Judith from AMC's "The Walking Dead') makes it her mission to reunite everyone. While the movie's piece de resistance is the A-list cast tasked with providing the friends' voices (including Steve Carell, Matt Damon, Bradley Cooper, Emily Blunt, Sam Rockwell, Amy Schumer and George Clooney), all that star wattage ultimately overwhelms the movie's precious conceit. I was reminded of the sort of all-ages-friendly films churned out by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Productions back in the '80s. Unfortunately, it's closer to the deservedly forgotten "Harry and the Hendersons" and "Batteries Not Included" than classics like "Gremlins" or "Back to the Future." (C.)
KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES--The fourth entry in the rebooted franchise that launched with 2011's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" ("Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" and "War of the Planet Apes" followed in 2014 and '17) picks up 300 years after the last movie. With apes now the dominant species--and humans regressing to near-primitive levels--the "Kingdom" is ruled by Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) who repurposes ancient human weapons to enslave his fellow simians. Deeply alarmed by this perversion of the original Caesar's teachings, sensitive chimp Noa (Owen Teague) teams up with human Mae (Freya Allan) to take down Proximus' tyrannic regime. Directed by Wes Bell who cut his teeth on the "Maze Runner" trilogy, it's the first of the new breed of "Apes" films where you almost take for granted Weta FX's ground-breaking motion-capture CGI. Like 2022's "Avatar: The Way of Water," it's an indisputably dazzling technical achievement that ultimately feels a tad undernourished dramatically. (B.)
THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1---After their car breaks down, Gregory (Gabriel Basso) and Maya ("Riverdale" alumnus Madelaine Petsch) take shelter in a remote cabin. Before the photogenic young lovebirds even have time to settle in for the night, three masked psychos break in to launch an all-out terror assault. The first installment in a proposed trilogy inspired by the queasily effective 2008 and 2018 "Strangers" home invasion flicks ("Chapter 2," also starring Petsch, is already in the can), Renny ("The Long Kiss Goodnight," "Die Hard 2") Harlin's creepy suspenser marks an auspicious start to a brand new horror franchise. (B MINUS.)
TO DIE FOR--Released at the apotheosis of the American obsession with tabloid culture--and a year after O.J. Simpson became the most famous man in the world thanks to his Bronco freeway chase and Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" topped the box office charts--Gus Van Sant's gleefully amoral 1995 black comedy immediately catapulted Nicole Kidman to the top ranks of working actors. As Suzanne Stone, a TV weather girl with oversized ambitions and zero conscience, Kidman is alternately laugh-out-loud funny and utterly terrifying. Married to a nice guy (Matt Dillon's Larry) whose presence in her life has become increasingly extraneous, Suzanne somehow manages to seduce a trio of teenage stoners into killing him. Naturally her perfectly calibrated machinations ultimately self-destruct--what do you expect from high school potheads?--and Van Sant takes inordinate delight in watching his anti-heroine stew in her own malice. Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck and Alison Folland play the luckless kids Suzanne ropes into her scheme and match Kidman every step of the way. (Trivia note: Phoenix and Affleck would both go on to win Best Actor Oscars for "Joker" and "Manchester by the Sea" respectively.) Co-written by Buck ("The Graduate") Henry and Joyce Manard whose novel the film was based on, "To Die For" spun the real-life Pamela Smart case in which a New Hampshire teacher coerced four students into murdering her husband into one of the defining American movies of the decade. The newly released Criterion Collection 4-K Blu-Ray lacks the usual plethora of Criterion extras (there's an audio commentary with Van Sant, cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards and editor Curtis Clayton, a handful of deleted scenes and an essay by Berlin-based critic Jessica Kiang), but the film itself is the real star. It'll make a great future double bill with Todd Haynes' "May/December." (A.)
---Milan Paurich